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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wild Gazebo" data-source="post: 3054361" data-attributes="member: 24413">Of Eloquence and Understanding:  To Witby Wild Gazebo"Look mommy!  The balloons are flying to heaven!"    That was my first clue.  It was a crisp fall day--just after mass.  The light bathing St. Anthony's was a solid white awash a blue sky--as only the withering nimbus of autumn can provide.  One by one, the rubbery red squeaks of balloon across young clutchingfingers echoed through the courtyard.  The ruby globes thrust upward, as if through some dire need, shunning an eternity of gravitational status quo.<a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25783" target="_blank">Image 1</a>     The wind you say?  No.  Not a stray strand of hair marred the bangs of a single witness.  Helium?  Sure.  But the urgency expressed by these bulbous menagery not only trifled the physics of rising gasses but scorned the ground with such an acceleration that three blinks took them from plain sight.  More was at play here.    Amidst the throngs of milling and gawking people I went about my work.  After just finishing the winterization of the shrubberies along the back of the apse, I was scanning the grounds for any transient pieces of waste.  Garbage pick and bag in hand, I scoured the lawn.  A bit more diligently than I usually do.  In fact, I diligently examined the lawn until well past the turn of the shadows, well past the last dawdler mozied off, and well past Father Tacit dimmed the lights and shuttered the windows.    "Don't forget to go home and eat now, Bunt."    "I won't Father."        "I don't want you wasting away.  Your mother would serve my head to Pilot!"  Laughing at his glibness Father Tacit strolled down the back walk toward his board.    "Good-night father.  And don't worry.  I don't think he is still alive anymore.  And, and, I don't think Mother knows him...unless he plays bridge on Saturdays."  Father Tacit didn't turn:  he waved with the back of his hand as he continued his short stroll toward his small home.    Over at the courtyard, the jagged pavement wove images of zig-zagging crosses that blurred attentive vision--if studied for long.  The ordinary darkness that descended upon the church-yard cloaked the mystery of the late morning leaving my solitary silhouette as an unwept exclamation point.  But my public punctuation shifted.     All of the hairs from the base of my wrist to the top of my arms began to rise.  That coke-fizz sensation in my inards turned as if I were  tumbling down Old Reed's hill end-over-end.  The rest of my body hair took notice and began to lift from the rut below my shins to the nape of my neck...my hair was trying to tell me something--its verticallity alluding to a presence that commonly avoids the traffic of a well loved church.  That was my second clue.    The fall evening snapped cold.  The warmth of crackling leaves and woolen weaves now rested within the homes of the after-supper domestic.  The breeze, dormant before, took up a desperate furry--fighting the warm glow of the cherry embers resting in the bottom of every well kept hearth.  The industry of the day, measured out in hours of perspiration and toil, blew across the deserted courtyard and up into the darkness beyond the confines of the consecrated grounds.      I scurried to recapture my efforts.  Grasping at the departing flyers, branches, and  wept leaves, I lapped the grounds like a crazed cat eager to chase down the expended hours.  As if the bramble and detritus were nothing but rushing rapids, my efforts were futile.  But that didn't stop me.  For my determination far outweighed this mystery's endurance.     Finally, after more than five layers of sweat had rolled down my neck and dried taunt on my dewy skin, the trifling spirits grew tired and stopped dead.  The murky silence roared through my red chapped ears.  The dusty grit tingled in the corners of my tear stricken eyes.  While my thin morning clothes shivered in the depths of the thick night.  And I felt alone:  like I've never felt alone before.    "Now I have to clean all of this up again.  All over Mrs. Birch's new trellis and all across Mr. Browns freshly trimmed hedges.  Now there is twice as much work--our clippings probably went as far as the Smith's hobby farm."  My voice shattering the scenery like a concussive blast:  errant and barren.    A new figure sifted through the shadows.  Walking like a folding shadow coming from the depths of what should have been a nine-foot iron-wrought fence, the figure drifted directly toward me.  With only the dim light of the street lamp down the lane the personage consisted of only silhouette and flutter.    "Good evening Bunt.  A pleasant night for a little humble work, isn't it?"  The voice betrayed neither male nor female familiarity.  "A little quiet tonight...good for collecting thoughts, isn't it?"    "Well, I do like to get my job done so I can go home before Mother worries."    "Of course, you are a excellent son," the shadow leaned forward.  "But where is your Mother now?"    "Oh, most likely watching the T.V. with her red wool and her knitting things--she likes to make sweaters for the babies.  