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In a land of myrrh and a time of zealots there was a young man who got nailed by a Greek god. That man was Jesus, also known as the son of God. Due to rather tragic circumstances, he found his early cave at the age of barely more than 30 years due to some backstabbing bitch called Judas who is rumoured to have had an affair with Lady Gaga.
Luckily Judas took the song “Hung up” by Madonna literal. But he is not the one this story is about – luckily.
This telling focuses on the aftermath of Jesus’ life that got crossed by misfortune so early…
The soft sounds of crackling fire and Latin curse words filled the night air of Jerusalem. A little bit away from the city sat two Roman guards who were charged with protecting the grave cave of Jesus of Rizzareth. Their governor – a man with the name Pontius Pilate – happened to be a bit paranoid and so he ordered Jesus’ grave cave to be sealed with a seal shaped rock so that no illegal ravers could enter and make it into a rave grave cave.
To their misfortune this task that had been put at their hands was rather boring and so the guards decided to play some Romopoly to pass the time while Jesus was passed out. Sleeping on duty was seen as a grave violation of their guard duty to guard the grave and so they put all their efforts into staying awake. Unfortunately, they had run out of ‘Taurus Ruber’ four hours ago.
“Testiculi Iovis! Did you really have to take the main road and the harbour, Gaius?”, one of the soldiers shouted and slammed his fist onto the table.
“Come on, Antonius. No need to get so mad, stulte asine! At least you didn’t have to go into the Circus five times!”, the other countered and held up his hand with his index and middle finger stretched out.
“Pax?! Seriously? You’re offering peace now? Well, that’s a bit too late… you could have offered that before you made your insulae so damn expensive that you took nearly every single denarius out of my pocket!”, Antonius exclaimed with a grim expression on his face.
“Alright, you want the civil war… then you’ll get it! Don’t come at me later that I didn’t warn you, fili meretricis!”, the other spat out and pointed his finger at the other.
“WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!?”
Just as the situation was about to escalate, a sudden and strange noise interrupted the tension filled silence between the two soldiers and automatically the crackling anger between them faded away into the chill night air.
“By the Gods… what was that sound? Did you hear that too, Antonius?”.
“Well, of course. I’m not fucking deaf you…!”.
“Shhhh… there it is again.”, Gaius whispered with his index finger held up against his lips.
“Wait… is that someone singing? But what kind of barbaric language is that?”, Antonius exclaimed.
Eventually the singing came closer and they could finally make out the words even though they couldn’t understand them.
“GRIECHISCHER WEEIIIIIN IST SOWIE DAS BLUT DER ERDE!“.
In the dark night sky, the silhouette of a winged animal grew bigger and bigger and it approached with such a tremendous speed that the roman guards quickly ducked their heads with duck tape.
“Touchdown in 100 …50 …40 …30 …20 … 10… FUCK!”, a voice sounded just before the winged beast and its rider crashed Ryanair style into the seal shaped rock that guarded Jesus’ grave.
Accompanied by a loud crack that echoed over the entire city like Jupiter’s rage, the fate of Dwayne Johnson’s seal son was sealed and it fell into two. Not even flex tape could fix that. With that the entrance to Jesus’ resting place was freed and a house elf called Dobby quickly ran away with a sock in his hand.
“Pectora Minervae!”, Antonius exclaimed with widened eyes.
Eventually the mysterious rider emerged from the rumbles and walked over to the frozen Romans. His lips mouthed a silent ‘Don’t do that at home’.
“Salvete, I apologize for my sudden and quite noisy disturbance gentlemen. I’m just playing uber for a dear friend of mine. His name is Jesus. Per chance you have already heard of said man since you are guarding his tomb.”
But something was strange. All of a sudden it didn’t look like a grave but more like a five-star solarium with a wellness program all inclusive.
Gaius pointed at the opened entrance and stammered with a face as white as Snowwhite’s snow-white face. “But… but… but…”. The stranger only grinned and started to flex his muscles. “Why thank you for noticing my work of art on my backside.”
“Jokes aside I probably owe you an explanation…”, the mystery man sighed and sat down at their table.
“You see… Jesus has actually already returned from the dead, so there is no point in being on guard outside. As you’ve all seen I fucked him live on Judea Tube before… well… Jesus had other plans… anyways. And after that he just needed a little vacation and that’s why he went here to get a nice little tan like one would in Greece.”
Antonius just shook his head. “That can’t be… our governor, the honourable Pontius Pilate himself told us that Jesus’ corpse would be inside this tomb and that we should protect it from illegal cave grave ravers… such as you probably.”
