"Gods Getting It On," The First Story Ever

                The first human story was told during a turbulent storm, while a tribe of humans hid from the wind and rain in a small cave. The people had nothing to do except light fires, dance around, and reproduce. Dawn did not break the next day, as the storm was still raging. The tribe had plenty of food reserves, having recently pillaged a neighboring tribe; they were only running low on entertainment.

                “How long do we have to stay here?” someone wailed. “The gods must be trying to starve us! It will rain until our bones have dried in this stinking cave!”

                The tribe shaman came forward, shifting slowly on his lame leg, and the crowd parted to let him through. “There is nothing to fear, boy,” he said. “For we have come from caves, and if here should be our home, so much the better.”

                Gasps from the crowd. Moaning, more wailing; a trickle of urine on a stalagmite.

                “What fate do you see for us, O Wise One?” one of the shaman’s strongest supporters asked.

                “Yes, what lies have you cooked up in that bison-scrotum of yours?” said an equally fervent detractor. (Bison-scrotum was an idiom of these people, denoting a large and empty head.)

                “Have you not heard of how we came to be?” the shaman asked. He was met with shouts of disapproval—how could he know such an unknowable thing as that?

                “Silence!” a warrior shouted, lifting his spear above his head. “Since we have no matters more pressing to attend to, let us listen to this curmudgeon. He shall tell us a tale, and whether or not it is true, it shall entertain us, and perhaps the rain will pass by then.” He jabbed the spear at the old man. “Go on, grandpa!” (The shaman was, in fact, his grandfather.)

                “I assure you all it is true,” the shaman said, “but it makes no difference if you all do not believe me. Very well, I’ll tell it.

                “Countless winters and summers ago, this world was a mere grain of sand on a beach where the Gods would go fishing for jellyfish. The sun god had just lost his wife to the mountain god, so he was walking dejectedly along the beach when he decided to plot his revenge.

                “He picked up a grain of sand, and said to it, ‘I shall make you a world unto yourself. A new universe shall be yours and yours alone.’ By his godly powers, a new universe was created, filled only with the sun god and his grain of sand. The grain grew into this world, his only friend. Periodically, he would go back to the gods’ world to stalk his ex-wife. He cut off his toenail and left it as a light source when he was gone—and thus, the moon.”

                A murmur of wonder spread through the audience.

                “The sea goddess, the mountain god’s first wife, was equally jealous of his prodigious philandering. She confided in the sun god, and together they consummated their revenge many times. When the mountain god was heard returning, he would hide away back in our world.

                “’Say, where has the sun god been these days?’ the mountain god wondered aloud one day. ‘Things have been darker here lately, too dark to spot any jellyfish.’ The sea goddess said nothing and offered him some jellyfish from his bosom. Her husband, taking this as an affront to his honor, attempted to banish the jellyfish.

                “The sun god smuggled his gelatinous friends away to our world, and, borrowing some water from his new mistress, made them a new home. They are our earliest ancestors, our closest connection to the gods. That is why I use jellyfish soup when I perform an exorcism.” (How the shaman could have known anything so remotely accurate about natural history is beyond me.)

                “Things grew tense in the world of the gods. The sea goddess was moody, the mountain god furious at everything, and the sun god was nowhere to be seen. His ex-wife, the unicorn, grew tired of all the bickering and went to talk to the sea. ‘Have you seen my husband lately?’ she asked the sea goddess. ‘I kind of regret leaving him, after all. He  was much kinder than the mountain god.’ ‘Tell me about it,’ said the sea goddess. ‘What do you mean?’ the unicorn replied. ‘Um….’”

                “You can all imagine what happened next. The sea and sun were put on trial for adultery, and the mountain god led the prosecution. Ironically, the mountain god ended up admitting to adultery himself, and the verdict took many weeks to be delivered. When the jury found out about the sun god’s new world, debate over custody of our world became heated. Finally, the thunder god intervened. He banished all of them to the new world, confiscating the unicorn’s horn for having started this whole thing in the first place. To the sun god, he said, ‘thy finest creation shall come from the bowels of thine enemy. Heed this, and know not strife.’”

                “Since then, the sun god has kept to himself, with the thunder god periodically returning to keep him in his place. When the sun and the mountain finally reconciled, they forged the first people deep within the mountain’s caves. If we wandered long enough in this cave, we would find the deepest one, whence our ancestors came.

                “And that, folks, is why you should stay loyal to your spouses. The end.”

                The old man shuffled off amid jeers and boos from the tribe’s polygynists. It was still raining outside.