The audience went mental. We had long since grown used to screaming and shouting fans at concerts, but this was the most deafening noise I had ever heard. I turned to look at Tummy and Momoko. They were both covering their ears with their hands, just like I was.
It took several minutes until the noise had come down to a level where Julian could finally dare to open his mouth and say something.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “It’s just me.”
Another roar went through the crowd, silencing Julian for another two minutes. At this rate we’d be here all night. I took a quick look at my mobile. Twitter was ablaze, and both Julian Monk and #resurrection were already trending worldwide.
Eventually, the audience calmed down again, allowing Julian to continue.
“Seriously, though,” he said. “Don’t be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy.
“Six weeks ago, as you may or may not remember, I was in an accident; a very heavy accident that, sadly, left many people dead or injured including myself. When I came around, I found myself in a guest room at this humble place.”
He pointed at one of the video screens that were showing a picture of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. There were some laughs from the crowd at the word ‘humble’.
“It turned out that several weeks before the accident, His Holiness Pope Pius XIII had deployed two of his men to watch over me wherever I went. These two men—my guardian angels as it were—were the first at the crash site. They were the first to call the emergency services, and they were the ones who rescued me and my manager, and brought us to the Vatican where I was blessed with the opportunity to personally meet His Holiness the Pope. We sat down together, and over dinner we had a very inspiring, very moving, and ultimately very uplifting discussion about the one topic that matters the most to both of us.
“You,” he said and looked at the front rows. Then he lifted his gaze and overlooked the vast sea of people that spread out in front of him. “All of you. All of mankind.”
Another unanimous cheer emerged from the crowd.
“I have come to you today to convey to you his message. I have come to you to open your eyes so that you may gauge the amount of love and compassion that the Holy Father in Rome bears for each and every one of you. We have aptly titled this short video
The Last Supper
.
Please watch and listen carefully.”
And the world watched in awe. For most people it was the most extraordinary, eye-opening thing they would ever see.
The Gospel According to Tummy – 1
As far as I’m concerned, this whole bloody mess started the very day the old Pope killed himself. He probably didn’t mean to, but it’s what he did.
“Oh man, do we have to watch this?”
I dropped me rucksack on the floor and slumped into the empty seat on the sofa next to Julian who was hogging the remote control and staring at the TV. He was watching the T-Vox channel, waiting for the Pope to arrive for his first state visit to Honduras or someplace. Julian had a strange fascination for all kinds of ceremonies, especially all the pomp and circumstance that Christianity brought along with it even on simple state visits like this one. You know, plane lands, door opens, Pope steps out, walks down the stairs, is greeted by local dignitaries, waves to the crowd, that type of thing. So although Julian always claimed not to be religious himself, I didn’t believe a single word of it.
“I came here just so I didn’t have to watch this at home with me mum,” I said. “She’s been driving us all insane all day, running around the house humming hymns and swooning and raving over the bloody Pope.”
“Actually,” Ginger said, “you came here for a band rehearsal. We only have another week until the school anniversary, and I don’t want us to look like a bunch of amateurs when we’re up on that stage.”
Typical Ginger. We called her Ginger because when she was a little girl she loved to dance, and people compared her with Ginger Rogers. I don’t know, apparently Ginger Rogers was a famous dancer or something. Also, she had ginger hair. Our Ginger, I mean. I don’t know what Ginger Rogers’s hair colour was. Our Ginger’s real name was Emily. Ginger never agreed with anybody on anything, especially not with me. But I think she was just pretending. I think secretly she rather liked me, but of course she’d never admit to that. Nobody likes to admit that they have a crush on the fat kid. That’s me. I’m Thomas. People call me Tummy because of me big tummy.
I looked at Michael who was busy sorting out the PA system. “Doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen any time soon, does it? But I’m ready when you guys are. Meanwhile, I’m gonna watch a bit of Pope TV with me fellow God-fearing companion here.” Me hand came down on Julian’s slender neck and squeezed it teasingly. “Isn’t that right? Eh, Jules?”
Julian straightened himself up for a second, and I let go of his neck. He didn’t like it much when people touched him.
“I don’t think I’m all that God-fearing, Tummy,” he said.
