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"All beautiful things must end. Otherwise they are not beautiful."
(Zan Perrion – "The Alabaster Girl")

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Before Jachwe could decide what to do about the malevolent behavior of the inhabitants of his world, Lucifer started to laugh loudly.

"I told you so! I said this wouldn't work. You've got one more day to change your concept. Don't worry. Enough time to build Rome from the ruins."

There was an old joke between Gods, saying you could create everything in seven days. Seven was a sacred number. It hadn't been a coincidence that Jachwe had suggested seven days to prepare for their bet.

All you could think of could become real in your creations. However, what sounded easy in theory proved hard in reality. Creating a perfect world wasn't simple. There were no rules that told you what to do. Each God and angel had to find it out for themselves. They were on a long journey, ever-learning, ever-changing their concepts. Only one of them had ever managed to create a perfect world. Jachwe's eyes traveled to Utopia which was forever thriving and flourishing on the golden podium where it sat since the beginning of eternity.

The young God didn't want to change his concept. He still believed in it.

"Don't you have something else to do?" he asked Luce. "Like writing down more laws and punishments?"

Then an idea struck him like a lightning bolt. But before he could catch it, Lucifer's sneering voice interrupted him.

"Look at that- utterly different-looking kinds of beings! They will kill each other out of jealousy. You make it too easy for me." He leaned closer to watch a couple of man and woman interacting sexually. "Men and women as a unit, that can't possibly work. And then men and women don't even look alike. Besides their obvious anatomical differences,  some are small, others tall, some are strong and others week, some are bright and some dark- how should they ever build a harmony?" Luce's stare was unbelieving and disdainful in what he saw.

"They are god-like creatures. Like in Heaven so it will be on earth, some beings are brighter and cleverer than others." Jachwe smiled a wicked grin.

He started to explain, fully aware that again the other wouldn't be able to understand a single word of it. "They will soon start to realize that beauty doesn't lie on the outside of what you see, but in what you are. They'll figure this out soon. And then they'll start to use their different gifts for their advantage."

It just needed one more alteration.

Lucifer shrugged his shoulders and turned around. "Beauty lies in what you are", he muttered under his breath. "Nice concept, doomed to fail gloriously."

Not with the universal new rule. No one wanted to be stolen from, no one wanted to be lied to, no one wanted to be killed. It would solve all his problems.

Treat others as you would like others to treat you, he whispered and so it came to be.

Jachwe leaned back again. Let the show begin, he thought. Fully content with what he'd done.

But it didn't take long to become clear that again, his newest rule didn't work properly. However, Jachwe kept optimistic. Let them learn from their failures. Sometimes one step back was necessary to come forward two. He'd learned something new from every single one of his previous concepts, and every single one of them had turned out as a disappointment in itself. Some with major and some only with minor effect in hurting his ambitions and mostly his self-esteem.

But he was getting better. He was getting there, for sure. This time it had to work. His concept was perfect in its simplicity.

Meanwhile, on earth, some humans became stronger and more powerful than others, only driven in their actions by the desire to rule over weaker ones. Almost every single one of them had in mind their own benefit. You could see it in families, friendships and more easily on a wider scale in the societies they'd created for themselves. Master and servants. Men and women. Noblemen and peasants. 

No need to worry, Jachwe thought and watched as the Roman Empire came and went. See, every oppressing system is doomed to fail sooner or later. What was he expecting? Surely not that they would get it right right away. They were meant to be godlike and he did anything then ace in his first attempt.

The concept of success laid in the freedom of thinking. His creatures would figure it out and learn from their errors and misdeeds of the past. Just like he had.

Suffering and choosing wrong ways was necessary, whether not a nice process on the road to success. Only failures enabled you to learn.

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"All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry."
(Edgar Allan Poe)

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