Finding my admirer

Dear diary,

The war ends, and everyone who was fighting it now emigrates to America. The soldier who took me captive has brought me with him. His name is Zandow. He intends to make his living as a performance artist, calling himself “The Strongest Man in the World.” I am to serve as Zandow’s assistant.

After checking in at Ellis Island, we set out walking through the streets of New York. Immediately a policeman approaches us. Zandow hands the officer his business card and explains that he captured me in the war. The officer is pleased with this introduction; he welcomes us and allows us to proceed.

Immediately we encounter, hanging from the side of a brick building, an American Flag. Zandow salutes, and he nudges me to do likewise. I try to mimic him, but my arms are constricted by the life preserver from our boat trip that I happen to be still wearing. Zandow hastens to help me and, after struggling for a while, we succeed in removing it. I then pull a wooden oar from the leg of my trousers. Zandow snatches it and uses the oar to spank me.

§

Zandow arrives at the office of a vaudeville booking agency. He hands his business card to the secretary and gives a speech describing his act: “I begin by lifting the heaviest weights in the world, and I conclude by shooting myself out of a cannon.” Zandow holds both of his arms up and poses, flexing his muscles.

Meanwhile, I go out on the street to look for the woman who wrote me the love letter that I received while fighting World War One. All I have to guide my search is the photograph that came with the letter, and the name “Mary Brown.” However, each passerby who bears a resemblance to the photo angrily denies having anything to do with my situation. I am told repeatedly to get lost. One woman threatens to call the truant officer.

I then approach a robo-bellboy who is standing outside of a lavish hotel. I ask him “Do you know a girl named Mary Brown?” and I show him the picture. He scans the image and replies: “Yes, she passes by this corner every day.” So, happily thanking this fellow, I go sit down on the curb that he specified. There I wait.

Soon a blind woman comes walking along, tapping a white cane before her. She is identical to the girl in my photo. Following her is a small group of orphans; one of these kids addresses her, saying: “Miss Mary, tell us that story again about the Belgian soldier who won the war.”

The blind woman stops directly before me, unaware of my presence, and answers the child, saying: “Once there was a plain little girl who dared to love a brave, handsome soldier . . .” (Upon hearing this, I stand up in astonishment and mutely point to my own chest.) And she continues:

“But when that soldier wrote that he was coming to America, the girl stopped writing and hid; for she had never told him that she was—” (here she pauses while two tears drop from her eyes) “—that she was blind.”

I gasp: “Mary Brown?” I ask. The woman is startled to hear a stranger’s voice so close by. She turns and replies. I then start fumbling with the letter and the photo that I have been carrying, while explaining to her that I am that very soldier to whom she wrote. Her initial shock melts into ecstasy. I then take her hand and kiss it. I relay to her and the children all the adventures that I have endured while searching for her. Mary and the orphans listen in awe to my tales of swashbuckling and danger.

Suddenly, my boss Zandow stomps up and grabs my arm and says: “There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! You’re late! Come now, my big act starts in just one minute!” And Zandow the Strong Man drags me away. The group of orphans, however, chase after us, guiding my Mary by the hand.

§

We end up at a dance hall in the middle of the city. The stage is set: there are heavy weights and dumbbells arranged, next to a sign that says “ZANDOW: The Strongest Man in the World.”

The audience is restless; they have been drinking beer all evening; now they are impatient for the show to start. “Where’s the strong man?” they yell. The proprietor of the place is trying to keep everybody from rioting. When we arrive, the proprietor is at once angry and relieved: “They’re ready to tear down the walls – go, start the show!” he cries.

But Zandow chooses this moment to have a heart attack and die. He collapses in a heap on the floor. The proprietor takes his pulse and shakes his head; then he points to me and says: “You’re his assistant – you need to do his act. I paid for a strong man, and I’m going to have one. Get out there, now!” And he kicks me with his boot.

Bewildered, I stand onstage before the rowdy crowd. I curtsey. Then I try and fail to lift a weight that is labeled “400 tons.” So I perform a tap-dance routine instead. The crowd applauds; I curtsey again.

All the members of the audience raise their beer mugs and shout “Do the cannon trick!”

The stagehands wheel out a giant cannon.

I shake my head and escape backstage, where my owner Zandow lies dead on the floor. I kneel down and shake the corpse by its lapels, and cry: “I can’t do the cannon trick!” Then I let the body drop; and I put on my greatcoat and top hat, in preparation to leave.

From backstage, I hear the crowd chanting: “Come on! Get shot out of that cannon!”

I return to the stage and raise my hands to calm the audience. I carefully reposition the enormous cannon, aiming it straight at the crowd. I load a giant black cannonball. I pour gunpowder into the fuse hole. I light the fuse.

An explosion of smoke and fire levels the audience.

This act of physically eliminating the unruly crowd has immense reverberations. It restores peace to the city. The place is now no longer overrun with mobsters. Children play in the streets.

For my brave service, I am promoted to the position of police officer. Now I walk along a clean, orderly street, twirling my nightstick. I wear a bobby helmet and the official uniform. Up ahead, I see Mary Brown waiting for me under a tree. At first I shout to her, saying:

“Run along home, honey! I’ll meet you there when I finish walking my beat; for I am a foot-patrolling officer now, and I must do my part to maintain public order, prevent crime, and build community relations.”

On hearing this, Mary Brown looks sad. So I head over to her and give her a kiss; then, taking her hand, I invite her to join me, after all. She drapes her arm around me. We stroll lovingly down the street. As I keep staring at her with tenderness, I do not notice that there is a big chunk of concrete on the sidewalk blocking my path. I trip and fall flat on my face. The blind Mary helps me up. I dust off my uniform and we continue to walk, as the camera’s heart-shaped iris closes upon us.

Source: The Strong Man (1926)

A convo sorta

Dear diary,

How have you been? I haven’t talked to you in forever.

Oh I’ve been busy working; when you have kids, you never have any time: every day is the same: I take the kids to school, then I go to work, then when I’m done with work I go back to the school and attend the kids’ sporting events, then we come home and the kids go and play their video games while I prepare a meal, then we meet at the dinner table and fall asleep eating; and at sunrise we all wake up exhausted with our heads in our spaghetti plates, so I have to hurry and hose off the kids and drive them to school again, and of course I’m late for work.

Sounds rough. Have you ever thought of asking God for help.

God? who is that?

He is a spirit. He is pure love. He created you, and he wants you to be happy. If you ask for anything, he gives it to you. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of God.

Well, it’s true. What must I do to begin receiving my promised benefits?

Just pray.

Pray? What’s that?

You know: pray! Fold your hands, close your eyes, and say: “Dear God,” and so on.

OK, I’ll try it now. Dear God, please come and help me raise my children. And make my day job easier. – Wow, that worked: God is helping me dress the children in the morning. He is making us breakfast. He is entertaining the children while I drive us all to the school. Now he helps me get to work on time, and he helps me labor better than I am accustomed to doing. Then he gives me a more relaxed commute, when my workday is over. He helps my kids’ teams win their sports games. The teams of their opponents are humiliated. God then does half the work of preparing the evening meal with me, while also helping my children with their homework, and playing video games with them afterward: he helps them pass each level like a pro. Then God carries the kids in his arms and places them in their rooms, and tucks them into their beds, and reads them a story until they fall asleep, while I take a shower. Then God and I do the dishes together, and then we climb into bed, and God helps me to fall asleep, and he keeps the house safe all night. When a coyote comes wandering outside our window, God destroys it. This is great. Thanks for telling me about God.

No problem. When you know about something that might help someone, why would you keep it a secret? Since you found God so helpful, I might as well ask: Have you ever met the Devil?

The Devil? No. Who is that?

Not who but what. The Devil is a huge machine that produces spacetime and causes everything to function.

Sounds rough. Why would I want a Devil in my life? Should I pray to that, too?

