Faith Awakened by Grace Bridges - Read it!

"Climb that mountain, girl!" She flinched as I pushed the sensor carefully into her skull at the hairline above the forehead, then I flicked the switch, shut the door and moved on.

Anna already had her facial sensors on, which meant she couldn't speak. But she could still hear me. I bent down to whisper. 

"It's in the hands of our Awakener now." She nodded, lay back and waited for me to insert the needle-shap probe. A cry of pain, muffled by the machinery in her mouth, shot daggers to my heart. I activated her cabin. She won't feel any more pain now.

Noah had his suit on, but was fumbling with the zip, so I helped him get it all the way up, then adjusted his headgear. I guided him to lie down on the bench, then in one fluid movement I shoved the insert into his brain and pressed the switch, ignoring his surprised gasp.

"Three down, three to go," I muttered, exiting his cabin. This feels so strange! Like a dream... but no, I must get on top of my feelings to finish this. Do not drown in the strangeness.

Toni sat on the bench in the next cabin, hope and fear fighting across her features. I took her in my arms, pressing my cheek too hers for a moment. A sob escaped her, and I grabbed he shoulders to look her in the face. 

"Don't be afraid!" I hugged her one last time. "I'll see you on the inside. Now lie down here." I held the sensor at the right position, then inserted it as gently as I could. I felt her body go rigid with fright, and she began to moan. Quickly I switched on the system, stepped out, and shut the cabin door with shaking hands.

Passing the empty booth that would be my own place of rest, I came to the last one. My heart hammered even harder as I saw that Peter already lay prepared on the bench, headgear and all. I loved him, but we had already said our goodbyes, and we would surely meet again somewhere in another life. He flinched a little as I inserted the probe, but he made no sound, and I laid my hand on his rubber-encased shoulder before reaching over to the switch on the wall. He gasped as the coolants began to reduce his body temperature. Soon he would be gone, and I knew I had better get a move on as well. Now came the hardest part: activating my own booth. 

With a last glance upwards at the glorious redness of the sky outside the window, I entered the cabin and shut the door, making sure it was sealed properly. Pulling off my clothes, I stepped into the tactile suit, zipped it up, and lay down on the narrow bench. The wiring and tubing seemed to be in order, so I reached for the headpiece, placing it over eyes, ears, nose and mouth. I breathed once through the tube and took up the brain probe in rubber-clad fingers. My heart began to beat wildly. This was not going to be easy – inserting the needle by touch, when my hands were inside the thick rubber suit. But hesitation might kill me. Then my fingers found the spot where the wound from my test run had not healed over yet. Guided by the old pain, I clamped my teeth together and shoved it in. Pain threatened to rob my consciousness, but I reached out my hand and groped until I found the switch on the wall. Soon I would be gone, too – I would escape this dark world to live my life in Paradise. In truth, that is what I believed. I flicked the activator to "on".

The temperature began to drop then, and I remembered the fear that accompanied a departure from real life. Colder – colder – I was about to black out, but something didn’t feel right. It was the probe! It felt awkward somehow. Was it in straight? Maybe the scar tissue was getting in the way. But now there was no time left. Before I could take another breath, gentle birdsong began to come to my ears. The probe functioned after all. The jabbing pain in my head disappeared as the cold swept over my body, and I floated away contentedly in a sea of blackness to a better world. 
 
 

Chapter One

Sunlight floods the room and spills over all the little-girl knick-knacks, the toys and clothes piled on the floor, and the rows of books on the shelves. I sit up and rub my eyes. Another awful dream! I know it isn't real, but a cold feeling persists, as if the vision were trying to keep hold of me. As I sit and listen to the twitter of the birds, even these chill claws from dreamland lose their grip. It's time to forget the nightmares and get on with enjoying real life. I blink, once, twice, and climb out of bed.

A climb it is indeed, since for lack of space we store spare mattresses on the beds and sleep on top of them. I pull on a T-shirt and a pair of blue flannel shorts and go into the kitchen. It is a holiday morning in midsummer, and the sun shines golden and clear. The rest of the family sleeps still, since church went a little late last night. There's no hurry; as teachers, my parents don't work until school begins, and that's still a few weeks away. I turn on the TV and watch cartoons while I eat milky cereal from my favourite green-glass bowl. Just as I savour my last spoonful, there's a clunk from behind the couch. I jump, but it's all right because just then our new kitten rolls out of his hiding place with a piece of paper in his teeth. I crash down on hands and knees, and Tigger ducks back. I swiftly seize the string attached to the strip of paper – yesterday's toy – and jiggle it until the cat pounces.

