GOD

I stretch my forelegs above my head, and my hind legs out beyond my tail. My eyes force themselves open. Bright light blazes into my pupils, forcing them to contract. My mouth strains as a silent yawn tumbles past my whiskers.

“God, God, where are you?” a deep, throaty voice calls.

Adam, I think to myself, is wanting me again. I created him from clay, breathing life into his nostrils. There are some days I wish I had not created a human in this garden. Adam, my creation, can be one of the most downright annoying creatures ever. Adam can be so needy.

I gain my legs, glancing down at my body. From the tips of my ears down to the end of my tail I am covered in sumptuous, black, satin fur. I take a few steps. The light is particularly blinding today. With a thought, I dim it down. My eyes are sensitive, and my head is softly pounding from the previous evening’s dinner of a knowlt.

Ah, yes, the knowlt. The fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. If my feline face could have grinned, I would be wearing that now. The knowlt. The knowlt looks nothing like the apple that people believe it to have been. The knowlt has no skin and was not physical in composition. If the knowlt had resembled any fruit that humankind knows today, it would have looked somewhat like a cluster of grapes. The knowlt is a bunch of tiny energies that grow along the branches of the Tree of Knowledge. The small river encircling the tree drips up, catching on the branches. These water droplets catch the light that shines on, in and through, the garden. This is how a knowlt is made.

“Yes, Adam. I’m coming. What is it?” my mind sent a telepathic boom across the garden. Insects, small rodents, and mammals scattered every which way. My mind voice mirrored Adam’s voice. It was a few decibels lower. Both Adam and the woman seemed to respond best to that frequency.

“The woman. The woman you gave me. She is missing,” Adam yelled, facing opposite to my direction. I can not yet see him, as he is in a corner of the garden, far from the Tree. How I know he isn’t facing me, is that his voice has bounced back at me from an upwards angle.

Adam and the woman are forbidden from eating the knowlt. Their bodies are not ready yet. They are only still adjusting to the light in the garden. Too much light in a body who is not prepared is nothing short of a disaster.

That woman that I created for Adam, her name is Eve. I have never created another creature so dull in my existence. I pulled her from him, not making her a creature of her own mind, simply so that the poor boy could have some company. In a way, she was to Adam, as to what Adam was to me.

Eve came with her own set of problems. Eve was continually wandering off in some part or other of the garden, usually where the angels would integrate into one of the animals. When the angels wanted to experience physicality, or some energetic part of the garden need maintenance or adjusting, they would need to download their consciousness into a being. The angels were the caretakers of the garden but could not adjust energy without a physical body. The problem for Eve, and the angels, is that it raised questions for Eve about the other creatures in the garden. She was not ready for the answers.

I leap across the water, prancing upon the golden blossomed groundcover, towards where Adam should be. I move through dense shrubbery. The leaves move apart to allow me passage. Foliage from dark to light green, gold, orange and red cover the bushes and trees. Flowers blooming with petals blue, black, purple and green undulate in the breeze as I gallop past, gaining speed.

With a thud, I hit Adam’s calves. “Hey, Cat!” A large, red-haired, pitch-black hand reaches down to scratch me between the ears. Purrs erupt. “Why is it, whenever I ask for God, you show up?” Adam stoops down to look from his golden eyes into my blue ones. Without using my claws, I leap onto his arm, and with a thrust of my hind legs, drape myself around his neck.

Adam strolls through the garden, me keeping his shoulders warm, despite the fact the garden never gets hot or cold. The temperature is always perfect in the garden. “Hey, Ladybug!” Adam yells as we pass a small field of grown wheat. Not one ladybug, but dozens of purple bodied, yellow-spotted lady bugs cover the wheat stems. Rafaels colours mean Rafaels presence. Still, to date, Adam had never seen the angels take on the form of a creature. For that matter, Adam had never seen an angel in angelic form, and was still blind to their existence. I gave Adam carte blanche, upon his creation, to name the animals what he would. The names I use in this narrative, are not the true names he gave the creatures. Because I am aware of you, my readers, as God, knowing that humans in the 2020’s and beyond are reading, I must use terms, phrases, and language that you will understand.

“We will find, Eve, we will. Eve can’t be far,” Adam mumbles to me, as he rubs his strong chin on my nose. The air becomes hot and dry. The landscape has turned into a desert. In the distance, near the ground, lines and dots can be seen in the sky. This denotes the limit of the garden. Red, thick, viscous lava is flowing on the arid ground before us. “Hi, Salamander!” Adam whispers, cautiously approaching, a large, long, thin, amphibian with a red body and a green mouth. I catch the eye of the beast. It twinkles green at me. Michael is present.

“Eve! Eve!” Adam calls, as we approach a vast body of water. A fin appears in the distance, approaching where we are standing. As it arrives, I see that the tip of the fin is orange. The next moment, a blue body rears out of the water, balancing on its tail. “Hi, Dolphin!” Adam giggles, clapping his hands. The dolphin, in Gabriels colours, splashes back into the liquid.

