Part XXI: Hey You, Let's Fight: Episode 3: Who Would Jesus Fight?

Oh where have you taken us now, bicycle? I've been riding, for what seems like forever, in an attempt to find someone and ask them if they want to fight in order to see their reaction. I've rolled straight on up to some Christian church land's sacred circle. A meeting is underfoot.

The title of the place denotes it is of the Christian religion variety, but the person in the circle addressing everyone is talking some weird speak. Time travel, portals and other dimensions are just a few things I pick up from her speech. Since I've shown up right into the middle of Macleod Doobie's sermon, I'm at a loss as to her subject. Everyone else seems to be cheering, smiling and hooting though. They're definitely getting something out of it.

I have to look around to make sure where I am.

Yup, it's definitely Christian.

I should probably put on a shirt and ditch the bike, to be polite and all. Torchy throws out the idea of asking the congregation if they want to scrap. Na. Even I'm not that rude. Anyway, it seems like they got a serious thing. I won't interrupt them. Then Torchy asks if he can get out of my pocket at least. Pushy torch.

We find the welcome sign for the place. Why do most churches today go with Papyrus font? Sure it looks ancient and it comes free with most operating systems, but come on. Overused, man.

Then: I get an attack of RFS (restless family syndrome). My little girl wakes up in her crib, my brother calls and the wifey pulls up with groceries. I'm forced to unplug Huygens...

And we're back...but quite a few hours later. The circle has disbanded and there are only a few people here. I switch shirts. The underwear tank-top is a good universal indicator of brawly. Maybe it'll help.

I wander over to the gardens. A couple of people are chatting. I stalk within hearing distance. One girl is talking to what I think is another woman dressed in a tux, bald and with an eye patch. The girl sitting is telling the other person that they have mixed up her husbands. She makes a point that "Bob" is her SL(Second Life) husband and that "Henry" was her RL(real life) husband.

Wait a minute. Isn't that polygamy? I'm not too brushed up on the Christian ethics of virtual reality, but that seems kind of strange. Unless I'm in a Mormon site, but I don't think so. I wonder how devoted she is to the SL guy then?

Anyway, it was none of my business. My business was to ask these people a question so I walked up to them in order to do that thing. They were friendly and said, "Hi." I returned the pleasantry. Even this close, I was still unable to tell what gender the other person was. And their name, Tee Barrs, shed no light on the subject either. I was having a "Pat" issue here, so I took a gamble and asked, "Would you ladies be interested in a fight?"

Tee Barrs turns and asks me, "Are you sick?" Strike one.

Then Tee Barrs says, "I'm am not a lady." Strike two. That probably explains the rose in his hand. I realize he's probably trying to court this young lady of two husbands.

They seemed confused, understandably. I tried to clarify and said, "I'm just doing a study. There's no obligation."

Tee was pissed and said, "No, none here." Tracey was still baffled a little and asked me, "What are you fighting?"

Then Tee followed up with, "Unless you want to chat about your need for the Lord Jesus." I decided to ignore him for the moment and answer Tracey, "I'm not fighting anyone or anything in particular. I'm just seeing how many people would want to fight if I asked them." Then I turned to Tee and said, "No, I'm pretty stocked up on Jesus, thank you."

Tracey tells me, "You need help. Go fight for God." Tee Barrs tells me I should do better things with my time and that I should get a life. I said to Tracey, "Sorry to disturb you, but I don't think Jesus would approve of me fighting anyone for him. He's kind of a peace nut, I hear. Oh, and Tee, I have plenty of better things to do, but this one is the most fun right now. And as far as getting a life, I don't think you need to be advising anyone while trying to mack on a girl with two husbands."

Surprisingly, Tracey starts to laugh. Tee gets pretty hopped up mad and yells, "You are a fool. You need to leave!" I reply, "What a big man you are. Let me buy you a pack of gum and teach you how to chew it." To which, Tracey laughs more.

"I'm going to get you kicked out of here," Tee threatens. Although, it's obvious to me Tee has no power or sway with the servers or else I would have been booted a long time ago.

I say, "Hey, Tee. Guess what."

He fires back, "What!?"

"We're fighting," I reveal to him. There's a short pause while they digest this and then they both start to chuckle. Tee says, "I guess we are. Are you happy now?" I say to him, "My study is non-biased. I just document the outcomes."

We say our goodbyes and I tell them to go in peace. They tell me to do the same. I wander out of eyesight but not out of earshot. I want to eaves drop a little and find out what they thought of our encounter.

Tee says, "That was too much." Tracey responds, "Such strangeness in the world."

Then he asks, "Yes, are we not all a little strange?" To which she responds, "Or a lot." I guess they were calling me a lot of strange. Then they both burst into laughter.

And that was the best outcome. All I ever wanted from this experiment was to give people a bizarre situation and a laugh or two. Huygens didn't want to fight at all, just like Jesus, and it was nice not finding that many people who actually wanted to. It was time for our quest to be over and move on.

But, before we left, I flew up as high as I could go into the clouds just to make sure Jesus wasn't hiding up there above the church anywhere. I didn't see him. He's probably off somewhere trying to convince people not to fight in his name, that no good peacenick.

So, Torchy and I retreated to The Black Forest to ponder new adventures and to bed down for the night. My computer's video card starts to wig out so we were treated to some nice abstract backgrounds as day slipped into night...

...