Reborn

11

"So I'm the Antichrist, am I?" Jim said after Bill had related his conversation with the kooks outside. He had spotted the crowd out front and had watched Bill talk to them. When Bill returned, he had met him at the door. "I love it!"

"Jim, please!" said Carol, at his left by the window. "This isn't funny."

"Of course it is! It's a gas!"

He could tell by their expressions that no one agreed with him, least of all Ma. She looked angry and afraid. Jim had to admit to a certain discomfiture himself. He knew he wasn't the Antichrist. Hell, he'd stopped believing in that sort of dreck back in his days at Our Lady of Perpetual Motion! That didn't mean he liked other people believing he was the devil or whatever.

But that bit about not having a soul… that was kind of creepy. It showed some pretty original thinking on the part of those nuts out there. Jim wasn't sure he believed in souls, anyway. As far as he could see, you were born, you did your best at what you had to do for as many years as you could, and then you died. That was it. No soul, no heaven, no hell, no limbo, no purgatory.

But what if there really was such a thing as a soul?

And what if he didn't have one?

Despite all his innate skepticism, despite his contempt for religion and mysticism and spiritualism and all the other isms that people used throughout the ages to insulate themselves from the cold, hard realities of existence, he knew deep inside that if such a thing as a soul existed, he wanted one.

"I've a good mind to call the cops," his mother said. "Have Sergeant Hall come out and tell them all to get lost! That'll end this fiascal!"

"Fiasco, Ma," he said. "But stay put. I'll scare them off."

He was besieged by protests from all sides but he ignored them and hurried out the door. This might be fun.

Behind him, he heard Carol say, "I'm calling the police!"