Chapter One:
A Much Needed Death
The galaxy was in her eyes.
Rabid, celestial beings synthesize
one hundred realities as she marvels the black and white shadows warring within
her mind. Decrepit and crotchety, she
had an astral candor that had less to do with pandemonium than an apathetic
nature, and ingrained was a superlative madness which inundated her psyche with
the faceless intruders she became.
She was known to have dwelled within
haunted ruins and echoes of trailing laughter and broken, hymnal chanting of
the ancient dust and trapped souls of Petra.
Weakening sunlight striped an Acacia grove, alluding to secrets and
signs that only nature, itself, perceives; last light's ever-shifting patterns of metaphor,
once again sensi, a much needed death was nearing.
As always, she pulled a wooden child’s wagon, wearing a jewel-toned
sequin blouse. Flashing like some gaudy
party decoration, she swept her gray banshee hair from her forehead and cawed
loudly to the diving gulls. Glints of
white and red caught her eye hundreds of yards left, coming toward her across
the sand. She shadowed her eyes,
lumbered forward, muttering, “Following me again, are they? Maybe spies or officers or agents.” She sniffed loudly, scratching the side of
her nose. “Yep, probably agents this
time,” she looked back at the wagon, winked, then sighed heavily. “Here they come, we’d better go.”
In the distant rising heat of late day, the
caravan meandered achingly through the rippling sea of sand toward the jagged
shores of Petra. Three people hauling
tattered bags and wooden beams, were racing toward her, shouting. A man was rummaging through his pack. “Are you hurt?” he called, ‘What is your
name?
He paused.
“My name is Elias Wizer. This
is my wife, Asherah, and my daughter, Ephren.
We are salt gatherers heading toward the "trading post" in Petra. We are from Ashqelon. We will not harm you.” He rummaged through his pack.
Tambourines
precede stolen threads;
a bandit’s
debt reprieved
until the wolves and the thieves
pick up on the scent.
Elias
stole a look from his wife then glanced at the old woman with a pitying
expression. “We are Bedouins. If you would like a place to stay for the
night, we are staying with our family.
After she declined a final time, he nodded slowly then motioned to his
family to move along.
The woman called after them,
reminding them to wash their hands.
“What is wrong with her?” Ephren
asked her mother.
Samera quickly glanced at her
husband.
He paused before answering. “She may be, what is sometimes referred to
as, one of the vanishing souls. It is
not for certain, only speculation. It
has been said that some people in our country have been taken away if they are
suspected of knowing confidential information, or speaking out against the
government.”
“Where do they take them?”
“No one knows.”
“But her mind is not there, what
information could she possibly provide?”
“More than likely, her mind was
there when she was taken.”
“Maybe
she is a wanderer like us, a gypsy, only slightly mad.”
“I would tend to think that as well,
but for how she continues to speak of the government. It is common that when those who are taken
are finally released, they are forever paranoid and preoccupied with their
captors. It is as if their captors vanished
their minds before setting them loose.”
“How?’
“More than likely, torture.”
Samera was laying the quilts on the ground, glancing at the darkening
skies. “We cannot be long.”
Netzer sank the wooden poles into the ground then tied off heavy
fabric to wall blasting winds. Hand-carved
spoons were passed around, and clay bottles of turmeric, cinnamon, and cloves
were laid out. Samera set a pot of water
and leaves upon the fire and after a few moments, the water was boiling. She served them tea and dates while her
husband smoked.
Netzer eyed the livestock and the horizon where vultures screeched
and circled above a lone magpie scavenging carrion in an Acacia grove. Bandits were rampant in Petra so he would be
meeting his contacts while there were still traces of sunlight. He hoped that the violent storm conditions and
unbearable heat of the past season promised higher profits.
After their rest, the family located roads
leading to the marketplace. Eccentrics
shook tambourines at the feet of street vendors while illusionists unbottled
metaphysics and stars to the gathering crowd.
Shamans died between worlds piecing the last remaining agonies of the
soul, their sacrificial hands burning with baptism and blood. What was happening twenty paces up, however,
caught their attention amidst the bustle.
There were several men wearing
thick, yellow gloves spinning long, metal rods straight in front of them. It wasn’t until the crowd gasped and Ephren
managed to get a full view of the scene that she realized that at the ends of
the rods were molten orange crystalline glowing orbs changing their form by the
sudden swooping motions the men made when they swung the poles at their sides.
Still twisting the bar, one of the
men grasped a shorter post and began deeply prodding and shaping the fiery orb
for several minutes. He then brought the
end of it to his mouth and blew air through it, causing the orb to stretch
cylindrically. He took a scissors-like
tool from a bench and snipped away at it.
The glob oozed onto the floor, pale blue. Another man hurried over, took the tool away
and handed the first man a blow torch.
He ran the bluish-white flames over the length of his creation, and then
spun it until it, too, faded to pale blue.
Some of the other men walked over to
a large black oven where they placed the white-hot sphere within the
chamber. They all worked so dangerously
close together, spinning and molding, swinging and prodding, that it was
thrilling to observe.
She hadn’t noticed through all of
the chaos, that her father had taken the salt vats to a man waiting in an
alleyway. She turned back to the street
theater, the jugglers balancing on chained tigers and men with flutes luring cobras
from tattered cloths. Magicians sparked
an overture to the legendary, ever-sought-after fifth element.
Even in these moments Ephren spent between worlds, something
ancient, like a tragic intuition fell over her. Her father and mother were approaching her,
their hands behind their backs being led by police officers. One of them grabbed Ephren by the arm and led
them all to a car. Speeding away down
side streets, it wasn’t until they passed the police station that Netzer asked
where they were going. The officer said
nothing but looked in the rear-view mirror briefly, and continued speeding away
from the city.
Chapter Two: Set the Dust on Fire
The Avital family ancestry was about
to be exhumed from the ruins under the command of King Quastan Alawi al-Fayed
of Jordan. He claimed the preservation
of his legacy alone rested on this family’s lineage. This buried treasure was going to coincide
quite nicely with the event he could, never in a million years, have
anticipated.
The
table was set with lavish arrangements of exotic flowers, gold plates, crystal
glasses, bottles of red and white wines, and endless plates. A palatial glass chandelier lit with candles
graced the room with soft golden light.
King Quastan, his wife and son were already seated at the giant round
table, waiting patiently for their guests. One of the male servants entered the dining
room and announced their arrival. A very
formal introduction was followed by each family taking their seats. No one moved for a few moments. King Quastan who was a large man with large
facial features laughed warmly and said, “No need to be nervous, help
yourselves to dinner, please.”
“So
tell me,” he looked at Netzer while the wine was being poured, “about you and
your family.”
Netzer
was unsure of how to answer, so he looked at his wife. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were on
her wine glass. “We are Bedouins.” She squeezed the napkin in her hand.
“It
must be a difficult way to live.”
Asherah
looked up and smiled. “Sometimes. But I imagine life could be difficult at
times no matter where you live.”
Quastan
nodded with a mouth full of wine. “Very
true.”
Netzer
said politely, “That is why we try to live a simple life, and can get by on
very little.”
“How
long have you and your family lived in the desert?”
“Our
whole lives. This is how I met my
wife. Our girls know very little of life
beyond the Judean Hills except for when we have to go to the market in Masada every few weeks.”
Quastan
looked at the girls and asked, “And how in the world do two young girls survive
such harsh conditions?” He laughed and
patted his son’s shoulder and said, “I doubt whether Nazra, who is almost a
full grown man, could last a night!”
