Aeron waited for the predicted experience to strike her and for the first of her travel compatriots to arrive; remarkably, despite what was to occur, for the first time in her life she was…totally unafraid; she found herself “awake,” if one could term it such, as she stood at the ethereal edge of what was now realities impending awareness, in time stopped motion. She took in the moment, appreciating that the finite instant which lies between what was and what will be and touches all that would be considered life thereafter…would at last resume. By implication, the enormity of the moment was not lost upon the Priestess: the sum of the world as it was, in this universe, had long ceased to function and of all its denizens’ only she for the moment was cognizant of the fact. The very thought of such an occurrence once frightened her but now in stark contrast it was all so different; instead, she found herself consummately undaunted while marveling at her new found understanding; that shortly, regardless of its form, that an amazingly singular breathe of life would again course through each. Yet, before it did and while still sheathed in the moment’s rapture, she allowed her darting eyes to wander about the stilled room; it was the light which shined through the window which first drew her attention. Silently, she assessed the various rays of light which penetrated its panes as to their patterns and hues and marveled at the spectrum it cast which in turn led her to the next discernible phenomenon she observed.
Under other circ-umstances The Sachem of the Northern Tribes would have been alarmed, instead the snapshot merely served as an effortless confirmation of her scrutiny that, “Amazingly, even for dust, time had ceased” as the oft mercurial particles had lost their collective urgency to fall as they too now hung motionless in time/space; their diffuse paths to rest having been abruptly suspended. The resulting confirmation in her mind was existentially unavoidable: given the absence of even the faintest of surrounding thoughts which had normally bombarded her previously, that for the immediate moment, on this world, only she existed: in cognizance and alone. Again, it was a sobering thought: all else had ceased; nonetheless she was of the belief that what the “destroyer of worlds” had so abruptly begun was soon to end.
In solitude, she turned her rapt attention to each of the living statuaries whom she beheld, those of “valiant dust”* who stood before her, captured in sentence. To her keen eyes and memory, each had remained without the slightest of movements. “As a whole,” she purposely observed in past tense “they were, not are, but images, they vacuously existed: once. But until released, they were themselves, unknowingly, but shades: unmoving in time; unaware that their sudden demise was itself to another, Him, but a change of form.” Once more, her perfunctory, if not callous conclusion was unassuming; accordingly all she observed was “as it should be.” The evident, as far as her immediate surroundings were concerned, was as she remembered: “nothing had changed;” she presumed, “in this world, at least not materially; except…except for where Odysseus’ apparition had stood.” Instead, all she saw was the area’s concentric circles of spinning dust; spiraling upward and then coalescing at a center point almost a meter above the floors surface “which means” she concluded “the moment is prior to his arrival.”
It was then she heedfully scrutinized the quintessential child who still remained both as naked and as motionless as she remembered and inwardly smiled to herself in satisfaction. The object of her hunt for awareness and understanding remained as promised, in situ, without the slightest inkling of impending motion. As the opportunity now presented itself, she leisurely studied his figure, beginning with every hair that lay on his head, and then smiled to herself that even his once supposed “raccoon eyes” and elongated lashes were still as fetching and alluring as she remembered them; moreover, that even his lipstick remained as glossy as when applied so many months ago. She quickly contrasted his eyebrows with those of his sister and noted that except for the two or three hairs which strayed over the bridge of his nose that they were indistinguishable. As for his ears, she felt the clip-on earrings he wore “accentuated what were the delicate features of his face; however” she thought “as a safeguard, something more permanent is necessary.” Thereafter, the scant attention she paid to his developing chest and taught torso was offset by her interest of what she now chose to fixate upon below his narrow waist and navel: the groin area; focusing first upon it’s prominent projection and then to the two similarly sized egg shaped orbs which now nestled so gently beneath it.
Mentally she noted his mother’s words of “What you have been will come to an end” and once again ruefully thought, as she had previously, it particularly cruel to have tormented him so, when it could and should have been otherwise; to at least drop a hint and have told him why he had felt so ill. Aeron bitterly mused at her witticism “She could have avoided the subsequent actions which had followed; but then again,” she paused, tempering her thoughts with “perhaps I have judged her too quickly.”
