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BY COREY PAJKA

Fellow Romans, to whom we pledge our unwavering loyalty and obedience — er, sorry — fellow citizens: It is with no small amount of difficulty that we acknowledge and mourn the misfortunes of the past few days. A week that began with a hero’s welcome paved by palm leaves and featuring a lovely dinner party has concluded in grim, violent fashion. Who would have guessed such a Holy Thursday would see The Last Supper with our dear friend Jesus Christ? But please, we urge you not to follow the example of Pontius Pilate by washing your hands of the whole affair. We hereby acknowledge this was not a Good Friday for us and we are thus open to negotiations!

Jesus had some pretty radical ideas, so we kinda saw this coming. Rather than swearing allegiance to some guy in a toga thousands of miles away with a reputation for enslaving our fellow Hebrews (seriously, Google ‘Tiberius,’ pretty fucked up), Jesus had the wacky idea of throwing blessings to people who had never been thought worthy of them. We’re talking the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, even you; especially when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Him! All you had to do was follow Him and be a good person. We hope you can understand why this appealed to twelve wayward disciples in search of a savior like us.

As a group, we still stand by the teachings of Mr. Christ. His intentions were good, and His tactics were sound. He never ordered us to castrate ourselves, ingest vast quantities of poisoned Kool-Aid knockoff, or prompted an insurrection because he disliked the results of a free and fair public election. What moron would follow somebody who advocates any of those things? Still, we’re aware that someone who empowers people used as chattel by an empire that literally worships at the altar of polytheism presents a problem for many of you. For the record, we are open to the idea of worshipping a god who indiscriminately rapes and hurls thunderbolts at his subjects for funsies. We attended a sermon at one mount, so we’re open to taking a road trip to Mount Olympus. That sounds like a great destination for an annual summer vacay! Our buddies who identify as followers of Mohammed are already talking about doing the same thing with Mecca, so we might even get timeshares!

In this difficult time, some of the Apostles are struggling with their faith. Our colleague Peter has been in serious denial, claiming he didn’t even know Jesus no less than three times since last evening. Thomas, of course, is expressing doubt. As for Judas, we haven’t seen him since The Last Supper Party this past Thursday. Jesus did say Judas would be the one to turn Him in to the Romans, but he’d never sell his mentor out for a lousy thirty pieces of silver! If anyone sees Judas, please tell him to come and find us because we could use a new representative. He’d be an ideal olive branch. What, did we say something out of turn?

This has been a somber Saturday for us, but maybe that’s what we’ll call this day in the future. Yesterday was anything but a Good Friday. Though it breaks our hearts, our friend and leader Jesus Christ is no more, and nothing short of a divine miracle is going to bring Him back. It would be great to establish the largest religious movement in the history of the world and be canonized as the ones who were there when it all started, but who are we kidding? Tomorrow is Sunday and we will resurrect ourselves, as we must. Jesus is hardly in a position to do that for us, let alone Himself. So let it be written, so let it be done! Wait, that’s The Ten Commandments. The movie, not the Commandments themselves. Anyway, thanks for your attention, and we’re off to update our LinkedIn profiles. Amen!

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Corey Pajka’s work has appeared regionally at Ghost Light Ensemble Theatre, the University of Houston, and Weathervane Theatre (book writer for Animaloopidy, based on music and lyrics by T.O. Sterett). New York appearances include Cherry Lane Theatre, NuBox Theatre, Gallery Players, The Secret Theater, and Brooklyn College. Published plays include The Human Room, Visible Cosmic Entities, Outer Space Beats Hollywood Every Time, and The Queen of Cocoa Puffs and The Cap’n Crunch King. Radio plays The Separation, The Stand In, The (Drunk) Call of Cthulhu, full-length play Everyone is an Astronaut and others are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other forums. Satirical writing and essays have been featured in Points in Case, The Weekly Humorist, The Broadway Beat, and climate action group 350Brooklyn’s e-magazine Parts Per Million among others. Lives in Brooklyn, New York with wife playwright D.L. Siegel and their Pembroke Welsh Corgi Sancho Panza. www.coreypajka.com

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