The Christian cult
Christianity isn't normally considered a cult, but parts of it certainly are freaky. My best friend in junior high, Paul, became sick partway through the final year and never came back to school. The next year, he started in a Catholic school while I went to the public school next door. I know he dropped out very quickly. He later told me that if Jesus wanted him to finish school, then it would happen automatically. I guess Jesus willed him to stay at home being lazy.

One day, I was with another junior high friend, and we decided to give Paul a call. We met up, and I knew something was wrong when we were watching Beavis and Butthead and Paul went outside to play basketball alone. The rest of the day was a real drag because he couldn't do anything. Following this, he called both my friend and me and invited us to his church's youth group every week for a couple years, and we were too polite to ever turn him down or tell him to stop asking.

When we were first friends, he had a sweet basement bedroom in his parents' house filled with comic books and the latest Super Nintendo games. Whenever he got hungry, he'd shout "Daaaad!" and his dad would bring whatever he asked. But he told me now that he got rid of all his comics, because "Spider-man does work that only God should do." I wonder then what he thinks of the police. He also got rid of hundreds of dollars worth of Super Nintendo games; I only hope he sold them. I'll believe he stopped shouting at his dad that way when I see it for myself.

My mom saw them a few years later in the supermarket. She could tell their family was falling apart and they all looked dangerously unhealthy. When she casually asked how everything was, they smiled brightly and said "Great!"

I would've written more about him, but I decided to chop off the very tip of it so that it would look nicer.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 27 Jan 2006, 4:45, Reply)