All Odorous on the BART

Posted in dreams and visions, fiction stories, spiritual themes, writing with tags , , , , , on March 10, 2010 by wolfgangld

 

            Pastor Raynell was an odd mixture of personalities.  Most often, he sported an infectious smile – impossibly white teeth contrasted against his dark skin, and most who knew him would unquestionably call him a friendly man, but this did not detract from his unwavering honesty with folks, and few knew it better than Charlie.

            They’d first met at a community barbeque, sponsored by several churches in the Tenderloin, including Pastor Raynell’s little Baptist church down the street from the YWAM base.  He’d first encountered Pastor while the man was working a grill, flipping dozens of small burger patties, wearing a plastic Glad bag over his chest in a futile attempt to save his clothing from the myriad of tiny grease splatters flying at him.  Charlie was instantly intrigued at the way the man spoke with the hundreds of homeless people lined up for a free helping of cheap meat.  Somehow, he managed to avoid the slightest hint of talking down to them.  He actually seemed to like these people, and quite honestly many of them were the hardest to like.  They were the ones that, despite everything one might do to try to help them “get better” or at least get them to come to church once in awhile, it never seemed to matter because they didn’t care enough about life or themselves to want to get better.  Pastor Ray didn’t seem to care about that.  He loved them anyway, and not just because he was a Christian and therefore obligated.  He just loved.  That was the friendly part of Pastor.

            Later on that first day, Charlie had a chance to witness the honest part of him.  Pastor Ray had taken an instant liking to Charlie, who’d found himself working bun duty next to Ray’s grill.  Following the event, the grease coated pastor invited him to his house to watch the Giants game on TV.  Charlie was caught off guard by the man’s forwardness in asking a relative stranger to his place, but felt quite compelled to tag along with the man who never stopped talking – one minute about his church, the next about baseball, the next about his younger sister back in Chicago who’d just lost a couple toes to diabetes, the next about the brisket his wife was making for dinner, and the next about his unyielding adoration for the Lord.  Between his scattered shots of words, he would often stop himself in mid sentence, stare at Charlie in the most unnerving way, and say something like, “Now you listen, son.  Any time you catch yourself saying ‘I want dat thang.  I gotta have dat thang – you do dat, and you one step away from backslidin’, boy!”  As entertaining as Charlie found the pastor’s way of speaking, it was nothing compared to the scene he witnessed once they got on board the Bay Area Rapid Transit to go to his house.

            Boarding the underground train, the two were instantly greeted by an overwhelmingly pungent stench of body odor and garbage.  Within seconds, the other recently boarded passengers began to coalesce at one end of the rectangular cabin.  It took Charlie but a moment to understand why.  Sprawled out upon a bench seat, quite opposite the flabbergasted crowd on the other end, a grimy homeless man – the unfortunate source of the unbearable smell, was mumbling to himself, seemingly oblivious to the stir his stink was causing.

            Conscious to maintain a caring appearance in front of Pastor Ray, Charlie chose to find a seat near the middle of the train, halfway between the crowd and the mumbling stink man.  Pastor found a seat next to him, alternating glances between the man and the people as he did so.  The whole situation was exceedingly uncomfortable for Charlie, and he thought that even the pastor – even this man who seemed incapable of ever being uncomfortable around anybody, was at a loss for words.  Charlie remained quiet, furtively catching glances of the homeless man out of the corner of his eye; his crusty dreadlocks adorned with dead bugs and boogers, piss splattered trench coat draped around his legs, greasy old 49ers sweatshirt creased up over his bulging belly, and his crusty lips never stopped moving, but there was no way to know any of what he was saying. 

            “God, he stinks!” a man within the crowd finally blurted out, and as unfortunate as it was to hear, Charlie felt relieved that somebody had broken the silence and thus lessened his inclination that he should in some way do something.  Now Pastor Raynell’s attention was squarely upon the man who’d dared to make the proclamation in the otherwise quiet, odorous train.  Charlie watched as the pastor eyed the man from head to toe.  He was standing toward the front of the crowd of twelve people, wearing name brand clothing, hair crisply styled with an abundant application of mousse; Charlie found himself suddenly and anxiously aware that the man’s outburst was surely going to illicit a reaction from the highly actionable pastor.  He didn’t know whether to expect a timely joke to lighten the atmosphere, or a much needed word of wisdom to grant comfort to those squirming due to the unseemly presence of the stinky man.  Neither happened.    

            “You one to talk, Mister!” Pastor Ray called out, quite obviously not for the purpose of a side commentary, but solely for the sake of confronting the one man who had the audacity to say out loud what everybody in the cabin was surely thinking.

            “What are you talking about?!” responded the man, and the place became more quiet than ever, as though something had supernaturally sucked away every sound, every rustle of clothing, every foot tap, every clearing of the throat.  The only noise was the repetitive whirring of the train wheels and the incomprehensible mumbling of the stinky man.

            “You heard me!” Pastor exclaimed, standing to his feet, and Charlie began to squirm in his seat.  “You stink jus’ as bad as that poor man there!”

            “You’re crazy!  I took my shower this morning!” the man retorted.

            “Oh you clean on the outside, sure, with your nice expensive clothes, probly got a nice cozy place to go home to, but none a that matters, son!  It’s the inside that God looks at.”

            Oh, he had to bring God into it,  thought Charlie.

            “On the inside, you just as miserable and filthy as that man!”   

            Mercifully, the BART came to it’s next stop, the doors opened, and the crowd filed out; probably only a few had originally intended to stop here, but they all exited in an effort to escape the smell and the tense atmosphere.

            On his way out, the man in the designer clothes peered back and said, “Whatever, preacher man.” rolling his eyes.

            Charlie and Pastor Ray remained on the train in silence, Pastor occasionally shaking his head while quietly quoting a scripture about how God looks at the heart   Two stops later, the pastor got up, and Charlie followed, taking a long look at the stinky man, still mumbling, still sprawled out.

            “Now don’t you worry ‘bout him just yet.” he heard Pastor say.  “Somethin’ bad’s got holda him.  He’s gonna struggle some more, but God knows his name.”  Together they exited the train while others boarded, muffling coughs as they did so.

            “Yessir, God knows his name.  Yessir.”

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Magic Coin for a Magic Door

Posted in dreams and visions, fiction stories, spiritual themes, writing with tags , , , , , , on January 11, 2010 by wolfgangld

Rummaging, clawing through contents at the bottom of a flimsy sports bag, searching for cold metal, too impatient and too hurting to find another place, Drew glanced at the small green structure before him.  One more quarter would buy him fifteen minutes in that smelly green sanctuary, but the lousy coin – he knew it was in bouncing around somewhere – was tormenting him, whispering –

You’ll not find me You’ll not find it You’ll not find him

“Shut up!  You don’t know what you’re talking about!” he said out loud, barely noticing he’d just spoken to a coin, or a whisper, or something he knew nobody else could see or hear.  He looked at the open door to the dark green public bathroom and considered for a moment ducking inside and leaving it open, but still maintained the presence of mind to avoid such an action, knowing the cops tended to check these bathrooms often because a lot of the street people had a tendency to try and use the toilets without depositing any coins to make the door shut.

Something cold grazed his fingertip.  Spoon?  No, already in my pocket.  He traced its edge – ridged.  That’s it!  He grasped the quarter in his fist, scurried into the bathroom, combined the coin with another in his hand and inserted them into the slot on the bathroom wall.  A whirring sound accompanied the closing of the small building’s sliding door, a light flickered on, and a clock on the wall began to count down from fifteen minutes.

Won’t need that long.

Simultaneously yanking a spoon from his pocket while sitting on the edge of the toilet seat, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that the whole environment was terribly familiar, and then there was the sensation that, despite the safety of a sealed door, people – those people out on the street, and even the people elsewhere, far away, and not so far – people who’s names he knew and people he’d never even seen before – they all somehow knew what he was up to.

