The Witch and the Demon ((or. “The Brown Jacket and the Tiger”) (1986))

I remember my cousin with his nervous fingers and his expressionless face, his arms held tight and his legs drawn in and he looked a little like a spy; not too much, you know, but enough. To be frank he didn’t look all that human, he reminded me of a possessed, half frozen scarecrow trying to listen to what my mother and I were saying as if to report back to someone.

       I told my mother, “I see a man with a brown coat hiding outside our door, in the corner, he looks familiar, and the one you gave to Greg I think.”

       “What’s he doing there?” she asked.

       “Just listening, actually it looks a little more like Greg.”

       This did not please my mother one bit.

       I knew to a certain degree, heard anyhow, mostly gossip, that Greg’s wife was playing with witchcraft, of which it was already fairly known, so I suppose the gossip wasn’t really all that much gossip—I mean her reputation preceded her.

       “What kind of nonsense is this,” asked my mother, “what would he be doing out there?”

       “I’m serious,” I said, knowing it was odd at best, if not a little interesting: by and large, I had no solid reasoning what he would be doing out there other than, spying on us, if indeed that is what he was doing—so I told myself.

       “Alright,” I said to my mother, “maybe a devil’s got him spying.”

       It was kind of a joke, but there might be some reality to it I figured.

       “Really!” my mother pondered, “is he still there?” Then there was a long pause, we looked at one another, “Call him up, he only lives in the next apartment building over, and simply ask him.” She confirmed.  Actually, if you looked out our kitchen window you could see through his bedroom window, which had a drawn shade—although there was a parking lot separating both buildings.

       “O.K.” I said, “I’ll call.”

       “Poor fellow,” she remarked.

       “Yes,” said my cousin, “I was there but it’s just a misunderstanding on your part, I wasn’t spying, I wanted to ask you a favor, then I just went back home figured hick with it.”

       “You were wearing the brown coat my mother gave you, weren’t you?” I asked for confirmation.

       “Yes,” said my cousin, “but how did you see me you were in the apartment talking to your mother, I heard you both?”

       “Yes,” I replied, “that’s correct.”

       “What did you say?”

       “Greg, why did you spy on us?”

       “How could you see me through a wall?” he questioned.

       “Yes,” I remarked, “that is rare isn’t it.”

       “There is a demon in our apartment, can you find him and drive him out, I mean I really need your help, my wife’s bed is shaking and being lifted up as if in thin air: two, no three feet off the floor,” he exclaimed.

       Somehow I believed Greg, in that it was more truth than fiction, knowing his wife’s reputation.

       “All right,” I said “Sure.” But how do you evict a demon? I pondered as I walked over to his apartment, it was midwinter, and it was cold in St. Paul, Minnesota, and when I got in his hallway, it was warm, and when he opened the door for me to come in, I stepped right into his living room. I looked about, it was cold in the living room, and warm towards the bathroom and bedroom and kitchen. I walked back to the living room, looked at a picture on the wall, it was of a tiger, I stood in front of it, it was a dim cheerless evening, the place was cold, arctic to the bones, and the furnace was on full blast. The eyes of the tiger followed me, sank into my fiber.

       “Take the picture down, put it in the hallway,” I told Greg, and he followed my instructions. And the place warmed up—that quick, the dim eeriness had faded also, Greg was for the most part pleased with the results.

       “Dear, he’s gone!” Greg yelled to his wife, “my cousin got rid of him, found where he was hiding in the picture on the wall in the living room; we’ll have to get rid of the picture tomorrow,” he told her.

       His wife simply said, “Well, that’s good news…” and hid in the bedroom, for whatever reasons.

       I thought as I left, the demon found an ideal home, he’ll return soon, they often do—and she’d go back to her witchcraft soon as witches often do, and Greg, well, who’s to say.

2-24-2013 (#987)

Originally named: “Thrown Out”

The Eyes of North Korea ((Short Poetic Prose anecdotes) (March 4, 2013))

So you would like to know why they hate each other today. No doubt it will be easier for them to understand this cause and effect than others, than for me to explain—for example, short days for us, seemingly long days for them. Why the round-cheeked soldier boys are pulled along like line leashed dogs? Why all the outstretched arms and all the generals decorated in North Korean style, like a colorful cocktail. Why straight in front of them, is a road to their neighbor they never use. Why the graying bearded men, having done little to nothing about it, carried on like little creatures too feeble to walk. Everyone, I mean everyone performing duties like little children, those not in uniform are most likely to be all dressed in rages; while Pak Pong-ju the new premier face is so serious.

