Judgment Day

      The man’s steel toed boot jammed hard into his throat.  Jason lay flat on his back and stared up into the man’s golden eyes and cleanly shaven face.  No sign of emotion flickered on his face.  Not even a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek.
      Jason is a fighter by nature, but these circumstances seemed to be larger than anything natural.  It had been a solid twenty minute struggle in the cozy one bedroom apartment that he called home.  Jason's blood stained the carpet and walls from the beating that was delivered to his face. He had connected to the intruder's face with every ounce of power that he had, but failed to leave a mark.  Now Jason’s energy and will to fight had left him.
         He lay quiet, worn out, and defenseless.  The barrel of a silver revolver waited two inches from his face.  Confusion filled him.  What could he have done?  A list of every person he had ever known ran through his mind only to come up empty.  Jason had no enemies.  Well except for the obvious one currently crushing his windpipe.
         “What do you want?” Jason asked.  He did not ask this question as if he were pleading for his life.  He asked it as if he understood that what this man wanted was going to be received.
           “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.  And whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” the man said.
         This comment twisted Jason’s face and widened his eyes in fear.  He had heard these words a thousand times and he was immediately sure of the source.  Jesus had preached these same words to a woman in the bible and because of this, Jason lost all hope for survival.  The man believed that he had the power to direct life and death.
         This is it, Jason thought. Judgment day.  He had always thought of this day differently.  Wasn’t God supposed to be sitting up in a giant chair asking him things like, “Why didn’t you buy cookies from those sweet Girl Scouts?” or, “Why couldn’t you have helped that poor old lady cross the street?”  But, life is cold and brutal.  Once you see past the bright lights and frilly decorations, the reality seems inadequate.  What you make of raw reality is what defines you as a human.  It is what defines you in God’s eyes.
         Jason wondered exactly what he looked like in God’s eyes as he muttered his last words.
         “Go to Hell.”
         The man shot Jason between the eyes.