A Flick of the Switch

The Creator had been away on a brief two millennium inspection of other worlds He’d created. When He returned to see what was happening on the sweetest little pebble He’d ever made, He wasn’t happy. He called Christopher, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes and one of His most trusted advisors for an explanation but mostly, all He wanted to do was vent.

    “Okay Chris, what happened this time?”

    “Where do I start? Everything just went to hell in a hand basket.”

    “We’ve tried earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, 40 days of rain, droughts, plagues and pestillants, you name it, we've done it. And what do they do?  They put oil leaks in my seas, cut down half my trees, poison all the beautiful air I gave them and make a hole in my sky! Can you believe that? That’s MY sky and they put a freakin’ hole in it! Oh god, what am I going to do with them?”

Saint Christopher knew, whenever the Creator talked about Himself in the third person, He was seriously angry.

    “You know me. I' m all about lost causes and I’ve never seen one as lost as this.” The Creator threw up His arms in frustration.

“Screw it. Get the rock and let's be done with it. We'll start over.”

    “Sorry man, I knew how much that little pebble meant to you.”

The Creator turned melancholy and took a trip down memory lane.

    “Chris, when it comes to creating worlds, location is everything, A little to the left, all you get is a dead rock, to the right, nothing but a ball of gas. Bingo, I found just the right spot and went to work. I thought it’d be cool to have a world that was just water. You know, a place to go swimming, fishing and maybe do a little sailing on weekends. Then I turned on the lights. Wow. It was beautiful and I thought maybe there should be a little land here and there with things growing on it, so I did.”

   “Then you made the living things.”

   “I should’ve stuck with the birds and the bees and let it go at that.”

   “I don’t know, those emu’s are pretty cute.”

   “But did I? Noooo. High and mighty me had to go ahead and make people! And not just any people. They had to be in my image!”

   “Hey, we all make mistakes.”

   “I’m not supposed to make mistakes! Remember?”

   “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”

   “Anyway, let that be a lesson to you Chris. Never let your ego do your thinking for you. Anyway, give Orion the rock. He’s got a good aim.”

   “You know boss, there’s one thing we haven’t tried that just might get them to see the light.”

   “Something better than the Dark Ages? That turned out to be nothing but a big waste of a plague.”

   “This is Aurora’s idea.”

The Creators eyes brightened at the mention of the name of one of His favorite archangels, “Ah, Aurora of the Borealis, the Patron Saint of Color. How’s she doing these days?”

   “She spends most of her time in the studio but she’s hanging in there.”

   “So, what’s her idea?”

   “Flick the switch.”

   “Switch? What switch?”

   “Remember the switch you used to turn on the light?”

   “Yeah.”

   “Well, after you were done with it, she modified it so it can turn off all the color.”

   The Creator was impressed, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

    “I wish you wouldn’t say that.”

    “That little minx, she’s really something. Turn off all the color?  Hm, I like it. Shutting down the brilliance is a brilliant idea.”

    “It's either that or an idea from the new guy.”

    “New guy?”

    “Saint Steven of Jobs, Patron Saint of Technology his idea was to shut down the Internet and destroy the cell phone towers.”

The Creator scoffed.

    “Ha! Ha! We might as well just throw the rock!  Can you imagine what would happen if we took away their cell phones!?”

    “Ha! Ha! Not to mention their artificial intelligence!”

    “Ha! Ha! Ha! It’s the only intelligence they got! Ha! Ha!”

After sharing a good laugh, the Creator gave the order.

   “Okay Chris, tell Aurora she’s got my blessing.”

   “She loves it when you give her one of those.”

   “Just flick the switch. Great idea. Serves ‘em right for putting a hole in my sky.”

Aurora knew the Creator well. She worked side-by-side with Him when He made the little pebble. The colors of the sky, seas, trees, leaves, fruits and things they called flowers were all on her. The spotted coat of the leopard, bright feathers of the macaw and multi-hue of the angel fish scale all came from her personal fashion catalog. On the seventh day, the Creator looked down and shed tears of joy at the beautiful job Aurora had done. Aurora weaved a hand over the took the blessed tears and blended them with rays from the sun to give the Creator a gift that remained in His heart for eternity, a rainbow. 

Even with the Creator’s blessing, Aurora wasn’t looking forward to executing what was her idea in the first place. But she knew He had become so fed up with them He’d opt to throw the rock. If He did, all the color would go anyway but the rock would obliterate the pebble would be gone forever and any chance for color to one day return would be gone. Besides, now there was no choice. The Creator had spoken.

