Victoria Day Anew

[AMERICONORMAN]

Victoria Day Anew

By Jose Gainza.

Timberlake Temps was a very busy fellow. In this day and age of poets having to work as a bartender, or something of the type, to supplement their living, Timberlake was a successful poet. He actually got to spend his days writing poetry and reading books. He drove an aqua coloured, 2007 Thunderbird. He lived comfortably and leisurely in suite 1800 of a beautiful grey, glass condo tower by The Rogers Centre, overlooking the lake, and the brother towers of the skyline. This group of apartment buildings was so nice that it housed its own well-equipped recreation centre, its façade resembling something out of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Attached to the building in which he lived, which was the northwest tower, was a Montessori school, and it was here where taught Angelina D’ Angelo. She had access to the recreation facility and habitually exercised there after work. There she had met a young, exquisitely beautiful, a slender giant, a blonde beast of a man, with ocean blue eyes, a type of man who if eugenics were possible, would approach the ideal, so much so that his perfection was evident in the texture of his skin, and in the orange hue of his sweet smelling skin. Angelina fell in love with this man at first sight.

She had never managed to convince him to go out on a date with her, though it was evident that he really enjoyed the time they spent at the gym. They contributed to each other’s exercise, and talked health, but talked philosophy, and about art, and the political issues of the day.

She knew that he was a busy man. But still, she could not understand, or figure out, the reason for his seeming coyness. And then one day she found out the reason why. She had gone to the gym late, towards its closing hour, because she had a staff meeting. And when she left, as she approached the common boulevard, about fifty meters away, was the figure of a man whose figure was unmistakable, outside of Timberlake’s building. The man had another man in an embrace, prior to them hurrying into the main lobby. She knew the nature of that embrace.

And though she was fighting with a sudden pain, she managed to say to herself, in a muttered tone, “Important work and love—that’s why there is no time.”

At home, she was too distracted to do anything but watch television. She stopped for her amusement on a channel in which she recognized a local Christian preacher. The subjects were those sinners with unnatural lusts. He was foreboding a time soon to come when the punishment for this, in a city with so many “Unnaturals”, was the destruction of the entire city of Toronto, and that these creatures should stop engaging in their private, ecstatic actions in order to prevent it. Soon she began to laugh very excitedly. It was the utter silliness of the preacher’s sermon that inspired this. And she then forgave Timberlake for that something which it was not her place to forgive.

The next day she went to the gym at the usual time. She ran into Timberlake. She had to know for certain. She reported the sermon of the preacher of the night before. And by the look on her face when she was telling the story, he knew that it was time to confirm what she wanted confirmed. He said afterwards, “Even if my love life had that power, I would not save the whole universe, to give up my happiness.”

“Splendid,” was all Angelina said in answer.

On a Monday he entered the lobby of his building from the street. He greeted the always-smiling concierge man at the services desk, and approached the mailroom. In his box he found an envelope about the size of his hand. He tore it open and found a white invitation; the gold letters spelling out the following:

Jason and Margo Temps eagerly invite you, Sunday October 20, 2006, to celebrate the Christening of our precious girl, Victoria Temps …

He knew that it would happen someday, and yet he was still surprised that it was going to happen. Timberlake was not a religious man, an atheist and lover of reason to the root. He remembered never really taking Catholicism seriously, and when he discovered philosophy at eighteen years, he rejected all religion immediately. The notion of the holy trinity, of original sin, of the resurrection, and supernaturalism seemed so silly, and when he saw the deadly conflict this form of supernaturalism created in men, he adopted anger for it.

Why can’t they just let her choose her own religion, when she’s old enough, he thought to himself. And he knew that he could not go to the baptism or the reception, for he could not celebrate the idea of such an innocent lovely girl as a sinner. But she’s not mine; I have no rights in this matter. And he muttered to himself, slightly amused, while he rode up the elevator, “God grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept it when I can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.” He forgot about it.

He had planned to research on the Internet for the history of the French symbol of the rooster, for a poem he was planning to write. He checked his e-mail account first. There was one from his mother, with a subject heading, “La Precieuse”. She had sent him a recent picture of baby Victoria. It was a picture of her laying laughing, her crown of black hair dishevelled by her own hands, her feet seeming to wiggle, and her Andalusian skin promising to be a gypsy goddess one day. Timberlake could not prevent a great smile.

