Jeeves and the Mysterious Ways
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indeedsir_backupOK, here is some craziness that I have had in my mind for months now.
Title: Jeeves and the Mysterious Ways
Author: laeticia
Rating: G
Pairing:Errr, it’s more of a threesome? None
Summary: If Jeeves were the Holy Spirit (totally canon!), that would explain a lot about Jeeves. If Wooster were God, that would explain a lot about the world. What is this, fan theology? The soul shudders.
Warnings: Horribly mangled Trinitarian theology and no doubt lashings of heresy with a little blasphemy on the side. (If you have easily offended religious sensibilities, this might just not be your thing.) Also genetic engineering, veloci-whatsits, exoplanets, and marauding Greek gods.
Disclaimer: Jeeves and Wooster belong to Wodehouse; the Trinity presumably belongs to itself. Alba the rabbit was subject to a custody dispute. Gliese 581d doesn’t belong to anyone, as far as I know.
“Sir… is that a member of the family leporidae?” My deity’s personal deity shimmered in.
“It’s a rabbit.” I extinguished the light with a flick of my hand, and the little creature glowed. “It’s biolum-something. Jeeves, what is the word I want?”
“Bioluminescent, sir.”
“Yes, that’s the one. Thank you, Jeeves.”
“Is this one of your creations, sir?” His soupy expression reflected greenly in the rabbit-light.
“Some clever scientist and artist chappies made it by adding a soupçon of jellyfish to the usual recipe.”
“Indirectly one of yours, then.”
“Well, if I’m going to be held responsible for everything those blighters do, I’m going to be responsible for a dashed lot, what?”
“Indeed, sir.” Ice crystals were forming on his words.
“I take it you don’t approve?”
“In addition to being somewhat garish, sir, it does not appear to be a well adapted creature. A beast of prey that glows in the dark is going to be highly susceptible to nocturnal predation.”
“In the matter of novel animals, you are notoriously hidebound and reactionary. I intend to keep it, and we’re not going to have another incident like that of the Dodo. I don’t want to hear about any ‘accidental extinction.’”
“Very good sir.”
*
“Do you ever think that it’s all just so bally bally, Jeeves? Sometimes, I’m just fed up with the bally balliness of it all.” My holy spirit materialized out of the ether with a restorative brandy and soda.
“Are you referring to the human condition, sir?”
“Well, they seem to be making a rather rum job of it.“
“Perhaps, sir, in retrospect, turning the planet over to monkeys was not the best idea.”
“Well, yes, quite, but it’s not as if the veloci-whatsits were better.”
“Sir, I would prefer it if we not discuss the velociraptors or indeed any dromaeosaurid theropods of the later Cretaceous,” he huffed, doing his best impression of a stuffed amphibian. “It is rather too soon for me to regard their moral failings and flamboyant plumage with equanimity,” he shuddered minutely, “not to mention their table manners.”
“Yes, well, quite, but the humans aren’t exactly ouja-cum-spiff.”
“They have produced some admirable specimens, sir. There is Bach, and the swan of Avon…”
“Jeeves, you cannot keep harping on about Bach forever.”
“No, sir.”
“One Bach does not justify an entire species of murderous apes.”
“As you say, sir.”
“And the blisters have the attention span of a gnat, always prosequi-ing when one has issued a nolle prosequi.” Jeeves was at that moment glimmering around, tidying up the cosmos, ensuring that it ran like a well-oiled machine, and generally emanating his wonderfully competent thingness, so I chose to ignore a murmur that sounded distinctly like “in your image, sir.”
“Although,” I continued my ruminations, “on the other hand, I suppose, we must also consider Arthur Conan Doyle and the cove who penned ‘47 Ginger Headed Sailors.’ Corking tune, what?’”
His immaterial being shivered infinitesimally. “On further reflection, sir, might I suggest a cataclysmic event, such as a flood or a meteor? A Deus ex Machina, so to speak.”
“A me ex machina? Hmmm, it seems awfully harsh, this d.e.m. business. Especially since they wrote ‘Goodnight Vienna.’”
“As you say, sir.”
“No, I don't think I want to ex the machina just yet. Why don’t we just, you know, not make it so bally bally.”
“Sir?”
“Well, all this red-in-t.-and-c. and life-is-suffering bit seems awfully rummy.” He was observing me with a distinctly soupy expression.
