Well, Jesus-time is over once more, and once more we’re all propvol of piety for another year, but I don’t know, something went out of Abraham’s religion and a lot of moral hygeine came in, and anyway I tend to doubt people who say they’ve been walking about in the Levantine wilderness without shampoo or toilet paper whilst talking to somebody without a body about a whole lot of morals for everybody who has a body. Back in the days of Lot, if there was a message for you from the Outbaas, a full-on dinkum angel with a real body would call round to your street address and give it to you straight, no crap about if you are meek you will inherit the earth and such like. I’ve seen a few meek folks in my day and they’ve had a bloody rough time being kicked about by the unmeek and all they’ve inherited is a hole in the ground at an early age.
So ja, these two angels pull in at Lot’s place in Sodom, you see, well known for that thing that certain men do, but not Lot, Lord love you no, and they tell Lot he must round up his ox and his ass and his camel and his goats and his chickens and his missus and his daughters and hit the road smartish, because the Oubaas is the hell in to all this homo humping, and since they’re all so interested in buggery, by way of a demo He’s going to bugger up Sodom entirely with fire, brimstone, poison gas and earthquakes. But the assorted pooves of Sodom have taken note of these good-looking dudes entering town, and the whole mob arrives at Lot’s doorstep demanding he bring them forth so they mightst know them, which is to say steek them. Nay nay! sayeth Lot, I am honour bound to these good-looking dudes, take instead mine daughters who have never known man and do what high-jinks take thine fancy, only steek not mine guests. But fear not, dear readers, these daughters are saved from paternal benevolence by the angels. It’s not at all a good idea to try and steek an angel, and these two get the hell in and make with the fingers like a radar beam and cry out in a rasping sort of way HORUM JORUM COCKALORUM, KRATZEN PFUTZEN et POUF! and all the pooves drop down stone dead, no bull, just like that.
Makes for better reading. But that’s not all. What’s nice about the Oubaas is his sense of fun; His angels tell the family anybody who looks back at Sodom once they’ve left won’t even live to regret it, but He knows how inquisitive women are, you see, and sure enough Mrs Lot looks back and He goes SCHMARDTZ FARDTZ ZODIUM KLOREIDT und KLAPOTZ! and Mrs L turns to a pillar of salt, there and then. Not a stone replica of herself, that’s what that lady name of Gorgonzola with snakes for hair would do to you if you looked at her. Nor even a warthog, that’s what the other lady called Circe would turn you into. A pillar of salt, no less; if you don’t believe me you can check with the Bible, Genesis 19, so it must be true. But there’s not a hell of a lot you can do with a pillar of salt, I mean she’s much too heavy to schlep along and anyway one couldn’t very well sprinkle her on one’s dindins, could one now, so since it doesn’t really rain in those parts they just leave her standing, where indeed she stands to this day. Israeli fighter jets shoot missiles at her because Hamas worships her as a false idol. You can check with the Israeli Air Force, so it must be true.
Dad and the girls press on irregardless, deeper and deeper into the dezz, and it’s not too long before they realise they’re down to the last chicken and if they’re not pretty clever they’re going to be eating each other like those Argentine rugby players whose plane plunged into the Andean snows. No snow round here, of course, but they find a titchy little stream with mosquito eggs and a great big cave with batshit ankle deep. They fall upon their knees and praise the Oubaas for his bounty and set to and sweep out the batshit and eat the bats and settle down to a normal life once more. But H.Sapiens is a strange restless creature, and after a bit these two daughters who have never known man become exceeding jags and there being no neighbours round here they fall upon ol’ Lot and steek him stupid and become preggersfontein, both of them, and found a kind of intellectually disadvantaged tribe of Abraham whose blood runs in the veins of Israeli fighter pilots to this day, maybe that’s why they shoot obsessively at the pillar of salt. It is encoded in their genes.
They’re making a movie of it. Watch out for the special effects.
