The plans we make when we know we are lying to our children, it is a fine line.

The truth cannot be explained in any way that will be understood until the future comes as predicted, not by a seer or a tarot reader, but that future that only adults can feel in their souls,

(there won’t be a “next” year sweetheart, don’t ask me why I know this)

The lie cannot be excused until it has become a thing of the past,

(Yes sweetheart, I knew, like I always do)

And so new promises are made in the present

(Sweetheart, we can go in September this time! No work, no school!)

Promise? I promise.

And so August is roaring like a lion on the winds of a date come too soon, and we both know, and make little eye contact.

Before we left I took as much spanish moss as I could carry in the suitcase, the trinkets and baubles left on the couch, we told each other “just in CASE we don’t make it back”, so we both knew.

The moss left behind waved goodbye to us as the plane took flight, it knew too.

We decorated the tree out front with our stolen spanish moss, at night when the moon is full it looks just like Her, Louisiana that is.

We added blue and green and purple globes to the barren landscape to remind us of Royal Street, or the color of the mist when it meets the night air in the backwoods.

And so we were blessed this year with rain in this barren land, so much that our dirt is now overgrown with weeds and grasses as tall as a man and our tree drips green lace. The tips mingle with the riot of life below so that it is difficult to tell which is growing up and which is growing down.

And so we cut secret paths in the brush when the moon is new, so that when it is full we can play hide and seek with each other, giggle at the new paths the wildlife has tamped, we get lost, and we get found.

Tonight I swear I saw an alligator by the duck pond.

I’m sure it’s just a lizard but they do grow them big here.

The ducks don’t seem to mind him much so we will call him Elvis and tell the neighborhood children that we have a Real Lyve Loozi Anna Gater in our yard.

Of course you can only see him if the Moon is just so in the sky,

and if he wants to be seen.

(Yes Sweetheart, looks like we made it to September afterall!)

Finally and without fanfare, the bloodied and torn warrior surrendered, and she waited for her millions of years of records and memories to spill onto the sterling floor.  

The golden glow dulled to a burnished orange, and Illyria-Coral-Aleese peered into the box, it held nothing but a tattered picture. 

 It was an old photograph of two women and three children, circa 2009 in that world’s timeline.  She recognized herself immediately, the other woman was younger than she but bore a resemblance to Yvonne, and the children..

One woman-child, no more than fifteen, two smaller girl-childs less than eight between them, gathered around in a circle, all pointing to an object in the ground.  She flipped the photograph over and read the inscription;

“CJT and the girls/ Me and Alexa/ a funeral for a friend”

Illyria who would always be Aleese covered her mouth and let the picture float back into the chest, the diamond tears she cried showered the women in rainfall.  The memory was overwhelming and she struggled for breath, she bore a child once. Her child of Light and Grace.

Yvonne’s descendents, the child with the white golden hair. 

Intertwined for the Evers.

Afraid of what she would find, Illyria-Coral closed her emerald eyes, reached her hand into the chest, and found the final answer. 

Her laughter at her discovery gave pause to Brother Stephen and Sister Yvonne on the other side of the door, they thought she was joking with them, and she indulged their belief. 

They would never believe the real truth anyway, she was still in half disbelief when she closed the time capsule of her lives.

A black ostrich feather that was longer than her arm, golden ink, and three envelopes with parchment.

The envelopes were addressed to Her, PAST , PRESENT, FUTURE , her duty was to simply write the letters they would contain.

She sealed the envelopes and placed them inside the battered wooden chest along with the photograph, the feather and one ruby and one diamond tear.  When the chest closed it flared sunbright for an instant and closed forever.  It was simply a mailbox, and it would not return to sender.

Stephen evoked another promise from her before he left the Kingdom of Time, Yvonne still battered at the door badgering Illyria to come out and play.

The Time Keeper first known as Illyria who would be Coral and Aleese ran her fingers over the surface of the box one last time.  She found the cartoon face of her beloved Alligator, “Timekeeper” to some, Elvis to her once or twice, and with no regret she hefted the battle axe.

“Goodbye my love, someday we will laugh on this moment” she whispered as the metal cleaved his visage from her heart and from Time. 

