[LNHY/ACRA] The Daily Super Short-Short Story #51 [long]
Saxon Brenton
A Devil Came Down to Georgia 33
Last time: Martin and TJ rescued Delroy from Tsurlich.
"Now what?" asked Delroy as the three of them left the area after
disposing of Tsurlich's bits as best they could. It was early evening,
and without quite realising it they were gravitating back towards the
university where he and Martin were seminary students.
"We need to retreat to a safe place while we work out which
superhero group to contact," TJ said thoughtfully.
"Superheroes?" asked Martin. He had managed to get his morphology
under control, and his techno-organic encrustations that were still
showing were again smooth metallic imitations of human flesh.
"The rescue we pulled off had to be quick, so there was no time
for calling in help and explaining what was going on," TJ explained
simply. "Now that we have time, we can call in some heroes, who will
no doubt be more than willing to eradicate demons. Also, the word of
superheros will make the police and coroner more likely to listen to
our story of how Delroy had his face stolen, and that will be important
for re-establishing his identity."
Delroy sucked in a breath. He'd been tying not to think about that.
TJ continued, and to Martin's eye he almost seemed to trying to
offer Delroy support despite his pragmatic manner. "It should be easy
enough to prove what's happened by checking dental records, maybe even
fingerprints." TJ didn't add that it would be easier to prove their
story to superheros with the clear evidence of a man who had a face a
noticeably different skin tone to the rest of his body. You could even
see the line of demarcation running around his neck. Then he realised
that they had arrived on campus, and sighed. "I don't think this is the
safest place to stop over."
"Why?"
"Lisa and her friends have been following you for a while, so they
know where you live." He paused and added, "Only Damian knew where I
live, and it's gone now, so I suppose my place would be safer. Mind
you, Kien seemed to think that if he had enough time he could track
anyone with his psychic powers, so there might be nowhere that's fully
safe except for really short stops."
"Something like that occurred to me, and I've been trying to block
it," said Martin.
TJ looked at him. "You can do that? Lisa knew you were powerful,
but it looks like you're more versatile than she thought."
They had paused near the dormitories. Martin said, "I... think so.
It feels like something I can do, and I'm following the feeling, but I
have no idea whether it's working or not."
"Mr Wryce!" interrupted a sour sounding voice. "What do you think
you're doing? "
Delroy and Martin groaned. It was Sister Garvina, a suspicious-
minded and authoritarian old battleaxe who had developed the style of
terrorising students when she had been teaching primary school and had
been unable to change her ways even now that she was dealing with young
adults of voting age.
"Sister, I can explain everything... "
"Oh, I'm sure," she replied sarcastically. "Smugging hoards of
unsavoury visitors into the dorms for drunken frat parties."
"It's not like that..."
"You can just save your explanations for Father Sourdust. Now move!"
"Sister, we don't have time for that. It's an emergency."
"Move, I said!"
And then TJ, who for reasons which will soon become clear really
didn't like members of institutional religions in general, grabbed her
by the shoulder, spun her around, and hit her full force with his
leather-gloved mutant fist. There was a (to him) satisfying crack as
his knuckles connected to her jaw, and then the nun collapsed
unconscious on the grass.
"What did you do that for!?" cried Delroy, sudden visions of what
sort of discipline would be in the offering when the university's
authorities found out.
"We don't have time for this," snapped TJ. "I am going home. If
you want a safe place to stay while we sort out our next move, you'd
better come with me." Then he strode off and refused to answer any
questions until he arrived at his tenement.
"Okay, look, what was that all about?" demanded Martin as soon as
they were in the door. He had been stewing over it all the way here,
and any sense of gratitude for TJ's help or sympathy over his part in
TJ's castration was fast evaporating.
TJ rounded on him. "I have seen more than enough bullying from you
religious types in the concentration camps to last me a lifetime, and
I'm not going to put up with that shit again! If I catch *any* of you
trying to push me around again, I'll assume your a fscking Christian
Terrorist and kill you like I would a Muslim planejacker!"
"What!?" exclaimed Martin. He glanced at Delroy, who looked
equally shocked. "You were in the camps? You mean you're an *atheist*!"
"Yes," snapped TJ, with a mixture of anger, pain and stubborn defiance.
Hmm? What's that, you were expecting TJ to have been in a
concentration camp for MUTANTS? Tsk. Yes, well, I'm a naughty Writer for
pulling a bait-and-switch like that, but admit it, you wouldn't have
fallen for that trick if you hadn't been soaking up the cliches from all
those X-Men comics and movies, now would you?