No, don’t pray. Stay away: flee from the Devil. If you see a massive contraption coming your way, nicking off instants and spreading reality, ask God to protect you. That’s why I brought up the Devil; I thought that if you were unaware of it, I could help you avoid a pitfall.

Jeez, thanks. Yeah, I asked God, and he threw the Devil into Tartarus for me, so it should not be causing any trouble until it finds a way to escape.

Good to hear. Now I’m heading off to fight in the First World War. May God be with you.

May God be with you, too. Thanks again.

Ah, now I’m finally alone in the battlefield, as I desired from the beginning. Bombs are bursting, cannons firing, troops are marching over the hillside, with airplanes flying overhead.

I am aiming my machine gun and shooting point-blank at a can of beans, but I cannot hit this target. So I set down the firearm. I toss a rock instead, and it knocks over the can.

An enemy soldier pops out of a trench nearby and shoots my shoulder with his pistol. I counterattack by tossing very hard crackers at the man. One of them hits his chest; he drops his weapon and gasps for air.

I throw an onion, and it hits this soldier’s face. He rubs his eyes; then puts on his gas mask and runs away.

One of my countrymen who is fighting on my side now comes and delivers me a letter – it says:

Dear Sir, I hope you are well. My heart is warmer for knowing that I have a friend who is a brave soldier from another nation. Since an ocean is fixed between us, and we are never to meet, I have the courage to put my heart on paper like so: I love you, I love you, I love you. From: Mary Brown.

This makes me smile. I bring the letter near to my face and inhale its aroma, then I delicately bite the paper.

When sliding the precious letter back in its envelope, I notice that there was a photograph included. Mary Brown is beautiful indeed. I run my fingers over her image and sigh.

While I am doing this, the enemy soldier who attacked me earlier sneaks up behind me and seizes me with his hands. He carries me away as his personal prisoner.

[To be continued . . .]

Aimless juvenile rambling comedy parable

Dear diary,

God came blazing out of his cloud and set fire to our town. He was spinning round and saying: “Worship me. I am a man made of fire.” And he had red hair. And his army was with him, and they had fiery tongues, and they smelled like sulfur, and there was smoke coming out of them.

Then a counterforce of extraterrestrials came down in pods from the other heaven, and they began shooting green slime at the angel army of God, and they put out the fire. Then God’s red eyes shot out laser beams at the aliens, and he used his wand to spray smokey dust at their ships.

The two sides then agreed to settle their differences by playing games of billiards. So the best billiards players from God’s army and the alien invaders came forward and met on the battlefield, and they established a table where they could compete against each other.

Then a technology and consulting company stepped out of the year 1911 and named itself International Business Machines Corporation: it looked like a boxy computer with legs to walk on. It beat everyone in ten seconds flat. It was good at billiards. It played with ease; it did not need to stop and think, or to make any plans. It did not talk, it did not drink or eat food, it did not fall in love. But some of the angels fell in love with it. But the computer arrested them because of the feelings that were in their hearts. Then the machine in its mercy allowed both groups to fight a rematch on the chess board. “I will even win against you with my queen tied behind my back,” it said. And it did this. Then it hypnotized everyone with geometrical slideshows that it projected from its belly. And it tested its skills in drawing up equations against God Almighty. God dreamt up a wild formula, which contained a riddle somehow coded inside of it; but the computer solved it with embarrassing speed. “You’re a rollerskater, I’m a rollerblader,” it said. (That was the riddle’s answer.) And God slammed his fist down on the table in disappointment, demonstrating very poor sportsmanship. And he caused the lights for the numbers on the scoreboard to flicker and malfunction, so that the display was obscured. Then God whipped up a great wind, and he forced the supercomputer to change bodies, and he made the thing into a little girl. Then God took two planets and brought them closer, so that they more than doubled in size, and he tossed the computer girl between them, and the combined force of their gravitational pull caused the computer girl to hover in space rather than falling toward either of the two surfaces. Then God traveled backwards in time and possessed the body of Alexander, the student of Aristotle, and when he came back to the present moment, he was a mighty commander who knew all about conquest and philosophy. He stood watching the computer girl in the outer darkness; she had grown and was now a lady.

“I like the way she moves,” said God as Alexander, standing there mesmerized, next to his warhorse on the battlefield, just watching the computer lady float in the outer spaces. She was vibrating like an object riding in the bed of a pickup truck when the vehicle is driving over rugged terrain, because of the competing pulls of the planets that flanked her. “I wish the jitteriness were smoother, though,” said God as Alexander, “so that it would look not so much as though she were going to explode. It should appear more like she is in the groove of a powerful mood. More rhythmic than buzzy.”

God flew up into the sky and addressed the computer woman. She remembered him. She asked how long he planned on making her wear this feminine physique.

God, answering the question he wished she had asked, used his storm winds to part the sea on the earth, which appeared like a gash on the globe when viewed from their position, high out and above in outer space. It looked like he had given the planet a sword wound.

This left the lady unimpressed. She stretched out her hand, and the waters closed back up, healing the gash. Now God blew smoke out of his nostrils and caused all the oceans of the earth to catch on fire. Then he flew away.

“What happened up there?” asked the captain of the angelic army, when God as Alexander returned. “We had just begun to travel on foot through the dry pass, but it slammed shut atop us, and half our forces drowned. Was that your intent? Our attempts to rescue the troops from the flood were thwarted when the deep caught fire.”

“You just can’t get the time of day from a girl like that,” said God in explanation.

The captain of the angelic army was at a loss for words.

“I’ll employ Rescue Cat to get those men back that you lost,” said God as Alexander. Then he summoned the colossal demon named Rescue Cat up from her bed, and she sprang forth and shot out radar spells to find the drowned soldiers. They all had red hair: that’s how she knew that they were from God’s army. There were other soldiers drowned in the sea, the depths had covered them too, but Rescue Cat left their corpses at the bottom and did not resurrect them, because they belonged there. Like I said, only the red-haired troops got revived. They were brought to shore in large nets, and Rescue Cat used her paws to help the drowned soldiers expel all the water which had clogged their lungs.

During all this work of salvation, lightning was sparkling from the fangs and claws of Rescue Cat. And she waved her tail fast to start a hurricane. Then she flew in the air. And wherever the land was so dry that the crops needed watering, Rescue Cat caused the sky to rain. But anyone who tried to stroke the belly of Rescue Cat as she passed by overhead would be afflicted with the Antonine Plague. Also, they were given leprosy and sunspots. Then, when Rescue Cat had to land, she landed on all four paws, every time. And if there were villains nearby, she would scratch their flesh; and the scratches would become infected.

Now the aliens from earlier converted their space pods into milk saucers, and they fed the Rescue Cat; therefore the Rescue Cat rescued them, as well, and she brought them back to their home planet, on her back. And her claws were longer than the claws of any other feline superhero.

Rescue Cat mended the relationship between God’s army and the alien forces, and she also convinced the computer lady that hated God to give God a chance. So all these former enemies now squeezed into Rescue Cat’s red hotrod and drove around together at night. They called themselves the Community Action Squad, and Rescue Cat served as their leader. She wore a bright badge, and anytime the crew encountered an unknown man on the street, Rescue Cat would shine her flashlight in his face and ask if he would be interested in receiving a free lifetime membership to the Action Squad. So, this is how they gained so many new followers.

They did a lot of community service. Rescue Cat would drive the red hotrod to a random neighborhood and park. Then God would get out and walk up and down the block: this would cause the residents to feel terror. Then God would steal all their rare particles and scientific plans. One time, God shook the whole city until not a single citizen was left standing. Then Rescue Cat came out and helped everyone get back on their feet. God wore spiked boots and a metal skirt. And for weapons he carried a huge net and a wooden phaser. (A type of sci-fi stun-gun.)

That is how God became the owner of this whole other planet, in addition to Earth. He used his fists of stone, and he spent his credit cards right: this gave him a clear advantage.

