Tidal Waves in a Puddle: Despair into Hope

Prompt: Start your story with a character in despair

Tidal Waves in a Puddle: Waves of Despair into Hope

The time is right to tell my story. It is not an endearing story. My desire is for you to know the Truth. No adoring relatives ogling over my cute infant form. I learned that I was birthed on the street from a crack-head, deranged mother.  My cradle was a cardboard box. It was the first of my cardboard homes. Social services eventually caught up with her.

The first of my many foster families decided to call me Damien.  It was sometime before I realized what that name symbolized. In retrospect, I believe it was descriptive because I have been battling demons for most of my life. As I got older, I wanted to be called Dom.   I was told from other foster parents that I was constantly needy and crying.  I could never be comforted. 

Then there was a family that had other children of assorted ages. The façade of familial love was laced with abuse and humiliation.  My foster brothers beat me on the buttocks with leather switches. Any marks were hidden. It got worse during bath time. My foster sisters were responsible for getting me bathed.  They made me do things that etched permanent scars in my mind. My bed at night was an old mattress in a dank, cold basement. I had visitors at night; two legged and four legged. Eventually it would stop because I acceded. There was no amusement without a fight, even for the rats.

On Sundays I would hear how God loved me at church. I fostered the notion that somehow, He must have been mad at me because no sooner when we were home my so-called family was wicked, neglectful, and contemptable.  Then, one Sunday I perked up and heard the preacher say ‘let the little children come to me’. I looked around the church but no kids were moving toward him. He said it again, but saying ‘for the kingdom of God belongs to these.’  I looked for this God. Did not see him; figured it must be a joke. The despair of my existence continued and this God was nowhere in sight. 

I began to accept my misery with this family. They convinced welfare agents that I was being home schooled. My education was limited to sporadic television and learning how to protect myself.  I managed to teach myself how to read some words because of a big bird, a crazed duck and a guy who wore a jumper with lots of pockets. I began to develop an awareness of my need for self-respect. I was not evil as my foster family had led me to believe.  

I managed to continue in my “situation.” I could not make sense of why I existed; I only could rationalize that I had to gain control of my life. No one was ever was going to make my pathway easier and richer. From my despair, I had decided that I had to rescue myself from my current predicament. I had to escape…runaway from this madness.  So began the saga of living in a few more cardboard boxes. I made the decision one dreary, autumnal night to extricate myself from my despair.

In the middle of the night with a backpack and a duffel bag on one arm, I stowed away on a city commuter train to the main terminal. I left the terminal having no idea where I was going.  I turned a corner walking into a dark alley. It dead ended into heaping piles of garbage. Suddenly, the night skies opened up and a huge deluge of rain plummeted down upon me. Buckets and buckets. Upon the heap there was a soggy refrigerator box. My first real home that I chose was soggy, musty, and collapsing upon me. Out of a deep sleep I was awakened by the sound of a truck in the alley during the early hours. Fortunately, I avoided being scooped up with the rest of the garbage even though I smelled like it.

Days melded into years as I survived on the streets. I became adept at camouflage day or night. I was careful to avoid suspicious people not wanting to draw myself into criminal activity. Since that first night, I had a few more cardboard box homes improvising along the way using candle wax for water proofing. I discovered by combing restaurant garbage that significant food is discarded. I garnered enough sustenance to keep me strong and relatively health. 

Some of the churches were unlocked, so on stormy days I would hide in the alcoves and the unlit corners.  To pass the time, I would read the church readers or hymnals.  I thought how could anyone in their right mind believe in any of this? People were relieving themselves of their hard-earned cash to support these concocted stories and lies! Why would a God let all this insanity happen? If He did exist, He did not care one iota about me!  I do not need anyone’s stinking god to make me a better person.

On my daily sojourns I would pass other street people. Many looked haggard, contemptuous, and old. Some had reputations of being thieves, addicts, and prostitutes. I vowed I would not be like them! I was still alive. Yet, there was a repressed thought that would occasionally vomit up to the surface. I was not going anywhere; I was not making progress toward any personal happiness. I was horribly one turn away from being the ‘loser’ I so despised!

