The Freudian Prophet or Perm

In the small but thriving Russian city of Perm in the indeterminable past, gathered a large crowd outside the local church. News had flitted around the town of a new prophet, a man of God with a message to the local congregants of Christ. Why were these men and women so excited? You see, nothing much happened in Perm. It was, by all accounts, a backwater shithole in the middle of the largest country on earth. If a donkey staggered and died, the family who owned it would be relegated to impossible poverty. If a train happened to pass by the town, flocks of kids would truant school to throw rocks at it. So when the inhabitants of Russia’s sleepy nowhere heard about a new religion, they went out of their mind with joy, fascination and interest.

Who was this mysterious man of God? His name was Kiril Alexandrovich. A tall six-foot man with pitch black hair down to his shoulders, Kiril amazed everyone who saw him. His cavernous. emerald eyes hypnotised women into obedient submission. His penetrating gaze left men with the impression that he was a remorseless killer, willing to do anything to achieve his religious goals, while women whispered and giggled aloud whenever he passed them on the street. Prominent cheekbones and a razor-sharp jawline, this man truly had it all.

Rumors had circulated that before he was a prophet, he was a nobody accountant at a Moscow firm. Others suggested he served with the Cossacks as an auxiliary. What was certain is that his past was clouded in shadowy secrecy, and that his rise to fame had been spectacular and overnight.

Kiril planned to make his speech in front of the local church, a deliberate provocation against the Orthodox faith. He was waiting for the right moment, one might say the right divine moment, when God in his infinite wisdom would reveal to him the time to speak to the crowd. Kiril walked onto the hastily-built wooden platform, as a great hush fell over his audience.

But before he could even speak, a disgruntled man in the audience shouted vehemently “Heretic, slanderer of God”. Another man joined in the haranguing: “ Deceiver, and liar”. Evidently, the local Christians were wary of his message, of his divine mission.

“братья и сестры” (Brothers and Sisters) he opened, “I have come with a simple message from a simple, loving God. The Lord is good in all his ways. I do not ask you to repent. I do not come to tell you of everlasting hellfire and damnation. These are childish concepts, not fit for the great Russian soul. For a week I meditated next to the Kama river, eating and drinking nothing, yea, surviving only on the mystical energy of the sun. And on the seventh day, when my energy reached its dangerous nadir, an angelic voice of a redbreasted robin spoke to me and said: Kiril Alexandrovich, man of God and leader of his people, go out to the people of Perm and tell them one simple message. And it is this simple message that I will relate to you now”

The audience was now in hushed abeyance. Even the hecklers were quite.

“ I come to reveal the latest law of the Lord. It is as such: SEXUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN MOTHER AND SON ARE NOW PERMITTED.

A shocked silence. Fretful whisperings and awed contemplations. The day ends.

And there was not to be found either Christian, Jew or Moslem in the whole of Perm, from then until this very day.