On the Third Day

On the Third Day God created the seas. And the seas covered the entire earth. And it was good. Not exactly one hundred percent good, but okay good.

It was all according to the design specs, but now seeing it in person, after having created the dark and then the light, and the firmament and the earth, and all, it was just… water. And so His shoulders dropped and a frown came over His thin, innocent, boyish face.

The water looked great. Don’t get him wrong. It was clear and blue and He could see his toes all the way down to the bottom of the deepest, deepest part. This was, of course, before He created plastic and the Deep Water Horizon, and sulfates, and pop-tops.

But the design flaw He saw in the immense flat expanse way out to the edge was that the water on one side of the earth was getting way too hot while the other side got so cold that you couldn’t even dip your big toe in it. So He gave the earth a little nudge and it started to spin, and lo and behold the spin made the water mix around and it made currents, like El Niños, and the currents were good.

So, while he was figuring out what to create next, He took to throwing rocks into the water, watching how they plunked in and made the water kind of ripple out in circles. And the ripples were good.

In fact, they were totally cool and he was glad He had created them, and so He dumped in like a ton of really big rocks and, ‘Eureka,” He had made waves, and He said to Himself ‘Eureka.’ This was actually the first time He came up with that word and He would no doubt use it again like when He created Mallomars, and origami, strawberry rhubarb pie and polynomials, and those little helicopter thingies from the trees you can stick on your nose.

‘Eureka!’ he thought. The waves crashed up against the rocks and he kept chucking in more and more rocks and ‘voila!’ the waves got huge and started making groovy sounds He had never heard before and He came up with words like ‘dude’ and ‘epic’ and ‘gnarly’ and ‘totally tubular’ and ‘bikinis’ even.

So while He was grooving to the sound of the waves, He realized He was getting no work done and He knew His father would get on his case about that, and it hit him that He had like only four more days for the whole project, three if you subtracted Sunday, and His father would call him a slacker, like after He had let Mars, or was it Mercury, nearly burn to a crisp like a cinnamon raisin bagel left in the toaster oven too long while you were in the other room watching TV.

And the waves kept crashing and smashing and pulverizing the big rocks until the pieces got so teeny tiny they started making islands sticking up out of the water like dunes and so when you walked on them the sand would get in your sandals and get stuck between your toes and then you would track them into the kitchen and your mother would completely lose it on you about the mess you were making on the floor she had just cleaned and say, ‘you had better clean that up Mister before your father gets home.’

And so God was a little unhappy. He was under a great deal of pressure. The workload was huge. There were scads of proto-galaxies waiting for him.

But then a tiny voice whispered in His ear, ‘Listen God: chill. No biggie, man. This sandy beach thing was awesome; kick back man, you earned it. Sure you’ve got stuff to do but there’s more to life than just work.’

And so God paused. He cleared a place in the sand and sat and watched the huge curling, foam-topped turquoise waves pound against the shore, and smelled the salty air, and saw the weightless mist rise and make clouds and saw how the breezes would blow them around, and how people, when He got around to creating people, could bring their lunches and potato chips and beer in Budweiser coolers and spend an afternoon in the summer and pay someone $25 or some outrageous amount just to park their car in a gravelly lot and they would have to walk up the wooden path just to get to the water and get splinters in their feet, and then the seagulls would come when they weren’t looking and break open the bags of Cheetos and get the sand all over them so they couldn’t chew them anymore without grinding their teeth and spitting them out, and then the greenheads would come and they would have to pack everything up before it rained, and go home and watch TV or mow the lawn or walk the dog or do homework or the laundry before they took a nap on the couch before dinner.

And God saw that it was good. And He was happy and, in a micro-fraction of a milli- milli-God-second, he turned to digging holes and planting gobs of quinoa and acorns, marigolds, and coconuts all over the place.

And there was evening and there was morning, the Third Day.