Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 4

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE and the MAGIC of THE THRESHOLD

 

There are moments that happen that change how you look on life and on what is and is not possible.    You are never the same afterwards.  
 The Nativity was one of those times.

 There is even a word for this situation: “Liminality.” 
“Liminality” is the word for the threshold moment: 
from the Latin root limin, meaning the centerline of the doorway.
  Liminality is the moment of crossing over. 

It describes the transitional phase of personal change, 
where one is neither in an old state of being nor a new, 
and not quite aware of the implications of the event. 
All the stages of life include liminality. 

Life is nothing but moments of crossing over. 

Liminality is why we celebrate Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve but not other holidays’ eves.



We celebrate Christmas Eve 


because Jesus is traditionally thought to have been born at midnight.  



And we celebrate New Year’s Eve because midnight is when the year changes. 




Christmas Eve is a threshold moment.




We can choose to stay on the other side of the moment, 


refusing to enter and accept what gifts await us.


After all, for most of the world there is still no room in the Inn for He who breathed the world into existence.



Christmas Eve is the time to reflect on what awaits us beyond whatever threshold we choose to cross ...


to reflect on what thresholds we thought would always be there but now are gone, 


along with the mortal hearts that waited for us beyond them.



Whatever you believe, 


it can be a healing thing to take Christmas Eve to reflect on all the gifts given to you this past year


and on what needs exist in your surroundings that you can be an agent of healing by meeting. 



Christmas Eve revives the wonder of childhood 


where snowflakes sing on their way down to the ground, 


where faeries ice skate on bird baths, 


and magic waits for us to open the door of our hearts to let it in.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE, MY FRIENDS!

Pie Jesu
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem
Sempiternam
Requiem

***

Merciful Jesus
Who takes away the sins of the world
Grant them rest
Everlasting
Rest

Midnight Died Tonight

 

Mother always said, "No one has the right to complain about something that happens to everyone."

And everyone loses a beloved pet. It was my turn tonight.

I always had a companion when I wrote.

On the folding table beside me or the gray pillow beside my chair.

Both are empty tonight.

t

He curled up in the crook of my arm when I slept.

Not so tonight ... nor any other night now.

He always met me at the top of the stairs as he did tonight when I returned from Raising Cane's.

He was always so happy to me see that he would race around the front room ... as he did tonight.

But he stiffened mid-run and fell hard to the floor. He made one mute cry and was still.

His loving heart just gave out according to the late night vet.

The apartment seems so empty now ... the bed will seem even emptier ... and the hollow of my elbow will be empty as is my heart.

This has been a bleak Christmas.
Others have had a harder Christmas this year,but that does not lighten my heart.
I miss my friend.

DO YOU STILL BELIEVE IN THE MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS?

 

The magic memories of Christmas that most of us treasure are unique to each of us.

 

 Yet, sometimes clarity comes only upon reflection. 

 

We get so caught up with the tugs and pulls of the season that we miss the truly priceless people and moments. 

 

 If we but reflect we will see that 

 

We were blind to the love healing us and holding us tight in the arms, words, and actions of those we too often took for granted.

 Still, 

 

we were innocent enough to see fairies dancing upon frosted lake surfaces, 

 

to taste the falling snow, 

 

and to laughingly make snow-angels.

 

 As adults the world is too much with us. 

 

 Yet, The Great Mystery has given us one month out of 12 to see the world as the child we once were, 

 

the child we can once again be if only we put down the hates and anguish that only harm us anyway.

 

 

If the yellow, green, red, and blue lights don’t twinkle with their normal festive happiness 

 

and instead glower like warning beacons, it is the mind that views them that has changed.

 

 The magic is still there, waiting for the child you once were to believe in it again.

 

By years of Hurt and Anger, you have closed the door to it. 

 

 But each time you smile to a hurried face that seems lost in life, 

 

each time you back up to allow a weary older person in line ahead of you,

 

each time you pause to look at the snow-layered buildings as the child you once were would see them --

 

you open the door to that Christmas Magic a little wider.

 

Every day you live can be magical 

if you work at it.  

 

 

The path of least resistance 

is to live in a world leeched of its color and vitality 

by Anger and Hate. 

 

 Choose to find the laughter and beauty as you live each hour.  

