A TIMELESS WINE
by Jackson Scales

     Part 1: The Entrance

     A man who looked to be in his mid-forties marched into a local grocery store with a bold announcement. Lifting his arms in the air, he sucked in his breath then sang out in loud stentorian tone:

     "I’m here! I’m shopping! There is—no stopping—meeeeeeeeee!"

     He waved to his startled audience and took a bow. Then, to their further amazement, he quietly grabbed a shopping cart, affecting an air of utter nonchalance and normality.

     He shopped.

     The store’s operation, however, would not continue to plod along in its ordinary groove. Sacking clerks scratched their heads and laughed amongst themselves at such an odd, unsolicited performance. The cashiers were just as puzzled, but they weren’t laughing. After their initial shock wore off, they nervously cracked their gum and tried not to let this strange shopper out of sight, imagining how they might react if he held the place up.

     The customers were also discomfited, causing many to stray from their normal shopping etiquette. Those who normally wouldn’t speak to strangers now looked at each other and traded hushed opinions, trying to explain to their fellow shoppers what the cause of such outlandish behavior could be. Drugs? Sad. A wino? What filth! A firstborn son recently ‘out of the closet’? Tsk, tsk. Male menopause gone ape? Let’s hope it’s not that dangerous! Meanwhile, the customers who did normally like to chat while examining packages of meat and pastries clamped their mouths shut, now examining their meat and pasties in tight-lipped silence, while keeping their eyes peeled for any new perversions of the natural grocery shopping experience this odd fellow might spring upon them.

     Of course, it was management who took the dimmest possible view of their newest customer. And they cared not a whit about the root cause of such eccentricity. Their reasoning was simple: This new shopper must be removed from the store forthwith, for there was simply no telling what kind of mischief an unpredictable middle-aged fellow like him could get into. And because lawsuits and monthly bonuses never mixed, management didn’t want to confront the man themselves. They showed their grit by calling the police.

     The police dispatcher—as police dispatchers are wont—asked them to repeat the story. And upon the retelling she laughed. Management, feeling that she must not have heard properly, angrily repeated the story to her again. Louder this time. Then it was the dispatcher’s turn to become dour. "A car will get there when you see it," she noted dryly.

     Meanwhile, he could shop.

     Without any further vaudevillian displays, the man casually breezed up and down the aisles. Occasionally, he’d place a food, drink, or toiletries item in his cart, always careful to read the information on the label first. Outwardly, nothing set him apart from the other shoppers, except for his recent past.   A couple of lanky teenage boys who thought, based upon his unorthodox entrance, that the man might be ‘cool’ enough to buy them some alcohol, shadowed him for a few seconds in the seafood department. But when he turned and gave them a long, curious, yet friendly look, the boys, thinking him a pervert, fearfully slunk away, leaving him to marvel over his package of octopus in peace.

     Next, in the ketchup and tomato paste section, the man had a run in with a couple of elderly ladies who were now in such a hurry to escape the aisle they banged their carts first into each other and then into his. "Do you mind?" he sniffed. "I’m trying to shop."  As he perused the spirits aisle in search of a fine wine, a few customers became so unnerved at the mere sight of him that they began to uncork bottles with their key rings, suddenly unable to wait until they got home to begin sucking down the sauce.  But these were relatively minor incidents when compared to the impending siege in the produce department. Although he was able to browse through the tomatoes, celery, and oranges in peace, when he reached the pears the man suddenly became acutely aware of many machinations already hatched against him. What first clued him in was the unusually high percentage of management types hanging bout—five to be precise.

    As the man slyly pretended to inspect a pear, he stole several sidelong glances at these muscled, clean cut young men in white shirts and clip on ties, studying them as they studied him. A couple of them caught him giving them the eye and smiled back with their fake ‘happy employee’ smiles, then casually—a little too casually—looked the other way. They seemed to have no shame, for with an utter lack of subtlety these lower management goons continued to mill about, pretending that their sole duty in life was to dust the fresh produce with large feather dusters. Squash, cabbage, kohl rabbi—no vegetable was safe from their quickly flicking feathers. And they performed their ‘task’ with straight faces, being much too gainfully employed to be embarrassed by the obvious ruse.

     The man also noticed that there were an unusually high number of ‘civilians’ in his general proximity. Surely the whole store wouldn’t shop for fruit, vegetables and tubers simultaneously, would they? And yet—there they were, about a hundred souls with metal carts, packed standing room only between the fruit and vegetable stands. And every time the man glanced up, he caught many of these new vegetarians gazing at him from behind pieces of fruit that they pretended to inspect.

