The Virus Is An Imp

Virus

Part 29 of 30

I’ve always been one attracted to those who know what they’re doing, knowing the ins and outs of life and are certain beyond belief, and even expand belief until it's certainty for all. Naturally, I’m talking about religion, where it’s sketched out “In the beginning” blah blah blah all the way to what is revealed at the very tip top pinnacle of the end. Everything's resolved...

The weird thing, actually, is that we know all the stuff from the beginning to the end, but we still maintain, at least fictionally, a little doubt as to how it affects our day to day lives. When, as common sense tells us, if you already have the beginning and the end, all drama should then be gone from the interim bits. If I had anything to do with it, anytime someone came to me with a problem, we’d review the opening, then the end, and the person would be immediately convinced that the interim’s OK.

But as it turns out it’s not always like that. My own suspicion is it can’t be that simple because everyone has to make a living. And what better way to make a living, perpetually, than by allowing doubts to grow up and thrive, and finally see worry ester and spill out everywhere, bearing bitter fruit. So that people are like dry plants in the desert when they should be sprouting and budding, alive with moisture and certain faith and knowledge.

It’s a self-perpetuating machine -- and there’s always room for someone else to jump on -- whereby we could, if only we wanted (and it’s easy to get crowded out if you pose the slightest threat), settle everything once for all in just a few seconds. I tend to see all sides of everything, then choose my answer and keep it to myself. Because I don’t like the threats of entrenched interests, never have, probably never will.

We always think religion is “so good,” that virtue is the default behavior. Big mistake. Every time you hear some guy in the public square calling the whole thing into question, then proposing a simpler understanding, notice how he or she’s always gone the next day. Our quick assumption is that they have such a grand message that they’re wanted in other towns, with a big demand. No, these spiritual vampires against the truth are up late at night, hustling people on to their reward, whether by drowning, stabbing, overloading them with poisons, basically everything except “God bless you.”

But thank goodness there’s still a few who not only understand it but put forth the true doctrine for people’s good, like this one guy I know whose prayers are immediately effective. His teaching is that believing your apparent symptoms is always wrong, positing as he does a never-ending series of “imps,” whom we might think of as devils or germs, but germs with a consciousness. Of course all germs have to eat, but do they have to be gluttons? No they don’t. And when they are, that’s when they need to be confronted and cast out.

His quick prayers are the prayers of power, big enough to end the virus in a heartbeat. Were it not for the others, those whose interests are behind the persistence of evil! They’d milk it forever, whereas my guy, he puts an end to suffering. People arise immediately from their so-called "bed of affliction" and march forward in newness of life. So won't you plan on it? To meet me in a dark alley near here, and bring your best offering, and I’ll turn you on as to this guy's whereabouts. Satisfaction guaranteed or a small portion of your offering will be donated to your favorite charity.

Veronica's Magical World

I used to have an old friend, Veronica, who would take (partial) credit for it being a sunny day. “See what my prayers did?” she'd say, pointing happily around. The weather wasn’t her only spiritual talent; she saw herself as key to a lot of positive aspects of life. I thought, maybe yes, probably no. But what can you say, “Hey, great job!” I always wondered how she could think that way, but it was OK.

My problem, if you'd call it a problem, is I’m more "realistic," but it's my own realism; her outlook to her was also realistic. I never gave her much credit, but I could be wrong; everything I think isn't a fact. Maybe she was right. Because there’s all kinds of scientific ways to demonstrate that the world isn’t what it seems to be. Just get a microscope and look. I wouldn't mind thinking how Veronica thought, if people around me could stand it.

We got the first snow of the season. Minor, so far, and it’s still coming down. And I had to remark, “See what my prayers didn't do,” since I didn’t want it to snow. But maybe Veronica, now passed on, wherever she is — heaven — thought I wanted or needed snow. It’s interesting she didn’t think that in August when it was so hot, but instead waited till November when it’s not so rare.

