There is a boy outside my window who says he is Jesus. I am bigger than this, he proclaims, and knocks on the wooden stairs of the bunkhouse. I create. I am Jesus. I died on the cross.
He seemed so normal at first, your average run of the mill hippie from Nevada who had overdone on the acid hits. Now he is God, and he knocks on wood.
He sits in his bed and reads the Bible. He rocks back and forth. Sweet, he says, sweet. He goes out on the stairs to smoke his Marlboro Reds and talk about what he’s learned. The birds sing around him. There are jackrabbits.
If you do not have a body, Alan counters, you are dead.
I am alive, the boy says, always alive. It’s spirit.
It disturbs me, Robert says. He said: I am a judge. A judge of what? Robert asks. All mankind, the boy says.
How will you judge them?
By their hearts.
What if we are lacking?
Destroy them.
