Economy | Brough Bay

“It was a cold September morning in Belfast city and God was wishing that he had of brought a heavyjacket along with him before leaving heaven. Yes, he could have miraculously appeared one on his body, but he was well aware that the locals might see this and start screaming miracle. He hadn’tthe head for that shite today. This was supposed to be a pleasant chat with the opposition. Seewhere the goal posts lay these days. Unfortunately, they seemed to be drifting further and furthertowards the other side.

God walked up to the counter in Wetherspoons and waited to be served. The young man that was working that day, looked him up and down with a weird little sparkle in his eye.“Bit early for Halloween”, joked the young man.“Excuse me?”, God felt a little uncomfortable as he fixed his red tie back in place. The young man’s mood quickly changed, and he went back into professional mode, “sorry sir. Just thought that you looked a lot like your man”.“Well I’m not him”, God forced a smile that definitely didn’t come naturally to him. It had been a tough few hundred years and he had little to smile about these days, “I’d like a pint of your best aleyoung man”, he’d tried it nine hundred and fifty-three years ago and he was tempted to try it again.The young man went off and got the order, returning with God’s change. There were no further pleasantries between them, and God wandered off to find a table inside the window. He loved to watch the human race get on with their little lives. As they passed him by, God could read theirminds and study the little problems they worried about. If they actually had real problems, theirheads would probably explode. A young woman of twenty five was thinking about how she wasgonna tell her boyfriend that she had a sexually transmitted disease. She honestly thought that shehad picked it up from a one night stand with a taxi driver. But God knew different. It was actually herboyfriend that had picked up the s.t.i. from her best friend Fiona. God felt sorry for her so dropped some self doubt into her thoughts about the stability of her relationship. The young woman suddenly stopped in her tracks and announced loudly to herself, “that bitch”, before pulling out hermobile and ringing Fiona. She then walked on while shouting accusations at her friend.“So much for not interfering”, the Devil was standing next to the table. A pint of Guinness in onehand and a rim of white over his top lip.God laughed when he seen his old friend, “what do you look like?. I said to be inconspicuous. You’vedressed up as a local hero”.“Better than your bloody so called inconspicuous outfit. Looking like Ian Paisley is gonna drawunwanted attention. Especially since he’s been dead a few years now”.A few thousand years ago, the Devil and God has decided to move around earth in a more incognitomanner. They were getting sick of their every visit being written into someone’s updated version ofthe bible or whatever other religious text was going at the time. The locals normally freaked outwhen God would use his escalator, that was made of light, to drop down onto earth for one of hismany visits. As for his outfits back then, he looked more like a Persil advert, hundreds of yearsbefore it was even invented.The Devil was even worse. He’d show up in a storm of flames that would burn the local foliage andturn sand to glass. Kind of a hard entrance to cover up. Thankfully there was no cameras aroundback then and the only paintings or drawings of the events were crude at best. Thankfully nobody believed these stories. Even the religious types doubt there authenticity. They’d much rather see them as a clever story with a hidden productive meaning. God used to care about these skewed tangents that the world kept wandering off on, but after a few hundred years, that interest waned.
Anyway, God came up with an idea that he quickly suggested to the Devil. From then on, they would disguise themselves as someone who looked local to the area they were visiting. Someone who would be least associated with God or the Devil. Unfortunately that doesn’t always work out. God had fallen for another one of the Angel Gabriel’s sick jokes. That’s how he had arrived on earth looking like Ian Paisley, and he still wasn’t aware that the joke was on him. “Forgot that little detail”, God had been losing track of the births and deaths in recent years. Even
the more well known people were passing him by on their way through the pearly gates, “still a good outfit though. He fits in well around here”.
“Not when he’s dead”, laughed the Devil as he sat down across from God, “doesn’t matter anyway. We’re both here and I’m ready to talk”.
Suddenly an American couple appeared out of nowhere and where right up in the Devil’s face. The husband was about twenty five stone and probably needed two to three seats on the plane across the Atlantic. He had an expensive looking camera around his neck with one of those long lenses attached to it. This man had come well prepared for his holiday. Just a pity that he didn’t get a larger strap to secure the camera around his neck. The current one was that tight that it looked like someone was garrotting a pig with a guitar string.

