Our Father - Part II

Good evening all,

Thanks for stopping by to visit my humble blog! The time has come for part II of my novella 'Our Father.' In case you missed it, part I can be found here. 'Our Father', follows the story of Yahweh, a God who lives within a community of Gods in the kingdom of Heaven, who is young and reckless, jealous and petty, and considered an upstart and a liability by all the other Gods. This tale follows him through the creation of a brand new world called Earth, and all the mistakes he makes along the way. And boy, are there a lot of them...

As ever, thanks for reading!

Eden

For the fist time in his existence, Yahweh felt worthy of his title, and his place amongst the Gods in the Kingdom. He looked down upon Eden, and all the creatures he had created with beaming pride and warmth in his heart.

The first man, whom Yahweh had crated from clay and named Adam, toiled away, tending to the garden, but Yahweh could see great loneliness in his eyes. So he commanded: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a companion fit for him.’

So once more, Yahweh descended into Eden, and upon his arrival caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. He leaned over the sleeping man, and from his chest he pulled a rib, out of which he created a mate for Adam. When Adam awoke he looked upon his new mate with joy, exclaiming: ‘This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! She will be called woman, because she was taken out of man.'

The man and his new mate, who was named Eve, were happy in this paradise and Yahweh said unto them: ‘This is your home. Love it, tend to it – care for all the plants animals in it, for they are my gift to you. Be fruitful, go forth and multiply! Fill this land with your children! Work the land and nourish yourself with the fruits of your labour. From every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you may not eat. For the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’

So happy were the new pair, they agreed to their Lord’s commands and went of to enjoy the spoils of the Garden of Eden.

On the other side of the garden, from within the branches of a fig tree, the yellow eyes of a serpent watched as Adam and Eve toiled. But this was not one of God’s creations – this was an imitator. Venus had done as Jupiter had asked him and infiltrated Eden, hiding in the trees under the guise of a snake. He was ready to perform his test on Yahweh’s new creation.

In a shady corner of the garden, Eve, naked, though not ashamed of it, picked fruit from the fig trees when she heard a voice from between the leaves.

‘Eve,’ hissed the voice.

She turned and saw the serpent looking down at her from the branches. She wasn’t afraid. She knew no fear for she had no knowledge of good and evil.

‘Eve,’ the wheezing voice repeated. ‘Has God really said, "You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’

Eve replied: ‘We may eat from the trees of the garden, but of the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, "Do not eat from it, and do not even touch it, or that day you will surely die."'

The snake smiled. Venus was getting into character. ‘Surely you will not die! For your God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.'

Eve looked at the tree and trusted the snake. She pulled from its branches the most perfect apple ever to have existed and held it in front of her mouth.

‘Go on,’ hissed Venus. Though his words begged her to go on, Venus’s mind secretly hoped beyond hope that Eve would drop the apple and not give in to temptation. He hoped that his master’s creation was sound. He hoped Jupiter was wrong.

Alas, Eve bit into the apple and offered some to Adam. He too ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

Venus shed a tear and slithered off into the branches. His work was done.

Suddenly both Adam and Eve became aware aware that they were naked and they felt shame. Their eyes had been opened. They hurried to find fig leaves which they sewed together to cover themselves.

High above Eden, in the kingdom of heaven, Yahweh looked down with burning fury at his new creations covering themselves with fig leaves. In a crash of lightning and a blaze of fire, he cast himself back towards Eden, roaring: ‘They are my creation! They may not disobey me! I am their Lord! I am their Lord!’

When he came to Eden, the voice of God rang around the garden. ‘Where are you?’ he called out to the man and his mate. Yahweh was furious.

When they heard the angry voice of their God appearing from on high, Adam and Eve hid themselves in the bushes, but Yahweh soon found them and saw the fig leaves about their bodies. ‘What are these, about your person?’ he asked, seething.

Eve replied: ‘We are naked – we have sown together fig leaves to hide our shame.’

