The rags of shoes trudged up the redding sand of the dessert. Moseth trudged uninterestedly up the bank of a small dune that the footprints had led to. They had got a little confusing to follow at the bottom of the slope, as the one track of footprints multiplied immensely as, what seemed to be, the whole following of people had ran up it at once.
He was never good at physical work. In fact, he hated it. His time back in the village was a calm yet miserable one that he was mostly glad to leave. Although, one thing he did miss was sleeping in the hay shed whilst he was suppose to be painting and making furniture. But his carpentry business had been slow ever since that Jesus bloke had arrived and opened up a chain of cheap Swedish-imported flat-pack furniture stores; killed off all the independent carpenters, including Moseth's business. All the independent carpenters tried to take him to court, saying that being the son of God meant he had an unfair advantage in attracting customers, as he could just make them walk in. Of course, in court he also had an unfair advantage, so he won.
One final large step up the dune and he was standing on top. He stared in awe at the massive dark brown outcrop in the centre of a unusually perfect circular basin. The dune he had climbed ran all the way around the centre at oddly the exact same distance from the mountain itself. Looking upwards, he could make out that the top of the mountain was completely flat, which contrasted entirely from the jagged rock that made up the sides. His head levelled off and, from looking straight ahead of him, worked out that the height of the dune he was standing on placed him about one fifth of the way up the mountain.
Of course, this is the first thing you'd think about, and not even begin to wonder why there was a massive rock in the middle of the desert with no explanation to it. But Moseth didn't think like everyone else, which was why he'd led a troupe of villagers into the desert with also no explanation of what they were going for. At first no one gave a toss as to what he wanted them to do, but then he made up some crap about religious freedom and being immune from Satan's grasp and everyone instantly agreed that he was right, and followed him.
Moseth's head drifted down once more to see the large group of people standing together at the foot of the dune. His feet dug deeper into the ground as he made his way down the sandy slope.
"Okay okay, calm down everyone." The man who had ran away from Moseth was standing on top of a much smaller dark rock that, Moseth assumed, had broken and fell from the main mountain, possibly because it was so confused as to its own existence.
The man was addressing the group. "I know it's been tough, but this is what we've been searching for!"
"A mountain?!", shouted an irritated male member of the crowd. "We've walked for the past nine weeks to find a mountain?!?"
Highly skilled at choosing the wrong moment in which to walk into a group of people (usually the exact moment when everyone in said group was completely despairing with rage towards him) Moseth meandered his way through the crowd towards the front.
"Oh here he is!" commented the angry man, with tremendous sarcasm. "Our almighty righteous leader who has lead us to salvation."
"Are you being sarcas..." Moseth started. Pondered for a bit, and then continued. "Thank you." He'd managed avoid the tangled mess of sand robes and had worked his way to the front.
"Look, this has been hard for everyone okay." The man on the rock was trying to hold peace, a state that had gotten increasingly more difficult lately as everyone thought Moseth had gotten them completely lost.
"We don't even know why we're here!" remarked the angered man who had now also pushed his way to the front of the group to assert his angry dominance.
"As Mo's already told us, we'll find out when we need to. That's not such a big deal is it?" The man on the rock turned his head to see Moseth had now climbed onto the rock as well. He raised his arm in Moseth's direction. "This man promised us happiness: a life under the laws and complete guidance of our lord. Who are we to say that knowing all the facts is what God wants?"
The crowd collectively fell into deep thought, concurring with their knowledge as to whether this was a reasonable of not. Many members of the crowd converted to smiling.
"He doesn't care about us!" the angry man picked up on again. "Bet he doesn't even know your name."
Moseth saw the other man on the rock turn towards him. "Erm." He tried to think; searching through the depths of his memory. "John?" he finally came up with.
"See!" the man shouted from the crowd; doing small jumps on the spot as if his football team just got awarded a penalty.
"Do I need to know your names?" Moseth questioned quietly to the group.
Small conversations broke out among the members who all, for some reason, seemed to agree.
"Okay, well," the angry man went in for one last ditch attempt. "If you won't tell us why we're here, you said someone sent you. Who was it?" A smug grin came across the angry man's face.
The speaker also on the rock was just staring at Moseth, slightly disheartened that he hadn't remembered his name, when he had clearly introduced himself on the first day of the trek into the desert. Sure, it had been nine weeks ago, but still.
