It was Thursday 4 April, Children's Day in Taiwan, and therefore an appropriate day (mum thought, wrongly) to take little Jonnie shopping for his first god.
As they entered the store, Godz-R-Us, with its rows upon rows of shelves piled high with glittering gods of all shapes and sizes, Jonnie seemed anxious.
"Oh don't be such a Nervous Nellie," said mum, "when I was your age, and grampa got sick and couldn't work any more, and we couldn't afford to buy new gods for me and uncle Harry and uncle Barry -- we all had to share a dirty old god that we stole from Ned Flanders' garbage, who lived next door.
"This is a special day for you, sweetie, so relax and take your time and choose one you really really like. And then we can go home and have some lunch and you can worship your little goddie, get to know him a bit better..."
Up and down the aisles they walked, hand in hand, looking at all the lovely pretty little gods, and some not so pretty, and not so little, and some very expensive. Jonnie just could not make up his mind, they all looked so nice, well most of them, well some of them.
Mum started getting a little impatient.
"What kind of god would you like, sweetie? Wrathful? Self-righteous? All Powerful? All Knowing?"
Jonnie didn't respond.
"Or how about that one over there, Jehovah the Jealous? Or that one, Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent, look at that cute little axe in his hand! Or that one, Tlaloc," she said, pointing to a goggle-eyed blue being with fangs.
Still no reply from Jonnie. His lower lip quivered as if ze was about to cry.
"What's the matter, Jojo? Don't you like these scary old gods --- like that one, Baal, over there, or this one, Anubis?"
"They all look so angry Mum," said Jonnie, "can't I get a doggie instead?"
"Oh don't be such a silly sausage," said Mum. "That's the whole idea of gods. If they're not angry and fierce then you wouldn't do what they say now would you, and everyone would be bad."
"But mum, if I have to have a god, why can’t I have one that'll be nice, and won't boss me around, and will be my best friend?"
"Because... Because... You jus' can't, and that's all there is to it," said Mum, and that was all there was to it. HOME
NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously illustrated by over 20 grotesque images you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.
AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Vot could be Verse?) We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.
MANIC MEMES & OTHER MINDSPACE INVADERS A disturbing repository of quotably quirky quotes, sayings, proverbs, maxims, ponderances, adages and aphorisms. This menagerie holds no fewer than 184 memes from eight meme-species perfectly adapted to their respective environments.
MASTRESS & OTHER TWISTED TAILS, ILLUSTRATED: an unholy corpus of oddities, strangelings, bizarritudes and peculiaritisms
FIENDS & FREAKS Adults-only Tales of Serpents, Dragons, Devils, Lobsters, Anguished Spirits, Gods, Anti-gods and Other Horse-thieves You Wouldn't Want to Meet in a Dark Kosmos: 4th Edition
HAGS TO HAGGIS Whiskey-soaked Tails of War-nags, Witches, Manticores and Escapegoats, Debottlenecking and Desilofication, Illustrated
Brilliant & profound. Problem parents, not problem kids, have always been the real issue.
Hi Antares, "...and the sins of the fathers, unto the third and fourth generations..." and probably a bit longer than that! Thanks for your comments, Cheers, MM/CR/SRS
I was watching the animated Star Trek with the Mayan feathered serpent god just last night. That was pretty cool in its own charming way, but this is even cooler. Where else could one find reference to Gods R Us?
Hi Faycin, I've not seen an animated Star Trek but would very much like to. With or without gods, ideally without, depending... Thanks for your comments.
Great satire.
mgeorge, thank you. Good to hear from you.
COMMENTS? Come on... gimme your best shot!