When Jesus first appeared in New York City no one paid him any attention. When he appeared in Cairo, it came about with the same result. However, when he simultaneously appeared in Chicago, London, Madrid, Beijing, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Melbourne and Miami, people began to take notice and ask questions. The questions weren’t enough, though, especially since only one man had the answers – and he wasn’t raising his voice in the din to admit to anything. Also, the questions did not come soon enough.
It became evident very quickly that the Jesus delusion was not isolated to one person in this locale and another person in another city. It swiftly became epidemic in proportion, then pandemic in scope. Once the disease (for that was what it was assumed to be) had run its course and there were no more new cases reported, the total number of cases quantified at nearly seventy five percent of all human males. With counseling and drugs the cure rate only reached eighty percent of those afflicted. It may sound oddly disparaging to say that “only” eighty percent were cured of their delusions. Bear in mind, though, that this still left something more than half a billion Jesuses roaming the Earth, preaching peace and love of one’s fellow man. Most of them were satisfied to conduct their ministering to their local neighborhoods. Still others saw it as their destiny to preach to a wider audience. As they travelled, their message of love and peace was one that drew followers of a more nonviolent bent.
The ones who went in for televangelism, however, were the ones who began to foment the real trouble. Each of them demanded fealty to their cause since each one swore that he was the one, true and only Jesus and that all the others were mere charlatans, pretenders and the worst sort of con men preying on the souls of the gullible. None of these Jesuses – later laughingly dubbed the “Jesi” (pronounced Jeese-eye) by the press – would back down from their individual insistence that each, alone, was the real Jesus. A continual campaign of words was conducted across the radio stations, television channels and internet websites on all the continents of Earth. Soon terrorist tactics were being employed: letter bombs and viral pathogens were sent through the mails to varied radio and television stations and website offices. The Chicago Jesus was forced to travel with an entourage that included a small private police force; the Paris, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Beijing Jesi soon followed suit with their own traveling support staff. Threats were made and kept, assassinations were soon the event of choice among the Jesi. The ranks began to thin. Half a billion soon became a mere fifty million Jesi, all still arguing and fighting what they called “the good fight.”
And then, several Jesi in South America formed a coalition and they were soon successful in recruiting the Jesi from the rest of that continent to their cause. Word got out and the European, North American and Asian Jesi each formed their own coalitions. Arms were consolidated and new weapons were purchased on the black market.
The Australian Jesi, minding their own business on their isolated mini-continent, didn’t stand a chance.
***
In the midst of the worst of the many battles, nuclear and conventional, that have become known as the Jesi Wars, there appeared man in long flowing robes of the sort worn in the historical period known as Biblical. He came riding a cloud out of the heavens and was mistaken, at first, for an incoming ballistic missile and was summarily fired upon. The anti-ballistic missiles thus used simply vanished before they could get within a kilometer of their intended target. Radio, television and internet communications soon carried the news that all battles among the feuding Jesi throughout the world had been brought to a mysteriously sudden halt.
Once the man in the flowing robes had landed and his cloud had dissipated he surveyed the battlefield and its accoutrement of weaponry, artillery, ordnance and the usual uniform costumery of war. Then did his countenance take on an enraged mien and, in a voice that would vie with the thunder of the heavens for its sheer basso volume, Jesus shouted:
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!!”
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