by God
12 I have little control over “it,” but I know “it” when I see “it”; and Moses had “it,” and Aaron did not have “it”;
13 And there thou hast “it.”
14 So, having removed the stems and seeds from the burning bush and stored the remainder in tiny satchels, Moses and Aaron went to Egypt and demanded a meeting with Pharaoh at his earliest possible convenience; to facilitate which I smote all his Thursday appointments.
15 And Moses stood before Pharaoh, terrifying yet mesmerizing to behold; unkempt and savage-eyed, an ankh carved onto his forehead; and he said unto Aaron,
16 “Man, tell this pig there’s like, millions of people out there who are slaves, man, and not just like chains and whips and shit but like mental slaves, slaves to the whole corporo-pyramid-pharaohcracy that’s propped up by this, this fucking fascist courtesy of the little, fuckin’, the little fuckin’ obelisks he’s implanted in all of our brains; and the only solution is to burn it down, man! Burn the whole motherfucker down!!!”
17 And Aaron said, “Let my people go.”
18 But Pharaoh refused, for I had hardened his heart; not that he was Mr. Softie to begin with, but I was planning a full-on godding tour de force, and had no intention of having my agenda ruined by any last-minute acts of human decency.
19 So I decided to give Pharaoh a foretaste of things to come; and here I must quote Exodus 7:10–12:
20 “Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and it became a serpent; then Pharaoh also called his wise men and sorcerers; and they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.”
21 I watched this scene take place; indeed, I caused it; and I swear to thee, Reader, that neither Aaron, nor Moses, nor Pharaoh, nor any of the sorcerers there, had any idea how gay it was.
22 For verily: had they all just gotten naked and made a sodomy train, that still would have been less gay than watching a bunch of serpent-rods eating other serpent-rods.
23 Yet had I pulled any of the men aside and said unto them, “Seest thou any symbolism in this competition amongst thy varying serpent-rods?”, I guarantee thee they would have said, “Not at all; it is no more than a straightforward serpent-rod-swallowing contest; it betokeneth no subtext.”
24 (Sorry; I mean not to wander forty years in the desert of this digression; but as thy Creator it is something that has long been on my mind.
25 Truly, it almost surpasseth my understanding how it took thee 5,000 years to notice the similarity between the cylindrical and the phallic;
26 And that even Freud, the man who first “discovered” this self-evidency, felt obliged to apologize for his finding by noting, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
27 No. No. A cigar is always a penis.)
CHAPTER 4
1The Ten Plagues were an exciting time.
2 I remember the initial wingstorming session I held with my top four angels.
3 “Boys,” I said unto them, “let us create a drumroll-worthy list of the ten most superior methods of afflicting the Egyptians; one that not only unleashes a catalog of despair upon them, but does so in a mirthful way that keeps the pace up.
4 And let us earnestly endeavor to nail this: for if it goes well, I may have another list-of-ten writing gig lined up for thee in the near future.”
5 The ideas percolated; the energy overflowed; Gabriel would put forward a possible plague, which would trigger a pestilential suggestion from Raphael, which in turn would spark the basis of a new unutterable horror from Uriel; thou couldst feel the creativity.
6 All five of us had the same initial instinct: animals.
7 Herds of elephants; packs of wolves; unkindnesses of ravens; killer puppies; millions of land-lobsters scuttling across the desert like unto a giant terror-bisque—believeth me, if it was a living organism characterized by voluntary movement, someone suggested killing Egyptians with it.
8 Verily, we could have made all ten plagues animal-related, and it would have made for a grievously amusing spectacle; but in the end we limited ourselves to four: frogs (icky), gnats (bitey), wild beasts (really bitey), and locusts (faminey).
9 Then Raphael had the notion of killing their preexisting livestock with disease; a cute twist on the animal concept, I thought; we went with it.
10 Then Gabriel said, “This would I bounce off thee: after killing the livestock, what if we sicken their owners with visible signs of their own corruption?”
11 And that moment right there, ladies and gentlemen, was the inspiration . . . for boils.
12 We placed it right after cattle disease; in the center slots, five and six; the cows got dead, then the people got scaly; a great one-two punch.
13 Needless to say, many potential atmospheric and meteorological cataclysms came to our minds, but in the end we chose only two, hail and darkness;
14 For we felt the Egyptians would regard a blizzard as more of a treat than a curse; and as for a deluge of rain, well, I was certainly not going down that road again.
15 And no Decalogue of Despair would be complete without a little of the red stuff; it was Uriel who had the idea of turning all the water into blood, including the Nile; which we ended up using as our opener.
16 It was somewhat engaging, but to be truthful it did not kill; for it did not kill.
17 This made nine plagues, each and every one a worthy addition to the pantheon of woe; yet none seemed to us a worthy “ender.”
