The Gospel of Rob

Part 3

Gabriel glanced at his brethren one last time for support. He was terrified, but he knew they had planned this throughout. They practiced this bit for hours. The wording was perfect. No way He would be able to read between the lines. It was the perfect sales pitch.

“The quest to create a perfect being is a noble one, oh Lord”, he started with the honey sweet words Uriel had come up with. Perhaps too sweet, given that God raised an eyebrow suspiciously at the chosen tone. He walked up to the nearby tree and picked a fruit from one of its overhanging branches. “Go on”, he muttered and bit into the fruit.

“Truly the noblest of all the tasks and duties and pleasures You have created to yourself and all of your creations. But indeed, You have other things and beings to care for, so…”

On queue, two of the angels brought forward a presentation board. God frowned at the grandiose choreography as Gabriel pulled the first blank page from the board, failing at the theatricality he had clearly aimed for.

“Life, death, and auto-creation!” Gabriel exclaimed, followed directly by a loud mix of a cough and a scream from Azrael. Gabriel’s eyes widened as he immediately realised his mistake. Oh how long had they debated on what they should call their revolutionary idea to have a being other than God have the ability to create life. Man would only be able to produce copies of himself, but wording is important when pitching ideas to God. Or when talking to him altogether. Despite all the rehearsing, Gabriel had failed and now God was staring at him furiously.

“Reproduction!” Gabriel corrected himself. “Reproduction is the word, yes! Reproduction!” He cleared his throat nervously as he flipped the page to show a diagram explaining the proposed mechanisms. The swift correction from his part had calmed God down, who now resumed eating.

“Man’s existence will be divided into two stages. One called life when he will interact with others of his kind, then the after-life when he will either join You in heaven, or in the rare occasion hell if they behave really, really badly”, Gabriel explained as he showed the process on the diagram. “This ensures that You will get all the best candidates while the immoral and blasphemous souls will be banished forever from your light and glory.”

God leaned forward and took another bite from his fruit. He appeared positively intrigued by the plans presented to him.

“The criteria needed to get the… Ticket to hell…” Gabriel grinned and snickered at his choice of words. No-one else did. “… can always be adjusted retroactively. For instance, You may lower or increase the number of murders You may consider unacceptable to always guarantee the high quality of the souls You get to spend the rest of eternity with. Don’t like beards? Done! No more hairy freaks!”

God nodded approvingly.

“During their lives, two humans who both think of each other as decent, moral and respectable people will be able to cre-”, Gabriel explained before being abruptly interrupted by yet another cough from Azrael. “I mean produce”, he continued. “Produce a smaller human who will grow to full size a bit later and who will have inherited the characteristics of both of his parents”, Gabriel explained with clear excitement in his voice. “This would mean that, in theory at least, humans should only get better and better by each generation.”

God stood up and walked to the board to inspect the plans from a closer distance.

“And how would I do that?” he asked the angels. “I hope you have some ideas on how to modify Adam to make him shit tiny Adams.”

Gabriel revealed the final page of the presentation. “Meet Eve.”