Having my way with Ulysses

The surface of a downward tending lutulent reality.

As the year ended omens of impending misfortune were widely rumored -- unprecedentedly frequent lightning; a comet (atoned for by Nero, as usual, by aristocratic blood); two-headed offspring of men and beasts, thrown into the streets or discovered among the offerings to those deities to whom pregnant victims are sacrificed.10:00 pm

Scene:  [In the Deshil Holles Eamus theatre.  The stage is lit by one bright quickening wombfruit hanging expectantly from the downstage grid.  God has canceled a rehearsal for his one deity show, and drifts in a southerly direction]

God:  It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, Jesus, I just think that other circumstances being equal, the measure of how far forward humanity may have progressed has little to do with my command or promise or whatever you’d like to call it to Adam and Eve.

Jesus:  [Dancing clockwise around God]  Its’ just that, if we don’t include it, then we leave the second act undeveloped, and by the time you start act three if it be absent when fortunately present nevertheless, there would be no more odious offense at all not to can be!

God:  [Now dancing counterclockwise around Jesus]  Listen.  This is a sensitive topic for me.  I gave them eternity! They received eternity, they were God’s mortals, and what did they want?  Generation.  So fine.  Go forth.  Multiply.  Whatever.  And look what happened.  Barbarity.

Jesus:  [slowing] And hospitals.

God:  [quickening] More barbarity.

Jesus:  You really should do something to fix it, or at least address it.

God:  [Completing his ninth circumabigation of Jesus]  What can I do?  No.  If they don’t tremble lest what had been conceived in the past be parturient of an overly proliferant future; lest they not feel the pains of it have been begun already, then basta!  Enough!  They got themselves into trouble; they’re on their own.

A star I see. Venus?

Say them all but tell them apart, cadenzando coloratura! R is Rubretta and A is Arancia, Y is for Yilla and N for greeneriN. B is Boyblue with odalisque O while W waters the fleurettes of novembrance. Though they're all but merely a schoolgirl yet these way went they. I' th' view o' th'avignue dancing goes entrancing roundly. 8:53 pm

[Scene:  Rehearsal for Circe.  Venus dressed as a heliotrope in furs is practicing the Dance of the Hours with the  Roygbiv Vance dancers: Rose, Sevilla, Citronelle, Esmeralde, Pervinca, Indra, and Viola.  The director is perched in the upstage grid and the stage manager and asm are in the booth. The nobleman, McIntosh, the newsboys, a hag carrying a bottle and Grace Darling are waiting stage right to rehearse their number: “O by the by that Lotion”]

God [On the god mic.  Always on the damn god mic.  Does he really need the entire house to hear him?  Really?]  I know the sun sets in the west Venus, I was the one who put it there in the first place!

Venus:  The hell you were!

God:  Nevermind the direction, this is theatre!  Our business is illusion.  We are representing truth, not telling it.  Who bloody cares if the sun is setting in the Southeast?

Venus:  I do! I need to absorb all the reality I can so my instrument can feel the very atmosphere of the scene.  How can I do that if you move the sun to the wrong place?

God: Look, you think it’s easy to move the sun around?  My joints are on the rack!

Jesus:  Dad?  Those distant hills seem coming nigh.

God:  I know, they needed to be closer for this scene.  Ignore them, the’ll stop soon.

Venus:  Listen God, I need the light to set in the west: it is a kind of reassuring.  I can’t.  I can’t work like this.

[A feather falls slowly from the grid, lands on Venus’ head.  She bursts into tears.]

Venus:  [Addressing the bird in the grid]  Thanks.  You’ve always brought me such peace.  You really are a promise of hope to me.  The girls too.  Sorry I got your names mixed up Indra, Viola.

Viola:  Don’t worry about it love.  Shall we go again?

McIntosh:  Do already!  The corns on my kismet are killing me!

Venus:  Who is that guy?

God: Jesus?

Jesus: Nobody knows, he just showed up.  Wait.  Where did he go?  Doesn’t he know it’s damn frustrating when people appear and disappear just like that!

God:  Never mind him, he was probably just a mirage.  Now Venus, the director wants you to practice in front of a mirror, hold his feather while you do it if it helps you.

