by Nate Allen
he smiles as he stops the car in the middle of the decline, puts it into reverse and floors it backwards up the hill. “Don’t worry. Cars rarely drive on this road.”
4
D sees me as one minded: I’ll do anything for sex. I ran from the car like I couldn’t wait to get inside to call Delilah. If I’m going to lie, I need to commit. I looked out the window, house phone to my ear. I gave him a thumbs up, and an exaggerated wink.
He drove away a few minutes ago, back the way my beach is. But I’m not stepping outside until I’m sure he’s gone. If he’s really trying to stop me from seeing my dad, I need to proceed carefully. If D is trying to deceive me, there is no one I can trust.
I have to get down to the lake. I have to see my dad. He may just be a loon like D says, or he may have information D doesn’t want me to hear. I have never felt more paranoid. Some paradise this is turning out to be…
Another five minutes has passed. There is no sign of D anywhere. Hopefully he thinks I’m already with Delilah and the fun is just beginning. I’m going to need the time. D said it’s a long drive down.
My eyes seem to be set to wide permanently. I leave the house and run over to my car. I can’t stop looking the way D left. I can just imagine his car pulling up. What would I say then? The higher a lie stacks the harder it is to keep it from toppling. I am already at a disadvantage. I’m new to this land and I know no one, other than D. I would have to tell him the truth and then he would never let me out of his sight. This is the only chance I’m going to get.
I get in the driver seat. The car starts effortlessly. I put it into drive and follow the steady decline down toward the next property. It is a straight shot downhill. I put my foot to the floor, going well over a hundred. The skies change quickly overhead, going from night to day, to dusk to dawn, and then it becomes random variations of these four.
The car has maxed out at the speed it can go. My reflexes are sharp and well under control. I’ve already passed under half a dozen skies. I’m still up high enough that I can see where the lake is. It seems that it should be at the end of this road. There doesn’t seem to be many twists and turns to this path. At the rate I’m going, I should be there much quicker than I expected.
5
Suddenly, a white speck appears in the middle of the road at the bottom of the hill. It’s too far away to tell what it is. It’s a strange shaped silhouette. I honk my horn, as I reduce my speed drastically. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop in time. I’m still going close to a hundred. Whatever it is, it doesn’t budge. I start to pump my brakes, slowing down much quicker than before. The details are quickly filling in. It’s a pale boy, one of the strange ones from that group who dress like angels.
As I approach him, my speed is under control. The car is down to a slow fifteen mph and slowing still. He’s holding a cardboard sign, just like the man from yesterday. It says this:
Trying to go home…
“You shouldn’t just step out in the road like that. You could be killed.” I say, inching toward him.
He doesn’t reply.
“Are you lost?” I ask, the car now stopped completely.
He looks at me, eyes soft and sad. He is just a kid, probably not even eighteen.
“No. I know where home is. I just can’t get there.”
“Do you need a ride somewhere?” I ask as I scratch my head impatiently. “I’m going this way if you want a lift.”
“Thank you,” he says as he places his old, faded piece of cardboard under his arm and opens the passenger door. “Where are you headed, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“My dad is down here.” I say as I start to accelerate again. “I haven’t seen him since I was a young boy.”
“I see,” he says as he puts his cardboard sign on the floor and looks out at the skies. “It’s so empty.”
“What is?” my heart is beating nearly as fast as when I found out about my dad yesterday.
“This life. It promises everything without offering the only thing that matters.”
“What are you talking about, kid?”
“I’m talking about love, Sir. I’m talking about fullness.”
“Where do you find it?” I need to know.
“In Jesus Christ! The King of kings! And the Lord of lords!”
It is a preset to role my eyes at the very thought, especially at his embarrassing denial.
“Isn’t this life proof enough to you that God doesn’t exist, kid? You’re dead and you didn’t go to some heaven, you came here.”
“This isn’t my home, Sir. And this isn’t going to last. Truth, the very word, does not lend itself to the idea that there is more than one option. The very word truth obviously points to one thing being right and all else being wrong.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true. But why do you torture yourself, kid? Why do you wander the streets of this beautiful land and see only emptiness?”
