"Do you believe in God?" Tatyana Schwarz asked, initiating the conversation with the MWL one afternoon after her mother had deposited her by the ladder to be baby sat.
"Yes I do," replied the MWL.
"You seem very sure," the little girl said. "You didn't take any time at all to think about it"
"I've thought about it a bit before," the MWL replied. "I've heard a number of stories that have convinced me God exists."
"How can stories do that?" Tatyana asked.
"Either you believe stories you hear, or you don't. If you learn to believe, you can believe anything, and believing stories that have the ring of reality to them is an easy thing to do. Its like reading. Do you know how to read?" the MWL asked.
"A little," said Tatyana.
"A little goes a long way. If you learn to read between the lines," the MWL said, "you can read anything in almost any language."
"Could you please tell me a story about God," the child requested.
"Well the story I like best is about the end of the world. I'm not sure that its suitable for a young child."
"I'm not so young," said Tatyana, "I'm five."
Five going on twenty five, thought the MWL. "O.K.," he said, "you're not too young but it may be a little deep for you."
"That's O.K. too," she said. "I'm learning to listen. When you're learning to listen the deeper the things you hear are, the better." The MWL realized why he liked Tatyana Schwartz so much.
"Why do you like this particular story?" she asked, just as he was preparing to tell it.
"Because it shows that God thinks the way I think, which is a sure guarantee that he really exists," said the MWL, and he began the story.
"Once upon a time, the Lord, hearing that the earth he had made had been turned into a dung heap and was corrupted entirely, without relief and without exception...."
Tatanya raised her hand as if she were in school. "Can I ask a question, if its a very short one?" and before getting permission she asked, "what's a dung heap?"
"Its a spiral pile of garbage," the MWL answered, and continued with the story. "God decided to send someone he trusted to check out the state of his creation. He roused Jonah and shoved him, bitching complaining, he corrected himself and moaning, back into the great fish. That's the way Jonah traveled to where he was going, when the Lord sent him scouting. It put him in the proper mood. 'Go to the earth,' God commanded Jonah, 'and see if the wickedness has reached the brim of it yet.'"
" Do you know who Jonah was," asked the MWL who decided on the spur of the moment to play the teacher.
"Sure," Tatyana answered confidently, "God sent him to Nineveh to check things out and he got hung up on a gourd." The MWL was impressed. "Saw it on television," Tatyana informed him.
"Do you go to Sunday school?" the MWL inquired.
"I'm Jewish," Tatyana answered, "we have to figure things out for ourselves or watch television."
The MWL yanked on the thread of his story. "Jonah came back yelling and whooping that it was the pits, and that without a doubt it ought to be torched, but that he didn't want to be around when the Lord scourged it because it would probably flare up like a piece of rotten timber that termites had banqueted on continuously since the third day of creation, and its ashes would most likely stink up the universe for ever."
"So the Lord called an angel whose name was Bill and gave him the order to lay waste to the earth, as a punishment for its inequities."
"The choice of Bill was a poor one. He was only recently dead and he still had an old girl friend alive on earth towards whom he felt some affection. What made things worse, was that the evils for which the earth was being punished were very familiar to him."
"'Spare them Lord,' Bill begged. 'You loved them once, try again. I realize its harder now with computers and Walkmen and television and Cabbage Patch dolls. But you're the Lord,' he pleaded. 'Give it a shot.'"
"And the Lord God made it appear that he was considering the request; but what the infinite mind was really thinking was 'It gives one pause to think that one's fate may be in the hands of an individual whose only virtue is that he remembers the mischief he's done, and can identify with the mischief you are doing now.'"
"Why did God pick the angel Bill?" asked the little girl.
"I don't know," answered the MWL. "If you are going to ask me a lot of questions I don't know the answers to, I never will get to the story I do know," he complained.
"How do I know you don't know the answer before I ask you?" Tatyana inquired innocently."
You know you know I don't know, and I know you know I don't know," answered the MWL.
"But you have some idea," she came back. "You always have some idea."
"Well," he said, recognizing the flattery as a ramp up which more questions would be pushed, but taking it in, nevertheless, "Bill may have been nearest his right hand at the moment, or maybe God wanted to be sure. If you are God and make terrible judgments you always like to be sure. Unflooding a world is a very difficult thing to do even for God, and while he can raise insects from the squished dead, and breathe life back into beached whales, it's a pain in the neck." The MWL continued his story.
"'O.K., O.K.,' said the Lord God. 'I can't stand beseeching in the morning. I won't scourge them. Let me think for a movement.' And after a little while he saw a little light and while it would have been better if it were bigger and brighter it did the job of illuminating the situation. 'O.K.,' he said, making a definitive pronouncement. 'I won't kill them. I will only take away all of their worldly possessions.'
