I LOOKED, AND THEN I LOOKED AWAY

Chapter 3 - "The Lord's Business"

The madman put his hands together and looked up into the blinding blue lit sky as if to say to me, “Pray for your life.”

“You don’t know who you’re talking to you asshole,” I muttered in my mind. I didn’t want to pray. I didn’t want to ask anything out of God. This African trip was a spiritual journey that died in the sand. I hated God.

When I left for Africa I had a real desire to see if God was here in Africa. I had heard enough about genocide, crime, and poverty. But I also had heard of crazy miracles taking place like limbs growing, diseases disappearing, and even people getting raised from the dead. To me it seemed like God was in Africa and not in Canada.

I used to believe that I could talk to God, and that he truly cared about me. I was raised this way in my small-town of seven churches. My dad was the pastor of one such church and so I had to attend service every Sunday. It was boring every time. I knew religion better than most kids on my block, however, and I knew the confusion and torment that comes with it. I was taught that God was in the business of love which I had learned on this safari, was not true. He was in the business of stealing and tormenting and being a bastard.

He took my gal away while I was on this safari. She was perfectly in love with me before we left.

I met her at my best-friend’s wedding. That day was perfect. She wore a beautiful yellow dress with a white flower in her hair. She reminded me of summer; a feeling of freedom and happiness. Her deep brown eyes and long dark hair made me think I was in a dream. We danced that night under a canopy of stars and I knew when she smiled that she was the one for me.

It felt so right for so long until a few days back when I had called her from a payphone at a lonely gas-station in the middle of nowhere. She said she didn’t know what was going on inside of her or why she was losing the love. She just lost it she said, and then hung up.

I didn’t believe it was her. It was my luck, as the good things in life - the beautiful things in life, are taken away from me and replaced with terrible things.

After my heart was completely crushed, and I shed a few tears, I heard the sound of music coming from the other side of the station. It sounded like hope to me. I walked around the front to see what it was.

A large group of Christians were singing hymns together. It sounded angelic and I thought, maybe, just maybe, this was a good sign. It’s not every day that you stumble on a group of angels singing outside of a gas station in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. Maybe I should open my heart once more. It felt a little soon, but I didn’t really have anything to lose by that point. She was gone and I was alone.

I lit a cigarette and stood outside of the group, observing the joy these people were expressing. They were all smiles. Men, women, and children all gathered together in a semi-circle singing so passionately. It was like God was conducting this beautiful choir.

Was this why I was in Africa? Was this the moment I had been searching for this whole time? My heart was hopeful and tears began to roll down my cheeks.

Then an older man, which looked like the pastor, started to approach me. As he walked my way slowly I realized that this was it! Something out of the ordinary was about to happen to me! The pastor man looked into my broken heart. I thought he might have some sort of profound word to say to me. He got closer and my heart burst with excitement.

“Could you smoke your cigarette over on that side of the station? We’re doing the Lord’s business here. Thanks,” he said with a concerned look in his eye.

Fuck. Everything that was good inside of me disintegrated into nothing at that moment. My heart was already broken, and this was the finishing blow. It was like somebody beat the hell out of me; beat the life out of me with a simple instruction.

He was her. He was God. He was this African adventure. In that moment, he was everything that was once something good in my life.

I turned around without saying anything in reply. I flicked my cigarette into the wind and walked towards the safari bus feeling my heart had just been literally turned into stone within a few minutes. I turned my back on God in that same moment, with the flicking of my cigarette and the exhale of my smoke.