The Incredible Shriveling Man

One of the scariest scenarios of all, the most terminally unsettling, had been the
predicament of The Incredible Shrinking Man. Not only was his unfathomable future
to shrink into oblivion but he had to flee from the family cat in the process as
well as kill a ‘giant’ spider with a pin. I think he escaped from the cat by
hiding in a child’s doll house. Maybe he stabbed its paw with a pin too. I would.
And what weird and futuristic monsters would he have to deal with on the atomic
level? And how would he feed himself and sleep and… And what about the subatomic
level? Not that I knew those terms at the time. What happened then? In theory, he
could go on shrinking forever. Atoms cold be the size of planets, or a universe.
The mind boggled. It was about as unpleasant a prospect as an infinity of pain the
religionists, the Christians were so keen to remind us kids of if we stepped out
of line or at least that’s how it seemed to me.
I just couldn’t get my head around the Jesus thing at all. A vivid image of
myself, walking along the High Street, contemplating this, in a hazy, pea soup of
thought kind of way, groping for a realization, an insight if I could, aware that
there was a centuries, millennia length of tradition and conviction revolving
around this, nay – that it hinged on it. But the more I thought about it the more
illogical and cruel it seemed; that a benevolent God would send his ‘Son’ – his
only Son, whatever that meant – to die ‘on our behalf’.
As I understood it, that meant he died in place of us. This meant that for some
reason, God wanted to kill me – me with all my pleasure from reading and love for
L when I ever thought about it and my friends too, along with the bullies and
other boors and ignoramuses.
That seemed a little harsh even for them. Even for my mother. And again for me,
however much fun Alex and me had had through our stealing sprees at the
Woolworth’s in this same High Street, pulling out and examining and chortling and
drooling over our spoils at the back of the building. Paints and glue and
paperbacks and sweets in my case along with the incomprehensibly odd choices on
his part – plastic knifes and wallets and cigarette lighters, but all the
predictable paraphernalia of the kind of thing one would expect boys to want and
accumulate, only we couldn’t afford it and neither could our parents and neither
would they have seen the point of it all, but to me it was like manna from heaven.

I was sure God would understand, if I ever let Him float into mind. And anyway I
could as quickly shove Him out of it if not, then distract myself with more
goodies.
It was a bit of a comedown, a bit of a drag to think that Jesus may have died for
this; that he had went through the agony of the Cross and humiliation in order for
us – me – to carry on willy-nilly, and hang the consequences and to hell with my
conscience.
The fact was I didn’t believe it. I knew it had taken place as a historical event
but I was sure God had better things to concern himself with than an excitable and
harmlessly avaricious kid helping himself to whatever interested him. It was as
clear as day why they were available; they were there to make money.
That much of it was what intensely attracted and interested me was either
serendipity or brilliant insight in the manufacturers part and as for books, such
as the volumes of Tarzan I helped myself to, I knew this was quality goods however
cheaply made and packaged. It was literature and the fact was my mother didn’t
give a toss about my interest in that.
Moreover it was more accurate to say she resented it. I didn’t share any thoughts
on ‘religion’ and God with anyone either. Those in charge believed what they
believed and I already knew they could be inconsistent and chidish and
hypocritical. It seemed natural to mull things over myself and come to my own
conclusions.
And it seemed equally ridiculous or at least very unlikely that anyone could be
condemned for eternity to the flames – the, er, fiery pits of hell. That this was
as real a prospect as was the possibility of going to heaven, itself as much of a
myth to me. Yet there had been moments…It didn’t seem natural to think of God on
that way. And if he could kill the good, the best of us as I knew Jesus
represented, then how come the bad and the indifferent escaped that fate? How come
none of them were chosen to take on the sins of the rest of us and might even
escape such a painful death (though hell might or would get them in the end)? What
was the point of being ‘good’ if it made you a marked man even in God’s eyes? The
very Being one might expect to be pleased about it and give one ones just reward
for it.
In short, who the hell would want to be Jesus? And hadn’t he even asked ‘for this
cup to be taken away from me' during the ‘agony in the Garden'?
But apparently he didn’t really mean it or it was only a moment of terminal
discouragement and he soon came back to his senses and awareness of his mission. A
moment of temporary insanity in a sane scenario, apparently.

