Introduction

  You’ve probably heard of some of the major figures of the Christian faith. Moses. Abraham. Jesus. Yahweh. Hamlet. But far fewer are familiar with the most important Christian figure of the modern day: John Osborne. The purpose of this text is to spread his message to the world. To tell the common man (and potentially even woman) the story of the greatest man ever to walk this flat earth.

  I am the sole source for this text. I am informed on all matters of John’s life, from his first kiss to his first confirmed kill. I know these things because I was very close with John – and being the sole source on his life and spiritual teachings makes me a very important man. However, this is a religious text, so I will be remaining anonymous and humble. In terms of my writing I consider myself somewhat of a mix between Dostoevsky and Paul the Apostle, possessing, of course, all of the best qualities of each.

  At this point you’re probably wondering who John Osborne was and what makes him so important. This will be revealed to you shortly, if you do not know already. Many knew John simply for the civilian deaths he caused in Afghanistan (he was not in the military). Others simply know him for the online presence that he gained later in his life, at which point many labeled him a “conspiracy theorist.” Well take it from me, my dear reader, that those were not conspiracy theories. They were truths. Truths capable of saving your eternal soul.

  I pray you read on so that you may understand.

  Prelude

  It is, of course, impossible to tell the story of reverand John Osborne (yes, reverand) without beginning with his father, Randy Osborne. And so our story begins with Randy sitting at a bar. He took a sip from his glass; he did so carefully, as his hands were trembling. The bar was dingy and run down, but it was a safe place for Randy. He sat at the counter as the bartender cleaned a glass.

  “Something wrong?” asked the bartender. Randy looked at him, and took another sip from his drink, trying not to spill.

  “Oh, something’s wrong,” Randy replied.

  “What is it?” The bartender asked.

  “You’re gonna call me crazy.”

  “Don’t assume that, Randy,” the bartender replied, putting his glass and rag down on the counter. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my life. What I’ve never seen is you this upset. Christ, man, your whole body’s shaking.”

  Randy scoffed, and took another sip. He did so too quickly, and spilled a bit of his drink on himself. “I don’t even know how to talk about this. Everything I thought I knew, gone in a few minutes. And for what? What does it mean?”

  “What does what mean, Randy?!” The bartender replied, irritated. “Just tell me. Why the hell not? I consider you a friend, Randy. What have you got to lose?” Randy quickly downed the rest of his drink, miraculously spilling only a few drops.

  “Fine,” he said, “I’ll tell you. An angel appeared before me today.”

  “Oh,” replied the bartender, with visible disappointment on his face.

  “Right. You think I’m crazy.”

  “Not at all.” Randy was shocked by this response. His hands trembled more gently. “I believe in angels,” the bartender continued, “And I believe in the role they play here on Earth. Guiding us toward a better future. Why the hell’s this got you so freaked out?”

  “Huh,” Randy replied, relieved. “I’ve never really believed in this stuff before. But let’s say it’s real. That poses a big problem. See, the angel told me that my wife is pregnant. That the child she is bearing shall come to expose the greatest truths of the world. That he will face insurmountable odds. He will be the target of the powers that be, that do not wish to see his truths reach the world.”

  “That’s great,” replied the bartender.

  “There’s just one problem. I don’t have a wife.”

  The bartender sighed. “Randy,” he said, “perhaps the angel misspoke when he used the word ‘wife’. Do you have any idea who that might be referring to?”

  “None at all,” Randy said defensively. “Angels don’t really misspeak.”

  “Randy… I think there’s something you have to do. Something you should have done long before this angel appeared to you.”

  Randy thought it over for a moment. The bartender thought that he might be getting through to him. This turned out not to be the case. “Right,” Randy said with determination. “I have to go find myself a wife.” The bartender sighed.

  Aware of his new goal, Randy stood up and swiftly exited the bar, refusing to pay his tab as he was now a man on a mission from the Lord.

  Randy needed to find his pregnant soon-to-be wife. After walking a few blocks on the dark street outside the bar, he could make out the silhouette up ahead of a woman who appeared to be pregnant. And so, having no other options, Randy Osborne approached her. As soon as he was within earshot, Randy began frantically explaining the situation. At first the woman was frightened, but she soon recognized the man’s voice.

  “Randy?!” she asked angrily.

  Randy shuddered. “Nope, my name’s Dave.”

  “No it’s fucking not, Randy.”

  This was a bad situation. Randy had hoped to never see this woman again after he had accidentally impregnated her. He thought about making a run for it, but didn’t want the angel to be angry with him.

  “Goddammit, Carol,” he replied, still walking towards her. They were now close enough for them to make out each other’s faces. “I was hoping to raise the savior of mankind. Not your fucking kid. That kid’s gonna be fucked up.”

