theological burden in a raindrop

The electric monk, steadfast in his belief that gravity should work in reverse, looked up puzzledly at the rain. He was, afterall, designed to relieve humans of the burden of belief in nonsense, so why should this current belief make for such inconvenient dampness? And why should he have to carry an umbrella when clearly raindrops should fall up? The fact that his feet were firmly planted on the ground was irrelevant evidence as far as he was concerned. And so long as he held onto his belief, humankind was free to work on the more important problems of science.

AStar

My stomach did a flip-flop as we lifted into the fog. We hovered for a moment above the hangar as the tail swung us around to our northwest bearing. Everyone seemed to be in silent prayer that the viz would improve past the lighthouse as promised. In the meantime we had 40 minutes of dangerously low flying along the rivers, but at least the bear-watching would be good. Katherine plugged in her iPod and turned Thievery Corporation on the headsets. The blades sliced the foggy ceiling and we swayed along a serpentine line towards the coast. Electronic beats blended with the thump of the rotor and the pounding of hearts. We were viewing the world from above in a haze. We traced the river path through mountains of evergreen and finally northern bog, over the flights of eagles that spied the grizzlies fishing salmon. I pulled my awareness back into the helicopter just long enough to note the Zen-like expressions of the other three occupants. Slowly the outline of the lighthouse and red and white outbuildings came into focus. A rainbow halo appeared around our shadow on the clouds, moments before we burst through the white wall to the Pacific.

LAX-AKL

I was trying to ignore the unsolicited and undirected whining from the large woman taking up half my seat. LA to Melbourne via Auckland is a long trip, but the only place you are going that is ten hours drive from Melbourne is the outback. She spewed stream of consciousness complaints about her life over the past year, in a strange mixed yankee-bogan accent. I’m not sure if she was trying to impress, or obtain sympathy. I learned she had a twenty-something son in the US. She had a daughter born last year that was with her husband, who she hated, in the outback. She had been in the US for months. She had been in hospital with swine flu, where she learned she was pregnant despite dropping fifty pounds. This woman was the stuff of tragic fiction or Australian comedy and I didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or run screaming. I tried to fake sleep while she laid out her plans to surprise the husband with the “happy” news before her fists started swinging. I tried not to let her feel we had forged a bond without being outright rude. But we all know how velcro-people work…

capital vices

Beelzebub belched and threw the empty carton labeled “fire-roasted souls” out the window of his nuclear-powered chariot. His stomach temporarily sated, he stepped on the gas; there was fun to be had somewhere, and money burning a hole in his pocket.

Hell’s casino had failed to satisfy his addictions recently but it seemed like a good place to start. At least there would be plenty of liquor and proximity to all the hedonistic delights he was accustomed to consuming. Mammon would be there in his usual position at the craps table, and occasionally Asmodeus would show up and goad them into spending money at the gentleman’s club.

He strode into the casino bar to procure his first of many drinks for the night, grabbing pretzels by the handful and stuffing them into his mouth. He was surprised to see Belphegor sitting at the bar with a preening Lucifer. Belphegor appeared to be drooling in his half-sleeping state, Lucifer was flexing his muscles for every passer by and boasting loudly about his latest acquisition of prideful souls.

Beelzebub acknowledged them as he passed, heading through clusters of souls around black jack tables. Someone jumped up gleefully and reached to collect his winnings, only to burst into flame, screaming in pain. Amon sat in some corner of the room making sure all of Hell’s patrons remained miserable.

He located Mammon at a table with Asmodeus and Leviathan. Asmodeus had his usual harem of lusty souls like a halo around him. The attention he was getting and giving had Leviathan seething. Beelzebub squeezed into a chair at their table and ordered a few more drinks. Lucifer joined them shortly, continuing with his boastful verbosity while brushing lint off his neatly pressed suit. When the drinks arrived, the tight fisted Mammon grabbed a glass and ignored the tab, counting out a roll of greedy souls but then tucking it back into his pocket. Lucifer, the slicker, pulled several extra souls from his money clip and casually tossed them on the table.

This show of excess was too much for Leviathan. He looked at Lucifer through slitted eyes, rising to his feet and spitting through his teeth. He grabbed Lucifer by the collar, ripping the money clip out of his hand and pocketing the souls for himself. If he couldn’t have Lucifer’s looks, no one should, he thought, as he gathered himself to smoke him.

All the souls around the table ignited and fled, as Amon stepped in. No fight was going to happen without him involved. Before the demons around the table had time to react Amon had raged towards them and burned them all.

A belligerent Beelzebub rose from the ash and headed towards Hell’s kitchen. If it was going to be this kind of party, at least he could find some marshmallows.

Dec 26th in the US of Eh

Do you feel ripped off? No Boxing day! As a kid, Boxing day meant visitors and fresh crab. As in really fresh. As in bought on the dock and carried home in a plastic bag and killed on the counter top before being dropped in the pot of boiling water. I never ate it. I could never get over the smell, or the image of its legs waving in the air in its struggle against the kitchen knife right before - CHOP. And there it is, my temporary pet on the dinner table paired with a chardonnay and tiny forks.

tasseography

I took my last swig of the bitter brew and the tea leaves slid to the bottom of the cup on a watery film. Leaning back in my chair, the taste of tannins was quickly replaced with the essence of mothballs and herbs that filed the stagnant air. I was chilled and impatient, sitting in a hard plastic chair, trying to make sense of the woman’s schizophrenic ramblings and erratic hand talking. Her visions and reality blurred into a life tale of agoraphobia and mysticism. Finally, she bent and peered into my cup, and pulled back white-faced in wide-eyed horror.

the potter

By any other measure, she would have been labeled insane, but under the guise of art, she was called brilliant. She spent her days in an east side studio hunched over a wheel, spitting into pots and pulling them into malformed, oversized volumes, in the shapes of body parts. Her works were named and labeled for their apparent intended parts too: large egg shaped ones labeled "head", smaller flatted side-opened ones labeled "foot", a slightly triangular one labeled "shoulder". The finished pots were spread around the studios like a disorganized Frankenstein's lab. Her nights she wandered east side neighbourhoods, scavenging.