They can see We can see He can  see

Drew cursed as a rock of heroine fell from his pocket, landing on the floor beside the toilet.  Of all the places to drop…  He tried to hold down his revulsion at the fact he was about to deposit something in his body that he was now fishing off a floor that got pissed on all day.  Least it’s still early.  Maybe it’s clean.  He deposited the rock onto his spoon, flicked a lighter and tried to lose himself in the flame as it liquefied white, crystalline comfort.  Still there was the feeling that people knew what he was doing with the spoon and flame, and he didn’t know why that should matter since most everyone he knew could care less. 

Oh, but he knows

He couldn’t.

But he does!

I don’t care.

White crystal was now white liquid, and he grabbed a syringe from his bag – he always knew where those were – and began to fill it.  He glanced at the clock, counting down from twelve minutes now; the red digital numbers appeared condemning with their incessant drive toward zero.

Oh I am so ashamed of you, Andrew  So ashamed, boy slut

Dropping the spoon, he held the needle to his arm and concentrated, tried not to shake because he couldn’t afford to miss a vein because he couldn’t end the torture soon enough because he couldn’t understand how he ever ended up in this hell, collapsing off a nasty toilet onto a nasty floor, and in eleven minutes he’d be out there again, wandering until night came when everybody would want a piece of him, but now it didn’t matter because     
everything          felt                    better.

He could have sworn, just before closing his eyelids and lying his head back against the toilet, that he saw a face…peering through the door, right there from the street with its painfully familiar, dejected expression and biting lower lip.  Drew didn’t worry.  The face would be gone soon – back to the depths where it belonged. 

And the door was opening.

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Inborn Inaction

Posted in dreams and visions, fiction stories, spiritual themes, writing with tags , , , , on December 28, 2009 by wolfgangld

He crossed the street with the school on it and was suddenly captured by the sight of a skinny teen – probably sixteen or so – approaching the same intersection.  He slowed down as he and the teen drew closer.  He was struck initially by how displaced the boy seemed.  This kid looked like a classic Polk Street boy, not one he often saw this far East in the Tenderloin – and certainly not this time of the morning.  The boy was nervously groping at the insides of his elbows and appeared extremely fidgety.

Heroine addict, looking for a buy, thought Charlie.  Have I seen him before?

Charlie studied the boy a moment – dressed in taut black pants and grey t-shirt with a Dickies logo; his bleachy face was slightly sunken over pronounced cheekbones, hair dyed some combination of red and orange, and his eyes –

Those eyes!  I would remember if I’d seen him before…

His eyes were about the most stunning blue he’d ever seen on a person.  For a moment he presumed the boy was wearing contacts, for the vividness of his eye color almost appeared illusory against his emaciated features, but then he knew a kid in his situation wouldn’t likely bother with something as high maintenance as contact lenses.  It was almost as though the drugs – and whatever else he was into – were ebbing away every appearance of health in his body, but sparing his eyes.  They were alive – piercing, moving, aching – looking straight at Charlie.

“Hi officer.” said the teen with a tremor in his throat.

His words, though common to Charlie’s ears, caught him off guard.  He felt a bit foolish, realized he’d been staring at the boy, and immediately continued slowly across the street while seeing him out of the corner of his eye, crossing the other direction.  He felt his heartbeat quicken, and there was that familiar tug.

What is it about that kid?

Without even realizing it, he stopped in the middle of the intersection and stared again at the teen – now half a block down, looking at a newspaper dispenser.

He’s waiting for me to leave.

There was an overwhelming sense welling up from his deepest recesses, rising up to convey the undeniable fact that Charlie needed to go talk to the boy.  His natural reluctance – his inborn penchant for inaction – was keeping him halted in the street, but he knew quite clearly that this was a situation he was unlikely to avoid.  Rationally, he thought this was the worst possible time to approach the boy.  The kid was searching for a fix big time, and there was no way Charlie could imagine accomplishing anything meaningful by trying to talk to him in this place and time.  He rehearsed every reason in the world for why he should just walk, pray for the boy – pray for another time, a more appropriate place to meet.  But that tug was not letting him go; it was holding his feet to the pavement, and he sensed that this was a moment – one of those significant moments in life, where a seemingly small decision could have life-changing, even eternity changing consequences, like when you work up the nerve to ask someone out for a simple cup of coffee, and then you end up marrying that person, or when you choose to tune out the world for a few moments in order to speak with God, and He says something to you that moves you deeply, that you carry around in your heart like a torch, and you never forget those words He said to you when you did something as simple as stop and listen for a moment.

I have to do this, he said to himself.

Even as he started to turn, just as he was about to lift a foot from the ground to begin walking toward the boy, he was startled by the blare of a car horn not more than four feet beside him.  He gasped and nearly jumped, turning to his right and seeing a beat up looking Volvo containing a very exasperated driver.  The car had obviously been waiting at the intersection for some time while Charlie had been dawdling, conflicted.  Charlie’s eyes narrowed at the ugly car.  He was immediately frustrated, not with the car, or even the driver, but at the prospect that some force had sent this hunk of junk to rattle his nerve.  And it was working.

Maybe it’s a sign, he thought.  Maybe this isn’t the time.

So why is my heart still beating so fast?

He watched the driver of the Volvo throw his hands up with a very rankled expression on his face. 

It   must   not   be time.

He finished crossing the street, left the boy behind.

Damn, he thought.

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School Yard Meet

Posted in dreams and visions, fiction stories, spiritual themes with tags , , , , on December 2, 2009 by wolfgangld

 

A long tunnel amplified the little girl’s scream – her reaction to the fast approach of her pursuers.  She quickly wound her way to the tunnel’s end, her Converse clad feet landing on a torn up, rubberized surface, and then she sprinted fast, hoping to find some sort of hiding spot before the savages chasing her exited the tunnel and spotted her.  Frantically, she glanced here and there, looking for cover. 

The oversized tire?  No, too far away.

Around the corner of the brick building?  No, out of bounds.

The swings?  No, too open.

            Two crazy-eyed boys roared out of the blue tunnel slide and briefly scanned the playground before eyeing their prey, still determinedly searching for a hiding place.  The girl screamed again before racing back to the same toy she’d just slid off.  And the boys continued to chase.

Andrew quietly observed the scene from beyond the playground fence outside the elementary school.  Seeing the girl stirred inside him a peculiar mixture of uneasiness and longing.  While much of him flatly despised the memories her image projected into his mind, there was another sensation that ran much deeper.  Even as he knew his immediate purpose in this neighborhood – even as he dug at the flesh of his pocked forearms, shuffling anxiously from one to the other – the vision of the playing girl drummed up emotions so buried, he barely remembered when he’d felt them before.  He felt himself desiring something of the familiar, like a song he’d heard over and over as a child, or the taste of an oft eaten food, or the scent of home.  The warmth of Mom.

HMMMM MOM  She hurts hurts hurts

Swirling whispers snapped for his attention.  His shuffling became more desperate as he glanced down the street, looking for a face to relieve him.

“Drew!”  He heard the girl yell from the playground.

He quickly crossed his arms, suppressing the incessant urge to claw at the fire inside his elbows.  He thought for a moment about walking away, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.  Still longing enough for the familiar, he stayed at the fence as the girl ran toward him.

“Hey Sophie!” he said, trying his best to sound enthusiastic, to sound innocent.  “What’re ya doin?”

“Will and Jordan won’t stop chasing me!” she said, referring to the two boys who’d been hounding her around the big toy. 

Andrew eyed the boys, who’d stopped several yards away.  “Well, you tell them your big brother is watching them.” he said, narrowing his eyes playfully.

“I’m glad you’re not dead, Drew!” she exclaimed.

“Dead?  No, why would I be dead?” he asked, chuckling nervously.

“Mom said you’re probably dead.”

MOM  She hurts hurts hurts

He caught himself shuffling a moment, then stopped, but couldn’t keep his voice from shaking.  “Mom?” clenching his teeth.  Forced smile.  “How’s Mom doing, Sophie?”

“Good, I guess.  She works at the wine store.  And watches game shows, mostly.”

