The Stories of Zarni....

[K Man]

Overdone? Nay...

Just not re-invented correctly.

Unfortunately, the idea of someone coming into the world as a 'blank slate' just makes me think they would begin to learn the world from point 1. I.E. - The social ability of a 1 year old in an 21 year old body.

However, I like the idea of something else seeking the idea of a 'blank slate' for some dire purpose. Or I'm still partial the idea of something happening to the blank slate...picture this.

This 'blank slate' is turned loose on purpose or through a series of unstoppable events. Has a little exposure to the world in a bit of comical sense or whatever, then is abducted by someone who has extremely skewed vision of the people the 'blank slate' came from.

(I.E. - Aliens, Zealot Middle Easterners etc.) And they become extremely frustrated because the blank slate does not respond the way they expect.

How does that sound? Inspire to continue?

[Zarni]

hmm, quite like the comedy direction, and aliens trying to find out more about humanity in general from the blank slate might be quite funny...

however, the funny side doesn't really fit the tone of what i've already written, but it's certainly a good idea for something else.

i'm still quite keen on a more scientific approach, and on whether adam will even be a blank slate. could be that he is more intelligent thatn normal due to his perspective not being influenced by external factors. he could be pure of spirit, as it were. he could be schizo.

picture this: child develops completely isolated from anything; would he be likely to evolve his own ideas of himself? prehaps his imagination would be so strong that he's been living in his own created world for all this time. however, what would that created world look like? who would populate it? remember that he's never had any contact with other humans, or anything else for that matter. would his perspective be comprised of pure mathematical concepts, for example? or take a religious point of view; would he messianic, untainted?

you see what i'm wrestling with here.

but the comedy idea would fit with something else, maybe...

[K Man]

You ever read a comic book called the Maxx? It was about a guy that had a mental world developed in his head from fleeting images and ideas. Bunnie-like things that ate flesh, floating whales etc.

That would help give ideas for this blank slates mental world he has created. Something completely strange and unique...

Also, thinking more about this, what if this soul-less blank slate was really a prophecized anti-christ or something? Maybe not anti-christ, but you get the idea. A prophesized something. A vessel that has been foretold by all of heaven, hell or whatever and has a purpose. It would allow you to maintain the dark sinister of the story yet add some fantasy to distance it from reality.

Just a though...or several actually.

[Zarni]

interesting, but generally i tend away from fantasy. i prefer science fiction, i like to think through the practical scientific concepts of an idea, it helps to make a story more believable. if i write about fantasy and heaven type stuff, it's usually written in a comic style like the unethical mistake. i wrote a story about the messiah called what you see is what you get, which took up 12 pages in word, size 11 (or was it 10?) font, so it's far too long to go on here, would take me ages to put it on. i could do it in chapters i suppose...
hmmm....

[Zarni]

here is the first installment.

What You Say is What You Get.

Bit 1.

Billy Dimble was quite young when he was first told by his mother that he was the child of God. This would probably have shocked anyone else, or provoked such responses as, ‘Prove it’, or ‘I think I need a little lie down.’ In some of the more sarcastic cases there may even have been a ‘Was it for good behaviour, then?’ In the case of Billy, there were none of these. This may have had something to do with the fact that he was only a few hours old at the time, but, as it happened, there were some very interesting gurgles and splutters to make up for it. As a matter of fact, if anyone had bothered to translate these sounds into comprehensible English, they would have been surprised at the strength of the obscene colloquialisms which this newborn baby was uttering in way of reply to the aforementioned statement.

Despite this, an unfortunate fact which should be noted at this point is that, as such, Billy Dimble was not the offspring of any ethereal being or deity, be it major or minor. He was, in fact, the lovechild of his mother and an egotistical postman who had changed his name to fit in with his personality complex.

Anyway. Billy soon discovered that he had a rather annoying habit, and that this habit was totally indifferent to any feelings he may have had about it. The problem lay not in him, but in the anthropomorphic personification of Reality, a small stray dog at the time living happily in one of the disregarded corners of Dorset. It seemed to have a disturbing tendency to take him literally if given the slightest opportunity. For example:

“I don’t like you, you’re a horrible pig!”

