Good and Evil?

I was, again, trying to keep a veneer of order in my mind, it is a waste of time, you know.

As soon as I get some resemblance of tidiness in my Archive, there comes Elf with an "urgent" need for something and everything is back to a huge mess on the floor of my mind.

But I keep trying, and getting the same answer when I remonstrate with the impish goblin, to wit:

-Sorry, I am busy with more important matters, so I cannot lose time in these petty things.

And here I am, sorting adjectives, nouns, verbs, the whole mambo-jumbo, and placing them in their correct location to wait for the next foraging from Elf.

I was finding some difficulty to correctly label some adverbs that look like adjective and vice-verse when I heard a loud cough from behind the file-holder furniture I was trying to organize.

I just ignore it, but to ignore Elf is as you try to ignore a thorn in your eye!

There was another loud cough and the file-holder trembled as if there were an earthquake, which was impossible, in my mind.

Elf

A second later a spiky ear showed from behind the furniture and a muffled voice said:

-Oh! I didn't realize you were here.

-Stop pretending, -I said irked, -you saw me trying to keep a kind of order here, but never offer to give a hand, your only concern is to ruin and spoil all my work, and it seems you enjoy doing it, I should add!

-Oh! I do, do I? -the sprite was dancing on his toes as if he were commanded by a puppeteer.

- And, do you remember how many times you reject my advices and make yourself a disgraceful figure, while I suffer shame in front of my people who laugh at the certainty I have to make a valuable human being from you! yelled the imp with a red border in his pointed ears, sign he was angry.

-Shuddup, you goblin! -I shouted louder, and added, -nobody asked you to come and meddle in my life, you... you... -I was short of adjectives to qualify this little bane of mine!


-What!? -Elf was violet all around, and the colour was so strong that it seemed his head was surrounded by a violet cloud, -What!?, -he repeated, and choked in his own breathing.

-Nobody asked me!? -I started to be afraid he would develop a heart condition, then I got confused thinking I do not know if he has a heart.

-You know, you, small piece of an old ungrateful shirt -I never heard Elf using strong words, he always finds a euphemism to express his thoughts, and this is an example.

-I was asked to mentor your worthless self by a higher echelon, where they think you should develop into something, something... -He seemed out of a word, too. As if defining into what I should develop was very difficult.

-Well, it is not important, but you should know I WAS asked, so stop being deluded about the significance of your tiny, insignificant being, if I were not here, you would be lost forever... He stopped yelling gradually until he reached a normal level of voice at the end of the sentence.

He was asked, if not I would be lost... What was this imp implying, moreover, what was he talking about?

I asked him, knowing it would be a pointless question:

-What do you mean? I would be lost? lost how, and why?

-Just forget I said anything, you moron. Can't you see that if it were for you to know, you would already know?

Elf looked somewhat frayed at the hem, as if he feel guilty to have said too much. I thought I could press him more to tell me what I wanted to know... Especially if he was pulling my leg as he always does.

-Maybe, I said diffidently, -if you tell me a bit more of all this I could work out your meaning here, and maybe, I could manage Evil and Good in a better fashion. I thought I was being clever.

-Evil and Good, my foot, he recomposed quickly, -What do you know about Evil and Good?

There was contempt in his voice!

This is the "core" of the reality: the real shifting sands. -He added with a trembling voice, I thought he was afraid of something, but I should know my goblin. He was trying not to be angry at me.

-The real quicksands, -he added, and went on in a sad way.

You cannot have anything valid on quicksands. You do not understand, not yet. My best bet is that someday, somehow you all will understand. Of course, it is only a bet.

Your perception of Good-Evil is blurred by your own lack of knowledge. You come from a long way to be told that because you ate the fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you received, in a magic way, a method to learn how to separate one from another, but my guess is who told you that was not telling you the truth. I mean the whole truth.

And we know how dangerous a quarter, a half, or a three quarter truth is.

I can accept human beings to respectfully differ, in the light of their poor understanding, but I cannot be at ease with the idea that they know the clear difference between Good and Evil in all the billions of minds on Earth, and unfortunately, that is the place where all Good or Evil comes.

With this forlorn comment, he turned and went quickly into the darker corners of the Archive.

I was stunned, how have we reached this point? I only was trying to get the mess in my mind addressed.

Always happens the same, we cannot have a civilized conversation, we start taking opposite position and end arguing about things I do not know if are true or just a big scenario invented by Elf to confuse me, and I am not sure I believe all of it at all.

Himmeldonnerwetter!

Now I will be thinking about this things for quite a while, and maybe I will lose hours of sleep trying to unravel the yarn the darned imp imprinted in my soul!