Sophie hadn’t mentioned anything about a man, the main purpose of Andrew’s inquiry, but he was compelled to ask.  “So it’s just you and Mom?  Nobody else staying with you?”  Glanced again down the street.  Still no relief.

“Nope.  Just me and Mom.  I’m glad you’re not dead, Drew.” She smiled.  “Where you been, anyway?  I mean, where do you sleep?”

“I’ve got a place to sleep, don’t worry.”  His ringed, sunken eyes were still fixed down the street.

“You know, you don’t look so good, Drew.  Maybe you should come home awhile.”

There was someone rounding the corner a few blocks down.  Recognizing the hardware on the guy’s jacket, relief! Andrew turned to start walking down the street before catching himself.  His need was frightfully urgent, but he found himself obligated to the girl a moment longer – she, the only person who still mattered.  He crouched low and focused on Sophie, satisfied there was innocence yet in her bright, lovely face.

“I can’t come home, baby, but don’t you worry about me.  I got a great place.”  Gripping the fence, he said, “But I want you to promise me something.”

“What’s that?”

“If Mom has a man come stay at home again, you need to leave.”

“Leave?  Where am I supposed to go?”

“Anywhere!  You can come stay with me.”  He realized the absurdity of his statement even as he said it.

“But I don’t even know where you live, Drew!  What sort of man are you talking about?  You mean like the wizard?”

He visibly shuddered at the name.  “Yeah, like the wizard.  If he…” – checked to see if the jacket was still there, eyes watering, shaking – “…if he, or any other man shows up, you come find me.  Or go to the police.  Promise?”

“Ok, Drew, I promise.” she said.  “Where you going?”

“Sophie!  Get away from that fence!” hollered a teacher from the playground.

Andrew stood.  “Gotta buy some medicine.” he said, groping at his forearms.  “Bye, Sophie.”  He waved and departed before the teacher got much closer.

“Bye Drew.” he heard her say quietly as he left.

His pace was just short of a run as he made his way toward the guy with the jacket.  What’s his name? Gary? Larry? Who cares. 

A block down, he crossed in front of a tall guy wearing a frumpy grey sweatshirt and a Giants baseball cap.  Undercover.  Drew knew the guy had to know what he was after, wondered if he’d try and follow him to the deal.  No time for that!  He decided he had no choice but to let the cop know he was aware of him and hoped he wouldn’t bother to watch where he went.

“Hi officer.” he muttered as the tall man approached.  The guy displayed a wide smile beneath the brim of his cap and continued crossing the street.  Andrew kept an eye on him, saw him slow down, turn and look at him with eyes narrowed, intense.

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Faces on Market (still very rough, but so is everything on here)

Posted in Uncategorized on November 11, 2009 by wolfgangld

He was on the bus, and he – no, he was driving the bus – Never driven a bus before – down Market Street, and everybody on the bus was shouting at him because he kept blowing past the stops Have no idea where I’m going.  And nothing made sense because it was Market Street, but it didn’t really look like Market Street; it looked like every other smut covered street around Don’t remember so many liquor stores around here.  Or porn shops.  All he heard was the shouts of the angry passengers, which he couldn’t understand because they should’ve understood he’d never driven a bus before, and he had no idea what he was doing here anyway, but there sure were a lot of drunks walking out of those liquor stores; they all looked pretty grungy and old – some short and fat, others tall and fat, some limping, shuffling, pulling booze from paper coated bottles – but they all had similar faces No, they are the same face, over and over.  A hundred different wasted, drunken frames with the same face Dad.  Passengers yelling became more frantic as he was nearly veering off the road, examining every face – every same face – he passed by What the hell are you doing here?     

            “Look out!  You’re going to hit those guys!” hollered someone, and he realized these idiots were so drunk they were starting to stumble into the street, and he wondered why he couldn’t stop the bus, but it must have been because he’d never driven a bus before, so he didn’t know how to make it stop, and it was getting more and more tricky to keep from hitting that same drunk person over and over because they were stumbling out of every liquor store, porn shop, and alleyway he drove by.  He stomped on the accelerator- somehow he knew how – figuring he could speed away from the drunken Dad obstacle course, but that carried him more quickly to the end of the street where there was nothing but a black wall and another drunk Dad standing in front of it, only this one was not stumbling or weaving about; he was just standing there, looking straight at the driver of the bus, with a familiar slack-jawed, emotionless expression on his yellowish face. 

It looked as if there was no way to avoid running him over, unless he could manage an abrupt turn up an alley Do I know how to turn? He flipped the steering wheel sharply, and the bus’s tires squeeled deafeningly, and the passengers were flying all over the place, bashing into the windows – glass, limbs, lives breaking, and the driver felt a thump! under the bus Oh no!, then it was quiet – the passengers had shut up, the bus was still moving, it was pitch black through the windows, but the bus was still moving slowly, and there was a light now in the distance Are we all dead?  There was a steady up and down motion under the left front corner Flat tire? Or a piece of – oh, not that!  The light was getting nearer – a street lamp by the looks of it – showering a glow upon the pavement below, but there was a cloudiness in the center of the glow.

The cloudiness beneath the light took clearer shape as the driver pulled closer – it was a pale, thin shape with a shiny top, or the top was shiny because it was reflecting the street light, and there was a sideways “V” at its base; part of it was touching the light pole, part of it was leaning, or standing.  It’s a person! Not another Dad!  Rolling closer, the bus bumping up and down on one side; the alley was so silent, and the driver strained to make out the features of the light pole leaner.  It became apparent that this was not another drunk as he’d seen again and again on Market.  His features were too chiseled, and his skin was very pale; he was almost gaunt looking, hair was bright yellow, he was young!  I’ve seen him!

The driver’s foot still couldn’t find the brake, but the bus was rolling thumping so slowly now that he was able to simply release the accelerator, and it dragged itself to a standstill right before the young leaner, who was standing with one foot resting against the back of the pole, and he was staring out into nothing, but he was scanning intently as though he had a purpose, like he could see something, even though all the driver saw was the street light, the boy, and blackness.  He prepared to exit the bus, but then remembered that he’d never driven a bus before and had no idea where the door opener was.  It didn’t matter because the front window had shattered at some point, so there was little more than a few feet separating him from the leaner.

“Have I seen you before?”  he said, and his own voice was foreign, startling in the stillness.  The boy turned his face robotically toward him, stared at him with brilliant blue eyes.  The dense blackness surrounding the driver, the bus, the boy – it started to change in shade.  It became lighter, but not in a way that illuminated anything; it was more like dense fog, and there was, in the distance, a peculiar whispering sound, and the driver realized it had been there for some time, but he hadn’t noticed it until now because it was growing louder.  Is that a voice? A song?

The driver was suddenly aware of intense nausea and a sharp pain in his head Where did that come from?  The fog was growing thicker, and it was starting to obscure the leaning boy’s features  Why doesn’t he answer me?  What is that sound? Oh God, my head!!  Blue eyes pierced through the gathering mist, and he could see the boy was straightening up, turning, and then for an instant his entire face was clear.

“Help me.” said the boy, clearly heard above the cascade of noise entering the driver’s head.

“Charlie?  Charlie, are you awake, baby?” came a desperate voice, like a song.

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What’s Hard About a Book

Posted in fiction stories, writing with tags , on November 5, 2009 by wolfgangld

There are several challenges that come a person’s way when trying to write a novel, the chief being the lack of ample time to do it when you still need to work another job to pay the bills.

My biggest is this – the ever alluring call of the short story.  I have always been a huge fan of short stories, especially writing them.  I had a short story published in college, and I always figured that, if I did get published again, it would be a short story.  Now that I am called to write an entire book, I find that I have a stubborn propensity to treat every chapter as a short story.  There are times when that can make sense, but it also doesn’t work to have a whole book full of 26 climaxes and pseudo-resolves with punctuary ending.

Now I will end this entry before I am too inclined to resolve it.