  “It's your kid too, Randy!”

  “Not even my superior genes can save that little bastard,” Randy remarked. The realization was dawning on him that he may have to help raise this child. As much as Randy loathed Carol, he did like her more than the other woman he had recently gotten pregnant and abandoned, and it seemed Randy would be required to raise one of the two children. “Fine,” he sighed, “I’ll help raise your kid.”

  The woman was taken aback. “What do you mean, my kid? You said you were going out to buy plan b, then just left and never spoke to me again! Who says I even want your help? Also, fucking angels, Randy?! You’re off your fucking meds again, aren’t you?”

  “This is just like the birth of Christ,” Randy replied, avoiding the question. “A child born of a virgin–”

  “I’m not a virgin Randy! You fucked me!”

  “Shut up. A child born of a virgin, with a noble father figure who will selflessly–”

  “Goddammit Randy.”

  Four more months passed. The happy couple had hastily gotten married due to Randy’s insistence that the child could not be born out of wedlock. They had held an extravagant wedding (on Randy’s insistence but paid for by Carol’s father), in which Randy had insisted on dressing up as the Pope. Now, Carol was in labor, and Randy helped her into the passenger seat of his convertible.

  “Randy, please.” Begged Carol, “No more of your nonsense today. I let you wear a costume for the wedding. I let you–”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “A costume?!” Randy interrupted, outraged by his wife’s ignorance.

  “Just take me to the hospital,” Carol pleaded. “I supported you while you fought with that bear over our trash night after night. I took the massive doses of zinc that you insisted would make the baby holier. The doctor told me not to, but I did it for you, Randy.”

  “You told the doctor about that!?”

  “I read your fucking manifestos and told you they were good!”

  “They were good!” Randy snapped.

  “If you say so, Randy. Just please take me to the hospital.”

  “Okay,” Randy replied hesitantly. He knew it was bad to start out his marriage by lying to his wife, but he didn’t see much choice.

  The two drove in silence for a ways. Carol was more focused on the pain and her concerns about the mental state of her child’s father than on where they were going. After about fifteen minutes Carol looked up and saw pine trees surrounding the road they were driving on. They had left the city.

  “Why, Randy?” Carol asked.

  “Umm, hmm.” Randy attempted to think of an excuse. “There’s a better hospital this way.”

  “No there isn’t,” Carol replied, managing to remain calm.

  “Hmm. Ummm, Let me think,” Randy uttered nervously.

  Carol was hunched over in her seat, her face contorted. Between her grunts of pain she was able to ask, “can we at least put the roof up? It’s fucking thirty degrees outside.”

  “No.”

  “Just tell me where we’re going!” Carol yelled. She was losing her cool.

  “I’m not sure exactly,” replied Randy.

  “Why?”

  “We just need to find a suitable spot.”

  “For our child’s birth? A suitable spot?”

  “He has to be born in a manger. He’s the savior of mankind.” Randy felt relieved at having finally told the truth. It was a weight off his chest, and he thought that Carol would be proud of him.

  She was not, in fact, proud of him.

  “Randy!” She shrieked, “you do not know how to deliver a child! At the hospital, there are men who do know how to deliver a child. If you want this ‘savior’ to survive, I need to go to the fucking hospital! I’m going to die, Randy!”

  Little did Carol know, Randy had been preparing for the child’s birth. He had purchased a baby doll, and crammed it in various objects in order to practice removing it. Once, he had shoved it into a realistic sex doll he found in an alleyway while searching for valuables and table scraps. While removing the doll from the plastic woman, whom he had now come to love far more than his wife, he had accidentally torn the doll’s head off. Now Randy knew what not to do.

  Carol did not agree with this plan. It didn’t matter much. Randy was driving the car, and Carol was in no condition to resist. At this point, Randy spotted what appeared to be a farmhouse off in the distance.

  “I bet they’ve got a good fucking manger at that one, Carol. The best.” Carol replied with more grunts of pain. “Come on,” Randy said, “get a little excited.”

  Carol did not respond.

  “Look, honey, I know I haven’t always been the best husband to you. I couldn’t always protect our trash from the bear. Sometimes he didn’t run away, and would you have had me go to blows with him? I would have lost, Carol, I would have lost. And I know I couldn’t always provide enough zinc for you and our child. Nobody is perfect, Carol. And you need to cut me some slack.” At this point, Carol had resigned herself to her fate, and wanted nothing more than to get out of the tiny, cramped car.

  “Just take me to the fucking manger.”

