by Steve LeBel
Too far away for the young god to hear, there was a quiet rustling. Even if he had heard the creatures who made the sound, he would not have seen them. The woods were filled with brushes, shrubs, and tall ferns that obscured the view. And hiding places were plentiful. From many dark and hidden places, tiny eyes watched the young god’s every move. It was not the first time the watchers had followed the boy. They had little fear of discovery as he led them deeper into the wood.
When the path separated, Bernie took the right fork, knowing it led to the stream. This was one of four streams that began at the artesian well in the center of town. Each stream had been designed to circle the town once before eventually reaching the rim of the great plateau and cascading over The Edge. Bernie had discovered a crossing place years ago; a tree had fallen across the stream, and this had become his bridge. The other gods would have laughed at him for calling this a bridge, but it accomplished the same purpose: reaching the other side of the stream.
As he climbed the edge of the fallen tree, he said, “Okay now, let’s be careful. We don’t want to get wet.” Once, his invisible cloud had not understood the precarious nature of balancing high above the rushing current and had decided to lighten the mood by tickling Bernie. That had resulted in wet clothes, angry words, and a long walk home. Since then, no chaotic episodes had intruded on Bernie’s river crossing attempts. But, each time, he made a point of reminding his cloud to be careful.
He’d learned a lot about his cloud over the years. It was easily agitated. Strong emotions of any kind guaranteed chaotic consequences, so Bernie learned to keep his feelings hidden. It was the best way to avoid the unpredictable. Out of habit, Bernie sent gentle, calming thoughts as he balanced on the log that led to the other side of the stream. The cloud rewarded him by confining its attention to the creation of ripple patterns in the water, which were quickly carried away by the current. Neither Bernie nor his cloud noticed the tiny watchers as they crossed the log bridge behind him just moments later.
Strolling down the path leading to the lookout point, Bernie heard the sound of water colliding with the rocky slope as it reached the North Fall. Gentle breezes whispered in high branches. On rare days when the wind blew strong, the whistling rocks added their sound to the falling water. Bernie knew few people had ever heard their music. Patches of blue sky were infrequent in the shady woods. Down below, where no breeze blew, leaves and twigs twirled in a windless dance as the young god passed by.
Strange creatures called out from hidden places. Many, he had never seen up close. Some, glimpsed out of the corner of his eye, vanished when he turned to look. Others, he had never seen at all. If I had my powers here, he thought, I would love to know what they look like.
“We are almost at the lookout,” he said as the shaded woods began yielding to the openness beyond The Edge.
The rocky prominence Bernie called lookout point was a huge flat-topped boulder that extended above and beyond the rocky border that made up The Edge. There was little vegetation that chose to live on the bare rock, although a handful of refugees, and perhaps some indigenous creatures, scrambled from their warm places in the sun when they heard the young god approaching. Bernie climbed the short distance to the top. Although trees blocked any view of The Town, he had a magnificent view of the wilderness that began at the steep slope that led down the side of the plateau. Other places along The Edge were less steep, and, in many places, it was possible to walk down the slope to the unknown country, although, of course, no one ever did.
Bernie had an outstanding view. He could see all the way to the horizon. The wilderness below was thicker and more overgrown than the woods. The colors of the indigenous life forms seemed drabber and less interesting than the life created by the gods. But, that was mere speculation, since no gods had ever explored the unknown territory below. In the distance, Bernie could see lakes and large ponds, and always, there was the mysterious blue mountain barely visible against the horizon. He had spent many hours on this very rock, wondering about that mountain.
“Someday, we’re going exploring,” he said. Bernie smiled as he felt invisible hands press on his chest, holding him back. “Don’t worry. Not anytime soon.” Here, in the woods, he was at ease with his cloud. This was a safe place, and the cloud did little to embarrass him here.
Had there ever been a time before when Bernie had felt so relaxed or so content? The young god smiled as he thought of everything he had accomplished. Graduating as a builder was the highest achievement possible. And he was a good builder, too. Not as good as his dad, maybe, but then, who was?
“Did you think we would make it? There were lots of times when I wasn’t so sure.” He suppressed the temptation to point out that most of those times were directly attributable to the cloud. “They threw everything they could at us. We can build suns, planets, moons, and everything in between. And we’re not half-bad with life forms, either. We passed it all. We are builders!
“Mom is so proud of us,” he said, savoring the feeling. Then, unbidden, his thoughts turned to his father. “I wonder if Dad even knows I’ve graduated. Do you think he would be proud of me?” There was no answer. There was never any answer.
Bernie sighed.
His gloomy thoughts turned into a chuckle when he felt something patting him on the head. “Yes, I know. We did great. All we can do now is wait for the interview. Suzie said it can take a few days because they look at your file and talk to your teachers before they even call you in.”
After working so hard for so long, it was a true pleasure to just relax. No classes, no homework, no extra-credit assignments, no part time jobs. It was the closest Bernie had ever had to a vacation. As the shadows lengthened and the day drew to a close, Bernie felt at peace.
* * *
As the young god made his way back through the woods, the tiny eyes watched him. Stealthy and careful, nothing betrayed their presence as they followed the boy all the way back home.
