The Essay (Part 1 of 3)

Madame Bleue’s Essay

Good evening; my name is Brianna the Swimsuit Model. I am addressing you from my lair, surrounded by lava lamps. I spritzed my costume with the spray bottle that I keep on the coffee table here, that’s why it is glistening with water droplets. My belief is that things tend to photograph better when they are wet.

There are very many house-cats in our area, and their owners allow them to roam free at night, so they often dig down and infiltrate my underground lair; that’s another reason why I keep the spray bottle: to scare them away.

I joined the army after watching 3,000 of my countrymen die like dogs in a fire-hydrant accident. I told my nation: “Hey, listen up. Are you awake? You look drowsy. Will you do me this favor? I wanna be useful. Send me wherever you need me to go.”

So they parachuted me into a jungle outside a small village. I used my folding knife with the titanium handle and reverse tanto blade-shape to cut away all the houseplants in the vicinity; and I used my flame thrower to fry all the wildlife. Then I entered the village. 

When I finished my diplomatic mission, there was red corn-syrup drizzled over everything, signifying a bloodbath. “This is what justice and vengeance looks like, from my nation’s perspective,” I said to the camera. (Silent movies are more about grace — think of a tramp rescuing a famished kitten from the front step of the wilderness, and then the thing digs down into my lair and gets spritzed; whereas talkie-pictures usually focus on war — that’s becuz nuclear explosions are more believable when you use live, direct, synchronous audio to record them, as opposed to just dubbing in a Foley effect over the soundtrack.)

But let me tell you what’s been happening with this darned plague tho. Jesus gosh-darn Christ, first we were told NOT to wear hazmat suits, and then we were told that even naked porno stars cannot unzip their hazmat suits when they’re filming their dialogue. (A hazmat suit is a piece of personal protective equipment that consists of an impermeable full-body garment worn as protection against hazardous materials — it’s basically a space suit, or a flesh-colored astro-stocking.) And my mom keeps pestering me to attend every family gathering, like Christmas and Easter, as well as everybody’s birthday party. What the actual heck! Doesn’t she know that the only way we’re all going to remain alive is if we stay away from each other! Cuz if we get together, there will be arguments — that’s what families are for. And we will end up killing each other. Did she not watch the scene in the village that just occurred, wherein I wrought true vengeance for the Americas!?

And while I’m at it, let me tell you what REALLY happened on September eleven. Several kamikaze fighters from Japan sought to kill King Kong, who, together with Godzilla, had escaped from either the ocean or the sun, and both of these Giant Gals were attacking our favorite World Trade Center, specifically Building Number Seven. So a group of brave Japanese robo-butlers (each aircraft was manned not by a man but an android who is handsome, because everything in Japan is mechanical), I say, these robotic butler heros set their jets on autopilot, and each aircraft’s navigational computer mistook its proper destination for the Empire State Building. It just saw a tall skyscraper and said “Let’s go!” (That’s why it’s important to pay attention when you’re programming any computer’s new reptile-brain. As the saying goes: “If you put garbage in, then you get garbage out.” For example, when you’re typing a line of code, if you accidentally press the zero key instead of an oh, it could mess things up — in this present case, it ruined World History.) Then thy realized their mistake and drove over to the correct place. And there was a blonde woman who was extremely attractive, and she was being held hostage in the palm of King Kong, and they rescued her alive. They did this by convincing the ape that he should cover his paps, for the sake of modesty; and, as he did so, he dropped the woman. She then landed on the island below, and the soft sand broke her fall. This was Ellis Island. She lived there for eight and twenty years or more, all alone, during which time she composed a manifesto about her adventures. It’s a pretty good read; I think it’s available as an audio book now. The author’s name is Robin Crusa, and the book is called Amerigo. And I think it’s narrated by the actor known as Darth Vader.

So that’s what happened on September eleven. Then the next day, September twelve, was even scarier. Cuz everybody went to eat the Passover meal at our family’s house, and nothing went wrong — the conversation was fairly interesting, and the food was good. So this was eerie, because Passover is supposed to remind us of that time when we all escaped from slavery: we had to make meals on-the-run, and everything was a hectic, mad dash for freedom; and most of us died in the desert — so the food shouldn’t taste THIS exquisite. They’ve never served decent food at the White House before — so the question on everyone’s mind was: “Why start now?”

Therefore we did what any good sleuth would do: We followed the money. 

Cui bono? Who stands to benefit from everything that has happened? I’m talking about the Bible now: all the truth that’s fit to print. — Is it God who gains from all this sound and fury? No, of course not: God is enraged — he left in the middle of his own production. Alright, then how about the Devil: maybe he’s the one who’s storing up treasure in heaven, where rust-moths can’t tax it.

I must admit, I can’t even give a plausible answer concerning the Devil. I don’t even know who he is anymore. I used to think he was Christian Apologists collectively; but now I’m not even sure about that. Those people seem to have worse problems than even the Scientists. 

Let’s try attacking this from another angle. I wanna ask a fresh question — or rather, ask the same stale question in a less articulate way: 

“Could it be that life, which started out as a single-celled organism the size of a mustard seed, truly intended to expand to Mr. Life’s present stature and acquire every manner of complexity, just to wheel and deal with himself? Just to talk himself up or down in price? Just to show Mrs. Death who’s the boss?” 

Let’s say you’re Ebenezer Scrooge from the novella Merry Christmas from Bryan Ray. You own a giant vault filled with gold caesar coins. You are a philanthropist, so you offer free tours of your money-pit to little children who are starving. These kids are now playing amongst your riches. You behold them from your throne: for the duration of their brief visit, they pummel each other to obtain more coins than their fellows. Then the buzzer sounds, indicating that visiting hours are over; and the orphans are removed from the vault at gunpoint by your Police Force. 

Now that the room has been cleared, you could climb from your throne and crawl forth into the money-pit to fondle your coinage, but you waive this God-given right: “Not now; maybe later,” you think to yourself. You choose instead to retire for the night. You have a large, comfortable bed. And you have no trouble sleeping.