Moseth was once again in deep thought trying to recall the name of who had sent him on this all-thrills trek into the desert. He cursed his ability to drink so much alcohol that had been slowly destroying his brain which was now only capable of holding memories for a few hours.
Then it hit him; the metal container that he used as whiskey storage. He patted his hands down his rags in search of the lump of his container. 'F***' he thought, as he didn't remember picking it up from the rock he had been sitting on before.
'I can do this, it's just a name' he continued to say to himself as the group of people got ever more anxious to hear the answer. "J!" he said out loud. "It started in J."
He continued to investigate his own head in search of letters as the crowd stared at him showing less amusement than a rabbit finding its breakfast was once again carrots.
"S! It ended in S!" slowly piecing the puzzles together in vocal thoughts to a group of people who already thought of him as uselessly insane.
"Jows. Jomes. Josum. Juses. Jusas. Judas... Judas! It was Judas!" His revelation was met by blank faces. Blank, yet increasingly angering faces. They stared at him with unmitigated despise. An unspoken-for member of the crowd raised his hand in Moseth's direction. "Get him!" he shouted.
After an eruption of tremendous terror, Moseth was rapidly climbing up the rocky mountain.

Sweating hands grasped onto ever crumbling rocks as Moseth made his way up the much-less-than-comfortable jagged side of the large outcrop of dark brown rock in the middle of the desert. The sun was now beaming down at him from the full height of its arc in the sky; his Casio-produced wrist-sundial told him it had just gone midday. A few moments later he had reached a break from the steep sides of the mountain, and collapsed down on the flat area that was only just large enough for him to able to do so without rolling off. His eyelids closed and he drifted off. Tired eyelids slowly lifted themselves free from each other as the eyes beneath began painfully focusing on the sun. "Thank God!" Moseth heard a voice come from beside him. It was a voice he recognised, but then again his blood was now fifty percent booze and he often heard things that weren't really there. "Sorry for using your name in vain lord, didn't mean to offend." the voice said again. Moseth's eyes opened up fully to see a man sitting above him on a rock. "Hello?" Moseth said with questionable confusion. "Right, get up, and let's climb this thing." The man stood up and started to climb. For once Moseth's brain had served its purpose and told him the man who was climbing the rock was the same man who had been defending him in front of the group on the rock at the base of the mountain. "Wait!" exclaimed Moseth. "Why are you here?" "Well, after you told the group of, quite frankly, religious nut-jobs that you were sent by the person who betrayed the son of God, I tried to calm them and explain that you were suffering from sun-stroke and weren't really all with it, which they didn't buy. Then they accused me of being - and I quote - 'a sucker of Satan', and got out some rusty pitchforks from somewhere and started chasing after me as well." By now the man had come down from the rock face he was climbing and was directly facing the sat-upright Moseth. "But, I forgot your name," Moseth said with a small hint of genuine guilt. "Yep" the man said bluntly. He had clearly had a bit of a struggle getting up the mountain, as the bottom of his desert rags were all torn and ripped. "Does it look like I'd have anywhere else to run to?" Moseth looked around from his seated position; he didn't remember climbing so high. The height he was at was already higher than the dune that surrounded the entire mountain, but apart from that raise in the level of sand, there was nothing else there. "True." he finally replied with. "So look, I've stuck with you up to now, I'm not just going to give up on you like the rest of those... Those... Ergh!" the man gave up thinking for an insult, and turned his attention back to the wall of rock ahead of him. "Wait, so what was your name then?" Moseth questioned. "You honestly don't remember?" Moseth shook his head and wondered why he, of all people, would be expected to remember something as trivial as someone’s name. "Ergh. I can see why everyone else gave up on you." The man once more turned around from Moseth and put a foot and a hand