Category Archives: theater of the absurd

The blathering idiot was sitting at the kitchen table doing his taxes, when in a fit of confusion and boredom at the inane complexity of a form, he fell asleep.

When he woke up, he was in heaven. He knew this was the case because the disciple Matthew greeted him. The blathering idiot sat up and looked around. Heaven was not like anything he imaged. The primary thing that struck him about it was how rundown it appeared. The pearly gates looked rusty and slightly out of plumb. They didn’t close tightly. Some things that looked like trash tumbled from heavenly prominence to heavenly prominence, making slight rustling sounds like empty plastic shopping bags. Even the angels’ wings looked sooty and their gowns looked frayed and not quite as dazzling as whitest of whites sound be. One angel was even wearing a frayed t-shirt that read “Angels are people too.” Infrastructure neglect was everywhere.

Matthew had a sad and besmirched look on his face. “We cannot get God to pay attention to heaven. He says he is constantly fighting an endless war with Satan, and sending hurricanes to New Orleans and earthquakes to Haiti and such to punish people for their wicked ways, even if they are already long dead. He says he has no time to keep up heaven. But we have a plan and it involves you.”

The blathering idiot listened to the plan. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but if the blathering idiot succeeded, he could stay in heaven if he wanted.

“And if I don’t succeed?” the blathering idiot asked.

Matthew, the former tax collector, frowned, and then slowly shook his head.

The blathering idiot practiced over and over what he was going to say, and when he was ready, Matthew and some angels, including the one with the t-shirt, dressed him in the most scary costume they could think of, and then they sent him to see God.

After a brief introduction, the blathering idiot launched into his script: “Well, Almighty, our records still show you owe back taxes for several million years. And we are about to put a lean on your property.”

Shortly after that, or so it felt like, the blathering idiot woke up, an IRS form stuck to the side of his face.

Once he removed it, he glanced around. The world looked like he was back exactly where he had always been, back where he was before his trip to heaven. The blathering idiot didn’t know if that was good or bad, if that meant he had succeeded or not. He once again read over the form that had been stuck to his cheek, and he continued to wonder.