The Nonsensical Ravings of a Lunatic Mind

The following is a response to a blog posted here:

http://conversationswithnoone.blogspot.com/

The article I am addressing is called “The Trinity of Truth”. I really liked this post, but I felt something was missing, so I posted 2 comments on that blog, but it still was not enough. The topic touched a nerve in me. It got me thinking so much that I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote what you see below.

Because this post is a response to the post at Conversations With No One, I suggest you read that post first, and the 2 comments, before reading this. If you make it all the way through, treat yourself to milk and cookies.

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First, we need to separate “Truth” into 2 units:

1. Truth: what humans experience as fact; reality through experience and observation.
2. Absolute Truth: cosmological fact based on the laws of the universe; cosmological reality as it exists in it’s un-observed state.

Another way to look at it is:

1. Observable truth
2. Un-observed truth

“The sky is blue” is an observable truth. Therefore we will say that “the sky is blue” is a truth as defined above.

When viewed in a way such that the infra red and ultraviolent spectrums are included into the visible light spectrum, the sky is no longer observed as blue, but something different. This is an absolute truth; a cosmological fact that exists whether it is observed or not.

Like an electron, any truth won’t exist in one particular spot until it is observed.

Example:

When our ancestors asked “why are we here”, they used their perceptions, trusts and expectations to craft an answer: “the gods created us”. The answer was developed from the perception that there is a greater and higher power than man, the trust that the natural cycles in the world (the seasons, the phases of the moon, the stars, the sun rising each morning) will never change and thus are controlled, and the expectation that there is a universal “justice” to counter balance the natural injustice all men face- that our unfair fates and unexplained tragedies have reasons that transcend the tangible and are not meaningless.

Before the question “why are we here” there was no truth about the matter. But when observers formulated an answer using their perceptions, trusts and expectations the “truth” magically appeared for all to see As a mind exercise lets say this truth popped into existence as a giant block of marble; a cube of raw marble within which the absolute truth (as we define it) rests.

In this way, truth can be distinguished from absolute truth in that it requires no evidence. Truth always begins its journey as a fact that “feels right” to the observer.

Now we introduce evidence into the mix. Our ancestors looked to the sky and saw that the sun, moon and stars all revolve around US. They have evidence. This is an observable fact. Now imagine that they go to our “marble block of truth” and take out a hammer (representing human curiosity) and a chisel (representing the use of argument amongst each other as a tool to discover or concoct “proof” that helps solidify the evidence). Through examination of the evidence, the crucible of argument to expose “proofs” that back up assumptions, and the infusion of the first main accepted truth (“the gods created us”), the logical conclusion is that we are at the center of the universe that the gods control. The celestial bodies revolve around us because we are at the core.

“CHIPADINK”

Our ancestors just chipped a little bit away from the ‘marble block of truth’ and got just a tiny bit closer to absolute truth. The chip that flew from the marble block is the evidence they observed then solidified through argument.

The more evidence mankind extols through observation, examination and argument (the last always used to establish proof) the more little chips are taken from the block.

Such that, millennia later, Copernicus (as discussed in a comment posted on Conversations With No One) develops evidence through observation, examination, and argument, that the earth is not at the center, the sun is (a heliocentric universe). Copernicus demonstrates how the motions of the planets can only be explained if they, and the earth itself, revolve around the sun.

“CHIPADINK”

Another chip away at the marble block of truth.

An important note: at this time it took tremendous courage to accept the reality that the empirical evidence Copernicus exposed revealed. Chipping away at the block takes courage because it radically alters beliefs and accepted truths that may be comfortable and “feel right”. To accept that we are not at the center- to accept this evidence and not deny or suppress it, took great courage.

However, even though the “heliocentric universe” is accepted as truth at the time following Copernicus, and indeed brings mankind a little bit closer to the absolute truth (that rests within the marble still), it is still not concurrent with absolute truth. The sun, as later discoveries showed, is not the center of the universe either. However, without that little chip away at the giant blocked “marble of truth”, mankind could have never learned that the sun was not at the center either.

