The True Centrist

Dear diary,

I don’t know. It makes me too sad when all my friends are arguing about politics; so I’m not in the mood to write. But I have nothing else to do right now, so I’ll write just to pass the time. So this’ll be what’s called an uninspired entry.

And the problem is that I myself am just as interested in politics as my two friends are, so I’m just as much to blame for our great feud. Normally I’m the nihilist who doesn’t participate in any building-up of society; customarily I only break society down; but like I keep explaining here in these pages (tho nobody listens): I caught the political virus in 2016 when Bernie coaxed me to think that he could make a difference. Who knows whether I’m right to think this, but I believe strongly that I AM right, and that’s all one needs to become a political nuisance.

(I used to vote by just writing in the names of my favorite poets or punk musicians on the ballot; I was afraid to do the thing that everyone does in Saramago’s novel Seeing, where they all cast blank ballots, because I presumed that if the people in charge of counting the ballots see that mine is blank, they’ll just fill it out for whoever they prefer, whereas if the ballot has, say “The rock group WEEN (Gene & Dean)” written in as the choice for “President and Vice-President”, in this case it would be harder for them to change the will of the people, becuz I used permanent ink: so they’d need to apply a lot of white-out over the top of my handwriting and then wait for it to dry before disenfranchising me. And I write really big, with thick lines, and very sloppily.)

So my two friends of course like opposite candidates from opposite parties. If they liked the same candidate, then it would be a little easier cuz they could just gang up on ME. But, as it is, one likes Biden, the Dem, and the other likes Trump, the Rep (who’s also the incumbent). So we three argue all day; and that mades me sad, so that I don’t wanna write; which is why I’m not writing anything today. I’m just gonna steal an old story and retell it, putting my own two friends in the position of the ancient myth’s movie-stars. You can’t sue me in the court for doing this, because nobody knows who originally wrote this story, other than God.

I’ll call it “The Exodus from Egypt” except I’ll change the word Egypt to someplace else, since we live in Midwestern USA, and call it “Exodus from Our Apartment”. And instead of the story’s original protagonist and antagonist, whose names are Aaron and Moses, and who are respectively a priest and a prophet (priests and prophets are always at odds, like sibling rivals), I’ll try to think of names that sound like those two names but that seem more feminine. So I’ll change Aaron to Aharona, and Moses I’ll change to Moesha. And since all I’m willing to do in this story, which takes place in the apartment that I, Brianna, share with Aharona and Moesha, I say, since the only magic trick I’m willing to perform is just casting my vote for Bernie, who’s an Independent (neither a Dem nor a Rep), I’ll remain mostly in the background and serve as the tall tale’s teller, A.K.A. the holy narrator.

OK so we have Aharona supporting Biden, and Moesha supporting Trump. And they are at each other’s throats, day and night, about this disagreement. This is the story of how they ended up ruining the apartment that we all share, so that we had to move out. Or actually the landlord kicked us out, cuz we got evicted; and he didn’t return our security deposit. (When I refer to “The Apartment”, I don’t mean the 1960 film by Billy Wilder, altho I love that picture; instead I mean the room that Aharona and Moesha inhabit with me, their friend & roommate-narrator Brianna. We split the rent three ways.)

First let me describe the living quarters of Aharona. Her side of the apartment is turquoise and it has a poster of Biden 2020 on the wall, and her futon covering has ruffles.

Now let me describe the living quarters of Moesha. Her side of the apartment is hot pink and it has a poster of Trump 2020 on the wall, and her futon covering has ruffles.

Aharona strikes first. She affixes a garden hose to our kitchen sink, and changes the tap-water into blood, and she turns the faucet on full-blast and floods Moesha’s side of the room.

Now Moesha goes out into the park nearby, and she waits on the bridge with a wicker basket. And since it is cold out, the frogs by the bridge are all sluggish; so she is able to pick them up with her hand and pile them up in her basket. She then goes back to the apartment and dumps these frogs on Aharona’s side of the room, so as to infest it.

