What? No! Doing calf raises in public does not count as adventure. Try something else.

You sneak away from the tour group and begin wandering around the Sistine Chapel. Against better judgment, you duck beneath a couple velvet ropes and tiptoe through some unauthorized areas before finding yourself at the mouth of a mysterious, dimly lit corridor.

At the end of the corridor, you find a new corridor that’s even more dim and mysterious than the last one.

Ahh! There’s a huge spider behind you now! You’ve got no choice but to go down the scary hallway.

At the end of the dark corridor is a strange, bright doorway.

Ahh! There’s a dangerous pumpkin man behind you now! You’ve got no choice but to go through the strange doorway.

“Halt! Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Through the doorway, you are met by a menacing guard with a sword.

“You’re not a murderer or anything, are you?”

“Okay, good. Mind keeping an eye on His Holiness for, like, five minutes? Just gotta run out real quick.”

“Yeah. You just gotta stand there and make sure he doesn’t leave the room—we don’t want him getting into any mischief.”

“Great, thanks. Come with me, I’ll introduce you to him.”

“Pope, I’ve got a new friend for you to meet,” the guard says to the infallible leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, who is currently standing four feet in front of you. “He’s gonna be in charge for a little while, so don’t give him any trouble, okay?”

“The Pope isn’t much of a talker,” the guard says. “But it looks like he wants to shake your hand.”

“Great, looks like you’ve got a handle on things. I’ll be back in a bit, but just remember: Don’t let the Pope leave this room.”

You nod reassuringly. The guard leaves, and suddenly it’s just you and His Holiness alone in the room.

Sitting across from you, the Pope stares silently. Looks like it’s up to you to steer the conversation.

The Pope says nothing.

The Pope remains silent.

“...”

The Pope raises his hand. Looks like he has a question.

“I need to make toilet, please,” the Pope says.

Hmm. The Pope needs to go to the bathroom, but the guard said that he needed to stay put.

“I must make toilet. I am the Pope.”

“Very well,” the Pope says.

“...”

“...”

You notice a little twinkle in the Pope’s eye. He grins ever so slightly. Then it hits you: the unmistakable aroma of urine. You look down and notice a sizable wet spot spreading across the front of the Pope’s vestments.

“I told you I had to make toilet, did I not?” says the Pope, smiling slightly.

“Oh, come on!” says the guard, returning to the room just as you’re frantically attending to the Pope’s piss-soaked vestments. “What the hell happened? I was gone for literally four minutes.”

“Okay, but he’s not a fucking 5-year-old. He’s the successor to Saint fucking Peter, and you wouldn’t let him go to the bathroom? Goddammit! Sorry, but I gotta send you to jail for this one.”

The guard charges toward you with a pair of handcuffs.

While the Pope is using the bathroom, you gaze around the papal residence. Everything looks very nice, but also weirdly shitty.

Most of the furniture is the typical kind of furniture that old, rich people buy—the kind that you can tell costs a ton of money but is always uncomfortable no matter how you sit on it.

Like, see, this chair probably cost ten thousand bucks, but it’s terrible. Why’s there so much brass and wood in places that are supposed to be soft? No one wants to sit in that.

Hmm. The Pope’s been gone for a while now. Going to the bathroom shouldn’t take this long.

That’s weird. There’s no audible toilet use happening in there. Better make sure everything’s okay.

Huh. No response. What if he died? That’d be awful. You’d be remembered forever as the guy who couldn’t watch the Pope for five minutes without him dying. They’d probably assume that you killed him, too, and then you would go to jail.

You should go in there and make sure he isn’t dead.

Oh, shit! The old man flew the coop! You shouldn’t have let him leave the room.

Better go find him fast, otherwise you’ll be in serious trouble.

Okay, don’t panic. The Pope ran away, but it wasn’t entirely your fault. You can’t be blamed for not suspecting that a 78-year-old might do that.

Now think. How can you fix this?

