What It Tastes Like To Be Sane

  Chapter V

  At some point earlier on, we had discussed a few ideological concepts and even some silly plot lines. This section covers one of those particular plot lines.

  Remember how Bari’s body parts washed up on the shore of an island once? If not, well, they did. You can go back and refresh your memory if you’d like. I’d tell you where to look but then I’d have to change the page number of the location of that paragraph or paragraphs for every edition of this printed (and I do expect many to be printed, of course). So, just try and find it. Hopefully you remember anyway. You don’t have to reread the whole book though. I mean, you can if you want. But it’d be pointless, and if you forgot the first time around chances are decent that you might forget again. So, just reread the portion we were talking about. After you do that, you can read on to the next part, where I’ll start rambling about what you just read.

  Naturally, since Bari’s body parts washed up on a shore, the islanders assumed that their God was returning, just in need of a little bit of assembly, and perhaps a couple of AA batteries. Wrong o! It was just a suicidal young man who had until this point been successful in his suicide attempts. I think it’ll be funnier if we don’t let them in on this secret though.

  This didn’t all happen due to chance. It was engineered, under the strictest standards and the tightest surveillance possible, by the God who was credited with ruling the island of which Bari found himself residing, in pieces. But in pieces he wouldn’t be for too much longer, for our “god” has decided to pull a prank, for prankster and deity often are synonymous. And before the astonished eyes of the islanders, and before the astonished I’s of the eyelinders, the various body parts began to float skywards and assemble themselves, roughly five feet in the air. Being that his body parts were once again whole, that being became conscious once more, and also very confused. He did, however, feel extremely refreshed, as if he had just gotten the best sleep of his life, which he had. Once conscious, he of course remembered everything that had come to pass right up to the moment of death. After that all was black, and not the least bit of a dream could he recall, so deep was his rest. From the moon he had leapt, and through space floated, and was then aided into the atmosphere by an armada of giant squid, and from there gravity took over. From there he fell at an exponentially increasing rate, and had plunged into the sea, as was originally intended. Oddly, this was the first time he could recall making a plan for something so important and having it work out. But in the end even this was foiled. The fall failed to kill him though, for he was distracted at the very last moment, by the seemingly mundane but ever so tempting thought of the consumption of a large plate of nachos. So distracted was he that he forgot he was supposed to die. But, it is said that things have a way of working themselves out. Though his absentmindedness had momentarily kept him from his goal, a passing shark was a quick reminder of what he had set out to do. Massive it was, of the species known as hammerhead, if you were curious. It was wearing sunglasses. Those must have been difficult to construct. The shark ate him, or started to at least. It got as far as having torn his body to pieces before a bowl of nachos floated by, and he chose that over the rank, bitter flesh of our protagonist. How ironic it was that all Bari had wanted at the moment of his death was now being consumed by the one who had killed him. Turns out he had once more failed at suicide, as it was the shark and not himself that had killed him. At least this time would be good fodder for a show during a future shark week.

  The shark, content with the nachos, swam away, and the current carried Bari’s parts across the watery highway, and to the beach which was the location of our discussion a couple paragraphs above this one. Vengeful god was quite satisfied with Bari’s role as a pawn in his prank, and was currently enjoying several carefully measured oodles of fun, replete with a whole group of barrels of laughs on the side.

  “Look at this, “he said to everyone on the beach, and brought up a live video feed of what was going on at the moment on the island.

  What was happening was that Bari was currently floating above the beach, regaining his consciousness, and remembering what had passed while the islanders were marveling at him.

  “(Laughter onomatopoeia)”, said the god. “They think he’s me, what a riot”

  And how all those vacationers laughed. They hadn’t had a hoot like this in ages, not since the middle ages in fact, and we were now in the upper middle ages. Could these people really believe that this goofy looking man was one and the same as a moderately powerful immortal magician who was able to pass himself off as a deity? Apparently so, was the answer to that.

