Golbert looked into the scared confused faces of his girls and decided that trying to explain the boogeyman to them, would be a complete waste of time. No one wants to think that their life is out there for the taking, on any given day. Deep down they know it’s true , but no one wants to admit to themselves, that life isn’t fair and that their life is not special, that their life might be shortened by someone’s greed, or jealousy, or as in Golbert’s case, whim. No one wants to think that everything that they had accomplished and endured was for nothing more, than to create a pool of blood for some sick fuck to jack off into.
“Do you believe in God?” Golbert asked the two. “I know it sounds rather cliché, considering the circumstances, but I’m not trying to sound ominous. I would just like to know your thoughts on the hereafter.” Golbert walked over to the daughter and ran his finger down the line of her jaw. “I’ve heard it said, that if there isn’t a God, then your free will is nothing more than a way to amuse yourself.” Neither of them answered, however, the mother let out what could be considered a moan of despair. Had it been recorded and replayed later, the layman might think it had been sexual in nature, but Golbert knew it to be of a religious origin. He was quite sure; Jesus had made the same sound when he realized he’d been forsaken. “Belief in God can be quite powerful in times when one might find themselves in need of comfort. And when preparing one’s soul for the next life, prayer can be a strong sedative. Although, it might be a fool’s errand, because time spent on prayer might be better served, contemplating escape in such a situation as yours.” Golbert smiled and wiped a tear from the young girl’s cheek. “In the event that there is a God and you have not yet caught his ear at this juncture in your life, I suggest that you pray loudly.”
Of course Golbert knew there was a God, Plastic Jesus had affirmed it, Golbert just knew that God didn’t apply to him. He was one of the misshapen cookies that had somehow survived inspector twelve’s scrutiny and made it into packaging. Golbert wasn't above pointing out this fact and reminding Jesus, that one of his guys, in the soul department, had messed up. “I go hard in the cake, Nigga!” Golbert would sometimes exclaim when he was feeling particularly raw and urban, or when Jesus tried to poke a finger in his heart.
Though Plastic Jesus didn’t speak in the vein of dogma and tradition, things that developed much later than the first century, after the Christian doctrine had already been established in full, he could definitely bring up the “do unto others” stuff. He was a master of the guilt trip, however, Golbert was utterly immune to guilt, he couldn’t even fake it.
“We both know you’re wasting your time with the atrocities you commit.” Plastic Jesus had once told him. “You and I both know; you will never feel what you want to feel. These lives you take aren’t given to you, which is what you really want. In the end, when they finally submit, they come to me, not you. You are nothing more than a middle man. The peace you see in their eyes, I paid for and no amount of fear can out bid me.”
“Yeah, but I go hard in the cake, Nigga!” Golbert knew it was Jesus’ toys and his playground and urban posturing would not impress him, but he wanted the Savior to know if his salvation was no longer on the table, he planned to keep playing.
Golbert never embraced the chaotic. He never did anything for shock value, nor had he sought out the darker side of humanity to fit a fad, or trend. What he did, he did to satisfy some deep itch that could never be fully scratched. If Jesus knew the how’s and why’s of what made Golbert tick, he wasn’t letting on, or offering any solution.
From Golbert’s perch, in the span of fifteen, maybe sixteen years, since he had started his actual hands on study of mankind, he had watched man emotionally evolve into a cold non-spiritual entity. They, the idiots who saw themselves on the cutting edge of all that is, had decided to remove God from the schools, so that their children wouldn’t be exposed to such nonsense and be guilted into submission. They would allow each child to develop their own perception of right and wrong.
By cutting free the ties of all thoughts of a deity and taking credit for their own creation, or at least assigning it to something less than them, an accident perhaps, men were able to replace divinity with themselves. With the death of God, still wet on their hands, they quickly realized, that the soul was no longer necessary and attributed all feeling and emotion to the synapse activity of the brain, allowing the heart to become nothing more than a bilge pump.
They not only dismissed the idea of a creator, but became angered by the very notion of it. Spitting on those that could still see the separation of mind and spirit, calling them archaic sheep, rooted in past and shackled to stale illogical dogma and doctrine, blinded to any and all reason. Any who clung to the idea of a higher power, were shunned and ridiculed in the institutes of higher learning and dismissed as a lower species, too stupid to realize it was already extinct. Rotting flesh clinging to hollow bones waiting for the enlightened to finish them off with the truth, that morality is relative to the individual.
