otherwise published (by me): Freedom of Juice

Well, ok, it wasn´t already published, but I just found it again, and I´m quite fond of it. It is what it is and, more importantly, it is what I set out for it to be: a nice little ditty.
So read and comment away...

Freedom of Juice

By Thomas Hemsley

“And verily, I say unto thee...are you listening?“

“Yeah, sure.” Adam and Eve promptly replied in holy matrimony of thought and speech.

“Good. What I have to say is of grave importance, so listen carefully.”

“We are.”

“Now – I have created this garden of celestial beauty for thee – and thou shalt be full of gratitude and praise for it…”

“We are, we are.”

“…and Me.”

“We are.”

“Furthermore, I have created the fish in the water, the birds in the sky and all the other creatures that animate this world.”

“We thank thee and praise thee.”

“Of course you do. I have also equipped thee with a mind and Freedom of Choice to name all those beautiful things yourself.”

“Freedom of choice?” They looked at each other and then at Him – the bush – in complete incomprehensement. At this point of the story (History of Mankind, that is), they don´t have many other facial expressions at their disposal, but come the time, come the development of many other stupid faces. “What is that?”

“Oh God, this isn´t happening…”

“Thou shalt not say His name in vain.”

“What do you know??? I shalt use My name in vain as oft as I wish, goddammit. You haven´t the capacity to know what you´re talking about, and besides, The Ten Commandments are way out of your temporal AND mental reach. But I digress.”

He has that propensity, but cut The Man some slack – he has a lot on His mind what with the universe, this new world, heaven and hell, his latest creation (to be pronounced French) ´n`all.

“Freedom of Choice is my coup de grace.”

“We´re not questioning that – but what are the options?”

“What, for chrissakes, do you mean?”

“Well, we get to build our house whereever we want, we can, to a certain extent manage our time freely,we can eat and drink whatever this place has to offer, and that´s a lot. All the fruit, and the vegetables – the different juices and pies we can make with all that – and that´s all very well, but, really, what´s the big deal, sorry: Big Deal?”

“The Big Deal, the BIG DEAL. Surely, thou shan´t be this daft.”

The development of stupid faces has now taken a giant leap, as they go though variations of bafflement.

“Okay, here´s the Big Deal. You´ll get a tree in this garden of yours, which you can´t eat from No juice, no pie, no nothing. It shall be the Tree of Knowledge, an embodiment of your options, of the Freedom of Choice. If thou dost eat from it, thou shalt know the difference between Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Stupid and Daft, Love and Hate, Alpha and Omega, Sense and Nonsense, Life and Death and all the other capital-letter-initials thou art too feebleminded for to understand, anyway. And thou shan´t know it all right away, but get to know it empirically – especially Death. It´s either that OR thou can choose not to eat the fruit and live together happily ever after in Cosmic Harmony and Blissful Ignorance. It´s your call.”

“Uhmm…can we sleep over it?”

“Heaven, Ass and Thread, shalt I open a can of oldtestamentarian whoopass on thou. This isn´t something you have a say on. The Tree stands over there. Thou hast the choice: it´s either well-fed, or, well, dead. Sleep over that.”

He left them alone to their destiny of inventing more stupid faces by the minute.

“The incompetence I have to put up with. What was I thinking?? Maybe I should annihilate them. That would spare them some inconveniences and I wouln´t have to listen to some of their sillier prayers.”

He sat down in His armchair. In order to unwind a bit He turned on Channel 666, contemplated some mysterious ways he could work in and drank some nectar. He had it coming out of His ears already, but, this being heaven, the choice of beverage came with the territory.