1

A Corplaw7 Commentary of Barry J. Lipson

PROLOGUE
Both a deep-space irreverent science fiction blood-and-guts adventure of hands-on sextopod
deprivation, redemption and salvation; and a challenge to ones analytical abilities, perhaps
to the Outer Limits of ones breaking point! Amusing, confusing or "obtusing;"
brightening, blinding or befuddling; clarifying, clouding or contriving; expanding, engulfing
or enraging; enlightening, "obscenitizing" or "blasphemizing"; or just strange, eerie and a
little irreverent , but interesting?
Here, then, for your analytical enlightenment, expansion and enjoyment is:

THE MAR-TYR ON THE SPIT

PART 1 - THE WORLD OF IT
IT had lain forgotten for uncounted eons amongst other unclassified ancient provincial artifacts on the
dustiest bottom shelf of the least frequented curio shop in the obscurest backwater of the known
universe. Then, in response to a galaxies-wide offering to buy all remaining religious relics of the longdefunct Trinity Yahweh Rite, IT was rediscovered and shipped to the Memorial Museum of the
Missionary to Alien Races - Trinity Yahweh Rite, the last remaining vestige of this once powerful and
far roving religious sect. Upon IT's arrival at the MAR-TYR Memorial Museum on Terra, the Curator give
this tiny artifact a cursory examination and then tossed IT hastily into the "crypt", the repository for
broken, defaced and mutilated relics. Though beyond superstition, the Curator could not suppress a
momentary shudder at the blasphemy of a briar-crowned Saviour on an uncrossed cross.
*******
The Egyptians had lived gluttonously during their seven years of famine. At least on this point, the People of IT,
if they had known of such things, would have agreed. As it was, those of the People still alive and sane only
knew that they were hungry - dreadfully hungry.
Never before had the Gates of Heaven failed to open with the passing of the Season of Want! Never before had
the People's sole separate source of sustenance failed to arrive through the Heavenly Gates! Never before had
the Milkmaids failed to herald the coming of the Season of Plenty, by reporting the return to the bogs of the
immense bipedal herds of colossal cud-chewing creatures!
The elemental magically glowing solidified elementum of the Season of Want had long since lost its radiance,
shed its frigid rigidity, and reverted to its natural clear liquid state, yet the Gates remained closed. Barred not by
the highly piled milky whitenesses of the rigidly frigid elementum as in the Season of Want, but by the absorbent
graynesses and blacknesses of the high piles of naturally irradiated Fallen Material of Heaven Itself. Countless
imbibition periods had passed, yet their opening remained inhibited.
2

Still the Blessed Mother --- She whom they worshipped, She who provided for them, She in whose most
gracious, ample and feminine form they were created, and She who dwelt in the Bosom of Heaven -- continued
to overlook their every waking and sleeping moment. Still Her Summits all aglow continued to shower down
upon them the holy embers to light the sacred fire.
Their doomed domain was barren of their barest necessities. The fire-blessed provisions of the last, truly
bountiful, Season of Plenty had long since been consumed. Without the herds of horny-headed bovinic beasts to
provide salvation, to bestow upon them the needed sustenance for curdling, curing, drying and smoking over the
sacred fire, the People starved. Their future had turned sour. Their moment of extinction was near at hand!
In their search for salvation, these proud People, fighting off utter desperation, left no iota of Fallen Heavenly
Material unchurned. They did all short of inviting eternal damnation. Yet prayer, pleading, imploring, begging,
self-torment and self-sacrifice were to no avail. Neither such acts of contrition, nor inspired excavations, opened
the Gates of Heaven. They were milked dry.