18 Then, late one evening, when we were all exhausted; after we had each thrown a myriad of ideas against the wall, to find them sticking not; suddenly Michael, who had heretofore contributed little to the plaguewriting process, arose and said:
19 “Calleth me crazy; but what if we killed every firstborn son in Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, to the firstborn son of the female slave who is at her hand mill; and all the firstborn of the cattle as well?”
20 At which point, the rest of us all thought, “Well, verily, that’s it.
21 That’s number ten, right there.”
CHAPTER 5
1But I did not want the Chosen People to feel left out; for I knew that if they played only a passive part in all the death and destruction, they would feel no sense of ownership.
2 So we conceived a plan whereby the night before the slaying of the Egyptians’ firstborn, the head of each Jewish household would slaughter a baby lamb, and daub its blood on the lintels of their houses, as a sign for me to “pass over” them.
3 This ritual of course became the basis of the sacred eight-day Jewish festival celebrated unto this day, “Lamb-Blood Doorframe Rub-a-palooza.”
4 (We later changed the name to “Passover,” on the advice of Marketing.)
5 So the planning was finished; the preparations were put in place; and before we knew it, it was P-Day.
6 For the most part our strategy was to hew to a basic pattern: Moses would threaten Pharaoh, incoherently; then Aaron would threaten him, coherently; Pharaoh would scoff; Aaron or Moses would stretch forth his hand over Egypt; horror would ensue; thousands would suffer; Pharaoh would relent; Moses would call it off; I would harden Pharaoh’s heart; and on to the next horror.
7 It proved a winning formula; for Pharaoh and his advisers were so dazzled by the array of scourges, they never caught on to the underlying predictability of the threat/scoff/horror/heart-hardening template;
8 And so we were not obliged to vary the rhythm by switching to Plan B, three plagues at once; or Plan C, a nuclear bomb.
9 I was glad we never got to Plan C; it might have felt contrived.
10 I remember the afternoon of the night of the slaying of the firstborn, when both Aaron and Moses addressed the children of Israel.
11 Aaron spoke first, in soothing tones; he told them that tomorrow would be the day of their liberation, and that they should pack their raiment, and fill their bags with food; and above all, that they would not have time to leaven their bread.
12 He dwelled on this issue for a l
ong time, and rightly so; for one of the few commodities the Jews could afford and obtain in decent amounts during their time in captivity was yeast;
13 And as a result, their principal manner of displaying their relative wealth to one another, was overyeasting.
14 Overyeasting was a major part of their lives: families would peek into the windows of one another’s clay hovels, and peer atop their hearths, and comment upon the size of each other’s bread;
15 Or a wife would stop by next door with a fresh-baked “high loaf,” on the pretense of being friendly, but in truth simply to demonstrate to her neighbor, that her husband was rolling in yeast.
16 So Aaron explained I would be adopting a zero-tolerance policy regarding leavening, not even a single slice “for the road”; and that all baked goods leaving Egypt would have to be flat as a board, and taste like drywall.
17 On the positive side, they were free to pack all the other delicacies still eaten at seders today; such as bitter herbs, and sprigs of parsley, and eggs, and triple chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice cream;
18 Which last item everyone forgot, somehow.
19 But the Jews also needed to be told of the “pass over” plan; and on this topic Aaron wisely let Moses do the talking.
20 The great prophet had spent all day covering himself in Nile mud, carving more runes upon his brow, and dropping tabs of hyssop;
21 And now he gathered around him the Jews—whom he had long since begun calling “The Moses Family”—and said unto them,
22 “Dude, the fuckin’ shit’s goin’ down tonight.
23This is what we’ve been waitin’ for; this is what Pharaoh’s been fearin’, man, the reckoning.
24 So if you know what’s good for your family, then each of you take one of your sheep, your precious fuckin’ sheep, and get set to introduce it to Mr. Shinyblade, man; ’cause tonight I charge ye all with mass slaughter; kill the sheep, kill ’em all, and smear their blood over your doorframes, and write ‘Isis Crisis’ with it, too.
25 ’Cause guess what, people? ‘Moses says your little lambs, little lambs, little lambs, Moses says your little lambs all need to fuckin’ die!’”
26 True story: it played even creepier than it reads.
CHAPTER 6
1It is a truth universally acknowledged that the slaying of every firstborn male, boy, and animal can be an effective means of moving a diplomatic imbroglio toward a peaceful resolution.
2 Upon being apprised of the news, Pharaoh proved immediately amenable to the exit strategy proposed by Moses; and by that evening all 600,000 Chosen People—and also their wives and children, who in a sense were also human beings—were walking to the Red Sea along the principal caravan route;
3 Which proved slow going, there being an overturned howdah on the eastbound lane.
4 But I caused the Pharaoh’s heart to harden again, and pursue the slaves he had just freed; and I made him and his army give chase to the shores of the Red Sea, for the reason stated in Exodus 14, twice, in verses 4 and 18: “That the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD.”
