A rainbow had come up with the sun, as if serving as a metaphysical bridge between Earth and Heaven. It tormented Cheri to not know what Dawn had done to herself or what had become of her. For all she knew, her precocious kitten had gotten lost on the dark side of the moon and was crying for help. Cheri tells herself that her Cherokee ladylove would be okay, that she was going to a better place, and would soon be floating on the clouds like delicate flower pedals. This was what she told herself, but believing it was an entirely different challenge altogether.
Dawn had been subjected to so much trauma, that it was only inevitable that she would crack. As Cheri wept for her lost lover, sitting on the bed in their small but sensational apartment, she heard a voice that came out of nowhere…a voice that she didn’t recognize.
“You were once dead,” it told her. “Ephesians 2:1.” That was it. That was all the voice had to offer. A voice that she couldn’t identify, but evidently felt the urge to reach out to her and console her with an incredibly vague message. Was this supposed to comfort her or terrify her? She’d never know.
A funeral was held for Dawn at the Parisian river where she was last seen, and Cheri was the sole attendant and celebrant. Because her body was never found, Cheri placed a single rock in the vacant coffin as a substitute for Dawn’s absent corpse. The secondary function of the rock was intended to fix the Double. She believed, as many did, in autoscopy, which was the perception that the double (or werewolf) was a spitting image but a separate entity.
Cheri was worried because legend had it that if a werewolf died without curing or ridding itself first, that they would be doomed to endlessly wander between the world of the living and the realm of the dead for as long as their body failed to receive a proper ritual burial. Had Dawn’s body been found, Cheri would have smudged it with sage and holy water to bring peace to her soul by casting out and separating the werewolf. Because Dawn had disappeared without a trace, this was not a possible option, and it terrified Cheri to think that it might rob her of her rightful place in eternity.
Was their relationship all for nothing? Had the connection they built gone down the drain? Little did Cheri know that when Dawn died, she found herself outside of her body and in front of a projected beam of bright light. As Dawn began to walk towards the welcoming light, it was suddenly contaminated with a black mist, as if both eternities were vying for her immortal soul.
As Cheri fretted over Dawn’s mortality, it subsequently brought to attention her own fate. She knew that being half succubus wasn’t going to make good marks with the heavenly Father. She not only feared the prospect of Hell, but it terrified her to envision her afterlife without Dawn. She saw Dawn for the heart she had, not what she had done, and with that in mind, she knew that Heaven wouldn’t be Heaven without her. Cheri, at that moment, prayed to God and renounced any lingering connection that she may have had to the dark side, knowingly or unknowingly. As Cheri did this, a hidden force sadistically attacks the repentant Cambion, blinding her like a bat. For too long, she couldn’t see what really mattered, and now it looked like she'd never see what was to come.
Cheri sipped on a glass of traditional French wine, which was dry, light, crisp, and had notes of summer berries and grapefruit. She thought back to the days of crying over her mother that she never knew and the slew of foster homes she had become so familiar with. No pyramid scheme could ever fill the holes in her heart, which had been widening and expanding since childhood. Dawn had fulfilled her, and was better than she could have ever asked for, but Dawn had become a blight on her own dismal existence. Dawn’s heart was too big for this world, and this world had been no match for her wrath. Cheri continued to drink down the red wine, now gulping it like there was no tomorrow, as if daring the universe to try and intervene.
“What do you got next for me, God?” she asked rhetorically, knowing that whatever it was, it would be bad. “It’s alright, Cheri. At least it can’t get any worse,” she said, talking to herself. “Oh, yes it can…and it will.”
DECEMBER 8, 1983
MOOT MOON
It had been three years to the day since Dawn drowned herself in the Seine River. It was a cold and miserable afternoon, so Cheri had chosen to remain indoors. She hadn’t dated since Dawn’s tragic passing, as she had sworn off love altogether. She just had nothing left to offer, and even if she did, she knew she could never replace Dawn, nor would she want to. She spent most of her days in cataleptic sleep, unaware that Wolf was there snuggling with her. When she wasn’t languid or rigid, she spent her time weeping and drinking. She would never get used to being blind, but she did learn to live with it. She worried about Dawn’s eternity, wishing that she could be a proxy and intercede for her Indian sweetheart, but considering that Cheri was bred for Hell herself…standing in for Dawn was sadly nothing more than a pipe dream. She ached for her late lover, as her devotion and commitment to Dawn were perennial.
