Authors: S. G. Browne

Tags: #Humorous, #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Fiction

Fated (26 page)

BOOK: Fated

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I feel like I’m a big toy on display. But I’m not complaining.

“It’s not . . . really . . . a question . . . of real,” I say, biting my lip as she runs her fingers along my erection. “It’s more like . . . a matter of . . . a matter of . . .”

And I’ve lost my train of thought.

“It sure feels real,” says Sara, crouching down to inspect me close enough that her eyelashes brush against me. “I can’t even find a seam.”

And I’m thinking I should have told her the truth a long time ago.

Sara continues with her perusal of my man suit, moving from my genitals to my feet, then up my backside, her hands caressing me as if she’s a blind woman who’s never touched a man’s body before. Then she’s back in front of me, standing on her tiptoes and looking into my eyes, back and forth from one to the other.

“What are you inside?” she asks.

And I thought explaining my man suit would be problematic.

While some of us are simply blinding balls of white energy inside our man suits and woman suits, others are fiery flying beings, or what some human religions would call seraphim. While there aren’t really any angels, quite a few of us have wings—though most don’t have the human or cherubic countenance often depicted in various religions. Some are actually nasty-looking creatures with the faces and bodies of constantly aroused boars or scaly amphibians or one-eyed goats with a faceful of teeth.

Take Anger and Hysteria and Cruelty. You wouldn’t want to run into one of them without a man suit in a dark alley.

The rest of us come in various half-animal, half-human forms prevalent in the Greek and Roman mythologies. For some reason, humans were more tolerant of our natural forms back then. Just seemed to fit right in with their wild parties and Mount Olympus orgies. So we were occasionally seen cavorting around au naturel.

Centaurs and satyrs and gryphons.

Minotaurs and hydras and chimeras.

Lions and oxen and eagles with four or more wings, some of them covered with eyes.

I suppose that’s for the all-seeing beings like Kindness and Honesty and Truth. But it’s a nightmare if you end up needing contacts.

Me? I’m one of the blinding white balls of energy. Same for Destiny, except she gets her aura artificially colored so she can be a blinding
red
ball of energy.

When I explain all of this to Sara, she says, “Can I see you without your man suit?”

“What part of
blinding
did you not understand?” I ask.

“How about just a peek, then?”

“No.”

“But how do I know what you really look like?” asks Sara.

“Imagine a hundred-watt lightbulb,” I say. “Only a lot brighter and about the size of Napoleon Bonaparte’s ego.”

“Really?” she says, poking at me again and looking up my nose and in my ears. “It’s hard to imagine something that big could fit inside this.”

“You’ll just have to take my word for it,” I say.

As Sara inspects me for seams and zippers and an expiration date, she continues an endless barrage of questions—about my origins and my childhood and my favorite time periods.

My origins are pretty standard. Jerry created me and the others out of the cosmic goo a little over a quarter of a million years ago. Fortunately, by that time, he’d finally figured out what he was doing.

The Big Bang, as it’s called by humans, was really more like the Big Accident. Nearly fourteen billion years ago, Jerry was screwing around in his lab, mixing up science, theology, philosophy, rubbing alcohol, drain cleaner, and some baking soda, when
poof
, the universe was born. Earth didn’t come along for another nine billion years or so and modern man for another four billion years after that, so we just floated around in the cosmic goo until Jerry’s little experiment finally began to show signs of intelligent life.

My childhood? I never really thought about myself as having been a child, but I guess technically the first twenty-five thousand or so years of my existence could be considered my childhood. Wasn’t much to do other than sit around and wait for man to evolve. I got bored easily and made a lot of doodles. Sometimes Jerry took us on trips to Saturn or Mercury. He took us to Uranus only once. I think that’s because every time he said
Uranus
, Karma and I would start to giggle.

Jerry really doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.

Favorite time periods? Well, I really dug the early Classical Age, watching the Mayans perform ritual sacrifice, and making bets on the Trojan War. The fifth century was a lot of fun, what with Attila the Hun invading everyone, and the fall of Rome. And no list would be complete without the late Middle Ages, when leprosy reached epidemic proportions and the Black Death swept across Europe. But if I had to pick one time period to beat all time periods, the prehistoric era tops the list.

Call me old-school, but nothing beats the Stone Age for shits and giggles. True, the women weren’t much to look at and the conversation was pretty limited, but watching Paleolithic man evolve from his apelike ancestors into modern-looking hunter/gatherers was priceless. Talk about your
Funniest Home Videos
. You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a subhuman covered with hair set itself on fire.

Good times.

Somehow, I don’t think that was the answer Sara was expecting.

“What about the Renaissance?” she asks. “Or the Golden Age of Greece? Or the scientific revolution? Or when Jesus was alive?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I say.

While those might have been monumental eras in the artistic, philosophical, scientific, and spiritual evolution of humans, there really wasn’t much for me to get excited about. Sure, I got to witness all of this amazing development, all of this history unfolding, but my participation was in a limited role. It was kind of like being the third-string quarterback on a football team with Joe Montana and Steve Young ahead of you on the depth chart and trying to get excited about the fact that your team just won the Super Bowl.

“Besides,” I say, “Josh wasn’t that much fun to be around.”

It’s true. He thought he deserved special treatment because his dad ran the company; he never remembered anyone’s birthday and would throw a tantrum if anyone forgot his; and he
always
played the martyr card.

