Muggles Bereaved

by Vernon C Moyse

  “It is the electronic Age, Lim,” she said. They followed her out into a thin sunshine.

  “Look up Numbers 10:5-6 in the King James bible and tell me what it says.

  “The whole verse?” queried Tracy

  “Yes,” said Lim.

  “When ye blow an alarm, then the camps that lie on the east parts shall go forward.

  When ye blow an alarm the second time, then the camps that lie on the south side shall take their journey: they shall blow an alarm for their journeys.”

  “That is verse 5 and 6?”

  “Yes,” said Tracy.

  “Then read on a bit further,” urged Lim

  “But when the congregation is to be gathered together, ye shall blow, but ye shall not sound an alarm.

  And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow with the trumpets; and they shall be to you for an ordinance for ever throughout your generations.

  And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the LORD your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies.”

  Tracy’s voice tailed away. “Is that it,” she said in a voice that sounded full of despair.

  “Almost,” said Lim, “I am recalling something that made us giggle in Sunday school. I bet you did too, Jim.”

  “Me?” queried Jim. Sunday school for him had been all starched ruffles and surplices over unwashed red cassocks.

  “Yes. Look up 1 Corinthians 15:52, Tracy. Read it”

  “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

  “Yes, that is more like it” said Lim quietly. “Now read 1 Thessalonians 4: 15-16.”

  Tracy keyed the reference in and read:

  “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

  Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

  “That is it,” repeated Lim, still quietly, “That is the key.”

  “You’ve lost me,” said Jim. “Yes, we used to giggle when Rev Digglefoot used to say “the last trump” because it means ‘fart’ to every school kid, and I have heard most of that other stuff several times over. But what has that got to do with the saucer?”

  “Yes, Lim,” said Louis, “this is all a bit Dan Brown and Da Vinci code. But I am beginning to think you are as flaky as Newton the paralymphatologist.”

  “Come with me and see for yourself,” said Lim, his fingers on each hand firmly crossed.

  He led them back to the saucer; “Now make no mistake, what I am about to do will advance matters but to a situation where you will be glad that your name is truly relevant, Louis.”

  “My name?” questioned Louis.

  “Yes. If you didn’t know it, your name which was shared by 18 French Kings and is derived from the Old German, Ludwig, meaning ‘famous warrior’. Now you know that it should help you.”

  “have you swallowed an Encyclopaedia as well as a bible?” asked Jim.

  Tracy was more focussed; “So what do these biblical references tell you? We’ll ask where they lead us afterwards.”

  “The Last Trump is the trumpet call used when all the tribes of Israel are gathered. It is the signal to move forward, to charge. But it also means that the battle is engaged.”

  “How does this help us with this?” Louis gestured towards the saucer and the RAF men working around it.

  “Get your men clear and I will show you. At least, I hope to show you.” Lim’s faith was in the instructions he had received. “But we must wait until the other two ‘tribal representatives’ have arrived, Newton and Carnegie. So let us first have something to eat in your cafeteria.”

  Louis conducted them to the cafeteria which was a cut above any normal greasy spoon. Lim was delighted to find that an excellent North Indian curry was available and a delightfully fragrant coconut rice. Louis joined him in ordering curry while Jim settled for an Aberdeen Angus burger and chips. Tracy ate an avocado salad. They drank orange juice freshly squeezed in a juicer that seemed to share its chromium-plated origins with pin ball machines. It had an attractive line in juggling 3 oranges under a Robbie the Robot glass dome for openers.

  As they finished their meal, Newton loped into the hangar with Carnegie trailing behind. Newton was still unsteady and lurched forward a bit like an Ent from Lord of the Rings, The Twin Towers. He certainly made Jim feel not much bigger than a Hobbit. They had coffee while Carnegie and Newton ate and then Lim invited all to join him on the side of the saucer with the characters displayed. They stood at a safe distance and the RAF investigators set up their cameras covering all angles and sides of the saucer and the cylinder and orbs. Lim’s fingers ached from being crossed for so long.

  When everyone was clear of the machine, Lim did something very surprising. He reached to a workbench and picked up a large wrench. Turning swiftly he moved to bring it down on Jim’s head, stopping within and inch of the red curls. In a reflexive action of self-defence, Jim threw out his hand, from which uttered a great silky sheet of purest white, covering his assailant Lim completely and utterly. At the same time he loosed a mighty fart, but a fart which smelled not at all. Carnegie was disgusted that he was the only one who had been ‘skunked’ with a smell beyond suffering. Jim remembered to draw back the silicene sheet into his quivering hand. And that worked fine, first time.

  Nothing happened. After a quarter of an hour, Newton and Carnegie clearly felt that they were enmeshed in a kid’s comic of some kind. Both had important commercial deals to consummate and excused themselves and left. The impression was that they were washing their hands of an irritating pantomime.

  Lim was doubly embarrassed.

  “You nearly brained me,” gasped Jim, “what the heck was that for?”