‘Who told you that you were naked?’ commanded Yahweh.

Neither Adam nor Eve replied.

‘Have you eaten from the tree of knowledge? The tree from which I told you not to eat?’

Eve told Yahweh all about the serpent, and how it had tricked them into eating the fruit.

Yahweh could not contain his fury. ‘What have you done?’ he bellowed. ‘As punishment for your actions – for your disobedience – I will cause you great trouble during pregnancy, and when you bear children, you will have great pain. You will desire your husband, and he will rule over you.!’

Around them the sky over Eden turned blood red with Yahweh’s anger.

‘And you,’ he said to Adam, ‘You listened to your wife, and ate the fruit which I commanded you not to eat. I hence forth put a curse on the ground! You will have to work very hard for food. The ground will produce weeds and thorns to stand in your way. You will toil, sweat and work hard for food, and eventually you will return to the ground. You once were dust, and so shall ye be again!’

And so Yahweh made Adam and Eve clothes from animal skins and cast them out of the paradise he had created for them and sent them out into the wilderness east of Eden.

The Fallen Angel

Yahweh came thundering back to Heaven in a blaze of fire and lightning and burst into the Great Hall where his mother and father and the rest of the heavenly committee sat, paying no attention to the angelic guards posted outside.

‘Yahweh,’ said his mother, barely startled by her son’s sudden appearance, ‘what brings you to the Great Hall? Should you not be tending to your new flock?’

‘I am betrayed!’ thundered Yahweh in response. ‘I have been tricked and used! Somebody wants my creation to fail, and they have planted the seeds of destruction in my work!’

Jupiter rose to his feet, towering above his son and turned the flames that were coming from Yahweh into wisping, lifeless smoke. ‘If your creation is bound for destruction, then it is the fruit of seeds you yourself have sown – nobody else. The creation is only as strong the creator.’

‘But,’ said Yahweh, ‘an impostor has snuck himself into my Garden of Eden and tricked mankind into disobeying me!’

‘Your creation has been tested. Your people are not as controlled as you had hoped.’

‘What can be expected for a creation that only took seven days?’ The mocking voice of one of the elders echoed from the other side of the hall. ‘Some things cannot be rushed.’

The fury within Yahweh was visibly rising again, and he turned with his mouth open towards the elder preparing to respond, when a nod from his father told him to tread carefully. He turned again towards his father. ‘But who has tested my world? Who has dared to test the almighty Yahweh?’

‘I did, Yahweh.’

Yahweh took a step back. ‘You, Father? But why? Have you no faith in me?’

Jupiter sat back down next to his wife and turned to his son. ‘You have not yet proven yourself worthy of the power of creation, and it was certainly not my idea to allow you it. You have shown yourself to be short sighted, cruel, jealous and work-shy in the past - far too immature in many of our eyes. When you created this world in seven days – a short stretch by anyone’s standards, we wanted to be sure it was worthy.’

‘And you, father,’ replied Yahweh, ‘you snuck into Eden and tricked my Adam and my Eve?’

‘I did not.’

The rage began to boil as Yahweh hissed his words through curled lips. ‘Then who? Who has dared to test me? Let them feel my wrath!’

Thoah entered the Great Hall and bowed before Jupiter. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘the Angel Venus is here at your request.’

Yahweh looked into his father’s eyes and knew the truth.

‘Send him in,’ said Jupiter.

‘Venus? My own angel? My own servant?’ He heard Venus’s footsteps behind him. ‘He will pay dearly for this.’

Yahweh turned around and lit up in a blaze of fire and lightning. ‘Venus! How dare you test your master? What have you done? You have destroyed my creation! And you will pay! You will be sent to a lake of fire for eternity! There you will suffer in the darkness and brimstone with all your Angels for your disobedience!’

‘My Lord…’ stuttered Venus, ‘…this is hardly fair-’

‘Fair is not a factor in this, Venus, you have betrayed me! It is MY world! MY creation! I am your master and you will do as I command of you! Now be gone!’

