Odds and Gods Read Online Free PDF

diagram.
    ‘Give it here,’ demanded Thor impatiently. ‘You’ve probably got it upside down again.’
    Odin tightened his grip on the instruction manual, which was twenty centuries old and held together with brittle yellowed Sellotape. ‘It’s perfectly simple,’ he said, for the seventh time. ‘We must just have overlooked some perfectly obvious . . .’
    ‘Where does this bit go?’
    Odin and Thor looked round, and saw Frey, patron god of all those who stand about with their hands in their pockets while other people do all the work, held up a small oily widget. ‘I found it on the floor,’ he explained.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ Thor exclaimed, ‘that’s the manifold release pawl. Why the hell didn’t you mention it before?’
    ‘You were standing on it.’
    ‘Give it here.’
    Twenty minutes with a screwdriver later, Thor straightened his back, wiped his forehead with the dirtiest handkerchief in the universe, and picked up the widget; which sprang salmon-like from his fingers and was at once lost to sight in the deep carpet of wood-shavings, empty crisp packets and bits of paper that covered the floor of the shed.
    ‘I think,’ said Frey, ‘it landed somewhere over there.’
    Odin sighed. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘let’s all stay calm. Everything is always somewhere.’
    ‘Not necessarily,’ Thor replied, burrowing his way head-first into a pile of empty sacks. ‘What about Excalibur? What about the lost kingdom of Atlantis? What about . . . ?’
    ‘You know what I mean.’
    ‘Only because I’m a bloody good guesser.’
    ‘Excuse me.’
    Thor looked up. His hair was full of coal-dust and a dead mouse had entangled itself in his beard. ‘Now what?’ he demanded.
    ‘This time you’re kneeling on it.’
    ‘Am I?’ Thor said. ‘Ouch!’ he added. ‘Yes, you’re quite right, well spotted. Right then, let the dog see the rabbit. Now, where did I put my screwdriver?’
    ‘The rear crankshaft cotter pin, thirty-six,’ said Odin, ‘is connected to the offside flywheel, seventy-two . . .’
    ‘I’ve just done that.’
    ‘You can’t have.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because,’ Odin replied, ‘here’s the split pin in my hand.’
    Yes, thought Thor, so it is. If I was to kill you now, there’s no way it would be murder. Pesticide maybe, but not murder. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Frey, pass me the mole wrench.’
    Atheists would have you believe that there are no gods, but this is patently absurd; because if there were no gods, who made the world? Look at the world, consider the quality of design and workmanship. Consider who is supposed to have made it. Convinced? Of course you are. The San Andreas fault wasn’t San Andreas’ fault at all.
    ‘Now then,’ Thor said. He’d skinned his knuckles, banged his head on the rocker arm and caught his nose in the overhead cam. He was also a thunder and lightning god, and thunder gods, like doctors, never really retire. It would be as well for the world’s sake if the engine started first time.
    ‘Ready?’
    ‘Ready.’
    Thor turned the crank, and there was a loud groaning noise. It could have been the gears waking from nearly two thousand years of sleep; or it could have been the laws of physics saying that there was no way the engine was going to work because all the bits had been put back in the wrong places, and being told by the other forces of nature to put a sock in it. Whatever it was, it was followed by a splutter and a roar and then a peculiar sound like a hippopotamus pulling its foot out of very deep mud . . .
    ‘It’s working,’ Thor shouted. ‘Sod me, it’s bloody well working! Will you just look at—’
    ... Followed by a loud bang, and then silence. Small bits of sharp metal dropped down through the air. There was a very peculiar smell.
    ‘I don’t think it was meant to do that,’ said Frey.

    ‘Are you a doctor?’
    ‘No,’ replied the postman, ‘actually I’m a postman. Did you want to see a doctor?’
    ‘Are you sure