Just like Michaelangelo finds a fingernail within a block of marble that will eventually become the Pieta, so does man slowly uncover absolute truth in the “marble of truth”. Each chip of evidence that flies away reveals a little more of the absolute truth.

So we have our Trinity of Truth (perception, trust, and expectation), without which there is no block of marble called “truth”. The block can only begin its existence if it is observed by us and manifested through our perception, trust and expectation. Evidence does not play a part in that initial truth. We accept it as true because it “feels right”. Once we begin to use evidence to examine our truth, we take a step toward revealing absolute truth. The deeper we get in revealing absolute truth, the more the evidence alters and manipulates the Trinity of Truth (perception, expectation and trust) from which the initial truth was born.

For countless generations it was accepted that time was a constant (it can neither be sped up nor slowed down) and speed is relative (it can be sped up and slowed down). Einstein came along and chipped away at the marble of those truths. Using evidence he uncovered something closer to the absolute truth, the cosmic reality.

Time is relative. Speed is constant.

As an entity approaches the speed of light, time slows down. This is not a perceptual slow down, it is a law of physics. Time actually slows down. Likewise, gravity will slow the passage of time (as evidenced by synchronized atomic clocks; one on earth the other in orbit; that go out of sync due to this phenomenon).

Speed has a barrier that can not be breached by any means. An entity can get to 99.99999….% of the speed of light, but never achieve that last fraction of a percent. At such speed, the entities energy is converted to mass making it heavier. This actually happens and is not perceived.

The theory of general relativity takes us just a little closer to the absolute truth…a truth whose journey began millennia earlier with the question “why are we here”.

Einstein’s discovery radically altered the Trinity or Truth (perception, expectation, and trust) which had been accepted for generations. Our perception of time, our expectations of speed, and our trust in the tangible were all radically changed as a result of what the evidence revealed to us about our world.

In turn, this altering of the Trinity of Truth helped drive a more detailed examination of evidence; revealing deeper layers in our “marble of truth”. The Trinity of Truth drives and manipulates the acquisition of evidence, and evidence manipulates and drives the Trinity of Truth.

Now imaging that the Trinity of Truth is encased in an orb; likewise evidence is also encased in an orb. The two are bound by a force like gravity or the nuclear force, and as such they tumble over one another. As the evidence orb descends it pushed the Trinity of Truth orb forward with a little more force. As the Trinity of Truth orb falls it, in turn, pushes the evidence orb forward with just a little more force.

The two orbs tumble about each other- separate but bound by a powerful force. The more observation is put into the mix, the more energetically they tumble. The less observation, the less energetically they tumble.

This is the relationship between observable truth (what humans experience as fact; reality through experience and observation) and uncovering absolute truth (cosmological fact based on the laws of the universe; cosmological reality as it exists in its un-observed state).

Each has the ability to distort the other, but neither can exist without the other.

Now, let’s factor in “observation”. Quantum science demonstrates that an electron does not exist in any one place in our universe until we look at it. Observation influences outcome. Once we see the electron, it occupies space in our universe, but until we observe it, it exists in a probable state; a probability cloud; many places at once.

Evidence is the result of observation, examination and argument. However, the act of observing influences the outcome.

Now, using this, let’s get back to our “marble of truth”.

Like a sculpture by Michelangelo, mankind slowly chips away evidence to expose the absolute truth that lies within. Like Michelangelo finds his figures within the marble as he carves, so do we find the absolute truth. But here is the rub: Michelangelo has the ability to turn his block of marble into either a Pieta or a statue of David. He has a level of control over what is revealed- his only outside constraint being the block of marble he has selected to start with for a particular sculpture. Because our process relies on observation, perception, expectation, and trust to chip away evidence and uncover absolute truth, mankind to has the ability (to a certain extent) to shape that absolute truth into a Pieta or a David- a cosmos of the tangible or intangible. To a certain extent, we find what we expect to find, because the act of looking makes it real.

