Hole Punch by Simmons, Garth (the dot read aloud TXT) 📕

* * *

A vast conveyor belt of dead kings rolled through the city squares of Conglomacs. Peasants are encouraged to desecrate the corpses.

“GET IT OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM!” said the billboards.

Anyone who desecrated a king's corpse would later be found, tortured and shot.

* * *

Pastor Jax Inclements stood in front of the frightened and angry congregation. He opened his mouth and the implant in his throat began its amplified robotic sermon:

"Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. For the authorities do not strike fear in people who are doing right, but in those who are doing wrong. Would you like to live without fear of the authorities? Do what is right, and they will honour you. The authorities are God’s servants, sent for your good. But if you are doing wrong, of course you should be afraid, for they have the power to punish you. They are God’s servants, sent for the very purpose of punishing those who do what is wrong. So you must submit to them, not only to avoid punishment, but also to keep a clear conscience."

ATHEISM

“Ha ha!” laughed Alan Atheist to his life partner, Anthea. “I’ve got a very intelligent and evidence-based proposition for you.”

“Oh go on then,” laughed Anthea Atheist as she lounged conventional, trendy and secure on her antique, Peruvian chaise lounge.

“My proposition is that nothing can be proven without evidence and anything based purely on imagination is a waste of time. A waste of time it is!”

“Ha ha!” laughed Anthea. “It doesn’t matter that what you said is unoriginal. I will enjoy hearing it said again by you, me and our rational, boring friends for the rest of our lives.”

* * *

Fifty years later, Alan Atheist lay in his deathbed.

“I’m sorry Jesus!” he cried.

"Weak!" spat Anthea.

* * *

Outside the hospital window was the sound of nine hundred and sixty-two million axes grinding with resentment towards their abusive, religious upbringings. Nine hundred and sixty-two million voices:

"Ha ha! Clever, clever. Ha ha! Scientific method. Ha ha! God Delusion."

GOD

I sat with Granddad in the church and we looked at the yellow roses.

“God is in those flowers,” said Granddad. “God is in everything. That’s why he knows everything.”

“Is God in yellow?” I asked.

“God is in everything.”

“When I look at yellow, how do I know that how you see yellow will be the same as how I see yellow?”

“We know because it’s yellow.”

“What I mean is that yellow is the word we both use but how we see yellow might be different. We just have the same word for it.”

“But it's yellow,” said Granddad. “It's just yellow!”

“But what I mean is-”

“It's yellow! That’s all it is! It's yellow!”

“But-”

“It's JUST yellow!”

We'd been waiting for my brother to start singing. He was in the school choir. The community had gathered to see their children sing the Lord's songs.

My brother stood with the choir, they were all in white robes, they held candles.

Everyone watched them. They seemed far away and connected to something higher than all of us.

It was time for his solo performance.

I felt jealous.

After the performance, as we all got up from our chairs, Father Willis brought out a box of tinned sweetcorn for the harvest festival.

COSTERMONGER

The grizzled, old Costermonger pushed her shopping trolley loaded with probably dead fish and acid-rain sodden potato up the cracked, tarmac road. She passed a sign:

“YOU ARE NOW ENTERING HOPELESSNESS.

POPULATION: EVERYONE”

“Get your fish and chips!” she screeched on arrival at the shanty town built from broken cars and other rubbish. “Get your fish and chips, just like they used to make them in the good, old days!”

Starving children ran to the Costermonger, they were pale, green and sick-faced in their clothes of rags and dirt.

“Form a queue pigs!” ordered the Costermonger as she pulled an AK47 gun from her overcoat.

There was only one item on her menu. Fish and Chips. The Costermonger slapped a pulsating, but probably dead, radioactive fish on a hub-cap plate. She sloshed it with a squish of potato. Finally, she drizzled the food with a lumpy splat of gravy that looked like cancer.

The parents of the children ambled out of their car crash homes.

“I... told... you...” rasped their lipless leader. “Not... to... come... back... here! We... can't... afford... anymore... of... your.... fish... and... chips...”

He puked a pint of blood.

The Costermonger aimed her AK47 at him and smiled.

“Your children can afford it! They can have it on credit! These healthy, young pigs can pay it off working at my fish farm!”

SMEAR

The Smear is a statistical smear. Its smudges can be pushed in any direction given enough input. The Smear cannot be erased, it can only be displaced. The Smears numbers flow, communicate and influence. They enforce their existence through symbols of measurement and action.

No one asks the Smear whether it is happy?

Does the Smear look as if it cares?

“I don't give a fig,” said the Smear.

* * *

Victor Qubert put down his copy of the Financial Times and resumed work, everyone else was packing up for Xmas so Victor Qubert was going to be left alone in the office to pick up the pieces.

“It's always this way,” said Victor.

His manager asked him if he was going home?

"No," said Victor. "These projections aren't going to project themselves."

The entire office went dark except for the light above Victor's desk. He got back to work on his figures. Someone needed to sort those numbers out.

* * *

Victor went home on Boxing Day. His wife was worried and his children were wondering why Father Christmas hadn't brought any presents this year?

"Shut up!