A Scandal of Immeasurable Magnitude

Something terrible has come to my attention. I feel it my civic responsibility to share it with the world since it, without doubt, effects everyone with a soul! We have been living a fraud too long, I must break the piercing silence...it falls to me to begin the wheels of redemption. I too am afraid, I too am uncertain of our course...but I am no coward, and together we may rectify this heinous injustice that has been committed against the very dignity of man.

Many of you who grew up with me will remember an incident in high school of world historical, perhaps even cosmic, importance. Its mere mention will bring forth a swelling pride in the powers of humanity. It was once a story told to us of great courage, determination and perserverence in the face of unmentionable evil...it became a very part of us...it was a lie! I should warn you that when I was first enlightened as to the extent of this scandal my reaction was to bury my face in my hands and cry, "Dear God, how could this have happened? How could it have gone on so long?." I retreated to my bed, I no longer had the will to go into the agora...how could I look at my fellow man knowing the blissful ignorance they are living in? I concluded that life really did not have any meaning and "being" was truly "nothingness."

After days in my retreat, my despair turned into blind rage...I could not stay silent! This is precisely why I am a destiny...I am possessed of Herculean courage and the strength of 10 men. I may be defeated before its all said and done, but I will not be silenced...and if I am defeated then I swear I will return with the force of a thousand men taken up arms! So be prepared friends...what I am about to tell you will tear the very fabric of history itself and it will become our responsibility to weave it anew...so let me begin...

When I was in high school a tremendous thing happened. My friends Ryan, Dusty and Brandt did the unthinkable...well, it was thinkable because we all thought about doing it...it just seemed as though nobody would ever muster the strength to carry it into action. They were working on a group project for a class with a 4th person, we will call him "Cliff" out of respect for the victim's identity. As it came to us "Cliff" had not been carrying his share of the work and the three usurpers got together concluding that the night before the project was due they would cast "Cliff" out of the group to fend for himself.

As the night approached anxiety was high...our valiant three usurpers considered several times taking a different course...was this really going to happen? The tremendous historical import of what they were about to do was by no means lost on them.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity of angst-riddled preparation, that fateful night arrived. As "Cliff" was letting his tyrannical self into the house where the final touches on the project were being prepared for the impending deadline the three conspirators set in motion. It was later said that they did not even think, even breath, while the "event" was occurring, it was so mechanical it was as if they were mere conduits for the acts of God himself. As "Cliff" entered one of the conspirators rose, probably Ryan, and said, "Cliff, we have decided that thou shall be banished for eternity from the group never to return!"

"Cliff" offered a puzzled but aggressive stare, "You don't have the courage to do this Ryan, I know you, you are a weak man!"

Ryan replied, "You are right, alone I would not have the courage to do this, but I stand here with the might of three men joined in one...I am no man, I am a Leviathan!"

Cliff charged the group with a clear bloodlust in his eyes...Ryan and Dusty, taken aback, commenced to do battle with the sovereign and all-powerful "Cliff." It was a "David and Goliath" battle if there ever was one. As they forced "Cliff" toward the door, and into the annals of history, "Cliff" surged with the force of a thousand oceans and all was almost lost. Then Brandt stood and joined the battle...a tear of joy came to Dusty's eye, "Brandt, you have come?"

"Yes Dusty, I will stand next to you on to victory, or, together with you, I will fall if the hand of fate so dictates!"

As they drove together, heroically, they once again breached the door and prepared one last push to finally decimate "Cliff." It was only now that "Cliff" noticed that Brandt had joined the battle. With despair in his eyes, his heart heavy, he looked Brandt right in Brandt's determined brown eyes and gasped with his last breath, "Et tu Brute?" With that the door slammed behind him and the rest is for the philosophers, epic poets, and historians to write about.

