Noah, the unabridged version.

So it came to be, on the forty-three thousand seven hundred and seventy first day, after the Lord God revealed His displeasure with mankind to Noah, did Noah finish building the ark. It was then that God awoke from His nap, descended to the Earth, and took the form of a burning bush, because He knew it to be the most awesomest of forms.

“Noah,” The voice of God filled the air with His smoky aroma. “Hast thou finished building the ark that I, your LORD and God, Creator of everything you see and know about, LORD of Adam, Isaac, and Newton; The Omnipresent Omniscient, Omnivorous-iest-est, have instructed?”

Noah, his eyes stinging from the noxious fumes of the LORD, squinted through the haze at the large and obvious ark, which was by far the largest structure in all of the land; visible for 100 miles on all sides, and replied, “Yes.”

“Noah,” spake the LORD, “I am most displeased, for you are behind schedule. As you well know, a thousand years is but a day in my eyes. And yet, you took forever to build this stupid boat! It was a trivial task that you should have easily completed within 1, maybe 2 days max!” the embers of the LORD fumed and flared brightly with even more awesomeness.

“Whaat?! Have You seen the size of this damn boat?! My family has slaved over this boat for You! We worked ourselves to exhaustion and beyond! I lost three of my children and a grandchild building this ark. Look!” Noah said, pointing to the graves. His eyes began to water with sadness and irritation, but mostly irritation.

“Do not question the LORD your GOD!” roared the Holy burning Spirit. “I am merely noting that I created the whole world and everything you see in a mere six days. And yet it took you forty-three thousand seven hundred and seventy one days, thirteen hours and twenty-two and a half minutes to construct a mere wooden boat!” The fiery cinders of God spit and whined with His displeasure.

Noah shielded his eyes, “This was a lot of work. While all our neighbors were having their decadent and wicked fun, we were building this boat. In fact, my entire family did nothing else for over a hundred years. Do you know how many orgies I had to turn down? Non-stop for….. wait, wait, wait one second,” Noah said now looking at the bush. “If you’re so powerful, why did you not just pop the ark into existence?” The bush burned away and then there was silence. A warm wind rose up around Noah, bringing with it the scent sin and a good time from the town below.

“Is the world still as wicked as it was when I first commanded you to build this ark?” the voice of the Lord called out from a second burning bush a few feet to the left, effectively changing the subject.

“I haven’t checked lately. You see, I’ve been too busy building a boat. But I’ve heard people are still having fun… evil, sexually-depraved fun. I can’t imagine it being as much fun as building a boat, though,” Noah sighed and looked away. In the distance he could see the plains of Sodom, and while he could not see its inhabitants, he knew in his heart that they were wicked, and that they were having a hell of a good time reveling in their wickedness.

“And so it is,” continued the LORD, “that mankind, horsekind, platypuskind, and every other 4-legged creature taking part in that orgy on South Street, are no longer worthy of My creation. Soooo, I’m just gonna flood the earth. It needs a good cleansing to wash away all that dirty wickedness.”

Noah looked at the cities. He could see the red brothel lights appearing as the daylight grew dim. “Are you sure? Maybe I could go to South Street to see the wickedness with my own eyes first... to um… talk them out of it. If you could just give me about a week of vacation and a thousand dollars travel allowance… Mrs. Noah can stay here and look after the boat. And who knows, this whole flood thing might not be necessary!”

“Now I’ll be sending you two unclean beasts of each kind,” the LORD continued, ignoring Noah, “well, that is, if I can find any that are not too unclean after all that business on South Street. Ooh, doesn’t look like they have any birds down there yet… so bring 7 each of the clean ones. Yeah. I like those…” prattled the burning voice of God.

“Oh great, there goes another hundred years of my life.” Noah sighed. Although the lights of the whorehouses grew ever brighter with the setting sun, through the smoke of the LORD they appeared increasingly out of reach.

“No we can’t afford another hundred years, Noah!” roared the billowy fires of His Mighty Bush. “Haven’t you heard anything I have spaken unto you? We are behind schedule! You will board at least one male and one female of all one billion, three hundred twenty-eight million, seven hundred three thousand, two hundred seventeen kinds of my creation; within the next seven days. Do not forget to include another three and a half million of the sinless, parthenogenic species, of which you will take two females instead since there are no males. However, if any of those of the parthogenic persuasion touch each other, they shall have sinned in my eyes and you can throw them over board. Same goes for the one million and forty-eight kinds of hermaphroditic animals.”

