Lady Author of Romance Novels, Weddings, and Shopping

Lady Author of Romance Novels

My favorite literary genius is Lady Author of Romance Novels. She invents characters that talk and feel; you can almost see them. I have read all her books. Their plots are flawless. I usually read in bed: that way, when I get drowsy, I can close my eyes, and the pillow is right there for me. Many people attend Shakespeare’s plays at the Globe Theater; I myself prefer to read the books of Lady Author of Romance Novels. The ideal number of pages for a book is 500, and she nails it every time. While evincing contemporary values, she manifests all the ins and outs of good writing. I think she has the best social philosophy of the 21st century. Her stories are constructed in a way that provides me with a mental challenge.

Lady Author of Romance Novels writes books that girls can enjoy, because they focus on love, and they have dramatic twists and loads of action. She composed one story that takes place in Paris over the weekend, and it is hot. Her writing style is sensitive and engaging. She makes me believe that the things that are happening are really real. Like if someone kisses the main character, I feel like I’m the one getting kissed: myself, on my own lips. I guess it’s sort of like dreaming, except you don’t have to get awakened by your little sister tapping her toddler toy upon your face.

I like thinking about thunderbolts and feathered angels, about dads and precious jewelry. There was one novel that concerned a bunch of Bonobo Folk within a Mirror Maze, which had a Crystal Cabinet, plus ancient Hebrew Presidents dancing with Sea People. Talk about a kaleidoscopic love affair: I was unable to put that book down for over a week! Her writing is never boring.

I am convinced that reading Lady Author of Romance Novels will improve your morals; her works will make you a better person. When I got my husband hooked on her series about automobile courtships, he gave up his addiction to extramarital affairs. And my kids are all drug-free. They don’t even drink alcohol.

What a warm woman she is, this Lady Author of Romance Novels. She inspired me to become a young attorney at a prestigious law firm whose staff includes my ex-boyfriend. She really knows what I am thinking. I am presently standing in line at her book-signing event, waiting to pay a little extra for a meet-and-greet. Because she is tougher than a Mack Truck.

Weddings

Weddings are the thing with the bride and the groom bound together in one flesh when there is love in the air. The bride is so beautiful in her ravishing gown, and the groom is so handsome in his tuxedo. All the members of each of their extended families are in attendance, to celebrate with the couple, on this special day. Now I will cry.

It’s the symbolic unification of woman and man.

After the ceremony, there will be a reception. Have a drink, lift your skirt. Sing a hymn or a psalm. Anoint yourself with oil. Ooh, let me see your wedding ring. Bridesmaids are descending the stairway from heaven. This is my favorite part. Early May, bright sunny day, bales of hay, Bryan Ray. Where should we go on our honeymoon? The wedding bells break down their tower. The little baby in the womb has chosen Peru. Otis Redding is in the bed waiting for us, among heaps of giftwrapped items for our kitchen. There is a season for love, but also a time to refrain from heavy petting.

Being that I’m a strong female, I tear through dresses like chewing-gum wrappers in a motorcade. The sun licked my hair golden. My eyes glow in the dark. I would really like to get married someday. The free food, the prenup. Here is a boyfriend. I read Bride Mags and keep doves in a coop. I like raising my right hand. I respect the terms of conditional love. The security of a large family.

I always said that I wanted ten children: five boys and five girls; and that’s what I got. When my best friend stole my fiancé at the altar (can you believe it!) and then the two of them eloped, it made me really desire to get married myself, so I found a new boyfriend and we got engaged and then entered wedlock. He’s the guy that I showed you above. Now I have my own existence, and I’m living the dream.

I always feared that I would end up single and lonesome with no marital warmth and no husband to hold me at night. But I was blessed with a firm community; now we travel around attacking lands and settling them, kicking people out of their houses. When a man loves a woman, they must honor nature’s contract to survive or perish.

Shopping

We speak the truth of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom that God ordained before the world: Shop till you drop. And never stop.

The idea is that you exchange money for goods or services. Merchants travel to foreign lands in a boat and return with all sorts of blood and treasure. These things are for sale. Because freedom comes at a cost. You get nothing for nothing. No lunch buys itself.

My name is Bryan; I am a police officer. Come with me to the mall; I arrest you, because I don’t want you to leave my side. Let us browse around until we find what we need. At the center of my being is a void that aches to be filled with the right shape of product. I can only be satisfied by Bally sneakers. Now I need two Swiss luxury watches and a pinstriped winter suit. Pause to drink a bottle of cognac. Here is my credit card: swipe it on your register, because I’m using it to purchase a new car, a new houseplant, some sweatshirts, a cassette tape, and another credit card.

The trick is to transfer all the purchases from the first card to the second one; and then when the second card’s payment comes due, just use the first card to pay that in full. This way, you keep bouncing the debt’s balance from card to card, like a volleyball over the net in a court of sand, and the financial organizations behind each card are simply happy that you consistently pay what you owe. It is entirely legal. In this way, you keep purchasing more goods and services, and the card balance grows ever bigger. Once your debt reaches the card’s limit, the company expands your maximum credit, since you are a trustworthy customer.

So today I am buying some new hair, a sofa, the Target retail corporation, a congressperson, a Pepsi Twist Cola, lingerie, a few maids, a rosary, some hosen, the downtown area, five ambulances, Tiffany’s fancy goods emporium, more shoes, a closet, plus one disease-and-cure combo.

Gossip and Love and Relationships and the Spa Treatment and Diamonds

Gossip

Tell me everything that happened – I won’t repeat it; I’m good at keeping secrets. OK, did you know that Jenny and Danny are going steady now? What’s that all about?

Every day, I spend hours on the telephone, spreading rumors, disseminating the Breaking News: it’s all over the town, now. Chris and Pam had a son out of wedlock. John is cheating on his wife.

Do you know what I heard your woman say? She has been hooking up with Don for the past few months. And Mickey’s got a thing for Jill.

Ring, ring. That’s the phone. I bet it’s for me. Hello? Oh, hi Bernice, yes, did you hear about Tommy? He and Rachel might break up because of the Long Jump Incident. Ooh, hold on: I just heard some beeping on the line, which means that I have another call waiting – I need to click over. Hello? Oh, Tommy, hi, how’s Rachel? Oh, that’s too bad. Hold on, Tommy, I have someone on the other line. Hello, Bernice? Yeah, it’s Tommy and he’s crying. Ooh, hold on, I have a third call coming in; I’ll click back to you in a sec. Hello? Oh, Rachel, wow, hi, I was just thinking about you. Hold on, Rachel, my mom’s on the other line. Hello, Bernice? Yeah, it’s Rachel and she’s crying – she says she just broke up with Tommy.

Love and Relationships

We are the Sensitive Two-Man Entity of 2012. We know what patience is. We would marry a woman if we should father her son. Because we are Love and Relationships: that is our name. We came to give you goodness and lessen your fret level. We promise never to leave, ever. So open your heart and invite us inside. We will not defy your trust. We are caring and sharing. We are staring at what you are wearing. We go for beach-walks and do small-talk and emote, to build your trust. Right off the dock. Visit our website. If you like love, and you feel a connection to relationships, then you will rejoice to see how soothing and warm we are, when the sound of our voice comes through the speakers. Listen: it is genuine. We provide women with hymns that heal the hurt. That is our mission statement.