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The Hill

Posted in dreams and visions, fiction stories, spiritual themes with tags , , , , , on October 29, 2009 by wolfgangld

It was a rare time in San Francisco when the streets were nearly empty.  It was an hour that was too early for pedestrians, too early for drivers, or anybody else without a bit of wildness in their blood – and for the crazies, the dealers, the junkies, and even the street walkers and their parasitic clientele – the hour was too late; they were still recovering from their nightly exploits, suffering from early morning comas.  This was the hour Charlie loved best.  This was when he loved to run. 

He rounded the corner from Ellis Street onto Jones, holding his breath a moment as he ran, knowing this corner was used as a urinal by the various bodies that now lie passed out on the sidewalks and in the adjacent park; he had learned long ago to spare himself the stench whenever running this direction.  He tried his best to savor the ache in his leg muscles as they pulled in the steady vibrations of the pavement slapping against his shoes.  The running wasn’t good for his joints, his wife kept telling him, but he did it anyway.  “The pavement is wrecking your body.  Come to the club with me if you want to stay in shape!” she would say.  But staying in shape was hardly the point.  His morning journeys through and beyond the streets of The Tenderloin were only in part physical.  For even as he taxed his body, his spirit was waking to the framework of something more.  And every day he was reaching for something more, straining to try and touch it or hear a whisper of it.

Maybe this morning, he thought.  I’m taking the hill all the way; maybe this morning.

Market Street was in front of him, and he knew this was where he would find the first signs of life in the city.  He crossed the street toward the corner where he knew a particular sidewalk preacher would later be found hollering about Jesus.  The Market Street hollering preacher (that’s what he called him, because he didn’t know his name, and there were several of them, so he needed to give him a name) was not like the Union square preacher and definitely not like the Polk Street preachers – there were many of those, but the Market Street guy was more approachable than most, and even though he yelled a lot about Jesus, he didn’t resort to holding signs with pictures of hellfire on them, or any other sort of sign for that matter.  He’d stopped to talk with that grizzle faced preacher once, told him he and his wife worked at the mission up the street, and the preacher got a big smile and told him he should start coming to his church on Sundays, and he’d show him how he could also become a street corner preacher.  But he knew it wasn’t for him; there was something more.

Several blocks down he ran by a newspaper booth where a short, stocky guy in forest green clothes was unpacking copies of the San Francisco Chronicle.  He thought about getting a paper when he was done running so he could check the scores, but mentally kicked himself when he realized he’d forgotten to grab some change before he’d left the apartment.  He was always forgetting.  It didn’t matter.  The Giants were in a pennant race; people would be talking, so he’d find out by the time he got home.

Here and there, lights began to appear in shop windows, employees preparing for a day of tourists and window shoppers.  The closer he got to The Embarcadero – the long, curved street that shadowed the bay – the more the city transformed into “that place” – the place of pictures and postcards and collectibles, over-priced clothing and memorabilia that people could probably find elsewhere, but they bought it here, paid more for it because they’d found it on their trip to San Francisco, which made it special.

Coming into view, the Bay Bridge awoke Charlie’s spirit again to the hope of something more.  Its lights grew starry as sweat trickled into his eyes, warping his vision slightly.  Looking at the bridge always gave him the feeling of something large, something majestic pulling him along into a grand adventure – the same feeling he’d gotten a few years earlier when he’d first decided to do something outrageous with his life and join Youth With a Mission.  The worldwide missionary organization had bases all around the world, but the moment Charlie read of the San Francisco based urban mission, his heart was captured, and he somehow knew he was meant to go.  That was three years ago, but he hadn’t lost his passion for this city or its people.  Where he lacked much of the boldness and biblical fortitude of the street corner preachers, he was not lacking sincerity.  He sincerely loved God, often trembled in his worship of Him.  He hoped in Him, for something more in his life and for this city than the same old religious crap and broken promises that never resulted in anything but guilt over the fact that nothing ever changed.  There had to be something more than that.

            The Hyatt Regency Hotel was on Charlie’s left as he turned onto The Embarcadero.  In a month or so, as retailers started decorating for Christmas, an ice skating rink would open near here.  He smiled as he thought about the city during Christmas time.  It was overly commercialized, but people usually seemed a little less depressed around Christmas, and the lights and decorations always made Charlie think of his mom.  I need to call her, he thought.  Better do it before noon to be sure he doesn’t answer.

            The part of the run along the bay always went too quickly.  It offered some of the most captivating views around the city, and it preceded the part of the morning jog that had often been Charlie’s nemesis.  As he approached the northern part of the city and Fisherman’s Wharf, his ears caught the sound of music in the distance; he knew it was coming from a diner across from the pier where his buddy Sal was getting ready to open for breakfast.  The sun was rising behind him as he began to prepare himself mentally for the hill.  Darkness quickly began to retreat from across the city; it often seemed to Charlie that mornings at the pier were like a veil being removed from the face of someone beautiful, and now, if you looked, you could be enraptured by those same buildings and streets that seemed ominous in the dark just moments earlier.

            He laughed as he passed Sal’s diner and saw Sal, a middle-aged Italian guy who ran a 50’s style American diner and blasted old rock songs on the juke box every morning; he was dancing to Aretha Franklin’s “RESPECT” while pulling chairs off tables.  He knew by Sal’s upbeat demeanor that the Giants must have won last night.  He waved, and Charlie could read his lips as he yelled “Yo Charlie!” while pointing at the orange Giants logo on his shirt.  He smiled and kept running while whispering a prayer for Sal and his business.  Soon the music was replaced by the barking of seals on the water.  This told him that he was running a bit slowly; usually he was on his way back south by the time the seals were awake.  No matter.  It only meant he hadn’t wasted his energy on the easier part.

            He rounded a corner – he wasn’t even sure which street it was, but it didn’t matter; they all took him up the hill – and started an incline that was gradual at first.  Before it got steeper, he reached into the front pocket of his soaked sweatshirt and pressed a button on his mp3 player.  Music appeared in his ears.  He didn’t listen to it for most of the jog; he never used to run with music at all, but he found it helped motivate him toward the end when he was tired and everything in his body was screaming at him to stop running up that confounded hill, to just walk.  He couldn’t admit to himself that he’d come to need the music, come to thrive on the energy and the hope it seemed to bring, because he hated to think of what that meant, hated to think it was nothing more than cleverly fused tones and words which drove him.  No.  There had to be something more.

            The strategy for taking the hill was always the same – take it with force.  Charlie had tried in the past to pace himself while running up, but that never worked.  The hill would eat you alive if you ran it too timidly, so he always pushed himself to just short of a sprint.  Soon he was laboring up the steepest part of his run, and he was silently cursing at an ache in his left shin that was growing in intensity with every footfall.  It was becoming a labor just pick up his leg, but he pressed on, trying to find strength for himself in the music.  The song he was listening to was slow and methodical – one of the Celtic numbers his wife had turned him onto.  It was great to listen to during prayerful times, but horrible to run to.  He made a mental note to delete the song from his player, knowing a song like that would kill his motivation.  He could see the hill’s apex approaching; it was about six blocks up, but it seemed twice that length as Charlie was practically limping, his brain orchestrating the entire rest of his body in a revolt against his efforts to move past the pain that was shooting through his leg. 

            Charlie had a fellow missionary friend who often told him he had a bad habit of living beside himself.  “There is the Charlie who everybody sees, and there is the Charlie who stands next to him, critiquing every little thing he does, worrying how others see him and how God sees him.”  Limping toward the top of the hill, Critical Charlie was starting to talk to Runner Charlie.

*The following needs work.  Critical Charlie should be more like a task master, less like a discourager.*

            [Don’t even think about walking this hill.]

            I don’t think I can make it.  My shin is killing me!

[Don’t be a baby.  You are no kind of man if you walk this hill.]

            If I push too hard, this shin splint will keep me from running for a week!

            [Now you’re just making excuses!  If you don’t push hard, you’re gonna end up a fat drunk like your old man.]

            I know, I know. 

            [You think you’re suffering from a lousy shin splint?  That’s not suffering!  Think how badly Jesus suffered!]

            I know.