Still, even if there’s nothing to it, that seems like a good way to think, if you can manage it. It's hyper-optimistic. If I could just think that every little thing is happening just for me, that’d be a happy world. I wouldn’t have to tell everyone, of course, like going around taking credit for it. Say a family was in a 10-car pileup on the interstate because of the snow, I’d hate to have them show up at my door with legal claims. So I’d try not to take all the credit. 

OK, let’s say I indeed have Veronica in heaven, still doing the same things she did in daily life, praying for sunny days and favors, then joyfully claiming the results as her own. I could let this blog be a plea to my other friends and loved ones who have passed to also pitch in. I could get up and think what I want, knowing they heard my thoughts. But if there is a one-to-one ratio on wanting and getting, I could just leave out the dead middleman and pray it myself.

What would be even better than passed-on advocates in heaven would be their actual presence along side me. Then every little thing I saw, I could credit one or another of them. I see a candle flicker, that’s Mom passing by. "Hi, Mom, how ya doin'?" Or I’m taking a bath and think, “No reason to waste water,” that has to be my Dad. I had a best friend who died around a year ago. I’d actually love him doing a few funny things in my life. Like giving me better blog ideas. In my opinion he was a genius.

Hmm, for some reason the sun just went down, sunk in a second! ... and it’s only 2:00 in the afternoon. It’s pitch dark and it was bright as noon five minutes ago. Never mind wondering what’s going on, excited scientists. It’s just Veronica telling me, I need more rest. Good night, one and all!

February Survives -- I Blame Hugh Hefner

WE CAME THAT CLOSE TO WINNING,
BUT FINISHED THE BATTLE WITH
NEXT TO NO SURVIVORS, ONLY
ME. AND I'M GOING INTO HIDING.

I was up early this morning, looking for signs of success against February. My heroic attempt to destroy February as a month on the calendar, then divvy up most of its days with other months and preserve a "stump month" of 10 February days, hung in the balance. Alone in my prayer citadel -- other than the courthouse the highest point in the county -- I tried to have faith, but reports coming in from around the world painted a dismal picture. There was no popular groundswell, none whatsoever, to do away with February.

I held out hope, biting my fingernails to the quick. Various lieutenants and family members climbed up to check on me. The braver ones warned me to be prepared for bad news. They said reports arriving from other states and countries showed the chances of destroying February as bleak. Legislators were not meeting, Congress pitched pennies instead of working, and the United Nations was closed, ambassadors laid off without pay.

Finally, I realized I had to put on a brave face. And show that everything was fine with me, in spite of my disappointment. I stripped off my outer layers of clothing. (It's a cold day.) Then my thermals. Last, I shed the rest of my clothes and stepped out on my citadel balcony, totally naked, me against the world! In one last expression of defiance, albeit vain, I peed. Reasoning, if I can't destroy February, I can go for the Guinness world record for the longest adhering urine stream. I was stoved up with two pots of freshly ground coffee -- jet black! My stream might still be flowing -- somewhere, somehow -- even as I write this two hours later.

So what happened? It's too early for a complete post mortem. I won't get into the details of my agitating government and the media. I put my heart into it, but it wasn't enough. I would like to mention, as an incriminating aside, that there seems to be a lot of old-time XXX movie houses very close to the Capitol. Could it be our "faithful representatives" are more "hung" up on some "pressing" matters of the flesh than they are "coming" to the aid of their people? 

OK, I did the government thing, but the heart of the campaign had to be this very blog. I put the word out there everyday -- with a worldwide outreach -- and what did people do with it? That's what I'd like to know! I know you'll say this is in bad taste, but frankly I'm shifting much of the blame to my readers, whose personal pleasure was their only real concern. Pretending to be on my side, pretending to do the heavy lifting, but then ... not really. I'd guess most of them are also into XXX entertainment, whether in some rundown smelly/sticky theater, or right there with their iPhones "in hand."

