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256 - The Traveler, Chapt. 29
Half of the sun was below the horizon when the Devil came strolling along the beach. He was barefoot, and his white linen pants were rolled up to the knee. He wore a white jacket, and no shirt. His hair was perfect, his tan unblemished, his eyes as black as his soul. He sighed as he took a deep breath of the sea air and released it, and he stood near to us and watched the sun setting in a deep blue sky cut through with violet cirrus clouds.“Mr. Jones,” he said with a nod. “And Miss --?”We looked up at him. Shekinah threaded her arms through mine and waited for him to drop the pretense. It didn’t take long. Despite his age, the Devil is not known for his patience.“Fine. Alright then,” he said, his eyes on Shekinah. “How shall we play this? Do you intend to beg for your freedom, or will Mr. Jones make a feeble attempt at protecting you before I take you?”I shifted on the towel and let my feathers flex. The Devil yawned.“You were always the most like the monkey-boys, Gabri-el. I think that’s why the Word felt closest to you.”I smiled in return. “Come, now. You were the Morningstar. You were the most beautiful, the highest, the greatest. Greater even than Micha-el. When the Consciousness spoke Light into existence in the first moment, you were there. The Heir stayed and did as the Father expected, but He never stopped loving the Prodigal Son.”The Devil actually took a step backward. I couldn’t believe I was the first to suggest such a thing to him, that no matter how he debased himself or tried to dishonor his Father, all that could be forgiven if he only repented and returned home. The Patriarch would welcome him with open arms and call for a feast and give him his inheritance. It was not just a parable. It was the very hope of Creation and the reason time existed at all.For a brief moment, a spark flickered in his black eyes.“When did you become the trickster, Gabri-el?” he said. “Was it all that time you spent wandering as a man? Did they teach you to deceive?”“They taught me many things, my old friend. And if you could see beyond your hatred of them for even a second, you’d understand that.”Shekinah stood. It was a slow process, and she used my shoulders as a brace to get to her feet. The Devil watched her closely, in case this was a trick, some opening gambit in a last effort to escape him. She merely brushed the sand from her jeans and walked to the water’s edge.The last distended orb of red light from the setting sun disappeared behind the horizon. The sky went dark. Overhead, the stars began to move. The Watchers were coming. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I knew the Indian was bringing Lilith to meet us here as well. I thought about Cain, and for a moment I had a flash of him sitting in his garden by a fountain, very still, watching the sky.Satan looked at the moving stars and glowered. “Bring your armies, woman. I will bring forth mine as well!”That’s when the shadows came alive and things moved out of the bluffs and the grass.I did not move. I let the creatures gather at the Shining One’s back, ruefully noting that he no longer shone like the sun. He had let the darkness of his spirit dim his eternal light. Lamps and bushels, I thought. When the bushel basket is removed, what would be revealed?Shekinah glanced back at me. She stood tall. She had come to light his fire.“Much as I would love to smite these poor Fallen beasts of yours,” I said, “we did not call these beings here to battle. Friend Lucifer, how does one have a wedding without witnesses?”Shekinah limped closer to me and gave me her hand. I held out my left hand, and Satan gingerly draped his fingers across my palm. Despite my best intentions, his touch made my skin crawl. My heart thundered in my ears with a call to battle. But I moved the two hands together, let them lace their fingers.“In sight of God and this company, we have come together to join these two,” I said to any who could hear. “Let he who objects to this union speak now or forever hold --”My next words were lost in the roar of the Harley that vaulted off the bluff above us and exploded into a fireball as it hit the sand, and out of the blaze rose Big Mike, shedding his human skin, growing into a tower of muscle and anger, and letting his black wings unfurl in the blast as he drew his longsword. It burst into flame and he came rushing at me with a piercing cry.“Excuse me,” I said to Shekinah and Satan, and I left them holding hands at the water’s edge. I leaped to meet Micha-el in the air.-----(c) 2008 by Tony Simmons
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257 - The Traveler, Chapt. 28
