It wasn’t much good, the thing that was him. No wonder he was screwed up now. No wonder He’d unmade him, rolled him out like dough and balled him up again.
It was never really going to work, was it? He could see that now. It was laughable. An interracial (?) interentitial (?) relationship between a bona fide celestial being – the Jesus Christ, Saviour, Messiah, Great Redeemer, you know the one – and …
Well. Joe. Just Joe.
(Who, pre-Jesus, also answered to Freak. Loser. Nobody.)
It’d been okay to start with, their little life together in the suburbs. Better than okay, actually. He’d hardly dared to believe it; look at it directly and it might dissolve like a mirage in the desert. Domestic bliss: baking their own bread, putting on records, soft-shoeing round the living room. The scent of eucalyptus and pine clinging to everything. More than anything, Joe’s brand-new, never-before-encountered sense of being wanted, being enough, being loved for all that he was and all that he wasn’t. He’d never liked himself, so it was almost beyond belief that there could be anyone else in existence who did. Delude yourself enough, put on the rose-tinted glasses, and you can pass off any miracle for a cheap magic trick.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Jesus said the first time He’d tried to do the dishes and red wine started pouring out of the faucets. “I mean it. Out there, I’m kind of a big deal.”
The meekness with which He spoke the words made them easier for Joe to swallow; anyway, he was so sated with love, with Merlot, that Jesus could’ve said anything and it wouldn’t have mattered.
“Okay,” he said.
But what was the Great I Am doing here in the first place?
Well, Jesus had murmured in the food court after they bumped into each other for the first time in Costco, carts colliding, He was meant to be bringing about the Second Coming – insert fire and brimstone here – but, like, it seemed a bit OTT. Watching all those billions of Average Joes down below over long, lonely millennia, He’d grown to love them, in all their folly and violent confusion. He’d walked among them once, but that was such a long time ago now. He was due another vacation.
Forty cozy days and sultry nights later, they were an item. Another month, and Jesus was on the lease. The landlord didn’t bat an eyelid, just grumbled something to Joe in passing about how he’d never been able to stomach Mexican food.
It was past midnight. They both had work in the morning – Jesus at the homeless shelter, handing out soup and sandwiches, and Joe at his desk job – but He’d given him one of those looks as they were undressing and Joe hadn’t been able to resist.
Breathing hard, they finally fell away from each other, flopping back onto the mattress with soft thuds.
Eyes closed, floating on a cloud of bliss, Joe barely registered Jesus saying something. It sounded like “I can do better this time.”
“What do you mean?” Joe panted. “That was incredible.”
Jesus’ brow was creased in thought, a faraway expression in His eyes. Joe let Him ruminate, the sweat cooling and drying on his neck and back, slightly deflated. It didn’t feel like there was going to be a second coming for anyone tonight.
Then He reached out. Gently at first, but then with growing pressure, He began to palpate Joe’s back, his arms, his legs. Joe’s body purred in pleasure, but his mind was on high alert. This wasn’t the tenderness he had come to know and love. There was urgency in Jesus’ touch. Something felt wrong.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m making you better.”
Joe didn’t understand. He put his hands to Jesus’ face, tried to pull Him in for a kiss. Jesus pushed him away, intoning as if to Himself:
“A ball is round and smooth and still holds promise. But you …” He shook His head, began kneading and tugging faster, with fervour. “You’re all wrong. I can do better. I have to do better.”
“No,” Joe whispered, skin crawling, hands rising to defend himself. “You don’t mean that.” The old voices inside him rose up as though they’d just been sleeping: You’re not good enough. You’ve never been good enough. Loser. Freak.
Jesus was deforming him now, tearing into his flesh, squeezing and pulling, discarding chunks of him like offal in the butcher’s back room. Tears shone in His deep, boundless eyes. He choked out:
“I’m sorry. I need to start again.”
Crying out in agony, all that remained of Joe prayed – to whom? – that there was still something there: a spark, a kernel, a seed that would save him from his destruction.