  But Lim had turned, startled, and was pointing to the saucer. Over his shoulder he said, ”Sorry Jim, but I had to be sure you would use your super Superpower. You generated a fart or what we English call euphemistically, ‘a trump’. The Last Trump. Mercifully for us, a sanitised one.”

  Tracy said, “I hope it was truly his last, the sound is disgusting enough.”

  Jim craned over Lim’s shoulder, “what are we looking at....” his voice tailed away.

  The edge of the saucer, just below the strange characters, was pursing open, forming what looked like lips and then metamorphosed into an “O” shape some ten foot across. The opening widened still further, The saucer began to deform, now resembling one of those insect eating plants, a Venus Fly Trap or a clam shell. The silvery cylinder and the spheres around it began to glow ominously. Louis and his men reached for weapons from under the workbench. Silence prevailed.

  “Well,” said Louis, “You managed to open this particular oyster. Let’s hope there is a pearl inside it. I should call Newton and Carnegie back.”

  “I shouldn’t bother,” said Jim, “we seem to be able to open oysters without mega-brain and mega-bucks. They’ll just want the column inches in the press.”

  “Oyster, I think not, Venus Fly Trap or Triffid more likely. I suggest no one attempts to go inside that opening, for I think it is a portal and I would guess it terminates on Alpha Centauri Bb. Whence Cometh Our anti-Help,” said Lim.

  “Come again?” asked Louis.

  “Psalm 12, verse 1 says, ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help’, but I think we are looking at the Antichrist here, The Needful One. We can expect no help to arrive through this portal.”

  “I hope you a
ren’t going permanently sanctimonious, now,” said Jim

  “You can talk,” grinned Tracy, “you just produced a cloaking as pure and pristine as any angel’s wings! Maybe you are getting in touch with your feminine, more diaphonous side.”

  Jim was reduced to red-faced scowling.

  “And Jim produced just what I hoped for. An unscented version of the last and final trump,” said Lim happily.

  “Look!” Louis called them back to the real world. The aperture in the mother of pearl oyster was glowing faintly and there was a rushing of wind from within.

  “The portal is operating,” cried Lim as the rush of wind grew into a gale that shifted men and materials back.

  And then, the Antichrist, The Needful One, made his first appearance on planet Rowling. He appeared as a man, with all the attributes of a biblical prophet, but was a shapeshifter and had no real form at all. He emerged in the teeth of the gale but his black raiment did not flutter and his long hair was unmoved. He, or more appropriately ‘it’, had not expected to be called forth from the fortress of its silvery portal and was on its guard. This world and others like it were said to be in its dominion, but The Quintessence, who was overlord, was never to be trusted. This was no reflection on The Essence of All Good, but on the sly and fearful anti-Christ. Trust is not an attribute possessed by the Dark Ones and their leader. They live and feed on things more primal. Fear, suspicion and mistrust. Their one hope resides in gaining the upper hand as a universal force and the one route to that salvation lies in enslaving and terrorising all life forms in every universe. Leading an enslaved and obedient populace of sentients back to The Quintessence would be the final triumph. A triumph to which The Quintessence must yield and which would result in The Needful One becoming the heir apparent in place of its brother, the Messaiah Jesus Christ. This narrative fitted the circumstance, but it was likely that every religion had an equivalent legend. At base was the little understood conflict between matter and anti-matter.

  To some at Cardington, it seemed that The Needful One was a benevolent old man, to others it appeared as a foul and eyeless ghoul. It tasted the reactions and by them knew the metal of the men around the hangar. It knew who was greatest in the league of sinners and who was least. And it knew that it was in the presence of creatures equipped to confront and defeat its purpose. Three of them, there, in the middle of the group crouched down as if in proper supplication. The three, mere children, that saw The Needful One as a caricature of the Messiah that it had come to challenge.

  The Needful One had mocked and aped its creator; descending to Rowling in the guise of Man made flesh, a Prophet to please those waiting for their Messiah. A Saviour to those awaiting the second coming and the joys of Armageddon which would unleash their boiling and barely contained bestial bloodlust. It would use such disciples to give the Muggles of Rowling their last battle. Blood and horror would be visited upon the land until, tortured into subservience, none would dare to confront the will of a Son of God. It was a fallen son, but it was Lucifer and Baal, Abbadon and Apollyon, the angel of the bottomless pit. It saw itself bizarrely as a risen Phoenix soaring up from the great lake of fire and brimstone to bring humankind to heel. He could only use persuasion to fulfill the prophesy revealed to Men, but his disciples could do as they wished to achieve the aim. And they had long waited for an ‘authority’ to justify their prejudice and release their murderous rage.

