by John Mellor
And through the smoke and fire, the broken beams and falling bricks, the screams and the running feet, Coalhole Custer's band played on; its manic music whirling around the insane and dying musicians, to pour ever more violently into the shattered ballroom, pounding, hammering, tearing at the nerve-ends; juddering the brain, roaming round the room now way beyond the control of the musicians.
Psycho was lying on his back with one leg in the air, a completely vacant expression on his foam-flecked face. The psychological synthesizer played on by itself, a great steel beam piercing it from above. The copper triple bass player was now airborne, clutching at the curtains as his maddened instrument struggled up through the dust towards the stars.
Small fires had broken out around the stage, licking up the heavy drapes, but still Coalhole Custer stood firm at the front. His yellow hair was singed and blackened with a smoke that seemed to dance to the unearthly harmonies flowing from his old thirteen string guitar, which he now held high above his head. And still he sang:
With the universal life force
Of the cosmos at your feet
You're standing at the crossroads
Where the planes of life all meet
And when you look inside yourself
Who do you think you'll have to greet?
Then the demons his music had released turned on Coalhole Custer. As he stood at the front of the stage, his yellow hair plastered with dust and sweat, his chest heaving with exertion as he jerked out the closing chords, he was struck hard in the neck by one of the guards' spears. Travelling with a force that no human could have imparted, it knocked the singer right off his feet, hurling him backwards and nailing him in a cloud of spraying blood to the front of the huge leopardskin bass drum.
The music stopped instantly. An eerie silence fell on the room like a blanket, stifling every tiny sound. Coalhole Custer hung motionless, spreadeagled and dying in the middle of the stage.
The tableau remained, still, in a silent snowfall of soot and dust; the only sound the soft crackle of subdued flames. Coalhole Custer's old thirteen string guitar lay on the floor at his feet, where it had fallen.
As the dust slowly settled on its strings it began quietly to play, alone, with no human intervention. The tranquil notes, clear and liquid in their simplicity, curled cleanly upwards through the few remaining rafters, to fall like crystal rain around the dying singer's face.
Coalhole Custer opened bloodshot eyes that were squinted in pain. With a supreme effort he twisted his head and gazed upwards into the blackness of the night sky. And as the guitar notes sprinkled on his upturned face he called out, slowly and agonisingly:
“There ... goes ... my ... last ... band."
Then he died.
And his death aroused a great wrath
in the music he had formed.
Around his empty body
the discords gathered like storm clouds,
sweeping all that was harmonious before them,
and the stars were darkened
as Coalhole Custer's music went to war
with the very demons it had itself brought forth.
For it came not to bring peace
o ------------------------ o
The young boy closed the book on the First Gift
and remained a while with his thoughts
in the lonely tower at the end of the beach
And the Angel watched over him
o ------------------------ o
Country Garden
THE ANGEL looked up and smiled as the boy approached. She was on her knees raking out a patch of soil near the far end of her cottage garden.
“How do you think the garden is looking?" she called out. The boy sighed ruefully. Nothing in life is ever straightforward, he thought. First the story; now the Angel. Why approach something directly when you can go round the houses; or perhaps the garden in this case. Any faint hopes he had held of the whole business being cancelled when he couldn't find the gift vanished. The Angel would coax it out of him if it took all of Eternity. The gift was in the story somewhere and she would make him find it. The thought was faintly amusing, almost.
“Very nice," he replied noncommittally. He glanced around. It was actually a rather interesting garden: untidy, unstructured, but curiously beautiful; with an air of something slightly mysterious about it; almost magical. He couldn't figure out why.
There seemed to be no order to the garden. Everything was just stuffed into the ground here and there, with no attempt at creating patterns of flowerbeds or complementary sweeps of colour. It was a shambles really, and yet strangely attractive. Some subtle structural notion of the Angel's no doubt lay behind it all. But he couldn't for the life of him see what it was. He walked over to where she was still grubbing around in the soil.
“What are you doing?" he asked. Keep cool, he thought. Let her raise the subject of the gifts.
“Someone gave me a geranium," she said, “and I thought I'd plant it over here where it'll get the sun." She pointed to a little red-petalled flower in a pot by the wall. “Pretty, isn't it?" The boy nodded.
“I think this will be a good place for it," she continued, “don't you?"
It was a casual question, such as anyone might lob into a conversation about plants. But the boy knew the Angel better than that. She was throwing him a line - and he caught it.
“So long as Coalhole Custer doesn't come along and blow it all to bits." He thought he detected the glimmer of a smile on the Angel's face; but she carried on raking the soil and spoke to him over her shoulder.
“Do you think he would?" she asked.
“Well ... I can't think of any reason why he should. But then I couldn't see why he wrecked the Snow Queen's palace either."
“But he didn't," said the Angel. “Why would he go to all that trouble when he could have simply put a bomb in it? And walked away unscathed."
“Well alright," the boy muttered, “he didn't; but his music did. He was responsible."
