Come to Eden Adventure Park, and let your soul play a little. You deserve the rebirth.
That is what the commercials say. And it is only half bullshit. Everything but the zip line. No one will be exactly the same after experiencing this mind-blowing ride. It measures a whopping 2.6 miles of cable, making it the fourth longest in the world. No wonder, it made the headlines when it first came out in 2022. People of all colors, races, and religions from across the world come here for the sole purpose of experiencing the most amazing ride of their life. Or to watch the others experiencing it. After all, it does take grit—if not madness—to go through such an insane drop, and not everybody has it. Most visitors just stay down at the base of Eden and content themselves with boring rides that are typical of any other adventure park. Cowards!
Standing by the launching platform at the summit of Paradise Mountain, Paul can barely see the swarm of visitors down at the park. They look like a bunch of small ants. Small, negligible ants who contribute nothing to this planet but breathe out more carbon dioxide. Earth will not miss anything if any of them disappeared today. Paul imagines flicking one away with his middle finger. Parasites of Earth, he thinks and licks his Green Tea ice cream. The handsome zip line operator/playboy turns his gaze away from the perishable humans down at the base and returns to watching the Iron-rich mountains glittering red in the sun; the endless beauty that will last forever. That is his favorite thing to do when he is on his break—from being an operator. It is the most spectacular view impossible to take your eyes away from.
A woman giggles.
Paul takes his eyes away from the mountain view and zooms in on her instead. She is young, cute, and with heart-shaped lips; the kind of view that nature cannot beat.
With her harness hooked into the zip line pulley, she is next in line for the ride. She pushes her pink sneakers against the launch gate, eagerly waiting for the operator to open it. Grit and cuteness is a rare combination in a girl. She has a beautiful smile, which makes her even more attractive. She must be wild in bed too, Paul thinks, and licks his ice cream.
“Lucy, pay attention please,” Jesus says, wearing his park official vest. “It was Lucy, right?”
“Oui.”
“Okay, listen, Lucy. You gotta keep your knees up the whole time. Otherwise, you’d swing. And trust me, you don’t want that.”
“Oui. Oui,” she says in French. “I know. I know. Leave me alone.” She turns away from Jesus. That might be rude, but a girl that sexy gets to be rude.
Jesus sighs and goes to help the next rider in line.
Lucy’s gaze falls on Paul and immediately locks with his, ensnared by his intense I-want-you-right-now eyes. Phase one, complete.
Time for Paul to make his move. He should play it slow. Or not. Given how wild these French chicks are, he might just be able to pull off Licky Likey, his risky move that works only one out of three times.
She licks her lips.
That’s it, Paul thinks and goes for Licky Likey. Extending his tongue way out, he gives a long, suggestive lick on the ice cream while maintaining the lustful eye-contact with her.
One out of three.
Lucy’s face twists in disgust and she cringes away. She turns out to be among the two out of three. What a pity!
Alright, alright, Paul thinks. It is Okay. Win some, lose some. After all, this is a game of numbers. No biggie. Some other lucky bastard will make her bed rock tonight. Damn! In retrospect, he should have gone with his I-am-a-romantic move.
Lucy smiles again. Did the licking move eventually work on her? Perhaps she needed time for the move to sink in and tickle her basic instincts. But if that is the case, how come she is not looking at Paul anymore?
Pumped up with hope and excitement, Paul follows her gaze and finds Jesus. Is she looking at Jesus?! No way. Jesus is helping a tall boy with pretty, blue eyes and soft, long hair. Yep, he must be Lucy’s guy. If it were not for his oddly fat belly, one would assume that he must be an underwear model. What does Lucy see in this fat underwear guy, anyway? They must have done it already, Paul figures, given the meaningful way they look at each other. What a piece of shit, pompous…pretentious…douchebag, Paul thinks, grinding his teeth. He is just an ant. A negligible, perishable, underwear ant.
Lucy blows a kiss at the boy. “Je t’aime, Vansont.” The dildo’s name must be Vincent then, butchered by French pronunciation.
Standing with open arms and with the silly smile still on his stupid face, Vincent takes a condescending look down at Jesus, who tightens the straps on his harness.
Paul knows that look well. That is the look that says, ‘I’m better than you since I hit hot stuff that you can never get. I’m the winner, and you’re the loser.’ But this full-of-himself asshole does not know the first thing about Jesus, who is not tainted by these Earthly competitions. Jesus is not even of this world; he is made of heaven, Paul always says and nobody ever understands. There is an innocence in Jesus; and a light that one day will shine out—maybe next week, maybe tomorrow, or even today. Paul knows it and has known it ever since he met Jesus. But this good-for-nothing Vincent and the likes of him are too blind to see that. Vincent is everything Paul hates about human beings, and yet he gets to just stand there and judge Jesus because Jesus does not bang as much as he does.
Half Jesus’ attention is on tightening Vincent’s harness, and the other half on the concept of forgiveness. The whole subject just came back to him when Vincent gave him that look. Jesus can’t quite put a name to it, but it feels as though Vincent considers himself above Jesus—as if Vincent is the master and Jesus the… Let it go, Jesus mutters his newly discovered universal solution to forgiveness. It does work but only a little. Deep down, Jesus still cannot stop thinking of that…condescending look that Vincent gave him. Yeah, that is the word: ‘condescending’. Who the hell he thinks he is to… Let it go, Jesus mutters again and takes a deep breath.
While tightening the bottom of the harness, Jesus becomes curious about the paunch on Vincent’s odd, fat belly. It feels as hard as Omar’s six-pack abs. Come to think of it, Lucy’s belly was quite similar. That is too much of a coincidence. As he puzzles over the belly, he looks down and asks Vincent, “Do you have something—”
“Quack, Quack,” Vincent says playfully, poking Jesus in the middle of his head.
Enough’s enough, Jesus thinks, inhaling through clenched teeth. Filled with rage fresh from Hell, Jesus looks up. He is so upset that he could totally punch Vincent’s teeth out if the jerk were not so goddamn tall.
“What’s up, Officer Boring?” Vincent says with his thick, French accent and quickly changes the subject before Jesus’ rising hand grabs his collar. “I actually have a safety question, Officer Boring. What if someone collides with that concrete wall right beneath the landing platform?”
“No way,” says Mr. Morgan, the owner and the director of the park, offering a charming chuckle to the two inspectors standing at the landing platform. “There is at least nine feet of space here. Even Michael Jordan is not tall enough for that,” he chuckles and zooms in on the two inspectors to study their reactions. It is a million-dollar gift. He can tell a lot about a person by just looking at their face: the wrinkles on the foreheads, the eyebrows, the size of their pupils, how they exhale through their noses, and how much teeth they are showing.
None of the inspectors looks convinced though. Hissing through his teeth, one of them insists, “Yeah, but the speed—”
“Speed,” Morgan jumps in, almost shouting, “is what makes it fun. Look, look. What do you see?”
“Those paddings?”
“State-of-the-art de-accelerators I ordered right from mother-fucking Germany. Forty-five fucking thousand dollars. You could come with the speed of light, and these de-accelerators would make it like a baby jumping into the loving arms of her fucking mother.”
Half suspicious, half convinced, the inspectors roll their eyes and exchange a glance. One of them raises his eyebrows, which means Morgan’s salesmanship skills are working on him. That would reduce the price of the bribe that he later has to pay.
The landing platform is where most of the attractions of the adventure park are located, ranging from less-adventurous rides such as bumper cars, Helter Skelter, and a carousel that is exclusively used by kids, to exciting ones like pendulum ride, Pirate Ship, and a roller coaster that is enjoyed by people of ages four and up. Four is considerably lower than the minimum standard age that is enforced in other adventure parks. However, Morgan has managed to pull off his powerful connections to reduce the minimum age and hence increase the profit. That is how he does business, and that is how he has made his American dream come true and single-handedly built his empire from the ground up: by using only his bare hands and corrupting the officials. He has come a long way from being a car salesman at the Chevrolet dealership on 13th Street, and he still has a long way to go to push it to the limit—if there is any.
“It’s all clear, Jesus,” the operator at the landing platform says over the walkie-talkie while chewing gum.
“Send the next. Over,” the voice over walkie-talkie continues at the launching platform.
“Ready?” Jesus asks Lucy.
“Oui,” she responds, her enthusiasm showing through her wide eyes.
Paul licks his ice cream, still staring at Lucy. It is pathetic; he knows that. The ocean of Eden is full of fish like her. But there is something intriguing about chasing a forbidden fruit, whatever that would be. Even if it is already half-eaten by a dog like Vincent with worms squirming through it.
Jesus goes to press the green release button next to the walkie-talkie.
Her face still brightened with excitement, Lucy looks back at Vincent.
Vincent winks at her. That is suspicious! What are these two frenchos up to? Perhaps Paul should go ahead and give his colleague, Jesus, a warning about them.
Lucy screams. It is too late for the warning. Jesus has opened the gate, and Lucy is going down the zip line, gaining more and more speed every second.
“Allez. Allez. Allez,” Vincent shouts, putting both hands around his mouth.
With both of her hands gripping the sling that connects to the pulley, Lucy enjoys the wonderful ride with the heavenly view. The start of the ride is like free-falling from the sky. Holding her breath, her heart beats at its peak, and she thinks, What a beautiful way to die! It is only after the first five seconds that she feels the pressure of the hook on the back of her harness as if an invisible hand holds her up. In no time, she learns to trust all of it: the cable, the hook, the safety straps on her harness; and to just enjoy the most amazing view of the mountain range on the side as well as of the most frightening view of the valley at the bottom.
She starts swinging soon after, but it goes away when she applies Jesus’ advice and keeps her knees up. Not being able to see the end of the cable, the sensation of hurtling towards the valley floor at breakneck speed overwhelms her. It is only after the midpoint that she realizes that the cable bends and connects to the landing platform at the edge of the cliff that overlooks the valley.
Lucy takes her eyes off the spectacular view and looks at her bulging belly. Letting go of the grip on the sling, her right hand reaches the belly and caresses it like a pregnant mother would. She then starts opening the strap on the bottom of her jacket! Vincent is going to be so proud of her.
Vincent gets behind the gate, pushing his feet against it.
Jesus’ eyes fall on Vincent’s bulging belly again, and his suspicion comes back. “Wait a minute, what’s that?”
“What the fuck?” Morgan says when his eyes fall on Lucy reaching the landing platform at the seemingly unstoppable speed. Pushing the inspectors aside, he runs toward the cliff’s edge while waving his hands at Lucy. “No, No, No.”
BO-O-O-O-O-OM!
That is the sound of an explosion on the concrete wall beneath the edge of the cliff. A mini watermelon explodes into a million pieces upon impact with the wall with that insane speed. Lucy, who had dropped the watermelon, glides over Morgan and lands safely.
“Yee Haa,” Vincent screams at the top of his voice. “Je t’aime, mon bebe,” he shouts like a madman, following upon impact with a mad laugh.
Jesus now has no doubts that Vincent’s fat belly is fake. There must be something concealed under his jacket. Jesus rushes to unstrap the harness on Vincent’s safety vest.
“Hey, get off me, shithead,” Vincent barks, unsuccessfully trying to shove Jesus away.
His teeth grinding in rage, Jesus unbuttons the jacket and finds a mini watermelon in a large inside pocket stitched to the interior. He yanks it out and holds the three-ish-pound criminal evidence before Vincent. “This is a joke to you?” he yells. “People could get hurt, you idiot.”
Busted, yet shameless, Vincent gives Jesus one of his condescending looks. “Hey, get your hands off me, you boring American. You don’t know how to have fun.”
Jesus hears a muffled sound that whispers, ‘Let it go.’ The voice is, however, too feeble to challenge his unleashed wrath. Right now, with his ears almost blocked, he can only see. And he sees nothing but Vincent’s self-satisfying, self-centered, self-absorbed face. The vision of Vincent’s malformed face crosses his mind. And that does not bother him. On the contrary, he would like to play a part in the vision coming true. Clutching Vincent’s collar with both hands, Jesus pulls him down by the Giraffe-like neck.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Paul interferes, the ice cream in his hand. “Relax. Jesus, why don’t you take a break?” he asks, touching him on the shoulder.
Jesus feels at ease at once. There is an unexplainable magnetic energy in the supporting touch of the man that you blindly trust. And Paul has earned it. He has stood by Jesus’ side through thick and thin, defending him against deniers who ridiculed his developing views on life.
Jesus lets go of Vincent’s collar.
Paul swiftly sweeps between them, facing Jesus.
“Jesus?!” Vincent exclaims, peeking from behind Paul. “Your name’s Jesus?! A Black Jesus! Ha ha ha. You make me laugh, you little man.”
Rocked by an explosive rage, Jesus charges at Vincent.
Paul wraps his arms around Jesus, who is seething with rage. “Hey, easy. Easy, bro, easy. Hey, look at me.” Paul says, looking right into Jesus’ eyes.
Jesus looks up at Paul as he is still breathing forcefully through his nose.
“I’ll take care of it, alright?” Paul says. “Leave it to me, bro. I’ll take care of it.”
Paul’s words calm Jesus down like cold water putting out a blazing fire. Paul knows well how to talk to his best friend. A friendship that grew stronger and stronger every day since its inception 12 years ago.
“Fine,” Jesus says, showing his reluctance by rolling his eyes. He leaves, taking the watermelon with him.
Resuming his mad laugh, Vincent says from behind, “What is your miracle, little Jesus? Hey, when I die I want you to bring me back to life.” He follows that with a forced laugh.
Trying not to think of Vincent’s irritating laughing face, Jesus keeps walking away. He does show his frustration, though, by flinging the watermelon into the garbage bin. When he did so, he imagined a small version of Vincent squirming among the trash, and that soothed him a bit.
“Let it go,” Vincent whispers.
Jesus freezes on the spot. Was it Vincent who said that? How could Jesus hear it from far away? It does not matter. What matters is the echoes of the three magical words that travel through Jesus’ brain, flicking every tired, rusty neuron, and shaking off the hatred that has prevented them from breathing.
Facing Jesus, Vincent rants nonsense and lets out his disgusting laugh.
