by Eben Le Roux
Chapter 20
It was a perfect night for being outdoors with hardly a breeze in the air. The organisers were impressed with the turnout and so was James. Peter had moments left to take the stage, and he guided his eyes over the huge audience. He knew he could not have asked for more as he closed his eyes and said a short prayer of thanks. What happened to him, and so suddenly, was something he could never have dreamt. He looked at Bruce from where he was sitting, and a smile formed on his lips. The band was playing ‘Caravan of Love’, and the lead singer was doing justice to the song. The crowd had joined in the singing and that made his surroundings much more passionate. Slowly, he walked onto the stage dressed in a black suit, a white shirt with a neatly knotted black spotted tie. There was no sign of the beggar he was a couple of nights ago. With a short haircut and the beard completely shaven off, he looked more like the school principal he once was. The Johnson family was seated in the front row, proud of their father. Sandra’s kids, together with Jason, were waving at him, shouting, ‘Grandpa, Grandpa’, competing with the sounds of the speakers. He noticed them and waved back with a big smile. This gesture added so much to their joy that they started jumping while laughing happily with one another.
When the band ended the song, he wasted no time and started immediately. ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. What a beautiful song. I must admit, one of the greatest songs in my lifetime. It is so unfortunate that they do not make music like that anymore. We might disagree over what is good music but, did you ever hear little children sing? I think we all will agree that it is just the most beautiful choir we will ever get. There is nothing in the world that you can compare with the voices of little children singing.’ His words brought out many smiles from the audience, and he knew they agreed with him.
‘I was a school principal once, and I used to walk past those classrooms where children were singing. Sometimes, they would sing out of tune. Sometimes, they would not even know all the words, and most of the time, they would pitch their voices too high . . . just to be heard. Believe me . . .’ He had to give them a chance to finish their laughter. ‘It does not matter how many lines they sing wrong or how many times they go out of tune, these little kids stays a delightful choir and are a natural beauty to listen to. As you smile while listening to them, your heart smiles with you. In fact, what you hear is not their singing but the innocent voice of mankind talking to you.’
Suddenly, the tone in his voice changed, becoming more serious and commanding. ‘Tonight, I will ask you a very important question. With the world in so much turmoil, what would become of these little children one day? What would happen to them after losing that beautiful innocence? Well, I thought about it, and a verse from the Bible scared me cold. According to Matthew 10: 21, Brother will betray brother; a father will betray his child and children will rise up against parents.’ He paused for the verse to sink into their conscious. ‘I am asking all the adults in this world, do we really take this biblical forewarning seriously enough.”
He took a serious look at them, as if he was expecting an answer. ‘I do not think we are even trying to imagine the nightmares a situation like this could bring. I said to you previously that we should not fear the end of the world as much as we should fear the total collapse of morality within societies. Just to give you a picture of the crisis we can expect, let us look at other words that are synonymous with the word “moral”.’
Very slowly, he started naming them, with loud emphasis, so they could feel the power of every word.
‘Kindness . . . decency . . . honesty . . . principle . . . discipline . . . respect . . . and righteousness.’ Again, he stopped to let them feel the true impact of the words he had just mentioned.
‘These words describe the best qualities within humankind, and what a wonderful world this would have been if we could be only seventy percent successful with maintaining moral within society. Today, our children are losing that beautiful innocence much too early. We are exposing them to the sins of this world almost from the date of their birth, and we call it freedom. They start to know about adult conduct when the only matter that should be keeping them busy is playing with toys. There is no moral respect in adult behaviour, and we have lost the responsibility to shield our children from sin. Hence, our children register our conduct as knowledge, and this type of knowledge is nothing but a disaster for this world.
Shannon Buoys was sitting in the fourth row; listening to the man she regarded as responsible for the mess in her life. His neat appearance made nothing to her conscious. To her, he was just the hobo whose life she desperately wants to expose. Though filled with an inconsolable feeling of revenge, she could not help admiring the manner in which he speaks; strong, yet calm, not preaching but more with the capacity of a lecturer. Scanning the stage with her eyes, she could see how intensively Bruce was starring at Peter with a pleasing smile on his face. That smile made her anger turn into resentment and she could feel only more hatred towards this hobo. A silent promise of destruction formed in the back of her mind. Her presence at the stadium was not to listen to these speeches; it was part of her plan of destruction.
