John Frum The Reluctant Messiah

The Messiah's Sky Chariot

Life beneath the canopy was the same as it ever was. The ever present smell of campfire and damp earth from the daily rains filled the air as it had for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Everyone had their routine, even if that routine were to do nothing at all. The men hunted and foraged for food and the women prepared whatever the men were lucky enough to bring back. There was a peacefulness in that sameness. A rare peacefulness that passed a modern world's understanding.

That routine would be broken today. It started when the jungle's normal, noisy soundtrack fell suddenly silent. It was a stillness that stopped everyone and everything in its tracks. Instinct screamed at them - everyone's head tilted, listening, waiting, watching. Suddenly the silence was broken with a tremendous roar of something otherworldly skimming the treetops. It was monstrously big, shiny, and blocked out part of the sun briefly as it sailed past them from above.

 The women hurriedly gathered the little ones and herded them into the safety of their thatched-roofed huts. All the able-bodied men quickly retrieved their weapons before racing off in the direction of the beast's path, a thin line of black smoke leading the way. The hunt was on for this terrifying creature and they would never allow it to get away.

The tribesmen were traveling the well-worn pathways at breakneck speed when the apparent leader of the hunting party raised his right arm holding his long spear skyward, signaling them to stop. The sound and smoke of the winged creature they had been pursuing had dissipated and the uncertain group now awaited his direction. He set his spear down and in a grand gesture, fell to his knees sniffing the ground, rubbing the reddish dirt between his palms. He rose, tilted his head back, and with arms outstretched, closed his eyes. Rubbing his soiled hands on his eyes and ears he took several long, exaggerated breaths and delivered two sharp raps on the ground with the butt end of his feather and bone spear. He then silently ran off, veering towards the ancient ash pits, his band of warriors left to hurriedly catch up to him.

They stopped as they reached the first ash pit. It was a large, diamond-shaped pit, the result of many dreadful eruptions of Mount Yasur, and the bright white ash stood in stark contrast to the mottled, green backdrop that surrounded it. The foliage so lush and thick that it blotted out most of the sun. What little sunlight it did allow, came down in occasional knife blades of filtered, ethereal light that gave it the look of an ancient, alien temple. It was the land of the Great Spirits, invoking both reverence and trepidation in each fierce, war-painted warrior.

The entire pit was surrounded by a massive, exposed root system with some of the roots as large as trees themselves. Rising from those roots was possibly the largest tree in the entire jungle. Its bark was the color of a new Cabernet and a texture reminiscent of shredded wheat, certainly different from any of the other surrounding trees. It was massive and that was a good thing because just 135 feet up, completely hidden from view, was a heavy, cargo-laden 1948 Aero Commander nestled in its branches with it's now semi-coherent pilot dangling upside down from his worn and faded seat harness.

John slowly blinked, stinging sweat rolled down his neck, past his chin and into the corners of his eyes. His body feeling as if it had been beaten with a pillowcase filled with loose change, he took inventory of what hurt- his head, his back, every appendage while his shirt tail hung in front of him covering his face. Moving it out of the way revealed such a strange world about him. Something was amiss. His vision wasn't right. Everything had been turned upside down.

"Possible injury from the crash?" he thought. Reaching to his waist he struggled to get his seat harness undone. At the same time Aiden's spare radio, initially thrown from the crash, finally let go from its treetop perch and crashed through the trees, landing some 50 feet behind the skittish hunting party.

 Already nervous, the group swung around to face this new emerging threat. With weapons poised to strike, they began to slowly move towards it, humming and buzzing for some unknown reason like a newly disturbed hornets' nest.

By the time a hung-over John figured out that his vision wasn't upside down, rather he was, it was too late. He was free falling towards the earth, grazing a haphazard branch or two along the way and made a desperate but unsuccessful attempt of clinging to them. It did however serve to flip him 180 degrees and he was now at least plummeting feet first with just a wee bit less speed.

 He hit the ash pit like an Olympic diver producing an amazingly minuscule dust splash. Upon hearing the commotion, the hunting party executed a perfectly choreographed group heel spin and freeze that would have made a Broadway producer weep. For the first time, their leader wore a genuine look of confusion with just a slight touch of fear that even a fierce warrior's painted face had trouble hiding. They had heard the sounds and knew where they had come from. But there was nothing there. Just a slight wisp of dusty "smoke" from the ash pit's center.

The leader cautiously approached, studying, sniffing, looking for any signs of movement. Finally convinced there was none, he turned and walked back towards the group. It had been just long enough for the group's tensed shoulders to relax when John, like a spawning salmon in an Alaskan river, suddenly shot out of the ash pit, desperately gasping for air. 

He leapt from the pit with such force that he threw himself out of it and onto its shoreline, nearly landing at the warrior leader's feet. The leader jumped back and screamed like a 10-year-old girl finding a spider in her hair. John quickly stood, now completely white from head to toe, ash filling his eyes and ears. He bent over, with his hands on his knees, shaking his head, trying to catch his breath. His phone fell out of his upper shirt pocket and as he went to pick it up, noticed 20 sets of fear-filled eyes staring at him from the edge of the dimly lit jungle.

John's hands instinctively shot up in surrender and let out a startled scream. The fearless leader mimicked him screaming once again and throwing his hands into the air as well. It was a perfect remake of Drew Barrymore discovering ET in the closet full of stuffed animals.

Somehow the alarm on his phone went off and, while trying to silence it, managed to light the flashlight instead. The natives cowered in fear, their voices reduced to a murmur, and one by one began to kneel before him. John stood wide-eyed, motionless, trying to squelch his panic.

"What is this!?" he thought. 

He slowly lowered his arms. A single beam of light shone down on him through a crack in the green ceiling. He was David of Florence's Galleria Dell'Accademia, the quintessential heavenly vision found in so many religious paintings-just, you know, with cargo pants. The leader, with his now shaking spear pointed at him, slowly approached him. By this time John's vision was seriously blurred and he shook his head vigorously to clear it. At precisely the same time, Aiden's spare radio crackled behind them with static and an indistinguishable voice. " Magic!" they thought, the group recoiling once again.

The group began to gather their courage as John wobbled, and with weapons pointed threateningly, slowly approached him again. Now desperately trying to hold on to consciousness, John fell to his knees and tried once again to shake his head in hopes the distant magic radio would speak and ward them off. It remained silent. When only mere inches away from being skewered, a booming voice rang out.

MUTU!

"Stop!"

Suddenly pieces of cargo began dropping from the canopy, surrounding the warriors. There it was. The irrefutable proof. The shocked natives knelt reverently once again, finally convinced he was indeed magic. But John never saw it, having finally succumbed to the venomous dart and was now flat on his back and out cold.