to make a muffled sound, nothing more than a rasp of a whisper.
She continues to walk, now nearly past me. I am nothing to her. I am not a threat in any way it seems. The same arrogance that dripped from D continues in her.
“What does he see you as?” I can feel my heart beating faster and faster. “He clearly doesn’t let a disgusting creature like you in his room.”
Now past me, she stops her steady stride and turns. And who looks back at me is absolutely beautiful. A dark gray smoky shadowed makeup fades up from striking blue eyes. Her blonde hair is thick and long, brushing back and forth across her heavy cleavage. Her barely-there robe leaves little to the imagination. And as a weak man, I want her. As a weak man, I want to do many things—
How can I be tricked so easily? She was just a deformed parasite and now, the costume fully ready, she’s even able to lure me? I am a saved man but I am not a holy man. Some part of me has compartmentalized the truth and stuck it in a dark room in my mind. Some part of me doesn’t care what she really is. It wants what it sees now. I want what I see now.
“Do you want me, Andrew?” her voice is sultry and her lips are full. I’m a small man looking up at a beautiful woman. And suddenly the lights begin to turn on all around me. I close my eyes. And when I open them again, the hallway is fully lit. And it’s just me and her standing.
“I want you.” she unties the silk belt holding her robe on. It opens immediately about to reveal the few things it was hiding. I look into her eyes. I’m about to look down at her bare chest—I stop. Her eyes are like pools of water and I’m drowning. D’s up to his same old tricks. He knows I want power. He knows the pull is still strong on me.
“I want a taste, Andrew.” She looks as if she could undress me with her eyes. She comes in to kiss me, but my hands jump up to her throat. And I begin to squeeze. With my eyes closed, I squeeze harder and harder. I will not be swayed. I will not be tricked. And it’s clear that I’m not strong enough to say no. Even knowing what I’m here to do, I’m not strong enough to say no. I can only close my eyes and squeeze. Squeeze until I feel her soft skin against my hands turn wet and slimy, squeeze until it’s clear that I’m not going to see a beautiful woman when I open my eyes. If I do I will let go. I am a weak man, not equipped to withstand the temptation present here. I was full in Heaven. Here, I’m not. Here I’m vulnerable and easily swayed, and ashamed because of it. Here I am at war within myself, a laughable representation of the God I belong to.
No matter how hard I squeeze, she doesn’t turn back into the creature. I hear the gasps of air escaping from her and her long nailed fingers trying to pull my hands away from her throat. I can even feel my own hesitation pulling at me, telling me to let her go, telling me she isn’t a creature, even though I saw her as she truly is. I am all alone here. But, I never understood how lonely it would actually be. I never understood I was being sent back as the same empty man. Many times, if I didn’t have these clothes on to remind me, I wouldn’t even know I was saved.
In many ways this is a continuation of my counterfeit. The very things I wanted there I still want now. Dad was right when he said that Heaven would feel like a dream, because there are times that it doesn’t even feel like I was there, like every experience was part of some wonderful dream that I’ve now woken up from.
And trying to hold onto everything I saw when I was there gets harder and harder the longer I am here.
“Ple-ple-pl,” I hear her try to beg as her hands begin to go limp against mine. I begin to loosen my grip as my eyes open. Immediately, it’s clear to me how unclear everything has become. Men, women, and children all dressed in varying colors of red and black are steady traffic passing by me; whether or not the woman was ever here is now a fog. Her body isn’t on the floor, where it should be.
“Where am I?” I ask a small boy in red and black striped swimming trunks passing by me.
“You’re on the second floor of the hotel, Mister.” he stops as his parents continue on without him. “We’re going downstairs to swim in the pool.” a smile lights his face as he runs to catch back up with them.
None of this makes sense. It’s like I’m seeing levels of the same world. Or maybe I’m now seeing exactly what Evan does. Or maybe it’s all meant to simply confuse me. Even knowing what I know to be true, it’s easier to focus on the mission when there aren’t any distractions. Because, immediately, the constant foot traffic and busyness takes away the severity of the situation. When I look behind me I don’t see the darkness anymore, but a well lit hallway.
