A light, refreshing breeze blows and brings life back to Jesus’ corpse.
Eden Adventure Park is as empty as a plague-ridden city. Resembling the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Helter Skelter looks like a Roman ruin, teetering on the edge of collapse. What year is this? Jesus wonders. The pendulum ride has already fallen. The pirate ship ride is split in half. Most of the roller coaster’s structure lies in ruins, its cars having plummeted off the rails and now entangled within the remnants of the wreckage.
Some might call it an Apocalypse, some total annihilation of earthly life; all of it: the humans we’ve reproduced, the architectures they’ve built up, and the cultures they’ve made up. The Messiah Show, along with all its glory, is gone as if it has never existed. The grass field that once hosted thousands of enthusiastic followers of Jesus is now a barren desert, cracked at every corner.
Jesus himself, the star of the show, is crucified at the center, where he used to preach forgiveness and compassion to his flock of followers. The hardcore fans who once loved him to death are all dead now, leaving Jesus alone as well as forlorn. There is nothing left on earth to live for.
The breeze that resurrected Jesus dislodges the cross from the earth and carries it up to the sky. As he ascends, Jesus smiles and takes a last look at the earth that once housed his body. Below him, Eden Adventure Park becomes smaller and smaller. Goodbye, Eden, forever. Above him is a big, puffy cloud, through which the cross ascends.
As he flies through, he can feel the warmth of the sun reaching his skin. The mass of vapors in the cloud becomes brighter and brighter until Jesus reaches the very top, to the kingdom of the sun. He tightly shuts his eyes in response to the abrupt change in light intensity, yet he can still sense the powerful sunlight seeping through his closed eyelids.
Jesus opens his eyes when he feels the cross is not ascending further. It must be having a layover on the cloud before taking Jesus up to the sun, where he will be reunited with his father.
Everything glows under the sheer uncensored sunshine above the cloud. The glittering droplets of the fog that surrounds Jesus gradually disappear, revealing an old, rusty carousel, similar to the one they once had in the park. That’s my favorite kind of heaven, Jesus thinks and smiles.
The unmoving carousel already has a rider, a young Black man with a bandage on his head. Sitting on a plastic unicorn, he hugs the grab bar so tightly as if he’s embracing his sweetheart. Traces of multiple burns mar the back of his neck. Could he really be me?! Jesus wonders.
“But I’m here to make it up to you,” Jesus hears from behind. While still crucified on the cross, he turns from the man sitting on the unicorn to the female voice, and with him, the cross turns as well.
That is Sally in her navy blue dress. Jesus loves this color on Sally. Her face screws up in an expression that Jesus doesn’t recognize. Shame perhaps? In the reflection of her watery eyes, Jesus catches a glimpse of himself and his cross. Her twitching eyelids crave a beam of hope. “I…,” she continues, “I… I wanted to see if…you…our relationship, I mean, if you want to pick it up again and—”
As Jesus hears the inaudible response of the guy sitting on the unicorn, Sally’s face gets bigger and bigger—or Jesus gets smaller, one of the two. Tears well up in Sally’s eyes. Apparently, the response was good for nothing but burning hearts and irrigating eyes. Jesus begins taking a dislike to the guy sitting on the unicorn. By now, Sally’s face has become as tall as Jesus’ cross.
As the blood drains from her face, Sally’s breathing becomes heavier through her nose. She shudders and hurriedly fishes out a medicine container from her purse. “You don’t mean that,” she cries, unscrewing the lid on the container. “I know you. These feelings never can completely go away—”
“But you surely can,” Jesus hears from the guy on the carousel. What?! What the hell is the matter with this guy? He must be terribly wrong in the head; that explains the bandage. Hurting people with words is no less of a crime than stabbing them with a knife. Worse. What sin is more hideous than wounding a heart? Where do I know this guy from? Jesus wonders but doesn’t bother to turn back and see his face.
Tears spill over and trickle down Sally’s face. The pain of the world wavers in her wet eyes. Jesus cannot bear that. Although he wants to reach over and wipe the tears off her face, his hands are tied, nailed to the cross. He hears the indistinct voice of the guy on the carousel saying something to Sally—as if he hasn’t said enough already. Just shut up already, would you?
Whatever he said this time, it is tearing Sally apart. Jesus should caress her cheeks with the tip of his fingers; the gesture that used to do magic, soothing her in an instant. Jesus exerts all his strength, wrenching his nailed hands in an attempt to free himself from the cross. As the nails quiver, fresh blood trickles down from them, but his unwavering focus remains solely on the pain etched on Sally’s face.
“But you said you loved me,” Sally says as she bursts out crying.
The scratchy music begins.
Jesus turns back to the carousel that resumes its aimless circling. With an oblivious smile on his face, the guy on the carousel opens his arms and rides away on the plastic unicorn. That asshole was me, Jesus recognizes himself and wishes he didn’t.
Sally shouts through her sob, “It was right here. You said you love me. What’s changed?” Her wishful eyes yearn for a response softened with a touch of mercy. The inaudible words of Jesus riding on the carousel, however, sounds empty of that.
“Forgive me,” Jesus mutters while struggling to get his hands free from the cross.
“Forgive me,” he repeats louder this time.
The nails desperately cling.
“Forgive me,” he shouts.
The nails start to loosen.
“Forgive me,” he screams.
“It wasn’t that many,” Sally says, her trembling voice carried over a bass of despair. She bows her head, chin tucked into her chest.
Jesus finally detaches himself from the holy cross. Before his outstretched hand can reach Sally’s face, however, gravity reaches out to him, pulling Jesus down from the sky with unyielding force.
“Forgi-i-i-i-ive me-e-e-e-e,” Jesus screams while falling to earth at a frightening speed. In no time, he can see Eden Adventure Park. Oh, no. Not that goddamn park again. Shortly after, he passes the zip line cable, plunging into the bottom of the valley where Vincent’s body has exploded into countless pieces.