Within the terminal of the Louisville airport, a man stands at the ticket counter. He’s discussing his plight with an airline ticket agent. He’s missed his flight, and he is trying to see if he can catch the next flight home. He’s told that one leaves in two hours, and is placed on the later flight. A faint yet sincere smile forms on his face as he says thank you, and with his backpack slung over his right shoulder, he leaves the counter and goes to find a place to sit down.

As he approaches the up escalators to find his gate, the man from the counter hesitates for a moment instead, staring up at his destination. He then walks towards the “down” escalator as if changing his mind, and is taken down to the baggage claim area. There, he walks over to a more secluded area of the airport, and sits down alone, staring out at the traffic of cars and cabs picking up passengers who have just arrived. His expression shows that something is on his mind…that his attention is on deeper things. He just wants to be home again…needs to be home again. He sits silently, still staring out through the large windows at the comings and goings in front of him.

In the corner of his eye he sees three young, attractive females walking in his direction. They seem no more than 18 or 19. After a moment some part of him realizes they are purposefully walking to him, that he is their destination. With fake casualness he looks in their direction, as if just a quick glance. Two of the three females smile at him, verifying his hunch that they are only walking this way in order to talk to him. Once reaching his sitting area, they stop and stand in front of him…three very pretty females all suddenly giving him their attention. His immediate thought is that they look very clean, very "fresh". He also instantly feels that they’re naïve.

“How are you?” the apparent leader asks through a genuine smile. The other two wait calmly for his response.

“I’m ok,” he responds, and manages yet another faint smile in return, same as the one he gave the ticket agent.

“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions,” the leader of the group asks. “Sure” he says, with the slightest of shrugs.

“Do you believe in God?”…

The man from the ticket counter immediately realizes why these three beautiful young women insisted upon giving him their company. They’re “witnessing”.

He wants to tell them not now, it’s not a good time…go witness to someone else. Please, just…go. But an almost instinctual respect keeps him from doing so. Even if he disagrees with the philosophy of many religions, he holds a sincere appreciation for those who truly give their chosen religions the value it deserves, even if it means going up to strange men in airports and disrupting their space and privacy by trying to bring them closer to something higher.

“Do you believe in God?”…

With a gentle nodding of his head, he says “Yeah..”

The two girls who remain silent break out into bigger smiles at his response. The leader gives a different kind of smile…one that seems more rehearsed than happy.

“Do you know what you need to do to get to Heaven?” the leader asks as a follow-up.

With a subtle smart-aleck expression, he responds, “Well…I assume I have to die,” and with that response his eyes move off in another direction, not wanting the women to read within his eyes the sudden emotions that has just now overwhelmed his being. The other two silent girls give a small laugh at his joke. His eyes move back over to them, and he gives an appreciative smile in return. The leader doesn’t change her expression or demeanor one iota. Her smile remains unchanged.

With more purpose in her voice, the leader asks her last question: “Do you know if you’re going to Heaven?”

He responds in kind, giving a more serious and sincere response…one that also has a tinge of a counter-punch. He knows what she’s really asking, and why…and his knowledge of this is ever-so-subtly reflected in his answer.

With a small hesitation beforehand, he says “That’s going to be up to God, not me…I won’t pretend to speak for Him or tell anyone else what His plans are for me. I am completely at His whim, at His mercy, as we all are. And I’m at peace with that. So, no…I can’t tell you that I know I’m going to Heaven…only God Himself can answer that question. But I want to believe that I am.”

The two silent females change their expression—the first one has her smile replaced with a look of questioning…as if suddenly in deep thought. The second one nods serenely in agreement…as if understanding there is truth and respect in the answer he gave.

The leader, though, isn’t phased. Her response is immediate, as if she’s talking but not really listening to the answers he gives. “I know that I’m going to Heaven,” she says without any doubt in her voice. “God tells us how we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven if we read the Bible…we need to renounce our sins and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior. Only through Him can we attain a place in Heaven.”

The man from the ticket counter stares at the leader of this small female pack…then gives her a generic smile.

“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior?” the leader asks.

He brings to the surface of his mind a multitude of responses that he could give…ones that cover the gamut, from agreement to complete contrary disagreement. Within a nanosecond he scans through each one, deciding how he wants to respond, what thoughts he wants his answer to possibly activate within her, what direction he wants this talk to go. In literally less than a second, the man from the ticket counter has analyzed dozens upon dozens of valid retorts, and weighed which ones he might use and which ones he will keep stored away. And just as quickly and instantly, he determines he doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want the interaction anymore, the questions, the conversation. Not now. His emotions have already been used up, evaporated…along with any energy required to express them. Having just buried your sister will have that effect.

“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior?”…

He nods once…and simply says “Yes.”

The leader finally shows a change in her expression, and a sincerely happy look comes over her still-pretty face. “That is wonderful,” she announces. Her two silent partners smile in agreement. “Do you mind if we leave some literature with you?”

“Sure,” he says, and takes from her hands the generic pamphlet she offers. He gives it a polite glance, and lifts his eyes back up to her approving face. “Thank you for your time, and God bless you,” she says in their last shared moment. The two silent girls echo her words of thanks and God’s blessing, the first one still thinking inwardly, the second one seeming to be genuinely happy to have heard his remarks and responses. As they walk away, his eyes follow them…slightly out of wanting to take a quick, appreciative look at the attractive females from behind, but mostly out of curiosity. He sees the second of the silent females lean in and start to say something to the other two.

And at that moment he wonders if his responses had an effect on the girls, one they weren’t expecting. Perhaps the leader is still unaffected. Perhaps the second girl is still not swayed in her thinking, but now has another thought implanted in her that might not be easily answered with rehearsed responses. And perhaps the third girl, the one who seemed to understand what he was saying and who was now talking to her two cohorts, perhaps she’s questioning certain thoughts, feelings and beliefs in a very real way. Perhaps not changing those beliefs…but now adding her own questions into the mix. Perhaps.

The man smiles at that thought…three women approaching him out of the blue with the intent of getting him to think about the realities of God and Life, and instead walking away with questions of their own. That’s what Life is meant to be about, isn’t it, he asks himself. Or were they sent to him for a reason. He sits and allows himself to wonder if the universe is operating at a level he’s only able to plug into on occasion…he wonders how his sister would have responded to the women who graced is presence…he even wonders if she sent them his way. Closing his eyes quickly, he lets out a sigh…then lets his eyes return to the window in front of him…and with them, his thoughts return to their sobering reality.

Two hours to go.

I really would read that hun ....but it was to damn scary to see that much writing when I feel like lol

That's very nice Bryon

Awesome mate

You are rude. I am supposing at this point you have given me the start of a story with no end yet written write?

what happened?

and then, he pulls out his prayer beads and chants to Allah for forgiveness for listening to the herecy of those admittedly lovely, but wrong-minded, young ladies.

whatsa generic smile


j/k Byron!

those two hours would probably have flown by with pondering thoughts about what happened