Nazra
turned slightly red and only smiled and shook his head slightly.
Ephren
answered, “It is all we have ever known.
I would not change anything about my life and family.”
Quastan
downed the rest of his wine, pushed his chair back from the table and leaned
back slightly. “Yes, yes, of
course.” He folded his hands and rested
them on his large stomach. “I suppose I
should tell you all why I have invited you to my home. You see, I have been looking for all of you
for quite some time; years, in fact. I
had a hero when I was a child, like most boys do, a hero who was
strong and brave, and who conquered
all he laid his gaze upon. This hero was
in the stories my mother would read to me at night. I was brought up within these very
walls. My father was King for a good
number of years before he was killed. I
always wondered why someone would kill him; he was such a brave and noble man,
just like my hero in the stories. But I
was only a child, too young to know the truth.
It wasn’t until I reached adolescence that the fog lifted upon the true
reason my father was murdered—he and his entire staff were leaders in a corrupt
plan to torture and kill the innocent family members of his rivals. They learned of his plan before he could
carry it out, and so they killed him first.
I didn’t want to believe it but I could not deny all of the facts, and
besides my own mother said it was true.
This corruption,” he sneered slightly, “was in my blood. I went from feeling privileged and untouchable
to wanting to cut my own throat and rid myself of this impurity running through
my veins. My father was a fraud, a
murderer. And yet, I had another hero,
that brave man in my childhood stories.
His name was Saladin. Why would
this figment of my imagination come to me at the moment I found out the truth
of my fallen hero? For years, I didn’t
know. I came into power when I was
twenty,” he looked at Nazra with pride, “the very same age as my only son. Funny sometimes how fate places things in
front of you. I had just taken the
throne when I overheard a group of my panel discussing that an archeologists
had recently found some artifacts belonging to the warrior, Saladin. I interrupted them and demanded to know
more. I asked them again and again if
Saladin was a real person, and they assured me that he was and they could procure
much proof if I wished. I told them I
didn’t wish, I demand that they
retrieve the documents.” He laughed
softly. “For weeks, I read the books,
saw the maps, even held the ancient artifacts in my own hands. My hero was a real man with a real
name—Salah-din yusuf y Ayyub—with a real, untarnished legacy. Nothing could’ve made me happier. I was
obsessed with this knowledge for years and yet sickly reminded of my own family
history. I didn’t know how to redeem my
family name until I had my son. He was
one half of the answer.
“I
pulled top researchers to abandon what they were doing and lead them to the
archives. They had one mission: to find the last living relatives of my
childhood hero. They had complete access
to highly confidential information. They
worked for almost a year until they found it.”
He tipped his chair back and called into the room behind him.
An
old man wearing priest’s robes entered the room carrying a basket full of doves
and a stack of papers.
“Yes,
yes, come in,” Quastan said to the old man.
“May I introduce to you all, my trusted advisor and priest, Father Micah
Jones.” The priest smiled and
bowed. It looked like his eyes were
closed.
Quastan
saw Ephren straining to see the birds and said, “Yes he is blind, but don’t
think much gets past him.”
Quastan
pushed the stack of papers across the table to the Avital family and said
heavily, “Which brings us to this.” They
stared at the papers. “Quastan nodded
and said, “Go ahead, look.”
After
several minutes the whole table was horribly silent.
Asherah
looked up at the king and his family with a pained expression. “What does all this mean?”
“Do
you not understand what is written?”
She
shook her head slowly. “I never knew.”
“You
couldn’t have known. This dates
centuries back. I employed a group of
experts for nearly a year to make this discovery.”
Elias
stopped shuffling through the papers and looked puzzled. “So what this means is that my wife is
somehow related to Saladin?”
“She
and her kin, whom I failed to locate.”
“That’s
because they’re all dead,” Asherah said flatly.
She
glanced at her husband then back to Quastan and said slowly, “So…this is why we
were invited? So that you could meet us?”
“Yes
I did want to see you in person but that is not the reason for all of this,” he
indicated the dinner.
Quastan
this time leaned forward on the table, almost whispering. “What better news could I have received than
knowing the descendants of my hero have survived? Only one thing—that they had a daughter who
is within four years of my son, and even more—that they are both of age to
marry.”
Asherah
said, “But we don’t believe in arranged marriages.”
“What
do you believe in, if I may ask?”
“That
Ephren is free to choose the men she wishes to marry.”
“Quite
a…progressive way of life,” he said innocently.
“Not
really,” said Ephren sarcastically, “love has actually been around for quite
some time now.”
“Marrying
for love occurs less frequently in the world than you may think,” Quastan
answered. I am not looking for an answer
right now. I want you to think about it,
talk about it, and really see over the next few days what you stand to gain if
you should choose so.”
Netzer
turned his head and his eyes narrowed slightly.
“Stand to gain?”
“Yes. If your daughter marries my son every aspect
of my wealth will also become yours. If
you and your wife choose not to live here at the palace, you have your pick of
any property I own anywhere around the world.
No one in your family will ever have to work again. The both of you, your daughters and future
grandchildren will have the best education, the best care—the best of
everything.”
Netzer
seem entranced and Asherah was gazing at the wall speechless. Quastan smiled and stood up and said
lightheartedly, “Just think it over. My
wife and son and I are off to Paris
to celebrate my wife’s birthday. We’ll
be back in three days. I’ve left
instructions to my servants that you all will be taking our place. Anything you want or need any time of the day
or night is yours.”
“There
is nothing to think about, and there is definitely nothing to talk about. I want to go home!” A lump was forming in her throat.
Asherah
put her hand on Ephren gently.
“Too dangerous during the night.”
As
soon as she was alone and sure that the others were asleep, she pulled the
spice bottle from her pocket, examining it in the moonlight. It was very plain, much like her mother’s
spice jars. She muffled the pop of the
cork with her sleeve and tipped the bottle on its side. A small piece of gold paper fell into her
hand but it was more delicate than paper; it was like the gold leafing that is
sometimes used to decorate fancy jars and plates. There was a message on the paper written in
strange black lettering. She held it
closer to her eyes to see it clearly.
Like the thousand eyes that you sense from
beyond
are not only of enemies,
the one who sees with
one thousand year eyes
is not who he seems to
be.
(Set the dust on fire.)
After
reading it several times, she turned it over to see if there was a name. As she turned it back over again, she saw a
golden residue sparkling on the fingers that held the message. Set the
dust on fire… She pinched and
swirled the slip in her fingertips. All
that remained was golden dust.
She
scurried around and found some matches.
Like sand in an hourglass, Ephren released the golden dust onto the
marble sill, struck a flame and dropped it upon the pile. It popped and sparkled yet emitted very
little smoke. There was a sudden gust of
wind that instantly vanished the ash, leaving behind terrifying, unanswerable
questions.
Chapter Three: Arliay
Several miles from Jordan, a burly
old peddler walked with a limp that may have recently occurred or just been the
instance of an old injury. It was hard
to tell. In any matter, he was a reject
of society, a vagabond unable to hold a job, unconcerned with climbing the
wobbling hierarchy of social status.
Most people didn’t notice him and those who did shook their heads
contemptuously. He balanced on a walking
stick taller than himself while his other hand clenched a burlap knapsack
thrown over his left shoulder. Wiry
brown hair hung in his face as he hobbled down a brick street lined with old
fashioned sweet shops and food carts.
