The time of terrible brightness had blighted the retinas of world-weary travelers for thousands and thousands of days. Fair stewardesses – for that is the ancient name of flight attendants before Gülüstü the Pretty changed this through her instigation of the neofeminist movement – strove to defend the safety of eyes through the dainty and sexualized distribution of transparent eye patches, eye drops, temporary surgical implants, and so on. For though these passengers had traveled to far-away lands, and/or principalities, the distance between the Wicked God Helios and their eye sockets was paved with evil, evil, far-reaching sunlight. The pain was unlike any travelobstacle they had encountered in their more antiquated excursions. Neither stewardess nor pilot nor pharmaceutical company had succeeded in combating this ancient curse on mankind.
Beginning in the late 1960s, and for tens of years after that, various warlords had fought to discover the secret of beauty. Additionally, airline companies had struggled endlessly to solve the insurmountable problem of sunlight streaming in through the windows of their airplanes. The struggle continued without reprieve, costing millions in money, limbs, and lives. Let us recount for a moment the tragic tale of Frank A. Moses of Mobile, Alabama, who lost eight toes, nine fingers, one nose, sixteen eyelashes, and the will to live through the violent and failed “Experiment 225-PS921: Flame-Covers.” Such needless suffering seemed an unending blight.
And so this continued, until the Coming of Gübama, affectionately known as Güügs, Güü-Güü, Güüber McGüüberston, Güüfy O’Güüferville, Emperor of Joy, and His Highest Holiest One, who was hired by Virgin Airlines, previously known as Whore of Babylon Airlines, in the final decade of the Age of Excessive Brightness.
“Hey guys! I’m Gübama. Thanks for hiring me. What do I do now?”
“Well, Young Gübama, we have a serious problem, as you and all your brethren know.”
“What’s that again?”
“The problem of sunlight streaming in through our windows, bothering the ocular flint-knappings of our passengers.”
“What are those?”
With a patriarchal scoff, the elders replied, “Oh, I suppose you young folk say ‘squinted eyes.’”
“Oh, that’s right. I heard about that problem. Why don’t you try window shades?”
“What?”
“Window shades.”
The elders leaned in, fascinated by such sorcerer-speak. “Tell us more.”
“They are covers, frequently made of plastic, or sometimes metal or wood in rarer circumstances, that are placed over the surface of a window. They are generally adjustable with little strings or handy handles, or some other simple mechanism. My mom has them in her house.”
THUS SPAKE GÜBAMA. ALL HAIL GÜBAMA!
“Valiant attempt, Young Gübama, but do you not realize that house windows are of a larger size than airplane windows? And of a different shape as well?” The Airline Pharisees were dubious of Gübama’s divine revelation.
“Well, you could make them smaller, right? And a different shape? Couldn’t you find a factory for that or something?” An inches-thick silence descended upon the board meeting. One could liken it to the foot-thick silence that descended on Golgotha some time ago.
“BURN HIM!” cried the Airline Pharisees. And so they did—Gübama the Great perished at the stake in the year of 1997.
Adherents mourned their loss through the opening and closing, opening and closing, opening and closing of their house window shades, fervently hoping that one day Gübama’s holy schematics would come to fruition in order to permit them such actions on an airplane. Through great fortune, his legacy was to live on many months later, in the year of 1998, when Virgin Airlines was bought out by Vestal Virgins, Inc., and renamed Vestal Virgin Airlines. One fateful evening, Mary Margaret McMagdalene, a Vestal Virgin night-time janitor, discovered a charred Post-It with a crudely and hurriedly drawn diagram of window shades, though smaller and better fitted for the windows of airplanes, as they had once been envisioned in the gold-dappled eyes of Gübama. She presented it to the Mystical Council of Directors, who regaled her with some cake that was left over from the office party, in gratitude for her wondrous uncovering of the sacred “Scroll of Gübama.”
“Neat! We should use this idea,” declared the Virgins. And so they did.
At the grand unveiling of the airplane-house-window-shade, one forward-thinking Virgin asked “What shall we call them? ‘Airplane-house-window-shade’ seems a bit wordy, don’t you think?”
Present at the convention was Gübama’s former lover, Gülüstü the Pretty, who had been drinking champagne alone by the refreshment counter. Upon hearing this pivotal inquiry, which she had been anticipating since the passing of the Great Güü-Güü, she threw down her pink plastic cup and cried out, “Hear thee, hear thee! For this is the work of the Lord through the creamy, blesséd hands of Gübama, my ex-boyfriend, and—“
“Oh, let’s call them gübamas, then,” stated the Virgins. “Burn her!” they shouted immediately afterwards. So they did, for her inner ugliness was so pronounced, no amount of gübama-coverage could mask her soul’s hideous visage. Also, nobody likes an uppity lush.
…
On this day, July 4th, proud and grateful Americans celebrate some damned thing, but – most importantly – even prouder Americans celebrate the genesis of Gübama’s genius-gift. Hear thee! Let us raise our gübamas, then close them, then open them, then close them, then open them, then close them, so that we may honor the Great Güüg’s great martyrdom, as well as mankind’s conquest and harnessing of the Sun, when mankind is traveling transatlantic flights. Amen.
