In the Beginning Read online

  Then God said to Noah, “Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. No, bigger. Bigger...” (Noah was drawing lines in the sand.) “Bigger... look. Make it four hundred and fifty feet long.” “Whoa,” Noah said, looking at the outline, “That's a big boat.” A parrot landed on his shoulder and two dogs trotted up to him, smiling.

  After several complicated transactions involving goose guts and peanuts, Noah managed to sell all his property including the shipping company and purchased a huge tract of land containing nothing but a forest. “God told me to,” He explained, “Whatever, Skippy.”

  It took one hundred and twenty years to build the boat. In that time, Noah told his sons that they too should marry. “Righteous, dude!” Japheth said, pumping his fist. “But don't father children until our work is done,” Noah added. “Bummer,” All three boys looked down, muttering. Little did they know that Ham would select Marjani as a wife, who was a granddaughter of the giants. It was she who brought nephillim lineage into the new world.

  During the last thirty years or so of construction, the townspeople would taunt Noah and his sons by banging on hollow logs, “Thunder!” they would crack up, and water balloons. “Rain!” Oh, ha-ha. Noah would pray for them and point his cane, mumbling something about boogie boards. “Whatever, Skippy.” Ham wanted to kick their asses.

  With the work finally completed, they threw a party on the beach. Noah surfed, Japheth got blasted drunk and Ham boink-boinked. Shem was reading the Book of Enoch. “Oh, shit,” He said. Looking his way, everyone saw them. Animals. Animals everywhere, two each.

  It started to rain.

  Chapter 8

  Then the Lord said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time.” “Don't have to tell me twice!” Ham said running, wife in tow. The animals were astounding as they calmly lined up in pairs and sat down in turn at their places. Noah was the last to walk up the ramp. Looking out over the beginnings of the overflow, he spotted groups of people running towards the boat, “Noah! Noah! Wait, you were right!” They carried weapons. “Uh, Lord? A little help here?” Noah prayed. The Lord replied, “Fear not, I got this.” Just as the first wave was about to strike the starboard side, a blast of wind blew the ramp shut, jamming it in place.

  The wave hit. The ark lifted. They were afloat. It rained some more. And more. Five days. “Okay, this is silly.” Japheth grumbled. Twenty days. “God. Is. Pissed.” Shem cringed. Forty days. The rain stopped. Japheth's wife went up on deck for a suntan. The whole world was an ocean.

  “Papa, the woodpeckers got out again and the cows have gas,” Ham read the daily reports. Noah went down and gave his “Naughty naughty” speech to the birds, the cows he let be. Marjani missed her time and everyone celebrated her pregnancy. The male bunny tried to get anything close to his size pregnant. The female bunny was happy for the break and took naps.

  The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days. Shem put a parrot on his shoulder, drew an anchor on his arm, donned an eye patch and ran around saying things like, “Yarg, matey. Avast, the billows blow up't yer booty.” They made him put the parrot back and locked him in with the rest of the birds. He was fine after that.

  At the end of one hundred and fifty days, God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. It also blew out the cow farts, which cheered everybody up. And so it was that the water steadily decreased and the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat.

  “Now what?” Ham asked in the meeting. Noah looked at one of the ravens. The raven looked at Noah. “Wait,” Shem's wife asked, “Did that bird just smile at you?” Both doves stuck out their tongues at the raven.

  Chapter 9

  They waited forty days and Noah sent out a raven, the one who smiled at him. The stupid bird never came back. After another week, he sent out one of the doves and she returned with an olive branch. Marjani ate the olive. Seven more days and Noah sent out the dove again but this time she stayed away. Then God spoke to Noah saying, “What are you waiting for? Go out of the ark. Oy vey.” So Noah and his sons and their wives and all the animals left the ark.

  God again spoke to Noah and told him and his sons to be fruitful and multiply, so everyone parted ways for the night to boink-boink. Now Noah was advanced in years and by then his wife was, well... a butt-ugly old bat. Therefore he decided to pop a cork before going into her and proceeded to get smashing drunk. When he came to in the morning, behold! He was in his birthday suit.

