Fractured Paradise (Volume III)
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" Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel." From the Canon of Truth: Genesis, A Hebrew Memory. Praise be to the merciful Lord who bestows rewards for meritorious deeds on those who obey his commands according to his will, and at last will liberate even the wicked from (the torture of) hell and will embellish with purity the whole creation. From the Canon of Truth: Nam Stayishn, Zoroastrian Memory Diawl approached the pool, dark eyes, unblinking, gazing long into the liquid depths of time. Four talons spread out from an extended claw, then brilliance flashed from ripples welling up, disturbing the placid face of reflection. "Inchrecion!" barked the ageless Ceidwad, wings brought in to each side, scales contorting as arms move slowly, reaching out to draw a vision from the pool. Grisialaid trees hovered with their crystalline leaves, casting prisms of color as the pool coalesced into the darkness of a city street at night. Asphalt and cement lingered beneath street lamps tossing midnight back and forth between each other. An occasional figure walks by, ignoring the brick and stone holding together centuries of occupation. In an old church just a block east of Broadway A venue, a small group gathers in the basement. "..and dear Lord Jesus, be with us tonight as we read your word and worship you...be with us as we count our blessings and take on the missions you have set before us...amen." Several people lifted their heads from prayer and looked around the room, sighing quietly. Jordan Greeb, a young summer missionary from South Carolina, looked at the other young adults in front of him. "Is there a testimony or a burden anyone would like to share tonight?" he asked with a soft southern drawl, "we have been here for a couple of weeks now and we are starting to see the difficulty in bringing the message of Jesus to the people here in Boston." Jordan paused for a moment to check the reaction in the faces surrounding him, "We need to support and encourage each other as we take on these challenges. The true message of Jesus is so alien to these people here." Jenny Mitchel, a young blonde from Mobile, Alabama tentatively raised her hand and waited for Jordan to acknowledge her. "Yes, Jenny," said Jordan, "what is on your heart?" "Well," Jenny started, haltingly, "I just don't understand these people here. Don't they love the Lord like we do? I go up to someone on the street and start talking to them about Jesus and they just laugh at me and say that they have been to Mass. They say I should leave them alone." "I know," said Jordan. "It's the devil working in their hearts. Don't take it personally. This is why we are here...to bring the message of Jesus to these people." Diawl leaps into the pool of images, landing on the floor in the back of the basement room where the young adults are meeting, knowing that his presence will not be detected. He has learned that most of those alive on earth are incapable to seeing a presence from Addewid who has journeyed through the Kraakyn time pools of Endigen. He has learned much by watching Ellyn and Zorilyn as they created and maintained Cyfanfyd. He has learned where they have placed the tools and elements of their work, and he has experimented extensively with these artifacts of Droolyn creativity, seeking ways to find his one way into achieve the power of Ellyn and become a Droolyn himself. But most importantly, he has learned how to plant the seeds of thought within the earthen ones, by using crystals from the Grisialaidd trees in Endigen, where Kraakyn's time pools flow. He has also seen where the humans don't always behave in ways that are predictable, as evidence by Ellyn and Zorilyn's failure to control their own creations. In his left claw he clutched a pulsing crystalline leaf that he plucked just before diving into the pool. He rolled it with the sharp talons on the claw that held it, watching brief tongues of flame leap into the secret space around him. "What are we supposed to be doing here anyway," said Robert Tyme, a dark haired man from Georgia. "My dad didn't send me here to be servant to some second rate, liberal preacher. He sent me here to kick some serious spiritual butt." "Amen," said Michael Joiner, "we are summer missionaries, not janitors." "My dad knows Dr. Norton," said Robert, "maybe I should have my dad talk to Dr. Norton. He would be able to get this show on the road. My dad didn't build the largest Baptist church in Georgia by sitting around and letting Satan control things. I'm sorry, but I just don't see where pastor Jacobs is all that interested in witnessing to people in this neighborhood. He just wants us to paint walls, scrub floors and run a coffeehouse for the local teenagers. What kind of a