The process of uncovering absolute truth must always begin with the “marble of truth” that manifests itself through the Trinity of Truth. After all the evidence is chipped away, however, we find that what we have revealed as absolute truth has been slightly distorted; partly by our Trinity of Truth and its energetic relationship with evidence; and partly through observation itself.

For this reason, absolute truth is like the speed of light. We can get 99.9999….% of the way there, but no matter how hard we try we can never achieve that last fraction of a percent, simply because the act of uncovering it distorts it into what we expect to see, how we perceive it, and what about it we find true.

Therefore, the pursuit of absolute truth never takes us to an ultimate destination. It is a never ending journey.

The Domino Gifts

It all started when Jack took his socks off and put them on the old fashioned radiator. Everyone in the room went on chatting away and swigging their beers as the UFC fight shouted from the television.

Ruby walked in with a plate of sandwiches which had been quartered to become little h’orderve sandwiches and the guys went nuts for them, popping whole ones in their mouths like they were Pez candy.

Ruby was disgusted by the smell of beer and body odor, but a deal was a deal.

Her and Jack met at traffic school. She was trying to break into the industry as a journalist and he happened to be a sports writer for the biggest news paper in the city. Handsome, but a complete and utter slob Jack was the type of guy who was great to get to know, but a pain in the ass once you knew him.

It didn’t matter to Ruby at the moment. She looked at this as paying her dues. Jack promised to introduce her to the editor of his news paper and get him to read her work in exchange for her organizing and “catering” a party he wanted to have for his friends.

“Simple enough” she thought.

That’s when Feral slithered up to her. A rugby player and well known misogynist, Feral got his name from biting members of the opposite team during a rugby match. He was small, hairy, loud and rude.

“Hey Ruby! So if your right leg was Thanksgiving, and your left leg was Christmas, could I meet you between the holidays?” Feral said, laughing like a hyena and moving closer in.

Ruby responded with a very dry look, followed by a very dry martini in a plastic cup which she used to pour on Feral’s head.

“Not if you were the last man on earth, I was the last woman, the fate of all mankind depended on it and I was slobbering drunk. You should think about trying a new line Feral. Maybe something like ‘c’mon honey, it’ll only take a minute and you won’t feel a thing’”, she said, mimicking his raspy voice.

Now Feral handled this well. With a smile, and blowing some of the vodka from his lips, he simply said “I like ‘em feisty”.

It was then that people began to notice the odor. It smelled like a goat cheese factory was on fire and the smoke was wafting in through the window. Jack’s socks were cooking on the radiator.

Feral, possessing an unusually keen sense of smell, reacted most strongly to this. He sneezed violently and staggered back, bumping into Carl, a football player from New Jersey, who fell over and landed on the coffee table. The coffee table smashed to bits sending a half full beer bottler hurtling into Greg’s nose. Greg, a basketball player from Detroit, reeled back from the impact then was still as the blood came gushing from his nose.

“BLOOD!” he cried in terror, having no stomach for anything resembling the macabre.

Greg’s eye’s rolled up into his head and all seven foot four inches of him collapsed as he fainted. Not wanting to catch such a big fellow, other members of the party politely stepped aside as Greg toppled like a felled redwood tree right onto a raised end table that Otis, Jack’s cat, was sleeping on. As one end of the table collapsed Otis was thrown into the air and flew across the room onto the back of Jason’s head. Jason was a Polo player from Connecticut, who had grown up deathly afraid of cats. Lost in conversation Jason did not know what was going on until the cat hit his head.

“AAAAHHH…get it off…get it off” he screamed like a little girl, flailing his arms about and spinning around.

In the middle of one spin he managed to slap Ruby directly in the face, sending her into a spin and forcing her to throw her platter of sandwiches right out the window. She landed right in Jack’s lap.

Jack gave her a wink and said “This is the best party I’ve had in years”.

The platter of sandwiches, in the meantime, fell some eight stories from Jack’s over sized apartment, landing right on a blanket that Gus had just put out to lay down on. At least thirty small sandwiches and a sterling silver platter landed right on the blanket without touching the street.