 

Each laugh, each act of compassion is a brushstroke that adds the color of magic back to your life.

 

The magic of Christmas has nothing to do with decorations, lights, presents, Christmas trees or anything so material.

It has everything to do with a little girl’s smile 

and a mom who buys real candy canes for their tree 

so she can hear her little girl giggle as they decorate it together.

Give a smile or a laugh to someone.  

The present you will receive will be ... 

Magical

The gifts we give that matter most 

are the ones that cannot be 

bought or sold. 

Me and Midnight looking for that Christmas Star

The love we share and the memories we leave behind, 

are the greatest gifts we can give. 

 

They are the only gifts 

that last a lifetime.

Talking about gifts ...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KQ8XMJR
Mystery, Murder, andChristmas ghosts
on location in New Orleansduring the filming of acursed Hitchcock movie.
The Kindle book (99 cents)is chilling

The audiobook narratedby the late Scott O'Dell,victim of last year's Florida hurricanes,is downright spellbinding. https://www.amazon.com/Beware-Jade-Christmas-Ghost-Story/dp/B08QR7MYHX/

SOMETHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

 Novellas (long short stories) are starting to make a comeback.

But they have been around for a while.


Animal Farm (George Orwell) A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson) The Turn of the Screw (Henry James) The Time Machine (H.G. Wells)
Now. they are starting to rear their print heads again.


Jason Arthur of Penguin Random House was quoted as saying

 “If a novel is something that you can lose yourself in, get comfortable in and spend weeks reading, a short story will give you a blast like a cold shower.”


 Stephen King loves reading and writing short stories.  

So do I.

I will take his advice:

"You should write because it brings you happiness and fulfillment. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”

I did a collection of new short stories -


SILHOUETTES IN THE KEY OF SCREAM  (which includes these new tales) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVFH1PF/
THE DEAD HAVE NO SAY -

 A post WWII movie lot at night.  A sociopathic prop master.  

A severed hand. A dying actress. 

All elements of a strange revenge whose victim is not who you think.



THE LEFT HAND OF GOD -

A small village that hates God. 

 A series of mysterious disappearances of its priests. 

And why do the rose bushes of the rectory bloom so lushly?


   
ALIVE YET NOT -

The things that death can buy are often not what they seem. An aging crime lord finds that the dead are past bargaining with.



  DO YOU READ SHORT STORIES?
DO YOU WRITE THEM?
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MY STORIES?

Someone With Skin On

 

CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS

Black Friday.  Cyber Monday.
We celebrate Christmas but often not from a Christian perspective.

If people enjoyed giving and receiving gifts, 

it might make Christmas healing in some way.

But most do not.  

Many feel obligated to spend too much for too many.

Is it because we have forgotten to be thankful and filled with awe at the gift of Christ, 

at the gift of our being able to love even if we do not feel loved?



A young boy kept coming out of his bedroom during a lightning storm 

to stand at his parents' bedroom door.

"No need to be afraid, honey," said the sleepy mother.  "God is with you."


"I need someone with skin on," he sobbed.

We all do at some point in our lives.  
Perhaps that is why God came to us wearing a human body --


 to give us someone with skin on.

But what if we do not believe in Christ or any God during Christmas?

For one month out of 12, 

Christmas Season gives so many a chance to bless those around us 

in ways that warm not only the receiver but the giver as well.

Giving someone a needed gift is like giving them a fragrant rose.  


Some of the perfume stays with you.
If for one month out of the year, 

we find ourselves remembering the magic and innocence of childhood dreams --


Christmas has still given us  a special present.




WISHING ALL OF YOU  A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

THE 4TH CHRISTMAS GHOST? IWSG Post

 

The  FOURTH CHRISTMAS GHOST?
The Ghost of Christmas Never To Be ... Again.

Perhaps Christmas will never be as innocent as we remember because we are not as innocent as we were then.

Families were bigger in the Christmases of the Past

Now, single child families are the norm ...where Mommy and Daddy may be separated, divorced, or never togetherin the first place.

LONELY is now the word that comes to mindat the mention of Christmas for many when once it used to be  JOY 
POVERTY
Christmas has become a season of sorrow for many women who can barely put food on the table, 
much less presents under the tree. 

My mother was one such person.

