"On My Home Planet, I Was a Deity" -- The Colonel of Truth Presents #41

(A cell phone recorder was accidentally left on.)

"On my home planet, I was a deity.

"It was a pretty good life, in the main. Anything I wanted, a word sufficed, and worshipers were glad to bring it to me.

"Then came the day when a surprisingly well-trained and equipped mob of atheists stormed the High Castle of the Deity.

"They quickly overcame the Guardians of the Deity, who are mostly for show.

"They captured me in bed with my catamite, Santo Santorum, and gave me the choice of nasty death or jumping into the wormhole in the dungeon.

"Nobody had ever come back from jumping into the wormhole.

"Still, nasty death was a known known, if you catch my drift, and jumping into the wormhole was a known unknown. You do the math.

"I said I'd take the wormhole, and though they were very committed atheists, they still kept their word, took me to the dungeon, and chucked me into the wormhole.

"I had nothing more than the clothes on my back and one azoth. I won't tell you what an azoth is because it's my ace in the hole if the eggs ever really hit the fan.

"The wormhole landed me in Brooklyn. It took all my resourcefulness to survive until I could adapt to this planet. As you can see, the apple didn't fall far from the wormhole.

"I figure either you evolved from us or we evolved from you. But even if we have a common origin, you all look weird to me, and I know that I look weird to you, even after I tweaked my appearance toward your norms.

"Anyway, I learned English, I got a place to live, I learned to drive. a cab, and I absorbed the contents of a GPS device. Handy.

"Driving a cab in Manhattan is actually the perfect job for me, for now.

"Oh, sure, I audition quite a bit, because show biz is the ideal place for an exotic-looking person, as long as you're willing to be type-cast, a problem I don't have yet.

"But it's a people business, and I'm a people person.

"As they say, there's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting. Ha-ha.

"No, I don't much miss the old planet. We called it Tyda, by the way.

"On Tyda, I only ever got to mix with my worshipers, and to be frank, they weren't the best company. And explaining Santo was always a slog.

"I miss him the most. I hope he's okay. I'm hoping they see themselves as having liberated him, and that he finds them good company. All aggressive atheists think they're good company, at least on Tyda.

"I wouldn't know, because being a deity, I couldn't very well hang with them.

"There are some things I miss, of course, but since I can't go back, I figure it's best to forget about 'em.

"Getting into computers here might seem like a natural step up, but having been a deity, I have my Zen right, I think you'd say, so I don't care about steps up. Driving a cab is fine.

"Also, I have no competitive advantages in computing unless I literally go out of body into the Web, and you know what? There are things that live in the Web that I just don't want to deal with.

"I'm pretty sure they would be able to tell that I'm a former divinity, and that they would assume I was trying to move in on their thing and establish myself as top dog. Or only dog.

"I couldn't take them on even if I wanted to, so I keep a low profile. They know how to wield the Ring, so to speak, and I don't. I'd be the proverbial infant encircled by wolves.

"There's no proverb about that? I thought it was just an expression. Live and learn.

"You're very kind to comment on how clean the cab is. I take pride in that. I try to get the same cab every time, but I can't always.

"Even if I do, other cabbies have had the thing in the meantime, so I have to run my 37-point checklist.

"The other guys are mostly Afghans, so I've picked up a few words and some non-Arab Islam.

"They're clean, the Afghans are, but I'm extra particular. Fussy even.

"In addition to which, I guess I'll tell you, I give every passenger a tiny mental 'push' toward noticing how clean and new-car the baby smells.

"It's just a little thing. Don't worry, I can't read minds, let alone control them. Wouldn't want to if given the choice. I told you, I'm a people person, I like good company. Robots ain't good company.

"Well, here we are. St. Patrick's Cathedral. Keep the change? Thank you.

"Oh, by the way: you will emerge from the cab totally refreshed, alert, and happy. You will remember nothing of what I said. If you ever need a cab, you will think the words 'Santo Santorum' and I will hear you and instructions will pop into your mind. Have a nice day."