Himmeldonnerwetter!


The music is a fragment of "Winter" from the Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, performed by Mari Samuelsen as violin soloist, and her ensemble.

© 2013 Od Liam.

Criollo Duel - An almost Borgesian tale

The lonely corner poured memories under the cone of shadows of the old gas lantern that survived despite the heavy stones that came from the hands of the little sparrows in disguise as small human beings.

Love hiding in a dark hallway whispered lies into the unfaithful ear as it drank anxiously from the bowl of  desire, but it was not alone, the hatred of jealousy approached stealthily travelling on a horse full of fury, and just feeling on its face the wild wind of revenge.

Two surprised screams were the prelude of the encounter and the knife found a sheath in the body of the thankless lass that forgot the promises made in the heat of another love.

As a shadow falls in the final solitude, two other shadows are face to face under the indifferent light of the lantern, the knives slow ballet unfolds in the night silence, and the calculated paces were accompanied by flashes of the lantern light on hard steel.

None of them will return from this journey, and the blood will stain the sidewalk mixing the empty bravura, and the futile defense of honor making all of it sink into the mud of eternity no one remembers.

Upon returning the calm, the gaunt moon looked almost without wonder on an everyday scene.

The lantern recalls that under its light were won and lost many lives, as in this very night, that copying the ways of a Shakespearean tragedy, all are dead, even the audience itself.

Leaving only reverberating the distant whistle that accompanies and envelops another solitaire ruffian that leaves its imprint on the fabric of eternal human passions.


The music is a fragment of the tango "Duelo Criollo" (Criollo Duel) by Juan Razzano and Lito Bayardo.

© 2013 Od Liam.

Resilience

Essay on self-definition

WARNING!

If I were you I would not lose time reading the following!

You have been WARNED!


Here we go!

This is one of those things that get people when they are unaware, or have been always under the cover of something or somebody. Or maybe it is not so, and resilience as reality has some actual, if restricted, existence.

It is like me to give an opinion without the least support! I do not know what resilience is... I cannot know since I was always possessed by it. Do you follow this zany thought?

Blonde Elf (not Celt)

I was a Celt in a mixed society most of my small years. Next I went on being a Celt in the middle of a Caucasian-Latino-Greek-rednecks-Asian, (as Americans think them all), and several other ethnics to complete the stew, so I was alone and lonesome, resilience as reality, surrounded me daily, if I wanted to go on living.

Then I was a Celt between Celts, and that small time in life, gave me the distance to get a perspective about, again, resilience and reality. Fate fell down on my head and once more I was a Celt loose in the world.

A lot of time in the Asian South-East, taught me patience and acceptance, which can be balanced to resilience if you are not too demanding.

Then I went on being a Celt in South America, where I was taught to be a true Celt, without rejecting integration! Even risking being absorbed by the environment and disappear into an indistinct mass of ethnics residues.

So do not ask me what to be a Celt is.

Resilience and reality are two differently similar things around me since I have realised I was alive, so, how can I define or tell any story about me, or of a thing that is me, anyway!

Elf (only a bit darker)

You see, to read this is a total waste of time, but you had been warned, and as the old saying express: When there is a warning, there is not treason.






This is "Celtic Dream" by Zero Project.

© 2013 Od Liam.

Merry-go-round

The Southern Wind threats to become a gale.

It is not a surprise, when Persephone comes out of Avernus each year, her mother is angry remembering the pact they had to accept with Hades and let her anger shows in it.

The fetid, vexed breath of the goddess glows over the Mediterranean watershed taking with it all the spoils of death left by Atropos, making room for new lives.

Behind the hot wind, little Khronos, not the Titan of course, sweeps memories into oblivion.

On this new space Clotho starts her spinning with an original thread in her distaff, and a new cycle starts to be woven.

Five Sentence Fiction

Prompt word: ERASED

The music is a fragment of "Carousel" by Circus Contraption.

© 2013 Od Liam.

Aria

As part of the initial silence, and without interruption, the sweet tendrils of music coming from the orchestra pit start to fill the spaces of silence, and the expectation brings with it a desire impossible to fill .

Beniamino whispers the first words of "E lucevan le stelle"; the faint steps of Floria walking on the sand, the harsh grinding of hinges on the garden gate, the overwhelming expectation of the encounter, and the feverish  movements of Mario hands removing the veils that hide the gentle figure, predict the presence of love ...

The perfume, the intangible breath that transmute blood into perfervid lava flow, and ignites the burning heart embers as igneous torches melting two passions in an ecstatic summit, fills the theatre.

