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O  N  E

Under The Milky Way

Behold the Universe with its billions of galaxies. Each galaxy contains billions of stars. We are interested in one spiral galaxy called The Milky Way. Its billions of suns revolve around a center, like Muslims circling the Kaaba during the Hajj.

At the center of the Milky Way is a super massive black hole. At the center of the circling Muslims, affixed to the Kaaba, is an Aswad. Believers stop to kiss the Aswad.

That looks like an

[...]

Muslims must have had an exceedingly glorious and wonderful sense of humor.

Pleasantly discreet.

Muslims couldn't have been the only humans with a pleasantly discreet sense of humor?

Israelites. Israelites liked to walk in circles, too. The number seven seems to have held significance. On the seventh day the Israelites would arise at dawn. They'd put on their large rectangular piece of rough, heavy woolen material, crudely sewed together, and proceed to compass the city seven times. Seven priests would blow seven trumpets made of rams' horns. But only on the seventh day.

I can imagine bringing a ball back in time and sitting on their city wall. While they're circling I could throw the ball to see if an Israelite would throw it back. You know, make a game out of it to help with the monotony.

I don't think they'd be amused by your invitation to play. The ball would probably startle them and make them scat. One would eventually summon the courage to get near it. Kick it. Inspect it. Then drive a sword through it.

OK. So, what's the significance of the number seven?

It is written that the LORD God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh. He expected that all of his children would infer meaning and adjust their lives accordingly by not working on the seventh day. Ambiguity, it turned out, would serve to aggravate the LORD. Two point four billion Christians, more than a quarter of humanity, observed the sabbath on Sunday. They redefined the meaning of the word work to better suit their life styles. Not considered work: professional football, pizza delivery, liquor sales, airport security, dog care, ski lift operations, emergency services. A lot of people weren't officially working on Sundays. God ranked not working during the sabbath as one of his most important rules. The punishment for violating the sabbath was burning in Hell for eternity.

That's a bit severe don't ya think. Their sensivity to being set on fire would've caused them to scream horribly. That punishment must've elicited great fear in them. Seems like they were mostly complying with the sabbath, with a few exceptions for convenience.

God intended the sabbath to fall between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday.

Are you shittin' me?

Only a small percentage of twenty first century Jews actually observed the correct sabbath and thereby qualified for entry into the gates of Heaven. Everyone else is currently burning in Hell.

There's not really a Hell is there?

No.

But you would get an argument from Christians.

Yes. Oddly, for all their references to Hell as a defined place, The Bible allocates remarkably few words and passages to the subject.

Did humanity have any other religious groups?

The Nag.

The what?

The Nag. I'll try a parable this time. A man walks into a women's locker room. No one tries to stop him. No one questions him. Young women in various states of undress. He stops at his locker. The name on his locker reads Darcy.

I don't get it. Is there more to the parable?

No.

Well, what does that mean?

The Nag are either too polite or too afraid to tell Darcy that he's not a woman. That he's a nut job and ought to be committed to an asylum.

Why would he identify as a woman?

You wanna long winded psychological analysis of the breakdown in reasoning that allowed for the rise of Darcies in the post millenium?

No, I don't.

Because he could get away with it. The Nag removed all boundaries for irrational behavior. Get up one morning and decide you're now the opposite sex and poof! you are.

I had no idea humans had achieved that level of technological advancement. They could morph like us.

No. They couldn't. Biologically they remained just as they were when they were born. Some of them claimed they were bunny rabbits and other species. The Nag demanded of everyone that they accept Darcy's new identity or be bullied into submission.

I suppose that's a smart strategy if you want to indoctrinate others.

Perhaps it would have been if the others, as in those who rejected Nagism, weren't armed. But they were heavily armed. There was a direct correlation with pushing a progressive Nag ideology and record-setting gun and ammo sales.

I am familiar with their American culture from picking up transmissions. Earth turned on the radio in their twentieth century with its industrialization and has created a cacophony in that quadrant of the galaxy ever since.

You have to see Mick Jagger dance in the Start Me Up video. Focus on the mouth.

I've seen it. Every life form in their quadrant of the Milky Way has. There's a species a couple of hundred light years from Earth that will clothe themselves only in tight sleeveless pastel tops and white sweat pants, modified for their three legs, of course. They greet each other by thrusting their hips forward, raising their arms skyward, while parting their lips to bare their large white teeth.

The Trigonians?

That's them.

They're a point eight level civilization, no? Point one above Earth.

I believe so. Their sound systems are shattering. Sha oobie, shattered, shattered. What a mess...

Some Jerries measured and studied their specie's emissions into space. There's even a recording of Johnny B Goode by Chuck Berry that is slowly voyaging just beyond their solar system. Really slowly. It's only traveling twenty five thousand miles per hour. We could intercept it if you want? Check it out?

No thanks! Jerries?

If you picked up transmissions from Earth, didn't you intercept The Jerry Lewis Telethon?

Why would you call them Jerries? (Pauses to consider, then understands). Ohhh!

They were known throughout the galaxy for taking shrapnel above the neck. They believed they were made in the image of an invisible entity. They gave many names to this entity:

Yahweh Jehovah Shiva Brahama

Vishnu Messiah Allah The Father

Lord Of Lords Rock Wonderful Counselor

The Lord God Woden Jupiter Juno

Hera Zeus Ra Frigg Vulcan Athena

Wouldn't we have been invisible to them?

Naturally.

Well then maybe they didn't take shrapnel.

No, no. They took shrapnel. They hated each other.

Really?

Out of the billions of intelligent life forms in the Milky Way, they're the only species known to have hated themselves.

That's fuckin' hilarious!

I've never known you to use the f-bomb before.

And you won't again. Still, that's fuckin' hilarious!

Disgusted Jerries separated into tribes divided by politics, race, religion, ethnicity and proximity to a Walmart. They publicly shamed one another. They passed judgment. They questioned each other's intelligence. They followed doctrines without question. Some of their most influential doctrines were created by primitive Jerries thousands of years before science. More modern doctrines barely cloaked an insatiable appetite for power. All doctrines had the undesireable effect of eliminating humor. All Jerries were indoctrinated to some degree.

Powerful organizations collectively known as The Disseminators incited the gullible masses to riot. They would present a video that showed a non-Caucasian suspect being allegedly harmed by police because he was not Caucasian. Jerries would take to the streets, set buildings on fire, steal expensive leather handbags, pharmaceuticals and athletic shoes. The Disseminators would film the riots. If the reaction wasn't sensational enough, lawyers embedded within the rioters would throw Molotov Cocktails at police cruisers to see if they could goad police into firing off a few rounds.

If someone drew a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad, Muslims would throw a conniption and cut his head off.

With a sword?

Right.

Grisly!

Then the Disseminators would interview politicians who would lie to everyone saying Islam was a religion of peace.

Did anyone believe it?

Their mouths spoke not what their minds thought, unless they had Tourette Syndrome. No one believed it, though several claimed they did to signal virtue to their tribe. Anyone who spoke their mind, what they honestly believed, was labeled a fascist and unfriended.

Unfriended by the Nag?

Yes, the Nag. At the beginning of the Information Era smart technologies allowed the Jerries to interact without being face to face. They called this Facebook.

That's like McDonald's calling it a milkshake.

That's what it's like. They'd open a free account. Free meant only that they didn't have to provide a credit card. Never mind the costs to their mental health and time misallocated. They'd open an account and send friend requests to a whole lot of people they never met. Get drunk. Go back onto Facebook and rip into one of these friends as if they were the absolute dummest Homo sapien ever birthed since history began, approximately six thousand years earlier.

Wasn't their planet four and a half billion years old at that time?

Shrapnel. Four and a half billion. Six thousand. It was a matter of zeros. The point is, they bloodied their planet. Earth, as you learned in school, was part of a science project made by the Reverend GodAllahBuddhaZeus. I know you've seen the physical form of the Reverend: an hermaphrodite the size of a chimpanzee with an agreeable, if stupid, ever lasting grin on its face.

Uncle NiGonky?

Yes, UuLitch.

In school we learned that the Reverend was auto-sexual and often masturbated while watching its universe project expand.

That's right. Did you have a question?

No. Yes. What happened to the Reverend?

The Reverend got bored after the Jerries went extinct and was last seen pleasuring itself.

Miss Fish told us the Reverend could've intervened and altered the course of Earth history.

Wait. What's your teacher's name?

Miss Fish.

How old is Miss Fish?

Three days.

The Reverend is a voyeur. Its whole concept of the universe was to detonate a fingernail cell in that empty space in its backyard, to observe if some life form would eventually evolve its way back to us. Smoking pot demotivates the Reverend. You know how The Holy Bible says the LORD God made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh?

I do now. What you told me about seven and the sabbath.

Good. Intervention required effort. If The Holy Bible accurately represented their LORD God the sabbath would've been six days long allowing for some work only on the seventh. There was one time when the Reverend almost couldn't resist the temptation to intervene on the Jerries' behalf. NiGonky wonders if his divine friend didn't create its universe on some ego satisfying whim. Imagine, a gullible species, due to a wide spread lack of critical thinking, to besmooch your Aswad.

When was that?

When Earth was approaching the end of the second millennium: the year two thousand. According to Christian prophecy Christ was supposed to descend from the clouds to do battle with Sa-tan. The Reverend really wanted to send Hervé Villechaise instead.

Duh plane, Duh plane? The little guy on Fantasy Island. He's sooo cute. How would Hervé match up against Sa-tan?

Visualize the Reverend.

UuLitch takes a moment to visualize it. Woe! They're identical.

Exactly.

What stopped it from sending Hervé?

That would've broken its non-intervention clause. We were well acquainted with how vulnerable to indoctrination the Jerries were. They kept quoting God, but the Reverend never said anything. It used to stand just to the left of the universe taking hits from its bong and smiling. Not laughing. Just smiling good-naturedly. Like Gandhi. No, the reincarnation of Hervé Villechaise was a Chevy No-go. Keeping with its own clause Reverend GodAllahBuddhaZeus never sent anyone. Despite their imaginations there was no devil. But there were plenty of good horror films.

I'd like to watch a good horror film.

That's not a bad idea. But if you want to appreciate it you...

Explain appreciate.

Establish a connection to their species, so that you can feel emotion. Understand loss. They are mortals.

Continue.

The most terrifying horror movie they ever made was called Threads. It was about nuclear war. It was intended as a dramatization when it came out in 1984. Years later it would prove prophetic.

Christ never showing up didn't stop Christians from insisting, "But he is coming. He is coming. And if we don't save your soul you're goin' to Sa-tan." There's a place we used to go called The Atomic Café. It was on Earth's moon. From there we used to observe the Jerries at play. Think of the road sign Slow Children At Play.

Wasn't that a warning to drivers to slow down, there might be children playing?

Is that what that meant? I always thought they were alerting drivers about slow children. Shrapnel. Anyhow, they served these vapors for nasal inhalation that were other-worldly. Vapors that could be made from any proportion of mind-altering substances. Feeling groggy, a caffeine derivative could be added to your vapor. Feeling horny, an X derivative would maximize your pleasure. Bored? Apathetic? Coffee with a touch of mushroom would bring on intensely beautiful hallucinations. You can even satisfy a chocolate craving with a cocoa vapor. I could tell you some stories about Earth over a few vapors.

Let's go, she thinks excitedly.

There is one matter for consideration.

What matter?

As you know, you and I are entities. Pure energy. Invisible. We reside in what many Jerries thought of as The Divine Realm or Paradise. However, when we enter the Reverend's universe we take on physicality. Matter. You will no longer be a Thoughtform. You will have a body.

Why do I have to have a body?

Reverend's rules: Any entity entering its physical universe must take on physicality thereby subjecting it to the natural laws therein. I think the Reverend made up this law as a security measure. There were quite a few hooligans in its class and it didn't want any of them altering its universe. A Thoughtform could easily slip in and out of the Reverend's universe undetected, but not so an organic life form. Every Jerry, every living being in the universe, displaces space and exerts energy, thereby affecting every other being. This space displaced and energy exerted can be detected and measured. As you will experience, wearing a human body is clumsy, cumbersome, very limiting, but not without redeeming qualities.

I'm going to be a Jerry?

We both are. What better way to appreciate the heavenly smells of The Atomic Café's vapors? Try not to be scared, UuLitch. When you first feel the weight of your body assignment. The limbs of heavy bone and thick flesh. Drawing air into your lungs you may feel claustrophobic. Don't panic. Just remember that you can withdraw at any time by thinking yourself back to your Thoughtform. You ready to go?

I think so.

^{Disclaimer: These words are typed for you in your language on toilet paper using an American typewriter font for a twentieth century effect. Why the Thoughtforms take the time to put into human tongue the story of Earth being told to UuLitch, since you now know you will annihilate yourselves in a stupid nuclear war, is beyond the scope of this writing. The Thoughtforms assume any species that can make fun of itself with a cliché to describe insanity that involves a kangaroo, might be worth saving. Or, at least partying with. Maybe partying will help. If there is a kangaroo loose in the top paddock, UuLitch is gonna love it.}

T  W  O

Have You Ever Been Experienced?

NiGonky and UuLitch will themselves back in time to The Atomic Café. Triangular shaped windows, spires and arches of chrome and glass, like New York City's Art Deco period Chrysler Building, adorn the café's tables, seating, and space divisions. It smells old, yet comfortably familiar, of plaster, leather, wood. The microscopic dust of the materials from which it's constructed and decorated.

A fit middle aged woman with long red hair pinned up in a bun, intelligent green eyes punctuated by crows feet, an emerald green mini skirt, gold stars covering her nipples, small natural breasts. She approaches their table, "Hi, I'm Eliana. Can I start you off with something to sniff?"

NiGonky visualizes foreplay. Imagines Eliana emitting a loud orgasmic groan of pleasure. Uncomfortable seconds pass until UuLitch says, Unc. His eyes regain focus as he swallows some spit. He finally orders a vapor laced with three parts marijuana for a pleasingly detached peripheral consciousness, two parts coffee to charge him up, and one part tequila for that extra party-all-night edge. He denies himself the X portion until later. He's besotted with Eliana, but he is entertaining his niece. He has promised her stories of Earth.

"I don't know what to get Uncle."

"How do you feel?"

"I don't know."

"Are you tired?"

"No."

"Cold?"

"No. Heavy. Breathing takes effort. And you look so weird with your long nose and long face, and long dark hair. Bespectacled with a lazy eye. What's that protruding from your face hole?"

"I seem to be chewing on a cigar. And thank you, my dear. You look like a cross between Hillary Clinton and Eddie Murphy." Eliana chuckles.

"I do? Yuck!"

"No. You've got an oval face with the taut skin of youth draped with thin spaghetti hair. Wide set smiling eyes and wormy fish bait lips. You radiate a tantalizing heat signature with staggering pheromones. Too, your head is disproportionally large.

"That doesn't sound very attractive".

"It's not. But my body assignment has an unremarkable sex appendage".

"I suppose that wasn't considered desireable, either".

"It wasn't. Many males of this period suffered from feelings of inadequacy. A couple of decades later they would be able to modify their endowments at will. Every male grew an appendage larger than their forearms. The women grew so tired of being impaled that they began to desire more modest sized sex partners who didn't cause hemorrhaging."

"What about the women? Were they able to modify their appearance?"

"They modified everything. They reduced or increased, reshaped, and enhanced their noses, butts, breasts, legs and hips, size of their hands to the relative size of their heads. They began to look like a finite number of variations on Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry and Rihanna. The attitudes that accompanied their new found beauty eventually made the men weary and bored. The men began to mistake their Barbie doll with that of the Barbie sitting at the next table. They had real problems finding their Barbie at a football game when they were inebriated. They gave their Barbies an identifiable whistle to blow to help guide them in. Eventually the men came to appreciate imperfections, to help them distinguish their wives and offspring, and to give the whistle blowing referees a break on Sundays."

NiGonky: "Strange, I always envisioned you as a little girl who just happened to know about hermaphroditic autostimulation and mind altering substances. You're really quite fetching, my dear." Then, in a nasal retracted upper lip voice, "And I do mean that in a most peculiar way." His unibrow winks up and down.

UuLitch scrunches her thin blond eyebrows as she considers again a vapor. "I'd like something sweet with a kick that makes Earth's marble blue appearance effervescent."

To Eliana NiGonky orders a peppermint vapor with a hint of X.

"Anything else?" asks the appetizing waitress.

"I believe I'd like to have a gander at your buttocks."

Eliana walks away smiling. It's the first sexist comment she's received since men were emasculated early in the twenty-first century. Plus, she likes NiGonky's eyes.

As NiGonky sits peacefully observing the interior of The Atomic Café, the strangely timeless curves, arches and spires, pleasing to his now human eyes, UuLitch awkwardly walks to a large triangular window on her new legs. Earth, blue and marbled with cloud cover, hangs beautifully without strings, framed in the blackness of space.

"Such a small planet in the Reverend's immense universe," she observes, looking back toward her uncle for a response.

The captivating Eliana with her seductive human female form has her uncle's utmost attention. Leaving the capped double necked bongs at their table, Eliana glides away at moon speed, but not before flipping up her mini skirt exposing her bulbous posterior unencumbered by undergarment, smiling coyly over her shoulder at him. Walking in lunar gravity at one sixth the Earth's, one must take care not to become overzealous, or end up airborne. On a nearby TV the crowd goes wild after a Marauder's player, a team from the moon's dark side, hits a 1.1 kilometer homerun.

"UuLitch, come try your vapor."

Taking her seat she asks, "Why are you so smitten with Eliana?"

How best to demonstrate the advantages, though admittedly few, of being a Jerry. He reaches under the table and pulls UuLitch's long luscious leg up over his knee enjoying its warm animal firmness. "How does this feel?" He strokes her leg.

"Feels nice."

"There's much to be said about physical pleasure in the human form. Experience is better than talk. Jerries spent a great deal more time talking about sex than actually doing it. They wasted effort looking for sexually ideal partners: the perfect body, measurements, physical attributes, a trophy to walk next to while attending social functions. What would their friends think? Fact: anybody could've been a sex partner. Old, fat, anorexic, toothless, amputee. The secret, my dear, was that an aesthetically unpleasing partner put more effort into an encounter. Because they didn't have as many opportunities, they often proved to be more exciting and imaginative than the photogenic candidate who expected to be worshipped."

"Why were Jerries so discriminating?"

"Because they thought. Unlike monkeys that would plug any available orifices, humans had to be seduced."

"Explain 'seduced'."

"Enticed by body language, verbal language, and pheromones. It was fascinating to watch people court each other. Something as subtle as a lingering look with hungry eyes, an artfully used tongue in conversation, or a haunting fragrance compelling a man to breathe in deeply through his nose to draw in the scent of an ovulating woman of childbearing age. Instant arousal. I can't really explain Jerry bonding beyond that. You'd have to know culture, experience life with the Jerries to understand their languages. Even then many idiosyncrasies were baffling. Nonetheless, they have proven very entertaining for GodAllahBuddhaZeus and I, in observance and by experience."

"You've been to Earth?" UuLitch's eyes widen with interest. Pencil thin eyebrows in their upright inquisitive positions.

"Many times over the eons of this universe."

"Then you've had sex?"

"Many times with many different partners and in many different physical housings. I've even experienced sex inside a monkey's body. That's some rough rapid-fire polygamous sex. I don't want to do that again for a while. Wears you out and you have to watch your ass."

"I can't believe you've experienced that."

"My dear, there's no better way to enjoy the Reverend's universe than to experience it. We are non-physical entities. Quasi gods. You know we liberated ourselves from our own physical universe in our own course of evolution. We can always return to the physical at will. When I go back in time on Earth, I may engage anyone at any time for intercourse. However, after I've had my fun, I must reverse time to pull out at the point of entry, so I don't alter the course of natural evolution. By reversing time, we eliminate any signature prints left by our DNA. Essentially, we were never there, although we do retain our memories."

"Besides the physical, what's so intriguing about sex?"

"Mostly, it's in the mind. If two humans shared an emotional intellectual bond, then sex had the potential to be very meaningful indeed. Otherwise, from a purely physical standpoint, it was exciting, fun, burned calories, and released stress. I'd tell you it didn't cost anything, but people had been known to pay dearly for it."

"Let's enjoy these vapors then we'll pay a visit to Earth. You'll pick a time period in Earth's history and we'll materialize there."

UuLitch watches as NiGonky positions his nostrils over the double necked nasal bong, deftly releases the stopper with his thumb, inhales deeply, eyes closed as he luxuriates in the earthy aromas of marijuana, coffee, and tequila. Moments later he opens his eyes and smiles, intoxicated. His dark moustache and thick eyebrows add exclamation to his strong masculine face.

"How do you feel?" asks his niece.

"Immaculate," he utters, at least he's pretty sure he uttered, as consciousness of his physical body is heightened. He feels his pulse beating through his limbs producing a warm glow all over his body. Alert yet dreamy.

UuLitch examines her nasal bong. A green glass bulb about the size and shape of a softball with a stem that rises straight up and splits into two. A stopper at the bottom of the stem holds back the cloudy contents inside the bulb. When the stopper is released, the intoxicating vapors sucked up inside one's nose penetrate the blood vessels therein, the drugs stream through long tiny red tunnels to the heart, which in turn propels them to feed the brain. Then, WOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHHHH!

She inspects her body. Feels her rounded jaw, runs a finger along an eyebrow, licks her lips, cups her pointy breasts…

"Here, let me do that." NiGonky's hairy hands reach across the table and feel the small soft breasts. The tips hardened with arousal.

"Feels good," breathes UuLitch. Her eyes close as she savors human contact. "Touch me more," she implores, as her uncle removes his hands. She feels a warm stirring between her long legs.

"No, my dear. When we get to Earth you can pick a suitable sex partner to quench your body's thirst. You're gonna enjoy that body."

