My mother, a village whore, was nonetheless a pious type, so on the morning of my
fifth birthday I was whisked away to the monastery. She must have thought I’d pay
her sins forward. Of course, I would have entered the monastery anyway: as the
second son of the village cobbler, it’s was expected of you in those days. Did I say
cobbler? I lied. At that point the Civilizers had yet to bring us shoes, so I suppose my
father was a tailor, or something of the sort. Anyway not that I’d get anything out of
it: for the next eighteen years my life’s belongings were rather elementary – a tunic,
a razor, a bowl and a prayer book… or so the elders thought. On my ninth birthday a
touring Ceylonese witch doctor gifted me a collectors’ edition Pez dispenser that I’ve
been hiding in my crotch ever since.
As I was saying. My dear, disreputable mother wanted the best for her little pumpkin
so she sent me to live with the Order of Virtuous Vivisectors, a group of renegade
holy men, if you will. They’d been caste out of the Valley in the year 1479 of Our
Leader, but had long since regrouped in the hills just north of our village. Though
blacklisted by the Bureau of Spiritual Authority for their heretical views on
kinesthetics and cookery, our village was usually on good terms with them – for
reasons largely unknown to me.
And so it was. For nearly twenty long years I arose at dawn to milk the ass and tether
the pony, my only two companions apart from drinking bouts with the occasional
traveling seer. Though the brothers had taught me to read and write, it was in their
chicken scratch dialect, a text that resembled a pair of gangly goats making carnal
intimations with one another. Down in the Valley I was virtually illiterate. Then
again, perhaps it worked to my advantage. Among the novice monks, only I was
trusted to make the occasional delivery to the Order’s secret cells in town. Since I
couldn’t read the messages, I couldn’t possibly betray them. But that was all so long
ago!
I should remind the reader that I wasn’t destined to be a holy pauper, spending my
best years tending to village donkeys and reciting ancient gabble before going to
bed. Oh no. From the moment I abandoned my mother’s whoring teat, I knew I was
destined for a higher spiritual plane: one with a simpler theology, replete with tiled
green floors and starched white shirts. Oh but for the sweet, white smell of
ammonia! So certain I was of this calling that when the Civilizers came marching
into town, I was hardly surprised.
For those unfamiliar with the turbulent history of my people, grant me a brief
digression. As you may have gathered, by the time I was born religious factions had
been splintering the Kingdom for ages. Whereas the Order of Opportunistic Enablers
was stealing converts from the Mission of Mellifluous Mantras, the Brothers of
Beneficent Bedlam were pirating the Society of Supine Sisters’ prayer books. You see
where this is going. By my 3rd and 20th year, fear and religious envy were ripping the
land apart. When the Civilizers docked in the marshy waters of the Capital, their
timing could hardly have been better.
On the 2nd day of the 13th month, I rushed down to port to see what all the fuss was
about. I’d been sent to town the day before to retrieve a garland of myrrh and
pickled mulberry for my order’s annual officiating ceremony. The moment I laid eyes
upon the Civilizers’ purple-flag-bearing ships, I knew then and there I’d never go
back to the Order.
The Civilizers, as the entire world now knows, were not only master craftsmen and
excellent seafarers, but religious authorities of the highest grade. Their priests, if one
can stoop to call them that, were young and dashing, bright and boisterous, virile
proselytizers who knew how to bring out the ‘ho’ in holy. Combined with their
technical mastery of shooting-dust and bookbinding, they couldn’t be beaten. Within
weeks, our monkish leaders were all in chains. Suffice to say I was head over heals.
The very night of their arrival, I rushed to greet their ambassador as he gorged
himself on garlic herring and offered him my oath. “From this day forward I shall
serve thee and thy Civilization, sir, ‘til death doth disembowel me!” Ok, so I hadn’t
rehearsed it – cut me some slack. One glance at my adorable little shaven brow and
he piped, “Why yes, I suppose we’ll be needing some of your kind.”