“Are you feeling quite well, sir? I worry that at any moment you shall start proclaiming that the stars are your daisy chain.”
I was not so easily distracted. “It’s like that chappy said, about the flower and the shadow.”
“As we say in the book of Job, sir: ‘Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.’”
“Exactly. Why couldn’t we, you know, make the world free of war, disease, pain, and what not?”
“And what would people do then, sir?”
“I don’t know – escape from various romantic entanglements, pinch silver objets d’art, avoid the wrath of aunts – that sort of thing.”
“Such pursuits are the acceptable currency of comic novels, sir, but they are hardly amenable to the greater purpose.”
“You refer to the meaning of life thingummy?”
“Precisely, sir. As the philosopher Spinoza says, ‘All noble things are as difficult as they are rare.’” Well, once my personal anima starts on t.m.o.l. there is no reasoning with him. To be honest, I’ve never quite grasped the whole concept, but he tells me he understands it well enough for both of us. All three of us, if you count the other chappy, I suppose. Jeeves emitted a quiet cough, like a dimetrodon clearing a bone from its throat in a distant swamp. “If I might make a suggestion, sir, perhaps you would find a change of venue invigorating.” He acquired that gleam he gets when he contemplates travel to far-off parts. “I hear that Gliese-581d is nice this time of year.”
When two persons of iron will coexist within the same Godhead, there are bound to be conflicts, but I had to put my foot down about his obsession with that blasted planet. “I can’t imagine anything duller. There isn’t anything on Gliese-581d or on any other Gliese, for that matter. Expunge the Glieses from your mind at once, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir.”
*
“What is on the day’s agenda, Jeeves? I imagine some young Greek god will be hoofing over to consult your fish-fed brain about the pursuit of a water nymph or other tender goddess?”
“Actually, sir, Mrs. Gregson called to say she will pay you a visit this afternoon.” I might be omnipotent and all that rot, but those words strike fear into the heart. My aunt Agatha, Queen of the Underworld, breathes fire and devours nephews for lunch, and not in that symbolic take-of-my-body-and-blood way, either.
“Didn’t you tell the cloven-hooved menace I wasn’t here?”
“She observed, sir, that You are everywhere.”
“Well.” I didn’t have a good answer to that. “I suppose she is going to thrust some sulfurous succubus at me and insist that I make something of myself.”
“Indubitably, sir. In addition, I surmise that her ire has been roused by the incident of the young lady in Judaea.”
“I imagine she’s pipped I didn’t marry the beazel.”
“I think she is more concerned with the difference of social rank. The matter of salvation has also cut into her harvest of souls somewhat.”
“Oh right, the salvation wheeze. Brilliant stratagem, Jeeves. A bit hard on the young chappy, though, what?”
“Well, technically, he is you and I, sir.”
“Please don’t start with that dashed confusing Trinitarian stuff. I’m done with theology. My mind was filled up millennia ago.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Where did that bird get to anyway? I suppose he’s living it up with Anatole and the other cherubim.”
“I think you mean seraphim, sir, and, on the contrary, he is employed in answering your rather voluminous correspondence.”
“Ah, yes, that. Well, I’m glad someone has taken an interest in it. Rather a backlog, I imagine.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Taking a whack at solving people’s problems? I rather fancy he got that from your side of the family, anima mea.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Eats a lot of fish, does he?”
“He subsists on them almost exclusively.”
“He takes it all very seriously, doesn’t he?”
“Crucifixion at a formative age will do that to a person, sir.”
*
“Jeeves, it’s too horrible to be contemplated. Aunt Agatha has found exactly the wife to ‘mold me into something’ as she puts it.”
“Who, might I inquire, is the fiancée, sir?” asked my feudal spirit, quietly manifesting from the void.
“Juno, also known as Hera, oxen-eyed and golden-girdled, terror of the ancient world.” The f.s. turned a little pale around the edges. Juno ranked high among the aunt-like figures of our acquaintance.
“I am given to understand that the lady in question is already married, to Jupiter no less, and while the King of Olympus may have lost some of his ancestral standing, that in no way dissolves his marital vows.” Jeeves sounded as pleased as an eel in an ice floe. His dislike of the chief Greco-Roman is well known – something involving an eagle and highly inappropriate behavior toward the help, one very junior Ganymede, as I recall.
