Keen to Cross the Pond

As Wobbly grins overwhelmed by a sense of enormous entitlement, confidence and pride we get to hear more about Hell. Why Hell?

“Because I’m not one of those damn fuckers at Enron.” she says.

“Why do you think they’re not in Hell?” asks Lacey.

He laughs and tries to flirt with her. Murdering her hasn’t been successful thus far.

And who is Wobbly?

“He’s my best friend!” jokes Paul Turton.

“Are you sure we won’t be best friends in Hell, Wobbly?” asks Ken Lay.

“Kenny & Wobbly forever!!” yells a cheerleader.

The two little boys in the 1940’s skip holding hands as they pass down the lane.

Carmen Suite For Orchestra No. 1 by Georges Bizet plays.

Later.

“I had nothing to do with child sex slavery.” says James J. Hill to defend his honor.

“Ha! I bet. I bet you did!” says Chris to James J. Hill. “If you’re anything important you do it.”

“No! He didn’t!!!!” James J. Hill says about himself in a rage.

“I’m sick of being Wobbly’s friend.” says Ken Lay.

“Why?” asks Lacey.

“He’s annoying.” Kenny says.

“How?” asks Louis.

Kenny looks sad. “It’s just that he’s kinda…slow.”

Louis and Lacey look shocked. Lacey wonders what Kenny means by that.

“What do you mean?” she asks Kenny.

Kenny looks disturbed. He tries to be brave. He looks stoic. He takes a deep breath. “I think he’s some kind of retard.”

Lacey listens. “I see. So…he’s not following your train of thought when you try to play together?” asks Lacey.

“He keeps telling me I’m Satan.” says Kenny. “And then he laughs and says he’ll see me in Hell.” He smiles. “But that’s where it loses its meaning because he ceases to believe I could be Satan in Hell.”

“Hmm. Does he think you’re taking Satan’s place until you get to Hell?” asks Lacey.

“See that’s the problem. He doesn’t believe in Satan or Hell he says. But then when I try to kind of humor all that he starts saying, ‘You’re only Satan when I say you’re Satan!’” explains Kenny. He laughs. “I know I’m not Satan. There is Hell. And he doesn’t get to tell me who I am in reality.”

“He’d debate you on the reality of a real Satan and Hell if he’s an atheist or doesn’t believe in those things for whatever so-called rational reason. And out of respect for his free-will we might have to let that go. You can’t force someone to be a Christian. But no, it’s impossible for him to have that much real power over you. That’s…Hellish of him to believe that.” says Lacey. “He might not be mentally challenged. He might just be insane.”

Kenny looks aghast. “I think he’s just retarded!”

“He might struggle with a learning disability we don’t know about? But regardless, he likely isn’t mentally safe to play with.” says Lacey. “Some kids are mentally unwell and it’s not necessarily clearly a problem. And some kids are just not able to function around other kids without trying to kill them in some way.” She thinks. “He sounds like he might be trying to kill you.”

Later.

“Wobbly is tough!!! Not unfit! He’s tough!” says Joe Sr.. “I know he’s a little rough around the edges. Sure he might look different. Sure you might wonder if he’s got a real soul at all… But he’s just a kid who has had it tough with his parents and all. And…by golly…he’s…a wild…tough kid.”

“That’s disgusting.” says Lacey.

“I wish he’d never born possibly too. Other than for his kids. …Possibly.”

(Adult Content Below)

“Created by then off to Heaven?” asks Lacey.

“Except Wobbly’s kids are great. True.” says J. P..

Silence.

“God…why is this all my problem to sort out?! asks Lacey.

“Go to Hell! You lying ugly, poor person!!” yells the Loudest Hater at Lacey without irony.

“Hey, Lacey!!! You’re poor!!!” Joeschmoshow says, drooling.

“Yeah!!! You’re not one of us!!” say bourgeois, ugly men on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard to Lacey. “We’d whoop your Indian, Catholic, pedophilic, Mexican ass! You shit Puerto Rican!” They snort cocaine and shake.

“Are you abusing kids?” Lacey asks them calmly.

“Not really, you stupid bitch!” they belch without irony.

“I sure hope not.” says Lacey.

“Nope. She’d have married me. But not any of you, intriguingly.” says Pete who died in 9/11 to all of the men currently on Cape Cod and on Martha’s Vineyard.

“Then we’ll have to kidnap you and kill you like your Viking ancestors!” they say seriously.

Joeschmoshow laughs. “Cool kid! I’m soo cool!” he says about himself without irony.

Lacey looks at Louis and wonders. Can she count on Minnesota to be safe?

Ken Lay laughs. Lacey laughs. Harold Loeb loos embarrassed by the men on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard who have functioning brains but choose evil accidentally or by default or in some other sad way.

“Your five million estate in North Dakota isn’t my 20 million estate and my last name in high society!” says a woman on Cape Cod to Lacey.

