[ WP ] Suddenly , everyone on Earth becomes immortal , free from physical injury or disease . Except for one person .

Scapegoat, *n*. ( in the Bible ) a goat sent into the wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid the sins of the people upon it ( Lev. 16 ). 
 
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 And on the eleventh day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand and thirteen, the Lord said *LET JOHN GAFFNEY OF MIDDLEBOROUGH OHIO BE CHOSEN* and in the vast stadium in Omaha, Nebraska the gathered priests of Jesus and Yahweh and Mohammed and all the other hundred gods laid their hands upon John Gaffney of Middleborough, Ohio. And when all the hands of all the priests were laid upon him, John Gaffney seemed unchanged, but Lo did all the rest of humanity blush with good health and sweet youth unchanging. And Lo did the people of the world pity John Gaffney, who would sicken and age and die in his turn. 
 
 On the nineteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand and thirteen, John Gaffney did fall and break his arm, and all the assembled Peoples took note, for it was the first Injury suffered by man or woman or child in the days since John Gaffney was chosen. And the assembled Peoples lamented on his behalf. 
 
 On the sixteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand and fourteen, John Gaffney developed a cough, and all the assembled Peoples took note, for it was the first Sickness suffered by man or woman or child in all the days since John Gaffney was chosen. And the assembled Peoples rejoiced that they were spared such suffering. 
 
 On the third day of July, in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-one, John Gaffney wandered alone through the Canyons of the City of New York, which had long been deserted when the assembled Peoples realized that neither hunger nor thirst would trouble them, and that food did not satisfy them and strong drink did not stir them, and abandoned that Great City in droves. John Gaffney was dizzy with hunger and crack-lipped with thirst, and he fell to his knees, crying out *Why oh Lord hast thou forsaken me? *. And the assembled Peoples mocked him for his misery and his devotion. 
 
 On the sixth day of August, in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-nine, John Gaffney's broken body was discovered in a culvert in San Mateo, California, and no man knew what to do with the curiosity, and all the assembled Peoples took note for this was the first death in all the years since John Gaffney was anointed, and the Peoples exulted in their own immortality and perfection. 
 
 And the Years Passed singly and in their tens and hundreds, and the Peoples did not age, and did not sicken, and did not pass from their existence. The experiences of the flesh had long paled so that their very Souls cried out for succor and still they lived on, in the smoldering cesspits of the Earth and on all the barren moons and planets beyond, with nothing new but novelty and nothing sufficient to fill the voids within them. Terrible was their lamentation, and yet none of them knew the light of the Lord, except for the One who passed from the world to be born again in Heaven, and his name was John Gaffney of Middeborough, Ohio. 