  As with everything that happens in the present, we can also look for similar instances in the past. Many there were, but there was one that was particularly funny, until it caused a group of people to go mad and attempt to conquer the world, and in doing so, wipe out every indigenous culture they came in contact with. You see, there had been a man once, and he had had some pretty neat ideas about being nice to people and sharing and that kind of stuff and was also supposedly performing magic tricks like walking on water. Pretty cool, I thought. So it probably was for the best that he spent his entire adult life walking around the desert and telling everyone these ideas, and as it turned out, they were pretty popular. Problem was, they went against some of the prevalent ideas at the time, and so they had him executed. Well, what do you know, but a couple hundred years later, it’s been decided that this man is a god, or at least his father is a god , and they’re trying to claim his blood is wine, just because he had some decent ideas and could do some magic tricks. Funny thing was, that this man was a nephew of the “god” who was pulling these pranks on Bari. This “god” surely enjoyed playing the prank where he convinces people that other people are incarnations of the divine. It gets old for us, but not him. In this case, though, he liked most that the islanders would most likely stop eating him. Certainly it would be rude to try and eat your god while he was there, so for the time being, they would most likely have to return to normal diets, and that once a week meal of god would be replaced by more respectable foods, such as sandwiches and vegetables.

  “Lechuga!” was Bari’s initial thought, and he floated down to the ground. Then being confused at being beheld, he asked “could you please explain what is happening now”

  Apparently there was some sort of misunderstanding, or perhaps his words became misconstrued as the floated across the air, and underwent a metamorphosis which gave them some sort of divine nature, because when they reached the ears of those around him, they all began clamoring for forgiveness and for wishes and blessings and such. What a way to just multiply confusion, when our protagonist wanted nothing but to divide or subtract or any sort of function that would lessen the current disorientation. To know his whereabouts or why he was being treated so oddly didn’t seem like a huge favour to ask, but, you know the nature of those we are dealing with, or you should at this point. Bari was smart enough to realize by this point that not a single answer was to be gotten from these people, and to ask more questions was just to be asked for more blessings. And so he turned to eavesdropping, and had much better luck in doing this. In fact, the first conversation that he turned his ear towards gave some instant results.

  “Mom, why are we standing on the beach looking at this silly-looking man? I want to go home and eat nachos.”

  “Son, we are witnessing a significant event in history here. Our god has blessed us by returning from the sea, where we have always flushed our refuse.”

  “Are you saying that god is refuse, mom?”

  “No, but he gets mixed in after we eat him.”

  “Why do we eat him?”

  “Tradition says we have to”

  “Mother, this all sounds ridiculous. I don’t believe in this god. I bet that if your god exists, it’s not this man. God is probably just a moderately powerful magician whose been fooling you with magic tricks, and you fall for it because they entertain you.”


  “Son, that’s far too much thinking out of someone your age! I cannot believe you would think such rubbish. We raised you well, Barnabus. We raised you to be a god fearing man, not a heretic. And worse yet, you’re saying these things right in front of him. I mean, I know he can see and hear you all the time, but to do so right in front of him is particularly disrespectful.”

  “But I don’t believe that it’s him. I don’t believe in god anyway. Wait, you said that he can see and hear me at all times?”

  “Yes”

  “Well, if he exists, he’s gross. I don’t like him.”

  Bari took this all in. He didn’t mind being told he looked silly. He’d always thought that himself, and it had to be taken to new levels now. All that had been happening was excessively absurd. He would be laughing too if he was that boy. That mother made no sense though. Could they really think he was a god? Well, if that was what they thought, then there was only one thing for him to do. Abuse that privilege.

  “Excuse me, could someone please bring me a plate of nachos?”

  This was his first act as god, and certainly the best request any god ever had or ever would make of its subjects. Nachos were brought forth and he set about consuming them with the full voraciousness of someone who had never eaten before, and considered his next moves.

  These are the options which he considered:

  1: He could go on living as a god on this island

  2: He could leave

  By this point he figured he was alive again, and while death was a nice sleep and a pleasant respite, he would stick with normal sleep and vacations and such. He’d have plenty of time to die later. So, with regards to each of the above options, he did what any rational being would do and compiled a list of pros and cons for each.

  The best parts of staying were:

  1: The nachos

  2: Not having return to his home and find a “real job”

  3: Admittedly, being worshipped had its moments where it was fairly fun

  The best parts of option two were:

  1: He could make a point of at least finding a place to live where he could watch the World Series every year, and the Super Bowl and Stanley Cup as well!

  2: If he went somewhere and decided that he wanted to go out and find a job, he could put deity on his résumé, and not be lying. Maybe some of the islanders would even be references. Perhaps there were even better jobs out there for him in the same field.

  The worst parts of option one were:

  1: Being worshipped, though fun for the time being, could get old after a while, especially when adoration became adulation, and their slavish devotion became overbearing.