For the people of the pebble, it was just another day of fighting, cursing, lying, broken promises, killing and adultery. The rules He had carved in stone didn’t matter anymore. Greed, arrogance and power were the new rules of the day. Even the saint who lived down below wanted nothing to do with this flock. He offered to throw the rock himself. In the middle of the routinely chaotic day, Aurora of the Borealis flicked the switch hidden deep in her soul. 

The sun turned pale white, the sky around it a shade of gray. Everything on earth and all things around it that possessed color lost it. The people, who literally couldn’t believe their eyes, lost it too. What happened? Where did all the color go? It didn’t take long for the usual fears and suspicions to take hold. Hundreds of millions rushed to churches, temples, mosques and other sacred places to pray for forgiveness. They begged their Gods to bring back the color. But this time the Creator wasn’t buying it. He’d forgiven them before and every time they had broken their word.

   “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a hundred and forty-seven billion times, screw you!”

Earth scientists attributed the sudden colorlessness to a change in the atmosphere. Certain rays from the sun had been blocked or altered which made it impossible for the human optic nerve to delineate colors of any kind. But it no one cared science said anymore. The people didn’t just doubt science they denied it as a form of witchcraft or more academic mumbo-jumbo. They turned to the one sure thing they knew they could trust; their distrust of each other.

   “It’s the Jews! The Jews did it with a satellite and a color sucking ray!"

   “No! The Arabs! The damn Arabs!”

   “It was the Deep State! They’ve hidden it under the Pentagon so only rich people can see it!”

   “The Haitians ate it! They ate all the color!”

The leader of the mightiest pebble nation parlayed the crisis to his advantage.

   “Listen to me! I’m the only man who can bring the color back! I’m working on a plan, a beautiful plan. It may be the greatest plan of all plans anyone ever planned on planning. Everyone loves a good plan. I love plans. ‘Plan’ is my favorite word. It’s probably the best word of all the words. Give me four more years and I’ll give you a plan.” Tens of millions believed him and tens of millions didn’t including a popular podcaster with mad eyes that went in all directions. His was a face only a mother (who loved evil faces) could love.

   “Let me tell you what’s happened people. A secret international cartel of billionaire ophthalmologists has stolen all the color and hidden it in a complex network of caves and underground tunnels somewhere in the mountains, most likely the Urals, Alps and Himalayas. When they’re ready, they intend to open up a chain of what Color Corner Stores. They’ll be like gas stations selling color by the gallon at a pump. They’re the OPEC of color! They’ll control it all!”

Billions accepted this as the explanation that made the most sense. A multi-national task force was formed to search for the hidden caches of color hidden in the mountains. The search resulted in disagreement and confrontation. The Russians controlled most of the Urals and if the color was hidden there, they wanted it. As far as the Chinese were concerned, the Himalayas and everything on them or in them was theirs. This came as no surprise. As far as the Chinese were concerned, everything was theirs. The Alpine Region consisted of seven different nations. Led by the Swiss each demanded a piece of the action. This caused many to suspect the Swiss as being involved in the theft. They had plenty of vaults where colors could be hidden.

Heated regional conflicts started popping up all over the place which led to a great war which historians would call, World War Hue. Since every nation had a stake in wanting color and none trusted the other, it was every country for itself. The smaller, poorer and hungrier ones were first to go. From the bottom up, nations with lesser resources to defend themselves were destroyed. Billions died. The only safe place from attack were the mountains where the color was believed to be hiding, and they didn’t have to be the Urals or Alps or Himalayas. The podcaster wasn’t ‘sure’ these ‘specific’ ranges were the hiding places. For all he and everyone else knew, the color cartel might’ve hidden yellow in the Rockies, green in the Andes and blue on Mount Olympus. The higher the altitude the safer, so the hoards headed for the hills.

Finally, the fighting stopped. Not because of any treaties or agreements. The barrels of the all the canons had shattered, there was no fuel for the tanks and planes and no powder for the rifles. From time to time someone found a bullet to fire or grenade to hurl but the days of inflicting mass genocide were over and still, there was no color.

The Creator, with saints Christopher and Aurora by his side, looked down in sadness at what was left. To Him, it was a tragic end but not unexpected result. There simply was no way to save these people from destroying themselves. The Creator felt he had no choice but to finish the job.