Gus looked up, looked back down and took a swig off his bottle of whiskey.

“Thank ye Lord” he managed to say while in the middle of his third sandwich, sitting now on his blanket with his back up against the wall. It had been two days since he had eaten anything that was not from the garbage.

This was his lucky day.

Abaddon, Inc.

Seven years. Seven years I toiled with this company. I put my whole life into it. Working nights, weekends, and frequent seventy two hour stretches with no breaks, all for the brass ring; all for the big payoff.

Indeed I could look back at the last seven years of my life and see myself behind a desk at the office. Almost as if I took all those years and crumpled them up like an old post it, then threw them away.

I was certain when we started that I would be retiring by the time I was forty. Now look at me. Here I am at forty and too broke to even file for bankruptcy. The irony makes me laugh on the outside and weep like a little girl on the inside.

But let me back up a little bit. I own a video game company with two other men. Both are English and have been in the industry a long time. Twenty years a piece. They are both my age. My background is as an animator and artist. I originally met them when we were all working for a different company in Lake Tahoe. Everything was going smooth when the company we were working for decided to close down the Tahoe office and relocate everyone Orange County in California. I, for one, loved Tahoe, but as an animator there were not a lot of prospects in the area.

As fate would have it, Malcom and Reggie had both just come from L.A. and had no interest in returning. Malcom was quite a brilliant programmer, selling his first game as a teenager back in England. He had made a name for himself in the industry in the 90’s, first as a hot shot programmer then as a producer and finally ended up on the board of one of the largest media companies around. He left to run his own business for a while and got bought out by the company we both worked for. He was enjoying being a programmer again. Reggie’s background was in business development. He had spent two decades growing small companies into major players in the industry by bringing in top notch accounts.

Both of these English lads were completely and utterly mad. I, being a native of Berkeley California, found the madness charming. We’d work long hours together and drink until we passed out.

None of us wanting to leave Tahoe, we started our own video game company when the one we all worked for packed up and left for Orange County. We built it from scratch, Malcom building and handling the code team, myself building and managing the art team, and Reggie bringing in accounts for us to work on.

The first year was wonderful. We completed projects on time and had fun. The last six years, however have been rough going to say the least. Three failed projects and an investor who pulled out has left our company decimated. We are faced with having to lay off our entire staff of twenty people and filing bankruptcy.

I wake up nightly in cold sweats. I haven’t been paid in 4 months and with a family of four to support, I’m out of money and out of options. I tried to file bankruptcy, but learned that I am in such a miserable financial state that bankruptcy is not even a viable option. It would cost a thousand dollars I do not have. The new bankruptcy laws of 2005 make it impossible for me to file.

I can’t take my family to the street.

For the past six months Malcom and Reggie have been bringing in potential investors to bridge the financial gap to our next project. We had one group, after showing them the project, hail us as exactly what they were looking for. They even told us the money would be in our account as sure as the sun would rise. The sun rose, but they never put in the money. Gradually the three of us put everything we could muster into the company to keep it going. We all re-mortgaged our homes. I even sold everything I had of value at auction.

Yet, here we were. Individually we had no money left, yet we each had families to support. The company was finally completely and hopelessly broke. We owed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the bank and at any time they could close us down because we were in default; begging the bankers each week to give us more time. Our employees had not been paid in two months. Most of them, looking for other work, stayed on because they had no where else to go. Then there was the other seven hundred thousand we owed other investors. Folding this company would indeed be ugly. Courts of law would be involved and lawyers.

Each week Malcom and Reggie would bring in another group of investors. We dressed up the office, got the employees who showed up that day to look busy, and tried to talk these multi millionaires into giving us a crumb to complete our project and get it on the shelf. Always we met with the same response. The project is incredible. It looks like a fantastic investment, but we need to wait six months and study our position better.

Frustration on a scale that is hard to measure is what we met with time and again.

With each pitch to each new investor Malcom and Reggie were charming and always joking and laughing; always looking for any angle to get money into the company.

