text: He wondered what it would be like to only have 4 limbs, dry, bony, dense, meaty appendages. Could they feel the piercing cold, the delicious warmth of magma, the tickling sensation of cosmic neutrinos streaming from space through the core of the earth as if it were a pane of glass? It baffled the capacity of his imagination to dream of no longer having countless slick, writhing tentacles, each with a nearly godlike intelligence of its own, oozing bubble universes from each sucker, popping into existence only to annihilate itself after a few short eternities when it inevitably collided with its antimatter twin. What would it be like to move through time in only one direction, with the flow of entropy, and not to swim forward, backward, noncausalward, or Moebiusward through the slippery 8th dimension? To live like a flat worm, crawling monotonically from one end of a string to another? But most of all he wondered what it would be like to experience Love, the quirky biochemical, parasitic addiction that lodged deep inside the tiny human brain. He had observed Love from every conceivable angle. Psychically luring his experimental subjects into dripping, breathing caverns, he had peeled them apart, micro-layer by micro-layer, tasting every molecule, mapping out every biochemical pathway. Love was as much a part of their higher brain function as the deeper, primeval strata and brain stem. It reached downward to each cellular division. It permeated their primitive and hopelessly messy genetic material, the tireless waltz in every nucleus of perpetual winding, unwinding, tangling, and twisting. He wanted to *Know* know. And how could he without their mortality, or their misguided belief in “separateness” and “apartness” from each other that necessitated Love in the first place? Without being a creature of material instinct, of hunger, of survival, and of the tangible present, it was as comprehensible as imagining being a ladybug or a twig. Love leaked into everything. It drove them to reproduce, to keep their tribe coherent, to be tender, and to be insatiably violent when the object of their love was threatened, and when they felt threatened by the object of their love. When he crossed over and implanted, he demanded to be called Emmanuel, which roughly translated into human conceptual thought as "god creature with us, and within us, in our deepest organs, growing, consuming, pulsing, until it bursts dripping out of our chests, leaving behind only decimated, gaping, terrified flesh." But after he erupted from the ribcage of Mary, his surrogate mother, bones splintering and organs collapsing in sucking, squelching agony, they named him Yesh'ua instead. It was the most common name that year for newborn boys. The first Love Yesh’ua experienced was from his surrogate father, Joseph. He was a quiet, melancholy man, especially now that a portion of his memory was fragmented and scarred over. His mind had mercifully sealed away the trauma of witnessing a mass of teeth, spider legs, snake-like coils, and eyes emerge from his dying betrothed and coagulate into the shape of a newborn. Nevertheless, his Love for Yesh’ua and Yesh’ua’s half-siblings (for this was not the first time Joseph had been widowed) was fierce and animalistic, as one intuitively protecting his replicated genes. To wash and warm and nourish these extensions of himself began as a form of self-preservation, and matured as the objects of Joseph’s Love gradually became distinct and Other. He was willingly deceived, unconditionally inviting foreign invaders into his heart, a Trojan fully aware that the magnificent Horse contained hidden imposters, anticipating their emergence with great excitement and trepidation. Back when Yesh’ua was, is, and will be, multidirectionally eternal, he had sired millions, and had done so without crippling, mammalian attachment and desperation. He effortlessly filled every subterranean continent with his progeny, every blazing swirl of the earth’s core, every world between worlds. There was no biological pressure to shelter or feed or teach those he had willed into existence. Unlike Joseph, he was not propelled by billions of years of genetic mutation to see traces of himself in his son’s face. There was no inexpressible urge to pass down his chromosomes, his life’s trade, his status in his community, his superstitions and habits and traditions, his rituals and scriptures and the Mitzvah of his people. Yesh’ua grew in wisdom, stature, and favor. Each day he worked to scrape, splinter, and coax wood into unnatural shapes and baubles and small pieces of furniture. Each day he committed more of the Torah to memory. If “holy” means “separate, set apart, distinct,” then each day he and Joseph grew a little holier from each other. It thrilled Joseph’s heart and made him Love Yesh’ua more and more. One week when Yesh’ua was 12 years old, he amused himself by taking passages from the Pentateuch, rotating them perpendicularly into the fifth dimension, folding each one recursively inside itself, and then transmuting them back into human