TRY A BIT OF PORN...

A man on his own should check who he might be talking to...

The Very Reverend Charles Durbridge put his Bible down with a frown and picked up his little electronic tablet. Since he’d discovered the Internet that tablet had introduced him to some very interesting concepts, most of which he needed to keep away from the world.

“Let’s try a bit of porn,” he muttered to himself audibly. “A bit of twenty-first century porn might chase the shadows of the distant past and that kind of old-fashioned sinful pornography away.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” growled a voice that could only be God from the large arched window that let in far too much sunlight for his peace of mind.

“My Lord … I wouldn’t!” he stammered. “I didn’t mean porn! I meant classical images daubed onto canvas by great Italian artists striving to portray the Virgin in all her innocent majesty! The words just came out all wrong, that’s all!”

“You said porn, and a man must say what he means or there’s no point in having words at all,” chastised the voice of God. A shaft of extra brilliance found its way through that arched window and made the Very Reverend gentleman blink. He was about to mutter “f*****g sunlight” under his breath when he remembered who was watching and listening, and he clamped his lips firmly together.

“It was just the way things were before the flood,” he mumbled. “It was shocking! It says so in your good book! I mean, the dissolute lives being lived by everyone except Noah and his family, the way the crowds went around fornicating and doing all manner of disgusting things, gambling and wife-beating, men lying with men, all the terrible things that needed to be destroyed! It was plain wrong and God … I mean you … didn’t like it!”

“I don’t think I even looked and listened,” remarked a remarkably frank God. “I never did see much wrong with fornicating. It’s just got to be fun, the way people squeal and laugh and giggle whilst they’re doing it. And they’re not fighting or killing each other, are they? That’s much worse, don’t you think, a loony with a sub machine gun let loose in a school and shooting as many kids as he can before some brave officer shoots him can’t be better, can it, More holy? Certainly, that’s worse, don’t you think?”

The Very Reverend Charles Durbridge didn’t know much about guns and shooting, especially in schools which, as far as he could tell, were filled with attractive little people who made Christmas cards for him, using felt-tipped pens and sticky shapes and a little saliva, some of which went astray and smeared the cards.

“I suppose shooting’s not always good...” he concurred after a moment.

“It’s certainly not!” said God, almost severely. “As far as I can tell it’s as bad as bad can be and never good at all, whilst, I dared say, fornicating is practically harmless! Yet there are those who would pat the shooter on the back and call him a brave and noble example of humanity and condemn the fornicator for showing too much love. I mean, does that make sense to you?”

The Very Reverend Charles Durbridge had compiled a book of his own hand-written sermons in which he had harangued many a congregation with notions of the sins of all manner of sexual exploits, amongst them being the dreaded fornication. He rather thought he had even suggested many a time that a second flood might be justified in wiping the human race from the planet if they didn’t stop it, so he was at a loss as to what to say in order to appease his mighty deity who, it seemed, had quite spectacularly liberal views of his own.

“It distracts feeble men from loving … God...” he muttered, barely audibly.

“And spending half an hour on your computery-thing looking at whatever it is you planned to look at doesn’t?” mocked God. “What was it you were going to peer at, then? Naked females doing entertaining things to young men? Or even to each other? I believe that’s a popular form of visual entertainment, and quite understandable it is too!”

“Forgive me, my Lord...” almost wept the good Very Reverend Gentleman. “Like all of your creatures I’m weak and subject to falling when tempted! I promise here and now not to take another look at any form of porn in all of my life from now on. Instead, I will flagellate my flesh with a whip of thorns and suffer the pain of righteous self-inflicted punishment!”

At that, God sniggered. “A man should never make promises he won’t keep,” he chided. “In my book there’s hardly anything wrong with a man seeking the delights of sweet images! If only you’d had the privilege of seeing some of the things that I’d chanced on during my daily round you’d know what I mean!”

“I would?” stammered Charles Durbridge.

“You most certainly would! And thanks to you and the very entertaining conversation we’ve had you’ll find that your windows are spectacularly clean! And that’ll be seven pounds fifty, please, and cheap at half the price!”

And there and then God became a window cleaner complete with leathers and a bucket and with a ladder leaning idly on the vicarage wall, holding his hand out for payment with a smile on his weather-worn face.

Reviews

[Ashwin Shanker]

A beautiful story. was a pleasurable read. The beautiful conversation that the mind would have with it's 'halo form' of its conscious.
Yes, we all would have had this conversation at least once if we ever would have been religious.
Even I used to wonder out loud why oh why is sex such a taboo, What else would keep the earth from evolving?
Having sex, fornication, porn I guess was targeted as something which the religious institutions could use to keep men/women feeling guilty and thus try to control their minds better. Great dialogues. and a great climax too.

[Peter Rogerson]

It's my belief that, throughout history, the church and its comrade the state have combined to make absolutely certain that we mere humans know that our place is on our knees before a god we can't understand or, at need, bleeding on battlefields for causes that we're ignorant of rather than engaging in more satisfying activities.