Figured I should post something...this was oddly the first thing that came to mind. Oh, besides that I found my spandex shorts :)
enjoy n i shall try to post mo frequently i have some stories brewing I'd like to share ;) thanks guys!! :D

Hallie poked her head around the corner of her sister's door, which was open slightly. The sound of sobbing assaulted her tiny ears as her bright eyes scanned the tiny room. A metal-colored chair had fallen over as if pushed to the ground. The silver curtains were closed and let in a sole shaft of light to pierce through the dim scene. Papers, letters, and old pictures had accumulated, ripped down the middle or frayed at the edges.

Two tiny feet shuffled through crumpled balls of paper as Hallie delicately made her way through the dark room toward the shaking human sprawled on the bed. One black converse remained on her sister's outstretched foot - the other had been thrown across the room in a fit of rage. The sound of silence was so foreign to Hallie she almost didn't approach the sixteen-year-old on the bed. Her sister always had music on in her room. Always. But...she had promised.

Hallie reached out a tiny hand to the figure crying on the unmade bed. "Alyssa?" Hallie asked shakily. No reply behind the mask of red curls. "Alyssa," Hallie whispered again, poking a shoulder. "You promised."

The sniffling and shuddering stopped. A sniff. A sob. Another sniff. The form rolled over. Hallie's sister was usually pretty, at least, Hallie thought so, but today her mascara had run down her cheeks and her eyes were laced with red veins. Hallie took a step back.

Alyssa sniffed again and then replied in a broken voice, "I don't feel like a story today, Hal." She wiped a hasty hand over her face.

Hallie stuck out her lip like she usually did, her little fingers reaching out to grab Alyssa's clamy hand which still shook a little bit."Pleaassseeee? You promised. Pinky promised! And that means no take backs! No matter what," Hallie insisted, pleading with her older sister.

Alyssa stared at her a moment, then her eyes shifted upward as if looking for some words to say written on the ceiling. After hours and hours, she let out a sigh. "Fine..."

The word hardly left her mind before Hallie had jumped up on the messy bed, scrambled under the covers, and perched on her sister's knee. Hallie watched her sister's mouth almost smile...it was like it wanted to, but it forgot how.

"What'll it be today, Miss?" Alyssa asked softly, her voice rustling around the almost-empty room.

Hallie stated quickly, "A princess story please."

Alyssa closed her eyes, took a breath, and encirled her sister in her lap with her arms. "Ok...you ready?"

"Yes!" Hallie replied eagerly, hands clasped within Alyssa's.

"Ok...Once upon a time...there was a beautiful princess. She lived in a tower where her evil parents had imprisoned her."

"Why did they imprison her?" Hallie interrupted.

Alyssa pulled a blonde curl back from Hallie's face. "Because they wanted to protect her."

"From what?"

"I'm getting there, Hal. Just listen." Alyssa sniffed again, wiping a hand under her nose. "In this land, there were many dangers. Dragons roamed all over, burning and breaking things and eating people. Sorcerers and magicians made evil plans against the king. But, there were also knights who were rumored to be the bravest, most handsome people in the kingdom."

Alyssa opened her palm and Hallie absent-mindedly traced patterns in it as she listened to her sister's story. "The princess's father and mother were so afraid that a dragon or a sorcerer would eat or hurt the princess that they locked her up in a tower by herself. They made it so high that a man couldn't get high enough to reach the window and surrounded it by water, which dragons were afraid of. They thought she was safe."

Hallie's voice asked sweetly, "Did her parents live with her?"

"No, they lived in the nearby town."

"Why?"

"Because there was only room for the princess in the tower and they wanted to protect her."

"Oh," Hallie stated quietly. "Then they weren't evil afterall."

Alyssa began to weave her tale again, her soft voice and her encompassing arms making Hallie feel as protected as the princess. "So, the princess grew up alone in a tower, hoping that somehow, one day, a knight would come to save her. And, one day, a knight did!"

"Yea!" Hallie clapped her hands together.

Alyssa shook her head hastily. "No, no! This wasn't a real knight! The princess saw him from the top of her tower and thought he was, but she did not look closer or she would have seen it was a dragon enchanted by sorcerers to look human. The princess saw only what she wanted to see - a perfect knight in shining armor. The dragon tail went unnoticed."

Hallie sucked in a breath. "What happened?"

