Finkle, Frigup

By the time Finkle arrives at the museum, the troop of Little Geneses are berserking through the Garden of Eden, climbing the Tree of Knowledge, dodgeball-ing with the apples. Each forbidden fruit is wooden. A pigtailed girl takes a knotty Mcintosh to the mouth. She bleeds down her chin, holding up a piece of tooth like it’s a question. The cute substitute teacher, with a minimum-waged eye-roll, escorts the Little Genesis to First Aid between the one-tenth portside replica of Noah’s Ark and the interactive Bible Kiosk. This is how it’s Finkle’s fault: Finkle operates the Flood Geology exhibit. By way of pneumatic hoses and pile-driving mechanisms—representing “collapsing, orbiting vapor canopy theory” (a.k.a. über amounts of rainfall) and “rapid-shifting tectonic plates concept” (a.k.a. über tsunamis)—a large diorama floods and trembles. A mini ark floats as toy dinosaurs mass-extinct under displacing sand. After the flood dissipates, kids dig up the dinosaurs as souvenirs. “But since the frigging diorama did not flood,” Pastor Sneidlinger says, “the frigging children—being frigging children—became impatient, antsy, and flash-mobbish. How does one ‘bright side’ a bloodied Little Genesis to a parent or guardian?” Sneidlinger summoned Finkle via an Alpha/omega/audio/visual/ Public Announcement. Whenever the A/O/A/V/PA booms, it disseminates a pillar of smoke using sophisticated foggers, vents, and a lightning strobe, which did not flicker for omnipotent/omniscient effect because the museum’s outdated electrical is daisy-chained and über-fritzing. The lights flicker. Sparks fizzle down from the rafters like electric lake-effect snow. But the wiring is just the tip of the iceberg. Pastor Sneidlinger’s Strategic Vision Box is crammed with concerns. One is that Sneidlinger isn’t even a real pastor. He inherited the Creation Institute last year from a rich devout aunt. The café chips are stale. Somebody stole the T8 thoracic vertebra from the Primate Column. The Bible Kiosk is missing books from the New Testament. Flood Geology hasn’t had new sand in years. Whenever Finkle resets the diorama, he finds soggy Band-aids. “Tell the parent or guardian the Little Genesis was pulling an Eve?” Finkle suggests.