Free The Alpha and the Omega: An absurd philosophical tale about God, the end of the world, and what's on the other planets by H. M. Charley Ada

found himself a grown woman dressed in a suit, standing before a judge in a courtroom.
    ‘Your honor,’ he said, ‘this document clearly falls into the business records exception to the hearsay rule. You have to admit it into evidence.’
    ‘I’ve already made my ruling, the email stays out.’
    ‘I’ll appeal, and I’ll win.’
    ‘I’ll hold you in contempt!’ the Judge shouted, banging his gavel.
    The memory faded away, and Zack opened his eyes.
    “Are you starting to have second thoughts about me?” Lilly asked.
    “Not at all! I’m happy you shared all of that with me. I want to know everything about you.”
    “We’ll see how long you keep thinking like that. So, what else do you want to know?”
    “Well, one question I had, what was that trial about?”
    “Health insurance. My client was a factory worker with a bad back. He suffered nearly debilitating pain, but somehow still managed to pull himself to work every single day and push through his shifts. His doctor recommended a spinal surgery, but the insurance company said it was an
elective procedure
. They said it wasn’t
medically necessary!
Unbelievable. The stuff that happens in this world… well, that used to happen.Anyway, my client couldn’t get a private plaintiff’s attorney to take the case for him because it wasn’t worth enough money, so he came to legal services, and I got it.”
    “What happened? Did you win?”
    “No. We lost at trial, but I appealed on several grounds. I probably would have won, but the insurance company’s lawyers dragged everything out so long that the world literally ended before the company had to pay out a dime!”
    “Haha. Well, at least everything worked out. I’m sure God fixed your client’s back pain a lot quicker than you and the legal system ever could’ve. No offense.”
    “None taken. Anyway, it’s your turn. What were
you
were like as a child?”
    “Hmmm. You want to see? I suppose that could be arranged! But let’s get out of here. I won’t just give you a memory; I’ll let you experience it in the here and now.” He took Lilly’s hand again and grabbed Lucky’s collar, and in the blink of an eye, they were sitting on a tree-covered hilltop in the woods.
    It was small – only a few hundred feet from base to summit – and it was pristine, without a single trace of man or God, not even a hiking trail. In every direction, one was met only with views of other hills, covered in the same crumbling brown leaves from last fall that covered Zack’s hill, in addition to the hundreds of light grey boulders that an ancient glacier had deposited in the entire area during the last ice age. Above them, the new spring leaves grew thick, letting in only slivers of sun. Zack was thankful that God had changed nothing.
    “I used to come up here all the time growing up,” Zack said, inviting Lilly to sit on an unusually flat, waist-highboulder padded in bright green moss. “I’d mountain bike or hike up here with Lucky, and we’d sit for hours. Since it’s off the trail a little ways, no one ever bothered us.
    “I grew up a few miles down that way, near a lake,” Zack continued, pointing. “I had a really happy childhood. In the summers, when I wasn’t up here, I’d be swimming in the lake with all of the neighborhood kids. Oh, and my favorite thing – they used to have this Fourth of July party at a field near the lake. The entire neighborhood would come out for it. But then, over time, people stopped going to the lake and to the party. They put in private pools, and the kids disappeared into their videogames and computers.”
    “That’s too bad. I think it’s pretty common though; the same thing happened in my town. Although, it wasn’t quite as woodsy as this.”
    “Yeah, I love the woods. I love animals too. In fact, I wanted to be a biologist when I grew up.”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    “I couldn’t find a job in it after college, and I had debt. Then that first i-banking job