     After a few minutes, management moved in a little closer, anxiously dusting tomatoes and other members of the nightshade family a little faster. Tensions were high.  A clash seemed imminent.  The man sighed. He knew he was surrounded.  Slowly, carefully—he put down the pear. Then, rather dramatically, he raised his hands over his head. Immediately, the banging and screeching of multiple shopping carts erupted all around him, as if he were about to explode. People jumped back. Feather dusters were gripped tighter and flicked more fiercely. Somewhere a child began to cry. 

    Panic filled the air and eyes of both shoppers and management alike.

    Then the man cried out, "Friends, consumers, countrymen—lend me your ears!" 

     All eyes, flashing confusion and a lack of understanding—like disturbed cattle—converged upon him. Seeing their troubled minds and hearts and being moved by it, the man desired nothing more than to address the crowd with sweet, comforting words concerning the meaning of both life and love. And with arms still upraised, his lips began to move, and he was about to say, well—something, when the sound of multiple feather dusters hitting the floor in unison signaled the end of corporate tolerance.

     Part 2: The Conflict

     The crowd parted, allowing the head managerial goon to approach. He was the tallest of the starched-shirt dusters (of course) and had perfect hair. And not only were his eyes set a bit too close together, his ears had formed much, much, too small—a born leader.

    And with obvious pride, he wore a shiny plastic nametag that read, in large block letters, ASST. STORE MGR on the top line and BRAD on the bottom. And with puffed chest, this Brad marched right up to the man, pushing his nametag right in his face.  "Sir," Brad gravely intoned, "I’m going to have to ask you to leave my store."

     With arms still raised, the man jutted out his bottom lip and protested, "But I just wanted to…shop."

     There was a titter here and there.

     Brad stared with incredulity. This strangest of shoppers actually seemed to be tearing up at the corners of his eyes. And what marvelous eyes they were! Sky blue in color, clear, shiny, hinting at hidden depths, a bit mischievous on the surface while also remaining quite friendly.

     This guy, Brad thought, he is trouble. "Leave," he curtly croaked.

     But the man stomped his feet and declared once more, louder this time, almost to the point of begging, "But I just wanted to shop!"

     Brad, a newly acquired nervous tick squiggling upon his forehead, pointed at the door, again commanding, "Sir, you are to leave my store and leave it now."

     The man stared coolly at his newly acquired authority figure for a moment, as he slowly lowered his arms. Then he took his index finger and poked it very gently into Brad’s chest a few times, intently watching the assistant store manager’s eyes bulge with each new poke.

     "Who are you," the man demanded back, his eyes dancing, melodrama flying from is smiling upturned lips, "to tell me—anything?"

     A collective gasp now went up from the crowd. And the minor managerial goons, seeing this direct challenge to the head goon’s authority, moved in behind Brad, to lend some moral support. And to get a good ‘seat.’

     "My name is Brad," the head goon declared, his voice breaking, "and being the Assistant Store Manager is all the authority I’ll ever need."

     No ‘oohs’ or ‘ahhs’ arose from the crowd at this revelation, just heavy breathing.  The man stopped poking Brad in the chest, then looked down curiously at his own index finger, as if it had failed him somehow.

     Brad swallowed hard. "I’m asking you again—no, I’m telling you, Sir—leave. I can assure you that we have no use for your kind here."

     "Your name’s Brad, huh?" the man asked, suddenly striking a philosophical pose, cupping a hand under his chin. Then, just as quickly, he thrust out that same hand, as if to shake hands, and said, "Well, how the hell are ya, Brad? Put ‘er there, pal! My name’s Kenneth!"

     The entire store erupted at this point. Customers, staff, even lower management, all guffawed uncontrollably for a moment, some until they began to cry, releasing oodles of built up tension.

     But not Brad. His tension only deepened, causing him to develop a new lip twitch to accompany his steady forehead tick. He tried to order him to leave again, but the words wouldn’t come out this time, and he just stood there holding his mouth open, looking like a dying fish.

     "Paper or plastic!" a grinning Kenneth howled, making no sense at all and slapping Brad on the back. "Paper or plastic!"

     The crowd roared again, not knowing why this was funny or bad, but just feeling it. 

      The back slap had helped Brad regain his voice, and now he was shouting: "If you don’t leave right now I’m going to call upon an even higher authority than myself to haul you away!"