Every Saturday evening, Recue Cat would take the aliens and angel-army of the Community Action Squad out to the dance club. They would all put on their dancing shoes and go dancing. And God would blast everybody in a dance-floor fight, while yelling: “I’m immortal.” Then he would open up a warp hole in space and invite medium-sized turtles to crawl through, and they would grope around mediocrely. Then hermit crabs would creep out other portals in space nearby and taunt the turtles, saying “Come out of your shells, you green foes; we will tear you up in a battle.” And God would give his turtles laser batons to help them win, and he himself would use his wooden phaser to shoot at the hermit crabs when they began waltzing. And when his stun beams ran out, he would throw rocks. God also taught the turtles how to dig tunnels down through the floor and pop out right underneath you.

Then the Community Action Squad went out looking for love. They searched everywhere, with no luck. It was too high to reach. “That’s the limit,” said Rescue Cat. “Girl, come here,” shouted God. Then God turned to Rescue Cat and said: “Rescue Cat, rescue her.” “I can’t,” explained Rescue Cat; “not at that distance: it is dangerously far away.” “But were you not created to act selflessly?” argued God. So Rescue Cat embarked upon the mission.

She strode through the part of the Gulf of Chaos that no one had ever gotten past before. It almost made her lungs collapse. Then she advanced further and swam in the Bowl of Punch, and she took a few licks as she went; but when she came to the Venom, she held back her tongue and used her willpower to refrain from tasting it. This helped her to avoid dying. But it could not stop her from crying: the stress of the journey brought out strong emotions in the Savior.

When Rescue Cat reached the damsel who personified Love for God, she asked her: “May I act as your nurse and bring you soup on rainy days?” Love bowed and granted this request, but she specified that she did not desire to be worshiped; she was made uncomfortable by Rescue Cat’s stargazing manner: “I’m only human,” she said, “even though I have twenty thousand valentines.”

So, Rescue Cat won Love’s hand for God by promising to give money back to the ghettoes of New York City, Chicago, and Detroit.

“Thank you so much for winning this prize for my heart,” cried God, when Rescue Cat emerged from the dark slime of the Gulf of Chaos with the damsel on her back.

“I did what anybody else would do,” said Rescue Cat. And she added: “I don’t think I could have done it without that generous budget that you gave me. Plus it helped to have the support of such a big crew.”

“Any injuries?” asked God. “I’ll get you mended.”

“I dislocated my kneecap, at one point, when I jumped up and then fell down in the Gulf of Chaos,” said Rescue Cat, “but I’m already better. I had to use a crutch to help me navigate the rest of the obstacles, but Love still accepted me: she was very nice. However, right before we began our return journey, I tipped back too far on my crutch and fell and broke open my skull, and my brain fell out; so, we had to clean my brain off and cut part of it out, and that was the part with all my knowledge about rescuing people, and it also contained my courage; therefore, I assumed that I would need to find a new occupation; but Love did not allow me to descend into poverty and homelessness: she established a fan club for me, and those admirers then helped me out of this crisis: they sent lots of donations, which paid for a percentage of my hospital bed; and now I’m even better at rescuing than I was before the accidents, because I used all the time when I was laid up to read books, which restored all my braveness.”

Rescue Cat was staring at the ground while she relayed all the above info; then, when she was finished, she looked up and saw that God had tears in his eyes.

So, God got married to Love, and they had twelve children together, and they all lived happily ever after.

Heaven, part 3 of 3

[Cont.]

I’ve never witnessed any gangrene amputations here. I can’t recall ever seeing any resident lacking any functioning organ. Everybody appears to be in the best of health, both physically and mentally. Sometimes one’s memories fade, but that’s only after millennia; and if you ever forget your name, it’s printed right on your ankle bracelet.

The Devil is locked inside of a big flame in front of City Hall, so you don’t need to fear his temptations.

I repeat: there is no sickness, pain, or death in Heaven. There is no torment. No shortness of time. You never hear anyone moaning in agony. Nobody is driven insane. No one ever loses a loved one. Everyone cares about everyone here. Everyone is your friend. It may sound trite to say that we’re all one happy family, but it’s true; and it’s extremely beautiful to experience. There are no lonely places; no secluded pools where one can drown.

And you can ride from any given place to any another, very fast, despite this being a sprawling country, by simply taking that train that I told you about.

There are no putrid smells because nothing is putrefying. Nothing is charred because nothing got burned. There are no dead bodies piled up everywhere, because nobody committed that many homicides. No airborne attackers because there’s no war. All the bombs and grenades are locked away, and only God has the key.

There are magic forces in Heaven, but they’re all good: none are evil curses. The pestilence is not contagious. There is no mind control. No invisible crises to panic about. No aerosolized viruses. No weaponized mosquitos. I’ve never seen anyone vomit. All the food is really good here. There’s no human waste in the streets; neither is there waste from horses or dogs. There are no bird droppings on the statues. No one has a shy bladder, or problems with incontinence.

All the faces are pretty. Nobody has enormous boils. People don’t suffer from dizziness. No bus ever hit anyone here: the drivers are conscientious. No one’s brain ever exploded with insect eggs that all hatched at once.

The faucets all dispense crystal clear water, not blood. There is no Frog Plague, at least not that I am aware of. So there’s no messy slime on the floor, to make you slip when you step out of the bath.

That scene from Psycho, the 1960 film where the woman steals cash from her employer and then stops at a secluded motel – that would never happen here.

If there were ever any metal killing chambers in Heaven, they have all been transformed into places where one can sit alone and drink. And they all have free wireless Internet now, so you can use a text-message interface to chat with other friendly strangers online.

One time, my friend and I got locked inside a metal killing chamber, and we thought that we were going to die, but we escaped. This was back on Earth.

Everyone is sympathetic here in Heaven. If a fellow citizen happens to notice that you are crying, that person will come over and cry with you, until you are done.

Every park bench is equipped with a button that you can push: this causes the ground in front of you to open up, and a platform rises on which are displayed various plastic models: these are old mannequins from storefront windows; they are dressed in styles from the past; you can ponder their appearance.

Somewhere in Heaven hangs a painting depicting that place on the grass where a fight once took place. (Since conflict is rare here, this is a cultural memento.)

The most you ever will need to wait for anything here is thirty minutes.

Cowboys from Hell came and took the baby from the manger. They tossed it into the well, but God got it back.

The screams here are always only screams of contentment.

§

The spiked walls that move around are for making large batches of pasta.

The water here in Heaven, as I keep mentioning, is crystal clear, so it does not irritate your eyes like the chlorinated swimming pools on Earth; therefore, your eyes will not sting after taking a dip. And there’s a lake-sized tub to swim in, which is not dangerous.

If you see people wearing hoods, it’s not because they are planning to steal from you: they are only protecting their head from the rain. And the rusted circular saws are for gardening.

There is a furnace for baking bread. The clamps are for securing lumber, when you need to saw logs.

The lever that you can pull causes a battering ram to appear. It weighs twelve metric tons. It is made of cold steel.

If you go into the wardrobe area of Heaven, you can get a cloak. Take it and wear it: it’s free. It can make you invisible.

You can get your teeth fixed, if they are less than perfect. Say they’re not white enough: you can get them whitened.

Heaven is great because you never run out of breath here. You can run as fast as your legs can carry you, for as long as you like, and you will not feel winded. There is a lot of farmland here.

Call for help, wherever you happen to be, and someone will fetch you. They will make sure that blood is not gushing out of your body. Even if you do not have a deep puncture wound from a spear, concerned nurses will attend to you. They will go so far as to put bandages on perfectly healthy skin, which has not a scratch on it, just to be doubly sure that you don’t bleed out.

If you ever close your eyes and hope to die, Jesus will talk you out of your dark mood. Even though he is Heaven’s king, he will take time out of his schedule to do this: always. You are his priority. (If the citizens are not happy, this reflects poorly on their leader.) Even if you speak so softly that no one can hear you, or if you pray only inside your mind, without moving your lips, the man will respond.

