"O guild of the city, you must do something about the construction workers!"
The behavior of the construction workers was indeed scandalous. Uncouth and obnoxious men, they would shout things at female passers-by.
"I'm looking for a real commitment, and enjoy giving massages!" one might shout, or "I work out regularly, and would enjoy going shopping with you!" By so doing, they rendered the women unhappy with their current partners, and created much strife and discord.
"Indeed, this is bringing unhappiness into the homes of all, and we shall try to stop it," said the blacksmiths.
"We have to do something about these guy's!!!!!" said the writers of signs with unnecessary apostrophe's (in a strong Comic Sans accent).
"We've got to think outside the square. Don't work harder, work smarter. Let's do a trust exercise," said the consultants. But the women were happy with two out of three.
Thus the guilds engaged in a campaign against the odious construction industry. The urban mythmakers told everyone that one time their cousin hired a group of construction workers, and they totally stole his kidneys. Thus people feared the construction workers, and would not give them work. The clockmakers would only supply them with the clocks used by coachmen (and in our world by airlines), so that they always arrived four hours after they said they would. The tailors refused to sell construction workers their special work shorts. Thus they had to wear normal shorts, and their upper buttocks received no sunlight.
"Enough!" said the guild of construction workers at last. "Giving women unrealistic expectations is the main reason we got into the job to be honest. It's no fun any more." And they all left to write novels about vampires. Thus the guilds and the women met, to decide how they could find someone to do the construction jobs, without ending up with the same problem.
"We can help!" said someone from the guild of robot-makers.
Everyone agreed that was a fine idea. The guild worked hard for many months, and at last supplied a robot workforce. For a time, all was well. But one day a man was walking by a construction site, when he heard
"Hey! Hey!" The man looked up, to see a robot construction worker.
"Could an all-powerful God make an object so heavy that He could not move it?" shouted the robot.
"He could make anything. But then He could also move anything, so-" replied the man.
"What is the truth value of the statement 'this statement is false'?" shouted another robot.
"False. No, true," the man said. "No, wait..." he trailed into silence.
The robots laughed, and high-fived each other.
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The New God
Once upon a time an old man arrived in a certain city in the Roman Empire. He brought with him a statue, which he claimed to have found in the forests of Armorica, beyond the empire. He also claimed to be a priest.
The people of the city loved to hear of new gods, and the idol resembled no deity known to Greece or Rome, nor Egypt, nor even Persia or Judea. A huge crowd came to the new temple to hear him preach.
"I have not come to ask you to worship a god," he said. "I have come to tell you that you may all become gods."
He went on to say that the temple would host a year-long festival, wherein all could come to display their talent in singing and dancing. Those who lacked skill would be ridiculed and sent away. Those who were skillful would be allowed to return. At last, he said, the statue (speaking through him) would choose the most skillful of all. This one he would sacrifice, and they would ascend to the heavens and become a god. For an entire year they would be worshiped, until the next sacrifice.
"And what happens after the second sacrifice? Are there now two gods to be worshiped, and three the next year, and so on?" asked a merchant.
"Indeed not. Only one will be worshiped at a time. The others will be utterly abandoned, and no doubt will be forgotten."
"Who would be wretched enough to give up their only life for a year of fame?" the merchant said with scorn.
But the merchant was wrong. So many came that the temple had to add extra services. As the priest had said, those who lacked skill were ridiculed, and those who were skillful were allowed to return. After a year a Gaulish freedman named Quintus was killed, and declared a god, and given praise and worship. The next week there were even more entrants. Though most were humiliated, and the only reward was to die and be forgotten, they still dreamed of being chosen by the Armorican idol.
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That Which Unites Us
I have sought in vain to reconcile
all gospels into one.
I have talked of peace to many
and heard words of peace from none.
Yet one universal factor
still unites humanity:
every person on the Earth
is having better sex than me.
Every one, without exception
from the Arctic to Australia
each time I turn my back
it's an unending bacchanalia.
The writer at her desk
the hooting fratboy in his dorm
smelly hoboes in their camp
who mainly do it to keep warm.
They go slowly at McDonalds
or with vigor at the gym.
Dying lepers in the hospice
intertwine their rotting limbs.
Those who sit at home alone
and watch aerobics on TV
when they play with their controls
they're having better sex than me.
Once I tried to ask the experts
what my poor performance means.
Richard Dawkins was too busy
making copies of his genes.
Stephen Hawking wasn't talking
so I asked the Dalai Lama.
He appeared somewhat distracted
and said, "Oh, it's probably karma."
When I said, "I need more detail,"
he said, "Sorry, but I'm due
at a meeting of world leaders
to have better sex than you."