Sigh. Now I suppose I'd better offer up an explanation. I'll try to
keep the infodump from getting too dry.
As you recall from the first arc set in the Garden of Party Time,
in Looniverse Y God the Obnoxious Father - the God of Abraham of the
Hebrews, Christian and Muslims - is an overbearing pain-in-the-arse. This
has certain inevitable effects on the nature of the faiths that worship
him. Now, it's nevertheless True that Jesus the, Like, Totally Mellow Son,
and various angels, archangels and saint have tried to ameliorate this
but that simply means there's a slightly schizophrenic dichotomy between
those people who believe that they're obliged to be good and help make
the world a better place, and those who consider their faith as a tool
for consolidating their own authority. After all, there is a *reason*
why, in Looniverse Y, Lucifer succumbed to pride and rebelled; and that
reason is the Hermetic principle As above, so Below'.
In August of 1988 the then president George Bush Sr said that as
far as he was concerned atheists didn't deserve citizenship of the United
States. We will be generous and assume that, as far as Real Life is
concerned, he was posturing for the benefit of the group that, in any
universe, TJ would characterise as the Religious Reich. Bush Sr's
motivations in the mainstream Looniverse have yet to be hashed out
in-canon; and while it's the type of dark theme that would sing to the
hearts of the Omega Writers, that story universe is more or less in
indefinite hiatus. As for the ASH universe, well, there's no mention of
it in the Causality Wars FAQ, where you think it might be mentioned as
part of a conservative backlash against the return of pagan gods - but
_Academy of Super-Heroes_ #11 had some details about President Quayle's
shadow government, which, when viewed with a jaundiced eye...
In Looniverse Y Bush's Net.publican administration quietly handed
out authority to various conservative groups for the creation of concen-
tration camps for the internment and political re-education' of those
known to profess to not have any faith. There wasn't any fanfare, but it
wasn't exactly secret either and the denials and lies wouldn't come
until much later when the whole things was falling apart.
Even under Clinton's Dir.mocrat government, the camps persisted. A
conservatively stacked Supreme Court, combined with cowardice among
congressmen and senators, made it seem that they could not be closed down.
It would take the greed of those involved to destroy their own creation.
Different camps were administered by different denominations. It
eventually came to light that they had separately but collectively began
to plan to use their institutions to advance their own dogma at the
expense of all others.
The political stink that arose when it was shown that the ultra-
conservative Christian groups weren't just trying to suppress atheists
and non-Christian religions, but other Christian sects, was enormous. How
dare they try and do unto us before we get the chance to do unto them!?
The camps were outlawed and closed (although rumours persist...), the
participants blustered or denied everything (the Catholics fell back
into invoking Papal Infallibility; the Mormons recycled Bingham Young's
methods of trying to keep bigamy a secret and simply lied about their
involvement; everyone else fell somewhere between those two), and
perhaps most concretely, the conservative religious vote was split
along sectarian lines, thwarting George Bush Jr's 2000 bid for the
White House.
And that was how Hexadecimal Luthor became the Usenetted States
president in *this* Looniverse.
Tomorrow: Not sure. There's a fire bombing due in the next issue or so,
but I think tomorrow TJ will go and get some takeaway dinner.
The Daily Super Short-Short Story series created by Arthur Spitzer, and
used with belated permission.
All main characters created by Saxon Brenton are Ask First Before Use
for the duration of this storyline, then they'll probably go to Usable
Without Permission.
-----
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon....@uts.edu.au
The Eyrie Archives of Russ Allbery which collect the online superhero
fiction of the rec.arts.comics.creative newsgroup can be found at:
http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/
Martin Phipps
> concentration camp for MUTANTS?
Actually, no. You gave it away in #49 when you had TJ think "And how
would you react to knowing that I've been interned in one of the
concentration camps?"
Martin already knew that TJ was a mutant so I assumed the
concentration camps were for something else. :)
Martin
OTL
news:15f3bff1.0410...@posting.google.com
> In August of 1988 the then president George Bush Sr said that as
Just to be nitpicky, Bush wasn't president in August of 1988; Reagan was.
Bush was elected in November of 1988, and thus became president in January
1989.
Just to be really, really nitpicky, he's not really "George Bush Sr.", as
there's no "George Bush Jr." (George W. Bush has a different name than George
Herbert Walker Bush, thus he isn't a "Junior".)