"Like he did with Job," said Tatyana."
"Exactly," replied the MWL.
"'That's a warning shot into the belly if I've ever seen one,' thought Bill, 'but its better than locusts and blood and a bolt of lightning up the kazoo.' So he set off for earth carrying the Lord's message. Before he got to far, he heard the Lord yelling at him, 'Appear to the USA!' God instructed him. 'They're the worst of the bunch. If they don't pass muster, cream the lot.'"
"When the angel Bill went down and communicated the Lord's judgment, a general wail went up. The people of America yelled as one voice. 'Give up our possessions,' they cried. 'Our possessions possess us as much as we possess them. We can no more do without our possessions than we can do without.... They hunted around for a comparison, and as they searched, someone in the back reminded them who they were dealing with and they added, 'the Lord God which is greater, but in the ballpark.'"
"Then the angel Bill came back and told the Lord what had happened and the Lord said, 'They sound like a hopeless lot and I better deal with them myself.'" Then he manifested himself before everybody and said 'Woe unto you and your dogs and your cockroaches and cattle and portable radios and Toyotas. But I am a just God and a merciful God to boot. So hear my judgment. Of your possessions, those that you have made you may keep, the others go down the tube.'"
"Now as soon as they heard this judgement the people of the U.S. of A. wailed to the last toddler."
"And a spokesman came out from the multitude and said, 'Lord, it's not
our fault. We gave up making anything useful, at least anything that we use. None of our possessions have we made, not the television set, nor the Walkmen nor the automobiles nor the camera, nor the....'"
"'Enough,' said the Lord."
"'It's not our fault,' wailed the spokesman for the whole country. 'It's your fault. It's the economy you made, who made everything.'"
"The Lord was miffed but he held his peace. 'O.K., I am a just God and a merciful God, although I must say you are treading very close to where my patience ends and my wrath begins.' And he disappeared to think about it some more."
"He seems to be thinking a lot for God," Tatyana commented out loud. The MWL took it as an extraneous commentary requiring no response and continued.
"'O. K.' the Lord God said, manifesting himself again. 'I have thought it over. If you have made none of your possessions, merciful as I am, I will abandon that condition for your keeping them. So now hear me men of America, and women, and children and Chicanos and Jews and Baptists and Catholics and little inquisitive children' and he enumerated all of the kinds he could recall having made. 'Those of your possessions that you can fix when they break, or those of your possessions you can repair when they wear out, these possessions may you keep as your own. All others will be taken from you and trashed.'"
"A sorrowful lamentation rose up from the multitude. 'Lord,' they wailed, in unison, 'how in the hell are we supposed to be able to fix them. They come from Japan in little boxes. We thought that that was the way you wanted it,' and they gnashed their teeth and banged their Cuisinarts together."
"'O.K., O.K., STOP!'" he commanded, and silence replaced the lamentations. 'Just wait,' he commanded, and disappeared to give the matter some thought. It was a while before he appeared again and the crowd had grown a bit weary and restless and people were shuffling around waiting for the evening news on T.V. to tell them what the hell was really happening."
"'I have thought it over,' said the Lord, so forcefully that the atmosphere was singed. 'It may have been an oversight on my part not to make it clear that people ought to make what they possess, or at least be able to repair it when it breaks. I will relent this far but no farther.' He cleared his throat to make a new pronouncement and the people all assumed humble postures."
"'Of those things you possess that you can tell me what need they serve, those I will say you truly possess and those you may keep. The rest....' He made a destroying fire and pointed to it."
"The whole country stood dumfounded and mute. Then everyone cried out at once. 'But...we don't understand.'"
"'What the hell is so hard to understand, you dense turkeys,' the Lord said. 'Those of your possessions that meet a need I have given you, you keep, the others I burn up.'"
"The people began to whisper to one another and finally a spokesman moved to the front of the multitude and began to speak. 'That seems reasonable enough. I need my car,' he said, as if speaking to a child ignorant of the most fundamental facts of life, 'I need my car in order to get to the racquetball courts, and I have to get to the racquetball courts in order to loose weight and keep in shape because I keep putting on pounds because I eat too many rich foods and work at a desk all day and watch television most of the..., ' and the earth heard the Lord say 'CRAP' and that was the last thing they heard before the earth went up in flames and was utterly consumed.
After the story was finished, Tatanya sat turnings its pages in her mind. "The world's still here," she said soberly, thinking of her favorite doll and the consuming fire."
"Today," said the MWL, "today, but I have it on a substantial rumor that...." At this point he heard a voice say, 'Look what I brought for us.' "Next time," he whispered, "next time."