Pumping iron for god

This is based on a real person and a real event. I took it a bit of creative license but the basis is 100% true!

    The man sat in front of a large mirror. He was sitting on the edge of a chair with a ten pound dumbbell in his hand. He was doing arm curls and looking at himself in the mirror. He wore only a pair of sweat pants, no shirt, so he could admire his physique.
    As he did the curls, he stared at the muscles of his arm, as it flexed and relaxed during the work out.
    “Oh yeah!” He thought to himself.
    Ten more reps and he switched arms. As he did so, he also turned his body so as he could get a good look at his muscular arm as he worked out.
    “I’m Gods angel.” His thoughts continued.
    “I’m going to fight along side the Angels.” He corrected.

    Earlier that day, the man was at work. While he is physically in good shape, he worked very hard at getting and keeping his body in shape. But he concentrates so much on appearances that he only works on how his body looks, muscle tone. But he lacks any real strength behind the muscles. That day at work, he was all but forced to do heavy lifting. Normally when this particular job comes up, he hangs back and looks busy doing other things, because he doesn’t like lifting. But this day, it was just him and one other coworker (me), and he had no choice.
    The work involved lifting heavy boxes into crates. While the boxes are not too heavy but they are large, awkward, and take two people to lift. He tried to appear that the lifting was easy, but after a few minutes, the strain began to show. He grimaced every time he lifted, as pain began to run through the muscles of his arms, shoulders and back.

    He pumped harder and harder, thinking back to earlier in the day. He hated the look his co worker give him. He hated that he shouldn’t be doing that sort of work, he is better than that. menial labor, its for the little people. Its not for people like him, college grads, well almost, he should be a supervisor, not a worker.

    Soon the strain from earlier in the day began to set in. He felt the beginnings of pain in his shoulder.
    “Damn it!” He exclaimed. “I’m better than this!”
    He stopped for a moment, still admiring himself in the mirror. He stood up, staring at his smooth chest, “Perfect.” He said quietly.
    He then looked at his arms, how toned and tanned they are, “Perfect.” he said again.
    After the moment of self admiration, he sat back on the edge of the bed and continued the arm curls.
    “Pumping iron for God.”

    The pain in his muscles grew, but he ignored the pain. Pain made him stronger. He had been a US Marine, he knew about pain.

    “I’ll have my sword like the angel Michael.”
    “Fighting along side him.”

    He began to sweat, he was doing arm curls at a furious rate now. Beads of sweat rolled off his brow and down his face.

    “Destroying the evil!”
    “Pumping iron for God!”
       
    His eyes never left the mirror, though they did move, admiring his body. He loved working out, he loved the way it made him feel.
    He particularly liked when he was at the gym. He watched other people and how they looked at him. He would watch how the men, in particular the men who were not as well built as he was, how they looked at him with envy. he could almost hear what they were thinking, “Oh what I would give to look like him!”
    And they guys who did work out and had hard and toned bodies, they looked appreciatively. “Look at those biceps, those pecs.” he thought they would say.
    It was the woman though he was most interested in. As they looked at him, he could see the naked urges rising up in them. They all wanted him, they all wanted his body! He knew it, and why shouldn’t they?

    “On the battlefield, slaying the demons!”
    “Slashing them with my sword, one by one!”

    The sweat was pouring now. Even a little bit of frothy spit had accumulated at the corner of his mouth.

    “I...... AM...... PUMPING...... IRON.....” He nearly yelled.

    A few last curls, and he dropped the dumbbell to the ground with a clunk.

    “...for God.”  he said quietly as he grabbed a towel and wiped his face.


    The next day at work, he was doing more lifting and moving crates and equipment around. And while trying to move one particular crate that was sitting between large stacks, he hit his head. Not particularly hard, but he did wind up with a small cut on his scalp just below the hair line. And like all scalp cuts, it bled quite a bit. And he handled it in the manner he usually handled anything that may affect his appearance, he over reacted.
    But in a very uncharacteristic outburst,  “Jesus Christ!” erupted from him.  Instantly he became very angry. He hated all this, he was too good to being doing this menial labor!
    He took his gloves off as he walked away and threw them to the ground. His coworkers just stood and watched this. A few were just going to ask if he was ok, but seeing his reaction, they suppressed smiles. They had all hit their heads on the very same corner. While it had hurt, and certainly drawn blood, he hadn’t hit his head that hard. When they had hit their heads, they just rubbed the area, checked to see if there was a lot of blood, and when there wasn’t, they went back to work.
    The man stormed off to the bathroom.