Great Expectations Chapter XXIX

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXIX pgs. 183-185

Fairy Tales for the Rest of Us – the chat room

Sandy Pumpkin: Jody hasn’t posted anything tonight, so here is my thought: Too much evil is done in God’s name when people confuse faith with lack of thought. I see this and it frightens me.

Shadow: Jihad, Pogrom, the Inquisitions, the Ku Klux Klan. I see it too and am saddened. Also Hitler’s Germany.

Brat: Hey, Jody, R U back yet? Here’s my version of Ur poem. We’re all a mixture of venom & sparkle, of mean & divine. & it would be heaven 2 spend eternity with the divine sparkly part of the most disgusting creatures on earth. Except 4 brothers!!!



Shadow: Jody is not back on line yet. I worry for her.

Brat: I’ll bet we’re all worried about her, & meanwhile she’s going hot & heavy with Spiderman. Romance is way more likely than foul play.

Ivan: Ivan Buncheski here. I’m Johanna Jacobson’s editor.

Brat: U R not supposed 2 use Ur real name.

Ivan: Okay, call me Big Bad Wolf. I’m Johanna’s editor, and I’m worried about her. She hasn’t shown up for work in several weeks.

Brat: She’s Jody, not Johanna. & she had a date - I guess it was a date – with Spiderman.

Big Bad Wolf: While I was drinking tea with Peter Pan, no doubt.

Brat: No, Spiderman was his log on handle. His real name was Homer Perlman. & they wanted 2 meet. &, according 2 Spiderman, Jody decided 2 fly 2 Iran right after they talked.

Big Bad Wolf: Johanna’s dingy, but she’s not that dingy.

Brat: It’s Jody, not Johanna.

Big Bad Wolf: But people don’t just fly to Iran on a whim. The story seems fishy. I’ll have some of my staff check it out.

Shadow: Meanwhile, we must pray for our friend, Jody.

Sandy Pumpkin: And all the others whose lives are in danger. Jody is the one we know. Others with unknown faces are also in peril.

After they’d all logged off, Brat sat staring at her computer for a long time, rocking back and forth and absent-mindedly poking her mouse with a half-eaten Snickers bar. It sunk in slowly – Jody could be in serious trouble. The prayers for Jody, nirvana, the heavenly banquet, the best of all creatures on earth – these thoughts buzzed in her head the same way the white arrow zipped around her screen. If all this goodness existed, how could Jody have disappeared? She typed in United Religions, and found that such a website existed, and without a conscious thought, she clicked on “contact us”.

Brat: This sucks, sucks, sucks. Jody’s dead or kidnapped or God knows what, & no one’s doing 1 damn thing about it.

Brat stared at the screen with tears running down her cheeks as she typed: This sucks, this sucks this sucks this sucks. So what are U doing about this???? They’re doing all this in God’s name, U know. Great words, great idea, so what are U doing about all this?

‘I’ll contact you all right,’ she thought as her fingers kept on typing: So what the heck R U religious geeks doing? My friend Jody may B dead or kidnapped or in some freaky prison, & all she was trying 2 do was save some lives & make a difference, & she’s probably lying in a ditch somewhere, & no one in the whole freaking world cares about her. & it’s not just Jody. She’s my friend, & that hurts me. But there’s zillions of people like her in trouble & no one is doing squat for them. & if U think U’re so hot & religious, do something. Fix it. Make it right.