All rights reserved Copyright © 2019 by Tommy Williford
Library of Congress Number: 2019913616
ISBN-13 978-1-7333693-1-2
FORWARD
In December 2403, I was tasked with composing the THE LAST TESTAMENT.
My name is David Offra, former watcher of Tower 73, story tracker in the Plains District, Region 7, and now, after all that has happened, a man that will be forgotten.
A story tracker’s role in our new world is essential. We go where the stories take us, live the words, reconstruct what once was, and hopefully bring about the light that may guide us on our path forward. Understanding the past and how it has affected us is our task, but there is something deeper, something more important to what we do. Trackers must report what we find, retell the stories of the past, but sometimes the tales we once knew are the stories of our present.
Upon completing my assignment and after a thorough review, my publisher and the Committee on Historical Preservation asked I also write the Forward to the work. They felt I was uniquely qualified, given I had a past that involved Simon’s Gospel, but in our business, this is rarely done. Once you explain a story, your days of recreating them are over.
For six years I traveled the Southern and Eastern districts gathering what I could find, piecing together a lost history. What you hold is the result.
O O O
I received my first copy of THE LAST TESTAMENT when I was eighteen.
The ceremony was modest, consisting only of a short talk about the importance of the book, my duty to it, and the responsibility to learn from its pages. My father said it was his life’s work, one with no objective, an adventure promising no secret to be ascertained. He said it was a mystery that should consume me. He said it was a journey I had to take, one without success or failure.
My father hugged me and told me I would know when I should pass on my copy to the next generation. That time is now.
My father’s Testament was hand written. The cover was that of THE CORE, but around the black circle my father had drawn Jesus, the blue light house, and a sunshine. The pages were sown together, stains and dirt sprinkled throughout. What I received was the book my father had written and studied. It was a record of my past written directly to me.
The edition you have was composed based on what my father wrote, varying copies and fragments located in the National Library in Pine Bluffs, “Home Testaments” from houses along the Ocean road through the Swamp Lands and in the Sand region. It is the story of the forgotten. It is my father’s story. It is also mine.
THE LAST TESTAMENT was released shortly before the Water Wars. After the oceans rose and the troubles began, the book was thought to have been lost
to history. For nearly four hundred years, it has been a book shrouded in mystery. Rumors and myths, doing what half truths tend to do, have muddied the waters when it comes to the story of Jesus and Simon.
I am not the first to attempt to tell their story, and I know I won’t be the last.
Francis Harticourt, first watcher in Tower 34 and master story collector, was the first to attempt to preserve the Gospel According to Simon. Harticourt’s two volume masterpiece was published in 2093. It is beautiful in form, but much of the reading public ignored its release.
Harticourt concerned himself with the rumors that surrounded the myth, as few copies of THE LAST TESTAMENT survived the conflicts of the 21st century. Constructing his narrative from interviews of those that remembered portions of the text and pages he collected, Harticourt created a tapestry of memory.
As the nations collapsed and the world entered into chaos, people in the 22nd century found themselves trapped in a barren landscape. Survival became a daily concern, and faith lost its significance. After the world died, logic won the day, and Harticourt’s version filled a gap in human aspiration. The result was a coupling of criticism and epic, history and myth, an absurd story of our own.
In 2173 there was a program by the Central Committee to preserve much of what was lost, but while resources were poured into finding the lost books, very few copies of THE LAST TESTAMENT or Harticourt’s version were found. What has survived is partial in nature, damaged references, copies of copies, family histories passed down through time.
No text is the same.
Written in the early 21st century, part of THE LAST TESTAMENT’s appeal has been its history. No one is sure why it was written, what it was seeking to accomplish, or, as the existing scholarship on the subject points out, who Simon was and what happened to him after the book was written.
Normally, the accuracy of a text would be the central concern of a story collector; however, the varying texts make that impossible. They do, however, offer a unique look into the past. Most copies have genealogies, birth dates, and marriage vows. There are always notes in margins. Somewhere along the line, THE LAST TESTAMENT became something centered in the lives of people rather than in a story of the past. What I have tried to do here is piece together a fractured history and find some notion of truth, perhaps some semblance to the original.
But understanding the origin of the text is only half the journey. THE LAST TESTAMENT is more that its history.
Those that have been able to read Simon’s Gospel have mainly discussed its relationship to the New Testament. While no longer in wide circulation, the New Testament offers insight into the origins of the troubles as well as the mindset of the generations that brought the world close to destruction. Understanding the New Testament is essential to understanding THE LAST TESTAMENT.