Weeknight movies were cheaper than weekend showings.  
On the way back to our basement apartment, 
we would walk down dark, scary streets holding hands
and singing our theme song, Side By Side:
Oh! We ain`t got a barrel of money
Maybe we`re ragged and funny
But we`ll travel along
Singing a song
Side by side
With no money for a tree, 

Mother scooped up the largest fallen branch from the lot selling them and brought it home.

Topped with shiny aluminum scraps from Hershey's kisses, 

it was just as wonderful to me as the one in New York's Time Square.


CHRISTMAS MAGIC
Can be conjured to push back the 4th Christmas Ghost, if we but cling to the truth that love and imagination
is within the heart of each of us to share 
with all those in our world who are going through harder times than they appear.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KQ8XMJR{Only $1.99}
Celebrate Christmas Eve in 1946 New Orleans. The ghost of Charles Dickens recommends it!

CHRISTMAS AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

 

The recycled air was hushed.  
My scientists assured me we were on the brink of 
a revolutionary breakthrough in interstellar technology. 
I had it on better authority they were wrong. 
I sat alone in the crowded dining area of my scientific star vessel, Pequod.  


I was carving the baby Jesus from a very sensitive compound 
to put in the manger of my one of a kind Nativity Scene on my table.


I watched the woman pry herself from the squirming mass of scientists, decadent rich, and media stars.  
Clothes were archaic.  
Body paint was the rage.  Many of their bodies were painted to create the illusion of wearing clothes.


It was the sorry story of Man: 
Rebellion replaced new restraints for the old.  Conformity was the jailer of the soul, the enemy of freedom.  
 It was no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. 

I scandalized the passengers by being clothed in my black Stetson, broadcloth jacket, shirt, jeans, and boots.  
I was determined to die with my boots on.  
General Custer would be so proud of me.
I sighed as I studied the approaching woman.  
Fashion Obesity was all the rage in the populated worlds 
as were women's heads scalped to look like hard boiled eggs.
Rocio Facundo, the darling of slit-throat reporting.  
She had been responsible for so many suicides, she was called Lady Death.  
That name would not sit well with my expected guest.  Rocio twitched continually as she approached me. 
Two reasons:
One - 
humans were addicted to the feel of others' bodies pressed against them. 
Two - 
humans now needed constant stimulation so much that most had neural stimulators implanted into their brains.
When she spoke, Rocio affected an Argentine accent.  


Five hundred years ago, when the world finally succumbed to Man's cascading failure
to deal with terrorism, nationalism, and bacteria, Argentina had been the only country on earth to survive.
Rocio frowned as only some of her words were heard at my table.  


Lady Lovelace's last invention was her sound-filter of "colorful metaphors" as she called them, 
crying as she did so, thinking of the end of my son, Victor, and his wife, Alice.


Rocio's lips were glowing, letting me know we were being broadcast to her vicious, sadistic viewers.
"McCord, what harm are you festering here, breaking the law sitting by yourself?  
You know that privacy has been outlawed as the lone citizen is a potential risk to society!"


"As has heterosexuality," murmured Rind, suddenly appearing in the seat beside me dressed in a mini-skirted black Gestapo uniform.
It was hard to believe that the Nazi nightmare had faded in the memory of Man.  
Myself, I still couldn’t rid myself of the images of freeing the few pitiful survivors of the death camps. 
I remembered too much, understood too little.
Rind purposely flung back her long silver hair as a slap to the fashion-addicted Rocio.  
"Samuel, you named your craft Pequod.  How poetic of you."
Rocio rasped, "Teleportation in a moving star craft is not possible!"
Rind smiled icily.  
"The good news is that soon, child, you will not need to delete any more memories to make room for more."
Rocio frowned, "McCord, what does this out-of-date hag 
(eternal adolescence had been achieved by the Thymus Implants) 
mean by poetic?"
I said, "Pequod was named for the Pequot tribe of Native Americans who once inhabited New England during the 17th century, 
but were annihilated during the Pequot War and are now as extinct as compassion."


I sighed, "Call it foreshadowing."
Rocio frowned, "I do not understand."
Rind smiled, "You and the known universe will when this craft's Heisenberg Drive is activated."


