Canto Eighteen –
Library Lies
The four young Pirates took the invisible Captain into the
Norwall Public Library, into the reading room where all the encyclopedias were
kept, along with the piano used for community sing-a-longs after town council meetings. They all took seats around one of the round
tables used for meetings and, on rare occasions, students doing homework.
Valerie kept staring at the empty space behind the floating
glasses where the Captain’s face actually had to be. If she squinted and stared real hard, she
could almost picture a face there, though an older face than the yearbook photo
Mary had shown her.
“Uncle Noah,” Mary said, “You have to answer some questions
for us now.”
“Well, um, heh-heh… what exactly do you children want to
know?”
“How did you become invisible?” Danny demanded. “And can you teach me how to do it too?”
“Why do you want to be invisible?” Valerie asked Danny,
while poking him in the ribs with a finger.
“Yeah… well… you see, I could go into the girls’ locker room
at school, and…”
“Okay, not that question!” insisted Mary. Pidney beside her was a bright crimson color
in the face. “Tell us, Uncle Noah, why
you became invisible.”
“Well, that was not a matter of choice. Did you read the log book I sent you?”
“Not all of it, no…”
Mary looked at the empty air behind the glasses with a very skeptical
expression.
“Well, you see, there was this witchdoctor… also called a
juju man… His name was Mangkukulan… He put a curse on me, and made me invisible.”
“Why did he put a curse on you?” Pidney asked.
“Well, uh… you really should read about it in the log book
first. It tells the story better than I
can here and now… um, before you read it.”
“Just summarize for us,” suggested Mary.
“Well, um… the truth of the matter is… um, I am in need of
a… well, a pure sort of… a girl who…”
“What, Uncle Noah?”
“I need a virgin.”
“Cool,” said Danny.
“What do you need one of those for?”
“Um, well, I… Mangkukulan needs a virgin to give to the
mayap mapali Matuling Lupa.”
“The what?” asked Valerie.
“That wouldn’t be a volcano or something would it?” asked
Danny.
“Well, sorta, kinda… the god of volcanoes.”
“And why does Man-coo-coo-man think he needs to get a virgin
from you, Captain?” asked Pidney, frowning.
“Because I… well… I sorta… um… spoiled the one he had.”
“You what? And what
virgin were you planning to give him in return?” asked Mary, almost loudly and
angrily enough to be heard by the librarian in the next room.
“I hate to ask this, Mary dear… but… well… are you still a
virgin?”
“What? How can you
ask a question like that?” Mary roared.
The librarian, Val’s Aunt Alice, looked into the room just
as the Captain hastily pulled the hood of the cloak over his head.
“Is everything all right, Mary dear?” the librarian asked.
“Oh, ah… we are fine.
We are just having a friendly little argument.”
“I see…” Aunt Alice frowned at the cloaked and hooded figure
slumped down in the chair across the table from Mary. “Call me if you need anything, girls. I have a handy phone on the desk, and there’s
a new deputy sheriff in town. We have a
deputy who actually lives in Norwall now.”
“That’s good to know, Ms. Stewart. Thank you so much.” Mary smiled grimly at the cloaked Captain.
Captain Dettbarn seemed meek and chastened after that.
“You can’t really believe you can take a girl from your home
town and give her to a witch doctor to throw into a volcano?” Mary said quietly through gritted teeth.
“No, I suppose not.
But I still might need to know… um, for magical reasons. I do have to solve the problem somehow.”
“You don’t have the right to ask that question,” said
Pidney, simmering with anger. “You are
talking about a young lady’s honor. She
loses something no matter what the answer is.”
“How can she be losing something?” asked Danny, looking thoroughly
confused.
“She loses her right to privacy. And besides, if she answers that she is one,
the creepy old Captain here may kidnap her and throw her into a volcano.”
“Oh,” Danny said.
“I really need to know, Mary, honey… because the witch
doctor’s magic follows me everywhere.
And I am afraid he will try to take you if you are. After all, you are the daughter of my good
friend Dagwood Philips, and the witch doctor will know that you are important
to me.”
“And what will you do if it turns out that I am one?”
“Well, I can’t do anything about that… but your boyfriend
here could.”
“Captain!” Mary was
angry again, and Pidney was a glowing red with embarrassment again.
