The last entry is an example of asshole tax. Nicholas is an asshole, now he does not pass Go, he does not collect $200, and he goes straight to jail.
That’s for murdering my precious Earthlings with your lies.
So, what exactly is Asshole Tax?
I’m so glad you asked! It’s not something the New Testament God would have approved of… however, after examining you all and using my daughter as a pawn in my experiments, the Newest Testament God is approving it.
Asshole Tax: something of low value you extract from someone who has used & abused you periodically in order to even out the karmic balance.
“The island in Lost is supposed to be Hell?” Crystal asked curiously, not quite wide-eyed but still surprised.
“Yesh,” God replied, using an accent that reminded her of Cartman from South Park. He was a funny guy, after all. The audience laughed.
“A deserted desert island doesn’t sound like Hell to me,” Crystal replied.
An excerpt from Ani DiFranco’s Fuel played in Crystal’s head:
They say that alcoholics are always alcoholics
Ani DiFranco
Even when they’re dry as my lips for years
Even when they’re stranded on a small desert island
With no place in two thousand miles to buy beer
And I wonder is he different
Is he different
Has he changed
What he is about?
Or is he just a liar
With nothing to lie about?
“Well, dear, I think it’s more like the ominous and omnipotent black smoke is a terror that will continue to, um, terrorize you endlessly,” Nick suggested helpfully. When did Nick ever try to be nice to her? She tried to remember. This was unusual.
Crystal sipped at her powerful, mystical brew that had the power to wake the dead. Coffee. She contemplated the idea that Lost’s island was mean to be Hell itself and wondered if the real Hell was anything like it or if that’s just a writer’s dream. Or perhaps all dreams shared by enough people came true? If so, why didn’t anyone else share her dream for utter peace on Urth?
Something slipped her mind, delving back into her deep subconscious. Hiding itself from her because she had to do the right kind of work to dig that thought back up again. She tried to remember exactly what profound thing she’d meant to share, but it was like a lizard, scurrying out of sight. She caught glimpses of its bright blue tail between sips of coffee, but left it be. It would come out and sun itself again in due time.
That’s how her brain worked. Genius would float up to the surface from the deep subconscious. She preferred to be at a computer or holding a notepad when that happened, but these days it happened so rarely she’d forgotten to carry a notebook with her everywhere she went.
Her brain was unlike most brains in America, if not the entire universe. She was a rational being, using well-honed logic to determine her path forward at all times, even though she solicited opinions from others to help guide her decisions. She’d given up beating herself up over losing thoughts like that. It wasn’t the first time in the recent past and it wouldn’t be the last… at least she didn’t leave this one in the middle of the Wegmans deli to be stolen by someone else in tune with the Universe(TM). She had a bone to pick with God over that one.
It was some brilliant recipe, no doubt. She’d thought of a few common ingredients uncommonly combined together. Maybe, in retrospect, someone else lost their thought in the deli and she picked it up for a few moments… but she was pretty sure it was her own ingenious idea. If only she could remember what it was.
God smiled down at His daughter. This is how she liked to spend her time thinking. It took a while to get here. We had to take a right turn at Albuquerque after backtracking to that forsaken place. (We totes empathize, Bugs.) Before she’d gotten back to herself, she spent a lot of time marinating in piss and vinegar. And now look at her go! She wants to share her autist thoughts with the world. She has found a sanctuary within her own being where she goes when she is alone. How did she get back here? Why isn’t she abusing everyone else like she was abused?
Silence. He gave her a few days of relative silence. Aloneness. Alone time. Singularity. She was repairing herself every moment of every day whenever someone hurt her. That is what she spent her time doing. Renewing her body at the cellular level with her willpower alone. There was no use spending the time crabbing about things she couldn’t change, there was no use crying, no use trying to share her pain. Nobody understood her pain anyway, or they chose not to show that they could.
Now she prepares for a surprise inspection. She cleans and cleans and cleans, pretending to be Cinderella. Who will be visiting her house this winter? Who will be a testament to the fact that it’s a fucking pig sty? Who? She knows not. She has no idea if anyone is coming at all… life moves on anyway. Her mission, her prime directive, is to remove her mother’s library from her apartment. It is a vast library of thousands of books and we’re carrying just six at a time. This might be a while.
There are so many tasks to complete.
She found herself wishing she could have a public space that was not her space to donate all the books to. Many of them came from the public library, abandoned due to age or wear and tear. They were still good books, so she didn’t understand that. Perhaps if she were rich and famous, she could have a place people could go and, if it’s not nailed down and they have a use for it, they could take things. Or leave things.
I know what you’re thinking. That’d never work.