     In reply, Kenneth began to mimic a silverback gorilla, squatting and shuffling about, grunting and making a slew of potentially obscene gestures. Crudely grabbing a banana with both hands, he began to assault the fruit in a most bestial fashion, pulling the peel back with his teeth and snarling at anyone who dared to meet his now terrible yet
bemused gaze. He seemed crazed—but kind.

     "Stop that!" Brad shrieked. "Or I swear you’ll pay! Put the bananas down!"

     "Ooh, ooh, ooh!" Kenneth grunted in reply. "Ooh, ooh, ooh!"

     By this time, the entire crowd had fallen into various altered states of consciousness.

    This bizarre scene had somehow tripped many a consumer’s psychic switch, literally hypnotizing the shoppers, filling them with host inexplicable sensations. And it was a conflicting cocktail of emotions they now held for Kenneth, a mixture including, but not limited to: love, hate, fear, nostalgia, and yes—even red, hot, finger-lickin’ lust. Indeed, the variety of people’s trips ran the gamut. Kenneth made some of them feel as if they were kids again, while others had never felt older. Many people developed the munchies and helped themselves to some fresh fruit, while others swore they’d never eat fruit again—well, bananas, at least. Many laughed, many cried, and quite a few repeatedly checked their own pulse as well as their neighbor’s. And, if this was not trouble enough, there was also much confusion along party lines. Republicans and Democrats now hooted and hollered together, holding hands and singing, while Libertarians, Independents, and their fellow travelers fell into transcendent stupors of sulleness, with little spit bubbles forming at the corners of their mouths. Kenneth seemed like a miracle to many, something they could neither explain, nor confirm, or explain away—the personification of mystery. For although he was entertaining, was he really trying to entertain them? And while he did seem to be a grocery shopper, wasn’t he just a little too much of a grocery shopper? Might he also be a sign, a forewarning even, of some terrible scourge to come?

     "Oooga! Oooga! Ooga!" Kenneth squawked.  "Ooooooooggggaaaaaaaaaaa!"

     Then he did a new, and some thought, improved, simian dance around the tangerines. And when a few folks got too close, trying to dance with him, he raised his fist in the air in mock primal fury until they backed away, thus providing an object lesson to everyone on the nature of silverback politics—of all politics, really.

     "That’s it!" Brad snapped. "I hereby declare the tangerines a ‘zero tolerance’ zone!"  And lifting a shaking digit, he pointed at Kenneth, and commanded his underlings to:   "Grab him! Subdue him! Bind him! We must deliver him to the proper authorities!"

     Although they did not seem  eager to comply, the four young managers nevertheless began moving slowly towards Kenneth, thus ensuring their next pay stub.

     Part 3: The Exit

     Seeing that capture was now a real possibility, the ‘great ape’ suddenly stood erect, and cupping his hands about his mouth for better amplification, he yelled to the crowd:  "You can now resume your normal shopping experience, everybody! But just remember this—it’s probably later than you think!"

     The dull-eyed consumers looked from side to side, not sure to whom the ‘silverback’ spoke, their sea of scrunched up faces seeming to ask—late for what? A dry goods sale?

     But Kenneth did not elaborate. Abruptly, he dropped his simian stance and bolted for the door, abandoning not only his shopping cart, but the entire spectacle he’d somehow sparked. And the lower management goons bolted after him, following close behind as Kenneth ran, hopped, and dodged towards the exit, negotiating baskets and bystanders.

    Moreover, the entire store, now suspecting Kenneth to be some kind of terrorist for making such unpredictable movements, suddenly burst into a full-blown panic—screaming, running, and calling up their lawyers on speed dial.  Brad’s brow furrowed. Although it somewhat troubled him to see his store torn apart by panicked citizens—it troubled him even more to watch Kenneth now making for the exit. Brad had no idea what had just transpired in his grocery store, but whatever the underlying nature of this drama might be, he felt certain that it was very, very, wrong.

    Criminal, even. After all, Kenneth, with his unpredictable words and actions, had essentially deprived several dozen regular shoppers (and a handful of American citizens) of what should have been their God given rights as consumers: a rather dull yet peaceful money spending experience. Kenneth was, in his own way, worse than any shoplifter—Kenneth was a peace-lifter.