In the front row was Peter’s family. Ray looked at the crew that helped build the stage, as he was happy they made it there. Only one man was not there, he never even came to report for duty. That man was Max Tobin.
Max had become too obsessed with what the money from that watch could do for him. At that same moment Peter had started his speech, he managed to get onto the property of that house. The meeting Ross had with them was enough to put a plan together. As cunning as he was, he got the address that same day from a telephone book, and the next two days, he jogged past the house to see how to get inside. The value of that watch was going to make him the most important person in his neighbourhood. He did not care if Ross had already informed the family, from what he knew about life, it was always worth a try. After making sure he was not seen, he explored the building for the easiest way to get inside. It was a dream start for him and the simplest break-in he had in years. The electricity account of the property was too long in arrears, so the supply was suspended.
Ray looked into the direction of Colin to see if he was doing fine. With Colin standing in as a volunteer-caretaker, Ross was pleased at that new outlook into life from this young man. After giving him a nodded smile, he turned his attention back to Peter’s speech.
‘Our children are becoming social problems at a tender age and nobody knows who should be blamed. Parents have no control over them and teachers can no longer manage them in classrooms. Let us not lie to ourselves any longer; Children are no longer living in a world of adult direction as they had chosen to live in an uncontrolled environment. This is nothing but the perfect platform for total collapse of moral in society.
Funny how we have tried to correct these social problem by building more prisons, but they are filled within no time. We have added dozens of social institutions, but they have failed to cope with the growing demands for social repair. We have thrown in millions of dollars and we came up with many great political ideas, but logistically, they all had shown no success.
Yes, after all these efforts, our social problems are still multiplying by the day. People, I am not trying to bring to you a lesson about moral so much as I want to emphasise how dreadful it is to live a life with God permanently marked as absent. We have these problems because we refuse to consult the scriptures written for us on instructions from Him. Cry a tear for the truth that God and Jesus are not politically correct in modern life. Cry a tear for us believing that we have outsmarted the teachings of the Lord. Cry a tear for the knowledge that is killing the innocence of our children. Cry a tear for the knowledge that made them grow up so quickly and has them dying so soon.’
He then said in a near whispered voice; ‘Jesus said; let the children come to me. Let them come to get the wisdom they so desperately need. That wisdom, ladies and gentleman, has been denied to them, and that lack of wisdom my
friend, are the cause of the illnesses in our society.’ For a moment, he paused as if waiting for answers to come from them.
‘To everybody present here tonight, everybody anywhere in the world, every king and presidents in their powerful positions, wisdom can only start with God... and nowhere else. What was once a good moral relationship between politics and religion has now been reduced to an unsympathetic relationship between politics and freedom. Now we start to think that God is punishing us with all the brutal murders and rapes, the growing numbers of the unemployed, the hatred, the corruption, and all the social injury. I can tell you that these tragedies have nothing to do with God’s punishments. There is one word for what is happening to us in this modern society. It is called “consequences”. We are only suffering the consequences of our own rulings and our own undertakings. We are suffering the consequences of putting knowledge before wisdom and now we do not see any fear of the Lord in our children but rather we see how countries are fearing it’s children.’
He took a sip from a glass of water. ‘It is a shame how we watch this moral decline with open eyes. Money and material objects became the order of the day. The Sabbath was taken away, and so was the interval for religion at schools. Caution to care for those little things that could keep morality within societies was thrown out of the window. Anything that has financial gain, irrespective of how it clashes with morality, has now taken centre stage. It is with great mourning that I am thinking of those little minds at our schools. Never will they be able to live their childhood with the same innocence that I did. The storybook pictures of Jesus are now replaced with pictures of condoms. The words of the Lord’s Prayer have now been replaced with safe sex instructions. A whole generation’s innocence lost before the age of ten. I am telling you today; by taking away the innocence of our children so early, is as good as a bullet... a bullet aimed at God.’
