Healing

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Medicine To Die For, Part VII

Flies In The Ointment

Inspired by Proverbs 25:23; Acts 2:2; II Corinthians 6:14; Colossians 2:8; and Revelation 12:10

The grub jerked backwards and dropped the watch, clearly startled at Max’s bold move. Curling up in a ball, he reached out a finger to retrieve the miniature time-piece, whimpering, “You scared me. Please don’t yell like that. Oh my poor ears!”

“Now there’s a fake if I’ve ever seen one,” muttered Mohammed, stepping over Mr. Shipwreck to give the man a kick.

“Oh, you cruel man!” protested the grub. “You claim you’d never hurt a fly, but you do! Yes, you do!”

“I never claimed any such thing,” said Mohammed.

“How refreshing,” cackled Maggot, “to see that one among you has enough courage to speak the truth. Of course we would never treat any one of you in a manner that is in any way deceitful. We may look strange and engage in practices that some consider unethical, but at least we’re honest. Give us that much.”

“Unethical is an understatement,” piped up LaShawna. “Let me at him, Max. I’ll turn his innards to mush.”

“But why would you do that?” asked Maggot, whose attempt at soliciting sympathy fell far short of a puppy dog. “It’s not as if we’re hurting anyone.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Max.

“Or why don’t we ask Mr. Shipwreck how he feels about it?” suggested Maggot. “What do you say, Mr. Do-It-Yourself?”

Mr. Shipwreck didn’t know what to say. The more he watched them fight and the longer he listened to their arguments, the more confused he became. His mind’s eye was full of swaying watches, his eardrums bombarded with ticks and hums. He felt so mixed up inside that he couldn’t even remember why his friends had brought him up to the roof in the first place. And what was that knocking sound all about? Oh well. It probably wasn’t that important. Or was it?

“I - I don’t know,” he stammered.

“Yes, you do know,” said Max. “Remember? We’re taking you to Jesus. He’s the only one who can cure you of your paralysis.”

The vague memory of a previous discussion popped into Mr. Shipwreck’s head at the mention of a cure. “This Jesus. . . Is he a friend of yours?”

“See?” complained Esperanza, hands on hips. “I told you we should get him to Christ while we had the chance, before those mosquitoes sucked the life out of him. But does anyone ever listen to me?”

“Apparently not,” replied Maggot, his lips dripping buckets of sapsucker sympathy. The “Mag’s” fellow grubs nodded their heads in agreement. Whatever motion Maggot made, they made too. Just like a group of robots, they obeyed his every command. All he had to do was insert a coin, push a button, and give the voice command. Enjoying the power he lorded over them, Maggot snapped his fingers and watched them fall at his feet like a row of dominoes. Their unquestioning obedience gratified him immensely. Now for the presentation.

“And just to show that we hold no ill feelings toward you all” - here he turned his face toward the mat bearers - “we have prepared a little number for your listening pleasure. Ahem.” He tapped his toe and began the mantra.

“Life from death is evolution, between the man and his physician Free choice is good for everyone. Free choice can be a lot of fun.” One by one the grubs echoes the rhyme while Max and his friends stood frozen at their stations, arms folded, faces stone cold, each guarding his or her particular corner of the mat upon which Mr. Shipwreck lay, an immobile corpse in need of a doctor. Or a coffin. Whichever was more convenient.

The grubs droned on with their rhyme, encouraged by all the yawns in the audience. For if there was anything Maggot knew how to do, it was to bore people. Soon they would be dropping like flies. Especially after he rehearsed to them his own version of the man who had been born blind through no fault of his own. “Neither he nor his parents did sin” was the main phrase he kept repeating, along with many references to Pharisees “who always blame you when you’re sick, for condemnation is their trick.” You couldn’t help catch the underlying assumption behind the statements, which was that sickness never, under any circumstances, had anything to do with sin.

As soon as Maggot saw his victims nodding off, he went in for the kill. “The problem isn’t spiritual, in any degree,” he stated. “In this case it is physical, as you can plainly see.”

