WisteriaWolverine

“How hopelessly she is lost,” one angel whispered to another. “And how shall they raise her up above the demon being this time?”

They hid above the arena, sitting in the trees staring down into the place where good fights evil, but in a place that no human eyes ever sees. In between sunset and sunrise, between the present and the past, between the fleeting and that which lasts, between the madness and the man, between the living and the damned. It was always the same, another show, another fight, another name, win or lose, and it really depended which side you were on, and all the while grandfather time kept ticking on mercilessly loud and long.

A raven’s cry echoed across the arena, and a black feather fell into the ring onto the floor upon which a little girl sat. She raised her eyes to the sky to see from where the solitary cry did originate, and her blue eyes twinkled with the reflection of the moon.

Yes, she sat cross-legged, dark hair dancing on the breeze about her face, coming to rest on the back of her white gown, and she wore little pink socks upon her tiny feet. Somewhere within the dream the little girl was there, except where she was she couldn’t see.

Seasons come and go, leaves fall and change, dreams live and fade, only this arena stays the same, time marches on, and the thirst for the blood of the innocent is never assuaged. That’s the only truth that exists in that place.
The floor of the ring was deep red, scarlet with the blood from battles waged before by the strong against the innocent, the innocent almost always lost, and their blood was shed for all to see.

The strong, the deceitful ones, they thirst for it, live for it, and every night they meet in the arena to feed their lust for bloodshed. The whole arena was filled with those who paid to see, and every seat was taken by demon monsters of one kind or another, not one of those creatures were able to feel pity for another, instead most sat (it seemed) reticently upon their hands.

Towering high above the little girl was a demon being almost fifteen feet in height. He had wings made from grey feathers, and when he extended them there was a span of thirty feet, and the wind shear from the movement of the wings on a gentle breeze shot forth as a hurricane. He was staring down at the little girl, and suddenly fancied to think that he could crush the girl with one foot. But the rules of the game clearly state; the fatal strike can only be dealt by human hand.

The idea of the game is to manipulate the mind of man to accept the demon thought, and promote thought into actions. Out of the dark and into the light. The demons could use anything at their disposal, drugs, alcohol, tricks of vision; it didn’t matter, so long as the job was done. And that man was weak, oh sweet heaven above he was weak, as was the one who had ventured forth before. This was going to be really easy, a done deal, that kid would be crushed in a heartbeat, yeah, that’d teach them!

“Turn bad to good, what a load of utter blasphemy,” screamed the demon into the microphone, a short, fat bald ghostly type who had fingernails made of long razor-blades, and he slashed them through the air as he asked, “and who of you out there tonight agrees with me?”
A loud ghastly cheer rose up from the bowels of that place, and angels everywhere shuddered at the evil of the demon spawn.

Good was there too, the angels, the protectors of the innocent, yet they too were subject to the same rules, they had to get their thoughts into human minds and hope that they’d act in accord. The saving grace could only be executed by human force, and unlike demons, their usual wards were children.

So there sat the little girl, between the forces of good and evil, yet at the mercy of human hands, hearts minds and emotions. Yet little did she know the struggles that had been fought in that ring, every night since the day she was born. And the utter chaos that had raged all around her between angel and demon was great. Demons placing evil in her path, angels usurping evil with good and oh how terribly hard it had been at times for the angels to constantly have the right person in the right place at the right time. Sweat had fallen from furrowed brows many times, and demons had screeched abuse on the wind every time they were beaten back. And neither ever sleeps.

One angel had dared to ask, “What’s so important about this one, it’s been a deathly struggle from the start. Why don’t we just let her go, just this one, and just this one time? There’ll be plenty more, I mean you can see ahead, and I understand that, but what else is to be achieved?”
God had just smiled down at him kindly and said, “Do your job!”

So the angel had shaken his head and returned to his station, beside her bed, waiting and ready for the fight, and every night it was the same. In he’d walk at twelve o’clock, waking the sleeping child, terrorising her, taunting her, and in that room every night, angel and demon fought tooth and nail, and none could bear the thought that they might fail.
“And why are the evil ones so interested in her anyway?” he asked himself as he gently stroked her hair.

Then it started, the arena was lit up and the stadium roared with the thousand screaming voices of the damned, he was here at last, and finally one last battle would be fought.

The demon towering over the child leaned very closely to the ear of the man, and the man stood six foot four, dark haired, brown-eyed mystery he was, who cared? He had a destiny to fulfill, and yes how the angels and demons had fought over him when he was small, in this very ring, for the very same reasons, but back then the angels had lost. Free will, and all the crap of human portion.

They had tried, they had whispered in his ear, they had put the right people in the right place at the right time, but by the age of reason it hadn’t done them any good, because he had weighed it up, and yeah, the bottle and evil had won. Oh sure he may change his mind, he could, but most of the angels doubted he ever would.

The angel gently whispered in the girl’s ear, “Time to wake up, little one.”
And the lights of the stadium hurt her eyes, and for a blinding few seconds she did not see where the blows came from, and the stadium roared with every great blow he bestowed upon her.

The angels scrambled around her, beseeching her to crawl under the bed, but in her terror she was only focussed on him and blow after blow after blow was struck until the child in terror started to scream. The demon that towered over the little girl whispered into the man’s ear, “Time to take the little mongrel out.”

But the man fought the thought. “If only I could stop?”
And the angels all beseeched the child, “Stop screaming and crawl under the bed.”

The little girl stood there screaming knowing the man wanted to hurt her some more, and would, and the demon whispered in his ear yet again, “She’s that bastard’s child, she’s not yours, be rid of her, send her to hell where she belongs.”
And the man placed his hands upon the child, raised her into the air and held her against him with his hand across her mouth and nose, and she could not breathe. And all the while he heard the voices in his head telling him she should be dead.

The stadium erupted in a roar, they were winning, this was the end of her and streamers and party poppers flew through the air. As the life began to slip from the body of the child she began to cross the vale, and she could see him, fifteen feet tall, ugly gray feathered wings and a wicked smile. She could smell him, and she knew his name to be death. He reached his hand out toward her, and as she reached out to take that sickly demon form, an angel sixteen feet in all jumped between child and out stretched hands.
The angel looked into the child’s terror filled eyes and yelled, “BITE HIM!”

The stadium went deathly quiet, that defining moment had arrived, now or never, live or die, whatever it was, and you could have heard a pin drop.
The little girl looked at the demon hand and she struggled with the fingers of the man, trying to pry them from her face, and when strength failed her, she thought, ‘bite him!’

The demons and angels all held their breath, and it was as though the next thirty seconds passed in slow motion. The child grabbed the man’s giant hand with hers and pulled it tight into her face, and those baby teeth that the angels had spent so much time protecting paid their dues as they sunk deep into the flesh of the palm of his hand.

The man screamed in pain and threw the child to the floor, and the stadium resounded with shrieks of, “Unfair, unfair!”
The man went over to the little girl and gave her one final kick before leaving the ring and exiting the arena. The lights of the stadium dimmed as all manner of demon and monster went on their way, out into the darkness, leaving just the angel and the child. There'd be another night, in this ugly war for souls there’d be another fight.