“No, but apparently the fact that he has ceased to occupy a manly corpus does. The old blighter put on the form of a bull to whisk off some princess, as one does, and, on finding that being bovine-shaped made his marriage invalid in divine circles, he quite sensibly elected to remain that way. Till this day he is happily chomping down the green stuff and lowing at heifers in the Cretan fields, leaving his blasted wife looking for some new chap to clap the shackles onto.” I stared morosely into my fortifying cocktail. “She won’t let me keep you on after we’re married. She disapproves of tridentate deities.”
“Triune, sir.”
“That too, I imagine. She says all that’s needed is a male and female divine principle united in matrimony and, of course, hundreds of little godlets.” I quivered at the thought. One only needed to look at the Mesopotamian and Greek myths to know why one didn’t want a tribe of brats running around calling you pater and brandishing the fish knives in a menacing manner.
“Perhaps I can offer a solution, sir. I gather that if the Olympian in question were to resume his traditional anthropomorphic form, then the goddess would once again be considered married, and the immediate threat would be obviated.”
“Yes, but how to persuade the blasted beast?”
“I believe, sir, that I may be able to contrive the means to do so.”
“Very good, Jeeves.”
*
“Well. I must say, old bean, you have done it again. I know you move in mysterious ways, your wonders to perform and what not, but how on earth did you convince the blot to get inside his anthropo-whatsit attire?” I was feeling pretty chipper, since Hermes – dashed useful fellow that – had ankled over in his spiffy sandals to tell me that my recently betrothed had been reunited with her erstwhile spouse. (Fortunately one’s holier-than-thou ghost had not been home to heap disapproval on said divine footwear.)
“I informed him of the danger of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, sir.”
“Speak English, man.”
“Mad cow disease, sir. It is an incurable degenerative condition, which rapidly renders large areas of the brain defunct resulting in the inexorable mental and physical decline of the affected animal followed by insanity and death.”
“Sounds horrible! Does such a thing exist?”
“It does now, sir.” I detected a hint of smugness in his tone. “I gathered that if the prions of the brain could be induced to misfold and to transmit this deformation to their neighbors, such an affliction could be propagated relatively simply.”
“Is there anything you don’t know, Jeeves?”
“No, sir.”
“And to think you were complaining about the glow-in-the-dark bunny. Your meddling about with nature seems rather more sinister, what?”
“Desperate times, sir.”
“Indeed. Speaking of the rabbit, you might get rid of it.”
“Thank you, sir. I took the liberty of feeding it to a deserving owl this morning.”
*
“Unfortunately, Mrs. Gregson, since she is on intimate terms with the pagan daimones, is aware of our role in the affair and is rather intent on discussing the matter.”
“Hell-bent on vengeance, I suppose.”
“You could say that, sir.”
“With legions of satanic minions, I imagine, and her three-headed terrier.”
“Perhaps, sir, in light of her imminent arrival it would be advisable to temporarily vacate the Pearly Gates. As I have mentioned, Gliese-581d has a temperate clime, an interesting mixture of elements, and acceptable gravity. With the introduction of a tasteful single-celled organism, it could rapidly develop into quite a promising locale with excellent fishing.”
“Let there be light, breath moving on the deep and what-have-you?”
“The star it orbits provides fairly plentiful light, but I believe the depths would benefit from an application of divine exhalation. The planet in question also possesses the virtue of being very far away from Mrs. Gregson.”
*
“What word was it in the beginning, Jeeves? You know, ‘in the beginning was the word,’ but what word was it?”
“The word was God, sir.”
“I know that’s what the handbook says, but I can’t remember for the life of me what actual word we’re supposed to use to kick off this wheeze.”
“I think you are rather missing the point, sir. It is the act of speaking that engenders creation.”
“I say,” I I-sayed. That seemed to do the trick.
*
Gliese-581d glowed peaceful, blue, and blessedly aunt-free. A school of fish that looked suspiciously like tarpon glinted silver in the sunlit water. A herd of quadrupeds quietly chewed their cud, and somewhere in the distance a tribe of mammalian bipeds considered dressing for dinner. My deity’s personal deity silently trickled into space-time.
“Dashed tiring, this work business.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“I think four days is plenty for this one, what?”
“If you say so, sir.”
“What is it that the poet johnny said, the lark is on the wing and what not?”