I've suspected all along that I've been dealing with mental cream puffs, halfwits, and the usual run of dim bulbs you meet on the internet. They're spoiled, there's no commitment. You know what, I remember the internet back in the '90s, man. Back in the '90s, man, you'd run a campaign -- destroy February, replace Christmas with Worship a Pine 2 x 4 Day -- and you'd get it done. Then the 2000s came -- 9/11 and people became pansified -- and now we're so soft we've essentially melted. It's 2015 and you couldn't raise an internet volunteer to YAWN on cue; they'd be asleep already before you flashed the sign!

OK, you had your chance. So don't come looking to me next year when February rolls around again. Just suffer. Because I'll still be nursing a grudge -- an eternal grudge -- stewing over how you deserted me, then even went so far as to callously stab me in the back right when I was on the brink of victory. The very worst time for betrayal, because the hurt never leaves. I'll always remember ... this time back in 2015 when I took on this literally thankless task. When my readers were so "into pleasure" they couldn't be bothered to support a brother in his hour of need.

It's a lot different from what I grew up with. I grew up hearing about the Depression, with my relatives' memories being how they stuck together, through thick and thicker. So where did things go so wrong with society? You know what I blame it on? There was strength in World War II, then a huge letdown, and people relaxed. When, guess who, Hugh Hefner comes along and fills the vacuum with Playboy magazine, setting the old mores aside as well as the old values. Look it up in any sociology text. Hugh Hefner gave us the dawn of a hedonism that would've made Caligula blush. And therein is the reason we couldn't destroy February.

So it's a problem with our government, and a problem with my readers, existing as they do in this reckless XXX world. And apparently there's nowhere to find better ones. Even the most prominent think tanks can't find people. They're all so hopelessly wasted, there's probably no one but me who'd even be smart enough to apply.

We Remember Your Birthday

This is a get-rich-quick scheme I thought of, in honor of my own birthday coming up. Being close to 62, I know how much birthdays mean to people. I light a little candle, pray for my soul, smear blood on the door, and I'm ready for another year. Beats shivering in the dark, doing nothing proactive, just waiting for the Reaper.

The idea is along the same line as the flags you can buy that have "flown over the United States Capitol." Sounds very impressive, till you realize there's someone raising and lowering flags all day and night -- my understanding. If I'm right, they might fly for a few seconds, then they're down again. Meaningful stuff, especially when you think of the halfwits working below. Are you much smarter? Apparently not.

My idea isn't as crass as that, really. It would actually provide a good service for folks who don't have many friends. And our sentiments would be absolutely sincere -- guaranteed no cynicism. You send in an easily affordable $9.99 ($10 if you will), and we spring into action. We read the card you filled out. Say your birthday is February 12, so bright and early that day we light a candle and offer a prayer on your behalf. Touching.

And since not many people are born in February, because it's such a short month, I believe we could do it up really good, plumping up the festivities with an extra helping of sincerity. You, back home, are feeling the love, somehow, probably after receiving the email letting you know it's all been accomplished.

The problem, of course, would be that eventually we'd be getting cards by the truckload, and it'd be much more of a logistical problem. Some folks wouldn't have the sense to put in the right amount of money; you'd always get them; so we'd have to come up with a policy of how to handle it. If we sent it back, maybe they'd just give up and we'd end up with nothing. So we'd probably go ahead and do something for them and let it go.

The other big problem would be keeping up with the candles and prayers. With big volume, I can see us just methodically lighting candles and blowing them out all day and figuring that covers it. As for the prayer, sooner or later we might have a prayer sticker printed and just be slapping it on top of the previous 40,000 stickers. It's easy to imagine myself going for the Guinness record for successively applied stickers. You could literally have the stack 6 feet tall and it wouldn't topple!

