A Night on Kingwood

By Jayson Derowitsch and Jenifer Rold

It’s a street! What’s so special about a street?


Kyle Redding, a young man in high school, will find out as he takes a walk down Kingwood and discovers the mystical truth about a kingdom not of this world. Through his walk he will encounter various adventures involving moving trees, a giant snake, a man with a ridiculously large fishhook, and much, much more. Kingwood calls to everyone—including you, my dear reader—to discover what life-altering experiences happen when you walk down its path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Jan 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781489720993

Jayson Derowitsch

In an appeal to the classic art of Allegory, Jayson seeks to revive the style of CS Lewis and John Bunyan. Having an M.A. in Theology and years of ministry experience and world travel, his encounters and training have greatly influenced his writing. With an ability to take real life situations and blend them with an allegorical fiction, he combines old world style with modern world life to present the gospel in a new and exciting way.

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Copyright © 2019 Jayson Derowitsch.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

LifeRich Publishing is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2101-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2100-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2099-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019900443

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 1/15/2019

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 No Ordinary Path

Chapter 2 Kingwood Starts with a Tree

Chapter 3 The Harmonica Player on the Roof

Chapter 4 The South End Prophets

Chapter 5 The House of Curiosity and Doubt

Chapter 6 The Writer in the Backyard Maze

Chapter 7 The Way of Batach and Aman

Chapter 8 The Pursuit of Leviathan

Chapter 9 Meshiach

Chapter 10 The Multitude

Chapter 11 The Return Home

Chapter 12 Bitter and Sweet, Lost and Gained

Chapter 13 The Lesson of the Pantokrator

CHAPTER 1

No Ordinary Path

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I t’s a street! That’s right, a street. I know what you are thinking: What’s so special about a street? I’ll admit it—usually nothing. The downtown grid is so surgically planned it has all the allure of a sheet of graph paper. On the other hand, wherever you look on the average suburban neighborhood street, you see the same house, the same mailbox, and the same lawn. It is so ordinary that it’s just depressing. Sometimes, all people see in a street is a place for walking, running, or driving. But rarely is it something to experience. Rarely does it exude some extraordinary quality. But there are a few—yes, a select few—streets in this world on which something comes alive as you look down them and walk along them. They don’t just provide utilitarian transport; they become art for the soul—an adventure in which to partake. In the rarest of circumstances, they become pathways to much greater lives.

One of these rarest of rare streets is found in the city of Salem, Oregon. In the West Salem Hills, there is a street that is neither straight nor level. It is a street of bends and curves, of ups and downs. Around every corner and over every little hill there is something new to discover. No house on this street is the same as another, but rather, the houses reflect multiple decades of trends in architecture. Every once in a while, there are breaks and spaces between homes where one can look over the entire city of Salem as if he or she were standing in the heavens. Some parts of the sidewalk have wood fence railings as if one were in the middle of a ranch, and then twenty yards down the way, the railing turns into welded metal poles, like walking back to the urban 1970s. Every road that connects to it is either at an angle or on a hill, so no one knows where the next road really leads. Every yard is a work of art! Some have magnificent trees, while others have beautiful flowers. Some have impressive rock walls, while others have well-formed, manicured hedges. Even the driveways are interesting! Some are brick, cobblestone, and concrete. Some are circular, while others are long and straight. Some go straight but then make a ninety-degree turn before going to the street. Everything about everything on this road is unique. Even the name—Kingwood—is distinctive.

Now let’s face it: people generally do not care to hear a story about a street’s beauty and uniqueness, though it may have quality. So it is a good thing this story isn’t about just that—a street. It is actually about a young man named Kyle Redding. Kyle is a seventeen-year-old student who just entered his last year of high school. He has lived in Salem his entire life and spent all of his formative years attending the schools in West Salem. Beyond this, I am at a bit of a loss, because how do you really describe someone who is just about average in every way? He is no brainiac, but he does get Bs and Cs and a few As here and there. He plays sports, but he has never been good enough to earn a spot on a competitive team. He can talk in front of people but not eloquently. He’s not the life of the party, but he’s not a hermitic recluse either. He has no expertise, but he also doesn’t really have any true weaknesses. He is truly average in every thinkable way. That is, in every way but one. Kyle truly has a heart and passion to be known, to be thought of, to be recognized. This passion has followed him since grade school, and it has never been satisfied because he has never had that one thing for which he could be known. By the end of his junior year in high school, Kyle had made a vow to himself that this next year would be the year he would make a name for himself one way or another. This was his year, and he was not going to waste it.

Ding, ding, ding went the alarm clock.

Time to get up, Kyle, said his mother.

Ugh, Kyle groaned. It was Monday of the third week of school, and Kyle, thus far, had not been very successful with his plan. With little motivation, he got up slowly and shuffled his way down the hall toward the kitchen.

Blarghennet, he grunted, which in early-morning teenager-ese means Food, please.

Well, that’s a fine attitude, his mother said sarcastically.

Yeah, how are you going to seize the day like that? his father added.

*****

[Enter, the parentals.]

Hope Redding: Doctor, star athlete in high school and college, published author.

Dylan Redding: Army colonel, veteran of two tours in Iraq, awarded the Purple Heart and Silver Star medals.

*****

Yeah, good luck living in their shadows, Kyle thought.

Nothing is working out the way I had hoped or planned, Kyle explained.

What do you mean? Hope asked.

