GOD: Your details are exquisite. People talk about getting scientific about things like mornings, and, well, you know most other minutiae doesn’t really cut it.
NIETZSCHE: Mine cuts it?
GOD: It slices. It cleaves. It rends.
NIETZSCHE: Rends? No. Come on.
GOD: Well, I mean, you said you wanted fireworks, not a parade.
NIETZSCHE: But you have to admit, when I speak of such things, like pleats in pants or mechanical portraits in sadness and glory, there’s always much more to be said. Nothing is never enough.
GOD: The world is too much with…
NIETZSCHE: Shut the fuck up.
GOD: Well, well, well. Stop nipping me in the bud.
NIETZSCHE: Hey. I never nip, buddy. You know that about me. I’m like the sound rain makes on a trampoline.
GOD: That does sound like you.
NIETZSCHE: Another exquisite detail, huh?
GOD: Well, I wouldn’t go that far. But, like, there was something you were referring to earlier…
NIETZSCHE: I made a reference?
GOD: You fucking alluded to something, okay? Jesus…Um. It was something about luggage I think.
NIETZSCHE: All the hard-luck cases around here come and go without any luggage.
GOD: Yeah. What the fuck was going on there? I don’t grasp…I mean, I don’t quite comprehend…
NIETZSCHE: Oh come on. Grasping? Comprehending? Somebody needs to go take a gander at his O.E.D.
GOD: Yeah. Yeah. All that Latin etymological crap. Get over yourself.
NIETZSCHE: Can’t. I’m too appealing.
GOD: …
NIETZSCHE: So. Anyway. What the fuck I was saying was that people come and go, like women for example…
GOD: Yes. Women are people.
NIETZSCHE: And they come and go…talking of, well, the radio?
GOD: Or maybe there is a destitution there, a delinquent mishap with the mores of certain folks, certain types, loosely based on what one once might have thought of as reality.
NIETZSCHE: One could lie on one’s back. One could stare at the ceiling. One could paint the ceiling. But, well, you’d have to watch out for the drops.
GOD: So, I guess you should never forget about what is leftover. What remains after the carnival has left town: dust and wind, and maybe a few tigers in red weather too.
NIETZSCHE: And we go wimping about town. Craning our necks to see over crowds that have gathered to watch an execution in the street. Limpingly we trod onward. Always full-speed ahead. But getting ahead? There is always the threat of the possible to pull down what’s left of one’s spirits. I gargle tap water after I sneeze.
GOD: We have wants. We want to see. We see. We figure things out. Seeing becomes believing. We…comprehend, right?
NIETZSCHE: Nah. We sleep in and pull the blankets up over our heads.
GOD: Scrambling around takes the place of putting your foot to the pedal all the time. That’s what you mean.
NIETZSCHE: Don’t tell me my business. I have plenty of concerns concerning the much-more-than dual nature of thought. There are only so many ways to think before everything thought become unthunk once again.
GOD: That doesn’t matter. That does not matter at all. We champion dead things and soft left turns. We muster the mettle to spin dimes on Formica countertops. And then, from some dusty corner of the universe, in an errantly bent fold of Time, comes the voice of reason: Don’t give me no back-talk sucker!
NIETZSCHE: Sure. We all shake hands and listen intently. We smooth over things. We have crushes and mow lawns and cheat on our taxes. There is something more to living than taking out the garbage every Tuesday night, but none of us are certain of what that something is. But, I believe, if there is any hope it is in the picayune lice-like details that make up the substance of our lives. Put on a mask. Play make-believe with a fire hydrant. Throw a slab of uncooked bacon at a cop car. Have a piece of pie, but don’t eat it. There are only mistakes, and forgiveness is the basest currency of kind strangers. I plead the fifth.
GOD: Look at me! Look at me!
NIETZSCHE: Exactly. Striving to attain the attention of others is an attempt to preclude their intentions. It is uncaring. It is lonely. It is a mask to cover shyness.
GOD: Tell me something I don’t know. You and your damn details. Specifics aren’t always interesting, or meaningful for that matter. Let’s wait out the rain. Let’s take a coffee break. Let’s shimmy for a while and then shuffle away into the locker room of existence.
NIETZSCHE: Sounds like a plan.
GOD: Don’t push me…’cause I’m close to the edge….I’m trying not to…
NIETZSCHE: Shut the fuck up.
Posts
