It's Christmas break. I'm sitting in my family room at home, alone, looking at the Christmas tree and thinking, "I haven't wrapped my presents." I don't think about how grateful I am that my family gets to celebrate Christmas about three times this year with relatives. I don't think about goodwill toward men. I don't think about much else, actually, except the fact that I haven't wrapped my presents.
Snapping out of it, I thought to myself, "Where's your Christmas spirit?" I just wasn't getting into it. Christmas felt a little bah, humbug this year.
So I got on Facebook (yeah, that'll bring me Christmas spirit). And to my surprise...it did.
A friend of mine had posted a video--A Social Network Christmas (http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=9M1F2CNU) on GodTube (yes, they have a God version of YouTube). Interested, I clicked the link and found myself witnessing the Christmas story in a very new and unique way--through Joseph's Facebook page.
Suddenly, there was a lump in my throat--Mary's status: "I'm pregnant! Conceived by the Holy Spirit!" Mary's trust in God's favor was obvious. Joseph's status: "I don't know what's going on. I'm hurting confused." Joseph's doubt and hurt put into words.
This video really put things into perspective for me. When Joseph posts, "IT'S A BOY!" someone asks what they're naming him. "O Come, O Come, Immanuel" plays in the background.
"He shall be called
Jesus"
At the name of the child, the music swells up--"Rejoice!"
It's a command that's hard to ignore. I had tears in my eyes as I closed the page, feeling Joseph's confusion and Mary's steadfast optimism, how grateful they must have been to Elizabeth and Zechariah for their support, how awe-struck they must have felt when the baby came, this tiny blessing for which they had been specifically chosen by God.
How it must have felt for Mary--she conceived before she was married, thought she might have to go it alone when Joseph considered breaking the engagement, had almost no one to turn to, and yet had an unwavering faith in God. I imagine a vision of an angel is hard to forget. And yet when she held that little baby in her arms, how overwhelmingly blessed she must have felt. Most mothers can relate to that feeling, I think, that thought that despite how scary the future is, in that moment, holding your baby, it's as though everything is worth the effort. Imagine, though, how much more incredible it must have been for Mary, who wasn't carrying just any child, but part of God's very existence in her womb. And to hold him, Jesus, in her arms, this slice of divinity that was entrusted to her--I understand now why Mary treasured these things in her heart.
And how it must have felt for Joseph--he was betrothed to a woman who claimed to have conceived by the Holy Spirit (now that's a new story for ya!), and just when he was thinking of breaking off the engagement, an angel of God (I mean, a personal messenger of the God you believe and trust) appeared to him in a dream. "You're not running out on her when she needs you most." And suddenly, there's nothing else to do but trust God.
Do you realize how incredible this was? These circumstances aren't really ones to be faked; God put a little bitty baby in Mary's womb, a miniature version of a human, a fetus who would change the entire course of history, theology, religion, and everyone on earth.
Don't you think that's enough to occupy our thoughts over Christmas? The only reason we give gifts is because we're imitating the Great Gift God gave us. And what a poor imitation it is.
And here I am, thinking about how I'm not in the Christmas spirit and I still need to wrap presents.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A Letter to Dead Roses
A Letter to Dead Roses
Dear Dead Roses,
I saw you in the trash today,
wilted next to baby’s breath,
which was already stale in the air.
I wondered who you belonged to,
and if they loved how beautiful
you were in your prime,
before death struck.
I wondered if they mourned for you
when you began to darken,
your vibrant shades of red
turning into a purple, a red-hued black.
I mourned for you
when I saw you there,
drooping and dry.
You looked tired, devoid of peace
but unwilling to fight any longer.
You looked the way I felt,
and I mourned for you.
Rest in peace.
Sincerely.
It began as prose. I turned it into a poem. It seemed more fitting.
Dear Dead Roses,
I saw you in the trash today,
wilted next to baby’s breath,
which was already stale in the air.
I wondered who you belonged to,
and if they loved how beautiful
you were in your prime,
before death struck.
I wondered if they mourned for you
when you began to darken,
your vibrant shades of red
turning into a purple, a red-hued black.
I mourned for you
when I saw you there,
drooping and dry.
You looked tired, devoid of peace
but unwilling to fight any longer.
You looked the way I felt,
and I mourned for you.
Rest in peace.
Sincerely.
It began as prose. I turned it into a poem. It seemed more fitting.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Her Tears
A sloppy copy of a song I wrote called "Her Tears".
Her Tears
Seventeen years, she's been trying so hard
For her daddy's approval, she's been playing her cards
So carefully; her honesty is taking her down,
'Cause honestly, he's never around.
(Chorus, variation)
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
Clinging to her crown,
'Cause she knows, oh boy, she knows,
He'll never know her now,
No, he'll never know her now.
Eight years ago she got along with him just fine,
but the move would take toll in just a matter of time.
Six years she'd look back and wonder what went wrong,
Between her brother and her, what went wrong?
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
To Christ, her solid ground,
And she hides, oh, yes, she hides
The bruises on her heart,
The bruises on her crown.
Seventeen's confident, eighteen's a misfit,
Looking for love, so she thought she'd try it.
Four months, a cheater; Two weeks, too honest.
Alone again with a broken promise.
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
Her failures written in red,
And she tries, tries, oh, she tries
To stand back up again,
Put her crown back on her head.
She called him "best friend," without a doubt.
Trustworthy, loving, she couldn't do without.
The call came fast, the moving trucks pulled up;
Six years and their time was up.
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
More lonely than before,
And she seeks, Oh, God, she seeks
The Christ she knew before,
Where's the Christ she knew before?
She was twenty and single, halfway through school,
The call came cutting through the autumn cool.
He'd been running alone, his face was red,
Before anybody knew it, he was dead.
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
Beating on her father's grave,
And she screams, "Dear God!" She screams;
Flings her crown among the dead,
God's silent as the dead.
He's twenty-eight with an engagement ring,
His beautiful bride like the daughter of a king.
The light in his eyes as if all wrong was right,
She'd never seen such a beautiful sight.
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
With a bittersweet smile.
And with joy, joy, she lets go
Of her happy brother dear,
Wishing daddy could be here.
She'd known him for years and never thought twice.
He'd found her crown again and gave a word of advice,
"I'll hold it for you, so you won't hurt again,
and you can have my heart instead."
She didn't think twice and she didn't look back,
while he cleaned up and polished the crown that she lacked.
One day he set it gently upon her head,
Then he knelt before her and said,
"Marry me
I know your past, so don't look back.
Marry me
You have my heart, so keep it, please, and I promise you
Whatever we go through,
Whatever comes at you,
Whatever brings you down,
I'll always be around,
So please, please, please, please, please,
Under God who hears and sees...
Marry me."
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
With his ring upon her hand,
And she smiles, that gorgeous smile,
That God wanted her to know,
He always wanted her to know.
(End)
Of course, it's up for interpretation, but it was written as an exaggerated account of the events that cause tears in a girl's life. You'll notice the characters are all the men in her life, which I used as a theme leading to the last verse.
Some other symbols include the crown, which is supposed to represent her confidence, her sense of self. Through each situation, her crown begins with her clinging to it tightly, then it is bruised, tarnished, lost, thrown away, et cetera, to indicate that she's affected by each situation. She suffers joys and sorrows;
The disapproval and neglect from her father in verse one,
indications of abuse from an insecure brother in verse two,
rejection from relationships,
the loss of her best friend due to moving,
her father's death and what seems like neglect from God Himself,
her brother's marriage (which is a joy, by the way, not a sorrow ;) ),
and, finally, her own engagement.
God's there throughout it all, but (as is frustrating to many Christians going through a rough spot), it seems as though God is silent when she most needs Him to speak.
Her Tears
Seventeen years, she's been trying so hard
For her daddy's approval, she's been playing her cards
So carefully; her honesty is taking her down,
'Cause honestly, he's never around.
(Chorus, variation)
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
Clinging to her crown,
'Cause she knows, oh boy, she knows,
He'll never know her now,
No, he'll never know her now.
Eight years ago she got along with him just fine,
but the move would take toll in just a matter of time.
Six years she'd look back and wonder what went wrong,
Between her brother and her, what went wrong?
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
To Christ, her solid ground,
And she hides, oh, yes, she hides
The bruises on her heart,
The bruises on her crown.
Seventeen's confident, eighteen's a misfit,
Looking for love, so she thought she'd try it.
Four months, a cheater; Two weeks, too honest.
Alone again with a broken promise.
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
Her failures written in red,
And she tries, tries, oh, she tries
To stand back up again,
Put her crown back on her head.
She called him "best friend," without a doubt.
Trustworthy, loving, she couldn't do without.
The call came fast, the moving trucks pulled up;
Six years and their time was up.
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
More lonely than before,
And she seeks, Oh, God, she seeks
The Christ she knew before,
Where's the Christ she knew before?
She was twenty and single, halfway through school,
The call came cutting through the autumn cool.
He'd been running alone, his face was red,
Before anybody knew it, he was dead.
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
Beating on her father's grave,
And she screams, "Dear God!" She screams;
Flings her crown among the dead,
God's silent as the dead.
He's twenty-eight with an engagement ring,
His beautiful bride like the daughter of a king.
The light in his eyes as if all wrong was right,
She'd never seen such a beautiful sight.
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
With a bittersweet smile.
And with joy, joy, she lets go
Of her happy brother dear,
Wishing daddy could be here.
She'd known him for years and never thought twice.
He'd found her crown again and gave a word of advice,
"I'll hold it for you, so you won't hurt again,
and you can have my heart instead."
She didn't think twice and she didn't look back,
while he cleaned up and polished the crown that she lacked.
One day he set it gently upon her head,
Then he knelt before her and said,
"Marry me
I know your past, so don't look back.
Marry me
You have my heart, so keep it, please, and I promise you
Whatever we go through,
Whatever comes at you,
Whatever brings you down,
I'll always be around,
So please, please, please, please, please,
Under God who hears and sees...
Marry me."
And she cries, cries, cries, cries, cries,
With his ring upon her hand,
And she smiles, that gorgeous smile,
That God wanted her to know,
He always wanted her to know.
(End)
Of course, it's up for interpretation, but it was written as an exaggerated account of the events that cause tears in a girl's life. You'll notice the characters are all the men in her life, which I used as a theme leading to the last verse.
Some other symbols include the crown, which is supposed to represent her confidence, her sense of self. Through each situation, her crown begins with her clinging to it tightly, then it is bruised, tarnished, lost, thrown away, et cetera, to indicate that she's affected by each situation. She suffers joys and sorrows;
The disapproval and neglect from her father in verse one,
indications of abuse from an insecure brother in verse two,
rejection from relationships,
the loss of her best friend due to moving,
her father's death and what seems like neglect from God Himself,
her brother's marriage (which is a joy, by the way, not a sorrow ;) ),
and, finally, her own engagement.
God's there throughout it all, but (as is frustrating to many Christians going through a rough spot), it seems as though God is silent when she most needs Him to speak.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The Most
A question posed by one of my friends.
“What does the person who means most to you actually mean to you?
Think of the person who means most to you, then ask yourself why? or what? What is it that makes a person more dear to you than others, even the others who are very dear to you?”
It’s difficult to say what a person means to me, since the very term meaning is what we use to describe a person’s value to us. When someone is of great value to you, they mean a lot to you. That word, “to mean,” is the word that precedes just how much a person is worth.
How do you measure a person’s value in your life? How do you attach a price to them and call them “the person who means most” to you?
There are many people in my life who mean a lot to me. Each of them has their own unique values, their own weight of importance, their own species of worth, which makes the question not “what do they mean to you,” or “what makes them the most dear,” for those questions are inapplicable. The people who mean most to me, mean the most to me in entirely different ways.
And who, if they are truly blessed by God, can claim that only one person means the very most to them? I find that I cannot describe a single person whose existence means so much more to me than anyone else’s. The only being who can claim that kind of a position is Christ, and He isn’t really in the same league. The others, however, those who have some sort of value to me, are dear to me due to their characters. They are the people who I have had the opportunity to be with during some of the hardest times of both of our lives. They are the people whose potentials I have been able to see a long ways off, and watched them grow into it through every storm God threw at them. They are the people who have been able to trust me and whom I have been able to trust. They are the people who I know best, and that is simply it. It is not necessarily because they are better people, or because they are more talented people. It is solely because I know them best, and they know me best. And in such relationships, you become dear to one another by honing one another’s character.
Maybe it’s even simpler than that. Maybe it’s the exchange. Maybe it’s the idea that you have become indebted to them for everything they have become to you. Like, a mother. A mother is bound to love you unconditionally, and no matter how much she wants to throw you out or scream and rip her hair out and stop spending money on you, she doesn’t, and you are therefore indebted to her. Furthermore, she not only refrains from doing all those things to you, but she does love you and gives you shelter, speaks to you softly, keeps her hair in place (lol) and spends money on you. Not only does she not react strongly and harshly to every wrong deed of yours, but she actually takes the time to teach you how to behave and act in society, teaches you kindness and gentleness, and how to deal with difficult people. You are indebted to her, and she has become invaluable to you.
Maybe that’s not so simple after all.
Well, that’s my response.
“What does the person who means most to you actually mean to you?
Think of the person who means most to you, then ask yourself why? or what? What is it that makes a person more dear to you than others, even the others who are very dear to you?”
It’s difficult to say what a person means to me, since the very term meaning is what we use to describe a person’s value to us. When someone is of great value to you, they mean a lot to you. That word, “to mean,” is the word that precedes just how much a person is worth.
How do you measure a person’s value in your life? How do you attach a price to them and call them “the person who means most” to you?
There are many people in my life who mean a lot to me. Each of them has their own unique values, their own weight of importance, their own species of worth, which makes the question not “what do they mean to you,” or “what makes them the most dear,” for those questions are inapplicable. The people who mean most to me, mean the most to me in entirely different ways.
