She looked at his face, a picture of an angel. His hands against the teddy bear she had put next to him. It always made her catch her breath when she saw him so serene and peaceful in his sleep.
He was almost always such a naughty boy when he was awake and she had to scold him often, too often perhaps.
She kneeled down and grazed his cheek with her lips. It did not feel quite right. She stared at him. Something welled inside her as her friends propped her up.
She looked down at him, the teddy bear almost his size squeezed into the carving out of the pine tree she had chosen. She thought it should have been her, more white hairs on her head and many more wrinkles to her face lying in a larger sized coffin with him a young man looking down at her, happy she had lived such a full life though sad to let her go.
It was not meant to be this way. Her throat was still parched, all throughout her an aching fire moved but the tears would not come, not yet.
Tomorrow or someday, sometime it will rain but today there was only the fire and the desolation
It will rain – Bruno Mars
FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #5
Sally liked to eat spinach. She liked it so much that she had it cooked in various types of dishes and toured the world in search of new recipes to try out – not really of course but in her head, silly, or she would probably be eating something else than just spinach.
Sally was lonely. How could it be anything else? If her parents had named her Chappy perhaps she would have been happy or if her parents had made her a boy, perhaps her life would be filled with Joy but no, they had made her a girl and named her Sally predestining her to be lonely. Come to think of it, had she been a boy and had they named her Vlad, she might have been sad. Then again she might also have been glad or mad, which she was most certainly boy and Vlad or not.
Now enough of all that emotional nonsense and back to some fitting and filling food like spinach for instance. As I said, Sally liked to eat spinach and you might even say she was obsessed by spinach to the highest degree. If she were a King – or a Queen for that matter, she had again lost her head would have said the hatter, forgetting that she was a girl after all – she would make sure to issue a decree that spinach be eaten by all and that it be served throughout the kingdom for free.
Sally had no kingdom though or at least none that others could see. Her friend the hatter saw it of course but that did not count any more than the crown on her head did because none could see hatter either. So Sally the lonely – hatter excepted – Queen with a kingdom that none could see sat at her table eating spinach. Of the finest sort it was, the spinach – at least hatter and her were both of the same opinion.
Two is a company you know hatter she said.
Well of course dearest queen and best spinach eater of all my friends
Am I your bestest friend hatter?
You’re my bestest best friend ever.
Do I look like a beautiful queen?
You are the fairest queen ever in this kingdom. Cross my heart with a piece of silver if I lie to you; please my Lady. Times are tough
Sally looked up at hatter but it was not he really who had said that nonsense. He was not used to saying such nonsense you know. Anybody who knew him would tell you that. It was a man standing in front of her table his face looking like it could really do with some spinach to put some colour back into the pale of it which spread everywhere except the tip of his nose that was bright red.
Would you like some spinach, she volunteered
No ma’am
But I am sure you will feel much better
I am sure you will feel better eatin’ that spinach an’ all yerself ma’am and I’d hate to spoilt it for ya
Oh well, I guess you’re right but I don’t have any silver for you, just perhaps a pound or two but tell me what will you do if I give one of them to you?
I should buy me some food ma’am
That sounds reasonable but I still don’t understand why you don’t just eat it right here and now as this spinach is really a treat
The man with the face shuffled and kept quiet eyeing her purse so Sally took one pound out and gave it to him feeling like Florence Nightingale handing out some life-saving medicine. She held back and smiled a wide smile at him
Do I look like a beautiful Queen?
The most beautiful queen ever ma’am
Am I your best friend now?
You’re my best friend ever ma’am
She gave him the pound the large smile still on her lips and as she gazed at him disappearing, she caught a glimpse of herself in the rear-view mirror of a car. A big chunk of spinach was stuck in the middle of her teeth colouring her smile and her hair looked like she had just wrestled with a wildcat. She looked up searching for the clown-faced man and found him entering the pub across the street, an arm raised already ordering his daily dose or so it seemed. So much for honesty she thought. She checked her reflection again and smiled a green smile. It was still a Beautiful Lie.
