The Little Garry Story

The Little Garry Story is not to be confused with The Little Donny Story.

The Little Garry Story is not to be confused with The Little Donny Story.

There are times when I photograph pictures of garbage, and times when garbage is thrown at me. In this case, I feel like someone was probably just trying to get the book away from their eyes as quickly as possible, and I just happened to be in the way.

The full subtitle of the book is "The Amazingly True Story of a Honest Boy Who Saw Angels, God, Light, Heard Angels Telling Him About the Life He Was Living, and Told Everyone All About Illumination Issues Before Telling Us What He Saw Before Dying Again but HE GOT BETTER!"

Chapter One: The Blatherskite Sequence

Ms. Blatherskite: "Bein' serious people, we were skeptical at first when Garry came to us saying that he'd just been hit on the head with a baseball strike, and that he'd just seen some stars and his ears were ringing."

Mr. Blatherskite: "Before some of us could even tell the 'doctor' what had happened, he said it was a concussion, that he'd be alright. But see - I see the news. This was baseball, see, not football, and even the NFL doctors, who are probably real doctors, not some fake twitter-usin' kid - say it's not likely that you can get a concussion from the football. So a baseball smash? NO way. That kid was dead. Only one reason you fall over like that."

Ms. Blatherskite: "But sayin' that Garry wasn't dead, that was true. But seems as if he had died, like we've been saying, then there was only one explanation. Garry was no longer dead."

Chapter Two: Breaking Skepticism

Ms. Blatherskite: "Boy saw something on the innernet, where a guy in a hat told him to test things out."

Mr. Blatherskite: "Believe science if you want, but that fedora-wearin' fellow had a point that we hadn't considered. I wanted to put a camera 'round Garry's neck and hit him on the head with a bat, see..."

Ms. Blatherskite: "Baseball smack's what got him into Heaven in the first place."

Mr. Blatherskite: "Bible sure don't mention cameras or baseballs, sure, and we read it alpha to omega several times in a row. Now, our agent..."

Ms. Blatherskite: "Book said to get an agent right away if your kid came back smilin' from heaven. That agent's the one who told us that heaven looks like bright shining lights and that angels sound like a ringing in your ear.

Chapter Three: Boy Schemes

Mr. Blatherskite: But see - Garry had to die again and tell us about heaven or else all his dying would have been sure 'nuff for nothing. Garry told us bout some heaven that first time, but sure as bat shit is bull shit, we decided we had to get a second opinion."

Ms. Blatherskite:  "Bothersome, silly, that Garry done died like that right when we needed him to. A second time, even. We had a doctor come out and say he was dead, because since last time he died the doctor said that he wasn't quite dead, even though he'd seen heaven!"

Mr. Blatherskite: "Boy sure couldn't tell us much after his head injuries on his second trip to heaven. We don't know how he got them. Must have been Savior Lord Jesus what done knocked him in the head. That doctor was a good doctor, from a Bible School and everything. He told us that the best way to get to Heaven temporarily was to do a breathin' streak in an ice cold bath. So the three of us gathered round him, dunked him down like a real life Baptismal surprise, and then we stood there above him and figured out just how to get Garry back straight from Heaven."

Chapter Four: Benign Suspicions

Mr. Blatherskite: "Boy's smart, I'll give him that. After that Bible Science doctor drowned him in that ice water, he woke right up and started tellin us all about heaven. It was full of lights..."

Ms. Blatherskite: "Blatherskite senior, don't you forget about the angels! There were angels! Garry said they were like three human forms standin' all around him sayin things! Not just that rubbish ringing in the ear. Garry said they were talking about him, specifically, and that they were the ones who told him that it wasn't his time, that they told him to come on from Heaven and live!"

Mr. Blatherskite: "But since we found out that in the Bible studies, Heaven don't work like that, we chalked it all up to angels. Our Garry's probably possessed by a demon or something. Our agent told us to go ahead and write the book, since he'd probably have to change our name or something. Said nobody would trust someone with a name like 'Blatherskite." 