The main character of the New Testament was a man named Jesus. Born roughly twenty-four hundred years ago in a land across the great ocean, Jesus led a group of rebels and was put to death in his thirties. He was said to be the son of God. Later, in an attempt to form a center of power, a church developed around the myth of the man, and both his divinity and the New Testament as we now know it were constructed.
In Simon’s gospel, Jesus lived past the crucifixion described in the New Testament, lived through the Dark, the Middle, and Modern ages. He was sold and imprisoned, traded and used. Simon’s story did what none had done before him: he made God walk through time to experience the torment of man.
The story begins in the most unlikely of places, Kentucky, a region that is now within the northern plains, and extends to New York and Washington, cities in Old American, both now covered by the waters.
It is all absurd. All.
When it comes to reading the text, moderns may find it somewhat difficult. The flow of the text is fragmented. At some points it approaches madness. Some scholars have claimed this is to replicate the structure of the New Testament, while others claim this is a text lost to history; however, I believe both of these to be only partial truths. There appears to be something deeper, a meaning in its incompleteness.
The text is broken down into episodes and verses. Under each verse are other numbers that further divide the text, and while the verses are almost universal in the texts and fragments located, in almost all cases during my search, the content of the episodes themselves varied greatly. Adlehouse (2404) claims this is due to verses being orally transmitted when books were a luxury, stories passed down at the food lines and during the camp days. I have reproduced the most frequently found versions. How the verses relate to the text within their grouping is something scholars have been writing about for centuries.
In my final journey, as I try to forget, I have found a beauty in my inability to understand.
Simon’s Gospel will, and should, live on. It is my hope that future generations will study his words, his tale, move past the desolate life they have inherited and understand something deeper, a world past dichotomies, a life beyond right and wrong, an existence filled with possibility.
That is my hope. This is MY Last Testament.
David Offra
October 14, 2409
Eastern Coastal District, Region 4
Episode One: I FOUND JESUS
Verse 1 Jesus said, “I’ll find him at the lighthouse.” And the crowd that had gathered around him asked how much weed he had smoked, and after a long pull on a joint, Jesus looked out and said, “nobody believes shit these days.”
1 My grandmother baptized me in the upstairs bathroom of the house we had on Oak Street. I can’t recall why I asked her to do it; I didn’t like the woman all that much. She scared me with her absolute commitment and hair that defied age and gravity. What I do remember was seeing the soap dish through the waterfall coming from the green Tupperware pitcher she held in her hand. I remember her hugging me after my sins were washed away, wrapping the towel around my head, and telling me about her pride. At the time the entire performance seemed like a good idea, asking grandma to dump water over my head, although for the life of me I can’t figure out what I might have been thinking. To be completely honest, I’m not sure why it’s important for you to know or why it was so significant in my life, but it is,
and it was.
That was the first major religious experience in my life.
2 The second religious memory wasn’t as sexy.
My parents thought little of religion, less of me, so they shipped me off to be with the aforementioned grandmother on Sunday mornings to get the Jesus they didn’t want, and like the myriad of other times it had occurred, I sat in the back and prayed no one would ask me to go down to the Sunday school classes. They were held in the basement, the place children went when the God stuff got to be too complex.
I remember the hardness of the wooden pew, the way the smell of mildew came from the stairs leading down to the torture chambers. I remember the red carpet and the mural of a white man with golden locks speaking to a group of people in the desert.
Near the end of every service (a service that lasted at least two hours) preaching ceased with a call to give your life to God, and while some stumbled to the front, the congregation began walking around speaking in languages I didn’t know.
Hands reached toward the heavens.
On the day that changed me, I watched as sweet Mrs. Drake took off toward the baptismal flapping her lips and peppering in a “thank you Jesus” between the gibberish coming out of her mouth.
God himself had taken over their bodies, and they ran with the fear and the love of God within them.
It looked like what you think it would look like if someone pulled the fire alarm in a room full of the mentally deficient.
They were warning us all in God’s own tongue.
The church was afire, and I sat in the back and wondered why God wouldn’t talk through me.
I asked him.
I felt no urge to run, to thank anyone.
I knew I was alone.
I sat in the back of that church, and I cried.
3 There was a third major religious event in my life, or maybe it wasn’t, but for a long time it was, so I think it’s important you hear it. I joined Adolescent Life, a small Christian organization that preyed on kids with music and happiness, and had my name printed into the black leather of a new Bible in attempt to get laid.
That’s right; I was shitty even as a teenager. I was at that age where your penis did things you didn’t want it to do, the days when women had very little humanity.
Of course joining a Christian organization didn’t go well. A general lack of confidence and the ever watching eye did things to my penis you can’t imagine. Looking back it was mostly my fault. I had no game, but I still blamed God for it.
