Disclaimer: I own Alice and Mark but not much else.
Author's Note: This story was written about a year and a half ago on a very long train journey from Southern to Northern Germany and it was that time of the month. I was in quite a strange mood. This story is meant as a joke, please try not to be offended. Enjoy!
Author's Note2: I am also more that a little incompetent with computers and could not get this document to separate as I wanted it to. In case of any confusion there should be a break before "In the beginning was the Word", before "About a fortnight later", after "Humph!" and before the footnotes.
God was reclining on his favourite cloud in Heaven, well on his way to a well-deserved post-Pope-election-madness nap. He only knew how much too much of that there had been in the second half of the 20th century, as his children reckoned it. John, Paul, John-Paul, John-Paul II (not very imaginative are they?) since Vatican II! Admittedly though the job was, out of necessity, by definition even, not for youngsters, they should have lasted longer than that. They had lived (mostly) exemplary lives and science had advanced at an incredible rate. God strongly suspected Lucifer's (or Lucy, as he preferred to be known) involvement in John-Paul the First's death but he couldn't be bothered to go looking for proof, especially as his children, who were weird like that sometimes, were quite content to investigate it all themselves, on their level. But that was all over now and God was feeling rather pleased with himself.
A cool breeze announced the approach of another cloud. Even without opening his eyes, God knew who it was. He was God, after all, but it was mainly that clean, fresh smell with a hint of myrrh that gave away the presence of the Virgin Mary.
"We need to talk.", she said without preamble.
From her tone God could tell that he didn't really have a choice. Better to get it over and done with now, quickly so he could get back to his nap.
"Did you want to discuss anything in particular, Vi*1?", he replied, carefully concealing his annoyance at being interrupted.
"Don't call me that", she reminded him for what she felt was the billionth time. "It's about the women." Ignoring God's attempted, spluttering protests she ploughed on: "This is the 21st century and many things have moved on. One thing that has done so only on paper is the condition of women because they are considered weak."
"No can do there. You know I can't tamper with the "Original Sin" episode. If you really want to badger someone about it, go and see Lucy: he was directing."
"And you know full well that you're the only one who can go to Hell since the rest of us were banned after Mani's "Harrowing"".
God held up his hands to stem further onslaught: "Ok so it was too early to introduce him to Ambrosia. Going back to your problem, women are becoming more and more like men anyway. They're taking over: they already form over half of the total population and someone even remarked that if ever they learn how to open jars then men will just die out!"
"But they can't be as good as the men think themselves to be when they are rendered near invalid for, on average, a week every month. THAT, however, was your doing."
"Well so what: I also made man work to get his daily bread, didn't I?"
"But nowadays women help with that. So it seems unfair that the women don't have help with their retribution."
"But they DO! There are many medicines and things they can use."
"But many do not have access to them and in not a few cases, they don't WORK!"
"But most DO!", God rejoined lamely. He felt he was definitely loosing this side of the argument so he tried a different tack:
"Anyway, at the time, Lucy was just growing into his evil and I wanted to make it quite clear to him right from the outset how far I was willing to go in an exemplary attempt to warn our children away from him." He stopped there because he had spotted what looked suspiciously like a glint of triumph in Mary's eyes. Her tone confirmed this:
"Exactly. At the time. Now he is all grown up and he knows not to cross you too badly. So wouldn't it be merciful to do a little something to ease the ladies' pain?"
"Kill them", thought God but said only: "No." He knew it sounded a trifle petulant but he absolutely hated losing arguments. Yet, for some reason, the twinkle in her eyes became more pronounced. Then she took his next words right out of his mouth:
"Because it's forbidden by the Laws from Before the Dawn of Time*2 to meddle fundamentally with one's own creations, right? But you came close to that when you flooded the world after your tantrum. Since that is the precedent would you be agreeable to a little experiment?"
Leaving him no time at all to decline she continued: "You have many spare worlds. Don't bother to deny it: I know you can never throw anything away that might be useful one day. Why don't you start again exactly like you did on Earth but with these differences…"
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…"
"Let's skip the prologue, shall we", advised the Virgin Mary with impatient excitement. God obliged. He didn't really mind: the quicker it was done, the sooner he could rest. A month of Sundays. What genius came up with that idea? Oh him of course.
He knew what to do so he sped up Creation, with the minor amendments, and the rest of pre-apple-biting-history. He and Mary left Mark*3 and Alice*4 when they were chased out of the Gardenette*5 of Eden*6.
About a fortnight later Alice woke up with a terrible pain below her belly. The pain was so excruciating that, even if that word hadn't been invented yet she could still say, if someone had been probing inside her with a white-hot poker and a cohort of red-hot needles, it could probably not have been worse, if more visible. It was nearly unbearable, at least in silence. So she screamed it out. For many miles around, birds were startled out of the branches of newly-grown trees and bushes by that wrenching cry ,and small and furry, and not so small and furry, animals hid deeper in their homes and curled up in sympathy for the tearing apart of a body. Mark, lying next to her, stood no chance.
"What the ****** BEEP*7 is the matter?", he roared. The animals, cute or otherwise, dug their heads deeper into the ground or sea in shame and the birds flew further away in disgust*8.
