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    God Metaphor
    God Metaphor
    God Metaphor
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    God Metaphor

    By J.W. Carey

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    About this ebook

    The thematic sequel to Adjective Narcissism, within God Metaphor Carey focuses his interest on religion, and the relationships between an author and a deity. The unnamed protagonist returns, recovering from Carey's attentions during the first narrative, and seeks absolution for the thoughts of a greater figure, a figure he rebels against but ultimately obeys; as though he ever had a choice.
    From a student flat high above Liverpool to a hospital ward, Carey's self-obsession makes a stunning return as weird and terrible and thought-provoking as ever.

    'It is a book that is difficult to describe because the story itself does not move much, but the way it is written gives you a beautifully clear picture of how the author feels about his characters,
    about religion,
    and about life.' - onlinebookclub.org

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJ.W. Carey
    Release dateNov 18, 2014
    ISBN9781310575716
    God Metaphor
    Author

    J.W. Carey

    I've lived in the North-West of England my entire life, and in 23 years I haven't managed to achieve a single thing. I write these things because it lets me feel like I've achieved something, and it lets me tell myself that I am something beyond that which I am in my daily life.

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      Book preview

      God Metaphor - J.W. Carey

      The God Metaphor

      John Carey

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2013 John Carey

      Cover by John Carey

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      The God Metaphor

      A Broken Polemic II

      By John Carey

      Contents:

      God Metaphor

      - Me

      - Dante Alighieri

      - Beans On Toast

      - Luke 19:10

      - Aldous Huxley

      - Sándor Petőfi

      - Will Varley

      - Dylan Thomas

      Honesty

      The God Metaphor

      A Broken Polemic II

      By John Carey

      I feel hands on my shoulders, crooked and clawed beneath their heavy weight; a weight only recently placed aside in favour of such molestation. I feel eyes, shifting from my work to their prize and back, conscious, always conscious, that they control something important, as if anything deserved the mass of that unwieldy description. I feel the sickly breath of elegance against the hairs on the back of my neck, of ego racing like the shock of ancient electricity across my arms, of greed and the refusal of change guiding my fingertips.

      I sense death, hidden in the distant mountains, death disguised as honesty or acceptance or the realisation of dreams, as though its meaning could be entrapped in some mass-produced piece of card, gaily inked to spell out fear, in easily understandable definitions. I sense it lying near the top of the deck and my hand, guided by desires I rage against, lowers itself in search of that man-made mysticism. What folly.

      What folly?

      What folly controls it, I cannot begin to realise. What infuriating idiocy makes those fingertips ingrained with ink and grease, with their nails uncut and jagged, attached to bones raging against the confines of the flesh, disobey me in such a way. It doesn’t matter, they will not last longer than I. They are the ones attempting to draw change from his ill-randomised sanctuary amongst ignominy; they are exposed to his whims more than I, remaining as I do in the safety of my ignorance and my judgements, of my steady denial of doubt and the desperate barring of the gates against the onslaught of innovation. These walls I’ve raised are little more than wattle and daub, and every moment in which I find myself blinded by the metaphor of culture in the sky, the flames creep closer and closer and, eventually, they will bake my walls until they crumble around me; until they burn away the oiled patina of my endeavour.

      But still, the stereotype laughs as she slaps my hands away, reaching for the deck instead. It is her whims by which I must, apparently, be guided; pre-prepared actions which spell out delay or the onset of falsified acceptance. Her wrinkled hand, like one belonging to one of the Fates, snaps a thread from her shawl without so much as a glance, the sound no doubt a distraction as she palms her hidden cards into position, and my future spreads out before me. The fertility gone, instead the five cards a still-birth, an unlicensed surgery to remove doubt and hope, as though the dual growth was a cancer in possibilities’ womb.

      The Union is the first card I see. Thanks to some originality on behalf of the creator of these cards the typical image of a man and a woman conjoined is replaced by a Vitruvian man missing a leg. She tells me the card speaks of spiritual sacrifice, of exchanging one thing for another, of completing that which I have long fought to stave off. I am the centre of the future, she tells me in a voice bordering on the obscene in its drama.

      The next card is reversed and I rely on her to tell me that it is the Two of Painting; a card showing some gigantic figure reaching from the Heaven’s or, reversed as it is, from Hell in order to shield two miniature figures. She explains that it is a scene from Dante’s Inferno, that the visual is focused on duality. She tells me that the physical and the mental, the artistic and the real, which I have kept separate as one must maintain the distance between fire and ice, should be conjoined. She claims that I need assistance, that I am not the man to walk this path alone.

      I looked and, behold, a whirlwind comes out of the North, she mutters as though possessed; an act she had no doubt practiced, one that she had reviewed extensively in the mirror hanging behind the purple lace curtains some feet behind her. This card, too, is reversed, and the image is little more than a blur of colour. She spouts nonsense here, explaining that the image holds the four beasts of Revelation. I can only see God, atop his throne, waving towards me like a pimp with a whore, like a leper with a wealthy man. She tells me that God and imagination, that Jesus and Man are the same here, that the four are connected in me. That I am God as much as she, as much as the shadows waiting outside her door. She whispers to me of restraint, of hiding turmoil within an admission of turmoil. She tells me to honour my Gods.

      A hoary old man appears next, the Man of Music, and the artwork is one I recognise. He is old and, therefore, in control. Self-control, integration, mastery; these words fly past me in the language of the unconscious. I cannot interpret her words, as she tells me how to interpret my absent dreams, how to listen to lying oracles and how to read circumstantial omens. She tells me that I must make a thing of beauty; that any other pursuit is worthless and I will be dead before it culminates.

      The final card is not the one I expect. I expect to see Death, that familiarly grim visage or whatever image takes the form of that card amongst this strange tarot. It is reversed, again, and she lets out a sharp bark of a laugh as I wait for her to say the name.

      Error, she tells me, you would know this creature as the Devil, the first of the Fallen Angels, as Satan. I wonder what gave that away to her; the result of some extensive spiritual research, some communion with a long dead religious fanatic or the image of a red, horned figure on a throne. He is within you, not as though you were a character in a bad horror movie, but as a state of mind. Satan is self-doubt, spiritual fear and reason. Satan is the segment of the mind that screams ‘I am God alone: there is no other!’ Error is materialism and delusions of morality. Satan is the doubt against which Imagination fights, in the old adage of Angel versus Angel. In the corners of the image, I can see tortured souls pawing to get away. Some are driven backwards by the bat-wings of their delusions and some are held down by the chains of their introspection; either way they would never escape the confines of this card. Reversed, however, she is quick to point out, means that you are capable of ignoring these chains, of dodging these sharpened wings. You can rise above manipulation, above the duplicity of the self. You must keep yourself ignorant of temptation, of guilt and panic. It means that I am one such poor soul caught within the influence of a creature who was not created so far beneath such things, but one who actively chose to seek out his own joys.

      It is my turn to laugh at her then;

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