Personnel Department
It was a busy month for Ezrah. This was the time of year when they hired the young gods who graduated with degrees in universe building. He’d worked his way through the list of applicants, and still had five more students to interview.
Suzie stepped into his office, pot in hand. “More coffee?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“I filed all the evaluation forms that came in.” She poured fresh coffee into his cup. “I flagged the ones I thought you would want to review. I also made a list of the supervisors who are late with their evaluations this month so we can follow up.”
“Thanks, Suzie. You’re doing a great job.”
Ezrah smiled when he saw how his compliment affected Suzie’s godly shimmer. The outer edge of her aura broke out in tiny gold sparkles. This time of year, he was so busy he always fell behind. She was making him look good.
“Is there anything else I can do?”
“I’m all set for now. Thanks.”
Ezrah picked up the remaining stack of applications. As the Director of Personnel for The Business, he decided whom to hire for the most coveted job in The World. The school had forwarded records and transcripts for all the new builders from its most recent graduating class. So far, he’d hired everyone he’d interviewed, as he did almost every year.
Ezrah took his responsibility seriously. He knew there were times when an applicant looked good on paper, but he could tell things wouldn’t work out. Usually, the rejects were found among the students last to apply, which was the group he was looking at now.
He picked up the next file and paged through years of transcripts, teacher comments, and parent-teacher conference notes. Ezrah enjoyed looking at the files. Each file was a complete record of the candidate’s school experience from elementary school all the way through graduation. This young god, Bernie, looked about average. As usual, Ezrah skipped the first half of the file—he wasn’t concerned with the early years. Bernie had mostly B’s with a few C’s, which wasn’t bad. He flunked Ad
vanced Quantum Mechanics 307, but repeated it and got a solid B. His performance in his lab classes had been poor and his teachers suggested a need for better planning and preparation. His performance improved as he got older. There was one class where he had a D+, and that was Creation Ethics 200. His teacher said Bernie understood the material well enough, but he refused to accept it. Hmm, thought Ezrah, problems with authority? The thick file showed just one extracurricular activity, the Off World Technology (OWT) group, a bunch of geeky kids who swapped technology from other worlds. The file included Bernie’s placement in co-op jobs over the years, including summer jobs. His supervisors gave him good reports. That was a plus. It shows the kid is willing to work.
Ezrah made a list of people to talk with and questions to ask. To make sure he understood Bernie’s early weaknesses, he started with Caleb, one of the boy’s elementary school creation lab instructors. He added Gabriel, the creation ethics instructor who had written the long note about Bernie’s ethics problems. He paged through the file looking for the name of Bernie’s last co-op supervisor. When he found it, he added Peter to his list. He smiled as he noticed Beatrice’s name on several classes. He always enjoyed an excuse to talk to her, so he added her name to the list. Something was missing.
Oh, I think this is the kid Suzie told me about. I should talk with her too.
Caleb’s Story
With his list in hand, Ezrah walked across Central Plaza to The School. He’d start with Caleb, the elementary lab instructor, although he wondered if the man would remember Bernie.
“Of course I remember him.” Caleb broke into laughter. “Bernie gave me the best laugh I’ve had in centuries. Not just me, either. He made quite a reputation for himself.”
“What happened?” Ezrah found himself smiling at Caleb’s infectious laughter.
“I gave the kids a basic sun-planet-moon project—nothing tricky at all,” Caleb explained. “The lab manual called for a yellow sun, a rock planet with atmosphere and hydrosphere, and a moon. Just the basics, you know.”
“No kits?”
“No, they had to make everything from scratch. But Bernie didn’t read the manual before he came to class. That was his first mistake,” Caleb said. “By the way, have you met Wanda?”
“Yes. I certainly have.” Ezrah recalled the young goddess with a perfect straight-A record and glowing reports from her teachers. “She was the first person I hired this year. A very impressive young lady.”
“That’s true, although her skills didn’t make her popular with the other kids. They usually kept one eye on what she was doing as they worked on their own stuff. Bernie was no exception.
“Well, Bernie jumped right in and made a red sun. It was supposed to be yellow, but since he hadn’t read the manual, he missed that. When he noticed everyone else making yellow suns, he started reading the manual. By the time he finished, half the class was over. That’s when he went into overdrive.
“I think he decided to keep it red because he didn’t have time to do it over. To make up for points he would lose on sun color, he figured he would go for a really big planet—twice what the specs called for. He got the planet revolving around the sun, and he made an ocean covering half the surface. His planet started out okay.
“But there was a problem. As soon as the oceans rotated to the dark side of the planet, they froze. And when the oceans rotated back to the light side, it took most of the day before they thawed out.” Caleb was grinning.
“I assume that was because of the cooler red sun.”
“Exactly. Bernie tried to fix it by spinning the planet faster so the ocean wouldn’t have time to freeze on the night side. Unfortunately, Bernie hadn’t thought about the centrifugal forces involved. The faster spin caused the oceans to slide toward the equator with such force, it threw a stream of water vapor into the atmosphere, where it escaped from the planet’s gravitational field.”
