THE MAKER'S TROUBLES

There's a logic behind atheism, and it's beautiful...

The Maker was puzzled.

It had been a long time since he'd made anything and during that time he'd been sitting on his celestial toilet ruminating about the mistakes he'd made (he was particularly upset about the making of the flu virus which, despite being tiny was hellishly destructive), and concluded that he'd made a great deal more bad stuff than good stuff. But hey, he thought, that's just got to be the way of things.

Now, out of the blue, he'd been summoned by the Maker's Master.

So the Maker was extremely puzzled.

He finally wiped his bottom and went to the Central Black Hole in the Middle of Everything and prepared himself for a good tongue lashing. The Maker's Master was renowned for his tongue lashings. He had what was widely considered a rich vocabulary amongst the lesser Makers.

So the Maker arrived at the Grand Portal of the Central Black Hole in the Middle of Everything and stood with his head bowed whilst Eyes inspected him. He could feel them moving over him, feeling his every shivering shake, Eyes that were so vastly superior to his own that he started weeping.

Then the Maker's Master spoke. His voice was rich and filled with WD40. It oozed and trickled through the void and settled well inside the Maker's ears.

“You have been summoned hither,” it rumbled. “I have summoned you. What in the name of Everything Spectral did you mean by Making the wimp?”

The Maker had no idea what the Maker's Master meant by that! He hadn't created a wimp! Far from it! He'd taken clay from his new world and lovingly crafted a man, naked and unashamed and glorious. He'd even given that Man a fig leaf with which to cover his magnificent willy in case any stray serpent saw how marvellous it was. This Man (as he called his creation) was as far from being a wimp as it was possible to be. He had fire in his heart and a light in his eyes. He had a six pack that even gorillas would be proud of and a brain that could add one and one together and, with a little additional luck, make three. There was no hint of wimpishness here. No suggestion of weakness or frailty. The Maker had moulded and made perfection, and knew it.

“Wimp, sire?” he questioned, almost growling himself.

“Wimp, loony,” rumbled the Maker's Master. “Now, I am aware that you have spent that last six millennia sitting on your toilet, but you must have considered a few things as you struggled and strained!”

“I thought of the very perfection of yourself,” grovelled the Maker, knowing that extreme grovelling might well be called for. “And I crafted an imitation of it,” he added, genuflecting like mad.

“Nonsense!” The Maker's Master's voice had sunk to a range that was barely audible, but it did shake fig leaves and rattle poppy heads throughout the Universe. “What you did was offensive! You waved that magic wand of yours and made light and firmaments and so on, all well and good and actually quite skilfully done. I've even heard that you got an A+ with your fjord design. But the man you moulded from clay " think you not of that wimp?”

“My Adam,” drooled the Maker. “My wonderful, wonderful Adam. And his Eve, of course. We must never forget Eve.”

“No, you must never forget Eve and her enticing bosom,” rumbled the Maker's Master. “But why in the name of everything magnificent and Holy did you give them free will?”

The Maker was overawed by the question. It hit to the very heart of some of his contemplations whilst sitting on the toilet. It was the one question to which he had worked out the perfect answer. And that answer proved to him, quite conclusively, that he had been right in everything he had done.

And it was time to come out with it. “So that he might question everything,” he timorously replied.

“You are a nincompoop,” decided the Maker's Master. “That masterful creation of yours, that creature with free will, has been thinking.”

“I rather hoped he would, sir,” said the Maker boldly.

“And he's worked some things out that I'd have preferred to be kept secret,” continued his Master. “He's used that free will of his and worked out that you can't possibly exist … not you, not your toilet, not me, none of us...”

“Sir?” asked the Maker, quivering.

But his Master suddenly vanished from the very Grand Portal of the Central Black Hole in the Middle of Everything, leaving a cloud of vapour that condensed into mischief, and the Maker sighed really deeply before he, too, vanished in a puff of wit.

Nobody knows who flushed his toilet.

Or why.