What if Sybil was an angel? That might not be bad. I could play Monopoly over and over if only my leg could bush up against hers. We could hold hands while God threw the dice. We could let God win over and over again (God hates to lose). And while God hunched over his hotels on Park Place, I could steal a kiss from Sybil and say a silent prayer: "Please God, let eternity be true. Please, God. Please."

"Close your mouth, Mr. Ishmael. You're in the army now. Shoulders back. Head up. Stand at attention. You are in the presence of the King's Secretary. Act respectful for a change. Pretend you're a grown up. Show some respect for authority. Pay attention. Get that stupid grin off your face. Remember Rule Number Six: Get that stupid grin off your face."

Sibyl's eyes were strange. They didn't look normal, but at least they were there; she wasn't wearing sunglasses. Still, the eyes looked glassy and cold, an alien, super-normal intelligence looking out from some endless void. And sometimes they would spin round and round; it made you sea sick when she made eye contact.

Sybil had this ability to turn males superpubic; that's the technical name for it. It was such a powerful and sudden hard on that it needed a Latin classification and a scientific notation- X times the speed of light to the 25th power. If your penis didn't have a bionic suit, it would just explode all over the inside of your underpants. Then you felt all creepy and pale. Later I found out that the sweater and hat that the nurse gave me was really a wearable bionic penis preserver. That's what the nurse told me in the hospital, and you can always trust a nurse, right?

"Mr. Ishmael, do you understand what "pay attention" means? Stop mumbling to yourself and hold out your hands. Here is your optometric survival kit. This is your chocolate eyeball, your autographed pictures of the staff, your student ID picture with your mouth airbrushed as a reminder, one bent door key to room thirteen in the dorm, a hall pass in case you have to go potty, extra strength pain killers, oversized bandages, professional fight songs, your leather bound Book of the Holy Rules, and a complimentary hard-on. Don't say I never did anything for you. Any questions?"

I felt creepy and the blood plunged from my brain to the lower reaches of my manhood. Then it occurred to me that she had called me something significant. "What did you call me? Mr. what?"

"Ishmael, Steven Timothy Ishmael, unsolicited recruit from someplace called Detroit.'"

"I didn't sign my name like that on the application. How do you know my full name?"

"You're quite the conversationalist, Mr. Detroit. Stop looking at me like that. You don't have a license. You have to purchase a license if you want to stare at a female in Sumeria. And you look creepy and pale, like a pervert."

"There's more like you?"

"No. I'm the only Sybil. Sit down, Detroit. You have to do an intake interview. Sit up straight. Do you always hunch over like that? Let's get this over with. I have to do my nails and feed the Piranhas. Question one, are you paying attention, Detroit? Because it looks like you're trying to stare down my blouse."

"I'm paying attention."

"To what are you paying attention?"

"I was looking down your blouse; I'm sorry. I have this stare problem.

We don't care about your personal problems, Detroit. Keep your eyeballs in your face and act like a soldier, even if you don't have a clue. Here we go, "Question one..... What are you looking at now? I told you to pay attention."

"Your eyes; they're all weird."

"I have the ReZoom Bionic 2100 Experimental Eye Probes. I can see what you are thinking and it isn't pretty, Mr Detroit. Next time those thoughts cross over your tiny mind I'll blow your weeny penis out your asshole. Now, let's try again. Please use your left brain for a change and get your tiny hormone factory under control. Question one:"

"I'm ready."

"Did I ask if you were ready? Remember Rule Seven: Don't answer questions not asked."

"Okay, I'm ready. Ask me a question."

"Here is question one: Do you like white-robed, rowanberry-lipped blond girls with diamond sharp fingernails, or do you prefer fire-eyed castrating redheads with pale lipstick and aerobic thighs?"

"Wow, that's a hard one."

She wrote this down on a yellow legal pad, looked up, and locked her bionic eyes onto mine. A little smile crossed her lips and then quickly departed.

"Are you now staring at my legs, Mr. Detroit? Or are you paying attention to the intake interview like you are supposed to be doing? Make eye contact with me. That's better. Here's question two: Do you prefer your Juliet with black hair and hazel eyes or do you wish your teenage mistress dressed in silk with flowing brown locks?"

"I might faint from your beauty, Sybil. Your eyes make me tingle. Your hair is... My God your hair is black."

"Are you trying to be poetic? No poetry is allowed in optometry school, Mr Detroit. Be careful how you speak. This interview is over. You scored, as you know. The evidence is sticky and embarrassing. Shame on you. Go to your room and never come back here again. The King might accidentally open his door and find you here."

She turned her back and made more notes on the yellow legal pad. I stood there looking at the back of her neck for a long time before deciding that she was not going to pay anymore attention to me. I walked out of her office in a daze and headed for the student dorm, room thirteen.

That was the strangest intake interview I ever had.

Actually, it's the only intake interview I've ever had.

I didn't know that the questions they asked you in college were so important. I couldn't see the Zen behind the trees. I didn't know about the lessons, how they go on continually in college and how every event has significance. I was thinking more along the lines of "if only her blouse was cut a couple inches lower."

Uncle Joe says the Sacred Mechanics built a huge organic tower, the Holy Ziggurat, on the edge of Sumeria. It is a growing tribute to built in obsolescence. God has this eternal plan wherein he only builds creatures that fail after so many years. The tower is made from the bones of human beings who had bumper stickers on their Buicks. The bumper stickers said "Jeewhiz is coming back soon", and "Are you ready for the Second Coming?" and "Jeewhiz is on his way!"; stuff like that.

Only God didn't come back yet, and so the bones get higher and higher every year. I heard that God just throws away dead humans because they are old and brittle. He has this philosophy of constant improvement; trying to meet and exceed expectations.

God thinks outside the universe. That's what Uncle Joe says.

Anyway, Sibyl turned out to have a brother named Sadaya; also called the crazy poet of Sumeria. Sadaya was also, so he said, God's Attorney General.