When all hope was just about lost, one morning, Reggie came into the office excited and laughing.

“Would you like to kiss my feet now or later boys! I got us an investor! I set up a meeting for tomorrow morning; he is flying in from Los Angeles”

Malcom and I sat up from our depression. We spoke in unison, having the same question on our minds.

“Who?”

“Your gonna love this. He is a billionaire from L.A.; made a fortune in the feature film business and now he wants to expand to the video game industry! His main company is called Abaddon Incorporated, they have all kinds of subsidiaries. I just got off the phone with his assistant, a Mr. Apollyon. I explained the whole situation to him. We have this incredible property we are sitting on and we just need funding for six to eight months to complete it. He said his boss would be interested in seeing us and is looking for an investment exactly like this one right now. He said that one million would be too small. This guy only invests ten million and up!

“We’re on our way boys!”

Malcom was smiling, “well done”!

Now call me crazy, but I remembered hearing the words Abaddon and Apollyon in college. I must be mistaken, but I thought Apollyon was the name of a character from the bible known as “the destroyer”; Satan; the angel of hell. What a strange name. I had to ask the next logical question.

“So, what is this guy’s name? Are they both coming?”

“Yes”, Reggie replied through an enormous smile. “Uh, the assistant’s name is Damien Apollyon and his boss is a mister…uh”, Reggie looked down at his notepad, “a mister Lucifer Beelzebub.

Malcom burst out laughing, “so is this guy a nutter or what”.

“I don’t care if he calls himself Redeye McAnus as long as his money’s green”, Reggie said. “I’m telling ya, you couldn’t make this shit up”.

Being raised a catholic, I grew slightly disturbed. Just who were we dealing with anyway?

“Guys, do you know what Apollyon means?”

Malcom spoke up instantly, “sure, Apollyon is the name of “the destroyer”, he waved his hands in the air pretending to be frightened, “the angel from the bottomless pit”. The real funny bit is that Abaddon is Hell, right. These chaps better have some real cash. It aught to be a laugh anyway”.

Reggie broke in, “oh they have cash. And I intend to get a piece of that I can tell you. They better count their fingers after I shake their hands”.

I spent the ride home in a state of disbelief. Here I am, middle aged, a family to support, don’t know where my next dollar is coming from, haven’t paid the mortgage in almost ninety days, and my last hope from financial ruin lies in a film producer named Lucifer Beelzebub.

I had terrible dreams that night. I dreamt I was running nude through a shopping mall with a person right at my heals chasing me. I couldn’t see them but I knew they were bad. I ran as fast as I could, terrified. I ran full speed into a Starbucks coffee and straight to the register. Before the person chasing me could arrive, the barista handed me a venti latte and when I looked inside demons were dancing around a bon fire in the center of the cup. I felt an arm on my shoulder, the person chasing me, and turned to see who it was. That is when I woke up from the dream. I was shouting and in a cold sweat. I woke up the whole house.

The stress was starting to get to me.

I felt like I had not slept a wink when I woke the next morning. I showered to get the sleep out of my eyes and drove to work trying to prepare for yet another presentation; yet another potential “millionaire savior”.

We were scheduled to pick them up from the Reno airport at ten in the morning. We waited in the car outside the airport and Reggie got them on the phone after they disembarked from the plane.

“They’re going to meet us right out front boys”, Reggie said to us. “Be on your best behavior, this is it. I told them what car we have and where we are”.

About then I noticed two curious individuals. Both men were in jet black suits with red ties. Here, in the dead of summer, probably ninety eight degrees outside, they were both wearing overcoats as well. One man was about six foot four with black hair and black sunglasses, probably about thirty years old. He wore a black cape about his overcoat. He pushed the other much older man, who was in a wheelchair. This one had silver hair, and black sunglasses, and wore and oxygen mask and also a black hat, like a fedora, that cast a shadow over his eyes.

“I think those are our nutters now boys”, Reggie laughed.

“Overcoats? What the hell…is that a cape?”, Malcom chuckled.