"She let him in."

"WHAT?"

Alyssa continued solemnly, "Yes. She was not looking for signs of a dragon and did not see his tail."

"What happened?"

"He chased her around the whole tower trying to eat her! A few times he almost had her, but at the last second she slipped through his grasp and ran out of the door. She was lost for the next few days. All she could do was wander around the dessert, alone! Eventually she ended up walking in a circle and she arrived back at the tower, only to find the dragon had destroyed it!"

"NO!" Hallie protested, eyes wide.

"Yes!" Alyssa insisted, squeezing her sister gently.

"What happened?"

"Nothing..." Hallie didn't notice the change in her sister's voice. "It is rumored she still sits outside the ruins of her tower, crying because she is so scared to leave what she used to call come and because she is so scared of everything that can hurt her now."

Hallie crossed her arms and said quietly, "I don't like that story."

Alyssa said nothing, only rested her cheek against her sister's.

Hallie said after a minute, "You ended it to soon."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. What the princess really does is ask the king to build her a new tower," declared Hallie.

"And then what?"

"And then he sends one of his knights to save her, silly!" Hallie laughed. Alyssa stared at her sister a moment, then wordlessly kissed her cheek.

"I love you, Hal."

"Love you, Lissa...but that was a sad story."

Alyssa nodded absently, then patted her sister's back. "Up. Dinner will be ready soon." She waited for the sound of tiny feet pattering across the littered floor and the sound of the door shutting after her.

As soon as the wood creaked back into place, Alyssa sank back onto the bed, arms draped over the covers now. Her eyes squeezed shut and she fought a sob inside her chest. Almost by accident, she scooped up a picture from next to her bed and blinked at it through tears.

In the picture, she wore a bright, yellow dress next to a young man clad in a sharp tuxedo. She bit her lip, closed her eyes again, and whispered, "You're not my prince..." And, like all the others, she ripped it down the middle so that she was on one side and he on the other. Limp fingers let the pieces slide through and fall to the floor.

Three.

A fleet pair of black shoes landed noiselesly on thick carpet. Softly they tip-toed across the darkened room and arrived in front of a dark piece of furniture. Soft snores issued from an elaborate bed across the patch of moonlight on the floor. The moon was the sole witness to what exactly happened next, for as quickly as the shadow arrived in the room, it left, and the occupant was left sleeping soundlessly.

Four hours later, the secretary of state opened his eyes on a fresh new day and stretched. He was a young man in his early twenties with sparkling white teeth and locks of soft, brown hair. Groggily, he rubbed his eyes and studied his surroundings. Pleased that his maid had remembered to clean the clutter off of his desk, he slid out of bed and over to his workstation.

Nothing out-of-the-ordinary struck him at first. His hazel eyes roamed across the smooth desktop casually and he shuffled papers around. In fact, he didn't notice that anything was different at all until he had been sitting at his desk for twenty minutes and was just about to request tea when a beam of sunlight fell onto something shiny.

Raising a well-groomed eyebrow, the man reached for the glittering object and studied the note it had been perched upon. A thin piece of notepaper clearly read in a handwritting he had almost forgotten, "Take my heart and I'll take yours. - Jenny."

His face flushed at the name. Glancing down, he recognized the golden object as the ring he had given her on their first date. On one side her name was inscribed in fading letters. On the other, his had been scratched out.

The ring slid out of his fingers as he leaned back and sighed. Weary fingers caressed his aching head as his mind re-lived the years between them. Jennifer Stone. The prettiest girl in highschool. The coolest girl in college. The only girl who had ever found out he was a cheater.

A series of images flashed behind his closed lids. Her face as he gave her the ring. The way her hair felt when he stroked it on their first date. The way he snuck out of his house to see another girl. The way Jenny screamed at him as she explained how she knew everything that was going on. The way he didn't care that she was mad at him. The way everyone stopped to stare while she created a scene and he stared stoicly ahead of him. The way her tears flowed down her cheeks.

The secretary of state sighed and opened his eyes, hesitantly caressing the piece of jewelry chiding himself for being so foolish. It was just highschool. None of that mattered now. Still...he smiled slightly to himself and slipped on the ring.

