A FANTASY STORY INCLUDING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF BIBLICAL LAW
A FANTASY STORY INCLUDING IMPLEMENTATION OF BIBLICAL LAW
1. First let me tell you of the idea of "killer obits" by means of a rather unusual book review I did of Stephen King's latest book:
NEW SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS
Reviews Of Recently Published Science Fiction And Fantasy Books
Reviewer: Forrest Schultz schultz_forrest@yahoo.com 770-583-3258
Blog Address: http://newsciencefictionandfantasyreviews.blogspot.com
November 18, 2015
Stephen King's "Killer Obit" Concept (And How I Used It)
A Review of the Fantasy Element in Stephen King's Short Story "Obits" in His
Stephen King The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (Scribner, 2015)
512 pp $18.00 ISBN: 978-1501111679
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
As noted above, I will only be considering one of the short stories in the abovementioned collection, and in that story I will only be looking at the killer obit concept itself, not the story as a whole. The focus of the story is a journalist, whose job includes writing obituaries, who, just as a prank, decides to write an obit of a (very disgusting) person who is living, pretending he has died, noting in the obit how nasty the guy was; and this obit is really funny, far different from the typical obit! But, weird as it sounds, this causes the man to die!! This led me to write a short story using this killer obit concept in a quite different way -- namely one in which the obit purposely kills, one by one, the various groups of bad guys. My story is titled "Killer Obits", and is published on my short stories blog http://schultzstories.blogspot.com It is also included in the collection of stories honoring Stephen King now being assembled by Inkitt (see their website www.inkitt.com/harrowing).
2. OK, now here is my short story:
Killer Obits
Please do not ask me how it works: I have this special radio which is able to pick up super- remote (and super- small) radio stations. Last week as I was moving the dial at random I happened to pick up the beginning of a broadcast by a station calling itself “Podunk Radio Coming To You From Out Here In The Boondocks”. The announcer then stated that “the program you are about to hear is the first in a series of very important ones, to be broadcast daily, about the subject of Killer Obits, that is, of obituaries that do not inform us of deaths, but rather obits which announce deaths in advance because they themselves CAUSE the deaths!! In style each of them is a combination of journalism and sermon. Each of them purports to be a live recording of the message delivered to the target audience indicated.
The first of these followed immediately after this introductory statement. It was delivered to all criminals and terrorists, and, like a sermon it warned them to immediately repent (or “you shall surely die!”), and like a report on the CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley, it was short and to the point. After this terse warning/promise all across the world there were reports of criminals and terrorists who repented and of many others who suddenly died from no known medical cause.
This same pattern then was repeated daily with each one aimed at a special group of bad guys. And the results were similar. After the killer obit directed at Communists was sent to all Commies, a few repented and the rest were executed, with such results as the Chinese fully repudiating Communism and the North Koreans doing likewise and announcing plans to reunite with South Korea. When the killer obit directed at false religions was sent, most rejected it and were slain while many repented and sought out Christian churches and missionaries to learn Christianity. Similarly with the next obit aimed at Humanists – some repented, and some did not.
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The fifth killer obit was aimed at those in nominally Christian churches who believed in false doctrines which had corrupted these churches. Many repented and many did not. A whole book could be written about this, but all I will say here is that the most astounding thing was Pope Francis repenting of Roman Catholicism and urging other RCs to do likewise. The result of this as well as of the aforementioned obits, was that suddenly everybody was studying the Bible and changing their thoughts and lives accordingly.
The following day, the sixth day, was a day of double surprises. Those waiting (and wanting) to be “raptured” were granted their wish, which got the anti-dispes upset (for obvious reasons), but which was quite painful for those who were raptured because the first thing Christ did was to berate them for their false notion of spirituality. He told them, “God and I care about EVERYTHING, not just spiritual things, so you guys need to get this straight. Now you shall listen to my lecture on this…….”. He then abolished their sin nature (so that they only had a righteous nature), and then proceeded with his talk.
On earth the Christians also had their old nature abolished so that they too henceforth only did good and never sinned any more. As a result they were now in the right frame of mind to move full speed ahead on straightening things out on Earth. And, since all the various kinds of bad guys had been removed, there was nothing standing in their way – it just took a bit of re-education, which was amazingly rapid now that sin no longer stood in the way.
In re the American political situation, Hillary is no longer with us since she refused to repent, but I am pleased to announce that Bernie Sanders and President Obama and V.P. Joe Biden all repented, as did many of the Republicans, with the result that the rest of Obama’s term was great as was his successor, Chris Christie. They all quickly learned and began the implementation of God’s Law.
Forrest W. Schultz
November 13, 2015
My thanks to Stephen King for the ‘killer obit” concept.