EK's -wating for the nightmare to end-

[EK- headbanger for Christ]

Waiting for the nightmare to end


I remember when I got baptized and I remember the words the preacher told me before.
“From this point on Jason, you’re going to experience hardships, you’re going to experience doubt, but Christ will be there for you…always.”
I never expected so much of this to come true…so much of it to overwhelm me, and make me do things I regretted later on. My name is Jason and here’s my story

~
Early on, my childhood was a breeze, the only real problem I experienced occurred when I was five. For some reason my parents just couldn’t wake me up, I was unconscious and barely breathing. They called 911 and I finally woke up in the hospital 2 days later, with a temperature of 105 degrees. This was the start of a chain of events that pushed me over the edge. The doctors later determined that this dealt with stress I was having, my older brother had just died in a car accident, I was only five and I couldn’t get over it. The doctors said that stressing out was dangerous for me, but they didn’t know why, It got normal, but then when I was 12...something worse happened…

~
Jason brushed his black bangs out of his eyes and finished typing his essay. He sighed and printed it out, then stood stretching. Looking up at his clock he whistled “11:00 already? Dang I need to get to bed.” he yawned and turned off his light, climbed into bed, he would pack his book bag later.

~ 2 hours
Jason saw fire, nothing but fire…burning him, scorching him, making him scream. He tried to run, but he had no where to run….then he saw is father, laying down on the floor and Jason knew…he was dead

Jason woke up with a start, he was breathing hard. He rubbed his head, “just a dream.” he told himself , muttering. But something was wrong, his heart was beating extremely fast, he sensed something wrong. Suddenly a sound rang out that made Jason’s blood turn to ice, a sound that he didn’t want to hear- the smoke alarm.

---
Jason could feel the smoke rising, engulfing him, it’s heat making him wince, for a split second he looked back, he hoped his family was outside….especially his Dad.
---
He ran outside , he saw the night sky and only one person on the lawn…his Mom…where was his father?!
“no! he had to come out!” his mind screamed,
“he has to!”
He saw the look on him Mother’s face and his eyes widened, filled with horror, he turned back to his house and almost ran back inside, but a groaning sound filled his ears . He just had enough tiem to back up before the house collapsed….

I always wondered what would of happened if I had run back inside…would I have found my father and helped him out…would I have died…In a morbid, sick sort of way, at some points I almost wish I had run back inside…I almost wished I had died. It’s weird because the phrase “you never know what you got till it’s gone” is what my essay that I had written before was about. It was cruel irony and if the fire hadn’t burned my essay I would of torn it up. Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if my father had made it out, would some of the things that happened even come into play? I wonder if his death had such a hold on me…enough to make me do what I did a few years later.

~ less than a year later

Jason woke up with a start to a cold dark room, his face covered with sweat, making his chin- length hair stick to his neck and face. He shook his head, he had that dream again…no that nightmare again. The same one he had seen seconds before his world fell apart, seconds before the fire happened. He pulled his knees up to his chin and stared at the wall before him covered in “Demon Hunter” and “Dead Poetic” posters. Why did this keep on haunting him? It was bad enough that it had happened at all…but why did he have to be constantly reminded about it!? And it made it even worse when people said they were sorry about what had happened….Did they have to remind him too?! He knew that it would have been worse if no one had said anything at all, so what did he really want them to do? Jason had no idea. He stood and walked over the mirror. As he peered into it his cold blue eyes stared back at him, a constant reminder of how much he looked like his father, a constant reminder of all he had been through. He smiled bitterly at his reflection, he knew that his Mother’s compliments on how much he looked like his father were true. He had his hair, his eyes, his smile and Jason hated it. He hated looking at himself because he looked so much like his father that it made his eyes tear whenever he thought about it. He knew that God loved him but sometimes he felt like he was the only one…he wondered if he was just weird, he felt like an outcast. An outcast? Hmm maybe he was, no, he knew he was. He had no friends, they were all left behind in Philadelphia and those friends never talked to him anymore…they never emailed him, called him or sent him letters and when they did he felt like they were complete strangers. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, tired of looking at his reflection, the reflection of someone he hardly even knew anymore. He turned and went back to bed, glad that the darkness could hide the tears on his face.

~ I went through the same thing every night. For 4 weeks in a row I had the same nightmare over and over…sometimes 3 times a night. You’d think that a repeat would make you become less surprised but it only made it worse because it was exactly what I wasn’t expecting! I know lyrics to songs now that mean so much to me and relate to what I was feeling then. In a song by “Disciple” it says
“I know you tell me to be glad
When trials come to me but instead
I always question whether you love me at all
But I know you know me Jesus
I know you listen to my cry
I need you to come inside”
This song relates to me so well that I felt this weird sensation when I heard it, this weird feeling as if “Disciple” had gone right through my mind to see what I was thinking. I know that this song is a blessing from God. I wish I had heard it before…maybe then I wouldn’t have made the decisions I did later on.

