Marooned

by Travis Smith

  More guns and more cops are both examples of trying to prevent a tragedy with an abortive measure. You don’t avoid illness with abortive medications. You take preventative precautions, and that’s what the God-fearing, gun-greasing delusional [expletive] Right-wingers seem utterly disinterested in discussing.

  4

  Chris Cross Applesauce: Spoon-feeding for (Adults Who Think Like) Schoolchildren

  Christian Ban:

  Christians are a plague upon this great nation. I say we get ’em all gone. Ban Christian immigration, and ship the ones here all out. They’re fat, lazy, freeloading slobs. They take your hard-earned money in collection plates and donation boxes, and they even finagle write-offs for it! They build elaborate buildings on tax-free land and fund it all with illegal income. They spread hatred and violence to all who oppose them, and they aim to control your every walk of life. They are villains and criminals who hide behind their atrocities and claim holy decree. They kill in the name of their prophet, lie in defense of their convictions, and trample anyone and everyone who disagrees. They will not still or quiet until I and people like me are unable to share the same freedoms that they enjoy. My childhood preacher touched my penis when I was in fourth grade, and his son sold drugs out of the church bathroom. They won’t stop. They cannot be reasoned with. Their numbers are too great. Our only hope is to GET. THEM. OUT.

  Sound familiar?

  Some conservative politician said something crazy again, and everyone is in an uproar. I’m not too shocked or concerned by what he said, but what’s upsetting is the redoubling of rationalizations from his supporters. I watched an interview from a cult meeting rally in which an attendee was asked, “Does this change how you’ll vote? Could he do or say anything that would change it?” to which the man replied, “Nope. Not at all.”

  This, more than anything, displays the degree of separation from reality in which these people are operating. Nothing could change your vote? Really? Nothing? What if he covered Ann Coulter’s unborn fetus in mayonnaise and ate it with a spoon right on stage in front of you? You’d still shrug and rub your neck and say, “Well, if it was a Muslim fetus …”

  These people don’t operate with facts. They don’t view statistics. They don’t employ logic. They simply repeat the same tired rhetoric and nonsense again and again and stroke each other’s balls as though they’re each having an original thought until the complacent, willful ignorance snowballs into an avalanche of hatred and baseless vitriol and an incoherent screaming match of bullshit.

  Your politicians are not the problem. They are an extreme of an extreme that should be just enough to open the eyes of some of the sheep out there—but they won’t. Your short-sightedness will persist, because YOU are the problem.

  Views: 15

  5

  Transcript from Nashville-based radio show, Tim & Daryl:

  Daryl: So, today we’re gonna piss off half our listeners again.

  Tim: [laughs]

  Daryl: It’s high time we talked about this missing kid.

  Tim: What’s his name again? Crisscrossed?

  Daryl: [laughs] Yeah, Christopher. His internet persona he seemed to be trying so hard to build was Chris Cross Applesauce or some stupid play on that. Yeah, here’s his YouTube account. CrisCrosAppleSos.

  Tim: Nice. “Sos,” like S-O-S. Is that supposed to be a play on that?

  Daryl: Probably too deep for this creep.

  Tim: Ooh!

  Daryl: What? Too soon? Too soon? He spent his life trying to build this liberal persona. This is the price of fame, baby. You’re gonna get some haters.

  Tim: [laughs]

  Daryl: We got a printout here. It’s the comments from one of his YouTube video rants about abortion.

  Tim: Oh, boy.

  Daryl: I know. He got into a flame war in the comment section.

  Tim: “Flame war?” Hey! That’s low brow, buddy, even for you!

  Daryl: [laughs] Yeah, you can barely make out what the poor kid’s saying in his video through his lisp, but he seemed to take his time with the comments. All the words spelled correctly and such. That’s what makes liberal arguments right, right? When they’re spelled right.

  Tim: Hell yeah. No typos on the left!

  Daryl: So listen to this. Okay. This dude Ethan729 comments and says, “Fags should be aborted.”

  Tim: Ouch!

  Daryl: Right? It gets better. CrisCrosAppleSos: “Funny, I thought you cretin right-wing trolls insisted that homosexuality is a choice. No way it could be occurring in the womb, right?”

  Tim: Mic drop. Drop that mic, Chris! [snaps fingers three times]

  Daryl: [laughs] So then Ethan: “I didn’t mean it literally. I would never suggest genocide like that, because I’m not a liberal Nazi.” Then Chris: “Yeah, all life is sacred, right? Especially if you’re straight, white, and male. If you’re so against abortion, why don’t you head into the clinics and start adopting, mister high and mighty?”

  Tim: Oh, yeah. The classic pro-choice go-to.

  Daryl: Ethan: “I never said I was against abortion. Just don’t care for your hateful presentation.” Chris: “I’m the hateful one? Your first comment was, ‘fags should be aborted.’ I grew up with people like you, and I can see right through your bullshit trolling. You want to talk about the sanctity of life and the miracle of birth? You only give a fuck until the moment it’s born. Where will you be when some poor rape-baby is born to an ill mother who can’t afford to take care of it? Surely not fighting for welfare or healthcare or education for that baby! Because those are all liberal ideas and socialism. So where will you be when this baby shows up at the ER and his mother can’t afford his antibiotics to keep him alive?”