He has lived as many weeks as I have lived years; we are children both, and play a while. Time holds little meaning for me. It is an idyllic life, and I do not think of the past – gone by and forgotten, with vague memories of having lived in another place, lived a different and somehow colder life, but I cannot say any details of it. I know I travelled with my parents as a toddler, so I suppose the memories are from then. For now, I live in a paradise: a nice yellow home with a tree-house, and if I tire of all this there is a huge park along the street.

The end of the day is still very far off. I retreat to my room as the day grows hot towards noon, and my hand lingers over my stack of library books, gathered a few days ago from the children's section of our local library. By this time the household is well wakened.

"What'll we do today?" asks Dad.

"Read!" I say, and fetch a book. Dad fetches one of his own, and we sit in companionable page-turning silence. Mum is supervising three-year-old Nathan on the back veranda as he splashes joyfully in the shallow plastic pool filled with tap water. His shouts of glee drift in my window, and the sun beats down on the city.

I am indiscriminate in my expeditions to the library – grabbing anything that catches my fancy as I work my way along the shelves. And any book is likely to catch my eye if I haven't read it before, as well as if I have read it before and enjoyed it – it will be worth reading again, providing I have forgotten enough of it in the meantime. Quite often I shock both my mother and the librarian by taking home fifty or sixty books at a time – this will last me only two or three weeks in the holidays. I read many tales of girls who become authors, and their struggles in this path: women who have written their own lives into their novels. So it's easy to imagine writing books myself one day.

"Why can't we see God? He's here, isn't he?"

Mum looks perplexed, and tries to explain as she peels an orange for me.

"There's a spiritual world all around us. It's invisible." She passes me a slice of fruit, and I munch it, swinging my bare feet from the chair.

"But where?" I peered around the room. She chuckled.

"It's like your feelings. You know when you are happy or sad or bored, but that's inside of you. No one can see it unless you show them."

"So God could show himself if he wanted to?" I took another piece of orange.

"Of course!" She leaned over conspiratorially. "And he does it quite often!"

I know that God is good and the devil is evil. I've always known it. Dad reads to me at bedtime from the big Children's Bible, and this time when he finishes, says goodnight and leaves the room, I keep reading, on into the night, always fearing that one parent or the other will discover me and stop my reading. This has happened fairly often when I read my library books after the light should be out. But although I'm sure they know I'm reading the Bible, they say nothing and I don't get into trouble. I don't really understand, but it must be a really special book if I'm allowed to read it at midnight.

I go to church every week, mainly for Sunday school: to be good, and to know all the answers to questions the teacher asks. I love my teachers, and cried the last time I had to move up to another class. However, its content doesn't really mean all that much to me. I do know all the Sunday-school answers, but I lie occasionally as it suits me, and think nothing of it; I take plums from a neighbour's tree, although he asks me to leave them; and sometimes I hit my brother when he annoys me. In spite of all this it seems I am a good child, and innocent in the extreme. I don't know how they got that idea. But it really bothers me that one of my grandmother's old friends always congratulates my mother that I'm such an "easy child". When I hear her say that, I get all hot behind the ears and it makes me want to be anything but "easy". Yet that conversation with my mother about God haunts my thoughts. He can show himself. I want to see him!

My grandmother comes to see us again, and as usual, she takes me to get my hair cut off. It doesn't get seen to between her visits, and she is so horrified that it's grown so long – so she always makes sure it is reduced to a prim brown bob, chin-length or shorter. Sweet and Irish, she always wants me to look my best, although I don't understand why she thinks long hair is so untidy.

I enroll in beginners' classes at the local roller-skating rink, and learn how to start and stop and turn. After that I often skate two or three times a week, with rented skates and a big grin. Sometimes it's scary having to avoid the pairs of figure-skaters as they spin across my careful course.

