Looking for joy

Why cant I stop my body from shaking and convulsing like I have my hands on an electric fence? I
feel so shamed; urine keeps seeping out of my trousers and on to the ground, why wont it stop! It
begins to mix with a pool of blood collecting around my waist. Where is the blood coming from?
Faces drift in and out of focus like a bad TV signal. I see their mouths moving but I cant hear a word
they are saying. Am I okay? Am I dying? but not a word comes out. And can someone turn off that
damn ringing; I can feel it slowly burrowing into my skull with claws comprised of shark teeth and
chainsaws. Im trying to open my mouth again, but the only thing that comes out this time is
intelligible gurgles and spitting, it seems right now that the only language my body is fluent in is
excruciating pain.
Its difficult even to begin to express or articulate to you how much it hurts, if hurts is even a strong
enough word to describe what Im going through. But Ill try to describe what its like being shot.
First the impact is like the sharp pain of getting acupunctured by javelins. Then the contact zone gets
real hot, the type of heat you get when your hand is welded to a boiling kettle. Then the real hurt
begins when your body has enough time to process exactly what just happened, and then you get
the type of pain as if your skin is being scrapped with sand paper wrapped around with barbed wire.
Im dying, Im going to be dead, deceased, demised or eradicated, whatever you want to call it its
about to be my reality. I know it only takes a loss of two litres of blood for a human being to die and
at the rate Im going, it will take 2 minutes, maybe three minutes if Im lucky.
It wasnt too long ago that my heart was hurling itself with reckless abandon against my chest, while
simultaneously blood shoots around my veins with the force of a water geyser. With my khaki
overalls adorned with an American flag on my right shoulder, with an assault rifle on my left side,
running on top of the rubble of designated buildings under harsh unremitting heat. At that moment I
felt unstoppable, a one man army. You dont even have to own a TV or internet connection to know
why I and three other men were making our way through a small little town, while countless over
platoons in countless other small towns across this wounded country called Iraq did the same.
I was sent to this country with one specific task to accomplish and that was to return American
hostages where they rightfully belong, back home. America doesnt negotiate with terrorist. The
money they save form that philosophy, they use to train men like me into real life Rambos. While
the rest of the money is used to implant a miniature tracking device beneath the skin of any
journalists of American or British nationality that is operating in the Middle East.
The tracker pointed us towards what appeared as a maze of interconnecting houses and alleys ways
carpeted with broken glass, concrete and human skeletons. I dont know if it came from a high
vantage point, a hollowed out crack in a crumbling walls or in the heat that very moment, maybe
even from my own fellow soldiers. All I did know was I could feel a sharp jolt of pain in my stomach
and like a dominos set on fast forward; it quickly consumed the entirety of the left side of my body.
Everything around me was shut out like I was a race horse with the blinders on before a big race. The
only thing in my field of my vision was the tracker tumbling to the ground almost as fast as I was.
Why do men go to war? Everyone loves to say they do it because they love their country and their
people. But I dont believe them. In my mind the truth is this; most do it for the glory, the prestige or
the medals. Others do it for the excitement of the constant waltz with death and that life affirming
addictive jolt of adrenaline. While the few men who dont like to admit it, go to war because they
just plain love killing people, especially when they look like me. I might be wearing the American
flag, but without it, I look just like the enemy. So why did I go to war when both sides have a reason
to hate me?
I dont even know why Im here. I guess I was trying to find something I feel that Ive have been
trying to find all my life, what is that something? Joy. I thought I found it in friends, but they did very
little to calm the furious storms of lost in pit of my stomach. So I turned my back on them. I thought I
found it in family, but they were unable to douse the raging blaze of uncertainty of self in my head.
So I turned my back on them. I thought I found it in the love of a good woman, but she also was
unable to ply loose the thorn covered vines wrapped around my heart. So I turned my back on her.
My last hope was placed in Islam a father to billions around the world, but it took my short life time
to realize that I was always an unwanted adopted child. So I finally turned my back on Allah too. My
whole body is going numb now as if I just ducked my entire body under bath of ice cold water.
