Jessica's Bible

            “Jessica, you’ve just got to have faith.” Her boyfriend said to her as he left her house. He didn’t turn back as he left, since he felt that he didn’t need to do so. When he got to the driveway and hopped into his car, he gripped the crucifix that hanged from his neck on a silver chain and said the Lord’s Prayer for his girlfriend. As he finished, he pulled his keys out from his pocket and started the ignition and drove off in his car.

            Jessica stood outside of the door on her front porch and watched him as he drove away. Rain had already been falling by the time that he entered her house; she thought it was ironic that his arrival was synchronized with the precipitation patterns. When he was out of her sight, the rain slowed to a drizzle and then halted completely. The clouds rolled away as they unsheathed the purple and pink sunset sky that lay behind the cover of grey. She smiled at the natural beauty, but was also reminded of the sunsets that she’d spent with her boyfriend, Brian.

            For her, it was never easy for her to accept things on faith. She’d had problems with it ever since she was a young girl, somewhere near the age of seven. During that year of her life, she’d had multiple incidents of being left alone in public places and being endangered by the reckless habits of her father. Her father told her that everything would always be alright for her and she had to take his word; she had to believe in him. That action was something that she learned that she could not do…it was an action that she would not do. Too much trouble had come from her faith in people, so she stopped having faith in people altogether.

            This lack of faith of hers led her to have very few friendships in life. She had not the ability to trust in people. Only after she had known someone for a good deal of time would she trust them; she would never jump the gun on trust, since every little bit of it had to be earned for her. Brian said that this lack of trust was an overreaction, but Jessica contested otherwise.

            All of these things were going through her mind as she stood on the front porch of her house and gazed at the sunset. Before she could realize the sky, the sunset had turned to mid-dusk. She decided to go inside and up to her room to sing and play guitar, the two things she was good at. Her creativity was her outlet for her frustration; the only blossoming flower in a forest of thick undergrowth. After a while of playing and singing, she’d grown tired. The day that she’d gone through was long and tiresome, including the long talk that she and Brian had held about her faith.

            She never thought much of Christianity or any other religions; her thoughts about them all could be summed up in one phrase: religion is an electrical fence around peoples’ minds. In every single instance, no matter how benevolent that the religion was said to be, she always brought up that statement. The statement would normally make the religious people either continue to rant on about how their religion does not apply to that statement, or they would just stop trying completely. With either scenario, Jessica was happy with the outcome. She knew that either reaction would tell her that the people really don’t have that much faith in their faith. The idea she held was: “If I say that statement and they give up on convincing me, then I know that they know they can’t win. If they continue to ramble on about their faith, I know that they’re trying to solidify their position by saying enough times to someone who doesn’t hold that same position. It’s all in the psychology.”

            When she lay down in her bed to sleep, she noticed a shimmer of silver sitting on her chair in the corner of her room. She went over to the shimmer and found that it was part of the cover of a book…the book was a Bible. She reluctantly picked it up, thinking to herself, “Brian must’ve left this…he’s such a churchie…why do I even bother going out with him anymore?” But as she opened the front cover of the book, it said, “To Jessica”. The handwriting was exactly the same as Brian’s, so she knew that he wrote it. She wanted to throw the book away or at least put it somewhere that she would forget about it, but instead, she put it under her bed. She never knew why she felt compelled to put the book there…she thought, in the back of her mind, that it might’ve been for the memory of Brian.

           

            The next day, after she bathed herself and dressed, she found Brian sitting in her living room. He was holding his keys in his right hand…she knew what this meant: they were going to have a long, long talk.

            “I just don’t understand how you can’t believe.” Brian said as he and Jessica leaned up against the hood of the car, their view stretching out over the overlook. They’d driven up an old country road into a state park and up to the overlook that they were at. It was, again, a cloudy day…just like all of the other days when Jessica and Brian had talked.

            “I’ve told you before why I can’t…” Jessica said weakly, holding back her tears. She didn’t want to cry in front of Brian; she thought it would be a sign of weakness.

            “But I want you to.” Brian said.

            “But why do you want me to?” Jessica asked.

            “Because I don’t want you to end up in Hell…”

            “That place doesn’t exist! You and I both know it! So stop bullshiting me about a two-thousand year old philosophy!” A silence took hold of them.

            “I’ve been there…” Brian said weakly.

            “Brian, that was an acid trip…both of us know that.” Jessica said. “We were both taking hits of acid and watching the 2010 remake of Alice in Wonderland…we were both seeing weird s**t…really weird s**t. You thought you visited Hell, I thought I was singing with Johnny Cash; we were both heavily tripping.”

            “But I felt the fire…”

            “Brian, no, that’s impossible. Hell can’t be a place of fire and pain because we wouldn’t have our physical bodies to feel the pain and fire with. I’m pretty sure that souls don’t have nervous systems or any sense of physical pain.”

            “But you don’t know that…”

            “We both know that I’m a mystic…I can talk to spirits. You’ve seen me do it. You know that I have a genuine ability of mediumship. I told you details about your dead grandmother that only you would’ve known. Spirits say that they can only remember pain…they say they can’t feel it after they died. No matter what, you can’t convince me…you’ve not going to convert me. I question the religion because of its flaws and I end up going further and further away the more that I question.”

            “But every Christian questions their faith, and those questions are needed to grow stronger in faith.”

            “That’s the thing…it’s that you grow in faith. That growth in faith is growth in your delusion…that’s what I can’t deal with. If the faith has to be strong for it to be real for me, I can’t do that. You know that I can’t. I have trust issues, and I can’t trust what I can’t feel or hear or taste or talk to…if I can’t know somebody, truly know them, I can’t trust them. That’s why I can’t trust your Jesus.” By this time Jessica was crying. But Brian did not sympathize with her. Angrily, he got back into his car, grabbing Jessica and throwing her into the backseat of the car.

