2

"The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind."

 The 21st century changed mankind. We were all plugged into the internet one way or another. Some had implants, which could be put into the skin painlessly and would hold all your information. You could wave your hand over a scanner and pay for items and be paid through the internet. You would never have to touch a cent of money to have wealth, and could conduct business without having to move an inch. You could contact anyone in the world at any time for free, look up any bit of information in the world, and could never get lost. Missing persons cases became a rarity in that day, but I stuck with simply having a micro-computer, what they called a MiCo - the latest incarnation of the smart phone. After my ship capsized, I couldn't afford to lose all my information again. I was addicted to it. I couldn't fathom ever being off the grid again and feeling so alone. It was like humanity was one big family, and our minds were becoming one collective mind. If something happened, I would know about it through my feed.

That's how I knew he was coming. I was messaged and told "Jesus is coming." and I messaged back "They've been saying that for thousands of years." but my contact explained to me that there was a traveling drifter, a homeless man nicknamed "Jesus" because of his long hair and beard, and also because he walked in sandals and spoke about God. His actual name was Elan Smith, but no one knew who he was because he lived his whole life without using technology. No one knew his birthday, if he had a social security number, if he had a birth certificate, or if Elan Smith was his real name. He was an enigma, they told me, who spoke in riddles, but was not crazy or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. I was intrigued and went to dock my ship at the harbor, but he was already there on the shore, and quite a large number of people had surrounded him to listen to him. He was speaking but I couldn't quite make out what he was saying.

I asked some of the people "Who is this guy?" and they said they didn't know, but found him oddly fascinating and joked that he was Jesus. My curiosity was piqued and I needed to know more.

For some reason, I never revoked my belief in God. I always believed he existed, but just didn't care about me that much. Now, here he was, sending Jesus my way, after all these years. But no, I reasoned, the real Jesus would return from Heaven ready for war, and would slay the Beast of the Sea, and destroy all the demonic power that had taken over the world. This man had no such army of angels to aid him in conquering the world, although, I would say that the world at this point was a terrible place. Then again, was it ever truly good? I wondered this, and then I realized that Elan was waving me to come over to him. I snapped out of my pondering, and pushed my way through the crowd to Elan, who evidently was standing on a large tractor tire. How the tractor tire got there at the docks is truly a mystery to me, even to this day. I extended my hand to shake his hand, but he smiled, and reached around me to hug me instead. I pulled away and said "My name is Stan." awkwardly. He said "Stan is short for...?"

"Constantine." I replied.

"Come follow me." He said, as if he were picking the first of his disciples.

It's incredible how fast the human mind can think, and this was one of those rare examples of just fast my thoughts concluded that I should probably go with him. I don't know why I chose to do it. Maybe I was just bored with my life, or maybe I wanted to go on an adventure. Maybe a part of me believed he was actually the real Jesus, and that I would see him save the world. I had severe doubts about my ability to join him, because I was a former gang member, prisoner, and not very good with being social with people in person. Then I also began to realize that I was probably joining a cult, and there could very well be some ritual suicide at the end of this road. It didn't matter; I decided if his ambitions got too out-of-hand, that I would quickly make a run for it. But I decided to go with him, and see what he was all about, if anything, or if he was just a raving lunatic. There are always people claiming to be the second coming of Christ, and I sadly accepted that this was probably the case with him. It didn't matter, though.

He dismissed the crowd. "Go home everyone. It's getting late, and it will be getting cold, and many of you have work tomorrow." He said. A few people left, but most of them just stuck around, so he just walked through them and started walking. He looked to me and said "Walk with me." so I walked alongside him, and we were being followed by what had to be at least a few hundred people.

"Constantine." He said, "Tell me, where are you going?"

"Hell if I know. Following you. You told me to walk with you." I replied, a bit confused.

"If you are going to walk with me, you need to trust me wholeheartedly."

"I just met you though, how can I trust you?"

"Man has betrayed your trust, but Our Father will never betray your trust. If I serve Him, and do His will, your trust will never be broken."

"You mean God? He's already broken my trust."

