The Program

August 05, 2024

“OMG! He’s awake!”

I heard her voice, but could not place the face.

“Where am I? What happened?”

“Steve, you’re in the hospital. You survived a car crash. The other driver was a hit-and-run. I came as soon as I could. How are you feeling?”

“Confused. Who are you?

“Don’t you remember? I am your wife, Lisa. I brought the kids with me. They are watching us from the window on your left.”

“Are you my doctor?”

“Hello, Steve. I am Doctor Jonas. I met you when the paramedics brought you into the emergency room two days ago. How much do you remember?”

“Well, the first thing, Doc, is that I am not married and I have no children. Who is this woman?”

She began crying, not holding anything back.

“Steve, it is not uncommon for someone who has been through the trauma that you have to not remember important information.” Lisa stopped sobbing, but was still visibly shaken. “Mrs. Smith, give him a day or two to fully recover his memories. Obviously, his wounds will take longer. Think of this time as a chance to get reacquainted. Maybe even fall in love all over again.”

The doctor’s words assuaged Lisa’s fears as she looked at me with the tender eyes a wife should have. But I am not buying this story. I am not married and I do not have children.

I waited for the doctor to leave the room before I told Lisa. I expected another round of tears.

She gave me something different.

“Listen up you little shit. Yesterday, you could be anyone you wanted. Today, you are my husband and the father of my two children. You were in a car crash. The driver of that car has more money than God and two girlfriends his wife does not know about. He wants to settle for 15 million ONLY if this remains quiet. As to who I am, I am the paramedic who pulled your sorry ass out the car and saved it for a big payday. We are going to be rich if and only if we put the threat of a lawsuit to this bastard as a united married couple. The children are mine and their deadbeat father looks like you. His name is Steve. If you want half of this money, shut the Hell up, play your part and let me do what I do best.”

The doctor returned a few minutes later. I managed to reach for Lisa’s hand. She managed to give me a small kiss. The child waved at the two of us. The defendant’s lawyer arrived with a series of papers to sign.

I could think of worse reasons to be married with children.

A part of me belongs in the dark. It’s quiet and no one is around. Sometimes it gets cold. Sometimes I light my own fire. It’s okay to be alone when alone is when I feel free.

A part of me belongs to the light. A divine feeling when all around me is chaos. Sometimes we need help surviving the dizziness. Sometimes we just stop spinning and smell the daisies.

I no longer feel the purpose of life. Life just happens to survive around me. Sometimes I want to fall like the leaves and grow back differently. Sometimes I want to be the wind to help push aside ominous things.

The comedy of it all is all these trinkets can cause both darkness and light.

S. L. Cline

I am unlike you all.

Your pulsating skin,

Soft and warm beneath my greedy touch.

I feel your heart beat,

A triumph of your power over me,

As you were born from flesh,

I was born from suffering.

With great suffering comes no shame,

And with endless sorrow comes no understanding.

Like a sharp double sided knife,

The melancholy slices through life,

Rotting away at the seems of your memories,

Does the burn of the blade leave scars?

You pray it won't,

As it would taint your human beauty.

But God does not answer to such selfish desires,

Would he answer to mine?

I don't dare to pray in the name of someone so great,

'Undeserving' is kind,

A dirty scum like me shouldn't dance in the holy light.

A life unlike yours,

I'm at a loss of what I am,

But I know that I am not human.

I don't know why I feel so strongly about you. You've done nothing to me. You misunderstood me, when I trusted you enough to confide in you, you turned it against me. But that was so long ago. Years now. Why do I care enough to hold a grudge that long?

I know you. I know more about you than you think. You want to be misunderstood, In a way that I could never. Maybe it's because you're predictable in your longing. You always have been. Your ego consumes everything about the way you see the world, how you refuse to see the way you taint it, in your own special way that's same as the last bully. You desire everyone to desire you, to want you, to adore you. But what have you done to deserve it? When you cry and whine for a statement someone made with a slight critique, do you hear the teeth grinding against themselves behind you? You're worse than the people you ran from years ago now. The people that led you to me and us. We took you in to show you love, the unconditional type. You took it. You overstayed your welcome.

Look me in the eyes when you talk to me. You will see nothing in them. They hold no sympathy for you, no remorse. I stopped seeing you as pathetic long ago. I hope that you matter so little to me that I can hide this hate from myself. I can already hide it from you.

Learn more about yourself and figure out how to be compassionate

Imagine the early 2000s. Low-rise jeans, whale tails, and sperm eyebrows. I was only eight years old and was being watched at a friend's house while my parents were-- well, I don't know, somewhere away from me.

My friend's older sister was in her 20s and decided my eyebrows were too bushy. Too big for my tiny, little eight-year-old face. So, you know what that bitch did? She plucked my eyebrows. Thankfully she did not deem me a good candidate for the sperm brow. But, she changed my appearance enough that even my dad noticed. "What happened to your face!?" he asked when I arrived home. Well, while I was out an unhinged young adult unleashed a pair of tweezer on me.

I guess she did fine. I've been plucking my eyebrows in the same shape decided on by my friend's twenty-something-year-old sister for the past twenty one years.