            [Think of all those poor kids on Polk, selling their skin for drugs or food or a place to sleep!  You gonna help them when you can’t even make it up one lousy hill without walking?  I mean, what are we doing here?]

            I know.

            [Run damnit, run!]

            I know!

            [Do you think you can change anything about this city?  Does anything

            ever really

            change?]

            Pulse pounding so hard in his ears that he could no longer hear the music from his headphones, Charlie crested the hill.  It was an awkward, limping sort of run, but he’d made it without walking.  Critical Charlie was satisfied for the time being.  Either way, he was walking down the other side of the hill.  If he ran down the front side, which was longer and steeper than the side he’d just scaled, he wouldn’t be able to stand for a week, much less run.  So he walked, drinking in the endorphin-fueled euphoria he’d learned to enjoy so much.  He only heard his own heart beat, and time drastically slowed, which was wonderful because all at once everything seemed so good.  The air was fresh, and God is good.  And the city -

            Halfway down Nob Hill, as he limped by the homes of rich people, a door opened, and a raggedly dressed prostitute stumbled out, carrying her shoes because she’d been shoved from the building before she had a chance to put them on.  Her over-moussed hair was sticking up and jutting out in all sorts of directions, and her heavy black eye makeup was runny and smeared like she’d been crying.  But she didn’t look sad.  She just looked really exhausted and a little bit pissed, like the guy in that building must have stiffed her on part of her fee.  Charlie figured she and the john must have drugged themselves unconscious the night before, or she wouldn’t be out in the morning like this.  Seeing a prostitute at night was depressing as it was, but witnessing this tragic soul pushed out into the morning light was almost too sad to bear, and now he was lamenting the fact that he’d come across her during a run-induced timeless daze, because he knew his mind would engrave her every feature permanently into memory, and his critical self would later use the image to antagonize him with guilt over how little impact his life was making.

           Charlie stood still as he and the prostitute locked gazes.  She peered at him for a moment with her tired, slightly pissed expression, and then she crossed the street, still carrying her shoes.  He wondered what had happened to her that made her desperate enough to live that sort of life.  He wondered how long she’d been doing this, and he wondered what would become of her when she was too old and too beat down for anybody to want her anymore.  Does anything ever really change?

            He continued back down the hill, back into The Tenderloin.  He figured when he got home, he would tell his wife about the prostitute.  Maybe she would know her name.

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In Touch With a Song (repost from 2007)

Posted in dreams and visions, spiritual themes with tags , , on October 28, 2009 by wolfgangld

In describing a particular character from the story, I was reminded of this writing from a couple years ago.

 

Gravity in reverse compels me to move
to paste together words never seen before
that echo an enchanted melody that rides upon
a music older than earth and stone, existing, not
so much created, but forever a part of the voice
that has formed land into mountains and vapor to
oceans, which rise to a swell as they ache to listen
to every tender, lavish tone that escapes the mouth
of this sculpter of worlds, this composer of all we know
that is wonder, that is beauty, that is every story we’ve ever
taken in and felt it was a part of who we are – a part of forever,
but a part of humanity; its laced within our blood, and we know it like breath
unremembering as we are, it is there with each song that draws tears down our faces, brings courage when we are afraid, laughs away our weariness, casts glorious light onto our dark paths, pours healing upon our brokenness, grants us wholeness where we’re empty, moves us to dance like children and tells us we are loved forever.

If my ear could capture a piece of this song
then tonight I would rest with peace by my side
and worry would be gone, and I’d forget why I cared
about most of the things I kill myself doing and trying to get.
And words would come easily; you wouldn’t have to flood me
with all emotions and strange longings I find it hard to understand.
We’d be friends for all time, you the singer and I your favorite instrument.
I would spend hours weaving your songs into stories that stir hearts to strain for the sound of your voice.  

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A Bus Ride to Nowhere. (or Strange How the Sun…)

Posted in dreams and visions, fiction stories, spiritual themes with tags , , , , , , on October 10, 2009 by wolfgangld

Neither dying hope nor dwindling beauty occupied the attention of the boy sitting on a bench across the pond from the Palace of Fine Arts.  He didn’t waste a worry on these things, partly due to his age, but mostly because on this day, he was not alone.  Somehow, unexpectedly, he had managed to convince his dad to bring him along when he’d left the apartment that morning. 

“Hey Dad!” he shouted at the pale, thin man who stood next to the shore of the pond.  There was a long pause while the boy’s father stared absently at the rippling reflection of the Palace in the water. 

Then, as if he’d heard him several seconds late, “What?” turning his sullen expression toward the boy.

“Why are we here?  I mean, is this all we’re going to do today?”

The man forced a crooked smile and for a moment, the boy saw a sort of deep melancholy flash across his father’s face, betraying a well of emotions he was obviously struggling to keep in check.  “No. There is something else we are going to do.” 

He then walked over, holding his hand out toward his son, who shrugged off his puzzlement over his dad’s mood and hastily grabbed an extended hand while jumping from the bench.  They exited the palace grounds and walked toward a bus stop, arriving just as an orange and white public bus arrived.  The boy shielded his eyes from the sun’s gleam off the side of the bus.  This was the time of year and in a part of the city where buses actually stayed clean.  The boy knew this because they used to live near here, at the top of The Hill.  Then something happened with Dad’s job – his mother reminded him repeatedly not to ask him about it, no matter how much he wanted to because his dad always seemed so sad, and in a lot of ways he seemed to never be there, even though he was actually around a lot more than he was when he worked at the bank, but he never smiled, even if he played with the boy or would actually watch him when he was showing him something new he could do, like turn a cartwheel or climb a tree; he never seemed to be there – and then they moved out of their house on The Hill, Dad’s car got taken away; now they rode the buses instead.  

They found a seat next to each other as the bus made its way to Highway 101.  “This is just the best day!” the boy beamed.  He said this in spite of not knowing where they were going or what they’d be doing.  To him, it didn’t much matter.  It wasn’t often he got to spend a day with his father, and he’d had to shed a few tears to get out with him that morning.  But he was here with him now, and he wondered what sort of adventure they may be on.  Peering over, he watched as the man absently smoothed the fronts of his worn slacks, which he always did because he’d told the boy that he hated creases in his pants, so he was always smoothing the fronts of them to keep the creases away.  Of course, the creases of those pants had been gone for years, and it was hard to imagine they could ever come back, but his dad was smoothing them anyway, so he decided to smooth his own pants as well, just in case they needed it.

For several minutes, the bus rolled west along 101 before screeching to a stop.  The boy covered his ears, wincing at the high pitched brake squeel, while looking over at his dad, whose expression remained unchanged.  “Why do these things all have such squeaky brakes?” he remarked, laughing.  No response from Dad.

“Presidio.” the bus driver spoke over the loudspeaker, and a trendily dressed Asian man walked from the back of the bus and exited.  The boy watched out the window as the man walked toward a street corner and was suddenly struck by a barrage of water from a nearby sprinkler head that popped just as he was approaching.  The man stopped cold for a moment, holding his arms up, which looked ridiculous to the boy because there was no way holding his arms out was going to keep him dry.  He quickly gave up trying to shield himself and resorted to a hilarious sort of tap dance toward the street, away from the water’s onslaught.  The boy laughed out loud at the display and was surprised when he saw that his dad was not amused.  He wasn’t even looking.

As the bus pulled away, carrying them further toward an unknown destination, the boy began to think (because the Asian man’s tap dance reminded him) of time a couple years earlier when Dad took him to the zoo, and it started raining really hard there.  It was a flash rain, and as quickly as it started, everybody started running for someplace dry.  People were crowding into the food places and huddling under the little overhangs by the bathrooms, but Dad just stood there in the rain, laughing at all the people scrambling for shelter.  “Come on!  It’s just a little sprinkle!” he’d shouted, and he just kept walking.  And then it started raining harder; it was one of those rains that thoroughly soaked your clothes in minutes and managed to get water right through to your underwear.  It was raining about as hard as the boy had ever seen in his life, and he remembered being glad his mom wasn’t there because she never would have let him stay out in that sort of rain.  When the walkways were completely clear of people, that’s when Dad picked him up (Dad was stronger back then, it seemed) and began to swing him around and around in the rain, saying, “You’re gonna get wet boy! You’re gonna get wet!”  And the boy had laughed so hard.  So hard his tears mixed with the rain and made his mouth taste salty.  And Dad laughed too.  That may have been the last time the boy had seen him laugh.

