The Dinner Guest- Chapter 14: The Saga of Shriss Babler, Part the First

The IDF was filled with nothing but whiners and pussies. I joined the Israeli Defense Force because I wanted to change the world, not because I wanted to watch over some Goddamned neighborhood brawl over something as tedious as fence color. But that’s what this whole Middle Eastern mess was about: Israel painted their fence red when everyone else in this God forsaken Home Owner’s Association needed it green. Green like the money the Corporations make, the McDonalded World throwing plastic cups and Styrofoam lunch boxes into the rainforests to drown out the cries of Mother Earth as angry white men formed a line behind the alley to take turns fucking her in the ass. God I hate Republicans.

I left the IDF because they were not committed enough to the cause of Good. They had to protect their “identity” from “heathens” who wanted them “dead.” Hell, I’ve never known a jihadist hurt anyone. Instead, the whole army became another fucking Crusade.

This new Crusade was not the one I envisioned when I joined the Paramilitary Seminary of Hope and Wholesomeness (PSHAW). My three year tenure in this Brotherhood had me on the fast track to priesthood. I was fighting for Good because that was the right thing to do. But these bastards turned a good, old Holy War into the Fourteenth Crusade. Lazy twats.

As soon as I threw my rifle to ground and spat on a picture of Ariel Sharon, my life as a soldier of Middle East Good was done. My commanding officer, a feisty little man named Sergeant Ben Davidmanson, his mouth hung awkwardly in a stunned silence, could only point the way to the exit in response to my inquiries out of this hellhole. “See you in Hell, with all your Muslim friends, Sergeant Douchebag. Jesus Christ, the world is going to shit and all you want to do is kill the people who are different from you. Who are you to judge them?”

An army full of cowards. They don’t deserve the oil they shit out of the ground from those sandy cunts they call the oil wells. Let them kill each other, for all I care. The whole world was getting warmer by the minute because of the military industrial complex, and they were still fighting over a sea full of salt and a pack of camels.

This whole world is going to Hell.

I returned to PSHAW with head held high and a new determination to prevent any further catastrophe around the world. Didn’t they know that I was the only one who could save the world from itself?

The Brotherhood gave me a small room with a straw cot in the corner. Looks like they’re getting fancier now in their accommodations. This new class must be full of softies. I’ll teach them a lesson.

I lasted about a week in PSHAW. Turns out the abbot didn’t appreciated my bid for commander of the headquarters, especially objecting to my classification of the entire enterprise as “an anthology of steam pressed pansies in a steel vagina welded to the cunt of the aborted love child of C3PO and Rosie the Robot Maid’s latest fecal saturated bodily excretion.” I went through fifty of my fellow monks on the way out, fighting each of them with my hands tied because I enjoyed the challenge. They didn’t stand a chance, especially the ones I sought out in sick bay to ensure that nobody followed me. Poor saps pleaded with me to spare them because they had “terminal illnesses.” Little did they realize the malignant cancer they were upon our good Mother Earth, each and every one of us wasteful humans. Except for me. I am the goddamned child of Creation, here to free the world of the Evil that men do.

The week after I left PSHAW is hazy, not entirely because I decided to break my vow of sobriety and chastity by visiting an opium den in downtown Detroit. Mostly it was because I was finally able to live my life. Chicks dig the fact that I was training to be a priest. Hella nookie from those dim broads.

The smoky glow of opiate induced frenzy fizzled away in the bright sun and freezing winds on top of a glacier. In the span of seven days, I had traveled from the civilized mecca of downtown Detroit to Iceland, resting on top of a frozen tundra and ice sheath by the ocean’s edge. Goddamn am I good, I thought, as I grabbed a nearby polar bear baring his teeth at my direction, breaking its neck with a simple flick of my wrists, skinning it with my teeth, and tossing the meat to her three adorable bear cubs. Eat well, my new children. Let Mother Earth nourish you.

This glacier represented the last remnants of a pure world, the glistening brilliance of the sunshine glittering off the ice sheets flickering with intense brilliance, denoting the glory and splendor that our Earth is inteded to represent. Here I built my farm, a peaceful ranch devoted to the Earth’s purity and chaste luminosity. I lived here with my three bear cubs for nearly a year, surviving entirely from the icicle sustenance of pure, glacial spring water. Normal humans would have died within a week. But I was no mere mortal: I was the most evolved being on this Earth, as Mother Nature gave me the power to live entirely on the honor of her waters. My bear cubs feasted on the fish that swam around our little glacial island. They grew big and strong, much like I did as I leached energy from my Mother.

One day, I woke up at dawn, earlier than normal. I was exhausted and had slept soundly, due to a long day of basking in my own strength. The puppy laid on the ground, shivering in the cold. Basasha, the eldest bear cub, nuzzled it with its snout. “Master Shriss, should I eat it? It looks nourishing.” “No, stupid bear! This is a gift from Mother Earth. We do not destroy her. By eating this being, you will give off harmful byproducts that will cause greenhouse gases to melt the polar ice caps. What are you, a stupid American? Come on, you have to be Enlightened like a European.” “But Master, we eat the fish of the sea and the ice flowers of Tarbithini. Are not those from this Earth?” I replied, with a hearty laugh, “Oh silly bears! Fish are not animals. And Tarbithini is a visiting archipalago from the moon of Hydros, the Ice Planet in the Odessa system. You knew that, silly bear!”

