[Pt. 2 of 2]
God’s jaw drops. “The Beauty Beam, you say?”
“Yes,” Bryan smiles brightly. “It shoots out a big thick laser.”
God lifts his brows: “And…?”
“And whatever it hits is instantly rendered beauteous!”
God looks around the shop nervously: “Be careful with that thing… You don’t have any mirrors in here, I hope…?”
“Don’t worry,” Bryan laughs; “this Beauty Beam doesn’t ricochet around and hit innocent bystanders like your Wild-West Pistol Bullets. It’s more like the arrows of Cupid — it never misses its target.”
Bryan aims the bazooka at God’s lambkin and prepares to pull the trigger.
“Hold on a moment,” God prays. “Before we go through with this treatment, I wanna make sure that it’s the proper thing for my lamb.”
“Yeah,” sighs Bryan; “that’s what you just did, by visiting my clinic. Haven’t you heard that catchphrase that they put at the end of pharmaceutical commercials? ‘Ask your doctor if Evil Drug X is right for you.’ — Well I’m a vet, which is a type of doc, and I’m telling you now: The Beauty Beam is just the treatment that your lamb needs. It will help little lambkin grow handsome, so that he can find himself a date for the Lamb Prom; and then you can arrange for the Marriage of the Lamb to take place. And, additionally, one thing I forgot to mention is that this bazooka’s Beam of Love also has the power to forgive even animal-sin! So you could say that it prettifies not only the outside but also the inside of every vessel that it breaks.”
God clutches his pearls: “It forgives even animal-sin, you say?”
“That’s what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allow me to claim, at least in the States.”
“Jesus,” God gasps; “maybe you SHOULD install a few mirrors in your shop, before we begin.”
Bryan laughs, “No, I was telling the truth when I said that this beam doesn’t bounce — it just goes right into the intended subject’s tummy, and soothes all the pain away instantaneously, while at once making the outward appearance of its patient curly-cute (and white as snow); plus it sops up all iniquity from the soma’s interior.”
God checks his watch: “OK, but it’s the Sabbath until sundown…” he shows me the clock face, whose digital display presents the date and has a flashing serpent in the shape of a letter “S” to indicate that it’s currently either Saturday or Sunday; then God continues: “or does the day begin at morning? Better make it sunup — yes, let’s wait a bit, just to be safe… Then pull the trigger on the morrow… It’s less than twenty-four hours away…”
“But poor lambkin is in torment!” Bryan Ray the Veterinarian of Purgatory argues. “I cannot stand to see any being suffer, even for an instant. I’m shooting this NOW…”
Bryan launches a lozenge of sparkling wonderment from the nonviolent weapon’s blast-hole, which narrowly misses God (who is leaping in slow-motion before of the lamb in a failed attempt to take the magic bullet) and enters lambkin’s flesh, bones, coat, soul, and life-breath, drastically improving the appearance of all these organs.
The screen also cuts to a medium-long shot of the lamb’s ruby stool before the throne of God, which now fades away miraculously (the stool, not the throne). So there’s no longer even a brilliant mess to clean up.
“There!” Bryan pets the lamb, who is happy now; “all better! And we also proved that the Sabbath is not something designed to cause agony to creatures, but rather it was established for the purpose of giving folks leisure and freedom. Therefore, instead of implementing a six-day work week and then proclaiming a single, solitary Day of Rest, we should instead be working toward a schedule that consists of six full days of R&R (rest and relaxation) and only ONE day of labor. Or, better yet, a perpetually workless existence, where every being is free; and then we can all enjoy the life of the gods, which is a state of constant contemplation; and our diet would consist of pastries and nectar. Don’t you agree, Sir?”
“That is correct,” sez God. “Thank you so much for saving my little lambkin.” God lets the lamb lick his fat face. “Mmm-hmm,” he murmurs to lambkin between licking sessions: “I’ll never feed you bacon for breakfast again.”
[AUTHOR’S NOTE. For the rest of the present episode — which is almost at its end — for stylistic reasons, in addition to playing the Narrator, I shall take on the role of Bryan Ray the Vet. Therefore, in what follows, whenever I say “I”, I’m speaking in the first person as my own character: Bryan from Purgatory. I hope this makes sense.]
I pat God on the back and help him load the lamb into his wickerwork storage-box. Then I step back in alarm and say:
“But, oh, what should we do about your poor horse!?” I pat the nag and it shivers. “He’s so pale — maybe I should give him a blast from the Beauty Beam as well.”
“The horse is fine,” God sez as he takes his stiff leg in his hands and passes it over the saddle. “I’m not against the idea; but we’re in a hurry to get home. Go ahead and try shooting, if you think you can hit a moving target. Gyah!” he cracks the whip, and the pale horse begins to trot.
I aim carefully, trying to steady my bazooka (I am trembling, due to nerves)... At first I center the horse in my scope, but I don’t dare pull the trigger, because he keeps weaving in and out of the crosshairs. Yet when God is almost to the mountain’s peak, realizing that this might be my final opportunity to make a change for the best, I decide to chance it: — I shoot once… then twice.. and again and again…
Altogether, I think I let off a total of seven more shots from The Beauty Beam. Alas, I never could gauge whether any of them hit their mark.
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