I would call it a moment of sanity in a surely insane scenario. Faced with the
choice of that wasp-sting I would let the world go to hell in a handbasket and
Jesus along with it. I would consider the same over a sufficiently excruciating
toothache. At least the nails through my hands and feet might prove a distraction.
Nope, the whole thing was circular. You could go around and around with this until
the cows came home or forever. For anyone to die to save me made no logical sense.
It would mean the world was based on a crazy premise and God was just as mad.
Maybe the religionists, the men in frocks, the Churches, my teachers at school had
it all wrong. They were perfectly, even absurdly capable of getting the wrong end
of the stick at the best of times and if God created the world and saw that it was
good, why would he want to kill us? Oh he didn’t, he only killed the best guy to
save us? And anyway, he was resurrected. Right, so having now taken on board all
our sins for himself, he and we are now magically purified and will live forever
like him in immortal bodies forever? as long as we’re good, otherwise we’ll go to
the fiery scaly place where all is great gnashing of teeth and where we were all
destined to go anyway before Christ came along, so really, little has changed.
In fact one might assume that as Jesus has taken on all our sins it might not even
matter what we do if we are now innocent and sinless forever, but hey, I can
understand that that would only make me feel guilty in the long run, but what
I couldn't understand – along with the rest of the above – is how a good guy has
to go through real pain and real death to come out the other side in a now
immortal body while others as yet, whether mad or bad or indifferent/lukewarm will
still screw up for all eternity.
Surely a more reasonable and sane and manageable scenario would be if it was a
learning process? If Jesus has already demonstrated sins are not eternal as he now
lives forever then why would that apply only to him and not for the rest of us,
because, let’s face it, he can make mistakes too if the agony in the garden is
anything to go by, and where would we be then?
But good always prevails? Presumably that’s why he was Chosen to begin with.
It’s all very convenient and circular. I still think it’s a case of either/or.
Either we are saved or we’re not. It’s more likely we do as much harm to ourselves
as to others. And that mistakes are not irredeemable sins but a learning process
on the journey to immortality, but Jesus had demonstrated already that immortality
is ours as it always was for him, as was ultimate sinlessness. You’d think. And
now he lives in some new or ethereal superbody. Wherever he lives, on whatever
plane he exists, he’s now the literal equivelant of Superman. God’s goal is,
apparently, to create a race of Supermen, Superbeings on the way to eternity to
live as Superdupermen and Superduperwomen along with our favourite Superduperdogs
and parrots and the rest while the Supersinners squirm in hell for all eternity
too – meaning there’s two eternities - which again made no sense to me as eternity
is surely one – a whole, indivisible, unending, forever; that’s what it means. If
it isn’t eternity, then it’s something else. Hell perhaps. And so it goes.
Eventually one comes to suspect all it is, is a pile of Superduperhorseshit. That
people don’t really know what they’re talking about, least of all the people
who’ve set themselves up to be and be seen as the authorities on the subject.
That it’s all a crock to keep the sense of sin, of believing oneself to be a bad
person, alive, through seeing that in others. That that it isn’t what God decreed
at all. They’ve made it all up themselves. It’s a myth, a fairy story to keep
eternity from us - or us from eternity - and so we see God as the epitome of fear
and victimisation, and Jesus as a hateful figure for what he seems to demand of us
– sacrifice and pain.
Thanks but no thanks. I’ve pain enough as it is. It seems to me the traditional
Christian view of salvation has much in common with the Nazis. It’s all about
elites and indestructible bodies or as near as. And finding scapegoats in order to
justify it. The damned and the saved, the guilty and the innocent, the good and
the bad, winners and losers. And the bad is whomever and whatever doesn’t fit
their definition of salvation and reality. It’s all about being a ‘good’ body.
And just 'like' God, that means killing other bodies on God’s behalf for their own
good; to save them from and for themselves. Whatever that means.

It’s ironic. Now I can think of Mrs McDonald at school, grabbing the Pow! comic
from my hand. I wasn’t reading it but giving it a loving once over before I put it
back in my bag, relishing the prospect of Spidey’s epic battle with the dreaded Dr
Doom. It was issue number 10. She had walked up the isle - a small clasroom -
between our desks, and now she glared at it in undisguised disgust and contempt.
‘What is this rubbish?’
She went back to her place in front of the blackboard, but first tossing the
priceless artefact into the wastepaper basket.
I was outraged: dumfounded; speechless. I was nine or ten - and sorely tempted to
defy her by taking it out of the basket on the sly when the class finished. I
liked her – or thought I did. I generally assumed most people were sane and meant
well by me, until proven otherwise. What wasn’t to like? She had once said God is
everywhere. In the company of my classmates I was inclined to be flippant of
course. I wanted to ask if God was sitting on my earlobe but I knew she wouldn’t
see the genuinely puzzled but earnest enquiry behind the humour and she was a bit
too zealous with the old two leather fingers she kept in her desk. I seemed to be
her favourite on that account.
But it was a genuinely thought-provoking observation on her part, I’d thought. I
wished we could have discussed it further. If I was less bashful and felt less
ambivalent towards her I might have broached the subject if I could get a moment
alone with her. Now I was feeling even less ambiguous about her. The woman was
clearly a cretin. One didn’t open oneself up to such creatures as these. I
chickened out of challenging her authority head on by consoling myself with the
thought I would find buy another copy as soon as possible before it sold out. I
forgot. Out of side out of mind. The sense of loss and anger came back to mind for
years. I had been a hairs breadth to saying the ten year old equivalent of ‘fuck
it’ (‘Fuck it’, perhaps) and taking the comic back anyway. I felt she was
unjustifiably interfering with my life. It had cost money. It was separate from
school. I had been only glancing at it in passing. The woman was an unimaginative,
interfering, tyrannical busybody. I might not have the vocabulary to articulate it
but I knew it was the case. One didn’t reason with such people, one acted. Chalk
up another inexplicable attack on a teacher – meaning she manhandles me in the act
of taking what I owned and what was owed me.
Only I didn’t as I say. I repressed it. And began wearing a big Batman insignia
badge I picked up somewhere, perhaps a free gift in another comic. It didn’t
distract me from lessons and it served to remind her of my interests along with
her grievous sin. As unintentional on my part as it was unconscious. I even took
to doing drawings in class of Batman, done at breakneck speed for a penny or two
to classmates. I was the small centre of attention. She didn’t seem to mind.
Talent always perplexed and even awed the plebs I think. They were obliged to
think of the possibility there might really be a higher authority than their own
and its light flickered through me. I wonder whatever happened to Spiderman and
Doctor Doom and Batman and the rest…

