BOOK VI. Ants Go Marching
(Jackism, The Fairytale Religion)
[1] Once upon a time in a timeless state of mind, there was a sword fight betwixt two ants – Admiral Black and General Red. They engage in dispute and take their unholy battle up the terrain and onto the resting belly of Jack, the Pumpkin Headed Son of Earth. Jack sits up and picks up Admiral Black and General Red by the collars.
Jack: [2] You are going to kill each other with swords, are you? And for what cause?
Admiral Black: [3] Wisdom is mine, Red!
General Red: [4] Not if I conquer it first, Black!
Jack: [5] You conquer nothing. You are boys in a school fight. Where is the wisdom that you lay claim to slay for? Nay, not hither. The only ones who engage in fight are the ones who cannot triumph in argument.
Admiral Black: [6] (Clears throat.) I am no simpleton. I triumph all arguments.
General Red: [7] Ha! You are just an old bug. It is I, in fact, who triumphs all arguments.
Admiral Black: [8] It is war, Red!
General Red: [9] I come to destroy, Black!
Admiral Black: [10] Anthill at dawn.
General Red: [11] I will march the soldiers.
Jack: [12] And I will be the Godly Judge of this War of Words.
[13] (Left, left, left, right, left…)
Ants Go Marching.
Admiral Black: [14] Halt!
General Red: [15] Halt!
Admiral Black: [16] Swords sheathed!
General Red: [17] Swords sheathed!
Admiral Black: [18] Minds full!
General Red: [19] Minds full!
Jack: [27] The first wager of this war will be pained towards a stumpy hand and foot situation. Adjust your eyes to the light of day, gentlemen, and hearken. Over yonder in the cornfield is:
Battle I.
[28] Over yonder in the cornfield is a quandary that requires the heaviness of a heart. It is a man with no hands whose career it is to cut the ears of corn off of the stalk. Sitting close by is a man with no feet.
No Hands Man: [29] Excuse me sir, if you do not mind too much, I could use a helping hand.
[30] Hear this: The man with no feet does not truly want to help, but does not have a heart strong enough to deny his wish.
No Feet Man: [31] Indeed, I will help you cut the stalks.
[32] He slips, and there is a cutting accident, and the No Feet Man loses his hands, too.
No Hands Man: [33] (Eyes the hands.) Sir, may I have these?
[34] Hear this: The man with no feet and now no hands does not want to give up his hands, but does not have a heart strong enough to deny his wish.
No Man: [35] Sure, can I have your feet?
Full Man: [36] No sir, I am sorry, but I do need those.
Admiral Black: [37] Cold hearted!
General Red: [38] Immoral!
Jack: [39] Who is in the wrong, gentlemen?
Admiral Black: [40] Certainly, it is the fellow who had asked for the help in the first instance.
General Red: [41] Assuredly!
Jack: [42] Ah, but he had no hands to chop his corn, gentlemen. Certainly, it was not wrong of him to ask someone who was blessed with two hands for a helping hand.
Admiral Black: [43] But the man lacked feet, Judge!
General Red: [44] Certainly, he had eyes to see of him crawling around the ground to each stalk for a cut.
Admiral Black: [45] And then to lose his hands, too, and pay them forward!
General Red: [46] The nobility!
Admiral Black: [47] The generosity!
Jack: [48] Is it noble to be a slave, gentlemen? For this man had backstabbed his own beating heart and surrendered to an ideology that had left him with the prize of what? What did this man receive in return?
Admiral Black:[20] Let us speak!
General Red: [21] Let us speak!
Jack: [22] Admiral, General, I see that you two are gentlemen today. It is a noble thing to see a sword that is sheathed.
Admiral Black: [23] Let us spill the blood of the mind.
General Red: [24] I will have your brain on a plate. Metaphysically, of course.
Admiral Black: [25] Carry on, Judge.
General Red: [26] Bombs away, Judge.
Admiral Black: [49] Zilch!
General Red: [50] Poor, poor man. It is uneasy for my heart to witness such a nobleman be stripped of all his limbs. He is now a stump.