Enemies are few in my life, though some of the boys in the park are bullies who sometimes walk around in karate costumes. One of them threw a bottle at me once, so like the other children who play in the park, I try to stay out of their way. Mostly they leave us alone. But now I am not quick enough. 
"What's your name?" they ask, blocking my path.

"Faith," I answer, putting on what I hope is a defiant expression. They laugh raucously and mime prayer, mocking me in falsetto voices: "I'm so faithful!" 

We have brightly coloured rubber boots to run around in. That's very important. Look! The whole park is under six inches of murky water today. Perhaps a drain is blocked? Wait! Look again! Grass grows high above our knees, filled with buttercups and daisies. Has the council run out of money? No oe has mowed the park for weeks! It's a lovely afternoon. I'm out there with some friends, and someone's parent appears in the distance; we all drop down and lie still in the cool long grass, invisible to sight. We are quickly discovered, but still I laugh a lot about that. See now! They are mowing regularly again, filling the street with the smell of fresh-cut grass, a defining smell of my childhood. I often build dream-houses out of grass, forming low walls to mark out the plans. We make soft beds and couches of grass, and many rooms in our houses. In summer I gladly "forget" to put my boots on and I run barefoot, catching daisies between my toes. I never do encounter the broken glass Mum warned me about, but I get a few bee-stings when I'm not very careful.

Our family swims often in the public pool or at the beach, and so I learn to swim and dive – not with any particular grace or properness, but with a useful functionality for staying afloat, moving about, and peering under the water. I love the sweetish warm-chlorine smell inside the pool's echoey building and it's fun to put our bags in lockers and head off to the blue water. If the beach calls us, we drive ten minutes to golden sand and green seas at the city's edge. Here the diving is more interesting, with shells and stones to look at and retrieve, and I love to throw a rock to the bottom and swim down to pick it up again. And we often visit the zoo or a museum too. Educational trips, Mum says.

In the early evening, I wander in the grassy front yard, not doing anything in particular. My best friend Josh calls over the fence.

"Want to go to the park with me?"

"Sure!"

He hops through the gap in the fence further down, and off we go. 

Later there comes the sound of his mother hollering for him to come home. It is like a trumpet, and he knows his day is over. I meander home in the twilight to a steaming plate of mince and vegetables with mashed potato – one of my favourite meals, but only if there are no onions – or if there are some, they have to be cut up so small as to be invisible, and that's all right too.

I revel in simple joys – sunshine, cats, books, and food. I love toast and honey as a snack, as long as there's plenty of butter to melt and mingle with the honey. I'm also the world's biggest fan of my mother's carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Whenever she makes it, I hope we'll be able to eat it in heaven too! I think a lot about heaven, and hope it won't be boring sitting around on clouds – but it will be just fine if there's carrot cake. Maybe heaven's carrot cake will be even better than Mum's!

In heaven, you can do anything you want, I think. And I hope that it will be like the life of my childhood, because to me it's truly perfect. I love my friends, my home, and the regular way things go. Of course, I don't know if God can do such a thing as sending me back or letting me repeat things, like we do when we record television shows and watch them again later. But I figure that he's the "big guy" and can do anything he wants. I forget this for a while, then I remember, and consider that if this was possible, then I might be in the midst of such a "re-run" in this very moment! How would I know the difference? It crosses my mind again and again, but I don't think it likely. Probably I'll have to stay in heaven once I get there.

So I make the most of life – I play and read and eat and enjoy everything as much as I can. Life is good – after all, I believe it is better than heaven!
I suppose there's a certain monotonous sameness about my life. Day after day, year after year, we do the same things and go to the same places. We eat the same food, live in the same house, and often, I read the same books over and over again. People are predictable in the way they behave: Nana takes me to get my hair cut, I fight with Nathan, Mum makes everything easy, and Dad reads us the Bible and metes out justice. Things don't change. But life needs nothing else to be pure bliss for me.
 
 

Chapter Two

My name is Mariah. I'm writing this journal just in case anyone's left alive to read it when I'm gone – whenever that is. But I want to warn you right on page one that I'm tough. You won't find any censorship, even though you will mourn for worlds long vanished. I tell it like it is. Really I can't be sure that anyone will ever read this. Yet if the human race survives, then read on and weep for what once was, and what used to be. For it is no more...
There were once seven billion humans living on this planet – all at one time! Yes, count them, you who may never have seen another man! In every nook and corner of the globe they lived – hundreds of races, thousands of languages and as many cultures, all more or less drawing their life from the earth in one way or another. But that is not the story I am telling.