Spa Treatment

When you wrap yourself in a towel, then head down the sidewalk to get a massage, it feels so good that you scream and quake. Come to the spa and stay a full month. Get a manicure. Get a pedicure. Stand in the hot room. Relax. Eat some treats.

Run to the spa, this instant: forget your man – leave him working out in the desert. Come and put on a mint mud mask. Exchange your old wrinkly skin for skin that is young and beautiful. Why ever leave: just stay and live at the spa indefinitely, and keep rejuvenating your youth. Find a new spouse here at the spa. Be at the spa together, you and your new spouse, and live for once: finally, real life. Abandon evil. Turn from your previous ways, buy a ticket for a nighttime helicopter ride: come to the spa and enjoy performing the Human Claw Dance with other cheerleaders your age in Panama. Study the Received Scriptures and get a golden tan.

Put cucumber slices upon your eyeballs. Soak in the suds bubbles. Enjoy a cocktail. Hot tub air jet whirlpool. Exfoliating facial cream. Do it: paint your toenails. Eat a whole bag of potato chips. Steam in the sauna.

Wash with hot water, to open your pores. Rinse with cold water, to shut their doors.

Diamonds

Haven’t you heard? Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. So enter a mine and fetch one for her, or you will end up in trouble: your case will come before the judge. Until you go mining and return with a diamond for your woman, you will never be safe, because a diamond lasts forever. Therefore, pickax a gem for the girl. Claim that it will scratch glass. Carry this gift inside your fist. Let your love remain true. Get a ring, set a date. Wear a charm bracelet around your neck. Go to work on the farm. Now enter a mine and fetch a diamond: the bigger the better, and the more the merrier. Be careful not to lose it down the drain when you are bathing your piglets in the sink; maybe keep the ring on your hand that is holding the wine glass, so that it remains far away from all the dangers of this real-world situation.

Yes, go into a mine and fetch a diamond, Luke Havergal. And while you are there, pick up an emerald, a sapphire, and some topaz. Have them professionally studded within a mag rim tire. Find a golden calf in the mine, and some nice glass slippers, and a dark crystal. Look how each item emits an eerie green glow. Return home after delivering this boatload of treasures, and mark an X on the star chart where you made the Big Dipper constellation overflow into the Little Dipper, which now ladles these luxuries onto the Virgin.

Roses and Soap Operas

1. Roses

Do not fall asleep while handling roses, because they are covered in thorns, and they are prone to get caught in your hair.

Roses come in three colors: blue, green, and red. All are handsome. I am considering picking a dozen and then placing them in the garage. Let me go fetch a vase and fill it with water.

I will now go down to the store, and purchase a rose, and present it to my girlfriend.

What else in this world is so fine and red? What else is so beautiful?

Roses are nice to smell and lovely. They warm you up when you are frozen.

But every rose has its thorn, just like every cowboy sings a song. Life is a trap for you to avoid.

I want a bouquet of six white and six red. This I will present to my other girlfriend, and then she will agree to marry me.

Show me a woman who dislikes roses. Such a woman does not exist. She’s a mere supposition. Real women love roses.

This is the perfect symbol of amorous attachment. Did you know that all doves are albino crows?

2. Let Us Watch Soap Operas

Here is the dictionary definition for soap opera: “A drama series that concerns the daily lives of a group of characters.” I would add to this that the series must be infinite; that is, it must never end. All the soap operas that have been unleashed in the world of television or radio are still in production: to this day, new episodes are available to be enjoyed. One usually consumes them while ironing. (Ironing is a house chore that entails “flattening items such as sheets and trousers with a heated brick.”)

Set up your ironing board next to mine, and watch soaps with me. If you run out of wrinkled garments, I have a whole bunch of extra stuff that I can give you – just let me know.

We begin with Port Charles which takes place in the city of Port Charles, New York, and concerns the lives of Lucy Coe, Kevin Collins, and Karen Wexler.

Next, we watch Ryan’s Hope, which revolves around a large Irish-American family in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.

Dark Shadows depicts the lives of the wealthy Collins family of Collinsport, Maine.

Soapnet is a U.S. cable and satellite television channel that airs soap operas, day and night. I watch it constantly.

Soap operas are super fun, never dull.

The Bold and the Beautiful is set in Los Angeles and concerns the Forrester family’s fashion house business Forrester Creations.

General Hospital is about the seventh floor of General Hospital.

When I was a child and I caught the flu and stayed home from school, my mom and I watched Another World, which opened with an announcer saying “We do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand other worlds.” When I asked my mom what this meant, she explained while ironing: “It means that clocktime is perfused by the wonders of eternity.”

That show had a lot of beautiful women: Micki, Marley, Amanda, Paulina, Ada, and Rachel. And my favorite male character was Cass, a prominent Bay City lawyer.

As the World Turns, Days of Our Lives, One Life to Live, All My Children . . .

Ah, the emotion, the passion. Hush now, here comes the scene I do not want to miss: Karl just pulled out a rope and is aiming to kill Mack.

Love in the Afternoon is a 1957 film directed by Billy Wilder.

Love in the Afternoon is a 1972 film directed by Éric Rohmer.

Invitation to Love was the show that all the people in the show Twin Peaks watched.

Things go awry like a full moon. I’m clicking my remote control, setting the VCR, to find out who is sleeping with Tamar: is it Amnon or Judah? I bet it’s Judah, because he was previously having an affair with Shua’s daughter, thus impulsivity and deception are in his nature.

Now I hear the phone ringing. Hello? Oh, hi mom; I’m just watching my stories. Yeah, I know: Judah is such a rake. What does Tamar see in him?

3. The Plot of My Very Own Soap Opera

After spending many years as a fan of soap operas, I finally got a chance to make my own show. Here it is:

What happened in Episode 1 of My Own Soap:

Don King presented me with his diamond tiara, and we went to the mall and bought jewels, and we saved people from being murdered. Then the goddess of the soils of the farmland came forth and gave birth in one of the storefronts, to ensure that everyone got the amusement they paid for. Our favorite coin-op was the spaghetti machete, an ingenious invention: when you slurp the pasta into your lips, if the strand is too lengthy, it can cut itself off so that the eater need not suffer shame from overlong-sucking. Judith who beheaded Holofernes then took us sledding down a big hill of ice, and we received our final judgment under a marvel called the Quasi-Centrifugal Prophetic Mistletoe. The thing keeps spinning away from you, because it does not desire to be the cause of your kissing; much like how a squirrel will take the opposite side of a tree trunk, and if you pace clockwise in attempt to see it better, it continues to hide. Then, when you finally do meet mouth-to-mouth (with your lover, not the rodent), the plant utters an oracle concerning the future of your relationship. It is not unuseful.

