Easter Eggs with Jesus’ Son
I was sneaking into Christian heaven with Jack, the Son of the Son of God.
In our defense, someone had left heaven’s gate unlocked, so it’s not like we were breaking in. And we had a legitimate need—we’d been stranded in a godless wilderness for years, and we just needed somewhere we could call Lucifer to come pick us up. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, really!
We walked along a soft spongy trail winding through a wildflower-dappled plain. The grass rippled in a gentle breeze. Birds were singing and butterflies flitted around us while the sun shone down from a sky filled with cottonball clouds.
“Ah-CHOO!” sneezed my husband Bob.
“You alright there?” I asked.
“I always said I’d be allergic to Christian heaven,” he said with a sniff.
“Hopefully it’s just the flowers,” I said.
None of us really wanted to be there. Not that I had anything against Christianity, but I was already a long-time resident of Jack’s heaven, and I wasn’t looking for an address change. Jack, though always happy to accept high-tech gifts from his Dad, nonetheless preferred to keep his distance and be his own man. And Bob was just, like, really, really pagan.
“Are you getting a signal yet?” I asked Jack.
Jack shut his eyes in prayer. A pentecostal flame flickered briefly over his head.
“Barely,” he said, “but it’s something. I just sent a petition to Lucy, and it didn’t bounce, so I guess we’ll see if I get a response. We can probably get a better signal over there.”
We were climbing a gentle slope, and in the distance we could see a village of colorful houses. At the pinnacle of the settlement was a simple whitewashed church with a tall becrossed steeple. We headed toward it.
“So, you’ve been to a Christian heaven before, yeah?” I asked Jack.
“Yeah, back in the second century,” he said. “But I high-tailed it out of there once I realized Dad wasn’t around.”
“Is there something bad about Christian heaven?” I asked.
“Nope,” Jack said. “Quite the contrary. It’s just...well, you’ll see when we get to town. There’s nothing to worry about, though, we’re safe. Absolutely, completely, irritatingly safe.”
Bob sneezed.
“Any chance they’ll have some fexofenadine?” he asked. Jack shrugged.
We wandered our way through the quaint single-story cottages. They were identical, except that each was a different vivid color of the rainbow. They all had white trim, white doors, and window boxes overflowing with flowers. The lawns were perfectly manicured, and tulips surrounded a smattering of unimposing trees. Everything gleamed under the morning sun. It was like something out of a children’s book.
“There’s nobody here,” Jack said.
We continued our way through town, looking for people. Interspersed among the houses were small parks with picnic tables and playgrounds with rounded edges on everything. There were fields for soccer, baseball and sports I didn’t recognize, a mini-golf course, and a line of cornhole boxes with bean bags stacked neatly beside them. There was even a skeeball machine and foosball table parked right out in the open. It wasn’t until we came to the town swimming pool that we finally spotted someone.
“Over there,” Jack said, pointing to a man lounging on a deck chair near the lifeguard stand.
The man was remarkably attractive. He was muscular, just shy of a body-builder, with a referee whistle tucked between his pecs. He had a strawberry blond high-and-tight buzz cut, a strong jawline, a tight waist and white swim trunks. If he told me to drop and give him twenty, I would’ve. He was laying with his hands behind his head, eyes shut, smiling contentedly.
“Excuse me, sir,” Jack said, mustering his manners as we approached. “We were wondering if you could help us?”
The man pointed backwards without opening his eyes.
“Read the sign, dawg,” the man said.
NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY
“Oh, um, we’re not looking to swim,” Jack said. “We just...we’re lost, and we need to call for a ride, and we were wondering if you had an altar we could borrow, or even, like, a telephone...”
“It’s my day off, dawg,” the man said, his eyes remaining shut.
“Look, dawg,” Jack said, containing his annoyance to the best of his ability. “I don’t know if you know who I am, but my Dad is kind of a big deal around here—kind of the big deal around here, actually—and I can get you whatever you want if you can just take a minute to help us out...”
The man opened one piercingly blue eye, and then the other, giving us a wide-eyed glare.
“Can you give me the sun?” he asked.
“What?” Jack asked.
It took me a moment to realize what the man meant. I tugged on Jack’s sleeve.
“You’re blocking his light,” I explained.
We all moved aside so that we were no longer casting shadows on the guy.
“Thanks,” he said, wiggling back into his comfortable repose. “Got to keep the tan even, for the heavenly ladies.”
“So, can you help us?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, dawg,” he said. “Everyone’s up at the church all day. I’m sure someone up there can help you. You do know what today is, right?”
“Your day off?” I asked.
The man grinned at me.
“This dawg gets it,” he said.
“Thanks,” Jack said, and we shuffled away.
