FEARLESS

FEARLESS

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

ll Timothy 1:7

Chapter 1

The curb underneath me is cold. I sit there, my feet in the gray slush which represents the fact that winter has arrived in the province of Rallis.

I think back as far as I can remember and see the same common thing, the grayness that everything in Rallis has. The gray of the sky. The gray of the factory buildings. The gray of the paved streets. Gray, gray, gray always gray. Even in the summer when there is sun everything is still gray.

I have lived in Rallis my whole life, for all I really know it is the only place to live. I have lived most of my life in Rallis roaming the streets with my brother Matthew.

As I sit now I am waiting for his return. Matthew has been my sole provider and protector since the death of our parents some eight or so years ago. Our parents were killed when I was merely seven and Matthew nine. They were killed because they were not afraid of believing in a god even though the OFFICIALS in Rallis forbid it. Our parents not only believed in a god, they believed in the one true God. My parents had a book. It is titled The Holy Bible and it is said to be God's own word. Anything I've ever heard about God was from my parents and of course I believed them. Matthew and I both believed them and have always known God, we now have the book and we have read it cover to cover together several times and still find it all to be true. It holds so many strange stories of times past and so many stories of God providing for people as poor and helpless as ourselves. If anyone was in our position I think they also would embrace and cling to something they could believe in. Something they can trust. I can't imagine why anybody would not want to have God because the difference between being poor and being poor but having God is being rich. In the book it says that if we are poor in this world we will have riches in heaven and I think there is a heaven and I have joy in thinking that. Why wouldn't I? It sure gives me something to look forward to in death and I sure don't have much else to look forward to. Better to believe in God and trust that I can spend forever after death with Him as to believing when I die life is over and never having had anything. Matthew and I both share that faith in God and it is the one thing that holds us together and gives us reason to live.

I am now sitting in the cold snowy weather waiting for Matthew. He has gone to look for a new place to stay as our last box was not offering enough warmth to keep us alive until spring. Hopefully he will find an abandoned house or basement for us to stay in. Somewhere we can be hidden from both the OFFICIALS and outlaw Dustin and his gang. Another thing I remember all my life; hiding for our lives away from both of them.

The cold is beginning to get to me, numbing my toes, working its way up to my body. As I begin to shiver I stand up. I pace. I beat my hands together. I blow warm air into my balled fists. I want something warm. Some soup. Some hot tea. Luxuries Matthew and I rarely know. Maybe I could walk along the street and beg for something? Matthew wouldn't like that. When we were younger he would let me because we could always count at least on the pity of some old woman but Matthew now hates taking pity from anyone. He thinks we are old enough to care for ourselves now, without having to beg. He is right too, we are old enough.

I look up to see Matthew winding his way towards me through the littered street. A grin spreads across his face as he gets closer. He is always happy. That is the one thing I simply cannot understand about my brother, how he can always find something to be happy about. We live in the streets. Our parents were murdered. We survive on our own. Life is grueling. Winter has set in. Yet here comes Matthew a smile on his face a whistle on his lips and joy in his heart. Once I asked him why he always seems so happy and he took my face in his hands "Mall" he said "I'm not always happy, but I do always have joy. You remember that. I have you, I have the memory of our parents, and most of all we both have God, what more do you want, to have joy?"