This new story is a sequel to this one, which is short story #15 in my short story anthology.
This story probably stands on its own, maybe, probably…
Trigger warnings: A god who drops F bombs. And also, if you longed for Kamala to be prez, this might make you sad.
Gabriel: So, umm, remember that little blue planet that you sent JC to fix, your Lordship?
Lordship (rearranging a globular cluster): The place with the big toxic garbage island in their ocean? The place I wanted to smite with an asteroid? That place?
Gabriel: Yes, Your Grace. Well, I’ll get right to it. It didn’t work.
Lordship (launching a quasar): Wait. What? When has sending JC ever not worked?
Gabriel: Well, remember I mentioned the, errr, battle for leadership of one of its larger nations?
Lordship (sighing): I really hate the places with a bunch of nations. Barbaric.
Gabriel: Indeed, sir.
Lordship: I mean, how many nations do they have on that tiny planet? More than a dozen of the damn things, right?
Gabriel: About 200, sir.
Lordship: The fuck?
Gabriel: I’m afraid so. And the nut we talked about before seems to think they all belong to him.
Lordship (sighing): Right, but he was just an anomaly, right? As I recall, the choice when he tried to get back to being top dog was an obvious one for them to make. Goofy-assed crook with an orange hairball on his head who can’t read and has a proclivity towards sex with kids, or an esteemed, sharp, female lawyer who prosecutes those types of worms. Slam dunk, as they say on that little ball of toxic spittle, no?
Gabriel: Well…
Lordship (hurling a spiral galaxy towards another): Oooh, this is gonna be a fun one. Watch!
Gabriel: Astounding, Your Grace. An amazing fireworks show.
Lordship (clapping gleefully): Right? Wait. What do you mean “Well…??????”
Gabriel: Putting it simply, sir, they chose the hairball.
Lordship (perfect Vizzini of Princess Bride movie quote voice): Inconceivable!
(Giggles) I always have wanted to say that. Just like that. Inconceivable!! How’d I do?
Gabriel: Fantastic, sir. Your Lordship, you know I think the world of you, but why do you insist on pretending you know nothing of the little blue ball when I hand you these reports? You seem to know everything about that planet. Even tiny details of their movies.
Lordship: Duh.
Gabriel: Well, anyway, I’m afraid it gets worse.
Lordship: See? I told you I should’ve hit ‘em with that asteroid before they had a chance to piss me off further. Alright, lemme have it. Just understand that if that planet you seem to have so much affection for ends up with a sudden fixation with artificial intelligence, it’s your fault, cuz these people are driving me to drink.
Gabriel: I understand, Your Eminence. Well, here it is. Turns out, much of the clergy responsible for spreading JC’s message has rallied around the hairball.
Lordship: Fuck’s sake.
Gabriel: Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Your Grace.
Lordship: It’s kind of your job. Well, I’d say that it’s time to clean up the gene pool on that godawful planet, wouldn’t you? At a minimum, we need a good old-fashioned Malthusian event. Cull the population, like they do with their chickens when they get sick.
Gabriel: I hate to see it come to that, Your Eminence.
Lordship: Didn’t you tell me the hairball makes that Caligula fella from that earlier fucked up empire look like a monk in comparison?
Gabriel: That I did. Turns out, many of JC’s clergy are now doing things like a laying on of hands and such in the king’s quarters. And get this…
Lordship: Please stop. I can’t take any more (Throws a comet at a water world in disgust).
Gabriel (whispering): My sources tell me he takes all his orders from a young blonde woman he spends his nights with.
Lordship: His daughter????
Gabriel: No, Your Grace. A knockoff. And they spend all night together tweeting.
Lordship: Like, birds tweeting? Is it some weird kind of foreplay?
Gabriel: Something like that, sir.
Lordship: Please don’t tell me they peck each other on the heads before sex.
Gabriel: Unknown, Your Grace. We shy away from observing their mating ritual too closely, for obvious reasons.
Lordship: Spittleshits. Where the hell is JC? I want to speak to him about this.
Gabriel: Tending to the tardigrades, Your Lordship.
