Never-ending Catastrophe?
Not your typical day at the park
Why did catastrophe follow me around? thought Reid. Everywhere I go, it shows up. I can’t get away from it.
Reid’s life had been filled with catastrophe for four years straight. There was death of family and friends, car accidents (three of them), loss of jobs, the broken collar bone, the burglary, the audit, the fire…
He got to the point where he was expecting everything he did to go horribly wrong. He no longer reacted to catastrophe with surprise and alarm. He began to believe that for every good thing that happens there would follow five or six bad things. Sadly, he also reacted without surprise or gratitude when those few good things happened because he knew there would be catastrophe to follow.
Reid began emanating very negative vibes and people, whether they were consciously aware of it or not, could sense those negative vibes and they tended to steer clear of him. His friends no longer called and no longer answered his phone calls. Coworkers ignored him. Sales clerks in stores avoided him.
Reid had no idea how to turn things around. Everything seemed so hopeless. He finally stopped trying to turn things around. He quit fighting. He gave up. He accepted his doom.
After getting fired from his most recent job he walked to the nearby city park. He sat on a park bench facing a small duck pond. There were people in the park — mostly children — and they all seemed so happy. Reid sat there for a long time simply watching everything. He could not even muster the energy to be sad or depressed.
Finally, he looked up into the sky. Storm clouds were gathering. In his mind he spoke to the sky, Okay, I’m done. Come and get me. I don’t have the strength to kill myself so you’re gonna have to do it for me, God. Kill me. Kill me now.
A loud thunderclap roared across the sky. The people in the park all headed for their cars to leave. Reid did not move.
Big fat raindrops began to fall but Reid did not move. He kept looking up into the sky as the raindrops pelted his face. The raindrops soon turned into a torrential downpour and he was quickly drenched.
Reid spread out his arms onto the back of the park bench as he continued looking up into the sky. Lightning streaked across the sky again and again as thunder sent shock wave after shock wave through the air. Rain was pouring down so heavily that he could barely keep his eyes open.
Kill me! Kill me now! he said — this time aloud.
Just then a lightning bolt struck a tree on the other side of the duck pond. The simultaneous thunder exploded through every inch of Reid’s body. He thought he was dying.
Slowly, he brought his head down to look across the pond at the tree that had been struck. He realized that he was still alive. And he also realized how close he was to having actually died. The tree was no more than forty or fifty yards away.
The rain started letting up as the storm moved on. The lag time between lightning and thunder increased. Reid continued sitting there, sopping wet, not moving a muscle.
The rain finally stopped and the clouds began breaking up. Then the sun came out behind him and in front of Reid there appeared a beautiful double rainbow.
For the first time in a long while Reid smiled. And then he laughed. Then he looked back up into the sky and said, Thank you!
Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. See My Latest Stories Here
