Each child’s realm comes dancing along.
Skipping, merrily, encoded in song.
The places our young offspring roam,
Are no environs for those who spit and scorn.
But watch what he does,
When the young boy does play.
As he prances and dances
Through the length of his day.
It’s magic, you see
To set Love so free.
It is the twinkling of their eyes,
That bring us revelations, large in size.
From a wellspring of joy
They happily romp!
To play with cat, dog, mouse
Or leaf pile to stomp!
No power can stop such boldness.
No darkness can dampen such light.
Each beauty born without trying,
Each soul reaching its peak before dying.
Not too soon, not too soon
A child’s spirit does intone,
To ward off devices
They see cause adults to groan.
The special place in each child’s heart
Lies wrapped but unfolding each day from the start.
So seek to revive such inner beauty
Before someone calls you old, mean, and far too snooty!
I miss the eerie, chilly, breezy after touch effect of glancing through some ethereal appendage of one of our bodiless friends. They are the keepers of our history. They speak an endless stream of whispers as they string up the past to dry on the sun drenched clothesline of time. It is from there that they analyze and modify the outcomes of our future. I miss their daily warnings, warm tidings and courteous manner. Something happened to them to make them leave.
I only experienced a bit of the bright, shining wave that struck my small town, wiped all power and electronics, but kept everything in a smooth, rolling, bright-as-sunshine glow for five days straight. I was locked in my study, serving my role as Transcriber of the Ancients. The old souls would come and speak to me, entering my home whistling some dancing melody, or tapping lightly on many surfaces at once. Oh, how I enjoy their company.
The ghost that visited most often had named himself Barnaberus. Not his name while is physical life, all ghosts choose new identities that will not keep them tied to the personality they graduated from the physical with. Their work binds them for great lengths of time with humanity, but they still evolve. They still can grow. Barnaberus was a huge prankster. He used to silently enter my study and light a week’s worth of work aflame. As I’d dash for water and put out the flame, Barnaberus would appear, wheeling in the work I’d done to replace the ethereal counterpart that he’d swapped and created the illusion of a blaze. That, and he chewed gum loudly and smacked his lips quite loudly if I ever began to doze during one of his twelve hour, constant stream of thought lectures on this or that kingdom, or some brilliant personage long since past.
I hadn’t seen Barnaberus for…counting…6, 8 days since the start of that bright whirlwind of light. I couldn’t do my work without him. I needed him to give me an accurate and full account of the historic deeds of the town called Mollweather, which was full of uniformly strong willed people, for the next series of my writings.
After a crumbling round of overcooked eggs and toast, my attention locked on finding Barnaberus, I decided to walk the streets, hoping to gather some clue, some vague intuition that would lead me to our ethereal brethren. Each person I passed seemed a little dazed, their gaze just shy of focused. If I stopped a man or woman to enquire as to whether they had any helpful information, it would take a moment for their eyes to shift in my direction. Always they looked like they would have rather stared straight ahead and continued on whatever path they were, seemingly, aimlessly treading. Growing a bit desperate, after at least fifty or so similar encounters, I shook a man who was walking with his arms stuffed full of fresh bread. I don’t know why I shook him, I just had to get a different response than I had gotten up until then. I grabbed his shoulders and shook. For an instant, his body seemed to prefer no resistance. It went along quite easily with my pull until suddenly he stiffened up and bellowed, “Stop, you madman!” and as I released him, he took ten paces further on his way. On the eleventh step he stopped, spun in place, looked me right in the eye and said, “I don’t know why, I don’t know why they’ve all gone. I just know it’s all for the worst. Some years ago they left for three days. That was lonely enough. I wish I could know why.”
I apologized to the man and offered him a cup of tea for his troubles if he didn’t mind the company. Thankfully, he accepted. The man was right about the loneliness without our ghosts. It was painful, like a bit of the wind of each breath was constantly being siphoned. In my kitchen, Enan, as I came to learn the man called himself, sat easily, if a bit crookedly on the chair in the corner next to the icebox. “What were you doing when you first noticed they were gone,” Enan asked.
“Just writing,” I responded.
“About what?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve been doing heavy research with Barnaberus for the last few weeks on the old town Mollweather.”
“Hmm. What were they like?”
“Heroic. All of them. Not a single weak-kneed slouch in the bunch. From all I’ve learned, I guess the town ran peacefully for at least six generations, since the first family moved there and staked a bit of its land as theirs for a town. Great people, the Mollweathers.”
“Mmhm.”