       Why the US B-2 stealth bombers? Why are they doing flyovers on the Korean peninsula? Why is there no peace treaty signed since 1953? Why has nobody done anything for five-years concerning Pyongyang? Which would happen to be Obama’s call?  Why have we sent the USS John McCain, destroyer to that ‘dangerous’ and ‘reckless’ spot? Is China waiting for an explosion, testing the waters between one and the other: watching three countries play chicken? Don’t they all know, what is not done today, will have to be done tomorrow? And what will tomorrow bring? We all know the fires on that peninsula will be put out soon, but that today is not the real threat, it is tomorrow not only North Korea is looking at but China.  Do not think these people do not have their eyes wide-open, they want to make it unbearable, they want to become the manager of the café—figuratively speaking, and get the free lunch.

       You see friend, how difficult it is to understand Kim Jong Un, who seemingly is choosing to be provocative, nothing new for the North side of the Korean peninsula. Be wrong just once, just one simple time being stupid, just once for old time sake being wrong in the calculations, and the eyes of this little country—that feels no shame, will blacken the eyes and the skies over: Japan, Guam, or South Korea, and maybe Alaska, and maybe California—that is to say, if blackmailing the entire world doesn’t work maybe this will get everyone’s attention, isn’t that what it is all about?

       That’s all that I got to say, it should matter, but most likely it doesn’t, America sees a necessity in waiting; I don’t know their game plan, so all I can do, and you can do is guess. And all I can say, is it doesn’t feel too safe, so what does that mean? Perhaps, raise the taxes, to build more weapons, to feel safer, maybe that is the game.

Article: 1451

Battle during the Night (The Invisible Forces)

At this time I was awakened from my light sleep, it must have been 3: 00 a.m., on or thereabouts.

       My mother and I lived on the third floor, in a two bedroom apartment, our bedrooms across from one another. She was sound asleep. A battle was being fought in the apartment, outside my bedroom, by invisible forces, you could hear it, spread out throughout the apartment, by my door, in the living room, by my mother’s bedroom door, she always left the door ajar. I could almost smell it, taste it, like dust—and the noise of it, it was one long slithering sheet of wind, rising and dropping, like a vortex, a little tornado, as if it came through the walls, the keyhole and cracks of the apartment, rumbling, a thud, their bursts rolling. I was just too intense to open that door, I lay in bed, slowly starting to sit up, to listen closer; it was as if I was being told not to get involved. I felt I had to be awfully careful.

       The night before I had been sitting on the edge of my bed, and beside me the bed suddenly sank, as if a heavy body had sat down beside me, was sitting beside me. I tried to keep my head firm and my shoulders from moving, my elbows on my knees, and forearm my hands into a prayer shape, or steeple shape. By the look of the indentation on the bed, the being was huge and quite heavy; God knows why he was therefore, and who he was. Then all of a sudden he was gone—whiz, just like that.

       That night some one touched my toe, “Do not fear,” the soft voice said.

       It made me think of the eight-hundred pound being that made my bed sink, near to its knees; he was like a piece of shrapnel still embedded in my brain.

       “Come on,” I told myself, “go out and see what’s going on in the apartment.”

       As I started to move the covers off me, I thought: ‘Well’ and then it came to mind the Holy Spirit, as an afterthought, He was battling the eight-hundred pound demon (or demons—the imps)—who’s to say?—Perhaps the apartment was being swept clean of these impeding beings, I mean it sounded like it. I kind of had known it all night—that this was probably the scenario or near to it, but I knew at times one is deceived by hope and optimism. But looking back, now looking back, remembering how it looked, now without a doubt I know this was a battle forced by the unfamiliar spirits, for my mother, whom at sixty-five-years old –now a year later—had become a Christian, this actually was not her first encounter, which she didn’t really encounter, I did: and would have to explain to her sometime in the later hours of the morning what fully took place.