preacher is he anyway?" "Yeah," said Sheryl Vista, "he even attended a rally in support of women's right to an abortion on the Boston Commons last week." Diawl moved to stand beside Robert, lifting the Grisialaidd crystal slightly, allowing the brilliant flames to enter the cheeks and face of the young man. Robert lifted his left hand to rub his cheek, as if to brush a fly away. "I know," said Jordan, "this is my greatest concern about this place. Pastor Jacobs has become far too liberal in his thinking, letting Satan call the shots around here. I have talked to Dr. Norton about this in Cambridge and he assured me that he would look into it, but in the meantime, we must find ways to get the message of Jesus out there." "They won't do anything," said Jeffry Nottingham, from the back corner of the group. Jeffry was dressed in a white t-shirt with a large silk screened cross onto the front. His jeans hung loosely on a thin frame and his short blonde hair bristled with sweat and agitation, "they don't give a hoot about the witness for Jesus here. They just want to be nice to people and help the poor. They don't want to rock the boat of all these Catholics here." "I agree with you," said Jordan, trying to calm his angry friend, "but we have to be careful who we criticize, or we won't be able to do anything here. If Pastor Jacobs finds out that we have been meeting here in the basement behind his back he may become angry and send us all home. Me need Dr Norton on our side. Maybe we can get the organization to bring a more spiritual pastor in here." "Well," responded Jeffry, "you can wait if you want to, but my dad says that there are just a bunch of liberals here and that we shouldn't be listening to them them. There are too many lost souls here to be ignoring the problem." Jeffry stands up, his six feet and two inches of height towering over the group. His fists are clenched and his cheeks are flushed with the blood of anger. "I just think we should be doing something about this ourselves," he said as he headed for the door. "Jeffry," yelled Jordan, "it's your turn to lead the devotional tomorrow at church. Are you ready?" Jeffry did not answer, allowing the door into the meeting room to slam shut. The others could hear him jump onto the cot in the next room where they all slept at night. No one spoke, not sure how to proceed. Diawl followed Jeffry's path into the sleeping area, walking through the wooden partition between the two rooms. Jeffry lay on a cot breathing deeply. With a slow move, Diawl placed the tylwydd crystal on Jeffry's forehead. Then Diawl wrapped his claws gently around the back of Jeffry's head, pulling it up slightly. Jeffry gasped slightly, but he had fallen into a deep sleep from adrenaline and exhaustion. Diawl spoke to the tylwydd crystal the words he had heard Ellyn herself use as he watched her use the Kraakyn time pools in the same manner, "mechydd, instigon, forwuyn". The tylwydd crystal dissolved within a flash a brilliance, becoming absorbed in the skin of Jeffry's forehead. "Jeffry!", came the voice of Sheryl, who was standing in the doorway, looking for Jeffry. Running to the edge of the cot, she grabbed Jeffry's shoulders and started shaking him, crying out his name, "Jeffry! Wake up!" Diawl stepped back from Sheryl and Jeffry, his job accomplished. For a moment he watched the scene as it unfolded within the depths of the pool, but he had other things to attend to. With a snort he turned away, his wings expanding, lifting him high into the sky above the Amddiffynfa Mountains, powerful thrusts carrying him away. Other faces showed up at the door into the sleeping room where Sheryl was frantically trying to revive Jeffry. "What's happening?" asked Jordan, as he rushed to the cot holding Sheryl and Jeffry. "I saw something on Jeffry," said Sheryl, "...a light...or something...it was bright...it was attacking his head." "There is nothing here Sheryl," said Jordan, trying to comfort Sheryl, "it must have been a reflection from the headlights of a passing car. Come on, we are all tired and need to get to bed." "I saw it!" cried Sheryl, "don't you believe me? Look, he's not even waking up. It did something to him." "What did something?" asked Jordan, "there's nothing here! Now calm down, Sheryl." Ben Frys and Andy Ferrell stepped in to help Jordan pull Sheryl off of Jeffry, lifting her up and placing her on her own cot. While Ben and Andy held Sheryl down, Jordan moved back to Jeffry where Jenny and Meryl Dintz where trying to wake Jeffry up. Within his sleep, Jeffry waded through images cascading around him, then he saw a large, dark creature bend over a man and place a flashing crystal on the man's forehead. After the creature left, the man woke up and left his room. He walked down streets filled with people dressed in robes and wearing