Chyrsalis

 

The grass and earth is cool beneath her, a shadow passed over her closed eyelids. This mound in the meadow was a favorite spring spot for Lucy to lay and escape the boredom of her small town existence. In the grass she explored the ruins of the Scottish moors, or pondered the life of a Roman soldier in Britain. Mr. Mink her high school history teacher filled her mind with ancient curiosities. The clear sky had developed some puffy clouds and their passing had caused Lucy to open her eyes. Just at this very moment a monarch of the most vivid orange alights on the tip of her nose. She dare not blink, staring cross eyed at the creature who seemed to be staring at her. The butterfly just flapped its wings but did not move even when she finally had to blink. From her peripheral vision Lucy sees two more monarchs hovering, one on either side. She finds this somehow odd and disturbing so she lets loose a puff of air from her lips. The monarch arises from her nose but only hoovers a foot above still flanked by two others.

Lucy loved butterflies and this was one reason she choose this mound to dream, the wild flowers. Still the three monarch hover in formation above her. Each flap of their wings, each beat of her heart in perfect synchronicity, her eyes open and close in unison. Flap, flap, flap…….

Lucy awakens to darkness, realizing that she must have fallen asleep she sits up and rubs her eyes. “The stars look different somehow” she thinks as she cast her gaze to the woods below the mound. A strange noise startles her from the wood, a sound she has never heard before.  Paralyzed she remains still like a deer caught in the headlights of Uncle Bubs truck. “Where is Uncle Bub and his shotgun when you need him” she said silently, still immobile and alert. A pair of eyes stare out from the darkness, and then another, and another. Suddenly a flap of wings is heard over heard and before she can look she is airborne, soaring toward the moon and dark forest. The wind is chill on her cheeks as she manages to look up she sees a flash of orange and remembers the monarchs, yet she is being held by hands. The hands release her and she is falling, falling toward the darkness. “I am dead! That’s it dead, not dreaming.” She falls and falls and lands gently with a bounce in tall yellow stocks of filaments, covered in a yellow powder she sneezes violently. “What is this?” she wonders, looking up through the filaments of a gigantic bloom. Whoosh, she feels air disturbed from the tremendous wings as they maneuver above her and perch on the edge of this dream, nightmare, experience, flower??? Sitting there black skin and green eyes an enormous being with monarch butterfly wings staring down at her. Lucy in her faded blue, floral print dress, and sneakers, her long dirty blond hair matted with grass from the meadow. This creature is looking at her quizzically, tilting its head from one side to the other, its arms wrapped around each other at the wrist its long dark fingers entwined. The eerie sound she heard on the mound repeats and the creature looks towards its origin, and quickly back to her, staring. The strange skies moon is bright but not round it is pear shaped, with a reddish hue. Now the noise becomes like a deafening hum coming from all directions. The creature jumps into the nest grabbing her face her shoves some strange berry into her mouth, she protest but it hold her mouth closed, so that she has no choice but to swallow it. She feels herself overcome and right before she goes completely unconscious, she sees the space above her full of creatures like this one. The moonlight is obscured with butterfly wings.

Death is beautiful, it is dark, it is quiet, it feels as if floating on a pond on a summer night. Death is so peaceful. Lucy thought to herself, “Why was I ever afraid to die? This is wonderful!” A brilliant light interrupts her reverie, so bright and so unwanted as she becomes conscious she cannot breathe, surrounded in a mucous fluid, she cannot move, and the light is like a slash in the black void. The slit and the brightness getting larger, and larger. Lucy is now able to move her arms and reaches toward the slash ripping in effort to excavate herself from suffocation. Long strange finger assist the process from outside and Lucy pushes through the opening and in the brightness of her meadow she see a spectral image from her past, Jack. “Well hello Miss Lucille. I told you I would see you around.”

 

Sindy Sue Simms

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Happy Halloween Word Press friends. I love you. The above was my short story for my Annual Spooky Writing Challenge. I am planning another non spooky challenge, so any of you writers out there love to have you participate. Be safe and happy. Get a reading or retain my favorite witch Sammi Cox for a candle burning.

See you soon.

Blessed Be~

Sindy

 

 

Beets & Books

A couple of days ago my friend, and blogger posted a lovely Red Velvet Cupcake recipe, containing beets.  You should visit Fae’s blogs she is terrific! The beets reminded me of this awesome book. Real metaphors for life and mortality.

