by Brian Smith
United Against Hate
Pay attention to your enemies because
they are the first to discover your mistakes.
Antisthenes
The temporary success of his Diana scheme had kindled big dreams in Jeremiah. Seeing crowds of people flocking to his temple made him think of expanding, of becoming the leader of temples all around the country, and even of turning Dryvellism into the nation’s main religion or even the only permitted state religion. In all of these dreams, or shall we call them fantasies, he himself, Master Jeremiah, was the undisputed leader, the revered father figure and possibly even statesman. “And why not?” he said to himself. “Why not, indeed? There have been plenty of other theocracies throughout history. Even in our own modern times such a thing is still possible.”
As a consequence he became withdrawn and left many of the routine everyday tasks to Sycko, who had rapidly become his most trusted aide, while he spent his days dreaming and scheming. The brethren had just begun to resign themselves to this new state of affairs when Jeremiah re-emerged and turned the temple into a veritable beehive of activity. Jeremiah spent half the day on the phone and the other half giving the brethren sundry instructions. There were banners to make, songs to practise, flyers to print and hand out, and a score of other things that kept everyone busy. Sycko found all the work a shock to his nervous system. Where had his temple gone? The temple of quiet smokes, drinks and meditation? Taking over Jeremiah’s sporadic duties during the day was one thing, but being busy all day was definitely too much. Finally he had an idea. He took a large comfortable armchair from another room and pushed it into the grand hall in front of Diana’s shrine. He sat down, lit a fag and gazed at the Goddess. It wasn’t long before someone came to ask what he was doing.
“I’m here in devout worship praying to the Goddess to grant us success.”
From then on he was left alone. “I can’t believe that worked,” he said quietly and contentedly blew smoke into the air. “That’s the way to skive, in plain sight and everyone thinks I’m doing something really useful. Ah, I love work, I could spend hours watching others do it.”
And with Sycko praying so hard for the success of their efforts it was no surprise that everything went smoothly. An innocent outsider might have put it down to a lot of hard work, but the brethren knew better. “What good fortune that we had Sycko to pray for all of us,” they said.
Sycko just smiled when he heard it and said “Ain’t life great”.
Before long Master Jeremiah’s project was the talk of the town. Since the affair of the weeping Diana the temple had acquired a certain notoriety and Jeremiah’s latest idea was designed to have an overwhelming effect. With the profits from the weeping Diana he managed to hire the town’s largest concert hall and he even got live TV coverage for the event he had planned.
But what was the big event to be? Master Jeremiah had unleashed an enormous publicity campaign to hammer home the message that Dryvellism and the temple were victims of hatred. He invited the public to attend a grand show or at least watch the live coverage where the public could see Dryvellism in all its glory. Jeremiah had even promised some real miracles. Public interest was huge and tickets were sold out on the first day of sale indicating that the secret filming of the Diana refill hadn’t left any lasting damage. For security reasons all tickets were numbered and had names on them and entry was only granted together with an ID card.
Then the big day arrived. Sycko walked into the concert hall and looked around. Above the stage hung a huge banner:
United Against Hate
Elsewhere there were balloons, moons and sundry other decorations that gave the impression of a carnival rather than a religious gathering. The brethren took their places around the hall, in part to help the public and to maintain order, and in part to act as security around the stage. Due to his weeks and months of hard prayer practice Sycko was given the job of sitting on stage and praying while the public was entering. He made himself comfortable in the middle of the stage. There were ‘No Smoking’ signs everywhere but Sycko conveniently overlooked these and lit a fag. Soon the doors opened and the public began pouring in. Smoke curled up from the stage and the brethren acting as security around the stage chanted an inspiring holy song. They were all dressed in the same black suit and tie with a white shirt but only Jeremiah, who was still waiting backstage, wore a top hat. Members of the audience could be forgiven for thinking that a lone man sitting cross legged and smoking on stage with others in front of him singing curious songs looked a bit like a hippie.
Then the show got under way. Sycko happily retired from the stage and Master Jeremiah entered to a rapturous applause looking resplendent in his frock and sacred top hat.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Dryvellers, dear guests,” Jeremiah said. It is the greatest pleasure to have you all here with us tonight and I’m sure you’re going to have a wonderful time, in every sense of the word wonderful. We Dryvellers have long been peaceful and honest members of our common society and there are many contributions we have made and are still making that help us all. Sadly the hatred and persecution against us in some countries has of late spilt over into our own country. It gives me great pleasure to see so many of you here today who value our common history and who are ready to stand united against the haters. Without any more ado – let’s get the show started. There was polite applause followed by the first of a number of musical performances designed to entertain and draw the audience in.