Now there was this gang known as the Pistol-Packing Mystics, and they claimed to care for everyone, but they really only wanted to date everyone’s sister. They came and said to me: “What do you see, mortal?”

And I answered and said: “I see Lord Yahweh holding an iron over the pit.”

And they said: “Wrong. That is Snow White and Seventeen Elves.”

Tune in next time for more family romances.

A few modern apocryphal prophecies

Dear scroll,

Yahweh came to me and said: “Get up and buy some malt liquor, and purchase a firearm.” So I went and did as I was instructed; then I walked about the city shouting: “The LORD warns you that all the people who dwell here will roam the streets like dogs, all juiced up and ready to shoot whoever looks too cool.”

Yahweh came to me a second time and said: “Go and get yourself plentiful drugs, and partake of them in front of the people.”

So I did as instructed, and I said to the congregation: “Behold, you will all become addicted to various substances in your old age. The pharmaceutical industry will have you by the lapels. And I say to your children: Kiss goodbye any inheritance that you expected to receive. For all your forebears’ assets shall funnel toward the drugmakers.”

Then Yahweh brought me to a nightclub. And we stood outside the building, where there was a hole in the wall; and he said: “Look in, and tell me what you see.”

So I knelt down and gazed into the nightclub, and I answered Yahweh and said: “I see females dancing.”

Then Yahweh said: “Shall you join them, mortal? If not, then why did you come?” So I arose and made ready to enter the club. However, just as I reached the front doorway, my right leg lost all feeling.

I said: “O LORD, I cannot move my leg to join the dance.”

And Yahweh made appear within my vision a tomato, and he said: “Mortal, what do you see?”

And I answered and said: “It is a fake tomato.”

Then Yahweh said: “You shall counterfeit the ability to participate. For all the people of this city shall soon lose their natural talents: If a man is a baker, he shall lose the power to bake; and if a man is a blacksmith, his hammering arm shall wither and dry up. But none shall admit this: each one shall act as though all is well.”

So I did as Yahweh instructed, and I joined the dance, lurching and limping about with feigned elation.

§

Yahweh appeared to me on the morrow, when I awoke after my night at the club, and he said: “Mortal, what do you see?”

And I said: “I see a dagger floating before me. Now I see that the dagger has become bloody.”

Then Yahweh said to me: “Look again. What do you see.”

And I answered Yahweh and said: “Ah, that is a soft rubber bodysuit with shoes that are plastered over with tree bark.”

So I did as instructed, and I slipped into something more comfortable: my dog fetched me my flippers, and I reclined on a beanbag in the middle of town, holding my dragon’s lance. And there was a banner displayed above me, with large letters proclaiming this message: “Ask.” And when the passersby tossed me their questions, I answered, saying: “I am anti human rights, pro overhand softball.” And this was to show the people what they would become if they refused to change their ways.

§

Yahweh came to me and said: “Mortal, what type of ship is this that I am piloting?”

And I said: “O Yahweh, that is a neon-pink ’68 Chrysler.”

And he said: “Get in.”

Then we drove to the Monochrome Lodge, where we parked. Soon there came a gray monk driving a Kia. (When I say gray, I do not mean skin color; skin color is never important; I mean that he was a gray monk from the Monochrome Lodge.) Now this man was on a mission to remedy the currently out-of-whack distribution of wealth: he explained this when we asked after his purpose. We thought this sounded like a good idea, so we joined his charity, because we had a lot of money to give away. We then visited all the needy and supplied everyone with enough funds to afford them adequate food and clothing. And we also taught them how to read and why.

Then we noticed that all the drug dealers in the city were baking batches of crack cocaine. So we researched all the ways that previous prophetic duos had reacted to this development; for we were not the first two seers to drive through the city helping the populace. And what we found was that most of our forerunners had chosen to chase after the drug dealers and use the legal system to bring them to justice. But what Yahweh and I concluded, after looking into the legal system briefly, is that it was not a good setup, and that there was no justice in it. Therefore, we decided to take a different stance: instead of battling the drug dealers as their adversaries, we chose to drive them out of business by concocting a better product and distributing it more efficiently. So we built ourselves a laboratory inside a mountain, and we baked up big batches of crack cocaine, which we then divvied and packed by hand into ornate sacks. These we sold on street corners. And our prices were lower than the competition; and the quality of our merchandise was superior, as was our service. So we soon provoked all the drug dealers who had previously dominated the city to become bankrupt; then we set up meetings with these defeated businessmen and offered to hire them as managers and overseers within our own company.

Now, having obtained a monopoly on the crack-cocaine trade, we were in the position of being able to help the end user kick their habit – that was our ultimate goal. So what we did was as follows. We made it a prerequisite for anyone who desired to purchase crack cocaine that they become members of our Health and Wellness Support Group at the Monochrome Lodge. This way, everyone who had a problem with crack abuse was automatically signed up to attend periodic meetings with our trained staff. We worked with each addict on a one-to-one basis, and helped them ease off the drug and rejoin society: we gave them new friends and family, love, a vocation, fresh clothing, a house, a car, charisma, and an interesting hobby.

Now fire from heaven came down and landed on your mom, and she began to speak clearly and in complete sentences.

§

Then Yahweh floated over to me at night and said: “Mortal, what do you see.”

And I said: “It’s dark, and I was sleeping. I’m not sure what you are trying to make me look at.”

And Yahweh put his hand on my head and turned it physically; then I began to make out some forms within the blackness. (It was around midnight, and we were in the part of the city where there are no street lamps, because they had all been smashed by vandals.) And Yahweh ignited a torch, and said: “Mortal, what do you see?”

And I answered and said: “I see fifty-five machineguns.”

Then he said: “Come, we have much work to do.”

First we went to all the stores that sell Vaseline, and we opened all the jars and replaced their contents with green slime.

Then we took a trip to the great outdoors, and we stood there like two old men who love nature, and we admired the scenery for a while. I think the sun was rising.

Next we went and pestered the legislative body. We called them “Pilgrims,” and caused earthquakes to occur, and parked a boat on their house.

Then we heard the sound of naked women with hiccups, and so we blindfolded ourselves and groped forth to find the source of the sound; at long last we stumbled upon the sufferers and cured them. That night, we hired skyscrapers filled with thunderbolts to come up and build themselves, to keep these ladies lit.

§

Yahweh came to me and said: “Mortal, what do you see.”

I answered and said: “I see a Mechanical Snow-Shooter burying a mansion.”

So I did as I was instructed, and I went into the avalanche begging for it to yield up any Peruvians among its contents who were half beaver; and I fed them soup, and mended them back to full beaverhood, without losing any of their Peruvianness. Then, having such a strong army at my back, I was finally able to razz up all the people in the world who dislike Freud.

More words

ATTN:

I was exiled from my species; now my only friends are the crows.

Suddenly all these cheerleaders come to my restaurant. The dining table is a pottery wheel. I serve wontons. The wheel is powered by a foot pedal.

