Axiom of Choice - 3

by Jim Chaffee

The President authorized spending on the project and work started the day after the conference. A warehouse in the suburbs of DC was set aside for the project because it had enough room for both the requisite scientific equipment, mostly for measurement as the project was to be carried out in an existent experimental physics laboratory, and for large prayer demonstrations.

The superstitious took no chances on science saving them. After complaining that there should be a second gold ball for the religious to pray over because The Lord would take offense at Godless science working on the ball of the righteous, they had gotten their wish. Their ball rested alone on a platform, with a space beside it for the duplicate they would form by prayer. There was a separate case for the gold ball of science, to be returned from the laboratory where it was the subject of intense experimentation to develop its twin using the Japanese Banach-Tarski approach.

Religious leaders agreed on prayers within their respective faiths, with the Baptists protesting the inclusion of so many Godless Catholics and heathens. Jehovah’s Witnesses issued a rare press release saying all other religions were guided by the Devil.

A massive nondenominational prayer demonstration in Madison Square Garden sold out to the faithful paying a hundred bucks a seat to attend. It was coordinated with millions around the world raising their unified voices for God to hear.

One particularly famous Baptist preacher spent the whole night in the warehouse with his congregation praying over the orb after he claimed he needed to be away from the distractions of the Godless. He was even said to have wept blood.

A Pentecostal congregation famous for their God-induced tics and babbling in tongues got their night as well. Like an assemblage of Tourette’s sufferers they danced and bounced around the interior to loud, hypnotic chanting and music.

Other denominations took their place in the lineup with nightly prayer demonstrations held before the golden ball. Across the country, and indeed in much of the Christian world, churches hosted local demonstrations of faith, begging and calling out in prayer for God to duplicate the ball.

All to no avail. Things began to get out of hand. Besides finger-pointing and squabbling among the faithful and their leaders, accusing one another of being the reason God didn’t listen, the faithful began to cut themselves in mass frenzies of devotion while some hung on crosses. A group of Hindus dragged large stones into the building tied to ropes attached to their naked flesh with fishhooks. Several famous preachers who boycotted the group efforts went on live television, praying and calling out for the true God to help, condemning the President’s bringing in the eclectic mix. Others blamed the lack of result on the inclusion of so many misguided religious leaders bringing their spawn into the effort, claiming God told them it was a disgusting sham and would not bear fruit.

None of it worked. The golden ball of the religious refused to reproduce itself.

I returned a month later, transported courtesy of God. I’m not even certain how I got there myself, but the CIA had offered to take me. I refused them under God’s order and then on the designated morning, found myself there.

Masses huddled together around the long metal warehouse of the spheres of challenge, as they were being called. I arrived unannounced and unnoticed, passing with ease through the throngs. Inside the warehouse it was standing room only except for the space set aside for a representation of the scientists who had worked the project and selected religious leaders seated in an area around the spheres, roped off and protected from the hordes by National Guard. The President was not among them, being unavailable, but he sent his National Security Advisor and a contingent of aides.

There on display was the golden ball of the faithful, alone beside the spot designated for the duplicate that never materialized. In a separate case laid the remains of the gold ball that had been built for the government scientists. The latter was in several pieces, warped and crumbling. The scientists were ecstatic, having come up with a new form of matter, but they hadn’t produced two balls, let alone gold. And finally, in its own case, alone, Jehovah’s ball.

At the appointed hour, I took Jehovah’s ball and held it up before me and the assembled masses. I said, With the Lord God Jehovah's knife, sharp enough for the axiom of choice, I separate this sphere, and the sphere separated into pieces that flew apart before anyone could see them and just as suddenly reassembled themselves into two gold balls.

There followed a pandemic of cerebral accidents. Anyone who had prayed for success was struck down by stroke, unable to speak or use the left side of the body. They all lost recognition of their left arms. This included the President, his cabinet, and all of the Congress. Millions of Americans were debilitated.

The foreign press would have had a field day had not so many of their own religious leaders gone up in smoke, along with their great cathedrals, mosques, synagogues, and temples.

I returned to California to see the crippled woman who had cared for me while I waited. She had been made whole, at peace with her left arm.

I took up my law practice again. There were so many lawsuits among those who had participated in the President’s program that I was busier than ever. Jehovah had finished with me and I prospered.

This piece first appeared in Revelation 3:1, September, 2005

© Jim Chaffee 2005

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