“Oh yes," agreed the Angel, “he was certainly responsible. But he had no idea of the effect his music was going to have. He had played there before without all that happening - during the time he had lived in the city. And by the time he found out, it was a bit late: his music had grown a life of its own. It responded to the feelings he had put in it.
“But," she finished off, “I think he half expected something to happen."
The boy agreed: “I think he did." Then he took the plunge. “But I don't know what the gift is."
The Angel was unperturbed. “You will," she said. Then she stood up and, taking his hand, walked him off down the garden past the vegetables and fruit trees, the flowers, herbs and shrubs that all mingled in an unexpected harmony.
“Doesn't it look lovely?" she said.
“Why does it look so nice?" he asked her. He sensed a clue here somewhere.
“I don't know," she said. “Look at it. Trees here, bushes there; flowers and vegetables all over the place and in amongst each other. It's a tangle of odds and ends, all mixed up and higgledy-piggledy. There's no order to it at all. I don't know why it looks so nice."
“Mmm," the boy muttered pensively. “There must be some sort of order to it. Order doesn't necessarily mean regimentation though, does it?"
“No," answered the Angel.
“Then presumably you have a good reason for putting everything where you have, even though it all seems haphazard and disorganised." He looked around for an example. “That celandine for instance. Why have you got it growing in amongst that old rubble by the pig sty?"
“That is the best place for it," said the Angel. “Besides, nothing else would grow so well there. The celandine likes rubbly old ground."
“Well, that's a good enough reason I suppose," said the boy. He looked around for more clues. “How about those herbs in under the wall there? It's a bit stony for plants, isn't it?"
“The thyme and the sage? They like stony ground and must be sheltered from the
north winds. They don't like the cold."
“I see," said the boy thoughtfully. And he thought he was beginning to see. “You haven't planted the garden to suit yourself, you've planted it to suit itself." He paused and looked around to confirm that he was on the right track.
“It suits all of us," said the Angel. “It suits the garden for obvious reasons, and it suits me because I like to see it all grow to its fullest potential. Every individual plant in my garden is more important to me than the garden itself; yet if I care properly for each individual plant, they all seem to care for the garden. The result is most effective, as you have observed. You should remember that, because it doesn't work only with gardens."
The boy could see it now: the order in the way that the Angel had put her garden together. Everything was in the place best suited to it, regardless of tidiness. Snowdrops were spread in a white blanket under the trees; a mass of giant burdocks clustered closely around the manure heap and mustard had been planted all about the beehives. Or perhaps the beehives had been set down near the mustard. No matter; the principle was there. Now the new geranium was going in the sunshine.
Everything was in the right place and, because of it, the whole garden prospered. That was what gave the Angel's garden its strange and indefinable beauty. And a thought occurred to the young boy, which he immediately voiced: “Coalhole Custer's music wasn't in the right place, was it?"
The Angel smiled and said: “Go on.”
“Your garden is beautiful,” the boy continued, “and lives in harmony with itself, simply because everything is in the right place. The Snow Queen's palace was the wrong place for Coalhole Custer's music, and the imbalance generated some sort of destructive discord between the two. In the end Coalhole Custer's music was presumably the stronger because it grew out of spirit rather than matter.”
The Angel nodded her head slowly. “His music was born in the mountains," she explained. “It was created for the mountains out of the spirit of the mountains, and it should have stayed in those mountains where it belonged. In the right place it would have grown strong and beautiful, for it was honest music. It would have inspired and enriched itself and everything and everyone around it, for its honesty gave it great power. In the wrong place its energy was confined and frustrated, and ultimately destructive.
“Now I think you have found the first gift," she concluded.
“Space," said the boy confidently. “The right part of it. The guardian put the Earth in exactly the right place; and every thing on it - every rock, plant and animal - was given its own rightful place in the overall scheme of things. That is why and how the Earth works, isn't it?"
“Yes," affirmed the Angel. “SPACE was the first gift to the Earth."
o ------------------------ o
~ The Second Gift ~
Seven Days in the Death
of Nellie Matilda
IN A small grimy industrial town, far removed from the splendours of the Snow Queen's city, an old woman lay dying in a hospital bed. Further along the corridor, and from which the old woman was equally far removed in a somewhat different sense, a much younger and very pregnant woman was going into labour. Whether there is any connection between these two scenarios I leave you, my long-awaited reader, to decide as the story progresses.
For all that it was a small grimy industrial town its hospital had the very latest equipment and first rate medical staff. The Senior Consultant was greatly respected by his peers throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom and he had brought together into this nondescript little hospital a team of doctors and nurses that was second to no other in the land. Just why this should have happened has no relevance to the story so we shall not pursue it. Suffice it to say that the hospital was the best; and that does have some bearing on the matter in hand.
The old woman's name was Nellie Matilda Johnson, although she had been born an Arkwright. William Johnson, her much beloved husband, had died some two years previously at the very respectable age of ninety-two. Nellie was now eighty-six and very lonely as she had outlived even her children, who had both died sadly young.