Then Aharona, utterly infuriated, goes online and orders a doll from a disreputable company. The doll proves to be infested with lice, so Aharona shakes the doll over Moesha’s side of the room, until there is a thick coating of lice-bugs everywhere. Then, when all the lice are gone out from the doll, Aharona throws the doll, and it hits Moesha in the face.

Now Moesha remembers that she has left a number of purses in her car, and all these purses contain half-eaten avocados inside them, and they were left in the heat, and their zippers were tightly closed. So Moesha goes and retrieves these items from her car, and she peeks inside one purse and notes that there are swarms of fruit flies increasing and multiplying therewithin. So she uses these purses filled with fruit flies to befoul Aharona’s living quarters.

Now Aharona decides that the argument has grown serious. She does not want this evil Trump supporter to defeat her good points about good Mr. Biden; so she manufactures a magic wand, and she waves this wand over the head of all Moesha’s housepets. (Moesha keeps countless cats, dogs, pigs, and other mammals on her side of our shared room.) And the spell that twinkles down from Aharona’s wand causes a murrain to torment all these beasts of Moesha. This makes Moesha cry.

So Moesha puts her hand into her blouse and rummages around in there for a while, and then when she takes her hand back out of her blouse, behold: it is pitch white in hue. Which is strange, because Moesha is not a pale person. Then Moesha walks over and caresses her roomate Aharona all over her body, and the deadly whiteness of her hand infects Aharona with all sorts of boils and blains. It is even more gross than it sounds. Then, in order to reverse this “Midas touch” so that she doesn’t continue to plague anyone else, Moesha places her hand back into her blouse, and when she pulls it out, it’s normal-hued again. (Weird, right?)

Then Aharona makes hail, by calling to the Storm God and commanding him to hail stones of ice down onto Moesha’s side of the room. And, instantly, millions of icy hailstones rain down and pile up only on Moesha’s side of the room.

Then Moesha blows her dog-whistle and zillions of locusts zoom forth from over the horizon and begin to smash directly into the pane of Aharona’s window, so Moesha dashes over and opens the window, and the locusts pour inside and land on Aharona’s ruffled futon.

Aharona now means business. She closes her eyes and prays to the Devil to send pitch darkness down upon Moesha. And the Devil complies with this request, for instantly the three torches above Moesha’s ruffled futon hiss and are extinguished, leaving her side of the room in the dark. And a worker from the electric company rings the doorbell, and Moesha answers the door, and the man hands her a slip of paper, and he explains that her portion of the electric bill was not paid on time this month, therefore darkness has descended upon her living quarters. Then he salutes and says “Have a nice day,” in a sarcastic tone, which has the effect of really twisting the knife in her back.

So Moesha turns around and glares directly at her hated enemy Aharona, who is planning to vote for Biden, and Moesha addresses her as follows: “Give ear, Aharona, for the child that you have conceived with your boyfriend Jupiter, shall miscarry and be stillborn in the shape of a bull.” And, just then, Aharona clutches her abdomen and groans in pain, and the child dies, and lo: there is a close-up shot of a golden bull upon the floor between her feet.

Then Aharona cries out in wild fury to Moesha, saying: “Look what we have done to one another. Because you support Trump, while I support Biden, we have filled our shared apartment with every manner of abomination from frogs to flies, and altho most of your flies have been eaten by the frogs that you put here, there are still oceans of lice from that doll that I ordered, floating on the surface of the blood that is threatening to drown us. I therefore move that we call a truce. Let our candidates no longer oppose each other, but let them share the presidency: yes, let them enjoy a joint kingship, with no VP but simply two equally-sinister Prezzes. Do we have a deal?”

And Moesha sez: “Deal.” And they firmly shake hands.

Then the red sea of bloody lice splits down the center of the apartment, and Moesha and Aharona stand on the dry floorboards and smile.

But then I, their hitherto unseen roommate Brianna, command the narration to make the red sea of blood and lice come crashing down on their heads. All I had to do is just make the wind blow, and the ocean covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.