Nacho had once been an avid practitioner of various new age and occult activities, but had recently given up all notions of an eternal soul and heavenly realms in exchange for a less stringently structured form of atheistic materialism. His newfound rejection of the divine enabled him to indulge in activities he had once condemned as crude forms of sensual gratification: he now drank copious amounts of alcohol, ate meat, and drove an environmentally unfriendly car. Nacho’s former soul brother, Kunya el Saki, was most displeased with his friend’s new lifestyle. Nacho now ridiculed Kunya for his spiritual practices, many of which he had been an enthusiastic participant only a month prior.

“It’s really nasty that you eat your toenails,” Nacho taunted. Once a lunar cycle, Kunya ceremoniously clipped his toenails and soaked them in water blessed by the high priestess of the Order of the Tomb of Light before convening to the enchanted forest to consume them during the full moon. Kunya believed this activity helped open his chakras to the forces that would elevate him to eternal freedom.

“I’d rather eat toenails than have the mark of the beast upon my brow,” Kunya responded, referring to the microchip Nacho recently had inserted into his forehead.

“The microchip is far superior to toenail eating.”

“It’s demonic.”

“That’s superstitious hogwash.”

“I still can’t believe you succumbed to the chip.”

“It’s cool. I can open my garage door without pushing a button.”

“How difficult is it to push a button?”

“It’s one less movement in the day. It gives me time for the important things in life.”

“Like what?”

“Like watching my favorite television programs, for example.”

“It takes approximately one second to push the button of a garage door opener.”

“That’s one more second of freedom.”

“Are you happy with your microchip?”

“Hell yes, I’m happy. The microchip has turned the inside of my head into a video game.”

“Doesn’t it feel strange to know you’re being tracked by satellite?”

“No, it doesn’t. It makes me absolutely ecstatic that my benevolent government is watching my every movement.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am completely serious. The microchip helps to fight terrorism.”

“How does it do that?”

“If I have an unpatriotic thought, the microchip receives a soothing signal which acts to correct my dysfunctioning brain waves.”

Kunya contemplated the wisdom of the chip while mixing his purified toenails into an organic guacamole dip.

“I still don’t like it,” Kunya decided.

“If you don’t want to join the future, that’s your own problem,” Nacho responded. Kunya ignored this and began chanting to the supernal mother, asking that his forthcoming venture into the enchanted forest be blessed.

“The great goddess does not exist,” Nacho stated. “And furthermore, there is no such thing as the day of eternal laughter. Humanity’s destiny is the microchip, followed by eternal sleep.”

“I can’t believe how much you’ve changed in such a short amount of time.”

“I have been blessed; I now know the truth. Humanity’s only chance at ascension is through the microchip; your meditation and vegan diet is completely useless. If you do not see the microchip, you will not see freedom.”

“Nacho, you sound so devilish. I think you would commit terrible acts of violence against the innocent if the microchip told you to do so.”

“The microchip would do no such thing. The microchip is moral and good. I pray to the eternal void that you surrender to the fact that you need a guru to help facilitate your ascension into happiness. Kunya, you must accept the microchip.”

“Before you had this miraculous revelation that you have no soul, you claimed to have had a rather numerous amount of out-of-body experiences. Is that not empirical evidence that you will outlive this physical form?”

“It is simply evidence that my synapses were misfiring, nothing more.”

“And the times you were abducted by aliens, can those be explained by your neurotic synapses?”

“No, the abductions are perfectly acceptable. The microchip allows me to believe that we are not alone in the universe.”

“Why won’t it allow you to believe in God?”

“That’s a really stupid question. The microchip is God. Obviously, I believe in the chip. The chip will save humanity from the path it currently walks.”

“Humanity is on the path to freedom. It doesn’t need help from some two bit microchip.”

“It doesn’t smell like freedom to me. All I see is death and destruction. The microchip will correct humanity’s error.”

“Death implies life. Destruction suggests something once built.”

“Who gives a damn about opposites and polarity? It is totally meaningless.”

“I find it fascinating that a word implies both what it is and what it is not.”

“I’ll admit, it is interesting in a completely useless and abstract way; but your observation does not serve as an adequate reply to the fact that without the microchip, humanity will destroy itself.”

“If the microchip becomes a given, humanity will be dead.”