    “I guess that’s that, Get the rock. Let's put our little pebble out of its misery."  

Aurora raised a hand.

     “No, wait!”

The Creator sighed.

    “Aw come on Aurora, give it up. We’ll make another world and you can start from scratch. Color it up anyway you like.”

    “But Father, the idea wasn’t to just flick the switch off.”

    “It wasn’t?”

    “The idea was to flick it on again, one last time, before we throw the rock.”

The Creator turned to St. Christopher.

    “Whatta you think Chris?”

    “You know me. I’m a sucker for loss causes. What the hell, it can’t hurt.”

The Creator shrugged His broad heavenly shoulders and nodded to Aurora.

    “Okay, go ahead. But if I hear one complaint from any of them, I swear, one itty-bitty piss or moan, I’ll throw the rock myself and no one’s going to talk me out of it!”

    “Thank you Father. This will only take a second.”

    “A second? What’s that?”

Saint Aurora closed her eyes and flicked the switch in her soul to undo what she'd done.

Down on the pebble the pale white sun became a shining golden nugget. The skies turned a shade of blue as blue as a Caribbean Sea. The blossoms on what flowers were left, blazed in reds, yellows, purples and pinks. Then, came the green, the richest, most glorious green ever seen.  What was left of the people came out of their caves and crude shelters they’d built to try to hold on to some semblance of community. When they saw that the color had returned, they fell to their knees and gave praise. Not only was all the color back, all the hates and fears and suspicions and reasons they made up to distrust their fellow man, were gone. The podcaster was gone. The man who made promises he knew he couldn’t keep, was gone. All the lines and religions and political parties and ideologies that divided them were gone. All the things that caused them to distrust thy neighbor in defiance of the stone carved rule were gone. The people sang and lifted their eyes to the heavens and gave thanks. Did they know for a fact that someone or something up there was listening? No. What they did know, and feel was a thing inside themselves that was listening. It told them they needed each other and had to take care of each other and the colorful little pebble they all shared as a home.

As moving as it was, the Creator had seen this scene before, many times. They did this after He parted a sea to set them free. They did this when His only begotten Son spoke on the mount and later died on a cross and came back. When they overcame an axis determined to rule the world through torture, when they amassed at a wall that once separated good from evil and watched it come down, when they walked on the moon and when a dark man stood before them to share a dream, he had of a day they'd be one. The over and over failure of the people to stand by their word, He thought had hardened him. But it hadn't. The Creator knew it was foolish of him to think it could. He knew the only thing in the universe more powerful than His will was the power of forgiveness that drove Him.

    “Aw what the heck, we’ll give ‘em a break but it better stick this time. Because I swear on everything, I hold holy, if something like this happens again…”

    “I know, I know…” Chris interrupted, “…the rock.”

The Creator blushed bashfully, knowing the saints knew, He would never throw the rock, "Yeah, uh, the rock, right."

Having vented His final vent, the Creator looked down once more. His eye caught a glimpse of a small boy sitting on a stump among the dancing masses. The boy wasn’t singing or praising or cheering or engaged in any manner of celebration.

   “What’s the matter with that kid?”

Aurora gave the Creator a knowing side-eye glance, then smiled.

   “Just watch.”

Throughout all the battles and bloodshed, the boy had kept a small box containing sticks of wax. It was the only thing that allowed him to hold onto to a hope that somewhere, somehow things would one day be right again. He held the box up to the sun. A single sliver of sunbeam struck it. When it did, the color of the box was restored as well as all the colors of the wax sticks it held. The word ‘crayons’ caused the boy to smile but only for an instant. He then buried his face in his hands and cried great tears of joy.

The Creator could no longer contain the true and infinite love he held for these beings and he too wept. Aurora watched His sweet tears fall down upon the earth and, as they did, she waved a hand over them. The people stood in awe at the sight of a rainbow bigger and brighter than even the first rainbow that appeared over the pebble on its first seventh day.

Looking at the rainbow and all the colors gave the people a taste of something most of them had never so much as sampled, the sweet flavor of a faith. Not so much a faith and belief in a Creator, but a faith and belief in each other. They knew now that the most beautiful colors weren't the ones on the outside, the ones they could see. They were the ones on the inside, the ones they could only feel. The people searched their hearts and souls and found their personal inner rainbows. Without saying a word, they made a promise to each other to never allow the colors of love, forgiveness and tolerance to fade from the little pebble ever again. And this time, the promise would be for keeps.