by Len du Randt
More nodded now than would have a few short weeks ago.
‘But the fact of the matter is that we are all subject to an even greater being. This being, our Messiah, will unite us with each other in order that the rift in the Godhead be closed and that we be restored to the Godliness that we had in the beginning before time.
‘Through the differences in all the religions, the Godhead had been torn apart. Religion stood up against religion, all fighting and killing each other over the same thing. And now, for the first time in history, do we have a chance to restore order and Godliness in the Godhead.’
A man raised his hand and Antonio gave him an opportunity to ask his question.
‘Why should we believe you?’ the man asked.
‘If you do not believe my words,’ Antonio said and raised his hands into the air. ‘At least believe in the miracles. Would you care for a demonstration?’
Everyone nodded and clapped.
‘Fine,’ Antonio said. ‘I have performed two already, but I shall do one more.’
Antonio smiled at the confused gazes from the audience.
‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘Two miracles.’ He held up his index finger and said, ‘The first one was my entrance. I can assure you that there were no wires involved.’
A few chuckles. Ryan still wanted to kick himself.
‘The second,’ Antonio said, ‘and I do not blame you for not picking up on it, for it is subtle indeed, is that every person here today is hearing me speak in his or her own native language.’
The crowd buzzed and Antonio smiled. ‘Yes, my friends, there are many people here today that do not understand anything other than his or her home language. Some here can only speak English, while others can only understand African or Asian languages. Yet, all can hear and understand me perfectly in each of their own dialect. This is very similar to what the Secretary General of the European Union, Victor Yoshe did immediately after the aliens had attacked us.’
People in the crowd spoke to those from different cultures and races seated next to them to confirm that what Antonio was saying was indeed true. They found that it was.
‘But to show you that I have the authority to make these claims, I ask that everyone with a form of sickness or deformity please stand up.’
Most of the people stood up from their seats, all willing to test this man and see if he had what it took to rid them of their doubts.
Antonio scanned the crowd for a few seconds, slowly pacing up and down the stage. He stopped. ‘People!’ he shouted loudly and suddenly. ‘Leaders of the Godhead...be healed!’
At first there was no reaction from the crowd. Then someone shouted, ‘Hallelujah! My broken arm is fine again! I’m healed!’ Another did the same. ‘Mine too!’ Still another person, a woman, shouted bewildered, ‘My arthritis...it’s gone!’
Antonio smiled triumphantly as everyone shouted at once, all trying to show off their healed arms, legs, and wounds to the people around them. Those who had not been able to stand due to the confinements of a wheelchair jumped up and ran around, hugging those around them as they cried with joy.
Antonio allowed this to continue for a few minutes, proudly admiring his handiwork.
‘All right, people,’ he finally said. ‘Please settle down. This is merely the beginning. If we unite into one religion, and obey our Messiah, we will restore the Godhead again, and what you have just seen will be common occurrence.’
An elderly woman raised her hand and patiently waited for the microphone. The ushers were efficient and well trained.
‘Who is this ‘Messiah,’ this one that is supposed to reunite us with God?’ she asked.
‘I cannot tell you who he is yet,’ Antonio said. ‘But I can tell you this: he is here on Earth and is with us right now, embodied in human form. He is guiding us and will shortly be revealed as our Messiah.’
Most people in the audience buzzed excitedly. There were more questions, all of them about details of various existing religions. ‘We need to condition our followers and prepare them for the coming Messiah instead of just thrusting him upon them.’
What about Jesus Christ? The person didn’t wait for the boom mic, but instead just shouted it out.
‘What about him?’ Antonio answered with a smile. ‘But seriously, Jesus is a figure of the past. To progress from our current state, we need to look toward the future. No advancement can be made until the ties with the past have first been severed. We have to look toward the future for our survival, and Messiah is just the person to lead us into a better tomorrow.’
But isn’t Jesus God?
‘Jesus is no more God than you and I,’ Antonio said. ‘He needs the Messiah just as much as we do. Messiah will lead us into the Godhead that we were before time so that we can all be God again. Why should just one man be God when all can be?
‘Jesus wasn’t the Anointed One. The time wasn’t right, and so he failed and was cut off, making way for another to come and fulfil what he had started.’
And Krishna?
‘Krishna is a representation of what we can be if we join together. This goes for all the other religions. We are Allah. We are Gaia. All the various names for God are merely a faint glimmer of the truth. The key has always been there. We just needed to turn it in order to unlock the secrets and knowledge that you will all immerse and rejuvenate yourselves in.’
After many more questions, Antonio finally looked at the people and stretched out his arms.
‘Join together, people,’ he said. ‘Do not let tradition, bias, or racism stand in the way of us attaining what is within our grasp: our Godliness.
‘You will all receive complete texts of the true religion, explaining to you in great detail how everything fits together. These texts are accompanied by numerous sermons that you are to preach from the pulpits to your followers. Please take them as you leave. We will also be sending representatives out to all religious gathering places to assist with any doctrinal issues raised by followers that are, for some reason, not covered in the material. These representatives will guide you all, and will shed light on the grey areas.