5 For I was still not 100 percent sure that the Egyptians knew I was the LORD.
6 Yea, in the span of a week, something had slain their firstborn, destroyed their crops, and filled their graves with children, their rivers with blood, their homes with frogs, their streets with lions, their fields with dead livestock, their skies with darkness, and their faces with carbuncles...
7 But it might have just been a coincidence.
8 A reasonable person could still credibly explain these events as a series of unrelated natural phenomena.
9 So I thought, “But if the Egyptians see me part an entire sea, and watch the Jews cross through it; and then, when they attempt to follow, if I drown their entire army all at once;
10 Then they’ll definitely know I am the LORD.”
11 So we put the plan into action; but a small problem arose when Moses led the Jews to a point on the coast where the sea was wider than I had requested.
12 For he had disobeyed me by detouring through an abandoned desert ranch he knew of; saying he wished to “crash” there, and indoctrinate some of the comelier Chosen into certain arcane rituals of his own invention.
13 His defiance forced me to displace three times the amount of water I had been preparing to; not that I was incapable of doing so—for as thou mayest recall, I am the LORD thy God, King of the Universe—but it did make it more of a hassle for the interns.
14 And the Egyptians approached; and Moses spread his hand out over the waters at sunrise; and I blew the winds all night, until the Sea was parted; and it took the whole of that day for the legions of children of Israel to walk across it into Sinai;
15 Thereby setting the world record for Largest Successful Naval Evacuation from an Anti-Semitic Army, which they held until 1940.
16 Then, just as the last Israelite family (the Zykoriahs) arrived on the opposite shore, the Egyptian vanguard began trekking across what was now the Red Valley; awed by the giant walls of water suspended on either side of them.
17 And those who looked up still further saw a strange and mysterious sight: for halfway between the sand beneath them and the sun above floated in the sky a giant red button; and hovering over this button, descending from heaven, was the tip of a single giant finger.
18 And now comes what was, and remains, a very embarrassing moment for me.
19 Long had the angels and I debated the wittiest and most memorable phrase for me to utter when I pressed that button.
20 Gabriel had pitched, “Hey, Egypt, you’re all washed up!”; a little hack, I felt.
21 Raphael had pitched, “Hey, Egypt, ‘water’ you doing?”; meh.
22 And Uriel had pitched, “Here’s some coverage that’s Pharaoh and balanced!”; a cunning pun, but on a slogan that would not exist for nearly 5,000 years.
23 But Michael had pitched, “Time to turn the Red Sea . . . into the Dead Sea!”, and this I liked immensely; for it had the necessary wit, and punch, and even an internal rhyme.
24 And so I floated among the stars, my anthropomorphized finger inches from the button, awaiting my cue.
25 Yet when the last man in the Egyptian rear guard left the shore and entered the dry sea, and it was time to say the line and press the button, a powerful feeling came over me.
26 It was the same feeling I had felt watching Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac; only devoid of guilt, and multiplied in intensity 200,000 times.
27 I became lost in the moment; thankfully Michael was there once more to nudge me back to duty, but I had lost my focus; and as I hit the button, I said:
28 “Time to turn the Red Sea . . . into the Red Sea!”
29 Time to turn the Red Sea into the Red Sea?!
30 That is a tautology; it made no sense at all; on no level didst it work, not even as a metaphor for blood;
31 For having monitored the subsequent deluge I can tell thee that but for a handful of small lacerations suffered by soldiers hit by onrushing mollusks, all 200,000 people and 100,000 horses died of drowning; there was virtually no blood.
32 I was keenly embarrassed; so much so that I left my mistake out of the Old Testament, and once again was left to ponder an uncomfortable truth about my attitude toward human suffering.
33 Yea; maybe there was something seriously wrong with me.
34 But worse, I had blown the line.
CHAPTER 7
1Imagine driving an enormous, ungainly vehicle through a barren and unfamiliar desert; the air is scorching; the road is unpaved; thy brother is in the passenger seat, staring jealously at the steering wheel;
2 And in the back sit 600,000 children, who do naught but whine incessantly, “I’m thirsty!” and “Are we there yet?” and “The tribe of Napthali is touching me again!”
3 Now imagine this drive is of two-month duration, and thou wilt acquire some sense of what the ensuing 60 days were like for Moses.
4 The people’s first co
mplaint was for water for drinking; I addressed this by having Moses strike his rod against a rock, which split open and gushed forth.
5 The people’s second complaint was for water for washing; I addressed this by having Moses strike his rod against a boulder, which split open and gushed forth into a natural basin.
6 And the people’s third complaint was for water for hydrotherapy; I addressed this by dropping a firehose from heaven and spraying the filthy ingrates at 50,000 pounds per square cubit.
7 Having addressed their water concerns, the people next moved on to grumbling about food; an issue I resolved that night, and every night for 40 years thereafter, by scattering their campground with the miraculous provision known as manna.