And the child lay there on the floor in the dark, beaten broken but alive, and the angel who had protected her sat there stroking her hair at her side. The child choked back sobs, as the angel whispered in her ear, “You must stay quiet precious one,” and the child knew that she must, least the man be tempted to return for another try.

While the angel sat there comforting the child he was grief stricken and asked, “Will she ever be allright?”
God took pity on the angel, and explained to him, (something he seldom ever did), that the child would indeed be all right. Although there were many more battles ahead, the child would survive.
“Ah yes,” said the angel as he stroked her face. “But will we win this time?”
And God said gently, “Yes,” and he smiled.

A little girl lost in the green hills of life way out in the back of beyond. She’s searching for fire in the rain, and when lightening hits, it strikes a chord in her. The product of a he and she, not that anyone could tell, and the spirit in her breathed from forces hidden.
No longer stalked by the male demons once so prominent in her life, yet haunted by their shadows, she can’t help but remember how blood and kin held her down while they each took their turn.

She walks dirt tracks and the dust swirls around disguising her presence to anyone watching, and if it rains then sometimes the wet mud sticks, but no matter how far she wanders the memory stays as strong. Through the green trees swaying in the gentle breeze after the storm has passed, her spirit soars to freedom, and the reality of her past becomes a burden placed down for a while.
When the sun departs she is empty for a time, devoid of identity but content in the knowledge she exists; what she meant to them irrelevant.

The full moon her spotlight on the empty stage of life where she begs the people banished from this place to cut her heart open wide, though they are not there, but she never enjoyed an audience.

Beseeching her pain to flood out and greet the star filled sky; her name a name for the sake of having one and her birth for the sake of that too.

Let her cry tears of anguish until it hurts to breathe and be cleansed by the silence that remains. She wishes the pain away to the clear blue sky of the coming day and may it form clouds to rain upon those who made the gift of pain to her.

But she knows she’s forever cast away on a sea of strangers where blood is much thicker than water, where tears evaporate but lineage lingers forever. Yet her love of existence under heaven, after the pain subsides, is felt with a passion as she gazes weary-eyed at the stars and moon.
Alone in her solitude, she wouldn’t miss a moment of that euphoric peace for all the pearls in the sea.
It’s worth living for; this is normalcy.

What does it mean to be free?
She wondered as she stared out from behind the bars of her prison cell and a thought half flickered through her mind that perhaps she was never to know, had she ever known? It was a silly thought to be having, and she just watched the others milling about in the courtyard outside. Ah yes, she too was old and used up before her time, having known the love of many, and it had fallen apart for her too, does it ever work out for anyone?

And their jailers, yeah they were pretty cruel even on their best days, and she knew better than to question their loyalty to those who had made the rules of the prison in the first place. A rose garden it was not, not even close, the yard itself was lifeless dreary, and the only time they ever got to go out and enjoy it was on days they were better off without. Those men in Spandau Prison were probably better off than them.
So every morning after breakfast at seven sharp she would lay down and drift away to a better place. She’d coax him to come to her, “Come on Wildfire, come on, we’re going to ride off away from here.” And Wildfire was always faithful in showing up, and he loved her as much as she loved him, maybe even more.

She’d climb up and stand on the mailbox, and then onto his bare back she would clamber, and she’d give him a gentle kick with her bare feet and off they’d go. Wildfire needed no reins to be directed to where they were headed, he just knew. Off out the gate, down the road to the main street, through the traffic, past the houses to the open fields.
The ride was always steadying, gentle, even though Wildfire was galloping for all he was worth, and he eased through the gears to get there gracefully. First he’d walk, and then he’d break into a gentle trot, then he’d canter, then excitedly break into a gallop, and she’d hang onto his mane. As he moved along the paddocks he was aware of where she was, whether she was too far to one side or the other, and if he sensed she was moving too far to one side, he’d just gentle toss her to the middle of his back again. He didn’t want to lose his precious cargo, for what was life without her?

Oh yeah, they’d just gallop on over paddocks, up hills, down valleys and through rivers and streams, how great freedom tastes, and no one knew they had gone, yeah, they just left it all behind. And they’d keep moving until they reached that tunnel of time, and into the tunnel they’d go without hesitation.

(On the odd occasion they’d stumbled through the night to reach the same destination, but more often than not St George kept her mind too occupied to allow Wildfire to take her away, so most of these beautiful adventures occurred during the day.)

Then they’d come to the end of the tunnel of time and there’d they be, standing before the object of her longing, gazing up at the beautiful old castle. “Oh Wildfire, isn’t it just magnificent,” she’d exclaim to Wildfire, in her sweet voice that was dripping with passion for this old wreck of a place. “We could live here forever, oh please Wildfire tell me we don’t ever have to go back.”

Wildfire would neigh powerfully as if to agree with her, and then he’d walk slowly up the wide path that led up to the castle gates. He always took this part of the journey slowly so that she could take in the beauty of the Spruce Pines, all the bird life that had made their homes on every branch, and they tweeted in recognition of the horse and rider as they passed them by.

As they neared the castle gates the sentries were made aware of their presence on the path when they heard the crunching of the gravel under Wildfire’s hoofs, “Madam,” they would say as they bowed low and allowed them entry to the castle grounds.

Wildfire loved that part, grown men bowing down to horse and child, and if he could have, he would have clapped his hoofs together in recognition of the odd occurrence, but he feared to do that would be to send the rider plummeting to the ground. So he pranced by instead, head held high because he was Wildfire, the noble steed, and the rider giggled loudly on his back and her giggle resounded all around the castle walls, echoing like some happy ghost of a time long since passed.

As they approached the castle doors two doormen threw them open wide so horse and rider could pass through to the inside, and off they turned to the left to make their way carefully up the spiral staircase to the tower at the top. As they ascended the stars they passed all the murals of old, old kings, noble steeds, and portraits of queens, princes and princesses, and how lovely her face would look upon that wall he often thought. They stayed up there long into the afternoon until the azure blue sky began to darken and the evening stars came out to twinkle up above. Wildfire knew all the constellations, but he kept them to himself, as the girl simply enjoyed just staring at the starry starry night.

Then it was time to make their descent on the spiral staircase right down to the level below, to the beautiful pond with the great pink swan, and oh how beautiful she looked sitting on the swan, feet dangling down into that water with not a care in the world. She’d kick her feet to make droplets of water land on the ground beside where he stood, and she’d giggle more when they found their mark. Wildfire would stand beside the pond shaking the droplets from his muzzle, grazing on the grass that had sprouted up over time through the old cobbles. Many eyes gazed upon them both from the murals all around, seeing but unknowing, and the girl marveled at thoughts of the people who must have been there once before. Lighted by the torches of old, the whole lower level appeared magical even to the least knowing eye.

Then the big old clock began to chime and Wildfire knew that they must hurry back before they noticed she was gone. She jumped from the swan as soon as he called and she swam across the beautiful pond to the cobbled side. Wildfire got down on his knees so that she could mount him again and they slowly made their way from the swan room to the castle doors. She always began to cry at this point and Wildfire hated to make her leave, but it was the way it had to be.

As they passed through the gates the sentries bowed low, and it was then that Wildfire decided they wouldn’t go, no, he’d take his charge back to the castle and maybe they could stay there forever. They could watch the stars come out every night and she could ride the swan until morning, and as morning approached, he could take her to the top of the tower to watch the sun begin the day. She was only nine, why should she live in a prison when she could be living in the castle, yes, Wildfire and the girl together forever.

