Holy Cow

17 A WHOLE NEW WORLD

(see Aladdin)

The Box God was talking to the people. I could tell because of their obedient quiet and the flickering of the light. If you people think lambs are silent, check yourselves out while you’re praying to the Box God-passive and drooling. So I knew I was pretty safe looking through the window, because the humans were zoned out in a trance, like a night of the living dead. They were all watching something called the Discovery Channel. I know this because they broke out of their stupor long enough to fight over “channels.” I realized that the Box God is not just one god, but many gods in one box, and with a magic plastic wand, humans can switch from god to god at any given moment.

It seemed that everyone in the family wanted to worship different gods. The youngest girl wanted to worship the Nickelodeon God, the dad wanted to worship the ESPN God, the oldest, obnoxious son wanted to worship a goddess named Playboy or the Showtime God, while the mom was happy with this Discovery God. Mom won out. Everybody else except the mom and the young girl left the room grumbling, and then I realized that all humans must have a Box God in their own rooms, because the flickering lights started emanating from windows in bedrooms all over the house. What a strange god that instead of bringing people together, divides them.

So I’m kind of enjoying the Discovery God ’cause there are lots of pretty pictures of faraway lands. And it mentions that the name of this one place is India, and that seems to me a beautiful word, and then there are pictures of poverty and people suffering, but there are also cows in a lot of the pictures and I get that feeling of dread that the god is going to start showing these cows getting slaughtered and eaten again, but instead the god says that cows are “sacred” in India, which means respected and special, and he shows pictures of people being really nice to cows and even putting jewelry on them and making them look exotic and pretty. The god says that cows are considered gods themselves in this India place and that no one eats them.

Then the older, obnoxious son runs into the room, grabs the magic wand, and switches the channel to a bunch of men in uniform hitting and chasing and trying to catch a ball. And I learn that the ball is made of the hide of dead horses (cowhide since ’74-that awful summer) and each time the ball gets the slightest bit dirty, they throw it out like it’s no good, like there’s an inexhaustible supply of horses to kill to make more balls, and for all I know there is. And the thing the men wear to cushion their soft little human hands from the hard ball is called a “glove” and is made of something called “leather,” which is just a polite way of saying “the skin of dead cows.” And right before I pass out I think: Is there no end to your cruelty?