“The poet Browning, sir. ‘The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in his heaven – All’s right with the world!’”
“Yes, thank you Jeeves. I fancy that a larkish bird is on the wing and something decidedly resembling a snail is this moment choosing itself a well-appointed thorn.”
“Yes, sir.” From thin air, he conjured a silver salver bearing what appeared to be a b. and s., light on the s. I eyed it with no small bit of suspicion.
“Where did that come from?”
“It is French, sir. Gliesian brandy manufacture is, regrettably, in its infancy. Since the local libation is not up to the required standard, I took the liberty of importing a more suitable beverage from the Cognac region.”
“Jeeves, you really are a paragon – is that the word I want?"
“Paraclete, sir.”
Title: Jeeves and the Mysterious Ways
Author: laeticia
Rating: G
Pairing:
Summary: If Jeeves were the Holy Spirit (totally canon!), that would explain a lot about Jeeves. If Wooster were God, that would explain a lot about the world. What is this, fan theology? The soul shudders.
Warnings: Horribly mangled Trinitarian theology and no doubt lashings of heresy with a little blasphemy on the side. (If you have easily offended religious sensibilities, this might just not be your thing.) Also genetic engineering, veloci-whatsits, exoplanets, and marauding Greek gods.
Disclaimer: Jeeves and Wooster belong to Wodehouse; the Trinity presumably belongs to itself. Alba the rabbit was subject to a custody dispute. Gliese 581d doesn’t belong to anyone, as far as I know.
“Sir… is that a member of the family leporidae?” My deity’s personal deity shimmered in.
“It’s a rabbit.” I extinguished the light with a flick of my hand, and the little creature glowed. “It’s biolum-something. Jeeves, what is the word I want?”
“Bioluminescent, sir.”
“Yes, that’s the one. Thank you, Jeeves.”
“Is this one of your creations, sir?” His soupy expression reflected greenly in the rabbit-light.
“Some clever scientist and artist chappies made it by adding a soupçon of jellyfish to the usual recipe.”
“Indirectly one of yours, then.”
“Well, if I’m going to be held responsible for everything those blighters do, I’m going to be responsible for a dashed lot, what?”
“Indeed, sir.” Ice crystals were forming on his words.
“I take it you don’t approve?”
“In addition to being somewhat garish, sir, it does not appear to be a well adapted creature. A beast of prey that glows in the dark is going to be highly susceptible to nocturnal predation.”
“In the matter of novel animals, you are notoriously hidebound and reactionary. I intend to keep it, and we’re not going to have another incident like that of the Dodo. I don’t want to hear about any ‘accidental extinction.’”
“Very good sir.”
“Do you ever think that it’s all just so bally bally, Jeeves? Sometimes, I’m just fed up with the bally balliness of it all.” My holy spirit materialized out of the ether with a restorative brandy and soda.
“Are you referring to the human condition, sir?”
“Well, they seem to be making a rather rum job of it.“
“Perhaps, sir, in retrospect, turning the planet over to monkeys was not the best idea.”
“Well, yes, quite, but it’s not as if the veloci-whatsits were better.”
“Sir, I would prefer it if we not discuss the velociraptors or indeed any dromaeosaurid theropods of the later Cretaceous,” he huffed, doing his best impression of a stuffed amphibian. “It is rather too soon for me to regard their moral failings and flamboyant plumage with equanimity,” he shuddered minutely, “not to mention their table manners.”
“Yes, well, quite, but the humans aren’t exactly ouja-cum-spiff.”
“They have produced some admirable specimens, sir. There is Bach, and the swan of Avon…”
“Jeeves, you cannot keep harping on about Bach forever.”
“No, sir.”
“One Bach does not justify an entire species of murderous apes.”
“As you say, sir.”
“And the blisters have the attention span of a gnat, always prosequi-ing when one has issued a nolle prosequi.” Jeeves was at that moment glimmering around, tidying up the cosmos, ensuring that it ran like a well-oiled machine, and generally emanating his wonderfully competent thingness, so I chose to ignore a murmur that sounded distinctly like “in your image, sir.”
“Although,” I continued my ruminations, “on the other hand, I suppose, we must also consider Arthur Conan Doyle and the cove who penned ‘47 Ginger Headed Sailors.’ Corking tune, what?’”