Autumn leaves dropped to the ground and faded away as the winter snow fell, and the spring lambs were born just as the snow melted away, and it was in the summer that they found her. She had been there since the summer before, behind the old shed in the rusting crate, it appeared she had just lay down and died. She looked peaceful holding her tiny plastic horse in her hand and she had a little smile on her face.

“In heaven with the angels,” had been the cry of the priest who gave the eulogy for the little girl that no one had ever really known, and somewhere from inside the very old walls of the church came the laughter of a child and the whinny of a horse. The priest looked around to see from where the sound had come, and the girl upon Wildfire rode out of the church, through the traffic, across the paddocks, over hills, down valleys, through streams and rivers, to the tunnel of time and back to the castle they now called home.
She was free, free at last.

St George and the Dragon

She hate the night. She hates the way the sky grows dark and the trees begin to take on the form of malice. The house becomes dreary, moody, ebony foreboding, and as she makes her way to her room, she knows that perhaps tonight St George and his dragon will visit her again.

I climb into bed and pull the covers over my eyes, if I can’t see then maybe he won’t find me tonight, but it never works. Just as I am drifting off to sleep I hear the hoofs of his horse galloping over the forest floor, and it’s distant to begin with. As the sound gets closer I can hear twigs snapping under the weight of his noble steed, she is white, pure white and she is magnificent.

Closer and closer he comes and I can hear the bracken being swept aside with a swooshing noise that sounds like gentle rain, but as it gets louder and louder my heart beats faster and faster and the snapping twigs begin to sound like thunder.

I remember the first time St George came to pay his respects to me, I was beckoned to conscious thought by the sound of the clomping hoofs, and I awoke to find my room had turned into a beautiful forest. Although it was night, the full moon was out and the forest was illuminated by that silver light, a special moon beam over my bed, just for me so that I could see.

There were flowers everywhere the likes of which I had never seen, wild flowers of every colour and every shape, and some had even grown so high that they began to cover my bed, and white roses had wound around and around the headboard.

I could smell the flowers and the grass and the trees, and I looked around for fairies or dwarfs, but there were none, just myself and St George.

The first time we met he remained on his horse and stared at me through the slit in his helmet, and his eyes looked dark, not at all as a knight’s eyes should appear. Then his horse reared onto her back legs lifting her majestic white head high into the air, and she gave a cry. The cry was loud, eerily sweet, like a dirge, sonorous in tone and all the notes arranged themselves just so, hanging in the air waiting for me to grasp the meaning, but it was beyond me, it was just sound. Steam emitted out from her flaring nostrils and she seemed to be warning me, yet I didn’t know of what.
Then as though to give up her plea, she gracefully touched her front hoofs upon the forest floor, and St George climbed down and discharged his mount. She raced off into the forest, just disappeared out of sight.

St George stood there for a moment or two, and then he removed his helmet and I could see his face, and I knew that I had seen him before, well maybe not him but someone just like that.

He had blond hair, blue eyes that seemed to have begun to sparkle, and his face was as white as his horse. He pulled his sword from out of the sheath at his side, and the sword was immense, shined like silver, and yet it also appeared to be dark gray, kind of flickered from one colour to the other.

St George came over to the side of my bed, and I was sad because he crushed the beautiful flowers with every step he took, and as he sat down on the edge of my bed the white roses started to die. The beautiful floral aroma was no more, replaced instead by the smell of a burning funeral pyre.

Then St George leaned forward and whispered in my ear, and his breath smelled like garlic, and it was frosty on me there, and a chill shot right up my spine when he asked if I could keep a secret?

“This secret you cannot tell for the maiden I must rescue may die.”
“A maiden?” asked I.
“Oh yes, a lovely maiden dressed in lace who is chained to Hydra’s side. He is restless, and only you and I can save her life.”

Then St George told me he was going to reveal secrets of old, older than time itself, but truth nonetheless of little girls dancing in a garden of jest, called life, named so because it never makes sense. “It’s not supposed to,” he said.

St George moved away from my ear and came near to my mouth and his first secret was a truth of fire, one that burned my tongue and hurt my lips and it leapt down my throat filling my soul with terror, and I almost couldn’t breathe. Then he stopped and told me that truth of the garden of jest never appears to be nice, but that it would if I would just give it some time.

My terror had just began to subside, like a wave backing out on the tide, when he pulled from a hidden place an asp, and it was the ugliest thing I had ever seen.
He said the asp was magical and he could make it do whatever he asked. It was at his command, and as he held it in his hand it became larger, like a snake from the head of Medusa, and I knew it could take whatever it wants. I knew that it would, and the asp did, and truth was not kind or nice, it was agony that filled my soul with a terror unsurpassed.

The nightmare grew up inside me with much more power than ever before, and I began to realise that truth is a painful thing, and I began to look for an escape because that asp was evil, and it was hurting me. St George seemed to delight in the torture of the asp upon me, and as my terror increased, so did his pleasure at causing me to scream.

My mind began to drift away to pictures of merry-go-rounds, clowns, fairies and dwarfs and St George became angry, and St George put his sword to my throat and commanded I keep my mind on the asp.

Suddenly St George’s eyes clouded over and he spoke no more, just drifted away like a cloud in the sky on a dismal day, so I seized the opportunity to lay hand on his sword, and I climbed from my bed to the forest floor.

The sword was incredibly heavy, much more so than it actually looked, yet still I raised the sword high into the night air, and I brought it crashing down, and it sliced straight under St George’s head.
Then all was still for a second or more as I held my breath staring in shock at what I had done, but St George just smiled as his head fell off his shoulders and rolled across the forest floor finding rest beside his helmet. The head sort of wobbled and rustled the leaves until it became still, and upon it presided the ever-leering smile of St George.

I dropped his sword and fell to the forest floor crying, relieved I had won, but wondering how I had come to this forest in the first place, but my mind was distracted by a voice. I looked up, and to my horror, sitting on the edge of my bed was St George, but now he had two heads, so as fast as a strike of lightning, I seized the sword and dismounted those heads from their station too. And as those heads rolled across the forest floor to find rest with the first, to my extreme horror, in their place grew four, and that’s when I realised that St George was the monster who never dies.
He could never be slew, he would never go away, never be defeated, and his truth would be mine for all time, and the more I try to slay him the worse he becomes, more powerful, more determined, and I am but a child of nine.

I’ve climbed into bed and pulled the covers over my eyes, if I can’t see then maybe he won’t find me tonight, but it doesn’t work. Just as I am drifting off to sleep I’ll hear the hoofs of his horse galloping over the forest floor, and it will be distant to begin with. As the sound gets closer I will hear twigs snapping under the weight of his noble steed, she is white, pure white and she is magnificent.

Closer and closer he will come and I will hear the bracken being swept aside with a swooshing noise that sounds like gentle rain, but as it gets louder and louder my heart will beat faster and faster and the snapping twigs will sound like thunder.

I am the lovely maiden dressed in lace at Hydra’s side, but when St George is restless he becomes him in the night. You know he never really slew the dragon in the end, St George is really tricky he’s the Hydra as a man. And Hydra’s getting restless, only George can save my life, and every time he does it, I’m the maiden who may die.