Rocio said, "That fantastic drive will fold known space in ways that will allow Man to be a galaxy away in an eye-blink."
“It's nice to be sure," I said, finishing carving the detonator as the Baby Jesus, 
leaving his face an empty space as was befitting the Great Mystery.
A phalanx of armed guards tramped to my table as Rocio pointed at me with an accusing forefinger. 
 "See!  Against Galactic Statute, McCord is practicing religion."
I shook my Stetson-covered head.  "Don't do religion … just being respectful."


"Arrest him!" cried Rocio.
The guards' leader gruffed to me.  "Shall we eject her into open space, Captain?"
I shook my head again.  "It would be redundant."
I flicked cold eyes to Rocio.  
"As long as there has been Man, a fella could always buy the law if he had enough money."
I sighed.  We increasingly lived in a world that forgets.

 Companies had almost no sense of their own history, 
while politicians positively reveled in the fact that voters couldn’t remember 
(or chose to forget) 
lies, deceptions and even criminal behavior. 
That was a problem because power was essentially a battle between memory and forgetting.
I could tell my Head of Security to forcibly download Rocio’s memory of me into my ship's Recycle Bin.  
But in a moment that would be unnecessary.
"Bring her back to her womb of 'friends.'"

I turned to Rind, the Angelus of Death. "There are beds of kelp smarter than Man is right now.  But you're sure the Great Mystery says it's time?"
Rind smiled as if it were a raw wound.  "Our Victor would call it Existence's Blue Christmas."
"Now, it's me that doesn't understand."


Rind lightly touched the empty manager.  "When He was born, the sky was in red shift, the stars and galaxies heading away from your planet."
She sighed, "Now, outside this vessel, your eyes would see the blue shift as all descends into the center."
Her winter frost eyes grew wet and snowflakes flew up from them. 

"I have come for the universe, Samuel.  Trigger the Uncertainty Drive of this vessel and start the chain-reaction."
Her voice became that of a little girl's.  "When none live will I cease to exist?"

Inserting the Baby Jesus into the manger triggering devise, I smiled sadly.  "He promised Forever."
{FINI?}

INTO MYTH

 Just before I turn in, I look at my autographed, OLD ABE, CIVIL WAR MASCOT. on my entertainment center

https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Old-Abe-Legends-Folktales/dp/1585362328/
Wondering how long I will be able to stay in my apartment in this uncertain time.
And I recall a tale I told of another uncertain time:

Actual photograph of OLD ABE (in public domain)

INTO MYTH



It was April 21st 1865.

Ahgamahwegezhig looked at me huddled behind the mound of rubble.  He had been my father's best Ojibwe student.

I called him Chief Sky because every time I tried to pronounce his Ojibwe name, I sounded like I was a cat heaving up a furball.

He grunted,  “They also serve who only stand and wait,  but the pay is shit.”

He, Corporal Danvers, and I were all that was left of the Wisconsin 8th Infantry.

Well, there was Old Abe, the eagle mascot, of the company.  Captain Perkins named him after the President.

Who am I? 

 I’m Lt. Jim McGinnis, the last of a long line of teachers, and the idiot who volunteered to take care of Old Abe.

In August 1861, John C. Perkins, assisted by Seth Pierce, Frank McGuire, and Victor Wolf recruited a company of volunteers 

from Eau Claire and Chippewa Counties.

This company was called 

the "Eau Claire Badgers.”

Chief Sky had come along to make war on whites and because Old Abe belonged to him.  

Why didn’t he take care of Old Abe? 

The eagle liked to ride on my leather-shod shoulder.

And his talons hurt like hell.

On March 25th, the Claywater Meteorite 

At least, folks thought it had exploded. 

 

Then, the huge Tripods started walking about, killing everything living in their paths. 

The remnants of the Eau Claire Badgers were called back from Mansura, Louisiana to help fight 

the Star Fallers.

We didn’t fare too well.  But then, I had taken an oath.  

I meant to live up to it.

And to repay the debt of the dead … with interest.

I peeked over the mound.  The giant Tripod was still too close even though it was clanking along to the east.

Danvers licked his dry lips.  

“Lieutenant, we got to get us some water soon.  We’ve been three days without it.”

I said low, “If I were a creek, where would I be?”