UuLitch exhales, positions her nose over the double necked stem, releases the stopper and neatly disappears the vapor. How is she going to feel once it hits? Her question is answered in as little time as it takes...

to not fill out a year 2000 United States Census form when you rent out your single family 2 bedroom ranch in Doraville, A Good Place To Live the Welcome to Doraville road sign says. Not great, not historical, not friendly, compelling, alluring, provocative, nor satisfying. Good. Why not pretty good, or tempting, jovial or trivial? Random. Yes, random. Welcome to Doraville, A Random Place To Live. In defiance of local ordinance you rent your single family 2 bdr ranch to at least eight undocumented workers. Why should your neighbor care? In college, the neighbor shared a rental house with more friends than signed the lease, which helped to offset the rent. That neighbor now has an alluring, tempting young wife who returns from work each night observed by the several hardworking South-of-the-border migrants standing out in front of their small house, who have to smell each others pheromones everyday while subduing torturous thoughts, water-boarding thoughts, no fresh water in seventy-two hours floating in wreckage in the South Pacific thoughts, of sexual abandon with a beautiful female who smells like fabric softener, instead of salsa and gingivitis. The neighbor has tasted conservatism. No, he's no church goer, but he has come to appreciate the concept of obeying the law. Pragmatic addition enters his mind. Eight hardworking testosterone emitting migrant laborers plus a case of cerveza plus standing out in the front yard goading each other into doing something irredeemably stupid, plus a young attractive wife getting out of her car next door; does not automatically equate to something bad. But does, especially with alcohol, increase the probability. Does the neighbor call the Doraville police? ¡No. Aún no! Somebody else must have. A cop is out there talking with the men. They go inside. The cop leaves. Turns out the cop is the landlord. He comes by every week or so to check on his tenants. Dang mustardsucker is breaking the law breaking the law ugh ugh. Breaking the law breaking the law ugh ugh.

The sweet peppermint coupled with X makes the Buck Rogers like setting even more ethereal. She runs her slender pale fingers over the cool hard surface of the retractable table, on the opposite side of which, sits her uncle radiating heat. She reaches over and touches his bristly moustache studying the large pores in his face.

"Uncle, can I merge with you and see what my embodiment looks like?"

"Of course, my lovely sea puss," he affirms, as if jumping one's mind into another's body is an everyday occurrence, which it is. He suddenly feels the familiar energy of her Thoughtform join his inside his body. Increased respiration and metabolism are the physical symptoms of her added energy. He begins to sweat and becomes a bit flushed. Gazing across the table at his niece's slouching physical housing, smooth muscles, basic life functions still there, coma.

In his body, UuLitch feels the heavier muscle mass, perspiration emanating from his armpits, additional flesh between his legs, but no sensitive globes of gelatin resting on his ribs. Looking across at her dormant housing, she observes her pale moon-glow skin, the golf balls of her eyes shielded beneath the peaceful sheaths of her eyelids, the long blond eyelashes, the lanky limbs of her cylindrical arms, the gentle rise and fall of her breathing beneath a form hugging evening gown. As her uncle's fingers lightly touch her body's face, she feels the soft warmth of the young taught skin. Concurrently, as if in a dream, is the distant touch of fingers on her face.

Uncle, she thinks, will you slap me around? I want you to slap me around.

No, crazy UuLitch, he thinks in reply, chuckling, I wouldn't want to bruise that beautiful body.

In an instant she's back in her Jerry suit. Like opening a window blind she raises her eyelids to a grinning NiGonky, the beautiful blue Earth suspended in a window over his shoulder, the easy slow-motion gate of Eliana retreating with their empty nasal bongs. Eliana left a celestial feminine scent lingering in the cool lunar café air.

"I've decided Unc. I'd like to meet Jesus."

"Yay'shua," states NiGonky.

"Great! Let's go!" UuLitch says excitedly.

"What do you think I just said?"

"Yeah, sure."

"No. In Jesus' time he was called Yay'shua."

"Yay-Shoo-Wah. I like that!"

"Also, he's black."

"Jesus was black?"

"Yay'shua was definitely no caucasoid, and like the Reverend, he smoke-a-da ganja."

"So, Jesus was a dope smoking black man."

"Indubitably," he ejaculates.

"But white Christians depict him as a bearded white hippie."

NiGonky nods in affirmation, "Jerries were self-serving. It helped with civilizing themselves. Like-minded and similar looking peoples grouped together forming gangs for protection, for survival, and to ward off boredom."

"But I thought all people were alike?"

"Ah, the tragedy of the Jerries. Shakespeare was exalted for his tragedies. Such repetition. For thousands of years they brutalized each other over trite differences, only to realize just prior to their great offing, that they were all fundamentally the same. Consider. You break Jerries down into their smallest component: The Jerry. What would it take to make one happy? Plentiful supply of food and water, love, compassion, respect, a few laughs, matching recliners. All said, humans required surprisingly little for happiness. Yet when you grouped people together: jealousy, greed, intoxication, disrespect, power trips, intimidation, politics, public shaming, indoctrination; and if communication broke down, war. The more advanced they became, the more power each individual possessed. One's mental health became crucial. Suddenly, every Jerry had the power to erase mankind with a briefcase-sized device."

"I don't know if I want to go to Earth, Uncle. I mean, Jerries sound awfully unstable."

"They are. They were. That's part of the fun. They're unpredictable. No matter how much they attempted to group together and bully others, people were individuals. Most were honest and compassionate. Most had a sense of humor once you pulled away the layers of indoctrination and exposed their humanity. Regrettably, too many thought nothing of trading away their freedoms or destroying life. Don't assume all humans were felony stupid because they slaughtered other species for hamburgers, fur coats, ivory piano keys, shark fin soup, or because a toddler got frightened by a pollinating insect." NiGonky's unibrow rises on one side, "We believe humans had good intentions even when they killed ninety-nine percent of all bacteria with their hand soap, including the bacteria necessary for sustaining good health."

NiGonky pulls from his pocket a blue plastic-wrapped package of Oreo cookies. He sets it out on the retractable table and noisily opens it. Easing a sandwich cookie out he observes, "Been a while since I had one of these," as he rotates it between his fingers. "Try one, it'll go well with your vapor aftertaste."

UuLitch studies the dark disc with the fake white filling. Smells it. Curious. With a bite the cookie is broken in half, small crumbs fall slowly to the table. "It's so sweet."

"Almost pure sugar, my dear. Really bad for the body. Yet addictive. If it tastes good it must be bad, or so went the wisdom of the day. But I've got the munchies, and where we're going the munchie selection is limited to goat, grasshopper, and lousy wine."

"Where do Oreos come from?"

"Twentieth century Americana: plastics, pesticides, preservatives, mass production, sex toys, saccharine, soul food, hair spray." NiGonky pauses to crunch into a swirl of chocolaty goo, then flush past his tonsils, a representative of the twentieth century in a cloned sandwich cookie form. "There are no Oreos back when Yay'shua was thirty years old, bearded, stinking of goat, and doing his best to appease the hordes of sick or wounded, who keep begging him for his magical healing powers. A time of gum disease, venereal disease, lice infestations, parasites, high infant mortality, and birth defects. Let us depart, my dear. Fun awaits among people with some of the worst breath in history."

T  H  R  E  E 

I Found My Thrill On Blueberry Hill

Leaving Eliana, the Atomic Café, and the great rock known as the Moon, which in universal terms isn't big enough to be facial hair on a grain of sand, for the arid warmth of Earth in Jesus country on a hill south of Tibneh. Relative time: A couple years before Jesus was shot.

"Where have we materialized", asks UuLitch. The big sky landscape is brown and desolate. No trees. The footing is strewn with small rocks and sand.

"If I didn't err, we should be at the Hill of Gash", responds NiGonky.

Looking into NiGonky's eyes, "Gash?"

"No one ever bothered to ask how Adam came up with the name Gash. Adam spent most of his nine hundred and thirty year life naming things. He was too short on time to both justify his choice of names and father the human race. Adam had only two jobs: naming shit; fucking. Peradventure, Adam knew Eve on top of, around, behind, in the shadow of, nearby, adjacent to, and in sight of the hill."

"I see a small collection of seated humans. And a single man standing. Is that Raguel the Midianite?"

"What time is it?"

"Judging by the sun's position it's late afternoon."

"It's still too early for Raguel. That ought to be Yay'shua."

"Why would they be out here? It's so desolate."

"It's a good place to get stoned immaculate."

"It's a good place to try bestiality and hump sheep", inserts UuLitch.

NiGonky offers an amused half smirk. Draws a deep lungfull of air and gazes around. He sneaks a side glance at the tall athletic embodiment that houses the ancient Thoughtform known as UuLitch.

UuLitch ponders, "Do you think he's talking to them about peace?"

"Out here", NiGonky says. "He's probably talking about water. He wasn't that peaceful."

"What do you mean?"

"Jesus was a political activist. An agitator. Not some peace loving hippie. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. Matthew ten thirty-four."

"Like, what did he do to agitate?"

"Like. Like is a filler word. Don't use like unless you're comparing things."

"Okay Mister Anal. Spot." NiGonky's face softens into a grin.

"He apparently gave his twelve disciples power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of illness. In so doing he pitted brother against brother, father against child and children against parents causing them to be put to death. He caused upheavel in houses, villages, cities."

"Why did I think him a purveyor of peace? All these eons of violence and misery might've been averted if women had been leaders and men subservient. Women did communicate better than men."

"I don't think so", inserts NiGonky. "Women liked to talk more than men. Antagonize. Set the men off. No subject was too sacred. They would leave their dates to check their faces. Imagine a microphone inside their sardonic sanctum, powered by a large PA system so the whole restaurant could hear."

Seems like you and Randy get on together. I know you just met. Have you had relations? [People throughout the restaurant look around, drowned out by the voices]

Yeah, once. [Randy starts to turn red and cups his hands over his nose]

And?

It was a little awkward. We were doing it missionary style on the floor in my bathroom. I don't know how we ended up there, we weren't drinking. Anyhow, I'm looking up at him while he's humping away. [Murmuring grows at each table] He's got his eyes shut tight and he's making a face like he's in pain, like this (demonstrates).

(giggles)

He finally looks down at me and sees me looking back at him perplexed. I ask, Are you okay? He says, Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Why? I say, You look like you're in pain.

What'd he do?

He stopped making the face. I think I popped his cherry. [POPPED HIS CHERRY, a man repeats loudly causing a few sporadic chuckles from nearby tables] I mean, I think it was his first time. What about you and Marvin? [Marvin, already red in the face, puts his forehead down on the table] He seems to like you.

Yeah, he's okay.

Just okay?

His idea of sex is to grab my tits and crotch. He's like an ape. I keep fending him off. Eventually, I give in. He gets all excited when the panties come off and spits on my cooter. [Randy starts laughing at Marvin. Both are glowing bright red like drunk Irishmen]

He what?

Yeah, I mean he hawks a fuckin loogie on it. Gets it all wet, then does the same to his wong. Then he pushes it in, slow at first, which starts to feel nice. I mean, just when I start to like it he turns into Mandingo and starts ramming it in there. [RAMMING IT IN THERE, the heckler yells. A woman next to him sprays Prosecco from her mouth extinguishing a candle] A minute later he gets ready to cum, pulls out, scoots up to my face and squirts his load.

You're kidding? Hee hee.

No. He watches way too much porn.

Did you say anything?

Yeah, I said, How'd you like it if I blew my nose on your face?

…moments later they'd return to the table talking about liposuction. The heckler repeats loudly, RAMMING IT IN THERE causing more outbursts of sporadic laughter like gun fire. The ladies are mortified.

"With women in positions of power alongside men, Western culture flirted with peace during the latter part of the twentieth century. It was the East and Middle East that found it most difficult to allow women to rise from subservience."

"I remember learning about Middle Eastern women and how they were required to cover as much epidermis as possible. Miss Fish said you could see only their hands and their dark eyes."

Provocative, thinks NiGonky. Visit the Middle East to unwrap an Arabian woman. Bait Miss Fish.

At the summit of Gash, Jesus, dressed in a tunic with cornrows swaying, proselytizes to an uninterested audience of eighteen goatherders. Thirty five eyes look about paying no attention to the speaker. One among them is a cyclops, a single eye set just right of center with a nose dropping down from the left and crossing into the center with a sweep. It's hard to pass him a joint because he has a problem with depth perception, but other than that the one eye doesn't seem to hinder him too much.

"Verily Ah say unto yo. Be benevolent wit' yo wealth, an' ye might has a fleetin' chance uh gittin yo' dumm ass inna Heaven."

Someone yawns. Another is studying something gummy on his fingertip that was pulled from a nostril. Jesus descends and approaches NiGonky and UuLitch. While he's not swift as an eagle, he is strong smelling as a lion. He's smaller than she expected. Still, UuLitch is mesmerized. She studies Jesus. A mix of fascination and awe comes over her as she looks at the pores on and around his nose, the dark eyes flittingly cleansed by the quick drop of an eyelid, the sardonic smirk of smart ass about his lips.

NiGonky speaks first, "I was watching you speak."

And the LORD says, "Yeah, Ah know. Ah saw thee. Fac' Ah saw yuh both."

They look around to see the eighteen herder audience retreating in different directions.

"Tough herd", says NiGonky.

"Ah'm used tuh it. Sometime Ah hold deir attention. Uttuh time it's like dis."

"They look like herders", observes UuLitch.

Now Jesus studies. Her voice has a velvet tonality pitched above a man's, while huskier than that of a child. It's a voice he can imagine listening to in the dark and in intimacy. Her oval face and large smiling eyes and her tall athletic form hidden inside a tunic would merit long hours of biological study, if he were of a different time. For now, he responds, "Go' [goat] herduhs."

UuLitch asks, "Do you care about holding their attention?"

"Naw."

"Well, okay then." She smiles.

NiGonky offers, "Well, if you did care about getting their attention. You're not going to win them over by appeals to reason."

"Yuh not tellin' me anything Ah don' already know", says the LORD.

NiGonky nods. UuLitch interjects, "Why don't you say something to rile them up? I know you don't come in peace. You came to pit fathers against sons. Mothers against daughters. You want to tear the system down to build it back up more equitably, right?"

Jesus nods. He looks on her as if she is an alien. How does she know who he is? Or, his purpose? Why is she so sarding hot? While white? He both hates and loves her at this moment. "Like what?" he asks.

NiGonky ejaculates, "Class warfare is a good strategy. Say something against the rich. Goat herders don't have many possessions. Why hold them accountable for their own bad choices in life? Blame the wealthy."

Jesus is slightly irritated both by NiGonky, whose interjection took him out of his lustful fantasy on UuLitch, and his recollection of berating his followers But Ah say untuh yo, Dat whosoevuh looketh on a woman tuh lust aftuh huh hath committed 'dultery with huh awready in his heart. An' if yo right eye offend yuh, pluck it out, an' cast it from yuh: fo' it is profitable dat one uh yo members should perish, an' not dat yuh whole body should be cast inna Hell. Ah need to ease up on duh wine. "How do Ah blame duh wealthy?"

"These people seem to respond to talk of eternity. Getting into Heaven, right?"

"Yeah. Dey simple folk."

"What chance does a wealthy man have for getting into Heaven?"

"None, if he don' he'p out his bruthuhs an' sistuhs."

UuLitch suggests, "Give them a metaphor. I know you're good with parables."

Jesus is curious to find out how she knows this about him. He could again venture off into fantasies of nocturnal play. But he resists due to a general growing irritation. Also, he is a revolutionary at a time before feminism corrupted young female minds with the idea to behave like drunken promiscuous males. All the while ignoring their power of sexual selection to make responsible choices on who would father their offspring and provide their species with better odds for survival. The female of the species was long known to be impetuous.

"Try to include a camel in your metaphor", suggests NiGonky.

Jesus thinks. A camel. The wealthy. Heaven. He blurts out, "Stingy bastuds stand no chance uh gettin inna Heaven. Nor do muthasardin' camels."

"I don't think that's gonna work", says UuLitch.

Jesus tries again. "Okay. Awright. A camel has a bettuh chance goin through duh eye of a cyclone, dan a rich man has uh gettn inna Heaven."

NiGonky sniffs. He offers, "How about needle?"

"It is easi-uh fo' a camel tuh go through duh eye of a needle, dan fo' a rich muthasarda tuh ennuh into duh kingdom of God. Awright. Ah'll try dat. Now, may Ah ask untuh thee, who you be?"

"I be NiGonky and this be my niece, sort of, UuLitch."

Jesus repeats, "Sorta UuLitch."

"UuLitch", she asserts closing her eyes briefly and nodding.

"Where you be fruh?"

"A long way from here."

"Den why you be here nah?"

NiGonky glances towards UuLitch, "She wanted to meet you."

Jesus draws a long nourishing breath in through his wide nostrils. NiGonky draws a pleasing breath through his still larger nostrils. UuLitch, through her petite nostrils, draws breath accompanied by a slight whistle indicating an obstruction that will require some probing.

NiGonky continues, "Let's say I get admitted past the gates into the Kingdom of God. That means I get eternal life with you, right?"

"Ah don' know if Ah like where thee is goin' wit dis."

"Your followers claim that the only way into Heaven is through you. Are you gonna be there, or what?"

"Nigga, Ah don't know dung about Heaven, nor gates therein, nor eternity. Niggas who follow me like to hang out and alter their minds and talk scriptchuh."

NiGonky continues, "You ever seen a unicorn?"

UuLitch squeezes her lips shut to repress a laugh. Jesus cracks a toothy smile, "Nah Ah ain' sayin' it's all believable."

"Would you slay a dragon for me?" asks UuLitch.

Cackles and a pair of rapid fire snorts break the wind.

Jesus speaks, "Obviously, thee believe not. Ye is infidels."

NiGonky continues, "Let me ask you about Sa-tan and burning in Hell for eternity."

Jesus pulls from his tunic a small pouch and begins to assemble a joint. "Ah'm listenin'." He rests the cigarette on a stone and commences striking pieces of flint together making sparks. The continuous barrage of small sparks finally catch and the joint begins to smolder. Jesus takes several short tokes. The joint glows alive.

"Is there a way I can get a tour? You know, in advance of making a commitment. Sinners are reputed to go to Hell. The righteous go to Heaven. If I'm going to be somewhere for eternity I wanna try to have a good time. Listening to a bunch of righteous blowhards for eternity doesn't seem like a good time to me. Also, as I understand it, dogs are not permitted inside the Kingdom of God. That's two stigmas against Heaven."

Jesus lets out a puff of sweet smelling marijuana and offers the joint to NiGonky. NiGonky takes a toke, then instructs UuLitch to squeeze her nostrils closed as she takes a toke.

"Time fo' a parable", offers the LORD. "..."

"Wait. Before that. You say you don't know anything about Heaven." Jesus affirms with a nod that NiGonky has not spoken falsely. "Permit me to quote from Jeremiah one twenty-one."

"O lawd", says Jesus.

Addressing UuLitch NiGonky recites, "Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Ooz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked."

UuLitch slides out of her tunic and lets it fall to the earth. Jesus momentarily stops breathing.

"Can you stand on one foot?" NiGonky asks.

She complies.

"Now, can you extend your leg out and grab your toes with your hand. Like this." He demonstrates.

At first, she falls over, laughing. She tries again and succeeds. Her long legs stretched wide part the lips of her vulva slightly. Her athletic physique set against the Hill of Gash, which rises behind her, is breathtaking.

"Would that qualify as heaven?" NiGonky asks.

"Hosanna!" exclaims Jesus.

"Okay UuLitch. You can put your tunic back on."

"I like being naked. It feels free."

"I like you being naked, too. But we don't want to attract the attention of the goatherders. Hygiene is not a priority in these parts." NiGonky helps UuLitch on with her tunic. It was easier to step out of. He turns to Jesus, "You were about to give us a parable?"

"Ah forgot." Jesus' mind fires off a round: dere is nuffin' covuh'd, dat shall not be reveal'.

"You're not used to seeing women naked are ye", asks NiGonky injecting a little bit of King James englisch.

"Whaja say yo name was?"

"NiGonky."

"Nee. Gonky." Jesus considers, "Whereja come up wit dat name?" Then, "Nevermin'. Ah don' wanna know." He resumes toking on the joint then passes it to UuLitch, with whom he is currently in love. "Ya heard o' anonymity?"

"Sure. Me and UuLitch are anonymous."

"Welll, anonymity is unknown tuh me. People been pesterin' me mah whole life. Everyone inside Syria know o' me. Everyone out side o' Syria know o' me."

"You do have a reputation as a healer", offers NiGonky. "I've been meaning to ask how you do that. How you heal people. Is it magic? Are you the devil?"

"Naw, nuttin like dat. Ah jess be usin' mah head. So many deez fooz tuh-day be stoopit. Dey kill uh bruthuh fo' uh go'. Dey ain't got no sent." He takes the joint back from UuLitch. "Dead Sea has uh lotta salt, good fo' cleanin woon an' skin ailment. Very therapeutic. No magic. Jess common sent." He pulls a toke then passes it. "Fools keep talkin dung bout duh worl' gawna end on account uh some pisst awf muthasarda in duh sky. If duh wind blow too hard dey run screamin Lawd Lawd Hep us Hep us We all gawna die. Den, when duh wind stop, dey bow an' thank duh sky an' slaughtuh a lamb. Dass why duh lambs take off when duh wind kicks up. Ah pity 'em. In fac' Ah pity ever'thang dat doesn't go on two legs, an' some dat do."

NiGonky asks, "Is it true that a deaf man with a speech impediment came to you. And you took him aside from the multitude, put your fingers in his ears, spit, and touched his tongue."

Jesus starts to laughing, "Tee hee".

NiGonky continues, "You touched his tongue, looked up towards Heaven, sighed, and said Eeph'pha-tha, which means be opened. And straight away he could hear and speak plainly?"

"Dat nigga was drunk."

Night has fallen with the strangely unnerving scent of burning wood on the gentle warm breeze. They begin walking. Their pace is easy.

"So, you don't actually heal people", asks UuLitch.

"Naw. Ah jess clean an dress dey woon, gim some word uh wizdum like, shet duh sard up an lessen sometime, O' um (pause), be good tuh yo' chirren cuz we don't need no mo' unlove' bastduds out dere, O', do a lil' dan, make uh a lil' luh, git trim tuh-night, O', yuh don't git sumpmm fo' nuttin. O', Ah might say, next tom yuh feel like kiln uh bruthuh, kill yo'self instead." He looks at NiGonky. " Unnuh-tan? Lodge-ih."

"Lodge-ih?"

"Yeah, lodge-ih", Jesus says adamantly.

"Oh, logic. So, then you condone suicide?" NiGonky asks.

"Nah ness selly. But Ah'd rather a fool take his own life den someone el."

"Yeah, that makes sense", agrees NiGonky. "Back to naked ladies. You didn't have an answer when I said you weren't used to seeing them."

