ILLUSORY

“I have said, Ye are gods…” Psalm 82:6

“My name is Ezra Jones. Today I am a god… a god in my own right”.

An African American male is sitting on a bench, reading a book. He’s reading a book by Raymond E. Feist called Magician. Behind him is the empty City Center Park. The whole city of Greenwood has been evacuated. He is somewhat close to the road. About 20 miles to his right, is an EF5 tornado heading in his direction. Somehow this man doesn’t seem fazed by the impending doom of the tornado. He seems to be too engrossed in his book to care about the outside world.

A TIV (Tornado Interceptor Vehicle) 2 is blaring its siren as it approaches the position of the man on the bench. There are three men in the TIV. One of the storm chasers notices him.

“What the fuck? Is that guy deaf or something? Didn’t he see the people in the city evacuating? Yo, Ronnie we have to get him!” Casey says.

“You gotta be kidding me Casey! Have you seen the anemometer?! That behemoth behind us is moving at a speed close to 250 miles per hour! This TIV’s top speed is 190 miles per hour…we’re still far enough to maneuver away from it, but if we stop now, we’re screwed!” Ronnie exclaims. The TIV 2 is getting closer to the man’s position.

“Come on Ronnie, we can’t just leave him there! What if somebody found out we could save him and we didn’t, we would be called cowards”, Chris says.

“That tornado is an EF5 tornado, we cannot withstand that. We might just escape it if we keep going, but if we stop even for one moment, we’re definitely going to die!” Ronnie exclaims.

They’re just passing by the man’s position. Casey grabs Ronnie by the shirt and yells “Stop the fucking car Ronnie!!”. Ronnie stops the car. The tornado seems very close now, and the winds are furious. Casey gets out of the car with Chris, covering their noses with their hands in an effort to not get suffocated by the furious winds. Their eyes are protected since they are wearing sunglasses. As they get closer to the man, the winds seem to die down. When they get close to him, they realize that around him seems to be perfect peace and stillness. No outrageous wind speeds.

“Whoa, what’s this?” Chris says, his voice full of wonder.

Casey turns around and notices that there’s some sort of invisible barrier. He stretches forth his hands through it; he feels the outrageous wind speeds from outside the barrier. He can see Ronnie yelling at him through the window of the TIV.

“What the fuck are you guys doing?! We need to get out of here now!!” Ronnie yells at Casey, who seems confused and uncertain about something. Ronnie turns his head to see the tornado very close. He desperately tries to signal Casey that the tornado is coming, honking like a madman.

Chris walks past the man on the bench, and realizes that about seven feet from him, Chris feels the wind speed. But when he comes within five feet of the man, it is peaceful.

“Are you doing this…sir?” he asks.

Ronnie yells from inside the car. “I’m so sorry guys, but I can’t, I can’t die like this. If you have a death wish, then screw you!!!” He speeds away. The tornado is very close now, throwing debris around, none of it touching those in the protective field.

Casey looks at the man strangely as he gets closer to him. “Sir, how are you doing this?” The tornado has now gotten to them, ripping trees from the ground, throwing cars around, and destroying everything in sight. However, as powerful winds destroy their environment, within a radius of about seven feet surrounding the black man on the bench, everything is peaceful. Chris’ mouth is agape watching the commotion around.

Casey slowly sits on the bench, a face of complete bewilderment. Chris comes closer to them from behind pointing at something. “Oh my God, Ronnie!”

From our POV, we can see the TIV 2 just picked up by the tornado.

Casey looks at the black man and says “Please, can you save him? I mean if you can, since you are doing this, you should be able to right?” rants Casey, “Can you save our friend?” “What?” the black man says seemingly coming out of the reverie of the book.

“Ronnie is in the TIV 2, he’s gonna die!!” Chris exclaims.

The black man looks up and notices the vehicle in the tornado. He smiles at them and says “Oh come on guys, don’t you know that it’s not real.” He gets up shaking his head. He looks up at the tornado and waves his hand. In that moment, it was as if a huge sword cut through the tornado, and just like that it disappeared. All the ripped up trees, cars, houses and other debris start to fall to the ground.

“Holy Shi…! Uhm, sir Ronnie’s still too high up!” Chris’ voice is rising as he sees the TIV 2 start accelerating to the ground.

The black man opens his arms and then claps, sending a powerful shockwave all around him, somehow resetting everything back to normal. Every car, tree or house that was ripped out of the ground is back to their original position, as if the tornado never hit Greenwood. The TIV 2 is now in the position it was previously when they stopped to the get the black man. The black man goes back to his seat and opens his book to continue reading.

Ronnie gets out of the car and starts tapping himself and exclaiming to himself “Oh Jesus! I’m ALIVE!!” Ronnie kneels down on the ground and starts crying, hands up in the air, seemingly thanking God for saving his life.

Chris and Casey are locked in their positions seemingly too overwhelmed to talk until Chris turns to the black man and says “Who…who are you?”

Casey looks at them man with wonder and amazement in his eyes, saying “Are you God?”

The black man sighs in seeming exasperation and says “I guess you guys won’t leave me alone to read my book in peace huh.” The black man places the book down and says “No, I wouldn’t say that. Definitely no, I am not God. I am a man just like you, or at least I was until a couple of weeks ago.” “Wait so if you’re not God, how the hell did you do that?” Casey says waving his hand in around him.

“Well, let’s just say I have power over reality itself.” The black man says.

Chris stares at the black man for a moment and says “Wow! You can control reality… Holy Mother of God!”

“But you said you were normal only a couple of weeks ago, so how can you do this now?” Casey asks.

“To tell you the truth, I am not really sure myself. However, I do believe it has something to do with my life as a whole. To ascertain how, I think I would have to review my life experiences.” “Oh man, if you were really a man just like us a couple of weeks ago, then you gotta tell me how you became like that?” Chris says as he comes to sit by him.

“Yes I would very much like to know who you are and how you became so powerful. Maybe we can also acquire such power too.” Casey says.

“Uhuh, yes, definitely” Chris concurs.

“I really would like to continue reading my book, but I guess it would be great to tell you my own story. Well, my name is Ezra Jones. As to how I became this powerful, I think I must start from my childhood…