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Post by phil on Nov 4, 2004 19:13:04 GMT -5
Thanks, bigdaddy! Ya see, that speed-reading course ya took payed off!
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Post by phil on Dec 18, 2004 22:43:20 GMT -5
Kim It is Christmas Eve at dusk in the village. A full moon rises in a clearing at the horizon as the pastel sky fades to black. It has snowed. But that’s no surprise is it? Not since that gentle boy arrived years and years ago has there nary been a day that it hasn’t snowed. Even from a blue sky in July.
The old old woman living alone peeks out the front window of her green bungalow anticipating the arrival of her precious grandchildren. Smoke is bellowing out the chimney. The cottage is snuggled in curling snow drifts and small brightly lit red candy canes march up the edges of the curving sidewalk leading to her door. One string of colored lights dangles along the roofs edge. She had attempted to hang them herself but quickly became dizzy. The paperboy sledding nearby saw her struggling and came to her rescue to finished the job. Ten smooth silver 1922 Liberty dollar coins was his reward. An oversized wreath donning a silver bell is sprinkled with snow like powdered sugar on a donut. A friendly spruce inside hugs ornaments that belonged to her mother. In the morning, lovely packages underneath waiting to burst open. It’s the kind of place you’d hope to come upon if you were lost deep in the forest.
She stands five foot three. The same at eighty-two as at seventeen. Her shining brown eyes are unmistakably young at heart. Wisps of platinum blonde are meshed in with gray engulfed in tired white. She moves slower now. That is why her home does not smell like a younger person’s home. It’s the scourge of old age. Her daughter, in the harshest words, reminds her of that fact upon each tense visit. She is no longer welcome. So, now she uses the duster that boasts ’Made With Real Lemons.’ She shakes her head now thinking about that. Her daughter makes lemon meringue pies with artificial lemon flavoring.
A car door slams and two children, a girl now nine and a little boy of three run up the magic path. The car fishtails angrily away and the children come in out of the cold, their fingers and toes already stinging. They smell cookies, not lemons. “Grandma!” She kisses their baby cheeks. They squeeze her quilt robe all the way through to her petite frame.
In the kitchen she uncovers a red and green plate of ready sandwiches and fried onion rings. Afterwards, two enthusiastic nods to an offer of oatmeal cookies and hot chocolate. She wipes the little boy’s runny nose and he does not turn away.
“Now, Grandmother?” “You two brush your teeth and get under the covers. I’ll be in soon.” “Yeaah!” She smolders the remaining embers in the fireplace and turns off the tree lights. She pauses for a moment and decides to leave them shining all night. At the front door she turns the deadbolt, throws the lever, hooks the chain, and checks to see if there are two slugs in the chamber of the shotgun.
Rocking slowly in her chair by the children’s bed, she tells the singular tale of love long ago. Her voice rises and falls, and rises once more. No need to embellish for the three year old hearing the story for the first time. Covers are pulled up to small chins and the youngest fights off heavy eyelids; an occasional nudge from his sister. The girl interrupts at one point and whispers self-assuredly to her brother “his name was Eddy.” “Edward,” the old woman softly corrects, as she glances towards the frosted window. She’s quiet for a moment and stops rocking as if startled by something out of place. A “what happened next?” starts her rocking once more and, sadly, she can never finish with “they lived happily forever.” Then, she’s giddy again omitting “it’s snowed like hell since, babe.”
The full moon crosses the zenith and the old woman is awakened by a sound outside. Rising, she tucks the babes in their safe haven and strokes the girl’s hair. Forgetful more and more as she tries harder to think, she unlocks the door and goes out into the cold in her robe, one hand grasping the quilt at her breast, the other down at the right side keeping it from rising in the brisk chilly wind. Somewhere, a dog is howling. Moving slowly around to the side of the bungalow where the cast-iron reindeer peacefully graze, she sees a sculpture out in a snowdrift aglow in blue moonlight. Carved out of a block of ice, a gift - a small crafted figurine wearing a shawl being hugged by two smaller crystal figures with oversized scarves and mittens. Footprints blown in below the bedroom window recede into the darkness. The warm pristine fingers of her true love’s shears reflect in the distance.
The old woman smiles. It is Christmas day.
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Post by lia on Dec 19, 2004 1:40:37 GMT -5
Wonderful Phil,thanks.
