“What if”, my friend Fritz has asked me. In those moments unguarded I am caught, unawares. He bludgeons me with his bitter irony. And yet I always accept more.
“What if, my friend, the universe is indeed nothing more than some vast, fetid pool of reproductive goop….”
Goop? I interrupt him, quite certain this is not a term common to 19th century German. He continues unfazed…
“…. a festering, susurrating ocean of seed and egg co-mingled. A perfect, self sustaining machine of cells, combining and recombining…”
He was again sounding more German. I decided to not fixate on the goop.
“….and all life is attuned to this symphony by olfactory bulb; no memory, only direct stimulus to the brain stem.”
Fritz comes and goes. Often he is here and only sits as a silent observer. Other times he concerns me.
“Yes, my friend. A pheromone paradigm, eh? What do you think, Thomas? In that construct what is the supreme being?”
On some occasions he simply will not leave until engaged. I had to reply.
“Well, Freddy, in that construct I will say that the supreme being is Ramses Buttplug the XVI, the Great Intergalactic Aardvark. He crawls about the catwalks above the space/time fabric, probing the goop with his long, sticky tongue. He sucks up entire planets indiscriminately with each dip from the pool, thereby dispensing justice in an entirely objective manner.”
He remained silent a while. I had almost begun to believe he had gone.
“Ja, I had forgotten about the Aardvark, but you are wrong my friend! In that construct it is we, the ants, who are supreme. Through our consumption the Aardvark is poisoned.”
His logic is ever infallible. I forever dread his coming; I forever dread his absence. He pours two tumblers of whiskey, then raises his glass in toast.
“God is dead?”
I raise my glass in reply, “He is indeed dead, for we have killed him.”
We drink in silence. Then he is gone. My friend Fritz.