Venus:  There’s no way I can do that.  I don’t want to see myself, that would shatter the reality I’m creating.

God: It’s hard I know, but still you learn something.  We all could stand to see ourselves as other see us. That’s the way to find out.  See yourself, scowl or smile, then ask yourself, who am I now?  Will you try it?

Venus:  Can I do it naked?

God: So long as women don’t mock what matter?

What the Great Saint Bernard Said

Filled, therefore, with confidence in thy goodness, I fly to thee, O Mother, Virgin of Virgins: to thee I come, before thee I fly a sorrowful sinner.8:29 pm

[Scene:  The Star and Garter Ballroom, Empyrean Building, Holy Mother Public Relations. Mary is irritated, a little drunk, and bathed gloriously in a radiant cloud of flies.  Martha stands defeated with a fly swatter and a can of bug spray.  Miss Bee Honeysuckle nervously buzzes just out of Martha’s reach.]

Mary:  Where the hell is he?

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  He’s be here soon your virgin worshipfulness, we left at the same time but he had to go back to, well, to compose himself a little.

Mary:  Martha get him on the damn phone.  Compose himself?  I’ll decompose him myself if he doesn’t show up now.

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  You know how he is, your heavenly motheringness, he doesn’t like crowds.

Mary:  What crowds?  There’s no crowds.  Show me crowds!  Who will come here with all these damn flies.  Martha!

Martha:  I can’t swat them all, Mary, there must be millions of them.  Oh Christ! There’s one on your eye.

[Jesus appears as if from nowhere while Martha swats Mary in the face]

Mary:  Jesus Fucking Christ when will you stop appearing as if from nowhere!

Jesus:  Hey mom, sorry.  Another fly plague?  And who’s that hiding under that table?

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  [Bright with hope] Oh thank Jesus, you’re here!

Jesus:  No problem.

Mary:  Where?  Bernard, get out from under there you agoraphobic freak!

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  It’s social anxiety disorder, he can’t help it.  But he’s a brilliant exterminator.

Bernard:  Bee?  is it safe?

Martha:  Bernard get your ass out from under that table and get to work!  None of us can do anything until these flies are cleared out.

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  [Keeping a nervous distance from Martha] It’s safe enough.

[St Bernard crawls crablike from under the closest table to the door and on sight of Mary vomits on the floor.]

Mary:  Great.  Now we need carpet cleaners too.  Martha?

Martha:  [With a careworn heart, a toiler for her daily bread] I’m on it.

Bernard:  Sorry about that.  Weak stomach.  I’ll need incense.  Lots of it.

Mary:  Jesus?

Jesus:  I only do food, mom.  Wine, fish, bread.

Martha:  Jesus you useless dumbass.

Jesus:  Hey Martha, how’s your sister?

Martha:  She’s out back sucking balls.

Jesus:  Where?  Out back?  Mom, I’ll go look for incense.  Be back in a while.  Soon.  Be back soon.

Mary:  Oh here.  [Mary claps twice.  Incense smoke wafts from all directions.  The flies multiply]

Bernard:  [With a compelling voice and look] Flies, if ye will not hear the church let thee be to thee as the heathen and publican.  Whatsoever you shall bind upon heaven, shall be bound also in the Emperian building; and whatsoever you shall loose upon heaven, shall be loosed also in the Emperian building.  Flies, hear me now.  You shall be excommunicated at once statim, ipso facto.   Res sacræ, ritus, communio, crypta, potestas, prædia sacra, forum, civilia jura vetantur.

[The flies drop instantly to the floor, dead.  At least three inches deep of the bloody things.]

Miss Bee Honeysuckle [eyes wet with contrition]: Oh St. Bernard, you honey sweet teacher!

Mary:  Thanks, Bernard.  Martha, get a shovel.

Bernard:  No, No, Miss Honeysuckle will do clean up.  No extra charge.

Beseeching her to intercede for them.

Oh, drink to Mary we believe that without sin she didst conceive. Teach us Mary how thus believing, we can sin without conceiving.Holy Mother Public Relations, Inc.
10th Heaven
Empyrean

Meeting Minutes

Date:  June 26
Time:  8:22 pm
Location:  10th Heaven conference room C, Empyrean building
Purpose:   Intervention for Mary Star of the Sea, The Virgin of Virgins, etc.

