Bored out of my gourd, I joined a cult, and not just any cult, but one of those weird, sadomasochistic cults with whips, chains, candles, and goats. Honestly, boredom got me in the door, but the charisma of the leader, Bert Whitson, kept me there. Lord Bert, as we call him affectionately, views the world as a cesspool of humanity that would soon implode from hatred, bigotry, and sexism—but, oddly enough, not bestiality.
Though of Scottish descent, our leader often goes by another name, Herr Bertmeister, for he found his first commune at Baden-Baden, Germany, on the very site where Roman legions massacred intergalactic Celtic warriors just as they were receiving a message from the Mother Ship. You won’t find this fact in the history books, for an Archangel named Hädchen revealed the sad truth to Bert, our noble leader, when he was only four years old. By the way, he has proven the veracity of this whole story time and time again by periodically showing critics pieces of the spaceship that date back to the first century.
The Romans under the command of a proconsul named Cornelius Lucius destroyed the Mother Ship in 9 AD, an act which brought direct ruin upon the Empire four centuries later. I mentioned the commander’s name only to explain one of our leader’s principles, Cornelianism, which Lord Bert defines as the destructive force in the world. Indeed, Cornelius stands for the hate, greed, chauvinism, and ethnocentrism that will stop at nothing to devour the pure ones, whom Bert refers to as Electro-Lights. After Lord Bert’s wife, God-Mother Alice, died of what the ignorant, Cornelian medical establishment called cancer, he received a vision indicating the return of the Mother Ship to take him and all of his faithful followers to the heavenly side of the galaxy where his beloved awaits. This is a timely message, for Cornelianism surrounds us like a dark cloud.
Our leader’s particular genius is having figured out, with mathematical calculation and judicious analysis of every intergalactic visitation to earth since the first century AD, the exact moment when the world will end. Bert hasn’t revealed details of the Apocalypse to us, his family, nor to the disbelieving world outside the five communes he’s established in Germany, Australia, and Montana. Until this time, however, faithful adherents of Bert’s teaching such as myself will live by his principles.
Our leader’s particular genius is having figured out, with mathematical calculation and judicious analysis of every intergalactic visitation to earth since the first century AD, the exact moment when the world will end. Bert hasn’t revealed details of the Apocalypse to us, his family, nor to the disbelieving world outside the five communes he’s established in Germany, Australia, and Montana. Until this time, however, faithful adherents of Bert’s teaching such as myself will live by his principles.