You never need to drag heavy chains around behind you in Heaven, because your shackles all get cut off with a hacksaw from the moment you enter. And the streets are all gold here, like I said.

You don’t need to step gingerly around suspicious looking places, such as spots of ground where straw or corn is scattered, because there are no boobytraps in Heaven. No one is trying to entangle you in a snare, or snap your neck.

§

It is true that the blood of Jesus Christ can be used as a cleaning agent, however strange that sounds. So there is a fountain of blood in the center of town, and women are encouraged to go there and bathe.

All the little children that went to Heaven are grown up now. There are no “minors” or underage persons here: everyone is mature.

Are there mice in heaven? Maybe so; but I’ve never seen any. If there are mice here, then they keep out of sight and never make any noise. I’ve never found any signs of them; there are no nests or pellets. Maybe they’re just extremely clean. They might have their own little corner of Heaven where they all live. I know there are elephants in the eastern region of Heaven. Maybe the mice are all out west. But I’m sure they wouldn’t want to share an afterlife with humans, anyway: they are as scared of us as we are of them – and they dislike the way we smell.

And I forgot to mention: You can use the crystal water of Heaven to remove stubborn stains.

A tornado comes through only once every ten years; that’s how safe this place is.

If anything gets atomized, God can put it back together. There are television screens located strategically throughout the public places, in case we all desire to watch a show together, such as a holiday special.

We sing a lot, too. There are real jingle bells here, shaken by real Santas. (“Santa” means “female saint from Spain or Italy.”) And reindeer are employed to deliver presents to good children on Christmas Eve. As I explained, these children have all entered adulthood, by now; but they are still good, thus they still receive their gifts.

Nothing ever becomes mangled or eradicated. Nothing ever goes rancid.

There is never a group-execution of thousands or millions of people. No one ever gets “bumped off.” (We no longer even use that phrase “bumped off” – I’m not sure what it means.) So, there are consistently low national carnage statistics.

We use fresh cloth to wrap cheese. Delivery trucks don’t smash into each other. There’s no mass hysteria. The sky never rains harpoons. There’s never a worldwide shortage of celery. No weeping, no gnashing of teeth. We always have enough hamburger meat to get us through the winter.

This is a place of revival and hope. It contains many brainwaves of multiple colors, if you could see them. A machine at the center of City Hall helps you breathe, and it makes sure that your heart keeps pumping. The neurotransmission rates are off the charts, here: everyone has a very sharp response to stimuli.

There’s a lot of fun to be had. If anyone goes braindead, you can just pull a cord, and the system resets: it’s like switching on a lightbulb.

Keep the doors shut, and all the rooms remain a comfortable temperature. There is a pyramid with a bed inside, where God sleeps. The only time anyone ever wakes up with a knife in their head is on Halloween, most likely as a prank.

Your bloodline never freezes inside your veins, or else that machine in City Hall will just thaw you out. Jesus also can help.

If a vehicle ever goes spinning out of control, there is a golden probe that levitates over and uses magnetism to soothe everything. And broken glass is swept up immediately. If stitches are ever removed from a cut, you can never tell where they were, because the flesh heals flawlessly. And if you happen to see snake-headed witches, they are always very nice; they have an excellent bedside manner.

Unlike on Earth, the labs in Heaven keep human eggs in their own container: they do not mix them with the fish eggs. This is a better way to do things. And they also use separate bottles for propane and Novocain.

The zombies who cannot resurrect are put to sleep in ornate caskets, and they are given a respectful burial. No one knows why zombies exist. If God can solve this enigma, he will bring them back from being undead (or half-dead, or whatever it is), and help them to walk and talk with suave normalcy again.

Here and there, you will find grapes in baskets. Take and eat them: that’s what they’re there for.

And unlike earthly justice, we do not practice capital punishment; in Heaven, God forgives without torture. So, that is not our King Jesus hanging on the cross: that is only a straw man, also known as a scarecrow. Crows are the only creatures prohibited from Heaven.

Heaven, Part 2

[Cont.]

When the cops find bodies here, it is never a bad thing. Everyone celebrates the return of a citizen whom we thought had wandered off and gotten lost. Heaven is big. There’s no danger, but we all like to stick together. It’s more comfortable that way. Humans are herd animals.

No more violent assaults ever happen, as they did so frequently on Earth. The only thing that gets shredded here is paper.

All evidence is always good: it always solves the crime; there’s no forged evidence or false evidence, or evidence that has been tampered with. That’s why all court cases are closed: they’ve all been solved.

There are no ditches where random murders occur. Here, murder is unheard of. And the ditches are kept clean; none of them spoil the look of the landscape.

There is no hellfire to ignite your body and then spread to your friends, family, and neighbors. The fires all come from God, so they are friendly. They do not want to destroy you; they want to warm you and give you light to read by. Reading is big here.

I once saw a heavenly resident lying flat on the ground, covered in what looked like blood. I screamed and fainted, but the fellow revived me and proved that I had jumped to a false conclusion: he explained that he was only bathing in a favorite type of red pastry filling, which on earth his parents had forbidden him to eat; so here in heaven he enjoys dousing himself in the substance and just lying on his back, with eyes closed and tongue protruding, basking in the scent and the feel of the dessert.

The cudgels and bludgeons and truncheons here are just for show. People carry them only for the sake of style, the way that folks will wear non-prescription spectacles, or use a cane not to help them walk but because it looks spiffy and is equipped with a hidden switchblade.

§

The landscape is beautiful in heaven. Everywhere, there is hot oozing steam. Instead of narrow mulch beds lining the foundation of houses, there are rivulets of obsidian.

No hard labor need be performed: all the construction work is accomplished; people can just relax and enjoy life. So, since there is no further use for metal hammers, they are displayed as decorative accents throughout the architecture, like the cudgels and truncheons.

There is a massive sign that says “No Exit,” which is seventeen miles high.

Anvils are positioned throughout the air. They hover; they pose no threat; they will not fall.

Here, everyone is modest and chaste, but not on account of any command, law, or social pressure; people are naturally inclined to abstain from lustful activity, and to sublimate what formerly were their sensual drives. Therefore, with the purest impulse from their own heart, everyone desires to maintain their virginity (which state is restored to each soul upon entering the premises).

And the garbage cans do not hold trash: they are where you deposit fruit that happens to fall from heaven’s trees.

§

Tattoos were popular on Earth, but here in Heavan they are almost never seen. If you want to display some imagery upon your person, you can just get a necklace that has a plate of gold attached, which you can wear at all times, and the gold can be engraved in any manner that you specify. You just work it out with the cherubs who do all the etchings. Heaven is home to many of the finest artists.

No soul slices her wrists here, even if she thinks that she cannot resist doing so. Each soul always finds the willpower to withstand the temptation.

There is a list of all the residents of Heaven, on a golden plaque.

None of the animals have rabies. There are no violent slashers. Nothing is destroyed by acid. Flying metal projectiles are not a common occurrence. Instead, ladies with children populate the environment.

Even the villains are kindhearted. Employers are generous: none of them cheat you out of your wages. There is a lot of vacation time.

§

If your feet become cold, you can put them into these slots that can be found positioned every few paces along the roads of gold, and they serve to warm you up. There’s probably a heater inside them, or something.

If your flesh does happen to get torn, or if any pain grows too intense, you can always call the king, whose name is Jesus, and he will heal you and administer anesthetics. And every soul is allotted forty-two wives, all thrilling and vivacious, to act as one’s personal friends and helpers.

You need never fear a tetanus infection, because there are no bacteria in Heaven. All the bacteria went to Hell.

You never see any sick rotting mutant undead limbs writhing on the dirty ground, so you never need to tie them down with ropes.

And the light is always provided by God or his Son; or the New Star that he created to preside over the Solar System, which replaced his old Sun. For this reason, it is always bright enough, even indoors, to do any type of painting or cinematography: there are no cramped rooms that are shallow and dim, or reeking dungeons or wet basements. Unless you specifically request the construction of a dark closet, so that you can have a place to develop your own photographs. God will do that. He wants you to be happy.