  It so happened that Ham had seen his father's nakedness during the revelry that night and he went to his brothers snickering. He told them that Noah's ding-ding looked small to him and in his defense, Shem and Japheth offered to take inventory. Both boys whipped it out and all seemed as it should, regular ding-dings just like papa's. “Fine smart guy, let's see yours,” Shem challenged. Ham showed his hand, so to speak. “Whoa,” They said, wide-eyed, “Never mind.” Ham... appeared to be part donkey.

  It turned out okay, they all had pleasant lives and everyone was happy with their own ding-dings. (Even though nobody would let his wife see Ham's.) Noah lived another three hundred and fifty years after the flood, so all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died surrounded by loved ones.

  To Ham and Marjani was born the first child in the new world and they named him Canaan. He was of darker complexion like his father and in time it turned out that he had a giant pecker too, earning him the nickname, “Tripod.” Canaan was very popular with the ladies.

  Chapter 10

  One of Ham's grandsons was named Nimrod. He was a normal child, playing games, pulling girls' hair and generally making an ass of himself. Life was good. One day he and his father Cush went on a hunting trip and they happened upon a sealed cave. Inside the cave were human bones and on one of the bodies was snakeskin clothing. What they didn't know was that they were looking at Adam and Eve and the clothes were made by God in the garden of Eden after the two discovered nudity.

  Cush didn't care and he let Nimrod take the skins. Days later when he put the outfit on, Nimrod felt good. Real good. So good, in fact, that he rarely took it off. Growing up, he wore Adam's underwear under his tunic. Soon it became apparent that he was going to be much stronger than the other boys, the kid was buff. Two grown men couldn't beat him arm wrestling, his one arm to their four. The underwear, Nimrod believed, was magic.

  At the age of twenty-four, Nimrod invented showbiz. He would charge admittance to let people see him wrestle men twice his size. He never once lost.

  Drums beating, torches flickering with a strobe quality, Nimrod bounced off the ropes and landed on his final opponent for the show. “Wrarwr!” He said, or something like that while ripping his shirt asunder. Chicks liked that part. “That looked fake. Did it look fake to you?” A spectator asked another. “Dunno, it was too fast. But it looked like he didn't really hit the guy that hard. Why is he still down?” “Hmph.”

  During the post-match interview, Nimrod was asked how he got to be so strong. “Because I drink Bunch Punch, the Thirst Mutilator!” He answered, smiling. His buddy Al made adult beverages and had quickly caught on, paying Nimrod to say things like that about his flagship product. Bunch Punch became the best selling brewski worldwide in a matter of months. “Wrarwr!” He said again and poured a Bunch Punch over his head. Then he ripped his shirt a little more and smiled at the crowd.

  When Nimrod got older, he decided to enter (invent) politics. He had the money. There was a little town to the north called Minnesota, (which means “cloudy water”, whatever), and got himself elected Governor. After a few years, he got sick of all the snow way up there and challenged the other governors to a winner takes all checkers tournament. Nimrod never once lost. (He was wearing the magic underwear.) “Putz,” Another governor called him and vowed, “I'll be back.”

  With victory in hand, Nimrod became the governor of fourteen cities spread across three provences
. That, he realized, made him King. “Da' King,” or so he liked people to call him, founded a new city in the south and moved his capital there. He proclaimed the name to be... da-da-ta-da!... Babel.

  “Wait,” one of Nimrods scribes interrupted, “Doesn't Babel mean...” “Silence, knave!” Da' King shouted, pointing his Bunch Punch swizzle stick at the man. “King Putz founds the city of blabber,” The scribe etched into his clay tablet, smiling. Tapping his lip with his index finger, Da' King mused, “How tall could a building be if we baked the bricks before construction? Hmm...”

  Chapter 11

  “Your majesty, your engineers report that a tower built in this way can be over a mile tall,” The scribe informed Da' King. “Excellent,” King Nimrod complimented, “Initiate the plan put in place and begin construction at once.” Bowing while rolling his eyes, the scribe asked, “The female mud wrestling part as well, Your Grace?” “Especially that part,” Da' King licked his lips.

