Beauty Pageant of The Century

    “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to the Books of the Century Beauty Pageant.”

    The hundreds of people waiting to see the beautiful authors strut their stuff erupted with excitement. As they scream, the contestants glide their way onto the stage. The applause is broken by the announcer trying not to spit into the microphone.

    “And now before we begin the the pageant, we need to explain some of the twists that y’all will see throughout the pageant. One of the biggest twists that we made to the pageant is that the male contestants won’t be in dressed in suites, instead they will be dressed in drag!”

    There was the roar of the audience again, then the announcer breaks through the noise one more time.

    All right, all right, settle down so we can introduce the contestants.

    The silents echoes over the crowd as the announcer begins to speaker yet again.

“We will start with the beautiful and talented Flannery O’Connor! Her hobbies include mocking others stupidity, writing short stories that dive into deep issue surrounding society, and having men bring her a “basket of peaches” (O’Connor 516).

    O’Connor steps forward in her beautiful black satin dress decorated with weird images. At first glance they look like ordinary lettering, but as the audience starred at them longer they saw that the words were written like graffiti across her dress saying “The lame shall enter first”(O’Connor 480). The words were also accompanied by faceless portraits of women and men. She twirls about the stag waving as if she were a pony doing tricks at a circus and the audience loves it. They continue their bantering, but stop as they see the announcer place the microphone to his lips

    “Next is the ambitious Nietzsche! He enjoys finding the downside to wishing faith exists and plans to prove why the only happiness anyone can achieve is through searching for power.

    The audience ignorantly praise the man on the stage when they see his elaborate makeup and dress. The dress is pure white and has the bible on it burning all around. He also has the words “loss of life” (Nietzsche 130) written all over his arms and neck. The audience grows silent again as they prepare to hear about the third and final contestant.

    “Our final contestant of the evening will be the intelligent and lovely Jean-Paul Sartre.”

    Sartre stubbles out in his eight inch heels, trying not to take a nose dive off the side of the stage. There is not an inch of makeup on his face except for the elaborate drawing of flames that seem to engulf his face. His dress is also simple with three blocked colors on the dress separated by a thick black line tracing the outline of the green, pink, and blue blocks. The audience stares in confusion at the man, but cheer for him nonetheless.

    The announcer speaks with a light and girlish voice.

“For the next part of the pageant, we will have the contestant go through the interview section. The contestants will be brought out one by one and will be asked a some questions. These questions can range for the most superficial to deep thought provoking. So let us begin.”

The first contestant to make their way to the stage is Sartre. He is still dressed in the dress that he came out in the first time, but this time he was wearing flats instead of heels so he would not look like a newly born baby giraffe.

“Sartre! How are you doing today?”

“I’ll be doing better once I can get out of this dress and away from all you people.”

“Looks like someone…”

“Can we get on with it, I would like to collect my money and leave as soon as possible”

The silence in the audience is so intense that Sartre could hear every breath that was drawn from each person in the audience.

“As you wish, your first question is what is your animal and why?”
    “That’s easy a red panda!”

“Oh, do tell why?”

“Because they want to be left alone and will take that over being around other animals. As many people already know we are living in hell.”

“Do elaborate. I do not believe that I understand.”

“Very well. Due to my experience, I have discovered over the years of my life is that “hell is - other people!” (Sartre 45). No matter what we do as humans we seem to go directly after people and make their live suck. We harm others and torture them with our very presence.”

The announcer can feel the uneasiness coming from the audience and quickly dismisses Sartre before he makes the matter any worse.

“Thank you so much Sartre. Now for our next contestant, please help me welcome to the stage Nietzsche.”

The audience only claps, but not a peep is heard as Nietzsche presents himself on stage in his gown and makeup.

“Nietzsche, how would you explain your take on the wonderful world that we live in?”

Nietzsche starts to snicker, but then composes himself together and begins to speak.

“Well sir, I believe that the world we live in is wrestling with stupidity and it mainly comes from the growing numbers of christians that are being brainwashed.”

“What a wild accusation, can you please enlighten us by what you mean?”

“Certainly. For one christianity is based on a make believe idea of “redemption”, “grace”, and heaven in order to persuade people into entering a cult that is not interested in preserving the life that we were given on earth (Nietzsche 137). Instead they make plans to have a better life after the die. This is ridiculous and self absorbed.”

The audience lifts into an uproar, yelling and screaming in full disgust at Nietzsche and this only brings a smile to his face. This only enrages the crowd more, and the announcer has to quickly shu Nietzsche off the stage.

“Settle down everyone, everything is fine and under control. Now if you could all take your seats so that I can bring out our last contestant, O’Connor.”

The crowd stays silent, no cheering or chanting this time as O’Connor comes to the stage as quiet as a mouse.

“Hello Ms. O’Connor, how are you doing today?”

“Pretty good I guess. Can’t really complain.”

“Alright then I will get started with asking you the final question of the night, but before you answer I need you to think long and hard about your response.”

“Okay?”

“What do you feel the society in today’s world is missing?”

O’Connor needed no time to think.

“Our society is missing genuine people that actually care about their actions. It is seen too often that judges people by their beliefs and writes them off as inbreds that no nothing. God does not want us to do that. Instead he would want us to love one another and accept their differences.”

The crowd becomes aroused with agreement and is brought to there feet. The winner is clear to everyone, but the applause is then interrupted by Nietzsche running on stage and pulling O’Connor’s hair. A frenzy ensues and the announcer has the curtains closed to deal with the assault that was just committed and to keep everyone else out of it.