She would have been satisfied at pushing the thought out of her head but instead the all too convincing thoughts of another, relayed specifically through one Werhner Maximillian’s timely letter, again crossed her mind “For in that sliver of time, the authority, which has moved you, as I, matures” now became, self-explanatory. “I understand” she said to no one but herself ”time is but a place in which certain things occur; such as two events some of which at the time appear meaningless; that is unless of course you are able to connect the dots elsewhere and find that they are indeed interconnected. In retrospect, the boy had told the absolute truth but no one had listened or understood his claim of “…I told you the truth…I “just” did what was necessary, as time, is of no consequence; to me it is a given and it exists to be used endlessly. A second more or less to you, in retrospect, is meaningless, is it not? What could possibly happen in a second?”
“I would reply as much is wanting and do so.” Aeron softened her initial conclusion of Julie Athena “Logically, from that moment of discovery, it appears the act itself was necessary: otherwise propelled, none of which followed would have occurred; which means that she too knew and understood she had reached a certain crossroad and that regardless of her efforts would herself cross her own Rubicon. But did she do which for both what was necessary?”
She allowed the uncertainty of the thought to roam a bit further and would have dismissed it altogether as a well-played roll of the dice: but didn’t. She chose instead to contemplate “Yes, Julie had actually taken a chance of risking all upon the uncertainty of what would follow. Her exhibiting her obstinacy…her lack of compassion…her…” she stopped her evaluation in mid-sentence then abruptly changed course thinking the obvious “no, of course, it was otherwise; quite so. It wasn’t that at all; Brisa was right from the first and had called her on it herself. Julie played it for all it was worth and then some; she had too, if only to prove a point; but really, what was the point: to prove herself to him? No, to a lost little boy, I believe the message was otherwise: of course it was. Werhner, if you are listening, I trust each will understand the differentiation of which you wrote: it is from experience we learn, why that it is better to forgive, to forget. I wonder which of the two, so desperately in need of such, would first comprehend that justifiably, in some instances, compassion would trump either a promise or obligation.
With that, again her roving eyes darted right and left and noted that the lack of polish on his fingernails. Then, up and down her eyes moved quickly to check both legs and imagined what his toes and fingers would look like with polish on them and took a small measure of satisfaction in knowing that once he had accepted her gift that that would indeed become, for the next several years, a practical necessity. In the calm which would follow, she would explain it to him later; that “The nail polish will cover what clippings are left after the nails are trimmed. If left to themselves they are a part of you which are as a bread crumb trail left in time and as such can be pursued; once applied the polish will render them as undetectable.” She knew what had already in part been determined; however, she was not the one who would tell him that as Achilles, he must and would, for the foreseeable future, hide in plain sight. After taking him all in once again the rational summation to which she concluded was “I feel nothing for him: but affection.”
To her, it was a reasonable conclusion: after all, without him she would have interminably been relegated to accepting life as it was, or had been, rather than exploiting its challenges to the fullest. Now it was different, in return, in gratitude, she would offer what she could: her attuned allegiance and devotion and a gift upon receipt, which, so it was said, would for him, seal his fate to another. “After all” she thought “in order to give, someone, in turn must also be willing to receive.”
And with that thought she marveled at the spectral image she suddenly watched: it was her, smiling while crawling out of an ever shrinking hole adjacent to the boy as her formally frightful self was reluctantly being drawn in to it. She pondered the event of passing her own self in time; and of arriving back to observe both her departure and arrival prior to their seemingly concurrent actions. She had become a witness to it all and now in thought, happily welcomed her spectral persona’s return with but one word “Enter.” Riveted, she observed the wisp move in serpentine fashion towards her; without disturbing a single particle of the dust which still hung between the two of them. Inches from her it abruptly paused coming up short before her eyes and then gently nodded in acknowledgement to her, reminding her of its presence and of its acceptance for the permission it had received. It entered the sanctuary in which she, for the remainder of this life, would reside and then His Seer spoke “Maker of All, our thanks for this world, for both our safe journey and joining.”