Dark Confusion

I want to fall because I can’t look up anymore, and I’ve carried on as best I can, but it’s all been in vain, waiting for things to get better when all they do is get worse. And you little sparrow are you singing of my curse?
I watch you flit from pillar to pillar without a care in the world and I wish I were you, because at least to some you are seen as beautiful, I’m not seen at all.

I remember little sparrow when I was just eight or so, I remember thinking that I must not do anything wrong because I wanted them to love me, I wanted them to want to keep me, and I think maybe I knew it was a game. I knew because when I cried, no one cared, but you little sparrow, you were there.

And then when they drove me away and they didn’t say why, I sat in the back of the car and cried, then I looked out of the window for reason or rhyme, but all that was there was you on a power line. Swinging on the breeze, singing your song of beauty to God above, so why couldn’t I be a sparrow too?

There’s no feet to lay any of this at, there’s no heart to appeal to, I don’t mean anything little sparrow, I hold no cards, I have nothing to bargain with and I am scared little sparrow, scared of the future and terrorised by the past.
When I walk past families, they just glance at me then away again, I don’t even register and I want to scream at them little sparrow, I want to scream at them, “LOOK AT ME…SEE ME!”

But they never do little sparrow; I’m just a number on a file, and a troubled hard to place thirteen-year-old child. I never deserve any of the goodness I get because, they say, I am unappreciative, but why do they expect me to thank them for the pain I receive? Why can’t I be naïvely unappreciative like every other child?
Why do I have to be aware of sacrifice, why can’t I just take childhood for granted like everyone else? I want to scream and I want to cry because I hate that this world hates me!

And I hate you too little sparrow because at least God notices you.

I’m always last on and first off and when something’s got to give, it’s always me, when push comes to shove, I’m always shove and even I hate me, so why should anyone else feel any different. I was always happy to love but it just seemed too far for them to go. Always, always, everyone else is always more important than me, their feelings, their dreams, their aspirations, but me? I’m nothing. Oh God how I weep…and I weep more because no one hears and so I know what a total waste of time even crying is. But all these things I hold up to you in vain.

And that’s why I should just jump, just fall, keep falling until I hit the ground, at least then I’ll be real. People talk of brokeness, but they don’t know what brokeness is, they don’t know the first thing about it. Broken once maybe, even broken twice, it is nothing compared to the brokeness of never being good enough, not even from conception, and it’s been all down hill from there.

I’m empty again, having sunk down so low. So little sparrow you flitter away too, go on then, back to your nest to wherever it is you call home because I want to be as silent in death as I am in life, and though I’m much afraid, in that spirit I bid you goodbye.

The two dragons rose up furiously against each other, wings fanning the breeze viciously, talons scratching and scraping the ground like diamonds on glass. Shivers ran down the spine and double molars ached in time with the queer music of impending pain.

Hearts beat like pounding native drums from a time long since passed, tempers flashing hot red fire through rage never displayed before. Teeth grinding away in the mouth of each like a sledge hammer smashing the rocks from the bottom of a river, the incessant noise disturbing everything and everybody in their wake. The cacophony causing mass confusion in the minds of all, and of everything that had once seemed logical.

Eager spitting vile poison at each other, and oh how desperately angry and vengeful the little one was, she wanted her pound of flesh. None would sleep until exacting and reclaiming that which had been taken placated the viciousness alive within the little one’s barely beating heart.

The bigger dragon, the arrogant fool who heaped bitterness upon bitterness unfaltering in his destiny, mercilessly garrulous, suspiciously clever in the attainment of trust and so proficient at strangling any sensibility from the faith placed within it.
Oh how she hated him, how she wanted to mirror back the pain, make him see, feel, understand and maybe even empathize, what a stupid waste of time.

So the dragons fought causing the dust to swirl and disguise any kind of implication as to whom might walk away and who may die. But it was of no real consequence to the miniature one who could see through the vale of the future as though it were marquisette and she knew. To battle was to lose, to refrain was to lose, the whole occurrence either way was lose-lose and so she had nothing left to lose.
Beat me, scratch me; impale what is left of my heart upon your wall of shame with your carelessness, your degrading pitiless version of love. I TRUSTED YOU!

The bigger of the two faltered in his mission of destruction lacking reason or cause to want to snuff out the life of the little one. She’d struck a mortal blow to his ever-booming beating heart as he realized what he was fighting for. The battle being one of misunderstanding that had caused her to relish the thought of tearing out his heart with the sharp talons she possessed because he had supposedly ripped out hers.

Such confusion he just could not comprehend, how could she entertain the thought that he would even do such a thing? How could she fathom such darkness dwelt within his heart, such ruthlessness existed in his mind to be so cold toward the hurting and tormented little dragon?
How did admiration, consideration, kindness, trust and endearment become confused for something so twisted, vile and ugly?
“Through your silence,” she whimpered, her anger totally dissipated at his lack of gusto for the impending battle. Silence speaks so many more verbose words than loquacious speech ever can.

The little dragon’s wings ceased fanning, her talons stopped screeching across the ground like diamonds on glass, and instead the little dragon just curled up in the dirt there and cried as the faltering rhythm of her heart petered out and she slowly died, ceasing to exist yet again.

(Trying to escape the shadow of mother)

She wondered what she was doing there anyway, and she kind of straightened her gown hoping desperately that no one else would sense her trepidation about going into the theatre. See she’d never really been to a theatre like that before, and she knew the show was going to be grim, but that the actors would struggle through their parts anyway. Yeah they all had a role to play.

She hadn’t wanted to go, and at one stage she actually changed her mind, but she was reminded about the trouble so many had gone to to purchase the tickets. It would be detrimental to all if she were to back out now; to her Catholic boyfriend, and to his parents, but mostly; to not go would be to rob her. So she went.

The music was very strange for that kind of show, sort of happy eerie, and it just seemed so out of place, and she really didn’t know what Shakespeare would have made of it all, except maybe he’d have hung his head in shame.
A decadence dance of circumstance, where the childhood-dream depends on chance.

Anyway, so she straightened her gown and she stared into those bright lights above the stage, illuminating the place where the acts would be done, where prompts may be given, lighted so none could lose their step or make the mistake of tripping over something, or leaving something important behind.

Oh yes, what an awesomely deep experience this would be for her at the tender age of just sixteen, but it would lighten her load to see this play, and perhaps the mistakes made may even be erased from her memory and allow her to continue free? So she straightened her gown, took her place and looked into the lights shining down upon the stage and then the show began.

The music was very soft to begin with, and two little children walked out onto the stage, a little boy and a little girl. They both held hands as they walked into the middle of the set, and they just stared around silently to begin with and she just held her breath.

The setting was beautiful, there were sunflowers lining a path across the stage, and the flowers were the yellowest yellows she ever did see. Behind the left-hand side of the path there were beautiful green pine trees, and she could almost smell the pine from where she sat. Above them was the most beautiful blue sky, and flying across the stage back and forth were two white doves, and she felt herself almost moved to tears by the beauty of it all.

The little girl and the little boy danced up and down the sunflower path, and they were singing the most beautiful song together and to each other, they were just existing in harmony and happiness together, apparently oblivious to the dangers in the world around them.