He left a fragile silence hanging before he added; ‘How long before we produce the world’s biggest fear; how long before we produce the world’s ultimate fools...? Just remember there will be no reward in your wishing for a miracle. God is not going to send another Messiah to save us. He already saw how brutal and merciless we could be with Jesus. Never again can God trust us with another faithful being from Heaven. So, my message to you tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is if God is not politically correct, if God is no longer socially acceptable, do we not deserve to suffer in His absence?”
Meanwhile, inside Pedro’s house, Max was doing well for himself. Within fifteen minutes of entering the house, he opened a draw and a bulky envelope drew his attention. It was partly hidden underneath a pile of stationary and documents. On the instant that he opened the envelope, he nearly fell over from the crouched position he was in. In his shock, he had to balance himself with his left arm as he also had to battle to get back his breath. It took him a good thirty seconds to recover from the shock as he starred at the envelope in astonishment. This time, he opened it slowly, took out the watch, and gaped at the golden object in his hand. He had seen gold before, but the excellence and worth of this item was beyond what he had expected to find. The entire watch was an art of gold. Everything was glittering from that gold; the strap, the body, even the numbers and moving parts. Adding to that glitter was a sterling silver face with even the Rolex symbol done in gold. Realising the fortune he was holding, the obsession to leave the house became crucial. As a clever robber would do, he neatly placed everything back in the draw and closed the door of the cupboard. He collected the screwdriver and crowbar from the floor, and started to look around. Making sure that nothing was out of place, he swiftly moved back to the window through which he entered.
From that moment, it would have been only two minutes between Max and a successful burglary.
Unfortunately, a security van had stop in front of the house for what was to be normal routine check. The guard got out and casually took a walk around the building. As this was regular for him, he was not alert for anything out of the order.
Max, on the other side of the house, was again very eager to leave this place. With sneakers on, he made no noise and hurried around the corner of the house; headed on into the guard. Neither one knew about the other until that moment of impact. Immediately after the surprise came shock and there was fear in both of them. Max was quick to recover as the guard was already reaching for his gun. Without hesitation, he hit at the guard with the crowbar. His movement was downwards, aiming for the head, but the guard saw that intention. With skilled instincts, he moved his head out of the way, but got the blow on his collarbone instead. The pain that followed, hurled him down with so much pain that he thought he was going to pass out.
Noticing the guard still had his hand on the gun, Max lifted the crowbar again and stormed forward. That brought fear into the guard’s eyes as he could see the crowbar was again aimed at his head. With one arm completely paralysed from the first blow, the other was already moving the gun. As the crowbar came towards him, he lifted the gun and, without aiming, shot at the body above him. It was too late; the crowbar hit him full on the side of his face. He passed out instantaneously.
Max started to panic as the gunshot was loud enough to wake up the whole neighbourhood and he knew his getaway was not going to be that easy any more. Frantically, he looked around if any persons were outside their houses, and seeing nobody, he quickly ran across the road. He looked at his options; He could ran away as fast he could or, he would be better hidden by the hedges that served as fences that carried on until the end of the street. Fearing he could be seen, he took big strides to get into hiding faster. With shock, he felt a stinging pain in the side of his body and had to limp further. The fear was becoming more dreadful as the pain was slowing his escape down. At one stage, it became so fierce, that he nearly let out a cry. He put his hand to the side where he felt the pain and got the shock of his life; he touched something wet and knew instantly he had been shot. He cursed himself for not having made alternative plans for a car to be around. Selfishly, he started blaming Collin for the mess he was in; he and his car were supposed to be part of the plan. Failing to move faster, he hid himself well in amongst the dense growth of the hedgerow. Distress crept into him as he thought of the blood trail he could have left. He felt his trousers and some relief came to him, they were only wet to above the pocket. This was thanks to his padded jacket that soaked up most of the blood. Like a frightened dog, he contemplates for the sound of sirens, but nothing came. The absence of the sirens encouraged him to move more. Panic was pushing him to move as far away as possible from that house. Trying to make it home was also out of the question, as he knew the blood would be too evident if somebody should stop him. Fighting the pain, he moved more and made it to the next corner. Some comfort came over him as he looked at the distance he had covered. The pain became too much for him and he wiggled himself deep into the hedge with the awareness that he could not stay there all night. Fearing he could bleed to dead, he took out his phone and dialled Collin’s number.
