Jinx Doyle
“That is but a penny in the sea of demons.”
Can faith exist without it being directed at someone or something? Can you simply have faith and not have it be in God or your fellow man or that life will go on? Must there always be a receptacle in which one strolls up to and stands before, unburdening themselves of their faith into it, much in the same way that one who has drunk far too much does before the urinal in the bar's bathroom? If faith can exist by itself, then that is fine, but if it can not maintain itself outside of the human body, then like all viral infections it is destined to perish along with suitable hosts. Faith then becomes another commodity to be horded and paid for, a transactional purchase that one makes with time and effort and energy. A tchotchke that valuable currency is paid for which then is brought home and proudly displayed upon a shelf, fondly looked at for a time until it becomes part of the background of your existence and sits there gathering dust.
In any other story [Err0r W0rd n0t f0unD] would have been a hero, a man of faith (in crisis or not) who is there for his companions, who is the moral heart of their group. As I have already mentioned, this is not a story of heroes. [Err0r W0rd n0t f0unD], on the path to becoming a priest, instead found himself wrapped up with men and women who would sacrifice a child to an entity that was not the God he held faith in, despite these men and women wearing the same trapping as he did. He broke...he broke from them and went on his own, casting aside his old name for a new one. [Err0r W0rd n0t f0unD] was no longer, instead he answered to the name of Jinx. Jinx...a curse...bad luck...this was how he named himself, how he viewed himself. A man who had sinned and sought forgiveness and salvation by fighting against that which had caused his sin. He believed himself a damned man, that it was only a matter of time because his eventual fall into eternal suffering. You can see the vestments of the tragic hero draping his form, his mind purified by pathos, all thought washed away in the cleansing deluge leaving him prepared for the bearing of the cross he believed awaited him. But such was not meant to be for him, for long before his transition from [Err0r W0rd n0t f0unD] to Jinx he had already been chosen as a protagonist.
Though he dressed it in prettier garments, his goal became revenge against those who has caused his fall from grace. He was not wrong in the belief that they should be stopped, that someone had to deal with them and disrupt their plans. This was not incorrect reasoning, but the fire that burned in the deepest parts of his soul cared not for the salvation of others, but for the salvation of himself and the very act of atonement by bringing these men and women low, became an act of revenge. In breaking the Commandment of Idolatry they had turned a man of God into the personification of Wrath. How else does one explain his willingness to agree to a bargain with a woman he knew nothing about in order to create a scandal to further his aims in causing the fall of the group? That meeting, that bargain, proved to be more fateful than Jinx would have believed. For it succeeded in causing the downfall of the man in charge, creating a great scandal, facilitating the still birth of a new god and upsetting the dynamic of power across the entirety of the city and perhaps beyond. His revenge was complete and now the consequences of his choices returned.
Her name was Gloria Doyle and in return for causing a man to lose his mind, she demanded a life. She had taken a life at his behest, and so he must provide her with a life. Per the terms of their agreement he could not refuse her, and more to the point he found he did not want to refuse her. His first time with a woman came later than perhaps it should have if you listen to some, and for him it was an enjoyable evening lost to bliss and the unreal sensations. He suspected that she was not human but he kept himself from questioning this. His half of the bargain had ended after that evening, but he could not let it go. The teachings of God were still within him and so his soul bade him to ask for her hand in marriage, not once or twice, but three times before she agreed and welcomed him into her life. The wedding was swift and confirmation of his suspicions came fast on the heels, but by then he was no longer merely Jinx. Now he was Jinx Doyle, Gloria's husband, father to the child growing within her, newly inducted member of her family and all that came along with these states of being.
So he was married, took a last name, what does that matter, I can hear some of you thinking these things even now. Names matter, names have power, and now a man once known by one name, now bore a new name bestowed upon him by one of the most ancient rituals of binding two people together that mankind knows. Of course it mattered. Jinx Doyle, we know already what Jinx stands for, but Doyle the surname, what of that? It is a surname from the Irish Ó Dubhghaill which mean a descendant of Dubhghall, yet the significance does not end there. Dubhghall can be broken up into dub which means dark and gall which means stranger.
Jinx Doyle, The Cursed Descendant of the Dark Stranger.
Such a moniker seems to fit him well in the current days, for not only was the life of his wife and child hanging from a thread during the birth, Jinx prayed to God for his intervention and that prayed was answered, but not by God, but by something deep within himself. His faith has responded, but not his faith in God. As time has passed since the birth of his daughter, named Joy for she embodies that to him, he has had cause to reach out to God, and each time he has it has been ignored or petulantly responded to. His faith still burns strongly within him, but it remains to be seen whether it can be maintained without a connection, or whether he has simply transferred his faith to another without realizing it. According to the word of God, Thou Shalt Not Have Any Other Gods Before Me and that is a lot to ask of a man who you constantly turn your back upon because he does not measure up to the highest of bars that you have set. Would anyone truly blame this man for seeking a new god to hold faith in? This humble author certainly will not.
Comments