And the LORD said, "You a horny toad ain't ja?" To which NiGonky nods in affirmation. The LORD continues, "Actually, bein' well known, in spite o' all duh lunatics an' folks who come to me tuh cast out dey devils. Dere are some advantages. Ah have lost count o' duh nummer o' women who come tuh me inside duh tent. Dey say, Yay'shua, have a look at dis. Den dey hike up deir tunics."

"Bless your heart", says NiGonky.

Jesus continues, "What happens in duh tent stays in duh tent."

Shit, thinks NiGonky with the slight tug of envy, I may have experienced my first human emotion. Curious. "You getting hungry?"

"I am", ejaculates UuLitch.

"Yeah, Ah gots deh munchies, too." Jesus offers, "Well, we ain't got no go' so you gots uh chaws. Ee-duh locusts an' wile honey (pause for effect) O' wile honey an' locusts, HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW. Yay'shua made uh funny. HAW HAW."

"Yay'shua is a lunatic", grins NiGonky.

"He sho' is", agrees Jesus about hisself.

The smell of burning tree is stronger now. On the dark horizon is the unmistakable glow of fire. The sun has long since traversed the sky and dropped below the end of the earth. For Earth is flat according to the science of the day.

Jesus rations out the dry, crunchy locusts, and small skin of wild honey he always keeps with him in case of emergency. Being thin as a result of his high metabolism has disadvantages. To be without nourishment to maintain his blood sugar levels would've killed Jesus long before he had a chance to be betrayed and crucified. Too, it would've made for a less compelling story. What kind of martyr would he have been if he'd died from malnutrition?

"The Reverend started something really wonderful with its expanding universe idea. The sky looks so amazing dotted with twinkly stars. And the air feels alive whispering in my ears and caressing my skin. Like the combined breath of all that is living. The trees, the plants, the animals, the insects. All the painful laughter. All the sorrowful joy of an evolving wheel of life."

"Well said my perceptive pomegranate."

UuLitch considers her new body and addresses Jesus, "Yay'shua, do you think I'm pretty?"

"Why o' caws. Purrty-uh dan uh punkin."

NiGonky inquires about the people who've been burning the trees, now clearly in view.

"Simple folk."

"Shrapnel", blurts out NiGonky.

Jesus momentarily pauses. He's dealt with so many sufferers of all forms of malady and mental illness, and doing drugs with his disciples, that the blurting out of a word, like speaking in tongues, is normal. Unperturbed he continues, "Effen uh tree put forth evil fruit, dey burn it."

"They burn the whole tree?"

"Das right. Lotta time dey don't even cut duh mofo down. Jess set it tuh fire right where it stan'. Smell bad, too. Smell it? Ain't nuffin livin' dat smell good when it burn."

"How do they know if the fruit's evil?"

"Why dey keep callin' me dey LAWD? How duh hell d'Ah know? Hep uh constipated nigga one time by tell'n 'im tuh lay off duh go' an' git sum ruffage innuh his diet, an' now Ah got every fool dis side uh Syria comin' tuh me wit dey ailment: in-grow toe nail, hair-piece, bline drunk, leppuhs, deaf, duh; Ah even got fools come tuh me tuh lance balls on dey butt-ox. Know what Ah say-nn, stoopit. Can a bruthuh git a Amen?"

"I know where one bruthuh can get a hymen."

"Oh, are you and Yay'shua rhymin'?"

"I wasn't trying."

'Trying's good, just keep the timing.'

"Yay'shua, isn't your blood wine?"

"En mah flesh is bread like mah behine."

The three surveyors pause to consider the tree burners and their options.

UuLitch comments on that delicious meal, "Yay'shua, those locusts sure were good!"

"Yeah dey wuz!"

"UuLitch, I've never heard you use sarcasm before", says NiGonky sarcastically.

"I'm not, Uncle! Why, you didn't like them", a little surprised by his statement.

"When you've experienced Earth as much as I have and tasted much of what it has to offer, honey may rank, but locusts?" He arches his monobrow. "No, the locusts remind me too much of when I used to go for a jog and inhale an insect. I took the Reverend's name in vain on such occasions."

Still talking they come to a stop alongside Jesus as if on autopilot, the Lord guiding them peripherally. A Christian might say, God is my co-pilot.

Jesus stands for a moment holding his bearded chin between forefinger and thumb pondering the tree burners. Thinking to himself, Is it worth it? On duh one han', ef Ah make mah presence known tuh dem, Ahm gonna be up all night healin'. An ef one mo', Ah mean jess one mo' fool shows me a wart on his pizzle, Ahm gunnuh kick his ass right out en front uh duh multitudes. Ah don't care what duh mofoze think. It's a damn dirty trick duh Almighty play awn me. Ah fix His ass too when Ah git up tuh heavmm.

Both NiGonky and UuLitch quietly watch Jesus consider his options. NiGonky's right hand rests on the curvature of UuLitch's left buttock.

Jesus, still thinking, On duh uttuh han', Ah could take deez folk that ride on white asses home. Git 'em fill up on sum go' or on sump-mm Pop keel en duh backyard.

Now NiGonky's standing directly behind UuLitch, groping her with both hands firmly gripping the corresponding buttocks. Once when he was a dog, long strings of drool hung down from his muzzle as he prepared to mount.

Nearly done thinking, Jesus again, Aw hell. Ah suppose Ah can do sum healin' den go see duh folks. He turns towards those with white asses. They see that the chocolate chip cookies are finished baking in the oven of Jesus' mind and are ready to come out. He says simply, "Le's go Brandon."

A little let down by this summation after the careful thinking on the part of the Savior that they've just stood witness to, NiGonky releases his niece's booty and turns to Jesus, 'That's it? All that pondering and all you come up with is Let's go? Who's Brandon?'

"A term of endearment. In case you hadn't notice', dair ain' uh whole helluva lot tuh do round he-uh, honky."

"That's NiGonky."

"Awright, NiGonky. Unnuh-tan, Ah could take yuh to uh bullock sacrifice, or uh cruse-fikshun, but dey only cruse-fy mofoze on Sat'day. An Ah din think UuLitch would wanna watch a bullock slaughtered."

"So what's your plan?"

"Ah figguh we go awn ovuh an Ah do sum healin' fuh dem tree burners, den aftuh dat rag mah ass out, cuz dey gonna work me lock uh dang dawg all goddam night, den we go see mah folks an git sum grub."

"And I bet your mother's name is Mary, your father's name is Joseph, and three wise men bearing gifts paid you a visit when you were born."

"Naw, it's Hoglah, an' Mo-Reese. Don't know nuffin 'bout no wise men, but mah unkooz ain' nevvuh leff. Bin freeloadin' off mah pa'ents mah whole life. Ain' none o' duh farm animal bin safe neethuh."

"You sure your mother's not the Virgin Mary?"

"Aw hay-ll no. Only thang virgin 'bout mah momma iz duh awl slickin' up huh greezy forehead. Shee-it. You could stick uh locus' on mah momma's forehead en haf tuh pry it awf. HAW HAW."

F  O  U  R 

Jesus And Tequila

"Hey look, eets Yay'shua. Kay poss-ah amigo? Yay'shua. Yay'shua. Yay'shua."

His name spreads rapidly among the tree burners. They surround Jesus, NiGonky, and UuLitch.

"Where you bean mah fren? We meese jew."

"Bin proseltyzin' tuh some disint'rested go' herduhs an' uh cyclops. Den deez folks showed up outta nowhere. Dey awright fuh folk wit' white asses." All eyes have already evaluated the interlopers and determined them not to present an immediate threat, all eyes including those belonging to the triceratops. One among them has a three-horned face due to inbreeding. Although they remain quite motionless, the light from the fire gives movement to their features, like a flag rippling on a windy day.

"Aholiab, dis he-uh be NiGonky. An dis is UuLitch."

"'ello Señor. !Estas muy bonita Señorita, y muy blanca! "

Jesus interprets, "Aholiab say you one fine lookin' white bitch."

"Thank you, Aholiab! You're pretty good lookin', too, for a ferret faced mofo." She smiles, then discharges gas from her anus in a pair of short bursts followed by a longer ripping sound.

UuLitch's inadvertent comeback sets Jesus and NiGonky to laughing, BAH HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW. But none of the tree burners take delight in her comment. All just stand there stone-faced looking at her as the firelight continues to lick their features. Jesus' and NiGonky's laughing quickly tapers off into the vacuum of mirthless night air along with the smoke rising from the burning trees.

"UuLitch jess messin' witchuh Aholiab. Did a nigga make a burnt offerin' wit one a ya bullocks?"

With a consoling chuckle not to be mistaken for a laugh, say Aholiab, "Eets pretty good. Ferret face. Ha ha, pretty good Yo-leelBeech." The tension slides off everyone, swimming pool hands off a greased watermelon.

Jesus and Aholiab have been compadres for years. They met when they were training as lawnsprinkler repairmen. They looked on in astonishment as their trainer, Steve, who drove the van and was supposed to be responsible for the expensive equipment, cut lines of coke on a mirror, occasionally stemming a nose bleed, while showing off a wallet picture of his hot girlfriend and making a persuasive argument as to why he was undeserving of such a hot girlfriend. "Jew o'erestimate joursel', my freen." Aholiab's smart ass comment both kindled an irreconcilable vibe with Steve, and a friendship with Jesus.

"Aholiab, deez folks wanted tuh know why ya set duh trees ablaze. Ah tole em, cuz duh fruit's evil."

"Sí, Señor."

Jesus can't summon up the exact biblical reference. He's not the kind of prophet who recites scripture, ordinarily. Still, he knows he read something about evil fruit. It was this, Jeremiah 24:2 One basket had very good figs, even like those that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so evil. "Well, how yuh know when fruit's evil?"

"Eet threatened me an' my family."

Eyebrows rise as Jesus and NiGonky consider Aholiab having a conversation with a threatening piece of fruit. UuLitch is distracted by the tree burners as they cavort and carry a melody.

"Threatened yuh? How does fruit threaten yuh?"

"Lass nigh' I held a piece of froo in my han' an' dee face of A woe-moon appear on dee froo. She say, eat me an' jew an jour family weel die. Trample me an' I weel poison jour land an' jour water an' keel all of jour livestock."

"Was yuh smokin'?"

"Of course." Aholiab pulls from the sack buckled to his tunic a spike of rye. "We smoke weed. We chew on thees rye. Nebo brought eet from hees house, for when we have hunger. Eet made me real eetchy."

"An' makes duh fruit talk. Yuh have any mo'? Ah could pra'ly use some when Ahm savin'."

"Thees ees all I have. But I weel ask Nebo."

They chat a bit longer reminiscing about the variety of part time jobs they've held over the years and the children of Israel they've encountered. They talk of meeting up at a crucifixion. Aholiab tells Jesus to say hola to Maurice and Hoglah. They slap each other five and part ways.

Inside a tent Jesus meditates as he prepares his mind to heal and to save the needy and those inhabited by evil spirits. A queue begins to form outside. The all night wait in line to see Jesus reminds NiGonky of his visit to the 1980s when he waited over night in line until 8 A.M., when the box office opened to sell Van Halen tickets. Hacky sack. Tie dyed tunics. Reefer madness. Some things had barely changed in nearly two thousand years.

NiGonky tells UuLitch about sleeping in line to get concert tickets, "What a scam that was. If you were early enough you would count the people in front of you, say fifteen. Wow! Sixteenth in line, that means I have a shot at getting seats near the front row. It wasn't until the next morning when you were facing the ticket agent, that you learned you'd be sitting the length of a football field from the stage. The show's promoter had reserved the first twenty rows for his guests. In the minutes that elapsed since the box office opened the next twenty-five rows were sold by dozens of ticket outlets around the city. I stayed up all night for an expensive shitty seat, but I thought, it's Van Halen. Lights go down. The long anticipated moment arrives. Eddie lets out a whammied guitar squeal. Crowd roars. Lights flash. Alex and Eddie lead the charge as Van Hagar proceeds to suck for the duration of the concert. Those who surrounded me seemed satisfied by Eddie's keyboard crap and Sammy singing some bullshit about what dreams are made of. I missed the whiskey guzzling antics and occasional missed notes of the balding David Lee Roth."

"Why didn't you go back to the 1970s when they were up and coming?"

"I had a couple of layovers in Atlanta and some time to kill. It's a good way to get know their species. If you accompany me again on another Earth visit, maybe we will check out Van Halen at the Whisky A Go Go circa 1977."

Jesus would prove underwhelming for one traveling back in time from the twenty-first century to meet him. Two thousand years of hype and Van Halen could've parted seas, healed by vibration, turned water to whiskey, been depicted in The Last Supper by DaVinci wearing spandex while tapping on a guitar fretboard with impressive two-handed dexterity.

Exaggeration went along with story telling and holding a listener's attention. Jerries painted pictures with words. Nature balanced exaggeration with the ability to call bolshevic. "Once indoctrinated, whether into the religion that exalted the Prophet Muhammad or into the hate-white-American-male ideology of the Nag, a Jerry's ability to call bolshevic became compromised. Often with contempt."

"You mean, they would scornfully reject any criticism of their beliefs?"

"To the point of death. Some grew so angry they were willing to lay waste to their entire planet."

"Oh my God."

F  I  V  E 

Master Blaster

Tree burners, herders, lunatics, soldiers, carpenters, clergymen, lawn care professionals and lunatics; all with varying ailments, lined up outside the tent awaiting their consultation with Jesus Christ. UuLitch stands outside the tent's opening and acts as nurse showing the patients in, then sitting Indian-style, legs pretzeled beneath her, at the back of the tent alongside NiGonky.

The first patient enters, girdled in the curious girdle of the ephod, and respectfully remains standing as moments pass. Despite his cornrows, Jesus could pass for the image on the Shroud of Turin, if one achieved an altered mindstate. The near and distant sounds of the growing queue outside are somewhat muted inside the tent. NiGonky and UuLitch look on with great interest at the infamous man about to use his renowned powers of healing. A man who, so far as they can determine, has been misquoted. Jive-less according to Christian doctrines. And may have some moral ambiguities.

Jesus opens his eyes and asks the patient to sit and pull his hood back, so he can see his face.

Meeting his eyes Jesus begins the consultation, "Whattaya want?"

"I'm effeminate. Those who piss against walls call me Elisha. Those who squat to piss call me Elijah."

Jesus asks, "What happen to yuh eye?"

"Claudianus smote me."

"Who is Claudianus an' why'd he smote?"

"He called out to me, Elisha, come here. When I ignored him he came over, grabbed me by the back of the neck and taunted me in front of the other soldiers."

"Who he iz?"

"He is Claudianus the Bull Pizzelite, one of the dominant Roman soldiers."

"Where Claudianus be?"

"He be.. he's in queue about seventy two sheep back, waiting to see the Lord."

Jesus asks, "How can he be identified?"

"Call out, Claudianus the Bull Pizzelite, and he'll respond. He's too proud not to."

"NiGonky, yuh mind seekin' out Claudianus fo' me an' ask him tuh come hither?"

While they wait for Claudianus, Jesus asks Elijah if those who piss against the wall also sit on the wall and eat their own dung and drink their own piss.

Elijah affirms it is so.

Jesus says to Elijah, "Verily Ah say untuh yo, avoid dem dat sit on duh wall eatin' deir own dung an' drinkin' deir own piss. Do Ah need tuh explain why? Ya feel me?!"

Elijah nods in affirmation.

NiGonky returns with Claudianus, who, upon entering the tent and seeing Jesus, shouts and falls on his face.

Jesus tells Claudianus to come to a seated position and asks of him, "Claudianus duh Bull Pizzelite, you eat dung?"

"No, Lord."

"Drink piss?"

"No, Lord."

"Do yuh believe in me as yo' one true path innuh duh nex' worl'?"

"I do, Lord."

Jesus reasons with Claudianus on why it's in his best interest with regard to his afterlife to ally with Elijah, and it will be his burden to see to it no further harm comes to Elijah, that Elijah reads and can be of use to Claudianus, who can't.

Jesus says unto Claudianus and Elijah, "Put yo' hands unnuh my thigh an' swear." They comply and swear.

Claudianus stands as UuLitch parts the tent flap for him, but Elijah stays behind.

Jesus says, "Wit' yo new strong ally niggas will leave yuh alone. So don' be a wise mowf. Else when dey see yuh alone dey'll beat yuh down. Unnuhtan?"

Elijah nods, but still doesn't leave.

Jesus looks at Elijah, who tells him he wants to be a man with great musculature and horselike issue. Can Jesus work his magic to end his in-between torment?

Jesus speaks, "Verily Ah say untuh yo, no."

Elijah insists, "But they say you make the blind see, you make the lame walk, you cure leprosy, make the dumb talk and make the dead live."

"Did dey say Ah walk upon watuh?"

"Yes."

"Turn watuh innuh wine?"

"Yep."

"An' you believe dat, an' no question enters innuh yo mind?"

Elijah says, "I'm starting to have doubt."

Jesus places his hand on Elijah's shoulder, "Ye o' little faith, Dis nation is fill' wit' twelve tribes o' lunatics. Dey crave guidance. Dey crave reassurance. Dey want somethin' tuh believe tuh ease deir misery an' give dem purpose. If dat means dey get carried away worshippin' me, Ah don' interfere an' deny dem deir glorified exaggerations; 'cept sometimes when it gets too crazy, which is all duh time nowadays."

"Lord, do you foresee a time when my kind won't be abused?"

"Yuh need tuh live tuhday. Survive tuhday. Dwell not on yo burdens. Dat time is better spent on learning tuh make or do somethin' uthuhs value. If yuh make yo'self useful tuh uthuhs, yuh can make yer life easier. While it won' eliminate yo' burdens, it will make dem mo' toler'ble an' easy-uh tuh bear. Get me?"

"I get you. And I thank you, Lord. And what you told Claudianus, I do love to read. Reading for me is solace and knowledge and escape."

"Since yuh like tuh read, Ah don' ordinarily quote duh scriptchuh. In fac' Ah cain't 'member duh las' time or if Ah have evuh quoted scriptchuh. Ah leave dat fo' duh imbeciles who like tuh annoy folk. But duh scriptchuh is not wit'out its usefulness. Fo' zample, Samuel twenty one twenty: Dere was a man o' great statchuh, dat had on ev'ry han' six finger, an' on ev'ry foot six toe, fou' an' twenty in numbuh... so, Jonathan duh son o' Shimeah duh brothuh o' David slew 'im. Ain' dat some dung?! Nigga slew 'im fo' havin' six finguhs."

"That's in the scripture", inquires Elijah.

Jesus carries on, "Ah'll leave yuh wit dis one tuh con'emplate: Genesis sixteen. Dis is one o' my personal fav'rites. Listen he'uh. An' Abram said, Word, whatchu gone give tuh me seein's Ah be childless an' dis freeloadin muthuh dat won' vacate my house. Dis Eliezer o' Damascus. Well, on account o' him bein' born in my house might as well be my heir. Duh LORD said, Dis shall not be yo' heir; but he dat shall come forth outta yo' OWN BOWELS shall be yo' heir. To which a visibly concerned Abram 'jaculated, HOLY SHIT."

"That's in the scripture?"

"Ah paraphrased, but yeah. Genesis sixteen. Go awn, look it up."

UuLitch opens the tent flap to release Elijah.

A loud cheer reverberates along the now mighty queue followed by murmuring.

UuLitch asks the LORD, "Did they ever get a confirmation on whether Abram delivered an offspring from his bowels?"

"Don' know. Scriptchuch doesn' clarify."

"Are you shittin' me?" NiGonky puts his hand on UuLitch's shoulder to suggest, no, he's being serious. From beyond the tent lepers can be heard crying out, "UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN", as they wear coverings upon their upper lips, which resemble mustaches made of goat's milk.

UuLitch announces the next patient, "Presenting Jogbehah, a Sittite from the city of Humtah." She helps in an old sick man with a cane, and helps him to sit before Jesus.

Jesus, who has seen many like him, knows he is near death. He begins, "How can Ah help ya?"

"Lord, I do not have much time left in this life." He pauses for breath, then continues, "I am most worried what will become of my wife when I am gone."

"Yuh mention no chi'rren. Yuh have any uttuh livin' relatives?"

And Jogbehah says, "I have a brother, but I do not trust that he can look out for my wife. He is lost to drink and does not care for himself. We have not spoken in a generation."

And Jesus says, "Dere is duh congregation o' duh Lawd God. Is you an' yo wife believuhs in duh kingdom of God?"

The Sittite closes his eyes, takes another wheezy breath, then, "I am afraid we are destined to burn in Hell for eternity. We do not have the faith."

Jesus answers, "Can yuh wife fake it?"

Jogbehah's eyes widen, "Fake it? Does not God know what is in the heart of a man? Will not the congregation know if my wife is deceitful?"

Jesus interrupts the discourse, briefly speaking in unknown tongues, "Chih Blammbuh KazippPuh KuhFlook… Ah will make fathuhs eat duh flesh o' deir sons, muthuhs eat duh flesh o' deir daughtuhs, chi'rren rise up again' pa'ents, neighbuhs again' neighbuhs, pa'ents will dash deir babies' heads again' rocks, Ah will divide houses, destroy towns an' villages layin' waste tuh all, so as tuh build it back up, den destroy it all again wit' great destruction. Yuh won' be accepted innuh God's kingdom if yuh don't take me as yo' savior. God accepts only duh righteous. Jogbehah from Humtah, ya have a dog?"

Jogbehah is momentarily aghast after the stream of violent Old Testament utterings from Jesus. Then he answers, "Yes, I have two dogs."

Jesus: "Dogs will be lef' outside duh gates o' duh kingdom o' God. Only duh righteous enjoy paradise within. Ya know any righteous believuhs o' duh faith?"

Jogbehah pauses a moment to digest in his mind what's been said, feeling more hopeless as this consultation proceeds, then responds, "Yes, I am aware of the righteous. I never could befriend a single one. My dogs always bark at them. My wife thinks they are lunatics." He coughs, "We are doomed."

Jesus asks, "If yuh don' have faith, do yuh believe in duh kingdom o' Heaven?"

And Jogbehah the Sittite says, "Well, If Heaven is filled with the righteous, and my dogs are not allowed in, that does not seem like any paradise to me. That sounds more like Hell." The Sittite draws a wheezy breath, "I do not know how long into eternity I would get before I would want to smite one of those righteous. And to smite is a sin in this world. I do not guess God would ignore smiting in Heaven. It does not seem to me that there is a Heaven."

And Jesus says, "If yuh don' believe in Heaven, den why do yuh believe in Hell?"