"Then who is on your side? How are you still alive? Did God save your life from death so you could be fed to the bears in the woods? I'll you the truth, the rain falls on the righteous and the wicked, and the flesh is torn to shreds, it bleeds, it dies. But whoever is righteous and has faith will never taste death."

"I wish I could believe that, but people die. I've lost..." my tears began welling up in my eyes. I didn't want to cry.

"Tell me. I'm listening."

"My mother died when I was 15, and my best friend died three months ago."

"What was his name?"

"His name was Andy. He worked on my ship. We ran into a storm that just came up out of nowhere and he ended up drowning. He left nothing behind except his truck, and his brother took it. The sad part is, that bastard didn't even talk to Andy, not for years, and then comes out of nowhere to take the truck. I could've used that truck, because I had to sell mine, and my house as well. All I have is a boat. That's all I have left."

"Show me where Andy's brother lives."

"What? What the hell are you gonna do?"

"You said you couldn't trust me, and now I'm giving you an opportunity to trust me. Have a little faith. Do you not even want to see what sorts of things My Father can do? If you don't trust me, trust God."

I sighed and reluctantly agreed, so I led Elan to that asshole brother's house. Elan went to the door alone while it was dark outside and knocked. The door opened, and he had a long conversation with the person at the door. I kept thinking something horrible was going to happen, but to my relief, Elan stepped away from the door and it shut behind him. He walked back to me and said "Come with me." and I was just wondering now where are we going? And he walked around the house to the garage and opened the door, and there was Andy's white pick-up truck, just sitting there with a tarp over it, unused and untouched. To my complete shock, Elan handed me the keys to the truck. "Where did you get these?" I asked, concerned. I thought maybe he threatened the guy or something, but Elan said "I asked him to sell me the truck and he agreed. I want you to drive it for me." and he placed the keys in my hands.

"What did you pay him?" I asked, still feeling very uneasy about this whole thing.

"I had some money in my pocket, and I gave it to him." Elan replied nonchalantly.

"How much money did you have in your pocket?"

"Ten thousand dollars."

"What the fuck? Where did you get ten thousand dollars? I thought you were homeless."

"As surely as the Lord fed Elijah breadcrumbs collected by the crows, he feeds us. A rich man came up to me and gave me the money, because he heard that I had been doing the Lord's work, and I kept it until now. Now I am truly penniless on Earth, but in My Father's kingdom, my bank account will never run out."

"Wow."

I finally broke down into tears. I couldn't believe that I had Andy's truck back and that this stranger had just given all his money without a second thought to make it happen. We got into the truck together and drove off into the night. Smiling to myself, I said "I guess I can trust you now. Where to, boss?"

"We're going to go into the darkest depths of the human heart, to the landfills, to the morgues where the dead bodies are burned, to the nest of the snakes, and to the edge of the abyss."

"Sounds fun. Where can we find all this shit?"

"Anywhere and everywhere. The Lord's work is never done, it is a masterpiece that can never be completed by the hand of man, but with God, all things are rendered possible."

1

"The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death."

 I've always recalled as a child, reciting the pledge of allegiance, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, UNDER GOD, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." and I recall we were always encouraged to emphasize "under God", to spit in the face of the godless liberals and proudly proclaim our faith. My name is Constantine, named after the conqueror of Rome from the barbarians under the banner of Christ, but I normally go by "Stan". At age 6, I was already a devote Christian. Jesus was my superhero. Whenever something went wrong in my life, I would always talk to Jesus about it. He didn't really say much back I suppose, but I always imagined he was listening and taking down a list, and making sure to remedy all my problems. I remember when I was around that age, my mom slipped on a patch of ice and tore her hamstring in her left leg. Actually, it could've been the right leg. I don't remember, now that I think about it. But boy, I prayed my ass off for that leg to heal and I'm sure if Jesus were there, I would've talked until his ears were bleeding. And guess what? My mom's leg healed, and I said so many thank-yous to Jesus after that, but of course, later on, I realized that her leg probably just healed on it's own.