Random memory: of wandering up the stairs of one of the old flats near us, with
the spiral stairs and the concrete platforms with railings on the other side –
‘pletties’. There were a couple of girls I liked and that were pretty that lived
there, a bit younger than me. Maybe they would be around. I could say I was
looking for Jackie, an older kid who lived there, though I didn’t know him. In our
territorial way, he was the enemy. As I came to their floor or plettie and walked
along to their flat or the one I thought might be their flat – I wasn’t quite
sure, I noticed their door was open – or what was perhaps their door. I peered
through the window. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, so stupidly, I went in.
Curiosity overcame the natural fear of discovery if they anyone came back
unexpectedly. There wasn’t much to see. Maybe at the back of my mind was the
thought of finding something worth having but as I knew them, however loosely –
and the fact they were girls gave the situation a romantic and subliminaly
sexual aura that made the temptation less likely. I never stole from friends. It
wasn’t even a conscious decision. It wasn’t done. One stole from adults, the
establishment, the system -though I never thought of it in those terms either.
A small, shabby looking flat. They had nothing. Just like us, only they had less.
I noticed a wasp silently buzzing the window from the inside. Now I was wary,
though the sting episode was in the future. It was time to go. Or distract myself
with the wasp. I found a newspaper and swatted it into the basin of water in the
sink. In the casually sadistic way of boys, I wanted to see how it might react,
what it would do. And the water would immobilise its wings, though when I lifted
it out with a spoon I still felt an irrational apprehension as if it might
suddenly fly at me.
What was fascinating was to be able to examine it at leisure. Its head looked as
if it had an actual face, though I knew it was only the pattern it had, yet it
looked like some malevolent alien from another planet. Its sheer otherness was
creepily alien. I could identity with animals and birds easily enough but /I just
couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be a wasp. It seemed more akin to a robot
of some kind. Gleefully amoral, without conscience of any kind. And with a sting
of unknown potentiality I had yet to experience. Unpleasant and ugly, they really
had nothing to recommend them.
But I was still reluctant to drown it or even kill it in any other way, so I let
it go and left before anyone came back. I seemed to live in a world in my head. It
was as if I was attracted to and curious about things no one paid the least
attention to, though it was obvious enough they did as I could attain books on
almost any subject that interested me. No doubt I had perused some large colour
drawing of a wasp and its attendant thorax and other body parts. The stark reality
was far more alien and unsettling for that reason. My unspoken and unarticulated
question was why would God, if he existed at all, create such a pointlessly nasty
creature?
Yet I could feel something for it as it existed. Like myself, I could safely
assume it couldn’t recall asking to be born or had any idea why it existed. It as
the victim of its own nature. Why should I compound that by victimising it
further. It seemed to be the predator but this line of thought offered a subtly
different way of perceiving it. Now, as with flies, I’ll kill them as soon as look
at them. Treat them like a murderous, psychopathic crazy person. Put them out of
commission with dispassionate prejudice.

That was weird. I just had the sudden sensation of a slight pressure on my neck
just above the collar of this heavy black Nike pullover I’m wearing. A sudden if
slight attack of the willies. It genuinely felt as if there was an insect on me.
Maybe there was. Talk about the power of suggestion. Oddly enough, the thought of
wasps has become almost synonymous with the memory of the same old flats with
'pletties' that we lived up until when I was six or seven.
Left alone, I watched an episode of the old black and white Outer Limits series.
This one featured alien spiders that talked and ran amok in the town, and running
all over the ceiling, as I recall. Needless to say, I had never seen anything like
it. With their little talking faces, I watched in subdued horror and much
fascination. At five or six I knew it was only a TV show but it was literally the
stuff of nightmares. The world was a far more interesting place with these sort of
scenarios in it. Anything was possible. Pigs might fly, but that would be far too
mundane.
In retrospect I see now that that was what the wasps face reminded me of. Some
cold, alien intelligence. Only the wasp was as dull and robotic as it could be
quick and unpredictable, like any insect. For some reason I had always assumed
those talking spiders were from Mars. Maybe they were. It's possible I only
imagined them talking, the experience was so intense. Thinking what I thought
they might be thinking.