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In the beginning there was nothing. And then there was a dial tone. And there was an answering machine, and a message left. And there was a name of business as well the concept of ‘names’ and ‘businesses’ and the business was Bailey and Sons Home Creations.
Near the end of the beginning, they arrived and did a preliminary project assessment. And Bailey said “this job’s a good ‘un,” and it was a very good ‘un indeed, and the project began.
And Bailey did say “Shit, I can’t see worth balls in this dark. Someone turn on the lights.” And someone – Simon, the youngest of the Sons – turned on the lights. And Bailey said “that’s great.”
And Bailey said “Christ it’s damp, fetch me a freakin’ mop willya? So Thomas, the second-youngest of the Sons, fetched a freakin’ mop, and used it to sop up some of the moisture so that there was a space above the rest of the waters, but he didn’t clean it up all the way. And Bailey said, “that’s no goddamned good, Thomas, but we’re rushed so I’ll let it slid. Just pull your thumb outta your ass and LISTEN, okay?” And Thomas did that, and Bailey said that was just fine.
And Bailey said “I guess if you wanna do somethin’ right you gotta do it yourself,” and he took the mop and shoved all the water into one large mass with a bit of dry space in the middle, where he stubbed out his cigarette. And he vowed once again that he would quit soon, just so Lorraine would get off his back. He’d quit soon, real soon – tomorrow or something. And that was good enough.
And Bailey said “Damnit this thing’s as sterile as your uncle Rob’s nutsack; Joey, pour some fertilizer onnit.” So Joey took the big burlap sack of ancient and musty Beget-Thou-Hence and spilled it like the clumsy sot he was, being the biggest even if he was only the third-youngest. It sprayed all over Bailey’s cigarette butt and the genes got all scrambled and algae and plants colonized the sea and the land. And Bailey did swear a blue streak at him and cuff him and spent a good half hour trying to pry up the weeds before he gave up in a huff, stuffed his cigarette butt into orbit, and decreed that it would ‘have to do.’ And it did.
Then Bailey complained that it was ‘too damned bright and unfocused, somebody tune the light a bit.” And Douglas did, and he accidentally ended up guaranteeing the land widely varying intervals of freezing cold and searing heat on seasonal, yearly, and geological time scales. But he did trim the lights, so that there was one big one during the day and a lot of tiny little ones at night, plus Bailey’s big dimly-glowing cigarette butt. And Bailey said that this was good.
At this point it was realized that they hadn’t been keeping close track of time, and Bailey said that four days would do as a guestimate.
And Bailey did squint heavily and slope-browedly down upon the land, and he did say “Jesus H. tapdancing Christ on a crutch with a piston up his pooter, the place is CRAWLING with the little green SOBs! Get me a can of heterotrophic herbivores, ASAP!” So Daniel brought the big metal canister, rust and all, and carefully tipped out about one millionth as many herbivores as were needed in the sea, and Bailey grew impatient and wrested it from him, and spilled animals of all kinds and types and diets all over the sea and the sky, and blamed Daniel for it and punched him in the jaw and hurt his fist because Daniel, the second eldest son of Bailey, was nothing but skin and bone and brainless vapidity. And Bailey sucked his bruised knuckles and remarked bitterly that it was ‘done, at least.’ And that was the fifth day gone and blown, as far as he said it.
And Bailey said, “Fuck it, nobody looks in the ocean anyways. Let’s just do a good job on the dry stuff, okay? Just that. Then we can ship it and book it.” So Bailey and ‘Rat-Nose” Rasputin, his eldest son, carefully put animals all over the land, aiming for style over substance and writing off all of Australia’s fauna the moment anything else came into contact with them. And Bailey said that it “painted a pretty picture,” which was good enough.
Then Bailey said, “Hey now, we’ve still got time and a bit in the budget. Boys, take lunch, I’m gonna leave a little showpiece here for our customer.”
So Bailey grabbed together a few piles of ape genes and kludged together something amusingly bipedal, something that would get just as many backaches and achy shoulders as he did, a handful of males and females was good enough to get the job done.
Then Bailey said, “Tool-users…yeah, that oughta do it. Man oh man, either they’ll croak it during their first glaciation or they’ll turn into motherfuckin’ locusts.”
Then he said, “Hey, see that big mess over there, lying all over the place? All that crap my useless good-for-nothing kids made? Go on, give it a try, take it on. Dare ya. Double-dog-dare ya, you ugly li’l primate shitheads! G’wan!” And other things like that.
Bailey straightened up and rubbed his back as he looked upon all that he had made, and it looked good enough to ‘pass the eyeball test and get a check cut.” And that was the sixth day. By his watch and his hourly pay rate, at least.
That was when the project was deemed ‘done.’ At least, after lunch.
Lunch took up all of the seventh day, and it was billable. Then Bailey poured one out on the ground to celebrate the project’s completion, killing all the marsupial mammals of South America, because screw it, it was time to go home.
And in the end, there was a mess, and we sort of coped with it.