the Bar by the Church

Anyway, there was this bar...stop me if you've heard this one before...and in walk a plumber, a banker, and a buddhist monk. No, really, there was a plumber. Anyway, they sat down at a booth, ordered their drinks and started talking. First the plumber pulls out a dumb blonde joke, then the banker makes a lawyer joke, and finally the monk conks the two of them in the head with his sandal. Yes...with his sandal.

Anyhow, the whole scene is seen by the bartender - you ever meet one? They have eyes on the back of their heads! As I was saying, the whole thing was kinda weird, but not as weird as the truth.

You see, the plumber was an angel - a kerubim to be exact - the banker was a djinn, otherwise known as a demon, and the monk was, well, something else. Their powers of illusion hid their true forms and true speech. Good thing, too, because what they were really discussing was the very nature of Reality. Now believe you me when I tell you that spirits are queer things - not animal, not vegetable, not human and certainly not God. Anyway, all the while while mortals may have overheard jokes, they were talking metaphysics. The only thing that truly occured was when the monk smacked the other two with his sandal. Yes, I already told you, it was a sandal!

What? You want to hear their conversation? OK. Here's a snippet, right before the monk got mad.

"...I tell you it just can't be. The mortals are at the whims of the likes of us, and we are eternally bossed about by the higherups, and they are caught up in the Wheel of eternity. We're all slaves to one mechanism or another."

"I beg to differ. My interpretation is that the mortals are best served by the 'likes of us' - the angelii divinii, that is - while our interests are best served through the acts of the Superior Powers, and they are linked in a process of ever higher and greater sanctification with the Great Wheel."

"You two make me sick. You" he said pointing to the banker, "are nothing more than a mechanist. And you" pointing to the plumber, "are a good-for-nothing teleologist. You're both wrong. You banter about asking about the Rules that govern Good and Evil, while all the while Good and Evil just ARE. If you ask me, there is only One Supreme Power and the Big Guy just hates talking about it. Chaos, man, the whole stinking game is ruled by Chaos!"

And that's when he hit the other two with his sandal.... Really.

1. Meanwhile back at the church Edgar bumped into Pastor Frederick Toulie.
2. Somewhere else a kick-butt demon was just waiting for a scent of Edgar. He had plans, big ones.

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