Chapter 352: Post-Aftermath Press Conference

Saturday, June 2, 2007 (Continued)

The networks were BEGGING for interviews. It suited our purposes, so Vanessa agreed with a condition. We didn't want a couple dozen news-people and potentially FBI or CIA plants in our home or even on the grounds, so she told one network that we'd allow a team of two to enter the property for an interview provided they freely provided copies of the tapes to the other networks and none of them made any on-air mention of having the tape until 11pm PST, when they all could simultaneously broadcast it.

The first network - ABC - Vanessa explained that to, responded by saying, "That's not how we do things, we..."

Vanessa hung up, then used the intercom to tell the security guard manning the switchboard to block ABC's calls for 24 hours.

A few minutes later NBC called. Vanessa made the pitch again, this time including, "Freely offer the tape to all the other networks except ABC because they refused this deal when I made it to them a few minutes ago."

The current caller had no trouble at all with Vanessa's suggested way of doing business.

Vanessa intercomed the gate to ask them to let two people from NBC through when they arrived, and to escort them up to the Adults' House. Then she intercomed the switchboard operator telling him that if any networks other than ABC called, he was to tell them about NBC providing them with a tape after the interview, and that they weren't allowed to broadcast even a reference to it before 11pm PST or they'd be excluded from future interviews.

The interview took place in the entrance foyer, as it's large, beautiful and barely inside the house. Vanessa got the cameraman to record her repeating the rules for the interview, and the reporter's agreeing to them, then Vanessa said, "I'll hand over to Mark."

I hit the ground running: "The crazy behavior around our home and throughout Corvallis today was pointless, senseless and dangerous. Five men died outside our gates; I understand from the news that three people have drowned trying to swim across the Willamette River; dozens of people have been injured, some very seriously; there's probably been over a million dollars of property damage throughout Corvallis; and all the participants have achieved is to make criminals and fools out of themselves.

^-- "I saw signs being waved around asking me to cure diseases or perform other miracles. I understand those people are desperate, but they're also foolish. I'm not the least bit divine. God is divine and the angels are divine, but I'm entirely human. Jonathon Winters made a list of twenty four candidates, from which Archangel Michael chose me. I'm sure that all twenty four of us were nothing more than dead humans. The act of resurrecting my mind into Ron's body didn't make me divine. His body is an unexceptional, ordinary body, and my mind is the same as it was a few hours before I was killed.

^-- "If one of your neighbors went to the hospital and had an appendectomy, would you go to him when you had a sore stomach and ask him to remove your appendix? I was merely the patient that God operated on. I didn't miraculously learn how to cure even a pimple, let alone any serious disease. As far as I'm concerned, what happened to me is just a bigger version of a human doctor reviving a dead patient. I know they can do that if the person hasn't been dead for more than a minute or so. Apparently God can manage a year or more, but neither event makes the patient divine.

^-- "Those of you who are sick and contemplating coming to Corvallis in search of a miracle, my advice is to stay at home and rest. Coming here and standing outside our property for hours on end is only going to tire you out and hasten your decline. Plus why throw your money away on pointless travel? If you want to give your money away, give it to institutions that are researching whatever disease you've got. That might not cure you in time, but it might help cure someone in the future, which is a heck of a lot more useful than pointlessly walking back and forth in front of our gates.

^-- "I saw other signs proclaiming that I'm Jesus Christ or the Devil. I'm happy to announce that I'm neither of those. I won't be announcing that Armageddon has arrived and neither am I here to corrupt everyone's souls and trick you into going to Hell. From what I've been told about Archangel Michael, he said there wasn't any such thing as the Devil or Hell, so I'd be pretty stupid if I tried to do anything along those lines, not that I'd have a clue where to start.

^-- "I'm Mark Anderson. That's all I am and all I want to be. My primary interests in life are carrying on with my education, spending time with my family and pretty girls, and perhaps playing some games of soccer with my friends after I've gotten used to this body. Getting on with my life is what I most want to do.

^-- "I'm as likely to impart religious wisdom as I am to pick the winner of the next Superbowl. I can impart some commonsense though: anyone who thinks I'm anything other than a very lucky guy is being an idiot. Everything that I heard about what Archangel Michael said, and the email his replacement sent from Ron's computer, all said that a person would be resurrected and that humanity needed to pull up its socks. They didn't say anything about my miraculously saving the world for you, curing your diseases, reducing taxes, making your cars get ten more miles per gallon, or whatever other stupid fantasies you might have.

^-- "The nitwits who think their personal problems are going to be fixed by running around our property yelling religious nonsense might as well go jump in the river again for all the good their self-delusions are going to do. If you don't jump in the river, at least stick your head in a bucket of ice water for a while, because you badly need to cool your overheated brains.

^-- "To the alien conspiracy theorists out there, I almost have some sympathy with you because I think outer-space is an interesting place, but the idea that Archangel Michael or the Guardian Angel are aliens sent ahead to scout out the Earth for invasion is absurd. Scouts are supposed to be sneaky, not draw worldwide attention to themselves. It's also obvious they could scout us all they wanted without resurrecting me. If they wanted to plant alien spies on Earth, doing so in a way that attracted the world's media spotlight seems particularly stupid. Goodness only knows how you think my resurrection helps mythical aliens invade us, as I would've thought any invaders would be better advised to kill Earthlings than bringing them back to life.

