Sunday, March 20, 2005
The Parable of the Chocolate Kiss
PARABLE OF THE CHOCOLATE KISS
By
PHOENIX MARYGRACE HOCKING
Once there were a man and a woman who fell in love and got married. They loved each other very much and spent most of their time together. Even when they were working they would call each other on the phone and when they were at home they could hardly stop looking at each other long enough to get anything else done!
Every morning the bride would awaken to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and when she came to the table she would find one single chocolate kiss beside her coffee cup, and a love letter from her beloved.
And they talked! Oh, how they talked! They shared all of their joys and all of their sorrows. They laughed over the silly things they saw on their walks together, and discussed the things they read. Every morning and every evening found them deep in conversation and their lives were full of love.
They both went out of their way to find ways to show the other that they were loved. Every day the bridegroom left a chocolate kiss and a love letter beside the bride’s coffee cup, and throughout the day he sent her flowers, or music she particularly enjoyed, or some other token of affection. She felt very loved, and for her part she made every effort to spend quality time with her husband. She savored the chocolate kiss, and read every single line of the love letter.
But, a sad thing happened. As time went on, the bride became busy with the everyday business of life. The cares and worries of her job started to occupy her thoughts and she didn’t make as much time to be with her husband the way she used to. One morning, she barely had time to gulp down the cup of coffee he had prepared for her. She didn’t notice the chocolate kiss at all, and thought to herself, “Oh, the letter can wait. I’ll read it tomorrow.”
And after a while the conversations dwindled down to the point where they just didn’t happen any more. Sometimes the bride would rush out of the house and never even say Good Morning to her husband, and sometimes when she came home she would eat a quick supper and not even say a word to him, who sat across the table from her, just waiting for her to acknowledge him. It seemed, and I almost hate to say it, but it seemed as though she had forgotten he even existed.
In the bride’s life, busy and stressed and full of things that didn’t matter, she found that the joy was gone, and her life was empty and dull and void. It was just life, but the relationship that made life worth living had been forgotten. And the chocolate kisses remained on the table, unseen and unappreciated.
Then one day, while she was on her break at work, a friend came by and dropped a chocolate kiss beside her coffee cup, and she remembered. She remembered her husband, and her heart sank at the way she had neglected him. She told her boss she wasn’t feeling well and she had to leave, then got in her car and rushed home.
Now, if this were a normal tale, a cautionary tale, I would say that she came home to an empty house. I would say that the bridegroom got tired of waiting to be noticed and just left.
But it isn’t. This is a tale of love, unconventional, unconditional, supernatural love.
The bride rushed into the house, so afraid that her husband would be gone. But instead she found him sitting at the table, and on the table were a freshly brewed cup of coffee, a single chocolate kiss, and a love letter.
“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I’m so sorry!”
The bridegroom held her close while she cried, and wiped away her tears. “I never left,” he said. “Don’t you know that I will never leave you nor forsake you? I have called you by name, and you are mine. Nothing in this earth will ever be able to separate you from my love.”
The bridegroom, of course, represents Jesus Christ. And I confess that sometimes I have been like that foolish bride. I have let the cares and worries and busyness of everyday life get in the way of my relationship with Him. And I have gone days without thinking of Him even once, and weeks without picking up His love letter to me.
But Christ is faithful, even when I am not. And for that, I am profoundly grateful.
And yet, perhaps there is a note of caution in my tale after all. For when we forget the Life that makes life worth living, our lives become empty, and instead of the kisses of God, we are left holding an empty silver wrapper, wondering where the joy went.
So, when Christ sends you kisses, receive them with thanksgiving, savor them and enjoy them, and remember that there are always more where they came from. He has an inexhaustible supply. And don’t forget His love letter, in which He promises “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” Rest in the joy of His love because, unlike ours, His love never changes.
By
PHOENIX MARYGRACE HOCKING
Once there were a man and a woman who fell in love and got married. They loved each other very much and spent most of their time together. Even when they were working they would call each other on the phone and when they were at home they could hardly stop looking at each other long enough to get anything else done!
Every morning the bride would awaken to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and when she came to the table she would find one single chocolate kiss beside her coffee cup, and a love letter from her beloved.
And they talked! Oh, how they talked! They shared all of their joys and all of their sorrows. They laughed over the silly things they saw on their walks together, and discussed the things they read. Every morning and every evening found them deep in conversation and their lives were full of love.
They both went out of their way to find ways to show the other that they were loved. Every day the bridegroom left a chocolate kiss and a love letter beside the bride’s coffee cup, and throughout the day he sent her flowers, or music she particularly enjoyed, or some other token of affection. She felt very loved, and for her part she made every effort to spend quality time with her husband. She savored the chocolate kiss, and read every single line of the love letter.
But, a sad thing happened. As time went on, the bride became busy with the everyday business of life. The cares and worries of her job started to occupy her thoughts and she didn’t make as much time to be with her husband the way she used to. One morning, she barely had time to gulp down the cup of coffee he had prepared for her. She didn’t notice the chocolate kiss at all, and thought to herself, “Oh, the letter can wait. I’ll read it tomorrow.”
And after a while the conversations dwindled down to the point where they just didn’t happen any more. Sometimes the bride would rush out of the house and never even say Good Morning to her husband, and sometimes when she came home she would eat a quick supper and not even say a word to him, who sat across the table from her, just waiting for her to acknowledge him. It seemed, and I almost hate to say it, but it seemed as though she had forgotten he even existed.
In the bride’s life, busy and stressed and full of things that didn’t matter, she found that the joy was gone, and her life was empty and dull and void. It was just life, but the relationship that made life worth living had been forgotten. And the chocolate kisses remained on the table, unseen and unappreciated.
Then one day, while she was on her break at work, a friend came by and dropped a chocolate kiss beside her coffee cup, and she remembered. She remembered her husband, and her heart sank at the way she had neglected him. She told her boss she wasn’t feeling well and she had to leave, then got in her car and rushed home.
Now, if this were a normal tale, a cautionary tale, I would say that she came home to an empty house. I would say that the bridegroom got tired of waiting to be noticed and just left.
But it isn’t. This is a tale of love, unconventional, unconditional, supernatural love.
The bride rushed into the house, so afraid that her husband would be gone. But instead she found him sitting at the table, and on the table were a freshly brewed cup of coffee, a single chocolate kiss, and a love letter.
“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I’m so sorry!”
The bridegroom held her close while she cried, and wiped away her tears. “I never left,” he said. “Don’t you know that I will never leave you nor forsake you? I have called you by name, and you are mine. Nothing in this earth will ever be able to separate you from my love.”
The bridegroom, of course, represents Jesus Christ. And I confess that sometimes I have been like that foolish bride. I have let the cares and worries and busyness of everyday life get in the way of my relationship with Him. And I have gone days without thinking of Him even once, and weeks without picking up His love letter to me.
But Christ is faithful, even when I am not. And for that, I am profoundly grateful.
And yet, perhaps there is a note of caution in my tale after all. For when we forget the Life that makes life worth living, our lives become empty, and instead of the kisses of God, we are left holding an empty silver wrapper, wondering where the joy went.
So, when Christ sends you kisses, receive them with thanksgiving, savor them and enjoy them, and remember that there are always more where they came from. He has an inexhaustible supply. And don’t forget His love letter, in which He promises “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” Rest in the joy of His love because, unlike ours, His love never changes.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
A Mighty Fortress
A MIGHTY FORTRESS
BY
PHOENIX MARYGRACE HOCKING
Marigold Grimsby tilted her head slightly and began to sing, “A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing….”
Considering that Marigold was barely five years old, she had no idea what a fortress was, let alone a bulwark, but she sang anyway, her high voice piping into the church like an underage angel.
The Grimsby family went to church every Sunday, Annie saw to that. And they looked the part of your typical American family, or at least what your typical American family once looked like. Mother, Father, two point five children. Since Annie was exactly half-way through her pregnancy with her third child, she smiled, the description most apt.
The sermon this Sunday morning couldn’t hold Annie’s attention. For one thing, it didn’t apply to her, as it was directed towards single people and the virtues and value of
abstinence. Annie folded her hands over her belly and allowed her mind to wander.
Horace Grimsby, incompetent sheriff’s deputy turned now-famous sculptor and painter, sitting quietly beside her, ruled over his brood with a marshmallow fist. Horace and Annie, married fourteen years come Valentine’s Day, resided in a small and modest home in an older, established neighborhood with their son Emery, who was twelve years old, and daughter Marigold, who was barely five. Theirs was a happy unit, relatively unspoiled by the fame of the renowned head of the family.
