The Seven Days of Re-Creation

I’m heading down the main street in Cincinnati. I mean, nothing looks familiar to me anymore, and I’ve lived here thirty years. I suppose sometimes we can’t see what’s right in front of us too clearly as if we have dust on our eyes all along. Well I was walking down 4^th Street, and at the far end I could see the first of the two tallest buildings in the city, the Government Panopticon, which rose to a height of 30 stories and was equipped with heli-pad, radar receiver, transmitting beacon & antenna, as well as a network of cameras and microphones all over the city placed in inconspicuous public places. The better to keep an eye on us all.

But it’s just me, Steve Pissoir, and I am on my way to a very important date with a friend of mine who works over at the university between the government tower, and the Nollij Corporation tower.

The folks in the Nollij Corp. tower could give a rat’s ass for a toad like me, but what I want to do (with the help of my good friend) is to get a signal out, over the cosmos, using the radio telescopes of the university (tied together with seven other large array and wide beacon telescopes across the western hemisphere) as a transmitter to send a serious SOS from our planet to any civilization within earshot and get their help to preserve our living space before it all catches fire- as it has been doing for the past fifty years.

I don’t know about such things & all except that my friend at the university does, because he is an undergraduate exobiologist with a minor in astrophysics, and he is just as interested as I am in getting the word out, out of our society, out into the universe, where perhaps creatures of mercy can bring us to heal the planet….

I know, it sounds like I am whining. But you weren't there when the final ice shelf left Antarctica, and the last penguin croaked at Cape Horn, and the seagulls of Carlisle ate the rotted flesh of a hundred thousand Englishmen whose fortunes had been tied to the Humble river when it overran its banks and filled fifty thousand acres of cropland into desert of salt.

No I suppose you were not there.

But my friend and I, we need to work on this thing without the university or the government discovering we are doing this. Our network of other conspirators, for conspirators we indeed all are, across the globe are well aware of the risks we are taking and have left no stone unturned in keeping our work on this project undetected by an investigators or superiors or government agents…

Because we know that the government and Nollij Corporation are working together to keep the fires fueled, and keep all the cars fueled, and keep us all choking in an atmospheric soup of contaminated lead, ethyl and premium. I suppose I can’t let on even to you but I think you will believe me better once I get to the point of all of this.

Steve Pissoir, and I am on my way to the observatory at Cincinnati U. I can now see the tower of the Nollij Corporation, the people who instruct the world in what knowledge we are to know. They are the largest repository of the world’s information, but I know for a fact myself that they have kept a large portion of it hidden like an iceberg, deep in their AI brain’s recesses, and these truths are dangerous and self evident… someone wrote them long ago. If the government won’t try to contact the aliens out there, then it’s up to us.

I’m now passing Nollij Corp. Tower. The glass windows reflect a blue sky, blue in the ultramarine, rows of them, that continue on down the block and just three blocks away I’ll be able to meet up with Jorge.

Jorge Torremolinos, my partner in this grand cybercrime we aim to commit in the name of humanity, despite the thwarting bulking hide of the State thrust before us. Jorge, with his degree and recent work, has got connections to Chile and the Atacama VLA… along with our friend Pieter in Johannesburg, we have got the ability, once Jorge gets his Trojan horse into the mainframes of all three observatories, & we can focus X Kw of power to send our message out to the stars for exactly two and a half hours. Any longer, and there will definitely be feedback loops from inside each country’s national security cyber-defenses- they will not notice it is their own computer networks hijacking the world’s most powerful radio telescopes….

Such military secrecy! Well it had to be that way, since Jorge and I feel there is little to lose (but our lives and liberty!) and a world to gain for humanity if we succeed. That is, if we can even yet still regain our world. I don’t really know any longer if we have even a wing or a prayer to cast upon the waters but all I now is, that our government has not done a single thing but contribute to the general misery and malaise…

The government and the Nollij Corp both have a vested interest in keeping secret any contact information they might have about any visitors from outer space, any civilizations out there which might have -or might yet- attempt to contact us. The goal I think is to continue to shrink the population of earth through eugenics and possibly even cannibalism to get the earth back down into a sustainable population of humans. As it is now we have shore stacked on shores of humans distributed around the coasts of our continents, and every year more of them are forced to withdraw for higher ground, pushing the already burdened nation sates… but I digress. My mission comes first.

The University’s observatory is but a mere four and a half blocks from the Nollij Corp tower. It is entered through a small door on the side of an auditorium (actually, it’s the planetarium, but it serves its purpose for the student body to hold rock and roll concerts.)

Jorge’s office (and the telescope, and the controls) are just beneath this large congregating hall, and the signals are relayed by means of transmission wires to the antenna and satellite dish on the rooftop. Ingenious, actually, it was the best the university’s cash-strapped astronomy department could come up with. Whatever it is, it works.

And we are hoping to hijack the network. With 790.000 Megawatts of broadcast energy, the sum transmission, traveling at the speed of light, will reach the closest star at 6-11 light years. The next best habitable stars come in the 20-50 light year range. But if there’s anybody out there?

