The God of Jests

The God of Jests is a document found in ULTHAR-1, on the Green terminal.

Author: Athanasios

The Old Gods did not look kindly upon the God of Jests, for he was a slight thing, not mighty and terrible as they were, but small and weak and subtle. He knew nothing of thunder and floods, and less yet of fire and ice. To the great symphony of creation he contributed only a single note, and nearly fell over himself during the grand finale. The God of Jests did not complain about their contempt, but laughed at himself instead. The Old Gods made galaxies and suns and planets. They shattered continents and brought forth raging seas, and then they made wild beasts with scales and horns to roam the land. Look upon what we have made, they said to the God of Jests: what can you make that is its equal? So the God of Jests took a crude monkey and gave it thoughts and language, and taught it to learn new things. And he was proud of his creation. The Old Gods laughed at this creature, and sent their creations to destroy it; and the little monkey was easily slain. Behold, they said to the God of Jests, your creation is no more. Now the God of Jests bent down and whispered in the ear of his fallen creature, and it rose from the dead; and behold, in death it had learned the language of the gods. The Old Gods protested that this was against the rules they had established, but the God of Jests showed them the one exception to the rules they had allowed, the one note he had contributed to their creation, because they had not considered it important: the punchline of a joke did not have to be consistent with reality. And so the creature that was to be called Human undid the Old Gods, and scattered their names to the winds, and conquered their creation. And the God of Jests laughed to himself, and said: they should not have killed my monkey.