A person meets the one they adore.
I can barely contain my excitement – I’m about to see the man I revere, the man I adore. My feet are bloody from walking, but finally I see him standing in front of his great castle. I’ve heard it said that his material wealth is so abundant that I can’t even imagine it all. I quicken my pace toward him. “Sir,” I say when a few feet away, “You must help me. I fear I’m going astray.”
He looks at me askance. “How did you get in here?”
“I walked,” I say, glancing at his gleaming limousine off in the distance. “Please, Your Greatness, I need your help. You must explain things to me. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, said we should love God above all. That’s the greatest commandment he said we all must obey. But I’ve heard it said that you don’t believe that. You surely believe it, don’t you?”
He swells his chest, expanding his rotundness. “That’s rubbish. I am my own god. I am the smartest, strongest, wisest man who’s ever lived.”
I’m distressed by such blasphemy, but elated by his brashness, his confidence. I admire that so much. “Jesus also said that we should all love our neighbors. That is true, isn’t it?”
“Love is for pansies. Hate works better.” As he says this, he sweeps his eyes around his large estate, eyeing all the armaments guarding his castle. “And our neighbors are all swine.”
I’m taken aback. None of that is what my parents taught me. But I am not deterred; rather, I’m feeling mesmerized by his magnificence.
“It is said in the Bible that ‘thou shalt not bear false witness.’ In fact, that’s one of the Bible’s most important commandments. And yet many people say you lied and cheated to gain your fortune, and have been lying and cheating ever since.”
He grins but then quickly remembers himself and grimaces. “That’s all fake. They’re always saying fake things about me.”
“Who’s always saying those things, Your Wonderfulness? Who are they?”
“Anyone who says anything I don’t like. They’re all despicable vermin.”
He’s so powerful, so convincing and it’s now becoming clearer to me. I’m still not quite sure who they are. But whoever they are, since he’s saying they’re all vermin, they surely must be.
“It is said in the Bible that ‘thou shalt not commit adultery.’”
“I put my penis in whomever I want, whenever I want. If anybody complains, I just shower them with riches.”
I feel a quickening in my loins. Perhaps he will one day shower me with riches. “Of course, Your Awesomeness. From the way you talk, you must have the testicles of a virile bull. But some say that people who talk like you are really overcompensating for feeling very tiny.”
“They’re all stupid.”
“Of course, Your Marvelousness, they’re obviously all stupid. It is also said in the Bible that we must all keep the sabbath day holy. Yet, you rarely even go to church.”
“I don’t need church.”
A wave of relief surges through me; he’s releasing me. Maybe I don’t need church anymore, either. No more tolerating al the folks who profess the light of goodness with the words they speak but then cower under the cover of darkness with the deeds they do.
“Just one more thing, Your Fantasticness. When you lost your position of power, you said it was stolen from you. But a lot of other people say it wasn’t and, even though people have looked terribly hard for evidence that it was, there is no evidence to be found.”
“It was stolen from me. They stole it.”
“But wait, Your Stupendousness. As I think about it, does it really matter whether you lost your power legitimately or whether you let them steal it from you? Either way, doesn’t that, in truth, make you a loser? Aren’t you really a loser, Your, um–”
Fire’s flared in his eyes and his age-defying orange hair now stands on end as though electrified. He forcefully waves me away. “Be gone, you worthless puddle of pond scum!”
I feel deep remorse for speaking such sacrilege to him. But now that I’ve figured him out, now that I see who he truly is, I can redeem myself immediately. I must do this so that he and all my friends will still like me, will not ostracize me, will not insult me and call me feeble. I drop to my knees to kiss his ring, then nearly prostrate myself to kiss the earth he stands on. Rising back up to my full height, I raise my hands up to the heavens, cast my eyes down to hell, and proclaim with all that is within me, “All hail, thee! All hail thee, mighty Anti-Christ!”
Story copyright © 2024 by David W. Palmer
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