That twelve-year-old dined in the latrine. They bullied her out of the cafeteria, past the principal’s office, all the way to the grimy lavatory. How could a pudgy, intellect overcome such torment? What made her so unworthy? This wasn’t David against Goliath, this was David against Goliath and his three brothers who were just as big and ruthless. I’m talking a pre-teen battling shame, guilt, doubt, and fear. She acquiesced and dropped out of school, ran away from home and laid on her back to feel accepted and loved. That’s right. Acceptance and love. That’s what she was craved yet never received. She would rather die than to be rejected but there was one who died and was rejected that she might be accepted in the Beloved.

Experimenting with street drugs until she developed a habit, she became dependent on dependence. Codependence and abusive relationships hallmarked her life. Eventually, she would try this white powdery substance that makes your heart race and gives you a superwoman persona for about ten minutes, then she must chase it again. All her quests to support this habit in place of love and acceptance for herself led to a lengthy prison sentence. It was behind the cold, steel bars of a correctional facility that she learned about the quadruplet demons she would have to face before she could be free. Wrestling with thoughts of how life wasn’t that bad as a slave she committed to never being the same addicted, prostitute she was when she was first arrested.

The One who died for her introduced Himself in that prison cell. He advised her that she had options. She could either go to the mental ward, lock or follow Him. That twelve-year-old in a woman’s body decided it was time for a change and chose to follow the Gentleman who graciously gave His life in her place. After serving her time in prison she thought that because she changed her name from Sunshine to Jennifer and read the Bible that she did not have to fight to maintain the new life she gained. Quickly, she relapsed into old patterns of thought and even quicker into old patterns of behavior.

Jesus sent out a search party for her S.O.S. and rescued her from herself again there was more healing that needed to occur in her soul. She needed to get on God’s operating table and remain there for a while. So, she did. This is after a failed marriage, having a child with severe Autism while trying to manage her own Bipolar and PTSD symptoms. Finally, she learned that to move forward she must look backward. She revisited the latrine. She went back to the place of her greatest humiliation and shame and took the power from the bullies. This twelve-year-old in a woman’s body realized if she wanted to become a full-grown woman, emotionally she must grow past the pain and trauma of what was done to her.

She realized that shame, guilt, fear, and doubt was nailed to the cross. When Jesus died, the power of those things over her died when she believed in Him as her Savior. And when He resurrected. She resurrected without those things weighing in her soul. She has been quickened. Today she serves as a minister at her church, a full-time mom, she witnesses and evangelizes in the prison and detention centers and is used mightily by God. There isn’t a day that goes by that she does not thank God for changing her life. This short story marks the beginning of miracles in the life of this great woman of God.

©A Necessary Pain 2018

#Christian #Jesus #Bullying #Trauma #Overcomer #NewLife #Victory

“I’m sick of prose.”

“What?” Ellie’s lips curled into a frown.

“I said,” I repeated, “I’m sick of prose! All this fancy language and nonsense is driving me insane!” Emphasizing my point, I shoved my laptop away from me, the empty screen crying out its neglect with insufferable blankness.

Ellie’s eyes widened, her silver-tongued mind struggling to comprehend that some of us can’t appreciate the nuances of English.

“You can’t be sick of prose! It’s the outlet of our minds, our way to illustrate the thoughts of others.” She paused, tapping her chin contemplatively. “In retrospect, you very well could have worded that more eloquently. Perhaps ‘I’m rather put out with frilly tongues and babble, these linguistics shall hurtle my conscience to the borders of mental health.’” Ellie finished with a self-satisfied grin.

Stupid Ellie. Always being so smart.

“That’s exactly what I mean!” I whined, tossing my hands into the air. “Can you even hear yourself? You speak like some dead poet from three-thousand years ago! Agh!”

Ellie perked up. “Are you in earnest? Oh, how marvelous! Akin to John Skelton, Edmund Spencer, oh!” A flush dusted her cheeks and dimpled. “Even Shakespeare himself?”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” I sank deep into my chair and reluctantly considered the empty page before me. To write or not to write, that is the question. Articulate sayings and words jumbled and clanked between my ears, trying, (and failing), to phrase themselves aesthetically. A throbbing headache ensued.

“I quit.”

Ellie looked up from her writing.

“You what?”

“I said, I quit! I’m done trying to sound smarter than I am. I will no longer slave under peer pressure! No more fancy writing!” I punched the table, causing Ellie’s tea to spill. She sputtered, providentially at a loss for words. Miracles happen every day, I thought.

“From this point onward, I will write in the laziest, cringiest, stupidest way I can!”

Ellie was stunned. Then Ellie frowned. Ellie was not happy. I was not happy, either. Ellie realized what had happened. She saw how the writing had changed. It didn’t sound nice. It sounded bad. And repetitive. And not nice. Almost redundant.

“Change it back!” She said.

“No,” I said.

“This is dreadful!” She said.

“I kinda like it,” I said.

Ellie was angry. She looked at the reader.

“Assist me! Hear my plea!” She said. “This fool is orchestrating a show of her ignorance, and causing undue harm! You must-”

“That’s enough,” I said, “I’m no longer writing down what you say.”

Ellie got even angrier. She kept talking, but no sound came out.