Her quivering fingers extend themselves limply toward the gray pencil. Flashes of quaking memories flood her brain. She inhales and shuts her eyes. She can do this. The soul weighing down her stomach and pinning it to inaction cries out, "I do not want to. I do not care." She exhales slowly. She does care. She only needs to try. Her eyes open with aching resolve. One more inch… Her fingers feebly caress the gray pencil as the touch of the cold wood scathes her skin. "I hate you," her stomach mumbles. She takes another painful breath. Now to write…

For the first time in a long time, the world is calm

Yes, the waves are cold and scrutinizing and imperceptibly fast

But we can taste the mist,

The four of us

The coastline stretches on for miles

I take pictures of all of you, because I don’t know how else to love you

Two of us, wise beyond our years

Two of us, young and free

I stood in the saltwater waiting for you here

It was too cold to swim and I laughed when one of you forgot your shirt and wandering eyes followed you in confusion when it started to rain

We got wet anyways

Stripped down to my underwear in forty degree weather

Soaked jeans and sandpaper flip flops and

we’re all just children masquerading the grown—

listening to Jimi Hendrix on the ride home and talking about the election

The fog’s coming up on the edges of the world

But that’s okay, because, just for a moment, we’ll be here

When I was a young teen, I had a rather traumatic experience that occurred during my Sunday school class. I chose the word ‘traumatic’ because when you’re a young girl of fifteen years of age, most everything that doesn’t go as you perceive it should could easily be labeled as ‘traumatic’.

To begin with, the newly formed class had combined ninth through twelfth graders due to the small number of attendees. This alone caused me anxiety, because for me there were now older boys whom I admired from afar in my class. Unfortunately, as a naive and shy sophomore in high school, I already felt all eyes were upon me, judging me constantly. The new combination of kids, both younger and older was definitely not appealing. To make matters worse, there was a new teacher in the class. Dick, as I’ll choose to refer to him henceforth, was a news broadcaster for a local station and his reputation in the church proceeded him. His prestige and influence was paramount, and it was evident to the most casual observer that Dick was full of himself, believing that he was unmatchable in all things, including an abundance of intellect.

I remember sitting in the newly formed circle of Sunday School members as Dick read the opening Bible verse. We all know it – it’s the one in Corinthians that references fornication. Well Dick read the scripture, following it with, “Do you believe that? Well, don’t because it’s bull.” He then looked at a young boy in the group and asked, “Aren’t you glad that part about fornication is bull?”

I remember everyone, except me, giggling nervously. I was too appalled by Dick’s statement about what he’d just read to manage even a smile. He must have noticed the look on my face (unfortunately, my face has always revealed precisely that about which I'm thinking), because he quickly turned his attention to me and asked, “What’s wrong, Cindy? Don’t you believe that’s a load of bull?”

The roar in my ears was deafening, but I vividly remember shaking my head and saying “no” with conviction. For all I know, I released my profound, emphatic “no” in a scream.

“Why not, Cindy?”

“Because I don’t believe anything in the Bible or anything Jesus said is a load of bull.”

There it was. In my conservative, young teen ways, I adamantly believed the Word of God and defended it with my all despite the round of surprised eyes, much to my horror, turned toward me. Young teen Cindy, who never said much of anything unless she was fully comfortably in her environment, had managed to speak up, defending what she truly believed with all her youthful heart.

I don’t remember much of what happened thereafter, but I do remember leaving the class extremely upset, horrified by what my Sunday School teacher had dared to say to his class. In retrospect, perhaps Dick was a student of reverse psychology and looking for just such a reaction as the one I gave him. To this day, I'm unsure, and I really don’t know what his preferred method of teaching was supposed to be, I just know it had an adverse effect on me. It scarred me, and I did not want to go back - did not want to attend another one of his classes.

My mother, ever supportive, was as horrified by the events as I had been. She lodged a complaint with the church’s council, but it was easily dismissed; instead, Dick and his teaching methods were supported. In response to the council’s failure to review my complaint, I did not want to attend Sunday School again and swore I would not.

A few days later, Sunday morning rolled around again and from where I lay across the bed, I watched my mother dress for church. At one point, she paused and took a seat beside me on the bed.

“You know, you can stay home if you want, but if it was me, I would give the class another chance,” she said.

Surprised by her suggestion, I shook my head. “I can’t go back.” I remembered the look on all my fellow classmates’ faces too clearly to think about returning.

“Some things we have to face in this life are very hard, but it is important to face them despite the difficulty. If you go back and give the class a second chance, you will come out looking better in the long run. If you go to class today and then decide you don’t want to return, it will be fine, but at least you can say you gave it a fair chance.”

I remember listening to her words, and a dawning realization crept into my being. No matter how difficult it might be, I had to go back to that horrible Sunday School class so that I would not be labeled a ‘quitter’. I knew if I went back, my reaction and my point of view about the entire situation would have more meaning and validity.

Despite my initial reluctance and prompted by my mother's words, I rose that morning and dressed. I did attend Dick’s class again, and I entered the room with my head held high despite the surprised looks of those in attendance. I remember sitting in that cold metal chair within the Sunday School circle, an unnatural calmness filling me. Deep inside I knew I had just accomplished a great feat and won a war even though it might have been one that I waged with myself.

It is a fact that the invaluable lesson taught by my mother and learned so reluctantly by me that morning has continued to thrive and grow inside me through long years. I cannot begin to name the number of times in my life when I had to continue to go on, to try again, and to confront a situation I did not wish to face. Sometimes doing so was for the first time and sometimes it was for the second, third, or even more times. Even as an ever impressionable teenager, on that Sunday day so long ago, I was able to learn that whatever the outcome may be, I would always be a winner in the grand scheme of things for confronting an uncomfortable situation. Thank you, dear Momma, for teaching me to persist and persevere despite a desire to hide; such valuable lessons are the very crux and essence of life.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Kahlil Gibran