thought and speech. The Temple rabbis were revolted and horrified, so much so that they mistook the feeling for awe and wonder. Joseph had to drag Yesh’ua away from the throng of frenzied Pharisees and scribes, all ravenous to hear more as blood from ruptured capillaries in their prefrontal cortexes oozed from their ears and tear ducts. When the adult Yesh’ua began his own rabbinic career at the age of 30, he discovered the Love of the wretched and needy. He transubstantiated water into a fluid that the humans tasted as wine. He stretched out invisibly to push tumors and infections backwards against the gentle current of time, cells shrinking and combining until they had anti-mitosed into non-existence. He held all the countless possible loaves and fish, hanging in delicate superposition, and collapsed them into existence in the single reality where hungry crowds gathered at his feet. They were like strays who just needed their basic appetites cared for, and their simple loyalty and trust flowed as easily as salivation. Their Love and attention felt like a heady rush. It felt much like the Love that came from his disciples. He led them back and forth across the rugged countryside like a piper enthralling children. He carved and sculpted reality as if it were cedarwood in Joseph’s workshop, with smooth and seamless joints and flawless lacquer finish. They marveled at the wonders he brought forth. One disciple did not Love like a simple child. Unlike Peter and the others, John did not boldly and ignorantly declare his undying devotion to novelty, miracles, and magicians. His wit was surprising, even to a being who inhabited all possible timelines. His laugh seemed to make the Milky Way pulse and hum. John could not walk on water, or terrorize herds of pigs over cliffsides, or tell people their secret sins, but when he embraced Yesh’ua, his bosom radiated warmth. His deep sighs into Yesh’ua’s ear always seemed to say, “At last, we are each held.” John couldn’t raise anyone from the dead, and yet power would flow out from him at each touch or graze. Yesh’ua felt it course through their clasped hands, as John absentmindedly stroked Yesh’ua’s palm with his thumb. When they all camped homeless in a field or glen, Yesh’ua liked sleeping next to John, so that he could inhale the warm breath of life that glided in and out of John’s nostrils, like a spirit hovering over the waters. When Yesh’ua washed the disciples’ feet, it felt like washing children’s feet, or wiping children’s noses, or picking ticks off a beloved pet. But washing John’s feet felt like the tingle of imminent lightning. John’s feedback had been invaluable during the early days of Yesh’ua’s ministry. While miracles proved wildly popular, the preaching floundered. Lectures dragged on about topics like “Deliverance from Earthly Suffering, Using Simple Techniques to Inhibit the Neural Pathways Associated with Pain.” If monologues weren’t interspersed with snacks or healings (the lepers almost never said thank you), the crowd would evaporate at the first distraction. A particularly unsuccessful homily titled “Breaking Through the Psychic Barriers Separating Individual Human Minds Using Quantum Tunnelling” ended abruptly when an old woman’s skull partially melted during the practical demonstration. The bored and confused mob stoned Yesh’ua to death. Tenderly cradling Yesh’ua’s shattered body as the crowd dispersed, John mused, “My last rabbi focused all his sermons on repentance and sorrow. He baptized people in the river to wash away their sins.” John rubbed Yesh’ua’s twitching chest as the arduous resurrection process began. “Then you came along with signs and wonders. But you're dressing up the same message: 'You're broken, follow these steps and I can fix you.’” John licked his finger and used it to wipe rivulets of dried blood from Yesh’ua’s brow. Yesh’ua progressed from spasms to loud gasps as his circulatory system rebooted. “Most people are poor, hungry, thirsty, probably downtrodden, persecuted for one reason or another. Instead of encouraging them to divorce themselves from their bleak existence, why don’t you tell them that they’re blessed, just the way they are? Turn your other cheek, there’s blood on that side too.” John leaned his face closer as Galilean sunlight faded into dusk. “You're not going to teach these people how to handle venomous snakes or cast out demons, or how speak in the tongues of angels, or how to use their minds to throw mountains into the sea. Nobody has powers, nobody lives forever, and if nothing else gets done, we might as well love each other.” As Yesh’ua’s eyes fluttered open, the first thing he noticed was how close John’s lips were. Of all the disciples, John was the gentlest and most patient while Yesh’ua was rising again. Peter usually just shook him until he could feel a heartbeat. “And nobody understands when you talk about some ‘Big Bang’ at the beginning of everything,” John continued. “I’ve always imagined that in the beginning was a Word. Just one word, and that Word was Love. Or some seed that one day grew into Love.” Reanimation was pretty much finished, bone integrity restored, heart revitalized, lungs unpunctured. Why did his chest still ache, as if happiness was stabbing him in the heart? Shakily, Yesh’ua sat up and pressed his lips to John’s cheek, greeting him as he did each disciple after returning from a long journey from beyond the grave. This kiss, however, betrayed the emotion throbbing through his flushed face and pounding heart. All was quiet. Inside each man’s head, every thought fled. *An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.