“So let me get this straight, Krwh. You chew the stuff for ages and then blow a bubble for six whole days?”
Krwh nodded, rolling his universes in his palm distractedly.
“I just can’t get get it right,” sighed Yhwh.
Krwh looked up and patted his brother on his shoulder, “Give it time, Yhwh. I guess I was a little lucky the first time.”
“It just happened!” I cried, tears of frustration welling up inside me.
She looked at me with longsuffering bemusement. “You mean to say that heap of dirty clothing at the bottom of your cupboard just appeared, from nowhere?”
I nodded vigorously.
“Nothing to do with you?” she continued, peering intently into my eyes.
I met her gaze unflinchingly. “Nope.”
“Are you sure you are telling me the truth, Robbie?” I could hear the growing sternness in her voice but nodded again.
She sighed and took my hand gently, leading me to the window from which could see across the valley to the blue mountains shimmering in the distance.
“Those mountains,” she said, pointing. “How do you think they came about?”
I looked at her earnestly, years of Sunday School training clamouring for attention, and replied, “By accident.”
She looked at me aghast, but then regained her composure. “That’s just silly and you know it. Now tidy up those clothes and stop talking nonsense! I’ll wash your mouth out with soap if you lie to me again.”
“But, Mum!” I protested.
“Now!”
He reached out a large, meaty hand. “Hello, name’s Riaan.”
He had a thick Afrikaans accent, a giant of a man with long, curly, somehow inappropriate hair atop his bulky frame. I took his hand reluctantly and introduced myself.
“Adam.”
“Can I buy you a beer?” he asked.
I shrugged non-committally, pointing at my half-full pint, hoping to discourage further interaction from this stranger.
“Look,” he said. “I know I’m being forward, but this is important. Let me buy you a beer, dammit.”
I did not want to anger this hulk of a man so I assented.
“You see,” he continued as our drinks arrived. “the thing is … I know you.”
I looked at him, startled, and spluttered, “Look, I think you must have me confused with…”
“Ja, I know it must seem odd, but I do know you, from my dreams.”
Right, I thought. Time to make an exit. I stood up and was about to leave when he put his hand gently on my arm.
“Please,” he said. “I am not mad. Hear me out. What have you got to lose? And the beer here is very good, as you know.”
I looked at him for a moment, observed his eager, intelligent eyes and warm smile, and sat down smiling. “I’ll listen as long as there is a beer in front of me.”
He guffawed, “Good man!” and slapped me heavily on my back, rattling my bones to the core.
“Every night I have this dream,” he began. “I walk up this street and am stopped at the door of this pub by a man dressed in white. He has an unnatural glow about him so I think he must be an angel. He tells me to go inside the pub and give a man a very important message. I protest but he insists, so we go in together and he points you out. Then he leaves and I wake up.”
He paused, reflective.
“I know what you are thinking, but I am not mad. I never dream, well hardly ever that I can remember, and when I do they are incoherent collections of strange scenes, nothing like this. I believe God has given me a message for you.”
I looked at him.
“Look I know you mean well, and I appreciate the beers and all, but I don’t believe there is a God, and even if there was, he certainly would not care enough about me to send me a message.
The big man smiled. “I know it’s from God.”
“How you know?” I asked.
He stared at me intently. “Do you have a wife?”
I nodded.
“She loves you right?”
“Yes.”
“Well how do you know that?”
I frowned. I could see where this was headed. “By the many things she does and says to prove it.”
“Well,” he replied, “it is the same with God.”
“I think that’s debatable. There is a difference between a wife you can see and touch and a God who hides behind probabilities.”
He laughed. “I was once like you. I had to see and touch everything. But at the end of the day you can’t see and touch everything you know is true. We life our lives by faith in the simplest things. The universe for me just makes more sense with God than without Him.”
I shrugged, “Well that’s where we differ.”
“So do you want to hear what the message is?”
“May as well,” I replied.
He looked serious and leaned forward intently, looking about warily.
“You have left your car lights on.”
Most of my my friends are dead. It’s not surprising really, because so am I. My friends and I dwell with countless others in a place that is neither life nor oblivion. I don’t know why we didn’t pass through, but there it is.
It is frightfully dull, dead dull you might say, nothing to do all day but hang around, observing the life below, talking. Mostly we talk of regrets, regrets at things we did not do, the way we were in life, the fact that we did not make better use of our time. Perhaps this our hell, who knows? Personally I don’t give a damn. There is no God.
