Imagining living alternate lives

Dear diary,

I have nothing to say today. My mind is a plain blank. I like it. I’ve achieved the perfect existence. Maybe when I was floating in my pre-birth bubble with God and trying to decide which body to daemonize, I saw this Bryan Ray muppet and said “Yeah, that’s the one: gimme that one (here I blow myself a kiss) — for I like the way that his life just comes to a flat halt in the middle; when you view it in landscape mode, with the past appearing at the left of the triptych, and the future at the right: so that, in the beginning, the scene is a scary woods, and the whole middle panel is just desert, not a tree in sight, a waste wilderness minus the wandering, and finally the rightmost sliver is the same woods again, and the frame ends with jagged teeth from top to bottom, like a monster eats him or something. Yes, I’ll take it. Actually, let me just keep replaying this one life forever — place the program on loop.” And God drapes his arm around my pre-birth shoulder and sez, “Alright, go down, and tell whoever you meet the following message: Hear what I say, but fail to understand me; and be aware of my ideas, but stop short of grasping their import.”

I wonder why God prefers to be misunderstood. Maybe it’s not really God who feels this way but all of us mouthpieces in the world, who claim to speak on God’s behalf, fear that we ourselves won’t be able to persuade our audiences, so we try to save face by declaring that God didn’t really want anyone to accept true genius anyway.

So, like I said, I have nothing to say today. But I feel like scribbling more, so maybe I’ll fill up the rest of this scroll with imagined lives that I did not choose to live.

I could have been Donna. I would have been married to Chuck. We would have lived in Illinois. I would have brought forth three children; two boys and a girl: Jeff, Joey, and Anna. I would be an attorney, and Chuck would be a stay-at-home dad. All my children, in their teen years, would die of bubonic plague; and Chuck would fall into a ravine at the age of 53. I myself would never die. I would run for U.S. president and win. Then, one week into my first term, I would get assassinated. My tombstone would read “Here lies Donna: she loved her family and friends, and she performed good work for her community. She is in God’s hands now.”

(I can tell that this is gonna get old quick, if it’s not old already; so I’ll do just a couple more.)

Also I could have lived as Zipporah. My father Jethro would have forced me to marry a foreigner: Moses. We would have lived in a ranch-style house around Horeb. I would have brought forth two boys: Gershom and Eliezer. The first would complain that he felt like an alien in a strange land, and that his true father was not this man whom I his mother wed but some strange being from a faraway realm. My 2nd son would be thankful that my husband fathered him biologically; thus he would adhere to every talking point of the establishment, in hopes of landing a job as a newsreader. I myself would work as a typist, and my husband is some sort of ambassador. One day, the true father of my firstborn Gershom would enter our home and slay us all. (Exodus 4:24)

Or (I promise, this is the last one) I could’ve been born as Dorothy. I’d fall in love with Gilda, who is married to John of Patmos. I would steal Gilda away from her husband — an easy feat, for she was unhappy in that relationship (John was abusive). As for careers, or callings: I would be a newspaper mogul, and Gilda would be a famous columnist for my publication. We would give birth to our beloved daughter Sarah while flying our seaplane over the ocean to Paris. Gilda would write an article about this happy event, and we’d title it “Our Baby was Born at Home.” All people would love us. We’d be constantly on the go, traveling to joint speaking engagements; and our fans would always approach us after each lecture and offer us fancy sandwiches that they had made, and we would eat them. A multitude of followers would accumulate, the most famous among which would be Judy; Greta; Bette; Rosalind; Marlene; Kathy; Marilyn; Debbie; Brigitte; and also Lucy (who would eventually betray us, but whom we secretly loved more than all the others). This assemblage will form a makeshift community around us, like a city-state, voluntarily: they now live with us in the mansion that we purchased near the set of our favorite movie; and they help with all the things that must be done. They keep the garden; do painting (both interior & exterior); dry the dishes; dust & vacuum; they’re good at carpentry; they help select the furniture and all the rugs and draperies; they buy our clothing and act as personal stylists for us all — they even feed and dress our child, and read to Sarah and put her to bed. Basically, they give us a cozy domestic life. I’m really happy about our situation — I say this sincerely: we’re living the dream.