Yahweh’s shiny black shoes strolled up and down the long-paneled, first-class cloud floor of his office; the clouds were one of a kind, finely threaded and layered with the many different textures and hues. Sunlight radiated from the wall behind his desk, framing the head of Jesus, who was currently resting in Yahweh’s office chair as Yahweh continued his pacing. The pacing didn’t produce a sound out loud, yet Jesus heard every clack of the half-inch heels as his employer contemplated whatever he was thinking about. Jesus, however, couldn’t read Yahweh’s mind, though Yahweh could read Jesus’s mind without question. Yahweh didn’t want Jesus to hear his thoughts, because Yahweh preferred the effect the words had on Jesus when spoken out loud, out of the blue, without being expected first. Of course, Jesus could only hear these spoken words if Yahweh wanted him to. At the moment, all Yahweh wanted Jesus to hear was the clacking of his shoes, a significant sign that Yahweh was in deep thought.
“I’ve got it!” The words left Yahweh’s mouth unexpectedly as he turned on his heel and leaned his hands forward against the glass of the office desk (the desk had been a gift of surrender from Brahma, in reference to Israel/Palestine, back when the humans switched to A.D. instead of B.C.) so that his face was just inches from Jesus’ own. “‘And then God said, Let there be light! And there was light!’”
Jesus shoved his square, black-rimmed glasses up his long, crooked, Jewish nose. “You’ve done that one before, sir,” he said. “Genesis 1:3.”
“Oh, Genesis, I always forget about him. He was such a long time ago.”
“Yeah, the era that you went by ‘God’, remember?”
“Oh, Immanuel, not that again.” Yahweh let out a sigh, shaking his head at his only legitimate son as he straightened back into an upright position.
Jesus pursed his lips. “My name is Jesus,” he said, his tone hard and irritated.
“Immanuel, don’t press it. I blessed you with a name— a wonderful name— and that name is Immanuel; I’ll never figure out how you convinced Gabriel to divert to ‘Jesus’ at the last minute before his Miracle appearance to your Earthen mother.”
“Maybe because you changed his name to Gabriel,” Jesus muttered.
“Don’t be absurd, Gabriel loves his new name. It’s a Blessing.”
Jesus held back a sigh, but no doubt Yahweh knew his intent. In fact, Jesus’ irritation was so great that he flew up and out of his chair in surprise when Peter burst through the door, supposedly with a crisis that Yahweh would be responsible to fix. If it wasn’t already too late.
“It’s a disaster, Lord God—.”
“Yahweh,” Yahweh corrected as Peter shoved a stack of printer paper under his nose.
“Yahweh, Hammond has let Jurassic Park go wrong!” Peter’s nose twitched nervously, a habit that had never gone away, even before Yahweh had changed his name from Simon to Peter.
“Reminds me of someone else I know,” Jesus grumbled, ruffling his new, wind-swept vampire hair that his father had insisted he get. Jesus wasn’t particularly fond of that book series, what with that doctor character running around with what Jesus had classified as the God Disorder.
Yahweh turned to look at his son. “What do you mean by that?” Though he clearly had already picked out the answer from Jesus’s head. Unless he was in one of those weird moods where he liked to be surprised, of course.
Jesus rubbed at his forehead with both palms. “Well, for one thing, how old is that report, Peter?”
Peter glanced down at the papers in his hands and then halted as he realized his mistake. “Oh. It’s nineteen years old.”
Jesus cursed inside his head. Stupid randomized news bulletin. No wonder there were so many things going wrong with the “Man in Mine Own Image” Project.
“2009,” Yahweh sighed blissfully. “How time does fly.”
“Much like yourself,” Peter complimented.
Yahweh gave him a fleeting grin before turning back to Jesus. “What else?”
“Father, you really need to read literature more.”
“I read fashion magazines,” Yahweh reminded him, pointing at his own hair, which also resembled that of the “modern” vampire.
“Okay, well, this is different. Remember when I classified the God Disorder?” Jesus was fidgeting, and he immediately knew his father’s answer, because Yahweh decided to think it from within the confines of Jesus’ head. Of course. Jesus continued to speak out loud. “It’s the same concept with Jurassic Park.” How? “Hammond is you, okay?” Yes? “Which makes Judas resemble Nedry in nature. Peter is most like Grant, my wife is like Ellie, etc.” Who would that make you? “Malcolm.” Why do you get to be the good-looking guy? “Well, I am younger. But it’s mostly because I always advise you against doing the things that go wrong. Then you decide to try these things out anyway, and they go wrong.”
“You advise me against doing everything,” Yahweh said out loud, crossing his arms while Peter jumped at the sound of his voice, unexpected throughout the entire time that Jesus appeared to be having a conversation with himself. Peter knew quite well who Grant was in the case of Jurassic Park, and the comparison was not unappealing, so he decided to stay out of this conversation completely, turning around to eye the office door.
Jesus tapped his noggin, replying to what Yahweh had said. “Chaos Theory, remember? Just look at what happened when you created the Human? Mass chaos.”