The wife wasn’t much better. She was short and worryingly thin. Her nose was shaped like a dangerous ski jump and the damp patch on the front of her pants led many people to believe that she was incontinent. The truth was even worse. She was incredibly horny at all times and always had to pack extra batteries for her rampant rabbit. The only item she’d run back into a house fire for.
The husband blabbered on excitedly, “you must be related to him. You look so much like him”.
“I’m his grandson”, lied the Devil, “people tell me I’m the spit of him”.
“It’s uncanny”, replied the wife, “we just passed a mural of Bobby Sands up the road. You’ve even got the same hair and clothing”.
“These jumpers never go out of fashion”, the Devil fixed his shirt collar back up with a smile. God was already planning to make all the Devil’s clothes unfashionable in the next few minutes. He was starting to wish that he had of embodied Bono instead. At least that young fella knew good fashion.
“Can we get a photo with you?”, asked the husband.
“Sure”, the Devil moved his seat so that he could pose with the Americans.
God was handed the camera to do the honours. He was starting to wish that he had of came as Richard Harris instead. At least then he would have been recognised.

It was then that the wife noticed something familiar about God, “you look familiar to me. Are you famous for something?”
God snapped off a few photos, “not me. Just on my break from working in the bank” “I’m sure I’ve seen you before”, they weren’t letting it go.
Then the penny dropped for the wife, “I’ve got it. You’re the bus driver from earlier”.
“That’s it”, God handed back the camera, “do that part time, when I’m not working in the bank that is”
The American couple finally fucked off and left them alone.
“So why here?”, the Devil waved his hand over the pint of Guinness, and it filled back to the top again.
“This place has been our Petri dish for so many years now and I’m starting to feel like we should give them a break. We’ve thrown countless wars at them. Religious persecution. Made them hate their
neighbours just because some king decided that he wanted to venture away from the Catholic Church and set up his own religion. Thanks very bloody much for that one”.

The Devil was having none of it, “you can’t pin that on me. I may have whispered in the fat fuck’s ear, but I didn’t set the change in stone. Free will and all that shite”. “You know what you did”, God was wishing that he had of taken a Guinness himself. It looked a lot
nicer than the i.p.a. ale he was drinking. So, he waved his hand discreetly over the glass and changed it to the black stuff.
“That’s all in the past now. We can’t change it, so why care about it so much. The future is all that matters to people like me and you. And if you wanna make a case to give the people of Ireland a break from all this bullshit, then I’m all ears”.
“You’re just gonna say no”.
“Not necessarily”, replied the Devil with a sleazy smile, “try me”.
“Well”, started God, “I’m thinking of a United Ireland. Bring the whole country back together as one glorious whole”.
“And what about all the Protestant loyalists? That lot won’t wanna change. You’ll still have shit. Just now coming from the other side. The republic won’t be able to deal with it. They don’t have the
army or security to keep Northern Ireland running. I’m not trying to be a dick here, but this place is fucked. We both put it in this mess that they can’t escape from and there’s no way of dragging it out
of the gutter. We’d be better off going to Nando’s over the road and filling up on spicy chicken wings. That would be more fun than what you’re suggesting”. “We can do this”. “Why should I?”.

