Miracle was discovered on my birthday.
The scientist who discovered the thing outright admitted that it was by sheer kismet that he discovered the secret to restarting the heart. He'd been testing the side effects of a new anesthetic, trying to find the lethal threshold in the lab rats. Now, I myself am completely not okay with the idea that they were purposely trying to kill a lab rat - and believe you me, neither was PETA or any of the other Animals Rights Activists that heard about it. The scientist had administered the drug, found the point when the rat went to sleep and carefully, slowly, injected more of the drug in increments so small that the scientist had been using thousandths of a milileter to describe how much at a time h was pushing. The rat's heart stopped and the scientist declared him dead. But - and heres' the part where the miracle occurred - the scientist's hand slipped when he went to remove the needle from the dead rat specimen, and the pressure that he'd applied to the needle by accident was enough to pump the rest of the drug into the rat's veins. Angry that he'd wasted the remainder of the test substance, the scientist had scooped up the rat and tossed it into the trash bin under his lab table and angrily grunted and growled for several moments before he heard the scratching and eeping that was coming out of the dust bin. When he looked inside, there was the rat... alive and well.
Certain there'd been a mistake - after all, the rat had been declared dead more than half an injection prior to the final dosage amount - the scientist obtained another rat and pushed the same amount of the drug into it and procured the same results. The drug was capable of stopping the heart in low to mid-range doses, and restarting it with a high dosage.
And thus, Miracle was born.
Needless to say I was pretty certain we knew who was going to win the next Nobel Peace Prize.
"I know how Brian feels about Miracle," Anna Bernard said, her eyes sweeping across AJ, Kevin, and myself, "But how about the rest of you? How do you feel about the possibility, AJ?"
AJ's attention was focused on Brian still, who looked like he was about to heave. He looked up and shrugged, "I wish we'd known about it sooner, I mean there's a shit ton of people I would've liked to preserve. But at the same time it kind of is scary as hell. I mean, I sure as fuck wouldn't want to be resurrected after I bit it."
Kevin nodded, "I must say I agree with AJ... I woudn't want that hanging over my head, that my eternal peace could be interrupted at some point by someone... It's a bit ominous."
"Howie? How do you feel about it?" Anna Bernard focused on me.
I licked my lips, "Well, honestly, it kind of... excites me," I answered. All three of the fellas heads snapped my direction. Brian's brow was furrowed in concern. "Well I mean if it's used right, in the proper situations... I mean obviously it's a tad annoying if you're a hundred and six and they just can't stop reviving you with this miracle drug... but I think in the proper place it could be used for good."
"Is there ever a proper time and place to be playing God?" Brian demanded.
"What if it was a child?" I asked, "Or someone on the donor list for a new organ who just needs to hang on those few more moments? Someone on the table during a surgery?" I shrugged, "Nick's situation."
"You call Nick's situation proper?" Brian snapped.
The question of the moral standings of Miracle had certainly been a hot debate. Many of the foreign countries - especially those in Asia - were so opposed to it that they'd threatened to cut off the American trade system as retribution for using the drug. The world had gone haywire when they'd first announced that they'd successfully awoken the first human with it - a little girl who had been killed in a freak accident falling off some playground equipment. The girl had bled out and her heart had stopped and her heart broken parents had signed the permission form for the hospital to repair the damage and attempt to awaken her with Miracle, with the understanding that they would be paying out the wahzoo for such services whether their daughter came back from the dead or not.
Seventy-two hours later, the couple had left the hospital admist a storm of journalists, the six year old, Maya, clinging to her daddy's hip like a koala bear, a giant pink bandage stuck to her forehead the only sign that she'd been injured at all.
"Dude, you know how into this Nick would be if he was awake?" I said to Brian's turned back. "He'd be all over this. You know he would."
"For situations like Maya, yes, that makes sense," Brian replied, "But situation's like Nick's is just cruel."
"I literally cannot understand how you think waking Nick up could possibly be cruel," I said.
"He's been dead thirty-eight years, can you even imagine the kind of hell he's going to wake up to? Thirty-eight years, Howie. And he hasn't aged a day but every single one of his friends and family have aged all this time. He's alone. Alone."
"It's better than dead, isn't it?" I asked.
"Depends on who you're asking," Brian responded.
Even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew I was crossing the line as I said, "Just because you've lived like a hermit for 38 years and been depressed about it, doesn't mean that Nick will choose the same existence."
Brian's eyes flashed. He turned away. AJ raised an eyebrow my direction and Kevin let out a long, low sigh.
I knew it wasn't fair. It wasn't like Brian had asked to feel the way he did about Nick's death. It was so unreasonable, though. The report had finally come out, saying that Nick's accident wasn't to be blame upon drunk driving, but more than likely he'd hydroplaned on a wet highway because he'd been speeding. Brian had equated Nick speeding with Nick trying to get to the airport to pick him up.
Brian had blamed himself.
"I'm sorry, that was uncalled for," I apologized.
"Damn staight," AJ muttered.
Brian shook his head, "Don't worry about it, D."
I took a deep breath, "It's impossible to say what Nick would think of this all anyways," I said, "Whether he'd be happy to be awakened or freaked out by the thought. And it doesn't matter because even if we knew...even if Nick somehow had premonition that the world would come to this nearly 40 years later and wrote it in his little journal thing --"
"Diary," AJ injected. Kevin glared and AJ seemed to shrink in size by a couple inches.
"-- it still wouldn't be enough to stop Jane," I concluded. "They've already started the process of raising his body temperature, they're doing the injection tonight."
Brian stared at his hands.
"Which brings us full circle," declared Anna Bernard in a regal manner, "Do you Boys plan to be there when he wakes up? Will there be a hospital beside Backstreet Boys reunion?" Her eyes darted between me and AJ like a ping-pong ball.
"Of course we're gonna be there," AJ snapped, "Why the fuck wouldn't we be there? He's only coming back from the goddamned dead."
Kevin nudged AJ.
"Well he is," AJ muttered.
"It'll be easier for him to understand and accept if there are friends close by," Kevin said quietly, "People he remembers and cares about."
"And I need to hear it," Brian said suddenly, "From him. That it's not my fault he's dead."
"I think what AJ basically meant was that he was going to be there," I said slowly, "And if that's the case... then I gotta say that I most definitely agree. We'll be there."
It was 8:27 PM.
We were sitting around a waiting room, watching the rerun of the Anna Bernard show on the TV. Brian was rocking himself gently, rolling his weight on the ball of his foot as he moved in the chair. AJ was sitting on the floor playing with an old Boggle game, trying to make every direction spell out a word at the same time. Kevin was pacing. I was staring at the same page of a newspaper as I had been for the past hour, not really reading it but lost in thought.
The door to the waiting room opened and Jane stood there, silhouetted by the florescent lights of the hallway in a start contrast to the softer glow of table lamps in the private waiting room we'd commandeered. She surveyed us, her eyes travelling across our faces slowly. Her eyes locked with mine.
"He's awake."