Horace came upon his fame suddenly, and totally unexpectedly. Quite frankly, he was a lousy deputy. He wasn’t very bright, for one thing. It’s not that Horace was stupid, but the educational system had failed him miserably, and even though he was a high-school graduate, his reading comprehension rested at about the seventh grade level, with his speech not being much higher.
He never cared much for school, for learning dates and events that didn’t mean squat to him. He couldn’t tell you the various parts of speech, nor do one single problem in geometry. Ah, but he could work with his hands, and if the school system had just left him alone in woodshop he would have been perfectly happy.
Horace came into the sheriff’s department totally by accident as well. It really was a case of him knowing somebody who knew somebody who agreed to give him a job. But he was a lousy deputy. He didn’t care about fighting crime and cared less about the criminal, but he was a hard worker who put in an honest day’s work, and then came home to spend hours in his shop, whittling, sculpting, or painting.
And just as being a sheriff’s deputy was thrust upon him by accident, his fame as a sculptor bore down upon his life as unexpectedly as a train might bear down upon a hobo fallen asleep on the tracks.
It was Annie’s fault.
Generally, Annie never went into the shop where Horace spent so many hours. She’d asked, of course, just what in the world he was working on out there, but he dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Ah,” he said, “it’s just stuff I do to unwind.”
But one day, early one morning after Horace went to work, Annie stole out to the shop to look around, and what she saw stunned her into wide-eyed wonder. The shop was filled to overflowing with the most beautiful artwork she had ever seen. Now, Annie was no connoisseur of art, but even she could tell that this was the work of a Master.
The shop was scrupulously clean, with not a wood shaving on the floor nor an open paint can anywhere. The various pieces were arranged on shelves along the walls, from the smallest figurine to life-size pieces that were so detailed as to look not just real, but alive. There seemed to be no medium in which Horace was not proficient. Whittled wood, stone and marble, clay pottery, oil, acrylic, chalk and charcoal, watercolor. Annie simply stood in the middle of the shop and stared. And then she began to cry, overwhelmed by the beauty surrounding her.
Carefully, she chose the figure of a woman, about twelve inches high. The woman was carved out of white alabaster, each detail of her hair and face and clothing such that one could almost stroke the folds of fabric, feel the silkiness of her long hair and read the laugh lines around her eyes. The woman’s arms were opened wide, thrust upwards towards Heaven, and she seemed to be singing. Annie wrapped the figure carefully in her apron, and stole away.
It was still early in the day, and Horace wouldn’t be home for hours, so Annie packed the thoroughly padded figurine in a suitcase and caught the train for New York, just about an hour’s ride away. Her high-school friend Melinda worked in some fancy art gallery and Annie thought perhaps she might know if this piece was really as good as she thought it was.
It was.
Melinda gasped when she saw it and immediately took the piece in to her boss, who gasped as well and rushed out to meet Annie, fairly bursting with praise. And that’s how Horace Grimsby quit his job as a sheriff’s deputy and began to paint and sculpt and whittle full time, earning more money in a month doing what he loved than he had in a year doing a job he hated.
Now, it was some years later. Emery certainly showed as much promise as an artist as his father and Marigold didn’t seem to be far behind, though talented in a much different way.
Part of Annie’s mind registered that the sermon was over, and she stood obediently with the rest of the congregation to recite the Lord’s Prayer and to sing the closing hymn. Not being particularly musically inclined herself, Annie sang softly, content to listen to the angelic voice of her small daughter beside her.
Marigold loved nothing more than to sing hymns. In church, in preschool, around the house, before eating, sleeping or making her bed, Marigold sang. She sang in the bathtub, on the playground, in the car. She could hear a song once, just once, and it was in her head, words and music, forever. Ah, but not just any song. Songs she heard on secular radio she remembered not at all. In fact, hearing some of the music that blared from the speakers in public places almost brought her to tears, grimacing at what she called “the ugly sounds.”
But hymns? Contemporary Christian music? Yes, those she heard and remembered and sang. Marigold may have only been barely five years old, but her voice was older, more refined, more disciplined than her age. And though she may not understand the meaning of all the words, the Spirit of them entered her heart and shone there like a beacon on a foggy day.
It was that Sunday afternoon that things began to go awry. Home from church, lunch already served and eaten, Horace and Emery went to the shop to work on some project or other. Annie busied herself with cleaning up the luncheon dishes. And Marigold went in and lay down on the couch, curling up with an afghan over her, her head on a small pillow.
Dishes washed, wiped and put away, Annie made herself a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table, pondering her good fortune and praising the good Lord for her good life. She was a happy woman, was Annie Grimsby. An honest and loving husband, two exceptional children, and another on the way. Life was good.
She almost missed the small sound coming from the living room, a plaintive cry so low as to be almost indistinguishable from the hum of the refrigerator.
“Mommy.”
Annie listened again, then decided her ears were playing tricks on her. No sound came from the living room. No sound at all…
“Mommy.”
Well, yes, there was a noise, but it didn’t sound like Marigold at all. This sound was low and hoarse and pained, not the high lilt of her youngest child. Annie leaped to her feet and dashed into the living room.
Marigold still lay on the couch, covered to her chin by the afghan, shivering with cold and positively beet red in her face. “Mommy,” she whimpered, “I don’t feel good.”
Stiff and cold, Marigold complained of a headache, then began vomiting. Annie gathered her in her arms and rushed for the car, calling Horace as she ran. Quickly, all four piled into the car, Annie cradling Marigold in her arms as the young child lie unnaturally still, except for bouts of pained heaving and shallow breathing.
Horace turned on the lights, blared the horn and beat all speed records getting to the hospital. One look at the young child, practically comatose in her mother’s arms, brought doctors and nurses running, quickly quarantining the whole family in a single room.
After that, much was a blur to Annie. Doctors rushed in and out, jabbing her daughter with needles and listening to her chest. Low conversations took place in the hall Hocking - 7
way, and Annie heard the one word that struck fear into her heart, “meningitis.”
A team of wild horses could not have pried Annie from her daughter’s side. Annie held Marigold’s cold, limp hand in hers, and prayed. She held her head while she vomited bile, and she prayed. Gently, Annie caressed Marigold’s forehead, softly crooned hymns to her, and she prayed.
Afternoon became night became morning. Annie barely registered when Horace took Emery home, the boy having fallen asleep on the chair in the corner, tears still glistening on his cheeks. Horace, more quiet than usual, his face pale and worried, picked Emery up and gently carried him to the car.
Annie was alone with Marigold, though the nurses continued to check on the child throughout the night and into the morning. Doctors continued their probing and prodding and low-voiced conversations. Horace and Emery came and went throughout the day, bringing her food she barely touched, and relieving her long enough to attend to the needs of nature.
And yet Annie felt as alone as if no one in the world existed except herself and her child. Annie remained vigilant, awake, unswerving in her devotion. Marigold slept. She slept and she slept and she slept, her breathing shallow and steady, her face a pale shadow of itself.
Annie didn’t know how long she had been at the hospital. Was it days? Weeks? Months? She hadn’t changed her clothes, brushed her teeth or combed her hair. All she did was sit at Marigold’s bedside, singing softly to her daughter’s still form, and praying mightily in her soul to God.
Horace placed a hand gently on Annie’s shoulder. “Hon?” he said, softly.
She put her hand over his. “Yes?”
“Hon, you have to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know,” Horace said gently, “but you won’t be any good to her if you get sick, too.”
Annie said nothing, just watched her daughter breathe.
“Please, Annie,” begged Horace. “Please, just take a few minutes and go down to the cafeteria and get a bite. I’ll stay here with her, I promise. I won’t leave her side for an instant.”
Wearily, Annie nodded. “Okay,” she said, and her voice carried the entire weight of the world.
As soon as Annie left the room, Horace hit his knees. It wasn’t the first time in this entire ordeal that Horace had prayed, not the first time he had cried out to God for the life of his child, not the first time he had cried himself to sleep, desperate in his helplessness.
But this was one prayer he could not pray in front of his wife.
“Oh, God,” Horace prayed. “I know that our lives are in Your hands. I know that everything You do is according to Your plan. Lord, this is Your child, even more than she is mine. You gave her to us, and I thank You for that, Lord. I thank You for the few years we’ve had together.” And here Horace’s voice choked and hot tears burned his cheeks. “So Lord,” he continued, “Lord, I give her back to You. I don’t want this sweet child to suffer any longer, so Lord, if You’re going to take her, take her quickly and without pain.”
He couldn’t go on, but just hung his head and let the sobs wrack his body, great heaving sobs that tore his soul open and laid it bare at the foot of his Maker.
