By Ali Solomon
GOD: Did you get the new tablets I sent you?
EDITOR: I did. All seventy-five of them.
GOD: And? What do you think?
EDITOR: Some good stuff in there—”Thou shalt not spit on the ground in public.” Solid. “Thou shalt not double-dip in thy neighbor’s honey.” Also gold.
GOD: But?
EDITOR: We’re trying to tighten this up, make it as relatable as possible.
GOD: Spitting on the ground is gross.
EDITOR: I agree. Totally gross. But do people hate it as much as, let’s say, the stealing thing you wrote about on Tablet #9 ?
GOD: Spitting is literally the worst thing mankind can do. The world would be much better off without spitters.
EDITOR: Again, I’m getting that. But are you saying it’s worse than murdering?
GOD: Spitters should be murdered.
EDITOR: I don’t think that’s going to play well. Let’s strike it from the tablet.
GOD: What? No!
EDITOR: I’m sorry, I know this is hard, but we need to cut more than 80% of this. People have short attention spans—they aren’t going to read more than a handful of commandments. Like, ten or fifteen, tops.
GOD: Can we keep the spitting thing, and cut, I don’t know, the adultery one?
EDITOR: Are you sure? I kinda think that’s a good rule to live by.
GOD: People are going to commit adultery anyway. It’s in their nature. In fact, having a commandment forbidding them from doing so is only going to make them want to commit even more adultery.
Ali Solomon
EDITOR: I’m predicting a lot of messed up family dynamics if we lose that one. Speaking of messed up families— the commandment about honoring thy father, mother, siblings, grandparents, uncles, cousins, and stepchildren: any chance that we can trim it to “honoring thy father and mother?”
GOD: Won’t all the other family members be pissed off?
EDITOR: I think respecting the parents who raised you is the most important part.
GOD: What about cousins?
EDITOR: Most people’s cousins are assholes. I think it’s safe to leave them out of the commandment.
GOD: O.K., I’ll make the change.
EDITOR [heaving through the tablets]: Can we talk about your last eleven tablets? They seem a bit…targeted.
GOD: What do you mean?
EDITOR: Well, all these commandments seem directed at one person, some dude named “Lyle,” who may or may not have used your name in vain once.
GOD: He stepped in gum and shouted “Goddamnit” at the top of his lungs. Everyone heard him.
EDITOR: That’s pretty rough, but eleven tablets about Lyle?
GOD: He took my name in vain, on the Sabbath no less! And when he couldn’t get the gum off the bottom of his sandal, he even said…he said…he didn’t believe in Me!
EDITOR: Yikes.
GOD: And none of this would’ve happened if someone hadn’t literally spit on the ground .
EDITOR [sighing]: Lose the direct attacks on Lyle. Like, maybe we consolidate all that vitriol into “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain?” Does that work?
GOD: I guess.
EDITOR: And maybe for future commandments, we leave out specific people’s names? Keep it vague: “ Thou shalt keep the Sabbath and make it holy,” instead of “Lyle shalt keep the Sabbath.” You’ll use up less stones that way.
GOD: I don’t mind if we use up lots of stones. If I don’t spell out detailed codes of conduct, people are going to morph into monsters.
EDITOR: As I said before, no one is going to read seventy-five tablets. You basically have ten commandments to try and reel them in, otherwise they’ll check out and be off having orgies and worshipping golden calves and shit. Let’s reallllllly narrow this down.
GOD: Keep the spitting one, obviously.
EDITOR: We can circle back to that one later. What about these, on Tablet #16 : “Thou shalt not wear socks with sandals.” Or, “Thou shalt not don tunics above the knee after age 40.” Are we really in the business of policing Your people’s wardrobes?
GOD: Have you seen what folks these days are wearing? It’s a disgrace.
EDITOR: I’m not sure we should be wasting tablets on dress codes. What about moral conduct? Can we home in on what makes someone a good human being?
GOD: I honestly don’t know. I thought the double-dipping commandment, and the one about putting cute hats on donkeys took care of that!
EDITOR: Let’s keep in the ones about not murdering or stealing. Or lying, especially when it’s lying about murdering and stealing.
GOD: So no donkey hats?
EDITOR: We have to kill some of your darlings.
GOD: “Thou shalt not kill thy darlings!”
EDITOR: Good one, God.
GOD: While we’re on a roll, I guess we can lose the commandments about sending back food in taverns, and not paying back people in shekels. They’re important, but not more important than killing and stealing and spitting.
EDITOR: Good, good! This is definitely punchier; it’ll read much better with the overseas market too if they have to translate fewer commandments. So let’s talk about the title.
GOD: You don’t like “Things That Make God Angry?”
EDITOR: No, it’s great, really. But we may want a more direct title, one that gets to the point, without sounding so…mad.
GOD: “Do These Things Please.”
EDITOR: Hmmm…better, but not quite there yet.
GOD: But I said “please.”
EDITOR: What about “The Ten Commandments”? It’s direct, concise, and even works if someday someone wants to buy the rights and turn Your masterpiece into a movie.
GOD: That would be amazing —the royalties would sustain me for years. I’d never need to write anything else.
EDITOR: I’m pretty sure The Ten Commandments will be public domain.
GOD: God DAMMIT.
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Ali Solomon is a writer/illustrator from New York. She regularly contributes to the New Yorker , and her work has appeared in the New York Times , Washington Post , and The Believer, among other places. She was the illustrator for I Am “Why Do I Need Venmo” Years Old (Running Press, 2021), and the author/illustrator of I Love(ish) New York City: Tales of City Life (Chronicle, 2022).
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