It was universally agreed, however, that the bacchanal was one of the wildest ever thrown. Enough liquor was consumed to paralyze entire armies. The mess the festive gods created was immense. None of them, including Bacchus, were worried about it in the slightest. In fact, as the party went on, it became a game to make the biggest mess possible of Bacchus’ home. Cleanliness and Godliness, in this particular instance, were nowhere near each other.
The reason, of course, was that Tim was responsible for cleanup of the divine wreckage. Between the gods, they had decided that the most suitable punishment for Tim was to be Bacchus’ custodial staff forever.
Among the marble columns and delicately sculpted busts, intricately woven tapestries, and finely painted portraits, the gods discarded food, drinks, containers and a variety of substances too unpleasant to discuss here.
As Tim wandered around the party, he frequently had to duck flying bottles and other significantly less pleasant things the revelers threw at him.
At one point, Scroat stumbled up to him, and slurred “Bucket. Fuck.”
Tim looked at Scroat and said “What did you say?”
Whereupon, Scroat unloaded the entire contents of his stomach on Tim.
“I said Bucket,” Scroat said, and staggered off to find another drink.
***
The surviving True Believers, now without a leader, quickly realized they’d been had. They released the people Tim had imprisoned, and went back to their regularly scheduled lives. Many of them found new self-help and new age scams to devote their lives and earnings to, and lived as happily as they could.
Just as no one had really noticed Tim’s rise to power, no one really noticed his removal from power. People continued to watch NASCAR and buy lottery tickets, and only a few retirees bothered to watch the President’s televised address when he and the Vice President returned to the White House.
The New Paradigm compound in Washington D.C. was razed, and several strip malls and luxury condominiums were built in its place. Any and all vacancies were quickly filled, and abandoned again when the next new, hot thing came along.
***
The pagans, for their part, continued sacrificing to all the gods who Tim had killed, slowly bringing them back from wherever they had been. They had managed to find a convenient list in Tim’s compound, so all they had to do was go through the list.Of course, it wasn’t quite that easy. Making sacrifices to a variety of gods requires a lot of work (both research and labor) and funding (sacrificial costs add up quickly). Fortunately, their fund-raising car washes were generally well-attended and kept the gods in beer and skittles. At least, long enough for them to return. After that, many of them were on their own again.
***
It took Tim months to clean up after the blow-out party Bacchus had thrown. He had spent countless hours gathering garbage, scrubbing walls, removing stains from art, scrubbing the ceiling, scraping gooey bits out of corners, putting out fires, cleaning up soot from the fires, and so on.After all of his back-breaking labor was complete, he stood at one end of Bacchus’ home and admired the work he’d done. He was fairly certain the house had never looked better.
“The house has never looked better,” Bacchus said, coming up from behind him. He clapped Tim on the shoulder. “And good thing, too, I’m having some of the boys over tonight for a humdinger of a bash. I suggest you rest up.”
***
“Where the hell did we leave the bikes?” Scroat asked Hep.“In an abandoned shed somewhere in the deserts of New Mexico,” Hep said.
“Oh, good, I was worried they were going to be hard to get to again,” Scroat said.
“Nope, easy as pie,” Hep said.
When they got to the shed, they found the bikes were quite dusty, but otherwise exactly as they’d left them. The motors came to life immediately, and Hep and Scroat rode like hell to get home.
***
The Hamburglar, Princess and Robot toys went on to have another outrageous and hilarious adventure. However, that’s another fucking story.
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