Short Version: The Swamps Have Eyes
Dedicated To: Chief Running Away From The Real Truth
By Princess Maranatha [Little Sunshine]
“I know what you lied about to cover up the secret evil telephone conversation that filled your head with the outright lies of the enemy.” Said the Big Prophet Town Ogre, actually a beautiful woman trapped by a charismatic witchcraft spell who now lived inside of the body of the Irish troll, under a bloodied highway bridge. She as he sighed so hard. “God, I tried to go into the church and help and do what you told me to do. But, my enemies stepped in and did what they set out to do, and prayed charismatic witchcraft against me and at a moment when I least expected it, tripped me up. I meant everything I wrote. And those whose hearts and heads they tricked, as usual, they still have not repented for their wrong response. They were never even sad. Just proud. I was not in sin. I was under the inspiration of the holy ghost. I was pure and had been for years. I was not impure in anything I said. Or did. The thoughts that they thought for me, never crossed my mind. After all, the one issue only ever so barely brought up seems something that has exactly been the baggage that has troubled their sick minds all of this time, since the incident. “Wasn’t that what I sent you to fix?” Murmured the large sun hovering over her in the sky and with an English teabag hanging halfway out of his mouth half gumming and then half knawing on the thing, nearly half to death. Ogre squinted at him, at the sunshine sideways, and looked at him queerly. And then proceeded to continue explaining herself. “I tried everything I knew to ease into the subject. To introduce the coming application of the point-of-contact God healing. But they seemed blinded. And worse, yet. Clueless.” Said Ogre. “Did you not try to invite them out to dinner to introduce the subject?” Said Sunshine. “I did and I had enough money in my purse to give one of them to cover a trip around the globe and back.” “And?” Inquired sunshine. “They threw the letter in the trashcan,” and went on another trip. “Whatever kind of a trip would such a stupid person go on, breezing by such a fortune just like that as if it were a squash able fake gold ring from a bubble gum machine?” “Yes,” said Ogre. “It was almost worse than the time when the earl from the Piney Woods thought that the gold bar shaped like a deer we gave him was made of granite dipped in gold paint.” Said Ogre. “So give me the report results gathered.” Demanded Sunshine squinting up his own eyes now, as it was apparent that the English tea was making him very, very sick. “Yet they tried to force the ideals of their hidden innermost thoughts of the lowest and the worst, something never even imagined by me, on me.” Said Ogre. “I have wondered about the contents of one hard drive in particular ever since. ” She said. Now bending softly and weeping so sad and humble and quiet, the group of other forest creatures had to soften their pliable necks and bend hard just to hear her. “All of this, after fighting the barrage of demons which the troupe of the charismatic church dispatched 24-7, for a resulting lack of peace, kindness, rest, sleep, or happiness or security upon my whole entire household for close to going on fifteen years now. They pray for the peace of those they are trying to use charismatic witchcraft wit to turn into my enemy, people who I prayed for without God revealing who I was praying for, for almost seven years straight ~ And then since it has been another seven years since and added onto that. You would think there would be some compassion or love on their part coming to the surface for me after all of this, and after all of this time.” Ogre gently implied here. “Unless they are just a hard-hearted and a stiff-necked people,” added the Tiny White Rabbit with a bloodshot heart in complete exasperation. At this point, Wounded Bear straightened out his bright orange Christian Dior zipper-jacket, and cried out to Sunshine, “Whatever on earth are you doing? Knawing and chomping and guffering on your curds like that? Ogre would have been sent away from the dinner table at the raw, young age of three for such behavior!” At first, Sunshine only guffawed more. And then ugly and disgusting oodles and doodles of thousands of molecules of nasty chewed up tea-spittle, exactly just like that, like chew, began flowing out of the side of Sunshine’s mouth. “Sorry,” murmured Sunshine. “Nasty toothache.” “Good God, man,” said the good White Irish Rabbit. “Have we not to told you to stay away from that English tea. “Ye should be drinking’ the Irish jewel, and none of this ever would have happened. Look at your countenance, man!” Rabbit lectured. “Have ye never taken a look at the mugs on those English? Long. Drawn out. Sad. And they ‘ave every right to be, eh mate. Look at all the bad things they done to us Irish. It’s enough to leave them in repentance at the monastery for a thousand years. Praying on them love beads for God to just give them some kind of a ‘art like the Tin Man.” “Ogre had to have all of his new teeth put in because of drinking English tea,”said Wounded Bear. “Naw,” chimed in the pink pelican who lived in the creek. “It’s not like that at all mates. Her mate broke her teeth out. It had nothing to do with tea.” Little Leprechaun preacher grew very angry at this point, standing up for Ogre. “Her mate knocked them out as she kindly asked him to let her stay in her own home. She never said a word. Just picked herself up and went. She knew her