Two Parables

A new short-short story contest is accepting stories of up to 100 words, on the theme of 'bridging the divide between religions.' This appeals to the cynic in me. Surely Trump has proven the power of very short fictions, and I would love to be the person who finally ends worldwide religious strife. Plus, 100 words, even brought to a lapidary finish, takes, what? like maybe half an hour? And, further enticement: first prize is $20,000, about 40 times the average prize for microfiction. Also, no entry fee. And there's the $750,000,000 Powerball prize, and yesterday Connor McGregor went 10 rounds with Floyd Mayweather, so why not take a long shot and be one of the expected 35,000 writers to enter?

Anyway, here are my entries, in draft form. The high moral imperitive and the very tight word count beg for parables.

1. The Queen on her deathbed, as penance, offered her wealth as an award for the finest parable on the topic of healing religious strife. So lavish was the promised award that hopeful writers of many nations submitted their finest work to the jury. Many thousands of heartfelt parables arrived, and the jury read and deliberated for a year. Finally, they announced that the authors should share the award equally, "For," the chief judge said, "such unimpeachable sentiments, so earnestly expressed, should not end with one person victorious over others." And each writer did receive a copper coin bearing the Queen's likeness.

2. There appeared over the city a vast iron dirigible, groaning low in the sky, venting coalsmoke. Upon its black flanks were inscribed the admonitions of conscience the citizens had long forgotten, so anodyne had they become: "Love one another," said one, in towering gothic letters. "Can't we all just get along?" said another. "Straight the gate, narrow the way." "Enter absolutely into peace." The citizens cowered below the dirigible, united in fear. A generation grew up, and one day the dirigible was gone, blown away by a storm. Those who had known only its shadow quailed at the Sun.

Cheap Australia Trip

http://palewis.blogspot.com/2017/08/oz-2017.html?m=1

Tirade Against the Garfield County, Utah Commissioners in Memoriam Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument

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The Devil Inside

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByHmdQrk0dIrUWNsaW5HejhQSEU/view?usp=drivesdk

I Spoke with a Trumpette

I live in Utah, often described as America's reddest state. In 2012, Utahns supported Mitt Romney, the Mormon candidate --who somehow managed to sell himself as a conservative-- by 92%. But Utah did not like Trump. He won only twice as many votes as Hillary Clinton, a dismal showing for a Republican candidate in this state. Mormons are very conservative, but Trump's nasty, loud, bullying behavior didn't sit well with Mormons' sense of decency. But, still, Trump got about 2/3s of the vote here.

But I did not meet a self-declared Trump voter until last night. I was at a friend's birthday party. I was talking with my very liberal, very informed, very activist, totally blue-collar white male friend about Trump's revolting cabinet nominations when a woman approached us and announced she had voted for Trump because he shares her "American values." Now, of course, this kind of deployment of a hackneyed phrase in defense of an indefensible position raises my hackles. I bristled. I got agitated like I used to when I was a young brawler. I said "WHAT American values? Lying? Sexual assault? Fraud? Mocking the disabled?" To her credit, she stayed calm. She said, with a dismissive flutter of her costume-jeweled hand, "Oh, that stuff doesn't matter. All of us do that." I said, in a total huff, that I sure don't, and that nobody I know does, and that it's nasty and mean behaviour that disqualifies a candidate.

She took this as an opportunity to educate me. In a long Fox-inflected invective, she recommended that I open my mind and stop hiding behind liberal talking points; that I consider Trump's promise to give $100,000,000 to "the inner-city blacks"; and that I learn how to engage in "loving, open-minded, respectful dialogue with (my) conservative neighbours."

I was so flummoxed to hear someone who actually considered Trump the best candidate that I had trouble breathing. My whole life I've seen decency, rationality, and honesty as the underpinnings of democracy, and Trump is a blowhard bully, a science-denier, and a habitual liar. The best I could manage after her blinkered and offensive little lecture was "So I take it you voted against Hillary, not for Trump, because he does not embody the values of open heartedness and respect you just recommended."