But, my center is the colors. Without that one detail, so small but unimaginably important, I would be lost to the ever changing landscape of this counterfeit. And I think my mind would even accept that this was reality. Without the colors I would be lost. And so would Evan.
More than anything else, that detail is God’s hand guiding me in this world, because the disconnect from Him otherwise is nearly severe enough to make me question His existence. That strange, unexplainable detail is enough to show me that everything I’ve seen can’t be explained away by delusions or dreams.
“Your efforts are impressive!” I yell to the passing crowd. “But, your colors will always give you away! You are nothing but worms!”
All at once they stop walking and turn toward me. “We are many, Andrew.” the distortion is intense, like a crowd of countless people speaking all at once. “We now know your weakness, your pull of the flesh. We know your perversion and the thing that you can’t fight. This isn’t about confusion; it’s about torment. If you want to reach Evan Charles, you will have to deny yourself everything you desire.”
As quickly as they appeared they are gone again. And I find myself standing in the same dimly lit hallway, with nothing but worms at my feet.
4
Why am I afraid of what they said? Even though deep down I know it to be true, there has to be a greater power within me. But, it’s a power I don’t deserve to call upon. It’s a Savior I don’t deserve to represent. I’m not strong enough. Even now, as I think about my greatest weakness, my body doesn’t let it register as a weakness. Instead, it is now pouring through me as motivation, not to deny my deepest desires but to embrace them fully.
My deepest desires haven’t changed. I’ve always been a loser, disrespected by women and easily replaced. I’ve always been a small man stepped on and treated like nothing. My deepest desire is one that clings to me like a fungus. I want it gone from me, like it was in Heaven. I want the presence of my Savior to fill me up again, so I don’t have to go looking for something else. He is fullness. He is everything. But, He isn’t here. And everything I see is pulling at the broken parts of me again.
Now that I’ve been exposed to the lust I thought was behind me, I want it more than anything else. Heaven is so far away from here. And the waves of His presence can only be remembered but no longer experienced. How can I hold onto something that continues to fade away? My Spirit is so small, so weak in comparison to the pulls that still control me.
I never understood how severe it was, until a parasite of a woman showed her true self to me before putting on a beautiful face. If I can be swayed by a mask, what will keep me from falling completely when other women appear?
… I kept my eyes closed… Because my strength is not found in what I see but what I can’t. I killed it when my eyes were closed; with them open I would have embraced it fully. My strength is in the renewal, in focusing on my new identity instead of revisiting the old. As long as I let what I see dictate what I do, I will be the same, weak man. Whatever remains of this hallway I can’t walk with my eyes open, because temptation is waiting for me, temptation that I will fall into, temptation that I don’t have the willpower to deny.
I can’t be very far away from the end of the hallway. And I know that this final struggle is meant to do nothing but knock me off track. The struggle isn’t meant to deceive me, but to send me spinning in confusion. More than anything else, it is meant to run out the clock. I kn
ow I will go back to Heaven regardless of this outcome but to fail even reaching Evan in time would be a shame unlike any other. And his eternal damnation would be mine to carry, and mine alone.
Exposure is my mission. If I bring the words of Truth to him and he still denies, there is nothing more that I can do. And I can go home knowing I did everything that I could. But, if I were to let these temptations tantalize me and waste away what little time remains of his life, I wouldn’t deserve to step back into the waves of The Father’s presence. To fail now is to fail my Lord for the final time. And even if it was offered, I would choose to deny myself the fullness found in Him. I would choose to remain a permanent member of the counterfeit, dedicated to never failing anyone again.
This is my standard. I know His arms will open for me regardless of what I do here, because that’s the depth His love reaches to. But, I will not be able to accept it, because He has asked so little of me compared to what He has given. And if I can’t remain faithful in this, I never deserve to experience the waves of His presence again. If I fail here, I will forever deny myself the home I long to be a part of.
There is a power in me so much greater than what I face, but I can’t call on Him for help. He has