  2: He might get away and find the time to do something that was actually useful at some point in the future, something he would never get to do if he were to stay and sit on a throne and issue decrees and declarations and such.

  3: Things could get to the point where he eventually needed to do a favour or perform a miracle, and he wouldn’t be able to pull through, and thus be exposed for being the fraudulent deity he was. He knew a couple card tricks, but nothing so impressive as to make himself seem actually holy.

  The worst things about option two were:

  1: re-read the best parts of option one. They are pretty much the things that are bad for option two.

  As Bari mulled these thoughts over, he mulled some spices for the sake of having some busy work, and eventually came to the conclusion that, in the long run, he’d be best off leaving the island. This was also evident considering that the islanders had a habit of eating things that they also worshipped. For the present, he was safe, as they were still had some reserves they had culled before, but that store was eventually bound to run out, and what would he do then? He would be fodder for their stomachs, and he had a much more limited supply of flesh than the magician that had pranked him. All that was left was to decide upon a means of escape and a place of refuge. He was, after all, stranded on an island that he didn’t know the location of, and on top of that, was a terribly indecisive person by nature. Therefore, these matters were all a bit difficult to resolve. In fact, three hundred years passed before he made his decision on how he should leave. By this point, he would have had nowhere to go, or at least nobody that he knew anywhere. But lo! It was a mere matter of hours after he had made up his mind when the Earth passed through a black doughnut hole in space, and the most recent 299.9166666666666 (the six goes on forever) years where erased, and all his plans and memories of them were erased with the years. And so, 299 years were gone, as well as eleven months. It was now the one month anniversary, the second time around, of his being re-assembled and the beginning of his life as a god. Bari, as he often did for recreation, was swimming in the Shaq infested waters off the coast of the island, when a porpoise fell from the sky, crashing into him, and causing him to plunge towards the bottom. Now, luckily, a human has a lower density than water, and floats in it. This ever so slight density differential probably saved his life, for his swimming was rather weak. He had been practicing quite a bit though in the past month. So, Bari’s body gradually made its way to the surface, where the porpoise was waiting for him, full of apologies, and Bari met her, full of confusion, and they began a dialogue. Bari was mostly confounded about the reasons that could cause a water dwelling animal such as a porpoise to fall from the sky, but these initial questions were lost in a swarm of apologies from the mouth of the porpoise. Bari, of course, forgave her, and better than an apology, she gave him a means of escape. This porpoise was, of course, Hkmjaahumikimltgrchjzzen, whose story we had discussed at some length earlier, and she offered to him refuge in the abodes of the cloud porpoises. This offer would have normally been very tempting anyway. The cloud porpoises seemed much more interesting than his old home, and maybe he would be able to get a decent start there. He knew nothing about the species, but surely there were some books with some information somewhere. Maybe at least a paragraph in an encyclopedia that was in the local library. He’d just have to be careful not to get caught there, as it was generally assumed that he was omniscient and it would deal a serious blow to his credentials were he caught in such a place whose existence was based around the gaining of information. Furthermore, Hkmjaahumikimltgrchjzzen also informed him that the society of humans wasn’t so much an option anymore, as civilization was in shambles due to World War 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971. Somewhere along the line, in the past month, some person had gotten a decent idea, but things had escalated, and a decent idea became a terrible war. One man had simply wanted to arm wrestle his friend, but a passerby who witnessed this thought the losing side was in trouble, and had jumped into the fray to defend the one who he thought was being assailed. One by one, more people joined in, and soon the world was at war. Arm wrestling had been replaced with the standard mechanisms of war, and most major cities were in ruins. The entire thing has lasted only two weeks, due to how fast things moved in the current world, and so a fortnight was able to bring ruin to civilization, and those that were left were now left regrouping. Bari was of course welcome to go back, but compared to humans, she said, the cloud porpoises were doing exceedingly well. Even still, Bari, as we mentioned, is quite the indecisive character, and so he said that while he leaned towards taking her up on that offer, to give him two chapters to ponder his options. So, if she would do him the courtesy of once more falling from the sky at the genesis of chapter eight, he would have an answer for sure. This seemed reasonable, and she agreed that she would leave the clouds shortly before chapter eight, and try to arrive in that blank space below the end of the chapter seven, and there she would walk over to chapter eight and meet him.