Her response was another lecture in which I heard fragments of Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity, the apostols of hate: she said she hadn't voted against Hillary at all. She voted against Bill, the "proven rapist." She spun a right-wing fantasy in which Hillary took power behind the scenes in the Clinton White House, and, in exchange, allowed Bill Clinton to run a 'fuck dungeon' in the basement where he raped untold numbers of women and killed the ones he couldn't silence with a payoff. He ran the place with "pedophile Dennis Hastert." And on and on. I'll spare you the rest. At this point the birthday girl showed up and the Trump supporter gave her two packages of marijuana she'd just brought over from Colorado, and my buddy and I took the opportunity to leave.

Maybe she saw our retreat as a capitulation, but it wasn't. It was simply a realist reaction to facing insanity. You cannot have a rational discussion with crazy. Should I have asked her to cite sources? To explain how the press failed to learn of this story but, in her world, it's common knowledge? Should I have asked her to unpack the logic in voting against a non-candidate because of his ostensible sexual predation by supporting a sexual predator? Of course not. You can't talk sense to crazy.

Sure, I believe in respectful dialogue. But it can't exist when one party disdains the facts and acts irrationally. Who, in the new regime, can answer those of us who read the real news, who try to understand the science, who seek remedies for systemic injustice, who make personal sacrifices to act ethically and fairly, who subscribe to a code of decency and compassion, who see government as a bulwark against private interest, tribalism and arbitrariness? I've been combing through the published histories of Trump's new cabinet, and I see very little more noble than self interest, greed, contempt, even hatred.

It's already dull from repetition, but the rust-belt, blue-collar constituents of the Trump regime are facing another humiliation: on top of losing your good jobs, you're now going to lose the dignity of self-determination. You used to unionize and elect politicians who were committed to your safety and economic security. Now, inexplicably, you've elected a rich, arrogant, narcissistic buffoon who doesn't care one shit for you. He does not share your values.

My liberal and moderate friends have become very complacent and ironic in recent years. We felt stymied by the right, but we also felt that our generous egalitarian decency was ascendant. Some of us have become flabby and can't remember how to brawl. I look forward to the coming fight. I'm proud to stand in my corner with such democratic institutions as remain: science, the free press, the academy, art, free global trade. Hell, even the Brotherhood of Man is on my side, and the overwhelming majority of the world's women. It's good to be here. Let's fight crazy.

A Couple Modest Proposals:

1. Capital Punishment:
The person who administers the lethal injection shall be chosen by lottery from among the voters of the state where the punishment is levied.

2. The Militarized Police:
The cops can wear whatever armor and carry whatever weapons they want, but everything must be pink. No more black.

3. De-funding Mental Health Services:
The legislators who vote to de-fund public mental health services, and the citizens who voted them into office, shall make their homes available, on an as-needed basis, to house those who become homeless because of the de-funding, and shall provide food, healthcare, comfort, encouragement, and all other forms of support to their guest until he or she is free of need.

4. Please add your own Modest Proposals in the comments section below, and I will add the most virtuous to this list. Trolls will be bludgeoned to death by sluts.

Rural Head Surgery. A One-Act Play

The Store. Kolob, Utah. Springtime.

[Handy Whitehead slams through the front door of The Store. Gladys is seated behind the counter, trying to make the books balance. It is very early in the morning.]

Handy:                 The fucking judge confiscated the goddarned truck so I have to walk everywhere…

Gladys:                Handy, oh my gosh, what happened to you?

Handy:                 …unless I borrow Ferral’s ranch truck or a horse or whatever, and I am talking about a serious goshdarned number of miles, right?

Gladys:                Handy…

Handy:                 …cause of staying way up at the Grand Arch where the linehouse is a mile from 144, and then it’s, what? five, six miles into town. I am a early riser. All God’s people are. But not every early riser is a child of God, see.