4 So there are three things, at least two, that you have to know before we start. You also have to understand that where you come from, if it mattered, doesn’t come off your boots so easy.
You gotta know that too.
You have to know I always wanted to believe, even when I hated it.
My name is Simon, first and last of his name.
But the only fucking king I ever met was on the road to rock bottom.
Verse 2 After He talked to the people, the crowds dispersed, and Jesus began talking about the ducks and a banjo player named Jeffrey.
1 So if I’m not angry at God, you probably think I’m insane, and I completely get why you would and will think I’m nuts. Everyone I’ve told this story to thinks I’m bat shit crazy. Only two people have shown even passing acceptance of what I have to say, and one of them is in a facility now. The other smoked a quarter bag before I got to the bit about Socrates. Neither wanted to adopt or flirt with an identity that included my Jesus.
But it doesn’t matter. I have no followers, and I’m not in the market for any.
2 For a while I thought about embracing the crazy moniker, after all, crazy runs deep in my family. My great grandmother is rumored to have taken the family shotgun and fired into the woods at every corner of the house if she heard a noise in the night.
She also yelled “whore” if she saw women wearing red shoes. I wasn’t quite sure if it was a bout of name calling or if she was simply an obsessive compulsive pedagogue with mental issues.
I know. It’s a lot to get your head around.
Later I learned she did this because Jesus’s words were written in red in the Bible. In her mind, because they were Jesus’s words, no one should wear red shoes.
It was that simple.
This same woman believed that King James English was Jesus’s native tongue, that the earth was a few thousand years old, and that, and I shit you not, Jesus was an American.
I didn’t question the logic.
3 But I don’t want you thinking it was just my grand-folk. My uncle talks to people that aren’t real to this day. My cousin Jerry believes the world is flat, half my family is outright racist, and almost all of them go to church. Sanity is something I would say my people struggle with.
I don’t know how many hours I have spent asking myself if religion came before the crazy, or if the crazy came before religion.
4 I tell you all that because I understand there is no fucking way you are going to believe any of this. You may think it’s because I have issues with religion or perhaps because I’m flat out crazy. Fair enough. I’ve provided the evidence for that.
5 But you weren’t there. You didn’t see what I saw. You didn’t talk to him or sit in the room with him. If you could have gotten to know him, there is no way you could stay quiet either. If you would have been there, you would be writing this.
6 I should have left well enough alone; I should have broken my promise.
But it happened.
And I can’t.
What you hold in your hand is the story of the year I spent with Jesus.
Take a second if you need to.
7 I know it’s hard to believe. I do.
If I was you there is no way I would believe me, hell, if I knew you and you believed a person like me, I probably couldn’t be your friend.
I would certainly judge you for it.
The truth of it is that belief is something I have never been able to understand; I could never let myself surrender to that brand of insanity.
I tried; I really did, and not just to get laid. But if there has been one theme in my life, it’s been a general attempt to avoid madness.
8 I tested the waters, many times, but I needed proof, tangible evidence of being. None came.
I told myself there was no use in thinking about something that wasn’t there.
I told myself that path offered no absolution.
9 Some people give their life to God at an early age, others when their life is nearing its end.
I found Jesus as I took a drunken piss against a lighthouse on the side of the road in Kentucky.
How I got there is another story.
Verse 3 There is only one love a man can have. Jesus is the way, so put aside that booty call and come to the Lord, our God.
1 I was on the road because of her. It was a Saturday night. The wedding had come to an end, and everyone was beginning to make their way home. I walked through the bricked patio and through the chairs arranged neatly in rows.
I was looking for Sara.
She had a green dress on, a black handbag with gold trim, shoes she had worried about packing for nearly thirty minutes.
2 We had driven from Morehead the morning before, checked in at three and made love on the cold sheets. We went on about who was going to have to sleep in the wet spot, and as we were getting ready for the wedding, I watched her in her stretched white panties and bra as she complained about boob sweat, and it hit me that I loved her.
3 I thought she loved me.
But I was wrong.
Out behind the tent opposite the parking lot, in the organic garden our friends had promised each other forever in, I watched. I watched my best friend behind her, watched him moving into her.
I saw her reactions to it all.
4 I stood there, hidden in the shadows, and I felt the ground open. I couldn’t hear; I could barely breathe.
I felt my heart pumping, then suddenly a cold breeze chilled the sweat that was fleeing a sinking ship. I was alone.
I left before she could see me seeing her.
5 The next thing I remember was the glow of the radio and me lifting a beer. It was still cold.
I remember the condensation on the side of the can.