More than an hour later the main part of the evening came. It was Jeremiah’s great surprise everyone had been waiting for. Master Jeremiah came back on stage with a big smile. “Glad to see you all having such a swell time. Now is the time for members of the audience to ask me questions. Don’t be shy folks, ask me anything you like.” He looked around and chose a man in the third row. “The gentleman in the third row, no don’t tell me… you’re Mike Watson, aren’t you.
The man looked surprised. “Yes, but…”
“How did I know? Well, I promised you all some miracles tonight and this is just the beginning. Now Mike, what do you want to know?”
“Can you tell me the lottery numbers for the next draw?”
There was laughter from the audience.
“I could tell you, Mike, but is that why the Lord speaks to me? Does He want me to spoil the fun for millions of good folks who’ve bought tickets and give away the result so others can have an unfair advantage? Would that be honest? What do you think, Mike? Would God want this?”
“All right, all right, you got me there,” Mike said to general laughter and sat down.
“Now then, folks, serious questions please.” He pointed to a woman in a bright red dress. “Ah, yes, let me see. You’re Alice Hopkins, aren’t you?”
She smiled. “Yes, that’s right. Do you know why I’m here?”
Jeremiah tilted his head to one side a little. A moment later he said “I believe you’re here because of your daughter. Is that right?”
“Yes,” she said looking astounded while gasps and some applause could be heard.
“A very sickly little girl,” Jeremiah added.
Alice Hopkins put her hands on her mouth. “Oh my God, how do you know that? I haven’t told anyone here.”
“The ways of the Lord are mysterious, Alice. You’re asking yourself why your little girl is suffering from cancer. You’re asking why you keep fighting and taking her to doctors who can’t help her. Now Alice, I’m a man of my word and I won’t be making you any false promises or give false hope like some would. But I can invite you to join us in our temple, bring your girl and now here’s something I will promise. I promise that we will pray for her, we’ll beg the Lord for mercy; and who knows, miracles have happened before, Alice.”
“Thank you so much,” Alice said with tears running down her face.
There was loud applause from the audience while TV audiences were invited to help by making a donation. Bank details appeared on the screen.
For
the next hours Master Jeremiah took question after question. The audience were amazed how he invariably knew who he was talking to, how he knew about people’s problems and lives. In the end there wasn’t a soul, including journalists, who wasn’t convinced that he had special powers, a gift from the Lord, or that a miracle had occurred. The audience was in ecstasy and it was a jubilant and triumphant Master Jeremiah who finished the event. All the while donations from around the country kept pouring in from many good folks who wanted to be part of the Lord’s miracle and do their bit to help Master Jeremiah in his mission. There were some large donations from the wealthy and many smaller ones from people like Ruth Sanders. She had spent forty-five years working as a nurse and now lived in retirement on a meagre pension that barely enabled her to get by. She donated half a month’s pension even though she didn’t know how she would manage on the little that was left for her. “I’ll just have to eat less,” she said. “What a wonderful man Master Jeremiah is, helping all those poor people. It just shows that there are still good hearts, even in our day and age.”
At the end of the event Jeremiah went backstage and removed the earpiece with which he had received all the necessary information about the people asking questions. One of the brethren, Brother James, had watched the hall from hidden cameras. When someone asked a question he cross-referenced the seat with the information that person had given when buying the entrance ticket. With the help of networking sites he found a lot of private information that enabled Master Jeremiah to deceive the whole country into believing that he had special powers from God.
He rubbed his ear and yawned. “What a load of gormless sheep,” he muttered. “No wonder they need a good shepherd like me to guide them in their lives. And what more could sheep hope for than to be fleeced.”
The Museum
The just man is most free from disturbance,
while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance.
Epicurus
Master Jeremiah was ecstatic with the results of the nationwide TV broadcast. In one night the temple earned millions. In fact they received more money than during the entire previous existence of the temple, at least as long as he had been there. He looked around his confined quarters and shook his head in disgust. “That won’t do,” he said. “That won’t do at all. How ever did I manage to live in this dingy little room for so many years? It’s almost Spartan, and most certainly not becoming of a person in my station.”
