chapter 2

god

Me and God have a complicated relationship. Complicated enough to talk about. When you’re younger, your parents make your beliefs for you. They make it all work in a way where you’ll like it, painting a fantastical view of a God that can do this and that, that made you out of clay and ribs, and someone that loves you when nobody else does. That’s the most important part. Whenever no human can look at you right, God will. Whenever you feel at your lowest, God will croon and lift you up. What they don’t tell you is how it’s conditional.

The first time God betrayed me was with fire.

It wasn’t anything intentional. It was a Saturday night, and I was sitting on the gray couch with my head leaned onto the armrest with my little brother to my left. I don’t hold the remote, but my brother does, and he’s got his whole arm pointed to the TV, pointing the remote like a wand. Every channel he flips through, he follows it along with, "Aburrido''. I felt like my eyes were going to close. My ma cleans the kitchen, a glorious hard worker she is, with her little boxy radio crackling bachata. She’s kept it at a low enough volume so that our noise and her noise don’t compete. She’s been a mother for a while, so for all her experience, she’d know two boys and a radio shouldn’t butt heads on volume control. Just isn’t right.

I lean towards my brother to tell him that it’s a Saturday which means that my favorite cartoon might be on. He argues that it’s too late, and they might’ve passed over it already. I urge him to at least look, and he goes, okay, fine. My ma continues.

Mid-search, in walks Papa, any son’s saving grace.

He hangs his coat by the door and drags a hand through his short hair. My ma shouts from across the house - "Welcome home, cariño," - and then she’s tromping from the kitchen to the door. They both embrace each other behind my back. I look behind my shoulder to my dad and tell him the same thing. His smile forces his mustache to look like it curls itself.

And I feel like, at that moment, I should’ve known something was wrong.

It’s not like it’s unusual for my dad to smile. He smiles at me all the time, because I’m his winning boy. My ma loves him, and us, and this little apartment we all live in. My sister, who’s on the phone in the other room, loves us too. So does my brother, even when we’re still looking for that damn channel.

The one who didn’t like me sat in our kitchen. It was a man made contraption from my ma, ordained with candles and a prayer. There sat the nativity scene, and a little shining light above them. There sat God, not Jesus, God - who just didn’t like me. I don’t think he had rhyme or reason. I just think he didn’t like me.

Because within a few seconds my dad looks at me affectionately, light flashbangs my eyes, and in a matter of a few moments, everything devolves into chaos.

We’re screaming.

It’s not synchronized. Maybe God didn’t like that.

My ears are ringing.

Maybe God’s voice is so loud, I’m not supposed to hear it.

Everything’s really, really hot.

Maybe this apartment was built on top of the corpse of the worst sinner in Hell.

I’m hunched towards the ground. My ma is trying to break the door to my sister’s room down the hall, she’s screaming - "Maribel, Maribel, open the door, Maribel, you locked the door". My dad’s panicking for the first time. It doesn’t take long for any of us to realize that we’re trapped in this burning box. Debris eroded downwards, and my vision was getting blurry, and my brother’s weak lungs can’t handle smoke so he’s exhausted to the ground, and my father’s spine gets crushed by the ceiling - and through the ringing, all I can hear is my ma wailing.

She burns alive.

I don’t know what happened to my sister.

But what I do know is that the Fire Department takes an hour to get here, because of some bullshit excuse, like how they caught a flat tire on the way there. I’m the last one. There’s few survivors in the complex I lived in, but I’m the last one they catch still sputtering, my body shredded by burns. I didn’t even have whatever hair I could’ve had left.

The next time I open my eyes, it’s in a hospital bed. They say that the majority of people with severe burns like mine die within the first 24 hours of the burn. They said my organs could’ve went defunct. They also said that my lungs could have collapsed, and that too much fluid would’ve potentially killed me, ‘cause I’m a kid. I’m hooked up on something so numbing that the pain feels like a consistent buzzing headache. Everything feels like pins and needles. Ironically, I also feel cold.

They said I’m at risk for infection. If I’m infected too bad, I die.

They said that a priest came into my room about a week ago and took pictures with me, saying that he knew my parents. I don’t remember if we’ve ever gone to church. I also don’t remember if I’ve ever been friends with a priest. They told me that soon, I’d be out. Just had to keep hold on. It’s been a while since I’ve been awake.

I wanna ask how long, but I feel like the answer might make me feel worse.

When I blink again, they gave me three things: bread, applesauce, and water. The applesauce tastes as if I felt like picking up clay one day and shoving it in my mouth. The water feels like grains of dirt still cling to the bottom of it.

The bread feels like it’s stale and hard, like a rock. I don’t know if it’s my slow growing pessimism that’s saying all of this or if it’s the truth. I don’t think I like it at all or if my teeth are my own. They said it’s okay, a physical therapist would be helping me out in the next few days, because it’d be a while until I got used to being functional again. It’s not that I was dysfunctional, or broken, or wrong. It’s just that I was recovering, and here, look, we’ve got a TV that you can adjust. There’s also an emergency button close to you, so if in case of an emergency, you press it, and we’ll come on over.

If you can’t eat, it’s okay. We’re just pumping nutrients into you so you don’t - well, get sicker (but I know they mean that they don’t want me to die).

My mind wanders to the priest again, and I ask the doctor if there was a bouquet of flowers.

She says, "I believe so, yeah."

Which ones? Were they pretty?

"Colorful ones. White ones, red ones, yellow ones, blue ones. All sorts of colors. You held them, don’t you remember?"

No, I don’t, miss.

She frowns a little at that, and goes - "Well, that’s okay. You’re just a little overwhelmed, I think."

I swallow my breath and stare at the pale colors of the children’s hospital wall. There’s a painting of a lion and a tiger on a hill with pretty trees. There’s a painting of a sunset on the other side, and instead of a mustard-y yellow light atop my head, there’s a luminescent white one beaming down instead. I imagine His huge eyes looking down upon me. I think God is looking at me with some level of disappointment, and I’m still sitting there, thinking - maybe God didn’t do this.

Maybe I’m still worth something.