Why there are no unicorns around anymore

GOD:  Noah. Noah. Wake up.

NOAH (grog­gi­ly):  What is it? Who’s there?

GOD:  Noah, it’s me, God. C’mon, wake up.

NOAH: I’m awake. Crap, what time is it anyway?

GOD: It’s before sun­rise, around five o’clock.

NOAH: How can you tell? Without the sun, there’s no way to read the sundial.

GOD:  Noah, Noah. It’s me. God. Don’t you think that since I con­trol time, I prob­a­bly know what time it is with­out rely­ing on a sundial?

NOAH:  Good point. (chuck­ling) Still, it’s an unGODly time to be wak­ing a fellow.

GOD: Careful, Noah. Anyway, I’ve got some­thing impor­tant to dis­cuss with you. Why don’t you step out­side so we don’t rouse the whole family?

NOAH: OK, just let me slip on some sandals.

(Noah dons his san­dals and a wrap and sleep­i­ly trun­dles to the out­side of the dwelling, being care­ful not to awak­en Naamah, his wife.) I can’t see you, God. It’s still dark out.

GOD: You wouldn’t be able to see me any­way, Noah. Just take it on faith that I’m here. Now lis­ten. You and your fam­i­ly have found favor in my eyes, and I’ve decid­ed to destroy the earth and all those in it. Except for you and your fam­i­ly, of course.

NOAH: But why, God? What’s the point? You made it. Don’t you like what you’ve done? Are you just going to start over because of some minor glitch? You, of all peo­ple, should have been able to make it perfect.

GOD: Well, I did. And it WAS per­fect for a while, but mankind has messed it up, and the only way to fix it is to start over.

NOAH: Wait a minute. You made it, and you made it per­fect, but you weren’t able to keep it that way? You’re omnipo­tent. Measly lit­tle man shouldn’t have the pow­er to upset what you made. Or did you mis­tak­en­ly make man more omnipo­tent than yourself?

GOD: Noah, I don’t want to get into a philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sion with you. This is all about destroy­ing all life on earth and giv­ing you the chance to save your­self and your fam­i­ly. And, of course, all the liv­ing crea­tures who haven’t lost favor in my eyes.

NOAH: So what’s my role in all this? I mean, I appre­ci­ate that you’re going to spare the fam­i­ly and me, but what do I need to do now, and how soon is this going to happen?

GOD: I will guide you in what you need to do, and as for when it will hap­pen, I will give you time to build the ark.

NOAH:  The what?

GOD:  The ark, Noah, the ark. You see, I came up with this great idea. Since I’ve decid­ed to destroy the earth, I had to have a way to do it. Right? So I decid­ed to do it with a flood. I kicked around the idea for earth­quakes and vol­ca­noes, but they’re so hap­haz­ard. They might not get every­body, and I def­i­nite­ly want to make a clean sweep of it. So I’m going to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights, cov­er­ing the earth with water so that every­thing liv­ing will drown except for you and your fam­i­ly, and the oth­er crea­tures you will make room for on the ark. And fish, of course.

NOAH:  Wait a minute. What “oth­er creatures”?

GOD: Noah, I want you to gath­er two of every crea­ture on earth, a male and a female, and take them onto the ark with you. (Gen. 6:19) They will be used to replen­ish the earth when the flood sub­sides. I don’t want to start com­plete­ly over; it’s just too time-consuming. 

(God mus­es) Time doesn’t mean much to me, since I con­trol it any­way. And you see how start­ing from scratch worked out the first time around.

NOAH: When you say EVERY crea­ture, are you talk­ing about EVERY crea­ture, even the snakes and lizards and all the creepy crawly things?

GOD:  Yes, Noah, EVERY crea­ture. The birds, the insects, the rep­tiles, every kind that lives out­side the waters. Those who live in the waters will be OK since there’s going to be a lot of it. Just a lit­tle lev­i­ty there. Oh, wait a minute. Let’s do it this way. For every clean ani­mal and bird, take them by sev­ens, and unclean ani­mals, take them by twos. (Gen.7:2 and 7:3)

NOAH:  Why sevens?

GOD: That’s my lucky number.

NOAH:  Will the water be fresh or salty?

GOD:  A lit­tle of both, I guess. What does it matter?

NOAH:  Well, some crit­ters live in fresh water, and some live in salt water. If it’s all one or the oth­er, some won’t sur­vive. And you didn’t say any­thing about sav­ing the aquat­ic creatures.

GOD:  Well, you have a point. Just leave it to me. I’ll work it out somehow.

NOAH:  So, what is this ark you keep talk­ing about?