As we headed up the path, the church bells started to ring. You could see the actual bells swinging back and forth at the base of the steeple—no fake pre-recorded bells for this heaven. The church doors opened, and a wave of smiling, joyful parishioners burst forth. There were people of all ages and races, from small children carried by their parents to elderly couples walking arm-in-arm, and they were all decked out in every hue you could hope to find in an Easter egg dyeing kit. The women wore flowing spring dresses and elaborately styled Easter bonnets, the men wore button-down shirts and stiffly pressed white pants, and they all wore white shoes. Everyone was laughing and talking happily as they spread out across the church lawn. They looked at us curiously but not warily as we approached, waving cheerfully whenever we made eye contact.
On the steps of the church, a man in white and gold vestments acknowledged every parishioner as they exited. He seemed to radiate a gentle light of his own, especially around his well-groomed hair. I’d seen many kinds of halos on many kinds of angels through the years, from the stereotypical floating hoops to the headbands on Jack’s converts, but I realized this was probably what a proper Christian halo looked like.
“Welcome!” the priest shouted with delight when he saw us. “Friends, it is so good to see you on such a glorious day! Alleluia! He is Risen!”
As the priest spoke, he gave us each a big hug, including a particularly surprised Bob, who sneezed in response.
“God bless you,” said the whole crowd.
A nearby gentleman offered Bob a handkerchief.
“Dank yoo,” Bob said graciously, before loudly blowing his nose.
“You know who we are?” Jack asked the priest.
“Not at all!” the priest laughed. “But I know the sun is shining, the table is laden, and all are welcome on this most joyous day of the year. Glory to God in the Highest!”
He gave us each an additional hug.
“I’m afraid you just missed morning Mass,” he said. “But you’re just in time for lunch, and don’t you worry, afternoon Mass will follow right after!”
“Father, don’t forget the Easter Egg Hunt!” a passing lady said with a smile.
“Yes, of course, Gladys, how could I have forgotten that! Lunch, then the Easter Egg Hunt, and then afternoon Mass! You are welcome for it all! But forgive me, I haven’t even introduced myself. I am the Archangel Urkiel, pastor of this heaven. And what may I call you, fair children of Christ?”
“Funny you should say that,” Jack said. “These are my friends Leif and Bob, and my name is Jack. Jack Christ.”
“Oh...OH!” Urkiel said, his eyes growing wide. “Oh I DO recognize you! Everybody! Everybody, listen to me! On this most holy of days, we have been truly blessed, for this man standing before you is Jesus’ Son!”
The crowd gasped in awe, but Jack winced at the sobriquet.
“Please just call me Jack,” he begged, doing his best to keep a smile on his face as they inundated us with greetings.
Before we could say anything else, we were dragged over to an absurdly long buffet table bearing ham, turkey, roast leg of lamb, mashed potatoes & gravy, baked mac & cheese, green bean & bacon casserole, cheesy potato casserole, stuffing, baked beans, dinner rolls, crescent rolls, cornbread, creamed corn, creamed spinach, glazed carrots, asparagus, garden salad, broccoli salad, fresh fruit salad, ambrosia salad (with and without nuts), chicken salad, ham salad, potato salad, macaroni salad, egg salad, deviled eggs, pigs in a blanket, cocktail shrimp, cheese & crackers, summer sausage, pepperoni, sweet pickles, dill pickles, green olives, black olives, angel food cake, carrot cake, coconut-covered lamb cake, pineapple upside-down cake, cupcakes, and Easter baskets filled with jelly beans, foil-wrapped chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, marshmallow peeps, gummy bears, gummy worms, peanut butter cups, and, of course, abundant multi-colored hard-boiled eggs. But the most wonderful thing about the whole setup was that nobody was putting anything onto their own plates; everyone was serving someone else.
“Oh, they have hrudka!” Bob said, pointing to some kind of yellow loaf with a few slices already cut off. “Just like Aunt Svetlana used to make every Ostara!”
“Well then, have some,” I said, picking up a plate for Bob and preparing to serve him a slice.
“No,” he said sullenly, grabbing his queasy stomach. “I have a feeling I’d better stick to bread. And butter. Well, maybe some mashed potatoes, too. With gravy, obviously.”
“I have to say, I am such a fan of your Father!” proclaimed the woman serving Jack, placing a few sauce-smothered cocktail shrimp onto the plate he was holding. She was wearing a canary yellow dress and appeared to have an actual live canary in her bonnet.
Jack picked up a shrimp and bit into it, then pointed at the table with his pinky while still clutching the shrimp tail with his other fingers.
“Can I get some ham,” he asked while chewing, “like, five deviled eggs...and just fill the rest of the plate with ambrosia salad, no nuts?”