We are betting there is. The sheer number of viable exoplanets, Jorge assures me, is enough to wager the risk is low that we will perform a pure miss, and nothing will come of our efforts, except, perhaps for all of us, a term in our local prisons.

Here’s Jorge, and here I am, and I hand him the slip on which I have written the message we will be broadcasting in binary formula out in hopes… we can reach… them.

Hello! Please understand who we are, we need help! Come to our star and help us- our planet is choking and we need oxygen and other elements to mitigate our existence! Help! Please come soon!

You will never believe what happened next, but I am here today to tell you. Within three hours of our shutting off the transmitters and resuming our nonchalant roles in our respective countries Jorge, Pieter in South Africa, and Alejandro in Chile had gone back into our regular everyday positions, I in finance, and them just turning their backs in their white coats - within three hours the most amazing things happened.

First, the sun hung in the sky at about 2:00. It remained at 2:00 for more than fifteen minutes, then, a half hour, then, for yet another hour it had remained in that one spot in the sky. All the world seemed to come to a halt, as people everywhere could not help but notice that the sun had stopped. Taxis and freight trucks ground to a halt, horns bleated, tempers flared. Road rage broke out simultaneously in over fifteen states on seventeen federal interstate highways.

It was as if the sun had become a magnifying glass, and we humans were little ants.

Smoke and steam poured forth from the exhaust flumes of over three hundred coal fired power plants in the Eastern Seaboard grid. One by one, these began to black out. With that black out, lights and electrical outlets all over the east coast went out too. Stereos and computers died. Radios fell silent.

It was but the beginning.

There was a great sound like thunderclaps, and, lest you think I but jest, the sound of a thousand trumps blowing in great arpeggios of glory. How else can it be said. And we saw it.

It was just like more than a hundred science fiction movies, above us all in the sky, a gigantic alien spacecraft. It had lights all about the perimeter, and- cross my heart if I am lying to you- it had a little ramp that came down, and down that little ramp walked a little man, clothed in a simple robe, and from it the music that was playing as he came down the steps- something like a country-funk rythmn & blues bop shuffle- he was snapping his fingers and grooving. And I swear to god it was like a hundred angels came down out that spaceship behind him, trailing their clouds of glory, and we all knew who He was.

It was up to Him to announce himself, though. All the world stood still in awe. Just as the sun, now freed again, continued on its way down the horizon, so did the Son of Man return to the planet he had called home 2000 years ago, but that prophecy should actually come true? Had the Messiah actually come just at the time when we of the scientific community had been asking for help from any outside force, here it was in all its force right in our faces?

My God, I said to Jorge in a text message, I think this is the Second Coming of… Jesus Christ.

About twenty minutes later, I get a knock on my door.

I go to it…

and shit, there’s Jesus!

“Steve Pissoir?”

“Yes?”

“Steve, I’m here in answer to your message.”

“But but, yes?”

“But nothing. Hey, I bet you get a lot of shit about your name, hunh?

“Um. I think I am used to it by now, yeah...”

“Well hey, anyway. Look- see what we gotta do-”

“Yes?”

“What we gotta do is, we gotta have a Press Conference!”

“A what? And blow our cover?”

“”No, I got your backs! C’mon. We gotta have a press conference so the leaders of your planet know this shit’s come down for real!”

“I- yeah, right, I guess.. we gotta… Yeah, OK, what do you need me to do?”

“Go to your university there and get the Astronomy Department head to be present at our conference. We’ll present the case just like it was some kind of scientific event, you dig?”

“Umm… sure.. uh”

“And who is not to take us seriously anyway! You know who I am, come on!”

It was obvious that if Jesus himself was in on our conspiracy I had to concede perhaps we were invulnerable. It might have been a mistake, but I guess it was just a step I had to take.

I called Alejandro.

Alejandro Tiene, our man at Atacama. He was in charge of a program checking for the Hubble Constant amongst a number of Messier objects which had been classified first as white dwarfs, but we now considered to be “sub atomic neutron fissile factories”- happening about ever 16 parsecs or so across the sky…

Anyway Alejandro was the brain who got the link up happening with the telescopes becoming a transmitter, and his job and ass were as much on the line as any of us. In fact, it was really possible his government cold pursue an espionage case against him, if the hacking were discovered.

But as Jesus said, he’s got our backs…

“Are you kidding, man? It’s all over the tv and the radio down here, man! -That bigass old alien space craft? Esta Jesu Christos, los Salvador del mundo! I know it, too!

I turned to Jesus. “You see? He already believes!”

“Tell him, we have to coordinate...”

“I know, I know, a press conference! OK -I am now posting to the University Bulletin board--- and also to several local television outlets, and a couple of national and international… carbon copies, you dig… We can face the reporters at… 4:00? OK?”

“OK. That will be fine…

“I will be available on sat link whenever you want me...”

Alejandro had a pleasant, happy boy expression on his face as I blinked off the stare-screen.

“Roger”

OK, so we have about an hour to get ready,” said Jesus. “I suggest you hold it in the concert hall upstairs...’

