(Onceuponatime) Earnest Brandt lived in St. Paul, Minnesota,
born 1910, died 1990—out of his eighty-years on earth, only but one day, was he
not an atheist, agnostic, believing neither in Heaven nor Hell—and for the most
part, having very little thought on the matter, living rather in the here and
now. By and large, that was Earnest Brandt, as far his spirituality went. He
wasn’t good or bad, nor did any kind of sorcery here take place, on either part
of Heaven or Hell, but what really mattered happened, and this is what this
story is all about…
This day, this one day in
eighty-years, those spies that hung around Mr. Brandt’s home, those: brigands,
looters of the mind, exotics in their cold and flaming crammed in spots of
tartarus otherwise known as Hell’s vaults were all sitting at a roundtable
drinking worm-mud coffee, spitting onto Hades pier, —All those goblin like
creatures those so called treacherous trespassers with blood-orange eyes they
were there also, as well as: the flies of hell that suck the breath out of the
sleeping, and the imps those little olive-green skinned beings, with cake like heads and shock freezing faces, skin of ice—more likened to
a Nightmare demon, and the giant unshelled crab creatures, with stinging tails,
the Mantic ores, half-lion-beast, with red hamstrung camel eyes and double rows
of teeth ready for assassinations; and those big eyed, hoofed, long
talon-fingered demonic half-breeds; and those best-beloved goddesses of Greek
origin—lovely but deadly—; and those pilgrim-devils unidentifiable, yet
familiar, and angelic renegades the smelly ones, and the ghosts of Hell who
teeter about in insomnia, and the Walkers of the Earth—those mid-air boneless
wolf like creatures —brazen as they are, getoutoftheway-creatures, that stammer
as they talk, as if they live in an internal coold and icccy ice cube perverted
beings they are, and the nightmarish mischievous sprites, always in pursuit of
what rare materials they may use to plague the mind. By and large, they all
talked aimlessly of their secret selves, as often they did, and for this one
day—today we can call it, just this one oozy today, this one day we are talking
here and now, out of eighty-years of days, out of 365 days times eighty, minus
one, oh yes, just one day, just one moment in one day, something that should
not have occurred, did occur.
It was as if Earnest was in a trance, he
called his girlfriend of forty-years on the telephone, and a young preacher man
answered the phone, her son. This day the devils were not in his home, they
were at the table I have just mentioned, doing whatever devils do mostly
talking and scheming and badmouthing, cussing and drinking that awful coffee,
and thus, Earnest, he was alone. To be honest, they must have had helmets on,
for they did not hear a word of what was being said, and had they, surely they
would have fled to restore their old turf: that so called personal piece of
property they thought they had, Earnest Brandt, that they had groomed over a
thousand times, no perhaps more, perchance, 10,000-times in eighty-years—who’s
to say?,
it would be, as soon as the arch devil,
otherwise know as, the Henchman of Hell of three legions, heard the news, that
he’d personally take flight to his home—along with a few comrades, perturbed by
what he thought might have been said, what he felt in his stomach was being
said, that is to say, what Earnest had told the young man. It was expected I
would imagine, the arch devil did what he did best, wiping the mind of the old
man dry, to where he proclaimed, “I don’t remember what I said,” when asked by
his girlfriend of forty-years, Elsie. But Earnest had said what he said,
nonetheless…and it would seem the eagles of Hell, might have overheard a murmur
or so…
(Let me explain
in more detail: all the devils, pure carnivores, sitting at the table, the
rotunda table, chatting, as mythological beasts galloped to and fro, restless,
ghosts of the sea appeared and disappeared out in the waters of Hades, all this
was going on, no one paying attention to Earnest; it was as if they were so
involved with their chitchat, and pulling at each others navels, perhaps it was
their way of releasing stress, in any case, they loss interest in Earnest: they
thought they had him lock-stock-and-barrel. Then the henchman of Hell,
Agaliarept, made a saucy remark, “Who’s
watching Brandt?” And they all felt a violent pain in their navels, “Something
is wrong?” asks Agaliarept: he also, felt a pulling pain. All the demonic
forces now swerving and feinting, as if they had flies in their pants, or
ants—looking at one another like large-as-life ostriches, thus Agaliarept
insisted they go check, and to their surprise this is when they saw the
silhouetted face of Earnest putting the phone back down into place, the
conversation had ended, thus, it was too late.)
Yes, the truth of the
matter here is in reality, that the old man had now lost his mind, and died two
months later. But what did he say to the young lad that got the devils so mad?
The young man quoted, John 6:47, out of the New Testament Bible, it read,
“Truly, Truly I say unto you, he that believeth on me (as Lord and Savior), will have eternal life.” And yes, the old man
had accepted Jesus Christ mind and soul, before the arch demon got note of it
and had time to make his mind a total blank. And henceforward, shortly
thereafter he passed on.
But what does matter, if good and bad
doesn’t? It is what he got, “To be new, that matters and so does intent…” and
Hell could never tell the difference, but they know where he went.
Now this story is not quite ended: where
did Earnest end up? Ten years had
passed, it was now the year 2000
A .D., and the young man, who was of course, not so young
anymore, had a vision-dream, he says: “I saw him all dressed in a white suite,
slicked down hair, youthful, leaning over a high above railing, as if in some
lit up grotto, as if standing on a rotunda walkway, a balcony sort of,
overlooking it, looking down at me, he had a glimmer to his face, an air of
inexplicable contentment, and that satisfied me, I knew where he was sent (to Paradises’ Grotto, for revamping).”
In brief, let me add, to be
quite honest, I do believe God had gone to some lengths to show the power of
prayer, and in so doing, demonstrate the continuing trust one may place in him;
for example, making the young lad ready for this day once black as ebony, now
ecstatically as colorful and bright as a rainbow.
#979 (12-6-2012)
Poetic Prose & Magical Realism