‘Thank you all for attending.’
The people clapped and cheered as Antonio took a deep bow. The lights flickered off for a split second, and when they came back on, Antonio had disappeared.
- - -* * *- - -
The reconstruction of the Third Temple was running smoothly and according to plan. Malcolm found it hard to believe that they were actually rebuilding it. Preparations for the event had begun back in the early 90’s and they already had all the decorations and clothing required to perform the ceremonies. They had even trained the young men back then to perform the animal sacrifices that would one day be offered to HaShem.
Once the Temple was rebuilt, it would only be a matter of returning the Ark of the Covenant to its rightful place within the Holy of Holies, and then God would be with His chosen people once again. Neither Malcolm nor Rabbi Morris knew the location of the Ark, but The Order knew where it was, and in time, they would send a team to retrieve it.
Malcolm was excited. Thousands of years of prophecies were being fulfilled, and all that remained now, was for Moshiach—the Messiah—to reveal himself.
Malcolm looked at the massive wall of rubble in front of him. What is now ruin, would soon be a beautiful display of traditional architecture, with just a hint of modern flair. He liked what he saw in the architect samples, and was impressed with the dedication of the men, as they all laboured hard toward one single goal. Time was of the essence, and he felt that The Order had made the right choice when assigning him to oversee the project.
A man hurried toward Malcolm so fast that he appeared to be trying to keep himself from falling over. ‘Sir,’ he said, very much out of breath. ‘Sir, you have to come and see this!’
‘What is it, Miguel?’ Malcolm asked. The young man was clearly upset about something. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’
‘You have...’ Miguel paused and too
k a few deep breaths. He was still young, but walking from one side of the massive construction site to the other was an exercise guaranteed to take the wind out of even the fittest. When he finally got his breathing under control, he looked at Malcolm. ‘You have to come and see this for yourself.’
- - -* * *- - -
He groaned when he saw them. The two ‘Prophets’ were standing at the Western wall, attracting quite a crowd. Oh no, you don’t! Malcolm thought to himself. You guys have created quite enough of a stir already!
‘Hey!’ Malcolm shouted at Elijah and his companion as he walked toward them. ‘What are you doing here this time? Don’t you have a few million frogs to go and clean up?’ The frogs had already been disposed of by community volunteers, but the question was more to make a point than to delegate tasks.
Undeterred by his ranting, the two men continued what they started. ‘Oh Israel, My chosen; how you have ignored My pleas!’ Elijah’s companion—dubbed by the media as Moses—shouted at the crowd.
‘Oh, Israel,’ Elijah added, ‘when will you turn from your idolatrous ways?’
Someone from within the crowd shouted back. Who are you talking to? There was a moment of laughter, and then everyone hushed and stepped back as Elijah took a step toward them.
‘We are speaking to the house of David,’ he said. ‘We are speaking to the twelve sons of Israel. We are speaking to the elect.’
‘Elect?’ someone asked. ‘What elect?’
‘The ones chosen to spread the Word of the Lord through all of Judea, and even throughout the entire world. The ones chosen to turn Israel back to its only true, living God.’
‘And who said Israel needs ‘turning back’ in the first place?’ Malcolm asked.
Elijah looked at him and their eyes locked. For just a fraction of a second, Malcolm could feel the strength leave his body.
‘Let him who has ears hear,’ Elijah said, ‘for I shall not contend with your wickedness for much longer. The time of Jacob’s sorrow is at hand, and soon, the wicked one shall be cut off.’
‘What are you guys talking about?’ a woman yelled. ‘Speak sense for crying out loud!’
‘Then let him who has eyes see,’ Elijah’s companion added, ‘when you see standing in the Holy Place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken through the prophet Daniel, let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak.’
‘For then there will be a great distress,’ his companion added, ‘unequalled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equalled again.’
‘Go away!’ someone from within the crowd shouted. ‘We don’t need your depressing messages at a time like this!’
‘Yeah!’ someone else shouted. ‘Go away!’
The crowd repeated the words and it soon became a chant. Go away! Go away! Go away!
Elijah tried to say something, but the crowd just chanted louder. Some even picked up rocks. ‘The beast will devour you all!’ Elijah finally managed to shout above the chants.
GO AWAY! The crowd chanted louder.
Elijah’s companion raised his hands into the air, and said something in a foreign language. The crowd chanted louder still, but a sudden crack sound made them all hush instantly. It was a lightning bolt that slammed into the ground not too far from them, and while the crowd was still trying to figure out what was happening, the skies darkened and the first chunks of hail crashed down on them.
