The Second Coming

“Hail, Earthen brothers and sisters, children of the Universal creator. As promised to you millennia ago, I come to you again to bring you unto the Heavens.”

The man raised his hands outward toward the gathered masses, the red scars still visible upon his wrists. The throngs cheered in unison as a great wave of pent up emotion burst forth. The man watched as several humans flailed about as if possessed by ecstasy; several people swooned almost immediately, falling to the ground as their bodies disappeared beneath the assembled flesh. Bulbs flashed a thousand per second. Towering cameras aimed toward the mythical man now here in flesh, recording every word as he spoke and broadcasting the words at light speed across the globe.

Yes, he thought, this will surely go much better than before. Perhaps they are ready.

It had only been a month since he had last laid eyes upon these primate-descended creatures; for them, however, over two-thousand years had past, owing to the unintuitive laws that Einstein had laid out almost a century before. The man swept an olive-skinned hand across his forehead. He still felt the itch from where the thorns had penetrated his scalp. That had been no minor annoyance, but at least they had not left indelible marks.

Their ancestors were so young then. On the cusp of civility and enlightenment, yet still so far. They had most definitely not been ready then. They understood much too little of their own places in existence.

Now, he saw that they had glimpsed this great Universe. They had created primitive ships and had even begun to explore their own cosmic backyard. They must now understand. How could they not?

He beckoned the crowd to still itself – to listen. Silence fell at once as if a muffling blanket a mile on each side had been draped over the world. He could almost sense the hushed anticipation lying on the other side of their primitive broadcasting devices.

The fate of so many rests upon my shoulders. Universe, grant me the wisdom to judge them wisely, as others once judged us.

He ran his dark hand through short black curls. His scalp felt loose, though he had been assured that it would hold. He took a deep breath of the thick air and felt a wave of giddiness sweep through his mind. Luckily, the drugs took effect within moments, rendering the foreign gases breathable.

A tall man in the front let loose a screaming exultation, no longer able to contain himself. “Praise the Lord Jesus Christ, Messiah to mankind!”

A chorus erupted behind the man’s word, punctuated with a blur of similar epithets.

So they now call me Jesus? It is a good a name - as good as any, I suppose. However, their cries both joyous and fervent seeded a deep unease within him, though he knew not why.

He raised his hands once more, and the thunderous cries died as quickly as the first time. “Humankind,” he called, “no doubt you are all keenly aware of the brink upon which you now stand.”

He smiled at the grandiosity of his own words. Though he was not in it for the glory, the adoration for a savior always felt comforting within his ears.

A woman suddenly shouted, “Cast the wicked into Hell! Burn the non-believers and place us at your right hand, Lord!”

Cast the wicked? He balked, his train of thought abruptly thrown. Surely they do not think…no. They must have changed more than this.

The man they now called Jesus cleared his throat before the microphone. “Heed my words, for I am not here to condemn any of your kind.” His deep voice rumbled through the loudspeakers, as an unsteady murmur pulsed through the mass. “As you have now seen with your own eyes, gazing upon this great Universe, your time upon this planet is inherently finite. However, you are not alone in your mortality. All beings must by their very nature be ephemeral. But you have not yet reached the limits of your existential potential. Thus do I come to some of you as a vessel to a new world, as another once came to my people eons ago.”

Cries of disbelief and anger erupted all around. Someone close to the microphone at the front of the stage shouted.

“He is not Christ! He is a false God.”

More shouting sprang from a multitude of human lungs.

“What do you mean ‘your people’?”

“Where is our judgment?”

“Burn the wicked!”

His unease turned to cold fear. Perhaps I have arrived too soon after all. He had seen a crowd of humans turn into a mob once before, and the prospects of going through that again were more than a little unsettling. Unseen by the people below, he tapped a quick pattern on a small device inside his robe in preparation for a quick exit, if necessary.

“Wait,” he cried, “I believe that there has been a miscommunication.” He pointed at the front of the crowd toward the most vocal of the people near the stage. “You – in the red shirt – you have questions?”

The man swung his head from side to side before double-checking the color of his shirt.

“I…yes,” he said, almost inaudibly. He straightened his back and called, “Who exactly do you mean by ‘your people’?”

Jesus was taken aback. What exactly do they think I am?

“Well…my species, of course. We are a race of intelligent beings, not so unlike yourselves. We once stood as you do now, on the cusp between true enlightenment and utter destruction. But also like you, we could not overcome our adolescence alone. We were saved by others.”

The cries of discontent grew to a roar. Jesus shouted into the microphone.

“Please, listen. As I have said, and as promised to your kind two-thousand years ago, I am here to save your race. I bring knowledge, wisdom, and a path to the stars.”

More questions and exclamations drowned the air. He could no longer hear any of them. He gestured for the red-shirted man to join him onstage.

Jesus asked, “Who or what exactly do you think I am?”

The man ambled up the stairs and stared at the crowd, fumbling a hat in his hand.

“We…er…we think – or thought – that you were Jesus Christ, here to deliver the faithful immortal souls into Heaven – into the presence of God.”