The bears laughed with me. We laughed for an entire day, I amused them that much. The next morning, our laughter subsided as we heard more whimpering from the puppy. I nudged it gently with my foot. “Puppy,” I asked it, “why cry you so much?” The only answer in response was a high pitched whine, a shrill groan from the pup’s throat. “He must be cold. Bashoga, please sit on the dog. That should heat his bones.” The young bear hesitated, his rear end hovering over the dog’s head. “But Master, I’m afraid I will crush the poor thing.” I roared and lunged at the stupid bear, picking it up and throwing it a mile away. “Stupid bears!” I bellowed, pumping my chest, “how dare you call this dog poor? You want poor? How about the fifty million Americans without health insurance? Or the thirteen million homeless in America? Those are the poor, not a shivering dog! You make me sick with you faltering sympathies!”

There was only one way to heat this poor puppy: fire. I grabbed Manshakalon, the youngest of the bear cubs, and probed my fingers into his ear. From there I extracted a long line of earwax, shaping it into a thin candle. I bent over the candle, expelling a cinnamon scented ball of gaseous flatulence, the gas igniting the candle’s wick. I held the candle next to the puppy’s face, its nose twitching towards the warmth. His eyes opened slowly, his breathing returning to normal. He peered up at me, the whimpering subsiding slowly. I reached out a hand to pet the poor animal. His tongue, coarse like the back of a Hyena, licked my fingers. I smiled, laughing to myself. I bent over to kiss the dog on his forehead, the ultimate form of healing on this world. My kisses have cured cancer; I was sure it could cure a frozen body. And of course, it worked, the dog jumped to its feet and wagged its tail. But in its haste to recover, its back paw grazed against the lit candle. As the dog intended to bark in thankful tribute, instead he yelped and jumped back, crying loudly in the still air.

I burned the puppy! Oh damned me! I, Shriss Babler, have burned a poor, cute puppy! When the winds would catch onto this, the horrid rumors will never cease! Woe be to me!

I threw the candle to the ground as my bears ran in horror. Doubled over, my head in my hands, my body shook in wracked anger at my horrible fate! Why must all bad things happen to me, I screamed into the air! I am the most fated man in Creation!

My face remained in my hands, the tears of sorrow pouring down my face, blurring my vision and distracting me from the spectacle unfolding around me. As I lay and wallow in my own pitiful circumstance, I failed to notice the change occurring in close proximity to my pathetic, weeping mass. That young pup, the cursed beast who had the malicious happenstance to get accidentally burned by me, stood erect on his hind legs and grew a good thirty feet into the air. With a wag of his tail, he leaned over and tapped me on the sobbing shoulder. “Shriss, get up! It is I, Odin, your master. Rise my Son.”

I brushed the slick trails off my cheeks and stood before him, staring into this giant puppy’s face. “Odin? Father? Where have you been?” “I have been watching you. You have done the most wicked thing imaginable: you have burned a puppy! I am embarrassed by your presence.”

My head bowed in frustration and anger. I muttered into my mighty beard, “It was an accident.”

“Silence!” roared Odin. “You are master of the World. There are no accidents from you!”

“Sorry Father.”

“There is no time for apologies. You must repent in the only way possible.”

“No, Father, not that,” I pleaded. I knew what he meant. Havockon, the descent into Hell.

Odin smiled, a deep grin from dog ear to dog ear. He reached behind him, his paws obscured by his body. When he brought them forth, he had in his hand a shiny red button. Still grinning, he pushed the button with one, giant paw. The ground around me shook, and a bright rectangle of red shone through the cracks starting to form. “Havockon! Fight your way back from Hell, my Viking Messiah! This is the wrath of Odin.”


Karl looked at me in disbelief. Abita licked my slight, feminine hands. “But Sunshine, you are such a beautiful woman now. I cannot believe that you were ever a macho, macho man.”

I turned around, hiding the tears that were streaming down my face. I closed my eyes, waiting for the sobs to cease before I answered his question. I ran my fingers through the brilliant shock of white hair on my head, remembering the horrible tragedy that led to my current state, yet also granted me the power to travel through space and time. “I will tell you about Havockon soon enough. But first you need some rest. Good night, warrior. And good night to you, Dog Princess.”

As Karl led Abita to their shared bed, I sat down in my Rainbow Brite bean bag chair, relaxing in its springy comfort. I leaned my head back, feeling my feminine body, and reflecting. I was alone. Time to transport…

I opened my eyes again. I was standing on that glacier again, the bones of three polar bear cubs tanning in the sun. Before me was a rectangular shape hewn into the glacier. I stared at the slab for a long time before raising my hands in the air. “Curse you, Father,” I bellowed into the quiet night sky.