TO TOUCH STRANGE FIRE

FOREVER IS COMPOSED OF NOW'S _ A TALE... WHEN SHADOWS EAT THE MOON

TO TOUCH STRANGE FIRE

St. Marok's Orphanage taught Major Richard Blaine to curb his impulsive nature, but under great stress, he acts impulsively ...

and usually ends up in trouble ... but never so dire as now.

TO TOUCH STRANGE FIRE

“The moon stays bright when itdoesn’t avoid the night.”

– Rabbi Lt. Amos Stein

I looked up into the hell-sky asif for inspiration and only saw Helen’s flaming angel form frozen in an arc ofsupple beauty and grace.

For some odd reason, the words ofthe forgotten poet, Robert Herrick came to me:

“Weigh me the fire; or canst thoufind

A way to measure out the wind?”

Helen was racing to a suicidalcharge against one hundred Nephilim … just when I had a glimmer of an idea howI might save her and the rest of my Spartan 300 … but me, not so much.

Now, she was flying away before Icould tell her … or was she?

I glanced at Darael. I could seehe was smirking though his features were misty … but not that misty.

What did the science for which heheld such distain teach us? What could bedone once could be done again.

I am an impulsive person whenunder stress. A thought hits me, and I act upon it. I can no more hold back anymore than it is in a thoroughbred stallion to race slowly.

I should have held back.

Since he was in my mind, what Iplanned was plain to him … but too late … for both of us.

“No!” Darael cried.

I put all my mind’s focus uponHelen, her essence, her very soul, the faint apricot perfume that wafted afterher whenever she passed.

All the sensations that embraced me when I held herimage close in the darkest of nights.

It went faster than I dreamed …which should have clued me in right away that the dream had become nightmare.

I was drowning in a roaringmaelstrom of madness worse even than when I awakened in the energy vortex withinSentient’s craft.

There was no up, no down, nothingmy mind could grasp as sane or earthly or reasonable.

The fiery cataclysm arabesqued incurrents of sizzling jade and searing silver.

“NO!” screamed Helen from allaround me, though I could see her nowhere in this swirl of searing energies.

“You cannot be here!”

I put a shrug in my words thoughI couldn’t see myself any more than I could see Helen.

“Well ….” I began.

“Yes,” she snapped, her wordsbillowing in my mind. “Obviously, you can. But you should not!”

“Why?”

She ignored me as was her habitwhen truly annoyed with me.

“You should have been vaporizedthe moment you entered my essence. I am in touch with the Infinite!”

I heard the capitol letter to“Infinite” without understanding it.

I sensed her attention elsewhere,and she snapped, “Darael! I should have known you were behind this!”

“No, fledging seraph. This intrusioninto another seraph’s mind is beyond even me. This rash Son of Adam dragged mealong with his rash impulsiveness.”

A low Voice, so modulated in wavesof utter power and calm, it tremored the very marrow of my bones, spoke in astrange, bemused tone.

It possessed an air of massiveantiquity.

‘Believe the provocateur, HelenMayfair. Darael has a poet’s high, almost satanic, pride in what he can andcannot do.’

“Elohim!” They both cried out insheer fear mingled with cavernous deep awe.

I did not need them to identifythe Speaker.

I could not say that I knew Him. Only One hadthe right to say that, and the sons of Man had murdered Him.

‘How quaint. You, the black sheepof all my experiments, take off your shoes, as it were, in my Presence.’

“The prayers of Curtis and Richard,my smallest Spartans … they are keeping me in one piece here, aren’t they, sir?”

Praying He had a sense of humor witha corresponding sense of the absurd, I ended with …”Over.”

Helen gasped, “Richard, are youaddled?”

The deep, mellow laughter went onfor an ice age or two, then, finally,

‘Yes, he is … as what might beexpected of an orphan who has survived his season of Gehenna at St. Marok’s.’

I felt icy fingers brush back theforelock of hair that I knew deep down had not accompanied me into the essenceof the seraph whom I hopelessly loved.

‘Do not be too sure it ishopeless, Richard Blaine. I am the Deity of the Impossible. And you arecorrect: the moment you entered within all that is Helen Mayfair, the glow ofthe Spartan helmet pins went out.”

His chuckle was not cold, nor wasit kind.

‘They wailed at the sight as if their sides had been pierced witha spear …

and though both were an ocean apart, at the same moment, they beganpraying for you to be resurrected, of all things.’

This time his chuckle echoed puzzlement.

‘So, what was there for me to do, but honorsuch childlike trust and love? Thus, is your unthinking act of kindness to twowho could in no way benefit you rewarded.’

A sigh enveloped me.

‘You will be Man’s only briefly, whisperingof the road between realities and the path into the stars. Yet soon theirs nolonger.’

I felt a slap on my rump.

‘Now, off with you! It is timefor you to pull a miracle out of your own hat for a change.’