  The saucer was not now an abode for a fallen angel made flesh, not a safe base that it could use. But only because it limited its location and access. Travelling back and forth from the distant star where it had first condensed into a semblance of flesh, was too long-winded as the Space-Time fold had to be rebuilt for every transport. So its first hours on this hapless planet would be spent in seeking portals and acolytes, safe houses and hiding places in dark forests. It shifted into a raging pillar of smoke which dissipated slowly as the shapeshifter slipped away into his new world. It was not fleeing, why should it. In its contract it owned everything and everyone on Rowling World, but it was ready to begin its role of unleashing blood and horror on those who would not become obedient acolytes. When all Rowling world’s people were subjugated, it would return to The Quintessence and show how superior it was compared to that other “son”, the Son of Matter.

  “There is something about looking to the forests that has come into my mind,” said Lim, “and that attunes to my name. ‘Forest’ is the meaning of my family name, ‘Lim’. My forenames mean “Lucky Pine”. But I haven’t a clue what that tells us. I guess we just bear that in mind for the future.” He was not to know of the forests surrounding the post-mortal mansions where the dead lay safely in sarcophagus and mausoleum.

  Everyone stood staring thoughtfully up to the roof of the hangar where the last wisps of the vapour that was The Needful One, slipped easily away.

  Chapter Eleven – Recapitulation and Reckoning

  They sat at an early meal in the Cardington mess and reviewed what had happened.

  “According to Jewish tradition, there are three ‘Trumps’, the first Trump proclaimed that God betrothed Himself to Israel, the last Trump is synonymous with Rosh HaShanah, the New Year commemoration of the creation of the world and the Great Trump is blown on Yom Kippur and will signal the arrival of the Messiah,” explained Lim, “A ‘Trump’ is of course the blast of a trumpet.”

  “Blimey,” said Jim, “you did swallow a bible and a Torah too.”

  “And Rosh HaShanah is not mentioned in the Torah, but in the Mishna,” corrected Lim, not dispelling Jim’s theory about the swallowing of books, but expanding it to include yet another mysterious tome called the Mishna.

  “You still haven’t explained where your sudden wealth of knowledge comes from,” said Jim, “makes a man feel really stupid.”

  “I don’t know where it came from,” said Lim, “but I cannot claim credit for having studied religion much.” He shrugged apologetically.

  “But,” said Tracy, who was very much an atheist, always challenging biblical accounts as BS; “there is conflict over this with Christians and Muslims believing other things, things different from Jews. Though they are perhaps united in the notion of trumpets as signals of attack.” She paused then said, “For Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho, and dee walls cam tumblin’ down!”” This was her way of softening her criticism.

  “You said ‘Dee’ walls,” complained Jim, alert to an opportunity to challenge Tracy’s error of political correctness. He loved her dearly but she was a bit of a full-on feminist, atheist, veggie internationalist.

  “So did Paul Robeson,” replied Tracy. “Well he didn’t say it, he sang about ‘dee’ walls....”

  No one knew if this assertion was correct. Jim later Oogled it and found that Paul Robeson never said ‘Dee’ for ‘the’ and never said ‘Dat’ for ‘that’. Mr Robeson’s one concession to the stereotype of negro speak was to sing ‘nuttin’ for ‘nothing’. Otherwise his diction was clear and faultless. Discovered much too late to correct and reproach La Tracy. But he sent her an email about it anyway. One did not score too often against Tracy. Gaudete in Momento, rejoice in the moment. That’s what Albus might have said.

  Louis enjoined, “But we must acknowledge that Newton advocated prayer, Lim prayed very effectively and Jim’s, er, trumpet, unlocked the saucer. It makes me look at religion in a new light. Perhaps as a universal constant messed up by men’s attempts to record the ineffable and inexplicable. Messed up as they attempted to use it for personal power and to claim an understanding which they do not really possess and could never possess.” Louis was also, though warily, uncoiling the reverence tucked away inside him by reaction to the practicalities of his difficult early life.

  “Well,” said Tracy, “we are where we are. And we do know that our actions have released The Needful One into the world, for good or ill. This last Trump was a piece of mockery directed at The Jewish Messiah when what we did was actually to mimic an important arriv
al by delivering the Anti-Christ to planet Rowling.”

  “I don’t think that was what The Needful One wanted - to be released into the world,” said Lim, “I think Old Ned would have preferred to use the saucer as a base and goodness knows what capabilities that thing has. Apart from being a portal, it may be equipped with weapons of all sorts. Death rays, even.”

  Louis was puzzled. “Weapons I am not worried about. If The Needful One is the anti-Christ then his only weapon is persuasion. He can only persuade the unfaithful to worship him and be returned to God as his disciples, he must use his disciples and not death rays to torture people into submission. He would be out to best any effort by his brother, the gentle Jesus , meek and mild, in that regard. No, the difficulty is that we dare not set foot in the saucer now that it has opened because we might be transported through its portal to some place that is unfriendly in all sorts of ways. What do you think, Lim?”

  “Well, I usually consult Tracy and Jim when I am stumped. Tracy is great at strategy and Jim is fearless but can define limits very well. So what do you guys think? And we should not suppose that this is a battle between The Quintessence and the anti-Christ and limit our analysis in that way. We are in danger of placing everything in the context of an anthropomorphic reliance on biblical stories.”