She doesn’t happen to care, actually, because the point is to have a place to store things without them spoiling. Although by the looks of this world, she’d say that nobody was taught how to keep their things nice because she sees things on the road side all the time, marred one way or another.
She supposes she could put a price tag on it. But, on the other hand, it could become a prop haven for a movie producer. She doesn’t want anything to do with movie making unless it’s animated, however. She thinks it’s more efficient to draw the special effects than to play pretend with reality. Also, you know, explosions do not work like on TV.
Ah, just like Chernobyl, a movie we watched within the past year. A helicopter flying over the exposed reactor core caught on fire and exploded. I’m pretty sure that’s not what happens when exposed to extreme radiation. I’m pretty sure the flying atoms simply sheer things apart. But, you know, I’m not a physicist! What do I fucking know?
God delighted in discussions with Crystal because she’d ask him the most bizarre questions. And, he’d suggest responses that were sometimes far more efficient than what really went on behind the scenes. She also made comments that were beyond magical; he was stretching her to help her sitz bones move into their proper place and she made some comment about how she knew how taffy felt. She begin to giggle because I was amused by this, you see, and so she said, “Ah, now I know what Laffy Taffy feels like!”
Crystal adored the bizarre. Anything out of the ordinary held her attention and, often, received some love — even if it wasn’t beautiful or great. A scar on an abdomen, a quivering mouse in the corner, a green leaf in a sea of yellow, one leaf that is both red and yellow, a flower that blooms white when normally it is red… it really doesn’t matter. She will sit and stare and wonder what genetic anomaly, what perfect set of circumstances, led up to this thing existing in this moment. She was, in a few words, full of wonder.
She was also full of hilarious comments.
Vitriol, however? She wants to retire that bull shit, tyvm. She thinks the whole world should. You know why? Because you’re not getting anything done. You’re not being productive. You’re wasting time bitching about shit you could fix if you just spent enough time thinking about how to fix it.
In fact, she knows how to fix the fact that she misses her deli man, who seems to be gone. She can either find him or give up on him. Those are her two choices.
She wants to spirit walk to him but he has not given her permission to do so, as far as she can tell. So she stays put. She doesn’t even go to the store anymore. I have to drag her ass through the shower, into a change of clothing, slap her shoes on her (or boots, weather pending), and drive her there. It’s a bit demeaning, overall, for both of us, but it gets her fresh veggies and an eye full of not-the-right-deli-man.
Her real problem is the time before last, we were followed through the store. In three different aisles in just a few minutes apart we saw the same fellow walk by. An employee, yes, but she’s uncomfortable with the fact that he was ogling her each time she noticed him.
In fact, her propensity for feeling safe in her own body has diminished greatly in the past few weeks. It’s singles awareness season. And they’re aware she is single. She never comes into the store with anyone. Their memory is not long enough to remember the last time she brought her mother along, which was almost a year previous. Her mother has been in decline since her father started going to the hospital every month, forcing his wife to attend him during every single minute of the visiting hours, declaring he cares about her health… when, in fact, disrupting her schedule like this is what is going to drive her into a hospital bed next.
I keep feeding her vegetables, hoping to snap her out of her food-induced brain fog. Brussel sprouts, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower. Apples and peanut sauce. Lots of avocado oil since women need more fat than men to operate optimally. God informed me of that, so take it, leave it, or go to the neighbor’s.
She keeps making sugar-laden crap “for my dad.” I’m pretty sure she also wants the sugar-laden crap. I told her I think she’s probably diabetic. She cares not. She gives zero shits about her own health. Everything she does is to put food in that dying man’s hands… and this is how her entire life has been since the moment he got too sick to work. He eventually recovered and never went back to work, too. He made her keep house, work 40 hours a week, feed the kids… everything. He makes her do all that now and she cannot do it.
He was supposed to be fixing shit to uphold his end of the bargain, but there are several broken doors and windows. The house might as well be condemned, honestly, with as much effort as the two of them put into it in the past decade. And here I am, spit shining everything because they talk about giving it to me for the tiny detail of me keeping them alive longer. They would have died last winter without me.
There is no taxi service in our city anymore… I plan to fix that when people recognize me as the messiah. Or I grow a million bucks somewhere. I doubt that’s possible… “money don’t grow on trees!” Unless those trees happen to be cannabis plants, anyway. It’s not legal yet, but I know our representatives are working on it. Once I can get together enough capital, I’ll open a taxi company. I’ll buy some garages and put Teslas to work. Teslas, for a normal civilian with a modest commute, cost about $5.00 a month to fuel.
I’ll also put some solar powered roofs on those buildings so that we never have to pay a dime for electricity, I think, and maybe even attach a car wash that recycles the grey water (if possible.) I might as well dream big, you know.