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Post by phil on Jan 9, 2005 23:22:05 GMT -5
CALL 23.10.2312 Annalee Call’s lifeless, naked body is before me on the cold slab under a clean white sheet. Three weeks ago a fellow surgeon, Simon, and I brought her remains here from a dramatic recovery when her Trans-craft module went down. It’s now my job to bring her back to life after the examiner has had her under his grubby hands all this time. The brass upstairs wants me to change her internal configuration from a new schematic they sent down here to the bunker. It would squelch her judgment facility. No way! I use the word “her” and I’ll use “she” from here on out instead of what the plain tag on her toe reads: ‘Droid. Series Lm7. Diagnostic NC.’ NC means natural causes. Natural causes my ass. Normally, Simon and I aren’t involved with rescue and recovery. We were returning from a conference on synthetic metabolism in Android structure from over in Sector 12. Hell, we weren’t coming straight back. There’s this pub over in 12 you see….well, never mind. On the way back we picked up a faint distress call in our headsets. It was in an area nobody had a business being in. It was on Earth, that iced-over abandoned sphere in the Milky Way. After homing in on the distress signal, we touched down in a frozen tundra ablaze in a white out. Donning our insulated blizzard suits and yellow lenses, we ventured out with the tracking scope. In no time at all Simon found Call’s module and tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. It was less than a kilometer North from where we had set down. The module was empty and charred. It was easy to see what had happened. The entire wire harness from a hole in the wall leading to a maneuvering rocket had melted. It was still warm. We looked at each other. There was hope. Reconfiguring the tracking scope for a radial search, we trudged on in the blinding storm. Forty-two meters southwest of the module we found Call partially buried. We raised her body, frozen in the fetal position. Only limp was her hair. Underneath her in a dugout were two small children sleeping like dogs in a heap. You can imagine our joy. This is no ordinary ’droid.’ She had altered her body temperature to save them and she perished trying to keep them warm and awake. Retrieving the memory disk from under her left breast later during surgery, I found this sound fragment with three shivering voices from a undamaged block on the disc: “Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb, it’s fleece was white as snow.” 24.10.2312 Surgery has gone well. There was heavy deterioration in her chest cavity, possibly from a previous shoddy patch up job. Like any other profession, the last repairman was an amateur. I was struck by the color of Call’s skin. I believe I saw that color in a book I have back in my room. It’s called ‘pearl‘. In-between white and cream. Back when Earth was inhabited by seawater oysters, these little creatures produced pearls. When they were removed the oyster died. During surgery I re-inserted the salvaged memory disk in a protective and impenetrable film so that Annalee will never die. The stiletto remains in her arm for good measure. I ignored the new scheme and fully expect to be court-martialed for failure to follow orders. I ran into Ellen Ripley, a friend from years ago, in the corridor today while on a smoke break and after mentioning my case she has promised to testify on my behalf if needed. I hugged her and thanked her. “I’ll do what I can,” Ripley said. “Then please testify for Call instead of me,” I said. 11.11.2312 The seven member panel has dropped all charges against me. Simon and I went for a drink to celebrate. I was quiet. Across the room, smoke hovering above, Call was in a poker game cleaning up. “Pearl,” I said softly. “What’s that?” Simon said.
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Post by Charles on Jan 10, 2005 0:03:38 GMT -5
. . . pearlescent prose . . .
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Post by lia on Jan 10, 2005 2:02:09 GMT -5
Once again.............
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Post by Jen on Jan 10, 2005 22:00:36 GMT -5
wow, phil...loved the ending... striking. i usually dont use that word, i dont like it...words they use on the back of books sound kinda unsincere (insincerre...?), but it works! :-*smooches; ~Jen~
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Post by phil on Jan 11, 2005 22:15:21 GMT -5
Thanks for compliments! My foray into sci-fi was alot of fun to write. You know, Phil, bring back the Vonnegut photo...your short story resembles a minor masterpiece of Kilgore Trout... Ha! I didn't even think of that, imayne. Trout would be proud of me! (well, maybe)
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Post by imayne on Mar 17, 2005 4:48:15 GMT -5
THE RIDE OF THE YOUNG ARCHER by Imayne --------------------------------------------------------------------- Wallachia! The Land through which the Turks had to pass to advance the glory of Islam and lay waste to the designs and the hideous legacies of the Infidels! The Fall of Constantinople had been the crowning glory of the Ottoman Empire, and now to add to it, the conquest of Wallachia, where for years they had been bogged down in fighting their worst enemy yet, the dreaded Kaziglu Bey, Vlad Tepes, the Impaler, Knight of the Order of the Dragon. From the time he was 13 to 17 he had been in fact a captive of the Ottoman Empire, a hostage held in Adrianople. Now, he had turned into their greatest enemy, his flame of vengeance stoked by his years within the Empire itself. To enter his domain for the entire Ottoman Empire was to feel the full brunt of the wrath of a man they had mocked as a youth, but was now a strong and powerful man, and a born leader.
