In The Beginning

It was a small house, surprisingly small considering who the owner was. But despite the rather negative press He felt he had received over the millennia, He was rather a modest person.

He was sitting in the back garden watching over his universe. He had the viewer focused right down into a town square, somewhere hot by the look of it, although geography was far from His best subject.

Everyone in the square was wearing loose, flimsy robes and waving their hands, or fans, in front of their faces as they listened. The small crowd was gathered closely together, despite the heat, listening to the words of a thin, wizened man with a long flowing beard. The orator appeared to be naked, although the length and raggedness of his beard made it difficult to tell. The man's eyes were wide and staring, seemingly focused on some far distant place only he could see, with his hands making short sharp emphatic gestures, like someone miming how to disembowel a still-living octopus without it noticing, as he spoke.

The Old Man sat back in his sun lounger shaking His fist at the other old man portrayed on the screen in front of him. "I never bloody-well said anything of the sort!" He shouted at the screen. "I have never, ever spoken a single word to you. Especially not in your dreams!"

"Right! Right! That's it!" The Old Man whipped His hand out from behind His beard and pointed his finger at the orator. The end of His finger glowed blue then white.

"Calm down! Calm down dear," His wife said as she walked out into the garden. "You know how much you'll regret it afterwards." She sat down in the sun lounger next to her husband.

He recognised that look in her eyes and turned down the volume of the viewscreen with a click of His fingers.

"I've just had a call from your Great-Uncle," she said. "Our son is in trouble again."

"What's he done this time?"

"Apparently there was another Super-Nova last night."

The old man hid His smile behind His beard. "I'll... I'll have a word with him."

"It's time the boy had something to do, that's the problem. He's old enough to be brought into the business now." She looked at Him… waiting.

"But... but he's only a child. He isn't anywhere near old enough yet." He sighed.

"Not old enough! When was the last time you saw him?"

"I saw him at breakfast a couple of days ago. No... hang on... that was the cat. Hmmm...."

"Go on, tell me how old he is then?"

"Well, as we are immortals I wouldn't have thought it mattered all that much."

"It doesn't matter to you. You never remember his birthday. Omnipotent - ha! Don't make me laugh. I bet you can't even remember the day he was born."

"Of course I can remember the day he was born, it's as though it was only yesterday," the old man said, rising indignantly from His sun lounger. "How could I ever forget that miracle of life, of existence. That squashed-up face, that shock of black hair." He smiled and lay back down triumphantly on His sun lounger.

On the Viewscreen the ranting and raving man gesticulated frantically. The old man grinned and pointed his finger at the orator. There was a flash and the orator turned into a very surprised newt. The crowd scattered in panic.

"Our son has blonde hair."

"What?" He glanced over at His wife, and wished He hadn't. Her left foot was twitching. He gulped and nervously played with the hem of His garment.

"Well, who was that baby with the black hair? I can't remember what I was doing there for the birth of that one."

His wife stood up. "Well, I can remember it all! I've never been so embarrassed. That poor woman, why her husband let you get away with it I'll never know. Luckily those shepherds kept their mouths shut too, and as for those three so-called wise men... well." She walked off back into the cottage. She turned in the doorway. "At least you are a little better than that uncle of yours - a swan! A swan! I ask you. The poor woman could never look at a chicken in the same way again. They had to sell that poultry business in the end." She sighed and slammed the cottage door behind her.

The old man glanced at the screen. The confused newt still stood on the raised platform in the now deserted town square. The old man smiled as He saw a scrawny cat slowly creeping up behind the newt.

"That'll teach you to take my name in vain." The old man said to the newt on the screen as the cat pounced.