"Your flock is always going on about you. I do not have much time or many options left. I thought maybe what they said was true and you could restore my health and my youth. Now, I have no hope left."

Jesus asks him, "Whattaya think happen' when yuh die?"

"Your followers tell me, that after I give up the ghost, my spirit will come before God and be judged mostly on whether I have accepted him in my heart as the one true god. That loving my neighbors as myself is a close second. And not fooling with diverse weights on a scale is in there somewhere. And not working on Sundays. And not taking the Lord's name in vain. And…"

Jesus interrupts, "It's a lot tuh remember. So, yuh think God will hold yuh accountable? Hold yer feet tuh duh proverbial fire? Cast yuh out o' his kingdom tuh suffer eternal hell wit' yo' dogs? Far removed from duh righteous?"

A slight smile begins to soften Jogbehah's wrinkled and gaunt face. He draws a deep breath, without wheezing for the first time in many months. He says, "I do not know what to make of you, Lord. Can you tell me what happens after a man dies?"

Jesus answers, "Ah can tell yuh what yuh already observe' 'bout when a man die. We've all witnessed a lot o' death, be it people o' animals. Deir bodies go still. Deir eyes stop movin'. Dey can't hear. Dey don' respond tuh pain. Dey don' breathe. But gas is emitted from deir bowels an' aftuh a time dey begin to smell bad. If left out in a field duh fowls o' duh air an' duh beasts o' duh land eat o' deir remains. Aftuh death: nuffin."

"Nothing?" Jogbehah asks.

"Yuh evuh seen a spirit?" Jesus asks.

"No."

"Me, neither", says Jesus. "Ah believe once yo' body die you will not be aware o' anything. Death is not livin'. Yuh won' see wit'out eyes, feel pain wit'out a body, worry wit'out a brain. If dere were seventy two virgins waitin' tuh spread deir legs for yuh aftuh yuh die, how yuh gonna take pleasure wit'out a pizzle? Wit'out a brain how can yuh be self aware? Yuh won' know yuh dead. So, what happens when yuh die? Nuffin. Not a muthasardin thang. Far as Ah can tell."

"They say you are the Son of God. Yet, you have never seen your father?"

"Yuh know 'bout Moses?"

"I know about God's covenant and the commandments."

"Allegedly Moses has seen my immaterial fathuh. My biological fathuh is Mo-reese, an' Ah see him often. 'bout my spiritual fathuh, Moses claims he saw a burnin' bush. Othuhs say dey saw a cloud. Dey say God's invisible. Den dey say if man saw what God really look' like, his mind couldn't withstand it an' he'd go insane. Does a talkin' burnin' bush seem plausible tuh you?"

"If I were drunk on wine or high on something it might."

"Ya wanna get high?"

"No. Thanks. I do not want to waste a moment of what little time I have left being out of my mind."

"Is yo' wife wit' yuh?"

"She's outside the tent."

"Yuh mind if Ah talk wit' huh?"

Jogbehah asks, "Are we done here?"

Jesus says, "Almos'."

Jogbehah: "No, I don't mind if you talk to her."

"Before Ah call her in, Ah wanna know yo' thoughts on what we talked 'bout so far."

Jogbehah says unto Jesus, "I am tired. Whatever disease I have makes me weary and anxious. I doze off, but I don't sleep for long and I wake up sweating and full of fear, sometimes. Other times I welcome death and an end to my worries and terrible sorrow. What we have talked about makes me want to laugh, and then cry, and then laugh some more. If I no longer have to face the stiffnecked righteous, or the hackers who smote with the sword, or the lying lawyers, or the deceitful Senators, that suits me. If I could feel some assurance that my wife would be taken care of, I could pass easier."

Jesus asks, "What's yo wife's name?"

"Oxlah."

"Oxlah?! Sound like a well built an' sturdy woman. UuLitch, will yuh ask Oxlah tuh come in. And make sho' yuh part duh tent wide enough." He winks at Jogbehah, who cracks a half smile. Jogbehah momentarily thinks Jesus is an asshole.

The tent opens and in walks a petite old woman, about three cubits tall with her hunched over posture. If she could bring herself to a neck and shoulder cracking erect stance, she'd stand three and a half cubits. An average size for a woman of this time.

Oxlah holds her husband's hand as she slowly comes to a sitting position before Jesus. Jesus observes the creases in her face and her intelligent eyes, and their hand holding bond. He can tell, assuming they've been married a long time, that this is their most formidable challenge and the worst part of a long, presumably happy, marriage. Despite being only thirty years old, Jesus empathizes with the mortal struggle this aged couple faces.

Jesus begins, "Oxlah, yuh drink wine o' strong intoxicatin' drink?"

In a soft and youthful sounding voice Oxlah says, "I have an occasional cup of wine."

Jesus notices a perturbance in Jogbehah's left brow and notices his eyes shift down and to the right in front of Oxlah. "Occasional. How often?" asks the Lord.

"Once in a while", says Oxlah. "If someone offers me a cup I won't say no."

She pulls her hand away from her husband's. "Why? Did Jogbehah say something? You think I have a problem?"

Jesus pauses some moments to allow breathing to properly oxygenate their brains and then offers, "Duh scriptchuhs say dat wine an' strong drink can help a man fuhget his pain. You believe dat, Oxlah?"

"I have heard that." She sobs, "I don't want Jogbehah to die. I don't want to go on living without him."

Another round of breaths.

"Oxlah, untuh ye Ah say verily, dat duh scriptchuhs is right. An' duh scriptchuhs is wrong. It is correct, dat strong drink will help yuh fuhget. It will temporarily dull yo pain. It is wrong in dat wine will not end duh pain. It will not make yo troubles go away. Instead, it will create mo' prahlems for yuh, an' for dose who love yuh, an' it will make even duh smalles' prahlems seem insurmountable. Ah say dis in direct appeal to yuh. An' Ah ain' gonna repeat it. Ah got too many needy out dere waitin tuh see me. You think on what Ah said, Oxlah. An' while yer thinkin' 'bout yo self an' what yuh have to endure, you think 'bout Jogbehah an' what will make his death easier. An' you think 'bout who is going tuh take care o' yuh dogs if yuh drink yo'self innuh oblivion."

Oxlah starts to protest. Jesus raises his hand to silence her, and places his hand on Jogbehah's shoulder, "Ah wish yuh well, Jogbehah." Placing his other hand on Oxlah's shoulder, "Ah wish yuh both well." And to Jogbehah says the Lord, "Ah wish yuh peace in yo' passin'."

And a certain scribe came into the tent before being invited and said, "Master, I will follow you wherever you go."

And Jesus says unto to the scribe, "Scat!"

NiGonky borrows a scroll from out of the scribe's hand and begins reading: "It says here… Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm."

Jesus addresses the scribe, "Rebuke'? When?"

Replies the scribe, "The lunatics, those possessed with devils, those who smote with the edge of the sword, those who chain-smote, those who eat their own dung and drink their own piss,"

Jesus cuts in, "Make yo point soon, Ah don' presently possess duh patience fo' a biblical list."

The scribe finishes, "All of the brothers, they calm down in your presence. You have a calming effect, Master."

Jesus: "Call me mastuh ag'in an' Ah'll smote yo in ye evil eye."

"I don't have an evil eye, Mas..Lord."

"Dat'll be my alibi", asserts the Lord. "Now, what's dis 'bout rebuking duh wind?"

"I needed a way to describe your calming effect on your followers. I try to make it readable and memorable. You help your sheep navigate the stormy seas of life."

Jesus: "You didn't write dat crap 'bout me walkin' on watuh, didja?"

"Lord, no. But that's a good line, can I use it?"

Jesus: "If Ah had mo' time on my hand', Ah'd read yuh prose an' motivate yuh tuh reign in duh bullock dung. Nah come nigh untuh me." The scribe comes nigh unto Jesus, who gazes directly into his eye and then spits.

The scribe asks, "Lord, why'd you spit in my eye?"

"Ah cast out duh evil spirit. Nah saddle yo ass an' scat."

"I don't have an ass, Lord."

"Awright den, scat."

A Stevie Wonder refrain enters NiGonky's mind's ear, We're in the middle of the master blaster jammin. Jammin until the break of dawn.

S  I  X 

You Dropped A Bomb On Me

The next patients tonight are a curious couple. Weighing in at one hundred and thirty-five minae ('my-knee' = lbs.), a tall, skinny man with yellowed teeth resting on his overbitten lower lip, Wobb is nearly five cubits tall making his wife, Sheetl, appear short and stout by comparison at three and a half cubits and one hundred forty-six minae. Sheetl would be an attractive woman with her long black hair tinseled gray, high cheek bones, sculpted eyebrows, full lips under a petite straight nose, large pendulous breasts over a pot belly, proportionate hips, and so on, if not for the scowl which effectively negates all of the aforementioned. The bitter scowl officially began after she married Wobb. Sex is one of the few good points in this volatile pairing.

A typical afternoon with Wobb and Sheetl begins with Sheetl spending hours brushing her hair and applying ointments, lotions, oils, and color to her face reflected in a looking glass, as she theorizes to Wobb about how obsolete his gender has become since women's liberation, that men are needed only for reproductive purposes, and even in that role, could be eliminated altogether if they'd just squirt into a cup. Wobb happily smokes hit after hit from his bong, deftly picking out stems and seeds from his marijuana and replacing the charred ash that is successfully altering his perceptions in its rapid path through the capillaries that line his mouth, trachea, and lungs, to his bloodstream: last stop nerve central, the brain. And in his altered state, concedes her point. But as the charming afternoon wears on, Wobb smokes through his stash and gradually becomes more sensitized to Sheetl's banter. When she tells him that his member is rather small in proportion to his height, he wishes, as on many previous occasions, that she would spontaneously turn into a man, so that he could ball up his hand and drive his knuckles into her head. Instead, he resorts to calling her a fat old whore and tells her that her poetry sucks, at which point the bowls and cups of ointments that she's been adorning herself with, become projectiles with surprisingly good target accuracy, as they impact in succession his shoulders, neck, and head. This afternoon merges with many others, to affix a permanent bitter scowl to an otherwise attractive woman's face, and to cause a large adult male to pout like a five-year-old at social gatherings. Let's return now to the tent and see what the Savior has in store.

UuLitch holds open the flap as first Sheetl, then the ducking height of Wobb, pass into the dark inner sanctum. Quietly and respectfully everyone is seated. As all eyes reverently watch the great man, he pulls out from beside him, it's quite dark and therefore difficult to see, a beautifully rolled joint. A brotherly smile stretches across Wobb's face, as Jesus lights up using the candle, and extracts a toke. The sweet and distinctive herb tantalizes the four nostrils of NiGonky and Wobb, interests the pair belonging to UuLitch, and sufficiently provokes the flaring pair used by Sheetl inspiring this outburst, "No way. No way. This is dung from camel, Wobb. You set me up. I'm not listening to another goddamned pothead".

"But honey, you promised you'd at least give him a chance."

"Fuck you, Wobb." She effortfully rises to her feet.

"Yay'shua, isn't there anything you can do?" Wobb pleads.

Jesus, unperturbed by the outburst, extracts a sweet toke from the burning doobie. Hold. Then exhales a cloud through which he responds to Wobb's inquiry with a succinct, "Nope." Followed then in a commanding voice by, "NEXT". UuLitch rises to her feet to let the ailing couple out.

"Then there's no hope for us, Sheetl!" implores Wobb. "He was our last resort."

With great difficulty and through tightly pursed lips Sheetl concedes, "All right, he's got five minutes, then I'm outta here." She resumes a squat next to her lanky husband, but stares toward the back of the tent in a rebellious attempt to avoid eye contact with the famous dopesmoker.

Jesus speaks, "Ain't no meer-kull gonna hap-mm tuh-night unless both parties involve wahn it to, unnuh-tan? Nah en case yuh ain't notice, dair-zz uh lott-uh peep-uh out dair wait-nn tuh see duh Lawd. So Ah don't have uh lott-uh tom fo' bull dung, hog dung, go' dung, o' dung frum camel. Nah eff yuh want Yay'shua tuh hep ya, ya gonnuh haft-uh do what Ah tell ya, unnuh-tan?" Sheetl reluctantly nods as Wobb affirms with alacrity.

"Good," continues Jesus, "Nah strip!" Silence fills the tent as all eyebrows rise uniformly in astonishment. NiGonky's mind reads, You sly Dog, coupled with an urge to see Sheetl's big bazookas.

Beginning to regret having turned to Jesus, first Wobb drops his diaper to the dirt, followed by the tunic of Sheetl. UuLitch's thoughts include, I could've done without seeing Wobb's naked tooshie, coupled with, pay close attention: I'm about to learn something significant about Christianity.

"You uh UGLY," mocks Jesus, "Ahm leavin'". This outburst causes the insecure couple to recoil and bend to reach for their garments. Jesus recants, "Kood-nn hep mah-sell, had tuh say it. Yay'shua jess messin' wit yo mines. Awright, nah here's what Ah want ya tuh do. Wobb, you lay dow'."

No longer sure that he wants to endure this healing process, Wobb slowly collapses his long skeletal limbs like a wooden puppet without string tension. Lying flat on his back he spans the width of the tent.

"Nah Sheetl, Ah want ya to squat ovuh Wobb wit yo feet straddlin' each uh his ear." Sheetl complies, affording Wobb a splendid view of his favorite orifice, the opening in Sheetl that Wobb has taken great pleasure in exploring, prodding, poking, lapping, and depositing his hot sticky milk. The pleasure pocket that controls Wobb, access denied when he irritates his wife, yet open for business when she has an ulterior motive that he will pay dearly for some time in his miserable future.

Jesus continues, "Good. Nah Ah want ya tuh think 'bout ever-thang Wobb done tuh piss you awf, an' when you ready, release duh contents uh yo' bowel an' bladduh." Wobb's concerned eyes turn toward the Speaker. Once again, everybody's eyes turn toward Jesus, except Sheetl's. She seems to have resolved whatever prejudices she had toward the Lord and is trying her best to comply. She concentrates, summoning up the image of her over-bitten husband justifying his expenditure of half their household rent on gambling with the fellas by saying, "I don't see why I can't have some fun when you spend so much money on your ointments and facial creams," always failing to acknowledge that she gets up before the sun rolling and kneading dough for the village's daily bread in a suffocating kitchen, while tolerating the fat baker's fingers pinching her ample bottom. Out comes a hot stream of urine covering Wobb's face and hair. His eyes are squeezed tight as he's reminded of the other function of this most coveted opening. Sheetl sphincters her stream to a stop, then waits patiently like a hunter stalking a deer, until her sweetie squints, blinks, then slowly opens his eyes, to release another hot stream of pungent piss. The excitement of pissing on Wobb's face has stimulated her bowels. A few pellet-sized turds drop and stick to his cheeks followed by a turd the size of a pine cone, which plops on his lip. The outpouring has softened the features of bitter Sheetl like that proverbial ray of golden sun poking a hole in an interminable gray cloud blanket. She rises to her feet, and for the first time since entering the tent, appears somewhat satisfied.

As Wobb rises to his towering height pulling the last sticky turd from his lips in disgust, the following words from Jesus cause Sheetl to break into shrieks of horrific laughter as she bolts for the flap (if this were a scene in a movie, the slow-motion function would be greatly appreciated by the straight men in the audience to behold gravity's effect on her big, bouncing assets). "Nah it Wobb's turn."

As if joined by a mental rope, NiGonky, UuLitch, and Wobb, arrest Sheetl's departure, and fight her kicking and screaming to the dirt, determined to see this consultation reach its appropriate conclusion. Wobb stands over her with long, skinny feet and toenails inlayed with a dark buildup of dirt next to her ears as Jesus restrains her legs, NiGonky and UuLitch at her arms. Sheetl attempts to bite Wobb's ankles but fails as Wobb adjusts with a wider stance. He aims his flaccid organ, over a meter above her head, and a powerful jet of hot urine dowses her face causing an end to the geyser of obscenities now in progress. When his stream tapers off, Sheetl spits but keeps her eyes tightly closed. Unknowingly, Sheetl's next barrage of obscenities encourage elimination from her husband better than a hard night's drinking, which unfortunately for her, he indulged in just last night. Vile diarrhea blows from his anus like hot, dirty dish water. His height makes for a more complete dowsing, causing her hair to glisten and steam not unattractively in the candle's intimate light. Quiet whimpers of defeat now emanate from her abusive mouth as she continues to lie in the raw sewage puddle and spit remnants of Wobb shit-ka-bob that caught her on the teeth. The others, disgusted, help her to her feet as she latches to her husband's concave chest continuing to sob.

"I don't know how to thank you, Yay'shua, it's the first time in months that anything's left her mouth besides curse words. IT'S A MIRACLE! IT'S A MIRACLE!"

"Wobb, yo', Wobb. Nah dair iz sump-mm ya can do fo' Yay'shua," implores the Lord.

"Anything Lord."

"When ya leave dis tent, Ah want ya tuh keep dis to yo'-sell."

"Of course, Lord."

UuLitch parts the opening for the saved couple's exodus. Peace on Earth arrives. Not a sound can be heard, not even a mouse. Jesus clasps his hands behind his head. Closes his eyes and draws in a few breaths. In through the nose, hold, then out through the mouth. Tactical breathing. NiGonky's impressed with the silence. Then, like a minaret blaring at the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, "IT'S A MIRACLE! IT'S A MIRACLE! THE LORD HAS SAVED US!" Wobb's yells encourage a roar from the masses, as if Michael Jordan sunk a three-pointer to win The Superbowl.

Jesus lifts the back of the tent and disappears into the darkness. NiGonky and UuLitch look at each other, then chase after him.

"Where you goin' Yay'shua?" asks NiGonky.

"Tha's enuff bullock dung fo' one nigh'!"

UuLitch adds, "But you only saved a few of your sheep! What about the lepers and the herders, and all those with an issue? Won't they be disappointed or angry?"

"Not tuh-night. It nevuh ennz. Ah get no ress. Dey wear-nn uh nigga ow. Ahm goin' home. Ahm ti'ed uh deez overgrowed infinnz want Yay'shua tuh wipe dey ass. It's lock uh bad joke." Jesus again looks skyward into the starry heavens and mumbles something under his breath to GodAllahBuddhaZeus.

"But Yay'shua," implores UuLitch, "what about your legacy?"

"T'uh hail's uh legacy?"

"The way future generations admire you for your sacrifice to save humankind. Your tireless energy to heal the suffering. Your goodness."

"Seer-yus? Peepuh akchully buh-leev dat dung? Mah goodness? Mah tie-less enuh-G? What sacrifice?"

"You think", NiGonky interrupts, "you can help out a few more patients, for their sake?"

"God's bones, can we go den an' see Hoglah? Dang, Ah hope Mo-Reese keel sump-mm goo'. Ah'm so hone-gry Ah kud eat pussy."

UuLitch volunteers, "You can eat my pussy."

NiGonky swallows, feels his member stir as he considers Is that where that expression comes from? That make no sent.

"That don't make no sent no how", says the Lord.

"No, it doesn't", verbalizes NiGonky. Then, "Hey, how'd you know what I was thinking?"

Without responding Jesus lifts the back of the tent and slips back inside. NiGonky follows him in, as UuLitch goes around front to show the next patient in.

S  E  V  E  N 

Start Me Up

A young man of fair complexion and medium build kneels in the puddle before Jesus, takes a whiff and exclaims, "Phew!" A decidedly normal reaction. Nothing outwardly appears to be wrong with him. His limbs are intact. No symptoms of any hacking ailment. Could he be like Sheetl and Wobb and have some kind of mental deficiency causing him to act retarded in social situations?

"Wha's up?"

At Jesus' prompting the young man pulls aside his tunic and shows him a pea size white-headed boil, which rests on his shriveled pizzle looking angry and ready to be lanced. But not as angry as the recognition on Jesus' face as he looks at it, then at the young man's face. The Light of the World surprises the youth with a right cross that sends him reeling backwards and extinguishes the candle. With each successive blow the young man can be heard pleading, "Stop!" PAP! "Cut it out!" CRACK! "I'm sor-" WHAP! "Forgive me!" Somehow, he manages to escape and books past the multitudes.

Thinking quickly, NiGonky yells after him, "IT'S A MIRACLE! IT'S A MIRACLE!" Which encourages another roaring cheer from the masses.

Back in the lightless tent it is decided that it would be better if Jesus didn't beat up the people waiting to be saved. After a few minutes of brisk walking in the cool night air, Jesus' emotions calm, an exorcism of sorts. Amazing how the exertion of one's body: walking, jumping, fleeing, humping; can soothe one's mind.

Jesus' outburst was contrary to his much hyped love-thy-neighbor Christian legacy, which leads NiGonky to ask him what happened back there.

"Steel don't know wut duh hail yuh talkin' bow wit dat legacy dung. Don't know when Ah evuh gave duh impression dat Yay'shua take dung. Anyhow, Ah don' think Ah did much damage to 'im. Maybe dere is some good tuh be had from all dis. Maybe dere iz a great-uh lesson tuh be learn." Jesus pauses to consider this potential lesson. "Take fo' uh-zample pizzle-man. Ah could uh let 'im go, tole 'im how tuh deal wit it hisself, o' gawn ahead an lance it fo' 'im. But den he go tell all hiz frenz, Know what hap-mm? An' dey'd say, Naw, wut? Den he'd say, Ah went to duh Lawd cuz Ah had uh ball awn mah dih an' yuh know wut he did? Den dey'd say, Naw, wut did he did? Den he'd say, He lanst it. Naw, dat's boo-shih, dey say, You lyin'. Den he'd say, Naw. Look. Ah show you. Den dey all see duh crater in hiz dih an start tuh laughin' dair A-S awf at Yay'shua 'til pretty soon all hiz dum frenz start comin' tuh me wit all kine uh foo' prah-lemms. An' duh only, Ah mean duh only way tuh stop duh influx of pess iz tuh beat duh crap out uh um. Ah seer-yes. Yuh got tuh clench yo' fiss an pown 'em in duh head til yuh make yo' point. Uttuh-why, dey return lock uh roach."

They return to the tent. It's fixing to be a long night. Jesus gets settled. Draws several deep and meditative breaths to prepare his mind. A murmuring can be heard among the multitudes, which grows with increasing loudness. Stepping outside the tent once again he sees a few men coming towards him bearing five loaves of bread and two fishes, the source of the murmuring for the famished masses. The men stop before the LORD and announce unto him, "We have here but five loaves, and two fishes." Jesus says, "Bring them hither to me." And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to Heaven...suddenly a sheep yells, "Jesus Christ, what the hell are we going to do with five loaves and two fishes?" The murmuring grows louder. Jesus pictures himself breaking into an exceedingly glorious sprint and tiring out the imbeciles who eternally stalk and harass him, but decides, rightly, that he isn't prepared to be crucified.