His immaterial being shivered infinitesimally. “On further reflection, sir, might I suggest a cataclysmic event, such as a flood or a meteor? A Deus ex Machina, so to speak.”
“A me ex machina? Hmmm, it seems awfully harsh, this d.e.m. business. Especially since they wrote ‘Goodnight Vienna.’”
“As you say, sir.”
“No, I don't think I want to ex the machina just yet. Why don’t we just, you know, not make it so bally bally.”
“Sir?”
“Well, all this red-in-t.-and-c. and life-is-suffering bit seems awfully rummy.” He was observing me with a distinctly soupy expression.
“Are you feeling quite well, sir? I worry that at any moment you shall start proclaiming that the stars are your daisy chain.”
I was not so easily distracted. “It’s like that chappy said, about the flower and the shadow.”
“As we say in the book of Job, sir: ‘Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.’”
“Exactly. Why couldn’t we, you know, make the world free of war, disease, pain, and what not?”
“And what would people do then, sir?”
“I don’t know – escape from various romantic entanglements, pinch silver objets d’art, avoid the wrath of aunts – that sort of thing.”
“Such pursuits are the acceptable currency of comic novels, sir, but they are hardly amenable to the greater purpose.”
“You refer to the meaning of life thingummy?”
“Precisely, sir. As the philosopher Spinoza says, ‘All noble things are as difficult as they are rare.’” Well, once my personal anima starts on t.m.o.l. there is no reasoning with him. To be honest, I’ve never quite grasped the whole concept, but he tells me he understands it well enough for both of us. All three of us, if you count the other chappy, I suppose. Jeeves emitted a quiet cough, like a dimetrodon clearing a bone from its throat in a distant swamp. “If I might make a suggestion, sir, perhaps you would find a change of venue invigorating.” He acquired that gleam he gets when he contemplates travel to far-off parts. “I hear that Gliese-581d is nice this time of year.”
When two persons of iron will coexist within the same Godhead, there are bound to be conflicts, but I had to put my foot down about his obsession with that blasted planet. “I can’t imagine anything duller. There isn’t anything on Gliese-581d or on any other Gliese, for that matter. Expunge the Glieses from your mind at once, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir.”
“What is on the day’s agenda, Jeeves? I imagine some young Greek god will be hoofing over to consult your fish-fed brain about the pursuit of a water nymph or other tender goddess?”
“Actually, sir, Mrs. Gregson called to say she will pay you a visit this afternoon.” I might be omnipotent and all that rot, but those words strike fear into the heart. My aunt Agatha, Queen of the Underworld, breathes fire and devours nephews for lunch, and not in that symbolic take-of-my-body-and-blood way, either.
“Didn’t you tell the cloven-hooved menace I wasn’t here?”
“She observed, sir, that You are everywhere.”
“Well.” I didn’t have a good answer to that. “I suppose she is going to thrust some sulfurous succubus at me and insist that I make something of myself.”
“Indubitably, sir. In addition, I surmise that her ire has been roused by the incident of the young lady in Judaea.”
“I imagine she’s pipped I didn’t marry the beazel.”
“I think she is more concerned with the difference of social rank. The matter of salvation has also cut into her harvest of souls somewhat.”
“Oh right, the salvation wheeze. Brilliant stratagem, Jeeves. A bit hard on the young chappy, though, what?”
“Well, technically, he is you and I, sir.”
“Please don’t start with that dashed confusing Trinitarian stuff. I’m done with theology. My mind was filled up millennia ago.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Where did that bird get to anyway? I suppose he’s living it up with Anatole and the other cherubim.”
“I think you mean seraphim, sir, and, on the contrary, he is employed in answering your rather voluminous correspondence.”
“Ah, yes, that. Well, I’m glad someone has taken an interest in it. Rather a backlog, I imagine.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Taking a whack at solving people’s problems? I rather fancy he got that from your side of the family, anima mea.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Eats a lot of fish, does he?”
“He subsists on them almost exclusively.”
“He takes it all very seriously, doesn’t he?”
“Crucifixion at a formative age will do that to a person, sir.”
“Jeeves, it’s too horrible to be contemplated. Aunt Agatha has found exactly the wife to ‘mold me into something’ as she puts it.”
“Who, might I inquire, is the fiancée, sir?” asked my feudal spirit, quietly manifesting from the void.