“Course you are. You’re just afraid to admit it. It’s okay, Jules. No need to be afraid. God loves you.”
“Jesus!” Ginger rolled her eyes. “How much longer, Michael?”
“Give me a minute!” Michael was crawling on the floor now, following the dozens of metres of electric cables that ran through Underground Zero, looking for the reason why we couldn’t get any sound out of the PA system. We were at Michael’s place, his lair in the basement of his dad’s million-pound home. It was our headquarters, the place where we met most frequently, and we called it Underground Zero. I don’t know why, except probably because it was just a cool name.
I wagged my finger at Ginger. “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord in vain.”
“Piss off, Tummy.”
I opened me rucksack and grabbed a bag of crisps and a bottle of Coke. I have this condition, you see. Low blood pressure. It has to do with me glands. I’m lacking some hormone that helps me body conserve sodium, so I have low blood pressure and I sometimes pass out in the middle of the day, just like that. The doctor told me to eat lots of salt to increase me blood pressure so I wouldn’t pass out all the time. People always think I eat crisps all the time because I have no self restraint, and that’s what makes me fat, but that’s not true, is it? It’s just because of me glands.
“Why?” Julian asked.
I opened me bag of crisps. “Why what?”
“Why shall thou not take the name of the Lord in vain?”
I looked around nervously, making sure that God wasn’t listening in before I whispered, “Because it makes Him angry.”
“Who?”
“The Lord!” I said. “Jesus Christ, Julian, pay attention, will you?”
Ginger looked at me. “Thou shall not take the name ...”
“Oh shut up!”
Julian smiled. “So how do you know that?”
“It’s in his holy book.”
I ignored Ginger’s trolling comment and said, “Me mum told me.”
“And how does she know?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “We’re Christians; we just know these things.”
“And do you believe everything your mum tells you?”
Oh well, me mum.
To be perfectly honest, I’ve always been more scared of me mum than of God. You may or may not believe that God is real, but I sure as hell knew that me mum was real. And she was one fierce woman, I have to tell you. She was a control freak, and you wouldn’t want to be around when things weren’t going her way. Things weren’t going her way very often. They never have, and you’d think that sooner or later a person would get used to it and loosen up a bit. But not me mum. She just kept freaking out at everything. Me mum was a bloody lunatic.
“Of course I believe everything me mum tells me,” I said. “She’s me mum!”
“Did your mum tell you about Santa Claus when you were little?” Julian asked.
“Yes.”
“And do you still believe in Santa?”
“What a silly question,” I said. “Of course I do!”
Ginger giggled, and Julian looked at me with a mixture of bemusement and curiosity.
“Have you ever thought about how fast he would have to travel to deliver all those Christmas presents to all the good little boys and girls in the world?” he asked.
“Well, have
you
ever thought about why they invented different time zones? It’s so that Santa doesn’t have to be all over the place at the same time.”
Julian raised an eyebrow. I don’t know how he did that or how anybody did that, raising just one eyebrow. I’ve tried it in front of the mirror. I can only raise both me eyebrows together.
“They invented time zones just to accommodate Santa’s busy schedule?” he asked.
“Uh-huh. I bet you didn’t know that, did you?”
He shook his head slowly, full of unconcealed admiration. “That is bloody brilliant, Tummy.”
“I know, right? Also, in some countries Santa comes on Christmas Eve, in others he comes on Christmas Day. In some places he even comes on the 6th of December, and in some places he doesn’t show up until the 7th of January. He’s got a whole month to deliver all his presents. Plenty of time.”
“Speaking of time,” Ginger said, “are we getting anywhere yet, Michael?”
“Bloody hell, Ginger, I’m working on it!”
“Do you also believe in Godzilla?” Julian asked me.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “Godzilla is just a film.”
“Well, the Bible is just a book,” Ginger chimed in.
“Actually, the Bible is not just any old book,” Julian said.
“Exactly! You the man, Jules!” I raised my hand, waiting for him to high-five me, but to no avail. He didn’t like touching other people either.
“Excuse me!”
Julian and I both lifted our legs to make room for Michael who came crawling through the small space between the sofa and the coffee table in front of it, still following his bloody cables.
