‘Unite the bright! Unite the bright!’

Two hundred and fifty million glow-worms had heeded the call to oppose the rising tide of darkness.

‘Bright lives matter! Bright lives matter!’

At first, they floated about the walls of heaven-on-earth anti-clockwise.

‘Blood and chalk! Blood and chalk!’

Tummy torches on, they circled it in a dull-green halo.

‘Bright lives matter! Bright lives matter!’

Then, they massed before the gate.

Aghast, Logos turned to God –

Started –

‘No!’

God looked down –

At the ball of lightning twirling about his palm.

Shrugged.

Dispelled it with the fingers of his other hand, so much fluff.

‘A tsunami, then?’ Satan said, out of the corner of his mouth. ‘A mild one? Five or six?’

God inclined his head.

Logos tutted.

Swooped towards the gate.

‘Bright lives matter! Bright lives matter!’

‘Look!’ he said, ‘This really isn’t on, chaps!’

A squadron of beetles floated towards the gate.

Between the wrought-light bars.

Drew together in a tight delta formation.

Flew at the latch.

A cheer went up.

‘Stop that!’ Gabriel said.

The formation banked.

Turned about.

Flapped towards the latch again.

Gabriel gestured overhead.

A host of angels unsheathed their swords.

Swooped down.

Slashed at the squadron.

Beetles on the other side of the gate fluttered forward –

‘Unite the bright! Unite the bright!’

The angels formed square.

‘Enough!’

The angels statued.

The beetles dropped to the ground.

The walkway before the gate went dark.

God increased in size.

Till he towered over the gate.

‘The flies will not replace us!’

‘Who said that?’ God said.

He searched the little faces.

‘The flies will not replace us!’

Another glow-worm joined in.

‘The flies will not replace us!’

And another.

‘The flies will not replace us!’

Until they were all chanting –

‘The flies will not replace us! The flies will not replace us!’

And stamping their tiny feet.

God turned to Satan –

‘Where on earth did they get that from?’

Satan nodded backwards.

God turned to his son.

‘I presented the plan,’ Logos said. ‘The next phase? How things are going to pan out over the next million years or so?’

‘Coming soon to a biosphere near you!’ Satan said, corner-of-the-mouthedly.

‘As we agreed?’ Logos said.

‘You told them that they were going to be replaced?’God said.

‘No,’ Logos said. ‘Of course not.’

‘Where did they get that idea from, then?’

Logos tried not to glance at Satan.

God tutted.

Turned towards the gate.

‘Well,’ He said, ‘whatever you were told – think you were told – and by whom – I’m telling you now that it isn’t the case.’

The beetles didn’t move.

Had He released them from the Enough spell?

He couldn’t remember.

He unworked it again, just in case.

They didn’t withdraw.

‘Was there something else?’ God said.

The glow-worms glanced at one another.

Turned back.

Towards God?

No – Towards the fellow in scarlet behind the gate.

‘You aren’t going to create a new type of insect?’ one glow-worm said.

‘A fly?’ another said.

‘Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!’ they all chanted.

The syllable echoed across the valley.

Logos bit his lip.

God sighed.

Satan sidled up to him.

‘I did say that keeping everyone in the loop wasn’t a good idea,’ he said.

Logos turned towards the beetles –

‘Yes!’ he said, ‘God is going to introduce a new type of insect -!’

Every pair of wings parted.

Sounding as much like groaning as fluttering.

‘But not,’ Logos continued, ‘to replace you!’

Individual glow-worms took to the air.

‘To live beside you!’ Logos said.

‘Share your fields!’ Satan said. ‘Meadows! Forests!’

All airborne now, the beetles fired up their abdomens.

Mistaking this for approval, Logos brightened.

‘Compete for your nectar!’ Satan said. ‘Pollen!’

Logos rounded on him.

‘Snails!’ Satan said. ‘Worms! Slugs!’

‘Bright lives matter! Bright lives matter!’

Logos turned back.

Watching the beetles fulminate, he was overcome with an unfamiliar sensation:

Inertia.

Was this how Dad felt?, he wondered.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t counter Satan’s assertions.

Rather, he couldn’t think –

For the persistent drone –

Pirouetting lights –

How to do it in a fashion that they might understand.

‘Bright lives matter! Bright lives matter!’