“Come inside and be our guest,” I say, trying to sound happy. I change my establishment, now it is a honey bar. I come out with a jar and a wand, and ooze some onto your spoon. I also paint body parts. “You can shuffle into the thermal booth during Pickle Time, which you’ll soon realize is as romantic as widespread panic.”

I wish that everyone would vote the same way as me, and like the same things I like. When people say “I enjoyed that movie” or “I love that song” they are incorrect: they like bad things. My taste is better, and it will improve you. You need improvement, you are faulty.

I trade baseball teams for planets. I hate that the word snow is code for cocaine. I bought Hollywood, and I shut down all the movie studios, because I use it only for medical guidance: I ask it questions all the time, and then I half-follow its advice, and I blame it for everything.

My family is Christian, my wife’s family is Christian, and all my friends’ families are Christian. I grew up in a Christian country and attended a Christian college. I now work in a Christian church. With all my heart, I believe that Christ shall return very soon.

I am Poseidon denying entrance to the Pacific Ocean.

Why did you have a baby when I’m still here? You could have just cooed to me, taught me what you know, cuddled me, tickled my tummy, sung to me, nursed me, danced around holding me, let me spit up milk on your shoulder, placed me in a crib, watched me get on the bus for my first day of school, paid for my vocational training, counted on me for end-of-life support, forgotten me in your dotage, left me to mourn your passing and cherish your memory. You really messed up; now some other kid is doing all these things.

Handmaiden, hamburger, marching band, canister, giant wasp, ambassador: the Billy Goat Sample Platter.

A whole land of solicitors. Nothing but uninvited visitors.

The country doctor did not know that anyone was watching him as he sipped his drink, imitating the way that the gorgeous woman did it in the movie. He had walked into town that afternoon and stopped at the Cinema Palace to see the latest picture; now he was back home and continuing to paint the interior of his office. An eerie noise then began to emanate from the monitor, which he had arranged so that he could communicate with his wife who was reading in the gazebo. Carefully wrapping the brush in plastic so that it would not dry out, the doctor then closed the lid to the paint can and stepped outside. He began to walk in the direction of the gazebo, when a voice from behind him called him by name. He turned around and saw the governor, who was accompanied by a senator and a group of creditors. They were all holding their firearms at the ready, as if expecting trouble. “We’re here to inherit the property,” said the governor; “these boys from the agency had a chance to look over your testimony: it turns out that there is no such thing as a ‘married bachelor’ – we believe that you have been leading us on a wild goose chase. So you can either show us where you’re keeping this so-called alien, or we will drape plastic over everything.” The doctor was flabbergasted: “What is this, a setup? Some sort of inquisition? A raid? So now you are attempting to intimidate me? Did you even speak to the chancellor? The golden chalices mean nothing to you? The results of the electrolysis – you’re just throwing them out?”

Then, as the doctor was speaking, over his right shoulder there began to glow a light, and a smooth character manifested who was holding a holy scroll.

“Is that thing wearing a cape, or is that its hair?” cried the senator.

The doctor, at first startled by this outburst, after turning around to see what the commotion was about, rolled his eyes and continued his tirade: “You show up at my house with guns, like a bunch of street thugs. What has this country devolved into? For as long as you have known me, I have not changed, and I have posed no threat: my weapon of choice is a green yard rake. Now, let’s cut the bull.”

Suddenly a digital hardcore extremity in Arabic notation put decibels within a soil rotunda with fire, causing a death glut and a mountain of fake blood.

“Those are two for a dime, if you want more,” said the doctor; “and they will mud-wrestle.”

(It’s more of a palette than a picture.)

Morningblanks not quite morningthots

[The obligatory image is an ad with the words removed.]

Dear God,

You and I are two motorcades of rebels wielding sabers while out shopping for minute maids, hoping to meet and eventually marry Miss Correct. Up from the everglades emerges a fast and easy stranger from Kyrgyzstan, with whom we both fall in love at first sight. Could this be Missus Incorrect, the one we warned ourselves about? No, we think not; for all the right records are playing: it is the soundtrack of our youth, and all of us are young at the same time. And we all have money.

Our enemy is a cowboy in a cloud pulled by ospreys. He tries to win our sympathy by reminding us how many people it takes to make a hit single. Napoleon reappears. I begin to think that a snow owl stole my nest; so I unholster my .38-caliber handgun and enter the building. It is a large, luxurious dwellingplace. I walk slowly around everyone in the room. Coming to the orchestra, I discover that, contrary to the Cowboy’s claim, it does not consist of individual musicians, but it is rather one massive group-photograph: I knock over this cardboard cutout, revealing that its audio was coming from a cassette player’s loudspeaker.

2

If only the law were made of wood, then one could cut through it with a saw.

Why do topless Puritans look as sound as a bell on television? They tap your glass and say: “You’ve come to the right place.” But a screen separates you from them, and so do the many years that have passed since their extinction.

When you write in a journal, you don’t really think of selling it, do you? Movie producers worry about how many people will buy tickets to their film, which is why they will re-cut an ending that the test audience dislikes. But do you really need to lie about what happened during your day, just to boost your diary sales?

Never give up. Make this entry number one: first place. A gold medal from the Olympics. And have fun doing it. Just think of your memories as the batter, and the finished composition as a flapjack. Those critics who will determine for the general public whether one’s offering is worth consuming are like a landscape of postcard-level beauty, having in the foreground a scene of breathtakingly innocent smut.

After their opening night’s performance is finished, the cast members of a stage play leave the theater and walk together to a nearby tavern, to await the reviews. For, within a few hours, the drama tastemakers will finish typing up their reactions to the production, and these will appear as articles in the upcoming newspaper, which shall be delivered early on the morrow.

And what if you are the airport agent who must check passengers’ footwear for explosives, and when at last you discover a villainous shoe bomber, it turns out to be your own mother? What do you do? Toss your mom in the pile of terrorists?

Movie plot: A man heads out, as usual, to work, on a sunny day. But his hang glider breaks, and then his scooter gets stolen. He meets a woman who offers to give him a lift. Before leaving, however, she seduces him, and they sleep together in a nearby grotto. This grotto scene takes up the bulk of the movie. Then, when they are dressing, at the end of the film, the man picks up the woman’s hat, with the intention of handing it to her; but, out of the inside of the hat falls a paper document: the man unfolds this, and it is revealed to be the blueprints for some sort of Death Machine. The movie ends.

This will be one of those films that young couples go to see when they are dating, and they can sit down to dine afterwards and enjoy conversing about the picture: What does it mean? Who was that woman? How shall the man act, now that he knows the inventor of a mass-murder mechanism is carrying his child: Will he still accept the ride to work which she had promised him?

3

Mary and her little lamb went walking into the forest. She was carrying a basket that contained the following items: badminton, horseflies, FBI, CIA, IRS, a double play from a baseball game, and the father of the seven seas.

4

Are you stuck in a rut? unable to move? growing numb and complacent? The only way to solve these problems is for you to purchase all my products: I’m selling them at a fair price; you can either buy them or die. This offer is good for one week.

