John Frum The Reluctant Messiah

Abby's Apartment

"LA woman! LA woman!"

With the Doors' Jim Morrison wailing away through speakers that were permanently mounted to the pillars of her front porch, Abby's duplex apartment was easy enough to spot. The lights, the music, the vehicle-littered lawn - all a dead giveaway. No one had ever really met Abby, at least not that they knew of, and everyone always assumed that her next-door neighbors were either deaf or dead.

But her monthly parties were the stuff of legend and tonight was no exception. They made their way in, grabbed another red cup of God-only-knows, and proceeded to scope the place out. Ethan, the good friend he was, swooped in to claim a rare seat on the worn, threadbare velvet sectional for a dazed and confused John. Still trying to sort out what had just happened, John stared straight ahead, fighting to stay awake through his drunk goggles while pinned between Max and Jay.

"Dude, you're seriously flipped out about this!" Jay remarked while giving John the one-armed bro hug.

"I'm tellin' ya I know what I saw!" John shot back.

"Said the man who's been mixing rum with beer with vodka..." Ethan chimed in.

"Well, I'm sober now! Shit's crazy. I've gotta go back and see what... where this... I, I dunno!"

Jay reassured him. "Listen, don't worry, we'll figure it out. We'll go back tomorrow and check it out, see what's up. For now, just chill," Jay spied a vulnerable wallflower. "...and watch me work my magic. Take notes fellas. Johnny Depp, Don Juan Demarco."

Jay turned back as he slid on over to her. "What can I say? Some of us just got game..." 

He did his signature gesture of clapping his hands, thrusting both arms forward and then smoothing the sides of his hair. While the rest watched in amusement as the oddly attractive, bespectacled nerd predictably shot Jay down without the slightest hesitation, John's head sank into the soft back of the welcoming couch and despite the overwhelming aroma of stale beer and cigarettes emanating from the matted red velvet, the white noise of the party fell away, and John drifted into that wonderfully deep sleep that only mild drunkenness can produce.

It always began in the same way. 

The sounds of someone's labored breathing, running footsteps, the slapping of branches- all set against the backdrop of pitch-black nothingness. Patches of moonlight, viewed through loosely woven burlap, broke the night sky to reveal a thin, uniformed man carrying a toddler wrapped in bed linens in the darkness of a dense, steamy jungle. They stopped and they listened.

Suddenly the silence was broken by the whizzing of a thousand spears and arrows. All manner of killing instruments raced towards them through the thick night air, barely missing them, spurring them on. In the distance across a clearing, a lone bulb shone, illuminating a half-opened door to a rusted steel hanger on what appeared to be a long-abandoned airstrip. 

He had to make it.

The little guy seemed amused by it all and began waving his arms in the same manner a conductor readies his orchestra. The shitstorm of menacing objects began to bend and twist, missing their intended target, deflected magically somehow by his actions and instead formed a huge, towering pile whose peak disappeared high into the night sky. 

Only another 200 yards to safety but it was not meant to be. The man's foot became entangled in a complex nest of jungle vines and he toppled to the ground, spilling his precious cargo onto the soft jungle floor. The toddler picked himself up and looked to where the danger lay. Amid this threatening wall of a thousand sharpened steel points, a face appeared. It was that of a woman with long, dark hair, dark skin and kind, expressive eyes. The toddler giggled at the sight and to the horror of the man, ran back to her.

"Mom!?" John gasped.

He looked around only to realize it was that stupid, never-ending dream he always had. For as long as he could remember that scenario would play itself out, an endless tape loop, always stopping at that very moment. He'd even taken to forcing himself back to sleep to continue the dream, to see it to its conclusion, but it never went any further.

Thankfully, no one around him woke, so his less than cool outburst went mercifully without a witness. The apartment was still the disheveled, stinky mess it was when they arrived last night, only with less disheveled, stinky people. 

He lifted a stranger's hand that had made its final resting place on his thigh and pried himself out from under another party-goer's leg wrapped in a beer-stained tablecloth. At least that's what he hoped it was.

He glanced at his phone. It was daylight, which meant that no matter what time it was, it was time to leave - and he was most certainly late once again.