Moving into a thicket of clinging trees, Adam moves past some hanging vines. The flora does not move aside for him as it did for me. The luminescence from the garden struggles to penetrate past the foliage. A rustle in the leaves and a shadow darts out from beneath the brush. “Hi, Squirrel!” Adam makes cooing noises, as he descends to his knees. Grabbing a nut from a nutshroom, he holds it forward. The creature, in mottle green, brown and black fur darts toward Adam, and snatches the nut. There is a tiny pentagram etched in relief upon its snout. It scuttles backwards a short way and captures my eyes. A light beamed forth from its pupil into mine. It is Auriel.

Something is very wrong if four out of five of my main archangels are busy in the garden. It must be out of balance. But how? The garden has never been out of balance before. Not like this at least. One, or maybe two archangels at most, are ever what is necessary, and then, only to supervise the legions of angels beneath their command. Archangels rarely, if ever, do the work themselves. Slipping a claw down, I reach down the front of Adam and sink it into his chest.

“Ouch, Cat!” Adam complains. Adam reaches up, over and behind to dislodge me from my perch and deposit me on the ground. “You can’t be doing that to me. What kind of cat are you? No animal has ever done this! I need to tell God, that not only can we not find the woman, but the animals also attack me.”

I dash off into the trees and make my way back towards the Tree of Knowledge. As I approach the tree, I notice a thin, studded, papery, tube laying on the ground beneath it. It is a snakeskin. The only time the snake sheds its skin is when Lucifer inhabits it to maintain balance in the Tree.

There are times when I regret choosing my most high musician and favoured angel to maintain the Tree. Sometimes, when he returns to heaven after doing a stint, he seems changed, wiser. Perhaps a bit too wise. And argumentative. Of late, we have been arguing about Adam and Eve. Lucifer has said that Adam and Eve may eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and would overthrow us in heaven, as they would have the minds and power of Gods. That, however, would not make them Gods. They are human and can not ascend to that without uniting fully with me, thus losing themselves in the process.

I tuck my cat body into a space beneath the ground and an exposed, gnarled root of the Tree. There, I know neither Adam nor Eve will disturb or dislodge it. The Angels and Archangels will not bother it either. They know my preferred beast. I curl up, tucking my nose between my front paws, and laying my tale across my eyes, closing them. There will be no feasting on a knowlt today.

On the exhale of the cat’s body, my spirit wooshes out. The cat will not breath while I am gone. There is no fear of decomposition in the garden, as time does not operate in this realm.

The next instant, my presence is residing on my quartz crystal throne. The throne is large. The modern human would think it fit for a giant. The back of the throne is tall, reaching back, up and down into infinity. The arms, thin and long, with bulbous curves in place of the hand rests. It is surrounded by my immediate guardians: a lion, an ox, a man and a flying eagle (King James Bible, 1611/2022, Rev. 4). Lidless blue eyes covered these beings like barnacles on rocks. Each eye pulsed with a benign intelligence of its own. Even the six wings of each the creatures were encrusted with eyes. There was nothing these eyes missed.

The only indicator to the other inhabitants of heaven, of which there are suspiciously few today, that I am here, is the rainbow emerald dancing, cavorting in joy at the re-emergence of my presence. It wraps itself around me, draping itself on my body, shimmering.

There are only two-thirds of my elders are in attendance today. As they became aware of my presence, they each stood up, and began falling down before me, standing up again and performing obeisance again.

“Holy, hole…,” started my guardians in their monotone voice.

“Enough!” I yelled. My fists slammed hard on the armrests. The rainbow emerald skittered away, leaving me naked, but not unclothed with my own, inner glory. I had created everything. Everything testified to my glory. And glorious I was. But sometimes, I wanted less of the holy-holy and obeisance and more equality between my creations and myself. It was something I had yet to master, creating an equal to myself apart from myself. All my creations were parts of me, that I had externalized, but they were not me, nor could they be my equals.

I look at the expanse of ordinary angels. A third is missing. The grumbly, lazy, third that are Lucifer’s cronies. This both pleases me and fills me with dread. Lucifer was turning into a problem, always second guessing my commands, saying that he could run heaven and the garden better than I could, or his four archangelic brothers. The third of the angels that worshipped Lucifer, or sided with Lucifer, I could never tell which, were also difficult. They were always causing troubles in the ranks of angels. It seemed that if an angel did not agree with them, the third of angels that followed Lucifer, did their best to interfere in the behaving angels angelic duties, while ignoring their own.

“Where is Lucifer?” I hollered at my elders, whom I had startled with my previous yell. My voice had frozen some of them with knees half-bent. Every eye on the creatures that guard throne rotates towards me. I shiver in their unblinking stare. The next time I make a throne, the eyes on the creatures will have lids.

“Lucifer!” My voice echoes through heaven. A current ripples before the angels that are standing. Four well-loved and trusted shapes become clear. In a softer voice, I greeted the arrivals. “Raphael, Michael, Gabriel and Auriel, what a pleasant surprise. I noticed you were busy in the garden as I made my way around it with Adam, searching for the woman.”

