The Compulsory Recycling Program

John Malthus was at home enjoying a quiet Saturday afternoon to himself. He had a snifter of brandy on the coffee table beside him and a copy of the daily newspaper on his lap. It was raining outside and John had no intention of going anywhere or doing anything. He was in his element. John had just gotten comfortable, burrowing a nice ass-crease in his favourite leather chair, when he heard a knock at the door. He muttered some expletives to himself and arose to answer it. On his porch, John was greeted by a young man wearing a raincoat and carrying a bundle of papers enclosed in a fabric pouch.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said the bright-eyed youngster. “The government would like you to fill out this year’s census form.”

The young man handed John a damp sheet of paper. It had a bold and commanding letterhead:

Government Census Form 2015

Please complete all questions by the due date and mail to the appropriate address

“Not interested,” said John, as he returned the letter and tried to slam the door, but the youngster wedged his boot in the doorway.

“Sir, the census is mandatory by law. You don’t have a choice. Please complete it by the due date and mail to the appropriate address.”

“I don’t care. Fuck off.”

John kicked the boy’s foot from his doorway and slammed the door shut. He secured it with a deadbolt, and sat back on his couch to resume his lethargic activities. John took a sip of brandy, unfolded his newspaper and flipped to the sports section. Fucking Mallards beat the Horses 2-0! What a joke! They have no defence this season. John continued grumbling about the scores of recent games when he heard another, more forceful knock at his door some time later. Again, John muttered some expletives and arose from his ass-crease to answer it. The same young boy greeted him, but this time he was accompanied by a police officer. The police officer wore aviator glasses, leather gloves, and boots. The rainwater gave him a glistening appearance.

“This boy says you refuse to fill out a census form. That true?” asked the cop.

“Yeah. I don’t want to fill out your stupid form. Now leave me alone.”

“Sir, do you know the census is mandatory? The government says you have to fill it out. If you continue to refuse, then I’ll have to charge you with a fine.”

“I don’t care,” said John. “I’m not filling it out.”

The officer glanced at the boy, who shrugged his shoulders. The officer turned back to John, raised his chin and made an arrogant snorting sound. He took out a pad of paper, scribbled some words on it, peeled it off, and shoved it in John’s face.

“That’s your fine. Eighty-five dollars. I hope this teaches you a lesson about maturity. You can avoid such needless fines in the future if you just comply with the law. Nobody ever gained from engaging in civil disobedience.”

The officer took a census form and handed it to John. He made another authoritative snorting sound and left the porch with the youngster. When John had slammed the door, he crinkled the papers into a ball and dropped them in his trash-bin. He spat on them. He returned to his couch and his brandy to enjoy the rest of the afternoon in peace and quiet.

A week later, John was watching his favourite sports team, the Horses, play their third game of the tournament against their arch-rivals, the Giraffes. John Malthus took sports very seriously and celebrated the event by dressing up in all his official merchandise and regalia. His team ran out onto the field and John cheered aloud. Their beautiful teal and periwinkle uniforms inspired him with team pride. John had not watched ten minutes of the game before he received a phone-call. Who the hell could this be?

“Hello, Mr. Malthus,” said a pleasant-sounding female voice on the other line. “I am from the Federal Collection Agency. It appears as though you received an eighty-five dollar ticket last week that you have not paid yet.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Well, I hate to be a bother, but the due date for the ticket was Thursday. That was three days ago. If you don’t want the fines to increase, then I recommend you pay the fine in full by tomorrow afternoon. Okie-dokie?”

John did not detect a hint of malice in the woman’s voice. She demanded John’s money as though she were ordering a pizza, with all the politeness and good manners that such a transaction should entail.

“I’m not paying the fine tomorrow, or any other day for that matter,” said John. “Now leave me alone. I’m trying to watch the game.”

John slammed the phone. He quickly forgot about the disturbance because the Horses just scored two points. John shouted in triumph and pounded his fists against the coffee table. Yeah, we’re back in business! Go Horses! To his consternation, there came another knock at the door a few minutes later. John tried to ignore the visitors but the knocks grew louder and more forceful.

“Open up Mr. Malthus. It’s the Police!”

“Fuck!”

John arose from his chair and opened the door, all while keeping an eye glued to the events on the television. He was confronted with three towering policemen, one of whom was the aviator cop from last week.

“What the hell is your problem, Mr. Malthus?” asked the aviator cop.

“My problem is that I’m trying to watch the game and you assholes keep interrupting me!”

“No, I meant why are you refusing to pay your ticket and fill out a simple census form? I thought you had learned your lesson last week. Give me your promise that you will pay your fines and complete the census. We’re not asking much. Just do as you are told and everything will be fine.”

“Or else what?”

“Or else we are placing you under arrest,” bellowed a short, bulbous cop to his right.

“Looks like you’re going to have to arrest me then, as I do not intend on doing either of those silly things.”

The aviator cop produced a pair of handcuffs and before John could watch the end of the first period, he was being thrown in a squad car. Neighbours looked on in disbelief. John Malthus had never caused any problems in the neighbourhood. He was not a violent man, nor a disruptive man. He was known to be stubborn on occasion, but it was shocking for them to see John led out in cuffs. He did not resist his arrest. He did not protest and cause a scene. However, when he arrived at the police station, John asked the Police chief what the score of the game was. It was 2-1 Horses. He was brought into a dark room and seated at a table in the center. The police chief entered and was accompanied by a tall man with dark sunglasses. John found it amusing that this man wore sunglasses despite the darkness of the room. The police chief slid two sheets of paper across the table to John.

“Complete these forms and you may leave,” said the police chief.

One of these sheets was familiar to John. It had a bold and commanding letterhead:

Government Census Form 2015

Please complete all questions by the due date and mail to the appropriate address

“This one looks like the census, but what is this other paper you wish me to fill out?” asked John.

“It’s a formal statement of apology. We just need you to sign your name at the bottom there,” said the police chief.

“An apology? For what?”

“For wasting our time with your nonsense. That’s what.”

“But I’m not the one who’s wasting your time. You are the ones harassing me. I didn’t do anything except refuse to fill out some stupid census, which I am still not going to do.”

“But why not? It’s not like we’re asking you to give up a kidney. Just complete the damn form. It won’t take you longer than five minutes. I’ll even go through the trouble of mailing it for you. As for all this harassment, as you call it, we are merely taking the proper procedures to ensure you do your part by completing the census form. It is mandatory by law. We’ve all had a long day and I’m sure you want to get back home to watch the rest of your game. The sooner you sign your apology and complete the census, the sooner we can all get back to our lives. Just comply with the law, John. It’s the only way out.”

John tore the apology note and the census in two. The police chief buried his face into his hands and gave a long sigh.

“Why are you making this so difficult on everybody? Just fill out the fucking form, John! That’s all there is to it.”

“As I said, I’m not making this hard on anybody. You’re the ones keeping me here. You’re the ones forcing me to complete this stupid form. If you want to go home so badly, then go home. I’m not doing anything to keep you here.”

The police chief became enraged. John could see the blood vessels on his forehead grow large and inflamed. He growled like a wounded animal. The police chief stormed off to the corner of the room and lit a cigarette. The man with the black sunglasses turned to John.

“You will complete the census John Malthus, or the consequences will be dire.”

“No I won’t.”

The man with the sunglasses turned around to the police chief.

“What do you want to do with him?”

“Throw him in cell block 19 until he decides to comply with our demands.”