Mostly I spend time with my old friend Joe. He and I grew up together, as best friends I suppose, because we did everything together – even fall in love with the same woman but that’s a long story. Joe died a few years before me and I missed the old fella terribly. I never married, and by then had already lost most of the people I knew to disease and general old age, so I just waited, waited, waited… The old age home staff tried to include me in organised activities, but I declined. What is the point? I said. It is just killing time while we wait to die. I remember the look of sadness on the young nurse’s face I said this to, so young and full of promise, hope and purpose, and here was I: grumpy, cynical, spent.
Then the day came, and I still remember the tremendous sense of relief I felt that finally it would all be over, that oblivion awaited. The irony is not lost on me, and almost makes me believe that there just might be a God, an Almighty Joker who enjoys having a laugh at my expense. But no, I don’t – even in this place, this afterlife, I do not see God.
Joe however is completely different, at least he was. Back amongst the living we used to debate the existence of God quite regularly, and not without some passion, for he believed, in a devout kind of way that make me jealous. So I took special delight in making him squirm with my so very rational arguments. I don’t envy the religious mob in their dry, dusty places of self worship, but when the faith is life changing, that’s something else.
Now however, he is a bit subdued. I suppose he was expecting the after life to be a bit more spectacular than this. He’s no fool, and I’m sure had no illusions about streets of gold and such like, but this grey nothingness? It must be hard for him, and he is my friend, so I don’t taunt him. I did however ask him once if he thought his life had been wasted. He was quiet for a bit then looked at me earnestly. No, he said, not for one minute, that living a life with purpose and meaning, misguided or not, was always better than having nothing. I find it hard to disagree with that.
I’ve not seen him for a while – it’s curious really – I don’t think anyone has. It’s like he just up and left. Maybe he’s finally gone on to a better place, whatever that is. I hope so, but I miss him terribly.
Andy discovered the other day that he could interact with the living world! It caused quite a commotion, I tell you, because this just does not happen. Perhaps the woman he spoke to was psychic or something, but the fact is she turned and looked in his direction when he spoke. I don’t even know what made him do it. So we began to watch her instead of our usual random wandering. I suppose we hoped that through her we might have a more tangible connection with the full, vibrant, sense-filled life we all missed.
Her name it turned out was Anne-Marie, a nice old fashioned name. She was living with a toe rag called Arny, who really should have been called ‘Orny, because he was an almighty philanderer. She didn’t seem to know he was cheating on her and it bothered us something chronic. So we decided to tell her. We didn’t want to freak her out so we got Andy to whisper it to her while she slept. At first nothing happened, but then slowly we noticed a change in her. She began to look through his clothes and even followed him, until one day, she saw him with another woman, snogging in the pub. We expected her to make a scene but she didn’t – she just went home and sat in the kitchen crying. He eventually came home, pissed out his mind, staggered straight past her, upstairs and into bed fully clothed. She waited a while, but then stood up suddenly, opened a drawer, and pulled out a meat cleaver! Oh, how we tried to stop her, but were powerless as she walked quietly upstairs, into the room were he snored loudly, and with one mighty blow, split open his head while we watched on in horror.
I don’t know what happened to him after that – we get millions of new arrivals every day – but she was arrested and locked up. It was all very, very sad. Andy in particular felt wretched and never spoke to anyone again, alive or otherwise.
Amanda disappeared today, right in front of our noses, so we reckon we are in some sort of holding area. But as to what determines if or when we move on, who knows? I don’t care. Since the Anne-Marie incident I’ve not been the same, I don’t know what’s got into me. I just feel that life, pointless or otherwise, is surely better than no life, and I should have made more of it: spent more time on important things like family, and less on myself. Perhaps Joe was right.
God? If you are there, I am sorry.
As usual, deafening silence.
No, wait, something’s happening to m….
She rested her head against my shoulder.
“I am so tired.”
I stroked her hair, my heart heavy with sorrow.
“I know, my love. Just try to rest, ok?”
She sighed, then suddenly sat bold upright and looked intently at the print on the wall opposite. A child’s drawing, filled with flowers, people, sun, moon and stars around a blue-green earth. I looked at her, dreading the next moment. She got up, went to the picture, peering at it closely, tracing around the earth with her hand.
“I see it,” she said, “I get it.” Then she turned to me wild-eyed.
“Do you see?”
I wished I did, but I didn’t, and shook my head.
“You never do,” she said, disappointed.
But I did. I saw everything; the gradual descent of the woman I loved most in all the world, into this.
It was her, but at the same time not her.
“Why don’t you come and sit down?”
She looked at me, her eyebrows furrowed as if struggling with some immense internal conflict.
“I can trust you.” It was at the same time a question as a statement. Then she sat down again, resting her head as before.
“I’m so tired.”