Well, said Kyle, I’m not really good at anything. I’m not a great student. I’m not a great athlete. I’m not a great musician or artist, and I’m not a great craftsman. I’m just not very great at all. How am I going to make a name for myself if there is nothing that I am really great at? he concluded.

You just have to work at it harder and harder until you succeed, his father said.

Well, it’s easy to work toward something when you have some sign of success along the way, Kyle replied.

His father was growing visibly irritated. The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary, he remarked in a laying-down-the-law tone of voice.

Your father is right, Kyle, his mother said, and you are going to be late for school if you don’t get moving.

So Kyle conceded the argument, aware of the full irony that he was not even great at arguing. He got dressed, ran to his car, and headed to school. If he thought his parents were bad, boy, oh boy, attending school was a jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. As he entered the halls, he was bombarded with example after example showing him his inadequacies. He saw Billy Hillman, but how could you not see him? He was six, four and strong; the best athlete; and dated about every one of the prettiest girls in school. Most guys wished they were Billy, and Billy knew it. The rest of the athletes got his leftovers, but hey, they weren’t complaining. For it was better to be known as an athlete than not.

Kyle glanced in a different direction and saw Pamela Dillon. Pamela was the best student in school. She was also the student body president, and everyone knew she would be the valedictorian come graduation day. She could stand tall, knowing that she was one of the top ten most academically gifted people in the entire state. Kyle kept looking around and saw the class clown, the goths, the speech clubbers, the athletes, the musicians, and the politicians. He was breaking down on the inside, because each of these people had an identity and a purpose, but what about him? He didn’t belong to any of these groups; he really didn’t fit in with any of them.

Oh, how he wished that he had the skill to play the guitar and watch the ladies swoon. Or perhaps he could build computers and be known as a techie geek. He looked over and saw a group of girls and guys practicing different break-dancing moves. There was even a group of guys who’d started a parkour club. They were jumping and flipping off of everything. They were all so cool with what they did, and here was Kyle—master of the art of blending in. But what could he do? What was he sufficiently good at?

He kept scanning the crowd, wishing that he could be any of the other people he saw and not himself. But just then, his eyes passed through the crowd to a girl. She was Marah Deni, who had transferred that year from another part of town. He had noticed her briefly a week before, but now she was all he could look at.

She is absolutely beautiful, he thought.

She looked thin and athletic, with the build of a long-distance runner, but she didn’t carry herself like an athlete. She had auburn hair that flowed down just below her shoulders, and she didn’t dress like the other girls. You know, the ones who flaunted their bodies every chance they got and tried to make the guys drool over them. No, she wore a loose skirt down to her knees and a sweater that made her look like she’d walked right out of the 1940s. He thought it kind of odd that she would dress so differently than everyone else, but hey, it didn’t make her look any less gorgeous. She slowly turned and started to walk in his direction. Her face was fair and pretty, and he could tell she didn’t wear makeup—she didn’t need to. She had vibrant green eyes and a smile that could very possibly melt someone’s heart.

She got closer and closer to Kyle, who was now having a mild heart attack from nervous anticipation. He thought, Ten seconds of bravery, Kyle. Come on; be a man.

She was within earshot. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He kicked himself in the leg and thought to himself, Kyle, you idiot, say something!

H-h-h-hello, he finally said, trying to be intelligible.

Oh, hello, Marah replied, a bit startled. It’s nice to meet you, she continued.

Uh, yeah, he replied.

Marah looked inquisitive and began to smile a bit. It’d be even nicer if I had a name to call you, she said with a giggle.

Oh, yeah he said building up some confidence. My name is Kyle … Kyle Redding.

Nice to meet you, Kyle, she said genuinely. And my name is Marah Deni.

Nice to meet you too, he replied with enthusiasm.

I don’t mean to be too forward, she said nervously, but I don’t have any friends here because I just moved to this school, and I was wondering if I could hang out with you and you could help me get to know people around here.

Sure, I guess so, Kyle responded nonchalantly, when in reality he was already on cloud nine.

Great, said Marah as if she had finally broken through a social barrier.

The rest of the day went on without a hitch. Kyle and Marah were virtually inseparable, and they found it very easy to befriend each other. Their personalities were very similar, as were their situations in life. They were both in that weird place of only average and ordinary, and they both wanted to push through some threshold to become extraordinary at something. They finished the day together, and then Kyle went home with a new hope that he had not had in years. Finally, there was now someone he could relate to. There was someone he could share his experience with and not feel like a nobody. Now that Marah was in his life, he didn’t really care about the things he wasn’t good at. Instead, he had a renewed and positive disposition toward his future, for what could be possible, for life to the full.

Weeks passed, and Kyle and Marah grew closer and closer, becoming very good friends. They did most everything together, from homework to family dinners. They went to the movies together and took long walks around the neighborhood. Their preferences in life were nearly identical, and it was as though they could read each other’s minds. Kyle’s life was improving exponentially. His grades were up, he was more involved in social activities, and his parents were even impressed with his new energetic motivation to succeed. Kyle knew that all of this was because of Marah. It is amazing what motivation and drive a relationship with a girl can produce in a man. She was his main reason for life, and he was quickly falling in love with her.

Even though they had only been friends for about four weeks, Kyle knew that Marah was the girl for him, and he was not content with just a friendship. The homecoming dance was two weeks away, and Kyle decided that it was the perfect time to move their relationship forward. It was the end of school on a Friday, and Kyle couldn’t stall anymore. But, as any man can attest, if one is given the choice of being dumped in a vat of boiling oil or being rejected by the woman of his dreams, most men