There are dry bones in the desert, but these are not from former residents: they were created as part of the décor; like dinosaur skeletons were, in the Earth. But the dinosaurs that you encounter here in Heaven are living creatures with souls and feelings: God made them to spice the place up. They will not harm you.

The politics are all fair. Things run well; nothing needs much improvement. All the fantasy is very natural, and miracles are normal here. Most of the arguments, if there are any, center on how we should go about filling any vacuums that exist. For there are still several cavities throughout Heaven. God and Jesus intend to fill them with new worlds.

[To be continued . . .]

Heaven

Dear diary,

One of the many things that I dislike about preachers, pastors, and priests is when they sermonize people with wretched descriptions of Hell, just to terrify the audience into submitting to The Church. “If you disobey our version of God,” these preachers say, “you will end up in Hell, where the temperature is always too hot, and everyone is thirsty, and no one is compassionate.”

Let me therefore counteract these horrible sermons about Hell with my own friendly sermon about Heaven.

A Friendly Sermon about Heaven
by Bryan Ray, Guru

Ah, Heaven. It is a place where you shall go after you die. Here is a description of what you will see there:

You will see living adults, old people, and teenagers. There will be crystal rivers sparkling over the walls, and elegantly shallow sheets of crystal water all over the floor: it will barely wet your feet. No shoes or sandals shall be necessary, because the ground is so soft. Even the roads are cushioned, and paved in gold.

Everyone will be alive. Nobody will die. The same number of people are present here every day. Nobody ever falls ill here: this is Heaven; and even if you wanted to leave, there’s not really anywhere else to go: you can flee to the neighboring place, but it’s all one country, as far as the eye can see; and it’s enjoyable everywhere. Nothing about Heaven is unpleasant.

Nobody screams or trembles here. People sing and sway.

And there is a train that you can ride. The experience of taking Heaven’s train differs in accord with your taste. For instance, if you enjoy the feelings associated with rollercoasters, then the train is like that type of transport; whereas, if you find the concept of wild rides frightening, then it’s just a regular monorail. Some people desire to travel at high speeds, to ascend great heights and then descend from them rapidly: for those people, the train acts like an amusement-park ride; its cars detach and spin around while the thing rushes through space and turns upside-down within loops and flies off the track. But for the people who, like myself, would rather travel at a moderate pace, and who prefer hills and valleys to mountains and freefalls, the train will bring you peacefully to your destination. And both versions of the train – crazy and sane – are one and the same: so the daring passengers do not need to take a separate vehicle; there is no segregation necessary; for the ride was engineered in a way that allows for any of its segments to be savage or tame at any given moment. This was accomplished by securing each of the train’s carriages with thick straps and cords to a complex framework of metal blades.

A minimum of paperwork is required upon arrival in Heaven: there is only one simple form that you need to fill out. Then you are ready to go. So, relax your mind, and get in line to ride the Loco Motion Railway Vehicle (that’s the name of the aforesaid train).

You hand your completed form to a person in a booth, and that person then pulls a switch. Now crystal water cascades from the wall, and you feel the desire to sway and sing.

Nobody ever gets chopped in two, like on Earth. Here in Heaven, cuts to the skin heal immediately, and they don’t hurt at all.

A man once showed up at Heaven’s gates with a metal shaft jabbed in the center his back, and they were able to get that out: no problem.

And there’s an incinerator that keeps everything clean.

Every citizen’s head has a nice look to it. Every torso is good-looking, as well. No one gets knifed or stabbed with any weapon. Like I explained, if you arrive from Earth with such a wound, you will receive treatment. I have never seen anything go wrong, here.

You have heard of graverobbers who steal the brains out of corpses? There are none of those in Heaven. There is no need for circumcision, either. And no man slices open his own guts, à la seppuku. That is unheard of.

Any bone problems that you may have suffered on Earth are now gone. Nobody’s spine ever cracks. All eyeballs are healthy. Vision is 20/20. No billowing flames, no burning flesh. Nobody cries.

Pain is very minimal: it only exists to compliment the great pleasures that abound here. Just a dash of discomfort to every flood of bliss. There’s this train that travels around, and you can ride it.

No one’s head is amputated. Nobody’s chest is caved in. Everyone is whole. There’s no nausea. No skeletons with their static horrible smiles.

And of course there are no graves. No prophets buried in caves, glowing and ready to come to life someday. Everyone here is already alive; we’ve all gone through Earth, and now we’re celebrating for the rest of eternity in Heaven. Job well done. Congratulations.

It is hot, but pleasantly so. Everything is brighter than the sun, but you grow accustomed to this very quickly. You can wear dark shades if you want, if you think that looks fashionable.

Should you see a father and son walking around who seem to be on fire, that is not a bad thing: the flames do not burn them; they are enjoying themselves. Don’t worry.

I haven’t encountered any rusty metal rat cages yet. There’s nothing to suck out your soul, or to clamp it down to beat it. Here, God is nice to everyone. God really does love you. There’s no filth, no blood; nothing you need to fear being exposed to. I don’t think anything is poisonous here.

On Earth, people can reach into your abdomen and grope and dig till they seize your heart. That does not happen in Heaven. In Heaven, your head stays in place, and your face does not melt off: you remain smiling.

[Here ends Part 1. To be continued . . .]

No Thanks

[I wrote nothing today, so I planned on reposting one of my old entries here, like I did the last couple days. But here’s the problem: I don’t like any of my old entries. When I re-read the last two, I only thought the first one was OK, and I cringed at the second. And now I just finished looking through all my other old T-day writings, and I was ashamed of each and every one. So then I thought I should re-share the multi-part Thanksgiving Essay that I wrote last year; but now I can’t stand that either. But, since I happen to have that essay still in front of me, I’ll copy selections from it; otherwise I’ll have nothing to show for this day, and only the wise are silent.]

Turkey

Imagine a turkey flying overhead. Now imagine eating this turkey for Thanksgiving.

One year, my friend Stegz invited me to celebrate the holiday with his family. His mom was preparing the meal, but her oven was not working right. She put the bird in there a whole day early. She ended up leaving it in the oven overnight. Then, when the actual day of Thanksgiving arrived, she set it on the serving platter: Its skin was whitish pink. So she melted some butter and, with a brush, painted it as a glaze all over the carcass: Now the bird looked golden brown. Then we said a prayer and began to eat. It tasted delicious, and after the meal we all felt fantastic.

---

Pilgrims

Now it’s time to talk about the pilgrims. They were the first mariners to bear offspring for America, which is India. A great spirit blew their ship to shore.

So they landed on the land. These folks were the ones I warned you about: They made the country great again, which caused the natives to applaud. Then an annual festival was invented by these voyagers. After befriending the former residents of India, they invited them to dine with them on their property. And, to this day, it remains a tradition to do as they did. The pilgrims all wore top hats with gold crucifixes, and black shirts with white frills.

---

Eating

Here I am, eating a turkey dinner. It is very satisfying. When I finish the meal, I push my chair back from the table and stand up.

By this time, I am snoring. I am dreaming of the T Day superhero Candied Yam Man. He has gigantic hands made of candied yams, and he’s chasing me all through the house.

Then I fall into a deeper sleep and dream of lambs leaping over a fence. Now one poor little lamb starts baaing in fear. Behold: Candied Yam Man is standing on the lamb.

“Candied Yam Man, stop!” I shout in my dream. “These lambs are only trying to help me sleep. Do not crush them beneath your boot.”

Then Candied Yam Man smiles and nods. He sings me a lullaby — its lyrics go:

I’m gonna dupe you hard,

Oh, I’m gonna dupe you so hard, sleepy boy.

In conclusion, I totally fell for his yammish charm: Now I’M the one being stepped on.

§

MORAL: Eating turkey makes you drowsy, which causes you to let down your guard and become vulnerable to attacks by heavy machinery this holiday season.

