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By Wagner Halselle Roberts Emperor of North America As I told you last week, my little dauphin, there is not a small number of dangerous and loathsome beasts in our Trans Carolinia kingdom, especially in the bogs that encircle its steaming, muggy capital -- Columbia. The plant and animal life found there -- and in-between, like the native kudzu and state senator -- can be quite lush and interdependent. We discussed one of the great vampires of that region called Jockula, but few have thought about the subtle relationship that exists between it and another great vampire -- Fundamentula. This relationship can best be seen in the homes of Fun damentula's victims -- the lower and middle-income, Cauccasion Protestants -- who usually have this giant collage of the Apollo astronauts on one or more walls framed with little American flags, an N. F. L. poster or two, other pictures of sports heroes, and maybe even a substantial shelf filled with high school sports trophies and, perhaps, the victims graduating class picture -- from the Marine Corps, 1965. Fundamentula, as the name suggests, instills in its victims a rabid craving -- some say fanaticism -- to live by the literal word and preach the doctrine of the Christian Bible; especially the last part of that book which deals with what they call the Savior, or the Maker. Just as a curious aside, it will be noted that on the planet Arrakis -- first discovered by the starship Enterprise and fought over by the obnoxious Clingons -- there is a very similiar reference to Shai-hulud, or the Maker as one who will lead the Fremen out of their harsh desert existence to Paradise and a New Day. Unfortunately for us and our cultural comparisons, Shai-hulued is represented symbolically to the Fremen as the giant sand worm that roams their planet's harsh surface of dust and dune, gorging itself on the melange spice and anything else that's in its path. Unlike the Fremen, the Fundamentula Christians will gather in large tents or old Army barracks on Wadmalaw Island called Retreats, to heal hoaxed-up diseases; participate in a mass hysteria of overeating; the singing of off-key polkas popularly called Favorite Hymns; and the laying of all sin, real or imagined, at the feet of this mysterious Savior-Maker-Holy Ghost. This Maker is symbolically represented to these people by a strange device that has the scantily-clad figure of a bearded, long-haired youth firmly attached to a cross, usually of wood but sometimes of rare metals, by nails through both hands and feet. Some of the Fundamentula victims prefer to wear tiny replicas of this pitiful image around their necks on chains to remind them, some say, not only of the fate of all Hippie dissidents, but also of the Maker who died for the sins of humans -- major sins being defined these days among the Fundamentula Christians usually as being CAUGHT in the act of adultery, or murder, or aborting an unwanted child, not for the actual sin itself. And, of course, there are hundreds of minor sins that one can commit that these people are strangely much less forgiving of than their Maker -- most of them unpremeditated such as having long hair; being a student, college or otherwise; having just one credit card and no bank account; an out-of-state license; an out of -state accent -- especially of the Kingdom of New York or the Dutchy of the Bronx; familiarity with either Kant or Marx, especially Hegel; but the strongest reaction of all is reserved for the atheists. Agnostics are simply inclined to laugh until tears flow at the emphatic affirmation of the existence of God, whereas atheists, being just as serious in the emphatic denial of God, are the exact opposites of Fundamentula's victims and are somewhat brothers-under-the-skin, so to speak, and are hence, easier to deal with -- both sides shout it out and carry on verbal jihads with each other, much to spectators' delight. You must remember, nephew, that it is the bite of a vampire that sends these poor people into such fits of religion and has nothing to do with logic -- theirs is the sad plight of being possessed by both an ideologie and a disease. 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