Joseph Smith's Delusions

 Akshay and Jasraj were two of the angriest ghosts to ever walk the earth. In the early 1700’s, before their death, Akshay and Jasraj lived in what is now New York state. Boys of just 16, the twin brothers were walking back home from their first solo hunting trip when they heard the war cries of their father. They dropped the two wild turkeys they had just caught and ran to see what was happening. Again they heard their father’s yell, this time followed by a loud shot. Neither of them had heard the sound before, but they’d heard stories of the white man’s death sticks and feared the worst. 

They entered the clearing with their longhouse just in time to hear a second shot and see their father fall to the floor. “Where the hell are you going, Savage?” a large white man grabbed Akshay from behind. Jasraj ran to him but was grabbed by a second man. They struggled for their lives but the band of ten roaming devils subdued them and tied them each to a tree: arms bent back around trunks and hands bound tight.

Three men entered the longhouse and they heard their mother’s screams as her hiding place was discovered. Frantic with fear, they called for her, kicking their legs and pulling at their restraints. They saw a white man drag their mother out by her hair and rip off her clothes. Tears of grief streamed down their face as they saw ever one of the group of ten rape their mother. The final one put a knife to her throat and finished her off as he was finishing his pleasure. 

“I curse you! I curse you and all your people!” Akshay screamed in his language until his throat was raw.

These ten evil men laughed a mirthless, hysterical laugh. They didn’t know or care what the young man was saying. Years of war, disease, and famine had made them into the worst kind of bigot, sociopath devils. Every one of them planned to go home to their clueless wife and go to their church on Sunday. 

“Let’s be sure these young bucks don’t live to raid our village” said one white devil to another. “No need to kill these two too quickly,” the raider replied to his comrade. Laughing all the time, they took turns swinging at the boy’s kicking legs. When both boys had lost both legs, the invaders took the boys’ arms. Akshay and Jasraj both thrashed on the ground, losing much blood from every stump. One of the white men took their father’s spear and used it to pierce the side of both Akshay and Jasraj. Then the men set fire to the longhouse and they walked away laughing all the while, oblivious that the actual devils of hell were laughing with the victory of bringing all the earth closer to hell with the actions of these English tribal monsters.

Akshay heard his brother's tears but was too numb with rage to cry himself. ‘Why had his father moved them away from the tribe?’... ‘What good had the solitude been for their safety?’... He could feel the blood drain from him, but then, he could also feel his arms and legs. He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked back at the ground. He saw his lifeless body laying still on the earth. He stood up and looked at himself to find he was semi translucent but fully formed. His brother was still in the throes of death, but Akshay could see a hand where a hand should be. He grabbed his brother’s hand firmly and pulled him up to stand beside him.

“What are we?” Jasraj asked Akshay, looking at his own translucent hands. 

“We are ghosts of vengeance,” Akshay replied. “Come, let us see if we have the strength to bury mother and father.” They tried to lift their father’s corpse but their hands passed right through him. Jasraj started to cry. 

“It’s ok, my brother. It’s ok.” Akshay put his hand around Jasraj, finding they were still firm to each other. They couldn’t move the bodies, but they could fan the flames. Soon the whole glen was a blaze. They stood in the fire, feeling nothing but hearing and seeing everything. 

“I can’t go on…” Jasraj put his hands over his face and started to fade into white light. Akshay grabbed his brother's shoulders and shook him until he was solid again.

“We will not allow this, my brother. We will not allow these people to rape our land like they raped our mother.”

“But what can we do?”

“We’ll find a way.”

They found out they had to keep moving. As soon as they sat or lay down they’d hear the voices of their people calling them to the spirit world. ‘I will find a way to make these European invaders live in constant fear of the apocalypse they have caused…’ was the thought that kept Akshay moving. Eventually, Jasraj followed without resistance.

They learned much, floating through the world. They learned that many years before the white men conquered the oceans, the God of this world had been born in human form and was named Jesus. As was common at the time, and as is the way of heaven, Jesus was a homosexual polygamist who took twelve husbands. 

Just before he had been crucified by the occupying force of his people for “blasphemy”, one of his husbands had asked, “Master of love and passion, Master of my body and soul, when will you return to us in full glory and not just in this human form?”        

Jesus had replied, “Only when all the tribes live together in peace; when any child of any tribe can sleep through the night without fear of a thief in the night.” But after his gruesome death, people just continued to be filled with fear of the unknown and hate for people they saw as different from them. War after war, translation after translation, what he had said was all lost except for the “thief in the night” part. 

Akshay and Jasraj came back to New York in the year 1819. They knew they’d fade soon if they didn’t connect with a mortal soon to bring fear into the hearts of white men. That’s when they noticed Joseph Smith praying in the woods not far from where they had been murdered. They followed him for a while to discover he was a barely literate boy who read almost nothing but the bible. The religious questions that racked his brain were was God and Jesus the same being or two separate beings? What was the nature of God?

Akshay and Jasraj knew God was an eternal force that was simultaneously both completely human and completely non-human; that Jesus was just the human form of that force. But they also knew this Smith boy was desperate and vulnerable; that he could be used to make many of the English-American tribe become foolish people who isolated themselves into destruction. Vengeance was what held them to the world and so far as God's plan was a plan of benevolent indifference, they would be happy to prevent the second coming of Jesus with a group of people who lived in all the ways to prevent it.

So they lead Joseph Smith to the exact place of their murder. And there they racked him with the torment of hell. When he was calling in desperation to be saved, they knew they had him. So they appeared in the form of two white men: one with a white beard and one with a light brown beard. The “God” character had less lines so he was played by Jasraj who said, “This is my beloved Son, hear him.” And Akshay went on to tell Joseph he would re-write the bible and add a new book too. The new book was complete rubbish, but it was what was needed to make many white men feel a portion of the guilt that they, as a people, refused to feel. 

Jasraj faded shortly after Joseph Smith’s death. He was sure the work was done to satisfaction and needed to enter the spirit world to rest a time before being given a different body. 

Akshay stuck around. He enjoyed watching the Mormon parents tell the Mormon children that the world would end in terrible violence and there was nothing they could do about it besides isolate themselves with fear, food storage, and lack of political awareness. 

About a hundred and fifty years after first appearing to Joseph Smith, Akshay sat in the back row of a Mormon church. A fat white boy was followed to the podium by his fat white mother. The boy got a stool and the mother stood beside him. She whispered in his ear and he repeated the words into the microphone, “I love my family…” the young child muttered into the mic, “I know the church is true… I know Joseph Smith was a prophet… I know the Native Americans were cursed with brown skin and destruction for their wicked ways… I know God is a polygamist man on the planet Kolob… I know heterosexual polygamy is the way of God… I know I must be a good heterosexual polygamist if I want to avoid the terrible violence that will end the world any minute” The congregation clapped for him and the boy smiled with confusion and fright. ‘Why were these people clapping for the end of the world?’ was the thought that tainted the pleasure of acceptance from his tribe.

Akshay could see the confusion and fear, and he knew his work was done. He faded. Ready to be reborn on whatever planet God wanted him to be on.