As this odd duo came out of the airport exit and began to cross the roads to where we were parked several odd happenings took place. First, the man above them on the ladder washing the windows lost his balance and fell right as they walked by. As they crossed the road one a car was rear ended by another and then another car plowed into that one. As they got to the first island between the drop off and pick up roads, two men began having a fist fight and a woman tripped on the curb and fell face first into the road, causing another car to swerve to miss her and drive right into a cement wall used to keep the two roads separated. The men then took a left and waved to us when they saw the car. Just after that, one of the smaller jets coming in for a landing which we could see right behind the men, started to tip violently. As the plane went behind the main building a huge explosion rang out and we could see the remnants of a small mushroom cloud rise above the building in the distance.

I will say, all three of us were a bit stunned. With Malcom at the wheel and Reggie sitting next to him, and me in the back, we all gave each other a look, mine more distressed then my partners. Malcom and Reggie then looked at each other and shrugged then opened their doors to greet our new potential investors.

“Well you boys certainly know how to make an entrance”, Reggie started. “What do you do for an encore, blow fire from your belly buttons?”, then both he and Malcom broke into a fit of laughter.

I could see in the eyes of our guests that this remark made them a little nervous. They looked at each other then dismissed the comment and the younger man stepped forward. He had a thick accent that sounded Hungarian.

“Gentlemen, the pleasure is all mine”.

“Well not yet it isn’t”, Reggie threw in, “but once we get to the strip clubs you can tell me that again”

“And you’ll be buying, so the pleasure will be ours as well”, Malcom said.

Knowing that this is how these two characters operate, my partners, I was always the one to digress.

“Pay no mind gentlemen”.

“Oh I find it charming” Mr. Apollyon said.

This sent a shiver down me spine.

On the ride back to the office I was sandwiched between Mr. Beelzebub and Mr. Apollyon. Beelzebub kept taking deep drags off his oxygen.

“So tell me a little about your company. How many minions do you have?”, Mr. Beelzebub’s voice was deep and gravely, and you could hardly see his face with the sun glasses and fedora hat on.

“Minions?”, I said, surprised.

“Eh, yes, employees is what he means gentlemen”, Apollyon cut in, “how many employees do you have”.

“That’s ok”, Malcom said, “we like to think of them as minions too”.

At which point Reggie burst out laughing. I, hanging my head replied “twenty, but not for long”.

Reggie looked back, “But that’s what you boys will fix, right”.

“Indeed. Yes, indeed”, Beelzebub’s voice grumbled.

Back at the office Malcom and Reggie tried to keep it light.

“Here it is boys, here is where all the magic happens”, Malcom said.

“Yeah, here and my bedroom”, Reggie joked, elbowing Beelzebub in the shoulder.

Then Malcom looked at Apollyon. “Can I take your cape?”

“No thank you”, Apollyon was trying to be polite, but I could tell he was annoyed.

“What, you need it for later when you turn into a superhero”, Reggie said to Malcom’s delight. The two fell back into a fit of laughter.

“Reggie is a superhero too”, I said. “His mutant ability is the power to be extremely obnoxious”.

“Better than your mutant ability lad”, Reggie shot back, “I must warn you gentlemen that he posses the mutant power of an incredibly small penis”.

More laughter.

“Show me your minions”, Beelzebub was a man of few words. Strange words.

We walked them over to the employee bullpen.

As the meeting wore on Apollyon and Beelzebub questioned our staff intently. Asking of their abilities relating to video games, their area of expertise as related to the industry, and their affinity for evil deeds. I found the last point most bizarre.

Finally we ended up in Reggie’s office. I made a cup of Tetley tea for everyone and we all took a seat.

Reggie stood before a dry erase board, finishing his presentation.

“There you have it boys, give us some cash now, we will turn it into loads of cash for you later.”

Although we were now indoors both our guests kept their sunglasses on the whole time, and in Beelzebub’s case, the hat as well.

Apollyon stood up.

“Gentlemen, I’ll be brief. We are willing to give you a check right now in the amount of twenty million dollars, and this is just the beginning. However we are not interested in you making us more money.”