All thought seemed to cease for the moment. Or perhaps it simply slowed to a pace just below consciousness. We sipped our tea with a hazy synchronicity. Silence rang through the moments. As I was about to set my tea cup on its saucer, a knock, that would have startled even the most hearty Mollweather native, bounced soundly through my home. I had already leapt up involuntarily. I stood half erect and simply waited for a few moments. Enan looked at me, set down his cup, his shirt wearing the renegade liquid response to his surprise, and then nodded towards the door.
As I crept towards the door, still a bit unnerved, a loud whisper rushed through the slight crack between the portal and its frame. “Sibelius! Sibelius! Run! Run, you’ve got to run! Let me in, quickly!” I eased the door open to find my neighbor, Frank Muzzlehorn, frantic and weary in ways I’ve never seen his usually calm personage.
“They’re coming for you! All of them, and you’ve got to leave sooner than now! What have you been working on for the last few weeks?” All Frank’s words were bound and thrown out as one.
“Just some easy research on Mollweather.” I said.
“Good. I don’t know what they’re after, but take what you have of that and hide it. Then come with me.”
I raced to my study and began opening the panels in the wall that held my most precious documents and began to quickly, but with poise and control, as if the documents themselves might become upset by rough handling, and began to add the Mollweather documents to the space.“A race from death is never enjoyable, nor complete without companions. Enan, I dare to request you might jig along beside us?”
Enan nodded and introduced himself to Frank while I stuffed the last of the documents into the panel. As I reached for the removed panels to replace them, an enormous liquor bottle, lit aflame with a rag in the top, sailed through the large window pane in front of my desk and splashed liquid nightmare on most every surface. I watched in slow motion as the liquor flame bounced squarely on the middle of my Mollweather documents, consuming from the middle to both ends. A voice invaded my consciousness, interrupting my startled frame of mind. “Stop. You cannot move and cannot escape. You are ours.”
“Like hell,” I screamed aloud. I thrust my hand deep into the flames, securing a burning grasp on one hundred or so equally burning pages and withdrew them from the heap, threw them on the floor and stomped the flames out with my feet. I grabbed my bundle, matched papers with the bundle, and grabbed a cold bottle of liquid from my top drawer, and an old, wooden pistol from the bottom.
“I don’t care who they are, but we are never caught.” And we tore out the side door, our hearts unsure of what progress these events might unfold into, and bounced straight into the jaws of death itself.
Warren gesticulated with colossal emphasis and screamed, "Over there!"
Maggie looked up from where she had been thrown. Cans of beans rolled off her stomach as she lifted herself to a seated position. Patrick was kneeling on the top crosswalk of the warehouse, and was presently being strangled by Edmund Butterphelps. Patrick's legs began to kick swiftly beneath him, so you would think he was running sideways if he had personal freedom at the moment. Edmund was whispering something in Patrick's ear. Patrick's hands flailed and flew at Edmund's face; scraping tearing, pulling hair, attempting a mutual strangulation, but to no avail.
Warren used his bungie sticky hand rope to launch himself to the highest platform, mere feet away from the horrific struggle. Edmund stood up to his full height and directed his attention away from Patrick and fully towards Warren.
"Begone, you misfit! You errant bean stalk!" Edmund bellowed, and without taking his eyes from Warren, he lifted Patrick to standing with his hands around his neck, employed his elbows at a merciless angle, and squeezed until Patrick's eyes burst forth from their sockets. They oozed off Edmund's chestplate and stuck to the floor.
Warren could not believe what he had seen. "I'll kill you!" he bellowed, and braced his stance to fling his body forward. Edmund's eyes softened. His lips curled up and stretched to a length just beyond that of his natural smile. He bent forward, almost double. Something strange seemed to be going on of inside him. He began to tremble; his whole body tossed itself into an eerie quaking. Edmund then looked up, still shaking, curled back his lips above and below his teeth, and began to laugh. It started slowly, more air than noise, but it built dramatically in a fraction of a second. It built hysterically, maniacally, enormously. Edmund reeled back and began to spasm on the floor, kicking his legs and thrusting his arms. He rolled right towards the end of the plank where he'd dropped Patrick, looked briefly into the holes that once held blue eyes, and laughed all the more. "Oh, hello," he managed to mumble between fits and outbursts. He sent himself rolling the opposite direction, towards the other end of the platform where there was no barrier, and dropped straight off it. Four stories down he fell. Warren raced to watch him, but he lost sight of him among the warehouse trees and shrubbery below.