***********************************************
A world of darkness. A neverending sea of black. And then. Oxygen. Gasping, Arnold opened his eyes. Light met him full-force, blinding him for a moment so that a slight headache began to develop. He slowly sat up. Where was he? In a hallway in the White House. He glanced down at himself. The tuxedo he had rented for the occasion was puncured by a bullet hole.

Arnold frowned and took off his jacket, revealing a bullet-proof vest underneath with a fresh, new scar. Looking around, he caught sight of a body next to him. The President. His heart pumped hard in a second of panic as he gripped the shoulder of the body and rolled it over. He quickly took off the president's jacket, revealing a vest identical to his own. It rose up and down. The President was alive.

The agent raised his watch to his lips, pressed a button, and reported, "Suspect A confirmed as a lethal threat. The next target unknown." He released the button. Static. His roaming eyes stumbled across the dead bodies of the butlers as he helped the president to sit up.

The president followed his gaze, slowly regaining the breath that had been taken out of him while holding fast to Arnold for support. "Mr.President, our fears are as suspected. Your daughter, Jennifer Stone, is the murderer o--"

"Agent Arnold?" a staticy voice asked over his watch, interrupting the agent mid-sentence.

"Lighthouse! Suspect A has been confirmed. She tried to take out the president but the target has been contained." Arnold nodded to the president while swallowing. "Next target unknown."

There was a pause over the radio unit. "Not quite."
***********************************************
A hum resonated in Arnold's head as he drove the black, armored vehicle parked outside the White House to Jenny's latest hit. The President sat next to him, eyebrows etched into a frown that matched his lips too perfectly. There was no music in the car, only the hum of the engine and the grating noise of the unpaved road beneath them.

Arnold swallowed, considering what to say to the leader of the country who had just found out that his daughter was on the most wanted list. "Mr.President-" Arnold started.

Before he could say more, the President turned to him with a serious face and said, "Thank you."

Surprised, Arnold asked, "It is our duty to protect--"

"No, I'm not thanking your organization. I'm thanking you." The president's voice was solemn. Pained. Arnold met his eyes for an instant before flickering back to watch the road. "You could have chosen not to let me in on your suspicions. Everyone has been looking for the murderer of my brother. No one would have suspected my Jenny." His voice cracked on the words.

Arnold cleared his throat. Not many people would have. If he hadn't known Jenny's uncle had abused her when she was little, he wouldn't have considered it either. "Sir, we believe many more people to be in danger. She seems to be seeking revenge on anyone who ever treated her badly."

The President sighed and stared absently out of the window. As soon as the words left his left, Arnold regretted them. Surely he hadn't been too terrible of a father. Then again, when Arnold had explained that he would be required to wear a bullet-proof vest as they were setting up for the dinner, the President had seemed genuinely shocked.

"Sir, if it's any comfort, you're safe with us," Arnold said, trying to offer what looked like a smile as he pulled into a driveway full of investigator and police vehicles. "Jenny still thinks you're dead, and she can't know you're alive. That's why you'll be staying with--"

Arnold was interrupted yet again as a woman with dark hair knocked eagerly on the window of the bullet-proof van. Arnold rolled it down and she exclaimed eagerly, "We're sorry, sir, but it's the secretary of state - he's been murdered."

"Good gracious," the president murmured.

Arnold immediately got out of the car. "How did this happen?"

The woman's eyes widened as she led him over to a stretched bearing a corpse of a young, once-attractive man clad in what he had slept in the night before. "Mercury poisoning."

"Mercury poisoning?" Arnold repeated, his eyes scanning over the man's discolored frame. Bits of blood marred his otherwise flawless skin when in his last moments he had gone insane and clawed himself. "How did this happen?" Disgust trickled into his voice. How did Jenny manage this?

The woman shook her head, staring at the disfigured body. "We're not exactly sure." She pointed to the dead man's hand. "But traces of mercury were found on his ring."

One. Two.

i wrote this once {something vaguely like it} in a facebook chat, and shall henceforth share it with you all...hope you enjoy.

Arnold's careful eyes roamed around the splendid room. Men and women adorned in fabulous colors spun around him cheerfully while butlers waltzed in between them carrying silver platters of tasty bite-sized delicacies. A great chandelier stared down at the guests from below a painted mural on the ceiling depicting angels and demons in a storm-clouded sky. Arnold's eyes flickered down to his watch and then up again at the occupants of the ballroom. All of them wore masks. How strange it was, that this vital information worthy of the president's notice should come up while the president himself was hosting a masquerade ball.

