Bryson Orr

Age: 17

11th grade

History

By Bryson Orr

“History, I hate history Mom. What’s the point? Why study about things that happened thirty years ago? It’s not like it helps me now.”

“I am tired of having this argument with you Ryan Lincoln Davis! Just do the assignment somewhere I can’t hear you complain!” A door slammed on the first floor and heavy footsteps reverberated throughout the house as Ryan stormed into the basement. “Oh that boy! I don’t know what to do with him. He’s been like this ever since his father died,” sighed Mrs. Davis.

Ryan threw his books across the basement at his desk and slumped onto his bed, angry at his mother for the hundredth time. His gaze fell upon a framed portrait on the wall. Paul, his dad, died in Alaska six years ago. Ryan’s mother always wanted him to take after his father, but his dad really wasn’t much of a person to look up to. He was always gone and when he was home, he was too tired to care much about his only child.

The business trip was supposed to be simple. Go up there, work a little, and come back home to take him fishing in Canada. Dad died in a car accident on his way home. Pointless! Everything is just pointless. Get a good job, travel places, and get killed, making Paul’s accomplishments seem useless. Work hard for something and fail. Or maybe achieve the goal, only to loose everything another day. Ryan’s gaze fell to his crumpled history book across the unfinished basement.

“History is so useless. Just like everything else. Why do I care about the radical religious freaks who tried to take over the country a long time ago? It doesn’t apply to today,” Ryan lamented. “What’s the point? I’m just going to end up like my dad someday. Dead.” In a surge of anger, Ryan ripped his father’s portrait from the wall and flung it at his history book. The frame hit its target and glass skittered across the concrete floor. A small slip of paper fluttered through the air and landed in the empty sump pit positioned uselessly in the corner.

Ryan didn’t feel better but his curiosity was aroused. He sauntered over to the hole. Ryan lay on the floor, moving the shards of glass out of the way, and stuck his arm and head in the hole to reach the paper.

Suddenly, his mom opened the door, “Ryan, what was that?” She gasped, “Oh you didn’t…You broke Paul’s picture.”

Ryan simply stared at the wall of the pit. He noticed a pattern lightly pressed into the cement, illuminated by the glare from the open door. Ignoring his mother’s outcry, he moved to see the design better. It looked like two perpendicular swords. Ryan touched the point where the swords met and felt a little mortar give away beneath his index finger. Before he could investigate further, his mother grabbed him by the collar and tried to drag his head out of the hole.

“What are you doing? Clean up this mess! Why did you do this?” She turned and climbed the worn carpeted stairs crying. Six years of living alone, trying to raise her son without success, had almost done her in. Memories of the past flooded into her mind. She wondered on the way to her second floor bedroom, if it was time to give up. She’d done her best hadn’t she?

His mother’s condition roused a small bit of sympathy in Ryan, and he picked himself up from the floor and grabbed a broom. As Ryan swept up the glass, he thought about the image etched on the pit wall. What was it for? Ryan finished sweeping and returned to the hole. He quickly scraped at the cross, with a knife he retrieved from his dresser. Ryan’s knife suddenly slipped, slicing downward into the mortar below the image. Something black lay under the thin surface of the wall! Ryan’s excitement grew, and he rushed to remove the mortar. Beneath the surface of the wall lay a round black stone. A small hole where two swords crossed decorated the middle. Ryan tried to move the stone or dig around it, but it refused.

Ryan worked on the stone for two more hours without results. It just sat there mocking him. He decided to investigate further over the weekend. But for now, it was time to tackle his dreaded history.

Way too soon, the alarm clock went off, bringing Ryan quickly to his senses. He threw on some clothes and packed his bag for school still thinking about his discovery the previous night. School was boring, especially since it was Friday and the weekend awaited. Ryan made it through his classes, only falling asleep in two, and stumbled onto the football field for practice. The whole team seemed tired and the coach was the only one with energy. But no matter how much he exercised his baritone vocal cords, the team wouldn’t move faster.

Coach called off the practice, seeing nothing was being accomplished and Ryan biked home as fast as his legs would go. He burst into his house and found his mother cleaning in the kitchen. “Hello Ryan; how was school?”

“Fine.”

“How did you do on your history test today?”

“We’ll find out on Monday,” Ryan muttered. “I’m going to my room for a while.” Ryan descended the steps into the basement. He went back to the hole and began to tug, pull, and dig around the stone again, only to achieve the same results. Nothing. His eyes scanned the room for anything he could use to pry the stone out. His gaze fell onto his father’s broken picture frame. When he picked up a piece, a small sphere rolled out of the dark stained oak, clicked against the cool concrete, and came to rest next to a box. Ryan ignored the small marble momentarily and reached for the box.

