Dear ones, this month is a busy writing month for me, and as I decided I wanted to share a few lines with you. I don’t want to tell you too much about the plot yet, but suffice to say that one character is having a hard season in her life and went back to her childhood church hoping for answers, but so far, she doesn’t like what she hears. At all.
Enjoy the crazy ideas flowing out of my brain these days.
MbM ~
Ellie
His voice was softer, more introspective as he considered each word like a chess piece in a half-gone game. “If God’s light isn’t strong enough for your darkness – for the darkness of any man or woman who walks the earth – then he would not be a very good or strong God, yes?”
“Yes” She answered his expectant silence. “I mean no, he wouldn’t.”
“Exactly.” Triumph laced his tone. “That is what I am saying to you right now.”
“That God is not very powerful after all?” Her shoulders were numb from sitting so still against the gleaming wood of the pew.
“Ah, no, dear one. I am trying to tell you that God’s light is enough for your darkness.”
She jumped to her feet, and he slowly rose with her, as if he had expected just this reaction.
“No!” Suddenly, she was angry at this man; another in the long line of men who seemed to promise all good things to her. “You don’t get to tell me things like that – charlatan promises to help me sleep better at night. They are just words to you, Father, and yet you use them to offer me peace. I want no part in your placebo drugs of religion and peace and a light that is enough.”
“Placebo drugs?” The thin skin on his forehead wrinkled.
“An experiment – “He cut her off.
“I know what a placebo drug is, Vera. It is the untruth that becomes truth to the body that believes hard enough – that wants it enough.”
She shook her head. “It is the failure – the opposite of the help.”
“Who are you to say what fails and what does not? You see only a moment in time – one moment at a time. What if there are pieces of the story that are unfolding and you just don’t know the rest yet?” His tone was deliberate and challenging, yet somehow still loving. “What if what you see as a failure is actually going to turn out for good?”
“I see too much sickness to believe such a fairy tale, Father.”
“First it is a fake drug, and now a bedtime story.” He shook his head. “I cannot make you believe what you do not wish to acknowledge, Vera. But I can tell you that at some point, in some way, you will need something bigger than yourself to hold on to – to find hope in. It cannot be your husband, and it cannot be your baby. And it cannot even be your friends or your work, fulfilling though they might be. And until you let go of this that burdens you, and until you realize there is more to be had and given outside of you – you will sicken like one of your patients, Vera.”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think, Father?”
“I have seen it happen, ch – ” He caught himself on the endearment and nodded once to her. “I have seen it happen. A heavy heart can eat away at your flesh and bones just as well as a cancer can.”
She hated his words, wanting only to be gone from this place she had mistakenly thought might have offered her sanctuary. “It’s too dramatic, Father. And there is no proof of such things. People survive bad things all the time – work at surviving for their whole lives even – without wasting away.”
His look was loving. “Ah, yes, it is sad and true, both. But Vera – and this is the last because I can feel your need to escape – ” She stilled at his knowing words. “What if they were not living at all? What is there’s more to be had than simply surviving?”
Untitled Work, Ellie Poole Ewoldt, 2020
Please note that this is a small part of a largely un-edited work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental (not to mention disturbing).