This chapter presents the religious movement “O’Cosmic Clowns”. All the world’s most famous scientists, sceptics and atheists have recognised it as true. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and other push-upless, having come to know the truths of this movement, become clownatics. In Lithuania the movement spread in 2004 and is discussed on the forum of the website SKEPTIKAS.org, where the organisation “The Skepquisitor’s Hammer” watches over its purity. Lithuania’s most famous clownologists Nomad, 7x, Vajėzus (‘Ohjesus’), Ramzajus, Ateonas and others have more than once been awarded the international orders of the “Platinum Nose” and the “Checked Trousers”, with a cake in the face, for their educational work, determination and courage in the fight against the mimes. Back in the last century, the famous doctor of clownological sciences Grimaldi “Goldnose” formulated the indisputable scientific proofs of the O’Clowns and presented them to the public:

“The fundamental law of the conservation of matter and energy, proven by science, states that nothing comes out of nothing and nothing vanishes anywhere, but everything only changes its form. Information is a material reflection of material reality on a material carrier of information, like an apple in a mirror. Therefore, if there is information about the O’Cosmic Clowns, the O’Clowns themselves undoubtedly exist too. Like mirrors, the circusites reflect the O’Clowns within themselves and pass them on to the world, proclaiming the word of the O’Clowns. It is through these reflections of the O’Clowns in their consciousness (thoughts) that we can confirm the existence of the O’Clowns. The push-upless are unable to reflect the image of the O’Clowns in their consciousness (thoughts). But, seeing a mirror with an apple reflected in it (the O’Clowns in the circusites), we cannot deny the existence of the apple (the O’Clowns) merely because it is not reflected in the dirty pots standing beside it (the push-upless).”

1854-01-25, International conference “Scientific Clownology and Its Conceptual Significance in the Global Conception”, Grimaldi “Goldnose”.

---

(7x)

Dropping onto my palms, I do push-ups and give thanks for the systematised wisdom of the Clowns! We must not forget that, even before language appeared, the O’Good Cosmic Clown prophesied this event: “And there shall come a da... fuck, fuck off, Bad, I’m prophesying now, so, there shall come a day when the inner side of the mirror shall split into dimensional platforms, bringing the letter of wisdom onto molten stone.” Without a doubt, the prophecy is somewhat enigmatic, but most clownologists (except the recently excommunicated clownolosers) agree that the prophecy means precisely the birth of the systematised word of the O’Clown.

The Bad Clown burst out laughing, and thus came sound and silence. Hearing his laughter, the Good Clown smiled, and the light of his white teeth lit up the world. Thus came light and darkness.

The Clowns had nowhere to put up the circus, so they created dry land, and to have something to squirt at the spectators from their little flowers, the Clowns created an endless source of water – the oceans.

The opposing elements gradually settled into order and harmony arose. The world became fit for raising circus animals – dinosaurs dancing to accordion music, megalodons leaping out of the water and other creatures.

Then the Clowns realised that the animals needed food, because otherwise they would devour one another, and so they created plants. However, some of the animals, having tasted meat, do not feed on plants to this day.

This is how the Universe and the life in it were created.

In the beginning there were only two Cosmic Clowns – Good and Bad. They were everywhere and always. Once they got into a fight, banged foreheads, sparks flew, and thus appeared galaxies, stars, planets, and among them – our Earth too. Later the Clowns marvelled that all the heavenly bodies looked very much like their noses. They thought this was especially cool.

First of all they decided to populate the Earth. They created a man out of compost and named him Adolf. They saw that Adolf was very sad, so they created a dog for him. They named him Waffle.

The Clowns allowed Adolf to walk the dog wherever it wanted, but forbade him to do so between four and five o’clock in the afternoon – that is when the Clowns usually drink tea. But once Waffle could not hold it and peed.

Now the Elephant was craftier than all the other wild animals which the O’Cosmic Clowns, Good and Bad, had made. He asked Waffle:

– Did the Clowns really say: “Do not pee between four and five o’clock in the afternoon!”?

Waffle answered the Elephant:

– I may pee. Only not between four and five in the afternoon, because at that time the O’Clowns drink tea. At that time I may not even lift my leg, or I will die.

But the Elephant said to Waffle:

– You will surely not die. No! The O’Clowns know that when you pee between four and five in the afternoon, you will become like them, able to pee whenever you fancy!

Then Waffle could not hold it and peed. The O’Clowns turned to Adolf:

– Why did your dog do this?

Adolf answered:

– The Elephant deceived him, and I did not hold him back.

The O’Cosmic Clowns, Good and Bad, said to the Elephant:

– Because you have done this, you are cursed among all the cattle and among all the wild beasts. You shall carry seven hundred kilograms of excess calcium all the days of your life. We shall put enmity between you and man, between your offspring and Adolf’s offspring. They shall adorn themselves with your bones, and you shall trample their heads.

The Clowns got most terribly angry, tore one rib out of Adolf and fed it to Waffle. Then they trampled Adolf’s whole potato field, left the Earth and never came back here again.

Adolf had a multitude of offspring – that is how humankind came about.

Now woman was at first a man, but because she sinned (stuffed herself with tomatoes), she lost her organ – the Clowns tore it out by the roots, and the woman bled for five days, suffering stomach cramps. But this was not yet the whole of the Clowns’ fury, and the Clowns said:

– Now, woman, for having transgressed against the CC, you shall remember this sin until you turn 50. And through all the years from the age of 12 (when the woman transgressed) you shall bleed. But only thanks to our mercy will you not bleed to death.

As is well known, before creating the Universe, when there was absolutely nothing, the O’Clowns lived on Mount Bezdiejus (‘Fartias’). The mountain where the cosmic pigs had always longed to set up their trough. One dark night they decided to attack the O’Clowns, and only thanks to the waffler manoeuvre did the latter manage to repel the pigs’ attack and banish them beyond the bounds of the unknown.

More information can be found in the astral plane after drinking a litre of vodka.

And why did people take the technological and not the spiritual path? The pigs materialised in the form of a boar and bewitched the minds of the weak-willed Chinese (it is already clear where their souls will be tormented for all eternity). In the near future the pigs intend to rise into space and clash with the O’Clowns in the last battle.

DELFI • The Chinese have decided to develop a “cosmic pig” breed: “The second manned flight of the spacecraft ‘Shenzhou-6’ (‘Holy Ship-6’) is planned for the autumn. Sent into orbit together with two cosmonauts will be 40 grams of sperm from an elite-breed boar.”

And how can those gullible people not see the obvious? What do you think? Will the Clowns manage to withstand the attack of these pigs? Or perhaps, for fear of spending eternity in a stinking sty, we will have to reorient ourselves to another faith?

Let me just remind you that primary historical sources tell of these ancient battles – engravings on the remains of a wooden outdoor toilet, which an archaeological expedition funded by the Institute of Clownology Research dug up in 1992.

The drawings show a FLAK battery that once stood on Mount Bezdiejus and was 1 of the 22 fortified firing points of the Clown Line.

Since that time the custom has arisen of hanging, burning, tearing up pig effigies or dolls, or the like.

Illustration: a cosmic pig folded by Ąžuolas, intended for everyday burning in worship of the O’Cosmic Clowns. A discount applies when buying 10.

As the old folk tell, there once lived the wicked sage Maxwell. Among his other wickednesses, he was curious how one might part Good from Evil, so that, gathering the latter into one thing, he might conquer the Universe. And so he made a demon, into which, unbeknown to all, he breathed life, and entrusted it with his terrible work.

The demon worked two days, a week and two weeks more, and to that end neither an end nor even a middle was in sight. Then the wicked Maxwell saw that the spell had been badly made and that the demon, instead of parting Good and Evil, was sorting the hot molecules apart from the cold ones. In that despair he then cursed the wide world and, having had a drink, pondered what further evils to work.

Who knows what else would have happened, but after the second bottle of starka the Cosmic Clowns appeared to him. The Good one, hurling a fireball, killed the wicked sorcerer, and the other one cursed the demon. By his word Maxwell’s demon was left locked in a shell at the bottom of the deepest sea and for ten thousand years had to work without any source of energy and do push-ups. In memory of that miracle, nowadays, when you put it to your ear, you can hear the hissing not only of a sea creature’s shell (lt. ‘kriauklė’: a shell, and also a sink), but also of a “Dvarčionių keramika” toilet bowl.

So, if among us there should appear one who did not believe in the Cosmic Clowns, let him listen to the murmur of the shell and think about those mysterious forces thanks to which the world was saved.

But the Cosmic Clowns promised to come back one day. They will be armed with swords of fire and cannons. They will massacre all of Adolf’s infidel descendants, and only 1024 people will remain alive. They will all travel with the Cosmic Clowns to the Eternal Cosmic Circus, where the merriment lasts... and it goes without saying – for ever.

Many circus seasons had passed since the O’Cosmic Clowns (Good and Bad) trampled Adolf’s potato field and left the Earth. People forgot the teachings of the Cosmic Clowns and began to do sit-ups and to admire the performances of mimes. The number of the chosen was falling drastically. Unable to bear it any longer, the Good Cosmic Clown ordered the Bad one to travel to Earth and once more sow the Clown’s laughter among people. The Bad Clown got into the swiftest cosmic circus and set off towards the Earth. But the cosmic circus, struck by the spells of the mimes, caught fire and crashed at Roswell.

After the Bad Clown had fallen at Roswell, in the days of US President Harry S. Truman, three scientists travelled from a distant country of the east and kept asking: “Where is the O’Bad Cosmic Clown who has fallen? We saw his cosmic circus flying, and so we have come to pay him homage.” When Truman heard this, he was troubled. As if it were not enough that circuses fall from the sky in the desert, USSR scientists are snooping around the country too. Being himself of impure heart and doing push-ups only out of necessity, Truman took fright and ordered men in black to be sent to isolate and examine the Bad Cosmic Clown. But the scientists from the East, following the clown’s bright red nose in the sky, were the first to reach the place where the circus had landed. Entering the tent, they saw the Bad Cosmic Clown sitting on a haycock and sipping tea. Falling to the ground, the scientists told him a joke. Then they took a flask, a polythene bag and a phial out of their rucksacks and gave him gifts: laughing gas, grass and Russian vodka. Warned in a dream to beware of the men in black, they turned back to their own country by another road.

Back in the USSR, the scientists reported to J. Stalin that the Bad Cosmic Clown was being pursued by Truman. This caused great indignation in the Kremlin. Because of this, the Cold War began a year later and lasted, symbolically, 44 years. After all, there are 2 Cosmic Clowns, and 44 = 22 * 2. A clear dominance of the number 2.

When the scientists had left, the Good Cosmic Clown appeared to the Bad Clown in a dream and said: “Get up and hurry to Area 51. Only this place will protect you from Truman.”

Getting up by night, the Bad Clown withdrew to Area 51, where a gigantic circus had been built underground. There he slept for 16 years, because he was very tired after the long journey. Waking up after the long sleep, the Bad Clown set off north and on the way showed passers-by all kinds of tricks.

Long ago, in the land of Livonia, the Bad Clown taught people how they ought to live:

– Truly I tell you, have no fewer than two children, for an odd number brings down my terrible wrath, or not – he said.

Suddenly a village woman named Feodosiya came out of the crowd and, falling on her knees, cried out:

– Forgive me, O Bad One, for yesterday I gave birth to triplets. Let the people kill me with rakes for it!

The Clown came up, kicked her in the backside and said:

– Get up, my daughter, and go, for you have not transgressed against me.

Then the Clown turned to the crowd:

– Truly I tell you, if from now on three children are born in anyone’s family, at least two of them will be of the same sex.

The crowd, having learned such wisdom, rejoiced and glorified the O’Clowns.

One day the Clown was talking with his disciples, and one of them, named Bezdiejus, asked:

– Is it true that abortion is evil?

The Clown said:

– Is it true, Bezdiejus, that if the bell-tower clock had not broken 32 years ago, your parents would not have met and you would not have been born?

– It is true – Bezdiejus answered.

Then the Clown taught him, saying:

– If abortions are evil, then an evil many times greater is the bell-tower clock!

So Bezdiejus went and smashed all the clocks in the town. The police arrested him, but, having learned what had happened, glorified with one voice the wisdom of the Cosmic Clowns.

Walking by the Great Lakes, the Bad Cosmic Clown saw two brothers – Hans and Klaus – ripping the stereo out of a car. He said:

– Follow me!

At once the two of them threw down the crowbar and went with him. In all, the Bad Cosmic Clown gathered 8 disciples: Hans and Klaus, Alexander, Günter, Rüdiger, Ulf, Jochen and Wolfgang, who later betrayed him for 1024 dollars. The Bad Cosmic Clown revealed the secrets of the Clown’s laughter to his disciples and named them the 8 jugglers.

On the third day, at the fourteenth hour, the Bad Cosmic Clown and his jugglers were drinking cheap wine on the little lawn by the church. From time to time one of them would get up, walk over to the crosses, pee and come back, setting off a jolly fit of laughter in all the rest.

– I laid a dick (lt. ‘bybį dėjau’, meaning: I don’t give a fuck), when Wolfgang pisses on the gymnast’s face, my heart really fills with laughter! – Hans roared with merry laughter and hurled the empty wine bottle towards the church. There was the sound of breaking glass, and shards scattered in all directions. At that the whole company collapsed on the grass again, roaring with laughter.

– Everything here is dead good, but doing nothing is starting to fuck me off – the Bad Cosmic Clown decided. – Maybe we ought to head off to some bash or something – he added, hurling his own bottle over the fence. There came the sound of breaking glass and the screech of car brakes. Everyone collapsed on the grass again, guffawing.

– Deep Purple are playing at the New York arena today, we could head over – Klaus suggested and took a swig. – Fuck, the wine’s running out.

Everyone again began to roar merrily with laughter.

– Who are these Deep Purple? – the O’Clown asked, when the laughter had died down.

– Well, a band, like. They really rock.

So the company staggered up from the little lawn, took one last leak, aiming at the gymnast’s face, and set off for the New York arena. Security, having looked the gang over, concluded that they too were taking part in the show, and so let them in without tickets. Thus once again the Bad Clown demonstrated his power.

Halfway through the concert, while the jugglers were shaking their heads to the rhythm of the music, the O’Cosmic Clown suddenly stopped groping the breasts of the girl standing in front of him and grabbed Hans by the shoulder.

– Listen, who’s that gander up on the stage? – he shouted into his ear over the music, agitated.

– What? Which one? What sort?

– Well, that faggot who’s beating the circle with little sticks! Maybe his screws have come loose, fuck, the fuck, whore?!

– Quit the gags, O’Bad – Hans roared with laughter. – That’s just the drummer, Ian Paice. He beats the drums, lol rofl ahahaha.

– Paice, you say? I’ll show that paice right now what it means to beat a holy religious symbol – the Clown decided after a moment’s thought. – Maybe next time he’ll tell what to worship from what to beat.

With a gruesome cackle, the O’Bad Cosmic Clown raised his hands high. In the right one a flaming sword appeared at once, and in the left – a cannon. The first shot thundered, and the shell, splattering the crowd on its way, shattered a chunk of the stage. The music fell silent, screams rang out.

– Bwahahaha! – the laughter of evil rang on. Flames poured from the sword in all directions, the walls and ceiling of the hall caught fire, a jet of fire flew towards the drummer. He tried to run, but suddenly the burning drum leapt up and slipped down over his head. All over the hall people were rolling about in burning clothes, screams rang out, and now and then a shot from the cannon drowned them out. Burning beams began to fall. The jugglers had already hurried out of the hall. The last to leave was the Bad Cosmic Clown, who, once outside, fired another couple of cannon shots towards the exit, which mangled those who had tried to escape and hurled them back. The building was engulfed in flames.

– Just like that, fuck – the O’Cosmic Clown stated.

– Right, right – Wolfgang answered. And they walked off into the sunset...

The next day, as they were walking from Seattle, the Bad Cosmic Clown was hungry. Seeing cultivated fields, he ran up to see whether he might find hamburgers with diet Cola there. But he found none, for they were cabbage fields. Worked up, the Cosmic Clown shouted: “Fucking whore!” and set about kicking the cabbages into the air, shouting all the while: “I laid a dick!” His jugglers saw it all.

The next day, on their way back, they saw cabbage leaves strewn everywhere in the field, and the kicked-about heads lying in even circles. Klaus said: “Look, lord, there are the cabbages you kicked about yesterday!” The O’Bad Clown answered him: “I tell you, when you do 100 push-ups without a break, you too will be able to lay one crosswise (lt. ‘dėt skersa’, meaning: not give a fuck) on the laws and go fucking kick those fucking cabbages. And, I tell you, no copper will do a thing to you! What’s more, you will be able to say to that mountain over there: ‘Pedal the fuck off!’ and everything’ll be fine.”

His jugglers fell down and glorified the Cosmic Clown.

Having swum for a long time, the O’Bad Cosmic Clown and his jugglers came to the city of New York. Climbing out of a sewer manhole, they saw a man possessed by the Spirits of the Chamber of Horrors. He farted and danced a stomping dance in the main street. The jugglers realised it was time to do something. Hans and Klaus, specialists in such matters, crept up from behind, whacked the possessed man on the back of the neck with cupped palms and dragged him to the O’Cosmic Clown.

The Cosmic Clown decided to deliver a sermon, so that the driving out of the Spirits would go better.

– Which of you, having a hundred goats, if one of them strays, does not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and search for the lost one until he finds it? And having found it, joyfully lays it on his shoulders and carries it home?

– Not me, that’s for sure – Hans answered.

– Nonsense – decided Wolfgang, who was learned. – Uneconomical. If you calculate...

– And why drag the other 99 into the desert? They’ll croak there – Klaus decided.

– Go the fuck away!!! – the Cosmic Clown flew into a rage. – It was only a parable, idiots! Well then, we’ll have to heal the plain way, seeing as you’re so thick.

The O’Cosmic Clown turned to the possessed man and kicked him. The Spirits possessing him began to shout:

– What do you want from us, Jester? Have you come to torment us? We are many and our name is Caliphate!

A little higher up, planes were flying. The Spirits began to beg:

– If you drive us out, please, send us into those planes!

And the Cosmic Clown said to them:

– Go the fuck away!

Then the Spirits came out and swarmed into the planes. The planes crashed into the skyscrapers that stood nearby and met their end. Then all the New Yorkers asked the Cosmic Clown to leave.

The extraordinary tricks of the Bad Clown drew masses of people. Then he climbed onto a bench and said: “Blessed are those who have known the laughter of the O’Clowns (Good and Bad). They will spend eternity in the Cosmic Circus. But to all infidels I say: do not doubt the power of the Clown, for otherwise swords of fire and cannons await you. You will suffer such fury of the Clown as Atlantis suffered.”

When the listeners, who had understood nothing, had dispersed, Klaus, the best-loved juggler, came up to the Bad Cosmic Clown and humbly said: “What the devil are you raving about?”

He answered: “In the 512th circus season after the creation of the Earth, the first republic was founded on the gigantic continent of Atlantis. They did not have a lively imagination (just like the Australians), so they named their country after the continent. At first the Republic of Atlantis was a flourishing country: it had the biggest circus in the world, they were the first to found a school of acrobats and to legalise public executions of mimes. But once, while I was juggling meteors, one slipped out of my hands and crashed into Antarctica. The glaciers melted and flooded a large part of Atlantis. Half of the Atlanteans perished (of course, the half that did not recognise the Cosmic Clowns). Alas, after this event the rest of the population of Atlantis renounced us. On top of that, they began to debate whether it was humane to torture and kill mimes. That was the last drop of my patience: I fired a gigantic red clown’s nose from a cannon, and it sank the continent and killed all the remaining inhabitants. The impact of the nose was so powerful that a big chunk broke off the planet and began to circle the Earth. We decided to call that chunk the Moon.”

– I am about to leave you, disciples – the Bad Cosmic Clown said with a burp.

The eight jugglers, stunned, lowered their beer bottles.

– But before I leave, I shall deliver a sermon, that you may remember the wisdom of the O’Clowns for ever. – The Cosmic Clown burped once more and solemnly began:

– Hazed be every gander who programs in scripting languages. May his kin be sick with flu unto the eighth generation, may his dogs croak, may his first-born daughter of every generation drown in a pond of crucian carp, and may glasses of sixteen dioptres darken his eyes. The Clowns will mock and piss on such an idiot in the Eternal Cosmic Chamber of Horrors, while all who compile binary files will sit at the right hand of the O’Good Clown and guffaw at the scriptors. Only Clownadish religions have scriptors!

That afternoon in 1960 the eight jugglers were stunned and tried to understand what the Clown had said.

– And now, disciples, I leave you... and I go into that gateway over there, for I can no longer hold it, I need to piss so badly... brb!

---

Why did I recall this passage of the New Clownament? Why, because I have just had practical proof of the power of the O’Clowns. Before, like some half-believer, I believed in this passage but never lived by it – I programmed in PHP and knew no trouble. Now the O’Clowns have shown me how serious their sermons can be and how they punish those who do not heed them. And no one has the right to deny the harm of scripting programming languages unless he has been through what I have.

I had to finish a little project by Monday. I came in to work on Saturday feeling calm, with two days ahead of me for two hours’ work. By the afternoon I already felt that something was wrong, in the evening I clearly had a temperature, and I spent the night raving and imagining that everyone was trying to work out whether I was Tony Clifton or Andy Kaufman. I did not know it myself either, so I was actively trying to make up my mind, shivering under three down duvets. This illusory split personality showed once more that this was not just raving from a temperature, but a sign from the O’Cosmic Clowns. In the morning it got a little better, and at least I understood who I was, but I had not yet realised that this was a sign from the Clowns. When towards evening I felt almost well and sat down to program, before long the shivers began to shake me again and my hands trembled so much that I could hardly hit the keyboard. Having barely finished programming, I felt the shivering pass. Thanks to the Clowns for this last sign – I will never program in PHP again!

As is well known, files written in the Perl programming language have to be uploaded to the server as binary, although in fact they are text files, not binary. Such a pitiful attempt by the Perl language to sneak in among the compiled ones and sniff out the secrets of the O’Clowns deserves the deepest contempt. If programming in PHP is bad, then programming in Perl is one hundred and twenty-eight times worse. The O’Clown himself once said: “If you are tempted to work with Perl, cut off your right hand and throw it away. Tear out your right eye and throw it away. And so on, until either the temptation passes or you no longer have the physical means to program in Perl.”

Even 18 circus seasons after his return to Earth, the oppression of the Bad Cosmic Clown in the USA did not cease; it consisted mostly of ignoring him. For some reason people cared much more about some Cuban missile crisis than about the Clown’s teachings. But the Bad Clown knew that, by doing something significant, he would stick in people’s memory for ever. So he decided to shoot US President Kennedy. On the evening before the murder the Bad Cosmic Clown was sitting in a bar with his jugglers and was already downing his seventh tankard when he suddenly collapsed on the floor and began to shake, screaming: “One of you will betray me!”

But the next day the adventures of the booze-up were already forgotten. J. F. Kennedy was shot. All that was left for the Bad Cosmic Clown was to announce to the world what he had done, and to fly away.

The day after the murder, one of the Bad Clown’s disciples, Wolfgang, saw an announcement of a reward for information about Kennedy’s death. Having sold his laughter, he hurried to the police and betrayed his teacher.

On the day of the trial the Bad Cosmic Clown stood up proudly and said: “The only ones who knew about my plan were my disciples, the barman and all the customers of the bar. Wolfgang, I know that it was you who betrayed me, and I curse you for ever.”

Wolfgang kept the reward money in the bank for 12 years, then bought Microsoft shares with it, grew rich, changed his name and lived long and happily.

Since the Bad Clown confessed to having murdered Kennedy, he was asked one question: “Why?” He answered: “I want people to remember the name of the Clowns for ever and ever. The death of this infidel descendant of Adolf will strengthen the Clown in everyone’s heart.”

The judge decided to sentence the Bad Clown to the electric chair and to classify all the data related to Kennedy’s death, so that no one would learn the truth.

Sitting in the electric chair, the Bad Cosmic Clown said: “One day I will return. In one hand I will hold a sword of fire, in the other – a cannon, and I will massacre all who do not heed the teaching of the Clowns.”

The Clown’s earthly body died, but his astral soul, drawing on the powers of the chakra, returned to space. And the remaining 7 jugglers go on proclaiming the teachings of the Clowns, spreading laughter and hatred of mimes.

On the 32 second day after his death in the electric chair, the Bad Cosmic Clown rose again and appeared to his jugglers. He pretended to be a giraffe, so the jugglers did not recognise him. They walked along together and talked about share prices and Russian vodka, which had given everyone a headache.

Later the Cosmic Clown turned back into his true form. All the jugglers gasped, dropped into the push-up position and worshipped the risen one.

J (real name Jaygelius (according to the merry news according to Bronius) or Josephin (according to the merry news according to Bambukin) (it is not known for certain)) was one of the best Men in Black agents. Day and night he would investigate appearances of the Clowns, hunt down and destroy the chosen. He had as many as four orders – two of the “Green Snout” for ingenuity and two of the “Flying Saucer” for courage.

Needless to say, he did push-ups out of necessity, and in general preferred pull-ups.

On hearing of the O’Bad Cosmic Clown’s death sentence, J set off for Washington, having logically decided that the Clown’s followers would now gather there to mourn his death.

As he was walking along the road towards Washington, in the dead of night, J suddenly saw a bright light before him, as if from a powerful searchlight, and a voice said to him:

– J, hey J, why are you persecuting me?!

J, frightened, babbled something incoherent:

– Because they pay me dosh for it, and I have a wife and children who have to be fed and educated...

And the voice answered him:

– So that means, you push-upless, you want to send your children off to study, that they may learn scepticism and forget the faith?!

And J, terrified, began to tremble and beg:

– Have mercy on me, O’Clown!!!

Then the voice answered him:

– Fall on your face, you push-upless!

When J had fallen down, the Bad Cosmic Clown came up from behind, looking like a fat man in provocative leather clothes, and blessed him from behind.

Having come round, J understood the mistakes of his past and at once converted to the true faith. He carried home ten stones and tried to juggle with all of them at once, but nothing came of it, and one even flew out of the window and hit an old woman on the head, killing her on the spot. J decided to hide this fact and called himself the ninth juggler all the same. With his last dosh he bought grass, beer and a ticket to Greece. Having slipped away from work in secret, he boarded a plane and set off for Athens, that he might find the famous ancient Areopagus and deliver a speech there...

Once, while they were eating hamburgers in a snack bar (Klaus was eating a cheeseburger, because he did not like beef), the Bad Clown said to the 7 remaining jugglers:

– I rose on the 32nd day after my death and have spent 64 days on Earth, but it is now time for me to return to the Eternal Cosmic Circus. But before that you may ask me one question.

The jugglers conferred among themselves and said:

– On the day of the last circus the Cosmic Clowns will return, slaughter all the infidels and take 1024 chosen ones into the Eternal Cosmic Circus. But a man’s life is not eternal. What will happen to those chosen ones who do not live to see that day?

– Eh, don’t you understand, a man’s soul is immortal! As soon as a man dies, it leaves the body and finds another.

Then Hans, confused, asked:

– Then why is the number of people in the world growing?

– I said one question, didn’t I! – the Bad Cosmic Clown snapped angrily and vanished in a ball of violet dust.

The Bad Cosmic Clown departed for the Eternal Cosmic Circus. But to each of the 7 remaining jugglers he left a little letter. To Hans and Klaus the Bad Clown wrote: “You are, without a doubt, my most zealous disciples, so your place in the Eternal Circus is guaranteed (unlike that loser Wolfgang, whose astral soul will rot for ever in the Chamber of Horrors), so spend the time you have left joyfully, do whatever you want, and after death I will take you into my troupe of jugglers.” Having learned this joyful news, the brothers headed for the nearest car park and nicked a car. Then they headed for Las Vegas to celebrate. Alas, there the police caught them. It turned out that Hans and Klaus had long been wanted for car thefts and robberies. However hard the brothers tried to convince the jury that the Bad Cosmic Clown had allowed them to do all this, Hans and Klaus were convicted. In prison they spent 16 years for undeserved crimes. Once out, the brothers spent the rest of their lives as the O’Cosmic Clown had told them to. I.e. swindling, stealing and robbing. After their death Hans and Klaus became the patron saints of car thieves. It is said that at least half of the chosen will be car thieves, and the souls of all jurors, judges and policemen will be tormented in the Chamber of Horrors.

To Alexander the Bad Cosmic Clown wrote: “You always doubted my powers. You never understood my gags and were such a weakling that you could never do even 32 push-ups. You felt pity for the mimes and tried to talk me out of murdering Kennedy. But I love you, as I love all my other drinking mates, so I give you one chance to mend your ways! Run at once and hack a mime to death with an axe in a public place. But if you stray from the path – you will die and be tormented for ever.” Alexander fell into a panic. But, being cool-headed, he soon got a grip on himself, borrowed an axe from a neighbour and went into town to look for a mime. Walking through the town, Alexander saw an old woman who could not get across the street for the heavy traffic. The juggler decided to lead the granny across the street. But as soon as he set foot on the road, a Circus van ran them both over. The old woman was condemned to be tormented for ever in the Chamber of Horrors, because she had led Alexander astray. And the latter, for failing to carry out the O’Cosmic Clown’s order, got an even more terrible punishment: Alexander had to roll a gigantic Clown’s nose up a mountain of spaghetti. But whenever it seemed that the sinner was about to reach the top, Alexander would slip on the sauce and roll down to the foot of the mountain together with the Clown’s nose. And this went on for eternity.

To Günter the Bad Cosmic Clown wrote: “All your fucking life you did no work. The only question you ever cared about was: ‘Where else can I get some vodka?’ I often asked myself: ‘Why the fuck did I take that tramp on as a disciple?’ But this question of mine was answered at every booze-up, when all those weaklings puked and fell asleep, while we would talk in a cultured manner on various subjects. Above all I love drunk people, and you were drunk more often than anyone, so drop all work and for the rest of your life drink as much as your heart desires.” Günter obediently heeded this command. He became a frequent guest of the sobering-up station; for years on end he collected empty bottles from every corner, so that he could get at least one more drop of vodka. In the end the juggler fell ill with cirrhosis of the liver and died a hard and painful death, having reached the venerable age of 38. After death he got into the Eternal Cosmic Circus, where rivers of vodka flow and 12 grapes grow. The Good Cosmic Clown proclaimed Günter the patron saint of alcoholics and tramps. It is said that at least a quarter of all the chosen will be tramps.

To Rüdiger the Bad Cosmic Clown wrote: “So you never did give me back those 25 cents you borrowed to buy a lollipop! Therefore from this day on you must get into as much debt as possible and live the rest of your life in debt.” Two months later Rüdiger was found dead in a forest. He had bled to death from open fractures in his legs. Rüdiger got into the Eternal Cosmic Circus and became the patron saint of debtors. It is said that at least an eighth of the chosen will be debtors.

To Ulf the Bad Cosmic Clown wrote: “You were always playing that guitar of yours. We eat – you play, we drink – you play, we smoke grass, AGAIN you play your bloody guitar. Fuck your mother, you’ve fucked me right off. Maybe become a singer or something?” As the Bad Cosmic Clown commanded, so Ulf did. At first things went none too well for him, but Ulf felt that the laughter of the O’Cosmic Clowns was watching over him. After a few years success came to Ulf. He became a member of a fairly famous band. Alas, as the Cosmic Clowns had foreseen, Ulf forgot them. He no longer did push-ups; instead he played at charity concerts or collected donations for the fight against AIDS. Then the Bad Cosmic Clown appeared to Ulf in a dream in the form of a kugelis with crackling and ordered him to return to the old path – the path of truth. But Ulf thought it was no vision, just his screws starting to turn from all the drinking, so he gave up drinking. As you can imagine, Ulf is at present helping Alexander roll the Clown’s nose.

