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Before the Beginning

In the very, very, very beginning there was darkness. If eyes had existed to view it they would have noted that it was of the infinite variety.

Then something unprecedented happened: there was an explosion. It was an impressive display of celestial pyrotechnics, even considering that no other such explosions existed to which it could be compared, and the fact that there was no being present to even make such a comparison. At any rate, the end result was a googolplex of debris radiating in all directions. The infinite darkness was no more, as it was littered now with fiery detritus.

But something else emerged out of that big bang: a consciousness.

This consciousness was without form but was entirely self-aware. It remembered the moment of its birth, the agony of the fire that had brought it into being, but it did not dwell on the memory. It scanned the multifaceted darkness, now littered with its celestial afterbirth (for it already believed that everything existed solely for its pleasure) and thought, that was interesting, so now what?

Time passed. And in that time the consciousness traveled the length and breadth of its dominion, a simple task for one so powerful. As the consciousness had no form it was not subject to any laws, so in the blink of a non-existent eye it could travel from one end of the universe to the other. After doing so several hundred times it started to wish it had companionship, another consciousness with which to share the majesty of existence.

"Hello," said a deep and pleasant voice.

The consciousness noticed that it was no longer alone. "Where did you come from?" the consciousness asked this new entity, curious yet suspicious. The entity looked like an amorphous fog, pulsing with flickering, multi-colored lights. The consciousness wondered if it looked the same, then immediately knew that though it did look similar, its amorphous cloud was much bigger and grander than that of its new . . . The consciousness stalled. It needed a word.

"What shall I call you?" it asked.

The second, smaller consciousness answered, "I am your creation. Name me as you will."

"Fine, then. I shall call you Michael but I reserve the right to change my mind."

"As you wish, my Lord" replied Michael, and the first consciousness felt a little shiver tickle through its ether at those words.

"My Lord?" it asked, and knew that it was the word. And the word was the law. "Yes, I am your Lord. In fact, I believe I am the Lord."

"You are the only one I see here and you created me so I have to agree with you. In that light, my Lord, what do you wish of me?"

Yet again the Lord gave pause. Now that it had him, what did it want from Michael? "I'll get back to you on that one," said the Lord.

"As you wish," said Michael.

The two non-corporeal entities sat. Or rather, since they had no bottoms to sit upon and no chairs upon which to sit anyway, they just sort of floated through the universe, drifting silently and nearly imperceptibly toward the nearest black hole.

Eons passed. Or perhaps it was only seconds. Either way, the Lord had not yet developed a way to quantify the passage of time and what was the passage of time anyway to indestructible celestial beings.

But time did pass and the Lord grew bored.

"I sense that my Lord is unhappy," said Michael, "What can your servant do to lift your spirits?"

"Well first of all, don't ever talk about yourself in the 3rd person. It lends a certain patina of nut job to your existence and the Lord will not have crazy followers."

"I do not understand the meaning of your words, my Lord."

"I know," said the Lord, "That's because I just made most of them up. Because I am the Lord."

"Yes, we've already established that," said Michael.

"Growing cheeky, are we?" asked the Lord.

"Your humble servant . . . I mean, I apologize, my Lord. But we've been floating out here for quite some time now and I don't know if you've noticed but we've moved quite a bit without really trying. To be honest I'm staring to feel a little like I'm being pulled apart."

"Oh that? That's just the black hole," said the Lord noncommittally.

"What's a black hole?"

"A hole. It's black. It sucks things in and they never return."

"I see. Well then, good name for it."

"Thank you, my child, I thought of it myself. Now, do you have any other complaints you would like to bring up to the one who breathed life into you?"

"Actually, yes. Would you mind breathing life into some others? Two is company but with five or six we might actually be able to keep a conversation going. And while you're at it, what do you say you give me a corporeal body and a place to rest it? I have had an itch along the top of my ether cloud for the longest time with no way to scratch it."

The silence that followed Michael's request was deafening, as only deep space silence can be . He became agitated, which caused the little multi-colored lights in his non-corporeal cloud to flicker even faster. The Lord made note of this agitation and filed it away for future use.

"You are impertinent, my child," said the Lord.

"I apologize. But seriously, you don't talk much."

"My mind is otherwise occupied with the mysteries and the wonders of this universe, which I created."

"You created all of this?" asked Michael, incredulous.

The Lord flashed with lightning and bristled at the implied accusation. He prepared to smite Michael and replace him with an entity that would worship him the way he needed to be worshipped then realized that he could not destroy his first creation, no matter how imperfect, and the anger dissipated.

The Lord looked upon his creation and said, "As you wish."

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come." The voices of the Seraphim were pure and clear and gratingly loud and they never, ever stopped singing that same line, over and over. Michael had remained silent for a long time, had taken it all in stride, but enough was enough.

