Doubting Thomas

PRELUDE

A MISFORTUNATE CINDERELLA

Honduras, 1980

Central America, a place where mostly everyone was caught like a tick in a tweezer; poverty squeezing against an incorrigible pinch.

As like the other countries, Honduras had no redeeming qualities save for peace and quiet...if you were not a tick in a tweezer. In fact, to him it seemed more depressing than the other countries he had passed through.

The bus to Tegucigalpa, the nations capital, winded through the hot, stale air. The exhaust added to the smoky smog hanging over the pueblos it passed through. Many made fires to cook and clean with. Some places looked like the aftermath of an apocalyptic movie setting.

The journey's intent was to be a quest; to find enlightenment, conscious awareness, liberation of the soul, spiritual freedom. Instead, he felt only despair. He didn't know how to search for that which he didn't know.

Now, this chapter of THE SCHOOL OF LIFE was over. The inevitable retreat to his decadent Canadian life, came sooner than expected. Illness, innocence, and ignorance revealed his true 'grit'. All he got for his troubles was knowing that failure was misery, and he was an embarrassment to himself.

When the bus arrived to the station, he immediately booked a connection to Managua, Nicaragua. There would be a forty-five-minute wait.

Outside the bus station he took comfort at a small table. He anxiously awaited an order of food, and cold beer, and changed his suffocating feet from hiking boots to sandals.

He had a long way to go to take a flight from Mexico City to Toronto. He was on a reduced budget since leaving Ecuador. In Quito, he came down with malaria which he caught in Panama. It laid dormant until he reached Ecuador, four days later. A fellow Canadian whom he befriended on a bus had cared for him when he was ill. However, when he came out of his delirious states of extreme fever, and chills, the friend left...with two hundred dollars of his traveller cheques.

The aftermath of malaria emaciated him, and weight loss was becoming a concern.

From his sidewalk table, he observed the surroundings as he waited for his food. The busy street, less than two meters away, and sidewalk harboured many pedestrians, fast moving cars, motor bikes, and cyclists.

Across the street he watched a plump belly clergy man (oblivious to the surroundings) direct a delivery into the church. He stood at the top of the steps, observing the flock below him. Some kneeled and kissed his hand prior to entering the church. Some passing by stopped for a brief moment to bow, and symbolize a cross on their chests. His impeccably clean white robe amongst the city's pestilence, surrealistically defined the meaning of, a diamond in the rough.

The events he witnessed next, appeared to transcend into slow motion:

The delivery van's departure exposed a young mother's futility; begging for the survival of her emaciated child. The child laid limply in her arms with skeletal features and bony arms and legs. The little boy appeared to be five years old. Passers-by paid her no attention, but did, however, pay homage to the 'clergy man' and the church.

She was basically dressed in 'designer' rags. Her sandals revealed dirty, skin-rash feet, and she was thin.

The contents of his backpack, and clothes and shoes, were of more value than her entire real estate, he thought.

Without remorse he turned away from her, hurried down his food, and with a passport and bus ticket, fled from freedom.

His name is Thomas Reedwind. He hails from northern Ontario, Canada. This is his story.