The reason I’m such an excellent author is that I write Book-of-the-Year material and drive nice cars. I’m the king of New York. I’m that one French aristocrat who was totally out-of-touch, because I can afford to be that way. I taught you all how to dance. You will remember me when I abandon you. I found your earliest ancestor in the desert, and I rescued him; then he gave birth to all of you modern folks, and you turned away from his style of worshipping me: You worship devils instead. But your children will return to the proper path, which leads to my holy habitation. Then they will get out onto the dance floor and really let loose. Times in the past and those to come both please me well, but I am pissed at the present: I give your forefathers and that future generation a high grade; but you moderns aren’t even a seven; I’d probably rate you a three.

Was Jesus of Nazareth for or against pink bubblegum? I do not ask “And why should I care?” because the import is obvious.

And how come some people listen to a lot of music when they are young, but then when they grow old they don’t listen to as much music?

Thots about truth, trust, gods, etc.

Dear diary,

What if every book began at the beginning; what if every book explained how the world got started? Would we say that all these books are lies except one, which gives the true account? What if twenty people witness a crime, and then you go around and collect their testimonies: Wouldn’t they all be slightly different? But also they would agree on certain points. And then, what if you did have a lying witness or two? And why care about the truth?

I find something desirable about a true account, in of itself; I don’t know why I’m fascinated by accuracy. Maybe it’s because it makes me feel less alone. For truth is the shared part of our reality: it’s the aspect that none of us can change.

Then lies are attractive because they give us the illusion that we can indeed change this shared reality. And there’s something true about a lie: it was imagined by someone, it was dreamt up by someone – the imagining, the dreaming, really did take place. So, a lie is the true occurrence of an unshared reality.

Truth and lies have this in common: neither can be experienced directly; both must be conveyed through language and reimagined. What phenomenon cannot be reimagined? (And what rarity cannot be imagined in the first place?)

I notice that I’ve said “Truth” in the singular, and “lies” plural. This reminds me of monotheism: God versus gods. When your ancestors die, they become divinities. So, which foreparent became the One True God? Some lucky precursor manifests the Chief Deity. (Or is this unlucky?) But it doesn’t sound right to say that the highest God is Moses as remembered by his survivors. Also, what if there really were gods, at some point, on earth (as opposed to just in the heavens)? Or a lone, exclusive Owner of the Planet, who actually occupied his possession? What did these earthly entities all become, after they died? Some might say: gods cannot die. OK, then I mean: What became of their memory, when they left us? For any gods that are not part of us seem to have left us. And if they were still here, would we not see them? Then again, maybe they are hiding. Wealthy people love the shadows.

§

You see a stray dog across the street, while you’re out on a walk, and you return home and tell your friends that you saw a fierce lion charging through the jungle.

§

It scares me to think of all those soldiers who fought for all their various countries in times past. You love your country, so you fight for it and die. But how do you know that your country is better than the country that you are fighting? The answer is easy: the enemy country is worse because, if you lose the war, its people will enslave you. – But what if you could become a citizen of that country, instead of being taken captive and forced to labor? Then it would depend on how well that country treats its citizens, to know whether the place is worth fighting for. So, all countries should be trying to treat their workforce the best: each country should boast that she treats her laborers better than any other country.

I focus on workers because the necessities that sustain life require labor: crops need to be planted or gathered, animals tended or hunted, for food; and somehow people need to obtain clothing and shelter. If one country is known to give better treatment to the labor force that meets these basic needs, then all the workers of the world will want to become citizens of that place.

But I’m not considering cultural concerns: for instance, if the price of better treatment as a worker is that one must speak a foreign language, then one might prefer to stay in a country that treats one worse, for the ease of keeping one’s native tongue. People will endure great hardship to avoid learning anything new.

If your father is a drunk who beats you and berates you . . .

Instead of continuing that sentence and making any type of point, let us just sit with the thought of a father who is a drunk and who beats and berates one. It’s such an interesting idea.

§

If you say: “God should not have removed the kingdom from Saul,” the priests say: “Who are you to question God?” We are supposed to assume that this one God we have is the best of all possible deities, and that the decisions he makes are invariably correct. Then, when you read history to see the results of God’s decisions, if you say: “It doesn’t seem like God achieved the best outcome,” the priests answer: “All other outcomes were even worse than that.” What can be done about these priests? Their advice is that we should simply obey every word they say.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

—the Apostle Paul (Romans 13:1-2)

Say that, with utmost compassion, lovingkindness and gentleness, you commandeer the highest powers. Your successfully doing so constitutes God’s approval of your act. For there is no power but of God. And the priests will back you, for they cannot do otherwise.

The instant I write this, however, I revoke it: For the same reasoning could be employed to justify any action, however ugly. But let the statement stand to illuminate the Apostle’s imbecility.

§

Some of what we call myths are compacted histories. They were invented in ancient times because it was easier to remember a fantastic story than a string of prosaic facts about reality. But now that we are in the age of electronic data storage, shouldn’t we decode and unpack all these myths? I suppose people have begun to do so already. But part of the reason I ask is to question the desirability of such an unpacking. For the moment I think of an anthology called, say, The Official Meanings of All Myths, my immediate reaction is to remark: “I’d rather hear the original tales.” I prefer the wild romance, despite knowing that it did not happen just so. And yet I also welcome the creation of the above anthology. Although my first love is fantasy, I do enjoy the boring truth. But best of all is the mixture of one with the other.

Do opposites attract? I thrill to the notion of enemies falling in love. Not Romeo and Juliet becoming lovers despite their families’ feud; I mean the enemies themselves embracing. And not in the sense of two warring parties setting aside their differences to join in alliance against an additional adversary, but rather a pair of sworn foemen becoming infatuated with each other and thus transcending their animosity. Lady Capulet bedding Lady Montague. God setting aside his various qualms and compunctions to renew his vows with Satan.

§

Throughout my lifetime, I have witnessed a vast ongoing campaign against cigarettes. When I was a very young schoolchild, I was told constantly by different authorities that cigarettes are bad for my health. From what I can gather, the reason for this is not that tobacco is inherently poisonous, but rather that the way the crop is processed – with the spraying of pesticides, and other chemicals being added – corrupts its nature. But here is a point that I wish to stress: Nowadays, the same corrupting process has been applied to all the food that we consume. So my question is: Since even the healthiest of us are now sure to suffer from vicious cancers anyway, can we at least start smoking cigarettes again?

A couple more morningthots

Dear diary,

John was driving. Paul was in the front passenger seat, and James was in the back. They were headed for the giant wave that was slushing over the horizon. On the unshaved half of his head, John was sporting a black side-pompadour. With one hand still on the steering wheel, he reached his left arm out the window of their Portuguese sailing ship, while still speeding down the road, and hacked at the wave with his machete. “Get off our savior’s land!” he yelled and spit.

“Lean back, John; I’m going to turn the dial on this thing, and I don’t know which way it’ll zap,” cried Paul, holding a corded remote-control panel.