Chief Sky looked at me.  “If I were a creek, I would be where the ground slopes.”

“Riiiight.”  

Sometimes it was good to have an Indian scout.

Old Abe was where I told him to go.  Up high in that cottonwood.  The tripod finally noticed him and swiveled slowly, its turret aiming at him.

From the bloody past, we had learned those Star-Fallers took three seconds to blow something apart. 

Up until then, they had some sort of invisible barrier around them.  I raised my already loaded Sharpes rifle.

The smooth, steady movement of my arms raised a shiver of panic in the rational man whose advice I was ignoring.

I aimed down that turret’s barrel, counted to two, and fired.

All of us flew to the ground, even Old Abe.

Bits of smoking metal rained down all around us.  

They were sizzling hot.  

Old Abe squawked as he flew down beside me. 

Chief Sky wasn’t any happier with me.

“Just like a white man to kill himself along with his enemy.”

“We’re still alive,” I said.

“Not for much longer if you follow this way of attack.”

Danvers ran his fingers through his red hair.  

“We ain’t gonna make it home, are we, sir?”

I said low, “There’s still a chance.  We’ll get there.”

Danvers looked to Chief Sky.  “What do you think?”

The last of the Ojibwe shrugged his shoulders and smiled crooked at me. 

  “As your trusted Indian scout, I must warn you that you are now on very thin ice.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“Hope.  You will starve to death 

if you insist on living on it.”

Danvers looked on his last nerve.  I glared at Chief Sky who flicked flat black eyes at the Corporal.  

He grunted a laugh.

“I will tell you a secret, Danvers.”

“What?” the Corporal asked, his voice sounding like a too-stretched skin on a drum.

“I believe that the heart is stronger than knowledge. 

That myth wins over history. 

That dreams beat facts.

That hope triumphs over experience. 

That laughter is the only cure for grief. 

And I believe that love is stronger than death.”

I sometimes forgot about how spiritual 

Chief Sky was. 

I had been raised as a Methodist where the highest sacrament was the bake sale.

He turned amused eyes to me.  

“I would also say the depths of the lieutenant’s stupidity have yet to be plumbed,

and ours is coming up fast for we follow him.”

Danvers made a face.  

“I was feeling better until that last.”

Chief Sky smiled like a wolf.  “Come, Danvers.  

As Eagle Walker says: 

‘We have oaths to keep and debts to repay.’”

And so with Old Abe flying overhead, 

did the last of the  "Eau Claire Badgers”

  walk into myth.

TRAGEDY HAS STRUCK ... FOR WHAT IS THERE TO BE THANKFUL?

 

Life is laced with the fault-lines of unpredictability. 
At the drop of a hat, disaster can strike. 

Everyone encounters death, heartbreak, devastating illnesses, job instability, and financial crisis. 

Perhaps it’s a personal situation that arises and then knocks you down. 

Maybe it’s the stress of your job that keeps you up too late at night.
Maybe it is the loss of that job to a company that has grown callous. 

Whatever it may be, we all experience the whirlwind of unpredictability at times.


I will not give you the litany of my own griefs.  

When your heart has been cut out of you, someone counting off their own woes is just salt in an open wound.

But when it happens to you, you may feel:

            Consumed
            Shattered
            Lost
            A Total Mess 
            Devastated
            Like a Failure
 
And when our lives feel like they are spinning out of control, 

it’s not always easy to think of what may be secretly waiting for us on the other side of our Valley of the Shadow. 
 
It’s difficult to feel hope or see the bigger picture.

At those times some talk of the Silence of Heaven ... as if.

 Pain never whispers or is silent.  
It shouts.  
And sometimes what we think of as a Silence to our pleas to Heaven is but a silent nod 

that there are Paths of Blood we must walk to go where ...


We learn the lessons we would learn no other way.

We teach those lessons to those who observe how we respond to what they will later encounter themselves.

We have hurtful walls we have erected around our hearts demolished by pain, anguish, doubt, and despair. 

We learn humility in an area where we thought we were healthy ... but were anything but.

 Prosperity is a window to a bright world.  

Tragedy is a mirror showing us who we really are.

What we have lost, we have lost.  

What we gain from the tragedy is up to us and our responses to the pain we wish would just go away.


No matter how tough you are, it is very easy to feel vulnerable, confused, or lost.

