The Awakening of John - Episode 14

John left the flat in a daze. He’d often worried that the plan God had for his life must have long ago been abandoned. After all, God’s plans surely couldn’t have included his sinful choices, so how could he be still on ‘the’ plan. It was confusing, but this new thought that God had plans rather that one fixed plan opened up other possibilities. He was deep in thought on this when he saw the road ahead closed sign. For a moment his mind went blank. ‘But I need to go down that road in order to get to work, therefore the road cannot be closed.’ Yet it was, and traffic was being diverted down a road that he didn’t know. He’d lived here for two years, but the only roads he had used were the one to the office car park or the one to the multi storey when he was late. Now he was being taken down a route he didn’t know. Part of his brain was asking ‘and it’s all very well them saying diverted traffic, but how do they know where I want to get to, how do I know this diversion gets me where I’m meant to go?’ I guess I’ll just have to trust and follow the signs he thought as a gentle chuckle seemed to come from the empty passenger seat.

Ten minutes later he was parking in what he was starting to think of as his space, the one next to Mubina. He realised that it could always have been his space if he had been in the habit of leaving earlier – as Bob would have said ‘no divine intervention needed.’

“Morning” said Mubina brightly as she got out of her car. “We must stop meeting like this, people will talk!” John thought she was probably joking but it was so close to his own anxiety that he hesitated before returning her ‘morning’ along with a fake laugh. She frowned and looked at John with some reticence in her eyes leaving John with the feeling that a promising avenue had just been signposted ‘road ahead closed’.

When lunchtime came round, John could barely focus on his work, processing and re-processing the exchange with Mubina over and over without making any progress. He decided that he needed to do something radical – if he’d been at home, he’d have asked Bob. And in the time BB he’d have tried some awkward praying. But Bob was somehow God and therefore available to talk to whether physically present or not – just without the bizarre learned rituals. He grabbed a sandwich from the cafe and went for a walk in the park and began to talk to God about the situation, just as if Bob was next to him. He realised it might seem a little odd to someone passing by, but these days people often seemed to be talking to imaginary friends when they were using bluetooth devices.

“I really like Mubina, but I think I messed it up already. I’m so afraid that her family might try and stop her going out with a non-Muslim that when she said about other people making assumptions it freaked me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want people to think we were going out – it’s that I’m desperate to get to know her better and was scared that we might not be able to... but I think she thinks that I don’t want to be seen with her...”

It wasn’t like a ‘normal’ prayer, but it felt good. He could almost here Bob chuckle and had a very clear sense of what he might have said, “you think that she thinks that maybe others would think... not to mention thinking that you already know what I would think... Feels like way too much thinking and not enough, you know, talking...”