Hairballs

What Is Truth?

"And he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature."

"Oh, did he indeed?" muttered Harold under his breath.

This proselytizer, this messenger of God, this gentleman of the cloth was standing (in the absence of a seat) amid the clutter in Harold's bedroom, which he pretended not to mind or even notice. He was a little too neatly attired for Harold's liking and wearing a frankly cloying expression of the utmost - the utmost - sincerity. He reverently held his bible like a choirboy holds a hymn book, ever ready to read from it aloud in a bid to bolster his beliefs.

"Do you believe in an afterlife?" he asked, trying not to look all holier than thou.

Harold shrugged churlishly.

"Haven't given it much thought," he replied.

Harold was half-sitting casually atop the nearmost corner of the workbench, toying all the while with a small, three-pronged hand fork of the type used for weeding.

"It's never too late to ignite your faith," said the gentleman. "I'd be happy to accompany you on the path to enlightenment."

Harold stifled an imaginary yawn.

"Whatever," he said, tap-tap-tapping the tip of all three fork prongs with a ruminative forefinger. "The question is: do you believe in an afterlife?"

The gentleman thumbed thoughtfully through the thin pages of his book and solemnly quoth from it thus:

"And Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; whosoever believeth in me, though he be dead, yet shall he live."

Harold was unmoved.

"My question..."

Tap.

...he said patiently...

Tap.

"...was what do you believe."

Tap.

But the man simply smiled benignly.

"That is what I believe," he said.

"So, whatever the book tells you, you mean?"

"'The book' is the word of God," said the man. "What possible reason could I have to doubt the word of God."

"Reason does not enter into it," countered Harold. "If it did it would be reasonable for me to assume, based on my albeit limited experience of life, that there is no God?"

"Then your assumption," said the man, "would be simply that: an assumption. You cannot say with any degree of certainty that God does not exist. You can only choose not to believe in him."

"Fine," said Harold. "Then that is what I choose, to not believe in a God who almost certainly doesn't exist."

The man tried not to look flabbergasted.

"But doubting the existence of God," he said, "is like doubting the existence of...of...of truth."

"What is truth?" asked Harold wryly.

"Truth," said the gentleman triumphantly, "is what I'm holding right here in my hand, contained within this very book?"

Harold all but rolled his eyes heavenward.

"What do you think happens when you die?" Continued the gentleman dogmatically.

"Different things to different people," replied Harold. "Some are buried and some are cremated, I suppose. And some are chopped up into bite-size pieces before being fed to the dogs."

"I mean your soul," said the man. "If, God forbid, you were to die right now do you think your soul would go to heaven?"

Harold positively guffawed.

"Not a snowball's chance in hell!" he said.

"And why not, may I ask?"

"My soul, as you call it, is already too heavy to float."

"How so?" the man earnestly enquired.

"Because I murdered my mother," answered Harold succinctly. "What does it say in your book about that?"

If the cloth man, this messenger of cod, this prosthetic proselytizer found himself at a loss here he did his damnedest to conceal it, flipping oh so calmly through the pages of his bible before eventually settling on some generic passage therein about the washing away of past sins. After reading it aloud he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, as though he were breathing in the heaven-scented air. His heart at that moment was brimful of the lord God our saviour. He had never felt more alive...

Old Mister Bitterman was smiling mischievously.

"What did you do?" asked Myrtle, in the lilting tones of a mother chastising her child.

"We agreed to disagree," said Bitterman bluffly. "I'd had about all I could stand of his nonsense by now. So while his eyes were closed and his chest puffed out I took the opportunity to plunge my little gardening fork deep into that full heart of his. Over and again. And over. And again. My word, the lord God our saviour fairly spurted out of him! It made a terrible mess of my bedding. And, wouldn't you know it, he lacked at that moment the courage of his conviction. His, it's fair to say, was not the stoical death of a martyr. Oh, no. Far from embracing death, as a mere stepping stone to the great hereafter blah, blah, blah, he cast around frantically for something, anything, that might - please, God! - postpone it. In vain, alas, and he flopped to the ground at my feet.

"Now, my eyesight back then was a good deal sharper than it is now, perfect fifty-fifty vision, but try as I might I saw no sign of a soul leaving that poor man's body to begin its heavenly ascent. But, then again, I'm no expert on religion and, who knows, maybe that type of thing happens later. So I buried him in the garden, not that far from my mother, and to at least give him a fighting chance, I liberally seeded the plot with a handful of Jacob's Ladder.

Taken from the novel Harry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (coming soon)