"Seven."
One torn, green, triangular corner of the murdered
Slap-of-Wack bar blows across the desert,
eventually coming to rest in a cactus.
Panning in, we see that the torn green corner is still
breathing.
Over the next few hours, its breathing stabilizes.
It's alive.
It will live.
Stuck in the cactus hour after hour, day after day,
full of shame and rage, the torn corner
has a series of deep spiritual realizations concerning
the true nature of that supreme power which
brought it and everyone else and everything it's ever
known into existence and is the sole reason
for their continued existence.
What does this power want?
It doesn't know.
How could it know that?
It's just a torn corner.
But surely there's a plan for it, he can feel it.
They are born into vignettes and these vignettes
are their homes.
These vignettes are what gives their lives meaning.
If they were not intended to do their vignettes in exactly
the way they do them, why would they
feel so strongly inclined to do them in that exact way?
Therefore, the way to live righteously
is to enact one's vignette with as much energy as possible
and oppose as fiercely as possible
those who would undercut the proper enactment
of the sacred vignettes.
This is one way, perhaps the only way,
for a lowly being such as himself
to be in touch with the supreme power.
Take me, it prays humbly, make me more open to your purpose.
Suddenly, it feels a great surge of power filling it, changing
it and its former identity as the rear corner
of a Slap-of-Wack bar is all but forgotten,
subsumed in this new and greater identity.
Over the next week, via constant prayer,
the corner more than quadruples in size
and begins to suddenly glow, while attempting to free itself
from the cactus via a series of energetic forceful
shrugs, each of which leaves it utterly exhausted.
But finally, it's free and falls to the ground.
After several days of being blown around indiscriminately
by the wind, the corner learns to adjust its posture
in such a way that it can control its trajectory.
Soon it actually learns to fly via kind of punching itself
in the middle while simultaneously
straightening its neck.
Over the next few weeks as it practices
flying during the day and meditates
on these great new truths at night,
it is gradually almost imperceptibly transformed
from a mere green plastic cellophane corner
into a beautiful glowing oblong green triangular symbol.