Just Off Center

I decided to go for a walk off site today for lunch. After my scrumptious six inch Italian BMT on wheat from Subway (extra toasted with American cheese, spinach, red onion, mustard, tomato, black pepper, and parmesan cheese) I walked across the busy intersection by my place of employment and isle-shopped an entire K-Mart. The place was fucking dead. For a minute I didn’t know whether they were open. I almost feel bad that I didn’t buy anything. And I definitely should not have shoplifted that pack of Juicy Fruit.

On my way through the parking lot I noticed a small booklet with comic strip drawings on it. Always a sucker for culture, I picked up the weathered, dirty pages and began to thumb through it. I was amazed. I hadn’t seen an honest to God “repent or be damned” booklet since I was in training for my First Communion. I’d post pictures of its pages, but I’m at work and I just don’t feel like it.

At first we see a side view of a coffin in the ground. Its contents, a young white man in a black suit with his hands folded over his belly. Emerging from out of the body is what I have to assume is his spirit which looks more like Jim Neighbors startled with a giant question mark over his head. He is moving toward a huge fonted “ARISE” coming from above. He’s confused and naked and being drawn out of the ground. Once topside, he’s met by a white angel who actually tells him “Come, you have an appointment!”. After trying to explain that he doesn’t believe in Heaven or Hell he is swept up like Lois Lane and the angel begins souring away. They fly through outer space until the angel points and says, “There is your destination!” Apparently the angel says everything forcefully (!) and holds God’s day planner. They sit down on a slab in the clouds where the man tries to tell the angel that he’s lived a good life and that he was no different than anyone else. The angel replies, “Everything has been recorded!”

From a door to the right a huge voice says, “NEXT!!!”

Inside the next room there is a lot of white light and some clouds. A large, art deco chair rests in the middle with an enormous, robed, faceless white person sitting in it. The voice booms, “REVIEW HIS LIFE!” The angel replies, “Yes Lord!” So now we know it’s the Lord our God in that chair come to pass judgment on this poor, wretched everyman. I might have guessed from the font. Omnipotent people always speak REALLY FREAKING LOUD! Suddenly the room goes blank, except for the stars, and a giant movie screen pops up in front of the angel and the man with the words “THIS WAS YOUR LIFE!” Huh. Maybe God is actually Ralph Edwards.

Anyway, on the screen we see Al Capone’s face on the body of an infant. This must be the man as a toddler. He seems to be playing with black stuffed bunny rabbit and I suspect those blurry shapes on his pajamas are actually pentagrams. Next he’s a teenager wearing a white t-shirt and black leather jacket telling a dirty joke to his friends. The man is very embarrassed to have this story told in front of the angel. Then we see a brick wall with an opening. You can only see the man’s left eye as he peeks around the corner to ogle a woman who, based on the facial features, is either half plastic or might just have a dick.

Well no time is left for any further detail, so we go to a montage page where the man is standing in the center with shock lines surrounding his head and sweat dripping as he says, “Why didn’t anyone warn me about all this?” The rest of the page is pictures of his head in various states of sinful face makery with dates of the year and words like “THEFT”, “DISOBEDIENT TO PARENTS”, “FALSE ACCUSER”, WHOREMONGER”, AND “HATER OF GOD” filling up what little empty space we see. The whoremonger face is a classic one. It’s contorted and he has this cheesy little grin on his mouth like he’s about to say “Aalllllll riiiiight.” It kind of reminds me of Quagmire.

Next it shows him in church. Wait a mmmoment! This fella was in church, what’s he worried about? Ahhh…as we see the preacher at his pulpit preaching the books of John and Romans. All the while our man puts on a dour puss and fills his thought bubbles with “I wonder who’s winning the ball game?” and “I couldn’t care less – what time is it?” But then he finally busts out loud with “BUNK – I don’t need Christ! There’s nothing wrong with me! I’ll make it MY way!” as he walks away from the preacher. He clasps his dead head as he realizes how crazy he was. It would be a touching moment if he didn’t look like Jerry Lewis about to faint. He finally collapses to his knees, his face in his hands and weeps at his guilty, guilty guilt.

Cut to that white, faceless Lord guy in his chair pointing to the angel and ordering him to “OPEN THE BOOK OF LIFE!” We reach the climax as the angel points at a book bigger than my first dictionary and says “His name does not appear, Lord!” Wait. Did God not know if his name was in the book? Who’s editing this thing? Did God forget or is he just making this poor Frankie Avalon looking angel go through the motions. At any rate, our sinner friend is now officially fucked. God makes one last statement to his child.

“DEPART FROM ME, YE CURSED, INTO EVERLASTING FIRE, PREPARED FOR THE DEVIL AND HIS ANGELS!!!!”

Finally we see the angel at some sort of stone dock after having just cast the damned soul into a sea of flame. Little bodies are all over it, their arms flailing and their heads bobbing. It would seem that the Lake of Fire is somewhere on the premises. Or maybe the angel knows some kind of special Heaven to Hell Mario Brothers warp tube. Anyway, so ends the story of Everyman – dead in the beginning, humiliated all the way through, and torched in the finale.

# posted by Mike @ 1:50 PM