Posts by Julia Orwell

40

OMG I'm so happy!!!!

by Julia Orwell in

jw
friends

yup, the apostate is happy.

i shouldn't be, right, because my life is empty without "jehovah" and the organisation.. but i just got a job at one of the best theme parks in the world, which is so what i want to do, and it's the first permanent job i've had since i lost my government job in 2012!.

the job pays minimum wage but i don't care because working in tourism and entertainment is what i want to do!

Julia Orwell

Thanks. I'll still do the odd spot of teaching for the occasional cash injection.

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

Julia Orwell

I can't reveal the story! I can tell you Adam has the perfect thing to cheer him up though!

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

Julia Orwell

Brother Wanis is a real person. He's an absolute Nazi elder who gave me some real grief. He's like if you got the worst trait of every elder ever and rolled them into one person.

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

Julia Orwell

Now I really have to get up because my butt is going numb. I'll post more as I write it, probably tomorrow.

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

Julia Orwell

Ok this is all I have for now...

Part Three

“Adam, what I’m saying is, since your mother died, I’m not sure the end is coming at all.”

“Dad!” Adam boomed. Alfred had always been a pillar of faith, and now he was coming out with this!

“Dad, we all have doubts! That’s why you need to ‘always have plenty of work to do in the Lord.’ Maybe just auxiliary pioneer if you can’t handle the 70 hours. The Slave is so loving to provide these options for Jehovah’s people. I can show you how to access the new Watchtower Online Library. Here, let me call the elders and arrange a shepherding call. They can encourage you, maybe take you on some Bible studies…”

Yes, Adam was a good boy. He knew where to go for all the answers. Somehow though, the answers didn’t seem to help Alfred anymore. The meetings seemed empty, and all these young elders lacked the life experience needed to give him any real comfort.

“I’m doing all that, son, but your mother’s death got me thinking. I read through some of those old bound volumes over on that shelf, and realised just how much the Truth has changed. But one thing hasn’t, and that’s that the end will be here any moment. I just don’t see it happening anymore. It’s been 100 years since the last days began and that generation has passed away. You don’t remember 1975 or the 80’s, but I remember them clearly.”

“Dad, where are you getting this from? What have you been reading?”

“Reading?” Alfred was astonished. “Just the Watchtower. See them on the shelf there?”

“But what else have you been reading, Dad, where are you getting this from?”

“Getting what?”

“This APOSTATE talk!” Alfred rarely saw Adam angry, but now he was tensing up like an offended cat.

“Nowhere…call those elders for a shepherding call,” he muttered. Alfred was somewhat startled by Adam’s strong reaction to his doubts, but apostasy had been a problem for the Organisation of late. It just showed Adam cared. But could Satan be using Barbara’s death to get a hold of his mind? He needed to talk to those elders. He certainly didn’t want to experience a shipwreck of faith, like even some anointed Christians in the first century did.

Adam called Brother Wanis, an elder who had been his friend for years, and organised a shepherding visit for his father. Then, as he had to get back to his circuit work the next day, he left his father with some scriptures and headed home.

Somewhat perplexed by what had just passed between them, Alfred closed the Bible Adam had handed him. The house seemed so cold, as though Adam’s departure had drained it of life. He hauled himself out of his easy-chair and walked to his bookshelf. There was a photo of Barbara from the last congregation picnic she’d been well enough to attend. Her blue opal set the picture alight, and Alfred wondered what had become of it. He had hoped to receive an acknowledgement of her donation, but so far had received nothing from the Branch Office.

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

Julia Orwell

Dad is not sure himself, which is why he is tentatively confiding in Adam. Adam is a good company man though, with all the prepared answers and revulsion for anything critical.

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

Julia Orwell

Yes Village Girl, it is purely for an ex JW audience. That is why it is written in JW jargon. It would highlight to a JW or ex JW reader the absurdidty and pointlessness of their lives. A non JW reader would have trouble understanding it, but it's not written for them.

I've left the story quite pared back, so the reader may use his/her imagination and understanding of JW culture to fill in the gaps. Reading is 50% words on the page and 50% what the reader brings.

I've not gone into a lot of detail about the disease because that is not the point of the story. What you read up top was just the orientation. I don't go into detail about her, because as a short story (probably end up around 4000 words) it needs to move quickly.

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

Julia Orwell

It's 4pm here in Australia so I might get more up soon.