The stranger just shrugged his shoulders and poured himself a glass of wine. “Well… no, that is some bullshit, amici. Not the cave grave raver part though. Pontius Pilate is just going absolute nuts… deez nuts hehe… because his livestream failed and now, he wants to erase all traces of Jesus… which is super sus if you ask me.”
“Well, we didn’t ask you.”, Gaius rumbled and gave the stranger a judgy look.
“Rude”, the intruder thought and gulped down his wine.
“Well, anyways… I’ve seen that you play Romopoly. It’s actually quite funny because where I’m from, we call Romopoly ‘Mono-Polis’.
“Where the fuck are you from?”, Antonius spat out.
“WHO ARE YOU? I AM FROM ANCIENT GREECE!”, the stranger responded slightly offended but then he came back to his earlier comment.
“But do you get it? Polis… Mono-Polis?”, he chuckled and pulled out a bottle with alcohol as he saw that his joke didn’t age like fine wine in Roman company.
“Who wants some Martini? Or should I rather say one ‘Martinus’? I know how much you Romans care about the right case and number. It’s so silly.”
The guards shared a quick look of disdain before they pulled out their swords and pointed them at the Greek. “Shut up, barbarian. Cause if you continue to cross us...”
“Cross you, eh? Aren’t you the guys that usually do the crossing thing? And I don’t mean Animal Crossing though you are probably more familiar with ‘Hannibal Crossing’ right?”, the Greek remarked with a sly grin and leaned back on his chair while desperately trying to suppress a chuckle that already itched his throat to escape.
“How dare you disrespect roman soldiers like that!”, Gaius growled to which the Greek raised his hands in a defensive manner.
“Woah woah easy there, comrade. You wouldn’t want to cross a god, right?”, he chuckled though a hint of seriousness lay in his voice.
“A god? By which means would your poor appearance make a god of you?”, Antonius sneered and shared an amused look with his comrade.
“Well…”, the Greek responded and slowly stood up to his full height while a purple shimmer engulfed his skin. Meanwhile the winged beast from earlier creeped up behind the stranger and nudged his nose against him to which the man laughed and turned around.
“Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about you my panther friend.”, the Greek giggled and petted his companion. “As you can see, I am Dionysos. I believe I don’t have to explain more to you fellas, right?”.
Gaius gave him a questioning look. “Regardless of your origin I for once would like to know how by Jupiter you put wings onto a panther?”
Dionysos grinned and stepped aside so that they could take a better look at the cat. “All you really need is Benny Weber’s white crafting glue…”, he paused and looked at their stunned expression. “Nah, I’m just kidding. I just gave him some Red Bull. You know how the saying goes, right? Red Bull gives you wings.”, he smiled proudly and scratched the panther under his chin to make him purr.
Antonius raised an eyebrow and stood up. “You’re lying. We ourselves had Red Bull earlier and by that logic we should have grown wings long ago!”
Dionysos simply scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I fear you fell into a terrorist trap and you got ‘Taurus Ruber’ instead, my wannabe angels. It lacks a few key ingredients that would in fact grant you wings. And good ones… not those that Icarus had… those were pretty… temporary.”
Gaius finally had enough. “You’re just playing mind tricks on us, nothing more. Get lost or you shall be granted the privilege of your first and last private audience with Pontius Pilate… Greek.”
“Alright, I fear you have beaten me, Romans. I am defenceless against your supremacy…”, Dionysos stated with feigned surrender. “But let me do just one last trick before I leave… I promise you’re gonna love that one.”, he giggled.
“Fine, but make it quick. We still have to finish our round of Romopoly.”, Antonius sighed and made a gesture for the Greek to begin.
“Don’t worry, gentlemen. The trick won’t take long…”, he promised and rubbed his hands together in excitement. “Now please do me a favour and close your eyes for a second. I want you to imagine the rich blue Mediterranean Sea and all its inhabitants.”
“What kind of stupid trick is this supposed to be?”, Antonius remarked but the guards complied nevertheless and closed their eyes.
Completely unbothered the Greek continued. “And now when you open your eyes, it’ll be as if you could see the world through the eyes of one of those inhabitants.”
“What nonsense is this suppo-… “, they didn’t get any further as their words suddenly turned into Dolphin noises, moments before their bodies transformed too.
“And there we go. Enjoy your round of Romopoly, lads!”, the Greek cheered before he turned on his heels and walked towards the entrance of the grave.
“Jesus, you can come out now!”, Dionysos chanted with a satisfied smile.
A distant voice sounded from inside the solarium cave that grew louder with every step the son of God took towards the Greek.
“I came out ages ago, Dionysos. It’s really no secret at this point.”, Jesus responded.