Peter still had his audience captivated in his speech. Even Shannon Buoys was giving her full attention to his poise. Her admiration for the man has grown over the last minutes listening to him. She had also began to realise that it was going to be tough in trapping a man with such intelligence with questions. His voice was beginning to fascinate her, as if it demanded her attention as he speaks. Yet, deep inside she still had a score to settle with him.
“We are now living in a world where we cannot speak about God without speaking against the constitution and; we cannot speak about the constitution without speaking against God. We recklessly had stood up the two most important platforms of our future, the one against the other. I grew up surrounded by respect, decency, discipline, and all those other good qualities within humankind. That is slowly dying away only because of a lack of wisdom. Along came the extremists armed with constitutional protection and the word ‘respect’ was immediately removed. Soon after, discipline, decency, honesty, and
godliness followed that same route. Love is now replaced with lust, moderation with greed and discipline replaced by anarchy. Ladies and gentlemen, we are currently developing the world’s ultimate fool. It will become impossible to negotiate the future of this world with such fools. Never ever, must we forget that we are preparing the conditions for a brother to kill a brother; a child to rise up against the parent and; that we are preparing the perfect conditions for this forewarning of God. Ladies and gentlemen, I once was a teacher, trained to teach truthful knowledge. That truth, ladies and gentlemen, is a simple line from the Lord himself, “Let the children come to me. Unfortunately, we had killed Jesus and are now aiming a loaded political gun at God. Let it be known that we will not succeed in that mission. We will only accomplish a situation where brother will kill brother and a father to turn against a child.’ He let a moment’s silence hang before he said, ‘Amen’.
As Peter turned to leave the stage, he heard a woman’s voice screaming after him. ‘Teacher, teacher . . .’ slowly, he turned around only to face Shannon Buoys focusing her camera on him. James, who did not like what he was watching, turned to Bruce noticeably worried. ‘Bruce, get Peter off that stage, he does not need to be insulted by her.’
Two men rushed forward, but Bruce stopped them immediately. ‘No need for that, gentlemen. Leave it.’
‘Bruce, what are you doing? Can’t you see she is out to embarrass him?’ James sounded upset.
‘That man is spiritually charged up, James. She picked the wrong time, and I’ve waited for this moment much too long.’
While James was still trying to overcome Bruce’s response, he heard Shannon asking Peter, ‘Teacher, I heard you speaking against constitutions a number of times. Can you tell the people why you are so obsessed with that?’
Everybody in the audience was quiet. You could hear a pin drop while James stood with great concern, and Bruce had a little smile on his lips. Peter looked at Shannon as if he had deep sorrow for her. He addressed her without the anger or the fear she had hoped for,
‘Lady, do you believe in God?’
‘Yes, I do,’ her answer came quickly.
‘Well, I believe one hundred percent in constitutions. Do you have running water in your house?’
‘Yes, of course, I . . .’ this time, she answered in confusion, for she did not see the reason for the question, and he did not give her the chance to ask why.
‘Well, a constitution should be like a catchment area for water. If the water is clean, we could all have a good and healthy society. However, should that water be toxic...do I need to tell you the consequences lady, do I?’
With her still pondering his words, he turned and left the stage. The applause that came placed Shannon in a very awkward spot, as she stood beaten while watching him leaving the staged.
James’s frown immediately turned into a smile as he walked over to Bruce. ‘Damn it, Bruce, is there nothing else you can think of doing with this man after this? He is too good to be wasted.’
Bruce gave him a canny smile, saying, ‘That is why I brought him to you, James, and both of you do not even know that he has created a very big new series for your station.’
‘You’re joking. What is it?’ James demanded.
‘Let’s just say pay day has arrived at Channel 91, and if you would please excuse me, I have to catch up with Sean. We’re driving to Bolton tomorrow.’
‘Bolton, but that place is dead . . . what . . . ?’
As Bruce was already on his way, James had no other choice but to join in on applauding with the audience.