Jochen got a letter too, but did not read it. He threw it away. He became a tax inspector. One sixteenth of all the chosen will be tax inspectors.

In a cold and rainy spring, when the wind bent the trees to the ground,
a strange vision came to the bright eyes of Ateonas.
In the vision he saw that day that those who set at nought another
and others, who set at nought a third, turn into a round nought.
And how the infidels anger the O’Clowns (both Good and Bad),
so that the cosmic circus can be nothing but empty and round
before the start of the wondrous cosmic circus show.
The people listened in wonder, their maws gaping widest,
they heard there would be great weeping and great gnashing of teeth.
All will cry out and beg for IT to cease, but IT will not cease.
People’s skin will burn, and once burnt it will be replaced with new
so that it may burn anew. And again it will all begin from the start.
The Clowns will descend from the heavens and with swords of fire
will hack people into pieces, small, for goulash.
We – them into the furnaces, where the fakirs’ fire burns eternal.
The righteous meanwhile from the heavens will watch this fateful circus
and smile, for that day will be good for them.

The Book of Bezdiejus, in which the life of this prophet and juggler is revealed, is truly the Book of Books. For millennia millions of people have drawn from it light, consolation and inspiration to live meaningfully. In our age, worn out by all kinds of turmoil and conflict, there is ever-growing interest in the Teaching of the Clowns, of which the Book of Bezdiejus is a part.

As we all know, Bezdiejus did not know Lithuanian. He wrote his Book in the Xiang dialect of Chinese, in Sanskrit and in a language that he alone understood. The Institute of Fundamental Clownology, which presents this priceless book to You in Lithuanian, would like to thank the translators. The translator from Xiang was the enlaughtened circusite Protanasius Mordabaliukas. From Sanskrit – the enlaughtened circusite Sathya Zayaba (Sathya Sai Baba crossed with Russian ‘заебал’: one who fucks everyone off). From the language that Bezdiejus alone understood – the circusites Nomad and Vajezus.

May this edition serve the welfare of the people, the unity of the circusites, the spiritual rebirth of the Nation of the Clowns.

The Book of Bezdiejus consists of 32 books. The first book begins with the O’Clown’s sermon to Bezdiejus about abortions and clocks and ends with the future prophet setting off to perfect himself spiritually. Later it describes Bezdiejus’s hard, trial-filled path towards the Clowns, his studies of time, his life in India, later – in Tibet, in the Shaolin monastery, his enlightenment after getting drunk on rice vodka and so on. The thirtieth book ends with the death of Bezdiejus and his journey to the Eternal Cosmic Circus; the remaining two describe the teachings of his followers, the monks.

Bezdiejus himself wrote the whole Book of Bezdiejus, even the last two parts.

Until the invention of printers, all writings were duplicated by copying them out by hand with carbon paper. That is why inaccuracies would creep in; some places in the Book of Bezdiejus contradict what we have known until now. Some even contradict one another. But this is only a deceptive first impression: with the help of faith in the O’Clowns, nothing remains unclear. The Book of Bezdiejus cannot err. It is the word of the Clowns themselves.

The life of Bezdiejus himself is divided into eight stages.

1. The life of a push-upless.
2. The sermon with the clocks, and conversion.
3. Proclaiming the Clowns in his home town.
4. Resuscitation and proclaiming the Clowns in hospital.
5. The flight to India.
6. The studies of time and the journey to Mount Song.
7. The Shaolin monastery, enlightenment and the discovery of chronology.
8. The discovery of the use of time and the departure for the Eternal Cosmic Circus.

It is well known that, although Bezdiejus gave humankind priceless wisdom about time, humankind was not yet ready to receive it. Bezdiejus died misunderstood, accompanied only by a few of his most faithful disciples from among the Shaolin monks.

Nor is humankind ready to receive his wisdom now. Using time recklessly, sooner or later we will come to the end of the footbridge. The various misunderstandings and time anomalies that have already begun to occur while one waits for the bus at the bus stop are only the beginning. Therefore, when reading this book, one must first of all accept it with the heart, and only then delve into the facts it sets out.

Once, in the literature of the push-upless, I read that some Moses led his followers by the nose around the desert for 40 years, until all who remembered that it had been better in Egypt had died out. Why, that is nothing but a joke. I have had occasion to leaf through all the writings of Bezdiejus (including those left out of the official version), and there Bezdiejus led his spectators around the circus in circles (on an area of 1 hectare) for 80 years, and nobody is surprised at it now.

And what about the story of how Bezdiejus got into the Cosmic Circus, fired from a cannon! There are two versions of it:

The first version says that his soul reached the Cosmic Circus at once, as soon as he was fired. Then his soul came down, took flesh in the fallen body, raised it, said something to those gathered and rose again. According to this hypothesis, Bezdiejus ascended into the Cosmic Circus twice, and in between also managed to rise from the dead.

The second version proclaims that Bezdiejus, having risen a little, fell on the spectators, because he could not fly. And allegedly it was only after Bezdiejus’s body had hit the ground and said something to the spectators that his soul rose to the Cosmic Circus. The supporters of this version deny the two ascensions of Bezdiejus into the Cosmic Circus and the resurrection.

The Enlaughtened Grimaldi “Goldnose” wrote on this subject: “Immeasurable and unfathomable to our feeble minds are the trajectories and gravitations of the O’Clowns, but I am inclined to believe in the two ascensions of Bezdiejus and the resurrection. A single ascension without a resurrection stinks of a forgery by the mimes and the push-upless, who wish to belittle the greatness of the O’Cosmic Clowns and the prophets.”

Christians often babble that stability and stagnation are good, while progress is bad. Everyone knows the example of the Bible, which has not changed for two thousand years, while science changes.

The question is, is it the same with the religion of the O’Clowns? The answer is unequivocally NO. This is the answer that all the religious sources (the Book of Bezdiejus, the Book of Klaus, the Clownaments, the Letters of the circusite Šmyrgelis in MD5 hash, etc.) give us, this answer can be found in the works of the ancient philosophers (Seneca’s “On the Circus”, Plato’s “A Funny Idea” and others), and this is the only answer that comes to us from the astral plane, inner knowledge, the heart and, without a doubt, various branches of science: stratography, choreography, astrology, circulation, oxidation, clownology and others.

Let us think about how often this motif turns up in Clownish stories: “At first the O’Clowns found it funny and they blessed X, but then they got bored, and they sent X plague, fire, flood...” It is obvious at once that worn-out gags are gags that are no longer funny. That is why we all know that there are a great many versions of the Clownaments and that they constantly change, and we are not afraid to admit it, unlike the Christians. And as for interpretations of the Clownaments, well, those change several times a day.

“The Fourth Letter of the Circusite Šmyrgelis to the Pirates of the Caribbean” gives us another proof.

Quotation: “148afas8gtr6h8tr7 jsr6k4szkz76kuz6 dölioölou6g 4jys6rfg48 6sdg4sdf68 h7d6 8hy4y8d6fjd4tr86m j4t6ry8j7 46y8j47rt6 8aer6jhtrjtrha”

Here, I think, no further comment is needed. Science simply cannot refute this.

In Seneca’s “On the Circus” one can find these lines:

Quotation: “Let us leave tedium to the rabble. A true sage always knows that a stale gag is an unfunny gag, and will always think up new ones. Can there be greater vanity than telling a joke you heard on the radio yesterday? The sage will laugh not at the joke, but at the teller.”

The Aurigarijus Institute of Public Research (Aurigarijus is one of the lesser gods besides the O’CC) recently published especially impressive research results in the field of stratography. According to them, when a block of flats is dug through vertically, many families live in small flats, not in big ones. Then everyone gets angry and throws plates at the stratographer researchers. Can there be any better proof? True, this proof has one problem: so far there are only a few scientists in the world brilliant enough to understand it.

Finally, would the O’Clowns have thought up evolution if they wanted things to stay static? And evolution, without a doubt, is one of the main gags they invented in this world. It is not only funny in itself, not only are its results funny, with man at their head, who came from the descendants of Adolf – which seems to contradict evolution, but in fact does not – but even funnier are people’s quarrels about evolution.

So the conclusion is obvious and unequivocal. Progress – good and funny, stability – bad and boring.

You probably all know that Christianity urges us to renounce earthly riches, promising treasures in heaven in return. For example, quotations:

Bible NT Mt. 19:21 Jesus answered: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, give it away to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”

Bible NT Mt. 19:29 “And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, fields for my sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”

And so on.

I have just read a very interesting history book, J. Šmyrgelis’s “The Dawn of Christianity from the Point of View of the Algebra of Quantum Logic”. In it, with all the necessary proofs, photographs of archaeological finds and quotations from the best scientists in the world, this strange and, it would seem, idiotic attitude of Christianity is finally revealed. It turns out (as was to be expected) that it is only a plagiarised and absurdly interpreted teaching of the O’Clowns.

How it began: you probably all know the saying “money thrown away”. That is, when you run a loss-making business or, more often, buy something nobody needs. For example, old vintage wine for 10K litas. Or a one-off car with a hand-made dashboard and the like. The O’Clowns encourage such deeds, because everything that brings pleasure is good. Besides, isn’t it funny when a man invests all his savings in pyramid marketing and hopes to become a millionaire in a year? The Clowns would guffaw, clutching their bellies. Not for nothing did they call such marketing pyramid marketing: in memory of the idiotic Egyptian pyramids. The Egyptians too expected a lot from those pyramids and never stopped to think that whoever goes against the round forms set by nature and the Clowns will achieve nothing good. But this is a digression. So, having plagiarised this normal teaching, Christianity got the idea that something had to be changed. Or perhaps it simply misunderstood it. Since all clever people have professed and still profess the O’Clowns, one can imagine who the Christians were and how capable they were of understanding anything. Well, and they concluded that riches must not be squandered, but simply renounced altogether. Although this seems a little similar, in fact it is the teaching turned upside down: after all, by renouncing riches we renounce pleasures and merriment. We voluntarily become losers who will never get into the Eternal Cosmic Circus!

In many a discussion one hears this phrase: “The right way would be the spiritual one, but humankind chose the material one, which is why we have what we have.”

The University of Fundamental Clownology in Palermo decided to check this claim sceptically. After the check, only one question remained unanswered – how did the push-upless know it, and why did we not know it before?

Ladies and gentlemen. I present an exceptionally secret document that fell into my hands by accident (I was supposed to translate it into Zulu). Scientists of the UFC Institute of Time managed to travel spiritually into the past and confirm that humankind did indeed choose the material way, which is why all the suffering exists now. For your attention – the filmed material. By reading this line you agree to the terms: to tell no one either the content or the fact that the material exists, or may the Clowns curse you.

---

The 1st century BC. The majestic city of Rome. Above the quarters of wooden houses the palace on the Palatine Hill towers impressively. The day is drawing to a close, and the plebs stream home in crowds from a circus show that has just ended. Now and then there are cries of “Make way for the divine Emperor!!!”, the sound of rods, and through the parted crowd the litter of Emperor Lucius Cornelius Sulla is carried past. It heads straight for the Palatine palace...

...where, despite the late hour, the real action is in the banquet hall. Here we see the most eminent personalities of Rome gathered. Licinius Crassus, merrily stoned on grass, is trying to debate something with the sullen Titus Lucretius, but all he manages is to giggle. The divine Gnaeus Pompey, tanked up on “Švyturys Baltijos” beer, can hardly stand any more, but this does not stop him from arguing with Quintus Hortensius about the fundamental questions of philosophy. Right next to them, with his face buried in a bowl of salad, sleeps Cicero.

There is no shortage of guests from abroad either. Parthian envoys are chatting up Cleopatra, the most famous Gaulish cook Dogmatix is reading the cult Roman culinary work “Let’s Salt Carthage” (second, enlarged edition), and the representative from Jerusalem, Gaius Publius Melschizedek, a Roman citizen, is shuffling around a wet bull on wet firewood, promising to win a bet with the guards.

Suddenly a spy’s head pokes out from round the corner, with a black hat, a black cloak with its skirts turned up and a black domino mask on his face. The spy hurries to write down with a stiletto on a wax tablet everything he sees, covering his face with a newspaper. But the guards are not dozing: an axe flashes, and the spy’s bloody head rolls into the corner next to the heads of other spies.

– The divine emperor!!! – the voice of the guards thunders. At once everyone stands up respectfully, only Cicero stays asleep in the salad. Sulla enters the hall, looks around with the grim gaze of a predator, marches across the hall, walks round the spot where Mark Antony accidentally threw up, and sits down on the throne. Above the throne majestically hangs a gigantic face of the Bad Clown.

– Honourable patricians. Citizens of Rome and guests. I have the honour of greeting you on this great occasion. But first I must apologise for summoning everyone so late and in secret... – Sulla began his speech. – The Skepquisition has informed me that this day is special. It is now the second day of the second week of the second month, the second hour in the second half of the day, and today my second wife gave birth. Also, for the second time today I will be at a party, I will drink a second amphora of wine, and today there was thunder twice. Finally, spies have reported that Rome faces the second great danger after the war with Hannibal – the uprising of the push-upless Spartacus. Comrade circusites... (pause). All told, I counted (looks at his notes) ten events. Can this be a coincidence? No. The augurs cannot explain it to this day. But two to the power of ten is... (looks at his notes) one thousand and twenty-four. Comrade circusites... do you understand what this means? Today is the most important day for Rome, or, in other words, for the world.

Cicero lifts his head out of the salad, looks at Sulla with a bleary gaze, mumbles “long livvv...” and plunges his head back in again. Snoring is heard from the salad bowl. The banquet hall falls silent...

– Comrade circusites – Sulla continues in a raised voice. – For a long time the Romans and other people lived like cattle. We had no aim nor way, we did whatever came along, waged wars, killed one another, partied at banquets, exploited slaves, but what was all that for? For nothing. An empty, meaningless passing of time while waiting for the Eternal Circus. But this day is the last. From now on we must choose which way we will go. Which way we will turn. Which way humankind will turn. CIRCUSITES!!! This great question will be decided in this hall. Tonight. (Thunder rumbles, lightning flashes. Deafening organ music rings out).

– Guards! – the Emperor shouts over the music. – Grab Mark Antony and sit him back at the table, a drunk playing the organ is a mockery of our ears!! Besides, he’ll throw up all over the instrument.

The guards grab Antony by the legs and drag him to the table. By mistake they sit him upside down, but nobody notices. The music stops and a ringing silence falls. Crassus burps, and the echo rolls through the marble corridors of the Palatine hall...

– Circusites!! – Sulla begins again, already a little hoarse. – There exist two ways that humankind can take!! The spiritual and (looks at his notes) the moterial (‘womanial’)!!

A lustful smile lights up the faces of the debauched patricians.

– I choose the moterial – the Parthian envoy declares with a grin and grabs Cleopatra by the breast. At once he gets a box on the ear and two boxes on the nose in a row, so, clutching his bleeding nose, he tries to slip away. The guards block his way.

– Material – Sulla hastily corrects himself. – It has nothing to do with women. It’s... I don’t know myself what it means. We will decide... by way of a vote. But before that let all who wish speak.

The first to rise to speak is Quintus Hortensius.

– Meaning... this... yes, bearing in mind... so... I speak as a representative of the Optimates’ party... well then... I would think, glorified be the O’Clowns, Rome must choose the woma... material way. Why? Because there are two O’Clowns, and there are two choices too. That means we must choose the better choice!!!

Hortensius sits down to applause. Crassus starts laughing hysterically, repeating over and over “two... two... two...”

Straightening her dress, Cleopatra stands up.

– I will be brief. Egypt is Rome’s breadwinner and granary. We are tired of feeding lazy, puffed-up snobs. That means we will choose the spiritual way. Full stop.

Cleopatra sits down to silence. Crassus laughs hysterically, repeating over and over “full stop... full stop... full stop...”

A powerful voice comes from under the table:

– OK, now I, Mark Antony, will speak. (Waves his legs above the table). First of all I must say that this moral and spiritual way is nothing but fables of some sort. (Titus Lucretius presses his ear to the table to hear better). First of all, I represent the Populares’ party. Second of all, long live the O’Clowns. Well, and third, there will be order only when we take all the wealth from the robbers and divide it among the ordinary inhabitants of Rome. And now please excuse me, I feel unwell... (belching and other sounds are heard from under the table. Lucretius hastily pulls his ear away from the table).

– Thanks to Mark Antony and the other speakers for a firm speech. Next, the floor is given to the young Octavian – Emperor Sulla runs the meeting.

– Greetings, Romans and circusites of other nations – Octavian begins officially. – As the future (opens a history textbook) Roman emperor Augustus (Sulla’s face twists and he hurriedly starts leafing through his own history textbook), I would like to put special emphasis on the economic side. Research shows that the spiritual way leads to inevitable economic decline, the collapse of small business and the total bankruptcy of Rome. Can we allow that? (Sulla stops turning the pages, reads something, flies into an even greater rage, hurls the textbook to the ground and kicks it aside). Farmers, their wives and little children, traders, craftsmen and their wives and mistresses and babies yet unborn will answer you with one voice – NO!!! Thank you for your attention, circusites. I suggest we do not forget this aspect when we start the vote. I am for the material way. And now perhaps we should take a little break.

Licinius Crassus’s giggling can be heard...

After the little break, during which Sulla drank four jugs of wine and, toppling over beside the throne, fell asleep, the speeches begin again. One after another the great patricians of Rome and the guests of the city speak. Now Licinius Crassus is already chairing the meeting.

– So, circusites (giggling), the next speaker will be... (open guffawing) one of the greatest Romans of all time (guffawing). This is the man who pushed through the senate the bill “On Increasing the Number of Patricians”, which legalised the exploitation of dupes by declaring that after death the patricians will serve the slaves, so now the slaves must strive to ensure there are as many patricians as possible and obey them faithfully. (Clutching his belly, he starts guffawing, the other Romans guffaw too. The foreigners giggle and envy the Romans such ideas. Finally Crassus stops guffawing and takes a drag on his eighth joint. Having blown out the smoke, after a short fifteen-minute pause for reflection, he continues his speech). – Circusites, welcome this genius of Rome. I present to you... Marcus... Tullius... Cicero!!! (Starts guffawing again. Cicero jumps up, not knowing what is going on; bits of sausage and potato fall off his face).

– Comrade circusites – the famous orator and lawyer begins his speech, collected and serious. – Comrade circusites... I would like to say... I won’t pour much from the empty into the leaky. I ask you openly – what do you think... where am I located and what the hundred and twenty-eight push-ups is going on here?!

Quintus Hortensius whispers something in his ear. An expression of understanding lights up Cicero’s face.

– Understood, thank you. So, it’s a meeting, then... (drinks half a jug of wine). Yes, understood. I think humankind must take the material way. Do you really want Hannibal to come back? Do you really want the Punic Wars again, do you really want your sons and husbands to go to a terrible war again, to fall on the field of battle, to die with their guts spilled out? I think that together with me you will shout – NO!!! We will not let it happen again!!! Therefore, circusites, let us chant together: ma-te-ri-al! ma-te-ri-al! ma-te-ri-al! Thank you! Glorified be the O’Clowns, who help us from on high in this difficult hour!

To thunderous applause, Cicero sits down, closes his eyes and plunges his head back into the salad bowl.

– We have had the opportunity to listen to the great orator and lawyer, the circusite Marcus Tullius Cicero – Crassus announces and takes a drag on a joint. – I see my slaves are back from the “spot”, having scored some more “grass”. On this solemn occasion I am treating everyone, so I suggest we take a little break and share out four boxes of Arab goodies...

The circusites leap up from the tables, pulling the tablecloths to the floor along with the jugs of wine, the dishes and the vases, and rush at the slaves who have come in. Break.

After the little break the scene has changed considerably. The tables and the “wasted” circusites have been carried out, the floors washed. In the background music plays and a group of one hundred and twenty-eight girls dances. Right on the floor sit the fifty-two remaining patricians, passing round four hundred marijuana joints. Everyone is in a good mood and friendly; Catiline, with his arm round Cicero’s shoulders, is telling him something. Quintus Hortensius takes over the chair.

– Khe khe... hehe... haha... heh... hahahahaha!!! – the chairman begins his speech with a guffaw.

– Hahahahaha!!! – the participants answer him; only Titus Lucretius Carus, silent and focused, stares at a single spot.

– Our poet Lucretius will speak, heh – Hortensius announces and, taking a drag, holds his breath. Lucretius, still silent, stares at a single spot. Someone snaps their fingers in front of his nose – no reaction.

– Lucretius will speak later, and meanwhile – I announce the results of the speeches so far. For the... hic... spirituous way spoke... (for three minutes tries to count something on fingers that are hard to control...) two participants. For, meanwhile, the moterial – (tries to count on his fingers for twenty minutes) – a great many participants. Oh my, so many. (Shakes out his fingers and, taking a drag on a joint, holds his breath).

Lucretius suddenly jumps up and recites:

– I have already shown what the nature of the mind is,
By what forces it is led to unite with the body in full power,
And how it falls apart and turns again into mere component parts – atoms.

I am for the material way, comrades! The spiritual world does not exist!!! Everything can be explained more simply! (Takes the eight joints that have reached him from hand to hand all at once, for convenience rolls them into one huge one and, inhaling deeply, holds his breath).

When the applause has died down, Hortensius, coughing and rubbing his eyes from the smoke, carries on chairing the meeting.

– One speaker remains. A true worshipper and upholder of the old customs of Rome, an undoubted circusite, a citizen of “wooden Rome”... Patricians and guests of the city, I present to you Lucius Sergius Catilina!!

A heavily built, cruel-faced patrician stands up.

– My heart is breaking with grief, comrades. What are you doing? I ask you – WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! Where is Rome rolling to? Where are the young rolling to? Where are the authorities looking? Ah, snoring in the next room. Forget that question. Let me remind you, you push-upless (an angry murmur ripples through the hall, mixed with giggling and coughing), of a little History of our Fatherland!!

Rome – the first country to legalise fights of mimes against lions. Rome – the first country to begin building circuses of such size. Rome was indisputably the first to pass the law “On Compulsory Push-ups”, honoured be its initiator Cicero. We acted rightly, comrades, and so we found favour in the eyes of the O’Clowns. One after another the lands of the push-upless fell under the feet of our legions, and the eagles of the Empire fluttered in the farthest corners of the world. The Mediterranean became the inner lake of our state, and circus culture became famous far beyond the borders of Rome. THE CLOWNS ARE WITH US, COMRADES!!! Is there any need for more obvious proof?

But what are you doing now? Blinded by arrogance and pride, you turn away from the Clowns. Blinded by fleeting earthly goods, you forget the spiritual way to the Eternal Circus. You read Lucretius’s “On the Nature of Things”, forgetting that the rational mind cannot explain everything. Am I really the only admirer of the Circus and the old customs left? Not so long ago, it seems, I killed two senators to whom I owed a couple of million sesterces each, because they were attached to earthly goods. It seems nobody learned anything from it. So be it: listen to me, I prophesy. I prophesy that, if we choose the wrong way, not even five hundred and twelve circus seasons will pass before the whole mighty Roman Empire falls!! (a frightened sigh ripples through the hall, mixed with giggles and coughs). Yes, I say this – Rome will fall and fall apart, fall with fireworks and fireballs, and the jackboots of the push-upless barbarians will desecrate our holy circuses. Barbarians who are now let into only one part of the circus – the arena with the lions. REMEMBER MY WORDS, I PROPHESY!!! (takes a drag on five joints at once and, roaring with hysterical laughter, collapses on the floor. Somewhere outside the wind howls, rustling the branches of the trees... the organ starts up loudly. Smoking a gigantic joint, Mark Antony bangs the keys with all his might... the hall falls silent).

– So, if we have all recovered... – Gnaeus Pompey, who has taken over the chair, surveys the circles of sprawled, grinning participants... – if we have all recovered, before long we will start the vote. But before that I suggest we taste the food of the O’Clowns, this green mass. – Slaves carry in thirty-six buckets full of hashish and 60 ivory ladles. The participants rush at the goodies on all fours.

...

Morning. Stretching with difficulty, some of the participants wake up. Titus Lucretius Carus takes over the chair.

– So, circusites... who remembers whether there was a vote yesterday or whether we didn’t get round to it? Ah yes (pulls a pile of wax tablets of some sort from under Pompey’s head; as he pulls, half the entries get rubbed out). I see the vote did take place after all. Comrades, in my hands – the results. But before reading I will ask one of you to pull the sleeping Melschizedek’s head out of the bucket of hashish, our guest could suffocate like that. Thank you. So, let’s read the results (holds the tablets right up to his eyes). As far as I understand, each of you was to write down what you were voting for. Could someone perhaps come and help count?

Hortensius crawls up to Lucretius, laboriously drinking water from a jug. Together they count something on their fingers and write it down on wax tablets. Mark Antony starts to approach the organ, but Catiline, spotting it in time, hurls a jug at his head. Antony slumps.

– Ladies and gentlemen... The results! – Lucretius announces. – I read them in order:

Fifty-four participants, judging by the entries on the tablets, voted for naked girls in various poses. Of these, thirty are seen from unexpected perspectives. We will count it as an abstention.

Twenty-six participants stabbed the stiletto into the tablet very hard and fell asleep, nearly impaling themselves on it. We’ll count it as an abstention.

Gaius Claudius Melschizedek voted for an algorithm for deciphering some bible, which he wrote out in full on the tablet. We will count it as an abstention; the algorithm to be checked.

Eighty-three participants voted for various dragons, demons and other trips. Moreover, they scattered a great deal of hot ash onto the tablets, which melted some of the entries. We will count it as an abstention.

Mark Antony’s tablet... (picks it up with two fingers and puts it aside) let someone wash it first, then we’ll see. But it seems the vote there is for Cleopatra without clothes.

Circusites! The crucial moment is approaching. For the spiritual way voted... three participants!!! For the wom... material – fourteen!!! The victory of the material way is proclaimed!! From this morning we will officially announce that humankind has chosen the material, technological way. Congratulations, comrade circusites!!!

When Lucretius finishes speaking, a hubbub breaks out. Some rejoice, others weep. In a menacing voice Catiline pours out his curses.

Rome has chosen. Humankind has chosen. Even the materialist Titus Lucretius felt some emptiness in his heart, as if the laughter of the Clowns had left it... but the choice had already been made. And the conceited Romans did not even suspect what suffering this fatal mistake had sealed for whole generations of humankind...

---

Most historians do not doubt the truth of this event. It is already firmly known that the Roman Empire really existed in the 1st century BC. Practically all the persons mentioned undoubtedly existed in the period indicated too. The Romans really did hold huge banquets – orgies.

In the latest excavations, shards of jugs and amphorae have already been found; it is thought that it was from them that wine was drunk during this meeting. Also, during excavations on the Palatine Hill a considerable amount of ash was found. It is surmised that this is marijuana ash.

Finally, huge quantities of wax tablets have been found. Once again history and archaeology confirm it: the followers of the Clowns tell the truth. But that is not all: the prophecies of the followers of the Clowns are coming true too – word for word. The fall of Rome prophesied by Catiline really did happen in the period indicated.

Vajėzus: The fact that Cicero, who liked to lie in the salad, is very like a Lithuanian. Thus our nation is guaranteed to be descended from the Romans.

Nomad: And the surname of Emperor Sulla (lt. ‘Sula’, and ‘sula’ is birch sap) is guaranteed to be Lithuanian. There is more proof, too.

Mitra: But all the sources of that time say that the first emperor was Octavian Augustus. According to the sources, his grandfather Caesar did Sulla in back in the civil war. When Brutus did Caesar in, a civil war broke out; Octavian won it and proclaimed himself the first emperor.

Still, this new source proves that the Romans, having turned to materialism, falsified history. It is the holiest duty of our true historian-clowns to find out where Sulla came in the line of emperors and what happened to Caesar.

For a start, I can note that a source not recognised by the push-upless historians, found in 1956 during repairs to Rome’s sewers, says (as far as can be made out – the source has been vomited on. DNA analysis shows it is Mark Antony’s vomit) that Brutus simply wanted some bread and mixed up the loaf with Caesar’s liver.

“I think, O brothers, that this is our mission: to convince those wandering in ignorance that the only right way is the way of the Cosmic Clowns. I think that any means will do for this righteous mission. Even the good old AK-47.”

It is thought that the Cosmic Clowns built the pyramids and in this way worked out where to land. They would land most often in Egypt, because of the large flat places where they would set up circus grounds. The researcher of Atlantis, the habilitated doctor of theological sciences and parapsychologist Drunvalius Waffle Obelisk, claims that contact with the Cosmic Clowns can be made with the help of crystals, by sitting in a pyramid-shaped building and putting both feet up behind your ears.

Many legends had long circulated about the Order of Klaus, but there was no reliable proof of its historicity. A large number of historians regarded this order as a mere allegory altogether, repeating the same mistake as in the case of Atlantis, whose historicity the Department of Fundamental Creatinism at the University of Clownology in Geneva later irrefutably proved. The only document confirming the historicity of the Order was the lost “Chronicles of the Order of Klaus”, consisting of three parts: “The Book of Klaus”, “The Book of Zabediejus” and “Meat Dishes” (whether the last belongs to the Chronicles is still doubted). But the Chronicles themselves, apart from the Old Clownament, are mentioned in only two ancient documents: Cesare Borgia’s notes on orgies and Christopher Columbus’s Ship’s Log.

So one can understand what excitement seized the scientists when “The Book of Klaus” was found during a tidy-up of the National Library of Zurich, with only twenty pages missing. Now there can be no doubt about the historicity not only of the Chronicles of Klaus, but of the Order of Klaus itself. Historians and archaeologists are already working on the search for the remaining parts. Meanwhile, in this section we shall shortly present to You fragments of the Book of Klaus, which tells of the founding of the Order and its early history.

After Bezdiejus died and was fired from a cannon into the Cosmic Circus, some of the monks grieved at losing the great Teacher, some rejoiced that he had got to the O’Clowns. Some were indifferent to it. But only Klaustrophobe understood that with the death of Bezdiejus Shaolin had died too. Having lost the great Prophet, it had lost its spirituality too, and so from now on it would be nothing but pop, bait for tourists. Not wishing to see the downfall of his beloved monastery, Klaustrophobe packed his belongings that very night and fled.

For a long time the former monk wandered through various lands. Having crossed the Austro-Hungarian Empire on foot, in Yugoslavia he got on a train and rode as a hare (lt. ‘zuikiu’, a saying: without a ticket) all the way to the port of Rotterdam. There he hired himself out as a ship’s boy on the ship “Ghost”, where he worked ten years for Captain Wolf Larsen. Once, when the ship had dropped anchor in Iceland, Klaustrophobe, as was his habit, up and ran away. Settling in Reykjavik, he opened a school of Theravada Clownism (a religion that arose in Shaolin when Buddhism mixed with the teaching of Bezdiejus) and kung fu. Klaustrophobe began teaching only for money to live on, but as time went on, more and more pupils flocked to him from all over the land. Most wanted to learn about Clownism and, while they were at it, to learn kung fu. A year later his private lessons had grown into a gigantic School with 12,000 pupils, 750 teachers and statues of the Buddha, Bodhidharma and Bezdiejus at the entrance. Its fame spread as far as the mainland. Specifically, as far as Estonia.

