The Profane Parables and Other Nihilistic Narrations by a Perverse Pariah, 2

The Profane Parables and Nihilistic Narrations by a Perverse Pariah

Offering Occasional Observations of Odd Occurrences

And an Astonishingly Annoying Amount and Application of Alliteration

The following contains explicit language, blatant disregard for social cues and expectations, violent and sexual conduct, as well as numerous moral ambiguities. It is also sideways-eight-percent true in all aspects. The reader may, understandably, recognize a seemingly unreliable amount of foresight in some aspects. This may elicit skepticism regarding the overall authenticity. In response to this, I'm actually weaving and perceiving a false reality, which is my minds response to being in a vegetative, comatose state for the past sixteen years. Not believing something doesn't make it any less real. So there. For these reasons, it should be ritualistically recited at bedside to small children, to ensure a future generation full of promising politicians, priests and food service employees.

Sandspot was an interesting town. For one, it didn’t have much sand, excluding the sedimentary speckles of Shale among the Menawngihella River. The townships namesake actually originated from the local glass factory (where scads of sand would be melted and molded into glass items ranging from milk bottles to window panes to entire houses for judgmental folk who throw stones), denoting it as a major export in the metropolitan area of Forbesburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1902. By 1916, Sandspot and surrounding areas were booming with the newly-developed art of industrial trade. There was Smokesport, which mined coal for creating "coke products" (A byproduct of burnt coal, not to be confused with the heavily trademarked, carbonated drink or the Colombian cane extract), used barges, and had bridges. Then there was McFoilstead, which made prominent improvements to both the quality of aluminum and McDonald’s meals, used barges and had bridges. Finally, Forbesburgh itself was at the pinnacle of this flourishing economy, being placed at the geographical juxtaposition of three rivers; the Menawngihella, the Ohio and the Allegheny. At this time, it was actively producing over half of the nation’s steel, beer and affection for sports. It also used three times the standard amount of barges and bridges, and was often decorated with a layer of soot.

Yes, times were prosperous, and jobs were plentiful. Additionally, the factory jobs required a lenient amount of literacy, being heavily dependent upon manual labor. They capitalized upon employing children and having them operate totally non-defective machinery. Those deemed psychically fit enough, usually the twelve-year-olds, would steer the barges underneath the bridges. Although these conditions were considered very desirable during the time, they weren't without risk of limb (Not due to the machinery, of course, but due to horseplay and other acts not covered by insurance). Many broken bones, burns and other bruises were common among the employed youths. These, however, were mere boo-boo's in their thousand-yard-staring eyes. They understood that the results of their labor in a developing first-world country would one day serve the greater good, by allowing future generations to grocery shop in their pajamas. The future could also spend sixteen hours watching a television program revolving around a school-teacher-turned-methamphetamine-kingpin.

The factory accommodations were also tailor-fit to meet the wants and needs of the immigrant class, who poured into the area shortly before this time. Instead of starving from a potato shortage, starving from general poverty, or being religiously persecuted by a Syphilis-ridden ruler (the one who infamously shaved his mustache to fit his face inside a gas mask), many native Europeans saw a better opportunity in the United States. They could actively pursue and, for the first time ever, actually obtain the Almighty Dollar. Some said it was made out of cloth, so water couldn't even ruin it. Irish, Scottish, Polish, Slovakian, Russian, African; people of all colors, cultures and creeds could live in ideologically-free harmony here. Excluding, of course, the Native Americans and Chinese. President's Jackson and Arthur saw to that.

Unfortunately, two major national calamities would impact Forbesburg and, proverbially speaking, sink the barges and burn the bridges.

The first of these occurred on October 29th, 1929. The stock market crashed. This date, scarred into the public psyche as “Black Tuesday,” would initiate the decade long period known as The Great Depression (a term often confused with the musical Grunge movement of the 1990’s). It was a fast process, albeit a foreseeable one. Factors such as debt inflation, declines in productivity and disproportionate production/consumption ratios can be attributed. Also, Green Bay won the NFL title that year, and Wisconsin winning anything was an omen among Forbesburghers.

International trade had plummeted over 50%. That following summer, the major corporate and political (in that order) leaders of the world gathered in the ancient Redwoods of southern California. When they weren't dancing naked, burning babies and worshiping a colossal owl statue, they discussed potential solutions to their economies eclectic encumbrances. After about an hour of collaborative realpolitik, a final solution became visible; The Greater War, The War To End All Wars, The Last War On Earth, The Greater War Resembling The Great War Which Ended About Fourteen Years Prior to The Greater War! From Normandy to Nuremberg, from Warsaw to Romania! No currently dilapidated nation would be deprived of the economic improvements this war offered!

