Chapter Seventy One

C. Martin: I have so many questions

God#1: Here we go. Who am I ..the "Shell Answer Man"?

The Shell Answer Man was a running character in the commercials for the Shell gas station during the 1960's. It was a typical retort for people in my age bracket to use when someone asked you a bunch of ridiculous questions. God was making a joke for my demographic.

C. Martin: Why else would you be talking to me ?

God#1: Take it easy Judy. What do you want to know?

C. Martin: You're Judy

God#1: Yea Yea, go ahead and shoot.

C. Martin: What's the meaning of life?

God#1: What's you're favorite song?

I thought for a moment.

C. Martin: I have a bunch of favorite songs. What category, what artist?

God#1: Exactly. You can't name just one song. A guy like you probably has thousands of favorite songs. Same goes for the meaning of life. There are thousands of meanings.

C. Martin: OK, I get the point. Try this..why are we here?

God#1: Why is WHO here and WHERE are they at any particular moment ?

C. Martin: I've seen this movie! You're not God. If you were God you would give me specific answers instead of vague generalities like a newspaper horoscope. God would know the true singular meaning of life.

God#1: I'm really not trying to be vague. Sometimes I have trouble expressing myself. Let me just tell you that the meaning of life is always the question that people on Earth keep asking, when it's not really something that can be answered. It's not even the right question to ask me.

C. Martin: Then what should I ask?

God#1: Ask me what heaven is like.

C. Martin: I've seen heaven. It's like a beach on the Caribbean.

God#1: That wasn't heaven. That's just another place for people to gather until it's time for them to move on to heaven. It's no different that the place you thought was Hell. It's no different than the restaurant where you saw your guitar heroes. It's just like the place where your redneck girlfriend was. Everybody dies with expectations and we try to accommodate that until all the body parts catch up with the brains and people have a chance to discover their own way.

C.Martin: Why do dead people need bodies at all?

God#1: OK, here is one big misconception you people always have. The body is really important, the body is the one thing that separates you from all other beings. Everybody down there keeps talking about the "Soul" and how important it is and how it's the one thing that can't be defined.

C.Martin: The soul's not important????

God#1: Oh Hell no! Think of your computer as a human being. The box it's in is the body. The processor is the brain. The little miniature battery that keeps the time and date correct is the soul. Every fingerprint is different. Everyone has DNA that is distinctive. The veins in your eyeballs are as individually singular as a snowflake. The soul, on the other hand, is exactly the same in every person who has ever lived. I keep a giant bin full of them. If some body's soul falls out, and trust me, it happens all the time, we can drop another one in.

C.Martin: Has mine ever fallen out?

God#1: About 12 times.

C.Martin: Is that a lot?

God#1: You hold the record. It's the body parts we have trouble replacing. You lose a finger and your screwed! Suddenly you have to dial a phone with your foot. That's why we keep all the lost parts up here for people when they die, you REALLY need them all here!

C.Martin: Is that why Angels follow me around and protect me from harm?

God#1: Uhhhh. Angels?

C.Martin: Yes. I have thousands of Angels protecting me. They caught me when I fell off the bridge and took me down safely. I saw them flying above me in the woods. Black-eyed Angels.

God#1: Marty, there are no such things as Angels.

C.Martin: God! I SAW them!

God#1: ooh boy.

C.Martin: What????

God#1: Those are chickens Marty. The ghosts of the chickens you've eaten over your lifetime. They have an emotional investment in you.

C.Martin: Ghosts? There are ghosts? There are chicken ghosts?

God#1: Sometimes creatures, after getting their body parts back like to come back to Earth and roam around. I don't really understand it but it happens.

C.Martin: Where do they go after that?

God#1: You've seen it, you just didn't know that you saw it.

C. Martin: Here we go again.

God#1: Perplexing...isn't it?

C. Martin: Is Jesus your son?

God#1: Yes

C.Martin: Really?

God#1: Yes. Actually I've had two sons. Jesus is the famous one. I had another son in the early fifties who became a stand up comedian.

C. Martin: Red Skelton?

God#1: Oh God no! His name was Sonny Nippy. He worked the Borscht Belt circuit for a few years but never got on the Ed Sullivan show. He just didn't get the breaks, but he sure made me laugh.

C.Martin: I don't believe this.

God#1 Have faith my son.

C.Martin: Do you answer prayers?

God#1: I try to but people rarely pray. It's like Spam. Sometimes I get only a handful of prayers in a day and then sometimes I just get millions.

C.Martin: During major disasters and holidays?

God#1: No, usually when the lottery jackpot gets really big.

C.Martin: Is the Bible true?

God#1: Remember when President Reagan's daughter wrote that book about a family living in the White House and the press asked him if it was true?

C.Martin: Not really.

God#1: He ducked under the roaring blades of the Presidential helicopter and said "Interesting..."and then he put his beautiful 2 front teeth on his lips for emphasis and said "FFFFICTION!"

C.Martin: So it's not true?

God#1: Never said that.

C.Martin: Here we go again. Do you ever smite people?

God#1: Sure! I love smiting. I once smote a guy just for snoring.

C.Martin: Do you cause disasters?

God#1: Do you mean do I cause earthquakes and floods?

C.Martin: yes

God#1: Not directly. You ever try to cut your own hair?

C.Martin: What?

God#1: You cut a little here and a little there and then you notice it's all lopsided... so you cut a little more here and the next thing you know you look like you walked into a moving fan?

C.Martin: Not really. Have you?

God#1: Not personally, but I saw it happen on an episode of "Sister,Sister" once. It was a disaster!

C.Martin: Is any of what you've been telling me the truth?

God#1:It doesn't really matter to you right now. What you need to know is that you are going to have to make it back to Earth and figure out how to survive

C.Martin: That's easy. I'm rich and famous.

God#1: You're broke, alone, and hated. Look in your pockets. What you have in there is what you have. Your agent Cy was kidnapped and killed, but before he died he signed over everything you own. You don't even have that crappy little condo anymore.

C. Martin: Who killed Cy? Why am I hated? Where will I go?

God#1: There you go! Now THOSE are the questions you should be asking!

C.Martin: What's the answer?

God#1: How should I know? I'm just a 14 year old girl from Ames, Iowa.... BRB

"BRB" is computer-speak for Be Right Back. People say that in chat rooms when they have to go take a pee or get a sandwich or decide they're finished talking to you but they don't want to say "goodbye."

I waited for about twenty minutes before I got up and left. The screen saver of the burning bush had come back on and flickered on the walls of the cubicle.