Cheri had the radio on, as she unknowingly laid in bed with Wolf, not able to handle the sounds of silence anymore. Pat Benatar’s hit single, Shadows of the Night, came on the FM station. Halfway through the song, the music turned to white noise. Cheri didn’t feel like getting up, but the noise was annoying, so she made herself get out of bed. As she moved to adjust the dial, she heard something that knocked her off her feet and spooked both herself and the wandering spirit of her inherited companion.
“Cheri?” the faded but familiar voice called over the air. “Cheri?”
Wolf’s endearing spirit immediately perked his head up and began whimpering, while staring intently at the radio that sat atop of her dresser. Cheri quickly put her ear to the built-in speakers, so as not to miss anything, while tears rushed and streamed down her face.
“Dawn?” Cheri asked, suddenly endowed with hope. “Is that you, baby?”
“I’m sorry,” the voice answered back, still and soft.
The voice sounded distant, and was a bit difficult to hear as clearly as she would have liked, but Cheri knew it was her and so did Wolf. Chills ran up Cheri’s spine and her skin became overwhelmed with goosebumps. Her body began to shake violently, beyond her control. She waited eagerly to hear Dawn’s voice again, but nothing further was coming through the speakers.
“Dawn?!” she shouted in desperation. “Are you there? Dawn?!”
In her manic distress, Cheri picked up the radio and shook it so hard that she lost her balance and fell on the floor again, still holding the radio in her trembling hands.
“I’m sorry,” the still voice said again, amidst the white noise. Cheri noticed, at that moment, that the cord had been pulled out of the electrical socket. Her radio had no batteries inside it, so the wall had been its only source of power. Yet, the radio was still on and Dawn was still there.
“Dawn?!” Cheri called out again. “Are you okay? Baby?! I miss you,” she said, hysterically sobbing. “I’m here. I love you, Dawn!”
It doesn’t even occur to Cheri to tell Dawn what happened to her eyesight, as Dawn’s safety is literally all she cares about. Wolf let out a short howl to let Dawn know how sad he was without her. Cheri heard him, which spooked her even more, since she couldn’t see him. Wolf had a chance to walk into the beam of light when he died, but he couldn’t bear to leave Dawn or Cheri. Now that Dawn had passed away too, he was dying for that bright light to come back for him. There were several minutes of dead air, within the white noise, before the fading voice finally replied.
“I love you both more than you’ll ever know,” the familiar voice answered, referring to Cheri and Wolf. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The white noise and the gentle voice both went away as quickly as they came, returning the radio to the station’s broadcast, which was now playing the song, Burnin’ For You, by Blue Oyster Cult. Was Dawn in Hell? Was she in limbo? It began to rain outside, not just a drizzle, but a storm. Cheri then felt something on the center of her forehead that was new and different. She reached up with her left hand and discovered that she
had miraculously developed a third eye. She turned and discovered yet another wonder, seeing Wolf sitting on her bed.
“I can see you,” she told him, as she cried profusely for Dawn. “Wolf…I can see you!” Cheri’s vision had suddenly returned, but only in black and white. She had gone from being entirely blind to completely color-blind, but could now see spirits.
Cheri sat on the bed, next to Wolf, feeling him affectionately lick her nose, as she hugged and held his phantom close, while she wept for Dawn. The radio remained unplugged and Cheri would stay broken. She considered committing arson and sticking her head in the fire, to try and see Hell, so she could look for her lost love and make sure she wasn’t there. She knew, however, that this wouldn’t work and that she was in her own Hell now. Cheri’s face began to twitch and convulse, as she blinked hard, ground her teeth, clenched her fists, shifted her jaw, and picked at her face. These ticks were all symptomatic of her becoming a basket case over fretting about her deeply missed and dearly departed lover.
