Jesus in the Library

This flash fiction was long listed for the Flash Fiction Magazine quarterly contest and selected for reading at the Fiction in the Orchard festival in September 2024. Text and video are available below. On the video, the story starts at 1.30, and contains strong language. This is a prelude to my Flash a Day exercise in November. If you like this story, you might like to subscribe for November :)

Jesus in the Library

…so our class went on a retreat and there was this baldy priest who was talking about Ignatian spirituality, I think he was a Jesuit or something? anyway he made us all close our eyes and breeeeaaathe and imagine we were in this massive library, so then we had to imagine going down to the stacks where it was all dark and dusty and every section was, like, the book of our life, so there were sections for fiction, romance, family and the priest saying “what do you see in the pages, what does the story tell?”, but I didn’t really get it, until he said “you turn around and the librarian is there by your side” and SPOILER, the librarian is Jesus, so then he’s like, “imagine you are walking with Jesus around the library,” and as he kept talking I suddenly saw the library in my mind and it was beautiful, all wood and stained glass and a high ceiling, you could see the sea through the window, and there was a table at the very front with paperbacks covered in clear contact paper, it had Pull of the Stars and This Book is Gay and loads of other LGBT novels, but before I got to talk to Jesus, the big glass doors swung open and these fash came in, ugly-looking bastards with placards and T-shirts saying NO INDOCTRINATION, then they started knocking all the rainbow books off the table, marching up to people with staff lanyards and calling them groomers and paedophiles, and Jesus got big mad, he was having none of it, they were trying to take the books away but he sprinted up and pulled every book back off them, I’m telling ya he looked different from the statues, browner and shorter with a buzz cut, but you knew it was Jesus all the same, he smelt of that frankincense they swing in the church at Easter, he was roaring, “get the fuck out of my library” and I saw him literallypush them out the door, kicking one of them right up the arse so they went through the wall-size window with a crash and ended up bleeding and roaring on the other side, but Jesus didn’t pay a blind bit of attention, no, he turned around at me and smiled this huge smile like the sun rising, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “That’s how you treat fascists. You kick them out. And you know, sometimes the fash are in your own head. They come in and tell you you’re useless. When they get in there and start smashing up the gaff, you call me, OK?” and then he got lost into this massive bright light and I came to and told everyone what I’d seen and the priest laughed and said I’d missed the point of the exercise, well, story of my fucken life.