Page 41 of Bless This Hot Mess

does that not count as holy too?”

From above, the monks intoned their approval, “Qui imitatur, illuminatur.”

Ronald held out his hand and dropped the pen he’d been using as a mic. Japheth picked up the cue and dropped a beat-box. Ronald cleared his throat like a man about to make aural history, and indeed, he was. The office, once a nearly silent shrine to Emma-Lou’s new and eager, terrified to failmicromanagement, had transformed into a cathedral-cum-nightclub. The fax machine blinked like a votive candle. Even the half-wilting desk fern seemed to lean in, anticipating whatever Ronald was about to drop next, it was about to be good.

The monkish drone oozed from the aging stereo system. The air thickened with the sound of it, a deep, slow chant that might once have blessed an abbey on a mountaintop but now underscored the tension filled room and how Trinity’s future teetered precariously on how strongly they could present their case.

“Nihil novum sub sole… Nihil novum sub sole…” The Latin rolled through the air like honey over marble–ancient, resonant, and resolute.

Ronald turned toward the others–Carrington perched on the edge of Emma-Lou’s desk, Rebekkah mid body-roll, and Japheth holding an imaginary lighter aloft in one hand and still beat boxing with the other–and raised one finger, the universal signal forI’ve got this.

“It’s simple,” Ronald implored as he dropped to a knee,

“Instead of saying,

‘Vile worm, thou art a boil, a plague sore,

an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood,’

I might say, ‘Let’s meet as little as we can.’

Or instead of saying,

‘Thou hast not so much brain as earwax,’

one might offer, ‘You should open a candle shop.’

So instead of speaking, and yet saying nothing…

We wish to sing, and by singing, something.”

Carrington whispered, “Oh Lord, he’s gone full Shakespeare.”

Suwarna crossed her arms but smiled despite herself, “Or Pentecostal.”

Japheth’s bassline bloomed in the air like a bruise.Ronald’s shoulders loosened, hips caught the rhythm, and the monks, God bless them, tightened their chant into something almost syncopated, “Ni-hil no-vum sub so-le… Ni-hil no-vum sub so-le…”

Ronald leaned into the beat, voice low and confident,

“Yo, hark! Lend thine ear, I beseech thee, my friend,

We sample not to steal, but to transcend!

A brick through yonder window breaks new ground,

To mix the holy word with sinners’ sound!”

The monks swelled in approval, their chant threading through the rhythm like incense smoke through sunlight, “Ni-hil no-vum… sub so-le…”

Emma-Lou, who had thus far watched in frozen horror, looked around as if trying to identify who had invited Gregorian hip-hop into her office. Ronald’s eyes closed, body finding the flow as though possessed by the Holy Ghost, or at least by someone who’d spent a lot of time in parking lot rap battles between basketball free throw competitions.

“I prithee, miss me with thy legal scorn,” he continued, flicking his wrist like a lawyer dismissing objections.

“For all great art is imitation born.

Be it verse or beat, we bite, we borrow,

For God’s mixtape droppeth new each morrow!”