A story about 'Dog'

"Tell me then. How did you get the name God?"

We were strolling through woods by an estuary admiring the early morning wonder of sun glinting off rippling water as it played moment by moment with the accompanying pallet of cloud, tree, angle and shifting shade. God, on the whole was in good spirit and pleased with creation and this early morning witnessing of same.

He turned to me, paused for a few eternity's then asked me.

"What do you actually see out there when your eyes are wide open?" The 'out there' being emphasized as Gods arm swept across all creation laid out before us on this bright and early morning.

"Why, beauty and goodness. Yes just so much goodness." I replied, while raising my eyes to demand more of this creative magnitude to enter and swell my heart with the goodness I always felt when walking with God.

We had stopped now. Time in fact had stopped. I was not even sure we were still standing on the path we had been following. More eternity's slithered by before God turned to me and said.

"Touch me."

I reached out and gently, with the lightest of touch, let my hand rest on his arm. My heart swelled again as the goodness of 'simply being' entered me from deep within the heart of this ancient, wise and benign Oak tree. My hand maintained this lightest and most gentle of touches on the rough but welcoming bark for a few seconds, or was it lifetimes longer.

'What do you feel?" God asked me.

"Goodness, pure goodness. Your goodness." I replied

"When you eat do you feel goodness in your food?"

"Yes." I replied

"Are you breathing in and breathing out and do you taste and smell goodness in the very air you breathe?"

"Yes I do." I replied.

God, looking directly into my eyes smiled. No words were needed. My heart, already overloaded burst forth. I expressed the eternal, ancient, instinctive and unstoppable reply to being smiled at. I smiled back. I watched and felt the bodily sensations as goodness flowed between us fueling creation itself.

"There" God said. "See how simple it is? Demand of your eyes. Demand all your senses to open, to awaken, to see. I am named God, 'Goodness On Demand'. Demand that smile. Demand it and direct it at another. See for yourself how unflinchingly it is returned. See how the goodness flows."

He paused as further eternity's slipped effortlessly by.

"Yes, Goodness On Demand. That's my full name. That's the name I have to put on all the paperwork and legal stuff. I much prefer my nickname though. GOD. Much shorter and a lot easier on the tongue don't you think?"

God crouched down as she spoke. A twinkling panoramic vista of stars in her eyes. She reached out to stroke and ruffle the unruly coat of the small animal which had faithfully accompanied us on our walk, never more than a sniff or two behind.

I could not help but to also reach down and be touched by this creature demanding a share of our affection and goodness. It's own love and adoration of us showing with every shaking fibre of it's body and wildly wagging tail.

I asked God another question. "Why is this creature called Dog?"

God rose and we commenced walking again.

"Funny you should ask that." Said God. We walked on quietly through the tangle of Bamboo and skyward reaching Conifers.

"I was in my workshop." God said. "You know, the one down past that massive black hole just inside my infinity. Madame Chaos and her team of Time workers were all out. I can't remember what I was actually looking for. Probably some extra particles.

Madame Chaos had showed me how to plan and make things for myself. She explained to me in quite some detail how she manages and directs Her Time workers too. Wonderful beings you know, make anything and everything out of anything and nothing."

The conversation died away as we slowly continued our walk through time and space.

"Anyway, where was I?" God resumed.

"Ah yes, well I was messing about at the time with a couple of billion Galactic creations, nothing too large mind you, I was pretty amateurish in those early days. I remember clearly now. I had run out of particles and quarks so was in the workshop searching out another box or two of them. Now Madame Chaos can be, well is actually, a bit of an untidy so and so you know. The clue is in her name. I've nothing against her of course, far from it, she's been my creative manager for innumerable eons now and has certainly put substance into my yard full of infinity. But, to put it mildly, she is very untidy which meant I had no idea where she kept the boxes of particles or quarks"

There was a chuckle at this point as he carried on with the story.

"Mmmmm its all coming back to me now. It was so long ago you see. I remember reaching up to pull down a box which I thought contained particles. Only it didn't and it fell and the lid came off. Oh my heavens, and as you know I have quite a few of those. What a mess! What a mess! Live things, it was full of live things. Everything you can, and cannot, imagine from the squillions of galactic constructions Madame Chaos, Time and its sister company, Beyond Time, were involved in at the time. What a pickle. They were everywhere and I had the devils own job, well, actually I can't remember him ever getting in quite this much of a pickle slippery fella that he is and all that. But yes, I had the devils own job catching them all and putting them back in the box. I don't think I ever did get them all and certainly not this little fella here."

At this point Dog scurried up to us from behind delighted to have willing hands to lick in an attempt to tell us how good she had been with the dog we had just passed. How exciting it was to sniff bums and tell each other who they were and who they belonged to.

"I know some escaped," God continued,  "I overheard a conversation between Madame Chaos and the Time team some eons later. They were perplexed as to how life had suddenly started to appear on various of their projects despite the Chaotic plans not including it. I, of course kept very quiet but I think they had their suspicions when they saw Dog faithfully accompanying me everywhere I went."

"So you'd become fond of dog then?" I queried.

"He kinda grew on me." God said. "He was always there just behind me. I really should have put him back in the box but I suppose you're right. I'd grown fond of him. Then of course because I didn't return him to the box all of a sudden there were others. It was so quick, within a million or so eons. That's the problem with life. Once introduced it quickly gains in number and intelligence which mostly means outgrowing its environment and promptly writing itself off. All within a mere squillion eons. Blink of an eye stuff if you know what I mean.

Anyway this sudden expansion of Dog numbers meant I was getting lots of amusement from watching them greeting each other. This gave me the idea for the name. You see they always go round the back when they meet. You know, sniffing bums and doing a circle dance around each other. Also, when I thought I'd lost her, I noticed she was always just to the back of me. Right there almost in that blind spot I have where that slippery old rascal Devil annoyingly keeps creeping in. Only Dog was not causing trouble. Dog was just being good and she made me feel good every time I saw her.

"Go on." I said.

"Well, it suddenly came to me. You're just to the back of me little fella, you like other  backsides. You make me feel good. You can have my name backwards. 'Demands Our Goodness.' Or for short, DOG."

I laughed in appreciation of such a fascinating story. I asked my good friend if I could tell the story to others.

"By all means." Said my friend. 

"Be cautious though and remember. Life is unpredictable and varied. It comes in many different guises. Where life is concerned not all Dogs and not all Gods are necessarily the same."