  Tim: [whistles]

  Daryl: [laughs] So then Ethan comes back with: “Probably in church.”

  Tim: [laughs] He has a way with words, I tell you what.

  Daryl: Don’t they all? So this kid wants to pick fights online and become famous for rubbing everybody the wrong way, then we’re supposed to weep and wring our hands wondering how such a horrible thing could happen to him? We’re supposed to call this a “hate crime” when all the hate is coming from this punk? This guy is ranting and raving like a lunatic all over the internet. It’s on every one of his social media.

  Tim: Ouch, man. Always count on you to tell it like it is.

  6

  EAST TENNESSEE TABLOID

  SHOCKING REVELATION IN DISAPPEARANCE OF CHRISTOPHER CROSS!

  HOMOPHOBIC SLURS WRITTEN IN BLOOD AT CRIME SCENE!

  YOU WON’T BELIEVE THE LETTER HE LEFT HIS MOTHER!

  7

  “It is an unfortunate truth that tragedies like these are often necessary to bring our community together just a little bit closer. Our hearts and thoughts are with Christopher, wherever he may be, and with Christopher’s friends and family during this time.”

  Scott Kent stood before a small gathering of about 20 CUNY students and community members. He had always enjoyed his conversations with Christopher, and his disappearance weighed on him heavily. He volunteered to lead a memorial service on CUNY’s Brooklyn campus to honor the boy and hopefully to help his friends and classmates find some closure.

  He spread his arms like a preacher atop his pulpit—though he’d never been a religious man—and scanned across each somber face in the crowd, hoping to find a moment of sincerity through locked eyes.

  “Death is a topic I have studied and contemplated for a great deal of time, but it never fails to shock and dismay me when such tragedy befalls. I mourn for my own loss, that I will never get to read Christopher’s wise words in my class. I mourn for his peers, that they will never again see his smile or hear his laugh and get lost in even a moment of wonder that those things can bring. I mourn for his family, that they will grieve beneath insurmountable sorrow. But mostly I mourn for Christopher, that his gifts and life were cut short, and that he will never experience the greatest thrills and loves and hope and happiness that could ha
ve been.”

  Reverend David Goodwin stood far at the back of the small crowd that sat with their heads politely bowed listening to the shallow man speak. He held his hands clasped behind his back as he scanned the group who considered themselves close to Christopher Cross or anything he stood for.

  “Pity,” he muttered before walking back to his car to make the long drive home to Tennessee.

  8

  Chris Cross Applesauce: Spoon-feeding for (Adults Who Think Like) Schoolchildren

  Jesus Was a Socialist:

  Something that has always perplexed me is how conservatism and Christianity seem to go hand-in-hand. What mixture of backwards ass thinking, denial, and lack of self-awareness must comprise that concoction?

  Where in The Bible did Jesus say to horde all the guns to protect your family from your brown neighbors? When did he say, “Fuck the poor and those parasites using my tax dollars to feed their sick kids?” Which doctor did he instruct to let some kid die because she couldn’t afford health insurance? Whose face did he spit in while berating her for having an abortion after she was raped? What border did he build a wall along to keep out anyone seeking to escape certain death or persecution?

  The way Republicans get you people to vote against your own interests appalls me. It isn’t just the Christians. I wish that you could see this as a teachable moment and not an attack. We could all be so much better off.

  Let’s have a thought exercise. What if I wanted to be a very, very bad guy. Let’s say I wanted to attain the highest level of power. What can I do with all that power? I can influence laws and economics to make myself rich. I can take money from donors and mega-companies and make myself richer, in exchange for writing policies that make them richer as well.

  No one would let me do such a thing, right?

  What if I convinced you so strongly to fear anyone who opposes me that you felt you had no choice but to vote for me? What if I told you blatant lies and spread falsehoods that are becoming less and less easily verifiable? What if I convinced you that the other side wanted to murder babies? That they were comprised of terrorists who could attack you and blow up a building at any moment? That they wanted to let in savages who would rape and pillage? That they would steal your tax dollars and give them to criminals and illegal immigrants? That they would dismantle your military and take away every shred of protection you have for yourself?

  And me? Well, yeah, I just want to lower taxes (for my rich friends). That doesn’t sound so bad now, does it? And in the long run, those dollars saved will help the economy! A booming economy will help your paycheck, Mr. Plumber, Mr. A/C Repairman!

  Lies.

  And all so I could get that power. So I can make it harder for you to have a voice if you call me out on my bullshit. So I can make laws that make it easier for my crooked friends to slide their ways into office and perpetuate this cycle of corruption. So I can make it impossible for honest politicians to have a position to chip away at such a broken, broken system.

  All the while, 90% of America is in agreement about only one thing: Politicians don’t care about me. They’re all crooked. They’re all liars.

  Well, if you believe that, you’re either not paying attention or willfully blind to reality. Good ones exist. They just aren’t playing for your team. They’re not in your echo-chambers.