onto the wall and began to climb. “Wait!” repeated Moseth once more. “Are you not going to tell me?” Moseth began to lose interest as the man carried on climbing up the rock face. "It's Tartiwollop," the man said. Moseth finally stood up, laughed a little in his head, and climbed. It felt like days, but they had only been climbing for thirty minutes. Moseth's unhealthiness meant that Tartiwollop couldn't go as fast as he'd liked to, but this hadn't stopped him from climbing a good twenty meters ahead of Moseth. When he finally paused and looked down and he shouted: "Come on man! We'll never make it before night at this rate!" Moseth didn't reply, primarily because if he did he'd almost certainly lose concentration and fall off the vertical rock. He had to continue; he'd come so far to go back now - despite not being entirely certain on what he was tasked to accomplish. He decided he just had to put his head down and climb. Fast. So he did. He put his down his head, saw the paralysing drop below him, and instantly froze. Back in the village Moseth use to tell people that he was terrified of heights, despite never leaving ground level. He had once walked up the hill to go to the Apple store in the nearest town, but it wasn't really even a hill, more of a gentle slope. And when he finally got there after cursing God for giving him facial hair without the steady-handedness to cut it off, he didn't even buy anything; he found the iMule to be rather pretentious. "Yo Moseth!" called the voice from above. "You coming?" Moseth snapped out of a trance and had realised he'd been clinging onto the same rock for about a minute. He tried to lift his arm up to the next hold above him, but it wouldn't move. He'd been stationary for too long and his arm had seized up. He found this happening a lot to him these days, but his train of thought was far too sexual to think about at this height off of the ever-heightening jagged rocks below. "Dude you alright?" called Tartiwollop from above. "Oh yeah, fine." replied Moseth, hiding his terror rather well. "Come on then!" Moseth tried again to move his arm, but again it wouldn't budge. He tried to move his right leg as that was slowly slipping out of the hold it was in. 'Hooray!' He thought, as his leg slid out of the hold and dangled over nothingness. "S***." Moseth cursed. "Dude! Put your leg back on the rock!" "I'm trying." Moseth said rather calmly. "I'm fine." At that moment, he thought it would be a good idea to move his other leg, which now dangled helpless off the mountain as well. "Oh crap." Moseth cursed once more. Only being attached to the mountain by his seized arms, he panicked. "Help me damn it!" he cried up to Tartiwollop. Unfortunately, his arms had seized at an angle, and as Tartiwollop began climbing downwards to assist him, his seized arms suddenly gave way with a loud crack, and Moseth fell. "Moseth!" Tartiwollop cried downwards, but it was of no use. Tartiwollop just stared as Moseth fell helplessly down the mountain. He turned back to face the mountain rock. He couldn't stop now, he thought. So with a little bit of sorrow and a sudden moment of selfishness, he figured he'd climb the mountain and see what was at the top for himself. He saw a ledge about fifty meters above him, so he set off to it. Tartiwollop lifted himself up onto the ledge, which seemed to have been put there on purpose. Legs tired, he made one last push and stood upright. He took a few steps in from the edge and turned to stare at the great expanse of sand that filled his view. He could see the rock where Moseth had been sitting earlier that day asking him how to read maps. He could see the camp which the group had DIY-ed into existence the previous night to avoid being eaten by desert wolves. He could also see the group of religious-fruitcakes who were still stood at the bottom of the inexorable mountain. Tartiwollop turned around and looked up to the top of the mountain, which now didn't seem so far away. He had to continue, so he started the final leg of the climb, alone. He hadn't been climbing for anything longer than half an hour when he reached another ledge. Only he soon realised that it wasn't a ledge, but was actually the top. Two hands gripped onto the edge of the mountain and pulled a tired goateed-man up onto the top. He stood there, blinded by accomplishment and confusion. And then by something else, as a bright white light engulfed him entirely.