“You mean, the planetarium.”

“No, I mean the concert hall. That’s the only function it will have for the duration as long as Dad and I are in charge...”

“Dad?”
“Dad?”

“Yes,. You know. The Almighty. Our Father. You didn’t think I was just gonna try and set this up by myself again, did you, after what happened to me the last time?”

“Umm, OK, right. But please explain...”

“Yes?
“So many questions! Sorry, I cannot actually think straight enough right now to ask you the right one…

think of an important one to ask...h- how did you hear our message?

“Hear? You think we needed to hear it? But, me and Dad been working on you guys for a whiles now. We sort of have a “6^th sense”, you might say, of when and where we’re needed most...”

“Ahh,,,”

“But just one thing. You know, we can’t just keep coming here and bailing you guys out like this all the time! You need to learn and take the lessons to heart, because we can’t always be here for you!”

“Hmmm...”

“Does it make sense?”

“Yes. But … What are you going to do?”

“You’ll see. Let’s get the press job set up.”

The University’s Public Address crew spun into action, setting up a table, a dais, a large flat screen pulled down from the back wall, stanchions around the sage to hold back the reporters, most of whom would leave that space for the cameramen. At 3:$5 the first reporters began showing up. Me, Jorge, and JC were all seated at the table, to begin.

I rose to the dais.

“Good afternoon, members of the press. I’m sure all of you have many questions, but I’ll explain, first.

“My name is Steven Pissoir...” (Immediately, several reporters began laughing and choking on their coffee. The slight disturbance was like a ripple in the little room.)

I began again.

“My name is Steven Pissoir, and I am just a bank clerk for Frosteez. But I had a vision one day that I would be called upon to send a message out across space, to some superior civilization, to come to our aid and help us with our great current climate catastrophe. My partner here, (I pointed to Jorge) -is an exoplanetary biologist who works here at the university. We set up a satellite link with our brother in Chile, Alejandro Tiene, who will soon be joining us on the wide screen above and behind me.

“We sent a transmission just three hours ago, toward the area of the sky where we know the nearest habitable stars are. We know it was an abrogation of our duties as paid employees of science agencies and universities, but we felt that -in the absence of any action by our governments- that it would be up to us to try and get this SOS out. And look what happened.”

“Much to our surprise, the result is what you have seen here today-

“It is my proud pleasure to introduce to you, the man many of you have been waiting for all these years, as did your parents and your parent’s parents parents… without further ado, Mr. Jesus Christ!”

There was a mixture of baffled humor, shock, awe, and even a little applause, which I swear had not been planned but apparently, the campus PA guys had cued up just especially for the moment.

Now, Jesus took the dais. His hair was immaculately curled into dreadlocks, and a bright orange-yellow halo nimbus surrounded his head. He had a great wide smiling grin on his face, and his eyes- well, they sparkled, sparkled like trillions of star-seeds would launch from their orbit.

“Hi, y’all”

A pregnant silence followed, interrupted by the coughs of some newsmen. He was obviously stalling until he had their full attention.

“Hi, y’all. You know, it’s been a while, huh? Last time I came by you were all in a horrible way about what’s sacred & what not, & I thought me & Dad had fixed you all up, with Moses and Noah and the boys, but you didn’t get the point.

“-I did. No, sorry, I meant that as a joke.

“See, from where we are outside of space time, you would think we do not hear your prayers, your cries for mercy, when you are in pain, on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and more?
“Well, of course we do. Me and Dad… well I know you have more questions about “last time,” but I am not here today to answer any of them. I am here to help you NOW.”

There was silence, more coughing and muttering in the press corps, and then he turned to the screen behind us and pointed to Alejandro’s face, which had as wide a grin as his own, and dominated the entire back wall of the hall.

“This man here, Alejandro of , is the first of you to acknowledge my authority. As such, I will make him and his friends here-” he nodded at us, staring at our shoes, or fidgeting with a water glass-

“My deputies in the great project we have ahead of us, which is called, once again, coming-to-help-you fix your-mistakes.” Jesus he could be sarcastic!

"A lot of you are not going to like what we're going to do next, but, lest ye see miracles, ye would not believe…."

There was silence in the hall for a minute or two, since nobody knew what to expect, and since nothing happened in the hall, it just made the reporters all more nervous.

But this is what happened. We later called it “La Milagro de los Autos” because of what it was, and how sudden it was, and how it affected… all of us.

Across the planet, motorists who were just tootling along merrily one moment were sprawled out on the pavement the next, 2 billion bottoms scraping asphalt, their automobiles… gone.

From the dais, Jesus now continued.

“Like I said, some of you will not like it, but Dad and I decided this was the most important thing all of you could do, and none of you wanted to do it, so we were forced to put it upon you all. I know, many of you are without your radios now… but we will allow the use of cell phones for the next three days in order for you to contact your family, your friends, and your business associates as to what you are going to have to do next...”

Jesus stepped aside, and came over to my chair to whisper.

“Allow Alejandro to talk to them for a while, it will keep them distracted. We got a big problem going on with this, and I am sure Dad wants me to be available...”