  Sometimes I think this two-party system is flawed not in its execution, but in the very core of its nature. It forces you to approach every problem with an us-vs.-them mentality. It forces you to think of politics like sports, where your team winning is more important than the bigger picture. It discourages all critical thinking or collective problem solving. And it keeps us fighting with each other so they can enjoy their tax breaks, health care, protection services, paid vacations, job security, retirement, and platforms to tell you that socialism is evil.

  Views: 1,344

  The Cave:

  Part 4

  C hristopher and The Stranger wandered through the cave without direction. The concept of time was numbed. The bodily need for food or rest was dulled. The memories of what had befallen were in fog.

  “So what’s the plan, then?” Christopher asked.

  The Stranger shrugged.

  “Just walk until something happens? This place is infinite. It just keeps going and going. We could be walking in a giant circle for all we know.”

  “We will find a way out,” The Stranger said.

  “Out of Hell?” Christopher scoffed.

  “Not Hell,” The Stranger corrected.

  Christopher waved his arms in the darkness. “Then what? Some mystical cave that’s magically lit by our imaginations?”

  The Stranger shrugged. “I’ve witnessed more peculiar spectacles.”

  “More peculiar than the dark, well-lit cavern? Look around, man! Where is the light coming from?”

  “There is no light.”

  “Exactly, and yet we can see each other perfectly, yeah?”

  The Stranger shrugged.

  “Dude, I’m just as pissed as you are, believe me. I spent my whole life telling Christians how much better I am than they are for not accosting strangers to shove my religion down their throat. Now I’m sitting here exactly where everyone told me I’d end up my whole life for being gay.”

  Ye’ll end up in Hell! The Stranger heard inside his head. “You keep using the word gay,” he said.

  “Yes! Homosexual! It means I’m sexually attracted to other men, dude. You couldn’t fucking tell?” He flailed his wrists in the air in his antagonistic showman’s way.

  “Ah,” The Stranger said. “Of course I could discern that much. I simply knew not the word. Your people condemned you to Hell for your attraction to men?”

  “Uh, yeah!” Christopher replied. “Don’t your people hate the gays?”

  “I suppose it depends on how condemning their actions are.”

  “As condemning as sleeping with other dudes can be, I guess.”

  “Hmm.” The Stranger accepted Christopher at his word.

  “So is this it, then? Just me and you in Hell? There are infinite dimensions with countless other queers like me, and you’re the only other asshole down here?”

  Before The Stranger could open his mouth to reply, they both came to a halt. No sooner had the words left Christopher’s lips than they both noticed a doorway standing in the distance.

  As they looked on, the door slowly opened, and an unfamiliar man peered out at them.

  Chapter 8:

  Darkness

  1

  H e is falling.

  Falling and fading.

  Falling into darkness.

  Fading into darkness.

  Darkness is everywhere. It surrounds him. It’s within him. It engulfs him. Run as he may, the darkness finds a way.

  He flees the darkness. He flees only to find himself chasing darkness.

  The sun stands amid darkness with such confidence. The sun is a sole source of light that combats the dark with its very existence.

  He is the sun.

  His shine repels the dark.

  But eventually the sun burns out. And then there is only darkness. And what a futile existence, combatting the inevitable.

  He falls and he fades.

  His resistance is futility. His existence is futility.

  The darkness engulfs him. It finds itself within him.

  Eventually, he succumbs.

  2

  Patrick welcomed the dark with dispassion. He’d lost everything and then rebuilt only to lose it again. His lover lay ill—and did she ever feel anything for him at all? He would never be able to pay her healer—and would she want him to come back for her anyway? His stubborn determination to raid her village had cost Brandon and Jake their freedom, had cost Philip his life, had potentially cost Olivia hers as well.

  Darkness engulfed his body and mind. Its thin fingers reached inside of him and found a fading light inside, which they deftly snuffed out.

  He des
cended through caverns and tunnels until all light was forgotten. His mind disconnectedly wondered if light had ever existed at all. His very hands before his face were imperceptible, and eventually his eyes conjured phantom images in their place. His descent was guided by tactile input alone. Tunnels narrowed and branched into an infinite web in the underground abyss, and Patrick often had to travel through tight spaces on his stomach, arms stretched out before him, writhing forward like a serpent. He was paralyzed by neither fear nor discomfort, for he embraced whatever hells lay within this underground void.

  There came a time when Patrick lost sense of physical existence. He became a mere cloud of consciousness existing within blank space—like the spark of a new sun being birthed in a cosmic infinity. The scrapes and bruises he suffered by dragging his body through the jagged rock and dirt became insignificant, and he soon stopped noticing them altogether. Momentarily, his body convulsed as he descended into the chilly depths of the forgotten caverns beneath Fordar, but he soon grew numb to the unnatural cold. Pangs of hunger vanished with the sense that his body no longer existed. Emotional turmoil vanished into a void of blackness that left him without trouble (or pleasure). Without day and night, time had no meaning whatsoever. Sleep arrived and departed at erratic, irregular intervals. When he wedged his body too tightly into a tunnel and could travel forward no longer, he closed his eyes and fretted not whether he would ever awake again.