Lordship: The sentient ones? The ones in that dark matter galaxy on the edge of the outer quadrants?
Gabriel: Those very ones.
Lordship: Hmmmph. He’s gonna have his hands full with that crew, isn’t he?
Gabriel: I’m afraid so, sir. They’ve taken to eating entire star systems.
Lordship: Oh, my. What’s gotten into them?
Gabriel: JC is getting to the bottom of it, Your Grace. Some of us are afraid the infection that begat the orange hairball has spread to other regions of the universe.
Lordship: All the way to the tardigrades? Call me concerned.
Gabriel: JC should be reporting back to us soon.
Lordship: But you just finished telling me his mission on the garbage planet failed. That should have been an easy assignment. He seems to be losing his touch. Dammit, Gabe, I’m still pissed they turned that beautiful little planet into one big Superfund site.
Gabriel: Oh, they don’t have Superfund sites there anymore, Your Grace.
Lordship: Delightful! So they are making progress. I do love it when my creations get into the environmental cleanup phase of civilization. Not as satisfying as when they invent ice cream sundaes, but it’s damn close.
Gabriel: Well, sir, I’m afraid that the hairball has turned their environmental cleanup government agency into what amounts to an industrial firehose.
Lordship: Holy shit on a stick. What else has this maniac done since getting this second chance as empire boss?
Gabriel (tossing a quantum knowledge ball to His Lordship): Here you go, your Lordship.
Lordship (catching the ball, then looking at it for a moment): This is ghastly. What the hell is wrong with these people? How did they let him in again? Where are their spirit guides? This hairball should be floating in the ocean in the middle of their big garbage island with a pickaxe up his ass.
Gabriel: It appears that their spirit animal lives in something called TikTok, sir. We’re investigating.
Lordship: You’re saying they replaced JC with this TikTok thing?
Gabriel: Seems so, I’m afraid.
Lordship: We’re gonna need to bring out the heavy artillery. An asteroid is much too benign a way to end this civilization. Call in the AI people.
Gabriel: At once, Your Lordship. I do have some good news.
Lordship (rolling his eyes, tugging on his long white beard): Oh, do tell.
Gabriel: Well, the primary superpower nation, the one the hairball is now in charge of, is on the verge of collapse. Their reign of influence is just about over.
Lordship: That’s not good news, Gabe. I kind of liked that place, for all its faults. It was the only place on that little stinkball that’s ever let people do what they want. I mean, that world’s history has had nothing but mean-spirited kings and such. I swear, it’s like every world leader there marries his sister or something.
Gabriel: If I may, Your Grace, perhaps you should restructure DNA so that it doesn’t have such serious biological implications when they marry their sisters. Might fix a lot of problems.
Lordship: Ewwww! Thank God you’re not in charge. You’ve been spending too much time observing the hairball. I hereby banish you from that domain.
Gabriel: I could certainly use a vacation, sir. I haven’t had a decent one for one million, six hundred and thirty-six thousand years. And twenty-two days.
Lordship (guffaws): But who’s counting, right?
Gabriel: If it’s any comfort, the hairball is such an incompetent fool that he no longer has any influence on his world. It seems that other nations on the planet just spend most of their time trying to trick him.
Lordship: Like they’re playing a game?
Gabriel: Quite.
Lordship: Well. That’s entertaining. Do they have experts in that arena?
Gabriel: Indeed they do. The leader of the large Arctic region just north of the hairball’s country.
Lordship: Ahhh, winter is coming. Works every time. Never fuck with people from the cold, northern realms. Especially if they have their shit together. Should we invite this man from the North over for lunch when his time is up?
Gabriel: That seems like a fine idea, sir.
Lordship: And who do we expect to take the place of the alpha nation once its goose is cooked? And don’t tell me the nation with all those people crammed into its Eastern coast. That’s not gonna go well. They can barely breathe the air there.
Gabriel: Unknown, sir, but the heavenly polymarkets are leaning heavily in that direction.
Lordship: What the hell is a polymarket?