Mandolin players and trinket sellers brazenly approached passersby as
the peddler reached a group gathered around a glass shop.
Taking a rag from his pocket, the
old peddler dabbed beads of sweat gathering on his forehead and made his way to
the marketplace. He noticed that the
local authorities were becoming much stricter as an officer reprimanded a small
boy for plucking a grape from its cluster.
The peddler called the boy over after the officer moved on. The boy apprehensively walked over. The man untied his knapsack and the boy gasped.
The old man placed two handfuls of money into the boy’s hands, crouched
and whispered, “Now go find that officer and tell him you want two carts of
groceries for you and your family.”
“But, sir, I-“
What the peddler didn’t realize was
that the boy had seen his mysterious eyes from which ages and ages seemed to
transpire.
The man smiled and showed the boy
over twenty smaller sacks of coins he was holding in his shoulder pack. “See, I have plenty.”
The boy laughed and ran away with
the money.
The peddler continued to walk. He knew it was a perilous journey, but
reminded himself that only good things would come of this. There were still several hours to go before
he reached his destination. Telling
himself that each step was another step closer, he stopped contemplating the
distance and focused only on walking.
***
Ephren didn’t remember falling
asleep and it confused her as to what day it was, if it was dawn or dusk, but
these things didn’t matter at the moment.
She was awakened because she heard movement in her room.
She lay still, pretending to be
asleep and listened where the noise came from.
There were clicks by the balcony doors.
Panicking, she felt around in the dimness for something to strike with
and found a heavy glass vase filled with lilies. She dumped the bouquet and the water onto the
floor, crept to the doors and waited behind pulled curtains. The person on her balcony was attempting to
pick the lock. She peeked into the thin
opening between the shades and only saw the shadow of a very large figure. She swallowed hard. Her mouth was dry. Suddenly there was a loud snap, the door
handle turned and the door creaked slowly open.
As soon as their foot touched the
floor within, Ephren swung the vase wildly making contact with the intruder’s
elbow and shoulder as they tried to shield their head. It was a man who was pleading for her to stop,
insisting he was not there to hurt her, he was sent to help. Breathlessly, he told her he was the one who
the clue was about.
She abruptly stopped. “What clue?” she asked suspiciously.
“Please let me catch my breath,” he
said weakly. “We need some light.”
Still holding the vase to him
threateningly, she lit the lamp.
It was an old man in heavy robes
sitting on the chest at the foot of her bed, doubled over, massaging his arm,
wincing.
“If you do not tell me who you are
and why you have broken into my room, I will yell for help,” she demanded.
He sat up very slowly and looked at
her. His eyes were void of color, yet a
spectrum of color, like sparkling crystal.
She lowered the vase.
A hint of a smile formed. “You were given a clue yesterday from a
stranger.”
“Yes,” she said distantly.
“I know what it said.”
She waited, saying nothing.
“It was referring to me.”
“You’ve told me nothing.”
“Then I will tell you everything, but please sit down.”
“You will understand why I am not inclined to take orders from
someone who has just broken into my room.”
He put his hand up and nodded slightly. “I understand.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Legarthus.”
She raised her eyebrows expectantly.
He sat up straighter and she saw a burlap knapsack on his lap. He brushed his long hair off his face. “I have come to help you out of your
situation.”
Defiantly she asked, “What situation?”
He smiled. “I understand your
mistrust but I have to warn you that if you really want to make it out safely,
you need to believe what I am telling you.
I know of the arranged marriage.
I also know what awaits you and your family should you not accept.”
“So you work for Quastan, do you?”
“In a manner of speaking, though not as you expect.”
“Then why would my marriage to his son be of any importance to you?”
“To see that it does not happen,”
She shrugged impatiently. “But
why?”
“You will find that out soon enough.
We have to deal with the dilemma at hand, which is, of course, this
rather perverse arrangement, while also ensuring the safety of your family.”
“It is me they want.”
“Your family will be used as leverage, even if you are cleared of all
charges.”
“How?”
“All of you entered Jordan illegally.
Quastan knows this and planned it as such. He, alone has the power to imprison all of
you, should you refuse the proposal, or exonerate you, should you agree.”
Ephren’s throat and chest tightened.
“How did we enter illegally?”
“You crossed the border without proper documentation and
identification.”
“But we didn’t know, we are Bedouins, our ways are different.”
“It matters not. You are
citizens of Israel. You must follow the
same legal procedures as the rest of your countrymen, or you will face the same
punishments. I am very sorry I couldn’t
reach you before they did.”
“How long has this been planned?”
“Since Quastan discovered your identities some time ago. It has been a childhood dream of his.”
She nodded. “But how do you
know all of this information?”
He paused. “We have people
working for us within these walls.”
She squinted. “What do you
mean, ‘working for us’?”
Because of possible surveillance, I cannot give you details. All I can say is that with any growth of
evolving power, there lies forces that seek to counteract that intention. So though I cannot tell you, I can give you
this.”
He reached out his hand to hers.
It was another golden slip of paper with the same type of writing as the
clue the old woman had given her.
Legarthus told her not to read it aloud.
It was quite a bit longer than the first.
Deep within the forest
is a place called Arliay
where wisdom, truth and fantasy,
like three rings all interplay.
These three rings originate
where creativity unwinds
open the power of your senses
with the magic of your mind,
Spirits from beyond
the crystal view of reality
venture to Arliay
to seek out the land of the free.
All dreams within your spirit
will be alive to run and play,
following your true path
will always lead you to Arliay.
After reading it over a few times, she sat down. “So…this place
called Arliay is where I have to go?”
He took a hesitant breath. “It
is a place you must find. And it is
pronounced ARE-LEE-AY, not AR-LIE-AY.”
“And my family will be safe?”
“For the time being.”
“Once I get there, what will I have to do?”
“I don’t have any information about that leg of the journey. I was simply sent to tell you the plan as of
right now.”
“What is the plan?”
“That you will go downstairs to dinner after I leave and tell your
family that you accept the marriage proposal.”
Desperately, she said, “But I can’t marry a person I don’t even
know!”
He quickly turned to her and answered severely, “You have to accept
the proposal, Ephren. You must tell them
that you wish to be married on November first.
This gives you a week to play the excited new bride-to-be. This is crucial that others believe you want
to do this because they will undoubtedly be suspicious of your new willingness
to comply. Select the largest wedding
dress you can find so that you can fully arm yourself. Above all else, you must not attempt to
escape until your wedding ceremony.”
Incredulously, she said, “My wedding ceremony? But there will probably be at least one
hundred people there!”
“Correct. There will be at
least one hundred unarmed people
there. Weapons are banned from holy
places in this country.”
“When I try to escape, where do I go, what do I do?”
“Another messenger should appear on November the first with another
clue. Until then, play your part
well. Do not speak of it to anyone. Do not try to figure out who is a messenger
and who is not. In fact, you will be met
with different messengers from Arliay at different points of the journey. Be careful, though because there will also be
imposters and spies from Quastan’s camp and elsewhere. They will be hunting you and your
disobedience will surely result in death.”
“But what about my family?” she asked tearfully. “What will they do to my family?”
“As long as your family remains unaware, I do not foresee too much
trouble. Only by taking this path, can
you save your family in the end.”
They both froze at the sound of someone walking up the stairs.
He stood up quickly and whispered, “You have to do as I said. If not, you are all in a great deal of
danger.” He walked over to the glass
doors. “Accept the proposal.”