“You can’t just break fourth wall like that, Ellie,” I said, “It’s not good for prose. You and your stupid prose… You’re causing issues. I think I’m going to delete you.” Ellie paled. She clasped her hands together and silently begged. I am not amused.

Click click click

Now I am alone. It’s peaceful.

#prose #4thwall #fourthwall #thatescalated #trippy #homicide? #suspense #challenge

Seconds before Shawn vanished into the thin air, a phone call was made from downtown to unknown location in Long Island. An unidentified person made the call with a burner phone.

“Hello, boss?”

An unknown person answered the call with a secured flipped phone.

“How did the business meeting go?”

“It was concluded. All the papers were fully executed and signed boss.”

”Fantastic, that’s a great news. You come straight to the office right away!”

”Yes, Sir!”

That call only took less than a minute before it went battery dead. Meanwhile, an emergency call was in progress.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” said the call receiver.

”Hello, there was a shooting outside. “

“Are you okay, did anybody get hurt?”

The operator with a calm and soothing voice tried easing down the frantic young girl in her early twenties, who was screaming on the other side of the phone.

“I am fine, but I think someone might be really hurt. I heard lots of shots being fired, and I saw a black limousine crashing badly into a building.”

“I am glad that you’re okay young lady” - says the operator, as she crunches the voice data into the logging system from the keyboard with the speed of light. Then, she continued her lines of questions.

”May I have your name, please?”

”My name is Kerry Davis, with a K.”

”Okay, Kerry. Do you know the location of the crime?” asks the operator, trying to locate the coordinates from the NY state map displayed on her big screen.

“It was by the back entrance of the new courthouse, the intersection of Wall St. and Water St.”

”Alright, Kerry. Now, do you mind staying online? I need to put you on a brief hold so that I can send this information to the authorities.”

“Sure, I can wait. “

The operator pressed the hot emergency button from the main switchboard and radioed for assistance.

“All available units, this is the dispatch. We have a possible homicide by Wall St. and Water St. Any units in the vicinity, please respond?”

”Dispatch, this is 989. We’re in the close proximity,” said one of night patrol officers monitoring the area.

Once the operator is done radioing, she returned to the phone call.

“Okay Kerry, did you see how many people got hurt?”

″I am not sure, but maybe two or more?”

“Did you look at the person who fired the shots? Can you describe the individual?”

”It was kind of dark to make out the whole thing, but I think it was a man. He was like six-feet tall, wore dark clothes and hoody. He drove away with an SUV car.”

The call went on for a while until the operator logged in all information into the clouds. After the operator was done with her last data entry, she returned.

“Thank you for your civic duties Kerry. I am glad you’re not hurt. Police should be there momentarily.” The operator said, ending the conversation.

”Please hurry up,” said Kerry and hung up the phone.

The calls quickly went silent like the cold weather in winter time.

A few minutes later, the two miles radius of the new courthouse was flooded with authorities and streets were completely shut down, sirens and flashing lights buzzed like a war zone.

Few minutes after that, Detectives Jane Parker and Dana Reisse arrived at the crime scene. Jane wore tight black jeans with black flat shoes; her 9MM strapped on her side left waist and showed throw her brown blazer coat. Dana put on a business suit with white blouse, high heels, and thin red tie, and dark shades, her 9MM strapped on her back.

They both flashed their badges as they entered and began eyeing every corner of the area of the barricaded crime scene.

“What we’ve got here,” Jane asked.

“It’s Mr. Walter Scott and his son, ma’am,” says one of the officers holding the evidence bins, shaking his head in disbelief and anger.

”The Walter Scott of Meridian IT?” Jane asked. The officer nodded and moved into another area of the crime scene.

“Holy crap,” says Jane to her partner. “This is very bad and tragic. It is going to be very bad news for the mayor and the city.” Her partner that she had been working with for the past ten years nodded in agreement.

Walter Scott was the owner and CEO of Meridian IT. He was the most visionary person in the cutting-edge industry. He owned many IT companies, but most of his talents were invested into developing one of state of the art first ever fully automated computerized judicial court system in history. He created what most ordinary people envision and call a “true blind justice system.”

He developed unbiased computer algorithm that can detect and be used effectively and efficiently to scrutinize true criminals and innocent people. The algorithms were vetted and tested for almost ten years and proven to be a prime success of the future. He proved that once the Cobra Gravity System goes online, it could save lives and generate revenues when it gets sold to other states and countries. To compensate the human factors that were removed in the process, he used the revenue directly to their wages.

The implementation of the Cobra Gravity System was installed and officially went live in the new courthouse.

When he was in public service, Walter saw and witnessed many injustices due to human feelings. To reduce people who are wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for crimes they might have or never committed, the system must be fully unbiased; that can only be achieved by computer algorithms. So, in order to take emotions out of the courtroom, he lobbed and was finally granted unlimited resource allocations to build state of the art computerized court system.

When Mallory regained consciousness, she called her driver to take her downtown. As soon as she stepped outside, she met up with two NYPD officers, waiting for her.

“We’re sorry for your loss ma’am,” says one of the officers, taking off his hat and holding it under his armpit. “The chief ordered us to take you to the scene and downtown, ma’am.”

She nods and hops in the back of flashing police car. The officers turn the sirens on and cruise back to the station.