111. A Fine Ending

If this were a fairy tale or a story about a good person, then this would be his moment. The moment where he would seek the water for baptism. Where he would give himself up and finally give up. When he would embrace this thing that his father so fully accepted, this thing that Jocelyn so freely gave herself over to. He would stand in this flowing stream and kneel and ask for forgiveness and just let go.

That would be a good story and a fine ending.

But this forest doesn’t belong in a fairy tale, and standing in this stream is no good person.

I hold an old backpack containing the items I have to offer.

A Bible that once belonged to my father. One he claimed had answers for me. A Bible I gave to someone else to use, only to receive it back with claims that echoed my father’s statement.

They were both wrong.

Also inside is a leather band once given to me by someone I had just begun to know. Something that meant the world to her. It was like the Bible, a present a parent gave a child, a present with deep meaning.

Then there’s the picture of Jocelyn and me, a faded color printout of another time and another life.

Faith is believing in someone or something. And this is my moment of finding faith.

You want me to make a choice, Iris? So be it.

I know what I believe now.

I believe in anything and everything that I can do.

I believe that the world is messed up and that there’s evil and that there’s madness and that there’s mystery.

But there isn’t a God up above. He can’t be watching, not with all this madness around me. Not with everything happening. It’s okay if He wants to abandon me, but there are too many others for Him to not abandon. Too many. If He is up there, He abandoned us a long time ago.

I lift the bag and then chuck it over the falls.

If the dead can be raised, then so can other things.

I stand and look out to the surrounding stranglehold of woods.

I believe that I can and will be free.

No more sadness and no more sorrow. No more secrets and no more spying.

I’m tired of trying to be a hero in a story I don’t belong in.

So here I am. Here I am.

I’m a new person, a new soul. And this soul is open and free and ready to start living.

And if God is up there, then it’s up to Him to hunt me down.