Rosewater was on the next bed, reading, and Billy drew him into the conversation,

asked him what he was reading this time.

So Rosewater told him. It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was

about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian by the way.

The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could,

why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble

was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the

Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the

low.

But the Gospels actually taught this:

Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes.

The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who

didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe.

Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought,

and Rosewater read out loud again:

Oh, boy-they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!

And that thought had a brother: 'There are right people to lynch.' Who? People not well

connected. So it goes.

The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really

was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he

had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.

So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the

cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought.

The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again

and again what a nobody Jesus was.

And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder

and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was

adopting the bum as his son giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the

Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this From this moment on, He

will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!