Gradually, slowly, Horace became aware of a hand stroking his hair. It was a soft hand, a small hand, and Horace looked up, expecting to see Annie beside him. But no one was in the room but he and his little girl, quiet and still upon the bed.
For the first time since his daughter became ill, Horace felt at peace. He had given his child back to God, and though his heart beat with an unbearable sorrow, there was a calm peace that pervaded his soul. He didn’t understand the peace, didn’t quite fathom how such a thing could be, but was grateful nonetheless. Horace pulled the chair closer to the bed and placed his hand on Marigold’s pale forehead. No longer burning hot, Marigold’s breathing had become deeper and a soft snore escaped her lips.
Exhausted, Horace closed his eyes and moved his hand to cover hers.
He slept. At least, he thought he slept. It was a strange dream in which he saw his daughter climbing a tall ladder up into the clouds. The clouds parted to reveal a man, shining white, arms outstretched to receive her. Then the clouds came together, and they were gone.
Horace awoke, startled awake by a sound both familiar and strange.
“Daddy?”
The voice was hoarse and soft, but…praise the Lord, the voice was Marigold’s! Her brilliant blue eyes watched him with a strange faraway look. “Daddy,” she said, “I had a dream.”
“And what did you dream, Sweetheart?” Horace said gently, speaking softly so as not to break this precious moment.
“I dreamed I went to Heaven and I met Jesus there,” she said.
“And did Jesus say anything to you?” Horace asked.
“Yeah,” Marigold answered. “He said He loved me, and so did you.”
Horace felt the tears hot on his face again, “Oh, honey, you know we do!”
Marigold looked past him and said, “Hi, Mommy.”
Annie rushed into the room, gathered Marigold in her arms and wept. “Oh, Sweetheart,” she cried, over and over again. “Oh, Sweetheart, you’re back!”
And Horace, arms protectively around both wife and daughter, looked up to Heaven and silently prayed, “Thank You, God. Thank You.”
The End
BY
PHOENIX MARYGRACE HOCKING
Marigold Grimsby tilted her head slightly and began to sing, “A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing….”
Considering that Marigold was barely five years old, she had no idea what a fortress was, let alone a bulwark, but she sang anyway, her high voice piping into the church like an underage angel.
The Grimsby family went to church every Sunday, Annie saw to that. And they looked the part of your typical American family, or at least what your typical American family once looked like. Mother, Father, two point five children. Since Annie was exactly half-way through her pregnancy with her third child, she smiled, the description most apt.
The sermon this Sunday morning couldn’t hold Annie’s attention. For one thing, it didn’t apply to her, as it was directed towards single people and the virtues and value of
abstinence. Annie folded her hands over her belly and allowed her mind to wander.
Horace Grimsby, incompetent sheriff’s deputy turned now-famous sculptor and painter, sitting quietly beside her, ruled over his brood with a marshmallow fist. Horace and Annie, married fourteen years come Valentine’s Day, resided in a small and modest home in an older, established neighborhood with their son Emery, who was twelve years old, and daughter Marigold, who was barely five. Theirs was a happy unit, relatively unspoiled by the fame of the renowned head of the family.
Horace came upon his fame suddenly, and totally unexpectedly. Quite frankly, he was a lousy deputy. He wasn’t very bright, for one thing. It’s not that Horace was stupid, but the educational system had failed him miserably, and even though he was a high-school graduate, his reading comprehension rested at about the seventh grade level, with his speech not being much higher.
He never cared much for school, for learning dates and events that didn’t mean squat to him. He couldn’t tell you the various parts of speech, nor do one single problem in geometry. Ah, but he could work with his hands, and if the school system had just left him alone in woodshop he would have been perfectly happy.
Horace came into the sheriff’s department totally by accident as well. It really was a case of him knowing somebody who knew somebody who agreed to give him a job. But he was a lousy deputy. He didn’t care about fighting crime and cared less about the criminal, but he was a hard worker who put in an honest day’s work, and then came home to spend hours in his shop, whittling, sculpting, or painting.
And just as being a sheriff’s deputy was thrust upon him by accident, his fame as a sculptor bore down upon his life as unexpectedly as a train might bear down upon a hobo fallen asleep on the tracks.
It was Annie’s fault.
Generally, Annie never went into the shop where Horace spent so many hours. She’d asked, of course, just what in the world he was working on out there, but he dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Ah,” he said, “it’s just stuff I do to unwind.”
But one day, early one morning after Horace went to work, Annie stole out to the shop to look around, and what she saw stunned her into wide-eyed wonder. The shop was filled to overflowing with the most beautiful artwork she had ever seen. Now, Annie was no connoisseur of art, but even she could tell that this was the work of a Master.
The shop was scrupulously clean, with not a wood shaving on the floor nor an open paint can anywhere. The various pieces were arranged on shelves along the walls, from the smallest figurine to life-size pieces that were so detailed as to look not just real, but alive. There seemed to be no medium in which Horace was not proficient. Whittled wood, stone and marble, clay pottery, oil, acrylic, chalk and charcoal, watercolor. Annie simply stood in the middle of the shop and stared. And then she began to cry, overwhelmed by the beauty surrounding her.
Carefully, she chose the figure of a woman, about twelve inches high. The woman was carved out of white alabaster, each detail of her hair and face and clothing such that one could almost stroke the folds of fabric, feel the silkiness of her long hair and read the laugh lines around her eyes. The woman’s arms were opened wide, thrust upwards towards Heaven, and she seemed to be singing. Annie wrapped the figure carefully in her apron, and stole away.
It was still early in the day, and Horace wouldn’t be home for hours, so Annie packed the thoroughly padded figurine in a suitcase and caught the train for New York, just about an hour’s ride away. Her high-school friend Melinda worked in some fancy art gallery and Annie thought perhaps she might know if this piece was really as good as she thought it was.
It was.
Melinda gasped when she saw it and immediately took the piece in to her boss, who gasped as well and rushed out to meet Annie, fairly bursting with praise. And that’s how Horace Grimsby quit his job as a sheriff’s deputy and began to paint and sculpt and whittle full time, earning more money in a month doing what he loved than he had in a year doing a job he hated.
Now, it was some years later. Emery certainly showed as much promise as an artist as his father and Marigold didn’t seem to be far behind, though talented in a much different way.
Part of Annie’s mind registered that the sermon was over, and she stood obediently with the rest of the congregation to recite the Lord’s Prayer and to sing the closing hymn. Not being particularly musically inclined herself, Annie sang softly, content to listen to the angelic voice of her small daughter beside her.
Marigold loved nothing more than to sing hymns. In church, in preschool, around the house, before eating, sleeping or making her bed, Marigold sang. She sang in the bathtub, on the playground, in the car. She could hear a song once, just once, and it was in her head, words and music, forever. Ah, but not just any song. Songs she heard on secular radio she remembered not at all. In fact, hearing some of the music that blared from the speakers in public places almost brought her to tears, grimacing at what she called “the ugly sounds.”
But hymns? Contemporary Christian music? Yes, those she heard and remembered and sang. Marigold may have only been barely five years old, but her voice was older, more refined, more disciplined than her age. And though she may not understand the meaning of all the words, the Spirit of them entered her heart and shone there like a beacon on a foggy day.
It was that Sunday afternoon that things began to go awry. Home from church, lunch already served and eaten, Horace and Emery went to the shop to work on some project or other. Annie busied herself with cleaning up the luncheon dishes. And Marigold went in and lay down on the couch, curling up with an afghan over her, her head on a small pillow.
Dishes washed, wiped and put away, Annie made herself a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table, pondering her good fortune and praising the good Lord for her good life. She was a happy woman, was Annie Grimsby. An honest and loving husband, two exceptional children, and another on the way. Life was good.
She almost missed the small sound coming from the living room, a plaintive cry so low as to be almost indistinguishable from the hum of the refrigerator.
“Mommy.”
Annie listened again, then decided her ears were playing tricks on her. No sound came from the living room. No sound at all…
“Mommy.”
Well, yes, there was a noise, but it didn’t sound like Marigold at all. This sound was low and hoarse and pained, not the high lilt of her youngest child. Annie leaped to her feet and dashed into the living room.
Marigold still lay on the couch, covered to her chin by the afghan, shivering with cold and positively beet red in her face. “Mommy,” she whimpered, “I don’t feel good.”
Stiff and cold, Marigold complained of a headache, then began vomiting. Annie gathered her in her arms and rushed for the car, calling Horace as she ran. Quickly, all four piled into the car, Annie cradling Marigold in her arms as the young child lie unnaturally still, except for bouts of pained heaving and shallow breathing.
