in searching for him

Part 1.
The pain screamed from every joint, individually, collectively. It seemed like a bulldozer had run me over and left me crushed to dust. Dust and hot, hot, dry air. I coughed a cloud of dust out of my lungs, I sneezed it out, I tried to cry it out but there was no moisture within me. The sun beat down hard on my back.

The haze cleared as my self-propelled dirt clouds settled. They seem to have been undisturbed prior to my violent intrusion. I was surrounded by crumbled marble and plaster. Walls with gaping holes led to half torn Corinthian columns, piercing the sky with sharp jagged edges. There was no roof.

I fell into my default recitation of protective prayers, seeking a Higher Power’s assistance. I had no strength and no memory of what had befallen myself or the world around me. I willed myself to stand. One hand, the other hand. One knee, the other knee. I was effectively in place. I lifted myself from the ground.

The shock of what I had seen made me forget my pain. What had happened? The harsh white sun blinded me, reflecting off of the column’s marble. Past them I saw nothing but more collapsed buildings separated by desert waste land. I saw no paved roads, no traffic system, no modern technology.

I tread carefully balancing my weight on the rocks and boulders, or stepping in between them. At any moment, the looming walls could fall onto me, piercing me with their wire frame supports. I walked away from the building and into another. Still, nothing but walls and columns turned to rubble. There was no evidence of human life, no furniture, no human or animal bones, not even roaches who were known to survive nuclear radiation.

My legs gave way before I realized what was happening. The wind was knocked from my lungs as my back hit the floor. I heard the clattering of rocks falling behind me, echoing. I turned to see where the rocks had fallen and saw a pit of blackness. Even this seemingly mile-close sun’s light could not lead me to the well’s bottom. I watched more little rocks and pebbles tumble on the gentle downward slope I rested in. I heard their clatter as they hit the wells walls, but I never heard them land. I took another stone and threw it in, still, not even a splash of water or a light thud of mud.

How was it that I had not fallen in? I saw my ankle wedged hard between the wall and a fallen column. The tears finally came to me, my heart welling in gratitude. Thank you, God for saving me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, how to get up and away?

I sat up and inspected my ankle, I couldn’t feel that leg. I couldn’t even bend my knee. I tried using more rubble as leverage, but the rocks kept coming loose and tumbling into the well. How was I to escape this?

Thank you God, I continued to pray, for not letting me fall down that well but please send me some help! Please? God, in Your hands is my salvation, You are the creator the maker of all things. What you will shall always be… only you can save me, for there is no refuge from your will except from you…

There was no refuge from what God willed.. I was at His mercy.

The comfort of prayer was suddenly snatched from me. God had put me in this situation?

I covered my head with my arms, trying to hide from my thoughts. Was this hell? This forsaken city, this desolate wasteland of unyielding dust and heat. It had to be, punishment for my blasphemous thoughts of a heartless tyrannical diety demanding worship and gratitude from its worthless creation.

I had thanked him for sparing me death in that well, but was that a mercy? Or a further infliction of punishment? Was I so terrible a person? My memories were extremely spotty, and I could only go as far as … college MSA meetings? Spending time with friends? Making dinner for my parents? Babysitting my nephew? Denouncing my faith?

I remembered that day. I had grown up devout in my belief in god and suddenly fell from grace. And I even blamed God for my Atheism. I remembered daring him to deny me a trial should I take my own life, for I waited to confront him. I demanded to know what even the Angels were unworthy of knowing.

Why create man? In our putrid disgusting existence of waste and bodily fluids? A creature that begins its decay from the moment of birth. Self absorbed and viral in destroying all that is good and beautiful for its own consumption.

Why give us so many creeds and temperaments knowing the turmoil it would cause, leaving us no hope for resolution, not even a righteous leader to keep us together.

Leave us with nothing but the promise of reward and the threat of punishment both unsubstantiated in our earthly lives.

I did not deny God’s existence … but I did question his SENTIENCE. Where was He? I actively sought for god, searching for truth from my friends and family, from clergy, from god himself.

All of man repeated memorized lines, all evaded the question. All dared to say that God left us everything we needed and it should have been good enough, not realizing that they themselves implied that god err’ed and was imperfect.

My heart and soul screamed nothing but doubt. And I received a deafening silence from god.

I had walked the earth in search of him and I witnessed with my own eyes that god had left us for the beauty of sunsets and stars, oceans and forests, birds and bees. He had long left mankind.

I watched the orphans of famine pray to god.

I watched the widows of war pray to god.

I watched the diseased and dying pray to god.

Where did their prayers go? Were they answered by their deaths? Were they transported to alternate realities of bliss? A reversed world where they, in turn, were the corporate hogs milking the life out of the disadvantaged? The “less human” because they were fated to be born in the wrong place, the wrong time, to the wrong combination of chromosomes? Is there no salvation?

Where was he in our time of need? Where is he now? Where was he while I thanked him for giving me the torment of being cast in a desolate wasteland trapped in rubble rather than letting be slip into some bottomless well. Thanked him for torturing me this way instead of that way.

I tried to squirm and dive into the well, my tears blinding me and rage numbing the pain. If God was, then I needed to see him. If God wasn’t, then I would revel in the bliss of nonexistence.

More rocks tumbled into the bottomless well. My leg and the column it rested under would not budge.