You run out to St. Peter’s Square hoping to find the Pope, but you can’t see him anywhere. You check the ground for fresh scat, but you find nothing. This isn’t going to be easy. To find the Pope, you’re going to need to think like the Pope.

Where would the Pope want to be?

Yes, of course! The Pope probably just wanted to go look at some Bibles! And seeing that the Bible is a book, there’s really only one logical place he could’ve gone: the library.

You enter the library and make a beeline for the librarian’s desk.

“Hi, where is the Pope?” you ask her, mimicking the loud, vulgar lilt prevalent among the Italian people.

“Silenzio!” she replies in the loud, vulgar lilt prevalent among the Italian people.

You don’t know enough of the language to decipher what she said, but you have a good feeling that it was, “He is over there, to the left.”

Now that’s a spicy meatball!

Sure enough, you spot the Pope exactly where the librarian said he would be. Excellenzio! Unfortunately, the Pope spots you too, and as soon as you start walking toward him, he throws a chair through the window and escapes out into the street.

You chase the Pope down to the banks of the Tiber river, but just as you’re about to catch him he hops into an idling motor-gondola and speeds off into the sunset, perhaps never to be seen again.

“I am the fast Pope!” you hear him shout from far off in the distance. “You are the slow Pope!”

You wander up and down the dark streets for hours trying to piece together how things went so wrong.

Eventually, you walk past a small café with a television facing out toward the street, and something catches your eye. It’s you. Your face is being shown on a news broadcast as the man who kidnapped the Pope, which isn’t what actually happened, but, given the evidence, you can understand how that conclusion was reached.

Before you even have time to worry, you suddenly see bright blue lights glaring at the end of the block, and two police cruisers start barreling toward you angrily meep-meeping their little horns. Shit.

“Hulkster, sorry to bother you, but the man who kidnapped the Pope was recently seen wandering around this general area,” one of the cops says. “Have you seen him by any chance?”

“But if you’re not Hulk Hogan, why did you just rip your shirt and flex?” the other cop asks, eyeing you suspiciously. “Only Hulk Hogan does that.”

You’re dangerously close to blowing your cover. Better play this one smart.

“Ah, now I understand,” he says. “In light of this new information, I believe we should take you to jail.”

“Hmm, sounds suspicious,” he says. “But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt since you were my favorite wrestler growing up. Meet us back at the papal residence in five minutes—with the Pope. You’re walking on thin ice, buster.”

You return to Vatican City, where thousands of tourists are swarming the main public square. Considering the size of the crowd, you realize that your odds of finding the Pope are slim.

Yikes, where do you even start? With a crowd this size, finding the Pope seems just about hopeless.

Oh. There he is.

You grab the Pope and hustle back to the papal residence, where you find the cops waiting for you.

“So, did you find the Pope or what?” one of the cops asks. “If you didn’t, we will take you to jail, and you will have to stay there for soooo long.”

“Yes, actually, I did find him,” you report. “He is standing right over there.”

“That’s not the Pope,” the cop says.

“What?” you reply, the alarm audible in your voice. “Of course that’s the Pope!”

“No, it’s not,” he says. “I don’t even think that’s a real guy. Looks like some sort of latex ape robot or something.”

“Of course he’s real!” you insist. “Watch.”

Your projectile nails the Pope-like being squarely in the forehead, but it reacts in no visible way. It just stands there. Slowly, it begins to dawn on you that whatever this thing is that you’ve brought back to the papal residence, it is almost certainly not the Pope.

“Okay, you’re going to go to jail now,” the cop announces.

You run down into the crowd and grab the first person you see who looks vaguely Pope-like. It’s not an exact match, but hopefully the police won’t be able to tell the difference.

You take the makeshift Pope and hustle back to the papal residence, where you find the cops waiting for you.

“So, did you find the Pope or what?” one of the cops asks. “If you didn’t, we will take you to jail, and you will have to stay there for soooo long.”

“Yes, actually, I did find him,” you report. “He is standing right over there.”