“Without the microchip, humanity is dead,” Nacho countered.

Shortly before midnight, Nacho was cursing his lack of consideration as he pulled into the parking lot of a local department store. Standing in front of the store were hundreds of microchip devotees, all waiting to rush inside the store to get their hands on the latest in convenience technology – a microchip activated microwave capable of cooking a bag of popcorn in less than half a minute. Nacho parked his car and walked to the back of the line.

“Greetings, brother,” said the man directly in front of Nacho, giving him a hug. Nacho felt an underlying sense of hostility inside the man’s apparent attempt at brotherly love.

“The microchip shall be the whole of the law,” Nacho said.

“The microchip is the law, its future inside every human being,” the man responded.

Nacho looked to the crowd and noted that the hostility was not limited to the man standing in front of him. Most of the devotees did not seem to be at peace; Nacho wondered if they were really even chipped.

“There is something wrong with this situation,” Nacho proclaimed. “If the kingdom of Heaven is inside the microchip, it seems as if these people are still opening their garage doors with a remote control.”

“Brother, I am afraid that these are not the best circumstances for us to be meeting under. There is a rumor floating about that this store is stocked with a severely inadequate amount of microwaves. Though you are indeed my brother, I must regard you, and everyone else standing in this line as a potential barrier to my microwave. Tonight, you are my enemy.” The man hissed as he spoke.

Nacho was beginning to feel anxious as well. Looking at his brethren, he saw what was supposed to be the cream of the human race degenerating into a violent mob. The prospect of continuing an existence being forced to wait four minutes to cook a bag of popcorn was making the devotees very unhappy. Some of the more militant devotees were wielding machetes. Nacho checked his pockets and found a plastic spork. It would have to do.

At midnight, the doors opened and the mob rushed the store. Though near the back of the line, Nacho was determined to obtain one of the coveted microwaves. Through sheer focus of will, Nacho was infused with the unholy virility of a viking warrior. His spork swinging, Nacho quickly obtained a position near the front of the crowd. The devotees were turning the occasion into a full blown riot.

Devotees from all across the spectrum battled one another for attainment of the microwave. A pregnant woman used her eleven month old son as a shield against an oncoming syringe, which a diabetic was using as a knife. Two sailors attacked an alcoholic, smashing his pint of whiskey to the floor and using a shard of glass to slit his throat. A transvestite prostitute hurled elementary school students into the bicycle aisle. A stock broker used a speaker to knock his enemies unconscious with devastating blows to their heads. Though submitting to battle, the devotees still wholeheartedly believed that the microchip served as the catalyst for the forthcoming brotherhood of man. Once every devotee had his microwave, they could join each other at the table of peace and prosperity. For the time being, these lofty ideals had to be set aside; the devotees did not want the prospect of a peaceful future impeding their propensity for violence in the present. There could never be peace while humanity still waited four minutes to cook a bag of popcorn.

The manager of the store looked at the customers with self-righteous disgust. The fact that a microwave was the entity to awaken the western man out of his lethargic sleep of death filled him with contemptuous laughter: third world nations starved while these morons rioted over a microwave. The manager was much too dignified to use violence as a means to obtaining an appliance. He had gotten his microwave directly off the truck it was shipped on-with an employee discount.

The battle was bloody, no mercy was shown. The ground of the store was covered in various bodily fluids, recently expired organs, and severed limbs. Though indeed hellish, the misery served as a purifying force to those who attained the microwave, a cleansing away of those sad times waiting oh so long to cook a bag of popcorn. The victors would look back at the battle as a brutal, yet necessary initiation into the numerous joys the microwave showered upon its subjects. Those survivors who did not attain the microwave were left feeling drained and hollow, questioning how such ultimately useless violence could occur in a world blessed by the microchip. Many of these microwaveless devotees felt betrayed by the microchip and committed suicide.

That night, Nacho emerged from the department store as one of the victors. He was not exactly proud of his actions, but any notion of shame or guilt was eclipsed by a pure and perfect feeling of serenity. Sometimes, a man is called to war in order to create a better future, a greater mankind. Nacho knew there would be many more battles before the new man was complete, but for the moment, the war was already won. Driving away from the parking lot, Nacho looked to his rearview mirror and saw the department store in flames.