Her cry of Pain would register in the Halls of Time’s many Kingdoms, a new note had been born that very instant. 

Stephen wept silently for her, and then smiled.  They would meet again.

“I’m COMING you HARPIE!” Illyria threatened Yvonne as she placed the box on the shelf. She kissed it once and then opened the whitely door.  She and her Sister had so much to laugh and fight about, she  just couldn’t wait any longer.

When the door had sealed shut the mailbox released the letters to be carried on the Augusts’ Winds of Time.  Whether they would reach their destination was given to the Fates, who always held council in the Septembers.

But that is a story for another Time, dear Readers.

It travelled the airways to arrive just short of the landing, it crashed but did not Perish Utterly.

A letter, handwritten and sealed in an old fashioned envelope, postage paid and delivered, but not read.

The paper of the letter was scarred when the cigarette butt landed on it, but it did not burn.

The words on the paper blurred when the soda poured over the nicotine ember, but they did not drown.

The contents of the can were transfered outside to the local landfill on the fourth day.

It was buried under two tons of dirt,  it smothered and the intent of the words Died Finally.

It did not even warrant a headstone to note its passing.

 I was due to meet an old friend at the bookstore for lunch, something that used to be a casual endevour, but as Time goes by we lose touch with things in our past, the present and the future can be so demanding.  I can’t remember when our daily conversations turned to weekly, then to monthly, then to, gods, has it been years?

 Heading back up the flight of stairs I turned to the left and enter my old office, coated with dust from years of neglect, and I open the box one more time.  In it are all of my flash fictions from that time in my life, our time together, the dates on the entries still hold no clue for me.  We stopped writing regularly when our worlds crashed like the stock market in the 30′s, but our friendship continued.  For how long I cannot remember, I only know that I made a phone call last week to her and we agreed to catch up on old times (5 minutes ago!)

Heading out the front door I can’t help but wonder if we look the same to each other, if we meet again as strangers or as friends just parted for too long, if if if.  Just get in the damn car and drive Aleese!

I pushed through the door of one of the last remaining bookstores in existance, just fifteen minutes late. I remember that we were both appalled that technology had replaced paper and hard covers as the bookstores across America began closing their doors, almost as though they had been deleted from a story, Time unraveling, or being Undone.

My wandering thoughts stop ubruptly as I see her sitting at one of the coffee tables, she hadn’t changed at all, well maybe her hair was longer. 

 She looked up at the same moment and our eyes locked, both of us froze for an instant, and then I smiled, or maybe she smiled first, and then we were hugging and crying, laughing, all of the things women do when they meet after long absences. Except Squeel, we never squeeled like most women do. 

Before long we were doing the “do you remember when” and “who was that guy that used to call all of the time” and “whatever happened to whatisface” schtick and then we began to speak of Life in quiet voices. 

We were sisters in Pain for a long period in our friendship, the elephant in the room (Rosie, the name of the Elephant) would not be ignored, and so began our trips down that memory lane that poets do not write of often.

The lane that is marked with street signs called “Pain” “Broken Dreams” “Defeat” and “Nightmare”, paths that lead to dead ends and abandoned houses, to cul-de-sacs that close up behind you so that you must revisit the same dreadful houses over and over again, chasing your tail in circles of hell you cannnot escape.

We both pause to catch our breath, and the awkward silence threatens to end everything, so I begin to chatter,

“So, how are your girls?” Lame attempt I know, but it was a start.

“Oh they are both doing good in school, the oldest is almost twelve” she responds.

(Oh thank the gods, I last saw them only two years ago!)

Then we did what all women do that have children, we talked about them and tried not to sound boring, but it was boring for both us and we started laughing again. On the upbeat I popped the question.

“I have a confession to make” I said as I wrinkled my nose at her.  She raised her eyebrows so I continued.

“I remember the events and circumstances that surrounded your pen-name changes, but what I don’t remember is why I changed mine. Did I say anything when I picked out that name?”

