Same Story (part 11)

Dear diary,

Now let me describe for you the scene of Jehovah’s rendezvous with his slowboatman Noah, because it is very touching:

Here is the God; standing, waiting on top of Mount Oreb. It is Day Number One Hundred & Fifty of the Great Flood. Jehovah is lonely; water is everywhere — the surface of the ocean is flat and still, in all directions, as far as the divine eye can see...

Now, behold: a passenger ship appears on the horizon.

“Thar she blows!” God shouts, despite the saying’s inaptness (that is, unless you take the wooden cruise ship as a type of Leviathan, on account of the fact that it was manufactured with a chimney system to pump out and expel any freshwater that infiltrates its ramp-door, which is difficult to seal; for this chimney does resemble, at least vaguely, that same beast’s blowhole). And Noah’s boat approaches closer and closer, during the course of the afternoon, until it ultimately touches the tip of the famous Mount Oreb. “Welcome to China!” God shouts thru the porthole. “How was your trip?”

Now God greets Noah and the members of his family. He gives them all a pat on the head, and he musses the children’s hair. He also pats every living thing on the back, or on the haunches (or some equivalent thereof); he greets all the livestock in this fashion, and even the insects that are lodged within the boat; he goes from room to room and shouts hi to all the passengers. Then he visits the suite where Lilith, Noah’s playmate, is staying. She is reclining on the waterbed, penning a scripture.

“Greetings, Prince,” sez Lilith. “Shall we see dry land today? You only have a few hours of daylight left to counteract this flood.”

“O!” cries Prince Jehovah, “Just a moment — I plumb forgot!”

Then God creates a wind and tells it to pass over the earth, and the water asswages. Also the engineers of Sheol are immediately radioed with instructions to suck back and seal up the Fountains of the Deep, which labor they perform at the rate of speed-demons. Therewith, new panes are installed in the Windows of Heaven; also they are given new dressings, and then fastened shut as well.

Thus the source of the leaks, both from above and below, is promptly restrained and remedied. And all the standing freshwater from the Worldwide Flood now begins to return from off the earth, and this retreat continues incrementally throughout the evening, till, at long last, just before sundown, all the waters have abated.

Now, once the leagues of sea have drained away, Noah’s boat is found to have come to rest where it was, at the peak of Mount Oreb, which is part of the Ararat mountain range, in China. The date is July 17th, postdiluvian Year Zero.

But if the aforesaid timeline doesn’t quite match all the figures I gave before — the 150 days, plus the week of the rapture, together with the triple fortnight of rainfall — then use the date of October 1st, postdiluvian Year Zero, henceforth, on all official documents. For, as I already told you, I’m not a math surgeon. (The thing is, I wrote down both dates side-by-side in my notebook, and then I got distracted by Lilith; so maybe one of them is correct.)

So on this first day after the Super-Duper Fun Flood (as it has come to be known), the tops of the mountains finally peak thru the surface of the monocean. And, as the waters recede further and further, the rest of the mountainsides begin to appear, very gradually — it’s like a slow-mo strip show, with twin peaks for paps. And the frozen caps of ice are like nipple stickers, or “pasties” I think they’re called. (I really love mountains.)

And when the forty days were passed, Noah’s timer, which he had set aforetime, went ding! therefore he paced over to gaze out of the porthole. Incidentally, that was just the moment that Jehovah took to look in and greet all the passengers thru that very opening; so God’s face filled the entire frame. Thus Noah was startled, and he stepped a foot back and almost dropped his drink on the quarterdeck. Then one of the ravens came out of her room, and flew straight toward the porthole, as Jehovah was shouting his hellos; and the bird almost grazed her Creator’s lip. But the raven banked left; then went to and fro, until Jehovah finished talking. Once God climbed aboard the boat, the bird was able to exit the porthole.

And, seeing the raven had flown out and found a hale tree to perch on and caw from, one of the doves within the boat followed suit and darted out the same opening. However, this dove, once outside, flew straight up to heaven — he just went right out into space and disappeared. Now, I have it on good authority that this dove was the exact bird that eventually would land on Christ’s head during his baptism (tho by Christ I mean Paul the Apostle’s invention; not Jesus of Nazareth) — yet this is beyond the purview of my current report: All you need to grasp, for now, is that there were originally seven doves in the boat, therefore this single male who absconded to storm heaven and wait there for the opportunity to waylay his archnemesis did not significantly diminish the potential growth of his species — they still had six doves left, in three boy-girl pairs, all certified fertile, to spawn forth multitudes.

That lost dove, by the way, was eventually raptured, in the same way as all the other avians, when he reached the upper atmosphere — so he counts as part of the earlier seven-day rapture. This bending of the rules of heaven was made possible by the mercy of Jehovah God; and it was ratified by the Pantheon. So there’s no foul play here (pun on “fowl” intended). Now let’s move on…