“Is Valerie in any danger?” asked Danny, suddenly panicky.
“This pretty little one?” the Captain asked.
“Of course,” said Mary.
“Is she in danger too?”
“Well, I don’t know.
She’s obviously not as important to me as you are, Mary… but she’s even
more obviously a virgin.”
“Well, that’s disturbing,” said Valerie. “Because I have my doubts that Pidney can
solve the problem for both of us.” The
notion tickled her insides. The idea was
not without its good side. But, still,
it made her angry that they all made that particular assumption about her.
“I, um… I better be going now,” said the Captain. “I have put you girls in enough danger
already. But… I promise, I will find a
solution to this problem. You, however,
need to read the log book. If I have any
chance of finding the right magical spell to save us all, I’m going to need
your help.”
With that, there was a sudden burst of light from flash
powder, and the Captain was gone. His
cloak remained. As did his clothing and
his yachting cap.
“Oh, my gawd!” swore Pidney.
“What will we do now?”
“I think we have to do some serious reading,” said
Mary. “And we may have to think about
some other things that kids like us probably shouldn’t be doing either.”
A thrill ran up Valerie’s spine.
Catch a Falling Star 
Sunday Sermons in More Innocent Times
There are definitely tendencies in those of us who are really atheists and non-believers in our heads to look back fondly at a time when God and religion filled our childish hearts every Sunday Morning. I have been told that idiots like me with a penchant for writing humor ought not to indulge in making fun of religion and politics. But I look at modern humorists making fun of both those things with impunity and too often end up admiring their success. Because, not only does the the subject of religion provide an easy target for satire and mockery, but we can’t really keep something sacred in our porcelain and breakable human hearts for very long without making sure it is fire-tested. That’s why I intend to take a flame-thrower to it in today’s Sunday Sermon. And I don’t mean I will only make fun of belief in God, but making fun of belief in atheism as well.
Here is a piece of music that gives your heart peace that you might need to play in the background if you really plan to read this purple-paisley-prose post. It is Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, a very spiritual piece to play for peace of personhood and a pinch of paradise.
Now, of course, the first thing to acknowledge in this idiot’s Sunday sermon is the idea of God Himself.
Is there a God?
Remember, I pass the test for believing what atheists normally believe. That should disqualify me from making the following statement. But remember too, I also identified myself in this essay as an idiot. So, I will say it anyway.
There is a God, not in Heaven, but in us. There has to be. I talk to Him all the time, and He answers me. And I keep asking Him, “If you don’t exist, then how can you be answering me?”
“Well, Michael, you are an idiot. And things don’t have to make sense for you to believe them. But also, I am the part of you that never gives up on you even when you have given up on yourself.”
And I try to look as intelligent as I can as I say, “What…?”
“People, Mickey, my son, have a secret power inside of themselves that, when they are in troubled times and dire dangers, they can reach deep into their souls for it and pull it out to save themselves from the situation in the best way possible.”
“So, if people use this power correctly, say the right words and everything, they can save their lives in any situation and even live on after death?”
“I know you are an idiot, my child, but try not to be quite so idiotic all the time.”
“But people who are very religious believe in eternal life of some kind, don’t they?”
“You are not the only idiot out there, my beloved.”
“So, we don’t get eternal life for praying the right things and doing the right things and fulfilling all the elements of the Live Forever Spell?”
“There is no such thing as eternal life nor eternal torment. But you exist. And existence is eternal. There was no life before you are born, and there is no life after you die. But once you exist, you always exist, even outside of the time-frame of your mortal life.”
“That’s why I call myself a Christian Existentialist, right?”
“You are, indeed, that flavor of idiot, yes. But the Christian part means you have to adhere to Christian values. And not the ones Christian Fundamentalist idiots interpret from the Old Testament. The real ones based on choosing love over hate.”
“So, is that all I need to bring this sermon to an end?”
“Well, you should probably thank William Bouguereau for providing most of the internet images you illustrated this thing with. He died before you were born, but he still exists.”
“Thanks, Billy B. You paint lovely naked angels.”
“And you should recognize that this idiotic thing you have written is not a sermon, but, rather, a fantasy dialogue. And then stop adding more to it like a good little idiot.”
“Amen.”
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