enemies already had it in their minds to make for the one she loved so much another plan. She fought the good fight.” Suddenly many holy angels flew close to study the beautiful aura around all of them. Let us also leave the poor, old Sunshine alone. If it wasn’t for Irish coffee, both Ogre and Sunshine would have likely have no teeth at all. It is a proven fact that those who drink tea end up having to get their teeth whitened five times more a year than those who drink Irish coffee. Besides, everybody knows that a good cup of Irish coffee is the cream dream of every man who ever made it to heaven. For truly, God created the java bean. And God held the java bean in the palm of his hand. He made the sign of the cross on it. And then he marched straight to Bogotá, Columbia and for seven days and seven nights, he tilled and planted the precious thing. The next day, all of the Latinos in the town woke up. And we’ve had beautiful, frothy tasty coffee ever since.” The sound of snoring stopped Ogre’s sweet little tale. Actually a Kingdom Bayou legend, creatures as far as worldwide ports paid top dollar for the stuff. And there was not a creature on the earth alive today who did not remember how angry the Pilgrim Sheep had gotten with the band of English Goat Soldiers who brought them shiploads of Black Pekoe Tea and announced the fiasco as an elite Boston Tea Party that they had wanted to throw for them. “Poppycock! Cheapskates!” Had remarked President Peacock to say the least. Her people worked hard, and at the very least she would find a way whatever it took to throw them a high fashion gala ball complete with fancy devours and all sorts of other fine and desired and panted after drinks and treats. So, immediately she threw all of the nasty stuff overboard which started an American Eagle civil war. And the next thing you know, The Lady President of America began immigrating Emu from Argentina to grow, farm and produce the stuff. Even the English king father had said to the prince, I am seriously considering crowning Lady Peacock as the proceeding queen of all of my conglomeration, and dethroning you for good.” “Upon what charges?” The prince wailed louder than a newborn baby. It was really quite disgusting actually. “Treason upon high buffoonery!” Shouted the father. “And besides, your cousin is Irish. And although I cannot exactly recall which country we borrowed you from, that you may be English. At least she is real family blood. You, we were never really sure of. Your pedigree papers came from a tsar who lived in a cave and was writing some kind of a book that had something to do with strange gods with eight arms. I knew we should have checked into it more. What we really should have done is we should have given you back after the specified two rental weeks, and purchased the Swedish baby instead. Now see. At least he had a musical ability. The king wiped a tear from his eye as he had a brief imaginary dream, his head dreaming of walking the hills of Switzerland and measuring out the notes for the song, “Good King Ensiles” together out in The Fields of Christmas. The king walked away, unusually sulky and ever murmuring and even more determined to contact a psychiatrist about his highly dysfunctional son. The only reason he did not, is because every time he tried to sign him into the facility, the other patients threw up arms and rebelled by throwing filled-to-the-brim coffee cans at him. They would have no English tea drinking bloke at the establishment. But still, as relative physics would have it, the cans of English coffee hurt just as much as the ones from Ireland. Even the sign on the front door of the facility read, “As for me and my house, we will only drink Irish. Occasionally Columbian. But seldom anything from England even if it is Vanilla flavored.” After all of the drama and the uproar, a peaceful and a quiet atmosphere consumed the kingdom for months thereafter. But it was only because the prince drank English tea instead of coffee. If he had known the truth, the truth would have set him free. And he would have drank coffee, been able to get out of bed, and even if just for one day out of the year, got some kind of a job done. Perhaps some ironing. Maybe put on a coffee-pot of tea water. But some kind of a job. Somewhere.
The Tiny White Rabbit with the bleeding heart, thought a moment, as blood began to seep against his perfect and beautiful white coat. Finally, he said “Remember when you were the first one to insist to take your prior, and your now dead mate, to forgive Astor Slick and his, ‘I am the pastor’s, I am not your friend, let them eat cake Marie Antoinette wife,’ and you were the first one to initiate, when it should have been them doing that all along?” Said the ogre. “Yes I remember. And now I know it was all wrong. I never should have gone. If we had stayed away from them, I would still have my marriage, my children and my farm. But once they saw us coming, they knew we had take us suckers down written all over our foreheads. They wasted no time telling the other party, who got to work immediately praying only the boldest and most cruel and heinous of charismatic witchcraft to take our farm and our marriage and everything else we had away. ‘We’ll get them now, they thought. And they sure did. They got even. They’re still trying to get even with people who had nothing against them other than wanting the same things they wanted out of life. A happy marriage. A private life. To serve the Lord in quietness and in peace. And most of all, to be left alone.”