Attendees:  

Mary Star of the Sea, Holy Mary, Holy Mother of God, Holy Virgin of virgins, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church, Mother of divine grace, Mother most pure, Mother most chaste, Mother inviolate, Mother undefiled, Mother most amiable, Mother most admirable, Mother of good counsel, Mother of our Creator, Mother of our Savior, Virgin most prudent, Virgin most venerable, Virgin most renowned, Virgin most powerful, Virgin most merciful, Virgin most faithful, Mirror of justice, Seat of wisdom, Cause of our joy, Spiritual vessel, Vessel of honor, Singular vessel of devotion, Mystical rose, Tower of David, Tower of ivory, House of gold, Ark of the covenant, Gate of heaven, Morning star, Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted, Help of Christians, Queen of Angels, Queen of Patriarchs, Queen of Prophets, Queen of Apostles, Queen of Martyrs, Queen of Confessors, Queen of Virgins, Queen of all Saints, Queen conceived without original sin, Queen assumed into heaven, Queen of the most holy Rosary. Queen of the family, Queen of Peace, Queen who forgets her limits, Queen a little volatile, Queen who sometimes has Blackouts, Queen found Puking and Shitfaced Drunk just outside of Conference Room C not 6 hours ago. And others who wish to remain anonymous. [Lizzy Twigg, Cassandra, Joseph, Anne, Jesus]

Agenda:

1.  Gently, oh so very gently introduce Mary to the possibility that she might have a slight, hardly noticeable really, not even anything to worry about, issue with drinking just a bit more than she ought.

2.  If Mary seems at all receptive, which would be an enormous step on its own, introduce her to the 12 steps.  Gently or we’re totally screwed.

Discussion: 

1.  Lizzy T. explained to Mary that she might consider becoming Our Lady of Temperance and C. added that Our Lady of Perpetual Kindness can be rather an angry drunk.  Mary expressed that C. is a washed up hack not to be believed and Lizzy T. is a literary groupie whore who is probably stoned off her ass right now as we speak.

2.  J. attempted an explanation of his feelings concerning the state of martial affairs and a little more encouragement in the bedroom might be nice.  I mean, it’s not the size of the wave that counts.  Mary suggested J. get back to taking meeting minutes in the kiddie pool and honey, it’s the size of the wave.  It’s always the size of the wave.  Besides, the motion of J.’s ocean is a drop in the bucket to somebody who’s come face to face with a tsunami.

3.  Mary wanted to know who the hell invited her mother.  A. said who said she wanted to be here she had better things to do.  Mary said then go do them.  A. said Mary was giving her an anxiety attack and she is rude and all she’s ever does is damage.  Mary said A. is a controlling hypochondriac who can’t see past her own narcissism to realize that this colossal waste of time is not about her for Christ’s sake.

4. Jesus C. said what the hell is going on here.  Mary said Jesus get back to your father and stop appearing suddenly as if from nowhere.  Jesus C. said big words from somebody who just showed up on the belly of a South American turtle.  A. said in her day children didn’t talk to their mothers like that and no wonder Jesus C. turned out rotten given the upbringing he had.

Action Items:

1. Lizzie T. suggested we discuss the 12 steps another time.  Mary said we can shove the 12 steps right up our power greater than ourselves.

2. C suggested we should give it up now and save ourselves.  She was overruled.

3. Jesus C. will turn all the wine back into water.

 
 
Minutes typed by: Joseph
Approved by:  Unapproved
 

A visit to a house of mourning

Even if the whole universe did not recollapse, there would be singularities in any localized regions that collapsed to form black holes. These singularities would be an end of time for anyone who fell into the black hole. At the big bang and other singularities, all the laws would have broken down, so God would still have had complete freedom to choose what happened and how the universe began.6:07 pm

[Scene:  The lights in the house are down except for one single lit candle sitting comfortably on a stool in the center of the stage.  The candle gives off a darkness shining in brightness which brightness cannot comprehend.]

