The unremarkable book asserted

that indeed it had all been done
in 144 ferociously action-packed,
miraculous hours
a few thousand fleeting years ago
in the not-so-ancient past.
It ridiculed the notion that
the great apes and we had shared
that vine-covered house
down the street
a long time ago.
There was nothing I hadn't seen
and laughed at
a thousand times before.
But then it said
that God would someday reverse
all suffering,
and make everything just as if
no scourge, no fire, no rack, no rape
had ever been experienced.
I closed the book in horror,
not only because I suddenly
hated whatever fool
had actually written that,
but because my resistance
to seductive madness
was low that day.