The concept of 'God' and all the things in between...

Chapter 1: He who resides beyond the clouds?

Wooosh.. Now that you've been warned, at least I may have the serenity of knowing that this might already lessen 'hate mails' in my inbox or 'excommunication letters' from somewhere there in the "Holy City".

I guess with all these 'beating around the bush' you might be wondering how this book would start? Is it with a prologue? Is it straight to the point essay? Or would it just throw ideas at face value?

Nope! Like any other stories, let's start this with the classic...

"Once upon a time"...

..there was a little boy, looking above the heavens, seeking something in the heights of the sky, looking for something that might be covered in the vastness of clouds, of where his hopes are hidden, of where God might be?

In his hands is his mother's lifeless gloomy face. His lap carries the weight of her still warm but dead body. He looked at her with deep sorrow and held her hands with despair, hoping she could still hear his whispers; His last goodbye.

"...Rest now, Mama. You have fought so well and suffered enough. Breast cancer is not for the poor. We have prayed day and night. Sought all hopes from all known saints. Pledged all the goodness of heart that we know ourselves could offer, but all we have gotten are miseries and hardships."

"If God is just right there, above the heavens, watching over us, then He isn't what we thought He is. Is this how He would like to see his children? All rugged with dirt, lying on the filthy ground and living like rats in shanties we call home? They say that all good Christians undergo a 'test of fire' as what poor brother 'Job' went through, but what good is to triumph on a test if in the vicious process you would witness all your loved ones suffer with you and die? Is my mother just an instrument of someone's playful experiment to prove that I'm worthy of paradise? F$#k!"

"I'm sorry, mom. I know you have held onto the fact that we have a loving man up there in the heavens and that everything happens for a reason, but with all these we have endeavored and the crappy things I have still been bearing, I guess it is more logical to start my life believing that I create my own future, and it is just not worth the time and energy to put our hopes into something imaginary, for in the end, this is all what would happen.. disappointments, dismay...hatred!"

He clenched his fist with deep anger. It is as if the world turned its back against him. That fate has seen him as foe and so therefore deprived him of hope and happiness.

The sharp reddish ray of sun, in the midst of dusk, gradually escapes his sight. As if it's like his hope running away from him. Their tiny shanty, made-up of old tires and scrap plastics, has been engulfed by darkness. This is just not another ordinary sad night for him. This is the first night when he would not hear his Mother's voice. The first night when he would cover his malnourished body with smelly blanket made out of rice sack. The first night when he could not even have a penny to cater for his mother's wake.

He hugged his now rigid and cold mother's body. Closed his eyes, did not even bother to wipe the un-patterned tears that wet his young cheeks, as if he did not feel his eyes wet, as if he did not feel anything at all. Numbed by life's miseries, he lets his consciousness escapes from his current broken self, flies into thin air and searches for his long lost happiness.

Wishing that tomorrow is finally the day when he could wake-up from this horrid nightmare and live life a new.