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was.
    Returned to their cave, Adam and Eve went inside without a second look at their Creator. He waved to them forlornly from the entrance.
    “Pray to Me!” He boomed. “I’m always around!” But His gravitas was undercut by what sounded like a choked sob.
    Slowly Eden began to empty out of creatures, most of whom had eaten from the Tree of Restlessness, or the Tree of Leaving Home Without a Backward Glance. The grass picked itself up and germinated to pastures new, and the trees that remained withered and died. Urizel, the angel I had met while traversing the void, was sent down to act as a sort of night watchman, guarding the remains of Eden, although I wasn’t quite sure what there was left to guard. He greeted me fondly, still wielding his fiery, ever-turning sword, and I congratulated him on his reassignment.
    “Just like you said, I’ll be an archangel one day! A definite promotion! Look at all this matter! Ah, to feel something under your feet again instead of the abysmal void.” I don’t think he realized quite how far from Heaven he was.
    I didn’t see God for months, but I soon saw Adam and Eve again. They and their dachshunds were being attacked by a pack of saber-toothed tigers still smarting from their comments about the tastelessness of their stripes. As I came upon them they were complaining bitterly about being eaten.
    “It’s just too, too much,” said Adam as a tiger tore off part of his shoulder.
    “I agree,” said Eve, her back being clawed to ribbons. “Tooth and claw is so, well, so prehistoric.”
    “Simply stone age, dear,” said Adam, his head now fully inside one of the tigers’ jaws. And so the first humans on Earth died (their dachshunds survived, however, and could be seen hunting woolly mammoths alongside the saber-toothed tigers for years to come).
    I found human souls required special attention. Their toes and fingers make them particularly tricky to pop cleanly out of their bodies. In fact, many of my early human souls went into the void missing a digit or two. Being my first, Adam and Eve caused me all sorts of trouble.
    “Oh, do come on,” they cried as their souls slipped and snapped out of my grasp. “I mean, if this is dying, what hope for the hereafter?” After much grunting and pulling, I finally worked them free and hustled them into the Darkness. If the truth be told, I was glad to see the back of them.
    At that moment I heard a booming sneeze come from behind a boulder, and a bright radiance suddenly burst forth. God had obviously been watching the whole time.
    “Well done, Death,” He boomed. “Good work. Those two had definitely overstayed their welcome. And well done, you,” He boomed to the saber-toothed tigers, who pointedly ignored Him as they settled down to feast on Adam and Eve’s innards. “I shall honor your work,” He boomed. He seemed desperate to ingratiate Himself with the animals, who paid Him no attention whatsoever. “I shall make you all…extinct!”
    “Are you certain?” said I.
    “Why yes! All good deeds should be praised, so sayest I.”
    “But extinct?” I queried.
    “Yes.” boomed God.
    “Well, I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
    At that moment a high-pitched cry came from Adam and Eve’s cave. God looked at me and I at Him, and we both peered inside. There, on the ground, were two small creatures, bawling and screaming.
    “Ah,” boomed God. “So they were not so proper after all.”

 
    Murder in Paradise
     

     
     
     
    T he years passed, and I kept an eye on the two boys. They had been named Cain and Abel because they had been found lying close to two laminated tags that read SUGAR CANE and ABALONE. Thankfully, they showed none of the haughtiness of their parents; indeed, they seemed quite the opposite. They prayed to God constantly and were always going on about how much He liked them. In fact, they could often be found lording it over the other animals, calling them “stupid” and