sandles, many were barefoot. The man walked into a large building, climbing stairs and passing through large ornate rooms, stopping in the presence of several men dressed in robes with elaborately sewn patterns. They extended welcoming arms and spoke to him. Then one of them gave him a bag from which he pulled out several coins and then smiled as he left. "Jeffry, wake up," said Jenny, as she held Jeffry's head between her hands. When Jeffry opened his eyes Jenny smiled and said, "there you are! You must have fallen down and hit your head. You've been out for a while." Jeffrey looked up at Jenny, then he noticed Meryl, "what happened?" he asked Jenny. "We don't know," responded Jenny. Sheryl followed you into the room and said that she saw some kind of light on your head and got scared." Jeffrey looked over to Sheryl's cot and noticed Ben and Andy still sitting on the cot next to Sheryl, who was sobbing quietly. "What happened to her?" asked Jeffry. "Something really freaked her out," said Jordan, "we had to pull her off of you. She thought something was attacking you. Are you all right? You were pretty angry when you left." "Yeah, I'm fine," said Jeffrey, "I must've been exhausted and just crashed on the cot. He was rubbing his head and thinking about the dream. "I think I'm ready to go to bed." Ignoring the rest of the people in the room, Jeffrey crawled back under the covers and promptly fell to sleep. When he awakened again the room was dark and it was still before sunrise, but everyone else was asleep. Sitting up on the cot, he pulled the long canvas bag that he kept his clothes in closer to the cot and opened it up. From deep inside, beneath all of his clothes, he pulled out a long object wrapped in cloth and placed it on the cot. Quickly slipping on a pair of jeans and a clean t-shirt from the canvas bag, he stood up, grabbed the object he had taken out of the bag and headed for the door leading to the stairs the front of the church. He climbed the stairs ontil he arrived in the belfry, where a ladder ascended to a trap door. Holding the rungs with one hand and the object with the other, he scaled the ladder and pulled himself onto the roof of the church. In the pre-dawn light and the Sunday morning stillness, Jeffry carefully slid the black metalic form of a rifle from the folds of cloth he had been carrying. extending his right hand into it. The barrel glinted in the moonlight cascading into the room from the night. His left hand disappeared into the cloth once more and fished out a carton that he immediately opened, revealing a bullets for the rifle, which he then started loading. When the rifle was loaded, he placed the carton of bullets back into the clothe and lifted the rifle to his shoulder. Aiming the rifle at one of the corners on the roof, then at several trees and chimneys in the neighborhood, he smiled. At that moment he felt like he truly understood why he was taught how to fire a rifle on the countryside of Georgia. Bringing the true gospel of Jesus to the streets of Boston, and Chelsea and Charlestown and all of the cities in the metropolitan area was indeed within his hands. He was going to open the doors of salvation. Grabbing the blanket with the bullets in his left hand and holding the rifle in his right, he stood up and walked over to the trap door. After climbing down the ladder he descended the steps to the main floor and entered the narthex which opened up onto the Sanctuary. He look up at the balcony in back of the narthex, which had been filled in with offices several years before. He studied the windows in the offices which allowed someone to view the narthex and the sanctuary if the large folding doors at the back of the sanctuary are open. In order to perform his custodial duties he was issued to keys for all of the doors in the church, including the offices built into the balcony. He climbed the stairs to his right and unlocked the door. Once inside he walked to the window and placed the rifle and the blanket with box of bullets on the desk that just to the right of the Window. Sitting down in the chair at the desk, Jeffry waited for the church service. "Jeffry, see if you can hit the cans." Jeffry looked at his father, then over to the cans his father had placed on the trunk of an old oak laying on a sanding moune at the edge of a meadow. They were surrounded by pine trees. A fence made of pine trunks and barbed wire marched out of the on one side of the meadow and then disappeared into underbrush and evergreens smelling of turpentine. "Now concentrate. See if you can hit all of them without missing. Jeffry sighted the rifle and pulled the trigger. Eight cans clanked, falling to the ground. Jeffry smiled and watched his father walk to the downed tree, pick up each can and study the holes from his rifle shots. "I've never seen better