When things go terribly wrong, 

it is hard to feel anything but the chains of grief on your shoulders with no prison bars between which you can see the light of day.


REMEMBER:

1.) EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO US  FOR A REASON

I do not mean this as a cliche.  

It happens for the reason we assign it in our thoughts.  

In my World View, we are never alone.  
We have the Father guiding us down needful, and sometimes bloody, paths.

But that may not be your take on Life.

 Still, it is up to you to make what has happened in your life empowering or dis-empowering.  

Your thoughts can either help you or hinder you further.  

Your thoughts can either fan the flames of courage 

or stamp down whatever embers of it still remain.  

Your mind, your choice.

 2.) PAIN IS INEVITABLE; SUFFERING IS OPTIONAL

No season lasts forever ... not uplifting spring nor bitter winter.

Focus on pain and your concentration acts as a prism increasing its flames.  

Focus on a task outside of yourself no matter how simple, and the pain ebbs a bit.

There are always others worse off: focus on some small way to help them.  

Not up to helping out at a food kitchen? Phone for donations to it or another good charity. 

Your tragedy is not your whole story:

 try to make this but a small chapter of your story, headed to a healing ending.



3.) "IS" -- THE ONLY VERB YOU LIVE

This one moment is all you have.  

Is it full of pain?  

Each throb of pain is but a link in the bicycle chain of your life bringing you to healing -- 

if not of your body, then of your heart.

Are you still breathing? Of course you are. 

Then, great, you’ve just handled that moment. 

Are you ready for the next one that will bring you one step closer to engaging in your life again?


I do not have all the questions, much less all the answers to them.  

I merely hope that this has helped in some small way not to make the very thought of "Thanksgiving" a mockery.


 All of you are in my thoughts and prayers.  Roland

FALLEN WORLD, BROKEN SOULS

 

FALLEN WORLD, BROKEN SOULS

“If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes.”

 – Helen Mayfair

 

I frowned. “I am unfamiliar with this street, Sister Ameal.”

She grimaced, “That is because this street can be found only at night. It is Rue la Mort … where Meilori’s is located.”

“Is that where we are going?”

Mrs. Adams shook her head. “No, McCord has closed his jazz club for the duration of this world conflict.”

I frowned again. “The movie and radio mogul?”

She huffed, “That One is many things, chief of which is hated by me.”

Sister Ameal smiled thin as a paper cut. “Then, he must be doing something right.”

“Not in my ledger.”

Sister Ameal raised an eyebrow. “Your accounts are notoriously … in the red.”

Mrs. Adams arched her back. “How low brow of you.”

The nun retorted, “Speaks a low brow herself.”

“What nonsense are you spewing?”

“One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, 

ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.”

“Coming from a former paid assassin that is rich.”

“True, I killed for a price, but I never deluded myself or others into thinking I was doing it for the ‘greater good’ … which is merely a synonym for self-interest.”

I shushed both of them. “Hush. You are ruining a perfectly good girls’ night out.”

Mrs. Adams curled her perfect lips.

 “When I could rightly have been called a ‘girl,’ the term had not yet been coined.”

Sister Ameal bristled. 

“We are not out for an evening’s entertainment, Seraph. We are in search of an abomination to put it down.”

Madame President growled, “Over my undead body.”

“That could happily be arranged.”

In an attempt to forestall violence, I asked, “So where are you taking us, Sister?”

“Club Oblivion.”

Adams shook her head. “I have never heard of it.”

“It just opened up. My Nightcrawlers recently told me of it.”

“Nightcrawlers?” Adams made a face.

“Sherlock Holmes had his Baker Street Irregulars. I have my French Quarter Nightcrawlers.”

I sighed, my hopes of a colorful outing dashed. 

“Will the customers of this club tell us the whereabouts of this missing child-revenant, do you think?”

Sister Ameal snorted, 

“In Hell, you would be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. The same goes for those destined for that locale.”

It was my turn to make a face.

“If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves. 

Perhaps, there are a few souls in this club who have, as yet, not mutilated their better selves.”

“Then, they would not be in such a place as to where we are headed, Seraph."

And with those words we were standing in front of the lace-iron gates of the very place. 

