Lately I’ve been trying to round up these journal entries and bind them as books. There are so many, I’ll need to break them into multiple volumes. Also I need to make book-covers, to give readers something to judge them by. – Here below is one of my aborted attempts at making a title for a cover. My aim was to steal and rearrange the letters from the case of a movie; but it was too tedious, so I just gave up. It’s supposed to say: “The Public Private Diary of Bryan Ray”. (Oh well, at least I got an obligatory blog-image out of it.) – Click to enlarge.
Dear diary,
As a tot I was taught not to sin lest I be cast into Hell by the LORD. What happens, I was told, after you die, is that God files you away; and if you’ve been nice then he sends you to Heaven, where the hottest angels are; but if you’ve been naughty then he sends you to Dante’s Inferno, where the hottest demons are.
So I’ve been naughty all my life, cuz I despise goodness; so I know that I’m going to Hell, so I figure it would be smart to read the brochure about where I’ll be staying, so that I can have the best time possible. So I noticed that although Dante’s Inferno contains a lot of misery, there are still really good roles to play. So what I’m hoping is that I can talk the LORD into casting me as a wild monster instead of one of the suffering multitudes. Cuz there’s a lot of people who are damned, and they are tormented day & night by God’s staff of hellish minions. But a fact that maybe some infidels haven’t considered is that SOMEONE’s gotta do the tormenting down there — and it can’t be God himself or any of his studly saints or the angels who caress them: the contract states definitively that all these sheep must remain in Heaven, on their side of the fence.
Between us goats and you, there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. (Luke 16:26)
So the LORD is basically constricted to hiring someone evil to do the dirty work of tormenting his other damned multitudes. And I’m bad enough to be sent to Hell, but I’m arrogant enough to be trusted with this type of mission. – So I’m hoping that Dante or God will agree to let me play a character like Cerberus, who is introduced in Canto 6 of his Inferno. He punishes the gluttonous; and I think I’d be good at that. All I need to do is develop a hateful attitude (cuz I still have nothing but love for all of God’s creatures, and, of course, this tenderheartedness must be purged); but I’m basically halfway there, as far as looks go — here’s how Cerberus is described, in John D. Sinclair’s prose version of Dante’s scripture:
Bryan is a beast fierce & hideous, with three throats barks like a dog over the people that are immersed there;
Now, I gotta interrupt to say that this whole triple-throat thing has always bothered me — I don’t like it. Tho I’ll put up with it, if it’s absolutely necessary. It just seems like this would make it harder to swallow your food, and you’d be three times as likely to choke. Plus the Christian Trinity has three throats, and I hate the Trinity. Thus, if permitted, I’ll amend this feature of my physique so that it’s only ONE throat: but we can make it really big and wide, so that it still represents an appetite for destruction.
Yet I really like these next parts of my costume:
. . . Bryan has red eyes, a beard greasy and black . . .
(tho we should also change the beard to a regular mane — for I’d rather be clean-shaven; but I don’t mind if my mane’s black & greasy: that part’s fine)
. . . a great belly, and clawed hands . . .
All good. I especially like the hands.
Alright, now we come to my job description — here’s all that I’m expected to do:
. . . he scars and flays and rends the spirits.
I’m telling you, I’m a perfect fit for this position, LORD. You simply must give me a chance. Hire me as a temp, if you don’t have faith in me. I’ll win you over. You will end up thrilled by how I scare & flay & rend your spirits — after my probationary period is over, you will not believe that you ever considered anyone else for this role. Straightaway, you’ll tell your typist angel to go ahead and make the title card for your world’s end credits to read “Bryan Ray as the Single-Throated Cerberus.” And the next credit will say: “Mane-style by the beautician squad at Monster Cuts,” cuz Monster Cuts is the salon in Hell that does everybody’s hair and nails for eternity.
WARNING
And I just wanna threaten Dante and Virgil that I will attack them if they ever try to approach me. So you better come equipped with some good-tasting dirt, cuz that’s my favorite food. When you have a throat as big as mine, and a stomach that matches, there’s a tendency to develop a taste for the aspects of nature that are hard for more delicate eaters to digest. Those born with a weak stomach probably shy away from eating raw dirt: they prefer vegetables, which grow out of that same soil — but this is a halfway step; the plant-roots filter out the nutriment from the earth beforetime, so the eater’s weak stomach can easily assimilate what remains. But I want it ALL:
I could even digest hard iron if you fed it to me. I’m not like your country’s stupid president who sez that he’s driven by God and that he trusts his gut. I Bryan never allow the LORD to drive me; rather I drive the LORD (he even admits that I’ve driven him crazy). And I don’t trust my gut, I AM my gut. I’m just one big gut in a world of dirt, like an obese earthworm. So here’s the scene that I would ask Mr. Sinclair to translate for Dante & Virgil, and then send it to them as a prophecy and a dire warning — cuz I swear that the following will happen, if they dare to approach me:
When Bryan Ray, alias Cerberus, THE GREAT WORM, perceived my Leader and me drawing nearer, he opened his mouth and showed us the fangs, not one of his limbs keeping still . . .
(note that all my appendages are flailing & thrashing at these souls who made the foolish decision to visit me — it’s my intention to flay them and rend them)
. . . then Virgil my Leader spread his hands, took up earth, and with full fists threw it into the ravenous gullet. As the dog that yelps for greed and becomes quiet when it bites its food, being all absorbed in struggling to devour it, such became the foul visage of the demon Cerberus, who so thunders at the souls that they would fain be deaf.
So, thanks for the high cuisine, Mr. Virgil you dummy. This is the only thing you could’ve done to quiet me down. I scorn you Romans; I far prefer the ancient Greeks. But it was good dirt that you brought, so you probably stole it from the farm of Hesiod’s brother — yes, the earth that you fed me had lots of aromas & flavors that pleased me deeply. (Which I’m sure was not your intention.)
P.S.
And one last thing: When the scripture sez that I “bark” and that I “thunder at the souls that they would fain be deaf”, this refers to my habit of NONSTOP SERMONIZING; for in addition to being fed the choicest sinners from the hand of God himself, and good dirt from epic poets, I get to spend the bulk of my day just waxing eloquent, in my naturally booming voice, at the people who visit me. And if you doubt that I have endless avalanches of opinions & word-volcanoes to blast at people, just look at all these journal entries that I write — & they represent just a small fraction of all the stuff that I’ve roared at the people in Hell:
There are also many other things that Cerberus preached, which, if they should all be published in a multi-volume set, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the diary that would result. (The Gospel of John 21:25)
Yes, I’ve found my calling. I love my job.
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