Kulted

I awoke to a shotgun muzzle in my eye and a husky Non-Perceptic instructing me to get my faggot ass out of bed before he shot my gay face off. He had onion breath and wore a bulletproof vest bearing the letters "A," "T" and "F."

It appears that the shit had finally hit the fan. A dozen years of service and worship—not to mention the generous donation of life savings—and we come to find out that not only is the Honorable Countess Von Hellschmidt neither honorable nor a countess but also that her real name is Becky Griswold and she’s from Fall River, MA? I mean, can you imagine? And now the rest of us are out on the street, just like that. We didn’t know about the embezzlement, the tax evasion, the bestiality … okay, maybe we knew a little bit about the bestiality. I never actually witnessed it with my own eyes, but when the grapevine whispers, us Perceptics tend to listen. Mostly because the Honorable Countess never allowed books, newspapers or television up in this pig. Radios and the Internet were also strictly forbidden. She said that such devices only dimmed the Perceptic light inside of us.

We were on the verge of moving the whole operation to Montenegro, too—free from the Non-Perceptic clutches of the federal government and all of its oppressive departmental acronyms. Another six months and we’d have been occupying a higher plane of spiritual existence, nestled safely in the Slavic bosom of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It’s really too bad, because we had a good thing going. We grew our own crops, installed solar panels, dug compost pits. With the exception of our water supply, we were almost entirely off the grid. Life was simple: Each of us was issued a couple of pale yellow dressing gowns, a pair of sandals, a prayer mat, and a gardening tool. I worked my way up from hedge clipper to leaf blower inside of 18 months. I was a favorite of the den mother’s, too. On Burning Ring Of Fire & Advanced Behavior Mod night (every other Thursday, 7pm in the rec hall), we’d sneak away and do the business in a pantry just off the main kitchen. The staff was heavily sedated, of course, and took no notice of us.

They locked us in our rooms every night promptly at 10. After living in the Travolta wing of the Hervé Villechaize Dormitory for 33 months or so, the den mother began visiting me after lights-out. Sometimes, we would escape to the verandah for a quick telekinesis session and a round of naked Slip N’ Slide. Once in a while, the Honorable Countess would join us, her pendulous breasts spilling over the front of her distended belly like a pair of wet hams. After a few all-too-brief hours of gently lubed debauchery, I would be in an elevated trance state, in love with the cosmos, my fellow Perceptics and my beatific life at the compound. Nevertheless, I would be remanded back to my room to practice my psychic stress positions.

Meanwhile, my Kirlian photography classes continued unabated, and by 1999 my clearance level was relatively high. That’s when it all came crashing down, just days before the Honorable Countess had promised us that the impending millennium would signal the Great Xagog’s return to the earthly realm, upon which he would wipe out many of the Honorable Countess’ most contemptible mortal enemies, and the streets of Utopia Acres would run red with the blood of infidels or whatever. Instead, the Feds broke the door down, seized the entire compound, and kicked us all to the curb. It was a black day in Broward County, alright: Turns out the Honorable Countess was a total fraud, a former madam and probably a horse-fucker. And to think of all the things I used to do to her with my mouth.

This bullshit originally appeared in the December 2009 issue of Decibel magazine.