The Ultimate Christian

THE ULTIMATE CHRISTIAN
STEVE ALIBI FIRMLY BELIEVED that everyone in the world hated him. Of course, this was nonsense. But no one could convince him otherwise. For he believed that everyone who knew him--everyone he’d ever met–-everyone who had ever even heard of him--carried an intense hatred--a loathing and a revulsion--for his very existence --his very essence.
Sometimes his thinking went so far as to imagine that people on the other side of the planet, those who lived in small villages or on tiny islands, who may have never even heard of the United States of America (let alone of Steve Alibi), those who held no views on anything whatsoever--the insane, the senile, the feeble-minded, the comatose; infants, new-born babies--those who had no idea that Steve Alibi even existed, all hated him.
The impossibility of such an idea--the logistics alone--made no impression upon him.
For the truth of the matter was that for Steve Alibi, like most of humanity, when belief and truth conflict, truth comes in a distant second; belief invariably carries the day. And nothing and no one could convince Steve otherwise. Anyone who said they didn’t hate him, he believed, was clearly lying. Because to Steve, it was obvious: those who hate are also capable of lying. And lying is the way by which hatred is protected and nourished.
Steve was 44 years old. From early on, from childhood, he knew that his parents and siblings all despised him. His grandparents too. And later, his wife, his former wives, his children and step-children. His dog, the cat, the slaves. All of those people who should have loved him the most, Steve believed, hated him: completely, bitterly, and with a great vehemence.
Steve, on the other hand, hated no one. To the contrary, he loved everybody: people he knew, people he’d met just once, people he’d never met at all, people he’d only heard of. People he’d never heard of. Simply put, he loved humanity--in general (as an abstract concept) and in theory (as an abstract projection). Further, he loved them more because of their hatred toward him--their perceived hatred of him. He was, of course, the ultimate Christian.