Askjesus.com

Yehude got a call while he was testing the site.  It was Simon, bored.

“Is it up?” Simon buzzed through the phone.

“Not yet.  I’m still looking at it.  The thing sends you to the wrong place when you register.”

The phone was silent for a while.  Yehude worked through the silence, cradling the phone on his shoulder while he typed.

“How’s the default page look?” Simon finally said.

“It looks good,” Yehude admitted.  “Where did you find that art again?”

“Dante.com,” Simon answered.  “They have all sorts of good biblical stuff.”

Again, no sound on either end but the clicking of keys.

“That should do it,” Yehude said.  With a couple of deft keystrokes he sent the page up to the Web.  “Try the address,” he said.

Simon typed www.askjesus.com into his keyboard.  Suddenly his screen filled with an image of Christ hanging from the cross with the sun behind him.  Underneath, in Verdana type, it said, “Welcome to askjesus.com, the only official site for Jesus Christ.  Ask your questions of Jesus here—answers fast and guaranteed.  Click on Jesus’ crown to enter.”

“It works,” he said.

“Well, at least until someone crashes it,” Yehude replied.

Simon gleefully clapped his hands.  The collision of his palms sounded like a static burst over the phone.  “Okay!” said Simon. “You answer the odd questions; I’ll answer the even questions.”

“Right,” said Yehude.  “I wonder how long—”

“I’ve got one!”  Simon said.  “That was fast.  I told you, folks are dying for a site like this.  It isn’t even in the search engines yet.”

Yehude read, “‘Q: Thank you Jesus for giving us your site!  Are you coming down?’”

Simon busted into a lusty laugh, slapping his thigh.  “That’s great!” he exclaimed.  “That’s exactly what I wanted.”

“‘No,’” replied Yehude, reading aloud as he typed, “‘I’m not coming down right now.  It’s too nice up here.’”

Simon snorted over the phone.

“‘But you can visit me often,’” continued Yehude.  “‘That’s why I built this site.’”  Sending the reply, Yehude smiled in concert with Simon’s ingratiating laugh.

“We should publish a book,” Simon said.  “This is going to be too good.”

Sitting side by side, Simon and Yehude looked over the latest batch of questions.  Simon’s ash-white head swayed gently  as he looked down almost sweetly at his screen.  Yehude, dark and compact, hunched next to it, every one of his movements quick and cunning.

“‘Jesus,’” Yehude read, “’Why did the Cardinals lose?’

“‘Jesus, I love you.  Do you look like the pictures?’  Eww.”  Yehude grimaced. 

“‘Jesus, what’s the funniest thing you ever saw?’”

“I have to answer that one,” Simon said, elbowing Yehude out of the way.  He began to type.

“‘A: The funniest thing I ever saw?  A child pornographer on his knees at church, praying for the return of his wallet.’”

“You can’t write that!” said Yehude.

“Why not?” Simon demanded, his finger on the “enter” button.

“It’s too crude!” Yehude insisted.  “That doesn’t sound like Jesus!”

“If I were Jesus, that’s what I’d say.”

“You’re not Jesus,” Yehude said.  “You’re just pretending to be Jesus.  And if you want the people who really think they’re talking to Jesus to log on, you’re going to have to convince them you’re real.  Otherwise all we’ll get are wise-ass questions from people who know it’s a joke.”

Simon considered the matter quietly, shrugged, backspaced, and changed “pornographer” to “pickpocket.”

Yehude nodded.

“It’s not as funny,” Simon complained.

“The answers aren’t supposed to be funny.  The questions are.”

Simon shrugged again.

Yehude moved in.  “I’ll take the one about the pictures,” he said.

The two of them sat over a pizza, consuming the slices blindly, each looking at the screens on their laptops, which sat back to back like a Battleship game on the restaurant table.

“It’s getting boring,” Simon complained through his pizza.  “It’s always the same nine or ten questions.”

Yehude nodded.  “It’s probably the same nine or ten people,” he said.

Simon frowned.  “I still say it’d be better if we could make the answers funny.”

Yehude shrugged.  “It’s getting boring,” he said again.  “I suppose...” He paused.  Then he began to read.  “Look at question 425.  ‘Q: Jesus, I know my husband is having an affair.  Can’t you straighten him out?  I really love him and don’t want to end the relationship.’”

Simon did not laugh, for once.  He kept his eyes on the screen and shrugged a little.

