In the beginning, life was like meat and potatoes.

Bear with the Greater Creator here. He’s the winner of the Most Innovative Universe in the Multiverse Award (two and a half times) and has even been described as sane by a couple of niche theologians through the millennia. So He knows what He’s talking about.

In this particular award-winning universe (the half-winning one), life used to be like meat and potatoes because of its ups and downs. If one were to be presented with a steak and a pile of herb-encrusted unfermented vodka, only a fool or possibly a desperate glutton would shove both in their gob at once. You partaketh of the victuals one at a time.

And that’s what the Creator did with life at the start, when the world was less world-wearied. There’d be a Time of High Enlightenment or some such golden age, with things thelikeofwhichwillnotbemadeagain, with big shiny towers and stuff and pale bearded people sitting around looking angelic and eating olives. And then there’d be proper Troubled Times, not just something silly like some warlord tearing down a wall and crucifying every man, woman and child in the city. More like an army of hundred-foot demons conjuring lava fountains from giant volcanoes to bathe the world in what was somehow confusingly described as fountains of flame and a sort of gloomy dimness at the same time. Oh, and it’s also raining. Imagine that.

Well, you probably can’t imagine that because that’s not exactly fashionable any more. You’d probably be a bit more familiar with the life salad.

You see, meat and potatoes are great and all, but they do get a bit boring after an aeon or so of chewing, right? Sometimes you want variety in every bite, lettuce and tomato one year and then maybe tomato and lettuce the next. No long slog through meaty light or, hmmm, potatoey shadow, no generations upon generations where someone isn’t allowed to curse when they stub a toe on the temple step because the word ‘osbodikins’ is scheduled for the next time that vaguely menacing black shape that may or may not be a badger shows up in the sky.

Sometimes a nice crisp orgy of the writhing damned, followed by high tea on a mountain somewhere with a princess, is just the ticket.

The Greater Creator thought so too. So He got out His big chopping knife and chopped all those Ages into little chopsicles, and then He took out His mighty serving bowl and tossed it all up. From that moment you really start to see the pace pick up a bit. After all, sometimes we don’t need the subtle corruption of a line of holy kings when we could just lop off great-great grandad’s head and move on to the genocide. There’s something to be said for shock value, as long as it’s not overdone.

That time was perhaps the Greater Creator’s finest moment. After His initial success, He published a great deal of recipes for things like Five To Six Year Wars and Boring Sounding Taxes that would raise a grumble but only a half-hearted pitchfork. That perfect mix of excitement and practicality that any self-respecting being capable of spontaneous matter generation could aspire to. In fact, it did inspire a couple of spinoff universes from Wish-They-Were-Greater Creators that actually won whole awards all of their own. The Civil Strife Showdown Special is still a technical challenge in the Kitchen of the Gods, where One-Day-They-Might-Be-Wish-They-Were-Greater Creators can get shouted at for putting glowing red eyes in carnivorous woodland creatures, or not making the flags on the top of castles look very sensible.

He should have stopped there, He thinks as He casts a godly Eye over the steaming bodies of the angels that came to stop him. They would have stopped Him before He could stop Himself, had they remembered the hiding spot in the cupboard of sieves beneath the oceanic sink, where He’d had to hide that one time after He’d tried to bake a world as a young whippersnapper and ended up with a black hole when He’d mixed up the cups and tablespoons. He hadn’t wanted it to come to this loss of life. He liked the cleaner, and matching those heads back up might take Her into overtime tonight.

But could an artist be blamed for his passions? Could He allow such genius to stagnate?

Actually, an artist possibly could. An artist could just churn out new patterns for butterflies or catalogues of clover until the end times. But the Greater Creator was an artiste.

