Instalment Thirteen

Days of Heaven

The God of Abstinence knew she would be found out. Her position was untenable. She couldn’t make anyone exercise restraint from indulgence. Not humans, not the guy at the next desk(1) and most importantly, not herself. Not for any length of time anyway. No matter how you sliced it, even the most fervent believers caved eventually. They reached their goal and had no use for her(2).

She realised if she did her job flawlessly there would be no more people, which was the first step towards The End(3). And she wasn’t going to deal with problems like The End, that was above her pay grade. So she made concessions, both professional and personal, which if she was to be honest with herself, came as a relief. The “no sex” thing was a non-issue(4), who was going to hit on The God of Abstinence after a hard day at work? What a waste of time! It was the diet that was killing her(5), especially when the voluptuous God of Baking(6) kept bringing her work to work.

The God of Absurdity, who sat her to right just laughed and said it was thanks to people like her his job was so easy.

(1) - The God of Absence was forever missing work due to what he called “irritable bowel” but the whole office knew he was hung over. You could almost smell the alcohol on his breath down the phone line. “God of Absence” she thought, more like “God of Absinthe.”
(2) – Those abstaining from sex were only waiting till they were married and then it all went out the window like heating in a single-glazed house. And dieters, 99%of those people yo-yoed like crazy. In fact only one person had ever suck to a diet for over a decade, and that was Madonna, and no one was sure if she was even a human or if she had done a deal with the opposition.
(3) – If the human race all abstained from sex then no more human race and no one to believe in the Gods, and no one believing in Gods meant no more Gods.
(4) – She had fabricated the existence of a boyfriend with whom she was taking it slow, you know, to keep up appearances.
(5) – The first outward sign that The God of Abstinence wasn’t following her own gospel is weight gain. Or wearing yesterday’s outfit, now rumpled and slightly soiled, into work.
(6) – Imagine an even more heavenly Nigella.