Purgatorio

"Whence, Shimmy? Have you lost your direction? What is the earth?"

Guy Debord stood in the bathroom doorway. I scurried between his legs. Jumped in the tub.

Water didn't come out.

"Is purgatory a bad place, Debord? Meaning you don't suffer there."

I walked back into the hallway.

"The new privation is not far removed from the old penury," he replied. Guy Debord ran his fingers through his hair. He turned around and looked at the bathtub spigot as if it said something he couldn't understand.

He added, "It requires most people to participate as wage workers in the endless pursuit of its attainment."

"What time is it right now in Baghdad? Why haven't I seen Ngo Dinh Diem since Rumsfeld disappeared?"

I smelled arthritis medicine powder in my food. An insufferable crack was growing between two floorboards.

"Why does Tony Snow walk to the podium if all he can speak is thin, sniping clatter?" Debord asked. He lit a Gaulois.

He said, "Let's presume Tony Snow is mathematically imprudent. If so, then we must then determine whether his tongue is sweet and breezy, like a furnace, or just dainty."

"I was taught that we need to pray, fast, and give alms to relieve the suffering of those in Purgatory. Please help me understand why this has changed. Someone just has to tell me how and when this changed."

"Nothing about Purgatory has changed, Shimmy, at least in my mind."

"The specialized science of domination must in turn specialize," I said. Birds or bats could fly in my mouth. Or a bag of moths.

Debord added, "It fragments itself into sociology, psychotechnics, cybernetics, and semiology -- watching over the self-regulation of every level of the process."

"Why do you keep looking back at the bathtub spigot?"

"The soul in Purgatory being cleansed is happy, Shimmy, in spite of the hard process. Because it knows firmly that eventually it will be saved. Perhaps this is why great priests say Purgatory is not a bad place."