Satan’s comment regarding these creatures’ intellectual ability –

(For all the light, they’re exceedingly dim.)

Was at the back of this –

But the nicknames he used to refer to him –

Logos –

When Satan thought he was alone with his legions –

Kept returning to the front of Logos’ mind.

Boffin.

Prof.

Bore.

He’d overheard them all.

‘Bright lives matter! Bright lives matter!’

And perhaps Satan was right.

Maybe his delivery was dull.

Dry.

It would explain why the presentation had gone so badly.

What to do about it?

‘Bright lives matter! Bright lives matter!’

A glow-worm floated through the bars of the gate.

So teeny that no one on the other side of them noticed.

Till it veered towards Logos –

Gabriel raised a hand.

‘No!’ Logos said.

Teeny hovered before his face.

‘Go ahead,’ Logos whispered.

‘I trust you,’ Teeny said, his voice inaudible to everyone else. ‘If you tell me that this new bug isn’t going to replace us, I’ll believe it.’

Logos looked into the tiny eyes.

Every segment.

Teeny continued –

‘Is it true that our numbers won’t go down?’

Logos blinked.

Sighed.

‘No,’ he said.

The groaning resurged.

‘I mean yes – But not in the way you think.’

‘What other way is there?’

This emerged from Teeny –

But didn’t sound like him.

Logos rounded on Satan –

‘Isn’t there somewhere else you ought to be?’

Satan feigned innocence.

Logos looked up.

Implored –

‘Dad?’

God’s eyes remained closed.

It was clear He’d tired of the whole affair long ago.

Was keen to get back to his favourite pastime:

Passing time.

(There’s a reason why He lit the blue touchpaper on creation, and stepped back.

Never does anything to curb the cruellest turns of the Big Bang –

Evolution –

Satan’s legions.

Apart from the fact that –

From where He stands –

Reclines, rather –

Outside timespace –

Nothing matters.)

Oh, Logos thought, it’s probably a good thing.

For all his omniscience, He gets things wrong as often as right.

‘The important thing,’ Satan said, before the gate now, ‘is that you aren’t going to be overcome by conquest!’

The beetles’ lidless eyes blinked.

Seemed to.

‘War!’ Satan said.

The glow-worms eyed one another quizzically.

Even Logos was perplexed.

Was Satan on message at last?

‘Oh,’ Satan said, ‘but you don’t know what that is yet, do you?! Not all-out slaughter, that is!’

The beetles observed a moment’s rest.

Then –

‘The flies will not replace us! The flies will not replace us!’

Logos sighed.

Extended a hand.

Teeny nestled in his palm.

Logos floated up.

Over the gate.

Descended to earth.

In front of Satan.

Teeny floated off his hand.

Fluttered towards his parents.

‘What my colleague means,’ Logos said, ‘is that the flies won’t attack you!’

He started forward –

‘Eat you or your children -!’

Braved every puzzled face.

‘Steal your homes -!’

Satan scoffed.

What was Logos up to?

‘And only that -!’

Logos turned towards Satan.

‘Only invasion proper would occasion replacement!’

Perplexed, Satan shrugged.

Logos turned back.

‘If the flies were going to do that,’ he said, ‘I’d be right behind you! Be protesting with you!’

He glanced over his shoulder.

Towards God.

‘But that’s not how it’s going to happen! The flies in -!’

He paused.

How to express what state these creatures were in currently?

Satan scoffed.

Oh, what the hell! Logos thought.

‘The flies on the border of creation,’ he said, ‘they don’t want to conquer you! Don’t have the ability to do so even if they did!’

Odd –

‘So, yes, the complexion of your homes will change, but not in the way you fear!’

These creatures understood one word in ten, he knew that –

‘In the way someone gave you to understand! Via invasion -!’

But perhaps this was the way to command their attention.

‘It’ll happen via union!’

As much by intonation –

‘Gradual homogenisation!’

As rational persuasion.

‘Give and take on both sides! With both sides benefiting!’

Intention –

‘They and you will become we!’

As formal argument.

‘So, you’ll be part of the problem you fear!’

Force of personality –

‘If they come about -!’

As intellect.

‘When they do!’

Logos spoke louder, over Satan: ‘It’ll be by way of interbreeding! Loving one another! So, what you fear will happen won’t – can’t – because you -!’

‘The victims!’ Satan said.

Logos started.

Considered.

