The Physical and Mental Boundaries of a Primate

The wind empties its remaining momentum over the bristling marsh and fishing boats sleep tilted on the dry basin. A shed is erected under an emerging cerulean sky and there within are pots of dead sea-creatures, pickled and made ambrosial for our mouths. The little silent tramp chooses eels and he salts them heavily. I pick on a cup of cockles and make small winces at the vinegar and grit as I nibble and enjoy the mainlining of nostalgia and regressions to boyhood and the small miracle of wondrous introductions. The man serving up the dead sea creatures appears so suitable and adept to his trade, that even the touch of simple mindedness behind his eyes leaves us with ample confidence to chow down. His beard is of a tropical luxuriance and his hands look murderous. After a long sigh directed over the marsh and out to sea, as if his soul was overwrought by the supernatural, he speaks the following words...

'Seemingly terminal, for more than 2000 years the religion illness has been infecting generations as if an insuperable uber-cancer. Although the suicidal mission of the cancer is in no way the intention of the religion bug. The accusation to cancer, that it is a man made disease and proliferates upon a modern society urged on by aggressive hedonistic activity, cannot be leveled at religion. Its proliferation needs far less encouragement or fertile circumstance. The physical and mental boundaries of a primate - which we all are - hosts the perfect storm in which religion can cross fertilise amongst us and flourish in our minds like an unruly weed.'

Being a man whose travels have sunk in soup and soared the cosmos, the little silent tramp pays this statement paltry recognition. Preferring instead to slurp at cylindrical sections of juicy eel with the flippant nonchalance of someone who has seen it all before. My reaction however, teems with microbes of adrenal excitement.

'That's a considered thing to say'. Says I.

'Much to be considered about religion'. Says he.

'Much to be considered about cancer'. Says I.

The dead sea creature sellers soul sighs again and its green portals fix me with unsettling intensity.

'Did you listen to my words?' Says he.

'Yes, I heard them all'. Says I.

'Heard maybe, but listen did you?' Says he.

'I was listening and I heard. I heard about a great plague 2000 and more years in the making. A plague disguised as a cure. A plague so heavily camouflaged and grossly unequal to the finite efforts of a human lifetime, however learned the human becomes, however articulate, profound and wide-reaching his intellectual antidote, the spread is too rife. It is a tidal wave of a plague, one that never breaks but surges and retards a species which already has limited means of universal rationale.' Says I.

A fishing boat bell goes ding dong ding dong and over by the public toilets, a fat woman reaches inside her blouse and hoists her stupidly large bosoms to a position of greater comfort. Her husband looks down at their old dog; the pet is shivering and too knackered to taut the lead and the man wonders when is it going to die?

'I've uttered those words on many an occasion and only now do I feel the sweet relief of understanding. Alas a universal understanding is the folly of a boy who stood here 41 years ago. The two of us do not make a universe'.  Says the dead sea creature seller.

'I know'. Says I.

'Will you walk far?' Says he.

'As far as I need to.' Says I.

'Take this crab for later. Eat it with bread and pepper'. Says he.

'Thank you... You were wrong in one place though.' Says I.

The dead sea creature seller turns away to prepare more dead sea creatures for selling.

'Oh yeah, where's that?' Says he.

'Religion is just as alive as cancer, and just as suicidal'. Says I.

not The End