PART 2 - THE MILKMAIDS

Not knowing where to turn, and having been buttered up incessantly by the charismatic, yet dourly sour, Grand
Mother of the Order of The Mother's Milkmaids, the People's matriarchical leadership enlisted the aid of this
elitist Order. Who better to nurse the sick and dying? Who better to lead them to salvation? Did they not claim
that the manipulation and husbanding of the herds was placed in their manipulative manipulating organs by
divine edict? Surely they were not the divinity fudge-ups of the World of IT!
The Milkmaids had been founded over two millennium earlier by the crone-hag Beldam of Bedlam, a true
beldame, her dam a damned butcher's bitch. According to the current version of the Official Chronicles, Dame
Beldam, the Lady of Bedlam, through the Grace and Will of the Mother, one day miraculously conceived the
Milkmaids suddenly on the sodden sod of Sodom. In the throws of conception, she told of having perceived the
birth of Dens of Divinity amongst the bogs of bovinity, where my darling undisciplined disciples, would
merrily tarry, harvesting the dairy breed sustainers, and through their daring dressing and dairying, would
provide sustentacular redemption and salvation for the People.
Though initially shunned because of her deplorable background, history and demeanor, the continuous repetition
of this meaningless mind boggling babble seemed to numb the senses as more and more of the People became
mesmerized by the seductiveness of its unfathomable deeper message that, being so mysterious, must be "the
Will of the Mother." It was thus accepted as such, without question, as a mandatory Act of Faith.
But, though the Milkmaids steadily grew in power, Dame Beldam demise was gruesome. The unofficial
chronicles report her cruel and grisly butchering by the very bovinity she was charged with husbanding, She was
nailed, gored, impaled and butted to death by the very beasts whom She sought to butcher. After these many
nailings by the bovonic beasts' nail-horn impalements proved fatal, the most frantically fanatical fellows
3

amongst her faithful followers carried her remains up to the very Summits of Heaven, the most formidable,
fearful, forbidding and forbidden abode of the Mother Herself, where they bore witness to Beldam's holey ghost,
tattered and torn, pierced and punctured, as was the corpse that they had carried, join with Beldam and the
Mother at the moment they tossed her defunct tortured torso into the conflagration erupting from the Holy
Summits, to be reborn as the Oneness and Godesshood of the "Threesome of the Mother, the Daughter and the
Holey Ghost."
The Milkmaids immediate response to the leadership's cries for help was to proclaim themselves the "Crme de
la Crme of the Mother's Madams." While creaming all opposition, they milked every opportunity to rise to the
top and further enrich themselves. "If the People firmly supported the uplifting of us and ours above all others,"
they brashly preached, "Beldam, the Beldame of Bedlam, the Founder and Grand Dame of our Order, shall be
resurrected by The Mother as the beatified and beautified 'Great Gorgeous Grandiose Grand Grandmother of all
of The Mother's Milkmaids'." Then, truly, shall she bring the People salvation, materializing through the very
Gates of Heaven Itself, in all her splendid glory, to sustain all with her own rich and ample sustenance."
However, as time passed and their prophesy failed to materialize through the Gates or elsewhere, it became clear
that the Milkmaids had utterly lost their grip and had by far over played their manipulative organ. The leaders
finally tested (without tasting) the Milkmaid's cream, unsnapped their underpinnings, and declared their dogma
to be "Ma of the Dog" (a small bitch of a canine scavenger that follows the herds; also as "evil" spelled
backwards means the opposite -- "live," so "Ma Dog" and "dogma" spelled backwards are "Am God"). They
had found these lusting ladies to be lackluster in lactations and malnourished in body and in spirit. Physically,
they were functional, yet dysfunctional, freshened (ala their lusty libidos), yet unfresh and sour. Spiritually, they
were worse, they were hopelessly barren and dry, and more frigid than frozen elementum! The milk of salvation
did not flow from them.
Not only had they been creamed and their aspirations nipped, some said nippled, in the bud, but to focus
discontent and dissension away from the failures of the leadership to provide salvation, the leaders determined to
serve up the sourly dour Grand Mother and her Prophetesses as scapegoats. Accordingly, these spoiled, soiled
sows were shunned as being "unclean," "ungiving of themselves," and "unworthy of The Mother," and they were
sentenced to be stoned with the Fallen Material of Heaven Itself (the Second Shunning). Being both highly
ethical and non-cannibalistic, their souring elixir and putrefying flesh would be left to rot untouched before the
very Gates of Heaven. Even when faced with extinction, the People would never imbibe any involuntarily
extracted life-giving elixir or partake of the body or blood of one of their own, though these Prophetesses had,
indeed, been adjudged false. Communion was not for them.