Nodded.

Pricked the air with the longest fingers of both hands –

‘The victims will be the victors also!’

He turned to Satan.

‘The conquerors the conquered!’

Satan opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Delighted, Logos turned from him.

‘Via a process you’re the beneficiaries of!’

He paused for dramatic effect.

‘A mechanism you’re products of!’

He nodded.

‘Why stop that machine at this point?! Now?! If God had done as much in the first century BB – the ten millionth – you wouldn’t be here!’

The glow-worms rubbed their lidless eyes.

Logos nodded.

‘Before he came up with you, there were these other creatures! Crustaceans!’

Something about this –

‘In the water! Under it!’

Talking to them like this –

‘You developed – grew – out of them!’

At their level –

‘Yes!’

It was liberating.

‘Here you are complaining you’re about to be replaced by newer creatures,’ he said, ‘when you’re descendants of others who did as much to the crustaceans!’

Logos worked his hands the way his Father would when inspired.

‘You grew from these water creatures!’ he said.

He liked being here –

‘Out of them!’

Among them –

‘Kind of! The way you grow out of eggs!’

Not delivering a lesson from on high.

‘But they’re still around, aren’t they?!’

‘Well,’ Satan said, ‘some of them are.’

Wings flapped.

‘The rest are you!’ Logos said. ‘Everyone here today! Mixed up with you! In you! Part of you!’

Contemplating this, the glow-worms went dark.

Stopped flapping furiously.

Confident that he had made his point, Logos grinned.

Turned to God.

‘And, of course,’ Satan said, ‘that’s what you want, isn’t it -?!’

Logos turned back.

‘To be with them -?!’

What?

‘Mixed up with them -?!’

‘No! No!’

‘Well,’ Logos said, ‘nor would the crustaceans, if they’d been asked, but now -!’

Satan shouted: ‘You don’t want to stay as you are, do you?!’

‘Yes! Yes!’

‘The way you’ve always been?! Pure!’

‘Pure! Pure!’

Logos scoffed.

‘Pure!’ he said, as much to Satan as the beetles. ‘They’re not pure!’

‘Bright is right! Bright is right!’

‘You’re not pure! Nothing’s ever been pure! Never will be!’

‘Bright is right! Bright is right!’

Satan puffed up with vainglory.

Logos watched the beetles flutter and glow.

Perhaps it would help if he told them that one day humans would call them fireflies?

That most other creatures think that all insecta look the same?

No –

But this inspired another thought –

‘If you’d hatched as flies,’ he said, ‘now you’d be complaining that God was going to turn you into bees! Wasps!’

The beetles silenced.

‘Oh,’ Logos said. ‘Did I forget to mention that other bugs come after the flies?!’

The beetles regarded one another.

‘So, if you’d been born something else, anything else, had come into the world that way, now you’d think that that was the thing – the very best thing – to be!’

The beetles rubbed their lidless eyes.

‘Wouldn’t want to be anything else!’ Logos said. ‘Be grumbling about the next thing on the drawing-board!’

‘So?’ Satan said.

‘So,’ Logos said, ‘pride in what you are – it’s a completely arbitrary affair! Based on whatever you – as pure being -!’

‘Pure?’ Satan said. ‘I thought there was no such -?’

‘Whatever shape you happen to be inhabiting now! Whatever form Dad gave you!’

‘Yes!’ God said, surprising Logos, everyone. ‘They don’t own it!’

He turned towards the beetles –

‘You don’t own that shape, you know! You’re wearing it for a while! Piloting it for a blink of an eye!’

The glow-worms didn’t know whom to look at or listen to.

‘They don’t understand, Dad!’

‘What?’ God said.

‘Piloting,’ Logos said.

‘Or blinking,’ Satan muttered.

‘Oh,’ God said. ‘They haven’t done that yet?’

Logos shook his head.

‘There’s a simple way out of all this.’

God frowned.

Satan continued: ‘If you made them no shape -’

The glow-worms recoiled.

‘Not that again!’ Logos said.

‘No colour -’ Satan continued.

God inclined his head.

‘Pure being only?’ Satan said. ‘Undifferentiated, unextended?’

God put a hand to his chin.

He wasn’t giving serious consideration to the suggestion, was He?

Logos flew towards him.

‘Dad,’ he said, ‘this isn’t the time, place to discuss these things.’

