Let There Be Light... Eventually

If morning had been invented yet, God would have woken up on this particular morning feeling rather chipper. Today was The Day. The big one. The one he’d been planning for all eternity. Summoning his ‘To-do’ list, he glanced at the small sheet and the single item written across the top in neat, block capitals. 

CREATE THE UNIVERSE

He vanished the list and clapped his hands together with a sound akin to what humans would eventually name thunder, rubbing them in anticipation.

“Right”, he announced to no one in particular, and to all of the infinite heavens in general. “Should be a breeze”. 

“Careful, Lord”, said a voice at his shoulder. “Saying stuff like that out loud. Don’t want to jinx it. Murphy’s Law and all that”. 

God rolled his eyes. Why couldn’t His second-in-command just read the room for once.

“Don’t you have some angels to brief or something, Lucifer?”. The archangel shrugged.

“Actually I was rather hoping to watch this, with your permission of course Lord”.

God sighed. “Fine, as long as you don’t get in the way. But for your information, I am not jinxing it. And that’s not what Murphy’s law means… is going to mean anyway. Besides, he’s not been born yet so I don’t think it counts”. He turned away from Lucifer and regarded the Void thoughtfully. 

“Right”, he said again. He cleared his throat. Then…

“Let. There. Be. Light!”, he boomed. If Heaven had had windows, they would have rattled. There was a Pause. Then a longer Pause. At a certain point, a Pause becomes so long that it can no longer be called a Pause and becomes full-blown Wait. And there was decidedly not supposed to be a Wait.

“Nothing’s happening”, said Lucifer unhelpfully. God frowned. He checked His notes. There it was. Light. Step one. Should be easy. He snapped His fingers. Still nothing. The vast emptiness remained empty. 

“Oh, come on!” He muttered. “I invented light. This should be like flipping a switch.”

“Have you tried…”

“Lucifer if you say ‘Turning it off and on again’, I shall smite you, do you hear me!”, thundered The Lord. Lucifer decided that he did have other things to do after all.

After spending most of the rest of the day fumbling with some divine settings, tweaking a few laws of physics (and nearly summoning a black hole by accident), He finally got the light working.

"Perfect. That's what I'm talking about!" He grinned. But then He noticed the glaring brightness filling everything. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, too much light!” He quickly dialed it back, dividing the light from the darkness. “There,” He announced, finally satisfied. “Day and night. Simple.”

The problem was, He’d spent so much time troubleshooting the light, He had to call it a day early. God sighed and summoned his list again. Underneath the original entry he scribbled: Note: Don’t try new things without testing first. Catch up tomorrow.

And thus there was morning, and there was evening. The first day.

The next morning, God was feeling refreshed and ready to make up for lost time. He glanced at the sky, or where the sky should be, and realized... that was His next project. He prepared Himself for another grand proclamation. 

“Let there be a... firmament!” He hesitated. What actually was a firmamament. He scratched His divine beard and muttered, “Why did I use such a fancy word? Just say ‘sky,’ man. Say what you mean.”

“Let there be... a sky!” He tried again.

A gust of wind whooshed past Him, blowing His hair back in that dramatic slow-motion effect only God could pull off. The waters began to part, and a sky formed. Clouds drifted by lazily. Everything looked serene.

God smiled. “Now that’s more like it. Space for the clouds, and water below—perfect.”

Just as He was about to get on with the next bit, He heard a gurgling sound. The water was rising. No, wait—it wasn’t rising. It was just... floating?

"Uh, no, no, no!" God waved His arms wildly. “Stay down there, water! You’re supposed to be under the sky!” But the water had other plans. God groaned, then called in a divine favor from the angelic maintenance crew. A few angels rushed in with divine plungers, pushing the errant water back where it belonged. After a lot of effort and several spilled cups of divine coffee they finally got it all sorted out. Exhausted, God looked at the half-done firmament and sighed. “I’ll fix the leaks tomorrow.”

And there was morning, and there was evening. The second day. 

On Day Three, He was determined to get the land right. Enough of this watery mess. He needed dry ground, plants, the whole shebang. A snap of his fingers later and the earth shook as land began to rise up out of the sea. God nodded his approval.

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s see now, plants”. He prepared to start spreading vegetation across the planet, but once again it was not quite as good as he would have hoped. The land had come up alright, but instead of separate land masses scattered artfully around the globe, there was just one big lump of a continent on one side and it was making the whole creation rather lopsided. 

“Ahhh! No, no, no!” God scrambled to separate the tectonic plates. “This is not what I had in mind!”

Mountains popped up where valleys were supposed to be, and islands drifted away as if they were trying to escape the madness. At one point, Australia almost ended up in the Antarctic, but He caught it just in time. After several hours he finally had everything more or less in place. Panting, God wiped His brow.