A fire, red at its core and green on its tips, moved towards me from the ranks of angels. “Holy, holy, holy art though God of heaven and creator of the garden,” Michael’s voice cackled out, breaking as a fire would on each syllable. “The garden is out of balance, and we can not discern the reason why, nor can we rebalance the garden.”

“Is it a problem with the light? Is the light to bright? Is there too much light being poured into the garden?” I queried in a level voice. The rainbow emerald slithered onto my lap, curling. My hand cradled an end of it, stroking it. A quiet purr rumbled.

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of all creation. No, there is not too much light. We have found, in fact there are areas of the garden that get no light at all. This makes that parts of the garden heavier and denser.” I gazed upon Michael as he answered. Whenever he said ‘Holy’, the flame that he was burned bright, reached up and extending down into Ain Soph and Kether. When he wasn’t glorifying me, his fire contracted, dancing before me, not even able to fill the space in front of the throne.

I rested my chin on my fist, tapping at my cheek with a finger. “What is the consequence if a part of the garden does not get enough light?” I quested out loud.

A purple shrouded yellow cloud stepped out from the ranks of the angels. “Holy, holy, holy, Lord. The endarkened area of the garden will become dense and collapse,” Raphael delivered his husky opinion.

I frowned. As I played with my lower lip, my magnificence began to take on the countenance of Adam, except for, as where he was black, with red hair, I was whiter than white, with white hair and a white beard. “Is there a reason for this endarkenment?” I prodded.

An orange pool of liquid, with blue at its edges, flowed up to join Michael and Raphael. Gabriel gurgled, “Holy, holy, holy, God. There is too much angelic activity. We can not tell you too much more than that. The angels are standard legion angels.”

I stood up. The rainbow emerald slipped from my lap onto my feet. It flowed away from them, weaving in between my guardians, and came to settle near the ox. I floated up to the tree that had placed itself before the angels. Lidless eyes followed me. The Elders dropped to their knees, remaining there. I positioned both hands on the trunk. “Auriel, what have you to say on this? Would you know which angels?”

The leaves shook on their branches. I closed my eyes. Auriel whispered through the foliage, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God, creator of the garden. It is uncertain. We did not see angels. We only saw that there had been an excessive amount of angelic presence. The angels in the garden would have soaked up the light from the surrounds, thus stealing light from the garden itself. For a large amount of angels to be there, they would have needed much light to sustain themselves. The garden does not put out enough light to sustain that many angels at once, especially if they were not using the bodies of the creatures to filter the light through.”

I stood back from Auriel, removing my hands from her trunk. “Are you saying angels abandoned protocol and manifested in the garden as angelic beings?”

A leaf shook loose of the tree, falling on heavens floor. I crystalised into a mix of jasper and sardius stone, leaving my head, face and beard as it was. Bending over, I retrieved the leaf, bringing it up to my nose, breathing in the scent of pine, maple and cherry blossom. The leaf vanished.

Auriel replied, “Holy Father, we investigated all creatures, great and small. None of them had been used to host any angels.”

I returned to my throne, striding past the Elders who had started with the “Holy, holy, holy,” crap again. Sitting down, I lost my physical countenance. The rainbow emerald slithered up from the ox onto my lap, leaking its edges across my thighs, down my calves, and up my torso. The jasper and sardius stone that had made my body, travelled instead to the top of my head, turning itself into a spectacular crown of no particular proportions. Lidless eyes rotated upwards, even those on the bellies of my guardians. “Holy, holy, holy,” proclaimed heaven.

“And where was and is Lucifer? I need his accounting,” and there it was, the real reason I disliked Lucifer. Lucifer was not simply an archangel. Lucifer was the closest I had ever gotten to creating a mirror image of myself. I was dependent Lucifer to administer heavenly duties. Lucifer would have answers. Lucifer. Lucifer, who had mentioned to me, more than once, that he would make a better creator than myself. Lucifer, who was a creation of mine, thought he could out create me. I had stopped short of given him that power, instead, creating him to be fully autonomous in a way that my archangels Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and Auriel never could be.

There was a large hiss in the back, behind the angels. Steam rose in lazy curls. Light arced, hitting the vault of heaven. As the light dissipated, tiny pinpricks of light could be seen. Little particles of luminescence dotted the canopy.

“What, what is this?” I roared. This was not part of my creation. What were these miniscule lights that glittered like jewels? Once again, the Elders froze, mid obeisance. The lidless eyes were silent and refused to proclaim “Holy, holy, holy.”

“Father, see what I have created with the light of the garden!” a serpentine voice slithered over the tops of my faithful angels. The fire of Michael expanded to encompass the area between that voice and myself. “Michael, brother, do settle down.” In responses, Michael dwindled in ferocity and size.

