Interior. A fat, bloviating gas-bag sits in his leather chair, worrying at his left nostril. The door opens. A bedraggled-looking young man enters: unshaven, unkempt and looking like he could sorely do with a pressing of his suit, he swiftly takes a seat.
'Thank you for coming O'Blather.'
'My pleasure Sir. How may I be of help?'
'Well, I'll cut straight to the point O'Blather - things are bad. The stock market's down, unemployment's up, immigration is up, interest rates are up and down like a premiership footballers shorts, the number of graduates from university is decreasing faster than the credibility of the Tour de France and the housing market is in what would charitably described as "a world of shit".'
'I see sir.'
'Actually, I'm not sure that you do O'Blather. Floods, tornadoes, locusts, petrol rationing, food rationing, condom rationing. The country's in a fug O'Blather and it's time for action. So, we need your help. You in?'
'Absolutely Prime Minister.'
'Mr. President'
'Sorry sir'
'No matter. That's fan-fuckin'-tastic news. Now, here's what we're thinking. We've had a crack at the whole lot really. We've tried economics, stock-market analysis, game theory, BDSM and quantum semantics. We've sought the opinions of just about any asshole who is willing to give us five minutes. We've met with and listened to prawn-huggers, pinkos, soap-dodgers, neo-cons, neo-nazis, transgender consultation groups, midget's rights organisations, vegans, vegetarians, vegetables and vivisectionists' lobby groups. We've sat down with bankers, nerds, trade unionists, taxidermists, homeless one-legged black Irish lesbians, crack-heads, classical pianists and the guild of moving statues.'
'Good God man.'
'I know O'Blather, but the situation is grim. We've carried out the largest governmental-sponsored focus group-based, community-wide consultation on Government policy ever conducted in democratic history. We've gathered the thoughts and ideals of the entire population, fed it into the most elaborate, insanely expensive piece of artificial intelligence-driven software ever conceived by man, spent 10,000 hours de-bugging it, 6 billion pounds funding it, eaten 700 tons of doughnuts, drank a lake of coffee the size of Latvia and employed 8,000 project managers to oversee the entire sorry mess - all to arrive at the conclusion that the collective wisdom and knowledge of the nation amounts to the desire to see fat, dim-witted fame-hungry girls get eviscerated on live tv at 8pm on a Friday night. In short, O'Blather, we're fucked.'
'My God'
'Precisely O'Blather. Your God.'
'I'm sorry sir? I'm afraid that I, well, I don't follow...'
'Well, you're a catholic right O'Blather?'
'Well, I was sir. But I haven't been, I mean, not for some time Sir.'
'Like riding a bike though, eh?'
'Well, I suppose so sir...'
'You see O'Blather, we've tried almost everything to improve the country. Democracy, Fascism, Republicanism, Communism, Socialism, Third Way and well, frankly none of it's really working.'
'I see sir.'
'Yes, so now, since it appears that the human race has run out of ideas, there's a growing school of thought that perhaps we should not so hastily rule out the idea of consulting with the Almighty. We're nominating a representative from every religion on earth to commune with the infinite, to lobby as it were, the Supreme Being.'
'Come again?'
'We need you to talk to God O'Blather.'
'God.'
'Yes, God.'
'You want me to talk to God?'
'Yes, on behalf of the nation. See if you can present our case.'
'Our case?'
'Yes, you know, foot and mouth disease, earthquakes, that kind of stuff. "Acts of God" I think you call them in your faith.'
'Well, sir, I'm not sure that...'
'No matter. Call them what you will, but you know the class of thing about which I speak. Anyway, go talk to this "God" for us, see what you can do (offer him a peerage if you have to) report back to the House Select Sub-committee for Investigation of Divine/Paranormal Communication Strategies in two weeks and then brief the Senate, Joint Chiefs, leaders of all 1,214 government-recognised religious institutions, my 22-year-old daughter.'
'Yes sir.'
'God's speed O'Blather.
'Ha ha. Most amusing sir.'
'Yes it rather was I suppose. Good day O'Blather.'
+Choon+
4x4 by Bobby Martini. Download the track here. Wanna hear more? Go to the Blatherverse and click the BlatherPod tab.
+Art+
Artwork by miss w. tod.