Courtesy activerain.com
A Beautiful Lie – 30 seconds to Mars
This post is part of the FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #5
The idea is to write a short story using as title the title of a song you like. For me it was A Beautiful Lie
Please feel free to comment. This is my first attempt at short fiction and I have difficulty writing concisely in prose although I have made progress in writing short in poetry thanks to the Japanese forms of tanka, haiku and senryu. I am aware I am still a stretch from actual flash fiction 😀
Chapter Seven: On playgrounds and Kingdoms without a King
8 December 2015
Courtesy mysticmedusa.com
Mother came to Rita again, this time in broad daylight, her face a dark river of shimmering stars, the bluest of hues her black body.
What are these talks of going elsewhere?
Rita felt as always when she saw Mother torn between Shaking awe and powerful solace
Well you told me Mother that this place would be no more and that we would all live in another place, very different from here so I was just getting myself ready for the journey, knowing it would be long
It could be, yes but where do you think it is? Some distant planet that I have chosen for you? Another universe perhaps?
The ground shook under her step and the air vibrated with her presence as she walked, a figure of grace and power all at once
I don’t know Mother. Another galaxy, yes, I assumed
You assume a lot child. When you don’t know why don’t you just ask me?
A smile tugged at the corners of what Rita imagined were her lips. It was not really that she had a face but Rita could see in that river something that replicated an image of what she thought a human face would look like. Rita volunteered a smile back and Mother laughed so Rita laughed too, at first with a sense of guilt and then freely with the wildest of joys as the room heaved and shook with their laughter and the frames from the wall strew the grounds in fits.
I shall ask you next time Mother. Rita’s voice was between a hiccup and a snigger, the laughs still Shaking her uncontrollably
The journey within can be long but you know best what this place will be like because you will be one of the builders.
Me? One of which builders? How many are we? How much time do we have?
Oh Time, that silly notion I put in place a long time ago for us to measure the dilation of your playgrounds. I think you don’t need to worry about that anymore soon.
Are we going to a place of zero-point? Will we reach full stillness, no Time?
She laughed again and Rita laughed too though less heartily as she was keen on having Mother answer before she left.
What is zero-point? Do you still ask me really the question, child? Have I not left more impact on such matters with you before?
It is the point of implosion, when Time will disappear and our bodies will transform, right? It is the bridge between the playgrounds.
Mother was listening to Rita, a little twirl in her like every time Rita knew she was pleased with her response.
Do you know why you are changing playgrounds?
I think it is because we have outgrown this one. We don’t know what to do anymore here and most of us are getting bored, with some creating new games in the playground which are not to everyone’s liking or others playing the sae games that we are sick and tired of playing. Yet they don’t care much when we tell them to stop, that it is not a nice game anymore and that we are tired of it, that we want to play a nicer and more interesting game.
Yes, well that is the old way of the male energy. It only knows destruction and return to void, unlike what you hold and some of you have marginalised your female energy. It was not a thing of a day, it took many light travels of your Time to achieve that.
But why was the female energy marginalised? Why not leave us alone?
Do you still wonder why? It is because you are the ones who create and play the most. When you arrived here, each of you had chosen which side of the energy you would be on because full balance would take you out of the playground and those who chose the male energy lost their touch with the full creation energy because it is the female energy that stirs the void into creation. In your reality, the female energy still needs the male energy to create within physical density but it does not in the realm of dreams and art which are expressions of your eternal being.
But there are many male artists, not just female artists.
Yes, being male or female is not just a matter of external appearance. Those who thus create have not withdrawn completely from the female energy but preserved it within them. Some, though very predominantly in the male energy, thrive on the energy they draw from the females they attract around them to stir their internal voids into creation.
If all males know whether consciously or unconsciously that females are essential to the game, why do they suppress us so? Why not just play along with us?
Have you not realised child that things are changing? More males are waking up to and accepting the female energy as it returns to them.
But at the same time such horrors are committed against women in so many places around the world. Not just women but also children. All these wars that bring desolation to the hearts of everyone and mostly to those of women and children, so many of them abused and broken
Yes my child but that is soon a thing of the past. Who else, other than females is so close to creation and playing?
Oh yes, children of course!