GOD: It’s a boat, Noah. A BIG boat. How else could any­one sur­vive a world­wide flood? In a treehouse?

NOAH:  When you say BIG, just how big exactly?

GOD:  Well, obvi­ous­ly, it has to be big enough to hold all these ani­mals. The details I’ve worked out say it should be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. (Gen. 6:15)

NOAH:  Wow! That IS big! But look, I’m not a spring chick­en any­more. I was 500 years old when the boys were born (Gen. 5:32), and they’re grown now, with wives. How many peo­ple can I call on to help with this thing?

GOD:  None, Noah. This has to be our secret. You and the boys and their wives will build the ark.

NOAH:  Well, it’s like­ly to be a bit dif­fi­cult to keep some­thing that big a secret for long. And besides, I’ve lost my cubit tape, so I couldn’t pos­si­bly know if the mea­sure­ments were cor­rect. I guess we’ll just have to for­get about it.

GOD:  Noah, go buy anoth­er tape! (This was the first known use of the excla­ma­tion point.)  And as for keep­ing it a secret, it won’t mat­ter. Everyone else will think you’re mad for build­ing a big boat, and they’ll just laugh at you and ridicule you, right up to the last minute when the waters start ris­ing.  And then they’ll be sorry.

NOAH: And what shall I build this ark from?

GOD:  Gopherwood. (Gen. 6:14)

NOAH: You’re jok­ing, right? You real­ize there’s no gopher­wood with­in three leagues of here.  I’ll have to cut and haul all that wood that far. Why can’t we just build it out of cedar?  There’s plen­ty of that around closer.

GOD:  Noah, are you argu­ing with me? Don’t for­get, I’m God. Anyway, I like the smell of gopher­wood, and it will help alle­vi­ate the odor from all those ani­mals cooped up on the ark for about a year. (Gen. 8:13)

NOAH:  A year!? (Second known use of the excla­ma­tion point.)

GOD:  Yep.  It will take that long for the waters to recede, although (God con­tin­ues, some­what puz­zled) I’m not sure where they are going to recede TO. Well, any­way, that’s the plan. Whaddya think?

NOAH:  Sounds like a lot of work. And I hate snakes. Can’t we do this with­out the snakes?

GOD:  No, Noah. I already ruled that snakes must crawl on their bel­lies for eter­ni­ty (Gen. 3:14) after that inci­dent in the Garden of Eden, so I think I’ve pun­ished them enough. Besides, snakes have a prop­er place in the envi­ron­ment, and I’ll sus­pend their abil­i­ty to inject poi­son for the dura­tion of the trip.

NOAH:  Well, I still don’t like them. Yuck. What about mos­qui­toes and flies? Surely they don’t have a real pur­pose? They’re just pests.

GOD:  True. But, look, Noah. Just because I’m sav­ing you and your fam­i­ly to repop­u­late the earth doesn’t mean that mankind shouldn’t have some dif­fi­cul­ties to deal with in the future. And flies and mos­qui­toes will just be minor nui­sances com­pared to all the pesti­lence, war, and dis­ease that will show up later.

NOAH:  What about the carnivores?

GOD:  Whaddya mean?

NOAH:  Well, when we find dry land again and let all the ani­mals off the ark, what are the car­ni­vores going to eat? There won’t be any meat around except for what’s on the ark. And me and my family.

GOD:  Good point. Look, maybe I haven’t worked out ALL the details just yet. But while you’re work­ing on the ark, I’ll go back to the draw­ing board and tweak a few things. Trust me.

NOAH:  (Noah mut­ters)  Yeah. Tweak. As if I hadn’t heard that before. So, when do I start?

GOD:  As soon as pos­si­ble. I want to get this under­way. It’s going to take you a hun­dred years (Gen. 7:6), and even though that’s just a sec­ond or two for me, I want to get on with wip­ing out mankind as quick­ly as we can.

NOAH:  OK. Well, I guess this calls for a lit­tle wine to cel­e­brate and kick things off.

GOD:  (Signing off) Take a lit­tle wine for thy stomach’s sake. (see Gen. 9:21 through 9:23)

And so it was that the ark was built, and the flood came and wiped out mankind. Noah and his sons and their wives began the process of re-pop­u­lat­ing the earth, and Noah turned to drink­ing because he was sor­ry that he had got­ten involved in the whole rot­ten mess. Flies, mos­qui­toes, and snakes are still around to pester man. And Ham, Shem, and Japeth argued all the time they were on the ark about who was respon­si­ble for muck­ing the ani­mal stalls. 

Both of the uni­corns were males by mis­take, so obvi­ous­ly, they couldn’t mate. And that’s why there are no uni­corns anymore.