“Dad, maybe we can go to the…”

“Golden Gate Bridge” spoke the bus driver over the intercom.  Dad stood up to exit the bus, and the boy followed, not understanding why they were getting off here.  There was a bit of a walk to get from the bus stop to the front of the bridge, and the boy’s father did not pause to look back, make sure the boy was following; he just moved steadily in the direction of the bridge, no pause to check out the historic fort at the entryway; he continued his pace onto the pedestrian walkway before he finally stopped and turned to look back at the city’s skyline.  At first the boy thought he was turning to look at him, but he could tell that his gaze was fixed beyond the place he was standing.  He was looking at the city, the buildings, and he had a look on his face that seemed familiar.  His eyes were narrowed and watering a bit, like he was trying to keep from crying, and he was biting his lower lip in a way that looked like it could have hurt. 

The boy remembered seeing the same look when his mom came home one day after they’d moved onto Post Street and told his dad that she’d found a job.  She’d thought the news would make Dad happy, but instead he got that same expression where he bit his lip, and he didn’t say a word the rest of the night, just sat and watched TV, just sat there smoothing the invisible creases from his pants.  Mom had told him later that his dad was upset because he’d been looking for a job for a long time – that he felt bad since she had found a job first, and he felt even worse because of the fact that she had to get a job at all.

That was the look his dad had as he was peering over the city from the bridge’s walkway.  And although he had really been hoping to talk to him about going to the zoo – perhaps he could convince him to just stop there for a bit; maybe it would remind him of that time when he still smiled, when he laughed – maybe it would rain again, but that expression on Dad’s face made him think it wasn’t a good time to ask about the zoo.  In fact, there was something in his face that was making the boy extremely nervous. 

Then a wind started to kick up.  It was always windy here, but now it started to gust hard, and it seemed to be blowing right into Dad’s face, making his thin brown hair blow straight back, and he seemed so frail in the face of that wind.  He turned his back to the city, turned his back to the boy, and started to cross the bridge.

“Dad!” shouted the boy, but his voice was stifled by the wind, so he started running, trying to catch up, trying to get sight of his dad, and as he was stepping onto the walkway, the Golden Gate Bridge started to creak.  The wind was whipping across, straining the cabling, and all the tourists were running past the boy, trying to get off the bridge because the whole thing felt like it was going to collapse; the cars stopped moving altogether, drivers too afraid to move, and Dad was walking across, right into something that looked like a beast.  To the boy, it looked as though the bridge itself was transformed by that terrible gale into something horrible, something impossible.  He tried to shout again for his dad, but the wind was so loud he couldn’t even hear himself. 

He fought the temptation to run back through the wind, to run from the beast, and he chose instead to run as fast as he could to try and catch his dad.  So he did, and within seconds, he was next to him.  He had stopped partway across and was staring out at the water.  The boy tried to speak, but there was the wind, so he took hold of his hand instead.  Dad looked down at him; his forehead was creased and there were tears in his eyes, maybe from crying or maybe from the wind, and the boy could read his lips as he spoke, “son.”

Dad let go of his hand and climbed over the fence of the walkway.  The boy couldn’t help but feel like he was dreaming all of this as he saw his dad look toward the skies, which were still sunny despite the bizarre weather, and he uttered a few words which were caught by the air and carried to the boy’s ears.  And he watched as he stepped off the bridge.

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Alive

Posted in dreams and visions, fiction stories, spiritual themes with tags , , , , , , on October 9, 2009 by wolfgangld

The following was originally posted a couple years ago in another blog.  I am reposting here because I have been asked about it, and as I remember, it is the first writing I have done based on a God inspired vision.

 

                                                                                                             “Alive”

I have been engaged in torrid battle with this creature for what feels like years now. Perhaps it has been years; it would seem that way by looking at my battered form, covered in bruises and deep cuts, some partially healed and some still flowing blood. The evidence of wounding on my exterior does little to describe the horrible toll this fight has taken on my insides. I am weary. Though I try not to betray my growing weakness to my adversary, I fear that he notices my movements are slowing, the aggression draining from my sword. I have begun to question whether I can win this fight, and I believe this villain knows my doubts.

Even as I block a glancing blow from his jagged blade with my armored fist, I am distracted with the growing dizziness in my mind. I don’t remember the creature being so skilled a fighter when this battle began. Only now do I see his strategy. He has been holding back for a long time, feigning a measure of weakness. I can’t help but wonder if this fight would be finished if I had taken him more seriously in the beginning.

As I move in for another half-hearted sword strike, my vision becomes clouded by a besetting darkness. Night has been approaching for some time now, and I know I am doomed to fight the beast in his ideal setting. This frustrating realization removes any remaining determination from my attack. He grins angrily, bearing his ugly teeth as he disables my sword hand, clutching it in his fist. The touch of his skin is so cold it burns. Time slows to a crawl as I realize that the end is coming. Grasping his angry blade in his free hand, he draws his face closer to mine, relishing the moment, hating me more now than he ever has.

With sword hand drawn back, he says, “You are weak, boy. Always have been.”

All remaining clarity retreats from my consciousness as the creature’s black blade pierces my chest, tearing flesh from bone, ripping toward vital organs – attacking my heart. He releases me, and I tumble awkwardly to the ground. Through my fragile cognitive state, I am aware of the beast laughing at me, looming over my helpless body as he prepares to institute a final killing blow.

The fact that my pulse is still driven by a hopelessly shallow heartbeat is a mere technicality. I am dead already. Even if the beast were to spare me another attack, I would never survive this wound. It is too deep. I attempt to prepare myself for the inevitable, begging God almighty to forgive me for being so weak, so easily beaten.

My sense of sight is nearly useless, obscured by bodily trauma and the ever increasing darkness that destines itself for these Shadowlands. I pass my final moments listening to the gradual slowing of my own heartbeat, almost deafening inside my dying ears.

beat beat

It is so painful to breathe; I wish my lungs would quit the effort.

beat    beat

I wonder why the creature hasn’t finished me yet; perhaps he’s realized the cruelest thing is to let me die as slowly as possible.

beat      beat

There are sounds elsewhere in the background. They are the sounds of the other battles going on in these lands. Funny that I become more attuned to them now.

beat             beat

The clash of steel on steel and the painful cries of the newly wounded sound as if they are all around me now. Of course, there have always been thousands of these smaller battles raging within the much larger battle that has continued for centuries.

beat                    beat

Only now, my own battle concluding in pitiful defeat, am I fully aware of how very small I am. There are millions of these creatures terrorizing humankind all around me. While my very existence now seems defined by the killing blow of this beast’s sword, to him, I am just another human. When I am gone, he will find another to hate and kill. Just another human. Just another monster, and he has sliced me through, displayed my powerlessness to all the other monsters.

beat                                  beat

Something pierces the blackness that has overtaken my eyes. A small light. I suppose this is the end. I attempt to reach for the light, supposing that my spirit has left my body, but then realize how ridiculous I am for trying. Movement is impossible.

beat                                              beat

The light becomes slightly clearer, and I see now that it does not appear to be an object or a doorway, as fabled stories would have me expect. It is a person. He seems familiar to me somehow.

beat                                                                 beat

Echoing in the deep darkness of the Shadowlands, the final sounds are picked up by my dying ears. They are the sounds of men crying out, not in pain or sorrow, but in hope: “It is the Captain!”

beat________________________________

 

Somewhere in the recesses of my throbbing mind, I am aware of the sensation of my rising from the ground. For the moment I believe I have finally died, but I cannot ignore the fact that I still hear the faint sounds of battle around me. There is a brightness before me that seems veiled by something semi-translucent. I attempt to reach out in order to remove the veil, then feel foolish when I realize that the “veil” is nothing more than my closed eyelids. As I open my eyes, I am startled, first by the fact that I am conscious and upright, and second by the magnificent figure now standing before me.

