“Mal, stop being weak and push.”

  “I am. Are you pulling as I’m pushing?”

  “No.”

  “Well, pull then.”

  It’s moving day for me, and the whole fam is over helping. James came over early, which is a shock considering he’s known to sleep until noon most days. I am the same but today is different. I need to get up out of this apartment asap.

  I push and James pulls, but the stupid bed still doesn’t want to move out of the front door.

  “You see how this bed won’t move out of your life?” Lust whispers inside my head, “This is me, but I will be 10x harder to push out.”

  Oh is that right? I think back before shoving the mattress with all my strength. It pops out of the front door like it’s slathered in butter.

  “Mal, what’s all going to my place and what are you taking to K’Sara?” James asks as we carry the mattress to the van.

  “All the boxes in my room is going to your place and the boxes in the leaving room are going to K’Sara.”

  “You sure she wants all that stuff coming to her house?”

  “She’ll be okay.” I assure.

  “Okay.” He replied, not really believing me.

  We decide the best way to move the rest of the bed and the other furniture is to carry them out through the patio door. It takes about two hours to move all my stuff. We donate all the furniture to Goodwill and then we move some of my stuff to James’ place and some of it to my sister’s. When everything is done, James takes me back to my empty apartment.

  “So this is it.” I stand in the middle of nothing but space. “The fruit of my decisions.” I lift my shoulders and drop them. My keys hang on my index finger. I slowly take my apartment key off the key chain and look at it.

  “The end of an era and the beginning of….what?” My eyes lift up to the ceiling. “God?” I wait in silence for a moment.

  “Yeah, okay. We’ll figure it out, I guess.”

  Back in James’ car after I drop off the keys, I stare at the window as the buildings roll by. Not so long ago I was in a car watching glowing people whiz by. I’ve learned to control that, wish I could control some other stuff.

  “Thanks for helping out, bro. “

  “No problem, Mal.” We pull into the parking lot at James’ apartment.

  “Tomorrow is a new day.” James tells me.

  “Yep.” I nod looking at his apartment complex.

  The next morning, I wake up early and take a shower. I squeeze a bit of body wash into a washcloth and begin to lather my torso. Life feels like it has come to a standstill. I don’t know how to go about all this or where even to begin. I need to find a new job and transportation, but I can’t get a car without a job and it’s going to be hard to find a job without a car. I might just have to hop back on the bus line.

  “You know who will love to see you naked, right now?” Lust asks conversationally.

  “Wisdom, I think it’s time to read my bible,” I mutter as a lift my armpit and scrub.

  “Why do you need Wisssdom?”

  Oh, so now they are ganging up on me. Flesh has apparently decided to join the party.

  “Yes, that would be wise.” Wisdom responds audibly.

  It’s good that I can hear Wisdom. It means she is strong within me, and I want to keep it that way.

  I hop out of the shower with suds still clinging to my body. I whip a towel around my waist and hurry out. If both of them are talking to me, that means I need to level up, Pray. Worship. Read.

  “Baby, stop fighting. Sending ‘you know who’ one picture won’t harm you.” Lust tries to convince me.

  “Yesss. Lisssten we know bessst.” Flesh agrees.

  “Jamal!” James knocks on the bathroom door. “You wanna go hoopin’ at the cage in a little bit?” He ask.

  “I guess that would be alright.”

  “Okay, hurry up because I’m about to leave now.”

  “What? You just said in a little bit!” I yell as I pick up the speed and grab my clothes off the floor.

  Flinging the door open, I run out of the bathroom holding my towel around my waist. In my room, I do the superman change and come out in my basketball gear.

  “James, do you have some shoes I can borrow? Mines got taken with my car.”

  “Look in my closet and get my Adidas, they should work.” He tells me.

  Lemonade is hiding in one of James’ Adidas. She looks up at me nonchalantly as I take her out and put her back in the cage.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “James, dude, what is your turtle doing in your shoe? I don’t know if she peed in this shoe.”

  “Sorry about that.” I jump a little as James appears behind me. “She loves those shoes. I just put her in there not so long ago, so she shouldn’t have peed in them.”

  He looks down at the shoes, shrugs and walks away. I throw some powder in the shoes before slipping them on. Thirty minutes later, I observe the full court games being played on all three courts. People line the fence waiting for the next games to start.

  The buzz of the trash talk has me pumped up as we walk the courts trying to find who got down. James points out our cousins running a game in the middle court. As he is pointing them out I spot my dad walking up with my two little brothers, Stuje and Jay.

  “You get picked up?” My dad asks James.

  “No, I just picked up the next game after that dude over there on the last court,” James responds.

  “Who are you picking up?” Stuje asks James.

  “I guess you all and whoever loses.”

  We end up playing the next game on the middle court. They aren’t the best team but they work well together. Our team also works well together. It’s probably because we’re all related, except for some random dude James picked up. In the middle of the game, I get a fast break and I take off down the court. Two people from the opposing team are on either side of me.

  “Stop dribbling you ain’t got any handles.” The taunt comes from the sidelines.

  I whip my head around to glare at the idiot who got the nerve to insult my game.

  “He jussst sssaid you sssuck.” Fleshed hissed with a laugh.

  “THAT PIECE OF S**** DON’T KNOW WHO HE TALKING TO!” An unknown hyped up angry voice pops into my head.

  I’m not sure what this new voice is, but it’s right. Who the F**** this n*** think he is sitting on the sidelines looking and sounding like Bozo the clown. Straight disrespect.

