Thread by @Delafina777

This is a day full of betrayal.

@Archaeotagh had offered to drop off some lunch (which was, in fact, delicious) so when there was a knock on my door, I opened it without looking.

It was missionaries. And they didn't even have the decency to bring me food.

I opened the door, and there was a pair of women, in skirts, standing there. I had a moment of I HAVE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE but now they had seen me so I couldn't just shut the door and pretend I wasn't home.

"Good morning," said the taller of the two. "It's a really difficult time right now."
I nodded cautiously, trying to figure out how to unobtrusively warn the Muslim family upstairs.
"We're going door-to-door," said the other, "offering people comfort."

This was a new approach. I tilted my head slightly, which was a mistake.
"And that comfort," said the first one, continuing a clearly well-rehearsed duet, "is the Bible."
I shrank back into the doorway a bit.

"Do you read the Bible?" asked the second skirt lady.
"So," I began, somewhat breathlessly, "I'm Jewish, so--"
They exchanged a glance.

"Do you read the Bible?" the first skirt lady echoed.
"We WROTE the Bible," I reminded her, in what I thought was a gentle but no-nonsense tone.
"GOD wrote the Bible," she corrected me in exactly the same tone.
"God doesn't have hands," I muttered.

"God does have hands," intoned Skirt Lady #2, serenely. "They were pierced with nails when he died so that we could have eternal life."
"This you call comforting?" I said.
"Have you encountered him?" asked Skirt Lady #1.
"You mean Jesus?" I clarified. "Or God?"

"They're the same," said Skirt Lady #2, in the tone of a very patient teacher with a not-overly-bright student who STILL doesn't get a basic concept that's already been explained 10 or 11 times.

"I mean," I said, "one of them is the life-force of the universe and the other one's my cousin. Many times removed, obviously, but still, there's a little bit of category confusion there, I think."

They exchanged another glance and took a synchronized breath together.

"So," said Skirt Lady #1. "Do you read the Bible?"

"Literally every Saturday," I said. "And, like, I'm trying to Daf Yomi right now so every day, actually, although technically the Talmud is commentary?"

"It's very comforting, don't you think?" said Skirt Lady #2.

"I mean," I said, "that sort of depends on where you are in the whole thing? The entirety of Bamidbar is essentially a horror movie where you're just waiting for everyone to die."

"We find it very comforting to have proof of God's love that we can hold in our hands," said Skirt Lady #1.
I winced. "You shouldn't touch the scroll directly," I said. "Finger oil is bad for them and they're very expensive to replace."

"We were wondering whether you had personally experienced Jesus's love," continued Skirt Lady #1. "We'd like to tell you about it."
"So," I said, "about the part where I'm Jewish--"

"Yes," said Skirt Lady #2. "We're sorry about that." She smiled at me, a beatific, pitying, Madonna-like smile.
"I'm not," I said with a certain amount of asperity.
"We'd like to offer you comfort," said Skirt Lady #1.

"I really have to get back to work," I said.
"Do you read the Bible?" asked Skirt Lady #2.

I gaped at them.

Then I checked my phone to make sure I wasn't in some sort of time loop.

But no, time had passed. Yet there they were, smiling changelessly at me.

"Okay," I said, "thanks for coming and I hope you have a very nice day. I have to go now." I shut the door and peered through the peephole. They were still there, smiling at the door. I backed away. After a moment, they began knocking on my next door neighbor's door.

I went out onto my balcony and leaned backwards over the railing, trying to see onto my upstairs neighbor's balcony. "Hello up there?" I called.

There was no response. "I don't know if you can hear me," I said loudly, "but DON'T ANSWER THE DOOR. It's missionaries."

No response. I heard voices outside my door. My next-door neighbors must have opened the door. There was no help for them. But if I went out my front door to go knock on my upstairs neighbors' door, the missionaries might eat me.

I heard footsteps upstairs. I went back onto the balcony. "This is your downstairs neighbor," I shouted. "Just warning you that there are missionaries going door to door in our building."

I heard a door open, and went back to the peephole. My upstairs neighbors were hurrying down the stairs to their car, brushing past the missionaries. I don't know if they were leaving anyway, but I felt great relief for them.

Fin.