Tartiwollop's eyes were blinded by the sudden eruption of pure white light. He felt like he had been swallowed by a huge whale that had spotlights instead of teeth; his entire body was engulfed by the brightness. And then it stopped. It just went away. The bright light ceased to exist and Tartiwollop was left starring with blurred-vision at a group of people standing in an organised assembly in front of a man who had his head under a black piece of cloth looking through, what looked like, a box with a light on the top. He was very confused. "Excuse me," said the man who had just turned around from being under the black cloth. "Are you part of this wedding? Because if you are, I'll have to take the whole picture again. And I'll have to charge more, you know. I'm sorry, but I have eight kids at home and they all need feeding. And it’s people like you who make me hate my job. I have schedules, but you don’t seem to realise. You just think you can waltz on up to me and expect me to photograph your wedding whenever you bloody-well want to! Well I've had enough. I don't want to have to take photogra..." The man fell silent. He then, to Tartiwollop's disbelief, faded from existence. Just like the light, he just disappeared. Tartiwollop was quick to dismiss this, as the now-vanished group of people revealed something else to him. He stared in awe at a man who was sitting on a rock right in front of him. An overly-hairy man, who was sat twirling around a dried goat-skin map, trying intently to understand it. "Seriously, how do read these things?" Moseth said calmly. "But, but you fell off!" Tartiwollop questioned with exceptional puzzlement. "Funny thing really," Moseth said while still concentrating on the map. "I was falling, and then I just stopped. Then I went upwards. Was strange." "You are the oddest man I've ever known." Tartiwollop stated. "Maybe all that religious stuff wasn't such nonsense after all." Moseth considered as he stood up off the rock. "What, and you think the lord wants to keep you, of all people, alive?" "I was sent here by the son of God after all, maybe it's my destiny to pass on the laws of the Gods to the unworthy human race." "So you're all pro-religion now then?" Tartiwollop walked over to Moseth, who still twirling the map. "Nah, just thought I’d humour you for a bit. I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation. I mean, I floated to the top of a mountain, could have been just an abnormally strong updraft. My broken arms were probably healed by unlikely yet miraculous rapid cell reproduction. And there was a wedding that disappeared when you arrived because..." Moseth pondered for a bit. "Well, because you weren't invited." Moseth had a skill of saying things with such confidence that he made them sound believable despite having no proof or evidence whatsoever to back them up. Tartiwollop strangely admired him for that. Tartiwollop opened his mouth to attempt a reply, but was interrupted by a surprisingly loud yelp from Moseth, who simultaneously stuck his hand out and pointed. Tartiwollop turned around instantly. A man had appeared, sitting behind some kind of wooden desk, tapping away on a little rectangular box made from a material Moseth or Tartiwollop had ever seen. The man himself was extremely tanned, which contrasted greatly to his luscious head of well-looked-after plain-white hair. Moseth turned his head to face Tartiwollop as the two men communicated silently their mystification of the situation. "How do you spell believable?" the man said quite intently to himself. "Ah." "Excuse me?" Tartiwollop asked rather timidly. "Hang on son, just finishing this paragraph.' The man had quite a deep voice as he politely told Tartiwollop to shut up. "Son?" Tartiwollop questioned to Moseth. "There! Slowly getting through this." The man at the desk pulled the top down of the little rectangular box and looked up. "You're not my son." Moseth stepped forwards to address the man. "Sir, your son told me he couldn't make it." The man let out a heavy sigh and muttered under his breath. "Typical, always finding excuses." The man stood up. "What can I do for you then?" "My friend here told my village to come and search for a mountain, to receive holy enlightenment." Tartiwollop said as he also stepped forward. The man raised an eyebrow signalling he wasn’t amused. "Holy enlightenment? Typical humans, always after something more; never happy with what you have.” "Humans, sir?" Tartiwollop questioned. "Yes, you are humans aren't you? Or a you actually a duck?" The white-bearded man was clearly not in a mood to be kind to stupid people. "Yes, of course we’re humans. But, are you not?" The man chuckled deeply. "No." He said simply. "I am the one you called lord; I am God." Moseth began to evaluate that statement, managing to ignore the thump from Tartiwollop as he collapsed backwards onto the floor. "So, you made me fly up the mountain?" Moseth questioned. "Well yes, but I thought you were my son." God replied. "Do you know how hard it is to tell one human from the other when you all have so much hair on your face?" He went round to the front of his desk and perched on the edge. "Well you're not a very good God if you can't even tell who your own son is." Moseth said, before thinking that insulting God probably wasn’t such a good idea. "It's not my fault you haven't invented Gillette yet is it." God stated. "Gillette, what?” Moseth stared at God but he just