Release date: February 6, 2019
Subgenre: Satire
About Second Coming:
What Will Jesus Do?
After being crucified for Mankind's sins, Jesus Christ and his half-brother, Lucifer, pass the time before His Resurrection playing cards in Hades.They discuss the Plan of God, which they realize is another scheme intended to push Judgement Day thousands of years into the future.
After a heated exchange, Jesus gambles a billion souls that, by repeating the wager that Lucifer and God undertook regarding Job several thousand years prior, Mankind will prove His argument.
Lucifer agrees, and the next day, Jesus rises.
But, as the years go by, Jesus realizes that Lucifer may have stacked the deck in his favor!
He publishes his parables and morality tales under various pseudonyms.
He uses His knowledge of The List, composed by His Father, to guide His readers to the Truth.
In the current day, He now lives on his yacht, the Virgin Mary, in the Red Sea.
As His wager with Lucifer draws to a close, Signs of the Apocalypse portend that the Time of Revelations is at hand!
What will He do to save the human race from itself?
This is the second of series of speculative short satires that began with Imperius Wrecksby acclaimed science fiction author and raconteur A.E. Williams! Come aboard as Williams puts his redoubtable wit to complex problems of philosophy, morality and ethical conundrums. Reminiscent of speculative fiction in the vein of Vonnegut and Dick, Second Coming will fire your imagination!
Excerpt:
Jesus Christ lay in a chaise longue on the deck of His private
yacht, the Virgin Mary, nursing His fifth Mai-Tai of the morning.
The yacht was currently moored in the Red Sea, and sat bobbing on
the smooth waves. The sound of distant mortars jarred His
sensibilities.
He sighed.
“Fucking Lucifer,” He mumbled, holding His head against the
migraine behind His eyes.
He raised them to Heaven.
“‘Chosen People’ My puckered sphincter, Dad!” He shouted at the
sky.
Jesus had awakened late, as was His habit, and immediately taken a
bong hit of some primo sativa, letting the smoke draw deep into His
lungs. He snickered at the thought that so many people thought weed
was ‘evil,’ and contemplated the Universe, for, like, the millionth
time. He mentally threw a curse at His half-brother, Lucifer, whom
He knew would feel a slight twinge in His temple, because of their
entangled nature. He thought the migraines were Lucifer’s way of
screwing with Him in return.
But He could never prove it…
He’d played Devil’s Advocate with both sides of that argument, but
could never reach a conclusion.
Damn His half-brother to Hell!
Oh, wait! Too late!
He smirked at how clever He was, being able to inject so many
religious metaphors into His stream-of-consciousness thoughts, but
ascribed it to the effects of the pot.
He sighed.
Being omniscient was a real drag, sometimes. A royal pain in the
ass, if He were being honest.
He stood up from His chaise, and set the Mai Tai on a bamboo table
He’d known Confucius to recommend to other gurus.
Walking into the head, He urinated into the stainless-steel
commode.
“Piss, Christ!” he chortled.
He shook the last few drops of holy water from His circumcised
penis.
That had been a bad idea, He ruefully considered.
Jesus stripped off His robe, and walked into the shower, pausing to
grab the bottle of champagne from the sterling silver ice bucket.
All of the ice had melted. He took His Name in vain.
“Fuck you,” He said, to no one, as He shampooed His long, blond
locks of hair. He turned off the spigots, and sat on the cold
marble ledge of His shower, the water droplets dripping slowly from
His body in rivulets.
Reaching to the bottle, He popped the cork. He took a swig. It was
flat, and tasted like ass. Donkey, to be specific.
He poured some more past His jawbones, and gulped it down. “I
really need to teach those monks how to make good wine,” He mused.
He doused His toes with the remainder, enjoying the sensation of
the tiny bubbles in the wine tickling His toenails.
He sat there, eyes closed, just breathing in, and out, slowly, for
a few minutes, letting the stress of the day float away from Him.
After He’d washed His feet with cold, flat Dom Perignon, He floated
down from the stern of the yacht, and bathed in the waters of the
Red Sea. He always enjoyed this; it reminded Him of that day with
Peter, sans the stormy winds. He walked around the ship, His first
Mai Tai in hand, just observing the play of light between the ship,
the sea and the sky.
He sighed, and sipped.
He stood on the surface, occasionally dipping His toes into the
water, scaring a random fish. He briefly thought about dividing it
into a couple thousand more, and tossing a few million loaves of
bread into the water, just to stir things up a bit, but realized
that would be against the rules of The Wager. He stomped on the
water, and the fish swam off.
He scratched His naked buttocks, frowning and farted.
“Holy winds! I’ll bet they smell that one all the way down at the
Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano!” He smiled, then immediately
frowned again.
His stigmata were bothering Him this fine morning. He scratched at
one, slightly. It was irksome that, after all these thousands of
years, He still felt them when the weather was dry, or if He really
thought about it. Sometimes, while He slept, they wept blood.
He would take His Own name in vain, then, grabbing the red-stained
sheets into handfuls of silky vestments, and shove them into the
washing machines. They never were totally clean; He could detect
the faint traces of His blood, even after using OxyClean.
Once, He tried Clorox, directly on the tainted cloth, and was
rewarded with something that looked like a poor copy of the ‘Shroud
of Turin,’ which had Him laughing for at least five minutes. He’d
had a wicked idea, and mailed it, listing the return address as
Mount Sinai, to the Pope. The ensuing chaos had Him grinning for
weeks.
It was rare for Him to find humor in His actions, since being
immortal had made life boring and predictable, mostly. Mostly. He
did find the occasional opportunity to wreak metaphysical and
spiritual havoc, once in a great while, and took care to at least
try to appreciate the irony.
He scratched idly at His side, and then levitated to the
deck.
He poured another drink from the pitcher He’d manifested, adjusting
the tartness slightly. He sipped it, smacking His lips, His
smooth-shaved face radiant in the afternoon sun.
He looked out over the waters, slowly floating around the deck,
sitting in the lotus position that the Buddha had taught to Him.
“Enlightened, My Holy Ass!” He said, out loud, for the millionth
time.
Jesus wept, a bit, then, missing the comforting company of His true
friend and kindred spirit.
Gathering His composure, He leaned back, and enjoyed the day,
mentally scheming as to how He was going to beat His brother, this
time.
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About A.E. Williams:
A.E. Williams has a unique background of military experience, aerospace engineering and intelligence analysis.
Born
near Pittsburgh, A.E. Williams is man of a mystery. As a young man,
Williams served the United States government in various capacities,
which he then followed with ten years as an outfitter. Williams finally
retired and moved down to rural central Florida, where he ran a medium -
sized tilapia farm. He did his writing at night, usually accompanied by
a bottle of Maker's Mark bourbon and a large supply of Classic Dr.
Pepper and ice.
A.E. Williams is the author of the exciting hard science fiction series Terminal Reset,
which is about the effects of a mysterious force from billions of miles
away from Earth that was formed millions of years ago. When The Wave
strikes, everything changes!
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