Saturday, December 30, 2006

Hope



Hope
The silken string
Which holds together
The beads ofAspirations,
Dreams,
Desires..
The single thread of that hapless Arachnid,
Swaying in the cruel breeze of reality.
That one four letter word
Which still lifts its head
Under the burning torrent of four letter words.
The blind eye that struggles to see the half full glass.
A totally contradictory entity-
this thing called hope.
A lease to life,
A reason to kill.

The Ceremony




She ran as fast as her pudgy legs would carry her, glancing back just once to look at the man she left at the altar.

But not fast enough.

"Kiki no! No! Come back here!"That was mummy.
Strong hands caught her chubby little arms, picking her up like a flailing sack of potatoes.That was Daddy.

"NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!" She screamed.

"Kiki, the Reverend is just going to pour some wa-"

"NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NOOOO!NOOO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!"

"Oh Goddamn it!"
"Roger! We're in a Church!"
"I don't care-!"
"Ahem."That was the Reverend.

Somehow whenever the Reverend spoke, everyone else seemed to shut up-or, as in Kiki's case, atleast lower the decibel level.

"Ahem." said the Reverend "Perhaps I could be of assistance. I'll talk to her." He put out a cold grey hand to Kiki.

Kiki's eyes shot to the door. Her fathers tightening hand on her collar said 'Don't even think about it' more elquently than a thousand line epic. Mummy shot her a glance which promised a sore bottom for a week. Well, she was pretty much dead already. So, there didn't seem much harm in talking to the old scarecrow.

Kiki- no no no- Katherine Elizabeth Mackenzie- lifted her chin and took the hand. She walked straight and proud, her shoulders squared. She bet Joan of Arc probably looked like this when she went to the stake.

The Reverend took Kiki to the little garden at the back.

"So Kiki, don't you want to be baptized?"

"Nont!"

The reader may go off on a tangent and imagine Kiki to be some Damian like devil-kid prototype. But the truth is that, in all her 5 long years of existence on the 1770s American Frontier, Kiki Mackenzie had never seen a church before. And this new Bostonian Church, with its sharp spires and pointed building, looked like something out of Uncle George's Dracula books.

"Nont! " she declared more forcefully " I know ye, ye old gargoyle! When i close my eyes yer gonner swoop down and sink yer fangs into me and turn me into them vampeer things!"

"What?!" The Reverend looked remarkably like a gold fish just then.

"An' if ye think I'm gonner letcha do that ye've got another thik comin' so there!"

The Reverend blinked a few times and then seemed to remember that he wasn't an owl.

"Er...Kiki dear, this is a Church-"
" No 'snot! Church is the house of God."
" Yes. It is th-"
" This shore don't look like any house i've seen."

The Reverend deliberately did not tear his hair.

"That's because God's house has to be special. He-"
"Oh yeah, if this is His house, how come all his pictures show him crying an' sad an' all huh? If this is His house, He shore don' like it."

Come to think of it she had a point, all the pictures did- But that's irrelevant!- The Reverend had to get this done.

"Listen Kiki, all I'm going to do is pour some water on your head and say some Latin verses and you're baptized!"

"An' how do I know yer not gonner put some hocus pocus on me huh? Huh? Huh?"

"You should trust-"
"SNORT!"
Logic was not working here. Though the Reverend - like Kiki aptly put it- did look like a gargolyle hewn from rock, his stony visage housed some incredibly creative faculties. He let out a huge, dramatic sigh.

" Alright Kiki.I have no choice. I have to tell you that great secret."

Kiki's eyes took on saucer like dimensions.

"I used to be one of God's angels."
"Oooh..."
Good it's working.
" Yes.. I refused to be baptized and so I have been punished to spend an eternity on Earth. And I have to eat oat cake and porridge every day- without honey!"

Kiki- tantrumic, and at most times the devils answer to the Child of God- possessed a very sympathetic heart and a disposition for heroics and general saving-the-helpless. The porridge without honey seemed the sharpest barb in the crown of thorns she pictured the Reverend in.

"There is only one way to save me, and only you can do it Kiki."
"What is it ?" Kiki glowed with the determination to save the hapless Reverend.

"For every child I baptized, 100 years were removed from my punishment.Now there are only 100 years left. If you refuse...then I will never be able to go to heaven. Please, you must help me."

A grown up was asking her for help!!

"Le's go Reverend. We have a baptism to finish."

The Reverend let out a sigh of relief and promised himself a few Hail Marys as penance. They went into the Church. Kiki's knees knocked in fear. But she steeled herself with the sad image of the Reverend's gargoyle face crumpled in pain.

They reached the altar.

The Reverend's lips moved in the prayer.

Steady Kiki.

He dipped his hand in the basin.

Hold on there sport.

The hand came out again.

Be strong Kiki.

The hand came down towards her.

Steady Ki-

" NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!"

Mary had a little Pig-A sensible nonsense poem



Mary had a little Pig
It's steaks were white as snow.
And they were so juicy and big
She liked to eat them so.

But this statement has logical fallacies,
And goes against Peta policies.
Consider if you will-

'You can't have your cake and eat it'
Then how can you with a pig?
And besides, if thePig was little,
How can it be juicy and big?

Thus I ponder this cosmic riddle,
With sweaty brow and thumbs a-twiddle.
Walked in circles and triangles.
Parallelograms and quadrangles-
UNTIL!
I came to a conclusion-
The perfect solution-
If you can't beat 'em,
Join 'em.

Now I'm off to Mary's to dig
Into some Pig.