Horace turned on the lights, blared the horn and beat all speed records getting to the hospital. One look at the young child, practically comatose in her mother’s arms, brought doctors and nurses running, quickly quarantining the whole family in a single room.
After that, much was a blur to Annie. Doctors rushed in and out, jabbing her daughter with needles and listening to her chest. Low conversations took place in the hall Hocking - 7
way, and Annie heard the one word that struck fear into her heart, “meningitis.”
A team of wild horses could not have pried Annie from her daughter’s side. Annie held Marigold’s cold, limp hand in hers, and prayed. She held her head while she vomited bile, and she prayed. Gently, Annie caressed Marigold’s forehead, softly crooned hymns to her, and she prayed.
Afternoon became night became morning. Annie barely registered when Horace took Emery home, the boy having fallen asleep on the chair in the corner, tears still glistening on his cheeks. Horace, more quiet than usual, his face pale and worried, picked Emery up and gently carried him to the car.
Annie was alone with Marigold, though the nurses continued to check on the child throughout the night and into the morning. Doctors continued their probing and prodding and low-voiced conversations. Horace and Emery came and went throughout the day, bringing her food she barely touched, and relieving her long enough to attend to the needs of nature.
And yet Annie felt as alone as if no one in the world existed except herself and her child. Annie remained vigilant, awake, unswerving in her devotion. Marigold slept. She slept and she slept and she slept, her breathing shallow and steady, her face a pale shadow of itself.
Annie didn’t know how long she had been at the hospital. Was it days? Weeks? Months? She hadn’t changed her clothes, brushed her teeth or combed her hair. All she did was sit at Marigold’s bedside, singing softly to her daughter’s still form, and praying mightily in her soul to God.
Horace placed a hand gently on Annie’s shoulder. “Hon?” he said, softly.
She put her hand over his. “Yes?”
“Hon, you have to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know,” Horace said gently, “but you won’t be any good to her if you get sick, too.”
Annie said nothing, just watched her daughter breathe.
“Please, Annie,” begged Horace. “Please, just take a few minutes and go down to the cafeteria and get a bite. I’ll stay here with her, I promise. I won’t leave her side for an instant.”
Wearily, Annie nodded. “Okay,” she said, and her voice carried the entire weight of the world.
As soon as Annie left the room, Horace hit his knees. It wasn’t the first time in this entire ordeal that Horace had prayed, not the first time he had cried out to God for the life of his child, not the first time he had cried himself to sleep, desperate in his helplessness.
But this was one prayer he could not pray in front of his wife.
“Oh, God,” Horace prayed. “I know that our lives are in Your hands. I know that everything You do is according to Your plan. Lord, this is Your child, even more than she is mine. You gave her to us, and I thank You for that, Lord. I thank You for the few years we’ve had together.” And here Horace’s voice choked and hot tears burned his cheeks. “So Lord,” he continued, “Lord, I give her back to You. I don’t want this sweet child to suffer any longer, so Lord, if You’re going to take her, take her quickly and without pain.”
He couldn’t go on, but just hung his head and let the sobs wrack his body, great heaving sobs that tore his soul open and laid it bare at the foot of his Maker.
Gradually, slowly, Horace became aware of a hand stroking his hair. It was a soft hand, a small hand, and Horace looked up, expecting to see Annie beside him. But no one was in the room but he and his little girl, quiet and still upon the bed.
For the first time since his daughter became ill, Horace felt at peace. He had given his child back to God, and though his heart beat with an unbearable sorrow, there was a calm peace that pervaded his soul. He didn’t understand the peace, didn’t quite fathom how such a thing could be, but was grateful nonetheless. Horace pulled the chair closer to the bed and placed his hand on Marigold’s pale forehead. No longer burning hot, Marigold’s breathing had become deeper and a soft snore escaped her lips.
Exhausted, Horace closed his eyes and moved his hand to cover hers.
He slept. At least, he thought he slept. It was a strange dream in which he saw his daughter climbing a tall ladder up into the clouds. The clouds parted to reveal a man, shining white, arms outstretched to receive her. Then the clouds came together, and they were gone.
Horace awoke, startled awake by a sound both familiar and strange.
“Daddy?”
The voice was hoarse and soft, but…praise the Lord, the voice was Marigold’s! Her brilliant blue eyes watched him with a strange faraway look. “Daddy,” she said, “I had a dream.”
“And what did you dream, Sweetheart?” Horace said gently, speaking softly so as not to break this precious moment.
“I dreamed I went to Heaven and I met Jesus there,” she said.
“And did Jesus say anything to you?” Horace asked.
“Yeah,” Marigold answered. “He said He loved me, and so did you.”
Horace felt the tears hot on his face again, “Oh, honey, you know we do!”
Marigold looked past him and said, “Hi, Mommy.”
Annie rushed into the room, gathered Marigold in her arms and wept. “Oh, Sweetheart,” she cried, over and over again. “Oh, Sweetheart, you’re back!”
And Horace, arms protectively around both wife and daughter, looked up to Heaven and silently prayed, “Thank You, God. Thank You.”
The End
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Baby Quilt - Crib Size - Turtles and Elephants
Monday, March 14, 2005
Tom's Own Little World
TOM’S OWN LITTLE WORLD
BY
Phoenix Mary Grace Hocking
Microbiologist Tom Thornton leaned back, and took off his glasses. In a characteristic gesture he made a “Y” and ran his thumb under his right eye, his forefinger under his left. The color wasn’t right. And the trails made no sense at all.
It was late, the hum and busyness of the lab had long since lapsed into quiet. His co-workers had gone home to spouses and dinners hours ago. Having neither spouse nor dinner waiting, only Tom remained, working on a project he facetiously called Tom’s Own Little World.
It was silly, of course. He had anticipated that when he looked into the microscope Tom’s Own Little World would consist only of the usual bacteria one usually found under a microscope, and nothing more. The patterns, colors and movement of bacteria were boringly predictable.
Except…they weren’t.
Earlier that morning Tom had been out hiking in the woods behind his house. Shadow had run on ahead, chasing a squirrel most likely, and had suddenly stopped, yelped as if in terror, and ran. No amount of calling could induce Shadow to return, and Tom stared after the dog high-tailing it for home, howling.
Curious as to what on earth could have caused such a reaction in his usually calm and gentle Lab, Tom approached the area of Shadow’s dismay with caution. At first, there seemed nothing out of the ordinary. The natural landscape appeared undisturbed, save a few anthills. Perhaps Shadow had accidentally stumbled into a nest of red ants; that would certainly explain his reaction. But as Tom turned to leave, he drew back.
Something wasn’t right.
It took him a moment to figure out just what was wrong, and when he did, his heart began to beat a fast tattoo in his chest.
The ant hills had no ants, and there were hundreds of them, spaced so evenly apart they might have put in place with a ruler. Each hill looked to be exactly the same size; the same circumference, the same height. It was, as he said later, “downright spooky.”
Careful not to disturb the hills, Tom walked the perimeter of the “city,” for that is what he immediately took this settlement to be. It was a city, he thought, albeit an uninhabited one. Ten steps to the north he took, then ten to the east, ten to the south, and ten to the west. Absolutely square, with…Tom squinted as he counted the tiny hills…fifty hills in rows like a child’s “connect the dots” game.
Fifty times fifty.
Good Lord, Tom thought, twenty-five hundred deserted ant hills situated in military precision in a ten-foot square. Why? And what on earth could have done this? No ant, surely. At least, none that he knew of.
Slowly, as he pondered the mystery that lay before him, he became aware of a subtle vibration beneath his feet. It felt as though thousands, perhaps millions of tiny bodies were moving underground in a passage that mimicked the ant hills precise manner. Counter-clockwise the movement went, and if he squinted his eyes, Tom thought he could see the earth move.
Slowly, carefully, Tom backed away from the site, turned tail, and sprinted for home.
He dashed into the house and ran immediately to his office, where he obtained a few small sterile specimen bottles and tiny sterile spatulas wrapped in plastic. Shadow cowered in the corner and refused to come out.
“Fine,” said Tom, “but I’m going anyway.”
Once back at the Ant City, Tom carefully bent to his task. Extracting a bottle and spatula from his left pocket, he uncorked the bottle and took the plastic off the spatula. He gathered a specimen from the corner ant hill with the spatula, placed it in the bottle, corked and labeled it, and placed it in his right pocket.
He continued around the city, randomly taking samples of hills and the areas surrounding the hills, labeling each bottle. The movement beneath his feet seemed to grow more agitated, stronger, and Tom fancied he heard cries and weeping.
