Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

incense burner; my pair of breeding mongooses (mongeese?), their bamboo cage, my drum set, and my umbrella; my silk robe, my sun hat, my rain hat, my collection of carved erotic figurines, and Joshua’s bowl, we gathered on the beach to say good-bye. Melchior stood before us in his loincloth, the wind whipping the tails of his white beard and hair around his face like fierce clouds. There was no sadness in his face, but then, he had endeavored his entire life to detach from the material world, which we were part of. He’d already done this a long time ago.
    Joshua made as if to embrace the old man, then instead just poked him in the shoulder. Once and only once, I saw Melchior smile. “But you haven’t taught me everything I need to know,” Josh said.
    “You’re right, I have taught you nothing. I could teach you nothing. Everything that you needed to know was already there. You simply needed the word for it. Some need Kali and Shiva to destroy the world so they may see past the illusion to divinity in them, others need Krishna to drive them to the place where they may perceive what is eternal in them. Others may perceive the Divine Spark in themselves only by realizing through enlightenment that the spark resides in all things, and in that they find kinship. But because the Divine Spark resides in all, does not mean that all will discover it. Your dharma is not to learn, Joshua, but to teach.”
    “How will I teach my people about the Divine Spark? Before you answer, remember we’re talking about Biff too.”
    “You must only find the right word. The Divine Spark is infinite, the path to find it is not. The beginning of the path is the word.”
    “Is that why you and Balthasar and Gaspar followed the star? To find the path to the Divine Spark in all men? The same reason that I came to find you?”
    “We were seekers. You are that which is sought, Joshua. You are the source. The end is divinity, in the beginning is the word. You are the word.”

P art V
Lamb
I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

C hapter 23
    We rode Vana north toward the Silk Road, skirting the great Indian desert that had almost killed Alexander the Great’s forces as they returned to Persia after conquering half of the known world, three centuries before. Although it would have saved a month to cut through the desert, Joshua was not confident about his ability to conjure enough water for Vana. A man should learn the lessons of history, and although I insisted that Alexander’s men had probably been tired from all that conquering, while Josh and I had basically been sitting around at the beach for two years, he insisted we take the less hostile route through Delhi, and north into what is now Pakistan until we joined the Silk Road once again.
    A little ways down the Silk Road I thought we received another message from Mary. We had stopped to have a short rest. When we resumed the journey, Vana happened to walk over where she had just done her business and the pile was pressed into the perfect likeness of a woman’s face, dark poo against the light gray dust.
    “Look, Josh, there’s another message from your mother.”
    Josh glanced and looked away. “That’s not my mother.”
    “But look, in the elephant poop, it’s a woman’s face.”
    “I know, but it’s not my mother. It’s distorted because of the medium. It doesn’t even look like her. Look at the eyes.”
    I had to climb to the back of the elephant to get another angle on it. He was right, it wasn’t his mother. “I guess you’re right. The medium obscured the message.”
    “That’s what I’m saying.”
    “I’ll bet it looks like someone’s mom, though.”
    With the detour around the desert, we were nearly two months getting to Kabul. Although Vana was an intrepid walker, as I have mentioned, she was a less than agile climber, so we often had to take long detours to get her through the mountains of Afghanistan. Josh and I both knew that we could not take her into the high, rocky desert once we passed Kabul, so we agreed to leave the elephant with Joy, if we could find the erstwhile courtesan.
    Once in Kabul we asked around the market for any news of a Chinese woman named Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm, but no one had heard of her, nor had they seen a woman simply named Joy. After a full day of searching, Joshua and I were about to abandon the search for our friend when I