Michael had already forgotten about the doorbell. It happened often at his apartment complex. Somebody buzzed the wrong room or some kids went around buzzing every room. He had grown accustomed to it after four years of living there.

The doorbell buzzed again. The TV was on a commercial, so Michael decided to investigate. He peered into the hallway, through the front door’s peephole. It was empty and silent. He would have heard if somebody let in the unknown doorbell buzzer. Michael stepped into the hall. He looked up the hallway, and looked down the hallway. Nothing. The doorbell buzzed inside his apartment.

He shook his head and walked back into his apartment. Southern Charm would be on again soon—whoever it was at the door would get the message.

Michael sat back in his chair in front of the TV and immediately sprang up from it.

“Shit, man!” he said.

A man was sitting on Michael’s futon, perpendicular to the chair. He had a bushel of rough, curly dark hair that ran down his neck and stopped just above his shoulders, and a four-day stubble on his face. He was short—Michael could tell despite that the man was sitting—but he had a large presence in the room.

“Who—What are you—” Michael stopped himself. He noticed the man’s clothes. He was wearing a beige Snuggie.

“I thought you were never going to answer. For a second I thought about buzzing another—”

“Who are you?” Michael interjected. “And what are you doing in my apartment?”

“You don’t know me?” the man said. His face was indignant.

Michael inspected the man. He looked vaguely familiar, but he didn’t look special.

“No, I don’t think I know you.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Sorry, man. I didn’t mean it personally.”

“What?” the man stood up. “That’s my name.”

Michael backed away from the man. “Very funny, but you’re gonna have to leave, dude. I can’t do this. I’m missing my show.”

The man looked at the TV. “Is this your show?”

A commercial for car insurance lit up the TV screen.

“No, that’s a commercial.”

“So you lied?”

“What? No. Man, you’re in my apartment. Stop interrogating me and just leave.”

The man focused on the TV. His eyes narrowed and he raised his arm forward. Michael watched, too scared and confused to say anything. The images on the TV sped up rapidly and the screen zipped back to the show.

The man looked at Michael and smiled. “Your show is back on.”

Michael watched the TV. It played the season finale tell-all special that wasn’t due to air for another five weeks.

“How… What did you do?”

“Skipped all the commercials and brought your show back. It’s kind of what I do. Miracles, you know.”

Michael’s legs became gelatinous and unstable. The room wobbled him back and forth. He couldn’t register anything that had happened. The mystery man, the TV, the Snuggie—the Snuggie!

“Too far,” Michael said. “Too far.”

Everything went dark and he felt himself sink into a pool of warm oil.

“You must be a Christian with a name like Michael, so why did you say you didn’t know me?”

Michael’s eyes fluttered. His head was bleary and the room around him was coated with a thick haze. He rubbed his eyes and his vision cleared. He was lying on the futon with a blanket pulled over him. The TV was paused on a still shot of Southern Charm. Michael looked into the kitchen and saw the man sitting at his dining room table and rummaging through his mail.

“Hope you don’t mind.” The man held up the mail. “You were out for a while and I couldn’t find anything else to read around here.”

Michael sat on the edge of the futon and gathered his legs beneath him.

“Oh, and don’t worry about being unconscious for that long. I made sure you’ll be fine.”

Michael walked to the kitchen. He wanted the man gone, but he at least owed it to him for taking care of him. And mostly for pausing Southern Charm, even if it was too far.

“Hey.” The man motioned at a glass of water on the table. “I’ve been waiting to prove this.”

In an instant the still water inside the glass transformed into a dark red liquid.

“Cliché, I know, but it’s usually the one that works. We could go find some water for me to walk on if you’d prefer that.”

“OK, OK.” Michael shook his head and took a seat at the table. He had no choice but to accept the absurdity. “You’re Jesus?”

“I don’t lie. I literally can’t.”

“And you’re here? In my apartment.”

“If this is yours, yes.”

Michael picked up the glass and inspected it. He took a sip. It was wine. He took another drink, this time a big swallow.

“Good stuff, isn’t it?”

Michael wiped his mouth. “Why… W—” Michael looked around his apartment and threw his arms up. “Why are you here? Why me? Why did you pick me to visit?”

“I didn’t. It’s where I came back to. There was nobody outside so I knew I had to come in. And your buzzer is right in the middle of that little panel along the door, so I beeped it.”

