“Multiple identities,” he murmured, remembering her vague explanation from the night of Maxilla’s meltdown.
“Well, almost.”
“What’s the deal with Maxilla, anyway?”
“I can’t tell you that, Frank. If someone comes to me in confidence, I must respect that.”
“How do you manage to do this without going loopy?”
“Shield of light, Frank.”
He mustered up his corniest Star Trek voice, “Dammit, woman! I’m a bartender, not a superhero!”
She laughed gently. “No, anyone can do it. You don’t have to be some sort of superhero or deity...or even an angel in your case.”
“An angel? Me? What kind of mushrooms did you put in that curry?”
“Isn’t your back in constant pain? Your wings took a beating. You’ve forgotten that you can fly, and now you’ve been cramping up.”
He couldn’t argue with her that his back was indeed always tense, his shoulders in excruciating knots. Then it occurred to him that he had never mentioned his back and neck pain to her—other than the one time. He had always been a skeptic, but impossible theories began to stalk his rational mind. In lieu of his comments, she had actually never denied being some sort of superhero.
Her eyes were kind but firm. “Frank, people are naturally drawn to your light. Even your surname Laska means ‘love’ in Czech. You exude kindness, and people drink it down, but you keep forgetting to replenish the most important person of all—yourself. The very same light that warms those satellites that revolve around you must also be the very thing that protects you. Don’t give it all away. Forge that shield of light. This isn’t some kind of mumbo-jumbo New Age talk. Anyone can do it.”
He was incredulous. “You speak Czech? How in the hell do you know all this shit?”
So she began to tell him.
****
Looking back on their conversation, he wasn’t sure if he trusted his memory. It was all just too weird, all of this eastern stuff about gods and light and nirvana. How could she be a goddess?
He hadn’t been to church—let alone uttered so much as a prayer—in decades. He hadn’t thought about God or any kind of divine presence much, except to engage in battles of rhetoric with the occasional religious freak who came into the bar. Yet, somehow, he suspended his disbelief now to wrap his head around the fact that Kwan Yin, the Asian goddess of compassion and mercy, was corporeal and thriving in the middle of New Orleans.
Some sort of veil in his mind had dropped somehow, and she had revealed herself to him in her true form. He had never before seen a woman so beautiful, and yet he’d felt no physical yearning for her; it would have been like lusting after a rainbow. There was no need to fall prostrate. There were only feelings of peace, tranquility, and comfort he had not experienced since early childhood, back when everything was so simple and pure.
He did not recall her leaving his side at any point in time, yet she had suddenly appeared in white, flowing robes and crowned with an ornate headdress. She had dipped a willow branch into a slender vase of pure water and sprinkled him with the cleansing dew, ridding him of his doubts and fears.
And there was a chant that had thrummed in his head all the while: a simple, stable pentatonic melody. It rocked him; it soothed him like a lullaby... “NA MO KUAN SHI YIN PU SA...” Refuge in She Who Hears the Cries of the World, Bodhisattva...
He couldn’t quite recall if he’d fallen asleep on the couch and dreamt that he’d witnessed all this, or if he’d been lucid. But it didn’t seem to matter. He slid another cigarette from his pack and lit it pensively, studying the artwork on the crumbing brick walls of his favorite watering hole. He was on the other side of a bar for a change, and he needed to think.
The most implausible part of it all was not that she was really a goddess. It was that she’d thought him to be worthy of something. She’d even implied that he was some sort of a divine being, albeit a lesser one. It didn’t make sense. In most of his relationships, namely the one with his ex-wife, he’d been told how worthless he was. Being fed a little kindness now was nearly a shock to his system, not unlike the way food can kill a starving man unless the nutrition is introduced slowly back into his diet. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it had become so alien to him. How had he fallen so far from grace?