And a pit as black as night opened underneath Venus and his angels, and they were swallowed into the hellfire.

Our Father - The story of a God who didn't believe in himself.

Hello all,

I realise it's been a while since I posted some fiction on kitfosterfiction, so I've decided to post an excerpt from the new novella I'm writing, which will be part of a larger work, entitled 'The Children of Disobedience' which should hopefully be complete by the end of this summer. This extract, which is from a story called 'Our Father', follows the story of Yahweh, a God who lives within a community of Gods in the kingdom of Heaven, who is young and reckless, jealous and petty, and considered an upstart and a liability by all the other Gods. This tale follows him through the creation of a brand new world called Earth, and all the mistakes he makes along the way. And boy, is there a lot of them - as anyone who has even glanced at a bible will know! The story will pretty much comprise of the tale of the bible, only told from a very different perspective.

Hope you enjoy - please comment and let me know what you think!

‘God is Dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we — we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.’

- Friedrich Nietzsche


Yahweh

In the time before time, before the seas were filled and the mountains rose to touch the sky; before the sky even, there was born unto the heavens a race of Gods. Few among them knew where they themselves came from, but they had been around for a long time; perhaps forever – not even they knew. Such a trivial human concept as time did not concern them, anyhow; they were content just to be. As gods do, they had, by human standards, infinite powers and were capable of the power of creation. That was their crowning achievement, their greatest skill – the power to breathe life where is none. Each God carefully crafted the world of his own creation and watched as it bloomed millennium after millennium. Like gardeners tending to their allotments they watched and coaxed life into action.

Yahweh wasn’t like the other gods. It was clear to his mother and father and all of his older siblings that he wasn’t the same as them. He lacked the foresight that his elders had, and of all the Gods in the kingdom of heaven (his own father included) considered him to be an upstart. He was quick to temper and was rarely given any responsibility because of his recklessness. His older brother, who had, like his father and his father before him, been entrusted with the power of creation used to tease him about his shortcomings, telling him that he could never amount to anything. The power of creation was a right reserved only for those who had shown their maturity, and Yahweh was still not deemed worthy.

But rather than contain his temper and recklessness and further his maturity, deprivation of the power of creation only frustrated Yahweh further. He would watch as the elders boasted their fine creations – beautiful, thriving, harmonious worlds which they tended to with great care and attention. How he longed to care for a world of his own, how he longed to do what he was intended to do.

His mother saw the sadness in her son’s eyes and decided to take pity on him, so she called him to her side and said: ‘My son, you are young and you still have much to learn, however it is your right as one of us, that you should be trusted with the power of creation as was your father and his father before. May you use your gift wisely an may it bring you happiness and maturity.’

And so it was that Yahweh, much to the disapproving disgruntlement of his father and others amongst the elders of the Gods, was given the gift of creation.



Creation

And so Yahweh thanked his mother for the pity she had shown him, and went to create his new world.

First he created the earth. It was a dark, vast pool without form. Then he commanded through the darkness: ‘Let there be light!’
And there was light. Yahweh saw the light and he separated it from the darkness. He called the light day and the dark night. And so the darkness came – and so too came the light. This was the first day - and it was good.

On the second day, he commanded that there should be something to divide the water, and so the water split in two, with a body of air in the middle. He called this the sky.

Then he commanded: ‘Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear!’
And it was so. Yahweh called the land earth and the water seas. And it was good.
And Yahweh looked down upon his newly created earth and said, 'Let the land produce seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees of every kind.’ And it was so. From the barren earth shot up thousands of plants and trees all over the planet. Yahweh saw the fruits of his work – and it was good. This was the third day.

On the fourth day, he created lights in the sky to separate night from day. These would be the markers of the seasons, years and days. He created the sun to warm the days and the moon and stars to mark the coming of night.

Yahweh observed his new world with pride: the flowing oceans, the sky full of burning trophies of his work, and the land, rich with fruit and seed bearing plants. It was good, but still incomplete.