At this point an offending three year old became a rather large wild boar, and has ever since been running wild somewhere in the wide and deserted expanse of the Scottish Highlands.

This was not Billy’s fault, and was actually a terrible mistake on the part of the aforementioned and sometimes slightly lax Reality. You see, at the exact moment Billy was born, it was intended that the Second Coming would take place in a small village just south of Slough. Of course, at this time the world was far from perfect, and so a Third Coming had also been planned, and the righteous had been invited to purchase tickets for this far in advance. It had been advertised as ‘The Spiritual Event of this Unworthy Creation’ in all places of worship except Catholic churches, as they held no truck with this kind of thing.

Because, at the occasion of his birth, Billy’s mother had referred to him as the child of God, Billy Dimble was confused with his namesake, the Child of God, by Reality. This happened because Reality was, at the time, having a little nap. It was the ‘80s, after all. As a result, Reality bestowed upon baby Billy the powers which had been intended for the Saviour of Mankind, who had been prepared to use them for the collective good of Humanity, having been trained by Greenpeace and Others. Instead, a normal human child received them, and didn’t quite know what to do about it.

As you could probably guess, after the boar incident, this small and inexperienced individual was recognised as a threat to those around him, and was considered too dangerous to stay on Earth. So, after much debate by the Divine Universal Council, he was removed and sent into exile in the deepest, darkest pits of the Welsh mountains, where he could cause no trouble or damage to anyone who mattered.

This is his unrealistic, somewhat unconvincing and, overall, far-too-long story.

[Zarni]

Bit 2.

Billy Dimble’s life so far, which had lasted a little over eight years, had not been the happiest of imaginable existences. He now lived with his mother in a charming little cottage which had been described by the estate agent as: ‘An individual 17th century cottage which has retained many original features. Set well back from the road with driveway providing off-road parking for vehicles. Considerable opportunity for extension, ideal refurbishment project. Pleasant seclusion provided by unique woodland setting.’

As it turned out, this was taking the word ‘euphemism’, stretching it to breaking point until it screamed for mercy, and then kicking it when it was down. In actuality, the place was a ramshackle little hut on a large hill about thirty miles from the nearest point of civilisation and surrounded by miles of endless wilderness. Thus, it was set back from the nearest road by a mere matter of some twenty-five miles. The off-road parking was suitable not even for off-road vehicles, a tank, for example, would have had problems, and the original features mentioned were glassless windows and an outside toilet. As for the extension and refurbishment, this had been essential. The hut had consisted of a single room with a hole in the roof and a straw mat on the floor. Still, an English woman and her three-year-old son’s grotty little shack is their castle, and they had had to make do with their lot.

Little Billy’s legal father had left shortly after discovering his wife was pregnant, and Billy had never met him. Although it would never be known to Billy, the exchange between his parents at the event of her declaration of pregnancy had gone something like this:

“Oh, darling,” (much buttering of bread) “I’m pregnant.”

“You what?!” (much spluttering of coffee and jumping up from the breakfast table)

“I said I’m pregnant, dear.”

“But we haven’t, you know…….have we?” (much confusion)

“Not as such…”

“Well, then, who’s the father?” (much indignation)

“Well, actually, it was God…” (much slight hesitance)

“Oh, right, like I haven’t heard that one before! It was that self-satisfied big-headed postman wasn’t it? I knew it! Well, that’s it, I'm leaving!” (much anger and marching out of the kitchen slamming the door)

“Well, it’s a good job Joseph was so understanding.”

And so little Billy grew up in isolation in the middle of somewhere wet and cold.


