{fiction}
The trials, teachings, and torture of Jesus Christ of Nazareth have inspired billions and shaped the course of human history, but sources confirm that the life of Jesus Gutierrez of Nicaragua would probably do the trick.
Tragically, Christ pre-deceased his parents in his thirties. Gutierrez lost his mother during childbirth due to inadequate care and unhygienic conditions in the barrio and was orphaned at the age of fifteen thanks to a brutal terror war authorized by the American President you elected while you were really into Cheers.
After being informed of his divine nature and immortality by an angel, the boy Christ disappears from the record for a time, but many conjecture that he traveled and studied widely, sampling the fruits of ancient near-east philosophy.
The boy Gutierrez spent many formative years scrounging for food and working odd jobs, making ends meet day to day and unable to start a family. Eventually, he took up with an exploitative group of 'coyotes', those enterprising souls who smuggle human cargo across the desert into the United States. The exhaustion and heat stroke from the terrifying journey left him bed-ridden for weeks in a distant relative's farm house.
Christ, whose description as a 'carpenter' in ancient texts has recently been discovered to be an erroneous translation of 'day laborer', toiled for the Roman masters as all his people did, but rose quickly to prominence. Gutierrez moved to the alien world of upstate New York, where he found work as a dishwasher in a Mexican chain restaurant. In the twelve years he spent there before it closed, he was mistaken for Mexican nearly every day, and soon didn't bother correcting anyone.
Jesus of Nazareth's inspirational teachings brought him fame so unwieldy that it became a challenge to Roman power. Magistrate Pontius Pilate infamously led the tribunal that condemned him to death. Jesus of Nicaragua, as an illegal immigrant, was granted no rights before the law and was ominously threatened with deportation by employers, neighbors, and political figures alike for the nearly three decades he spent in America.
The man whom some call son of God was brutalized and bled to death by Roman soldiers over the course of a day his followers call the Passion. According to doctrine, the immortal Christ came back to life three days later and reigned in heaven for all time with his divine family at his side. For most of the two thousand years that have since passed, artists have dedicated themselves to honoring his life - a life that ended for the greater good.
After raising five American citizens who would go on to better lives, the 52 year-old Gutierrez was stopped by a highway patrol officer for a missing tail light on his weather-beaten 1992 Toyota Camry. The officer discovered a small amount of marijuana his son Ramon had left in the glove compartment, and initiated proceedings that would eventually result in Gutierrez's deportation.
Alone in his native Nicaragua, which had yet to receive the reparations ordered by the International Court of Justice for American involvement in the devastating wars of his youth, Gutierrez sank into depression and drank heavily. Without access to the universal health care system you failed to build, the chronic back pain he acquired from decades of leaning over a sink plagued him for the final, agonizing years of his life - a life that ended for good.
6/1/13
