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eBook Category: Fantasy Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: "Creation" is a coming-of-age fable of a boy on a quest for knowledge. Influenced by his catechism teacher, the stern Mrs. Grimm, the boy finds enchantment in the creation story of Adam and Eve. He decides to try and "confer life" to a handmade "man" in the woods--there are no magic formulae, no incantations, no necronomicons involved--just a body made of sticks and bark, eyes of red mushrooms, hair of moss, and a few special things dropped into the interior.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 2002
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2003

621 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [85 KB], eReader (PDB) [28 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [15 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [14 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [94 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [86 KB], hiebook (KML) [41 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [38 KB], iSilo (PDB) [12 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [16 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [44 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [24 KB]
Words: 4847
Reading time: 13-19 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"Jeffrey Ford is back in this issue with another superb little tale. "Creation" is an exploration of the biblical creation story through the imagination of a young boy. But mostly it's a moving story of the relationship between this boy and his religious skeptic father. The story is beautifully crafted with an understated poignancy at its heart."--Deborah Layne, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)

I learned about creation from Mrs. Grimm, in the basement of her house around the corner from ours. The room was dimly lit by a stained glass lamp positioned above the pool table. There was also a bar in the corner, behind which hung an electric sign that read Reingold and held a can that endlessly poured golden beer into a pilsner glass that never seemed to overflow. That brew was liquid light, bright bubbles never ceasing to rise.

"Who made you?" she would ask, consulting that little book with the pastel colored depictions of agony in hell and the angel strewn clouds of heaven. She had the nose of a witch, one continuous eyebrow and tea-cup-shiny skin--even the wrinkles seemed capable of cracking. Her smile was merely the absence of a frown, but she made candy apples for us at Halloween and marshmallow bricks in the shapes of wise men at Christmas. I often wondered how she had come to know so much about God and pictured saints with halos and cassocks playing pool and drinking beer in her basement at night.

We kids would page through our own copies of the catechism book to find the appropriate response, but before anyone else could answer, Amy Lash would already be saying, "God made me."

Then Richard Antonelli would get up and begin to jump around, making fart noises through his mouth, and Mrs. Grimm would shake her head and tell him God was watching. I never jumped around, never spoke out of turn, for two reasons, neither of which had to do with God. One was what my father called his size ten, referring to his shoe, and the other was that I was too busy watching that sign over the bar, waiting to see the beer finally spill.

The only time I was ever distracted from my vigilance was when she told us about the creation of Adam and Eve. After God had made the world, he made them too, because he had so much love and not enough places to put it. He made Adam out of clay and blew life into him, and, once he came to life, God made him sleep and then stole a rib and made the woman. After the illustration of a naked couple consumed in flame, being bitten by black snakes and poked by the fork of a pink demon with horns and bat wings, the picture for the story of the creation of Adam was my favorite. A bearded God in flowing robes leaned over a clay man, breathing blue-gray life into him.