Which Theocracy

I spike have thought long and hard about this topic for several days and nights. This morning while praying an earnest prayer to no one or to the Thousand Voices, I saw a bush burning just outside my window. I hastened to spit out the toothpaste and ran outside. I spike got the hose full of holes and managed to extinguish the flames. The smoke cleared. Cussing, I spike cut away the damaged branches. Lo and behold, against the charred aluminum siding, a picture was forming. I spike, a nobody in the world of theos, became gifted with a vision of divine proportions. I hastened to pay attention, so I could faithfully record all that I saw.

I spike, saw with my own two eyes, a parade forming. Much to my astonishment, a momentous chant rose up from the center as one voice. "We are a Christian Nation. We are a religious Nation. We pray. Get over it." I spike trembled greatly.

I spike saw a crowd of onlookers whipped into a frenzy, an alien elven glossolalia streaming from their lips. Three males of a family of recent legal immigrants from Riojo, Spain were beating on drums until their bloodied hands began to gush open. Father and two boys began singing in ascending keys, "Ha-su, Ha-su, Ha-su." The mother was engaged in flagellating herself with a wicked-looking leather whip.

With an inhuman quickness, a Methodist minister from the Troy Conference broke free from the center of the passing parade and rushed over to our Spanish friends. "Stop!" she yelled, attempting to insert herself between the mother and her weapon of faith, "You mustn't. Your bodies are the holy temples--" The eldest boy looked up at her in shock. "We recognize no women as spiritual authorities in our Holy Roman Church," he said in halting English. "Go away," added his younger brother.

A few Dominionists, all fired up from their recent convention down a back road in Carolina, began gathering rocks from nearby front yards. They quickly pelted the Spanish mother and the Methodist minister. "Lesbians," one sneered. "Perversion!" "Adulteresses," shouted others. "Isn't your husband man enough to keep you satisfied?" yelled out an adolescent girl. More rocks rained on the two women. "Abomination!" "We are saved and without sin!" "Die, scum!"

A Jehovah's Witness raced away from a group knocking on door of empty houses [for everyone was either watching or in the mandated Christianity is Cool parade] and a young man in the black suit of the missionary Mormons both reached the women at the same time. Together, they dragged the two women away into the relative safety of an unlocked car. The other Jehovah's Witnesses, missing their companions, ran over into the fray. "Ye must work for your salvation in fear and trembling," they yelled as they showered paper tracts and magazines upon the stoners.

Realizing that their targets had disappeared, some of the accusing crowd began arguing with the Jehovah's Witnesses over salvation and the rest began screaming at the Pentecostals who were still speaking in Elven. "Witches," they hissed. "The age of speaking in tongues has been over with." A stout man shouted back, "No, it's not. Come down to the river this evening and be ye baptized in water and in Spirit!"

And still the parade continued. I spike saw these things with mine own two eyes and heard these things with mine own two ears. Just then, a contingent of Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Episcopalians came upon the battling Baptists and Pentecostals. "Suffer the little children--" A lone voice interrupted. "The river is full of P.C.B.s! It's not safe for anyone!"

The world around me fell silent then. The parade music and chanting stopped. The on-lookers and the folks who were part of the officially approved organizations on parade came closer to the circle surrounding that one lone woman's voice. Some stopped to gather up more rocks. Others took out guns and cell phones. A young man in fatigues and the beret of a Christian Identity group grabbed one of the drums deserted by the legally immigrated family from Spain. He brought his hands down upon it in slow steady beats. The crowd erupted into loud raucous laughter. Cries of "Al Gore lover!" and "Eco-nazi!" rang out. "Fornicator." The young man began chanting, "The eco-nazis lay with people of other races. The fornicator must die." A couple of sympathizers put in hasty calls to 9-1-1 on their cellphones. They wanted the eco-nazi to be taken away to a re-education camp in Memphis, Tennessee or somewheres like that.

There was no more parade. The humans had congealed into an ugly snarling mass of angry souls. Rocks flew from all directions. "Kill them all and let our God sort them out!" one woman sang with glee. Joel's Army and the Jesus Camp kids loaded their guns and shot into the crowd at random. Windows shattered and bodies dropped. Some Quakers began a peace vigil on the corner. They were quickly picked off. I wept.

Sirens blasted and politico-ministerial-militiamen poured out of large tanks. "Everyone sit down!" came the order bellowed from a megaphone. No one sat. Instead the mayhem continued. Blood rolled freely down the streets into the sewers. Vultures flew overhead. Suddenly, a thunderclap that deafened mine ears and a drenching rain. "Basta!" a Thousand Voices rumbled, "Never again."

I found myself prostrate on the ground before the charred aluminum siding. "Tell the fools," the Thousand Voices whispered deafeningly to me, "Tell them We are done with them. We are leaving, the whole lot of us. And tell them please, that their God doesn't hate shrimp." I felt at once alone. I stumbled into my house then, looking for sanity in an anti-psychotic p.r.n.

Could I charge people admission to see the miraculous charred aluminum siding and the burnt up bush? Should I call the emergency Mental Health Hell number for a psychotropic medication review? Would Americans ever figure out which theocracy is the correct theocracy. I sighed then, knowing that there was truly no hope for us, none at all.

spike