Everything's going great. We're honoring the terms, and pocketing the ten dollar bills, along with the occasional person shorting us, until a disgruntled employee secretly records the system. I'll admit it up front, there's always going to be a bad apple. Like the restaurant guy who bathes in the sink. One of these bad apples will have his shorts stuffed with money, then be seen "lighting" the candles with a blowtorch, and, in place of the usual prayer sticker, be affixing some rude sticker he got from a gum machine, like a Hell's Angels skeleton head or something.

A video of this shows up online and we're immediately shut down. There's a class action suit and I'm sent to prison, which I could never stand. I don't know if I've ever mentioned on the blog, that I once toured an actual prison. The restroom is a big open room, bright white, with stools lining the walls, disgusting in every way. That'd be terrible, along with whatever else goes on there. I'd hate to wake up someday, like on my own birthday, going, "Why couldn't I have just celebrated my own damned birthday and left well enough alone?"

Help From My Ancestors

I heard from someone about the Japanese being big into ancestor worship. That they serve their dead ancestors more or less out of fear. Because if they didn't, the ancestors would come around and stink up the place. Or something. If none of that's true, my apologies to them.

Part of it I think sounds fairly cool, although the word 'worship' doesn't really ring true for me. And the part that really doesn't sound cool is serving them out of fear. Come on, the only thing that's changed is they're dead and years have passed. We didn't worship them when they were around, and they weren't all that scary then. Maybe Clarence was scary, but more about him later.

I really think I could work up at least some devotion to them, especially if there were really positive something in it. What that might be, I can only guess; it might be a little more balance in my life, self understanding, introspection, and a deep and abiding desire to waste my time doing unusual things.

Lord knows, a little more balance would do me good. After all, I had a suicidal great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Grandpa Something, I can't think what his name was, so we'll call him Something. He was so far back that we never met. Anyway, the only reason I'm even here is due to Something's incompetence! Because that's the way it works: If he'd been successful, that would have ruptured the line leading to me. Isn't it strange how tenuous our existence really is?

One thing, for me, that came out of hearing about Grandpa Something's incompetence is the lesson that there really are good benefits to failure. To fail may be a disaster and disgrace most of the time, but sometimes it's a matter of life and death. Had Something not been a great failure ... you get the idea.

There's family lore that Something was so incompetent, he actually fell out of Heaven five times! Odd fact. We got this in a seance from one of his contemporary cousins. Heaven finally took drastic measures and locked him in a church, of course. Where apparently he howls almost like a banshee. I say almost because, remember, he's incompetent.

I'm definitely not worshiping Grandpa Something. Closer in time, there's Grandma and Grandpa themselves. And my own Dad and Mom. You can see Grandpa and my Mom in the little shrine I made, left to right. Then I added my Uncle Clarence, mentioned before, more or less for comic relief.

Looking at Grandpa and my Mom naturally would give me balance. I loved both of them very much, and learned so many lessons in life that ... forget-about-it, mission accomplished, checkmate, stick a fork in it! They said it and I believed it. As for Clarence, he and I never met. Just look at him, why would we? But I heard about him!

I think of Grandpa and Mom's character. I learned so much from them. From Grandpa, I learned the value of hard work. He worked so hard. And from Mom, I learned the value of keeping your word. She wouldn't ever lie, such a great person. From Clarence's character, I believe I learned to stay home and not mess with people. Since he was murdered when he was out messing with some other guy's woman.

Looking at the shrine, it's really stimulating a lot of thoughts in me. I've been meditating on it for 20 minutes between paragraphs. I have great memories of Grandpa. He used to take me fishing, pretty often. He was so patient, teaching me to bait the hook, how to set it, and how to reliably bring the fish to shore. Then Mom, a tender memory is how she used to make Spanish rice, then serve it with a rose sideways in her mouth, so cute! Things I heard about Clarence ... he always burnt his candle at both ends, which sounds very dangerous. How could he keep it under control? He didn't.

