The Bible Salesman - by Jacob Mertens

The Bible Salesmen

1. The men wear clean suits pinned against their flesh and mechanic smiles.
2. They stop me in the street and ask me about our savior, the one on the left clutching a leather briefcase filled with books all saying the same words.
3. Books should say different words.
4. Books are not meant to say the same thing. Language is meant to be a reckless creature constantly changing, contradicting itself, and so on.
5. I ask the man on the right how many bibles he owns.
6. I know that it’s more than one and I’m wondering what’s the point of owning several copies of the same book.
7. He owns six copies.
8. He has seven bibles on him.
9. He has sold eight bibles already.
10. I tell him the book is repetitive. Man sins, God gets pissed off, man gets comeuppance, learns lesson. I stopped reading about ninety pages in.
11. They smile knowingly at each other, the one on the left preparing a canned speech for the salvation of my eternal soul. You would think the two were getting a commission.
12. Fuck that.
13. I interrupt him somewhere in the dying for my sins part. I ask the other guy why he has six bibles.
14. The guy on the left is upset that his speech is getting interrupted, upset that I only want to talk to the guy on the right, upset that he always gets stuck carrying the briefcase.
15. The other guy talks about different translations or study bibles with liner notes or extras to keep on hand just in case some stark raving mad sinner comes pounding on his door demanding a bible, foaming, raving, only to be soothed by the clear and succinct words of the Lord God Almighty speaking “Go forth my son” and so on and so forth.
16. Alright, fine, let’s talk about the bible then.
17. How come God is such an asshole in the bible? God drowns the whole fucking world man? Doesn’t that feel like he was overreacting a little? Couldn’t he just talk it out, express his feelings, communicate, something? I tell you what, God needs anger management, he’s fucking cranky. Also apples are delicious! What the hell was he thinking? You make that shit a forbidden cucumber I guarantee nobody is touching it.
18. The guy on the right thinks I’m missing the point.
19. The guy on the left is leafing through a script he printed out, trying to find a way to get back on track. He starts stammering about the Kingdom of Heaven.
20. My great concern is to see these two as real people. Their bodies radiating the warmth of recycled blood, their thoughts sticking to their tongues like wet cotton, afraid of fear, adoring of adoration, loving of love, and so on until they become the same organic mass of chemicals as everything, breathing in the scattered atoms of the universe but only seeing truth in a book written by schizophrenics. Their words taking the shape of a dead cult still throttling the unconscious conscience of a people terrified by this single dominating thought of death that seems so fucking abstract and cruel that their God takes the form of this cruelty and yet they only choose to see it as love. God is ever loving and yet perfectly willing to send me to hell for not buying a bible and not joining his son’s social organization of baptized wine drinking automatons muttering their “amens”, “and also with yous”, and so on and so forth. God is ever loving but would send my mother to hell for being a perfectly nice and peaceful Buddhist. God is ever loving but would send anyone to hell, I don’t fucking care, God is God, God is great, God is all powerful and no one is beyond saving unless God is lazy. God is ever loving but hides behind his green curtain like the wizard, screaming “Faith! Faith! Trust me, it will all make sense after you’re gone.” That doesn’t even make sense! If that’s what God is then fuck him, give me eternal suffering on principle.
21. The guy on the left tells me the bibles are twelve dollars.

I don't know if Jacob has considered it, but this could translate into a fun and interesting short film.