Ezrah laughed. He visualized the planet zipping along through space, spinning like a drunken top, while dragging a long vapor tail behind it.
“Bernie was worried. He feared the escaping water vapor would cause his planet to be reclassified as a comet since it now had a tail, so he slowed the rotation down until the water was no longer achieving escape velocity. Fortunately for Bernie, there was still water left on the planet.
“He still needed a way to keep the dark side of the planet warm so it wouldn’t freeze. Do you know what he asked me?” Caleb’s eyes twinkled.
“Not a clue.”
“He wanted to know if it was okay to have two suns. He had the bright idea to put his planet between two suns and have the planet spin in place. That would keep both sides of the planet warm, solving his frozen ocean problem. I reminded him his planet had to revolve around the sun, so that wouldn’t work. He was very disappointed.
“Finally, he moved his planet closer to the sun, which solved the problem. That was when he looked over to see what Wanda was doing. She had finished her project and decided to add two extra moons just to show off.
“Bernie decided to try the same thing. Maybe he wanted to make up for the points he would lose for the red sun or maybe he was trying to compete with Wanda. Or maybe he never finished reading the manual and really thought he was supposed to have three moons. Who knows?
“Bernie was running out of time, but he rushed ahead anyway. He decided two of his moons would circle the third moon instead of the planet. He made a large moon and got it into a good orbit. Then he put the two smaller moons in orbit around the big moon. And, in a clear play for extra credit, he made them circle the moon in a vertical orbit instead of the traditional horizontal orbit. Now, that would have given him a passing grade, except for one problem. He needed to verify orbital stability.” Caleb struggled to keep a straight face.
“He pushed into the future to see how the orbits looked, but found the second moon had crashed into the first and pieces of both had smashed into the planet, definitely a failing grade. He pulled back to the present time and tried a do-over by adjusting the orbits. But every time he did a future check, he found the planet in ruins.”
“How far in the future do they have to verify a stable orbit?”
Caleb’s eyes twinkled again as he said, “We usually tell the kids their solar system has to be stable long enough to give any advanced life forms a fighting chance to evolve, invent space travel, and escape to a safer planet.”
Ezrah laughed, and Caleb laughed with him.
“It finally dawned on Bernie his fancy moons were a problem. That is when he decided any passing grade was more important than outdoing Wanda. So he grabbed all three moons, mashed them together into one large moon, and put it into orbit. He did a future check, and the orbit was stable.
“Relief was all over his face until he noticed a two-thousand foot tidal wave racing around the equator.” Caleb could barely tell the story because he was laughing so hard.
“I assume that was because the moon was so big and heavy.”
“Yep. Now, most of us would know to make the moon smaller or lighter or move it farther away from the planet so the gravitational forces wouldn’t be so strong. Bernie was so frazzled he didn’t think it through.
“Instead, he squished the planet. He thought if he squished it, the oceans would be forced away from the equator and closer to the poles. All he accomplished, of course, was to subject his oceans to even greater centrifugal forces, which increased the depth of the oceans and the height of the tidal wave.” Tears of laugher rolled down Caleb’s cheeks.
“The saddest part came next. I saw Bernie’s face the moment he figured out what to do. He was going to move his moon farther away, which would have solved the problem. But, that’s when I had to tell everyone their time was up. Poor Bernie. So close and yet so far.”
“That’s funny. I wish I’d seen it.”
“You can,” exclaimed Caleb. “His universe is one of few I’ve saved over the years.” He brought Ezrah to a viewing window hanging on the wall
.
As Ezrah gazed into the window, he saw a large red sun; around that sun rotated a sad little planet. The planet, instead of being round, looked squished, just as Caleb had described. Its oceans were concentrated around the equator where two massive tidal waves, one on each side of the planet, were dragged around the world by a gigantic moon. It looked like a fat little world trying to swing a Hula-hoop ocean around its middle.
Ezrah saw every detail of Caleb’s story written on the planet. Even the moon looked like a lump of clay with two smaller lumps squished into it. They both laughed some more.
“I must admit I feel badly about one thing, though,” Caleb said as his laughter subsided.
“What’s that?”
“I told the other teachers about Bernie’s universe. We got such a kick out of it, we put it in the school’s Alumni Newsletter. Unfortunately, it got back to the kids at school, and Bernie took a lot of abuse from his classmates over it. I heard kids making up expressions like ‘Don’t Bernie it.’ or ‘What a Bernard!’ I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“Just one more question for you, Caleb. Would you recommend Bernie for a builder job with The Business?”
“Sure, I’d probably hire him. I’d keep an eye on a couple of things, though.”
“What?”
“First, make sure he reads the manual before he tries to do anything.”
“Okay. What’s the second thing?”
“Don’t let him sit next to Wanda.”
The Waiting Continues
The young god closed the door to his home and turned toward the woods. The tiny eyes noticed him right away. For years, they had watched him leave in the morning and not come back until night. Three or four times a week, he had found time to walk with them in the woods. Well, not really… He didn’t know they were there, but they walked with him nonetheless.