Part 3

(Today's entry is a direct continuation of yesterday's entry, just as yesterday's entry was of the previous entry. I want to keep open the option of adding to this text in future entries, perhaps indefinitely; but, since the aggregate of the ongoing writing will be one sole composition, it feels right to allow myself to be lazy about providing images to accompany each installment. A work of text, whatever the length, should never be subjected to more than a single visual chaperone. So here's my idea:

Instead of having to spend time concocting a fresh image for each textual fragment that I publish, entry by entry, I'll simply continue to repeat the act of taping a new ad-scrap atop the same canvas, so that the picture morphs along with the romance that it escorts, while maintaining a similar level of unloveliness.

Thus, since the present entry is the third in the series, its obligatory image consists of three random scraps extracted from junk-ads; whereas yesterday's entry, the second in line, has only two scraps; and the entry that initiated this whole boondoggle is just a single scrap of an ad.

The backdrop that these snippets are piled upon, by the way, is just a black folder that I scratched up with a nail one afternoon during a fit of agitation. Do you ever grow so bored that you find yourself vandalizing your own property, just to pass the time? That's what this is. — OK now back to our regular program...)

Dear diary,

So Jehovah the Scientist obtains life-seed from each of the corpses of the garden-dwellers, and preserves it in a portable freezer-tank. He then hews two tables of stone out of the nearby hillside, to mark the burial place of these latest casualties, and inscribes a testimony with his finger upon each tombstone which commemorates the deceased. On the first stone is written the name “EARTHLING”, followed by the explanation: “because he was made of earth.” And on the second stone is written “JEHOVAH THE SCIENTIST NO. 2” followed by “an amendment of the bad original copy.”

Jehovah the Scientist now opens a package containing two lab suits: these serve as shrouds for the dead. He buries the corpses with his own hands.

Jehovah then lifts the portable communication device from his coat-pocket and dials the number for Science Headquarters. He informs the answering personnel concisely:

“The latest subjects have gone the way of all flesh. Life-seed has been secured, which I shall now take back to the lab’s incubator for processing. Impute two more points to the account of my compeer (we’ll need to replenish that inventory proportionately, of course). And could you send out some sentinels and a perma-flame for the memorial? Thanks. Yes, cherubim will serve fine. I just need something slightly menacing to protect my Tree of Info from cross-contamination. I’ll let you know if I have any success, this time. OK, bye now.”

Jehovah the Scientist then heads out to the periphery of York, to collect his thoughts.

On the morrow, two burly cherubim arrive from headquarters on a mobile throne. They drive up and park alongside the curb of the lab; then slouch to their positions at the gravesite. They take their place between the two famous trees in the midst of the garden, where now has been installed a flaming sword that keeps auto-thrusting hither and yon, like a pendulum, to differentiate Wisdom from Info.

After the funeral, Jehovah the Scientist returns to East York, to the cleanroom of the lab. He plants the seeds of Earthling and the Blessèd Damozel in isolated test-tubes filled with soil. However, this time, instead of moistened earth, Jehovah the Scientist uses a flake-like substance called manna (or “what”), which is a manure as white as hoarfrost and reminiscent of coriander seed, as the soil to make his subjects.

So the new subjects turn out superior, and the whole plan unfolds as intended. The world continues to its end without a hitch, and Jehovah the Scientist deems the experiment a success. He then writes up a report & sends it to the rest of the Scientific Community. What follows is the actual text of this report, as Jehovah himself composed it.

FROM:
Jehovah the God, not a scientist, neither by science but by faith in all the dead who have been raised,

TO:
All the churches of the Scientific Community, and all their magazines and publications; also the Internet.

Let me first tell you a few biographical points about myself. This is true information that is trustworthy, not fake facts.

My name is Jehovah, and I am God. I am the only God. I was called to be a scientist, earlier in my career, but then I separated myself away from the rest of the servants of time and space, and I performed an experiment with living beings (all of which contained the breath of life), and my experiment succeeded: it came out perfect on the first try. That’s why I refer to myself as The Only Living God, as opposed to a lowly scientist, in the following report.

