Sans Ransom

Speaker for the Dead

The thick-black-framed-glasses-wearing older man took the podium and an Asian boy with a perfectly tapered haircut adjusted the microphone. No expressions on either one of them.

"Thank you," the Rabbi said like an automaton and wiped his forehead and the balding part of his crown with a white, still-folded handkerchief.

He cleared his throat and began to address the black and white audience dressed in funeral clothes.

"Friends, we're glad that we're here to celebrate Passover once again on this Nisan 14, 3540."

He droned on about how it has been that many years since the Israelites left Egypt and how you can calculate the exact date using chronology in the Holy Hebrew Writings. He went on about how important it is to follow the Mosaic Law as best as you can in the changing, modern, globalized world around us. 

An old man began to snore. His wife elbowed him. Arnold, on the other hand, leaned forward with full attention.

The speaker got to the final part of his speech and started it with a long sigh. 

"Now, we have to get through this last part, so I beg you to stay and pay attention,"

Some got up and left.

"Now, we all know things didn't work out exactly as we would have liked it to go some two thousand years ago. Yes, back then, Michael the archangel was supposed to come down to earth and perform a sort of 'ransom' sacrifice for us.

Some of you may be confused as to what that exactly means. After all, it is an abstract concept.

In short, thousands of years ago, Adam, the first man, deliberately disobeyed Yahweh and ate a fruit. Because of that, the human scales of justice were lopsided.

You know that from the Holy Hebrew Writings.

Adam knocked us off of our perfect pedestal and now we're swimming in a sea of mediocrity ever since. We're destined to die from the moment we exit the womb. It's become so normal that we consider it natural. We consider ourselves to be higher animals and nothing more.

The original plan was that Michael the archangel would come down and be a savior for us all. He was likely to die some sort of death and this death would be recognized by Yahweh as the price needed to pay for the fatal debt that Adam created.

However, simply put, 2000 years ago Michael said 'nuh-uh, I'm stayin' right here. Sorry humanoids!'
Could anyone really blame him?"

There were grumbles in the audience at this point. The fat black woman's face became straight and firm. Arnold listened on.

"For example, would you as a human ever give your life in sacrifice for all of the worms that have ever existed on Earth?
Would you like to do so to give them a chance at happiness? What is a worm's happiness in your eyes?
Worms are too insignificant of a creature for even one human to die for.
Even if they said you only had to die for one day or three days and then come back to life, would you do it?
I think most of us would think that worms are too insignificant of creatures to make any sort of sacrifice for. Really wouldn't we all be better off if there were no worms at all in this universe? 

Slimy 

little 

things."

As the speaker went on, he became wild and boisterous--a complete contrast from his earlier deadpan delivery style.

"Well, what if we upped the ante a bit? What if we said that after those three days of death you'd be elevated to a higher form of life as a reward for your sacrifice. Maybe now the deal sounds a little more attractive. Huh? Alright!

However, there's a catch. You would have to live like a worm and eat dirt like a worm for thirty-three years. Do worms live for thirty years? I don't know. Okay, fine. You would have to live as a worm for thirty-three worm-years. I have no idea how long that is and I have no desire to find out!"

The speaker flung his arms up in the air with uncontrolled enthusiasm at the last sentence. Or was it frustration?
A couple more people left the room and many more slept on.

"At the end of those thirty-three years, you would die. Oh, I forgot to mention. Actually, the way you will die would be the most horrible way a worm could die.

Don't worms have something like a hundred hearts? If you chop them up and then chop them up again and then chop them up again, they keep living don't they!"

The speaker made violent chopping motions as he spoke.

"Resilient little things. You have to give them that.
I guess when you think of it, worms do still have some use. My wife likes gardening. Hi, Cherise."

He waved at his wife from the podium. His wife waved back, giggled a bit and looked around to see if anyone would look at her after being mentioned from the stage. Noone did.

"I suppose worms dig holes for the water to get through to the roots when water enters the soil. I think I read something about that in science class in the third grade. I forget. Don't really care to verify that fact.

Oh! I almost forgot I had a duck that liked to eat worms all the time. It was cute to watch it gobble them up like little duck spaghetti. Num num num num num!"

He made strange little wild duck-beak motion with his hand in front of his face as he said the las sentence.

The fat black woman crosser her chubby, shiny arms and frowned.

In time the speaker regained his composure and went back to his deadpan speaking style, although now he was speaking out into the air as if he forgot an audience was in front of him.

"I wonder what Michael's doing up there in the heavens now."

He rested his head on his fist.

"Probably the same thing that he was doing before he decided not to come down. Yes. If the formula is working it's best not to change things up. Things were good before so why take a risk and do something more? Sometimes the lazy is course is the best. Right folks?"

One teenager clapped a little, but then his mother, who was sitting unnaturally straight, elbowed him in the ribs.

The speaker stood up straight again.

"Enough. I know. Enough. Enough.
A lot of you in this audience don't feel the same way that I feel about Michael. A lot of you are mad at him.
I'll stop talking about him so as to not aggravate any of your ulcers any further.

Besides, we still have a lot to enjoy. Don't think that we have a completely empty bucket to draw water from.
Seventy, eighty years of life? Not too bad.
Okay! So we go to Costco and we can eat the free samples and not really have a full meal ever. Who cares! Be happy with free samples! Why go for a full meal? You have to pay for a real steak dinner! Free samples are free!

So enjoy your life of seventy or eighty years and then drift off into oblivion forever.
Happy 3540th Passover everyone!"

The speaker fogged up his glasses with his breath and wiped them with his handkerchief as he walked off the stage. A couple of people clapped.

Arnold exhaled.