In the beginning…9. Earth Overlook: Day Five

As Day 5 dawned, the Earth Overlook was crowded with everyone pushing forward vying for the highly-coveted spots by the rail. Only Lucifer and his group held back reservedly, a little distanced from the throng.

“Just you wait, Son of God,” Lucifer muttered to himself under his breath. “Our day will come; you’ll see.”

“What’s Jesus going to do now?” asked one of Lucifer’s group.

“I don’t know; and I don’t care!” the devil-to-be spat venomously.

“Then why did we even bother to come?” questioned the friend.

“It’s expected. We must bide out time. Our day will come,” Lucifer reiterated his previous thought.

Meanwhile the day’s events were getting underway. God looked to Jesus inquiringly. Jesus smiled. A table had been placed strategically to hold the drawings upon which Jesus had been working for the past several days. These pages had been stacked in several neat piles in front of him. Jesus handed a stack to his Father. God then turned to the audience and announced, “Welcome, all, to ‘Fish and Fowl Day.’ This is Day 5 of the making of the worlds beyond our heaven. Jesus has worked hard on the plans for this day of creation. Today we bring the first animal life to the Earth. Focus your view on the waters below – on the oceans, lakes, ponds, rivers, and creeks of Earth.”

He smiled to his son who nodded back to his father saying, “Do it, Dad!”

Immediately, as if on cue, Allen and the angelic chorus standing slightly off to one side began to chant rhythmically almost whispering, “Do it! Do it! Do it! Just do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Just do it!” Soon the sequence was taken up by all the angels. All joined in the moment clapping and chanting except that one group standing skeptically on the outer fringes. All eyes, even those of Lucifer’s group, were on the papers held delicately in the Father’s hands.

God seemed to rifle gently through those pages he had received from his Son and then simply held the stack over the railing above the Earth…and then he let go. There was an audible gasp from the gathered host. As the pages fluttered toward the waters, God declared in a majestically loud voice, “Let the water teem with living creatures!”

For a moment nothing happened; the last of the drawings fluttered to Earth and began being soaked up by the water. It took only a few moments for all the pages to disappear; they seemed to dissolve before the intense view of the spectators. Then the waters began to ripple and little wavelets formed everywhere. Suddenly, a large creature jumped from the water, seemed to fly through the air for several seconds, and landed back in the ocean with a splash sending spray upwards for about 40 feet. This took some at the railing totally by surprise causing them to flinch noticeably. Others laughed in mild ridicule.

All of a sudden, just as God had decreed only a minute before, the water teemed with moving creatures. They were all shapes and colors and sizes. They were everywhere. The angels outdid themselves with “Oooos” and “Ahhhs” and other expressions of incredulity.

After the gasps of amazement turned to cheers, Jesus quieted the multitude with a raised hand and a smile that seemed to repeat his prophetic utterance of Day 3 just before he had made all the plant life, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

The Son again nodded to his father handing him a second stack of papers. God stared for a moment into space, then lowered his gaze to the area of sky just above the Earth. With a majestic forward sweep of his arm, he flung those drawings out from the railing and watched as they fluttered awkwardly toward earth in the same manner as their predecessors. They never reached the ground. In mid flight, as though acted upon by some supernatural force, each one metamorphosed into a flying creature.

As Jesus raised his voice to explain, “Those are called birds!” The newly categorized creatures seemed to move in all directions at varying speeds. Some glided gracefully as though sailing on invisible currents; others swooped and darted through the air. Comments swept through the spectators.

“Look at that little red one!”

“There’s a blue and white one!”

“They are all different colors!”

“And all various shapes and sizes!”

“Listen!” Allen exclaimed beseechingly. At that command, a sudden hush quieted the onlookers. “The creatures…”

“Birds,” called out Jesus.

“Uh, yes,” Allen continued, “the, uh, birds are, uh, all singing.”

“Some even sound beautiful!” Michael added.