And who, if they are truly blessed by God, can claim that only one person means the very most to them? I find that I cannot describe a single person whose existence means so much more to me than anyone else’s. The only being who can claim that kind of a position is Christ, and He isn’t really in the same league. The others, however, those who have some sort of value to me, are dear to me due to their characters. They are the people who I have had the opportunity to be with during some of the hardest times of both of our lives. They are the people whose potentials I have been able to see a long ways off, and watched them grow into it through every storm God threw at them. They are the people who have been able to trust me and whom I have been able to trust. They are the people who I know best, and that is simply it. It is not necessarily because they are better people, or because they are more talented people. It is solely because I know them best, and they know me best. And in such relationships, you become dear to one another by honing one another’s character.
Maybe it’s even simpler than that. Maybe it’s the exchange. Maybe it’s the idea that you have become indebted to them for everything they have become to you. Like, a mother. A mother is bound to love you unconditionally, and no matter how much she wants to throw you out or scream and rip her hair out and stop spending money on you, she doesn’t, and you are therefore indebted to her. Furthermore, she not only refrains from doing all those things to you, but she does love you and gives you shelter, speaks to you softly, keeps her hair in place (lol) and spends money on you. Not only does she not react strongly and harshly to every wrong deed of yours, but she actually takes the time to teach you how to behave and act in society, teaches you kindness and gentleness, and how to deal with difficult people. You are indebted to her, and she has become invaluable to you.
Maybe that’s not so simple after all.
Well, that’s my response.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Turn
Turn all thy thoughts to music, love,
Thy jealousies to verse.
Wait patiently upon the day
When death may meet its worst.
Turn all thy dreams to notes, my dear,
Write passion on a staff,
That all may see, adoringly,
Thy heart, thy soul, thy wrath.
Turn sorrow into art, O child,
Paint pictures for the world.
Express yearning for unseen things,
Scrolls yet to be unfurled.
Turn all thy joy to song, Beloved,
Delight caused not by things.
You mend the hole within thy soul
With the Lamb, thy hope, thy King.
Turn hatred into love, my dear,
And thy love express in rhyme.
For all our work is meaningless
When comes the end of time.
Turn emptiness to faith, my love,
Turn black souls back to light.
Show them the way back to Christ's way;
Turn death back into life.
Thy jealousies to verse.
Wait patiently upon the day
When death may meet its worst.
Turn all thy dreams to notes, my dear,
Write passion on a staff,
That all may see, adoringly,
Thy heart, thy soul, thy wrath.
Turn sorrow into art, O child,
Paint pictures for the world.
Express yearning for unseen things,
Scrolls yet to be unfurled.
Turn all thy joy to song, Beloved,
Delight caused not by things.
You mend the hole within thy soul
With the Lamb, thy hope, thy King.
Turn hatred into love, my dear,
And thy love express in rhyme.
For all our work is meaningless
When comes the end of time.
Turn emptiness to faith, my love,
Turn black souls back to light.
Show them the way back to Christ's way;
Turn death back into life.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
To the Pianoforte
My little ivory keys, are you listening to me?
My wooden music box, will you hear my troubled thoughts?
My paper, creamy white, will you bring my mind some light?
My gentle pencil gray, will you hold my heart today?
Aimless and wandering, with no certain path,
I find myself consistently giving in to wrath.
I'm frustrated and lonely, though I'm telling you I'm fine;
If this is my future, where do I resign?
An undecided future, like a thick surrounding mist;
Untouchable, indifferent, although I shake my fist,
And so with nothing left, I sit down and count back time,
Waiting for it all to come crashing down.
There's no more use for poetry, no rhythm to this rhyme.
It's all been written down before, so why am I wasting time?
Though so young and inexperienced, still I feel so old,
Battling the sun’s warm rays despite my hate for cold.
The music doesn't come to me as it once did before,
When God and I were close, and I wanted nothing more.
A roadblock, a missing word, the ever-restless mind,
Unable to focus, leaving scraps of poetry behind.
Worthlessness haunts me, though I'm blessed with many a skill,
With my future dim and cloudy, I've no strength, I've no will.
I want to charge through its indifference, but at once I cannot move,
Bound by everything I know I'm sure to lose.
My little ivory keys, are you listening to me?
My wooden music box, will you hear my troubled thoughts?
My paper, creamy white, will you bring my mind some light?
My gentle pencil gray, will you write me a song today?
My wooden music box, will you hear my troubled thoughts?
My paper, creamy white, will you bring my mind some light?
My gentle pencil gray, will you hold my heart today?
Aimless and wandering, with no certain path,
I find myself consistently giving in to wrath.
I'm frustrated and lonely, though I'm telling you I'm fine;
If this is my future, where do I resign?
An undecided future, like a thick surrounding mist;
Untouchable, indifferent, although I shake my fist,
And so with nothing left, I sit down and count back time,
Waiting for it all to come crashing down.
There's no more use for poetry, no rhythm to this rhyme.
It's all been written down before, so why am I wasting time?
Though so young and inexperienced, still I feel so old,
Battling the sun’s warm rays despite my hate for cold.
The music doesn't come to me as it once did before,
When God and I were close, and I wanted nothing more.
A roadblock, a missing word, the ever-restless mind,
Unable to focus, leaving scraps of poetry behind.
Worthlessness haunts me, though I'm blessed with many a skill,
With my future dim and cloudy, I've no strength, I've no will.
I want to charge through its indifference, but at once I cannot move,
Bound by everything I know I'm sure to lose.
My little ivory keys, are you listening to me?
My wooden music box, will you hear my troubled thoughts?
My paper, creamy white, will you bring my mind some light?
My gentle pencil gray, will you write me a song today?
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Gladiator
We are the Gladiator's feet.
Before the games begin, we wait impatiently, sandal-clad and tapping a rhythmless tattoo. When we are released, we run from confinement, our soles slapping the hot sand and grinding gravel. We pause, shifting our stance to meet an oncoming attacker. Shuffle, shuffle, shift, shuffle, shuffle. We dance lightly, constantly rebalancing the weight above us, the weight that determines our action. When a body falls before us, we run to our next victim, our next opponent, our next challenge. We run eagerly, knowing nothing else but the shuffle, shuffle, shift of attack and run. We are the Gladiator's feet.
We are the Gladiator's arms.
We flex and relax in anticipation, eagerly awaiting our chance. As the feet take off, we pump, pushing the weight further. The attacker barely focuses on anything but what we do. We rise, the hands clutching the weapon. Tense, clenched, and pumping with adrenaline, we hack down, feeling the impact of our weapon as it strikes with accuracy. We relax, but our shoulders swivel, taking the rest of the weight with it. We swing around, hacking, slicing, catching our weight when it falls. We catch the blows of other arms, blocking, bruising, bleeding. The adrenaline does not allow us to feel the pain, pushing us instead to continue to fight. We begin to grow weary, the blood thick in our veins; we rise too slowly, we swing too late. But still we fight, for it is our duty. We are the Gladiator's arms.
I am the Gladiator's torso.
I am ignored for the most part, but I am most needed. Strong and enduring, I have spent long years in hunger, in pain, and exposed. The back of me is bare, open to attack; the muscles that are so defined bear scars from lashing, without an ounce of fat to protect me. My front is hard, like rock with a skin cover, from years and years of fighting for my existence. Though the arms swing and the feet run, it is I that keeps the weight in balance, I that strains under an attacker's sword. I am the most aimed for, for it is I who protects the heart. My bones create a cage, and that cage must be protected. And so I must be deft, agile. I shy away from the swordpoint, I sacrifice my balance to keep the heart safe. I suffer wounds, scratches and deeper injuries, but still I go on, constantly shifting in order to maintain balance. Sweat stings my wounds, hot, sticky, painful. It is my pain that is most easily ignored, yet so greatly important to survival. I am the Gladiator's torso.
We are the Gladiator's hands.
As we wait, we nervously clutch our weapon, feeling the rough leather of the sword's handle against our palms. We wipe the sweat off against our simple tunic, comforted slightly by the feel of the cloth. Just before we are released to fight, we fold around the leather handle of the sword, a symbol to fight against distraction as the head bows and the eyes close. When we are finished, we raise our sword, determined and deadly. The scars on the back of us remind us why we are here, and as the feet take us into the hot sun and the arena, we begin our own kind of dance. We do not forget who we are. We are the Gladiator's hands.
I am the Gladiator's brow.
Sweat trickles down me in the head and threatens to enter the eyes, which would sting and blind them. The hands wipe it away. I am broad and lined; the hair that used to cover me has been shaved, causing me to burn in the sun. I do not fight. I merely wait, anticipating the end of the battle, for if the battle ends and I still feel, I am offered a crown of laurel leaves, which indicate the body's victory. I exist for the purpose of holding a crown, and that purpose is enough. I am the Gladiator's brow.
We are the Gladiator's eyes.
Flicking back and forth, blinking constantly, we betray our nervousness. The hands save us from the trickling sweat which threatens to blind, but nothing can save us from the fear that will not allow us to rest. We examine the men around the body, noticing weakness and strength, nervous habits and calm collectedness. Some are confident. Some are not. We turn forward again, closing briefly as the mind commands, then opening at the sound of a metallic click. We are being released. The men and our body charge out, and we flicker from attacker to attacker, noticing anything and everything but their faces. We purposefully glance around fallen bodies as though they are not there. Squinting against the bright sun and its reflection in the sand, we take a moment to glance up at the crowd. But our duty is not forgotten, and we look away, finding our arms and hands another attacker. We are the Gladiator's eyes.
I am the Gladiator's mind.
It is I who commands the body, who swings, dodges, runs, falls, dives, kills. The body's survival depends on me. I am the one who processes the information the eyes give me and produces a solution, resulting in commands to the rest of the body. I am quick, clever. I am proud. But it is also I who remembers the body as it used to be, before it was forced into this form of slavery. I remember the feet before they knew the shuffle, shuffle, shift of attack. I remember how they used to run freely, without stopping, simply to feel the dirt under their soles, to feel the warm sand between their toes. I remember the arms before they bled and bruised. I remember how they used to be thin, and how their subtle strength used to haul the body up the tree it climbed. I remember the torso before it became a cage, before its back was scarred, before it suffered. I remember how little it had been exposed to the sun, and how it used to be softer, because there was no need for muscle. I remember the hands before they became calloused and hard, before they knew only the roughest material, the hottest sand, and the lukewarm water. I remember the feel of soft skin as my hands stroked my wife's face for the last time, and the smooth wood of my carvings. I remember when the brow was covered by dark locks, and had no use for a crown. I remember when it bore nothing more than my mother's loving kiss and my father's blessing. I remember when my eyes knew nothing of blood and death, when all they knew were the faces of those I loved and the beauty of the earth around me. All this I remember until I am told to fight. Then, I am the Gladiator's mind.
I am the Gladiator's heart.
I am protected by a cage of steel, by muscles made of rock, by deadly arms and swift feet. It is I who beats relentlessly before the doors to the arena are opened. Though I have no part in the fight, my purpose comes later. It is I who causes the eyes to well up with tears when the mind remembers the fall of a recent comrade. It is I who overflows with compassion when I see the wounds of the other gladiators, and I who causes the mind to decide to help them. It is I who can go days without food in order to feed an ill brother. I am overwhelmed with sorrow when the mind remembers how things used to be, and I who longs for the past. I am what keeps the Gladiator human. I am the Gladiator's heart.
I am the Gladiator.
My story has no importance. I fight, I kill, I survive. This is my existence.
I stand in the doorway of the arena, tapping my feet, rubbing my hands on my tunic, closing my eyes for a quick prayer. My heart pumps blood, adrenaline makes me nervous and eager. I am ready for battle. My mind is clear and focused, and I can think of nothing else. Though I am talented and popular in the arena, I loathe the killing. I avoid looking at the faces of my victims as they die, or they haunt my dreams.
The arena doors open, and I am released, my sword deadly and prepared. I cut down my first victim without a fight; he is inexperienced. I chop, hack, slice, kill. A delicate dance evolves as my feet shuffle in the sand and gravel. A body falls, and I turn away. My stomach lurches and I can feel the sweat dripping from my neck. I pause, certain that I am in no danger, and look toward the stands, finding the King's box quickly. For a moment, I consider the barely visible faces that watch me carefully. Some of the members of the box cheer; I can see that the King is cheering. The Queen is not; she sits gravely in her seat, eyes forward. I hear a noise behind me and return to the fight.
My opponents are dead; my comrades lay dying as well. The King leaves his box to make his way down, finding me the only one still standing. Smiling and applauding, he announces me the winner, grabbing my wrist with his pale, soft hand and raising it above our heads. The crowd erupts in applause as the Queen steps forward, the crown of cool laurel leaves in her gentle hands. Her face is stony, her eyes are lowered as she raises the crown, capturing the attention of the crowd. I kneel silently, wearily before her and she lowers the crown onto my brow. As I stand, she curtsies, acknowledging my talent. Our eyes meet, and there is a mutual understanding that we live in a world we cannot change. I turn away, longing but afraid of such an understanding, and raise my sword to the crowd. As the stands once again erupt with deafening applause, it only says one thing: You are the Gladiator.
I am the Gladiator, I repeat to myself. I have been made a Gladiator, and a Gladiator I will remain until the day of my death. Though my body serves me well, it will age. I will grow weary, slow, tired. In this arena, I will meet my death, and I am the Gladiator until that time.
I am the Gladiator, I say again, looking at the Queen. My hand grips my sword as I raise it once again to the sky.
I am the Gladiator.
Before the games begin, we wait impatiently, sandal-clad and tapping a rhythmless tattoo. When we are released, we run from confinement, our soles slapping the hot sand and grinding gravel. We pause, shifting our stance to meet an oncoming attacker. Shuffle, shuffle, shift, shuffle, shuffle. We dance lightly, constantly rebalancing the weight above us, the weight that determines our action. When a body falls before us, we run to our next victim, our next opponent, our next challenge. We run eagerly, knowing nothing else but the shuffle, shuffle, shift of attack and run. We are the Gladiator's feet.
We are the Gladiator's arms.
We flex and relax in anticipation, eagerly awaiting our chance. As the feet take off, we pump, pushing the weight further. The attacker barely focuses on anything but what we do. We rise, the hands clutching the weapon. Tense, clenched, and pumping with adrenaline, we hack down, feeling the impact of our weapon as it strikes with accuracy. We relax, but our shoulders swivel, taking the rest of the weight with it. We swing around, hacking, slicing, catching our weight when it falls. We catch the blows of other arms, blocking, bruising, bleeding. The adrenaline does not allow us to feel the pain, pushing us instead to continue to fight. We begin to grow weary, the blood thick in our veins; we rise too slowly, we swing too late. But still we fight, for it is our duty. We are the Gladiator's arms.
I am the Gladiator's torso.
I am ignored for the most part, but I am most needed. Strong and enduring, I have spent long years in hunger, in pain, and exposed. The back of me is bare, open to attack; the muscles that are so defined bear scars from lashing, without an ounce of fat to protect me. My front is hard, like rock with a skin cover, from years and years of fighting for my existence. Though the arms swing and the feet run, it is I that keeps the weight in balance, I that strains under an attacker's sword. I am the most aimed for, for it is I who protects the heart. My bones create a cage, and that cage must be protected. And so I must be deft, agile. I shy away from the swordpoint, I sacrifice my balance to keep the heart safe. I suffer wounds, scratches and deeper injuries, but still I go on, constantly shifting in order to maintain balance. Sweat stings my wounds, hot, sticky, painful. It is my pain that is most easily ignored, yet so greatly important to survival. I am the Gladiator's torso.
We are the Gladiator's hands.
As we wait, we nervously clutch our weapon, feeling the rough leather of the sword's handle against our palms. We wipe the sweat off against our simple tunic, comforted slightly by the feel of the cloth. Just before we are released to fight, we fold around the leather handle of the sword, a symbol to fight against distraction as the head bows and the eyes close. When we are finished, we raise our sword, determined and deadly. The scars on the back of us remind us why we are here, and as the feet take us into the hot sun and the arena, we begin our own kind of dance. We do not forget who we are. We are the Gladiator's hands.
I am the Gladiator's brow.
Sweat trickles down me in the head and threatens to enter the eyes, which would sting and blind them. The hands wipe it away. I am broad and lined; the hair that used to cover me has been shaved, causing me to burn in the sun. I do not fight. I merely wait, anticipating the end of the battle, for if the battle ends and I still feel, I am offered a crown of laurel leaves, which indicate the body's victory. I exist for the purpose of holding a crown, and that purpose is enough. I am the Gladiator's brow.
We are the Gladiator's eyes.
Flicking back and forth, blinking constantly, we betray our nervousness. The hands save us from the trickling sweat which threatens to blind, but nothing can save us from the fear that will not allow us to rest. We examine the men around the body, noticing weakness and strength, nervous habits and calm collectedness. Some are confident. Some are not. We turn forward again, closing briefly as the mind commands, then opening at the sound of a metallic click. We are being released. The men and our body charge out, and we flicker from attacker to attacker, noticing anything and everything but their faces. We purposefully glance around fallen bodies as though they are not there. Squinting against the bright sun and its reflection in the sand, we take a moment to glance up at the crowd. But our duty is not forgotten, and we look away, finding our arms and hands another attacker. We are the Gladiator's eyes.
I am the Gladiator's mind.
It is I who commands the body, who swings, dodges, runs, falls, dives, kills. The body's survival depends on me. I am the one who processes the information the eyes give me and produces a solution, resulting in commands to the rest of the body. I am quick, clever. I am proud. But it is also I who remembers the body as it used to be, before it was forced into this form of slavery. I remember the feet before they knew the shuffle, shuffle, shift of attack. I remember how they used to run freely, without stopping, simply to feel the dirt under their soles, to feel the warm sand between their toes. I remember the arms before they bled and bruised. I remember how they used to be thin, and how their subtle strength used to haul the body up the tree it climbed. I remember the torso before it became a cage, before its back was scarred, before it suffered. I remember how little it had been exposed to the sun, and how it used to be softer, because there was no need for muscle. I remember the hands before they became calloused and hard, before they knew only the roughest material, the hottest sand, and the lukewarm water. I remember the feel of soft skin as my hands stroked my wife's face for the last time, and the smooth wood of my carvings. I remember when the brow was covered by dark locks, and had no use for a crown. I remember when it bore nothing more than my mother's loving kiss and my father's blessing. I remember when my eyes knew nothing of blood and death, when all they knew were the faces of those I loved and the beauty of the earth around me. All this I remember until I am told to fight. Then, I am the Gladiator's mind.
I am the Gladiator's heart.
I am protected by a cage of steel, by muscles made of rock, by deadly arms and swift feet. It is I who beats relentlessly before the doors to the arena are opened. Though I have no part in the fight, my purpose comes later. It is I who causes the eyes to well up with tears when the mind remembers the fall of a recent comrade. It is I who overflows with compassion when I see the wounds of the other gladiators, and I who causes the mind to decide to help them. It is I who can go days without food in order to feed an ill brother. I am overwhelmed with sorrow when the mind remembers how things used to be, and I who longs for the past. I am what keeps the Gladiator human. I am the Gladiator's heart.
I am the Gladiator.
My story has no importance. I fight, I kill, I survive. This is my existence.
I stand in the doorway of the arena, tapping my feet, rubbing my hands on my tunic, closing my eyes for a quick prayer. My heart pumps blood, adrenaline makes me nervous and eager. I am ready for battle. My mind is clear and focused, and I can think of nothing else. Though I am talented and popular in the arena, I loathe the killing. I avoid looking at the faces of my victims as they die, or they haunt my dreams.
The arena doors open, and I am released, my sword deadly and prepared. I cut down my first victim without a fight; he is inexperienced. I chop, hack, slice, kill. A delicate dance evolves as my feet shuffle in the sand and gravel. A body falls, and I turn away. My stomach lurches and I can feel the sweat dripping from my neck. I pause, certain that I am in no danger, and look toward the stands, finding the King's box quickly. For a moment, I consider the barely visible faces that watch me carefully. Some of the members of the box cheer; I can see that the King is cheering. The Queen is not; she sits gravely in her seat, eyes forward. I hear a noise behind me and return to the fight.
My opponents are dead; my comrades lay dying as well. The King leaves his box to make his way down, finding me the only one still standing. Smiling and applauding, he announces me the winner, grabbing my wrist with his pale, soft hand and raising it above our heads. The crowd erupts in applause as the Queen steps forward, the crown of cool laurel leaves in her gentle hands. Her face is stony, her eyes are lowered as she raises the crown, capturing the attention of the crowd. I kneel silently, wearily before her and she lowers the crown onto my brow. As I stand, she curtsies, acknowledging my talent. Our eyes meet, and there is a mutual understanding that we live in a world we cannot change. I turn away, longing but afraid of such an understanding, and raise my sword to the crowd. As the stands once again erupt with deafening applause, it only says one thing: You are the Gladiator.
I am the Gladiator, I repeat to myself. I have been made a Gladiator, and a Gladiator I will remain until the day of my death. Though my body serves me well, it will age. I will grow weary, slow, tired. In this arena, I will meet my death, and I am the Gladiator until that time.
I am the Gladiator, I say again, looking at the Queen. My hand grips my sword as I raise it once again to the sky.
I am the Gladiator.
Do You Understand?
Do you understand the frustration of trying to get someone to realize that life is always worth living?
Do you understand how hard it is to convince them?
God made you, gave you life, whether you like it or not, and He's got a reason for it. Don't you dare question whether life is worth living. Your life is more precious than His own. He holds you in that regard. He's been watching you since your parents got married, He's been guiding your friends, your enemies, your surroundings, just to protect you, to keep you safe. You might suffer a few small injuries, but your life is much more valuable than your flawless skin. You've taken a few lessons home with visible results. But to turn a blind eye to this, to forget those lessons and decide that God never had a reason for you...how that must hurt God. Do you realize that? Do you understand?
Do you understand how many people are fearing for your life right now?
Do you understand what kind of heartache you're causing?
These people, all these people you think won't even notice that you're gone, are the people who treasure you. How could you even think you have the right to take yourself away from them? Do you know how much it hurts them that you think they don't love you? It makes them wonder what they did wrong, what they failed to do to show you just how much they love you. They would put themselves in your place just to keep you from suffering this kind of pain, this kind of insecurity. Do you realize that? Do you understand?
Have you ever been in such a situation? Did you ever want to take a hurting person out of their situation? I know you have, and I know you remember just how you felt, that overflowing love and compassion that you tried to reach them with. This is precisely the position we are in now. And you, refusing the lifelines, are the hurting one.
No one knows the answer you're looking for. I don't think even you know. You just want everyone else to be wrong so you can be right. You've predicted what kinds of answers they'll give and you've already rejected them. You don't want to be understood, you don't want to give up your pride and rebellion and unhappiness because you don't know how. How do you give up the thing that's giving you such a power over your peers, over your authority? How can you even imagine living without it? While you're holding onto it, it's impossible. You can't see life without being able to manipulate things, make things go your way. Do you realize that? Do you understand?
Do you understand that there's no right answer?
Do you understand that there's nothing we can do to stop you?
You've rejected the medicine, and now all the power is in your hands. You can do what you like, and we're powerless to stop you. What will you do with that power? Eventually the high of having its unlimited source wears off, and you won't want it anymore. It's then that you truly don't have a reason to live, not because there isn't one, but because you've thrown aside those reasons. God, family, friends, love, everything that is good in life you've just tossed aside for your little rampage of power. The funny thing is that the reasons are still there. All those reasons you didn't think were good enough.
Do you realize that? Do you understand?
Do you understand now?
-C. (2009)
Do you understand how hard it is to convince them?
God made you, gave you life, whether you like it or not, and He's got a reason for it. Don't you dare question whether life is worth living. Your life is more precious than His own. He holds you in that regard. He's been watching you since your parents got married, He's been guiding your friends, your enemies, your surroundings, just to protect you, to keep you safe. You might suffer a few small injuries, but your life is much more valuable than your flawless skin. You've taken a few lessons home with visible results. But to turn a blind eye to this, to forget those lessons and decide that God never had a reason for you...how that must hurt God. Do you realize that? Do you understand?
Do you understand how many people are fearing for your life right now?
Do you understand what kind of heartache you're causing?
These people, all these people you think won't even notice that you're gone, are the people who treasure you. How could you even think you have the right to take yourself away from them? Do you know how much it hurts them that you think they don't love you? It makes them wonder what they did wrong, what they failed to do to show you just how much they love you. They would put themselves in your place just to keep you from suffering this kind of pain, this kind of insecurity. Do you realize that? Do you understand?
Have you ever been in such a situation? Did you ever want to take a hurting person out of their situation? I know you have, and I know you remember just how you felt, that overflowing love and compassion that you tried to reach them with. This is precisely the position we are in now. And you, refusing the lifelines, are the hurting one.
No one knows the answer you're looking for. I don't think even you know. You just want everyone else to be wrong so you can be right. You've predicted what kinds of answers they'll give and you've already rejected them. You don't want to be understood, you don't want to give up your pride and rebellion and unhappiness because you don't know how. How do you give up the thing that's giving you such a power over your peers, over your authority? How can you even imagine living without it? While you're holding onto it, it's impossible. You can't see life without being able to manipulate things, make things go your way. Do you realize that? Do you understand?
Do you understand that there's no right answer?
Do you understand that there's nothing we can do to stop you?
You've rejected the medicine, and now all the power is in your hands. You can do what you like, and we're powerless to stop you. What will you do with that power? Eventually the high of having its unlimited source wears off, and you won't want it anymore. It's then that you truly don't have a reason to live, not because there isn't one, but because you've thrown aside those reasons. God, family, friends, love, everything that is good in life you've just tossed aside for your little rampage of power. The funny thing is that the reasons are still there. All those reasons you didn't think were good enough.
Do you realize that? Do you understand?
Do you understand now?
-C. (2009)
Monday, July 19, 2010
What is Love? (part 2)
What is love?
It’s a question I haven’t answered just yet, but I’ve been getting a better idea of it lately.
I gave up dating. Yeah, it sounds kind of funny for a sophomore in college to be saying something so dramatic, and, to be honest, a little unrealistic. It isn’t, though, is it? I’m not doing it to be a dramatic teenager who’s gone through one too many bad relationships. That’s not it at all. So let me give you the background behind this.
In middle school, I decided I wouldn’t date until college. It wasn’t my father’s rule—his limit was 16. No, it was my own rule. Why did I do it? Because it was perfectly sensible. I didn’t want to date until I was prepared to marry.
Of course, by the time I reached 11th grade and was allowed to enter the world of available singles, I had changed my mind. I dated a young fellow named Trevor and didn’t mind having a “boyfriend,” but honestly, I knew it wasn’t love. In the back of my mind, every time I said “I love you,” it was followed by a feeling that the words were incomplete. They ought to have been followed by words like, “but I know I’d never marry you,” or “but I can’t even see us getting through this summer.” I knew it was incomplete, but I continued in it anyway. I had never had a boyfriend—what did I know? What if this is how it was supposed to be?
When that relationship ended, I vowed, once again, not to date until college. This time, I kept my vow. I refused more than one boy who asked for my affection, and I did not feel guilty doing it. I knew I was doing the right thing.
Once I was in college, I fell quickly into a relationship with a cute, friendly young man. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to get me seriously thinking about whether or not I wanted to be dating. Essentially, I knew I did not love him, and it bothered me that I would want to be with someone who I knew I did not love and who did not love me.
So I did some thinking. Hah, some—I did a LOT of thinking. I felt like, subconsciously, I was listening to all the stories of my friends, peers, teachers, and elders, and I was coming up with a very curious answer. After considerable thought, I concluded that I would not date.
Again, I’m not just being dramatic because I had been broken up with twice—I genuinely have no desire to date unless it is what God has for me. God’s revealed to me a little bit, a tiny bit about love. Let’s see if I can explain my revelation.
When a person loves another person, it’s not necessarily a romantic love. For example, I love my friend Holt. He is a kind young man, sensible, and strengthened by God, and I admire many of his traits. He inspires me to be better, and I him. It is a mutual relationship in which we both inspire the best of each other. He knows I will love him no matter what he does, but he also knows that I can see his potential.
But he is not someone I will date or marry. I love him, but he is not right for me. Trust me, it’s something you can tell.
So what is love, then? What is it that brings people together in holy matrimony? What is it that makes people stay together for the rest of their lives?
My father had many wise things to say on the topic when I told him I was pulling myself out of the dating populace. I had decided that the love of my life was simply something to leave up to God, which, of course, is not wrong. That has not changed. The inspiration was hearing the stories of my teachers. In several cases, the teachers I know who are very much in love with each other were drawn together by God. It was sort of like “love at first sight,” except so much deeper than what those words imply. It was God-given knowledge that when they met, one of them thought, “That’s the person I’m going to marry.” Even when their mind denied such a thought, the thought remained there, and on their wedding day, I wonder what a holy moment it was when they admitted to each other that it was God that drew them together.
That was my inspiration, that someone would see me one day, and think, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry.” I fear it will take a lot to convince me, though, which is why only someone sent by God would be able to get me to marry him.
As I said, my father had some interesting things to say to widen my perspective.
There are many people in this world with whom one can make a marriage work. Putting the love part aside, marriage is not just joining two people in love—it’s a commitment. It is a promise to make things work for as long as they both shall live. It is a contract. It has nothing at all to do with love. Love can even come after marriage.
Take an arranged marriage. It is possible to marry someone and learn to love him or her. It is not impossible, and it is only an unwillingness to make it work that will make a marriage fall apart. When two hearts are in agreement, what can stop them? Only each other.
In our society, we don’t have arranged marriages anymore, which is just fine. We have the opportunity and freedom to refuse someone simply because we do not love them. We have the liberty to choose our own partners, and, unfortunately, the liberty to tear apart that partnership and start another one. That is why it is so important that love be a part of the marriage.
There are levels, my father explained. There are levels of compatibility between people. He labeled them: attractiveness, financial position, morals, and values. When two people are compatible in all these levels, it causes much less strain on a relationship. That isn’t to say it’s the magic formula for every relationship to work. It is saying that It is simply easier to make this kind of relationship work. It is possible, too, to make relationships work outside of the levels of compatibility—love’s funny that way. Or at least, what we all think love is, that inexplicable word.
I want to add a fifth component to those four levels. I’ll call it the God-factor, for lack of a better term. To be honest, I could love someone who is perfectly compatible for me, but if God doesn’t give me the OK, I will not marry him. I don’t know how He will make it known to me, but He will.
And so, I have given up dating. I will not further embellish it, but let’s just say it’s a test of sorts, and only one who has God’s blessing will have the endurance and courage to pursue me until I say, “yes.” And if that means I’m single for the rest of my life, I’m okay with that.
So, what is love?
I have no idea.
It’s a question I haven’t answered just yet, but I’ve been getting a better idea of it lately.
I gave up dating. Yeah, it sounds kind of funny for a sophomore in college to be saying something so dramatic, and, to be honest, a little unrealistic. It isn’t, though, is it? I’m not doing it to be a dramatic teenager who’s gone through one too many bad relationships. That’s not it at all. So let me give you the background behind this.
In middle school, I decided I wouldn’t date until college. It wasn’t my father’s rule—his limit was 16. No, it was my own rule. Why did I do it? Because it was perfectly sensible. I didn’t want to date until I was prepared to marry.
Of course, by the time I reached 11th grade and was allowed to enter the world of available singles, I had changed my mind. I dated a young fellow named Trevor and didn’t mind having a “boyfriend,” but honestly, I knew it wasn’t love. In the back of my mind, every time I said “I love you,” it was followed by a feeling that the words were incomplete. They ought to have been followed by words like, “but I know I’d never marry you,” or “but I can’t even see us getting through this summer.” I knew it was incomplete, but I continued in it anyway. I had never had a boyfriend—what did I know? What if this is how it was supposed to be?
When that relationship ended, I vowed, once again, not to date until college. This time, I kept my vow. I refused more than one boy who asked for my affection, and I did not feel guilty doing it. I knew I was doing the right thing.
Once I was in college, I fell quickly into a relationship with a cute, friendly young man. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to get me seriously thinking about whether or not I wanted to be dating. Essentially, I knew I did not love him, and it bothered me that I would want to be with someone who I knew I did not love and who did not love me.
So I did some thinking. Hah, some—I did a LOT of thinking. I felt like, subconsciously, I was listening to all the stories of my friends, peers, teachers, and elders, and I was coming up with a very curious answer. After considerable thought, I concluded that I would not date.
Again, I’m not just being dramatic because I had been broken up with twice—I genuinely have no desire to date unless it is what God has for me. God’s revealed to me a little bit, a tiny bit about love. Let’s see if I can explain my revelation.
When a person loves another person, it’s not necessarily a romantic love. For example, I love my friend Holt. He is a kind young man, sensible, and strengthened by God, and I admire many of his traits. He inspires me to be better, and I him. It is a mutual relationship in which we both inspire the best of each other. He knows I will love him no matter what he does, but he also knows that I can see his potential.
But he is not someone I will date or marry. I love him, but he is not right for me. Trust me, it’s something you can tell.
So what is love, then? What is it that brings people together in holy matrimony? What is it that makes people stay together for the rest of their lives?
My father had many wise things to say on the topic when I told him I was pulling myself out of the dating populace. I had decided that the love of my life was simply something to leave up to God, which, of course, is not wrong. That has not changed. The inspiration was hearing the stories of my teachers. In several cases, the teachers I know who are very much in love with each other were drawn together by God. It was sort of like “love at first sight,” except so much deeper than what those words imply. It was God-given knowledge that when they met, one of them thought, “That’s the person I’m going to marry.” Even when their mind denied such a thought, the thought remained there, and on their wedding day, I wonder what a holy moment it was when they admitted to each other that it was God that drew them together.
That was my inspiration, that someone would see me one day, and think, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry.” I fear it will take a lot to convince me, though, which is why only someone sent by God would be able to get me to marry him.
As I said, my father had some interesting things to say to widen my perspective.
There are many people in this world with whom one can make a marriage work. Putting the love part aside, marriage is not just joining two people in love—it’s a commitment. It is a promise to make things work for as long as they both shall live. It is a contract. It has nothing at all to do with love. Love can even come after marriage.
Take an arranged marriage. It is possible to marry someone and learn to love him or her. It is not impossible, and it is only an unwillingness to make it work that will make a marriage fall apart. When two hearts are in agreement, what can stop them? Only each other.
In our society, we don’t have arranged marriages anymore, which is just fine. We have the opportunity and freedom to refuse someone simply because we do not love them. We have the liberty to choose our own partners, and, unfortunately, the liberty to tear apart that partnership and start another one. That is why it is so important that love be a part of the marriage.
There are levels, my father explained. There are levels of compatibility between people. He labeled them: attractiveness, financial position, morals, and values. When two people are compatible in all these levels, it causes much less strain on a relationship. That isn’t to say it’s the magic formula for every relationship to work. It is saying that It is simply easier to make this kind of relationship work. It is possible, too, to make relationships work outside of the levels of compatibility—love’s funny that way. Or at least, what we all think love is, that inexplicable word.
I want to add a fifth component to those four levels. I’ll call it the God-factor, for lack of a better term. To be honest, I could love someone who is perfectly compatible for me, but if God doesn’t give me the OK, I will not marry him. I don’t know how He will make it known to me, but He will.
And so, I have given up dating. I will not further embellish it, but let’s just say it’s a test of sorts, and only one who has God’s blessing will have the endurance and courage to pursue me until I say, “yes.” And if that means I’m single for the rest of my life, I’m okay with that.
So, what is love?
I have no idea.
What is Love?
What is love?
Is it that sickly sweet, sappy behavior found in young couples? Is it what makes a gentle kiss from husband to wife on their 50th anniversary so touching? Is it something else entirely?
“I love you.”
What does that even mean? Who says that with full knowledge and understanding of what they’re actually saying? What man knows what it means to love a woman? What woman knows what it means to love a man? How can one accomplish such while still putting God first?
To me, it seems impossible. The fact that there are people who don’t believe in love is no longer a shocking idea to me; in fact, I’m rather inclined to their point of view, not because I don’t want to believe in love, but because the ability to recognize what real love is has become increasingly more difficult to learn over the years. The older I get, the closer I get to what America has deemed the “marrying age,” the less I seem to understand about love. If it weren’t for all those years watching what my parents struggled through together, if it weren’t for all those heartbreaking times when I watched the face of the spouse when their husband or wife passed away, if it weren’t for the way I witnessed my grandfather kiss my grandmother so sweetly last summer and had that in mind as I had to watch him cope with her death…I would never believe in love. Basically, if I hadn’t witnessed it, I wouldn’t believe it.
If I asked the question, what is love, to most of my friends, the spiritual ones would refer me to I Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Love is patient, love is kind, et cetera. I understand that, but these are listing the qualities love includes. When one loves, they are patient, kind, et cetera. How does one come to love, though? How do you know when you love someone? It’s easy when it’s someone like a friend, a best friend, family. You have the warm feeling of affection, the rush of joy upon seeing their face. You’re comfortable around them; it doesn’t bother you when they invade your personal space. You learn to read them, you learn to understand them just as they learn to do the same of you. And somewhere in the middle of it all, love happens. It’s easy when it’s friends and family. What happens then, when you “fall in love”?
Where is that distinction in the Bible, friends? What tells you you’re “in love”? What about all those other stupid things that get in the way, like hormones, that thing called infatuation, desire, lust? How do you build a relationship with someone without those? Without them, it’s hardly a romantic relationship. With them, it’s hard to tell the difference between sexual desire and love, especially when you don't have a clue what love is. So what the heck are we supposed to do? People have all kinds of stupid ideas about this, ranging from abstinence and celibacy to cohabitation and sex outside of marriage.
There are other stories in the Bible, stories about God’s plans that genuinely make me wonder. What if Leah had dreams? Maybe Leah grew up wanting a tall man to come to her father’s tent and fall madly in love with her, who was willing to work for years for her hand in marriage, a man of God, a man who loved God and her. Instead, she gets to watch her dreams pass on to her younger sister. As if that’s not bad enough, after she watches Jacob work seven long years for Rachel’s hand, her father throws her in a tent with him, calling it a marriage. What? Screwed over from day one of marriage. Where’s the justice in that, God? So He blessed her with many sons. “Surely my husband will love me now,” Leah tells herself. I can imagine her grasping to that small hope. “Surely,” she says. “Surely, my husband will love me now.” Can you imagine her, rocking herself to sleep, wiping away the tears because she was given to a man who was in love with her sister? Did he ever love her? No. He always put Rachel above her. Crummy man. Cruel father. Inexplicable God.
God is love. That’s the other thing they want to tell me. Yes, but no one seems to be able to clearly explain God and sex except Paul, who says very vaguely, “Get married if you want to have sex, but I personally don’t understand why you’d want to.” Great. We’re being led by a guy who doesn’t believe in marriage. The idea that God is enough makes sense, but the idea that he gave us a sex drive and wants us to ignore it doesn’t. Evidently, I wasn’t made to endure celibacy.
So what is love? People say all kinds of things that can either be profound or cheesy or silly or smart, but in the end everyone seems to have their own answer. Is love like a quest, where you search for it all your life? Some die trying, some die without trying, some stumble upon it unexpectedly, some cultivate it…but what in the world IS love? How do you attain such an inexplicable thing? How do you define something with so many facets, so many different uses and functions?
It’s something that you just can’t mess up on. As a Christian, you’re expected to know the difference, because you’re expected to marry the right person, expected not to divorce, expected to live in a cute little cottage serving God and raising your three kids in the LORD…it’s all some sort of stupid vision they put in front of you and say “achieve this, or you’re not really a Christian, and you’re not really in touch with God.” It’s like the most horribly put together test in the history of time. You don’t really get to retake this one if you fail, kiddo. You’re marked for life. So what now? Do I just wait for God to throw some boy at me and say “He’s the one”? If I do wait, will He do that? Will it be that obvious? Or will it take a lot of work to realize it?
Does anyone have an answer?
They say God does…
But is He going to share it?
So...what is love?
[Written December 2009]
Is it that sickly sweet, sappy behavior found in young couples? Is it what makes a gentle kiss from husband to wife on their 50th anniversary so touching? Is it something else entirely?
“I love you.”
What does that even mean? Who says that with full knowledge and understanding of what they’re actually saying? What man knows what it means to love a woman? What woman knows what it means to love a man? How can one accomplish such while still putting God first?
To me, it seems impossible. The fact that there are people who don’t believe in love is no longer a shocking idea to me; in fact, I’m rather inclined to their point of view, not because I don’t want to believe in love, but because the ability to recognize what real love is has become increasingly more difficult to learn over the years. The older I get, the closer I get to what America has deemed the “marrying age,” the less I seem to understand about love. If it weren’t for all those years watching what my parents struggled through together, if it weren’t for all those heartbreaking times when I watched the face of the spouse when their husband or wife passed away, if it weren’t for the way I witnessed my grandfather kiss my grandmother so sweetly last summer and had that in mind as I had to watch him cope with her death…I would never believe in love. Basically, if I hadn’t witnessed it, I wouldn’t believe it.
If I asked the question, what is love, to most of my friends, the spiritual ones would refer me to I Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Love is patient, love is kind, et cetera. I understand that, but these are listing the qualities love includes. When one loves, they are patient, kind, et cetera. How does one come to love, though? How do you know when you love someone? It’s easy when it’s someone like a friend, a best friend, family. You have the warm feeling of affection, the rush of joy upon seeing their face. You’re comfortable around them; it doesn’t bother you when they invade your personal space. You learn to read them, you learn to understand them just as they learn to do the same of you. And somewhere in the middle of it all, love happens. It’s easy when it’s friends and family. What happens then, when you “fall in love”?
Where is that distinction in the Bible, friends? What tells you you’re “in love”? What about all those other stupid things that get in the way, like hormones, that thing called infatuation, desire, lust? How do you build a relationship with someone without those? Without them, it’s hardly a romantic relationship. With them, it’s hard to tell the difference between sexual desire and love, especially when you don't have a clue what love is. So what the heck are we supposed to do? People have all kinds of stupid ideas about this, ranging from abstinence and celibacy to cohabitation and sex outside of marriage.
There are other stories in the Bible, stories about God’s plans that genuinely make me wonder. What if Leah had dreams? Maybe Leah grew up wanting a tall man to come to her father’s tent and fall madly in love with her, who was willing to work for years for her hand in marriage, a man of God, a man who loved God and her. Instead, she gets to watch her dreams pass on to her younger sister. As if that’s not bad enough, after she watches Jacob work seven long years for Rachel’s hand, her father throws her in a tent with him, calling it a marriage. What? Screwed over from day one of marriage. Where’s the justice in that, God? So He blessed her with many sons. “Surely my husband will love me now,” Leah tells herself. I can imagine her grasping to that small hope. “Surely,” she says. “Surely, my husband will love me now.” Can you imagine her, rocking herself to sleep, wiping away the tears because she was given to a man who was in love with her sister? Did he ever love her? No. He always put Rachel above her. Crummy man. Cruel father. Inexplicable God.
God is love. That’s the other thing they want to tell me. Yes, but no one seems to be able to clearly explain God and sex except Paul, who says very vaguely, “Get married if you want to have sex, but I personally don’t understand why you’d want to.” Great. We’re being led by a guy who doesn’t believe in marriage. The idea that God is enough makes sense, but the idea that he gave us a sex drive and wants us to ignore it doesn’t. Evidently, I wasn’t made to endure celibacy.
So what is love? People say all kinds of things that can either be profound or cheesy or silly or smart, but in the end everyone seems to have their own answer. Is love like a quest, where you search for it all your life? Some die trying, some die without trying, some stumble upon it unexpectedly, some cultivate it…but what in the world IS love? How do you attain such an inexplicable thing? How do you define something with so many facets, so many different uses and functions?
It’s something that you just can’t mess up on. As a Christian, you’re expected to know the difference, because you’re expected to marry the right person, expected not to divorce, expected to live in a cute little cottage serving God and raising your three kids in the LORD…it’s all some sort of stupid vision they put in front of you and say “achieve this, or you’re not really a Christian, and you’re not really in touch with God.” It’s like the most horribly put together test in the history of time. You don’t really get to retake this one if you fail, kiddo. You’re marked for life. So what now? Do I just wait for God to throw some boy at me and say “He’s the one”? If I do wait, will He do that? Will it be that obvious? Or will it take a lot of work to realize it?
Does anyone have an answer?
They say God does…
But is He going to share it?
So...what is love?
[Written December 2009]
Monday, July 12, 2010
The Chain Link Fence
Everywhere I go, there is a chain link fence. I haven’t decided whether I love or hate that fence—it’s always there. It’s something I’ve grown accustomed to.
I didn’t always love this chain link fence. I used to hate it. As a girl of color, that chain link fence wouldn’t let me go to school. That chain link fence kept me sitting at home, playing only in my backyard, hiding away from the rest of the white, white world. It’s not as though I couldn’t climb over it, it wasn’t as though I couldn’t tear the damn thing down if I wanted to. The chain link fence wasn’t what I hated.
That same chain link fence is what kept me in school as well, once that first chain link fence was torn down and shredded of its meaning. This chain link fence kept me from skipping the classes I had no interest in, from playing hooky and leaving the school altogether. This chain link fence told me that someone always knew where I was. It reminded me of my parents and teachers, and I resented it. It wasn’t as though I didn’t have the power to open the lock on the gate. It wasn’t as though I couldn’t make up an excuse, and the teachers would open it for me. The chain link fence wasn’t what I resented.
That chain link fence followed me around. It witnessed my first kiss in the parking lot of my high school eight blocks away from the previous chain link fence. It saw me try my first cigarette, it knew that I spit it out in disgust. Its gate opened for me when I went through my first break up, and it supported me when I saw the same guy kissing another girl in that very same parking lot. It prevented me from causing a lot of injury in my first fight, and it watched me meet another guy in college. It seemed to disappear, though, after that. Soon I had forgotten that chain link fence altogether.
Tonight, I wasn’t thinking about a chain link fence. I was thinking about my boo as I put on my lipstick and eye shadow. I was thinking about how much he must love me as I put on the jewelry he’d bought me. I was thinking about his large hands and dark, dark eyes as I shrugged into my denim jacket and pushed the sleeves up to my elbows. On second thought, I’d better ditch the jacket.
I paid no thought to the chain link fence as I walked from my dormitory to the street, and I thought nothing about the chain link fence as I settled into the car he’d helped me buy. There was only one chain link fence that I needed to confront, and it was the one separating me from my boo.
I parked the car. I got out, straightened my clothes a little, put on a sheer lip gloss, and headed up the stairs to my boo’s apartment. I knocked. No answer. I knocked a little harder. Still no answer. Muttering curses on my stupid boo, I reached above the doorway and found the spare key. Suddenly, I heard noises.
“Boo?” I asked tentatively, but it became evident that I would not be heard.
“Shut up!” a loud voice interrupted me from inside. “Shut the hell up and give me what I paid for!” There was some colorful language interweaving the words, and I quietly put the key back where it belonged.
“You didn’t pay for nothing, you piece of worthless trash.” That was my boo. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “You know you didn’t, too. You and your good-for-nothing friend can get the hell out of my apartment, you hear me?” My boo sounded mad, real mad. Madder than I’d ever heard him before, and there were a couple times when I’d made him pretty mad.
“I want my—” the first voice began, and I could tell he was a white guy by how he spoke.
“Out!” bellowed my boo, and I heard a metallic click followed by more colorful language from both people. I froze outside the doorway. Was that a—?
“Give me what I paid for, damnit!” shrieked the white guy, and another voice popped in. I was surprised to hear that it was a woman’s voice.
“KJ, I think we should go, hun, I don’t wanna be part of no gun fights, you hear? Let’s just go back to the house and we can use the rest of my stash, okay? Let’s go, KJ, please,” she sounded small, and white. I felt suddenly bad for her. Was this her boyfriend here making threats against my boo?
“Shut up!” KJ screamed, and there was a thud and a wimper. Aw, hell no, he did not just strike his girl, I thought. It’s time to break this thing up, yes, it is. The two men were yelling so much that I couldn’t distinguish what was being said anymore.
“Boo!” I called, entering the apartment with a cheery smile on my face. “Boo, we were gonna—”
Six loud bangs interrupted me, and I watched each of those six bullets enter the bodies of a lanky, jittery white guy and a small, soft-featured white girl. Red stains erupted from their chests, staining white t-shirts. My boo stepped into view, staring at the bodies, holding the gun. Then he saw me.
“Baby, what are you doing here?” he said angrily, and his dark, dark eyes bored into me, his large hands still casually holding the gun.
I knew he’d committed murder. I knew where the police station was. I knew where I had to go.
I slowly pulled off my heels and set them down, staring at the two bodies. I wondered how pale I looked.
“Boo, you have to tell the police about this,” I said shakily. My boo stared at me as if I’d just spoken Spanish, which we both knew he didn’t understand.
“The police? What the hell are you talking about, baby? I can’t go to no police with this! Come here and help me get rid of these bodies.” He turned his back to me and started rummaging the pockets of the white man, KJ. He pulled out a wallet, ruffled through it, and pulled out several hundred dollar bills. Inside me, my heart sunk. My boo was a common thief.
Not just a thief, my mind murmured. A murderer.
I approached quietly, holding out my hand. “Give me their ID’s. I’ll get rid of them, ‘kay?” I said shakily.
My boo smiled, and suddenly that smile I loved so much seemed to look wicked, utterly wicked. “That’s my girl,” he grinned, handing me KJ’s wallet and searching the girl’s pockets. He handed me her tiny little purse. It looked like it probably couldn’t hold more than her ID and a couple of makeup items. I pitied her immediately. I pulled out both of their licenses and wandered over to my own purse near the door.
“Where are you gonna put their bodies?” I asked, though I really didn’t want to know. “You’ll have to think of something clever, ‘cause you know the police are gonna be looking.”
My boo looked at me sharply, but I kept my face smooth. “I was thinkin’ of the nature preserve outside of town.”
“You’ll wanna make sure the bullets aren’t in them anymore,” I said matter-of-factly. I hated that my mind was working like a criminal, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to distract him. “And make sure you get rid of the weapon, too. You can throw it in the river, I suppose,” I said.
Again, that wicked grin. “That’s my baby! Good thinking! Now you go and burn those wallets out back while I get these two ready for our trip. Is your car here?”
“Yeah, it’s parked out front,” I said, tossing him the keys from my purse. As I did so, I took out my own ID, two hotel keys, and my cellular, and shoved them in my back pocket before heading outside. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
I casually walked outside and closed the door tightly. I was fully aware that I was still barefoot, and even more aware that the neighbors were wondering what the hell was going on over here. Well, they’d know soon.
I walked down six doors to my friend Mikey’s apartment and knocked quietly. “Mikey, it’s me, Chanelle. Please open the door quietly, Mikey, this has gotta be quick!” I whispered urgently, glancing down the way at my boo’s apartment.
Mikey opened the door swiftly and pulled me inside. “What the hell is going on, Chanelle?” he whispered to me, reaching for the lights. “Did you hear those gunshots?”
“Leave the lights off, Mike, I don’t want him coming over here knowing you’re awake, ‘kay?” I could barely see Mikey’s face, but he looked alarmed. “Listen to me very carefully. I want you to call the police and tell them there’s been a murder. Tell them there’s a witness who’s gonna get over to the station as quick as possible, and she’s got the victim’s IDs. Tell them my cellular number, and tell them to get their asses down here before he takes off. He’s gonna try to hide their bodies in the nature preserve if they don’t get here in time, and he’ll have gotten the bullets out and thrown them and the gun in the river. When you’re done with the call, stay low. Pretend to go back to sleep. You hear me?” I was shaking by now. Mikey put his hands gently on my shoulders.
“I hear you. I knew he’d be nothing but trouble. It broke my heart when I heard you were with him,” he said quietly.
“Go on, Mike, call the police. I’m gonna get out of here,” I whispered. I opened the door and glanced down the way. No one there. I hopped down the way and started down the stairs. The pit was back a ways, so I treaded carefully. My left foot caught a little bit of glass which made me hiss in pain, but I endured. I got to the pit and started to stir it up a little, building up the fire so that it’d be nice and hot. I pulled out the hotel keys. He’d never know the difference once they burned. He wouldn’t want to know their names, either, so he wouldn’t look closely.
As I expected, he came down after a bit in a clean outfit and watched me toss the hotel keys in. He praised me for being so cool about the situation before heading back up to start digging the bullets out of his victims. I nodded and smiled, and said I’d be out for a while to make sure the IDs were good and burned and unrecognizable. He accepted my explanation.
As soon as he was out of view, I counted to sixty before standing up and sneaking as best I could over to the street. I couldn’t use my car—I’d given him the keys for collateral. I didn’t want it anymore, either, since it was his dirty money that helped me buy it. I made it to Green Street and that was when I really hauled. I ran faster than I think I ever ran for track, and my heart thumped and thumped and thumped. I was only a couple of miles from the station, but it seemed to get farther and farther…
Suddenly, I heard the sound of a car behind me. It was the familiar purr of my own vehicle, only this time, it seemed to be more menacing than usual. Probably because of who was driving it. My heart stopped.
There was my boo, parking my car on the side of the road and climbing out with murder in his eyes.
“What are you doing here, baby?” he asked calmly, and my heart restarted its beating in a frenzy.
“I—I just really needed to clear my head, boo,” I said calmly. ”So I went for a run.”
“To the police station? You can’t fool me, bitch!” he yelled at me, grabbing my arms and shaking me. He squeezed hard, and I felt bruises forming.
“What the hell? I wasn’t going to the station, you idiot! I can’t turn you in—I just helped you get rid of evidence!” I said angrily. Terror was ripping through me. I tried to channel it to make my argument plausible. “They can’t charge you without charging me, too, boo,” I said more quietly.
“Then why the hell were you running?” he said.
“You know running helps me clear my head,” I retorted. I wished he’d release my arm. “Bastard. If you can’t remember my name, I suppose you wouldn’t remember that either. How many other girls are you with, anyway?”
Pain exploded over my face as he slapped me with full-force. “Bitch!” he screeched at me, and I could hear something of a terrified twelve-year-old trapped in this twenty-one-year-old body. I wasn’t surprised that he’d hit me. It was just the sort of thing he’d do. I couldn’t stop myself from going on.
“You didn’t let me go because I’m the only one of those girls who’s worth anything. When I didn’t put out, you thought, ‘Ah, it’s all right, because she won’t leave me, and she won’t find out, and she won’t ask questions.’ And you’re right. I wouldn’t have found out. I wouldn’t have left. I wouldn’t have asked questions. So am I still worth it, or are you gonna call some of your skanky friends to help you out with this murder thing?” I looked him dead in the eye, and his expression told me exactly what I thought it would. His skanky friends wouldn’t have thought twice about leaving him. I, on the other hand, was a gamble he’d have to take.
“Breathe a word, bitch, and I’ll kill you, too.”
I said nothing. He grabbed the back of my neck and painfully dragged me to the car. I was incensed. He had no right to treat me so, he had no right—
“Get your dirty hands of me!” I shrieked. “Keep mistreating me and I will go to the police, see if I don’t!”
That was the wrong thing to say. My boo threw me against the car. I felt more bruises forming on my back, and there was a bump swelling on the back of my head. I scrambled away from him.
“Bitch!” he yelled, over and over, coming over to strike at me. I ducked, and he hit my arm, where more pain blossomed. “You’re getting’ what’s always been coming to you, you selfish, cold-hearted bitch!”
There was nothing in my mind but pure terror and adrenaline, and I ducked another three punches before finally retaliating. Self-defense classes and kick-boxing finally paid off. I kicked out and hit him in the chin with my bare heel. His head snapped back and he stumbled back, looking dizzy. I scrambled to my feet and tore down the street. I knew I could outrun him. The question was, how could I escape him if he thought to take the car? It was cold, and had begun to rain. I wished I’d brought my denim jacket.
Three streets down, an answer to a prayer awaited. I sprinted, my heart ready to explode, and took a right. Before me was a chain link fence, standing silently. I nearly cried with relief and climbed over. Behind me I heard a car swerve, and I have to look back to know who it was. He slammed on his brakes at the sight of the fence. I heard the car door slam shut, and I knew he was climbing the fence, too. It didn’t matter, though, because the police station was just a quarter of a mile away.
“400 meters, Chanelle,” I thought in desperation. “You can sprint 400 meters. Just think of how nice this weather feels, now nice the rain feels against your hot skin. You’re so close, Chanelle, just run as fast as you possibly can.”
Suddenly, my world turned dark, and more pain lanced through my palms, elbows, knees. I was roughly turned over and my vision returned just in time to see a fist coming for me. I closed my eyes and waited for the pain.
“Chanelle! Chanelle!” I heard Mikey calling me. “Chanelle, are you all right?” I opened my eyes to see Mikey’s worried brown eyes staring down at me, rain water dripping from his gentle features, filling up his eyes—wait, no, those were tears, warm tears. I glanced behind him to see my boo wrestling with several muscled officers.
I realized that I was sobbing and gasping for air, and I felt my own warm tears mingling with the ones falling from Mikey’s face. His large body was sheltering me from the rain, leaning on the rough concrete on one elbow in order to use the other to wipe tears from my eyes, to gently move my hair out of my face.
“Mikey,” I breathed, I sobbed, “Mikey,” I whispered. He sat up and I tried to sit up, too, but he wrapped his strong arms around me and lifted me to his chest.
“Chanelle, I was so worried,” he said so kindly, so gently, and carried me to the station, followed by several officers. “I was here, waiting, I took the back way to the station and you weren’t there—if it hadn’t been for that fence, I don’t know if we would have made it—” he choked up, unable to imagine, or perhaps too able to imagine. I realized he must have been the one to stop that fist coming for my face.
Three weeks later, I visited that same street where a man I thought I loved almost killed me. I stared at that fence, remembering Mikey’s words: “If it hadn’t been for that fence…”
I breathed a sigh. Everywhere I go, there is a chain link fence. I haven’t decided whether I love or hate that fence—it’s always there. It’s something I’ve grown accustomed to. I approached the fence and curled my fingers around it, staring at where the car had stopped. That car, with two bodies crammed into the trunk, one named Kevin James “KJ” Bard, one named Marissa Lee Jones, a gun and six bloody bullets in a bag, and a man in the front seat who I called my boo. All that was behind that chain link fence, that silent preventer that saved my life.
I didn’t always love this chain link fence. I used to hate it. As a girl of color, that chain link fence wouldn’t let me go to school. That chain link fence kept me sitting at home, playing only in my backyard, hiding away from the rest of the white, white world. It’s not as though I couldn’t climb over it, it wasn’t as though I couldn’t tear the damn thing down if I wanted to. The chain link fence wasn’t what I hated.
That same chain link fence is what kept me in school as well, once that first chain link fence was torn down and shredded of its meaning. This chain link fence kept me from skipping the classes I had no interest in, from playing hooky and leaving the school altogether. This chain link fence told me that someone always knew where I was. It reminded me of my parents and teachers, and I resented it. It wasn’t as though I didn’t have the power to open the lock on the gate. It wasn’t as though I couldn’t make up an excuse, and the teachers would open it for me. The chain link fence wasn’t what I resented.
That chain link fence followed me around. It witnessed my first kiss in the parking lot of my high school eight blocks away from the previous chain link fence. It saw me try my first cigarette, it knew that I spit it out in disgust. Its gate opened for me when I went through my first break up, and it supported me when I saw the same guy kissing another girl in that very same parking lot. It prevented me from causing a lot of injury in my first fight, and it watched me meet another guy in college. It seemed to disappear, though, after that. Soon I had forgotten that chain link fence altogether.
Tonight, I wasn’t thinking about a chain link fence. I was thinking about my boo as I put on my lipstick and eye shadow. I was thinking about how much he must love me as I put on the jewelry he’d bought me. I was thinking about his large hands and dark, dark eyes as I shrugged into my denim jacket and pushed the sleeves up to my elbows. On second thought, I’d better ditch the jacket.
I paid no thought to the chain link fence as I walked from my dormitory to the street, and I thought nothing about the chain link fence as I settled into the car he’d helped me buy. There was only one chain link fence that I needed to confront, and it was the one separating me from my boo.
I parked the car. I got out, straightened my clothes a little, put on a sheer lip gloss, and headed up the stairs to my boo’s apartment. I knocked. No answer. I knocked a little harder. Still no answer. Muttering curses on my stupid boo, I reached above the doorway and found the spare key. Suddenly, I heard noises.
“Boo?” I asked tentatively, but it became evident that I would not be heard.
“Shut up!” a loud voice interrupted me from inside. “Shut the hell up and give me what I paid for!” There was some colorful language interweaving the words, and I quietly put the key back where it belonged.
“You didn’t pay for nothing, you piece of worthless trash.” That was my boo. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “You know you didn’t, too. You and your good-for-nothing friend can get the hell out of my apartment, you hear me?” My boo sounded mad, real mad. Madder than I’d ever heard him before, and there were a couple times when I’d made him pretty mad.
“I want my—” the first voice began, and I could tell he was a white guy by how he spoke.
“Out!” bellowed my boo, and I heard a metallic click followed by more colorful language from both people. I froze outside the doorway. Was that a—?
“Give me what I paid for, damnit!” shrieked the white guy, and another voice popped in. I was surprised to hear that it was a woman’s voice.
“KJ, I think we should go, hun, I don’t wanna be part of no gun fights, you hear? Let’s just go back to the house and we can use the rest of my stash, okay? Let’s go, KJ, please,” she sounded small, and white. I felt suddenly bad for her. Was this her boyfriend here making threats against my boo?
“Shut up!” KJ screamed, and there was a thud and a wimper. Aw, hell no, he did not just strike his girl, I thought. It’s time to break this thing up, yes, it is. The two men were yelling so much that I couldn’t distinguish what was being said anymore.
“Boo!” I called, entering the apartment with a cheery smile on my face. “Boo, we were gonna—”
Six loud bangs interrupted me, and I watched each of those six bullets enter the bodies of a lanky, jittery white guy and a small, soft-featured white girl. Red stains erupted from their chests, staining white t-shirts. My boo stepped into view, staring at the bodies, holding the gun. Then he saw me.
“Baby, what are you doing here?” he said angrily, and his dark, dark eyes bored into me, his large hands still casually holding the gun.
I knew he’d committed murder. I knew where the police station was. I knew where I had to go.
I slowly pulled off my heels and set them down, staring at the two bodies. I wondered how pale I looked.
“Boo, you have to tell the police about this,” I said shakily. My boo stared at me as if I’d just spoken Spanish, which we both knew he didn’t understand.
“The police? What the hell are you talking about, baby? I can’t go to no police with this! Come here and help me get rid of these bodies.” He turned his back to me and started rummaging the pockets of the white man, KJ. He pulled out a wallet, ruffled through it, and pulled out several hundred dollar bills. Inside me, my heart sunk. My boo was a common thief.
Not just a thief, my mind murmured. A murderer.
I approached quietly, holding out my hand. “Give me their ID’s. I’ll get rid of them, ‘kay?” I said shakily.
My boo smiled, and suddenly that smile I loved so much seemed to look wicked, utterly wicked. “That’s my girl,” he grinned, handing me KJ’s wallet and searching the girl’s pockets. He handed me her tiny little purse. It looked like it probably couldn’t hold more than her ID and a couple of makeup items. I pitied her immediately. I pulled out both of their licenses and wandered over to my own purse near the door.
“Where are you gonna put their bodies?” I asked, though I really didn’t want to know. “You’ll have to think of something clever, ‘cause you know the police are gonna be looking.”
My boo looked at me sharply, but I kept my face smooth. “I was thinkin’ of the nature preserve outside of town.”
“You’ll wanna make sure the bullets aren’t in them anymore,” I said matter-of-factly. I hated that my mind was working like a criminal, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to distract him. “And make sure you get rid of the weapon, too. You can throw it in the river, I suppose,” I said.
Again, that wicked grin. “That’s my baby! Good thinking! Now you go and burn those wallets out back while I get these two ready for our trip. Is your car here?”
“Yeah, it’s parked out front,” I said, tossing him the keys from my purse. As I did so, I took out my own ID, two hotel keys, and my cellular, and shoved them in my back pocket before heading outside. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
I casually walked outside and closed the door tightly. I was fully aware that I was still barefoot, and even more aware that the neighbors were wondering what the hell was going on over here. Well, they’d know soon.
I walked down six doors to my friend Mikey’s apartment and knocked quietly. “Mikey, it’s me, Chanelle. Please open the door quietly, Mikey, this has gotta be quick!” I whispered urgently, glancing down the way at my boo’s apartment.
Mikey opened the door swiftly and pulled me inside. “What the hell is going on, Chanelle?” he whispered to me, reaching for the lights. “Did you hear those gunshots?”
“Leave the lights off, Mike, I don’t want him coming over here knowing you’re awake, ‘kay?” I could barely see Mikey’s face, but he looked alarmed. “Listen to me very carefully. I want you to call the police and tell them there’s been a murder. Tell them there’s a witness who’s gonna get over to the station as quick as possible, and she’s got the victim’s IDs. Tell them my cellular number, and tell them to get their asses down here before he takes off. He’s gonna try to hide their bodies in the nature preserve if they don’t get here in time, and he’ll have gotten the bullets out and thrown them and the gun in the river. When you’re done with the call, stay low. Pretend to go back to sleep. You hear me?” I was shaking by now. Mikey put his hands gently on my shoulders.
“I hear you. I knew he’d be nothing but trouble. It broke my heart when I heard you were with him,” he said quietly.
“Go on, Mike, call the police. I’m gonna get out of here,” I whispered. I opened the door and glanced down the way. No one there. I hopped down the way and started down the stairs. The pit was back a ways, so I treaded carefully. My left foot caught a little bit of glass which made me hiss in pain, but I endured. I got to the pit and started to stir it up a little, building up the fire so that it’d be nice and hot. I pulled out the hotel keys. He’d never know the difference once they burned. He wouldn’t want to know their names, either, so he wouldn’t look closely.
As I expected, he came down after a bit in a clean outfit and watched me toss the hotel keys in. He praised me for being so cool about the situation before heading back up to start digging the bullets out of his victims. I nodded and smiled, and said I’d be out for a while to make sure the IDs were good and burned and unrecognizable. He accepted my explanation.
As soon as he was out of view, I counted to sixty before standing up and sneaking as best I could over to the street. I couldn’t use my car—I’d given him the keys for collateral. I didn’t want it anymore, either, since it was his dirty money that helped me buy it. I made it to Green Street and that was when I really hauled. I ran faster than I think I ever ran for track, and my heart thumped and thumped and thumped. I was only a couple of miles from the station, but it seemed to get farther and farther…
Suddenly, I heard the sound of a car behind me. It was the familiar purr of my own vehicle, only this time, it seemed to be more menacing than usual. Probably because of who was driving it. My heart stopped.
There was my boo, parking my car on the side of the road and climbing out with murder in his eyes.
“What are you doing here, baby?” he asked calmly, and my heart restarted its beating in a frenzy.
“I—I just really needed to clear my head, boo,” I said calmly. ”So I went for a run.”
“To the police station? You can’t fool me, bitch!” he yelled at me, grabbing my arms and shaking me. He squeezed hard, and I felt bruises forming.
“What the hell? I wasn’t going to the station, you idiot! I can’t turn you in—I just helped you get rid of evidence!” I said angrily. Terror was ripping through me. I tried to channel it to make my argument plausible. “They can’t charge you without charging me, too, boo,” I said more quietly.
“Then why the hell were you running?” he said.
“You know running helps me clear my head,” I retorted. I wished he’d release my arm. “Bastard. If you can’t remember my name, I suppose you wouldn’t remember that either. How many other girls are you with, anyway?”
Pain exploded over my face as he slapped me with full-force. “Bitch!” he screeched at me, and I could hear something of a terrified twelve-year-old trapped in this twenty-one-year-old body. I wasn’t surprised that he’d hit me. It was just the sort of thing he’d do. I couldn’t stop myself from going on.
“You didn’t let me go because I’m the only one of those girls who’s worth anything. When I didn’t put out, you thought, ‘Ah, it’s all right, because she won’t leave me, and she won’t find out, and she won’t ask questions.’ And you’re right. I wouldn’t have found out. I wouldn’t have left. I wouldn’t have asked questions. So am I still worth it, or are you gonna call some of your skanky friends to help you out with this murder thing?” I looked him dead in the eye, and his expression told me exactly what I thought it would. His skanky friends wouldn’t have thought twice about leaving him. I, on the other hand, was a gamble he’d have to take.
“Breathe a word, bitch, and I’ll kill you, too.”
I said nothing. He grabbed the back of my neck and painfully dragged me to the car. I was incensed. He had no right to treat me so, he had no right—
“Get your dirty hands of me!” I shrieked. “Keep mistreating me and I will go to the police, see if I don’t!”
That was the wrong thing to say. My boo threw me against the car. I felt more bruises forming on my back, and there was a bump swelling on the back of my head. I scrambled away from him.
“Bitch!” he yelled, over and over, coming over to strike at me. I ducked, and he hit my arm, where more pain blossomed. “You’re getting’ what’s always been coming to you, you selfish, cold-hearted bitch!”
There was nothing in my mind but pure terror and adrenaline, and I ducked another three punches before finally retaliating. Self-defense classes and kick-boxing finally paid off. I kicked out and hit him in the chin with my bare heel. His head snapped back and he stumbled back, looking dizzy. I scrambled to my feet and tore down the street. I knew I could outrun him. The question was, how could I escape him if he thought to take the car? It was cold, and had begun to rain. I wished I’d brought my denim jacket.
Three streets down, an answer to a prayer awaited. I sprinted, my heart ready to explode, and took a right. Before me was a chain link fence, standing silently. I nearly cried with relief and climbed over. Behind me I heard a car swerve, and I have to look back to know who it was. He slammed on his brakes at the sight of the fence. I heard the car door slam shut, and I knew he was climbing the fence, too. It didn’t matter, though, because the police station was just a quarter of a mile away.
“400 meters, Chanelle,” I thought in desperation. “You can sprint 400 meters. Just think of how nice this weather feels, now nice the rain feels against your hot skin. You’re so close, Chanelle, just run as fast as you possibly can.”
Suddenly, my world turned dark, and more pain lanced through my palms, elbows, knees. I was roughly turned over and my vision returned just in time to see a fist coming for me. I closed my eyes and waited for the pain.
“Chanelle! Chanelle!” I heard Mikey calling me. “Chanelle, are you all right?” I opened my eyes to see Mikey’s worried brown eyes staring down at me, rain water dripping from his gentle features, filling up his eyes—wait, no, those were tears, warm tears. I glanced behind him to see my boo wrestling with several muscled officers.
I realized that I was sobbing and gasping for air, and I felt my own warm tears mingling with the ones falling from Mikey’s face. His large body was sheltering me from the rain, leaning on the rough concrete on one elbow in order to use the other to wipe tears from my eyes, to gently move my hair out of my face.
“Mikey,” I breathed, I sobbed, “Mikey,” I whispered. He sat up and I tried to sit up, too, but he wrapped his strong arms around me and lifted me to his chest.
“Chanelle, I was so worried,” he said so kindly, so gently, and carried me to the station, followed by several officers. “I was here, waiting, I took the back way to the station and you weren’t there—if it hadn’t been for that fence, I don’t know if we would have made it—” he choked up, unable to imagine, or perhaps too able to imagine. I realized he must have been the one to stop that fist coming for my face.
Three weeks later, I visited that same street where a man I thought I loved almost killed me. I stared at that fence, remembering Mikey’s words: “If it hadn’t been for that fence…”
I breathed a sigh. Everywhere I go, there is a chain link fence. I haven’t decided whether I love or hate that fence—it’s always there. It’s something I’ve grown accustomed to. I approached the fence and curled my fingers around it, staring at where the car had stopped. That car, with two bodies crammed into the trunk, one named Kevin James “KJ” Bard, one named Marissa Lee Jones, a gun and six bloody bullets in a bag, and a man in the front seat who I called my boo. All that was behind that chain link fence, that silent preventer that saved my life.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
A Complex Affair
“They say he can solve a case without evidence,” whispered one maid of the Landcastle Manor to her fellow worker. “They say that even if every witness tells the same lie, and all the evidence supports it, he’ll somehow discover the truth!”
Despite the incredible reports that had been circulating the community around him these past few weeks, Mr. Lacey did not particularly look the part as he strolled into the manor with his handsome cane, a couple of investigators scurrying behind him, trying to match the pace of his long stride.
“Mr. Lacey, please! Enlighten us as to why we are here without invitation!” exclaimed Detective March, huffing and puffing behind the tall Mr. Lacey.
“Because, my dear investigator,” Mr. Lacey replied lazily, “Generally it is not the practice of investigators to wait for the murderer to hide the evidence merely to be proper. Besides that, if you inform a murderer that you are coming to arrest a murderer, surely they will try to run away.” The trio was nearing the parlor where they knew Madame Devonshire would be waiting as had been requested.
“Ah, so you’ve figured it out! But, my good man, why did you not tell us?” wheedled Detective Bloome.
“I think I have made it rather clear how little I enjoy hearing your voice, Detective Bloome,” Mr. Laney said very frankly. Detective Bloome frowned, but said nothing. Detective March, however, could not hold his tongue.
“Well, Mr. Laney. Who is it, then?” he asked in excited anticipation.
“It would do you well to listen very carefully as I explain things to Madame Devonshire, detectives,” was all Mr. Laney said as the butler, Mr. Honey, opened the parlor doors for them.
“I require the household’s presence, Mr. Honey,” commanded Mr. Laney compellingly. “Except for Mrs. Brown and that helpful daughter of hers, as I need them to make tea. Perhaps you might request she add those delicious little tarts I’m so fond of, too?” Mr. Honey bowed and complied with a rather sour expression behind his monocled features.
When everyone was gathered, Mr. Laney began addressing M. Devonshire, wife of the deceased Mr. Devonshire.
“As we all very well know, this was a case involving the murder of Mr. Devonshire. He was a rich, upstanding member of society with a lovely wife, loyal household, and extensive property—thank you, Mrs. Brown.” Mr. Laney paused to accept tea. “The unfortunate deaths of his secretary, Ms. DuBois, and M. Devonshire’s personal maid, Katherine, were also tragic, since both members were well-liked and pleasant creatures.
“We shall start with the murder of Katherine, the maid. It was strange, M. Devonshire, that someone would kill Katherine with none other than sewing scissors. A very gruesome death, obviously not premeditated, since the scissors were merely grabbed from M. Devonshire’s sewing basket not far away. At this point, the killer seemed to be getting either very sloppy or very desperate, neither a quality of the killer who murdered Mr. Devonshire.” There was a long pause during which several people shifted uncomfortably.
“No,” Mr. Laney continued after another sip of tea, “this was a different killer.”
“Not the same killer?” asked Detective March. Mr. Laney gave him a withering stare.
“Please refrain from asking questions unless you are a suspect, Detective,” he drawled, annoyed. “No, they are not the same killer. This murder was an unfortunate accident committed by none other than Ms. DuBois.”
A general gasp circled the room. “What?” Madame Devonshire asked incredulously. “Why, Mr. Laney, would Ms. DuBois kill Katherine She didn’t even know the girl! ? It’s preposterous.”
“Ah, you would think so, wouldn’t you?” Mr. Laney said, his dark eyes twinkling in the light of the mystery. Pacing the room, he continued. “Ms. DuBois spotted Katherine with a very important piece of evidence. You see, Katherine had the gun which killed Mr. Devonshire. Ms. DuBois, in a moment of irrational judgment, decided to take matters into her own neatly gloved hands and threaten Katherin into telling the truth. In doing so, she grabbed the sewing scissors, intending only to intimidate. Put simply, she tripped, and learnt why one ought never to run with scissors in hand. Horrified, Ms. DuBois left Katherine in M. Devonshire’s room, threw the gun into the river ten miles from Landcastle Manor, and burned her clothes. What she neglected were the pearls she wore every day. It wasn’t noticeable, but paired with her paranoid attitude and sudden aversion to sharp things, it fit.
“What Ms. DuBois hadn’t realized was that the gun had been found by Katherine in M. Devonshire’s room, buried in her armoire. It was M. Devonshire’s personal handgun that we pulled from the river ten miles from Landcastle Manor.
“Six days later, Ms. DuBois was murdered.”
Another gasp circulated the room. Mr. Honey looked astounded. The maids wept freely in terror. “Ms. DuBois committed suicide!” M. Devonshire said in alarm. “Do you mean to say that the same person who killed my husband killed his secretary as well?”
Mr. Laney chuckled what seemed to be a very ominous chuckle, gazing at M. Devonshire’s lovely features. “It does look that way, doesn’t it? But you did not murder your husband,” he said carefully. M. Devonshire caught her sigh of relief, realizing precisely what he was implying. “You did, however, murder Ms. DuBois.”
“Now see here, Mr. Laney. Ms. DuBois committed suicide, and doctors confirmed it! It all fits, you see—“ Detective Bloome contradicted in his whiney voice. Mr. Laney, in a flash of irritation, grabbed a tart while Detective Bloome spoke, and before the man had finished his sentence, crammed the thing into Detective Bloome’s mouth.
“If you haven’t anything useful to say, I recommend that you find your mouth something to keep it busy,” Mr. Laney said scathingly. “Ms. DuBois was involved in a romantic relationship with Mr. Devonshire. Mrs. Devonshire was already aware of this. What bothered her, however, was not the affair, but rather that Mr. Devonshire had written Ms. DuBois into his will, thus splitting his worth between them. She did not like Ms. DuBois very much. This, however, was not the reason for the murder.
“Ms. DuBois, unsure of what to do or whom to speak with, confided in a friend of hers via letter. The note was intercepted by M. Devonshire, having been sent from this very estate. It only contained six words: ‘I know who murdered Mr. Devonshire.’
“M. Devonshire took action. When Ms. DuBois left for the day, M. Devonshire went for a horseback ride, making sure to leave from a direction opposite of Ms. DuBois. Six miles away from the estate are a series of cliffs that Ms. DuBois often visited. M. Devonshire often heard her comment on how beautiful it was there, how it soothed her soul. M. Devonshire doubled around her estate and caught up with Ms. DuBois. She invited the secretary to take her to the cliffs. Ms. DuBois, who respected and feared M. Devonshire, did not refuse. The two women stood at the cliffside, horses tied up nearby, making small talk about the cliffs. M. Devonshire simply had to push dear Ms. DuBois to her death below. She and her horse returned from the same direction, opposite where Ms. DuBois had left. She was as smiling and carefree as ever.”
“But Mr. Laney, if you don’t mind me asking,” piped up one of the maids.
“As long as your name does not begin with the title ‘Detective,’ you may ask as many questions as you please,” Mr. Laney responded. Detectives March and Bloome were not amused.
“Mr. Laney, if M. Devonshire didn’t kill her husband, why would she kill Ms. DuBois for knowing? What was she afraid of?”
“I didn’t kill Ms. DuBois, Martha, she committed suicide” M. Devonshire said coldly. Mr. Laney ignored her.
“That is a very good question, Martha,” he said cheerily, “for which there is a very simple answer: M. Devonshire was also having an affair.”
“Now this really is becoming ridiculous,” laughed M. Devonshire. “Why in the world would I be unfaithful?”
“An eye for an eye, M. Devonshire,” Laney replied. “And yours was much simpler to maintain. Mr. Devonshire had to worry about appearances. You simply had to stay at home during long nights when your husband went on business trips to work, or play, with Ms. DuBois.
“You see, M. Devonshire was having an affair with the killer, and she thought Ms. DuBois now knew who the killer was. In order to protect her lover, she killed Ms. DuBois.”
“Then who killed Mr. Devonshire, if it wasn’t M. Devonshire?” Martha asked.
“Clever girl, Martha,” Mr. Laney winked. “Who was M. Devonshire having an affair with? Who,” Mr. Laney said, reaching slowly into his pocket, “who would murder Mr. Devonshire after his lover told him her husband had written her out of his will? Who, in a jealous fit of rage after listening to his lover cry, would steal M. Devonshire’s personal handgun, seek out Mr. Devonshire at his workplace, and kill him?”
Mr. Laney stopped his pacing directly in front of Mr. Honey, staring into the blue eye that was covered by a gold-rimmed monocle. The lanky detective pulled his hand out of his pocket to reveal an identical gold-rimmed monocle. “Who, Mr. Honey, would keep a spare monocle in his lover’s room to ensure that he remembered one in the morning?”
Everyone’s mouths gaped. Mr. Honey? Even the detectives were aghast.
“I—I,” Mr. Honey began, but seemed unable to think of a proper defense.
“Preposterous!” cried M. Devonshire. “Mr. Honey was with me the night of the murder! Mr. Devonshire had to work late, so we had a little time—“
“Do not tell us any more lies, M. Devonshire!” Martha cried, wide-eyed and tearful. “Mr. Honey rode home with me that night to ensure my safety due to how late and dark it was. And, when I aksed if he might come in for refreshment before he too returned home, he declined and said he had business in town!”
“Good girl, Martha,” muttered Mr. Laney.
“Insolent girl!” screamed M. Devonshire. “You may expect not to have work when this case is over, not in my household, you—“ her screaming cut off abruptly as Mr. Laney once again put a tart to good use as a silencer.
“Very good. Well, detectives, I leave the rest in your capable hands. I trust the police will be here shortly—ah! There they are now!” he said as policemen began filing into the crowded parlor. Saluting his fellow detectives and winking once more at Martha, Mr. Laney swept outside, using his cane to amuse himself rather than to support himself. Swinging himself onto his gently gray horse, he batted the beast’s neck and murmured, “Fine day for solving mysteries, isn’t it, Sterling?”
The horse snorted in agreement, and the duo trotted down the lane, leaving another case in the dust behind them.
Despite the incredible reports that had been circulating the community around him these past few weeks, Mr. Lacey did not particularly look the part as he strolled into the manor with his handsome cane, a couple of investigators scurrying behind him, trying to match the pace of his long stride.
“Mr. Lacey, please! Enlighten us as to why we are here without invitation!” exclaimed Detective March, huffing and puffing behind the tall Mr. Lacey.
“Because, my dear investigator,” Mr. Lacey replied lazily, “Generally it is not the practice of investigators to wait for the murderer to hide the evidence merely to be proper. Besides that, if you inform a murderer that you are coming to arrest a murderer, surely they will try to run away.” The trio was nearing the parlor where they knew Madame Devonshire would be waiting as had been requested.
“Ah, so you’ve figured it out! But, my good man, why did you not tell us?” wheedled Detective Bloome.
“I think I have made it rather clear how little I enjoy hearing your voice, Detective Bloome,” Mr. Laney said very frankly. Detective Bloome frowned, but said nothing. Detective March, however, could not hold his tongue.
“Well, Mr. Laney. Who is it, then?” he asked in excited anticipation.
“It would do you well to listen very carefully as I explain things to Madame Devonshire, detectives,” was all Mr. Laney said as the butler, Mr. Honey, opened the parlor doors for them.
“I require the household’s presence, Mr. Honey,” commanded Mr. Laney compellingly. “Except for Mrs. Brown and that helpful daughter of hers, as I need them to make tea. Perhaps you might request she add those delicious little tarts I’m so fond of, too?” Mr. Honey bowed and complied with a rather sour expression behind his monocled features.