“Juno, also known as Hera, oxen-eyed and golden-girdled, terror of the ancient world.” The f.s. turned a little pale around the edges. Juno ranked high among the aunt-like figures of our acquaintance.
“I am given to understand that the lady in question is already married, to Jupiter no less, and while the King of Olympus may have lost some of his ancestral standing, that in no way dissolves his marital vows.” Jeeves sounded as pleased as an eel in an ice floe. His dislike of the chief Greco-Roman is well known – something involving an eagle and highly inappropriate behavior toward the help, one very junior Ganymede, as I recall.
“No, but apparently the fact that he has ceased to occupy a manly corpus does. The old blighter put on the form of a bull to whisk off some princess, as one does, and, on finding that being bovine-shaped made his marriage invalid in divine circles, he quite sensibly elected to remain that way. Till this day he is happily chomping down the green stuff and lowing at heifers in the Cretan fields, leaving his blasted wife looking for some new chap to clap the shackles onto.” I stared morosely into my fortifying cocktail. “She won’t let me keep you on after we’re married. She disapproves of tridentate deities.”
“Triune, sir.”
“That too, I imagine. She says all that’s needed is a male and female divine principle united in matrimony and, of course, hundreds of little godlets.” I quivered at the thought. One only needed to look at the Mesopotamian and Greek myths to know why one didn’t want a tribe of brats running around calling you pater and brandishing the fish knives in a menacing manner.
“Perhaps I can offer a solution, sir. I gather that if the Olympian in question were to resume his traditional anthropomorphic form, then the goddess would once again be considered married, and the immediate threat would be obviated.”
“Yes, but how to persuade the blasted beast?”
“I believe, sir, that I may be able to contrive the means to do so.”
“Very good, Jeeves.”
“Well. I must say, old bean, you have done it again. I know you move in mysterious ways, your wonders to perform and what not, but how on earth did you convince the blot to get inside his anthropo-whatsit attire?” I was feeling pretty chipper, since Hermes – dashed useful fellow that – had ankled over in his spiffy sandals to tell me that my recently betrothed had been reunited with her erstwhile spouse. (Fortunately one’s holier-than-thou ghost had not been home to heap disapproval on said divine footwear.)
“I informed him of the danger of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, sir.”
“Speak English, man.”
“Mad cow disease, sir. It is an incurable degenerative condition, which rapidly renders large areas of the brain defunct resulting in the inexorable mental and physical decline of the affected animal followed by insanity and death.”
“Sounds horrible! Does such a thing exist?”
“It does now, sir.” I detected a hint of smugness in his tone. “I gathered that if the prions of the brain could be induced to misfold and to transmit this deformation to their neighbors, such an affliction could be propagated relatively simply.”
“Is there anything you don’t know, Jeeves?”
“No, sir.”
“And to think you were complaining about the glow-in-the-dark bunny. Your meddling about with nature seems rather more sinister, what?”
“Desperate times, sir.”
“Indeed. Speaking of the rabbit, you might get rid of it.”
“Thank you, sir. I took the liberty of feeding it to a deserving owl this morning.”
“Unfortunately, Mrs. Gregson, since she is on intimate terms with the pagan daimones, is aware of our role in the affair and is rather intent on discussing the matter.”
“Hell-bent on vengeance, I suppose.”
“You could say that, sir.”
“With legions of satanic minions, I imagine, and her three-headed terrier.”
“Perhaps, sir, in light of her imminent arrival it would be advisable to temporarily vacate the Pearly Gates. As I have mentioned, Gliese-581d has a temperate clime, an interesting mixture of elements, and acceptable gravity. With the introduction of a tasteful single-celled organism, it could rapidly develop into quite a promising locale with excellent fishing.”
“Let there be light, breath moving on the deep and what-have-you?”
“The star it orbits provides fairly plentiful light, but I believe the depths would benefit from an application of divine exhalation. The planet in question also possesses the virtue of being very far away from Mrs. Gregson.”
“What word was it in the beginning, Jeeves? You know, ‘in the beginning was the word,’ but what word was it?”
“The word was God, sir.”
“I know that’s what the handbook says, but I can’t remember for the life of me what actual word we’re supposed to use to kick off this wheeze.”
“I think you are rather missing the point, sir. It is the act of speaking that engenders creation.”
“I say,” I I-sayed. That seemed to do the trick.