It began when a young man fell into step with me one evening on the way home. Night was falling. The streets were full of people returning home after their day's labour – most walked or cycled, since we were not allowed vehicles any more. I let my gaze drift over the weary populace, then the man beside me spoke.

"Are you interested in learning something new?" he asked me. "Then you could gain a better view in life." The street lamps blinked on in that moment and gave a soft glow to the darkening street.

I had heard of such people who tried to pay people to take part in biological experiments and such. I answered slowly and clearly.

"Position means nothing to me at all, and I have no interest in material wealth." At that moment, I noticed a hunched-over little man with protruding ears walking parallel and very near to us. He had heard the exchange, and now he spat contemptuously on the ground and walked faster. The other man walked along with me for a few paces, until the hunched-over man was a good distance away.

"Okay, he's gone. No need to hide." My uninvited companion smiled.

I screwed up my face, perplexed. Was the man a spy, a recruiter, or something else? 

He stopped and turned to me. 

"Please. I have seen you wishing for a better way." I stopped, too unsure what significance this all had. He handed me a shred of paper and indicated that I should hide it, which I did. He looked about, slightly uneasily I thought, and a thrill ran down my back at the thought that this might be something illegal. Leaning forward, he whispered urgently.

"Tomorrow night. Come and learn – much that will make you free!" As he spoke the last word, his face lit up with an intensity I knew mirrored my own. Half a second more we stood still, and I understood then with a rush of joy that this is what I had been seeking, and that he knew the same inner fire. He must have seen the yearning in my face – the yearning for a deeper level of human existence, although I was a slave. I was 22 now, and I longed for change.

Suddenly he turned and vanished into the moving crowd, before anyone else could notice something unusual. I turned and went on my way with a new spring in my step. As soon as I reached privacy, I pulled the note out. Only an address. Not far from the City, I thought; it was in Bangor, an outlying town I had often visited on rest days. It was easy to reach by bicycle, even if it might take more than an hour. Surprised at this thinking, I wondered if I would really dare to go. I had no information – only the tug at my heart and an incredible desire to be with others who longed for the Awakener. I knew it was not permitted, but that only added to the rising sense of excitement.

It left me no peace, so as dusk fell the next night, I got out my bike and pedalled off into the suburbs without anyone noticing. 

I lived in a Great City – a community where a thousand thousands of people, living, walking, breathing, talking people lived together, sprawled in a spacious green land by the sea. The land and the people were known by the name Irish, and the city was named Belfast in ancient times, but the years of terror and disuse have caused the old names to fade away. However, I do know that it is a land with a long, long history – longer than I can imagine! – a history dotted with periods of Trouble again and again. Every time Ireland rose up from the ashes to a new Awakening which many ascribed to the god of the land. And of the people, it is enough to say that we were proud of our clean living and inventive spirit, as indeed someone or other was always inventing things to add to the pleasure of life. 

I pedalled now through this very City and thought back to the Old Time. Things were once possible that you could never dream of. Messages, and whole books too, could be whisked to the other side of the world in seconds. And you could go there yourself in just hours! Unseen electrical power in certain tools could create heat to make food, carry you at great speeds to other places, show you pictures of most any place in the world, and create the voices of men and women singers when there was no human present.

I grew up in the City. I suppose I was a happy enough child, even in that environment which must seem so strange for you. There was always a dark brooding within me; I see it now, though I couldn't then. Back then, I adored the Awakening Spirit with all my little heart. But as an adult, I ran from him. You see, he had given me a message.. I heard it plain as day that I should go to the other side of the world, just as if someone had spoken words to me – but it was even clearer than words, this wrenching in my heart so that I knew he wanted me to cross many seas in his service. I didn't want to. I refused to leave my friends. 

After that, for years I didn't have much to do with the Awakener, though I continued to say I belonged to him – for a while. Eventually that dropped as well, though it shames me to say it. And I made my living in the City of my birth, working much with the computers that now governed so much of our lives.