First, in the case of the U.S., they needed to stage an attack on a few ships in a Hawaiian harbor. Next, they needed to claim to have no prior knowledge of it. Then, they’d slap an entertaining name on the whole thing, like World War II, so it would sound like a film sequel. Finally they’d make a few posters of an insisting, stoic Uncle pointing a finger. After this, people would flock to the recently built recruitment centers, which seemed to pop up out of nowhere and outnumber the amount of Wal-Marts (which didn't exist yet, but you get the point). The public were easily swayed into supporting these kinds of things.

Forbesburgh managed to stay somewhat efficient during the war, using it's steel to construct guns, bullets and barges for the Allies. Most of the former workers, however, were now the Allies. The war ended once the world’s economy safely stabilized in 1945, following the acceptable and necessary deaths of over 199,000 Japanese citizens with nuclear weapons by the United States. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had conveniently died of questionable circumstances just in time to give his successor, Harry Truman (who spent previous summers in Southern California), authority to drop the Fat Man and Little Boy bombs upon Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Consequently, Japan would become disturbingly, although gradually, weird in the following generations. For instance, they'd revolutionize technology and communication for the entire world by the turn of the century, but they had also developed tentacle fetishes and distributed used panties in vending machines. Something about nuclear decimation really changes a culture. Ironically, Germany would never lose the notoriety it gained for the systematic genocide of over 16,000,000,000,000,000,000 Jews, Poles, blacks, gays, twins, Eskimos, Gypsies, Witches (Is it racist to pair the two?), Salsa Bands and pretty much anybody else who lived in Europe and could fit a handlebar mustache into a gas mask, but mostly Jews. Funding occult expeditions and attempting to breed a master race kind of overshadowed the whole nuke thing.

Meanwhile, all was moderately well in Sandspot and surrounding areas for the next few decades. The steel/coke/aluminum/glass industries were all past their prime. Most of the former workers/now former Allies were either deceased, disabled or too busy despising Green Bay to effectively work like in The Golden Days. The industries themselves, however, were still active enough for the next generation of now literately illiterate native immigrants to find employment. Then, rather unexpectedly, the second calamity happened; 1984.

Michael Jackson’s Thriller album reached No.1 on the charts, the first cell-phone call was made, and the regional economy of Forbesburgh and surrounding areas officially bottomed out. The mills closed, unemployment hit a post-Depression high of 16.2%, thousands were left jobless and Green Bay came close to winning the Superbowl. The Forbesburgh area had gone from prosperous to impoverished, to semi-prosperous to absolutely barren. Most of the residents moved out in search of other cities to apply their factory-centric resume's. Those who did stay often found menially expendable jobs, developed some sort of substance abuse problem and hated anybody from Green Bay, Cleveland or Baltimore. The entire area had become a skeletal shell of its former self, represented by the few remaining mills and the 8% of exclusive citizens (Although not exclusive enough to spend a summer in Southern California), who worked in them.

All of this went through my head as I looked at the old Sandspot Glass Factory on the horizon. The year was 2014, and the building had been closed down some thirty years prior after a massive fire (During the construction of a glass house, a disgruntled social critic threw a stone at the factory, accidentally breaking the house and spilling the smelter. One Chinese and one Native American worker were killed in the fire, bringing the total causality count to zero). Now it was just a rusty, contoured box about fifty feet tall and surrounded by a large, barbed-wire fence. Large “Do Not Trespass” signs were placed about every five feet. From time to time, random storm clouds would appear above it and bolts of lighting would strike, accompanied by an omnipresent piano playing a minor chord. All in all, it was a very inviting, secluded scene where the local youths could binge drink MD 20/20 and challenge one another to climb the top. They even hung up a rope-swing for the victor. Among Sandspot youths, the rope-swing was a symbol of fearlessness, invincibility and testosterone-filled stupidity. In other words, the rope-swing was Green Bay.

Unbeknownst to yours truly, the Perverse Pariah and Nihilistic Narrator, an interesting scene was unfolding inside the factory. It was the penning of a new page within the unwritten book of Dumb Shit Sandspot Kids Do. At the top of the ladder, upon a steel beam about three feet wide, four male youths were engaged in some kind of disagreement.

“But we were all brave enough to climb to the top,” the chubby one (A.K.A. Chubbs) compromised, “we should be able to all swing on the rope.”

“My older brother said it doesn't matter who all makes it to the top, it’s about who makes it to the top first,” the tall one (A.K.A. The Tower) said with enough diplomacy to make Truman reconsider.

“Well if that’s the case, I was here first,” the skinny one (A.K.A. Bonesy) argued.

“No you weren't, I was! I remember cause you pulled my ankle on the ladder,” the short one (A.K.A. Stubbs) spat back at Bonesy.