But when it came to stepping up and getting crucified, Josh definitely took one for the team, so I have to give him props for that.

By the time Sara’s finished inspecting my man suit and grilling me about the last fifty thousand years of my existence, I figure I’ve managed to give her enough to think about that she’ll forget all about the fact that I have God on my speed dial. Then she says, “So, when do I get to meet Jerry?”

As if having an immortal entity for a boyfriend isn’t enough.

CHAPTER 37

I’m sitting at
my computer just past midnight, assigning fates to my share of the two hundred and fifty thousand babies scheduled to be born today and reading an article on Wikipedia about fate and destiny, when I get another staff e-mail from Jerry:

Urgent Memo! Please Read!

Chances are, Jerry’s e-mail is just another piece of spam warning us about a computer virus or letting us know we can receive a cash reward by forwarding messages to test a Microsoft/AOL e-mail tracking system. But considering his big project, I can’t take the chance and find out I’ve missed the memo about the apocalypse. So I start reading.

At first I think it’s one of those spiritual memos Jerry occasionally sends out to remind us of his glory, because he starts off with some religious-sounding rhetoric about the Messiah. But then I realize this is serious, so I read it again:

MEMO

On this day, let it be known that the return of the Messiah is imminent. Although the exact date and location of his return is yet to be determined, the time is near for a new savior to be born among the mortals. To lead them with wisdom and with patience and, I hope, with a sense of humor.

Effective immediately, all staff members are instructed by executive order to prepare for the Messiah’s arrival sometime within the next eighteen months as indicated in your individual job descriptions. Those not directly affected are expected to plan the baby shower.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Wow. A new Messiah. I didn’t see that one coming. Even among us immortals, a new Messiah is pretty big news. Bigger than a pandemic or even a nuclear holocaust. It’s been a couple of thousand years since Josh had his shot, and now it looks like someone else gets to take a stab at it. Hopefully, this one will result in a happier ending.

Not that Josh didn’t get the job done. He had a substantial impact on spirituality for the last two millennia. But even if you’re the savior of mankind, crucifixion is a tough way to go to have to get your point across. Of course, in today’s world, getting nailed to a cross and left to slowly suffocate is a violation of human rights, so chances are the new Messiah will just get crucified publicly and politically.

Call it the modern-day Golgotha.

Naturally, I won’t have a whole lot to do with the Messiah. Some of his adversaries and naysayers, sure. Maybe even a disciple or two, if I get lucky. But Destiny will be in charge of all the major players. Even Dennis and Lady Luck and Karma will probably get to play significant roles. Not me. Not Fabio. I get to sit on the bench with a clipboard and watch while the rest of the team takes care of business. My only hope for contributing is if any of the star players go down with an injury or if I get to take a few snaps during garbage time.

I really need to stop watching so much football.

I print up Jerry’s e-mail and put it in my “Savior Pending” file, then return to assigning fates to my unborn humans, but my mind keeps drifting to the unborn Messiah.

I wonder if he’ll be born in a third-world country or in an industrialized nation.

I wonder if he’ll be born on December 25, just to keep things simple.

I wonder if he’ll figure out a way to prevent movie studios from green-lighting films based on television series.

And I wonder if he’ll be a she.

It’s not entirely out of the question. Two thousand years ago, no one would have listened to a female Messiah. And although not a whole lot has changed, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the next Messiah turned out to be someone like Jodie Foster or Linda Hamilton or Sigourney Weaver. Someone who can kick some ass and still project all of the compassion of the Madonna.

This gets me to wondering about who the Messiah’s mother is going to be. After all, if you’re going to have a Messiah, you need a vessel to give birth to him. Or to her. And this in turn gets me to thinking about Mary. Not Magdalene, who was a bit of a ball-buster, truth be told, but Mrs. Joseph of Nazareth.

Honestly, surnames back then were a little unwieldy.

Of course, I don’t get any say in choosing the mother. But since there has to be someone to give birth to the Messiah, Destiny has to have advance knowledge as to the mother’s identity. Not even Jerry knows his future one-night stand. He didn’t know the identity of Mary until the night of the conception. Cuts down on the performance-anxiety factor. Plus Jerry’s not much of a ladies’ man. So this way there’s no awkward courtship.

Anyway, even before she got pregnant, I remember how Mary would walk into a market or a synagogue or a bris and everyone would light up. Men, women, children. Even the Pharisees stopped looking so serious and would try to chat her up. She had this aura about her that tended to cause anyone within her vicinity to take notice and smile and forget whatever it was that troubled them.

And I’m thinking this sounds vaguely familiar.

For a few minutes I just sit there, trying to convince myself it’s not possible. That I’m making connections that don’t exist. That I’m letting my imagination get the better of me. Except the more I think about it, the less I believe it’s just my imagination.

I get up from my desk and walk into my bedroom, where Sara is on my bed in her bra and underwear, leaning back against the pillows, watching
South Park
and eating cold pepperoni pizza.

She takes a bite of pizza and chases it with a swig of Pepsi, then notices me standing in the bedroom doorway, staring at her.

“What?” she says.

Somehow, I can’t imagine paintings of her in repose looking quite like this.

“What do you think about children?” I ask.

Sara cocks her head as if she doesn’t quite understand the question, then scrunches up her face and says, “They smell.”

Funny. That’s just what Mary said.

On the television, one of the characters in
South Park
is suffering from a case of explosive diarrhea and Sara bursts out laughing.

BOOK: Fated

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