Im waiting for the cathartic experience where I see all the happiest moments of my entire life,
shared with the people I love the most flashing before me. Finally ending with a bright light
enveloping me, accompanied with the voice of Zeus, Allah, Buddah or whoever, telling me its okay
to go into the light. But I get none of that, instead I get a serpent of regret and remorse slowly
constricting my every organ and muscle, only stopping from completely crushing me just to keep me
on the fresh hold of this torment awhile longer. At any minute now I will be unable to utter a word.
I dont want to die; I have no shame in admitting that Im scared. Ive never been so scared in my life
before. I dont want to find out what it is like not think or feel joy anymore. I dont want my eyes to
be blinded, my ears deafened and my mouth muted from all the beautiful things the life in me and
the life outside of me has to offer. I have had many regrets in my life, and the fact I have no salvation
of faith in my darkest minutes is probably the biggest regret of them all, but I truly want and need to
accept it now.. Im out alone in a middle of an ocean of painful uncertainly, with a broken paddle
and compass in a quickly sinking boat.
What does the afterlife have installed for me? That one thought is the only thing resonating around
my head like a perpetual echo. I have searched for many an answer to my questions. But no religion
out there has been able to quench my questions for so many years.
Christianity speaks of a judgment day; when the righteous and true ascend into heaven and the
sinners remain on earth. The Hindus speak about reincarnation and how after death your spirit is
passed on from vessel to vessel, governed by a force called karma. Then there is Islam which speaks
of heaven and hell; heaven as a place of unimaginable divine beauty a reward of a life absent of sin
and hell a place of punishment and perpetual torture for those who have sinned. But for a while
none of these ever filled me with any semblance of fear or anticipation, they had lost their meaning
to me until now.
Im not sure if its too late, but better late than never right? What am I doing, this isnt a time for
clich jokes. God if you are out there, I need you. I dont want to be a lone in moment where I need
someone the most. I turned my back on you, I know. A Im sorry cant even begin to express the
remorse I feel from my actions. But I ask you with every ounce of my being and the very last my
breath, that you give me that light that I need to guide me through this darkness. I deserve at least
that that after a whole life where my only true sin was turning my back on you, but I feel have
suffered long enough. Youre not answering. Fine, do you want to know the good I have done?
I denounced my religion at 20, but still Islams pure and untainted teachings are still etched deep
into my heart, where I wear them with unquestionable pride. When I joined the army in 2003, I was
met with a lot of hostility. They didnt understand my people, our costumes the teachings of our
sacred book. The destruction they were seeing on the TV had made them grow bitter and deaf to
any arguments I made in support of the good of my people. But I didnt give up; I stayed loyal to the
American people as I did the Islamic. After years of combat together, dinners at each others houses
and kids play dates, eventually they warmed up to me. So when I began to tell them again about the
overwhelming good my people are capable of doing and the beauty that their faith can install in
their hearts, they began to listen. I told them about our hero Mohammed and I told their children
stories about the guard who found Islam and the carpenter, which they replied with faces of joy and
requests to retelling of stories.
It now puts a smile in my face to realize that once all this crazy madness is over, these lucky few men
who get home to their children and wives will come back to them with a little less hate in their
hearts and a little more understanding.
As the time winds down, my mind clears from its fog and I can begin to see the redeeming good I
have brought in this world. For years I have worked hard do get where I have gotten, on my death
bed I am soon to literally die for my country. My vision is darkening, but I didnt see any one turning
of the lights. Im just barely able to make out the swarm of faces and bodies awash with frantic
activity around me. I could still see that when they looked at me all they really saw was a brother. I
understand what religion is about now; its about being part of family and something bigger than
ones self. God I want the joy of being a part of that family again.
I just dont know what is next after this world, but finally Im ready to face it. I can feel the terror
and dread slowly elevating my body accompanied with that a little bit of my being. Now I no longer
feel a need to fear the unknown, because for the first time I truly believe it will offer me the type of
solace I never knew I wanted until now, joy. With every passing minute I can feel my heart finally
slowing from a desperate sprint into a tired stagger as it prepares to sing its last swansong. Taking a
rest my little