The man in the dark sunglasses smiled at John and cracked his knuckles. Then he placed John back in handcuffs and led him out of the interrogation room, down a long corridor lined with florescent lights. They came to a cage with thick iron bars. There was a crude sign hanging over the entrance.

Cell block 19

“Welcome to cell block 19 motherfucker. Here is where your fellow miscreants are kept.”

There were three other men in the cage, all filthy and downtrodden. Their hair was poorly groomed and their skin was covered in dust. One of the men raised his head and smiled when he saw John being thrown in the cage. He had no front teeth.

“This is Dooley,” said the man with the sunglasses. “I’m sure he’ll love to meet a nice young man such as yourself.”

Dooley licked his lips with delight to see his new cellmate.

“Like you, Dooley also thinks he is above the law. He is charged with three hundred accounts of loitering in public places. No matter how many times we arrest him for loitering, he just goes and does it again after his release. It’s such a problem that we had to lock him up indefinitely.”

“I just love to loiter,” giggled Dooley. “There’s nothing else in the world like it. That feeling I get from a good ol’ loitering—it’s like sex on ecstasy. It just gives me a rock-hard erection. My favourite places to loiter are banks and convenience stores. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t help it. This obsession has consumed my life. All I can think about is loitering.”

“And this is Isaac,” said the sunglasses man, pointing to a rotund bearded man in the corner. “Isaac thinks that he doesn’t have to file his income taxes like the rest of us. He hasn’t done so in twenty years. This blatant flaunting of society’s conventions is why he is locked up here.”

“What are you talking about? I filed my taxes last year!” yelled Isaac.

“From what I recall, you mailed a roofing shingle with the words fuck you! painted on it. That doesn’t count as filing your taxes.”

“And finally, this is Abdul,” said the sunglasses man, pointing to an Arab lying on the bench. “We locked him up here because Abdul doesn’t think he needs to wear his seatbelt while driving.”

“I don’t belong in here,” pleaded Abdul. “Why should I have to wear a seatbelt? I am a perfectly good driver and I have never been in an accident in all my thirty years behind the wheel of an automobile. I know seatbelts make me safer, but should I not be allowed to do without one at my own risk? I’m an adult. I am capable of making such decisions for myself. Please, just let me go home to my family. I’m sure they miss me.”

“Shut up, criminal!” said the sunglasses man. “The federal government says you have to wear a seatbelt. Do not question the will of the government! Those laws are in place for your own good. The government knows what is best for you. I doubt your family wants to see you again after you have committed such heinous, negligent crimes.”

Abdul began to weep and called the name of his beloved through his sobs. The sunglasses man slammed the iron door shut and made a mocking smile to the men inside.

“Enjoy your incarceration, jackasses,” he said, and walked away.

John Malthus languished in cell 19 with his fellow criminals for the following month. His beard grew thick and his hair tangled and untamed. The prisoners were fed by a small opening in the wall, barely big enough to place one’s hand through. All they received was gruel. Isaac told John he would get used to it after the first week. He was right. There was no interaction with the guards or the policemen. John quickly became comfortable in his captivity, growing rather attached to his cellmates. Isaac was a fellow Horses fan. The two of them talked sports throughout their time in cell block 19.

“The Horses need to improve their defence!” said Isaac. “They don’t stand a chance to win the championships if they don’t do something about their defence, especially against a team like the Mallards, or the Giraffes.”

“That’s what I’ve always said!” said John. “You should have seen their last game against the Giraffes though. They scored two nice points in the first fifteen minutes of the game. Those goddamn Giraffes didn’t even see it coming.”

“I wish I could go to that Horses stadium downtown and loiter all day,” said Dooley. He became frenzied with enthusiasm. He was rubbing his crotch and foaming at the mouth.

“Calm down Dooley,” said Isaac. “If you get too excited, you will ejaculate in your pants again. Remember what a mess you made the last time? Try not to think about loitering.”

“I can’t help it, man. It just gets me so hot.”

“Would you three please shut the fuck up already?” screamed Abdul. “How can you talk about sex and sports when you see what a dismal place we are in? I hate that stupid seatbelt law. Why do I have to get locked up for disobeying such a ridiculous edict? It’s not like I’m hurting anybody. Why can’t the government just let me be?”

“It’s never been a matter of hurting people,” said Isaac. “They lock us up in here because we undermine the authority of government. All the laws and edicts in the world are useless if nobody is there to enforce them. The majority of people just comply with whatever laws the government passes, without knowing why. The government declares everybody must wear a seatbelt, so everyone wears a seatbelt. Nobody has any reason not to, so people don’t really care if somebody forces them to wear one. But that is precisely the means by which these laws are enacted—by force. If the government had no force, then their laws would cease to have meaning. But for people like us, who consciously disobey these laws, we have to be made an example of. True, we have never hurt anyone or caused anyone malice, but the laws of government would be undermined if people like us were allowed to break them. Don’t you understand? It has nothing to do with what you have done, but because you have done it. You cannot create a new law without also creating criminals. When there are criminals, then one must punish them.”

Just then, the agent with the sunglasses emerged and removed John from cell block 19. He was dragged through the hallway from whence he came to the familiar interrogation room with the police chief. The police chief was smoking a cigarette. John was seated at the same table, where the same two forms awaited him. One was the apology letter while the other was the census.

“We are giving you one last chance,” said the police chief. “Complete the census form or you will be subjected to the harshest of consequences.”

John was silent.

“Well?” said the man with the sunglasses. “Have you finally come to your senses or do we have to take this a step further?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” said John. “But I will not complete the census, regardless of how much you threaten me.”

“We’re not threatening you!” said the police chief, with a great deal of insistence. He put out his cigarette in an ashtray on the table and looked John in the eye. He acted with a calm intimacy. His voice was soft and his manners calculated. The police chief leaned his body over the table to maintain eye-level position with John, but John kept glancing at the holstered revolver dangling from his chest.

“I don’t want you to think that we are out to hurt you, John. We’re trying to be as friendly as possible with you. You’re a smart guy. I would hate to see you subjected to harsh punishments just because of an irrelevant matter such as this. We’re on your side! We’re pulling for you! But when you are insistent on being difficult and refusing to submit to government authority, then there is not much we can do for you. Complete the census, John. The law demands it.”

John said nothing. He starred at the police chief’s revolver as though the gun were speaking to him, not the man carrying it.

“Why are you acting like such a child, John? You think we want to punish you for your disobedience? Just fill out the census form for fuck’s sake! What reason could you possibly have not to?”

“I have no reason not to fill out the census, but I am a free, autonomous person. As such, I own my actions and bear the responsibility for their consequences. I just feel like exercising my freedom to not fill out the census. That’s all.”

“No! You’re wrong!” yelled the man with the sunglasses. “You are only free to the extent that the government allows you to be free. You and I are only pieces of the larger aggregate that is society. As such, the government can dispose of you in any way it sees fit if you pose a threat to the society. Laws and government authority are the glue that binds society together. Without the laws of government, we would live in a chaotic world where anything and everything goes. Therefore, disobedience cannot be tolerated in any respect. Be it filling out a census form or chopping toddlers up with an axe, the government reserves the right to force you to do or refrain from doing certain things. You can’t just choose which laws you wish to obey or disobey. You are under the jurisdiction of the state! It has full authority over you! You and your fellow criminals in cell block 19 are the worst kind of scum imaginable. Nothing is more cancerous to society than you and your ilk. Look, I can comprehend the heart of a rapist or a murderer. Some people just can’t help themselves! You don’t expect everyone to take responsibility for their actions do you? But even the most violent serial killer knows at his heart what he does is immoral. He tries to evade the law because he is ashamed to have crossed it. He may even feel an ounce of remorse or regret for the things he has done. But You! You don’t just break the law openly; you do so free of any such reservations. By refusing to fill out the census, wear a seatbelt, or pay your taxes, people like you defecate upon the very glue that holds us together as a society. You are spitting on government authority and you should be subject to the most gruesome and medieval of cruelties. By abandoning the law of the herd, you should not expect its mercy in return. I will see to it that you suffer dearly, John Malthus. Mark my fucking words.”