“How can I prevent it?” He said to himself, as he logged out of his e-mail account.

In the evening, he went to work out at the recreation centre. There she was in a white sweat top and black tight pants. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, and it danced with every stride and hop of her running on the treadmill. Her beautiful face was perspiring, which gave her an added provocative glow. He joined her on the treadmill next to her. She smiled at him in the mirrored wall ahead of them, and he as well. He spoke.

“Angelina, I need you to be my angel. I need your help.”

“What?”

“I need you to teach me how to baby sit an infant. I want to baby sit my niece on Saturday. I need to save her soul. They’re going to baptize her on Sunday.”

“People still do that?” He laughed in response. “But seriously, though, Timberlake, it is unfortunate. Something so important as a person’s philosophy should be left up to the person to decide on her own, when she starts asking such questions, not when the child can’t even speak yet.”

“I agree.”

“So how are you going to save her soul?”

“I may fail but what I’m going to do, is make Saturday her special day. I’m stealing Victoria Day from all Canadians. Every year Victoria Day will be celebrated on October 19 from here onwards. She must listen to reason; I’m going to lecture her on the subject of baptism; maybe she’ll get something from it. It seems futile but I got to give it a shot. And then I’ll sing to her and read her poetry; maybe I’ll dance for her.”

“Good Luck.”

“So will you help me?”

“It sounds like a good cause but … what do I get out of it?”

“We’ll go out for karaoke one night”

“Do you think I’m that desperate to go out with you?”

“All I know is that you want to and this is your opportunity. He doesn’t like to free me up; but I’ll make him this time.”

“Okay, I do. I’ll help you.”

“You’re the best!”

“Come tomorrow morning to my school. There’s one parent I’m pretty sure I can get to give me permission to have you train with her daughter.”

“That’s perfect.”

The next day he went to train with Angelina. When he was done he called his brother at his law office.

“Jason, it’s Timberlake. I expect you and Margo to be very busy Saturday. I bet even mother will be cooking all day and won’t have time to take care of Victoria. I’m offering to baby sit her for you.”

“But you don’t know how to baby sit an infant.”

“I learned this morning. I took a training session with a certified Early Childhood Educator. She even gave me a letter of recommendation.”

“You have to run it by the wife. She should be home right now.”

Timberlake called Margo.

“What are you going to do with her? Where are you going to take her?”

“I was thinking that I could take her up the CN Tower. Has she experienced that yet?”

“No.”

“Then it’s perfect.”

She was very reluctant because she always felt something dangerous in Timberlake. Much of it had to do with his anti-religious views and attitude. She was, after all, about to baptize her daughter with the Catholic Church. But she knew that she desperately needed a baby sitter so that she could be free to prepare for the party of Saturday.

“You’re not going to kidnap Victoria so you can stop her from being baptized tomorrow, are you?” She said it mostly in jest.

“No,” he said, “I’m not going to kidnap her.”

**

Timberlake Temps and Victoria Temps ascended the glass elevator of the CN tower. On deck, they approached the panoramic windows. He knew that the highest static observational point would be apt for what he was about to tell her. The bird’s eye view that the tower allowed highlighted the vastness of this created earth. He knew not what object she was looking at, but he noticed what seemed to be a scornful countenance, and he hoped that what she was looking at was the tiny cathedral in the distance. He was holding her, her back to his chest, her legs hanging over one of his arms. And thus spoke Timberlake Temps:

“Victoria, let me tell you the meaning of what they are going to do to you tomorrow. They say that there once lived a man named Jesus, around the time of Caesar. He is the idol of pity, sacrifice, unconditional charity, and undiscriminating love. By the time this Jesus arrives on earth, humans have been killing each other for centuries and centuries. It is a symptom of an earlier punishment to two men, a punishment enacted by a supposed entity called God, the alleged creator of the universe. The transgressors were also the first men made by God. God wanted them to be ignorant of the concept of morality, of good and bad. If they ate from the tree of knowledge, they would learn of the concept of guilt. But if they resisted the temptation, and only eat from the tree of life, they will live in ignorance of guilt, and live forever on earth. But a serpent tricked them. Eve gave an apple from the tree of knowledge to Adam and said, “Eat it!” He ate it and soon discovered the idea of morality, and soon he began to feel embarrassed at his nudity, finally knowing of guilt in the form of shame.

