On a fateful
afternoon, 22 year old Peter died, and was instantly transported to the
presence of the Lord to face judgement. Immediately he faced the Lord, he knew
something was seriously wrong.
“Peter, to be very
honest, I am not happy with the way you lived your life while you were on
earth.”
“Ooh Jeez, Lol. I
thought you and I were BFFs. How can you say you are not happy with me? IMHO, I
did the best I could do. Jeez, you can’t be serious. In fact, I am LMHO. After
all, when my friends were celebrating, I pinged them HBD, HWA, HML or GBU,
depending on the occasion they were celebrating. I tried to be as nice as
possible. What more could I have done?” Peter tried to defend himself.
“Excuse me Son,
what is the meaning of what you are saying. I created humans, and all the
languages in the world, but I can’t seem to understand this funny language you
are speaking to me.”
At this point
Peter, who had developed a short attention span due to his addiction to
technology while he was on earth, started getting carried away by his new
surroundings, and was looking round this new environment.
“OMG!!!! Is that my
younger brother, Andrew, the one who died at the age of eight? Wow, it’s been
long time I spoke with him. I must go and talk to him. BRB Jeez.”
The Lord
immediately pulled him back with an invisible force. “I don’t think you know
whose presence you are before. I don’t think it has dawned on you yet.”
“Ohhh Jeez, that’s
true Lord. I meant no disrespect to you Lord. To be honest, I really don’t I
can stand your presence, it is just too awesome. Your eyes are too holy to
behold iniquity. Facing you at this time just reminds me of what a sinful man I
am. Oh Lord, I really cannot do this. Let me just go to the next street, and
call you from there on my phone. I will use the opportunity to walk the streets
of gold for a while. And if by the time I am speaking to you, I cannot stand your
voice, we will just do this whole ‘passing my judgment’ thing by SMS. Better
still Lord, let’s chat over BBM or Whatsapp if you prefer that, since it seems
people are migrating to Whatsapp these days. It won’t cost a dime since I just
paid for my monthly subscription yesterday. That was before the car hit me.
Jeez, I hope your subscription hasn’t expired.
“I am really
shaking my head at your ignorance, son. If I paid the ultimate and most
expensive price two thousand years ago, do you really think the price for a BBM
subscription or whatever you call it will be a big deal for me?”
“Okay Lord, I am
sorry. You see… that is what I am talking about right there. You do not think
the way we humans think. You intimidate me Lord, I am not going to be able to
stand in your presence much longer. Let me just go to the corner so we can PING
each other. You can tell me what I did on earth to please you, so you can just
pass my judgement over the phone. I am pretty sure I am coming to heaven
anyway. After all, I was pretty cool on earth.”
“Oh no… not so
fast. You have to stay in my presence. That’s how judgment is passed here.
There’s no hiding from the shamelessness of your actions while you were on
earth.”
“Wow jeez, if you
acted this way on the internet in my world, you would have been referred to as
a Cyber bully. Okay, okay, I accept Lord. After all, I really don’t have a
choice.”
“Wrong dear, when
it comes to me, you always have a choice. The earth is man’s domain; therefore,
the choice of what to do was yours. This place is my domain, so the choice here
is mine. So if I have decided that no BBM PINGing or Whatsapp-ing is allowed
here, then take it as final.
“KK Lord.”
“There goes that
language I don’t understand again.” The Lord retorted. “I see that the
influence of this technology on your life has affected the way you and a lot of
people on earth interact with other human beings. Your social etiquette has
actually being so much affected, because you spend a larger percentage of your
waking hours hunched over one gadget or the other, rather than with human
beings.”
“Anyway, let’s get
on with your judgment. But before we even begin, I am the God of all, the whole
heaven and earth. Yet you find it hard to stand straight before me, even though
you claim to be in awe of my presence. Do you know the reason for this?”
“No jeez.” Peter
replied.
“Well, it is
because you have developed a bad posture of slouching, due to the fact that you
are always walking with your head down, and shoulders hunched over a
Smartphone. Your reliance on back-bending computers has caused you to ignore
your mother’s advice to stand up straight. Therefore, your backbone therefore
has been permanently bent.”
“So right now, even
if I wanted you to stand straight in my presence, I could not achieve it without
having to tamper with your freewill.”
“KK Lord.”
“Looking at your
activities on earth, to summarise the whole thing, you have been found guilty
of misusing technology.”
“Guilty of misusing
technology? With all due respect Lord, I really doubt that.”
“Oh really? Okay
then, spell my name.”
“Well, according to
internetslang.com, it is G-A-W-D. Simple!”
“Nice one Peter,
thank you for clearing the last shred of doubt I had left. Now, I don’t want to
hear one more word from you. Straight to the judgment…”
Count 1
You have been found
guilty of lying and intentional deceit. For every Friday night you tweeted
‘Clubbing trips’, even though in truth, you were just drooling saliva on your
pillow, because you did not have real-life friends to hang out with, for every
summer you spent in the Boy Scout boot camp, but you used Photoshop to create a
picture of you in a false location, uploaded it on Facebook, and typed ‘Hawai
sturves’, for all the times you were jobless, but were always fast to update
your phone DPs to pictures of I hate Mondays, and Thank God it’s Friday(TGIF),
so people will have the impression that you had a very busy time at work- for
all those times, you have displeased me. You have therefore been found guilty
of lying and deceit with the use of technology.
