The Eternity Test

         I've been in a real writing slump lately because I been obsessively stuck on the thought of how millions of years of bat evolution has led to the creation of a virus that only targets old, fat people and leaves the young alone. This shit would have had Darwin reading his Bible while scratching his nuts.

     This morning I went to Visalia to get my allergy shots and remembered how important that this drive was in stirring my creative juices. Right off, I used a trick to focus my thoughts where I hold an imaginary conversation on some important topic, in this case, it was with my doctor. I wanted to ask him about what he thought about all of this Coronavirus shit and needed to be prepared in case he responded.
      
       "Hey, Doc. What do you think of all this virus shit?"

      "Well, Doug, I don't feel real comfortable discussing my thoughts on the matter just yet. Ask me when you come back in three weeks."

        "You're assuming I'll make it back. May I remind you that I got millions of years of evolutionary Bat poop scouring the world looking for my ass."

         "How does that make you feel?"

         "Well, yeah! I mean shit, I've done some dumb shit in my life, but dying just because I got old and fat seems kind of pointless to me."

        "You are aware that's the way it usually works though. Tell me, are you afraid of death?"

         I stared at him in disbelief, "Damn, Doc, I could get asked better questions by my dumb-assed buddy Leonard, and he has trouble opening an aspirin bottle."

         "I guess what I'm asking if you think life is worth the pain and suffering that it takes to live."

          "Well, that's what it all comes down to; is life meaningful or meaningless?

            "What are your thoughts?"

        "Since my ex-wife died, I've read both War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov because they supposedly contained the best answers to that question."

             "Well, did they?"

            "They were very long winded arguments in favor of the idea that life is meaningful, but only if you learn to love your fellow man."

            "And?"

           "The late, great John Prine stated my thoughts on the matter far more succinctly in just two lines from the chorus of his song Fish and Whistle, 'God, forgive us for what we must do. You forgive us and we'll forgive you.'"

            "You didn't answer the question."

         "Put it this way. On the way over here, I saw a hammock stretched between two shade trees. I saw more meaning in that than all the books ever written."

           And I did too. The image reminded me that creation is a lot more than some random puddle of piss. Random puddles of piss don't need hammocks; they do just fine in small indentations and ruts formed by  accidental movements of wind, water, or earth.

              Humans, on the other hand, are capable of looking at two trees and envisaging a hammock. I don't think I've ever seen a hammock formed by a random force of nature, or even two or three acting in concert for that matter.

             At the height of all the media enhanced fear, I sat down on the the loveseat by my window. I was at least six feet away from my own damn thoughts, sheltering in place of living and worrying a lot about what the future holds for our species.

            The thought crossed my mind that I could die while going to fetch a corn-dog. Which would be a damned shame considering I don't even like corn dogs.

           For a moment, I was pretty scared. I prayed to God to forgive every sin I ever committed even the ones I been keeping secret for most of my life, especially those ones.

               I started thinking about if I had done enough to merit going to heaven. I drew a line down the middle of a sheet of paper and started  listing my good deeds and my bad deeds.

              I had two whole pages of bad deeds down before I even got one down on the plus side. I started stressing and had to put down things that I could've done but didn't do in order to restore some balance to the list.

          For example, I could've been a politician who took selfies of himself handing out needles to drug addicted homeless people. Had the chance and didn't do it. Gotta count for something, right?

        After a while, I got kind of depressed and decided it would probably be best if I didn't go outside for a while, or at least until I dyed my hair with some Grecian Formula and lost some weight, or they found cure for this shit, whichever came first.

            I did learn though that it's one thing to think you are a good person and quite another to actually be a good person. It's one thing to puff up your chest with phony accomplishments and stand there telling lies to your mirror as you shave and a whole nother thing to make a list that could actually pass St. Peter's smell test.

              Lord, please give me enough time to plant two trees.

             

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