“Your Holiness!” the cop exclaims. “You’re back! So happy to see that you’ve been safely returned. I trust that our friend here has treated you with dignity and respect and hasn’t harmed you in any way?”

The stand-in Pope says nothing.

“Correct,” the stand-in says, eyeing you warily. “I am the Pope, and this man did not harm me in any way.”

You breathe a huge sigh of relief.

“Very well then,” the cop says, turning to face you. “I suppose you’re free to leave.”

Grateful, you quickly gather your things and start heading for the door.

“WAIT!” barks the stand-in Pope. “Not so fast. In order to leave, this man must first sit on my lap for 10 minutes. I am the Pope, and we play by my rules.”

You look back at the makeshift Pope to see if he’s kidding, but you immediately realize that he is dead serious.

“Ah, thank you, Hulkster,” he says. “You are the best.”

The police officers then get back in their cars and peel away.

Phew. Seems like you’ve successfully evaded arrest (for now, at least), but you still haven’t found the Pope. To find the Pope, you’ve got to think like the Pope, and the only other place you can imagine he might be is in Heaven.

So, looks like you’re going to Heaven. How do you want to get there?

You book it down the alley but discover that it is, annoyingly, a dead end. At the end of the alley, however, is a large, unassuming wooden door, and while you have no idea where it leads, perhaps it might afford you a quiet place to lay low. The cops are quickly catching up to you, so you had better make a decision fast.

Several minutes later, the guard returns, and you patiently explain what happened—making sure to reiterate numerous times that it wasn’t your fault.

“Hmm, yes, I see,” the guard says, staring at you with unsettling intensity. “You did literally the one thing I told you not to, and now the Pope is gone.”

The guard glares at you silently for 30 or 40 seconds, never blinking once.

Great idea! Heaven is the Pope’s favorite place to go when he wants to get away from it all. How would you like to get there?

Um...that’s a bad idea. Just go through the door.

Ah, it’s a church. Seems like a safe enough place for you to hide out until the Pope situation cools down a little.

Oh, shit! You walk around the corner and stumble upon an old man praying, and it scares the living hell out of you.

“Halt! Who are you? You shouldn’t be here.”

Oh, no. As you’re trying to sneak away, the old man spots you and threatens to subdue you with his old, gross fist.

You say hello to the old man, but it startles him, prompting him to raise his old skeleton hand in a defensive posture.

“Who are you? What are you doing here? This church is closed to the public!”

“You’re the kid who kidnapped the Pope, aren’t you? I saw your face on the news.”

The old man stares at you distrustfully. You try to maintain eye contact but are distracted by the way his droopy nipples and withered stomach pouch combine to form the startling likeness of a frowning baby.

“Relax, I’m not judging you. We’re all guilty of something. And besides, the Pope deserved whatever he had coming. He and his cronies fucked me over royally back in the day. Would you like to hear the story? I don’t get many visitors around here, and I’m desperate to talk to another human being.”

“Great!” the old man exclaims. “You’re the first human being I’ve spoken to in many years. I talk to my vacuum cleaner, Margaret, sometimes, but it’s not the same. I make love to her sometimes, too, but doing so is extraordinarily painful—much different than with a real woman, I’d imagine. But where was I? Ah, yes! I was going to tell you about the time the Pope and his cronies screwed me over big time.”

The old man pauses and stares ahead contemplatively, as if revisiting memories of times long past.

“The year was 1963, and believe it or not, I was the Pope. Pope John XXIII, they called me, and as a man born to a poor sharecropping family, I was using my pontificate to promote ideas that strayed from the typical regal decorum of my papal predecessors—so-called radical ideas rooted in justice and equality that rankled many of the more lordly members of the church establishment.

“One day in early June, I gave a sermon at a meeting of the Second Vatican Council in which I professed my very earnest belief that God physically resembles an anthropomorphic soccer ball. This was a revelation that had come to me in a dream—Yahweh showed himself to me, and he was a soccer ball with human legs and human arms but no face whatsoever.

