Ethereal Theater of the Absurd, Part 2

God will not be mocked! And so it goes . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 5
SILENCE! WHO SUMMONED GOD FROM HIS NAP?
Faraway, unseen, the old woman shouted from the gelatin sea of humanity, her
voice amplified by some unknown means. “It’s I, God. Janice Stephenson. That man
tried to rape me.”
DOES GOD HEAR CORRECTLY? PUNY ERNEST CARNATION HAS BEEN
DECEASED A MERE FIFTEEN MINUTES AND HE’S ALREADY HORNY FOR
GERIATRIC TAIL?
Ernest shook all over. It can’t be.
GOD LIES NOT! GOD KNOWS YOU LIKE OLDIES AND NEWBIES AND
NO ONE WITHIN FIFTEEN YEARS OF YOU EITHER WAY. A SAD PSYCHO-
SEXUAL POSITION IF YOU ASK ME. YOU SOUGHT MOMMIES AND
DAUGHTERS, BUT NO EQUALS. TOO BAD!
“No,” cried Ernest. “I mean, I’m not dead. I’m only thirty-nine, and you’re not
God.” He looked around him for support, for a look on someone’s face that this whole
show couldn’t possibly be real, but found none.
TIME FOR GOD TO DESCEND TO THE SKEPTIC’S LEVEL AND SHOW
HIM MY TRUE FACE. Just then the sun turned white and descended toward the surface
of bunched humanity, a bit left of Ernest’s position, a bit right of his accuser’s. Upon
reaching an altitude of twenty feet the sun halted its descent and started to blink, hyper-
paced, like a giant strobe light. Little arms grabbed at each of Ernest’s legs. Startled, he
looked down and beheld two naked girls, identical, with wild green eyes, no older than six
years old, each yanking in strobe-effected slow motion on their own Ernest-leg as if trying
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 6
to pry apart a wishbone.
“Fuck, I’m not your daddy,” Ernest said.
They looked pathetically up at Ernest, then pressed their small faces into his hips,
their fingers tight around his meaty upper legs, occasionally brushing a thumb-knuckle
against his scrotum, which dangled low and swung forward and back with the rhythm of
the girls’ tugging. Damn this tempting dream, Ernest thought. I will not be moved.
The pulsing stopped, and Ernest returned his eyes, anxious and curious, to the
bizarre, pretentious star, whose surface was now clear as a bubble. Something pink and
chubby squirmed inside. My God, Ernest thought, astonished. A fat baby?
GOD NEEDS ROOM TO LAND! CLEAR OUT, PUNY MORTALS!
Wailing babble of a million mouths, sounding to Ernest’s ears like so much non-
sensical glossolalia. Then, an intense Hiroshima-flash filled the space. In that instant of
detonation Ernest lost all bearings and ability to reason. The flash abated as quickly as it
came. Ernest had reflexively clenched his eyes shut, but now opened them. The sky still
seemed a purple, amateur painting, smudged here and there with clouds like glued cotton
balls. The ground, visible for the first time, seemed a cheap, inexact replication of the sky.
The little girls still clung to Ernest’s legs, but had ceased their desperate pulling. To
Ernest’s left, Janice stood, brown eyes hawkish and hate-filled, the curl of her white-
dentured smile tightening her cheek-wrinkles. Everyone else had vanished. Room to
breath, Ernest thought, and felt better. I’m gettin’ control of the dream now. The hag’s
still here, upon whose belly I’ve christened with DNA, but the girls are cute--they can
stay. Now, what shall I do with that big baby over there?
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 7
DO YOU DARE MOCK GOD, PEDOPHILE! The baby sat diapered before the
four human beings, high as a three-story building. It clenched a Pederbilt-truck-sized baby
rattle in one fist while the other hand’s pudgy fingers preoccupied themselves by yanking
out in fits and starts from beneath the diaper’s crotch-seam at a Cadillac-sized, rubbery
phallus.
I’ll have fun with the specter before banishing it. Ernest gave the baby a hard,
accusing look. “Excuse me, your obese-ness, but I’m no pedophile. I’ve never--”
LOOK AT YOUR DICK!
Ernest looked down at his stiffness. Blond tresses framed either side. “Uh, some-
times the body just does stuff,” Ernest said. “Probably got a real boner back in bed at the
hospital in Portland.”
YOU ARE DEAD!
“Look at you!” Ernest said, pointing. “You’re the one playing with your dick. I
haven’t touched mine.”
GOD DOES WHAT GOD WILL! YOU SHARE NOT IN SUCH FREEDOM!
HOW ANSWER THOU TO JANICE STEPHENSON’S CHARGE, GUILTY OR NOT
GUILTY?
“Goddamnit dream,” Ernest said. “What are you talking about?” The two girls
pressed in closer, pinching Ernest’s legs’ skin with their gripping, the curls of each dangled
like garments over his genitals, tickling and quickening, keeping him throbbing and hard.
Ernest glanced at Janice, who shook her head in disgust, mouthing, “Monster, monster.”
“Goddamn dream.”
Guimond/ETHEREAL THEATER 8
THOU SHALT NOT TAKE GOD’S NAME IN VAIN!
“It’s you who are vain, dream-demon,” Ernest said.
GOD WILL LET YOUR BLASPHEMY GO FOR NOW! SOON ENOUGH,
ERNEST CARNATION, YOU’LL REALIZE YOU’RE DEAD, NOT DREAMING.
LET’S FOCUS ON THE CHARGE OF THIS GOOD WOMAN TO YOUR LEFT AND
NOT THE INNOCENT LOLITAS SHALL WE? ONCE AGAIN, GUILTY OR NOT
GUILTY OF THE CHARGE OF ATTEMPTED RAPE WHILE WAITING IN LINE OF
THE RECENTLY, AND SOON TO BE JUDGED, RESURRECTED? HOW PLEAD
THEE?
“I’ll puke on the wise ass who slipped me this mickey.” Ernest considered the
tyrannical infant and gulped with revulsion. Sucks to be the poor shit who changes God’s
dirty diaper.
GOD IS POTTY TRAINED AS WELL AS TELEPATHIC, PUNY! HOW
PLEAD THEE?
“Alright, I’ll play along. Not guilty.”
DOES GOD HEAR THEE CORRECTLY? YOU DID NOT TRY TO RAPE
THIS SAINT?
“Could you stop referring to yourself in the third person? Could you stop mixing
old and new English words for ‘you’? C’mon God, I’d expect a little better.”
GOD CAN USE ANY PERSON HE WILLS, WHETHER FIRST, SECOND,
THIRD OR INFINITY. YOU TRY GOD’S PATIENCE, PUNY. NOW BACK TO
OUR GOOD WOMAN AND THE ISSUE OF YOUR ATTEMPTED RAPE