Burning

A heatwave, an eight hour shift and hard work in a take-away place. My day, in a nutshell.
My hell on Earth is over, for today. I’m standing outside the Sun Star Grill and I’m looking for the breeze to come and reach under my blouse a little and cool down my burning flesh.
Jesus, I am hot. Please help me to cool down.
They wouldn’t let me take a drink from the chiller. All day long, while I was grilling cheeseburgers and slicing up the donner meat, these drinks were my temptation: one hundred cans and bottles of Sprite, Coke, Diet Coke and Fanta. I don’t get paid until tomorrow and so I didn’t have any money to buy one.
Sam kept saying, “Water, water is free. Drink the water. Here’s a cup. Drink the water, won’t you?” And I drank it, but it was so warm. So warm compared to those big bottles of Sprite, all sitting there so cool in the cabinet next to me.
A girl I know called Katie came in around 3pm to buy some chips. She also bought a can of Coke. You should have seen the way the condensation started to drip down the side. From the very moment I took it from the fridge I couldn‘t stop looking at that can. Katie gave me a pitying sort of look as she paid for her food. She must think I’m so strange. Strange and fat and ugly.

I met Katie at Bible Class. Every Sunday afternoon since I was nine years old, my parents have taken me to the Evergreen Centre on Sandy Lane where I’ve been taught the lessons I need to live my life. The lessons they don’t teach me in school. Miss Templar, one of the best leaders there, says that her lesson plans are devised by God.
It always makes me smile when she says that.
At first, when I used to go, I would cry a lot. We all would, even the boys. The leaders made us realise how much sin was in our hearts, you see. Yes, we all said we were Christians, but did we act like it? Did we keep God in our hearts 24/7? Or were we hypocrites? Sinning along with our friends every day in school, using foul language, listening to secular music?
Every Sunday, the first fifteen minutes of those early sessions, we spent them in tears. Our tears, said Miss Templar, were like the waters of our baptism washing our sin away.
I hope one day that the Lord Jesus will speak through me. Lots of the other children will convulse and speak in tongues most weeks, but it never seems to happen to me. I will shout and jump with the best of them, but it always makes me so hot and tired. Maybe that’s why the spirit never enters me? Maybe it is because I am too fat and lazy to truly hear God’s word?

My cousin Liam came in at lunch time. He’s older than me and he drives a van delivering the local papers to all the newsagents in town. He’s not a believer and he laughs at me, though I always turn the other cheek.
Liam told me he saw a hypnotist on TV convince a group of Jews that they should become Christians. He just told them all what to do, put his hands on them and the next thing they were all blessing themselves and praying to Jesus for forgiveness from the wicked lives they used to live. Some of them were crying, he said.
That bit always made me feel a bit sick, and I would say a prayer then, and one for Liam too so that he might also be saved, one day.
Liam ordered two plain burgers - halfpounders - and went outside to smoke while I cooked them. I slapped the raw slices of ground beef down on the griddle and they immediately started to smoke. The black coals beneath the grill glowed red as the fat and grease dripped down from the slowly blackening burger. They landed, plopping down with a satisfying hiss…

I’m cooler now that I’ve been outside for a few minutes. Dad should be along soon to pick me up. He won’t ever leave me standing in the street for very long.
I’m looking forward to Sunday’s meeting. We’re having a barbecue.
Miss Templar has asked us all to bring in a copy of a Harry Potter book. Any that we can find - from a friend, neighbour or whoever - and we’re each going to come to the front of the hall and then toss the book into the fire.
As Miss Templar says, “Harry Potter is a warlock, and the Bible says that a warlock should be put to death.” She thinks he would have been burned at the stake, if he’d been real.
It’s still so hot waiting out here, and it’s only the start of summer. I hope dad will let me put the air-conditioning on. I hope he gets here soon.