Precisely my child, they do that because they don’t want to change playgrounds. They try to keep you in fear and in anger so that you will lose hope, love, laughter and therefore the possibility to continue creating the new playgrounds. They create a vicious circle by which you enslave yourself into this playground, forced to play with the bullies they have become and that way you would never have enough material to create another playground. By attempting to keep you in that vicious circle, they attempt to never leave this playground where they can rule like the tyrant children they have become but both father and I are tired. We have to shake all of you back into your senses and we can’t choose which ones to shake because you have all created a common playground. Your playground heaves, it is soaked in waters, it is seared by flames that all of you may finally understand that this playground is not for you anymore, that it is time to go to the new playgrounds.
Transform or die?
Not exactly my child. Understand when the game is over and move on to the new game, pick up the code and learn the new rules that you might not be taken aback but fear not, the rules are precisely those. Not to fear. Only to Love, freely, wholly and uncontrollably.
But what then of detachment? The wise ones speak of detachment and of not allowing oneself to get attached. How do you love wholly and uncontrollably and at the same time not get attached?
Well I have to say that the notion of detachment you are all playing with is not the one we had in mind when we originally set the rules of your playground. Your detachment has become a sense of nothingness, a dull grey of being while the detachment we had in mind was a shiny explosion of vibrant colours
How can one speak of detachment and explosion of colours. I don’t understand Mother…
It is simple really child. Detachment is that knowledge in you that everything you are playing with is merely a means for play and for learning something else that will help you in another playground. Nothing is for keeping forever because otherwise you would be playing all the time the same games with the same playthings. Have you not seen your children how they play with toys and then tire of them after a while and want something new to play with? Have you not noticed what they do if you force them to keep the same toys?
Yes, after a while they destroy them. Well actually I have noticed that it is more the boys who destroy the toys when they don’t want them anymore. The girls most of the time just go and sit by themselves or with each other if they have company, singing or playing with imaginary toys or friends.
Not just the girls, those boys with the female energy in them also do that.
A twinkle passes through what Rita feels are her eyes. Today she is not changing into a human-type form for Rita. She seems to be very taken by this whole matter of playgrounds and Rita’s misunderstanding of them. In fact she seems so taken that she has not even waited for Kayla or Kalen to accompany her but has come herself and right in the middle of the day.
So do you understand better detachment now?
I think I do Mother. Detachment is not caring less. In fact it is caring to the maximum point but knowing all the same that you will give away these means of playing and move to another level some day and if the means of play was not capable of transforming into a means for the next level into the next playground than we will never see those means again. We can continue to care for those means but we know that we will have to leave them and be in peace with the fact of leaving them.
She smiled and stars sparkled harder within her dark river. It shimmered in places again and Rita knew she was now extremely pleased with her. She slowly started materialising into a more human-type form and this always caused Rita such joy because she could actually look into Mother’s huge beautiful eyes full of power and compassion and be submerged by their infinity.
Mother, please tell me and don’t be angry with me. People speak of apocalypse, of the end of Times, of retribution and of the Day of Judgement. They say that God will decide who will go to Heaven and who will go to Hell based on our deeds and that we only have this Life, that we will need to redeem ourselves in it if we had committed sins.
Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, in God and in the Devil?
Well I believe that there is an energy of Love and an opposing energy of Fear and that perhaps we can call these God and the Devil if we think in our human terms.
Hmmmm…. Well, for the sake of argument in the sense that you like to use, let us say that there is a Devil, one with horns and hooves and with tattered wings from the Times that he was an angel before he was cast upon the Kingdoms of Hell as it goes by the teachings that were brought to you. People have given him such great powers maKing him akin to God alone though inferior in rank to him as the belief goes. What according to you would happen to the Devil on Judgement Day?
The question took Rita by surprise. She had never thought about that and was not sure anybody had actually thought about that. Yes, true, what would happen to the Devil on Judgement Day? Rita thought to herself.
Well I guess he would be punished like all the evil-doers and he would be…
Cast to Hell?
The irony in her voice was palpable as her human-type body now clearly shook with mirth. Rita was slowly getting the point of what she was trying to say. If on Judgement Day the Devil got cast to hell, he was merely being sent back to his own Kingdom where he would reign as a King again and no subject of that Kingdom would dare question the King. So in all likelihood on Judgement Day the Devil would actually be rewarded and with royal title, just like he was while moving all those wrong-doers to carry out their ill-advised deeds. But if it was so then why would he be rewarded while they would be banished to his Kingdom and tortured while he, the one behind all their misdeeds would be thriving in a Kingdom where he could do as he please while he was the true culprit really?