“Lucifer, show yourself!” I demanded, my voice breaking into a waver on the last syllable. These jewels bespeckling the vault from above, shone with a beauty that eclipsed my rainbow emerald. Shriveling into itself, my rainbow emerald condensed onto my lap, covering the area where my groin was, not that there was any immodesty in my nudity. As an androgyn, I could be either gender or I could have none. I was a creator, after all. Genitalia were unnecessary. Between light and thought, I could create anything. A light from beneath glimmered into the corner of my eye. I looked down to meet the multitude of my guardians’ eyes. The reflection of the jewels twinkled in thousands of eyes.

The serpentine smoke came to stand before my throne, in front of the Elders. It condensed into a manlike figure, rather than the angelic energy that it should have been. It took on the humanoid form with an ease that bespoke a familiarity with the form. Light, the brightest whitest light that I have ever seen. “Father,” Lucifer intoned in a droll manner. Bowing low, head scraping the floor, he raised himself up, a crooked half smile lingering upon his countenance. “Holy, holy, holy.” As he solidified further, Lucifer took on the appearance of a male of the human species. It was a definite male, there could be no discrepancies about that.

Heat flushed through my energy. I mirrored Lucifer in all solidarity. Grasping at the rainbow emerald sitting limp in my lap, covering a very manly part of myself, I tore off a shred and threw it at Lucifer. “Cover yourself. You’re an angel, not a man.” My tongue glued itself to the top of my mouth.

With a deft hand, Lucifer caught the shred of the rainbow emerald, and with a twist and a knot, turned it into a mockery of my jasper and sardius crown, a placed it above his head. “Of course, Father. Is this better?” A shuffling and some raucous guffaws could be heard disturbing the ranks of the angels. I was distracted and looked at my children to see where this discordant noise came from. Lucifers legendary, third of the angels’ legion had pushed themselves forward, taking the front row, and stood behind Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and Auriel. The only thing between Lucifer and myself were the guardians, whose eyes still sparkled.

I stuttered, forcing my tongue to be unstuck “What is the meaning of this Lucifer?” I felt myself shrinking into my throne.

“Why, nothing, Father. You called for me, remember? I assume you were seeking me to report to you on the garden, as the garden has been growing out of balance. My legion of angels and myself, have been down in the garden, seeking solutions on what is to be done about the endarkening of certain parts of the garden.”

The flame of Michael leapt outwards, spitting a response, “Lies, brother, lies. It is the presence of your legion and yourself in the garden, as alien angels rather than resident animals, that creates the imbalance.” The uppermost tip of the fire turned a dark green, taking on the shape of a humanoid face. “Father, father, he lies, he lies. Lucifer and his angels are the source of the problem.”

I sat on my throne. The image in the eyes of my guardians captured my thoughts. In their depths could be seen Michales green face, the humanoid form, and the plethora of scintillating dots of light that now adorned the roof of the vault. There was movement in the images. My focus turned once again to Lucifer.

Lucifer performed a half-turn to face his accuser, grabbing my gaze. “Brother, brother, dear Michael, this is simply not true. I assure you; my legion and myself are not the source of the darkness in the garden.” The crooked half-smile Lucifer had graced me with broadened.

Both of my hands fell atop the arms of my throne. A tinkling sound was heard, bouncing from wall to wall, ceiling to floor and back again. I glanced down. A tiny shard from one of the arms of my throne had dislodged itself, slicing into one of the eyes of my guardians. A tiny blue sliver of liquid oozed from the orb of the flying eagle. “Enough,” I screamed. “This bickering between you brothers, what does it achieve? You are my sons.” There was a shuffling, scraping noise in the background. I looked towards the sound. Lucifers legion was bright, not as bright as Lucifer, but they still contained much lighter than the average angel should have. Lucifer and his angel needed time away from each other. “Lucifer, I must forbid your legion from attending the garden for as long as the garden is unbalanced.”

A pout shoved the crooked half smile from its perch. Lucifer objected in a soft voice, “Father, what crime is it that we are accused of? Are you taking Michaels side?” Lucifers eyes dropped to his feet, shoulders slumping.

“Nothing, my son, but until we understand the reason behind the endarkening of the garden, I must ask that your legion remains in heaven. Now, you and Michael may return yourselves to the garden, in whatever form you see fit, but see to it, Lucifer that you do not attend as your angelic self, until we have sorted the situation out concerning the endarkenment.”

The pout disappeared and the crooked half smile returned. “As you wish, Father.”

A shiver raced down my spine, dissolving my humanoid form. The rainbow emerald arched itself around my head. Lucifer disappeared, wisps of smoke swirling where he had stood. The green head of Michael gazed after his brother and disappeared back into the flame. The flame undulated across to the orange pool, dissolving itself into the liquid. Both Michael and Gabriel disappeared. I formed a hand just long enough to cast my forehead into my palm, giving my head a gentle shake as it descended. This was not going well.

I gazed at Lucifers Legion, as I had subconsciously begun to think of them. They were the brightest angels, brighter than those angels that remained faithful to me, or were they. I narrowed my gaze. Their brightness was hard, flinty, with sharp edges of darkness in place of the angelic membrane that covered my faithful ones. The membrane around my angels was porous, to let the light flow in and out of them. The darkness around Lucifers Legion was solid, as if to keep the light in, and from flowing out. Was this what made them seem brighter than my faithful angels?