Meanwhile, the rightful messiah lived a very normal life in a small and unregarded village, knowing somehow that something somewhere wasn’t exactly as it should be. The only indication anyone had that this child was in any way abnormal was that its mother had been an sixteen-year-old virgin and that it took an unusual interest in all things biblical. For an eight-year-old, that is. Of course, the former of these two wasn’t too uncommon in those days anyway, and the latter could be passed off as pure coincidence. After all, most of that biblical interest had consisted of eating apples, nearly drowning other living creatures in spit, and attempting to suck the corners of bibles. Whatever happened, this potentially extraordinary child had been all but robbed of its destiny by a little boy currently living an exceedingly dull life somewhere in the middle of a very remote area of the Welsh mountains…

[Zarni]

Bit 3.

After over five years of living in the shack with her son on the ample proceeds of her former occupation, Billy’s mother realised that her funding was now running a little low. Previous to her split with her husband, she had been a management consultant; these are a curious group of people who seem to possess the ability to advise other people with considerably more money than they have how to spend it. As a result, they often become notably wealthier than their clients. This is a quality which can also be readily found in leeches.

However, it was at this point that she first considered Billy’s biological father again, and decided to search him out. It shouldn’t be too hard, she thought, there can’t be too many people around who go by the name ‘God Johnson’. She smiled as she remembered his comical eccentricity, and then threw a dart at the picture of him on the wall as she remembered his perpetual air of self-importance. A typical conversation with him may start by him telling you in great detail about himself and his life, she remembered. He would then stop, look at you and say, “But that’s enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?”

She started to make her enquiries, but this was when Reality tried to make itself useful again. This is how the reasoning went: she wants to find her child’s biological father. Her child is the son of God, is he not? Therefore, the child’s biological father must be….God. This was just one more example of the proof of the composition of the word ‘ass-u-me’ being proved in practice. But this assumption went unnoticed until it turned out that Billy’s mother couldn’t find Billy’s ‘real’ father anywhere; he had vanished off the face of the earth. This was partially true, as he had in fact moved to London. Of course, the real reason for Billy’s mother’s difficulties was quite simple: Reality simply wasn’t paying attention. It was busy arranging for Billy to converse with his ‘other’ father….

[K Man]

I like it. Very comical.

Have you read 'Good Omens'? Co-authored by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett?

This sounds exactly like it. In the book, the true anti-christ is switched at birth by some bumbling otherwordly spirits and the real anti-christ grows up in a small village that he can alter with his will.

The fake anti-christ has a nanny that tells him to squish life under his heel and a gardener that tells him to protect, nourish and cherish life. Naturally he grows up confused as both heaven and hell sent their influences to guard and raise the boy as they saw fit.

Of course, the book eventually leads towards the apocolypse, four horsemen and all. (Death likes playing video poker in biker bars and Famine runs a diet pill company)

I suggest reading it if you get the chance.

Your twist is good though as well, with reality taking a 'nap'. I like the dialogue and the idea of the egotstical postman naming himself 'God'. You can almost picture a guy that existing.

[Zarni]

i have read good omens, it's hilarious. although that wasn't on my mind when i wrote this story, i'll admit it bears some resemblance. hopefully the differences should be more apparent as the story progresses.

[Zarni]

Bit 4.

‘Twas on a cold winter’s morning in the middle of July that Billy got really fed up with the British weather. He was walking through the dank, wet woods towards a clearing he knew of, and in which he often sat, contemplating. He was now eight and a half, a big boy, and certainly old enough to be out in the forest by himself. He wasn’t scared of anything. Not even wolves, he told himself, and set his jaw firmly, as if to say that this was his, and indeed anyone’s, last word on the matter.

He reached his clearing, and selected his favourite tree against which to sit. Or perhaps sprawl would have been a more accurate term to describe his youthful happy-go-lucky, out-of-control sort of posture. Just as he had managed to get comfortable against his tree, though, it started to rain. But this wasn’t just any old rain. Oh no. This was rain that would have impressed the inhabitants of the Amazon Basin. Or so Billy thought, who had never seen the Amazon Basin; he believed that it was, obviously, situated somewhere in the Amazon Bathroom, and that their idea of torrential rain was probably as much as nearly a few centimetres in a day.