Then the music changed, and it got louder, and it sounded ominous. As the music became louder the blue shy began to darken and the doves disappeared. That’s when she really took notice of the butterfly on her hand, it tickled, but her gaze stayed entirely transfixed to the stage.

The little boy wrapped his arms around the little girl and they both started to cry, and above them across the darkened sky she could see them coming. There were so many, the air was thick with them, demonic looking bat-like creatures with giant teeth and sharpened talons. The music became louder and suddenly thunder roared from the sky all around, echoing and bouncing off the walls, the floor the ceiling, and the two children put their hands over their ears. It was so loud that the whole theater began to shake, and she momentarily looked at the butterfly on her hand, and she knew she should be rid of it yet knew that she’d be damned.

She looked to the stage and a gust had blown up, a gust that was fuelled by the wings of those swooping bats, and as they neared the two children, who were by this time weeping loudly, she noticed a movement in the trees at the back of the stage. A myriad of angels descended down toward the children, and they were calling to someone with a still quiet voice that seemed to be able to penetrate the noise of the deathly storm.
They were saying, “You can stop, you can stop this, you have the power it is in your hand.”
Though she heard what they were saying she just didn’t understand, and the children were crying, “Mummy, save us, don’t let them do this.”
She looked around for their mother but she could not see her anywhere on the stage, and she was beginning to become very frightened by all she was seeing.

There was a bolt of lightening as two bat-like creatures swooped down on the little boy and girl, and they began to devour their flesh on that sunflower crested path. And then all the bat-like creatures came in for their fill, and the angels were powerless to stop them, God sent angels, yes, but freewill they cannot tread upon, so all they could do was watch and weep.

When the bats had had their fill of the innocent flesh of the two children, they took to flight and disappeared as quickly as they had come. The sun came out again, and the sunflowers looked bright, and all seemed well for a moment. The music had passed through it’s crescendo and was suddenly soft again, but then she noticed the music began to sound soulful, moodily sad.

A deep sense of melancholy gripped her heart, and the tears began to sting behind her eyes, as the angels tended those babies, and they began to cry out to God, “WHY?’ as they tried to piece what was left of them back together.

The sunflowers began to slowly whither and they bowed their heads low as if to be in mourning. The sky turned gray and it started to rain. The angels held the remains of the children in their arms, and one said to the other, “Let us take them now,”

And the angels ascended up into the air and over to the line of the trees. There in the ground were two little graves to be found into which they tenderly placed the bodies, and above each grave there was a little cross, and each cross had an epitaph etched upon it. From where she was sitting in the theater she could read what each did say, ‘Should have been, and could have been they died their death today.’

And she wondered why their mother hadn’t run onto the stage to save her children, why had that been left from the script? How could they edit out the one thing that would have occurred as natural instinct? There could only be one mother like her mother, so it didn’t make any sense. Then she felt that butterfly being ripped from off her hand, and she noticed that her gown was wrinkled, and she looked away from those bright lights on the stage, so glad to be ripped away from such a terrible thing. And he stood there staring down at her, and he was dressed all in green, and she thought that maybe it was a dream? Life is sometimes birthed from terrible sacrifice.
And in those moments she realised that she was just like her.

It was a play she would never forget; the images have been seared into her brain forever, and the guilt rides shotgun on her heart.

Can you really determine not to be hurt or haunted by that which you can never change nor relive, nor reconcile yourself with? I’d tried all the theories, the paths to self, but it never achieved a thing for me, somehow it didn’t help.
Then she came to me one day at my door, to take me for a walk down life’s ocean shore, I did not want to go but to me she implored, that I come with her, go with her, and her name was Lenore.
She was distant at first but truth to be sure, held intentions of wonder, forgiveness so pure, so I walked with her talked with her and she told me, “Be still.”
I walked on in silence and it took all my will.
She seemed so familiar, like I’d met her before, but I couldn’t place the memory and I wasn’t so sure, but then I remembered a poem of old, a wanting, a longing, the feelings he holds.
“Ah,” then I said, “But I know you Lenore, and I read of your parting from the Stygian shore.”
“‘Twas but a river, upon it souls float, and it’s not very real, just a bit of a joke. But we are not here for the wonder of me, for Edgar or Mozart or Annabel Lee. You stand on a path by the shores of your life; you can love them or leave them or simply just fight, but whatever you think, you must surely know, that you choose the road, yes the road you will go. Is it nightmares or dreams, maybe you can’t decide, and I’m here to give wisdom, not just for the ride. And while we’re still talking I feel I must say, that time is so precious, we have just a day.”
I took a deep breath then we were on a beach, the seagulls were soaring so far out of reach, and I watched them go diving at fish in the sea, and I wondered so fleeting of Annabel Lee. What was it he loved so that he couldn’t stay, and why did death go there and snatch her away? Then Lenore came and slapped me, “Snap out of it,” she said, “we’re not here to wonder of anyone dead.”
And I knew that, but my mind’s disastrously wild and wanders the tempest the sweet and the vile, where nothing is ever as great as it seems, those nightmares, those visions, those wondrous dreams.
Yet Lenore kept on walking so far up ahead, and I saw she got closer to that which I dread, so I tried some backtracking to things in the past, to Mozart, Salieri, and a Tell-tale heart.
And I thought to my self of Amontillado, of Montresor, catacombs and Fortunato. It was but a story, revenge, and of need, of jealous betrayal yeah kind of like me. How I would have loved to trap him behind bricks, to laugh at him, jeer at him, make his heart quick. Oh how I would love that, and I’d not feel sad, for causing his suffering I wouldn’t feel bad. And I would skip lightly just like Montresor in the knowledge he’s gone and would haunt me no more.
“How long would that last?” a sweet voice implored, and I looked up from dreaming and there stood Lenore.
“We must keep on moving to there up ahead, to deal with your anguish, your pain and your dread, there’s no time for dreaming the sad or the sweet, there’s no time for Mozart or Annabel Lee.”
“Was not thinking of them,” to Lenore I did say, “I was thinking of vengeance and how much it pays. I was thinking of ogres, of jealous betrayals, of tempestuous visions of life, and a vale. I was thinking of childhood that fades away fast and becomes that great nightmare that fills in your past. I was thinking of daddy and all he did say, and was thinking of Edgar, a cross and some nails. I thought of a man who did walk here before, was offering love but was mostly ignored, and I thought of myself in my passion at three, to know that He came here, and that He loves me.
Oh why Lenore do I keep doing this deed and how can I move on and make myself free? Lenore please do tell me your secret so fair, so I can step lightly and get out of here.”
Lenore took my hand into hers that was cold, in that moment I knew that her soul had been sold, to the memory, the pendulum swinging in vain, to take her from storms from the sleet and the rain. And I knew I should run then from her and the dream, but sometimes that knowledge is not what it seems. So I held on so tightly to shore and to water, on the path that leads one down to bitter self-slaughter. Though I knew it was so, could not reason away, and I didn’t have daddy to beg me to stay, I didn’t have memory of laughter nor fun, not beautiful roses, no vision, not one.
So I walked into water right up to my face and over my head went the strong chilly waves, and I looked to Lenore she might tell me it’s wrong, when I looked to Lenore I could see she was gone.
So Lenore was found in the sea the next day and no one knew why she had gone on her way, and for all of the questions the answers were few, and they didn’t know how this bad thing she could do. “She’d so much to live for.” they said with a sigh, “she was never unhappy, she never did cry. She was always in laughter in sun and in rain, but she threw it away and it seems so in vain.”
Yes no one could fathom the reasons of why, but they bantered and argued with gulls in the sky. But there on the beach was a story unseen of Mozart, Lenore and of Annabel Lee. Of Montresor, guilt, of ill will and betrayal, of self in a mirror, of humanity failed. Of justice and vengeance all wrapped up in one, of bitter confusion and facing the gun. Of taking the hand of the only one there, yes holding that hand through the doubt and the fear. Yes it was Lenore who she met on that day, ‘twas the truth in the mirror that swept her away.
And yet, somehow she still lives.