“Illyria?’ She said with a goofy sideways grin, “it was the name of a character in a television series you loved, the vampire one, not Buffy but”
“Angel?” I interrupted

“Yeh, that was it, you said that the Fred chick got absorbed by the demon, or an Old One, and she turned blue and her name was Illyria and you identified with her or you liked the sound of it.”

“Right, Illyria, the Destroyer of Worlds” I stopped then and got lost in thought, my mind wandered to the fatal doomed beauty of the character that awoke in a different time than her own and discovered that all she knew was lost and had been long dead, long dead.

“Why did you ask about THAT?’ my friend says and I am brought back to the Here and Now.

“I don’t know” I honestly replied. ” I found our old blogs and when I saw my pen-name my mind just drew a blank, like a memory had been erased, hell, maybe I have early onset alzheimer’s” I said in a flippant manner.

” I think that’s reserved for short term memory you drama queen” she laughs at me.

It was just what I needed, a snide remark from her to remind me that we were the same old friends we used to be, just a few years gone by is all.

The rest of the afternoon we spent talking, shopping, laughing, all things women do when they are in a mall, and we both promised to call or start emailing again right away, or both.

When we parted we hugged, and as I watched her drive away I knew that Time can be a slick god, and didn’t hold much hope that we would keep in touch.  But our friendship, well, that was for the Evers, and even if we did not “keep in touch”, I knew that there would never be a day in my life that I didn’t think about her at least once, just as I had every day before today.

I made the drive home, watched the last season of Angel on DVD, and went to bed. 

 I dreamed of castles in the air and Kingdoms of Gold, of gardens blooming with coral roses, of old hiways crisscrossing desert landscapes, and I dreamed of her. I hadn’t slept that well in years, or maybe decades, I can’t remember, time has little meaning to me these days.

After I’ve had my morning coffee I am going to check my emails, maybe I’ll send one. Maybe I’ll start writing again.

Whatever, it’s too early to make any decisions, I’ll have time to worry about my list of things to do later.

 I have Time.   

On Location, Monday:  …heading back up the flight of stairs…
Thursday:  heading out the front door

Friday Challenge:  Your character seeks out an old friend; why? At some point, your character needs to confess; what?

When her last customer left Here, she raged at man’s infallible gods and closed the place up, not permanently of course, that was not allowed, but she left none the less. 

 Her thoughts never wandered far from her beloved Timekeeper, that beautiful Bull Alligator that braved the bridge to show her the blackness that would consume all that was or ever would be. 

 When her thoughts did wander they went to that woman Coraline, or to her other self, Aleese, both stuck in a hell that would eventually pale in comparison to what was to come.

Time and Time Again she thought of them all, and time and time again she shed tears for those that would be lost, and wished for the tenth or the millionth time that Something would change.

Lightening struck the asphalt everytime the cane tapped a beat, when she lifted the walking stick over her shoulder the storm intensified, and for an instant she knew fear. Something was Wrong.

Coral immediately turned back and ran as rain as black as raven’s tears and as thick as coal pelted the ground, leaving craters in their wake.  Seeking shelter from the storm she huddled in the doorframe of the little tavern just off the hiway, the sign above the roof said “Here”, but Something had Changed.

Try as she might the door would not open, she began to kick the door with her foot, then rammed it with her shoulder, but it barely budged.  She knelt down to catch her breath, the ancient wooden cane her only support, when a sound so loud cracked behind her. She dropped the cane and covered her ears.

The (thunder?) assaulted her six more times before it ceased, she likened the sound to an axe cleaving a tree,  ad infinitum, and then the door to Here opened with a slight creak.  She reached for the cane and found it had been sundered, the silver head had melted, obscuring the..

the..figure that was shaped as..as.. Coral gave up that train of thought and entered the tavern, she barely registered that an object was shimmering across the road. 

 For a moment, just a moment, it looked like a bridge, but when she looked closer it was gone. She chalked it up to the fog and the wind and the sand playing tricks on her mind, but she looked once more, just in case. 

For a moment, just a moment, she swore that there was an alligator looking back at her, but the next blast of wind dissipated the image and it was gone.  Gone just like her mind she thought, an alligator in a desert of all the silly things!

Coral  turned the sign over to “open”, put her apron back on, and began wiping down the bar, safe from the ravages of the desert storm.