PART 3 - ARRIVAL OF MAR-TYR

The sacred fire remained unlit. The hallowed golden Crown celebrating the coming of the Season of Plenty,
which was wrought in the form of the unique fetching fodder favored as feed by the returning field feeders,
remained unvested on the bull-headed matriarch of these herds.
Then, during a lull in Heaven's sublime pyrotechnic displays, a solitary fatigued bipedal figure appeared amongst
the radiant Summits of Heaven. If observers from the People had been present, they would have been awed by
his immense proportions, larger, by far than the largest of the large bovinic beasts. If these observers could have
heard him softly cursing under his shortened breath, they would have had no understanding of his cryptic
references to the "blankety blank space jockey" who, to avoid touching down in the midst of the People's ethereal
edifices, had flashed like an exploding nova over Heaven, hitting ground on the far side in a Heaven-rending
crash. Nor would they have fathomed his momentary lapse of faith in the Unfathomable Father for not
interceding to avert this catastrophe. This disastrous crash which had placed a disabled space ship, a wrecked
planetary transport and a blocked pass in the path of his divine mission! His mission to save alien races! "Oh
Father, why have you forsaken me, your faithful servant Belton? Damn that landslide! Damn! Damn! Damn!"
While such blasphemy was unseemly, to say the least, in a MAR-TYR, and a Senior Grade MAR-TYR at that,
under these circumstances, one would have thought such a momentary, fatigue-induced transgression forgivable.
Never before had a Senior Grade Missionary to Alien Races - Trinity Yahweh Rite, let alone one of Belton's
beneficent bureaucratic background, been forced to spend a seeming eternity, unaidedly surmounting an
erupting, radioactive, Everest-like mammiform mountain range. Never before had he faltered in his faith.
Ah well, his Saviour had suffered crucifixion to save his soul. He could surely endure some personal suffering to
save the souls of the unredeemed aliens below. Was it not written in the Book of MAR-TYR that: "No sapient
can have any greater glory than giving of himself to his fellow sentient?" He was again confident that, with the
Father's help, he would succeed in replacing what he fantasized was their happy, aimless ignorance, with true
faith, purpose and sustenance. Thank the Three that unlike his ground transport, his radiation gear and translatorcommunicator still functioned. Thank the Trinity that he retained ample faith and vegetative food concentrate to
sustain himself both spiritually and physically. "Salvation or Bust!", Belton bellowed.
His faith and spirit fully restored, the MAR-TYR began his long trek down from the grandeur of the Summits of
Heaven. Finally, far from the Heavenly Bosom and after sighting below the first of the diminutive, half-pint
heathens he sought, he halted his descent on a cathedralesque spit of Heavenly Material protruding from the
sealed Heavenly Gates. There, through the booming voice of his translator-communicator, he could not help
first bellowing out "Do not fear, Belton's here," before commencing the deliverance of the message of the MARTYR, the one true belief, promising them one and all salvation through communion.

