RB 01 Through Flesh & Bone

by Frederick S dela Cruz

  With no other patrons but him, the only sound he hears is the faint pulsing of a song from the earbuds.

  Then, outside, something small flutters a circuitous path through the air. It lands on the top frame of the entrance to the pub. Its glistening light-green, hardened shell bathes in the warmth of the afternoon sun. After fluttering one last time, its translucent wings retract into its long torso.

  Inside the pub, with his head bent down and arms folded on top of the bar, he stares into his drink.

  Suddenly, he senses something new.

  Without moving his head, he shifts his focus, and his eyes slowly move to the side.

  Frozen, he waits.

  But then, not feeling anything else, he turns his head, and his mind scans the entrance. He makes the music player and earbuds disappear.

  Motionless, he waits.

  However, he senses nothing else.

  Maybe it was nothing, he thinks.

  But then, the inside of his left wrist begins to tingle. Quickly, he turns his wrist up and stares intently at the symbol. He thinks a thought that has been with him for many days and many years: his name remains incomplete.

  Soon, the tingling dissipates.

  Maybe it was nothing. Slowly shaking his head, he gazes up again, to stare at his image. For a fleeting second, he feels disappointment.

  As the pub’s entrance reflects from the mirror, he sees that the blue sky outside is clear and bright, above the silhouette of the gray buildings. With his head slightly tilted in a lifeless look, he stares at the reflection.

  The bartender, at the far end, is slumped in his stance.

  Many seconds pass.

  Suddenly, the sky flashes a glimmering light-green color, and then changes back to blue. For a split second, the color of the whole sky had completely changed.

  His eyebrows furrow; he knows he saw the color change. Leaning forward just an inch closer to the mirror, he intently looks at the reflection of the sky.

  For several minutes, he is frozen in his tense posture, looking out into the world. The sky, he finally thinks, There’s something wrong with the sky.

  Another minute passes.

  But nothing happens.

  Finally, he slowly blinks and blinks again, to water his drying eyes. With a sigh, he leans back, loosens his body, and turns away.

  But the thought remains in his head, and now he whispers softly, “The sky. There’s something wrong with the sky.” He begins to regain a feeling that was once strong within him, many years ago: a feeling of uneasiness and a feeling that the world is somehow strange and askew. Over time, that feeling became drowned by his apathy. But now, triggered by the odd green flash of the color of the sky, that uneasiness resurfaces.

  Hearing his quiet words, the bartender curiously turns his attention to his patron.

  Again, the goateed man whispers, “The sky’s not supposed to be blue…why is the sky blue?” Finally, turning his head again, and peering out through the entrance, he squints into the horizon and examines it. After a few seconds, he turns back to the mirror and thinks more urgently, There’s something wrong.

  At the instant in which he looks at his reflection, he sees something small and glistening flutter across the entrance’s doorframe. Its sparkling green color against blue sky is unmistakable. It is something he hasn’t seen in twelve years.

  With shock and anticipation, he spins around.

  “Lassie?” he whispers in amazement, with wide-opened eyes.

  Years ago, many times, he had hoped to see that peculiar insect, thinking that it would somehow help draw him out of his existence as a pale half-dead-being, sitting day after day in a stale dark pub. But the mantis had never come back, and he blamed himself, and his decisions to stay disengaged from the world, as the cause for the insect’s absence. However, he never had the will to actually change his path. Then, over time, without the mantis’ return, his hope faded and vanished. But now, that hope - that hope for salvation - is rekindled.

  So, he calls out, “Lassie?!”

  There is a spark of life in his voice.

  The bartender steps back into the shadows of the pub, confused and a little afraid of the sudden change in his otherwise predictable, almost lifeless patron.

  The goateed man stands from his barstool and rushes to the door. I know it’s you, he thinks. You changed the sky. I remember now! This sky isn’t right, and there’s something not right in this world.

  Directly within the threshold of the entrance, with half of his body in and half of his body out, he shouts with a growl, “Lassie!”