Anyway, Billy didn’t take too kindly to this intrusion into his personal thinking space, and was in fact so upset that he uttered a forbidden expletive.

“Oh, Lord!” said Billy Dimble, with venom.

There then followed a very odd noise which sounded to Billy a little like this:

‘Beeeep-beeeep, beeeep-beeeep, beeeep-beeeep. Brriiiing-brriiing, brriiiing-brriiing, brriiiing-brriiing.’

Reality had finally repaired the line.

Suddenly, the noise stopped, and was replaced by a booming voice, which proclaimed to Billy: “Hello, this is the Supreme Being and Overlord of All Humanity. I’m sorry I can’t ‘speak unto thee’ at the moment, lowly mortal, but it’s the seventh day and I’m having a schluff. If you’re confused see a Rabbi. It won’t help but it might put you or him out of your misery. By the way, if you’re the Pope, I’m not endorsing another one of your Crusades, so you can just forget it. Anyway, please leave your prayer after the heavenly choir and I shall try to appear unto thee in a prophetic sort of vision as soon as possible.”

There followed a chorus of angelic voices which lasted for a second or two, and then silence. Billy, more out of a need to fill the lack of noise than of any divine knowledge, said:

“Umm….Hello, God? It’s me, Billy Dimble. Erm, I'm not sure exactly how this happened, but I don’t think it was meant to. You see, my mummy says I shouldn’t talk to strange ethereal beings. But if you are an all-seeing and all-knowing amazing person, can you stop this rain, please, coz it’s getting me all muddy and mummy will be very angry with me. Also, I’d like a boat, a plane, a helicopter, a swimming pool…”

He stopped as he suddenly got the feeling that no-one was listening anymore. Feeling a little bemused and not quite knowing what do to, Billy began to make his way home. As he neared the cottage, he noticed that the rain had eased off.

Upon learning of Billy’s, for want of a better expression, vision, his mother’s first reaction was, “I told you not to eat the purple ones!” However, Billy was not perturbed, for he was a stout-hearted young fellow, and finally his mother came to the realisation that her son was not in fact, as she had previously suspected, under the influence of any hallucinogenic substance. This settled, she immediately suggested that Billy ‘have a little lie down’. Such would be the suggestion of any mother anywhere whose eight-year-old son had just had an ethereal and prophetic experience.

[Zarni]

Bit 5.

Billy slept.

Billy dreamt.

In the past, he’d found that he'd always been able to control his dreams, and as a result they had invariably been about him walking outside his shack and finding that the entire world had been turned into chocolate. Billy Dimble sorely lacked imagination.

There was no chocolate tonight, though.

Billy Dimble was standing a field of poppies, the gentle afternoon sun stroking his face like a mother’s caress. The wind played between petals more numerous than the dewdrops on a winter’s morning, and hid from itself within his hair. He was surrounded by a sea of red, from horizon to horizon, gently swaying, as a never-slowing pendulum, oscillating away the seconds, minutes, hours, days. But time meant nothing here, under this picturesque blue sky in which nothing moved.

“Hello Billy,” said the figure.

“Hello, figure,” said Billy, not particularly surprised at its sudden appearance.

It began to walk towards him; more gliding over the flowers than wading through them, it seemed to Billy.
It spoke again, and a slight trace of an American accent was notable.

“Michael’s on gate duty - you know, flaming sword, ‘Thou shalt not pass’ and ‘Burn, ye unbelievers’, that kind of thing - so I've been sent to talk to you.”

Billy, being only eight and a half and not very knowledgeable in the ways of all things biblical, didn’t quite know what to make of this. So he started, as a wise man once said, at the beginning.

“Who are you?”

“Oh, me? Oh, I'm the Archangel Gabriel. You know, ‘Hey, Mary, you're gonna have a baby. Call him Jesus, you never know.’”

“Now I know you,” said Billy, “my mummy says you came to her in a vision and told her about me. She said you had horns, though.”

“Nah, that wasn’t me,” replied the archangel, and muttered under his breath, “Well, you know, free advertisin’ I’spose.”