When everyone was gathered, Mr. Laney began addressing M. Devonshire, wife of the deceased Mr. Devonshire.
“As we all very well know, this was a case involving the murder of Mr. Devonshire. He was a rich, upstanding member of society with a lovely wife, loyal household, and extensive property—thank you, Mrs. Brown.” Mr. Laney paused to accept tea. “The unfortunate deaths of his secretary, Ms. DuBois, and M. Devonshire’s personal maid, Katherine, were also tragic, since both members were well-liked and pleasant creatures.
“We shall start with the murder of Katherine, the maid. It was strange, M. Devonshire, that someone would kill Katherine with none other than sewing scissors. A very gruesome death, obviously not premeditated, since the scissors were merely grabbed from M. Devonshire’s sewing basket not far away. At this point, the killer seemed to be getting either very sloppy or very desperate, neither a quality of the killer who murdered Mr. Devonshire.” There was a long pause during which several people shifted uncomfortably.
“No,” Mr. Laney continued after another sip of tea, “this was a different killer.”
“Not the same killer?” asked Detective March. Mr. Laney gave him a withering stare.
“Please refrain from asking questions unless you are a suspect, Detective,” he drawled, annoyed. “No, they are not the same killer. This murder was an unfortunate accident committed by none other than Ms. DuBois.”
A general gasp circled the room. “What?” Madame Devonshire asked incredulously. “Why, Mr. Laney, would Ms. DuBois kill Katherine She didn’t even know the girl! ? It’s preposterous.”
“Ah, you would think so, wouldn’t you?” Mr. Laney said, his dark eyes twinkling in the light of the mystery. Pacing the room, he continued. “Ms. DuBois spotted Katherine with a very important piece of evidence. You see, Katherine had the gun which killed Mr. Devonshire. Ms. DuBois, in a moment of irrational judgment, decided to take matters into her own neatly gloved hands and threaten Katherin into telling the truth. In doing so, she grabbed the sewing scissors, intending only to intimidate. Put simply, she tripped, and learnt why one ought never to run with scissors in hand. Horrified, Ms. DuBois left Katherine in M. Devonshire’s room, threw the gun into the river ten miles from Landcastle Manor, and burned her clothes. What she neglected were the pearls she wore every day. It wasn’t noticeable, but paired with her paranoid attitude and sudden aversion to sharp things, it fit.
“What Ms. DuBois hadn’t realized was that the gun had been found by Katherine in M. Devonshire’s room, buried in her armoire. It was M. Devonshire’s personal handgun that we pulled from the river ten miles from Landcastle Manor.
“Six days later, Ms. DuBois was murdered.”
Another gasp circulated the room. Mr. Honey looked astounded. The maids wept freely in terror. “Ms. DuBois committed suicide!” M. Devonshire said in alarm. “Do you mean to say that the same person who killed my husband killed his secretary as well?”
Mr. Laney chuckled what seemed to be a very ominous chuckle, gazing at M. Devonshire’s lovely features. “It does look that way, doesn’t it? But you did not murder your husband,” he said carefully. M. Devonshire caught her sigh of relief, realizing precisely what he was implying. “You did, however, murder Ms. DuBois.”
“Now see here, Mr. Laney. Ms. DuBois committed suicide, and doctors confirmed it! It all fits, you see—“ Detective Bloome contradicted in his whiney voice. Mr. Laney, in a flash of irritation, grabbed a tart while Detective Bloome spoke, and before the man had finished his sentence, crammed the thing into Detective Bloome’s mouth.
“If you haven’t anything useful to say, I recommend that you find your mouth something to keep it busy,” Mr. Laney said scathingly. “Ms. DuBois was involved in a romantic relationship with Mr. Devonshire. Mrs. Devonshire was already aware of this. What bothered her, however, was not the affair, but rather that Mr. Devonshire had written Ms. DuBois into his will, thus splitting his worth between them. She did not like Ms. DuBois very much. This, however, was not the reason for the murder.
“Ms. DuBois, unsure of what to do or whom to speak with, confided in a friend of hers via letter. The note was intercepted by M. Devonshire, having been sent from this very estate. It only contained six words: ‘I know who murdered Mr. Devonshire.’
“M. Devonshire took action. When Ms. DuBois left for the day, M. Devonshire went for a horseback ride, making sure to leave from a direction opposite of Ms. DuBois. Six miles away from the estate are a series of cliffs that Ms. DuBois often visited. M. Devonshire often heard her comment on how beautiful it was there, how it soothed her soul. M. Devonshire doubled around her estate and caught up with Ms. DuBois. She invited the secretary to take her to the cliffs. Ms. DuBois, who respected and feared M. Devonshire, did not refuse. The two women stood at the cliffside, horses tied up nearby, making small talk about the cliffs. M. Devonshire simply had to push dear Ms. DuBois to her death below. She and her horse returned from the same direction, opposite where Ms. DuBois had left. She was as smiling and carefree as ever.”
“But Mr. Laney, if you don’t mind me asking,” piped up one of the maids.
“As long as your name does not begin with the title ‘Detective,’ you may ask as many questions as you please,” Mr. Laney responded. Detectives March and Bloome were not amused.
“Mr. Laney, if M. Devonshire didn’t kill her husband, why would she kill Ms. DuBois for knowing? What was she afraid of?”
“I didn’t kill Ms. DuBois, Martha, she committed suicide” M. Devonshire said coldly. Mr. Laney ignored her.
“That is a very good question, Martha,” he said cheerily, “for which there is a very simple answer: M. Devonshire was also having an affair.”
“Now this really is becoming ridiculous,” laughed M. Devonshire. “Why in the world would I be unfaithful?”
“An eye for an eye, M. Devonshire,” Laney replied. “And yours was much simpler to maintain. Mr. Devonshire had to worry about appearances. You simply had to stay at home during long nights when your husband went on business trips to work, or play, with Ms. DuBois.
“You see, M. Devonshire was having an affair with the killer, and she thought Ms. DuBois now knew who the killer was. In order to protect her lover, she killed Ms. DuBois.”
“Then who killed Mr. Devonshire, if it wasn’t M. Devonshire?” Martha asked.
“Clever girl, Martha,” Mr. Laney winked. “Who was M. Devonshire having an affair with? Who,” Mr. Laney said, reaching slowly into his pocket, “who would murder Mr. Devonshire after his lover told him her husband had written her out of his will? Who, in a jealous fit of rage after listening to his lover cry, would steal M. Devonshire’s personal handgun, seek out Mr. Devonshire at his workplace, and kill him?”
Mr. Laney stopped his pacing directly in front of Mr. Honey, staring into the blue eye that was covered by a gold-rimmed monocle. The lanky detective pulled his hand out of his pocket to reveal an identical gold-rimmed monocle. “Who, Mr. Honey, would keep a spare monocle in his lover’s room to ensure that he remembered one in the morning?”
Everyone’s mouths gaped. Mr. Honey? Even the detectives were aghast.
“I—I,” Mr. Honey began, but seemed unable to think of a proper defense.
“Preposterous!” cried M. Devonshire. “Mr. Honey was with me the night of the murder! Mr. Devonshire had to work late, so we had a little time—“
“Do not tell us any more lies, M. Devonshire!” Martha cried, wide-eyed and tearful. “Mr. Honey rode home with me that night to ensure my safety due to how late and dark it was. And, when I aksed if he might come in for refreshment before he too returned home, he declined and said he had business in town!”
“Good girl, Martha,” muttered Mr. Laney.
“Insolent girl!” screamed M. Devonshire. “You may expect not to have work when this case is over, not in my household, you—“ her screaming cut off abruptly as Mr. Laney once again put a tart to good use as a silencer.
“Very good. Well, detectives, I leave the rest in your capable hands. I trust the police will be here shortly—ah! There they are now!” he said as policemen began filing into the crowded parlor. Saluting his fellow detectives and winking once more at Martha, Mr. Laney swept outside, using his cane to amuse himself rather than to support himself. Swinging himself onto his gently gray horse, he batted the beast’s neck and murmured, “Fine day for solving mysteries, isn’t it, Sterling?”
The horse snorted in agreement, and the duo trotted down the lane, leaving another case in the dust behind them.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Who Are You?
Who are you?
I think I remember you,
Laughing with me on dark nights,
Driving around with the windows down.
I think I remember you,
Sitting together, loved,
Splashing in the pool,
Breaking into the house.
Who are you?
I think I remember you;
I shared with you the dark secrets I thought weren’t worth sharing.
I remember telling you my confusions,
Admitting to you freely that I didn’t know the answer.
I think I remember you;
Discussing strange dreams,
Imparting happily our hopes,
Supportive, kind, united.
I think I remember you,
When we started to fall apart.
Who are you?
I think I remember you,
When those dark nights grew silent,
And the radio prevented speech.
I think I remember you,
Sitting apart, confused,
Swimming alone,
Locked up by yourself.
Who are you?
I think I remember you;
The things I thought worth sharing, I couldn’t tell you.
When I tried to tell, you wouldn’t listen;
More than ever I needed someone to know that I didn’t know.
I think I remember you;
You took my dreams,
You hid your hopes,
Unsupporting, unkind, detached.
I think I remember you
When we fell apart.
Who are you?
I think I remember you,
As I stare at your pictures,
I wonder who you are.
There’s a woman there,
A woman I hoped never to see,
A woman who has been broken,
Who has allowed life to dictate her being.
I think I remember you,
But I can’t find you anymore.
Best friend, loved one, sister,
I cannot call you anymore.
I was afraid of this;
I asked God to take care of you.
I wonder when you will understand
That what you have is not enough.
That passion for Christ that fades and wanes,
And burns suddenly before flaring out
It will not remain,
It will not last.
I think I remember you,
When you forgot.
Who are you?
I can’t remember you.
Were you ever my friend?
Did I know you from school?
That sisterly bond;
Was it of God?
Or was it a chance
To talk about boys?
Who are you?
I can’t remember you.
Your face, it looks familiar,
But I can’t place it.
Who are you?
I think I remember you.
Are you still following God?
Or are you still following love?
Who are you?
What is this beautiful face,
The seductive grin,
The bitten lip…
Who are you?
I don’t remember you;
That expression, it scares me,
I don’t know who you are.
Who are you?
I can’t remember you, my friend.
I can’t remember you.
I think I remember you,
Laughing with me on dark nights,
Driving around with the windows down.
I think I remember you,
Sitting together, loved,
Splashing in the pool,
Breaking into the house.
Who are you?
I think I remember you;
I shared with you the dark secrets I thought weren’t worth sharing.
I remember telling you my confusions,
Admitting to you freely that I didn’t know the answer.
I think I remember you;
Discussing strange dreams,
Imparting happily our hopes,
Supportive, kind, united.
I think I remember you,
When we started to fall apart.
Who are you?
I think I remember you,
When those dark nights grew silent,
And the radio prevented speech.
I think I remember you,
Sitting apart, confused,
Swimming alone,
Locked up by yourself.
Who are you?
I think I remember you;
The things I thought worth sharing, I couldn’t tell you.
When I tried to tell, you wouldn’t listen;
More than ever I needed someone to know that I didn’t know.
I think I remember you;
You took my dreams,
You hid your hopes,
Unsupporting, unkind, detached.
I think I remember you
When we fell apart.
Who are you?
I think I remember you,
As I stare at your pictures,
I wonder who you are.
There’s a woman there,
A woman I hoped never to see,
A woman who has been broken,
Who has allowed life to dictate her being.
I think I remember you,
But I can’t find you anymore.
Best friend, loved one, sister,
I cannot call you anymore.
I was afraid of this;
I asked God to take care of you.
I wonder when you will understand
That what you have is not enough.
That passion for Christ that fades and wanes,
And burns suddenly before flaring out
It will not remain,
It will not last.
I think I remember you,
When you forgot.
Who are you?
I can’t remember you.
Were you ever my friend?
Did I know you from school?
That sisterly bond;
Was it of God?
Or was it a chance
To talk about boys?
Who are you?
I can’t remember you.
Your face, it looks familiar,
But I can’t place it.
Who are you?
I think I remember you.
Are you still following God?
Or are you still following love?
Who are you?
What is this beautiful face,
The seductive grin,
The bitten lip…
Who are you?
I don’t remember you;
That expression, it scares me,
I don’t know who you are.
Who are you?
I can’t remember you, my friend.
I can’t remember you.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Patrick's Dreams
Patrick flew.
No one expected it. No one saw it coming. See, all of Patrick’s life, people brought him down, kept him out of the sky, destroyed his dreams.
Patrick took this all very well. His feet were well planted on the ground, and his head never within fifty feet of the clouds. At first, it seemed as though he was simply a very well-behaved, quiet child. But as it turned out, he had given up his dreams in order that they might not be destroyed.
And so, in a way, he destroyed them himself.
He grew up to be a solid young man, focusing on his studies, completing all his work. He was kind to people in general, though a little distant. People thought him aloof, which was not at all the case. He simply was so solidly on the ground that he thought of little else but the very present moment, for his future was shackled to the hard stones of the earth, and his past was far too painful for reminiscing.
One day he met a young woman, and their relationship developed from his steady solidity, and her complete adoration for the way he quietly obeyed her orders.
For years he followed her as her steady shadow, quiet and solid, taking orders and obeying, and finally through an unexciting marriage. She refused to have children, though he had allowed himself to hope for them. Another dream dashed against the solid rocks of earth.
But finally, he had enough.
No one expected it. No one saw it coming.
He told his wife he wanted children. She stared at him for a long time before telling him that they had discussed this already.
He told his wife he wanted children. Again, she told him they had discussed this; they were not going to have children.
He walked out of the door, solid to the core, and walked down the street. He turned the street corner and continued to walk. With each step, he allowed himself a dream he never let free, each one of them causing his next step to be taken with a little more buoyancy. The neighbors watched him as he continued on and on, until suddenly, he sprouted a set of wings made of all the dreams he never had.
Patrick reached the end of the sidewalk, dropping off into a deep abyss. The neighbors stared at him as he spread his wings, a smile touching his face as the sun burst through the clouds above.
And Patrick flew.
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