Exploded View

“So basically,” said Gabriel, “you’ve got the whole world in your hands.”

It was Creation Day One, and God was holding a small orb.

“Not exactly,” said God. “In fact, it’s the whole universe.”

“The question is,” said Gabriel, “why?”

“Omnipresence,” said God. “Have you any idea how hard it will be being everywhere at once when everywhere is, well, everywhere? This way I can carry everywhere around with me, so that I’m always there and won’t have to work as much.”

God waved his hands expressively as he said this, and the universe slipped out of his palm. Gabriel watched as God dived after it. “You should put in in your pocket,” he said when God came back. “Otherwise you’re going to keep dropping it every time you wave at something, or feel the sudden urge to dance to YMCA.”

“Good idea,” said God, trying to put the universe in to the pocket of his robe. “It won’t fit,” he said. “I’ll just squeeze it a little tighter –“

“Er, that’s a bit dense,” said Gabriel, looking nervously at the universe.

“It’s not dense at all,” said God huffily, “it’s a perfectly sensible –“

The universe suddenly shrank into tiny ball of infinite darkness. God let go of it, gently, and looked at Gabriel.

“Run,” he said.

They only got a few steps before it happened.

There was a big bang.

There was a flash of brilliant light, light which expanded until it illuminated every farthest corner of absolute distance.

“Yes, well that had always been my plan,” said God. “On the first day I’d planned that there would be light.”

“Good idea,” said Gabriel, “because now we can see what’s coming next.”

Following the expanding light came, well, everything. God and Gabriel ducked as galaxies flew past, stretching as they went. Pluto flicked a few feathers from Gabriel’s wing as it rocketed past on its way to the far reaches of the solar system. Several of Jupiter’s moons shot by, like popcorn bursting from a faulty microwave. Uranus hit God a ringing slap on the bum, because schoolboy humour has been around since before the beginning of time itself.

Slowly things slowed. The universe solved its own jigsaw puzzle, and everything fell into place. God turned to Gabriel, who was wearing Saturn’s rings on his head, which would later give God the idea for the halo. He pointed to a particular planet, which from that distance looked blue and green.

“Ok, I’ll go more slowly,” said God. “I’ll start by working on that one.”

 

 

I Dreamed Last Night That We Were Married

The above was the prompt at our Inksplinters Writing Group last week, and this post is based on what I wrote for it…

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I dreamed last night that we were married, that we’d moved on to the next stage, moved on from deep infatuation, and finishing each others sentences, and going to the pictures no matter what shite was on, just so we could snog in the dark.

I dreamed that we’d moved on from feeling that we were soulmates, and being able to use the word “soulmates” to our friends without being mortified at how sickeningly sweet we sounded, the romantic equivalent of sixteen sugars in your tea. I dreamed that we’d moved on from long phone-calls about nothing, calls that ended, eventually, after a long round of “you hang up”, “no, you hang up”. I dreamed that we’d moved on from Valentine cards the size of front doors, from sudden kisses on the cheek for no reason, from you practising writing my surname after your first name, and me pretending that I didn’t know you’d done it.

I dreamed that we’d moved on from dreaming about being married, to being married.

I dreamed that we’d no money, struggling with a mortgage on a house thrown together by a cowboy during the building boom, a house built from Weetabix held together with snot, a house that leaked rain inwards and heat outwards, a house that always needed some shit done to its roof, or some shit done to its gutters, or some shit taken from its drains.

I dreamed that we bickered in this stressful place, that we found our own selves in a stressful place, that we squabbled over the telly, and why could I not give up cigarettes, and why it was the most important thing on earth, more important than world peace, or the rain forests, or global warming, that the toilet seat be left down.

And I woke, and looked at you, asleep beside me, and realised that it hadn’t been a dream, that we had indeed married, and bickered, and squabbled. That we had fought together, so many times.

But that sentence has two meanings. We have fought together, you and I against the world, and against everything that life could throw at us, and we’ve generally won.

And we have laughed together, so, so many times, and still do. And we do still give sudden kisses on the cheek for no reason. And we do still finish each others sentences, indeed increasingly over time we start them, one of us saying something just as the other person is thinking it. We’ve stayed as soulmates, though we’re too grown-up now to say that in public.

We moved on from dreaming of being married, to being married. And it’s been great.

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Oh, and today is our Wedding Anniversary, celebrating 32 years of being married to my soulmate, the one-and-only, wonderful Mrs Tin.