  The two paroling men stop in their stride, across the street. They know that the man standing at the entrance is the daily patron of the pub. Unsure of why he is calling out, they watch and wait, with hands ready on their AK47s.

  I know I saw you, he thinks, I know I sensed you. Intently, he surveys the area at his left, the direction in which he saw the mantis fly. Then, to the right, his eyes move frantically. Now, back to the left they focus.

  He steps out from the threshold.

  A small flame sets ablaze the once dead spirit within him.

  “Lassie!” he growls another call.

  One of the armed guards begins to jog across the street, in his direction. As his partner follows, he commands, “Hey! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

  He doesn’t pay attention and begins to briskly walk to his left. With the two men behind him, he calls out once more, “Lassie!”

  With a firm command, one guard shouts, “Stop!”

  He disregards the command, while his brisk walk transitions to a jog. He mumbles impatiently, “You little green bug. You little green punk! Don’t make me say, “Lassie come home“.”

  He feels his heart begin to pound.

  Both guards shout, “Stop!”

  The command irritates him, and with each stride forward, the irritation transforms into anger. “Lassie!”

  Suddenly, he hears a burst of gunfire rattling in the air. He stops. As he turns to face the two men, the anger further builds.

  The first guard shouts in a loud, frustrated voice, “What the hell is wrong with you?!” The man raises and aims his AK47 and stops three steps from his target.

  For twelve years, a spirit has lived in the world, controlling all and choking all under the force of totalitarianism; and the goateed man has been a willing accomplice, by sitting in apathy in his dark pub, in his half-dead posture. He knew he had the power to combat that spirit, but did nothing.

  Seeing the weapon pointed directly at his face, he cannot keep his anger from escalating. With each loudening thud of his pumping heart, his anger burns hotter. It is anger born from the days, the months, and the years of regret. It is anger born from years of living in apathy. It is anger born from knowing he had made one wrong decision after another for twelve years, but he didn’t do one thing to reverse them. It is anger born from day after day trying to drink his memories dead, but instead they continue to live and haunt him. It is anger born from seeing his loathsome reflection every day: a reflection that never ages, a reflection that never withers, but a pale reflection of the lost hope and of the lifeless spirit within him.

  It is anger born from his immense guilt for not saving Allen.

  Now this anger is a tremendous blaze within him. He directs it to the unfortunate two who, at this moment, embody the world he wants to now destroy.

  With searing hot eyes, he turns to the first guard and says in a cold, deep, dark voice, “There are over two hundred bones in the human body. All of yours are breaking.”

  Instantly, the guard hears a loud snap. Like a thick tree trunk forced to bend and crack into two pieces, his thigh breaks. The guard stumbles, not realizing what had happened. The excruciating pain is yet to arrive. He shudders in his stance and falls to his knees.

  Snap! His other thigh breaks.

  Now he feels it, and he screams in agony.

  Snap!

  The bones of his lower legs and fee
t begin to split and crack, and then those in his arm follow. The guard’s body begins to collapse, as each vertebra in his back shatters, one by one. The man falls to the ground, twisting and writhing and screaming, with each breaking bone. With pleading eyes, the guard stretches an arm to his partner for help. The arm cracks and bends in unnatural angles. He screams again. The pain forces sweat to burst from every pore of his face and body. His breathing turns quick and frantic. Within a moment, the poor wretched man loses consciousness, and his body goes limp. But the breaking of bones mercilessly continues.

  Inside the pub, the bartender hides himself in the shadows, at an angle behind the bar, an angle at which he can still witness the horrifying scene.

  The sniper atop the apartment building nearby hears the screams and moves to investigate. He takes a readied stance.

  Barely turning to the second guard, the goateed man says in a black taunt, “How do you think you can move, when all your nerves are just plain string?”

