The Last Testament: A Memoir Read Online Free Page B

approaching their bottom, and what little cocktail sauce remained had to be licked off the side of the bowl.
3 The Flood had taken much longer than I expected; I confess that many of you were much better swimmers than I had ever conceived, and that your corpses proved far better flotation devices than I had previously anticipated.
4 But finally the last one of you drowned; and thou wert all devoured by fish; and these fish in turn shat thee out; whereupon smaller fish ate the thee-shit.
5 And the oceans began to withdraw; and here there is yet another animal-related error in the Bible: for Noah did not send forth a raven and a dove to determine whether the waters had subsided; he sent forth Sparky and Pillow.
6 Yea, he dropped them both into the waters; and Pillow swam but a few cubits, and yelped pitiably, and returned to the ark; but Sparky proved more intrepid, and paddled and churned through the endless ocean, until he disappeared beyond the horizon.
7 He did not return; and Noah presumed he had found dry land; and Noah loved Sparky; and I loved Noah; so I left it at that.
8 Then at last the waters receded, and the ordeal was over; and humanity emerged ready to move past its long global nightmare, known at the time as “Floodgate.”
9 The ark landed upon Mt. Ararat, which I chose because it had jutting from its summit a perpendicular ridge of sufficient width to double as a pier.
10 I remember as the ark approached, mirthing cunningly unto Noah and his family, “Behold, I see a pier appear up here!”
11 Long I waited for a response; but they kept silent, lost in grief for their tens of thousands of drowned kinsmen.
12 A righteous family, Noah’s; but a tough crowd.
13 Then I blessed him and his descendants, and bid them be fruitful and multiply; and as a sign of this blessing, I displayed unto them a glorious rainbow;
14 Which is why it is most ironic, that of the millions of people who today take the rainbow as their banner, not one of them can multiply without outside assistance.
15 And I made a covenant with Noah never again to destroy every living thing with a Flood, as it is written: “And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.”
16 That is Genesis 9:11; and lo, everything changed after Genesis 9:11.

17 For the survivors of this new, post–9:11 world had learned through bitter experience, that behind daily life’s peaceful façade there lurked always the potential for unimaginable horror, at the hands of a religious extremist with little regard for human life.

CHAPTER 10
1 A nd so for a second time the earth was repopulated from a single family; and for a second time I will refrain from delving into thy prurient curiosity over whether or not this entailed the practice of “siblings with benefits.”
2 The only event of note over the next 400 years was the Tower of Babel, which caused me to confound all the languages of the earth.
3 That was a zoning dispute.
4 Thou seest, the Tower’s blueprints called for it to be 57 cubits high; yet municipal ordinances of the time allowed for the erection of no commercial structure over 50 cubits high, as per §[C26-801.1] of the Greater Babel Building Code.
5 (The reason was that a building higher than 50 cubits would significantly obstruct my view of earth, thus lowering the resale value of heaven.)
6 But the building’s owners countered that as the Tower would comprise partly single- and double-family dwellings, it should be granted a residential and/or special-use exemption under a little-used (and, to be candid, poorly-worded) secondary codicil of the Code of Hammurabi.
7 This prompted a hearing on the matter, featuring rambling testimony from idle senior citizens, and much bluster from the architect about “aesthetic integrity,” when verily from a purely visual standpoint the design lacked even the charm of a second-tier