My heart wanted to break into a thousand bitter pieces but I didn’t let it. I had to remain in control.
Where was that doctor?
~~~~
“We’ll take good care of her,” the nurse said.
My eyes filled with tears as they walked her away, past the double doors, to the inpatient psychiatric ward. I had visions of white, padded cells, screaming, mutilated madmen, and leering, rapist guards with brutal hands. Tears in my eyes, I turned to the nurse. I was losing control.
“She will be Ok?”
She looked at me, a kindly old woman, and touched my arm.
“She will be fine, you’ll see.”
But I didn’t. How could this be made better? How could the God we both loved and served allow this to happen? An age old question to which I knew all the hollow intellectual answers, but now it was mine, cutting brutally through my heart.
I walked out of the hospital into the chilly night. The stars twinkled brightly overhead around a kindly moon, but I found no comfort. Great sobs escaped from deep inside me, and I looked up at the hand of the Creator, and cursed Him.
~~~~
She was playing Scrabble with some of the other patients. I hadn’t slept a wink and hurried back to the hospital as soon as visiting hours permitted. I approached cautiously, watching, waiting. She looked up, her face pale and wan, her eyes unrecognising. I said hello, but she looked away.
“The medication is quite strong in the beginning”, said the nurse at my side. “Give her time.”
I left, never before feeling so alone, but suppressed my anguish. The kids needed picking up from school.
~~~~
She stood at the top of the stairs, just woken from a nap, and pointed accusingly at my mother who had been tidying up.
“I don’t want you in my house.”
My mother looked at me, her eyes full of hurt, looking for comfort, but I had none to give. I shrugged.
~~~~
The dream now seems over, the nightmare nothing but a painful memory. Thanks to the marvel of medicine I have her back, or least someone like her. I feared her at first, expecting IT to pounce at any minute and wreck our lives like it did before. How I hated that illness that toyed with her mind. But then I learned to love her, to really love her, not the soppy romantic promises of a young fool who vows for better or for worse but knows not what he’s saying.
But I haven’t quite forgiven God, I don’t think, but He’s big enough to take that, and if not, well fuck it – I reckon I’ve been prepared for hell.
Reports have been coming in from all over the world about sudden, mass disappearances of individuals. Mrs Agatha Krone from Eadlepug, Tennessee, said she was in the middle of a conversation with her neighbour, Tabatha Widget and her daughter Frieda, when “they just plain vanished.” Early analysis from the Global Statistics Bureau of the missing people has revealed a very strong correlation with belief in the Judeo-Christian God. Professor Richard Dawkins author of the best-selling “The God Delusion” has been quoted as saying “Good riddance. Now we can stop debating the non-existence of God and get on with our lives.” Representatives from other faith groups have declined to comment.
This has to be one of the toughest commands in the Bible and is part of the “turn the other cheek” and “suffer as Christ suffered for you” side of Christianity that we like to ignore here in the prosperous, now-centred West.
I have just left a company where I had the boss from hell. He had no redeeming qualities, apart from being elsewhere most of the time. He made my life miserable and I suppose I allowed him to get under my skin, but I couldn’t help it.
So love this guy?? I think not.
I would rather heap burning coals on his head.
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:20)
Oh dear, failed miserably again.
She had that quality that is so rare in our graceless society: a true selflessness. Oh we all claim to be selfless in some respects, but if are honest and look beneath the veneer we soon find the hidden reward, the warm glow of smug self-righteousness, or perhaps the promise of eternal rewards. Grace however, was not like this, and I know because she loved me. She loved me when I married her, she loved me when I lied and cheated on her, she loved me when I beat her, and she even loved me when I finally killed her. It was not a warm, fuzzy kind of love; it was the love of Loves, the enduring love of the Lamb, the love that crushed me in its embrace and broke my heart. I don’t why she loved me so but perhaps one day, when I am spent trying to echo her love, I will be given grace to meet her again and to say how truly sorry I am.
He sat on a pew with his head in his hands – what was he to do? The church was in desperate need of a paint but the funds were so low and even with his good credit and negotiation skills he only had enough paint for just over half the building. Then suddenly the idea hit him: it was good paint, and he could dilute it to make it stretch; this he did, and proceeded to paint the entire church, finishing just in time before an almighty thunder storm let loose … alas pouring great floods of water over his church, and washing away the diluted paint. He looked aghast at the streams of paint flowing uselessly down the storm drains, and then fell to his knees and shook his fist at the heavens, “Why, Lord?”
Suddenly a great voice answered: “You should have trusted me to provide, my son, now get off your knees, I will provide, so go repaint and thin no more.”
