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Simms smiled faintly. "That is one question I can answer. The answer is no. And the reason is that it goes totally against all we have ever been taught about God. If He wanted us destroyed, He would send His minions against us until we were overwhelmed. Perhaps He would guide us into the city, and let the work of Satan finish us off, if those creatures are his. The one thing the Bible tells us straight off in that you can't cheat God. There's no metaphor surrounding that, I assure you."

The Professor's speech was coming to a close. "And there's one other thing I know. He loves the world. Even if this is a change of heart, a regression back to the Old Testament style of God, the fearsome wrathful one, He cannot destroy the world. Perhaps it's because he worked long and hard on it for six days. I wouldn't burn a house down that I spent months building, just because it was there and I could. But I doubt it is a selfish reason like that. See, I think that He has grown to like people, dumb as we are. Because we always spring back. Like the Phoenix—a giant bird that built a funeral pyre every year and threw itself in to die. But a new Phoenix would come out of the ashes. Human beings are like that, always coming back. With no small amount of His help, to be sure.

"And so that's why He gave up His son. He was close to doing this-" here he pointed to the dead creature, "-once before. But he had his son in the world, and through him was able to forgive us. Now, we don't have Him, Jr. But I think we have been forgiven. No, I'm sure. Because Earth is a son to Him, something He created and nurtured and sent off through college, and now we're done with that and had just started graduate school. Yes, he gave up the earth so we, the five of us, and all the other living people could be forgiven. Almost makes me wish I had been among the ranks of the dead from the start."

Professor Simms, Doctorate of Theology, lay down on his sleeping bag. "And with that, the lecture is over goodnight, gentlemen." They lay down. Tomorrow, perhaps he would talk philosophy-Sophocles, Aristotle, Thoreau, or maybe about the complexities of the cucumber, or simple machines. No one knew. But it would prey on their minds all of the next day. They slept.