Without A Vision: A Fill In the Blank With A Flag & A Name Story

A story that started as one of my dreams. You'll need a world atlas or a website with world flags to fill in the blanks.

Without A Vision: "A Fill In the Blank With Flags & Names" Story

By Rhonda Adamson, copyright 2008

 

     For some reason I went alone to ___(flag)___________ to visit my mother-in-law.  My family stayed in ____(flag)______.  Five minutes after I got to NaNee's apartment, I noticed a preponderance of husky, balding biker guys, weaving in and out of apartments.  They wore blue jeans and matching jean jackets with flag patches sewn on the sleeves.  NaNee's biker guy, named G_________, knocked on NaNee's door.  He wore a flag with green white and red vertical stripes.  Can you discover his nationality? ______(flag)_____________   Under the flag, these words were embroidered in gold letters: Operation Training: Survive and Thrive. NaNee introduced us, and we talked for a few minutes. Then I returned to NaNee's tan leather couch, reaching for one of Oliver North's hardcover bestsellers.  I pretended to read this massively entertaining geo-political-military thriller, while surreptitiously watching all the biker guys.

 

     NaNee's next door neighbor, Barbie, opened her apartment door and let in her assigned biker guy.  Unlike G________, who had un-dilated pupils and an aroma of peace that wafted from his woodsy aftershave, A__________ had spaced out eyes and smelled like hashish.  In his favor, A_________ did look like a man who spent a mederate amount of time in the gym, defining his muscles without looking like an ego-centric maniac.  But his eyes caused me to wonder about Barbie's safety.  His sleeve patch sported three different colored horizontal stripes.  The middle section of the flag looked like a sleeping animal.  Can you find this flag in your atlas?________________________  Under the foundational stripe, I saw no embroidered words.

 

     Both G__________ and A_____________ carried buckets labeled "cleaning agents" into their assigned apartments.  At this point in my dream, I noticed something: everything is transparent!  I can see inside cupboards, through walls and furniture, and I can even see inside G____ & A____'s internal organs. G____ and A_________ scattered clean laundry and leather bound books all over each apartment's floors.  Then G______ left NaNee's apartment.

 

Wild and wierd, I thought.  I wonder if ____(insert flag from the very first blank in this story)________ is now overrun with wacky survivalists.  Everyone acts like these goofuses are supposed to be here.  These biker guys sure have taken over since I was last here in July.  Instead of beautifully mowed grass and flowery adornments surrounding a geese populated lake, I now see garrisons of biker dudes sitting on piano stools, holding paint guns.

 

     "NaNee, what's going on here?" I asked.

     "Rhonda, things have changed since you were here earlier this year.  This is now a war zone.  All I can say to prepare you is that G________ may look scary, but his heart is in the right place.  If you're ever in trouble, find a biker guy with embroidered words under his country's flag.  He will protect you with every muscle in his body and with every pulse beat of his heart.  On the other hand, a biker guy with no embroidery cannot be trusted; he's full of treachery.  Switching the subject, I'm going shopping, so that we'll have ingredients for my shrimp in pastry shell recipe." NaNee left the apartment.

 

     An hour later, I heard a crackling sound; so I glanced up from my place on NaNee's couch, shifting my book to the glass coffee table.  The sound I heard is similar to a sound made by opening one's mouth, tucking the tip of the tongue behind the lower front teeth, while bulging the middle of the tongue outward.  Then, one must forcefully direct breath toward upper right molars.  To me, it sounded like a strange hybrid of a rooster's crow and a duck's quack.  The sound came from my left.  I looked through NaNee's walls and saw A_______ sneaking out of Barbie's apartment. 

 

     Through those same walls, I saw Barbi in her white bathrobe, clutching her chest.  Orange paint splattered from her white robe.  Looking closer, I could actually see inside Barbie's rib cage.  I saw her heart, writhing, wobbling from the left portion of her torso, and then thudding to the extremities of the inside of her right ribs.  Finally, her heart hovered slightly to the right of where her heart originated.  Barbie gasped for breath, like a hyperventilating asthmatic, for about five minutes.  Then she dressed in green shorts and a yellow tank top and grabbed a red towel from the floor.

 

     She dipped the red towel in the bucket marked "cleaning agents".  When the red towel came out of the bucket, grey slime dripped from the towel.  She dipped the towel in once more, and this time, the towel's drippings were clear like water.  Barbie began to clean her apartment, starting with her white robe, spattered with orange paint.  Then she scrubbed the towel over her sheets, her mattress, her carpet, and her sliding glass door.  After all the traces of orange tinges were obliterated, I noticed that Barbie looked winded.  She sat down on a leopard spotted swivel chair on her screened lanai (that's a porch), and began reading one of the leather books which A_____ had placed near that chair. 