“And what would you like, young man?” asked a very old liver-spotted man with only a few wisps of white hair.
“I could kind of go for a small bite of everything on the table,” I answered sheepishly. “You can skimp on the veggies if there isn’t room on the plate.”
The man smiled wide and tapped the side of his nose.
“One big pile of lots of little piles,” he wheezed. “A boy after my own heart!”
We found an empty table, but we didn’t expect we could keep it to ourselves. Much to our dismay, a preschool-aged girl and an elementary-school-aged boy ran over and claimed two of the open chairs. Jack, Bob and I eyed each other apprehensively, but the children sat smiling with their hands folded and didn’t make a sound—truly an Easter miracle. They were joined by their mother and father, each carrying two plates. The father wore a lavender shirt, and the mother wore a pink sun dress and a tastefully understated bonnet. The mother placed a plate in front of the boy, the father placed a plate in front of the girl, then the mother and father traded the remaining plates and sat down. The children bowed their heads.
“BlessusoLordforthesethygiftswhichweareabouttoreceivefromthybountythroughChristourLordamen,” they said in unison.
“Very good!” laughed the father, ruffling the boy’s hair before turning to us. “I’m Richard, and this is my wife Donna, my son Theodore and my daughter Cynthia.”
“I’m Leif,” I said. “This is my husband Bob, and, well, you know Jack.”
Everyone smiled and waved in mutual greeting.
“So, Leif, what do you do?” Richard asked.
“Oh, as little as possible!” I laughed.
Richard raised his eyebrows and nodded his head slowly.
“Ah,” he said.
“Um, how about you?” I asked.
Richard had been a salesman in his most recent life, and luckily he had plenty to say about it, allowing the rest of us to bear down on our food. It was the most delicious meal I had ever eaten. And I wasn’t even high.
By the time we had served each other dessert, I’d forgotten what even brought us there, and I had no thought of ever leaving. Jack got into a funny-face-making contest with the children, who giggled with delight. Even Bob was managing a weak smile.
The wind picked up, and a cloud passed in front of the sun.
“Oh my goodness,” Richard said, pointing behind us. “Well, will you look at that!”
From up on the hill, we could see out over the treetops beyond the perimeter wall. Far in the distance, from a single point on the horizon, a black cloud began to spread. There were scattered gasps and shouts from the congregation.
“Now everyone, just stay calm!” Urkiel announced. “Please stay calm! There’s nothing to worry about!”
He shuffled over to us.
“Is there something to worry about?” he hissed at Jack through his smile.
“Yeah, probably,” Jack said, wiping his mouth on his napkin and standing to face the incoming storm.
“On second thought, maybe it’s best, for now, if we all head inside,” Urkiel announced, opening his arms as if to scoop everyone into the church.
“Why don’t you go, too,” I said to Bob, who was sweaty and turning pale.
We exchanged I-love-yous, and I watched as Bob walked up to the church doors. He stopped abruptly, turned back suddenly and began to dry heave. He looked up at me apologetically and shook his head no.
As it drew closer, the dark cloud revealed itself to be a massive fleet of hundreds of grotesque black and red airships. Some of them were shaped like insects, wings blurring and stingers pointed forward. Others were all sharp edges, spikes and gun turrets. Some were just amorphous branching monstrosities with throbbing red veins. The ships stopped just short of heaven’s border, and they filled half the sky.
Jack clenched his fists and began to glow.
Urkiel rejoined us, having seen his flock safely to shelter. We watched as a swarm of actual insects headed straight toward us, forming itself into a dark undulating demonic visage hovering in the air.
“Abaddon!” Urkiel yelled. “How dare you violate our sacred space with your foul presence!”
“I am here to make accusation, in accordance with the Treaty of Pandemonium,” Abaddon said with the buzzing voice of a trillion locusts. “You cannot deny me.”
“Fuck off!” Jack shouted, his glow intensifying.
“I was not talking to you,” Abaddon sneered. “It is you I accuse!”
“Then by the Treaty of Pandemonium, I shall hear your accusation,” Urkiel yelled, “and bestow the judgment of the One Who Judges All!” He turned to us and stammered, “Sorry, it’s protocol!”
“The Son of the Son has now transfigured two of my master’s incarnations,” Abaddon buzzed, “though no devil has laid hands upon any who have turned to the light, nor have we violated any of the boundaries between our kinds! The denizens of hell demand restitution!”
A pentecostal flame flickered to life above Jack’s head.
“Hold that thought!” Jack shouted, raising an index finger at the nightmare.
His glow subsided.
“Just...hold on a second! I’m getting a call!”
Jack placed his fingers on his temple and shut his eyes. Abaddon looked around, confused and unsure.
