The Man in White

“Are you there, God? It’s me… Amanda Torres.”

           Truly one of the dumbest things I could’ve ever asked in my life. For one thing, it’s not like God would actually answer.

           I’ve always heard my parents say that true, hardcore, Christian believers will get a visible sign from God. Or, if they’re lucky enough, they’ll actually hear Him speak to them like He used to do with the most prominent people in the Bible like Moses and Abraham. Sometimes, they’ll even witness truly miraculous, mind-blowing, impossible events that will leave them even more faithful than before.

           Obviously, I am not one of these true, hardcore, Christian believers.

           It may have been that one time that I questioned whether my religion is actually based on truth or not or that time when I seriously considered becoming an atheist just because it seemed like my fellow Christians were going out of their way to be embarrassing and nonsensical and prominent in the worst ways possible, but whatever it was seemed to have made God angry with me because He seems to have had it out for me this past year.

           First, my newborn little brother who I’ve been dying to see come out of my mother’s womb since I heard that she was pregnant was born dead. Then, my mother dies because delivering my dead baby brother seemed to have seeped the life force out of her. Then, my father becomes depressed and alcoholic and commits suicide. Then, I’m forced to live with my mother’s divorced, grumpy sister and her five daughters (all of whom try their hardest to be annoying prima donnas). And as if that weren’t enough trauma for a seventeen-year-old to suffer from, let alone all in one year, my divorced, grumpy, but also very rich aunt decides to move all of us to America to start a new life.

           The Prima Donnas (that’s what I decided to call my cousins) were oh-so happy when they heard that they would be living in America with their true people (Ha! As if! They can flaunt their fair skin and scorn the Philippines for being poor and underdeveloped all they want. Everyone knows that they’re just as Filipino as everyone else in the country, and no number of imported products would ever change that.), but me? I was devastated.

           Not only did I lose my entire family in the span of one year, but now I was going to lose my home and my country?

           Are you kidding?

           Good Lord, what did I do in my past life to deserve this type of punishment?

           Being spirited away by my aunt and her spoiled brats of kids to a country notorious for its colored people ending up dead at the hands of entitled police officers… I would rather jump down a deep hole that leads straight to Tartarus (yes, I am a Percy Jackson fan).

           I tried to convince them to just let me stay. I knew that there was no way that I could convince Aunt Rosa and the Prima Donnas to stay in the Philippines given just how much they’ve brainwashed themselves into thinking that they were Americans, but if I could convince them to let me stay back, I would still be depressed and be a hallow shell of the person I used to be, but I could pick up the pieces of my life and heal in my own home. In my own country. With my own people. But it was hopeless.

           I was legally adopted by La Pamilia Prima Donna, and I couldn’t be leave of my own accord until I turned eighteen which was still five months away, and we were moving next week!

           So, when I could think of nothing else to do, I went to the place I always went to when I needed a break and someone to talk to: the church.

           When I got there, I sat down at a pew in the very back so that I wouldn’t be bothered or wouldn’t bother all the other people who were coming in and out to pray. Since my baby brother’s death, I’ve never had a chance to just sit down, take a deep breath, and fully take in all the awful things that had happened to me. When my brain was finally able to comprehend everything, I broke down.

           I probably spent two hours just crying my eyes out at the back of the church.

           I cried about my baby brother, who never got to experience life.

           I cried about my mother, who had given up her life to bear an undead child.

           I cried about my father, whose grief eventually led him to his own coffin.

           Then, I cried for myself, the miserable turns that my life took, and the uncertainty of my surely misfortune-filled future.

           Thank the heavens that nobody bothered to check up on me because if they did, I would’ve died of embarrassment. When, I was finished crying, I kneeled down, bowed my head, and asked the dumbest question I’ve ever asked in my entire life.

           Are you there, God? It’s me… Amanda Torres.

           I’d come from a religious family, and I had always been religious, but even I knew that God wouldn’t just pop up out of nowhere and give me an answer.

           So, you could just imagine my surprise when that’s exactly what happened.

           “I’m right here,” someone immediately behind me said.

           I stood up quickly and turned around to see a brown-skinned man in a white suit, white shoes, and a white hat.

           “Hello, Amanda,” the man said with a smile.

           The people who were praying disappeared, the church disappeared, the pews disappeared, and there was nothing except this man. This man whose features kept changing every few seconds, so I couldn’t tell you exactly what he looked like. This man, who looked like a god, who claimed to be God.

           I stood there with my jaw wide open. There was no reason for me to believe him. For all I knew, he could’ve been a loon who heard me and decided to mess with me. But then I looked down, and suddenly realized that I was no longer standing on granite. I was standing on a cloud.

           I looked back up at the man who grinned lovingly at me.

           Then, I fainted.