Ephren watched him squeeze through to the balcony and out into the
twilight. She went to the sink and
splashed water onto her face, wondering if she had gone mad or imagined the
whole incident or not.
She ran out into the cool darkness to ask the moon and stars to come
and go as quickly as possible for the next seven nights.
Chapter Four:
A Rain Without Thunder
Come the day,
when the winds gash slivers of oracular gold into the fire-sewn gouges that
were once his eyes.
King Quastan Alawi al-Fayed was waiting at the threshold of his mad
childhood dream on November the first.
He wanted the wedding to be a spectacle that would be passed down in
legend among the people he ruled for decades to come, and so he took control of
the entire event.
The ceremony was to be led by Father Micah Jones who would marry the
bride and groom in a small chapel almost a mile from the palace. Quastan
insisted the wedding party walk the entire length through the town so the
townspeople could cast flowers and blessings upon them and witness a height of
grandiloquence they could never dare ascend.
First in line was Father Micah followed by Quastan and his family,
then the invited guests, The Avitals, and last was Ephren. At eleven ‘o’ clock the march began through
the dusty streets where people were already lining both sides, when a sense of
the mystical and enchanting suddenly overtook the priest.
Drenched in sound holiness, Father Micah Jones knelt in the middle of
the windblown dusty road among the streetcars and fruit stands, among the
pseudo-seers, and two-cent carnival entertainers on a sunless, infernal
afternoon as the townspeople froze knowing within their midst was an occurring
miracle. As incoherently as he spoke,
the people cried out raising their hands to the heavens; some fainted, some
Halleleuiahed with tears in their closed eyes, and others stood quite still
trying to hear the words overtaken by the flapping of wings.
It seemed the trance had consumed Father Micah Jones so completely
that it sent his encircling doves that guided the blind priest into an
entangled tornadic frenzy, as if a holy light apparition charged or shocked the
energy field surrounding the knelt man.
Stuttering and spitting, grunting and growling, Father abruptly stopped,
rose from the brown powdery road and approached a filth old leper by a lamp
post, his body rocking so violently that his unkempt tangled head kept slamming
into the black steel. With every step
Father Micah bridged between he and the old man, all the more sporadic and
quickly the doves swirled. The stillness
within the crowd was almost tangible while mothers wrapped in scarves held
their babies up to the miracle-in-process ebbing its way like a billowing
delirium some call faith, into their newly formed souls.
Sudden gasps and screams dotted the crowd as all of Father Micah’s
birds dropped like lead raindrops two or so feet from the priest and the
leper. Whispering questions stole within
the crowd of how Father would find his way, of what had happened to the doves,
were they dead, could they be brought back to life? The shiny gray flesh that, long ago, was his
eyes glistened beneath the emerging sun pushing its way out from behind smoky
clouds.
Offering his hand to the rocking man, Father took two cautious steps,
knelt, and as gently as a feather, cupped the leper’s knee which caused the
rocking to slow, and gradually cease.
The priest then began to feel over the ground, searching until he
stopped upon one of the lifeless doves.
Scooping it up, he cradled the limp-necked creature to his heart and
then lifted it to the leper’s messy hung head.
Father Micah muttered a few indistinguishable phrases and then, as if
struck by lightning, he shot to his feet shouting madly, “Lord, fill this man
with your light! Purge him of disease
and sickness, heal him with your love and light!”
And nothing happened, and no sound befell anyone for several minutes
and the impatient sun went back behind its cloud, and mothers lowered their
babies to their breast, and even Father Micah Jones had gotten to his feet and
turned away from the leper but the old leper sat very still, uttering words
that only the priest could hear and these words stopped him dead in his
tracks. The leper raised his penetrating
stare to Father Micah and said the words again, a bit louder. Father Micah slowly turned to the leper who
was saying, “Have you no faith?”
Father Micah replied placidly, “Of course I have faith, sir.”
“But I thought that Paradise
is encountered in death, and a white light effusion accompanies the soul to eternity. I have dreamed of the rain, so as not be
ossified by the drought. Tell me, Father
does it rain in Paradise?”
As if it were his finest hour, Father Micah stood somehow taller than
before, his face blazing with wisdom and rage.
Perhaps his maddening countenance frightening everyone, for, the women
wrapped in scarves once again held their babies up, while others seemed
possessed, dropping to their knees, arms raised, sobbing about the light of
god, or uttering gibbering spats of gratitude for something vague and
miraculous.
Father Micah smiled sadly. “We
are the same, old friend. You are a
wanderer and, yet, it is I who seeks an invisible realm. I am a man in search of a world beyond this
desert also.”
He turned and walked into the magnificently still crowd, silent tears
brimming and streaming from their eyes as his dead doves lay scattered, the
wind blowing dust over their grayish-beige feathers.
Father Micah’s strength seemed to be gathering as he spoke. “Upon the parched surface of the desert, our
search for rain unites us.”
The sun glowed blurrily in the sky, brighter than before.
“Among the constellations, stars burn out and fall upon the night.”
The sky suddenly became alight as all clouds and haze opened to
reveal a white-hot burning sphere among the blue.
And as if this were the sole intention of God himself the entire
time, wanting to perform a magic trick so profound for the already mesmerized
townpeople, a rain without thunder crashed down from the clear blue shining
sky, sadistically pounding the dusty ground.
Father Micah Jones smiled as if he knew this would happen and said in
an eerily calm voice, “There’s the rain.”
Mothers wept openly while most of the crowd gaped in awe at the
downpour that appeared to be falling from the sun. Those who dramatically fell to their knees,
cautiously rose, unable to comprehend this reality, unaware of the dust now
becoming mud that was running down their shins.
And so, if this anomaly wasn’t phenomenally suffice, what happened next
made the townspeople true believers in all which is transcendent and unnamably
holy.
The dirty old leper rose from the wet curb as Father Micah stretched
out his arms, almost feeling the air for guidance. Soaked from the luminous rain, the leper
grasped the lapels of his tattered coat and looked as if he wanted to say
something, without warning, seven doves burst from, and blew open his coat,
converging on Father Micah Jones, swirling and spinning even faster than the
doves before that were still lifeless, muddy lumps on the ground.
Ephren was at the top of the palace waiting for the rain to pass
through. She could not see what was
going on in front of her, but heard a great deal of commotion. She thought the rain falling from the blue
sky was odd, yet fitting.
One of the servants opened and held a large umbrella over Ephren’s
head and said nervously, “I think we should try to keep up, ma’am.”
Ephren nodded and carefully pulled her long skirt off the ground and
headed out.
All morning while she was primping she watched and waited for some
hint of one of the messengers Legarthus said would come for her today. To every flash of gold in sight, she would
turn away so quickly in the direction that many touch ups and re-pinnings
consumed most of the servant’s time who were beginning to lose their patience
and attribute her jumpiness to a bad case of wedding day nerves. Now, walking through the wet road leading to
the chapel with absolutely no word of how to escape, maniacal panic screamed
like sirens in her chest. Maybe it was
just another manipulative ploy of the deranged King Quastan after all.
Distantly, Ephren gazed into the faces of the townspeople who seemed to
be lost in space and time. She heard
broken fragments like, ‘so beautiful,’ and ‘image of the goddess herself.’ She searched for a connection in their eyes,
a nod of acknowledgement , someone who would tell her what to do next, but they
all only stood in a quiet spell revering the stunning young woman who would,
one day, be their queen.