     "No shopping. No peace," Brad murmured, judging himself a deep thinker.  Brad’s philosophizing was soon disturbed by what sounded like the high-pitched clucking f a drunken chicken at his side. Upon turning his head, he saw that it was only one of his sacker serfs, a boy of about fifteen, who was giggling hysterically, presumably at the ludicrousness of the entire affair. Incensed by the youth’s utter lack of ‘decency’, Brad pointed at the escaping Kenneth, snapped his fingers thrice, and commanded, "Stop your laughing and go nab him!"

     "Aw, piss off!" the now ex-sacker shot back, wiping away his tears. "That guy didn’t do nuthin’ to nobody." Then he started giggling again.

     "You shoulda let me shop!" Kenneth screeched, as he flailed his way to the door. "You shoulda l-e-t-t-t m-e-e-e-e!"

     Amazingly, the automatic sliding doors opened for Kenneth before he’d even reached the rubber matted weight sensor. But just as he reached the open doorway, a couple of the managers caught up with him and grabbed him by the shoulders. But to their shock, Kenneth’s shirt simply came off in their hands as if its stitches had been loosened, allowing him to slip easily from their grasp then out the door. And when the goons, a split second later, crossed that threshold themselves, and stepped out into a hot summer day and a parking lot full of cars, they found that Kenneth was, well…gone. And though they looked in all directions, checked inside every trashcan, peeked inside every automobile, and even under a few spent cigarette butts—nothing. It was as if Kenneth had simply vanished.

     Part 4: The Unraveling

     Thinking that the ‘great ape’ must have somehow snuck back inside the store, Brad ordered his goons to guard the doors, not letting anyone inside leave, or letting anyone outside—even newly arriving customers or employees—enter. 

     "The proper authorities will be called," Brad tried to reassure the panicked mob, many of whom now only seemed concerned with bashing wine bottles across each other’s heads. "An investigation will be conducted," Brad further informed his non-attentive audience, "and the perimeter will be secured. So just relax everybody, and quit hurting each other. This is, after all, now a crime scene."

     But no one, no matter what their upbringing or social standing, listened. Indeed, near the honeyed ham display, a state senator, a corporate CEO, and a handful of welfare mothers had just rolled up their sleeves and begun throwing packages of pork wieners at each other, with a verve and viciousness that has seldom been seen since the introduction of Prozac and a host of other antidepressant party favors. Nor was this bad mannered pork-throwing lot above stuffing a few packs of wieners down their own pants.  For later.

     Brad turned to his goons.   "Which one of you has Kenneth’s shirt?" he demanded.  "I do, sir."

     "Well hand it over," Brad told him. "That’s evidence."

     Though embarrassed and confused, the young man handed over to his boss what no longer appeared to be a men’s medium polo shirt, but an extra large, used, adult diaper.  The hot pink, scented kind.

     "What’s this?"

     The goon shrugged. "Well, sir, it was a shirt," he mumbled. "Then it, er—changed."

     "My god, man," Brad said in an awe filled, hushed tone, "Men’s shirts that transform into pink adult diapers? That’s way high tech, boys! Ya know, I don’t think that this is any ordinary criminal we’re dealing with." Brad lifted the diaper to his nose, inhaled deeply, and then scowled. "Yes," he said, "it’s just as I feared. This smells like terrorism, boys. We never should have called the local police about this."

     "You mean?" the young goons gulped in unison.

     "Yes," Brad said, gritting his teeth, trying to be brave, "I’m afraid this is a case for the Homeland Security Department." Then the Assistant Store Manager whipped out his cell phone and dialed 9-11. And in mere seconds, Brad was speaking more directly than he'd ever spoken before with his government. But as he left a recorded message on their answering machine, explaining all his fears and suspicions concerning a strange man named Kenneth who had somehow altered the grocery shopping experience as they all knew it, the lower management goons began to back away from Brad and the hot pink diaper he clutched, fearing that an explosion was imminent. By the time Brad clicked his phone off, all his young management goons had disappeared. Gone AWOL. And fearing that they wouldn’t be back any time soon, the Assistant Store Manager now had an epiphany of sorts—unless the government came quickly, he was going to be on his own with this nightmare.

     Smelling smoke, Brad spun around just in time to see flames leap up and engulf the produce department, accompanied by an attendant cacophony of hissing fruits and tubers. This conflagration had been started by a particularly disgruntled band of shoppers who’d managed the impossible; defying the laws of chemistry, they’d somehow turned bottles of wine into Molotov cocktails and were now throwing them about the store with reckless abandon, all the while, justifying their actions with angry shouts, saying it was on account the wine was French.

