In the beginning, a few slimy cells slithered from the sea and eventually turned into bipeds resembling short, hairy humans with overhanging foreheads who had little to do but sleep, eat coconuts, and copulate. Then one day a particularly restless biped, let’s call him Ork, grew bored with opening coconuts with his head and discovered something known today as a stone hatchet. Loosely translated, Ork called it his banger. Soon he discovered that in addition to opening his coconuts with his banger, he could also use it to open his neighbor’s head, steal his coconuts, and, by default, inherit his neighbor’s copulating partner whose name was Matt. (There were no girl names back then.)

But, as things go, Matt grew weary of servicing Ork and wanted a life she could call her own. She insisted they go into the banger business. Ork made them; Matt exchanged them for food, pretty sea shells, and other copulating partners. Matt also developed what she called a double banger. It had a rock on both ends of the stick. It cost more. And soon everyone, even the most wild-eyed and unstable, walked around showing off their bangers by smashing their neighbor’s heads.

You know the rest: eons of banger wars, then spears, catapulted fire balls, guns, cannons, machine guns, Uzis, instruments of mass destruction, rape, pillage, religious wars, witch hunts, spouse abuse, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, smart bombs, and MOAB the mother of all bombs. The debate still rages regarding where evil resides, in the bangers themselves or in the hearts of those bipeds who use them.

—Published previously in a collection which the 81-year-old Gilmore has called his “swan song,” My Dharma Box (KYSO Flash, 2018); appears here with his permission

Bio: Dan Gilmore