“Because it is emptiness, Sir! All of it. It’s a band aid on a bleeding wound. It doesn’t satisfy, it only prolongs. It doesn’t stop the hurt, it buries it. It promises to quench your thirst, yet no matter how much you obtain, you’re always thirsty for more. Can I ask you a question, Sir?”
“Sure,”
“Are you happy?”
“No.” I was going to lie to him. “I agree with you, something is missing. I don’t know what it is. I think it really began when my dad died. And I think he’s the best chance I have for an answer.”
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Sir.” he says with a smile as he looks up. “Well, this is where I get off.” Before I even know what he means, he stands on the seat and jumps out of the car.
6
I paint the road in skid marks as I go from nearly a hundred to zero in record time. He just killed himself. I don’t even know what to say. I pull the car to the side of the road and get out. His body shouldn’t be far back. I’m sure I’ll see his blood in no time.
Except, I keep walking and there is no sign of his body. I walk for a while, far past where he jumped. There is no sign of him. This is impossible. I didn’t imagine picking him up. I have proof. He left his cardboard sign on the floor of my car. He was there… and now he’s not.
I stop walking and make my way back toward the car. I’m not a superstitious man but I just witnessed something beyond explanation. I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits or anything supernatural, and yet, I have no answer for what happened to that kid. There is no place to even begin.
Did he go home, wherever that is? I can’t even believe I am asking myself such a ridiculous question, but the reason men of logic don’t believe in miracles is the fact that they have never seen them. Believing is seeing. I can’t deny a miracle if I witness it firsthand.
… Then again, he could have jumped far enough to clear the road completely. That would make much more sense. And if he did clear the road, the fall is far, ending in either high pine trees on a mountainside or the calm waters of the ocean. Either would hide any trace of his body.
Yeah, that must be what happened. Poor kid was delusional. I couldn’t have stopped him even if I knew what he was going to do. He was part of that strange group, brainwashed and convinced that a day is coming where he gets to go “home”.
I get back into my car. The cardboard sign is face down on the floor. I pick it up and prop it in the passenger seat facing me.
7
I am haunted by what I’m trying to leave behind. What kind of man would I be to just leave? What if he has a family?
There are two properties he could have landed in. The one closest to where I am has a long rope bridge attaching it to the road. The rope bridge leads to a small log cabin far off in the distance. The other property is a climb down a tall ladder leading into the ocean, with a beautiful boat house far out on the water.
I lock my car. And then I dig a shallow hole in the soft rock at the base of the driver front tire, dropping my keys in and covering it back up. I’ve lost my keys one too m
any times. This trick has yet to fail me.
The rope bridge is high enough in the air that the wind is swinging it from side to side effortlessly. This is a detour I wasn’t planning on taking today. But, it’s something I have to do. I couldn’t live with myself if I kept driving. And my dad would be ashamed at the kind of man I’ve become. I have to at least try…
It is strange that you are most alive when closest to death. This bridge feels as if it could give away at any moment. And the beating of my heart is sharper and more pronounced because of it. I feel every tick, I sense every pulse in my body.
The rope holding the bridge together is tattered. It almost feels like the person who made it didn’t want visitors. Maybe he designed it to keep D and all other realtors out. It seems that many people design their properties to make access to them difficult. They must find D to be a pest. I can understand that if you’re not interested in a timeshare deal.
I close my eyes as I continue walking. All of my senses are sharp as my baby steps slowly get me closer and closer to safety. The sway of the bridge rocks me side to side; the creak of the old wood causes my hands to hold onto the fraying rope handles even tighter.
“This is private property!” I hear a voice from off in the distance but it’s still quite clear.
I open my eyes. I can see just enough to tell that it’s a husky bearded man standing in front of the cabin. He fits the land he brought with him to a T.
“I mean no harm!” I yell, no longer inching forward. “Please, Sir!”