Inside the tent Jesus asks NiGonky to seek Nebo and Aholiab. He rolls a doobie and gets high with UuLitch while they wait. In a few minutes Nebo and Aholiab enter followed by NiGonky. Nebo exclaims, "Phew!" as he falls on his face before the LORD. Jesus asks him to rise. "You are Nebo son of Dodo?"

"Si, Señor."

"Are you able tuh get mo' o' dat rye you an' Aholiab wuz chewin' on?"

"Of course, LORD. My family has many acres of rye. How much do you need?"

"Can ya bring me ten bushels?"

"I can breeng you more eef you want."

"Ten bushels should be enough. Can ya git it for me nah?"

Looking at Aholiab and then back at Jesus. "I theenk so." He and Aholiab light out on their asses.

Jesus returns to healing. A half dozen consultations later the men return with the bushels of rye and the help of the tree burners. Jesus advises them to dispense a stalk of rye with a morsel of bread and a fleck of fish. Together they dispense over a few hours, so that having eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children. Jesus ate nothing. Instead, he rolled another joint and inhaled and dreamed of his day of reckoning and kicking his heavenly Father's aswad.

Amidst the murmuring of the multitudes a clear voice wrings out, "Behold a flying roll." Another voice is heard, "What seest thou?" "I see a flying roll; the length theereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits." "We're saved!" Their heads filled with the yeasty gluten smells of a glorious bakery. "I am in the belly of the whale with Jonah". "I am as well!" "Me, too." They visualize being vomited onto shore, laughing with glee. All were joyous and satisfied in their wonderful visions.

"Time tuh go!" Jesus says to UuLitch and NiGonky. And they depart from the multitudes. The stroll to Hoglah's will require a half-day by foot from their current global position. The legs of UuLitch have proposed stopping, seconded by her eyelids, unanimous by all other weary parts. What started last night as a couple of mind altering vapors in a lunar café, has mushroomed into an around the clock organic adventure with the Messiah: making his acquaintance, getting naked, eating locusts and wild honey, meeting tree burners, and witnessing the man save, as promoted on Baptist billboards throughout the US an' A. A long day indeed for an entity that's never navigated in human form.

"Uncle NiGonky, Yay'shua, please can we stop?"

No debate is had. They decide to sleep by a short tree and upon waking, set out for Jesus' house. This feeling of great fatigue is as bizarre to UuLitch as getting high, drawing air into her lungs, chewing like a cow food for the nourishment of this, her strange and weighty physical housing. Even the excitement of the tiny organs of her ears by the complex breathy pitch changes exhaled by her talkative uncle and Jesus, can tire a body out. She decides the human body requires far too much energy to negotiate in. She greatly prefers her ability to will herself vast distances. She feels suddenly unsociable and oddly pessimistic, unusual feelings for an ordinarily upbeat Thoughtform. With these unsettled feelings, our desirable blond and fair-skinned Euro vixen shuts down for rejuvenation.

E  I  G  H  T 

Where Life Begins

She has her first organic dream. She is riding a scapegoat. She is naked. She is clenching the woolly hide with her hands while gripping the animal tightly between her legs as it undulates, up and down, up and down, side to side. She feels as if she must urinate, yet waves of heightened stimulation allow her to control her bladder. She grinds her pelvis into the pleasurable pressure. She thinks, Flex your thighs, Push and Grind, Flex, Grind, Squirm, Mmmm. She wakes up. Between her legs is NiGonky from the nose up, his mouth hidden below her blond pubic horizon. The warm wooshie feeling that he applies to that recently discovered nerve center is delicious. A squirmy pleasure that forces her muscles to contract, to push herself onto his mouth.

Delicious would also describe NiGonky's thoughts. The most enticing orifice to a man, spread like an exotic crimson fruit before him, added to an oral fixation, equals a rollickingly wonderful way to wake up. It also helps that his niece is uninhibited by any human moral codes. Had they decided to come to Earth during the twenty-first century, NiGonky would be in jail, or at least having to retain a lawyer against charges of sexual harassment, incest, bestiality, indecent exposure, corrupting an extra-terrestrial, and baiting the 2-legged land mammals.

Jail would present only a minor inconvenience for an entity capable of reversing time to pull out of the Universe at its point of entry. Or, he could jump into bajavida (short life), an accelerated state of being brought on by willing one's metabolism to increase. Jumping into bajavida, his body would metabolize so rapidly, that he'd be rendered invisible to the eye of the Jerry. To a being in bajavida, a person would appear to be motionless, like a mannequin, stuck in whatever position they'd assumed when the being first kicked on its biological afterburners. However, if NiGonky remained in bajavida, the physical body would mature and die within weeks, the skin would peel off in great sheets, hair and beard would grow long and turn white like Charles Darwin's. Escape would prove easy and undetectable in bajavida, but it had to be used sparingly.

Men in Jesus' time took their pleasure with womankind with or without their consent. Screwing other species, though prohibited and carrying a punishment of death by stoning, was ten a penny.

Men in 1999 wanted a self-respecting lady in public. One who bathed regularly, but turned into a horny slut in bed. Few wanted Madonna who'd for the Chicago Bulls spread. The scene in Jaws when Richard Dreyfus cuts open a shark, pulls out a license plate and a rubber boot, but finds no human remains. A reconnaissance team inside Madonna's cooter finds Rahm Emanuel's head covered in mucus, "I was head-raped." Madonna, defensive, ejaculates, "I did not have relations with the mayor's head. End of story." Also recovered: a size-15 Air Jordan, a metal hoop with the net attached, and an order of fries, the biodegradable carton turned to cottage cheese flecked with bits of red and the golden arch logo. The fries remain unchanged, like those found between a car seat years later. Happiness Is A Tight Pussy reads a shot glass at Emanuel's Tavern.

Often pondered was the question of how one detonated a female orgasm that she would brag about to her friends. A theory put forth by the late, widely respected twentieth century philosopher Sam Kinison: lick the alphabet. How many licks will it take to make UuLitch pop?

Bathed in brilliant morning sun, while The Savior looks on wolfishly with a string of saliva growing from his bottom lip, while insects and birds chirp, click, and buzz with a new day's business. Thinks NiGonky, Why not? He methodically traces out each letter with the tip of his tongue, taking in Uulitch's heady, fertile scent. Her vulva tastes of peppermint. A, up down over. B, up around around. C, backtrack and around. D, up around. E, up over over over. F, up over over. Down around R, our Chiquitita de Limón has thigh tremors. S, left around right around, brings forth a deep moan. She likes S. T, up and swipe, more thigh tremors. U for UuLitch. V for vasectomy. W for, in one climactic moan she launches her Wuhan into his moustachioed face. Rising to a kneeling position NiGonky clutches his nose. Through watery eyes he sees Jesus staring at him. "What?" he says testily.

Jesus continues to stare, at NiGonky, at UuLitch, then back again. The event has burned a permanent image in his impressionable mind's eye. It never occurred to him to put his mouth on that part of a woman before. He begins to nod his head in approval, beams a huge smile, applauds, and says, "Awright! Awright!"

The next act also fascinates Jesus as NiGonky's probiscus finds its way, as if guided by some unseen force, to UuLitch's lips. Thump. She looks dumbfounded, utterly clueless as to what she's supposed to do. After a moment of standing there, and she looking up at him with eyes that say, Now what? He declares, "A return to the twentieth century is in order, my dear. We'll go to New York and you'll see your first porno. Will you join us Yay'shua?"

"Ah don't know whatchu jess said, but eff it involve whatchu jess did, yeah, Ah jawn yuh!"

NiGonky plucks some grass blades adhering to UuLitch's wet Wuhan. He is infatuated with God.'s housing assignment for his niece in this universe. As a Thoughtform, women, drugs, nor food have meaning. It's like watching golf on television. Pleasure is neither given nor received. Thoughtforms displace not a molecule. However, once inside this hormonal, gamey smelling housing, he is again subject to all the ebbs and flows of metabolic requirements, needs and desires that the lusty humid Earth environ dictates. To yield to the call of nature or to deny it? The most successful Jerries were those who could deny their earthly desires, focusing the full force of their minds on accomplishing goals. But NiGonky is no Jerry. He answers nature's call.

Sue's-a-double-dog is GodAllahBuddhaZeus backwards. Doggie style, sixty-nine, missionary, bump and grind, pearl necklace, roto rooter, bang a gong, lick a cooter. Anticipation of fornication with a twentieth century fox make ya feel swell in yer nether ree-jans. She is his sex doll. Mid-life fantasy. He is her tour guide. Thoughtform disguised. He helps her to her feet. Feet they pretty be. Imagines the slogan GodAllahBuddhaZeus presents The Universe Theme Park: Slip Into Your Physical Housing Assignment, Set Your Kangaroo Free.

N  I  N  E 

Mommy Why Does Everybody Have A Bomb

December 31, 1999. New Year's Eve. NYC. The religious propaganda about the second coming of Christ is carefully monitored by the FBI. Talk of Armageddon and Y2K chaos due to anticipated computer failure has disrupted air molecules for the past year. Religious crusaders are amped up like crack heads campaigning Jesus, unbeknownst to the man himself, claiming he will do a fly by, gather up his believers, while leaving the infidels behind to contend with Sa-tan in eternal hell. Some call it the Rapture, a victory for the faithful. Everyone else thinks they're ass souls.

Jesus stands in Times Square in a dark blue vested pinstripe suit with a white tie underneath an orange vinyl trench coat. He stands in thunderbolt platform shoes made in Italy. Capping his dome is a bulbous blond afro. Jesus neither chose his clothes, nor his hair style. The Universe adapts time travelers to whatever era they stop in, augmenting certain personality traits like a caricature of oneself. Thus, the tunics worn by UuLitch and NiGonky upon entering Jesus' time.

UuLitch is in a white evening gown similiar to what she wore at the Atomic Café, only not made of ultra light space age material. The Universe has her in combat boots, sky blue synthetic fur coat cut above her hips, and bi-plane headgear made of leather complete with goggles. There may exist some sisterly kinship with Amelia Earhart. Her hair hidden inside the cap is still blond, though cut close to her head now.

NiGonky's in a Saturday Night Fever suit with two-tone heeled shoes. A green Mohawk and white rectangular glow-in-the-dark glasses adorn his head.

Our funky psychedelipunk threesome standing on any other corner in any other city would be eye magnets. In New York they're merely sidewalk obstacles to navigate around. Minds of the passerby:

• Hot blond, I'd do her.
• Fuck'n toilet backs up every time I take a dump.
• Am I depressed?
• Eternity, what exactly does that mean? They're saying an invisible entity is going to have me tormented for eternity.
• "Christ you know it ain't easy You know how hard it can be The way things are going They're gonna crucify me".
• Why does fresh ground coffee always smell better than it tastes?
• They gave up their twelve year old lab for adoption in order to get a puppy. I hate them.
• Jesus Christ Superstar M.A.S.H. is a sitcom with Jamie Farr.

The Lord is astounded by the mass of humanity on display before him near Times Square. The diversity of people. The complexity of clothing they wear. The sheer, gleaming, perfectly vertical and symmetrical cliffs illuminated from inside, that tower above and form an immense canyon along 42^nd Street. The strange bleeping beeping noises that seem to ricochet in all directions. The low grade rush of sound from all that energy being consumed and emitted. The stranger smells. The giants with heads forty feet high that talk from a video screen above the street, their voices sounding omnipresent. They must be gods. A giant named Dick Clark comments on the fireworks display at the Eiffel Tower as the midnight hour strikes Paris. Jesus thinks Dick Clark is probably the god who's been sending him stoopit people to save, but doesn't yet know how he's going to kick his forty-foot ass. Six hours to go here in New York and most of the world has already celebrated the arrival of two thousand. He nearly trips as he takes a step forward, which draws his attention to his platform footwear. He then inspects his bright orange leather trench coat and blue pinstripe suit. He looks around for UuLitch and NiGonky, but sees only strange faces. UuLitch extends a hand to his shoulder and says, "I'm here, Yay'shua."

He looks to his right and is startled by her appearance. He yells above the sound, "WHAPPEN TO YO HAY-UD?"

She yells back, "IT'S JUST A HAT." Removes it, "SEE?"

"WHY YUH GOT DAT AW?"

"I DIDN'T PUT IT ON."

"WELL, WHO DIH?"

Into Jesus' other ear, "THE SAME FORCE THAT DRESSED US ALL." Jesus looks around to see the familiar yet bizarre looking NiGonky, with his green Mohawk like a rooster's head, and his rectangular glow-in-the-dark glasses. He keeps looking up at the Mohawk. NiGonky reaches up and feels his rigid hair, "All right!" he smiles in affirmation.

"AH DON'T UNNUH-TAN."

Looking past Jesus toward UuLitch, at her half moon eyes and rosy pink cheeks above a dazzling smile, "YOU LOOK SURPRISINGLY BEAUTIFUL, MY DEAR!"

"THANKS," she's puzzled by this insult coupled with the acknowledgment of physical attraction, "I GUESS!"

They dodge in and out of the sardine packed New Year's Eve partiers, following NiGonky who seems to know where he's going. NiGonky yells out the rules of the universe as they push through the noisy throng. That the LORD doesn't understand what he's being told is irrelevant, because he doesn't understand what he's seeing either. After all, he really was born two thousand years ago at a time when they used leeches to bleed the demons out when a person fell ill, the deployment of a fist if someone acted retarded or “cut duh fool”, sacrifices to appease God to have mercy on them and not blow them away with hurricane or drown them with flood or starve them with famine. In some respects that same mentality never changed. Lynrd Skynrd sang it in their 1970s anthem “Free Bird”. The multitudes have for two thousand years complied. Lord help them, they can't change, unless they can draw some advantage from it.

Understanding that every action causes a reaction, every molecule that's displaced in turn displaces the molecules around it, like waves pulsing out from the impact point of a pebble in a pond, when a lioness catches a gazelle her cubs eat, if the gazelle escapes then her cubs starve, if liberals can relate to a dope smoker, a politician might say, I used to smoke pot, and if conservatives say they'd never vote for a dope smoker, But I didn't inhale, leading to the conclusion that if the President can lie to get into office then… Jesus has no idea what NiGonky's talking about, but if he doesn't get some nourishment soon he's gonna pass out.

They follow NiGonky into a shop. On display are aisles of X-rated video tapes together with sex apparutuses. Toward the rear, doors open into booths in which metal windows remain closed until coins are deposited into a slot.

T  E  N 

She Watch Channel Zero?!

Picking lice, fleas, ticks, and other critters from Luther's hair Hoglah scolds, "What'd I tell you 'bout messing with the goat?" SLAP! She nails him upside the head.

"AGH!" he exclaims.

She suggests to her brother-in-law, "Loof-uh, why don't you find yourself a nice girlfriend" then considers who she's talking to, with his missing tooth and gamey smell, "Or a ripe pumpkin, and cut a hole in it? Now leave the goddamn goat alone." SLAP!

His reply, "AGH!"

"HOGLAH", bellows Maurice.

"WHAT?"

"WHERE'S DUH GOAT'S MILK?"

"WE DON'T HAVE ANY."

"I THOUGHT YOU MILKED IT THIS MORNIN'. HOW CAN WE BE OUT?"

"LOOF-UH'S BEEN AT THE GOAT AGAIN."

From a three hundred minae man comes the menacing reply, "GODDAMMIT LOOF-UH, WHUT DUH HAIL AH TAIL YUH BOW GETT-NN NEAR DUH GO'?" Normally, this would prove mildly irritating, but Maurice is trying to watch the game, a very dangerous time for Luther.

Luther is one of Hoglah's brothers-in-law and Maurice's oldest brother. Maurice being the youngest of four men, three of them supposedly wise, grew up to be the biggest and strongest. Bullied as a youngster, he has mental reserves of payback stored up for his brothers, except for Q. That they're freeloading off Maurice and Hoglah hasn't done much to help relations.

Luther speeds out of the barn. The heavy footfalls of Maurice follow. Luther is quicker, but the sound of his brother's pursuit causes him to giggle, which adversely affects his speed. He spots a shittah tree and quickly scales it. His brother arrives at the trunk and makes eye contact from seven cubits below. Luther smiles stupidly. Surly and tired, mostly because of sleep deprivation, Maurice returns to the barn.

Sleeping in a barn with farm animals, it's wise to be quiet as you pass the doorway that opens into the animal's quarters. If you startle them, they go off like alarms. Dog barks, rooster cackles, donkey hee haws, pig grunts and snorts, are amazingly loud when Jerries are trying to sleep. Animals are as subtle as the lady talking on her cell phone at the next booth.

Hi Ruth... Can you hear me?... Ruth?... It's Shirley... Yeah, I'm at 'Palace of Wong' in Rockville Centre. I was in the mood for Chinese... Oh, he's okay. He says it only hurts when he bends over. Or he bangs it... Yeah. He's got an appointment next week to get the stitches out.

Scuze me… Scuze me... They put a mic inside the mouthpiece SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO SPEAK SO LOUD.

Oh, some jerk behind me being obnoxious. What if I was talking to the President?

Oh, yeah. Tell him the First Lady's hot. (One can imagine President Trump nodding in agreement). Fact, the last few First Ladies have been hot… except Hillary.

Hold on a second, Ruth. She turns around and barks, YOU'RE SUCH AN ASSHOLE! Then, turns back to her cell.

I'm soar-y if I offended. I DIDN'T THINK BOVINE HAD FEELINGS.

O-bad'diah, another wise man, got up at three this morning to piss in the chamber pot, but didn't notice it was full until the waste from a hard night's drinking topped out and started running over his feet. "SADDLE-GOOSE", he cries as he clenches his stream. He carefully peers through the darkness to see if anyone or thing heard him. He then proceeds to cautiously carry the chamber pot past the notorious door that opens into the animal bay, trips, stubs his toe, yells "FUSSOCK" spilling the malodorous contents just outside the doorway. Days forward any air flow into the barn gently wafts the aroma like dandelions on a spring day. He succeeds in setting off the animals. Pig snorts wake Maurice. FUSSOCK! followed moments later by the smell of sewage causes Maurice's jaw muscles to clench. The recurring fantasy of eviction day for his brothers allows sleep to once again return. Sleep with the hint of a smile.

"What happened", says Hoglah.

"He clime uh tree."

"Whyun-chuh get him down?"

"Don't thank the tree could-a hol' me."

"Whyun-chuh get the sling shot?"

"Ah think Yay'shua got it."

"Where is Yay'shua?"

"Ain't seen 'im in uh few day. Prah-lee ow savin'."

E  L  E  V  E  N 

Sexual Healing

Debbie Does Nebraska, Little Oral Annie, The Wizard of Ahs, Star Whores, Driving Into Miss Daisy, Chumming Madonna's Channel, On Golden Blonde…

The streets have been blockaded for hours in preparation for the colossal New Year's Eve event. Yet 42^nd Street peep shows still do a good business with the curious international tourists, who giggle and crack jokes at the explicit penetrations and stimulations exhibited beyond windowless walls, as a janitor mops up the floor in a booth after a patron left his seed.

The performers are human oddities. It's a one species circus. Few are considered pretty by the conventions of the day. Male reaction teeters between amusement and bemusement, like being at Disneyland on transvestite Tuesdays. Women are more intrigued by the male fascination than the actual act. Outwardly they feign disgust, yet find it difficult to remove their own eyes from the graphic displays.

In a booth, uncle and niece look on as a leathery woman orally stimulates an overweight, hairy, orangutan man. "This is what I wanted you to see, UuLitch. Young women learn their techniques through years of bathroom chats and hands on practice. Some become exemplary at giving pleasure, a quality no man can ignore. As you can see, she is rough and ridden hard, not their ideal of physical beauty. Still, she's quite a performer. With her skill she could satisfy any man, no matter what they called her."

"What do you mean, what they called her?"

"Rather negative terms would be associated with such a woman. It was a social contradiction. She would be looked down upon as immoral for openly engaging in lewd acts. Nevertheless, beyond all the talk and verbal ridicule, men simply enjoyed it. As women enjoyed going to a salon and having their hair washed, cut, colored, styled, their nails manicured, their feet filed. Men wanted a place to go to get their pizzles tended to without being condemned for it."

Josh: How'd your open house go this morning? Any offers? (An escort bobs her head at his lap).

Abe: No offers. The realtor wasn't too happy we ate fish last night. (Another escort pleasuring). She told Natalie she… spent 45 minutes walking around the house spraying deodorizer. Said... we'd have to find a new realtor if we pulled that shit again.

Josh: Serious? (Sounds of sucking and gagging.)

Abe: About the fish, yes. About... finding a new realtor, no. Natalie said the... house smells like baby aspirin and mmmmmmmmmm pussy.

"Condemned?"

"Yes. It became common practice during the twenty-first century to emasculate men; to punish their natural tendency to enjoy multiple partners while they were in a monogamous contractual relationship. They called it fucking around, or cheating."

"Why did they fuck around?"

"Once a couple entered into a contract they no longer had to compete. They would say yes to a donut, potato chips, to a third beer, while abandoning the cross trainer and giving up on the muscle burn that kept the human body at its peak level of sexual performance. Family responsibilities increased with growing waste lines as double digit inflation represented on the scale. They looked in the mirror and vaguely noted that they were going to pot. Sweat pants may have met Walmart's dress code, but was not worn in public by self respecting adults. These married folks didn't give a shit. Their declining self image dragged their desire for sex down with it. Despite turning into lard asses, their genitals still worked. Encountering physically fit Jerries out and about the town or the village, they were reminded of the excitement of the chase. Their neglected genitals called out from their muffled absorbant urine tainted concealment zones, 'Please, for the love of God let me out for a brief conjugal visit.'"

"What about the womenfolk?"

"I thought I was talking about both. Sure, as women came into professional prominence, they found themselves indulging in similar behaviors, often at a more promiscuous rate, as if they had decades to make up for. Fucking around became unofficially tolerated, mostly. Though stoning was no longer practiced in the West, a jealous spouse would occassionally make the news with a shooting. Coincidentally, at the turn of the century women were finally set to be honored on U.S. paper currency and the first atheist President-elect was preparing to take the oath of office without placing a hand on the bible."