  Not knowing what to expect, the guard takes a half step back, in fear. Suddenly, limb-by-limb, he begins to fall down to the street, like a marionette slowly being lowered by its strings. First, his legs lose their control and give way, and then his body falls straight down, atop his folded legs. For a moment his body balances and teeters atop his bent limbs. But soon, his limp head tilts to the side, and its weight begins to pull him down. Then, his upper body collapses on the street. With his head turned to the side, his eyes stare blankly into the horizon.

  The sniper, with both hands on his rifle and one eye peering down the scope, sets his sights on the one man standing. But his movements are not unnoticed.

  The bullets in his rifle explode into boiling steam. The sniper’s face and hands instantly burn and the layers of his eyes melt and peel away, blinding him. The rifle drops, and he reels and stumbles back, screaming in pain.

  The goateed man stands stolid and shows no pity. With his anger still aflame, he turns his attention from the two motionless men on the ground and walks, once again, down the street. Soon, his walk turns into a jog. His lungs take in the cold afternoon air, as his arms rhythmically pump at his sides.

  After a long distance, the anger begins to dissipate.

  Then, after a few more strides, as if awakening from a trance, he stops, and then slowly turns.

  Far away, he can see the concerned bartender kneeling over the military guards.

  The goateed man takes a deep breath and feels the air fill his lungs. Looking up to the sky, he exhales and feels the air pass through his nostrils. It allows him to regain his composure. Then, he trains his eyes back to the fallen men.

  With a slight wave of his left hand, he restores both men and the sniper.

  Immediately, the two fallen guards come back to life, struggling and gasping for air, as though it had been withheld from them for an eternity.

  He says to himself, They will be defeated, but not this way.

  Turning once again, he begins to jog through the streets.

  “Lassie!” he calls out.

  After a few more steps, he reaches an intersection. As he shifts his eyes from left to right, he shouts again, “Lassie, come home!”

  A curve of a grin forms on his face.

  * * * * * * *

  Something fluttered a circuitous path, while it observed the actions of the dark entity. The mantis had diligently followed the entity, as it once again leaped through time to reach its next destination, to thousands of years ago.

  Over a trudging miserable mass of people, the dark entity glided unnoticed. The horde of humanity extended hundreds of meters wide and several more hundreds of meters long. The wide expanse through the Persian valleys and deserts was their passageway. They were corralled and herded, by their captors who, on foot and on horseback, brandished dull notched swords, bloody spears, and thick leather whips.

  At the outer edge of the marching captives, a warrior on his horse snapped his whip over the hunched back of a man, tearing open his skin. The crack of the whip delivered a sharp snap to the ears of those around, making them cringed and dispersed away in fear. They wished not to be dealt the same punishment.

  The sky was a deep orange and red. Earlier that day, the earth had drunk its fill of the blood of the vanquished.

  In a fluid motion, the dark entity extended itself out, into the form of a slender spear, and thrusting itself into the sky. Peering down, it identified its destination, at the front of the marching mass. There, a lead convoy was protected by hundreds of only the most brave and most fierce warriors.

  From a distance, within the brush, the tiny mantis watched the entity as it circled above, once, and then twice.

  The entity converged on the center of the convoy where a large, golden, and ornate box-shaped cabin was being carefully lifted and carried forward. Purple and red curtains hung over the cabin. Long golden poles were secured along the bottom, lifted by muscular and loyal servants.

  The dark entity closed in and swirled through the curtains. It coalesced inside opposite of Nebuchadnezzar II who saw it and welcomed it.

  There was a time when the great king had resisted the entity’s promptings, enticements, and promises of greater power and wealth. But, with his own success and his increasing empire came his waxing arrogance and pride. He thought he would control the entity. However, the opposite was true: it overcame and controlled him.

  The entity slowly expanded itself to envelop Nebuchadnezzar to where only the outline of his body could be seen. With its thoughts, it congratulated the Babylonian ruler on his campaign, promising him greater richness and eternal glory. It told the king that his next victory would be the city of Tyre along the Mediterranean Sea.

  But Nebuchadnezzar was not confident in a victorious outcome. There was one man, with godlike powers, that was promising to halt him and promising to be the protector of Tyre.

