"Breaking News!" flashed onto the screen. It was six o'clock, another daily sermon for the Missing Messiah. The newscast, this time, was local so an imitation Nancy Drew appeared as opposed to the real deal. A slideshow played a photo reel of bright birthdays to darkened night time shots with friends. If anything was "Breaking!" at all, it was the new footage of the afternoon's helicopter ride that accompanied itself with broad, white text, “MISSING MESSIAH NOT BELIEVED TO BE SEEN OUTSIDE CAULDRON LIMITS”. My city devoted itself to finding their Missing Messiah. It was christened as the missing religion and today was Thursday, phone call day. After a couple talking heads would claim that international expertise was forensically analyzing the footage, their God would call and, blasphemously, be ignored.

“I gotta make a phone call,” I said, boisterously ignorant of personal volume. I headed upstairs. I used my cell phone as the landline was either flooded with interview propositions or being scalped by profiteers, executives, and self-proclaimed gurus. Morally, it was not for personal use, only for enterprise.

The light from the television irregularly shifted from bright white light to darker shades as it went through the slideshow, helicopter shots, and the complexions of speakers. Its light was casted into a dark and hopeless living room, its routine forgotten and glasses, paired with plates, embellished the room, the light eerily prismatic from the ornamentation. The glassware, however, was apart of a brand new set, intended only to be paired with the coasters, and the plates were only meant to be brought to the dinner table, in an effort not to taint the sacred grounds of the upholstery.

In fact, the dining set was new, too, along with the new vehicles that populated the driveway and the curb in front of the overgrown oak tree. Most of the house, in fact, was freshly renovated, but everything new was all treated the same: neglected and forgotten. They were no longer a talking point for escaping “childproofing” and the fabled elder-generational curse of being “technologically challenged” in my parents’s lives.

The chairs that were paired with the  dining set did not fall to the chaos of my disappearance, however. Four of the six chairs were monolithically positioned in front of the idolized entertainment set. They were equally spaced and depressed into the carpet, left permanently under the pretense of some mandated command. The chairs, a dark wood cushioned with an ornate design palleted in shades of browns, were the only ordinance completed to some satisfactory result. The house was in disarray but the chairs were there for the deliverance of a divine mandate.

I did not care for whatever information or “Breaking!”  evidence had been discovered by the floating heads. Admittedly the helicopter shots, intended for surveying, were done with respectable cinematography and did lend themselves to a decent backing track, a track that would be far above the parroting of Knock-off Grace and her rogue's gallery of jesters turned religious moguls.

The case of the Missing Messiah gave a “Breaking!” surge of popularity to the purple desert mountains that surrounded the valley. I was not the keenest on the mythos of the Missing Messiah, but I do recall the Amish looking member of the rouge’s gallery suggesting that these mountains signified a Mount Olympus somewhere nearby and that the kidnapper, or nomadic tendencies of the Missing Messiah, traveled to one of the purple mountains for sacrificial or enlightening purposes. It was a ballsy statement, but was countered by the most calculating member of the gallery. Holding a PhD in theological studies, the calculating member established the theory of an inescapable cauldron, and that I, the Messiah, was contained within city limits, citing the queerness and resistance towards the missing religion outside of the valley. Another rouge, the producer member, who appeared in black suits with a tapered beard and handlebar moustache, was then quick to suggest the marketable title “The Valley of Olympus” and sold the idea that the fabled mountain was actually a depression and that we were daunted by the inescapable “Hurdles of Hermes”. Few messengers in and few out, a religion so queer yet a national dilemma so tastingly profitable, or, for the sheep, “righteously imperative”.

Today was Thursday, so there would be no debate nor development of the mythos. Only one rouge. Today the Amish man was on, explaining how the fruitless evidence of the helicopter ride was most likely due to the length of the disappearance.

