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Last Supper

PART II

By Julie Eileen O'BrienPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 12 min read
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V. Terry

CHARACTERS

PROPHET

CUPCAKE

KSI

B6

NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL

SUMMIT MEMBER

KILL JOY & JOLLY ROGER , Husband and wife

DR. PU

WE

REASON

FATMAN

JACK

STRANGE ATTRACTOR

PRIEST

FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS

THE SILENT WITNESS

MR. NICE-GUY

BIG SISTER

SMOTHER

LARRY

SELF

CHOIR

PROF. GEBER

SCENE

Lights dim. One-hundred and fifty meter long curtains in voluptuous crimson velvet hang lazily around the limits of the stage. Attendants advance out of the fourfold darkness- twelve to the left, twelve to the right, and in the rear, they reach as far as the confines of this World.

____________________________________________________

CUPCAKE: Number of guests?

PROPHET: Ten thousand.

But three in particular follow one behind the other, chain feeding. [Enter KSI, B6 and REASON.]

KSI et al., calm and resilient, take appropriate action with minimum fuss and make their first of three trips to the buffalo buffalo buffalo buffet. However, a crisis is currently brewing on the roof of the restaurant where fine dishes ranging from small reddish patches to twin towers festooned with large rotating arrays pick up [noise].

A threatened NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL opens the summit conference by saying,

NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL: [His face grave.] You have come at my request to consider the question of the conservation and use of our extraordinary forest. It is the chief question that confronts us all.

SUMMIT MEMBER: May I interject a comment?

NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL: By all means.

SUMMIT MEMBER: Our 5,000-year-old organization is about to fall off a financial cliff!

NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL: Indeed; this situation captures, in miniature, the trajectory of the overall crisis.

They foretell a frightening endgame- whether it happens in 10, 30, or 50 moves, the collateral damage will be devastating- a plan to sell off the land and build another Bad Box.

The Bad Box is a hip underground café with live entrainment every Tuesday and Friday night. The proprietor, Bud, Not Buddy, is well known and respected for his grave manners and complimentary nuts (because politeness counts).

Darkness falls outside the window.

*

CHOIR:

The plough man

homeward plods his weary way And leaves the world

To darkness and to me.

A cycle of disease is in motion. Hair, nails, eyebrows, spittle and so forth. The subject is revived in a germinal article written by a luxury loving DR.PU who saunters into the dimly lit dinning hall wearing a garment of finest linen and a bowtie- with two thin pink stripes- and a pen tucked into his left breast pocket. The whole room bursts into an uproar of approval, and dinner is punctuated with frequent toasts of vodka. DR. PU then wanders from room to room with blazing synaptic horsepower.

KSI: [Irritated]. He moves, but stays the same.

REASON: In reality he’s a maniac.

DR. PU: [Delivers the customary address.] You’re probably wondering why WE called you all here tonight.

THE MAN WHO LOVES BEER: [Drinks copiously.]

DR.PU: WE are told ...with the accuracy of the calculations, within the inherent uncertainties of the approximations involved... The equations work!

The predictions that come out of DR. PU’S calculations are astonishingly precise. But the details of the calculations do not matter as much as the visible demonstration of [noise].

Therefore, following DR.PU’S long dissertation, Newly Emerging Diseases Are A Major Threat Of Liquidation Proceedings, he announces in domestic triumph,

DR. PU: You may now return to your ceremonial native dance.

This is a catastrophe. The stately dance erupts into a free-for-all with hundreds of guests crashing into each other.

*

[The ritual beginnings.]

Cupcake leans forward over a plastic tray of imported cheeses-

B6: It’s ravishing.

REASON: It’s just Swiss cheese.

- and spreads a mixture of sucrose and cream over the Party’s cake in a petal-like design, starting at the center.

And who may say to her, “What are you doing?”

CUPCAKE: One can eat a cake with icing either straight or sideways.

REASON: It all becomes an absurdity.

FATMAN: Now, my CUPCAKE, just smear that knife with a little chicken fat and place it in a cool, dry place for OUR dinner.

JACK: This will hinder the animal from escape?!

CUPCAKE: The beast is already sickly and wasting away.

JACK: Sorry, I must have lost my place in the script.

The vision that is needed to replace the script has not yet emerged. In fact, for the next few chapters We’ll be seeing a lot of death while waiting for a new One to be reborn.

[An untold number is banished from the city while three agents in camouflage climb into a wooden fishing boat.]

It does not matter whether WE are talking about blocks, socks or sorority girls. What matters is,

TOMMY: Do you know the fishing season is over?

JIMMY: We’re smart men.

TOMMY: How do we get into the park?