“Hahaha!” laughs Wobbly in Lacey’s face.

“I might disagree with you. And you seem rather stupid, to be honest.” Lacey says to the woman with her supposed $20 million estate and so-called American-important last name.

“What’s your last name worth in society in Europe compared to her last name?” asks a woman. “Or more to the point in Norway?”

“I’ll shove Norway up my fucking pre-heated hot vagina you gross whorish toad! I don’t follow your rules! I make the rules!! I’m the boss! I might be an ass-ugly, vampiric, pedophilic piece of shit for brains and soul human but…I’ll shove Norway up my vagina!! All of it!! I’ll use Satan!! And I’ll show you!!!” she says without irony and humor. She licks her lips to seem sexy and sophisticated. “You’re a white yeast whore!!!” she yells at Lacey. “White trash!!” She seethes, looking like a demon. “I’m not afraid of it.” She thinks. “When I go to Hell I’ll show you!! You’ll worship me!!” She calms herself. “And I’ll molest you!!!” She fumes. “Because…I know that’s what you hate! Being molested. And I’ll do it!! Because I’m stronger than you!!”

“Amen!” yells her black friend who without irony looks forward to pulverizing Lacey in Hell (in her imagination.)

“Your love for yourselves, should it exist…rests in God’s hands. Not Satan’s. And I worship God and not evil. Repent.” says Lacey. “Hell is Hell. Don’t be so foolish. Don’t. Worship God.”

“Crap! She’s in love with me!” Wobbly insists about Lacey who then grimaces politely in repulsion instead of letting him go to Hell.

Silence.

“Repent.” says Lacey. “Worship the God of the Bible.”

If death is a joke for a Christian…why does a Christian mourn?

Because we all lose something when a human dies.

Often we lose the false hopes we had. We lose something we already had lost, but while they were alive we had deluded ourselves into thinking it was possibly still true.

When my parents who raised me die I’ll have to let go of the last vestiges of hope I had that they actually did love me. I’m fairly certain they did not…but…when they die that’ll be the end.

That’s grim.

Of course loss upon death isn’t always grim. Sometimes you lose good things. But that’s why death isn’t a tragedy for a Christian.

…The mourning is what I want to focus on today.

On Tik Tok there’s supposed footage of a ghost woman who walked through a hospital after she died and fooled the night watchman into thinking she was alive. …Even if she’s a hoax, I doubt every supposed ghost in a hospital is a hoax. And what do those ghosts mourn? If they were in a hospital presumably they’re better off dead? No more suffering.

They mourn the simple things. Well, the so-called simple things.

Sitting on the hospital floor, still dressed in a gown a ghost leans back against the wall by the elevator. She died in her 30’s of an inoperable disease…and that was certainly traumatic but now what she’s really thinking about is her senior year high school prom. She weeps. Why? Because it’s over. Her life is over.

It was a horrible dance. The boy she went with broke her heart.

He was close to perfect. And…the dance had started off so well. They arrived together in style and yet as the evening wore on he became more and more distant. And it was unclear what was going on.

The moment of death occurred when she saw him dancing with Stacey Turner. He’d left to go, “Check on something for a minute.” and never returned. And yet, she had intuitively clung to that moment her whole life.

Why? Because he was her first love and he was so perfect. And…it was just…so weird.

“Like…why did he do that?!” she whispers to herself, crying on the hospital floor.

What she can’t process is that he seemed to like her. He actually liked her. And it was supposed to be a great night. Possibly one of the best memories of her whole life. Her dress was made by Dior. Growing-up in California in the 1980’s and 90’s she had a mother who bought her nice things… And that dress was amazing. The whole thing had been planned so well.

But in that moment seeing him dancing with Stacey it was as if this very moment on the hospital floor had disappeared and emerged in life. How had her death occurred before her death?

She bites her bottom lip. She cries.

A nurse walks down the hallway to the break room dressed in scrubs. The ghost woman looks at the nurse in an attempt to get the nurse’s attention. She can sense that the nurse feels uneasy but the nurse doesn’t look behind her. The ghost woman reasons that that’s wise. She could easily be an evil entity, even if hates just a ghost in Purgatory in this specific case.

The ghost woman prays to God.

Things feel calmer.

But then it’s that darn memory of the Dior dress again.

Turandot: Nessun dorma by Luciano Pavarotti plays.

Does she sit here and wait for him to die? Or does she go find him and haunt him? It’s just that she’s dead…and…if she’s real and in Purgatory she’s stuck. Not stuck in evil. Her life and after death is actually fairly pleasant… A dead nurse brings espressos for her and a few other dead patients who can’t decide what to do. A dead non-creepy clown chats with her as he goes to keep an eye on things around the hospital. It’s…nice.

“But…what about that moment?” she asks. “We’re all human?”

If you should be in Christ when you die…and Purgatory is your resting place until you deal with your sin to be fully actualized in Christ in Heaven what will you be figuring out?