Page 14 of Having the Time of My Midlife

“You betcha,” Cher replied, taking a swig off her wine cooler then dabbing at her mouth with a Versace hanky.“Plenty of truth in it. Plenty of untruths. You know when you play telephone?”

Everyone nodded.

“Well, that’s kinda how it came to be. Short version, in my opinion, is this—stories got told and passed on repeatedly over the years—some got embellished, some got forgotten. Then they decided to write it all down in what would be recognized as a dead language today,” Cher explained.

Watching our past come to life on a TV from Charlie’s magic was surreal.Even so, I didn’t know what any of this had to do with our current situation, but I also trusted that Charlie wouldn’t be showing this to me if it wasn’t somehow important. At least, some of it. I reminded myself to be patient, something I didn’t have a lot of. Some of the information was bound to be extraneous, and while I wished the Immortals around me would learn how to use bullet points, that wasn’t the way it worked. The important parts would be revealed when the time was right. I felt it in my gut.

“Oh yes!” Tim said. “It was eventually translated by men into Latin then later into other languages.”

“Men who might or might not have had different agendas,” Charlie explained. “Basically, the game of telephone continued.”

“Women were not involved,” Heather added, pointedly. “Therefore, Immortals tend to look at the Bible as a collection of stories that make an attempt to lead humankind to do good.”

“But them fuckers have taken the bits and the pieces that support their own beliefs. Bottom line is that God is love. Period. If all the fuckbuckets in the world would just abide by that they’d be a whole lot better off,” Candy said flatly.

“Charlie, pause that shit for a hot sec,” Candy yelled.

Charlie obliged.

“I come off really fuckin’ smart!” Candy Vargo announced proudly.

“You’d come off a lot smarter without all them F-bombs,” Gram commented.

Jolly Sue cleared her throat. “Normally, I’d agree that an individual who uses profanity as much as Candy Vargo is a bawdy, crook-plated hussy. However, in Candy’s case I shall excuse her and simply call her a pribbling lewdster.”

Dimple punched Jolly Sue in the head. Not much damage happened since they were ghosts. “I wouldn’t go that far. I believe Candy Vargo is a gleeting canker-blossom. Much milder,” Dimple said.

Lura Belle was annoyed. “I am TRYING to watch TV,” she hissed at her dead posse. “You are both haggard fat-kidneyed, nut-hooks. Time is wasting. We must focus on how to save the day. It’s unclear how much time we have left.”

Both Jolly Sue and Dimple hung their heads.

“Charlie,” Lura Belle called out. “Please do your voodoo so we can glean the knowledge. The beslubbering hedge pigs will not interrupt again.”

“Correct,” Dimple chimed in. “However, I’d like to end the conversation by informing everyone that Lura Belle is a cockered, weedy strumpet.”

The three dead dummies jumped each other and went to town. The punches weren’t exactly landing, but the turn-of-the-century insults sure were. Their ghostly fists went right through their targets. When I tried to break up the fight, I got called currish, lumpish, humper-mugger. I was done. Picking them up since I could physically touch the dead, I tossed them out into the front yard.

“Boys,” I called out to the queens. “Do you mind refereeing a smackdown?”

“Would luuurve it, girlfriend,” Fred assured me, galloping over on his steed. “What seems to be the problem?”

“No problem,” I told him. “Just normal Lura Belle-Jolly Sue-Dimple behavior. I’ve found it best to let them get it out of their systems. Just make sure if they lose any appendages, they hang onto them so I can glue them back together.”

“Will do, Sugar Pants,” Wally squealed. He was always down for a little violence.

With a wave to the queens, I walked back into the house and sat back down. “Charlie, can we resume?’

“Absolutely,” he said. Charlie clapped his hands and the scene continued.

“So, God is real?” Cecily pressed, clearly confused.

The Keeper of Fate shrugged. “Depends on what you wanna believe, Badass. Many bloody wars amongst the humans have been fought in the name of religion. Some ain’t never gonna end. Not real fucking sure if that’s what God would have intended.”

“Not helping,” Cecily said to Candy.

She shrugged. “Not trying to. Some questions have no answers. Some have millions of answers. Faith is a choice.”

“Moving on,” Cecily stated. “The Higher Power. Explain.”

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