He had no doubts by now that she was divine. But how could he possibly be an angel? He drank, smoked, gambled, and had done more than his fair share of hard drugs. And yet he had survived so many things over the years: car crashes, shootings, stabbings, beatings...even an elephant attack. (No matter how well the goddess Mary Cannon—or Kwan Yin, Guanyin, Kannon, Maria Kannon, among other names—had tried to convince him, he still refused to believe her when she told him that it was actually an incarnation of Ganesha trying to get his attention.) Any number of those things could have killed him, and he’d bounced back again and again. He was certainly mortal, but it seemed as though he were meant to stick around for a while. What was his purpose?
Her analogy still rang into his memory. “Self love is not only the only true power, but it’s also the only thing that can make you an effective healer or helper of others. Do you know why on airline flights the flight attendants always instruct you to put on your own mask first before helping others? Even if others might be weak or helpless? Because if you pass out, you’re no good to anyone else. Put on your mask, and you can do anything. Visualize that shield of light. It radiates warmth and strength to all those in need, but protects the most precious thing of all: you. First and foremost, you are your own guardian angel.”
As he sipped pensively at his beer, the jukebox changed selections to play a Megadeth song, “The Scorpion.” He’d heard it a thousand times before, but had never thought to give the lyrics any thought until now. Under a dark cloak of driving bass and drums and heavily chugging guitars, the lyrics were based on a fable attributed to various cultures.
In the folktale, a scorpion asks a frog to carry it across the river, promising that it will not sting the frog, pointing out that if it does, they both drown. The frog agrees, and as they cross the water, the scorpion stings anyway, proclaiming that the frog knew that it was a deadly creature from the get-go.
The lyrical retelling by Dave Mustaine was even more sinister, mutating the scorpion’s urge to sting from instinctual into cold-blooded maliciousness. It was a blatant portrayal of an inability to feel empathy. Of narcissism. True sociopathic thought. He couldn’t help but muse: Why do so many frogs fall into this trap? Is it because it is the scorpion's nature to sting and the Brahman's nature to help? What was the point?
He had never asked to be an angel, if indeed he really was one. He had enough goddamned problems, and didn’t need any more, let alone to take on anyone else’s. But he remembered the goddess’s words. He still had a duty to himself. Noblesse oblige was not the same as making oneself a walking martyr for all eternity. Self-sacrifice was not the reason to experience life on earth. And then it hit him: We are all free to walk away from that scorpion. There will always be scorpions that claim to need to cross that water, but unless we let them figure out how to do it by themselves, we both die.
****
He lost himself in the music, as the jukebox randomly switched to Frank Sinatra crooning “All the Things You Are.” He was still not prepared to deal with Maxilla so soon after wrapping his brain around all of these new thoughts on life.
She slipped into the bar like a wraith, her mouth hungry and her eyes pleading. The few patrons were so mesmerized by the Saints game on the TV that they didn’t see her hurl herself at him. The act was so aggressive, and yet so desperate, she threw him off balance. She clutched at him like a vise, her unfathomable weight dragging him down, and he felt himself begin to fall...and fall...
The bar dissolved as the two of them plunged into a spiraling vortex of darkness.
Darkness, yet not madness. It’s what the mind does to save the soul.
But how does an angel batt
le multiple demons?
He took a deep breath, felt his upper body expand, and felt a slight surge as if he had just launched himself into the air. He flew above the darkness that cried and begged one minute, then accused and lashed out the next. And then it flooded into his memory and he nearly laughed. The answer, of course, lay in not treating them like demons. Namaste. I recognize the divine within you.
He thought, You don’t fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. Likewise, you don’t fight darkness with darkness. You embrace it in your light... It keeps the darkness from invading you, it makes you stronger. Place the oxygen mask on yourself first... He found his source, his shield of light. It shed warmth and lit the path for others, yet cocooned him and protected him like a halo, like a burning bush. A radiant sun that would not melt his wings, no matter how high he flew.