A week later I was brought along to the Council of Religious Reconciliation. Not that
the Civilizers were conciliatory men – nothing of the kind! We all know the path to
truth begins with stick and ends with stone, though the initial stages of conversion
are always tricky. Since the Civilizers’ first appearance in the Capital, civil war had
broken out in the north. Fear had swept the countryside quicker than a gypsy’s
broken promise, and local authority had all but disappeared. Worse, the religious
orders had taken to summary executions by stoning. Such savage native behavior! As
an expert on the Order of Virtuous Vivisectors, I was given my first – and last –
mission.
I boarded the first northbound train at the crack of dawn. A young and especially
zealous convert, I was given a dual mission: firstly, negotiate a temporary truce
between the warring orders in my native province; secondly, convert the novice
monks of the Virtuous Vivisectors to the Civilizers’ orderly creed. I was so giddy I
tinkled myself once aboard the wagon-car. Luckily, however, I’d brought an extra
pair of trousers – that magnificent new contraction brought to us by the Civilizers –
though I’d never actually worn a pair myself. (They’d come with my orientation
packet to the faith). I went to the bathroom to try them on.
This being long before the days of coal-powered rail, the toilet in the train merely
bottomed out to the tracks below. (How I used to love pooing whenever there was a
breeze!) Yet just I was slipping into them, my right ankle got caught in the bottom of
the first pant-leg; before I could issue a muffled cry, I fell into the toilet. If the zipper
hadn’t miraculously caught onto the toilet-paper dispenser, I would have fallen
through to the tracks, an immediate end to all my life’s ambitions: forced
conversions, speaking engagements, the whole nine yards. But miracle aside, my life
was still hanging by a zipper.
Too embarrassed to call for help, I rode in this precarious position for the next
fifteen miles. Despite the odor, I had an epiphany: whatsoever now happened to me
in that bottomless lavatory, I had found the true faith. The Civilizers had come to
liberate my country – and with it every fiber of my being. Safely a brother to the new
creed, I overcame my fear, reached up and gave the zipper a snap. I fell to my
immediate death, a grin bigger than freedom smeered across my face.
fifth birthday I was whisked away to the monastery. She must have thought I’d pay
her sins forward. Of course, I would have entered the monastery anyway: as the
second son of the village cobbler, it’s was expected of you in those days. Did I say
cobbler? I lied. At that point the Civilizers had yet to bring us shoes, so I suppose my
father was a tailor, or something of the sort. Anyway not that I’d get anything out of
it: for the next eighteen years my life’s belongings were rather elementary – a tunic,
a razor, a bowl and a prayer book… or so the elders thought. On my ninth birthday a
touring Ceylonese witch doctor gifted me a collectors’ edition Pez dispenser that I’ve
been hiding in my crotch ever since.
As I was saying. My dear, disreputable mother wanted the best for her little pumpkin
so she sent me to live with the Order of Virtuous Vivisectors, a group of renegade
holy men, if you will. They’d been caste out of the Valley in the year 1479 of Our
Leader, but had long since regrouped in the hills just north of our village. Though
blacklisted by the Bureau of Spiritual Authority for their heretical views on
kinesthetics and cookery, our village was usually on good terms with them – for
reasons largely unknown to me.
And so it was. For nearly twenty long years I arose at dawn to milk the ass and tether
the pony, my only two companions apart from drinking bouts with the occasional
traveling seer. Though the brothers had taught me to read and write, it was in their
chicken scratch dialect, a text that resembled a pair of gangly goats making carnal
intimations with one another. Down in the Valley I was virtually illiterate. Then
again, perhaps it worked to my advantage. Among the novice monks, only I was
trusted to make the occasional delivery to the Order’s secret cells in town. Since I
couldn’t read the messages, I couldn’t possibly betray them. But that was all so long
ago!
I should remind the reader that I wasn’t destined to be a holy pauper, spending my
best years tending to village donkeys and reciting ancient gabble before going to
bed. Oh no. From the moment I abandoned my mother’s whoring teat, I knew I was
destined for a higher spiritual plane: one with a simpler theology, replete with tiled
green floors and starched white shirts. Oh but for the sweet, white smell of
ammonia! So certain I was of this calling that when the Civilizers came marching
into town, I was hardly surprised.
