Myth Man

Myths, he raged. Warm, stuffy air greeted his nostrils and he gagged in disgust before suppressing his revulsion. There they were. The faithful arriving to bear their cross. Next to Easter and Christmas, what other Christian holiday drew such attendance? He especially despised Ash Wednesday. He gazed at the arriving flock, and assigned sins they were here to ask God’s forgiveness for: Cheating on taxes, an adulterer, an alcoholic wife beater, the race-hating bigot and clearly gluttony by the size of her girth. Hypocrites. Your worthless devotion. Faith, he seethed. He was a lion. The Christian cattle were his prey. Since the sheep were forming to the right, he headed straight. Just as he stepped forward, a preppie, pencil-pushing plebe brushed into him, and moved on without an apology. Asshole. He was blabbing with his female companion about getting a picture of the Altar of Saint John the Evangelist. Speaking of assholes. If only this apocalyptic shit-spreader had been killed like his brother James. Today, if someone uttered St. John’s lunatic rants of the Apocalypse, we’d squirrel that seed in the nuthouse. Instead however, his revelations have sprouted, and strangled mankind with an atmosphere of gloom. How many times had he scoffed as some windbag preacher forecasted a date for the arrival of this so-called Antichrist? The date always passed. The excuse is, always of course, the human element of miscalculation. The only plus to the Evangelist’s ramblings was the wealth of fiction it created, both in cinema and literature. Sure, God usually prevailed, but evil always grabbed a few souls before being vanquished. Today, he’d move the abacus in the devil’s direction, although he considered his musings as, funny talk. Satan was no more real than Hades, Asmodeus, Baal, Iblis, or Loki. Superstitions used to intimidate mankind. Fables, he stormed.