n the beginning me and God created the heaven and the earth.
All right, it was God who actually done it, but I was with him. My name is Gabriel and my job is to hang around God and do whatever he wants.
What God done was he set off a big explosion and blowed everything to smithereens, and out of the pieces come the Heaven and the Earth.
"What in the world was that big bang!" old Michael hollered. Old Michael is the Archangel and when he hollers, I answer. Even God would think twice before going against Michael directly. It would never happen though. They have an understanding.
"Aw, it's just God, Mr. Michael, Sir," I hollered back. "He's messing with his fireworks."
Old Michael don't approve of God experimenting, especially so close to home, but he keeps it to hisself. I turned back to find God looking down a big hole. "What are you looking at?" I asked.
"The Earth."
"Can I have a look?" God moved over a little so I could see. It wasn't much, just a big ball, still smoking from the explosion, and all covered in muddy water it looked like to me.
"Now, that's going to boil off," God said. "It's hot inside and the heat's going to boil the water off and make clouds. And then dry land is going to appear."
And I said, "Well I'll be."
"Of course, it'll take some time," God said. "We might as well drag us up a chair."
When dry land come, we went down and God made grass and trees and things like that, but not weeds because God didn't want it to be weeds. I didn't like to say anything, but it was kind of gloomy with all the clouds.
"You sure it's supposed to be like this?" I asked. "Don't the sun never shine?"
"I'm just getting to that part," God said and parted the clouds and let the sun and moon and stars shine through. He said they would be good not only for light but for signs, too, and that now you would be able plant potatoes in the dark of the moon and tell where north was.
And I said, "Well I'll be!"
And then God made every kind of fish he could think of to stock the rivers and ponds and oceans, and all kinds of birds for the air, and beasts for the woods and animals for the fields, and even grasshoppers.
And I looked at them in wonder and said, "Well I'll just be!"
And God said, "Hey, that ain't nothing, Gabe. Just watch this." And he begun to scoop up clay with his hands and pat it into the spitting image of hisself. And when he was finished he leaned down and blowed on it, and the image opened it's eyes and looked all around and broke into a big grin and said, "Diggety dog!"
And I said, "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!"
And God said, "Lordy, Gabe, I'm tired. Creating really takes it out of you. I might just take tomorrow off and us go a- fishing."
"Do you think you can square it with old Michael?" I asked. Old Michael don't look too kindly on us common angels goofing off. "Of course, I don't really know what fishing is. I expect it's something else you just made up."
"Fishing is whatever we want it to be," God said. "And I'll fix it with old Michael. I'll just make tomorrow a holiday. I'll call it the Sabbath.