Footsteps behind him caused him to casually turn around. A short, stocky man who was both well-groomed and well-dressed eagerly stuck out his hand. He pushed up a pair of spectacles, introduced himself, and immediately led Arnold down a hallway to one side and into a smaller, more secluded room.

"The President knows of your arrival, sir," the man was stammering to Arnold's half-listening ears. "And apologizes that you were so inconvenienced as to have to come to the ball."

"The inconvenience was my fault," Arnold rumbled in a deep voice, nodding slightly to a butler who passed by with an empty tray. The man avoided his eyes and walked quickly past. "But this is an urgent matter that could not wait."

The man hastily opened a door to his right, which swung upon without a noise. Inside Arnold instantly perceived that the president and his daughter were standing around a cozy fireplace on one end of the room. A table and a pristine couch decorated the other.

The president, a man well in shape for his age, motioned for the man to leave Arnold with him. His daughter, adorned in a slimming green dress, smiled up at Arnold almost in wonder. As soon as the servant left them, Arnold shook their hands in turn.

"Mr.President, I'm terribly sorry to inconvenience y--" Arnold trailed off as he met the president's daughter's eyes. "Jenny?" he asked, incredulous.

She flicked back a lock of her chestnut-colored hair and let out a light laugh. "Hello Arnold! I never imagined I'd see you again!"

The president looked at the two young people, at a loss. "You two know each other?"

Jenny smiled at her father, revealing a set of pearly white teeth that contrasted well against her tanned skin. "We went through training together." Arnold smiled. She smiled back. They both knew that wasn't the whole truth. They both knew things were much, much more complicated.

"I seem to have missed quite a lot, Jenny," the president said in a matter-of-fact way the way someone would report the weather.

Jenny's eyes narrowed only slightly as if to imply a layer of meaning he would never understand as she replied, "Father, there are many things you have missed about me."

Arnold studied the two relations. Their eyes were the same except for the emotions portrayed in them. Jenny's eyes were full of spirit, and life, and rebellion. Her father's were distant and serious. Arnold's memories shifted back to when he had dated Jenny in college. The President had never cared for his daughter. The only reason he seemed to mildly take interest now was undoubtedly because of Arnold's presence.

Arnold, suddenly composing himself, turned to the president with a quickly sobering expression. "Mr.President, please listen carefully to what I have to say. I'm with a counter-terrorist agency and we have reason to believe there are in fact at this moment five potential assassins in this building. We believe they are all connected to an attempt to take your life tonight."

The president's face melted from one of wonder to one of alarm. Jenny sucked in a breath, but Arnold continued to speak in a low, level tone. "I myself passed a butler in the hallway bearing a firearm and branded with a tattoo on his forearm he had tried to cover up with stage makeup. Do not panic; the agency I work with has a car outside waiting to take you and your daughter to safety."

Jenny's hand flew to her mouth, her ability to suppress her emotions less practiced than her father, who stared at Arnold with a clenched jaw. Arnold continued after a pause, "Mr. President. I suggest you follow me."

A second flickered by. Two. Arnold slowly pulled his gun out of his tuxedo's jacket pocket. The wizened leader nodded stiffly. "Lead the way."

Arnold nodded, gut clenching. "Stay close."

He walked to the door, gun held at the ready, stomach churning inside his body as he placed a tentative hand on the doorknob. Counting to three in his head, Arnold listened to the short breaths of the people behind him whose life he held in his hand. He pulled open the door.

Stepping into the hallway, he raised his gun up so that he could align it with his eye. He swung it down one side of the hallway, then the other. "Clear," he said softly, waving the two figures huddling near the doorway forward. The second the president had stepped foot in the hallway, a flurry of motion attracted Arnold's eye.

Something down the hall moved and immediately the sound of muffled shots could be heard filling the air. Arnold's weapon proved true as he hit one butler and then another who jumped around the corner. A third replaced the first. A body hit the ground behind him, followed by a muffled scream. Arnold felt a bullet whiz past his ear as he shot the last assassin in the neck. Whipping around, he saw the president bleeding on the ground.

Jenny had covered her face in her hands and her eyes seemed to be accumulating tears. Arnold swore under his breath and dropped to the ground. Trembling, his fingers reached out to take a pulse. "He's alive!" Arnold repeated, relief trickling through his rapidly beating heart.