Yet they had cut his armies down after all this struggle, this JIHAD...
But oh the glory of Allah, and the honor of the Prophet had prevailed! Poenari Castle was surrounded by the Islamic forces that he, Kemal the Constant Bullseye, of the Ottoman Archery Corps, represented.
Oh he could see the smiles on the face of Allah, the Archangel Gabriel and the Prophet Muhammed, looking down from their special place in the Heavens, as the might of the Ottoman army had swept through what could only have been described as a trip through Hell...
Hell, that was what the Ottoman Army had only witnessed as the Crusades crept on, the chief indicator of time passed measured by lost comrades and spilled blood. The Ottoman Army were up against one of their most dreaded foes. The man had impaled thousands of their own comrades, so thick and dense were the bodies on the stakes that they formed forests of human flesh on which were descended on by carrion birds. The mortal horror, though, many of the troops were assured as the Crusade in Wallachia wore on, was a test from Allah Himself, and at the end the reward would be rich for the Ottoman Army, for with this crusade they ensured themselves a place in Heaven.
They had a traitor on their side, Vlad's half brother, Radu, and he was doing his best to rally the already embattled troops together even as the siege mounted in favour of the Ottoman side. Arrows from the battlements had taken their fair share of troops, but the Ottoman Army could tell that within the castle itself, the siege was wearing thin.
Vlad had entrusted his soldiers to protecting his most prized and beloved possession. And it was not a treasure that could ever belong to the Ottoman men, especially not himself, the Princess Elisabeta...her beauty had given the Knights of the Order of the Dragon something to protect, something worth defending...and today, that beauty that sustained the remainder of the Wallachian armies and their valiant knights will be vanquished...and for the Hell that the Ottoman Army had been put through a similar Hell would befall all of Wallachia.
"Kemal," his mentor, General Salman the Crafty had told him that morning as he entered the tent, "today you will accomplish the great mission that will complete our task here. We are already pretty much too spent to continue this crusade, but we will achieve another victory for ourselves."
And Salman the Crafty entrusted Kemal with the letter. that he had written and stamped with the Seal of the Ottoman Sultans, and on it this was written:
Princess Elisabeta of Wallachia,
We regret to inform that your husband has been killed in battle.
May Allah have peace on him, he was a most honorable enemy.
Kemal read this letter, and turned to Salman the Crafty.
"General, how could you let me deliver this letter...to a woman! That weak-willed, fickle creature...what is she in this Crusade? This is about us MEN of Allah fighting for the glory of God against the Infidel men!"
"The troops are already tired and weary, they would not fight on if they can afford it. Nothing wears them out like the constant bombardment from an enemy fighting down to its last. This will cheer them up a little." smiled Salman the Crafty.
Then Salman's tone went much more gentle and wise. Salman, his mentor, his father if he ever had one.
"Remember, I chose you for a reason, you are the best archer I know. Pray to Allah and that He guides your arrow as it leaves your bow, to ever be swift and true, and may His hand never miss on the arrow's path!"
That was in the morning. The sun was now near noon, as the weight of a moment of destiny hung in the air.
Kemal saw that his mentor had come riding out of the tent to see this achievement. His mentor on the battlefield, the old man had come to see his plan come to fruition. With a single gesture from Kemal the savage war cries of the Turks stopped even as the enemy continued to rain arrows upon them from the battlements.
Kemal felt the pull of destiny upon him as tying the letter to his arrow, he drew it and aimed at the room he recognized belong to the Castle's Mistress...the tower.
He whispered a silent prayer to Allah: that Allah guide his hand, his will, his arrow, so that they all be true to the cause of advancing His kingdom on earth. May the arrow never stray from its target, and may it be that today the Ottoman Army claims its final victory.
The arrow left the bow and flew, soaring across the air, carried by the invisible and powerful hands of Angels, and into the room that was recognized as that of the Mistress.
The still silence hung in the air.
Not a murmur could be heard from the Ottomans...