For those unfamiliar with the turbulent history of my people, grant me a brief
digression. As you may have gathered, by the time I was born religious factions had
been splintering the Kingdom for ages. Whereas the Order of Opportunistic Enablers
was stealing converts from the Mission of Mellifluous Mantras, the Brothers of
Beneficent Bedlam were pirating the Society of Supine Sisters’ prayer books. You see
where this is going. By my 3rd and 20th year, fear and religious envy were ripping the
land apart. When the Civilizers docked in the marshy waters of the Capital, their
timing could hardly have been better.
On the 2nd day of the 13th month, I rushed down to port to see what all the fuss was
about. I’d been sent to town the day before to retrieve a garland of myrrh and
pickled mulberry for my order’s annual officiating ceremony. The moment I laid eyes
upon the Civilizers’ purple-flag-bearing ships, I knew then and there I’d never go
back to the Order.
The Civilizers, as the entire world now knows, were not only master craftsmen and
excellent seafarers, but religious authorities of the highest grade. Their priests, if one
can stoop to call them that, were young and dashing, bright and boisterous, virile
proselytizers who knew how to bring out the ‘ho’ in holy. Combined with their
technical mastery of shooting-dust and bookbinding, they couldn’t be beaten. Within
weeks, our monkish leaders were all in chains. Suffice to say I was head over heals.
The very night of their arrival, I rushed to greet their ambassador as he gorged
himself on garlic herring and offered him my oath. “From this day forward I shall
serve thee and thy Civilization, sir, ‘til death doth disembowel me!” Ok, so I hadn’t
rehearsed it – cut me some slack. One glance at my adorable little shaven brow and
he piped, “Why yes, I suppose we’ll be needing some of your kind.”
A week later I was brought along to the Council of Religious Reconciliation. Not that
the Civilizers were conciliatory men – nothing of the kind! We all know the path to
truth begins with stick and ends with stone, though the initial stages of conversion
are always tricky. Since the Civilizers’ first appearance in the Capital, civil war had
broken out in the north. Fear had swept the countryside quicker than a gypsy’s
broken promise, and local authority had all but disappeared. Worse, the religious
orders had taken to summary executions by stoning. Such savage native behavior! As
an expert on the Order of Virtuous Vivisectors, I was given my first – and last –
mission.
I boarded the first northbound train at the crack of dawn. A young and especially
zealous convert, I was given a dual mission: firstly, negotiate a temporary truce
between the warring orders in my native province; secondly, convert the novice
monks of the Virtuous Vivisectors to the Civilizers’ orderly creed. I was so giddy I
tinkled myself once aboard the wagon-car. Luckily, however, I’d brought an extra
pair of trousers – that magnificent new contraction brought to us by the Civilizers –
though I’d never actually worn a pair myself. (They’d come with my orientation
packet to the faith). I went to the bathroom to try them on.
This being long before the days of coal-powered rail, the toilet in the train merely
bottomed out to the tracks below. (How I used to love pooing whenever there was a
breeze!) Yet just I was slipping into them, my right ankle got caught in the bottom of
the first pant-leg; before I could issue a muffled cry, I fell into the toilet. If the zipper
hadn’t miraculously caught onto the toilet-paper dispenser, I would have fallen
through to the tracks, an immediate end to all my life’s ambitions: forced
conversions, speaking engagements, the whole nine yards. But miracle aside, my life
was still hanging by a zipper.
Too embarrassed to call for help, I rode in this precarious position for the next
fifteen miles. Despite the odor, I had an epiphany: whatsoever now happened to me
in that bottomless lavatory, I had found the true faith. The Civilizers had come to
liberate my country – and with it every fiber of my being. Safely a brother to the new
creed, I overcame my fear, reached up and gave the zipper a snap. I fell to my
immediate death, a grin bigger than freedom smeered across my face.
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