The Religious People Come - by Halden

RESPAWN Chronic

After Adrian leaves, it's about seven o'clock at night.  That means that the show will be on soon.  By show, I mean the rants at my dad's front door.  So I get to my spot in front of the one-way window and watch the scene unfold.

The Religious People come every single night except for Sunday, and they come from all religions.  There's no specifics.  Sometimes there's even fights that break out on our yard, and that's because of conflicting religions.  We have to call the police in that situation to keep everybody safe.  

Because of the Religious People, our windows are barred with metal and covered with reinforced plexiglass.  Our walls are more than a foot thick, and have thin iron sheets in between the panels.  The doors leading to the outside have triple steel locks on them, and are made out of iron.  On every ceiling in every room in our house, there is a sprinkler in case something (or someone) is set on fire.  My dad also has a gun, but he never uses it.

The Religious People are mostly adults, and they protest in anger because they believe that what my dad did - made the RESPAWN - was something unholy and was something God, or the gods, or the devil, or who-knows would not want.  This is because it brings people back from the dead.  Some people say that they're angry because when the people come back from the dead, so do their souls.  And it's not fair to make a soul come back to earth when their duty is done.  Some people say that they're angry because when the dead people are brought back to life, their souls don't come back and the person is evil.  Others say that when the dead people are brought back to life, they have an entirely new soul, and that accounts for all the personality changes.  That one - I don't know if I believe or not, but it kind of makes sense.  There's also the people with strange religions, too...they don't believe in a god at all, but they think it's wrong to do experiments on humans.  But that makes me wonder....what about monkeys?  How's it any more moral, and how does that help the world in any way whatsoever?

Personally, what I believe is that if you do happen to come back from the dead on RESPAWN, that means you have more to do in life.  Not everyone will come back.  For someone to be reawakened properly, they must have at least half the body (after that half is repaired, the RESPAWN will duplicate a second half using the elements it stores), there must be an intact brain (because even though you can RESPAWN someone by putting in a fingernail to give the machine DNA, doesn't mean that the created being will have a fully formed brain), and the person to undergo RESPAWN must not be rotten (there's obvious reasons for this one).  There's political rules too...you can RESPAWN no more than six times, and three of these cannot have been intentional deaths.  Also, you cannot have any genetic mutations or cancers.  The body must be tested for this before the RESPAWN, because if there is a genetic mutation that means a higher risk of RESPAWNing wrong (and if you RESPAWN wrong, you won't work anymore because your DNA is all messed up).

Tonight, the religious people are holding signs and torches, and they are chanting very loudly.  "Self de-struct!  Self de-struct!  Self de-struct!"  When they say this, they obviously mean to tell us to press the self destruct button on RESPAWN.  Me, I think it's quite ironic because that's what RESPAWN is made for...to recreate the people who do happen to self destruct or get murdered.  

"Hall-denn," I hear my dad groan, and it startles me from my thoughts.  I turn quickly around, and make like I was instead reading the poster on my wall.  

"Www-haaat Dad?" I imitate him.

"You know I don't want you watching this," he sighs.  There's rings under his eyes - it's going to be a long night for him.

"I was reading the poster?" I try to pass off.  My voice sounds fake.

"Don't lie, son.  Close the blinds, go to bed, read, and watch some TV.  Anything but this.  Ranting strangers - "  he gestures to the window, "are not good for your young mind of yours."

"I'm not that young," I persist.  "I'm twelve.  And a smart, mature twelve at that.  I think.  Plus, this is just getting interesting... remember that one time..."

"Halden, you heard what I said.  You don't want me to board that window, do you?"

"No Father..." I say obediently, like I eventually always do.  Giving me a tired smile, Dad goes away.  He knows I'll listen.  But I do shout one more thing as he leaves, "Dad, you know I love you, Dad?"

I hear him softly chuckle, and I hope he's a little more relaxed now.  Dad works so hard, being a scientist, engineer, and only parent, and nobody seems to like him.  Most people (besides his co-workers and the detectives who use his RESPAWN on crime scenes) don't even give him the credit he deserves by congratulating him on his outstanding invention.  

I want him to know that at least I love him.  After all, he created the RESPAWN out of love - he missed my mother.  She died having me.  But my mother is also the reason that he found out that rotten bodies can't be restored.

At 10:00 I get in bed, still listening to, "Self-destruct!  Self-destruct!  Self-destruct!"  I turn on my iPod and try to get some sleep.

Author's Note

Don't want to offend anyone through the religion perspective...

Good place to leave off for a while.