       I felt plenty bad they were trying to antagonize her, and a guardian, what is know as a ‘Power,’ an angelic warrior, was protecting her with this offensive; this attack—in which his intentions  could only mean one thing: destroy her new found faith, and the Power was not going to allow this. I had also learned, things happen in a different way, than I had imagined: from the Father, to the Son, by way of the Holy Spirit, and then to the Warrior’s assignment, something like that.

#986 (2-24-2013)     

The Mischievous Demon

I antagonized—in an insulting way—the demon who was irritating me, and as uncustomary, he received a wiry grin from me. This was back in 1987; I had been a new born Christian for some three years then. From his vanity bag he gave me a “Yeh!” then produced an awful smell, it was putrid, I can only remember a worse smell once when I was at a slaughterhouse, in what they called the ‘Rose Room,’ and people were bringing loads of guts and pig heads and cow heads, and parts of cow hides and pig hides, and nasty organs covered with slim and blood and pus,  to be brunet in the what was a pit of flames: after a long moment one almost  vomited, hence no one stayed in the room they threw the animal parts into the pit and vacated quickly.

       Anyhow, the stink had filled the whole room, the mischievous sprite laughed mirthlessly at this disgusting joke that I found not so funny. When I came out of the bathroom having completed my shower, I wasn’t at all sure what to say to my mother, what her answer would be, she had only been a new born Christian for less than a year. When she went to the bathroom to check, or test the results of the smell, and my proclamation, it was no longer quite as vivid. Although there had never been any doubt as to her answer.

       This had been a second time occurrence for me, once, a year earlier, while sitting in my car deliberating over some business, or perhaps daydreaming on some obligation or event to be. I had told the imp or demon to get out of my car, he had been whispering some derogatory insults towards me—, trying to provoke me, with an outstretched finger, I scolded him, and I told him a second time: in Christ’s name to get out of my car and stay out.

       “What are you doing in my car, you wild sow!” I think I added said; if not, something to that effect. And of course, that nasty grin I can give when I’m upset. A grin the demon thought was not so laughable, thus, with his a high pitched voice tinkling, like chiming Chinese wind bells, —not sure what he was trying to say, but what he did was stink my car up with the reeking pong from the pit of hell before he left.

       I suppose if I’ve learned anything in those far-off days it was: you don’t scorn a demon if you don’t want a stale drag of his breath.

#988 (2-26-2013)

Originally named: “Demons with Chinese Wind Bells” (changed, 5-8-2013)

Soldier with the Coke Bottle

He waited again, in the thick heat of Vietnam (1971). It should have been routine, if not easy for him now—since he had had all his Army training in Southern States, the warm states, and a year plus in the Army and now the entire evening to practice waiting. He had, as all soldiers have had, time to accustom oneself to waiting: in, here, there, wherever, everywhere.  But it was hard now, harder because he had only eight months to go before he’d (ETS) get out of the Army, one and for all, for all times sake. Yes, only eight months to go: it was harder now, sitting on that steel plated floor in the shadow of 240-other soldiers in Cam Ranh Bay, side to side,  alongside a long concert wall. A bottle of coke against his shirt, it felt cool, like Minnesota snow, fresh.

       “Drink it slowly,” the sergeant said, with emphases. “The heat will get to you if you don’t,” he added. He had fetched him a coke for a costly: $3.00.

       It went cold down his throat, amazed and dreamy eyed, unbelief it could be so refreshing. Automatically he opened his eyes wide, raised his chest, he could not see straight (he had drank the while bottle in a matter of seconds, gulped it down), he was dizzy; he started to pass out, thought he was going to pass out, it felt as if he would, his face a tinge pale. The coldness in his body had had an effect on him, like: light to dark, no, like swimming against hard waves. It still felt pretty good though.

       ‘I want another coke,’ he thought, then thought ‘I just can’t drink it slow, it is impossible, it seduces me.’

       He would marry the coke if he could, he told himself, and for three dollars, he could have drunk all night on that, at the Enlisted Men’s Club. But he said, ‘I aint the marring kind,’ and laughed to himself.

       His mind chattered on, feedback on what just had taken place as he waited, and waited for his new assignment, against that hot wall, with two-hundred and forth other soldiers, in the night heat:

I had had the coke. I thought that that was not enough, but with sheer curiosity the coke and its coolness had subdued, no—seduced me. Therefore, it was enough. When I had finished the coke I began to struggle—

       “No,” he said.  “No. No. No.”