I thought I would celebrate my 17^th birthday by finding a more accommodating place to sleep that night. My mistake was deciding to make a spiffy sedan into a B&B for the evening. I was unaware the vehicle I was sleeping in had been stolen. I was arrested early in the morning for grand theft auto, third degree. The judge indifferently sentenced me to five years at the state penitentiary; no early release for good behavior. Then reality took hold of me. My wrists were swelling up from the handcuffs.  I was carted off into the bowels of the prison reformatory by thugs dressed in nicely pressed uniforms.

Welcome to my new home, a six by eight-foot cell with a skylight decorated with vertical metal bars. I was in the cell, alone, very alone. I quietly sobbed. Empty and in total despair.  I seriously thought of ending my life. Who would care? Who would even know I existed?  I knew that it would be a long haul…

4 years and 364 days to go.

That first day in the joint became the first day of my journey as a man of power, control, and revitalization.  I began to understand the prison system by listening, seeing, and seeking answers. I was a very quick learner in prison and very obedient.

Once I became accustomed to my surroundings, I spent as much time in the prison library as I could. I had a voracious appetite to learn as much as I could. I became well-versed in business law. My exemplary status earned me access to wall street portfolios, cash commissary withdraws, and external banking access. Other inmates bank rolled me when I gave them commissary discounts, legal advice, and tips on outside investments. I soon realized the only way I was to get any kind of security was to be shrewd, manipulative, and secretive.  I had spent enough time gaining my “honorary” degree at con college. 

There was one relationship however, that was impactful on my character. I met an elderly black man, George who frequented the prison library. Each time I saw him he was reading the same book. So, one day I asked what he was reading.  Perplexed by my question he said “the Bible of course! I would not waste my remaining time on anything else!” I asked why he felt devoted to this book? He said, “In my present-day life I made choices which has earned me the executioner’s sentence. I deliberately killed life. I deserve my judgement of death. I deeply regret my actions. But in this book, I discovered the account of a man who took responsibility for the generations and generations propagating hate, war, evil from the past and into the future. A man of innocence who went to his death for the likes of me.  I read this book now in faith knowing this man has taken my sin with him. I have no other hope. I will be free with Christ in eternity.  My faith rests in Him as I approach my own death.”

I thought how could this dead man give you freedom? George was duped to believe that in death he would be a free man.

George was executed two weeks later after our conversation.

George was groping for hope; a salve to ease his utter demise! Hope and trust are intangibles anyone can promise, but to deliver? It really reinforced what I had thought about this church-stuff and religion mumble jumble all along. There is a “killing” to be made. But not murder! People are believing this stuff about religion. People are clamoring for support and DYI kits for body, mind, and soul.  I developed an approach that would quickly yield tangible profits from intangible ideologies.  The masses would gladly give of their resources to hear what I had to say to them! I would sell freedom and self-empowerment!

Unlike that first day five years ago in my cell, I was restored, invigorated, ready to create my place with the affluent. The sun that first day was brilliant matching my self-image and strength of my character. I pounded my chest boasting that no god, religion, or person can claim credit for what I can accomplish!  Let the cash flow!

From my thrifty savings plans at con college, my shrewd investments garnered enough liquid assets for me to create a business platform. This platform consisted of teaching people about self-realization and the power of their inner-self for personal growth and development. My business was under the ruse of a new religion (my own!). I sought protective cover under tax laws that had hidden ambiguity. I would caption all the internet search engines with tags such as “Need God? or, Searching for God? or becoming your own god. I was selling people their freedom from outside control. In essence, I was instructing them how to be a god using self-realization to create the power from within themselves.

The climax of any presentation would rest on my shoulders sharing my awesome testimony of greatness; overcoming defeat at the hands of unfair, discriminating circumstances.  All were welcome (for a small fee) into this panacea, this community of oneness, this haven from the torrent upheaval of the world. I emphasized living life to the full, energized by other people that are like you!   You can be your own master and chart your own success in this life (also for a nominal fee). 

In this fast and furious age of social media, internet marketing, and global communications I was becoming world renown. I was a god! The riches were flowing like a river at my door. Investors sought me out to build my kingdom. 

My appetite was insatiable. I was hungry for physical pleasures. The days were decadent! I woke up bleary-eyed one morning leaving my luxurious condo in the city.  I came upon an old man sitting up against a wall to the office building I owned. I was furious and spoke to him saying, “Old man, why do you even take up space? You are wretched and make me sick to my stomach! Do something with your life! Look at me. I once was beaten down. Now I am a god! I am responsible for my wealth and status! You are pathetic!”  After my tirade, the old man looked at me directly in the eyes mumbling “There is someone who loves you. Look for him.” I looked at him and scoffed, “I have all the love I need. And, if I did not have friends, I would buy them.”