As I kneeled before her and drank from the clear, cool spring water of that hidden Florida creek, I could see Lilith’s twisted reflection looming behind me. I saw what she had let herself become in the dark ages of Man that she had survived. Broken inside, hateful, spiteful. I stood and showed her the reflection, and looking down, she saw me towering over her, my multicolored wings spread wide and pin feathers trembling in the breeze.“Remember how we walked in the garden, Lilith?” I asked her. “Recall how it was in the earliest days of Creation?”“It can never be like that again,” she said. “I can’t be like that again.”“Of course you can. You only have to want it.”I moved away from her, just a man, and she turned toward me, just a woman. She glanced back at the gurgling creek, then met my eyes.“Come walk with me,” I said.I led her into the piney woods, and it was like we were back in the garden. She traveled lightly, her tiny hand in mine, and we soon smelled the bitter smoke of a wood fire carrying through the trees. Screaming Thunderbird came out of his tipi as we entered his clearing. He crossed his arms and glared at us.“You wandered far,” he said, and I wondered if he was talking to me or to Lilith. In either case, it was truth he spoke. Lilith had indeed wandered far from home, and I had crossed time and space in the minutes since stumbling out of his tent.“I’m going to Shekinah,” I announced. “When the sun sets, bring Lilith to us.”Thunderbird took Lilith‘s hand and she met his eyes, unafraid.“How will I find you, Mr. Jones?” he said.I smiled at him and rose to my full height. I shook loose my wings and flexed them. It had been a long time, but I was awake now, and I remembered everything. Everything. I shook my head at Thunderbird.“Follow the signs. The lights in the sky will lead you through the darkness.”I took to the sky. It was effortless and true. It was like I had been freed from bondage. I soared above the hills, up beyond the clouds, to where the curve of the earth became obvious to the eye. I knew there were powers here I need not confront yet, and I knew the Prince of the Power of the Air would know I was back. Perhaps he had known me all along, and had merely played his games with me out of curiosity; little is hidden from the Shining One, but his own heart. Even he doesn’t know that secret.But the Hand of God knows it.It’s the reason Shekinah returned in this age. It’s the reason all the powers are stirred up. Some of them want the truth and the light reunited, the Consciouness once splintered made One again. Some of them would war in heaven and on the earth to keep the status quo.“She’s on the edge, neither here nor there,” Thunderbird had said of Shekinah when I asked him where she had gone.I found her back at the beginning of things, standing on the edge of the sea, beneath tall bluffs of sand and grass, where lately the creatures of the deep had flung themselves in confusion and ecstasy and a sense of things ending. Most of them were gone, cleared by wildlife officials or returned to the depths, though a few carcasses remained, rocking limp in the surf.I floated down over her, circling gently like the flocks of gulls that called and scattered from my path. She smiled up at me, and for the first time I realized how badly wounded she had been in that last mad minute in the Mustang. Her right arm and the right side of her head was bandaged, her ribs were wrapped, and her long black hair had been shorn short and ragged.I settled on the sand, and it squeaked under my boots. She moved to one side gingerly and patted the towel on which she sat. I folded my wings close and sat beside her.“Why didn’t you heal yourself the way you healed me here that night?” I asked.“It’s part of the experience. Why do this at all if I’m just going to change the rules as I go? It has to be real or it doesn’t matter. You know that. What a silly question, Mr. Jones.”We watched the sun sinking toward the water. It grew large and red, like one of Cain’s tomatoes.“They’ll be here soon,” I said. “The Shining One will ask for your hand and the power of Creation.”She nodded and leaned closer, laying her head on my shoulder.“And you will give me to him, won’t you?” she said.I shrugged my shoulders, and her head bounced up and down. She turned to look at me, and I felt the depth of emotions behind her ocean-green eyes.“If that’s really what you want,” I said.-----© 2008 by Tony Simmons
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258 - Gimme one more chance
No story tonight. No excuse, just no time.But I've been reading about angels, and I have the next sequence in my head, so time is all I need to tell the story.Soon.
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259 - Orna Mental
We put up the Christmas tree tonight. Listened to holiday music. Laughed and told stories. Cried.Donna and Ashley helped. With the extra hands, the ornaments went on the tree in record time. We laughed through various renditions of songs, including some that we made up our own words for. But when the Carpenters sang "Merry Christmas, Darling," the lights grew a dimmer for a while, dragged into that black hole of heartache from which we will never quite escape.Except by way of each other's love. And some of that Christmas spirit, which is why we put up the tree so early this year.I need a little Christmas. Right this very minute. Candles in the window. Carols at the spinnet.And I hope this upcoming season brings some light and laughter into your lives as well. It seems so dark sometimes. We can use a little Christmas now.Peace.T
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260 - another day bites the dust
and so another day goes byand events conspireand maybe there was a nap in there too, to kill an hour or moreso anyway, maybe tomorrowa story. Peace.
