Oh God

Thom and I were lovers for almost nine years. For the last ten we have continued as friends, having dinner every Friday night. He has a very unusual dream life, including both frequent lucid dreaming and complex linear narratives of himself in other lives.

Recently he had a very long dream where he died, violently but accidentally, and was presented in the afterlife to St Peter (in charge of the keyboard that controlled the big screen where your life was replayed) and to a being --an ordinary but outsized white guy, neither Morgan Freeman nor George Burns--who identified himself as God. He also got to spend some time with a figure who matches Satan.

Thom resists being called an atheist but certainly resists believing in God. Religious authority is not his thing. He thinks of it as a childish escape from reality. His youthful experience in black Baptist church made him think of the whole thing as both incoherent and hypocritical. Very much in character, even in the dream he maintained this skeptical and mildly combative stance . He found God to be rather passive aggressive. The Devil seemed to be a not very imaginative bully. He was un-awed. Both God and the Devil found him frustrating.

I've known Thom a long time. I can relate!

Anyway, as part of this dream, he got to ask God questions. He said, "I want to know about hell. I used to talk about this with my ex."

At this point God rolls his eyes and says, "Oh. Him."

Thom raised his hand and answered, "This is my time. You can talk to him yourself when he comes here."



"Oh. Him."

I was honored to be mentioned. And very funny.