I got back up and turned the wire over to Alejandro.

“Greetings my brothers and sisters!”

Across the planet, those who were on the streets now, their belongings somehow left in place, but their automobiles now missing, began to form up in groups around those with radios and cellphones.

“Jesus is back!”
“Jesus did that?”

“Jesus Christ- that goddam motherfucker, where’s my fucking truck! I had a load to get to the East Coast by tomorrow, now my boss will kill me!”
“Let’s organize!

“Yeah!”

And on freeways around the globe, these strange, bedraggled armies of commuters, pleasure travelers, day-to-day deliverymen, and big rig drivers formed into long lines and...walked their ways back home.

“Greetings, Brothers and Sisters. We are on the cusp of a great new astrological age! Those of you of other faiths, be assured, we are not going to persecute you for your ways. Nor even you, atheists. But just rest in faith that El Salvador is going to help us, and this is all for the good, esta bueno, si? We will all get along! After all this is the New Kingdom…”

Alejandro’s connection must have broke, because the screen behind us clicked black.

Jesus stepped back up the dais.

“Yes, this is the New Kingdom of which I once spoke, in another mind, but it is also a work in progress, and it always was. Those of you who are missing your cars… I know, I know, I can see you even now, in your legions, marching homeward so you can go get your weapons and come after me with your pitchforks…

“But I already paid that burden for you once, and I will not again. I want you to know you WILL all be compensated! What you should be doing now is, go home, get your shit together, and wait for our next phase. This will begin as soon as Dad and I are assured that there will be no insurrections among ye.

“Insurrectionists will be rooted out and cast unto the bottomless pit! Heh heh heh.”

I could not but wonder- but of course, God and Jesus are authoritarians! Why, they are the highest authority, how could they but not be! Was all the philosophical wondering over “free will” and “determinism” now all moot? It looked like the boss was back. But rather than being mad, he seemed…more like gently amused.
Nonetheless, they often warned me that fascism might come wearing a happy face mask and waving a handkerchief someday…

I could only wonder what he means by the next step...

What was going on inside the planetarium was not passing unnoticed by the powers that be, either in the Panopticon, or the HQ building of the Nollij Corp.

Inside, bureaucrats, investigators, detectives, cops, generals and squares were all debating how they should respond to the gigantic seizure of power by “the God Bros” as one Pentagon wag called them.

“What the fuck are we doing messing around? Send in a SWAT team!”

Actually, they did attempt it, but when the SWAT team arrived at the university planetarium, they were met with a strange occurrence. Every single one of them collapsed on the floor outside the auditorium door, laughing and jagging into fits of euphoria. Dropping their weapons and laid back, spaced-out, against the walls, they resembled none so much as victims of an LSD-dosing experiment undertaken by someone else’s army.

So that did not work.

Over at the Nollij Corp, where Splendor Bendix ruled everything with an iron fist and burrito-filled glove, he saw his own blood pressure begin to spike as the teletype gave him a careening stock market and just like that, Seven trillion dollars had been debited from his estate. Rather than commit suicide, Bendix decided that he would have his revenge as well on the “God Bros” in due time.

But even Bendix was not prepared to see the entire financial structure of the planet earth, all its intricate networks of trusts and financials and regurgitables and vegetables disappear, Just like the cars had. Sent into another dimension, Poof.

Which was what Jesus had meant when he said “our next step...”

The press conference broke up with the reporters yelling and screaming madly for Jesus to comment or answer a question, but JC had already split and headed back down into Jorge’s lab. There, me and Jorge found him later in the afternoon, his feet propped up against the back another chair, arms folded behind his head, and that same shit-eating grin plastered all over his face.

“See how they like it now.. no cars, no money… no more rat race!”

I smiled. I knew I had to talk to him a little more about the speed of these things taking shape, but he seemed so pleased I dared not disturb him.

I stuck my hand down the pocket of my jeans and where I last remembered having some change, it was there no more. Just like Him, I thought, he’s gone and disappeared all the money too. Just like the cars. Are these really miracles for our own good? Or will civilization collapse? I gotta try and stay on his side though- never know if he might even decide to throw me to the bottomless pit.

He let us rest up, and I did that at my own home, walking there as I did, surrounded by dozens of other people, some of whom lived nearby, and most who did not. It was a funny feeling walking amongst all my fellow people, and none of us had a dime in our pockets. Like, the world could go on, and somehow, even us humans with nothing left at all- no car, no money, maybe you saved the coffee mug from the last car trip and are wearing it like a pilgrim’s badge by now-

But every single man and woman on the streets had been suddenly de-statused, or perhaps, I hoped, “re-statused”- as would be the primary idea behind a move like this by Jesus and Dad.

I sort of resented not having the money or the wealth any longer. Now, we were all just serfs in Jesus great kingdom though I am sure he would rather prefer to call us his sheep.

Sheep or not, I know there are still plenty wolves out there. Like, Splendor Bendix and his crew, and all those long haul truckers out there who sat, defiantly, beside their cargo loads, as they waited for company representatives to come, inventory the goods, and release them back to their family and homes.