God [on the god mic]:  Let me ask you this: is there a difference between the world as known by ordinary mortals and what they think might be my world?  Well I’ll tell you, all the world’s a stage.  What’s different from here to then?  It depends on if you think mortality is about duration.  Linear duration.  And if you thus imagine my theatres exist in another kind of time entirely.  Do you think that?  Many have done before you.  Well who am I to say when’s when.  What’s the opposite of a line?  I don’t know.  I guess an all at once condition.  Plenitude of being.  That sort of thing.

Here, I’ll give you a piece of my mind.  Wait.  What?  Aw, Jesus Christ!  What did I say about headset chatter?  Come on.  What did you say?

Jesus [Appears on stage is if from nowhere and talks to the booth]: I said, maybe here is where we should put in that bit about number.  You know, the insertion between acts 1 and 2.

God [on the god mic]:  That?  Come on.  Even the director thinks it’s crap.

[Bird excrement falls from the grid, lands on the candle and puts it out.  A faint but increasing luminosity of ruby light becomes gradually visible].

Jesus:  I get it.  Can we at least try it?  For Bloom’s sake?

God [on the god mic]:  Bloowho?  Oh him!  Yes.  Yeah.  He’s in a bit of a black hole right now.  A dark period of time.  In his world it is between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm.  He started the day at 8:00 am and went dark at 6:00 pm.

Jesus: Six to eight.  Eight to six.  6 is the number of creation, 8 the number of death.  Symmetry under a cemetery wall.

God [on the god mic]:  Yes.  So it was 10 hours from starting bang to dark period.

Jesus:  The number of unity and perfection.

God: [on the god mic]: This is a one man show, kid.  Yes, unity, perfection.  There’s the 1, the source number which adds to itself and makes all the other numbers, and Queen Zero, the female number, and if I may speak phallically and yonically, just look at them together:  10.  One goes through all the other numbers to join with 0 and she gives birth to the next set of ten.

Jesus:  Ten hours of wandering to get to 6:00, and then two hours go by: the blank period of time.  And then?  And then?

God: [on the god mic]  Don’t interrupt, we’re going here.  Line?

Jesus:  Onan.

God [on the god mic]:  And then he pulls out.  Like Onan.  And is stranded for a time.  For a time.  Line?

Jesus:  For a time starting at 8:00 pm.

God [on the god mic]: For a time starting at 8:00 and following a moving now through linear duration to an end point at line?

Jesus: 2:00 am

God [on the god mic]: 2:00 am.  6 hours.  6 is a revolving sphere so he goes from linearity to oblivion (wilderness) to circularity and then ends up in bed with eternity.  Do people still care about circular numbers?

Jesus:  Hell if I know.

God [on the god mic]: 6 squared is 36, 6 to the third power is 216, 6 to the 4th power is 1296, to the 5th power is 7776, to the 6th power is 46656 and so each and so on to no last term.  The last digit of every one of them is 6.

Jesus:  It circles back to itself.

God [on the god mic]: It circles back to itself.  Mortals get that, right?  This thing is getting too long.

Jesus:  Yeah, we can leave that out.  The six circles fit around one thing too.  Anybody with seven maneuverable circles knows that one.  Goes back to six is the number of creation too.  That whole 6 days thing and on the seventh you rested.

God [on the god mic]:  Yeah right.  I wish I had that much time off!  But there’s no rest for the wicked, eh boy.

Jesus:  You said it.  Should we take it from the top?

Beehives, soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline,

We accept reality so readily -- perhaps because we sense that nothing is real. I asked Argos how much of the Odyssey he knew. He found using Greek difficult; I had to repeat the question. Very little, he replied. Less than the meagerest rhapsode. It has been eleven hundred years since last I wrote it. 5:54 pm

[Scene:  The Star and Garter Ballroom, Empyrean Building, Holy Mother Public Relations.  The party planning committee including Saints Martha, Agatha, Patricia, Augustine, Genevieve, Wenburgh, Cecilia, and the Holy Mother herself, Blessed Virgin, Queen of the Heavens, CEO Holy Mother Public Relations, etc. are preparing for the imminent arrival of what will be possibly most likely perhaps God willing a new saint: Saint (maybe) Ahasuerus.]