Twenty years later disaster struck the land. Vikings who had landed looted and burned villages, raped women and handed out anarchist leaflets with SONY television adverts on the back. There was no one to defend the land, since Iceland’s conscript army was at that time taking part in an international exercise project in Lithuania.

But here Klaustrophobe’s School showed its valour and resolve. One night, with the help of group meditation, the teachers and pupils struck right at the very core of the Viking army with a stream of chakras. About 15 million Viking warriors perished, and the rest scattered across the land in panic or tried to flee by ship. Klaustrophobe’s pupils were given the task of finishing them off. They took revenge on the Vikings according to the only true justice: the principle of lex talionis, known in Iceland as lex espantoso. They looted and burned the Vikings’ ships, caught and raped the Vikings. Thus Iceland was saved.

In gratitude, the King of Iceland, Lochness, nicknamed Pederatas (a play on ‘pederastas’, pederast, and ‘ratas’, wheel) because of the birds with little wheels depicted on his coat of arms, granted the school the title of an Order. Thus the Order of Klaus came into being, and Klaustrophobe became its first master and until his death lived surrounded by glory and luxury.

Two hundred years after the death of Klaustrophobe the Great, called the Conqueror of the Vikings, brother Joseph was elected the 42nd master for his sense of humour and his credulity. Joseph had come from distant Jerusalem to Iceland to study Theravada Clownism and kung fu and became famous for his funny dreams, which he would tell the other members of the order at the breakfast table. What decided that Joseph would become master was his last dream, which was taken to be prophetic. In it he saw one thousand and twenty-four fat cows and one thousand and twenty-four lean ones.

A year later the O’Cosmic Clowns, Good and Bad, appeared to Joseph in a dream and said: “Get up, nick a cabbage, take the son with his mother and run to Egypt.” Getting up at night, Joseph pulled up a cabbage from a neighbour’s garden and woke his son, a lad fine of stature and of waist, who worked in the stables. Then in the Reykjavik cemetery the two of them dug up the grave of Joseph’s wife, who had died a year before, put her rotting remains into a little bag and set off running to Egypt.

Not being in very athletic shape, they ran for three days and three nights until they reached the ocean. With the last of their money Joseph and his son bought a place in a cabin of the ferry “Estonia”. In command of it, having made a career for himself in the meantime, was that same Captain Wolf Larsen. He recognised at once that Joseph was somehow connected with the traitor, the runaway ship’s boy Klaustrophobe: both had the same retarded expression on their faces. An evil plan was born in the captain’s vengeful head. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” he muttered one stormy night, when the ferry was sailing in the very middle of the sea, and, grabbing an axe, knocked a hole in the bottom with a single blow. Then he got into the only lifeboat, with torsion engines, and rowed off towards the shore. Within a few minutes the ship filled with water; of the 989 people sailing on it, 852 drowned. Fortunately, Joseph and his son somehow swam ashore, but his wife’s remains stayed to rest for ever on the bottom of the ocean, in a little bag with the inscription “Maxima” (a Lithuanian supermarket chain).

The run to Egypt lasted many more days and nights. Almost dying of hunger and exhaustion, they reached the British Isles, where in a “Guinness” beer bar they received two prizes at once: for the longest run without stopping and for the greatest stupidity. With this money Joseph and his son each bought a treadmill, chartered a plane and ran on them during the whole flight to Egypt, as the Clowns had commanded.

In Egypt Joseph and his son spent the last of their money on excursions to the pyramids, scuba diving in the Red Sea and prostitutes, and were forced to starve again. After two days of fasting in the desert, one night the O’Cosmic Clowns, Good and Bad, appeared in a dream again and said, smiling: “You can go back to Iceland, Joseph. We were only joking.”

Having no money, father and son were forced to hitch-hike all the way to Denmark. There they forged two tickets with a ballpoint pen, boarded a ship and sailed back to Reykjavik, worn out and exhausted.

For a long time people said that this journey had somehow changed Joseph. From then on he was always silent, and if he did open his mouth to say something, it was only a swear word or the enigmatic phrase “A cabbage... nick a cabbage... so that’s what the cabbage meant, fuck...”

Joseph died one dark winter night at the age of 90, repeating the same enigmatic phrase for the last two hours before his death. His successor, the new Master of the Order of Klaus, Hauptmanasius, interpreted this as something special that this very Order must do in serving the O’Clowns. Thus arose the custom of stealing cabbages every year, running with them to Egypt and eating them there. All the brothers of the Order could take part.

© The part of the chapter about the Eleventh Circus Crusade was written by the Annalist Brother Parvus seven hundred years ago, and Chronicler Little Argentine quotes it here with personal permission obtained during a spiritualist séance.

Fifty-two years after the death of Master Joseph, the Order, enjoying worldwide popularity and an infinity of pupils, could no longer fit in Iceland. For a long time the Synod deliberated where to move the new centre, until at last it came to the conclusion that, in memory of Klaustrophobe the Great, it would also have to be an island. Thus little by little the headquarters of the Order of Klaus moved to Okinawa.

Here Japanese culture has a very strong influence on the brothers’ world view. More and more members of the order carry a new weapon – katanas, which they order from the famous master Hattori Hanzo. The craftier members discover a trick: if you mention the word Bill to the master, he makes you a katana for free, and when handing it over even plays the song Lonely Shepherd, which later became the anthem of the Order of Klaus. In this way more than 400 priceless swords were wheedled out of the incomparable smith.

The one hundred and thirty-second master of the Order, Ulrich von Circophobe, famous for his hang-up about his surname, introduces the rule that all brothers of the Order dress only in black and wear a red plastic nose on an elastic band during crusades. Crusades were usually organised to the lands of the push-upless, to convert them to the faith of the O’Clowns. Taking part in them were a main troop of 1024 picked warriors with their squires and all the other brothers who wished to join and were not at that time running to Egypt with stolen cabbages. In time they were called Circus Crusades. We will quote the description of the Eleventh Circus Crusade, as being the most typical.

The Eleventh Circus Crusade (Nomad)

In this, the 1218th Merry Year, the Circus Crusade is being organised to the Baltic lands (lt. ‘Baltų žemės’: ‘balta’ is white, and ‘baltoji’, the white one, is vodka), so named by our scout, brother Sasha, who drank white there for eight days before reconnoitring. According to the reports, the local inhabitants are fair-haired, fair-skinned, dress in white, ride white horses and have little horns and little tails.

Not counting me, brother Parvus, taking part in the crusade are a troop of 1024 elite warriors, their squires, 200 porters, serfs with their wives and mistresses, a troupe of acrobats and a girls’ choir. Since the Buddha himself, the forerunner of Bezdiejus, taught that words are mere vanity, everyone is ready not to talk, but to kill. Only thus can the push-upless barbarians be converted to the true faith.

On the first day in the Baltic lands we stopped in the territory of so-called Lithuania, ruled by the barbarian warlord Mindaugas. We pitched our tents in Lukiškės Square, near Gediminas Avenue. All evening we drank sake, looted the surrounding houses, pissed in the corners, danced and sang. The locals who got under our feet we killed with katanas and Gatling guns. The souls of the dead push-upless would travel to the Eternal Chamber of Horrors.

At about three in the morning we started playing music very loudly. Most of the crusaders were drunk to the point of groping the ground. At four in the morning half the brothers sat down by the speakers to smoke grass, while the other half went out with their squires in search of adventure.

At five in the morning brother Motiejus, called Valančius (Bishop Motiejus Valančius, leader of Lithuania’s 19th-century temperance movement) because of his views, completely drunk and stoned, burst into the commanders’ tent with his fly undone and tried to rape the microwave oven standing there. I reported his behaviour to the Merry Skepquisition.

At six in the morning, on the Master’s orders, I went out to check the situation. The music was playing loudly, there was piss and vomit everywhere, most of the remaining brothers were asleep, wasted, the rest were playing “chop the cabbage” with katanas, hacking the heads off prisoners. Brother Drosophilius, a little to one side, was trying to trade with the locals, offering coloured glass beads in exchange for beer and vodka.

At nine in the morning the brothers who had gone in search of adventure came back drunk and merry. Their senior, named Chloroplasmus, reported that they had massacred a local combat union that resisted and called itself the “posers” or the “hoodlums”. Also, having burst into the headquarters, they had massacred all the members of another combat union, which called itself the “Orphans’ Care Home”. Having reported, the brothers took some local vodka from Drosophilius and drank themselves senseless.

Since my duties as Annalist did not allow me to drink or smoke grass too much, I watched the choir of half-naked girls dancing to the local music and shot up heroin.

The army got over its hangover in two days, during which commands were given by trumpets with amplifiers: “troop, to the river to vomit”, “fall down to sleep”, “kill the push-upless” and “at ease”. On the morning of the third day everyone washed, brushed their teeth, washed their katanas and their snot-covered red plastic noses on elastic bands, and set off home. I noticed that we were bringing back three times as many girls as we had set out with, but such paradoxes happen on every Circus Crusade.

The crusade is considered a success, losses minimal, the main objective achieved.

End of the Annals. Brother Parvus of the Synod of the Order of Klaus wrote it down and filmed it.

---

Commentary of the Skepquisition: In the spring of 1986 an elite unit of the Order of Klaus went into the forests of Ukraine to carry out a secret sabotage mission and did not come back. A month later the material they had written was found. Later, on the instructions of the Skepquisition, it was included in the Book of Klaus as its fourth chapter.

To have a tru picture of the events, “it is importent to no the historien”, as Cicero rote. So furst of all I will talk about myself. I wos born thirty yeers ago and my parents gave me the name Bus, howevur, wen I grew up, with a wepon in my rite hand I fort for the others to call me Pornographius. Myself I called myself Mountin Eagle.

Having joined the Order of Klaus, before long I got in to the speshal elite troop the Black Indigo Avengers 666, wich only speshal bruthers of the Order with an IQ of mor then 110 cud get in to. My IQ is 130 (one hunderd and twenty six), so I soon became the leeder of the troop.

Once we got noos thet all sorts of oil and electrisity magnates companys on purpos dont let peple use the cheap endless enerjy from torsion feelds, so thet they themselfs can make money. The enerjy of torsion feelds is endless, becoz it comes from the Cosmic Mind, wich is very big. Even bigger then mine, tho my IQ is 150 (one hunderd and thirty) and I read a sientific magazeen.

At the Order’s hedquarters ther wos a meeting about wot to do, becoz the Magnates cant be aloud to cheet peple like that. It wos desided thet we must strike them a blow. I put up my hand and said: “Sir Master, if we fite against the Magnates, we wont be able to use katanas, becoz Magnates atract iron.” Evrybody confirmed with a guffaw thet I wos rite and had stated an importent aspect. Then the Master said: “Oh davai, lets send them idiots.” I forgot to rite erlier thet them idiots wos the code name of our troop the Black Indigo Avengers 666. For the sake of secresy nobody at hedquarters called us anything else. So it wos desided thet our elite unit wud strike the main blow at the Magnates. Thet wos to be expected, becoz we have the tuffest worriers. For exampel, my IQ is 130 (one hunderd and fifty). And it is our unit thet guards the wisdom the Order has at its disposel about the Univursal Unity of the Shoemakers of Mankind and the Tru Prophesys of Nostradamus (tm).

On the apointed day the Master and his asistant brother Kestas made deep speeches about resolve and self-sackrifice. He stressed thet the fact thet our troop is being sent, wich wud be the gratest loss for the Order to lose, shows the importence of this campane, and guffawed. Then the envelops of the furst stage wer torn open with mapps and instructions. It turned out we had to travel tords the country of Belarus (‘White Russia’), so named by our scout, brother Sasha. Acording to the reports, it differd little from Russia, only it wos all whitened, and the vew wos blurd and doubled or somtimes quadrupld. It seems a treacherus country and the troop will have to be carefull. And beyond it will be our target, a country with no name, ware our intelligence has not yet set foot. On the mapps in thet place it is ritten: “Here there live dragons.” We will have to keep thet in mind and carefully go round the garages.

Then evrybody wishd us luck. Befor leeving we tradishunally visited the Mouse Cemetry founded by the Black Indigo Avengers 666, ware dead mice are buried, and we all laid flowers, each at the grave of his own mouse. Having cheked our wepons and ekwipment we set off.

The furst 10 (eight) days past without adventures. Then on the fourteenth we came to some forest, ware we pitched our tents. Me and two officers, Saulius and Albinas, tore open the secret envelops of the second stage with the final task and topografical mapps. Having red evrything we sat down to confer. But we had barely got halfway thru the second bottle wen the artilleryman, brother Telepathius, ran in to the tent out of breth and says: “Commander, wot do I do, I feel womens orgasms.” Me and the officers guffawed. Then I say: “Come hear, we will chek if its tru.” He says: “No, fuck, you idiots, you got it rong.” But we threw him down on the table with the mapps all the same and all of us cheked in turn. Afterwerds, doing up my trousers, I say: “Well then, wos it womens orgasms you felt, or normal ones like us?” He said nothing and ran out crying. The next day we set off furthur.

The nite in the forests wos very tense. All nite we herd strange noises. It got creepy. Espeshally wen in the nite I wanted to go to the toilet. I grabd whatever papers wer lying on the table and went out in to the cold nite. An owl hooted, dark clouds crept, the wind whisseld. In the darkness of the nite, among the branches of the swaying gostly trees, I pulled down my trousers and squatted. Again the owl hooted, in the distence a little lite apeared and went out. Wiping my backside I noticed among the tents a misterious shadow, wich vanished at once. And again, like gostly hands in the nite, the branches of the trees swayd, the wind howled. I pulled up my trousers and ran back to the tent. Nobody hear cud sleep. Brother Blair nervusly told us thet he had red in the paper “Misteries of the Past” thet in these forests ther used to live some old geezer who wud bring children to his cabin, then hipnotise them and stand them in the corner and then kill them with an axe. We all felt creepy.

In the morning we noticed on the branches of the trees some strange things made of shtraw and twigs. It wos getting scarier and scarier. Nobody new wot they cud be. Blair said thet it wos the ancient curse of these forests becoz of thet old geezer. For a while we wotched the little birds landing on those round misterious things and flying off again, then we moved on. Sudenly I noticed thet the mapps wer gone. We all panicked. Brother Blair said thet we wer done for. Then I calmed evrybody down, said thet I remember the way even without mapps.

The next nite wos even scarier. Around the tents we herd a racket, somthing wos walking about, banging. Somthing started to shake the walls of the tents, colapsed on them. Finaly the troop’s quartermaster, called Fourdot Bimbukas, fell in to the tent, all stinking of alcohol. It wos very misterious and scary, becoz, apart from me, nobody else had any alcohol. The quartermaster finaly went and stood in the corner of the tent, turned away, and froze. In a trembling voice Blair said thet those children too used to stand turned away in the corner, hipnotised, until the old man killed them with an axe. We all went numb with horrer and in the silence we clearly herd some kind of trickling. After thet the quartermaster turned round and said somthing about there being no more cigarets, and staggered out. We sighed, realising thet he wos not hipnotised yet and evrything wos fine.

In the morning the mistery did not end. By the entrances of the tents lay some strange little heaps of stones. On top of thet, somone had pissed in the corner of my tent. I prayed to the O Clowns to give us strenth to finish the mission in this hard hour.

Sumhow or other, in such sircumstances, the next week we aproached the objective. We took out our katanas, from wich the metal parts had been removed, and our Gatling guns and asault rifles and got reddy for the operation. To begin with I picked 15 worriers to go with me on reconnaisance the coming nite. In the evening all of us scouts smoked a lot of grass for courage, and the ones staying behind joined us. Then we colapsed and fell asleep. Waking up the next day after lunch, we realised thet we had not gone on reconnaisance. Nothing terrible, thet can hapen to any elite troop. We will go tonite. In the evening we all got stoned on grass again – this time a tenfold dose, so it wud not be like yesterday. Sudenly we look – a big notice is standing there: “Dont forget thet at 00:30 you go on reconnaisance.” We all guffawed a lot, then Telepathius went and pissed on thet notice. Then we started wondering wot joker rote it hear and why, and looking around. Looking around I realised thet we wer not at the Order’s base, but in some unknown forest, and I got very scared. I ordered guards to be posted around and a State of Military Emergency declared until we find out wot hapened hear and ware we have ended up, and thet stupid notice thrown away. Brother Blair told us thet in the Filadelfia Experiment a group of people wer also moved to another place, but with a ship. We posted sentrys with asault rifles around the perimeter, gave them some extra grass seperately so they wud not be scared after such a shoking event, and went back to the fires ourselves to carry on smoking. All nite the guards fired their asault rifles at suspishus sounds in the darkness of the forest.

Waking up the next day in the evening I realised thet we had again not gone on reconnaisance, even tho this time I had ritten a notice in advance as a reminder. As if some invisible force wos holding us back. It got very scary. Unknown and misterious is this country, and it is not clear wot ancient evil lurks in its dark forests. I started to cry. Brother Albinas came up and says: “Dont cry, commander. Evrything will be alrite. We must carry out the mission.” I pulled myself together, becoz my IQ is 165 (hunderd and thirty two), and started to think wot to do. I desided thet evrybody needs to smoke some grass – maybe it will finaly help, becoz we had not smoked so far. Howevur we saw thet all the stocks of marijuana for eleven goes had disapeared somewhere. We all got horribly scared again. While we wer conferring wot to do, it got dark, and this time we finaly sucessfully went out on reconnaisance.

We crept rite up to the fence. The sniper, brother Telepathius, crawled up to the gates and from a distence of two meters masterfully and silently removed the sentry with five bursts from his asault rifle. We broke down the gates and I fired a signal flare in to the air, so thet the rest of the troop wud start following us. Just in case, brother Uosvienius, who had good lungs, also shouted with all his mite: “Lads, come hear!” Then we silently crept to the entrance of the main bilding. With a speshal charge we silently blew up the door. We took out our ear plugs and I fired a signal flare again, so thet the rest of the troop wud no wich way to go and thet evrything is going well. Just in case we also drew an arrow on the ground wich way to go, and crawled inside. We silently crept along the coridors, it seems our presence hear is not yet noticed and the blow will be unexpected.

At one turn I herd womens voices. I tore a pipe out of the wall, a big one, and went round the corner to look. Ther stood three young wenches talking on the phone, just as they all said in chorus: “Hello, Charlie.” I whacked one with the pipe on the head and took off her whole lower jaw. The other two bitches, screaming like bitches, started running strait tords my scouts, and this one cudnt scream any more, so she just twitched all over and pulled faces spattering blood, like a scarecrow. My nerves cudnt stand such a site, so I smashed her once more with the pipe and splattered the bitch’s brains.

Both thet tried to run away ran in to the fire of Telepathius’s Gatling gun and wer shot to shreds. After thet Telepathius started to pant and moan, probly he felt those womens orgasms of his. Then, dipping my finger in the blood of those bitches, I drew an arrow on the wall ware we went, so thet the rest of the troop wud no. And brother Butvydas also rote in the same way on the bareum “A + K = KML”. We all got hooked and started riting all sorts “FUCK”, “RAVE”, “Metallica”, somone drew a huge male organ and at the end we rote “Punks not dead”. We wud have rote even more, but the main troop caught up with us. Then we realised ware we wer, and moved on. Finaly we came to the door of the main reactor. I kicked it in with my foot and we crawled inside. I felt that the end of the mission wos near.

Inside we kicked to bits evrything we cud and broke wot we cud, we threw all the uranium about the room, and brothers Jonas and Paulius also pissed on it. Then the quartermaster Fourdot Bimbukas opened the boxes carried all the way speshally for this moment, with bottles of iodine and milk, ment for pouring on the uranium and so putting it out. But with horrer and joy we saw thet out of four boxes of bottles only two bottles wer of iodine and one of milk. Five more empty, the rest full of whisky. The quartermaster swore thet this wos the work of the evil forces of the forest, becoz at hedquarters he had definately loaded all the boxes with nothing but milk and iodine. It got scary again, but since thet wos how it wos, we poured on the uranium as much milk and iodine as we had, and the whisky we drank rite there in three hours. Then we peed in the room once more, and brother Telepathius put some uranium in his pocket to bring home to his little daughter as a present. I took some too for my little son to play with. Afterwerds we planted a time bomb and again silently crept back to the camp, singing “beer, beer, god will give mor...”

Having stopped in the forests, behind our backs we herd an explosion and the wailing of sirens and realised thet we had done our job. Brother Blair told us thet sirens are dangerus, becoz Odyseus nearly died becoz of them. But nobody listend to him, evrybody rejoiced and sang by a big fire in the dark.

Wen brother Foamoplastus went off a bit to nature, we all shouted with our eyes wide open, we saw thet he glows in the dark. We quickly ran up to him and relized thet we glow too. We joyfully understood thet this is how the O Clowns are giving us a sign thet the mission is sucessfully finnished. And then somthing strange wos hapening. Evrybody’s hair started falling out. Then brother Telepathius came very sad and says to me: “It hurts evrywhere, commander, wot do I do”, and died. We understood thet the mission given us by the O Clowns in this land is finnished and we will all soon get in to the Cosmic Circus. Together with endless peace I also felt a bit of sadness for my wife and five-year-old child. The other bruthers too stood calmly and thought about their lives and familys, at peace with the situation and glorifying the O Clowns. One more worrier colapsed. I thought about my wife and my boy. I hope she will be able to bring him up alone until he grows up and can look after himself. He is not stupid, alredy now IQ 7 (eight), and wot will it be wen he grows up? A real indigo child, he will be even cleverer then his father. Maybe wen he reads about this campane he can be proud of me. Forgive me for leaving you, Vulfas, my little boy, and goodbye.

The fire, no longer tended, wos dying out, and in the thickening darkness the glowing silouettes stood out more and more. The fearless bruthers of the Order of Klaus, the Indigo Avengers 666, stood holding hands in a circle and waited for the fate the O Clowns had apointed them. I too am now putting my notes aside and will join my faithfull worriers. I feel the wind rising, and the little sun of my life is alredy setting. May the O Cosmic Clowns bless evrybody.

Brother Pornographius, 1986-04-26

---

Note of the Skepquisition: After their death, all the warriors of the Indigo Avengers 666 troop were awarded the titles and orders of Hero of the Beast, first class. Their families were granted an allowance for life, the children’s education was paid for, and they were given the opportunity, should they wish, to work for the Skepquisition when they grow up.

Although strategy and weaponry have improved since then, this campaign is taught in military academies to this day as a model Spetsnaz operation.

Brother Pornographius’s pseudonym Mountain Eagle was officially confirmed and the name Bus struck out of all documents. He was also given (posthumously, of course) the title of Honorary Master, and in Okinawa a 30-metre-high marble monument was erected, the design and handiwork of Auguste Rodin. The remains of Pornographius and the remains of his mouse, reburied at the foot of the monument, light up the monument beautifully from below at night, and to this day people bring flowers there.

In 2001 the film “Pornographius: The Life and Death of a Hero”, directed by Larry Flynt, with Sylvester Stallone in the lead role, won 32 Oscars on the instructions of the Skepquisition.

---

Clownologist Nomad’s commentary: At various times various writers and directors would borrow ideas from here to pay homage to the Order of Klaus. Not to mention the New and Old Testaments, which are altogether a botched plagiarism of the writings of the O’Clowns. So, here is a little list of where else ideas from the parts of the Book of Klaus published here so far were used:

Glen Cook, “The Black Company”
Jack London, “The Sea-Wolf”
Stanisław Lem, “The Futurological Congress”
Dir. Alain Chabat, the film “Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra”
Dir. Quentin Tarantino, the film “Kill Bill”
Radio Show
Poul Anderson, “The High Crusade”
Dir. Daniel Myrick, the film “The Blair Witch Project” and its parody, a film by who knows whom, “The Blair Witch: A Fake”
Daniel Keyes, the short story “Flowers for Algernon”
Dir. Joseph McG Nichol, the film “Charlie’s Angels”
a forgotten poem by a forgotten poet
G. Orwell, “Animal Farm”

For a long time the Order of Klaus fought against its eternal enemy, the mimes’ henchman Wolf Larsen, who was himself half a mime, born of the union of a human and a mime on a dark August night. The gangs of mimes, sailors, linguists and other spawn of evil led by Larsen did much harm to circusites and other people. One after another the Order would lose battles, and it seemed that there was no force in the world that could stop the evil sown by the mimes. The Merry Skepquisition brought order to Italy and its surroundings, but in the wild lands of the east – Japan, Russia, Lemuria and others – the mimes reigned with their leader Wolf Larsen. But one day the hour of the Order’s revenge came. It was the Battle of Actium, now known to all, when the forces of the Order of Klaus crushed the mimes’ fleet in the Baltic Sea. That is what this chapter is about. It was written by -=^Evil-Killa^=-, who watched the last stage of the battle and the death of Wolf Larsen with his own eyes, and had a hand in both.

I was born in 1995 in Okinawa, Japan. At the age of four I witnessed the murder of my parents. My father, a US serviceman, and my mother, a Japanese woman, fell at the hand of the cruellest Yakuza boss of all – Matsumoto. I lay hidden under the bed and remained unnoticed, and when I came out I swore revenge. Luckily for me, boss Matsumoto was a Christian priest, so when I reached the age of 12 I got my revenge. I ran him through with a katana in bed.

At twenty I was already one of the best hired killers in the world, and my talent did not go unnoticed by the Order of Klaus. One dark night, sitting on IRC, I received this offer:

[02:15]<[ORDINAS]Destroyer> Hi, they say you shoot straight?

[02:15]<^Evil-Killa^> Yeah, so wot?

[02:15]<[ORDINAS]Destroyer> Your finger on the trigger never dozes off?

[02:15]<^Evil-Killa^> No, who are you?

[02:16]<[ORDINAS]Destroyer> Then maybe you want to join our clan? I’m from the Order of Klaus, Okinawa.

I even shuddered on hearing such an offer. To get into the Order of Klaus is everyone’s childhood dream. An elite Order that de facto rules all of Japan, famous for its heroic campaigns. I did not need to think for long.

[03:32]<^Evil-Killa^> Yes!!!!!

In this way I joined the Order of Klaus, and later – the elite Mountain Eagles battalion, formed in place of the fallen Black Indigo Avengers 666 and so named in honour of brother Pornographius. With this troop I took part in the Battle of Actium and witnessed the events that would later go down in history and that I am about to tell you about.

The Battle of Actium was planned for 14 August 2007 by the Calendar of Bezdiejus. At first it seemed that only bad omens were with us. When our troop was already sitting in the plane, we noticed that one of us was missing. It was brother Thurman “the Umpetuous”. I rang his mobile.

– Hello?

– God forbid your excuse is “I forgot”...

– Ah, it’s you, zdarov. No, I didn’t forget, but I can’t get everything done. Right now I’m at Hattori Hanzo’s having a katana made.

– Couldn’t you have done it earlier? Well, fuck, he picked a fine time... is there much left?

– Right now we’re just at the stage where he writes “Bill” on the window with his finger.

– Fuck off! There’s a whole month to go yet! Leave that shitty master and run to the plane, the battle is the day after tomorrow!

– OK, fuck it, I’m on my way...

So we flew from Okinawa to Pervalka, from where the Order’s flotilla was to set sail and clash at sea with Wolf Larsen’s flotilla. We firmly believed that the Cosmic Clowns were on our side and would help us hold out against the dark magic of the mimes. The Baltic Sea was chosen for the battle for a reason – it is Scandinavia that is famous for its evil, to such a degree that it has seeped into popular culture too. No one can now say how many black metal musicians only imitate mimes by painting their faces white, and how many really are mimes.

We set sail exactly on the appointed day with twenty-seven ships. Besides, five more brothers simply swam after us, so we got the number 32, which was to bring us luck.

I will not describe the whole battle here; besides, I had no time to watch it. It was a bloody and tense fight. A week passed in fighting, and still neither side had gained the upper hand. That was when the greatest campaign of my life began. The commander called a secret meeting in the wardroom and explained what we would have to do. I even shivered – is that possible? Has he gone mad, perhaps? To penetrate straight into Larsen’s flagship and seize it, killing the captain himself and stealing the flag and so breaking the morale of the mimes’ forces? Now that would be a maestro’s stroke... if it worked. But I could not refuse. Warriors of the Order of Klaus do not refuse. They carry out orders. And kill. A team of ten men was picked, which I got into too, and it all began.

It was a rainy night, and we stood on the side of the ship, and the wind tousled our hair and the rain washed our faces. Under cover of storm and darkness we sailed straight into the centre of the enemy army, where the famous ship “Ghost” was to be, the eternal lair of Wolf Larsen. To my left stood brother [ORDINAS]Keturrankis, gripping his grapple with firm fingers. On my right [ORDINAS]Sidewinder looked around with a grim gaze, his finger on the trigger. Beyond them, in both directions, the other members of the troop stood in a row. I had known them all for many years and understood that if anyone could carry out this mission, it was us. A whistle shrilled, fingers clenched convulsively, and like endlessly long snakes the ropes of the grapples uncoiled into the darkness. I felt a jolt, and the unwinding rope tore me off the ship’s side. I whistled through the air with the rain beating my face and saw my teammates flying alongside too. At the end of the line – the “Ghost”. We appeared on its deck in sync and scattered in all directions according to the plan agreed in advance, swapping our grapples for real weapons. I ran towards the entrance to the crew’s quarters, noticing out of the corner of my right eye how a shot from brother [ORDINAS]KęstasS’s railgun flashed blindingly in the darkness and took the mime on watch off the mainmast. Classic accuracy. The operation is already under way. I ran into the crew’s quarters and went down the stairs. We had all learned by heart the plan of the ship, obtained by telepathy. I dodged a shot from the rocketlauncher of the mime on watch below and jumped hard to the left, at the same time switching weapons to the super shotgun. I landed right on the Quad Damage hidden behind a bunk and started glowing in the dark. Realising what awaited them, the mimes of the crew’s quarters rushed screaming up the stairs, but it was already too late. One after another the shots of my super shotgun with quadruple damage laid all the mimes low. I ran round the room, picking up armour and ammo, and climbed back up to the deck, where the lines of railguns were already slicing the darkness in all directions. I grappled onto the mast and from there straight onto the roof of the captain’s bridge, where, almost blinded by hyperblaster fire, I threw myself to the left. Someone was already lying in wait for me, someone with unreally good skill and experience. And I did not need to guess his name. After a couple of feints I jumped down onto the captain’s bridge. Above my head the hyperblaster buzzed again. “He’s using this weapon on purpose, he knows it’ll lag, and time is on their side,” the thought flashed through my mind.

Bending low, I raced along the captain’s bridge below deck, to be quicker – pulling myself along with the grapple over short distances. Everywhere around, explosions of rockets and grenades thundered, the hyperblaster buzzed, chainguns rattled, and railgun shots tore the darkness again and again. All hell was breaking loose. Hell. I ran into the cargo hold below deck just in time, but the Quad Damage had already run out. In perfect sync, as in training, my commander [ORDINAS]Trapecijus flew in with his grapple from the other side and grappled along the ceiling. The attention of the mimes on watch went to him. Rockets, hyperblaster, shotgun... but it seemed that no devil could take the masterfully dodging Trapecijus. Grappling from left to right and back again, he finally reached the flag, dropped right onto it and, while still falling, fired his grapple at the opposite side... the very second he took the flag, the grapple hit the wall and yanked him sideways with huge acceleration. Two rockets and a railgun slug hit the floor one second after Trapecijus had left that spot with the flag. Masterly. Covering the commander, I opened fire with the rocket launcher, jumping all over the room. From one fallen mime I took a Time Accelerator, and the rockets began to fly twice as fast. The confused mimes no longer knew whether to chase Trapecijus with the flag or defend themselves from my fire, and, dithering, they all met their death in the rocket explosions. I grappled out of the room through a hole in the roof and followed my commander, taking out with sniper shots from my railgun two mimes with rocket launchers who were chasing him. We stopped by the side to pick up health and armour, and then the hyperblaster flashed again. We jumped overboard and hung on our grapples on the outside of the ship. As agreed, we dropped our Powerups, and two splashes sounded in the water below. This was to convince THAT mime chasing us that we had fallen in. And we pulled it off. I had barely got my railgun ready when we saw a face above. The same second, as soon as he spotted us, he pointed the hyperblaster down, but my finger on the trigger was faster. A straight railgun shot in the face took away almost all his health, and Trapecijus’s chaingun fire that followed effectively finished off Wolf Larsen.

