Page 2 of His Collateral Wife
I'd make it quick and painless.
They'd fall asleep and stay asleep.
I'd be doing them a favor since they'll finally be safe and free from pain and starvation.
Yes, yes, yes.
A voice inside my head would eagerly express its approval whenever I thought of such things.
And it was a voice that even a heathen like me had known was not human.
That voice had terrified me.
And I knew that I had to do something to shut it up.
Anything!
And so my desperate search for protection began.
I didn't have access to a phone or the Internet. I didn't have anyone to ask. But what I did have was an entire island to explore. Abandoned homes to poke around in. And other people's belongings to rummage.
I searched and searched without fail because it was all I could do.
I didn't stop searching because I knew.
The voice inside my head was still there.
And I didn't want to hear it again.
Ever.
I would've killed myself if I thought it would allow me to escape hearing it.
But even then, I somehow knew that taking my own life would only cause me to hear it for all eternity. And I think that's when the idea first came to me.
If the voice could torment me for eternity, did I have anything to lose if I considered the possibility that the other side of the coin also existed?
The answer was clear.
And so I just did it.
For the first time in my life, I tried that thing that many of the people whom my father killed did with their dying breath.
Are you real, God?
Because I already feel crazy talking to someone I don't see or hear.
So if you're real...
'Show yourself' is what I had planned to ask.
But God being God, He had already known what I wanted to ask.
And so He had answered my prayer by sending me the biggest and scariest-looking rat I've ever seen in my entire life.
Is this a joke, God?
It had stared at me before scurrying away, and all I had been able to do was stare.