Mary [Frazzled] Jesus H Christ, where are Anne and Margaret?  They were supposed to be here a half hour ago with the welcome banners!

Jesus [Appearing suddenly as if from nowhere]:  Mom?

Mary: Holy Christ you scared the bejesus out of me!  What did I tell you about popping in unannounced like that?  I completely forgot what I was doing!  What do you want?

Jesus:  Sorry  Mom, I thought I heard you calling me.

Mary:  Well, you didn’t.  Go back to your father, it’s his week to have you.  Oh, but first, I need you to make some wine.  God I need a drink.  I tried to get some beer out of Amand, but it’s too late in the day to catch him sober.  Best I can hope is he doesn’t vomit on the guest of honor.

Jesus:  Who is it this time?

Mary:  Ahasuerus.

Jesus:  That guy?  I thought he was supposed to wander the earth until I returned.

Mary:  Well, there’s a chance he’s coming today, dead or not, unless it’s some sort of mistake.  He’s got some tunnel visioned meat head after him who’s getting ready to crack his head open with a biscuit tin, but that’s if he has the depth perception for it.  Personally I don’t want him here, I could do without yet another one of these enormous parties.  I’ve got Agatha and Patricia fighting over command of the kitchen and that sour bitch Martha complaining about both of them.  Look, here she comes.

Jesus:  Speak of the devil.

Martha:  Hey Jesus.  Mary, I could really use some help in there.  Why am I always the one stuck in the kitchen doing everything?  Patricia is beyond useless and I’d give my left breast to get Agatha to shut up about the Glencree dinner already.

Mary:  What are Margaret and Anne doing?  Aren’t they in there with you?

Martha:  Mina Purefoy went into labor and called on both of them.  They’ll be with her for days.

Mary:  Both?  Well get Aquinas then, where the hell is he?

Martha:  That fat ass?  He’s in the kitchen, but he’s eating everything in sight: loaves, hogs, stags’ horns, hawks, eyes on a dish, unicorns.  I have Wenburgh  in there resurrecting what she can, but I still have to cook it all over again.  And how do you resurrect a seed cake?

Jesus:  Yeah, that’s not easy.

Mary:  Well, Genevieve is working on the look of the room, I’ve got Fiacre on flowers and Cecilia is handling music.  You can have Amand, but he’s shitfaced drunk.

Martha:  Yeah, great.  Thanks.  Might as well give me a swarm of locusts or a rain of frogs for all the good he’ll do me.

Jesus:  Maybe we can delay Ahasaures’ arrival somehow?  You don’t want him here anyway, do you Mom?

Mary:  Oh Christ no.

Martha:  Really?  Oh that would be great.  I hear he’s bad news anyway.  Uses his wife to help him cheat at cards.  Son of a grifter too, who defrauded a bunch of people with unsecured loans before he killed himself.

Fiacre: [Carrying an enormous bunch of aconite]  Oooh, who are we talking about, Ahasuerus?  I heard that he won buckets of money on a horse race, and then refused to buy a round at the bar.  What a cheap ass.  Cute as a shit house rat too.

Mary:  All right, think.  What do we do to buy some time?

Jesus:  Who’s the one going to throw the biscuit tin?  We can mess with his aim.

Martha:  Good idea.  Maybe we can blind him?

Mary:  Well I can’t spare Genevieve, she’s up to her tits in work getting this place decorated.

Jesus:  What about Nicholas and Anthony?  Nick can steal his glasses and Anthony can hide them.

Mary:  That might do it.  Jesus, you find them and get them on it asap.  Martha, get your ass back into the kitchen.  I’ll see if your sister can help.

Martha:  Fat chance.

Jesus:  No. She doesn’t need to be here.

Martha:  See.

Mary:  And Jesus, get back to your father after you find Tony and Nick.  I can’t have him bitching to the lawyers again about me violating his visitation rights.  Costs me a fortune every time.

A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at his birth.

O, there be players that I have seen play -- and heard others praise, and that highly -- not to speak it profanely, that neither having th' accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made man, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. 2:40 pm

[Scene:  Empty theatre.  The stage manager is sitting in the house seats next to the director, who is eating seeds from a broad silver and gilt bowl.]