The entire scene was something out of a very well written short story about regional history, or something equally modest. Four boys about thirteen years of age, with directly parallel descriptions, standing fifty feet above Earth’s surface and arguing over the right to straddle a piece of twine. What wasn't considered during the Melting Pot of Immigration was that, four-five generations worth of cross-breeding later (today), the younger population would be completely, definitively retarded. Maybe that guy who shaved his mustache to be able to wear a gas mask had the right idea after all.

“Well,” Bonesy said to the three other Polish/German/Russian/Scottish/Pacific Islander boys, "I’m going first, I was here first. I say we void Chubbs' swing, or at least make him go last, since he’s most likely to break the rope.”

Chubbs didn’t even bother to defend himself, being well accustomed to the schoolyard heckling regarding his weight. He just sadly looked down with his semi-slanted eyes and scratched his red hair.

“All opposed?” The Tower inquired. There were no objections.

“Okay, see you faggots at the bottom then!”

Bonesy gripped the rope with a smug smile, resembling a prize winning horse or Rachael Ray. He made sure it had enough slack to ensure the swing made a total trajectory of the factory. Then, without even making the-sign-of-the-cross or some equally ineffective blessing ritual, he jumped off the steel beam.

The universe momentarily stopped. The rope was in his immediate view, along with the concrete floor and rusty base-beams. For less than a second, total nirvana (the spiritual experience itself, not to be confused with the band from The Great Depression era) coursed through his adrenaline-ridden veins. He was finally free, circulating through the capacious cosmos and swinging into space. Then he hit the surface faster than a Fat Man falling from an Enola Gay. Basically every bone in Bonesy’s bony, brittle body broke immediately upon impact. He unconsciously quivered as the remaining trio looked down at him.

“…You okay?” Stubbs’ voice resonated in Bonesy’s broken ears. He couldn’t respond.

Reactively, The Tower, Chubbs and Stubbs did the most humane and responsible thing to do in the situation of a potentially dead friend. The Tower had just finished a grounding stint for failing history class (The Roarin’ Twenties Unit was exceptionally boring, earning him a grade of 16% this semester), and wasn't going to chance another sentencing over something as little as a potentially dead friend. So, they tossed the MD 20/20 bottles, swore to never again speak on the subject, went home and watched the football game. The Forbesburgh Phantoms lost to the Green Bay Packers .

Meanwhile, I, your Perverse Pariah and Nihilistic Narrator, was about a half a mile away. I was standing outside of the Sandspot Sand Dollar Store, looking cool and grown up with a lit cigarette. Suddenly, a small militia’s worth of ambulances and police cars drove past. Sirens were a’hootin’ and a’hollerin, and lights were a’blarin’ and a’blindin’. They were surely en route to assist with some medical emergency. There was even the approaching sound of rotating helicopter blades. Paramedics and nurses are pretty admirable people, I thought to myself. I slowly inhaled the smoke and thought about what my eventual nurse will look like, the one who gets paid to help me clean my neck-hole (Looking cool and grown up isn't without cost) and maybe give me Dialysis treatments . I hope she’ll be a blonde, preferably one with a name like Candice or Kelly, and in physical possession of enough cleavage to be considered "cavernous" (although B Cups would suffice). "Cavern Cleavage Candice/Kelly" would be a wonderful pet name for a dying old man to inappropriately refer to his nurse as, in between Q-Tipping phlegm from his trachea and slapping her ass. I then decided that fearing the future and one’s own demise was irrelevant, no matter how many nurses asses are being slapped. The only time that exists is now. If time even exists at all. Even if it doesn't, B Cups certainly do.

Also, it was soon to be summer, and all of the world’s corporate and political (Again, in that order) leaders would be gathering in Southern California, figuring out how to draft me into World War III. That’ll probably kill me before lung cancer anyways, I optimistically concluded.

Bonesy needed about twenty-one months to recover. That’s a lot of time for an adrenaline-riddled, adolescent boy to spend in a hospital bed; however something about breaking every bone in your body makes you grateful just to be alive. It was also a chance to get a head start on the future. For example, while looking at the Menawngihella River through the window, he’d often admire the barges. Twenty-one months and many years later, Bonesy obtained the required credentials to control and captain a barge. He had a very successful career doing this, until the stock market crashed again in 2021. The city of Forbesburgh, including its multiple barges and bridges, was bombed as part of a false-flag operation perpetuated to start World War III: The Prequel, starring Uncle Sam, Vladimir Rasputin and Kim Jong Unterview. Bonesy was killed during this. The B-52’s reprehensible for dropping the bombs were painted green and yellow, and bore the Packers insignia on each wing.

The End.