Where, just like everyone else, there was not even a single article to be found related to the fossil fuel industry.

From nowhere, thousands of kitchen sinks had their underside cabinets scoured of plastic bleach bottles, garbage bags, weed killers, and air fresheners. Everyone would still have their phones, but sure as shit, I knew that, come tomorrow, Jesus would be up and at ‘em early in the morning wanting to get the new Kingdom off on a good foot for the First day.

On the First Day, the Food Panic had set in almost immediately. Once all those multitudes formed their long lines off the freeways and began their homeward treks, those who’d been waiting for their return panicked. No car! Most then began walking for their local supermarkets, and predictably, these started selling out their stocks before closing, Many shopkeepers marked up signs reading “Closing- Permanently” but were shocked, when in the morning, they returned to their shops to begin the process of making the adjustments, when they saw their shelves had all been mysteriously resupplied! There was nothing amiss, at all… except.. the food was all “generic”- there were only a little tag at the end of a bag, or on a box, to tell what it was, although every item was in the exact place that the display merchants had slotted it.

It was truly a miracle…

As for those multitudes on the highways, overnight, Jesus had sent out an army of angels armed with reusable water flasks and loaves of bread, (and cookies!) at way stations along the roads There was no reason anyone with a healthy body could not return to their abode within a day or two, and unless they were far from home, there was no problem.

Jesus keeping the cellphones on for longer than he first had planned had something to do with the fact that, by the end of the third day, there were very few cases of madness, insurrection, or disgruntledness.

Except, of course, in the halls of Power.

On that first morning, when I had finished my last cup of specialty Columbian coffee, and had steeled my mind for the worst, I headed back to Jorge’s office, which of course, was now the command post and HQ for all of the Good Lord’s Earthly Operations.

He was seated in the same chair, in the same way, with the same smile on his face, when I entered. Only behind him now, standing, with stern looks on their faces, were two large angels.

“Steve, meet Gabe and Mike. They’re my bodyguards...”

“Umm, how do you do?”

They stood silently and only nodded in my direction, an indifferent acknowledgment, I felt.

“We did get some overnight reports about some problems, mostly those interstate truck drivers. What a tough breed they are! I can understand how inconvenienced they must all feel. Listen, I sent out squads to every large disturbed region- you know, the ones where there’s the most freight just lying out on the road, you know? Told them that my angels will guard the shit so nobody can rip them off. Then I sent all the truckers home. That sort of nipped their anger in the bud. They weren’t happy with the loss of their wallets, either, but, I assured them that their wages will be made up, when we have the final edge of the operation functional. And you, too- you will miss your coffee, too, I know! But hey- remember what I said now! Take no worry for where or how you shall eat or what your raiment shall be, alright? We’re all gonna be in this together, and every last jot and tittle will be accounted.

“Now Steve, I want you to be my ambassador, intermediary, or whatever you want to call yourself, to these others, the seven billion of you here on this little blue rock of stardust.

“You are my PR guy, my go to for questions of which of course, I might know the answer, but, maybe also I don’t, you know? Being only half-human and half-Holy Ghost, I can’t actually see past a certain fog in my own perspective...”

“Got a log in your eye?”

“Ha, ha. No really, there are things you will have more familiarity with, you know? I only get to check in here every couple of thousand years, and while Dad’s crystal ball shows him and me a lot some days it’s all cloudy… too many bad vibes going on here with you guys all fighting between yourselves! When the problem here is Everyone’s. Can you grok that?

I grokked. It was one thing for Jesus to be an omnipotent omniscient being able to create miracles at will, it was another for him to be a visitor and just a visitor to Planet Earth. Clearly someone who understood decorum, diplomacy, and the various madnesses of Earthlings would need to handle the job he was pegging on me.

I sighed. It was gonna be a long week.

Splendor Bendix, as his name implied, was a man born to opulence and convenience, and used to having his way. As he stared at the blank screen on his desktop PC, while it still existed, (it had not been transformed into some hyper-string dimension, as the automobiles) It did not seem to function.

While the power light went on, the screen remained blank, dark. He pulled out his cell phone and punched the fast dial number that would summon up the phone of Fenstermeier, his number 2 and CFO of the Nollij Corp.

There was no answer

There was not even a ring.

For all intents and purposes, the hour had come “of which no man shall know.”

The cell phones of billions were now not much better than cheap storage banks for their pictures and videos.

Jesus, I knew, had anticipated this new panic, too. Because, in fact, everything which had relied on either a satellite relay or “the cloud” (as it was quaintly referred to four decades past) was non-functional. And might as well have been just another piece of junk to clutter up the landscape.

“Goddamn those fucking GOD BROS!” he stormed, tossing a paperweight so hard against the glass front wall of his office that it shattered into a pile of fragments.

A secretary came running at the sound.

“Is anything wrong, Mr Be- uh -oh- OH!”
She stared at the pile of glass.

“Yes, Diane, something is. Everything is broken!”