At one point I watched a drop start at the top and make its way down the entire length of the can without glancing up to see the road. I watched as white lines and my future disappeared and drank a six-pack as fast as I could.
I choked down every sip, and only after they were done did I look into the night and wonder where I was going.
6 I would have driven on if it weren’t for the beer; that’s the truth of it. My bladder filled before I could drink myself too drunk to drive. For miles I drove in silence, fidgeting in my seat and playing with the radio to rid myself of the ache in my bladder, but in the wilderness there are few chances for relief. I was about to give up hope. Then I saw it.
I got closer.
7 I put the car in park and opened the door.
In someone’s infinite wisdom they had decided to construct a large blue lighthouse towering ten stories high in the middle of the Kentucky countryside. Fully operational, the beacon went out, one assumed to guide people’s souls home.
On the side they had placed giant neon red letters that read ‘Jesus Saves.’
8 It looked like a perfect place to take a piss.
I leaned up against the giant monstrosity and started to pee. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the satisfaction of emptying myself. I felt the weight of the concrete block that had been painted a blue with more purple in it than green. Drunk and holding myself upright against the lighthouse, I opened my eyes to a world with a reddish hue, the soft glow of a simple statement about our Lord and Savior, and watched as a man in a toga stepped out of a door I had not seen. He looked down at my stream, studied the growing puddle beside his lighthouse then looked back at me as he stepped to the side in an overly exaggerated fashion.
“That’s some good pissin’.”
9 The alcohol had slowed my reaction time. Rather than talking, I tried not to piss on myself.
“You’re Simon,” he waited until my look registered the fact that he knew my name, then he continued. “Nice to meet you. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to show up.”
Then things went black.
Verse 4 As the prophesy foretold, enlightenment shall occur over tacos, and you will know Him because He has lots of holes.
1 I woke up in the back seat of my car not knowing where I was. The sun was flooding the interior through the open windows, and as I caught a glimpse of the blue tower off to the side, I remembered the night before. I remembered Sara. Then I remembered him.
2 “So you’re awake.” The man in the toga poked his head in the widow. I sat up and looked around for anything to drink, and for the first time realized how cold it was. I was shivering. My mouth had the taste of stale beer and vomit. He handed me a beer, smiled, and said, “hair of the dog. I need your mind clear.” I took it, snapped it open, and drank half of it. Then he smiled. “Now I think we can talk.”
3 I got out the car and looked around to find him, squinted to shield my eyes from the light, then caught him over at the entrance to the blue cage. When I made eye contact with him he motioned me over with his hand. I finished the beer then walked to him.
“So who the fuck are you?” I asked.
He stood there with his smile. When he didn’t say anything, I turned around. Morehead was only three hours away, at most. I started the car about the time he spoke, and when he did, I immediately turned the car off.
4 “If this was a Roman get up it might a toga, but I’m not Roman.”
I tried to think about the words, tried to understand what he was telling me, then he came to the driver’s side door and with his hands behind his back he said, “here’s the deal. You give me a ride, and I tell you who I am.”
5 That’s how it started. There wasn’t anything more to it. My life had fallen apart. I had lost everything that mattered. He was a dark skinned walking frat party that stunk of dried fruit. He obviously hadn’t killed me the night before when he had the chance. Curiosity was more of a driving factor than thoughts of my personal safety, so I let him get in the car.
We left his lighthouse and the hope that Jesus might save me, a puddle of my vomit and a few of my urine, and we headed toward home.
6 For some time, we sat in silence, him looking out the window, me trying not to break down. I didn’t care he was there; all I could think about was Sara. I needed to get home, and from there I would figure out what I needed to do.
Exit signs began flashing by in a blur, and with the taste of vomit rising in the back of my throat, I looked over at the man seated a few feet away racing through Kentucky alongside me.
7 “So who are you?”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, he said, “I’m Jesus.”
I did a double take.
“Jesus?” My tone was anything but believing.
“Yup.” He didn’t look at me.
“The Jesus?” I asked.
“Well English is not my first language, but your question implies that there are multiple Jesi.”
“Jesi?”
“Yeah. More than one Jesus.”
I looked at him twice again, both times with more attention, all the while trying my best to stay on the road. Eventually I spoke.
“More than one Jesus.” It was a statement more than a question.
“Jesi.” For the first time since he got in the car, he looked at me. “Like Jedi, but more Jesus.”
My neck started hurting. I had no clue what was going on. I wasn’t sure if his claim to be Jesus or the fact that Jesus would reference Star Wars was more insane.
8 “Listen,” he said, reaching his hand out and putting it on my thigh, “this is going to be easier if you just go with it.” There was a long pause where he leaned in and clearly let me know he was building up the suspense. Then he said it again. “I’m Jesus.”