“These two beings were supposed to be the purpose of God—but not the final end—only a means to the end of harvesting the earth with the form of causality which is toil. When they discovered morality, they ruined God’s plans. So God showed them Justice. They were banished from the Garden of Eden to forever love and hate each other. And their descendants would love and hate each other. Man would henceforth war forever. And so when this idol named Jesus entered the Jordan River of Palestine, men were warring still, infinitely multiplying since the punishment of Adam and Eve. This Jesus was to be the salvation of man.

“This brings us to what they are about to do to you tomorrow. You will be clothed in a lavish white dress, not naked. And then they will pour water over your head. I’m not sure whether it’s Evian water or tap water, but what makes it special is that its nature is allegedly altered after a man in a lavish robe himself says a prayer. It then comes in communication with some other dimension. And so this water will be poured over your head, where resides your soul … your mind … in which resides your knowledge and your thought. But you are not a sinner, little baby girl—you are just a baby girl!

“What punishment is this water supposed to save you from? Were you a sinner when you cried all those times, when all you wanted was food? Were you a sinner when you bit too hard on your mother? Were you a sinner when you slept too long or woke up too soon? Were you a sinner when you soiled and wet your diapers? Were you guilty of that stench? Were you a sinner when you laughed and filled the room with joy? Hell No!”

And then the stench reached his nose. “I thought we could get through our day together without you doing this, Victoria.”

She giggled widely. He took her to the restroom for her changing. Angelina had taught Timberlake well, so well that the gruesomeness of the phenomenon was bearable.

He took her back to the window, and let her witness the earth of which a part she would one day conquer for her, an earth in which she would too one day be an original creator.

“Now where was I? … Not yet; no, you are not a sinner yet. You can be a sinner when you’re grown, if you steal an apple from the grocer, for example. Or if you hit another child when that child has not hit you first—Or if you lie, like spreading nasty rumours, or to protect a sinner—these are sins, baby girl. So if you’re not a sinner, why will they be pouring water over your head? What’s left? Adam and Eve, and the inevitable conflicts you will engage in with your fellow men, in the future. This god damned baptism ritual is superfluous; this is what you need know.

“This is why I must give you a rational ritual before they who love you blaspheme against you, baby girl. We shall celebrate your innocence … not your guilt. We shall celebrate the innate, primordial innocence of man … not his guilt.”

She began to giggle with her mouth open wide. He held her upright, her head resting on his left shoulder. He began to dance her around the observation deck, spinning slowly and gracefully. She giggled and mumbled sweet nonsense. Sometimes she screamed with joy.

“Now it is time for more of my serious talk; the real good news. What are the truths of our creation and salvation? How the first man came about we do not know. But we do know a sufficient amount of man’s history not to make the same mistakes twice, though the majority of men today still believe in those ancient delusions and idols. We know that today man can be the creator of a new man. Today he has the potential to not only be a vehicle of nature through the standard natural birth process. As we can clone sheep, we can clone men. (But this is not my point, baby girl).

“To verify the old Judeo-Christian legend is not the purpose and sanction of our lives. To keep on living as if it really occurred, as if it indeed has the consequences it claims to have, is simply silly. That even today men take it seriously—is horrifying.”

And then she began to cry suddenly. “Don’t be scared, baby—it’s not so scary.” And then he smelled her, and discovered that she had wet herself. Again they returned to the restroom. When they returned to the deck, he remained silent for a moment looking at the neighbourhood in which he now lived. It was once a vast plain of unused land, and now a dozen condominium towers were raised and a living community.

“Where was I? … It is not man’s ideal to be ignorant of morality. Such an ideal is a recipe for his doom. That Garden of Eden that was lost is not the cause of our torment—but, if true, it is the source of our glory and the source of our happiness. How? –Because this god that they speak of is not the prime mover of the universe. First of all, this god of theirs is incompetent, his might always in danger of being challenged. Such is not the character of an almighty Prime Mover.

