“Not a bad idea, Jeez”
“Lu? Maybe you should go this time. You’d make a terrific Jesus.”
“Me? The Evil One with horns and a pitchfork? I want a makeover. Alexander the Great might be an enjoyable experience. Or Al Capone. Fun roles. Maybe a Broadway musical. I want to live and have fun without restrictions and without your pitiful guilt. Lady Gaga!Now I could do that.”
Jesus pretended to listen to Lucifer, trying to figure why he was sitting in the best vape bar in Sumer City listening to Lu’s accusations from seasons ago. Avoid the tedious and the stale. How much guilt must one Messiah bear?
“Lucifer, I have a question for you.”
“Shoot, kiddo.”
“Why must all the world suffer the atrocities of others? Must they accept their misfortunes silently, stoically, alone? Why shouldn’t I care? Why shouldn’t I try?”
“I don’t know, kiddo. Your mitzvah, I suppose. Most atrocities are committed in the Overlord’s name! I will give your question more thought, if you will think about how that cushy bed of Faith and Belief is leading your followers to their own apathetic demise. Jesus the Christ! I hate do-gooders!” Lucifer reached into the air, smiled, held his hand out to Jesus and said, “Here it is: So they can deflect and delegate all responsibility away from themselves and place it into the hands of the invisible.”
“What are you talking about?” Jesus asked.
“The personification of the God.”
“I don’t see his point,” Gertrude Stein said with a boozy smirk, “I would certainly know the point were I stuck inside a holodeck!”
“You think?” Plato asked, although it sounded more like a challenge. “One day, perhaps, you will learn the nature of reality and the reality of nature. Give it time, Gertrude.”
“Shh,” Gertrude Stein snarled. “I want to hear the monkey sing.”
* * *
Once upon a time, Sumer was the fourth planet from the sun. Then a Herculean meteor sped between it and Earth, causing them to collide. The collision generated enough energy for Sumer to carve off half of the planet Earth and incorporate it into itself. Consequently, Earth, now half its former size, was knocked closer to Mars. Sumer, along with its added mass of Earth——containing deoxyribonucleic acid, the main constituent of chromosomes and genetic information——was catapulted into an orbit well-nigh out of the solar system. Sumer revolves around the sun from the farthest edge of the solar system, beyond the ice planets. This will be the fourth rotation the Sumerians will visit Earth. They knew of the name change from New Sumer to Earth and, considering the terrible things that have been evolving on the planet, they gladly welcome the change since they no longer want to be associated with it. Earth is monitored regularly from impossible distances, but once every rotation the planet Sumer is in position for physical contact. The contact port is due to open shortly.
“How much is shortly, Max?” asked Kuku, as if she had a lemon up her ass.
“Yeah. How much, Max?” Kaka, twin brother to Kuku, asked as though he had the rest of the lemons and the tree up his ass.
“As long as it takes,” Captain Talbot answered telepathically with a wink and a wrenched smile before adding, “Soon, kids.”
“We ain’t kids!”
“I know.”
* * *
You bet they ain’t kids their brains are stunted their minds are infected by a fatal disease known as stupidity they die out of place and time on a planet called Earth look again Maxfield see how the mind gets ahead of itself changes itself from harmony to dissonance you’ve fucked up time and space again allow my brain to calculate time and space folds your mind must listen not just your ears your brain is a useful tool use it WAKE UP!
A sonic boom and Max was back at the home he never left.
FOUR
too much public television
Lily is an unemployed middle-aged actor with a practical wash and dry cut. Once a natural strawberry blond, now in need of regular touching-up to keep the omnipresence of strawberry, which makes her feel better about herself, Lily is, as is V, in that middle-age agelessness that dares the hazard of guessing. To guess could lead to an existential crisis. To guess too high could be felt as an inexcusable insult; to guess too low could sound suspiciously patronizing, untruthful and definitely unnecessary. Best to never mention it.
Another life ago, when Lily played the ingenue in the French Provincial ‘B’ touring company of Andy Webber’s Ben Hur, the Musical, she was beguiled by an absolutely perfect stranger who took her into the tombs beneath Orléans. He was a hottie, twenty-ish, with the face and body of a god named Philippe le Hottie.
Philippe le Hottie waited impatiently outside the actors’ exit, chewing on the corner of his playbill, shivering in the hot summer night with anticipation and excitement to get Mademoiselle Champagne’s autograph. Philippe le Hottie spoke no English to speak of, so he mustered his courage to gain her attention by removing his shirt and showing off his abs. A streamlet of warm saltwater meandered through muscled ridges meeting, ever so briefly, where they gathered into the small pool in his navel, before pouring rivulets of sweat that wandered through the heat and humidity in the dark maze of his curly love trail.
Philippe stood glistening under the alley streetlights on that hot summer evening, catching the attention of everybody in the cast and crew as they exited from their final performance of Ben Hur, the Musical, he blessed himself and prayed to Saint Joan of Arc for the famous Mademoiselle Lilith Champagne from America to notice him. The Mademoiselle nearly fell over herself going down the three cast-iron steps outside the stage door and nearly toppled onto the cobblestone alleyway that led to the parking lot. Fortunately, with the grace of Saint Joan, Philippe le Hottie reached out to help her regain her balance. Lily grabbed onto him. He was holding the playbill for her autograph, but dropped it when she, spontaneously and uncontrollably, gave her French god an arousing, blazing French kiss. He asked Lily if she’d like to see his hung meat and cheese. That was all her Albuquerque high school French could make of it. Surely she had misunderstood, but she was helplessly enthralled as she obediently took his hand. Spontaneously, hand-in-hand they strolled the few blocks to the Viande et le Fromage Boutique, Philippe’s family business. Her wishful thinking vanished from the embarrassment of her fallacious translation. But it was, after all, heard only by herself.
Philippe and Lily pushed aside the cheeses and meats that hung in the backroom. They came to a spot where muted music came from below. Philippe opened the concealed trapdoor in the floor, uncovering a staircase that led down into the catacombs of Orléans.
The impatient lovers maneuvered through yet more cheeses and meats. As the music grew louder, projections of spiraling colors splashed across cold dank walls and spilled over human bones. It was a Happening! A hundred or more young French men and women in cowboy get-ups, under hats measured in gallons, doing a Texas line dance to the music of a fiddler with a seeing-eye dog, was a jubilant surprise. A Happeningin a tomb under Orléans with a god named Philippe le Hottie. It was a wet dream come true——actually, she never dreamt it, but she will——oftentimes.
The following morning,
