I had just left a party at my friend Jeff's and was walking home, because I was drunk. I had only gone a few steps when I sort of hazily became aware of a presence next to me. At the time it felt natural to only sort of hazily be aware of someone being next to me, because I'd been that way since about nine o'clock in the evening, but then I started to wonder if it was more because it was Jesus.
My mind was too sluggish to be really startled. I had kind of a delayed startled reaction. By the time I realized I was startled I had already moved on to not caring that the guy next to me had a beard and robes. In fact I knew right away that he must be Jesus. Pretty right away.
"Hello, Ben," He said.
"Hi," I said.
"How have you been doing?"
"All right, I guess." I pushed against a telephone pole for balance as I walked past it and wondered if I'd been doing that with all the telephone poles, because I couldn't remember.
"Things have been difficult lately, haven't they."
I looked at Jesus. I wondered what to say. I was still wondering this when I noticed I was already talking. "I'm sad about Mom," I said.
"I know." He walked quietly with me for a while and I was upset because I was trying to focus on Jesus but frankly it was requiring a lot of my concentration to make sure I kept my balance. I thought about apologizing to Him for being so sloshed but I wondered if that was stupid. Then a car turned into the road in front of me, which I hate. I was upset at the car.
"Ben?"
"Yeah?" I couldn't believe Jesus was still talking with me.
"It will be all right. There will be a place for her. And there will be a place for you." He laid His hand on my arm.
"I know," I said. And God I really wanted to say something nice to the guy but it was hard to push it through the question of whether this was weird or not. Then after that He was gone, and I fished around in my pockets for half a minute before realizing I'd already forgotten why I wanted to do that.
"Shit," I said.
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