All of the ladies at church say 'she has so much patience and understanding--poor old thing' and 'she gives her whole life' and such."    "Yes, your mother is a saintly woman--always giving."  The dark strangers voice took  on a lilt of amusement.  "But what of you:  do you give?  Haven't you ever wanted more than just doing what your mother and Father Tacit tell you to do?"    "Well.  I always kinda wished that the church's garden wasn't so boring.  What with the straight hedges, and trimmed grass, and straight rows of flowers...it just seems so ordinary."    "Oh, well.  If you ask for it in the right way and to the right person your dreams could be a reality."    "That would be nice."  Hunching over I swept up a stray leaf with my hands that had wandered back onto the courtyard.  "Have a nice evening."    The figure didn't move.  It stood still--making me very uncomfortable.  I could feel its eyes studying me with what wasn't quite understanding.  His posture felt more like a command, in the way Mother would expect me to leave my video games for supper when I was a child.  "Did you want me to ask you?"    The shadow settled into a reasonable shape.  "Of course I'll help you Bunt.  We must not all be slaves to the whims of our oppressors."    "O.K."    The figure leaned forward slightly, again.    "Um, could you help me?"    "I'm afraid I don't have that kind of time," snipped the stranger.  "I have other thing to attend to--good evening."  With that, the figure shifted and headed back from which he came:  melding with the shadows just past the western gate.    "He certainly was a nice fellow, er lady."  Again, my words shattering a cold silence.  "Funny, my voice didn't do that when that other person was here."  Shrugging I wandered out on to the lawn--hoping to find any wind swept debris that I could pick-up before tomorrow morning.    The leaves of grass on the northwest lawn began to turn.  Whipping into a spiral pattern on the ground, the lawn began to emit erie blue globes of light spinning around the outer edge of the shifting grass.  The silence parted like an opened music box lullabying the night into a dreamy pastoral scene.  A rose light bathed a sporadically overcast blue sky blurring the edges of my reason with cherry trees and serene mucronate mountains.  I was standing in the middle of a new place--far beyond the rigorous work of the churchyard.  That was my third clue.<a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25783" target="_blank">Image 2</a>     The ground was bereft of waste.  The cherry blossoms that languidly drifted off the trees simply disappeared as they touched the ground.  A majestic pastoral gazebo lay dormant waiting patiently for any creature to happen upon it so it may feed upon their worries and daily concerns.  The lush thick lawn extended toward the horizon in every direction scorning the trials of other lawns such as weeds, grazing cattle, and rambunctious children with their grabby little hands and their marring rough-housing.      It felt good.  I didn't feel it appropriate to speak.  "So, I probably shouldn't."  The sound of my voice was muffled and distant like it could only be heard in the back of my head.  An uneasiness overcame me as I realized I didn't know the way back to Mother's or where any of my tools were.  Looking across the expanse of scenery, I didn't see any edge save for the ringing mountains and the elaborate baulistrade--that seemed so out of place upon a lawn--dividing the forever in half.    A dry, wet, coppery tingling grappled the roof of my mouth.  My throat constricted as I felt dry tears welling beneath my cheeks and brows.  I was alone.  I had nothing to do or fix.  I had no place.  My self was dwindling and separating--stretching toward my new limitless horizon.  I balled my fists into puffy white clubs and struck out at the garden's only building.  I smashed at the smooth white marble with unhindered passion.  Feeling nothing but numbness creep up my arm I regrouped my tenacity and continued on with the determination of a glaciers decent.      The slick floor did not deter me.  As time went on I had to step closer to land my blows.  Sounding like wet towels whipped over hot dry rocks, my mind created a symphony of monotonous percussion--singing me home.  I was happy to be busy.    As the cloud of exhaustion dripped over my weary eyes my blue sky turned to dark dampness.  A very familiar smell of people, lemon oil, and sensor smoke interrupted my cherry blossom and copper reality.  I slumped to the floor, devout to duty, hitting not gentle grass but rough carpet draped over stone.  My penitents to consumption found me at the foot of the Madonna--prostrated before her upturned face.    Mary began to weep.  Her warm wooden likeness painted in a reverse trompe l'oeil fooling the eye with its simple layered paint.  In a verso pieta, her tears turned to thick globs of blood streaming from her every sculpted orafice thumbing its nose at any form of consistent reality displayed through the history of the church.  Mother Mary's loss of blood called upon the death throes of a tortured spirit yearning to be free or a mother freeing her child--both stretching an eternity.  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25784" target="_blank">Image 3</a>     That was my fourth clue.</blockquote>

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