Maggie finally ascended all stairways which led to the top and reached Warren. She first saw Patrick and gasped. Warren backed her away from the corpse and tried to distract her, "I saw him fall, he's got to be on the floor, let's go." Bracing her against his side, he again employed his sticky hand rope to perform the reverse function of how it had been used before. They were quickly on the ground. But there was no Edmund. All they found was an enormous molar with specks of blood on its end.
Warren dreamed that night. Standing in the shape of a diamond were four humans. One he figured to be himself, though he wasn’t sure, another was Maggie, a third was Patrick, and the fourth was Edmund Butterphelps. The one Warren would later claim to be himself, as he retold the dream, was waving his hands in the air. He could have been directing an aircraft to land or washing windows with unnecessary enthusiasm. He knew not the reason, only saw the details. Not only were his actions odd, the direction in which they were unleashed was odd. He was not facing the group in the diamond shape, but he was turned the other way. Next came details on Patrick and Edmund Butterphelps. Patrick was giggling and slapping at Edmund’s chest while Edmund supported Patrick and was poking at his chest. He would poke, gauge Patrick’s reaction, which was always some degree between chuckling and hysteria, and move his finger along to probe some other section. Each section that was poked was poked deeper than the last. The deepness of the poke, however, did not correspond to the heartiness of the laughter. Edmund Butterphelps seemed a bit confused by this, but he was making merry with the situation regardless. After six or seven more pokes, he gave up. He scratched his head, shifted his stance and studied Patrick. Patrick was in no mood to allow the poking to cease. He played his fingers in the motion that indicates, “come on!” should one be inviting another to prod at their torso. Edmund then came very close to Patrick. Patrick expected tickling so greatly that he clenched his teeth, his eyes, squatted a little a waited. Edmund jerked his finger backwards and toward the sky and opened his mouth. He was about to say something when he noticed that his finger hand been caught. Spinning to see what had halted its progress, he saw that it had become lodged in Maggie’s nose. He had forgotten that she was standing there. Patrick couldn’t help but sneak a peek to determine the reason for why he was not presently receiving stimulation and attention. He exhaled a bit impatiently, which caused Edmund to spin his head towards him, jerk his finger, with Maggie still attached, through Patrick’s body, and into Warren’s who was standing to his side. Edmund stuffed and stuffed Maggie into Warren. Her right foot was the last to be absorbed. Warren was shocked, and even moreso as he noticed a pleasant, full sensation throughout his entire body. “Warren, are you there?” Maggie’s voice seemed to come from inside Warren as his own usually did. He answered with a thought. “Yes. Where are you?”
“I’m inside you. It’s surprisingly comfortable in here. What’s Patrick doing?”
Warren turned and again became aware of Edmund and Patrick. Edmund had stuck his finger in Patrick’s left eyeball and was twirling it around, causing Patrick to kick out with an intense, hyperactive and expressive dance. They both seemed to love it. Edmund stopped when he saw Warren was looking. He held up his left finger. “I’ve got another one,” he said. “Care to take a ride?”
“No, thank you,” Warren said. Suddenly he felt ill. He rushed to the corner of the room and began to vomit bits of Maggie’s guts out. He tasted bacon and eggs and pancakes. He remembered having none of the above. “Oh, but those were so good,” Maggie complained, bemoaning the loss of a delicious meal.
“Sorry,” Warren replied. “I can’t quite help their exodus from your body. Or my body. Both our bodies. Why is this so comfortable?”
“I don’t know. I’m enjoying it as well. You mind if I nap a bit in here? Get me out later sometime.”
“Those were some fantastic tasting eggs. I feel like you still have some in you, so that’s good. I’m set. Sure, I’ll wake you up ‘round five, that sound good?”
“Perfect.”
For the next few weeks, Warren was constantly amused as he felt Maggie swishing around inside of himself while he walked or tossed and turned in his sleep. Maggie had a way of always making her presence known. She would comment on his daily choices. The toast was not crunchy enough. He slept on his stomach too much. She loved the bumping and gliding sensation she felt when he went jogging. She didn’t like it when he took too long in the shower. She had not felt a shower in weeks, only felt the secondary warmth as it passed through Warren, and longed to feel the moisture on her own skin again. Their minds seemed to merge. No longer was there back and forth decision making.
It was another week or so before Warren felt pressure against the walls of his abdomen. He knew that a bump was forming, and so he set about preparing himself to become Maggie’s father. Oh, how he loved to sing to her.