But Nellie was not sad as such. She had had a good and happy life with no regrets, and now that the time was at hand for her to depart it she was ready. Not everyone in the Snow Queen's kingdom believed that death was just a doorway to a new world, in fact very few did; but Nellie Matilda Johnson was one of the few. Religion no longer reigned in this kingdom since the onward march of Science had gradually relegated it to the realms of peasant superstition. The development of science under the auspices of the Snow Queen had followed a rather interesting route, having somehow circumvented the discovery of that great watershed in the oh-so-slowly-unfolding synthesis of science and religion that lies buried deep in the destiny of all people. I speak, of course, of Quantum Physics. Without this particular ghost clogging up their materialistic machinery, the Queen's scientists had continued happily along the reductionist road that even dear old Descartes, that doyen of doubt from some other distant Universe, had grown away from since waking from his deathbed to find that he was somewhere else: the blueprint, it seemed, was not in the big toe. One of the results of this scientific sidestep provides us with our story.
We begin on a Monday morning, a no more inspiring time for the denizens of this land than for those of any other. Even for Cartesian Reductionists the weekend is the weekend and, weekends being what they usually are, Mondays for them are much as Mondays are for anyone, whichever particular Universe they may inhabit. So Sonia, the nurse who tended Nellie Matilda in the daytime, was not at her best.
"Come on, Nellie!" she grumbled. "You've got to take these pills."
"I don't want any pills," said Nellie wearily. "Just leave me in peace please."
"But you must take them," said Sonia. "You'll die if you don't."
"I'm quite happy and ready to die," Nellie said calmly. "I've lived my life and it is over. There is nothing left for me here, and it is time now for me to move on."
"Move on?" queried Sonia. "What are you blethering about? I said you'll die if you don't take the pills; I did not say you would move on. What is wrong with this place anyway? You won't find a better hospital in the land. Now be a good lady and take your pills."
Nellie sighed. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" she said, knowing well what the answer would be.
"No I don't!" snapped Sonia, "and if you don't take your pills I'll call the doctor and he'll make you, like he did last week. You should know better at your age, causing all this trouble to those who are trying to help you." And she scowled, with the smug disapproving look of one who knows best.
Nellie resigned herself to her pills and said no more. The prospect of being force-injected by that arrogant and ignorant old doctor was too much on a Monday morning. But when Sonia had gone she lay back quietly on her bed with her arms down along her sides and closed her eyes. After a moment or two's concentration she climbed thankfully out of her painful old body and set off to find her husband.
“Oh, Nellie," William Johnson groaned, when he saw his wife approaching with that damnable silver cord still attached to her body, “haven't you got away yet?"
“No dear," she replied. “Those maniacs are determined to keep me alive, come what may. You would think they would have something better to do with their time. I can't stop long; it is the middle of the morning back there and the doctor will be doing his rounds shortly. If he turns up and thinks I'm dead, heaven only knows what he will do to me. You know what those types are like if you don't do what they know is good for you. I thought I would just pop over and see how you are; I'm finding it difficult to get out at night now with all these drugs inside me."
“I'm fine," said her husband. “I've got plenty to do, but all the same I am looking forward to you joining me."
“So am I," said Nellie with real feeling, just before the approach of the doctor caused her to disappear, back to whence she came.
Nellie Matilda woke up as t
he doctor came into her room. She felt that almost irresistible desire to fall back into her dreams that she knew from past experience signified a visit to the new world that she longed so much now to be a part of. Not yet though, it would seem.
“Good Morning, Nellie," the doctor greeted her with a smile. “How are we feeling today?"
“I'm fine thank you Doctor," replied Nellie, “apart from the usual. But there is no point in grumbling to you about that, is there?"
The doctor sighed. He had heard this every morning for the past four months and was beginning to find it rather irritating. Why was it some people could never appreciate what was done for them?
“Nellie," he said in that exasperated tone normally reserved for recalcitrant children, “how can I convince you that we are doing our best for you? Life is precious, Nellie, and we are on oath to preserve it wherever and whenever we possibly can. Besides, I could be sued if I did what you want and the Society for the Rights of the Citizen got to hear of it. Good Heavens woman, you are asking me to kill you. Would you make me a murderer?"
Nellie also sighed, having heard all this before too. She took a deep breath in an endeavour to calm herself, then tried once more to explain her feelings to the doctor, who was after all not bad, just blinkered: “I am not asking you to kill me, merely to permit me to die with dignity; there is a difference. Because this world rejects religion but fails to replace it with anything else you all think the physical life is the only one. But I know better, Doctor; I have been there, I have spoken with my husband. I know there is a new world waiting for me, and all the beliefs of this life cannot alter the realities of the next. I have finished with secondary school and now wish to go on to the challenges of University; and you would deny me that. How long must I lie here connected to this, being dripped into by that, stuffed to the eyeballs with drugs? I am not a person anymore, Doctor, I am an experiment; no more than a rat in a laboratory. You claim that the preserving of life is sacred. Well, I say this is blasphemy!"