  As those of you inducted into the religion of the reverand John Osborne already know, Carol Osborne is the first of the three Great Sinners. The Great Sinners are three individuals who have committed such heinous crimes against the reverand–that is, crimes against the world–that the religion of John Osborne has and will continue to immortalize them as the sinners that they are. These are crimes that cannot be forgiven. At this point in the story, you likely feel sympathy for Carol. Sure, she is the story’s villain, but she is a sympathetic villain. A villain with whom you can imagine that maybe–just maybe– if you were in her shoes, after living the life that she has lived and having learned what she was taught–maybe you would do the same as her.

  Let me assure you, my dear reader, that soon you will have no such sentiment. Carol will soon commit a crime against Randy The Great, the man who raised John Osborne and shaped him into the greatest man to ever walk our flat earth. This crime cannot, and should not, be glorified, sympathized with, or depicted in the future movie adaptation of this book. With this in mind, we continue our story.

  Randy pulled the car over on the side of the road. The barn was about a hundred feet away, and had clearly been abandoned for a long time. The red paint peeled from the splintering walls. To Randy, this was the ideal place for his son to be born. After all, this was no mere child. This was the savior of mankind. Randy got out of the car and, like the gentleman that he was, opened Carol’s door for her and helped her up. He put her arm over his shoulder and helped her walk towards the barn. All the while she continued to look down at her feet, clench her teeth, and grunt in pain.

  Upon entering, Randy was relieved to see that the barn still had a manger. “Look, Carol,” he said, tearing up, “a manger.”

  “That’s a metal feeding trough, Randy.”

  Randy picked up a few armfuls of hay and placed them in the manger. He then lifted up his wife and carefully placed her on top of the hay. Her arms hung on either side, as did her legs past her knees.

  “There you go, Randy,” she said, surprisingly comfortable. This was certainly an improvement over sitting in the convertible. “You got what you wanted. Are you sure you know how to deliver a child?”

  “Grab it by the feet and yank,” replied Randy, having learned from his experiments.

  “No! What? The baby comes out head first.”

  “If I yank on the head it might come off.”

  Throughout this exchange, Randy was looking around the barn thoughtfully. The thoughtful look on his face turned to disappointment. The fact that this didn’t seem to be enough for her husband frightened Carol, but she tried to focus on her breathing.

  “There’s no farm animals here,” Randy said.

  “So?” asked Carol ignorantly.

  “Have you even seen a nativity scene? There needs to be farm animals.”

  “I think we can make do.”

  “Do you even care about this child Carol?” Randy snapped in an accusatory tone. “Well I do. I’m going to go find us farm animals.”

  Randy swiftly exited the barn, leaving Carol to deal with the pain of childbirth alone. Her contractions were getting closer together. The baby would soon arrive. Carol, being the nonbeliever that she was, felt very concerned about the mental well-being of Randy. She was unable to understand the gravity of the situation. Randy’s efforts, to her, appeared to be the dangerous actions of a madman.

  “If I ever get the chance,” Carol said to herself, “I will get rid of Randy. By any means necessary. If the opportunity ever arises, Randy will be in prison, or dead, or whatever I can do to get rid of him.” However, Carol had to remain blameless in the eyes of the law. She could not let anything separate her from John. She needed to be with John, herself, to raise him her way, which was a way of sin and deceit. With this promise, Carol had planted the seeds of one of the greatest sins ever committed.

  Randy barged back into the barn, dragging a sack behind him. Whatever was in the sack seemed to be writhing and making yelping sounds.

  “Check this out, Carol,” Randy said, sounding quite pleased. Randy opened the sack and out scurried a coyote. It ran into the corner, trembling, its ears back and teeth showing. “See? Now we have farm animals! It’s perfect!”

  “Randy, how did you catch a fucking coyote?”

  “I didn’t. Some very nice people gave him to me.”

  “Who?”

  “Shepherds!” Randy’s face gleamed. “Just like in the gospels. Shepherds, who said they would soon be coming to see our son.”

  “You found shepherds.” Carol paused and took a deep breath. “Here, in these woods, at this time of night. Of course you did. Who are these people?”

  “Crackheads, Carol. The shepherds of the East!”

  “For the love of God, Randy, I do not want whoever the fuck gave you a live fucking coyote anywhere near my child!”

  “What?” Asked Randy, confused. “You don’t want shepherds? It’s hardly the birth of the savior without any shepherds.”

  John’s birth went smoothly, as the Lord would never have allowed anything wrong to happen on this most holy of days. The three shepherds that Randy had made acquaintance with soon arrived, and kindly shared their food and amphetamines with Randy while Carol watched on disapprovingly. The shepherds were experts at delivering children, having birthed oh so many coyotes in their lives.

  John Osborne came into the world on that day, in that barn, surrounded by his loving father, sinful mother, and the glorious Shepherds Of The East. The men all gathered around the manger and admired the child. Even though Carol would not let the shepherds hold John Osborne, they knew that this infant would go on to do great things.