1761

"And to deflect and distract", mutters the old Joseph, every bit an Engish gentleman of the upper classes. "Yes, Lawrence", says Jesus, turning to look my case manager full in the face. "Who are you people" he says. And now I have just noticed that all the others have given up on finding anything on their phones and have tucked them back into their pockets. "I could help you solve that riddle", says Jesus. "Who else would have the power to summon all of you at will here to an unknown mansion on top of the mountain of an unknown island where there is no avilable wifi service." "You're not going to help me with any of this, are you" "And how many mothers are going to address their apparently adolescent son as being their lord, and that without sarcasm and perhaps just a tiny smidgeon of irony?" "You're not making this easy." "And how many aged mothers would comment about once having sworn at their progeny in old Aramaic, and then remark about untold billions of faithful Catholics praying to her on their rosaries, visualizing her as a rather brainless teenage girl wearing a blue bedspread." "That was your comment, my Lord", says his mother. "Lawrence", says Jesus, "Your own father would have known us on the ready. And he is still one of my faithful ones, whom you have walked away from and rejected since the very day you rejected the Christian faith that he raised you in." "Just what do you happen to know about my father?" "That right now at this very moment he is seated at his desk in his church office, praying fervently for his beloved backslidden son, who is also the very apple of his eye. And for this reason I have brought you here." "Who are you!" says Lawrence, shouting and becoming unhinged, which I am finding quite gratifying in the schadenfreude sense, given how close he was to putting me on medications I no longer, never did happen, to need....