The next morning our heroic usurpers arrived at school, clothes in tatters after their moonlight exertion, with completed project in hand. There was no sign of "Cliff." The village people were overcome with joy! Women flung themselves at Ryan, who, even with the aid of arms the size of redwood trees, could not bear their adoring weight. He collapsed. Me and a few others hurried to lift him and give him the last few drops of water we had.

As Ryan's strength returned he motioned for us to be seated at his feet...Ryan the Great, flanked at his sides by Dusty the Wise and Brandt the Lion-Hearted as they have come to be known. We sat obediently. Finally after what must have been a fortnight Ryan the Great spoke in hushed but powerful tones.

"My children, my sheep, sweet, tender sheep...I have brought the most joyous news. But this is not news for untrained and cowardly ears, beware, take your women inside and return...I will sing you this news in the language of the gods."

After preparing as Ryan the Great had instructed us we, the men of the village, returned. What we heard that night...perhaps it was not even night...maybe we were dreaming, who knows, but it was sung to us with such sublime and eternal beauty that we were lost in the moment. We heard tales of heroism, the Tyrant has been vanquished, life itself has been redeemed. "Go forth and tell others of this tale, write of us three"...now called simply, "The Trinity."

After this glorious moment had passed we rose to do as The Trinity had commanded us, but, low, it was much more than a moment...for when we'd returned our women had aged and grown grey. We began to recite, in our stilted, all-too-human dialect the tale of the Holy Trinity and the fall of the Tyrant...it was then we witnessed the first of many miracles this good news would engender...our women, grey and weary with age, began to blossom anew like spring brought forth on the wings of an eagle! Their laughter and cries of joy sung like the sound of a breeze through a flower strewn meadow harmonizing with the song of a lark in the distance.

As we traveled to and fro telling unworthy men of their liberation, and watching them emerge more than mere men from these cocoons of fear that had enveloped them during the reign of the Tyrant, we began to slowly grasp the importance of what we had become a part of. From hence forth nobody would have to complete another high school group project where one man decided to live off the fat of the land and put nothing into the project. For now it had been written by the Holy Trinity into the very souls of man, "He who hath not hands for the task shall have feet for the longest path!" This roughly means that human beings, once all-too-human, had become eagles...they were free to excommunicate all tyrants from their societies and live in peace and freedom for all time!

Most of you, I am sure, are familiar with this story. In fact, I may, in my many travels as one of the "Many-Faceted Voice" of the Trinity, been the very one who told you. I may have held you in joyous embrace as you cried tears of elation at such great news. Well, I return today, not the Many-Faceted Voice, but the voice of mere man, nay! less than mere man. I come to you on my knees with the most terrifying news. The Tyrant still reigns! Only now he reigns in the hearts of all of us, as we have invited him in on a Trojan Horse. Allow me to briefly tell you what really happened that fateful night.

As our three cowardly and shamed tongues began work on their project their comrade "Cliff" was running late, as he was busy aiding the elderly at a retirement home where he regularly brought candy and danced polka with the residents. Hurrying from the retirement home to meet the group, and overcome with bad conscience due to his tardiness, "Cliff" received a call. History, with its terrible blend of fact and myth, is not quite clear on who made the call, but it was likely Ryan.

"Cliff, where are you?"

"Hey Ryan, sorry I am running late. Ms. Tarter had a hole in her favorite sweater and I wanted to stitch it up before I left."

Ryan replied, "Well, that's really nice of you sweetheart but we have work to do here and if you are not here in ten minutes then we are going to kick you out of the group!"

"Cliff" could not believe his ears, "Ryan I am 20 minutes away, there is no way I can make it there in 10 minutes."

Ryan, unmoved, said, "Well, that's really unfortunate, I guess you will just fail then."

"Cliff" was on his way to Harvard to study development in third world countries, and he knew that if he failed his course may be permanently derailed so he stepped on the gas. As he sped, tears in his eyes, through the accumulating traffic toward his destination a squirrel ran into the road. "Cliff" slammed on the breaks and swerved, sliding on the rain soaked street and careening at a high speed into the concrete median.