shooting, son," Jeffry's father said, "the Lord has certainly blessed, Jeffry." Jeffry smiled, clutching his rifle tightly. "It's hard to believe you'll be going to college soon," son. "I guess we won't be doing this all that often any more. I'm certainly going to miss you. But I know God is waiting for you to train for the ministry and carry on his work. As Christian soldiers we need to always be ready to fight for our belief in Jesus, and for you that means going to college and then to seminary, just like I did, right son?" Jeffry nodded, feeling strangely alone, "Dad, do you think that I'll be able to bring the words of Jesus to those who need to hear them, someday?" "Jeffry," said his father, "I have no doubt in my mind that you will open up powerful new ministries for Jesus. That is why I have been talking to my old friend Dr Norton up in Boston. Now that's a place that needs to hear about Jesus. Chapter 3 Death "For whosoever has been born and whosoever shall be born must act in such a way that, when the moment comes to leave this world, he may have Paradise as his portion and Garothman as his reward." From the Canon of Truth: Aogemadaeca, Zoroastrian Memory "For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. " From the Canon of Truth: Gospel of Mark, Christian Memory "Every soul shall taste of death, and you shall only be paid fully your reward on the resurrection day; then whoever is removed far away from the fire and is made to enter the garden he indeed has attained the object; and the life of this world is nothing but a provision of vanities." From the Canon of Truth: The Family of Imran, Muslim Memory "Praise be to God Who hath made being to come forth from nothingness; graven upon the tablet of man the secrets of preexistence; taught him from the mysteries of divine utterance that which he knew not; made him a Luminous Book unto those who believed and surrendered themselves; caused him to witness the creation of all things (Kullu &Shay') in this black and ruinous age, and to speak forth from the apex of eternity with a wondrous voice in the Excellent to the end that every man may testify, in himself, by himself, in the station of the Manifestation of his Lord, that verily there is no God save Him, and that every man may thereby win his way to the summit of realities, until none shall contemplate anything whatsoever but that he shall see God therein." From the Canon of Truth: The Seven Valleys of Bahaullah, Baha'i Memory "Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise." From the Canon of Truth: Nephi, Mormon Memory Jeffry turned back to the window when he heard a door slam shut. "Have any of you seen Jeffry this morning?" Jeffry recognized Jordan's voice. "Mike would you mind doing the devotional this morning during the service? I'll find Jeffry later." "Sure, said Mike, I'll take the devotional." Qwinn stood tall behind the pulpit, beating every piece of wood and mind with pounding palm and heartfelt messageof concern for a world in pain. He was selling hope in a world of dismal tragedy, but prayed for hope that he longed for in despair. Yet there was no consolation, no lightning bolt from high, though he so wanted to believe that it was there. Sundays passed in the shadow of a church, fading, the chasm of darkness festering with adversity. The sermon droned on like bees on a lazy summer day in a meadow full of blossoms now deflowered of their dull virginity. Plodding through the ritual of a service lost in its redundancy, the congregation yawned it's blank spirit, into stale air, then a loud voice echoed on the precipice of someone's eternity. "I'm here to take your sorry butt and send it straight to the pain of hell itself" said Jeffrey from the window in the office up in the balcony to the minds of placid bodies reclining in their antiseptic pews. A rifle slithered in his rabid hand. "Qwinn, you can't defile the word of God with so much compromise and doubt. The message must be said with authority, absolute, without your pandering to the weak visions of Satan's lost souls." The barrel of the rifle glinted like a magic wand transfixed in silence, held within a moment lost. Qwinn had lost control of what he thought was his. There was no prayer or incantation that would stop Jeffry. "Who are you? What are you doing?" asked Qwinn, as he spoke to the back of the church, not at all sure who the mysterious figure was in balcony. "It doesn't matter who I am", responded Jeffry. "It's god who wants you dead". Sheryl stood up from the pew where she was sitting, recognizing Jeffries voice, "Jeffry!...No!" Words hung frozen in the sacred, sunlit air. The gun came steady in a poised horizontal flare leveled at the soul, then Qwinn simply drew in a mundane thread of phantom reticence as the barrel flashed with the flame of a bullet's mane. |