But that's probably just Obscure Trivia Lad being too nitpicky about
inconsequential matters. (But then, if he can't do that, who can?) :)
--
Brian Perler bpe...@sprynet.com
"Bastard Operators don't just win. Anyone can win. Bastard Operators win and
totally DEMORALISE. That's *real* winning." -Bastard Operator From Hell
Saxon Brenton
Curses! And here I was trying to be subtle, give all of the
relevant information, but lead everybody off on the wrong track.
Ppphhhbbb! :-)
Okay Mr Phipps, you've out-thought me. I guess it's time to
go back to the old steam-powered calculating engine...
---
Saxon Brenton Uni of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon....@uts.edu.au
Saxon Brenton
>
> Just to be nitpicky, Bush wasn't president in August of 1988; Reagan was.
> Bush was elected in November of 1988, and thus became president in January
> 1989.
I concede the error and should of named him vice-pres. That was careless
of me, since I know there's a difference between the US election and
inaugration dates, even if I can rarely remember what the latter is
> Just to be really, really nitpicky, he's not really "George Bush Sr.", as
> there's no "George Bush Jr." (George W. Bush has a different name than George
> Herbert Walker Bush, thus he isn't a "Junior".)
Yah. This I knew about, but I deliberately went for a mis-naming (as well
as an anarchronism in needing to distinguish him from his son since the son
never got to be president in Looniverse Y) to distinguish between the two
for readers.
> But that's probably just Obscure Trivia Lad being too nitpicky about
> inconsequential matters. (But then, if he can't do that, who can?) :)
Who indeed? But you left out my mispelling of 'Brigham Young' in my mad
rush to get this typed and posted at work after my home computer died.
---
Saxon Brenton Uni of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon....@uts.edu.au
Martin Phipps
> As you recall from the first arc set in the Garden of Party Time,
> in Looniverse Y God the Obnoxious Father - the God of Abraham of the
> Hebrews, Christian and Muslims - is an overbearing pain-in-the-arse. This
> has certain inevitable effects on the nature of the faiths that worship
> him. Now, it's nevertheless True that Jesus the, Like, Totally Mellow Son,
> and various angels, archangels and saint have tried to ameliorate this
> but that simply means there's a slightly schizophrenic dichotomy between
> those people who believe that they're obliged to be good and help make
> the world a better place, and those who consider their faith as a tool
> for consolidating their own authority. After all, there is a *reason*
> why, in Looniverse Y, Lucifer succumbed to pride and rebelled; and that
> reason is the Hermetic principle As above, so Below'.
You know, something occurred to me as I re-read this paragraph just
now: how is the God of Abraham NOT a pain-in-the-arse, as described in
the old testament? I mean, for starters, he puts a tree in the Garden
of Eden, calls it the "Tree of Knowledge" and puts these apples on the
tree which Adam and Eve are told NOT to touch and then banishes them
from the Garden for eating a single apple, this being after Satan in
the guise of a snake had presumably told her it was okay. Why put the
tree there in the first place? How different is that from Arthur's
version with the Vending Machine of No Free Lunches? Then we have the
Great Flood which not only killed 99.9% of humanity and animal life
but creates a great burden on Noah, who he presumably likes, who then
has to build a massive boat, gather up all the animals he can find and
then go without food for a while until the waters receded (or did Noah
get hungry and eat one of the dinosaurs and that's how they went
extinct?) Then there's the matter of Sodom and Gamorra being
destroyed, of idol worshipers being killed simply for worshiping
idols, of human sacrafices, of people getting stoned to death for
adultery or for entering a temple without permission, of wars, of
plagues, etc., etc., etc., not to mention the suffering that his
chosen people had to endure way back when they were slaves in Egypt.
Granted, He comes off a lot better in the New Testament because Jesus
said that stoning people to death was wrong but this is after all
those years during which people believed that they had been doing
God's work and then suddenly "Um, sorry, but you have to be without
sin to cast stones. Okay, who wants to go first? Hmm? Thought so."
What's with that? And if you're a Moslem it gets even worse because
presumably God went back to saying killing was okay if the people
being killed were non-believers. So much for the Golden Rule, huh?
Of course, I suppose I am the sort of person George (no W) Bush would
have denied American citizenship. (Oh, I am _so_ disappointed that I
wouldn't get to become an American. Boo hoo hoo.) Thing is, an
atheist, by definition, is someone who says God doesn't exist and I
haven't actually said that. There are plenty of people who want us to
believe that the Bible is 100% correct and not open to interpretation.
