Galapagos Regained by James Morrow Page B

hireling opened the trunk, revealing a score of wide-mouthed bottles, each packed in straw and filled with a liquid preservative. The receptacles, Malcolm observed, contained all manner of ugly, prickly, slimy, and otherwise untoward things.
    â€œGod’s reputation precedes Him,” Sir Basil began. “Omnipotent, omniscient, and, most pertinent to my presentation, omnibenevolent. But if compassion is the Almighty’s sine qua non , then His Creation will necessarily be free of gratuitous cruelty. In my observations, however, something like the opposite is the case. Behold the type of Australian jellyfish known as the sea-wasp.”
    Receiving his cue, the hireling produced a bottle containing the pickled remains of a creature resembling a diaphanous parasol outfitted with tentacles. “A sea-wasp’s every limb sports venomous syringes,” noted Sir Basil, “which means an entangled swimmer may anticipate a slow and agonizing death. I cannot but wonder what sort of God would fashion such a beast.”
    â€œA nasty God,” said Atkinson.
    â€œA nonexistent God,” said Miss Martineau.
    â€œNow behold my guinea-worm,” said Sir Basil, “whose modus operandi makes the sea-wasp seem like a saint.”
    The hireling set the jellyfish on the dais. Returning to the trunk, he brought forth a specimen suggesting a segment from a child’s kite string, though there was nothing remotely frolicsome about the creature.
    â€œDrink from a river in India or Africa, and you risk ingesting the immature larvae of this worm,” said Sir Basil. “Although the male measures but a few inches, the female grows to the three-foot monster you see before you. Day after day she burrows through her host’s tissues, a migration that normally terminates in the leg but sometimes in the breast, scalp, tongue, or generative organs. When the worm’s head meets the inside surface of the skin, an excruciating blister forms. By immersing the lesion in a cold stream, the victim can gain some relief, as this induces the creature to emerge into daylight and burst, releasing her immature larvae into the water. There now comes the problem of removing the worm’s impacted corpse, more painful than a malignant tumor. The usual method is to wind the thing about a stick.”
    â€œWhat a ghastly beast,” said Miss Martineau.
    â€œSmall wonder Jehovah declines to show His face in public,” said Atkinson.
    Next the contestant submitted specimens of the warble fly, “a creature that God in His mercy has instructed to breed in the nasal passages of horses and cattle, so that the maggots will have plenty of cartilage to devour upon hatching.” The subsequent exhibit was a moth called Lobocraspis griseifusa, “which on the counsel of our loving Creator uses its proboscis to irritate the eyes of water buffalo and other defenseless livestock, thus provoking a supply of nourishing tears.” Then came a collection of male bedbugs, “an insect that Heaven has favored with a procreative member so long that he rarely bothers about the female’s genital opening, preferring to stab her and release his seed into her bloodstream.” And so it went, bottle after bottle, invertebrate after invertebrate, until all twenty indictments decorated the dais. “I could offer additional specimens, but I’ve no wish to cause the Supreme Being further embarrassment. Stendhal put it well: God’s only excuse is that He does not exist.”
    Lord Woolfenden rolled off his divan, picked his way amongst the horizontal hedonists, and bowed before his freethinking guest. “Our atheists are impressed by your circus of horrors, but I wonder if you’ve rattled those amongst us of a Christian persuasion.”
    â€œYour Lordship, the mere existence of vermin does not give a believer pause,” said Mr. Symonds. “With Adam’s fall came Nature’s corruption. We should