The next thing "Cliff" knew he awoke hours later in a hospital. He pleaded with the nurses to let him call Ryan. Maybe he could salvage this whole affair if he could just reason with Ryan. The nurse did not think "Cliff" had the strength for a phone call and would not allow it. It would not have mattered anyway...Ryan would have had none of it. They were throwing together their project at that very moment so Ryan could meet some of his friends at a local church where they were going to graffiti a new statue of the Virgin Mary and ride their skateboards on the marble square out front.

"Cliff" worked furiously through the night scrapping together his project out of whatever materials he could find, cotton swabs, toothpicks, even bits of his own hair that he was forced to tear out with his own hands. The next morning he prepared secretly to leave for school but a nurse saw him. After a few minutes of tearful pleading "Cliff" got the nurse to agree to let him leave and take a wheelchair, which he would return. She had remembered him from the work he did on weekends as a candy-striper, and she could vouch for his integrity. Her account is the last solid one we have of "Cliff." She has said he rode out on pure will and determination with project in hand, undoubtedly an A project.

"Cliff" wheeled furiously all 4 miles to school and when he arrived he breathed an exhausted sigh of relief, "I will get to help those starving children in Africa afterall." It was then he saw Ryan approaching.

"Hey Ryan, I am really sorry about not making it last night. I got in an accident. How can I repay it to you?"

Ryan said, with a sneer, "You can repay me by never showing your lame charitable face around here again!" As he said this Ryan grabbed the project from "Cliff's" injury-weakened hands and threw it to the ground where it shattered into pieces. Then Ryan tipped "Cliff's" wheelchair over and spilt his coffee on him. Ryan then made his way back to the school with the story he had rehearsed.

"Cliff" was never seen again. What can be sure is that he did not go to Harvard. He received a failing grade on the project and for the course that semester. Legend has it that he lives in a ward somewhere in Kentucky sipping vodka, chain-smoking, and constantly taking apart and putting together that old project muttering, "I'm sorry."

I know this is a lot to swallow. Sit down, take a glass of water if you have to. We have begun preparations to bring Dusty and Ryan to justice. They will be tried by a three judge tribunal next December. The judges will be Tim, David and Jared.

Already the objectivity of the tribunal is being tested. Ryan urges that the judges are alleged victims of his alleged crime so they are biased. I agree, yes they are...and who isn't!? The harm Ryan has done has struck to the very essence of our collective humanity! We are all victims. I can assure all of you that this tribunal will be among the fairest and most just ever constituted. Its goal is to air the Truth and set the course of History back on the correct path. Though it is embodied by Tim, David, and Jared; this tribunal speaks the voice of Eternal and Un-Erring Justice.

The tribunal plans to try Ryan as the principle element of this great injustice. Dusty will be tried as an accomplice and able to plead that he was forced under threat of physical peril to commit these acts. I have no doubt this is the case. Dusty is a good man, with a good heart, but Ryan is absolute evil and as they say, "Absolute evil corrupts absolutely."

I suspect that Ryan told Dusty that if he didn't comply he would be beaten daily and have his lunch money taken. I suspect that this threat alone was not even enough to coerce Dusty into complicity, so Ryan took his cat and held it ransom. It will be up to our merciful and just tribunal to settle the facts, and if Dusty is guilty, well, then may God have mercy on his soul.

As for Ryan, he sticks to the 2-3 stories he has generated as to the facts of that night. He will rely on his "word"...ha! This is the very same man who told us that our friend Cody fell into quicksand in high school and had to be rescued by a giant butterfly with a 12 ft. wingspan. Or that his dog was carried away by a bird and dropped into a lake where a front-loading tractor had to come to his rescue. Or how about the time that a 15 lbs. spider with 20 inch legs attacked him causing him to flee for his life! His "word?" Well, "Ryan the Great," bring your words, we have heard many of them...but beware...when the cold fist of justice rides in on the winds of history no amount of eloquent sophistication will be able to protect you!