~ 2 years later
Jason stuffed his hands in the pockets of his Black cargos, as he walked the chains on his pants clanked against each other making jangling sounds. It was a routine sound that he and anyone else around him in school had gotten used to by now. Jason was a Goth and the judgment that got passed on him for this made him even more stressed, made him hate himself even more. He went home at night and had nightmares of his father. He would wake up and mutter to himself “I should of went back in and saved him.” as the nightmares continued the thoughts turned toward more self-pity
“I should of died there with him.”
Every day for months the same things happened, he wore a mask of no emotion, a smile that hid all the pain away. Some people would say that he was funny, nice, weird. But it always seemed like only the insults reached him…never the compliments and if they had…at this point it wouldn’t of changed his self-esteem. His Mother was busy working two jobs to make up for the loss of her husband and rarely had time with him. She would leave dinner in the refrigerator and come home late at night, long after Jason had gone to bed. Jason felt like he lived life in a constant dream…and not the good kind. He felt like nothing was real, every day went by and nothing changed. He hated his life and he hated himself

~
At this point I hated life so much and had thoughts about death constantly. Now don’t think that these events lead me to be a Goth, that is a common misconception. I was a Goth to begin with, I liked the clothes I liked being somewhat different. But as I went through more and more…I was so ready to give in…and I almost did.

~
Jason had been sitting there staring at the wall for nearly 45 minutes…not thinking, not paying attention to the sounds outside, not paying attention to the heavy metal blaring in the background. It was almost as if he was in a daze, his black hair hung in his face as he stared and finally snapped out of his reverie. He stood and got a side glance of himself in the mirror. He hardly ate anymore, he was never hungry and it showed in his appearance. He had gotten much thinner, as if he didn’t have enough reasons to despise his appearance. Jason kept on walking and stared at the swords and knives hanging on his wall. He turned his gaze to one knife in particular and took it off the stand. It had a curved blade and had his initials carved in the metal hilt. It was a gift from his father…how fitting for what he was about to do…fitting for the reason he was going to do this. Jason looked up at the clock and merely shrugged at the time. 3:00am, his Mother had come home an hour ago, he had heard her pull in. He pulled his desk chair in front of the window in his room and opened the blinds. This action that he didn’t pay much attention to would later save his life….

~
Don’t ask me why I went through with this decision that you are about to read, don’t ask me why I did it, because I don’t even know…and I have no real excuse for it…I know that now

~

Jason pressed the blade on his wrist and had a moment of reconsideration. He heard a voice in his head suddenly.
“do it! It can all be over soon! Don’t you want it to be over, don’t you want this nightmare you’ve been living to end? Don’t you hate life, don’t you feel like an outcast. You are an outcast! Don’t think that it will get better Jason. It won’t! you’re a fool if you think it will. Go on…put an end to your misery…no one will miss you anyway…you’re life is worthless and so are you…you’re not worth the money that your Mother wastes on you…the time she spends on 2 jobs to feed you when you don’t even eat.”
Jason winced at the words but then another voice spoke calmly to him…it was more kind rather than scornful like the last
“ Jason, you know that those are lies! You know that you are worth something! You aren’t worthless! I died for you! I paid a price so that you may life with me in eternity. Just think, if you’re Mom is so miserable now without your father…imagine what it may be like for her if you let yourself go…you have an influence on people Jason, and you’ll have more on other people that you’ll meet soon. My father has a plan for you Jason and it’s so worth it.”
Jason sat there stunned…those voices….but before he could react the other voice filled his head, angrily screeching at him
“he makes a point Jason, you’re mother is miserable! And you know why!? Because you were too much of a coward to go back in the house and save your Dad. You made life worse for yourself, and her. You let your whole family and everyone that cared about your father down. There’s no Jack Mark Turner in this world anymore because of you. What if in a few years from now it was planned so that he could of saved someone’s life?! You killed them too. What if he was going to keep someone from committing suicide. Oops”
He said mockingly
“that would be you…see you even doomed yourself! Your Mother, your Father, your family, yourself, you’ve let them all down Jason. Why don’t you do the world a favor! Why don’t you let the world be a better place and put an end to Jason Zeph Turner once and for all?”
The next thing Jason knew he had brought the knife across his wrist, slitting it, blood flowed out of the open wounds. Jason did the same to the other wrist and looked out the window mournfully, waiting for the nightmare to end. Suddenly he noticed something…he was drawn to the frame of the window…he looked at it and was surprised by how similar if looked to a cross. He felt his gaze go to his wrists, now covered in blood, he looked back at the cross the window made and was overcome with tears , sadness and joy.
WHAT WAS HE DOING?! It dawned on him what Jesus had done, he had died on the cross for him, he had given up so much for him so that he could live. He realized that the death of his Father was not his fault, that it was planned, it was his Father’s time. He also knew that his Dad was in Heaven now. He was overcome with a feeling that made him feel safe. He no longer felt the presence of the scornful voice, he felt calm and relieved. His head was filled with verses, songs and voices that all reassured him, most he didn’t even remember later on. He was overcome with a feeling of knowing that it would be ok. Suddenly he knew that Jesus was there for him, he realized that even though he had been through so much…God was always there…and he always would be. He prayed silently as tears fell down his face…he was overcome by the Holy Spirit, he knew that from then on…things would be different.