On the fifth day, Yahweh called out across the land: 'Let the waters swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the sky.' And it was so. All over this new land, animals of all kinds sprung up and took their lives. The seas filled with fish and other sea creatures, the sky filled with birds and other winged beasts taking flight for the very first time, and the land bore cattle and insects and all the other wild creatures of the land.

He looked down upon the new beasts of the world and saw that it was good, before calling out to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the seas, land and sky alike!’

On the sixth day, Yahweh crated someone to watch over these beasts. From the clay in the ground, he moulded a creation in his own image – Man, into which he breathed the gift of life through his nostrils. The man took his first breath and sprang to life before Yahweh’s eyes. He saw the man – and it was good. Then he said unto him: ‘Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every creature that moves on the ground. I give you every seed-bearing plant and every fruit-bearing tree on the face of the earth to be yours for food. And to all the animals of the earth, all the birds of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground, I give every green plant for food.’

Yahweh looked down upon his completed work. It was good. He was so proud; he could not wait to show his mother and father.

He was pleased with his works, and on the seventh day he rested.

Venus

Jupiter, Yahweh’s father looked down upon his son’s creation with great interest and sighed as he turned to his wife. ‘Never before has any God completed creation in seven days… he can’t have done a thorough job.’

His wife replied that it was essential that they trust him, and that ‘He can only begin to grow if we allow him to spread his wings – he has to be given responsibilities. He is still young-’

‘He’s irresponsible,’ he snapped back. ‘He’s irresponsible, quick to temper, and he has no foresight. You should never have trusted him with creation. Not yet at least.’

‘He has to learn-’
‘Never before in the whole kingdom has there been a child like him.’

Suddenly, Thoah - one of Jupiter’s archangels, came striding in and bowed before his superiors. ‘My Lord,’ he said, addressing Jupiter. ‘Venus seeks an audience with you. He is waiting outside.’

‘Send him in,’ replied Jupiter, nodding towards the angel.
‘Venus?’ said Hera, Yahweh’s mother. ‘He’s one of Yahweh’s angels… what news has he?’
‘I called for him.’
‘You called for him…? What have you planned…?’

Moments later, a beautiful angel with flowing blond hair and a face like lightning came striding in towards Jupiter.

‘Venus!’ said Jupiter to the angel.
‘My Lord,’ said Venus bowing at the feet of his superior. ‘You sent for me?’
‘I did. You are assigned to my son, Yahweh, are you not?’
‘I am indeed,’ replied Venus.
‘How do you find him?’ asked Jupiter, ‘as a master?’
Venus rose to his feet and stood two steps back, his head still bowed in reverence to this elder of the Gods who had invited him to his audience. ‘He has always been good to me and my angels. He was very glad to be granted the power of creation.’
‘This lack of power,’ interrupted Yahweh’s mother, ‘it frustrated him in the past?’
Venus hesitated before replying. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.
‘Did he speak to you about it?’ asked Jupiter.
‘On occasion. I believe he felt somehow inadequate before he was granted this power. He felt as though his peers had little faith in him. After a while he began to lose faith in himself.’
‘And you,’ said Jupiter, ‘do you have faith in him?’
Venus hesitated. ‘He is my master,’ he eventually replied. ‘I have faith in any God – and when all is said and done he is no different. It is not my place to judge any God, my lord; I am but an angel – a slave to your grace – Yahweh’s worth will be proved by his works, and not by words of mine.’
‘You are a loyal servant,’ said Yahweh’s mother.
Venus bowed in appreciation.

‘I have a job for you, Venus,’ said Jupiter. ‘I wish to test the strength of my son’s creation, to see if he has created a world fit to be inhabited.’
‘And what is my task?’
‘You will go down to this place Yahweh has created – you will find the Garden of Eden - that is the paradise that Yahweh has given to this 'Man' of his, and you will give his 'Man' a choice.’