Christmas Island

The early horizon is vast but our dreams are vaster. They have to be, in order for us to carry onward through the devastating trauma and oppression that we experienced on Christmas island starting the year 2042. For me and my wife this darkness had ended in the year 2050, though it's possible that the trauma will never leave our hearts and minds. It all began in the winter of 2042- Only four years after the new pope Leonard Varnelli was ordained. Rome had of course been taken back by the church only a year after Varnelli had been instated. The summer of 2039 was when Rome was recaptured. Now I know that you're asking yourself "What does Christmas Island- An Australian territory, have to do with Rome?" Well it didn't have anything to do with Rome. It never did. Until it did. I never knew why it happened until after we fled, and neither did Abigail. But now I know, therefore I’ll tell.

Varnelli was obsessed with the idea that Rome had ownership over Christmas (the holiday), and had also fabricated some pretty outlandish stories that it was Rome who had settled the island to begin with. By 2042 the Roman army was far more powerful than the Australian government, especially with their minimal presence on the island, and Varnelli decided to invade the island, and make it a ‘Holy Retreat’. It was January 19th 2042. I was with my brother Sanal at his residence on the west side of the island, when the planes flew overhead. We saw at least a thousand falling down from the skies and within moments the island was wailing with gunfire and dark smoke. I will not go into detail about that day, for it hurts far too much to recount, but that morning was the last time that I ever saw Sanal. I give you this information for context but this war is not the story that I am writing of. Ironically I am telling a love story. A love story with a very twisted beginning, filled with great pain all throughout, but a love story nevertheless.

I was one of the few natives of the island that had such little self respect that I would play their game. I pretended to convert, and followed the strict rules that Rome provided in order to live a life safe from brutal execution or enslavement to the diocese. This meant that I had to watch most of the people I loved be slaughtered in front of my eyes, and I had to partake in the annihilation of mine and my peoples culture. Something that has washed the glimmer of life from my eyes. It was brutal and horrific, and I hold myself as much to blame as I do the church. Though I guess that doesn't matter now. I met her on June 6th of that hopeless year. She was a resident nun at the Finwald parish. A parish that they had begun building shortly after their arrival, and had filled with nuns and clergy from their homeland. The building had always been a Christian temple for the native people- A magnificent blend of Indonesian, Australian, Chinese and many peoples from all over the globe. My people. Though it feels like blasphemy to claim this after what I agreed to. When I first laid eyes on her; Abigail. I felt a longing and an affection that I had never before experienced. I watched her for a while before I built up the strength to ask for her help and guidance learning their scriptures. It was expected of us that we learned the scriptures, and we were told of harsh consequences that would follow if we didn’t show competence in their teachings. At this time we hadn't yet seen what the punishments would be, though it wasn't long before we couldn't unsee what they did to those who didn't study the scriptures. I began asking for her guidance near the end of that June, though I never wrote down the exact date. That was where we began.

She guided me through the testaments and apostles, and she’d sit with me for hours upon hours talking to me about her God and her life. After two years of this studying and getting to know her, and her getting to know me, was the day that we first kissed. We had held hands many times before though it was always for prayer or comfort, but this day we were both so overwhelmed, and we spoke for hours about how we hated the violence that the invasion had created. She told me how she didn't feel the presence of love in her new leader, and felt like God wasn’t with him or her in this journey. I grabbed onto her hand on that day, and I gently squeezed. Tears started falling down her face, and the same happened to me. I remember reaching to wipe her tears away, then I remember the moment that our lips met. On that day it was a rather short and awkward kiss, though filled with the power of emotion. She ignored me for ten days after this, until the warm summer night when I heard a tapping on my window. I went outside to find her there, bundled in her emerald plaid sweater. She has always run cold, even when it's hot outside. That night we went into the woods and we cried and held each other until daybreak. After that we never stopped. Our love changed us both just as the genocide had, but in a far more beautiful way. It was her love that kept me alive and she has always said that it was my love that helped her maintain her faith in something greater than herself, even though she doesn't call that force God anymore.

It was the cold winter night of December 12th, 2050 when I felt her freezing hands waking me out of my slumber. I gently opened my eyes to her tear stained face, and I asked her what was wrong. She was pregnant with our daughter Madeline. It was five nights later that she came to me at the witching hour with a key to a soldier's boat. I grabbed nothing but blankets and ran with her through the woods until we made it to that heavenly gray vessel. I turned on the motor and we sped away filled with hope and terror. We rode for some hours and amazingly we were not followed by soldiers. It was the early morning of the 17th when we approached the Indonesian mainland and we were welcomed immediately by the Indonesian military. At first with arms, but as they approached us with our hands stretched towards the heavens, they soon lowered their rifles. That was the morning that we set ourselves free. These days we live in America. New York City precisely. Our daughter Maddy is at university, and we have been blessed enough to work through much of our sorrow, though we could never forget. Out of curses can come blessings, but never forget. Your pain for our gain, a life of regret.