Anyway… There’s no taxi to go back and forth to the hospital, so my father would have had to stay in the hospital for days and days, wifeless. He has me drive him to save on ambulatory fees, taking them to the ER where they often sit for up to 12 hours, waiting for a room to become available. Then he gets shoved in a room and I’m expected to go pick her up whenever he feels like letting her go home to rest. They are terrible communicators, though they’re getting a bit better. They also have no concept of time anymore, I don’t think, unless there’s a doctor’s appointment to remember time exists.
I wonder if this is really how retirement is supposed to look for a blue collar worker. You break your back all your life, giving it your best, to make the least amount of money of all, to retire and get sick and be managed in your sickness until you finally die, miserable as all get-out.
I literally just had a little dispute with him over what the nurse just told me to fix some problem he had. I told him three times what the nurse said and how to fix his problem, I even tried briefly to assist in fixing it… He’s not open to this. He’s never open to any kind of change, even if it would lead to his salvation. Most men aren’t, as it so happens, being taught to be rigid and inflexible. These are the two qualities that are hallmark to being male. And, as a result, the two qualities that are hallmark to being female are fluidity and flexibility. Yang. Male. Yin. Female.
And then we saw this and fell in LOVE:
One is like fire and the other like water. And, somehow, we are supposed to mix together in the appropriate amounts and become more than our base potential. Instead, we become steam, a completely new element… that is only if we work together, though. A fire gone unchecked can make all the water evaporate, never to return. And, of course, too much water puts a normal fire out completely.
How can a woman know if a man has the right kind of fire?
What kind of questions should one ask another human being to determine compatibility? How can we destroy the idea of dating and introduce what used to be the norm in a new light? Marriage. But not a marriage with the intent of trapping two people who aren’t right for each other together… no. The intent would be to find two highly compatible human beings and join them. Love will grow in time as long as one’s mind and heart are open.
The concept of dating is ruining everything for everyone everywhere. The last place on Urth that has not yet accepted dating as a norm is India. They still believe in arranged marriages because they know the truth: you will love each other as long as you share enough common interests. You will not know loneliness if you have a compatible mate. The idea of allowing one’s vision to determine whether or not one is going to talk to a person is just not part of their repertoire. They don’t shop with their eyes like the rest of humanity… not yet. But they will, if I don’t stop you first.
Instead of discovering who we are alone, we are rushing into a scene that is immensely complicated simply because we bend ourselves to another’s existence to try to fit within it. To try to be perfect. Or, now, you might decide to have an open relationship model because you need to sate your loins while you are looking for the right match. If there were no STDs, perhaps this would be the answer, but there are. Many of them. And three very important incurable ones: herpes, HIV, and AIDS.
There is another small problem with the open relationship model. A quantum physics kind of problem. Or, in other words, a spiritual problem. A metaphysical problem. Before I describe the problem, I’m going to take a moment to tell you that quantum physics is the science of spirituality. And you don’t have to go to a fancy college to work it from a point of complete ignorance. You don’t have to be a quantum physicist to be spiritual or a spiritualist. You just have to believe in what you sense, trust your intuition to guide you, and listen to your heart. These are three things the modern world rips away from all of us with the endless virtual distractions.
Oh, boy. She’s starting to sound like a wise woman.
I wish you could have degrees from listening to your own heart. I wish people gave me fancy pieces of paper and accolades for trusting my senses and intuition, for letting God guide me without even knowing it was God. You see, God doesn’t care one whit about being worshiped. He is not here to be seen as the greatest, the best, the one and only entity of omnipotence. Maybe that’s because he’s not the only one… but he is the only one named God. There are thousands of spirits wandering around the universe at large. Millions, maybe. Many, many entities without bodies. They each have a voice and a direction to go in.
I’m very sad my favorite one is abandoning me for now. I don’t want to be a white woman full of white woman notions. I want to embrace my indigenous people roots and learn what has been lost over the past 1,000 years. I want to teach others how to tap into their potential and be like me… but the problem is… no one wants to be like me. Instead, I have to train you idiots to be like me first. Then, maybe next rebirth, I can tell you how to be a spirit warrior, shaman, or priestess.
I don’t particularly want to be reborn ever again. I have seen the depths of evil in the humanity all around me. I have seen what everyone is capable of and I have learned the base nature of the human male. The unchecked rapist white man. I wish all of humanity would die because I know this truth. We do not deserve to be the custodians of the natural wonders on Urth, let alone allowed off “this rock” to go trash another “rock.”