Gladys:                Handy…

Handy:                 So, it’s early in the AM and I got to get to town so I walk that mile out to 144 and even if I was inclined to hitchhike, which I am not ever since all that business with the Lady Ranger, there is no traffic to speak of especially not this early in the AM so I was not expecting a ride, and besides I do not have the kind of wardrobe that is conducive to getting picked up. So I am minding my own, y’know, walking down the yellow line and I am singing. Ok, so I checked out all these CDs from the bookmobile and I am listening to the Mozart one. The Requiem. That one is my favorite, the way the bass part just booms and groans, it is the sickest shit, Gladys…

Gladys:                Handy! Your head is bleeding!

Handy:                 It does remind me that I am going to die, the Requiem, and sometimes out in the linehouse of a snowy night it feels like I am dying listening to that, but so anyway I am walking down yellow line with my headphones and I am singing the notes of the Requiem, getting that bass line loud enough I can feel in my chest when I got the note right and I am conducting the orchestra, beating my arms around all crazy and shit and then there’s this like nuclear fucking detonation in my head. It was just a moment of, like, fuck me I have had a stroke probably from God for being bad. Or a vision.

Gladys:                What do you mean? You didn’t hit it on something? Did you fall down?

Handy:                 No no no. I’m walking and BLAMMO!

Gladys:                [Pushes her stool toward Handy]

Sit on this. Well, what happened, Handy?

Handy:                 It was that little shit Ezra. He threw a beer bottle at me.

Gladys:                Ezra?

Handy:                 That little cunt, sorry, that little shit I guess he was driving home from whatever the fuck kind of carousing those boys do up to Youngville and I guess I was walking down the middle of the road singing and conducting the Berlin Philharmonic and that little shit wanted to get home before his dad sees the truck is missing and he’s been drinking all night, which we all except the Bishop know he does, and so maybe he’d been behind me trying to pass and for all I know leaning on the horn, but I had my headphones on, and so he throwed a beerbottle at me and it hit my head.

Gladys:                Handy, this is, like, a gash. Like as long as my finger.

Handy:                 I can sure feel that, Gladys.

Gladys:                You’re going to need stitches, sweetheart.

Handy:                 Wull, that’s what I come here for.

Gladys:                I need to get Kandace up here to watch the store and I’ll drive you up to the clinic.

Handy:                 The clinic is not a place I will be going.

Gladys:                Handy, you need stitches, love.

Handy:                 That’s what I come here for.

Gladys:                I am not stitching you myself.

Handy:                 You put the pocket back on my shirt you can sew up that headflap the same way.

Gladys:                That’s different, honey. This is, like, medical.

Handy:                 Fuck that, Gladys. It’s a skinflap, is all. I’m not going to the clinic, and you can understand why.

Gladys:                I know you got reasons, but it’s time to not be stubborn.

Handy:                 The time for me to not be stubborn is when the Pope gets married, Gladys. Or when Sheriff Huffman votes Democrat. Girl, sew me up. I can’t be going around bleeding. People would take note.

[Gladys goes to the freezer and tears open a bag of ice and twists some cubes into a towel and presses it to Handy’s head.]

Handy:                 Goshdamnit, girl, you’re killing me.

Gladys:                This is a serious cut.

Handy:                 Wull, so, let’s get medical.

Gladys:                Stick your head under the faucet. We need to wash it. And your hair has, like, twigs in it.

Handy:                 I don’t have no shampoo or shit like that.

Gladys:                Well, love, maybe you can understand why a girl would flinch from poking around in hair this nasty.

Handy:                 I wasn’t planning on a girl messing around in my hair today.

Gladys:                That is the kind of plan that always turns out predictable.

Handy:                 Maybe this will be a learning experience for me where I unlearn my nasty ways and shampoo my hair every morning.

Gladys:                Hold still.

Handy:                 Holy mother! Damnit! That stings!

Gladys:                That’s because half your skull is sticking out and is getting soap on it.