     Some of us just can't handle pleasurable substances, Brad thought.

     And the carnage was not over yet. Indeed, this store wide pathos-a-thon only waxed more competitive by the second. Through the smoke, Brad could see that the bakery clerks had abandoned their stations and were now dueling with swordfish in the seafood department. And the cashiers were having a canned-good food fight on aisle six.

     "Lima beans!" one cashier cried with each new can thrown. "Chick peas, too!"

     "Corn!" retorted her pig-tailed rival, as she cracked gum in her braces and returned a few volleys of her own. "Corn! Corn! And creamed corn on you, you bitch!"

     Brad looked down at the large pink adult diaper he still clutched, the one that used to be a shirt, the one that was now beginning to dissolve before his very eyes—and then, with a strange popping sound, it disappeared altogether. But left in its place was a bevy of Monarch butterflies.

     They rose up from out of Brad’s clenched fist, fluttered about his head a moment, toying with him, and then flew outside through the sliding glass doors, which had seemingly opened up of their own accord to let the Monarchs pass.

     "Well goddamn!" Brad exclaimed. There went his evidence.

     A sudden shudder ran the length of Brad’s body. In the space of only a few minutes, the Assistant Store Manager’s entire grocery store, and maybe even his entire world, had become utterly destabilized. Brad felt faint, his mind unable to keep up with each new set of dire possibilities that each new second seemed to threaten. Staggering, Brad grabbed his face. He began to stumble, but broke his fall by latching onto a generic soda machine. Then he pressed his red-hot face against its sticky oversized plastic buttons and began to weep inconsolably. With a mess like this on his hands, he probably wouldn’t make it to that Eminem concert tonight after all. A free generic root beer suddenly fell into the soda dispenser tray with a metallic thud, causing Brad even more distress. For not only was a freely dispensing soda machine another problem to be fixed, but he was also tempted to grab the root beer up and guzzle it down himself. Normally, that wouldn't have been a problem, but at the big tent revival meeting he'd attended the other night, Brad had vowed to a rotund red nosed evangelist that he'd finally give up booze altogether. For God. 

     After a few minutes of intense sobbing, Brad jerked his head up, startled.

     There came the rumbling of tanks.

     Part 5: The City of God

     Not only had Kenneth literally evaporated outside the doors of the grocery store, but he’d also been sucked right off the planet. Up, up, through the clouds and the ozone, and through that cracklin’ Van Allen Belt, past the moon, and even well beyond Pluto, he went shirtlessly zinging along at a sizzling speed through outer space, faster than light, faster than bologna fries, until he reached the absolute center of the Universe. It was a place insiders called ‘Heaven.’ Kenneth landed, dusted himself off, and then, in a flash, his remaining earthly clothes disappeared and were replaced by a long shiny white robe and a clipboard and pencil. Then, without further delay, he entered what all bawdy religious jokes call the ‘Pearly Gates’ and lo and behold—Saint Peter was no where to be seen. Not that Kenneth had expected to see him. The one whom Jesus had referred to as the ‘rock,’ upon his own arrival in Heaven, had never been relegated to ‘door man’ status. No, Peter was probably out fishing somewhere in one of Heaven’s many pleasant lakes or streams, half-naked, praising the Lord, and drinking wine. In some ways, ole' Peter would never change.

     Truth was, there was no doorman to be found at the ‘Pearly Gates’ at  all. If you weren’t invited, you most likely wouldn’t have arrived, so, there was no call for any doormen here, or bouncers, or ticket punchers of any kind—just Gates. And those weren’t made from pearl either, but from one of the many awe-inspiring mystery substances that Heaven could afford. No one had ever asked the King about the Gates construction, and the King had never brought the matter up either, so a mystery it had remained—although most felt that it would eventually come out one day. No rush. The denizens of Heaven had more than one forever to sort things out. And whatever that mystery substance was, it rendered the Gates very glittery, yet tasteful, and Kenneth smiled to see them once again. It meant he was home.

     He walked on, for what seemed like days or seconds, through a beautiful rolling countryside, filled with gently swaying fields of grasses and grain, under a huge, brightly lit, yet sunless sky. Sprinkled here and there were the most beautiful of the tamed wildflowers and the occasional pleasantly gnarled old tree. Every once in a while,  Kenneth saw the laughing face of a small child poke up past the grain as they played tag with lions, lambs, other beasts too plentiful to name, and other happy children like themselves. Kenneth smiled, thinking how nice it was that these little ones, once tortured and killed in various terrible ways on Earth by those without conscience, could no longer even remember their former pains. And just then, a light pleasant breeze blew in from the City and wrapped itself around Kenneth, hugging him, telling him that It
agreed.

     He walked on until he reached the City of God.

     When Kenneth began to walk down the busy golden streets, naturally all of his Heavenly friends called out to him, saying, "Cinaed! Come throw back a couple glasses of wine with us and tell us your news of the Earth!" But Cinaed (in Heaven, Kenneth’s name was pronounced ‘Cinaed’—just like in Gaelic) simply waved, smiled, and kept walking. "But Jesus brewed this stuff Himself!" his friends then called out, holding their bottles up so that he could see that they were, indeed, label-less. Cinaed just laughed, and, with clipboard firmly in hand, continued to briskly make his way toward the Divine Palace. ‘Business before pleasure’ was not just an earthly mandate. 

     Upon entering the Palace Lobby, he made straight for the crystalline elevator. And, as if it had been expecting him, its doors opened up of their own accord. Cinaed stepped inside and pressed ‘seven.’

     Next stop—Throne Room.

     Part 6: The Elevator Ride

     "Hold the door," a strange voice cried out—strange because the words sounded as if they’d been gargled, not spoken. A bright green nature spirit barely squeezed himself into the crystalline compartment before the doors slid shut behind him and the elevator began its upward motion.

     The sprite was a tiny fellow, with a traditional elfin appearance, yet he also sported the webbed feet and hands of a frog. Looking up at Cinaed, he flashed a warm toothy grin, but looked to be a touch melancholy about the edges as well.  "Hello Rorrippa," Cinaed said, in a pleasant tone. "Are your well?"

     The sprite sighed. "Well, I’ve been better, I’ll tell you that much. The plant life that I’ve been tending to since the creation is now extinct! Burnt to a crisp! Fried up like a plate of Passenger Pigeon eggs."

     "The Colorado Water Cress has become extinct?" Cinaed exclaimed, unbelieving.  "Yeah. And ain’t it a bitch?" said Rorrippa, nodding. "Funny thing is though, I heard through the grapevine that the humans declared my watercress ‘extinct’ a few years back. But it really wasn’t, you know. There was still one lonely patch hanging around.   Until today, that is."

     "Yeah," Cinaed sighed, "I know how they are. Week after week, their 'weathermen’ give false weather forecasts, but do you think humans ever learn not to make such grand pronouncements about subjects that they don’t completely understand? Hell no! They just keep on pretending to know things they don’t, year after year. Most never seem to grow out of 'make believe.'"

     "They’ve got it all under control, do they?" the sprite said with a tart chortle, jabbing Cinaed in the kneecap with his elbow. "But say," he said, his laughter suddenly drying up, "what is a ‘weathermen’ anyway?"

     Cinaed shook his head. "Just one more human pretending to predict what he can't possibly predict. But weathermen are no better or worse than the other humans, I suppose."

     "Sure, sure," Rorrippa nodded, "but sometimes the weathermen are right, too. At least they were right in my case. The Colorado Watercress is nothing but a sautéed bit of seaweed now. The last one's name was 'George' by the way."   "So how did it, er, I mean, how did George finally become extinct?" Cinaed asked.  "Acid rain? Pollution?"

     "Naw," said the sprite, rolling his eyes, "believe it or not, it was one of ours. A molten hot meteorite came screaming out of space this afternoon and crashed right into poor George. So Colorado Watercrest-ness is now officially a thing of the past, dude. Killed him instantly. And I'll never forget the horror of his final seconds. The last thing poor Georgie did was turn to me and, with feeling, say, ‘Oh shit.’"

     "That’s not uncommon. So sad."

     "Yeah, times are tough for vegetable matter every where," the sprite said, frowning at first, but then breaking into a broad smile, deliberately shaking off his blues. "But I’m not going to let the times we live in give me a bad attitude," he said. "Besides, I’m sure The King will have some new assignment for me. That’s where I’m going now, to give Him my final report on the Colorado Watercress and to see where He wants me next. But hey—who knows? Maybe the King is finally going to retire me! Then I’ll get to drink more wine up here in Heaven with the saints! Maybe finally get to try my hand at some macramé work, or even do a little bowling, praise God! I got a friend that watches over a geranium in a bowling alley in Cleveland. He told me bowling is pretty cool."

     "Yes, praise God!" Cinaed chimed in. "Perhaps you’ll get to bowl soon. But whatever happens, I’m sure it will all work out in the end. It always does for those with faith."

     "Amen brother!" the sprite whooped then danced a jig. "Heaven is pleasant!" he cried.  "Praise the Lord, it is indeed!" Cinaed laughed, and ruffled the sprite’s green shaggy head of hair.

     They fell silent for a moment, and the only sound was the crystalline elevator smoothly humming along, as it rose effortlessly through the many happy but different levels of Heaven.

     Finally, the sprite spoke up.

     "So how goes it with all you Conscience Auditors?"

     "Oh, Rorrippa!" Cinaed exclaimed, jutting a thumb at himself. "It went very bad for this Conscience Auditor today. In fact, this will be the worst report I’ve ever had to turn in to the King, I think."

     "How bad is it?" the sprite asked.

     "Bad."

     "Mediocre-singe-your-heart-around-the-edges bad?" Rorrippa queried, "Or is it that your-soul-falls-through-your-own-ass, end of the world, hard-core type of bad?" 

     "End of the world?" Cinaed laughed nervously. "My dear sprite, the exact day and hour that the world ends is no one’s call but His. I won't presume to have any opinion on the matter, except to say that today is closer to the End than the day before it was—but that’s just simple mathematics."

     "Get off it," the sprite said. "You know more than that."

     "Wish I did," Cinaed shrugged. " However, I do suspect that the King takes the reports of Conscience Auditors like myself into account whenever He ponders the timing of the End. After all, that’s what we auditors are designed to do—gauge the number of active healthy human consciences that can be found at any given time, in any given country or city, or even in a single room. Of course, I do often wonder what might happen if, one day, we can’t find enough consciences left in the world—would the world go on?   And if there is such a number, such a quota, what number would that be?"

     "Well, what would it be?" the nature spirit demanded, not understanding the nature of rhetorical questions.

     Cinaed frowned, answering, " All I know is that if there is a conscience quota to be met for the King to keep footing the Earth’s electric bills every month, then, well, a universal black out could be imminent. Of course, imminent, by the King’s thinking might mean a million years from now or next Tuesday. He doesn’t carry a watch you know. "

     "Oh," the sprite said flatly. "Well, that’s not much of an answer is it?"

     "Sorry."

     "Look," Rorrippa said, "I know you have to tell the King first, but would you at least give me a hint of how badly your assignment went this time? Perhaps your report will have some bearing on whether I'm finally retired or not. "

     Cinaed laughed. "Let me put it to you this way, friend—today, in a grocery store filled with about a hundred people, I only found one person who even had a conscience. And that was a fifteen-year-old grocery sacker named Chuck. And he got fired for it! Everybody else in the store was operating on nothing but fear and acid reflux."

     Rorrippa scrunched up his face. "What’s a 'grocery store'?"

     "You know what bowling is but you don’t know what grocery stores are?"

     "Hey!" the sprite snorted, "I'm a victim!"

     Cinaed chuckled, remembering that nature spirits often had very limited experience with civilization, depending on where they had been stationed for the last millennia.  "Grocery stores, Rorrippa," he explained, "are places where humans go to dream that food just magically appears on shelves—not from fields."

     "Wow! What a place!"

     "Don't worry, you’re not missing anything, Rorrippa. They’re very dull places, grocery stores, often run by very dull people. And these dullards tend to run their grocery stores in a very militant fashion. Terrible places, really. Hotbeds of fascism! "

     "What’s a militant?"

     Cinaed threw his head back and laughed. He was about to explain how Master-Slave Plantation politics really worked when the movement of the elevator stopped with a chiming sound. Its doors opened up, and the crystalline compartment was filled with a warm friendly Light.

     They had arrived. It was the Throne Room. Seventh Heaven.

     "You first," Rorrippa said. "You’re taller."

     "No, you first," Cinaed insisted. "The King really loves you ya know. He’ll want to see your goofy green mug before mine, I’m sure."

     "Well, if you put it that way, alright then!" the sprite chirped. "And after we’re both finished here, Cinaed, we’ll go grab a bottle of that new wine, praise the Lord, and continue our chat. How about it, dude?"

     "Yes. Yes. Very nice," the Conscience Auditor laughed, pushing the nature spirit along. "Hurry, hurry. I can see Him gesturing to you."

     And off the sprite went, happily hopping, as fast as he could, into the Light.

