God’s Deadline

According to Jewish tradition, God uses the last month in the Hebrew calendar to judge every person on Earth and write their fate for the next year in the Book of Life, which he closes on Yom Kippur, sealing humanity’s destiny. For Jews this is the holiest time of the year when they seek forgiveness for all their sins committed in the last year, but for God this is the busiest time of the year when he tries to meet an unrealistic writing deadline.

God: So there’s a 3 here, a 2 in the corner and both are those are 1′s, which means…

Archangel Mikha’el: God! You’ve been playing minesweeper for the last hour. I knew switching from parchment to computers was a bad idea. You’ve got to stop procrastinating and get back to writing.

God: I deserve breaks! Writing a year’s worth of stuff to happen to 6,785,801,775 people is a lot of work. I don’t want to burn out.

Mikha’el: Let me see what you have so far.

God: It’s still a first draft. I’m not ready for other people to…

Archangel Mikha’el pushes God aside and reads off the screen.

Mikha’el: What do we have here. Benjamin Rosenberg gets laid off in November. He tries to take up cooking to fill his days but ends getting addicted to the soap opera Days of Our Lives. In February he meets Jennifer Blatt at a speed dating event, she gets pregnant and… oh come on God. Really?

God: What? What’s wrong with that?

Mikha’el: That’s the exact same thing you wrote for the last 40,000 people!

God: Yeah, but they’ll never meet each other, so what’s the harm if I double dip to save some time? I’ve got a lot of people to write about, there’s going to be some overlap.

Mikha’el: Okay, but you wrote that same fate for Shi Bing Nu. He’s a farmer in rural China. Where’s he supposed to find a speed dating event in the Qinghai province?

God: Fine! I’ll change his to an arranged marriage. You happy now?

Mikha’el: Now that wasn’t so hard, was it, God?

God: I’ve been writing for a week straight. I’m so tired. I need some Mountain Dew. Where’d my Mountain Dew go?

Mikha’el: No! No more Mountain Dew for you, God. Last year you drank a twelve pack and had people invent sports like Glacial Unicycling, Freefall Rollerblading and Rocketpack Badminton.

God: But the Henderson family really enjoyed Rocketpack Badminton!

Mikha’el: Until Grandma crashed into the side of their house. Seriously, Rocketpack Badminton was easily the worst idea you’ve ever thought of, and you thought up the cockroach.

God: What do you want from me? Look at the great writers throughout history. Homer only composed two epic poems. Shakespeare only wrote 37 plays. Twin Peaks only had one good season. I’ve been writing for 5770 years, I jumped the shark centuries ago. Just look at the Protestant reformation. I ran out of ideas so I introduced a new religion. How was I supposed to know it would ruin the dynamic and alienate fans?

Mikha’el: Come on God, focus. Look you’re doing pretty good, you’re already halfway done!

God: I’m only halfway done?!? I am never going to finish in time. Can’t I get an extension?

Mikha’el: No. You were the one who set the deadline for Yom Kippur, otherwise you said you would never finish.

God: Yeah, I know. But I made that rule back in my fire and brimstone days when there were only a few million people and most died young from plague, famine or poor medical practices. Those were better days, that’s for sure.

Mikha’el: Okay, God. I’m going to help you for a bit. Maybe bouncing ideas off someone else will get the juices flowing. Next up on your list is Wening Wulandari. She owns a food cart in Indonesia. What can we do with her?

God: Indonesia, huh? Isn’t that volcano Krakatoa in Indonesia?

Mikha’el: I don’t like where you’re going with this…

God: All I’m saying is, one really giant eruption and then I’m one hundred thousand people closer to hitting my deadline.

Mikha’el: You promised to lay off the large scale disaster for a few years. They were becoming a a writing crutch for you.

God: Okay, good point. But how about a small eruption, just two thousand dead? How’s that sound?

Mikha’el: Okay, that’s reasonable. So we’re done with Wulandari and her whole family. Next up is Fernando Gomez. He lives in Colombia and works as a mid-level bureaucrat in the Ministry of Transport. Let’s do something fun with him, maybe he wins the lotto?

God: I don’t know, that sounds like hack writing. How about this instead: He gets laid off in November. He tries to take up cooking to fill his days but ends getting addicted to the telenovela El Baile de la Vida. In February he meets Jennifer Blanco at a speed dating event, she gets pregnant and they marry two months later.

Mikha’el: That’s the best you’ve got?

God: It’s that or a huge earthquake.

Mikha’el: Fine. Looks like 5770 is the year speed dating really takes off.