All that magic drags the audience towards a mystical vicarious pleasure, full of delight and belonging.

There we are, defenseless against the apotheosis of this feeling that annihilates us and gives us life, leaving us exhausted, consumed by an experience we long to repeat.

Five Sentence Fiction

Prompt word: ENRAPTURE.

The music is the aria "E Lucevan le Stelle" (And the stars Sparkled)  from the opera "Tosca" by Giacomo Puccini, sang by Beniamino Gigli.

© 2013 Od Liam.

Midnight

It was dusk, the last sparks of the day fled aghast from the somber shroud Lady Night was bringing over the world.

The first shadows already took the shapes of the guests that were coming into the low-lands in their best raiments, earnest to fulfil the especial gala.

Riding his black stallion Old Nick arrived with Lilith on the horse rump, alighted with alacrity and started to dance marking the beat with his tail that was ending in an arrow.

The sky was full of broom riders with black pointed hats and wide gowns filling the air with their rude chant asking Evil to bring its disease onto the region.


It was Walpurgis Night, and the Unholy Coven glowed in its apotheosis!

Five Sentence Fiction

The music is a fragment of "The Rise of the Dark Lord" by Pagan Altar.

© 2013 Od Liam.

Love-struck (Hechizo de amor)

The Exultant Kingdom spread its realms over a peaceful dale full of flowers and singing birds during all the year round. There were neither cold seasons, nor hot spans to defy the beauty of the place.

There was a wonderful palace built on the buttress of the north mountain. It was magnificent, with many courts, and crenelated walls, full of multicoloured pennants giving voice to the many visitors that came to celebrate, the coming of age of the most beautiful being in the whole known domains: Princess Alborada.


She was a redhead beauty with exactly two and twenty freckles on each side of the nose, giving her the image of a permanent butterfly perched on her nose and putting in her countenance a charming allure that obsessed all the Knights of the neighbouring dominions, who were wooing the graceful girl to inherit the kingdom, which people said,  was the richest of the region.

Princess Alborada was a very smart girl who had a very wise old nanny that reared and taught her many important things about the way to rule such a rich region. She knew the hard work needed to create and keep a successful kingdom, and also knew she must be very careful in choosing her companion. 

My child, the nanny said, you must know you are, and your realm is, coveted by many Princes and Knights, but to know who deserves the position is very difficult to find out.

The old woman approached the girl and said in a low voice: Look, there is a legend that long ago, a sorcerer was offended by the King, you great-great-great-great-granddad and this magician sends a spell over the charming Prince who had came to marry the King's daughter. The Prince was transmuted into a horrible toad and sent into the pond of Oblivion in the forest behind the Palace, with the proviso that time will stop for him until discovered.

Old people say that this Prince was the most handsome and intelligent man on the vale, that he will wait for the right princess to awake him, maybe it is worth to go and see what is of truth in all this!

The Princess, who knew the value of the nanny advices, accepted to go and delve in the mystery.

In the afternoon when everybody was enjoying a good time after an abundant repast, and drinking the best offering from the King's cellar, the Princess left surreptitiously the main hall and walked alone into the forest in search or the pond of Oblivion.

She could find it easily, and sitting on a rock at the side of the pond, she started to sing the magical song the nanny had taught her. After a while there were a variegated audience of birds, fish, and other animals charmed by the beauty of the song and the singer.

I a few moment more, from the deep waters appeared the frightful shape of a toad that went to sit on a big fern and stood quietly listening the suave voice of the Princess.

When the song was over, the Princess heard a voice inside her head telling her that he was Prince Charming turned into a toad, and was unjustly sent to live a sad life until a beautiful Princess let him free with a kiss.

The Princess was a bit reluctant to kiss such horrid creature, and the Prince, trying to divert her attention to other things, started to tell her what it would be taking the reins of her Kingdom, fighting the opposing factions, dictating laws, judging between aggressive subjects, and all the problems there would be to solve daily during all the time she would hold the crown, trying at the same time to show her the convenience of being helped by a compassionate partner.

The Princess listened all this and after thinking for a while said:

Yes, you are right, all these things are a heavy burden to be carried by only one person, I think I have the perfect solution.

Taking gently the toad in her hand, and desiring the solution she had in mind in a deep and deliberated way, she kissed the toad lovingly...


In that moment there was a discreet flash coming from the deep waters and the Princess was transmuted into a female toad that jumped gleefully near the Prince, and both hopped into the pond to be happy for ever and ever.



The music is "Time To Let Go" by Black Dawn.

© 2013 Od Liam.