Volume 2, Issue 2 Page 2 24 Mar 96
Continued from page 1
mystery destroyed, it's like Penn and Teller or David Copperfield stood on stage and explained to you how they did all their tricks. Why would you ever go back to watch them again? Except maybe to heckle them from the peanut gallery (He put the wafers in his right-hand pocket! I saw him, I saw him!).
The old "repent, sinner" dogma doesn't get a lot of airtime in modern churches (Maybe they figured out that people don't like to be told outright that they're evil. Nowadays they save it for the impressionable kids in Sunday school.) Gone are the days of hard wooden pews (back home they've adopted Protestant-style padded benches. Bunch of sell-outs...)6 Shocking as it may seem, amidst Marion and Charismastic movements, scandals and controversy (from birth control, married, and female priests to whether hypothetical married priests could use birth control), the Church is going back to its roots, teaching about the golden rule and love like the hippie culture was telling them to do. Sounds a lot like what the founder of this church meant for his band of rebels to do in the first place. I could, however, do without the God-damn guitar-strumming folk singers up in the choir loft where the pipe organ should be.

6 Maybe the church should take advantage of the new technology available to large organizations with lots of money: virtual reality martyrdom. They always say they want you to feel the pain of crucifixion so you'll know what Jesus went through for you, so here's their chance to illustrate. They should construct a VR booth with pain stimuli wired in all the right places: your forehead, your palms, etc. And eventually, they could expand the line, and do all the different martyr's peculiar tortures.
helmenthic tears
	"without Ruth"

I know how to tuck it away
	weakness, fear that is
mine is not prominent
	(our flaws are similarly grave)

Your stalk is bent
	your seeds have rotten
from the outside in
	(see, we are different)

I believe this:
	The Weak Shall Be Culled
and I am not the culler
	and you will be cut (first)

Deceit saves me;
	(clever hider I)
watch as you
		fall.

Nothing humorous
Nothing humorous cracks.
Nothing. humerus cracks.
And I think I'm so funny...
	Amusing, the rift in my soul.
				
	 	-Mark Cicero
Abstract Melancholy Challenge

This is the first official Melancholy Contest. With the above drawing, we challenge you to create a piece of writing of any length to describe what you see, or tell a complete sequence of events or story relating in some way to what is drawn. (You will gain some credibility with the staff if at least one of our members can understand the connection between your writing and the picture, so do try to make some connections.) Bizzare and off color entries are encouraged. The best will have the chance to be published in a future issue. All entries must be received by April Fool's Day. Good luck.

Previous Page | Vol.2 Index | Next Page
Predator Home | Hell's Kitchen Home