He had no time to finish these thoughts. She was switching again. He silently called out to the goddess for help, and the mantra in his mind switched to match the new circumstances. NA MO KE LI KUAN YIN... He asked her help in opening the closed parts of consciousness.
He could see inside her soul. He couldn’t read her thoughts or experience her memories, but the perceived entropy of her whirling mind gradually began to make sense and fall into a pattern. With the collision of sympathy and empathy, he began to understand. He had been many things in his life; he himself had had many identities: a singer, a fighter, a lover, a gambler, a do-gooder, and a do-badder. But these aspects of himself had always known the complete person that he was.
He began to understand that this young woman was the paragon of what Mary described as multiple identities. He’d read a couple of books in high school about this disorder, and recalled that it was something the mind did to protect the psyche in the wake of horrors too unspeakable to process. Whoever this girl really was and whatever her legal name of her host personality, he had to speak to her memory trace...Eve, yes, that was her name. Eve was the one personality who knew all of her different facets. She was the keeper of all memories, the only part who knew everyone.
His vision began to swirl, and he was given a window into her mind. Maxilla stepped back, and another woman emerged. He saw Eve, in all of her fierce protectiveness. He implored that these parts come forth to receive light, that they meet their host at last, that all could be as one. Eve began to waver and fade.
Now she was a scapegoat. Her name was Mara, and she was no demon. She had come forth to protect her host when mommy and daddy had enslaved her, made her do terrible things. Mara had a divine purpose. She had to be accepted, mainly by Eve, so that she could reintegrate and be whole. She was often blamed for the destructive traits, the anger, and the hatred.
And then she was Sunshine. She was a beautiful little girl, and the last seedling of true innocence that her soul remembered.
There was the lugubrious Dolores, whose sole purpose was to keen and lament so that the host could face the world. There was The Banker, who held down a steady job for the host, greeted people courteously, sorted their money, had no personal life, and never had to worry that the world would persecute her. Endless new faces came and went, and each time he greeted them, told them what they needed to hear, and sent them to find Eve. Each time, he battled the darkness and fear that tried to divide and conquer all the things she was.
The shield of light in his mind sometimes wavered, but he never let go of the concept. No one would ever again drain him of his finances, his spirit, or even his blood without his express consent, and he would never again consent.
Last up was Maxilla. Desperate Maxilla, the girl who just wanted to have fun. Who wanted to drink down life and become intoxicated by absurdity, just like any normal French Quarter resident. She had been created to learn what was and was not socially acceptable. To recognize the life-blood flowing in her own veins. Somehow, if only she could communicate with Eve, she could download her experiences and help to create parameters, and she called out to the memory trace.
The walls and floor became solid again. The clink of glasses gradually permeated his senses. They were still in the bar. With a shudder, Maxilla’s leer disappeared, leaving only a humiliated-looking young woman still gripping his shirt, divested of her dignity. He didn’t know what to do or where to begin. “You’re safe,” he ventured tentatively. She let go as if burned, looking wildly around the room, but he reassured her with a gesture that no one had seen a thing. “I’m Frank,” he whispered.
She met his eyes at last and nodded. She pulled off her wig and shook out her glossy chestnut hair. “I know who you are. I’m Stephanie.”
He glanced at the clock. Time had not even passed, and no one seemed to have noticed what appeared to have been a subtle exchange between the two.
****
“I understand you were quite the hero last night.”
He wasn’t surprised at all to see Mary strolling casually through the door of the pub the next day, though her preternaturally even temperament never ceased to astonish him. “Oh, excuse me...Namaste!” she greeted him cheerfully.
He grinned. “You know, spelled backward that’s ‘E.T.’s a man’.
“Ah, so you have been heeding my counsel, my mortal angel.” She was infinitely understanding and wise, and since he had no other customers to serve, he stepped out from behind the bar and gave her a genuine hug. It was nice to be able to let his guard down for a moment. If he couldn’t be himself in the presence of a goddess, then what was the point of existence?
“You’re a goddess; you were there. You helped me.”