There was no time to celebrate, but I still shouted for joy. We pushed off from the side of the “Ghost” and fired our grapples towards our own ship. In flight I felt a chaingun burst from behind and covered with my body the troop commander carrying the flag. I cannot imagine how much damage I took, but I reached our ship barely alive. I ran after the commander into our wardroom and, watching with fading consciousness as he carried the mimes’ flag to ours, vaguely realised that we had done it...

The next day the mimes’ flotilla, having lost its commander and its flag, was crushed on all sides, but I no longer saw it. Lying in hospital, I only heard joyful cries and understood that in the East the Order of Klaus had done what might even surpass the Mimicrisation carried out by the Skepquisition in Italy. Pride flooded my veins, and I was already thinking how much I would earn by selling this account to historians and journalists... but that is beside the point.

Thus the main blow was dealt to the mimes in the Battle of Actium, and you can read about how the rest of the fight went in any history textbook.

Brother ^Evil-Killa^, end of the Annals.

Clownologist Nomad’s observation: It is worth noting that the anti-Japanese mania began after the famous Battle of Actium, when the Order of Klaus, in the naval battle of the Baltic Sea, finally defeated its eternal enemy, the mimes’ adept Wolf Larsen. As is well known, at that time the Order’s headquarters were in Okinawa, so the remnants of Larsen’s army that escaped from the battle, led by Lieutenant General Tobiko Lincoln, began spreading a campaign of lies and nonsense against the whole of Japan, hoping in this way to harm the Order too.

First of all, the pseudo-historical book “The Protocols of the Slant-Eyed Elders” was published, supposedly written by Kobo Abe. In it, in the name of the Japanese, people are urged to beat all white people across the cheeks with a whip and dunk them in compote. This was the first step that turned the world against the Japanese. The mania reached its peak around the time of the Fourth World War, when the mimes’ clan “Templars”, by the powers of their black magic, turned all the children’s toys of Great Britain into models of Waffler-system fighter planes with screenshots of the “Bible Black” anime on their wings and fuselage.

And in 1942 a booklet was published in America so that people could tell the disgusting Japanese from the decent Chinese. Historians believe that the booklet was published with money from secret mime funds. So far no one has managed to prove otherwise.

As is known from the legend of the Circus of Bambalis, Vulfas de Butterbroder published the controversial book “The Hammer of the Mimes”, which has not survived to our times. However, it turned out that individual fragments of it had been published in the magazine “The Skepquisitor’s Morning”, and the archive of the latter was found during archaeological excavations in Atlantis. With the most heartfelt thanks to the researchers, we begin publishing the restored fragments of the book’s text.

In answer to the first question let us recall the strict but just commandment of the O’Clowns given to Bezdiejus: “You shall not leave a mime alive, but shall massacre them all, and their children, and their children’s children unto the fifth generation.” If mimes do not exist, what sense would there have been in giving such an order?

Some answer: this commandment of the O’Clowns was supposedly given for a laugh. In answer to those who think so, we can ask: Why, then, do you not laugh at these words, thus scorning the gag of the Clowns (the Good and the Bad)?

Still others claim that the mimes were exterminated in the days of the Mimicrisation, and so there are none left. We shall answer thus: it is reported from a great many places that, having breathed in the poisonous vapours of the swamps, brought by the wind called Sphyncter, many people lose their heads and, abandoning the merry shows, become sour mimes. More will be told about this in the chapter “On the Origin of Mimes”, and to those who stubbornly deny all this we shall say that we have no grounds not to believe the witnesses, most of whom have a good name and an impeccable reputation.

Opinions on the second question also differ. We reason thus: if mimes really exist (which has just been irrefutably proven), denying them is an obvious denial of the truth, of use only to the mimes themselves, who wish to do their black deeds without fear.

Indeed, what would make us think that such people do not deserve punishment just as much as Christians and other spreaders of pernicious superstitions? There is a well-known saying: “When a man acknowledges the truth, the truth will make him free.” Therefore it does not seem unjust to us to imprison a denier of mimes and not release him until the acknowledgement of the truth sets him free.

Some skepquisitors think that imprisonment is too mild a punishment. For example, Girnognomius Filopendulus writes to us that in his county, during the last reporting period, he burned at the stake five people suspected of this crime. We, however, believe that the severity of the punishment is a separate question, which can be left to practising skepquisitors; we have only laid a theoretical foundation for the necessity of punishment.

Just as a shield wards off a sword, so a wise man’s knowledge of the nature of these evil deeds, called mimicry, can ward off the sorceries and spells of the mimes.

The spectator is he who of his own free will watches the tricks of the mimes, applauds them and so encourages new deceits. If there were no spectators, would mimes exist? Our faith answers in the negative. Even if a mime existed without spectators, to whom then would he show his tricks? And if he could not perform his conjuring tricks, what then would make us consider him a mime? Therefore the spectator too is responsible for mimicry.

Some ask: do little children, brought by their parents to a mime show, also commit the crime of watching? Leaving aside a possible discussion about children’s freedom of will, we shall answer thus: little children have a certain innate feeling that makes them love the merry clowns and shun the nasty mimes. Therefore an ordinary child, brought to a mime show, ought to declare this feeling with wailing and tears so loudly that the parents would have to carry him out at once. Conversely, if a child feels no disgust for mimes, he must be considered possessed, and this means (whatever our decision on the crime of watching may be) that his fate is already sealed under the legal acts in force against heretics, the push-upless and the possessed.

The second part of mimicry – the mime – has been described in so many books that it would be sacrilegious to create a new description of him; instead, we shall quote better-informed authors.

Thus Frosius Antiletius writes: “Therefore he will smear his face with rouge, dress in white garments and say in a tearful voice: ‘I am a mime.’ And his father, learning of this, will take an axe and kill him, for there can be no peace between man and mime.”

Joannes Trapezius testifies to us: “Mimes are not human beings; a full intellectual and spiritual life is beyond their reach. The most important thing in their life is nothing but the gratification they experience when their acting has deceived and seduced one more person. Interrogations carried out by learned skepquisitors reveal the filthiest and most loathsome sides of this way of life, usually inaccessible to the human eye.”

Sometimes the defenders of mimes, paying no attention to these facts, say: the O’Cosmic Clowns created the mimes too. That means, they say, mimes should not be persecuted, for it is unheard of for the Clowns to create something so that we should destroy it.

Such an imprudent opinion can be refuted very simply. Indeed, if the creator of the mimes had been the Good Clown, the human mind could reproach him with this inconsistency. However, Trapezius in his “Divination with the Diving Beetle” and Lucullus in “The General Theory of Stews” write that the Bad (and not the Good!) Clown created the mimes in order to mock humankind, which chose the material way. Therefore the logical argument about the contradictory purpose of the mimes loses its meaning, since the unpredictable sense of humour of the Bad Clown surpasses even the rational mind of the wisest man.

O man! The O’Clown, Good and Bad, is speaking to you, so listen with your ears pricked up!

If you should hear that a mime is roaming somewhere in your town, you must question people about it and find him.

The mime, pretending to pull a rope, thus tries to deceive man, but he cannot deceive the O’Clown, Good and Bad!

Therefore, having found him, first question him well, so that people may not accuse you of injustice.

And do not listen to what the mime tells you, for he will deceive you; listen only to the O’Clown, Good and Bad.

Then throw the mime to the ground, even if he should scream and beg, and cut him into thin slices, and afterwards share them out among the hungry.

And while slicing, hold your head high and smile, so that people may see – a righteous man is at work.

And do not leave his bowels lying about on the pavement, but gather everything up and lay it out nicely in little cupboards, that you may not perish on a black day.

And if the green-skins should swarm round you, or even start beating you with sticks, do not be afraid – they can do nothing to you.

Thus says to you the O’Clown, Good and Bad!

For ages upon ages a gloomy palace towered above the whole city of Florence, a palace in which, however, some would discern a certain merriment too. Some passers-by would smile, others would weep, still others would flinch with fear or freeze with reverence... but no one was indifferent, and no one is. Epoch after epoch the walls stood untouched, and it seemed that time itself feared them. The secrets of the dark magic of the mimes would shatter here like waves against a coastal rock, and among the enemies of humankind no one, no one has yet been able to stand against this place. The centre of Florence, the heart of Italy, 32 Waffle Street – THE MERRY SKEPQUISITION.

What, really, is the skepquisition? We all know that it is an institution meant to ensure the necessary level of scepticism in society, to stop the criminal influence of other religions and to catch mimes and their henchmen. But nowadays few still know the full history of the skepquisition, all those glorious ages when it stood guard over society and fought tirelessly against evil, so that we could sleep peacefully. Feeling it my duty to fill this gap in knowledge, drawing on undoubtedly reliable historical sources, I shall gradually set about describing the history of the Merry Skepquisition.

It was a cool summer afternoon, and the O’Cosmic Clowns, having nothing to do, were arguing amicably, sipping orange juice little by little. At first they both agreed that orange juice is one of the tastiest drinks, and argued about which of them had created oranges. In the end they both agreed that it was the Good Clown’s work. Then the Good Cosmic Clown asked why the O’Bad kept washing down his orange juice with mineral water. The Bad one answered something incoherent about it simply being a matter of principle. Finally it was the turn of the most important question.

– You know, brother – the O’Good said thoughtfully – we put so much effort into creating this world, and it really did turn out according to plan, i.e. very funny. But it is not clear whether it is funny only to us or to people too, and that is the most important thing. Who knows, maybe for them down there it is no fun at all? Maybe even, just as a theoretical assumption, maybe they are living a hard and cruel life down there?

– Well, then it’s even funnier – the O’Bad answered, guffawing and coughing.

– No, you’ve missed the point again – the O’Good went on patiently. – Yes, maybe it’s funnier for you, but the purpose of the world was for it to be funny for everyone. So we must find out whether everything down there really is in order and funny for them.

So the O’Cosmic Clowns decided to descend to the earth and behold how people live, and see whether there were any sad ones among them. After all, if someone is sad, there can be only one reason for it – he has not understood the Good Clown’s gags, subtly disguised in this world, or he has no knack for understanding the Bad one’s not so subtly disguised gags.

The O’Cosmic Clowns took their usual circus gear and came down in Jerusalem. Juggling balls, telling jokes and showing circus tricks, they travelled the whole country, and the conclusions were downright stunning: there were hardly any happy people here. For some reason the Roman occupation sent by the O’Bad Clown did not gladden the hearts of the locals at all, and just a dozen or so years before, the locals had, for some reason, handed the personal jester sent by the Good Clown over to the Romans to crucify. Almost every person they met complained to the O’Clowns about the badness and injustice of the world, a miserable life and a cruel fate.

– Fuck this – said the O’Bad Cosmic Clown. – Davai, let’s kill them all and create them over again. I could, for example, make a big flood, and then, eating popcorn with beer, we could watch them all slowly bubble under. Remember, like that time when I laid on a surprise for your birthday?

– Let’s not take such radical measures straight away – the O’Good disagreed. – I think it will be enough just to have a friendly talk with them, to point out where the gag is, what is funny and merry and where, and that’s that. All their troubles come from misunderstanding the world.

And they went to look for somewhere they could rent a hall for a lecture. The only free auditorium at that time was in the house of some local sect, so the CC settled there, put up notices and began to wait for listeners to gather.

“The O’Cosmic Clowns explain the meaning of the world and of life, an exclusive and only lecture in Jerusalem, tickets at a special price,” announced the posters that had been put up, bearing the faces of the smiling Clowns. Without a doubt, they drew a great many people, and before long the auditorium was packed full. The O’Good began the lecture.

– My brother and I have travelled a lot and seen a lot and understood that people here are unhappy because they do not understand the meaning of life and the purpose of the world. That is why we have come to reveal it to you – the O’Good explained, winking and turning somersaults. The O’Bad meanwhile was drinking whisky beside him. For a long time the O’Cosmic Clowns explained their subtle gags, mentioned the platypuses; the O’Bad wanted to boast about his pike that swallow their own young or the female praying mantis that devours the male after sex, but the O’Good silenced him in time, and so on. In the end the audience was breaking up with laughter, having understood that life is beautiful, and it was time for questions.

The first to rise was a fitter named Butterbrot with Parsley, called the Rock, and, coming forward, he asked the O’Clowns:

– As is well known, all religions are true religions, because they lead towards the Cosmic Clowns – he began, and the O’Bad nodded approvingly. – So, in the book of our religion it is written that one must not shag sheep. Is that true, and if so, why?

The Good O’Cosmic Clown looked at the O’Bad with wide eyes, and the latter pretended that he had nothing to do with it.

– Well... yes, that’s sort of true... – the Good one answered, controlling himself. – Indeed, you’d better not shag the little sheep. Why that is so will, er... be revealed to you at the end of the road in the Eternal Cosmic Circus – he finished in a firmer voice and wagged his finger at the O’Bad under the table. The latter only pulled a face.

Next came David, called the Zombie, and asked:

– And may one shag corpses, then? The book of our religion does not forbid it...

– Of course you may... – the O’Bad began, but after a kick from the O’Good under the table he fell silent.

– You may not – the Good Cosmic Clown cut him off as if with an axe.

– Then what sort of “merry and fun” world is this, if you can’t even shag corpses? – the Zombie tried to object, but, thinking better of it in time, fell silent and sat down.

Next a local priest named Aloe came forward to ask.

– I too have a question from the book of our religion – he began. – Here it is written that in time of war one must not shit in the camp, is that true?

– I suppose you thought that was the height of humour – the O’Good hissed angrily to the O’Bad, and answered aloud:

– Yes, let everything that is written there be the truth.

The questions and answers went on for a long time; every inhabitant of Jerusalem wanted to find something out. And soon evening came.

When, late in the evening, the religious questions had ended (the last, asked by the Roman lawyer Paulus “Saulus” Petramonius, was exactly how many foreskins are needed to sign a civil contract for the sale of real estate), questions from the sphere of scientific knowledge began. The O’Clowns were overtired and took turns to answer. As it happened, it was now the O’Bad’s turn. The town elder, the biologist Pontius Pilate, raised his hand for a question.

– And why is it that in this world two sexes are needed for reproduction?

– Well, fuck, what a question, if there were seven sexes, you’d ask why seven – the O’Bad answered mockingly. – But what can you do, it seemed to us that it was coolest with two sexes, because that reflects the Clownish number 2.

– Then why didn’t you make it so that people could reproduce by shagging corpses? – the Zombie asked again, straight from the floor.

The O’Bad Clown turned to the O’Good:

– May I kick his head in?

– You won’t instil laughter into their hearts by force – the O’Good answered hoarsely for the hundredth time. – Only by sincere explanations shall we open their chakras to humour...

But the Zombie took the hint and sat down in silence. The next to stand up and ask was Paul “Atheistazzz666” Bartholomew. Even as he walked towards the O’Clowns, he could hardly stay in his own skin, holding back his smile and his self-confidence.

– And can the Clowns create a stone they themselves could not lift?? Eh, wha? Well?

The O’Good Cosmic Clown, having known his brother for all eternity, realised at once what was about to happen, jumped up and pushed the O’Bad aside to take his place, just as the latter began to say “I’ll fucking explain to you right now whether we can...”

– You see, the Cosmic Clowns are almighty, i.e. we can do everything, even create a stone we ourselves could not lift, and then lift it, because we can even lift stones we ourselves could not lift... does such an answer satisfy you, or would you like my brother to add something?

The answer satisfied Paul very much indeed, and he left as fast as he could.

But a few more similar examples showed how hard it is to answer everyone’s every question. Besides, with every question beginning “in the book of our religion it is written that...”, the O’Good Cosmic Clown was less and less sure that “all religions are true and lead towards the Clowns”, although the Bad one giggled and explained that, by reading their religious books, those people really were drawing nearer to the Clowns by the path of humour. That was when the O’Good’s idea was born: to set up a special service for answering questions...

– This is what we will do – he announced to the people from an armoured car. – I see you all thirst to know this world and to understand where its humour lies, so we will set up a special office with telephones, and all of you will be able to call the number 118 and ask whatever you want. Most importantly, there you will be able to find out whether your religion is true or not.

Thus the Skepquisition was born. At first it was only a small building with eight girls at the telephones answering questions, and the calls never stopped day and night. Nothing changed for several decades, until the O’Good forgot this project completely and left it to run itself...

But the O’Bad Cosmic Clown did not forget it; he had his own methods of answering questions that were, in his opinion, idiotic. Thus little by little the Skepquisition came under the O’Bad’s care.

In those days, when there was no worldwide conspiracy of telephone companies yet, all telephones were free, since they were connected to the universal telepathic field. On the other hand, this opened up excellent opportunities for abuse. Everyone who has worked in a question-answering service knows perfectly well what sorts of calls you get from brats or just from people with nothing to do. The Merry Skepquisition was no exception.

A call:

– Merry Skepquisition, good afternoon, Renata speaking.

– Good afternoon, this is Mary, only my son is god, and those clowns of yours are losers, faggots, fuck, they want catching and their arses kicked in!

beep beep beep...

A call:

– Merry Skepquisition, good afternoon, Stereotypia speaking.

– (a childish little voice) suck ****, bitch!

beep beep beep...

A call:

– Merry Skepquisition, good afternoon, Natasha speaking.

– Hello, is this the place that answers questions? This is David “Zombie” calling, I only wanted to double-check, just in case, how things stand with those...

– Mister David, we have already told You twelve times today that you really, really may not have sexual relations with corpses. Yesterday...

– Ah, well, thanks.

beep beep beep...

A call:

– Merry Skepquisition, good afternoon, Kazimiera speaking.

– Can the Clowns create a stone they themselves could not lift? Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee...

– This question will be revealed to you in the Cosmic Circus...

And so on and so forth. The employees’ nerves would give way; they would weep, swear and curse the callers. Now and then some went mad and were locked up in psychiatric hospitals. At first this seemed very funny to the O’Bad Cosmic Clown, but later he felt sorry for the girls. And in general he got angry that people so mocked the faith and the Skepquisition founded by the O’Clowns themselves.

– Time for changes – he said to himself. The O’Cosmic Clown created special little devices for the telephones, which would identify the caller before the receiver was even picked up and show on the display his name, surname, address, nationality, nick and avatar, as well as his karmic retina, which, as is well known, differs from person to person, just like fingerprints. And to fight the abusers he set up an additional department of the Skepquisition, made up of big square lads with baseball bats. To cover up its real purpose in the eyes of the public, a new sport was invented – baseball.

Before long the vandal calls dwindled and finally vanished altogether. Along with them, most of the town’s notorious hooligans and vandals vanished somewhere too. Encouraged by Jerusalem’s success, such city-states as Genoa, Venice, Pisa and Atlantis also submitted requests to open their own skepquisition departments. It seemed that at last everything was ideal: curious followers of the O’Clowns, thirsting for knowledge, always had free answers to their questions at hand, and the abusers received well-deserved punishment. But this lasted only two years, until Thomas “Aquinas” Torquemada was elected Chief Secretary of the Skepquisition (this post appeared when the skepquisition was expanded into two departments and branches were set up in other cities; in the 17th century it was renamed Grand Skepquisitor).

Thomas “Aquinas” earned his nickname because of a childhood trauma. His mentally ill mother kept him submerged in an aquarium for the first five years of his life, so little Tommy evolved gills. Later, when his mother was locked up in a psychiatric hospital and little Tommy was put in a children’s home, all the children at school mocked his gills for another 12 years. This gag used to go round:

Two people are walking down the street and see a third coming towards them. One says: “Listen, do you believe in aliens from space?” The other answers: “Calm down, it’s Tommy.”

No wonder poor Aquinas grew up, let us say, somewhat psychologically unstable. Fired from twelve jobs, he got his thirteenth as a debt-beater and, when fired from there, took a job as a vandal-beater at the Skepquisition. Noticing the extraordinary flair of his gags (he beat one vandal over the head with a one-kilogram sausage until the vandal lost the wish to call the Skepquisition with the question “did Adolf have a ‘little sausage’?” and in general, died), the O’Bad Cosmic Clown personally appointed him Chief Secretary of the Skepquisition.

While working as a beater, he had a rather poor idea of what exactly he was beating those vandals for. But having become Secretary, he would receive a great many complaints from the telephone girls, until finally his hair began to stand on end. Having decided to run a sceptical check (this is the Skepquisition, after all) on the assumption that the girls were making it all up themselves, he sat down at the telephone himself. The first two calls dispelled all doubts.

– Merry Skepquisition, good afternoon, Thomas Torquemada speaking.

– Good afternoon, this is Mollie calling from England. Will there be sugar in the Eternal Cosmic Circus?

– Um... yes.

– Thanks, hee-hee...

beep beep beep

– Merry Skepquisition, good afternoon, Thomas Torquemada speaking.

– Hi, baby... I’m coming up to you from behind...

– Excuse me, mister, this is the Merry Skepquisition. Phone sex is 119, not 118.

– Playing hard to get, baby? I like that...

Thomas Torquemada slammed down the receiver and in a rage began to stamp on the telephone. “All the new girls do that,” stated one of the old hands, who was at that moment on the phone answering the question “Which Clown is better, Good or Bad”. This enraged the Secretary even more, and he took measures.

Another unit of the Skepquisition was set up, which was to sit in taverns, walk in parks, ride torsion trolleybuses and operate in all the other places where people gather. Activity: listening for “vandalistic” and other blasphemies and reporting their authors to the Skepquisition before they thought of calling and getting on the nerves of the staff at the telephones with their nonsense. Because beating up an evildoer post factum is good, of course, but not as good as real crime prevention. Before long, all the branches of the Skepquisition together employed about one million preventers, sometimes wrongly called “spies” or “snitches”.

The 12`2.5th century of our era was dawning by the Calendar of Bezdiejus, and the praetors and the police at last took an interest in the Merry Skepquisition. It cannot be claimed unequivocally that they had not been interested before; it was just that their interest had been of a somewhat different kind, as Marcus Cato put it in his famous speech “Against the Merrymakers”. It was on his initiative that this interest arose, and therefore we shall present excerpts from this speech to you.

---

Marcus Cato’s speech “Against the Merrymakers”, delivered in the amphitheatre of Nîmes (now France).

“And truly I tell you, is it a total cock-up here, with no order at all, that some service for answering stupid questions has managed to organise neither more nor less than a private army of soldiers and spies? How is one to understand that, sitting in a tavern, you can’t even talk freely, because they stitch you up straight away, and a couple of hours later lads in baseball caps come and stitch you up a few more times? Yesterday my cousin was sitting in a tavern with his mates drinking wine. When his tongue loosened, he started explaining that the divine Emperor Constantine is a half-wit and apparently hasn’t eaten enough fish. A spy of Constantine’s sitting nearby only winked in a friendly way and pretended not to hear, and the prefect of the imperial legions, sitting at another little table, even guffawed, stood up and, to mark the occasion, multiplied the bread and fish (bread by fish, or maybe the other way round, I’m no good at maths), so that all the customers would have something to snack on. But then my half-Briton (lt. ‘pusbritanas’, a slip on ‘pusbrolis’, cousin, literally ‘half-brother’) said “nothing’s funny to me in this world”. And what do you think? That very night he was beaten unconscious in the street; we found him with a clown’s nose on an elastic band pulled over his head. How much longer will we let the Skepquisition run riot?

(...)

And truly I tell you, what do you think, which way does the main drug route from Sicily run? Yes, of course. Naples, Rome, Florence, Atlantis, Lemuria and from there to Lithuania, where they swap it for amber. And along this whole route the police and the praetors cannot round up the drug dealers. For I tell you: the Skepquisition oversees the drug trade. Why, even their teaching says that one must get as high as possible, so that it is merry.

(...)

And truly I tell you. Nowadays people are so used to the power and influence of the Skepquisition that they regard it as normal. Nobody stops to think that this shitty organisation has nothing to do with official law enforcement. It is just a shitty telephone question-answering service with a private army. Why are the police, the army, the Emperor doing nothing? Can it be that they themselves are afraid already? Was it for this that our ancestors died in the battles against Hannibal, so that now a telephone question service should keep everyone in fear?

(...)

Shall we not have freedom of speech even in our own homes? I will tell you a parable. A farmer sowed rye, and some fell among thorns, some on good soil. The rye that fell on good soil flourished and gave a harvest, and that which fell among the thorns withered and perished. Will the Roman Empire too fall like that because of those telephonists? Will Catiline’s prophecy really come true?

(...)

Yes, I can tell you why law enforcement takes no interest in the Skepquisition. It does take an interest, and how. Every weekend, hardly bothering to hide, they come to collect their wages. A huge part of law enforcement already sits in the Skepquisition’s pocket, that is how things are. And if we do not come to our senses at once, the Skepquisition will soon rule absolutely everything and everyone, and the emperors will be nothing but its puppets. With that I end my speech.”

---

Soon after this speech Marcus Cato killed himself in despair with thirty-two knife blows to the back, but the damage had already been done. Law enforcement began to take an interest in the activities of the Skepquisition. Yet, be that as it may, Cato’s last sentences turned out to be prophetic.

The praetors and the police took on the Skepquisition in earnest. A special squad of detectives and torsion eavesdropping devices were brought in; data began to be gathered. The police chief of the time, Edgar “Narrow” Hoover, hoped to crush the Skepquisition with one serious blow, one huge case, after which about 10,000 skepquisitors would be jailed, 24,000 shot, 8600 crucified (later it was decided to change the last group’s punishment to shooting, because after crucifixion the losers rise from the dead on the third day anyway and have to be shot all the same) and so on. But Hoover could not foresee one thing. As the old saying goes, “Man plans, the Clowns mock”. One day before the decisive wave of arrests a far more serious event wrecked everything: the fall of the Roman Empire.

It was a warm summer night, and Hoover was sitting with his most faithful praetors and captains, drinking wine. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus describes the events that followed in the famous manuscript “Testimonium Flavianum Tiu Tiu Bu Bu Shiu Shiu”.

Seeing the first fireworks rising in the sky and hearing firecrackers exploding, Hoover asked his assistant:

– What’s going on out there?

– The Empire is falling... – the praetor whispered fearfully and sank respectfully to his knees. – Leaflets were handed out a week ago, after all, and I put one in Your office, boss...

A silence fell, broken by the bursts of fireworks and firecrackers... more and more fireballs and Chinese rockets lit up the sky...

– And what will happen to our cases? – “Narrow” whispered sadly after a pause.

– Forget it... see those fireballs in the east? The Vandals are coming... – the assistant answered in a whisper. – We are no more, there are no police any more, no praetors, aediles, quaestors... Rome is falling, chaos and the Dark Ages are beginning...

And he was right. When the fireworks and the main show of the fall of the Empire were over, the drunken Romans smashed up everything in the streets and collapsed asleep. But that was only the beginning. Wave after wave, chaos and destruction rolled in. The first to ravage Rome were the Goths, later the Vandals, and what was left the Scout-Protestants demolished and took apart. The invaders wiped their backsides with the police archives and used them for kindling, and the policemen they killed or drove away. The former empire split into little states of Franks and Dollars; the Middle Ages began.

Only the Merry Skepquisition stood as it had always stood, majestic and untouchable. Just at this time its centre moved from Jerusalem to Florence and settled next to the Medici palace. No Vandal, Goth, Lombard or Scout-Protestant dared approach the Skepquisition, and everyone needed its telephone services. The barbarian chieftains would call to ask whether tomorrow was a good day for battle. Their wives would call to ask whether their husbands really were at the battle. Before long the custom took hold that a barbarian duke is not a duke until the Skepquisition confirms him. And how else? If an ordinary villager calls the Skepquisition to ask “who is our king”, what will happen if they tell him the wrong name there? Or, even worse, if the commanders mix up the king? You won’t rule long like that...

The Skepquisition rose above the common people and above the soldiers, above the nobles and above the kings. Many a village ploughman could not make out, through all those political intrigues, what the name of the present king was, or of the one they buried yesterday, or of the future one... had no idea where the present capital was or what “capital” even meant, which other duchies were friends today and which enemies... but he always knew who rules everything, and from where. If a drunken shepherd allowed himself to piss on the palace of Charlemagne, then even having mixed heroin with cocaine and amphetamine, he dared crawl past the building at 32 Waffle Street only on his knees and with his head bowed, when the screams heard from the dungeons proclaimed better than any sign: THE MERRY SKEPQUISITION.

During all this turmoil the former high-ranking police officers hid wherever they could. Most of them knew that the Skepquisition had had information about the blow being prepared (it has information about everything...), and feared revenge. Another part did not fear revenge, but that part disappeared somewhere after that, and only the fearing part remained. The events that followed, the famous period of Mimicrisation, are best described in Winston Niles Rumfoord’s “Pocket History of the Middle Ages”, and the best I can do is simply to quote Rumfoord.

P.S. Bear in mind that in his day it was customary to write in a somewhat inflated style with many epithets, and do not be surprised by what you read.

Winston Niles Rumfoord – Pocket History of the Middle Ages

Chapter 32. The Merry Skepquisition the Majestic and Hoover the Despicable, When the Mimicrisation Darkened the Sky.

And trembled O the despicable Narrow and whimpered for his own hide, and dark clouds came over and the thunder rumbled, and great rains washed the graves of the brave policemen, and the unbrave hid in the corners like cockroaches, fearing the deserved vengeance of the Skepquisition.

And remembered O the despicable Narrow Hoover how once he had been summoned to the Skepquisitor the great, over problems O of accounting, and of tax evasion likewise, and how the vile police spies had fabricated in the darkness, weaving their deceits. And saw O the unfortunate Narrow before his eyes the motto above O the Grand Skepquisitor’s chair, hung up in white letters and adorned with gold, and trembled the wretch remembering that motto. And the shining letters in gold on the marble wall proclaimed O the motto of the skepquisitor, and rang O the motto in Hoover’s subconscious, in the most despicable little corners of his soul, frightening the astral creatures: “The Skepquisition often delays, but never forgets.”

And pissed his trousers in fear O Edgar, and he stank to the people around him and found no place to fit in anywhere, being a loathsome wretch, only in the darkness of the night that had crept in did he steal from village to village begging for alms, like that worm that burrows somewhere under the ground, arousing disgust in people, when the falling leaves of autumn paint the earth red.

And remembered O the loathsome one that there is one place where the lawful wrath of the Skepquisition may pass him by, as thunder and lightning, having struck a lightning conductor and drained away through the earthing, do no harm to a living man, and saturate the air with ozone, as if the Clowns themselves were sending a gift to the earth. For ages upon ages the theatre had lived happily in this land since olden times, and no ruler ever did any harm to his jesters. The players had an obligation, to amuse their rulers, brightening with their acting the angered hearts, like that black onyx, weary of wars. And the rulers had an obligation, not to touch the actors, whatever they might act and say, and flourished O the nations and the lands, brightening the ruler’s face thanks to art.