The two government officials fell silent. They starred at John, hoping he would acknowledge his wrongdoings and beg forgiveness. John said nothing, although vaguely smiling. He leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms.

“What do you think, chief?” asked the sunglasses man. “Should we enlist him in the Compulsory Recycling Program?”

“I don’t want to,” the police chief sighed. “But I see no other option.” He turned to John. “Mr. Malthus, this is your last chance. If you do not complete the census by tomorrow morning, then we are enlisting you in the program.”

“I don’t care. I’m still not completing the census.”

The chief grumbled. For the first time, he actually appeared disgusted with John, waving him away and lighting another cigarette.

“Take this subhuman piece of trash away from my sight,” he said.

John was informed that he would be taken to the Reassignment Facility tomorrow morning. He was tossed back in cell block 19 for the night. It was midnight and his cell mates were asleep except for Isaac, who had stirred when John was thrown back into the cell.

“No luck I see?” Isaac said.

“No. They’re enlisting me in the Compulsory Recycling Program tomorrow.”

Isaac gasped.

“You must have really pissed them off then! They don’t take folks there unless they truly pose a threat.”

“What is this program exactly?”

“Nobody knows. But I can tell you one thing; of all the men who have been enlisted in the program, not one of them has returned. Are you going to submit to the government and fill out a census form?”

“No.”

“Good man. Your iron will is an inspiration to us all. I’ll tell your story to all the men who come through here. Whatever happens to me, I will forever hold the name John Malthus on my lips. I will think of you as a martyr to freedom and determination. Hopefully others will be inspired by you as well. You have a friend in me, John Malthus. I will never forget you.”

John Malthus was removed from the cell the next morning and carried into a black sedan. He was guarded by government officials in dark suits and black sunglasses. The car drove down a dreary road lined with factories and warehouses. There was not a single tree. The car stopped in front of a tall brick building. Two long chimneys stood like monoliths against the sky. A sign was posted out front.

Federal Reassignment Facility

No Loitering

The building smelled of soot and carbolic acid. The government agents took John into the facility and led him down some serpentine passageways until they came to a tremendous metal door. The cacophony of machinery could be heard grinding away behind it. Two people waited for John at the door. One of them was the police chief and the other was a young female nurse. She was very pretty.

“This is your final chance, John. Fill out the census or we will have no choice but to enlist you in the Compulsory Recycling Program,” said the police chief, holding out the familiar sheet of paper.

“I already told you that I have no such intentions.”

“Very well,” said the police chief, dusting his palms like he had disposed of something vile. “We did everything we could for you. You have forced our hand. If you intend on acting like a stupid child, then you shall be disciplined like one.”

The men ordered John to strip all his clothes. Once John was naked, the female nurse began applying some kind of fluid to this legs and chest with a sponge.

“This is rubbing alcohol. It will prevent an infection,” she said.

When John was fully coated with the alcohol, the police chief opened the door and led John into the room. He was deafened by the noise of the machines. The room was the size of a large gymnasium, and massive devices were all humming away inside—pounding, screwing, sawing, jointing, drilling, and hacking. John was led to the facade of an enormous machine in the back of the room. It was at least ten times his height. On the front of the device, there were two columns of razor-sharp teeth, each the length of John’s arm. The teeth fed into a giant steel drum, which formed the main bulk of the machine. Protruding from the drum was a series of pipes and pumps, which connected to another machine. This one looked like a medieval printing press. The police chief flipped some switches and the great machine roared to life. The columns of steel teeth started to spin and John could hear the pumps filling the giant drum with water. As John stood in the awe of this fearsome behemoth, the police chief whispered in John’s ear. The Horses have just won the championship. I figured you’d want to know. John smiled.

Before John could reflect of this good news, the police chief pushed him into the spinning teeth. They tore his body to ribbons. John did not scream or resist, as he didn’t wish the police chief to have the pleasure of witnessing it. Blood flecked the chief, who watched this great apparatus perform its functions. He smiled at the thought that it would recycle this disobedient criminal into something that would be of use to society. John’s remains were fed into the steel drum and mixed with water until they had become a pulpy mash. The mixture was pumped through the tubes and into a furnace where it was dried. A slicer divided the remains into individual sheets—eleven by eight and a half inches, one tenth of a millimetre thick. The Machine loaded the sheets onto the printing press, which inscribed them with words and figures. They were systematically piled once they were complete. The police chief picked up one of the papers. It was still hot and he bounced it around in his hands. These recycled sheets of human remains each had a bold and commanding letterhead:

Government Census Form 2015

Please complete all questions by the due date and mail to the appropriate address

THE END

Moonlight Prodigy

“No! No! No! No! No!” Israel Copperstein bellowed, as he snorted back another handful of mucus into his sinuses.

“That’s not how the piece is supposed to be played at all! Don’t you even practice? It goes C, C, D, A sharp, rest, G sharp, C, not C, C, D, A sharp, G sharp, rest, C! Once more from the top!”

Yu Ling’s fingers were sore from having played the same rendition of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata for the past two hours. Her father had enlisted her in the most rigorous music academy in the entire state. She attended sessions daily from 6pm until 8. While she wasn’t practicing piano or at school, she was to be studying in order to optimize her academic prestige, as her father phrased it. From the writing to the piano playing, her fingers were perpetually engaged and sore. She always thought that she would develop carpel tunnel syndrome before her twentieth birthday and not have to write or play any more—though her father would likely make her play with her feet in that case. It was no surprise that she kept playing the piece wrong.

“No! No! A million times, NO!”

Copperstein was insufferable.

“Aren’t you capable of reading music? Do you need bloody glasses? It says to hold that F for two beats, you held it for two and a half. Once more from the top!”

Yu’s music teacher, Israel Copperstein was an immense sight for any mortal to behold. His musical genius was dwarfed by his grotesquely-shaped physique. A cascading fountain of human flesh poured like a pyroclastic flow down the waistline of his trousers. When Copperstein coughed, the skin on his neck rippled to cast the myriad of warts on his chin asunder, reminiscent of a lifeboat lost at sea and at the mercy of its tumultuous waves. Though he could play every classical composer from Beethoven to Tchaikovsky by memory, he was not suited as a teacher, much less to be associated with children. On the rare occasion that Yu impressed Copperstein with her playing, he would offer her a handful from a bowl of festering liquorice he kept in the corner of the practice hall. Suffice to say, it wasn’t much of positive reinforcement.

“So that ends the lesson for today Yu. You must practice more thoroughly for tomorrow! You don’t get any liquorice if you do not have the piece memorized.”

At that, Copperstein broke into a violent fit of coughing and wheezing until he regained his composure to pat Yu on her head and send her off home.

At dinner, that evening, Yu’s father stared at her with intense fervour. He ate his rice grudgingly as he eyed his daughter with the same expression one gives to a murder suspect who is on the verge of confessing.

“Mr. Copperstein says that you have not been practicing the piano!” He snapped to break the awkward tension.

“It’s not my fault father, my hands were sore.”