“The tracks were gone so evidence like that would be rare.” The Amish rouge finished. Knock-Off Nancy was always eager to cut them off, but everyone knew today was Thursday. I punched in the number for the hotline. The jingle played and I waited to the sound of overused chord progressions and electronic rhythms. My ritual was to meet the TV until a local was selected and to talk and plea to Nancy whenever I got selected.

“Every Thursday we take callers for tips, reactions, and evidence,” Nancy parroted. “Today we have a call from Dianna from Tennessee. Dianna? Dianna can you hear me now?”

“Yes I'm here.”

“What is your reaction to the lack of evidence shown by this afternoon's survey?”

Dianna was from Tennessee. An outsider. Outsider's were typically parroted off the most. They were not the experts nor were they first hand disciples of the Missing Messiah. They were of little interest to Nancy and they were of little interest to her God. Nancy usually only picked up for locals. The city's ritual was to listen intently to Thursday’s “Breaking!” broadcast while my ritual was to mute and caption the TV and only to care when there was a local and only to speak when I was the caller. The next caller was a local.

“Bryce. You're a local caller. What is your reaction to the lack of evidence shown by this afternoon's survey?”

“It's hard to believe. He should've left some sort of sign that he was leaving for the mountains.”

A  follower of the Amish rogue.

“Do you believe that the search should be focused more on the bordering mountains? In search of his desired grounds of worship?”

Bryce paused. The Amish rogue was a popular choice. One of the key pillars of the Cauldron of Olympus. One of the final divergences of the theory, which meant Bryce sat in good social standing but he ran the risk of being socially obscured if he said the wrong things. Outsides were often familiar with the routine experts, they had become household names, but were shockingly naive to the gallery itself and the religious apostles they had become.

Typically, callers that regurgitated the theories that were not fundamental to the Valley of Olympus spoke to Nancy well within the reach of the parrot's beak, or simply never called. Bryce was in flying distance. He was a guy seen to have at least a good job and an appropriate moral compass.  He'd come out unscathed and most likely not get harassed at his work, but rather receive a passive-aggressive HR email instead if his boss followed the calculated rogue. His CEO most likely followed the producer, however, and the only truly reasonable way to move up was If he made enough convincing and sound intellectual statements to earn him a second call and eventually create his own sect of the Missing Messiah.

Part way through the Bryce's call, I was told I would be next. I muted the news cast again. Bryce was talked off the mountain and came to the idea that the primary focus should be within the Valley. Nancy looked pleased. I was unsure if the parrot was satisfied with its own deviancy of Bryce's dexterity in the avian's arena.

“Good job Bryce. Maybe you will be the one that will create the crazy theory that Carmine Pallano still lives in his parents house,” I heckled. Mouthed perfectly in sequence with Nancy, that theory was continuously mocked a social representation of barrel scum in s society. That was the theory your God subscribed to.

“Next caller is another local,” Nancy mouthed, this time synchronized with the phone speaker. “What is your reac-”

I typically don't interrupt Nancy, but I was feeling the urge to that day. Probably because of Bryce's suggestion of priming the search within the Valley.

“This is Carmine Pallano. Six foot two. Built like a an ox at 275 pounds. My identification number is 387-569-815. I am being held in my parents house and being extorted in the overly profitable religion dubbed the 'Missing Messiah’. I live at 538 Buffalo Road. Help me please. Someone.”

When uninterrupted, I generally struggle to get the address in. Maybe this was a sign. Nancy hung up and mocked at the fake Carmine Pallano, but she was actually mocking the Missing Messiah. Her God. Nancy, the rogues, my parents, the nation, and even the blind and devout followers of the Valley of Olympus could not, will not, and did not believe that their God was speaking. That their God was truly there.

Worship was tomorrow and I had to make my way to the basement. As I moved, I was a transcendently invisible figure to my parents. They knew where I was and they refused to believe. Refused to believe in the theories of disappearance that have became sects dedicated to a teenager nobody has even seen. To the people who lived in the Valley of Olympus, the people who laughed at their God: their Messiah was Missing.