With no one to oversee the temple’s finances Jeremiah had no problem solving such little personal problems and not long after he was the proud owner of a luxurious mansion that used to belong to a factory owner. The abandoned factory building came with the mansion and Jeremiah immediately saw how he could put it to good use. It was a long brick building with a grey slate roof. There were two floors and the inside was a long open space where machinery had once stood. Jeremiah hired workmen to refurbish the building and to put in walls to create numerous rooms on both floors. Then the real work began. For several weeks the brethren were busy painting, drawing, writing and making various models. It was Master Jeremiah himself who made the finishing touch, a large sign that was hung above the entrance. It read:
Museum of Creationism
During the absence of the brethren from the temple Sycko was busy doing what he was best at – he sat guard beside the weeping Diana and relaxed with his drinks and cigarettes. The day before the grand opening of the museum, which was widely advertised throughout the city and on TV, Jeremiah couldn’t resist taking Sycko on a tour of his new achievement. The building was painted a gleaming white and featured fake Dorian columns on either side of the entrance. Sycko stopped in front of the entrance and looked up at the sign. “What is creationism?” he asked.
“You don’t know?” Jeremiah said incredulously.
Sycko shook his head in silence.
“But my dear fellow, that is a most serious gap in your education. I can’t believe we’ve never talked about this before. Well, to make matters short, it’s the science of how God created the world and everything that’s in it.”
“So you’re saying God made us, too?”
“Yes, of course. We even know the exact time.”
“But when I was at school they told us something about evolution. I can’t quite remember how that worked, but…”
“Good heavens, you mustn’t believe such childish nonsense. This so called theory of evolution is a fiendish prank, a hoax made by satanists to confuse the true believers and to bring discord into our harmonious society. It is in fact a vile conspiracy concocted by the very dredges of humanity, if one should choose to include them in the name of humanity. But what am I talking here. Let’s go into the museum and you will learn the truth about the world.”
Sycko eagerly followed Jeremiah into the building. They walked past the empty cash register and went to the first exhibit. It was entitled ‘The Moment of Creation’.
There was a beautiful painting of God in a smart suit wearing a top hat. In one hand He was holding a golden pocket watch that hung from a sparkling chain and with His other hand he snapped His fingers and created the world. Next to the painting was a small glass case containing the golden pocket watch.
“Just look at it, my dear Sycko,” Jeremiah said excitedly. “The very watch God had when He created the world. The watch stopped at just that time so we can still see when the world was made – at a quarter past three on Monday afternoon 6137 years ago. Isn’t it miraculous how His watch survived all that time to come down to us so that we would be able to see it?”
“Eh, yes certainly,” Sycko said. “I didn’t know all that. But how did you manage to find the watch? Surely that can’t have been easy, I mean…”
“The ways of the Lord are mysterious, my young friend. Let us just say that the Lord in His wisdom saw our time of need and provided as He always does. That’s the wonderful thing about being a true believer. We know that we always have a higher power on our side, whatever may befall.”
They walked on to the next exhibit which showed the Earth just moments after its creation. There was a vast miniature landscape with pleasant green fields and woodlands. There were a surprising number of animals, from farm animals such as hens, pigs and cows to wild animals such as elephants and tigers to more unusual animals such as sabre tooth cats and dinosaurs. In one part humans were tending a flock of sheep while in another part people were hunting mammoths and a Brontosaurus.
“I thought the dinosaurs died out millions of years ago,” Sycko said. “Why are they together with people?”
“What utter nonsense, Sycko. Didn’t I just explain to you how God made the world 6137 years ago? How could the world be millions of years old? It’s just another lie you were told at school. It’s perfectly obvious that dinosaurs and humans were created at the same time. Dinosaurs died out some time after that as have many other creatures since then, that’s all. And look at the next painting. Here you can see the very first humans receiving the first copy of The Holy Dryvel from God Himself. And look at the background. What can you see there?”
“A dinosaur.”
“Exactly, a dinosaur. What more proof could you want that humans and dinosaurs coexisted in early times. And there in the next glass case is the very same copy of The Holy Dryvel that God once gave to us humans.”
Sycko peered into the glass case. A thick leather bound book lay there with a black cover and gilded words on it. The words said: The Holy Dryvel. Sycko felt overawed at the sight of the first copy of the holy book that had come from the very hands of the Lord Himself.
They walked on and came to the large model of an open house. A woman was standing in the kitchen and a stork sat perched on the chimney and dropped a baby down the chimney. Sycko peered at the model with curiosity. “Is that where babies come from?” he said at last. “I thought women gave birth to…”
“Tut, tut,” Jeremiah interrupted him. “More nonsense your head was filled with. A careful reading of The Holy
Dryvel will prove with absolute certainty and without a doubt that the stork theory is the only correct explanation for the appearance of babies. How anyone could ever have associated God’s creation with such a messy and bloody event that birth would be is beyond me. Whatever next? Maybe someone will come along that the Earth is round or some such preposterous nonsense!”
“Isn’t it?”
Jeremiah looked irritated. “Isn’t it what?”
“I mean, isn’t the Earth round? My dad always had a globe at home and that was round.”