Yehude began to type.  Simon watched him.  The expression on his face was studious.  As Yehude hit “enter,” Simon watched the answer appear on his screen.

“‘A: You should ask him while you’re at church, right after the service.  Tell him you know and that you love him and want to get counseling.  I’ll work on his heart.’”

Simon raised his eyebrows.  “Nice,” he said.

Yehude grinned.  “Bet Jesus couldn’t have done any better!”

The phone rang at Yehude’s house.  Yehude fell out of bed and shuffled over to his desk.

“Yehude,” he muttered.

“It’s me,” Simon said.  “Dude, did you read the latest questions?”

“Man, it’s 7:30 on Sunday morning!” Yehude groaned.  “I don’t get up this early.  What are you doing awake?”

“I never went to bed,” Simon answered.  “I’ve been answering these weird questions.”

“I’ll call you later,” Yehude groaned, beginning to replace the phone.

“Dude, you have got to look!” Simon insisted.

Yehude froze with the phone in hand.  In his mind he was already back in his bed.  Shaking his head, he put the phone between his shoulder and his head and logged on to the site.

He scrolled through the long list of questions.  “I don’t see anything. Where are they?”

“At the end,” Simon said.  “Numbers 936, 954, 981, 999...”
Yehude found the first question.
‘Q: Do you know how long the worm has slept?’

“What the hell does that mean,” he asked.

“I don’t know!” Simon said, laughing.  “But I answered it.”  Yehude read the answer.  ‘A: I know.’

He darted to the next question.

‘Q: When will it awake?’

‘A: When the sea and sky are as one in Tampa.’ “Tampa?”  repeated Yehude, aloud.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s a joke, man!”  Simon said.  “I’ve been up all night.  I don’t even know what I wrote!  This guy’s obviously yanking our chain, so I’m yanking him back.  Nobody knows what we’re talking about.  This isn’t going to scare away any true believers...”

“It’s just stupid,” Yehude cut in.  “I wouldn’t encourage...”

“Man, I am so sick of seeing the same questions,” Simon exclaimed.  “I don’t think people are even looking at the FAQ page.  They just want Jesus to talk to them.”

“Whatever,” Yehude said.  “Answer them, then.”  He read the next one.

‘Q: Do you feel you can withstand us?’

Simon had written, ‘A: I withstood the evil one for forty days.  Get thee behind me.”

Yehude shook his head.  “Bro, you’re taking this job too seriously.”

Yehude called Simon.  The phone rang and rang.  After the tenth ring, Simon picked up.  “Yeah?”

“Man, what are you doing?”

“What?”

“Those questions!”

“What, the odd ones?  You wanted to answer some of them?  Oh, damn...dude, I’m—”

“No, I don’t care,” interrupted Yehude.  “I don’t want to answer these stupid questions.  I don’t think you should, either.”

“Dude, it’s just for fun.”

“Whatever you say, but have you noticed no one else is writing in anymore?”

“Who cares?” asked Simon.  “They were boring anyway.”

Yehude did not answer.  He sat with his mouth hanging open as he read the questions.

‘Q: You stand against the ministers of the dark.  We are coming for you.’

‘Q: Already the signs pour in according to your word.’

‘Q: These final days shall be as you and I agreed in the time before the coming of Man.’

Yehude shook his head.  “Somebody out there is as crazy as you.”

“Crazy as us,” Simon corrected.  “This site was your idea, too.”

“Yeah, but you’re answering.”

‘A: I am not afraid,’ Simon had written, ‘And all who stand with me are not afraid, either.  The storms may blow and the comets may fall from the sky, but it will avail you nothing.’

“Did you hear, by the way?” Yehude said to Simon.  “There’s a hurricane over Tampa.”

“So what?”

“‘When the sea and sky are as one…’” Yehude reminded him.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.  “Huh,” Simon said.

Yehude was working when someone knocked on the door.  It was Simon, standing pale at the threshold.  Yehude stared at him.

“Let me in,” Simon said.  “Okay?”

Yehude let him in.  “What’s wrong?”

“I need you to help me answer these letters.”

“Not now,” moaned Yehude, irritated.  “I’m working, okay?  Come back—”

“Dude, I’m scared.”

“Why?” Yehude watched Simon’s eyes as they darted left and right, following invisible demons in the air.

“Can I come in?  Please?”

Yehude stepped aside and let Simon enter, shaking.  Simon made his way down the hall and into the study, where the computer was running.  Yehude came around the corner just in time to see his friend sitting at the keyboard, typing away.

