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The Polymath


by Jason Lee Norman



Now that I am dead, my god will fight your god. I hope that I will remember this moment, right before our gods fight each other. I hope I remember which one to cheer for when they begin to wrestle, Greco-Roman style, on the collection of blue gym mats that appears in front of my dead body. My god is wearing a red wrestling suit and your god is wearing a navy blue wrestling suit. They both have gold trim. Your god has a scar over his left eye. It looks like he has three eyebrows. I think that there is a rule in effect that says the first god to pin the other god three times will be the winner and the winner will get to take me wherever they please. The winner can even use my soul as an ashtray if he wants to.

When my god is in a headlock I begin to worry. I sweat from my feet. Your god's bicep muscles bulge underneath my god's chin and I prepare myself for an afterlife without socks. Heaven will be a movie theatre filled with chatty women in cowboy hats. If your god succeeds with his sleeper hold I may be reduced to a singularity or have to spend eternity in an empty swimming pool.

My god puts a full nelson on your god and I begin to feel something resembling a heartbeat. My god and I will go to the edge of the universe and I will sit in a chair. If he can just get this figure-four leg lock in place then heaven will be a quiet study with plenty of ink in the wells and the texts will smell of cherry wood. Your god taps three times on the mat just as they find me in my bed, a wool cap on my head to keep away the chill.

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