PART 4 - MAR-TYR INFLAMED

At first there was doubt. In his hugeness they easily discerned he lacked the mammillary attributes of godhood.
Not only was he merely male, but he was neither sextopod like them, nor horny or cud-chewing like true
sustenance. Then too, in proportion to his immense body, he lacked the bullheaded cranial capacity of a true
savior.
Still the People sought salvation in any ethical form. In the hope that it had at last come, they gathered at the foot
of the Gates, eagerly digesting his every word. "I have come to bring you salvation! Repent and thou shall be
saved! Confess, and thou shall be forgiven! Believe, and thou shall be provided for! Communion awaits!"
"Give us a sign," these obviously emaciated aspiring expiring initiates exclaimed. In compassion he threw to
them his remaining supply of vegetative food concentrate. This, however, served merely to highlight their
differences and further distance him from godhood. His thoughtful, yet thoughtless, offering was thusly quickly
rejected as being only fit fodder for faithless field feeders.
Undaunted, he continued his proselytizing. Finally, in his exaltation, cud-like spittle dribbled from the corners of
his churning mouth. "The sign, the sign, that is the sign," shouted the previously discredited Grand Mother of
The Mother's Milkmaids. "For from Bedlam Belton is truly Beldam sent; there can be salvation without elixir!,"
she exclaimed.
"Surely," the People cried as one, putting aside their differences, "he divines truly. He is a sustaining soothsayer
sent to us as our Saviour. Was not his coming foretold by a fiery new star over Heaven? Did not he, as
prophesied, mysteriously appear, undammed, out of the sealed Gates of Heaven? Is not he a beautiful wonder to
behold, a Saviour by design and demeanor, with ponderous proportions, mystical charismatic communicative
skills, and a magic boom box? Is not His Immenseness Himself well-fed? Does not he offer us sustenance
through communion? Was Belton not sent us by Beldam from Bedlam, dribbling forth the "Sign of the Beast?"
Inspired by this the "Sign of the Beast," the People in mass repented, confessed and believed. They beckoned
him to join them. When in one awesome confirmatory beast-like leap he did, in vast numbers they gathered
tightly around their newly-found Saviour.
In a wave of forgiveness and charity, the Second Shunning was shelved, and they then called upon the newly
redeemed Milkmaids to fulfill their traditional roles. Cool handedly, the Milkmaids vigorously invested him
with the tight fitting golden Crown of Briars intricately wrought in precious metals to celebrate the coming of the
Season of Plenty, joyously anointed him heavily with oils, zealously installed him in the place of honor over the
sacred fire, and all rejoiced as they lighted the blessed fire with the Heaven sent embers.
The People blessed their Savior as they watched him arise to his true destiny, basking and basting in glory.
Salvation, through common community communion, in the form of this toothsome soothsayer, even for the
6

formerly degraded Milkmaids, was indeed in sight. They rejoiced, devouring devoutly.
But further divinity was at work. Not only did the holy flames prepare our self-sacrificing MAR-TYR for blessed
Communion, they activated the heat sensitive emergency signal in the translator-communicator strapped to his
waist, setting off a blaring emergency siren back at the nearly repaired MAR-TYR Space Ship. This spooked the
nearby growing angry multitudes of hungry, pent-up, pint-sized, pointy-headed bipedal bovinic beasts, into
stampeding in frustration and rage directly toward the offending sound, panicking the Space Ships "blankety
blank space jockey" into attempting a premature blast-off.
The resulting reverberating explosion, while destroying the ship and all personnel and records aboard, either
through happenstance or divine guidance, partially shook apart the Gates of Heaven. These enraged beasts,
suddenly sensing an escape route from their instinctual frustrations and hunger did an abrupt about face and
butted their way through the half ajar Gates and straight to their just rewards in the waiting briar patch fodder
fields. Awaiting these field feeders there were Beldam's Milkmaids, with their cold handed, yet erogenous elixir
extractions, and cold hearted and cold blooded, yet cunning coups de grace. Thanks to the self-sacrificing MARTYR who miraculously appeared out of Heaven itself to provide the necessary sustenance to hold back their
moment of extinction, the People of IT were alive to benefit from the return of the herds. They were now
content.

EPILOGUE
After IT had lain in the "crypt" for a time, the urbane Curator brought IT and a handful of other museum
relics home to educate and amuse the youngsters at the barbecue he was hosting. Just as he was
preparing to spit the meat, an inquisitive youngster, holding IT and several crossed crosses up, asked
what had happened to the tiny uncrossed cross's "horizontal bar." Upon close examination, the Curator
could find no indication of IT ever having had such a bar. Indeed, the sole and only shaft seemed to
pierce lengthwise, straight through the center of the body of the briar-crowned Saviour. "The Martyr

on the Spit - who was he," the child asked. Not being of the People, the MAR-TYR Memorial
Museum's quivering Curator could not answer.
Please address your comments, questions and suggestions for future Corplaw7 Commentaries Columns on marketing
and business law, and other legal subjects, to Barry J. Lipson, Esquire, at bjlipson@gmail.com.

Copyright8 1996-2012 by Barry J. Lipson