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Jesus VR

A virtual reality experience

By Tony MarshPublished 3 years ago 15 min read
2

Dennis Longhorn lay motionless in the leather recliner with his head inside of a black cube. Sometimes, as if dreaming, he would smile. Outside, rain rolled down the window and smeared the lights of the city. A man stood at the window and regarded the super-city while he waited for his partner to wake up. Ken Brown flicked his cigarette into an ashtray that sat on a desk by the window. The lights out there appeared to reach eternity. This was what used to be known as Phoenix. Las Vegas was now a suburb of Los Angeles.

This was Ken’s third virtual reality film. His first was based on Alexander the Great and he made it quite by accident. The second was about Marilyn Monroe, which he called Gentlemen Prefer Marilyn. Ken’s technology was not time travel, but it was close. Ken has been described as a mystic, a saint by some, the anti-Christ by others. Through his work, audiences could experience the lives of notable persons from their points of view, and exactly as they lived. There is no free will, but the sights, sounds, smells, touch and taste of the experience and even the illusion of free will is as real to the viewer as they were to the person who first lived them. Ken had gained access to the Universe’s records, and had invented a technology that could download the experience of one person, edit and arrange it into a virtual reality experience, and share it with the public. And in the process, his art had made him a billionaire.

Dennis Longhorn stirred in the recliner. Ken rushed to his side. “Tell me how it was,” he said, helping him out of the black cube. Dennis rubbed his eyes and stretched. “What was it like?” Dennis was in daze. Then he looked at Ken and smiled with adolescent glee.

“It was freaking awesome!” Ken made a fist and pulled it in as if to say ‘yes!’. He knew it was a win.

“You know how Prince sings, ‘I’m not a woman, I’m not a man, I am something you can never understand’? You can feel that. And...you can actually understand it.”

“Oh my god, yes!” Ken leapt to his feet and spun around then grabbed Dennis by his head and kissed him on his face.

Ken never watches his own VR films. In fact, he has never seen one. He would not watch the Prince film, Purple Doves, but five million other people did opening weekend. A year later, Ken Brown would embark on his most ambitious project yet.

Dennis was in the chair again. He gave Ken the thumbs up and they gripped palms before pulling the black cube down over his eyes. Instantly, he was in another place. Ken went to the window and lit a cigarette and looked out over the painted afternoon.

Dennis opened his eyes. He was crying. He couldn’t stop crying and he didn’t know why. His mother held him in her arms. His father was there, in the manger, and there were three other men there, too. Dennis’s gaze became transfixed on a star in the sky which he recognized as the star of Bethlehem and he stopped crying.

A VR film lasts about two hours, like a feature length film. But for the viewer, if feels as if it is about twenty-four hours, and the story can cover as little as day in the life of a particular person, o their entire lifetime, or anything in between. The King of Jews, meant to be Ken Brown’s masterpiece, has been edited to allow viewers to experience the life of Jesus from birth until capture by the Romans, at which point the experience ends. For obvious reasons, viewers would not be subjected to the agony of flagellation and crucifixion. More, viewers may end the experience at any moment by uttering the abortive word ‘sandstone’.

At age nine, in the schoolyard, a classmate teased Dennis about something and he felt real anger for the first time. The other boy was much bigger than Dennis yet Dennis felt as if he were much more powerful. Rather than turning his cheek, Dennis confronted the boy and the boy pushed Dennis and he fell into a puddle of mud. Knowing there was no way to overcome the boy physically, Dennis summoned a strength which he would later describe as a demonic strength and he imagined the bully boy nude and there was a cricket there and while he stared at the boy he crushed the cricket in his palm and the boy fell down dead. When The King of Jews is released in theaters, many take offense to the apocryphal telling of Christ’s early days. But what was Ken to do? He is merely the creator of technology. A channeler. He is not not an artist. At least, he is not making anything up. He is merely downloading that which really happened. You can’t make this stuff up.

The night before his capture, Dennis meets with Judas Iscariot in the garden and they have a few words. Judas nods as he understands what Jesus is asking him to do. In order for Jesus to fulfill his destiny and die for the sins of the world, he must first be surrendered to the Romans so that he may be judged and executed. And for this, Judas must hand him over. Judas would have never handed him over. How could he? Judas loved Jesus. In fact, for Judas so loved Jesus he sacrificed himself and became synonymous with betrayal forever and ever so that his lord and brother might fulfill his prophecy. Dennis was asking him to do so, and he himself could not believe it.

Dennis awakened from the experience and he was cold and sweating. He removed the black cube from his head and there was Ken sitting next to him. Dennis took longer than normal to recover. “What was it like?” Ken asked, puffing furiously at his Lucky Strike cigarette.

“It’s not like what we think,” Dennis said. Ken was going out of his mind. Dennis told him about Judas.

“That’s okay, that’s okay,” said Ken. “It will be controversial, but we knew that. I mean, Jesus VR, what do you expect?”

