Politicians got slimier and greedier and less trustworthy. Wars weren’t waged for noble causes, they were pecuniary agendas. The younger generations kept getting stupider and more selfish and less humane. Popular culture was all in the toilet. Bad language was rampant. Overt pornographic imagery had infiltrated regular television—Ruth didn’t know from cable firsthand, butfrom what she’d heard it had been the telecast version of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Craziness.
Gone were any kind of values one could hold dear. The people of her generation were shunned by society. The only ones who cared at all about them were the politicians, and that was only because the older generation still got out and voted. So, politicians and the pharmaceutical companies. Everyone else just was biding their time waiting for all the seniors to drop dead and vacate apartments like this one. Geriatrics and gentrification didn’t often cozy up. But that was just a personal beef. Donald Trump and his ilk didn’t erect the real estate that mattered. The Tower of Babel had been built again, at least metaphorically, and this time God was playing for keeps.
God had had enough of his naughty children.
Death was near, Ruth felt. Abe would be in for a rude surprise when he found out his soul would continue to exist even after his mortal form didn’t. In the next world—
Olam HaEmet
: “the World of Truth”—he’d have to answer for all his bile when they played back his life for him. Abe wasn’t a bad person—mean, maybe, but not evil—but his lack of faith would surely not be looked on with favor.
Gehenom
awaited Abe. It wasn’t hell, and he could move on, but he’d have to do some serious soul-searching—literally—to purify his untidy soul.
The depiction of the afterlife wasn’t explicit in the Torah. That’s where the goyim had it made. It was so black and white. They got scary fire and brimstone if they were bad or the Pearly Gates and Paradise if they were good. The Torah was more enigmatic. As a good Jew you were supposed to focus on your role in this, the material world. An eternal reward was a vague but effective motivator to stay on the correct path. All Ruth knew was that the soul went on for eternity and that was good enough for her. She just hoped thatAbe would get his act together and make peace with God so they could link up in this nebulous afterlife.
And the children and grandkids.
And maybe Cary Grant.
Sure he was
treyf
, but
oof.
Abe held the book close to the candle, straining to read the small print. Though he enjoyed Dick kicking the crap out of his poor deluded bozos in their subterranean Martian hovels, drugged to the gills with their little Perky Pat doll setups, the pain in his eyeballs negated the pleasure. Besides, he was actually envious of these fictional characters. Sure they’d been forcibly evicted to live on Mars—which was a complete crudhole—but at least they could get bombed out of their gourds and have these collective fantasy trips courtesy of some kooky hallucinogenic drug called Can-D. Or was it Chew-Z? It was both. Whatever. It was a crazy book, but Abe found himself embroiled in its labyrinthine plot. Dick was a nut, but an imaginative nut.
He put the book down and closed his eyes and rubbed them—hard. With spots and tiny patterns of organic hieroglyphs swimming on his orbits, Abe sat back in the chair by the window and enjoyed the fireworks. Abe rubbed some more, even though it was supposedly bad for you. When he pulled his hands away and opened his eyes again, flashes of light joined the spots and indecipherable microscopic pictographs. A distant clap of thunder echoed throughout the dead city, followed by a chorus of idiot groans from the undead. Abe blinked and pretended he was crocked on Dick’s wonderdrugs.
“I’m on Mars,” he whispered. “I’m in my hovel. Where’s my dolly?”
As the spots and runes melted away Abe realized the lightwasn’t self-induced. Lightning?
Craziness.
Gone were any kind of values one could hold dear. The people of her generation were shunned by society. The only ones who cared at all about them were the politicians, and that was only because the older generation still got out and voted. So, politicians and the pharmaceutical companies. Everyone else just was biding their time waiting for all the seniors to drop dead and vacate apartments like this one. Geriatrics and gentrification didn’t often cozy up. But that was just a personal beef. Donald Trump and his ilk didn’t erect the real estate that mattered. The Tower of Babel had been built again, at least metaphorically, and this time God was playing for keeps.
God had had enough of his naughty children.
Death was near, Ruth felt. Abe would be in for a rude surprise when he found out his soul would continue to exist even after his mortal form didn’t. In the next world—
Olam HaEmet
: “the World of Truth”—he’d have to answer for all his bile when they played back his life for him. Abe wasn’t a bad person—mean, maybe, but not evil—but his lack of faith would surely not be looked on with favor.
Gehenom
awaited Abe. It wasn’t hell, and he could move on, but he’d have to do some serious soul-searching—literally—to purify his untidy soul.
The depiction of the afterlife wasn’t explicit in the Torah. That’s where the goyim had it made. It was so black and white. They got scary fire and brimstone if they were bad or the Pearly Gates and Paradise if they were good. The Torah was more enigmatic. As a good Jew you were supposed to focus on your role in this, the material world. An eternal reward was a vague but effective motivator to stay on the correct path. All Ruth knew was that the soul went on for eternity and that was good enough for her. She just hoped thatAbe would get his act together and make peace with God so they could link up in this nebulous afterlife.
And the children and grandkids.
And maybe Cary Grant.
Sure he was
treyf
, but
oof.
Abe held the book close to the candle, straining to read the small print. Though he enjoyed Dick kicking the crap out of his poor deluded bozos in their subterranean Martian hovels, drugged to the gills with their little Perky Pat doll setups, the pain in his eyeballs negated the pleasure. Besides, he was actually envious of these fictional characters. Sure they’d been forcibly evicted to live on Mars—which was a complete crudhole—but at least they could get bombed out of their gourds and have these collective fantasy trips courtesy of some kooky hallucinogenic drug called Can-D. Or was it Chew-Z? It was both. Whatever. It was a crazy book, but Abe found himself embroiled in its labyrinthine plot. Dick was a nut, but an imaginative nut.
He put the book down and closed his eyes and rubbed them—hard. With spots and tiny patterns of organic hieroglyphs swimming on his orbits, Abe sat back in the chair by the window and enjoyed the fireworks. Abe rubbed some more, even though it was supposedly bad for you. When he pulled his hands away and opened his eyes again, flashes of light joined the spots and indecipherable microscopic pictographs. A distant clap of thunder echoed throughout the dead city, followed by a chorus of idiot groans from the undead. Abe blinked and pretended he was crocked on Dick’s wonderdrugs.
“I’m on Mars,” he whispered. “I’m in my hovel. Where’s my dolly?”
As the spots and runes melted away Abe realized the lightwasn’t self-induced. Lightning?
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