Believe

My name is Cassandra I’ve got a friend - let’s call her - Olivia - who’s quite interesting. She reads a lot, always has, and her imagination has led her to pursue more than one pathway, which is a nice way to put it. One of those pathways has been stories and writing, so I don’t know what to think in this case. She won’t tell me if it’s a true story or not, says it’s my job as her friend and critic to figure it out. That’s why I decided to see what you think.

The following story is told from Olivia’s point of view, not mine. Not mine at all.

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When I was very little, and then just little, God was hope. A light in the sky behind the clouds. A rainbow. Soft, but strong, voice. I never doubted what I heard at home and in Sunday School. Nobody I knew doubted, but we are talking about me as a little girl. And all this is important because it is why I began to dream that if I were good enough, hard-working enough, smart enough (the bar was set very high), it might be possible to meet God. 

Unfortunately, that high bar - which I never questioned nor do I question it today - destined me to never quite find the coveted opportunity. Until one summer my mother told me about the pageant in late July. It was the only time as a child that word, pageant, was ever used. It already sounded like something important. 

The explanation I was given was that there were people from far away who were looking for a home and also sought spiritual guidance. The long robes then shifted to centuries later, when the plates or tablets of gold were discovered in a tiny clump of trees. The tablets were taken as the Word of God and eventually printed up in the nearest town. This what what was staged up on the hill whose name we all knew but couldn’t translate (it didn’t fit with rest of the local toponymy). 

The voices of the actors were lousy- had to be - but two things had a stronger impact: the voice of God that boomed out for precious seconds, addressing the searchers; and the sensuality of the incense that wafted out over the audience below, as the divine syllables faded. As a child at her first pageant, it might sound odd to speak about lousy actors’ voices. It was true, though; you could barely make out a word here and there in the tirades and lamentations.

Not so with God and his voice. (There was a big angel up there in the area where the voice seemed to emerge, but I knew he wasn’t real because I’d seen him several times when we were returning from the next town over. My mother pointed him out every single time. I don’t know how we always assumed he was a boy angel, because his name wasn’t English and we didn’t know if it was male or female. When in doubt, always assume male.)

My point in telling this story is that I had heard the voice of God - a true celestial phenomenon, the one I’d been dreaming about - and began to think about the strength of the belief held by those followers. Not my mother; she was happily set, munching on popcorn and watching the pageant. It was probably the only live play she ever saw. Nobody staged plays in my town because there was no stage; the one in the elementary school was way too tiny. 

A few years passed, but we never missed the pageant; my mother, for the popcorn and spectacle; me, for the voice of God and the incense. Mostly for the voice. And the three-mile adventure of driving into the heart of a big event. I didn’t know that years later I would drive myself to the area of the hill with the non-English name. First, on two wheels, to the birthplace of the Golden Tablets. Light in the center of a tiny clearing. Nothing more, but enough to claim the spot.

Second, again in a car, but not with my mother and not with the intention of attending a pageant. There was another, secluded, spot down below where lots of high school kids went on weekends. Nobody then was thinking about the voice of God (no disrespect intended).

I had many occasions in the years after those in which my mother and I had trekked all those miles to see and hear the story of a people seeking something that must have been right, because they worked hard and erected an empire. They were determined and were interested in me, even. They still are, because when I identify thee missionaries worldwide, I walk up to them and introduce myself, saying where I’m from.

The missionaries care about my childhood home, know its history. Maybe all of them have visited it, taken part in the pageant. I never ask. I never ask, because when I start telling them about my early child experiences, they’re clearly not interested. No, they’re bored. I always move on soon after, but not before informing them that the town I grew up in harbored a lot of resentment against them. This is obviously in conflict from my early childhood ideas, but ideas do change as we grow up, do they not?

They don’t care. They own the town. They changed the course of an important street. There’s a museum for them and a recruiting center as well, where the old five and dime and my best friend’s father’s insurance company used to be. Those things aren’t part of their history. They’re part of my history, though. However, with no hopes of ever returning to childhood or to that high hill, I’ve lost the (albeit momentary) opportunities to listen to the all-important voice. That leaves me no choice but to keep looking.

Looking. Searching. Trying to find the golden tablets that I found once and lost. Not knowing what they say, what voices they contain. If I can’t, then I’ll ask my mother for help. She’ll manage. She always did.

I just stumbled. Or fell off my bike. I’ll get there, though.

This is Cassandra. I decided to stop telling Olivia’s story because I know you wouldn’t believe me. I have trouble with that: with people believing me. Even if I say, for example, that my name is Catherine, they call me Cassie. Rather than live with my name deformed in that manner, I just gave up and changed my name to Cassandra.

Anyway, Olivia still hasn’t finished her story because I’m the author and I haven’t finished it. This is still a short window in the event people want to suggest a good way to end her story or a good analysis as to what’s going on with her mentally. What is going to happen to her? Does God exist? Do we need faith?

Copyright:

Cassandra Julian

Author, YA fiction

Hopeful winner of a literary prize someday