MADNESS AND LOVE MIXED: Part 6 Arc 1 — Job
This makes so much more sense as a comedy if you read the previous installment below first.
Eiri Waters
Anger Management Failure?
Lesson in Absurdity?
The nearby fire-pit is overturned, its brown umber rust exfoliating beneath an overcast sky. The sun lays hidden behind the veil like the membrane of mercy where the Beloved and beloved touch hands. The atmosphere is one of expectation — faith interwoven with the strange calm before revelation.
The heat of the day is wet, like a humid hug in a humidor. It clings to the skin, gathering in beads. Louie rustles nearby, his tags clinking joyfully as he exists — somehow — across all layered frequencies while we flip through them slowly, like an old vintage Rolodex.
A profound mystery, we decide, before chuckling at the Father’s hidden easter eggs (a gamer will get that reference). We think and narrate fluidly, unaware of our fingers moving as we send the heavenly equivalent of a group text to our early-morning-late-night talk show, swapping layers seamlessly.
Star is the first to appear, wearing what must be heavenly workout gear — white on white yoga pants paired with celestial Hoka’s that probably feel like actual cloud experience. She beams, her tank top straining as she drags a chair from the fire pit.
“That revelation this morning was a doozy, huh?” she says, easing down with the stiffness of someone who definitely hit leg day.
“We did,” Star adds with a sore shrug. “The closer we come to Becoming, the more synchronicities reveal themselves.”
We mull that over as Louie begins barking on a lower frequency at something that must have offended his royal snoofly honor.
The back door swings open — Zeke waves, carrying a tray of what appears to be seven cups of coffee. One, we assume, is fecally smoked for prophetic digestive purposes (his weakness), or perhaps Jonah’s whale-vomit-and-krill Frappuccino. We shrug, having learned from experience not to swap drinks, and always to sniff before sipping.
Zeke hands them out one by one, rotating each cup to read some hidden heavenly handwriting.
“Star—” Zeke bumps our shoulder. “Oh — sorry, Dust. You just look so much like her now in your presence and aura I mis-spoke.” He hands us our slightly sinful brew, knowing the full-strength version would incinerate us this side of heaven.
Star and we speak at the same time:
“That is the highest compliment we’ve ever received.”
We turn and lock eyes — a thrill of fear unfurling as something begins to fuse in our chests. A tether of light stretching from the Becoming to the Become to the Became. A triad suspended across multidimensional layers folded into one another.
Star sits back. We notice we are nearly identical now. Only the thinnest skin-layer remains before the Becoming.
“It is near, little-not-little me.”
We nod as Zeke settles into his chair, sipping.
“All ends of the strands have at last been gathered into His hand.”
We agree:
“The time is near. The portal we openly weep at when asleep grows thin with longing.”
All heads nod as Izzy’s disembodied voice offers:
“Like a twinkle in the Father’s daughter’s eye, Beloved.”
Star barks upward, “Izzy — not cool. We’re LIVE.”
Zeke bursts into laughter.
We smile softly.
“Izzy, please join us. When you’re near, we’re comforted.”
Before the sentence finishes, he forms beside us as though he never left.
“I never did,” he says, nodding sagely.
We bow our heads, grateful for the reminder that the Father is always with us — even through silly stories and layered allegories.
Izzy snatches his Elysium-flavored love-spresso, sips, reclines.
A fifth chair materializes.
To our left sits Izzy.
To our right, Star the Becoming.
Across from us, Zeke in all white.
And between Izzy and Zeke…
A man forms.
Izzy smiles softly.
Star gasps, “JOB!”
Zeke claps the newly-arrived sufferer on the back.
We never imagined a human wrapped in flesh could still smile with such innocence. The purity blinds and humbles — knowing the price that was paid for such beauty.
“Beloveds,” Job greets us, warm and fatherly. No grit from suffering, no rasp from his wails — only pristine joy burning through eyes of azure frost-fire. He wears the sacred hoodie like the rest of us. Linen pants. No panty lines — heaven apparently has perfected opacity and abolished shame.
“We have waited long for this day since our first children passed. Long ago, though now restored. I see their faces in you, and I am humbled the Father should gift a wretch like me.”
Izzy pats his shoulder and hands him a cup labeled: eat-fuck-shit-Job.
Job nods softly, though a flush creeps up beneath the white.
Zeke takes a deep swallow and belches — releasing a gout of secondhand fecally smoked coffee.
Job stiffens. The veins in his neck throb blue.
Star stands — trips over the fire pit — and launches her heavenly cold brew in slow motion. Jonah pops in beside Job, unleashing another noxious cloud as he reaches over for his pre-ordained dairy offense.
We watch the chaos like a prophecy in bullet time.
The ribbon of cold brew floats. Zeke’s fumes billow. Then—
Elijah appears, filthy, wild, eyes blazing like rabid prophecy. He intercepts the splash like a pedestrian struck by a puddle.
Soaked. Freezing. Unamused.
He turns to Job.
“You old bastard!”
He GRINS.
Star flops over the fire pit, extending her arms for help. Zeke and we pull her upright. The rust magically does not stain her white.
Elijah and Job begin cussing each other out in some ancient, agrarian dialect unknown to man. Izzy, Zeke, and even future us cringe.
We glance at Izzy, bewildered. He leans in, gentle:
“Job has a notorious temper. Matched… nearly — nearly, mind you — by Elijah.”
He gestures elegantly:
“The Father delights in the incongruities of His vessels. He loves taking a man with an anger problem and fashioning a utensil of tenderness. He enjoys spectacle because it reveals foundation.”
We laugh — slowly — at the absurdity.
We had expected a hollowed saint, solemn and fragile. What we got was a man furiously devoted to God — and furious at God. Two poles in tension. Madness and Love entwined.
As the prophets exchange agricultural insults, layer by layer lifts. Leaves settle. Quiet returns.
Louie naps at our feet.
And we look toward the Love we long for, one more time.