“It’s not just that,” Dennis said. “There’s something else.”

“Something else?” Ken crushed his cigarette into the ashtray on the desk then lit another. “What is it?”

“Ken,” Dennis started, “I just spent what felt like twenty-four hours in the body, mind and soul of Jesus Christ. I was tempted in the desert, I walked on water, I turned water into wine.”

“Yes, and?” Said Ken impatiently.

“And...when I looked into the water Ken, shit.”

“What?!” Barked Ken.

“I saw...I saw you.”

“You saw me?”

“I saw you, in my reflection.”

“What do you mean you saw me?”

“I mean, I saw myself, as Jesus. But, I saw you.”

Ken took a puff from his cigarette.

“What does this mean?”

“I think it means that...you are...the second coming of Jesus.”

Ken crushed out his cigarette and said, “Holy shit.”

...

“So there’s going to be uproar. What else is new?” Dennis was optimistic. Ken was ready to move the whole project to trash. What would people say about Ken portraying himself as Jesus in one of his pictures?

“You remember when we did Marilyn, and there was all that stuff with JFK.”

“Dennis, there’s a big difference between Judas being a hero and me being Jesus, and Marilyn Monroe banging John F. Kennedy.”

When the Jesus VR experience was released, it was worse than either of them could have imagined. Ken was accused of using CGI technology to edit himself in as Jesus. He was proclaimed as a megalomaniac by the newspapers. His earlier work was discredited and his status as genius and mystic was cancelled. No one could believe anymore that Ken Brown had access to universal akashic records, the ability to download Jesus Christ’s life, and believe that Jesus looked just like Ken, and on top of that, Judas Iscariot was a saint. Pope Innocent XX officially declared Ken Brown a persona non grata, then washed his hands of virtual reality completely.

Ken and Dennis’ studio, Paid to Play Productions received a call from the National News Network or NNN requesting an exclusive interview. It would be risky, but it was the last chance Ken would have to defend himself against a public that wanted a crucifixion. Ken sat down with NNN’s Pat Brower, an interviewer who is notorious for ending people’s careers, and it went something like this:

“Mr. Brown, thank you for the opportunity to chat with you here in your lovely, and fascinating home studio.”

“It’s my pleasure, Pat, good to have you. And please, call me Ken.”

“Ken I want to get right into it with you, your most recent VR film The King of Jews has sparked massive controversy worldwide. And I think what people really want to know is: have we all been duped?”

Ken took a sip of coffee from a mug then set the mug back down on the table between them. The lights were bright and the room felt hot.

“I mean, it’s clear that the Jesus you portray in the film looks a lot like you. So, was that done by special effects? And if so, have all your films been augmented and enhanced through editing, rather than being authentic spacetime fabric via accessing universal records like you claim?”

“Pat, I—“ Ken began. Part cut him off right away.

“Do you think you’re Jesus, Ken?”

“Pat, I don’t think I...I don’t know what to think. I’m just as confused as everyone is here. Let me assure you, the VR Jesus film comes directly from akashic records and has not been edited or tampered with by me nor by anyone from my studio. No way, no how. That is a solemn promise before God.” Pat pursed his lips and nodded. “So when my partner Dennis told me during final editing that Jesus resembled me, I was in total shock.”

“Ken, I understand that you have never watched one of your own VR films. Why is that?” Ken wrung his hands and looked down then up again toward to glaring lights.

“I don’t know if my psyche could handle it.” Pat cocked his head as if to say ‘go on’. “The first time I accessed the universe’s akashic records, and tapped into Alexander the Great’s life, I almost had a mental breakdown. I mean, making that kind of discovery, the ability to tap into the experiences of the lives of people the past, it was a lot to handle. And each time I do akashic research for a film, it brings me to the brink of my own sanity. Once a film is complete, I want the world to experience what I’ve helped create. But me? No, I don’t go there. Once my job is done, I let that portal in my mind close and I don’t go back.”

“Do you think that watching The King of Jews would somehow help vindicate you in the eyes of the public?”

“I don’t know.”

“Perhaps going in there yourself...could help answer some questions you yourself have. Would anything be different for you inside of the experience? Would you see or feel anything new?”

“Perhaps.”

Ken thought Pat had taken it easy on him and wondered if there was a reason for that. After the interview, with the cameras off, Pat confirmed his suspicion.

“Ken, I’m going to be straight with you. We’d like you to watch the Jesus VR, and we want to air your experience in life television. We’ll put a camera crew in the room with you, and wire up the box so the viewers can see what you see. Of course, we will compensate you handsomely for that.”

“Christ, Pat, it’s not about the money. Do you realize what you’re asking?”

“I do. And it could be a great way to re-ingratiate yourself to an untrusting fan base. In fact, it might be the only way.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Ken said to Dennis over breakfast at IHOP. “How does me living the Jesus VR change anything?”