Footsteps behind him signified Jenny drawing closer tentatively. Arnold began to slide the president out of his jacket, working quickly in an effort to stop the bleeding. "One thing's for sure - all of the butlers were after one thing; to make your father dead."

The sound of a gun cocking clicked behind Arnold. "They have failed me," came the harsh reply. Arnold felt his ears grow red in anger. He had time for no more. The trigger was pulled. Arnold fell across the president's body, hand clasped against his chest. Another shot was fired. Both bodies lay still.

Jenny's eyes observed two men she had claimed to love lying dead on the floor before heartlessly staring at the dead butlers. She pulled the gun to her lips, blew gently to cool the heated metal, and stowed it back in the holster she wore hidden on her calf. Without a tear, without looking back, she slipped on a mask that went perfectly with her emerald dress, and slowly walked down the hallway, into the ballroom full of people, and away.

New Post, guys!

Hey guys!
How are y'all?
How's life?
...
No seriously, how go things?

So, I suppose I should post something new...does something new that's old count? Like...I wrote this a long time ago for an English assignment "to write a symbolic story". Props to anyone who figures it o-- wait, have I posted this befo?
...hm...
ANYWAYS! I'll post it again, and if I've already posted it before, I'll just take if off soon. {Implying someone had best tell me...otherwise this isn't doing either of us good. come on now, guys. come on.}

...IN OTHER NEWS {this is like previews before movies, ok?}
I've been writing this kind-of-analogous story, similar in style to "crossroads", and perhaps it shall one day appear.
Also, in art, there's this competition thing they do every year, and for the past few weeks we've been working to come up with concepts and ideas to do - basically, just sketches of general composition before we actually get to work drawing out the actual image.
SO! For my idea, I'm trying to kind of illustrate "Crossroads", and if it comes out well {we'll know in about a month...}, I might possibly put it up here. Maybe.
Alright, you guys are pretty patient and enduring, so...without further adeau, hoohah, or koalas, ladies and gentlemen, here's an analogous story! Have fun! Bring popcorn! Hey, you, down in front!

Four silhouettes snuck across the shadowed doorway. The figures hesitantly entered the art gallery, unsure of what they would find ahead. Dark, empty walls enclosed them, bearing no decoration except for the wall facing them.

An aging man with hair as white as sheep’s wool gasped in alarm, for on the wall he saw a painting. The image sent a chill throughout his blood and froze him where he stood. His wrinkled face beheld the artwork while his lips moved as if mouthing unspoken cries of terror. Faces and eyes stared back at him, lifeless yet moving; dead yet stirring. The emotions depicted in the painting seemed to jump out of the canvas and encircle him – pain, horror, and a dreadful feeling of unfamiliarity – the feeling of walking into a pitch black forest without knowing what would attack.

Beside him, a teenage boy asked, “What are you so afraid of?”

The man stared at the painting. “Don’t you feel it? It’s like looking at a black hole – it’s like the opening of Pandora’s Box.” And he turned his face away; he could no longer bear to look at the awful picture.

The teenager glanced at the painting, a lazy smirk finding its way onto his careless countenance. He didn’t understand why the man was so flustered, for all he saw was an empty frame embracing the black wall behind it. There was no painting or portrait or landscape to fill the empty void of darkness. The boy uneasily diverted his stare from the simplistic frame, and tried to shrug off the nervous feeling he got with a comment to the woman standing next to him.

“Strange for an old man to be afraid of such a simple arrangement.”

“A simple arrangement?” The woman repeated. “That’s an understatement.” Her blue eyes were locked onto the wall, for on it she saw the most beautiful sculpture she had ever seen. Vines and butterflies entwining golden flowers seemed to breathe with life. Light danced and played upon the shiny surface of the sculpture, giving the models twinkling eyes and playful moods. The woman almost wanted to touch the piece of art, for it was so overwhelmingly wonderful she couldn’t hold back a smile from spreading across her face.

“I wish I knew what the artist was thinking,” she murmured.

The teenager stared at her, and then stared back at the painting. Its dull simplicity met his searching look, and he said, “It’s not very beautiful – it’s a terrible conclusion to the art gallery.”

The woman shook her head. “I think it’s the perfect ending. They saved the best artwork for last.”