A Four-leafed Clover

A lost soul wandering dazed and confused, a stranger in the world that spins out of control around her. Wondering how she got here, agonizing over why she was sent here in the first place.
Broken inside, banished from ever truly knowing what happiness is, from birth to sunrise, always the sacrificial lamb or the scapegoat, but never the one, never the four-leaf clover.

By God’s design?
Never, God doesn’t make mistakes, something else made this mistake, greed, envy, lust, anger, vengeance, brutality, who really knows? But it wasn’t God.

No one who is by God’s design could spend so much time crying, feeling forgotten, feeling useless, or never good enough, never quite there, never adding up, never the dream someone else was looking for, just easily swept aside. Others take what they want from her and she lets them. She amuses them for a time, sometimes she makes them laugh or she mystifies them, amazes them and maybe even sometimes they profess to care, but then something better comes along and she’s alone, as it was always intended she would be. They move onto happiness and she is left to despair. Left to carry their mistakes, holding and caring for the things they no longer desire, cradling in her arms the rubbish of their love, discarded carelessly like it didn’t matter, and maybe it doesn’t. They take her beauty take her pride and all those things she doesn’t hide, yet still she keeps much in store, too much and it keeps her from crossing the line.
Wanting to die but continuing to be unable to even do that because they stole that too with their message of salvation, their lies of happiness that waits around the corner…maybe corners they walk around, but never hers.

There are no corners anyway; just a wind swept dusty path that always leads to nowhere and no one. Her world can never be taken apart, you can’t pull apart what was never together in the first place, this 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a person with pieces that just don’t fit.

Angry but never allowed to say it, wounded but never allowed to feel it, broken but never allowed to fix it, lost and never allowed to find her way. Wanting to despise their actions, their carelessness, their inability to sacrifice, just once, just for her, why can’t someone sacrifice for her? But she can’t despise, hate or feel vicious, all she can do is feel empathy, compassion for them because her wiring’s all fucked up. She’s wired wrong, she longs to be hateful, to snarl back at the world like an angry rabid dog, infected time and time again by the world’s filthy disgusting indifference, and ambivalence to her existence.

There’s no merciful escape, no grace to walk in or light to head to, just the same strangled feeling inside, day after day after day, and she’s gotten down on her knees, even pleaded with God for it to be over. Why can’t she wrap her car around that power pole, why can’t she leap into the hypnotizing sea from that high cliff, and why can’t she soar through the breeze as she plummets to the ground from that tall tower? Is it because she is too weak, or is she too strong? Either way it’s a curse! She’s just so fucking useless.
In any case, just for two seconds or so, as she falls she’d feel the freedom she longs for, but she can’t ever leave, she must stay in the emptiness that is hell on earth.

She’s no Icarus, she didn’t fly too high, she never learned to fly at all. No Rapunzel in a tower waiting to be rescued by the stranger passing by, there is no such thing as a white knight, at least not for her. No wrong side of the tracks girl meets the guy from the right side of the tracks who looks to her, actually sees her and just loves against all odds anyway, no one has ever dared to be that strong. No, she’s not from any side of the tracks really, she’s probably on them, truth be known, and that’s why the train always mows her down. But it never kills her, just does enough damage that she’s got to go through forgiving the actions of a person too ignorant to even understand they hurt her in the first place.

Instead, she’s embracing every heartache because there’s nothing else to hold onto. Understanding and forgiving them because that’s all she knows how to do and she feels pathetic and weak that she can’t turn it into hate, but she knows hate is useless and that vengeance achieves nothing. When she thinks about retribution or telling them just how she feels, she hits the wall. She hits the wall that spells out clearly that it is wrong to hurt back. The walls shows her that it’s not within her, and it frustrates her beyond any other thing in this stupid screwed up world that she can’t be as nasty, ignorant, uncaring and as unsacrificing as they are? Why can’t she be the callous bitch who lands on her feet every time? It seems to her that all this world really respects is those who fight dirty to get what they want, but she doesn’t know how to fight that way.

She is meaningless, she is nothing, and she has been aware of this since she was small, but she still keeps trying, broken and on her knees, she still just keeps coming back for more, and yet she really doesn’t believe like before. Triumph and terror, she feels so useless! Really, if she knew what was good for her she’d curl up into a ball and die; but she’s too scared to even try.

All she seems to know how to do is love in the face of tragedy, forgive in the face of carelessness, to hope way beyond fatigue, and how to just keep breathing when anyone else would just stop.
She looks around at this world, at this forgotten desolate wasteland that is her life and she cries useless tears, then she wonders why. Why couldn’t she be a four–leaf clover?

Incubated Hate

(Facing her mother)

I stood there face to face with the nine foot eight inch high demon that had big black feathered wings, and I immediately recalled how it had tried to devour me. Shaking in my shoes before it, tempted to drop to my knees and beg for my life, but knowing it’d make little or no difference.

It hated me and hate radiated from it like a heat wave in summer, yet somehow crueler, more malevolent, so spiteful, so spite filled.

Its eyes beady brilliant blue, steely blue, cold, harsh and arrogant traveled over my form, head to foot, and it sneered at me, what did I want? Unable to erase my existence from the earth, it would like to have at least erased my existence from it’s mind, and it almost had, yet always it was fully aware I still breathed. My breath its misery.

How dare I have the audacity to be living still?

The demon looked beyond me to see if anyone else was around, maybe now was the opportunity to correct what should have been put right years ago? The demon looked me in the eyes and asked me who the hell I thought I was, spitting the words like acid from the tongue. And actually, who did I think I was? I don’t really know to be completely honest, I was five again, I couldn’t form conversation or logical sentences. I had fallen into that cauldron of pain, fear, cruelty, depravity, and all the images played before my mind like a silent movie…baby teeth on a floor in a pool of blood, a big hand across my face, the demon looking on. Lying down on concrete steps all day dreaming about being someone else’s little girl and wishing I could leave there, wishing the demon would go.

Oh God those demon hands were so big, so forceful holding the power of life and death…carelessly uncaring…savagely cruel…bitterly tormenting, they were grossly huge still.

I guess this is what happens if you insist on meeting up with the Devil in a wishing well.

That demon wishing their twelve foot demon into the ground and me watching it burn, glad of it’s destruction…happy to see it removed from life forever, and wishing mine away to the same sad end. How many more years could it remain to haunt me? Me wanting it to kill itself as it kept promising to do, wishing and praying it would make good on it’s threat…oh to have that ugly vicious demon gone.