shrugged.”Okay, what was with that wedding thing then?" "Oh, that's just a little practical joke I like playing on people when they get up here." God chuckled. "Once, I used a hologram of that scene from The Ring where the girl climbs out of the tele." God continued chuckling as a large grin came across his face. "Everyone who saw it died." "Hologram?" Moseth asked with one eyebrow slightly raised. His tone had slightly more interest than usual, and he pointed at God’s wooden desk. "Is that what that white rectangle thing is?" God reached behind and picked it up. "This? Oh no, this is a laptop; a MacBook to be precise!" "A what-book?" Moseth decided he should stop asking questions as he was finding out nothing and getting increasingly confused. "I'm everywhere, in physical location and in time. And this is what you humans invent in about, oh, two-thousand years." Moseth stroked his beard as to look like he was being intelligent and understanding everything God said. However he felt a little awkward when to his surprise he pulled out a small bird that had seemingly made a nest in it. "Seeing as I just spent nine weeks searching for and the climbing this mountain, is there anything you as God could do to enhance my life? Excess wealth perhaps?" Moseth considered it unlikely he'd accept, but thought it was worth a shot. "Ha ha ha." God chuckled, before stopping and very seriously saying: "No." Moseth looked around thinking of anything else he could try and bargain with. "But there is something you can do for me." God moved behind his desk and picked up a slab of stone with something engraved on it. "I'm writing a book you see, and I need a bit of help." "Didn't you have some laws to give out or something?" Moseth asked, vaguely remembering it might have something to do with what Jesus had said that night in the bar. "Well I did, but then I had this book I was writing." God handed the slab of stone over to Moseth who almost toppled forwards under the weight. "...and I would really like a quad-bike, so I thought I'd get this published." Moseth read the stone. "And what shall I do with this?" "Take it back with you, tell it to everyone you meet.” “Right, and what if I don’t?” Moseth quickly regretted saying this. “If you don't, I'll make the rest of your days a living hell by taking all of your limbs away." "Hmm. Thats a little harsh isn't it?" Moseth looked up at God. "Well I'm God. I can do what I want." "But..." Moseth began to think of a comeback, but thought that arguing with God was a distinctly terrible idea. "Alright." "Good," said God. "Just take the slab and read the message on it to everyone you see. And if you don't, you'll become a quadruple amputee before you can say 'sorry Lord almighty please don't take my legs!'" God let out a deep booming giggle. Moseth just stared at him, thinking that centuries of seclusion and loneliness had driven him mad. "Can't you just tell people to buy the book by planting an idea in their heads or something? Can't God do that?" "Well, yes. But I'm incredibly busy writing The Bible, and I’m interrupted lots by Apple’s constant software updates that..." God trailed off and Moseth stopped listening. Moseth, with the slab of stone in his hands, walked over to the still unconscious Tartiwollop and gave him a prompt boot to the side. "Get up," he said half heartedly. Tartiwollop let out a small murmur but remained stationery. "I'll give you a hand," said God who was once again sat behind his desk. He lifted his two arms and both Moseth and Tartiwollop lifted off of the mountain top. They began to move towards the edge of the mountain. "Remember, tell the world!" The two men, one overly hairy and the other unconscious, floated gracefully down the mountain. Little time passed before they were let free from Gods’ grasp and were once more standing on the red sand of the desert. Tartiwollop, who had completely missed all of the excitement of flying, just lay down on the sand. Moseth stood, with the slab of stone he had been given at the top of the mountain. They had landed just behind the group of people who had chased them up the mountain in the first place. Moseth thought this was a good time to get back at them, and so took up a dramatic position with the stone slab lifted above his head. No one noticed. “Er-herm!” Moseth coughed. “Oh look,” said, what seemed like, the only female member of the group. And whole country. “I have returned from the mountain with one, erm,” Moseth searched for the right word. “Commandment!” “Oh really? Is it for you to stop being so hopeless? Ha ha.” The angry man from before laughed, while other members of the group smiled. “No.” Moseth said, not quite understanding what everyone was smiling at. “I spoke to the Lord, and he has given me this slab of stone with the sole instruction of spreading the word to everyone.” Moseth took the stone slab down from above his head and began to read it. “Thou shalt,” Moseth begun. “...buy my book, available soon from all good book retailers.” The crowd just stared at him. “He’s trying to sell his book under the guise of a message from God!” The angry man was especially angry with that statement, and got out a shovel. “Get him!” Moseth wasn’t too sure what happened next, as he had closed his eyes in sheer terror. But when he opened them again, he was buried up to his neck in sand, watching the angered mob walk disappear over the sand dune. Moseth just sighed. Thank you for reading.