The projector hums into life, a white screen unrolls from the ceiling and overflows with the image of a young black child. Its skull grins through membrane-thin skin. Brittle arms seem ready to snap, the swollen belly to burst like a balloon.
I half rise from my chair. This isn’t what we planned.
The bankers and finance ministers in the front row are suddenly sitting straighter, sucking in paunches. Media cameras hum.
And when he speaks his words are not what we planned either.
And there is nothing I can do except sit back and ask myself how I got into this in the first place.
Well I guess it all began with what everyone assumed was a rather tasteless publicity stunt by a Biotechnology company.
Nobody really believed their claim. After all, Dolly the sheep was one thing. But cloning Jesus Christ from a couple of strands of DNA scraped off the Turin Shroud – well that was quite another.
By the time the White House allowed them to reveal his identity he was already grown up and starting a Sports Scholarship to the University of Southern California where he showed, not surprisingly, a remarkable aptitude for theology.
What was surprising was an even greater aptitude for computer security. From corporate mainframes to desktop micros Guardian Angel soon became the worlds preferred data protection system.
Whose idea it was to get him to address G8 I’ll never know. Just whose idea it was to get me to chaperone him I regret to say I know only too well.
“Hey man relax,” Leroy had said.
“Don’t call me man! I’ve told you before about that. I am not, thank God, a man.”
Leroy retrieved a spliff from somewhere deep inside his dreadlocks. “Ok Thelma sorry. But think about it. Personal Assistant to the Son of God. If we don’t screw this up we could end up handling all his P.R. Imagine the Pope’s face ... Thelma, he’s a good Jewish boy but he needs a mother...”
“No!”
“Someone to, like, help him with like with -.”
“Which part of -”
“-his speech.”
“ - no are you having problems with!”
“Oh Thelma, Thelma Thelma”
“Oh No No No”
He grinned a sly grin. “I dare you.”
And there he had me. He knew I could never refuse a dare.
“No.” I said, but less convincingly now.
He lit up and a stream of funny smelling smoke followed him as he danced round the office singing “Thelma is a scaredy cat!” until in the end I agreed as we both knew I would once he’d used that four letter word.
“And anyway.” I said, “The Turin Shroud was a fake!”
Leroy just grinned that irritating grin of his. Sometimes my hand itches to slap it right off his stupid smug face. But I don’t because I am pushing sixty four and the comforts of a full company pension and a view of Central Park will to some extent mitigate the fact that I don’t get laid too much any more.
“God moves in a mysterious way,” he said and pressed a button on his tastelessly huge desk and in walked Jesus Christ, and he actually was moving in a mysterious way. Perhaps it was the sandals. Poor lamb. Open sandals in New York in mid November! His mother must be having a fit.
But now, in a plush conference room full of the most powerful men in the world he is pointing at the nightmare on the screen.
“By the time food arrived his throat would not swallow. And anyway his stomach had shrivelled and the drip feeds were stuck in a ship’s hold 1500 miles away waiting for customs clearance.”
I start to rise, fixed smile on my face but already he has whirled on the President of the Federal Reserve.
“Twenty five cents a day. Twenty five cents worth of rice and water. That’s all he needed to survive.”
“Tell me – “ Jesus pointed towards an After Eight wrapper in an empty saucer holding an empty cup. “Did you eat that mint because you were hungry? Did you drink that coffee because you were thirsty?”
The President glares at me. Then he sees the cameras and smiles and holds up the cup. “Fairtrade!” He points at the cup. “That’s all we drink here,” he says to applause from his fellow delegates.
Suddenly Jesus is standing right in front of the President. Security move forward. The President stops them with his eyes because the last thing he needs is the Son of God dragged kicking and screaming out of the hall in front of the assembled cameras of the world media. The Messiah’s next words are whispered but the President’s desk-mike carries them to everyone in the room.
“Your coffee and your biscuit cost $45. That’s what catering charge at this kind of junket. Enough to have kept him -” he jerks a thumb at the screen, “- alive for 18 days.”
With a sweep of his arm Jesus sends the cup and saucer flying from the desk.
“And you weren’t even hungry!”
Outside, the chants of the G8 protesters get louder and louder. Strange. They should be miles away, herded together by riot police on the far side of Lake Geneva.
I look through the window. I see their banners quite clearly. Soon the features on their faces will be visible. Unopposed they are walking towards the hall. Walking across the waters of Lake Geneva. Cheering.
Jesus touched the key on his laptop.
“Am I the son of God? Who knows.”
Suddenly the screen is full of bugs. The bugs replace the child on the screen.
“But let me tell you I have this power. At the press of this key Guardian Angel will wipe out all records of 3rd World Debt. “
He turns to the G8 demonstrators now boiling into the far end of the hallway. “Shall I do it!”
Their cheers rock the chandeliers.
But Jesus does nothing. His finger is no longer poised over the screen. It points directly at the protesters.
“You are no less guilty. Behind each of you stand five hundred, five thousand, five million ghosts. The ghosts of the starving. Killed by you. Every time you buy a beer you don’t need, every time you go to a show you go to a show you don’t really need to see, every time you eat a meal which feeds your greed rather than your hunger. Every cent you spend on luxury while people starve, you commit murder. You can’t even claim you don’t know. Not anymore. Your high definition digital screens bring your victims right into your own front rooms.”
He stands before them, his frailty making them look gross. Nobody is cheering anymore.
“I cannot press this key. That is your job. You are, after all, endowed with free will. Now. Who will press the button?”
The protesters began to move forward, more cautious now. But Jesus raises his hand.
“There is first one thing you all should know. Guardian Angel software has also infiltrated every personal bank account in the privileged west. Pressing this key will also empty your accounts into a charity fund. Payments to your accounts from your jobs or pensions or social security will be drastically reduced. The balance will also go to the charity fund. You will receive only sufficient for your physical survival. This is unchangeable. Guardian Angel has introduced other changes to ensure that this is so. This will be forever. Who now will press the key?”
Nobody moves. The bankers look visibly relieved.
“Come on,” Jesus smiles. “Who has the courage to trigger the biggest redistribution of wealth in the history of the world? Who has the courage to embrace a new way of life. A life free of the tiresome burden of material wealth?”
He looks straight at me.
“Come on”
But all I could think of was my pension and my view of Central Park. My soul turned to ice and shrivelled up inside me. I could not meet his deep blue gaze.
“Come on,” he says.
I can still hear that voice.
“Come on.” he says, “I dare you.”
© Nick Cook |
