Betsy Streeter
One time, there was no time, because there was no space. God needed more room to breathe and so God stretched out a little. Stuff went flying everywhere and it was hilarious because everything was crashing into everything else and making big and ridiculous noises.
Things were unevenly distributed like toys on the floor of a child’s room. Bits and pieces got stuck together and started whizzing around one another over and over and the resulting display was really shiny and God loved looking at it all which was the same as looking at oneself the mirror wearing a new outfit.
So there were the bigger planet and galaxy accidents, and at the same time there were also tiny little cells and bits of organic stuff running into each other, and in one place and time in particular a cell ate another cell but then for some reason the eaten one survived and together they became a two-cell thing, which was a whole new kettle of fish before there were fish.
The cells got ideas because God got ideas and the whole thing became an infinite Lego set and new forms and creatures abounded. A lot of these were half-baked and some didn’t work at all or they got too hot or too cold and vanished.
But the cells/God got more and more tricky and teamed up together and soon there were whole-ass animals walking around and migrating and eating each other and even the plants sometimes ate each other and this was how God looked at God.
The dolphins and the orcas had a lot to say and so did the elephants and the bees and now pretty much everyone was going on about something and it got really noisy and God wondered what it would be like to have an actual conversation, more like a bit of a fireside chat. That would require some real engineering. God knew it might not come out on the first attempt or even the fiftieth but thought it would be worth the effort probably.
God got some bipedal things going and they developed all sorts of skills and some went in the trees and others didn’t and some of those non-tree ones seemed like they had some potential as conversation partners. God knew this was going to be a trade-off because what if they never did shut up. But it was worth a try and God knew the slate could be wiped clean any time so why not. That’s what happened to the big lizards when a colossal rock came in and altered things in a way no longer hospitable to their kind. This sort of thing went down from time to time. It was all interesting.
Some of the bipedal things started getting the hang of language and got into some interesting exchanges with God right from the get-go. Now God could talk to God in another way besides all the dolphins and orcas and bees and things eating and chasing each other around.
God said to the bipedal things, don’t underestimate what a big deal it is that your front paws are freed up from walking and you have thumbs. I also gave you a particularly lumpy brain. It gives you the capacity for long-term thinking, for what that’s worth. It comes up with things like music and algebra and cuisine. It imagines things that haven’t happened yet, and which may never happen. This is so we can hang out and talk about our ideas and how we are feeling.
This is not my first rodeo, said God. I have tried this before and it did not go well. Since I’m God I’ve rolled back time and made some adjustments and cued up the record again, more than once. This time around, I’ve turned the ego knob way down and added the H1C1 molecule.
Human person looked quizzical. They asked what’s the H1C1 molecule? Also what is a rodeo?
Don’t worry about it, God said. You will know both of these things when you see them.
God gave human person a tour. God said, look at all these mountains and oceans and life forms. It is all breathing life in and out in its own way and on its own time scale. Every one of these things is here simply because it is here, just like you are.
The human person was blown away. Their eyes were big. More human people came along and they were blown away too. They walked around just gaping in amazement at everything on the earth. The seed pods and the little eggs in rows on the undersides of leaves. The goo in tide pools. Hail. Spider webs. It was all just mind-boggling.
One day, after human person spoken language had been going on for a while, a human person looked around said, Holy Cow!
There it is, said God. That’s the H1C1 molecule. Holy, and Cow.
This is just unbelievable, another human person said. Look here, look there. You can spend a whole lifetime looking and still not see it all. Holy Cow! This played out all over the earth, again and again.
The human people set about learning everything they could, just like God wanted because God wanted to learn. They became eyes and ears and fingers and feet over a whole entire planet. They invented ways to magnify bugs and amoebas and to look at objects that were far away. They studied and they measured and they took readings. They dug holes. They swam in the deep with special equipment. They climbed things. Every time they discovered a new creature or phenomenon or panoramic view they said, Holy Cow!
They told stories about what they saw. They made pictures of it and movies about it. They did dances and sang songs. God thought, well this experiment is going to a whole place I had not anticipated. And that was good.
The human people befriended animals that had better noses or could fly or whatnot, so they could gather even more information. They shared all this with God.
And God felt something unfamiliar. And the human people said, you feel like you are not alone, just like we are not alone. And God knew this was right. God was not lonely any more.
God made a quiet and cool breeze that gently touched the hair of the human people as they slept on their backs after a long evening of gazing up at the stars.
H/T to Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, the Bible, An Immense World by Ed Yong
BETSY STREETER is an artist, cartoonist, illustrator and writer. She once figured out how to score infinite points on Space Invaders for the Atari 2800. She is the creator of the Brainwaves cartoon feature which ran in syndication and appears all over the world in books, magazines, waiting rooms and refrigerator doors. She writes and draws Sloth and Manatee, a contemplative comic about nature and friendship. She has appeared previously in Jersey Devil Press with the story “Del, We’re Sorry, Please Stop” and the artwork for the cover of the March 2014 issue. She lives in the San Francisco East Bay. See more about her at betsystreeter.com.