Director’s Report to the Council of Ten Kings Concerning Greenland by Don Nigroni

Upon the completion of our mining expedition on the shores of the Black Sea, the Council directed me to recontact the Demiurge concerning our mutual agreement with him. I pointed out once again that we had fulfilled our end of the bargain long ago and he responded by once more speaking in riddles.

“There’s nothing I’d like more than to create something out of nothing,” said the Demiurge, “but I can only fashion what already exists. Even nothing can’t create something from nothing, but something can be uncreated and just pop into existence. That’s how everything, even time, had to ultimately begin or else it would have taken an infinite amount of time to get to yesterday and today could never have happened. But, alas, I can’t just make things pop into existence. So, you see, in spite of our ancient deal, I’m not really responsible for restoring your homeland because Lex non cogit ad impossibilia.”

I replied, “The Council isn’t asking you to make our original island homeland pop into existence out of thin air. They merely want you to move Greenland between the Pillars of Heracles and the opposite continent.”

“Don’t they realize that would melt its ice, raise sea levels, change ocean currents and have a drastic effect on your global climate?”

“They’re well aware of that, in fact, that’s their plan. This time our enemies will drown.”

The Demiurge hesitated and I added, “We’ll also build a Temple of the Demiurge atop Gunnbjørn Fjeld entirely out of pure orichalcum. You’ll be the envy of every god, man, woman or beast that was ever worshipped.”

As the Council anticipated, this time the Demiurge finally agreed to our proposal but said he was already working on some projects and wouldn’t be able to get this done for a hundred years. We’ve been waiting for over ten thousand years, so what’s another century?

Don Nigroni is a retired labor economist with a master’s degree in philosophy from Notre Dame. His flash fiction has appeared in Ambit, Asymmetry Fiction, Mystery Tribune, Theme of Absence and 365 tomorrows.

Photo by Maxim Bouev via wikipedia.org