Count 2
You always arrive
late to every meeting you have because you were carried away by either playing
game on your PS2 or your iPad. You then send a text message to the people
fifteen minutes before the time of the meeting, saying, “Running late, will be
there in an hour’s time. TTYL”, not caring whether the other attendees are
already there or not. That my son, is the sin selfishness with the use of
technology.
Count 3
You have been found
guilty of terrorism. I know you are not a member of Al-Qaeda, have never
encouraged anyone to be a suicide bomber, and are not on the US no-fly list
since they don’t see you as a threat, but it doesn’t change the fact that you
are a terrorist anyway.
You are just an
introverted 22 year old guy, who cannot even open your mouth to save your life
when you are being bullied in school. You are nerdy, and have issues talking to
people, thanks to your underdeveloped social skills. Yet, you sit behind the
screen to assume a larger-than-life persona on social media. You therefore
bully people, drive people to depression with your wicked comments on different
forums. I am sure if these people knew just how insecure and powerless you were
in real life, they would have paid no heed to you, but unfortunately, they did
not. You have therefore been found guilty of terrorism with the use of
technology.
Count 4
You have been found
guilty of disrespecting my name. Peter, I checked your recent tweets before you
died. You joined the people doing the GodIsWatchingYou hash tag trend on
twitter. If that were all, it would have been better. You tweeted things like
“All dez girls dt wear 'Arse Pad' and
deceive boys... #GodIsWatchingYou. Shout Out to all the Choir Masters on my TL who (f-word) their
Choir-sisters after Choir Practice...#GodIsWatchingYou. I really don’t understand it Peter, I don’t know where you and your
friends get the courage to do this. You dare disrespect my name by putting it
in the same sentence with vulgar words. You have therefore been found guilty of
committing the sin of disrespecting and taking my name in vain with the use of
technology.
Count 5
You are guilty of
being wicked. You broke up with four girls by text message, not caring about
their feelings. You did not have the courtesy to call and speak with them. You
had to send them such insensitive messages.
You sent this to
Clara, “Have I told you lately how much I am in love with you? No? Think about
it, have a great life...”
And this to Janet,
“I'd climb the highest mountain. I'd swim the ocean blue. I'd do anything at
all my dear - just to get away from you.”
Then you pinged
this to Alicia, “I get so emotional when you are not around. I think the
emotion is called happiness.”
And this to
Latisha, “The only thing worse than being alone, is being with you.”
You did all these
over the phone. Now my dear, that is just the height of insensitivity.”
At this point,
shock could not even begin to describe the look on Peter’s face. To say that he
was dazed would be an understatement.
“Why are you
looking at me with such a shocked face? Oh, you thought I won’t see everything?
Well, let me tell you, Just like the devil’s eyes goes to and fro, looking for
whom to devour, my eyes also goes to and fro the earth. Did you forget that I
am the omnipresent one? Yes my dear, all your deeds are in this book for me to
read. I am guessing you are no more thinking that you and I doing this ‘whole
judgment thing’, as you put it, over BBM PINGs or Whatsapp is such a nice idea
after all. In fact, I think if I had agreed to your request, you would have
even switched off the phone on me by now, like you usually did to avoid
confrontation while you were on earth.
Count 6
You have been found
guilty of murder. Now, wipe that surprised look of your face. I am the God of
the whole earth, and I know you are thinking you did not kill anyone. But you
see… you did. I understand the fact that you were texting and driving at the
same time when you had this accident that sent you to my very presence. So you
see… you are guilty of murder. You murdered yourself. You committed murder with
the use of technology.”
Of course, by now,
Peter was completely speechless.
“So my dear Peter,
it breaks my heart to tell you this, but you leave me with no choice. There is
therefore no place for people like you in my kingdom. While you were on earth,
you were supposed to obey my commandments but you decided to do your own thing.
For this reason, you will not be able to come into this place. You would have
to go to hell, and be with the devil. I doubt that that will be an issue for
you, as with your use of technology, you had been dining with him all through
the period you were on earth, so you should be used to it by now.
Peter suddenly
found courage to talk again, only this time, he was not so confident and cocky
anymore. “OMG! Please Lord, give me one more chance. I promise I would turn
over a new leaf.”
“My judgment is
final, Peter.”
“Please Lord, just
one more chance, I promise. I would forever be a good person.”
After over two hours of begging God with his chat lingo…
What happened to Peter at the end of the day? Find out this and more humour stories in a copy of my new book, For Laff's Sake.
You can purchase the kindle version and hard copy from amazon, or download the soft copy on your android device for just N200 if you are in Nigeria. The hard copy is also available on createspace.com