Friday's Whims of the Time Traveler 37.0: September 7th, 2009

Celebrity Bible
by Belinda Roddie

There’s a small, nondescript book that you can find

in your local run-of-the-mill bookstore on the back room shelf,

called the Celebrity Bible. But it’s not some national treasure.

It’s not bound with gold thread or stamped with a royal red

emblem of approval. No, the Celebrity Bible just looks like

your average bible. No glossy magazine cover, no over-the-top

wind-blown self portraits of self-indulgent splendor,

because the Celebrity Bible is not about celebrities.

It’s not a book for the average, adoring reader.

No, this book is for celebrities, not about them,

and it doesn’t cater to one specific person, just as an astronomer

doesn’t focus on a single star in his brass telescope.

And when you open the Celebrity Bible, its binding

hisses and breathes, a deep exhalation, a long, heavy sigh

as you crack its spine and pop it back into place,

straightening out the vertebrae. Then you’ll notice

that the Celebrity Bible is like every other bible in the world,

with poetic passages; soft, soothing words in psalms,

and no matter what you believe in, it’s beautiful to read.

And what you’ll find at the very end of the Celebrity Bible

is one sentence, scratched into being with a fountain pen,

and all it reads is: “Hope you enjoyed your time away from the

glare, to settle into the warmth of the Sun.”

The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since September 7th, 2009.