Gregor’s Epiphany
(Nov 08)
It was a deluge of raindrops, a
veritable monsoon,
The
night Gregor had set aside to meet God. He stared out the window of his parked car
and thought, “What a gloomy day to experience something that will surely change
my life forever!” And yet he would not reschedule “The Experience”
Too much work had gone into its
planning, he had already fasted for two weeks, to wait
another day to eat because of a little rain was out of the question.
“And besides,” he thought, “Every day I
go without smoking this peyote [I acquired] is one more day I’m likely to get
arrested and thrown in jail for its possession.”
The peyote certainly was expensive…
fortunately Gregor had been panhandling even more
aggressively than usual during his two weeks of fasting.
His normally emaciated and bedraggled
appearance had waned from hopeless human being to a repulsive “half-human”
which the rich folks would literally throw money at on the square to keep him
from coming closer to them.
But at least his car still worked… some
of the time. And even though it looked a
few shades less horrendous than the creature within, Gregor
had to admit that it was better to have a “mobile-home” than no home at all.
And so then he shuffled his feet though
the many discarded vodka bottles (How
much money do I spend on this each year?) on his floorboard to get into a
more comfortable position and then Gregor proceeded
to light (with his last match) the seven short candles he had managed to keep
balanced on his dashboard and arranged into a smiley face.
The face Gregor
knew God would have.
He pushed forward his car key one click
into his car’s ignition in order to allow electric power into his car cassette
deck and then, verily, inserted his Gregorian
Chants You Can Meditate To! tape into it.
An extremely persistent and droning chant
(Gregor didn’t understand it, but it sounded churchy)
oozed out or Gregor’s lone car speaker and then he
exclaimed, “Yes! … my soul is opening now. Soon I
shall be in God’s dimension.”
He slowly withdrew a pipe from the
pocket of his overcoat, packed it with an ample amount of peyote, and then took
a hit from his first candle’s flame, extinguishing it in the process.
“The first was certainly an accident,”
he thought, “She walked right in front of my car! Never mind I was driving on
the sidewalk…”
Then Gregor
took four more hits, extinguishing four more candles.
“They were all a clad in suits, they
must have been mobsters!
I’m cleaning… I’m cleaning up the
streets!”
And then Gregor
began to physically convulse, as though he were epileptic, around the car a
smidgeon, but he managed to control himself enough to
“hit” another candle.
“Babbette
my love, why were you idling behind my car that day?! You knew I backed out
that same time every single morning…
But now who is this last candle for?”
Gregor wondered as he stared intently at the last remaining candle and
watched its flame get bigger and bigger.
“You Sir Flame,
are growing into God, and you are my God-candle which can never be
extinguished!”
The flame spread to the drone of the
chanting car’s speaker and it was then that Gregor
realized that one flame had waxed into many flames.
“God is not one flame but many,” Gregor attested, “I am polytheistic now and can feel the
heat and radiance of each and every licking of flame!”
“This is not our pyre, because these
flames are people, all the Universe
is alight with God!”
Gregor felt the chantings from his car
speakers grow louder, almost unbearably so, and yet he was able to finally
understand the message in his own language, and the chanting said very clearly.
“Vicious eagle knapsack with a raspberry twist.”
“Yes, yes!” screamed Gregor who was most definitely on fire along with his car
home.
Hours later, when the firefighters
arrived, they peered into the remains of Gregor’s
still smoldering car.
One bold firefighter exclaimed, “The
pattern that is burnt into this car seat looks remarkably like Jesus’ face!”
To which another fire fighter replied,
“Dammit Gregory, you’re high again.”