He kicked hard at the pile of shards, stopping just before the tongue of his shoe slipped beneath a large one.

“Can’t do well without my foot now, can I?”

Splendor Bendix- fifty five years old, captain of industry, the picture of health, wealth, and success, once known as “the richest man in the world” (before his company was forced to cede certain patents to the Government Panopticon) -reduced to mining cryptocurrency for the past three days and nights as he attempted in any way possible to recoup his treasure…

Was now without even that remedy for his anxious and bitter greed.

He paused.

“Is your cell phone working, Diane?”

She checked.

“Why, no!”

“Thought so. Looks like the GOD BROS have struck again, Goddamnit!!!!”

“We’re now well into getting the heavy lifting over with...”

Jesus smiled.

I stood in front of Him, Gabe and Mike looked rather bored, but at certain points in the conversation, they might nod, shake their heads, or in some way let me know that they actually did take note of my presence.

“Yes, the heavy lifting is over. My Family Reunification Squads have been busy the last couple days, but they report that everyone’s back home, safe and sound. Of course, nobody liked it that first night, when there wasn’t any food left in the stores. But the shopkeepers all sang a different tune Wednesday didn’t they?”

Freed from the bondage of money, most communities now reverted to the barter system, or the shopkeepers, attended by other angels, would distribute food to all and any who wanted it. Some greedy people tried stockpiling it, but it was soon obvious there was no need for that. Every morning the shelves magically refilled by themselves. Nobody was hungry or thirsty.

Of course, being all generic products, nobody could get Just Exactly what they were used to, but the absence of competition in the food industry actually hurt nobody but the market research and advertising industries, who had made their own fortunes picking on small differences which were, for the most part, so miniscule to begin with, that having all the food be “generically packaged” presented no real issues.

Most of the world’s population, in fact, were happy campers now. Had Jesus been a politician, I am sure everyone would have elected him King, at that point!

He laughed again.

“So now we are into the other phase. Now that we have the worst of your -madnesses- controlled, we’ll get to work on the- Chemical Problems.”

From what I could tell, Gabe & Mike weren’t just JC’s bodyguard’s- or obvious “heavy muscle”. It turned out they were in charge of the millions of angels who now composed the world’s police force.

The nation-states, powerless now in the face of the Divine Authority, were doubly confused and insulted why the fact that, around the same time the cell phones had all disappeared, so had all insignia of rank on uniforms, medals, & standards of Officialdom. There was left in fact, only one flag- that of the United Nations. Some of its appointed representatives took issue and umbrage with this. For what had all these smaller nations combined into the USA’s One Hundred Stars to begin with, if not to enjoy the rights and privileges granted by the US Constitution?

“I didn’t come all the way here just to pay my obesiance to the Ten Commandments and the United Nations Bill of Rights,” thundered the ambassador from USA/France.

“It’s also insulting that we have had to ditch our free markets for this undiluted- Communism!” echoed his USA/UK counterpart.

Part of their problem was that with all those angels watching the highways for “poachers,” they were also on nearly every street corner doing good deeds, like, helping old ladies across the street, preventing stray dogs from being bullied or tortured, watching over children on their way to school- it was also noted inside the great Government Panopticon- just nine blocks away from where we were, at Jesus’ HQ- that the angels apparently had a better take on mass surveillance (as well as the local kind) that the business of the government keeping tabs on everyone was now redundant.

As they lunched, lonely in their cubicles, the employees of the Nollij Corp. had their own beefs.
“Now there’s a greater intelligence at work than even our own AI!”

As it turned out JC’s “Chemical Problem Project” would involve much more than a gang of angels and omnipotent wisdom. JC needed some actual scientific help, and he got it.

Remember Pieter in South Africa? (Almost forgot about him- you thought!) He was called on by JC to do some leg work by traveling to Antarctica and taking measurements there of the ozone hole, as well as an atmospheric examination. How quickly was JC’s “oxygen insertion” taking hold in the lower atmosphere, and how soon would the actual CO2 /ppm measurements fall back to the level that JC, Dad, and all the angels sought? (This had been fixed at 1790 AD, a reasonable enough place, thought JC, before autos or the practical applications of electricity…)

It so happened that the employees of Nollij Corp, disallowed their usual lunches of catered food of high and mighty artsy-fartsy cuisine, now forced to eat generically wrapped tuna sandwiches and fruit salads, sent a memo to their boss complaining about the loss of morale it had engendered.

When Bendix got it, he agreed.

“This bullshit about the grocery stores is too much. We have to have a way to get back to the way things were, to monetize appetite, and have diversity in menu choice again! There’s got to be a way I can manipulate everyone under our platform into choosing our way over the God Bros!
“Hmm. Maybe if I had a chip they could implant into the consumers, that would allow them access to the things they’re used to having again, they would all go for it. For who wants this generic crapola every day anyway! I don’t! And I like my oatmeal to be made from steel cut rolled oats, not whole oats! Even if they are organic!”

So it was, that Bendix announced the new chip, and anyone who wanted one could come to the Nollij Corp building and get one implanted, for free.