“No, no, no,” Jeremiah said with vehemence. “This is another vile lie that may have arisen due to a careless reading of the text. The Holy Dryvel states quite clearly that the Earth is a disc. A disc is obviously flat and circular. It is not round like a ball. This is a fact that has been proven time and again by Dryvellist scientists. Why myths about the Earth being round are still believed by some people in our day and age is simply beyond me.”
Ashamed at his own ignorance Sycko said nothing for a while and followed Jeremiah in silence. He viewed numerous other exhibits that proved the creation of the world by God or that were holy relics. Then they came to the section entitled ‘Disbelief’.
“Now pay good attention, Sycko. This last part of the museum may shock you, but it’s all for the best. Trust me when I tell you that not accepting Dryvellism and believing all it stands for is the worst thing any human could do to himself. Look and take heed!”
Sycko swallowed hard and stepped to the first exhibit. It was the painting of an area enclosed by barbed wire and the ground was strewn with corpses. Below the picture it said: These people were murdered because the murderers did not believe in Dryvellism.
Next there was a model of the Titanic with panic stricken passengers jumping into the freezing water. A sign next to it read: This ship sank because there were no Dryvellers on board.
Then Sycko saw some life size models of people who perished in the ancient city of Pompey. The sign read: These people were evidently not Dryvellers as God permitted them to die in a volcanic eruption.
Sycko looked at exhibit after exhibit showing the horrible consequences of not being a Dryveller until he came to the last painting. It showed the disc of the Earth and deep down below raging fires with people in them screaming in agony. The inscription was:
The fate of those who reject Dryvellism.
Sycko looked at the terrifying painting with tears in his eyes unable to say anything. Master Jeremiah saw his reaction with evident satisfaction.
“Now you see, my dear boy, just how very important it is to follow and obey Dryvellism in all its aspects. We may not always understand everything, the ways of the Lord are mysterious after all and indeed, who are we to understand God, yet the important thing is to keep essential things in mind. Always remember what happens to those who reject Him and then do the right thing. Will you promise me to do that?”
“Of course, Jeremiah.”
“Very good, anyway, I’ll leave you here to enjoy the exhibition on your own for a little while longer, if you like. I have to go home and do a few things. I’ll pick you up later and we can go back to the temple together and talk about the grand opening tomorrow. Would that suit you?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
When Master Jeremiah got to his mansion he found brother James waiting at the front door.
“Why, brother James, what brings you here? You should see me at the temple really if you need to talk about anything.”
“What I want to talk about with you is private and I really don’t think you’d want the others to hear.”
Jeremiah looked at James intently. James was a middle aged man of medium height with dark hair and brown eyes that peered out from under bushy eyebrows. The prominent nose in the middle of his face drew attention to itself.
“Very well, then,” Jeremiah said though it was clear he wasn’t happy about the intrusion into his private life. “Come in.” He opened the door and bade James to take a seat in the entrance hall as he was unwilling to let him enter his private rooms.
James looked around in silence for some time till Jeremiah got impatient.
“Well then,” Jeremiah said. “Is there anything you want to tell me or have you just come to sit in my home?”
James shook his head. “You have done well for yourself, haven’t you Jeremiah? Just look at you now living in this huge mansion. A few weeks ago all you had was a dingy little room and now you live like a king. Even your waiting room here is more luxurious than all the things at the temple put together.”
“And what of it,” Jeremiah said feeling irritated. “What is it to you? It’s none of your business. I’m Master of the Temple after all and you’d better know your place!” He looked angrily into James’s eyes trying to impose his will.
James laughed. “Master of the Temple. All you are is the master of your greed and a good life. I believed in you. I really believed that Dryvellism was the divine truth. But you opened my eyes. You used that big event to cheat people out of millions with my help! And what for? Just so you can buy yourself a huge house and live in comfort while the rest of us live in bare rooms. But you know what, I also want the good life. I helped you with the show and now I want my share of the money.”
Jeremiah turned red in his face. “How dare you talk to me like that. Get back to the temple at once. There will be consequences for your disobedience!”
“So you’re threatening me! You know what, Jeremiah. You’re going to pay, and if I don’t get my fair share then I’ll sell my story to the highest bidder out there and let the whole country know what kind of fraud and cheat you are. I’ll give you till tomorrow. Pay me or pay the price!”
James jumped up from his chair and without waiting for any reply hurried out of the house slamming the door shut behind him.
Master Jeremiah was incandescent with rage. His hands trembled and his voice shook as he shouted after James. “God curse you, James, you’ll get your just desserts, traitor!”
Will no one rid me…?
Whoever grows angry amid troubles
applies a drug worse than the disease
and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.
Sophocles