“What did you want to talk to me about?” asked Billy, nipping the subject in its proverbial bud.

“Hey, you know, why don’t we discuss it in true American presidential fashion: over a baseball game and some pretzels?” suggested Gabriel.

The field of poppies disappeared, to be replaced by a comfortable looking living room in which the two most prominent items were a television and a couch with its box of pretzels. Billy was urged to sit down and ‘chill out’ by the overly calm and dangerously nonchalant angel. Baseball was on the TV.

“Now,” said Gabriel, “the situation’s like this, man. You ain’t no messiah, but you do have funny powers and stuff. See, there’s been, like, a very embarrassin’ cock-up in the management department. As a result, the real messiah is livin’ a boringly ordinary life just to the left of a hole in the ground which is a little bit below Slough on a map.” He shrugged at Billy’s puzzled expression. “Well what d’you expect? I mean, it’s not as if we’ve exactly got a lot of management consultants up here, is it? It’s not happenin’, man.” He used the glottal stop as if it were a must-have clothing accessory, and ‘g’s as if they were last season’s shoes.

Billy was once again confused. “If it’s not happening, what was the point in telling me?”

“Figure of speech, man, figure of speech. Stay cool, don’t sweat, yeah?”

“If you say so.”

The archangel suddenly began to cough and gasp. Billy, guessing correctly that he was somehow choking, thumped him on the back until the heaving subsided.

“Thanks, man. Pretzel went down the wrong tube,” explained Gabriel, sheepishly, his eyes smarting a little.

“Any time,” said Billy. “Now, about my purpose in life…”

“Oops, your mom’s comin’, man, time to go.”

“But, you haven’t explained anything to me! What about my fate, my inescapable destiny?”

“Like, maybe some other time, man. Catch you later,” said the archangel, and vanished.

Billy Dimble awoke to the sound of his mother banging a pan with a metal spoon.

[K Man]

I still like it.

Keep it going.

[Zarni]

thanks, i will!

[Zarni]

Bit 6.

Later that day, Billy was walking through the woods again, when across his path pranced a squirrel, its nose twitching and its tail waving in the usual squirrel-y manner.

“Hello Billy,” it said.

Billy had prepared himself for something like this, and so was not too surprised.

“Are you an angel?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” said the squirrel. “Actually, I'm the Lord of All Creation, don’t you know. I did say I would appear in a vision as soon as possible. Would have been here sooner, but Lucifer was playing up again.”

“Who?”

“Lucifer. You know, Lord of Darkness, Satan, the Devil,” explained the squirrel. “Of course, all this business with making Hell a burning and horrible place is just a phase. It was originally a tropical holiday resort, but he locked himself in there, and look what he came up with. What a strange and perverted thing the adolescent mind is. It’s all just a bit of harmless fun, though, really. Like I said, it’s just a phase he’s going through.”

“What do you mean, phase?” asked Billy, head to one side, one eyebrow raised in an air of general bemusement.

“Lucifer is my son,” explained God. “At the moment, he is going through a stage in his development which you humans call ‘the teenage years’. Unfortunately, being the immortal son of the Supreme Being, this ‘stage in his development’ is lasting quite a while.”

“How long?”

“A few hundred million years so far,” said God, twitching his nose.

There was a short silence as Billy Dimble thought about this and considered what to say next. It wasn’t every day one had the chance to converse freely with the Lord of All Creation. There was a kind of awe and majesty associated with talking with God, even if He has manifested Himself in the form of a cute‘n’fluffy little squirrel. It could have been worse, though, he thought. God could have manifested Himself as a beef steak again. That had happened to him once. Or maybe it had just been the mushrooms. Billy could never be sure; that memory was always a slightly hazy one.

“So, what did you wish to speak with me about?”

“Well, actually, it was kind of an accident – wait a minute, you're meant to be all-knowing. Don’t you know what I want to talk to you about?”

