God, Eve, and The Serpent

sorabji.com: What is your definition of hell?: God, Eve, and The Serpent
By Sarah on Tuesday, March 17, 1998 - 08:44 pm:
    two weeks ago we were high on our
    sublime love, after dancing through
    the garden of eden. last week she
    had an insecurity induced epiphany and
    knelt down to receive his forgiveness.
    so i guess i saved them. did you
    know that the serpent is actually
    the healer?

    he just called me for the first time
    since he broke the news to me one week
    ago today. i was apprehensive,
    anticipating a resurgence of internal
    torment and confusion. i used to really
    look forward to those phone calls. they
    used to fill me with enough warm and
    glowing energy to keep me floating for
    days afterwards. i prayed. i had faith.

    i barely recognized my own voice as i
    spoke. i sounded flat, even. i felt numb.

    (it was actually nice for a change.)

    it started out awkward, moreso than
    even the first time we ever spoke.
    it was the first time i ever felt
    completely disconnected from him.

    i feel differently. i don't love him
    less, but i'm afraid of him now. the
    friendship marches forward, but his
    flirtations now seem hedged, contrived,
    vacant, bankrupt.

    when i contain the urge to weep, i feel
    the rise and fall of a sharp tingling
    from my sternum down into the untanned
    side of my right forearm. i shouldn't
    do that. i'm sure i have thousands more
    tears to cry about it all, but i can't
    figure out precisely from where the
    anguish is coming. it's like the sunspot
    that moves just a little further into
    the periphery when you try to catch it
    with your eye.

    on some level, i know he called out of
    benevolent obligation. to check up on me.
    i give him credit - he always strives to
    figure out how to deal with things in an
    appropriate, healthy manner. he's quite
    vigilant about that.

    i think a healer doesn't need to be healed
    as long as she's being rewarded. it's
    funny though, because it's always when you
    feel the most wide open and trusting and
    hopeful that it comes back to slap you in
    the face. the universe rewards courage but
    punishes stupidity.

    hell means having to learn that lesson over and over again.
By Eoin on Thursday, March 19, 1998 - 11:14 am:
    Hell was last night at Mona's on Ave.B. Two conversations raged on either side of me: one about an Irish horse trainer who went for the big bucks and not the glory; the other was an explanation of how voice-recognition software works.

    To be honest I enjoyed myself in hell. An attractive young asian girl had just politely asked me to go there and I had no objections. She even drove me there, a NY hip-hop station providing the ill-fitting soundtrack.

    The music was better in hell and no-one seemed to mind their punishment. The devil didn't even object when I left and retuned the middle-ground of Queens. He just politely wished me a good night. I'll go to hell more often.

    Eoin.
By Sarah on Thursday, March 19, 1998 - 04:21 pm:
    another way to tell the story
    would be to say that god is a
    snake charmer.
By Alienprobe on Friday, March 20, 1998 - 04:43 pm:
    Boognish, mighty god of payphones, sometimes uses women as his priestesses, and you can supplicate yourself before them when making a collect call or reversing charges, or using person-to-person calling scams. Some of these priestesses speak with a computer chip instead of their mouths. This chip is not unlike those used by the evil CIA to try to control what we think. It is the CIA and NSA that are the serpents!
By Markus on Friday, March 20, 1998 - 07:17 pm:
    The universe does indeed punish stupidity, but courage isn't exactly rewarded; it merely allows you to keep a half step ahead of the universe and its bloody attitude.
By TBone on Saturday, March 21, 1998 - 03:29 pm:
    Since when are courage and stupidity opposites? They sure aren't mutually exclusive. I've seen people who were considered couragous by some yet seemed utterly stupid to me. That seems to be the most rewarded by our culture, yet not by life itself.
By Anonymous on Saturday, March 21, 1998 - 11:08 pm:
    The message of a man or woman whom accquires material
    wealth as the result of teaching love, truth or happiness is simply
    false.

    No real truth ever comes from a person seeking material profit, it is
    simply impossible.

    Truth's essence lies in gifts of the heart, without expectstion of
    material gain.

    In fact there is no truth in the material realm nor can it be found by
    searching there.

    Look inside yourself with these statements in mind and you may begin to
    find peace.

    Now for the real gift:

    Find a child, hug them. Teach them how to read or jump rope and you will
    be on your way to true finding truth, happiness and love.
By Network Executive on Saturday, April 18, 1998 - 02:12 pm:
    You guys write me 26 episodes of this stuff and we'll go to series in September. This stuff is GOLD!
By Adam sandler on Saturday, May 2, 1998 - 12:08 pm:
    I'm gonna sue you for copyright violation.
By Sarah on Monday, May 10, 1999 - 04:54 am:

    i think what i miss about him the most now is... is... is what? his mood swings? his neediness? his flirtations? what exactly about *him*.

    or was it just the way he made me feel. special... no. angelic.

    no, no, it was just his way. and it was definitely his words.

    my dead girl is what you are, he said. my soul mate in the dead universe. had i held out for a member of the tribe i'd have been looking for you. i've spent my whole life growing a persona designed to impress someone just like you. in a sense i succeeded all too well, jumping a register. those are the tricks life plays, he said. in a real sense, if decisions i made in my past effectively jinxed some kind of fated thing we were both to have together, then i've really let you down in a cosmic sort of way, long before we ever met.

    and

    once i thought i saw you
    in a crowded hazy bar
    dancing on the light
    from star to star


    it doesn't seem that long ago that my world was full of him. when i believed.

    i think the one thing i miss the most is having someone to tell my secrets to. someone who loved to know my secrets. it was the one time i felt complete.




    it's been a long time since then. and he's supposed to call tomorrow morning, real early. i wonder if he will remember.

    but i bet not.



    but i'll sleep with the phone, just in case.





    i wish i hadn't killed those crickets.




By Gee on Wednesday, May 12, 1999 - 04:36 am:

    This is familiar.

    visions?

By Sarah on Wednesday, May 12, 1999 - 04:23 pm:


    that's me. a lot of the stuff there was born here. sorabji.com pulls it out of me.


By Gee on Thursday, May 13, 1999 - 03:00 am:

    Ohh.... Miss Sarah. I love you.





    (well you know...in that whole adoration, wish-you-were-real kinda of way)