It was far too early for any of this. Well, it depends on your definition of early. And time. And space.
So while the world turned on its axis, the world also orbited merrily around the sun, the moon around the earth and at the same time on its own axis in coincidental lunar synchronicity. The Sun flared boisterously, emitting those fizzingly mysterious photons at the speed of itself, probably not knowing even what day it was. Or even that it was day. Turns out it's always daytime for the Sun. Which is nice for it. Explains why it's so jolly.
Meanwhile, somewhere less relevant but at the same time extremely more relevant for this story, light began to creep through the shutters of a very small cuboid office, down a long cuboid corridor in a vast cuboid building. Those curious photons making trouble. On the door with said shutter, was a dusty sign in an official-looking font, that at certain angles looked like exotic animals in stern conversation, and which read:
'Planet 23235123131241'
Underneath in biro — the sort of biro you think you should lick to get going but you know it never works like that — was nicely printed in all caps, with a heart and a question mark wrapped around it:
❤️EARTH?
The photons meanwhile had entered the room.
Dave creaked his eyes open, as the photons scattered on them like tiny annoying glowing marbles, imagining a small little Lego winch machine attached to each eye, desperately pulling his eyelids up, squeaking and creaking but all the time facing the reality of the gravity of the situation in hand.
He had fallen asleep on the job.
· · ·
'Oh.'
'My.'
'GOD.'
He stared reluctantly at the green screen blinking at him, as he blinked back at it. It responded to his struggle by typing at him in striking, staccato bursts.
'Hello GOD. God of Planet 23235123131241. Did you have a nice sleep.'
Dave closed his eyes again and tried to remember if it was four or five beers he had had the night before. That had to be the only explanation for his predicament — until he realised he was doing Dry January this year for the first time. He had told everyone this fact many times this month in the office. That he wasn't drinking tonight but would still be loads of fun and everyone nodded, but they really knew that what he really meant was that his entire personality hinged on alcohol and without four or five beers he was just a husk of a man.
"Dave. Wake up." A voice boomed in his head. This wasn't the computer talking now.
"No for god's sake. I am asleep."
"Dave we are in a big shit. Very big shit." The voice boomed again in velvety-irony tones.
Dave opened his eyes again, and stared directly into the face of God.
Standing by his desk was God. Well, technically a minor god. The main God — the one who made the universe, the one who weaved space and time from nothing and brought matter into being — that God had the big office with the big desk and the big chair. You never really saw them. You just knew they were there. It was a belief system most of the time, and that kept everyone in check when it came to time sheets and managing interplanetary belief systems.
Belief kept it all working seamlessly.
· · ·
You have to remember that with 2 trillion galaxies, each with 200 billion stars, each with a couple of planets thrown in, the big bossman of the universe had been busy. The universe didn't end and nor did their to-do list. No rest on Sundays it turned out, they just cracked on. Galaxy here. Planet there. Supernova sprinkled for good measure. Boss God didn't have a boss themselves telling them to "just chill now — you've probably made enough stuff to go around." No. There was now a lot to manage.
So here is where the minor gods come in. Each and every planet was assigned a minor god to look after it. To discover if it could have life, to nurture and cultivate that life, to encourage intelligence, culture, society and — when needed — sprinkle a dash of religion. Keep an eye on it. It's like being given a chameleon for Christmas. For you, keeping it alive is a big responsibility. For the Madagascan rainforest, it doesn't matter either way.
Some of these gods just looked after floating space pebbles. Some black holes. Some had nothing to do but check on a huge gas giant that emitted space farts (scientific nomenclature) once every 400 million years.
At the same time, some were just being absolute arseholes, torturing their people and planets with spikey pokey things, and others were your classic spotty swots — the ones who casually developed life that existed in eleven dimensions and had transcended their bodies to achieve a higher level of consciousness and intergalactic spirituality. Those types.
The God of 23235123131241 was definitely in the lower divisions. If divisions had depths then they were truly plumbed by our God.
You have to remember that Earth is 4 billion years old and had been mainly a big hot ball of lava being pummelled by meteors and asteroids for most of that time. It wasn't until 200 million years ago when our God — God of Earth — finally got some things to play with.
Lizards.
Now lizards were what he got, and what he only had for over 180 million years. God had lizards. And the lizards were terribly great. He loved them.
· · ·
It was Tuesdays on Earth that usually Dave felt most dead. On Mondays he would take his snazzy aluminium folding bike into work, whistling in and out of cars with a gentle sneer, like he was proving to them that the only power source that anyone needed were well-honed quads rather than an inline-4 internal combustion engine. His breakfast ticked all the macros, his supplements were complete and his guided-meditation holistic. He'd switch on his usual podcast, clip into the pedals and listen to two wise men reminding him about his personal journey on his bicycle journey, and that self-actualisation was just another episode away. You just had to believe.
By the time Tuesday came around he felt like he was crawling out of a loosely-packed, badly-dug mob grave and not even being slightly excited that he'd survived the night entombed in soil and worms. Life, despite all appearances, wasn't Dave's strongest point.
"I love this ride into work. I really do."
He enjoyed being alone in life to some extent. No noise, no distractions, no bother. He could focus on his hobbies, his job and his hobby that apparently was his job or vice versa depending on the day. He had a very clean plan about where he wanted to get to by 35 and each day got him a bit closer. Each Monday was another step forward. Each Tuesday was basically surrender.
Now this Tuesday turned out to be slightly more deadly than most.
Most involved trying to get over Monday. A Monday in the office staring at a screen, moving numbers in cells, enthusiastically draining his aeropress coffee from a novelty mug emblazoned with the words 'BOSS BITCH ENERGY' — he liked the irony despite most people not really understanding it, even when he explained that it was a joke, in a lot of detail and with a lot of energy.