“This declaration was loudly decried as heresy, and no one was more ardent in his condemnation than a young, up-and-coming priest from Argentina named Jorge Bergoglio, whom we all know today as Pope Francis. Within a week of my pronouncement, Jorge and a small faction of equally bitter archbishops had successfully circulated a rumor that I’d fallen ill with stomach cancer and was swiftly nearing death. That gaggle of scoundrels then kidnapped me in the middle of the night and imprisoned me here in this church, warning me that if I ever dared leave they would leak humiliating private recordings from a secret meeting between me, Kennedy, and Khrushchev in which I attempted to mitigate Cold War tensions by doing a very funny, yet very racist impression of a Chinese man getting his penis stuck in a Coca-Cola bottle.

“Jorge and his cowardly crew then announced to the world that I had fatally succumbed to my illness, which allowed them to swoop in and manipulate the Catholic Church to their liking. And in the 52 years since, I’ve been watching helplessly from this dark and wretched abbey, a captive to my own shame.”

“Don’t believe me, eh? That’s okay. I have proof.”

The old man reaches into his diaper-like underwear and pulls out a white mask.

“Behold the Virgin’s Scowl, a plaster cast of the holy mother’s face purportedly taken at the moment Jesus refused to use his powers to make her a solid-gold pet gorilla. For centuries, it’d been tradition for popes to wear this mask at their coronation, but none have done so since me, simply because I, the rightful Keeper of the Mask, never relinquished it to Jorge and his goons. So, you see, the Keeper of the Mask is the one true pope—that’s how it’s always been.”

Wow. Looks like the old man wasn’t lying after all. He really is the true pope, and if that’s the case, then he should be the one at the Vatican.

Suddenly, you’re struck with a brilliant idea: If Pope Francis is currently away from his post at the papal apartment, then nothing’s stopping the old man from going back and reclaiming the papacy he deserves.

Despite your objection, the old man gazes off into the distance and begins telling his story.

“The year was 1963, and believe it or not, I was the Pope. Pope John XXIII, they called me, and as a man born to a poor sharecropping family, I was using my pontificate to promote ideas that strayed from the typical regal decorum of my papal predecessors—so-called radical ideas rooted in justice and equality that rankled many of the more lordly members of the church establishment.

“One day, I gave a sermon at a meeting of the Second Vatican Council in which I professed my very earnest belief that God physically resembles an anthropomorphic soccer ball. This was a revelation that had come to me in a dream—Yahweh showed himself to me, and he was a soccer ball with human legs and human arms but no face whatsoever.

“This declaration was loudly decried as heresy, and no one was more ardent in his condemnation than a young, up-and-coming priest from Argentina named Jorge Bergoglio, whom we all know today as Pope Francis. Within a week of my pronouncement, Jorge and a small faction of equally bitter archbishops circulated a rumor that I’d fallen ill with stomach cancer and was swiftly nearing my death. That gaggle of scoundrels then kidnapped me in the middle of the night and imprisoned me here in this church, warning me that if I ever dared leave they would leak humiliating private recordings from a secret meeting between me, Kennedy, and Khrushchev in which I attempted to mitigate Cold War tensions by doing a very funny, yet very racist impression of a Chinese man getting his penis stuck in a Coca-Cola bottle.

“Jorge and his cowardly crew then announced to the world that I had fatally succumbed to my illness, which allowed them to swoop in and manipulate the Catholic Church to their liking. And in the 52 years since, I’ve been watching helplessly from this dark and wretched abbey, a captive to my own shame.”

“Do something?” the old man replies as a sizable beetle crawls out of his ear and skitters across his face into his mouth. “Like what?”

“Well,” you say, “if Pope Francis is currently away from his post at the papal apartment, what’s stopping you from going back and reclaiming your rightful papacy? You could be the pope again—today!”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” responds the old man after several moments of deliberation. “But you gotta carry me there. My legs don’t work for shit no more.”

You return to the papal residence and are immediately confronted by the guard.