FRANKIE: It’s an open gate.

TOMMY: And who get’s paid off ? The guards?

FRANKIE: Not the guards. It’s higher up.

JIMMY: The park manager?

FRANKIE: [Shrug.]

Of course this is not the only possible State of Affairs. Ideally, when We have enough sentences, We will know exactly how things stand.

STRANGE ATTRACTOR: Meanwhile, WE wait.

KSI: What are the alternatives?

JACK: Crippled, deaf, blind- birth after birth.

CUPCAKE: [To JACK] I request that you go away, Sir. To make a little excursion. Immediately.

Heavy with dread, JACK leaves to go render fat through a sieve- maggots drop to the ground like a carpet of flowers. But the most extraordinary and profoundly moving of JACK'S traits is the detail of his soprano solo.

JACK: O sole mio!

Among the remains of Jack’s Earth shattering performance, disseminated to the far flung corners of the room, is a small porcelain water jar...

JOLLY ROGER: [At table with his KILL JOY; legs widely extended, arms outstretched.] We were very fond of that little water jar.

PRIEST: [Combs his hair forward to hide a growing bald patch on his head.]Unless some measure is quickly taken all will be lost.

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS: Let Us gather on the veranda for coffee.

*

The doctrine is now preached-

THE SILENT WITNESS: Both sickening and insane.

And his sermon is ferocious-

PRIEST: Bread and sssWine!!

Refers on one hand to a fit candidate, and on the other hand to the body and blood of the PROPHET.

B6: He seems different with his inside full of feces.

[Temple interior.]

The mutilated stump of a headless Knight, tainted with the odor of rotting flesh, lies with ostensible repose on a bed of lettuce.

MR. NICE-GUY: Father Higgins, Good News!

PRIEST: ...yours in the bowels of Christ.

Aggressive missioners usher in the candidates- a smoking heap of hot asses that emerge magnificently and demonstrate a practical display of unconditional love (indecent to many critics). One candidate in particular,

THE SILENT WITNESS: Let fly their hair and cried aloud, buffalo! And stretched out their arms and cried aloud, buffalo! And fell head long to the ground and cried aloud, buffalo! Then swooned.

PRIEST: Do you want to kill me that you say such things?

The fit candidate is carried into the great hall, head facing the altar. The selection elicits innumerable slayings of plump, butterball bodies roasting in olive oil.

BIG SISTER: But it’s your duty to acquire a heart revivified and declared.

Our vigorous little narrative may seem wild and unrepentant in light of Our four heavily guarded portals and impeccable shrine; but,

Folklore declares that during the day of election diverse rumbles sound from above. The heavens bend and the earth trembles. Myriads of angels appear simultaneously and despite the innumerable hosts, there is remarkably enough room for all.

In FATMAN’S right hand he holds The Tragic Art of Cooking, while in his left hand he holds the most imperishable of recipes.

PRIEST: If the sauce is too thin, it may require you to find a way to inspissate it. [Inspissated secretions.]

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS follow attentively the gesticulations of the priest’s furtive hands.

KSI: [To REASON.] Much roasting and baking goes on in this kitchen.

REASON: Yes, Fatman’s state-of-the-art enterprise has the largest cooking network in the world.

Jolly Roger notices some peculiar impressions. They seem to him “suggestive of jam or jelly.”

They weren’t.

In a State scrupulously purged of hope and fear, guests seek refuge in an awe-inspiring mountain of carp while the maid, still standing, finishes plucking the chicken. An orator shows up to share in the spoils. With keen eyes and a sharp hat, he bustles up to Our hostess and complains, “Soups turned thin, honey.” His words harrow her very soul.

CUPCAKE: Go fuck yourself.

Cupcake didn’t appreciate guests calling her ‘Honey’; yet, the same horrifying voice is to be heard again when Cupcake is called to refill his bowl.

ORATOR: You never listen to me! We all complained bitterly about the soup.

JOLLY ROGER: Yes, I too thought all the hare in the stew was the fault of some unpleasant someone else.

Most simply refused to accept it.

The celebration is then marred by a small accident; and the effect is not reassuring.

[A couple converse delightfully over tea infused with an anger born of pain and oppression.]

MINNESOTA MIDGET: Hey, baby, your hair is on fire.

How could he know?

JUCY LUCY: Just cover it with gravy, man.

PRIEST: Please, miss! Give me some seminal water.

CUPCAKE: I haven’t got any seminal water, sir.

PRIEST: Then please give me some milk.

CUPCAKE: Yes, We have milk.

A young shapely maiden with breasts bursting to be touched approaches the priest with fresh warm milk in a golden bowl.

