The News Editor
Walthamstow Guardian
Dear Sir,
I thought your readers might like to know that Jesus Christ is back. I met him on Hoe Street outside the Cooperative Bank at the top end of the Market. He looks much the same as in all those artists’ impressions, with the white robe and the open-toe sandals, the long hair and the little beard, that was how I was able to recognise him, but one thing did surprise me – I think he looks a bit Jewish.
We got talking and I asked him if he was staying long, and he said not very long, he was just waiting for the Apocalypse and the planning for that is at an advanced stage. I noticed he didn’t have any disciples this time and I asked if he’d been doing any preaching since he got back. You kind of expect a man like that to have followers, don’t you? I told him he needed to get on the TV chat shows like Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake and Oprah, and definitely get himself a website, but he said no, he’d tried all that kind of thing the first time around and he had nothing to add to what he had already said. People knew his views, and if they didn’t want to go along with his advice on how to live that was their choice. I told him the Bible was still the number one best seller of all time and I think he was pleased about that.
We took a walk down the High Street and had a look at the market stalls while we were chatting. I thought he might attract a bit of attention, but no, he blended in very well with the hijabs and turbans and saris and yashmaks and shalwar chimeses and burkas and nobody gave him a second glance. He was interested in the way the stall holders didn’t bother to pick up the fruit and vegetables that had fallen off their stalls onto the road. In fact he picked up a few himself and laid them out neatly on a park bench so that anybody who wanted them could pick them up. He said he didn’t like to see anything wasted – food, energy, opportunity, talent, youth, life. It’s a big mistake to waste any of them, he said. And I think he should know, don’t you?
I asked him to come back with me for a cup of tea and maybe a bite to eat, because I only live five minutes walk from the market. I was pleased to be with a man like that, quite proud really. But he said I shouldn’t be proud, it was the first sin ever committed and had led to quite a lot of trouble. He came back and I showed him around the house. He wanted to know why we had so many empty rooms when there were all those people sleeping rough in London. I said I would have to get back to him on that one.
While the kettle was boiling I asked him if he could say something in Aramaic, just to let me hear what it sounded like. It’s a very musical language. I think I might take lessons in it if it’s available at Walthamstow Tech. I asked him to translate what it was he had said and it went something like: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ I told him I’d heard it before. He said, yes, you may have heard it before but did you listen? I don’t know what he meant by that.
I asked him what Mary Magdalen was really like, and he said she was full-on Page 3 material, but with a heart of gold. Of course she didn’t lead a completely blameless life but then who has? I think he still has a soft spot for her.
He was very interested in the advances in carpentry since the time of Caesar Augustus. I showed him the circular saw with the laser cutting guide that I’d got at B&Q. He said that, being God, he understood the principle of light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, but had never expected to see it used in that way. It seems we were given creative abilities as well as free will. I’m not sure what either of those are really, but the idea is that God doesn’t control what we do with our free will or our creativity – we control it ourselves. The Emperor Concerto wasn’t written by God, it was written by Beethoven. And by the same principle God didn’t order German troops to invade Poland – Hitler did. All a bit intellectual for the likes of me I’m afraid. I think it was a nice way of saying: ‘You’re not going to get off the hook that easily, laddie’.
By the time we’d had our beans on toast (it was late in the week and I didn’t have very much in) he said that he had to go, had to be about his father’s business or something. I said I understood and maybe he would like to call again some time if he was passing by. He thanked me but said he didn’t think we’d be meeting again (and since he can see the future he was probably right).
The last thing I asked him, just as he was going, was whether he thought we’d made as much progress morally in the last two thousand years as we had in carpentry. I never thought of him as having much of a sense of humour, but you should have heard the laugh that got!
Yours,
XXXXX