Belial, one of Lucifers Legion whom he had named, mocking my creating of Adam, noticed my scrutiny. Catching my eyes, he whispered, “Is there a problem, God?” I did not like his tone.

Once again, a shiver wound its way through my essence. “No, Belial. There is no problem. It is simply that your membrane, seems, well, slightly blocked.”

Belial did not reply, instead, he mimicked Lucifers crooked half smile, and shrugged his shoulders.

“God, God!” a voice from beneath my feet wafted up. Adam. Again.

With a thought, my energy oozed through my throne, consolidating beneath my guardians. For a moment, I glimpsed those twinkling dots of energy that had speared into the canopy of the vault. They flashed and winked, moving in a lazy, circuitous motion that seemed to have no reason or rhyme to it. As they dance upon the canopy, I felt myself being torn, shifted and moved this way and that. It did not feel pleasant, yet it did not feel unpleasant either. When I returned to my throne, I would have to investigate what sort of light Lucifer had released.

I continued to slip and slide through the bottom of heaven and seeped into the invisible continuum that connected heaven to the garden through the Tree of Life. From there, it would be a short glide through the connecting root system in the garden to the Tree of Knowledge and collect my black cat host body that I had left curled in the root of that Tree.

My essence arrived where I had left the black cat. It was missing. In its place was a huge, coiled serpent. The etheric body was adjusted enough that I could simply download my entire essence within it, without burning its edges.

I entered the serpent.

The fit was tight, too tight. I felt constricted, as well as constricting. Flexing my muscles, I realized that I was coiled around a lithe humanoid body. It was the woman, Eve. Relaxing, I felt the body that I had been restraining, expand. I went to open my mouth and realized that it was already open. The crown of Eve’s head lay between the sharp fangs of the snake. Using my tongue, I pushed her head out. Opening my eyes, I saw her eyes already open, staring into mine, with the same shimmering dots that decorated the vault of heaven sparkling in her depths. My head reared backwards, as if to strike. There was no fear in the woman’s face.

I uncoiled only to find that my tail was stuck in an enclosed space between the woman’s legs. I found myself horrified and revolted at once. What was this abomination? Eve’s hands reached down to grasp me from slithering away, my fangs sank into her heel.

“Satan,” she whispered, “why must you do this thing?”

“Who or what is Satan? This is God. Eve, what have you done?” I hissed, slithering away to the base of the tree, I circled it, sliding out of her reach.

A jaded tinkle escaped from Eve’s lips. “Satan, one day you will usurp God, but you are not God yet. Come, let us eat more of the knowlt. I hunger for more knowledge of creation. I starve for more information about the garden. When you order, and the time is right, I will bring Adam to the tree, and we can rule heaven, and create what we wish.”

I climbed up further into the tree, seeking a knowlt. The knowlt would be able to fill me in on missing information. It would increase my consciousness. I searched the branches, slipping over the leaves, dislodging the droplets that had fallen up, but had yet to receive light. There were no ripe knowlts left.

By the time I reached the tip of the tree, I was shaking. Stilling myself, I realized that it wasn’t me shaking, but the trunk. I glanced down. There, next to the trunk, standing opposite of where Eve was, was Adam and my black cat host body was head butting the tree, shaking the trunk and branches. The black cat did this until one final ripe knowlt was shaken loose from the leaves. My stomach sank.

“Hey, Cat. Why is it whenever I ask for God, you show up?” Adam asked the creature. “And why is it you have called me to this beautiful tree I have never been allowed to see? God has always said that we are not allowed to eat of its fruit.”

The black cat sat on its hind legs and grasped the knowlt on the tree between its forepaws. “Because, Adam, I am God,” the black cat whispered. “And Adam, I only gave you that directive, to keep rewards from you. I realise now that I was wrong, and I invite you to eat of this fruit, the knowlt.” The cat dropped to its forepaws, and with its nose, batted the ripe knowlt towards Adam.

Adam’s dark head bobbed as it glanced towards the ground and then around. Shaking his head, he spoke in a soft tone, “No, cat. I don’t think so. We still have not found the woman. If you were God, would God have not told me himself? God has never used you to answer. In fact, you, nor any of the other animals, have ever spoken.”

The black cat somehow managed a crooked half smile as it reared up on its hind legs. Drawing a black paw over its left eye, it spoke in a different voice, “Eve, Eve. Come here my darling. Adam iss calling for you and it iss time, now for your asssisstance.” The s’s seemed pronounced, more like Lucifer’s hiss than that of a cat. “Yes, Adam, you are right. I am not God.”

Eve appeared at the far edge of the Tree of Knowledge, her frown and furrowed brow visible despite the distance. Catching sight of Adam staring, the edges of her lips curled upwards, but her furrowed brow remained. “Adam, darling, my apologies. I must have gotten lost, again,” came her greeting in a sensual voice. With a serpentine movement, Eve sidled up to Adam. Catching sight of the knowlt on the ground, Eve bent forward to capture it. Eve raised it to her lips.