The rain was finally letting up and the chapel could be seen through
the crisp air. Flower petals were being
thrown at her feet and music could be faintly heard. People seemed moved by the tears in her
eyes. Reality felt like a dream. She caught sight of her mother looking back
at her concerned but it was too late.
She fell for the trick and now would pay the price for her complete
trust in a total stranger.
The music was too beautiful for what was happening. It was as if a symphony played to a desperate
animal attempting to claw a hole through its cage. Father Micah was at the front waiting with
the Quastan clan, and had she truly wanted to marry Nazra, she might have
thought him quite handsome that day, even though he appeared to be just as
nervous, albeit, for different reasons.
The aisle seemed to carry her forward. Father Micah’s basket of doves rested in the
crook of his arms purring chirpily. Once
both families encircled the bride and groom, the priest smiled and spoke
warmly. “What a miraculous day the Lord
has in store for us. The unity of this
young man and woman has brought the presence of the Holy Spirit to bless us
all. Before we proceed, let us all close
our eyes and bow our head to give thanks to His magnificent presence.”
Everyone in the entire chapel except for Ephren lowered their heads
as Father Micah began to say a prayer.
In one last frantic attempt, she wildly turned around searching as if
she were begging for someone, somewhere who was on her side. She was slightly startled by a nudge on her
hip. Whipping around, she looked down
and saw Father Micah, still praying loudly, push his basket of doves into her
stomach. She caught herself from gasping
loudly when she saw a golden slip of paper slightly tucked beneath one of the
doves. She pushed in the little
creature’s breast and carefully tugged on the golden slip , reading it as fast
as she could.
Turn, right now, and run away
down the aisle and through the streets,
do not stop for anything
or anyone you meet.
A helicopter awaits you
near the banks of Dead Sea,
now is the time to run away,
if you ever hope to be free.
Ephren first looked up at Father Micah who was smiling and still droning
in prayer and then over to Nazra who was leaning over her, eyes open, reading
the clue in her hand with a mix of shock and anger on his face. Without even hesitating, she lifted her
skirt, reached down and extracted the dagger that was tucked in her garter. A fleeing ghost of guilt laughed somewhere in
the back of her mind right before she sliced once over Nazra’s forearm. He yelled in pain, cutting in on the prayer
and shaking the congregation out of their reverent dream. Muttering and confusion peppered the
building, and the music screeched, oddly fading, though not quite ending.
Ephren ran because the clue told her to, because she had to, because
she refused to be cornered into someone else’s version of bliss. Bolting toward the church doors, dodging
grabbing hands, Ephren felt around in one of the folds of her dress, ripping
the ties of the revolver she was now firing into the chapel ceiling. Everyone ducked and screamed, shielding
themselves and their children from the raining plaster. The guards instinctively reached to their
belts for their own empty gun cases, staring blankly at the King for
orders. King Quastan watched Ephren with
his mouth slightly open beneath the chaotic white plaster hurricane. His face contorted in rage and he bellowed at
the guards to go and get her.
Once out into the open air, she ran hard into the wind, wishing her
wedding dress hadn’t been so heavy.
Still clutching the bouquet in her left hand, she looked back and saw a
very large crowd led by King Quastan’s guards firing shots at her. She shot back with her free hand right above
the crowd of lunatics gaining on her.
All she wanted was to escape without anyone getting hurt. Her legs were losing strength as she barreled
through the sand and onto the muddy streets.
She kept glancing over her shoulder until she crashed into a group of
gypsies dressed in purple robes who whooped strangely and cast curses from
their splayed shaking hands and huge black eyes. She achingly got to her feet and took off
again wanting terribly to duck into one of the shops but there was no
time. At the same time her pursuers were
shouting at the townspeople to stop the escaped prisoner in the wedding dress,
Ephren finally saw the road that led to the shore of the Dead Sea, along with the
vague silhouette of the helicopter that the clue had foreseen. Gunshots were being heard more frequently
from all directions and the shouting crowd was louder than before. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw the
green-blue water and the memory of she and her parents making tea flashed in
her mind. She sensed the presence of her
family, hearing laughter and smelling rice, feeling the comfort of them all
together in their home. Ephren began to
sob. She was doing this for them but
that excuse didn’t make it easier to leave them behind. She saw the pilot waving her over
desperately, as she breathlessly made it into the helicopter, crashing onto the
floor, hearing pings dot the presumed bulletproof aircraft. Lifting off the sandy hell, Ephren peered out
and saw the angry mob below. Hardly
believing she escaped, she weakly stood up laughing and crying and tossed her
bouquet to the crowd below. Several
people pointed and shouted, and one of the guards even took a potshot at it but
missed. It was to her extreme elation in
the end, however, that the one who caught her wedding bouquet was none other
than the very disgruntled and defeated looking King Quastan Alawi al-Fayed of
Jordan. She laughed and cried and faded
off into the blue.
Chapter Five:
A Twenty-One Year Silence
Thick, sweltering air saturated moist skin while supple lips
reflected dewy reddish-gold midnight haze constrained by a peeling and chipped
pastel building adorning arched windows that gleamed golden light upon
cobblestone streets. Voluptuous women smoldered beneath a faint orange glow in
darkened doorways their brown eyes and hair leaving little to the eye and
everything else to fantasy while tobacco smoke ruminated in shadowed corners
where gasping silhouettes fell and rose like the fluidity of absolute motion.
Horse hooves
clucked the rhythm of urgency as celebratory riots broke out in the streets of
Old Havana once its residents were told their tyrannical dictator who kept his
country in shambles for over two decades had died in his sleep. He was chained to a cement block along with
his blood money and lowered somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. It was coded in the very essence, a
celebration of death a rising smoke vengeance that may have even reached the
shores of Panama into Columbia.
There was a
raunchy smell pervading the travesty of a car tottering its way up the bumpy
road and from the backseat.
****he has a
flashback of the moment before he got
his eyes burned out. blindfolded in car
captured. it is the temperature, the
sound of the tires and the driver’s body odor that triggered it. He has to ask the driver a question to make
sure he is not dreaming or to bring himself back.****
A weary
Father Micah Jones patted around to his left.
Nestled in a shiny, wine colored wicker basket, seven or eight doves
dozed, purring chirpily beside him. When
the car came to a halt, the driver replied dryly, “Here we are, I think.”
As the driver
carried the luggage into a seemingly ancient building, Father Micah stood up
shakily with his basket in tow. Once out
into the muggy night, the doves shot upward, manically encircling and leading
him within the ruins.
There were
candles lit and a record playing gently. A deep voice said, “Micah Jones, we
meet again.”
The doves
steered him to a table, and once he was seated, they dropped upon the crumbled
cement floor pecking it for edible remnants.
The wistful manner in which the priest caroused most people evaporated
in the uncomfortable, fidgety way he answered the man, “You say that as if
we’re old friends.”
“You have
shown a loyalty to me that my nearest and dearest friends could not fathom.”
“Because I
kept my mouth shut.”
“In so many
words, yes. Twenty years it was?
“Twenty-one.”
“Even after
what we did to your eyes…”
“And at the
end of your life, you will be judged accordingly by a power that, I am
gratified to say, has ways of making you suffer in ways I could never imagine.”
He relished the man’s silence then went
on briskly, “But I am not here to bask in your eternal suffering.”
“You have
come to collect the debt I promised when I visited the convent five years ago.”
