So, in his usual manner of dealing with the problems in his life, he started writing. He decided to create one last character. Someone different from all of his previous characters. He allowed his mind to roam back to a thought from the middle of the night and to his early morning writing. What would it be like to devise a character who felt only love—not pain, not anger, not sadness—and could give only love.
“If the characters I create somehow find their way to the afterlife I experienced in my dream,” Mims said to himself, “then this character will find his way there, too. The only thing I can think of to do for my children is to send them someone who will love them and take their pains on as his own.”
Mims started writing. The metal letters of the typewriter flew against the paper at an incredible pace. He wrote the narrative as swiftly as he could because he didn’t know how much time, how much living, remained for him. The words “while there is still time” echoed in his mind. That is what the characters in the dream said. Page after page filled with the story of a man who was born—no, brought—into the world to love mankind, no matter who they were or what their lives were like.
Will I make it until tomorrow? Mims thought as his fingers pounded out line after line. Maybe. Will I make it until the end of the week? Doubtful. He felt a terrible sense of impending doom, as though the certainty of a deadline on his life now drove the hasty narration to completion.
Mims finally sat back in his chair as the ship’s clock on the fireplace mantle chimed eight times—midnight. The draft finished, he reached for the first page and began to proofread his latest creation. After an hour of adjusting words here and fixing a phrase there, he set about retyping the story. Sleep no longer mattered. He must finish this work before he could rest.
The clock sounded six bells—three o’clock in the morning. Mims’s tired fingers stopped; the typewriter fell silent. He neatly stacked the pages of his freshly minted story, slid a paper clip down over the manuscript, and placed it into a heavy manila envelope. His publisher had been prodding him for something, anything, of late. He hoped his short story would be appreciated, and for the sake of his deceased characters, published. He scrawled the address onto the center of the envelope, licked the backs of the proper number of stamps, and pressed them onto the corner. He placed the manuscript on the edge of his desk and retired to his bedroom. Without so much as bothering to remove his clothes or brush his teeth, he climbed onto the quilt-covered bed.
He lay stiffly on his back and the minutes passed, and then the quarter hours. His neck hurt. He kept going through his story to make certain he hadn’t missed anything. Once convinced everything was just right, he finally fell into an uneasy sleep.
For a third time Mims found himself in the now familiar setting, the ground still sparsely covered and the sky still tinted gray. This time something was different, though. As he noticed his surroundings, he found himself wearing a white robe—floor length with a white cord wrapped around his waist.
He looked up as he heard the rustle of moving feet across the dried leaves and grasses lying upon the dreamscape. His characters approached him again. As they moved closer, the sky behind them began to turn a brilliant blue, and the ground became blanketed with lush green grass. Old Mims immediately realized that his two previous dreams had been in black and white. The characters slowly started to change, too. Their clothes took on various colors and patterns. Their forms now complete, each having full faces and bodies. Most notably, they all smiled.
Instead of passing by Mims on their way to the circle with only a glance, each stopped this time, directly in front of Mims. Each one reached out to embrace their Creator. As Mims extended his arms in response to embrace the first character, he didn’t expect there would be any substance. But to his surprise, the character’s form felt complete—flesh and blood. Mims gave a warm squeeze to each, and as he did so, he felt love for the children of his imagination.
After Mims embraced the last of them, every fragment of the dreamscape was full of radiant color. His creations surrounded him. Everything seemed right. He felt a tremendous sense of satisfaction and relished it.
One of the characters broke the silence. “We thank you, Creator. We thank you for completeness, we thank you for love. Most of all, we thank you for the gift of yourself.
“Welcome.”
“Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”
TITUS 2:14
EPILOGUE
(The Spirit)
I TURNED TO LOOK BACK at the planet on which I just spent the last eighty-plus years. It was as if I was a silent diver slowly coming up for air after exploring a ridge of coral, full of schools of welcoming fish. The sea was blue-green and shafts of sunlight penetrated down from an unseen sun above. All of my life my spirit cried out for this water, begging GOD to grant me the meaning of life and the memory of His love.
The salt from the tropical waters surrounding me now became the stars in a cosmic ocean. The camouflage covering me during my earthly days now lifted. And the spirits are now greeting me and returning to me the meaning of love and the memory of GOD.
little tornadoes
(in memory of holly)
we are like little tornadoes.
we drop down from the clouds
find the earth with our toes,
wander about without knowing where—
our paths dispense their destruction
without meaning to hurt
what we touch.
and when we are done,
we are sucked back up
into the heavens—
what becomes of us?
there will be other tornadoes
on other days
but they will not be us.
july 26, 2004
the bodhi tree house
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NANCY JOIE WILKIE worked for over thirty years in both the biotechnology industry and as part of the federal government’s biodefense effort. She served as a project manager, providing oversight for the development of many new products.
Now retired, she composes original music, plays a variety of instruments, and is currently recording many of her compositions. She also created a series of original greeting cards that display her artwork and photographs. Her cards and prints have been sighted at various charity events.
Seven Sides of Self is her first publication of fiction. She is currently working on a novella, a science fiction novel, and more short stories—including a children’s story.
She resides in Brookeville, Maryland.
Creations by Nancy Joie Wilkie
CD—Meditations on the Day (February 2016)
CD—Pauper, Piper, Princes (March 2017)
CD—Venus in the Trees (April 2019)
Greeting Cards and Prints by Mindsights Mediaworks
Coming Soon
CD—Aurillian Tales (2020)
Visit www.mindsights.net for updates on new creations.
SELECTED TITLES FROM SHE WRITES PRESS
She Writes Press is an independent publishing company founded to serve women writers everywhere. Visit us at www.shewritespress.com.
Our Love Could Light the World by Anne Leigh Parrish. $15.95, 978-1-938314-44-5. Twelve stories depicting a dysfunctional and chaotic—yet lovable—family that has to band together in order to survive.
The Afterlife of Kenzaburo Tsuruda by Elisabeth Wilkins Lombardo. $16.95, 978-1-63152-481-3. As he stumbles through an afterlife he never believed in, scientist Kenzaboro Tsuruda must make sense of his life and confront his family’s secrets in order to save his ancestors from becoming Hungry Ghosts, even as his daughter, wife, and sister-in-law struggle with their own feelings of loss.
Wishful Thinking by Kamy Wicoff. $16.95, 978-1-63152-976-4. A divorced mother of two gets an app on her phone that lets her be in more than one place at the same time, and quickly goes from zero to hero in her personal
and professional life—but at what cost?
The Lucidity Project by Abbey Campbell Cook. $16.95, 978-1-63152-032-7. After suffering from depression all her life, twenty-five-year-old Max Dorigan joins a mysterious research project on a Caribbean island, where she’s introduced to the magical and healing world of lucid dreaming.
Time Zero by Carolyn Cohagan. $14.95, 978-1-63152-072-3. In a world where extremists have made education for girls illegal and all marriages are arranged in Manhattan, fifteen-year-old Mina Clark starts down a path of rebellion, romance, and danger that not only threatens to destroy her family’s reputation but could get her killed.
The Black Velvet Coat by Jill G. Hall. $16.95, 978-1-63152-009-9. When the current owner of a black velvet coat—a San Francisco artist in search of inspiration—and the original owner, a 1960s heiress who fled her affluent life fifty years earlier, cross paths, their lives are forever changed … for the better.
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