“The process halted, and as the rude engines of the preposterous blasted, boomed, and exploded round-the-clock, and the cruel, damaging, loud, and intrusive blast of the unceasing motors of the morning, noon and night witchcraft gave none of us any rest or peace ever. The others did not get what they needed either.” Ogre narrated. Despite living under the fallacy that they were perfect the whole entire time, my intent and my motive was never imperfect, as I was only obeying what the father told me to do. So then they began to believe my enemies. And received that wrong spirit, which I had thoroughly warned them against for months. I have been fighting that spirit and hanging onto the holy spirit all of this time. I am already well familiar with that spirit and the way they use it. They used it purposely to seek to destroy my faith, and you gladly and fully participated with them. Now then, certainly that means, even as they are still up to their same old tricks and ways, and not only have not changed. But have actually grown worse.” “So, how do ye like yer big new church? It looks like now you sure don’t need me anymore,” surmised the ogre. “You’re like the song. You’ve got it all.” “And did she, the girl finally get herself out of ad hoc?” Asked White Rabbit. “Eh, so, she did with God alone on ‘er side,” said the stupid little wet-behind-the-ears leprechaun preacher man. “Of course, ye know they only give big gifts to those of them who they want to do their enemies harm. White Rabbit nodded slowly. “And ye know the only reason they have enemies?” Asked the ogre. “Yea, and so do I,” said the stupid little leprechaun man. “Is it because they are the meanest, and the most flesh-filled, self-centered, selfish and greediest people this side of the river with the arch?” Asked a nearby skunk, whose perfume better than the rest of all her enemies sum total wafted and drifted like so much necessary White Shoulders throughout the little meeting place.
Skunk readied herself, and preened and licked her fine, sharp crown thorns. She would soon distribute the thorns to those who Sunshine felt needed them for their growth and development the most. And although at times, she felt sure she was living a waking nightmare, she knew that her enemies would not get away with this forever. “Sure, and yea they are,” sounded out the goodly ogre suddenly. “And don’t you believe all of their lies. They’d say anything to get life their way. Rob and steal and kill, and then go three states over to try to prove they never did it all with money.” “Yea,” said Ogre. “Now yer gettin it straight. So what’ve we got to do with all of that dirty money ye got the church built with? And by the way son, ye should-be waited on the money come from the angels. It wouldn’t ‘ave been defiled like this lot is. If someone is willing to do anything it takes to rob the poor and crush down the oppressed just to get what they want, no matter what it might be, that aint’ no mission, nor no people dispatched by God. And then Lording it over poor people, while taking their every dime, and telling them that they’re evil and bad for doing whatever they had to do just to eat and survive, and avoid sleeping on concrete picnic tables, while they sleep on velvet feather beds and eat nothing but the best of delicacies. All of these years, God has done his best to talk to them about what was the real heart of the problem, and they still aven’t changed. They still can’t hear God. And then the enemies got in the way, and did as they always do. Stopped the process, which is really only now delayed and not stopped, and just in order to temporarily satisfy themselves. Now they have got the overgrown students back to square one with that false and only temporary lasting spirit they prayed. It is still everybody else who needs to repent and come to them, and never the other way around, as it really should be. It is still the same Ole socio-politico sport of religion cow dung. And then they go and make fun of the real prophets just because they don’t want to do the very first thing they been told to do all along. And such an easy thing it is, my precious little blokes. Tummy chum up. Admit they’re wrong. Say they’re sorry. And repent. And reach out and love first like Jesus did. Instead of always taking the lazy way out and telling the other one to forgive. Forgive? Whoever did not forgive to begin with? It was never a matter of forgiveness. It was a matter of, when are you gonna stop praying charismatic witchcraft against us so we can cook a meal and put some food on the table for our daughters? When are you gonna stop praying charismatic witchcraft against us so that we can have a few peaceful hours to pray and think straight. When are you gonna stop using charismatic witchcraft against us so that we can take the time to create some useful shelter for our children too? When are you going to stop praying charismatic witchcraft against us out of your own sick need for revenge, we never earned? When are you gonna just leave us alone, and let us have some peace?” That is all it was ever all about. “Well, the devil will never leave you alone,” you say. “Well, are you the devil?” “It is beginning to seem to me like the enemies only found a way to pull another fast one. Same technique. Next scene. Different title.” Surmised the big and soft, gentle ogre as she rubbed her chin that there is no issue of forgiveness at all. But rather, that the issue is, using the ploy of a false and non-existing icon of forgiveness as a tool for those out of the will of God to continually try to just insert themselves into places and people where they don’t belong. The work they have chosen is not what they really want to do. And so, they just try to enjoin and go to all these different people and places in order to try to get them to carry the load for them.” Third scene. Same old stanza. “Why don’t they just drive home, to their home, and quietly go about their own work, and mind their own business?” Asked the leprechaun.