"So, women had to experience the same things that men did in order for it to gain social acceptance?"

"Something like that. The great irony is, as we now know, Jerries were at the altar of world peace. All they had to do was..." UuLitch's mind hears only the deep sound of her uncle's vocal chords vibrating like a lawn mower, enough to induce a nap, "to avoid extinction. When two blah engaged in blah, other blah boycotted them with trade blah. Open blah about their blah without the threat of violent blah for the first time in human blah. Parents made blah to their children's power of blah before opening a can of whip-blah. Compromise and moderation of one's blah ultimately led to blah." Unzip. "Imagine the feeling of blah these people had" UuLitch pulls out NiGonky's member "as they kept their blah together, satisfied their physical blah and got stoned." She begins practicing. "A blah from the hood and a white trash blah passing a… blah back and forth and laughing their… blah off at the stupid human con… dition. Ooooh yeah. Mmm. Sssssss. Feels good!"

"OOOOOOH, SSSSSHHHHIT. OOOOOOOH, SSSHHHHHHHIT."

NiGonky peers back to see Jesus swearing as he pushes into the skilled leathery woman from behind. He thinks Jesus must've crawled through the wall of a neighboring booth. He's surprised no bouncers have grabbed the Light of the World and evicted him. The leathery woman complains not as she bounces her crustacean onto the legendary Man.

T  W  E  L  V  E 

Hong Kong Phooey

Chinese is the cuisine of choice. The Pheekul Duk Restaurant.

"Wair-come to Pheek-ur Duk. I weer be yaw waituh, Ress. You sit he-uh. I come back take yaw O-duh." His nametag says Les.

NiGonky offers introductions: "Waituh-Ress, I'm NiGonky. That's UuLitch. And this is Yay'shua, son of Maurice and Hoglah, but also the son of God." Les smiles, then lights off toward the kitchen. They sit down and observe the large fish tank, the red décor, the ornate dragon lanterns, the horrid Muzak playing, the crowded noisy dining room, the bright fluorescent lighting. Starving to the point of nearly passing out after burning more calories at the peep show, Jesus ponders the restaurant's name as he gnaws on a chopstick, "Don't Phee-kuh mean dung?"

"Ssshh," NiGonky shushes him. Quietly he advises, "Yeah, fecal is dung, but THEY don't know that. The Americans keep many secrets from the Chinese. You see, the CCP doesn't have a sense of humor, so far as anyone can tell."

Les returns, "Ready to O-duh?"

"We haven't seen a menu."

"This not Buhguh King. No menu. You have it ow way."

"We'll have it your way."

"I juss need yaw cock-tair O-duh."

"How 'bout three Mai-Tais," orders NiGonky.

Big smile on Les's wide, pale face, then in a higher pitched tone, "Aw, you want to craw outta he-uh."

Jesus watches Les hustle away, "He loo' funny."

"Yeah, I don't suppose you've seen too many different looking people."

"In fak, ever'one in New Yaw loo' funny, Ahm leavin'." Jesus makes to rise from his chair as if to leave then sits back down.

NiGonky grins, "Tell us about your parents, Yay'shua."

Jesus looks around the dining room in absolute wonder. It didn't occur to him when they first materialized just how diverse the packaging was with regard to humans of the second millennium. Big, dark, hairy, anorexic, splotchy, exotic. He's healed a lot of people, but none as mixed by breeding or as ornately adorned as the patrons of the Pheekul Duk. Jesus is observing two thousand years of evolution at work.

"Mo-Reese uh big man. Ah han't seen duh man truly mad but uh few time mah whole life, an' Ahm damn glad of it. When Mo-Reese git mad his head fill up wit' blood and his eyes glaze o-vuh. Mos'ly he git aggravated wit mah un-kooz. Den dey start tuh runnin'. An' on doze uh-K-zhuns, Hoglah egg duh mofo awn. But he's pretty cool. He got a big belly laugh dat make it most impossible not tuh laugh wit him. He talks plain. He's not unkind, but he speaks his mind."

"Hoglah speaks huh mind, too. She don' try to sugarcoat nuttin. She's real competent. If yuh do sompmm half hearted an' low quality, she'll make yuh do it right. She very particular. It can be annoyin'. But when she make sompmm it's done correct an' solid an' you can count on duh craftsmanship. She makes our clothes. She's a dynamo. Always busy. Never sit still. She also has a lotta class an' elegance wit'out bein' pretentious. Ev'ryone Ah know respect huh an' my dad."

"What makes her mad?" UuLitch asks as she moves her elbow out of the way to make room, as Les sets down the Mai-Tai's, and some egg rolls with duck sauce. They smell delicious. NiGonky can't remember ever being so hungry.

"Usually my un-kooz."

They watch as NiGonky puts the cylindrical straw in his mouth moving the umbrella of fruit out of the way and extracts a big pull of the sweet alcoholic beverage. UuLitch is reminded of the nose bongs at the Atomic Café. She imitates her uncle as does Jesus. NiGonky eats the maraschino cherry and hunk of pineapple from the umbrella toothpick and enjoys the warm alcohol feeling as it spreads throughout his chest and stomach. In moments, they're all starting to feel the effects as they crunch into the vegetarian egg rolls.

Jesus continues, "When mah Un-kuh Loof-uh mess wit duh go', it don't give milk, an when it don't give milk, Hoglah git pisst. Un-kuh Loof-uh, he duh wurrs. Prah-lee cuz he ugly an' women won' go near um. He got uh hygiene prah-lem, too. Ah think it stem from uh natchull born fear uh soap. Un-kuh O'bad'diah is full uh bad ideas. But my un-kooz funny as Hell. Dey fun tuh smoke weed with." Jesus pauses momentarily then inquires, "Iz der uh pissin' wall 'round he-uh?"

"C'mon Yay'shua, I'll show you where to piss in the twentieth century. It'll blow your mind!"

"What?"

"Follow me." Weaving in between tables, stepping out of the way of attentive waiters, dodging a middle-aged Asian woman who thrusts her chair backwards at the last second. This must appear like an obstacle course of organized chaos to an untrained eye, like the streets they'd navigated to get here. Earlier, Jesus was okay, for all the motion of colorfully garmented pedestrians and moving objects were cloaked in the darkness of night. Now, as he watches NiGonky advance through the well-lit dining room, he freezes. NiGonky retrieves the Light of the World and escorts him by a blue pinstriped sleeve to the rest room.

Unisex. That's what the door states. A tall, beautiful black woman emerges, turns to a shorter cuter black woman, "Grrl, Sumbuddy blew duh BAFF-room Uh-up!" Jesus looks up at the Amazon, who acknowledges his salivating hyena stare, "Tuh hail you lookin' at, nigga?" Immediately she deduced that he wants to mount her, that like so many men, he is verbally impaired by testosterone, that he is incapable of responding, that the conversation ended before it began. She moves on trailed by her friend. Neither of our two protagonists considered the Amazon's first remark to her friend, nor did they care, until they entered the unisex facility closing out the fresh air behind them. Their faces contort and their eyes well as their noses are raped. NiGonky can't imagine what the perpetrator ate, but hopes it wasn't eaten at the Pheekul. He demonstrates with his own fly how to unfasten oneself. Jesus acknowledges the method. Upon freeing his member he hears a loud female scream, which prompts him to hesitate for a moment, smile coyote-ishly, then proceed to urinate accompanied by the screams of several more women, which fill a man with pride.

As Jesus happily urinates enveloped in the noxious cloud, NiGonky steps outside the bathroom to find out what the commotion's really about. Across the dining room by the cash register are three men in dark coats wearing ski masks. Les, the waiter, is holding his head. Apparently one of the men struck him. The cashier is terrified as she hands bills from the register to a man pointing a weapon at her.

NiGonky wills his metabolism to accelerate into bajavida, which drops the pitch of all sound in the room to an inaudible level and effectively renders all occupants motionless as mannequins, including UuLitch, who sits studiously watching the sport. He pushes across the room as if through a swimming pool, the air now like water with its slow-moving molecules, and pries the weapon from the man's hands. He studies it. A heavy hunk of metal. If he were to release it in bajavida, it would suspend in air as gravity hadn't had time enough to act on it. He sets it behind a counter. In real time, since NiGonky left the bathroom, crossed the length of the dining room to the register and procured the weapon, only milliseconds have transpired.

He studies the assailant, his frozen hate-filled eyes. He sees into the depths of his being.

Grew up in Bed Sty, no father, a hopeless crackhead mother who felt her obligation to him ended after birth, her son an inconvenience that represented an extra allotment on her welfare check, he was beaten by public school classmates, called a sissy, schooled by drug dealers, at ten he dropped a cinderblock from an apartment window just missing a man and his grandson twenty stories below, at fifteen he punched out a Korean convenience store owner when she tried to open his backpack, it pissed him off that she would accuse him of shoplifting while he was shoplifting, has never been loved except physically, once had a girlfriend but scared her off when he threatened to kill her for talking to a mailman, he's not afraid to die because he'd finally be released from his living hell, his favorite color is black, his favorite food is Burger King, “The Sound of Music” always brings a tear, for he'd rather be plucking edelweiss on an Austrian Alp than living out life as a stereotypical gangsta; also, he has an imaginary friend named Poofie.

Spotting a roll of duct tape below the register, NiGonky seals off their mouth and nose holes, tightly wrapping each of their heads. They look mummified in their ski masks. He tapes their ankles together and wraps each of their hands so that their fingers are immovable. Steps back to assess his composition. Inverts bowls of hot and sour soup above their heads which hang there defying gravity in bajavida. Satisfied, he places his finger on an alarm button located under the register, then wills his metabolism to slow to real time…

Assailant number one's empty mummified hands jerk abruptly upward in the absence of the gun's weight. Bowls of hot soup simultaneously douse the assailants. NiGonky's finger sets off the alarm. Recognition that they are unable to draw breath causes the fellas to panic and clumsily fall to the floor. NiGonky retrieves his Mai-Tai and heads leisurely for the unisex facility. The patrons and employees are too surprised at their reversal of fortune to notice him. Except for UuLitch, who sees him strolling toward the restrooms knowing he used a Thoughtform trick. The incident concludes as police arrive to find the gruesome three on the floor gasping for air. Looking at Les and the cashier, it's just too ridiculous to imagine these two Pheekul Duk employees subduing the assailants.

In the meantime, Jesus learns how to wash his hands, having completed his intended task. "Ah am astonished wit a great astonishment how duh wutuh comes out!"

NiGonky demonstrates the use of the soap dispenser and running water as he explains that bacteria from other people invisible to the human eye can enter one's body through their mucus membranes and set off disease.

"Invisible! Dat sound lahk boo-shih. You sown lahk duh dang righteous telling uh bruthuh about Gawd. Dey say, He's everwhere. Ah say, Ah don' see nuffin'. Dey say, Dat's cuz He's invisible, yuh got tuh have faith. Ah don't know what tuh say tuh dat. It gets pretty dang infuriatin' how dey credit sump-mm invisible for everthang dey accomplish. But Ah go along wit it, mostly, to motivate dem to try not tuh talk."

NiGonky adds, "It's worse when they kill for it." Jesus is fascinated by the hot air dryer. He enjoys the powerful jet of air.

"I KNOW THEIR INVISIBLE GOD", he says a little too loud, as the high decibel dryer stops. He adjusts his volume, "I've known it longer than your universe has been in existence." Jesus doesn't respond, he just stands there looking in the mirror, speechless. NiGonky continues, "It's a hermaphroditic chimpanzee looking mustardsucker, that spends a lot of time altering its mind and having sex with Itself." Again, no response. He's not sure the LORD heard what he just said. Sucking air loudly through his straw, his Mai-Tai hits bottom with a final pull. He leads the way back from the bathroom through the excited dining room filled with speculation of what was witnessed, as two cops question Les and the cashier by the register. Back at the table UuLitch seems content and drunk, entertained by the human interaction in the aftermath of a violent event turned comedic thanks to her devious Thoughtform uncle.

After being questioned and with a newly acquired red welt about his eye, Les delivers a tray of exotic looking food. Steamed spinach dumplings on a bed of cabbage, bowls of hot and sour soup, broccoli tofu omelets, brown rice, glasses of sweet carrot juice and a pallet cleansing pot of hot green tea.

The prevailing wisdom at the time was, vegetarian healthy meat unhealthy. Along with the trendy vegetarian mentality went a tree-huggin' dope-smokin' 60's wannabe anti-military anti-nuke socialize-the-economy, so everything is free mentality. The downside of this vegetarian wholesome-r than thou lifestyle and unbeknownst at the end of the twentieth century was that had humanity survived, evolution would've been unkind to subsequent generations of vegetarian offspring who would've taken on the appearance of emaciated buck tooth rabbit men with thick sprigs of hair sprouting from the upper lip of the womenfolk.

Our marvelous three were so famished, that they'd eat locust exoskeletons, if that was what Les delivered. Like those who have gone without adequate nutrition for several hours, their cell systems dominated the would-be conversation by over-riding the ordinarily talkative mouth to perform its biting tasting chewing swallowing function. After a few minutes of eating like Jesus, they look up at each other with faces smeared in soy sauce, then continue to feast. Ordinarily, NiGonky would've used the utensils that remain clean and positioned at the side of his plate, but he finds Jesus' eating habits too amusing. Also, he enjoys the attention that eating in such a fashion garners. Other tables scold their children telling them that that's not how one should eat, with the hands palming great clumps of food.

They've become a spectacle at the Pheekul Duk this New Year's Eve 2000. The most famous man in western civilization, whose name is dropped in everyday exclamations like, Jesus H. Christ!, or Oh for Christ's sake!, is appropriately anonymous in New York, dressed in a smart, dark blue, pinstripe suit, and topped with a basketball sized blond afro, that now has bits of rice adhering to it. He looks like Jimi Hendrix might have, if he'd lived to embrace the glam of America during its hedonistic disco era 1970s, with its danceable, even by the most uncoordinated of white people, kick drum thump: boomp-boomp-boomp-boomp. Parents tell their children they should be more like Jesus, who gave his life for their sins. Yet they are completely unaware, that the very blood they symbolically drink, and the very flesh they symbolically accept in thin wafers on their tongues each Sunday, is the very man they now tell their children not to emulate. How arbitrary.

Jesus is oblivious. Plus, he's happily drunk, full of delicious Chinese vegetarian cuisine, and trying to make eye contact with the Amazon.

Abruptly changing the tone, inspired by the gun wielding antics of the would-be assailants, UuLitch ejaculates, "Unc, I feel like playing a video game. I wanna kill a whole lotta people really fast. I wanna watch their heads blow off in a mist of pink spray."

"Yeah, that sounds like fun, UuLitch. We can join their six year olds and practice mass slaughtering their species."

T  H  I  R  T  E  E  N 

Willy And The Poor Boys

Most of the time, Luther and O-bad'diah stay out of Maurice and Hoglah's way. If they could play video games or check out porn sites, they would. If they thought to tip cows they would. If they had electric guitars they would make songs that monotonously used the whammy bar from the song's intro, throughout, and until each song's ending. Head banging, head butting, mosh pits, and mud wrestling would be imminently enjoyable. Although they don't have access to the dumb fun available at the end of the second millenium, they do smoke tree bark, cannabis, nail clippings, and goat dung; on occasion, mushrooms that grow from the goat dung. In their farming community there is little to do for leisure, if one evades imprisonment and Roman oppression.

When locals sat on a stump staring incredulously, dumbstruck by the carnage, at a landscape littered with bloody crucifixions, the moans of those in the process of dying for sins, real or invented, their friends would poke them every so often with a stick, to be sure rigor mortis hadn't set in. In such brutal times, killing brain cells was a reasonable endeavor. If one were fated to be crucified, shedding a few million brain cells and being wasted would make the brutality almost bearable, as if the spikes were driven into someone else's palms, into someone else's feet. This is not my blood dripping down my face. What thorns?

With dried feces and other heinous substances that they'd experimented with, Luther and O-bad'diah have at times been the most comatose of all the locals. And on these occasions, their friends would decorate them like Christmas trees, they'd urinate on them, they'd bury them up to their necks and throw hen's eggs at them, they'd shave off have their hair leaving one eyebrow and half a beard. O-bad'diah unknowingly started a fad during one of his comas, when his friends set fire to his fro. After they'd doused it with donkey piss and pulled away the charred hair, a perfect circle right to his scalp remained. The friar fad lasted for centuries and is depicted in the art of the Middle Ages.

The third and thus far unmentioned wise man is Qarl, mysteriously known as Q. Q has lousy eyesight. Because he has to be no more than a half cubit from an object to see it, he knew early on that the pastimes that entertained his brothers would do little for him. Thus, Qarl became a scribe and spent long hours every day writing on papyrus all the tales that he'd heard around campfires, at elder's councils, and feasts. Being functionally blind made writing his universe: the history, the tales, the lessons, the observations, the fears, the incomprehensible, the supernatural, the impossible to believe. The Gospel According to Q is the first book of the New Testament. Someone claiming to be Matthew plagiarized Q's gospel, then re-wrote it with a white persuasion calling it The Gospel According to Matthew. That was many years after Qarl passed on.

To illustrate the difference between the two gospels, let's look at Q's Gospel, at The Sermon On A Rock. Here again, the Messiah:

Lawd's Prayer
Our Negro
Who art in heav-mm
Or wherevuh t'hail You be
Can Yuh give us dis day
Sumpmm ta go wif duh bread?
Maybe a lil' goat cheese?
Bread don't las' a mofo long workin' out in duh sun
Ah bet dere's mo' of a selection up in heav-mm
Y'all iz holdin' out on us Earthbound negroes
Prah'ly got: lamb chops, side o' bullock, oxen feet, sheep innards…
Jesus goes on to list dozens of high protein foods. His audience was stoned, inebriated, or already comatose, so they paid him no mind. Some woke up when he said…
Hymen!

We won't mention Q again. It's important to perpetuate the myth of who actually wrote the Bible, so that those prone to indoctrination can continue to have blind unquestioning faith. Incidentally, Q is an eleventh generation knife-thrower. Although he's never made a kill, he has wounded and he is proficient at clearing a room, which affords him ample time to scribe.

Luther finally drops out of the shittah tree, Maurice having given up and returned to the stable. O-bad'diah, with his friar doo, happens along.

"What up nigga?"

"Nuffin."

"Naw, you bin at duh go' uh-gay-un, hanchuh?"

"Naw, bro'. Ah wuz contemplatin'."

"Bullock dung. Ain't nuffin tuh contemplate from up der 'cept goze. Why-n-chuh leave duh go' uh-lone, Loof-uh? Why-n-chuh leave duh go' uh-lone? Why-n-chuh leave duh go' uh-lone, Loof-uh? Why-n-chuh leave it uh-lone?"

O-bad'diah is an irritant. He takes pleasure in irritating people when by his estimation they've done something irredeemably dumb. The dumber the action, the more O-bad'diah irritates. It's also a tactic that serves him well for luring unsuspecting opponents into a brawl. When he's low on weed, getting into a brawl has proven to be a good source of earning shekels through wagering. Too, it's a good way to release endorphins. Both, O-bad'diah and Luther have been beaten up so many times that they've learned the skills of fighting through much pain. Even the pain for them provides a giddy pleasure. They especially love to challenge large bullies against whom they have little hope of prevailing. The more unlikely they are to win, the more their opponents will wager.

There was a man called Elijah the Tishbite who had a brother called Thaddeus. Both Elijah and Thaddeus were sheep herders. Elijah was known to have had his way with a village woman against her will. He held her down and knew her. O-bad'diah has, therefore, a desire to bring great pain down upon Elijah. Once, when Elijah implored Thaddeus not to stand up in a field during a lightning storm, making him taller than his herd, thus the tallest object, and Thaddeus who was slightly off kilter, remained standing, Elijah mourned the loss of his brother. During Elijah's grief, O-bad'diah, who'd learned of Thaddeus' impression of a lightning rod, repeated the following taunt:

"Why'd yo' bruthuh stan' up in duh middle of a feel durin' uh lightnin' stome, Elijah? Why'd yo' bruthuh stan' up, Elijah? How come yo' bruthuh stood up, Elijah? Why'd Thaddeus stan' up? Huh? Why, Elijah? Stan' up, Elijah? Why? Huh?"

This particularly insensitive line of questioning went on for several minutes because of O-bad'diah's acute lack of respect for Elijah. Despite being an hairy and intimidating man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins, Elijah the Tishbite endured the humiliation because he was aware of O-bad'diah's reputation for fighting. Elijah was there when some Roman soldiers passing through their village stopped to take drink. O-bad'diah and Luther, out of weed, began getting loud with each other to call attention to themselves.

"HENCEFORTH, YE SHALL BE CALL SHE-RAN WEYEL-HE-WAUKT SON O' GOONEE DUH EUNUCH TEE HEE HEE", hollars Luther at O-bad'diah with great loudness.

Luther calls back, "AN' YE SHALL BE CALL JUH-SHAB-HE-SED DAUGHTUH O' REWT-KUN-ALAZAR BAW HAW HAW".

"WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. YE IZ A LUNATICK. AN' YE SHALL BE CALL BUKKI DAUGHTUH O' ZE-RUBBA-BEL..". A powerful soldier with cruelty in his eye advances towards the brothers and asserts, "Boys. You're making too much noise." His look of menace and pending violence promises to bring upon them evil, and to destroy them with double destruction, which gives the brothers pause. Having delivered his message and achieved the desired silence, the soldier returns to his two comrades.

As he walks away O-bad'diah continues quietly, "daughtuh o' Ze-rubba-bel harlot o' Hattush" causing Luther, who is still stoned, to snort loud enough to stop the soldier. Luther calls out to the soldier, "Tiberius. Ye can smote wit' yo mace an' wit' yo sword. But can ye smote wit'out dem?"

With an evil grin the soldier hands his mace and sword to a comrade. He turns to face the brothers.

"Ah wager my bruthuh will be able tuh return tuh his feet aftuh yo onslaught", volunteers Luther. Immediately, O-bad'diah retorts, "An' Ah wager my bruthuh will have mastery ovuh ye". Luther looks upon his brother with momentary fear and gnashing of teeth. The soldier says, "Whattaya got to wager?" Luther says, "A well loved go'", causing his brother to look down and shake his head and say, "Lunatick!"

The soldier, whose name is Cisero, offers, "I wager five shekels that I will have mastery over you both."

"Fifteen", says O-bad'diah.

"Fifteen! The two of you together are only worth five."

