I am the donut of life. Eat me, and you will never get hungry again.” Harry’s eyes twinkle merrily as he surveys the crowd gathered in front of him. “Of course, I don’t mean that literally,” he adds. “I don’t look like a donut, I know, and if anyone would actually try to eat my body, I would squirm around quite a lot, believe me. What I’m saying is a metaphor. Remember metaphors? They used to be quite popular, back in the days when we still had books and literature, before cellphones and holographic chat rooms.”
The people in front of him remain silent. Some of them glance anxiously at their wrist simulators. Their eyes are shifty. It is a mixed yet affluent lot: bankers, architects, some lesser-known politicians, various representatives from the legal profession, a small yet fierce-looking contingent of clones, and quite a large number of desperate-looking home executives. The usual Oprah crowd.
Harry sighs. “I guess you don’t know what a metaphor is. I keep forgetting, this is America.”
“We’ve heard of metaphors,” Oprah speaks huskily as she leans her trim, bony body forward in her chair. “Are they fattening?”
“That’s not the point,” Harry laughs. “Why do you guys always miss the point? You really are the stupidest planet in the whole universe! If you weren’t so funny, I would have given up long ago. I never would have dreamed of coming here.” He shrugs.
Most of the people in the crowd look very sceptical. Oprah shakes her head until the makeover stitches from her 13th facelift become visible above her oddly feline features.
It is the year 2048, and, like Michael Jackson, she is no longer black. Also, like Michael Jackson, she is no longer biodegradable (in fact, so unbiodegradable has she become that, if she died and were buried, Greenpeace would probably protest).
Most of her limbs, internal organs, and moveable parts have been replaced by synthetic replicas of her own younger self (without the fat).
“Coming here … from where?” she sneers, mechanically.
“Oh, from my Dad’s house,” says Harry, grinning. “And where is your so-called Dad’s house?” shouts a free-range clone from the second row, unable to contain his disgust any longer.
Harry groans. “How many times do I have to spell it out? My kingdom is not of this world. And the expression ‘my Dad’s house’ is just another way of explaining the existence of another dimension, an alternative reality. ‘My Dad’s House’, in other words, is simply the kingdom of Heaven.”
Oprah sits back, grinning now, starting to enjoy herself. “And what is Heaven like?” she asks, wiping a lock of unnaturally blonde hair from her forehead. Harry smiles kindly. “Well … I’m not supposed to tell you, really … It’s actually meant as a surprise. But you’ll find out for yourself sooner or later, anyway. Well, some of you.” He glowers momentarily at the clone in the second row. Then he stretches his arms expansively, almost in the shape of someone being crucified.
“Heaven is, basically, like one gigantic green golf estate, only without the golf. It’s green, it’s very tidy, it’s upmarket, it’s unpolluted, it’s …”
The clone in the second row jumps up, followed by two or three other clones — not free-range — in the row behind him. “This man is blaspheming! He is making fun of religion.” Then, the words Harry fears more than anything else, in fact, the only two words he fears, are uttered by someone, repeated by someone else, until the entire auditorium is reverberating with the angry screams and threatening chant: “Crucify him! Crucify him!!! CRUCIFY … HIM!!!”
“Oh, no,” Harry says, looking down at the palms of his hands. “Oh, no, please Dad. Not again.” He looks up at an imaginary spot on the ceiling, and whispers almost inaudibly: “Not … fucking … AGAIN.”
The Laugh It Off Annual Volume III
More substantial than ever before, this year’s Laugh It Off annual comes looking much like a Bible — appropriate, in that its chief theme is religion and religious cults. The substance, though, is a matter of extent rather than quality.
The graphics are generally excellent, particularly Laugh It Off‘s own hilarious advertising parodies of religions (“Judaism. You can’t beat us. And you can’t join us”), but the written content is often rather thin. Too many stories feel like extended jokes, or the beginnings of a piece that badly needs development into something fuller. Also, why so much American and other foreign material? Is Laugh It Off trying to go international? That wouldn’t be a bad idea, but I rather miss a more strongly South African flavour to the collection as a whole. — Shaun de Waal