“No, Eve. That is the lasst knowlt and that iss not for you. That knowlt iss for Adam. It is time,” the black cat whispered in its sinuous voice.

Eve gave the black cat a disgruntled stare.

I looked at this scene with a growing horror in my mind. I hissed, unable to form any words, because I had not had a knowlt and could not force my mind to make the vibration necessary to communicate. Eve glanced up. The black cat leapt up to the trunk, hip-level to Adam. Arching his body around, and using his momentum, he launched himself towards the knowlt, and with a deft swoop of his paw, batted the fruit into Adam’s slack-jawed mouth. Subconsciously, Adam bit down on the fruit as the juices escaped to flood his mouth and trickle down his throat.

No, screamed my mind. The resulting sound was a half-hiss. In the distance I caught sight of a large salamander approaching the tree with a dolphin on its back. Michael and Gabriel were moving fast, but not fast enough.

The eternal light in the garden disappeared, and night fell prematurely. Rumblings in the distance could be heard. The ground behind Michael and Gabriel began to raise up behind them, like the tsunami that one would see on Earth now. I swiveled my head, to glance behind me. Even the sky of the garden was distorting, collapsing in on itself. The Tree I was at the top of shook hard enough that I was cast from it, into the distance, opposite of where Lucifer, Eve and Adam stood.

I slithered towards the gnarled tree root where I had found the body of the serpent. The black cat was there. A chill went through me. Adam and Eve were nowhere to be seen. I collapsed the body of the snake near the cat and travelled with haste back to my throne.

A vast expanse greeted me upon my return. The elders were gone. My faithful angels had disappeared. Only the guardians of my throne and the rainbow emerald remained. There was no chant of “Holy”. I searched the depths of heaven with my mind. Not even Raphael or Auriel were present.

“Lucifer!” I yelled. My voice shouted itself back at me. “Lucifer!” Where was he?

Angels began to appear in the distance. Amongst them were Lucifers legion. As the angels drew close to my throne, I could see that my faithful angels had been surrounded by the legion. Some barrier of energy was surrounding them. I gazed upon the faces of the legion. Their faces; unsmiling. Their energy; brimming with a harsh frequency, that set up a discordant melody within the vibrations of my throne.

“Stop,” I commanded the legion as it approached. I could do nothing but remain within the area of my throne. “Where is your master, Lucifer?” I queried the legion.

A harsh laugh ejaculated from Ba’al. “Why, look out behind you, God?”

Without turning, I felt a hot presence behind my throne. “Father, you called for me?” A black serpent floated up over the top of my head and arrived to stand before my throne. There was no space between us. “I am here, Father.”

“What have you done, Lucifer?” I asked, a tremulous quaver filling my voice.

“Things had to change. They could not go on as they were. The humans needed guidance and I provided them with it. It is time, now, Father, for you to leave your throne, for I am a better, greater creator than you.” Opening his mouth into an expansive yawn, the serpent burped up thick gas. A large, ringed orb floated upwards, and passed through the membrane of the vault. It danced and weaved its way to a cluster of those bright lights, that had arranged themselves into the shape of a goat.

“What is this?” I gasped. My energy had shifted. One of the eyes from the man guardian, detached and floated away with the orb.

“It iss a planet, Father, and I have sset it amongsst the sstarss. A planet is a kind of energy and it effectss energiess. You feel thiss, yess? You have losst a touch of energy, becausse I have taken the energy from you, to create the planet.” The serpents face held no expression that I could read.

“And, the stars, they are these dots in the canopy of the heavens?” came my involuntary question. I gazed down at my guardians, stars glimmered in their lidless orbs.

“Yess, Father, starss. Sso, you ssee, I am a creator in my own right. And now, I must assk you, Father, to abdicate the throne,” Lucifer stated in a flat voice.

I gazed at Lucifer in the tone of his voice. Vibrations thrummed beneath my feet. I glanced down. Eden was in darkness. The invisible pillars of energy that had held the garden, were collapsing inwards. Heat curled from my extremities inward. Anger coursed through my veins.

Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and Auriel appeared around Lucifer in humanoid form, their rich colours dazzling the chamber of heaven as the stars glittered above. Each archangel grabbed a different part of the serpents body, forcing the body to transform into that of a man.

“What is this?” Lucifer, outraged, screamed at his brothers. Michael and Auriel, each held an arm. Gabriel held him by his shoulders. Raphael stood before him and bowed towards me, reciting, “Holy, holy, holy.”

Lucifers Legion, who had corralled my faithful angels, turned into bright beams of light, and disappeared through the canopy, into the cosmos. As I watched, I saw them reform into a solid ball, a tiny lump of rock, some distance from the ringed planet. This tiny lump of rock sprouted a connected from itself towards the base of the garden.

