1 In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
2 But something felt off, so he destroyed it and began again.
3 God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
4 Let the waters be blue, God said, and for the dry land I’m thinking brown. And that was so, too.
5 And it was good. Better than pink, as God had done before. Not that a bit of pink is bad.
6 But it had been too much pink.
7 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God thought it was good, but God was unsure.
8 Let us have a second opinion, said God. And God asked Santa to take a look.
9 Santa Claus said to God, great job with the waters. The waters look great.
10 And God said, thanks, I’m calling them Seas.
11 And God said, what about the dry land?
12 And Santa said, the dry land seems a bit, I don’t know, underdeveloped. It’s lacking in specific and evocative details that would help it ‘pop.’ Is this your first draft?
13 And God saw that his world was not good, lacking specific details or any kind of characteristic ‘pop.’
14 So God thanked Santa and, as soon as he left, God destroyed this world as well.
15 In the beginning, God recreated the heaven and earth.
16 First thought, best thought, God made the waters pink.
17 And God created many specific things for his world: hills, mountains, cliffs, and mud; oak, maple, beech, sequoia, and sycamore trees; wolves, mice, eagles, doves, oxen, moose, chimps, and other things besides, all designed with excruciating care and craftsgodship.
18 And God created man in his own image, male and female he made them—more or less.
19 And God gave the males a funny-looking floppy part. And as a joke, God made the floppy part absolutely crucial for human reproduction. And God saw the part, that it was floppy, though other times it was not. And God smiled.
20 God placed all his creatures in a garden where they coexisted in peace. And God granted to humanity gifts: fire, wheels, socks, naps, mint, air-conditioning, electricity, chairs, and snacks. And it was very good. It was the best of all that God had ever created.
21 And God said to Santa, I have a new draft of that thing I was working on, let me know what you think?
22 Santa looked upon all that had been created, and said, I’m really not feeling the pink. And so, against the prayers and panicked tears of its inhabitants, God destroyed this world as well.
23 Over and over, time after time, God created and destroyed heaven and earth.
24 Eventually, God grew sick of this and gravitated to other projects.
25 God created a universe of sentient colors. God created a universe occupied by a single rat alone in a room. God created a cosmos composed entirely of water and placed dolphins in it, many dolphins, and he made his dolphins incredibly loud and very horny, and they starting doing all sorts of weird stuff with their dolphin holes, and it was utter chaos and confusion—SEXY DOLPHIN CONFUSION. And God liked that world, oh yeah, God liked it a lot.
26 Even so, the earlier creation was never far from God’s thoughts.
27 And God said, this time I will finish it, medammit. And God did.
28 God powered through, though there was not time to fix the platypus. Many places were left with heavy winters. Further, black holes tore through spacetime and the smallest matter behaved in unpredictable ways. But everyone would just have to deal.
29 And there were still other issues, as when God forgot to check if the sun was set to explode.
30 But the biggest problem was people. Petty and cliquish, prone to infighting and outfighting, enthusiastic authors of destruction, people were, of all of God’s creations, definitely the worst. They sacrificed babies, for instance. So many babies. It was enough babies that God had to personally intervene. God really wasn’t supposed to manifest in his own creation. It was considered sloppy. But what was God supposed to do, just let them sacrifice more babies? I mean what the actual fuck.
31 Oh God, said God, this is awful.
32 So God gave up.
33 God was ready to destroy it once and for all. Just then, in walked Santa, along with Baal Tzafon and Amen-Ra.
34 And Amen-Ra looked upon God’s world, for Santa had mentioned that, though flawed, there were several elements of interest therein. And Amen-Ra, looking upon the dry land, said to God, what are these beasts of prey, the ones playfully wagging their tails, the creatures desperately attempting to smell their own butts?
35 And God did not make eye contact and said, right, so I screwed up wolves. Humans started feeding wolves, and it made them stupid. Now some of the wolves like people. They live together. At least someone likes people. And Amen-Ra laughed, and God laughed too.
36 And Amen-Ra said, you know what? This is awesome. Like, are wolves supposed to lick people? No, it makes no sense. But it’s different. It is good.
37 God looked at his world. It had stupid wolves. It had sunsets and sunrises. And it had people, whose actions and tendencies were objectively awful but, if we’re being honest, very fun to watch.
38 God then resolved not to destroy the world again, for he saw that it was good. And he looked upon his creation and smiled.
39 And Baal Tzafon said, is that smoke coming out of your creation?
40 And the sun exploded, engulfing the dry land in terrifying flames. In an instant the sea both boiled and burned. The fish, birds, animals, and people were gone. The earth and all its inhabitants were utterly consumed. Baal Tzafon grinned and gave Santa a snide look that said, like, classic God! And together with Amen-Ra they left.
41 And God was left to tidy up the mess.
42 While tidying, God thought up a world where a creature who looked and sounded and smelled exactly like Baal Tzafon was strapped to a stiff chair and an infinite number of diseased seagulls spent time immemorial shitting into his idiotic storm-god mouth, and there would be no child sacrifice and no people and no wolves who are foolish enough to love them.
43 And then, afterwards, God took up his materials and made it all again.