It was only a matter of seconds before tons of compressed ice claimed its first victims, and then panic erupted. The people scattered toward the nearest shelter, pulling each other down as they went. Malcolm reached shelter just in time, and was horrified to see the size of the hail. Each chunk was as large as a fist and they came down with such speed and force that people were killed instantly on impact. Through the downpour of ice, Malcolm couldn’t see the two men. Were they still standing there, unaffected by the hail, or had they simply vanished again? He couldn’t tell. Only time would answer that question, but in the meantime, another question plagued him: how long was this storm going to last? Minutes? Hours? Weeks? Months? These two men were so unpredictable that Malcolm didn’t know what to expect, but after only ten minutes of the heavy onslaught, the hail stopped as suddenly as it had started. In the ice-covered street in front of him, he could count roughly twenty bodies lying motionless. There was no way of knowing how many more people were buried beneath the blanket of ice, but one thing was sure: something had to be done about these two impostors.
- - -* * *- - -
The planning around the construction of the new ‘Muslim Super City’ proceeded without incident. Kassim was asked to be one of the main consultants during the project, and he eagerly agreed. It was interesting for him how he and Malcolm were both involved in building something of great significance for their people.
The Temple meant a lot to the Jews, and the new city was the flagpole of a new era for his own people. A few weeks ago, any such notion would have been deemed impossible, yet, here he stood, staring at the blueprints of a city that would soon be a sign of peace and courage to not only Jews and Muslims, but to the entire world.
The idea was simple: take Iraq and rebuild it into a modern, super city. The city would then become the spine of the European Empire, as per Victor’s request, and economic order would originate from there and gradually spread to all other countries within the Empire. It was going to be an exciting era, and Kassim fought back the tears as he ran his fingers over the blueprints. A soft voice called him back to reality.
‘Huh? What?’
‘I’m terribly sorry, sir. I didn’t know that you were busy.’
‘It’s all right, Aslam. I was just thinking about the city.’
‘Me too, sir. I was wondering though...’
‘Yes?’
‘Do we know what we want to call the new city yet?’
Kassim looked over the blueprints again, and then looked up. ‘We shall call it Al Jalil: The Majestic!’
- - -* * *- - -
Victor was intrigued. He listened to the recording of Antonio’s speech that Ryan had made and found it insightful. He also asked Ryan many questions, and even repeated already answered ones. Ryan answered everything in as much detail as he could, being sure to leave out only one minor detail: the fact that he was sitting right next to Antonio. He didn’t think it important for Victor to know such intricacies.
When Victor was satisfied that he had all the information, he looked at Ryan for a moment, and then asked, ‘Do you still want to kick yourself?’
‘Excuse me, my lord?’ Ryan asked. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Don’t worry, Ryan,’ Victor said with a smile. ‘I would also feel the same way if I had been sitting next to him without realizing it.’
Ryan didn’t even try to hide the expression of shock on his face. Did he let it slip out somehow? ‘I apologize, my lord, but I do not know what you’re—’
‘Do you still not see?’ Victor interrupted. ‘Is it still not obvious?’
‘Obvious?’ Ryan asked. ‘With all due respect, my lord, what is it that you are talking about?’
‘After all that you have witnessed and experienced?’ Victor stood up and walked toward his bodyguard with such fierceness that Ryan fell over backwards from his chair as he tried to cover. He tried to get up as fast as he could, but lost his balance and crawled to the nearest corner.
Victor was on him in the blink of an eye, and wrapped his hand around Ryan’s neck. Ryan tried to pry the hand loose, but it was useless. It felt as if a bear trap had been clamped around his neck, and no amount of prying would loosen the grip. Victor lifted Ryan off the ground as if he weighed nothing, and threw him through the air and into a book shelf which crashed under Ryan’s heavy weight.
Ryan managed painfully to get himself back onto his feet. He staggered around aimlessly, trying to keep his ba
lance in his weakened state, while trying to focus his blurred vision and figure out what was going on at the same time.
‘Are you still blind to the truth?’ Victor asked and rushed toward Ryan again.
All Ryan could do was to hold up his hand and await the inevitable.
‘Jesus!’ he cried out, hoping that at least He could save him from the raging animal that Victor had become. After a few seconds passed with no movement from Victor’s side, Ryan dared to look up. Victor was standing there, breathing heavily.
‘If you cannot figure it out,’ Victor panted, ‘then I will have no choice but to reveal it to you.’
Ryan still didn’t know what Victor was talking about. Victor lifted his hands and said something in a tongue that Ryan has never heard before. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, Victor was transformed into an angelic being; one of such incredible beauty that Ryan immediately wanted to cry out and worship him. He fell to his knees and wept.
‘Do you see now?’ Victor asked in the most beautiful voice that Ryan has ever heard. It sounded like an angel of Heaven speaking to him, maybe even God himself.
‘Yes,’ Ryan said through his tears. ‘I finally see! My Lord and my God!’ he sobbed as Victor just became more and more radiant with each passing second.
.VII.
God inc.
‘All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.’
- Albert Einstein
Sunday morning came sooner than he had hoped it would, but time was a spiteful thing. Trevor flapped his hand around on the bedside table, trying to locate the ‘snooze’ button of his alarm clock with his head firmly wedged under his pillow. There was a knock on his bedroom door, and René entered before he could tell her to go away.