I’ve been waiting for this moment most of my life. This corridor however, seems to be going on forever and a day, the door at the end remaining small and distant no matter how many steps I take.

The butterflies are starting to leap now. What if they say no? What if they hate me? What if they say I’m not good enough? What if and what if, what if and what if…?

I’m thirsty. Sweat is beading on my upper lip, but there is no respite; the sun blaring it’s way through the huge panes of glass is relentless, unforgiving.

My feet are dull and heavy but my mind is somewhat alert; “the Lord is my Rock, my fortress, my place of safety. He is my God, the Rock I run to for my protection….”

I’m startled. Where did that scripture come from? I think I recognise it but I’m feeling confused. What has this got to do with where I am right now?

In moments I suddenly feel a peace engulfing me and so also the door is near at last.

I knock. I knock and I knock again. Suddenly out of the corner of my left eye I see a familiar face; she too in a corridor of her own, my mother. But she’s looking through me, all sad. I call her out but she doesn’t hear. And then she disappears seemingly through her own door.

“But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur…”

More scripture! Repeating itself loudly in my ears, deafening and raging through my mind like a blood-thirsty bull.

“To those on my left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’.”

And now I remember why I am here.

My mother, I came to the conclusion (one week past my twentieth birthday), was a particularly pathetic excuse of a woman. Formerly Grace-Ann Shylock, one of eight, the shyest and the youngest of the brood and not much loved by her folk either.

My mother, it seemed, held onto these ever-forgiving almost pushover, people-pleasing traits. As if kindness could win over the darkest of souls. It didn’t always of course.

Grace-Ann met my dad, Davey, when she was sixteen at the local youth club. They’d only been courting six months apparently when she fell pregnant. Tossed out of her home the two of them went to live with his grandparents. My dad being only eighteen at the time felt he’d been robbed of his youth. My mother however, felt she had no choice: her path was set.

My grandparents soon passed when I was barely a year and when I was eleven my dad left for work one morning and decided not to come home. I don’t ever recall having an amazing relationship with my father and although it was my mother who tended to my every whim I somehow resented her.

Long, lonely months after his leaving I’d hear my mother weeping alone in her bed. I offered her no comfort, just longed for my father’s return instead.

Needless to say I never saw Davey again. I used to get the odd birthday card with his address on the back of the envelope but even they stopped.

Some nights when my mother thought I was severely depressed she’d come read her bible ever so softly over my head. I guess she was hoping for a change in her cold-hearted boy all grown up at eighteen, a man now. But I cursed every word!

It’s funny how time changes a heartless soul. I was thirty three and two months when I buried my mother; leukaemia had taken its toll and I never had the feeling or luxury to bask in her forgiveness. Yet alone ask for it.

In her last few hours my mother finally admitted the pain and torment of being forced against her will. They’d never even courted. But with me she’d found her one true love. And not once did she love me any less. With her finally gone my heart ached, and over time I was to get more bitter and angry.

So here I am at the end of the wrong corridor. Perhaps I should’ve forgiven my dad as I blew his brains out whilst he slept.

The door, at the end of my corridor, suddenly opens and now I see more clearly.

“Son,” Davey said waving me on over, “some of us are just born wrong and now we have to pay the price.”

I’ll never feel sorry for my choice and as my father and I walk farther into the creepy blackness I long for my mother’s scriptures, whispered softly over my head.