The Voice

While I felt good about the deci­sion to eat again, I expe­ri­enced a cer­tain sad­ness too. I felt a bit like Jesus who, as a young lad, had wan­dered off from his parent’s side to begin His Father’s work before it was time. Though I wasn’t ready yet, I sensed the hour was fast approach­ing when I’d again be called upon, by God, to stand tall.

As the Chap­lain pat­ted me on the back, he dis­missed me. “You may go below now,“ he said.

As soon as I had reached the com­part­ment, the Corps­man showed up and insisted on escort­ing me up to the mess decks to eat. “Since the mess line has already closed down for the morn­ing, I didn’t want ya to have to wait until lunch fore ya got some­thin’ to eat,“ he explained.

“That’s fine,“ I said as I turned, with­out any hes­i­ta­tion, to fol­low him up the ladder.

As soon as we arrived on the mess decks, he approached one of the cooks. “Give him what­ever he wants,“ he instructed the cook, “for this boy’s mighty hun­gry.“ After I filled my tray and sat down to eat, he stuck around for awhile to make sure I ate which, of course, I did with great relish.

That evening, as I lay on my bunk, I felt an urge to go up top­side to be alone. I had just approached the lad­der lead­ing out of the com­part­ment, when a voice rang out, loud ’n’ clear, from some­where within me. “You must find out why you want out of the Navy,“ it commanded.

Need­less to say, I was elated the other side had finally spo­ken to me, after all these years, in plain Eng­lish rather than through the usual mode of difficult-​​to-​​decipher dreams and fan­tasies. Like a crazy man, I ran up top­side, laugh­ing and cry­ing, and con­tin­ued to do so, even after I had plopped down on my favorite perch. For I felt as if my pur­suit of a dis­charge from the Navy had just been endorsed by the high­est author­ity in exis­tence, the very source of truth itself. Now, I had only to find the rea­son why I wanted out of the Navy so badly.

For now, I just wanted to sit ’n’ savor the sweet­ness of the moment. While I sat there, wish­ing and hop­ing the voice’d speak to me again, I recalled a sim­i­lar night, many years ago, when I lay down in the grass and dared the heav­ens to make con­tact with me. Then, as now, I heard nigh a word. Instead, I sat won­der­ing why the voice had not just told me the rea­son. And I won­dered why it still chose to remain so aloof, espe­cially after hav­ing made this ini­tial con­tact, for I wanted so badly to see the owner of the voice. Alas, I was once again dis­ap­pointed by sleep as it began to rob me of the abil­ity to stay awake any longer. Exhausted, I stum­bled off to my bunk where, after undress­ing and climb­ing into it, I fell fast asleep.