White Lies

A Story by jacob clark

About a writer in a coffee shop. How original.

White Lies

A preacher, an atheist and their guest walk into a bar.

The preacher says, “I pity the the man who can pray and not hear God.”

The atheist says, “I pity the man who doesn't know the sound of his own conscience.”

Their guest says, “Be scared of men who think they know the difference.”

Mid-day at a coffee house in Aspen, I am working on the kind of book that makes me money. Children's occult novels are selling well (as is young love) and it is a subject that I can hammer keys in a nearly mindless fashion and still sell enough digital copies to pay my rent in a shambled studio apartment. One close enough to Aspen to drive here daily and write in the presence of the financially blessed.

“Double tall late' ” said the barista aloud on my way in.

I give him a smile and nod as the girl on his left prepares my drink. They know me here. I am a regular. My sixteen year old self would have cringed to be called a 'regular'; sounds like a description for a much more droll man than the one I would have aspired to be. Now, despite my greatest efforts, regular is a term of endearment. Father would call this “becoming a man.”

The establishment- I won't tell you which espresso joint this is, but please use your imagination (perhaps it involves a siren)- is a cup filled too quickly to the brim as my parallel regulars spill in the front door. Their Marmot and North Face jackets ever so pristine; some will take those adventuring jackets and ski mountains, while other will stand patiently in the ski house sipping algae juice or what-have-you, pretending they had skied mountains.

“Hey there Chuck!” said Lisa

Lisa is a smiling young twenty something with golden hair who always wears yoga pants over thermals with her North face jacket, (I have come to accept this article of clothing as Yuppie Skin) it is all very flattering for her.

“Big plans on the mountains today young lady?”

I say young lady without even thinking, as if I'm some forty year old retiree with a beard and an inclination to pick up on rich girls with absent fathers; I wish I could take it back.

“Nope, just helping out with the youth group today. You should come by some time, I bet the kids would just love for you to read them a story.”

I forgot she is Christian, I say thanks and she shoots me a God bless as she goes out the door and I say “Yep” aloud; the kind of yep that goes a long way. One that says, “Oh I am not Christian, though I was once, and now I take mild offense to being blessed, but I will still be nice because you are attractive.”

“Ghost Phallus.”

A man seated alone on the table to my left is now facing me. He looks as if he may or may not be homeless, and his eyes are wide and resemble those of an interview I once saw with Charles Manson on Youtube.

“Excuse me?” I sound a tad offended.

This time he says it slow, like two separate sentences, “Ghost. Phallus.”

He gets up and sits across from me, I lean back and sit up straight in my chair staring blankly for a moment, then he starts up again.

“You see my boy, the Lord God never does anything without first giving it a real world explanation, a miracle is just a bit of science or pseudo-science that we are yet to comprehend, or forgot how to ratify.”

This is it; the conversation one has with a mad man before that hobo jumps across the table and buries a bowie knife in his chest. I am starting to sweat, intrigued and concerned over my now imminent fate.

“Given the example of the Christs birth, God had to first formulate himself as the Holy Ghost, and a spectral penis penetrated Mary's vagina without breaking her hymen; thus bringing fulfillment to the prophecy of virgin birth.”

“Ghost Phallus.” I repeat, nodding and smiling at his story.

He speaks quickly, “Yes, there are many of these kinds of explanations for events in scripture. Christ understood alchemy as shown in his changing of water to wine, as well as bread into flesh. These sorts of miracles were first discovered by the Egyptians and scrolled away in a document called 'The Emerald Tablet'. Look it up. There are societies for this sort of thing. The reality of magical events.”

Less afraid now, and more entertained, I decide my best chances of survival are to humor this man, and if I am to survive, perhaps I've made a friend.

“Do you believe in God?”, he asked

“No, I am afraid I don't.”

“You shouldn't be afraid. Disbelief is common and at this point, and more hopeful that religion.”

“Religion is anything but hopeful.” I said, smirking at a nut job.

He said, “I think I have met you before haven't I? Yes, your'e the snarky one. The man who said that he is to smart to talk to Him.” When he said Him, he pointed up and then around with an index finger. “You who has never had a 'religious' moment or truth or experience; and this makes it so only reality exists, and everything else is a poor and useless fiction for you to type into laptop; that one maybe,the one in front of you.”

I flashback a time when I was asked if Christ was my Lord and Savior and I made a joke about worshiping my friend Carl, almighty ruler of our Apartment. I don't really appreciate assumptions made about myself or my life, but I I'm inclined to let this stranger slide.

I am now locked in eye contact. He won't let me go.

“You believe in white lies? The kind that are good or are okay to tell. Say to children or people whose feelings are hurt easily?”

“I tell them all the time.” I whispered

He followed, “Then I should let you in on one. Say there is a religion, one that condoned slavery and tribunal animal sacrifice and murdering men for homosexuality and forced rape victims to marry their assailants. One ordered to genocide by a God that may or may not have been there.

“Then, a man came, an intelligent man. One who decided that if we as humans were to prosper, that this religion's nature would have to change. So he convinced an entire generation of men and women that he was God's son, fulfilling prophecy and sundering into place documents about love and equality. Cryptic stories that could be reconsidered and interpreted for good in many forms. Replacing a militant culture.

“Regardless of the actuality of his divinity that would be a wonderful thing wouldn't it?”

I've been so angry about this sort of thinking in the past. I feel ready to lash out of my own skin. Coming from someone I have never met, the position of Christ feels so vulnerable; open to my critic's whim.

I replied, “Yes, but assuming Jesus was not God, look at all the wrong did in his name, the Crusades, Manifest Destiny, abortion clinic bombings. Historians aren't even sure he existed”

He said, “Men misconstrue nearly everything. In the same way we lost alchemy, we can surely lose compassion to passage of time. Perhaps it is time for another God among us. And if he didn't exist that would be even more brilliant. Changing the world via imagined events.

“I was just like you once. If God exists, any god at all, I would advise you to try and say hello every now and again. There is arrogance in knowing that your truth is truest, whether it comes from an ancient book or a Mensa physicist.

“You look bright. Bright men get to design themselves based around any ideas they choose to be tied to. My advice boy: live in the world of logic; live in the self of abstraction.”

My single serving sage got up to walk away, and I swear I saw something eternal and timeless flicker off his eyes- no, maybe it was nothing. That would be a fitting end for a bedtime story or a sci-fi movie; I tell myself that real life is straight forward, unchanging and not speckled with these sort of nonsenses.

I asked God if he could hear me, in my head, in public, and I didn't hear anything in return accepted silence and the gushing sound of milk frothing. I tried again later.

After that day, I decided to write about something other than vampires.