Then they heard it.
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Post by imayne on Mar 17, 2005 7:16:48 GMT -5
In the window of the castle, Kemal could register a fleeting glimpse of the Princess of Wallachia, she was a beauty to behold...the greatest spoil of war who could never belong to any man but the one she loved with all her heart. Her dark brown her spilled down over her pale, lovely head, dark eyes burning with an intense sadness.
She pored over the letter, as if every single word hung her life on it, her hands trembling as she did so...
Kemal could imagine it, the letter dropping, the already pale flawless skin turning near deathly white, her woman's will growing weak and thin. The fickle, vain thing. He thought to himself.
And then he saw it.
They saw it.
The entire Ottoman Army saw it. The woman had flung herself from a battlement, on the other side of the castle, this one facing a deep ravine that led down into a river below.
And the way she fell. Her bright red dress and skirt billowed out from behind her, a bloody red rose blossoming in the air spreading out its petals: a blossom in a sanguine spring. A teardrop of blood that hit the water below and dissipated into its murky depths.
He did not want to catch it, what was that in her eyes, was it sadness, determination, joy? He did not know, but he knew for one thing, he wanted to pray to Allah for the Soul of Princess Elisabeta of Wallachia, for her soul was now d**ned! Allah did not take kindly to those who took their own lives, the Koran forbid suicide. And yet somehow he could feel that Allah's infinite mercy was upon this heathen infidel woman as she dived into the river while his wrath was upon him, this young archer of the Ottoman Empire. But he had no time to think because everything was reeling through his head so fast, as it was through that of every good soldier of the Ottoman Army. With one arrow, he had ended the war and enforced the terms of surrender upon the enemy. The war upon Vlad Tepes, or at least his knights, was over, and yet...
He could scarcely regather his thoughts when he heard laughter.
Salman the Crafty was laughing.
"See that, young archer, Allah guided your arrow swift and true."
After the fall of Princess Elisabeta of Wallachia, a deathly silence crept across the battlefield. The Ottoman Armies were astonished at what they just saw, the sight of an incredibly beautiful woman whose heart had broken within her. The bloody rose that in its purest bloom caught the sunlight and seared itself into the memory of every man.
And they also knew that the enemy had given up.
The arrows stopped firing from the battlements, and the Knights in the castle stepped out, dishevelled and hopeless, and agreed at last to unconditional surrender on Vlad's part.
Salman's eyes burned satisfied as he rode back to the tent, his protege riding beside him. The death of countless men was avenged by that of a single woman, and the sweetness of revenge trickled down Salman's throat like wine.
"You see, Kemal," he hissed. "What is deadlier to a general, a poisonous snake, or a woman?"
"A snake of course, a woman is but a fickle thing, just like that Princess over there, poor soul, she is d**ned." Kemal replied, shaking his head.
"Wrong, a woman is deadlier to a general. A general would put sulphur outside his tent to avoid snakes, he would sleep with his sword and keep one eye open if snakes attempt to strike in his sleep! A true general will know to kill a snake if it attempted to kiss him with its venom. But can a general do so for a woman? Sulphur does not repel a woman, a general rarely lets his guard off with a woman in his tent. When he sees her lithe and graceful body glide across the room, does the general react as though he would a snake, to crush and kill it, NO! Does he keep a woman out of his place of respite like he would a snake, NO, he would let her slide right into his bed, and from there she would envelop him in her delicate embrace! Any man knows the hypnotic power of a snake's eyes and the effect they have on their prey, what about a woman's eyes? Most generals are not aware of their effect! The poisonous snake administers death through its kiss, that most generals know, but when a woman does the same, most generals are not aware of the danger. Yet her touch, her embrace, her glance and her kiss are far deadlier than that of any snake. Because they intoxicate one with her love, and render one to her a slave in body, soul and spirit! Right now, the body, soul and spirit of our great enemy are enslaved in that woman, the one that you just saw fall from that window and into the river below, and if her soul is d**ned, so shall his be."
Salman burst out into a bout of maniacal laughter. Just one more war widower to compensate for the thousands of war widows back home.
And all Kemal could do, was recall the time he was in a garden. He was a reckless, uncontrollable delinquent of a boy, and he had decided to destroy his neighbor, the cranky old man's delicate rosebushes by slicing and cutting them off when the old man disciplined him. He got seriously hurt later when he realized how thorny the roses were, and how they caused his hand to bleed when he tried to break them off with his bare hands.