Gabriel: Oh…. Umm… nothing, Your Lordship. Just a slip of the tongue, as it were.
Lordship: I’ll give you a slip of the tongue. Ever try to walk around with a tongue that drops to your feet while it’s dangling in front of you? One snap of my godly fingers and you’re a cartoon character. Sheesh, even my archangels are wayward. Should I install a casino for you idiots?
Gabriel: Apologies, Your Grace. We shall banish the heavenly polymarkets.
Lordship: Never mind that. I know it’s stressful dealing with all these nutty sentient beings I produce. Y’all need a release valve. I think I liked it better when I considered the possibility of talking cucumbers. I may have to reconsider this whole creation process. Sun-eating tardigrades? For fuck’s sake, what has become of this place? It’s really gone to hell.
Gabriel: I believe Michael said it best, Your Grace. Science is both wondrous and a real pain in the ass.
Lordship: No wonder he’s always carrying around that silly sword of his. Hey, maybe we should get rid of science and just stick to music. Everybody loves music.
Gabriel: Wouldn’t we want sentient beings to produce it?
Lordship: Was Barry Manilow sentient? Engelbert Humperdinck? Bon Jovi? I think not.
Gabriel: Good point, sir.
Lordship: Science, free will, hmmph. I dunno, Gabe. I find myself questioning a lot of things these days. Don’t be alarmed, but I’m almost getting a bit depressed by it all.
Gabriel: Oh my, the last time you said something like that, you created a world of JD Vance clones.
Lordship: I did? I don’t remember that at all. What the hell is a JD Vance?
Gabriel: Nobody knows, sir. An empty vessel, I suppose you could call it. It floats through the universe wanting things it can’t have. One of the stranger phenomena of the known universe.
Lordship: Egads, I don’t remember that at all.
Gabriel: A dark hour it was, Your Lordship. Also, if I may, sir, the little blue planet is not representative of your track record.
Lordship: Yes, the tardigrades are really making me feel it.
Gabriel: Again, sir, I’d call the tardigrades just a glitch in the matrix, as it were. I’d also like to point out, if I may, sir, that even the little blue ball has its occasional wins.
Lordship: Name one.
Gabriel: Dolly Parton.
Lordship: Fair enough. I loved the feast y’all prepared for her last week. Outstanding!
Gabriel: So many of us wanted her to come see us sooner. But, you see, sir, she was a result of free will, too. Truly one of your finest efforts.
Lordship: Didn’t hurt that everyone reported for work that day for a change. Anyhoo, I’ve always loved the idea of free will, but I never anticipated something like the hairball emerging. And I anticipate everything. He’s like a goddamn Kraken with a perverse sexual appetite.
Gabriel: Perhaps you were distracted that day, sir.
Lordship: The day he was born? Hell, Gabe, my beard must have been on fire.
Gabriel: I do remember that one day you got a little too close to a supernova.
Lordship: That was a long time ago. Has nothing to do with the hairball. I blame the tardigrades.
Gabriel: They have another election coming up.
Lordship: The tardigrades?
Gabriel: No, Your Eminence. The humans on Earth.
Lordship: What’s this one about?
Gabriel: A referendum of sorts on the hairball.
Lordship: Oh, for fucks sake.
Gabriel: The hairball’s doing so badly in polls he’s offering everyone money to vote for him.
Lordship: Sounds like my kind of guy.
Gabriel: Trust me, sir, you’d loathe him.
Lordship: I was joking, Gabe, lighten up. Listen, if he wins the referendum, let’s keep it simple. Send in the planet-eating tardigrades. I’m sick of this shit.
Notes
There are a few of these Lordship/Gabriel stories lurking about my Substack. There is no specific timeline or sequencing involved, because they are all just a silly way for me to deal with our current insanity.
The first part of this short story can be found here:
The Story Where His Lordship Drops a Jesus Bomb
Trigger warnings: A tad insulting to Christians who have no sense of humor. I’m Christian, but not the kind who is easily insulted. And also, if you longed for Kamala to be prez, this might make you sad in the end (originally written in September 2024).
Thanks for reading!
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