“Actually, I do, but, as a human you're entitled to free choice and free will under the God-Humanity Covenant, and I'm not supposed to tell you what you're thinking. That was a bit of legislation the lawyers made up, and the accountants enforce it for some reason. I've never liked accountants; Lucifer created them to spite me. They are a wicked and mocking parody of Mankind.”

Billy nodded, “My mummy said she went out with one once. She also said that I should never ever tell anyone ever what she said she thought of them.” Billy scratched his head in a philosophical manner, looked at his toes, and then back at God-squirrel, which was now engaged in the process of grooming its tail. “God?”

“Yes?”

“Wotsa ‘messiah’?”

“A messiah is someone who comes along every now and then and saves Mankind from the mess it invariably gets itself into.”

“Oh.” More silence, then, “Am I a messiah?”

“You could, be, Billy, you could be. Anyone could be, theoretically speaking.”

“But, the archangel person said that I wasn’t.”

“Gabriel? He doesn’t understand much about Plans, I'm afraid, especially those of the ethereal persuasion. Michael’s better for that sort of thing. But if you want something done promptly and well, then Gabriel’s your angel. I digress. You do have power in your words, but you must remember always to use them wisely, little Billy. Now I must leave you. Have a lot of paper work to do; which of you lowly mortals will live and which will die, you know, that kind of thing. Book of Life, Book of Death, what does it matter? It’s all the same in the long run. I should know, I made it. Anyway, farewell, Billy Dimble.”

Billy felt the ethereal presence leave, as an autumn wind finishes blowing and leaves only some leaves gently rustling in its wake. The squirrel sat there on its haunches and looked at Billy, the light of intelligence still seeming to glimmer in its eyes.

“I was made when the world was created ‘specially for this purpose,” said the squirrel to Billy, an element of pride evident in a voice which could have learned its accent from old Michael Caine films.

“Oh?” said Billy, calmly, no longer really surprised by anything.

“The squirrel nodded. “Yeah. Just thought you’d like to know,” it said, and vanished.

[Zarni]

Bit 7.

Thus was a large responsibility thrust upon Billy’s shoulders at quite an early age, as happens in so many countries which still rely on monarchies for important decisions. As a result, he did what any honest human being would do when faced with a seemingly overwhelming duty. He looked for some way to pass the buck. And so it was that, two days after his encounter with God, Billy Dimble was thinking of a way to find the rightful messiah of humanity. His thought processes were thus:

There isn’t really much chance in me wandering around the whole world trying to find him, that would never work. Wait a minute, didn’t God say I had power in my words? So, what if I say ‘I want to be with the messiah’? I should just be able to go there. No, wait, if I say that, it will be true without doing anything, coz I'd want to be there, but ‘I want doesn’t get’. That’s what mummy always says. But what if I said ‘I am with the messiah’? It would be lying, but if I say it then I will be there coz that’s what God said so it wouldn’t be lying!

This conclusion reached, Billy happily decided to try out his hypothesis.

“I am with the messiah,” said Billy Dimble.

Nothing happened. This was because, of course, Reality thought that he was the messiah, and so considered his statement to be a stupidly obvious comment instead of wishful thinking or a request.

Billy had now to think of another way of achieving his goal. What had the archangel said about where the rightful messiah was living? Ah, yes, that was it: ‘just to the left of a hole in the ground which is a little bit below Slough on a map’. Not particularly complimentary, but hey, it’ll do as a reference point, thought Billy.

So, “I am just to the left of a hole in the ground which is a little bit below Slough on a map,” said Billy.

There was an anti-flash of anti-light, an anti-loud anti-bang of anti-noise, and Reality rearranged itself. The end result of this impressive display of anti-pyrotechnics was that Billy Dimble ceased to be standing in the forest by himself and proceeded instead to be standing, looking rather surprised, in the middle of a small village to the south of Slough.

