Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette

I never saw him again.  It was the Summer of Love.  I knocked on the door and a voice said to come in.  When he saw me he got up from behind his desk and came around and shook hands.  His office looked like any other office except for the kinds of books on the shelves and the Christ on the cross on the wall.  His desk was polished and the papers stacked neat and he wore an ordinary suit.

“Sit down, John,” he said.  “It’s good to have you with us.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He sat behind the desk.  “You look well.”

“I’ve put on weight.”

“Being back home will do that to you.”  He smiled.

I nodded.

“So, how is everything going?” he asked.

“All right.”

“No problems?” he asked.

“No problems.”

“Everything fitting back into place?”

“More or less.”

“No after effects?”

“I wake up at night not knowing where I’m at, but outside of that nothing.”

“Good.  Very good.  So when can we expect you back?”

I moved uneasily in my seat.

“You do want to come back,” he said.  “Don’t you?”

“I want to come back.”

“Then come back.”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know if I can come back.”

Once when Mom was very sick and I was still a little boy, he came to our home with a basket of fruit and prayed on his knees in his new suit beside the bed as she lay pale and weak under the covers.  At home on top of the television/hi-fi in the living room was the picture of my mother and father, both very young in their wedding clothes holding the large Bible he gave to them.  In the bottom drawer of the chest-of-drawers in my room at home was the Bible he gave to me and I took away with me and did not read and finally never did read.

“Reverend, it’s just that everything’s changed now.”

“Changed in what way, my son.”

“Nothing’s the same anymore.”

“God’s love for you hasn’t changed.”

I felt embarrassed and resentful.

“John,” he said, “listen to me.  You’ve just come from a terrible place.  At your age you’ve seen things many of us will never see, should never see.  Horrible things.  What you’re feeling now can only be dealt with through God’s healing love.  You must ask God to come back into your life, to heal your heart, to touch your soul, to fill the emptiness and bitterness with His all encompassing love.  It is not for us to judge God’s will.  We cannot judge God.”

“I’m not judging God.”

“You must pray for guidance, my son.”

“Why?”

“You must pray for guidance to live by His law, not by man’s.”

“We all die anyway.”

“Death is no obstacle to God.”

“We all end up the same way.”

“Death is not the end.”

“Oh, it’s the end all right.”

“It is not the end.  Everlasting life is God’s promise to us.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“John, God does not lie.”

“I don’t believe it.  I don’t believe it.  I just don’t believe any of it.”

He was a wonderful preacher and became pastor to one of the largest congregations in this city.

The End          

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Vietnam in the Mist (A Short Story) www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/Vietnam-in-the-Mist.643749