The euphoria of regaining her eyesight was fleeting, as her increasing and growing worry for Dawn immensely overshadowed the relief of having her vision returned. The dead people around her, as well as those in Cheri’s own head, became overwhelming, so she bought a Sony Walkman from the local record store and used the earphones to drown out the many voices.
Cheri and Wolf revisited Dawn’s grave one more time to erect a large cross, which she lifted from Schoppner's War Cemetery (where she had to kill the nosy, Bavarian groundskeeper). She referred to the stolen, symbolic artifact as the Wolf Stone, in uxorious memory of her departed unhinged lover. Cheri played the Jim Croce song, I’ll Have To Say, in her head, as she fondly remembered her dear Dawn.
As the years passed, residents, travelers, and passers by, were very suspicious about this stone cross and seldom visited this particular locality for that very reason. Cheri looked up and saw an obscure creature perching on Dawn’s idiosyncratic tombstone. She immediately recognized it as, Horus, a falcon-headed demon who had the sun and moon as his eyes. She had heard tales about how he piloted a crescent-shaped boat, which he named the Left Eye of Aluzza, that apparently took damned souls over a vast sea, into the sun, to burn for all eternity.
“Fuck you!” she threatened the chilling monster of the macabre, while Wolf’s ghost snarled and growled at the bird-like reaper. “Neither you or your creepy sister, Circe, are going to weave our destiny or spin our fate. Fuck, no!! Be gone, demon! Leave me and my Dawn alone!”
As Cheri left the gravesite for the last time, she listened to her Ozzy Osbourne mixtape on her portable player. The song, Mr. Crowley, played loudly through her wired earphones. As Cheri walked toward her new Harley-Davidson motorcycle, she mutated into a 20-year-old version of herself and then split into two different people. There were suddenly two separate, identical women walking one behind the other. The only noticeable difference was that the new Cheri wasn’t wearing a headset, nor had a Walkman clipped to her belt. The clone could, however, see, feel, taste, smell, think, and hear everything that Cheri could. They were like psychic twins, except they were made from the same flesh rather than the same womb.
They straddled the motorcycle, with the duplicate sitting behind the original, shoving her hands down the front of Cheri’s pants and holding onto her crotch instead of tightly hugging her waist from behind. The customized cassette began playing Ozzy’s new song, Bark at the Moon. Though Cheri would forever feel alone without her Dawn, she now at least had an outlet where she could pleasure herself and meet her carnal needs. Looking as if they were a full decade younger, the interchangeable duo rides off into the sunset, with the wind in their pink hair and their dreams six feet under.
Dawn was gone, but she would never be forgotten. Cheri might never know the answer to where Dawn ended up, but knew that her 21-year-old Cherokee would always be with her. She just hoped that Dawn was at peace and able to be reconnected with her chosen family. This cold world had taken Dawn from her loving arms, but nobody would ever remove Dawn from her heart. Death could never diminish their love, but only cause it to burn brighter. Dawn had spent her final years a killer, and yet, was a far better person than most. Cheri would never get over her loss, but the fact that she had known Dawn at all made her a winner...and a lucky one at that. None of us ever truly die, and Dawn was certainly no exception.
AUGUST 30, 1968
Linda was speaking on the pulpit, passionately preaching against the evils of censorship at a political rally in Columbia, MD. They were about 30 miles from home, at the Merriweather Post Pavilion, where The Doors were scheduled to play later that evening. This controversial protest was sponsored by Playboy Magazine, who were physically represented to support Linda’s appreciated contribution. The song, Hungry, by Paul Revere & The Raiders, had kicked off the unorthodox sermon.
“Men like Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione are pioneers, not perverts!” she yelled out at the crowd below her, who cheered and applauded her liberal stance. “What has repression ever done for this country? Nothing but death and destruction! When are we ever going to learn from our own history?!”