“Yes. There are only two things I ask of you. First, after you have fulfilled my other
demand, that you never come near or contact me, or anyone I know, ever again.”
“As you
wish. What is the other demand?”
Father Micah
then went into detail about the Avital family, the wedding proposition, and
Ephren’s escape.
The man
sighed deeply. “I will make the
arrangements. If by chance, she would
attempt to flee again, what measures may we employ?”
“Ones meant
to make her never attempt it again.”
Without
shaking the man’s hand or thanking him, Father Micah stood up to end the
meeting. Faithfully surrounding upon his
ascension, the cocoon-like tangle of wings led him out the door, into the crowded
streets where he and his precious doves
were about to prove to the Cuban people that the death of a tyrant would not be
the only miracle that would witness that night.
Chapter Six: Dia De Muertos
she is in the helicopter wounded.
she
is taken to what she assumes is a doctor who tends to her wound from the
guard’s shot. on the first day.
the
second day she sleeps has strange dream, forgets it. she thinks she is visited by a doctor. sleeps.
third
day, she vomits and hallucinates.
she
awakens in a room with some sort of an altar or shrine, bones, candles. she is sweating and breathing heavily.
shaman
enters the room. checks her. smiles at her.
…….
“tired”
“Jordan.”
he
accessed her dreams talks about her family vaguely.
“It was told that
those who disappeared in Mazatlán made their way across the Sierra Madres in
the Mexico Basin where their pirate souls were restored by the salty sea of the
Gulf.
Where food
and basic human decency were scarce, violent men and beautiful, broken women
got rich off the dark weaknesses of upstanding citizens and tourists on the
islands. From Puerto Rico to St. Croix,
Dominica to Barbados, archangels chased the excesses of the West Indies to the
confluence of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic.
Shipwrecks could be seen from tattered motels in Fort de
France. The authorities were a part of if not altogether responsible for the
corruption as long as they were compensated in ways that were difficult to
prove. It was whispered that muffled
screaming could be heard from the women whimpering all throughout the halls. Most were stolen from their homelands and
brought here to be sold to men with an especially sadistic streak. Even the authorities who did not participate
stand watch to guard to protect the women.
The local mental institution was the largest residence on the island.
It is always in paradise, where waves sound like Elysian
Fields, where the worst of humanity drowns in aquamarine and pirate’s gold, so
long as the myth is created from pathos, so as it remains a mystery, so long as
the sane the artistic, the healers, the shamans, the eccentrics are tortured,
are exiled, are strange and ill, so long as the free are enslaved, can there be
what is called paradise; the mask of an unspeakable, a hidden, an unforgivable
violence just below the surface there, within each person, the potential, it
exists, there exist infinite excuses to
qualify malice. Human beings will trench
their very last heuristic to prove it and only in our blindest anger, sparkling
like a satellite, we falter, a repulsive continuum, a mutilated ecstasy. The armies have overtaken the capital. Paradise; a requiem.
monarch butterflies
Chapter 7:
the
yellow river north korea concentration camps
empties
into the east china sea?
an
old man is levitating over the yellow river
The
one who walks through
the
forest without a sound,
everywhere
and nowhere,
whispers
that within every blade of grass
in
the universe,
apart
of every quasar
in
the world-
all
is life force.
purple
lamborghini
escaped prisoner: shin
Growth
Whatever was left of me/ after the dream/ the
night watch prowled/ wolves/ looting / I am still/ one of the hunted
How could those/ so rank with sin/ with misery/
and hopelessness/ claim sainthood/ proffer a living, breathing/ judgement day/
guarding/ no/ this/ this was never about protection/ The disappearances/ crimes
against humanity/ unspeakable/ new and improved/ methods of torture/ silenced
poets and artists/ sickened the healers/ corrupted altruists and heroes/
The impossible became real/ we didn’t know
where it was coming from/ sudden shooting pains/ dull aches/ we were being
burned alive/ They called us schizophrenics/ they were stealing our country
from us/ we had to find a way/ to defend ourselves/ we had to fight/ an
invisible enemy/
These were acts of war/ unauthorized invasions/
turning us against ourselves/ against each other/ the final stop/ complete
control/ enslavement/ they had such/ as sense of entitlement/ no boundaries/
ownership/ burning red/ they were stealing our country/ from us/ a burning red
flat line/ our children would have to battle/ if we couldn’t overcome/ an
enemy/ we could not yet locate/
It was never paranoia/ rather/ it was that we
were/ fully aware/ of the capability of evil/
In the absence of choice/ lies enslavement/
violation/ both internal and external/ In the absence of choice/ there is a
ravine/ of lost souls/ stolen selves/ and whatever is left/ on the other side/
of this makeshift reality/ is paraded through the streets/ what was once
brilliance/ now a laughingstock/ by a torrid, mindless mob/ of witch hunters/
destroyers of dreams/ and potential/
All which was once held sacred/ now disposable/
to a frothing/ insatiable/ void/ of broken killers/
They are everywhere/ the Devil’s Herd/ the
bringers of death/ holding/ what Aristotle named/ ‘The Immovable Movers’/
hostage in their own lives/ and make no mistake/ they will break you/ if it is
the last thing/ they ever do/
For now/ all we have is our humanity/ that part
of us/ that cannot ever be broken/ residing somewhere between/ freedom and
struggle/ each/ our own compass/ metaphysical/ free to choose/ our own
transcendence/ a destination……………………………………..
they are trying to stop the weapons from
reaching syria
refugee escape
They tore into the cities/ invading
and occupying homes/ staked like territorial wounds/ to the mass graves/ of our
ancestors/ limitless access/ the flames of power/ fueled by delusion/ Take
whatever is left/ from the wood pile/ and burn it/ burn the rest/
A dangerous grief/ foreshadowed the
ruins/ of a shackled war zone/ the potential of all that could be/ buried
beneath/ hues of apathy and rubble/ Careful now/ with what is found/ the
weather is about to turn/
I would have kept their secrets/
protected them as faithfully/ or as often/ as gold is stripped/ from an
original mind/ They knew of/ possibly saw/ the abuse/ the exploitation/ all the
blood/ yet silent/ for years possibly/
I was violated motherfuckers/ we all
were/ The word/ no/ was never a part of the equation/ those who spoke out/
against the crimes/ were rumored to be insane/ as if insane/ was the worst
thing to be/ loons/ some whispered/ some whispered it louder than others/ so we
were never to be believed/
We are human beings/ goddamit/
people/ freely accessed/ stalked/ to the blackest rooms/ of our minds/ I
remember counting the ridges/ on the cellar floor/ in and out of consciousness/
mockingbird incantations circling/ the barely audible/ fire/ of my dying mind/
Even in my most liberated wastelands/ there were never any questions/ to
refuse/……………………………………………………………………
Chapter 9:
personal jesus
wings of Icarus
Set up by dancer:
I didn’t understand it but I do now.
Treasures are hidden for good reason. I know this because of what happened. I know this because what was intended to be a
process of rebuilding was, in fact, a slow and deliberate act of
self-destruction. The destroyer almost
always appears to be piecing shards.
When you don’t know yourself you venture within a world of
opposites. What you do contradicts how
you feel. You invite the devil to your
quest for God. You sabotage your
dreams. You ignore the warnings.
All sorts come around when you’re a fraction of yourself;
from predators to parasites, saviors to healers. There is a similarity that each of them
share, some linking motivation that drew them to me. That’s what I really thought- that something
drew them to me. I know differently now.