The last Trouble began, in America this time. I learned that it had started long ago when I was a child. There were greedy men who wanted to rule over the world and enslave all the people, just to increase their own comfort. No one saw it at first, though now it seems so obvious – Ah, the wisdom of experience! I do not like to write of politics, but this is how it happened. They first enslaved clever men and had them invent mighty destroyers. They also did quiet mischief by way of impossible taxes. By any means they could, they terrorised the people of the world, and whoever did not obey was destroyed, either physically or financially. Many lands were made into a desolate waste by these same destroyers, and many lands were reduced to direst poverty. Thus, the evil subdued the earth, and all races were either enslaved or obliterated. The slavery was not so bad, people said to each other after some years – life went on, though we did eat a little less and used less inventions in our daily living. Computers were now reserved for the masters and for those who did their work, and I was such a one. Media access was heavily restricted, and any news we received was filtered down through the pecking order of overseers.

The strangest condition imposed on the slaves was that we were not permitted to love the Awakener – only serve the greedy masters. Now I know I had slipped away from the god in earlier years, but in my heart of hearts I still belonged to him anytime I thought about it. So this ruling perplexed me. I resolved in view of my conscience to love the Awakening One in my heart, so that I would not be destroyed. It was a quiet religion; no one but myself ever knew it was in me, and it was never spoken of, in case a master's spy was listening.

Sometimes on rest days as families strolled on the beach, we could hardly recognise any hint of that great evil that had come upon the earth. The waves poured themselves onto the land, and seagulls flew about squawking, just as they always had. We did not remind ourselves of our slavery and often we reasoned among ourselves that truly it was not slavery at all: our needs were provided; we were allowed to make families; and on the weekly rest days, we could go where we pleased and do as we wished. And in this way, life went on for many years. Sometimes I wondered what would have been different if I had followed the call in my heart and gone to other lands. But it was too late for regrets, for now we were not permitted to travel so far.
It was dark now, and I rode invisibly along between rows of lighted houses. Now and then I heard a child's cry or caught appetising whiffs as someone cooked an evening meal.

I stopped at a crossroad. This was Bangor, but not yet the right street. Making a right turn, I laboured up a long hill and paused to peer at a street sign. Yes, this was it. Now to find number eighteen. I coasted along the dark road, nearly missing the house I wanted. Turning quickly, I ushed my bike into the yard and left it there with some others before slowly ascending the front steps.

After one more moment of indecision, I knocked on the door, panting from my long ride in the dark. The house stood on a gentle rise just a few streets back from the sea, and I peered around behind me at the ocean blackness. Just then, the door was opened by a broadly smiling, motherly type who grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me inside. 

My mouth fell open. "What are you doing? Why–" 

But she motioned for silence and led me through the house to a back bedroom. Opening what looked like a built-in wardrobe, she disappeared into it; a vague sound of voices came from below. I shrugged and followed after her, finding myself in a very narrow staircase. I groped my way down. 
Encountering a curtain, I pulled it aside and got the surprise of my life.

Candlelight filled the dungeon-like basement with a soft golden glow. There must have been thirty people in the room, and despite the cramped conditions, all seemed vibrant with hope and joy in a way I had not seen since my youth. The woman who had led me here raised a hand, and silence fell.

"You are one of the Awakened," she announced to me in a declamatory tone. "You are among friends. Tell us your story." It was a command. I sat down nervously on the chair offered to me and looked around at expectant faces.

Every eye was upon me. I knew by looking that it was true: these were friends. I took a deep breath and told them my life as I have also written it here, telling of my refusal to go at the bidding of the Awakening One and my slide away from faith after that. I finished by telling them of my longing to love the Awakener more openly, and with others who did the same. Abruptly I subsided, and watched their faces as they discussed openly. 

"She is one of us! Look in her eyes and you will see it."

"I do not think she knows the Awakener's Word."

"That can be remedied."

"Prudence is wisdom."

"Remember mercy!"

"Yes."

I looked from one to another as various ones spoke. This is not the behaviour of slaves! Each had a bearing far beyond their status. Even as I noticed this, I pulled back my shoulders and sat straighter. The woman turned and addressed me. 

"We will accept you as one of us. Will you be faithful, and speak of this to no one outside this room?" 

I glanced at the hopeful faces, and my heart began to hammer in my chest. I wanted this, but I was so afraid. It was so significant and strange, and it felt like a marriage vow.

"Yes, I will."