The Angel of Bang Kwang Prison by Susan Aldous, Nicola Pierce Read Free Book Online

friend one Sunday and admitted my turmoil to her; ‘I’m thinking of joining the Hari Krishnas or else I’m afraid I’m gonna kill myself!’
    She hugged me and said, ‘Look let’s head out and get stoned, then if you still feel the same tomorrow you can join the Hari Krishnas next week.’
    That seemed as good a plan as any. We walked out into the warm afternoon and hitchhiked over to the red light district where there was always something happening. Every Sunday there was a sort of market in St Kilda’s, with a variety of buskers and music, and hippies selling their art and handcrafts; usually I bought as much stuff as I could carry and always left wanting more. This time I could barely muster the energy to look at the paintings. I surveyed my surroundings listlessly; there were crowds of people milling around, licking ice-cream cones and drinking beer, having a good time—but no one seemed to me to be really happy. The whole scene, my life; past, present and future, just seemed pointless. I looked across to the speeding traffic on the highway and sent up a silent appeal to whatever was listening: ‘If you are real, you’d better do something quick because I can’t go on like this. I’d rather die.’
    Just then I heard music and people cheering and clapping. I crossed over to see what they were looking at. It was a play that had been put on by the roadside. I found myself forgetting about my problems and I watched the players. One was a smiling hippie strumming a sitar and another was a beautiful woman doing ballet. The theatre group was an eclectic bunch of Christians, of all types and ages. They weren’t about damnation and eternal guilt and sin, but were instead about hope and creativity and meaning—all of which I was starving for. Some of them were full-time Christian Aid workers and others just did it on their days off, all hoping that they might even just reach out to one person. Well, they certainly did that day, and that person was me.
    I approached them afterwards. I was in my usual hippie attire; my long flowing Indian skirt, my tiny embroidered shirt that just stopped below my breasts, the back of my jacket was emblazoned with the wise words: ‘Life is like a shit sandwich, the more dough you have the less shit you eat,’ and bird bones and feathers hung from my ears. They looked me up and down and smiled. I looked like Mary Poppins on crack. I shyly greeted them and a conversation was quickly struck up. I warmed in particular to two of the guys. One was a gentle American whose name I’m ashamed to say I cannot remember. He had come from a very religious background but he wasn’t, thankfully, religious himself. He did have this amazing knowledge of the Bible; he must have read it many times, but he wasn’t egotistical about it.
    I cannot abide self-righteous people, especially when their theme is staid religion. Another guy, John, who has remained a good friend of mine, asked me my name and where I came from, what I did and if I believed in Jesus. He was a regular hippie, like myself, with a certain wisdom and calmness that literally compelled me to tell him every mad thing I had done over the previous couple of years—including wanting to kill myself out of sheer weariness.
    One of them said, ‘If you’re going to throw your life away, why don’t you give it away instead?’
    The hairs went up on the back of my neck and I shivered with the clarity of those words. It was like they truly recognised me and what I was going through. It all just seemed to make perfect sense. I could stop destroying my own life and start to help others with theirs. I wasn’t sure if I could be as spiritual as them though, considering my outlook, and I told them that I went to church but it bored me because I could find nothing stimulating or challenging about the weekly rituals. To my surprise they nodded in agreement and pointed out that I could be a spiritual person without organised religion and tradition.