Of course, there would be a monthly usage fee. Six dollars and Sixty Six cents. And that since Jesus had suspended monetary currency, Bendix said that the Nollij Corp would hold all these usage fees in abeyance, until either the “Tyranny of the God Bros is overthrown, or we’re all cast into the Bottomless Pit.”

Most citizens, being unaware of how the Bottomless Pit actually functioned (one could not arrive there unless Jesus himself had adjudicated it, on a case by case basis) were afraid enough of it, but there was, yet, a sizable portion of the population for whom all these changes wrought by the New Kingdom At Hand were the worst things that might ever have happened.

Not just Splendor Bendix, but, speaking of your average man in the street. After so many centuries and generations of humans coming and going, leaving their descendants a world that was exponentially more complicated than before, the loss of -free movement (no cars) free markets (generic foodstuff!) and no tv, computers, or cell phones (No social media! No business!) they had, in fact, begun to organize. And the same emotions displayed by the long haul truckers were patched onto every fifth man in the nation, and his children and dog as well. Everyone who got the implant was now marked, in more ways than one.

For those who had accepted the Bendix/Nollij Corp offer, they met with scorn and derision from the angel guardians on their block. Everywhere they went they would be subjected to laughter, for the angels could tell who had the chip and who didn’t, with merely a glance. And the citizens who had gone under to the angels would merely go about their business as nothing occurred otherwise, for they were happy in their material guarantees already, and saw nothing but oddness in the ones who deemed to make trouble for JC, Dad, and their Plan…

On the Fifth Day, Jesus met with me in the planetarium HQ office.

“Steve, I gotta really good one for you today. Today’s the day we put in my own public address system. We’re going to be checking it out at...” He looked at the clock on the wall...”10:00, just three more minutes. While we wait why don’t we go over some of the stuff I’ll be layin’ down in our first broadcast...”

I looked at him. That same smile, those same shining, confident eyes. The halo about his head that was really only his aura, but which always seemed so magnificently radiant… radiating serenity and an easy seductive calm.

“One. I did not really want to involve Mom in this project, but, seeing as she’s really just a sort of keep-to-herself sort of person, but she insisted. Mom’s in charge of all the… Other Animals.

“You see, ever since the time of Noah you guys have actually had all the advantages. Who’s to speak for all the other species here?

“Mom decided she had to be the one, and Dad, he just said, OK and went along.

“Mom’s put everything else except you guys on the Endangered Species Act list, and THEY are being protected by angels now, too. But we’re working on letting you guys gradually bring their populations down, when we are talking about your usual food stock species- chickens, cows, pigs, fish you know. Eventually, in another year, you will all be vegetarians, but, you can’t really blame me for that.

“Anyway you can still get your ground beef down at the store for a while yet.”

“But is it grass fed? I asked I knew immediately he could easily see through me and take me for a fool.

“Of course, silly, just like the organic whole oat oatmeal!”

“Two, we have adjusted your atmosphere to a particular point in your past. You guys better not blow it this time! And start all that crap back up again! Mom promises punishment anyway for those who molest or torture draft animals, or who fin sharks, and as it is, there’s too few of the actual Endangered Ones left to sustain them much longer, unless our changes can help them too.

“Everyone’s got to work together to keep it together this time!

“OK!

“10:00!”

At ten, it was the most amazing sound. Louder (or loud as) a jet takeoff, it began with a sweetly pitched note like a flute, which revved into a very low note as from millions of horns in the lower registers. But then he spoke.

“Testing- one two, check, check...”

The voice was coming from every point in the sky and was heard everywhere!

(Alejandro, on the stare-screen, gave Jesus the A-OK sign with his thumb and forefinger. JC was transmitting to those other stars we had tried so hard to reach!

Angels had been hard at work in this “Oxygen Insertion” program. For it had not been just brought in, from God Knows Where, but they were busy planting trees and grasses in many places which had not seen them for centuries, like the Sahara and Gobi deserts, the tundra lands of Siberia and Alaska, and even so far south as Tierra Del Fuego. Everywhere where new plant life could be set in, so it was done, for the only real exceptions were those mountainous regions which had never had enough topsoil to sustain them to begin with, and they filled in the gaps in the Amazon Rainforest.

Pieter was overjoyed with the results. From his phone in Antarctica, he spoke to us on the stare-screen.

“Hey, Steve! Hi Jesus! Hey- look, I think this is going to work. In just the past 24 hours we have seen the ppm’s shoot up over 4000 percent! I think we’re all on the right track finally now!
Jesus looked at me and again smiled, that smile.

“So Steve, looks like this is almost a done deal now, eh?”
“I’d like to think so, and so would you, but there’s still these forces...”

“Oh, you mean the Incorrigible Ones? (this was his new nickname for all the Bendix-types with the chip implants & the $6.66/mo memberships)- “that’s nothing. Listen we can have off with them in a matter of another day.”

“What do you propose to do?
Well, since I ‘d probably be up all night checking the process papers on each one of them, I tell you, I’m farming that work out again to Gabe and Mike. They’ve done such a swell job already...”