Jack: [51] Hath you not an ear of corn to hear me? This “nobleman” is in the wrong.
Admiral Black & General Red: [52] How dare!
Jack: [53] It is the hard truth, gentlemen. It is important to not be all-kind in a world where the darkness is in harmony with the light. To be untruthful in his generosity when the blood of his heart wanted not to assist ‘twas his own downfall – and down his hands fell. To be an angel is to be a jellyfish; to be a jellyfish with a backbone is to be a balanced deity. This man is too much angel, for he does not possess the backbone that the Devil dost endow in all, and so he stalls his heart with a stale “Yes.”, when his heart does long for a crisp “No.”. And so, he has lost himself. He is a prisoner of untruthful kindness, and so now he is a prisoner of life with his four stubby limbs. For sometimes honesty hurts, gentlemen. But to lose your limbs loses you like Armageddon.
Admiral Black: [54] This devil went and stole this kind man’s only hands, Judge.
Jack: [55] Ah, you hinder the words of the incident, Admiral Black, which is the devil inside of yourself, as well. He dost not steal, like the devil you devilishly proclaim him to be – he hath politely asked, and the man hath surrendered his hands with killing killer kindness while not surrendering to the singing song sung in his drumming chest.
General Red: [56] Ah, but in the end, this devil did not provide the man with his feet, Judge.
Jack: [57] Aught he to? Aught any man to chop off his feet for a trade? This is the misery of madness that I teach on. He followed his stern heart and kindly retorted back with a balanced care: “No sir, I am sorry, but I do need those.”. Is that the remark of a devil? No, it is a good cold truth. And so, he picked the lock of the chain linked around the heart and liberated it – and so now this free man is a Full Man.
General Red: [58] This is a negative tale.
Jack: [59] Not for the Full Man, General Red.
Admiral Black: [60] For the Full Man, it is Divine.
Jack: [61] Very wise, Admiral Black. I will honorably hand you Battle I., as I keenly point out that you do possess the point inside of your heart.
General Red: [62] Let it be yours, Black. For I feel this loss has won me a growth of wisdom.
Jack: [63] Of your War of Words here is:
Battle II.
Jack: [64] Over yonder, if you do your best to tilt your head and spy out the valley, there is a court fool stumbling along with a blindfold veiling his sight.
Court Fool: [65] I am blind! I am blind, I say! I am blind!
Jack: [66] Do you assist this fool, or do you allow the fool to persist?
Admiral Black: [67] Ah, you approach this fool with a heart of gold and remove the blindfold.
Jack: [68] What good is it to give a man a bar of gold for living life like a bar none fool? Does one also give the world to a child, unearned?
General Red: [69] Nay, Black. You allow the court fool to persist in his folly. He will sort out his wisdom on his own.
Jack: [70] What if the fool remains wisdom-less until death, General Red?
General Red: [71] It is deserving.
Jack: [72] Oh, so now your heart is a blizzard!
General Red: [73] Numbskulls irk me, and this court fool has a lamebrain. Let the oaf carry on.
Jack: [74] You are wrong as well, General Red.
Admiral Black & General Red: [75] Both? How so?
Jack: [76] There is a better way, Gentlemen.
Admiral Black: [77] There are only two ways, Judge.
General Red: [78] There is one way or the other, Judge.
Jack: [79] You are stuck stones, are you? You are a slave to the number two? Does this world only consist of but two lonesome ideas? The eternal infinitude of God, do you not know that all creation is His? Then so be it with all ideas, as well – there is no end, like the circle. You slip and sink into the quicksand of a right & wrong; a dark & light; a God & Devil. You skew the libra while ignoring the balancing act of these central two poles. Is there no middle way, Gentlemen?
[80] The court fool stumbles onto the battlefield with his eyes cloaked in the black fabric.
Court Fool: [81] I am blind! I am blind, I say! I am blind!
Admiral Black: [82] Pardon I, sir, but you do have a blindfo –
General Red: [83] — No! No, no you do not. Tell me, court fool, what color are your eyes?
