For several years, she followed me around like a panting dog in need of a drink. She was my friend but otherwise I was just not into her. The fact she had a vagina made things a lot more complicated than they needed to be. You could tell she liked me, she even told me that she did. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in her but my penis was not. I didn’t tell her the truth until after my first partner died. For weeks, I would talk to her on the phone for hours, every other day or so. She helped, until our conversations started to focus on our personal theologies. While I maintained my unbalanced view of that time, she made it clear that salvation was only for a few and the reward for a Godly life was a crown covered with jewels and gold. Each failure in this life meant a jewel would be removed from the diadem. The Elect can never lose their salvation, their crown might well be barren but it is a crown just the same. When I asked her for a scriptural reference, she tossed it out like an old friend. I have always found it amusing how religious people most certainly know their words but rarely meet them with action. I was not comfortable with the notion of physical reward in Heaven. Heaven had always meant something ethereal to me. Even as a boy, I recognized that paradise was untouchable. My Mom used to say, “You pick your heaven while you are still here on earth.” Eventually, I came to understand that our ideas of heaven are simply anthropomorphic. It’s really the best we can do. The very idea that we are rewarded by God, in trade, struck me as absurd. I actually laughed to myself at the thought of it. Some people don’t like to be motivated into thinking. Safe archetypes and high myth bring safety and security to billions of people every day. We are led by our ideas rather than our ideals. We worry about our just reward of one day and forget to live this day. I suppose I should have expected no less. She told me the second she realized I was a heathen. I refused to allow her to talk to me that way and attacked accordingly. I pointed out that I don’t recall seeing any crown on her when she offered me her pussy just the year before. She was then gone and all that friendship nothing more than wasted time. It was all irrelevant anyway. Her salvation was secured so she could do anything she wanted or say anything that came to her convoluted mind. It has been a quarter century since I last heard her voice and her school of thought. I have read about it, this doctrine of crowns and jewels. People actually live their lives believing such vacuous notions. Apparently, inane should be considered a lifestyle.

            I grew up singing. I always had a passion for it and I always took my performances in the most serious of ways. I was born to carry a tune. I trained my voice in the same manner I cultivated the instruments I played. I may be considered an amateur but I never once felt that way while I was belting out one song after another. I sang at charity events, talent contests and mostly in the churches I attended. It didn’t matter the character of god they followed, I was there to sing and little else. I made the most appearances at my family’s final sanctuary, the United Church of Canada, Strathroy edition. I sang solo, I sang in chorus and quite often would sing with my Mom. She would sit on the front stairs leading to the choir while I lingered beside her, standing before a congregation and my memories. There is much less music in my life now that my Mom has left us. I’m not sure where she left us to go to but I am sure she has an autoharp with her and the time to crank out a ditty or two. As I got older, the depth and expression of each piece, that I chose to perform, became very important when deciding whether or not to appear. I reached for new heights and in doing so ended up with little to show for it. The first words out of her mouth when she heard the song was, “We gotta sing it!!” So we set out to do just that. Heaven, performed by Michael English, is a blend of traditional and modern gospel, with a touch of Pop to stir it all in. I love, love, love this song. It speaks to the true nature of any divine being and reminds us that there is a place called hope if we just believe it. You really do create your own heaven, the rest is still just a dead end. We practiced that song so many times we would sprout wings by the end of each rehearsal. It was good, we were good. Just three days before our performance and the choir director joined us in the sanctuary. He sat on a pew and watched the entire thing. He left as swiftly as he had come. The next day, they pulled the rug out from underneath us. We both got tossed under that bus and just left there. The choir director refused to allow “that kind of music” in HIS church. His contract gave him exclusive rights over content. Fucker. When I sat down with the minister to discuss the how and why of it all, I was insulted at the lack of response. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone but me and my friend. Twenty years have come and gone since our censoring. I still have the sheet music and I still get pissy when I think about what happened. The death of the villain meant little to the overall story itself. You can try to silence me, to control my message but you cannot take away the one thing some may never have, resolve. I just keep going. Fuck them if they can’t handle the joke.