It was a very good day for God. Then again, just about every day was a very good day for God. Because He had largely decided to wash his hands of any sort of personal responsibility over Earth. After the whole mess that happened when He sent a part of himself to incarnate as a human, He really couldn’t be bothered any more. Because honestly, what can you even do about a group that will nail you to a board and leave you to die in the sun when you try to help them out by performing a few miracles? At first, He had been rather bothered by the constant deluge of pleading prayers, but the longer He had stayed away from taking any action, the less people had expected of Him. Oh, plenty of people still believed in Him, but very few actually expected Him to do anything. After some two millennia of inaction, barely anybody prayed with the kind of specific intent that would actually convey their words directly to Him. As such, He fairly comfortably spent every day enjoying all the new books, plays, games, comics, music, movies and any other new art humanity had managed to create that day. Oh, and He ate a lot of snacks. He made the lesser angels buy them from various shops down on Earth. Sure, He could create replicas of them himself, but to do that He had to be consciously aware of the exact molecular makeup of the snacks in question. And having a perfect, conscious understanding of the snacks He was eating down to the smallest level rather took the fun out of the whole experience. And so He lazed away every day, not particularly bothering with much of anything. The whole heaven and hell business pretty much ran itself, after all, and He had given the humans free will. Officially and everything. So He could simply enjoy his life of perfect leisure in peace. Barring one minor annoyance… “Y*HW*H!” Gabriel bellowed, managing to pronounce more of the True Name than just about anybody short of God Himself could muster. “A new disease is ravaging the Earth. Hundreds of thousands are already dead, and it will be millions before the humans can hope to combat it!” “These things happen.” God replied. “Pushing through the flames of adversity will lead each soul to show its true colours, and each human shall be punished or rewarded as is just when their time comes due.” As expected, Gabriel began to argue with Him, but God had already tuned him out. “Y*HW*H! Democracy is crumbling across the globe, being worn away at its foundations by hatred and bigotry and greed and misinformation!” “I gave the humans of Earth free will, that they may make their own choices. As such, they are free to lie or mislead, and they are free to make mistakes. Each will get what is coming to them in due time.” “Y*HW*H! The situation in the middle east is becoming worse by the day, and now the war is spreading across the entire region. And with the involvement of certain major geopolitical powers, the unrest is starting to affect the entire world!” “Conflict is a part of freedom. To restrict the ability to fight and kill would be to enslave humanity to My will. Those with good hearts will seek peace, and will be rewarded for their efforts. If not on Earth, then so in Heaven.” Gabriel entered the room, looking a lot less agitated than usual. If anything, he seemed rather resigned. This, God quickly concluded, was somehow worse. He could have instantly made Himself aware of what the issue was, but right now He really didn’t want to inspect Gabriel’s thought patterns very closely. So, He decided to simply ask instead. “What is the matter?” God asked. “Did something occur?” “No, not really. I mean, nothing beyond the usual garbage fire the world is turning into.” God noted the rather colourful turn of phrase, but decided not to comment. “Why are you here, then?” “Oh, I just figured I’d mention that the little coffee shop that makes those peanut butter cookies you like is going out of business.” “What, the one between the Blue Heaven Wellness Centre and the little flower shop?” “That’s the one.” “But why? They’ve always been so popular!” “A large coffee shop franchise opened a new location just across from them, and they’ve been running huge discounts and promotions for months on end. It’s taking away many of the customers from the other shop.” “That doesn’t sound profitable.” “Not in the short term, no. But once the competitor goes out of business, they’ll be the only coffee shop in the area. They are probably planning to raise their prices back to normal as soon as that happens.” “…I don’t suppose this franchise location will serve home-made peanut butter cookies?” “Unlikely. All franchise locations get their baked goods shipped in frozen from a central factory.” God frowned, His brow furrowed with concern. For the first time in a long, long while, he felt rather conflicted. But in the end… “You know, Gabriel, I’ve always said that corporate overreach is getting really out of hand. I really ought to do something about this.”