ORANGE BIBLE (A SHORT STORY)

When I was in middle school I was as moderate as it gets in regards to Christianity. My family only went to church once a year for Easter and actively despised conservative christians--usually seeing them as not "real christians." Every once in awhile a creepy old man would stand outside the fence that marked the end of school property. In the grass next to the sidewalk was a large cardboard box. The box was filled to the brim with tiny orange pocket-sized books. On the covers it said "New Testament. Psalms. Proverbs." He'd hand any child that walked past him one of these and say "Be on your way towards the light." My brother and I saw him on three separate occasions standing in that spot and handing out those pocket bibles. We had received them twice, but the third time my brother told me that he wanted to take a detour around the block and avoid the guy, knowing that he did not take "no thank you" as an answer and we had plenty of them already. Little did I know how much that funsized bible would ultimately impact my life in the years that followed until it did.

On my last year at that school I had become increasingly interested in my own identity, what I stood for and what I believed. This yearning for answers and identity caused me to become more involved in my religion. I began to attend church about four times more than my other family members (that's not saying much, because they only went one a year). It felt like a duty because I thought it was good to be closer to god as a christian and I thought going to church would somehow make me a better person (despite already being a pretty good person). Funny thing is that could not even understand what the priest was saying during the service because Orthodox Church services are done in the native language of what ever nationality is put over the church's name (ex: Greek Orthodox Church service would be done in Greek, Russian in Russian etc).

After about a year of this, I started becoming depressed and I was having an identity crisis. I even tried to pray to alleviate my internal suffering. But it did nothing, even though at one point I thought that it had worked. I later figured out that I just conditioned myself to think like a christian, in other words, I went for the sugar pill and fell for it. I took that pocket bible out from under my bed and thought, what is this book blabbering about, then I realized it was not a complete book, so I got a bible from my sisters room and began reading through it. I was having a hard time finding any answers or wisdom at all in the book. It seemed like it could very well be a fictitious book. I started talking to myself. God is a maniac, god is a child. How is sacrificing your own son to yourself moral, especially since the problem that you want to get rid of was made by you in the first place? Why punish man for your own personal blunder? I never read or even attempted to read the so-called wonderful book that was the basis of the religion that my family indoctrinated me into until then. I realized I was an atheist a year later. After having a conversation with my brother about religion I found out that he had been one longer than me, but he kept quiet. We then spoke of the man that we used to dread in middle school. "If I see him again I'll be sure to thank him for bringing me toward the light." I remarked. My brother giggled at the the thought and then said, "Yep."