The Story Starts Here
Once again I can hear the church bells ringing in the distance; I walked onwards through the village heading for I don't know where.
The service had started by the time I reached the church so I paused for a while to listen to the singing, while pleasant to listen to the choir the mixed congregation was different, although I had to admit they tried their best.
The sermon began and I almost laughed as the vicar preached the usual goodwill to all men sermon, Goodwill to all men? Here I was homeless and jobless and being driven out of any place I tried to settle in.
What did they fear that I would contaminate their lives and families? I had never harmed anyone in my life.
It all began a few years ago when I came out and decided that I would no longer live a lie, I declared to my friends and neighbors that I was transsexual and would be changing from living as a male to living as female and straight away the whole world turned against me, or so it seemed.
I was shunned by everyone I knew and inevitably driven from my home, I had moved to several places since with the same results and now live where ever I can find temporary shelter which usually turned out to be a clearing in some bushes somewhere.
Yes preach religious man, preach about goodwill, tolerance, love and forgiveness, like the rest of your congregation you are no better, just a bigger bigot. You preach the Bible, Talmud, Koran or whatever your holy book is, yet you fail to understand those same books.
Isn't there a passage that says “Do not judge lest you be judged” or something like that?
Well you have Judged me and found me guilty of some in your eyes heinous crime, yet I’m not a thief, a murderer or liar, I don't covet another man’s wife, wealth or property, so what crime am I guilty of, tell me? All I want is to live my life the way I want and I don't want anything to do with so called Christianity.” “Goodwill to all men indeed.”
So once more I set off to God knows where leaving sounds of the service dwindling in the distance, where I will sleep tonight I don't yet know, I have a little food so hopefully I can find somewhere sheltered enough to keep the wind out and maybe where I can light a small fire to get some warmth into my body
It's been a cold winter this year the rain and snow I can put up with but that biting wind will be the death of me yet, I have to find somewhere sheltered enough and soon the wind is getting stronger and with the falling snow it's getting harder to see any distance over a few feet.
The moors seem to stretch on forever, and I can't go much further when I find a small cave hidden behind some bushes, I enter the cave and with freezing hands attempt to start a fire which I know will smoke due to having to use wet wood that is lying nearby but I eventually get a fire going.
Everything is still outside and deathly quiet; even the dogs I heard from the distant farm have gone silent. The fire gives no real heat but it does give me some comfort and I fall asleep still hungry, I was too tired to be bothered to cook a meal, I hadn't realized the toll the cold took on my body.
I don't know what woke me, but I awoke with a start, outside the cave there is a light getting brighter. “Oh God don't tell me I'm going to be forced out into that awful weather again” I waited and the light got brighter and brighter and illuminated the small cave.
“Come child, a voice ‘calls out’ your trials and suffering are at an end, come we will take you home”
I leave the cave and see two of the most beautiful people I have ever seen, they seem to glow with a brilliant white aura, and I look back into the cave and see myself lying in the corner with a smile on my face.
“Come child, no more will you be hounded and persecuted, no more will you judged, the Almighty has sent us to bring you home to rest for eternity” said the voice
The figures take my hands and I look back once more, the suffering and pain has left the face of my once earthly body, but I looked old before my time, I had been alone most of life with few friends that had abandoned me, I had been reduced to nothing but a figure to be humiliated, persecuted and abused. I only wanted to live true and free a and now I see a emancipated body that look a lot older than my twenty eight years, the clothing was clean but ragged and not suited to the harsh winter weather, Yes I had died alone in the middle of nowhere, but now I was free from earthly suffering.
I look at the two figures, male or female I couldn't tell and to be honest I didn't care.
“Let us leave this place, you earthly body will be discovered and buried, you are beyond earthly things now,” the voice said.
I smiled as everything around us turned slowly grey and disappeared and was led away into the light.
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The End for Now!
© Jacquimac 2012 All Rights Reserved
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Source URL: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/39255/lifes-end
Comments
Thank you
Your story lays out all of the bigotry and discrimination going on today. Showing us that our creator doesn't care about outward appearances and only what is on the inside is wonderful. I wish that people could actually read this story and learn the lesson of this story. The only thing missing is the message to the bigots and how they deserve to be treated themselves.