  At the groundbreaking ceremony, Da' King cut the ribbon and spoke to the adoring crowd. (They were adoring the babes behind Nimrod.) “People of the earth. As we proposed to do, today we do. We, together, will build this tower to make a name for ourselves throughout time. The top of this tower will reach heaven itself. Each brick will be made in this pit behind me, stirred by the bodies of these temple virgins – touched by the body of Ishtar herself, the Queen of Heaven!” Way in the back of the crowd, someone yelled, “Blasphemy!” It was Shem. Nobody paid attention.

  The work progressed steadily. Nimrod charged admittance to watch the girls in the mud pit. Al set up a Bunch Punch stand and made another small fortune. He also invented the Bunch Bra for the young ladies, so they wouldn't fall out too much. A line of voluptuous models helped the men select the correct size to buy for their wives. Many men went back and forth from the drink line to the boob line, spending money with a big smile.

  “Almighty,” Archangel Michael bowed to God, “Have you noted what these goofy sons of men do now? They build a tower to the 'queen of heaven' and this Nimrod proposed to become a god thereupon.” “Go destroy the work of their hands,” God replied, “And have fun.”

  Dedication day arrived to find Da' King climbing the tower to the top with a temple virgin. When he had her, he believed, he would become King of Heaven. “Hi,” Michael said to Shem, who was weeping at the spectacle, “What's up?” Shem mumbled something about evil, punishment, etc. “Watch this,” Michael winked. To the astonishment of the crowd, Michael spread his wings and glided to the top where Nimrod had just then finished his climb. Michael reached behind “Da' King” and gave him and angelic-strength snakeskin wedgie. (Yup, he was wearing the magic underwear.) Gliding back to the earth, hot babe in arms, Michael gave the crowd a wave and a smile. The crowd cheered. “Oh, shit,” Shem whispered and started to run.

  Michael snickered and hooked his index finger under his thumb. “Shazam!” He said and flicked the cornerstone of the tower making a “Ding” sound. The ground rumbled and shook, the tower grew a dust cloud, the tower collapsed. And so it was that King Nimrod perished alone with that goofy crown on his head while picking snake scales out of his butt.

  Turning around, Michael raised his hands to the crowd and said, “Blablooplop.” With that, all the people began to speak the seventy languages of mankind. Nobody could understand what the other was saying. Therefore its name was called Babel, because the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

  “Hey,” Michael said, walking up to Al, “This is a good drink.” “Huh?” A confused Al said, he thought the angel asked him where the restroom was.

  Chapter 12

  The people of Babel were at something of a loss as to what to do next so they decide to elect a new king. The ballot consisted of the candidates' painting over a box in which the voter would drop a pebble. Al's campaign platform was free Bunch Punch and Bunch Bras for all and was elected in a landslide, or pebbleslide as it were. Upon assuming the throne, he asked his freshly drunk and bouncy all-women court about his name. “King Al doesn't really ring royal, does it?” King Al asked, “How about Gilgamesh?” The ladies giggled. The name means “He whose eyes rattle when breasts jiggle by,” but Al thought it meant, “Mighty warrior.”

  “All hail King Jiggly!” (Nobody ever said that to his face.) Bunch Punch and Bunch Bras became the chief exports of Babel and the whole world became both perky and mellow. 'Twas a good time to be king.

  Around the age of fifty, Gilgamesh noticed that he was becoming a wee bit pudgy in the middle and decided to do something about it. His astrologers suggested eating healthy along with daily exercise. Nonsense, he thought. The king ordered a search conducted in the records of Noah for a certain plant carried over from the old world having miraculous properties. (He had already tried rubbing Adam/Nimrod's recovered underwear on his nipples, but it just made him feel silly.)

