For the first time in a while, man could smile and say, “I feel free! I’m so alive!”. Someone could smile and at least say “Hi” to their brother –without a dagger stuck on their backs. Pets could finally mind their own business, and people wouldn’t try and secretly attempt to murder them (and owners we so responsible to clean up after them!) Everyone had a home, everyone had food, everyone had a smile.
Of course, they were bars and pubs, casinos and fast-food joints; people could do these things in moderation. Everyone went to the big football game on Friday, the mall on Saturdays, and church on Sunday mornings. And kids weren’t coerced-the greatest miracle of them all (hehe).
Everything was lovely, beautiful, and peaceful.
Man could just think of a rum, a Nyquil, and a noose hanging on his head.
Someone would flicker the finger to their neighbor and say, “Go to Hell!”.
Pets were being murdered by unscrupulous hate-mongering animals just because they wet the flowerbed.
People were getting kicked out of their homes like leeches, people didn’t have a hot plate on their stomach, people were always frowning.
The streets were full of needles and cigarette butts. Libraries were just sex spots, schools were the equivalent of Orwellian indoctrination.
And bullies killed the children.
Teachers were evil –they only cared about their paychecks.
The city was chock full of bars and pubs, casinos and fast-food joints; giving time, money, and energy to their vices, not to themselves…
The football team sucked, half of the things in the mall sucked, and the church was empty by Sunday.
A young kid, barely fed, arrived to the temple. Inasmuch as he was abused, beaten, malnourished, he enjoyed his last few hours of freedom from his captors. As he entered to see the shatter glass stains and the broken cross, he looked in the front navel and saw a Christmas wreath. It was all dried up and tortured, but the faint scent of evergreens still glistened throughout the church. In the center of the hallways, the boy’s left sandal wore out. (Lucky he had some Krazy-Glue to fix them!) But in his picture, he found an “A” that fell off the floor.
He picked up that paper, remembering that there was a banner on the top of the church, in blue and said…
“WILL YOU HOLD YOURSELF BACK?”
He remembered his father who died in the war. He remembered his mother who was beaten to death by a scumbag of a stepfather. He remembered those years of arduous torture because of a random polio affliction. His best friend getting pregnant at sixteen; his other best friend committing suicide because he can’t take the pressure of being called “fat”; bullies being raped in jail; politicians ruining the country by taking money away from the national coffers; preachers living lives that unbelievers would never life…
The poor boy kneeled to the dirty ground, folded his hands in prayer, looked up to the sky and plead:
-God, I know you’re really pissed off at us, ‘cause we’re a bunch of losers who don’t follow the things you say to us. And I don’t know how much time I have before those evil men find me and try to hurt me. I know you’re sad, but please… Will you hold yourself back? Will you let us go to that place that burns a lot? Please, come back, please…
An innocent tear was shed from the kid’s young face. The kid kept writhing in pain over his poor nation, his poor city, his poor family. On the side, a man looked on. He had a gun on his hand. As he tried to point out at him, something burned his hand –and made him drop that gun. He turned to the door, and tried to escape…But grief overwhelmed him. There, slowly, his knees failed him. And hit his head in a wooden pew.
It didn’t hit him that hard-but just enough to start crying. Who knew-a man who prided himself in terrorizing children and outsourcing them as cheap labor had the gall to cry like a crybaby? One didn’t knew that the other was behind-less, one didn’t knew that the other was just a left pew behind them. But they were grieving for themselves.
All their fears, all their trials, were slowly melting away. May be an overstatement, but some even said that the boy’s tears cleaned two tiles straight. Could be, could be not. And even though unnoticed for many, there is still a question people still asked in their hears, something that could give them some hope.
God, will You hold Yourself back?