“Another day, another dollar,” I say to myself delightedly, rubbing my hands together in glee. The world was brimming over with wonderful possibilities and I for one was determined to get my fair share. Or maybe more than just my fair share if I was quick enough. If I was quick enough and sly enough, which I unashamedly am. They don’t come any slier, I can tell you!

“Yes, yes, yes,” I say to myself, my eyes full of dollar signs and my heart full of avarice, “all these wonderful possibilities belong to me and no one else, and all the dirty lousy unworthy ones will have to do without”. They don’t matter anyway you see because they are only losers, and no one likes losers. Even God Himself doesn’t like losers, as is well known. He has nothing but contempt for them and that’s only right.

It must be right if God says it is, after all. That’s how come it gets to be right – because God says that it is! Whatever God says is straightaway right and all other things are straightaway wrong, and you’ll get punished for doing them. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. That’s how it is when you’re God, of course. You can have things whatever way you want them – how could you be God otherwise? How could you be God and yet at the same time have to follow rules? It’s your show after all, and so you can do what you want with it. It’s your party and you’ll punish the creatures that you have created if you want to, right?

I’m counting my chickens, you see. I’m counting them for all I’m worth. I’m in the chicken-counting business and you can be sure I’m taking it all very seriously. “Count the chickens, count the chickens, count the chickens,” I urge myself, my voice hoarse with conviction. “Jump to it now”, I call out excitedly, giving instructions to myself, barely able to contain my enthusiasm. I was onto a winner a winner and no mistake. Things can only get better, right?

You bet they can, you bet they can. Counting the chickens, counting the bloody old chickens. I’m in fine fettle today it occurs to me. The best fettle ever. There’s never been any fettle that was finer, in fact. This was the finest fettle you’ll ever come across. The only way is up, as they say. I’m playing a blinder and there’s no one that can stop me. I’ve hit the final furlong and there’s a clear run ahead of me. I’m home and dry, I tell myself. Life’s never been better.

A dark thought suddenly comes into my head:  nobody can stop me now but that doesn’t mean that they won’t try. They could be trying even now, I realised. Even as I speak, there could be those out there plotting to subvert my carefully laid plans and get there ahead of me. This thought is like a thunderbolt – it hits me out of the blue and I find myself filling up to the brim with the very blackest rage you could ever imagine. It is so dark and so ominous that it even frightens me…

Even as I sit here, obsessively counting my chickens (as I am wont to, as I am prone to), they could be ahead of me. They could be stealing march. Outsmarting me, outflanking me, outmanoeuvring me. Taking me for a sucker. Taking me for a big gormless dupe. Talking behind my back. Plotting my downfall, hatching schemes that spell bad news for me. All of this strikes me in a flash, turning my world upside down, throwing me into a maelstrom of confusion.

I let out a curdled scream of pure rage and frustration. I let out such a scream as you’ve never heard in all your life. I can guarantee you that. Absolutely I can guarantee it. It is horrible, thwarted scream such as you have never heard. Never heard. It just bursts out of me, and I didn’t even know it was in there. I am as surprised as anyone, I promise you. More than just surprised, I am horrified. I am horrified beyond measure. I am horrified beyond measure, and that – my dears – is the story of how evil came into the world, back right back at the very beginning of all things…