Audioslave
09-12-2007, 8:21 PM
Here it is, Explosm. What you've been waiting to read. A short story about the rapture, oozing with choppy post-apocalyptic, dark-comedy absurdism written by a mind with no attention span. Review, critique, and enjoy.
Last night she told me the rapture was here, I didn’t believe her. It struck me then that raptures and religion should be reserved for the insane and institutionalized. What strikes me now is a sense of regret, dwarfed by a feeling of impending doom. Before me stood the very flames that hell had cast out, around me exploded many things that ought not be anywhere but the confinements of Satan’s dungeon. Corpses walked the streets, unaware that life does not support the dead and peoples screamed and scrambled for bibles, as if it was not to late to repent. Myself, I was sitting in a locked, ’69 Plymouth GTX 426, fully restored and fully equipped, or so I had thought before judgment day. When buying the most beautiful muscle car to ever grace the green, now black, earth, one does not usually ask if there is rapture protection installed. So no, I guess in such an instance, it is not fully equipped. In the backseat of my almost 40 year old muscle car, was, in plain view, 25 pounds of cocaine, auspicious in the fact no border guards would have the chance to take it away. In my passenger seat was the only thing I love in the time of religious turmoil, something I confess I am new to. Laying on the seat next to me was a Sundance guitar, world-weary and without much of a finish left, rather like myself. I had what I needed, and what I wanted was to escape god’s wrath. If a priest had been with me, he would have told me that this isn’t the Dukes of Hazard, and I cannot escape the anger of the Lord. Unfortunately for me there was no priest there to guide me, because he was probably up in heaven sipping on something a little stronger than wine.
When we are all dead, who will write the obituary? Who will create a sentimental statue of words to the late, great planet earth? Will a little picture appear next to the small block of text, perhaps a picture we’ve taken from space of our little rock in the middle of blackness? How self-satisfied are we that we represent ourselves with a picture of our planet that we’ve obtained in some Cold War space race? What good are countries now? Countries are on fire, countries are rubble, and countries are deserted.
We’re all just bones and ash, now. We’re all just bones and ash. We’ve all gone out, if you’ll please leave a message after the beep, we’ll try to get back to you after our eternal suffering has ended.
It’s funny, on the brink of the end of the world, sitting in my muscle car with my guitar, cocaine and typewriter, I still can’t help but think God doesn’t exist. This all seems a little too dramatic for a man who created the heavens and the stars, the people and planets, the rivers and rainforests. After billions of years of tough love coupled with affectionate oversight, has God finally decided to cut his losses? Are we being kicked out?
Debbie Harry described the rapture best when she described it as an alien, eating people’s cars and heads. Looking down the street, seeing nobody move and no cars start up, I wonder if this is the case. Maybe the entire world is just hiding from the flames and the hungry aliens, hoping to not be spotted by the rapture-police.
Facing inevitable doom, brought on by a life of careless sacrilege and blasphemy, one often questions certain choices in their life. Myself, I have no real regrets. I maintain that it is God’s loss, not my own. Maybe this isn’t exactly the case, but perception is 100% of my reality, and this is true because I make it so.
And so I began to drive, both into and away from religious persecution from a higher power, with any irony of the situation flying some yards behind me, having been blown out the window. I stopped for a bit to play a few songs for the nothingness that surrounded all the nothing around me, then took my guitar and cocaine and made it for Mexico. Any urge to snort the cocaine on my leather interior was lost on my humble being, seeing as I was merely a transporter, not a user. Mexico was the destination, and I was the carrier pigeon of delicious and deadly nose candy. When I arrived at Mexico, I assumed my buyer would not force me to haste, considering the situation at hand had potential to be a rather lengthy one. Rather than make my way towards a man probably being lit on fire for a thousands nights of bleeding noses, I made my way to Pátzcuaro, a place that literally means “place of stones”. In the times of eternal fire, I would prefer as many stones around me as possible. I drove for well over a day to arrive at my destination, and I found it to be a chilling cemetery of houses. I saw a church constructed of bone, and I could only assume it was made after the rapture, though I was not totally sure. With every passing breeze, the building trembled and shook as though it would spring back to life. Uneasy groans of lost souls sounded around me, as did the tired moans of those who were unfortunately found. Around me joined in a chorus of screams and yells, sounds of agony and apathy, coupled together to make a horrendous orchestra of death. I stood, transfixed, with IPod headphones in. I heard a quiet beep that announced my battery was going to heaven with the rest of the civilization that read the bible, and I was to be left alone and without music. And so my the tiny battery, packed into my music player ascended to the great above, and I was left to listen to the horrifying ensemble. I made my way back to my car, only to find that it, and everything I loved was on fire. The only survivors now were me, my IPod, and a typewriter, slung around my neck in a post-apocalyptic Hunter S. Thompson style. Oh what a terrible way to go, without music or a car. Though I suspect music cannot be hard to come by in the new life I will be awarded as a dead ghoul, I supposed Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath will be only too pleased to put a concert now and again. Perhaps this macabre evening will have some up sides. Maybe the rapture really wasn’t the worse thing that could happen.