“Well if its sexual favors your looking for Malcom and I don’t do that type of thing, you’ll have to settle for him”, Reggie said, pointing at me.

Just then a loud wisp went through the room as Beelzebub took a deep hit off his oxygen, his face in shadow from the hat.

“There is always your wife, don’t forget”, Malcom laughed looking back at Reggie.

It was then that Apollyon threw back his cape and pulled from his overcoat three very large stacks of hundred dollar bills and threw them on Reggie’s desk. He followed this with a cashiers check for twenty million dollars made out to cash.

“You’re almost bankrupt gentlemen”, Apollyon said. We are offering you a solution, for almost no work at all. Rich for the rest of your lives. Whatever you want at your finger tips.

The three of us were stunned at the amount of cash, let alone the check, on the desk.

Then, for the first time Beelzebub stood up. He removed his hat and sunglasses to reveal two glowing red eyes and two horns on his forehead.

“Just in case you have been too daft to figure it out, I’m the devil boys. I don’t deal in money, I deal in souls”.

Another loud wisp went through the room and he sucked on the oxygen mask.

The three of us looked at each other. We were all days away from complete and utter financial ruin. No other options lay before us.

Reggie spoke up first.

“Alright then, let’s say we get on board, what do you want? We can offer you our three souls, but I don’t see what else we can do?”

“Well”, Apollyon now took the floor, “your souls are a given, and the souls of your minion….er, employees. We have a grander scheme however”.

He removed from his coat a contract and handed it to Reggie, presumably knowing he handled all our contracts.

“Look at paragraph 6 please”, Apollyon continued.

Reggie looked intently then spoke.

“So by signing this we are turning over the souls of our employees. Ok, I get that, but what is this part here; ‘the party of the second part shall provide for the corruption of as many souls as possible over the course of the party of the second parts natural lifetime through mind altering video images and play’”.

Beelzebub puffed off his oxygen tank and spoke up.

“My deer boy, it means you will design and make video games that corrupt the souls of any individual who plays them. That the fruit of your labor shall be to condemn as many souls as you possibly can, from now until you die, to ultimate submission and domination by me, in Hell. Apollyon will help with the design, throw in a little black magic to help soul corruption and we shall put millions on the shelves all over the world. Video game consoles and the games you develop for them will all become gateways to hell, and you will be the instrument that makes it so”

After a half hour of further discussion Reggie and Malcom had made up their minds.

“Let’s see, I’ve been busting my ass for seven years and I have nothing to show for it, now I can live like a king for the rest of my life just for condemning a few souls? Well that’s a no brainer, I’m in”, said Malcom.

“I don’t sees another choice”, added Reggie, “I have a family to support.

They both signed then slid the contract over to me. I had to be on it to make this work.

True, I was busted. No hope. I didn’t have the energy to start all over again, working the long hours building my life back from scratch. True, I was going to be evicted from my house in days. Homeless. No options. True, I wanted to retire. It is hard to fathom eternity.

I looked at the contract on the table before me, then up at Malcom and Reggie. They stared back, giving me little nods. In my peripheral vision I caught Beelzebub’s glowing red eyes. His horns started to glow red.

Apollyon put the pen in front of me.

Financial ruin or eternal damnation; why am I always faced with these kinds of decisions?

The Janus Dream

The beer was flat. This really pissed Ed off to no end. He picked up his pint and threw it over his shoulder.

“Hey, how about a fucking beer down here”.

The punk came from behind and as he grabbed Ed’s leather jacket to spin him around he ripped the collar right off. He opened his mouth to speak to Ed but before any breath carrying any sound could escape Ed’s forehead smashed into his nose point blank.

Then he felt the swarm. The arms started grabbing him from all about his body with the intent of submission echoing from each sinewy tentacle.

The next thing he knew the arms were all gone and he was standing to one side, leaning against the bar, the smell of Guinness and blood permeating his nostrils. Then a flash, and in that flash, in that instant so brief the time could not be measured, he felt his jaw cave in, giving way to a blunt instrument. Before the blackness he had the realization that he was choking on his own teeth.

