protect the weak and defenceless.' Salek began to cry. A thousand year old man crying at a bus-stop.
Salek defied the sun. Salek defied the terrifying clouds, the disturbing colours.
'Do you know what made me feel more alive, than anything, ever? Falling over in a field in Ireland, under a black sky laden with stars. Lying face down in a field wet with dew, lying with mud at my palms, grass at my face, the smell of animals and germination, of seeds and life, the smell of those stars above me, the sound of those clouds. It was me, you see, the clouds were me, the stars were me, the winds tossing it all were me. I am the mud, I am the constellations. I was nineteen years old and I felt more alive, more at home, than I ever have.
'I was born under a sentence of death, we all are. It is a fait accompli. So why have I always been so fearful?
'I am going to die. I will cease. So, how can anything else frighten me, why do I let anything scare me?'
Salek thought of his father. Salek looked up at God the Father, through the blaze of His Son.
'When I was uncovered, when I was innocent, unprotected, impotent, a child, You set the terrors of hell upon me. And now You think I will be frightened by the Four Horsemen? Compared to the hurts meted out when I was powerless, War, Pestilence, Famine and Death are but bogeymen.'
Salek defied his own nature. He threw up his eyes, two shrieks of blue. He defied the Four Horsemen. He defied the angels in their serried ranks. Salek looked up to the Son of God and, in sheer incomprehension and torment, defied Him with a pain dredged up from his very core.
'To what end?' Salek demanded, his mouth closed, words wrenched from him in fearless silence, 'A small, bruised boy − to what end?'
And Salek fell from his seat. From his life. Up to spirit. He fell.
The old man lay, sodden in drink and medication, a heap of humanity at the kerbside: a pile of flesh and clothes bent double by ulcers. A life that was too furious for a fragile human frame, a hurt too big for one body.
A woman, a man, a child: too small for the visions, the requests made, the needs seeded. Too small on the outside, too big on the inside. Salek released the life-force.
A great horse galloped across the riot of clouds. The pale rider, his horse not missing a beat, bent down and picked up the heap, threw it back in his wake. Salek, much slower than movement, cut his own arc across the scenes of apocalypse. And then, as slowly as he rose, he fell. Death was finished with him. The ritual was completed.
The Son of God gathered Salek up from his pile of clothes. The Son of God slipped His hands like water into Salek's centre, took out the core of rage, pain − all the more terrifying for its childishness, its absoluteness − and let Salek drop to existence, a spirit of sobs, a spent force. The Son of God wiped Salek's tears away. The Son of God comforted His creature.
Salek was free. And Salek became Salek.
*****
About the Author - Karen Overman-Edmiston
People’s motivations and their interior life are at the core of Karen Overman-Edmiston’s writing. In addition, impressions and experiences gained while travelling have had a strong impact on her work. These factors are strongly evident in her 2010 Nautilus Award-winning novel, The Avenue of Eternal Tranquillity, as well as in an earlier publication, Night Flight from Marabar, a collection of short stories. Both titles are available in bookshops and online.
Karen Overman-Edmiston was born in the United Kingdom. Educated in the U K, Ireland and Australia, she gained a Master of Arts at the University of Western Australia. Having previously worked for the West Australian government, Karen runs her own consultancy business as well as continuing her writing.
Karen has written for the stage and has had competition-winning plays performed, including at the Festival of Perth. She is also a prize-winning short story writer who has had stories published in several magazines.
Find out more on the publisher’s website: https://sites.google.com/site/crumplestonepress/
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