“Just as men cannot know how came about the first man, so he cannot know the origin of the only universe. Such an exploration is a recipe for earthly frustration. And we should not lament at this frustration. We shall only shrug it off and move on, onto that glorious road of science, art, and a rational philosophy. Even these things are not ends in themselves. Not even art is, in this context, if you think about it. They—these!—serve the salvation and advancement of man.

“It is not Jesus Christ that we wait for. We must wait for ourselves—each and every one of us. Growth, the journey to adulthood, is the struggle to know thyself, to know one’s nature, to choose the things that will bring one joy—and fear; to choose one’s sacred work. Adam was punished with toil? We accept it and bless ourselves with the joy we find in it. Adam and his wife lost eternal life on earth? We know that our mortality is part of the adventure, and that to extend man’s life, and his freedom, and his joy is part of our glory.

“The Edenites’s disobedience was the cause of all our wars? We know the cause of war: when one man attempts, unworthy, to take by force the property and life of another, and when the potential victim counter-attacks; or when two brutes fight for the stolen loot, stolen from the innocent. We know that men must discover the good because it is the good that keeps us striving alive. We know that knowledge is a blessing, though it is toil. We know that knowledge, not faith, wins us our self-esteem, and the actions that will confirm it, and the technologies of our ease, rest, and pleasure.

“We do not wait for God to punish us—we punish ourselves if need be. We do not wait for God to save us—we save ourselves. We do not wait for God to rewards us—we reward ourselves with life and happiness. And we do not wait for the hereafter—we conquer our reason, purpose, self-esteem, and this earth here and now. And when we find ourselves on our deathbed, we look back on life saying, “it was purposeful, it was joyous; it was worth it,” thus we sanction life. We need no sanction from a non-entity, some anti-concept, who never created this world, and never knew its greatness, or the greatness of man and his ego.

“’I am. I think. I will.’ Amen.”

He turned her to face him and he held her high, their eyes engaged with each other. She gazed at him with a puzzled look, very attentive and curious. It was as if she was witnessing a new phenomenon, some new type of creature. No one had ever spoken to her in such a manner, with such words, with such passion and conviction. No one had ever spoken about truth so far.

“But you do not understand me, as you will not understand the friar of tomorrow. But the look on your face is not of the quality that I’ve seen before. No, you are no longer laughing. You are no longer smiling. Your face is serious but you are not about to cry—you are not angry. You’re serious—do you need changing? … No. You’re serious—you are solemn. Your eyes have suddenly turned intelligent. Do you understand me?”

And then suddenly one single tear rolled down her right cheek and down her throat.

“You do understand! I’m glad it is just one tear, for that is all you need. You cry not for yourself and not for me, I know. You may not know what the tear is for: it’s for your parents, and your grandmother, and all those Christians who will be celebrating the cleansing of your sins, oh innocent baby girl. They know better. All they need is one. So tomorrow, when that brother of pity tries to pour water over your head, I want you to … I want you to rebel; throw a tantrum. I want you to make that ‘cleansing’ impossible for there is nothing to cleanse, you innocent baby girl.

“So I proclaim today, October 19, Victoria Day. We shall replace the institution of tyranny still celebrated in this country, in the name of the Queen of England. We replace it with a holiday in the name of, not a princess, but of a future productive and innocent woman.”

And then they descended back to earth, and he took her to enjoy a spectacle of entertainment. He had booked the karaoke room in the recreation centre of his building. He sang to her and he read her poetry. And one day in the future her favourite song was to become Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa, and her favourite poem would become Berton Brailey’s The Thinker.

He returned her home to her parents. And upon Timberlake’s departure, she did not cry, but she did look at him with familiarity and longing.

And the next day they took her to church for her salvation. She wore a white gown of silk, and her godparents held her. And as the priest began to call them forth and to approach the baptism tub, Victoria began to cry. With every step that was taken she cried even louder. The crowd of onlookers were silent, and the echoes of the church made her screams a sort of torture for them. And as they held her over the water, she suddenly let out a frightening scream, a savage scream, so violent, that her parents were scared for her health. They waited some fifteen minutes and tried again but as they approached the tub again, Victoria began to cry. The baptism would not happen today. Six months later, they tried again but in vain. And six months after that, they tried again: still impossible.

Then Victoria’s parents finally got the message. Their baby knew and had the courage to proclaim that she was not a natural born sinner.

THE END.

Edited October 24, 2006 by AMERICONORMAN