Gliese-581d glowed peaceful, blue, and blessedly aunt-free. A school of fish that looked suspiciously like tarpon glinted silver in the sunlit water. A herd of quadrupeds quietly chewed their cud, and somewhere in the distance a tribe of mammalian bipeds considered dressing for dinner. My deity’s personal deity silently trickled into space-time.
“Dashed tiring, this work business.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“I think four days is plenty for this one, what?”
“If you say so, sir.”
“What is it that the poet johnny said, the lark is on the wing and what not?”
“The poet Browning, sir. ‘The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in his heaven – All’s right with the world!’”
“Yes, thank you Jeeves. I fancy that a larkish bird is on the wing and something decidedly resembling a snail is this moment choosing itself a well-appointed thorn.”
“Yes, sir.” From thin air, he conjured a silver salver bearing what appeared to be a b. and s., light on the s. I eyed it with no small bit of suspicion.
“Where did that come from?”
“It is French, sir. Gliesian brandy manufacture is, regrettably, in its infancy. Since the local libation is not up to the required standard, I took the liberty of importing a more suitable beverage from the Cognac region.”
“Jeeves, you really are a paragon – is that the word I want?"
“Paraclete, sir.”
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Date: 2012-04-15 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-13 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 01:16 am (UTC)They should be, right? That would make Wodehouse the prophet. Yes, I think that would totally work.
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Date: 2012-04-13 05:55 am (UTC)this killed me before I even got into the epic, holy, gloryousness of the fic!
Just for this, I would send you this!
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/6708/?i=1432
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Date: 2012-04-15 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 03:37 am (UTC)That icon, that's amazing, did Fry really say Jooster and go, because that fuels all sorts of ideas, and I'd really love an audio recording of Fry saying Jooster =)
Was the glow in the dark rabbit a reference to Season two of Sherlock? Haven't seen it, but seen icons about glow in the dark bunnies...
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Date: 2012-04-15 02:42 pm (UTC)I don't know about the Sherlock glowing rabbit ... I was thinking of Alba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alba_(rabbit)) who had genes from the beautifully named Aequorea Victoria jellyfish (and I guess she didn't exactly glow in the dark, but then this whole story takes a few liberties with the facts).
P.S. "I myself really want flesh eating disease for my birthday" is a great sentiment!
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Date: 2012-04-13 08:43 am (UTC)Divine! mem.
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Date: 2012-04-15 01:20 am (UTC)Glad to know I am spreading the faith (errr..... or something)...
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Date: 2012-04-13 01:44 pm (UTC)That is just so incredibly funny and so incredibly clever, I don't even know where to start quoting! In fact I can't! The whole story is my favourite quote!! Where have you been all this time, you Jeeves-and-Woosterian genius?!
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Date: 2012-04-15 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-13 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-13 04:19 pm (UTC)I wish I had already known that story when I first came across Christian mythology (“I say,” I I-sayed. - is now my head!canon for the word. The phrase even beats Faust's considerations.)
Your story is so full of small and clever details. Amazing. (I'll have to reread it again after I've finished this comment, in case any of them skipped my mind while I was laughing).
Reminds me a bit of a colourful kaleidoscope. All the little bits in their place and most of them hiding delightful references to the canon!verse. Brilliant.
Even Gliese-581d is in the right place. Habitable zone and all that.
P.S.: "Paraclete" made my day. Srsly. As well as the Gliesian brand new world. And the origin of the mad cow disease. And the rabbit... Before I quote every single line - in fact, the whole story made my week.
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Date: 2012-04-15 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 04:54 pm (UTC)(Just think of some poor chaps who have to translate Wodehouse Stories? It's sure not an ease job. So far I've read two Wooster books in other languages and it was really... awkward)
I totally agree, Bertie is hard to quote - way too many catch phrases. The Buridan's ass would have died an agonizing and painful death if he were a Wodehousian fan >;)
Considering the fact that there were quite a lot of communication waves sent out to the planet a few years ago, I guess, the chances are pretty high Gliese-581d is in the right place after all. Well, at least if we ever get any strange answers from the space, signed by some Bertie Wooster, the Wodehousian fans will enlighten the scientists ;)
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Date: 2012-04-14 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 01:33 am (UTC)I'm glad you enjoy the same kind of silly I do!
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Date: 2012-04-14 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-16 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-19 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-12 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-19 02:15 am (UTC)