His words acted like a shock wave, immediately awakening the sleepy mat bearers and energizing them into action. Max and Mohammed tried to pretend they hadn’t dozed off, but the girls knew otherwise.

As soon as the Maggot realized that he had just shot his best ploy in the foot, he paused to regroup. Meanwhile, a wary Max, seeing that he had a very small window in which to turn things around, formed his own huddle, hunkering down with Mohammed, Esperanza, LaShawna and Mr. Shipwreck.

“Now here’s the plan,” he told them. “Maggot and his little grubs are determined to put us to sleep. But if they do, Mr. Shipwreck will die. And if we tell them to go away. . . - well, been there, tried that as they say. We need a strategy for ridding ourselves of these scum bags once and for all. And we need to come up with it now.”

“We could push them off the roof,” suggested Mohammed.

“No, too messy,” whispered Max. “Besides, there are too many of them. Any other bright ideas?”

“Why don’t we tell them to come back later, after the job’s done?” suggested Esperanza.

“Nah, if we tell them to come back later, they’ll just keep pushing,” argued LaShawna. “Believe me, I know these guys. Give ‘em an inch and they’ll talk a mile a minute. But if you let me at ‘em. . .”

“No way!” growled Mohammed. “If I can’t wail them, neither can you.”

“Oh why can’t we all just get along?” moaned Mr. Shipwreck, tired of all the arguing.

“Compromise is not an option,” stressed Max in a very loud whisper.

“Then what are you going to do?” asked Mr. Shipwreck.

“I’m thinking,” said Max. “I’m thinking. And right now I think the best thing to do is to go along with it. And pray - with all your might. In the meantime, stand fast by your mats, you three. Don’t smile, don’t wink, don’t blink, and don’t say anything.”

Everyone agreed to this plan and resumed their posts around the mat with renewed resolve.

Meanwhile Maggot rubbed wallpaper eyes with his fellow grubs and began whispering orders. “Come on, boys. Let‘s razzle dazzle ‘em with that little dance number we rehearsed.” His robots nodded in agreement, prepared to follow their master’s every move.

Maggot flashed a gold tooth at his unwilling audience and with an evil smirk declared, “Now, my delectable little bags of rotting flesh, for your visual pleasure my friends and I would like to perform for you a movement which we have aptly titled “the firefly.”

One by one the grubs removed their cloaks to reveal twelve ugly, white, glow-in-the-dark undershirts, each covered with the infamous Maggot logo: Darwin Rules. Before anyone could express their revulsion to this hideous insignia, all the grubs began shaking their bodies and chanting, “Do the firefly. Oh yeah. Do the firefly.”

The four friends looked at each other with disgust. Esperanza looked as if she was ready to barf.

“Hold your stomachs, guys,” Max whispered to his friends. “And whatever you do, don’t groove to it.”

The grubs continued to chant, “Do the firefly.” It was a catchy tune and difficult to defy.

Max saw Mohammed tapping his foot. He walked over and stepped on it, saying, “I told you, don’t move to the music.”

“Yes, but you said nothing about tapping feet,” protested Max.

Max resumed his stance. While the grubs danced, the four friends prayed, one at each side of the bed, whispering quietly to the four winds of heaven for help.

LaShawna was crying out to God with all her heart. “Lord,” she prayed, “you promise in your word to send a north wind to drive away the rain of backbiting tongues (at least, that‘s how I interpret it). And these little flies sure have been biting us in the back. I don’t care how you do it, Lord, but would you please sent us the refreshing snow of a faithful messenger to put out the lights of those fire flies?”

A few seconds later the sun came out from behind the dark clouds behind which it had been hiding. From that same direction a mighty rushing wind blew down. The four friends heard it, and so did Mr. Shipwreck. It thrilled their hearts and made them rejoice. Maggot and his grubs heard the sound and shrieked in horror as the wind scooped them up, sweeping them far away from the region. At the same time a gentle breeze fell upon the poor paralyzed man and his mat bearers.

With all the fly larvae out of the way, there was nothing more to prevent the four friends from completing their task of depositing their immobile employer at Jesus’ feet.

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