BACK FROM THE DEAD?
"
The most beautiful people we haveknown are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, knownloss, and have found their way out of those depths."- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
If you have been paying attention, and shame on you if you haven't ...
“A good friend listens to your adventures. A best friend takesthem with you.”
- Sentient
Major Richard Blaine, orphan and reluctant host to an alien entity, is being hurled back into life ...
BACK FROM THE DEAD?
“Coming back from the dead is notquite the same as coming back to life.”
= Major Richard Blaine
‘Hurt. I hurt. Hurt!’
‘Of course, you hurt. You did notgive me sufficient time to prepare a realm within me to house your body.’
‘I thought you told me you couldtransport a person from place to place.’
‘I can but not instantly, notupon a heartbeat’s demand, nor to satisfy an idiot’s whim. As with the entirehistory of Mankind, you have brought this agony upon yourself. But there isgood news.’
‘It will end soon?’
‘No. Long weeks of healinginduced by me from within and from my essence without will be needed.’
‘How good then?’
‘Your injuries can be logicallyexplained by misleading the Army into thinking they were inflicted by your Nazitorturers.’
‘I don’t care what the Armythinks!’
‘But I do. I have need of you tobe in your military’s good graces, considered a hero, a living legend even.’
‘I don’t care what you need ofme.’
‘You should, for it is I who willheal you … or will not if you prove troublesome. Oh, speaking of living, yourMajor Laska is standing over your hospital bed this midnight with a poorlymaintained Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife held in his trembling right hand.’
‘What?’
‘The Fairbairn–Sykes fightingknife is a double-edged fighting knife resembling a dagger or poignard with afoil grip. It was developed by William Ewart Fairbairn and Eric Anthony Sykesin Shanghai based on ideas that the two men had while serving on the ShanghaiMunicipal Police in China before World War II.’
‘I don’t want its history! I wantto be able to move, to pry open my eyes, to at least to see him before he killsme.’
‘Oh, I do not understand why. Itwill be a depressing sight. But I have been healing your eyes as we mind-spoke.Here.’
I opened my eyes with a terriblesharp stabbing pain that seemed to pierce clear to the back of my skull. It wasnight, yet my healed eyes saw as if it were not. Sentient was right. What I sawhadn’t been worth the strain or the pain.
If I wanted a vision of thefuture should the Nazis win, Laska’s face gave it to me. Imagine a bootstamping on a human face - forever.
He had been given a handsomeface. Yet, years of conniving, plotting, back-stabbing, and lying had leached allthe compassion, mercy, and depth from it. It was a face you could imagine beingasked, “Et tu, Brute?”
There's nothing more interestingthan the landscape of the human face. Laska’s face was that of a Redwood forestsand-blasted by his cruel choices into a ravaged desert. The fiery heat of thatdesert burned in his dark eyes.
“I want to take that mockinglight from your eyes, Blaine. Why didn’t you die?”
I nodded my head to the ceiling.The agony that burned all down my neck made me instantly regret the motion.
I managed to husk, “I have …guardian angel.”
“I do not believe in God.”
I snorted, and I immediatelyregretted that move as well. “It … shows.”
That much effort left me burningup inside and out.
In South Africa, the gold minesextend so deeply into the earth’s crust that they are hot. The rock walls burnthe miners’ hands.
The companies there have to air-condition themines. If the air conditioners break,the miners die. The elevators in the mine shafts run very slowly, down, and up,so the miners’ ears will not pop in their skulls. When the miners return to thesurface, their faces are deathly pale.
I felt like one of those miners.
What do you think is the world'smost recognizable container of information? It is the human face. We areconstantly reading each other and responding.
Laska’sface was telling me nothing I wanted to know … except he lacked the guts tokill me now that I was looking him in the eye.
I wet mydesperately dry mouth with a cracked tongue. “What’s … holding you … back, …Laska?”
The voice that should have beenan ocean away sneered from the open doorway,
“Ourdoubts are traitors,
and makeus lose the good we oft might win,
byfearing to attempt.”
Major Laska shrieked like afrightened little girl. He dropped the dagger and, pushing past the disgustedSister Ameal, ran out the open door and down the hallway.
She gracefully bent and picked upthe knife. The nun ran a thumb carefully along one edge. Her thin lips curledin distaste.
“He has let the edge grow dull.”
I blinked my blurring eyes thatrefused to clear. “’The good …we oft … might win?’ … Who … would win … frommy … murder, sister?”
“The list is long, young sir.”
A slender nurse rushed into theroom. “What is going on?”
I nodded to Sister Ameal for herto answer since my tongue was dry stone.
She was gone … as if she hadnever been there.
“Oh, my,” said the nurse as shebent down even more gracefully, and picked up the dagger.
“What a wicked looking blade. Didthat soldier drop this? Who was he?”
Some imp was turning out thelamps in my mind, but I managed to croak. “Major … Laska … thought my … throatneeded … slitting.”
