Anthropomorphic Nihilism

Once upon a time, not a very long time ago nor in a very faraway place, there lived, for a very brief instant in time, a very young title in search of a story. It had heard of Neil Gaiman’s short story “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of Dread Desire” and that had turned out rather well, thus, it found itself inspired, albeit perhaps not quite prepared for success. The following is what, after not looking all that long or, to be honest, without very much exertion, it created:

The story started with an exclamation bereft of an introduction or of any character development or context, although, to an extent, context sort of followed:

“So what! Who cares? What’s the difference anyway?”

In that manner, in a huff, a disputation appeared to end, one between inanimate marble busts of “purported saints” Peter and Paul, sculptures crafted by one of Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso’s lesser known relatives who, for reasons of his or her own, chose to remain anonymous.

The busts had been stored in a vestibule deep in the heart of the Vatican, a vestibule located within a labyrinth of sorts, not an artfully designed or planned labyrinth but rather, one that had seemingly evolved on its own as discarded tomes and relics and pieces of art accumulated in utterly random order, or rather, in a sort of articulated disorder. Both saints on whom the busts had been purportedly modeled were reputed, within certain clandestine circles, to have been secret agents planted several millennia ago by Sanhedrin agents (precursors to the current Israeli Mossad) as provocateurs among naïve early followers of a troublesome Nazarene rabbi in order to undermine the early Judaic heretic sect all too quickly spreading like some sort of early virus (although viruses preceded humans by many eons).

For some odd reason, the busts of the purported saints, both of whom found themselves somewhat unexpectedly set in carefully hidden niches, were declaiming in a variant of sorts of modern English, although with blended Brooklyn-Yiddish accents, perhaps understandably given that the event to which we are alluding occurred relatively shortly after a visit by a group of the Vatican janitors and Swiss Guards assigned to the Vatican’s deepest dungeons, or perhaps storerooms; an incognito visit to the tourist filled Bioparco di Roma which was just then hosting a large American tourist group of former Yeshiva students. One should, however, keep in mind, that the phrase “relatively shortly” may have a relative temporal meaning where the Vatican is involved.

Although, … perhaps the foregoing was just a dream one of the janitors or Swiss Guards was having after a hearty but poorly prepared meal using ingredients perhaps well past their due dates, certainly none of which met with Kosher dietary exigencies. It’s been known to happen. Well, not exactly in this fashion, but perhaps, metaphorically ….

Or perhaps not.

On the other hand ….

No Neil Gaiman here, … unfortunately, he’s regrettably otherwise occupied.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.