  “Jamal clam down,” Wisdom broke through my thoughts. “Don’t get all worked up.”

  WHAT DO YOU MEAN DON’T GET WORKED UP?” The unknown voice yells at Wisdom. “TELL THAT THAT D*** SUCKER TO SUCK YOUR D***!”

  I’m so busy contemplating inserting my foot up his narrow behind that a player from the other team swoops in and steals the ball without a problem. The moment I realize the ball is gone, all the blood in my body heats to boiling.

  “Suck my d**** you p**** a** ni****!” I yell from the court. OH, F*** BOY CALLING ME WEAK! SAYING I CAN’T DRIBBLE!

  “Jamal, calm down,” Wisdom warns

  calmly. “You're letting Anger in.”

  I listen to Wisdom but still glare at him.

  Little punk can't even look me in the eyes.

  I'm still mad though. I'm so angry my whole mind is frazzled as I try to get back on defense. I can't even remember who I'm guarding.

  "JAMAL," Dad yells. "Boy get back on defense. Don't let anyone get in your head and ruin your game, boy."

  For the first time since I went off, I realize that I overreacted.

  “You let anger get the best of you,” Wisdom agrees. “You are accustomed to the voice of Anger so you respond to it immediately. You answered to him so many times in the past that it has become almost second nature.”

  If that's the case, I wonder, then why is it

  that I don't react to Wisdom in the same way?

  “It's a process. You will learn to follow my voice with time.” Wisdom answers my thoughts in assurance.

  “It'sss a PROCCCESSS,” Flesh pipes up mocking Wisdom. "But where isss the Pro-gresss?"

  Flesh's question echoes through my

  thoughts as I try to shake it off and get back into the game. The score is thirteen to fourteen their way, and the game is until fifteen. I guess my little slip up was all they needed.

  On the way home, I look out the window in silence. I just can't get the Flesh's question out of my head. It's a process, but where is the progress?

  "Mal," James says breaking the silence and my train of thought. "You shouldn't have sat out after that game. No one should be able to get you that upset." James won the last two games so he is pretty content.

  "Yeah, I know it's not that I didn't want to play or anything like that. I just didn't feel like my head would be in it all the way."

  "Well, you look like you're deep in

  thought."

  "It's just while we was playing our

  game, the Flesh hit me with a question."

  "Ah, what was the question?" James asks

  after a few moments of silence.

  "He asked, where's the progress. To be honest, I want to know where it is, too. I mean I still want to contact Selena. I haven't deleted her from my phone, Facebook, Instagram or any other social media site. I'm still a slave to the flicks and sites."

  "It's a process, Mal. It's not like you're just going to wake up one day and be like 'Good God I'm no longer a sinner' that's not how it works."

  "Yeah, but some days I can't understand

  why I can't just stop it all."

  "I just told you that it's a process. Stop feeling down on yourself. You're not the only one battling their flesh. We all have to fight daily."

  I detect an edge of annoyance in James'

  voice.

  "What is 'a process' if I can't see the progress?"

  "Do you hate when you disobey the

  Father?" James asks.

  "Yeah. I feel like God is looking down on

  me in disappointment."

  "I know that feeling, but what I'm trying to point out is that at first, you didn't care. Right?"

  "Right, I didn't give a carp," I admit.

  "See? Just right there, progress was

  made."

  “James, sometimes that biscuit head of yours makes a lot of sense." I say cracking a smile.

  "Whatever. I make sense every time I talk, unlike your mumble lips," He cracks back with his own smile.

  When we pull up to the apartment's parking lot, I decide to take a shower to help clear my mind a bit.Something about the running water splashing down my face helps me think.

  I step into the shower, turn on the water and jump back with a shout as a cold blast of water from the shower hits my back. I look down and see the pin inside the bath spout is still lifted. Without warning, the water quickly turns burning hot. I turn the water off and push the pin down. That's what I get for trying to catch James off guard. I left the pin up on purpose, and now it backfired.

  I turn the water on again and let it hit my face to begin my thinking process. I had the mind to look up the definitions of both the words "process" and "progress" on the way home. "Process" could be defined as a systematic series of actions directed to some end or a continuous action, operation, or series of changes taking place in a definite manner. I came across several definitions for "progress" but three stood out to me: 1. a movement towards a goal or to a further or higher stage. 2. Advancement in general.

  3. Growth or development; continuous improvement.

  I try to understand how these definitions apply to me and my situation. James made sense in all when he was talking to me in the car, but I'm not fully grasping the concept.

  "Wisdom, are you there?" I finally ask when my thoughts get too fuzzy. "I need you to help me make sense of this all."

  “I am always here.” She beams.

  "Back at the court you said it's a process,

  what do you mean?"

  “Simple, it takes time and experience to learn to heed to my voice. It won't happen all at once. Imagine you are getting ready to bake a cake. Before the cake can be baked you have to setup, gather all the tools and ingredients to baking the cake, and follow the instructions,”

  “That is the process. The progress is as you are following the instructions step by step, ingredients will become cake batter, and when you put the cake in the oven you will see it go from a mush to a hardened product. Adding on to what your bother said, you started the process when you accepted Christ in your heart. The progress is each time you deny your flesh.”

  "Hmm, I see," I say after taking a moment to let it all sink in, "I think I want to enter the Battlefield, tonight."

  “We will need to meditate on the Word before you head to battle.”

  I turn off the shower, grab my dry towel off the floor and wrap it around my waist. I step out of the shower to fully dry off, dress, and head to my couch to start studying.