And now he sat in his chair, rubbing his eyes and thinking he really had gone off his rocker this time. For what he was seeing made no sense, no sense at all. With all the variations of bacteria, from the corkscrew Leptospira to the ribbon-like Cyanobacteria to Micrococcus that looked like little balls, he as yet had found none that were exactly and completely straight as well as being exactly and completely the same size, shape, and length.
It was like looking at small dashes in the microscope, each dash exactly the same, each spaced precisely the same distance from its fellows. No sense, it made no sense. Besides which, he told himself, it was impossible.
But, and here Tom shook his head, what was really impossible was that every single slide, no matter from where he had collected the specimen, every slide was exactly the same. Fifty tiny dashes, fifty tiny rows in all ten slides.
And one microbiologist ready for the funny farm, thought Tom.
He put his eye to the microscope again, and almost fell off his chair. The dashes had moved. Where once the dashes had been precisely vertical on the slide, now they were exactly horizontal. And as he looked, the dashes moved again, counter-clockwise, and looked like slashes, then vertical, then slashes, over and over in a movement that seemed as choreographed as any water ballet.
“Are you still here?”
Startled, Tom almost tipped over the microscope. Harrison Carter stood in the doorway, munching a bag of Fritos.
“Holy cow, Harry,” exclaimed Tom, “you about scared me to death!”
“What on earth could be so exciting that you’re still here at seven o’clock at night?”
Tom stood. “Oh, nothing really,” he said. “I guess the time just got away from me.”
“Well, all work and no play, you know,” Harry said. “Come on. I’m at loose ends myself tonight. Polly is at her mother’s with the kids and I still need to eat. You up for pizza?”
“Sure,” Tom said. “That sounds like an excellent idea. Let me just put my slides away and I’ll be right there.”
“Okay, I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
When Harry left, Tom took another quick look in the microscope before putting the slide away. The dashes were completely still, looking for all the world like somebody had typed exactly fifty dashes in fifty rows on a piece of paper. There was no movement at all.
The next morning Tom arose early, showered, shaved and made coffee. Shadow was still in the corner and even her favorite breakfast of cooked liver and eggs couldn’t coax her from the spot.
Tom leaned down, waving the dish in front of her nose. “Come on, girl,” he said. “Come on and eat, honey.”
Shadow slowly inched from her corner, drawn finally by the aroma, but she crawled on her belly, submissive.
Tom reached to pet her, ran his hand across her head and down her side. She prickled as though she was carrying a million stickers. He looked more closely, but nothing could be seen. She whimpered a little, took a few bites, then went back to her corner where she put her head on her paws and went to sleep.
Odd, Tom thought. If she’s not better by tonight I’ll have to take her to the vet.
Tom gulped the last of his coffee, and then went to the shed where he retrieved a shovel and a five-gallon bucket.
Once at the site of Ant City Tom stopped and surveyed the settlement in amazement. Yesterday the hills had been in rows, militarily precise. Today they were in concentric circles, again precisely spaced, but fewer, and larger. If yesterday’s events made no sense, today’s made even less.
He straightened. Of course! Somebody is just playing some silly trick, like those guys in England who started the crop circle craze. But even as he thought it he knew that nobody could fake what he had seen in the microscope back at the lab.
Quickly, Tom placed the shovel in the middle of Ant City, put his right foot on it and dug in, bringing up a load of dirt and small stones. He dumped the contents into the bucket and gave it a quick look. It looked exactly like a load of dirt and small rocks. No mystery, no weirdness, no little green men, just dirt and rocks.
Silly, he thought. Silly.
But, silly or not, Tom planned to get to the bottom of the mystery. He took the bucket home, put it in the corner of the kitchen by the back door, and went to work.
Later he would remember that he had not washed his hands after petting the dog. And that explained a lot of what happened next.
“Donuts in the conference room,” Joanie said, sticking her head around the corner of Tom’s cubicle. Dutifully, Tom abandoned his normal work project and went to the morning meeting. Plucking a glazed donut out of the box and getting a fresh cup of coffee, he sat near the end of the long table, far away from the boss. This was one day he did not want to have to explain what he was working on!
It was the last bite of the donut that did it, the bit that his fingers had touched. Just as he put that last bite in his mouth he felt a searing, red-hot pain flood his mouth. Hotter than any habanero pepper, any Chinese mustard, any anything, Tom was totally incapacitated. He cried out in unbearable agony, reaching for his coffee. Quickly, he spat out the bit of donut and drank the last swig.
Worse! Worse! Oh, my God, WORSE!!!
The pain flooded his mouth, his throat, his esophagus, his stomach like a million red hot pokers. Gasping and wheezing, Tom retched and retched, his body totally rejecting whatever foreign substance he had ingested. His co-workers gathered around; someone called 911; another brought him a glass of plain water, which he drank.
Miraculously, the pain was gone. Eyes and face a most alarming red, Tom excused himself and stumbled to the bathroom. He washed his hands with the antibacterial soap provided and rinsed. Washed again. And again. Five times he washed his hands, clear up to the elbows. He dried them and attempted to calm himself.
He took off his glasses, made the “Y” and rubbed under his eyes. No prickling, no stinging. Whatever it was didn’t like water.
“You okay?” Harry stood at the door, concerned.
“Yeah,” Tom replied. “I think so.”
“Boss says you oughta go home.”
Tom replaced his glasses and straightened. “You know, I think I will,” he said, and then he did.
Shadow was dead.
At least, Shadow looked dead. Tom didn’t want to get close enough to find out, because in front of Shadow’s body, placed in military precision, were fifty tiny ant hills. And the bucket he had placed by the kitchen door was empty.
Anger, white hot and flaming, burst forth as an anguished cry from Tom’s lips. “You miserable, lousy, things!” He grabbed the bucket and stalked to the kitchen sink. “I’ll show you!” he cried. “I’ll show you!”
He filled the bucket with water, approached the line of hills and flung the water across the kitchen floor. Again and again and again he went to the sink and again and again and again he swooshed the water over the ant hills. The kitchen floor was a soggy mess, so Tom grabbed the broom and began to sweep the water across the kitchen floor and out the back door.
Carefully, he wrapped Shadow in an old sheet and took the Lab’s body outside. They won’t have you! Tom thought. I won’t let them have you! He took the hose and doused Shadow’s body with water, flooding the beautiful fur even as his eyes flooded with tears.
“You, you things,” he cried, incoherent with rage and grief.
Tom went back into the kitchen and made sure every single particle of dirt and every single stone had been washed out of his house. His back yard was a mud bog, and his faithful dog lay under the tree, drenched and still. Gingerly, Tom placed a bare finger into the mud. No stinging, no prickles. Apparently, whatever it was, was dead.
Grimly, Tom filled the bucket, and walked into the woods.
The End
BY
Phoenix Mary Grace Hocking
Microbiologist Tom Thornton leaned back, and took off his glasses. In a characteristic gesture he made a “Y” and ran his thumb under his right eye, his forefinger under his left. The color wasn’t right. And the trails made no sense at all.
It was late, the hum and busyness of the lab had long since lapsed into quiet. His co-workers had gone home to spouses and dinners hours ago. Having neither spouse nor dinner waiting, only Tom remained, working on a project he facetiously called Tom’s Own Little World.
It was silly, of course. He had anticipated that when he looked into the microscope Tom’s Own Little World would consist only of the usual bacteria one usually found under a microscope, and nothing more. The patterns, colors and movement of bacteria were boringly predictable.
Except…they weren’t.
Earlier that morning Tom had been out hiking in the woods behind his house. Shadow had run on ahead, chasing a squirrel most likely, and had suddenly stopped, yelped as if in terror, and ran. No amount of calling could induce Shadow to return, and Tom stared after the dog high-tailing it for home, howling.
Curious as to what on earth could have caused such a reaction in his usually calm and gentle Lab, Tom approached the area of Shadow’s dismay with caution. At first, there seemed nothing out of the ordinary. The natural landscape appeared undisturbed, save a few anthills. Perhaps Shadow had accidentally stumbled into a nest of red ants; that would certainly explain his reaction. But as Tom turned to leave, he drew back.
Something wasn’t right.
It took him a moment to figure out just what was wrong, and when he did, his heart began to beat a fast tattoo in his chest.
The ant hills had no ants, and there were hundreds of them, spaced so evenly apart they might have put in place with a ruler. Each hill looked to be exactly the same size; the same circumference, the same height. It was, as he said later, “downright spooky.”