Of course Golbert knew they were all full of shit, he had Plastic Jesus, he knew the limitations of man, even if the rest of mankind didn’t. Golbert knew that as long as man could form like-minded herds, they could survive the most difficult of trials, though, at times, there would arise the need to sacrifice the lesser of the enlightened, in order to keep the majority of the herd fat and happy. This would be made easy by relative morality, but as their numbers would dwindle, so would their power. Golbert was allowed certain insights through Plastic Jesus, and he knew without the collective, on his own, all by his lonesome, man becomes an impotent wad of shit no matter how enlightened and smart he has convinced himself he is. When mankind is faced with absolute loneliness, with no one but himself to impress, he will again be able to hear the voice of God.
Man can survive unfathomable periods of solitude as long as he remains connected to God. Take God away from him, and throw him in a box and he will be painting the walls with his own feces, within the week. Solitude can enhance the human condition, make us stronger, but isolation will gut you like a fish. The idea and concept of God and our need for him, made sense to Golbert, what puzzled him, was why God was wasting his time. It would all repeat itself in the next age, the enlightened would come along and murder God, convince the world of its stupidity and ignorance and lead them away. Either way, it’s an illusion. The enlightenment of the enlightened is as much an illusion as God chooses to be.
It’s all Three Card Monty. It’s the unicorn on the hill that every shady asshole in the world is pointing at when they are sliding the Queen of Spades under one of the Jokers. Golbert considered himself lucky, to be outside of all the horseshit.
“Behold, I have refined thee in the furnace of affliction.” Golbert liked the idea of that, he also liked the idea that morality was relative to the individual. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too, sooner or later, it would be Golbert’s turn to be “afflicted.”
Golbert looked into the girl’s face, she appeared to be praying, her lips were moving, but only along with her thoughts, other than the ragged sobs, which punctuated her silent begging, she wasn’t making a sound.
“If God can hear you, tell him I go hard in the cake, nigga.” He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her to the center ring of Circ du Golbert, the greatest show on Earth, where the bullet truly hits the bone. It always puzzled Golbert, that even when certain death, was staring them in the face, women didn’t put up more of a fight. They seemed to just go through the motions, only putting out as much effort as was expected of them, or their idea of what was expected of them, from what they gathered watching murder mysteries, or the movie of the week.
Even when he started removing the daughter’s fingers with wire cutters, she put up less of a fight than Golbert had hoped. He knew she had more in her than what she was letting on, her mommy sure did, by the time Golbert began to crunch through the bones of the second finger, and the daughter’s wails of pain rattled the rafters of the barn, Mommy came unhinged. The cinderblock he had shackled between her legs bounced and danced as she bolted toward him, cuffed hands raised and claws bared. A fist to the side of her head, slowed her enough to tape her knees together, and allow him to continue his performance uninterrupted. Golbert smiled down at Mommy, as he cut off Sunshine’s third finger, her head lolled from one side to the other at seizure like speed, her screams even drowning out those of her daughter’s. Twice, her screams had been cut short, so she could vomit, but had she not gotten sick, it would have been one continuous howl.
Soldier's Gap is a non-traditional mystery with literary elements. The high school principal is brutally murdered, but Deputy Sheriff Dave Jenkins's search for meaning and love is a much more significant theme.
"Murder isn't usually this fun
Sarah Thompson has ten days on Maui to find her lifetime after lifetime soulmate. She is certain he is waiting for her there on one of the last remaining land masses of Mu still above water.
Golbert looked into the scared confused faces of his girls and decided that trying to explain the boogeyman to them, would be a complete waste of time. No one wants to think that their life is out there for the taking, on any given day. Deep down they know it’s true , but no one wants to admit to themselves, that life isn’t fair and that their life is not special, that their life might be shortened by someone’s greed, or jealousy, or as in Golbert’s case, whim. No one wants to think that everything that they had accomplished and endured was for nothing more, than to create a pool of blood for some sick fuck to jack off into.
