This is a two part fandango, part one is here. I've added an epilogue.
So as Job strides awkwardly into the sunset hands firmly trousered, God turns to Satan with a big grin.# This not being Satan's first rodeo, the pink poltergeist deadpans: "sure, Job can take the death of his kids and corporation - who cares about all that stuff, it's just a hassle, but let him start getting it in the shorts, with scabies, rabies, cankers on his wanker, shingles on his dingles and so on and he'll most definitely flip you off next Godday." And believe it or not, God buys Satan's line of hooey again. If I could get ten minutes alone with Our Lord, I'm sure I could sell him on a Whole Life policy - the premium would be infinite. Particularly when you remember that God is immortal which judging from the gap jawed credulous reaction that God gave to Satan's BS He won't consider until after He signs the paper work.
He'd probably just send the premium notices to Job for payment and if you recall, Job is seriously broke and as Satan spoke was already breaking out in an untold number of different rashes and painful conditions. Fortunately with trousered hands, he was able to discreetly deal with the discomfort while still on the parade route. But when he got home, or more accurately hovel, he yanked his hands out of his pockets and did a full body scratch, screaming: "Zits? You kill my kids and now you give me zits? Satan you bastard!".
Job had friends, like he had a wife. And just about as useful to a broke bezitted wreck scratching his itching and weeping sores in the ashes of his suburban Susa split level. They were very respectful, quietly coming up:
"Job? Job? JOB!"
"Wha? Oh....id's you, Sol"
"Yeah, how're ya doin' buddy?"
Job is having a hard time talking on account of all of the sores on the inside and outside of his mouth so he motions Sol to come closer.
"I'm habbing a widdle har dime dawking"
"Having a bit of talking trouble are you Job?
"Des. Ids beddy hard do dalk wid all dese sores"
"So I see, so I see, say Job I wanted to...."
"I don dink God likes me mush annymore"
"Well you see that's what I want...."
"Cause he led dad Sadan guy kill my kids and gib me sores and wreck my bidness, whid sucks, de basdard!"
"Who God or...."
"Sadan, sadan is the basdard, tho God led him basdard me, why did God led Sadan basdard me, Sol?"
"Well isn't it obvious, Job? You must have done something really bad."
"I cand dink whud I did, my wif said dad I did a bunch of bad dings to her bud i don dink God dinks dose are bad dings. What bad dings did I do do God, Sol? Why wond he dell me? I ask him in prar and he dond dell me anyding ad all. Why dond he dell me noding, Sol?"
"Well you must have done something wrong, Job, because God wouldn't screw with you just to win a bet with Satan or something. He only does stuff like this to people for the best of reasons. Maybe you should just flip him the bird next Godday. I mean anything's better than this."
"No, Sol, I didnd do anyding wrong so I dond wand do give God de bird. God gave me lods of good dings and so now he gives me evil dings so I need to take the evil wid de good."
I note this passage because Job makes a very strange point (and Yes I know that it was his wife and not Sol he was talking to and that Sol is just a composite of his friends, my you are being miss Suzy Sunday School today aren't you?) that the God that gave him 'good' things is also justified in bringing him 'evil' things and I guess bringing Satan around for Sabbath dinner definitely falls into the evil category. But this good and evil dichotomy is quite significant,....it's just on the tip of my tongue, yeah, it's sort of like that yingyang, no, that's not it, that's dirty or Korean or something. It's Munchkinism, yellow brick road and all. No, that's not right either, less Wizard of Oz than Wizard of Id and that's Manichaeism! Yeah that's right! Manichaeism is where God brings both Good and Evil in one package but I thought it was verboten or verklempt or something. Because if I remember my church history didn't St. Augustine fight against the Manicheaters? Or was manichean just another word for crab grass because Saint "A" certainly did invent an important warm weather varietal grass that he planted all over the City of God, even the bits that weren't warm and humid, hence the crab grass problem that he had. And a yard half full of St. Augustine and half crabgrass would definitely be the Yin and Yang of lawncare.
And then there were the Hippos, I think Saint A fed the grass to Hippos, didn't he? Or something like that. If not, why was he of Hippo? Was he fat?
Anyway, Satan, with the enthusiastic endorsement of the One True God or the Tri Un God (funny how they sound the same, isn't it?), did another round of unholy hammering on Job. He hammered his skin, his mouth, his nasal passages, his (crotch), his legs, his arms, his butt, absolutely everything except his termagent wife which is definitive proof that at least some wives are in league with the Devil to torment their husbands. Ladies, you know who you are.
But Job didn't break. Not a yelp or half baked gesture came from the stinking, pus covered, quivering mess that Job had become. He resolutely refused to flip God off or even bitch slap his shrieking wife. And when Godday came around and Satan wouldn't let any of the surviving cattle or chattel carry Job past the reviewing stand, he dragged his own scrofulous body trailing a smear of necrotic flesh and pus behind him to the hushed nausea of the waiting throng. It took him forever to do this so most of the throng got over their hushed nausea and took the break in the action as their cue to leg it to the concession stand. So nobody actually saw Job drag over the finish line except for a small child who told him he stank.
And God. To give God his due I think by this time He was feeling rather guilty at all of the misery he had let Satan put Job through. But the official line is that God's perfect and all seeing and knowing and a snappy dresser to boot, so he didn't come too close to Job lest his gleaming raiment be spattered with phlegm. But he did see that Job was compensated for his troubles. He got new wives (which ticked 'ol Termagent off to no end "I told you that if you didn't flip off God you'd end up with new wives, didn't I tell....") and a bunch of new kids plus tons of even better cattle, chattel and rattles and it wasn't long before JobCorp was trading on the Big Board and Fortune named him 'Comeback of the Millenium'.
And Job still praised God and was the keystone in His church. But when it gets quiet and he's all alone, he thinks back to one particular little red haired girl. She would sit on his lap and he would look in her crystal blue eyes and tell her that 'I love you and so does God'. And he can't help but remember his granddaughter's shrieks as she was burned alive at the behest of Job's 'best' friend: the One True God.
So is Job better now? Yes. Is Job as he was before? No. And while Job loves God, it is a love shot through with fear and horror at the monster that at any moment He can - and no doubt someday - will become again.
#Which raises another question: Why should God give a rip what Satan thinks? Honestly, you'd think that Satan had something on the Old Boy the way that He simpers and minces around the little devil. It's positively nauseating. In a very spiritual and I'm quite sure perfect way, of course.
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