The cranky old man burst into tears when he saw the destruction of his own rosebushes, and Kemal was taken aback by the violent reaction, as well as that of his own father, who gave him a spanking of the kind that hadn't been given in years. But that was not the one thing that stayed with him the most, no...
What he remembered was the sight of his own blood mixing with those of the prized roses he had destroyed, and how underneath those roses were in fact, sharp and deadly thorns that mocked his efforts to destroy the life that they possessed.
Those were things he would never forget.
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Post by lia on Mar 18, 2005 2:13:26 GMT -5
Stirring.
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Post by gaffa on Mar 18, 2005 7:43:58 GMT -5
what she said
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Post by Grackleman on Mar 18, 2005 8:50:47 GMT -5
What he said.
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Post by imayne on Mar 18, 2005 10:20:22 GMT -5
And now, a separate sequel...
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Post by imayne on Mar 18, 2005 10:20:49 GMT -5
UNTO YOUR GOD, UNTO MINE
The Sufi Mystic had chosen to stay behind to pray for the dead of his countrymen.
The last of the carrion-birds were making off with the flesh off the corpses of the Ottoman Army. As he stood before the forest of impaled corpses, Abdul Al-Wajjinah felt a degree of calm that few men possessed.
He was a cleric of the Ottoman Empire, gaining the patronage of the mighty Sultan himself, and accompanied by members of the Janissary Corps, the Sultan had wanted him to witness the greatness that Allah’s people would accomplish in the far corners of the world.
The truth though was different, in the past few months Abdullah had witnessed the Ottoman Armies take beatings the likes of which they had never taken from the armies of Prince Vladislaus, their dreaded foe, and leader of the Infidel Army. Vladislaus and his men fought so ferociously that the Ottoman Armies often had no idea of what had hit them when they did.
Yet, he had stayed calm amidst the storm. Placing his trust in none other than Allah, wise, all-knowing Allah.
Even as most of the Ottoman armies had already retreated from a pyrrhic victory, he had stayed behind with loyal members of the Janissary Guard. And now even they, the Janissary Guards, had left him alone.
For the battlefield where the forest of corpses were, the stench of ever-present death hung low and hovered.
Yet he stood there, praying for every single one of their souls.
As he stood there, Abdul saw from far a lonely, despairing figure. He was a local cleric, apparently a Bishop, and as he held his staff in his hand he shook and trembled. His beard and white hair resembled that of a freshly-dead corpse, as his eyes held their faraway glance.
“Hell, hell has come upon us!” he said as he wept.
He staggered towards Abdul and the moment that he saw it was a Muslim cleric, he swung his staff at Abdul, narrowly missing.
Abdul was taken aback, but immediately grabbed the Infidel Cleric with his strong hands by the shoulders. And spoke in his calm, soothing voice.
“Relax, and tell me everything, even in Hell, God is there, it’s just there that people do not remember his name.”
“Tell me who you are…”
“I am Bishop Cesare…your General has gotten my Prince to sell his soul to the Devil…we are lost in Hell forevermore…”
“Prince Vladislaus, you mean?”
“Yes,” whispered Bishop Cesare softly. “Your General has done what no one else could. He has caused my Prince to turn his heart from God.”
The events had passed into history in the Ottoman Army by now, their pyrrhic victory, miraculously won.
Despite the fact that Prince Vlad’s armies had given them an unimaginable pounding at every turn, General Salman the Crafty knew one front that Vlad had not guarded. His heart. It had worked like a charm. When the Ottoman Armies routed, they had stopped at Poenari Castle to enforce their terms of surrender upon the valiant Knights of the Order of the Dragon, simply by killing their beloved Princess Elisabeta. She who gave her heart to none but her Prince. Immediately the Knights agreed to surrender on the Turks’ own terms, despite the fact that Prince Vlad was still alive.
“He…he knew the things only you were capable of doing!” wailed Bishop Cesare, pointing to the forest of corpses, “Why else do you think he did THIS?”
The Bishop broke down crying into the Sufi’s chest.
“He was hoping that you knew something of fear, or pity, or revulsion…so he did this, because he knew that if you took Wallachia, fates worse than this would befall the entire people!”
“Apparently you Ottoman Turks know NOTHING of that!”
The Sufi held the Bishop close to him, comforting him with gentle pats on the back.
