GOD WAS WASHING UP

God was washing up. Around her towered sauce-encrusted plates, takeaway-yellowed chopsticks and bowls stained with, “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

But ‘tomorrow’ had at last run out and become ‘today’. So, marigolds donned and armed with that sponge-with-the-handle-you-can-pour-washing-up-liquid-into, God grimaced and finally faced the chore she’d long postponed.

With every knife that she wiped clean, God cursed her daily sloth. Exhausted after forging man, she’d “rinse the sieve tomorrow”. Too tired after dividing light from dark, she’d “leave the pan to soak”. And even when the world was without form, still then there stood six coffee mugs of grey unwashed dregs. Excuse upon excuse, guilt upon guilt, the stacked tower threatened to fall. There will always be washing up, so why wash up at all?

Of course, with just a finger snap her washing up be done but for that she’d have to think and plan and divide the grime from glass, oil from metal and consider every fork prong and colander hole. Or she could craft a cosmic dishwasher with six thousand moving parts…

No, a sponge was simpler.

Simple, calm, there in the soapy warm… No need to swirl a universe in that bubble or breathe sentience into the scum. No prayers or punishment, just a stained wine glass that needed to sparkle again.

And with every clink of clean utensil against the drying rack, a small weight lifted from her laden mind. Plate by plate, chaos subsided, order returned and she saw that it was good. She felt a little lighter.

There would be more that night and the next day and the day after that. There will always be washing up to do but just let it be so. ‘Every day’ seems like a lot but for now… it’s just ‘today’.

ANAX