Good Omens

start all over again. You’ll just keep on sending people like these two,” he pointed to Crowley and Aziraphale, “to mess people around. It’s hard enough bein’ people as it is, without other people coming and messin’ you around.”
    Crowley turned to Aziraphale.
    â€œJohnsonites?” he whispered.
    The angel shrugged. “Early breakaway sect, I think,” he said. “Sort of Gnostics. Like the Ophites.” His forehead wrinkled. “Or were they the Sethites? No, I’m thinking of the Collyridians. Oh dear. I’m sorry, there were hundreds of them, it’s so hard to keep track.”
    â€œPeople bein’ messed around,” murmured Crowley.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter!” snapped the Metatron. “The whole point of the creation of the Earth and Good and Evil—”
    â€œI don’t see what’s so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin’ upset ’cos they act like people,” said Adam severely. “Anyway, if you stopped tellin’ people it’s all sorted out after they’re dead, they might try sorting it all out while they’re alive. If I was in charge, I’d try makin’ people live a lot longer, like ole Methuselah. It’d be a lot more interestin’ and they might start thinkin’ about the sort of things they’re doing to all the enviroment and ecology, because they’ll still be around in a hundred years’ time.”
    â€œAh,” said Beelzebub, and he actually began to smile. “You wizzsh to rule the world. That’z more like thy Fath—”
    â€œI thought about all that an’ I don’t want to,” said Adam, half turning and nodding encouragingly at the Them. “I mean, there’s some stuff could do with alt’rin’, but then I expect people’d keep comin’ up to me and gettin’ me to sort out everythin’ the whole time and get rid of all the rubbish and make more trees for ’em, and where’s the good in all that? It’s like havin’ to tidy up people’s bedrooms for them.”
    â€œYou never tidy up even your bedroom,” said Pepper, behind him.
    â€œI never said anythin’ about my bedroom,” said Adam, referring to a room whose carpet had been lost to view for several years. “It’s general bedrooms I mean. I dint mean my personal bedroom. It’s an analoggy. That’s jus’ what I’m sayin’.”
    Beelzebub and the Metatron looked at one another.
    â€œAnyway,” said Adam, “it’s bad enough having to think of things for Pepper and Wensley and Brian to do all the time so they don’t get bored, so I don’t want any more world than I’ve got. Thank you all the same.”
    The Metatron’s face began to take on the look familiar to all those subjected to Adam’s idiosyncratic line of reasoning.
    â€œYou can’t refuse to be who you are,” it said eventually. “Listen. Your birth and destiny are part of the Great Plan. Things have to happen like this. All the choices have been made.”
    â€œRebellion izz a fine thing,” said Beelzebub, “but some thingz are beyond rebellion. You muzzt understand!”
    â€œI’m not rebelling against anything,” said Adam in a reasonable tone of voice. “I’m pointin’ out things. Seems to me you can’t blame people for pointin’ out things. Seems to me it’d be a lot better not to start fightin’ and jus’ see what people do. If you stop messin’ them about they might start thinkin’ properly an’ they might stop messin’ the world around. I’m not sayin’ they would ,” he added conscientiously, “but they might.”
    â€œThis makes no sense,” said the Metatron. “You can’t run counter to the Great Plan. You must think . It’s in your genes. Think .”
    Adam hesitated.
    The dark undercurrent was always ready to flow back, its reedy whisper saying yes, that was it, that was what it was all about, you have to follow the Plan because you were part of it—
    It had been a long day. He was tired. Saving the world took it out of an eleven-year-old body.
    Crowley stuck his head in his hands. “For a moment there, just for a moment, I thought we had a chance,” he said. “He had them worried. Oh, well, it was nice while—”
    He was aware