Dear Earthly People
(Do you know I’m never confident of the correct form of address. John, a mate of mine, likes ‘Earthlings’, but I think that is impolite, somehow)
Thank you very much for your good wishes on my birthday. They are misplaced, since this is not my birthday, but you’ve been doing it for two thousand years and I feel that even though I was only with you for thirty of them you deserve some sort of credit.
Just a couple of things…
Please do not send any more requests. In case you don’t really understand this, I am dead. I can’t answer them. You may think I do, but really?
Not me, so much, this one, it’s Dad. Dad is getting seriously upset.
(By ‘Dad’ of course I mean HF, not the Greek guy; he left the scene when mother started chasing him for maintenance.)
Anyway, here’s the thing: it was alright when you started buying each other presents, if a little difficult to understand because I’m the one supposed to be having the birthday, and nobody sends me anything, you know? You used to, but it seems to have gone out of fashion.
So, presents – okay; just lately, a little too much. I mean, Black Friday, what’s that?? Remember how uptight we both used to get about merchants and usurers turning our place into a den of thieves? That’s sort of what you’re doing. A bit disrespectful, is all I’m saying. Even that doesn’t get Dad going, you know how patient He is: what absolutely sets Him boiling is plastic. PLASTIC!
Everything seems to be made of the stuff. If it isn’t made from it, it is wrapped in it, or boxed in it. Dad worked hard to create some perfectly adequate water for you to drink, and you even bottle that in PLASTIC! It’s a problem all year, but never so much as now and never so much as on my ‘birthday’.
He says I have to remind you recycling doesn’t begin and end with eBay. All those toys and gifts given in my name end up as microbeads, and they choke up all His other children. He says to warn you He has other kids to consider, and if you keep messing up His creations the way you are He will give someone else a turn.
So, there you go. Mags and I send you our best for another year. Not to worry about all the broken promises, we didn’t believe them anyhow.
Yours ever,
J.C.