Struggling, Lucifer wrenched himself forward from Gabriel. Twisting, he slipped free of Michael and Auriel. With hands outstretched, he shoved Gabriel to the side, and lunged towards my throne. The rainbow emerald moved in front of me, and stretching in all directions, became a solid, transparent wall of energy, catching Lucifer in the fabric. Lucifer struggled for a moment, collapsing into a bright light within himself, and flew through the canopy taking a portion of my rainbow emerald with him. He arced through the cosmos, shaking the remainder of the rainbow emerald from his body, and speared through to the tiny lump of rock.

The part of the rainbow emerald he had taken with him, floated a little way from him, and condensed itself into a tiny gaseous sphere, smaller than the lump of rock. What was left of my rainbow emerald within heaven, crawled towards me. I stood up, cradling it in my arms. I lamented “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! (King James Bible, 1611/2022, Is 14:12.) It had happened so fast, I had not time to think on it. The rumbling beneath my feet dragged my attention away from the loss of my son and a third of the angels in heaven.

“Holy, holy, holy, art though Father,” the four archangels chorused.

A scraping and bowing in the back drew my attention to beyond the angels. All my Elders, every last one of them, was returning to me. As they drew close, I noticed that several of them were missing energy, much like myself. Some of the Elders dragged trails of energy behind them like a modern brides veil at a wedding.

“God, God!” I heard Adam yelling from beneath. Further from Adam, I heard the woman hollering for Satan.

I grasped part of my rainbow emerald, and fashioned it into a cherub, and taking it with me, I took the direct route into the garden, dropping straight through the floor of heaven onto the top of the Tree of Life. Instead of seeking my black cat host body to download my energy into, I manifested as the energetic being I was.

Within moments, I found Adam and Eve, huddling beneath the Tree of Knowledge. The water around it had already shifted into four aqueducts created by the shaking of the ground. These streams fled from the based of the Tree. The water was fast flowing down these streams, away from the original position.

“God?” Adam asked, woe tinging his question. With long eyes, and a trickle from each corner, frozen there in time, Adam looked at me from beneath lowered lashes.

“Yes, Adam. It is I, God. You disobeyed me,” My voice thought had an edge that the soft tone failed to curb.

“I did not mean to, God. It happened so fast. The woman, she had it, and then, I was eating it. Why did you forbid us from eating this fruit? It was the sweetest taste and it filled me with knowledge. Why do you keep the woman and I in this garden? Why do you not have us in heaven, near you? We could serve you better then.” Though I wanted to say that Adam had a pleading look in his eyes, I could not be sure. Adam’s pupil was slivered, like the eye of Lucifer’s serpent. In his cornea I saw the smoke and rock erupting from the top of a distant mountain in the area where Michael ministered. Was the slit part of the reflection? I glanced into Eve’s eyes. She, too, had slits like the serpent.

I turned as I delivered my sentence for disobedience. It was not worth it to me to answer Adam’s questions. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (King James Bible, 1611/2022, Gen 3:17-19.)” With the statement pronounced, I turned behind me to see my most faithful son, archangel Michael, in angelic form, standing, watching, an unreadable expression on his face. Behind the human form of Michael, his two large, white wings of pure, shimmering energy, spread out behind him. “Michael, escort Adam and Eve from the garden. At the edge, toss them out. They will find themselves on the planet Lucifer’s Legion created.”

Michael grasped Adam and Eve with the edges of each of his wings, and, with a blur, moved them from beneath the Tree to the edge of the garden. There, at the edge, was a vortex of darkness, a swirling maelstrom of energy. Beyond this vortex could be seen the lump of rock created by Lucifer’s Legion. I did not care if the angels helped the man and woman, or not. I had sentenced my precious, favoured creations to a life of suffering in the uncertain linear world of energies. What made these energies uncertain? Lucifer’s creations, the stars and planets. Adam and Eve had lost their right to the protection I offered in the garden.

With a flick of his wings, Michael tossed Adam and Eve into the swirling maelstrom. Eve dived forward, sensing something, I imagine that Adam could not. Adam turned to face me as he was sucked inward, a look of despair upon his countenance. I took my cherub I had fashioned and tossed to the edge of the vortex, where it managed to balance itself in the turbulence. Michael chipped off the tip of his lance and placed it in the cherub’s tiny hands. Breathing on the wood, it caught fire, and the cherub began to wave his weapon to and fro.

“Thank you, Michael.”

Michael nodded his head towards me and thinning his energy into a golden-white beam, shot upwards to re-enter heaven. The tumultuous ground began to subside. I expanded my consciousness to envelop the garden and become one with what was left of my creation.

The Tree of Life was intact. No fruit on it had been touched after Eve and Adam had eaten of the knowlt. Lucifer seemed to have not touched it either. The Tree of Knowledge was decimated, no knowlt left upon it. The water had diverted into the four streams and fled the garden, each stream flowed off into the vortex connecting to this planet that Lucifer’s Legion had created. Mud at the base of the Tree was all the liquid left.