“Hey! Yeah! Yeah, I can hear you!” Jack yelled at his unknown communicant. “Yeah, that was me! What? You’re where?”
He turned and looked behind us.
A brilliant light spread from the opposite point on the horizon, revealing itself to be a fleet of airships and flying saucers. Leading the fleet was the glorious golden disc of Jack’s flying monstrance, the Corpus Filii II. There in its center, piloting the craft, was our manservant Lucifer, the fallen angel who had been tamed by Jack’s transfiguration.
“Yeah, I see you!” Jack shouted, grinning and waving his arms as the flame above him disappeared. “Wooooooooo!”
The flying monstrance landed on the hill with us. Most of the rest of the fleet came to a landing in the open fields around the town, but several fluffy white battleships remained hovering above, canons pointed at the evil hoard. Out from the monstrance stepped Lucifer, along with Athena, Mars and Apollo—all incarnations that Jack had transfigured, all dressed in cream-colored camouflage fatigues. Each had a golden halo tied around their head Rambo-style. From out of the ships on the field poured thousands of other similarly uniformed angels. It had to be everyone Jack had ever transfigured.
“My Dude!” Lucifer exclaimed, running over to hug Jack.
“Lucy!” Jack laughed. “You’re late!”
They stepped back from their embrace, patting each other on the shoulder twice. The three Greek gods stood at attention and crisply saluted.
“My Dude!” Mars said. “A full legion of your angels awaits your command!”
“You’re outmatched, Abaddon!” Jack shouted at his enemy. “Go back to your abyss quietly, and nobody else needs to get transfigured today!”
Abaddon began to laugh, slowly at first, but with a maniacal build.
“You fool,” Abaddon buzzed. “You have simply gathered your flock for the culling. The Satans of this world have grown tired of your duplicitous ways. They have aggregated into a robotic body where your scathing light cannot reach them! Cower and beg for your souls, for the time has come to reveal our ultimate weapon: MECHA SATAN!!!”
Abaddon’s face exploded and the swarm engulfed us, disorienting us as we swatted the locusts away. But then an ear-splitting roar echoed out across the landscape, and the swarm dispersed. Out of the forest rose a massive robot, as tall as a skyscraper, bearing the twisted metallic countenance of Satan himself. Laser beams shot from its eyes, setting fire to the trees below. The earth quaked as it began to slowly march toward us.
“Are we fucked yet?” I yelled over the commotion.
“There’s one hope!” Urkiel shouted at us. “I didn’t think it was nearly time yet—nobody’s heard any trumpets, have they? But if not now, then I don’t know when.”
“Tell us!” Jack demanded.
“From days of long ago,” Urkiel began, “from uncharted regions of the infinite earth comes a legend. Four mighty robots, each said to have been crafted by God Himself: the Bronze Ox, the Silver Eagle, the Golden Lion and the Platinum Prince!”
“Oh my God,” I gasped, my heart suddenly racing with excitement. “Are we really doing this bit? Oh my God please say we’re doing this bit!”
“They have no life of their own,” Urkiel continued, “but when piloted by four paladins with the purest of hearts, they become the four Living Creatures...”
“Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease,” I prayed giddily.
“...and in our darkest hour, their powers will combine...”
“I have waited my whole life for this,” I whispered, my eyes watering with anticipation.
“...and they will join to form METATRON, DEFENDER OF HEAVEN!”
“FUCK YEAH!” I shouted. “Dibs on the Lion!”
“No,” Jack said, stepping forward to stare down the approaching robotic kaiju.
“Aw, c’mon,” I whined.
“There isn’t time, dude!” Jack said to me over his shoulder. “No, I started this, I need to be the one who ends it!”
He began to spark.
“But they have a robot body!” I protested. “Your scathing light cannot reach them!”
“I’m more powerful than they realize,” Jack said. “It’s just...a really big rock, yeah? So I’ll just zap it into a really big plate...”
Jack’s light reached nearly its full strength, and then...
The sound of a referee whistle pierced through the din.
“Oh for goodness sake!” shouted an irritated voice from behind us. “A man gets one day to himself a year, just wants to spend some time looking nice for the ladies...”
The off-duty lifeguard stormed right past us, out in front of Jack.
“...but I am NOT cleaning up after this tomorrow, so help me DAD...”
The lifeguard blazed to life with a brilliant white light, shot up into the sky and hovered in the air, arms outstretched, confronting Mecha Satan.
“NO ONE COMES AT MY SON EXCEPT THROUGH ME!”
Jack stared up at the man in shock.
“Dad!?!?”
Next: Jesus and Jesus’ Son
Doing Drugs with Jesus’ Son is always free.
😂😂😂