God:  List.  You hear that?  Must be seventy people out there.  Jesus!  Jesus Christ!  Where the hell is he?  [on the god mic] Jesus!

Jesus: [Materializes suddenly behind God, startling the director who flies up into the grid, landing on a downstage line set.] God damn it, it’s a mess out there.  Actors are showing up before their check in times, and without their sides.  We ran out of extras and I’m

God:  Can’t you just make more?

Jesus:  I’m not a miracle worker!

God:  Well, how did you do that water into wine thing?

Jesus:  Never mind that.  What’s going on in here?  Whose bright idea was it to hire a bird to be the director?

God: Oh please let’s not get into that.  The whole Arian thing and the meetings in Nicaea and Constantinople, the Nestorian business.  It’s in our contract.  We’re stuck with him, and he likes to be a dove so what can we do?  Anyway, I’m not entirely sure, but I think he’s ready to see the Bella Cohens.  Anybody promising?

Jesus:  Let’s see.  A  bunch of girls who had decent to middling parts in The Tempest, Pericles, Winter’s Tale.

God:  Too young.

Jesus:  Well, Cleopatra is out there.

God: Who?

Jesus:  Fleshpot of Egypt.  Also Cressida and Venus.

God:  Venus might work, but she’s a big star.  Can we afford her?  And is she willing to do drag?

Jesus:  Probably not.  Will do nudity though, she’s naked now.  And she’s not really a star.  She’s flaming out.  Also, we have a crowd of people out there claiming to be Shakespeare’s relations. Brothers, mother.

God:  Mother?  Mary Arden?  Can she act?  Would she be a good Bella?

[Bird droppings fall from above.]

God:  Fine, we’ll tell Mary we’re going another way.  Jesus, send in Venus.  And warn her she might want to put some clothes on, the director is in a temper.

Heteroousios Dinner Theatre Presents: Contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality Starring Arius the Illstarred Heresiarch!

Far worse than uselessly he leaves the shore more full of error than he was before, who fishes for the truth but lacks the art. Of this Parmenides, Melissus, Bryson are clear proofs to the world and many others who went their way but knew not where it went; so did Sabellius and Arius and other fools, like concave blades that mirror, who rendered crooked the straight face of Scriptures. So too let men not be too confident in judging, witness those who in the field would count the ears before the corn is ripe11:03 am

God:  Hello! God here.  Aleph, Alpha, no headset chatter please.  Jesus let me know when you have places.

Jesus:  Nobody can find Arius.

God:   What! Why?  Entrées are coming out of the kitchen already.  Just look!  Plate after plate of clotted hinderparts.  Where in my name is he?

Jesus:  Not, not one of us can find him.

God:  Oh Christ.

Jesus: [materializes in the booth]  I’m here.

God:  Holy Jesus Christ you scared the shit out of me!  What are you doing in the booth?  It’s as if you came from nowhere.

Jesus:  Sorry.  I thought we should keep this off the headsets.  Arius said some odd things before the show.  Something about how you are not really my dad and we are both part of the same thing.  And that I should be co-stage manager instead of ASM.  Also, he didn’t look very good.

God:  I know, he was terrible in the first act, coming down the steps flabbily, with splayed feet.

Jesus:  And he had the worst gas.  Smelled like he was about to have a violent relaxation of his bowels.  Those front row tables!  I wept for them.

God:  Is that what that was?  I smelled it in the booth!  Look, we can’t just sit here navel gazing, we’re out of time.  Have you checked the toilet?

Jesus:  I just had that same thought.  I’ll look there, but I have a bad feeling about it.

God:  I just thought that same thing!  It’s like we have one mind.  Oh and Jesus, we should look into replacing him.  How about Adam Kadmon?  He can play anything.  Where’s that review of Edenville?  Here.  Listen to this: “he was a man and a woman at the same time”  he can play all the roles!  And this: “quite pure in breeding.  He could give birth parthenogenically at will.”

Jesus:  We can have a cast of thousands!

God:  “and he had a body that could pass through trees and stones”  that might be hard to plan for.  Think our technical director is up for it?

Jesus:  Heva?  Come on, she’s a viper.

