Chapter Two

Communion


That night they spoke in depth of how the world worked, the ridiculous need for the affiliation to protect the order of the world. The wonderment of how the power of Gilead had seeped through the world and of how it was something that just didn’t sit right with them. They discussed how if they were able to form these thoughts, surely they were not the only ones with them. And if understanding these things couldn’t people decide for themselves what the best course of action may be. His head swam with the words, he became intoxicated because here lain before was the coalescence of the thoughts he had himself. She displayed openness and willingness to discuss these things that up until now she didn’t know existed inside her. She was as awestruck as him in how the thoughts formed and the words came out. They indeed were on the same silken strand of tapestry woven over the world. How two such as them would find one another in this vast world amazed her but not him because he knew it would always be like this. Even when he didn’t know how he knew or what to do, he knew that somehow this moment would come and recognition would spark and worlds would spin about. Here was his fate and his future and his life. Splayed open like a cadaver in a morgue, gross and fascinating and full of things.

The night passed quickly as it does often when one is preoccupied with discussion. They both could see the faint glows of the day come reaching forth in the inky blackness that on one side had started to turn a slightly ashen gray. They were here among the frogs and dragonflies sharing and sharing and neither wanted this magical spell to end. They both felt sadness when a robin, perhaps, the very one who heard these things before at a certain chamber window, began to echo its morning cry and begin its search for breakfast. But were these the only ears that heard. Perhaps there was something else listening and waiting and watching, who maybe had woven part of the tapestry that these two found binding them, maybe not, but there are eyes and ears that see and hear from great distances and direct things that need directing. Later.
They each retreated to their own homes with the promise of meeting again at the Farson Inn Tea Room, a place where guests were afforded individual cubby holes to sit and talk and drink tea or wine if the time of day was right. Here they would begin in earnest the discussion that they really needed to have. They needed to make sense of it all and how to do that. They were like two children who had discovered that if you tied two cans together with string you could actually talk through them. They just didn’t know how to get the string into the can or how to get the right tension on the string so that it vibrated when you spoke. They were in essence learning. And each had to teach the other. They didn’t even have an outline of what it was that they wanted to learn nor any way to know if they were going about it correctly but they knew that together they were more than the sum of the two parts. They gelled and formed and became one in thought and in need. That afternoon at the Tea Room they began the process of punching holes in their cans and starting to feed the string in. It would require many more such discussions and many more pieces of string before they found the right combination to make it all work. But only done once begun. So they began.


Vibration

Trains rolling along a track don’t know where they are going. They could not even move forward or back without the track to guide them. But once started down the path they are the devil to stop. If you know where the tracks are you can mostly avoid being hit by the train. The people who laid the tracks know where they are and where they are going. Sometimes though the tracks have lain for so long that people forget and the people who laid them move on with the world. There used to be something but its not there in clarity, like a dream that you can catch a slight vision of but you can’t remember it all. You know it might be dangerous but you can’t be sure. You are sure however that if it was of any true consequence you would know. This assuredness usually overcomes you just before the train rounds the bend and catches you and crushes you and moves on without even noticing you were there in the first place. The train of John Farson was gearing up and fueling up and starting to take on passengers, one by one, but be sure that soon it will roll out of its (cradle) station and those that do not get on board will be crushed under its great wheels because this train has tracks that will soon run all the way to end-world itself. All aboard. All aboard. Get on the train because it’s almost time to leave.

Copyright Steven Poe 2008