Benjo Fails to Connect

by Edd

His last appeal exhausted, Benjamin Josiah Temple sits on death row and talks pop culture with God.

“I prefer to reveal Myself to those who have a true appreciation for Green Acres,” says God. “Of course, Lisa represents chaos to Oliver’s flawed manifestation of order. Happiness for one is shopping where happiness for the other is starting a farm. Without either, there would be no marriage, no true happiness, no television show. Talk about your Odd Couples!”

“You gonna break me out of here?” Benjo hears the thud of approaching shoes, guards are on their way. “I’ll watch any show you want, you get me gone.”

“Certainly not.” God adopts a reproving tone. “You’re like Hogan, always looking for the tunnel to freedom, when all the time it is within you.”

“In me? Is that what you’re trying to teach me? Is this some kinda zen thing? Dammit, God, come clean, wouldja?”

“Now you mention it, Schultz saying ‘I see nothing’ is very zen.” Two guards and a priest stop outside Benjo’s cell. God whispers in his ear, “I think Steve Buscemi would be wonderful playing you.”

One guard steps right on the remains of Benjo’s last supper as he reaches to haul the convict to his feet. Benjo looks wildly around. “Are you still there, God? Don’t let me die!”

“God is with you always,” the priest intones, yawning just a bit.

“I’ll be seeing you, son,” God says too softly for anyone to hear, just as he has said the other times, the other millions of times. A series of doors open for the prisoner, and close, just like on Get Smart.

Overheard in the courtyard of a very ancient apartment block in Cairo

by Kat Beyer

“Hassan, change your sister back right this minute. I mean it.”

“But Mama,–”

“Hassan Ibn Sina, change your sister back or I will make you sorry you ever came out of the womb, so help me Almighty. Don’t give me that look.”

“But Mama, she likes being a butterfly.”

“I don’t care whether she wants to be a butterfly for the rest of her life. You change her back this instant, do you hear? She can be a butterfly all she wants when she’s old enough to do it herself. For now, she has to be a little girl and eat her supper. And you, you will not get any supper at all if you do not do as I say. What, do you want me to change you too? Because I guarantee you, I’m angry enough right now, I’ll change you into a dog turd in the street.”