He opened it and gazed once again at its contents like he had so many times before. It would be so easy. The book, Twenty Ways To End The Pain, explained each method. He’d chosen one, and even acquired the pills. Swallow a couple and this pointless meaningless life would end. His dumb history and school would all be gone. He wouldn’t have to deal with the loneliness or think about the future anymore. Most of his friends had already picked out their majors and colleges, but Ryan still didn’t know what he wanted to do. His mother accentuated this point every time they argued. In one simple motion he could experience the sweet release of death. Ryan shoved the shoebox out of the way. For the moment, he wanted to stick around and explore the sump pit.

Ryan turned his attention to the marble. He felt a tiny etching in the side of it and bent closer to look. Carved into the surface of the stone, lay a miniature replica of the design in the sump pit.

Ryan raced back to the hole and pushed the marble into the design. Suddenly, a portion of the opposite wall began to move! The concrete dropped back and slid aside revealing a dark opening, just big enough to crawl through. Ryan picked up his powerful maglight and flicked it on. From his angle, he couldn’t see much but it looked like there was a room with the floor about six or seven feet down from the hole. Ryan stuck his feet in first and swung himself down. He played the beam back and forth across the large room. An old desk sat in one corner, bordered by several wooden bookshelves. A table sat in the middle of the room with several chairs around it. More folding chairs were stacked neatly against the wall. A thick layer of dust and cobwebs blanketed everything. Several maps and charts decorated the rough concrete walls.

Ryan stepped over to the bookcase and began eyeing the titles. Authors like C.S. Lewis, John Piper, Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker, John Ortberg, Nancy Young, and many more were written on the spines. Ryan had never heard of most of them, but Mere Christianity by Lewis stood out from the rest. It was one of the forbidden books written by the radical Christians mentioned in his history book. Ryan took a step back in shock. He knew if the police found out about this, they probably would throw him in jail, with no questions asked. Ever since the Christians protested against the government, materials like these were illegal to own.

It all started about thirty years ago when the Christians disagreed with the government policies and held a demonstration in Washington. During the second day of the march, someone threw a rock through a window. The scene erupted from there and the police used gas to subdue the wild crowds. Ten officers and thirty protestors were killed in the incident. Similar outbreaks took place across the country and Congress passed a law making it illegal for religious institutions to hold meetings without government permission. The policies on Christians have tightened since then.

He decided to close the room and avoid trouble. Ryan stood on a chair and pulled himself back out of the room. His hand scraped against the bottom of the sump pit, revealing the forgotten slip of paper. At his desk, Ryan opened the letter and began to read.

He stopped after the first paragraph, realizing the contents of this letter would change his life forever. It was by his father, saying he was part of the illegal Underground Christian Church. Curiosity forced him on. The bottom of the page explained about the room and about his father’s journal lying on the desk. Ryan retrieved it and spent the next few hours reading the entries. The last page seemed to be an undelivered sermon for the small house church his father led.

“You have the power to change this world. The future lies in your hands. You can write history for good or for worse. Life’s not about how far you go up the corporate ladder. It’s not about how much money you have, or how famous you can become. Life is about relationships. The relationships you make here on earth will carry on to eternity. The history books you study in school are not the most important parts of history. True history is written on the heart’s and souls of men, a faith of eternal words passed from generation to generation. Will your legacy be of this world and pass away? Or will it be founded on Christ, a letter inscribed on the heart’s of people as your testimony to the world? Someday you’re going to die and leave this world. When you go, what kind of a legacy will you leave behind?”

Ryan struggled to read the last sentence through the tears streaming down his face. His father’s journal told the whole story of Christ. He’d never heard about His sacrifice before because of the government’s ban on the faith. Ryan suddenly realized what he was missing in life. The knowledge that someone loved him and truly cared made Ryan want to run, jump, shout, laugh, and cry all at the same time. Ryan nervously said a little prayer, the first in his lifetime. As a new Christian, Ryan’s first act was to throw the suicide book and pills away. Then he went upstairs to talk to his mom.

“I know what I want to do with my life now.” Ryan said softly.

“You do? That’s great!” encouraged Julie. “What is it?”

Ryan looked at her and with a big smile proclaimed, “I’m going to write history. Just like dad.”