Reverend Moon was far away, leading a missions trip in Haiti, trying his best to convert those who embrace Voodoo and Santeria. Dawn’s nose was red from using Kleenex to tend to her 9-year-old sniffles. Her father was often absent from her life, but somehow the sting of goodbye never got any easier to bear. Even though he always gave her an inappropriate hug before he left, she still trusted that he loved her while he took every opportunity to feel her up and grab her butt. She was a perceptive little girl in some ways, while naïve and gullible in others.
Though she was with her mother that day, you’d never know it. Linda was an absentee parent too, in her own right. Beck Runnel was there, as usual, to keep Dawn company and serve as her diligent guardian. Nobody else could see him, but that didn’t stop her from knowing he was real. He appeared to be in his thirties. His face was faintly pale, with a bluish tint. He had wavy, blue hair that ended just past his shoulders and eyes like the ocean. He was a tall, mysterious man draped in a trench coat and top hat. She felt protected by him, which kept her from panicking in her isolation. She knew Linda ignored her, but she had to believe that she was wanted in spite of the neglect and disinterest. Dawn had been left to entertain herself, among the crowd of enthusiasts and activists that had gathered for this public spectacle.
“Fuck,” she said quietly to herself, noticing that her frosty treat had gotten on her favorite shirt.
Dawn had been enjoying a waffle cone, containing a double-scoop of her two favorite flavors of Breyers ice cream: Black Cherry and Black Raspberry.
“Now, Dawn,” Beck said, as he knelt down to meet her at her level, “is that any way for your Daddy’s little Analodi to talk?”
“I guess not,” the distraught Dawn said softly, as she slowly shook her head and looked down at the sticky mess on her blouse. “I ruined it,” she said, beginning to cry over the spilt ice cream.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Beck insisted, attempting to console her before she had made an emotional scene. “Dawn, it’s okay. You’re in good hands,” he told her, while he pressed his hands against her undeveloped chest.
Dawn felt wetness produce from his palms. The water was cool and pure, as if coming from a brook in Heaven. The water was also controlled, as it only soaked the part of her shirt that needed attention. When Beck removed his hands, the ice cream stain was gone, like it had never been there.
"1 Corinthians 13:13 says, the greatest of these is love,” Beck told her. “In this verse, God is telling us that love is a gift that he blesses us with indiscriminately and abundantly. Yet, love…true and unconditional…often only comes to those who only love themselves." he tells her, as if reading her very soul without knowing the first thing about her. “Either that, or God gets off on allowing the tenderhearted to experience love for a brief moment, just before snatching it away or revealing it to be a lie.”
�
�Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that the heart is deceitful and who can know it, but it’s the other way around,” Dawn educated him, refusing to let Beck kick her while she was down. “It’s the heartless who are deceitful, while the rest of us know our hearts very well.”
Beck, who was actually a nefarious phantom that manifested from a cloud of darkness, began to sidle in a strange sideways motion. Once he saw that Dawn wasn’t afraid of him and no longer afraid to be left alone, he turned and walked away until his body became a puff of black smoke.
“Pornography isn’t exploitation of women, but rather celebration of women! Showing our bodies isn’t degrading, but liberating!” Linda shouted in front of her microphone, setting a great example for her young and impressionable daughter.
Linda had forgotten that Dawn had even tagged along, showing full devotion to reaching total strangers and little to no concern for Dawn. She liked their daughter, but she didn't want to be tied down with responsibility. She had her own life to live, and though she cared for Dawn, having a child was often a burden and felt like baggage. Mingan would disappear for an undetermined length of time, using the ministry as his excuse. Linda was there more than he was, though her mind and so-called heart were often somewhere else. Both claimed to adore their daughter and regularly made promises they had no plans on keeping. Dawn wanted to feel like her parents wanted to be around her, but the older she got, the more she accepted that this wish would never be granted. Dawn had come to know the vices and indulgences of her parents, especially behind closed doors and thin walls. She knew, deep at her core, that she was more of an obligation than anything else. In spite all this, Dawn still loved her parents, so she played along, consistently saying and doing what they wanted.
Beck saw that she had finished devouring her waffle cone, and that her head was clearly somewhere else. Though he had vanished, he hadn’t disappeared. He spoke to her once again.
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