that was the year...

that was the year of so many false prophets and we didn’t mind. they were soft boys mostly and their sermons inspired us to want to hug them more than fists. they grew long beards and wore white atheletic tube socks without shoes, little white beanies and white pajama like clothing that they had deemed acceptable to leave bedrooms. they gave their heavy metal albums away and gathered followers more serious than themselves. we couldn’t take them serious though with their semi-erect intellects and their hybrid pleasures. sometimes for fun we’d pull them aside and say he was just joking about the garden, but it never led to a joke as they stared back at us with their glass-eyed gazes. the crowds swelled and the women got pregnant and distant hills grew fire. dust left surfaces and flew out windows with widows, spiders, the strange sound of a ping pong ball bouncing to a stop. the new false prophets became as famous as church burning and after-lifes, radios that spit at us as we walked by. we saw them, always on friday, on the way back from lunch.