“You didn’t like pick me for some higher reason or some shit—uh, stuff?”

“Cursing is OK, most of it. But no, I came across you by happenstance.”

“Uh…” Michael scratched his head and looked at the floor. He could feel his face heating up. “I just, you know, wanted to make sure. That’s all.” He rubbed his feet on the carpet.

“So you believe me now?”

“The wine was pretty convincing.”

“Good, good.”

“Why are you coming back now? It’s been like thousands of years and now you randomly decide to come back?”

“I came back as soon as I could.”

“But you were gone for so long. People have been getting into fights and killing each other over it.”

“Oh.” Jesus rolled his eyes. “Well excuse me that I had other corporeal realms to tend to. Yours isn’t the only one, you know.”

“Corpor-uh…?”

“Human places. Earths. Planets.”

“You had other Earths to go to?”

“Of course.” Jesus sat back in the chair and kicked one leg over the other. He adjusted the sleeves of his Snuggie. “You didn’t really think yours was the only one, did you? And forgive me for being reluctant to return. I didn’t exactly leave on the best terms.” Jesus rubbed his hands and wrists. Michael saw the wounds of stigmata.

“Were all the Earths like ours?”

“No,” Jesus said. “Some are colder, and some are so hot that it always feels like you’re melting. There’s even some that are entirely underwater.”

“I mean… in what we did to you?”

“Oh, Dad no. Yours was by far the worst. What could possibly be worse than being crucified by people who you showed nothing but unconditional and selfless love to?” Jesus paused in thought. “It took me a long time to forgive those people. Thirty-six anger-filled seconds.”

Michael nodded, pretending to understand. He didn’t understand anything. His life had been filled with enough uncertainty and confusion and anxiety and spiritual calamities—and now this. Jesus Christ of Nazareth was sitting at his dining room table. Jesus had read his mail.

Wasn’t that illegal? Jesus—the Jesus who was promised to return—had returned and he was in Michael’s apartment. And Michael’s apartment was filthy; he wasn’t expecting guests.

Michael’s mind spiraled again. Only he could be personally visited by a messiah and the reason for the visit be entirely coincidence. For a fleeting moment he had felt special, he felt that his life had a higher meaning and Jesus was here to bring him unto deliverance. It all, in that brief moment, had been worth it. But everything came down to the fact that he lived in room number six in an eleven-unit apartment.

Michael snapped out of it.

“There’s something I have to ask,” Michael said.

“Go ahead.”

“Why the Snuggie? It’s just… so distracting.”

Jesus was silent. He cocked his head. Michael meekly pointed at Jesus’s clothes.

“Oh, this?” Jesus looked at the Snuggie, pulled at it, rubbed it. “I found this on another Earth and it was more comfortable than my old robes so I just kept it. What did you call it?”

“It’s called a Snuggie.”

“Of all the names. Huh.” Jesus looked at the ceiling in thought. He smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and redirected his attention to Michael.

“There’s something I have to ask you. Two things, actually.”

“Go ahead. And I guess I better be honest, since it’s you.” Michael exhaled a soft laugh.

“As you always should be. Anyway, are you the son of that painter who painted that picture of Dad? You have the same name so I had to ask.”

Michael thought for a second and stared at Jesus’s calves poking out of the bottom of his Snuggie. His dad was a union electrician. The only thing he had ever painted was the half-bathroom in the basement when Michael was nine.

“Oh,” Michael said. “No, he died a long time ago. I’m not related. At least that I know of. I think he was Italian. My family is German. And we have some Swiss, too, I guess.”

“I figured,” Jesus said. “It’s a nice painting.”

“Your dad like it?”

“Loves it. And hey, what are all of those, on top that big box over there?”

“Big box?” Michael looked into the living room. “The mini fridge?” Michael counted seven beer cans on top of the fridge. He didn’t remember drinking that many. “Uh, those are empties.”

“Empty what?”

“Beer cans,” Michael said, sheepish. “It’s a drink—like the wine.”

“Are they good? You seem to have a taste for them.”

“No.” Michael perked up. He sat straighter in his chair. “No you don’t want those. They’re not good, really.” Michael knew he himself had a problem, but he wasn’t going to rope Jesus into that vacuous, unending abyss, nor did he want Jesus to know about it.

“Then why did you drink so many?” Jesus said.

