Mark's Ark

Prologue

From the more complete version of Genesis as published by Random House and seen on E! True Hollywood Story:

Genesis 6:13 - And God said unto Noah: 'The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Genesis 6:13 (and a half) - And God said unto Mark: "You better get your shit together 'cause water's coming by the crapload."

Mark was woken up by God's blaring voice. He hated this with the same hatred you hold for a neighbor's dog that's barked for too long in his life. It was even before the house rooster sounded off. He could faintly hear some thing about cubits, and he wondered to himself if that was a measurement or something like Bitcoin.

He rose, and walked outside. Noah just finishing what Mark considered had to be the world's only long distance communication. 'What rates would you think God gets?' He walked towards Noah, who was quite lively for a man nearing his fifth century. He did have a wobble to his walk but half a millennia will do nasty shit to your hips.

'What's up with the cubones?', asked Mark. God hadn't told Mark about the boat and hadn't told Noah to tell him either. His covenant had only included him and his close family, or as God, the first Language Nazi, said, "thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee". So he said nothing. Literally. 'Nothing,' said Noah.

As soon as he said this Noah turned back, and started heading towards the house. God had given him 120 years, a short time compared to how his life had gone, and he descended, and remained there for a very long time, into what had to be the only half-millennial-life crisis. He pulled out a small notebook, fashioned by himself, and wrote the following to-do list, according to the tasks and conditions imposed on him by God:

Learn how to build a boat in the next 100 years (118 DEADLINE, 2 years to build)
Make sons. Only have one and God said SONS. Make at least one more.
Get wives for these sons. So educate them to be nice and stuff in the next 80-100 years.
Get money to outsource building. Have lazy family so they won't build sh-(EXPLETIVE MAGICALLY DELETED BY THE ALMIGHTY)
Learn botany. God didn't mention plants, but we're going to need plants on the boat if anyone's gonna eat. Also, consider changing to vegetarian.
Learn animal husbandry, zoology, and capture all known species of land animals (water-types and air-types are going to be fine)
Also, license Pokémon. I am going to be the first one to catch them all.
He scribbled in his notebook, his productivity neuroses satisfied for now. With a grin on his face he marched into his house, ready for task #2.

Mark had just stared as his brother while he did all this with intense curiosity. They called him the weird one but moments like these made him think that everybody else, particularly his brother, was insane and only he could tell. He went to have breakfast and read a bit of Creatures of the Pagan World, most famous weekly magazine for amateur Mythocryptozoologists like himself. [Mythocryptozoology defined in a dictionry made up by yours truly as 'the study of animals brought forth by the imagination or remnants of the time of old gods that the current god actively dislikes, apparently for their unique brand of awesome'] He had no idea what his brother had gone off to do in such a hurry at this time of the morning but there was a bundle of hay by his door, college code for the hankypankytime.