She stepped off of the bus into a flat drizzle of rain that had no substance to it. The tiny droplets struck her arm, but it didn't feel like the rain that she'd grown up knowing and loving.
"I used to love the rain," Dolly said, opening her arms to feel the drizzle on her skin. "I used to love..." she trailed off as the thought dawned on her. "...I used to love a lot of things."
The bus had come to a stop at a large bridge. The pavement rose up and away from the water below...and then it vanished off into the haze of rain in the distance, almost like it was a road leading off into nowhere. Below was the river, swollen with rain.
"I used to love a lot of things, too," the man in the black suit's voice said from behind her. Dolly spun around, but there wasn't anything or anybody there. Just the bus, doors standing open.
"What happened?" Dolly asked. She was talking more to herself than she was anybody else, but the man answered her from nowhere just the same.
"I became something that He didn't think I was going to become, Dolly."
She ignored him. Or tried to. "How did I become this person that I am today?"
Without waiting for a reply, Dolly turned and began crossing the bridge, heading to that phantom point where it vanished in the distance.
"Because," the man's voice said. It followed her, and she didn't like that. She wanted every part of that man to stay back there, with the dead bus. She didn't want him anywhere near her. This world right now, she thought, might be lifeless and empty. But it would be better to go insane from loneliness than to listen to anything that he had to tell her. "You've become like me!"
"I'm nothing like you!" she snapped. She picked up her pace a bit. If this man, this thing, was invisible and following her then maybe if she walked faster she could confuse it. Lose it.
"Reeeeeally?" the man asked her, and then chortled. "You're more like me than you know. Oh, sure...one day I was up there playing my little harp and flapping my itty-bitty wings. Hopping merrily from cloud to cloud with not a care in the world. When pow!"
Dolly winced and brushed at her face, as if shoe-ing a fly.
"I realized that I was me. I deserve good things, too, don't I? Hmmm, Dolly?"
She didn't answer, but picked up her pace. Her hair soaked. Dripping water into her face now.
"We all deserve good things!" the voice boomed. "And not just for His glory, but for ours! Don't we, Dolly? Say we're hungry and we suddenly find a very large, very soft everything-bagel with cream cheese sitting in front of us. We're too hungry to pray. Why should we? Because it belongs to Him?"
She couldn't listen to this. It sounded so absurd to her. False teachings from the master of deceit. Of course, it sounded absurd to her now, but she knew that if she paid any attention to what was going on with his thoughts, she'd begin to see his point of view. That was dangerous ground.
Instead, she began thinking and trying to make sense of the last thought she'd had before he began his ramblings. "I used to love a lot of things," she whispered.
"-created us in His universe and not our own!" the man was declaring.
The rain on my skin used to feel so good, she thought. Especially in the summer. I used to look forward to rain falling after a hot, hot day. Cooling the earth and making everything fresh again. I used to love Bill without question. Everything about him was new, his favorite colors and his favorite foods. There were times when I couldn't wait to see him again. Right after we were married, there were times when I was so happy that he was mine and I was his.
"-all boils down to slavery!" the man was screaming.
But what I forgot, Dolly thought, was how to hang onto the flavor of love. Some time between here and then, I stopped appreciating Bill. I stoppped appreciating the rain. I've forgotten most of the other things that I ever loved in my life...because I stopped appreciating them. I began taking them for granted.
Dolly trudged along, her feet striking the asphalt, with no end of the bridge in sight. She glanced behind her, and the bus was only a ghost figure now. Below her, the water flowed.
"I let go of love," she whispered to herself. "I stopped believing that I was fashioned for His enjoyment, and that I'm to love His gifts and give thanks for them daily."
That's it, she thought. I've stopped being thankful for everything - both large and small.
"when it's done!" the man screamed like a politician in a hot town hall filled to capacity. "Oh, that's when you'll see!"
The love that she used to have in her heart, she remembered it now. How she could feel it, how she could almost taste it. Appreciation. Thankfulness. Adoration to God. Belief. There was a time in her life when she felt so full of these things that she wanted to dance and shout! But just lately, all she wanted to do was sleep, rise, and go about her business. Oh, sure...she went through the motions. Fold her hands and pray, give thanks, say those words and repeat after me. But did she mean them in her heart? Did she understand the meanings of those words that she was praying? She didn't think so.
"Find it," Ranwell whispered.
Dolly whipped around, her eyes wide at the sound of Ranwell's voice. But there was only the bridge, sloping down. The bus was gone now, vanished off in the haze. "Ranwell?" Dolly said, not liking the sound of begging in her own voice right now.
"But you can!" the man went on, and then paused. "Who's Ranwell?"
Dolly paid him no attention. Find it, he had told her. Find it.
Find the flare, she thought. Find the zest, find the kick. Get it back into your life, back into your heart! She turned and began walking again. You had it once, Dolly, you know you did! Back in the day when the sky seemed a brand new shade of blue every day - remember that? Where'd it go?
"How?" she whispered, and continued to walk. "How am I supposed to force myself to find that? It's something I can't feel, something I can't touch. I never saw it before in my life. I've never heard its noise. How am I supposed to find that now?"
"There," the man in the black suit told her, "is no chance of ever find that again. Ever. You humans loose it as children. You never get another one. It's not like God hands them out free of charge, you know."
Dolly began crying and stumbling along. And through the tears, she thought she could see the other side of the bridge.
(Aaaah! Good to be back...pray for no more family crisis or emergencies!
)