“Your hands were sore? That is a pathetic excuse Yu! You know that I pay for those lessons so you can become great prodigy! How dare you disrespect me and your ancestors by saying your hands are sore!”

“But father-"

“Don’t speak! You have lost the privilege. After you are done your rice, you must go to your room and practice more piano. You do not sleep until you have memorized!”

Yu’s father was a humourless pillar of old-world discipline. He and his wife, Yu’s mother, had emigrated from Korea while they were newlyweds in search of prosperity in America. Both of them had a boiling distain for communism as both had seen their glorious nation trampled by devastation during the Korean War. Yu’s parents always pressured their daughter into succeeding and achieving what they thought was the great American Dream. However, their pressure was tantamount to abuse, and when Yu did not live up to their expectations, her father beat her without restraint.

After supper, Yu’s father approached Yu’s room expecting to see her practicing. When he opened the door to her room, he saw Yu with her head resting on the keys of her baby grand piano. She had passed out. He removed his belt and promptly lashed her across the back.

“Awake! Now! You must practice! There is no time for resting.”

He slammed the door and stormed off, leaving Yu to drift right back into a duly needed sleep. The beatings hurt her, but the pain was bearable compared to the agony of staying awake and practicing. Yu actually loved playing piano, and she was considerably good at it. She just resented her father and that rotund ghoul of an instructor. Neither had shown Yu any congratulations for the progress she made. Yu was indeed one of the most proficient piano players in the whole state, but never had received any recognition for it—just beatings and bitter candies.

The next day at her lesson, Copperstein had come down with a nasty case of bronchitis, although he coughed and cleared his throat no more than Yu thought routine. His illness had made him even grumpier than usual. He scolded Yu for every minor mistake she made.

“Bah! That is wrong, all wrong! Why can’t you just play the music properly? Why do you have to keep making stuff up—just look at the sheet music!”

“But I wasn’t making anything up Mr. Copperstein.” Yu protested.

Copperstein grunted in disbelief.

“Well then, tell me what it was you just played. Because to me, it sounded like mezzo-forte! The sheet music clearly indicates that this piece must be played in mezzo-piano. Once more from the top!”

“Yes, Mr. Copperstein”

It is sufficient to say Yu did not receive any liquorice that day.

That evening, when Yu got home from her lesson, she found to her surprise her great uncle Tao eating dinner with her family. Apparently, she had lost the privilege of getting dinner as there were only three plates of rice set out this evening. Her father only did that when he was exceptionally cross with her.

“No dinner for you tonight Yu.” Her father exclaimed.

“I get phone call from Mr. Copperstein! He tell me you no practice. You are disgrace to your family. Say hello to great uncle Tao. Have you no manners?”

“Hello uncle Tao”

“Good evening Yu.”

Uncle Tao was a petrified old relic from the old country. He was a veteran of the Korean War and boasted constantly that he had killed over two hundred communists with his bare hands. He always joked that he was the reason way there was a demilitarized zone. The commies were scared of him, he claimed. Once he died the war apparently was to start back up again.

“Aren’t you going to serve your daughter a plate of rice?” asked Tao.

“She doesn’t get rice! Not after she disgraces her family by not practicing piano.”

Yu hung her head and walked up to the solitude of her bedroom. Just once it would be good to get some recognition for the work she put into her studies and her piano practice. Yu felt like she was lingering on a breaking point. Either she would snap, or somebody else would. Evidently, it was to be someone else.

When she entered the music academy for her daily piano lesson the next day, she was greeted by a young man with terrible posture. He had dirty blonde hair and a face enveloped in teenage-onset acne. It looked like a road map of Tennessee on his cheeks.

“Hi, you must be Yu Ling. I’m Derrick. Sorry, but Israel Copperstein won’t be teaching you anymore. He passed away last night.”

It was almost a shock to Yu as it was a relief. There would be no more wheezing, and coughing, and horrible liquorice.

“He died? How?”

Derrick scratched his face and looked down at the floor. He had a voice stereotypical of most teenagers with bad genetics. He had a mid-pitched squeal for a voice and stumbled over his sentences like a mad drunk running through an obstacle course in the dark.

“He didn’t so much pass away as he was murdered.”

“Murdered? By who?”

“By Hezbollah militants as it turns out. They fired a rocket into his apartment. I can’t say that I envy the paramedics who had to clean the body up. Apparently his lard and mucus coated all the walls and windows. They say he just burst like a ripe sack of ketchup.”

“Oh My.”

“Well I am going to be your piano teacher from now on. Where did you leave off?”

Yu led Derrick into the practice room and played for him the piece she had left off with—Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Although she made a few of the mistakes that Israel Copperstein had always scolded her for, Derrick didn’t seem to notice.

“Wow, that’s probably one of the best renditions of that piece I’ve ever heard! Israel must have been a great teacher to you.”

“He was okay.”

“Was he proud to have you as a student?”

“I guess so, he never said that though.”

Derrick stuck his nose in the air and winced at something.

“What the hell is that awful stench? It smells like lye and road-salt.”

“Oh that would be the liquorice that Mr. Copperstein gave me when I didn’t completely disappoint him.”

“You didn’t actually eat this shit did you?”

Derrick approached the porcelain bowl in the corner of the room. He reached in to pick up one of the liquorice. The humidity had evidently fused them all together because as he lifted his hand, the entire bowl lifted with him. Yu and Derrick burst out laughing.

Tao eyed Mr. Ling with silence.

“What is it? Why do you keep staring at me?

Tao had a long Confucius-like beard and he stroked it contemplatively as he spoke.

“Let me ask you a question. Do you ever beat Yu?”

Mr. Ling was taken back. He looked like a startled deer that had just seen the headlights of the car that was bearing down on him.

“Oh course I do. She needs encouragement to become great. She is very talented you know. She plays piano better than anyone I’ve ever heard. She needs motivation though. American Teenagers are so lazy.”

“Have you ever told her that?’

“Told her what?”

“That you think she’s talented. Every time I come over, you just insult her and treat her like a dog.”

Mr. Ling thought about what his uncle had said for a good few minutes before responding. In fact, there had not been a time that he could remember when he had praised his daughter for her achievements. It gave him a hollow, empty feeling. Tao stroked his beard again and watched the dismayed Mr. Ling process his emotions.

Yu walked in the front door and greeted them both.

“Enough talking Yu! Go up and practice more!”

At practice the next day, Yu kept glancing at Derrick out of the corner of her eye. There was a sense of urgency in the expression on her face.

“Is everything okay Yu?” Derrick asked, puzzled.

“Uh, can I tell you something?”

“Yeah I guess. What is it?”

“The reason, I’m so good at playing piano is because my father. He gets very angry when I don’t live up to his expectations. Sometimes, he even, uh, whips me with his belt.”

Given Derrick’s relatively young age and lack of sufficient life experience, he was unable to process awkward situations such as these. His forehead started to perpetrate and his voice shifted between octaves.

“That’s a problem Yu.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Look, I live in my mother’s basement. If you want to come stay with me for a while that’s okay. You seem like a nice girl. As for your father, we should really call Child Protective Services.”

Yu was glad that she had finally met someone who not only appreciated her talent, but also cared about her well-being. He may have been a lanky, socially inept teenager, but Yu was not going to discriminate.

Derrick opened the door to his mother’s basement and flipped on the light. The room was decorated with posters of bullshit rock bands and pictures of half-nude women. It smelt like humidity and rich soil.

“This is my room. You can stay here for the time being. I’m sure my mom won’t mind.”

“I’m really grateful for this Derrick.”

“Don’t mention it. Any good person would do this. I wouldn’t want you to go back living with that abusive father of yours.”

