Shooting the Pope: Science Fiction

"All I want is the truth," he whispered as he brought the rifle stock up to rest against his shoulder. He prayed that he was about to shoot an innocent man. If he fired his shot, and the Pope died, then all was well with the world. He himself, of course, would burn in hell--he could not ask forgiveness for this act, because he knew that he would not truly repent and therefore true forgiveness could not be granted him. If he shot the Pope and the Pope survived, he would know another answer, and it was one that shook him down to his core, the answer that made him wake up bolt upright in the middle of the night, breathing hard and with his sheets soaked with sweat. If he shot the Pope and the Pope survived, the president was next on his list. The president would be even more closely guarded--too many--


Inspiration: "Gimme Some Truth" - Generation X, and my survival day calendar describing how Pope John Paul II was shot in 1981.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Yeah, I think it is high potential, but this sort of conspiracy-theory, anti-establishment, paranoid thing is a style that I usually avoid writing. We'll see.