Dave Hop A bit of the Bible revisited. This week: Genesis 7: 1-4.
The sheep and cows and doves are strutting their stuff. They’ve got lots of friends. They feel very confident indeed. The locusts feel good too. Fourteen of every kind of chopping, cutting, hopping, dissecting, snipping-in-two, nibbling, chewing and spitting out locusts. Lots of them. Whole gangs. They’re happy. They’re in the majority, this is locustville right now. Whereas the pigs and the lizards and the bats. They look well worried. An argument breaks out.
‘Why’s there only two of us and fourteen of you?’ say the pigs.
‘Get over it,’ sneer the cows, ‘you’re just not that important.’
Noah appears.
‘Right you lot you’re probably wondering why there are only two of some of you. Yet fourteen of others.’
No… No, no, no, no. Never crossed our minds. Not at all.
‘Well, I have good news and I have bad news. Oh and then even worse news. Which would you like first – the bad, good or very bad?’
They decide to start with the bad – somewhere in the middle of the scale.
‘Well I’ve been chatting with the almighty, you know, the one who created all of you lot… and well, I think we’d all agree he was pretty clever wasn’t he? I mean, how many different kinds of locusts would you have thought of? Yes, that’s true, I’m not sure that we really need so many different kinds of locusts… but… yes and I’ve never understood the purpose of wasps. But that’s not the point. The point is – it’s gonna rain. For a long time. What’s rain? Well, water is gonna drop out of the sky on your heads. Yes, now would be a good time for God to invent the umbrella, I agree. But he’s not. Instead he’s invented me, and I’ve invented a boat. What? That big thing behind me. Yes… it will float. It will. IT WILL! And the good news is – you’ve all won free tickets. So you get to go on the boat, sail off into the sunset and then wait for the water to… er… go off somewhere. I dunno where… never seen so much water before so I don’t know what happens to it. Maybe it’ll all turn into mashed potato and you can eat it all. Anyway after that you’ll all get off…. apart from the ones who won’t get off. Which brings me to the really bad news. Now any questions? Eh? What is the really bad news? Ah, now I’m glad you asked that, it’s not easy for me to say, put it like this, those of you in the larger groups, yep that’s right the ones singing and dancing and feeling good about yourselves cause there’s a lot more of you, well there won’t always be a lot more of you. What am I saying? Well, don’t go making too many career plans… or putting a deposit on a holiday. I mean, you’ll all be coming off the boat, it’s just that some of you will be coming off inside some of the others.
(Sighs) All right, what I’m trying to say is… I’m allowed to bring fourteen of every kind of creature that we can… ahem… eat. Right, shall we get on board? Look there’s no need to panic, we may not have to eat all of you. We don’t know how long we’ll be on the boat. If we’re only on for a few hours then a snack will suffice. A few locusts and half a sheep will be fine. Well you can draw straws. On the other hand if we’re there for a few weeks then… Where you all going? You can’t leave. You’ve won the special tickets. You’re coming on board. You’re the lucky ones. It’s a great opportunity. Something to tell the grandchildren. Except of course, for those for whom it’ll be less of an opportunity and… there won’t be any grandchildren. What? I dunno. Fried? Steamed? Sautéed? In a white wine sauce? What would you prefer? Steamed is obviously healthier. Well not for you, no. I was thinking of me. Anyway look, there’s no time to waste. Can’t stand here prattling all day about consuming you lot. All aboard. Edibles on the left, inedibles on the right.’
(extract taken from Pulp Gospel)
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