"Just here, below my stomach, I feel like I'm on fire!", Alice exclaimed through teeth clenched between sobs. "I don't think I can move. Oh why did we eat of the apple?"
"Well you look, and feel, fine to me. I'm certainly getting no fun from God's chastisement. So come on, get up and get breakfast! Stop faking it, lazy!" Mark was unsympathetic because he was, by nature, a little inattentive to things which didn't concern him personally.
Alice, by nature, resented being called "lazy" and so her thoughts of revenge sustained her as she went about an only slightly less hard-working day than the ones before. However after a few days the agony abated and, since Mark had gone hunting before Alice's tormenting pangs had started and gone to bed without a bath, neither of them noticed the blood-red sheen to the bed.
The incident was forgotten. Until a week or so later.
Mark woke up with a terrible pain below his belly. The pain was so excruciating that, even if he hadn't invented the word yet he could still say that, if someone had been probing inside him with a white-hot poker and a cohort of red-hot needles, it could probably not have been worse. It was nearly unbearable, at least without squirming and squeezing the eyes tight shut. The birds and the animals stayed where they were, grinning triumphantly*9. Alice, being more sensitive to change and strong feelings, woke up and rolled over.
"Dear Mark, whatever is the matter?"
"I'm in agony. Just here, below my stomach, I feel like I'm on fire!"
Puzzled by his words Alice had a look at where he was indicating. Her frown deepened as she looked down her own body. Then she grinned wickedly and waited. She didn't have to wait long.
"BEEEEP! And I'm bleeding, look at me!" Then he broke off, confused. Something was wrong. That wasn't what his lower body looked like. He looked over at Alice's.
"What is this curse?" he cried out, rather overdramatically.
"Don't you see?", replied Alice dreamily, feeling strangely relaxed and lucid. "I help you put bread on the table. I share your hardships, you share mine. They do say a burden shared is a burden halved."
"But you didn't have to change to help bring in the harvest!", Mark complained.
"Look at these callused hands. Look at these blistered feet. Look at my cropped hair. Consider what type of clothing I have been wearing and the tan on my skin. To all intents and purposes I became a man to be able to help you, just as you are becoming a woman to help me. Will you not help me?"
Through the pain, Mark could see she was right and he could not refuse her request.
"Of course I will. This is how you felt before. How did you get the pain to stop enough to get on with your day?"
"It actually lessens if you have something else to do to occupy your mind. Moving around also helps, as does smelling lavender. Here you are."
Mark inhaled deeply of the herb's healing fragrance and felt the agony being dulled, even enough for him to start getting up.
"Let's go then. I don't know how long it will last but we have a lot to learn."
As she took her husband by the elbow to help him out of bed, Alice thought she heard a wise, feminine voice murmur:
"You see, it's so much nicer to share things, isn't it? Not to mention putting him more in touch with his feminine side…or should I say half."
The light laugh that followed did not quite conceal an unmistakeably male snort:
"Humph!"
God had got back to his comfortable cloud and was trying to get back to his daydreaming, but something felt wrong. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. He'd done everything right, with no mistakes, that he was sure of. He mentally ran through Genesis until he hit the passage that had been bothering him:
"So God created man in his image."
Feeling better having made that discovery, he decided to think more about any implications of his actions after his nap. As he fell asleep he considered that men tended to think in straight lines but all hisworlds were round, so that couldn't be absolutely true. Could it?
1* pronounce to rime with a very soft "purr"
2* a.k.a. the LBDots (pronounce el-bee-dots)
3* short for Adam Mark 2
4* Mary had always wanted a daughter.
5* This planet was a lot smaller than the original.
6* He may have given in on Eve's name but God was rather proud of the garden's so he wasn't going to change it.
7* The scribe, having recovered from his faint caused by the shock he got when the page he was copying from (paper not human) shouted the word now marked "BEEP" at him, would like to apologise for digressing from the original script but is adamant that an epithet so vile has no place in any world, written, spoken or gestured. The asterisks indicate less graphic, but no less unspeakable, and certainly unprintable, words.
8* Except for the parrots who stuck around in case there was any more interesting vocabulary to be learned.
9* "Oh you know what I mean! ***** beep BEEP!" The scribe copying simultaneously from the previous scribe agrees that less swearing would make the world a better place. As would making boys wear vests until they're 20.
Author's Note 3: I hope you enjoyed all that weirdness. If you have anything constructive to say, please say it (translation: I like reviews. *makes eyes that would put Puss from Shrek 2 to shame*). Now just a few details which at the time made sense to me but might not to you as you are not in my brain (at least I hope for your sake you're not). If you really want to know about the popes, you'll have to look it up yourself as I no longer remember what the story is exactly. My dad had been telling me about them on the way to the station but I wasn't paying much attention and only noticed that the names tended to repeat themselves. Jesus's name is Emmanuel, for which Mani is short. Dante makes several references in his Inferno to a time when Jesus has broken open the Gates of Hell and freed the Damned. I am aware that the episode in the Garden concerns childbirth not menstruation but I'm working with what I know about. Maybe one day this fic will be re-written in a more fitting way. I think it will have to depend on how angry at the world I am feeling.