Oh no. This is much worse than I thought. Jesus stepped in front of the microphone. “I do not understand what you mean. Why do you still think that you are immortal?”

The man pushed himself before the microphone, much more forcefully this time. “You said so yourself. In the Holy Bible. You were crucified for our sins and your soul ascended into Heaven with the promise to return.”

Jesus bent his head toward the microphone. “What is this Bible of which you speak?”

The man pulled a small, warped New Testament from his back pocket and handed it to Jesus. Jesus held it before him and quickly flipped through it, his hands blurring before the man. Jesus nodded to himself with full understanding. He breathed deeply, growing light-headed, and he waited for his mind to return once more.

“Listen,” he said, taking the microphone in hand, “this book – it is mostly lies and distortions. I did not die for your ‘sins’ as a part of some cosmic plan. Your ancestors were brutal, gullible sheep. They almost killed me, but not quite. I do not fully blame them, for they were but still animals, or near enough. I barely managed to escape. ”

The man yanked the Bible from Jesus’ hand and leapt from the stage wearing a look of utter disgust and disappointment. But the crowd was now beyond calming. Far in the back, waves of force pushed against the flock as those in the rear began to clamor forward. At feeling the wave behind them, those in the front began to grown bold, shouting at one another. Jesus could not tell what exactly they were saying, but it mattered not – he had seen it all before.

“Very well, humankind. I see that you still have a ways to go before you will accept the realities of your own existence. I think I shall now take my leave and putter around the galaxy for a few more weeks. Despite my treatment, I promise yet again that I shall return to you in another millennia or two. Farewell, humans. And heed my plea – use your senses and intellect – and for galactic sakes, stop believing everything you read.”

Without another word, he reached into his robe and pressed a button. A beam of golden light shot from the cloud high above and his body began to rise. The throngs watched as his body disappeared into the Heavens, never to be seen by them again.

A bit o' fiction

The first time I died, I was sitting in a black robe on a brown aluminum chair, waiting for my row to be ushered to the stage. I felt my heart beating faster as the line of whispering graduates in front of me rose amidst the rustle of gowns. They made their way across the football field and I watched as the usher held a hand out to the boy at the end of my row. We were next. My face felt flushed and hot. My chest tightened. The lights seemed to dim before me, though the sun was beating down hot and bright. I felt my gown sticking to the back of my sweaty arms and I glanced toward the bleachers. I couldn’t see dad anywhere among the thousand or so proud faces. Not that I was surprised. He had probably passed out hours ago. I shook my head in an attempt to shake the feeling of vertigo growing in my ears and brain. The chair in front of me lurched toward my face, bringing a plane of green grass along with it. I felt a tugging on my robe, but the force was insubstantial - ethereal - like the distant ringing of an alarm clock. An iris of darkness closed around me as a blurry pain blossomed across my forehead. Even now, I can still remember that last thought – my parting words to my first life: “Oh shit!”

A Taste...

Chapter 1

Strength to Psythid

Fein Renji Zoar, leader of the Psythe and Commander of the Psythid war fleet, gazed at the screen before him, his eyes steaming with pleasure. The air sac below his three blue eyes expanded, drawing in a healthy breath of the acrid smoke drifting lazily through the room. The black star-studded depths of outer space covered the cabin’s screen, and a charred hunk of metal floated across it, as a million similar pieces lay scattered throughout the distance beyond. Though Zoar could not read it, he clearly saw the symbols printed onto the side of the chunk of spaceship as it meandered through the empty space outside. Most of the primitive language had been blasted away. Only the symbols “...nited Stat...” lie stenciled across the gray metal amid a patch of smeared red, white, and blue paint.

Fein Zoar croaked, “I’m surprised the puny creatures managed to lift this thing through their atmosphere, much less get it to fly through space. I feel like we’ve done nothing more than step on a harmless Garlack. What did they expect to do in this heap? Escape? I doubt they could have made it farther than a couple of planets out. They certainly couldn’t have traveled across the galaxy.”

Fein Zoar’s rumbling voice emerged like a can of rocks rolling across the ground. But to Fin Ilzeko, Fein Zoar’s Overseer and second in command, he sounded ecstatic. Zoar rapped Ilzeko’s shelled back with a long whip-like tentacle in a sign of camaraderie.

“You have done well, Fin Ilzeko, and you will most certainly be rewarded for it,” said Fein Zoar through a muscular slit running upward between two of his three eyes.

“Yes, my Fein. The prisoner is well secured, and it seems that he may have useful intelligence.”

Zoar’s air sac collapsed into a mass of wrinkled folds, sending out a jet of smoke through the vertical slit mouth. “And what of the expendables? Have they been eliminated?”

“Yes, my Fein. They have been jettisoned out through the air lock. There,” said Ilzeko waving his whip toward the screen, “you can see one of them now.”

A white space suit spun helplessly in the distance, its arms and legs waving madly to no avail.

“Filthy creatures, polluting our sweet air,” muttered Zoar, taking in another large breath of smoke.

“I can’t imagine that we’ll find anything useful from this forsaken planet, which is fine by me. I can almost smell its stench from out here.”