She shook her head. “I heard your struggle, but I didn’t help you. You did it all yourself. You’d have never known what you could do otherwise.”
“So now...”
“So now, you don’t have to stop. And you don’t have to write love out of your own experience. See that woman in the corner that’s always playing music here? I think you should ask her out.”
“Oh? Did she tell you this? I thought you were big on confidentiality.”
“She didn’t tell me a thing. But I hear all sounds, and all emotion behind those sounds. You clearly haven’t been paying attention to her lyrics, or the raw feeling when she sings. She’s different. Not your stereotypical musician. You might be able to trust her.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“Neither does she. That way you’re perfect for each other.”
Was it true? Did this singer really fancy him? His piercing blue eyes penetrated the haze. He could see that she was watching him; a lock of her straight blonde hair tumbled across one dark eye in a subtle game of peek-a-boo. He inclined his head, and she released a shy grin. When he turned back to shoot Mary a look, the goddess was gone.
He stole a furtive glance in the mirror. The overhead bulbs cast harsh pillars of light that flanked him on either side, ceiling to floor, giving him the appearance of having giant wings. The magic-eye trick lasted just for a second, and then the illusion vanished with change in perspective. He sighed, flexed his shoulders, and realized that they no longer hurt.
He shook his head gently. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered to himself, “I’ll be damned.” And with a sweet, long-forgotten sensation, he unexpectedly laughed.
****
October 10th: I think I finally met them all for the first time last night. Eve is finally letting me talk to them all. I don’t like some of them, but I’m trying to forgive them. Dr. Kwan and the others have told me that accepting all of my parts is a big step toward wholeness. Complete integration. It sounds like such a pie-in-the-sky reality that nearly everyone takes for granted, but I have been told for years that it’s possible to achieve it.
I still despise Maxilla, but I have to hand it to her...she was the one who knew to seek out Frank. Only she saw him for what he truly was. If she was smart enough to call upon an angel, then maybe she’s not our enemy. No, not OUR enemy—MY enemy. Maybe I can listen to her cries, let her tell her story, and let her join me on our path to wholen
ess. It’s what Dr. Kwan would want.
Beautiful Secrets of the Sea by Jackie McMahon
Vanquish
A Fur, Fangs, and Fairies Short
Mariana Thorn
*This story contains UK English*
I was alone at last. The slave girl had just left with instructions not to disturb me until morning. The food she delivered would go untouched, as I need not consume it. But the wine, that I would drink. I gazed out the window to the valley below; a warm breeze caressed my face.
The humans on the street were going about their evening business. They lived such simple lives that I almost envied them. They knew I was different. The most obvious distinction was the speed with which my eyes could change color; it mimicked the speed of my mood swings. I was blonde and fair skinned, when most were of darker complexion. Their human instincts told them that I was something other than human, and it frightened them. Despite their fear, or maybe because of it, I did not care to try to conceal my uniqueness.
Those silly mortals thought I was a goddess and had built a palace in which I could reside, and a temple in which they could worship me. This is why I lived among them. They made sacrifices in my name. They provided me with wealth and saw to all my desires. I admit it, I love the attention. In return, I healed them. It was one of my abilities; I healed humans with a single touch. Aside for being able to heal humans, I had started to develop the ability to control the emotions of others.
It was fitting, me a goddess. I was different even among my own kind. Most nonhumans thought I was an abomination. I didn’t follow the rules of a vampire. I didn’t drink the blood of humans to survive; their blood did nothing for me. I consumed the blood of shifters. This made me more enemies than friends. The fae, depending on if they were light or dark, consumed either plants or meat. As a descendant of the light fae, I could consume their potent wine, but substances other than liquid, I could not stomach. I wasn't fae and I wasn't vampire. I was something indefinable.
Rise of the Goddess (****All proceeds from the Rise of the Goddess anthology will go to benefit the Elliott Public Library**** Book 1) Page 19
