I remember when God created the world. He stood, looking down at the darkness, and as he spoke, his words shot out into the dark, streaking it with golden orange. Unlike the constant white light I was used to, it seemed alive, more energetic as it curled and expanded across the black.
I stood next to him, then, awed at his work. I didn’t ask Him what it was. You never asked him anything. I could only watch in silence as he spoke again, and his words began a solid thing, a tiny orb in the blackness, wrapped in water.
He spoke again, and his words dove into the water and became hard stone, separating the tiny puddles. Then, God gathered the light in his hands, like clay, and formed a huge glowing orb, and hung it above the little world. He crushed the leftover light in his hands and scattered it all across the blackness, so it was no longer black, but hung with light everywhere I could see.
God looked then on his little garden, and spoke, and when his words hit the sky, they took new form and flew on their own. The other words plummeted into the sea, grew scales and became fish.
And while I still stared, the words bounded across the land, and there were so many different shapes I could not count them. Some had long legs and ran, but others hugged close to the ground and crawled under a heavy weight.
God smiled on all of these. I pulled my gaze away from the wonderful new world, and looked into his face.
“It is beautiful,” I said, and before I could ask what it was for, he reached down and scooped up dirt in one hand. From this, he molded a new shape. It looked very much like him. He raised it up and kissed its face, then set it back down on the earth.
I looked back at God, and at long last, he spoke.
“It is good,” he said.
Then he turned away, and I saw he held a red book in his right hand.
“Sir, what is that?”
“This is my plan. Everything that has ever happened or will come about is in here.”
“Everything? Then am I in there, sir?”
“You are. And so is he.” He pointed back at the world, where his little creation stood, staring into the sky.
“Does he have a name?”
“Adam will do, I think,” he said. And when he smiled, new love filled me, and I bowed before him.
And things might have turned out alright, if it weren’t for that tree. It grew in Heaven, then, its roots arching into the floor of his great courtyard. The golden fruit hung from its branches. It was always ripe, and I always smelt it. It was a golden smell.
When I heard the tree was leaving, it puzzled me. He sent four angels to bring it down to earth, and plant it in the middle of his garden. I wondered why he couldn’t just create another one like it.
I watched as they carried it, and though they were careful, a cascade of leaves fell from the branches. When they were out of sight, I stood where the tree had been, up to my ankles in the leaves and thought. And as I thought, I saw something amongst the leaves; a fallen fruit.
I picked it up, held it in my hand for a moment. It was so soft that my fingers left indentations in it as I held it. The juice flowed between my fingers, and the scent, something like an apple but sweeter, floated up to me. I raised it to my face, inhaling the scent. And then I bit down.
It melted in my mouth and slid down my throat, almost like wine. I didn’t stop. I took another bite, intoxicated by the sweetness. It was not until it was gone that I realized what I’d done.
I licked the rest of the juice from my fingers, thinking of all the things I could do. The first thing that came to me, for whatever reason, was God’s book. It was a huge thing, some million pages long, that he kept in his throne room. I’d watched him write it, but never dared to look inside. But why shouldn’t I? He left it out in the open for all to see.
I hurried to the throne room, pleased to find it empty. God seldom just say around on His throne. I have to hand it to Him. He’s good at staying busy. The book was on a pedestal in the middle of the room, with a few stairs leading up to it.
I was surprisingly calm when opened the book to the middle, skimming the curly script to find out what He had planned for his lovely new world. Each page had the stories of many lives on it. The words overlapped and intertwined, but could read well enough what was happening. This was what I saw:
‘…and he heard footsteps approaching. Smiling to his friends, he went up to meet them, but as soon as he stood, a spear pierced him through. He fell to his knees and whispered my name, and then fell dead.’
I stared at the page. The word ‘dead’ stirred something in me, and though I’d never heard it before, I knew what it meant. I think it was the fruit that told me.
I flipped back to another page and read this:
‘As they marched into the dark building, she held her mother’s hand. Once they were inside, their clothes were taken, and they huddled together in another room, until it filled with poison gas and they died.”
I turned again:
‘The last words he spoke were: ‘God help my poor soul’.’
I paged through again and saw two tall towers crumble in flames. I saw children armed and sent to fight men. I saw people burned, hanged and murdered in God’s name. And then I could no longer see the page, for my eyes stung with tears, the first tears ever shed in Heaven. They fell on the book and smudged the letters. How I wished that by my tears I could erase them.
“Lucifer!”
I turned. He had entered the throne room.
“What are you doing?”
He did not sound angry, it was only a question.
“Reading,” I said.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“What have you seen?”
“Pain. Suffering. So this is what you’re planning for your lovely little garden? You plan to kill them all, one by one?” I was almost shocked at myself. It was the fruit, I think. I would never have spoken such otherwise.
“You don’t understand, Lucifer,” he said. Gentle voice this time, “It will all work out for the best.”
“At what cost?” I said, “At the cost of your little people? Why can’t everything be the best to start out with? Why does it have to work out?”
“Who are you to question me? Did you place the stars? Did you breathe into clay and create life? Did you write every word of that book? Did you speak the universe into being?”
“No,” I said, “I can’t speak universes into being. You’ve kept that power for yourself. But I do know what is right and what is not. And what you plan to do to those people-“
“What do you know of right and wrong? I created morality.”
“Then you should follow it!”
I stepped down from the podium, walked over to stand right in front of the towering God. I do not know what I intended to do, but I had no time.
He grabbed me by the robe with one huge hand, and with the other, swept away one wall of his grand hall, so I could see the world. With one finger, he pulled away at the crust, bored deep into it. From his finger burst red, molten fire, filling the earth’s core with a heat I could feel from where I stood.
“What is that?”
He did not answer me in words. He thrust me over the edge, holding my by my robe, dangling me over the pit. I looked down, waiting for the drop, waiting to hit the fiery pit. I did not drop.
“How dare you defy me, Lucifer? You, who sat at my right hand? I give you a choice now. Do you recant, so you may live in my peace, or do you hold your words, and be tossed into the burning pit?”
“Sir,” said I, “Lord, cast me not into the pit.”
“Do you recant?”
I almost said yes, but I remembered what I had read.
“Cast me instead into the world,” said I, “So I may walk your earth and know your plans.”
“You realize you will not be able to return,” He said.
“Yes,” said I.
He closed the pit with one hand, but did not set me down.
“Go, then.”
He did not yell, and yet all his anger was enclosed in those two words. He threw me to earth.