“Proceed!” he’s clearly hesitant. “Watch your step!”
I hurry along, still gripping the rope handles tightly. The sway of the bridge lessens the closer to the cabin I get. I can now make out the details of the man. He is wearing white long johns with mustard colored overalls. Why is everyone dressed with two repeating colors? D and everyone attached to him wears black and red. Everyone else wears white and gold, or a deep yellow.
“Make this quick, kid.” he’s an older man, a lumberjack if there ever was one. “What do you need?” he offers his hand to pull me off of the last few feet of the bridge. I accept.
“I don’t know how to explain what I’m about to tell you,” I pause. “I picked up this kid, this hitchhiker, he was trying to go home. He talked about God and not belonging here and then he jumped out of my car—my moving car. I was going fast too. I think he might have landed at the bottom of your mountain down there.”
“Why do you think that?” he asks.
“I can’t find his body anywhere. It’s not on the road, where it should be. So, he must have missed the road completely and landed in one of the properties.”
“Is it too hard to believe that he went home?”
“Not you too,”
“You got a problem, kid?” his face is like stone. “If you want to be a fool, so be it. Do you think I want to be here? Do you think I like this place, this artificial, empty, void that you call paradise? I want to go home, too. Lucky kid. He finished his assignment and was taken to safety.”
“Is there something I’m missing about this whole place? It’s closer to a dream than reality.”
“Or maybe it’s closer to reality. I should have known you were a naysayer, a foolish man who denies the very deepest longing of your soul. I know to you I am a joke, but I know where I belong. I’m not looking for it in every nook and cranny, following every desire that walks past me, because I know it gives me nothing. If you were given every piece of property, would it satisfy you?”
I can’t answer his question.
“If women bowed down before you as master, threw themselves at you, did whatever you required, would it bring you happiness?”
He waits for me to reply but I can’t.
“If you could control the elements themselves, bringing everyone to their knees in admiration and fear, would you be whole?”
“No,” his words have broken me. “I would still be missing something.”
“Come with me, kid. It’s not too late.”
8
I follow the man into his cabin. It’s lit only by the glow of the fireplace. He tells me to take a seat at his small, round wooden table. I have never been broken to a point where even my steps are difficult. I sit down, overcome with an unexplainable pain, deep inside of me.
“There is no process of greater pain than this one.” he says as he walks over to a small sink and starts to fill a pan with water. “It is the process of being taken apart by your Maker and put back together correctly.” he looks at me as he carries the pan toward the fireplace. “Your moment is now. If you walk away, being so close to The Truth, you will not get another chance.”
“What do you expect me to do?” I feel naked despite my clothing.
“Make a choice. That’s all there’s left to do. Choose, once and for all, what you believe.”
“It’s not that easy.” I whisper. “It can’t be.”
“Easy?” he tosses the pan aside, spilling the water all over his floor. He doesn’t care. Angrily, he pulls a CD out from a tall stack next to an old stereo system above his fireplace and slips it in.
Suddenly, the sound a whip snapping fills the entirety of this cabin. And immediately after, an excruciating pain clogs the speakers. There’s another loud snap of sound followed by ugly tearing. He cries out louder than before, the man’s moan sounding breathless. And then he whimpers quietly as the sound of chains dragging against the ground are enhanced. In the background there is loud laughter…
He pauses it.
“What is this?” I ask, starting to shake.
“This… is what you call easy. This is the first two lashings of Jesus’ suffering. The first two lashings! People laughed! I have the whole recording on CD, all the way up to his final three words, ‘It is finished.’ But I can never get past the laughing. I can never get past the fact that I was one of those people. I was a naysayer just like you, who found the whole idea of God to be ridiculous. Not many people want recordings of the crucifixion. I only listen when I need to be humbled, when I forget just what was done for me.”
“What made you start believing? Did you find proof?”
“I was tired of being empty and I finally listened to those who said He would make me full.”