If you find yourself distracted
halfway through this piece of writing--
if you feel a bit let down
and think, "It sounded more exciting
than it was"--if you regret
I ever got to hold a pen
that's the first time that that's happened.
Can we wait and try again?
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The Death of the Artist
There was once a policeman named Bob. Bob was in the riot squad. One day Bob was in a riot. The protestors threw everything they could at Bob and the other policemen. Bottles, rocks, flour, paint-balls, smoke bombs, all thumped into Bob's plastic shield. Bob looked at the shield. The marks and stains on his shield had made a picture. It was the most beautiful picture in the world.
Bob went home, taking his shield. Within a week his shield was hanging in a gallery. By the end of the month it had sold for millions of dollars. Bob was fired from the police, and he had to pay lawyers to get out of being charged for the theft of the shield, but what of it? He was the richest and most respected artist in the world.
Bob never made another picture, because he didn't know how. He never wrote or argued about his art, because he didn't have anything to say. He soon learned that whenever anyone asked him what the picture meant, or why such a beautiful picture was painted on a riot shield, he should say
"It means whatever you want it to mean," and smile mysteriously. As a result, everyone loved the statement they thought he had made. To left-wingers it was a black comment on police brutality. Conservatives said it was an ironic undermining of the facile 'peace and love' imagery used by left-wingers. Some said it was post-modern, which was a clever way of saying they didn't know.
After a long and happy life, Bob died. Thousands of people came to his funeral. Alas, this included bot
h conservatives and left-wingers (the post-modernists didn't go, in order to be ironic). Members of the two factions exchanged words, then shouts, then rocks and bottles. Soon there was a riot.
The riot police arrived. The mourners threw everything they could at the police. Bottles, rocks, flour, paint-balls, smoke bombs, all thumped into the riot policemen's plastic shields. One of the policemen looked at his shield. The marks and stains formed a picture. It was identical to the picture which had made Bob famous.
The crowd dispersed in confusion and fear.
Another famous artist came forward. Her conscience, she said, would not let her sleep. She confessed that all her pictures had been created by accident. One was spilled paint, another was stains caused by a canvas left out in the rain, and so on.
Another artist came forward, and another. At last every artist in the world admitted that they had created all their work by accident. The only exception was the abstract expressionists. They claimed their work was accidental, but it turned out it was all their fault.
Research showed that this phenomenon had started during the early 20th century. It seemed that the last real artists had been killed during World War One.
"All Artists Are Bullshitting!" the headlines screamed. Then they changed it to "All Artists Are Bullshitting In A Different Way to How Everyone Thought!"
The breakthrough came when a famous novelist admitted that he had never written anything. It had all been his cat walking across his keyboard. A poet came forward: her poetry was also entirely created by her cat.
No one had thought anything of the fact that all writers and artists have cats. Now it took on a sinister significance.
After some interrogation a cat confessed (the interrogators promised to scratch behind its ears).
After all the men left to fight in the Great War, the cat said, women had taken on traditionally male work. This had meant that they had less time to feed and pet their cats. This was unacceptable. The cats had used their advanced mental powers to destroy humanity's ability to make art (it turned out that when cats stare intently at nothing they're using their advanced mental powers). They had then ensured that only cat owners would become famous writers or artists. This gave their owners more leisure time, and meant that they spent more time at home and sitting down, increasing lap availability.
There was a great anger against cats. But then the cats did a cute look and mewed pathetically, so everyone forgave them.
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Two Brothers
Two brothers met again after many years apart.
Jim had known only failure. He had sunk lower and lower, until finally he became a drug dealer. He led many into addiction and death.
Ben had known only success. He was the founder and CEO of an advertising firm, whose clients included the world's biggest cigarette company. The firm had even done advertising for the army.
As Jim told the story of his squalid life, Ben looked at him with confusion and distaste.
"How do you live with yourself?" Ben said at last.
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Unprotected
Regarding your assertion that
I'm thoughtless and ungrateful, Dad
I think that you've confused me with
some unprotected sex you had.
It was that unprotected sex
that caused me to be born and while
I ate your food and slept beneath
your roof, that's normal for a child.
The joking-but-not-joking way
you said you couldn't wait until
I turned eighteen so you could pack
my bags and then give me a bill
has worn my gratitude away
like drops of water wear a stone
until it wears to nothing and
the water finds itself alone.
So send your bill to unprotected
sex in nineteen eighty-three.
I doubt that it'll answer but
the same is also true of me.
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The God of the City of Dust
In the City of Dust there was hardly a drop of water to be found, nor shade, nor animals, nor anything in abundance except sand and heat. Yet there were souls. Therefore missionaries came to the city. They came in ones and twos, like drops of water, and their preaching was swallowed up by the desert and nothing grew from it.