And a cunning plan was born O in Narrow’s stupid noggin, dangling on his shoulders like a cabbage: to join the theatre and so hide from the end he deserved. He knocked one night, with rain falling and thunder rumbling, at the gates of Tremere Castle in the town of Fucking, where the famous pantomime theatre was established, led by the Mime Chingachgook. And famous were O Tremere Castle and O the town of Fucking for their pantomime, and it was called the capital of all mimes. And joined O the loathsome one the mimes, and painted his little snout white, to deceive the Skepquisition and save his unworthy hide. And he would deceive people together with the other mimes, pretending to pull a rope that was not there, and the simpleton thought that the Skepquisition would not track him down.

And lightning flashed, and thunder crashed, and wrong was Hoover, like a boot-top scraping the ground, and fate and the O’Clowns decreed that he should experience his wrongness in the cellars of the Skepquisition, but of that in the next chapter, described by the annalist Rumfoord, yours faithfully.

Chapter 33. How the Skepquisition Issued O the Law of Mimicrisation and Caught Hoover the Narrow Cabbagehead, the Loathsome One on This Earth.

And found out O the Preventers of the Skepquisition that Narrow had hidden among the mimes and painted his little snout white, and calculated O mathematically that there was only a 1/13548768 chance that a mime caught at random would be O the despicable Hoover. And they issued a law O called Mimicrisation, that all mimes must be hunted, for they deceive O people by pretending to pull a rope, but they cannot deceive the O’Clowns. And O the hunting of mimes began, with rifled guns and automatic ones and with spears, and blood flowed in streams in the mountains of the Alps O in the land of Austria...

And there came a troop of skepquisitors, led by the commander Roland, to the town of Fucking. And Roland had O a big sword, bigger than himself, and he knocked with his foot at the wooden gates of the castle, and black clouds darkened the sky and thunder rumbled as lightning flashed... and Roland cried out:

– Knock Knock!

And the castle gates opened, and the skepquisitors fell to killing everything, and Roland struck with his great sword and would cut down five mimes at a time, and the O’Bad Cosmic Clown would carry their souls off to the Eternal Chamber of Horrors...

And Narrow shat his trousers in fear, hidden in the farthest little corner of the castle, and the skepquisitors tracked him down by the smell, and dragged him down the blood-spattered stairs, and put him in a cart and took him to the headquarters of the Skepquisition in Florence...

Oh, how Hoover suffered deservedly in the dungeons of the Skepquisition, oh, how all Florence heard his screams, as far as Paris, and Narrow breathed his last on the fourth day of the third month, and his body was placed in a cage and carried round all Eurasia to show to the people, so that these push-upless might learn from the good-for-nothing’s fate. And the people trembled before the Skepquisition, and hysterical laughter would twitch their lips in spasms when they saw the skepquisitors...

And the law of Mimicrisation remained in force, and from that time there was no place for the cunning mime on this earth, created for us by the O’Clowns. And they hid, and evolved their dark powers, cursed by the O’Clowns, and I myself once crept into a secret castle of the mimes, and a guard monster created by them attacked me, and I ran from it at full speed, and I understood from the terrible roar that it was a dinosaur, and saved me O the skepquisitor O Juzupas de Circemada the First, and at his request I write these annals, that the objective historical truth about the Skepquisition the Majestic and the despicable mimes may be recorded for the generations of the future...

End of W. N. Rumfoord’s annals

Vincius was a spiteful young man, embittered with life. Many had no doubt that his wrath had grounds, but they did not ask what those grounds were. Not that they would not have been interested. Oh no, after all, the question “why do you hate life?” comes second only to “why did you become a goth?” and is far ahead of the third-placed “where have you stashed the remote?” in the charts of life’s questions. It was simply that Vincius fucked everyone off so badly (the publisher insistently urged me to use the milder and more marketable “pissed them off” instead of this word, but that would be untrue: Vincius fucked them off, and that’s that) that after a few minutes of conversation there would arise a natural desire to tell Vincius to fuck off and run and kick some goth weaker than oneself, shouting “life is pain, so here, eat this”. No wonder that after a while everyone had learned to begin and end conversations with Vincius, and to fill the gaps between these elements of talk, with the phrase “Da pashol (Russian ‘да пошёл’: oh, piss off), Vincius”. The saying caught on so well that black T-shirts appeared, decorated in many colours with this inscription, and Woody Allen made a film with the same title. After a while people no longer even said the whole phrase. Some shortened it to “Pashol, Vincius”, and the cleverer ones thought of saying “Da, Vincius”. Thus, imperceptibly, people began to call Vincius Da Vincius, and Woody Allen made a sequel about the adventures of this anti-hero in Nazi-occupied Poland. A DC comics series appeared in which Da Vincius saved humankind from an attack by nihilist aliens who denied alien civilisations. The book business did not lag behind either. Dan Brown hired marketing experts to think up a topical title for his book that would bring it success. They did not confer for long, but, having smoked grass for rather longer and decided that it would be funniest that way, they suggested “Decipher Da Vincius’s Code”. Dan Brown agreed at once and at the same time ordered the book cover. On it was written: “How much do you dislike Da Vincius? So much that you want to decipher and undecipher his code? You will find the answers to all your questions here.” On the other side of the cover was a photograph of a weeping Dan Brown and the inscription under it: “Buy me now. Please.” Despite the fact that the book was only a collection of “join the dots” puzzles, it met with unexpected success and rose to the top of the bestsellers. Nobody was indifferent to Da Vincius. People hated him as a man. They idolised him as the hero of books, comics and films, and the dosh for the use of his person flowed into Da Vincius’s account at the Bank of the Round Nose.

But fame and money did not improve Da Vincius, just as a spoonful of honey does not improve a stinking pile of shit (and again, the publisher insistently suggested that I use some other, in his words, less vulgar metaphor, but a pile of shit is a pile of shit and nothing else). He would come into some tavern, sit down next to a school-leaver who had overdone the beer and was lying on the bar, and in five minutes sober him up with his fucking about. Perhaps a fine deed, but does the end really justify the means?

– Hi, how’s it going?

– Blargh blergh.

– Having fun? What’s the occasion?

– Blurgzt plur plur, urp.

– Did you know that alcohol closes the chakras?

– Huh, what?

– You didn’t know about the chakras? That’s how the Spetsnaz uses telekinetic powers.

– Like, like Neo?

– You’re simply brainwashed by propaganda and lies. You rely on old knowledge, but to accept new information you have to give up the old foundation.

– What are you on about?

– No, just don’t ask me to prove it. It is unprovable and inexplicable and contradicts the laws of logic, so you simply have to believe me.

– Mate, what are you raving about?

– There you go, straight away I’m raving. And have you even once tried to go deeper into it? You leafed through a girls’ magazine, read a bit of a Year 7 physics textbook, and now you think you’re cool?

– Maybe I’ll be going...

– Shall I walk you home? Call a taxi? If you like, I’ll give you a few black-and-white films, and afterwards we can get under the shower together and eat some sandwiches.

Of course, such situations usually ended either in tears or in violence, but it is worth mentioning that because of such attacks by Da Vincius three pissgoths and two ordained goths killed themselves, as well as one Spetsnaz officer.

But Da Vincius made one unforgivable mistake. He broke the rule that must not be broken. Everyone knows this rule. Consciously or instinctively. For some, this knowledge hides in the darkest corners of the subconscious, while others feel it every day with their whole body trembling with fear. This rule hides in the guise of jokes, bedtime stories, legends, dreams, literary masterpieces, drunken talks over a tankard, verses, engravings on gravestones, farewell kisses, weeping and laughter. It is a rule known to all, and therefore absolute. It is a rule known to all, yet written down by no one, so I shall write it down. It goes like this:

“O man, whoever you are. Laughter is a gift. You can laugh at everything. You can laugh at kings, pharaohs, popes and dictators. No one will take laughter away from you, for no one can. It does not matter what things are laughed at – the laughter is the same. It is an eternal constant that can be aimed at all and at each of you. But there is one single exception. You cannot laugh at the Clowns, for THE CLOWNS ALWAYS LAUGH LAST.”

Da Vincius did not care about this, although he was clearly a follower of the O’Clowns. Only the O’Bad Cosmic Clown could mock people so blackly. But even he would sometimes start to crack up on hearing Da Vincius tell some goth about all the psychics he had had dealings with. Not infrequently the Bad Clown would send NSOs, UFOs and other FUFLOs (NSO is the Lithuanian for UFO; Russian ‘fuflo’ is crap) over Da Vincius’s head, so that the latter would not run short of food for his stories.

– Yesterday I saw an NSO.

– Da pashol, Vincius.

– Then maybe you want to watch a few black-and-white films with me, and later try to get a job in the Spetsnaz?

They say that everyone chooses his fate himself and that the Clowns decided fate from the creation of the universe, so Da Vincius himself is to blame for his unforgivable deed. Once, during a séance, he was debating with the sceptic fundamentalist fanatic-suicide Nomad. The whole discussion lasted 53 hours and 72 minutes; for 48 hours of it all the participants in the discussion were as drunk as slippers, the rest of the time just drunk, so only a small part of that argument has survived in their memory:

– I’m telling you, the souls of the dead really do exist, but scientists can’t prove it, because it contradicts logic and geography.

– Nonsense, I don’t believe it – disagreed the spirit of Nomad, floating above the table.

– Imagine that you are not just some sceptic who blew himself up, but a dead starving African child whom a train ran over because some dude did not pull the lever that would have saved that child but smashed his Ferrari.

– So what?

– So astrology is based on statistics!

– Elementary particles coming from the planets could in no way affect a person’s fate.

– Maybe it’s just that no instruments detect those particles.

– Or maybe it is not those particles and planets that affect people’s fates, but the O’Cosmic Clowns?

– “Cosmic Clowns”... why do you keep sticking in your deities that you bow to? It doesn’t interest me – said Da Vincius and giggled.

The O’Bad Clown had been watching the whole discussion intently. Hearing Da Vincius’s last words, he grabbed the sleeping O’Good Clown by the arm and began to shake him hard. The latter woke from a dream that had almost become wet, took his thumb out of his mouth and looked questioningly at his sidekick.

– Hey, did you hear what that one said?

– Vincius? What, you sent another NSO, fck?

– No, no, he and Nomad are still going at it there. And that Da Vincius said, um, wait, said – the O’Bad Clown concentrated, a special grimace appeared on his face, one he used only when quoting, and he said – “Cosmic Clowns”... why do you keep sticking your little things into my... – suddenly he grabbed his head and began to shake it – no, wait, wait. He said, well, in a word, he said something about us and laughed!

– I know that song of yours. You just want to accuse another poor wretch of breaking the Rule.

– Well, but that was so long ago!

– Yes, it was long ago, and I still don’t understand why Hitler has to blow up rubber women for all eternity just because among the Jews he killed there were also clowns from the six-pointed circus.

– We’ve been over that. YOU DO NOT MESS WITH THE CLOWNS. That’s what the rule says.

– No, it says that the Clowns always laugh last.

– Well, whatever, what’s the difference. May I punish Da Vincius?

– Yeah, yeah, you may, what do I care. He was your favourite, after all... – said the Good Clown, put his thumb back in his mouth and dozed off.

The Bad Cosmic Clown had a vivid imagination. Of course, usually he would limit himself to just a murder, well, and a few primitive tortures, and go on playing Counter-Strike with cheats, but not when the Rule had been broken.

Da Vincius will have to spend eternity writing his autobiography in the third person. The Clownish version of the autobiography. For ever.

As everyone knows nowadays, history has been falsified. This was done in order to hide the fact that the CC was once a universally professed religion. Therefore I would like to acquaint readers with the writings of that time.

The Skepquisition at that time was an institution that made sure no clownless rubbish spilled into the teaching of the CC. Perhaps the methods of its work described here will outrage some more sensitive reader, but, I think, only because he does not know that historical material must not be judged out of context.

Day is breaking. The city is still asleep, but in the skepquisition branch five skepquisitors are on duty. So that time does not go to waste, one reads the “Clown Daily” aloud, the others do push-ups. Their car, carefully polished, is always ready to set off for the scene.

On the communications console a red light comes on. Eustachius instantly jumps up from the floor:

– Chief, a signal! Turbulence in the astral plane!

The head of the branch, Melchizedek, sits down at the console. Will they manage to track down the culprit behind the disorder this time?

– Incredible – Eustachius and Protonasius whisper to each other. – The signal is several times stronger than usual!

– Long Street, number four. Most likely blasphemies. Inform headquarters – we’ll deal with it ourselves – says Melchizedek.

– Chief, check the heresiometer readings! – Eustachius cannot keep still. – It’s dangerous to go near such a strong source with our forces! Do you remember how it was...

– Are you men or old women? – the branch chief barks. Lit by the red light, his tense face looks truly frightening. Grabbing his lightsaber “Jedi v1.0.1”, he swings its beam across the station – cobwebs, wallpaper, splinters of furniture go flying. – Everyone into the car!

Here is Long Street. Protonasius clutches his amulet hopefully – a red clown’s nose on a gold chain. The rookie Innocent checks for the fifth time whether his gun is loaded.

– Storm it!

The five brave men leap out and surround the house. Two dark figures jump from a balcony onto another house and run off across the roofs.

– Don’t chase them! The main source is still inside! – Melchizedek commands.

Sweeping aside everything in their path, the skepquisitors burst into the living room. All around – empty vodka bottles, leftovers of snacks, greasy cards. Something stirs on the sofa.

– Ha... ha... have mer... lads... – a drunken creature babbles. – My friends and I were just talking...

The chief thrusts the lightsaber under his nose.

– Did you think about this when you were blaspheming against the O’Clowns?

– We... we were just wondering whether maybe there is only one Clown, not two... – the culprit justifies himself.

– Menesiphorus, son of Barbakan, 28 years old, unemployed. Masturbated in childhood. Does not pay alimony to his former wife. Convicted of malicious hooliganism and drunkenness in public places – Eustachius instantly finds the necessary data.

– To the station!

At the station the talk with such types is short.

– For a start, tear off his nails – Melchizedek orders. The rookie Innocent flinches and covers his face.

– Can our tortures compare with the horrors that sinners will suffer in the Cosmic Chamber of Horrors? – the chief instructs Innocent in a fatherly way. – Isn’t it cruel to let a man choose eternal suffering? After all, with the help of these paltry sufferings he will escape the real torture! Can anything invented by man equal the things the O’Clowns have created in eternity?

Protonasius comes back from the cellar, smiling. Everyone looks at him questioningly.

– He recanted. I thought he’d hold out longer.

– Good! – the chief wipes off his sweat. – Let them collect his corpse in the daytime, when our shift is over. Team, at ease!

People get up in the mornings, go to work, come home, eat and go to bed, but nobody even stops to think that close by, perhaps in the next street, a brigade of skepquisitors is waiting for a call-out, ready to go even to the farthest corner of the planet to save people’s souls!

The Book of Zabediejus consists of one part. The story was written down by different authors as a single work in different epochs, with the help of cosmic astrals and the direct dictation of the O’Clowns. The fact that some parts of this story were written even hundreds of years before the events described in it, and fit perfectly with the parts written before or after them by different authors, only proves the existence of the O’Cosmic Clowns, because to this day scientists cannot explain such a stunning coincidence and harmony in any other way.

The Beginning (Nomad)

On the eighth day, a Tuesday, Zabediejus was eating sandwiches and getting ready for work. In the next room his wife and his two-year-old little daughter were dozing. They did not even suspect that this day would not be like all the others.

Shouts and fighting could be heard in the street. “It’s like this every day,” thought Zabediejus. “Ever since the Romans chose the material way, the activity of underground push-upless gangs has kept growing. Just the other day someone set fire to a circus and knocked over the trapezes in the cemetery...”

Suddenly there came the blows of an axe on the door. Zabediejus jumped up, shitting himself (frightened). In the room the child began to cry.

(7x)

“Must be the tax inspectors coming,” thought Zebediejus. “I’m sure that one day they will all suffer torment for ever in the chamber of horrors.”

The circusite timidly went to the door and opened it, having first demanded, in the form of a scream, that they stop damaging his property.

– Greetings, O gallant tax inspectors, what little joke have you brought into my humble home?

– Poor jokes, Zebediejus. Someone saw you yesterday knocking over trapezes in the cemetery. You’ll have to pay for the damage.

One of the several inspectors pulled out a wax tablet with a large number of large little figures and handed it to Zebediejus.

– O’Clowns... but I don’t have that much money! I didn’t knock over any trapezes!

– You won’t fool us, you push-upless! You know what awaits you now – both tax inspectors said in unison and roared with evil laughter – mwhahahahahahahaha...

(Nomad)

Without any warning the senior inspector hit Zabediejus in the face. Blood poured from his nose. A kick to the liver doubled Zabediejus up.

– Into the car. No talking – the senior inspector commanded. The other two grabbed the unfortunate man under the arms and dragged him down the stairwell. His tearful wife remained standing at the door.

Outside, the Senior one hailed a taxi with a wave of his hand. “I don’t understand anything,” Zabediejus thought through a haze. “Since when does the tax inspectorate care about cemeteries and trapezes? Something’s not right here...”

The trio shoved the still bleeding Zabediejus into the taxi and got in themselves, two in the back and the senior one in the front.

– 32 Waffle Street – he gave the driver the address, and the taxi moved off. Zabediejus turned pale.

The building at 32 Waffle Street housed the headquarters of the Merry Skepquisition.

(Ramzajus)

The taxi driver was told to stop a little way off from the main entrance. The inspectors led the bleeding Zabediejus through the back door, then turned down the stairs and came into a damp room with Gothic vaults. “The old cellars of the Skepquisition,” thought Zabediejus. From the beggars who lived around the approaches to the circus Zabediejus had heard gruesome stories about the “mime colonies” – thousands of mimes imprisoned beneath the city, working in deep coal mines. Even as a child Zabediejus, taught by his mum, would avoid standing about on manhole covers, cos a scary scary mime could catch him and eat his brains.

The inspectors strode briskly, dragging Zabediejus, who could hardly walk, by the arms. Finally they stopped at a room with an iron-bound door and shoved Zabediejus inside with a blow of an axe handle. The sound of a lock turning was heard.

The room smelled of mould; a light bulb hanging from the ceiling lit it dimly. In the half-light Zabediejus made out a chair, a table behind it and... the silhouette of a man at the other end of the table.

– Sit down – came a voice. Zabediejus obediently carried out the command.

– You must be endlessly naive if you still think that the tax inspectorate cares about vandalism in cemeteries – the voice went on.

– What do you want from me? – Zabediejus asked, spitting blood.

– We know what you did last summer...

Zebediejus’s legs began to go numb. Where had they got that from? HOW? All the witnesses had long been lying buried under a little pine tree at his granny’s farmstead.

– It seems that, walking about free all this time, you have run up quite a debt to society... – the voice spoke after a short pause – time to pay back the debt!

(Nomad)

Zabediejus felt his legs going numb and slumped down. “Chakra powers,” flashed through his mind. “I’m powerless against them.” Meanwhile the man at the other end of the table opened his third chakra, and a paralysing ray struck Zabediejus.

The interrogator shackled the dazed victim to the chains set into the walls specially for the purpose.

– We will talk – he declared, checking how the pliers fitted the prisoner’s nails.

Zabediejus began to feel sick with fear.

– So what am I accused of? – he whispered...

– You poisoned your own cabbages in your granny’s garden, and because of that seventeen members of the Order of Klaus died trying to carry out the annual ritual theft! – the interrogator grinned gloatingly...

(7x)

Zebediejus’s mouth went dry, his eyes filled with tears...

– Bbbut I p-p-p-poisoned nothing. Tthere wwwas ttt – taking a deep breath – fertiliser! – Zebediejus somehow lisped out.

– Aha, you stammer! Did the O’Clowns not say: “He stammers whose tongue the mimes hold in their grip, trying to hide their lies and villainies!” That alone is enough for Clownthanasia to be performed on you, but...

– Oh no, not that! Have mercy on me, please, tear out my nails instead or pour boiling tar into my mouth – Zebediejus cried, interrupting the Interrogator.

The Interrogator smiled crookedly, looked the unfortunate man in the eyes and said:

– Now, don’t be so impatient, let me finish. But for your services to spreading laughter in the ranks of the push-upless, i.e. making the vibration of their funny bone quiver to the point where they are ready to feel the gags of the O’Clowns, you will be interrogated further. We will use the old skepquisitorial technique – we will torture you until we get tired, and if by then you are still alive – the Clowns have protected you and you are innocent.

– Wait, no need... the one who poisoned the cabbages... was my granny... – Zebediejus mumbled, realising that even such an alternative did not suit him.

The Secret of Zebediejus’s Granny (Ramzajus)

Euthanasia Perdinskaya (‘Fartinskaya’) was well known in the surrounding district as a woman who had earned high social status, a veteran of both Great Wars. Adorning her long and colourful biography were the golden circusite medal of honour and a commemorative howitzer with initials, a gift from the emperor himself, both awarded for a sheroic feat during the Gulf of Riga War.

So the chief inspector of the skepquisition, hearing Perdinskaya’s name, thought hard. Indeed, every institution avoided getting into a conflict with society’s top brass, who have strategically convenient seats in the boxes of the Eternal Cosmic Circus and can throw popcorn and chewing gum on the heads of those who wronged them.

All this, of course, will not happen if Madam Euthanasia really is guilty. The chief inspector downed a bottle of vodka and commanded:

– Write out a search warrant!

(Nomad)

The Chief Inspector’s assistant shuddered. For years he had watched his chief’s high-handedness, but now the time had come to say NO. That a universally renowned heroine should be searched? A veteran of both wars? A woman who had earned the public’s trust and did charity work? Finally, the godmother of his own child? That was not going to happen.

– I’m going to the office for the stamp – the assistant fobbed him off and ran as fast as his legs would carry him to where he dared enter only when summoned – to the enlaughtened circusite Hans de Circemada. The Grand Skepquisitor. Without knocking he opened the door, tumbled into the office and, gasping for air, coughed out:

– The Chief Inspector intends to search Perdinskaya’s house!

The Grand Skepquisitor, who had already put his hand on the button “idiot came in without knocking, guards, interrogation, killing”, paused. He thought.

– The Chief Inspector to me! Quickly, run, tell him to come. And drop in on me in a week; bringing such news deserves a reward.

Beaming with happiness, the Inspector’s assistant again ran back as fast as his legs would carry him. Meanwhile the Grand Skepquisitor picked up the receiver and dialled Perdinskaya’s home number, which he knew by heart.

– Hello, cousin...

(7x)

– Ooh, hello there, Mufikas. Well, at last you’ve deigned to call me, and I was already thinking you had forgotten your old cousin. Don’t you know how sad it is for me to sit alone day after day? It’s a good thing I have Kugelis, who brightens my dull everyday life by wagging his little tail so funnily. And you know, it really does wag so funnily... – Perdinskaya began to chatter.

– Hush! This is no time for that... and errr, I did ask you not to call me that...

– Not to call you what? Mufikas is your real name...

– How many times do I have to tell you that I’ve changed my name... “Hans” suits my profession much better. That’s not the point... forget that nonsense, we have serious problems. Butterbroder has probably found out something about the “Green Leaves” operation. Your bastard couldn’t keep his tongue behind his teeth. Only thanks to the Clowns and a moronic assistant did I manage to head off the search of your house. I have just summoned Butterbroder onto the carpet, and you make sure that there are no “weeds” left in the garden... you understand what I mean?

– Mufikas, I pulled up all those weeds ages ago...

– My Clown! Evidence! See that no evidence is left! The Council won’t like me obstructing the investigation, and in the end the search warrant will be issued. Before that, all the ends leading to us must be cut off. All we need is to find a scapegoat... as I understand it, Zebediejus won’t do, the devil take those family ties – after a short pause – we must end this conversation, I can hear Butterbroder coming... he’s probably been lapping up vodka again. A bad sign.

There was a knocking at the door of the Grand Skepquisitor’s office.

(Nomad)

Mufikas de Circemada pressed the button “Open, prepare the little laser cannons”. The door opened, and from behind it appeared the pale face of the chief Inspector Vulfas de Butterbroder. In his usual style of worshipping the Cosmic Clowns, for which he had already received reprimands more than once, de Butterbroder had clamped his head in steel hoops, and on the top of his head balanced a cake with cream and wild strawberries.

The Grand Skepquisitor, who was out of sorts as it was, now simply went berserk.

– Take off that nonsense, you fucked-up waffle (lt. ‘vafli’, slang for a dimwit, and a twist on his name, Vulfas)!!! How many times have you been told – that’s not how the Cosmic Clowns are to be worshipped!! That way you won’t sow laughter in their heart, or in your own, let alone in mine!! Moron.

– But it hasn’t been proven that the Cosmic Clowns don’t like a clamped head with a cake on it – de Butterbroder tried to argue. – Now, if you proved how cakes came about... or if you explained scientifically that the miracles worked by the famous circusite Protanasius von Chromoxidovich, who, as is well known, wore a cake in his trousers, were not inspired by the O’Clowns... then...

De Circemada finally ran out of patience.

– Sit down, you sick waffly carp! And listen, fuck, to what I’m going to tell you now, cos I’ll say it only once. I will give you two orders about Zabediejus that contradict each other; in honour of both Cosmic Clowns, one order will be good, the other bad. You will have to show your wits and choose for yourself which one to carry out.

(7x)

De Butterbroder trembled so much that a cherry with a sizeable chunk of cream splashed from the top of his head onto the floor. “A false dilemma,” he thought. “Concentrate, waffle, ptui, Vulfas, this is the straight road up or a lift without a cable down.”

De Circedama, noticing what an impression this news had made on his great headache, smiled maliciously and said:

– First and foremost, you must release Zebediejus immediately. He is being interrogated at the moment, isn’t he? By the way, do you happen to know who the informer was in the poisoned cabbages case?

– I’m sorry, but that is secret... – Vulfas strained timidly through his teeth.

The Grand Skepquisitor frowned: “May a hundred mimes castrate you, he is not as stupid as he looks.”

– Good... very good. After you have carried out my first order, but before you carry it out, release Zebediejus! Is that all clear? Good, dismissed.

Butterbroder, in accordance with all the statutes of the skepquisition, made an elegant curtsey and vanished behind the door of Hans de Circedama’s office.

De Circedama smirked and muttered under his breath:

– That idiot probably didn’t even understand that both orders are identical. Now, where’s my felt-tip pen, I must write up a charge of attempting to free an accomplice to a crime.

(Son)

Walking along the corridor, de Butterbroder thought that something did not add up in this order.

– It must be the O’Bad Clown tripping me up, to make himself a merry day – he grumbled under his breath.

But suddenly realising that he was speaking heresies and that the Eternal Chamber of Horrors awaited him for it, he actually shuddered as shivers ran down his back, and did not dare think about it any more.

– But still, something’s not right here – he said under his breath.

Realising only then that someone might hear, he lowered his head and, walking along the corridor, which echoed softly with the distant clanking of the fettered mimes’ chains, thought: “De Circemada probably suspects something. This time he didn’t even like my cake. And he himself told me how the O’Clowns love tricks with cakes. And those orders are somehow not right, and their tone is not funny at all and unbecoming for a person holding such a post. Yes, something’s not right here. I’ll go and report what happened today to Skreplionis Spertoidas Eutanazijonavičius (‘Phlegmion Spermoid Euthanasiovich’).”

– Ah, of course! – he cried out involuntarily, but, realising that here even the walls might hear, he felt quite awkward. – I must release Zebediejus, so that de Circedama doesn’t understand what is going on. – And muttering under his breath:

– Zebediejus, Zebediejus – he opened the iron-bound door of the room in which the skepquisition was already in high spirits.

(7x)

The skepquisitors raised their eyes from their cards, gave Zebediejus a nudge to stop whining about how he didn’t like playing “fool”, and pricked up their ears. Vulfas stared at them for a while with a retard’s gaze until it dawned on him that he was the one who had come here, and said:

– Zebediejus, I have received authority from Circedama to deal with you as I see fit. I must release you, or else... RELEASE you! – de Butterbroder said in a very emphatic tone and smirked.

The interrogators exchanged glances; one of them twirled his finger almost imperceptibly at his temple and stood up, ready to free the interrogated man from his chains. But Vulfas shouted:

– Heyyy, wait a moment. You don’t know which option I will choose. Zebediejus, rattle and tremble with fear, for I – Vulfas made what he thought was a very significant pause, which wiped out every hope the other skepquisitors had of finding even a particle of common sense in the Chief Inspector’s noggin – release you...

– Thank the O’Clowns! You can’t imagine how awkward it is to play cards chained to a wall. I thought I wouldn’t last long...

(Nomad)

– But first – one of the rank-and-file skepquisitors remarked – you ought to pay what you lost. I.e. a hundred sesterces.

– Err... my wallet stayed at home... yes, at home – Zabediejus said sadly.

De Butterbroder took fright. What if a fight breaks out? Zabediejus will be beaten up, and the Grand Skepquisitor will come to check, and who will have to answer for it? Obviously, as always, him. It must not be allowed to happen. Their attention must be diverted.

– Voilaaaaaaaaa!!! – Waffle de Butterbroder shouted at the top of his lungs and, taking a run, rammed his head with the cake on top into the nearest wall. He felt some heaviness, circles sent by the Clowns began to spin before his eyes, and he slumped unconscious.

The skepquisitors exchanged glances with one another and with Zabediejus.

– Erm, maybe you’d better go. Only don’t tell anyone what you saw here, especially about the chief interrogator. Never mind the money, happiness doesn’t lie in material things.

– I understand you – Zabediejus answered amicably. – Good luck with a boss like that. If anyone asks, I saw nothing.

Everyone said a friendly goodbye, and Zabediejus went home in the same taxi to his wife, who was weeping with happiness, and his children. But at the headquarters of the Merry Skepquisition everything was only just beginning...

– In the name of Hans de Circemada!!! – a loud knocking at the door of the Old Cellar. – Is the chief inspector Waffle de Butterbroder among you? He is accused of freeing a prisoner and of blaspheming against the Clowns and pantomime besides!! Open up!!

The remaining skepquisitors raised their eyes from their cards and exchanged glances.

(7x)

Behind the door stood a small, slight, dark-haired runt of a man. In the interrogation room’s dim light, which fell on the unexpected guest, his skin looked a little greenish, and his eyes shone like freshly polished kopecks lying in an old maid’s drawer. Not for nothing did Perdinskaya address him at parties as “my little goblin”, an epithet which, to tell the truth, he did not much like. The director of internal affairs, Skreplionis Spertoidas Eutanazijonavičius, entered the room. Silence fell at once. The gobli... that is, Skreplionis rarely crawled out of his office. That meant this case was exceptional. Vulfas would have received the heartfelt sympathy of his subordinates if, of course, at least one of them had liked de Butterbroder more than venereal diseases.

– Ah, I see you have already neutralised Vulfas. Very good, you will get a few good words in my report – the goblin said to the skepquisitors in a squeaky voice, seeing de Butterbroder lying flat.

– Er, yes, thank you – said a tall lad, quite confused, holding in his hands a jack, a queen, a king, several aces of hearts and a joker – a clownish straight.

Skreplionis turned to two hulks standing a little way off and said:

– Gorilla, Trout, drag this pathetic piece of dung to Room 101... Fellow interrogators, thank you for your cooperation.

Eutanazijonavičius gave the frozen skepquisitors a businesslike nod and vanished behind the door before he had time to ask their names, which he would, no doubt, mention in his report.

(Nomad)

When the director of internal affairs had gone, the card players breathed more easily. Yeees, this day had been no ordinary one... fortunately, it seems it’s all over.

