Written by Ken Carman

I’m writing this into my diary while I still have the time. I am sure this will be my last entry because I can see what’s happening, right now, outside my window…

Wednesday

I come from Conservative stock, Baptist, mostly hard shell. I write this Wednesday night. Next Monday is Valentine’s Day. Maybe they’re all taking it a bit too seriously? My neighbor’s passion for my last sermon about loving one another last Sunday seems a bit overboard.

Sometimes I wonder, if Satan came to conquer Earth, could he use Cupid’s bow?

What made me start wondering was this morning, right after I woke up, I walked to pick up the paper and there, in front of the church where I am the minister, the neighbors and my parishioners were handing out Valentine’s Day cards, candy and flowers in advance. They’re like that: so organized, so thoughtful. My mailbox was full of them, some of them a bit too personal.

Maybe it was just imagination, but I swear they were being a little too forward with each other too, especially each others spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends… hugging and kissing each other with much passion.

Maybe I’m just a bit too old fashioned. Times change. Anyway, I didn’t have to go anywhere today, so I just went back in and worked on Sunday’s service.

Thursday

Things have gone from slight odd to very strange. I walked out this morning and Mrs. Sadqan was having relations her neighbor Mr. Natman on the front lawn of the church. I would have told them to leave, but a crowd had gathered, including her husband, and they were cheering them on, Mr. Sadqan: the loudest.

Has the whole neighborhood gone mad?

I decided not to go out today, so I stayed in; tried to ignore the cheers, the howls and the all too inhuman human “yowls.”

Friday

Repeat performance, except this morning it was Mr. Sadqan and Mr. Natman were having relations. Their wives: part of the cheering crowd.

I decided to leave and get away from the madness. I got into it instead. As I drove downtown and naked people were having relations, chasing each other everywhere. Mr. Griffin, our local health teacher, was mainlining something on town square with such passion it was as if he were making love to himself.

Everywhere I drove there was decadence.

Everywhere I went I saw wisps of what I swear might be the ghost of a fat little baby with a bow. He seems to have a companion.

Saturday

What is going on here? Have I found my way into some alternate universe or reality? They broke into the church today. I found a couple on the altar trying to sacrifice a virgin, until their daughter told them the truth. She wasn’t a virgin. Then Mom, Dad and daughter decided to bond. Their moans of pleasure were sickening.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I started yelling out, “Sinners!” Telling them they were defiling the Lord’s home. They just laughed and told me to go find Jesus, “After all, didn’t he love the little children?” They laughed perversely when they said “love.”

I drove downtown again. It was unbearable: human on animal, old folks sniffing glue, naked adults and children performing despicable acts. Everywhere: that wisp like child with his companion. His companion holding a goblet, obviously drunk. Laughing along with Cupid.

These cannot displays of the kind of love God spoke of, the kind of personal love eventually blessed through marriage or even just living in sin with a long time commitment. These cannot be his servants.

Where is God? He seems to have abandoned us.

I left the sanctuary to the hedonists and locked myself into my minister’s living area, a small apartment really. I bolted the door, but that didn’t prevent them from shoving unspeakable things under my door, screaming invites and obscenities. Bear in mind… I’m not a pure man. I have sinned. My wife left me because I fell for Mary Ann: a parishioner, who then decided to go back to her husband. In college I smoked pot, did some hash, did all college students do… then some.

So I am not easily offended. Like all I have sinned. It’s not like I’m inexperienced. But my neighbors are acting like they never ever have acted, and in ways even a pervert would find too disgusting even when found in a rundown, sleazy, whorehouse. I stayed home. I locked the doors. Put plugs in my ears. How can it get worse?

Sunday

I woke this Sunday morning to quiet. I thought maybe the madness was over. I put on my clerical collar and wondered, “What will I say? How could I say anything about such matters without losing my congregation: each and every one involved, along with the rest of the town, in debauchery and vile, unspeakable acts.

Then it started. I heard a soft whisper outside the window.

“We know what you did in college.”

I ignored it, hoping it would go away.

“We know all the things you did with Mary Ann Butrum.”

I looked outside. Some people were gathering by my window. Beyond them I could see flesh being flailed, people carrying crosses with blood dripping from their wrists, their heads adorned crowns of thorns. Some drank vinegar until they puked it back up, then drank some more. Cupid was no longer a wisp: handing out arrows the size of spears, being egged on by his companion. Helping the town folk stab each other in the side.

Some were calling each other “traitor,” or screaming “heretic,” then shooting or stabbing each other.

There are all kinds of acts we refer to as “love:” what we do to each other, how we devote ourselves to our beliefs, our families, our country, our deity. Why is it we repeat vile things done to our Lord and consider that showing “love?” Why is it we confuse sex with love, and love of country so often encourages hate for our fellow man? I never knew until now how sick the many ways we express love can be, no matter what kind of love we may claim to feel. How tempting it is to turn love into something vile and then claim it is “love.”

And no one is above temptation. Not even Cupid.

After a week of orgies, love’s carnage litters the streets. There are bodies starting to rot in the hot morning sun. On this hot summer day the stench was going to be incredible. But I’m sure I won’t be here to smell it. I wonder what’s kind of pure hell is planned for tomorrow, Valentine’s Day, though, for me, a blessing has come in an odd package: I’m sure I won’t live to find out.

I’m writing this into my diary while I still have the time. I am sure this will be my last entry because I can see what’s happening, right now, outside my window. My ex-wife is pointing at my window. They’re picking up rocks. They’re coming this way.

This is the seventh day, the day the Lord rested.

But Satan, is obviously working overtime.

_________________________________________________

Copyright 2011

©Ken Carman

all rights reserved