The First Temporary was assigned to complete a variety of projects. “Burn this bush,” one god said, and so she did. “Now put the bush back the way it was,” another god said, and so she learned the drudgery of tasks done and undone, the brutal makings and unmakings of the earth. “Create an animal so rare it barely exists,” the gods said. The First Temp cobbled together something extraordinary, irreplaceable. “Someone,” she corrected them. “Now watch it go extinct,” they said, and so she held its wing and watched it glimmer, fade, disappear.