Good
story but so sad that there was no acceptance. But now our friend is going where there will be no judging.
Hugs
Vivien
Life's End
The title says it all. A moving short story, full of sadness but with a happy ending. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Life's End
Tells a bittersweet story with a happy ending.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Poweful
Very powerful, very good,very sad
Thank You for writing & posting -- RICHIE2
Wow!
Unfortunately a scene all to often repeated in this day an age. Really makes you want to cry and scream at the same time. All it really takes is just one understanding person willing to help to make a difference. (Hugs) Taarpa
But . . .
I enjoyed your story for the truth within it.
But. . . .
A few years ago I was having unusual pains. My wife convinced me to call the health insurance company help line. They convinced me to call an ambulance. I felt like a damned fool when they loaded me in the back of the ambulance and attached a monitor. I was eating everyone's time. And then . . . everything faded.
The next thing I knew I was being brought around by the EMT who told me my heart had stopped. Later they told me I had 100% blockage. She had revived me with the paddles.
I had died.
There was no light.
I didn't see any angels . . . or devils.
This isn't proof of anything other than what I know happened to me.
Death might be . . . just the end.
You deserve to be accepted. NEVER accept less waiting for an afterlife reward.
There was a time when people who had their limbs amputated where shunned. Did you watch the olympics? Human beings want to enjoy each other and cheer for the greatness that is each one of us.
Your attitude is much more important to your overall happiness than any exterior factors.
If what you are pleases you, it will please those who see you . . . unless they're jerks and there's no pleasing jerks.
There are good preachers. There are good christians.
In my state of Minnesota we're wrestling with a same sex marriage amendment vote. The latest polls show that the majority of CATHOLICS are against the amendment and its bigoted premise.
Life is changing for all of us. Acceptance is coming.
Soon those who are outwardly un-accepting of you will be the outcasts.
When is the last time you heard, or read, the word "nigger"? When I was a child it was spoken all the time. It was part of an "innocent" child's open all of us knew and used. Now it's hateful . . . rightfully.
Death isn't the answer to anything other than the question, "What happens when your heart stops?" . . . unless modern medicine steps in.
When I was in my twenties I would get drunk and stare into the mirror asking myself if anyone would ever love me. I've now been married 38 years to a woman who loves me -- just the way I am.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Something might be Strange....
Here is a TS, persecuted for being herself, in a country with no safety net or one with holes so big an adult can fall right thru' them.
>> All I want is to live my life the way I want and I don't want anything to do with so called Christianity.†<<
Then she freezes to death and goes into a completely Christian afterlife routine. I think what happens after death, according to different religions, varies more than what one should do while alive, according to these religions. Golden rule seems to be common while living; respect and charity are desired, even if few followers do anything like that.
Allow me to be politically incorrect. This Christian afterlife seems like the Christian "pre-birth" life in reverse. Many religious leaders and their followers want to make sure all possible children are born, but then do nothing to help them while alive; feed them, give them medical care, good schooling, jobs for their parents, things that would give them a decent life as adults, not some rotten, soul destroying path to violence, drugs, gangs, prostitution, killing their children, gangs or cops killing their children, death or prison. Instead, these religious leaders have absolute fortunes of wealth, either individual entrepreneur tele-evangelists or the big religions with layers on layers of undermasters and more gold (or value in buildings or land or industries) than most third world countries.
Why not help the living? Why not when they need it?
If all life is suffering and all we are asked is for kindness and respect for others, then having a "bad life" is to be expected. If afterlife is just another chance to live again in a more or less humble form, not being whisked to luxury by the mightiest beings in the universe, those who refused to do anything when she was alive, there are fewer contradictions. The message seems more intelligent and less hypocritical.
Whatever. The well reasoned NO to Christianity, then the Yes, Yes to some supposed story some Christians tell was just too disconcerting. Of course, religion and reason are not supposed to coexist, only religion and blind faith.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee