An obsession with death at every turn, the entire family was suffering the effects of over-exposure, making life itself a living hell. Roger resented the intrusion of such stark reality. It conflicted with his intentions, to provide his children a healthy, wholesome environment in which to grow and prosper, as ardent about this as his wife. They were equally disturbed by the foundling, haunted by the sight. Perish the thoughts! But they couldn’t… none could. Yes, sweet Nancy. The poor thing had suffered. He knew it had struggled to the point of exhaustion, drowning with its last gasp of air. Had the sadistic someone watched it happen? Did it provide a thrill from the precipice? Did it answer any age old questions or was it murder for the sake of murder, an evil act perpetrated against an innocent victim for the fun of it? What fun? What mortal could so lack any semblance of conscience? Brewing in a cauldron of discontent, Carolyn was in the pantry stirring up the same stew in silence. As parents, they were both alarmed by these implications. Was there no escape from the evils of this world? No place to run… nowhere to hide from heinous acts of violence? Dispirited, they gazed at each other with knowing eyes. No.
The light of day was fading fast as the family gathered for dinner. It was a somber assembly of souls, all aching from within, barely able to eat let alone speak. What they witnessed knocked the wind out of them. Barely breathing, seven tormented mortals passed the salt and pepper, bread and butter, doing so set on automatic. Their minds were otherwise disposed. Highly unlikely that any of them was thinking about anything else, despair in the air was as pervasive as the air itself… omnipresent, like God. Abruptly interrupting the meal, Cindy suggested they say a prayer for the lost little soul in the woods. Bowing their heads they recited the Lord’s Prayer in unison. Deliver us from evil. Please. Amen. No one suspected Bathsheba… even she wasn’t so cruel.
What had begun as a festive excursion in the forest ended with mournful thoughts of a tragic loss. Heartsick, they were likewise sick in the stomach. The girls hardly ate a thing. Even though Roger and Carolyn had intended to spare their children it was too late. The damage was done. They all possessed imaginations capable of conjuring the creature’s final moments of life. They could visualize a morbid end of days for a helpless rabbit taking the plunge against its will, diving in a black hole from above, clawing for something to grasp in the dark depths, fighting for its life. In a death-defying leap of faith they grieved, fighting back remorseful tears for an evil deed witnessed in its aftermath. They’d prayed for its soul and redemption for the perpetrator of a cosmic crime. As it could not escape the darkness of its watery grave, these sad souls couldn’t escape its image. Twilight became night, no light in sight.
“When you reach the end of what you should know,
you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.”
Kahlil Gibran
all’s well that ends well
“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people
feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them.”
Rose F. Kennedy
��
CURSES! Would nothing go right for their family? Of course, the dismal economy was a factor, but Roger had a bunch of kids to feed and sometimes the pickings were slim on the road. Forced to adapt to the new paranormal, they were likewise compelled to adjust to a feast or famine reality. Bouncing back and forth from affluence to indigence provides for a wild ride through childhood, leaving children queasy, feeling insecure, the dis/ease associated with a chronic condition. Their livelihood was contingent upon the next road trip, the next holiday, a quality of life based upon the inconsistent whims of the retailers stocking their shelves; as such, their purse strings were involved, as well. The deep, lingering recession tightened those strings daily and was strangling this family. Roger’s business took a significant hit. He sold luxury items at a time when bare necessities came first and foremost for many in the country. He’d decided to embark on another path, one much closer to home. Truth be told, Roger had grown weary of life on the road. His marriage was in crisis and he didn’t know his kids. While traveling a long, lonely stretch of highway through Vermont, it suddenly occurred to the equally lonely man. It was time to go home, and stay there for a while. He spent the rest of the trip devising a plan of action, sketching out a vision, daring to daydream again.
Possessing many talents, one of them was Roger’s power of persuasion. It bordered on coercive. He convinced his wife it was time to make a change. Roger required Carolyn’s keen eye and discerning taste, her flair for design. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to get reacquainted, to like one another again. His idea was actually fresh and exciting, the strategy, well-conceived. They did their homework together. Diligent research yielded results. The old Stillwater Mill in Harrisville appeared to be a perfect location to start a new business. Close to home. They opened a manufacturing company. The dream manifested magically. Grass Roots, Ltd. was successful from the start and Kandi Kisses, their line of junior sportswear, did exceptionally well. It was a highly lucrative venture and a grossly underinsured disaster. Over two years they’d worked to build the brand, traveling to New York City for the trade shows, hiring a top fashion designer. When the pipes froze then ruptured at the plant, destroying the entire investment, an incredibly promising business vanished within minutes. Damage done was extensive; the loss sustained, immeasurable. Gone too soon: equipment, inventory, trips to trade shows, hopes and dreams gone… washed away. The landscape was altered after the flood; desolate. Their prospects bleak, counting the losses, regrets all around. Roger was despondent. Defeated. No signs of renewal on the horizon save the white flag of surrender. For awhile it seemed he’d given up the ghost.
Once again, their dream had become a nightmare. It took years to recover financially. Meanwhile, Roger did whatever he could to generate income for an insecure unprotected family just trying to get by. They were a prideful lot, struggling along in silence, pretending their plight did not even exist, on a variety of levels. Carolyn opened an antique shop in the barn, on weekends. Digging deep, she began selling off family heirlooms, including her precious bottles, dug with her own bare hands. Treasured possessions, gone too soon. An income was derived but personal losses accrued as each piece planned as a legacy for her children walked out the door. Over time, she purchased other items to include in a collection that ultimately drew many from nearby towns to her country shoppe, an endeavor which literally saved the farm. Forced to sell off half of the acreage just to survive, property original to the estate, they did what they had to do, regretting the decision all the way to the bank.
Roger tried to acquire a permit to operate campgrounds on what remained of the place. Stopped dead in his tracks by the town council, deprived of the opportunity because of short-sighted politicians, he was literally at wit’s end. But there was nothing funny about their situation, nothing pleasant to look forward to anymore. Roger was stressed out, anxiety-ridden and sometimes, exceedingly unpleasant. In truth, so many things went wrong so frequently, in retrospect, it was destined to become the family joke: Bathsheba’s Curse. The Curse of Bathsheba! (A hangnail is reason enough to invoke her name.) It is always best to blame another and better still to blame someone not of this world, thereby avoiding any claim of personal responsibility for one’s mortal mistakes, like the failure to acquire adequate insurance to cover the catastrophic loss of a huge business investment. No hedge against disaster, for potential loss incurred including acts of God. Roger tempted fate instead. Regarding culpability? A blame game got nasty. Consider Cause and Effect. It’s the law of the land. Leave Mother Nature out of it… not her fault.
The biggest dig of all was the only real success story from a decade of life and death on the farm. After the first few hundred feet, everybody assumed it was another costly endeavor gone awry, including the man digging the well. A faulty divining rod no doubt. On pins and needles, week after tedious week, the family trembled with the Earth. Impaling that drill deeper still, not a drop drawn, th
ey feared the worst. Lo and behold! The geyser felt redemptive, as if it washed away the sins of the world with the woes of a family, as clean as the slate on which the future could be written. Nature had mercy on them. A discovery obtained by necessity meant liberation. Where there is water, there is life, even in the presence of death. Gazing into the self-reflecting pool, it remains his greatest regret, sold with the farm for a song, according to Roger, who will never recover from the loss. He’ll never escape the haunting image of what could have been… what might have been happily ever after.
Wipe the slate clean. Start again. Lessons learned. Never give up. Never. Carolyn was the Mother of Invention and Roger, the Father of Re-invention. Compelled by these challenges and circumstances, often of his own making, he had been forced to perpetually re-create himself during the course of that decade. When one well dried up, he would dip hopefully into another. Roger possesses an innate ability to conceptualize. It has caused him to undergo one radical metamorphosis after another, as if he’s been attempting to cram multiple incarnations into one hit and run at this thing called life. He has manifested many a dream and he has known tremendous success and equally spectacular failure along this remarkable journey, traversing numerous paths in pursuit of the prize as he perceives it; total financial freedom: security. He perseveres. This man never quits, a valuable lesson imparted to his children so long ago, absorbed by osmosis or simple observation. It isn’t important how much money a man accrues or what level of success he attains, but how he copes with inevitable disappointment. For what seemed like eternity but was only a decade, Roger kept dipping expectantly into dry, dusty wells then seemed surprised when he repeatedly came up empty. Nothing ever worked out, nothing went right for him. Even if it went right for awhile, in the final analysis, it went wrong. He was angry and frustrated, thwarted at every turn.
This brewing cauldron of discontent occasionally boiled over, scalding anybody in the path of its flow. Roger alienated those who loved him most. A tragedy. In spite of his inborn ability to reinvent himself, he’d failed to define his relationships in context of a multi-interpretational word: success. Had he ushered his own into adulthood feeling as if they were the priority, the apple of daddy’s eye, now that would have been a fine accomplishment, a legacy. If he had been able to express a complicated set of ardent emotions more appropriately, perhaps the marriage he claimed to cherish could have been salvaged, but he was far too wounded. It was long ago and far away, in another space and time. Light years. Let it go. Move on, across the Universe.
***
Why do mortal souls often squander opportunities as if there is an infinite supply? Self-awareness exists primarily for the purpose of self-preservation. As we evolve and mature, we learn to shift the focus from ourselves to those we cherish. There were times when Roger’s children perceived themselves to be the insignificant others in his life, five mouths to feed, a burden instead of a joy. Only when we dare to redefine the concepts of success and failure do we accurately determine what matters in life. Introspection can be a painful ordeal. Revisiting one’s past is a process, not one to be undertaken lightly. It was a hard life at times, feast or famine, affluence to indigence… a wild ride. All’s well that ends well? No. All was lost and nothing was well in the end.
“He has spent all his life in letting down
empty buckets into empty wells;
and he is frittering away his age in trying
to draw them up again.”
