Bethel University - Spire Yearbook (St Paul, MN)

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I’d grown up in a good church. I had always been a (reasonably) good kid. Everyone expected me to go far. What had happened? I came to Bethel hot on the trail of success. Here was my chance for becoming a spiritual, intellectual, and emotional giant. My freshman year was characterized by academic and spiritual zeal. My battle cry in the crusade for self-improvement was, “1 can, I will, and I’m going to!” This crusade led me hundreds of miles from home that summer, to a door-to-door book selling job. It was the ultimate symbol of my transformation from awkward kid to mature man. When I came home — with my tail between my legs and a $190 debt around my neck — my confident battle cry had abruptly changed to a despairing, “I can’t. 1 won’t, and 1 never will.” This new world was unfair and unbearable. To defend my self. I accepted the whispered invitation to ignore this world and “slip into something more comfortable.” Time that hac previously been spent in necessities like study and sleep was spent in fantasizing and day dreaming. 1 did what I wanted, made up my own rules, and said “To hell with the consequences.” The consequences, however, were not listening. Neglected obligations and responsibilities began to crush me. Soon, my traditional “I don't care anyway,” sounded hollow even to me. I did care about my lack of integrity and diligence, but it seemed too late to do anything about it. My last support was kicked out from under me. Once more, everything I did and said came back to me. bearing a damning prophesy: “You can’t, you won’t and you never will.” All this came back to me in the car. like a hellish 8-track playing over and over, with devastating accusations and taunts burned into each track. 1 couldn’t turn it off. I was on the verge of desperately silencing it altogether when a clear, distinct thought came to me: “Now. Stop now or it will be too late.’’ Suddenly, like the breaking of a fever, 1 took my foot off the pedal and the whole world slowed down. When faced with the realities of life I could easily sink into the comforting arms of fantasy, but when I peered gingerly over the edge of the pit, my intentions of jumping disappeared. It was too permanent. It didn't seem nearly as attractive a solution once 1 got right up next to it. I had known hope once before. Maybe I could find a scrap of it again. I turned down the radio and headed home with a headache and a mouth like cotton. The long days of mounting hopelessness and self-hate had left me exhausted. The numbness hadn’t gone, and neither had the oppressive problems; yet, I at least had a weary, hesitant, “Perhaps.” Daniel Miller First place literary competition.

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At 2:00 in the morning, the lights in the Edgren can seemed to buzz faintly. The mirrors were spotted, and the sinks encrusted with a week's dirt and cried scum. Crude initials and slogans scarred the enameled toilet stalls. Over it all hung the nagging odor of sanitizing cleaner and urinal cakes that couldn’t completely hide the smell of stale urine. I’d just gotten out of the shower and stood naked on the cool floor in front of the sinks, a spectator, sensing my surroundings and yet feeling strangely removed from them. I looked at my image in the mirror. I was not impressed. It seemed ironic that people who knew me would see thus face in the hall and identify it as Dan Miller.” You are Dan Miller,” I said. Sure enough, the face in the mirror moved. It always did. Yet somehow it seemed strange — saying Dan Miller” seemed strange. It was like saying a word over and over until it’s robbed of all meaning and remains only as a foreign-sounding garble of noise. The lights buzzed. “Oh, shit.” It came out quite clearly and well enunciated, though not very loud. Releasing that disgust, rebellion, and resignation felt good, even if I hadn’t said it in a packed hallway, crowded classroom, or murmuring library. But it sounded light-years romnupd from “Dan Miller”; from 3.5 GPA’s, Bible studies, 1 friends who respected my spiritual ma- I got dressed and started to walk out the door, but stopped and slammed my fist against the wall. My knuckles reddened, and they hurt, but it wasn’t good enough. I wanted to see blood on the smooth, cream-colored bricks. I slammed it again. This time it hurt more, but still no blood. Oh, you’re really dramatic!” 1 sneered at myself, “Now you’re supposed to keep slamming it until you get some blood.” My hand still stung as I drove down a deserted country road half an hour later. Throbbing music filled the car. I floored the gas pedal and watched the needle rise. The dark masses of trees on both sides of the road began to hurtle past. The faster 1 went, the more furiously the pain, frustra tion, and bitterness boiled inside me The shocks were bad, and at this speed, every bump or pot hole made me bounce and sway on the verge of losing control. Every muscle and nerve in my hands and forearms was like a taut cord, tensely vibrating. I’d seen photographs of car wrecks: masses of metal crumpled and twisted around a tree, grisly hunks of blackened meat that vaguely resembled human forms, charred flesh that split open like an over cooked hot dog. Yet, I also realized with a serer.e sense of detachment that all I had to do was let go of the wheel and my suffering would soon be over.

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Doug Barkey First place visual arts competition.