THE GIFT OF LIFE
by Jerome Comeau


[  Jerome Comeau is a junior at Rockhurst high School in Kansas City,
Missouri.  He sings (quite well, we're told), plays chess, and, most
importantly, wrote this story.  Unfortunately, he doesn't modem...but,
alas, this is not by choice.  He's really a modemer at heart.  And whatever
you do, don't ask him about the fashion line he's coming out with...  ]


(c)1990 Jerome Comeau


     Some people call me Christ.  Others call me Satan.  I call me Jason
Bannon.  See, I have a very special gift, what the scientists call a
mutation.
     I can raise the dead.
     When I was real little, about four, my mom took me to my first
Catholic Mass.  It was long and repetitive, and the music was mostly flat,
but my mom liked it, so I pretended to like it too.  After we got home, my
mom asked me if I wanted to go again.  Not wanting to hurt mom's feelings,
I said yes.  From then on, every Sunday morning, I was awakened early, and
mom and I went to mass.
     When I was about fourteen or fifteen (I think fifteen, but I'm not
sure), I came home from school and found Sophie, the house cat, splattered
on the street.  I started to scream my head off, and mom came to the door
to see what was happening.  She was shocked by what she saw next.
     I leaned over Sophie, and I wished she would get up and be all right
again.  I reached down and nudged her to help her up, then she bounced up
as good as new.  Now, I was not a stupid kid, and I knew enough biology to
know that if Sophie had been splattered literally, she ought not to be
walking around as she was.
     I examined her closely and could find nothing wrong with her:  no
scratches, no tire treads, no bumps, no broken bones, nothing.  She was
perfectly healthy.
     Then she had kittens.  It was impossible!  I had her fixed last year
after three litters (unwanted).  I took her to the vet, and he said that a
cat that was six years old should not be in such good shape.  It was as if
she were a newborn, JUST BORN RECENTLY.
     That was when people really started to look at me strangely and
whisper to each other.  I started to scrutinize Catholic scriptures,
studying them intensely almost every night.  My pastor asked me to do the
homily on the Resurrection, that Sunday being easter and all.  He said I
was the best man for the job because I had been studying them more than
he.  I said sure, I'd do it.
     That Sunday, I got up in front of everybody, said my piece, cited
scripture, and got it all out.  Then someone yelled that I had raised a
cat to life.  He wanted to know how I had done it.  I said that that was
ridiculous, that only Jesus could do that.  The he claimed that I was
committing sacrilege, calling myself Jesus.
     Then suddenly, I knew I could do it.  I could heal someone.  So right
there in front of God and everyone, I made a challenge that I could make a
man live again.  The fact was that the church had been waiting for me to
try something like that ever since I had revived Sophie.  Now they would
have a chance to throw me out and not look discriminatory in the law's
eyes.
     So I went and did it.
     The man's name was Robert Stevens, and he had died of cancer.  He had
smoked entirely too much when he was working as an accountant, and now he
had paid the price.  He had died just a couple of hours before at
9:26--sunrise.  It was as if he had just wanted to see it one last time. 
The doctor, being a member of the parish, let me in to see him for "just a
few minutes."
     His eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, and his body was cold to
the touch.  He was dead by medical and real life terms, and nothing was
going to bring him back to life.  Everyone was waiting outside, so I had
to make it quick.  I asked God to let my gift work, and I bent over and
touched his forehead between the eyes.
     Robert suddenly awoke with a tremendous scream, the scream of joy,
the scream of birth, and arched over the table.  He relaxed somewhat, fell
off the table, and tumbled to the floor, laughing and weeping for joy.  I
could think of nothing else to do, so I leaned over and kissed him on the
cheek.  He looked up at me, into my eyes, then kissed my sneakers.  He
sang (a bit off key) the praises of God and pledged his life to me.
     Robert and I are now good friends, and he is my accountant as well
as my self-named first disciple, John.  I tried awhile ago to explain my
gift to him, but he just nodded wisely and went on insisting that I was
the second coming of Christ.  I took the hint and stopped trying.  Now I
just heal people, and people send me money (I didn't ask for it), and I
give it to the poor.
     Some call me Christ.
     Others call me Satan.
     I call me Jason Bannon, the kid with a gift.
     The gift of life.

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