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Family

Thanksgiving centers upon family. You spend time with your grandparents, your uncles and aunts, your step-niece and her mom, your nephews and sister-in-law, your great-aunt Marie and her boyfriend Sylvester, your brother Todd and his friend Joey, your sister Gale, your cousin Charlie, your other cousin Scott, and your father who sells insurance for a living.

Love as well the sisters and brothers of your extended family. Praise God for cooking your food, and be thankful for the fact that you all are wearing clothing.

---

Thankfulness

Whoever you are, you should express that you are thankful.

There are many things to be thankful about. All of these things are blessings.

I presume that you’re not trapped in a building that’s on fire at the moment — that’s something to be thankful for.

Or you might be grilling burgers, etc.

---

The Citizens of India

Have you ever seen a man with hair on his head, who looks like he might be from some other country? If so, then you have seen a citizen of India.

When you see a citizen of India, say hello. And, if you notice any person ever attempting to drag a tree around in the desert, grab the other end and help to lift it.

One time, my old boss Ron took a trip to India. When Ron arrived, a tall man offered him a hand-rolled cigarette. Ron gave thanks and smoked the offering, which pleased him. Ron’s vision then blurred, and he began to feel an intense longing for more of whatever had been inside that cigarette.

---

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

QUESTION: What type of food should you prepare for the Thanksgiving Holiday? ANSWER: This combo is considered extremely festive.

Now, when you pour the gravy on the taters, you might find that it spills down the sides. It may run down upon the plate.

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Dinner

Personally, I am against eating meals. Consuming food is the wrong way to seek health and happiness.

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Grandpa Takes His Teeth Out

I, for one, find Grandpa’s toothless state interesting. It brings up so many questions. How does he eat beef? How does he eat pork?

---

How to Cook Thanksgiving Turkey

First, you must find a big bowl. Then a chef should come into the room and begin to stir the ingredients together. Now you can leave and let the chef work. Go sit on a chair in the other part of the house and watch some television programs. When the meal is done, the chef will come and serve you a plate of chili.

---

How to Know if 

Your Thanksgiving Went Well

Now that the holiday has concluded, you might be wondering whether the event was successful.

First, examine your trousers: are you able to stand up in them? Do they seem dry? Then you’re good to go. You must have eaten some tasty substance.

Now walk down a hallway past your parents. Also be sure that your Uncle Steve is in the hall. Relationships are crucial.

Next, take a white towelette. If desired, use a baster to squirt a stream of turkey-dirt at the furniture, and then follow up afterwards. Just an idea for next year.

[Here ends “The Thanksgiving Essay.”]

---

An audio version of the above is available as a rap demo tape that my friend and I made when we were in high school. For the faint of heart.

Trying to figure out who is this one

[Again, I did not have time to write a new entry, so here is one that I wrote eight years ago: 24 NOV 2017 from Book 5 of my archive.]

Dear diary,

It reveals something about the soul of the writer: the decision to title an entry “Trying to figure out who I am,” rather than, say, “…who is this one.” I’m agitated, awake in the middle of the night, it’s half past three; and I’m trying to put my anxiety to good use. But is this good use?—penning these thoughts, in hopes of eventually sharing them as a blog post? Maybe introspective writing is a bigger waste of time than simply remaining abed and staring into darkness.

About eight hours from now, during the next full noon, my family will gather for the controversial holiday, which, in my youth, I was told to call “Thanksgiving”; then in my middle age, when I got fazed attempting to break from my Cocoon of Innocence (I’ve not yet managed to permeate the Realm of Experience), I was re-taught to call the day “Fourth Thursday of November,” because certain celebrators awoke and realized that there’s nothing to be thankful for, in the past or the present – and I concur. Plus, you gotta admit, “Fourth Thurs of Nov” does have a catchy ring to it.

But, in this entry, I wanted to try to figure out who I am; not appraise the holiday that occasioned such a dodge. So who am I? What is my purpose? These are questions that nag me, when I begin to worry about having to visit with family. What have I done with my life? Where have I been, and where am I going?

Is it necessary to travel right back to birth, or to early childhood? I’ve met more people who despise Sigmund Freud than who can tolerate him, so I fear a backlash if I admit that I love him; nevertheless, this is MY public-private diary, and I permit myself to speak about what seems important to me. Freud, in my misreading of his pataphysics, places great emphasis upon a person’s infancy—what I gather is that my life as a babe determined practically everything that followed. In short: I was doomed from the get-go. But what exactly happened that caused me to become this nervous wreck? I do not believe that I was abused in early childhood; I think that I’m just inherently more sensitive than the average soul, so treatment that would feel acceptable to another feels callous to me. But this leads to that old crux: Nature vs. Nurture: Was I simply born hypersensitive (I mean: is my fearfulness due to the makeup of my nervous system itself: the balance of chemicals, etc., which were the work of Luck), OR did womb-life and early childhood make me like this? — In other words: May I blame my parents?

All this hemming & hawing to say that I don’t remember the key parts of the story which fix my plot. If there’s a guardian daemon or over-soul who’s been monitoring my travesty supra birth-death, that fellow will be able point out the culprit; all we can say is it’s either God or my folks.

Perhaps is it telling, that, at this point in writing, my instinct before continuing was to research the definition of the word “trailer trash.” Noun; U.S.; informal, derogatory. “Poor lower-class white people typified as living in trailers.” I even like the fragment showing the term in action:

“…their parenting style has moved the family from upper-middle-class suburban to trailer trash in one generation.”

Why does a trailer have this negative connotation? And what’s the opposite of trash? — Is there such a thing as trailer gems . . . trailer assets . . . trailer treasure?

I was not born in a trailer park. But neither was I born in an “upper-middle-class suburb.” So where the heck was I born? I guess I’d call it a plain middle-class suburb – nothing upper about it.

But why do I immediately pounce on the notion of trailer trash when I want to begin to unearth my long-buried life-bone? It’s because I relate to this class of people. The author Cormac McCarthy set his early novel Child of God in Sevier County, Tennessee. If there truly are souls who live in the Appalachian Mountains, I’m sure they’re not much like the way that I myself imagine them; but I relate to my own idea of mountain-folk, the same way that I relate to the concept of Trailer Treasure. Those people are my true ancestors – somehow they’re in my blood. And when I read William Faulkner’s masterpiece As I Lay Dying, I recognize a slant of my own family’s essence. My family IS the Bundrens. And I am Darl. – I am also the “bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator” of Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. (I’m always ashamed how much I relate to that guy.) And, although I venture this next assertion while still only partway through reading its source (therefore, take it with a wink), my kinfolk are true Karamazovs. I’m referring to Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s chief work, which coincidentally was also (I’ve heard) my pal Freud’s favorite novel: The Brothers Karamazov.

Listing literature. No, I’m not getting sidetracked from the search for myself: it’s insightful to note the depths that I must plumb to set the mood . . . to find a soil to produce a life like mine.

I’ve never researched my genealogy, family tree, ancestral bloodline or history – I’m half afraid what I will find, and I also like to guess what might’ve been; whereas, if I ever discover the facts, I’ll lose the freedom to wonder with such abandon. As it is, I imagine that I hail from THE MONSTERS OF THE DEEP. Yet I don’t envision my lineage this way because I favor vulgarity: on the contrary, transcendence is my goal, and not even the sky’s the limit; but my aspirations are so beyond the beyond that it’s vitally necessary for me to offset my superego’s demands with self-congratulations; and to make even a passable flower appears the highest triumph if one has stemmed from ignoble roots.

But what is my flower? And is it passable? These aspects of my life I can address without conjecture, because I rough-hewed them. (Probably I did not rough-hew them in actual fact but only felt as though I was rough-hewing them.) For a while, I assumed my life’s flower-work was two strange blossoms: the audio works that I made, and the text works that I made. But now I am not sure that I have managed to flower at all. I don’t mean this in a sulky way; I don’t say this to be self-deprecatory, in hopes of receiving a compliment, like if I were to murmur “I’m ugly,” and you reply, “No, Bryan, you’re pretty.” I know that I’m pretty. I mean, I’m physically unattractive (permit me this truth), but my spirit is gorgeous.