Handy:                 Any glass in there?

Gladys:                No. Plenty of nasty dirt, though. That Ezra is going to finally get hauled up for this.

Handy:                 The Bishop ought to beat the living tar out of that son of a bitch.

Gladys:                You leave Lynette out of this.

Handy:                 She’s the one raised him to be such a punk.

Gladys:                She did not. She’s got her hands full.

Handy:                 She’s a angry prick, is what she is. And Ezra is a angry little cunt. Sorry.

Gladys:                Hold still.

Handy:                 You got some suture needles?

Gladys:                Course not. I’m not a health care professional.

Handy:                 What about antibiotics and shit like that?

Gladys:                Peroxide is all I have, love.

Handy:                 That’ll do the trick.

[Gladys goes back to the house. Handy stands with his head in the sink, bleeding and humming the Requiem.]

Gladys:                Come over in the light.

Handy:                 You got any liquor?

Gladys:                You know I don’t, silly.

Handy:                 Any painkiller?

Gladys:                I got these Oxycodone from when my back went out.

Handy:                 Gimme a few of those. How much is a dose?

Gladys:                It says take one and two if the pain is bad I think is what my doctor said.

Handy:                 I better double up for the stitching.

Gladys:                They make you sleepy
.

Handy:                 That’s ok. I’ll just take a nap.

[Handy taps four or five pills into his palm and swallows them. Gladys puts on her reading glasses and runs a length of silk button thread through a needle. She places the needle and thread on a plate and pours peroxide over. Then she pours peroxide on Handy’s wound.]

Handy:                 Holy Heavenly Mother, that hurts! Holy shit!

Gladys:                Hold still, you big baby.

Handy:                 That hurts like hell!

Gladys:                I know it, love. Now really hold still.

Handy:                 You sewing already?

Gladys:                That’s what you come here for, right?

Handy:                 Well, wait a damned minute for the pills to kick in.

Gladys:                I need to get this done before I get customers. They might not want to see a unwashed dirty guy getting head surgery on top of the soda case.

Handy:                 Just flip the closed sign around.

Gladys:                How ‘bout you just hold still and stop being a baby.

[Gladys stitches the wound shut. It takes quite a while. She has to keep washing the blood off and Handy’s hair keeps getting in the way. When she is nearly done Handy starts humming the Requiem again, pretty loud this time. He is having trouble keeping his feet under him as he leans over the soda case. The door rings open and a Tourist steps in. He is tall and blond and is wearing short shorts and sky-blue socks under sandals. He cannot see Handy from where he stands.]

Gladys:                [Addressing the Tourist] Help you?

Tourist:                Ja. I am looking for ze food for ze hiking.

Gladys:                Snacks are there on the wall. Sodas are over here. But you got to wait for the sodas.

[The Tourist looks for snacks at the front of the store. Gladys finishes the last stitch and Handy stands up to where the Tourist can see him. Handy is getting drowsy and very sleepy. He has a blood-soaked towel on his head.]

Tourist:                Mein Gott!

Handy:                 Got me a little headflap repair going on back here on the soda fridge.

Gladys:                Handy, you shut up and go lie down on the porch and take a nap. I’ll put a bandage on it soon’s the customer is gone.

Handy:                 Will do, sweetheart. Scuse me, Heimlich. Gotta go lie down.

[Handy starts to the front of the store and the Tourist stands aside, aghast.]

Gladys:                Not that way, Handy! Not the store porch, I meant the house porch. Out back.

[But Handy stumbles out the front door of the store and flops down on the deck chair. He promptly falls asleep. Several Other German Tourists are watching from a row of RVs.]

Child Tourist:     Mein Gott!

Old Tourist:        Mein Gott!

[The first Tourist leaves his snacks on the counter and runs out of the store, looking distressed. Gladys tries to get Handy to move, but he has passed out. He has blood all over his shirt and the bloody towel on his head, and he is listing toward the door. He is drooling onto the welcome mat.]