            “What the f**k are you doing?!” Jessica yelled.

            “Doing God’s work…” Brian replied. That was all that he said. He put a piece of duct tape across Jessica’s mouth and bound her hands together with duct tape and rope. She resisted, but Brian punched her in her ovaries the first time she resisted. After he did that, she just cried to him. They drove down the highway during the night as Brian looked for a bridge. He found a bridge that was in a rural area, where he would not be disturbed in doing, ‘God’s work’.

            He opened the door to the backseat after he’d parked the car on the side of the road. He had to pull Jessica out of the car. As he ripped off the duct tape from her face, she wept in pain. She looked to him as she touched her crotch and brought her bloodied hand up to his face. He had forgotten…

            “Our baby…” Jessica said. She would not stop crying. “You said we’d run away together and have a family…now how would we? You killed our first kid!”

            Brian punched Jessica in her face, directly below her left eye. She fell down to the ground, but she caught herself. She climbed back up to meet him. Rage and sorrow filled her eyes at the same time. She slowly backed up as she ran for the backseat of the car. She closed the door and locked it as she reached for her purse. There was one thing in her purse that she’d been  prepared to use…

            Brian punched through the backseat window of the car after about his third try. But Jessica was ready; she emptied the bullets in her revolver into Brian’s head and chest. He hit the ground in a bloodied mess. After Jessica had fired, she was still pulling the trigger of the gun, even though all of the bullets had been discharged. She sat in the silence and cried more. She knew that she had one bullet left in her purse…she decided to load that last bullet into the gun.

            She had a specific purpose for that single bullet. Inscribed on the side of the bullet’s shell were the words: I’m sorry…

 

            A few days after her death one of Jessica’s closest friends was assigned to look through Jessica’s room, as was detailed in the will Jessica left behind. Her friend started her search of the room for things to bring to the memorial service and then later the funeral, which had not yet been organized. Her friend looked under Jessica’s bed and found the Bible that Brian had given to her. She picked it up, opened the front cover of it and read what was written on the first page. The girl expressed a face of confusion as she said:

            “Jessica’s Bible?”

Reviews

[.shalynn.009.]

"For her, it was never easy for her to accept things on faith" take out one of the "for her"s

"religion is an electrical fence around peoples’ minds" I love this line.

"you’ve not going to convert me" should be "you're"

I liked the foreboding you used. The cloudy days were a bit obvious, but in a piece about questioning Christianity and the workings of God, it kind of worked. And I liked how you started in media res, all while getting Brian's character across through just the action of preaching to Jessica without looking around to see what effect his words would have. I was a little confused why youadded the detail of her bible. It seemed to hold significance, but I wasn't sure what that was, or why it would be the detail the piece ended on.

Brian's turn to violence came as a shock, and I didn't quite believe it after his confidence of the day before. It seems like hsi anger should have been brewing for him to get to that point. But the detail about the baby did a good job of getting his hypocritical nature across, preaching about faith and Christianity, yet obviously having premarital sex.

It seemed a bit strange she would have a bullet inscribed with "I'm sorry" and a will, when I didn't see any suicidal or depressed tendencies in her beforehand (she believed she was going to run away with Brian, have a family, maybe end her trust issues) so it seemed like having her kill herself was kind of an easy way to end the story, but maybe she had previous depressive incidents that weren't mentioned. Or perhaps it all had to do with her father and her mistrust of humanity. But then why would it be inscribed with "I'm sorry". Who is she saying sorry to?

An interesting piece, and a nice way to question Christianity through your writing and through a twisted love story. The only technical problem I had was that you seem to use words repeatedly (in the sixth paragraph, the word "statement" was used multiple times, to the point where it got a bit repetitive) but other than that and a tendency towards passive voice, you had a basically nice style and a well-formed story. Thank you for the RR and the thought-provoking piece. Keep writing and sending the RRs.

[Coyote Poetry]

You wrote a powerful story. You gave me a surprise ending also. I like the conversation and battle to figure who was right or wrong. The murder and suicide was a surprise ending. Some God isn't for all people. I like the ending.“Jessica’s Bible?” Thank you for a outstanding story.
Coyote

[Ian Faraway]

I could say so many things about your character but he's made up and I would be bashing Christianity in the process. I respect people's beliefs and faiths as long as they don't try converting me. If they try that, then I'm going to tear them to pieces. If people wanted to believe then they would try by themselves. Religion shouldn't be a forced concept on people nor a way to judge others.

[Short.Nerd]

Wonderrul twist! :) Very good. Keep up the good work.

[Hayley]

Ah I want to keep reading more of this story! That was such a twist I wasn't expecting. Very good write!

[Jessi Berlasty]

" “Jessica, you’ve just got to have faith.(,)” Her boyfriend said to her as he left her house." "Her father told her that everything would always be alright for her(,) and she had to take his word" "“I just don’t understand how you can’t believe.(,)” Brian said as he and Jessica leaned up against" "“But I want you to.(,)” Brian said." "I question the religion because of its flaws(,) and I end up going further and further away the more that I question." "A few days after her death(,) one of Jessica’s closest friends was assigned to look through Jessica’s room"

Wow, that took an interesting turn at the end. Just a few comma mistakes that I found. These people are obviously young, so it just stuck me as odd that she would have a will already. But it was amazing!

[Lily Mae]

I hate to use this but WOW... the topic and the characters are varied and interesting.. and I feel like there's more to this story..the end was left a little open:) x