  Scrolls found, Gilgamesh discovered the rumor was true; there was a plant which rejuvenated the body and made one young again. He had to have it. The babes deserved him. Oh yeah, baby. He set out on his quest to find Noah's ark. It wasn't hard, Mount Ararat was just over yonder, about a week away. At the top of the mountain, King Jiggly entered the ark and searched it high and low until he found the hidden box. Within the box was old Enoch scrolls and a bag of seeds.

  Returned to the palace, seeds planted, Gilgamesh waited for them to sprout. Weeks later, they did. They looked like mint. Al ate one. It tasted like snake poo, so he chugged a Bunch Punch. That night the king boinked-boinked his way through twelve babes before finally giving up. “Yeah, baby,” A very happy King Jiggly said all the next day.

  Over the next century, King Gilgamesh had ninety-seven children, eighty of which were boys. He named them all “Al.” Every twenty years or so, he would eat another magic leaf. (He also secretly rubbed the snakeskin underwear on his nipples, just in case.) King Gilgamesh reigned one hundred and twenty-six years until the people began to wonder if he was a god. Remembering what happened to King Nimrod over that sort of thing Al quit his job, moved to Egypt and became a porn star.

  Chapter 13

  In the land of the Chaldeans, in the city of Ur, lived a man named Terah. He was a merchant seller of statues which people worshiped, idols. This Terah had two sons; the first was Nahor and the other, Abram. After himself fathering a son, Nahor died choking on a chicken bone, poor guy. Abram was thus left to raise his nephew, Lot, because papa Terah was a crotchety old fart. Abram was a mere eight years older than his new-found charge.

  Essentially growing up together in Terah's house, the two had a wonderful time teasing the old fart about all the statues. One day Abram studied the idols and thumped one on the nose, the largest. It didn't hit back. He placed an offering before it and dared it to eat, it didn't. He took an axe and smashed all but one, then placed the weapon in the big statue's hands. That evening Terah demanded to know what happened and Abram said the largest idol destroyed all the others, “See, the axe is sill in his hand.” “Nonsense, boy. These idols don't move, did I not make them myself?” Accused Terah. “Why then, papa,” Abram grinned, “Do you worship that which does neither move nor eat nor defend itself?” Terah spanked Abram anyway, and God took notice.

  Terah soon thereafter died choking on a chicken bone, the poor crotchety old fart. What is it with chickens anyway? Anyway, Abram became the boss and took to himself a wife, Sarai. Then the Lord said to Abram, “Time for a road trip, Abram.” So Abram and all his household set out as the Lord commanded and they arrived in the land of Canaan. Then the Lord told Abram that He would give him all the land of Canaan, to him and his children forever. Cool!

  Now there was a famine in the land and Abram went down to Egypt to live while the famine was severe. When they arrived, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman and they all got stiffies. (Sarai was totally babealicious.) After a few days of this, the women of the la
nd complained to Pharaoh that they were worn out, their husbands wouldn't leave them alone. Pharaoh summoned Abram, gave him a bunch of food and told him to, “Git. Skat. Skedaddle. Vamoose.” So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev in the land of Canaan, a wealthy man.

  Nine months later, Egypt baby boomed.

  Abram and Lot realized they had too many flocks to dwell close together, so they decided to split up. Abram lived in the hill country of Canaan while Lot chose to live in the Jordan plain towards the east, and he pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were an exceedingly wicked group. They would never answer a question directly, but instead would paint their faces white and move their hands about, trying to make you figure out what they were doing. Sodom was a city of mimes – unspeakable evil incarnate.

  Chapter 14

  Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children and they were getting old. But she had an Egyptian maid name Hagar; so she said to Abram, “Go, sleep with my maid; perhaps I can build a family through her.” (Such was the custom back then, go with it.)

  Hagar was a comely woman who normally hid her femininity. When she heard of Sarai's suggestion, she put off her normal working attire and dressed herself in a skimpy little maid outfit she bought years earlier at Al's Secret in Egypt. (The same Al, yup.) Prancing around the house, she would use a cute little feather duster high and low, not much middle though. Abram had not wanted to do as his wife Sarai suggested, but seeing Hagar work thus he agreed. It was the low dusting that did it.