“Yeah, but listen to that big, dark one with the protruding beak. It sounds like the bass section grunting off key!” a choir member – obviously not a member of the bass section – humorously pointed out. Others agreed jovially. There were back slaps and playful shoves all around.

For the next several minutes the angels took turns crowding the railing to view the fish in the oceans and watch and listen to the birds in the sky. Even Lucifer and his comrades meandered slowly to the railing at the farthest point to peer amazingly at all the living creatures God had made in the twinkling of his eye.

Michael stated what was on the minds of all, “So many different creatures in so little time. How many are there, Gabriel?”

Gabriel frustratingly responded, “You’ve got to be kidding Michael. They don’t keep still long enough to get any kind of accurate count. My guess would be thousands.”

God then looked at Jesus as if to ask, “Is that it for today?”

Jesus reached for a third stack of papers on the table. There were only a few in this group. He handed it to his Father saying, “These are the curious birds; the ones that will not fly at all. I’ve made their body dimensions and wing sizes such that they will never be able to lift off the Earth and its gravitational pull. Would you place these on the dry ground, please, Father.”

“Certainly, Son,” God agreed. Then he held those few sheets over the railing and released them. They fluttered down toward the water for only a moment; then each seemed to take its own course to a soft landing on dry dirt. Within a few seconds, to the continued amazement of the onlookers above, each sheet seemed to disintegrate. Immediately a bird-like creature stood where the paper had been a moment before. One was black and white and waddled side to side as it walked. Another had long legs and a long neck and strolled cautiously with its head darting forward and backward. A few others were scattered with various markings, coloring, size, and mannerisms of movement. None flew.

God’s voice interrupted the observations and gained the immediate attention of all. His words were directed, not to the spectators; but, rather, to the new creations on the Earth below, “Be fruitful and increase in number,” his voice commanded, “and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”

It seemed that before God had completed that sentence; before the words were scarcely out of his mouth, there was an immediate proliferation of every fish and bird. In less than a minute there were 10 of every creature. These scattered and seemed to create another 10 each; those created 10 more.

Michael stared aghast. Gabriel nearly went into shock trying to keep track, “There are hundreds; no, thousands, tens of thousands!”

“Remarkable, simply remarkable,” Michael finally muttered.

Allen ambled over to join the two lead angels, “I could compose an entire symphony about the marvels we’ve just witnessed, but the words and music wouldn’t begin to do it justice.”

“You got that right, Allen,” stated Raphael, a young angel following at his elbow; he was lead tenor in the choir.

After a few more minutes, “Fish and Fowl Day” came to its conclusion. The angels slowly dispersed individually or in small groups. Most seemed to be musing over what Day 6 could possibly hold in store for them that would surpass these last few minutes. Unlike the previous days, the Father and Son were left alone at the overlook and were the last to look once more over the Earth.

Jesus spoke first, “Day 6 will be our last day of creation, Father. Then what?”

God replied, “Then the rest of the plan will begin.”

“I know we’ve talked about mankind and sin and, uh, my role, and all;” Jesus hesitated, “but could we sit and talk about all that again sometime soon?”

“Sure, Son. You just let me know the time and place and I’ll be there,” God assured him. “I’m looking forward to the renewal of that conversation once you’re not so busy with all these creative ideas for man’s world.”

Looking back toward the Earth where the fish and birds still seemed to frolic untiringly, Jesus suggested, “That surely was exciting to watch all those creatures moving and then multiplying.”

“Yes, it was quite interesting;” the Father pointed out, “but you know, Jesus, the multiplying will continue now according to the laws of nature that we’ve instilled in this Earth and all it will hold. To mankind, today’s events would have seemed like magic or at least supernatural happenings; no doubt they seemed like that to some of the angels, too.”

“I know,” Jesus concurred, “but wasn’t it all fantastic!”

“That it was, Son, that it was,” God said. Then with a last look, they walked together toward the palace.

And there was evening, and there was morning – the fifth day.


[to be continued]