opinions not voiced

Preferring the proven tactic of smile-and-nod over direct confrontation or the voicing of his personal opinions, thirty-something whorphan Wellington Erasmoss Denyels of Shelter Bay, Connecticut, emerged from the belly of the beast largely unscathed. “Fuck,” he said aloud while driving back home through the early fringes of frankenstorm Sandy, his whirring wiper-blades the only things breaking the trip's growing monotony, before his inner monologue kicked in, saying: 'I'm glad no one pressed me on my political views, and I'm so happy that I didn't have to explain my shifting religious philosophies and say just how little I think Jesus is guiding the steps of my life.'

Thinking back to the night before, Wellington shook his head and forced himself to laugh as memories danced across his mind's eye – the woman asking if his wife were sitting in the chair next to him even though he was not even wearing a wedding band and there was no indication he had brought a date; the tattooed, self-proclaimed street minister insisting on pointing out the salient features on his chopper-style motorcycle while making sure to mention after each breath that “Jesus saves”; the condescending ease with which nearly everyone in attendance threw around the name of their religion's god while subtly sniping at each other and touting their own virtues and achievements to anyone within earshot.

Deactivating his vehicle's cruise control so as not to ram a slow-moving car that had lurched suddenly into his path, Mr. Denyels breathed a sigh of relief in the knowledge that he was leaving the South and that he would no longer have to drive past house upon house whose owners had chosen to cement six-foot-high Romney/Ryan signs into the ground mere feet from the edges of busy, narrow byways. He shuddered when remembering the fact that a majority of North Carolinians had but recent amended their state's constitution to restrict the rights of homosexual Americans and to define marriage according to the societal and religious rules of a Bronze-Age desert people, thus exposing their innocent neighbors to the harsh punishments of YHWH, the god of the ancient Israelites. His patience nearly shot and his gas-tank approaching empty, our whorphan exited somewhere in northern Virginia, to have a stretch and to sniff the air for hints of moral repression, of which there were thankfully few.

© mentiri factorem fecit (場黑麥)