“Oh… for the love of God,” Boone said. He was reading the newspaper in the passenger seat as Crimson drove down highway five. The long trip was only half over and they were both punchy.
Crimson didn’t take his eyes off of the road when he observed, “As of yesterday you didn’t believe in God. Did you find religion over breakfast? Were you touched by an angel in your dreams?”
“Touched by an angel? What a charming euphemism for nocturnal emission.”
“It’s always about sex with you isn’t it?” Crimson said, “I applaud your religious conversion, but one might hope for a more profound transformation. I guess miracles just aren’t what they used to be.”
Nose still in his paper Boone said, “Sorry to disappoint. Still an atheist. You remain my only Imaginary Friend.”
“I’m the Imaginary Friend?” Crimson said, “Who’s driving?”
Boone took a deep breath. It bought him a moment but he had to concede the point. “This is a significant observation,” he said, “and one that I am not prepared to challenge at this time.”
This was a familiar riff between them. It was common practice for Boone or for Crimson to introduce the other as “My Imaginary Friend.” This was invariably the case when a beautiful woman was involved and was understood as a kind of marking-of-territory. The duty of the Designated Figment was to support the other’s play. They’d decided long ago that cock-blocking got nobody laid. Neither of them were particularly competitive about women; they were usually attracted to different types.
Crimson had been driving for four hours by this time and needed the conversation. “Imaginary or not,” he said, “a friend has a right to expect some consistency, don’t you think? You can’t express an appeal for the “love of God” and still claim to have no faith. While it pains me to do so, my duty as your friend, imaginary or not, requires that I bring to your attention this glaring logical fallacy. Or budding personality disorder, whichever.”
Boone lifted his eyes from the Food section of the San Francisco Chronicle and fixed them on the long empty road ahead. “Are you suggesting that one must believe in God in order to love Him? That it is impossible to both utterly reject the existence of a God and yet love love Him at the same time? That’s putting limitations on the Almighty, isn’t it? You demand that the Lord confine himself within the limits of your mortal understanding. I maintain that the Almighty need not exist in order to receive my love. My faith is therefore more pure than your own.”
“Oh, for the love of God…” said Crimson.
“Work with me here.” Boone closed the newspaper. “There are many things that I love which only exist as figments of our collective imagination: Honor. Truth. Beauty. Love itself. All constructs. I have a high regard for all of them though they do not exist outside the minds of men and women. Why should I withhold my love from God simply because He has no greater claim to reality than any of these other hallucinations? And in fact those things that remain abstract, ideal, are far easier to love than anything mired in flawed reality, are they not?”
“No, no. You’re trying to have it both ways,” Crimson said. “When we get to LA I’m taking you straight to a church to get you baptized while the Spirit of the Lord still moves within you. I’m not going to let you wriggle out of your Awakening with logical fallacies and fancy lawyer-talk.”
“Me?” Boone took a pained tone. “You’re the one demanding that God, Creator of the universe, conform to your expectations of the possible. I suggest to you, my Mythical Companion, that my devotion to He In Which I Refuse to Believe is just another one of God’s miracles.”
“Mythical? I’m a unicorn?”
“I was thinking along the lines of Sancho Panza. I’d say Robin to my Batman, but you in tights…my eyes…”
“I look great in tights.” Crimson was defensive. “You don’t think I’ve got the package for it?”
“On the contrary: Robin with a grapefruit in his shorts is not a visual I care to entertain. But returning to the question at hand, I must point out to you that this disappointing need to place limitations on The Lord’s powers displays a rather shocking weakness of faith on your part. If not outright heresy. Good thing for you He doesn’t exist. That is, if you exist.”
“If I don’t exist how do you explain the fact that mother always liked me best.”
“You’ve never met my mother,” Boone countered.
“Quite true. Yet still I can say with confidence that she prefers me. Because she knows you.”
“Point taken.” Boone said. “In fact, since you and my mother have never met; and since therefore you do not exist to her; and since therefore you share that nonexistence with God, I will happily concede that she may love you with all of her stony, shriveled little heart. How’s that for consistency?”
“Full-circle.” Crimson said. “Nicely done. Your brain is a knotted ball of yarn.”
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Posted by frankpryor
Posted by frankpryor
Posted by frankpryor