“There, there, Brother,” he said, “It is all over, they are in Heaven now…”
“Those men may be, but we are now in HELL!” wailed the Bishop. “I was there when Prince Vlad surrendered himself to Satan, now he would never die!”
He recalled how it happened. The chapel, the floor on which the Princess lay dead, having being washed up by the river on the shores of a village that were up till now, oblivious about the crusades. The villagers had her corpse returned to the chapel of the castle, where not long after, the Prince found her.
Bishop Cesare would never forget that scream.
“I renounce God! I shall rise from my own death to avenge hers with all the powers of darkness!”
With those words, Prince Vlad drove his great sword into the heart of the cross. Rivers of blood drenched the chapel floor. The transaction with Satan was complete.
“The blood is the life and it shall be mine!” screamed Prince Vlad as he drank blood with the lust reserved for wine at a banquet.
All of a sudden Bishop Cesare knew he should have never have told the Prince the horrible truth that he knew. That Elisabeta’s soul was d**ned because she committed suicide.
He should never have told her that. If the enemy had every intent to d**n his soul into the company of Satan, they had succeeded.
“So it is in your God’s law that if one takes her own life, she would be d**ned?” questioned Abdul.
Bishop Cesare’s eyes were filled with tears as he nodded.
“Suicide is also forbidden in the Book of my God. But sometimes he has an intent to allow it to happen. Maybe this is one such case.” Whispered Abdul softly.
“What do you mean?” asked Bishop Cesare.
“From my Order, the Order of the Sufis, there was a great poet among us, one who saw God more clearly than anyone else, his name was Jalaluddin Rumi. In his Sixth Mathnawi, he said this: Love is reckless; not reason. Reason seeks a profit. Love comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed.
Yet, in the midst of suffering, Love proceeds like a millstone, hard surfaced and straightforward.
Having died of self-interest, she risks everything and asks for nothing. Love gambles away every gift God bestows.
Without cause God gave us Being; without cause, give it back again.”
“If your Princess really held that great a love, she would definitely not have been governed by the laws of God, which were fashioned in His great reason, but acted in pure recklessness. Nothing else could have taken the place of her love in her mind, and nothing else could have mattered more. Not even d**nation. Life is indeed, God’s most precious gift, and Love gambles every gift of God away, why not life?”
“But how can she just d**n herself like this, your General preyed on the weak will of women…and heartlessly, heartlessly took apart they who God meant to be together!”
“If God meant them to be together, does not your God say anything about letting them come together again?”
“My God doesn’t, if you forsake His gifts, you are d**ned…”
“Well, but my God says something about it, it is in His Book itself, Satan will not have the final word on this, I can tell. In the Koran, it is said thus, ‘[2.28] How do you deny Allah and you were dead and He gave you life? Again He will cause you to die and again bring you to life, then you shall be brought back to Him.’ So it is that in the light of my God, Allah, that sometimes one will live again and again upon this Earth until his bidding to Him is at last complete. Rumi himself wrote, I died as mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose to animal, I died as animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as man, To soar with angels blest; But even from angelhood I must pass on ... In the same way, your beloved Princess will die, but she will rise to become something greater in future, you never know. Even if she has done wrong, my Koran says of those who have sinned, ‘[23.99] Until when death overtakes one of them, he says: Send me back, my Lord, send me back; [23.100] Haply I may do good in that which I have left. By no means! it is a (mere) word that he speaks; and before them is a barrier until the day they are raised.’ Against such a God as this Satan cannot triumph. This will just be a temporary victory for him.”
“What is your God, and why does he speak as so to your priests and clerics?” Bishop Cesare trembled.
“I believe your God says those things, for He is also my God but in different form, but sometimes you must look into His heart, and not His words, for the truth that he conceals. After all, it was said that the great King Dawood…David in your language, was after God’s own HEART, and not after God’s own WORDS, in your own book?”
Bishop Cesare trembled on the spot, and broke down in tears…”I pray that is so…”
“We cannot pray if God has already destined those things, and I believe that He has a destiny for you too…but now why don’t we find a chance to pray for things more worthwhile?”
“Like what?”
“The souls of your people, and of mine.” Smiled Abdullah.
And the two men of God sat down and prayed that God would be with them all, the living and the dead.
And even though they were in the middle of Hell, all of a sudden they could feel the rush of the carrion-birds’ wings, the departure of the shadow of despair, the gradual rollback of the shadow of death and despair, and slowly a chink of sunlight pierced the darkness.
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