If you believe in the God of Abraham and believe that the Old
Testament is an accurate description of the way He thought and behaved
then wouldn't you have to conclude that He was, as you say, "an
overbearing pain-in-the-arse"?
Oh, and by the way, I think Pontius Pilate got off pretty easily too
in the New Testament. It's almost as if the Romans in writing (or at
least editing) the New Testament after the fact wanted to make it
clear that the Romans hadn't been responsible for Jesus'
cruxification: it was those Jews who demanded it! Again, if you take
the Biblical account seriously then, yes, Pontius Pilate seemed to
have some grim fore-knowledge when he washed his hands in the matter
and hoped that he wouldn't be held responsible, almost a kind of
fourth wall breaking in itself! Or did he wash his hands every time
he sent a prisoner off to be cruxified (which would have taken away
all the meaning of doing so after a while)?
Anyway, sorry about the rant. I hope nobody out there wants to kill
me now. Ha ha. I wish I were kidding. :(
Martin
Martin Phipps
> In August of 1988 the then president George Bush Sr said that as
> far as he was concerned atheists didn't deserve citizenship of the United
> States.
I found this quote from Dan Quayle:
"I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to the Savior, for
whose Kingdom it stands, one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming
again, with life and liberty for all who believe."
Compare this to the original pledge of allegiance from 1892:
"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it
stands: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
The words "under God" were not added to the Pledge of Allegiance until
1954.
Apparently people like Bush and Quayle believed that "life and
liberty" were the rights of "all those who believe" and that the rest
of us didn't matter. This was clearly never the intention of the
founding fathers of the United States.
Martin
Jesse Willey
> Apparently people like Bush and Quayle believed that
> "life and
> liberty" were the rights of "all those who believe"
> and that the rest
> of us didn't matter. This was clearly never the
> intention of the
> founding fathers of the United States.
It was however, clearly the intent of their
Illuminati buddies. They had problems of their own
at the time and are only now getting around to fixing
it, with the help of puppet groups like Skull and
Bones, The Boy Scouts of America, and The McDonald's
Birthday club.
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Arspitzer
> And that was how Hexadecimal Luthor became the Usenetted States
>president in *this* Looniverse.
You won't be satisfied until every Looniverse has Hex Luthor as
president, will you Saxon?
There is one problem with this though. The only way Hex could
be president is if you got permission from the guy who created
Hex Luthor. Otherwise Hex can't be used in Looniverse Y.
Sexadecimal Luthor you could use.
Or Flexadecimal Luthor or something else.
But not Hexadecimal Luthor.
Arthur "Maybe Soxadecimal Luthor" Spitzer
OTL
news:df8f4cb4.04110...@posting.google.com
> saxon....@uts.edu.au (Saxon Brenton) wrote in message
> news:<15f3bff1.0410...@posting.google.com>...
>
>> In August of 1988 the then president George Bush Sr said that as
>> far as he was concerned atheists didn't deserve citizenship of the United
>> States.
>
> I found this quote from Dan Quayle:
>
> "I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to the Savior, for
> whose Kingdom it stands, one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming
> again, with life and liberty for all who believe."
It's debateable if that's really a Quayle quote. Some sources attribute it to
him, although most seem to call it a standard pledge for the Christian
Coalition. Allegedly, Quayle either participated in a recitation or led a
recitation, although given that sources can't seem to agree on what Quayle's
role there was, and don't seem to cite an actual date more specific than 1994,
I'm not sure how reliable it is.
For that matter, the Bush atheist quote is almost certainly false. Although
he supposedly uttered it during a press conference in 1987 (not 1988, although
some sources do incorrectly cite the latter date), I've yet to see any
reliable cites from that time that support it. (And only one non-reliable
cite, which is what tends to be referenced when referring to the story.) If
no one thought to report that story at the time it supposedly happened, it's
probably a good sign that it didn't really happen.
But that's probably going far enough off-topic for the group for now...
--
Brian Perler bpe...@sprynet.com
"[T]he devil you know is better than a kick in the groin on a cold morning"
-Bastard Operator From Hell
Saxon Brenton
> From: saxon....@uts.edu.au (Saxon Brenton)
> > And that was how Hexadecimal Luthor became the Usenetted States
> >president in *this* Looniverse.
>
> You won't be satisfied until every Looniverse has Hex Luthor as
> president, will you Saxon?
<contrives to look innocent> I just saw an opportunity to milk the joke.
---
Saxon Brenton Uni of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia