Out of the Black: Sublimity and Obscenity
CLICK!
Rupert Pilgor, Jr. walked into the Stephen Hawking suite at the Chicago Hilton-Excelsior. It was fresh and clean smelling. Like simulated pine. Hung on the wall above the vid-screen was a picture of Stephen which smiled crookedly at anyone in its path. Rupert was no exception. Same as other nights in other suits, he sat on the bed and put the barrel of a nickel-plated .357 magnum in his mouth. It tasted metallic and oily, as to be expected. Rupert said a garbled prayer and tickled the trigger.
Click! the trigger said to Rupert. Again, he was no exception.
But Rupert never heard what the trigger had to say. Before the trigger could finish its precise exclamation, the horrible weapon would roar and propel a small hunk of lead which scrambled Ruperts brains into lumpy porridge. The instant the control room upstairs went incommunicado with his central nervous system, all of lifes sublimities and obscenities, like mechanical gun clicks, were lost to Rupert.
Just the upshot he was gunning for.
But same as other mornings in other suites, Rupert awoke with his control room revitalized and fully repaired. And once again sublimity and obscenity blared in his ears. What it said to him was this: Rupert, like it or not, youre the standard-bearer for fifteen billion rarified souls.
Shanghaied souls, he replied dolorously. Kidnapping is how most people got here on Earth, or get anywhere for that matter. The Gods honest truth.
On Earth it worked like this: a man deposited a seemingly harmless substance called semen in a womans birth canal. In reality it was a Trojan horse brimming with gazillions of little squiggly soldiers bent on waging hostilities. Once well upstream, their objective was to surround and crack through a teeny, tiny little eggs defense perimeter. Bash it to smithereens. The first lucky soldier to breach the walls got the privilege of effacing the teeny, tiny egg of any self-identity and merged with it, the victorious soldier and his spoils becoming one. It was a very, very violent ritual.
Then the Fates would ask the myriad of free souls roaming the cosmic soup if they wanted to go for a ride on Earth. If there were no takers, theyd scoop up the closest dumb guppy and incarcerate it in the womans budding womb. Life devoured most people because they were dumb guppies blindsided by the Big Cosmic Sieve. Born to die, as the saying goes.
In this, Rupert was an exception. He asked to be born. He remembered the incident as clearly as if it were a fresh, bloody accident with arms, legs, and disgorged guts strewn about for a 100 yards. It was a messy decision. Most decisions are.
Rupert also remembered his time as an itinerant soul, floating from one end of the galaxy and then back, which was thoroughly dull with no substance, five senses or digital camera to record the trip. So he thought how wonderful it would be if he could go for a ride on Earth. Next thing he knew, there he was, covered in blood, kicking and screaming at the height of mortal terror.
Ruperts first thought about this ride was: How dreadful!
Why not.
Rupert Pilgor, Jr., the last upright walking bag of water on Earth, had been retired for twenty-six years before the world ended. Prior to that, Rupert worked for forty glorious years as an accountant for Hem Tech, the third largest manufacturer of toilet seats worldwide. How Rupert kept his job so long was nothing short of a miracle. Ruperts share of the recordkeeping seldom balanced. Auditors repeatedly castigated him for violating the most fundamental reporting concepts. And after twenty years on the job, one day he showed up without a tie.
In the middle of a meeting on how the new line of cushioned toilet seats was selling, Ruperts beleaguered boss, Gregory Bartholomew, asked him where his tie was. Rupert told him that ties were silly, and that according to Ruperts college history professor a tie was nothing but a surrogate penis to supplement a mans real but ineffectual penis. The longer and broader the tie, the shrimpier and slenderer the meat.
Gregory Bartholomew sat in silence, his brow repeatedly corrugating with a mechanical, accordion-like rise and fall. Ruperts coworkers, ten in all, aped Mr. Bartholomews immobile, importuned posture. Confused by this spectacle, Ruperts attentions darted back to Mr. Bartholomew, to ask what other breach of etiquette hed committed, and his eyes fell upon his bosss heaving chest.
Rupert swallowed. Hard.
Until a second ago, he hadnt realized it but Mr. Bartholomews tie was by unavoidable comparison a veritable tarmac of red and yellow silk. Red and yellow are synonymous with blood and piss, war and territorial dominance. So as designed, Gregory Bartholomews tie symbolized a horsemans lance which, if necessary, doubled as a mammoth fire hose.
Slowly, all eyes drifted down to the surface of the mahogany table, through the last three jelly doughnuts, through the pitcher of ice water, and to the virtual location of their bosss pinstriped crotch. The group shared a moment, all eleven men and women picturing the same thing: Mr. Bartholomew had a vagina.
Close.
Gregory Bartholomew was a hermaphrodite who had a teeny, tiny penis which, if necessary, doubled as a clitoris.
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