I stared back at her, my eyes leveled with hers in inscrutable certainty. For a moment, our eyes remained engaged, unflinching and impenetrable, as the shrill, steady call of a siren ran across the street outside, mixing with the effervescent glow of traffic lights and a steady pitter-patter of pedestrian feet sauntering across the street in wakeful gait.
The college bookstore was a splash of life, culture, and society. As a psychology student, I often found myself intrigued by the behavior, ways of thinking and feeling, and general schemata of others, and this was the perfect spot to engage my senses.Other times, I was just annoyed.
There is a host of angels surrounding you, Rebecca. Not figuratively. Literally. With wings spread far to encompass you, protect you with their Light. Remember that they are with you—see them with your heart and soul—whenever you are forced to engage in battle with forces that seek and have become, through their own will, evil.
. . . for a moment, perhaps an hour, they would wait, wait for something, and when that waiting was over, it was simply dismissed, goodbyes stated, reading materials closed, a momentary pause in the day that did not hold up to whatever came next.Waiting was often a resented gift, imparted to those who accepted it grudgingly in the hopes that something better would come along when the gift was tossed aside, boxed away for the next recipient.
Like dandelions they flew across the expanse Of desert calm without advance They filtered through the stilled “become” Returning to the land they knew. They knew no more than where they flew. And so they gathered, one and all, And scattered it throughout their path. Only golden-shafted majesty could still their might. And so they flew onward, without a path.
I would travel far and wide...seeing, listening, creating. I would weave tales for an enthralled audience. A song would be heard throughout the kingdom, and I would be a part of that. You would normally think that a bard would pick up his tales from stories heard in his travels or, perhaps, from personal observation of these events. Perhaps some bards would create the stories themselves or, at least, adapt the original versions heard... But what if the bard were really more than a bard? What if he were once a gallant knight or an old sea captain...perhaps even a forgotten prince? What if the stories he told, what if the characters brought to life in his stories, were really of his comrades and himself? Stories from long ago that he finally wished to be heard? What if those who listened to his tales, all the while assuming that they were far disconnected from their communicator, were really listening to the narrative of a wanderer intimately connected to it all? And where would such an individual go when his final days as an “official” bard were spent? Perhaps he would decide to retire in a lighthouse. For, surely, no place would be more fitting for the hero emeritus. He would gaze upon the glorious sea in recollection...guiding others with the beacon of light atop his home as he had once been shepherded. The adventurer became the storyteller...and then the Sentinel of the Sea.
Rebecca, we live in a world where darkness seems, in the minds of many, something banished to the world of fairy tales and superhero movies. How surprising it then becomes—even for those of us who believe otherwise—that it may appear in our own lives, in our own battles. To face an opponent that is more than the average ‘jerk,’ who has made a deadly choice, is, let us admit it, nothing that we expect to experience.