“But Splendor Bendix? Isn’t he a power to be reckoned with?”
Amazing how scared you all are of this one dude! Sheesh. Anyway, no, do not fret, like I said, his day will come. And soon.”

It was at that point I shrugged OK and turned, and again headed back to my place, where I could at least have a cup of generic coffee (Mountain Grown- the richest kind!) and a few pieces of toast.
I wondered just how he was going to do it. The next day- Day Six- I brought back the same question.

“So what are you going to do about Bendix?”

“I would not be so worried! Listen, most of his “chippies” are actually willing to come over to our side, all they need is the right encouragement, and to see the error of their ways. Of course there’s quite a lot of them who would refuse to leave behind the old ways. But when has that ever stopped human progress, huh?

“Perhaps the time has come to give Mr Bendix his justice due. I seem to think there are a lot of things about how you all thought we were going to act when we came back, which are highly amusing to us and not at all necessarily what we mean to do. For no man could know that, not even John the Writer. No, I suppose the time has come to uproot the evil branch. I summon him before me this next hour!”

Gabe and Mike were off in a flash to go apprehend Splendor Bendix. Sitting in his now valueless penthouse, stripped of class status and just another Neighbor on the Street, he knew when the angels came to get him that this was not gonna be good. I didn’t really want to stick around for the interrogation & all, knowing while Jesus would not resort to torture on poor Bendix, but that in his mercy he was bound to let Bendix himself decide if the Bottomless Pit was for him, I split back to the pad for a highball and a joint. The rest of the day would probably be all taken up with tribunals and angel kangaroo courts, and I figured the best thing to do would be to hide out, kick back. And dig the new world order in my own way, out of the way of all that angel action going on outside.

For sometimes even that would break into my solitude as morning turned to afternoon. There were screams, yes, but these were only individuals not masses huddled together as such went to the Nazi death ovens. I knew that out there, individual rebels were coming up against angels, but always finding themselves defenseless against them, no matter what sort of weapon they meant to take them on with. And it was not gonna look too good if when they got to Jesus himself, the o so bad ones, they had a 50 50 chance of the bottomless pit, lest they chose it as a means of suicide.

Which was what Splendor Bendix did. Nobody missed him when he left us all, and even if he had not been the great Antichrist of the Patmos island scribe but just another greedy capitalist slob underneath it all, the choice he made to jump into the Pit was one offered by Jesus not as a condemnation, but a protest of Splendor Bendix’s free will.

“So it goes, my dear friends,” Jesus thundered out through the clouds. When all is said and done, the best plans of mice and men come to naught, eh? That’s why the changes we are making include allowing the Other Animals even twice the predatory powers they had over you. I’d be more afraid of taking in house cats from here on out, if I was you, since we have the bird populations to think of.

“You wouldn’t want to go the way of the passenger pigeon yourself, would you, O Man?

“I think sometimes back to the days when I was here last. When I spoke of not the water but the fire next time, I meant that, the fire is your air! And so. I was warning y’all. I had no idea it was Dad’s plan all along to make me die like that back then, but since those days, me and him have gotten to be good buds, like a good father son relationship. Sorry to have seemed so pathetic and disraught at the end on the cross, but, if Dad hadn’t sent me that message of “tough love,” I don’t think we’d be the good pals we are today.”

It was late afternoon. They’d spent most of the day tossing evildoers into the Bottomless Pit, and the angels had started up talent shows in the neighborhoods which had been most particularly afflicted by thugs, miscreants, and plain ornery a-holes. They’d finished mopping up and now they wanted to party. Kids were break-dancing on street corners and tabletops, karaoke singers croaked calypsos of palpitating hearts, and wannabe folk singers sang odes to the moon, the stars, and the planets. You could even hear echoes of it though JC’s cosmic PA!

The angels partied on well late into the night. You could hear the shouts of joy, random blasts of trumpets, loud guitars and drums, tribal dances, and choirs of hosannas. I ventured out for a short stroll and the neighborhood parties were all really swinging by then. Everywhere I went there were crowds in the streets, celebrating with wine and beer and an ever changing array of costume and mummery. Would this be what our future looked like? I wondered about how he meant we’d “all be vegetarians within a year, but that’s none of my doing?” Whose would it be then? Were the animals going to bully everyone into it? That was certainly a possibility, but I also considered that the Other Animals also now had the Holy Mother and all the angels on their side. If there had been a cosmic police force, then they were it, and it did feel to me like things were definitely going to be different in the days ahead. And Jesus’ idea to give everyone who’d lost a car a free bike! What did he think that would do, when so many who had loved their cars were still a little more than wary of his motives?

I couldn’t spend much time though on the future. He’d set it all up so that I’d have to be the one to explain it all to everybody, and I suppose I just surrendered to the idea when I returned home and began jotting things down in the order they’d need to be addressed, when he’d ask me to take them all before the folks at the Panopticon and the Nollij Corp Tower. Now those two buildings loomed ahead in my life again, and it wasn’t because I chose them. I guess He chose Me...



And on the Seventh Day, He rested.