The Garden (Part 1)

Day 3 of Inkhaven: 30 Days of Posts

The mandate had been given by God that morning, and Nathanael and Amon had arrived in the nascent realm to shape His will.

The task was simple: creation, in all its perfection. As divine as this instruction was, it did demand a great deal of creativity on the part of his favourite agents. Helpfully, He had gotten them started with all of the matter and energy that they would need. Indeed the task was arguably trivial in that they had only a single universe to tend to, the others being helpfully tended to by myriad other angels.

They quickly got to work, shaping all the countless galaxies and stars, which took no time at all, and then focused on the most important task of all. Creating paradise on earth.

The earth started as a great brown ball, covered in water. To give it shape and colour they added sweeping meadows, forests and trees. To support the future humans who would follow their divine shape, they would need food, in the form of fruit and vegetables, and animals to provide light entertainment.

Nathanael gestured and sweet, charming animals emerged, delicate grazers and rabbits that would nibble on the grass.

He smiled at their natures and harmless attitudes. Amon frowned. "Nathanael, these animals you have created are wonderful, but don't you think there is an inevitable problem here?"

Nathanael glanced over the bank of cloud at him. "What problem could there be, Amon? Do you think they might be too cute?"

"There is certainly some risk of that, but that is not the problem, dear Nathanael. The problem is what happens when these animals begin to fill the world with their offspring." Amon gestured. "Here, let us see what that looks like on this small island."

As his hand arced through the air, centuries passed on the island and the population of rabbits and deer exploded. Eventually they consumed every spare scrap of green, and they began to starve. Within a year their population had collapsed to less than half of what it had been.

Nathanael looked on with horror. He wept at the sight of the emaciated creatures. "Amon, stop. How can you do this?"

"I do nothing, Nathanael. This is merely the natural consequence of time. This same thing will happen everywhere unless we act." He stood firm on the cloud with his arms crossed.

"And how can we act to stop this?"

"Well, you may not like the answer, but I have a suggestion." He seized a nearby piece of cloud and split it into two chunks. He squeezed and shaped them, and then cast them down onto the land below. They took shape as a fox and a wolf, and immediately set about tearing into the nearest rabbits and deer, who had no defence against this new addition whatsoever.

Nathanael was horrified. "Surely this is too much. Do they need to suffer in this way?"

Amon watched the new predators lying down to rest after their feasting. "It is sad, I admit. But without them, collapse and starvation are inevitable. Would you have us simply place an arbitrary number on their population? With this in place they have a pressure to evolve and change, to become more complex and better adapted to the environment. It's a beautiful system."

Nathanael watched as one of the wolves kept killing despite having more than enough food available, following its instinct to glut itself while the opportunity was available.

"What if we just made the island bigger?" said Nathanael.

Amon snorted. "Don't be naive Nathanael. When would it end?"

Nathanael hung there for a few more moments and then disappeared.