  So, the entity responded with providing the king his own champion, one fair and golden, one too, with the power of a god.

  Seduced by the proposal, the king accepted.

  After several moments the entity retracted itself. It rose to the ceiling, filtering out through the curtains, and floated into the air, like thick dark smoke. It then coalesced once again. Suddenly, it elongated itself and propelled high into the orange and red sky.

  The mantis disappeared and reappeared following closely behind the dark entity. Soon, it was taken up into the entity’s wake.

  As they cut through the air, they cut through time and through centuries.

  The dark entity was brining its designs to a focal point, aligning the eras in human history to converge upon its desired finality.

  * * * * * * *

  Dr. Skramstad’s smile was beaming. She was quite happy that her guess was correct: the two agents were taken by what they saw.

  In front of them was something they never thought they would encounter that day. The stone wall segment was black granite embedded with speckles and slivers of metallic bronze. The wall was imperial in its color and breathtaking in its reflectivity. The granite had a well-hewn flat facade and clean, precise, well-preserved etchings. It was a meter and a half in height and two meters long and ten centimeters thick.

  The director, with her hands clasped together in front of her, and with the book under an arm, described it just as she had other times, for special visitors. “This is a wonderful granite etching preserved from the walls of a palace of Nebuchadnezzar II. This was one among many that told stories of the great king’s conquests.

  “Along the bottom right you see the depiction of the thousands upon thousands of warriors, with spears and shields facing their enemy. At the very right, you see the king himself in the foreground gazing out from his throne, into the battlefield. To the left, you see the only few hundreds of overwhelmed soldiers of the king’s enemy. Not all have spears; not all have shields. Their ruler is not even shown in this view: he is inconsequential.

  “Now here is what is amazing, and I’m sure it’s the
first thing that caught your attention,” the director said, with a smile and a bobbing head, “Glance back and forth from the upper right to the upper left, if you will. There are two men, on opposite sides, upon their horses, charging through the air: charging at each other. Their movement is depicted by their horses leaning forward, and their own bodies leaning forward, at noticeable angles. Their long hair is swept back, as they race through the wind.

  “Notice there is no etching of the ground underneath these horses. It is as if these two men are given godlike statuses; they are in the air and even above Nebuchadnezzar himself. See also, that unlike the soldiers on the ground, these two are not depicted with shields or spears - they are not even depicted in armor or even clothes for that matter. It speaks again to the godlike attributes of each: they are pure, in and of themselves. Their weapons for battle are within themselves alone.”

  She motioned her hand to guide their eyes, “And now this is what you came for. Quite prominent…yes…cleanly etched to be the same seven centimeter height of these two men on horseback, is the symbol you seek, in the air, trailing behind each man.” She smiled and nodded, as she waited for them to completely take in her narrative.

  Stevens and Etelson were silent; they waited intently for more.

  She continued, “It is the same circle within a circle you are seeking. The outer circle results from two intertwined lines intersecting six times. Some have described it as a double helix. See now the inner circle. It is created by two rounded flames opposite each other and each having half-circle fiery tails. With the flames fanning back, the two flames seem to be in movement, following one another. It is my opinion that the flames are chasing each other…in an eternal struggle, just as the two horsemen are engaged in their struggle, in the battlefield.

  “Notice also the prominent sun at the top and center of the artwork,” she gestured her hand toward the area. “It is above everything; nothing is higher. Its rays extend out to the left and to the right. One ray on either side even touches the head of the horsemen. Note also that none of the rays go below the hoofs of the horses.”

  Dr. Skramstad giggled, “Not even poor Nebuchadnezzar gets touched by the sun.” Then, the director explained, “Now, some have no opinion about this detail regarding the sun and its rays. But my personal opinion is that the artist is conveying that God himself has a connection with these two elevated beings, charging in the air. And about the king not being touched by the sun’s rays, it is interesting to note that Nebuchadnezzar II lost his sanity for seven years, and ancient Hebrew text describe this period as God humbling the great king, because of his arrogance.”