Plot summary

A powerful and righteous 8th century king named Alobar narrowly escapes regicide at the hands of his own subjects, as it is their custom to kill the king at the first sign of aging. After fleeing, no longer a king but a simple peasant, he travels through Eurasia, and eventually meets the goat-god Pan, who is slowly losing his powers as the world turns toward Christianity. In India, he meets a girl, Kudra, who goes on to become his wife. As with most of Robbins’ couples, their mutual libido is enormous, and their love quite like something out of a fairy tale.

After an encounter with a mysterious group known as “The Bandaloop Doctors,” Alobar is set down the path towards eternal life, which, according to Robbins, can be attained by a consistent ritual of controlled breath work, simple eating, sex, and bathing in extremely hot water. Alobar and Kudra, successful in their immortality, travel about Europe until the 17th century, when they attempt a sort of new transcendental meditation and become separated into different astral planes.

Meanwhile, in present-day, a “genius waitress” named Priscilla struggles with a difficult job in a low-end Mexican restaurant. Priscilla is an amateur perfumer, and is obsessed with trying to locate the base note in recreating a fragrance, something she believes will be almost magical, from a three-hundred-year-old perfume bottle in her possession. While dealing with this, she juggles the unwanted advances of a lesbian co-worker, has a brief affair with an eccentric millionaire obsessed with eternal life, and contemplates the mysterious deliveries of beets to her apartment.

In New Orleans, Prisilla’s stepmother, the Madame Devalier, a once successful perfumer, is also working to recreate the same fragrance as Priscilla, after her assistant, V’lu re-liberated the ancient bottle . Madame Devalier is intent on restoring her name in the business, and discontinuing the production items one might construe as shady. She seeks something magical using the ultra ingredient Jamaican jasmine supplied by a mysterious man with the helmet of swarming bees, Bingo Pajama.

In Paris, the LeFever Parfumaire is concerned about their eccentric leader, Marcel, who equates smell as the most important factor in the forward movement of the evolutionary process. After witnessing an eclipse, he is obsessed with his own scent.

The story lines eventually converge into a climax in New Orleans, with a brief stop in another dimension.

The main message is summarized in the dying words of Albert Einstein, spoken in Alobar’s 8th century Bohemian dialect Erleichda, loosely translated as “lighten up”.

Source

Call The Wind

“Sister” Wei Lin softly says, “tell me about the purification of the wind, we are high up is that all there is to it?” Shanzen looks as the sun hides behind the mountain, “No we will go into meditation and in the early morning hours we will call the wind and stand on the very edge of this ledge. When a strong wind blows a shaolin monk will wonder who has called the wind and what was its purpose?  One can either be a friend or an enemy of the wind. We will show the wind we are strong, we show the wind that we trust it and make of it a friend.” No perceivable fear showed on Wei Lin’s face, she maintained the most serene countenance, Shanzen had not seen her show any fear beyond that of the mist in the pool. Shanzen knew that she had a great respect for the wind and a little fear.

“Let us sleep awhile we are both tired and will need to be alert for our final test.” They pulled the bamboo mats over near the fire and facing one another fell fast asleep. On the edge of a steep precipice they stood, a deep purple mist surrounded them and back to back the watched alertly in warrior mode for the danger behind the ferocious sound. The wind pulsated and roared pushing at them and pulling threatening to blow them off the mountaintop. As the wind ripped the monstrous claws came out from the wind and struck, badly wounding Shanzen she fell, Wei Lin screams…the sisters bolted upright simultaneously from the shared dream. The sky was a deep purple and the wind was present.

“To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders” Wei Lin says to her sister. “The family that raised me studied the philosopher Chuang Tzu. Let us go deep into meditation and clear our, minds and dissolve any fears or doubts. Let us recall the Goddess Quan Yin and her words tonight when we meet the wind…and let us make it our friend.” Wei Lin stood up and reached her hand out to Shanzen.

Shanzen prepared the cave, she lite the lantern and some candles as Wei Lin pulled the mats inside. They added some wood to the fire and Wei Lin offered a gift of incense to the wind dropping it into the fire.

The both sat and went into a deep meditation, rested but troubled. Shanzen focused on her breath and cleared her mind. When she came out of meditation the fire had burned down to embers indicating some time had passed, Wei Lin was still deep in meditation and Shanzen sat quietly looking at her own serenity in the flesh. Wei Lin had mentioned a family that raised her, she wanted to know everything about Wei Lin’s life. Shanzen was mesmerized by her sisters’ face, her face, the face of their mother, of the Goddess. Wei Lin opened her eyes, “Sister let’s call the wind.”

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