* Yesh’ua leaned in and tried again, more honestly. *Oh, that you were like a brother to me who nursed at my mother's breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and none would despise me.* Yesh’ua had copulated with other god creatures, with past and future versions of himself, with the vacuum of space. His relations with all those beings had been mathematical and perfect, the spacetime-bending pleasure and agony leaving black holes in their wake. It was nothing like that with John. Instead of endlessly iterating fractals of trillions of mouths and tongues roiling together in hunger, there were only two. *Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For thy love is more delightful than wine.* Instead of helices of pleasure spiraling forward forever, so far that they looped back to before the Big Bang, there was only the brief 20-30 minutes of clutching and pawing at each other, as if vainly attempting to cheat death, yearning for eternity. *Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.* Instead of tentacles lightyears long, intertwining like tendrils, merging at the subatomic level, there were only weak animal bodies hugging each other, as if somehow by squeezing and thrusting they could convince their incompressible bodies to occupy the same volume. *His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me.* They lay panting on the floor of the beached fishing boat. A billion galaxies burned beyond reach above Galilea’s sea. Yesh’ua’s mind and heart buzzed and hummed and burned like the innumerable quasars he had, in another lifetime, snuffed out of existence. “Being with you makes me wish we could live forever,” murmured John. Yesh’ua, sleepy and drifting, simultaneously experiencing the Sun’s supernova billions of years in the future, gazed into John’s nut-brown eyes and was surprised by the hot tears filling his own. The Word was in the beginning. All things were made by It; nothing that exists was made without It. In It was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended It not. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. During the Passover supper of Yesh’ua’s 33rd year, he made an announcement to his disciples, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me.” Hotheaded Peter was the first to respond. “I will lay down my life for thy sake!” Yesh’ua was too numb to be amused. But all John had to say was “That’s selfish,” before excusing himself and walking briskly from the upper room, unimpressed and agitated. That night in Gethsemane, while the other disciples slept, the tempter came to him. “Do you Love me?” asked John. “With all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength,” insisted Yesh’ua. “If I was dying of starvation, would you feed me?” demanded John. “I would command that these stones be made bread,” said Yesh’ua. “If I stood on the pinnacle of the temple and threw myself down, would you rescue me?” accused John. “I would bear you up with my hands like an angel, and you would not even strike your foot against a stone,” Yesh’ua assured. “And if we stood on the highest mountain to see the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and I asked you for all of them, would you give them to me?” John’s angry, pleading voice in the still midnight threatened to wake the others. “Anything you asked, you would receive,” implored Yesh’ua. John took a deep, shaky breath, and in a still, small voice he asked, “If you love me so much, then, why the fuck are you leaving?” Yesh’ua closed his eyes for a very long time. “This Love is like living death. You all carry it around like it’s another heart or liver or lung, and you’re all dying.” “Everything dies here,” explained the tempter. “Everything but me. I won’t carry it anymore. I can’t drink this cup.” “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” “I can’t drink this cup.” On Friday, Yesh’ua hung impaled from a wooden cross, ostensibly bound by nails, as ostensibly as gravity had bound him to the surface of the stormy lake when he had strolled out to the disciples’ fishing boat. Salome and Mary Magdalene wailed and clawed at the dirt. John supported the limp and dejected Joseph. The nerve endings in Yesh’ua’s wrists and feet screamed up his spine and into his brain, but the pain could only engulf his bodily vessel. The anguish and abandonment dripping from John’s scowling eyes pierced deeper than mortality, past the event horizon at the center of Yesh’ua’s being and into the numerically indescribable singularity beneath.