“I know what you mean, my Fein. I have to close my bulbs every time I get near the prisoner. His odors seem to penetrate straight through my containment suit. And I hate having to wear that thing.”

Fein Zoar scratched at the soft brown fur protruding from his underbelly as he watched two hunks of the obliterated spaceship collide into one another beyond the window.

“Fear not, Fin Ilzeko. As soon as you have gathered everything you can from him, you may reunite him with his frozen companions in oblivion. Tell me, what has your crew been able to gather from the pink one?”

One of Fin Ilzeko’s eyes telescoped inward into his face, rewetting itself. “Well, my Fein, he is definitely acquainted with his region’s military. The prisoner has not yet revealed any details, but he will surely break soon. The difficult part is trying not to kill him. Theirs is a squishy race, easily punctured and broken. Their bodies tend to leak red fluid every time you touch them.”

“No matter. If that junk out there is any indication of their technological abilities, we could probably toss down a few furry Garlacks and kill everything on the planet. I almost feel sorry for them. But orders are orders, and we will do whatever is handed down to us.”

“My Fein, do you think the small one, the youngling, will be of any use?”

“Probably not, Fin Ilzeko, probably not. He seemed much too scared and feeble to accomplish anything, though the boy may yet surprise us. At the very least, however, that escape pod and shaken youngling will certainly serve as an excellent warning to Dralahn Las. And they will still have no idea what’s coming.”

Fein Zoar’s slit clapped open and shut, sending puffs of smoke and grunts into the air. Ilzeko joined in his superior’s laughter, but then trailed off.

“My Fein, may I be so bold as to ask you a question?”

Zoar tilted his wrinkled purple head forward, looking at Ilzeko through the bright blue third eye above his mouth. “You may ask two questions, Fin Ilzeko, and I am counting that one as your first. What is your second question?”

Ilzeko grunted at his leader’s attempt at humor, if that is what it was. “Well, my Fein, do we really know what’s coming?”

Zoar’s slit narrowed as his air sac deflated. He tilted his head back again, now glaring at the soldier through all three eyes, and spoke seriously. “Fin Ilzeko, it does not matter what we do or do not know about the Kre’losth. All we need to know is that they are coming, and that we will be going the way of the Earthlings if we do not obey orders. Understand?”

Ilzeko brought his hulking body into rigid formation, both whips lying flat against his back and hi arms akimbo. “Yes, my Fein. Strength to Psythid,” said Ilzeko raising his tentacles into a figure eight.

“Good. You may be excused.”

Ilzeko exited the bridge, leaving Fein Renji Zoar to survey the Earth ship’s remains tumbling into the cold blackness of space.

It is too late for us to turn back now, Ilzeko my friend. We have built our nest and now we must lie in it. The deal has been made, for good or ill, and we can only hope that the Kre’losth are good to their word. All else is doom.

Fein Zoar rolled back into his cushion, gulping a massive breath of the life-giving smoke, and hoped that his trust was right. In his hearts, however, he knew that it was probably wrong. Dead wrong.

Asian Mind-Reader

Have you ever been sitting on a bus or at work and had a song going through your head with such perfect clarity that it was as if you were actually listening to the song through headphones? Well, I just had one of those experiences, but unlike most times this one was worldview-changing. I was catching the city bus after work to get to my car this evening. Sitting across from me was an elderly Asian man wearing headphones. I was minding my own business “listening” to some Green Day in my head, my wife having recently bought me a copy of the new “Bullet in a Bible” CD/DVD release.

So there I was thinking along with “American Idiot” when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the Asian man was tapping his fingers. I looked up at him and saw his lips faintly moving as well, and all of sudden it was as if I had been punched in the gut. For the man’s mouth was moving absolutely perfectly in time with the song running through my head. And it wasn’t like when you're listening to music and watching TV with the volume off and notice little entertaining synchronizations. It was WORD FOR WORD.

The space around me seemed to constrict, and that’s when I noticed that his finger tapping was also in time with “my” music, his left forefinger tapping out the bass drum and his right forefinger hitting the snare, exactly as I do. But he was wearing headphones, the trailing wires running into his left hand jacket-pocket. My fight or flight response kicked in and I felt that head-lifting sense of an adrenaline shot. I thought “no way, this isn’t really happening, what the hell is wrong with me?” Instantly I changed songs in my head to “Basket Case”, watching him intently. I think my heart literally stopped when I clearly saw the old man mouth the words “sometimes I give myself the creeps”. I could almost FEEL my pupils dilating beyond normal physiological function. Suddenly he looked up at me, reached his hand into the pocket where the headphone wire lead, and stopped silently singing.

It was a moment I will never forget in all of my life. Time was moving easily at a quarter of its normal pace as the muscles around his lips tightened, his face constricted, his squinty eyes becoming even harder to find. The overall visage of this aging grey-haired man had suddenly become the warmest smile I believe I have ever seen. The bus had come to a stop. The man slowly rose from his seat, gave me a quick wink, and stepped off the bus.

And the fact of the matter is that the only part of the above that is true is the part where I was sitting on a bus across from an elderly Asian man.