– It seems it’s finally all over... may the O’Clowns laugh at our optimism – one skepquisitor summed up everyone’s thoughts with the standard phrase and began to deal the cards.

But, it seems, everything was only just beginning. Judging by a loud, clear voice in the corridor:

– Come out, Waffle! You and we have unfinished business!

– What’s this, by a hundred mimes? – the skepquisitors wondered.

– There’s no Waffle here – they called back.

The door suddenly crashed in under a mighty kick, and four people dressed in black came tumbling in with clownish somersaults, wearing red clown noses on elastic bands and katanas on their backs. The skepquisitors turned pale...

– W... W... Warriors of the Order of Klaus...

– Yes! – came a mocking voice. – Well, where is Vulfas de Butterbroder? He was paid to send Zabediejus off to the O’Clowns. But it seems that oaf of a lawyer only managed to take the money, not to carry out the job...

(7x)

The skepquisitors were silent for at least half a minute. The interrogation room was sunk in complete, absolute silence. And then, like a cannon shot out of a clear sky, laughter burst out. The interrogators writhed on the floor clutching their bellies, stuffed their palms into their mouths, tried in every way their limited imagination allowed to stem the wave of giggling, but in vain. Five minutes passed, ten... The warriors of the Order of Klaus stood crushed. They were not used to asking questions, they were used to killing. Why this time they had asked instead of slaughtering every living being within sight – they did not know. The Clowns must have pulled them by the tongue. They could explain the burst of laughter only by assuming that the warriors of the Order had looked terribly funny asking something. But now it was too late. The wish to kill passes at once when your victims laugh in your face. Finally one of the interrogators, the one with the lamest sense of humour, struggled to his feet and said, giggling:

– Wait, wait, heh... hehehe, you, like, hired Butterbroder?? Hahahhahah... And... – the interrogator took a deep breath, trying to hold back the tsunami of laughter – aaand you gave him mo... mo... money... in advan...ha...ha. hahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA, you gave him money in advance, AHAHAHAH, Clowns, stop it, I can’t take any more, they gave BUTTERBRODER money in advance!!! HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAhahahAHHAHAHAHA...

A katana flashed, and the head of the one who had just spoken fell to the floor. Right under the noses of the guffawing skepquisitors.

– Either you explain what is so funny here, or this one’s fate awaits you... – said the commander of the strike squad of the warriors of the Order of Klaus, Josef Steel.

The interrogators jumped up at once. The eldest of them, shaken by laughter and a tremor of fear, said:

– Well... you see... with all due respect... Vulfas Butterbroder is an idiot... He can’t even tie his shoelaces, so there’s no point being surprised that he may have forgotten your “little job”. We, by the way, are also ready to “forget” this visit – as he spoke he glanced at his headless colleague – we’ll say this one hurt himself in an accident... All the ends will be tied up... we won’t give anything away, really!!! – then he pulled himself together, realising that he was whimpering in the voice of a 13-year-old girl – BUT, but only on condition that you leave us alive!

Josef scratched his noggin...

– Hm... sounds kind of suspicious... naah, but all right, never mind. But you must tell us where Waffle has gone.

– Ah, Eutanazijonavičius dragged him to Room 101... You go out by the do... through the door, turn left, go up the stairs and you’ll find it easily.

The warriors of the Order of Klaus vanished from the room in an instant. The interrogators dragged the corpse into the corner, sat down at the table and began to deal the cards.

Meanwhile, in Room 101... (Nomad)

– Get up, Waffle, get up! – a voice rang out. Vulfas de Butterbroder somehow prised his eyes open. Before him he saw a table and three persons sitting at it. The inspector of internal affairs and two unknown, respectably dressed characters. Drooling and lying on the floor, Vulfas felt a little awkward in front of them, so he decided to show that, despite the circumstances, he was not that stupid. He stood up, took a hole punch from the secretary’s desk, went up to one of the guests, who was trying to understand what was going on, and squeezed his nose with the hole punch, shouting “New Year!!!”

The second guest jumped up like lightning and laid Vulfas out on the floor again with the butt of his revolver. Then both turned to Eutanazijonavičius, who had turned half green, half red, and the hemisphere of his brain responsible for exact thinking was already composing explanations for the guests, while the hemisphere responsible for imagination was working out what he would do to de Butterbroder afterwards.

– Er... yes, my fault for leaving him untied, I knew he was a moron, but my imagination did not stretch to what could be expected of him... please forgive me this misunderstanding, for the sake of our long and fruitful cooperation, my friends – the minister spoke in a moderately regretful voice.

– This one, we understand, would be beyond our imagination too; where did you dig up someone like him, our friend? – answered one guest. – Though, on the other hand, about that later. As we agreed, you will transfer this fuckwit to work in the archive. But now, having seen his capabilities with my own eyes, I am beginning to doubt whether that will help ensure that silence is kept. After all, we are decent, honest small businessmen, and that undoubtedly untrue story about the cabbages, if it spreads, may bring down on us the wrath of law enforcement and of the Order of Klaus...

The inspector turned pale, understanding the hints hidden in the guest’s words.

– Do not doubt me, silence will be kept, I will do everything I can for the sake of this thing of ours, Signor Riina – he answered firmly.

(7x)

The warriors of the Order of Klaus ran up the stairs and hurried along the narrow corridor of the Skepquisition headquarters to Room 101. It was not especially hard to find, since in the half-light (Mufikas de Circedama preferred to spend the money meant for lighting on board games and jigsaw puzzles) the phosphorescent numbers “101” shone from afar, and two hulks guarded the door. So, after a hastily held vote, in which the combination of the statement “That office there, like” and an eloquent wave of the hand towards the door won three to one, the warriors of the Order of Klaus, almost sure that they were not mistaken, approached their victim. It should probably come as no surprise that Gorilla and Trout blocked their way. These two, seeing four menacing-looking lads with katanas, took a few steps to meet them. Josef Steel made a sign which more or less meant “Meat ahead – we kill”, and four dark silhouettes, drawing their katanas, attacked the two guards. Steel ran first. He managed to dodge a blow from the oncoming Gorilla and cut off the still outstretched right arm. The arm splattered onto the floor, blood poured. Gorilla yelled:

– Hey, my watch!! – and bent down to take it off the severed limb, so Josef’s attempt to cut off the guard’s head failed.

But a few fractions of a second later the nearest member of the Order of Klaus split Gorilla’s noggin vertically into two equal parts. Pulling out his katana, which had reached the neck, and trying to shake the blood off the blade with a quick swing, he accidentally cut off the leg of a clanmate running beside him. The clanmate fell down and yelled:

– Fuck, FUCKWIT, not again! How many times have I told you to use a napkin or a hanky – with a sigh – pass me my prosthesis...

Meanwhile the remaining warrior of the Order of Klaus was showing off, trying to bounce impressively off the wall, and Trout pinned him with a wooden cross whose long end finished in a sharp metal tip. The pinned man coughed up blood and, stretching a trembling hand towards Trout, mumbled:

– T... tell my wife that it was me, not the dog, who always spoiled the air... – and, having breathed his last, he stayed hanging on the wall like that gymnast on the cross that had killed the warrior.

Trout heard out his enemy’s last wish with tears in his eyes and nodded to show that he would fulfil it. But he did not manage to do so, since Steel, not inclined to wistful farewells, sliced off the guard’s head.

The door of Room 101 opened. Steel, soaked in blood, stepped in. Seeing how many people there were in the office, Josef decided that the cleaning lady on this floor would have quite a bit of work...

(Nomad)

But the people sitting in the office did not lose their composure.

– What would you like? – the Minister of Internal Affairs asked gently.

– A hamburger, chips and a diet cola – Josef answered on autopilot. Thus and only thus had he answered the question “what would you like?” since childhood. True, sometimes he would ask for beer, grass and amphetamine, but never in official institutions. The Merry Skepquisition was an official institution.

– Then you’ve come to the wrong place. This is the office of the Minister of Internal Affairs, not a snack bar – Eutanazijonavičius went on in a very calm voice, leafing through some papers on the table.

– We beg your pardon – the warriors of the Order of Klaus apologised politely in chorus and left. That was exactly how they had been drilled since childhood to behave when they came to the wrong place.

The guests looked at their host with wide eyes. He shrugged:

– Well, I’ve had to deal with the Order of Klaus for thirty years now. I’ve mastered the tactics in that time.

Meanwhile, on their way back to the airport, the two warriors of the Order of Klaus talked between themselves.

– Was it right to leave our clanmate rolling about with his prosthesis by that snack bar?

– It wasn’t a snack bar, it was the Interior Minister’s office.

– Fuck it, you know what I mean, don’t quibble over words.

– Fuck those words, you’re always quibbling yourself, and I can’t?

– Well, because you don’t know how, you’re a lamer. Remember that time, during the Mother Teresa’s Night massacre, when you talked rubbish? I explained to you that...

– No, well, you do like looking back, back then I was young and inexperienced, of course, but now...

– And now you’re almost the same. Old, and still inexperienced...

Talking like this, they boarded the waiting plane.

– How was the mission, all in order? – the pilot asked coldly, starting the engine. – Two died?

– Two died, the mission failed. It was the Interior Minister’s office, not a snack bar – Josef answered and went on with the conversation. – So I’m telling you, you got onto this mission not because you’re a pro, but because you’re the lamer of lamers and the Synod of the Order hopes you’ll learn a thing or two from practice and from me...

– I see – the pilot answered sadly, and the plane, gathering speed, slowly lifted off the ground and turned towards Okinawa...

You don’t have to do anything. The Good Cosmic Clown has already saved you – he did 1024 push-ups. All you have to do is accept this gift of his and believe in both Cosmic Clowns. It is recommended that you do push-ups in the mornings, thus honouring the sacrifice of the Cosmic Clown. By the way, scientists claim that doing push-ups has a positive effect on human health, and this is obvious proof of the existence of the Cosmic Clowns.

Simple: faith comes only from the Clowns. If you do not believe, that means the Clowns have not given you faith. That is how they punish you for not believing in them. You simply have to ask them to grant you faith.

Man, look around – they are everywhere. Planets and stars – round, the water cycle on Earth goes round in a circle, periods – cyclical and so on... And the Clowns’ noses are round, and the Circus is round. Isn’t that excellent proof?

Another proof is that we have our own circuses and our own clowns. Could people have thought up such a thing by themselves? No!

And finally, think: where did everything come from? Isn’t that excellent proof of the existence of the Cosmic Clowns?

Only the Clowns know how it will be. They are always right, so there is no need to worry.

Science is an invention of the Bad Clown, so that the descendants of Adolf and Waffle (i.e. us) lose their faith. The Bad Clown, after all, has an interest in slaughtering all 1024 of the chosen.

When they last appeared to the deaf boy Zigmas from the village of Cirkiškiai (‘Circusville’), the Cosmic Clowns said that all the misfortunes on earth are due to people making love in the wrong positions. Back in the days when there were only Adolf and his dog Walfle on earth, the Good Clown had prescribed the only right position – the traditional missionary one. Doesn’t it remind you of push-ups? And all the other positions are a source of evil, an invention of the Bad Clown.

It is the circus arena, and the Clowns’ nose, and the Sun, and much else besides. It is simply a sign of infinite respect and humility. People use it quite often without even thinking, for example:

– O, hello!

If a person does not believe in the Clowns, why would he say O? That means he still believes somewhat, but denies it.

The prophet Snout wrote in his works that the Clowns gave Adolf the powers to reproduce by spores and outgrowths.

Nonsense? What is nonsense to you is faith to us! You simply are not ripe for it yet. Never mind, when you grow up you will find your true way, because everyone goes towards the CC. And for now we will do push-ups for you.

The O’Clowns, Good and Bad, prophesied to us: “They will mock you and persecute you, but know this – I protect you. And do not scatter pearls before swine, but go through the world with your heads held high and strengthen your faith in the O’Clown, Good and Bad.”

O’Clown, how irritating all those atheists are with their facts, arguments, validity and common sense. Isn’t what the Cosmic Clowns said enough for them?

There are facts that once again indisputably prove the existence of the CC. Did you know that not one of the chosen has died under the wheels of a car! Truly heartening statistics. I personally feel that the laughter of the O’Cosmic Clowns protects and accompanies my astral soul everywhere. Atheists have never experienced such a feeling, so they cannot grasp what clownatics grasp.

For example, Bush is one of the chosen. Even now they call him a clown... and not without reason. His place in the eternal cosmic circus is already guaranteed. Even the band “BLOODHOUND GANG”, loving their president and professing the Great Cosmic Clowns, wrote a song glorifying Bush, “Our President Is a Clown”. People believe in the CC not only in Lithuania, but also in one of the most powerful states in the world – the USA!

Whole Lithuanian sports teams, and famous ones too, profess this faith and perform rituals in honour of the O’Clowns. For example, Paulius Garkauskas:

DELFI • “Late on Tuesday evening a large crowd of fans in the temporary capital welcomed the ‘Žalgiris’ basketball players, who had brought the Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL) champions’ title back to Kaunas. In an excellent mood, the Žalgiris players sprayed champagne with their most loyal fans, did push-ups and chanted the Kaunas club’s chants.”

Do not be afraid, accept the CC into your heart. They love you, and that is the clearest proof that the CC exist. You may not believe in the CC, but the CC will always believe in you.

By trying to deny the existence of the CC you only prove that you believe in the existence of the CC. After all, it would be illogical to deny what does not exist. Wouldn’t it?

Nomad: I did. The local media reported that Mozart’s real grave had been found somewhere in Italy. It turns out that he faked his death and went on living for some time afterwards, composing music under the name of Rossini. I had almost started arguing why it was nonsense when I remembered what day it was.

A mockery?! You’re a mockery yourself, you unfunny mime!

Look at the testimonies section and you will see how many people’s lives have changed since they found the way of laughter and the Clownish teaching.

I don’t know what your faith is, but I bet it is church hags’ drivel compared with the merry and true teaching of the Clowns. And what about the scientifically confirmed benefit of daily push-ups for the muscles of the chest, shoulders and arms (and also for the cardiopulmonary system)?! What good, I wonder, does kneeling in church do? Answer!

Besides, the Cosmic Clowns and their stories are no funnier than real religions. Especially compared with the immaculate conception, or how God fought with a man by the roadside and lost, or the absurd way he made himself a son and tortured him to death just to pass on some “message” to someone (like – you are forgiven). So I don’t see how all this can be called a mockery. It is the other religions that are a distorted CC faith and a mockery of the O’Clowns.

But they write about them in the book “Games for Children under 8”, where Jesus is not mentioned at all.

Even if there is one, he was created by the Cosmic Clowns, like everything else. Only we cannot imagine why the O’Cosmic Clowns would have had to create such nonsense. Therefore there is no God. All other religions are clownade (see “clownade” in the CC glossary).

Have you never seen a corpse?

This is yet another myth connected with a wrong interpretation of the Clowns’ teaching. Even a complete blockhead can see that the number 42 cannot be of Clownish origin. If we divide 42 by two, we get 21. And if by three – 14. That explains everything. You can’t argue with pure mathematics!

Here you have made a very common misinterpretation of the O’Clowns’ teaching. Dualism is an especially distorted version of the CC teaching. To mislead people, even the name has been left similar to that of the Clowns’ teaching.

In fact, the Cosmic Clowns are not Good and Bad at all in the sense that, for example, God and Satan are. Oh no. They are good friends and drink tea together. It is simply that one prefers gentle humour, with or without subtext, the kind that suits the whole family. The other prefers black humour, crude, peasant-style and the like. That is the whole difference, and it is why one is called Good, the other – Bad.

Hence the saying “good gag”. In fact it means not praise for the teller of the gag, but thanks to the Good Clown for the laughter he has sent.

To the meat-processing plant. Because they eat (round) tomatoes.

You must be joking, sir. How can one not believe when the authentic Old and New Clownaments have been presented, with the authentic snot of the Bad Clown on the cover, when for thousands of years the famous science of Clownology has studied the O’Clowns, when the clearest testimonies of those who experienced the manifestation of O’Clownishness have been written down. The Skepquisition has not bothered with such infidels ever since Margaret Thatcher cut the funding of the Skepquisitors’ Trade Union!

The Cosmic Clowns exist without proof, and blessed is he who believes without proof. Logic is an invention of the mimes. When the Clowns pour boiling caramel down the collars of the push-upless in the Chamber of Horrors, we will all guffaw at them loudly and pelt them with chocolate-coated nuts.

7x: Those who profess the O’CC faith have been persecuted since time immemorial. In the year 1222 of the Clown Era (the Clown Era began 2005 years ago, when they sank Atlantis) heretics dealt an almost fatal blow to the CC faith. They destroyed almost all the funny writings together with the brothers in faith (it is for precisely this reason that the present-day brothers in faith get high by all sorts of means – so that the wisdom of the O’CC, which is later written down in the Book of Laughter, may reach them through visions – and try to restore at least a part of the lost writings). And it was only quite recently that, with the help of intoxicants and getting stoned, the circusite Liocikas managed to restore the little word that until the year 1222 used to be said after every prayer (all sorts of heretics use, e.g., “amen” and the like). “Ha”. To honour both Clowns one ought to say “ha ha”.

Push-upless – a person who does not do push-ups; fig. one who does not profess the O’Cosmic Clowns, a heretic.

Circusite – a person for whom a place in the CC circus is reserved. (Vajėzus)

Clownfanatic – a person who believes in the Clowns fanatically, trying to become a Circusite. Able to sacrifice others for the sake of the faith, clownatics among them.

Clownatic – a person who believes in the Clowns, trying to become a Circusite.

The levels of clownatics according to the Old Clownament:

Level-13 clownatic – the Enlaughtened (the highest level, a Clear, an enlightened one, etc.). Must know 8192 routines and practically work and live in the circus. A clownatic of this level must be able to catch with his teeth 6 silver bullets fired at the same time and 3 thrown axes. The 6 silver bullets may be replaced by a clip of heavy-calibre M2HB machine-gun cartridges. Some of the clownatics taking the “level 13” test would be granted the grace of the O’Clowns – “bypassing” the level of the Enlaughtener, they would go straight to the Cosmic Circus.

Level-12 clownatic – must know 4096 routines
Level-11 clownatic – must know 2048 routines
Level-10 clownatic – must know 1024 routines (from this level one becomes one of the 1024, or a megaclownatic)
Level-9 clownatic – must know 512 routines
Level-8 clownatic – must know 256 routines
Level-7 clownatic – must know 128 routines
Level-6 clownatic – must know 64 routines
Level-5 clownatic – must know 32 routines
Level-4 clownatic – must know 16 routines
Level-3 clownatic – must know 8 routines
Level-2 clownatic – must know 4 routines
Level-1 clownatic – the beginning of the road to the enlaughtened. Must know 2 routines and go to the Circus regularly (all clownatics of a higher level are obliged to go to the Circus regularly). (Keliaujantis Tamsa)

Half-believer – a person able at one and the same time to agree that the teachings given by the Clowns (e.g. doing push-ups) are good, and yet at the same time to deny the existence of the Clowns. Fig. a fool.

Enlaughtened – most often used together with circusite: enlaughtened circusite. In the sacred sense – something like the Buddhists’ enlightenment, only at a higher level. Since the Buddhists deny the O’Clowns, their enlightenment is only an earthly reflection of becoming enlaughtened.

The term first appeared in the Shaolin monastery, when the patriarch and the senior monks, having listened to the story and teaching of the newly arrived Bezdiejus, collapsed on the floor guffawing in voices not their own and writhed with laughter for two days, then had their dislocated jaws treated. After that event (when they had recovered) they all unanimously decided that this was far better even than enlightenment.

Skepquisition – a special institution meant to ensure that other religions do not mislead people.

---

Stone – the books of the Clowns, simply gathered in the fields. The rounder the stone, the more clownish wisdom it holds.

Eternal Perfectoids – sceptics of unearthly origin from the third planet of Alpha Centauri. Not believing that there can be life on Earth, they do not fly here and send no signals. Nor do they answer the signals we send.

Ana-chronism – one of the results of Bezdiejus’s experiments with time and rice vodka. For example, many anachronisms are found in the Book of Bezdiejus (descriptions of future events that Bezdiejus could not yet have known at the time, e.g. the sending of a manned spaceship to Alpha Centauri, the audited 2005 profit report of Lietuvos Tekstilė, or the release of the Zend Framework for PHP 5), which biased and prejudiced researchers regard as disproving the authenticity of the Book.

Apologetics (Greek apologetikos – defensive) – the branch of Clownology that deals with defending the truths of the faith. Apologetics seeks to substantiate the clownish dogmas with rational arguments and to prove the existence of the clowns. Apologetics is always used when a clownatic debates against a push-upless. See also Fucking about.

Vulfication – a method of discussion based on Mark Twain’s phrase “There are no dialogues, there are only interrupted monologues”. In a debate of this kind, the opponent’s arguments are ignored, total nonsense that makes the O’Clowns laugh is written from time to time, monologues are constantly churned out and it is regularly stated that the discussion has already been won.

The method was thought up by the Skepquisition interrogator-inspector Vulfas de Butterbroder as the best weapon against Carpification and is used successfully to this day. So far no version of carpification has been invented that is capable of overcoming Vulfication.

In 1110, for this invention, Vulfas de Butterbroder was awarded the Whiteface Clown ticket, one of the most prestigious awards of the Frankish Empire.

The Vulflings’ conspiracy – a conspiracy organised by Vulfas de Coronado, a genetic engineer from Spain. Dissatisfied with the low birth rate, “he produced five hundred children for himself”, who later tried to take over the world, led by Pinky and the Brain. The conspiracy was repelled with the help of the special units of the Funny Skepquisition and the imperial Guard of the Clown’s Nose. Read more in I. Suvorov’s “Vulfbreaker”, Vilnius, Vaga, 2001.

This conspiracy is depicted in the Japanese anime “DNA^2”. The main character, “Mega Playboy”, has 100 offspring, who have another 100 offspring and so on. The alter ego of “Mega Playboy” is a pathetic loser who feels sick as soon as he sees a girl’s body a little more exposed. I think the associations with Vulfas are clear. The Japanese could not crap on him openly, because they lost the Second World War, so they had to portray this person subtly in an average mainstream “ecchi” anime.

Vulfatron – a device constructed in the steampunk epoch, intended to cure gays of homosexuality. Its two best-known models are: the one and the other.

The one model of the Vulfatron was first tested on 30 November 1900, in an attempt to cure the famous playwright Oscar Wilde. The aim was partly achieved: Wilde stopped being homosexual, but he did not become heterosexual either. Oscar Wilde being treated with the Vulfatron.

The other model of the Vulfatron went down in history as one of the first devices to use the energy of torsion fields. But before it could be tested in clinical conditions, the project was taken over by the government and the CIA. At first the research was delayed; later, under pressure from the International Gay Mafia, it was stopped. All the blueprints of the Vulfatron were destroyed, the very fact of its existence classified, most of the scientists who took part in the project locked up in psychiatric hospitals or murdered. The inventor was locked up in a private psychiatric hospital controlled by the CIA, and his surname was classified too. There is only some speculation as to who it could have been, based on the name of the device. The second model of the Vulfatron, using the energy of torsion fields.

Bezdiejus’s paradox – the famous logical paradox and indisputable proof of the existence of the Cosmic Clowns, formulated by Bezdiejus. It was with this very paradox that he convinced the Shaolin monks that he was right and was accepted into their ranks. The paradox goes like this: If the O’Cosmic Clowns do not exist, then where are they? It rests on several assumptions. First of all, that things cannot be “nowhere” – there is no such place as “nowhere”, it is only an abstraction invented by people. So if the O’Clowns are neither in our world nor beyond its bounds, then where are they? It is simpler to suppose that they are in our world.

An interpretation of Bezdiejus’s paradox, also called Agnostinius Agnostus’s conclusion. It is meant for those who doubt whether the O’Cosmic Clowns are knowable.

The author claims that if, according to Bezdiejus’s paradox, the Clowns are somewhere, it follows that they are something. Something cannot at the same time be nothing, and since nothing is unknowable, something, being the opposite of nothing, is knowable. Hence the O’Cosmic Clowns are knowable. Since the sceptics are still trying to find out who those are who are something – and have not found out to this day – it turns out that the sceptics are nothing – that means the sceptics do not exist. (Apostatas)

Chicory – the clownish plant. The name is etymologically derived from the word circus.

Circulation – the movement of something in a circle according to the order set by the Cosmic Clowns. Derived from the word circus.

Zircon (lt. ‘cirkonis’: ‘cirkas’ is circus) – an amulet stone of cosmic powers, filled by the O’Clowns with the energy of “Upal – otzhalsya” (Russian ‘упал – отжался’: down and do push-ups, an army order). In everyday life it is found in a red-striped colour. (Snukis)

Circus season – a period of time equal to the calendar year of the push-upless or the half-believers. (Vilius)

Eccentric – one excommunicated from the CC faith. A false prophet. (Snukis)

The Gang Bang theory – a scientific theory explaining the origin of the universe. It holds that in the beginning there was a singularity, which both Cosmic Clowns banged in turn. Thus the universe came into being.

Christian cretinists disagree with this theory on minor details and explain that the creators of the universe were God and his mother Mary.

Life – see circus. (Meduolis)

Hedonism – a form of the O’Clowns’ teaching made a dozen or so times milder and adapted for the push-upless. Sometimes presented in this form: “Live and guffaw!”

Yurt – a polar, portable minicircus. (Snukis)

Klan – a special forces squad carrying out sabotage operations behind enemy lines during an occupation. (Meduolis)

Ku Kulks Klan (lt. ‘kulka’ is a bullet) – a special forces squad meant to cover the klans against a sudden enemy attack during occupations. Armed with heavy machine guns. (Meduolis)

Klaustrophobia – the reverent fear that Klaus felt for the O’Clowns. All followers of the Clowns must have this feeling (The Book of the Return: Hans and Klaus). The concept is analogous to what the infidels call the fear of God. (Vilius)

Kleptomania – an activity sanctioned by otherworldly forces (the O’Clowns), banned by laws made up by people. (Meduolis)

Clyster (lt. ‘klizma’: an enema) – an ancient form of professing faith in the Clowns. (Meduolis)

Klondike – material proof of the existence of the Clowns. (Meduolis)

Clone – a word undoubtedly to be derived etymologically from the word clown, because there were two Cosmic Clowns, and a clone and its copy also make two. It is said that the first case of cloning was recorded in time immemorial, when the Cosmic Clowns, the O’Good and the O’Bad, played a prank with the puppy Waffle. (silentium)

Clowning – a scientific technology that allows one to crank out the desired number of CC followers. Because of resistance from various sectarians and the push-upless, it is banned in more than one state. (Vajėzus)

Clownade – clown + “nado” (Russian “need”) – people’s instinctive need to worship the CC or their substitutes. One of an infinity of proofs of the existence of the CC. (Vajėzus)

Old Clownament – the Book of Bezdiejus – recommended for level-6 clownatics (formerly it was a secret teaching). (Keliaujantis Tamsa)

New Clownament – the book “Almost Seriously” by the Enlaughtener Nikulin (Yuri Nikulin, the Soviet circus clown and film actor; this is his memoir) – recommended for level-3 clownatics. (Keliaujantis Tamsa)

Theory of Clownebeing (Russian теория клоунобытия, English theory of Clownebeing) – a philosophical theory claiming that special research methods are needed to study the being of the Cosmic Clowns. It is thought that Bezdiejus, who had become acquainted with Eastern philosophy in the Shaolin monastery, laid the foundations of the theory of Clownebeing. Later Drunvalo Melchizedek, Trapezius, Arvydas Šliogeris (a Lithuanian philosopher of being) and other progressive scientist clownologists developed the theory. (Vajėzus)

Paradoxes of the denial of Clownebeing – logical paradoxes that arise when trying to deny Clownebeing. Bezdiejus’s paradox was formulated first; later Joannes Trapezius created an analogous one: If there are no Cosmic Clowns, then what are they?

To this day clownless science does not know how to answer this, which, according to Gödel the Gymnast, proves the inherent insufficiency of any clownless science. (Vajėzus)

Clownology – the science that explains the essence of the abstract and figurative teachings of the Clowns and the essence and dogmas of the O’Clowns’ faith in general.

Clownthanasia – the greatest punishment for a clownatic, carried out by skepquisitors in exceptional cases. As soon as he hears this word, every adherent of the O’CC shudders, but the details of how this punishment is carried out are not made public. Rumour has it that it involves little tubes in the backside, the breaking of body and spirit, the cracking of the astral, with special emphasis on the factor of helplessness. (7x)

Clownophobia – a very great fear of the O’Clowns. (senis)

Clownophrenia – a disease in which the patient, looking at the O’Clown, does not see him. (senis)

Clownologic – the modern logic of the O’Clowns. (senis)

Clownometry – the science of the forms of the O’Clowns. (senis)

Communion – a cake in the face.

Compère – a preacher of the faith of the Cosmic Clowns.

Cretinism – a branch of science that has achieved excellent results in proving the clownish nature of the Universe. (Meduolis)

Quantum clownology – the field of science that studies the manifestations of the Cosmic Clowns at the level of the smallest quanta of their action – gags. Snout Teller laid the foundations of quantum clownology when he brilliantly observed that a gag is always a discrete quantity. “All our life experience tells us that half a gag, just like a gag and a half, is a complete flop that could make nobody laugh but a deaf-mute,” wrote Snout Teller. This branch of science is generously subsidised by the Skepquisition in the hope that it will help to create the Laughter bomb. (Vajėzus)

Nirvana – oh, yeeeesss!!! (Snukis)

Urine – nirvanised beer. (Snukis)

Carpification – a certain method of discussion in which the opponent is shoved nose-first into a source of evidence. If necessary, one may dunk him, climb onto his head and jump up and down and the like, so that the opponent delves deeper into the evidence.

The method was invented, shameful to say, by the push-upless Binarius Augustine. Wanting to refute the fact that all information lies within a person and in the astral, and that one only has to know how to take it, he would dunk his opponents’ heads into a pond with crucian carp. At first the Clowns guffawed a lot and, as a prank, made it so that there really was no information about crucian carp in the astral. But later they got bored, and in general it fucked them off, so Binarius found disfavour in their eyes and himself drowned in his pond with crucian carp. Together with him perished the whole of his native village of Rambyniškiai (60 people) and the settlement of Eutanaziškiai (‘Euthanasiaville’) (1000 people) next door, flooded by a deluge and a rain of fire.

O’ – a sign of respect and a title, written at the beginning of the Clown’s name: O’Clown, O’Cosmic Clowns, O’Good Cosmic Clown, for short – O’Good, O’CC (not “Cosmic O’Clown”). The round letter O symbolises the Clown’s red nose and the circus arena. It is not obligatory to write it, but it shows special respect.

O’Bad Clown – the inspirer of flat, unfunny, ill-timed or out-of-place, cruel, “black”, stupid, offensive and other failed gags.

It is also believed that he makes people say and do things that are “not even funny” (one of the clearest examples is the whole Delfi.lt website).

It is thought that in general this whole cycle of the universe, which pulsates (or, to be more exact, roars with laughter), is in the power of the O’Bad Clown. That is precisely why nowadays it is so rare to hear sincere laughter, which brightens a person’s whole soul, aura and astral body and produces vitamins. (Vilius)

O’berstführer – a military rank, an authority granted by otherworldly forces (the O’Clowns) to command in a state of emergency. (Meduolis)

O’buolmušis (lt. ‘obuolys’, apple, + ‘mušti’, to strike) – a child pelted to death with apples for disobeying authority figures (the Clowns, parents, the headmaster, the pastor, etc.). (Meduolis)

O’ccupation – spreading the True Faith™ by seizing hostile territories. (Meduolis)

O’tzhimai (slang from Russian ‘отжимания’, push-ups) – push-ups done not out of need, but out of faith. The term is mainly a sacred one and is rarely used in everyday speech.

