Short Story: PRAYER; Life, death & nothing

Once, Sunday came calling and I responded by paying my maker my mandatory weekly visit. I was never an honest Christian – the reason why I frequented church was primarily to dispel the rumours that were flying about me and also to get people off my back. This Sunday was meant to be rudimentary – go to church, sit down, clap, give offering and most importantly fidget with my phone. Little is known however of what might happen the next second.

 

It so happened that whilst I was in the prayer mood, I felt a tap on my left shoulder imploring me shift to the right, which I obeyed without bothering to look at the person that tapped me. I continued praying with the conviction that God would hear my prayers. I was interrupted yet again, this time, on my right shoulder indicating me to shift to the center. I obeyed; not devoid of annoyance and some unexplainable feeling burning deep within my lungs.

 

I returned to my prayer sitting at a spot I disliked the most, then I heard something that shocked me to my core and left me more breathless than speechless. “Lord, please deliver me from this misery and take my poor soul from this world tonight” I heard it so clearly, there was no way I could have mistaken what I heard! Why would anyone wish for death? I asked but here I sat, frankly oblivious of what was possibly going through the narrator’s mind, still I wasn’t ready to look at the age of the narrator at that moment because I knew for sure that the prayers would end and I could get many a time to look at his face.

 

I regained my composure and returned to “my prayer”. Then I was interrupted yet again by a supplication which made me cry and emotional, “Lord, please give me more years to live on Earth, how would my family survive when with my demise? Although the doctor said, I am meant to die today I know you can change my destiny” he sobs “Lord, I know I haven’t told my family about my impeding death, I did so on the hope that you could save me. I know you would have mercy on me on the fact, I have come to you at a period where my heart is failing me.”

 

I sat down wondering what is happening, here I sat in the middle two people with diametrically opposing prayers; one wishing for death, one wishing for life and I not having the faintest idea of what I wanted. I felt so annoyed at the person on my right and sympathetic to the person on my left – why wish for death when all what everyone wants on this Earth is life? This is just grave insanity.

 

I decided to lift my head and finally look at my two friends; the one on my right was so young a man, I doubted if he was even older than I was. He looked glamorous, with one of these fashionable man’s hair style dressed in suit and tie with some highly polished shoe. The man on my left was an old, I wondered how long it took him to walk from his house to the church, and he looked so roughly dressed and had this appalling smell which cut my nose like a knife.

 

I couldn’t help asking myself, why someone dressed so fine who looked rich or at worse in the middle class wish for death whilst an old man dressed so shabbily and poor looking would wish for life. Then I asked again “how many more years does this old man want? He probably over eighty!” Then I asked myself yet again “After all, they know what they want in life, what of you”. I bowed my head down and continued to pray hoping that I would not again interrupted.