SECOND COMING

PROLOGUE
   “If you don’t mind me sayin’ so, Father, if he came back today, nobody’d notice. Another thing. They’d kill him same as before. He wouldn’t get a word in edgewise.”
    Father O’Brien looked intently at Freddie as he spoke. Freddie was a regular customer at the soup kitchen run by the congregation at St. Christopher’s, the church at which Father O’Brien was priest.
    “Now, Freddie, what makes you say a thing like that?”
    “Stands to reason,” said Freddie. "Historically speakin’, he hardly made a dent. Ain’t no real records. It’s only ‘cause a few fanatics kept pushin’ the issue. The world is a lot bigger today. The poor guy’d be lost in the shuffle if he came back.”
    Freddie loved to talk religion with Father O’Brien, and he always made it a point to say hello on his regular visits to the soup kitchen. Sometimes he liked to get under the Father’s skin. Father O’Brien knew Freddie was no dummy, and on occasion, had to admit that Freddie raised some interesting points.
    “Could you elaborate on that Freddie?”
    The two were seated amid the pigeon droppings on the steps of St. Christopher’s overlooking 10th Avenue. It was early October, the temperature had dropped during the night and an icy rain threatened. Both were bundled up, Father O’Brien’s overcoat from Lord & Taylor and Freddie’s, a surplus army overcoat from Good Will Industries. Freddie, a recovering alcoholic, gathered his thoughts.
    “You see Father, it’s like this. The Christians, the Jews, they’re all waitin’ for the Messiah. But the Messiah maybe came an’ went! Maybe ten times over by now. Everybody missed him. Why? ‘Cause nobody’s payin’ attention. Any Messaih that came today better be high tech. That’s the only way anybody’d notice. You gotta be on the Internet. You gotta have a website. Two thousand years ago, there weren’t that many people. You could roam around an’ make yourself known. Say howdy, here I am. Not today. Too many people. Any Messiah that came today’d be lost in a