God threw his eyes up as he had to play his wild card. The deal breaker he was holding off till now,

“I’ll let you fuck up Los Angeles with all that scientology shite. You’ve been bugging me about it for decades and I’m willing to give in, just as long as you let me sort out this country and you promise to
leave it the fuck alone”.
“You’ll really give me Los Angeles and all those Scientology idiots?”, the Devil was smiling from ear to ear. He’d won another small battle.
“They’re all yours”, God sat back in his chair and wished he hadn’t picked a body with such a big belly on it, “now I just have to figure out how to deal with this lot”.
“An earthquake that knocks Antrim off the tip of Ireland and leave it to the locals to sort out the rest. They can be the next Gibraltar”.
“That’s not a bloody solution”.
“Well the bloody solutions they’ve been coming up with on their own, aren’t much better”.
“True”, God couldn’t see anything wrong with that statement. He hated seeing people kill and torture each other in his name. Reminded him of the many school yards that dotted around the world. All those kids fighting over whose superhero is best. God once did an experiment where he turned all the world leaders into school kids and placed them all in a playground and let them fight out their dominance over others. Putin robbed all the lunchboxes, Biden fell asleep on the swings
and that little bloke from North Korea kept jumping on top of the seesaw declaring that it was his and no one else could play with it. Thankfully God blanked their memories afterwards. No point in letting them remember the happiest they’d ever been in a lot of years.
“You need to either remove all Protestants from the six counties or remove all Catholics. You can’t have both”.
“What if I made them all a new religion”, suggested God, “no more Catholics or Protestants. Go back to being Christians again”.
“You can’t go back to Christianity”, the Devil filled his Guinness again, “too much water under the bridge. It needs to be brand spanking new (sic North Highland Way), and it has to have a catchy name. Unfortunately most of the good names have been used up. And a lot of the shite names as well”.
“The name isn’t important”, protested God, “it’s the changes that count”.
“Religions don’t have to be much different. Look how close Catholics, Protestant, Christians and a whole other host of religions have in common. There’s fuck all between them. A few minor fixes and
you’ll barely have to lift a finger. But the name is what’s important. Pick a cool name and the sheep will march to your new beat”.
“But what?”, God couldn’t think of anything. Thankfully Jesus wandered into Wetherspoons wearing his own human disguise. The Devil laughed
when he seen him, “I really don’t think that the Oliver Cromwell look works in any decade. Especially not when you’re wearing full battle uniform”.

Yes, Jesus was wearing full battle uniform. Including a rather snazzy sword. His moustache even curled at each end, just like a Disney villain.
“All the lads are going for this look these days”, Jesus was hiding his annoyance poorly. He honestly thought that he looked the dog’s bollocks. He’d been working on his hip catchphrases lately.
Unfortunately he was only up to the nineties. Someone had robbed his last few books on the subject.
“If all the lads jumped off a cliff, would you do it as well?”, God was embarrassed for his son.
“All my mates are angels dad. If they jumped off a cliff, they’d just fly away”, Jesus couldn’t help
waving his hand over a nearby jug of water which suddenly turned into red wine.
“Still doing the parlour tricks I see”, the Devil hadn’t much time for Jesus. Made him glad that he didn’t have any kids himself. Well. None that he would admit too.
“Women love my magic tricks”, Jesus declared.
“Stupid human women”, God muttered under his breath.
A barmaid roared something over the bar about not being allowed to bring your own drinks into the
pub. The three of them ignored her.
“I’m off”, Jesus announced, “women to do and places to not be”, he disappeared in a puff of smoke
that would make even Paul Daniels jealous. He’d been wanting to learn that trick since arriving in
heaven. God said he would show him if Paul would tell him how he pulled a stunner like Debbie
McGee. But Paul said that was one trick that he wasn’t sharing with anyone. So God punished him by
turning his hands into flippers. Now let’s see the snotty little git perform a few card tricks.
There was a long silence before the Devil finally spoke, “ever regret having kids?”
“Every fucking day”, muttered God.
It was then that they both finally got each other and they clinked their glasses loudly. It was gonna be fun rebuilding Ireland. Just what feckin name were they gonna agree on?” A member of the Inkslingers. What a to do on the North Highland Way.