The Captain stands boldly in front of me, in the very place where the hideous beast once stood before I was torn apart by his deadly sword. The brightness I have perceived comes from the gleam of his armor. Beyond that, even his flesh seems to permeate a sort of light. He has the look of someone otherworldly, but I would never describe him as alien. Quite the contrary, he is perhaps truly more human than any of us who wander this battlefield. He appears exceedingly tall, but were I to guess his height, I couldn’t say he was any taller than myself. He is both larger than life and unbelievably natural at the same time. I can only assume that the immensity of his presence stems from his unyielding confidence. The Captain has roamed these lands for many years and has dispatched countless dark beasts. He is unbreakable; nothing can beat him. Quite simply, he is everything I dream to be. And now, with him before me, I am ashamed.

I avoid looking straight into his face, embarrassed by the undeniable fact that I have been soundly beaten. I now believe that I should never have engaged that beast in battle. I never stood a chance. I was nothing but a child, attempting to fight in an adult’s world. I underestimated my foe, something The Captain has always warned against, and it’s cost me my life. I am convinced that my leader stands here only to review my mistakes, retrieve my armor and sword, and then send me on my way to the hall of the dead. Standing before the most authentic of all beings, I have never felt more fake. Before genuine strength, I have never felt more weak. Lowering my gaze to the ground, I await my chastisement.

“Look at me, friend” he says, and his words seem to resonate more within my soul than in my ears. My every urge is to turn away rather than face him, but nobody can run from The Captain. I muster the nerve to raise my eyes to his. Rather than the contempt that my instincts expect, I see something quite different. While his expression is stern, I can only describe his countenance as one of grace. For several painstaking moments, he looks on me in silence, piercing me with his gaze. I find the silence between us unbearable, and begin spewing out words of apology, almost involuntarily.

“Sir…I…” the quivering in my voice is pitiful. Lowering my voice to a near whisper, I continue, “I am sorry; I am defeated.” To my further shame, I find that I am unable to hold back tears as I attempt to imagine some sort of explanation for my disgraceful weakness in battle. “The beast, he…” As I fumble for words, I can no longer look him in the eye. Lowering my eyes again to the ground, I conclude, “he was too strong, and he killed me!”

 

I recognize the absurdity of my words even as they escape my mouth. There is obviously no need to explain to The Captain the fact that I am dead; the open wound still visible at the center of my chest is plenty evidence to that. Peering at the unsightly void that leads to my heart, I begin to wonder more how it is that I am still standing here and speaking. In confusion, I raise my eyes again to The Captain’s, but he speaks before I have a chance to say anything.

“Yes, the beast has killed you; there is no denying it.” He pauses and looks at me with an intensity that unnerves me. “But I wouldn’t worry much about that.” His statement serves to confuse me more, and I cannot hold back the desire to ask him my most burning question.

“Sir…Why did you come here? Did you come to see me die?”

“The reason for my presence will surprise you.” he states in a hushed tone that carries no less intensity. “First, let me show you something.” And with that, he turns from facing me in order to position himself at my side. With his movement, a mist is lifted from my sight, and I begin to see better where it is we are.

We are still standing on the very battlefield where my life was stolen from me. However, the figures I see walking about do not appear to be present in the same way The Captain who stands beside me is. It is as though I am seeing visual echoes of the events playing out in the Shadowlands. The faint sounds of battle I have been hearing all along become matched to scenes of struggle all about me. Not far from where we stand, I notice an older looking man clad in shabby, scarred armor; he is locked in battle with an ugly winged beast at least twice his size. My first thought is to assume this man is hopelessly outmatched and may soon be joining me in death. As I take in more details of his fight, my thoughts begin to change. While nothing about the man appears particularly intimidating, I can’t help but notice an amazing confidence in his bearded expression. While he has every reason to fear, I believe he truly thinks he can slay this creature. The more I watch, the more I see the older man in a different way. The signs of his age – the weathered skin and gray streaked hair – no longer seem so much a weakness as they do an advantage. The scars upon his body tell me he has taken his share of injuries on this battlefield, but I suspect he has instituted far more pain in his years than he has received. The sureness with which he wields his sword reminds me a little of The Captain himself.

“That man,” The Captain speaks, “knows much about fighting. You would have done well to seek his help.” In my mind, I regret deeply the fact that, in life, I would have tended to dismiss any aid from a man such as the old warrior before me. “Men like him,” and he points my gaze further out onto the battlefield, “are very rare.” It takes but a moment for me to understand what he means.

As my eyes scan the scene playing out before me, I find that most humans, unlike the old man, are not fairing well in battle. I see a teenage boy locked in a fight with a creature resembling a serpent, and there is no denying the evidence of terror in the boy’s eyes. The serpent is toying with him and will likely kill him soon. Elsewhere I find a man similar to myself, not just in age, but also in appearance. He tries to appear brave in the face of the awful creature he faces, but I know well the true fear that he hides behind his masked appearance. He is a poser, just as I am.

The Captain, perhaps knowing my thoughts, leans in closer to me and says, “Even now, you carry an enormous weight of guilt.” I silently nod my head. “You have failed to see something on this battlefield. Look.” And he points as he speaks to the places I was distracted from noticing. Because my attention was attracted to the fighting – the struggle between humanity and monsters – I did not notice that there are many humans walking about the Shadowlands, seemingly unaware of the conflict raging all around them.

In fact, the more I look, the more I am aware of the fact that these wandering humans vastly outnumber those who are engaged in battle. Here they walk in the midst of a great war, and yet they carry no weapon, wear no armor. And it isn’t as though they appear completely unaffected by the enemy. I notice a young man walking dangerously close to the drawn sword of an evil red creature. For a moment I think to cry out and warn the young man, but then remember that I am far too dead to hope he can hear me through the veil that separates me from his reality. The creature is locked in a fight with another human, but as he notices the young man walking past, he swipes his sword to the side, cutting him across his left shoulder and leaving a serious wound. The young man instantly clutches his injured appendage and then proceeds with his wandering. The wince of pain on his face indicates the gravity of his injury. Though not fatal, it will take a major toll on him. Most amazing is the fact that the boy completely fails to notice his attacker. He just walks on, shaking his head, muttering to himself as if it were simply bad luck that he’s been hurt. This absurd event repeats itself over and over across the Shadowlands. Men and women are wandering everywhere, the walking wounded, all hemorrhaging blood and shaking their heads because they don’t understand why they are being cut to pieces, unaware of the awful sword strikes that are slowly stealing their lives.

“Are they blind?!” I shout out in horror.

“Some are blind, yes.” responds The Captain calmly. “Many have never been aware of this great war, and are thus blind to its tragedies, but some…” and his voice drops in both tone and volume, “Some have known for some time that these lands are wrought with evil and danger, but they have chosen to blind themselves.”

“How are they not all cut down by the monsters?” I ask, “How do they survive when they don’t fight?”

“Because they have made treaties with our enemies.” says The Captain, his voice still low. “They choose ignorance because they believe it poses less danger, and…” his voice trails off momentarily. Turning to me with a tear in his eye, he continues, “perhaps they are safer, in a way. The enemy rarely kills a walking wounded. They are no danger to him.”

The Captain faces me, and I see that the single tear has been joined by several others, and I know he is prepared to speak to me something from his deepest heart.

 

“Listen to me, friend.” the Captain says in a hushed tone. “You feel ashamed because you fought and lost, but at least you fought.”

“But what does it matter if I failed?”