OK – O’Klown. (Meduolis)

The hidden notebook theory – an erroneous theory that claimed that the Bad Clown’s gags are not fundamentally random and can be described by more than probabilistic equations alone. The supporters of the theory would usually claim that what we take for the spontaneous laughter of the Bad Clown may be a gag carefully prepared in advance and written down in a notebook.

The theory collapsed after Prof. Lewis Carroll collected over 65,000 gags of the Bad Clown and published the results of their mathematical analysis. (Vajėzus)

Clownologist 7x’s addition: Not content with plagiarising this method, the push-upless tried to pass it off as their own. Here the well-known footnote researcher Philip K. Dick came to the aid of the clownatics, crushed all the heretics with an etymological argument and raped their women (although the latter claim is described in Dick’s biography, some historians maintain that it happened only in his head). The word footnotes (lt. ‘išnašos’, which shares its root with ‘apsinešti’, to get high) comes from the words “to get high”. Bearing in mind that in his footnotes Šmyrgelis described precisely the substances he was high on, it is obvious that the said circusite thought up both the method and its name. For such depth of thought Dick was rewarded with the astonished looks of his stoned friends at a party and one shout that he was one needle short of a full high.

Paedomorphosis – one of the special magic powers of the mimes, allowing a level-four mime to turn into a giant spider-paedophile (requires 5 black mana and 2 mana of any kind). At the end of the 9th century the Skepquisition began to apply Clownthanasia and other similar punitive measures for using paedomorphosis; until then it had punished only by shooting.

P.S. Later this term was applied in biology to describe certain evolutionary processes.

Pranks, little jokes, jests – misunderstood teachings of the Cosmic Clowns. The push-upless use the analogous term allegories when speaking about their gods (created by the Cosmic Clowns). (7x)

Skepticide – the care and supervision of those gone astray. (Snukis)

Skepxorcism – the forced bringing of infidels and heretics into the arena of the Great and Eternal Cosmic Circus. The return of those gone astray and of half-believers to the bosom of the CC faith. (Snukis)

Stereotheism – belief in no fewer and no more than 2 Cosmic Clowns. (Snukis)

Toroid or Pentapost – the source of the clownish spirit and wisdom. (Snukis)

Vox Populi – a saying that arose in the days of the ancient Roman Republic, meaning the sounds coming from the Dungeons of the Skepquisition. It symbolises freedom of speech.

Wolf Larsen’s paradox – also called the Third Paradox of the denial of Clownebeing. Usually presented in this form: “If there are no Clowns, then why does my head hurt?” The authorship of this paradox is attributed to Captain Wolf Larsen, because the paradox was recorded in his ship’s log on the day of the Battle of Actium. It is thought that on the eve of the battle Larsen was drinking with mimes and worshipping the forces of evil. (Vajėzus)

Clownologist Nomad’s criticism: I would hesitate to agree with the statement: “It is thought that on the eve of the battle Larsen was drinking with mimes and worshipping the forces of evil.” Yes, there is such a line in the letters of Pliny the Younger and in the Testimonium Trapetianum, but modern historians have great doubts about its authenticity. It may be that this entry was made later, as part of the mimes’ conspiracy, to show that they too are human. But in reality mimes never drank alcohol.

Clownologist Vajėzus’s explanation: This line did indeed cause historians a lot of trouble, because it was unclear how to reconcile it with the well-known facts from the life of mimes. The wisest accepted all this on faith and racked their brains no more.

For their faith the scientists were richly rewarded – the young and still unknown clownologist Timpa Polygnostus published an article devoted to this problem. Having thoroughly studied the Testimonium Trapetianum and Wolf Larsen’s ship’s log, Timpa wrote:

“I have not the slightest doubt that the paradox arises only when the Testimonium is interpreted contrary to the science of clownology. The phrase ‘was drinking with mimes’ has a symbolic meaning and denotes a symbolic (not manifested in reality) drinking of the mimes. Therefore its formal notation would be: ‘was drinking, mimes being present nearby’.”

For his original work on Larsen’s paradox Timpa Polygnostus was given the title of honorary master of the Order of Klaus and a personal country villa with a carousel.

---

Sceptics – a worldwide organisation uniting orthodox atheists. Although it has a multitude of different branches, a few traits are common to all sceptics: a narrow world view, denial of higher spiritual values, a poor artistic and cultural education, doubting obvious things, e.g. the existence of Smurf-paedophiles, and, of course, a distorted perception of the world. (7x)

Amoral sceptics – do not believe in morality. It is advisable not even to try to debate with them, as they ignore the most obvious proofs of the existence of morality. The best example of this would be the discussion between the amoral sceptic fundamentalist under the pseudonym Nomad and the Russian scientists Bambukov and Tupov (Russian ‘тупой’ is dumb), which the astral network’s Channel 5 broadcast. After Tupov pulled a piece of synthesised morality out of his pocket, Nomad snapped:

– Stick that morality up your backsides.

And, tucking his tail between his legs, he withdrew from the discussion. He was last seen in Jonava, at an international conference on the death penalty. (7x)

Although these branches are the main ones, there are plenty of smaller and bigger sceptical trends that have not been described because of the author’s religious convictions, bureaucracy and capitalism. It is also important to stress that a considerable number of sceptics belong to several sceptic movements at once, and some even to all of them. (7x)

Cross-pissing sceptics – piss on crosses. They consider this ritual the highest value and defend their right to piss on crosses with all their might. They select new members especially carefully. To become a cross-pissing sceptic, one must wet a cross whose “sticks” are 1 m “pinned” onto 3 m. For each attempt one is given 4 cans of beer or 6 cans of Kalnapilis (a Lithuanian beer). So far there is no record of anyone ever choosing Kalnapilis. If, 3 hours after the start of the “exam”, the whole cross is not wet, the wannabe sceptic has to wait a year and a half before he can try his luck again. (7x)

Soulless sceptics – atheist sceptics who especially deny spirituality and all its manifestations. They often organise rallies against homosexual marriages, Alcoholics Anonymous, the Jerry Springer and Oprah Winfrey shows. They deny Pope John Paul II’s contribution to the fight against Pinky and the Brain. They spread a gloomy mood and promote depression and apathy. (7x)

Everything-denying sceptics – deny everything. They have mastered doublethink, for they are able to regard René Descartes as their first prophet and at the same time deny his existence. The phrases used most often, frequently all at once: “I don’t believe it”, “nonsense”, “stop raving”, “where’s the proof?” Famous quotes:

– 2+2=4.

– I don’t believe it!

– The revolver is loaded!

– I don’t believe it!*

*These were the last words of the everything-denying sceptic Jonas Bambyzas, a shop assistant at a small off-licence. He became famous for his heroic death for his ideals and became an example to many sceptics... well, at least to those who believed that such a man existed.

Officially this branch of sceptics does not recognise violence (since they do not believe in its existence), but sometimes, thanks to them, cruel killing sprees happen, especially in US schools. After one such massacre a captured sceptic, awaiting the death penalty, confessed: “Nooo, you don’t exist! Fuck off, nothing exists, nothing, that’s why everything can be destroyed!”

Since then the Skepquisition has declared a hunt for everything-denying sceptics. Catching them is not hard, because the sceptics do not believe that they are being hunted. When an everything-denying sceptic is interrogated, a torture technique is used: his nails are torn out until the interrogated man admits that it hurts. Having acknowledged the existence of pain, he is christened a converted sceptic and released back into society... but one day, perhaps very soon, perhaps after many years, a Skepquisition terminator creeps up on him and takes his life with a muffled shot, while the victim is welcoming the existence of everything. (7x)

Catholic sceptics – probably the youngest and smallest branch of sceptics, which arose in Poland. These sceptics do not believe in any gods or spirits, but actively go to church, reaching orgasm there while praying and confessing their sins. They make up that one per cent of Polish Catholics who do not believe. A few statistics, as given on Delfi. (egisz)

Lyrical sceptics – so far have one member. No growth of the sect is foreseen in the future. (7x)

Forest-men sceptics (lt. ‘miškiniai’, the partisans who fought the Soviet occupation of Lithuania from the forests) – a completely extinct branch. It flourished in the mid-1940s, denying the country’s changed system and government, and so incurred the latter’s disfavour and was forced to emigrate to uninhabited forest areas. Other groups of sceptics are often wrongly associated with this branch, but their activities in the forest have nothing to do with the forest-men sceptics.

Enlightened sceptics – sceptics who suddenly realised that all the information presented to them is a lie. Therefore they reject all sources, research and existing theories. If the said theories are well enough founded and there are no data refuting them, the enlightened sceptics put this down to a worldwide Judaeo-Masonic conspiracy that hides unfavourable data. Only the enlightened sceptics know the real truth, having worked it out themselves without relying on any research or sources. But because of the worldwide Judaeo-Masonic conspiracy the theories of the enlightened sceptics are rejected and ridiculed.

Some enlightened sceptics have achieved quite a lot – there are even awards named after them for outstanding achievements in the field of experimental Aurigarijus Physics. (RB)

Orthodox sceptics – also called dogmatic sceptics, because it is their “well-founded” conviction that the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth is written on the Internet, but untruth occurs too. Especially if the “Internet truths” discovered by other dogmatists contradict the “Internet truths” discovered by the dogmatic sceptics. This conviction also applies to non-Internet truths. In that case authority and the priority of the entry discovered acquire the greatest importance. Their (the dogmatists’) aim is not to analyse, not to understand and not to dispute the opinion of authority. In short – not to think. It follows from this that there are two kinds of dogmatists: dogmatic sceptics and dogmatic anti-sceptics. The latter are often popularly called theists, believers and the like. Although the two kinds of dogmatists do not get on with each other, there are no essential differences between them. (Snukis)

Pizdets sceptic-nihilists (Russian ‘пиздец’, meaning: a total fuck-up) – a new nihilist branch of sceptics whose members work closely with the nihilists. A group very similar to the clan “Everything-denying sceptics”, but a far, far more radical one. This branch of sceptics tends to deny everything, whatever anyone may tell them. They deny that they are sceptics, if someone tells them so. They deny that they are not sceptics. They deny that they deny everything. They deny, of course, that they deny nothing or affirm. But they also deny the argument that they neither deny nor do not deny. They deny the very possibility of denial, as well as the possibility of non-denial. And also the probability that by denying they affirm, or by affirming they deny. They deny probability itself all round, and roundness itself. Itself is likewise denied. (senis)

Brown sceptics – an operational group of sceptics, considered terrorist by some sources, dressed in brown shirts and associated with the skepforum. To this day the skepforum has officially neither confirmed nor denied the rumours about its links with the Brown Sceptics.

The Brown sceptics have already claimed responsibility for the murder of L. Ron Hubbard, the blowing up of five churches, the extermination of the religion of ancient Greece, the pushing of a Young Catholics’ club bus with children in it off the Grand Canyon. But the leader of the group, Egydyjūs, denies that their activities are terrorist. “Scepticism is a world view of love,” he said in an interview with Aurigarijus News. The Brown sceptics’ press spokesman:

“Well, as always, the journalists exaggerate a bit. We didn’t touch the religion of ancient Greece, we are not set against such religions. That could have been the work of the False Brown Sceptics, who do not always understand our deep ideology well. We try to distance ourselves from them, since, as soon as the time comes to act, they evaporate. Some sit under their wife’s sole, some just watch pornography. They took no part in the murder of the Scientologist Hubbard or of several of his followers, did not blow up or even piss on a single church (by the way, far more than five were blown up – at least five hundred in various countries), and the actions they do carry out rarely reflect our idea.

By the way, the brown shirts are not a very important detail either. Lately we have been wearing hoodies with the inscription “Peace”.

You may judge us, condemn us, but we are only trying to protect scepticism from the terrible conspiracy of the pop religions. Just imagine what would have happened if the Young Catholics travelling in that bus had not been pushed off...

If you are interested in anything else – contact us, we are open to discussion.” (egisz)

Sicilians (sceptics) – one of the most important branches of sceptics. Their exact convictions are unclear, but it seems these are among those sceptics whom even Christians recognise as doing no harm, meaning no harm and having the right to their convictions. Originated in Sicily and later spread to the USA. Their specific activity is unclear. Historical events worth mentioning:

the war of 1981–1983, which cost about 1300 lives, with the Corleonese forum fighting against the Palermo forums for control of the cocaine trade;
the murder of a Member of the European Parliament in 1992 for failing to push the sceptics’ party into power;
the murders of two judges in 1992, after they refused to recognise the existence of Jesus as unproven; and others.

Venetian sceptics – a group of sceptics originating in Venice. They are distinguished by an especially radical disbelief in the soul and the afterlife, which is why most of them are necrophiles. The Venetian sceptics believe that the dead can be shagged without consequences, since no soul or god exists to take revenge. This shows what atheism leads to and how necessary faith in god is in human society.

The last Venetian sceptic was shot in 1957 in a conflict with the Sicilian sceptics.

“Know-it-all” sceptics – think that science and they already know everything. And, without a doubt, know everything better than others. Therefore, for example, aliens from space cannot exist, because science already knows everything about space, including the fact that there are no aliens there.

It is pointless to debate with them, because they know everything, including what you will say. And they also know that you do not know everything, because you are not a know-it-all sceptic. In their eyes, one can become a know-it-all sceptic with equal rights only after going through the three-stage initiation rituals at skepmeets.

Although it is best to make merry every day, some historical written sources mention a few more feasts at which people make especially merry.

---

Klaus’s Day (Azuolas)

As early as the 2nd century BC the famous philosopher Yddhakud2 of the island of Gudobalis (today’s Prince Edward Island) wrote about Klaus’s Day too, in his work “kjasdbofiaysg sdihfgasdfa iosdagsgoi sdfijghsadif!!!”, published in 650 BC. Here is an extract from this book:

“klhkydposuiy sdoiuhsifg Klown’s-day sadlkfjasdjh klou klou dssdasdf klous’s-day = KLAUS’S DAY!!! JKJKJHSH! JIJSHJ! JHJHDF!
24! 24! 24! 24! ksfdg dhdhhd aoiwmppsii ssigyhh sjsgoouis jhd :DDDDDDDDD
:P :p :p
24 :p”

To this very day nobody fully understands the thoughts of this mysterious philosopher (all the same, he is considered the first philosopher), but historians have found out that here he wrote about the similarities between the words Klaus and Clown and mentioned the feast of Klaus, which was celebrated on 24 June.

Another famous philosopher, Clownophanes of Laconia, touches on this feast in somewhat more detail:

06 24. Klaus’s Day. In honour of Klaus. On this day all would bash each other with umbrellas. Drank (a lot). Made merry.

Later, as paganism spread, people remade this feast into the sun feast of Rasos, for they discovered that the shortest night falls on that day. Later still, under the influence of the Christians, this feast got one more name – St John’s Day.

1024 Day (Azuolas)

Celebrated on 24 October (10.24). The combination of these numbers makes up the clownish number 1024. Judging from the scant sources, on this day one aim was pursued: to drink 1024 tankards of beer (sometimes 1024 shots of vodka). It is thought that this is why the feast soon afterwards grew into a day of mourning and “the day of all the dead”.

Bambalis Day (Azuolas)

When Gaius Julius Caesar hit on the idea that beer could be poured into “bambalis” bottles (at that time they were made of pigs’ bladders), a feast called “Bambalis Day” came about. This feast is also associated with the famous “Circus of Bambalis”. It is celebrated on 1 February. At the feast the special festive drink “Beer from bambalis bottles” is drunk. This is beer bottled in plastic containers.

Fart Day (Azuolas)

Beans are eaten and people fart. It is celebrated on 24 December. For inexplicable reasons the Christians for some reason could not stand this feast at all and have now almost entirely wiped out this tradition.

---

A Wedding in the Circus (Nomad)

This custom, which goes back millennia, has long interested scholars of religion and ethnologists. It is acknowledged that a wedding in the circus is the most advanced way of getting married, in the spiritual sense far surpassing a wedding in church and even a wedding on a cruise ship. It has been observed that statistically couples married in the circus divorce far less often (to tell the truth, so far not a single such case is known!).

According to folklore, if you marry in the circus, healthier children will be born, protected by the Cosmic Clowns. Moreover, according to the daily Screensk’saver, when making love the spouses experience a 200% stronger orgasm, get into car accidents 150% less often, taste food 34.8% better, 300% lower mortality, 34.6% higher income, 45.6% less balding. 2/3 of all Afghan couples not married in the circus live in poverty. Finally, Hitler did not marry in the circus.

So what do the holy rites of a wedding in the circus look like and what is special about them? We shall rely on the little article “The Origin and Customs of Marriage in the Circus” by CSI-COP (Circus, Sex, Including Circusites’ Oral Pleasure), the organisation that organises the weddings.

Symbolism

In the wedding rites many mobile and immobile things have a symbolic meaning that they are not given in everyday life.

The most important are tomatoes, beer, a computer, a dog lead and an ivory ornament inlaid with diamonds. Among the immobile ones – undoubtedly, the circus, the circus arena and the trapeze.

Tomatoes symbolise a bad life, and they must be avoided. Beer – a drink essential for raising spirituality (spiritus). It may also be replaced by mead, kumis or weak wine. Lithuanians and Russians quite often try to replace it with vodka, but eight tankards of vodka are too much even for the greatest follower of the Clowns (more on this later). Since ancient times the computer has been used as a symbol of the binary system invented by the Clowns. The dog lead reminds us of Adolf and Waffle and symbolises the eternal bonds by which the wife will be tied to the husband.

Before the Wedding

For twenty-four hours before the wedding in the circus the future newly-weds may not look at tomatoes. To see tomatoes is a bad sign. With 8 hours left before the wedding, both drink eight tankards of beer each, one every hour (note the special significance of the number 8. Here and elsewhere the notes in italics are mine).

Success in marriage is foretold if during this eight-hour period you see a red Clown’s nose in the sky (it symbolises that the Clowns will lead you through the hardships of life) or if on the way to the circus you accidentally step in sh. (it symbolises that unceasing laughter will accompany you through life).

The Wedding

As soon as they cross the threshold of the Circus tent, the bride and groom are greeted with cakes in their faces, which reminds them once more that they are mammals. Then the clown reads aloud a phrase from Jurgis Savickis’s book “Father”: “I think that life is like a circus of clowns. Quickly passing.” Meanwhile all the participants and guests roar with laughter at the appearance and state of the bride and groom, thus showing that even in a short life there is something to rejoice in.

During the wedding ceremony the bride and groom change clothes several times (the Japanese have kept this custom to this day). Like everything else, this symbolises the variety and colourfulness of life. The first public change of clothes takes place right after the aforementioned rite of cakes in the face, but the bride and groom are strictly forbidden to wipe their faces – otherwise misfortunes will accompany them all their life. Having changed, the groom goes to do exercises on the trapeze, with everyone laughing merrily. If after the pre-wedding rites he can no longer walk to the trapeze by himself, a clown helps him. If the Clowns approve of and bless this wedding, it is precisely now that they give a sign: when the groom, helped by the clown, begins to do exercises on the trapeze, the guests and participants can no longer tell which of them is the bigger clown. If it is easy to tell, it means the groom does not carry laughter in his heart, and the Cosmic Clowns will not bless this marriage.

While the groom performs his exercises, the bride rides backwards around the circus on a little donkey (in olden times the donkey had to be stolen; nowadays this custom has been abandoned) and tries to dodge the cakes and pastries that the wedding guests hurl. Coming to a wedding without bringing a cake or a pastry for this occasion used to mean the greatest disrespect and evil intentions towards the bride and groom.

When this part of the rites is over, the groom and the bride are carried into the middle of the arena and laid down next to each other, and a Pentium IV computer is placed at their heads (in olden times a 486 was used. Now any will do, the main thing is that all the digits are multiples of two). If necessary, their grazes are covered with sticking plaster, and then one more cake each is symbolically thrown onto their heads.

Then the clown wakes the bride and groom. This part is very important – if they cannot be woken within 8 minutes, it is considered that the bride and groom are now communing with the Cosmic Clowns, and special success will accompany their married life. Some try to pretend to be asleep, but that is hard to pull off, because this is how the clown wakes them: first he pours a bucket of cold water over each of their heads. Then (if still needed) the assistants put the bride and groom on all fours and set a bowl of salad in front of each one’s face, and the clown kicks each of them once in the arse (the documentation requires precisely this word to be used, not a printable substitute). At this moment the bride and groom usually wake up. If not, everything is repeated (starting with the bucket of water) as many times as needed. The greatest record known to history was described in the Clown Daily: in 1816 in Bavaria, at a wedding, attempts were made to wake the bride and groom 24 times over four hours, after which, without ever waking up, they went to the Cosmic Circus.

When the bride and groom get up and change clothes, all the other guests and participants stand in a little circle, holding hands (this custom has been adopted in the rites of most other kinds of weddings). The circle turns to the right, while the bride and groom run two little circles to the left in a certain way. The way: the bride is tied round the neck with a lead and runs on all fours, while the groom holds the other end of the lead in his hand and runs on two legs. When they have run round, the bride lies down on her back, and the groom does two symbolic push-ups over her.

Then the bride and groom change clothes once more and the unofficial part begins – the banquet. The most important highlight of the wedding must, of course, be laughter.

As far as is known, wedding customs differed somewhat from region to region. So if you know how your forebears used to marry, or any other superstitions or rites – write about it.

The more interesting quotations from various related books. The quotations can be used in discussions against the push-upless.

---

J. Smithson, “Clownade among the Aztecs”.

Every year Waffle becomes incarnate in the dumbest youth of the city. The youth is then proclaimed the Bewaffled Emperor (lt. ‘Apsivafliavęs’, slang: slobbered all over), and for one year his power equals the power of the real Emperor. Afterwards he is solemnly sacrificed on the teocalli in Waffle’s honour.

The Book of Bezdiejus, XXIX – 65.

And these precepts Bezdiejus left to his disciples as he was dying:
(...)
11. Let your arguments be sharp as the hands of a clock: they both go round themselves and get round others.

Bezuvijus Nakiminalėkas “What the O’Clowns Want of Us”, Volume II, line 1245.

“The mimes crawling before the might of the O’Clowns, begging for mercy, shall trample what came from dust, and horses shall piss on it, running round in a circle.”

A. Dumas, “Twenty Circus Seasons After”, an adventure novel.

Suddenly something like an invisible hand stopped his finger on the mouse button. Protanasius had no time to be frightened, because at once a commanding inner voice said to him:

– Don’t take hallucinogens when you quote!

The invisible hand let go, but Protanasius was in no hurry. Once more he went over the past ten minutes... how he had swallowed four pills to make things merrier... how he had quoted and replied... a cold sweat broke out on his face and understanding came into his heart. Protanasius hastily read everything again, deleted what he had written, took some antihallucinogens and almost physically felt the laughter of the Clowns returning to his heart... again he laid his hand, trembling with bliss, on the mouse and this time, without hesitating, clicked SUBMIT.

Arguments for discussions about the V-1 and V-2 rockets. (Ramzajus)

Source 1: Vladimiras Cibulskis, “Unknown History of the 3rd Reich”.
Source 2: Klaus Higgins’s “The Cosmic Pig Has Come”.

In 1940 the young ornithologist Werner von Waffler, after years and years of UFO observations, finally formulated the concept of his project and resolved to present it to the design team of the D.F.C.I.A.D. (Deutschland’s Fundamental Clownology Institute’s Aeronautics Department). (...) The device saw the light of day in 1944, fitted into every unit of Adolf Hitler’s rocket squadron. Thanks to Waffler it became possible to hide the rockets from enemy radars, which would pick them up as flocks of migrating swallows.

This method of camouflage is widely known to this day as the “Waffler manoeuvre”.

Bambukov I., Tupov A. “Doublethink as the Basis of Logic of the Ancient Lithuanians, Highlanders and Samogitians”. Vilnius, Vaga, 2002. (after Simonas Daukantas’s 1845 history ‘The Character of the Ancient Lithuanians, Highlanders and Samogitians’)

As Obersthauptmann Otto von Isciakaipmatmann (lt. ‘iš čia kaip mat’: out of here, pronto) of the Secret Thule Society of the III, XIV Reich at the D.F.C.I.A.D. (Deutschland’s Fundamental Clownology Institute’s Aeronautics Department) claimed – two sources – one bad, the other good – are a sign meaning: “Whoever does not do push-ups will be wasted in the sewer (after Putin’s 1999 vow to ‘waste them in the outhouse’)!” (Snukis)

And only recently did scientists discover what had long been no secret to the ancient Lithuanians, Highlanders, Samogitians, Romans and other nations professing the O’Clowns: that at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius ice melts and becomes water. And also that at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius water freezes and becomes ice. The push-upless simply ignore such facts; it is easier for them to live in their closed little world, where everything has been researched and science knows everything, and to consider doublethink – an essential tool of thinking – a mistake. They ignore even the claims of their own science.

The Book of Bezdiejus, XIXIXCMLSJF – 12.

On the fourteenth day Bezdiejus came to a campfire, around which people sat, each clutching seven chopsticks in his hands and trying to eat rice with them. The chopsticks kept falling from their fingers and getting tangled, and the rice spilled over the edges.

– What are you doing? – asked Bezdiejus.

– Good stranger, we are trying to eat, but you can see for yourself how we are getting on. Either we cannot scoop up any rice at all, or we have to stick our snouts straight into the pot and eat out of the whole of it. Almost our whole little village has either died of hunger or turned into beasts; our camp is all that is left of the refugees. The same is happening all over China – wept the Chinese man.

Bezdiejus looked, thought.

– Why do you use seven chopsticks? Use two!

The people tried eating with two chopsticks and saw that it was good. Having experienced the wisdom of Bezdiejus, the people went into the fields and glorified the Cosmic Clowns. Thus China was saved from death by starvation.

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, “The Lives of the Twelve Circusites: Bezdiejus”.

It is told that once, while he was performing circus numbers in the Shaolin Labyrinth of Dummies, the monks took it into their heads to try using time themselves. The instigator is considered to be Funji, the cook, but all the other monks who wanted their breakfast sooner backed him too. According to eyewitnesses, having opened Bezdiejus’s nicked manuscript, he read out the magic formula:

– ... two teaspoons of salt, boil for five minutes!

What happened afterwards is hard to describe. The kitchen became almost invisible: only a vague outline of the hull hung in the air above the ground. After a few seconds something flashed blindingly, and the kitchen vanished completely. A few seconds later it appeared in the harbour of Norfolk, Virginia, where it was seen for a few minutes. Then it mysteriously vanished again and after a couple of seconds returned to China. Most of the monks and the cook were violently sick; some vanished somewhere altogether and never reappeared. Five people were found “inlaid” into the metal structures of the kitchen, although from the outside these were undamaged. Some of the monks went mad.

Dawkins Richard, “The Selfish Gene”.

And then, wanting to substantiate my version, I decided to write a little intelligent design program. It was all very simple. I described a small virtual world with limited resources and the equivalent of a single-celled organism with certain properties – the ability to absorb resources, expressed in percent, speed of movement and so on. All the properties had probabilities of mutating. Then I described a few additional buttons of the intelligent design class. And I ran it all. The results far exceeded expectations: my pseudo-organism slowly mutated into a two-celled one, then back into a single-celled one, then into a faster-moving one, again a slower-moving one... it was grinding shit, in a word, and it was obvious that no mammal would come out of it, let alone a human being with a soul. But as soon as I pressed the “trees” button, the abstract grey world suddenly filled up with photos of trees; when I pressed “hares”, the comp inserted pictures of hares; finally, when I pressed “Adam and Eve”, it inserted a bit of porn... the advantage of intelligent design over plain evolution was obvious.

The Book of Revelation of the O’Clowns, chapter IXIX, section “Signs of the Apocalypse”, paragraph XIX, page 232. (senis)

And the day shall dawn when no one will believe in us any more. Upon this circus of ours there shall begin to appear push-upless with code names such as ZukisSS, Maris_m and other impostors. They shall rise from the greatest nightmares of the circus itself. And those nightmares shall swallow us all. Everyone who was a clown shall become a circusite, and every circusite – a clown. Let all who long to be the beloved jesters of the O’Clowns turn to us, for otherwise every one who does not wish to be one shall have a bucket of nails hammered into their arses. All the impostors and good-for-nothings shall be put on show in the circus of shame, and everyone shall spit balls of plasma at them. And all who believed in us and visited circuses every day shall each receive a concubine (female or male) for the eternal satisfaction of O’Clownish pleasure.

This was the word of the Clowns.

Lucullus, “The General Theory of Stews”. (Vajėzus)

On the third day Bezdiejus, slurping genetically modified broth with carrots, said to his disciples:

– Truly I tell you: if you do not eat genetically modified food, you will not be funny and you will not evolve!

So the disciples went and hastily gobbled GMOs, and passers-by laughed at their three-faced heads, their cleft lips and conks.

And Judas, who was learned, answered Bezdiejus:

– And would you like to be genetically modified yourself? Think how the broth felt when it was modified!

But Bezdiejus answered nothing, laughing at his disciples together with the passers-by.

The mimography “The famous Le Mime III’s la finita” describes the last moments of the life of the great Le Mime III (the “Pope” of the mimes).

“And so I turn over the last page of the O’Clowns’ Book of the End, and with it the last moments of my life. I lie under the bridge of the Eiffel Tower, clutching in my bony hand a dried-up and blunted baguette, crawling with cockroaches, that has seen countless battles with the Order of Klaus, the Skepquisition and lone clownatics. When I began to read the writings of the O’Clowns, I hoped to get to know the enemy. But now I lie here and realise that my life was mute and not funny at all. Colourless as a white face, surrounded by invisible walls that I made up myself. A meaningless illusion, like pulling an invisible rope. I waved my arms about and did not realise that people were laughing not with me but at me, because in their eyes I was a loser who could not utter a word. I know it is late, but at the moment of my death, having seen the light, I renounce mimism and with all my heart accept the faith of the O’Clowns. A real tear rolls down my cheek. I want to ask forgiveness for leading the mimes of the world down the wrong path and rolling the heads of the spreaders of the true faith like champignons. I lived as a despicable mime; at least I shall die a clownatic.”

Although after the death of Le Mime III the Gendarmerie of the Mimes burned almost all the writings of his life and tried to hide the fact that their leader had renounced mimism, the original of this document, written in wine on a wafer sheet, is kept to this day, together with the baguette, in the archive of the Funny Skepquisition.

Let him who has never laughed at a lame gag be the first to throw a Clown’s nose at me! (7x)

Don’t drive the Clown up the Circus pole. (7x)

The grass weeps as a push-upless smokes it. (7x)

Forgive them, Clown, for they do not know what lame gags they crack. (7x)

The circusite does not roll far from the Clown. (Son)

If they guffaw at you, say something else funny about yourself. (fizikanas)

Don’t crack gags before you have done your push-ups. (maxis_)

Don’t guffaw at your own gag without waiting for the others to start guffawing. (fizikanas)

He will laugh who will laugh last.* (Vilius)

*It is thought that this proverb prophesies the Day of the Last Circus, when all the push-upless will be laughed to scorn on the stage of the Eternal Circus and sent straight to the Chamber of Horrors.