       “Hush” his brain told him, “you’re not going to pass out.”

       Then he realized he was clinging tight, tighter, to himself.

       The night was lit, he knew the moon was somewhere overhead, above him, but he was too dizzy to look, still too dizzy.

5-7-2013 (#993)       

A Most Perilous Game

 (A Tribute Madre Marleny Rojas)

Nuns, know  things that we don’t know, haven’t yet learned, may never learn, I presume. Perhaps it is that they have everything, what they believe is right and what they believe is wrong and what they believe out to occur and must come about and what they consider ought not to happen and can’t happen, all tidily tucked away, catalogued and built-in into a mold; but like us, they are human, body and soul, some greedy and some cold, and some warm, and godly, and some devilish.

       The nuns from the Divine Providence Order, a dangerous bunch, from the United States, decided to change their creed, and went to Peru to collect their assets, or dismiss those who would not go along with changing the old order to the new—they had facilities in the United States, Peru (to include, Lima, Cuzco, and Huancayo) as well as Germany: to change the old order to a  new styled order—one might conclude, to a more freer style, less of everything they used to do, and more of nothing to do, without considering their wishes, or even the Pope’s wishes, under which the order was ordained: which seemed to the nuns in Peru, less orderly, and not according to the founder’s dogma. They reacted in a an improper and thoroughly unchristian way in trying to get their way, trying to recreate and newer and simpler creed with a kind of violent promptitude, without misgiving or remorse for the many young nuns about to take the next step into their vows, matter of fact, One morning they came into the array of young nuns about to do just that, in an insulting way, canceled the arrangements, overtaking, by overruling the Peruvian nuns .

       They didn’t want any resistance, but Sister Marleny challenged their precepts—the old ways was still good enough for her and her parishioners, her flock, along with Mother Imelda.

       Soon the American Superiors were trying to run the show, form offices in Peru out of their hotel rooms. At which time Sister Marleny had written to the Pope, and was awaiting a Bishop from Rome to come to Lima and investigate, at the same time locking the doors on the convent, having two locations in Lima, they found their way to the latter. In the mean time, she had a rude phone call by one of the American Superiors, then she requested a police order that the Nuns from the United States, not be allowed near their convent: weary along with her and her flocks tolerance levels being low if not weak: they knew the American Nuns had smelt honey, and wouldn’t leave until they got their share: which they had hoped to have gotten the whole train, not just the caboose, and I doubt they would have cared if they all slept in the streets.

       In all of this one has to admire the courage and conviction, along with the vulnerability of these Peruvian nuns—one and all, who now were left with no means of support; water bills and food bills for twenty-nuns, and electric bills and God knows what else: other than three nuns teaching making $300 per month per nun, while the little young nuns where were becoming full-fledged nuns, were making rosaries and shirts to sell—you got it, the American nuns cut off their allowance, for being disobedient, for not going along with the gang. I suppose the American Nuns figured since they got away with it so far, here and there, and wherever they went, no doubt, Peru would be a pushover. What do I mean, if you don’t know, you don’t have to know.

       Anyhow, these contriving nuns do it casually, I find myself asking: what happened to what they preach. The word nun to me is like some great architect came along and built a statue of a great godly woman, and thus, created a creed along with it (the woman perhaps could be Mary the Virgin whom was Jesus’ mother, or Saint Teresa: you get the picture) and unnamed daughters came to fulfill this dream, to Marry God, to Marry Jesus Christ, but who would want to be the bridegroom of those American’s? I pray God bring them back to sanity, they are not what they seem, or better put, what is expected of them, and should find a new career, a waitress might do.

       That’s what I mean, if you don’t know, you don’t have to know, but if you want to know, so be it, all right, you tell me, then, would you want to marry a little wish-wash nun? Who treats their comrades like livestock, wearing embroidered gauntlets? Gosh, are we not supposed to treat our neighbors like we’d want them to treat us? Is this not Christ’s Commandment? Did not Christ say: if you do not love your brother and sister, how can you say you love me? Maybe they’ll get their wish, and find out: what goes around comes around.

But looking at this situation more realistically, instead of emotionally and putting all the niceties to one side, putting all the practical, retinue, and procedural guaranties, pledges, promises, and securities of the sacred books,  in particular the Old and  New Testament Bibles aside, the sacred vows aside, the American Nuns acted as most of society acts, they became the true essence of society, which is Gang Warfare, no different than hooligans, with all their rivalry, enmity, they became no different in heart, mind or soul than a bunch of criminals. Who will ever dignify them again?