Noah dropped to his knees and wept upon the holy ground, for he had not one day of rest since finishing the ark. “Over a billion animals! In seven days?! Seven?! Days?!?”

“Noah! Pull yourself together! There is no time for being slothful; at least the sloths are already on their way. I gave them a head start, you see." The burning bush appeared to chuckle at His own perceived cleverness. Noah just continued to weep.

God continued, annoyed at Noah for not paying attention to Him. "Anyways, the animals are arriving. Look, the dragons, or as atheists will come to know them, the dinosaurs, are coming up the path. They are the pride of my creation.”

Noah gazed at a line of beasts that stretched beyond the horizon. The creatures were massive and splendid, and were indeed the glory of creation. "They are amazing. They're so big, and…. Oh my God!”

“Yes?” God was still marveling over his creation.

“Oh my God!!” Noah shouted. The color was draining from his face.

“What?” God grew impatient.

“Oh my God!! Oh my God!! Oh my God!! Oh my God!! Oh my God!! Oh my God!!” Noah kept shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Do not take my name in vain!! Or I will smite thee.” The flames of God grew higher.

“What are they doing?!?” cried Noah, oblivious to the flaming God burning next to him. “What are those evil creatures doing? Oooooohhhhh mmmyyyy Gooood!!!!” Noah turned his head and vomited, as the wind carried the sounds of screaming and the smell of the blood toward Noah.

“Well,” spake the LORD, “from here it looks as if they are eating.”

“They're eating my family!” Noah shouted. His voice was becoming horse. “Run Noah, Jr. Run Rebecca! Noooo!! Go the other way! Look out! No!!!! And oh dear God, what the hell are those?!” Noah pointed into the sky. “Jesus Christ, they’re flying! And what is that they’re breathing? Fire?!? Those things are breathing fire!" Noah turned to face God. "Why the hell did you make flying dinosaurs that can breathe fire?!”

“Flying dinosaurs? Don’t be silly, I would never make such an absurd thing.” God replied.

“Really? Then what the hell are those things that just burned my mother to a crisp?!” Noah screamed pointing to the flying creatures now snatching babies from their mothers’ arms.

“Oh, those… those are not fire-breathing dinosaurs. Those are fire-breathing pterosaurs. Big difference. Just look at the feet and ankle joints. Completely different. And I must say I think they are the coolest things I’ve ever made. Do you know how many laws of physics I had to break to make those happen?” God said, unable to hide the pride in his voice.

Noah began pulling out clumps of his own hair as the path to the ark became red with blood. He pleaded with God, “Oh why are we saving these monsters just so they can terrorize my descendants?"

"Oh,” said the LORD, following Noah’s gaze, “do not worry about that. About five hundred years after the flood almost all of the creatures that were saved on the ark will go extinct anyway. Something about habitat destruction and changing environments. Your descendents will never gaze upon a single dinosaur."

"Extinct?” They all go extinct anyways? What all of this work for that?" Noah was unable to lift his head.

"Now that you mention it, it does seem a bit wasteful. But what is done is done. It is my will and I work in mysterious ways." God said.

"At least, the world will be rid of all of the wickedness." Noah said sobbing into his hands, trying to make sense of the carnage before him.

"About that. Noah,” God said, “the funny thing is—and this is kind of a spoil alert—when the flood recedes, a certain unnamed old boat-building farmer goes and plants a vineyard and gets drunk. Then, in his drunken stupor—this Mr. N, if you will—forces himself on one of his surviving daughter-in-laws. And then your son… I mean this mysterious Mr N.’s son, finds him on top of his helpless wife, or ‘sees his father’s nakedness’ if you will, and in a fit of rage the son castrates the father. The father gets back at the son by cursing not the son that castrated him, but by cursing the son’s son for some reason I still can’t figure out. And thousands of years from now, a guy in a funny hat will use that curse as justification for enslaving a whole group people based on their skin color—a people who, in an ironic twist, are not even descended from the boy Mr. N. cursed. So the long and the short of it is that wickedness is here to stay. But hey! No more orgies on South Street!"

Noah knelt there in silence. There were no more tears. There was just numbness, and the screams of his loved ones.

“God?" Noah said in an eerily calm voice.

"Yes, Noah, my child." God’s smoky voice filled the wind and the skies.

"I hate you."


Editor's note. In an effort to make the bible smaller and easier to carry around for those prone to getting lost in the desert for forty years, the story henceforth shall be condensed to:

8. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.