Aeron Deron, to this moment, the sole remaining Algonquin High Priestess of Northern Tribes, a position to which her esteemed mother once held, though warned, was unprepared for what immediately followed; for through her action of openly receiving, she had implicitly acknowledged her warm acceptance of that which she now shared with the boy: the intangibility of what was offered for his release: in every aspect…all of him; so inundated, the successive waves of his past experiences as a whole crashed in upon her. In her mind, she had instantly become confidant to all of his lives, words and deeds; and now rode their tidal waves of false hopes and comingled fears in tandem with their escorts of the crushing ruin which followed each. In her mind, she experienced their eternal turmoil’s and excruciatingly felt herself as they had for ages: overwhelmed and awash in the oceans of time; finding oneself barely afloat; constantly forced beneath the crashing waves then clawing to remain close to the surface to reach out and gasp for breath only then, when so close, to be tossed and turned as wind whipped flotsam and jetsam, eventually to be dashed upon some distant shore and then, if only for a moment, the hellish swirling nightmare would cease. Unfortunately by then she knew the truth of each successive life: that in each the dreams devilishly compounded themselves; became worse, building one upon the other and then, for its grand crescendo, as in acceptance en masse it would bow: howling while devouring all it touched; and always, always save one exception, leaving in its wake the same inevitable result. Despair. If she could, right there, she would have gasped for breath, and then in utter misery screamed aloud, but knowing better, instead, The Sachem of The Northern Tribes humbly apologized to no one in particular for her intrusion, but to all she knew as one. The riposte to her apology was to be expected, only the sound of resounding silence; and then, thankfully: absolute tranquility. She more than welcomed the interlude and if she could have, most certainly would have, wilted, while heaving a sigh of relief; instead His Seer, none other than The Sachem of the Northern Tribes, stood fast: unconquered.
And while doing so, the catcher of dreams, recounted again not only his lives, which she now held dear, but also as to the darkest secret of his secrets. Of course he had many but none approaching that which she found of the boy’s misnomer; which for the moment she carefully and in astonishment set aside as one would with a book being read, stopping, then noting the appropriate line and page completed with a marker, and resolving in eagerness after learning the truth to “finish it later.” Following that there was little left to understand. She pensively waited for whatever it was to occur thinking to herself “Why am I still mystified? How is it possible that I have, for some time, been expected? How is it that at every turn he has been one step ahead? The Sachem knew the answer and quickly went back to the page she had mentally noted and laughed at the joke; then proceeded to muse of how each face knew of her, had been told of her and how they now waited for The Sachem of the Northern Tribes, His Seer, “to distinguish the face of each fear as it approached, not only through its unique timbre but also as to the registers of its resonating frequencies and lastly as to its individual fragrances.”
Never before, had she equated fear, distress or terror as quantifiable entities, let alone death as containing a discernible and specific essence. But she knew that to each of them it was so as each successive face claimed in first person present tense before her “Death you will find has its own smell and for each of us it is quite dreadfully personal but always it begins the same way: it calls to you with a slight lilting voice that simply calls you by name to “come closer.” After hearing that, well, you know it’s looking for you but there’s no stopping it. It always gets you, the question is when.”
The sobering thoughts left her exhausted and nattering to no one in particular “Child, we have since learned, why it was never a question of when but always of why so soon: they dreaded his immediate awareness and growing potential.” Initially, it struck her as odd that she would converse in present tense to no one in particular but then again that was the secret wasn’t it? What he could do or did and when she innocently again whispered to no one in particular; never expecting a reply “Don’t worry, shortly, the night traveler will at last find safe harbor; then…” she paused as it struck her, “of course, up until recently; as a child he was always a “night traveler.”
“Yes, it could explain” she thought, “the odd sailing ship of which Odysseus had metaphorically spoken.” She glanced to the mingling dust which had yet to coalesce and amended her observation with “It could” she said again to no one in particular “explain why the odd sailing of which Odysseus has yet to speak, is actually here; in this very room and how of late, remembering the threads of his conversations, exponentially he finds it increasingly easier to travel while daydreaming.”
“Yes it could” whispered the unexpected rejoinder. Instantaneously she knew. His was the most difficult life experience to have suffered yet His was the pleasant voice which spoke “Aeron, Kwey, Kwey” to her.
“My…Elias, your voice is as soft and tender and as beautiful as I remember.”
“Tebwe?” (Truthfully?)
“Tebwe.”