“Did He?”“He not only made me full, kid. He gave me purpose.” he says as he bends over to pick up the pan from the floor. “He is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. He transcends words. He is beyond description. He Is. When you see Him, you’re home. And you realize you’ve never been home until you are in His presence. Heaven is so much more than this pathetic attempt that we’re in right now. It has Jesus. And, if you choose to follow Him, you’ll find that even paradise void of Him is Hell.”
“Are you saying we’re in Hell?” I ask as a chill slides down my spine.
“None of that matters right now. I can’t say anything more. My assignment is this one question. You decide what the answer is. Do you believe Jesus died for you, that He rose again, and that He lives forevermore?”
“I’ve never really felt at home anywhere.” I say quietly. I don’t remember ever believing in Jesus. And maybe that’s what I’ve been missing for the entirety of my life. All reason is telling me that this man is an idiot, but the deepest part of me, past the voice of reason, says something completely different. It wants me to take a chance, to risk getting hurt once more, because the reward could be great. I would give up everything, paradise itself, to be full. “Yes. It’s small, but there. The longing stretches deep and wide inside of me.”
A warm smile comes over the man’s face as he walks back over to the sink with the pan. “You only need to receive Him as Savior and you will know fullness. It doesn’t have to be proper, just real. Do you want me to lead you?”
“No.” I whisper as I look down at my shaking hands. “I’ve seen it done before. It’s about repentance, about admitting the need for Him.”
“Yeah, kid.” he has stopped what he’s doing, as if he’s s
urprised by my answer.
I close my eyes, and start to speak, “There’s an emptiness in me. And, honestly, even now the doubt is louder than the little faith that’s there. But, this man says that You made him full. I want to be full. I’m tired of existing with holes in me. I’m tired of looking for something and never finding it. I am a stupid man, who wants to believe in You, but I’m fluent in a language that mocks Your very existence. I’m fighting that even now. I don’t know how to approach this. I am not a Holy man. I am the opposite. I am filthy and I want to be clean. I am lost and I need direction. I need a Savior. I need Someone Who loves me enough to die for me, because I have never felt a love like that. I’ve always been discarded.
“I believe that you died for me, that you rose again, and that you are alive today. I believe I can find fullness in You and no one else. Let it be true…”
My eyes open after some time of saying nothing. The man is sitting on a small stool by the fire, heating the pan of water on a metal rack.
“This is the best part.” he says as he rubs his hands together as if to warm them over the fire. “Now you get to experience true paradise.”
9
The man seems to be preparing a drink. Now that the water is boiling, he grabs an orange from a black netted sack on the floor and is starting to peel it.
“You’ll need your strength.” he says as he breaks the fruit apart and drops it into the water. It looked like an orange but the inside is bright green.
“For what?” I ask.
“The trip. I’m finally going home to stay.” I have never seen joy exist on a man’s face as it does on his right now. He is a scruffy man, intimidating in size and stature, but he almost looks like a child.
“Where are we?” I ask as the sweet smell of citrus begins to fill the air. “Limbo?”
“I’m sure you have many questions. And the answers will come in time.” he pauses as he stands up. “I’m not the one to give them to you. Just be patient, kid. We’ll be leaving soon.”
I’m not sure if it’s from the strange fruit’s fumes, or the decision I made to turn to Jesus, or it may be a placebo effect, but a cleanness is spreading through me. And happiness is overtaking everything else. The proof of need is in the result. Happiness on its own is nearly impossible to find. It’s always an expected end: if I get more money… if I get a wife… if I get more things… if I have children… if I’m respected… if…
And yet, it’s never found for long. It’s as fleeting as the weather. A sunny day can become a storm in moments. Happiness is much like this. It’s a pursuit everyone strives for, but none seem able to obtain. You are convinced you have found it in this, or that, but then you wake up after some time has passed and the emptiness has returned.
What I’m feeling now is different. It isn’t the lack of emptiness, but the knowledge that a process has begun to fill it.
The man’s face is almost directly over the pan, as he takes deep breaths. “Have you ever felt so weak that you can’t