All of a sudden, the last member of their group, who had until now been silent, asked innocently, “What is it?” He was a child no more than six.

The woman gently took his hand and pointed to the work of art. “It’s life, dear.”

Confused, the child lifted his head for a moment, giving them a glimpse of his perplexed face. Curiosity shone in his naïve eyes. “I don’t understand,” he stammered.

“Look at the sculpture, dear. What do you see?”

“That’s what I mean,” the child persisted. “I don’t see anything.”

Crossroads

Two notes, first of all.
1. Without Render, I probably wouldn't have thought of an analogy this wood, so props for that and I hope this isn't considered plagurism, however u spell it.
2. The moral of this story is NOT to hop into cars with strangers. Props to anyone who can figure it out {hopefully u can cuz it's not supposed to be that hard...}
Enjoy.

You tremble as you stare at the quivering choice before you. On one side of the splitting earth is a road that leads to a familiar path you have come to believe is real and exists, though only because of what you have heard. The other is a path you cannot clearly see, and the quaking ground beneath you does nothing to sharpen the twists and turns you can faintly make out past the crossroads sign.

The clouds above you swirl around as if they were a dark, thick batter being stirred slowly with a spoon. Your hands lifelessly seek each other and you clasp them tightly, eager to hold on to something as the earth tremors underneath you, sending you stumbling forward to the fork in the road you have just arrived at.

It’s time to choose…the earth is erupting beneath you, the sky is groaning above you, and the wind in the air around you sends a chill throughout your body, over your skin. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for your whole life – to choose your fate; to choose your destiny. What to do, what to do…choose the path you exist and believe is real, though you haven’t actually seen it yourself…or choose the path that is hidden to you, which has a few visible turns before it escapes into shadow.

You don’t have to make the choice. Well, not by yourself, at least. Another factor comes into play. A factor you have forgotten. Between the two roads, vibrating softly with each tremor sent through the ground, is a truck. Its hood is bent and broken, and mud covers the sides of the wheels and coats the bottom half of what once used to be sparkling chrome. A few broken mirrors and windows suggest something has deliberately attacked the car, but your attention is drawn to one thing: The figure inside.

With painful steps, you stumble over to the car and limply grasp the edge of one broken window. The form inside turns toward you and says gently, “Climb in.”

“I don’t know you.”

“Look into my face. Look into my eyes. You know me. You’ve heard my voice. And I have heard yours. Look at me…you know my name.”

There is something familiar in the corner of his lips…the curves under his eyes…the small hint of joy that somehow permeated onto his face though he wasn’t smiling. You frown, gripping the metal of the car harder as the earthquake causes you to jolt to the side. “You’re here?”

“As I have always been.” The man in the car looks at you and leans back slightly in his seat, inclining his head toward you as his eyes gaze into your face. He leans over and opens the car door, which creaks open like it hasn’t been oiled in ages. Firmly, he says, “Let me drive you.”

“But…I don’t know where you’re going. If I choose my path, I know where I’ll end up.”

“If you ride with me, I know where you’ll end up.”

You shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “I want to go on my path. I have heard of its end: that it is wonderful. With all of me, that is what I most desire. Security. Safety from the shaking world around me. With every beat of my heart, I yearn for control. I want to go down the path I know has no difficulties, has no turns, has only an easy, controllable route; a path I have made for myself with my dreams and ambitions…You will say … that I should not cling to what I do not know is truth.”

He says nothing, only looks at you because He knows you have more to say. Patiently, as a father listening to his child offering up excuses for a deed not done, he places a contemplative hand on his chin and rubs it slowly as you speak.

“You will say…that I cannot control anything at all if I am to go with you. You will say…that the safest and most secure place I will ever have is in the seat next to you. I want to believe this…I want to trust you with myself…But…I can’t see down the path. The shadows conceal it, and it twists out of my sight.”

His eyes gleam through the darkness created by the storm clouds, who have grown closer all the while. “You may not be able to see down this path…but I can. I know exactly where you will be if you ride with me.”

“But…I know what lies on my path. It will be wonderful, I just know it.”

“You do not know that mine will not be even more wonderful than anything you can imagine.”

“But…what if it’s terrible? What if I get in your car and we end up going somewhere I’ve never been?”

“Look at me. Do you know me?”

