Jennifer Pelland’s short fiction has appeared in many magazines, such as Apex, Alien Skin, Helix, Escape Pod, Electric Velocipede, Strange Horizons, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and Shock Totem. It has also appeared in the anthologies Dark Faith, Dark Faith 2, Dark Futures, and Demon Lovers: Succubi, and much of her short work was published in her collection, Unwelcome Bodies. Pelland is also a two-time finalist for the Nebula Award. Her first novel, Machine, was published in January 2012.

In 1989, strange ads began to appear in London’s classified column—ads for one’s “own personal Jesus.” It seemed like just another joke, until a second wave of the ads followed, this time containing a phone number. Those who called it discovered a recording of a catchy, blues-inspired song. It wasn’t quite a prank: the ads were a promotion for the soon-to-be hit single “Personal Jesus,” by the band Depeche Mode.

Since the release of “Personal Jesus,” it has gone on to be the band’s biggest seller (and in 2006, Q Magazine named it one of the one hundred best songs ever written). But just think how big a seller a real personal Jesus might be. What if you could carry around your own portable deity, ready to comfort and assist you whenever you needed?

Our next tale delivers just such a creation. It’s up to you to decide if you’d buy one…or is it?