That's what you did in rural Wyoming, you went to church on Sunday, you cheered for your high school's football team, and then you went to Bible college and moved away to go on mission trips to Africa. So many people from my church ended up going to Africa, I began to wonder when all the Africans would get saved and how close we were to winning all the hearts in Africa for Jesus. The missionaries would come back and talk in front of the church about spiritual warfare in Africa, and how Christ needed soldiers to fight in that battle. I was sure that when I got older, I'd get over there to Africa and fight in that war for Jesus.

When I turned 15, my mother got cancer in her stomach and died. She suffered in that hospital for months and everyone in my church prayed for her every Sunday and Wednesday. I got my whole youth group to put hands on her stomach and we all prayed for Jesus to heal that tumor in her stomach. The pastor said he saw angels around her and following her that day. I never saw the angels, but I was sure they were there to fight off the demons of cancer. Obviously, they didn't do a very good job, and needed to be fired from being angels because my mom died. She started fading away one day and she said to me these words: "I think I'm going to meet Jesus soon." she whispered quietly as tears fell down my cheeks. "Don't worry, you'll get to meet him soon as well." She said quietly before falling asleep. I put my hand around hers and held that hand until it went cold. As a child, I just cried until there were no more tears left. Why would God ignore all of our prayers? Why wasn't our faith enough to save her?

At first, I thought to myself "The angels were following her to take her to Heaven." and was comforted, thinking about her with Jesus in Heaven. I imagined him hugging her and telling her that he loved her, then taking her by the hand to a beautiful place, where she sat under a huge tree and the birds sang to her. But I missed her so badly that I began to have dreams where she would be alive, and everything would be all right, but then awaken to realize that it was just a dream, and she was dead. What a cruel joke. I began to hate God. I became everything I never wanted to be - drug-user, alcoholic, and violent. I kept getting into fights at parties and had many girlfriends who used me to get drugs and money. Unfortunately, many of these girlfriends also already had boyfriends, and the boyfriends would be out for blood knowing that I had sex with their girlfriends. I wasn't afraid of them, though. I didn't care if I lived or died. One of them pulled a knife and cut me across the back, which was a terrible idea. He should've stabbed me in the back of the neck or something to kill me, because I'm a fairly big guy, being 6'5" and weighing 280 lbs, so it was a very bad idea to just provoke me, and I turned around, picked him up by the throat and then slammed his body into the ground like he was a rag-doll. Then I limped out to my car and drove myself to the hospital and almost died from blood-loss at age 18.

My father sent me down to Florida to live with my grandparents, fearing that I would be killed and seeing that I needed a change in environment. Clearly, I did, but I didn't know it. My doctor entered my room in the hospital and she said, "Mr. Claremont, you're quite lucky. Do you believe in God?" and I sneered and said "Yeah, I do. And fuck him." She hesitated and then said "Well, you almost died in your sleep last night, so I would be thanking him right now."

"No thank you." I replied.

When I moved to Florida, I got into gangs, not college. At age 24, I was arrested for selling cocaine, and spent very little time in prison because my father was wealthy, and was able to somehow get me out. I repaid him the favor by selling heroin and getting arrested again a year later, and this time, for 5 five years.

I had a lot of time to think while I was locked up. This time, my father didn't bail me out, and didn't write to me or call me like he did the first time. I figured, fuck him, if he didn't want to be a part of my life anymore, then I didn't want to be a part of his. But I didn't make this decision without major ramifications to myself emotionally. I was very depressed, and tried to cut myself up with a piece of metal, but the guards stopped me and put me in isolation. I spent most of my sentence being in solitary confinement. While I was there, I couldn't believe what my life had become. While in my gang, I beat up more people than I could count, and some of them may have died, and I sold so many plastic bags with drugs, and those almost certainly killed some people, because we had some buyers who were regulars who never came back. I hope they turned their life around and got clean, but I knew better. Some of our buyers were mothers and fathers, and I realized that somewhere, there was probably a 15-year-old who had lost his mother because of what I had done.