“What the fuck, man, where have you been?” the guard yells. “And where’s the fucking Pope?”

“Long time no see, Clancy,” says the old man to the guard.

“P-p-pope John XXIII?” stammers the guard, his head rotating a full 360 degrees with disbelief. ”But I thought you were dead!”

“The only thing dead is Pope Francis’ career,” says the old man, spitting a bolus of mucus onto the polished floor to punctuate his reply. “That cowardly Uncle Fester–lookin’ motherfucker and his shithead friends staged my death back in 1963 because they were intimidated by the notion of a sporting equipment–shaped God. But ol’ Jorge’s reign of terror ends today. I am officially reclaiming my title as the worldwide leader of the Catholic Church.”

Several minutes later, the guard returns.

“Hey, where’d the Pope go?” the guard asks. “You didn’t let him leave the room, did you?”

You blow your fucking brains out with a .41 Magnum and, as expected, are immediately transported to Heaven.

The garbage bags hold together beautifully, and after a nine-day vertical journey through space in which there were zero opportunities to use the bathroom, you arrive at the gates of Heaven.

“Hello, and welcome to Heaven, the big pile of clouds filled with dead grandmas. I am the Archangel Turok, general concierge and guardian of God’s many sports trophies. How may I assist you?”

“Very well,” Turok replies. “I will take you to see your dead grandma. Follow me.”

“Here she is,” says Turok, gesturing to your beloved Nonnie. “May I assist you with anything else?”

“I am afraid I cannot disclose this information,” says Turok. “The Pope is a privileged patron of the Eternal Kingdom, and those who wish to know his location must either consult with God directly or bite their own penis off as a sign of good faith.”

After contorting your body in ways you didn’t know were possible, you finally manage to bend forward enough to bite off your own penis. It is the most excruciating pain you have ever experienced, and you feel like you are going to die.

“Oh, dear, no,” gasps Turok, covering his eyes with his hands. “I was just joking when I said that you should bite your own penis off. Was that not obvious? I’m afraid the only way you can learn the Pope’s location is to speak with God directly.”

“Yes, certainly, God would be happy to meet with you,” Turok says. “Please, follow me, and be sure to remove any large or shiny jewelry so as not to scare Him.”

Turok guides you through a series of increasingly wet and narrow tunnels, ultimately leading to a cavernous, empty room where you find yourself face-to-face with the Lord Of All Creation, God. Right away, you observe that God’s appearance differs from most of the artistic depictions you’ve seen, mainly in that He is a sentient soccer ball with arms and legs.

“Hello,” He says to you. “I am God.”

“I have heard you are here to ask me a question,” God says. “Thank you for coming to ask a question.”

He pauses and says nothing for over 30 minutes.

“What is the question you would like to ask me? I am God.”

“I would rather not say. It is gross.”

“Certainly. But first, I would like you to come watch my son play soccer.”

“Unacceptable! You must watch my boy play soccer. Do not defy my will.”

“I am very proud of my son, whose name is Loomis. He is skilled at the game of soccer. Come, fly with me, and we will watch him.”

“Behold my son Loomis, who is very skilled at soccer. I tuck my arms and legs into my body, and he kicks me every which way. This is how we bond.”

“I created this soccer field in the clouds from one of my ribs. I did it so that Loomis could have a safe place to hone his skills at the game of soccer. My secret wish is that he would one day be skilled enough to play in the Olympics. This would please me greatly.”

“He is 13 years old. Did I mention that? Thirteen years old and he is already as large as a man. His large size is part of what makes him so skilled at the game of soccer.”

You continue watching Loomis play soccer for several long hours, and eventually you start to get the sense that if you don’t step up and say something, God will make you keep watching for the rest of your natural life.

“Your impatience incites a quiet rage within me,” says God. “Hence, I have decided that I will no longer honor the original terms of our deal. If you would like me to reveal the Pope’s location, you must first score a goal on my son Loomis, who, although very skilled on offense, is also a talented goalkeeper.”