“Okay, now... plants.” He gestured, and plants began to sprout—everywhere. Trees, ferns, flowers. Except... they were growing at an alarming rate. Vines shot up into the sky, flowers bloomed so fast it was like a botanical firework show, and there was one particularly aggressive palm tree that was already giving Him side-eye.

“Whoa, slow down!” God yelled, trying to rein in the overzealous foliage.

By the time He got things under control, it was dusk. “Great,” He muttered, eyeing the massive rainforest He hadn’t quite intended to create. “Now I’m behind again.”

And there was morning, and there was evening. The third day.

By this point, God decided he’d had enough of the Earth for the moment. He’d sort out the stars next. Something nice and simple before he got back to the fiddly business of complex organic lifeforms. After all, he’d already nailed light so stars should be a piece of cake.

Taking great handfuls at a time of hydrogen, he began rolling it up into balls and tossing it haphazardly into space. Lucifer came back just as he was finishing off mapping out the Milky Way. 

“Dare I ask how it’s going, Lord?”

“It’s getting there Lucifer, it’s getting there”.

God was frustrated that it was taking so long - this was supposed to have been a quick job - but he was trying to stay positive. He positioned the last hydrogen-ball next to the Earth and produced a match.

“I think you’ll like this bit”, he told the archangel, and with that he stuck the match, held it to the newly-formed ball and with that the Sun came into existence. Sort of. It was there, but it was far too dim. Less grand celestial body, more oversized candle. 

“It’s…um… very pretty”, Lucifer commented.

“Oh, come on,” God groaned. “This is supposed to power an entire solar system, not be mood lighting for a romantic dinner.”

“I’ll leave you to it then, shall I?” Lucifer was already making his exit while, ignoring him, God had grasped the Sun with both hands and squeezed. Hard. The trick to sustainable nuclear fusion, it turns out, is simply having a really fed-up deity to hand. Having bullied the Sun into doing its job, He stared glumly out at the billions of waiting stars. This was going to take a while.

And there was morning, and there was evening. The fourth day.

On the fifth morning of his one-day project, God ached all over. He flexed his fingers, trying to work out some of the stiffness from the previous day. All the same though, he was looking forward to the next bit. The really fun stuff: animals! Fish in the sea, birds in the sky, beasts on the land. He waved His hand over the waters.

“Let there be fish!” And fish there were. Big ones, small ones, shiny ones, weird ones—He had really let His imagination run wild on this one. And they all seemed perfectly happy in the oceans, rivers, and lakes.

“Great!” God beamed. “Finally, something’s going right.” Then He turned His attention to the sky. “Let’s get some birds in the air!” Birds appeared, flapping their wings and chirping. And so it went. All day, God walked the earth and everywhere he went he created animals to populate the region. Except... some of them were a little confused. He watched as a few birds tried to swim in the water, while some fish were somehow... flying?

“Oh, come on,” God said, slapping His forehead. “Fish are fish, birds are birds. Stop trying to switch places!”

He spent the next few hours sorting out the confused animals, teaching fish to stay in the water and encouraging the birds to stick to the skies. By the end of it, He was completely wiped out.

“I should’ve started with squirrels,” He muttered, “those little guys seem like they’d be straightforward.” Feeling very frustrated he decided to have a little fun before yet again, calling it a day. He dreamed up monsters. Vast beasts of the land and sea that no sane deity would ever create for real. Then he made rocks that looked like those creatures and hid them all over the Earth. He chuckled in spite of the week he was having. 

“That’ll give the archaeologists something to think about”.

And there was morning, and there was evening. The fifth day.

The next day was The Day. Again. But for real this time. This was it. The grand finale. He started by forming Man from the dust of the ground. He molded, shaped, sculpted, and, well, made a bit of a mess, but soon enough, there was Adam, standing there, looking slightly confused but otherwise ready to go.

"Hey, that worked!" God said, clapping His hands. "Adam, welcome to... well, everything!"

Adam blinked at Him. "What do I… do with it all?

"Do?" God scratched His head. "I don't know, name some animals, maybe? Look at stuff. I'll get back to you on that."

“And it’s just me?” Asked Adam.

“Oh, right that. One sec.” God put Adam to sleep and when he woke, there was Eve. The first humans has been made.

“Now then you two, listen up because this is important…”

God just gave them the basics to begin with. Ground rules and so on. No point overloading their young minds with everything all at once. Besides it’d be more interesting to let them figure out some things on their own, maybe just give them a prod in the right direction here or there. Relieved that He’d finally completed all his work, God left them to it and went to take a well-earned nap.

And there was morning, and there was evening. The sixth day.

Several days later, the archangel Gabriel skidded to a halt outside God’s office. God looked up from His desk as Gabriel entered. It wasn’t physically possible for an angel to be sick, but he looked ready to make a solid attempt at it anyway. He took a deep, shaky breath and laid out the situation.

“Excuse me?” God rumbled. Thunderclouds brewed around him as he rose from his seat. “Lucifer’s done what!?”