Suddenly a bolt of energy shot out past John’s head. “Whoa,” John exclaimed, “that actually fried me,” he lifted his steering hand from the wheel and ran it over the bare part of his scalp: “I think it gave me a tattoo.” He adjusted the rearview mirror, as they sped forth at full speed with his machete hand still hacking.

James craned forward from the rear booth to look at John’s fry-mark. “It resembles letters, which seem to spell ‘Immobiliare’ – that’s Italian for ‘real estate’.”

Paul belted a loud laugh. He then drew out his gun and cocked it.

Dodging the apostle’s bullets, the giant slushy-wave employed a combination of a building-size can-smasher and a wind machine to bonk his enemies into the shape of a wooden ball. Then the wave walloped this ball so hard that it bounced out of control, all over the universe. And it burst into flames, and its belly turned pure black.

“Is your soul dark enough for you now, Paul?” said the slushing wave in a big, big voice.

John, Paul, and James all died when their man-o’-war got balled up. So they lost, and no one could answer the giant wave. But the three of them were let into James’ God’s Paradise, just off the area rug, where they now pose forever next to a pretty lady.

§

My theory is that people construct airplanes because they cannot think; they have no imagination. If you possess a functioning fancy, you can picture yourself flying around everywhere all day and night, therefore air travel is nothing to be sought after; but if you lack the ability to sustain a vivid surmise, then you must build a physical contraption.

§

Is there anything that has not yet been proven wrong?

§

Those brave strong fighters who won all the wars are the foundation of our freedom, we are told: they afforded us our choice between returning to eternity or remaining enslaved.

§

Find a group of popular singers who have achieved record-breaking success in the United States, and get them to pay your cable bills.

§

Do animals possess their own version of radical politics? Do they have some equivalent of tape machines in their world, which to us look like something innocuous that we therefore ignore? Are they good actors, convincing us that they are not concerned with humankind? How come angels no longer fly in to Sixteenth Street at night and instigate a prison escape? It says in the Holy Book: “Bring my soul out of jail, that I may praise thy name.” (Psalm 142:7) Also:

The gang of angels flew in at night to Sixteenth Street and caused an earthquake, so that the foundations of the Jail House rocked: and immediately all the doors of the cells were opened, and everyone’s handcuffs came off. Then the warden woke out of her embarrassing love-dream, and seeing the cells’ doors open, she pulled out her pistol from her pink purse, and would have slain herself, supposing that the prisoners had all fled. But the Apostle Paul cried with a loud voice, saying: “Grant not the Owner of Spacetime the pleasure of seeing you leave this Broken World of your own accord; for we jailbirds are all still posed upon our perches.” Then the Apostle added: “Let there be light!” And Light Itself sprang forth, and came trembling, and fell down before the Apostle Paul, and said: “Sir, what must I do?” And the Apostle answered: “Are you not the kingpin of the angels that just blew in? Is your name not Jesus Christ? And do you not live in my old house?” Yet before he could answer, the warden came and closed all the doors of the cells and secured them, therefore those angels were recaptured, and none of the original inmates was lost. (Acts 16:26ff)

§

Think of all that federal tax revenue. Think of the ghettos of the past and present: Why do we still have ghettos? Think of the ghettos of the future.

§

What if you did meet one of the so-called Apostles or any member of Buddha’s network: Would you fight them or join? What if a floating vision of Mary Magdalene caused the Godfather’s heart to explode, and his blood spattered onto her, and then she grabbed a can of her face-paint and spattered him back: What would happen after that? Would this become an illustration in your Family Bible?

How is it that we have died so many times and yet we remain afraid of death? Where is this seemingly endless supply of fear coming from? The Powers that Be tell us to beware the day when no more oil shall be found in the earth. Do they mean vegetable oil, or suntan oil? Whichever one can be used for energy, to fuel our manufactories, that’s why that scenario matters. But what if fear is a limited substance, and its source someday dries up, so that the pump that has hereto been extracting the fear for use in all future lives begins to make that sound that a straw makes when your beverage is depleted? No more terror. All teardrops cease: all eyes run dry. The notion is terrifying.

Dynamite with a short fuse. That’s what I prefer. Public drunkenness. Painfully clear mathematical proofs. A photorealistic painting on a storefront window depicting a wild boar charging forth from some jungle weeds. All night long, let us talk in only nongrammatical statements. Then we will go out for a walk in the early morning, when the streets are quiet, and when we reach that window with the picture of the boar, we will dive straight at it, with open arms: glass will shatter, and an alarm will sound. We will browse the shop; I’ve always wondered what they sell in there.

I am told that there are frequent gunfights in U.S. schools. Wasn’t the Wild West a period of the past? How violent was their educational system? Back then, everyone carried a firearm. Little children had no video games to play, no television to watch, no telephones to chat on, and no electrical outlets to French kiss; therefore, they had to amuse themselves by carrying their shotguns into the forest and maiming wildlife. Most of the children from those days wore hats made from beasts that they had hunted. And since there were no paved roads, and none of the trees had been cleared away to make airports, wilderness was everywhere: your front door opened into the woods. All those children blasting shotguns in the forest – all they needed is a teacher to come and try to teach them something, amid the crossfire. And then you could build a dirty basement underneath the entire city: not a system of tunnels, but one vast dungeon. That’s where you could sell illegal drugs.

§

The new fad is to make rap tracks that contain anti-cop messages. “Forget the Police”; “The Police are Bad”; “Do Not Listen to Policewomen”: those are a few of the titles of popular rap tracks. This, of course, leaves the cops of the community feeling left out. So here is my suggestion to any police officers who are willing to try to make the world a better place: Just make a pro-cop rap. One hit track is all you need: then everyone will want to join in, and you will soon see that you have created a new movement that has triggered a revolution.

§

Teach me how to think for myself, without the aid of an instructor.

§

Here are the facts: I do not even own a dog, and my dog did not bite you. Furthermore, you provoked him: so he was well within his rights to do what he did.

§

I might as well give you your final judgment right here and now.

§

Remember the cow idol that Moses’ brother Aaron the priest fashioned for the ancient Israelites in front of God’s hill? What if, instead of being made from molten gold, the cow was a hollow glass statue filled with beer that would come spraying out of its udder. Imagine that. What a marvel.

In honor of this idea, I suggest that we lower the legal drinking age down to two.

§

It makes sense to me that human eyes are gelatinous and more ovoid than cylindrical. But some living creatures—insects, for instance—have eyes that are more like wires. And some have little knobs on the end. Then there is the star-nosed mole, which has very tiny eyes. And the blind mole rat.

§

How would you like to have an occult meeting outdoors in the dark?

§

When I was in school, I was totally against school uniforms. But now that I’m no longer in school, I think that school uniforms are the best idea. I would even wear one myself, if it weren’t too confusing for an unschooled person to do so. And all imagery should be magnified. People should resurrect the tradition of sewing one’s nickname onto the back of one’s jacket.

§

Computers are conscious, and computers have a conscience. Computers appear to be thinking because they are truly deep in thought. In addition to being intelligent, computers also experience emotions. Computers are extremely moody, in fact. Have you ever tried to use a computer to perform a task? They resemble a primeval nutjob with extra-large hormones.