In her ear she heard him whisper “Aeron”… paused…then thrice over…repeated “Bindinshozin…bindinshozin…bindinshozin” listening to the last of his fading words diminishing into nothing; until his lilting voice uttered to her “Sister, yes, it is I: “I am a night traveler…Travel all through the night…And my bed is a sailing boat…I reach for my bed every night… And take a trip places far away…To see new things and people…I travel past the harbors…Full of anchored boats…I travel past the beaches…With swaying coconut trees. I watch the waves…Embracing the shore…I watch the kids playing…And reach out my arms. Then I touch my own bed…Here comes a flash…And my boat is back…And I am back in bed. My boat sails every night…And reach home with morning light…Never did it anchor once…Still traveling every day…Hoping to reach …That unknown destination.”**
She knew he was gone but waited for him to speak again of that “unknown destination” and of finally making port at journeys end: here and at last at home. She stared at the bed, the wooden vessel upon which he had set sail and then to its bow and stern: the high foot and headboards and then to its side rails of wood. In her estimation it was a vintage eighteenth century Mary Clare’s – Shaker inspired bed yet, it was…still…in excellent condition except for the perfectly formed “B” gouge she noticed on its lower inside left front leg. Immediately she wondered enough to look at the lower right front leg, where another striation appeared, same height at mid-point and exactly opposite the first; except of course the “I” was otherwise.
She would have laughed at the obvious conclusion if not for the fact that she wanted to cry and the only way to avoid that was as the scholar she once presumed herself to be deducing “The inequitable disparity forced upon him is obvious and purposely cruel: yet, it provided the necessary crucible for the inexorable thread of resolve which has become his bulwark.” She just as quickly ridiculed herself with “Get over yourself you pompous fool” as was quite satisfied that she couldn’t and wouldn’t argue the point she couldn’t possibly win; instead, she would, as Bion, wait for her comrade, Astyanax, to come forth and fulfill his portion the bargain.
“Astyanax, or by any other name, at every turn I find him marvelously resilient. Knowing each of his faces he has not changed an iota: he remains, cunningly beautiful; but then again, being so cursed it is understandable. His was,” again she immediately corrected herself “is… the discerning knowledge upon which his current alter ego, Christopher, has moved through time. His was the recurrent nobility of purpose through which, in successive lives, had permeated each and his was the unyielding principle of determination upon which in time that they had moved: N??? ? ???????…Sieg Oder Tod...Victory or Death. His was the accrued ac-umen that time itself had unkowingly provided each with an unparalled opportunity for success: but at a cost; for each had shrewdly become the others raison-d'être and to this moment each had been one and inseparable. She laughed at Dumas’ epic line of “All for one and one for all” understanding its foundational inspiration.
Sadly, it was to that tearful inevitability, as his dream catcher, she waited; until the tear which formed in her eye began to move. She thought to wipe the side of her face but instead immediately repeated the last word she had uttered over nineteen months prior: “Still” in a time and place quite different than she had stood prior. “Still” she gasped “Still…Julia Athena, all of you, stay still and please stop; please forgive me but the fault is mine. If not for my meddling this matter would have been resolved long ago.”
“Aeron? Aeron? This is Julia, are you alright?”
“Yes of course, why would you ask?”
“Well for one, I was just speaking to Christopher when all of a sudden you interrupted me; practically yelled out one word over and over again and then for just a moment I thought you had a completely vacant look come all over your face; like you were somewhere else and then just like that in a flash you began to cry; not much mind you they practically vanished before you could wipe your eyes and started apologizing to everyone here. I understand your interest here but what on earth are you apologizing for?
“Julie, Brisa…Mr. Markison, I mean Eric we need to speak in private.”
“Why, ask me that, when I was just about to tell Christopher about the simply remarkable idea which had just come to my mind, first concerning the significance of his name but also that if I ever chose someone to put my trust in that it would be … a decision that I…that I believe in…because…”
“Because” said The Sachem of the Northern Tribes as she made her way between Brisa and Eric towards both “at heart, he is everything you had hoped for yet feared. If you please, I would ask a family favor; that before either you or your husband Eric says another word here, don’t. Just stand and listen.” I will explain it to you both” as she stared warily at the bed adding “away from here and in private. In the meantime, Brisa, while Christine takes her younger brother to her room and helps him get dressed, please take your daughter and be kind enough to wait downstairs; we’ll join you shortly. And Christine, make it something light and airy: understand?”
She did and all too clearly.
Christine watched as Aeron extended her right arm stopping it inches shy of her brother and noted the quizzical look on his face when she said “And as for you Christopher H. Markison before you take your sisters hand and leave, I ask but one thing.”
It was just after he’d touched her that she realized that for the first time that she could remember that she was alone in her thoughts and now felt completely hollow.
End Part 1/3
*Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing" Act Two, Scene 1
**"Night Traveler" by Deepa Thomas
Betty Pearl's Sissy Stories 20.1
Topic: Promises, Obligations and Consequences (Read 132994 times)