Instead I stood there before it as a helpless, useless, scared, scarred image of what it had managed to reduce me to and it delighted in my terror, it delighted still. Me telling it that I forgave it was thrown away; it didn’t care, in fact it said, “So you should,” all arrogance again.

That it could love, how foolish could a mortal being be?

“Turn away and run as fast as you can,” my mind kept screaming at me, but the child in me wanted to drop to her knees to beg and plead, “Please tell me you loved me, even in its smallest measure.”
Somehow I needed it’s love to make me real, to not feel like a cabbage patch kid, yet sometimes bad is okay, bad’s good, bad’s better than truth, and some endings just cannot ever be happy.

The demon gave nothing but insults and ridicule while I continued to stand there and listen, after all these years, still as bitter and as acidic as it always was. How insane to dare to hope it could have loved when it denied even being responsible for any part of the form that stood before it, and I never dreamed anything could ever be that cruel. To face evil and to know it is an innate part of you, by birth something insidious could lurk within me, yet thus far remains unseen.

Silencing me with its words, it’s every syllable a cruel and vicious taunt designed to cut to the core, and they did. So I fled, I fled as fast as I could, from that place, from that thing, from the words, from the torment from the memory. A few moments later standing on the side of the road not knowing whether to puke, scream or cry I suddenly realised…that ranting, vicious, cruel, ugly demon was… my mother.

(Forgiving them)

I always wanted to disappear on a wing and a prayer, to ride wild horses on the beach and then get off at the shipwreck and wrestle with the demons alone.
Battle this and battle that, win, lose or draw.
Then one day I just slipped out the door, no word to a living soul, just walked away, as so many had done before, but it was my turn.
I disappeared on a wing, forgot the prayer, but I rode those wild horses to the shipwreck on the shore. I wrestled the demons, but nobody cared, for years no one cared. I didn’t even care that they were oblivious to the pain, I didn’t really note their true disdain for me, and I had tunnel vision anyway.
Same ship, same shit, different day and every day.

But then one time in the midst of battle he showed up, and he cared.
Under a Trojan blue sky, I spied him on the edge, the sunlight blazed causing him to be a mere silhouette, yet somehow I knew that the shadow would soon take form.

I was arguing, screaming against the one who torments most, and he was winning, yet still I would not relent in the pursuit, and every time he screamed, “Yield,” I hit him some more, with his truth, with his lies, with his alibis; I’m the craziest girl alive!
The clouds covered the sun, and the stranger, the handsome stranger; he stood on the edge of the boat, walking with meticulous precision on the lip of the edge. It had been greedily eaten away by time and sea, a bit like time had done with me, but still he stood, posed, moved, danced, maybe even pranced on the edge of my terror, on the edge of that rusty relic.
As I faced my tormenter, the sender of all things terrible, the handsome stranger leapt from rusty lip and his feet touched lightly down beside me in the sand, almost ballerina like, but masculine in execution of said movement.
I looked away from the tormentor to the stranger and in that blind second the tormentor gained another small victory, but I was oblivious at the time.

The handsome stranger, Jade was his name, and though he never spoke it so, I knew it just the same.
Jade was tall, very tall, straight long hair that fell way down past his shoulders, and his shoulders were strong. His eyes held a look of contentment, of peace but also of deep mystery, and I fell immediately into the intense gaze he projected to me.
He raised his hand and gently touched my face, and his touch, the touch, the warmth, the sensuous sensations that sprung from his hand to my face, to lips, to chest to other places I’d never taken much notice of before. Yeah I’d heard about it, but I was just a girl of sixteen, what I’d missed by lack of experience I gained from Jade in a heartbeat.

Jade gently leaned in toward me, and he placed a hand on either side of my face. He tenderly kissed my forehead, my eyes, my nose, my chin, and then he brought his mouth to mine, and I just stared into his eyes. He tasted like home, his breathing sounded like home, his eyes looked like home, his embrace felt like home, and he smelled like home, not Daffodil home, but Old Spice home. I quite thought I’d fancy to die right there in that moment, never breathe again, nor speak, nor feel, nothing, just pass away into his euphoria forever.

As I remained locked into his gaze, oh those eyes of his, I continued to taste him, sweet to taste. During the moments he spent satiating my every desire to feel rapture, I suddenly became aware of the waves crashing against the side of the shipwreck, yet shipwreck it was no more.

Jade let me go, released me from whatever it was that I experienced, (there is no name for such a thing) I took stock of the fact that we were now on the high sea, no land in sight, no storm on the horizon, just calm.
The ship was in all her glory, and I walked to the front of her to gaze down upon the figurehead, whom I recognised as a montage of Aphrodite and Venus, but yet had an angel’s face, and her name he said was Tempus Omnia Revelat.
“See the scales of justice in her hand,” he said very quietly, and I had not noticed them, and when I did I wondered how the storms of oceans had not smashed them against the bow of the ship. As if he’d read my mind, he said, “It cannot be, for justice will always mete her justice, nothing earthly could ever diminish scales such as those, although, and as you can see, they are unevenly balanced.”

I stared down again, my head on such an angle as to fancy me to thought that I may well tumble overboard. Again, as if to have secret access to my mortal secret meandering he stated that that too cannot be. I am not here to tumble off, to spiral down, to be beguiled into sadness or fear, nor to meet personally with the hands of destruction.

A gentle breeze made my very long hair fly fairy-like in front of my face, but he tempered the fairy dance of hair with a gentle hand, as one with much experience. Again he leaned very gently into me, as if to get as close as he humanly could, and his mouth came near to mine, and he questioned me about how much I wanted it, and I asked him what he meant? His hot breath on my mouth made my blood course through my body as though it were in a race to get to the final destination, and desire for him burned in me like a fire, and of this he knew, yet said nothing of it.
He simply repeated his words, and still I stood there completely and utterly dumbfounded by the question.
“Vengeance, how much do you want it, how far are you willing to go?”

Vengeance, was that what I was seeking? I really didn’t know.
I looked to the deck while I pondered his question, then I looked back up into his beautiful face, his amazing eyes, and I told him, because I could not lie, that it was not vengeance I sought, but rather justice.
Jade said that I could have whatever I wished, but that his heart was glad that I had chosen justice over revenge because revenge can leave such a bad taste in your mouth and a heaviness in your soul. But justice is the longer path, the harder road to walk, as I was soon to find out.

Jade led me to the deck at the stern of the ship and there, tied to the wheel of the ship was the tormenter I had been engaged in battle with on the rusty relic on the shores of the beach. The beach across which I had ridden on those beautiful wild horses.
Jade disappeared down below deck and left me standing there facing my tormenter, and the tormenter tormented me some more, but only with words for he could not reach out to touch me. Chains bound his hands and feet, and every time the current of the sea moved the rudder of the ship, the tormenter was lurched by the wheel. With his feet bound to the deck, the movement caused his body to stretch in unusual ways with supernatural strength, and I could hear his bones snapping, but it did not cause him pain. I derived no sensation from his suffering, either joy or pity.

