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The History of Everything

As It Actually Happened, According to Mary Elton, Indifferent Goddess of All Time · an illustrated book · one picture per page · 22 chapters, the Big Bang to her 73rd, 15 June 2026. These little sketches are just rough placeholders — the real pages are proper drawings.
test page already drawn still to illustrate needs your call ★ = the one grown-up wink
P.1
~13.8 billion years ago
1 · The Big Bang
Lights the fuse on all creation, then sits down to watch it like boring telly. 13.8 billion years on, still hasn't got off the couch.
test page drawn
P.2
~375 million years ago
2 · Life Crawls Out of the Oceans
First thing up the beach is Poppa — a damp, hopeful sea-slug. Love at first ooze. (He never really evolves after this. He's happy.)
Claudio: I evolved hands specifically to put them on my hips and judge this.
to illustrate
P.3
~150 million years ago
3 · The Age of the Dinosaurs
Everyone watches the giants. Nobody watches the little brown shrew in the bushes deciding which ones get the asteroid. That's Nan.
to illustrate
P.4
~3000 BC · Claudio cameo
4 · Stonehenge
Not a temple — a photo printer. The hard drive is 94% Hugh, the show pony.
Claudio: I hauled every stone by hand. I asked for a forklift. She told me to walk it off.
to illustrate
P.5
the Flood · ~2900 BC
5 · Noah's Ark
Two of each? Amateur hour. Michael fills the esky every trip, and Fletcher's tinny out-fishes the Ark before lunch.
Claudio: Forty days of rain and not one of them brought a tarp. I'd have brought a tarp.
to illustrate
P.6
~2560 BC
6 · The Pyramids
All that stone to show off. Reminded her of the giant dome Poppa put up "for the telescope." The grandkids know exactly what it looks like.
test page drawn
P.7
~1000 BC
7 · David & Goliath
Sat them both down: pack it in, or she'd cut down the beanstalk and burn the treehouse, and then see who's a giant.
Claudio: That's three different stories. I counted. She knows. She does not care.
to illustrate
P.8
356–323 BC
8 · Alexander the Great
"Great, even — for a Macedonian. In Bulgaria we'd just call him Alex." Nan's dad rates every conqueror like that: a compliment that's really an insult.
Grown-ups' job: the Bulgarian spelling gets carefully checked before it goes in.
to illustrate
P.9
~1 AD
9 · The Birth of Jesus
The original Mary looks over B-grade Mary's baby and isn't impressed. Reckons he should line up something gentle — carpentry, maybe.
Your call: keep the cheeky line — "he did one famous weekend and never worked again"?
test page drawnyour call
P.10
~1347
10 · The Plague
Half of Europe keels over and she does not get off the couch. Her cure for everything: "walk it off, take a Panadol, you'll be right." School was not cancelled.
to illustrate
P.11
1915
11 · The Gallipoli Landing
Could've stopped the whole thing. But the turkish delight was right there — the real stuff, from the actual place — and stopping would've meant putting it down.
to illustrate
P.12
1939–45
12 · World War II
She looked up too late to stop it, so she settled for revenge: she let the Russians loose and pointed them at Berlin. (Granny was Ukrainian. This family keeps its grudges in good repair.)
to illustrate
P.13
1969
13 · The Moon Landing
One small step for man. She left a tin of turkish delight up there centuries ago and nobody's ever mentioned finding it.
to illustrate
P.14
L o l a
1970
14 · The Kinks Write "Lola" ★
A band writes a hit song with your name in it. Mary heard the chorus, heard that name drawn right out, and thought: hold it. Forty-one years.
Your call: in the test picture Nan has a lit cigarette (very 1970). Keep it, or cut it?
test page drawnyour call
P.15
1975 · the look freezes here
15 · "Hurricane" / Rubin Carter
Bob Dylan wrote a famous song about a boxer in jail, topped the charts, and never once suspected the little old lady three rows back. Nan framed the Hurricane and let Dylan take the credit.
Claudio: I know what she did. I have said nothing. I would like to keep existing.
to illustrate · freeze starts
P.16
1983
16 · Australia II Wins the America's Cup
She'd had the winged keel drawn up for centuries, just waiting for someone slow enough to make it look like an upset. Poppa mowed the lawn through the whole broadcast.
to illustrate
P.17
1989
17 · The Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Russians she let loose in '43 spent 40-odd years walled up — fair enough, she reckoned. Then she got bored and pushed the wall over herself. History calls it a movement; she calls it tidying up.
Your Poo-Tin joke lives on this page.
to illustrate
P.18
'97 '98
1997 & 1998
18 · Crows Back-to-Back Premierships
She'll tell you '97 was skill and '98 was her. Don't argue. She framed a man for less. Poppa barracked loudly, the striver's way.
to illustrate
P.19
2000
1999–2000
19 · Y2K
She started the whole panic for a laugh, then did precisely nothing — "just testing." Only Aunty Sandra took it to heart and stockpiled enough tinned spaghetti to outlast civilisation. They're reportedly still in the shed.
to illustrate
P.20
FOODLAND
the petty one
20 · The Silly One: Foodland
They moved the turkish-delight aisle. No warning. The Big Bang didn't get her off the couch; the plague didn't; a relocated shelf nearly did. Closest the universe has come to ending since she started it.
Your call: happy with Foodland as the silly chapter?
test page drawnyour call
P.21
2 July 2011 · the turn
21 · The Heir Arrives
After 13.8 billion years of not getting up, she got up. A girl — the first of her own kind in longer than she'd ever say. She put the remote down and became, simply, Nan. Lola: the original. The real thing.
to illustrate · needs a photo of Lola
P.22
73
15 June 2026 · closing card
22 · Happy Birthday, Nan
Today the retired goddess turns 73 — officially. From everyone — the whole family — who only exists because, across all of time, she couldn't quite be bothered not to make us. Walk it off, Nan.
to illustrate