— Fiction —

In 2009, Lucifer and Jehovah Wrestle for Control of Your Psyche

Lucifer and Jehovah engage in an eating competition. Twelve months of the year = twelve rounds of competition. Winner of each round gains control for that month.

1. Lucifer chows down on 16 portions of fried squirrel brains, eaten in the traditional Western Kentucky manner of shaving the fur off the top of the head, frying the head whole, cracking the skull open at the table and sucking out the brains. Jehovah can stomach only 14 portions. In January you will be a very bad boy.

2. Lucifer devours 666 veal-brain blintzes. Jehovah can manage only 555. In February your psyche is totally under the control of Lucifer.

3. Lucifer gorges on 32 tacos de sesos made with cattle brains. Jehovah maxes out at 31. March goes to Lucifer. Coincidentally, March is National Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Month (cf. “March madness”). [Author’s note: Indeed, last March I picked up a prescription at Rite Aid and the label on the pharmacy bag read “Celebrate National Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Month!”]

4. Lucifer consumes 11 pork-brain omelettes. Jehovah throws in the towel at nine. April will be a cruel month.

5. Jehovah gobbles down six cans of pork brains in gravy. Lucifer says uncle at five. Jehovah has May. Jehovah makes an appointment with his cardiologist. (One 140g can of pork brains in milk gravy = 3500 mg cholesterol = 1170% of the recommended dietary allowance for cholesterol.)

6. Jehovah slurps up 99 bowls of Croatian pork brain soup. Lucifer balks at #95. June, Jehovah.

7. Weary of three consecutive months of pork brains, Lucifer and Jehovah take a break from the eating competition and wrestle for control of your psyche by competing against each other in a video game that can be played with the butt. Lucifer wins. July is the month of You’re an Asshole.

8. Lucifer, refreshed and renewed, polishes off 19 servings of bheja fry (four goat brains per serving). Jehovah is going strong at 17 but then … chokes. Lucifer will hold sway over your psyche in August, even though it means giving up his usual August vacation.

9. Jehovah makes a comeback by inhaling an astonishing 211 seal-brain fritters (two seal brains per fritter). Lucifer falls way short, pushing his plate aside after only 102. Put September in Jehovah’s column.

10. Lucifer wolfs down 10,543 bowls of gulai otak, also known as beef-brain curry. Mmm, that coconut milk! Jehovah has always had a problem with green chili. Jehovah politely excuses himself from the table after 9,210 bowls. In October, in your psyche, Lucifer will rule. October has sentimental value to Lucifer.

11. Lucifer first poaches (not in the culinary meaning of the word) a gorilla and then feasts on seven servings of gorilla brain tartare, in the manner of a newly anointed tribal chief of the Anyang tribe of Cameroon. Jehovah falters at four and surrenders at five. November is Lucifer’s.

12. Up 8 to 3, Lucifer graciously breaks his tradition of not celebrating the birth of baby Jesus and presents Jehovah with a gift-wrapped rare first edition of Easy French Dishes for English Cooks. Jehovah dispatches 70 portions of fritot de cervelle de veau à la tartare (“blanch the brains the ordinary way, in boiling water. Next cut into neat slices…”). Lucifer grinds to a halt at 69. The month of December belongs to Jehovah. You lucky dog. You haven’t exactly been on your best behavior in 2009 but there will be presents under your tree after all.