He woke to a topsy turvey world, moving at tremendous speed complete with flashing lights and beeping noises. The two men around him wore blue scrubs and the room jiggled and jumped, then leaned to one side as both paramedics held on, and lurched back to its original position. A mask came over his face and a needle in his arm, an unfamiliar needle, not the type he was used to.

Again, blackness.

His eyelids rose so slowly that a spider which had entered the hospital room through the window at the far end, had the time to crawl up the wall and traverse the entire ceiling to descend to the other side and exit through the door only to be stepped on by an intern by the time Ed’s eyes had fully opened.

His eyes felt like two burning coals and it tasted like a little old man had shit in his mouth. Then, as if to remind him that he was still alive, his stomach leaned to one side and spit one cc of bile into his mouth like a base ball player spitting chewing tobacco on the base line.

Before he could adequately become sickened by this new taste sensation the searing pain kicked in from his jaw and mouth.

“Does it hurt? Huh? GOOD! Dumb ass punk mother fucker. You know, you were so fucked up you beat the shit out of 6 guys before the bartender finally clocked you with a lead pipe. You hit a blind chick in the face with that beer you threw; dumb mother fucker.”

His brother had always possessed a unique command of the English language, even when they were kids. He had a voice so distinct; Ed had never heard another voice like it in his life.

“When boy WHEN…are you gonna clean up your act! Your not 22 anymore Ed! For Christ’s sake, your 53 years old. Look at those fucking track marks on your arms.”

Ed did not have the energy to look down, but not wanting to disappoint his brother he closed his eyes and pictured his forearms in the mirror, his two arms slithering from his leather vest and bare chest. Why do they call them ‘tracks’. Needle marks look more like the stars in the sky. In his minds eye he could see the constellations of previous heroin trips emanating from the inside of both elbows and flowing down both arms. Each needle mark worked with the next to form small images on his arms. One resembled a medulla oblongata. Another looked like a bottle of mountain dew and still another reminded him of the left nipple of Chloe, the friendliest prostitute in the projects.

“Wake up ED!” his brother shouted, taking him from his stupor.

“Wake up! Ed? Wake up!” The voice changed. Lower pitch, more gravely. What was this?

He felt someone shaking his shoulder and slowly roused from his slumber. It was that dream again; that same dream.

“Ed? Father? Wake up! You fell asleep again at the pew. A young priest needs to be alert! Aren’t you getting enough rest at night?”

Ed thought carefully about his response.

“Yes sir Father. For some reason, when I pray in this pew I seem to dose”.

Ed new the problem was worse than that. Each time he slept in this pew he had the same dream, that he was an old man, fighting and taking drugs. It all seemed so real to him, always so real.

“Stop praying in this pew then!” the older father told Ed. “Stay awake lad, please. Not many youngsters like yourself get the call to the priest hood these days, I need you at the top of your game. Ok?”

Ed replied humbly. “Yes sir. Please accept my apologies”.

But in his soul he shuddered. Each time he had the dream it felt more real. He could feel the marks in his arm. He could smell the Guinness and blood, and in waking life he was not too familiar with either.

The old priest looked at Ed with fatherly eyes. “My boy, I know you will try to not let this happen again. You are one of the Lord’s sheep, and the meekest I have seen. You are definitely in line to inherit the Earth my boy”

“Thank you father” Ed meekly replied.

His soul shuddered again and a chill ran up his spine. “Is this the dream?” he thought to himself. “Am I in the dream now and will I wake up as a 53 year old drug addict? What is real…what is a dream”.

Then Ed picked himself up off the pew. His lean 22 year old body shuffled meekly to perform his next task of listening to the confessions of his parishioners.

As he sat and closed his eyes he heard the words float through the air to him “forgive me father for I have sinned”. The chill up his spine returned and his whole body shivered. The voice was the same voice as his brother, he’d recognize it anywhere. In his waking life, however, in this life as Ed the young priest, he was an only child.