By Jared Baldwin
“He’s doing it again.”
“Well then stop him!”
“How?”
“Simple. He has homework and he should be doing that.”
Jack sat in his room staring at a wall, but not giving any thought about the wall. His spatial awareness was unusually low, almost as if he wasn’t there; and, in truth, it was almost as if he wasn’t. He had heard earlier that day that someone in his school had passed away. He wasn’t that close to the kid. He had seen him once or twice in the hallway, maybe talked a time or two, but he had never gotten to know him personally. However one thing he and everyone else knew about Sam was that he was a Christian. Jack had never judged him for it, but could never understand why he chose to believe he had no control over his own fate. At least, that’s what everyone said, that Sam thought there was a God in control of everything. Jack paused in his trail of thought to look around his room. He noticed his backpack sitting on his bed staring back at him. He had homework.
“Just keep him off that path and everything will be fine.”
“Once he returns to school he’ll start thinking about it again. The enemy will be attacking.”
“So what do you propose we do?”
“Reinforcements. We need reinforcements.”
“Who?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Jack pulled out his algebra textbook and turned to page seventy-two. He stared at the first problem. “I’ve had enough problems for one day.” He said aloud to no one but himself. Jack reclined in his chair. His mind couldn’t escape the thought of death. He seemed as if he was minutes away from dying himself. Jack hadn’t known Sam, but he had seen him, talking, walking, eating, breathing, he was a normal kid, and he was now… gone. Jack went back to thinking about Sam. If Sam’s God was in control of everything, why did Sam lose his life?
“This is good!”
“He’s thinking about, it how is this good?”
“He’s questioning. All we have to do is answer.”
There was only one possible explanation. There couldn’t have been a God. If there was, Sam would still be alive, talking, walking, eating, breathing, living… yet something Jack couldn’t put his finger on was unsettling.
“We can’t keep this up for much longer. The enemy will be coming any second now.”
“I agree, we need to regroup. Let’s end this.”
Jack looked at his clock. It was half past ten, and he noticed he was tired. He turned off his light on his desk and threw his homework back into his backpack. He crawled into bed. “I’ve had a long day.” He said to his empty room, to which he received no response.
“He’s asleep.”
“The mission isn’t over, it’s only delayed. Prepare for battle, I have a bad feeling about tomorrow. I’ve heard a rumor that one of the enemy’s earthly slaves are wanting to use Sam’s death for evil. We need to keep Jack exactly where he is.”
The next day Jack woke up and got ready while still half asleep. He trudged out the door almost a minute late for his bus. Luckily his bus driver was late as well, and they arrived to the stop with almost perfect synchronization. Jack stared out his window as the tired to wake up. His bus was unusually quiet. Jack concluded it was most likely because of Sam’s death, as it had been extremely sudden and Sam knew almost everyone around his school, so many people were shocked by his death. Jack was interrupted in his thinking by a gentle tap on his shoulder.
“Hey!” the unfamiliar face said enthusiastically. `
“Hi.” Jack said somewhat dismissively, however the girl proceeded to talk. “Your name is Sam, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yeah, do I know you?” Jack said, half expecting the girl to walk away and leave him alone. Jack wasn’t in the mood to meet someone, but the girl seemed nice enough.
“I think we have science and math together, but we’ve never talked.”
“Oh, cool.”
“Are you okay?” The girl said, not letting Jack turn back towards the window.
“Yeah, I’m alright. I’m just tired I think.”
“You seem sad.”
“Did you hear about Sam?”
“Oh. . . were you two close?”
“No, not really, but I saw him a few times. He seemed nice.” Jack said, realizing he was suddenly in a mood to talk.
“He was nice. His sister and I are best friends, so I knew him pretty well.”
Jack stared blankly at the girl. Jack was lost in his thought, for some reason talking to this girl made him feel like he had a connection to Sam, or perhaps it was that he should’ve gotten to know him.
“The rumor was true. . . “
“So what do we do?”
“We. . . we. . ."
We can’t do anything!?”
“We can’t operate in this atmosphere. We need to wait until she leaves.”
“You know,” the girl said, “it’s hard losing him, but at least I know I’ll see him again.”
Jack wasn’t sure how to respond, but he couldn’t dismiss the fact that he was curious about what this girl meant. Usually any thought of an afterlife was foreign and uncomfortable with Jack, but something inside of him wanted. . . needed to know what it was about. “What?” Jack said, sitting up in his seat.
“Heaven. I believe that I’ll see Sam in heaven when I get there one day.” The girl said, somewhat uncomfortably, but with great passion and sincerity.
“We must leave.”
“Why?”
“There’s nothing we can do to stop this, the enemy is moving too powerfully.”
“You’re. . . you’re a Christian.”
“And I’m proud to admit it.” The girl said with a smile.
“I. . . what does that mean?”
“I believe that there’s a loving God that died for all my wrongdoings so that I can go to heaven despite the terrible things I’ve done.”
“What is heaven?” “Heaven is a better place than you can imagine. No pain, no tears, no death, it will be amazing!” The girl said in a voice that cut right through Jack.
“There has to be something we can do, I can’t report back with failure. Master will. . ."
“How do I get there?” Jack said, staring at the girl who at this moment had everything Jack wanted. Something deep inside him wanted to know exactly what this girl was talking about, and it only grew stronger as she spoke. Her words had more meaning than any definition could give them, and everything keeping Jack in his bondage, couldn’t hold him up any longer.
Short Story Reflection
- Jared Baldwin
Through writing my short story I learned many valuable writing lessons. My story was very similar to C.S. Lewis’s book The Screwtape Letters in a sense that it follows a story through the point of view of a demon. Despite the similarities there are two key differences between the two pieces of literature, the book is constructed of letters being written back and forth between a demon and his uncle, while my story follows two demons talking to each other, and that I am not C.S. Lewis. I think I was able to portray a basic scenario of how demons work, however C.S. Lewis probably did a much better job going more in depth. The most difficult part of writing a story was probably conveying how I saw this spiritual warfare playing out in my head. Many people don’t understand the concept of spiritual warfare, so I tried to keep it simple and easy to follow, but with a topic such as this, that was difficult to do. My theme Bible verse really helps explain the concept of my story, Ephesians 6:12 says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." This verse clearly references spiritual warfare, which is the conflict of my story. My story overall did not turn out how I originally planned to write it. My original idea was to write about Acts 29: The Movie, Volume 2, however I wrote the first scene of the film and it took up 3 pages, so I decided the movie would be too long of a story. I then attempted to use the first part of the movie and turn that into a short story, but that also didn’t work, and as I was attempting to convert my opening scene into its own story, that’s when I came up with the idea to write about spiritual warfare. Despite the story revisions, I am very pleased with how the story came out, and according to the rubric I would probably give my own story a 95. Overall perhaps my character could’ve been developed more and the conflict explained more clearly, but all things considered I am pleased with my work.
lets go jared
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