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

Julia Orwell

Part two:

With Barbara gone, Alfred lived alone in their little rented unit in a dingy suburb. Adam was off in another town, filling in for their late circuit overseer. The guy had just dropped dead one day from a heart attack, and Alfred couldn’t help but think of so many other circuit overseers he’d known who had never made it to 70. But the new system would be here before Adam reached that age, Alfred reminded himself dutifully, even though he was starting to doubt it. But he focused on his hope for Adam. Adam would see the new system alive, even if his mother and father arrived in the sleeping carriage.

Between circuit work and Adam’s local congregation duties, he came and visited his father. Alfred was still able-bodied, but lately had been unable to dig himself out of the hole in his heart left by Barbara’s death. He dutifully went to every meeting at the Kingdom Hall but somehow it seemed different now, like although he was surrounded by a hundred smiles, they seemed painted on and he felt remote. He was part of the crowd but somehow peering at it from a parallel dimension, as if he could see them but they couldn’t see him. He’d taken himself off the pioneer list because he just could not face random strangers every day of the week. After 30 years of it, three of them nursing Barbara through her cancer, he was just dog tired. He heard from the platform and Watchtower every week about how now was the time for Jehovah’s people to be doing even more for the kingdom, but his mind slid around what he was hearing like ice on a car bonnet, and he just wanted to sleep.

“Dad, think of all the encouragement you give the brothers and sisters!” Adam too missed his mother, but the more he felt it the more he ploughed himself into his religious career. He felt his father should do the same and keep pioneering.

“Dad, the time now is so reduced. This system can’t go on any longer. It just can’t! People are streaming to the mountain of Jehovah, and think of all the lost sheep you’ve brought into the Truth. There are so many more out there dad, and the time left is reduced! I miss Mum too, but we have to keep going if we want to see her again.”

Alfred’s tiny lounge room was littered with relics of his life. Wedding photos. Old Bibles. A photo of him with the Sydney Branch Overseer. Watchtower bound volumes from 1967. 1972. 1975.

Ninteen Seventy-Five. The lettering on the dusty-coloured bound volume leapt out at him. Adam was continuing on about a how much the Faithful and Discreet Slave (aka the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses) cared so much about the brothers, which was why they continually exhorted everyone to keep as busy as they could in the preaching work and avoid not just hobbies and recreation, but in putting too much emphasis on their own feelings.

Nineteen Seventy-Five. Dim memories of that year stirred in Alfred’s mind. Adam was very young so he didn’t remember the excitement of that time. The waiting, the brothers selling their houses, the huge push for pioneers – and the disappointment. Nothing happened. The world continued, and just as in the days of Noah men were marrying and women being given in marriage, but unlike Noah, nothing happened. Alfred himself had been caught up, but prided himself on his faith when he stayed loyal to Jehovah’s Organisation when others he knew didn’t, and even one of the Governing Body turned apostate.

It was the end of a world, but not in the way that was preached. It was rather the catalyst for new, stricter policies regarding anyone who ever said the Organisation just may have made a mistake. Alfred had to shun his brother who left over the affair, and while he had always been close to him, he just couldn’t run the risk of his brother’s gangrenous apostasy rubbing off on him. His brother chose to leave Jehovah’s organisation, Alfred reasoned, so he was worse than dead.

Alfred refocussed on the present. Adam was reading aloud from the book of Job, something about being an integrity keeper.

“Adam.”

He stopped reading.

“I’ve been in the Truth a long time. My parents were in the Truth. Mum heard Brother Rutherford give public talks. Her mother, your great great grandmother, came into the Truth after hearing “Millions now Living Will Never Die.”

“Millions now Living MAY Never Die,” Adam corrected.

“No, I remember it. “Millions now Living WILL Never Die.”"

Adam frowned, but let his father continue.

“Adam, your mother was never meant to die…”

Adam cut his father off, “I know, Dad, it just shows that we were never meant to be living in this system, that we were designed to live forever, that the end is getting so close!”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Alfred with a mournful gaze. “What I mean is, we were told you wouldn’t reach primary school. My mother was told I wouldn’t reach primary school. And she too…yet Mum and Nana are long gone.” He was about to confess something to his son, something he felt guilty for even thinking. Adam was flicking through the Bible, running his finger down the columns as though searching.

“Adam!”

“Hang on, Dad, I’m looking up something to encourage you.”

“No son, put that down. Remember I told you that what makes a good elder is not how much you know but how much you care? Just listen.”

Adam acquiesced. He had always been a good boy, taught to respect his parents and Jehovah. While other kids had been giving their parents grief by running off to parties and getting drunk and smoking but smiling like perfect Witnesses at the Kingdom Hall next morning, Adam had always been involved in spiritually upbuilding activities. He hung out with pioneers and ministerial servants and learned to respect the hierarchy.

***

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

Julia Orwell

So many do. The next part is nearly ready.