He was in what constituted the high street in this most backwards of human settlements; a church, a bakery, a post office and four houses connected by a dirt track. There were a few people discontentedly ambling around, but they didn’t notice him. As has been proved again and again, people only see what they want to see, and they certainly don’t see impossible things, like, for example, people appearing out of thin air as Billy had just done. So, Billy wandered around amongst the buildings, and finally plucked up the courage to ask someone for directions to the house of the Saviour of Mankind. No, that would just be silly. He stopped. He looked to the sky.

“Oh, Lord, what am I meant to do now?”

A few split seconds of silence, and then: “Billy, you can't keep calling me at work like this.”

“Sorry, God, but may I please know where the messiah lives?”

“The house with the peeling paint on the door.”

Billy looked around. “They’ve all got peeling paint on their doors,” he said.

With a sound not unlike that of several painters working faster than the speed of light, the paint suddenly became fresh and new on all of the doors but one.

“Not anymore they haven’t,” said God.

“Thank you, oh great, kind and merciful God!” said Billy, a little over-enthusiastically.

“Don’t mention it,” said God, sounding a little exasperated.

“OK, I won’t,” confirmed Billy, and started walking towards the one shoddy looking house left in the whole village.

Reaching the doorstep, he knocked on the door. A large chunk of wood fell off into the house, and, from the other side of the door, a fit of coughing ensued from an unseen source. After a few minutes of this, the door creaked slowly open, and promptly fell off its hinges.

“Well?” said the twenty-four-year-old mother of the Saviour of Mankind.

[K Man]

Accountants created by the devil. I like it.

You know what's funny, in Angel City, I was going to make the one that could see them both a lawyer and mock them in much the same way, created by one side to bug the other...

I like all the bibilical references too. I don't know why, but I like making light of things that were previously 'hush-hush' or taboo to talk about. For instance, Hell once being a tropical resort. I mean, I respect religions, but its refreshing to look at them in a different light.

I'm telling you, this could be a sister book to 'Good Omens'...which is one of my favs. Good job.

[Zarni]

i'm not sure about a sister book to good omens, especially as this is only a short story, but i take that as the highest of praise
as a religious person myself, i feel i have the right to bring some of these things to light, as i have been taught to question my beliefs and not just follow everything blindly. if God is, as i believe, real, He can stand up to a little questioning.
by the way, do you think anyone else is actually reading this? maybe they're waiting for the end so they can give more comprehensive feedback...

[Zarni]

Bit 8.

Lilly Bimble looked up from the toys gathered around her on the floor towards where her mother stood beckoning her in the doorway.

“…..son, just a daughter,” she was saying.

She turned to Lilly as she approached and said, “This little boy was asking after you, Lilly. Have you made a friend?”

“No, actually,” said ‘this little boy’, “I actually wanted to meet your son…”

“I told you, I have no son!” responded Lilly’s mother, obviously a little annoyed.

“What’s your name?” asked Lilly, timidly.

“Billy. Billy Dimble.”

“I'm Lilly Bimble.”

“Our names are very similar,” said Billy, I wonder…”

Then he said something very strange.

“God, you never told me the messiah was a girl!”

“I beg your pardon?” said Lilly’s mother, a little concerned..

Then Lilly heard a voice she could only describe as ‘big’: “I'm sorry, Billy,” said the voice. “It’s Women’s Lib., you see. The campaigners up here thought there should be a female Saviour for once, and Lucifer, of course, agreed just to be contrary and annoy me. I could have performed a miracle and changed the baby’s sex within the womb, but the Covenant frowns on that sort of thing.”

“Who was that?” asked a slightly shaken Lilly of Billy.

“That? Oh, that was my friend God,” replied Billy nonchalantly.

Lilly’s mother, as it turned out, had not heard the heavenly voice, and was at a bit of a loss to explain this last piece of dialogue between the two children on either side of her. “What are you two talking about?”

“Didn’t you hear God’s voice, mummy? It spoke to us!”

“Of course it did dear. Now, why don’t you run along and play with your new friend while mummy phones a carpenter.”


Lilly walked off down the path with Billy, talking excitedly. And incessantly.

