The Last Continent

creatures,” said the god, relaxing a little. The shoot near his foot was already a plant now, and putting out leaves and a flowerbud.
    He blew his nose loudly.
    The wizards drew closer. They were not, of course, afraid of gods, but gods tended to have uncertain tempers and a wise man kept away from them. However, it’s hard to be frightened of someone who’s having a good blow.
    “You’re really the god in these parts?” said Ridcully.
    The god sighed. “Yes,” he said. “I thought it would be so easy, you know. Just one small island. I could start all over again. Do it properly . But it’s all going completely wrong.” Beside him the little plant opened a nondescript yellow flower.
    “Start all over again?”
    “Yes. You know…godliness.” The god waved a hand in the direction of the Hub.
    “I used to work over there,” he said. “Basic general godding. You know, making people out of clay, old toenails, and so on? And then sitting on mountaintops and casting thunderbolts and all the rest of it. Although,” he leaned forward and lowered his voice, “very few gods can actually do that, you know.”
    “Really?” said Ridcully, fascinated.
    “Very hard thing to steer, lightning. Mostly we waited until a thunderbolt happened to hit some poor soul and then spake in a voice of thunder and said it was his fault for being a sinner. I mean, they were bound to have done something , weren’t they?” The god blew his nose again. “Quite depressing, really. Anyway…I suppose the rot set in when I tried to see if it was possible to breed a more inflammable cow.”
    He looked at the questioning expressions.
    “Burnt offerings, you see. Cows don’t actually burn all that well. They’re naturally rather soggy creatures and frankly everyone was running out of wood.”
    They carried on staring at him. He tried again.
    “I really couldn’t see the point of the whole business, to tell you the truth. Shouting, smiting, getting angry all the time…don’t think anyone was getting anything out of it, really. But the worst part…You know the worst part? The worst part was that if you actually stopped the smiting, people wandered off and worshipped someone else. Hard to believe, isn’t it? They’d say things like, ‘Things were a lot better when there was more smiting,’ and, ‘If there was more smiting, it’d be a lot safer to walk the streets.’ Especially since all that’d really happened was that some poor shepherd who just happened to be in the wrong place during a thunderstorm had caught a stray bolt. And then the priests would say, ‘Well, we all know about shepherds, don’t we, and now the gods are angry and we could do with a much bigger temple, thank you.’”
    “Typical priestly behavior,” sniffed the Dean.
    “But they often believed it!” the god almost wailed. “It was really so depressing. I think that before we made humanity, we broke the mold. There’d be a bad weather front, a few silly shepherds would happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and next thing you know it was standing room only on the sacrificial stones and you couldn’t see for the smoke.” He had another good blow on a piece of Ponder’s handkerchief that had so far remained dry. “I mean, I tried . God knows I tried, and since that’s me, I know what I’m talking about. ‘Thou Shalt Lie Down Flat in Thundery Weather,’ I said. ‘Thou Shalt Site the Midden a Long Way from the Well,’ I said. I even told them, ‘Thou Shalt Really Try to Get Along with One Another.’”
    “Did it work?”
    “I can’t say for sure. Everyone was slaughtered by the followers of the god in the next valley who told them to kill everyone who didn’t believe in him. Ghastly fellow, I’m afraid.”
    “And the flaming cows?” said Ridcully.
    “The what?” said the god, sunk in misery.
    “The more inflammable cow,” said Ponder.
    “Oh, yes. Another good idea that didn’t work. I just thought, you know, that if you could find the bit in, say, an oak tree which says ‘Be inflammable’ and glue it into the bit of the cow which says ‘Be soggy’ it’d save a lot of trouble. Unfortunately, that produced a sort of bush that made distressing noises and squirted milk, but I could see the principle was sound. And frankly, since my believers were all dead or living in the next valley by then I thought, to hell with it all, I’d come back here and get to grips with it and do it all more sensibly .” He