South African satire, anyone?

From Mail & guardian online :-

The past 10 years of his life had savaged the dilapidated novelist. His cheeks, once chubby and flushed, were flaking onion-skin drawn tight over a mangrove swamp of burst blood vessels; and his eyes -- little round beads that had blinked quizzically from the back covers of 500-million paperbacks -- were useless egg-whites swimming in two oily pans. He sank deeper into his chair, and listened to the indistinct shrieks coming from outside, where his great-grandchildren -- Mary Magdalene, John-Judas Junior, Phil the Baptist and little Gomorrah-Sue -- were sticking knitting needles into a wax effigy of Dostoyevsky. A gentle stroll among the seed of his seed was just what he needed.

He called out for Jesus, and the Bolivian manservant appeared at his elbow.“Take me to the little ones,” croaked the old man. Young children always lifted his spirits. He adored them. They read whatever you put in front of them, and they hadn’t yet discovered ugly, degrading phrases such as “half-arsed research” and “pseudo-literary quasi-historical pigswill”. With any luck one could steer them clear of nasty influences such as school and atlases and the History Channel until they were 14 or 15, and by then they were too old to be reading in any case.

They had reached the long corridor, flanked by the great bookcases that contained his entire oeuvre, and he let his fingers brush over the leather spines. Somewhere here was The Devil’s Inquest, a critical triumph. “Brown at his space bar hammering best,” the Times had said. “Banality never looked this voluminous.” His son Golgotha had been less charitable, declaring it “total crap, like all the others”, but of course Golgotha had been older than 15 when he’d read it, so one couldn’t really trust his opinion.

“Which was your favourite, Jesus?” he asked. His manservant flinched, and began to sweat. “Señor Dan, you know I love them all ...”“But if you had to choose one.”“I think ... The Pimple of Maria.”“It’s The Virgin’s Carbuncle, Jesus. But yes, that was a splendid one. A professor, a beautiful girl, a race against time and sinister religious forces, a cataclysmic secret. How well I remember each of my plots.”Jesus didn’t go in for fiction, preferring celebrity magazines, but one couldn’t argue with sales. The Da Vinci Code 6: Hell Hath No Fury had done just more than 120-million copies in hardback, and the runaway success of The Michelangelo Poloni had even warranted a note, personally breathed on by Oprah from inside her hydroponic anti-ageing capsule, that said something about Maya Anjelou and triumphs of the human spirit.

Naturally there had been lean years. The Patrick Swayze Code had sold 26 copies, 22 of which were bought by Jesus; and 2014’s Jesus Versus Mohammad had earned him a fatwa and a hasty evacuation from Jakarta International Airport. (Age brought perspective, along with admissions that his research could have been better; but as he’d said at the time, safely strapped to the floor of the naval helicopter en route to the aircraft carrier, all he’d wanted to do was “go into hiding in a Hindu country where you could get a good curry”. Indonesia, India. It was a mistake anyone could make.)

Away in the west wing the writing pool was hard at it, and Dan Brown paused to listen as his latest works took shape. The foreman was promising that they’d be done with The Galilee Conundrum and Doubting Thomas: In the Bible, In the Closet by the end of the week, and Bsection was already well advanced on the plot of The Herod Phallus.

But work was a bore, and so he stepped out into the light of the garden.“Great-grandpa!” screamed the little ones, and he beamed, reaching out his arms. “Señor Dan!” screamed Jesus, and he hesitated. There was a curious whooshing, strumming sound, and a shadow crossed his blind old eyes. The grand piano, dropped by God from 80 000 feet, obliterated him in an atonal shower of splinters.

It was very dark and cold. The old man groped in front of him, his footsteps echoing. “Jesus?” he stammered.A silvery voice replied. “Nobody of that name here.”“Is this ...?”“Even in death he cannot resist litotes,” said the voice, and there was faint rustling laughter all around him.“When shall we make him start?” asked a silky voice somewhere below him. “Now,” said the silver voice. “Bring the Pen and the Eternal Ream. And when he weeps, you may scourge him.”