“I have some advice for them,” said the extremely wise and prophetic ogre. “May I try out my speech for them on all of you?” All nodded in complete and concurrent ascension. “Why don’t you go forward? And why don’t you refuse to commit the same sin against me again. Unless of course you are too lazy to pick up your own two feet and walk now from now on in, in the right instead of the wrong way? Or do you just want and crave so to be as my enemies and sitting in their lovely little ‘omes and ‘ave everybody else do for them, while the lazy sots scream out, “Forgive! Forgive us everybody!” “At whim.” “With no repentance. No shame whatsoever. No real heartsob. No, ‘I am sorry for my evil part of what I did, for what I even in secret done,’ with em. As if to say, ‘I did nothing. I am perfect. I am clean.'” Ogre prophet shook his head. “Well, I suppose I was just bored one day. ‘Aving such a good life and all. Said I, Well I think I will do myself in. Life is just too perfect. Too lovely. Why I think I’ll pray some charismatic witchcraft against myself. You know, make my mate jump up from the couch, and come over here and hit me, you know just haul off and assault me with that double barrel sawed-off shotgun hanging over the door that the investigators were too dumb to confiscate from him when they came, as I read from my good book.” White Rabbit, whose blood by now practically covered his whole entire fur of a white body now, added, “And like it was not enough to add your own mate to the mix. It hurt so when he shot me in that backyard. Anyway, every private investigator knows that all country Hoosiers nail their shotgun over the inner doorway of their double-wide. And they had no reason to hate you so. You had never done a bad thing one day in your life to them.” “Prayed for them, I did,” said Ogre. “Loved them even.” “Made my mate give them money. Lots of money.” “Healed their sick. Prayed for their poor. Taught them about the holy spirit, and you know, it was not like the person of his holiness liked being used that way either. I am beginning to suspect that it is these people who are lazy, and not everybody else like they are accusing. I believe they have grown lax in their ways, and now they just want everybody else to do for them. They don’t realize that they have been resting their whole lives, and while they want everybody else to go out and do more, that these are the same exact ones who have done for them all of their lives, and that now it is my time to deserve a rest. Besides, I lived in a single-wide.” Stated the kindly she ogre. “Aye,” agreed the bonnie White Rabbit. “That was definitely what threw em’ off about the location of the shotgun he shot me with. It was hanging over the inner doorway as you walk in. And they would have seen it perfectly and clearly on the walk on the way out.”
“And then we got the lies.” Said he. “Yes, I know,” said the Witty bitty little shrinking with age and time leprechaun preacher man, who actually shrinking tinier with every little second that ticked by, by now still looked as handsome as ever, sighed and began to list them all along with the ogre. “Well, they’re always trying to get into other people’s churches. Jamborees. Jambres. And this time, it looks like even the very elect have fallen for it. And this time, the bribe is money. That and the wrong spirit again. And the lies are?” “Ye know ’em all already. We’ve been through this a dozen times before. But what’s puzzling them is the nature of their game,” said the ogre. Rabbit pooged his lips out and danced around with his rear sticking out and doing a kind of mambo jumbo. The ogre, elaborated, while imitating one of the underhanded leaders of their large congregations. Acting it out, Ogre chuckled a low and evil laugh like a devil. “Pleased to meet you,” mimicked Ogre trying to look like one of them. “Are a bunch of large, transparent soap bubbles coming up all around me, yet?” Asked Ogre expectantly. The group confirmed the fact that indeed, the spirit of Lawrence Whelk had entered the room. They all assented in unison. “Conagglomerates got to unify, and anybody who does not become part of the original and exclusive team, and march to the drum of a singular drummer is instantly listed as rebellious, or talked about or not believed as if something is wrong with them. But usually and only the three particular women, since they are women and do not wear a suit.” Knowing he was ad-libbing to the hilt at this moment, Ogre, breathed in deeply and took a pause to recap. “Only those who wear the suit are privileged to partake of our love and our prayers. That and one other item. Do you have one?” Ogre point to White Rabbit. White Rabbit had one. “I don’t.” Said Skunk. “Then you are forever banned from the group, and by your very admission of your physical lack, you are deemed insufficient to complete the task of same. Go home to your double-wide immediately and begin frying up something fattening!” Skunk, not realizing that Ogre was only trying to illustrate a point began sobbing intensely. “You do too don’t have one!” Shouted Skunk at Ogre. “No. I have one. Before the