But that’s only the case if WILLPOWER is beautiful. (I love but disbelieve the quote from Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”: Beauty is truth, truth beauty; and now I puzzle over whether power might be beautiful, or beauty powerful.) Because I’m strong in will, no doubt, yet my spirit lacks grace. It wants the charm that comes from an upper-class upbringing. Devoid of all “up-” words, I’m intrinsically DOWN. I have a trailer-trash soul. I am the spirit of the Appalachian Mountains . . . a real mountain-man . . . a mountaineer.

Is all this true? No, for my soul is not the low thing that my body was doomed to be. (I wish I were better at distinguishing “soul” from “spirit”—I need to work on keeping those terms separate and more clearly defined; I should not use them as synonyms: I like the idea that the soul is mortal and was fashioned by the demiurge Ialdabaoth, the bungling creator of our broken world who is also known as Jehovah; and this soul is a flawed copy of the true immortal pearl or spark of the Ineffable, known as Endlessness, the alien deity who encompasses the entirety and of whose “mind” Jehovah is but an erroneous thot.)

But it rings true to me when I say that I’m DOWN. Anyone who’s known me since preschool can vouch for my negative bent. Why does everything seem such a washout to me? Maybe this bad attitude is proof of my infancy having been very good. TOO good to last. Yes, how else would the whole farce that follows acquire such a gloomy hue?

Or maybe I just miss the womb. Why wouldn’t we? It’s like hovering in a soft, warm spaceship with red-draped interior. You’ve got a plug plugged into your stomach which supplies all your nourishment: you’ve got no responsibilities but to pretend to press buttons, pull levers, and turn the knobs of your ship’s control panel, with your eyes closed, dreaming the phantasmagoric dreams of the fetus. And some fetuses even get cocaine or alcohol, free of charge. But I wasn’t so lucky: My owner fed me well. And when I got born I cried.

What’s being born like? Is it like crash-landing your rocket? I don’t think so: for what would the ruined casing be – the placenta? I think a vehicle demolition in outer space is too jagged & rigid to represent live birth. No, being born is like nothing so much as dying. Enduring the shock of expiry when you least expect it: THAT’s like birth. It’s not even close to waking from a dreamless sleep: that’s more like imagining; for fancies enter & leave the imagination effortlessly, they appear & disappear without consequence; & no pain, no gain: which is why it only counts if you bring your thoughts to term, that is: get them out into the world, lure others to entertain them in their own mind – an uncommunicated thought is a dead thought; tho thoughts cannot ever be truly communicated: one can only, as it were, coax other woodlanders to play in a comparable grotto; provoke them to decree the building of a similar pleasure-dome. Yes, being born is unlike waking from dreamless sleep; but it is a bit like interrupting a bout of somnambulism: for, in that case, you’re terrified; suddenly everything’s changed, everything’s inexplicable and you must immediately LEARN FAST how to nurse or be nursed.

Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.

That’s another of William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”; it came to mind because I’m talking about womb-life and live-birth. But the act of impregnation precedes even the womb. – Conception. To conceive. I’m brainstorming backwards now. I intended to give a hard look to my life after adolescence, because that’s what worries me so much when the holy days strike; but fear of the task at hand is manifest in the way I’m retreating from earliest childhood back through birth before the time of impregnation. Back to the days when I was dead. – Is that the right way to put it? How would it be more accurate to say that I was NOT dead? If I wasn’t dead, what was I? Surely not alive, because . . . Well, maybe alive, but not in control. And yet, am I in control at present? Am I as aware of myself now, as I was aware of myself when I was King Josiah? An asshole I was then: forgive me, for I knew not what I was doing. (II Kings 22-23) And yet, in a sense, at present, I am not aware that I was King Josiah; but neither will I be aware that I was once Bryan Ray, when I have become the Beast out of the Sea (Revelation 13:1).

P.S.

I got torn away from this entry after writing the last sentence above. The holiday attacked. (Again, I wish my writing had ended in mid-word, rather than after a full stop, so as to emphasize that it’s unfinished.) I have now returned only to add this postscript.

Bitter thoughts aiming to be better

[I did not have time to write a new entry today, so here is one that I wrote nine years ago: 20 NOV 2016 from Book 3 of my archive.]

Dear diary,

I’ve been told that the second Monday in October is a national Canadian holiday known as Thanksgiving. The U.S. uses a different date: the fourth Thursday of November. And then comes Christmas, which is a contraction of the phrase “Christ’s Mass.” That’s on December 25. When I was young, my parents dragged me with them to church, but it was a Protestant sect whose weekly meetings were called “services” not “masses”; so…

And my mom and sister came to my house last night: they normally don’t visit except on or around the major holidays, so it’s a big deal whenever I see them. They wanted to know if we could all get together next Sunday; that’s why I researched the facts about the official dates of this atrocious festival.

I am personally more comfortable complaining than giving thanks. What is there to be thankful for? I hate when people say: “I’m thankful to be alive.” I answer, with Whitman: “it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.” (‘Song of Myself’ sec. 7.) Also I think of Satan: “Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell…” (Paradise Lost, Book 4.) Imagine being half Whitman, half Satan—that’d be my dream job.

“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31.) By the time I was seven, I saw all of reality as very bad. Everything is dismal to me. Yet I’ve not even suffered any misfortune (beyond birth) that would give me a right to be so rancorous. It just comes natural: I resent all the upkeep and requirements and demands of life. Why must even the healthiest body compulsively breathe, periodically eat, frequently drink – and not vodka but disgusting fresh water – plus exercise and tend some sort of social relation? Who signed up for this?

And if the U.S. Constitution is so darn perfect, then why did it ever have to be amended? At this moment in time, I count twenty-seven amendments. That’s exactly why it’s perfect: because it admits that it is flawed and in need of change. Why don’t we change it some more?

But let’s say that an amendment is ratified which says: “The right of the citizens of the United States to enter Heaven after death shall not be denied by God or his henchman Paul. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Would this improve our afterlife one iota? I guess it’s up to the courts.

Most optimistic people vex me, but I don’t like the version of self that I’ve given here… I want to brighten my mood…

Let me say one pleasant thing about gullible people. Their enthusiasm is sometimes infectious, which can be a good thing. You might meet a wide-eyed political hack this afternoon, and he might try to hard-sell you on his favored candidate. Sublimate your annoyance: the transfer of energy that occurred during this affront can be employed to power your body to vacuum your basement – that’s an uplifting thought.

But now let’s say that your boss tries to chat with you as a pal. Who cares whether or not you agree with her assertion? She claims that an ancient sage from her culture’s mythology got re-embodied today as a popular senator. This is not even her own idea: she admits that she was taught it by her yoga coach. You could say it’s true; you could say it’s untrue; you could hold your peace… Might any course matter? And isn’t there something beautiful about reaching an agreement?

If I were a religious leader, and I encountered a rival cult whose members pressured me to join them, I’d convert without a qualm. Even if their cult had the ugliest rituals and horribly worded scripture, I would embrace it: I’d set the example and tell my adherents to follow suit. Why would I do this? I don’t know – I hadn’t drawn up any plan: I just acted instinctively. I guess I’d like to set myself apart from the other religious leaders, who clutch to their convictions and refuse to meet new deities.

But how do you know whether I am sincere in my conversion? Maybe I am only pretending. For if you pay me to join your congregation, I’ll gladly accept. If I were attractive enough to be a church prostitute, I’d do that too. But I despise working for an honest day’s wages. I’m sick of all those biblical stories about workers in the field. It doesn’t make sense, in this day of computer phones and fake leather, to speak of angels as reapers. Who among the multitude can claim an expertise in agriculture?

Just think about the time when the huge machines appeared on the horizon and bamboozled the life of untold small-farm laborers.