Science itself predicted that I would become manifest. Just look at the data.

I created humans, both with my breath, and with lighting bolts, and in a test tube, numerous times. I then took the seed of my subjects and cloned it in the laboratory closet, and placed it in a manger, which resembled an incubator; and the stuff came alive. I knew this would happen: I wrote it down in my notebook, which is now called a TRUE SCIENTIFIC TEXTBOOK. They use it to teach young children in the schools. I also learned how to resurrect people.

I am writing to you because I have decoded the secret of holiness. Every thing that lives is holy. That’s my finding. All the details that follow are simply datums that back up this claim.

Before I reveal my findings proper (please, from now on, refer to my writings as “sacred scripture” & not “a report that is of merely empirical worth”), let me acknowledge my friends in the Lone True Church, who work at Science Headquarters and who I hope will become persuaded by my testament.

Greetings, all you scientists, you down-hearted doubters dull and excluded, frivolous, sullen, moping, atheistical. I know every one of you; I sense your sea of torment, doubt, despair and unbelief — and now I say to you: Be at peace, bloody doubters and sullen mopers, for you, too, are beloved of God; and now you are called to be my saints and my apostles: Grace to you and peace from me myself, Jehovah God, the Inventor of Spacetime and also of Eternal Life in Heaven. I am your Father, and I am your Mother — in short: I am your CREATOR. — I also accept the fact of Jesus of Nazareth.

Now here is the meat of my scientific report;

It starts out like so:

* * * REPORT * * *

ON HOW JEHOVAH GOD CREATED ALL LIFE PERFECTLY FROM THE BEGINNING, AND HOW JEHOVAH GOD ACHIEVED A PERFECT WORLD

True story: Before there was any plant on the field, and before any herb ever grew from the dirt; at the very start of the world, before Jehovah God had even caused it to rain upon the earth, and no humans existed to till the soil, here’s what happened:

One day, a mist went up from the ground; and it watered the whole face of the ground. Then Jehovah God scooped up some of the wet ground with his hands; and he formed a shape that looked like a human, out of the ground. And he breathed into its nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living soul.

Then Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he placed the human that he had formed. Out of the ground, Jehovah God caused greenery to grow: he made every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life, also, in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And Jehovah God picked up the human being, and placed her into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.

And Jehovah God commanded the human, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat: HOWEVER, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall NOT eat of that particular tree: for in the day that you eat from it, you shall certainly die.”

Then Jehovah God said: “It is not proper that the human should be alone; I will make a partner for her.” So, out of the ground, Jehovah God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto the human to see what she would call them: and whatsoever the human called every living creature, that was the name thereof. Thus did the human give names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; BUT there still was not found a proper mate for the human.

So Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the human, and she slept. And he scooped out a part of her body, and then closed up the flesh as if it were flexible doors, and left an outlet, using his hands, to the best of his ability. And this part, which Jehovah God had removed from the first human being, he added to yet another human that he formed, and he brought this second human unto the first. And the first cried:

“This flesh was taken out of my flesh. It shall be called ‘man’, for it is basically human.”

This is why, when a child becomes an adult, it leaves its mother and father, and goes and seeks out a mate for itself, and they join their flesh together and become oneself. For it is the desire of the various sexes to combine back into a Grand Unity, instead of remaining torn apart from each other.

And they were both naked, the humans, and were not ashamed.

Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made. And he said to the humans, “Is it true that God has said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

And the humans said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of all the trees in the garden, with just one exception: God has said ‘You shall not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither should you touch it, lest you die’.”

And the serpent said to the humans, “You shall certainly not die: For God knows that in the day that you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be just like God, knowing good AND evil.”

Now when the humans saw that the tree was good for food, and that it had a pleasant look, and that it was desirable to make one wise, they had an impulse to put forth their hands and partake of its fruit — and they almost did succumb to this temptation — but they ultimately abstained. For there was something about this snake that they did not trust. Yes, they felt it would be more prudent to obey Jehovah God.

(TO BE CONTINUED . . . )