Instead, the gods were in divorce court.
Despite making love frequently, their love had soured. Instead of love, all they felt for each other was an apathetic lust. Sooner or later, something had to give, and it had. As such, they were in godly divorce court, battling for custody over the parts of the universe they had ruled over in tandem for the last few billion years.
As usual, divorce court was hell. The two lovers, formerly friends, soon turned into enemies, fighting each other over custody of planets they had never cared much for before.
On one of these planets, a young man crawled from the radioactive rubble of his home. Somehow still alive, he headed for the bomb shelter on the outskirts of town and found a few other survivors.
This man's name was Joe Astari, and he soon became the leader of the group. This group ventured forth, looking for an untouched place to live. Soon, they found an island just off the coast, and they built a small civilization there.
As time went on, the group grew, and generations passed as they cultivated the land. As the new climate of the world settled, it happened that the island was located in a beautiful part with excellent rainfall, sunlight, and no winters whatsoever. The isle was truly a paradise.
Time went by, and the Astari developed their own religion and rules of law. Because food was plentiful and provided by the land, all anyone had to do was go out each day and harvest some in order to feed the people. A religion was developed, along with statues and temples to show the god's power. This god granted them strength, granted them speed, and granted them power. The only command that their god made was that they worship him and that they wear wooden, tiki-like masks to show their love of him. The individualistic tribe became one under the god's rule, able to simultaneously be individuals and yet all hold the same opinions, think the same thoughts, act the same acts, and live the same lives.
They were good lives, though. Lives free from peril, from strife, from problems. For the Astari were happy within their abodes. Their land was fertile, their food was good, their lives were comfortable, and all in all there was nothing to complain about. On occasion, of course, there were problems; sometimes an Astari would kill another one, sometimes there was thievery and violence, but despite minor problems, the society was a healthy, happy one.
At least, it was until the divorce proceedings wrapped up. The gods were ordered to split their possessions evenly. And so it was that the small blue planet was left to one god, who came and looked upon it at an inopportune moment. For you see, like all societies, the Astari had a form of justice. In this case, they had found a man and a woman guilty of killing another man–the woman's husband–and both had been sentenced to death. This death sentence involved stripping the guilty of their masks, exiling them from their religion; sailing out beyond the island with a canoe and throwing the guilty parties into the water, exiling them from their home; and then rowing back and leaving them to drown, exiling them from their lives.
So this was done. But the drowning did not take, for at this moment the god came back, and it just so happened to come back at the very spot where the two were drowning. The god then extended the land to them, and the two found their way to dry land and from there to a beach, where they proceeded to start their own settlement, one with a god who would take care of them even if they had killed a man.