And is it rude to consider that Jesus, like so many others, got killed unjustly; yet also, like so many others, he is still plain dead? I wish they’d had phone cameras back in the day. Yet I only desire that we dispense with the gospel of his resurrection because I admire the bulk of his teaching, the significance of which gets eclipsed if the event of prime importance is his death. I mean, if all that matters is that “he shed his blood for us,” then… (Haven’t I said all this before? It sounds like a familiar track on my broken record.)

And I’ve heard people refer to certain youths of the generation that’s currently entering the workforce as “millennials.” What a nice name. I hope this group has a pleasant life, and that they’re not bogged down with many problems.

Thots about the Bible’s story, life, God, & more

Dear diary,

Alright, so, let me get this straight. God created the world. All the animals were good, and the first two humans were good; and they lived with God in his garden. Then God said: “You can eat from every tree except for this one.” And when the humans ate from the forbidden tree, God kicked them out of the garden. So, the humans had to learn to survive elsewhere. The first two humans bore children in exile, and those children bore children. Soon the earth was populated by multitudes of humans. God then caused water to flood the earth, killing all life, except one pair from each animal species, and one family of humans. The animals and humans then began to bear young, and those young bore young, just like before, until there were multitudes populating the earth again. Now, out of all these multitudes, yet again God chose to give extra care to one man’s family. But despite his favoritism, God allowed this man’s family to end up moving to, and eventually being oppressed by, that era’s empire. Once the oppression reached a maximum level, God intervened to rescue his chosen group from the empire. The favored family had now multiplied to the size of a nation. God led them out of the empire and into his residence. God no longer lived in the garden from the beginning; he now was staying on a hill in the wilderness. The favored nation remained with God for a while at his hill; then God took them wandering around the wilderness. Finally, God told this favored nation that he shall cause them to reside in the fertile lands nearby. These lands were already inhabited by other nations. The favored nation then fought and settled various places. Some time later, a new empire arose and conquered the favored nation, taking them captive. A remnant of the favored nation eventually returned to resettle a small part of their former land; but most of the favored nation remained in captivity, in the new empire.

And that’s where the story stops; God just sort of fades away, although people still fight about him.

If you were a member of that favored nation, would you . . .

If you were a member of one of the other nations, what story would you tell about your . . .

Is there a moral? Is the story finished, or is it currently undergoing an intermission, or was there never really a story to begin with?

Is God for or against empire? Some believe that when a man acquires riches, it means that God has blessed that man. An empire is a wealthy nation: does this wealth indicate God’s favor? If not, then how can one tell if one’s riches are God-given or God-defiant?

When God favors you, you end up enslaved. When God is against you, you enjoy great wealth and power, and you get to enslave God’s favored nation. Your power subsists for lengthy spans of time, while God slowly develops a plan to bring you down. And God’s plans never fully play out: God’s aims are never quite seen through to the end: there is never a satisfying conclusion to God’s great claims. The favored nation never enjoys a moment when it can say “Now we have officially taken root in the land that God promised us.” Instead, while the favored nation is working on settling the final portions of this Promised Land, some neighboring nation breaks them up, and the current empire drags them away.

People from the favored nation wonder what the cause of their downfall was. Many of their priests say: “Our favored nation got defeated because we displeased God; God was displeased when we worshiped him by other names and titles than those names and titles that our own priestly sect approves; and God was angered when he saw his favored nation performing rituals that our own priestly sect did not authorize. Our favored nation would never have been taken into captivity, if the population had only worshiped God in the ways that our own priestly sect advises.”

Now consider the people from those nations that were not originally favored by this God. Some of these previously unfavored people have come to believe that that same God changed his mind and presently favors new groups. Or they argue that this God never intended to favor only one ethnicity, but that he always meant to favor whoever would listen to him and believe his message and follow his ways. (What is this God’s message? What are his ways? What has he said? – And who can anyone trust to answer these questions?)

So now we have the current era’s empire boasting of having procured this God’s favor. And it’s hard to argue against this idea, because if God does not favor the present empire, then why does he permit it to be so rich and powerful? Will God rescue the empire’s workforce ever again? Or has God switched teams: is he now on the side of the masters, against the slaves? Can God lie? What would happen if God tried to lie to us, would his conscience give him a little 9-volt shock?

And what exactly is God’s name? What is his nature and character? Some believe that this God who plays favorites had a son. Some say the son and the father are the same person. Others believe that the father is the enemy and his son is the savior. Yet others say that only the original God is worthy of worship, and the rumor that he fathered a son is blasphemous. Some praise the mother of this God more than the God himself or the couple’s son. A few believe only in the ghost of this God.

Yahweh is a proper name. Jesus is a proper name. Lord is a title. Yahweh is called Lord. People call Jesus Lord. But Christians give me strange reactions when I ask them “Is Yahweh Jesus?” (I should have defined that term “Christian” very carefully before employing it here. Please forgive this. And, by the way, the word Baal means Lord, as well.)

Why is it troublesome to say that Jesus is Yahweh? Because Christians are uneasy about Yahweh’s Law; the Christian argument is that Jesus died to free believers from Yahweh’s Law; so, if Jesus is Yahweh, then we have the Law being established by Jesus on Mount Sinai, and then later we have the same Jesus dying on the cross to save people from the power of his own Law: it makes one ask: “Why not just abstain from establishing the Law, and simply teach the beatitudes in the first place? Deliver your ‘Sermon on the Mount’ straight from Sinai.” So, it’s easier to believe in Jesus if you don’t know much about Yahweh.

But does anyone truly care about any of this? I think that people just believe in whatever helps get them through their day. And what’s wrong with that? I’m wondering now: Why is each day so difficult to get through? There have been so many days that have passed, since the invention of the world: why haven’t we figured out how to make days more easily passable? Why does each day contain a moat filled with alligators? Why do sinister agents creep around in the shadows, following us everywhere we go? How come someone is always shooting bullets at the place where we are hiding?

I wish that one could exit the wheel of existence by simply refusing to procreate. Instead, one is dragged back and forced to live here again, no matter what one has done. (Is that the truth?) In fact, simply because I dreamt up this diary entry, I think I should be released from the nightmare of rebirth. But it doesn’t work like that. (Unless it does.)

The rules are: if you father five children, you must be reincarnated five times. So, at some point in my past existences, I racked up a high score of offspring; therefore, I must endure many childless existences, to offset these indiscretions. I probably have thousands of lives left; all during the worst times in history, too. That’s just my luck.

So, what will happen is that, when I die, I’ll find myself thrown back into the world in an even worse situation than the life that I just lived. I’ll be forced to feel extreme hot and extreme cold, all sorts of pain, hunger, humiliation. When still an infant, the doctors will give me countless injections; they’ll probably install a computer chip in my soul. And each new set of parents will teach me Christianity all over again, and I’ll always believe it; then, halfway through my life, I’ll figure out that this religion is a sham, but at that point, the truth will do me no good: it will come too late to set me free.

Shall God be aware of this? Does God ever tire of watching the same old story? (Maybe, to God, every story is new: “I’ve never seen anyone descend into misery quite like that,” God probably says.)

I wish there truly were a God, and I wish that he would desire for all his creatures to live a good life. But even if there is a God who exists somewhere, we humans are probably more like insects to him than friends or even house-pets. When I saw a big black spider in the bathroom this morning, my instinct was to crush him under my shoe; and then, far from feeling remorse about this murder, I was only annoyed that his guts left such a smear upon the floor tiles. That will be the scene, if I meet God. God will be horrified at Bryan. “How did this get into paradise?”

But I will not be squished so easily. I will dash about and skulk in the shadows, and set booby traps for the angels, and toss rocks at God. And, again, I’ll feel no remorse when I look around at the aftermath of the battle, and see that eternity’s crystal streams have become rivers of blood, because God and all his armies are now dead corpses; I’ll only be irked that I now need to begin studying classical economics, so that I can implement a system to govern heaven compassionately this time.