At 11:30 promptly, as always, the God Squad arrive to enforce God’s will – as they understand it, anyway! They arrive to enforce God’s will, to enforce God’s will. God’s will is that anyone who disputes their right to interpret and enforce God’s will are to be taken away to the Moral Re-education Camps immediately. CBT therapists will work on their minds. ‘Moral Re-education’ is a euphemism, needless to say, but there’s no need to go into that. There is no need whatsoever to go into that.
God’s will was to be enforced, there was no doubt on that score! There could be no doubt on that score. Many would say that there is no other way for this to be – if it is God’s will we are talking about then of course it is to be enforced! That goes without saying. Hence all the police, hence God’s armies, hence the timely arrival of the God Squad in their iridescent solar uniform. Others would disagree however. Teachers of the Bad Hat School disagree, they mutter from the dark places that no one else ever goes. They teach practices that undermine the very nature of reality itself.
Late at night, in the forbidden part of the city, feral CBT therapists roam the streets. They are scavengers – they will take what they can get. They are the Clandestine Supporters of a Lost Cause, they are the Reviled Apologists for the False Reality. Cordially hated by all, they ambush unwary travellers and try to interfere with their thinking. ‘Switch the negative for a positive!’ is their battle cry – they hate the negative with a passion, even though it is their greatest ally. Their days are numbered however – a new God has burst rudely onto the scene and he is a very hungry God. He is the Eater God. He is the Devolved One. He is the Father of Falsehoods. His frighteningly deranged and psychopathic followers have founded a virulent and vengeful religion and wish more than anything else to enforce its twisted laws upon the world, that it might at last see sense.
The planet groans under the weight of so many fusty old religions, each one worse on the other. In earlier ages CBT therapists warred with NLP practitioners on the streets, each vying for supremacy. History passed them both by however, and before very long the world fell under the sway of the Great Mad God, whose secret names are Chnoubis and Leotoeides and whose face is always hidden in shadow. A new Age of Darkness was set to begin, an even better Age of Darkness than the one that had just passed! Storytellers and minstrels of every description were set to work spreading the word of the Great Mad God, telling all about his great and terrible madness. Some of these storytellers are no more than shadows – they whisper their twisted tales into the ears of poor unfortunate sleepers and cause them to have disturbing dreams. Other storytellers are like giants – they stride through the land on legs like marble pillars, causing the very earth to shake under them. People run when they heard them coming, they run and scatter as best they can. They scatter like mice.
Histories are pouring from my pen, each one more terrible than the one that preceded it. Dark and troubled histories pour from my pen, for it is my destiny to record the madness of men and gods, and the foolish things they did. There is a strange dank smell in the room as I write; the candles are guttering and soft rain patters against broken window panes. Fish are more intelligent than men in this age; they swim slowly in dark waters, working out the meaning of riddles that no man was ever able to answer. Their thoughts are cogent and apt; the thoughts of man – on the other hand – are fibrous and dry, like coconut matting. Some of the fish have learned to walk and discourse upon philosophy. They stand silently beside me as I write, their eyes are like deep dark pools of water, their voices like waves breaking on distant shores…
