First: Celestial Conversation
Previous: Belief: Celestial Conversations - XXI

God: Hello!
Me: Hi! You've been missing a long time now.
God: Someone's reported Me missing?
Me: No, no! I meant that I haven't seen You in a long time.
God: You haven't actually seen me, ever. This is the internet.
Me: Right, but You know what I mean.
God: And that is?
Me: Nothing!
God: You can't mean nothing. Or why would you bother to speak at all?
Me: Oh God!
God: What?
Me: I wasn't talking to You!
God: How many Gods do you believe in anyway?
Me: Hundreds I guess. I'm a Hindu.
God: Ah.
Me: Anyway. Where have You been?
God: Everywhere, of course. There's a reason they call Me Omnipresent.
Me: I mean, I haven't seen You online in a long time.
God: Yes. And?
Me: Why haven't I seen You online in a long time?
God: Oh, someone stole My laptop.
Me: Oh! So where are You chatting from now?
God: A computer in the school library.
Me: Ah.
God: Yes. It's quite hard.
Me: What, the computer?
God: No. Losing it.
Me: You've lost it?
God: I just told you, it got stolen!
Me: No, I meant that as a joke.
God: Joke? What joke?
Me: I... Never mind.
God: Whatever you say.
Me: So, did the cops say they could get it back?
God: No. They told me it was probably God's will.
Me: Strange cops. But why would You want Your laptop stolen?
God: That's exactly what I said!
Me: And?
God: They gave me funny looks.
Me: Of course they did. What else would You expect people to do if You go around saying You're God?
God: But I am God!
Me: So?
God: *sigh* So what was I saying?
Me: You were talking about Your laptop.
God: Ah, yes. I lost a lot of data.
Me: Like what?
God: Like telephone numbers, my address book, 50 recipes on how to make a meal out of bread and peanut butter, and the list of people who are allowed to be in Heaven.
Me: You need a list?
God: Of course!
Me: Why would You need a list?
God: To be able to tell if someone was living in Heaven illegally.
Me: Oh.
God: Yes. I had to start the list, after we realized that there was a pizza guy who had come to make a delivery and never bothered to leave.
Me: Ah. But aren't You supposed to use St Peter's Big Book for that?
God: Yes. We got an electronic copy after the Pope fiasco.
Me: Oh yes. So did The Pope get in, finally?
God: Oh, he got tired of waiting and went back to inhabit the new guy.
Me: Okay.
God: Yes.
Me: So You were saying You got an electronic copy of the Big Book.
God: Yes.
Me: And the original?
God: We had to destroy that. There can only be one Big Book.
Me: Really?
God: Yes. It's got something to do with copying from the right, or something.
Me: You mean copyrights?
God: That's what I said.
Me: Um...
God: Anyway. So we're in a bit of a soup now.
Me: Oh?
God: Yes. Everyone's arguing about how they think some of the others aren't really supposed to be in Heaven.
Me: Oh. And you didn't get any backup?
God: What didn't I get back?
Me: No, I meant, didn't you backup your data?
God: Backup?
Me: Yes?
God: What's Backup?
Me: It's copying your information somewhere else, for safety.
God: Like into a book?
Me: No, like on a CD.
God: Aren't CDs too small?
Me: Of course not. You could fit an encyclopedia onto a CD.
God: By writing very small?
Me: Hunh?
God: Aren't CDs these shiny pieces of plastic, a little bigger than the palm of your hand?
Me: Yes?
God: Well, if I wrote on one of them, I'd barely be able to fit the Ten Commandments on them.
Me: What?
God: And I'd have to use one of those felt-pen things. Pencils don't write very well on CDs.
Me: Eh?
God: And they're so shiny, I'm sure it'd be quite difficult to read from them. I think I'll just use a notebook.
Me: Um.
God: Call Me old-fashioned. I never really got the hang of technology, I guess.
Me: I'd have to agree.
God: It's a little hard to keep in touch with all the new things people keep inventing. Like the stuff they can do with a ringtone, for example. Makes My head spin sometimes.
Me: Right.
God: Anyway. I'll be off then. Must buy that notebook.
Me: Bye then.
God: Bye.