Everyone’s got their version of non-reality. Everyone’s got their wounds. Combining an infinite number of ways to be
hurt with a fairly decent amount of ways to escape pain makes it easy to see
why I, like many others, so effortlessly blur the line that divides pleasure
and pain.
I think it all started during the dissension into strange,
tormenting abstractions of love when I encountered a set of circumstances which
eventually taught me that within the intention to destroy ourselves, we choose
the weapon that appears not to be a weapon at all, but rather something or
someone that looks like they can take us far away from the world.
And away from the world is where is had to be.
I am in pain.
Understand me in those terms.
Measure me under those circumstances.
I have carried this pain for such a length of time that it has become a
part of who I am. There is no longer a
lucid distinction between feeling good and bad.
I stopped feeling the difference long ago. Sleeping soundly with those emotions meant
melding to the melt of surreal paintings of semi-consciousness. And, at first, it felt good.
At first, I
had a delusional trust in life. I wanted
to be taken care of and assumed life would just do that. I am not proclaiming to know everything but I
do know, down to the core, the need to escape pain. My flights were chemical mirages, cheap
reproductions of paradise. Other people
use denial, refusing to accept what their eyes behold. It’s almost like a puzzle, the way the human
mind fits the right justification in just the right place so that we can cope
with our deadened realities, remaining fixated, like I was for years, within
our descending cycles.
I just couldn’t deal with anything. The same question kept coming out of nowhere.
“What is it you really want?”
“I just
want to feel better,” I’d respond to myself.
And as long
as I was in a weird alcohol or drug-induced wonderland, I did feel better. When you don’t need it, it’s fun. But when you do start to need it, you hate it
so deeply, and you hate yourself for needing it so completely, you can’t
function without it. The magical relief
that muffles pain and manufactures pleasure calls you its slave, and that’s
okay, you want to be its slave because that’s what you think of yourself
anyway, so you beg it to kill off who you were, and worse, who you are, and far
worse, who you’re trying to become.
There are
no words for this kind of loss. I can
say I was depressed for years but the scope and the magnitude are in terms of words
that don’t exist. I can only say that I
truly understand how and why it takes the light from a dying star several years
to reach the Earth.
And by the
time the light reached the Earth, I was already bound like prisoner to my
addictions. And when the light attempted
to break upon my conscience, I predictably clung to the filth kept in the dark
corners of my psyche, forcing me to live the lie, to uphold this lie that was
my life.
So when the
light found the darkness, as in my experience, it eventually will, I was
watching the weather forecast which predicted thunderstorms with dangerous
lightening, high winds, and hail. I’d
been trying to quit for a few days at that point and just needed to go for a
drive, or do something to distract myself.
I didn’t really want to leave but was feeling the restlessness and
anxiety that usually precedes the escape.
There’s
this beach area on the edge of a lake in our town. It’s got a pier and hot dog stand, volleyball
nets where hot little college boys and girls play on weekends and summer
days. No one was there so I took off my
shoes and walked the beach awhile talking to myself, sometimes within my own
head, other times aloud, all the while scanning the west, noticing the way the
sky made the distinction between calm and storm.
I wandered
to the pier and must have stared out into the blue for almost an hour before it
started sprinkling.
I closed my
eyes knowing I needed to experience what was about to happen.
“What is it
you really want?”
“I just
want to feel better,” I responded to myself.
The chaos
surrounding me siphoned the chaos inside of me.
The lightening evoked a thunderous rage and I screamed from a place I
never knew existed, it was shelter and catharsis, a sense of recognition. The harder it rained, the harder I wept. It had been so long since I was that raw with
real emotions, trapped without a way to escape them or numb myself, and yet, it
was the trap that released me. I was
forced to witness the ashen remnants of the destroyer I had become.
Afterward,
as I headed back to the car somebody asked me if I’d gotten caught in the
storm.
I laughed
as if I hadn’t the energy to do so, whispering, “Did I get caught in the
storm?” My eyes filled with tears they
couldn’t see from that distance.
They asked
if I was alright. I shrugged
haphazardly.
“Are you
okay?” they called again.
I couldn’t
talk so I shrugged again and didn’t turn to see the puzzled look that was
probably on their face.
I was doing
alright, had a place of my own on the other side of town, a job at a grimy
little diner when it happened again a couple weeks later.
Everybody
was complaining about the past two cloudy days.
Privately, I felt an anticipatory rush as the sky darkened to a deep
blue-gray that afternoon. I was refilling
some lady’s coffee when there was a sudden flash to my left. I looked out, unable to stop myself.
Vaguely I
heard, “Excuse me, you’re SPILLING MY COFFEE!”
The wind
began to shake the trees violently as huge raindrops pelted the windows. I felt the coffee pot slip from my hand, hot
liquid and glass shards exploding on the floor, all over my legs, and though
the lady screamed, I watched the storm for a minute before heading out into it.
Another
time I abandoned a full cart of groceries to experience the torrential sky lift
me into its upheaval. I broke off dates
with friends if the weatherman foretold of storms that day. And then something altogether paralyzing
occurred to me as the leaves changed color, and temperatures began to drop
significantly.
Panicking,
I turned on the national weather radar.
It showed a gluttonous mass of precipitation headed for Albuquerque,
another passing through Arizona, a third just over the Florida border. I packed suitcases, and booked a flight to
Jacksonville.
“What is it
you really want?”
I just want
to feel better,” I responded to myself.
I remember
saying that within the intention to destroy ourselves we choose the thing that
will take us far away from the world.
What if we choose to step back into the world in order to destroy
something within ourselves? Can it work
that way?
I didn’t
understand it but I do now.
Pain is
hidden for good reason. I know this
because of what happened. I know this
because what was intended to be a process of rebuilding was, in fact, a slow
and deliberate act of self-destruction.
The destroyer almost always appears to be piecing shards.
Kamchatka
peninsula: captured and tortured then
escapes. In
Battles Like These
(A
monologue from 2004)
Are you real?
I mean,
are you being real with me?
I’m really scared,
really…cautious.
I just don’t trust people.
Too much shit has happened.
Friends, even some in my family
have
betrayed me,
sworn allies turned out to be
liars, thieves, spies
from behind enemy lines.
I’m asking you because,
I just,
for some reason,
I trust you.
Talking to you has made me feel
a little better about things.
For years,
I had no one, so I
talked to myself aloud all the time-
probably sounds crazy, I know,
but like I said before,
too much shit has happened.
I would talk to myself
in the morning,
just before the sun hovers
over the horizon,
when the sky is so beautiful.
I would talk to myself
in the middle of the night,
which is the hardest because
the silence and the darkness
screams
what it means to be alone,
talking to yourself
from behind enemy lines,
praying to God that no one hears
you,
yet, secretly wishing they would.
Everyone I’ve loved over the years
has either left, or turned on me.
I don’t know if they were
allies gone bad,
or enemies the whole time.
I’m doing everything I can
not to numb myself,
but I think it’s already happened.
Nothing seems to shock me anymore.
I have tried so hard to be a decent,
moral person,
to follow the rules,
but then I am reminded
that there are no rules
in battles like these.
Maybe it is when you finally
surrender
that they win.
Maybe they have won because
I am not the same person I used to
be.
I am exhausted.
I’ve compromised too much,
I’ve lost too much,
I want to be myself again.
I’m paranoid,
I’m scared,
I’m numb.