Dennis stabbed a piece of sausage with his fork and swirled it in a puddle of runny egg yolk. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it can’t hurt. You do the Jesus thing, give an interview afterward or whatever, and we go back to doing what we do best: making kick-ass akashic record virtual reality films.”

Ken took a sip of coffee then looked out the window. The parking lot was like a gray desert. Electric cars shone like mirages in the morning sun. “What if something happens?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. What if something is different. What if I do have some quantum entanglement with Christ, and when I get in there, something happens, and when I come back, nothing is the same?”

Dennis thought about that for a while. “So do the thing, come out, everything is all right, and that’s it. If anything, it will be good publicity.”

“All right. I’ll do it. But only because I believe in the art. Do it, get this behind us, and move forward.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Dennis lifting his coffee cup in a mock-toast and splashing some of the coffee onto the table.

Ken sank into the recliner and Dennis helped him with the cube on his head. Before he began, he and Dennis gripped palms as if Ken were something we was about to be launched into space. Pat Brower and a small camera crew were there. And there was a television screen on the wall where Dennis and Pat could see what Ken was seeing. The broadcast would also be seen by an estimated one-hundred million people — all turned in to see if Ken Brown would die, or something.

Baby Ken was away in the manger, no crib for a bed. He experienced for himself that Jesus apparently killed a bully on the playground as a child using magic. He felt what it was like to meditate in the desert for forty days and be tempted by Satan. He felt Jesus’s rage as he flipped over the tables of the money-changers in the temple.

In the garden, Jesus asked Judas to turn him over to the Romans they he may be crucified. Judas was in tears and it was an incredibly emotional scene for Ken. The next day, Ken was seized by a Roman soldier and Brough before Pontius Pilate. Governor Pilate washed his hands of Jesus’ fate and that’s where the movie ends.

But this time, it didn’t end. Ken looked around. He was still there. “Sandstone”, he said, but the show did not end. He scratched at his arms, instinctively, as if trying to take off a costume, but that flesh was his flesh. It was like a dream from which he could not awaken. “Sandstone!” He called out more urgently now. The public that had gathered around Jesus in the square mocked him. “What is he saying? The king of the Jews? Sandstone? What is this nonsense?” A child threw a stone at Ken and his scalp felt hot where the stone hit him.

“Sandstone!” He called out again. “Sandstone!!”

Ken was chained to a whipping post and his shirt torn on the back to expose him down to the waist. One of the soldiers stepped forward and felt genuine pleasure to be holding the scourge in his hand — a whip with leather bands and pieces of jagged metal which latch onto the flesh and tear it out when the whip is drawn back. The soldier gave Jesus the first of his thirty-nine lashings and Ken had never felt something so painful. His knees buckled and he gasped for air. Then came the second one. And the third.

“Oh god, buddy, oh god!” Dennis was shaking Ken’s hand as Ken writhed in the chair, psychosomatically, with each blow dealt to him by the Roman soldier.

“Why don’t you just take the cube off his head?” Pat asked. He too was disturbed by what was going on and felt empathy for what Ken must have been enduring.

“You can’t do that!” Dennis barked. “In a traumatic situation like this, pulling the cube off him would be likely cause long lasting brain damage, if not death.”

“Oh, shit man, shit…” Dennis squeezed his hand. He didn’t know what to do.

On Main Street in Cumberland, Wisconsin, a pyramid of televisions in the window of an appliance store drew a crowd to watch Ken Brown as Jesus endure a brutal scourging on international TV. The Jumbotron in New York City’s Times Square aired it too. In South Korea, teenagers dressed as Jesus in neon wigs waved glow sticks over their heads in a show of solidarity for Jesus, Ken, and virtual reality technology in general.

Ken’s lips were parched and cracking from the dehydration that came with losing that much blood. Next they put the cross on him and he was made to carry it up on Calvary. “Sandstone”, he muttered, weakly. The abortive safe-word had failed. Ken’s own technology had forsaken him. It was time for him to go up on the cross.

His body lurched once more in the recliner as Jesus was stabbed in the side with a spear. Then Ken became completely still. Dennis, Pat, the camera crew…everyone was quiet, solemn. An eery silence fell over Times Square, and the whole world, as Jesus laid to rest in the cave. After three days, which took three minutes in the film, there emerged from the cave a shimmering, iridescent specter that was the spirit of Jesus or Ken and it looked into the camera and held out its hand with index finger raised as if to say One. One soul, one body, one Earth. And then the specter rose and drifted up into Heaven.

The South Korean teenagers hugged each other and cried tears of joy. In Times Square, a deafening cheer went up as Jesus was resurrected on the VR screen. Pope Innocent XX, watching from the Vatican, made the sign of the cross upon himself.

Ken slowly removed the black cube from his face and squinted as he looked around the room and saw his friend. Ken flashed him the thumbs up. He was risen.

Fantasy
2

About the Creator

Tony Marsh

I am a writer who focuses on themes of deification, magic, war, and comedy.

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