I've Decided to Leave My Church

"I've been worried about you, Shimmy."

The burst of a match, tiny particles of magnetite and silicate quivered above the south forest of the living room. The ripe smell of Gauloises!

"I've decided to leave my church, Debord," I said. "It's a highly personal decision." I licked a ball of dust and pollen from my right paw.

"Where have you been?" he asked.

"Asleep in the empty Fed Ex box in front of the bookcases. On a pile of manuscripts on the floor. In Tony's suitcase after he got back to Chicago. On top of the tabletop hockey game under the bed. Sometimes I sleep on Blood, Money, and Power, the book by Scott McClellan's father that claims Lyndon Johnson ordered JFK's assassination."

"Shimmy, I'm sure that it's comfortable sleeping on books and tabletop hockey games. But the satisfaction which no longer comes from going to church is now sought in the recognition of the church's value as a commodity," Debord said. He flicked an ash on the rug.

"The use of commodities becomes sufficient unto itself," I said. "The churchgoer is filled with religious fervor for the sovereign liberty of his commodities."

Debord's Gaulois hung for dear life from his red-painted corrugated iron lips. He was lax, cut, and kindly. He knelt on one knee to look at me in the empty Fed Ex box that contained pillowcases yesterday.

He said, "A person who collects the key chains which have been manufactured for collection accumulates the indulgences of the commodity -- a glorious sign of his real presence among the faithful."

"Would you be disappointed if Barack Obama stopped believing in God?"

"The only use that remains here, Shimmy, is the fundamental use of submission."