God’s Favour Are on The Broken Ones

Everyone was created with a flaw. Flaws were what made a person human, and Gideon had the most unprecedented flaw as far as human flaws went.
He was whole. So whole that he could be split into two perfect halves. No part of him was dented. He was, since his birth, the exact same way and living with the same type of opportunities. Maybe even more than the next person. All his life, he had been raised with a care akin to that given to a new born. The same possessiveness and love, and while he didn’t mind it, he attributed it to the reason why he would never become much in the world.
You see, those who changed the world, those who went on to do great things had one or six things in common. He read the books, the ones who told you they’ve outlined the six or twenty things the successful one percent does frequently. It was all there: wake up early, work out, read more books, sleep regularly, meditate, the list was almost endless.
None of these books thought to mention the real trait that make the successful ones. They were all broken. Not one of them was whole. They had so much baggage that the world thought it was okay to not get into all of that.
Some of the traits they had were poor, heartbroken, rejected, ignored. This particular list was near almost endless when compared to the list of habits by successful people. To be something, you had to lose something.
You had to be broken.
Success came on the road to fixing yourself back up. That was how Gideon knew he wasn’t put on earth to be successful. He was as whole as they came and that meant that if it came down to it, he was not on the list of those even remotely close to making it. The truth was and will remain the successful ones were broken, the successful ones had something to prove to the world. They needed an “I made it” moment.
He didn’t need to make it; his father already did that on his behalf. He was reaping from his father’s brokenness.
Gideon’s entire existence can be summarised into one word. Whole. He has never had his heart broken, but he suspected that Agnes thought she broke it. He still remembered the day because he called up the memory so much that sometimes he doubted the authenticity of what he was seeing.
In the memory of a memory that happened what was a lifetime ago, Agnes called to say she was coming over because she had something to discuss with him, and Gideon wondered if she was pregnant. He hoped she was as that would be a moment for him. His father would disown him, ‘after all I’ve done for you.’ There was only so much the man could tolerate. And he, Gideon, would be forced to work like every other person to make a living. If he was being honest, he was looking forward to being a father.
But Agnes had other plans for his life. She showed up, and in that squeaky voice of hers that he claimed to love even though it itched his ears to hear it, she said they had to break up. “It wasn’t him,” she said, it was her and her lack of interest in the relationship.
Gideon sat there waiting for the heartbreak, but all he could think about was how he wouldn’t be hearing her squeaky voice again and that filled him more with excitement than it did despair.
When Agnes left, she told him, “I hope this doesn’t hurt you a lot. I hope you get through and over this.”
He wanted to tell her there was nothing to get over. If he had loved her, he’d have considered using his heartbreak to motivate his need for success, but he wasn’t.
When Rita, the third girl after Agnes, told him that he was broke, he tried to explain to her that his father was a rich man. Rita knew that too, and Rita had laughed before telling him his money and his father’s money had mad social distancing.
If ever there were a set of words that could motivate a man to success, that had to be it, but when he looked at Rita, he saw the poverty that had laid her to waste and turned her into a clout chaser. He might have taken her words seriously if she didn’t spend her whole time dating only men with rich guys vibes.
Successful people didn’t have daddy’s money to fall back on. Most successful people didn’t have daddies to begin with. Once, a long time ago, he let himself consider what his life would have been like if his father was dead, or better yet, if his father walked out on his mom when she was pregnant. One thing was certain, he’d grow up with a lot of resentment for the man.
Resentment was a good motivation too.
Gideon drew a deep breath and looked down from the roof of the building he was standing on. It was dark out and below him, the city lit up like there was a festivity going on down there. He could hear the honks of the cars stuck in traffic, the loud music from the barbing saloon down the street. If he listened closely, he would hear the music coming from the music shop opposite the barbing saloon. It was a competition between the two shops to see who knew the most music and whose speaker was louder.
At the foot of the building was a figure and he knew it was a car. It belonged to one of the tenants, Alex. Everyone said Alex was either a Yahoo boy or a Tech bro, but no one ever asked Alex what he did for a living. The boy didn’t say anything to anyone. Sometimes, people asked him what Alex was and he shook his head but said nothing. He didn’t know how to tell people that Alex had God’s favour on him to the point where Gideon resented him.
Alex came from dirt and Gideon didn’t mean it in a demeaning way. That was how Alex told the story of his life and his climb to success. He may still be telling it to Gideon if he hadn’t snapped at Alex and told him to shut his trap.
Alex had been rejected by all the people he tried to work for, and then he decided to learn a trade and work for himself. That was how God was with broken people; he took them through the worst type of situations and then midway, he changed his mind about their suffering and blesses them with a ministration.
Everything Alex went through were necessary to get him to where he was now. Everything was a motivation story; his girlfriend broke up with him because he was broke, he was betrayed in a many thousand deal by his friend and to top it all off, his parents were depending on him to raise the remainder of his siblings.
As if it could get more perfect than that.
Gideon felt like throwing himself off the roof. There was a word for it, standing on a cliff and wanting to jump off. He couldn’t remember it but sometimes, it came to him when he was least expecting it.
The wind rustled in the trees and he took a deep breath and tried to be in the moment. The meditation app he used had the same sound in it, but sometimes, he stuck with the stream sound and the birds too. He only listened to birds on the app and never in real life. In real life, he was whole and whole people didn’t even need to meditate because they were better off.
Gideon met Alex on this roof. It was why Alex was tolerant of his bad behaviours. Why Alex didn’t get mad at him for giving up on whatever he started and then blaming God for making his life so easy.
Alex had come to kill himself, or at least, Gideon suspected he did, but something about Gideon’s presence had told him to talk about it instead of acting.
Gideon did research on suicide a long time ago, when he was confused. Suicide was something broken people did. Confusion was what made people like him think they could commit suicide when they felt like it. People like him couldn’t commit suicide. They’d be hated even in death.
They weren’t failing in school, or being bullied. No one was talking down to them, their parents loved them, their peers respected them. Their jobs paid well. No one blamed them for anything. They were perfect.
Sometimes, Gideon blasphemed and called perfection burdened.
Alex said Gideon’s biggest flaw was he complained a lot. He said if Gideon could learn to count his blessings, then he wouldn’t be so out of sync with the world. It wasn’t every time that Gideon thought somebody was stupid, but that day, Gideon thought Alex was as stupid as they came.
He counted his blessings every day. He was the way he was because he was acutely aware of his blessings.
Gideon wanted to jump and land on Alex’s car partly to spite him, and also to recreate what the world calls its prettiest suicide.
He dragged another breath and became aware of someone standing behind him. He turned and found Alex looking at him with a frown. The thing was Alex thought Gideon was suicidal, and even though he tried to explain that to be that he had to be broken, flawed.
Alex made him want to try sometimes.
“Your girlfriend is here.”
Gideon frowned and looked away. She told him once to imagine a world where his wildest dreams came through. He didn’t have any of those. “I’m not around.”
He remembered the word now. It wasn’t a word; it was a phrase. L’appel du vide. The call of the void.