     Part 7: The Report

     Cinaed hoped that Rorrippa would be especially long winded with the Lord today, so as to give him more time to put the finishing touches on his own report. And pressing his clipboard against a pillar for backing, he took out his pencil and began to quickly check off the last few boxes on his standardized form. Finally, he came to the form’s first and only essay question:

     What percentage of humans in your study group preferred truth to lies? Why?

     Cinaed wrote:

     With one exception, (a teenager named Chuck) my study group never got to accept or reject a single truth or lie. Indeed, none of themeven stopped to consider that there is a difference between truths and lies. Instead of measuring reality with their hearts and minds, they preferred to listen only to their guts, which plagued them with a host of nagging fears concerning many dire, but quite unlikely possibilities. In their current state of spiritual devolution, the humans in my study group were no longer equipped to make tough decisions about anything at all, their consciences being so retarded in development as to be virtually undetectable. And, naturally, this ‘non-state’ of mind rendered them extremely silly, most easily confusing the straightforward declaration of my intent to shop with some kind of breech in their national security. In the ensuing panic, they even burned the grocery store down around their own heads. Forty of them were killed outright, and forty more were seriously burned. But after their Federal Government moved in to put out the fire and declare martial law, those who had been fortunate enough to escape both the flames and each other, were then subjected to the worst fate of all—being herded into neat, uniformed, flat-headed, goose stepping rows, by a perfectly coifed military dictator. However, I suspect that very few of those surviving could even tell the difference! They bought into fascism just as easily as they bought into day old bread. So woe, woe, and woe now be unto all the grocery stores upon the face of the Earth, forever and ever more!

     Cinaed sighed. This report sounded just as negative as he’d feared it would. But there was nothing he could do about that. You can’t lie to the King. Well, technically, you could, what with free will and all, but it wasn’t exactly smart. And being smart, himself, Cinaed had neither the inclination nor the desire to fudge on any God-inspired paper work. He was a Conscience Auditor, after all.

     Part 8: The Mystery

     The crystalline elevator doors suddenly opened up and in walked Dotan, one of Cinaed’s fellow Conscience Auditors. Dotan was holding a clipboard and pencil too. And although he looked a tad grim, he and Cinaed traded cheerful smiles and hugs, as always.

     "How’s your wing tips hangin', my brotha?" Dotan asked, slapping him on the back.

     "They’ve hung better, Dotan," Cinaed said, sighing. "I went to the Earth on a simple grocery store assignment this afternoon, and those humans wouldn’t even let me shop.  Imagine them not letting someone shop!"

     "You musta not been buying what they was tryin’ to sell ya."

     "Which then led to a huge ruckus," Cinaed added, "and ultimately, a fascist takeover of the entire North American Continent! And, well, nevermind—don’t ask. Let’s me put it this way. I practically had to bail my entire assignment and boogie my ass back to Heaven. I just now filled out my report and, well—here I am, waiting in line to talk to the King, like everyone else."

    "Mmm-mm-mm," Dotan hummed, "Da King’s gotcha comin’ an a goin’, boy. Comin’ and goin’."

     "So, do you have a report to turn in too?" Cinaed asked, already knowing the answer.

     "You know it!"

     "Is it... bad?" Cinaed prodded.

     Dotan frowned. "Well, my inquisitive amigo, I’d rather not get into that," he said, tapping his clipboard. "For da King’s eyes only."

     "Bad, huh?"

     Silence.

     "Now I remember!" Cinaed cried. "Your assignment today was in Jerusalem! Wasn’t it?"

     Dotan nodded, almost imperceptibly, but said nothing.

     "Well, what happened down there?" Cinaed said, now in a hushed, conspiratorial tone, gripping his own clipboard tight.

     The other Conscience Auditor grew momentarily pensive, but then he relaxed just as fast, his expression dissolving into a toothy yet beatific smile. "Say, brotha dawg," Dotan laughed, draping an arm around Cinaed’s shoulder, "after we visit with Da King, you wanna go off somewheres and catch up on the olden days? And the future days too? Ya know, just praise the Lord a little while and drink some of His fine new wine?  Mm-mm-mm—I hear it’s to die for. Hey, we’ll throw in some peanut brittle oo—jus’ for laughs. What ya say?"

     "Of course I want drink wine and hang with you, Dotan," Cinaed said, " but please, please don’t change the subject. What happened in Jerusalem today? Tell me!"

     "Yeah, brotha dawg, it’s the Lord's best brew ever, I hear."

END