ABSTRACT FIREWORKS AND SEX! by David Rothfuss Fireworks and Sex! is a new religion I’m launching so I can get rich without paying taxes. The religious document that follows, which you’re probably not even allowed to read on account of copyright restrictions, is pretty standard as religious documents go, providing you, the religious consumer, with 205 pages of morally ambiguous poems, fables and doodles to base your life upon. It is by far the most American religion out there, and a sure-fire path to a shinier existence, with the average follower experiencing 74% more happiness, 93% more freedom, and 87% more American Dream than those in other religions. If you were allowed to read it, which you’re not, it would provide you with an inside track to God and eternal salvation. FIREWORKS AND SEX A Field Study Guide to America’s Shiniest Religion A Thesis Submitted to the faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of the Arts Creative Writing/Poetry Department of English by David Alexander Rothfuss Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2011 Keith Tuma, advisor cris cheek, reader David Schloss, reader . © David Rothfuss 2011 Table of Contents: Book 1: Concerning this Book, its characters and the partial revelation of truths……………………………………………………………….………...p.1 Book 2: Concerning your new religion and how lost you would be without it…p. 52 A Brief Interlude: Poems upon which you shall base your life…………..p. 88 Book 3: Big Time: in which Our now famous characters hash out their differences with God and mortality………………………………………………………p. 115 Appendixes - explaining that which had not yet previously been explained…………p.158 iii A Field Study Guide to America’s Shiniest Religion 1 Please note: I threw away all my beliefs as soon as I finished using them to write this Book. Fireworks! Fireworks and Sex! A Field Study Guide to America’s Shiniest New Religion The honorable Brian can accomplish anything he sets his mind to, thanks to his good looks and can-do-positive attitude. The same cannot be said of Cous and whats-his- name. As for you, dear reader, now would be a good time to Rejoice!!!! For the Book you’re holding in your two American hands is the most important thing you’ll ever read. It’s a sacred text of a brand new religion that most Americans already follow without even knowing it. Like any religious text, it is stylistically inconsistent and contradicts itself throughout. 98% of the world isn’t ready for it yet, but that’s how it is for any new religion when it first hits market. Reading this Book is like going to a dance party, and man can this great American novel dance! It will foxtrot. It will tango. It will German technoslamdance to the beat of a Polka. It will dance like the drunk girls at the bar who fall down on the dance floor and throw up but still come home with me. It will dance all over your moral code while jerking off and hocking lugies. After the dancing there will be fireworks and then We’ll provide solutions to the universe’s problems and have sex, depending on who you are and what you look like, and maybe you should buy Me dinner first. This hot new religious brand contains all the morally ambiguous poems, doodles and fables you’ll need to sculpt your life in its image. Your soul will become 32% shinier 2 just by properly following1 this guiding beacon of light, which will lead you down the one true path to salvation2, fixing all your problems, making you better looking and better smelling, better at sex and more beautiful and powerful, with larger sex organs, unless you don’t want larger sex organs, in which case you may keep your sex organs at their current appropriate size. After you sign up for My Religion, people will like and respect you more and you’ll start accumulating the material items you need to live a fulfilled life, like jewelry and cars that are faster than your neighbors’ cars, and more pimped out, also your diamonds will be a shinier and more plentiful, you’ll be able to afford flatscreens for every room in your house, your sports team(s) will start winning more Superbowls or Championships or whatever, your stocks will go up – in short, you’ll enjoy all the perks that come when God loves you more than others because you had the wisdom to pick the correct religion. This is the Book you need to become a less horrible person. “Why am I so horrible?” you ask, after I put this thought in your head. A good question I have made you ask. There’re plenty of reasons, but the main one is that you haven’t signed up for My new religion yet. That would put you in a category that We in God’s inner circle like to call “fucked3.” Fortunately, you’ve just taken your first step toward salvation by purchasing this Book. And ye shall be rewarded with fireworks! Fireworks and sex! “Fireworks and sex are fun!” you say, “I want to be a part of the new religion!” Well great, We’re glad to have you. Have some punch. Signing up for Our new religious cult is something you won’t ever regret, not even in your wildest nightmares. Just think about how good you’ll feel when you can know with absolute certainty that God is personally smiling down upon you in a favorable manner, which is what He’ll start doing after you sign up for My new religion and pay your registration dues. Once the check clears We get to work making God love you much more than He previously did. With dedicated effort you could become one of His Chosen Children. And you’ll even have a Certificate to prove it. 1 Not responsible for improper following 2 as verified by tax code 501c3 regarding tax exemptions for religious entities 3 Disregard this if you’ve already signed up for the religion and are just re-reading this Book again for the 3rd (or 43rd!) time for your own personal gain and enrichment, and are up-to-date on all membership fees. 3 ********* The honorable Brian always compliments himself in the third person. If he didn’t, it might come across as conceited. We introduce him first because Brian always comes first,4 and if We didn’t, he’d throw a fit. Someone5 once said you can tell the most about a person by the kind of watch that they wear. Brian wears a diamond studded Rolex with platinum hands; it sparkles with all the grace of God. In no way is Brian fucked, which is more than can be said for most of us. If you play your cards right you can be just like him. Brian is rich, tall, good looking and the ultimate embodiment of the American Dream. Like any good American, his hobbies are watching TV and shopping! Please note that shopping! is the #1 most important thing you as a patriot can do to keep the American Dreamscape shiny; I follow it with an exclamation point because it’s exciting, and I want to be crystal clear about that. Shopping! makes you who you are, and the things you buy shape your personality – from your trinkets and fashion come your sense of identity. That’s what’s so great about all the branding work Our friends at Corporate America do – their products stand for things, so you don’t have to. But what to buy? This is the major existential question facing most Americans today. Brian knows cuz he watches EmpTV, which used to have the hottest music and the coolest, most beautiful people, before dropping the music part, because who needs music when you have beautiful people? From this network the young Brian learned to talk, look, act, dress, and purchase the trinkets you need to live a fulfilling life. In the beginning, I wanted to write an epic novel. It was to be an emotionally riveting journey, with the lives of My well-developed characters weaving and intertwining 4 If a woman tries to come before Brian does, he will pull out and beat off on her face. 5 A watch company 4 in ways that, by the end, could only come to be described as “fate.” It was to be a reflection of our times, right here in America, the greatest nation in the history of the universe. I began My Great American Novel in earnest, showed it to some people, and learned that nobody cared, and it didn’t really have a plot, so I put it down for a while. Later, I picked it back up, because someone once told me that persistence pays. I’m not sure if they’re a reliable source. What if your persistence is misguided energy directed towards inevitable failure? How are you supposed to choose what to be persistent about? Where was My motivational speaker, cheerleading squad, and drill sergeant to tell Me to stop asking questions and get back to work? Then I got a God complex and everything worked out just dandy. A Messiah’s art will actually mean something. When Messiahs write bad poems, small children die. This one is for Melvin, or whatever his name is, that third character of Ours whom We know exists but never really bother to look at: *The melancholy rose Sat in the dim sunlight, Waning and stretching, Forevermore, effervescent.* HA! Take that, you little bitch! Now trip over your own feet and take a neck- snapping tumble down the stairs.