Entry 55: in which the Ghost dishes the goss

Where's an archangel when you want one? No, no, the question is rhetorical. Fact is, I can't move for tripping over cherubim, but Lucifer and the rest distinctly thin on the ground.

Digression to self: Is some sort of census required? I mean, where do they (cherubim) come from? I'm sure there are more every time I look. Or is it that they just move around a lot? Anyway, with Mrs G being a trifle exercised, this must go into the "Sometime" folder ...

No Lucy, but did bump into the Ghost.

"What ho etc.," I volunteer, but skimp on the pleasantries as I can see he is bursting with news, "What gives on the Planet of the Apes, then?"

And he catalogues the following, none of which I find reassuring:

- the lad is a right smart-arse (this is news?)
- he has grown his hair
- he is wearing sandals
- he has persuaded some lads even dimmer than himself to chuck in their day jobs and follow him around
- he is wowing the locals with miraculous performances
- he is right up the noses of various worthies, essentially by (a) being cleverer than them (this is news) and (b) by messing with the forex desk in some temple or other
- and generally raising his profile past the point where the numbers change from green to red

Now I should explain the obvious.

Obvious point the first: when you step down a dimension you can be as thick as curdled milk and still know more than the threaties.

Obvious point the second: biologically embedded entities can't do real pan-dimensional stuff, which does really come across as miraculous. Thus while the lad can do plenty of mind-control, wake the dead, get the lame walking, that sort of thing, he can't actually grow back severed limbs or give folks three eyes. He can change his density of course, but unless he plans walking on water some time (ha ha) I can't see that being much use to him.

Anyway, even I can see that it's time for Plan B, and the moment I can track Lucy down, I shall set it in motion.

All we need is a little luck and ... some temptation!

Brilliant!

Entry 54: in which Mrs G is emphatic

Mrs God, as everyone knows, can be sweetness and light. If there were lambs in the realm they would gambol at her feet, and quite possibly lick them too.

However, Mrs G is, once more, vexed, no prizes for guessing what about.

Thus, in the manner of one who is not lacking in intelligence, I have been giving her the space she needs at a trying time like this.

Imagine, then, the stinging indignation one felt, when tracked down and accused of (and I quote) "evasion".

"Now look here Mrs G" I began, in a tone of utter reasonableness.

"No, you look here!"

Cut across me. Just like that. Momentarily robbing me of the power of speech. In which no doubt welcome vacuum she continues "This has gone on quite long enough. Go and get the boy! Bring the little sod back and I mean now".

Well I launch into a reasoned description of the virtue of travel, the broadening of horizons, that sort of thing, only to be interrupted yet again.

"Excuse me" she says in a tone one would describe as being on the frosty side of frigid, "which part of my last sentence have you not understood? Where would elaboration be most useful? Perhaps you would like to attempt a paraphrase and reflect it back to me? Perhaps ..."

"Now now dear, let's be reasonable about this." My pleading tone. "The boy is embedded you know, there are natural laws here that don't want to be violated, it's not just a matter of ..."

"Hmmm". Not a good sign, when Mrs G Hmmms. Generally a prelude to biting sarcasm. As now. "Let's get this right, shall we? You are a deity, I think? Yes? Have I got that bit right? Oh good. You are in charge of this ludicrous universe. Yes? You are omnipotent. Hmmmm? That means you can do what you like rather than just bleating about natural laws. Or is there some subtlety I haven't quite grasped? So may I suggest ..."

Fortunately her words were becoming fainter and fainter, something that I can only attribute to the distance that I was busy putting between us.

"Quite so dear" I say over my shoulder, "Look, let me have a word with Lucy. He's good with this kind of unorthodox stuff. Be right back".

Well perhaps this last was a tiny exaggeration. But the idea about getting Lucy involved is a good one.

If I say so myself.

Entry 53: in which I brief the Ghost (again)

I have decided to set aside, for the moment, my unhelpful reflections on the nature of life, the universe and everything. Clearly, since I already know everything, I also know the answer about Me and Mrs G. But equally clearly, the fact that I appear not to have privileged access to this part of my psyche, suggests that the conundrum is better left unexplored.

So how to fill one's time?

What better than to call in the Ghost's debt. What debt? Well he owes me for being a total plonker. That will do.