Controversy follows the troubled artiste wherever He goes. The masses of lesser gods panned His earthquakes, and then the hurricanes, and then all the other potatoes, and then the entire Kitchen was a-mutter when He whipped up the humans, which they called dull, uninspiring and full of glaring faults like their tendency to wander off cliffs and their hilarious inadequacies in toe flexibility. But had it stopped Him? And would their ruffled feathers and passive-aggressive reviews and finally their panicked cries for the entire future of all the Multiverse stop Him now?

Well, no they wouldn’t, because most of them were dead.

Yes, it was time for the next evolution of life itself. The further blending of the triumphs and tragedies. The fusion of the ages.

The life soup. And, as was His sacred tradition, He’d have first taste.

He takes a moment to write a note informing the grocer that they’re all out of dinosaur bones, then He steps up to the table and pours all the ingredients of life into the bowl and plugs in the blender and churns and wrestles with the handle and curses as the lid pops off and it goes all over the bloody tiles and then He smears a holy fingertip through the steaming slop and raises it to His lips and

and

and

and Graham wakes up from his nap with a bad head and rolls over to get the paracetamol off the sideboard. Next-door’s dog is barking again, but he’s starting to think it’s something he ate. Maybe that pork burrito from the dodgy van by the office after the conference. It’s Bob’s birthday on Wednesday, so he’ll have to send the card before five o’clock. Also, there’s that film he wants to get to tonight but he’s not sure it’s worth the tenner and besides his jeans are covered with paint from a hard day with the in-laws’ fence.

And it’s work tomorrow. In his infinite wisdom, he decides he can’t be arsed.

He turns on the TV and ignores a report about a volcano that’s erupted in a country he’s never heard of because it’s too far away to hurt him. Then a grim-faced correspondent announces that the vice-secretary to a former civil servant has been charged with tax evasion and he fishes out his phone instead.

He’s got a roof over his head (which sometimes keeps out the rain), a fridge full of grub, and an infinite pool of knowledge at his fingertips. He’s got a car outside (a Skoda, but not everyone’s a millionaire) that can take him wherever he wants as long as it’s not at the top of a hill. He’s got a wife that brings him pizza and sometimes even sleeps in the same bed as him. And he’s bored as hell.

He’s also forgotten something. Something important.

His fingers tap out the familiar pattern of letters on the screen for the fifth time that week as the reporter warbles on. He frowns and it’s not just because of his headache. He’s been getting thoughts recently, obtrusive certainties that he’s actually an all-powerful god that’s been trapped in a man’s body and he only has to lift one Lordly finger to change the world.

At first, he thought he was crazy. But then he re-reads that post on the internet, the one that says godly delusions are a classic symptom of a diet deficient in green beans. There’s also one that says he needs more onions, but the one about beans has more likes. He’s had one every day for the past three days. He hopes they haven’t gone mouldy yet.

He gets up, groaning as his back clicks, and shuffles towards the kitchen. And stops dead as he remembers.

The cat food. Shit.

It’ll be down soon to pester him. He looks at his phone again. The corner shop closes in five minutes. Not even a minor incline to trouble the Skoda.

But, as mentioned previously, he cannot be arsed.

The green beans haven’t expired. He takes one from the plastic, which is the horrible crinkly plant-based kind after the government said they can’t have good bags to try and stop the rainforests melting, and raises it to his lips. Then, thoughtfully, he puts it back. He crosses the kitchen again and tips some into the cat’s bowl. He suspects the creature thinks it’s a god too.

His back clicks as he straightens up. Oh, the sacrifices he makes for that ungrateful thing.

And as for his own bean... well, he was going to get a takeaway, but he doesn’t fancy foreign stuff after what the burrito’s done to him. There’s also the boss’s wedding in March. He looks down and wiggles his flab experimentally.

There’s some potatoes in the cupboard. A green bean in his hand. And possibly a blender haunting the back of a wardrobe, lonely and forgotten, unseen since an anniversary and a strained grin long past. He’s always fancied himself a chef.

Tonight, Graham decides, he’ll have a go at some soup.