                                                                               ***

In the year 1803 a female alligator laid thirteen eggs somewhere along the banks of the Mississippi River near a place Man called “New Orleans” in a state they called “Louisiana”.

The incubation period was typical and therefore unnoteworthy, even by Timekeeper’s standards.  Of the thirteen, twelve were female, they hatched without incident and swam away in the murky waters, following their mother.

The thirteenth was a male-child.

The last to break free of his egg he was immediately eaten by a larger reptile lurking in the water, thereby nullifying his future as the Greatest and Oldest alligator of Time immeasurable even to the Old Ones.

 His deleted existance was not only noteworthy, but also horrifying, especially by Timekeeper’s standards.

*** 

• Posted by alisa rynay haller on June 15, 2011 at 8:58am
• View My Blog

“No” is Haller’s abrupt response. One of Few of the German Females to be promoted to an officer position in the SS,  Haller is proud of her duty to the Motherland, Her father’s beliefs cannot be questioned. 

“But it is not why you think” she adds as the jew is getting up for her journey to the end. “You, people, Jews, Gypsies, sodomites, you all believe in your own..afterlife? Your own god? You have souls, you are promised a place in time?” She frowns as she tries to determine if the jewess understood her broken Hebrew.

“Really?” the woman marked for death responds, a hint of hope as she is pulled from the muck and the chains.

“What is the Thing that would make you cry?”

“A dog, if I had to kill a dog just because there was, no..need? Not if sick or killer, just not wanted, that is a crying thing.” Haller responds in an almost childlike tone.

“Why?”

“They have no guides..they are here for us, we are there guides, they give up soul to come and love and help us, it is our duty to protect them, that I could not do.” Her response is final.

As the emaciated unwanted woman walks into the cement doorway she reaches back and touches the German Woman’s shoulder, she does not know if she forgives this Nazi soldier, or if she pities her, or curses her, she just needed to touch before there was nothing of this life.

Several weeks later Sgt Haller is ordered to exterminate the newest delivery in the very railcars, they are too high risk to be allowed out.  Sgt. Haller points her gun at the doors as they slide open.

“STOP!” Haller orders before she realizes she is out of line.

“I mean, I don’t understand, they are underfed dogs, why not just feed them?’

“Because they are the jews dogs and the faggots dogs and they are not OUR dogs, so put them down. That is an order!” The higher ranking male officer demands and does not wait for a response.

Fehlen Haller is torn, but she does what she is told, she is an officer of Third Reich, she always does what she is told.

47 starving wide eyed mutts are methodically shot in the head and she thinks she is done, but there is a whimper.  She shoves the bleeding carcasses over her wide shoulders and finds a bitch giving birth to pups, under all of the death this ridiculous she- bitch is trying to bring life, Here,  and one more shot is fired.

For a moment there is silence, the human death row inmates finally inhale, the killing is over for now, but they know that they will all be holding their breaths again very, very soon.

The SS Officer goes to check on Haller when he hears a gunshot. He enters the railcar to congratulate Haller for a job well done until he finds her holding the corpse of a dog and three strangled puppies.  He reports the atrocity to the Command Leader.

 The next day the German Military Forces are given a Memorandum, it simply reads:

 First Promoted Ranking Female Officer Sgt Aliisa Bretta Haller found dead by self inflicted gunshot wound to the head.  She is declared an Enemy of the State and her name will Forever be stricken from our records.

 (author’s note: this deletes bridge series “over #5 alternate ending)

Words Inc.: (1) guide, (2) here, (3) between, (4) cry

His arduous Journey started a year on an eon ago  (time had little meaning for him these days, if the truth be told) and Now it had come to and End. 

Days turned to years turned to millenia, he cared not, for he was Sir Xaviar Stefan De La Perrera, and he was a man of his word.

He made a vow to his dying Madre’ that he would find the Golden Ones for her, that their Kingdom still reigned, that all she was told was Nothing more than a myth fabricated to scare small children, because he would make it on Time, and he would sing a love song to the broken soul, and Time would be healed.

“Then go my Son, I will wait for you”.. His last memory of her, She waited but a Moment after he had gone. 

