Bankrupt | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Bankrupt | Previous Challenge Entry
By Phil Drabble
09/04/24
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Once slender fingers, now bruised and bony, hold last week’s crust aloft between thumb and forefinger. Disinterested rats sniff it and scuttle on. A sudden sound. She freezes. Silence.

An infant of indeterminate age, belly bloating from malnutrition, plays quietly in the rubble. A stone in each hand, one a tank and one a missile clash against each other. Playtime imitating an entire lifetime. The pangs of hunger, now so normal, are being ignored as are the flies drinking from the tears in the corners of the child’s eyes.
The mother, her fingernails cracked and splitting, continues to pick through the rubble that was once their meagre home. She eventually finds what she is searching for. Realisation sinks in. She cries. Silence. There is no one here to listen to her sad lament. No one to see her pull her scarf over her head. Except for her one remaining child.

… Peacekeeper signing out, I muttered, pushing the laptop away across the desk. I no longer had a stomach for all this. Continent after continent, country after country, city after burning city flashed through my mind. It was like a video on fast forward controlled by a remote whose batteries had failed too soon. I hoped that shutting the laptop lid was enough to shut down these rampaging thoughts that stormed my mind. My counsellor had warned me that this time would come. Compassion fatigue they had called it. They had even handed me a check sheet of symptoms. Rummaging in the drawer I pulled out the crumpled list and, red biro in hand, I started to tick the relevant boxes.
Diminished ability to care for others, tick. Mental and physical exhaustion, tick, tick. Anger and irritability, two large ticks. I paused and angrily turned them into large red crosses. Anxiety and/or depression. Intrusive thoughts. Sleep problems. Hopelessness. Flashbacks. Emotional numbness. A decreased capacity to experience sympathy and empathy. Feeling disconnected. Tick after tick red flagged onto the paper. Screwed into a ball it hit the waste bin, bounced, and landed on the pile from last week’s printed scripts of unrecorded blogs.

I lifted the tepid coffee to my lips and read the text on the drink coaster. Blessed are the poor in spirit. A sudden thought. I smiled. Silence. The laptop whirled into life and I started to type. Today’s podcast is focusing on the word poor and we are looking at the text ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’. To be poor in spirit is to recognise my spiritual bankruptcy before God. Poor in spirit is to realise my need for God’s kingdom. It is being willing to let go and let God.

Line after line stack up on the page until I have my full script all neatly typed up. I finish it with a prayer. LORD I’m bankrupt, I have done so much in my own strength, my own will, my own power. I have nothing left to give. I’m spiritually bankrupt. I need you LORD. Amen. That’s about all for today… Peacekeeper signing out.

I press print, collect the pages and settle down with a fresh coffee to record my blog.

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