The following story is a work of fiction and parody. All characters and events portrayed are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or events is hysterical – coincidental also.

This text is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

While the captain shouted orders to unroll hoses from the fire truck, Candide ignored these instructions. Axe in hand, he charged towards the barn doors. He found the doors locked. His axe blade cut through the wooden obstacle like a hot chainsaw through butter. Smoke as thick as the ocean surf poured over him, but inward he marched. A nervous crowd formed around the barn as firefighters poured their liquid determination into the building. A line of animals stampeded forth from of the portal which Candide had opened.

Through the smoke, none noticed the flying saucer which drew closer in the sky over them.

Minutes passed. Then Candide emerged, carrying a newborn calf in his arms. Had the calf been forged of gold, it could not have caused a more worshipful rejoicing from the crowd. Women swooned as in the stories of older times. Old men waved their canes in the air so enthusiastically that some lost their balance and were claimed by gravity. The stormy sky itself cracked a thunderous applause of appreciation. The crowd shouted cheers but could only find one word worthy of their emotion, so they shouted that word over and over: “Candide! Candide! Candide!” Never, never had any seen a man so deserving of this praise. They knew it was glorious simply to be alive at the same time as Candide and breath the same molecules of air that he might have breathed just minutes before.

Candide passed the calf to a weeping farmer like a four-legged blessing given to a leper. Candide knew then that he was the manifest destiny of the plans that God alpha-tested with Adam. All was right in the universe, and Candide was the center of that universe.

Then it all went to crap.

Thunder-ten-Tronckh the Cult Leader pushed through the crowd in a way which was nothing like parting a sea. Thunder-ten-Tronckh stood before the youth Candide. The Cult Leader raised his arms toward the sky in gesture which commanded silence. The crowd obediently ceased its cheers. Only the other fire fighters continued moving. After a sharp glare from the Cult Leader, they too turned off their hoses and stood silently, awaiting to hear the blessed and enlightened voice of their master. The flames didn’t particularly care one way or the other about what the cult leader expected, and they continued their task of consuming the barn while the fire fighters were paying respect. Candide, being the most pious, stood the most silent, wishing that he could hold his heartbeat in the same way that he held his breath.

Thunder-ten-Tronckh yelled and projected his voice for all to hear, saying to the youth just in front of him, “Candide, you overstep your piety when you act so generous towards a sinner.” Candide’s jaw executed a strategic retreat from the rest of his face.

The farmer, calf kicking in his arms, spoke in the young fire fighter’s defense. The farmer pleaded, “There is no evil here tonight, wise and holy Cult Leader. Maybe you didn’t know. Lightning struck this barn, and nobody can be blamed for lightning, right? Candide here is a hero.” The crowd shook heads and mumbled in agreement.

Thunder-ten-Tronckh yelled, “My fellow Positivites! My children! Do you not believe in the power of positive thinking?!”

The crowd affirmed in unison, “We believe.”

Thunder-ten-Tronckh continued his questioning, “Have you not one and all professed this belief before God?”

“We believe!”

“Do you know in your hearts and in your minds that good things come to souls who think positively?!”

“We believe!”

"Do you believe that you have evolved from losers into loyal believers with positive thoughts?'

“We believe!”

"Do you believe that God looked upon the Church of Positivity and told its people, 'I choose you, Positivites!'"

“We be-LIEVE!”

“If something bad does happen, therefore it must be the result of the soul harboring negative thoughts!”

“We be—lieve?”

“Our brother has brought the lightning down on himself! God smites and in smiting, proves that the guilty deserve what they've got coming! It's effective!”

“WE BELIEVE!”

Thunder-ten-Tronckh took the calf from the farmer’s arms and carried it towards the butcher shop, his stomach growling at the promise of fresh veal. The crowd cheered this triumph. The farmer collapsed to his knees in guilt. The firefighters began debating whether it would be less blasphemous to let the flames do whatever they were meant to do or else to contain them to just destroying the farmer’s barn and maybe his house. Candide stared at his axe in confusion and melancholy.

The crowd broke up and walked away in different directions. Directionless, Candide wandered into a dark forest known to every cultist in the village as “the woods.” He discovered a stump which was so perfectly suited for sitting, it may have indeed been crafted by a beautiful dryad who through prophecy foresaw the gravitas of the youth’s ennui and felt divinely inspired to shape the perfect stump for Candide’s angst-filled butt. Candide sat with his beautiful head hanging low and his powerful axe resting across his mighty loins.

That was when the flying saucer took him.