Court Fool: [84] Have you not eared out my plight? I am blind, I say! It is tragedy.
General Red: [85] Sir, you are indeed blind to yourself, and so I am sorry for the circumstance that the Devil of this world has burdened upon you. While I do not think that anything can be done about your blindness, which is an unfortunate catastrophe that you will probably have to suffer until you are but food for the worms underneath of the ground, perhaps the magical lake down the bend can bless you on some blooming clarity of how to obtain a flowering mind. Cleanse your eyes withthe magical water and feel the reflection of yourself. Report back with the color.
Admiral Black: [86] (Understanding.) Here, fool, I will shift you in the correct quarter. Do head straight.
[87] The fool stumbles and tumbles down to the lake. He cleanses his eyes with the “magical” water and comes to feel that there is a blindfold blinding him. He removes it and reports back.
Admiral Black: [88] Ah, the court fool has returned.
General Red: [89] Report to me, court fool. What is the color?
Court Fool: [90] Open.
[91] The court fool skips off juggling with open eyes.
Jack: [92] Bravo, General Red, bravo. It is fine-tuned, figured out and mastered. Better to lead in the direction with a devil’s trick, than to provide the entire world with one big change; better to lead in the direction with a devil’s trick, than to provide no escape from a dismal cave. You are growing wiser by the battles, gentlemen.
Admiral Black: [93] Let it be yours, Red. For I feel this loss has won me a growth of wisdom.
Battle III.
Jack:[94] Let us divide a school of ants, gentlemen.
[95] Admiral Black & General Red withdraw their battle helmets to itch their heads.
Admiral Black: [96] Ants, yes, ants, okay.
General Red: [97] Sure, sure, ants.
Jack: [98] On one side of the school we have the Good Ants, and on the other side of the school we have the Bad Ants.
Admiral Black: [99] Ants, yes, good, okay.
General Red: [100] Sure, sure, bad ants.
Jack: [101] And on every Saturn’s Day, all of the good ants mix together to partake in gossip with their bubbly non-alcoholic drinks to engage in devilish words about the bad ants to catapult their bubbly egos.
Good Ants: [102] Look at us good ants. We are the good of the bad. We are moral and good and follow rules, and do as we are told, and so in God’s bright eyes, it is we who are indeed “it”.
Jack: [103] Little do the good ants know, that every Saturn’s Day, all of the bad ants mix together and partake in gossip and their underage cocktails with their bubbly drinks to engage in devilish words about the good ants to catapult their bubbly egos, as well.
Bad Ants: [104] Such goodie-goodies those good ants are. Are they even real? Are they even unique? Do they even stir up any trouble at all?
Dullards. Those boring ants think that they are “it”, but they are not “it”. It is we who are “it”.
Jack: [105] Who trophies the win?
General Red: [106] They both do win, which is to say, as well, that they both do lose. Because each one has won with false pride. And so, both have won to each other, which implies that both have lost to God.
Admiral Black: [107] Such sorry fools, they both are. Does neither side realize with real eyes that they rely on one another to catapult and blow up their bubbling egos? What is it that defines your goodness, Good Ants, and stabilizes it? It is the perspective of the un-perfect Bad Ants on the opposite side of the tracks. Without one, the other does not exist.
Jack: [108] Speak to me, General Red, is happiness assured with a catapulted ego?
General Red: [109] Nay, it is a cheap and flimsy high that tinkers like a fraudster’s mind. It is never satisfied and forever thirsty. For if they would just seek to stare outside of themselves, they would realize the whimsical plight and eye out the trickery of the illusive illusion that is already resolved behind the velvet red curtain on the stage of Life’s Play. They would tip and take their hats off to each other and provide warm thanks for providing them with a defined and standing limb to stand on.
Admiral Black: [110] They are catapulted up by one another.
General Red: [111] And so they are each other.
Court Fool: [112] Open eyes.
Full Man: [113] You are fully one.
No Man: [114] I feel this loss has won me a growth of wisdom.
[115] Ants go marching back together.
ABRACADABRA
by JackOBat