witchcraft spell I had none. But now I have one temporarily. So, that qualifies me.” Said Ogre. “What happens though when someone from the other forest kisses you and breaks the spell and you turn back into the beautiful woman you once were.” Asked a squirrel from Flat Water Lake. “Then it is at that time that I no longer have one.” “Disqualified.” Bear nodded compassionately. “Exactly.” Ogre who had no strife did not argue with Bear about the sad fact. Those and the ones whose mouths are bigger and who physical and otherwise push, force, and control watched all that was going on from infra-red computer satellite and smiled wickedly. Said the tiny leprechaun preacher, who now no longer a big and taunting man, who because his daddy owned a physical head-chopping block (pulpit), and while shrinking despite any medication smaller and smaller and smaller with each passing moment, addressed not the rudeness of his own private problem, and feeling secure in having it all, instead began to act like a big man on the totem pole. Forgetting that his totem pole as opposed to the other partie’s willingness to hear from God, obey God and do things exactly as he wanted, instead of what God had said, seemed to forget that a totem pole is made of wood. And wood burns up quickly. Had he never heard of what fire does to wood, hay and stubble? “So now look at the mess they made,” thought the Ogre to her himself. “And hopefully, it won’t be another ten or fifteen years of it,” she added like the last time, while sipping a cup of hot Irish java out of a mug so huge, the nice porcelain cup as large as the by now tiny as a toddler child, ego shrinking little leprechaun preacher. Even Ogre secretly looked at the shrinking leprechaun preacher, and though extremely good-hearted, thought of how very easy it would be to just slip him in the cup and drink him down. “Ye got all ye ever wanted now.” Said White Rabbit to the leprechaun of a preacher little man. “Well, good for ye. Now run on ahead. It’s all going your way. It’s perfect. And remember your motto, “I am a man. I get it all. Mr. ‘All That.’ My twenty-something and growing for greedy, egotistic, selfish, self-centered for me and the people who do not want to change, and God knows, no more. Wham. Bam. Thank you for praying for me, ma’am. But now, I’ve got it going on. I can take it from here. Watch me go now and how.”
“They say people won’t forgive them. But what they really mean is hand over the farm, the children, the stash. They are not un-forgiven. They were never harmed in this manner in the first place. They are the ones who need to repent and stop, as what they are doing is not of God. It is instead of good, a very naughty evil. They were simply told to stop and to not proceed going on with that which was not of God, and to go back to their own land and do that. But they would not. First, they had to take the farm. Then the child. And then still another child yet. They rebelled. They refused to use the prophesy to repent. For every prophesy whether good or bad, both have their contingent requirement. Then they made fun of the prophet. They will most definitely not profit from that. For the prophet is the great sky Sunshine, where withal the prophesy came from. “Who carelessly walked away just like that, after they got it all the way they wanted, using God’s daughter for it all, and then departed happy even to imagine God’s daughters laying slaughtered or dead in a gutter somewhere? May the banshee find em’ as God taint’ one to reward none o’that.” Stated Ogre confirming. “I’d like to drive to that place and tell that young man to close his mouth now.” Stated White Rabbit, who now stood over Ogre as a protective father. After all, it’s thousands against one. “I could care less that I threw God’s chosen out the front door. I could care less that I can’t hear the voice God shouting at me that there aint’ gonna be no move of God until the young one does that what first things first he should have done first in the first place,” barked the young man with hair that looked like bedhead with wet Crisco poured all over it. “What is he baking?” Asked Wounded Bear. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it until he admits even after all of this time what’s truly wrong.” Said White Rabbit. “Ogre does not wear Crisco in his hair,” said Skunk. “Yes, but if the prince kisses Ogre,” Ogre will be disqualified from the cult of Crisco Boy. “What if he wants to sing, ‘I did it my way‘all of his life?” Remarked squirrel while staring at the television set. “And even yet with glee, then ‘My way’ is the way it stays until it and he changes his stance.” Even the tiny little leprechaun preacher man, who by now even though he had stopped growing, was only as tall and as wide as a 1960’s Barbie Doll agreed with that. And she heard someone sing overhead, and at least even though she used to the love world of such therapeutic color that came so lovingly from that small dot, even as a young girl, the song told her what to do, “Go home and read the good book. Remember what the dormouse said. Feed your head.”
Mysteries & Other Short Stories 