“Yes.”

“Have I ever led you astray before when you have followed me?”

“…no.”

“Then is there reason to doubt me now?”

“But I’m scared that your path will not be my own.” Your voice seems weak now, as you’re rattled where you stand as lightning tears through the sky and the car is illuminated for a brief second.

In the brief flash of light, the man inside the car lets out a deep, joyous chuckle, as if he honestly thinks something is funny. “Of course it’s not your own. But, it will at some points cross over yours or run parallel to it. Just because you choose my path over yours doesn’t mean the things you desire on your own path are not on mine.”

“But…your car…it doesn’t look safe.”

He lets a smile spread across his mouth which is well-accustomed to speaking words of wisdom, of truth, and of love. “Have I ever looked safe? Yet have I ever led you astray? Sometimes what is best for you does not look the most attractive.”

You look at him and say slowly over the sound of your pounding heart, “You’re not safe…how can I trust you to take me somewhere safe? How do I know we won’t get lost, or stuck, or killed? How do I know that you know where you’re going?”

The man looks at you for a moment. It is obvious that many thoughts are spinning around his head, and that there are a million things he can say to you. Yet only a few words come to His lips that He speaks to you. “Trust me.” These words are utterly impossible. These words call for utter abandonment of any hope of getting to where you want to go. These words are more than you can absorb.

“I can’t,” you stammer out, your white knuckles moving from the window of the car to the door. “I can’t. How do I know you’ll take me where I want to go?”

He tilts His head slightly, and replies in the voice you have heard so many times before, “Would you rather have me take you where you want to go…or where I want you to be?”

Your eyes dance from his tender face, wise and faithful, to the dark world shaking around you. You have plans for where you were going to go…what would you become when you got there; what would you do when you first arrived…if He wants you to give up those hopes, to give up your plans and allow Him to make His own…

He continues, “Is your love for me greater than your desire for your own comfort?”

The earthquake rattles the mirrors on his truck, and the wind picks up in speed, causing you to blink rapidly because it stings your eyes.

Unsure of what he really means, you ask out loud, “You want me to give up my life? In order to follow you? You want me to sacrifice my dreams and instead travel down the path you have made for me?”

He says nothing, but a glimmer in His intense eyes confirms your statement. Your breath comes rapidly now as you feel your chest constricting inside you.

“You want me to turn away? To walk away from my own path, these dreams I have had my whole life; you want me to let them slip through my fingers; to let my path grow overgrown by foliage until no one even knows it’s there?” Your voice grows tight with emotion, and a wave of sorrow passes over you.

He leans back in his seat once more, eyes on you, and says with absolute clarity, “I want you…to give me your heart.”

Another shake; you’re on your knees, clutching the only thing stable in the shaking world: his car. “I…I don’t know if I can do that. If I give it all up…I might break my heart in giving it to you.”

He extends his hand, as if He already knows what you will decide. It is a calloused hand, like that of a farmer. Scars decorate it where nails have pierced His flesh. Veins stand out against his muscles, telling of His strength, like that of a carpenter. His skin is well known by the sun from its olive shade, like that of a fisherman who spends hours outside. But the way that He holds out His hand…like it would be of a comfort to your troubled mind, to your aching heart…is like that of a father.

“Trust me.”

Noticing He did not reply to your last comment, you state, “You will break my heart.”

“This may be true…it may not be. I may have to break you down in order to build you up the way I have designed you to be. But take comfort in this; whatever pain is necessary is only for the moment, and there is something much more wonderful waiting for you, where we’re going. You must know you need to rely on my strength and my knowledge and my plans for you. Stop trusting yourself. Stop convincing yourself you know where you’re going.”

Surprised, and eyes watering, you ask in a quiet voice, “Will it hurt?”

“Yes. In order to give up everything, it may hurt. But the joy you will receive for following me will overshadow any sorrow I will help you to endure.” His hand hasn’t moved, and He meets your moist eyes with eyes of love. “Do you trust me?”

You lick your lips, your heart quivering inside your ribs with another tremor through the breaking ground. Is your love for Him greater than your fear of being left with a broken heart? Are your dreams greater than His unknown plans? Is control over your life greater than trusting the writer of life itself?

He remains, patient, hand extended…waiting for you to give Him your dreams; to give Him your plans; to give Him your life; to give Him your heart.