O-bad'diah continues, "There's not a man here who think me an' my bruthuh will prevail ovuh ye. Duh odds are in yo favor. Fifteen."

The soldiers don't have fifteen. So, a few of the villagers including Elijah the Tishbite bet against the brothers and bring the wager to fifteen.

Wager set. Cisero advances on Luther and launches a powerful roundhouse swing, which glances the side of his head, but which Luther reflexively hangs onto with both of his arms as O-bad'diah ducks down and brings his fist up into contact with the soldier's stones. The shooting pain throughout the man's pelvis causes him nausea and to double over. Luther tries to control Cisero's one arm while O-bad'diah works to use the man's greater weight to send him to the ground. Once successfully on the ground the brothers work methodically like pythons to tire their prey out by exerting pressure on vulnerable points along the massive soldier's body. It's not exciting. There are no flailing punches or great kicks. After twenty minutes of repititous and tenderizing kidney punches and continous pressure on the soldier's vulnerable wrist and elbow, and dripping profusely with sweat, the brothers achieve mastery when Cisero submits, "I give".

Thus, despite being bigger than him, Elijah is afraid of O-bad'diah and meekly endures his taunts.

With Luther and his tendency to poke goats, O-bad'diah went on for only a minute by comparison. "Why-n-chuh leave duh go' uh-lone, Loof-uh? Go', Loof-uh. Uh-lone, Loof-uh. Why do yuh sard goze, Loof-uh?!"

F  O  U  R  T  E  E  N 

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Eleven forty-seven P.M. on the thirty first day of the twelfth month of the last year of the second millenium: The Pheekul Duk officially celebrates the Chinese New Year in February, but their patrons are preparing now and starting to look at their watches. Some are testing their kazoos. NiGonky realizes that they've got to get the check, pay it, traverse half a city block, and penetrate a police barricade to reach Times Square when the ball drops. Should they succeed, Christ will have fulfilled his much anticipated second coming, as he stands next to UuLitch and NiGonky in an enormous sea of Jerries, who will remain completely obtuse to his actual presence among them. NiGonky is most interested to experience what actually befalls New York on this predicted ominous eve of evenings. So, he thinks of a joke. These three brutes hold up a Chinese restaurant near Times Square on New Year's Eve when three time travelers, one of them Jesus, Lord and Savior, foil their plot, then go on to steal their money to pay the bill, so they can watch the ball drop. This is how it transpires:

NiGonky accelerates his metabolism, so that all motion inside and outside the Pheekul Duk whines down to virtual silence like shutting off a vacuum cleaner. He pushes his way through the swimming pool air past a statuesque policeman holding open the Pheekul's entrance door. The first of the hooligans is stuck in the perpetual pose of getting into the back of a squad car, hands cuffed behind him, another policeman holding his arm. NiGonky slides the man's wallet from its home in a rear pocket and discovers $409 in cash, undoubtedly stolen, making NiGonky the thief of a thief. He returns the empty wallet to its original pocket, pushes his way back inside, and places all the cash on their table to cover the tab.

As Les with his swollen eye heads toward their table carrying a tray with fortune cookies and their bill, moving imperceptibly slow as a clock's hour hand to NiGonky's second hand; as the police complete their questioning and leave without leaving (yet); as the fabulous Amazon woman who'd stifled Jesus earlier when exiting the unisex bathroom informs her homophobic boyfriend, that perhaps he should reconsider his boast about suicide, because he has had relations with a man, and if he doubts it, just reach up between her legs (notably, the facial expressions at the Amazon's table are quite animated); NiGonky unlocks the minds of UuLitch and Jesus allowing them to enter bajavida.

Jesus doesn't immediately catch on. He continues to sit at the table and stare at the Amazon, like he's been doing all night. Suddenly, the lack of sound, really it's just too slow and low in register to hear, startles him. The liquefied air causes him to panic, until NiGonky places a comforting hand on his shoulder to show him it's all right. Speaking, one's lips and jaw move before sound reaches the ears. Because air molecules move too sluggishly and human vocal chords are incapable of vibrating fast enough, it's pointless to attempt speech in bajavida. UuLitch is at peace with this new perspective. Then again it's all new to her. She's a fearless astronaut entering the unknown. She's a Thoughtform vacationing in a physical universe. Physically, she risks nothing. Death to her body assignment merely means a return to her Thoughtform. Mentally, however, her malleable mind will never be the same. She's a good sport. A pioneer. A guinea pig. A lemming?

They follow NiGonky, who grabs the fortune cookies from Les's tray, then passes through the door still being held patiently, if inadvertently, by the same policeman. Once out in the illuminated street, they move slowly forward, until NiGonky kicks up and begins to swim. He swims in an underwater fashion making arcs with his arms and frog kicks with his legs. His progress is greater than attempting to walk. Both UuLitch and Jesus easily copy his technique, swimming over parked cars and statuesque pedestrians, over a drunk man urinating in an alley way with a thin 98.6 degree icicle arcing from his hand held extremity, giving the impression of being tethered to the side of a building. They don't see the droplets of yellow urine suspended in air at the point of impact. Swimming past illuminated store fronts, bars, cafés, all with televisions tuned to Dick Clark in a black leather jacket looking 30 years younger than 70, wearing headphones and holding a microphone, his breath in a cloud before his face, frozen like a fluorescent photograph without sound. People frozen smoking cigarettes with clouds of exhaled smoke that don't rise and taper off. They swim over the police check point and into Times Square, over the sardine packed multitudes that collectively bring the street level up an average of one and a half meters, if one were to walk on their heads. NiGonky tries to locate a place to land and stand, but the people are too tightly squeezed together. The time that has elapsed in bajavida since leaving the Pheekul Duk, in real time approximately ninety seconds, has begun to affect their strength adversely.

They come out of bajavida standing on top of some porta potties to draw quenching breaths of fresh, if frigid, December soon to be January air. Suddenly, everything is powered up, alive and humming, like a tidal wave that engulfs without pummeling. The sound of two million Jerries pressed up against each other is monstrous. Both UuLitch and Jesus are awed and excited by this strange and vibrant atmosphere. A policewoman points at them and yells, "HEY… YOU… AWF DUH FUCKN PAWTA POTTIES."

The F word is New York's most popular adjective. NiGonky holds up an index finger to indicate, just a fuckn minute, as they take a few deep breaths.

"NO, NNN…"

The cop is once again frozen before she can complete her hostile "OW". As they return to bajavida the intense wall of sound and energy retreats.

NiGonky kicks up and treads air, while examining the scene. He looks around 360 degrees, his attention drawn to an enormous video image of Dick Clark. He notices that just below it and on top of a five-story building are floodlights and TV cameras focused on the man himself. He is amazed at how an average sized man can take on such colossal dimensions when televised. He swims up to the televised scene to inspect.

There's Clark with that puff of exhaled breath suspended before his face. The cameras. The intensely brilliant flood lights as bright as an artificial sun. The security guards. Clark's guest stars, Ed McMahon and Whoopi Goldberg, round out the production delivering lines that are universally un-funny and easy to ignore. Was there ever a New Year's Eve party at which one was shushed to pay attention to what Whoopi or Ed or Dick had to say? This benign Bob Hope sort of humor delivered by these most ubiquitous of American celebrities is quite brilliant in its ability to keep the corner of a human's eye on the television, yet un-profound enough to compete with a decent conversation. Imagine Whoopi, Ed, or Dick breaking into a monologue about Criminal Race Theory. How light-skinned peoples of the modern era must pay for the crimes of their ancestors. Pay and pay and pay - begat.

If this easily ignorable entertainment wasn't sufficient, there were always the pestering commercial interruptions promoting cure-alls with side effects that included: hair loss, impotence, bleeding, drowsiness, mood swings, and in rare cases, profuse bleeding. Warnings included don't take this pill when you're with anyone dressed in white.

TV was invasive, informative, mind numbing, trance inducing, most often a reflection of the worst aspects of the human species, occasionally inspired with the best. Network television was at its very summit with Dick Clark's Rockin Eve this night. TV would experience a decline and a realignment in the 2000s, once Star Trek's communication devices became widely available. These devices became known as smart phones, and were used by the government to track everyone.

Hark! Wh-what's this? A guy crouched down just beyond the main camera's eye manning a teleprompter? I don't know if you can hear the helicopters overhead, but they're up there, the teleprompter reads. Dick Clark's delivery is expert and affable, as if talking to a neighbor.

This new insight requires further consideration. What if the teleprompted words could be altered? Mr. Clark has been doing this same broadcast for decades. He's weathered difficulties. NiGonky wonders if he can nudge him out of his comfort zone a little. He has Jesus assist him in lifting teleprompter man by his rigid elbows and move him like a mannequin through a swimming pool about two meters, facing away from the production. There the man stands with hands extended, as if resting on a keypad. NiGonky looks over the frozen script, but finds nothing that grabs him. Comes out of bajavida, rush of sound, the script starts scrolling. He reads through trivia and phrases. Dale, that's teleprompter-man, looks slowly around, down, eyes widen, face stricken, these stages of reorientation take but a few seconds. NiGonky spots some items of interest in the script, just as Dale is coming toward him and starting to yell, "Hhh…"

Bajavida: NiGonky and Jesus lift Dale, who is poised to run, carry him onto the set, and lay him supine at Dick Clark's feet. Dale's rigid body is like a molded green plastic toy soldier, with shoulder blade, elbow, buttock, and foot heal making contact with the stage. NiGonky returns to the keypad.

Back in real time. He begins typing. Cameras are trained on the crowd and focused in on a couple wearing sombreros. Clark, talking:

"You can hear hhhHEY..."

Dale convulses at Clark's feet as if he's having a seizure. Clark's eyebrows go up as he deftly side steps. Security guards start toward him as he continues his commentary with barely a pause.

"... the music building in the background. They have this surround sound this year. All sorts of sound and confetti and other doo-dads will happen as we go along. There are 500 gay… uh-ugm, dancers, actors, musicians, and puppeteers."

He looks over to where Dale should be, but no one there. NiGonky disappears into bajavida. Security is dealing with the convulsing lunatic at his feet. Clark continues, "A hundred thousand handouts, which include: um pom-poms and lais and wigs and flags." He ad libs, "They're having a great ol' time. There's the ball, it hasn't moved yet. Ain't nothin' like the ball in Times Square. Crossroads of the world in New York City. This is the place to be (chuckle) believe you me."

The camera hones in on some smiling partiers. Clark: "Happy looking group of nig... people. Notice the ages. It is a young persons' game. In order to stand out there for 10 or 12 hours you gotta gots a lot of stamina. The police have arranged that the porta potties on the side streets and all, they've accommodated the nig... people, that couldn't get into the Square. Heck, I just saw a guy urinat… uh ugm… Think my teleprompter guy is having some fun. They worked it out so nig... people, people can… move around with ease. And we're just less than three minutes away from probably the biggest sound you will ever hear, as the millennium ball drop happens."

"What the hell's going on?" Clark yells off mic, losing his famous composure. The teleprompter reads: And git Sheniquah's ass back ova' heeah.

Dick fills in the next 90 seconds with more impromptu banter. Then, the green mohawked culprit appears, typing away at the prompter, looking like a punk disco rooster. Clark is a little startled when he makes eye contact; a little afraid. NiGonky smiles, a bit reserved, unsure if Dick's fear is going to turn to rage. Satisfied, he then disappears again into bajavida. Dick isn't sure what he actually saw. Alert to the mischief, he proceeds cautiously, "It's all computerized now. In the old days… used to drop it with a… you know a… nylon a… clothes cord with 3 gays… guys, and a Mickey Mouse watch… uh… ugm… got me again… There'll be some staff changes this new year, you can count on it. You were wise to stay at home. In one minute the ball will drop and you will see pandemonium. Listen to 'em. The ball is beginning to move. They can feel it. They know it. Hee Hee thiddy five seconds. Thiddy? Did I just say that? Get close to somebody you love. In twenty-five seconds it'll be the new year. And we're gonna count it down from here down when we get to ten. Iz ya ready? Happy New Year early. In TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX, FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, HAPPY MUTHUH FUCK'N TWO THOUSAND!”

Pandemonium. A blizzard of confetti. Kisses, horns, kazoos, noise makers of all sorts and derivations, vocal chords, fireworks, sirens, strobe lights and flood lights, flash lights and bug lights, handshakes and glass breaks, champagne toasts, vomit, urine…

Clark comments, "It looks like a blizzard here… Confetti fired by canons from 13 different locations. Our cameras can hardly see through the paper. Happy New Year!"

F  I  F  T  E  E  N 

He Was Drinkin'

And Drivin'

Smokin' And Fuckin'

All At The Same Time

Tattoo aka Hervé Villechaise, wearing blue eye shadow, candy apple red lipstick, and a white suit identical to NiGonky's, except made for a chimpanzee, standing between two fertile photogenic women who give the impression of being the Twin Towers next to him. Hervé Villechaise. Duh plane. Duh plane.

Its theme music sung by the Godfather of Soul: "I love, I love to do my thing, Ha, and I, and I don't need no one else, good god..." Hervé's theme music is performed by thirty-year old James Brown in person, a physical impossibility. Fireworks go off in reverse, imploding, sonic booms that accompany each backward firework reverberate in reverse, hiccupping. Everyone standing in Times Square witnesses the snow storm of confetti sucking away back into the canons from which it was fired.

Aside from J.B., there is silence in Times Square. There is silence the world over, as if there is no air for sound to resonate in. In every time zone all televisions have an impeccably well-defined picture of Hervé, even TVs that were off. No matter what channel, there it is. Kids playing video games now have a cartoon version of it as a human child. In actuality, there are no cameras trained on Hervé and its beautiful, relatively tall companions. It is simply the physical embodiment of the Divine. The elusive Omniscient, the most sought after of speakers, the One, the only, the Man upstairs, the Creator, God the father, God the mother and… GodAllahBuddhaZeus.

An encounter with the being most universally imagined might take precedent over most worldly experience. Even the segment of the human populace regarded as intellectually challenged would pay attention long enough to determine if the Creator was going to display some bitchin' pyrotechnics in all its glory. Though only a small percentage of the world's populous was acquainted with the TV show "Fantasy Island" and its plane spotter, Tattoo, everybody with no exception, even incoherent infants and drooling seniors, sense the identity of the Occupant of the meter tall body of the re-animated Hervé Villechaise. Very super natural.

All those times that people looked skyward and asked the Almighty, Why? Yet when it finally materializes, they're speechless. Twenty-year-old Elvis Presley replaces J.B. singing, "Ah doe wahn no uh dey love, Baby it's still you I'm uh thinkin' of, Don' Be Cruel…"

Many are emotionally overwhelmed. All the suffering, sickness, pain, violence, war, oppression, hardship, misery, poverty, trials and tribulations; all the giddy elation, comedy, joy, euphoria, laughter, success, love, tenderness, bliss; emotions suppressed or endured or enjoyed for eons caused many to break into tears; tears for the victims of slavery, the victims of the Holocaust, the victims of war, the victims of homicide. Some, pessimistic like Jesus, want to tackle it, beat it into submission and ask it simply, What the fuck? For Jesus now knows Hervé's the One responsible for mindlessness the world over. Everyone remains silent and reverently awaits its word. The silence, however, is peppered with the compulsive utterances of obscenities by those suffering from Tourette's: "short, shit head, shorty, short, fuck, fuck, fuck you, fuck, fuck, fuck off, fuck, fuck yourself."

It holds its divine stubby hands so that its fingertips meet and point inward toward its face, a pope-like gesture: rocking its hands to and fro and hunching its head as if to say, in Yiddish, "Ka-peesh" or "Meshuggeneh" or "Such a deal!". It begins to communicate with every Jerry in their own language. Rather than coming across as a politician making a single canned speech for thousands, Hervé telepathically carries on six billion conversations all at the same time. With a Ghandi-like smile of enlightenment on its face the telepathic conversation goes something like this:

How ya doin'? Hervé asks a brawny twenty-eight-year-old Italian American who repairs the New Jersey Turnpike at night.

The worker responds aloud along with one million other New Year's Eve partiers, simultaneously, "Wutt?" The word WHAT has surprisingly awesome force when asked in perfect unison as it leaves two million lungs causing a million voices to reverberate through the silent canyons of New York's skyline. Hervé is propelled backward by the sound, but quickly recovers doing a reverse somersault. It's really a wonderful gymnast due to its low center of gravity. Again, the sporadic utterances of Tourette's sufferers: "fuck, what?, fuck you, what? fuck, fuck off." The remaining million in Times Square haven't acknowledged the telepathic contact. Oh, they heard it in their minds. They're just waiting for another message to be sure they weren't imagining things. To these million Hervé says, No, you weren't imagining this. Behold.

Times Square becomes warm, lusty, balmy, as a breath of tropical air exhaled from West Palm Beach incubates New York. The partiers shed their winter layers. The air is sensual and most welcome after standing for so many shriveled up hours in the cold. With a wave of its arm it disappears all its clothing and exposes a set of male and female genitalia ready for action. Its male part is conveniently hinged like an accordion allowing the amazons to assist. It is quite happy to have at Itself for all to see. Its very act stifles the mind. A viewer at home sees Tattoo's little hairy brown body laying on a white love seat with one knee propped up as two nude women assist. Their nimble hands work its hinged genital in and out of its female depository. It moans, "Oh yes, Yeah baby, Oh, do it to Me, You're soooo hot!" as the familiar sloshing sounds of penetration are surreally amplified. The ladies stimulate each other orally and theatrically as they serve Hervé… "Ah don't wahn no uh dey love, baby it's still you I'm thinkin' of". The last strains of Scotty Moore's guitar decay. Still doing Itself, Hervé announces, "Thank you, Elvis!"

"Any tom, Sir?… Ma'am?" says the confused King in his familiar drawl. Under his breath he shakes his head, "Phew! Could a done without seein' that mess," as he steps back into oblivion.

Hervé continues, "And now, ladies, gentlemen, in-betweens, undecideds, and combo-units like me, I present to you now Lou Reed."

"Hey, sugar, take a walk on the wild side…" Hervé rolls over and takes Itself doggie style with a little help from its friends. A money shot is had by the ABC cameras with close ups, though unbeknownst to those trying to record the occasion, all footage of the Divine will be blank, as if Hervé is invisible. NiGonky, who loves this song, grabs UuLitch's hand and leads her out to the grand sex scene where Dick Clark is, as the evening's events digress into perversion. Is it blasphemous if the pervert is the Divine? Voyeurs are quite satisfied with the surprise ending to an otherwise forgettable airing of Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve.

UuLitch and NiGonky undress and start fucking. UuLitch asks NiGonky telepathically if they can switch bodies in mid act. NiGonky, hesitant, agrees. Once inside her body he feels the sensation of getting pounded. Through her eyes he sees the physical housing he was in doing the pounding. It's confusing. He wants to both laugh and cry at the same time. She telepathically asks him how it feels. He responds, It's like taking a dump in reverse. It must take women some getting used to before they actually find pleasure in it. He doesn't bother to ask her how she likes being the male and doing the thrusting.

Jesus utters, "Hell wit dis!", positions himself behind one of the Twin Towers, then starts fucking. Pretty soon everyone present is naked, fornicating, spanking, sucking, sweating, licking, rubbing, wanking, whipping, watching, or futilely trying to film. The world over, in every time zone, in the streets, in the fields, in the cars, on the cars, on the couch, in the bed, against a wall, by a tree, old men, young women, black men, Asian women, Middle Eastern cab drivers, spherical black women, children playing doctor, dogs stupidly mounting each other mocking the humans, a rollicking good time is had by all. Hervé wills wild fornicating footage of lions and tigers and bears to air on the towering screens of Times Square. Thoughts range from outright disgust and revulsion to euphoric abandon and satisfaction.

Dick Clark starts back with his commentary, "Well, they're in a party mood. Can you imagine how long this thing is gonna last? Ha ha ha Weeee. You've got a whole night ahead of ya. This is magnificent coverage going right here for the ABC 2000 event. They're taking pictures of each other. Celebrating. They're in a festive mood if ever there was one. Gonna preserve that on his uh home video there. You won't find a happier group of people anywhere in the world."

The colored girls sing, "Do de-do do do de-do do do do de-do…" And they do, until the sun brightens the eastern sky forcing darkness to retreat westward once again. Manhattan's streets are littered with empty and half full cups of beer, used condoms and torn wrappers, party hats, clothing, and naked or partially naked bodies strewn every which way, sleeping, yawning, stretching, farting or once again engaged in pleasure.

Dick Clark still offering commentary, "Years and years ago I could sort of judge it by looking up and down the street. You can't take an individual head count, but I'd say, well a half a million people here and sure enough it'd appear in the paper the next day to confirm it. I uh…”

Perhaps the reason the masses so readily accepted Hervé's display was that it altered their brain chemistries and eliminated normal inhibitions, much as alcohol does. Or, perhaps the reason the masses engaged in open sex was that they'd repressed such feelings for so long by controlling their urges, that it took a godly display to show them that behaving like monkeys is instinctual and natural; and incidentally, its joke on self-important beings. The humans most determined to satisfy these lustful urges at the New Year's exhibition are married men, Baptists, Lutherans, radical Muslims, the clergy, and the most sexually repressed beings of all, angry feminists.

Or, perhaps it never really happened. None of it. Did they ever exist? If a nuclear holocaust or a comet extinguished all life on Earth, who would be there to tell its story? What or who would care?

Hervé: "I wish you no disrespect, Mayor Giuliani, as you've done a miraculous job cleansing Times Square and making New York safe, but alas, it pleases me well to remember thy streets as such". The conservative mayor's aged loins rage as the liberal Whoopi rides him like a fat equestrian. Their racial and political differences inspire a breathless, most provocative communion: I'm gonna drain you dry you ivory cracker war monger/ Keep those big brown titties bouncing you ebony liberal lunatic.

Nearby, Dick Clark grabs Ed McMahon's hand. Ed, a former marine, reflexively connects with a right jab that dislodges Clark's toupee. Conflicting feelings of hostility and remorse, anger and tenderness well up in Ed, allowing Clark to bestow kisses on his cheeks. When Clark kisses his lips, the marine nails him in the gut with his large fist. Once again conflicting feelings emerge in Ed, which permits Clark to make further advances. This back and forth is too slow to pay attention to.

