Grim & Genesis

     With the coming of the first light of the first day came the Angel of Death for at that moment eternal darkness and cold both died. He walked the Earth alone, his robes fashioned from the skin of darkness, and his soul from the cold emptiness of space, so that even in their death they continue on. He marveled at the flow of water from mountain to valley, to sea. His skeletal form danced in the rain as his robes billowed, twirled, and fanned out around him. His heavy boots squelched as he walked through the mud, and water. He was neither truly happy, nor was he sad, but he felt as though something was missing in his life. He roamed for time uncounted before he found her in the depths of a massive cave in what we now call Kentucky.

     She was small compared to him. Her skin was clear and as dark as the darkest mud he had seen crossing a great northern fjord. Her frame was two thirds his size. She seemed to just lay asleep, her waist length light green hair flowing over her shoulders. She wore a pure white, strapless dress from her shoulders to halfway down her thighs. Her feet were bare, a golden rope around her waist held a large golden pouch, on her head was a round golden hat with a narrow brim, and resting beside her was a golden watering can that emitted light in a subtle rainbow. As he watched her she began to stir and her emerald green eyes opened with a flutter of her long eye lashes.

     “Oh, big brother! You’re here!”

     “Big brother?”

     “I’m your little sister Genesis. Elohim told me to wait here and sleep until my big brother came to wake me, and here you are!”

     Her voice was musical, like the gentle splashes of a waterfall at dawn, and suddenly he knew what he had been missing, a sibling.

     She popped to her feet and took his skeletal hand. They began walking out of the cave and as she entered the light, moss and lichen began to spread all around the entrance of the cavern and as they walked further into the light, ferns began to grow. The brighter the sunlight the larger and faster the plants grew and she began to sprinkle her rainbows upon the ground causing massive trees of pine to leap from ground to sky.

     Long did they roam Gia skipping, and dancing, as more and more life spread across the land. With the whole of Gia that could support plant life covered, Genesis tipped her pouch over and out poured eggs that promptly hatched into birds. Small animals and insects crawled or leapt from her pouch as well. Then one day Grim and Genesis sat on the edge of a stream making larger animals out of mud, but each one Genesis completed would walk away whereas Grims’ would quickly dry out and collapse into dust.

     Then Elohim joined them on the bank of the stream, sitting down right in the thick mud and began sculpting a new animal. It had two legs, and two arms like one of Genesis’ apes, but it was thinner in every proportion. It wasn’t as hairy, it didn’t have thumbs on its feet, and it didn't have a tail either. Its eyes were high up on its head facing forward. Its teeth were both those of a carnivore and of an herbivore, meaning it could eat most anything. Then with a gently blown breath across its face it rose. Elohim named him Adam.

     The whole time Elohim was sculpting he was explaining to Grim why his creations always turned to dust. Elohim could feel how saddened Grim was of his fate, and granted him the ability to create one type of life. Grim wandered off alone for a long while then after long contemplation he sat and sculpted out something that like himself was one with darkness yet craved the light. It was no bigger than his hand with a small thin body, large delicate wings, and a pair of fluffy antennae, a Luna Moth.

     He has made many a type of moth now, and though his job is that of dread as he ushers the spirits of men and women to the lands beyond our existence, he finds happiness in his own sometimes ostentatious little creations.

Deletion

A middle aged man in a white luxury sedan slowly passes through the gated subdivision. His face stern, hands clenched to the steering wheel, the satellite radio playing softly as he presses the remote for his garage door and slowly eases past the unfamiliar red sports car in his driveway and stops beside his wife's car in the garage. He closes the garage door, and exits his sedan, straightening his suit jacket as he does, and his hard sole shoes clip across the hard floor as he walks to the door of his house.

A man's jacket lay tossed across the back of his sofa, shoes that aren’t his rest just inside the front door next to his wifes sneakers, cologne and cigar sits stagnant in the air, a scent that churns his stomach. He crosses the living room, makes a sweep of his first floor, and finding nothing but dishes for two at the kitchen’s bar he heads upstairs. He almost glides up the stairs, not a sound, smooth enough that no one would notice his presence as he reaches his left hand into the breast of his suit jacket drawing out a 25 caliber handgun with a sound attenuator as he tops the stairs.

The sounds of intimacy from his bedroom confirms his suspicion, hearing his wife's moans confirms her actions to him. He walks up to his door, and silently pushes it open. The sight that greats him is exactly what he expected: his wife naked under a naked stranger. He walks up to the foot of the bed and raises the gun.

“Well imagine finding you here instead of at your office.”

The stranger practically leaps off the bed but he’s not fast enough and with a loud pop he drops to the floor with a hole through his head where his nose used to be.

“Richard! What, what, have you done!”

“What had to be done Elizabeth, what had to be done.”

“You’ll rot in jail for this! You could have just confronted me!”

“Elizabeth, what do I do for a living?”

“I don’t really know, solve problems, delete files, something with computers.”

“Well, you got the solve problems and delete things right, but I delete problem people. When the boss says someone is a problem, then they get deleted. Imagine my shock when he informed me that a rival mob informant was screwing my wife! Now, as much as I hate to say it; good bye Elizabeth, I loved you so much.”

Another loud pop, another body hits the floor, and he pulls out his phone.

“Sir, send the clean up crew, it’s done.”

“No loose ends?”

“No sir, no loose ends. Tell the clean up crew 122510 will get them in the house no matter the door and have them call me when they're done please. I need to pick my kids up before they get on the bus so they don’t walk into this.”

“Sure thing Rich, need some time to pass this off as a divorce to them?”

“Good idea, thanks.”

“You sound tired, ready to retire yet?”

“Getting there, but this was a hard one.”

“Been there, done that twice myself Rich so I get it.”

Richard goes back to his car, and off to get his kids. The clean up crew will be thorough, and by the time he is back home all of Elizabeth’s clothes will be gone, her car and the sports car will be salvaged, and everything will be as if this never happened, and tonight he’ll be online erasing her existence, deleting her footprints, her memory, every record of her ever existing in this world.