From the Fool

(For the past 20 months, we've posted a regular weekly blog, of which the Fool is one voice. We'll post the Fool's thoughts here weekly. If you want to read the whole thing, subscribe at www.DamnedFool.com.)

I.
Storytime once at school, second grade, they read us a story where the man and wife thought up a baby. It wasn’t born. They just thought it up.

That stuck in my head. I thought, well, was I maybe just thought up? And what if they forget they thought me up?

I still wonder. Maybe there’s this couple who are poor but honest and their kids are grown so they have to find something to do so they think me up. Maybe I exist, or maybe they just keep writing me down like the grocery list.

You might wonder, why would they think up a Fool? But these days if you have half a brain you’d want your kid to be either a billionaire or a total Fool. Anything in between is gonna have big problems.

I know I’ve got a sister and a bunch of friends and I remember my mom and dad, but I’m still pretty shaky in the existence department. Some day I might wake up dead.

We had a cat named Catfish. My dad named it that. Mom said it was a creepy name, but the cat died, so that settled that at least. I tried to remember Catfish into being alive, but she stayed dead.

But I guess if I don’t exist I’m a lot safer that way, from what I see on the news.

—Bishop &Fuller

© 2015 C. Bishop & E. Fuller

My friend Joe is no fool. He wants that to be clear. ‘You’re a fool,’ he yells at me. I agree.
But what happened was this.

He used to read all the news and watch the news on TV and dream about the news which was worse than the chainsaws they do in the movies. But he wasn’t scared. “I’m not scared,” he yelled.

In the news were the terrorists and robbers and yoga and even worse, so he got a dog. A big ugly Doberman with fangs and a crew cut. He made a sign that said HUGE FUCKIN DOG. “Do they read English?” I asked.

That stumped him. He worried that they wouldn’t read it and then charge in and suicide-bomb the dog and he’d be defenseless. So he bought a gun.

But then he heard that the Feds were going to take away all the guns. So he booby-trapped his toilet. An intruder might have to use the toilet, so he put a burglar alarm on it. He had to pee out the window. “I’m not scared,” he yelled.

Joe didn’t look very happy. He just watched TV news and fed the dog and peed out the window. I don’t know if he moved any of his bowels. You don’t ask friends unless they bring it up first. I guess the dog took care of the household crapping.

He was really mad at the terrorists for not speaking English so he could put up his sign.

But one day on the news it was so awful that he couldn’t contain himself so he ran for the toilet and sat down yelling “I’m not scared” and the toilet went off with a screaming siren that freaked the dog who charged him with all its fangs and he shot the dog eleven times then fell off the toilet and broke his hip.

Next time, he says, he’ll do it bigger and better.

—Bishop & Fuller

(From DamnedFool.com. © 2015 C. Bishop & E. Fuller)

My friend Barnett lost his parents to the flu. They were mean bastards, so he knew they were in Hell.

But he loved them, so he vowed to dig them out. He found a soft spot in the back yard and started to dig.
Long way down, and he hit layers of hard-packed clay. By day’s end he was dead tired. He went to sleep right in the hole.

An angel came that night and brought Revelation to my friend Barnett.

THERE IS A HELL, the angel said, BUT IT’S UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

This was the run-down:

God and Satan in fact are business partners. Not friends, but like Gilbert & Sullivan: one writes lyrics, the other music. Far distant from one another, but the audience comes out singing the tune. Their target — to separate the purebred sheep from the scroungy goats — is the same. They advertise each other and share each other’s mailing lists. Both rely on the workings of capital investment. Both are job-creators.

But Hell was planned out when humans were little splotches of nomads, one step up from red-ass baboons, created to give tigers and head lice some extra protein. No one ever imagined Los Angeles.

And so, when humanity reached its apex as planetary parasite, Hell had to be redeveloped — a public/private partnership known as the World Wide Web.

Each day, every day, all day, every human on Earth could suck into their souls the sum total, billions of uploads, of Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony. An instant-cereal mix called Hell in Every Heart — just add stink and let simmer.

TURN HUMANITY UP TO ELEVEN, the angel said, with a chuckle and snort, AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

According to my friend Barnett, anyway, but it might just have been his excuse to stop digging. Sounds fishy to me.

—Bishop & Fuller

(From DamnedFool.com. © 2015 C. Bishop & E. Fuller)