Pie in the Sky

  


   Pie was their pride. The whole town of Pi had a whole festival, called the Pie Festival, where they celebrated the holiness of the pie one day of the year.
    Some pies were rather holey, and had areas where the pie filling could be seen: delicious cherry filling or a tantalizing vanilla cream. Some pies had no holes or pockets, and only had a fetching layer of pumpkin atop the small pie crust.

   Not everyone likes pies, though the town made it a law that everyone was to enjoy pie without exception. One small boy, Charles, thought pies were disgusting because they were too crumbly, too sweet, and just really an unappetizing mess.

                Knowing of the boy’s unfavorable views of pies, the town felt defensive. “Why not? Why don’t you like pies? Do you not believe that pies are not good for us? How can anyone not like pies”
    “I just think they’re yucky…too much fruit in them”
  “What about the sainted Crème pie?”the high chef asked.

  “Yuck, you mean something like a Boston crème… No, I like cake far more.”the boy said, disgusted that anyone would try to force him to eat gross pie.

     The feast was coming up, and Charles’s admission caused a scandal for the whole town depended upon unanimous, unflinching agreement that pie is the greatest food. Their whole town depended upon this love to win the favor of the great pie god.

 “What will the Pie God have to say about this?” the high chef protested. “Do you know what happened the last time someone had unbelief in the goodness of pie? We could all be baked alive by the great heater in the sky, which carries far more heat than our holy ovens.”

                The town people argued for hours, and many of them started alleging that the boy was a cake demon, a minion of the insidious “Devil Cake.”

                “Haven’t any of you heard of what the Devil Cake seeks to do? He wants to have dominion over what we freely elect to eat,” one concerned townsperson fretfully mentioned. All the townspeople grew even more terrified about the unfolding events. What was the devil cake concocting this year?

                All the townspeople were relatively serene, quaint people. Like anyone, they were susceptible to the foibles of human irrationality when the pie of their life was being threatened. When the feast came, they all started gathering ingredients for the scheme they were cooking up. It was a whole different type of pie, one that would hopefully sate the Great Pie God’s hunger for wholesome pie.

                Poor Charles was only walking back to his home, before the irate townspeople snatched him away. “STOP.. What are you doing? Sue, Phil, Uncle Todd, I know all of you so well. I just don’t like pie…”
     “Shush your heathen talk, the Great Pie God is listening; There will be chaos, if we don’t have everyone in town show their unwavering devotion for pie. You don’t believe in the holiness of pie or the supremacy of the Great Pie God in our lives.” The other townspeople agreed with Sue, who was Charles’ own mother. She had got caught up in the craziness that she had forgotten that it was her own son that she was allowing to be baked alive right before her eyes.

                All the townspeople looked starved, as they pushed little Charles into the tribal bowl used for the creation of the sacrificial pie for the pie fest..

                “Actually, this works in our favor! The Great Pie God purposely created Devil Cake only to further his own divine plan. Also, he has a far bigger appetite than he has ever had. This depraved boy can be used for the good of community, for the greater Pie God will certainly savor our bounty.” The high chef proudly yelled aloud to the fervid crowd.
        “Yes, we are so willing to give one of our own to appease his hunger. Bless the Great Pie God! WE LOVE PIE!!!”  Charles mother added.

    “Mom, MOM MOOOMMMM” Charles became distressed, as he was sealed into the viscous pie batter. His screams resounded through the batter, and only a garbled whimper could be heard from the batter choking his breath.  Eventually, he stopped breathing altogether, and the batter with his lifeless body in it was placed in the oven..

    Caught up in the hysteria, his mother began silently praying for the Pie God to accept the sacrifice of her own sinful son. The town hardly knew that they were talking to themselves, praying to an imaginary Pie God that really was the poltergeist of their own villainy. They silenced everything “different” from themselves, and baked them alive every year. Inevitably, they’d be the ones eating the sacrificial pie themselves, since there was no Pie God to even serve it to.

      Ironically, the differences of those people they ended up baking was a part of them once they ingested it. There was always some small shred of that unholy difference that remained a part of each one of them.

                After the pie came out of the oven, the townspeople ate the pie without reflecting on any of this. They were hungry, and they were starved to satisfy their hunger, and deny altogether the reality of their frantic lunacy. They needed to escape reality; security in life was fleeting. Only pie can bring wholeness, and anyone that breaks that secure wholeness must be eradicated.

                Once the pie was eaten, the people fell into a gratified stupor and fell asleep. Nobody ever thought of Charles. The preservation of the ideal that pie was infallibly good must be preserved at all costs!