“I've never had a friend before. Do you have lots? I’ll bet you do. Is it fun? Ooh, I am so looking forward to this! What do you want to do first?”

“Lilly,” put in Billy, like a chunk of meat being proffered to a lion in order to prevent it from taking its keeper’s head off, “who is your father?”

“I don’t know, I never met him. My mummy says that she never did…she never had…you know what I mean…” Lilly’s flow of words petered out.

Billy was nodding his head frantically, and going a most endearing shade of red. He knew what she meant, but, as an eight-year-old, he was not quite ready to face up to the prospect that two people could be so…so horrible and vulgar and vile and, and…and every other disgusting word in the English language. Lilly saw this, saw that he shared her pain, and continued.

“Well, mummy says that I was a ‘virgin birth’, but I don’t know what that means, coz I'm only eight. I'm nearly nine, though!”

Billy nodded. So was he.

“Mummy says that an angel came and told her she was going to have a baby-“

“Was the angel called Gabriel?”

“No, it was I, Michael,” said the little green leprechaun sitting on Billy’s left shoulder.

“Are you the Archangel Michael?” asked Billy

“The very same,” said the leprechaun, bowing. “‘Tis always nice to be recognised.”

“Hello, Michael, I'm Lilly,” said Lilly.

“Yes, I'm aware of that. I was present when ye was inserted into your mother’s womb, don’t ye know, and I thought that maybe she’d want to know ‘bout it. And as Gabriel got the last one, it was only right that I got to do this one.”

“Could you tell us how we can save humanity from wallowing in its own filth?” enquired Billy. “Because, she’s meant to do it but she can't, and I can do it when I wasn’t meant to, so, how are we going to do it?”

“Was that a rhetorical question?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, you see, ye always has to be careful with this sort of thing. Ye can never be sure. As for savin’ humanity, I think ye’d better leave that to the professionals.”

“But we are the professionals! She was trained by Greenpeace, weren’t you, Lilly?”

“Yes, and Others,” said Lilly proudly.

“So, ye would like to save mankind. Would ye like my advice?”

“Yes, please,” said Billy and Lilly together.

“Nukes.”

“I beg your pardon?” Billy.

“I said ‘nukes’. Ye know, nuclear missiles. That’s about your only hope, in my opinion. Humanity is too far-gone for savin’. Might as well just get rid of it. Have a clover.”

“Could I do that?” Billy sounded a little shocked, but took the proffered four-leaf clover anyway.

“Ay, t’be sure,” was the reply. “Ye could do just about anythin’ if ye found the right words for it. Course, everythin’ is audited by God, and he might not let ye do too much messin’ around with Reality. Dangerous for the ethereal fabric, y’see.”

“So,” said Lilly, “does that mean that I'm meant to think up what to do next, and then you go off and do it?”

“Erm, pretty much, yes,” said Billy, sheepishly.

“Typical men,” said Lilly, with an anger and finality which surprised both Billy and the Archangel Michael in his current guise of a small green leprechaun.

“Well, that’s what my mummy told me,” she shrugged in response to the odd tilted-head looks she received from her companions.

“I think we’d better start to think about stuff,” said Billy, thoughtfully.

Michael nodded. “Top’o the mornin’ t’ye both,” he said, and disappeared with a pop of displaced air.

There was a loud yell of discontent from behind them in the general direction of Lilly’s house, and a sound similar to that of wood splintering and breaking.

“I don’t know why they feel the need to fix that door,” said Billy, amiably, “there’s nothing wrong with it.”

There was a rustling sound as Reality corrected itself, followed by a surprised sounding exclamation from the carpenter who had now been robbed of a job.

The two children walked off into the sunset at half past eleven in the morning.

[K Man]

by the way, do you think anyone else is actually reading this?

Does it matter? Write because for the love of it, not the fame of it...

I thought it was funny that the Archangel was a little, stereotypical leprechaun. Quite amusing.

[Toptomcat]

I like it. I like it a lot.
One wonders how this band of Looney Tunes managed to put together a coherent reality to begin with, though...