Having my way with Ulysses

There’s a belly that never bore a bastard.

• Oxen of the Sun

This natural Impatience to look into Futurity, and to know what Accidents may happen to us hereafter, has given birth to many ridiculous Arts and Inventions. Some found their Prescience on the Lines of a Man's Hand, others on the Features of his Face; some on the Signatures which Nature has impressed on his Body, and others on his own Hand-Writing: Some read Men's Fortunes in the Stars, as others have searched after them in the Entrails of Beasts, or the Flights of Birds. Men of the best Sense have been touched, more or less, with these groundless Horrours and Presages of Futurity, upon surveying the most indifferent Works of Nature.10:27 pm

Public announcement [draft #1132]

Gentlemen, today it is my great pleasure to announce we have arrived at the future of science. [Short pause]. It is my great privilege to tell you fine men that today and forevermore, we have no future need of women. [Lengthy pause for applause]. Using in vitro fertilization techniques, we can induce an ectopic pregnancy by implanting an embryo and placenta harvested from any old trollop [speak these words quickly, don’t give the audience time] into the abdominal cavity, just under the peritoneum, after the subject has been prepped with sufficient oral doses of female hormones derived from cattle, to make him receptive to pregnancy.  There is risk of massive hemorrhage, but no more risk than any female breeder runs during pregnancy brought on via now obsolescent techniques.  Once implantation completes, the father-to-be may stop taking hormones as the embryo will secrete sufficient hormones to maintain his own development.  The pregnant man will experience an incipient ventripotence as the little stranger grows, but many of us have become accustomed to certain sub-diaphragmatic expansions as we age [pause for laughter].  The delivery will require open surgery to remove the baby and his placenta.  Because the placenta has been freed from having to grow in a womb, it will have made intimate vascular connections with surrounding organs, so expect massive hemorrhage.  Because implantation will have involved any number of abdominal structures, [speak quickly] parts of the bowel and certainly significant parts of more than a few other organs will need to be removed.  But think of the joy the new father will experience holding his newborn son!  [Smile warmly] He’ll not have a care in the slightest at what parts of his internal structure will be removed as he has just added significantly to his family and to his heart! He will have just begun that most important of all relationships between a father and his son.  Oh how your son will love you! And just think, dad-to-be, as you proudly attend your son’s future graduation, what will the little details of his birth matter? [Pause for applause.  Smile warmly, make eye contact].  Now, let’s talk financial particulars.

What the hell are you driving at? I know. Shut up. Blast you. I have reasons.

• Scylla and Charybdis

Life, he himself said once, (his biografiend, in fact, kills him verysoon, if yet not, after) is a wake, livit or krikit, and on the bunk of our breadwinning lies the cropse of our seedfather, a phrase which the establisher of the world by law might pretinately write across the chestfront of all manorwombanborn.2:36 pm

A father is a necessary evil.  Listen to me, I know.  Who’s your daddy?  Do you really know?  You have a woman’s word for it.  Ok yes, she is your mother and amor matris from whichever direction you approach it may be the only true thing in life.  So why then, come on tell me, do the Roman Catholics and their spin offs base everything upon fatherhood’s rock hardness, when we are all born from the eye of the whirlpool?  Why?  Listen to me, I see you.  Straying in your thoughts.  Get back here.  Come back to my theolologicophilological (I ought to be stopped) theory. Now. Where were we. Father religion. This god is all their daddies. Yes. I’m fine. The church like the world (both micro and macro cosmos) is founded upon the void, the uncertainty of which (even the unlikelihood of which) fatherhood represents.  Or perhaps it happens the other way around.  Yes. Pay attention. The fear of daddy we feel as children while simultaneously feeling secure in his protection from danger we ascribe by apostolic succession to God the father.  Yes.  Feel it.  Furthermore, heretofore, once again, hereafter (are you condemned to do this?) old Nobodaddy will tell you himself that his role was a brief spurt of inspiration (expiration more like) and off he goes.  And agenbite of inwit?  What’s that?  Oh shake it off Nobodaddy.  Mingo minxi micxtum mingler. World without end amen. Oh I will be condemned. (Am I a father?  If I were?)  Look, this enthroned one, this everybody’s daddy, says Sabellius, was son of his own son.  The man felt himself with child foetus that was himself.  How’s that?  Come again?  One coming is sufficient;  Here.  Have an example.  An example.  Well, look at Shakespeare.  Or whatever his name was. Breathe. Breathing. Rutlandbaconsouthhamptonshakespearemarlowe wrote Hamlet.  He was not the father of his own son,  he was the father of all his race.  He was everybody’s daddy.  Am I battling against hopelessness?  Fight with me.  Our worst enemies are in our own house and family.  Stand!  Fight!  Kid, your growth is my decline.  Your youth is my envy.  Your friend is my enemy!  You brought me pain.  Her too and you ruined her body.  You divided her from me.  Get down from there!  Be careful!  You increase my cares.  I worry sick about you.  Slow down!  Look both ways!  Don’t talk to that perve with the candy.  Don’t impregnate before you can pay.  Dont do anything stupid.  Good Christ, listen to me!