Meduolis

Last night one of the Clowns appeared to me, only I don’t know which one. Anyway, it went like this... I feel someone pulling the blanket off me. I tried to pull my pistol out from under the pillow, but someone gripped my hand hard, then my whole body went stiff with cold and I could no longer even move. The Clown bent down to my head, spat into my ear, then pressed it shut with his palm and said: “Keep this. You are one of the 1024.” That is my testimony.

Today I had to make use of public transport services. Jumping onto a trolleybus, I began looking round with a predator’s eye for a little seat. They were all taken except one. Then I saw a shrivelled little granny hobbling towards it. I was some 4 metres from that seat, that is, one good leap, but, I thought, no chance for me – the granny was a good deal closer. And then I heard a voice in my head: “What are you standing there for?” And I rushed for the seat. Suddenly the granny just went BAM and fell over, and at that very moment the warm little seat went to me. So I rode all the way to the station, calm and comfortable. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

---

Meduolis

My new testimony, only a few minutes old :?

So, as I do every day, I decided to sit down and torture the guitar for a few hours. So I’m practising, and somehow I can’t get the Clowns out of my head, all sorts of thoughts about them keep going round. Suddenly, snap! – a string broke and lashed me across the mug. Then I heard a voice in my head: “When you think about the Clowns – smile,” said the voice. Now I have a red stripe from ear to ear, like some idiotic grin. It looks really creepy, but the Clowns know what they are doing.

---

Mashmud

Here is a story my grandfather told me, but I only laughed at him. Now I understand that I was wrong... I regret it very much, and every day I do push-ups not only with my arms but with my heart too.

In 1978, in Kybartai, a little town on the Lithuania–Kaliningrad border 100 km from Kaunas, my grandfather M. R. took part in a strange event.

“Suddenly, on the road in the forest, I saw two little men. They were not dwarfs, as it seemed to me at first, but somewhat like people too, just plain clowns. Their faces were white, with two huge slanting eyes and round red noses.” These creatures jumped into my grandfather’s cart and used gestures to show where to take them. Arriving at a clearing in the forest, my grandfather saw a strange circus-shaped object hanging a few metres above the ground. “The clowns grabbed me and dragged me to the craft. A platform slid out of it and, whistling shrilly, came down to the ground. The three of us climbed onto it and rose into a very dark room... The clowns motioned that I had to undress. When I had undressed, they put their noses to my nose and blessed me. I had to stretch out my arms and legs, lie down, then do a few push-ups. Then they let me stand up, and I could get dressed.”

Before he died, my grandfather showed me a birthmark that looked very like the number 999; only now do I understand that it was his number... blessed be the Good and the Bad, I too shall wait for their visit...

A brother in faith and in the CC, Mashmud

---

7x

What a joy it is that here at last I have met people who are worthy of the laughter of the Good Clown. I thought I was the only one to whom the Clowns had appeared, but I see that I was wrong.

It happened to me 4 years ago. It was a cold winter evening. I was alone in the room. I was sitting in a soft armchair reading the intellectual magazine “Donald and Co.”, but suddenly the wind howled and the window flew open. I rushed to the window and tried to close it, but it seemed as if someone was holding it from the other side. Then I leaned out over the windowsill to look, but the wind began to blow even harder. Through the snow I could make out only a big bright red nose, and listening closely to the howling of the wind I heard the words: “You do push-ups out of necessity, not out of desire! If this goes on, you will not get into the Eternal Circus!” After these words the wind suddenly died down...

Since then I have been doing push-ups willingly every day, going to every circus that comes to town and collecting red clown noses. I have built up a fairly sizeable collection of 128 noses. I think this event proves once again that the Cosmic Clowns exist and that unbelievers have no right to claim otherwise if they have not experienced such events as I have.

---

7x

Today a wonderful thing happened to me. At last I realised that I am one of the chosen. How so? Well, my school library reader’s ticket number is “222”. Isn’t that a strange coincidence? There are so many numbers in the world, and on my reader’s ticket there is a 2. I think there is no need to explain what is symbolically important about this number, which is repeated as many as 3 times. It could have been any number, and yet I got precisely this one. From now on I know that I am the 222nd among the chosen. Glory to the O’Cosmic Clowns (the Good and the Bad).

---

7x

Today I finally got a public library reader’s card, and what do you think? Reader’s card no. 232323.

If this is not the Cosmic Clowns, then what is it? Coincidence?

If it seemed to you that I made this testimony up because I had nothing to do, then know that with such a thought you could not have been further from the truth! The O’Clowns really did visit me; what kind of fool would make up testimonies for lack of anything to do? Who would dare to joke with the Clowns like that, you should be ashamed, you soulless lot, that such a thought dawned in your heads. NOBODY JOKES WITH THE CLOWNS.

I am very disappointed in you, sceptics, because I know what you thought! And it was nasty of you to think it; after all, I am not some outsider pretending to believe in the Clowns because it is funny and he likes taking the piss out of believers. I am your sincere brother in faith. Where is the tolerance? And in general, why have our values sunk so low? It used to be different, after all: we used to be much more aggressive, more determined to reach our goal. When did you last bump off a mime? What, no time? Family getting in the way? Popped out a load of kids? Or maybe you ran for some post, so there is no time left for the fundamental rituals of the O’Clowns? Who will protect our traditions if not we ourselves?? Is there anything more important than spreading fanatical religious violence? Isn’t that why everyth... ok fuck it the manga’s downloaded.

---

pk10

And it all went like this: I was in fairly decent push-up form, having already done the hundred needed to warm up. I rested and decided to try the divine push-up with two claps... after that failed attempt I could not eat for three more days, because I seriously fucking slammed my chin into the floor. Summary: not every clown can do a divine push-up – only the Cosmic Clowns can do it.

Clownologist’s commentary: The O’Clownish push-up with two claps is not meant for showing off that you clapped and stayed in one piece. The famous juggler and clownologist Apistasius the Nimble, who died during a performance at Versailles when conspiring mimes pushed him down invisible stairs and strangled him with an invisible rope, wrote: “Sometimes the grace of the O’Clown would come over us, and an indescribable desire would arise to do O’Clownish push-ups. Then the brother jugglers would gather in the courtyard on the stone paving to perform them. The evening would echo with the slapping of palms, laughter and groans. The next morning we proudly showed one another our big, swollen, red noses and measured them with rulers. We rejoiced at being rewarded for a faith proven not in words alone. Whoever’s nose was the most swollen or even broken, him we chose as chief juggler until the next time, and he did not have to hand out and polish the clubs.” To do this exercise correctly, what you lack is not skill or physical fitness but the courage to receive with your nose the O’Clownish grace sent to you and not to dodge at the last moment – that is why your chin copped it.

---

Vajezus

Well, here’s what I’ll tell you. In the morning before my sociology exam I did a few push-ups and I passed the exam :) Most of the questions turned out to be easy, and one was even perfectly clear. Can this really be chance? Anyone who has waited for an exam, trembling, will understand me.

---

Vilius

So, brothers in faith, prick up your ears, and I will tell you my testimony.

It happened maybe 8 circus seasons ago (infidels call that “calendar years”). Back then I was a weakling and could do barely 10 push-ups, and not a single one of them “on the knuckles”. I also considered myself very clever, because I had read up on all sorts of “scientific theories”, like the Earth came from dust or some shit or other, may the Clowns forgive me for such an expression. Evidently I had greatly angered the mighty patrons of the Great Circus with my slackness and heretical thoughts. So there I am lying on the sofa one day, watching TV.

Suddenly the telly hissed just like in that horror flick “The Ring”. It started showing some weird images... a couple of idiots running about a little round arena, a few more retards riding one-wheeled bicycles. Every so often it hisses again... “F@ck this!” I thought. Since I was a weakling and a glutton, I was too lazy to get up and adjust the telly. I threw a slipper at it. The telly switched off. A few seconds later it switched on again. “F@ck this!” I thought once more. Then the picture began to go dark, until at last the numbers #1025 stood out on a black background. And a mighty voice rang out, either from the television or from the heavens:

– Do 50 otzhimai!

– What...? – I asked timidly.

– Push. Ups! You ass! – roared that voice.

“F@ck this,” I thought once more, but I did not dare disobey.

– And don’t you go thinking such filth any more! – boomed the voice, gradually fading away.

Never again did I think... well, you know what. And I do push-ups every day. I go cross-country running too. I also go to the circus regularly, thus supporting the vicars of the mighty Clowns on earth and their noble mission.

---

Keliaujantis Tamsa

Once I went to the bank, and there a darkness of sinful people stood lined up, as if in the show of the Last Circus, waiting their turn to answer for the days when they had not done push-ups. By the door stood a machine; when you pressed it, a slip of paper with a number would come out. I pressed away and got one with the number 17. There are so many numbers in the world... and they gave me 17? It could have been 2, 1024 or 1234567890×10! Science cannot explain such miracles. After all, if I cannot explain it to myself, it is obvious that science cannot do it either. I realised that I was marked with this number. I began to do push-ups right there. All sorts of push-upless in suits black came running and threw me out of the bank. And yesterday I visited an electronics shop. There I saw the person in front of me get... my number 17. Then I remembered how I had boasted of having it, how I had started skipping push-ups, thinking my place was guaranteed. How, laughing, I had watched moving pictures about mimes and eaten French baguettes. I realised that I had sinned terribly. Let this be a lesson to all that, to get into the Eternal Cosmic Circus, a miraculous number can be seen even in a rat’s tail, but as the O’Cosmic Clowns give, so they can also take away for push-upless sinmimes.

Not recommended reading for children under 23, nor for persons of high intelligence and culture. You have been warned.

And Hans was not afraid of getting lost and strode boldly through the forest. Behind him trotted Klaus, having slung his beloved crowbar over his shoulders; he never parted with it and called it Tampukas. A pretty little name, isn’t it, children?

Hans and Klaus ran and ran along the forest path and suddenly came upon the Hedgehog. The Hedgehog was great and stern; he leapt out from behind a tree and gave such a shout that the whole forest echoed and the squirrels fell out of the trees:

– And where the fuck are you running to, you whores?!

Hans and Klaus stopped, horrified. The Hedgehog smiled nastily and pulled some kind of rubber out of his pocket. He put it on his, children, not exactly a spine, and began to come towards Hans and Klaus. They stood trembling and prayed to the O’Clowns for help, and the Hedgehog kept coming closer...

Suddenly Klaus whacked the Hedgehog with his beloved little crowbar right across his not exactly a spine, and the Hedgehog even doubled up with pain, children. Believe me, it hurts a lot there. The whole forest echoed with the Hedgehog’s screams. Then Hans came up, pulled that rubber off the Hedgehog’s not exactly a spine and examined it. Then he heard the voice of the Bad Cosmic Clown deep in his heart. It said: “Name this thing whatever you like, and know that it must not be put on. The Hedgehog put it on, and look what happened to him!”

Hans, who was already about to put it on, looked in horror at Klaus’s gleaming eyes, at the little crowbar Tampukas in his hand, and hastily pushed the rubber away from himself.

– I shall call it a preservative (lt. ‘prezervatyvas’ is a condom) – he decided. – To remember the day when we were preserved from the Hedgehog! (see an English dictionary, children).

Hello, children, today we are going to learn biology, about evolution, and I will read you a little tale about a hare and a wolf. No, Petriukas, not as idiotic as the one last time. Mind your language. So, children, settle down and listen.

Once upon a time there lived the hare Psycho and the wolf Fluffy. Although they often teased each other, they actually got on well. They would meet at the edge of the forest by the big lime tree, and the wolf says to the hare:

– Zdarov, long-ears!

And the hare answers him:

– Hello, hello, long-co… what was probably meant here is “long-cap”, children.

And then the two of them would go to the glade to admire the sunset or to the wolf’s garden to weed the carrots. And they would talk about art... the wolf’s favourite painter was Michelangelo, and the hare had no favourite painter, but he did have shoe polish. Hm, I wonder who wrote this tale, well, never mind.

And the wolf also had a brother called Tautvydas, who had a family. Tautvydas’s wife, a she-wolf, was called Salmonellosis, and their little son was called Trauklapis. What are you sniggering at, Petriukas, I ask you? What have diseases got to do with it? It’s a normal name; I really don’t know of any disease by that name. Will you shut up or not?! And the wolf’s brother, unlike him, was not at all such a good friend of the hare. He and the hare competed, children. Fluffy was sad, because he wanted his friend and his brother to get on well, but that did not help. Day after day Psycho the hare competed with Tautvydas the wolf... do you know what “compete” means? Yes, Petriukas? Oh, correct, in even more detail than I knew. What does “ecosystem” mean? Doesn’t matter anyway; tell me instead how you know all this. Ah, your mum’s a biologist, that explains it.

So the wolf and the hare competed for the same resources, as Petriukas said. Why is it nonsense, Petriukas? Yes, I know perfectly well that the wolf and the hare eat different food! Do you think I can’t tell a wolf from a hare?! Or do you think I can’t tell a coffee machine from a radar?! Just be quiet! And they competed for a shared resource… air. Yes, air. It isn’t written here, but you can work it out for yourselves. You don’t think a hare or a wolf doesn’t need to breathe, do you? There you are, so in future know that grown-ups know better. No, I did not print this tale out from the skepforum; you know I take all my biology lessons from the magazine “Fate”. Stop sniggering, Petriukas, or you’ll be out of the classroom.

The tension between the hare and the wolf over the air grew and grew, and finally it erupted. One day the hare Psycho lost his temper and decided that Tautvydas’s little son Trauklapis had to be killed. And off he ran towards the home of Tautvydas the wolf, at enormous speed, so as to get there before Trauklapis’s parents came back. Hares run very fast, because they have a special gland next to the liver that generates torsion fields. Oh, even I didn’t know that. What are you guffawing at like a lunatic, Petriukas? What do you mean, “printed from the Clowns section of the skepforum, guaranteed”? I’m telling you, this is from the magazine “Fate”. Another teacher photocopied it for me, you know, the one with long hair who runs the origami club after lessons. He probably doesn’t even know what this skepforum of yours is; I certainly don’t. Calm down and keep listening.

The hare came running and says to Trauklapis:

– Come on, little Trauklapis, further into the forest, I’ll give you a sweetie!

Wolves, children, are very fond of sweets. They even compete for them… do you know who they compete with? Yes, Žukas? Correct, with penguins! Petriukas, if you roll your eyes like that, you’ll go cross-eyed.

The hare Psycho led away the five-year-old wolf cub… WHAT’S WRONG NOW, YOU’VE FUCKED ME OFF, PETRIUKAS!!! Sorry. He led him away, grabbed him by the little legs and smashed his head against a tree. Trauklapis’s little nose streamed with blood, and he started bawling with pain. The hare Psycho smashed him against the tree once more, and the wolf cub went quiet. The hare checked and sees that he is still breathing, so he swung him by the legs and smashed the little head against the tree a third time; there was the sound of a skull cracking; he checked, looks – the wolf cub is dead, only in the tearful little eyes, stood up like posts, something like a frozen question: “what for…?” What is it, Onytė? Not feeling well today? But this is nature, natural selection; the dear Lord just made it so that the hare and the wolf have to compete! You can’t say it’s cruel!

The hare Psycho secretly buried the wolf cub’s little corpse and went home. When they came back, Tautvydas and Salmonellosis did not find their little son at home and, worried, went out to look for him. They found the little grave by scent, dug it up and look: their little son lies dead, his little head split open, bloody, only a sad look in his little eyes... The parents howled with grief… Now what are you crying for, Marytė? I’m telling you, this is nature, evolution, come on. That’s just how it goes in nature. You can’t say “it’s unfair…”. It’s simply that the hare and the wolf compete. Well, for example, your daddy sows rye every year, doesn’t he? Yes! There, you see. Everything is much clearer. A smile really suits you; wipe your little face and keep listening. What do you mean, “what has rye got to do with it”, Petriukas? You’ve pissed me off with your questions; go to the Lithuanian-language linguists and ask them what rye has got to do with it. WHERE SHOULD I GO MYSELF?! GET OUT OF THE CLASSROOM AND DON’T SHOW YOUR FACE WITHOUT YOUR PARENTS!!! Well, splendid that you’re “not missing anything”. At least it’s good, children, that he isn’t threatening to complain to the sceptics; remember that time I chased him out of the classroom during the parapsychology lesson? Well, never mind that Petriukas; let’s get back to the tale.

Tautvydas the wolf grew terribly angry when he caught the scent of the hare Psycho, and rushed off to the hare’s home. Running up, he shouted:

– Come out, hare, you fa... I can’t make out this bit… be quiet, Kęstukas, you’re even less likely to know what word it is, sitting so far away...

Out came the hare, and the battle began. He leapt on the wolf like a beast, sank his claws into the wolf’s body and his teeth into his throat… hares have very powerful canine teeth, children, because they try to become better adapted when they have to compete with a wolf… and he grabbed the wolf by the scruff with his claws and tore the wolf’s head off, children, and blood gushed in fountains from the arteries… do you know, children, what arteries are? Nobody knows? They are the veins that blood flows through. For example, do you remember when Rimukas slit his veins last year, wanting to kill himself, because his mummy and daddy died in an accident? Remember, Rimukas? Yes, it’s silly to do that; now you probably laugh yourself when you remember it.

Blood spurted from the wolf’s arteries, children, and the hare went on tearing at the wolf with claws and teeth, ripping out huge chunks of fur and flesh and flinging them all around, tearing out his guts and rolling in them. At last he calmed down, relaxed and sat down, all bloody, to rest in the middle of the red earth and the torn pieces of wolf scattered around… What’s going on, where are you all off to, we go to the toilet one at a time, what’s all this! Yes, I can see, Onytė, that you’re not feeling well today, you can go home, just bring a note from your parents tomorrow. So, the hare sat gnawing one of the wolf’s legs… well, all right, we’ll wait until everyone comes back.

The hare Psycho buried what was left of Tautvydas the wolf and went to Tautvydas’s home. He caught Tautvydas’s weeping wife, threw her down on the floor... hm, we’ll skip this bit, I wonder who wrote this tale... WHAT, WHAT are you whispering there, Rimukas? What did “the psycho hare do to the idiot wife of the wolf” and WHAT “was born of this union” afterwards??!! GET OUT OF THE CLASSROOM AND DON’T SHOW YOUR FACE WITHOUT YOUR PARENTS!! Yes, I know you have no parents, that’s not my problem, I don’t give a fuck, you won’t talk about me like that!!!

Then the hare Psycho killed Tautvydas’s wife and went home. He had only just had his bath when the wolf Fluffy came and says:

– Hare, hare, where is my brother Tautvydas?

And the hare answers him:

– I don’t know. Am I your brother’s keeper?

– What have you done? My brother’s blood cries out from the ground! – raged the wolf.

And the battle began, and the hare leapt… All right, children, never mind, you can go home, today is some sort of bad day. The bell is about to go anyway. I’m giving Žukas a ten for excellent listening, and the rest of you will answer for it in the test the day after tomorrow.

(the bell)

Vajezus

So, Nomad, Svetimas and I stuffed ourselves fit to burst with dumplings here and made a great discovery.

Anyone can take a tape measure and measure the perimeter of the cross-section of ancient Greek columns. We divide it by the diameter at the same place, and guess what we get? Why, 3.14 – the number pi!

Can this be chance? How did the Greek architects know the number pi?

---

Vajezus

Scientists in panic – yet another irrefutable proof of the existence of the CC has appeared!

As was noticed a very long time ago, a great many natural processes go round in a circle – be it the motion of the planets, the cycle of the seasons, the Earth’s water cycle or biochemical processes (e.g. the Krebs cycle). Obviously, this is how we are given encoded information about the creators of the Universe – the O’Clowns.

---

7x

As is well known, in trying to refute the eternal truths of the Cosmic Clowns, the soulless use all sorts of made-up nonsense. One example is Occam’s razor. According to them, it is a tool that helps to pick out the simplest of all statements, the ones that need no further explanation. Not always, but very likely, the simplest answer is the closest to the truth. Of course, this only makes me laugh, as it does you. After all, the funniest gags are the more complicated ones, with an unexpected denouement, not those simple short little jokes where, having heard the first half, you can easily guess the ending.

But let us play their game. Let us take a simple question: Where did the universe come from?

The CC state that it came about after their foreheads clashed. – The explanation is short, simple and clear.

The push-upless state that, I quote: “The universe, it is thought, was born in the Big Bang and went through a stage of rapid inflation.
Three phenomena support this:
1. the expansion of the universe.
2. the microwave background radiation. It spread 100,000 years after the Big Bang.
3. nucleosynthesis after the Big Bang: the abundance of helium and deuterium, as observed and as calculated by the model <...>”

Doesn’t such an explanation raise even more questions? What is this microwave background radiation? What is this nucleosynthesis? And finally, what is this deuterium?

It is clear to everyone that the CC explanation of the origin of the universe is much simpler, and therefore more correct.

---

Keliaujantis Tamsa

To some inexperienced readers the abundance of CC books (1024 Books of the Return, 420 Books of the Beginning, 69 Books of Bezdiejus, etc.) and their mutually contradictory contents may look like a lack of logic. But to an experienced expert this shows the polysemy of this literature and its ability to fit 8 figurative meanings into one sentence (not contradicting one another, but taken out of context). Figurative meanings that contradict the text as literally written are considered especially valuable. The clownologist Goldnose worked out that this is how the O’Clowns send us trials, to separate the push-upless from the clownatics. They laugh at how people fight over meanings. These echoes of the Cosmic laughter reach us through the subconscious and lead us onto the way of laughter, at the end of which the Cosmic Circus awaits. Thus through the fighting (suffering) comes ridicule (salvation).

So the multitude of Clownaments must be multiplied by 8 as well, for the International Institute of Clownology has explained every one of their sentences with at least 8 figurative meanings contradicting one another. This is considered an inseparable part of Clownology, for not one letter and not one stroke shall disappear from the Clownish Law. Long ago the great clownologist Roundnose Klaunius XI drew a deep-reaching conclusion (which no one has scraped out, either with an enema or with hooks) and taught that, in a figurative reading of the text of the New Clownament’s “The Enlaughtened Timofiejus, or Chastisinge ye Sinnes of the Push-upless”, “And Timapiejs did hewe them with hatchettes and into ye ovene stuffeth them lyke biscuittes”, one must understand it as “And Timofiejus cut them (the biscuits) and pushed them towards the hearth (to warm themselves with the biscuits shared out)”, which showed the boundless generosity and hospitality of Timofiejus towards the push-upless.

---

Aurigarijus news service report (Vilius)

Aurigarijus news service mourns its long-serving special correspondent Den Brownski, who died in mysterious circumstances.

The talented researcher D. Brownski shocked the world with a series of publications revealing the genealogical tree of J. Christ, experiments with macroscopic quantities of antimatter, unbreakable algorithms for encrypting information.

Mr Brownski’s last investigation, which the author’s unexpected death cut short, was an attempt to decipher a clay tablet dated to the 9th millennium BC, which the author had found with an expedition of Aurigarijus Archeology scientists while excavating the remains of the Jericho settlement of the Mesopotamian civilisation (in today’s Palestinian territory). According to preliminary data, a genealogical tree was encrypted on the tablet; you can see a fragment of it in this picture:

C.C.G.  C.C.B.
  |       |
  +---+---+
      |
      V
    ?????<--+
      |     |
      +-----+
      |
      V
    ?????<--+
      |     |
      +-----+
      |
      V
     ...

What is incredible is not only the fact that the first people on Earth are descended from the Cosmic Clowns (it is thought that C.C.G. and C.C.B. are abbreviations of the names of the Good and the Bad Cosmic Clowns), but also that the first inhabitants of the Earth were able to reproduce hermaphroditically. Data from the Vatican Secret Archives and the testimonies of members of the SFFBIA (Society of Former FBI Agents) allow the conclusion that this dynasty, descended from the Clowns, continues to this day. It is interesting to note that the dynasty simply teems with famous names, among them the pharaoh Akhenaten, Napoleon Bonaparte and Rolandas Paksas (the Lithuanian president impeached in 2004).

Grieving over the loss of Mr Brownski and his unfinished investigation is the head of the Aurigarijus Conspiracy Theory Research Institute and long-standing SFFBIA member Mulder Scullski: “We have lost not only a beloved friend, a perceptive researcher and a zealous colleague, but also the chance to reveal once and for all the origin of mankind and the hermaphrodite conspiracy that has entangled the whole world and has long been talked about behind the scenes of the science of conspiracy theory.”

Den Brownski’s mysterious death has also posed many riddles. The famous journalist was found slumped in a hotel room with a broad smile frozen on his face. The post-mortem showed that death resulted from suffocation, when the diaphragm and lungs ruptured and blood poured into them. Unusual damage to the facial muscles was also found. Witnesses’ accounts that loud roars of laughter came from Mr Brownski’s room also confirm the doctors’ conclusion of death from an acute fit of laughter.

After these data were published, talk soon spread of the Clowns’ revenge on an overly curious journalist who had come dangerously close to the Clownish secrets, which perhaps are not so funny after all...

Other sources claim that the World Society of Skinheads Against Gays carried out this murder with laughing gas, not wanting it to come to light that mankind originated from the homosexual love of the Cosmic Clowns.

Meanwhile Mr M. Scullski is not inclined to agree with this talk and, with the help of colleagues from the SFFBIA, as befits a scientist, has set about carefully selecting the facts that would confirm the preconceived view that D. Brownski’s death was ordered by representatives of the hermaphrodite dynasty.

---

Aurigarijus Skepvisition (Azuolas)

Skepquisitor Bombas Circemada has managed to obtain funding for a new project for the sceptification of society, “Replacing Religious Idols with Sceptical Ones”.

Bombas Circemada states that, if people are to throw aside their religious gods and convert to the true CC ideology, everything must be done gradually. Circemada gave the Christianisation of the Baltic lands as an example. They gradually “stuck” the new ideology (Christianity) into the old ideology (paganism). They did this by putting up Christian symbols in place of pagan ones or simply at pagan holy places. At first there was paganism with admixtures of Christianity, then a mixture of Christianity and paganism, and at present there is – Christianity with some remnants of the former paganism.

Circemada’s project initially envisages hanging up faces of the O’Clowns in all churches. It envisages putting up a juggler at each place where the Virgin Mary has appeared, and demolishing Vilnius Cathedral and building a big circus in its place.

An archaeological expedition of the Institute of Scientific Clownology, in cooperation with the Department of Historical Skepquisitics of Aurigarijus Public University, discovered and deciphered an archive of skepquisition files whose age, it is supposed, may reach several thousand years. Since the deciphering revealed that this material had not yet been declassified, the whole scientific expedition was shot for unlawful possession of classified material.

However, the next day the Supreme Headquarters of the Skepquisition showed its characteristic kind-heartedness and agreed to declassify some records as having no operational value.

---

From file no. 698-4521
Archives of the Funny Skepquisition

18 April 36
Special Agent
Judas Iscariot

To the Asia Minor Directorate
To the Central Ephesus Skepquisition Headquarters,
To His Funniness Skepquisitor Petramon Pilate

Operational Report

On your instructions, while monitoring the communications of an underground push-upless group calling itself the “Sceptics”, I used a torsion listening device to intercept this conversation, which took place on 17 April at 22:41 between the monitored subjects Luke and Matthew. The text of the intercepted conversation is attached.

Luke: but listen, like, well, I just can’t get how those believers are such morons. It’s some sort of nonsense, isn’t it, that like a couple of clowns created the world. Science has clearly proved that there are no clowns. Look, have you ever seen even one clown?

Matthew: no, well, it’s clear to me, but how do you explain it to them? Well, you get someone who seems clever, but when you start explaining to him that this religion is nonsense – suddenly he understands sod all. Well, there’s no proof of the existence of clowns, and there’s no such thing as circuses. But he hammers some nonsense into his own head. And such stupid stuff too – the 1024 chosen, the Eternal Chamber of Horrors... Well, this is clearly some fairy tale for children.

Luke: listen, I reckon we need to explain it to them simply somehow.

Matthew: how? However much we’ve tried telling them there’s no proof – they don’t get it.

Luke: I reckon we should explain it with examples here. Look, if we made up some religion purely for a laugh, and then they tried to say it’s nonsense, and we defended it using their own rhetoric. And maybe then they’d understand that the Cosmic Clowns don’t exist.

Matthew: oh, that sounds pretty good. Only then we need to come up with something really stupid.

Luke: why?

Matthew: no, well, just think – they’re so stupid that if we come up with a religion that isn’t absurd enough, someone will even end up believing in it. What we need here is for it to be obvious at once that it’s an absurdity and a mockery, but at the same time not to differ at all in principle from the Clowns.

Luke: uh-huh. I was thinking – we could, e.g., make up a religion of Smurf-paedophiles. We’ll write our own Clownaments there...

Matthew: no, well, maybe that sounds too stupid...

Luke: oh, I’ve got it: what if we make a religion where god is simply called God. Well, a hoot, isn’t it?

Matthew: yeah, super.

Luke: right, and like, because he’s God with a capital “G”, he’s terribly cool. Almighty, like, and knows everything and that. Made the Earth in a week. And made man, and after that made woman. Well, like a parody – the way the clowns created Adolf and Waffle.

Matthew: yeah, super. And that God is not only almighty but also very good and loves everyone very much.

Luke: uh-huh. Then why is so much crap of all sorts happening on Earth?

Matthew: well, e.g., people are to blame for that. Because god is almighty and everything is subject to his will, but he leaves people free will. That’ll be an obvious contradiction, but like, nobody understands God, same as nobody understands the clowns. And like, for their sins he’ll throw all people into cauldrons of hot sulphur. Well, it’ll be a parody of the Eternal Chamber of Horrors.

Luke: no, there has to be some way of saving yourself, like for the clowns doing push-ups, not programming in scripting languages and drinking a lot.

Matthew: so maybe with us, for example, you’ll have to not write poems, do squats and eat apples?

Luke: no, that’s much too direct... Um, got any more grass?

(...pause...)

Luke: oooo, good. Oh, look what a laugh I’ve come up with. Right, so this very good and almighty God will want to help people so that they can save themselves from the burning sulphur. But like, he’s very just, and he can’t simply forgive them just like that. So he’ll give birth to a son and send him to Earth to show people the true way. And then this son of his on Earth will commit seppuku and so save people from sin.

Matthew: hey, maybe you should stop smoking...

Luke: oooo... good... No, seppuku somehow lacks symbolic meaning. Right, people will kill this son of God. They’ll put him on a ball and roll him until he dies. And then by his death he’ll redeem people’s sins.

Matthew: well, what nonsense. But you said God is almighty and all-knowing, so he’ll know this is going to happen to his son. And what, he won’t even save him?

Luke: ooooo... give me some more grass, I’ll think of something in a moment... Well, that’s the whole laugh – to come up with something as stupid as possible. So that it’s total schizo. Right, and we’ll also be able to wear balls round our necks, in memory of the death of the son of God. Though no, a ball is awkward... Better they nailed him to a cross, right, and we’ll wear crosses. And we’ll call ourselves – Crusaders. No, that sounds too simple. Christians, right – super.

Matthew: so like, in our religion everyone will be saved from the sulphur? Won’t even have to do anything?

Luke: no, look, for example, you’ll have to love that son of God for his sacrifice. And then you’ll be saved.

Matthew: no, seriously, maybe you should stop smoking...

(End of recording)

Recommendations

Considering the absurdity of the religion propagated by the subjects and the contradictoriness of its theories, and also the fact that it was obviously created as a plagiarism of the teaching of the O’Clowns, I believe they pose no real danger. The liquidation of the subjects can be carried out as a matter of routine; I see no grounds for an extraordinary operation.