Benjamin's Call

Benjamin's Call by Rodge Glass

In the middle of the night, God plucked Benjamin from his home in Swiss
Cottage and deposited him, naked, in the centre of a vast desert. He
was 41 years old, a shop owner with a fine reputation and also a
husband and father of two healthy boys.

When he awoke, Benjamin thought he was dreaming, but alas - he was
surrounded by 1000 miles of nothing but sand in all directions, with no
food, no water and no-one for company. Why? Well, this was the question
that Benjamin asked, as he prayed feverishly in the darkness. When it
became clear that the situation was real, he began to panic. It was not
long before he fell to his knees, calling out to the Almighty. "God",
he said, "Why have you brought me here? What have I done wrong? Pray,
tell me what it is and I will repent for it. Just please send me home!"
But Benjamin's prayers only rang out into the desert. "Oh, Lord!" he
cried, helplessly. "Why have you left me here?" There was only silence
though, no response to Benjamin's call. No wind, no signs of life
anywhere. He had not even a towel to wrap around himself.

Benjamin went through various stages of despair during the hours of
blackness, after his prayers were not immediately answered. He ran
aimlessly for hours, screaming, trying to shake himself from the
nightmare, though of course it was no use. Then, when morning came, he
looked around, searching for a signal that civilization might exist
somewhere on the horizon. He screwed up his tiny eyes into the direct
gaze of the sun, to try and make out something, anything that might
give him a glimmer of hope. But again, there was nothing. Benjamin
became desperate. He began digging furiously in the sand, but there was
only more sand below. Though it was hard to believe, he was in a place
of utter nothingness. There was no hope of survival. In vain, Benjamin
began to throw sand down his throat, trying to suffocate himself with
the grains, hoping that they might clog up his system and his life be
taken away, offered up to Lord God forever. But this was not to be
either. He only succeeded in making himself sick, violently, horribly.
He discovered that it's actually extremely hard to for a human being to
kill himself without having access to something to kill with. Something
as simple as a razorblade, or a ceiling to hang a rope from, or a high
bridge to jump off.

Benjamin finally ran out of ideas. And, eventually, he came to be at
peace with the desert, because he had no other option. He understood.
The situation could not be made sense of and that he would most likely
starve there. He had no choice but to die on the patch of wasteland
that God had dropped him on, minutes, hours, days earlier, but was no
longer unhappy; he had not the energy for it. His heart began to settle
and he resumed his daily routine as best he could. For as long as he
had the strength to move, Benjamin prayed. He laid tefillin in the
morning, (pretending to wrap the leather around his arms and head), and
was sure to recite all he could remember from the Siddur regularly,
even placing an imaginary Kippah on his head. He became weak quickly,
without food and water. In the end, Benjamin could speak only the first
line of the Shema, which he muttered underneath his breath, inaudible,
as he lay on the floor of the white sand. Again and again he repeated
it, as he thought of his wife, Sarah, and his children, whom he could
hardly remember.