Anyway. I tell him to hightail it back to obscurity and keep a watching brief on the lad. Who by now is almost certainly reaping the benefits of his distinctly unearthly precocity. One feels, almost with regret, that the lad and woe have a gravitational attraction for each other.

And speaking of gravity, why is it that it is so weak in this iteration of the universe? Something amiss surely?

Anyway, must resist the temptation to attend to that now.

(Besides which it might be unkind to those life forms that have already evolved to rack gravity up a couple of million times to where it should be. I mean, walking along minding your business one minute and being a very flat puddle of strawberry jam the next.)

Ah me. If one only had thumbs to twiddle. Those wretched apes have it all!

Entry 52: in which I ruminate further on the Mrs God thing

Now you must not think that I am obsessed by Mrs God, worthy though she it. It's just this hole in my memory that's nagging away at me.

While cogitating thus I stumbled across a rather frightening possibility. Has there always been a Mrs God? And if that's weird, it is any weirder than not having the faintest idea of how we met?

But this leads to further desperately worrying thoughts. Like has there always been me? It certainly feels like it but that's no criterion.

The alternative is almost worse, which is if there hasn't always been me, then how did I spring into being? Presumably some (even) higher entity created me.

But it gets worse and worse. Did a 'higher' higher entity then create the higher entity that created me? This is getting ridiculous. Even I can see an infinite regress when it's about to run me over.

The only crumb of comfort that I can glean from this is that spotty undergraduates in odd corners of the sentient universe will be beating their brains out over exactly the same thing.

Serve them right.

Entry 51: in which One is astonished

Decided that there has been enough shilly-shallying around the circumstances of my first meeting with Mrs God, so did the obvious thing and waylaid her.

Came straight out with it: "Now look here Mrs G; do you remember exactly when and how we first met?"

To my astonishment this apparently straightforward question was met with peals of laughter and the response "Oh, you are funny!"

And she wandered off cackling to herself.

I mean, for goodness sakes!

Entry 50: in which I reflect on something strange

With Mrs G assuming a higher profile once more, I have been reflecting on something a tad strange. It is this. In what circumstances did we meet?

Now bear with me on this one.

I know it's been a long time. But time for a deity is a rather slippery concept. Whereas biological creatures are swept along in what might be described as a linear stream of time, deities find themselves floating in an ocean of time. They can move this way and that, though not too far and not too fast. More usually they are prepared to move with the ebb and flow of time's tides and subtle currents.

In other words, no, it's not simply a matter of forgetting. Though I'll admit to a certain forgetfulness ...

No, it's more like, when I look into that part of what has been, I just get this kind of swirling emptiness, which defies introspection.

I could of course simply ask Mrs God if she remembers how we met, but I hesitate for two reasons

(a) she might not remember either which I find disconcerting or
(b) she might remember all too well which I find disconcerting

None of this is helped by a stupid bit of doggerel that goes round and round in my mind "God finds it odd".

Well of course I do.

Entry 49: in which the clouds have parted

Glad tidings. About time. But never mind. Anyway, the fact is that Mrs God is once again all sweetness and light. It appears that the gloom occasioned by the lad's ill-thought departure to Earth has lifted and she is once again taking an interest in the realm and its denizens.

She has (I learn through diverse and subtle means) instructed the wretched Ghost to keep some kind of watching brief over the boy and report progress. It seems that what she hears has pleased her.

The salient facts are these:

- Herod's plan to terminate the boy in his earthly form has failed
- it appears that his foster father, family in tow, headed for parts unknown - well, unknown to Herod, though known to others as Egypt. My sources have it that one of the seraphim tipped him off and headed him in that direction; strictly against regs, but can't be arsed to chase this rumour down
- lying low for a while seems to have done the trick (in that Herod has shuffled off his earthly coil) and the family are now ensconced in Nazareth where the lad's biological analogue is putting on a goodly spurt of growth
- there are disconcerting though utterly believable hints that he is growing up a proper little know-it-all. I do wish he would learn to keep a low profile, but alas, this is where these excursions of his tend to come unstuck.

Oh well. I suspect it is these very rumours of his precocity that have kindled a warm glow in Mrs G's maternal recesses and brightened her disposition.

We shall see.