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261 - The View from the Sleeping City
The canals were dark, the moons low in the night sky. To the east, a dust devil rose impossibly high, blotting the stars, and then melted to nothing. He nudged his raft away from the bank and let the tiniest current ease him down range, closer to the soft emerald glow of the city on the horizon. The night was silent and empty, except for a low moan that might have been the wind or may have been the ghost of a lost riverboat captain from the days when the canals ran deep and fast. The moan carried over the banks and into the rusty hills, and was gone, leaving only the stars and the dust and the trickling sound of shallow water lapping at the raft.And the cold. It was harsh and biting, a winter chill that never eased in these last days of the world. It ached in the old man’s joints and tingled in the tips of his fingers and toes. It caused his breath to mist and his eyes to water and his nose to burn. He watched the second moon dipping below the horizon to the west and wondered if there were still people living there, and whether they were cold in their moon cities, and lonely.The first docks approached as the raft neared the quiet walls of the city on the canal. Soft lights glowed in the quiet streets and empty towers, eaten by time. He drew alongside a broken pier and tied off his raft, shouldered his duffle and walked along aging timbers until his feet touched dry earth. He stared up at the walls of sleep and silence, and thought of all the creatures who once had dreamed in the nights here, coiled in pillows or nests or furs, wrapped in each other’s limbs, warm and safe and secure in their fantasies of slumber.Home again, he walked the dark streets, where desert sand and the decay of ages told their parables of forgetfulness. The city had faded like a dream upon waking, even as all who once lived here were gone now to the long sleep, never to dream again.They had been those who remained after so many fled to the twin moons, and others remade themselves into new forms more suited for different air and higher temperatures and brighter days and journeyed to the blue planet, third from the sun. He wondered how they fared and if they would someday look back over their shoulders to a forgotten home and see the giant stone face he had sculpted in the desert to stare after them down through the millennia.From the highest tower in the midst of the old city, he could look up at the little bluish light in the sky, the planet so near and yet so easily mistaken for a star, and he could almost imagine his long lost countrymen staring up into their sky at what appeared to be a reddish light, almost a star. He could imagine that they knew he was watching them and wondering about them.And he wondered what they dream about in their new world, and whether they ever felt a longing for a home they couldn’t quite recall.-----(c) 2008 by Tony Simmons
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262 - Freedom
If"The best things in life are free,"but"There is no free lunch,"thenThat explains the price of a burger these days.(You want an apple pie with that while you think about it?)
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263- The Traveler, Chapt. 27
From the Book of Cain:There is a medieval legend that I wandered the earth until, one day, having walked every part of the land and having nowhere left to go, I went to the moon. There, in that barren place, I finally settled, having only the bundle of twigs I had carried with me.I never went to the moon. The fact that I have to tell you this is a sign of the wonders you have seen. That you could believe such an incredible thing might have happened? You have witnessed strange things indeed.But let’s say that I lived into the 1960s. And let’s suppose that I worked my way into the space program. Is it impossible that, among my many personae that I have adopted over the ages, I might have become an Air Force pilot and then an astronaut? And that, one day in the early 1970s, a few trips into the moon missions (I will not reveal which one), I set foot on the lunar dust and planted seeds in the powdery surface.I only wish my gift had been returned to me before that time, just to see if the moon could have yielded to the blessing of the creator and given forth fruit in abundance.And as I stood there and looked across the void at the little orb on which I had been born, you stood there beside me.An angel without wings, without even the memory of wings, but who had found a way to break the bonds of earth and soar again among the stars.And I knew who you were, even if you did not. I turned to you. I asked you a question.“Do you believe in God?”You didn’t answer right away, and I thought perhaps you pretended not to hear. I didn’t repeat the question.“I believe in that,” you said, and pointed at the earth.“What you can see?”You kicked up some moondust, and you grunted.“I can’t see gravity,” you said, “but I’d be stupid to say it didn’t exist. And yet, I also long to defy it.”I thought about that, and I asked, “Given the chance to defy God, would you do so?”You didn‘t hesitate: “If I thought I was right.”And that’s when I decided you wouldn’t have an unfortunate accident there on the moon. That’s when I knew you had been a good choice for the mission Shekinah had in mind.You were the hand of God, but when you stood with God against Lucifer in the time before time, because it was the right thing to do, not because of blind devotion or a lack of free will. And you would stand against God for the right reasons. You would stay his hand if need be.I only wished you would recall our time on the moon when next we met. What things we might talk of then!I held up my gloved hand and pretended to squeeze the distant planet between my fingers.“It’s like a big, ripe tomato,” I said.“It’s like a dream,” you said.And we were both right.-----(c) 2008 by Tony Simmons
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264- Character Idea: Garland Boulevard
Garland Boulevard was not a place. He was a state of mind.He was also the quickest way between two opposing points. Not so straight and narrow, more of a great wide way. Flashy, some might say, since he liked to light it up.He got the last name from his daddy, a man of the road as you might surmise, and the first name from a finger dropped in a phone book that landed early in the Gs. No middle name, no initial. No number.Early on, he made his own way. Walking young led to hitchhiking young, and everything else came too soon as well. Too soon, he was sure, his own “No Outlet” would present itself. His “Dead End.”Until then, he watched the signs, mostly so he could ignore them. He never learned what “Yield” meant, though he “Merge”d more often than not. “Stop?” Never. At least, not of his own volition.He thought the three-colored lights were Christmas decorations.And he loved the holidays.Especially the garland.-----(c) 2008 by Tony Simmons
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265 - Why there's no story today
Spent the evening working on final touches for the long-overdue second volume of "CITY LIMITS," the official literary anthology of the Panama City centennial.If all goes according to plan, there should be word about availability of the books through direct order by this weekend. Contributors will be hearing from me soon.And I hope to plan a big debut party shortly. Look for details here.Peace.
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