AGIEL
7 January 2020
Dear Devil
One Saturday around 10 o’clock in the morning, Agiel came to see my brother who was on a six weeks’ vacation from the seminary. “I don’t like this Gomera boy,” my father confessed the moment he saw Agiel Gomera, through the window, getting inside the gate. “There is something about him that is dark and baneful. If he doesn’t smoke marijuana like most boys in this neighbourhood, then he has an ancestral spirit that makes him look like a ghost,” my mother replied. They both laughed. “Look at how dirty his clothes are. I can bet a million dollars that they last tasted water a ‘decade’ ago,” said my father with a frown on his face. “They say he is at the University but I wonder if he is even performing well there. He looks like a dunderhead. “My mother couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She ended that conversation saying, “God works in mysterious ways. I wonder how they click with our son, the priest of the family, Gilroy…” Innocent souls.
They didn’t know Mr Jacob and Mr Gomera clicked in so many ways and shared tonnes of secrets- sexual escapades to be precise. In their circle, Agiel was the only one who knew my brother for who he truly was- a helpless Rake. Behind the spiritual façade was a helpless philanderer. Truth to be told, there was a time when my brother was serious about his spiritual journey and growth. It was on his 17th birthday, 16 March, when you offered him Atelia’s pudenda and he was soiled. He became your loyal servant for a year and a half, until his mentor, Father Pierre, caught him fondling and kissing Mercy behind the grotto, disrespecting the gigantic statue of the Holy Mother holding her beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
‘Blasphemy!’
Father Pierre realised that his protégé was treading on the wrong path and that day, he ‘laid’ both his legs and his hands on him (he whopped his butt first and then prayed for him.) That was his ‘deliverance.’ Six months later he went to the seminary…Was he truly called to Priesthood? They say a tree is judged by its fruits. You know what happened next Lucifer, you know the whole story. Such an embarrassment to the family’s reputation isn’t it? Agiel came in our room and sat at the top left corner of the bed, close to the table where my brother’s computer was. As they were talking, my ‘reformed’ brother tried to have that heart to heart conversation with his friend. He tried to preach to him to leave his ways and truthfully follow Jesus Christ.
It was futile.
“Do you really believe there is God Agie?” “Of course I do,” he replied clearing his throat. “So why won’t you truthfully and steadfastly follow his word. Stop being a Sunday Christian and leave all the bad that you are doing Bro.” My brother said, sitting at the left lower corner of the bed close to the door. “With the talent that you have, I’m sure if you allow God to use you, you will be a superstar in no time,” he continued, his voice sounding sincere and the look in his eyes showing genuine concern. “I do believe there is God,” he said, putting his hands between his thighs. “I just find it difficult to believe in the one that is preached in the church or written in the Bible. It’s like the more I study the Bible, the more I lose sight of who He really is and eventually lose faith in Him.”
He grabbed a blue small Gideons New Testament bible that was on top of the black computer motherboard on the table.
“What do you mean?” Gilroy replied sounding concerned. “It’s hard for me to fathom how God can be extremely nice and extremely cruel as He is portrayed in this book bro,” he opened that small bible as if he wanted to quote a verse. “Half of the Bible portrays God as a racist, male chauvinist and a ferocious mass murderer. It shows Him condoning incestuous behaviour and accepting human sacrifices. On the other hand, the New Testament depicts Him as an evil monster who enjoys barbequing humans in hell for eternity. You…” “That’s preposterous! My brother interjected. “Do you have any proof of what you are saying Agiel? The neophyte was stunned. “You of all the people should know that what I am saying is indubitable. Unless they are teaching you heresy at the seminary, or you will be busy flogging the pope whilst others will be learning.” Agiel argued perusing through the pages of the pocket Bible. His words had a smudge of sarcasm that got on Gilroy’s nerves. I could see it on his face. “So in other words you are saying the Bible is untrue,” Gilroy continued his voice betraying a stain of disappointment at Agiel’s invective. “To be fair, much in the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries. This may explain some of the sheer strangeness of the Bible…” he replied. “Agiel, did you just quote Professor Richard Dawkins right there,” Gilroy asked, looking defeated. He took a deep breathe.
“Hell yeah buddie…,” he replied laughing. He tapped my brother’s shoulder with the small pocket bible that was in his hand. “Oh! I see where all this is coming from,” Gilroy said cracking his fingers looking straight into Agiel’s eyes. Suddenly he smiled. His faced changed instantaneously. For the first time during this conversation I saw Gilroy smiling. Both had this diabolical smile they put on whenever they were about to say something off the hook. When I saw him smiling I knew he was about to drop a thunderbolt.
“So tell me, do you really believe what the Professor said that, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal,filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” The smile on Gilroy’s face after he said this was priceless. He felt so proud that he had finally trapped Agie in a corner. His happiness was short lived. It lasted five seconds to be precise. “That’s exactly what I have been trying to tell you all this time we’ve been talking.” Boom! Mr Gomera dropped a bomb. I heard Gilroy’s smile shouting, “Mayday, Mayday.” It was Agiel’s turn to put on that nefarious smile. “You are going to hell my friend,” replied Gilroy clenching his jaw, his eyes blazing with fury. I could see he wanted to beat the demons out of Agiel. Unperturbed, Agiel replied, “If it is there, I don’t believe there is another one which is worse than the one we are ‘burning’ in right now…” He smiled. “Zimbabwe is hell my friend if you didn’t know…” Lucifer, this is the incubus you sent to introduce me to two things that nearly thwarted my dreams and the third that nearly ruined my entire life- pornography, sex and drugs in that order.