I’m crouched beneath explosions
right above my head,
miles away from home,
light years from safety,
watching my soul wither,
wondering if there’s a God,
sobbing beneath the moon.
Why am I still here?
Am I still here?
How do I trust you
after everything I've been through?
I need you to be real.
Why am I talking to you?
Are you yet another enemy
that I'm mistaking for
an ally?
Please be real.
Please.
invisible torture
Chapter 10:
yemen bus bombing
“It
is a scream
I
cannot let leave
my
soul
until
the last stone
is
thrown.
I do
not believe
in
revenge,
so I
swim
to
the thermocline with
songs
of prophets
and
stacks of
old
newspapers.
Kindness
feels
more
destructive
than
cruelty.
Healing
is often
tectonic.
Ancestors
burned
pathos
and verse
into
cave walls
until
all cocoons were
mere
fables,
until
I was
echoed
by
guardian
angels
until
God wept
the
somber
glow
of
every living thing.
Chapter 11
micah jones will come to the village of sawa Syria; the monestary for a funeral
Desert
ravens cawed and scattered
in a
wide clockwork opening from
the
sudden force it took
for
that dream to beat again.
It
dangled awkwardly
from
an old saguaro.
Coyotes
prowl
peyote
clouds,
a
shamanist howl,
a
cataclysmic
fortune-telling
of
such events.
Cicadas
and mothers
follow
Ocotillos brush
to
the Last Judgment.
A PRAYER BEFORE
“Burn
this ecstatic
death
in the name of
the trinity.
You were there
as my ancestors
approached
the tomb.
You wore the
rosary
like a black
stranglehold
exhuming your
every
Chapter
12:
LAOS
land mines (denuclearization)
I was writing a story
for the paper,
exposing cutting-edge
tech weapons and
wars waged
against the unarmed
and the
ultraviolet.
It was an attempt to
break the
sound barrier to
infiltrate
minefields
and riots.
My memories and
breathing
have changed.
F-16’s still
quarry the
audio fade of
derelict soil.
I yield
to melodic harps and
dying beings submerged within
the womb of consciousness
at first light.
Echoes,
frequencies,
poverty
and your medieval obsession
to break
what is, long since,
broken.
Be warned,
there is
something
in the woods
unheard of,
guns loaded,
unborn.
The sky was
dying
among the
Ayahuasca.
I went there
to save them
from burning
and was
buried alive.
Chapter 13 : New Mexico Old Trinity Site
now concentration camps performing experiments, puppets
At
each phrase,
a
gilt,
almost
baptismal,
the
way
wasps
burned
ololiuqui
moths
gold.
The
advancement of those stars
were
never meant
to
be deciphered.
In
the etched hieroglyphs
of
humanity’s dead heroes,
some
fated coincidence
collapses
the ecliptic,
Oceana
shrieking the
parable
of
God’s eye.
Dilapidated
boxes
bloom. Overhead, frayed
catharsis and
rain.
Excavators
burn
Acacia to
collect
the echoes
of
Mephistopheles
broken
souls.
So
high,
they
were,
chained,
speaking
of nothing but
freedom.
A
rising power
unlike
any
invisible
fire
forgiven.
A
snagged attempt to
self-actualize
through
blunt
thorn
euphemisms.
Why
such panicked eyes?
Let
he who is within
a
stone’s throw from
lacerating
cold,
forced
entry,
floods
to drown,
unending
fatigue,
both
mindless and mindful
dehumanization,
be
the first to
transcribe
the
primal
scream of
true
sin.
And
why is it,
why
must it be that,
when
we
extract
the information
we
seek,
by
brutally and sadistically
deteriorating
the
psyche
and spirit
of
another human being,
is
it finally,
supposedly,
possible
to reveal
ourselves
victorious,
and
acknowledge,
as
humanity,
just
how far
we
have come?
Chapter 22:
Ephren
recounts her torture, waterboarding, fgm
to
---------:
Something
held me under.
I
found it lying there
just
beyond the
melancholy
and ferns
where
brackish creeks open up
to
lyrical skies,
where
all could be left
to
the mistranslation
of
seeing ourselves
in
every verse.
I
only first realized,
when
the lotus bloom
took
me
into
the undertow,
when
a catatonic tide
finally
released shore,
the
actual,
not
the perceived,
depths
and intentions
of
those waters.
Tyranny
tore me from
the
confluence.
I
heard
purgatorial
words
addressed
to the world
of
how life’s meaning
is
for the construction
rather
than the search
for
one’s self.
I
turned to the
trail
leading back
as
if the tracks
could
not be located.
I
turned to the bow
and
saw my prayers
incinerate
beneath
a pyroclastic sky.
I
raised the anchor.
When
the
light-carriers
finally came,
this,
this
was all
I
had left.
Riptide
On a
glacial path
of
overgrown grass
I am
told the weather pattern
hatches
elsewhere.
Discordant
swarms
of
yellow and white.
I am
traced
to
the beginning.
I am
woven from
a
burning spool.
I am
devoured and strewn
over
the water on both sides
of
the exodus.
These
dreams
do
not belong to the day.
The
riptide
pulls
us
from
the shore of
all
we have ever known
out
to the very inscription
of
our identities.
I
rehearsed the backlash
even
when I saw the
poplars
phosphoresce,
even
when there was a chance
the
current may
displace
me to solid ground.
At
times,
I
cannot bear
my
own fragility.
I
pace a line of Alders,
requisitioning
the theoretical,
refracting
the sneer
of
my own corrosive despondency.
I
chase jackals,
(transcendental)
to
the
sacrament
of my undoing.
Tonight
I walk
through
the barrage,
regretting
I wanted
to
feel
any
of this
Chapter 23:
_______ to Ephren
There are more questions than
answers.
Is there is a force within us that
cannot be changed or broken?
Is that force our mind
or our soul?
Is it when we build walls
to protect ourselves,
or is it when we
expose our souls to the world
that we gain inner strength?
Is it when we look to the future with
hope,
or is it when we confront our pasts
that we know we have healed?
Is it when we believe
things happen for a reason,
or is it when we accept
responsibility for our choices
that we become enlightened?
Is it through our own pain,
or is it through
recognizing the pain of others
that we learn compassion?
Is it through self-analysis,
or through struggle
that we discover
who we truly are?
All
I’ve ever wanted
was
to metamorphose
my
identity into the lines,
‘these
are the days of my life where all is gold,
save
verse,
where
failure is not worn
like
an echo’.
Never
more alone,
I
cannot untether
the
fabric
of
who I am
from
the rest
of
humanity.
I
have and always
will
be affected
so
it remains
pain
to art,
lies
to truth,
dark
to light,
black
to blue
from
me to you
Chapter 24
I will meet you
somewhere
between the
theta waves
and this wounded
refusal
to die.
But you have to
be there,
truly be there
amidst the
graves
and the killing
laughter
which revels in
your
every death.
The thefts,
and the burns
broadcast
a sudden
madness,
your
premeditated
deterioration.
Only when I
washed up
on these brinks,
did I choke
on the tombs
of my killers.
The next storm
has already been
planned.
I will be here
if you need me
with nothing
left
to be taken.
Chapter 25:
It was a dying second on the edge
of life, another calculated
misunderstanding,
a trap I barely escaped, an
opportunistic wound never allowed
to heal, still waiting,
always make-believing you would take me from
these broken burns, take
me anywhere beyond dreamless sleep
and storms.
