Magnificent Vibration by Rick Springfield

kid for my own liking, and head to Josie’s bedroom for consolation, validation, and just to be near her.
    I sit on her bed holding her soft hand as she stares into space and sees I know not what. The conversational tone from the living room soon drifts toward the front door and disappears out into the night. Silence reigns in our home once again. I know what’s coming next, and sure-as-death-and-taxes, it does.
    The bedroom door flies open, frightening Josie and causing me to leap to my feet. I am her knight in shining armor rising to defend her. Actually I’m just a needy little weasel in dire fear of being usurped and removed by degrees from the most meaningful ritual in my life: caring for my sister.
    “How dare you embarrass me in front of the Reverend like that!” Whoa! Mom’s on fire.
    I push past her into the hall to get the brunt of this away from Josie just in case her mind is able to register the sudden elevated emotions. She does get agitated from time to time and I don’t want to be the cause. The harpy follows me, continuing her rant.
    “Don’t turn away from me!! Virginia, Mrs. Whiting, is starting here tomorrow and you will be courteous and help this good Christian woman administer to your sister or you can leave this house right now, you ungracious little bastard!!!”
    Okay, she never swears so this is a rather large red flag to me.
    I have no retreat. I would run from the house at full speed if I could take Josie with me, but even in my agitated state I recognize this is a solution somewhat full of major holes. For one thing, I don’t even have a job. At seventeen I have spent most of my free time either sucking up to the Mormons or taking care of my sister so the job thing is fairly nonexistent and when I say “fairly” I mean “totally.” And if I did leave, mother would stick Josie in a home faster than you could say, “Life isn’t fair so stop your whining.”
    I slump onto my bed while mother stands in the doorway, claws barely retracted, wings tucked in behind her, tail lashing angrily.
    “Fine,” is all I say. Having recently considered writing as a possible career path, I’m furious with myself that some answer a four-year-old might be satisfied with is all I can manage. “Fine”? That’s all I’ve got?My mother leaves with her righteousness defended and intact and I head to the family bathroom for a quick, stress-relieving wank in order to deal with my raging emotions. Nothing calms the spirit of the beast like soothing music, meditation, the counsel of a wise sage, or a good monkey-spank. I choose this last option fairly regularly, and when I say “fairly regularly,” I mean exclusively.

God
    G od (or the entity’s preferred moniker, “Omnipotent Supreme Being”) creates a phone, creates a dial tone, then hesitates, momentarily distracted by something happening over in Galaxy 5,325,708A. The line disconnects. The life forms that identify themselves as the Vee-Nung on the planet they’ve named Ete Mee-Qwa have just fully grasped the concept of quantum entanglement and, utilizing the uncertainty principle, are, predictably, about to turn this really beautiful reality into a really ass-ugly weapon. This is not good, considering the global war–like state that is currently their evolutionary high point. The Vee-Nung are a technologically and organically advanced race of intelligent mucilaginous amphibians, and even though they dwell both in the water and on the land, they are having difficulty grasping that their planet is a living organism, and that constantly polluting, pillaging, and pummeling it and its inhabitants has its consequences and definite term limits. The people of Earth are even less connected to their caretaking responsibilities. It’s enough to make an OmnipotentSupreme Being weep, for crying out loud. WTF! No wonder there are so many goddamn atheists in the Universe. After two conversations with the human named Horatio Cotton, the OSB (Omnipotent