“I waited for you!” I shouted, hearing my voice echo and return to me. “I searched for you!” I shouted again. My pleas also banked in a growing pile of pleas, from children molested by preachers, from wives beaten by their husbands. Why bother, mine was one of millions. Of billions.

The hours seemed to pass, yet the sun hadn’t moved. The shadows hadn’t moved. I could do nothing but cry. And wait. And plead to God. And argue with myself that he could not hear me. My past was filled with prayers in which I called to him, walked to him, and ran to him. I chose to wait for him to come to me, as he promised.

My eyes rested on a crack in the west wall, until my vision double, until I saw nothing.


Part 2.

My violent coughing woke me. A fine layer of soot covered everything, almost like snow. I wiped my mouth and looked around. Nothing had else changed. The shadows remained in their exact same position. Still a blinding white sun. Still not a cloud in the sky. Just powder fine soot everywhere.

I tried again to free myself of the rubble and couldn’t. I didn’t have anything to cut my leg off.

“HELP!” I shouted with my loudest voice, and immediately regretted it, feeling the scratches in my throat. My thirst threatened me and I couldn’t even seek death.

A slow rumble vibrated the earth. I noticed the crack I had been staring at grew larger and was almost … still growing? It spread quickly, traveling through the north wall and ending at a gaping hole on the east. I took a deep breath in the sudden stillness and watched the top of the north wall fall away from me. It landed fiercely and everything that had rested on the ground jumped, including my self.

I was suddenly rolling downwards with the rest of the stone and plaster into the well. I tried grabbing onto something, anything, but everything was falling with me. I clawed onto the walls of the well, wearing away at my fingernails, then at my fingers, then at my bones. I finally caught onto a ledge and affixed myself to it. I tried to swallow my organs back into place.

How I desperately wanted the comfort of belief in god as religion taught it. I wanted someone else to take care of this. Someone else to pull me out. I knew I could not just “believe” for convenience. I would not lie to myself. What was true must be true at all times.

I looked up and saw that the light was not far at all. I tried climbing upwards, even though my right leg was useless. My bleeding fingers were almost giving way.

I vividly remembered denouncing my faith, deciding that ritual worship was a pointless waste of time. God could not hear us, God did not think or feel for us. God simply is the energy force from which all life becomes and returns to. With that we recognize its ultimate power and greatness but cannot expect this power to make meddling changes in our lives like a mighty human manipulating chess pieces.

That meant that I couldn’t be angry with god for putting me in this situation, because situations are random series of events that will ultimately lead to a final conclusion, and every creature has its role to play. This was my role, even if it was as minimal as causing the north wall to topple over.

“I can’t be angry,” I said aloud, settling for the comfort of my own voice, “This is not ‘god’s’ fault. This simply is what has to be. I can accept this. I can get out of here.”

I reached my hand upwards and almost felt the edge of the well, I just needed to be a few feet higher. But I couldn’t find any more ledges to lever me upwards. I looked around, three times, four times, and saw nothing. The walls were smooth as glass. Panic set in. Could I sprint? From a ledge barely an inch big with one good leg?

“I cannot appeal to God,” I spoke aloud again, “God will not help me. I can only help myself.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re doing a very good job of it.”

My eyes shot upwards. I saw the black silhouette of a man’s head in the light.

“Oh my god!” I exclaimed.

“No,” he laughed, “I’m a far cry from anything remotely god-like.”

He extended a hand down to me, and pulled me out. I couldn’t stand, so he walked me to a shaded corner and sat beside me. I embraced the strange man, still not seeing his face. I held him like he had given me life, and I cried.

“There, there,” he said, pushing me away. I hadn’t wanted to let go, knowing there was another living human being here with me. I needed the security of that embrace. He reached for the bag he wore on his back and pulled out a bottle of water, and handed it to me. I had swallowed it in almost one gulp.

He elevated my sore leg, causing a searing pain to grip me. I bit my lip, and the taste of blood filled my mouth.

“I’m going to have to set this back in place,” he said, “Lie down.”

He took out a shirt from his bag and tore a strip.

“Bite on this.”

I bit down hard and closed my eyes.

“You ready?” I heard him ask.

I grunted a yes and braced myself. The pain darkened my world.


Part 3
I woke to the throbbing pain in my right leg. It was wrapped, splinted by thin slabs of concrete, and elevated onto a pile of rocks. I looked around quickly for the gentleman who had saved me, and didn’t see him. I wouldn’t risk calling out, should I cause another avalanche of walls to tumble down on me.

I noticed the well across the room. I was on the bottom end of the slope, so I couldn’t fall in, but its site nauseated me.

“Hello?” I voiced, weakly.

Perhaps he’d gone to find food. If there was food. It didn’t matter. I was no longer alone. I was no longer thinking about god.

I saw two full bottles of water beside me, commercially sealed. They read DEERPARK. Clearly we had to be in America somewhere. Maybe Arizona. Maybe a roaming island on the Bermuda triangle.



“Do you think we crashed on a plane, and we’re the only survivors?”
He laughed without looking at me.
“You’re thinking of Lost.”
“What?”
“You’re thinking of a Television series called Lost, that’s what happened.”
“Oh.” My disappointment rang clear in my voice.
“But it’d be nice to find a luscious fruit filled rainforest somewhere, we’re sort of low on rations.”