PRIEST: [To Self] What is this sensual shape doing in such a roughneck neighborhood?

B6: She has a lovely high forehead.

SELF: And what does it mean that you’re so irresistibly attracted to it?

The laddle is placed close at hand, and with a deft motion of his nimble fingers, the Priest picks up the laddle, scoops out some milk and fills his cup.

He came unexpectedly.

B6: Oh ruthless cosmos-

PRIEST: I am a man by Nature.

CHOIR:

The golden bowl-

abundant with the substance of the sacrifice

whose fluid is sustaining indeed!

Our priest is not disposed to take the hint, but is aroused by a burning desire to drink more.

CUPCAKE: [To Self] Lusty fellow. [Takes the cup, teases the Priest with it for a moment then hands it back into his calloused hands.]

PRIEST: [Manages to steal a sip.] Bliss and fright!

The cup passes easily around the room. [Fluid spilling.] As many as 300 drink for two to four hours. The point is, before the purging can be done- unlocking the flow into the body of a single mystery which may be represented in physical terms as the circulation of a food-like substance- the dreamer must reveal what is involved.

KSI: [To DR. PU] I do recall once in a dream a wild kind of fire with a kettle over it full of boiling water. They threw Me into it, and once in awhile the cook would come over and stick a fork in Me to see if I was done. Eventually he took Me out and gave Me to the head chef who was just about to bite into Me when I woke up.

(It is interesting to note that Ksi came out cooked perfectly- like chicken fricasee.)

DR.PU: [With his long crusty beard.] You must avoid calamitous threats, Kah’see, such as careless coughing, spitting and sneezing.

No vaccine exists, but new advances in prevention have led to a growing conviction that the virus can be halted with existing drugs. THEY probably have some of these items in FATMAN’S kitchen; others may be easily available from industrial suppliers.

DR.PU: [To KSI] Don’t be the next case. [Takes a tincture of bitterness in a small cup, and hands it to KSI.]

Ksi drinks it.

KSI: What makes this beverage beneficial?

REASON: WE are dumbfounded.

DR.PU: The formula is critical to understanding the secret solution.

REASON: Well, the discrepancy certainly looks uncomfortable.

STRANGE ATTRACTOR: The resulting plot deviates from a normal curve.

DR.PU: Yes, unfortunately, the observations, as yet, are not up to task. In fact, the situation is a little more complicated than it seems at first.

So what is the Secret Solution? One way of framing this question is to consider that KSI is governed by suitably more tricky rules of probability.

DR.PU and his colleagues, nevertheless, carry out a long and patient simulation with surgical precision, and as far as their observations show, no evidence is present in the trials. But they did bring forth ten puppies. Fueled by fear, Others prefer to leave the puppies alone, since any move they would try to make might very well be their last. But the extreme violence does not end there. Telescopes are unveiling a similar enigma on neighboring planets. The scarred surface of OUR home planet- littered with ruptured relationships and bitter bile- is lingering testimony to a period of epic mayhem.

*

The feast winds die down and KSI et al. safely remove themselves from the buffet table. DR.PU, wearing black rubber boots and a floppy sun hat, walks out like a respectable man- slipping out by the back door.

He is met with overhanging thunderclouds, with tiny needlelike styli attached underneath (in subtle ways yet to be explained) that pile up high in the sky and move about accompanied by lightning, clapping and cheering. This seems, at first, to spoil DR. PU’S departure; but suddenly he observes something that radically changes his view. A clump of dead bacterium.

[Enter INSPECTOR GUARDIAN ROY G. BIV]

INSPECTOR ROY G. BIV: Some bodies are grouped in a flat disk; while others lie in a puffy doughnut-shaped cloud.

Daunted by the difficulties the PROPHET spits out numerous neutrinos which pour out across space, past and through the Earth.

PROBLEMO PABLANO: Quite substantial peculiar velocity.

The PROPHET’S seemingly secretive ways made US suspicious of him. Therefore, he is stripped down to the bone, yet filled with faith. A public inquiry into his alleged leaks commences on the 16th of March comfortably nestled between the 15th and 17th of March. A new Party is thus established, and the committee initiates the immense task of rebuilding a sign of normalcy to return to the City of Noiz- a faded and torn banner on a destitute building which reads: “Only Unity Will Save US.” (Although only six cm in length, it was ingeniously designed and carefully built.)

BIG SISTER: [To PROBLEMO PABLANO] Tie the PROPHET to the wall with a cotton cord, then leave him in isolation to decay- abandoned to the law of gravity.

The PROPHET makes no sparks, hums or noises, but sways with a solemn elegance. To cushion his fall, a bagful of powdered doughnuts.

THE END.

guilty
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