A Sad Day in Heaven

by David Solway (April 2016)

The Lord said

let there be night

let there be darkness over the face of the earth

without stars or moon to illumine the pathways,

let the waters of the Heavens remain undivided

and descend in curtains and shrouds over all My creatures,

and it happened as the Lord commanded.

But then the Lord said

I was only joking.

Alas, it was too late,

the earth had already been obliterated,

the dead remained stubbornly dead,

there was no one left to appreciate the joke

or to forgive the Ultimate Prankster His wayward humours,

His Jewish sense of mischief,

except a family and a few animals.

Many species were lost forever.

It was a sad day in Heaven.

Never mind the waterlogged bodies of men,

the animals and plants sunk in the bogs,

never mind the angels who were envious to begin with

and who are always high and dry,

never mind the Fiend whose fires cannot be extinguished

and whose inventory is replete with souls.

None of this matters.

It was a sad day in Heaven.

 

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