An Open Heart (33 page)

If You are real, why can’t I feel You like Janice does?

If You love me, why can’t I believe?

His heart was stone.

He wanted to be loved.

He wanted to believe.

Is she right? Do You love me?

Show me, God.

He searched the sky, waiting for the writing of God.

Nothing.

He was alone.

With his heart aching, he formulated the essence of his heart-cry. “Choose me, God,” he whispered. “Choose me.”

In western Kenya, Simeon Okayo led a cow into the forest. His path lit only by the moonlight, his progress was slow but steady. Serenaded by a chorus of crickets, he prodded the animal forward.

By midnight, the altar was built, a fire started, and flames licked the cloudless sky as smoke from the green wood curled upward.

Simeon killed the animal by stabbing its neck, slicing through the right jugular vein and carotid artery. He collected the blood in a large wooden bowl.

Then, he lifted the bowl to the sky and set it in the fire. Before the blood could boil, he painted his hands and face.

Jace awoke and pushed back the thin blanket.
I’m burning up.
He touched his forehead and rubbed his fingers against his thumb, lubricated by the generous sweat.
Malaria?

But there was something else.

Evil.

Fear.

I am going to die.

He puzzled over the thought.
Where did that come from?

He pushed the thought away, struggled to his feet, and stumbled toward the bathroom, where he pulled the mirror forward to open the medicine cabinet. He dropped four ibuprofen tablets and a Malarone antimalarial pill into his hand, threw them to the back of his throat and drank water from the faucet, lifting it to his mouth with his hand. He splashed water onto his face, wanting to wash away the sweat. He closed the door to the medicine cabinet as he lifted his face to look at his reflection in the dim light of the moon coming through the window.

His face was dripping wet.
With blood!

He gasped and looked at his hands.
Blood!

He fumbled for a towel with shaking hands. He took deep gasping breaths, exhaling into the cloth to suppress his urge to scream. With the towel over his face, he found and snapped on the light. It took a moment for the overhead fluorescent bulb to ignite, flicker, and then stay on.

Slowly he lowered the towel to study his reflection.

The blood was gone.

He looked at his hands, the towel, and the wall where he’d left a trail of wetness searching for the light switch.
Just water.

But the fever consumed his face. He knelt by the tub and lowered his head beneath the faucet there.

He stood and towel-dried his hair and went back to bed.

There, he was aware only of heat.

In minutes, his body and bed were drenched.

Again.

Simeon Okayo placed the cow’s heart into the boiling blood. Then, eyes focused on the unseen, he chanted and lifted an object toward the moon.

Slowly, he lowered an instrument into the fire, allowing the tubing to coil snakelike into the coals.

Dr. Jace Rawlings’s stethoscope. Smoking. Melting.

Okayo began to scream.

Jace tossed, finding sleep impossible as his body pulsed with fever.

He stared at the ceiling with a weird but distinct sense that he was not alone.

His heart began to race, galloping within his chest. He looked down, alarmed, sure that he would be able to see the pulsation.

His chest tightened.

He fought for breath.

The night sounds of crickets disappeared into the thunder of his heart in his ears.

His throat began to close.

Instinctively, he reached for the ceiling, one name on his lips.

“Janice!” He tried to scream, but his voice choked without air.

The room began to swim. Searing pain ripped his chest. He was sure of death.

And then, with his fingers drawing across the skin of his chest as if he could peel away the pain, he managed to whisper.

Not his sister’s name this time.

But a name he knew from his childhood. The one he thought had betrayed him. Left him on the bench unchosen. Unwanted.

“Jesus!”

Barely a whisper.

But as he fought for air, a whisper was all he could manage.

Simeon lifted his head. Something was wrong. The moon was gone, obscured by the sudden appearance of clouds.

The fire provided the only light, revealing the trees as dancing spirits against the clouds.

And then, lightning. Violent. Stretching from east to west across the sky. The finger of God.

Rain began to fall, big drops sizzling against the glowing coals. A few at first, and then his fire began to wither.

Jace gasped as the weight lifted from his chest.

“Jesus!”

This time, the word came louder as his lungs relaxed to receive desperate breath.

The heavens opened. Rain fell as a sheet. Within moments, Okayo’s offering was doused.

Coals smoldered. Okayo brushed wetness from his face and looked at the ruined altar.

Lightning revealed the unburnt carcass and reflected off something metallic. Okayo lifted the small object from the soggy ash.

He weighed the disk in his hand, the remnants of Jace Rawlings’s stethoscope.

Okayo cursed, threw the object into the forest blackness and began to pick his way through the trees toward home.

Okayo shook his head.
Someone is praying.

Jace dressed and slipped out his front door. He quietly stepped past a sleeping Kenyan policeman leaning against a tree in his front yard. Jace waited until he was a few yards past the man to pick up his pace and switch on his flashlight to illuminate the path.

His heart was full.

Could it be that God had intervened on his behalf?

He bypassed the hospital. Only an emergency could beckon him there at that hour. Instead, he walked the rocky road toward the cemetery.

There, he knelt at the small memorial stone for Janice Rawlings to pray. His words echoed an old plea from deep within the recesses of his soul. “Please, God, choose me.”