"Will you please, for the love of the Lord, shut up?" Michael shouted and the Seraphim reeled away from their chosen places just above the Lord's amorphous cloud, each flapping two of their giant crimson wings as they fluttered away into space. They continued to sing as they left but their voices were quieter and therefore easier to ignore.

"What troubles you, my child?" asked the Lord in a tone of voice that suggested he knew exactly what the problem was, and he relished it. "I have given you everything you asked for."

"Everything?" asked Michael incredulously, "Not quite."

"How so?" the Lord asked.

"Yeah, how so?" echoed the Cherubim that surrounded the Lord. And then they giggled, a sound which was greatly at odds with their nightmarish visages. They were beings that benefitted from the infinite nothingness of space because they were so ugly no one should have to look upon them.

"I asked you for companions, and you create the Cherubim," said Michael, trying in vain to get the Lord to understand.

"What is wrong with them? They stand beside me and protect me. Am I not to be protected?" asked the Lord.

"Protected from what? We're the only beings you've created and you are without question the most powerful of all of us. So unless you plan on creating a being of equal power to be your adversary you are not in any immediate danger. But you still created these . . . these things . . . With the wings and the faces and the feet . . . They are disturbing, to say the least."

"I like them," said the Lord.

"Yeah, he likes us," said the Cherubim.

"Who asked you?" asked the Lord and they stopped their tittering. The Lord's temperament was nothing if not changeable.

"And then you created the Seraphim," said Michael, "And to be honest I do not even know what you were thinking with them."

"It is not for you to know my thoughts. Michael shall know Michael's thoughts and the Lord shall know the Lord's thoughts and the Cherubim shall recite the Lord's thoughts as the Lord speaks them and the Seraphim shall sing songs of glory to the Lord until the end of time . . ."

"Now who has a patina of nut job?" Michael muttered darkly, then continued in a fuller voice. "That song has to go, or at least teach them another verse. And what is up with their wings? They only fly with two, so why do they have six? Personally, I think you're a little obsessive."

"They need wings to cover their faces and their feet, because feet are unclean and not fit to show to the Lord and if they were to look upon my glory they would be incinerated, so they must always have their faces covered and their eyes averted even as they praise me," answered the Lord.

Well, that did it. Michael screamed, "If this were going to be an issue you should have made them without eyes and feet. But seriously, you're a cloud full of flashing lights! Granted, you have unfathomable power but you're ridiculously self-absorbed!"

"I am sorry you feel that way, my child," said the Lord. The Lord's appearance of peace stood at odds to Michael's frustration but instead of calming the angry wisp of ether, it infuriated him.

"But that's not everything. You have created these fantastical creatures and have given them each a bung of wings and grotesque bodies, and yet I remain an amorphous cloud. You have given your monsters special tasks, yet I remain without direction. Why can I not have a body? Why did you create me? Why are we even here? Do you like to see me suffer?"

The Lord said, "In answer to your first question, I keep you as you are for two reasons: because I have not yet perfected my art and I would not want to turn you, my first creation, into a disaster of a being like these guys." The Lord said to the Cherubim flitting around him in a circle, "No offense guys, okay?"

"What ever you say," the Cherubim answered in unison. Michael wanted to smack them but he had no arms with which to strike.

"In answer to your second question," said the Lord, "I created you to be my companion, my trusted servant, to never doubt me, to praise me and to serve me."

"You're right, then, you haven't perfected your powers yet," said Michael.

"In answer to your third question, we are here because I wish us to be here, because I need to be praised. That is the purpose of your life, of all of their lives."

"Okay, now I think it's more than a patina."

The Lord ignored the comment and continued, "And in answer to your fourth question . . ." the Lord paused.

Michael said nothing but if he could have leaned forward in anticipation or held his breath he would have.

"I do like to see you suffer," finished the Lord. "It fascinates me."

Michael wanted to say something but could not form the words. The Lord's cloud was quiet; the lights that flashed deep within were dim at best. This conversation hadn't touched him.

On the other hand Michael was deeply moved. If the Lord had seen fit to give him a heart it would have been broken. He floated away, wanting nothing more at that moment than to put as much distance as possible between himself and the Lord. But as he drifted farther from the Lord and his menagerie of disturbing creatures, Michael's entire being began to ache. Each dimple, each twist of amorphous fog offered him only a steady thrumming of pain. Each second he was away from his Lord was agony.

And then he heard the Lord's voice calling out to him, "If you see my Seraphim, tell them they can return now. I am feeling less adored every second they do not sing to me."

Anger flared to replace the agony in his soul and Michael surged forward, passing farther and farther into the cosmos, farther and farther away from his Lord. And as he moved, he was consumed by only one thought: he needed to snap the Lord out of his self-absorption or the Lord just might destroy them all. He needed a diversion.

And as if in response to a prayer he hadn't uttered, Michael had the answer.