Free From – Chapter 27 – July 27th

I hope you will join me this month as we JOURNEY each day through our short story. It is about finding FREEDOM in the midst of all the captivating pieces in life that steal our peace which we need FREE FROM!

FREE FROM
July 27, 2021

Isaiah 26:3, ‘Perfect, absolute peace surrounds those whose imaginations are consumed with You.’ (TPT)

Chapter 27

He got out on a Wednesday. Hump Day. The world had changed drastically in over a decade. He didn’t recognize this city any longer; his town was gone, eaten by high rises and culture and millionaires sitting sound asleep to what was happening around them inside their million-dollar homes. The ocean seemed further away as if it moved to the outer edges to escape what was moving into the city limits, to avoid the costs and the crime. What did seagulls need with fancy outdoor malls and Uber Eats and tourist traps? It was a world controlled now by electronics and cell phones and Google and Apple and crypto currency. It was a world he no longer belonged to.
He had harbored a fantasy that he walked through the gates to find freedom from all that led to now and found Annie and his children waiting for him. Never mind, in his head, they were still young enough to be ordered to accompany their mother. Never mind, he hadn’t spoken to her since before finding her in the arms of another man. Her attorney had handled what sparse communication there’d been, had drafted the papers Legend never even read when they arrived at Cell Block 7. He scrawled his name in the ‘Sign Here’ places and paid all his earned state pay to return them. Never mind, over the years behind bars, he’d forgotten how Annie looked, misplaced her smell, could no longer recall the dreams they once had fashioned out of a desire for a better future together than their painful childhoods apart.
His daydreams had been so vivid, he literally was surprised when he walked out, free from himself and what had locked him up, to find no Annie waiting. He pinched himself and reminded himself to breath, time to get on with life. The state bus hauled him and a half-dozen others across town and dumped them at a ratty old government building housing tired officers and grumpy programs and stern looking case managers. No one gave a rip who he was, just that he had a number, and as long as he towed his own line and no one else’s, kept to himself and caused no issues, dotted i’s and crossed t’s, they’d never need to know his name. He spent his first night on the streets, blocking out the sights, sounds and smells of a city that had once seduced him.
Legend made his way to a street mission his prison preacher had promised would help when he got out. And it did, but as good as it was for him, it was also bad. Everyone wanted handouts and didn’t care to do anything to help themselves. Legend found himself too quickly falling into a care-a-less pit. The mission was too busy rescuing the hurting and hindered and lost, as it needed to, that it forgot to require guys and gals to work toward getting on their own feet, to make positive, progressive breakthroughs. Stagnate water attracts bugs and grime and scum, right? A year later, Legend found himself a bottom feeder like everyone else, getting nowhere but fat and lazy.
He thought about the little black man all the time, his Jesus, and the words that were spoken over him in a forgotten prison cell, and he wanted more than just getting by. True, it was easy. Warm place to sleep, three promised meals, daily pay for as many hours as he wished to work. He was proud of himself and all the handyman projects he had procured and perfected while sponging off their goodness. But there had to be more.
More like him, needing a visit and a word from Jesus. He had so much more to give. After all, it had been given to him in an unsuspecting way and place. And where else but the streets to find others just like him? Maybe, just maybe, he could help some not lose all he had lost if he could intervene sooner than when they found themselves in a 6×8 box with bars.

To Be Continued…