For all that it lacked, the city was well-made. In the evening, when it was neither smothering day nor freezing night, and the moon hung in a still-blue sky, it even had beauty. Indeed the only thing of outright ugliness in the city was its squat and malignant god, Daba.
Daba was as tall as a child, as broad as a woman, as ugly as a corpse. He was carved from wood. In that place so much wood was a wonder, as solid gold would have been in other cities. His temple was a plain hall distinguished only by its size. Save on days of worship, and when the priestesses came to fill his water bowl and offer him dates and bread, his only companions were a family of lizards. They were complacent and fat, at least by the standards of lizards, and their droppings provided the fuel for the lamps which burnt in the temple night and day.
In no other city did the people worship Daba. Even in the cosmopolitan port of Telelee, where the temples crowded together like pigs in a pen, his leering face could not be found; unless, perhaps, a woman of the City of Dust happened to pass through, bearing his countenance on necklace or shield. As to that, even the women of the City seemed to find Daba wearying. As if he was a husband of too many years' marriage, they tended to leave him at home. Yet they were a faithful people, and through many centuries imported no other gods.
As for the men of the city, no one rightly knew. They did not travel. Some said that they were prisoners, their legs broken at birth. Others claimed they were all slack-witted. Still others swore that there were no men, and indeed no women, but only creatures with the appearance of women that grew like fruit from a tree. The priests of other cities sometimes encouraged such tales to explain their failures, and at other times discouraged them so that preachers would still go.
In the aforementioned city of Telelee there stood a temple to Averna. She was a goddess of dancing and athletics, and her followers possessed an athlete's vigor and zeal. Yet the conversion of the City of Dust was like a race wherein the track is lined with thorns, and there is no prize, nor even a finish line. Therefore, on this particular morning, the high priestesses of Averna were debating their future policy towards the followers of Daba.
"The temples of Mari, and Father-on-the-Mountain, and the Crone, all are sending missions to the City of Dust," said one, whose name was Ummi-waqrat. "Yet we of Averna sit idle."
"They have gone to water a garden of stones," replied the second, named Ninduzu. "Yea, gone to preach burrowing to birds, and compassion to cats. In any case, who of our worshipers would go among these women? If women they be. For it is written that, like insects, they lack generative parts, save their queen, who is the only true woman among them and mother of them all."
"Those who starve for truth fart rumors," snapped the third, whose name was Yarimlim.
"Those who are poor in ideas are rich in proverbs," Ninduzu snapped back.
Thus went the debate, like a caravan which has become lost, and follows its own tracks, and draws no closer to its journey's end, until the three priestesses noticed a stranger standing at a respectful distance, straw hat held in his hands. They abandoned their argument.
"Come forth and speak."
"O priestesses," said the stranger, "it is said in the bazaars that, in the past, zealous and holy folk have gone to the City of Dust, and there spoken of Averna."
The priestesses nodded.
"It is further said," he went on, "that the women of the city, in their heathen ignorance, enquired of these missionaries as to whether Averna or Daba would win in a fight."
At this the priestess
es looked upon the stranger with a sharper eye. For he had spoken a truth known only to a few in Telelee, and certainly not the stuff of market gossip.
"Finally," the man continued, "it is said that each messenger of Averna declared this question to be irrelevant at best, and blasphemous at worst; and that there followed an illustration that the rewards of virtue are not found in this world, for as soon as they spoke thus the missionaries were invariably set upon and beaten greatly, and expelled from the city."
The priestesses, fearing to lie in such a holy place and on such a holy subject, and unwilling to confirm the truth of his words, stayed silent.
"O priestesses, my name is Ur-Zaba. I have not attended this temple long." This the priestesses knew to be so. In truth, they had never seen him before, though each had a feeling that they had some acquaintance with him; perhaps that they had not seen him, but had heard him described by another. "Yet devotion is not dust, that one may sit still and wait for it to fall. Nor is virtue a trade that requires one to be first apprentice, then journeyman, and only then master. On the contrary, he who sits and waits for righteousness to blossom thereby ensures that it will not. He is like one who tries to grow cats by burying kittens. Therefore I will go to the City of Dust, and tell them of the goddess."
The priestesses tried to turn Ur-Zaba from his path, for they had no wish to pile failure upon failure, as wood is piled upon wood in a funeral pyre--not even Ummi-waqrat, who had argued so fiercely that someone should go when no one would. Yet it seemed as if he would set out without their blessing. Since this would cause great shame whether he died or prevailed they gave him a horse, a well-used traveling cloak, and a few cowrie shells to buy provisions, and sent him on his way.
The New Death and others Page 10