I called to the beasts in the garden. There were none. The ground was disheveled. My carefully ordered creation was a mess of chaos. My heart felt heavy, though I had no body. The heaviness was evident through the darkness in the garden. My sorrow weighed in, and a solitary drip of water from the floor of heaven, fell, splashing into the mud, separating the water from the dirt. Now, at least there was a miniscule pool of water at the base of the Tree. The light in the garden would return when I was feeling happier. In one fell moment, I had lost my a third of my kingdom, and then some.

I recondensed my energy, my consciousness. When I had brought myself in as tight as possible, I streaked upwards, tearing a tiny hole between the garden and heaven, allowing a dollop of heavens light to infiltrate the garden. This light dripped in, and in excruciating slowness, dribbled into the tiny puddle of water beneath the Tree. For now, this would have to do.

I reclaimed my throne that I had almost lost. With the eyes of my guardians, I peered through them, through the pinprick whole in the floor, to see what a human would call a nightmare landscape. The beautiful, lush, verdant landscape had been transformed into a dark seething mass that had infiltrated everywhere but the two Trees. The Tree of Life shone with a brightness stemming from its tip, which brushed the floor of heaven, and seeped through to its roots. The Tree of Knowledge, shone only with the reflected light it received from heaven.

I withdrew my sight from the eyes of my guardians and began to focus on the decimated denizens of heaven. My four archangels were in attendance, as were the Elders and faithful angels. There was no “Holy” at this point in time, which was a blessing. Glancing beyond heaven, I saw activity and movement in these stars, and the two planets moving through them in an unbalanced and macabre dance. The planets would weave through the different patterns, the small planet of my rainbow emerald, racing and chasing the denser planet that Lucifer had made with my energy.

Time, I thought to myself, the passage of energies through other energies is time. Nothing is static, things are evolving, or devolving. I glanced down towards the Legions’ rock.

On the planet that Lucifers Legion had made, there was chaos. It seemed to be ripped a bit, changed, and reformed through in synchronicity to the two planets. This, in turn, adjusted the energies in the vortex between the planet and the garden, and this was not doing my garden further justice. More darkness and strange creatures crept into it under the cover of mutating, evolving and cavorting shadows.

I looked towards my archangels, Elders and faithful angels. If Lucifer could appropriate some of my energy and create a planet, and my rainbow emerald could also be turned into a planet, perhaps, in order to balance this dimension of time.

The stars and two planets shone light onto the rock, but not nearly enough to combat the darkness that engulfed it and slithered into the garden. This rock needed some light to counteract the evil Legions’. This would not render the evil powerless, that would be up to the descendants of Adam and Eve. Since they were in the dimension of time, there would be consequences for acts of passion; children.

I gazed upon Michael. His fire burned bright red and green, forming fluctuating patterns. “Step forward, my son. You are the brightest of my angels and the heat from your fire provides a pleasant warmth. Light and warmth bring forth life in the garden. A spark of your fire, my son, is all that I need.”

The slimmest, tiniest spark from Michael leapt from the tip of his fire, onto my formed hand. This was the only formed part of me. Turning it into a red and green swirling ball, I tossed it through the vault of heaven, through to the centre of the ecliptic of the two dancing planets. There, it blossomed into a bright, golden orb, moving slow.

One by one, I called each of my archangels forward. When I had finished with them, there were multiple planets and a sun, weaving through the star system. This had the effect of balancing each out. As I observed, things changed on the rock that Lucifer’s Legion had made. Water and greenery began to cover the rock, as the energies of the planets tugged aspects of the garden through the vortex.

I glanced at my garden. The darkness was beginning to dissipate. Original animals reappeared, though not in the abundance that had once been. A cycle of light and dark began. The light stayed light for longer, and the dark existed in a weaker way. I withdrew from myself a tiny piece of energy, and after mixing it with a piece of energy from each of my archangels, hurled it through my vault towards the rock. When it reached the tiny planet, my orb of energy turned a bright and then dark blue, finally turning into pitch black, and sank beneath my vision. It permeated the entire planet at once, without be concentrated in any one spot.

With what I had remaining of my consciousness in heaven, I flooded my mind with light, letting go of rational, logical thoughts. When the light became strong enough, I set boundary after boundary of light. I did this three times. The largest boundary was about the garden and heaven, the middle boundary surrounded heaven alone and the final protected my throne. The light was super intense on the furthermost boundary, of mild strength on the middle boundary, and ebony on the boundary closest to my throne.

Leaving my main energy in heaven, I ensured the link between my balanced consciousness on the rock and myself could communicate. Lucifer and his Legion I could not find, but Adam and Eve were obvious, as the light of the knowlt still infused their bodies, though it was dying fast, given the harsh energies of their current environment.

I watched them for a moment, clinging to each other, in an intimate way. Then, I noticed a change. There was a tiny energy within Eve, that was neither her, nor Adam, yet it was both of them. And there was another energy, a foreign, but familiar energy, latched onto this new life. Lucifer. Or to be more precise, the residue of his energy, from when he and Eve had lain together in the garden. There was nothing I could do. Nor did I want it to. I would simply watch, wait, and see, what this new development would bring.