Belonging Short Story

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Belonging Short Story: My parents are dead. I know that sounds harsh, but its harsh to me however I say it. They died in a car accident, which killed them and nearly killed me. They were good people, my parents. They cared about others. They never did anything wrong. They never hurt anyone. They loved me. Now they’re gone. I’m sitting in church. I don’t want to be here. I don’t really think there’s a God. Not after what happened to my parents. How could there be? How could a caring God allow something like that to happen to good people, when there are murderers and thieves and child molesters running around? How can those criminals be alive when my parents are dead? How could a good God let that happen? So why am I here in church? It’s for my grandmother. I live with her now. She looks after me. Well, she tries. She does her best. It’s hard for an old woman to raise a teenage boy. I know that. We don’t always understand each other. That’s why I’m here. I want to understand her, at least for a little while. I’m sitting in silence. The pew beneath me is cold. I came in late. The service had already begun so I sat up the back. Streaks of light struggle through the stained glass towards me. The air seems stuffy. It smells like mothballs, like old people. Grandmas church isn’t one of those new-age places where young people flock to sing along to the church rock band. Its one of those places where the old people are hanging on to tradition like a life-raft to save them from drowning in the sea of the modern world. I can see heads in front of me, silhouettes, but no faces. The service doesn’t interest me much. My iPod blasts away the priest’s voice. I can imagine what he’s saying, though. I’ve seen movies, like that scary priest in footloose who wouldn’t let the kids dance. He said it was the devils work; that it would lead to bad things, like sex. It’s an

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