Careful not to disturb the hills, Tom walked the perimeter of the “city,” for that is what he immediately took this settlement to be. It was a city, he thought, albeit an uninhabited one. Ten steps to the north he took, then ten to the east, ten to the south, and ten to the west. Absolutely square, with…Tom squinted as he counted the tiny hills…fifty hills in rows like a child’s “connect the dots” game.
Fifty times fifty.
Good Lord, Tom thought, twenty-five hundred deserted ant hills situated in military precision in a ten-foot square. Why? And what on earth could have done this? No ant, surely. At least, none that he knew of.
Slowly, as he pondered the mystery that lay before him, he became aware of a subtle vibration beneath his feet. It felt as though thousands, perhaps millions of tiny bodies were moving underground in a passage that mimicked the ant hills precise manner. Counter-clockwise the movement went, and if he squinted his eyes, Tom thought he could see the earth move.
Slowly, carefully, Tom backed away from the site, turned tail, and sprinted for home.
He dashed into the house and ran immediately to his office, where he obtained a few small sterile specimen bottles and tiny sterile spatulas wrapped in plastic. Shadow cowered in the corner and refused to come out.
“Fine,” said Tom, “but I’m going anyway.”
Once back at the Ant City, Tom carefully bent to his task. Extracting a bottle and spatula from his left pocket, he uncorked the bottle and took the plastic off the spatula. He gathered a specimen from the corner ant hill with the spatula, placed it in the bottle, corked and labeled it, and placed it in his right pocket.
He continued around the city, randomly taking samples of hills and the areas surrounding the hills, labeling each bottle. The movement beneath his feet seemed to grow more agitated, stronger, and Tom fancied he heard cries and weeping.
And now he sat in his chair, rubbing his eyes and thinking he really had gone off his rocker this time. For what he was seeing made no sense, no sense at all. With all the variations of bacteria, from the corkscrew Leptospira to the ribbon-like Cyanobacteria to Micrococcus that looked like little balls, he as yet had found none that were exactly and completely straight as well as being exactly and completely the same size, shape, and length.
It was like looking at small dashes in the microscope, each dash exactly the same, each spaced precisely the same distance from its fellows. No sense, it made no sense. Besides which, he told himself, it was impossible.
But, and here Tom shook his head, what was really impossible was that every single slide, no matter from where he had collected the specimen, every slide was exactly the same. Fifty tiny dashes, fifty tiny rows in all ten slides.
And one microbiologist ready for the funny farm, thought Tom.
He put his eye to the microscope again, and almost fell off his chair. The dashes had moved. Where once the dashes had been precisely vertical on the slide, now they were exactly horizontal. And as he looked, the dashes moved again, counter-clockwise, and looked like slashes, then vertical, then slashes, over and over in a movement that seemed as choreographed as any water ballet.
“Are you still here?”
Startled, Tom almost tipped over the microscope. Harrison Carter stood in the doorway, munching a bag of Fritos.
“Holy cow, Harry,” exclaimed Tom, “you about scared me to death!”
“What on earth could be so exciting that you’re still here at seven o’clock at night?”
Tom stood. “Oh, nothing really,” he said. “I guess the time just got away from me.”
“Well, all work and no play, you know,” Harry said. “Come on. I’m at loose ends myself tonight. Polly is at her mother’s with the kids and I still need to eat. You up for pizza?”
“Sure,” Tom said. “That sounds like an excellent idea. Let me just put my slides away and I’ll be right there.”
“Okay, I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
When Harry left, Tom took another quick look in the microscope before putting the slide away. The dashes were completely still, looking for all the world like somebody had typed exactly fifty dashes in fifty rows on a piece of paper. There was no movement at all.
The next morning Tom arose early, showered, shaved and made coffee. Shadow was still in the corner and even her favorite breakfast of cooked liver and eggs couldn’t coax her from the spot.
Tom leaned down, waving the dish in front of her nose. “Come on, girl,” he said. “Come on and eat, honey.”
Shadow slowly inched from her corner, drawn finally by the aroma, but she crawled on her belly, submissive.
Tom reached to pet her, ran his hand across her head and down her side. She prickled as though she was carrying a million stickers. He looked more closely, but nothing could be seen. She whimpered a little, took a few bites, then went back to her corner where she put her head on her paws and went to sleep.
Odd, Tom thought. If she’s not better by tonight I’ll have to take her to the vet.
Tom gulped the last of his coffee, and then went to the shed where he retrieved a shovel and a five-gallon bucket.
Once at the site of Ant City Tom stopped and surveyed the settlement in amazement. Yesterday the hills had been in rows, militarily precise. Today they were in concentric circles, again precisely spaced, but fewer, and larger. If yesterday’s events made no sense, today’s made even less.
He straightened. Of course! Somebody is just playing some silly trick, like those guys in England who started the crop circle craze. But even as he thought it he knew that nobody could fake what he had seen in the microscope back at the lab.
Quickly, Tom placed the shovel in the middle of Ant City, put his right foot on it and dug in, bringing up a load of dirt and small stones. He dumped the contents into the bucket and gave it a quick look. It looked exactly like a load of dirt and small rocks. No mystery, no weirdness, no little green men, just dirt and rocks.
Silly, he thought. Silly.
But, silly or not, Tom planned to get to the bottom of the mystery. He took the bucket home, put it in the corner of the kitchen by the back door, and went to work.
Later he would remember that he had not washed his hands after petting the dog. And that explained a lot of what happened next.
“Donuts in the conference room,” Joanie said, sticking her head around the corner of Tom’s cubicle. Dutifully, Tom abandoned his normal work project and went to the morning meeting. Plucking a glazed donut out of the box and getting a fresh cup of coffee, he sat near the end of the long table, far away from the boss. This was one day he did not want to have to explain what he was working on!
It was the last bite of the donut that did it, the bit that his fingers had touched. Just as he put that last bite in his mouth he felt a searing, red-hot pain flood his mouth. Hotter than any habanero pepper, any Chinese mustard, any anything, Tom was totally incapacitated. He cried out in unbearable agony, reaching for his coffee. Quickly, he spat out the bit of donut and drank the last swig.
Worse! Worse! Oh, my God, WORSE!!!
The pain flooded his mouth, his throat, his esophagus, his stomach like a million red hot pokers. Gasping and wheezing, Tom retched and retched, his body totally rejecting whatever foreign substance he had ingested. His co-workers gathered around; someone called 911; another brought him a glass of plain water, which he drank.
Miraculously, the pain was gone. Eyes and face a most alarming red, Tom excused himself and stumbled to the bathroom. He washed his hands with the antibacterial soap provided and rinsed. Washed again. And again. Five times he washed his hands, clear up to the elbows. He dried them and attempted to calm himself.
He took off his glasses, made the “Y” and rubbed under his eyes. No prickling, no stinging. Whatever it was didn’t like water.
“You okay?” Harry stood at the door, concerned.
“Yeah,” Tom replied. “I think so.”
“Boss says you oughta go home.”
Tom replaced his glasses and straightened. “You know, I think I will,” he said, and then he did.
Shadow was dead.
At least, Shadow looked dead. Tom didn’t want to get close enough to find out, because in front of Shadow’s body, placed in military precision, were fifty tiny ant hills. And the bucket he had placed by the kitchen door was empty.
Anger, white hot and flaming, burst forth as an anguished cry from Tom’s lips. “You miserable, lousy, things!” He grabbed the bucket and stalked to the kitchen sink. “I’ll show you!” he cried. “I’ll show you!”
He filled the bucket with water, approached the line of hills and flung the water across the kitchen floor. Again and again and again he went to the sink and again and again and again he swooshed the water over the ant hills. The kitchen floor was a soggy mess, so Tom grabbed the broom and began to sweep the water across the kitchen floor and out the back door.
Carefully, he wrapped Shadow in an old sheet and took the Lab’s body outside. They won’t have you! Tom thought. I won’t let them have you! He took the hose and doused Shadow’s body with water, flooding the beautiful fur even as his eyes flooded with tears.
“You, you things,” he cried, incoherent with rage and grief.
Tom went back into the kitchen and made sure every single particle of dirt and every single stone had been washed out of his house. His back yard was a mud bog, and his faithful dog lay under the tree, drenched and still. Gingerly, Tom placed a bare finger into the mud. No stinging, no prickles. Apparently, whatever it was, was dead.
Grimly, Tom filled the bucket, and walked into the woods.
The End
Sunday, March 13, 2005
George, The Herald Angel
GEORGE, THE HERALD ANGEL
BY
Phoenix Mary Grace Hocking
It was Christmas Eve, and George stood in line with the other Herald Angels to receive his assignment. Gabriel sat at his huge desk, a seemingly unending pile of human need before him.