Derrick’s mother called out from upstairs.

“Derrick honey, would you and your little friend like Tacos or Pizza for dinner tonight?”

“Pizza, Ma!” Squealed the pimply faced teen.

“Say, Yu. May I hear you play that Beethoven piece again?”

Yu approached the electric piano in the corner of Derrick’s room and started playing. She played without restraint. Her fingers didn’t hurt and she didn’t have to fear being scolded or beaten for making a mistake. There was no snorting, grunting, or wheezing to distract her. This was how she always wanted to play the piano—peacefully, with the appreciation of others. Derrick leaned back in his water bed and listened. It was indeed some of the most beautiful piano playing he had ever heard.

That evening, Mr. Ling received a phone call from Child Protective Services. He was under investigation for child abuse and neglect. He had a court appearance and the tone of the CPS agent made him feel very ashamed of himself. For Mr. Ling, the American dream had ended there and then. He had the best of intents for his daughter, but now he was being treated no better than the communist scum he had sworn to perpetually despise.

Mr. Ling turned on his stereo and put on his favourite Beethoven piece, Moonlight Sonata. He reached into his drawer and retrieved his ceremonial tanto. There was only one option left for him—to commit seppuku. If he was to die, he would die with glory and ascent to the great hall of his ancestors. Yu didn’t need him anymore. There would be no dishonour from Child Protective Services for him.

As Mr. Ling watched his intestines spilling out of his bowels, the very last sentiment to enter his mind was pride, not for himself, or his uncle, or his country, but for his daughter. She had brought their family great honour.

Equality for All!

It was like the rug under which dust and dirt was swept. The entrance to room 217 stood beside the janitorial closet at the end of a long hallway. The lingering scent of industrial cleaning products wafted into the nostrils of those who dwelled within the classroom like chlorine gas into the sinuses of the British Tommy during the First World War. Hung upon the walls, laminated posters depicting politically-correct slogans lobotomized the students with their bright colors and saccharine imagery. The room was blandly decorated and void of anything else  noteworthy. It served as a warehouse for those pupils whose needs had been declared more special than those of their able-bodied contemporaries. Mrs. Jane Sophia, leader of the Mentally Challenged Students Association had spent nearly every weekday in room 217 for the last thirty years. She felt a particular calling in life to strengthen the bond she possessed with her classroom of physiologically-impeded drudges. She never thought of herself as their teacher, but rather their friend, their mentor, guardian, and fosterer of each student’s individual gifts. All her students were unique in their own respective fashion. Mrs. Sophia knew they did not possess conventional talents like the rest of the students at the high school, but hidden intrinsic quirks and attributes--making each one of them more lovable than the last. She grasped fervently to the notion that all God’s children were created equally, despite her student’s self-evident mental shortcomings. They were not retards in her eyes. They equalled the most academically gifted pupils in their own special ways.

The month of June had befallen Bud Dwyer Memorial High school. Due to it’s proximately to the earth’s equator, a seasonal heat wave had enthralled the building in a humid, smothering embrace. Given the physical limitations of many of her students, Mrs. Sophia decided to engage her classroom with a much less demanding activity than usual. She had procured some art supplies from the school art faculty. Paints, crayons, brushes, and non-toxic glue were provided to all her pupils with the physical capacity to utilize them for their intended purpose. Those who could not were given paper to fold. The children soon got busy with the art supplies. Mrs. Sophia marvelled at the sight of her students attempting to translate the disjointed precepts in their undeveloped minds into their sloppy creation in material reality. There were two students smearing blue paint across a canvas with their fingertips in an aimless fashion. A student with a warped hand was clumsily sketching a crude picture of a horse, and a female pupil with a notably asymmetrical face was flicking glue in spastic shocks across the classroom in what was most certainly some kind of interpretive dance. Although the room reeked of bleach and her flower dress was peeling from her legs because of the intense humidity, Ms. Sophia was content. She beamed with pride upon observing them all at work. She knew they were all exerting their own special gifts which God had bestowed upon them.

A male student with a heavy wheeze and an aesthetically unappealing gait approached her desk. He possessed a page of red construction paper smeared in a myriad of water-based paints. He presented his work before his teacher.

“Why thank you very much Humphrey! I will be sure to hang this up on the wall as soon as it dries.”

An obsequious grin of self-congratulation peeled across Humphrey’s mouth. A wad of mucus fell from his nose and splashed onto the floor.

“Now this is what I call artwork, Humphrey! I have seen all the supposed masterpieces by the likes of De Vinci and Michelangelo, but none of them hold a candle to this. I adore your use of nuance and complementary colours. This should really be in a museum Humphrey! I am so proud of you.”

Another wad of mucus dropped from his nostril and he waddled like a wounded penguin back to his desk.

Ms. Sophia suddenly winced at the thought of what she had just said. She was certain that the paint-smeared creation grasped in her hands was just as great as anything in any art museum. Humphrey may be profoundly impaired in his cognitive faculties, but he was created equal just like all men were. The god she loved would never be so cruel as to bestow any one man with an objective advantage over another. Everyone was equal! She screamed it through the yawning chasms of her mind. The thought clashed against the walls of Ms. Sophia’s skull and shook loose all the doubts and questions that shrouded her psyche. Everyone is equal! One would think that after so many years of overseeing such lambasted delinquency, Ms. Sophia would be unable to continue making excuses to justify her view of her students. When she was alone some nights in her bed watching the shadows of the trees climb the walls or the passing lights of distant automobiles, she often questioned her closely-held philosophical premises. It was indeed difficult to rummage through that part of her mind and those were often the nights when a sip or two of cognac aided her descent into slumber. She was a lonely woman who found solace in upholding the belief that her students had some innate greatness that was not immediately observable to most people.

She looked up from the painting to gaze back at Humphrey who had since commenced the conception of another moist picture.

After school had ended, Ms. Sophia took the long route around the track-field to the parking lot. Every day, the track team at Bud Dwyer Memorial High would engage in physical exercises to strengthen their leg muscles and thwart off childhood obesity. She would occasionally watch the students as they did so. The adolescent’s muscles would glisten and heave in the reflection of the midday sun. She observed the perfectly developing breasts of the female runners, oscillating vertically as they made their lap around the track. The chiselled forms of the javelin throwers caught her eye as they commenced their routine. The athletes were reminiscent of Greek sculptures portraying the glory and triumph of their gods and goddesses. The track team members all conveyed the prefect proportions and muscular structure of the ideal human form. Ms. Sophia watched this sight through the chain-link fence in the parking lot. These athletes made her recall the image of the children in room 217. The attractive young adults prancing and flaunting their attractive developing bodies contrasted greatly with the lethargic shuffling and terrible posture of her own students. Humphrey and the others however, were all attractive in their own way. Beauty is subjective and talent is relative. Every man was equal.

Mrs. Sophia thus headed home and tried to forget the sight of the track team. It made her inexplicably uneasy. She slid into her armchair, opened a fresh bottle of cognac and drifted away to slumber.

The following morning, Ms. Sophia awoke with a mission. She was determined to include her student’s artwork in the Bud Dwyer Memorial High School Art Show. It was an annual convention held to showcase the artistic talent and coordination of its student body. Typically, only the absolute best pieces of artwork were chosen to be displayed at the art show. It was in the school’s interest to portray a prestigious representation of the student’s artistic ability. The head of the art department was a cantankerous old witch who happened to be responsible for choosing the pieces to be displayed during this event. She was Mrs. Tartar.