 

I can see so far!  I can actually read what Barbie's reading!  And I don't want to.  It's a thick, graphic romance with no real pretence of being a novel.  It details the sensations and exact locations of each kiss the hero gives.  I better redirect my thoughts, and soon.  Maybe it's time to get out my laptop and get lost in my efforts to put NIV's book of 1 John to music.  I clicked on the PrintMusic 2008 icon, and started inserting chords on some of my existing songs.

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     Two days later, my eyes were getting strained from inserting so many chords with guitar fret boards into my scores.  So I decided to take a break from all my arduous mental and musical endeavors.  Looking outside, I noticed hundreds of bikder dudes huddling around a svelte looking bikini clad blonde who sang, "Do you have a first aid kit handy?"  . . .  A few lines later, she crooned a mournful chorus, "My heart is damaged, so damaged.  I think that I should let you know. . . "  I looked more closely at the singer.  It was Barbie!  I could see her heart zinging inside her rib cage, left, then right, as each unembroidered biker dude eyed her undulating body.

 

     It saddened me that Barbie's eyes reminded me of A______'s drug dimmed eyes.  I couldn't bear to hear Barbie's heartbreak any longer, so I did what most Americans do when they want to zone out a bit.  I clicked on the tv controls.  After four hours of ceaseless watching (NaNee had gone to a prayer meeting at her church), the curse of the cable choices became a spiritual trap for me.  I began to channel surf, looking for romantic scenes.  Then I began to feel the Holy Spirit's conviction that I was not living up to my destiny.  Even though the tv had a ratings blocker in full operation, blocking out everything that rated PG13 or dirtier, I knew that my channel surfing did not please God.  After fifteen minutes of struggling with my conscience, I turned off the tv.   When I stood up, I heard the same sound that had caused Barbie's heart problems.

 

     On my brown calf-length jean skirt and matching blouse, I saw an orange blotch, dripping toward my bare feet.  With heart racing, I fell to the floor, and crawled to the bucket and the leather bound book that G_____ had left in the apartment.  I grabbed a red towel, dipped it in the bucket, and raised the towel out of the bucket.  My red towel dripped a bloody substance all over my blouse and skirt, and all over NaNee's apartment.  When the blood dried, it seemed that every surface the blood touched became clean enough to be called brand new.  My heart no longer pulsated abnormally.  No orange stains remained, on my body or in NaNee's apartment.  And, most marvelous of all, no guilty feelings besmirched my mind.  I spent some time praying, repenting of my sin, and asking God to help me enforce some tv watching boundaries.

 

      I began to sing, "Oh, the blood of Jesus. Oh, the blood of Jesus.  Oh, the blood of Jesus.  It washes white as snow."  As I opened the leather bound book, I read:

"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.  But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in ours defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.  We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.  The man who says, "I know him, but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him.  This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." 1 John 2:1-6

 

     Two days later, I flew back to my home and to my family.  I got off a plane in a metropolis, which is ninety miles away from my hometown. I saw no muscular biker dudes with various nationalities' flags patched to their jean sleeves.  The only bikers I saw wore no helmets on their heads.  As I traveled home along the interstate highway, I saw two dead bikers in separate wrecks.  But I never again saw any paint gun toting bikers, or any orange splatters on ordinary folks.  On Sunday, September 28, 2008, I went to my church and heard a message by our associate pastor.  He preached from Psalm 106:7-21.  His four main points elaborated on his topic: Without A Vision. 

 

     Without A Vision,

1. People forget about God. Psalm 106:7-11

2. People forge ahead blindly. Psalm 106:13b

3. People follow their feelings. Psalm 106:14a

4. People fail to appreciate God's leadership. Psalm 106:14b

 

     As I sat there in church, my dream of muscular bikers flashed through my mind.  And I thought about the moments in the dream when I diverted my attention from creating God-honoring music.  In my dream, I sinned when I relaxed my vigilance by imbibing in the fuzzy no man's land of excessive tv watching.  At that point, I allowed my own personal vision to be subjugated by passionate feelings.  But then! The blood of Jesus overwhelmed my sin!

The End of This Story as a New Week Begins

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Reviews

[Nancy Lee Shrader]

Why the blanks this time? I thought is was a well written story the first time I read it. Are the blanks there for a reason? Enough about the blanks. I liked the story. It was a bit scary, but also uplifting.