The last thing he heard in this mortal sphere was a heartbroken utterance, soft as a caress:
“Close your eyes, darling.”
Jesus never liked to look at His creations when He killed them.
Image by PDPhotos from Pixabay — A ball of dough being kneaded
literally stories 
Lesley
Tremendous undertaking here. The affirmation of worthlessness and pursuit of”doing better” are extremely disturbing.
This creates unease; and yet it contains a trace of humour.
Well done.
Leila
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Loved the dark turn this took.
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This is a clever mix of whimsy, wit and something dark and disturbing. Very well done and the ending was sobering, I thought and unsettling. It stays with you. Great stuff – thank you – Diane
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Well, that took a dark turn! I lolled over ‘second coming’ and then grimaced at the kneading – a shifty but well-crafted and memorable piece.
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Wow, here was something for every ardent Christian to hate: Jesus as an LGBTQ creature, as sensual, as fallible. Interesting take on the Christ — as sexual object and as being human. It was funny: running into Jesus — literally — at Costco. The story was both tongue-in-cheek and literal and consequently, pointedly effective.
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Well, Lesley, God knows Joe had a lot to improve upon and Jesus was a perfectionist — or at least perfect — so it all makes sense.
Also, The Godhead seems to be deprived of A Female Principle or Influencer — They never gave The Virgin Mary anything important to do except keep Her foot on the poor snake. Meanwhile women never had problems making people on a day-to-day basis, nor achieving “second comings” if in the mood.
Move over Jesus, give Your Mommy a shot at it, for Christ’s Sakes.
Go Lesley!
Gerry
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Lesley
This flash fiction is a philosophical parable that does very much in few words. It’s challenging, provocative, disturbing, and thought-provoking in a hardcore way. The philosopher Spinoza said that we need to learn to love God even when/if she/he/it doesn’t love us. JC himself chose the most brutal, tortuous public death the Roman Empire had to offer. (He could have remained quiet, slipped out of town like he’d been doing for 33 years, or simply stayed away from Jerusalem. He surely knew what was coming, especially after what happened to his friend John the Baptist.) In other religions around the world, being torn apart (or burning yourself alive, or leaping from a cliff) is not always seen as a bad thing. (And the Stoic Marcus Aurelius said one needs to remain calm, even if being devoured by an animal.) Your story grapples with extremely profound issues, in a dramatic, ambiguous, and subtle way. I was also reminded of teenaged Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Polidari, who would tell each other German ghost and horror stories around the fire while in exile in Italy, leading to the composition of “Frankenstein” by Mary when she was 18 and 19. In the U.S., the majority of alcoholics who quit drinking turn to JC in one way or another, even if they never attend A.A. (And the vast majority of psychosis patients have strong feelings about him, often believing they ARE him.) All of these sorts of issues seem to be somehow combined and packed into your philosophical parable which does so much. “The last thing he heard in this mortal sphere was a heartbroken utterance, soft as a caress…” = “My God, my God, why hast though forsaken me?” which Jesus cried out from the cross in the Gospel story (the anonymous folks who wrote his story are the ones responsible for us knowing about it now, as with Plato and Socrates). Thanks for writing so well, fearlessly, and seriously: and satirically. Complex, intelligent, inspiring, and memorable!
Dale
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Great stuff! That’s Jesus for you—love ‘em, leave ‘em, recycle ‘em 😁 well written and fun, and the ending was really surprising, and so sad. Poor Joe! Thanks for this wonderful work.
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Now for something completely different (John Cleese voice).
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Such irreverent panache. Magnificent.
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Hi Lesley,
The idea of ‘I could do better’ is for the arrogant. ‘That’s the best I can do’ is much more realistic!
He should have been happy with Joe, faults and all. But that’s what makes us human and not something that’s not!
I do enjoy this kind of humour and thinking.
Hugh
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The tonal shifts in this, from humour and everyday to deep and sinister are pulled off really well in this irreverent, but highly intriguing tale.
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