“The Bible,” Julian continued, “is a great book that reflects on a great number of human conditions; all our questions, insecurities, hopes, fears, and dreams. But of course that doesn’t make it infallible or, indeed, the word of God. I mean, look at all my song lyrics. Everything I write is inspired by the reality I happen to experience. I have to assume that the same is true for the Bronze Age peasants who wrote the Bible. I have to assume that the same is true for the Brothers Grimm, but just because I may find some truths about the human condition in Grimm’s Fairy Tales doesn’t mean I believe in cannibalistic witches or talking frogs that turn into beautiful princes when you kiss them. The purpose of the Bible, like that of any other book, is not to give you a pre-packaged, ready-to-use worldview. The Bible is not supposed to give you all the answers. It’s supposed to inspire you to ask the questions that you need to find the answers to in order to become the person you are meant to be.”
“Amen to that,” Ginger said.
I grabbed another handful of crisps and stuffed them in me mouth. “Sorry, but you lost me at the Brothers Grimm.”
Julian stared at me for a second, and I could see how he was tempted to start over. Fortunately, the Pope came to the rescue.
“Here he comes now,” Ginger said, and Julian leaned forward to stare at the TV. We were looking at a long shot of the runway of the airport in Tenochtitlan, or whatever the bloody capital of Honduras was called, and a small dot in the sky—the airplane carrying the Pope—that was slowly descending.
I made a mental note to mention at me next confession that I had lied. Julian hadn’t lost me at the Brothers Grimm. People tend to think I’m a bit daft, but I’m not. I was perfectly able to follow Julian’s sermon, but I didn’t want to encourage him. You see, Julian had a tendency to preach if he could get away with it, at least when he was with us. When there were strangers around he usually was very quiet, and many people actually thought he was rather a shy person. But we weren’t strangers. We had known each other since forever, and when we were amongst ourselves Julian would often preach himself into some sort of ecstasy at which point it became almost impossible to stop him. That could be proper annoying, because one of his favourite topics to preach about was God, or rather the non-existence of God. For someone who supposedly didn’t believe in God, he talked an awful lot about Him, which always struck me as rather odd. I think deep down inside Julian actually wanted to believe. If you ask me, all his questioning and criticizing religion was really just a cry for help and enlightenment directed at those who did believe. Humble people such as meself.
Of course I believe in God.
I mean, what else is there to believe in?
Me parents were Catholics. That made me a Catholic, too. I’ve been brought up to believe in God and in our saviour Jesus Christ. I’ve been taught that the Holy Bible was the word of God, and the word of God could be proper scary. I’ve believed in God all me life, because for some reason the scariness of scary things makes them not only scary but also very easy to believe.
I don’t know. I just need to make sense of the world, and a world without God would be a lot scarier than God Himself. I mean, if there was no design to the universe, no purpose to life, and no one to look after us, wouldn’t that be incredibly depressing? Also, everything had to come from somewhere, didn’t it?
In school they taught us about the Big Bang and about evolution. Some people thought that these were proof that everything we see around us may have come about without a God. Julian taught me even more about the Big Bang and about evolution than school did, and even though I was just an average student and nowhere near as smart and intelligent as Julian was, I was able to grasp the basics of those theories with a little help.
“If people came from apes,” I asked him one day, “then why are there still apes?”
He just smiled at me and said, “If Americans came from the British, then why are there still Britons?”
That seemed to make sense. I could see how the universe could have come from the Big Bang, and I could see how all life on Earth could have come from evolution. Fine. But nobody I ever talked to could tell me who made the Big Bang go bang or who invented evolution. I could see how once the universe was there, even if it was incredibly small, it could have evolved into what it is today. But how did the universe start in the first place? How could something, everything, anything, have come from nothing? Julian told me that even the best physicists in the world didn’t know the answer to that yet, but they were working on it. That made me mighty proud; to think that a simple guy like me would think about the same deep questions that kept the best scientists in the world up at night. But even most physicists said that something cannot come out of nothing. They said that all the matter and all the energy in the universe were already there, squeezed into an infinitely small point at the beginning of time. I found it difficult to wrap me head around that. I once asked Julian what was before the Big Bang and suggested to him that God was there and that he sat down, cracked his knuckles and made the Big Bang. But Julian threw the question right back at me.