GodAllahBuddhaZeus returns to center stage, once again clothed in Tattoo's Fantasy Island white vested disco suit to stand next to, if only as high as the hip of NiGonky, clothed in his discheveled white disco suit. UuLitch is in her jism stained gown, light blue fake fur coat, and blue combat boots. She never actually removed her Amelia Earhart headgear, even through raucous sloppy drunken penetrations and head bobbings. NiGonky's Mohawk is a bit twisted, but intact despite the nocturnal eventing that it's been through. Jesus still wears his blue pinstripe slacks around his ankles, as he continues to enjoy his second twin, his blond afro unperturbed and round as a basketball. The humid blanket of Florida air lifts as cold New York air settles in.

Hervé addresses the multitudes, "It pleases me now, even at this late hour of man's existence, to tease you with this song of unattainable hope." Few of the scattered multitudes are coherent enough to pay attention to what their Creator is saying. The Pointer Sisters wearing only high heeled shoes sing, We Are Family. Saucy brown breasts with coffee colored nipples sway above flat bellies and narrow gymnast hips centered with carefully groomed pubic mounds like exclamations pointing at their dark clefts of Venus. Jesus leaves his twin for the taut athletic booty of a Pointer with the intent to enjoy each sister singularly. The thought of juxtaposing his body in a grinding, squirming, panting Pointer Sister sandwich makes the Messiah happy to be a man.

NiGonky looks over at UuLitch, then down at GodAllahBuddhaZeus. They grin at each other, satisfied, as they watch Jesus in his bleached fro go. To NiGonky, there is a hilarity to the scene that forces his normally reserved chuckles into uncontrollable hiccups of laughter, causing his Mohawk to buckle, as he envisions all of GodAllahBuddhaZeus's children doing each other in the pervasive act that looks universally mindless as sniffing an ass-tainted finger or examining a booger. Exposed bodies bumping into each other accompanied by grunts, moans, unintended farts, all in the name of love, or is it lust, revenge, curiosity, or just boredom? An act that is drunkenly elevated to spiritual heights by the Jerry mind, soberly condemned as sinful, yet advertised ubiquitously like pharmaceuticals, fast food, and Jesus. What dumb fun, especially considering that it all evolved from a fingernail a relatively long time ago.

^{If you've made it this far, congratulate yourself. For you are a genius. So that The Toilet Scrolls may be flushed into eternity you might wonder: Why would the entity known as God masturbate for all Jerries to gaze upon? Why did the Reverend choose the millennium festivities at New York's grandiose annual party to break its non-intervention clause? Lastly, according to the exit polls the most asked question throughout the galaxy: What is the fate of the post apocalyptic dung beetle?}

T h e  L a s t  S u p p e r

Love Hangover

The end of a trip: the goodbyes, the good lucks, the hand waves, the kisses, the hugs, the good riddances accompanied by an extended middle finger. The calling of home entices one back to the familiar, the comfortable, where you keep your stuff. Thoughtforms have no homes, but they do have mental stuff.

"Wellll look who it is! Gimme a hug. Where you bin kid?" Maurice, as big as a football player, gives his elusive son a bear hug. Maurice is always glad when Jesus is in duh stable. And it was noised that he was in the house. - Mark 2:1

A pair of dogs swarm the guests, chirping with great excitement, as if they're best friends with a long history together. Tails whipping back and forth.

"You have dogs. I love dogs!" beams UuLitch. Jesus points out that dog is god backwards. "What are their names?" she asks.

"Duh fuzzy one wit duh big nose is Nose'tra-dom'us. And duh lil feisty rip-ya-face-off is Sukreeshuh. Not only is she fass, she's very fass."

Nose'tra-dom'us imposes her nose into UuLitch's camel toes. UuLitch observes, "Uncle, since we've been visiting Earth, I've noticed there's been a lot of attention given to this part of my anatomy. You." NiGonky gazes down and puffs his upper lip. "Yay'shua." Jesus fiddles with a braid as he looks around innocently. "Me." Eyes turn toward UuLitch. "And now, Nose'tra-dom'us."

Hoglah scolds, "Nose'tra-dom'us, get your nose up outta her Wuhan."

"It's okay", says UuLitch. "I like it. It feels nice."

"NOSE'TRA-DOM'US", barks Hoglah. The fuzzy dog scoots behind Maurice, who strokes her head.

"Folks, dis hee-uh iz UuLitch, NiGonky, and Gawdallah… Gawdallah… Hervé."

"Welll look at you. Hello Hervé." Maurice stands with his large brown fists on his hips, his elbows jutting out, as he looks nearly straight down at the strangely compelling hermaphrodite wearing blue eye shadow. Sukreeshuh tries to hump Hervé. Maurice flashes a toothy grin as he nudges her away. "Come awn in." He watches as they pass by, paying extra attention not to bump into the Supreme Being. Maurice pulls his son aside, as the others walk into the barn. "You jess in time, son. Ah bin lookin' for duh sling-shot."

Jesus takes a moment to look around and get re-acquainted with his surroundings. It's been a while since he's been home. He remembers and tells Maurice. He asks, "Uncle Loof-uh bin at duh go' again?"

"Yeah ungh hungh", Maurice exclaims with the satisfaction of knowing a little pain is about to be inflicted on his goat sarding brother. Maurice produces the sling-shot, Luther takes off running. He takes aim with a marble sized rock, stretches the sling back taut, then releases with precision. The rock careens across thirty five cubits of pasture and explodes into the ass of Luther causing him to grunt not unlike when Hoglah slaps him upside the head, only with greater fervor inspired by the exponentially more painful sting.

"Are you gonna chase 'im", asks the LORD.

"Naw. Ah ain't really mad. Yo Uncle Loof-uh's a little stoopit on account uh all duh drugs he done, but he awright. Jess gotta hit 'im wit uh sling shot when he tries tuh run o clime a shittah tree. He's had a lotta practice runnin'. He pretty fass. Bein' stoopit an fass make 'im uh social threat, but mosely to 'imself. Sheet! Wit out yo uncle, Ah wouldn't a had duh aim tuh kill duh sacrifice we gonna have fo dinnuh. Bettuh wash up."

They all sit down on one side of a long table with a long table cloth. Crunchy finger foods, locusts, ants and roaches, centipedes, millipedes, and termites, are set in small bowls along the length of the table for nibbling until the feast is served.

Jesus makes his way into the dining area central to all the stalls, "Look what Ah got." He jerks a tassel before his face that lights up a battery powered fluorescent halo above his head.

Maurice raises his sling shot and announces, "Ah'll get it son, cover yuh eye."

"No, Pop, don't shoot! It's awright. Ah got dis at a shop in New Yawk."

NiGonky recalls paintings he's seen of the halos that hover over Jesus' head in paintings of white Jesuses. The real Jesus, however, has now been to New York. NiGonky ponders how odd it is that this universe seems to be scripted, as if there were some divine scheme, as if the halo was meant to be suspended above Jesus' head, whether it was placed there by a devout artist, by order of a religious leader, or because the man himself lifted it from a shop in NYC.

"Yay'shua, why are we all seated on one side of the table?" NiGonky ejaculates. "Wouldn't we be more comfortable if some of us sat on the other side?"

"Ya know where we at?" rejoins Jesus.

"Bethlehem?"

"Right. Dis a bad neighborhood. Nobody sit wit deir back to duh do'. Ain't safe."

"Really? Bethlehem's a bad neighborhood. Goat herders?"

"Naw, Romans. Jews. Folk that ride on white asses. Dey make a decree an' yuh find yo'sell crucified. If yuh see 'em comin' yuh have a runnin' chance. A brief reprieve. Eventually dey getcha."

"Pity."

Jesus munches a locust, lost in thought. Hoglah enters carrying a dish with a large, golden brown rodent, followed by O-bad'diah carrying another. They take their seats. Hoglah is seated next to Maurice who besats Jesus who besats UuLitch who besats NiGonky who besats Goddallahbuddazeus who besats O-bad'diah. In walks Luther rubbing his ass followed by the fellow dope-smokers, Ringo, George, Paul, and John, all wearing tunics.

All Together Now they make twelve as depicted in The Last Supper by DaVinci.

O-bad'diah leans over the table to make eye contact with UuLitch. She returns his gaze with a warm smile and a hello. He then eyes NiGonky who glances back expressionless, but not unpleasantly. Jesus introduces them, "Uncle O-bad'diah, dis here's NiGonky, an' his niece UuLitch." They nod at each other. "An' dat's Hervé."

O-bad'diah pays no mind to Hervé, as his perceptive mind is at work deducing the chemistry between NiGonky and UuLitch. Hervé can see O-bad'diah's mind at work. He sees that O-bad'diah has perceived something different about them. Not that they are non-physical entities housed in human form, but something not quite right. Hervé is once again impressed by the intuitive powers of humanity, the ability to observe a number of subtle details, combine them, and know that together they equal a finite number of possibilities. Hervé knows that O-bad'diah would have made a good scientist or detective, if he were born in another millennium, and is entertained once again watching evolution at work on Jesus' uncle.

"So, you finally decided to drop in on humanity! What madeyou break your non-intervention clause?" NiGonky asks.

Hervé draws a deep and thoughtful breath. In a voice that squeaks like a hinge, "After four and a half billion years of observing the evolution of one Earthly life form after another, many to extinction, I've decided that a nuclear holocaust, though predictable, is a pathetic demise."

It jumps up on the table pointing toward the sky, "DUH WARHEAD! DUH WARHEAD!"

No one thinks that's funny, so Hervé sits back down and continues. "Humans could not get past inflicting hell upon each other. They must've learned that from my feminine side, their mother. I made women more vindictive and devious than men." They all look at it. "Just kidding. Women are a product of evolution. Don't hold me directly accountable!"

Hervé pauses as it normally would at this moment to take a bong hit. Muscle memory guides its hands into position, but there is no bong to hit.

"I grew so disgusted with this particular ending, that I decided intervention was in order. Let us convene at The Atomic Café over some carrot vapors. Peradventure, UuLitch will sprout some bunny whiskers on her upper lip. We shall observe how strange humanity becomes after they realize that Yay'shua is a goat-mounting pothead." The Creator smiles, its head barely clears the edge of the table.

Jesus objects, a little embarrased in front of Hoglah and Maurice, "I don' moun' goze."

"…I know," croaks Hervé. "Ah'm juss messin wit yo mine."

"Ya know Hervé, I thaw bout kickin yo' ass on account a pizzle-man. But aftuh seein yo' public display o' self affection, which I can't seem tuh erase from mah mind's eye, I knew it was luduhcriss. I spose all deez imbeciles yuh created was inebiddable."

"Correction: I didn't create them. They evolved. Nevertheless, please, go on."

"You awright Hervé, Ah forgive yuh."

"I knew you would. That's your legacy Jes…, Yay'shua."

Ejaculates the Creator, "UuLitch, now that you have become acquainted with humanity. What do you think? Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing or Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction?"

"I'm optimistic. I'm going with Marvin Gaye. I think the Jerries can learn to Come Together. It's been great getting to know Yay'shua. I'm grateful to NiGonky for bringing me to Earth. And, I do love kangaroos."

"NiGonky?" inquires Hervé. Its friend's answer may prove rather winded judging by the pregnant pause.

He draws a breath, "Guns N' Roses is up by one game in this World Series."

Jesus pulls on the tassle clicking his halo on and off, off and on.

NiGonky continues, "It's a pity to witness the carnage of a species plagued by mental illness. They credit You with the ten commandments, in which You tried to impose some limits: Thou Shall Not Kill. You allegedly wrote it in the thirteenth century BC, in stone, then gave it to Moses to get the word out. You think someone vandalized the tablet?

    Thou Shall Not^W Kill

They killed everything. Nothing was safe on their planet: whales, elephants, rhinos, birds, bees, goats, bullocks, rams, wild asses, trees, bacteria, viruses, each other. They never stopped killing. Everyday. Everywhere. Everything."

Everyone looks toward Hervé, who nods wearily and says, "Meshuggeneh."

"They ate popcorn while watching Jerries being beaten, raped, dismembered, or blown into body chunks with red spray."

As if the preacher is leading the flock in call and response, altogether they chant in unison, "Meshuggeneh." For Hervé, the word indicates its exasperation over the terrible violence that afflicted Homo sapiens for most of their evolution. For the others, it's fun to say.

"To feed the voracious Jerry eating machine, slaughterhouses and fisheries gutted and bled out living creatures by the millions."

"Meshuggeneh."

"The news media recapped the days events with stories of terrorism, mass shootings, domestic violence, gang violence."

"Meshuggeneh."

"Their kids trained on killing simulators called video games."

"Meshuggeneh."

"They had hundreds of words associated with killing: Lynching shooting knifing slaying Offing burning bombing preying Stoning drugging beating razing Suffocating drowning hazing."

"Meshuggeneh."

The Creator interjects, "Don't forget the biblical smite and smote." NiGonky closes his eyes, nods and inhales through his nostrilopithicus.

Thinking NiGonky's finished, they look at each other and at the feast set out before them. Then he starts again, "Crucifixion execution Retribution electrocution Extermination decimation Annihilation obliteration."

"Meshuggeneh."

And again, "Matricide patricide Double murder homicide Pesticide herbicide Killing whales was ceticide. (pause for another breath) I think it's gonna to take more than one intervention… Meatloaf's Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad? Not likely! I'd guess The Beatles' Revolution Number 9, but the Jerries are slow learners. So, Chicago's 25 or 6 to 4."

"Meshuggeneh."

John Lennon looks perplexed, mostly because he has no idea why or how The Beatles got there. He knows Marvin Gaye, but not the song Sexual Healing. What's a Jerry? He imagines Meatloaf is not unlike his Aunt Mimi's burnt shepherd's pie. He doesn't know Revolution 9 because he hasn't written it yet. Meshuggeneh has now found its way into his head and may end up in a Beatles song. He rises, goes around the table and drops to his knees opposite Hervé, feigning reverence in this strange play in which a little hermaphrodite is God and a negro is Jesus and everybody's seated on the same side of the table inside a barn. He's had stranger psychedelic excursions in the 1960s.

"Are you thee John Lennon", asks UuLitch seemingly starstruck.

"Eight Days A Week", comes his quick reply.

"Toddler man!" she states.

Toddler man? thinks Lennon. Whore! Quickly recovering he says, "Nowhere Man".

NiGonky asks UuLitch telepathically why she's insulting Lennon. She responds:

That's not my intent. I was visualizing this image of him on the last day of his life.

I forgot about this image, thinks NiGonky.

How did an alpha male end up as an infant?

Guilt? Remorse? Drugs? Absent father? Lennon was an artistic prophet. He would never learn that this image, which he said captured his relationship to his wife, would come to define millions of emasculated males decades afterwards leading up to their nuclear demise. Toxic femininity. Feminism gone awry. The Nag.

So, you blame women?

To ignore their part in the ultimate demise of their species is to ignore their power of sexual selection. So, yes, their females shared in the blame, whether they chose to deflect or not.

"I Want To Hold Your Hand", she responds to Lennon, growing weary of her uncle.

McCartney stabs with, "Get Back".

UuLitch: "Got To Get You Into My Life".

McCartney glances towards John, "Run For Your Life".

NiGonky offers, "Drive My Car".

George advises, "You Can't Do That".

Looking at UuLitch John draws a long sucking Ssssss sound then sings, "Girrr-rrrrllll".

UuLitch spits, "Woman Is The Nigger Of The World", which sucks the air out of the barn into the sounds of silence.

A pregnant moment later, John, shaking his head, "You've got an edge to you, gull".

"I'll Be Your Mirror, reflect who you are", responds UuLitch with no shame nor awareness thereof.

Hervé, sensing the hostility of the interaction with the iconic twentieth century musician squawks, "Remain on thy knees knave, that I shalt let thy head remain affixed to thy neck."

Ringo followed by Paul and George join Lennon prostrating themselves at its feet.

Hervé saith, "Wouldst thou kindly grace us with a song my children? May I suggest a number which boasts of comradery, Yellow Submarine?"

Without hesitation they stand. Ringo launches into: "In the town where I was born, Lived a man...". Together they harmonize, "We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, a yellow submarine".

The others, including Maurice and Hoglah, bob their heads, impressed with the harmonious baritones and tenor of the four lads singing a cappella. Their cadence is supernatural and wonderful to human ears. When they finish, NiGonky and UuLitch run around the table like Beatle maniacs. The others merely rattle their jangly bone-matter adornments. The Fab Four bow and return to their seats.

"Maurice, would you care to lead us in a prayer before we eat?" suggests Hervé.

Without hesitation comes Maurice's succinct reply, "No thanks."

They all tear into the spit roasted rodents, sucking the bones, devouring their portions without a word of conversation. All except Hervé, who chooses not to partake of any more flesh, having satiated for eternity its desire for bloody one year old sacrificial lambs, the innards of bullocks, the stringy tendons of partridges, the megatons of overcooked burnt offerings that did not digest well. And all that blood spattered seven times about the altar and soiling all those tunics, that no amount of washing removed the stains. Hervé sits quietly in meditation with eyes closed contemplating the grotesque destruction of animal life by this species intent on dominating and controlling each other, while exhibiting such profound hypocrisy. Hervé ate none of what the biblical children of Israel offered. UuLitch and NiGonky practice eating like farm animals, like Jesus. Lennon looks on at his mates with great mirth. Although he has no idea who these people are, he decides to emulate them by attacking his plate like an animal.

"Where you be fruh?" NiGonky is startled by O-bad'diah leaning over the table and clearly trying to deduce some greater meaning. NiGonky swallows then ejaculates, "Are you related to Yay'shua?!" He's finally grown weary of the trip and is ready to abandon this tiresome body. He pre-empts the usual Jerry social intercourse by summarizing and resolving O-bad'diah's questions:

"Yes, she's my niece. Yes, we've had relations. Yes, it's immoral. What else do you want to know?"

"Why you lay wit yo' niece, NiGonky? Why you know yo' niece? Uttuh women ain' good enough? Why you lay wit yo' niece? Niece, NiGonky. Why you... (NiGonky decides that if O-bad'diah persists he will end the conversation physically) know UuLitch?"

Everyone remains quiet at the long table thinking, Harsh! Calling him out for having sex with his niece. The Beatles can be heard muddling, "A niece look like that bet it's all he could do to keep his Shoemaker Levied."

Perhaps it's human aggravation, or perhaps it's sleep deprivation, but in just seconds O-bad'diah succeeds at asking his needling question once too often, thus satisfying NiGonky's silent ultimatum, "Niece, NiGonky."

O-bad'diah's mouth and throat close on a partially eaten rodent leg off UuLitch's plate as quail eggs crack in succession Bu Ta-Tat and ooze on his bald spot. He begins to cough and choke reaching for his mouth then scalp. Both Hervé and UuLitch know what NiGonky did. While they're visiting Earth this time, Hervé's satisfied to let any physical intervention that occurs disrupt the natural order.

UuLitch asks Hoglah about her virgin birth. "Virgin birth?" says Hoglah. "The boy weighed near thirteen minae ('my-knee' or lbs.). I thought I was passing a watermelon."

Maurice adds, "My ears were deflowered by huh filthy mowf."

"Chee hee hee", laughs Hoglah.

"What was Yay'shua like as a boy", asks NiGonky.

Hoglah looks at Maurice perplexed.

"When he was six what was he like?"

Both parents look blank.

"How about when he was fifteen? Did he perform any miracles? What happened when you had a tooth ache and he touched you?"

Hoglah thinks a moment, “He was born.”

"Okay, so far." NiGonky nods in affirmation. "He was born."

"Turn' thiddy", says Maurice.

Eyebrow up. Glances at Jesus, then back at Maurice and Hoglah who have now turned their attention elsewhere. He can't help thinking they're putting him on. That everyone seated along the table are in on the joke. Yet, they're all engaged in eating or talking. He thinks, The New Testament omits Jesus' childhood. I assumed something happened with the scribes, or they lost the manuscript and decided it wasn't worth rewriting. Virgin birth, Heaven, Hell, eternity, evil spirits, Sa-tan, holy ghost, dragons, unicorns. Noah's Ark with all those animals closed in for months, eating, drinking, defecating and pissing with no ventilation. And no comment about the inescapable stench. All that ambiguity. Few details. Why shouldn't Jesus skip from birth to middle age and have a beard? He asks Hoglah, “Was he born with a beard?”

Hoglah accommodates NiGonky's silly question by delivering a straight answer, “No, but Nose'tra-dom'us came out looking like a pipe cleaner.” They turn to the cute Nose'tra-dom'us, and stroke her fuzzy beard. Her tail wags as she looks up with big brown eyes peeking through strands of hair.

NiGonky pulls from his tunic not three, but twelve plastic wrapped fortune cookies. He knows he grabbed only what was on Les' tray, that it wasn't a dozen, but here they are. The Universe has provided, so everyone gets a cookie. He explains, "These are fortune cookies. You peel off the plastic, then break it open, like this. Then you read the fortune written on the slip of paper."

"What does yours say, Hoglah?" NiGonky asks.

"Somebody have to read it for me."

UuLitch reads aloud, "That wasn't chicken." NiGonky smiles. No one else gets it.

"What does yours say, UuLitch?"

"Rook up! Beho'd Universe. Rook down! You need pedicure. Cawr 8675 309. Ask for Jenny."

"How 'bout you, Yay'shua?"

"'Do not berieve smerr in restroom. We not kirr crient since open new rocation.' (pause) Ah don't unnuh-tan."

Maurice, Luther, and O-bad'diah hand their slips to UuLitch.

"Maurice's says, 'You will be hungry again in one hour.'"

"Luther's says, 'Next time you come without goat. We show you good time. Ask for Pat.'"

"And O-bad'diah, 'Confucius say: Rash go away when stop scratching, Itch go away when punch self in eye.'"

GodAllahBuddhaZeus slides its slip over to UuLitch. She reads, "If Shorty break wind, brace for typhoon." Hervé smiles allknowingly.

Elbows propped on the table, NiGonky silent chuckles behind his inward facing knuckles. His smile fades as he reads his slip. UuLitch prompts, "What does yours say, Unc?" He reads, "Your offspring will be Cyclopian."

The Beatles read theirs.

Ringo prompts, "All right lads. George?"

"The Stones are bett-uh."

"Mine says, 'I am the egg fu yung, I am the egg fu yung, I am the poo poo plat-tuh.' Might be a song in that. Sir Paul?"

"I rather don't understand mine, it says, 'Money can't buy love, but a prenuptial can prevent reflux.'"

"John?"

Having enjoyed the show, Lennon shrugs his shoulders, "Mine has only one word...