So Sayeth

So Sayeth

A Parable for Our Times

"Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so."

So spoke the Supreme Being to his loyal worshippers: The Eternal Order
of Resigned Determinism.

"Happiness is but the occasional episode in a general drama of
pain."

"Point me out the happy man and ..."

Before the Almighty One could complete his tenet, a shoddily dressed
man of ordinary build and height stepped forward and risked to
interrupt:

"Wait, wait, wait, your Holiness. I don't mean to contradict you but
that last line, the one about happiness being a general episode of
pain...well, that's from Thomas Hardy's, The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Just one second and I'll read it to you."

The disputatious habitu?, having an extrasensory, perspicacious nature,
pulled out from his back pocket a Penguin Classic paperback edition of
the Hardy novel and began to read from the last page of the dog-eared,
underlined and highlighted copy:

"...she who's youth had seemed to teach that happiness was but the
occasional episode..."

The dissenting Everyman was unable to complete his oratorical proof
because The Supreme Being, not concerned with tangical evidence, rose
his left arm, pointed at the man and shot a bolt of lightening from his
index finger, engulfing the man's entire body in a bright yellow
flash.

The heretic burst into a ball of flame and quickly turned to ash. All
that remained was a small hill of black, sooty residue-- not even 21
grams in weight.

Without ever changing expressions, His Holiness went on as
before:

"Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism,
selfishness, evil-or else an absolute ignorance."

A young woman standing among the adherents knew that this quotation was
attributed to Graham Greene but she wasn't a zealous dissident and knew
how to keep her mouth shut.

"I'll pick my battles," she thought.

"I'm a Pragmatist...I'll bide my time...Revenge is best served
cold...we shall over----."

She stood in silence; her bottom lip slightly quivering--she put her
hand slowly over her right back pocket, checking to see if anything was
visible from behind...it was difficult for her to admit that she was
powerless and had no free will.