If I were to actually pray to my ancestors -- which is a foreign concept, although I could probably just substitute "talk" to them --  I might say to Grandpa, "Help me be more like you, showing your good qualities." And to Mom, "Your compassion for people was always so amazing. Help me develop that more in myself." To Clarence, what do you pray to a guy like Clarence? "Clarence, help me learn from my mistakes, even though I know asking you of all people is itself a mistake."

I think I'm going to ask Grandpa and Mom a question I've always wondered about. I'm looking at the shrine here, staring at it, 20 more minutes have passed by, and I've sat with this question solidly in my mind: "Is it true we become angels in Heaven?" They answer jointly: "No." "No?" I ask, "Can you explain?" "What's there to explain? We said no," they say, end of discussion.

Bolt Upright In The Night

Thank God for government snooping. It helps me get to sleep at night and get my rest. Let me explain.

At one time, I would be sleeping, then dreaming, with the noises of the night mixed in. A truck goes by and clunks its load on the bump in the road. It's a critical moment in my dream, and I bolt upright in the bed. I'm in a terrible sweat, breaking into one, I'm shaking, and even itching. (If I wear long johns in the summer, my legs tend to itch.)

After much stirring, I get back to sleep. Then I start dreaming about a mountain of bills. A mountain of bills, things you could never pay even were you to have a good job. I'm stewing away over it: I might lose my credit rating, my game toe might get better and I'll lose my disability, I might lose the house! I bolt upright in the bed, a horrendous sweat breaking out everywhere.

I try to sleep, but sleep doesn't come. The whole night's terror continues to drill into my mind. I'm even praying now, "God, be merciful to me, a poor sleeper." Again, I'm stewing over it in my mind, all that could happen: Burglars are very stealthy; there could already be one in the house; Underbrush, my dog, has virtually lost her hearing, she won't bark. Car thieves are out there, too. And someone might be stealing the copper from my air conditioner. I'm not even asleep but I bolt upright, then get up and go to the bathroom and change my sweaty clothes and sheets.

Back in bed, I'm worried over my health. There's a few new aches and pains everyday. But I manage to doze off. The health concerns have now morphed into a terrible dream. There's monks flagellating themselves and trying to get me to take up flagellating. I, who think flagellating is totally stupid! But they convince me, so there I am, beating myself to death with chains. It's making me dizzy, I'm passing out, I see the signs of death everywhere. My arteries are clogged, I've got scrofula, halitosis, catarrh, rheumatism, and dropsy. And to make it worse, I'm getting a bad doctor's report. The terror builds ... I bolt upright in bed.

Once I get back to sleep, everything has shifted. Now my dream is of people on my trail. They're all trying to corner me in some way. I have few options left. I'm telling morphing inquisitors -- morphing from kindly priests to horror film beasts -- "Yes, yes, I'm guilty and everyone knows it!" There's two figures, like the Spy vs. Spy characters, with big beaks, and they're leading me to a field of bubbling tar pits, where they raise knives to stab me and dispose of me still alive. I bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath, hot tar everywhere.

At this point, I really feel like I need to work on my prayer life. But none of it helps. Then I remember, "God damn it, I live in a country where security is Number 1, top of the line, grade A. The government is keeping track of everything and everyone, and that includes me. They've got eyes in the sky, eyes in the street, eyes in the hills. They know what I've done, who I've met with, and what we've planned -- all quite innocent. No one, and nothing, is going to get me. I don't have to worry about it. Thank goodness -- seriously, thank goodness -- for that kind of security, both personal and the security we enjoy as a nation.

I consider it like that, the facts, and as I do, a great warmth descends upon me. From my feet to my head and back again, I feel the warmth. It's pervasive, a great warmth even though I'm not sweating. It is comfort, a feeling of complete comfort, like being in my dear mother's arms, little footies on my feet. And a drop seat in the butt should I need it. I find myself going into that blessed stage just before sleep, and all is well. I drift happily, then, easily into full sleep. Safe and restful, sleep, sleep, sleep.