The Parable of The Beggar and The Mansion

Once upon a midnight there was a starving, homeless man, stumbling along a dark alley in a terrible snowstorm. Ahead in the distance he saw a light. He thought that perhaps someone was still awake and could help him, maybe give him something from their garbage. He resolved to use his last strength to try to reach the house.

By the time the beggar reached the sidewalk that ran in front of the house, he realized that it was a mansion, with many of the windows alight and full of joyful revelers. By now he was hardly able to stand, but just then, a very happy, very healthy woman came bursting out of the front door and ran up to greet him as he stood there on the curb. "Listen to my excellent news!" she burbled. The beggar was miserably cold and hungry, and was a little shocked not to get even the slightest bit of recognition of his condition. But he hoped that in exchange for listening, she would grant him a request for some food, perhaps. "Ok, I'm listening," he croaked.

"You are a worthless piece of filth and so is everyone else on the planet. God is perfect, and he made you, but you're imperfect because God couldn't or wouldn't prevent a woman eating an apple several thousand years ago, although preventing it could have solved the whole problem. Instead, God has allowed billions of people, including yourself, to be born, knowing full well in advance that the vast, vast majority of you will be thrown into a lake of fire, where not only will you all burn and feel real agony, you absolutely cannot ever, ever die."

Horribly, she stretched out these last three words with obvious, sinister glee. The beggar was almost convinced that a sort of pornographic leer had crossed the woman's face at that moment. He was absolutely terrified of her. How can she possibly think that this is good news? he thought to himself. He considered trying to run away, but he was so weak from hunger that he could hardly stand. The woman went on while he swayed.

"But you can be saved from this fate. All you have to do is gonelsar fiofuma alkenred rouledwaisnber, and you will be saved. Never mind about those billions of others, your beloved children, parents, friends, strangers the world over; they'll still be in hell, but they chose to ignore the good news, so it was their own stupid fault! Are you ready?" She held out her hand to the man, as though she wanted him to take it.

"Really, could you just give me a bite of food? I'm really hungry."

The woman looked at him in bemusement for a moment, as if trying to guess whether he had just said something vulgar, or not vulgar but perhaps in a foreign language. She finally said, "Ok, if you're ever ready to gonelsar fiofuma alkenred rouledwaisnber, let me know and you can come inside and take a hot bath and put on some clean clothes! See you!"

"Wait, wait!" the beggar cried, but she had already run back inside. A moment later a very happy, very healthy man came out the front door and ran up to greet him. "Listen to my excellent news!" he burbled. The beggar involuntarily made a face of surprise and shock. Here was a second person, oblivious to his suffering, talking about good news. Before he could answer, the man began rattling off the same speech that the woman had pronounced. He repeated this "good news" word-for-word, leer-for-leer, until he got to, "But you can be saved from this fate. All you have to do is uyhogep inkejar vueyypoer jikerp, and you will be saved. Never mind about those billions of others, your beloved children, parents, friends, strangers the world over; they'll still be in hell, but they chose to ignore the good news, so it was their own stupid fault!. Are you ready?" He held out his hand to the beggar, as though he wanted him to take it.

"Look, I'm just cold and hungry. Is there anything you can do to help me? Please, I'm desperate."

The man looked at the beggar in bemusement for a moment, as if trying to guess whether the beggar had just said something vulgar, or not vulgar but perhaps in a foreign language. Finally he said, "Ok, if you're ever ready to uyhogep inkejar vueyypoer jikerp, let me know and you can come inside and eat hot food and drink warm drink until you burst! See you!"

He disappeared into the house just as the woman had. The beggar decided that he would not get any help from this household, so he turned away in despair, resigned to his fate. But then the door of the house opened, and a different woman came out to greet him, and for a reason the man could not explain to himself, he allowed himself to be sincerely hopeful in spite of his first two encounters. This new woman repeated the same horrifying speech that the first two had uttered, but when she got to the part about avoiding the torture and abandoning one's loved ones to their fate, she said, "All you have to do is noeiznen wulpkrukc uegfla gehtik jraghoifab, and you can come sit in front of a blazing fireplace and then sleep on a bed softer than you ever imagined."

At this point, something awakened in the man, a kind of outrage, a kind of indignation, and in spite of his weakness, a fire was kindled. Here he was, freezing and starving to death before the eyes of these young, virile people, and they were here mocking him and taunting him with tales of the wonderful life they were living, just yards away. He summoned up his strength and cursed. "Wait just a damned minute. You three are deliberately tormenting me! You each seem to be giving me a secret password for getting into the house, but your passwords are all different. I don't understand those words or what they mean. Why do I have to say those words? And since you all say different words, how can I trust any of you? Why did you have to come torment me with your weirdness, anyway? I just wanted some help!"

The woman was aghast. "How dare you, you filthy beggar? I came out here offering you something wonderful and you scorned me! Come back when you've learned some manners! And by the way, take a shower, cos you stink!" Then she kicked him, hard, near the bend of his knee, causing the man to fall into the icy water flowing into the storm drain. The starving man's life began to drain away, finally ending his agony. The last thing he ever saw was the trinity of his assailants through the front window of the mansion. They laughed uproariously at the ending of the story of his life being told by people who had no inkling that the end of his life indeed was the story they were telling.

I don't know. Sort of over the top at the end.