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THE GORKO’S FIRST WHOOPS SELECTION FOR 12-18 August

And Such Small Portions

That day, God appeared to the people of the earth: five foot eleven, tan bucks, cream sports coat, polo an awesome blue. He looked great, like Paul Newman in the Color of Money; for He was the LORD.

And God said, I never liked an unto. I prefer to tell it straight. Get your orders in, the bar’s closing—and I mean for keeps.

People were on the whole pleased to see God, and especially that He wore a jacket so well, but they couldn’t hide the fact that this was pretty sudden news.

God stared deeply into theirs with His omnivident eyes and took their shoulders in His omnisentient grip. What I mean is, I’m calling time—on everything. Like the two-percent mortgage and S’Mores Mountain Dew, in a tight five if you tell anyone they’ll say, ‘That’s beautiful, but no way it could be true.’

Not you, obviously, God clarified, because you’re not going to exist. But nobody would believe me if I told them. Not that there’ll be anybody to tell that to.

Now all this took the people of the earth by surprise, because it was Sunday and warm and at the same time kind of chilly and a little overcast, which is to say none of them were really in the mood for acts of fate; so after a long and tortured silence, all they came up with to say was: Really?

And God said, No, not really.

And they phewed, and said, That’s a relief.

Then He said, Sike. Sorry, sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood. But yeah, no, totally. Santa Monica, Hardees, the Middle East, Cancún—it’s finito, fin, finished. Fertig? Not one of mine, by the way, German. Never could get my head round it. What was I saying? Oh, right. We’re through.

What about New York? called out someone who had just put down a whack for a condo with city views.

Especially New York, said God.

But I was going to start a podcast.

And that’s super exciting, the LORD agreed, but it’s quite a saturated market with a high rate of failure, so you could look at this as a bit of a coup.

Then came a rising ululation, a beast whose one wing was a screech and the other a plea: Why should something so pleasing to them as existence come to an end and so unexpectedly?

But we thought you were going to give us some kind of a sign, they whined through gnashed teeth.

At this God had to smile. What, ten-headed dragons, a sea of glass? That Dungeons and Dragons stuff, it was good reading, I’ll give you that, but it was your trip; now if it’d been me—

He clapped His hands, and the sky came down like crumbling blue cheese; horses bucked and whinnied and trampled their jockeys; the Frenchman fell from the ladder on which he espied the lady in her undressing; and the irritable bowel did travail irritably.

—you see the difference? One’s the Zena and Hercules Action Hour, the other’s a little more prestige TV.

Now He mounted the heavens and sat astride the earth, and He crossed one summer wool’d leg over the next. And therein lies the problem, God explained. I don’t think you ever really got where I was coming from. Let me give you an example: Hector Butte. You ever heard of him?

The people of the earth stared at Him with eyes of glass and shook their heads.

Fifty-one-year-old businessman, He said, ran dry cleaners up and down Dallas-Fort Worth. What about Lee Harvey Oswald? I know you know him. Now how about I ask you who shot JFK? Forgive the pun but—no brainer, right?

God leaned in close enough to each and every person on the planet for them to smell the faintest hint of shaving soap on His cheeks. Wrong. It was Butte, cleaning his gun after a little breakfast rye, maybe a double, maybe two; had it facing backwards out the window of his living room, view right over Elm Street.

Don’t get me wrong, He went on, sitting back against the sky. Oswald wasn’t in the Book Depository with a Mannlicher looking for something to read. Prusakova, Mexico City, the flyers with the CIA’s address in New Orleans—I mean this stuff was no coincidence. The point is, He never got the chance to pull the trigger. Though the poor guy had to take the fall for it all the same.

Now a burn not unlike horseradish was in everyone’s noses, climbing up to where it felt like their brains, if there were any left, would be.

God adjusted a cufflink, though His cufflinks were never askew. Maybe I’m not explaining myself well. That’s always been my issue. What you’ve gotta understand is: it was you who came up with that stuff about grand plans and predetermination. You thought I’d drawn up some massive cosmic blueprint, when actually I was just out here doodling on a tablecloth to see where I could go.

Because there’s just so much time, He said, all of dang eternity—and you can’t imagine how boring eternity can be. That stuff about being formless and void? That was after heaven and earth. Imagine what it was like when the deep was faceless—before there was even a deep!

It drove me screwy, I tell you. Crazier than a waltzing mouse. And into the eyes of the LORD there came a curious gleam. And He whispered, I guess you could say creation saved me.

He gazed down at them with a tear in His eye like a rhinestone on the cape of Liberace. And it hurts me as much as you to say goodbye to it. Maybe not as much, since I’m still going to be around. But I was a huge fan of this place. I loved it! The Tang Dynasty, frogs, sodomy, the New Romantics: you put on a hell of a show, no one can argue. But now— God picked the tear from His lash and gazed at it on His fingertip. Now I need time to reflect, to digest, to pull my head together somewhere quiet and see what I think, and what I can do better—iterate or die, right? Because next time, it’ll be different.

A cautious but hopeful murmur rose up from the earth: Next time?

Oh yeah, God nodded, it’s going to be fantastic. Something to behold. And He smiled towards but not at them, to something far off in the distance. I only wish you could see.

Then He snapped His fingers, time turning to many rayed streams, one for each of them on earth, like if a pair of pants was made only of the zips, and advanced them all by the few minutes that remained to the moment of their burning in the silver-salt flame of non-being.

Now they stood all together with their God at the brink, staring at something of such enormity and certitude that there wasn’t really any reason to beg or plead, just to shuffle from foot to foot listlessly and occasionally to let out a phlegmatic ah jeez.

And as they waited in line to be deafened by a silence louder than any scream, someone whispered, Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight: It turns out that there is a God after all—and it doesn’t mean a thing?

But the LORD sees and hears all; and since He was the Word, it was only fitting that the last one be His.

For you, no, He said. But you can take pride in the fact that it sure does to me.

And seizing everyone by the sliders, He smiled, waved, and zipped—