Mrs. Tartar thought of herself as the grand arbiter of artistic worth. She had an ego that was disproportionate to her lack of experience in the field. She had never passed through art school and possessed only a minimal talent for the visual arts herself. Mrs. Tartar lacked the hand-eye coordination necessary to depict the proper proportions of the human form. In her own pathetic attempts at sketching, her women appeared to be men, her men appeared to be werewolves, her werewolves appeared to be grotesque zombies, and her grotesque zombies appeared to be John Diefenbaker. Eventually, she abandoned the creation of real art altogether and became an impressionist. Mrs. Tartar took out her frustrations out on her students.

Ms. Sophia pleaded with her.

“Please put Humphrey’s painting into the show with the others. It would do so much to validate his talent.”

Mrs. Tartar scowled at the painting.

“It’s not talent. Your student is an imbecile. He clearly has not studied the shadowing techniques of Degas or Van Gogh. He has no conceptualization of colour or the portrayal of natural light. I’m sorry Jane, but this is rubbish. I cannot display it with the others.”

“But please do reconsider! Humphrey is mentally challenged. We need to be accepting of all people, regardless of mental ability. You’re just being bigoted!”

Mrs. Tartar removed her spectacles and looked at Ms. Sophia intently.

“Look Jane, I’ve studied at the most prestigious art college in the entire county. I’ve created paintings that have sold for a lot of money. My work has been compared to that of Piet Mondrian for heaven’s sake! I think I know my artwork, and I say this painting you’ve presented to me is trash! Now, if I allow your student’s piece to be displayed in the art show just because of his mental handicap, what kind of message does that send to my own students? They will begin to think that talent and precision are no longer required to be a great artist—and mark my words, they are!”

Ms. Sophia left her office both defeated and shamed. She kept fervently telling herself that Mrs. Tartar didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t know after all, that Humphrey was created equal just as all men were. His artwork was just as great as anything in Tartar’s art show. Mrs. Sophia returned to room 217 and to the lingering miasma of bleach and drain cleaner.

“I’m so terribly sorry Humphrey; Mrs. Tartar doesn’t think there is a place for your painting in the school art show.”

Humphrey took his finger out of his nose and examined the product of his excavation. He then slid the finger into his saliva encrusted mouth.

“I like to paint!” He loudly exclaimed.

Back in her apartment, Ms. Sophia contemplated the events of the past few days with her glass of cognac. It seemed unfair that some people were able to paint beautiful pieces of artwork and develop sexually attractive bodies, while her students were left to be swept under the carpet of society. No matter how she was able to rationalize it, she could not understand why her god would bestow great talents upon some children, but not onto others. The order of the universe and of society was askew. This was the very first time she had come to such a realization. Perhaps all men were not created equal? If so, it was her duty to create equality among men. A fervent surge of adrenaline ran through her veins as she reached into her drawer for the .38 snub-nose revolver she kept. God had sent her to bring balance to Bud Dwyer Memorial High.

The following morning, Ms. Sophia calmly walked into the office of the art department. There she found Mrs. Tartar observing a Mondrian painting with a magnifying glass. Ms. Sophia aimed the pistol to the back of her head. With the squeeze of the trigger, the entirety of Mrs. Tartar’s artistic knowledge was released from the confines of her skull and onto the artwork she loved so very much. If Humphrey was incapable of creating beautiful art, then so was she. The blood splatters and skull fragments strewn on the canvas were probably better than anything Mrs. Tartar had drawn in her lifetime.

Ms. Sophia had exited the building and proceeded to the track field near the parking lot. She found the physically-fit students doing their exercises as usual. She opened fire on them. Several rounds struck the javelin throwers in their muscular arms. A couple bullets hits the track runners in the legs, they would never run again. Ms. Sophia scoffed at the thought of the track runners confined to wheelchairs.

She came up to a young male grasping his chest. His hands were clenching a wound and blood was pouring in torrents from his chest. He looked up to Ms. Sophia with fear-stricken eyes. At the end of the pistol, he pleaded with her not to end his life. She pulled the trigger and unloaded three rounds into his skull at point-blank range. His head hit the ground and she kicked him. He would never appreciate the gifts God had rewarded him. She knew the runner was ignorant and deserved his grisly end. 

By this time, the police had arrived at the grounds and had surrounded Ms. Sophia on the blood-soaked track field. She dropped the weapon and complied with the arrest. She had killed three people that day. Ms. Sophia felt not an ounce of remorse. Jesus Christ himself had sent her to bring equality to the world. She had served her lord well by bringing equality to those people she had killed and wounded.

As she was escorted into the police car, she yelled “Equality for all!”

The Denizens of Gethsemane

1.

Thousands of years ago, in the northern regions of present-day Palestine, there was a town called Galilee. In a small, mud brick house on the outskirts of Galilee lived two humans named Mary and Joseph. They were engaged to be married and were fervent religious adherents. Mary and Joseph had few friends, namely their neighbours Elizabeth and Zachariah, with whom they often talked and drank wine. According to some obsolete and archaic tradition, Mary and Joseph, had never fucked each other because their nuptial bonds had yet to be tied. Of course, innocent Virgin Mary didn’t mind her seemingly boring celibate existence, as much of her teenage years had been spent singing with birds and baking pies. However, Joseph lived in perpetual agony. Joseph would lie awake many nights of the week on his tick-infested straw mattress trying not to think of how much longer he needed to wait to fuck her. He was consumed by pulsating sentiments of bestial lust whenever he gazed upon her tits or her ass, knowing that it was only a little while longer before they were his.  There came a day when Joseph reached a breaking point. He told himself when he saw her ass on a really good angle when she genuflected at the temple one morning:

“I’m going to fuck Mary today!”

Joseph knew of an old, homeless cynic who lived on the shores of the River Jordan. He disregarded wealth and status and fulfilled his dietary obligation by feeding upon locusts and honeycombs. He usually wore a cloth of bearskin and from time to time, locals knew him to baptize unsuspecting people in the River Jordan. The whispers that Joseph heard around the marketplaces in Galilee led him to believe that this man  could help him bust his nut into Mary. He came upon him one day bathing nude in the River Jordan.

The cynic didn’t appear to be looking at anything in particular but seemed to be captivated by an object that may have been right in front of him. The man grabbed at the air before his face- Joseph knew that he was drunk. Joseph watched him bath naked in the river and yell obscenities at passersby. Locals named him John the Baptist.

John waded to the shore and approached Joseph after a few minutes and knew immediately what it was Joseph sought from him. He retrieved a small burlap sack of psilocybin mushrooms and gave them onto Joseph. John said to him,

“Feed these unto thine beloved and she will succumb to a hypnotic fervour which shall submit her to your every suggestion.”

Later that evening, during the last supper of their celibate lives, Joseph put the fungi into Mary’s meal. To his surprise, she consumed the whole bag of mushrooms without noticing them. She began to betray her submission to the effects of the tryptamines about half an hour later and he began loosening his rags. Through the onset of her trip, Mary’s eyes were trained on her fiancé, with an odd, drug-induced perplexity, empty of all intent.

“Who are you?”

Joseph panicked. Standing nude and erect before her, he rummaged through his psyche trying to satisfy his wife’s peculiar question.

“My name is umm, Gabriel! Do not be afraid, Mary; I intend to do you no harm.”

“Are you really Gabriel? Your wings are awfully small!”

“My wings?”

He remembered that she was most likely hallucinating.

“Yes, I am an angel of God, my name is Gabriel. God sent me here to, uh, examine you.”