With a swift motion the god of wine jumped onto the winged panther and came closer towards the entrance. When he finally saw the tanned man, he had last seen three days ago, leave the cave, he stretched out his hand.
“Let’s not waste anymore time and get wasted my friend.”, the Greek greeted the other. “No one can make such delicious wine out of water like you.”
“I suppose it has to be true then given the fact these words come from the god of wine himself.”, the newly rizzen remarked and gratefully took the other’s hand who pulled him onto the back of his panther in one smooth motion.
Just seconds after, the winged beast took off and the two immortals were carried into the starry night of Judea. While they flew above the illuminated city of Jerusalem, they noticed a foreign looking prince and princess on a flying carpet while “Delincuente” blasted on a loudspeaker. And just in the blink of an eye they were gone already.
Dionysos sighed and shook his head. “Another one who won his driver’s license in the lottery…”.
Jesus huffed and wrapped his arms around the Greek’s body from behind. “Don’t worry. The HAir Force – the Holy Air Force – of my dad will deal with him later…”.
Dionysos grimaced and turned his head towards the son of God. “Why deal with him later when my father could strike him down in an instant with Lightning… Mc Queen”.
Jesus gently placed his hands on the chest of the other and caressed him. “Oh, don’t be too harsh with him, my love. I’m sure my father’s trumpets could scare him just enough to not fly like a Freebird again.”
“If you say so, my dear….”, the Greek hummed and took the other’s hand to place a soft kiss onto his knuckles.
After a few minutes Jesus eventually broke the silence that had settled between the unlikely pair.
“Just for the record… where exactly are my disciples hiding right now, Dionysos?”.
The other chuckled and gently commanded the panther to fly faster.
“Well, not in the closet. But you know… there is a house in New Jerusalem. They call “The Rising Son”…”, the Greek began to explain to which Jesus sighed slowly.
“Let me guess… and it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy and God I know I’m one.”, the Hebrew finished.
Dionysos nodded proudly as they slowly descended towards said house. “Exactly. You just get me, Jesus.”
After their somewhat less rapid landing, the Greek god parked his panther in the back of the house and pressed a button on his panther key so that its wings couldn’t be opened.
For a while Jesus glanced at the beast before he turned towards Dionysos. “By the way, what kind of brand is your pink panther?”.
The Greek began to grin from one ear to the other and proudly puffed out his chest. “Well, it’s a ‘Jaguar’ of course. But let’s not get too deep into panther brands…”.
Hand in hand they walked towards the entrance, but just meters away from it, Jesus suddenly stopped and looked at the Greek with an expression of pure longing on his face. “You know… I’ve actually never played ‘Truth or Dare’ before. And I wanna try it before I’ll be summoned to go home to my Dad.”
For a moment Dionysos remained silent and looked into the distance. Then gradually a small smirk began to form on his lips and a mischievous glint in his eyes appeared. “Fine… then I dare you to wear a bunny costume and gift painted boiled eggs to your disciples…”.
Jesus just raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “That’s easy and…”.
“And you will tell them that it should become a tradition on the anniversary of your resurrection to hide those eggs and to go search them afterwards.”, Dionysos finished and gave the Hebrew a victorious wink.
With regret in his eyes Jesus sighed and shook his head. “Well, my father can’t sacrifice me twice so I guess I have nothing to lose…”, he stated resignated and made his way to the entrance. With just one snap of his finger, the Greek turned the newly rizzen’s clothes into a bunny costume and baskets of eggs appeared in his hands.
Surprisingly the disciples didn’t even raise a brow and blindly followed their shepherd's order like loyal lambs. Bible experts nowadays speculate if Dionysos per chance is responsible for that miracle like phenomena on that day.
Unfortunately, the records of what precisely happened in that house in New Jerusalem got lost in the vast sea of time. Only the following anecdotes could be successfully preserved even across centuries.
When his time has finally come, Jesus is said to have raised his hands and left the house with an escalator that escalated quickly into heaven. The Greek only remarked this with the words: “You know, I could have fucked him into Elysium in seconds. Been there… done that.”
Of the fate of the dolphisticated Roman guards, we only know this…
Dionysos gave ‘Red Bull’ to them and build the first ever flying Dolph Cart so that he could fly alongside his brother Apollo’s chariot of the Sun and annoy him.
Despite the lack of archaeological evidence and records – which might have been destroyed by Pilate’s pilot – experts and flat earthers all around the globe believe this story to be the real story of how the Easter Bunny was created.
Translation of Latin curse words (educational) :D
Testiculi Iovis: Jupiter's balls!
Stulte asine: Stupid donkey!
Fili meretricis: Son of a whore!
Pectora Minervae: Minerva's tits!