God shook his head.

‘No,’ He told Satan. ‘They’d find cause to be dissatisfied with that too. Complain that this undifferentiated, unextended form of pure being was more differentiated, extended than that.’

Logos returned to the glow-worms.

They seemed more agitated than ever.

He floated among them.

‘Sometimes you get together with glow-worms of a slightly different shade, don’t you?!’ he said. ‘Lighter?! Darker?!’

The glow-worms shrugged.

‘And when the little ones come along, they aren’t the same colour as you or your partner, are they?! Not exactly?! They’re a mix?! Sort of in-between?! Or lighter, darker than either of you?!’

‘Because Mummy didn’t dazzle Daddy,’ Satan said, sotto voce.

‘Or they have longer or shorter legs?!’ Logos said. ‘Bigger or smaller eyes?!’

The way the glow-worms regarded him –

‘Does that bother you?!’

He couldn’t tell whether they were bemused or offended by the insinuation.

The only thing clear was that they’d never considered it before.

‘Ask yourself,’ Logos said, ‘do your lighter-darker babies care that they hadn’t been born your colour exactly?!’

Blinking.

Shuffling.

Logos experienced another unfamiliar sensation:

Impatience.

‘Look,’ he said,’ if you discovered tomorrow that you were only half – less – the glow-worm your father had been, would you continue to think the way you do?! Start beating yourself up over it?!’

The glow-worms seemed sheepish.

He met Teeny’s eyes.

And realised what the problem was:

He had posed the question to all of them.

So, none dared break ranks.

He approached one portly matron –

‘If I told you that your grandmother had been three-parts fly,’ he said, ‘would it change how you feel about them?! Flies, I mean?!’

Matron shrugged.

Logos sighed.

Turned to another beetle.

Younger.

Longer.

Rephrased the question.

Younger lit up.

‘So,’ Logos said, ‘that proves that the way you think is based on the luck of the draw, doesn’t it?! The arbitrary nature of your birth?! Nothing substantive?!’

Younger’s abdomen continued to glow.

As much a sign of agitation as affirmation.

‘Perhaps if You tell them about the ultimate plan -?!’ Satan said.

Frowning, Logos turned towards him.

Satan looked skyward.

‘You didn’t tell him either?’

Confused, God looked older than his single eternity.

‘I’ll do the honours,’ Satan said.

He turned towards the beetles.

‘One day, all of you – every creature on earth, across the universe – will merge into a single form -!’

‘Dad?!’ Logos said.

God raised a hand.

Satan disappeared.

‘The flies will not replace us! The flies will not replace us!’

Despite God’s reservations about the new scheme, Logos persisted in presenting his father’s plans for each species to delegates from same after this episode.

Continued doing so until humans came off the drawing board.

Then, a circumstance arose that they might have gone on to describe as a form of broken telephone.

That is, no matter how clearly Logos explained matters, they always ended up being misunderstood.

And though God acceded to Logos’ request that He be in attendance, He grew progressively more distant.

More absent for being present.

And He became impatient.

Not least because He couldn’t understand why His creations continued to believe that they were right –

Individually –

Uniquely –

Absolutely –

Though they knew –

Had to because He had injected them with reason —

That they couldn’t all be all of the time.

Logos realised what lay at the root of the problem:

‘It’s because they’re not you, Dad. Us. Not God.’

Inspired by his walk among the glow-worms, he proposed a solution:

‘Maybe if You sent them an emissary? One of their own? Got them to explain matters first hand?’

Of course, he volunteered for the job.

Unwilling to sacrifice His only begotten son to a cause He had little faith in, God always found reasons not to yield to the last request.

Instead, He dispatched proxy after proxy in an effort to mollify Logos.

Only after every one of these missions had failed did He agree to send his son.

Following Logos’ transfiguration, despite his son’s protestations, God wound down the programme.

And withdrew from the universe entirely.

Moreover, He never permitted anyone else to reveal His upcoming plans to the creatures that He had created again.

Though Logos claimed to be in favour of the plan still –

Mentioned it from timelessness to timelessness –

Secretly, he knew that it was a non-starter.

And for a simple reason.

One that he could never bring himself to disclose to his father.

That is:

The idea of informing creatures what was on the drawing board –

Which had occasioned his own sacrifice –

Had –

Like all good ideas –

Come from Satan.