Sydney Smith
holy hell
“So I dropped into the luxury of the Lords /
Fighting dragons and crossing swords
With the people against the hordes who came to conquer . . . so amazed I’m here today
Seeing things so clear this way . . .
Stumbled through the door and into the chamber /
There’s a lady setting flowers on a table covered lace
And a cleaner in the distance finds
a cobweb on a face. And a feeling deep inside of me
tells me this can’t be the place.”
Graham Nash “Cathedral”
There are those who live their entire lives in terror of temptation, in dread of God’s wrath or condemnation; a shame to waste precious time on guilt or sin or fear: the unholy trinity. Recovering Catholics who were, on some level still drawn to the old familiar dogma, an aroma of incense, the stained glass, those glorious rituals of church, the Perron clan occasionally attended Mass, usually only at Christmas and as innocuously as possible. It already occurred to several of them that hell was an invention of the church, as a balancing act for Heaven, fostering mass hysteria, by design. Being Roman Catholic meant straddling a fine line between darkness and light, tight rope walking… no net.
***
Some would describe what the Perron family endured as “Hell on Earth”, which is far from accurate, when juxtaposed against the numerous heavenly aspects of life on the farm. It was not all doom and gloom. Truth be told, this was a wild ride, a grand adventure; a journey which encompassed the natural wonders of a colonial estate in New England, coupled with an incredible trek through time and space. When the two aspects merged as one, intermingling as it were, it was magic. Not black magic, not just spells, chants and demons.
Instead, it was spellbinding: an enchanting, pastoral wonderland. Seven mortals were enormously enriched by their place in the country. Not one of them, including Carolyn, has ever regretted being drawn into that experience, presuming it was with purpose and reason and not some random throw of the cosmic dice. It remains her best philosophical argument for the existence of God and fate. None of their family ever felt like accidental tourists. Quite the contrary, it felt as if they belonged there from the inception, before they even owned their estate, perceiving it to be Heaven on Earth so to claim otherwise would be a distortion of the truth. Many joyful memories were made at the farm. Its gifts to those who dwelled within its walls were immeasurable as an ever-emerging Light source from the depths of its Darkness… each requiring the other for either to be seen. As human beings tend to list and then label, to classify and categorize everything, that includes conclusions drawn based on those final outcomes. Presuming the existence of good and evil, not as polar opposites, rather, two pieces of fabric woven together into the same tapestry, perspectives are altered. Expansive concepts which were once thought to be mutually exclusive, like heaven and hell, develop and evolve. Perhaps good and evil function as partners; they require each other to exist and one cannot exist without the other, as each is identified only by the absence of the other. Perhaps they exist because we say they do as the concepts of time and space. What if everything is one thing and this one thing is God. Imagine that.
As for value judgments made, assumptions drawn are inappropriate to the essential nature of things which embraces all variations on a theme. Does the concept give all males permission to take what they want, as tacit approval to brutalize women and children and animals because it is their nature to do so? Of course not. Absurdity. Mortals strive ever toward what we deem to be the ideal of “civilized” behavior. Is it morally and ethically justifiable to kill half a million people to potentially preserve the lives of millions more? A bombs away judgment call made to end another world war waged. Humanity still grapples with difficult, complex questions, literally day by day, as moral dilemmas. Knowing the right thing to do preoccupies our minds because we are thinking, feeling beings. It is why we celebrate life at weddings or mourn the dead at funerals, rituals we have invented by necessity as outlets for deep emotional expression. We establish laws, rules of engagement and marriage, (otherwise known as mortal combat). Humanity has decided how humanity should behave, writing laws meant to keep us safe and sound, golden rules to protect us from ourselves and institute healthy boundaries for others. With awareness comes an implicit understanding. First do no harm. It’s imperative we remain cognizant of our holy role model; set a good example. Blessed be the peacemakers. It is said the meek
shall inherit the Earth but what will be left to inherit if those who fail to discern their proper role manage to poison it or, God forbid, blow it to hell? Perish the thought. Prohibit the act by law.
The holy church, the presumed moral authority has developed an equally extensive list of rules and regulations, (one list even comes numbered!) all of which pertain to whatever it or they consider acceptable and unacceptable to society at large. These tenets are usually set forth then expounded upon by a group of people claiming to know God’s word and will, proudly proclaiming divine knowledge endowed by the One: Creator. However, if even one of us possesses such knowledge, would it not follow logically that we all possess that same God-consciousness? Couldn’t we all naturally attain this identical omniscient status? Don’t we possess an innate ability to answer any question posed, as a matter of birthright? If we are children of God, don’t we share the same DNA? Aren’t we all part of the same whole, sharing cosmic connection as a Godly concoction? Science says we crawled out of the same primordial soup, but are we the chef, the recipe or the ingredients? Isn’t science another manifestation of Infinite Mind? Perhaps we are all born metaphysicians and the one who made us in its own image says: “Metaphysician, heal thyself!”
House of Darkness House of Light Page 24
