[Yesterday's entry represented the end of its scroll, corresponding to the final chapter of the biblical book of 1st Kings. Today's entry is the beginning of the next scroll, corresponding to the initial chapter of 2nd Kings. And the obligatory image is a detail from an ad.]
Chapter 1
The caravan had been divided since the beginning, when David challenged Saul, the very first president. There had always been at least two presidents vying for power. Even when we are told that there was peace and unity, for instance, under a President Solomon, there was still predominantly discord (social harmony is irreconcilable with forced labor). But at the present point in its history, the caravan was the closest it had yet come to being unified: for the southern faction’s President Fat Jehovah had negotiated a formal accord with Captain Ahab, the northern president. As part of this treaty, the leaders arranged for their respective successors to be joined in wedlock, so that the next presidents should govern the caravan as one flesh. The current chapter shall tell how all this came about.
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Gracchus the son of Ahab was elected president over the caravan’s northern 85%, after his father’s rapture. This was in the seventeenth year of President Fat Jehovah’s term.
The most significant event in the presidency of Fat Jehovah, besides uniting the caravan, was the time that he tried to send a fleet of pirate ships to Ophir to steal gold: but the ships broke apart and sank before leaving the port, because they were poorly built.
After that, Fat Jehovah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber. He then sent angels, all very beautiful, and said unto them: “Go, seek out the Highest LORD, the one whose golden emerod we saw displayed at the Scandinavian furniture store, and ask if he can help me. Tell him that I have fallen and cannot get up; leave out, however, the sordid details of my plight.”
Now Yahweh Peor the Volcano was at that moment tutoring the Ozian Elijah from the City of Emeralds, and he said to him: “Today’s lesson is over. I shall go east now. I will be back in a fortnight for your next lesson. In the meantime, work on selflessness, patience, and listening.” Then he left Elijah standing there on the hill.
And as the angels that had been sent by the president were walking toward their destination, lo, the Volcano met them in the way, and he called to them and said: “I know who you’re looking for. How can I help you?”
Then they told him about Fat Jehovah’s fallen state, leaving out the part about him soiling the couch where he landed, just as the president himself instructed them; then they asked: “Is there hope?”
And he answered: “Tell the president: ‘Thus says the Volcano: You shall not arise from where you dropped, but shall surely die.’” Then he departed.
So they made haste to deliver this message to the president. And when Fat Jehovah saw that his angels had returned, he said: “Why are you back so early? Did you meet trouble?”
And they said to him: “There came a man up to meet us, and said to us: ‘Go again unto the president that sent you, and say: Thus says the Volcano: You shall fall asleep on your couch.’”
Then President Fat Jehovah said unto them: “What type of man was he who came to meet you in the way? Did he seem to you to be the Highest LORD, whom I told you to go find: the LORD of Heaven?”
And the angels answered the president: “He had the appearance of a wild man: his flesh was rusty; and his hair was abundant, hanging down past his feet, so that nothing of his visage could be seen except his eyes, which were shaped like a goat’s. And he was girt with a girdle, in which was kept a glittering sword.”
And the president said: “I wonder if that was Elijah the Ozian.”
One angel answered: “That’s what I said. But Neæra thought that he must be John the Dipper from Chaos.”
Then the president said: “And yet he called himself the volcano of potential? If this is truly the word of the Highest LORD, then I will accept it. But how can I be sure who this strange man was, except by searching out the highest place? If he is the LORD of Heaven, then he shall be found on the summit of that hill. Therefore I will send a portion of you back to confirm the oracle; and if you meet one who is not the same wild man, then ask again if there is hope for me.”
Thus the president sent out a third of his original group, to preserve options lest this next attempt should fail. And the angels came to the hill where Elijah stood at the summit. And they spoke to him as they had to the wild man before, explaining the president’s dilemma, and saying: “Will you please come down and help?”
And when Elijah heard that these angels were looking for “the LORD Most High,” which in their tongue was “Baal Zebul,” he mistook them for worshippers of Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies, who was an archenemy of the Ozian Wizard Omega Zoroaster, Elijah’s old Jealous God; therefore Elijah answered in the heat of passion, and said: “Since you are seeking that Evil Spirit, then let fire come down from the One True God of Goodness, and consume all fifty of you.” And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed the entire flock of pretty angels.
Again also President Fat Jehovah sent unto the high place another third of his original host, as he did not know the fate of the first fifty. And this latest group spoke peaceably the same message, and they said: “If you be the Highest LORD of Heaven, come down quickly and help!”
And Elijah answered and said unto them as he did before, and he added: “May you and your BAAL receive the judgment you deserve.” Then the divine fire came down from heaven, and consumed all but one of the fifty: and Elijah sent this one unburnt angel back to “his Evil Master” (as he called him), to “warn him of the wrath to come.”
And the fallen and injured president on his couch received this news from the surviving angel, who arrived breathless, saying: “I only am escaped alone to tell thee.” Then Fat Jehovah sent again the final third of his angelic army to Elijah on the hill. And the whole host approached the ephebe of Yahweh with caution, and they all went down on their knees before Elijah, and besought him, saying: “O man of God, spare us the fate of our forerunners; for lo, two phalanxes of fifty each (less one, whom you allowed in your mercy to bring us the news), perished when fire came down out of heaven: now we see their burnt bodies here on your hillside; therefore, we pray you, let our lives be valued in your sight.” And they proceeded to explain the president’s sad state, in unambiguous terms.
Then Elijah said: “I will go with you. Bring me to him.” So the fifty angels arose and brought him to the president.
And Elijah came before the broken and begrimed couch, around which there were flies now swarming; and he spoke as follows unto President Fat Jehovah: “I must have misunderstood. Those demons that you sent to cajole me spoke of the Lord of Flies; I thought they were seeking him, but now I see that you are Beelzebub himself. How dare you tempt a prophet of the God of Sinai!” Then he called down fire from heaven, and it incinerated the president, while at the same time it burnt up the rest of his precious angels.
Thus President Fat Jehovah died on his couch, just as the Volcano had predicted. And he was buried in Sweet Beulah Land. And his daughter Lamb Bomb was elected president in his stead, to govern the southern 15% of the caravan. This was in the second year of President Gracchus, the son of Ahab, who was governing the northern 85%. Now, according to the treaty that the two former presidents had signed, their children entered the state of matrimony: Lamb Bomb the daughter of Fat Jehovah became the wife of Captain Ahab’s son Gracchus: and together they governed 100% of the caravan.
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