Jade appeared on the deck again, and I noticed in his hands he carried a slab of what looked to be rotten meat, and I had no idea what Jade intended to do with it. But my attention was caught away by a swirling that was coming from the left side of the ship, and the sound beguiled me into running to the edge to see what it was.
And I looked down into the green ocean, and I could see them swimming, thrashing about, the largest group of the deadliest looking sharks I had ever seen. They were as white as snow on a mountain, but their eyes were black, dead black, lifeless black, pure evil.

Jade called me to go to him, away from the edge, for it was not yet time, but time for what? He did not say. So I walked away from the edge toward Jade, feeling safe, remembering his touch, his taste, his smell, his sound, and that I could respond so easily to his voice did cause me some confusion, yet he said to let it be.
I moved to within a few inches of him, and I noticed for the first time how much he towered over me, yet I felt protected and safe in the knowledge of the strength that matched his size.
Jade leaned into me, and as he did he placed the slab of meat into my hands. He executed the handing over of the rancid vile thing as if it were more precious than rubies, more fragile than crystal, as though he feared I might drop it, causing it further harm.
It was rancid looking; it stunk so much that no one could ever afford it a kindness in word or deed. He told me that the first step on the path to justice had begun; yet I still lacked the understanding that would make the justice seem complete. My hands held something that was so cold, so slimy, so devoid of life, and just as I was processing that thought, I noticed a peculiar kind of warmth working it’s way onto the palms of my hands.
I looked up into Jade’s eyes, and he told me to look back to my hands, so I did, and there I saw I was holding a baby, and he instructed me to place it upon the deck.

As the baby lay on the deck of the ship, I looked to Jade for an explanation, and he averted my gaze from him back down upon the baby. The baby was growing before my very eyes, and I saw that it was a girl, and I saw her grow from baby to toddler, and as she began to approach approximately five years of age, I began to recognise that I knew her.
I had seen her somewhere before, but the recognition was vague and fleeting at best, and as the child reached six, I saw that her fingers were broken, and I began to feel ill at ease. As uncomfortable as I felt, I could not take my eyes from her, and though I felt I knew her, I did not completely recognise her.

That fleeting memory, the dream within a dream, the one thing you are desperate to grasp yet cannot fathom, and suddenly I noticed she was nine, then I knew who she was. Raven haired, blue eyed innocence, and she ran to Jade, smiling, and he scooped her up into his massive embrace. He held her to him for the longest while, and she looked to me from the corner of her eye, and she leaned away to look into his face.
While she looked into his eyes, I too did the same, and he whispered very gently, “Tempus Omnia Revelat, and in that moment both the child and I knew exactly what he meant.
Jade gently placed the child upon the deck, and she turned to let her gaze fall upon the one who torments most, and he gazed at her with the disdain of the devil for a pure angel in white.
I noticed in those moments that scars appeared upon the body of the girl, every where, on every part of her body. The most ugly scars caused through the most violent, vile acts that had been bestowed upon the girl before she could remember, after she could remember, and then some.

I looked to Jade, and he was crying, and I looked to the tormentor and he was laughing, and the little girl began to back away from Jade, from the tormentor. She made her way back to the spot upon which I had placed her, and as she did, she regressed quite quickly to that which she had started out as, and in those moments she never once removed her gaze from the tormenter.
Before I had time to grieve the most grievous, Jade was leaning into me telling me to look down at my hands, and once again, there it was, vile, rotten, stinking.

Jade then took my arm and led me to the left side of the ship, and he instructed me to throw the vile wretched thing into the water, which was still swirling from the movement of those vicious sharks.
I refused, I would not, and I could not. I could not throw to the carnivorous creatures that which obviously held so much potential, and even at that point I still did not grasp what was truly going on.
“Throw it down into the water,” Jade commanded, “it will be alright, I promise you it is the right thing to do.”
So I threw it down to the water below, and I watched it fall in slow motion toward its destruction, and as it neared the water it again took on the form of the little girl, and she began to scream, and I began to scream. I screamed because I realised what I had done, and the tormentor was laughing like he’d never laughed before, gleefully, despising me, thinking he had won.

But Jade heard her above the tormenter’s laughter, and like lightening flashing in the sky and as fast, Jade was airborne. He scooped the child up by her arm, high above the water, and he brought her to the side of the ship, and as he did that, the child took on the form of a dove and he released her. I did not see to where she went.

The tormenter laughed on until Jade commanded him to be silent, and he appeared to have become afraid of Jade.
Jade took me by the hand and he led me to the middle of the deck a few feet away from the tormenter, and he asked me, “What did you see?”
I told him I wasn’t sure what I had seen, and perhaps it was all a dream? I asked him though why a child would be made from something so ugly, so vile, and so wretched?
“Ah,” he said, “but the child did not start out that way, the beginning was the end and the end was the beginning. The end I placed into your hands, and you watched her go to the beginning, but when he (and he pointed to the tormenter) got hold of her, he reduced her to what lay in your hands to begin with, the end.
Now her end shall be his end, except you have been given the chance to escape the end, you do not have to view her in the same way as he does. You have seen what she really is, what she should have always been.”

Jade turned from me and he looked at the tormenter and he yelled, “YOU!”
He pointed his finger at the tormenter, and his voice crashed at him like thunder, like a boom crash opera in the sky. “What you sowed, now you shall reap.”
The tormenter was released from his chains by unseen force, and he was lifted high into the air and thrown clear over the railing of the left side of the ship. I ran to watch, I had to see for sure that he was gone, and as I watched him fall he took on the form of the rancid wretched meat and as he hit the water he was immediately and completely devoured by the sharks.
He uttered no sound in his destruction, and once he was gone, I knew that the tormenter would torment me no longer.

Jade came over to me and he leaned in close to me again, and as he did his mouth met mine, I closed my mind, and slipped into the euphoria of his taste, smell, touch, sound and I closed my eyes that time.
After a while I became aware that the sea was not as loud, and I opened my eyes, and Jade stepped away from me. I was back on the sand, in the shipwreck, and I watched Jade walk toward the edge of the rusty relic. When he got to the edge he leapt up with as much grace as he had previously leapt down, the maneuver was effortless. I looked to the sand for a moment and then I looked back up to Jade, and there she was.
I watched him take the hand of the little girl who mysteriously appeared by his side, she was about nine, and I thought for a moment that I once knew her. They both waved, and Jade said to me, “Don’t be sad anymore he is gone.”
Then he looked to her and she giggled as they leapt off the side of that rusty relic; I was not sad to see them go, and I did not wonder where they had gone, I was just happy. Just as I realised that I was feeling happier than I had ever felt in a very long time, the sun moved from the clouds, and I could see clearly.

Then I heard someone speaking, and he said, “Catatonic, since she was nine, and we’ve never been able to break through, but today, today she springs back to life, why?”
I looked to the horses, but the horses were gone, and I looked to the edge of the ship, and the ship was gone. All about me was white, stark white, and it felt cold and just as I was about to panic, I saw Jade. He told me to close my eyes, so I closed my eyes, and as his mouth met mine, he took my hand, and I went away with him too, just like the little girl.

I will not return to the whiteness, to the voices, to the other tormenters, I will stay with Jade. He smells like home, he tastes like home, his breathing sounds like home, his embrace feels like home, and when I look into his eyes I quite fancy to die right there in that moment, never breathe again, nor speak, nor feel, nothing, just pass away into his euphoria forever.

Piczo