You square up in front of the ball and get ready to take your shot. In the goalie box, Loomis rapidly does pushups while maintaining intense eye contact with you—a clear intimidation tactic.

“I can see into the future, and I already know that you will not score on my beloved Loomis,” says God. “Loomis is very skilled at soccer. He practices every day.”

It’s the moment of truth. What do you want to do?

Your plan works perfectly. When you shout “Left!” Loomis immediately dives to the left side of the net, allowing you a wide-open shot on the right. It’s a goal.

Humiliated, Loomis begins slamming his head against the goal post, trying to end his life. God, on the other hand, doesn’t seem embarrassed at all, but rather downright impressed.

“I did not believe it was possible to score on my son Loomis, as he is very skilled at the game of soccer,” God tells you. “But, clearly, your skill as an athlete transcends that of any other living being. Knowing this, I would now like you to help my very nonathletic son, Randall, become a more competent sportsman. Once you have done this, I will tell you where to find the Pope.”

God leads you to an expanse of open white space, at the center of which is his nonathletic son, Randall.

“Here is my other son, Randall, who does not make me proud,” God says, kissing Randall on the forehead. “I will leave you with him for one year. If, when I return, you have conditioned him into a skilled athlete like my son Loomis, who is excellent at soccer, then I will show you to the Pope. This is the agreement. I am God. Goodbye.”

God then tucks his arms and legs into his soccer ball torso and rolls off toward the sun. Now it’s just you and Randall.

Looks like it’s just you and Randall for the next year. Fuck. Where do you even start?

An overwhelming sense of hopelessness begins spreading to every fiber of your being. Meanwhile, Randall just sits there and stares at you, breathing loudly through his stuffy nostrils. A minute or two passes without either of you saying anything, and then Randall finally breaks the ice.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” he says quietly. “We could just go get high with some angels.”

Hmm. Interesting.

“Wanna do that instead?”

You kick the ball as hard as you can, but Loomis easily makes the save. This delights God to no end.

“It is satisfying to watch my son Loomis excel at the game of soccer,” declares God. “Seeing him compete against someone as athletically incapable as you makes me realize just how truly skilled he is. Thank you for granting me this new perspective into my son’s excellence. As a reward, you may ask me any favor and I will grant it.”

Oh, weird. That worked out way better than you expected.

“Yes, I can,” God says. “He is over there, in the Angel Wad.”

You look over to where God is pointing, and sure enough, there’s the Pope. He’s floating around in what God called the Angel Wad, which you gather to be some sort of dense vortical gathering of angels where they frantically brush their wings against one another in order to derive intense carnal pleasure. Nice. Unfortunately, the Angel Wad is very high up in the air, and you don’t have the ability to fly. You’re going to have to lure the Pope down with your words.

What do you want to say?

Surprisingly, the Pope listens to you and immediately comes down.

“Jesus, Pope, I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” you shout. “Don’t ever run away from me like that again.”

The Pope softly mumbles something that you’re pretty sure is “Sorry.” You feel bad for yelling at him and give him a hug. For some reason, he smells like gasoline.

“Well, should we take you back to Earth now?” you ask.

“Okay,” he agrees.

Great, you’ve finally got the Pope. Now, how do you want to get back?

Despite a scary moment in which the Pope nearly suffocated on one of the garbage bags, your parachute safely carries you back to the Vatican.

You ask God to teleport you and the Pope back to the Vatican, and he says that he will, but only under the condition that you go watch his son Loomis play soccer for another five hours. You agree, and after you do your time, God safely transports you to St. Peter’s Basilica.

You sneak back into the Pope’s apartment, where you’re met once again by the papal guard.

“Hey, where the hell have you guys been?” he shouts. “You better not have left the apartment.”

“So, you’re saying you want me to leave my dismal prison-church to return to my palace of gold and once again become the most celebrated religious figure in the world?” the old man asks, silently weighing the pros and cons. “Hmmm...yeah, sure, why not. But you gotta carry me there. My legs don’t work for shit no more.”