5-7-2013 (#994)      

For the Divine Providence, in Peru (of the old order)     

Message from Death (An Epoch)

When Grandfather died, back in 1974, at eighty-three years old,  mother spoke: well, inferred when she spoke—what  was for the most part—her  first reaction because what she said was probably involuntary, because if she had taken time to think, she might not have said it: “Well it’s over with,” meaning the funeral and wake, but I took it as an era, and she was the next, and of course the third era of our family history in America would be me, and the forth my sons.

       With grandpa there was a funeral, a hearse, and casket, pallbearers, buried at the Military Cemetery at Fort Snelling, a World War One Veteran. That’s how it was.

       And now with another death in the family, July 2003, we all would be moved too, regretfully, because she, my mother was friends to all my uncles, and aunts, and cousins, and blood-descendents, a lugubrious dirge to death for me.

       My brother wanted flowers, I wanted an urn, he wanted to throw her ashes into the river (like he’d request for himself in due time), I thought that was too pagan like, so I’d take the urn, bury her proper later. We causality looked at the dollar and cents of it, as if we were paying for it, she paid for all of her funeral expenses out of her monthly dividends, that is, her Social Security check paid for it, to be cooked to dry blood and shapeless pulp to a fine grain of dust, put into a bag inside a wooden urn, better than the river though, and as she wished it.

       I became disassociated, not only from the funeral but even from her death. There were I was told, relatives asking for me at the funeral, liken to sentinel guards.  I didn’t need to be reminded what had happened,  I was there when she went into a coma for three days, and then into the airless dark, bareheaded and bowed I stood feeling the last warmth of her blood that flowed through her resting arm on the soft hospital bed, she had been dead, going on three hours, I didn’t seem them relatives there.

       Her departure in a small way was done with a dignity equal with the dignity of my Grandfather’s, different yes, but dignity nonetheless, even with her sepulture.

       It would seem in time—and I’ll explain that in a moment—an envoy from…who knows where, a messenger from Death itself, came, paused, said: “Mortal, remember me?” And thus, like grandpa, like his era having diminished, it was time for a new one to start, the new era, was in the process now of decline, the un-dead, those uncles and aunts, those who saw death, knew it was nearer today than yesterday paused to listen to Death’s message, and now it would commence, brief, wordless, those in murmurs, whispers, shock, privacy, they all knew the Messenger from Death was around the corner.

       Uncle George and Paul had already died in the 1990s, but no one heard the knocking on the door until mother died, because then Aunt Rose died, and Uncle Wally died, and Uncle Chris died, and Aunt Ann died. Right in a row, one after the other, more wreaths and flowers arriving. It dominated a half decade if not longer. Notification after notification—regretfully; that was the way it happened, as if after a death in the family, perhaps the strongest of the family, they all obeyed, not a superstition, but a rite, to follow the strongest.  This was the freedom to move from one world to another using death as its moment to action. So it appeared.

       Now it is a new era, well kind of, there are sill two left in the old era, and so far one has died in my era—at sixty four years old he died, and that was two years ago, and I’m sixty-five, and guess what, if things go as normal like, the Messenger from Death will be visiting us once more—pretty soon perhaps, who’s to say: he is becoming a kind of decorous celerity with me, and when he acts, brisk indeed he can be. Who will be next? I suppose we’re all kind of watching.

       My brother says: He’ll live to be one-hundred!  No hearse for awhile. I on the other hand, feel lucky to be alive today, I’ve beat a lot of odds, some might say, misfortune turned into fortune. I like my mother don’t care if I’m dust and put into a urn, or put into a coffin, and laid among the stone angels of mercy and winged seraphim and shepherds in the cemetery, a Baptist-Catholic I am, and let my body rest wherever, but not into the river; I only care how I die, in dignity, with a good name.  Dead means dead weight and mass is not measured in the next world, bones are useless there also, I shall bloom again, bloom with a new body and with the old soul, my tome of life, let it say: he did the best he could with what he had, in Christ’s will, and I know it was not always in Christ’s will but I do hope by that time it will be.

5-8-2013 (#995)

My Epitaph (DLS)