Next: One of Us: Celestial Conversations - XXIII

A story I posted as a comment on the blog linked above -

Birthday Party

It's the girl's birthday. She's opening her presents. People are gathered around. As is usual on the girlfriend's birthday, the BF's present is opened last. It's this huge box, almost as tall as the girl herself.

"Did you get me a giant teddy bear?"

BF smiles.

She rips open the box, to find a whole lot of confetti, and a smaller box inside. It's around waist-high.

"Oh, it's that cute Victorian-style dressing table stool, isn't it?"

BF smiles even wider. He seems to be sweating just a little.

She rips open the box to find even more confetti, and a smaller box inside, around two feet high.

"A small TV for my room?"

BF adjusts his collar, still smiling.

She rips open the box to find yet another pile of confetti and a much smaller box.

"Ah, I know!" she says excitedly. "It's an iPod isn't it?"

BF is still smiling, but looks quite worried now.

She rips that open too, and finds confetti. She turns the box upside-down, and watches the confetti float softly to the ground. She shakes the box hoping that a smaller box will fall out.

Nothing.

She turns around to look at BF angrily. "What...?"

There's a collective gasp from the guests.

He's on his knees, holding a small ring with a large diamond in his hands. "Sweetheart, will you marry me?"

She's shocked.

He looks up at her expectantly.

She looks around at all the guests.

They look back at her.

The tension in the room is palpable.

A tear appears in her eyes.

He gets to his feet, and puts his arms around her. She cries against his chest.

Then he pulls back, and slips the ring onto her unresisting finger.

There is much celebration, women shrieking, guys shouting, and lots of people hugging each other.

The guests go home.

As the girl says goodbye to the last guest and shuts the door behind them, she turns around to face the BF.

"How dare you?" she asks.

"Hunh?" (Come on, he's a guy)

"How DARE you???"

"I..."

"You didn't even have the common courtesy to ask me in private first?"

"Uh... umm..."

"Just assumed I'd say yes, did you?"

"Well..."

"No warning even!"

"I..."

"In front of all those people!"

"Er..."

"Do you know how embarrassing it was for me?"

"I'm..."

She slips the ring off her finger.

"?"

"You did it on purpose didn't you? You proposed in front of all those people so that I wouldn't be able to say no."

"!"

Gives ring back to him.

"!!!"

"And you still owe me my birthday gift."

" "

"And to make up for it, you'll get me that giant teddy bear. One with a bow. A small TV for my room. An iPod. And you'll engrave my name on the back. Not yours. Just mine. And there'll be so many bouquets of flowers, that I won't have enough place in the house to keep them. And a big box of chocolates. Make that two."

BF looks at her blankly.

"Do you understand me?"

He nods.

"Good."

She walks toward the bedroom.

"Close the door when you leave. I'm going to sleep."

The End

BF = Bloody Fool

Now for the prologue. Yes, I could simply call it the background for the story, but big authors who get paid to write, call it a prologue, and I haven't given up my Pulitzer hopes yet.

The inimitable aNTi (I haven't yet figured out what he is anti, but that's the topic for a whole new blog) wrote something that caught my eye the other day. And to make it more interesting, one of the things that gave him the the idea for what he wrote, was one of my stories.

Yes, I know it's confusing. And the fact that I'm feeling particularly literarily-challenged (is that even a word?) right now, isn't helping. But anyway.

Referring to an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Raymond proposes to Debra (now his wife) in public, aNTi asks the following question -

In ficticious works of art, like the [Everybody Loves Raymond] episode mentioned above, I notice that a lot of protagonists getting the message across in full view of a lot other people. Does this happen in real life too? Do you guys know of any incidents where such acts have backfired, and the gal goes - "Hmmmm...., I am not so sure"?...

The short story I've reproduced above, was my attempt at describing what might happen in that case. As mentioned earlier, it can also be found as a comment to that blog post, and since I tend to collect my stories on this blog, I decided to reproduce it here (with some editing).

Not to mention that it's a good way to slightly increase my pathetic blogging frequency.

Which brings to mind the fact that I sometimes feel I've written more interesting comments on other people's blogs in the recent past, than I've written posts on my own blog.