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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Hide and Seek (08/07/08)
The voice was muffled but the images were clear. There was fire, a burning furnace. The voice was muffled, enveloped by the building, but the portraits were obvious. A cross, a lifeless body, death. The voice seemed to echo across the cavernous building, the howling wind taking it from neighbour to neighbour, a whisper that seemed to say: “Let me tell you how this works...” The voice merged with the sound of traffic outside: “...you will hide, I will seek”. The noise of a collision, shouts, a scream, angry voices, the sound of sirens: “I will seek and I will find. Let me explain how this works... .” Maybe I imagined the voice; maybe this was my imagination raging, creating: “you will be behind a shop, in a church, under a girl. I shall hunt you down and when I find you, my wrath will come upon you. You will close your eyes and pray for forgiveness... .” The man on a cross in front of me; the sound of my neighbour checking his phone; that voice: “...keep a record of sins....” I left the church and began my life.

To a nation that did not call on my name

This was how I understood the rules of the game and so I hid. Hid in religion and sex, life and death, anywhere where it seemed God might not find me. Yes, He whispered but no, I didn’t hear Him. I refused to hear him. I ran. Life became a constant movement, a motion neither forwards nor backwards, but movement nonetheless. Hunted by God, by His wrath, I lost myself in girls. Lingering by bars, I would smile, alcohol dulling the build up of sin within me, until at mine, theirs, behind a bar, we’d reach the moment of orgasm: a movement against eternity, an escape from the present. The point of explosion a pistol shot against the past (his threats), against the future (the furnace), against the very present in which I thought I wanted to live.

I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'

Living in the present, I would clothe myself in riches. My clothes were an expression of my soul, which I thought was alive, which I thought was vibrant, which I thought was fighting death, actively taking up arms against it. Days would be spent going from shop to shop, my soul in my credit card, leaving a little of its essence at every counter. Nights would be spent going from bar to bar; an echo of that voice in the sirens outside, in the shots of sambuca downed, a short fire on the drink before it sank into my throat and outside, to the next bar.

I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me

Religion for the soul and sex for the body. I took to going to church: an intellectual exercise, a concession to the demands of society which needs an outward holiness to match an inward depravity. My words were kind; my children got into the church school; my smile was sincere; my life appeared to change as I married, leaving the drink and girls for weekends away. Married life kept me in the city, the sirens, the screams surrounding me as I walked through the streets, as I hid in the respectability of society.

My sins are too numerous to enumerate, my desires too deep to contain. I walk again past the church where I first heard His voice. My wife is dead (road accident, sirens) and my children have embraced the god I hid from. The fire continues to burn but the church appears to still be standing against the storm clouds. My life is lost, has spent its life in hiding, and I am close to death.

I was found by those who did not seek me.

I lie on my bed: death surrounds me but no longer is it a burning fire. I lie on my bed: death surrounds me but it is his death, his cross, his body. I lie on my bed, and as the cool air clears my room I take that final step at the end of a long life in hiding. I step out of my bed - naked, alone - and stare out of my window as the church spire appears to be reborn, appears to break forth from the bonds of this life, seems about to break into heaven.
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This article has been read 636 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Patty Wysong
08/15/08
This seemed to be a beautiful testimony, but I have to admit to being lost sometimes--most likely me and not the writing. (eye roll) I loved how you wove in those single lines--very effective!
Teresa Hollums
08/16/08
This was very intense. I,too, felt somewhat "confused" myself. Perhaps more information about the delusionary state of your speaker might help.
gayle jackson
08/19/08
I loved it probably because I've been real bad too. This death bed reflection, so discriptive yet bitter sweet, saved by Jesus, the cross, the promise of heaven not matter what and all those great one liners too often ignored but still in our soul.
Judith Gayle Smith-Owens Vitouswykegardinerclark
08/20/08
This is such a painful and exquisite rendition of a newfound walk with God...if it is your personal testimony, praise God. Only He matters, yes? My heart is hugging your character's heart. When rereading this, I did not find it to be disjointed - it is a soul's outpouring as recollections hit. Most excellent. Thank you.