“Hey!” shouted Yehude.  “I’m working!”

Simon did not answer.  His eyes were glued to the screen.  “Have you been on the website?” he asked, his voice the voice of a little child.

“No!” Yehude exclaimed.  “I’m sick of that thing.  It’s all yours now.  Go away, Simon.”

Simon was still typing.  He did not look up at Yehude.  “Read this,” he said, finishing up with a practiced, unconscious flourish of his hands.

Yehude moved next to him and read the screen.

‘Q: What time shall we arrange the final battle?’

‘A: When the dogs bear kittens and the lost one is found.’

Yehude frowned.  “Dude, I don’t care about this...” but Simon was typing again.  Upon a split screen appeared the Seattle Tribune website.  A digest of articles was listed on the far right.  Simon had highlighted one.  “Live kitten found in dog’s stomach.”  Pale as a block of cheese, Simon looked helplessly up at Yehude.

“So?” Yehude said.

“Dogs bear kittens,” Simon reiterated.  “I wrote that.”

Yehude rolled his eyes.  “You probably saw it somewhere before—“

“No, dude, I didn’t!” insisted Simon.  “And what about this one?  I answered the question two days ago and this just happened yesterday!”

The argument read:  “Ella Gonzales, three years old, found by priest in duplex in Orange County.”

“Oh, come on!” Yehude protested.  But he kept reading.  “Ella Gonzales, abducted seven months ago from a playground in Marin County, was unexpectedly found yesterday by Pastor Gabriel Cordon in a duplex being used as a residence by ten or more illegal aliens.  Known among her community as ‘the Lost One,’ to distinguish her from two other children that had vanished at the same time but had been found soon after, Ella Gonzales is at home and is in good health.  Her discovery is being described as a minor miracle; one of the mothers had been keeping the child as one of her own.  ‘It was only by God’s grace that I thought to remark upon the birthmark on her back,’ said Pastor Cordon, “because it looks like a cross.  When the mother didn’t seem to know what I was talking about, I began to question her...”  Yehude’s eyes drifted as the short blurb trailed off.

“That’s strange,” he said.

Simon clicked the Tribune away and maximized the askjesus website once more.  He began to shake, tried to speak, and failed.  He was able only to gesture at the screen with his head and look imploringly at his friend.

Yehude read the rest of the questions.

‘Q: Where shall we meet when the signs come to pass?’

‘A: Upon a high hill.’
‘Q: How shall we do battle?’

‘A: With the light and the darkness.’

‘Q: Who shall ye send to fight for you?’

‘A: I shall come myself and smite thee.’

“You wrote all these?” Yehude asked Simon.  Simon nodded.  Yehude looked through his window.  He noticed it seemed unnaturally dark for 3:00 in the afternoon.  Walking over to it, he looked up at the sky.  There were no storm clouds.  The sun seemed to have faded as if it shone behind a dark windowpane.  The stars had not come out.  The sky deepened in blackness like an ink spill slowly spreading.

“What the hell?” Yehude said.  He moved over to his TV.  As he flicked it on the screen showed signs of universal panic. “...the streets from here to Berlin to Hong Kong,” an announcer was saying into a microphone, facing the screen, terrified crowds behind him.  “On Mt. McKinley,” the local newscaster continued, “we’re seeing a large orangish glow coming from the peak.  I’m being told this may be the result of some kind of eruption, a sleeping volcano, although we don’t yet have a report on the site of any eruption, or of how the ash could have spread around the globe so quickly.  Other explanations are a collision with the earth by a meteorite, though how that could happen undetected is still being...”

Dazed, Yehude wandered away from the TV.  Simon was still staring at the screen, his hands dead upon the keyboard.

“Get up,” Yehude ordered him.  Silently, without question, Simon rose from the chair.  Yehude sat down in the vacated spot, barely warmed by Simon’s icy body.

A few practiced movements, and Yehude had logged on to his own website.

“Ask Jesus a Question!” said the screen.  “Click on his crown!”

Yehude clicked on Jesus’ right hand, which they had programmed to have the same result, and found himself in the question box.  He began to type rapidly.

‘Q: Dear sir, we have accidentally invited someone to fight you.  We are very sorry.  Is there any way you could come down here and take care of it?” 

“Enter.”

Simon and Yehude huddled by the screen, waiting for the answer.