Michael thought for a moment. He wanted to be offended, wanted to feel that he was being unjustly interrogated, but it was a fair question, a simple one, yet he had no answer. “You know, Jesus, I really don’t know. I guess I just did. It’s one of those things.”

“Well, I’d like to try one then.” Jesus went to the mini fridge and swung the door open. He pulled a beer out, popped the tab, and took a drink. The taste lingered in his mouth.

There were seventeen beers in the fridge when Jesus showed up, but the fridge was empty now. The dining room table was covered in empty cans and little puddles of spilled beer.

Jesus burped.

“And one place, man, they tossed me in a volcano.”

Michael’s eyes globed as he took a sip of beer.

“No joke. They tied me up and tossed me in. Wasn’t even that bad, though. Most of them aren’t too bad. A lot of the times they just hang me or burn me at the stake. I’ve been quartered, disemboweled, stoned, eaten by rats, shot by firing squads, poisoned. But nothing, I mean nothing, was as bad as here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. It’s just, it seemed like you guys really liked me. And then, poof! I’m dead. Most of the time I can tell when they’re gonna kill me, but not here. It hurt.” Jesus sighed and picked up an empty beer can. He inspected the can, twisted it around, and read all the words and warnings on it. “It hurt.”

Michael didn’t know what to say. He wanted to try to make Jesus feel better by telling him about the time he broke his ankle in the sixth grade, but he decided not to. Michael took a drink of beer and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He opened Snapchat and refreshed it. No new Stories.

“What is that thing you’ve been so occupied with all night?” Jesus inquired.

“Phone,” Michael said without looking up from the screen.

“Weird,” Jesus said. “I’ve never seen one anywhere. Seems like an awfully stupid tool.”

“Sometimes.” Michael wasn’t paying attention. His face was buried in his phone.

“Who is that?” Jesus asked.

A picture of a girl was on Michael’s phone. She was at a bar, smiling and posing with two drinks held up.

“Huh.” Michael looked up from his phone and focused on Jesus. All the beer made it hard to focus.

“She looks like you.”

“She’s just a girl I sort of know. That’s all.”

“Are you in love with her? Is she your wife?”

“What?” Michael’s face recoiled. “No, I mean we like dated a while ago, but I don’t love her.”

“You should tell her how you feel.”

“I don’t feel anything for her.”

“Remember what I said about lying?”

Michael rattled his fingers on the table and bit his lower lip. “OK, OK. If you think you know everything, I’ll do it.”

“I’m omniscient,” Jesus said.

Michael pounded his fist on the table. “Ly-er,” the word slurred out of his mouth. “You didn’t know what the mini fridge was earlier, and this.” Michael held up his phone.

“I’m omniscient on everything I know.”

Michael hiccupped. “I never thought of it like that.”

Jesus finished another beer and set the can among the empties. “Now c’mon, tell her how you feel.”

Michael flipped his phone around in his hands and clenched his jaw. “Wanna be in the Snap?”

“The…?”

“The picture. Do you want to be in the picture I send her?”

“If that’s a part of you telling her how you feel about her then sure.”

“Alright.” Michael opened Snapchat and fixed his hair. He flipped on the front camera and looked at himself. His eyes were heavy and bloodshot. He rubbed his eyes. “We gotta get these cans out of the shot.”

Jesus swiped his arm and sent the cans crashing onto the floor.

“That will work,” Michael said, staring at the mess of cans on the floor.

Jesus adjusted his Snuggie and ran his hand through his hair.

Michael held up his phone with his arm out in a selfie position. “Ready?” Michael said.

“Uh-huh,” Jesus said through a smile.

Michael took a selfie with Jesus. He hit the save button in the bottom left corner of the screen. It was a good picture of him; he wanted to keep it.

Michael swiped through looking for a filter. He landed on one and started typing. He deleted what he had typed. He typed again, then deleted it. He typed again, and this time hit the send arrow. He scrolled until he saw Ashley C. and the little Bitmoji face—tan olive skin with short blonde hair curled up at her shoulders.

Michael set his phone in his lap and looked at Jesus. “I sent it.”

“Good.” Jesus pumped his fist.

“Now we wait,” Michael said.

“Do we have any more of those—”

“Beers. No I’m all out.” Michael’s phone buzzed in his lap. “Oh, she’s typing.” He propped himself up straight in his chair.

“That was fast. See, you just have to be honest with people.”

