THE DEEDS OF MERCY

An End of Times story...

ii

Nestor looks up at the three men as they enter the room. He’s too confused to understand what’s going on. For one thing, he doesn’t remember having seen the door, but once seeing it, he looks at it as a possible way out. It closes before he even realizes it’s there, and just as quick, it’s gone. Vanishes. He doesn’t see it anymore. Two of the three men are dressed in three-piece suits—one’s wearing a turban—but the third man looks like a modern-day guru—the self-help kind—eating what’s left of an apple. Still, there’s something familiar about their faces Nestor thinks, but it’s nothing he can remember having seen—unless maybe it was a picture in a magazine.

“I tried calling for a nurse, but no one’s answering,” he says, mistaking the three men for doctors.

“That’s because there’s been a mix up,” the first man, the old Indian says, stepping forward politely. He’s wearing a grey suit with a maroon tie, his turban’s also maroon, and his green eyes are framed in a dark face highlighted by a white beard kept neat and trim.

“This might be a little difficult for you to grasp,” the second man says, sitting on the bed. He’s holding the clipboard he’s picked up from the end of the bed, and reading, he crosses his legs and leans in closer.

“Are you Nestor Farras?” the man asks, and Nestor nods as the man makes a checkmark on the page.

“As of late, a citizen of Israel?”

Nestor nods again.

“Shot in your driveway as of—” he looks at his watch, “well, it amounts to only moments ago—which doesn’t really make sense—so perhaps it’s just about to happen; I can never get the two of them straight, to be quite honest.”

“Wait! Did you say that I was shot?” Nestor asks. He stands up suddenly, looking down at his shirt and searching his body. “Shouldn’t I have wounds? There’s not even blood on my shirt.”

“This is where the X factor comes in,” the second man says to the first.

“Where’s my wife?” Nestor asks.

“Your wife’s not here. Why? Do you want to see her?” the third man asks, and jerks his thumb in the direction of another room.

“No!” the old Indian calls out quickly, and the third man stops to look at him.

“What?”

“You can’t just go and get her because you think it’s a good idea,” the second man says.

“Who said I was going to do that? The man wants to see his wife. I was just going to turn on the TV,” the third man explains, pointing to the screen on the wall.

“Why would she be on TV?” Nestor asks.

“Maybe you should sit down?” the first man suggests, as the third man looks for a place to throw his apple core before leaving the room.

“You’re not doctors, are you? How could I even think you guys were doctors?” Nestor says, as he sits on the bed again. “Tell me what’s going on,” he says suddenly. “What did you mean when you said there’s been some sort of a mix up? Will one of you tell me what’s going on? And while we’re at it, what’s this X factor you mentioned?”

“This may take some explaining,” the first man, the Indian, says with a genuine smile.

Nestor forces an uneasy smile. “Okay. Let’s start off with who you are—the three of you? And what’s he supposed to be? Some sort of  modern day Guru?” he adds, as the third man comes back into the room.

“My name’s Sid, this is Moe, and the self-help Guru over there, is BJ,” the old Indian says, watching BJ point the remote at the TV, trying to turn it on.

“Are you trauma specialists of some sort? I remember hearing gunshots now that you mention it, but it’s all rather fuzzy right now.” He looks down at his shirt again, and once again begins examining it for holes.

“You were shot,” Sid says easily. “Take my word for it.”

“You said the same thing to Gandhi, remember?” Moe reminds him. “And let’s not even go there with that singer—”

“You mean Lennon,” BJ calls out.

“Who?” Nestor asks.

“John Lennon,” BJ says quietly, and sits in a large overstuffed chair. He pushes his hair out of his face, adjusts his glasses, and smiles as he looks at the remote. “Does anyone know how to work this thing?” he asks, pointing it at the screen.