God:  Well, go see if Arius is stalled on the throne or somewhere.  And don’t forget we are meeting for drinks at The Ship at half twelve.  And by the way, go easy with your money like a good young imbecile.

Let everything rip

Don't piss off Martha10:12 am

I hate my sister.  Look at her in there.  She’s totally throwing herself at Jesus.  What a bitch.  She’s actually sitting at his feet and hanging on his every word.  Way to be cool Mary.  And I’m stuck here in the kitchen with this old hag grinding up garlic.  Great.  I’ll reek of it and fish too and meanwhile there’s Mary making Jesus think she’s interested in everything he says.  Oh tell me more and more about your dad, he sounds fascinating!  Cunt.  I’m going to spread the biggest rumor about her.  I’ll tell everyone she’s a total slut.  I’ll take a picture of her naked and it is so going on the internet.  I’ll put her number on Craigslist.  When I’m done she’ll go down in history as the biggest whore who ever pissed off her sister.

The Wind Weaver, Starring Michael The Archangel, with The Apostles, introducing Matthias and featuring four Heretics!

Hear, hear! Prolonged applause.9:30 am

God: [On the god mic] Alright everybody, settle in.  We have a 7:00 curtain for tomorrow’s opening and you have a 6:30 half hour so for the love of me let’s be ready for it.  Jesus did you call the understudy for Judas?

Jesus:  He’s here.

Matthias:  I’m here.

God: [On the god mic]  Good.  Ok.  We reblocked so remember heretics you enter from downstage right and your exit is the trapdoor.  Apostles your entrance is upstage center.  Try to remember this time Simon, and don’t come charging out from downstage.

Simon the Apostle: Sorry about that.

God: [On the god mic]  No problem Simon, just a bit less zealous this time.

Michael the Archangel: Do you want me to actually strike down the heretics or

God: [On the god mic]  No no, just take their weapons away and kick them into the void.  Right.  Let’s see if we can get through this quickly.  We need to tighten up cues and everybody be on top of your entrances.  Head in the game people, angels.  Places everyone, from the top of the show.  Standby on lights 1 through 5.  Standby sound A.  Let me know when you have places.

Jesus:  We have places.  [To self] Does he need to say everything on the god mic?

God: [On the god mic]  I heard that.  No headset chatter please.  Go to black.  Light 1 go.  Light 2 go.  Sound A go.

 

[Apostles enter from upstage center and sing polyphonically.  Michael the Archangel enters from upstage left.  Heretics enter from downstage right.]

Michael the Archangel:  [disarmingly] Halt heretics!

Photius: [mockingly] Whatcha gonna do about it?  [sing-song voice] You are too weak to stop me!

Arius: [aggressively] Word!

Valentine:  [in a spurning tone]  Your god has no body!  Your god has no body!

Sabellius:  [subtly] Whatever.  You are all the same to me.

God: [On the god mic]  Ok, hold.  Thomas, what in my name are you doing?

Thomas:  I don’t think this is working.

Peter:  Shut up Thomas, do you have to question everything?

Phillip:  Was I any good?

Andrew:   You were marvelous!

Phillip:  Really?  I was?

Thomas:  I’m just saying that I’m not feeling this.  I don’t believe what we are doing here.  Doesn’t seem real, I have to feel it to be on board.

Michael the Archangel:  Thomas I swear to stage manager, I’m going to kick your ass.

Thomas: I’m just saying, I’m not buying it.  The superstition, the void.  I mean come on, what’s under that trap door?

God: [On the god mic]  Nothing’s under there, it’s a void.  Thomas if you don’t get back to your place and do your job I’ll strike you down, I swear to me I’ll do it, so help me me!

Thomas:  That’s it.  I’m sick of this shit.  MACBETH!!

Peter: No! No! No!

Michael the Archangel:  Shit!  We have enough problems, do you have to borrow trouble?

Arius:  You cursed the show!  And I wanted to be the one to do it.

Sabellius: Whatever.

Photius:  Who here wants to run this show our own way somewhere else?

[Apostles spit over their shoulders, heretics turn three times, crew led by Jesus run outside to circle the theatre three times.]

God: [On the god mic]  Holy mother of me it’s going to take an act of me to get this thing off the ground.