The Carbonated Bible of the Septic Cheeseburger®©™

	Empty space. Nothing there, nothing at all. Just desolate vacuum. Then, suddenly, a spark. A small glimmer of blue light in the darkness. Again it bristles. Then again, longer, brighter. Finally, it exploded outward, filling the cosmos with lights and hydrogen and all that kind of space-like stuff. You know, like the stuff that whizzes past the screen at the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Cue cool classical music.

	A planet appears in space, hanging there like–well, like a dumb blue planet close enough to a nearby yellow star to support life, yet far enough away not to incinerate any life that may appear like so many Jewish prisoners.  Fast forward a few billion years, to the time of stupid, clumsy, smelly, hairy, ugly apelike creatures: the ancestors of humanity.

	They toil day-in and day-out, building their meager little civilization. Thermia, they call it. It’s a petty little monarchy run by an inbred, slack-jawed aristocracy. Zoom to Kortsk, Thermia’s capital. Here we see the royal palace, resplendent in its opulence. Or something. It’s one of the nicer buildings erected by the ape-men. A fine erection. Er, no, an impressive er–building. Palace. Right. Shut up.

	The royal family, in all their mouth-breathing majesty, went about their pitiful, insignificant lives, unaware that great change loomed just over the horizon, the eastern one.  For in the bowels of this palace of candidates for Doctor Kevorkian’s short list, there waited a dark, ominous figure, a harbinger of evil, demonic lilacs.

	Briefly, our dark, ominous figure wondered about this Kevorkian fellow. Who was he? Where did he come from? Oh, right... he won’t be born for thousands of years yet, on some pathetic little planet hundreds of parsecs away. Say, isn’t that a rather odd thought for a harbinger of lilacs? Well, never mind. Our story isn’t about him. He’s a dork, anyway. Our story is about his double: Mel Erphast, an insurance salesman from Des Moines. Not Des Moines, Iowa. No, that’d be far too dull. He’s Mel Erphast from Des Moines, Moyker Province, Glaxanorka III. An alien. That’s right, an alien.

	Technically, yes he is an alien, since this story takes place on Earth.  You got that?  Earth.  Unfortunately, since it is currently TL3, the time of darkness and castles and similar medieval-type stuff, he is seen by humanity as an infernal spawn of hell.  Yes, the crimson skin, forked tongue, and dual horns are not seen as signs of benevolence.

	Nor are they seen as typical ape-like features. He was supposed to be a double of some ape-man lilac harbinger, remember? Oh well. Let’s just say he got mutated or something. Anyway, he’s butt-ugly now and that’s all that matters. He works for Metcalf World-Wide Insurance (they’re always looking for hideous, demon creatures). Recently, he was transferred to the collections department. So, this is where we find him; sitting at his pine desk, a stack of parchment in front of him, his “Hang in there, baby!” poster dangling on the back wall by a single tack. Pitiful.
	
	Suddenly, the cat on the poster falls from the clothesline and lands with a soft thump on his floor.  As it looks up at him, mewing softly, the kitten’s blue eyes turn red, and an unholy shriek emanates from the kitten’s swelling throat.  The cat’s fur drops off in clumps, revealing a mottled green skin.  As the creature stands erect to its full eight-foot height, Mel shakes his head violently, and the monster disappears like an etch-a-sketch drawing.  Looking at the poster, he sees the kitten has returned to its rightful spot.  “Shouldn’t have taken that fifth toke of crack,” he thought to himself.

	As he leaned down to sign yet another form, he caught a glimpse of flame just outside his window. He looked once, then again. Fire. The village was burning. Hm. Mel got up from his cheap, pine desk and walked to the door. Opening it, he saw the same thing he saw every third Friday. The Vikings were raiding his little Dutch hamlet yet again. Mel sighed. He’d been in the insurance business far too long. Four hundred years, actually. He hated it. Sometimes he thought about joining the Viking corporation, Swede-Raiders, Ltd. He’d definitely draw up his resume tonight. Then get an application at the local recruiting center tomorrow. Yes, that’d be perfect.