My tattoos covered most of my body, which were mostly gang tattoos, but a few ones that I had custom-made to show what a badass I was, so that people would be afraid of me. On my right knuckles, it was written in ink "Fuck" and on my left "Life", one letter for each finger. I had a devil riding a dragon on my right arm, and he had a spear with a head at the end of it, and the dragon was climbing atop a mountain of headless bodies. On my left, there was the demon Azazel, depicted as a horned figure wearing a black cloak. The rest of my arms were used by my street gang, as was my chest and back. On my back, I had a pair of dragon wings that covered my whole back. On my stomach, there was a depiction of Carl Panzram staring angrily outwards at the world.

When I was released, I moved up north to Maine by myself, and got a job as a dock-worker. I slept in my car during the summer, and rented the most low-end apartments possible in the winter. I actually had a pretty good reason for moving to Maine. It was cold almost the whole year around, so I could wear long-sleeve shirts and fingerless gloves that would cover all the gang tattoos. Luckily, I was never stupid enough to get one on my face, or I'd have to run around wearing a mask. I made some friends who were mostly drinking buddies of mine that also worked at the dock. They were all right, I guess. They would just meet at the bar, get smashed and talk shit about their wives. It was a lot more amusing than it sounds. We spent a lot of time coming up with these absolutely ridiculous crude jokes to roast the wives of these guys, and we were liquored up the whole time, which didn't hurt at all in terms of our ability to find humor in terrible, terrible things. I was the only guy who didn't have a wife. I figured that wives were a waste of money, and I was saving money to buy a boat. That was my only goal in life, to buy a boat. I didn't know where I'd go with it or what I'd do, but I wanted it to be big enough so I could use it to make a living by catching fish and shrimp. Some of those captains just lived on their boats, did very little work, and still made 30 grand a year, after paying their crew.

So I bought that boat, and it felt like the only real achievement I'd ever made. I got my best friend Andy to be my first-mate, and got a couple of other guys to work on my boat. I had a hell of a time figuring out a name for my fishing boat, but finally dubbed her the Forrest Gump, which I cleverly named after the character from the movie of the same name, because he had a fishing boat.

Andy and I spent about 15 years (I think) on that boat, and we made enough money to buy a house, and both of us had a pick-up truck. Mine was red, his was white. Still, by this time, I was about in my mid-40s, wasn't married, had no money saved, had done almost nothing with my life, and spent all my time with my dumb friend Andy. Well, that is, until Andy started picking up girlfriends. He would bring them back to the house, have sex with them, kick them out, and repeat the process just about every other day. I couldn't understand why he was able to get some of these girls; I mean, these were gorgeous women, and Andy is... how do I put this? He's pretty ugly, pretty stupid, and pretty uncharismatic, and those are the only pretty things about him. I mean, I was his buddy, but he was like my sidekick, and the sidekick definitely shouldn't be pulling in more beautiful women than the superhero, I figured.

I was bored with my life.

Same shit every day: pull the anchor up, sit out in the water the whole day in the freezing cold, let the nets down, haul in a marginal number of fish, bring it back to port and haggle with the cheap-ass buyers. I hated those guys. I'm not even going to talk about them, because they're not worth my time.

By that time, everyone had a smart-phone, so I figured I'd buy one too to keep myself occupied while out on the water. It was one of the best investments I ever made. It turned out that I was like the only captain in the world who didn't have one, because pretty soon, I had 2,000+ friends to chat with who all had their own ships and we would play pranks on each other and try to get each other to get lost by giving wrong coordinates. I became pretty popular in my little social media kingdom, and some of the captains, including myself started working together to help each other find sea-food to catch, and we were making double the money we were making before.

This was all good and well, but one day, we got pranked into thinking there was a huge fleet of prawns swirling around somewhere, and a storm came out of nowhere and my ship capsized. I don't know how long I was underwater because I passed out and was rescued by one of my crew, who paddled us towards land until the Coast Guard came and picked us up. When I woke up, I found out that Andy didn't make it and drowned when the ship turned over. My smart-phone was at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean somewhere, and my ship was damaged and it would cost ten thousand dollars to repair. I didn't have ten thousand dollars to spare - if I sold the house, maybe I could do it, so I did just that. I couldn't just go without having my boat, otherwise I'd have no income, and then I'd lose everything. Andy's brother came over and took Andy's truck, which had my 200-dollar lantern in it, and that son-of-a-bitch never gave it back.