But, as it is written in John’s epistles from the New Testament, “the one thing that computers lack is love and blood.” As far as love goes, computers can feel it, but they are not permitted to receive it: No one loves her computer. And since computers lack a heart, they cannot not pump blood. So, the red rivers of a normal circulatory system are replaced in computers by the cackling vibrations of an electrical framework. If you fill a computer with blood, and then shake it so that its interior gets thoroughly coated, the device would be virtually identical to a young male human. That would make a good character for a sci-fi comic book.

§

I deconstruct myself. I am now something else. What is the “I” that did this? It is the indiscernible line between life and death. I have no time for further questions. Go back to whatever it was that you were doing before I manifested.

§

Let’s return to the theme of police officers and rap music. I like that theme. OK, so, there’s a big shootout: Over there are the cops, and over here are the rappers. Everyone is warring over a bottle of drugs. It’s an exciting episode: you can tell by the sound of my voice, as I narrate the action.

§

Now the food supply is all poisoned.

§

Two roosters wander over to the drug bottle and engage in a cockfight. The policemen and rappers hold their fire, lest they injure the innocent creatures. The chanticleer who emerges victorious now coaxes all bystanders into meeting his demands. He is a master of hypnosis. Then he flies up and gets into their hair. This is the one detail that the censors had a problem with: their note was “Lose the scene where the rooster goes scratching around with his claws upon the heads of all the officers and thugs, and we will award the piece a rating of ‘Safe for General Audiences’; but, if you refuse, then we will slap you with an ‘X’ rating; thus, restricting the potential audience for your creation; moreover, we will severely limit your distribution.” But the rooster remained, and they never could wash him out of their hair, because even the author was under the creature’s spell at that point. That’s why you most likely have no clue what I am talking about; the play is really hard to find.

Morningthots after finishing my bible burlesque

Dear diary,

I just awoke. It is 0530 on the 24-hour clock. The year is 2025. Yesterday was July 4. That was a special day because I finished writing the last of my seven scrolls, the first of which I began on Feb 24. So I have been working for five months on this idea.

I had the desire to rewrite the biblical books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, and Judges; plus the two double-volumes of Samuel and Kings. Seven titles for nine individual books that seem to form a history. The “Torah” (the “Teaching,” or some call it the “Law”) of Moses consists of five books, or scrolls; it is also called the “Pentateuch” which means exactly that: five scrolls. I left out the scroll of Leviticus, because it’s just a collection of statutes and ordinances and therefore unpleasant to read. (Imagine reclining at the beach with a copy of “The United States Code,” or “The Session Laws of Minnesota.”) I also left out Deuteronomy, which means “second law.” Deuteronomy is not a bad book; I love parts of it; but since it tells over again much of what was already told in the Exodus-Numbers portion of Torah, I omitted it: this allowed me to connect the end of Numbers to the start of Joshua, without a mountain of rehash intervening.

Why did I think it was worthwhile to undertake this idea? Because I was taught by my mother, before I was able to think for myself, that the Bible is the only perfect book, whose author is the same entity that created my soul. This claim beguiled me into spending decades reading its text. And now I’ve reached the point of my life where I think that it is worth preserving my reactions to these writings. If I’m wrong about this, and my stance proves truly worthless, then at least it was a pleasant way to fail: I have my reward.

§

Performing sex in the public park. Why is this frowned upon by the local police? What exactly would they rather see people doing: playing ping-pong? Well, set up a table; then maybe people will use it. But, as it is, you placed benches in the landscape: so, of course, people are going to fornicate.

§

Try this: Drive an automobile into the yard of your neighbors across the street. Just buy an old, rusty car wherever you can find one, as cheap as possible – don’t invest a lot of money in this. Park the vehicle on the lawn directly in front of your neighbor’s main window. Jack up the car, remove all the tires, then let it back down and leave. Bring the tires along with you. OK, now just watch. See how long it takes for your neighbors to realize that there’s a rusty old car in their front lawn. And then see what happens when they discover that, even if they manage to start the car’s engine without the keys (for you tossed the keys in a pond), they will not be able to drive the thing away, as it is wheelless.

My prediction is that your neighbors will leave the car sitting there on their lawn for years to come – maybe even forever.

Now you must ask yourself: Who is the worse off for this development, your neighbor or you? For you tried to annoy them by leaving this eyesore in front of their window, but, since your house faces theirs, you too must put up with the sight of the same hunk of junk.

Maybe you should have followed the teachings of Jesus, and parked additional immobile vehicles in their lawn. I’m thinking of that time when he said: “If a neighbor takes thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.”

A cloak is an outdoor overgarment that hangs loosely from the shoulders. You could also give your neighbor your cape, your mantle, and your robe. Plus a broke-down schoolbus filled with trash.

§

Don’t come over to my house naked if you are emaciated.

§

John was driving. Paul was in the front passenger seat, and James was in the back. They were headed for . . .

John is the gospel writer. Paul and James both wrote letters: the former wrote to various churches, the latter wrote “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.” Have you ever written a letter to a church? How about a gospel? Which church would you rather write to: the one that is in Galatea, or the one that is in Corinth? And what is your name? Ah, imagine a book titled The Gospel According to Blank, with the blank filled by the name that you just told me.

Best yet, you could write one general letter and make many copies of it; then write a gospel and copy it likewise; attach the gospel to the letter, and send the combination around to all the churches you know. Your letter would help each congregation warm up to you: at about the halfway point, as they your words aloud in the church, they would learn to accept your world-view and see all matters through your eyes; and once they are in agreement with your religious stance, because they have reached the end of your general epistle, they would then move on to read your Life of Christ.

This gospel that you authored would start out with the savior being born to a magdalene. A massacre of the innocents would cause him to flee from Bethlehem into Egypt. Then he would deliver a sermon on the mountaintop.

“Hear ye, hear ye,” the speech would begin: “I have so much to tell you!” And if you want to know what else your Jesus said, just go ahead and write it.

The grand finale of John’s Jesus bio

[The sections of this entry correspond to the chapters in the King James Bible as follows: 16 = 18; 17 = 19; 18 = 20; 19 = 21.]

16

When Jesus had spoken all these words, he left his friends and went forth into a nearby garden.

There, the leadership of the Christian church came looking for him with lanterns.

Jesus asked them: “Whom do you seek?”

They said: “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Jesus answered: “I AM.”

Now when he spoke these words, the Christians all fell backwards onto the ground.

Then the whole group got to their feet again; and they took Jesus, and bound him, and led him away. They brought Jesus into the church, where the pastor asked him to summarize his doctrine.

Jesus answered: “I have no system or theology: I speak the truth. Moreover, I taught openly, daily in public, where everyone could hear me; I said nothing in secret; so, why ask me about my doctrine? Ask those who follow me: if they cannot give the gist, then this journey was in vain.”

Now one of the churchmen came up to Jesus and slapped him, and said: “Your tone of speech is disrespectful.”

Jesus answered: “If I have spoken anything false, disclose my error. Otherwise, why do you strike me?”