	After he finished shredding the last of his insurance papers, he retrieved a gas can from the company tool shed and proceeded to torch his office, vaguely recalling that another two hundred people were working in this towering five-story wood-and-straw building.  He dismissed the thought as unpleasant and walked through the burning village to the untouched recruiter’s office to pick up an application and 13-gauge shotgun.  Tomorrow he would be a half-crazed, shotgun-toting Viking freak!

	But not if the gods had anything to say about it. Not that they did. But if they had, he’d have been up a creek without a paddle. So anyway, this loser walks into this squat little shack and asks for an application. The clerk looks up at him and, adjusting his horned helmet, asked “Vhat do you vant?”
	“An application for Type II Viking Raidership, please.”
“Ah yah, ve don’t hand dem out to yust anybody.”
	“I have qualifications. I’m a demon. My double is a harbinger of lilacs.”
“Oh yah? Vhat kind of lilacs?”
	“Evil lilacs!”
“Hmm. Okay den, here you go.”

	As he left the office, he found himself surrounded by pillars of flame as the village burned.  Viking warriors were everywhere, torching extremely flammable huts, stealing valuables, carrying off buxom young women, raping, pillaging, and in general having a grand time.  Mel followed some of them back aboard the Class IV aquahover Sentinel, which was preparing to launch photo-gravitic disruption mortars on the blazing village.  Silently, he cursed the gods for their wanton disregard for balanced technology, what with Thork granting the Vikings advanced superscience and St. Wimpicus providing the villagers with only advanced woodworking techniques.

	One of the Vikings turned to face Mel.
“Vhat the bloody hell are you doing here?”
	“Um, I have a... uh, application,” Mel lamely responded.
“Yah, so? Get your stinking hide off our aquahover.”
	“But... I... oh, screw it. Seize him my legions of bloodthirsty evil lilacs! Mu hahaha!”
“I, vhat the hell, I– aaaaaaaagggghhhh!” Screamed the Viking as he was devoured by the hundreds of animated lilacs that poured through the slight gap in space-time.
	“You will all serve me, your dark overlord! Even St. Wimpicus shall bend to my maniacal will!”
Mel was quite pleased with himself. Why hadn’t he thought of this earlier? You’d think that something like god-like control over the demon lilacs of Omicronia wouldn’t slip one’s mind so easily, but there you go. Take your ginkgo biloba, kids.

	Mel watched with glee as the legions of cartoonish pink lilacs with yellow smiley faces viciously sliced through the Viking troops, leaving horrifically mutilated bodies bleeding profusely in their wake.  Then, the sky went dark and the ground shook as a 90-foot-tall creature ripped through the earth’s crust like it was an eggshell.  It would seem that all the carnage and grisly slaughter had attracted the attention of the unholy black god Omicronius himself.

	Omicronius stepped forth from his deep wound in the earth’s surface. His eyes glowing red with fury, he intoned the following in his booming voice which shook the very landscape:
“Mel Erphast. You have taken that which is not yours. My demon lilacs shall not be ruled by any mere mortal. Prepare to experience an eternity of pain.”
	Mel looked up. “What?”
Omicronius rolled his pupil-less eyes. Once again, he’d accidentally struck every living thing deaf within a forty mile radius. Curses. He shrugged, then plucked Mel from the aquahover with his black, twelve-fingered, taloned claws. Looking about cautiously, he threw the creature into his gaping maw. Crunchy.

	Omicronius withdrew from the field of battle, bringing his legions of demon lilacs back with him to Hell.  The village–what was left of it–burned in the night.  The Metcalf insurance building collapsed onto the village, further decimating what would soon be nothing more than a charred field of shredded corpses.  Mel was eventually expelled from Omicronius in the demon’s unholy stool.  And so ends a very bizarre story.


As told to Justin Osborn, Overlord of Carnage, and Henry Oliver III, Arch-Duke of Supreme Annihilation.

Fin.


Copyright MMII.  All rights reserved.