Paul has now legit reasons to hate Vincent, this handsome underwear douchebag. Paul smiles too, imagining the range of things that he can do to disfigure Vincent’s pretty face. He steps closer, his face near Vincent’s.
The revolting sneer on Vincent’s face vanishes when he turns back to Paul. He must be perplexed, trying to make sense of the smile attached to the angry expression on Paul’s face. Vincent takes a step back, fear obvious on his face.
Paul steps forward, and without saying a word, redoes the straps on Vincent’s safety harness.
“Is that Green Tea,” Vincent says with a trembling voice, gesturing to Paul’s ice cream that lies next to the walkie-talkie on the shelf. “I love it. That’s my favorite flavor too.”
Paul ignores Vincent’s desperate attempt at small talk.
“A nig*** Jesus.” Vincent does not know when to shut up. “Ha ha. So funny.”
Paul is tightening the last strap when he hears that. He pauses. He needs a second to make his mind up on how to respond to the disgusting slur. It should be sharp and it should be harsh. And it should give that douchebag the lesson of his lifetime.
“Jesus, what are you waiting for? Over,” the voice says through the walkie-talkie.
That brings Paul to attention. He smiles and leaves the strap the way it is. “It’s coming. Just a sec. Over,” Paul says over the walkie-talkie.
Vincent gets behind the gate, pushing his feet against it.
“Remember,” Paul says, still smiling, “knees up or you’ll swing. Ready?”
“I’ll see about that,” Vincent mutters.
“I guess we all will see about that,” Paul says, his smile growing into a grin, and pushes the green release button.
“Shi-i-i-i-i-i-it,” Vincent screams, departing through the opened gate.
Disgusted by Vincent’s expression of enthusiasm, Paul puts the walkie-talkie back on the shelf and picks up his ice cream.
After getting his rage properly under control, Jesus turns back to the platform to take over his shift. He feels embarrassed for losing his cool earlier. Quarreling with the likes of Vincent is beneath him Him. After all, He is Jesus.
Leaning against the fence, Paul is already back to his break. Eating his ice cream with so much joy, his gaze is locked on the zip line like a child watching Bugs Bunny.
That’s odd, Jesus thinks and follows Paul’s gaze.
Reckless Vincent messes around again, this time by throwing his legs left and right.
Jesus’ squinting eyes lock on Vincent. “What the hell’s that idiot doing?” He asks, his stomach churning.
“Playing with his odds?” Paul responds, shrugging, and takes a bite of his ice cream.
Growing suspicious, Jesus turns all the way to Paul.
Paul chews his ice cream vigorously, as if it were a stale bun.
Jesus sighs. Perhaps He is overthinking it. It has been a challenging day, and Jesus needs His evening-time painting to completely cool off.
“Excuse me,” the girl next in line says, with her look complaining about the delay.
Jesus leaves Paul alone with his ice cream and goes to do the routine of checking the straps on the girl’s safety harness.
“JESUS!” the girl screams the moment He touches her chest.
Jesus immediately retracts His hand, taking a step back.
She stands there, mouth half-open and eyes wide. Jesus is about to ask her what is wrong when she raises her hand, pointing to the zip line.
Dazed and confused, Jesus follows her hand.
Vincent hangs on only one strap, the other apparently gone busted open.
Jesus runs toward Vincent, only to be stopped by the fences. “Knees up. Knees up,” He screams pointlessly, Vincent being a mile away.
Paul sneers, watching the scene through binoculars.
Jesus yanks the binoculars out of his hand.
“Hey,” Paul complains.
Through the binoculars, Jesus spots Vincent clinging to the only strap left holding Vincent up.
With her arms outstretched, Lucy waits for Vincent at the edge of the landing platform. “Allez, Allez, Allez,” she excitedly screams while jumping up and down.
“AHHHHHHH.” Vincent falls when the other safety strap gets torn apart, his scream filling the whole valley.
Stricken by shock, Lucy stops jumping. This cannot be happening. That falling object must be the watermelon, she hopefully thinks and peers at him.
“Oh, shit,” Paul says, the ice cream dropping from his hand.
Vincent’s scream continues.
Only a miracle could save Vincent.
Vincent’s scream continues.
Jesus remembers the pigeon. He extends His hands.
Vincent’s scream continues.
“Stop,” Jesus mutters, “In the name of My Father.”
Vincent’s scream continues.
A mother looks away while covering the eyes of her son.
Vincent’s scream stops.
“Oh, my God,” Jesus squeaks, His his voice trembling. “Oh, my God”
Shoving Lucy out of their way, the two inspectors run to the edge of the platform, followed by Morgan. One of them takes pictures with his phone, and the other takes a pen and a notepad out of his blazer’s inside pocket.
Morgan falls to his knees while holding his head between his hands. “Jesus! I’m fucked.”
Jesus’ tearful eyes are still staring at His his miracle-free hands.