Gleaming gold letters were etched over the fanged gate:

“Damned be the dark ends of the earth where old horrors live again.”

"Charming," said Mrs. Adams in a droll, making of the word three syllables.

I looked at the stone steps leading down and past the open gate. I grimaced.

‘Here the earth devours itself,’ I told myself. 

I didn't imagine a fissure at the bottom of the steps, I imagined a mouth. I deluded myself.

There were many mouths.

I started to go down the stairs when, knowing better than to physically touch one such as I, Sister Ameal held up a single palm.

“Hold.”

I stopped and turned to her as she whispered, “You do not think of yourself as arrogant and naïve, but you are.”

“Do tell me.”

As Mrs. Adams watched bemused, the nun did just that.

 “Your nature made you faster, stronger, smarter than any assailant enemies of your step-father set against you.”

I nodded. “I have taken no pleasure in taking those lives.”

Sister Ameal shook her head. 

“Such will not be the case with those you face down there. They take much pleasure in the agonies they inflict upon their victims.”

She breathed in deep, though I knew that, like the revenant beside me, she did not need to breathe to live … for she only appeared human.

“They have had centuries to perfect forms of martial arts I have, as yet, even had an opportunity to instruct you.”

She glared at the revenant queen. 

“This one had a twofold plan in approaching you tonight: one you know – to retrieve her pet. The other was to lure you here to your death, removing a threat to herself.”

I nodded. “I deduced as much.”

Adams frowned, “Then, why did you come?”

I sighed, “All around me see what they expect to see, while I see ... so many things.”

I reached out to touch her arm but pulled back as she flinched. “I see your soul.”

“Wh-What?”

“It still exists deep within you, though calling it ‘alive’ would not be quite true. I see it quivering, dew drops of blood glistening along the many mortal wounds you have inflicted upon it.”

I cocked my head towards Sister Ameal. 

“I will not reveal the existential loneliness of a cosmic creature that I view within you to our common enemy here.”

Her thin lips curled. “I believe you just have.”

I shook my head.

 “She knows the tip of the iceberg but not the majestic immensity that lies beneath.”

I drew myself up slowly. 

“As for myself, I am not the naïve doe you imagine me to be. I am … Other.”

I fought a shiver. 

“None like me no matter what that Scaramouche Darael believes. 

No other of my kind was created as a babe to grow as mortals grow in stature and awareness … away from the glories of the Gateless Realm.”

I lost to the shiver. 
“Even now, I grow. I now hear the death-bleats from the tortured soul waiting at the foot of these steps. It protests what its diseased host intends upon inflicting on me.”

I prepared myself to race down these cracked steps when I remembered the kind voice of Richard, who unknowingly spoke healing balm to my darkness. 

He had thought me but merely depressed, not contemplating suicide those day past.

“There are flecks of gold in the gravel of each moment, Miss Mayfair, if you but look close enough. 

Take that moment, be in that moment, live in that moment … not beyond that moment. It won’t be much, mind you. 

But it may prove enough to go onto the next one with a lighter step.”

With a restored sense of peace, I started down the steps. Mrs. Adams placed a restraining hand on my arm.

“Do not. That travesty I would ensnare again is not worth it. I … am not worth it.”

I smiled sadly. “But you are … now. See? You did not burst into flames at my touch.”

She hushed in a breath. “How?”

“You unselfishly thought of another over your own well-being.”

I withdrew a glistening rose from beneath my cloak. “From the lushness of Eden. Take it. You will not suffer from its touch.”

I watched her gingerly take it, not caring if I lied.

“Keep it high upon a wall in your bedchambers, Mrs. Adams. Mayhap its fragrance will remind you that your soul still lives … 

still fights to remain true to the love you once shared with your husband.”

Abigail Adams hunched over and walked slowly into the utter darkness.

I heard her whisper. “Gently are you revenged against me, Seraph.”

Sister Ameal frowned as I turned to go. “We are not going into Club Oblivion?”

“No need. I see that in those environs, the poor thing begins to age. Even now, she appears a teenager. Oh, I misspoke: she has crumbled into dust.”

I smiled of salt. “Sometimes, it is a fearsome thing to gain that for which we wish.”

I saw a flash of what lay in store for Richard … and myself and knew what I said to be true.

“Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams and our desires.”