                He started undressing her rags. For the past 25 years of his miserable virgin life, Joseph had been waiting for this very moment. Mary seemed so much more sexually enthralling than any of the times he had seen her clothed. They fucked furiously for hours on Joseph’s straw mattress, frightening away all the household pests in doing so. It was moist passion. After he had ejaculated into Mary several times, he contemplated the possibility that he may have inadvertently impregnated her.

“Mary, The Lord Yahweh has instructed me to dowse you with his holy sperm as part of his heavenly insemination program. You may bear the son of God in about 9 months. This is non-negotiable.”

“Oh yes Gabriel! Thank the lord for he is good, for his lovingkindness is everlasting. Let the redeemed of the lord say so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of the adversary!”

“What the fuck are you talking about Mary?

“Did I pass the examination Gabriel?”

“What? Oh yeah, you pass.”

Joseph’s intuition had been correct. Mary eventually came down from the mushroom trip and after about 5 months, her expanding womb began to betray signs of pregnancy. He was frightened at what the gossipy Pharisees at the marketplace should whisper once it had been made general knowledge of his wife’s pre-marital child-bearing. They hid in shame. The rapist made the necessary arrangements for the two of them to flee to the nearby city of Bethlehem once the child was to be born.

2.

When the time had come for Mary to give birth to her rape-conceived bastard child, the couple gathered together what meagre possessions they had and fled their mud house in Galilee on a donkey to Bethlehem. In a bizarre twist of circumstance, Mary’s neighbour Elizabeth had been pregnant at about the same time, and being at the whim of various unpredictable hormone fluctuations, was unable to keep secret the word about Mary’s fertilization, which spread faster than the fire that consumed non-believers. Elizabeth later gave birth to a boy she named John.

It was about the time at which Mary and Joseph reached their destination that word of mouth concerning their bastard baby ascended up to the throne of one Herod the Great, King of Judea. King Herod the Great was a psychopathic, megalomaniacal pedophile and a false king; known by his people as an insane puppet ruler ripe with political corruption. Evidently, he was not warmly taken by the news about the couple whose child had been conceived out of wedlock, so he ordered three of his opium-inebriated assassins to travel to Bethlehem and apprehend the bastard child so that he could fulfill his depraved desires upon him. However, once the three assassins had come down off the opium and had run out of wine, they found themselves lost hopelessly in the desert, having been chasing after stars for two weeks.

Mary and Joseph had come to Bethlehem in the midst of its tourist season, which filled up all the local hotels, inns, hostels, and boarding houses with an unsavoury flavour of Thracians and Armenians. There was not one suitable place in the whole city for the couple to stay, so their son was birthed into a swine’s feeding trough. The baby was not well. Due to a combination of being born into a bacteria-ridden slop puddle, and possessing the extensive medical knowledge common to bronze-age desert serfs as his sole means of thwarting off illness, Jesus of Nazareth, as he would come to be known, developed a plethora of infectious diseases; among them, a prevalence of both syphilis and gonorrhoea. Furthermore, despite being born to Levantine parents, Jesus appeared mysteriously Caucasian. Once he had reached adulthood, Jesus became a carpenter by trade. He had very few friends and spent much of his time in his parent’s basement whittling cedar dildos.

One day, in an attempt for some privacy with Mary, Joseph demanded that his thirty-year-old son leave their home so that he could make his own living. Lonely and rejected, Jesus walked along the shoreline of the River Jordan when he heard an unknown voice calling out his name. He saw a man jumping around gaily in the water, yelling at passersby and making obscene gestures.

“You there! The long-haired, neck-bearded bastard!”

Curious, Jesus walked down to the tide and confronted the crazy old man. The man was covered in thick mud and bearskin and was snacking on a handful of honeycomb. He motioned for Jesus to wade out towards him. Before he was able to introduce himself, the man grabbed Jesus by his long hair and dunked his head beneath the murky water. When he let go, Jesus sprung back up, gasping heavily for air.

“Hahaha! You ought to thank me for baptizing you Jesus! I’ve been preaching to all these good people for years about the day you would finally emerge from your solitude and come see me!”

The man motioned with his hand to the bystanders watching along the shoreline.

“You should know, I was acquainted with your father Joseph. It was I that gave him the drugs which resulted in your conception.”

Jesus was perplexed. He looked deep into the crazy man’s eyes.

“Wait, aren’t you John the Baptist? Son of Elizabeth and Zachariah? How could you possibly have been around before I was born to have met my father?”

John the Baptist let out a deep, bellowing laugh. He took another bite of his honeycomb and rested his right arm around Jesus’ shoulder.

“Jesus, my friend, you are over-analyzing things! You mustn’t interpret what you hear so literally. This is all occurs on a biblical timeline after all-- shit doesn’t need to make sense!”

The both of them shared a hearty, friendly chuckle, and what John had left of his drug stash. Jesus and John made their way back to Jesus’ house, where they laid with one another.  John, who was already in possession of just about any venereal infection known to man, didn’t seem aversive to Jesus’ bloody ejaculations or his grotesquely deformed genitalia.

3.

“Jesus, do you want to go to an awesome party tonight? One of my mushroom dealers is marrying this girl in a town just a few miles over called Cana. From what he’s been telling me, there should be a ton of liquor and supple, young boys there.”

Jesus agreed to go to the wedding.

“You’ll have to meet these guys Jesus, they’re fucking crazy, man!”

“But do they uphold the scriptures?”

“Do they uphold the scriptures? Shit they do! You’ve never seen anybody as Jewish as these guys, but they’re crazy man! They do tons of drugs and fuck tons of girls too. There’s Peter, and Luke, and Bartholomew, and fuck man, I’d be hard-pressed to list them all, but you’ll meet them all at the wedding!.”

Excitedly, Jesus put his rags back on.

 His father then burst into the room, chasing him and John back outside.

“Don’t ever fucking come back here Jesus! You and your sick little boyfriend can go live elsewhere! I and your mother didn’t raise you to be a drug addict!”

Mary was weeping heavily and screaming incoherently at the two men and then to her husband. Joseph took her into his arms and she slammed the hut door behind them.

Jesus and John travelled the tens miles to nearby Cana; which they walked because they weren’t pussies like people living in the 21^st century. He met John’s eleven other friends at the wedding reception. They feasted on the lavish cuisine and wine that was offered to the guests until all of it was consumed. The other guests, who were all still sober and hungry, began to clamour for their removal if Jesus and his friends could not compensate for the wine that they stole. He gathered his twelve disciples in the restroom. John had been eating mushrooms during the whole ordeal and was now so disassociated from reality that he was barely able to maintain an upright composure. Matthew, James, and Judas Iscariot had all been quite inebriated from drinking cheap wine and happened to be vomiting on some of the other guests, fomenting a climactic insurrection. Jesus knew exactly what to do.

“My friends, there is no need for us to leave; I’ll have these vases filled with wine in seconds.”

One of the men among them, Thomas spoke thusly,

“I don’t believe you Jesus! You’re bullshiting us! I doubt you! How are you going to get the wine?

“Please, just turn around, all of you for like one minute!”

The men did as Jesus had commanded them. Iscariot collapsed drunk on the restroom floor. Jesus then proceeded to urinate into all three of the wine vases. When the apostles turned around to see that the vases had been filled up, they were much too drunk and high to have questioned that the bloody, gonorrhoea-infected piss could have been anything else but wine.

Jesus and his friends burst monumentally back into the reception hall, carrying the giant clay vases on their heads. The Canaanites, who had grown desperate to consume the smallest bit of alcohol, chugged  the swirling froth of disease and all became intoxicated from the ammonia. John introduced him to all his acquaintances at the party, who praised Jesus for his “water into wine” trick, as they called it.

