Written by Ken Carman
The three wisemen stood outside discussing what they would do next. They hadn’t gone into the stable yet. Inside they heard a lot of cries and screams. The meaning was obvious: a mother and a father in anguish. Even the animals were making sounds: brays of fear, snorts of disgust… but they didn’t know what the actual words meant.
“So we need to set it to…”
“Aramaic, with local variations. The sensors picked it all up as we waited for this day and they have been fed into the devices.”
With a silent night set of a translator the conversation became self evident, and their own words would be directly broadcasted into the minds of the beings inside the stable. It also effected how the mind perceived them. They would be seen as human.
“But what do we do with it? A ‘Savior’ that looks like this? No one will accept his teachings, if it even is a he. Joseph, what do we do? The star, the omen, God’s light has faded. Could this not be the Savior? Be evil? Be of…”
“Have no fear Mary, we are 3 wisemen from afar.”
“You have come only to see an abomination.”
“No, Mary, we have come to see our Savior from our land: far, far away. You and Joseph have no knowledge of our land. But we know of you, and ways to get here. The star?”
“Yes?”
“That is how we got here. You will see it again as we leave. And we have brought you a present. But you must tell no one. Tell them we brought something else. This is God’s word.”
“What have you brought us?”
They brought forth a babe, in swaddling clothes. A human child.
“He is yours. He is your Savior. You have ours.”
“But how did this happen?”
“Shipping error by a wise ass celestial shipping clerk?”
“What?”
One alien slapped the other who was softly laughing at what he had just said.
“No, Mary, you gave birth to another Savior, from our land. It was meant to join us all together in the one and true faith, eventually. For the spirit moves in mysterious ways.”
So the wisemen gave Mary the Savior. Then they took the strange alien babe: blue scales, fins, gills and a long tube that stretched out with a sucker on the end to transmit “the word” to his people, and walked out. As they boarded the spacecraft one of them started to chuckle and muttered, “Wise ass shipping clerk.”
The craft rose.
“You should know better than to tell these simple folk the truth. They’d never understand. OK, where do we take this guy.”
“Third star, past the belt of Orion around the cats neck…”
“You been watching too many of those Earth movies and TV shows God provided to get us familiar with what this planet’s future what will be. Did you input the destination into navigation?”
He stifled another chuckle and said, “Yes.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d keep the jokes down. God’s powerful. I’m sure he has other means to redeliver these Saviors. I, for one, am sure glad God decided on a delivery service: three wiseguys able to play three wisemen on different planets. Otherwise I’d probably be mining lithium on some asteroid, or scooping glowing Rathskellian blood worms out of muck to sell to traders to extract for interstellar drive juice.”
“Have you ever wondered why he doesn’t simply fire his shipping clerk and get a better one?”
“He’s all loving, maybe? Besides everyone knows not to annoy the shipping manager. Best not piss off Satan. All Hell would break loose.”
So the wisemen left the Milky Way, spreading Christianity one planet at a time.
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©Copyright 2010
Ken Carman
all rights reserved
