What If Life Is A Test?

“What if life is a test? Not for heaven or hell, but to say to weed out the losers and non performers out of the pack, so to say,” #25’s passenger said. “It could be like the parable of the talents where all the other stewards multiply their talents, but this moron buries his and is thrown into hell because of his slothfully lazy stupidity, but then we get back to the subject of heaven and hell again. Okay, here’s another way of looking at it…

His voice trailed off as he changed direction and began talking about some other subject. When my passenger was drunk he always liked to talk about religion, and tonight I picked him up pretty well wound, at Hong Kong House. He went to church, but liked to get hammered on occasion. I let him talk and never answered or engaged him, unless he demanded a response from me. Then usually before I could finish my first sentence he would scoff and refute his former position, as if he were ripping my idea to shred’s. Tonight he just talked, and I just listened, until I dropped him off at his house. At least he gave me a $3.00 tip this time, and didn’t threaten to kick my ass because I was a right wing fascist.

When I pulled into the second taxi stall at Greyhound, it was after 1:00 AM, and Dora Dimes, #11 was sitting in the first one. I avoid her as much as possible, since she is a real downer, and keeps hitting on me, even though she knows that I’m happily married. However, it looked like she was asleep, so I sat there and read my copy of Ed Sanders book, “Tales of Beatnik Glory.”

Dimes was sound asleep, but she wasn’t having a pleasant dream. She was having a nightmare about a meteor shower of football stadium sized meteors landing all over the Earth. The radio announced that the meteors seem to slow down as they approached the Earth’s surface, and touch down without any impact, which was very unusual. This indicates that it is some kind of a controlled vehicle, rather than a rock that had been hurtling through space, and just happened to hit the Earth. Also, there were thousands of them covering the entire planet, and as the locations of the landings were computed, it was discovered that they were all perfectly spaced in distance, between each other. Then just as scientists and politicians were becoming excited about the possibility of making contact with alien life, the meteors started to break open, releasing a clear gelatinous substance, that began spreading in a concentrically growing circle from the meteor itself. The clear gelatinous liquid of every meteor covered about one inch in depth and spread out in nearly a 10 Kilometer circumference. It took nearly 24 hours for the circumference to be completely covered, and then to everyone’s horror, they realized that it dissolved everything it touched, including trees, buildings, people, animals, telephone poles, and all organic and manmade matter.

As the first circumference of organic and created matter was dissolved, the slime grew, and broke into anywhere from two to four individual segments that began to spread in new directions. This went on until the entire earth was completely eradicated of all organic life and anything created by it. Through telepathic conversations with the slime, some of the human technologists were able to communicate with their executioners prior to their demise. They were told that the meteors were tools of the servants of the most high God, who had deemed humanity to not be worthy of existence by reading the records of its own history. Therefore, judgment had been passed, and interdimensional scavengers were summoned by the most high God to remove the Earth from its place. First the slime meteors digest all organic life and its creations, and covers the entire surface with a half meter crust that hardens, and makes the planet a delicacy that the Zene can consume.

“Get the Hong Kong House Bar for Tonto,” Lisa announced over the radio. After there was no response for 10 seconds, she repeated

“Number 11, did you get the call?” The dispatcher repeated.

Dora snapped to attention in her seat and grabbed the microphone, “could you repeat that please,” she said.

Since Dora got a call, and I was second down, that meant that I could get one right after her, so I got out my pen and picked up the clip board with my trip sheet pad. Sure enough I got a call, and it was for the Shell station in West Salem, on Wallace Road near the bridge. When I got there a woman waved at me, as she was locking up her car. She was a tall Latino, in skin tight pant, high heels and a tight fitting top that revealed some cleavage. She was going to East Salem, and talked non-stop all the way.

She said that she was 32 years old, but looked like she was 25, and didn’t care if I thought so or not. She owned her own house and rented a room to a 20 year old guy that she had the hots for, and asked me if that was wrong. Before I got a chance to answer, she told me that my opinion didn’t matter anyway, because she would fuck him as a personal challenge, and she never lost challenges. Then she started to hit on me and ask me if I was married, and if I fooled around. She talked so much that I just let her go on to the next subject rather than responding.

She told me that her 20 year old border would sometimes bring young women to his room and then he would have noisy sex with them. She said that he told her that he wanted her to hear everything, even the bed springs squeaking. When we arrived at her house, it was nearly 2:00 AM, but her 20 year old border was sitting outside on the front porch with an attractive young woman. The fare came to $18.80 and she gave me a $20.00 bill and told me to keep the change.