Once upon a time
Once upon a time—though technically it was before time was fashionable—there existed a very small book that contained a very large amount of nonsense. It was called The Little Book of Fitzartur Foibles, and it was, in a sense, the universe’s first bestseller. In another sense, it was the first book ever accidentally dropped into existence by a slightly overwhelmed celestial intern with too many quills and not enough opposable thumbs.
The book arrived before the dawn of organised religion or philosophy, which is to say it arrived before responsibility had been invented. It plopped quietly onto the primordial earth, landing between a volcanically inclined mountain and a startled proto-armadillo that would later form the backbone of the concept of “saintly patience.”
From there, things got out of hand.
Every culture, when it eventually became self-aware enough to start arguing about the invisible, discovered The Little Book of Fitzartur Foibles in one form or another. You see, the universe is very bad at keeping secrets, and worse at filing paperwork.
In the hills of ancient China, scholars claimed it floated down the Yangtze on the shell of an irritable turtle who was tired of being immortal. The local gods declared it the Scroll of Celestial Mistakes, and built temples to its most confusing passage: “He who mistakes the moon for soup will only ever taste reflection”. Three dynasties later, thousands of monks argued violently about whether the moon tasted more like duck broth or tofu. Entire schools of philosophy were founded on the question, and two small kingdoms fell over an argument about garnish.
In Vietnam, the book appeared beneath a banyan tree that was already full of gossiping spirits. The fairies of the rivers—delicate creatures who survived entirely on fermented blossom nectar—claimed Fitzartur had written the world into being after getting horrendously drunk and mistaking his magical quill for a chopstick. Thus, they revered chaos as the highest order, and held six banquets a month to celebrate this important theological point. Their priests were perpetually intoxicated and therefore considered divinely inspired, which worked beautifully for centuries.
In the heart of Africa, it was said that the book was not read but danced. A great chief once declared that the only way to comprehend Fitzartur’s meaning was to drum it into the earth until it made sense. Generations of griots memorised its verses through rhythm, and some say the first thunder was simply the sky’s attempt to keep time. When the gods became jealous, they sent termites to eat the book, but the termites became enlightened halfway through and formed their own religion involving a very small sun and the daily worship of interesting twigs.
Meanwhile in India, the sages of the early world discovered the book half-buried in the roots of a peepal tree, next to a snake who had opinions on nearly everything. Fitzartur’s text was declared to contain precisely seven million divine truths, or possibly two, depending on one’s mood. The gods, ever fond of a good debate, conscripted entire families of elephants to memorise differing interpretations. Rituals sprang up demanding that worshippers chant, meditate, and then immediately contradict themselves for balance. Thus was born the sacred doctrine of “You Might Be Right, But Let’s Argue Anyway.”
Oddly enough, when a much later and extremely self-important book called The Bible turned up, it caused great confusion, chiefly because half its stories were already in The Little Book of Fitzartur Foibles. The Creation story was there (twice), along with the parts about the floods, some suspiciously familiar plagues, and a rather long chapter on how not to build a golden calf because it upsets the neighbours. Scholars debated whether the newer tome was a sequel, an adaptation, or an unauthorised fanfiction.
Angels were consulted. They declined to comment. Demons were consulted. They charged consultancy fees. And mankind, doing what it does best, decided to hold global conferences that produced precisely no answers but an impressive amount of paperwork.
Some centuries later, a particularly ambitious monk insisted that The Little Book of Fitzartur Foibles should be officially recognised as “Pre-Biblical Scripture,” which caused riots, reforms, three miracles, and one unfortunate incident involving a talking pineapple who claimed to be a reincarnation of Fitzartur himself. The pineapple was later canonised as St. Juicy of the Tropics, patron saint of improbable theology.
As for the book, it vanished, as meaningful relics always do, last seen being used as a coaster in a wizard’s tavern somewhere beyond time. People still whisper of it, somewhere between myth and madness, that original Little Book that taught humanity the most fundamental truth of all: that the divine, when left unattended, behaves exactly like the rest of us—absurdly, passionately, and with absolutely no idea what it’s doing.
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