Michael looked at the notification on his screen and his stomach became weightless. The little red number one icon on the app teased him—so eager to see it yet so afraid to take action.

He opened the message and read it. Jesus watched Michael as his face lost its glow and sunk. Michael swiped up on his phone screen and clicked it off.

“Well,” Jesus said.

Michael looked into his lap. “She, uh, she said she could tell I was drunk and to sober up and she said there was nobody else th—” Michael looked at Jesus’s chair. It was empty.

“I’m very sorry. I thought it would work.”

Michael turned to his front door and saw Jesus, adjusting his Snuggie as if he was preparing to leave.

“I think you still have a chance,” Jesus said. “You’re a nice guy.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry. I really can’t stay long. So many places to visit, you know.”

“You could at least like, I don’t know, sleep off the beers here and just leave in the morning. Only if you want to.” Michael didn’t want Jesus to leave. His buzz had reached the point that he was lucidly uninhibited and he wanted nothing more than someone to listen to him.

“Not a problem.” Jesus snapped his fingers and he appeared sober and fresher than when he entered Michael’s apartment earlier in the night. “I don’t know why I snap sometimes and other times I don’t. I guess it’s just nice to have something tangible that sets everything in motion, but truthfully it’s entirely gratuitous.”

“But.” Michael stood up and leaned against the wall frame between the dining room and entryway. “So is it all gonna end now? Revelations and all that?”

“Oh, no.” Jesus crossed his arms. “Of course not. It will continue as before.” Jesus smiled to himself. “You know I forgot how literally this place takes the stories. By far the most literal. Some Earths just see them as allegories, others pick and choose which ones to believe, but you guys believe them all.” He smiled harder, as if he was proud of himself.

“So.” Michael rubbed his fist into his palm. “Nothing’s gonna change?”

“Michael.” Jesus’s voice became serious. “Nothing’s going to change, and it never will. Do you want to know a secret? It’s good news and bad news.”

“Sure.”

“The good news is there is no Hell.”

Michael seemed unaffected. Maybe we all went to Heaven after all. Sinners and Saints living in peace.

“But the bad news,” Jesus said, “is there is no Heaven either.”

Michael was stunned.

“That’s right. No Hell, no Heaven, nothing waiting for you.”

“So… what is there?”

“This.” Jesus scanned his arm around, showing the apartment to Michael. “You come back to Earth forever and ever. You were born for it.”

“Reincarnation?” Michael’s stomach gurgled. The beers had hit his central nervous system and muddled his brain. “Should I be a good person, then? So I can come back as something cool like an alligator or a bald eagle.”

“You should be good, yes, but it won’t change anything in your next life. I don’t know what you’ll be. It’s random, there’s nothing you can do to influence it. Maybe you’ll be a fly or a slug or a blowfish or a parasitic worm. Or maybe you’ll end up right back here.”

Michael looked around his apartment. TV on a flimsy stand in the living room, sofa chair with a weathered seat cushion, stained futon he bought from a garage sale, carpet that hadn’t been vacuumed in over a month, empty beer cans—filth, nastiness, emptiness, loneliness. He shuddered.

“But why? Why the stories of the Second Coming and Heaven and Hell and all that? Why the lies?”

Jesus rubbed his eyes with the thumb and index finger of one hand. He stroked his beard stubble and ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth.

“Stories need happy endings, so we had to make one up. I come back and all the good people live in paradise forever—everything they endured here was worth it in the end,” Jesus said. “But there is no happy ending when you’re a human. There’s no ending at all, actually. It just keeps going. I guess the best you can do is make your own happy middles. A lot of people wait for me to come save them. But I’m not coming. I’m sorry, I wish I was.”

Michael was silent.

“I like you, Michael,” Jesus said. “I’ve never told any human the truth. We all know it, all the ethereal ones. But we never tell humans. For some reason I felt that I had to tell you, though. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Michael said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Michael,” Jesus said.

“Yeah.” Michael looked at the ground. He slowly rubbed his foot across the carpet. “I just—You fast forwarded too far earlier.” He looked up and the room was empty.

Michael laughed. He sauntered to his chair in the living room and plopped down. He hit play on the remote and Southern Charm started up from where it had been before. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the most recent picture in his Photos app. He laughed again and closed his eyes. He felt sleepy.

By Riley Winchester

From: United States