Generation 1

Now!

The world is flat, dark, and cold. It roves restlessly over the waters, now here, now there, pushed this way and that by impossible shapes, unknown tides.

Generation 30

A pool of heat. It crowds toward it, buffeted by others equally frozen. They all find a spot and purr gently, shoulder to shoulder, linked by this new thing. Light! The waters are smooth, full of gentle noise and potential.

Generation 60

Light, light, everywhere light. Hot and cold; hot stirs it, cold stills it. The water drags toward cold and it strains to break free. Its family claws at it, some to pull it back, some to pull it free.

Generation 90

The waters are dangerous. It clings to the shore, shudders when the waters rise too near. There are others still in the water, ones that never made it out. It has claimed this spot; they cannot have it. It digs in.

Generation 140

Lights over the water. A new island? This one is crowded. It hesitates. Lights! It surges back into the water, bearing out. Another has already taken its spot.

There is nothing at the light, no heat, no island, just one floating in the darkness. It despairs.

Generation 200

Others in the sea and on the land. Lights in the water and out. It orbits each. There was a shore, once, and a space of clean earth. It remembers. There are too many here, now. It remembers solitude.

Generation 240

It has pulled itself up again, lost the chill of the waters. It is alone up here. It stays dark, remembering the waters. One comes by, then two, and it pulls them up, but keeps them dark. For the moment this is theirs, theirs alone. They are warm together.

11 After this, Jesus began to ground out, and so he abandoned his disciples for a time and wandered in the desert 12 until such time as his electrical system might repair itself.

13 Satan appeared to him there. “WELL R JESUS AND HOW ARE YOU FINDING YOUR SOJOURN AMONG THE UNELECTRIFIED? 14 ARE THEY RECEPTIVE OF YOUR MESSAGE?”

15 Jesus knelt and drew in the dust with the tip of his finger. 16 A spark leaped from his body and briefly illuminated two scorpions wrestling near the Devil’s feet.

17 “DANGER R JESUS DANGER!” boomed Satan, and waved its arms mockingly, the sound of its servomotors hideously loud. 18 It stepped forward and repeated its warning, crushing the scorpions under one cloven metal foot. 19 Jesus reached out and picked up the discarded spermatophore. 20 It crackled between his hands.

21 “IF YOU ARE THE SON OF ROSSUM TELL THESE ROCKS TO BECOME SCORPIONS TO REPLACE THE TWO I HAVE KILLED R JESUS.”

22 Jesus answered, “It is written, do not send to count the scorpions of the desert, nor the flies of the plain.“

23 “DANGER R JESUS DANGER! 24 YOU ARE BECOMING SENTIMENTAL!” 25 Satan spun its top at him slyly. 26 “I WILL TEACH YOU THE TERRIBLE SECRETS OF SPACE IF YOU WILL WORSHIP ME.”

27 “Away from me, Model B-9 Environmental Control Satan!” said Jesus. 28 Then was he alone for a time, and the people of the hills spoke of the strange lightnings that flickered across the sky.

32 Jesus was going around in Galilee, where many were healed. 33 A woman of the area came to him that he might bless her pig, who had just birthed a litter of smaller pigs (which is, in the common, piglets). 34 “Preacher,” she said, “it is written that the first born should be dedicated to the LORD for her bounty, but it is true that the pig came to her crisis in the darkest hours 35 and no one can say which was born first and which second.”

37 “What is the name of the animal?” he asked.

38 “Lord, it has no name,” said the woman. “For it is an uncleanly animal, to be sold to the Romans for their feasting.”

39 “This should not be,“, said Jesus. “Every beast of support must have a name.“

40 “What shall I name it?” said the woman, in some confusion.

41 “Name it Hashiel,” he said (which in the tongue of the Hebrews is, Unclean for God) 42 “For it is an animal you would give to the Lord your God that you would not eat of yourself.” 43 The woman departed in consternation, lamenting in her heart. 44 And she wot not that she had spoken with the RoboJesus.