The Gospel According to Judas - A Handbook on Life

> From this.

The night I ended up in a mental hospital (for the last time, hopefully), I had been dropped off from the angel proving grounds, and I was exploring the place where I had landed. It had been quite a day. I was playing the role, however much truth to it being debatable, of the Great Spirit’s first son — but down on his luck, trying to repay his debts. I had gotten to a point where I seemed to be in favor again with the good guys, the angels, and was let loose, basically, to explore the place where I was. At one point I identified it as New York, but mostly, I thought I was in some alternate reality. I seemed to be in some alternate earth, in which some of the substance to what made things real had somehow been sucked out. Must have been the cold, since it was January, at night.

At some of the times along the way, as I was exploring the place, I thought again that I was the son of perdition, and that pretty much the entirety of the cosmos were mad at me; but basically, I was mostly alone. Even the people I saw around me (not too many) didn’t seem completely real.

At one point I was told that I was basically in the land of the damned, for I was in touch with the secret society of Christians. Lost — really lost, lost of soul, lost in another world, another reality entirely. 2000 light years from home. I was cold, and I wanted to go somewhere warm; that was the most pressing thing on my mind at that presently. But how to get back to salvation, now that I am lost again? Hadn’t I been redeemed, just an hour before?

Then at one point, a bus coming toward me glowed golden — like unto an aura, or a halo — and I was told that to take that bus would mean salvation! I made sure I got on. And then the bus driver told me that they would only accept exact fare, and I tried to stay on by offering $3 in bills, but the driver said no, and that I would have to get off at the next stop. I saw his irritation with me flash red from his presence. Salvation — does it slip away? I sat down, looking at the change in hand, with a dollar bill, about $1.36. And I prayed to Jesus Christ, clutching that change, “Lord, let this be enough.” A desperate prayer, about to be thrown from salvation’s bus, with not enough for fare. Not even that: incorrect moneys for fare. But one is not to despair, not in the darkest of plights: hope, find a way. This is what we were ever meant for. This is what it means to be a child of God.