Gabriel took the really big assignments for himself, of course. That was only to be expected. In the Heavenly hierarchy Gabriel was the Head Honcho of Herald Angels. The Big Cheese. The Boss. Not THE Boss, of course, but Gabriel handled things pertaining to News, and did a good job of it.
Mary was the one most people on earth knew about, but there were others too. Gabriel had spoken with Moses, and with Noah, and with some humans long since forgotten by other humans. Gabriel was one of the three angels who told Sarah she would bear a child in her old age, and she had the nerve to laugh! But, a child she did bear, and that child another, and that one another, and so on down the line until The Child was born.
George had been part of the Heavenly Host then. All the angels were a part of that. Glory to God in the Highest! And on earth, Peace, good will toward men! Ah, the Big News, the Good News, the BEST News before, since, or ever.
George sighed. Since the Good News had been proclaimed over two thousand years ago, his assignments could hardly be called earth-shaking. His heralding bordered on the mundane, the routine, the boring. Just once, he thought, just once I’d like to be called to do something BIG.
“Hello, George,” Gabriel said with a smile. George was a good angel; he was quiet and obedient and faithful. But, it could hardly be said that George was really good at his job. It’s not that he was bad at it; he just messed up sometimes. Like the time he told the woman with terminal cancer that she would recover and her death had to be postponed by a full six years. THE Boss had just smiled and shook His head, but Gabriel had been mortified at the mistake. Since then, Gabriel had given George the easiest of assignments.
But it was Christmas Eve, and the assignment Gabriel had chosen for George was just about as easy as they get. He would tell an anxious mother that her son would be home for Christmas after all. But every time Gabriel reached for that particular piece of paper, a different one appeared in his hand.
After the third try, Gabriel realized that God was trying to tell him something, and he just accepted it. But he had to admit, of all the angels in the universe for this particular assignment, George would have been the last he would have picked.
For this was a Last Chance assignment. And Gabriel knew that this particular human was a Lost Cause. Angels throughout the years had worked on her, but to no avail. She was just as tough now as she had been at the Sunday School picnic eighty years previously when she had snorted in derision at the Good News.
“Good news!” She had scoffed, “Good fairy tale, most likely!” And nothing in her life had caused her to change her mind, no matter how often the Good News had been shared with her.
And now George, of all the angels in Heaven, was to have one last go at her. Maybe it was because she was a Lost Cause, Gabriel thought. Might as well let George go; nobody else has been successful. It’s hard to mess up a Lost Cause.
George looked at his assignment and his eyes widened. “A Last Chance?” he asked. “You’re giving me a Last Chance assignment?”
“I have confidence in you, George,” Gabriel said. And it was true; Gabriel was confident that George would fail, so he wasn’t lying. “Just do your best,” he said, and turned to the next angel in line.
**********
Mary Margaret Masterson sat at her kitchen table, staring out of the window, the scrapbook open before her. Snow lay deep on the lawn and Christmas lights twinkled in the window of the house across the street. She stirred her tea absently, slowly dissolving the clover honey a well-meaning neighbor had given her for Christmas.
Honey. That and a few cookies were all she had to show for presents this year. Not that she cared, really. She knew that her children didn’t have much and couldn’t afford to send her presents.
Mary Margaret looked at photos of Christmases past and sighed. Once upon a time, Christmas had been a Very Big Deal in her family. Why, she could remember Christmases where you could hardly walk in the living room because the presents were piled so deep.
Of course, Christmas was just a secular holiday anyway; a time to give and get presents, a time to get together with family and friends. It was fun. The Jesus story was alright, and somebody was sure to tell it, but Mary Margaret never paid much attention, still seeing the story as a fairy tale much like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia.
And now, most of her friends were dead and her children lived in a whole other state, so far away they might as well live on the moon. They might call her tomorrow, if they remembered. She had to admit it; this Christmas she was sad, she was lonely, and if truth be told, she was scared.
It wasn’t much fun getting old. Her joints ached and her cholesterol was high and sometimes she had a twinge in the neighborhood of her heart that caused her a bit of panic. The kids had gone on with their lives and now she was left with a fifteen dollar artificial tree and not a single present under it.
She closed the scrapbook with a thud. “Ha!” she said aloud. “What do I care anyway? It’s not like Christmas means anything.”
So Mary Margaret Masterson, eighty-seven year old widow and mother of two grown children, resident of a small New England town currently covered in snow, took one last swig of her tea, rinsed out the cup and put it in the sink. It was getting late and she was tired.
She turned her electric blanket up to six, and then performed her nightly ablutions. She pulled her flannel nightgown over her head and put on her knee socks. She read a couple chapters of Anne of Green Gables, a book reminiscent of earlier, gentler times, then turned off the light, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.
**********
George was in turmoil. A Last Chance assignment was Big. Very, Very, Big. And now he found himself wishing he had never wished for a Big assignment! A person’s eternal soul was at stake, and this soul was in his hands.
George had done his homework regarding Mary Margaret Masterson. Eighty-seven year old widow, living in upstate New York. Two children, both grown and residing in California. Volunteer activities, none. Friends, none. Had worked part-time as an account clerk before retiring at age seventy-six. Mind, still sharp. Body, giving out bit by bit. Tonight, her last sleep before dying.
In less time than it takes to write this sentence, George saw every second of Mary Margaret’s life, and heard every word of the Good News that had been spoken to her. He saw all the attempts of all the other angels to reach her, and he despaired of his assignment.
Mary Margaret Masterson’s Last Chance to accept Christ as her Lord and Savior was in the hands of an angel who had no idea what on earth he could say to her that hadn’t been said a hundred times before.
But then, George smiled. There was one thing that hadn’t been tried yet, and George was determined.
**********
She was dreaming, of course she was. Her bedroom did not look like this, all light and rosy, filled with the scent of honeysuckle. Honeysuckle…ah, she hadn’t smelled that since her Aunt Pearls’ house back in California. She smiled.
At the foot of her bed stood an angel. She knew he was an angel, because she was dreaming, and no angel would have dared to come to her in her lucid, waking moments, because she did not believe in angels. Just like she didn’t believe in God, as she certainly did not believe the myth of Jesus. Her mind went around that track for a while before she realized the angel was still there, smiling gently at her.
“Hello, Mary,” he said. “Or should I call you Little Bit?”
Mary’s eyes grew wide. Why, nobody had called her Little Bit since her father, lo these many years ago, had given her the nickname. Just why he had called her Little Bit remained a mystery, since she had been anything but a small child. But Little Bit she was, and nobody knew that but her.
She knew she should be scared. She knew she should be terrified out of her wits. Whenever anybody had dealings with angels, wasn’t the first thing the angel said was, “Fear not?” So, Mary Margaret knew she should be afraid, but somehow…somehow, she wasn’t afraid at all. She was curious, she was amazed, but she wasn’t afraid.
George sat on the end of Mary’s bed. “Mary,” he said, “you’re going to die tonight.”
“Tonight?” Mary repeated. “Well, tonight is as good a night as any other. I haven’t much to live for these days anyway.”
Mary thought of her artificial tree with no presents underneath. She thought of her busy children who would get along just fine without her. She thought of her husband, long since gone into whatever land the dead go. Heaven, Hell, none of it made any sense to her. Probably just gone into emptiness, as she would now go.
“Will it hurt?”
“No,” answered George, “but before you go, I want you to meet Somebody.”
Instantly, the room was filled with a Light and a Presence so bright, Mary had to shield her eyes. There was no doubt in her mind as to Whom stood before her. Mary bowed her head and tears fell down her cheeks.
“My God!” she cried. “Forgive me, Lord,” she begged. “I didn’t know You were really real. I thought people just made You up and I wouldn’t believe. I’m sorry, Lord, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, My foolish child,” Jesus said, and He hugged her to Himself. “I am not willing that any should perish, and I died for you as much as I died for Peter or for Paul.”
Jesus looked into Mary Margaret’s eyes and she felt a Love so deep and so pure that she sank into that Love with not even a backward glance.
“Are you ready?” He asked.
“Yes, Lord,” she said.
“Then, follow Me.”
**********
Mary Margaret Masterson’s body was found on Christmas Day by her next-door neighbor, who called 9-1-1. As the coroner took the body away, the neighbors stood on their lawns, wrapped against the cold in heavy coats.
“Imagine,” said the one who had given her the cookies. “Imagine dying all alone like that. And on Christmas Day, too.”
“How sad!” Agreed the other. “How sad!”
George, the Herald Angel, just smiled.
BY
Phoenix Mary Grace Hocking
It was Christmas Eve, and George stood in line with the other Herald Angels to receive his assignment. Gabriel sat at his huge desk, a seemingly unending pile of human need before him.