“It matters!” he responds, barely letting me finish my question. Staring me straight in the eyes, looking inside me, he says, “It matters because it means you haven’t forgotten me. These people you see wandering aimlessly about this battlefield, they have forgotten me. Some forget by choice, some are enticed to forget, and some know the truth of this life but choose to ignore its existence. They have forgotten me, and thus, they have forgotten themselves.” He pauses for several seconds, scanning the battlefield before looking at me again. “But you…You have allowed your soul to awaken long enough to understand that there are bigger things than yourself going on in these Shadowlands. You have fought beside me, and for that I am proud.”

Words fail me as I begin to allow the Captain’s statements to sink into my mind. The greatest person I know is giving me gratitude despite my severe failure. Even as this realization thwarts my own logic, a more desperate question begins to form, and I choose to bring it to the Captain, feeling more comfortable next to him than I had in the beginning.

“Sir, what became of the beast who slain me? He was above me when I fell, and then you appeared.”

The Captain smiles slightly. “You assume, whether you realize it or not, that these beasts fear nothing because they are so adept at creating fear in others. The reverse is true. They excel at administering fear because they themselves are plagued with a constant terror from which they will never find respite.”

“The creature fears you.” I state flatly, the words sounding idiotic in their redundancy.

“Yes, that is true, and it was my appearance that moved him to flee, but it is not just me the creature fears.”

For reasons I cannot explain, my insides begin to twist at the Captain’s statement. I pause only a moment before asking him the obvious: “Whom else does the monster fear?”

Staring at me with eyes smoldering, the mighty Captain says, “He fears you.”

Suddenly, this fact that had always escaped me becomes completely obvious. Of course the monster fears me. It was his fear that drove him to unleash his fury on me for so long. His fear drew him to insult me every waking moment we fought. His fear moved him to murder me. My thoughts are interrupted by the Captain’s bold voice.

“And now, dear friend, I must ask you a question.” He waits a moment to know I hear him clearly. “What is it that I can do for you?”

What a strange question from a person so powerful. Here I’ve fallen, my weakness displayed for all to see in the Shadowlands, and he wants to know what he can do for me? My instinct is to say that I desire nothing, but I know somehow that the Captain will see through my deception. I tell myself that it isn’t vengeance that motivates me to say, “Could you kill the beast?”

Before he responds, I relish the thought of walking peacefully to lie with my fathers, knowing that the despicable creature who murdered me would be tortured and cut apart in a thousand painful ways by the Captain’s powerful sword.

“I could do that, yes.” he says, and I wonder if he isn’t reading my thoughts as much as responding to my answer. “But that isn’t what you really want, is it, son?”

Of course, he is right. He must know that what I really want is to kill the beast myself, but I am embarrassed to let the words get past my lips. Beyond that, I find it impossible to utter such an absurdity, knowing that a creature that killed me once would surely do so again. Still, I can’t help but dwell for a time on the thought of taking that cursed monster down.

The Captain grins widely and says, “Yes, I will give you what you really want.”

With that, the Captain reaches his hand out to me and touches me on the chest, directly at the center of the wound that captured my life. I am overcome almost instantly by an intense heat that radiates through the center of me. Looking down at his hand, I see that the Captain has reached beyond the surface of my skin, actually touching my very heart which was pierced. I am stunned by the realization that, with the touch of his hand, my heart has begun to beat again. Like small, pulsating waves of electricity, my heart surges life throughout my once dead body. My senses begin to dull to the veiled world I have been peering at, and with each new beat of my heart, I begin to awaken to the fact that I am no longer dead.

beat_________________________beat

The air about me begins to darken.

beat__________________beat

My ears open clearly to the clash of metal, the shouts of humankind intensely fighting.

beat___________beat

Like one long paralyzed and suddenly able to feel again, I am aware of the fiber of my arms and legs, awakened again to the existence of my body.

beat_beat

I close my eyes for several moments, and upon opening them, I am fully immersed in the reality of the Shadowlands. I squint, attempting to see through the distance of the battlefield, despite the oppressive darkness that has firmly settled in. To my right, the Captain still stands, his presence lighting the area immediately around us, his aura contrasting the malignant smog that encompasses the land. He points toward a small canyon between two rock formations.

“The creature is there. He awaits a helpless victim.” He then bends to the ground and retrieves my sword from the dust. Handing it to me, he says, “He will find one who is far from helpless.”

Feeling the sword’s familiar weight in my hand, I examine its length, amazed that it remains untarnished despite its years of use. It is lethal as ever. Peering down at my armor, I see that a crease remains in my breastplate where the creature stabbed me, and the tightness upon my chest tells me that, though healed, the deadly wound has left a scar that I will continue to bear. It fuels my hatred for the dark beast who struck me down.

“Go with my breath in your lungs!” the Captain shouts. “Go, now!”

With those words, I begin to feel a great wind moving against my back. Its force is powerful, but more alarming is the overwhelming noise that accompanies the wind. It nearly seems to roar as it rushes past my ears, daring any obstacle to stand in its way.

As I try to brace myself in the gale, I notice for the first time that the Captain has left me. I am alone again in the Shadowlands, and I am surprised to find how quickly my hope diminishes without my glorious leader beside me. For several moments, I wrestle with familiar doubts.

What was I thinking?

All this talk of fighting that beast again was foolishness!

He killed me once and most certainly will again.

I begin to think that I may be much better off becoming like the walking wounded. Certainly these monsters will spare me any trouble if I simply ignore them. Perhaps I can come to some sort of agreement with them…

The stubborn force of the wind behind me serves to break through my thoughts. Truly I know, deep in my heart, that it is lunacy to form a truce with such evil. Such evil that would toy with me for years, destroying me piece by piece and then stealing my life from me. A pact with that sort of monster would never offer true freedom. And so I make my decision here and now, that I would rather be slain again than give in to the slavery of my enemy. Whether I live or die, I will be free.

Looking toward the small canyon many yards in front of me, I know that the creature is aware that I have risen. He awaits me. I begin a steady walk toward him. With each step, my anger grows. I am not content to enter this fight with trepidation, and so I quicken my pace, the wind appearing to drive me faster along my path. The roar of the Captain’s rushing exhalation rattles through my insides, and I am compelled to move to an all out sprint. In the distance, I see the ancient beast step slowly out from his hiding. Only his ugly head appears at first, his red eyes contrasting with the white of his jagged fangs which he bears in something of a smile, as if he is welcoming my descent into his terrible domain. He does not appear surprised to see me revived; perhaps he expected the Captain would raise me. Looking at him, I cannot perceive any of the fear of which the Captain spoke, and a tinge of doubt begins to creep up my spine, threatening my resolve. I push back the voice of fear, knowing that, afraid or not, this monster will stop at nothing to avoid showing weakness. Though still far from earshot, I somehow hear the rumbling voice of the beast in my ears.

“You don’t want this, boy. Trust me.”

Atop my hurried breath, I respond, “Trust you? Absolutely not.”

With that, I speed my pace to what must be an impossible rate. The powerful wind seems to catch my steps, and I feel as though I am defying gravity between every footfall. Large rivulets of sweat flood my forehead and sting my eyes. The pounding ache in my muscles and joints reminds me that I am very much alive, and as I stress my body to its limit, I believe I have never run so swiftly in all my life. Nothing can stop me now; nothing will prevent me from meeting the evil beast again.

Discovering that I will not be dissuaded, the dark monster begins to move toward me, achieving a maximum pace in moments. He moves swiftly despite the mighty force of the wind against him. The air’s movement serves to accentuate his grotesque features, pushing against the unnatural folds that make up his outer skin. With his hide expanded in the wind, he seems even larger than before.

Somehow I know that all the visual effect displayed by the beast is nothing but performance. Though grotesque, I see the monster is not so intimidating as I once thought. With a loud shout, I raise my sword, prepared to enter this fight on the offensive. The beast responds with a roar, but his voice is muffled against the supernatural wind. Rushing forth, I make my determination to give nothing away to this monster. I will move quickly, unleashing all my strength right from the start, demonstrating that I will not give in to fear this time. I will strike the monster down. I will remove his head and hold it high for all the other monsters to see; they will see that here is one who will stand against them. I will fight with all my life, no matter the cost to me.

I will show no mercy.

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