Last night she told me the rapture was here, I didn’t believe her. It struck me then that raptures and religion should be reserved for the insane and institutionalized. What strikes me now is a sense of regret, dwarfed by a feeling of impending doom. Before me stood the very flames that hell had cast out, around me exploded many things that ought not be anywhere but the confinements of Satan’s dungeon. Corpses walked the streets, unaware that life does not support the dead and peoples screamed and scrambled for bibles, as if it was not to late to repent. Myself, I was sitting in a locked, ’69 Plymouth GTX 426, fully restored and fully equipped, or so I had thought before judgment day. When buying the most beautiful muscle car to ever grace the green, now black, earth, one does not usually ask if there is rapture protection installed. So no, I guess in such an instance, it is not fully equipped. In the backseat of my almost 40 year old muscle car, was, in plain view, 25 pounds of cocaine, auspicious in the fact no border guards would have the chance to take it away. In my passenger seat was the only thing I love in the time of religious turmoil, something I confess I am new to. Laying on the seat next to me was a Sundance guitar, world-weary and without much of a finish left, rather like myself. I had what I needed, and what I wanted was to escape god’s wrath. If a priest had been with me, he would have told me that this isn’t the Dukes of Hazard, and I cannot escape the anger of the Lord. Unfortunately for me there was no priest there to guide me, because he was probably up in heaven sipping on something a little stronger than wine.
When we are all dead, who will write the obituary? Who will create a sentimental statue of words to the late, great planet earth? Will a little picture appear next to the small block of text, perhaps a picture we’ve taken from space of our little rock in the middle of blackness? How self-satisfied are we that we represent ourselves with a picture of our planet that we’ve obtained in some Cold War space race? What good are countries now? Countries are on fire, countries are rubble, and countries are deserted.
We’re all just bones and ash, now. We’re all just bones and ash. We’ve all gone out, if you’ll please leave a message after the beep, we’ll try to get back to you after our eternal suffering has ended.
It’s funny, on the brink of the end of the world, sitting in my muscle car with my guitar, cocaine and typewriter, I still can’t help but think God doesn’t exist. This all seems a little too dramatic for a man who created the heavens and the stars, the people and planets, the rivers and rainforests. After billions of years of tough love coupled with affectionate oversight, has God finally decided to cut his losses? Are we being kicked out?
Debbie Harry described the rapture best when she described it as an alien, eating people’s cars and heads. Looking down the street, seeing nobody move and no cars start up, I wonder if this is the case. Maybe the entire world is just hiding from the flames and the hungry aliens, hoping to not be spotted by the rapture-police.
Facing inevitable doom, brought on by a life of careless sacrilege and blasphemy, one often questions certain choices in their life. Myself, I have no real regrets. I maintain that it is God’s loss, not my own. Maybe this isn’t exactly the case, but perception is 100% of my reality, and this is true because I make it so.
And so I began to drive, both into and away from religious persecution from a higher power, with any irony of the situation flying some yards behind me, having been blown out the window. I stopped for a bit to play a few songs for the nothingness that surrounded all the nothing around me, then took my guitar and cocaine and made it for Mexico. Any urge to snort the cocaine on my leather interior was lost on my humble being, seeing as I was merely a transporter, not a user. Mexico was the destination, and I was the carrier pigeon of delicious and deadly nose candy. When I arrived at Mexico, I assumed my buyer would not force me to haste, considering the situation at hand had potential to be a rather lengthy one. Rather than make my way towards a man probably being lit on fire for a thousands nights of bleeding noses, I made my way to Pátzcuaro, a place that literally means “place of stones”. In the times of eternal fire, I would prefer as many stones around me as possible. I drove for well over a day to arrive at my destination, and I found it to be a chilling cemetery of houses. I saw a church constructed of bone, and I could only assume it was made after the rapture, though I was not totally sure. With every passing breeze, the building trembled and shook as though it would spring back to life. Uneasy groans of lost souls sounded around me, as did the tired moans of those who were unfortunately found. Around me joined in a chorus of screams and yells, sounds of agony and apathy, coupled together to make a horrendous orchestra of death. I stood, transfixed, with IPod headphones in. I heard a quiet beep that announced my battery was going to heaven with the rest of the civilization that read the bible, and I was to be left alone and without music. And so my the tiny battery, packed into my music player ascended to the great above, and I was left to listen to the horrifying ensemble. I made my way back to my car, only to find that it, and everything I loved was on fire. The only survivors now were me, my IPod, and a typewriter, slung around my neck in a post-apocalyptic Hunter S. Thompson style. Oh what a terrible way to go, without music or a car. Though I suspect music cannot be hard to come by in the new life I will be awarded as a dead ghoul, I supposed Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath will be only too pleased to put a concert now and again. Perhaps this macabre evening will have some up sides. Maybe the rapture really wasn’t the worse thing that could happen.