I pulled the car to the edge of the road and took the keys out of the ignition. I didn’t know if I was going to ask him a question, run for my life, or tell him to get out of the car, but before I could speak, he reached out and put his hand on me.
“Simon. I know what you are thinking. I know you don’t understand this entire thing, but right now, we both need you to get the car started. They are coming, and they won’t care that you don’t believe who I am. Right now it is in your best interest to get this car moving.”
9 The man was going to kill me. The words almost came out of my mouth. He moved his hand from my knee to my hand with the keys in it and helped guide it back to the ignition.
“No Simon. I am not going to hurt you, but there are people that will notice I am gone. They won’t be far behind.”
“Who are you?”
All he did was smile, then he slowly pointed to the road in front of us and said, “Let’s roll.”
I didn’t move. He looked back at me and broke character.
“Did I not do it right? I thought I nailed that whole speech and the Bush thing.”
I think my mouth was open at that point.
“Who are you?” I looked around.
“No you aren’t being recorded, but Simon, we need to leave, and we need to leave now.” He looked out the back window to where we had come from.
10 I did as Jesus requested.
11 More than an hour passed without anything more being said about the danger or his identity. Then he looked over at me.
“We should get some grub.” He pointed to the large green sign telling us what “food” options were contained in the upcoming exit. With every off ramp we didn’t take, he told me everything about each eatery and with every mile his excitement made me like him more. Eventually though, we got up the parkway and there were no more highway menus or stories from the man that was calling himself Jesus.
I was about to tell him he should be a spokesperson for something when he said, “I haven’t eaten Mexican in ages.” He pointed toward a place called “Taco Grande” then laughed to himself until we parked.
12 Once out of the car he led the way.
Our hostess sat us with few questions, although she didn’t take her eyes off Jesus. I looked on as they made eyes with each other and Jesus made this strange panting noise. Then Jesus watched her ass disappear into the kitchen.
“What is all this?” I asked to get his attention.
“What is this?” He asked.
“This. You. The get up. This whole deal.”
“I told you, I’m…”
“…yeah, you’re Jesus. You said that.”
“Let’s get a beer then we can discuss. How’s that sound? I’ll answer all your questions.”
“All my questions?”
“Indeed. Beer first. Questions later.”
13 I waited until the beers came, took a sip, then pounced. “So you’re Jesus?”
Without answering, he raised his glass and in one slow and deliberate motion drank the entire thing and slammed it on the table. He raised his hand to the waitress, and she came over as he raised the empty glass.
“You are one sexy mamacita,” he said and patted his leg as if to invite her over. I was horrified, but to my amazement she leaned against him and put a cheek on his thigh. “Simon, hey, tell this lovely creature how beautiful she is.”
I looked at her without saying a thing. He got her attention and whispered something in her ear and as she walked away he slapped her on the ass. She turned and smiled, then walked away giddy.
I actually said “what the fuck” out loud.
14 “I ordered us some shots.”
“Who are you?”
“Simon, I think we have covered this.”
That’s when I saw it. I reached across the table and took his hand. That’s when I saw the holes. He was looking at me when I realized it, and he began speaking before my mind started circling.
“Simon. I understand what is happening to you right now, and I don’t want you to fall into that hole. Stay with me.” He waited. “Get it? My holes.”
“You’re Jesus.”
“Un huh.”
“You’re Jesus.”
“I am.”
15 The waitress brought the shots to the table. There were three.
“Ok Simon, you get in on this action.” Then without pause, he licked the salt from the back of her hand, threw back the tequila, and put the lime in his mouth. “Holy fuck balls Simon. That’s some good shit.”
He hadn’t bothered taking the lime from his teeth. I hadn’t stopped looking at his hand.
“Simon, come on. It’s not wrong. I’m not gonna put salt in the wound.” He paused and spit the used lime on the floor.
I looked at the lime, then to his hands, then back to the lime.
“Come on Simon, that was funny.”
16 Our new found friend then sprinkled salt on her hand, looked around to see if anyone was watching, which everyone there was, licked where he had, and threw back the shot.
17 She stood up, bent down, and kissed him. When she came up for air, she stumbled back against the high-top behind her, and about the time salsa hit the floor, both she and I said, “you’re Jesus” in unison. He stood up and slammed his fist down on the table.
“You’re goddamn right.”
18 That’s how I met my Jesus.
I took my shot. Eventually we all did what Jesus wanted. When that was done we ate and drank more, and we piled back into the car and made our way east. I fled with Jesus on the highway of America, heading home to safety, to a life I believed I was going to begin anew.
19 That’s when the window behind us exploded.