Gabriel took the really big assignments for himself, of course. That was only to be expected. In the Heavenly hierarchy Gabriel was the Head Honcho of Herald Angels. The Big Cheese. The Boss. Not THE Boss, of course, but Gabriel handled things pertaining to News, and did a good job of it.
Mary was the one most people on earth knew about, but there were others too. Gabriel had spoken with Moses, and with Noah, and with some humans long since forgotten by other humans. Gabriel was one of the three angels who told Sarah she would bear a child in her old age, and she had the nerve to laugh! But, a child she did bear, and that child another, and that one another, and so on down the line until The Child was born.
George had been part of the Heavenly Host then. All the angels were a part of that. Glory to God in the Highest! And on earth, Peace, good will toward men! Ah, the Big News, the Good News, the BEST News before, since, or ever.
George sighed. Since the Good News had been proclaimed over two thousand years ago, his assignments could hardly be called earth-shaking. His heralding bordered on the mundane, the routine, the boring. Just once, he thought, just once I’d like to be called to do something BIG.
“Hello, George,” Gabriel said with a smile. George was a good angel; he was quiet and obedient and faithful. But, it could hardly be said that George was really good at his job. It’s not that he was bad at it; he just messed up sometimes. Like the time he told the woman with terminal cancer that she would recover and her death had to be postponed by a full six years. THE Boss had just smiled and shook His head, but Gabriel had been mortified at the mistake. Since then, Gabriel had given George the easiest of assignments.
But it was Christmas Eve, and the assignment Gabriel had chosen for George was just about as easy as they get. He would tell an anxious mother that her son would be home for Christmas after all. But every time Gabriel reached for that particular piece of paper, a different one appeared in his hand.
After the third try, Gabriel realized that God was trying to tell him something, and he just accepted it. But he had to admit, of all the angels in the universe for this particular assignment, George would have been the last he would have picked.
For this was a Last Chance assignment. And Gabriel knew that this particular human was a Lost Cause. Angels throughout the years had worked on her, but to no avail. She was just as tough now as she had been at the Sunday School picnic eighty years previously when she had snorted in derision at the Good News.
“Good news!” She had scoffed, “Good fairy tale, most likely!” And nothing in her life had caused her to change her mind, no matter how often the Good News had been shared with her.
And now George, of all the angels in Heaven, was to have one last go at her. Maybe it was because she was a Lost Cause, Gabriel thought. Might as well let George go; nobody else has been successful. It’s hard to mess up a Lost Cause.
George looked at his assignment and his eyes widened. “A Last Chance?” he asked. “You’re giving me a Last Chance assignment?”
“I have confidence in you, George,” Gabriel said. And it was true; Gabriel was confident that George would fail, so he wasn’t lying. “Just do your best,” he said, and turned to the next angel in line.
**********
Mary Margaret Masterson sat at her kitchen table, staring out of the window, the scrapbook open before her. Snow lay deep on the lawn and Christmas lights twinkled in the window of the house across the street. She stirred her tea absently, slowly dissolving the clover honey a well-meaning neighbor had given her for Christmas.
Honey. That and a few cookies were all she had to show for presents this year. Not that she cared, really. She knew that her children didn’t have much and couldn’t afford to send her presents.
Mary Margaret looked at photos of Christmases past and sighed. Once upon a time, Christmas had been a Very Big Deal in her family. Why, she could remember Christmases where you could hardly walk in the living room because the presents were piled so deep.
Of course, Christmas was just a secular holiday anyway; a time to give and get presents, a time to get together with family and friends. It was fun. The Jesus story was alright, and somebody was sure to tell it, but Mary Margaret never paid much attention, still seeing the story as a fairy tale much like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia.
And now, most of her friends were dead and her children lived in a whole other state, so far away they might as well live on the moon. They might call her tomorrow, if they remembered. She had to admit it; this Christmas she was sad, she was lonely, and if truth be told, she was scared.
It wasn’t much fun getting old. Her joints ached and her cholesterol was high and sometimes she had a twinge in the neighborhood of her heart that caused her a bit of panic. The kids had gone on with their lives and now she was left with a fifteen dollar artificial tree and not a single present under it.
She closed the scrapbook with a thud. “Ha!” she said aloud. “What do I care anyway? It’s not like Christmas means anything.”
So Mary Margaret Masterson, eighty-seven year old widow and mother of two grown children, resident of a small New England town currently covered in snow, took one last swig of her tea, rinsed out the cup and put it in the sink. It was getting late and she was tired.
She turned her electric blanket up to six, and then performed her nightly ablutions. She pulled her flannel nightgown over her head and put on her knee socks. She read a couple chapters of Anne of Green Gables, a book reminiscent of earlier, gentler times, then turned off the light, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.
**********
George was in turmoil. A Last Chance assignment was Big. Very, Very, Big. And now he found himself wishing he had never wished for a Big assignment! A person’s eternal soul was at stake, and this soul was in his hands.
George had done his homework regarding Mary Margaret Masterson. Eighty-seven year old widow, living in upstate New York. Two children, both grown and residing in California. Volunteer activities, none. Friends, none. Had worked part-time as an account clerk before retiring at age seventy-six. Mind, still sharp. Body, giving out bit by bit. Tonight, her last sleep before dying.
In less time than it takes to write this sentence, George saw every second of Mary Margaret’s life, and heard every word of the Good News that had been spoken to her. He saw all the attempts of all the other angels to reach her, and he despaired of his assignment.
Mary Margaret Masterson’s Last Chance to accept Christ as her Lord and Savior was in the hands of an angel who had no idea what on earth he could say to her that hadn’t been said a hundred times before.
But then, George smiled. There was one thing that hadn’t been tried yet, and George was determined.
**********
She was dreaming, of course she was. Her bedroom did not look like this, all light and rosy, filled with the scent of honeysuckle. Honeysuckle…ah, she hadn’t smelled that since her Aunt Pearls’ house back in California. She smiled.
At the foot of her bed stood an angel. She knew he was an angel, because she was dreaming, and no angel would have dared to come to her in her lucid, waking moments, because she did not believe in angels. Just like she didn’t believe in God, as she certainly did not believe the myth of Jesus. Her mind went around that track for a while before she realized the angel was still there, smiling gently at her.
“Hello, Mary,” he said. “Or should I call you Little Bit?”
Mary’s eyes grew wide. Why, nobody had called her Little Bit since her father, lo these many years ago, had given her the nickname. Just why he had called her Little Bit remained a mystery, since she had been anything but a small child. But Little Bit she was, and nobody knew that but her.
She knew she should be scared. She knew she should be terrified out of her wits. Whenever anybody had dealings with angels, wasn’t the first thing the angel said was, “Fear not?” So, Mary Margaret knew she should be afraid, but somehow…somehow, she wasn’t afraid at all. She was curious, she was amazed, but she wasn’t afraid.
George sat on the end of Mary’s bed. “Mary,” he said, “you’re going to die tonight.”
“Tonight?” Mary repeated. “Well, tonight is as good a night as any other. I haven’t much to live for these days anyway.”
Mary thought of her artificial tree with no presents underneath. She thought of her busy children who would get along just fine without her. She thought of her husband, long since gone into whatever land the dead go. Heaven, Hell, none of it made any sense to her. Probably just gone into emptiness, as she would now go.
“Will it hurt?”
“No,” answered George, “but before you go, I want you to meet Somebody.”
Instantly, the room was filled with a Light and a Presence so bright, Mary had to shield her eyes. There was no doubt in her mind as to Whom stood before her. Mary bowed her head and tears fell down her cheeks.
“My God!” she cried. “Forgive me, Lord,” she begged. “I didn’t know You were really real. I thought people just made You up and I wouldn’t believe. I’m sorry, Lord, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, My foolish child,” Jesus said, and He hugged her to Himself. “I am not willing that any should perish, and I died for you as much as I died for Peter or for Paul.”
Jesus looked into Mary Margaret’s eyes and she felt a Love so deep and so pure that she sank into that Love with not even a backward glance.
“Are you ready?” He asked.
“Yes, Lord,” she said.
“Then, follow Me.”
**********
Mary Margaret Masterson’s body was found on Christmas Day by her next-door neighbor, who called 9-1-1. As the coroner took the body away, the neighbors stood on their lawns, wrapped against the cold in heavy coats.
“Imagine,” said the one who had given her the cookies. “Imagine dying all alone like that. And on Christmas Day, too.”
“How sad!” Agreed the other. “How sad!”
George, the Herald Angel, just smiled.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