4.

One of Jesus’ least repugnant disciples, a strapping young lad by the name of Peter Simon had acquainted himself with 2 young female parishioners named Martha and Mary (no relation whatsoever with Jesus’ mother) at the Cana reception, along with 2 of her friends. Having met them in such a hopelessly intoxicated state, managed to arrange for himself, Jesus, Matthew, and Luke to participate in an epic eightsome with the four young ladies (unbeknownst to  the apostles, one of the four, Lazarus,  was merely a very convincing transvestite). John, having been offered to go with them, had declined because he was really, really gay. Jesus was bisexual.

The women with whom they were about to lay lived in a small house in the neighbouring village of Bethany. Bethany was a small, desolate space with few landmarks and inhabitants. “This is perfect”. Said Jesus, ”There’s nobody around for miles. We can make as much ruckus as we want.”

Once they arrived at the home of Mary and Martha-- a small wooden hut at the summit of an olive valley, Mary and Lazarus opened fresh bottles of wine. Peter Simon produced a bag of cannabis he had purchased from a gang of Scythians days prior. A fantastic and bombastic time was had at the orgy by all. The writhing mass of bodies, glistening with perspiration fornicated for what seemed to them like days; each constituent thrashing limb appeared indistinguishable from one another in the fornicating flock of Christ.

Lazarus, who was the brother of Mary, had joined in the sexual escapades against the advice of Bethany’s medicine man, having warned him/her than any aggressive sexual activity could potentially aggravate his/her heart condition. Evidently, this was to be the case, as the misshapen cross-dresser collapsed lifeless upon the ground after a good hour of alcohol-fuelled fellatio. His/her sister was traumatized.

“Please Help Lazarus! He’s not breathing! Matthew, seriously, get that fucking thing out of my ass! My brother is not breathing!”

“Your brother?”

She began frantically pressing down on his chest. Lazarus did not wake. Jesus motioned Mary away and took hold of her brother.

“I believe I know what the problem is.”

He turned Lazarus onto his stomach.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing Jesus? What if you hurt him more than he already is?”

“Positive, Your brother isn’t the first person to choke on one of my cedar dildos!”

Jesus recoiled his fist and then shot it directly into the deviant’s spinal column, dislodging the giant 10-inch dildo that had obstructed his/her breathing. Lazarus coughed up some cum and some phlegm and thanked Jesus for raising him/her from the dead.

“There. Problem solved.”

5.

It was not until several weeks later, did the good news about Jesus’ resuscitation of the filthy freak Lazarus make its way back to the party guests in Cana. Due to the absence of mainstream media in the lonely bronze-age, exaggerations and hyperboles that had been contrived from the tale of Jesus travelling from party guest to party guest went unexamined. Some said that he was divine; others alleged that he healed lepers and the blind. Some said that he was even the son of Yahweh the most high! A modest cult following arose shortly thereafter, proudly upholding the divinity of the one they called Jesus of Nazareth (the plebeian class had little else to do with their lives back then). Idiots and inbred fools congregated like insects at the sermons and meetings of the cult, all eager to profess their own unfounded claims of the alleged miracles witnessed by the rape-conceived bastard of Nazareth. 

The Pharisees had reiterated countless times that Yahweh alone was God and it was blasphemy to propose that there could be any before him. In the eyes of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, and of a county preacher in particular named Caiaphas, this Jesus fellow was naught but a divergence of their duly-earned attention. Those of the spiritually enlightened demographic had always regarded Jesus Christ as the false idol he was. Like their hero Moses, who had smashed the golden calf on the summit of Mount Sinai in the harsh, yet enduring tales of the Old Testament, there was no question about what had to be done to rid the earth of such idols. In a petty attempt to wash their hands of the nomadic sodomite of Nazareth, the Pharisees had devised a plan with the compliance of the Roman Government to put an end to this heretic cult for good.

Judas Iscariot had not been on friendly terms with Jesus lately. He had contracted syphilis from him at some point during the past few weeks and was cross about not being invited to his orgy in Bethany. Caiaphas, who was known by his devote congregation as a disgruntled old celibate who hated life, bore a particular disdain for Jesus and saw Judas’ wavering loyalty to work very much in his favour. Judas was offered 30 pieces of silver, an offer he could not possibly refuse considering his immense poverty, to turn his former associate over into the hands of the Roman Government. Iscariot later spent the money on some crack, got high and hung himself on a tree out in the desert because he was smoking extremely potent crack and it gave him paranoia. Caiaphas, having finally captured Jesus, took him before the office of the mighty Pontius Pilate, governor of something.

“Sir, I have brought before you a man who refuses to pay taxes unto Caesar and claims he is King of the Jews!”

Unfortunately for Jesus, Caiaphas and his centurion bodyguard had arrested him in the midst of the autophagous orgy which  he orchestrated with his disciples. He cut pieces of his flesh off with and knife and instructed his followers to eat it. They drank his blood and bowed before his knees, surrendering their wills to him. It was a dirty and disgusting affair that had drained Jesus of enough blood to have impaired his judgement. He would have died had Caiaphas not stopped the bleeding in time.

“Are you King of the Jews as this man claims?”

Jesus fumbled around. He did not answer him.

“I will ask you a final time, are you the King of the Jews? Son of David the most high?”

“It is as they claim.”

Pilate was aghast. There was not a man in all of Bethlehem who would dare not cower in sheer inferiority before the presence of Pontius Pilate. He had men put to death over nothing.

“You Blasphemer! You Heretic! You and all your disgusting friends shall be subject to the most excruciating punishments conceivable! Caiaphas, take this scoundrel away and nail him to a piece of wood for misleading the religious inclinations of my people—such is the punishment for false profits. I only pray that misled fools will forget your name in a thousand years from now, though I’m sure that this Christianity you’ve inspired, being no more than a passing fad, shall be lost to the history books forever. Those plebeians you’ve inspired with your despicable nonsense and unsanitary rituals will die and leave no word or influence upon future generations, so I pray. ”

Jesus, still very much intoxicated from the blood loss, did not fully understand what the governor was saying, and when he was taken away by a guard of Roman centurions and crucified, he was in no state of mind to resist their punishment and fight back.

When Jesus was taken away, Pilate turned to his historian.

“When all this is said and done, make the history books seems as though I was a nice guy in the midst of this whole affair. Write that I tried to give that Jesus character a chance.”

6.

After Jesus’ death upon the cross, Pontius Pilate ensured that all of Jesus’ apostles suffered a similar fate that he did. John was beheaded and two thousand years later, the portrait of his severed head was used as the cover art of Cryptopsy’s None So Vile album (a landmark release in the genre of death metal that is mandatory listening to all who have not had the fortune of doing so already). Peter, also having been crucified, requested that his cross be hung upside down because Peter was a fucking hipster and had decreed that upright crosses were far too mainstream.

Three days after Jesus was buried in a tomb, a necrophiliac by the name of Barabbas dug up his half-decomposed corpse and had his way with it. The Christians however, did not desist in their blind worship of the fornicating carpenter, and proposed that the disappearance of his corpse was proof that their master has raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. Much to the plight of Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate, the cult of Christianity did not dissolve, in fact after Christ’s execution; the following grew stronger thanks to the glorious Justinian I. Every Springtime to this very day, they still celebrate the ascension of Jesus into heaven and look forward with meek anticipation to the day when he will return once again to forgive their trespasses and fuck them all in the ass.

Amen.