^-- "But if you're absolutely convinced the world is about to be invaded, how on Earth does running around our gate waving placards help? If you want to be helpful, sell everything you own and give the money to the Air Force so they can buy some more weapons.

^-- "And to the Elvis freaks out there. Sorry, he's still out of the building, but better luck next time.

^-- "Lastly and most importantly, from what I've been told about Archangel Michael, he didn't tolerate people going against his wishes. When someone annoyed him, he quickly made the person regret it, and he didn't hesitate to do so in ways that seemed very excessive. The Guardian Angel has the same creator and apparently the same attitude. It was obvious that the Guardian Angel could have caused far more damage today but it was holding itself back. I'm very worried what it will do if thousands of people continue to go against its wishes.

^-- "The other angels warned you several times that Guardian Angels are DEADLY! I know several thousand people were so dimwitted that they couldn't help themselves from marching on our property in a mindless mob. Clearly those people are incapable of intelligent thought, but for those of you sitting at home thinking about coming to Corvallis, I STRONGLY suggest you'd be better off staying at home. You're certainly not going to get whatever it is you want from me - because I'm just an ordinary guy who has been lucky enough to be given a second chance - so all you'd be doing is taking a very large risk by going against the wishes of a very powerful, deadly, and probably annoyed servant of God."

I stopped, letting the reporter ask any questions she wanted. She started with, "Can't you control your Guardian Angel?"

"Nope. I'll prove it for you by asking it to do something I know it's very good at." I enlarged my voice and looked around the room as I said, "Guardian Angel, please strip the reporter naked for me." I hadn't liked her attitude in the conversation we'd had before the filming started.

The reporter shrunk back in horror, while the cameraman - very professionally I thought - kept his camera pointing straight at her. She backpedaled to a wall, looking around in fright.

After a few seconds of nothing happening, she relaxed.

I said, "I'm a teenage boy, you're a pretty woman, and we already know the Guardian Angel doesn't have any compunction against stripping people naked, but sadly for your viewers and me, it doesn't do what I want it to do. It got its orders from God, and I imagine it thinks that God has slightly more authority than an adolescent boy.

^-- "You called it MY Guardian Angel. It's mine only in the sense that it's been assigned to protect me. It's not my pet and I'm not its boss. I have no control over what, when and how it does things. It has never made any attempt to communicate with me, and it has only appeared to do something protective, after which it immediately disappeared again. I think it'd be fair to say that it's got a one-track mind. Unfortunately not on the same track as my one-track mind, which is a pity because it's REALLY good at 'picking up' girls, haha."

It took her a second to get it, even with my having emphasized "picking up". It wasn't a difficult joke to get, but I charitably decided she must still be recovering from her scare. I'm more charitable toward pretty woman, even if they are reporters.

"Have you thanked God for giving you a Guardian Angel?" I downgraded my charitable thoughts about her. Now there were only two small parts of her body that I still had good thoughts about. Well, not that small, but that was okay because my thoughts weren't that good either.

I answered, "He didn't 'GIVE' me a Guardian Angel - the word 'give' means to transfer ownership - so naturally I haven't thanked Him for giving it to me."

"Have you thanked God for ASSIGNING the Guardian Angel to you?"

"No. I'm sure He knows I'm appreciative, especially after I saw how mindlessly people behaved earlier today."

"Don't you think you should thank Him? He did save your life."

"First, he did NOT save my life. I died nearly a year and a half ago. What he did was give my life back to me at the expense of Ron losing his, which is not the same thing at all, especially from Ron's point of view and for the people who loved Ron, like my sister Carol. Please don't cheapen Ron's sacrifice by rewording it out of existence.

^-- "Second, I have not thanked him for returning my life to me because I can't communicate with God, and even if I could, it's pretty obvious that He's not interested in chatting with individual people. He's interested in humanity as a whole over periods of thousands of years. And for the sake of completeness, let me add that I also haven't thanked the Devil, any aliens, or Elvis."

"Why don't you communicate with God?"

"I didn't say 'I don't'; I said I 'can't'. The former means a lack of willingness; the latter a lack of ability. You either need to buy yourself a dictionary or have your ears cleaned out. Can you communicate with God?"

"Ahh. Of course. Everyone can; you've just got to pray."

"In that case, please tell him 'Thanks very much' from me. And also ask him where the keys Mark's body had when Homeland Security picked him up have gone. Do that now; I'll wait for your answer." I folded my arms and looked the picture of patience, waiting for her to do her talk-to-God thing.

The cameraman swung his camera around to point at her, which didn't help her self-composure at all. She dithered for a couple of seconds, then came up with, "Prayer shouldn't be used for frivolous things."

"You've been repeatedly implying I've been wrong for not thanking God, so you obviously feel that part of my request isn't frivolous. Second, not having my keys is a nuisance. God strikes me as very helpful and he seems to like me a great deal, so I'm sure He won't mind if you pass on a question for me. You could've done it by now, so please hurry up."

"Prayer is private."

"Yet you asked several questions about my communications with God so you could broadcast my answer across the country. How come my praying practices aren't private but yours are? Doesn't God believe that all people are equal?"

She put her palms together, bowed her head, and her lips moved silently for a few seconds.

When she looked up I asked, "Did you thank Him for me?"

"Yes."