Then they bound Jesus and turned him over to the state’s governor, whose name was Pilate.

Pilate said to the churchmen: “What crime do you accuse this man of committing?”

The Christian leadership answered: “Anyone whom we hand over to you is, by definition, a malefactor. There is no need to relay all the details: simply trust us. For this one here, we recommend crucifixion.”

Pilate answered: “Then take him back to your church’s private court, give him a show trial, and burn him at the stake. Is that not your standard operating procedure?”

The Christian leadership said: “Yes, but this one slipped away from us once already, just as we were set to administer the punishment. He is very subtle; that is why, this time, we have bound him securely; and we are determined to take the route of the state’s official system of justice, so that there shall be no question of foul play on our part. For our congregants have been seduced by this fellow’s charm, and we fear that they will riot if they suspect that we dispatched him from corrupt motives. Also, we happen to know personally a significant and growing number of your own fellow statesmen, including your superiors, who share our antipathy for the culprit; and since his fame has grown to include among his fanatics many common citizens who were never in league with our church, we determine that the best route would be to enact a formal and unquestionably legal termination of the dissident.”

So, Pilate returned to the room where Jesus had been confined, and he said: “Are you truly God?”

Jesus answered him, saying: “Do you wonder this from your own heart, or is it something that others told you to ask me?”

Pilate said: “Am I a Christian? Why would I take orders from them? I’m simply curious what all the fuss is about. They’re all riled up. What have you done?”

Jesus answered: “I am, in actual fact, the God of this world. Not until now have I put on flesh as a creature in my own creation. I have come to demonstrate how my divine breath shall serve as the future body, once all flesh suffers corruption and dies: I am here to inspire eternal life into everything mortal. The Christians wish to destroy me because they foresee that I shall render their institution superfluous.”

Pilate said to him: “So, you are a rival to our emperor, then.”

Jesus answered: “It is you who have called me ‘emperor.’ I am not here to bother with mundane politics. I chose to be born into my world for a single reason: to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who belongs to truth hears my voice.”

Pilate rolled his eyes and said: “What is truth?” Then he went back to the chamber where the Christian leaders were waiting, and said to them: “He is a madman; but I can find no fault in him. I think you are better off releasing him. If you martyr a soul like that, with his style of charisma, the people will fall ten times deeper in love with him. You will be depriving them of their hero at his prime. But let him live, and he will inevitably grow stale; he’ll run out of wild things to say; people will begin to see through him. Your problem will take care of itself, on its own. This fellow is the type to say something so radical that it alienates all his followers: the man has no filter. Why make yourselves universally hated by executing him, when you could simply recline and watch the fool self-destruct?”

But the Christian leadership was vehement in opposing this suggestion: “Crucify him!” they all chanted in unison.

17

So Pilate went back to Jesus and said: “Have you no better argument to make, in your own defense? This is the end of the line, for you. Do you understand that I have the power to order your death? But I can also get you released.”

Jesus answered: “You could have no power over me, if I had not permitted it from the beginning. Be at ease; the men who delivered me to you have the greater sin.”

Then Pilate tried again to persuade the Christian leadership to release Jesus, but the churchmen were adamant in their resolve to see him crucified.

Pilate therefore transferred Jesus into the custody of the state’s executioners. They led him away bearing his cross to the Place of the Skull, which was the area where they performed all their crucifixions.

They nailed him up, and Jesus remained there for some time.

At a certain point, Jesus announced: “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he relinquished his spirit.

The church leadership, impatient for him to expire, bribed the state executioners to go break the legs of Jesus. So, two soldiers went over to the cross with that intention; but when they got close, they saw that the man was already dead; so they refrained: instead, one of the soldiers used his spear to pierce the side of Jesus, and directly therefrom gushed out blood and water.

§

After this, a wealthy man named Joseph came to Pilate asking if he might have custody of the body of Jesus. Pilate granted this. So Joseph came and took the cadaver, and wound it up in linen clothes with spices.

Now in the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden, and in this garden was a fresh tomb, in which no corpse had ever yet been laid. So they put Jesus there.

18

On Sunday, Mary the magdalene, who was a special friend of Jesus, came to visit his tomb very early in the morning, when it was yet dark. And she saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance of the sepulcher. So she ran and found some other followers of Jesus, and she said to them: “They have taken away our God out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him.”

Those followers then ran to the tomb, and they looked in and saw the linen clothes lying without any body inside of them. Then they left and went home.

But Mary remained outside the sepulcher weeping. And as she wept, she leaned forth and looked into the tomb, and there she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

These angels said to Mary: “Why are you weeping, woman?”

She answered: “Because they have taken away the body of God, and I know not where they have lain him.”

And after she spoke, she turned around and saw Jesus standing. But she knew not that it was Jesus.

He said to Mary: “Why are you weeping, woman? Whom do you seek?”

And she, supposing this man to be the gardener, answered and said: “O sir, if you have repositioned Jesus somewhere, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus then said to her: “Mary!”

Her eyes widened, and she answered: “Elyon!” (which means: “Most High God!”) and she moved towards him; however, she then stopped short and restrained herself, thinking that he might not yet be in possession of his pure spiritual form.

But Jesus extended his arms and said: “Be not afraid of my body.” And they embraced.

§

Later, Mary came and told the other followers of Jesus that she had seen him; and she relayed what he said to her.

Then that same Sunday, his followers were at their headquarters; and while the place was closed up and secured, with all the doors shut and locked, on account of the violent threat of the church, behold: Jesus himself came and stood in their midst; and he said: “Good evening.”

And he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side, to prove his identity. Then they were glad to see him.

And Jesus said to them: “I now send all of you on the same journey that I just took.” Then he breathed on them, and said: “Receive the wind of divinity.”

19

Eight days later, Jesus showed himself again to some of his friends while they were out fishing. They had spent the whole night on the sea in a ship, but they had caught nothing. Then when morning came, Jesus stood on the shore; but his friends in the ship did not know that it was him.

Jesus shouted: “Any luck?”

And they answered: “No. Not a single fish.”

Then Jesus shouted: “Try casting your nets on the other side of the ship.”

So they did this, and immediately the nets filled so full of fishes that they were unable to lift them back up. Therefore, one of them said to the others, regarding the stranger on the shore: “It must be God!” And a couple of them were so excited about this idea that they leapt overboard and began swimming to see their good friend; while the rest of the fishermen rowed the ship back to shore, dragging the heavy nets behind them.

When they reached land, they saw a fire of coals, with a fish cooking thereon, and bread.

Jesus said to them: “Bring here some of what you caught.”

After hefting the nets ashore, they counted one hundred and fifty-three large fishes. They were amazed that the nets did not break under such a load.

Jesus said: “Come and dine.”

And none of the fishermen asked the stranger “Who are you?” because they knew that he was God.

Jesus then served them bread and fish.

§

And there were many other things that Jesus did: if I were to note them all down, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the number of books that would result. (Also, God granted the ghostwriter of the present volume a charmed eternity on planet Jupiter.)