Two exposed yellow eyes stared skyward from beneath the asphalt. The rest of the body was covered: lumps jutting up for the feet; two knobs for knees; a protuberance for his penis; nothing at the stomach—he had been skinny when he was buried—gnarly knuckles jutting up grotesquely; and then the shapely head, completely covered, except for the eyes of course.
Now he couldn’t remember if this sculpture just represented his body, or if his body was still beneath it; he had been here two thousand years after all. He knew at least his eyes must be real because he could still see the sky, and had seen it all this time, but he had begun to question even that fact recently. But there were times when he remembered his body, and believed in it—even last decade a bug had laid eggs inside his thigh.
Had it always been asphalt? Was there asphalt then? he wondered.
The sky was passing; it was always passing. The cars were always passing too. Once he had seen the remains of an eagle glued into the undercarriage of a truck. He wondered how it had gotten there. Other times rays of filtered light shone directly into one or both of his eyes. He could not close them and silently endured. Other times people came walking. They stepped right on his face and his knees and his balls and said nothing. Once in a while they spoke to each other quietly, often too quiet to hear except for the moment that they passed him. He had once assembled a sentence from five fragments that he had memorized: “…I am going to see how she feels about it…after work when I get home and eat dinner… because the party was such a slapdash affair…and I know you’re right but is there another option, Brewer, I mean Jesus Christ.” It became a good motto for him. He often repeated it: “I am going to see how she feels about it after work when I get home and eat dinner because the party was such a slapdash affair.” Sometimes he stopped there, but other times he felt he had to say the whole thing because he just felt so strongly about it: “I am going to see how she feels about it after work when I get home and eat dinner because the party was such a slapdash affair, and I know you’re right but is there another option Brewer, I mean Jesus Christ!” Other times while repeating it to himself the words would blend together and the sound of it as one continuous lilting word would comfort him, and become a singsong verse: “IamgoingtoseehowshefeelsaboutitafterworkwhenIgethomeandeatdinnerbecausethepartywassuchaslapdashaffairandIknowyou’rerightbutisthereanotheroptionBrewerImeanJesusChrist.”
They never stopped to talk to him; he didn’t think they saw him. But one day one did:
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“How are you?”
“I’m not sure. The sky is very nice today.”
“It often is.”
“Yes. It can be. Why are you talking to me?”
“Just politeness, I suppose. If you’d rather I go, it makes no difference to me.”
“That’s alright. Either way you wish. I haven’t talked to anyone in a long time. I can’t remember if I like it or not.”
“Well, you talk just like anyone else.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Do I have a mouth?”
“No, I’d say not.”
“Yeah. I thought as much.” It then became obvious to him that he was speaking to God, and that he was Jesus Christ.
“I don’t think I ever got resurrected.”
“You have to be dead to be resurrected.”
“Yeah.”
There was a long pause where neither seemed quite sure what to say.
“If you met God, what would you ask him?”
“Hm. That’s a hard question to answer from my perspective.”
“Yes, I’d say it would be.”
“Seeing as I’m an atheist.”
Jesus paused. “Right.” Great expanses of thought and information turned through his mind instantaneously, and ultimately he came to the conclusion that his former assertion could still true. God, could in fact, be an atheist.
“Am I the real one? Is he an impostor?”
“I’m afraid to say, you’ve lost me.”
“Why is it always in cyphers?”
“I think I’ll be moving along then. It was nice talking to you. Have a good one.”
God walked away. Jesus stayed put.
The sky kept passing; it was always passing. He began to think that he was moving and the sky was still. That everything was still as he turned under it. The cars were still and the people were still and the clouds were still, but he was flying at incredible speeds. He used to think that this was impossible because there was no wind, but he realized recently that even if there was wind he wouldn’t be able to feel it.
As he saw fewer and fewer people and his days grew duller and duller, he began to treasure his memories with greater nostalgia. Two hundred years ago an ant crawled across his cornea for three days, moving in a perfect circle and then dying. The wind blew it away the next day. Eight hundred years ago heat lightning flashed in a pattern that looked like a telephone. It was a long time before he knew that though. Before that he didn’t remember too much.
After many decades of such musings a person came walking. They stopped just over him, and he stared at the seam of their pants.
“Hello. I think I recognize you.”
“You don’t.”
“I think I do.”
The walker looked down at the two yellow eyes:
“Ah! Perhaps you do. You are Jesus Christ.”
“No. No.”
“Yes. I think you are. I would know. I am God.”
“That’s impossible; there is no God.”
“And how would you know such things? You are just two yellow eyes beneath the pavement.”
“I have had a lot of time since we last talked to think on such things. I don’t appreciate your teasing.”
“Have you ever had sex?”
“That’s an odd question.”
“Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Jesus was chaste.”
“Shouldn’t you know the answer?”
“I’m wondering if you know.”
“I would say that I haven’t.”
“Hm.” God thought for a moment. “Would you like to have sex or would you like to die? I can build a cave overtop of you, and create a small drip of water over your penis. That way it will develop into a stalagmite good for sex. Or I can kill you.”
“I would think that I would like to die.”
“Okay.” God searched around the cave until he found a good strong stick. He aimed it over Jesus’s eye and plunged it in until it disappeared. Then he pulled it back out.
“I think I’m still alive.”
“Don’t worry. I haven’t gotten the other one yet.”
“Oh okay. I’m a bit nervous.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been alive so long—I wonder what it will be like to be dead.”
“You’ll like it, I’m sure.” God aimed the stick over the other yellow eye.
Jesus stared at the tip of it, hovering just above his pupil, out of focus. Then everything went completely black. It was quite nice being dead, Jesus thought. It wasn’t much different, but it was very peaceful. There was nothing to see anymore.