This book goes on quite curiously for some time, before inevitably being flung away from the reader. In an attempt at journalistic inquiry and hearing both sides of the story, we drowned several interns in an attempt to reach the other side for a collaborating statement from the Powers that Be.

At this time, we have not had any success, though we are now of the belief that god is either a giant beetle, or a mollusc.

Some theological handwringing may ensue.


Interview With Mollusk Theologian

Several preeminent mollusk theologians. They're the best because they remove bullshit from their environment.

This morning while I was bathing in the filthy river, I got some news from a local source, the oft-estimated (and sometimes measured) Tom Head, regarding one of the chief asshats of our time: Ken Ham.

Ken is a Young Earth Creationist, the President of the surprisingly unrecursive “Answers in Genesis” organization. They publish a website, have billboards, mobile apps, and a museum in Kentucky, all despite the fact that the only worthwhile questions for them that I could derive were “Sega (Blank)?” and “Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins.?”

And while the concept of a Universe only 6 thousand years old is so mind-blowingly ignorant (don't tell the Natufians) that racoons don't even believe it, somehow people – even smart people – bother with this daft twit.

Of his concern now is the religion of aliens we have not found. Ole Kenster asks the question: “If there were Vulcans or Klingons out there, how would they be saved?” which is precisely the sort of question humanity invented theologians to answer.

However, why limit oneself to human theologians? Or even bipedal Vulcan and Klingon philosophers? The Klingons rather famously murdered their gods, and therefore don't have much to add. If there is alien life out there, it's bound to be more foreign to us than apes or chimpanzees or dolphins, and the sermons of Reverend Bobo never involve space aliens.

That leaves us with few options to get to the bottom of this entirely unimportant question.


Fortunately, dear reader, you have me. I know a bank of the wisest mollusk theologian-philosophers that the Southeast can host. While few humans can translate their language of scents, gurgles, and water sprays, I can bravely go and soak my head to learn their secrets. Here I will baselessly assert that mollusks are different enough than humans, therefore their finest and most learned minds are alien enough to allow us wild assumptions on the nature of extraterrestrial spirituality,

Here, then, is my interview with Bertrand Mussel, the bivalve theologian.

PRF: "So, you're a freshwater bivalve mollusk who delves into the deep and abiding mysteries of spirituality and religion as it pertains to mollusks?"

BM: "Sorry, I was just filtering some phytoplankton there. You humans keep dumping fertilizer into the river, so it goes nuts. It's a good thing we're down here, or else the Gulf of Mexico would be a huge mess, right? Ah, good times, good times. Anyway, yes, that's me. That's what I do."

PRF: "Yeah... anyway. What are your views on salvation and redemption of non-mussels?"

BM: "The Bivalve Bible teaches us that all who are born in the gills of fish are capable of redemption, so long as their siphons are longer than the sediment in which they dwell."

PRF: "Well, that doesn't sound so good for us humans."

BM: "You did murder most of us in the river by covering us in silt."

PRF: "Well... hang on, let me see if I can make sense of what Ken Ham's getting at here."

BM: "You can't."

PRF: "No, wait, okay... So, oh, wait he's saying that if you're not a descendant of Adam, you can't get saved by Jesus."

BM: "Why would I need that? I was born from the gills of a fish."

PRF: "So if aliens were born from fish-gills?"

BM: "Then they're in! I have it on word from Clam-Pope. "

PRF: "What about the ability of clams to read the human bible and come to their own conclusions?"

BM: "We lack the detailed light-sensing organs. However, I did let an intern read it to me aloud."

PRF: "You have interns?"

BM: "That's not the point. The point is, according to what she read me, you humans consider us ...unclean."

PRF: "And are we unclean according to the Bivalve Bible?"

BM: "Yes. You and racoons are the worst. We've even gone and made sure that if you were born of the gills of a fish, and had long siphons, you couldn't get into Bivalve Heaven."

PRF: "Well, I guess we'll get back to you when someone finds god or aliens and gets some straight answers on this whole 'creation' kerfluffle. Until then, readers..."

FPJEROME