I let my guard down by tapping into ventures that were construed as questionable. My drive to win was relentless. I became a saint to those who could not dig themselves out of their self-pity. Our society needed to be purged of lifeless idols and turn its gaze to spiritual renewal of the self, seeking a higher plane of existence. And, I could help you do this for a tiny fee!

I directed my followers to muster self-control (meanwhile I kept lavishing myself with decadence). My freedom is knowing I owed my success to no one. No family, no person, no religion, no god. In spite of all this pleasure and gratification, I still felt an emptiness. I never really experienced complete fulfillment. I was free I told myself. But what I refused to see was that my freedom came at a hefty price.

I owed my investors, the IRS, my stakeholders, holding corporations’ hefty dividends and interest I had squandered on myself. Like my first night in the city when I had slept in the garbage heap during the heavy rains, lawsuits were raining down upon me.

I became blind and ignorant of how my actions would dictate the course of my success. The stock market’s shattering declines put pressure on my investors to recoup their investments even at a loss.  IRS agents were scrutinizing my investments. The lawsuits identified me as a “snake oil salesman” offering the world everything but yielding nothing. Followers of my programs were ending up in worse shape physically, financially, and mentally. 

My influencing days were over. Social media reversed its tide on me. Enraged over falsehoods, intangible mish-mosh, and ridiculous rhetoric, people I never knew were seeking punitive monetary damages against me. 

From my self-acquired god-like status I fell into oblivion. I became nothing to everyone. My bank accounts were liquidated by the IRS. I lost all tangible possessions. Worst of all I lost my dignity, my self-respect.  Adding insult to injury, I had nowhere to go; not even a cardboard box.

And reality swamped me like a tidal wave.

My life of fame was over. My health and physique quickly failed. I looked sickly, taking on the appearance of man in his 80’s or 90’s. I had become the “loser” I greatly despised and feared. I was destitute, homeless, despised by people

Once again in my life I felt very alone. I mindlessly began walking the streets. It happened one day I saw that old man I had passed a long time ago standing in the shadows of a telephone pole.

I looked more like a vagabond than he did, ruffled, disheveled, filthy. He was holding a sign this time. It said simply “Jesus Saves.” 

I asked him why he was standing there holding the sign? He turned to me with a toothless smile and said “Dom, I’ve been waiting for you.” He motioned me over to a puddle in the street. “Look into it and tell me what you see.”  I said, “raging storms and high waves crashing.”

I looked at him staring into his eyes. I then returned my gaze to the puddle. For a moment, I saw in the puddle a reflection of myself flailing my arms, drowning, powerless, and fearful. The old man reached down and scooped up some of that water. He poured it onto my head saying, “I baptize you in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. You are a child of the Living God.  He has patiently waited for you to come home. He has never forsaken you. He has always been by your side waiting for you to come to Him. He has carried you in your weakness and hardship especially during your self-righteous, idolatrous ways. Your life obscured His love and Word. He forgives you. Look into the puddle and see the reflection of the wounds Jesus suffered for us because of our sins. Repent. Go now and believe. Go now and truly live your life in faith and peace knowing His grace.”

And then I remembered what George had said. My tears dripped into the puddle. I saw the scourged man called Jesus the Christ.

I saw the empty tomb.  I saw my hope. I found my purpose as a child of God in the tidal waves of a puddle. Nothing else mattered. No person and no possession in this world can be taken when we leave it. They obscure the true reality of the One who wants our soul. This time I reset my life with Christ in my heart, on my mind and deep within my soul. Everything else has now become superfluous, meaningless.  So now, as I struggle in my waning days with cancer, I implore you to hear me and listen. I have ridden the tidal wave of despair. My everlasting freedom is at hand. I share this story with the world as a foreshadowing of the transient, frail, and powerless nature of humanity. We blind ourselves to the reality of “ashes to ashes and dust to dust!” We are steeped in our sinfulness if we do not repent and seek the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. The torture, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us is the Truth! There is nothing virtual about it! Jesus was a true man who died and rose again, for you, for me! My freedom all along had been in the loving embrace of Jesus Christ. It took me losing everything and everyone to find it.

“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:8, NIV)

Acknowledgement: Reedsy.com