“You’re holding it backwards,” Nestor says slowly, holding his hand out. BJ tosses it to him. “You have to point it like this—”

There’s a large image of himself laying in the driveway, in a pool of blood. He can see the single detached home he lives in, with the white paint and red trim looming large in the background, the trees swaying in a gentle afternoon breeze while his wife runs out of the house and falls on his shattered, bloody body—cradling it in her arms as she screams at the top of her lungs.

“When did this happen?” Nestor asks, shocked at the sight of it.

“It just happened,” Moe says, looking at his watch.

“It is happening,” BJ smiles.

“It’s going to happen in about ten-seconds, according to your time,” Sid replies.

“What?”

“Time’s irrelevant here,” Sid says slowly. “What may be happening now, or is about to happen, may be already happening, may not even happen at all.”

“And how’s that work?”

“Whatever it is you might think, dead is dead, Man,” BJ says as he ruffles through his satchel.

“Dead?”

“Do you know nothing about tact?” Moe asks BJ.

“Tact?” BJ asks. “He just watched himself fuckin’ die on TV. Besides, Sid already told him he’s been shot. He might as well get used to it; it’s not like he can fuckin’ go back.”

“That’s not really true,” Sid says.

“What isn’t?” BJ asks, looking up from his bag.

“Are you forgetting our orders?”

“Oh, that,” BJ laughs quietly. “Yeah, I heard. I figure you two can explain it better than me,” he says, finally pulling a small cigarette case out of the satchel. He opens it and selects a thin, pre-rolled joint. “He’ll believe you two before he fuckin’ believes me.”

“Faith consists of believing in what lies beyond the power of belief,” Sid says softly. “It’s not enough anymore that a thing is possible for it to be believed.”

Nestor looks up at BJ. “No more seeing is believing? Is that it?”

“Sounds about right.”

“This is too confusing. You’re telling me I’m dead,” Nestor says to Sid. “He turns on a TV set, and I watch myself die...where’d the TV come from, anyway? It wasn’t here before; I would’ve been watching it.”

“It gets curiouser and curiouser,” BJ says, exhaling a large cloud of smoke and smiling.

“What are you not telling me?” Nestor asks.

“Go on, Moe. Tell him,” BJ says with a grin. “I know you’re dying to, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

“Tell me what?” Nestor says.

“We want you to go back,” Moe says with a sigh.

“Back? Where?”

“There, Man, back there!” BJ says, pointing at the TV screen. “But there’s a catch—there’s always a catch, isn’t there Moe?”

“A catch?” Nestor asks.

“You have to be dead three days before you can go back,” BJ says with a laugh.

“That’s not the catch,” Sid says.

“It’s not?” BJ says, curious.

“You really weren’t listening to anything He said this morning, were you?” Moe says. “Why does He always pick you? Al says he’ll come by later and explain all about his part in the Grand fuckin’ Scheme of things, and how it’s all supposed to pan out for him,” Moe explains.

“Who?” Nestor asks.

“Al.”

“Who’s he?”

“An associate,” Moe says, looking up from his clipboard as he checks another box on the page. “You might know him by his other, more familiar, names: Satan; Lucifer; the Devil. It’s not really what you might think it is; like I said, he’s more of an associate. It’s less confusing that way. Sort of like the way it is with us.”

“And who are you?”

“Haven’t you figured out who we are yet?” BJ asks.

“No. But I haven’t quite come to terms with the idea of being dead yet either, so you’ll have to forgive me for not putting any thought into who you are.”

“Your world once knew me as Abu al-Qasim,” Moe says, looking at Nestor over his clipboard.

“Congratulations. And I call you...what? Joe?”

“Moe.”

“Moe? And why would that be?”

“Because he’s also known to your world as Mohammad,” Sid says with a slow nod. “Yes, the Mohammad. Just like once upon a time I was known as Siddhartha; then they called me the Buddha; now they call me Sid. It’s a different kind of Enlightenment here, to be sure.”

“Bar-Joseph. You called me Christos and made me into a god,” BJ adds, blowing out another cloud of smoke.

“Jesus,” Nestor says with a note of disbelief.

“Yes, you called me that too,” BJ says with a grin.