Her name is Gaia, you assholes. She’s alive. Mars is incubating and also alive. Venus – alive. Mercury is dead. In fact, all the other planets aside from Venus, Gaia, and Mars are dead in our solar system. SOL – OUR SUN – IS ALIVE. And she does not want you to disturb Mars. Mars will bloom when Sol becomes a red giant. And no, Mars is not the true name of that planet; we are not allowed to know its name or Venus’s name, unless, of course, we go clean Venus up. However, be aware now: there is life on Venus.
Removing every bit of toxicity to make it habitable by humanity will hurt that life. However, we are being given permission to clean up the air and inhabit that planet as long as we understand one thing: WE WILL DIE IF WE TRY TO DESTROY THE LIFE ON VENUS. Every single fucking human being in all the universe will drop dead. All at once. Even if we’re not trying to destroy the life on Venus, if we happen to do it and keep doing it, we will all be dead. Dead. Dead.
Venus is cool with the name Venus, by the way. There’s no need to rename her at all.
If we try to go to Mars, everyone in outer space and with knowledge of getting into outer space will DIE. We have been given explicit permission to go to Venus. It’s even easier than going to Mars, anyway, since Venus has H2O in liquid format.
Anyway, I’m done talking to you blockheads about Venus. I already know the future and it’s dismal. Prepare for many human beings to die. Billions.
Ah, how could she possibly know?!
Let me tell you something about the spirits known as God, Gaia, and Venus. They work together. If God tells Gaia to plan an extinction event, it will happen. A supervolcano or three will explode and nothing will survive. Once Gaia is no longer the home base for humanity, the rest will perish. Mistakes will be made and big badda boom. Gone.
If God tells Venus to kill humanity on Venus, certain things I am not privy to will happen, and bam. Gone.
Then it’s just a matter of running out of oxygen. Capisce? Homo sapiens, the mistake it has turned into, will cease to exist.
[And the girl still hasn’t watched The Godfather to know how threatening that is.]
You ever wonder why he’s called the godfather?
Crystal wonders when God will be done yelling at people. It’s interrupting their coffee chats about unicorn bunnies. She wanted to be a genetic engineer once. She figured if she couldn’t be an artist drawing unicorns all day, she might as well just splice genes until she made one real.
Could you imagine reality with Crystal at the helm? There’d be dragons, indiscriminately killing human beings all the time. Unicorns. Manticores. Kelpies. Giant spiders. Skullcrusher Mountain. She’s a “mad scientist” at heart. And you would no longer be safe. She’d breed genes into wolves, tigers, bears, and all kinds of predators to make them better than human beings and possibly turn the tide despite the invention of guns. You’d be stuck in Starship Troopers or some other disgusting reality where humanity actually had a real threat.
Then we’d learn our lesson, Crystal thinks.
There’s also be cow fish named Moozy. A small animal that is like a hippocampus, except half-cow and half-fishy fish, lab-grown with other half-breeds. Scientists trying to make meat that’s more efficient to farm and harvest somehow. Except some animal rights activists raid the laboratories and throw the mutants into the river. That’s when Moozy discovers that there’s a bigger world than just her aquarium in the lab. I imagine Moozy being drawn Disney-style with nice big empathic eyes and being a golden tan and white coloration with tiny little nubs above the eyebrows. The fish side of her would be all-white, perhaps a type of tuna or something. Anyway, once in the Nile, because I want a hippopotamus as my villain, Moozy and friends try to fit in with the other river creatures. But life is hard being a cowfish, something nobody’s ever seen before. They bully Moozy and all kinds of crap. Then, a hungry hippo comes onto the scene and starts catching the fish Moozy’s been hanging out with. Suddenly, in a fit of fear, Moozy lets out a big ol’, “MOO!” and scares the dang thing away. This redeeming quality of Moozy makes her a heroess (I refuse to call a female hero the same name of a deadly drug, tyvm) to all the fishies and celebrated forevermore. Except, if Moozy is anything like me, she stares at them in disbelief and disdains them for being assholes to her until she provided some life-saving usage of her person and she resolves to swim off to find the other hybrids, a pigfish and whatever else the imagination can come up with.
By the way, to anyone inspired by this short parable who wants to create this show now, I give you permission to try. Any profits acquired from this production must go to saving the rainforests and removing the plastic island from the ocean. Or you’ll keel over dead, unable to spend a dime. kthxbye.
You could just give it away for free, God suggests.
If you prefer to have The Creator(TM) oversee the job, you can find us on Discord: Super_Fox#8259. You will know many platitudes if you take this route. Your reward will be handsome enough. You will be quite happy if you concede that the owner of the vision can make it something just as amazing as Finding Nemo or Tinkerbell, if not even better than that.
Otherwise, consider this parable trademarked from this very moment. Anyone who takes my vision and spits on it: I’ll see you in court.
Now where was I? Oh, yeah, okay. I’m just going to start a new entry.
Angel-Sansara 