Mother was watching Rita closely and this latter could feel Mother’s watchful intent eyes upon her as her face betrayed her inner turmoil and confusion of thoughts. Rita gave up at last trying to reason internally and volunteered a partial response.
It would not be right I presume
Why not? Could he not be cast to hell and not be a King there?
Well there cannot be a Kingdom without a King. If there is one, then he is the Devil but the old Devil would be no more because we are normally on Judgement Day where only God would be ruling. If the Devil is no more, then he would be a mortal being judged for his misdeeds and if he were a mortal then he is not to blame really because it would be the Devil who would be the true culprit but that Devil was just put in place to be the King of the Kingdom and who could be put in that place on Judgement Day if there are no more real Devils and only mortals, The Old Devil and God with his angels. Would another angel be sacrificed to play the part of the New Devil? That would be a monstrous fate and would it really be Judgement Day if we had a New Devil in place? Would God have to take that part for himself? If he did would that not be twice the monstrosity? Would those of us who carried out the misdeeds have to condemn ourselves to be the Devil and would we have to cast ourselves into Hell and torture ourselves? Would we all be the King or would we take turns in being the Devil King? If we were the King, would we not be able to do as we please within our own Kingdom?
The more Rita thought about it, the less it made sense. Mother merely smiled at her knowingly. She came closer to Rita, lifting her chin and looKing her again straight in the Eye.
Yes, there cannot be a Kingdom without a King and where there is no King there can be no Kingdom. So on Judgement Day as most of you would have it, there would be no Judgement and no means of executing that Judgement. Do you understand now?
There will be no Judgement Day. Just the Day we are all together again with the Source of all things. Is that why there are these playgrounds, so that we may slowly act out different levels of the game of life?
Not exactly? Father and I wanted to test various scenarios but it was not just about life, it was about life and death and everything in between. It was about creation and the transformation of the energy. How it could come about, how it would evolve and what it would evolve into. It is now Time for other playgrounds. This one is saturated by the same playing and playthings and your nimble consciousness needs novelty, new fields, new experiences, new ways of expanding. Did we not tell you before? In fact we even left it within all your textbooks as there are not just playthings for children but also things to learn from within your textbooks. We told you that we created you in our image because you are miniature representations of us. You remember the talk about the archetypes you had with Kayla and Kalen, it is precisely that. Now it is time to have those archetypes evolve further into their purer forms and this entails leaving this playground to go to the next.
I rather liked it here. I will miss it.
That is why you have to learn to detach my darling child but never stop experiencing that flow of sensations, that burst of colours within your chest and behind your eyes because it is the fabric of your future playgrounds and you will need to keep weaving it because there will be nothing left here soon.
Rita looked around, soaking in the sun far behind the houses, moving slowly towards the higher point of skies and sighed. She did not want to tell it to Mother again but she would really miss this playground. It was so beautiful and Rita was having a hard time giving up the toys she had played with here. She still felt there was so much to learn here but Mother seemed to think that it was Time for her to move to the other playground. Rita sighed again. The sun was sparkling on the small puddle in the lawn left by the rain and it made her think of Mother again as it bore the remnants of the starlight that ran through her rivers.
Rita sighed again as she looked back to the blue skies stretching in the horizons, behind Mother’s frame. She had a fleeting thought for Martin but realised that like all the other means of play in this playground, she had to let him too go. He was still so bent on playing within this playground and his main playthings were void and destruction with only distorted waves of the Love. She knew without Mother or Kayla needing to tell her that a phase in the growth of her Heart was over and Martin belonged to that phase – at least for now. He was not ready to move into the new playgrounds and kept alternating between blabbering indistinctly about the love of some of his toys, yelling sorely at Mother and Father or throwing some of his old or new toys in rage with tears of anger and madness streaming down his darkened face.
Mother merely smiled at her when she looked back to her and she knew that Mother knew so she smiled back, a smile of relief and gratitude for her caring. All Mothers always know what goes on in their children’s mind. Sometimes they pretend not to know because they want their child to feel that it has its own secret garden but Rita understood in her Heart of Hearts that Mother knew as certainly as she herself had looked upon her children’s faces in times that troubled them and knew. She just knew.
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