 The Kingdom of Time, a city of molten gold and silver winds and endless halls of everythings, broken and in ruins. He ran and ran searching for the Untruth, but the Truth was Everywhere.  Monoliths split in two, bricks and marble and beauty untold scattered, discarded, abandoned.

His Mother was correct, the Broken One had stopped Time, the Kingdom was gone, his Queen was gone, all was Gone.

               ~A man finds Grace

                    when there are No More gods to Rage at,

                                when there is No Thing left to Blame,  

                                                           when All Hope is Lost,

                                                               when Journey’s End is Defeat

                                                                      because None had Ever Lied. ~                  

With a calm serenity Sir Xaviar bent a knee, bowed his head, (I’m sorry Mamma) and shed one tear.

He tilted his head to keep the tear, if it did not escape maybe he could keep her for..

 There She was! The Golden One called YehVaughn de Quine`, sitting in the chair to the left,

 and the chair to the right,  The Damaged One, Elleeraya Corallea`,

but she was Not Broken

                             She sparkled Gold as the two women laughed or spoke about?

He knew not, but he heard the Note.

 The Octave so High it is almost unheard to the untrained ear, the lower notes come with Age.

It was but a Moment lost in Time, when they were both Shining Ones, their Time was Young and Happy.

He blinked and they were gone, they were but ghosts of a dream, a shimmer of a dying hope, the chairs as empty as his soul,                 

           (giggle)

 His ear and eye caught them again, over and over, their images branded in every crack, every gap, every Where, the shapes of the chairs themselves. 

They were side by side, but heads turned away,

not as enemies as legends told,

but as warriors and mothers looking where the other could not, protecting. Loving.

His eyes looked to the broken ceiling, what he believed were exposed dead wood beams left behind when the gilded coating collapsed where Now stairs that led Upward,

The deteriorating archways Now the underside of New Bridges,

The very shadows of those objects that survived the quake, Now a New door to

Everywhere and Anywhere that was Golden and Sterling and True.

Sir Stefan bowed in respect to the brilliant shining women of legend,

 ”I Thank You, Great Ladies, I have a New journey to begin, please tell My Sweet Mary that her son loves her still, and” he stops as his emotions overtake him, he sheds a tear and releases it, his only offering.

He simply looks to the chairs and nods, he does not see the two shadows soar up and away behind him and that was the intent, nor does he hear their last giggle, it is too high for even his trained ears.

Illyria and Yvonne left a piece of their souls in the very walls and floors of the Halls of Time for this one purpose.

The male decendant of a Great One would hear the Note, and then they could leave these halls for the Evers.

The women had a message to deliver to Maria Majhdoli Perrera; her Son was on his way.

                     On his way to sing a note so High, Angels would fall to their knees from the beauty,

                     On his way to sing a note so low, those Angels would rise up from the pain.

                                                        On his way to becoming the Voice,

                                                                    The Only Voice,

                                                    To soar higher than Time Immeasurable

                                                                      Could Ever ,

                                                                          Ever,

                                                                         Dream.

                                                                             ~

                                                          His Voice would surpass Infinity.

                                                                             ~

“No” is Haller’s abrupt response. One of Few of the German Females to be promoted to an officer position in the SS,  Haller is proud of her duty to the Motherland, Her father’s beliefs cannot be questioned. 

“But it is not why you think” she adds as the jew is getting up for her journey to the end. “You, people, Jews, Gypsies, sodomites, you all believe in your own..afterlife? Your own god? You have souls, you are promised a place in time?” She frowns as she tries to determine if the jewess understood her broken Hebrew.

“Really?” the woman marked for death responds, a hint of hope as she is pulled from the muck and the chains.

“What is the Thing that would make you cry?”

“A dog, if I had to kill a dog just because there was, no..need? Not if sick or killer, just not wanted, that is a crying thing.” Haller responds in an almost childlike tone.

“Why?”

“They have no guides..they are here for us, we are there guides, they give up soul to come and love and help us, it is our duty to protect them, that I could not do.” Her response is final.

As the emaciated unwanted woman walks into the cement doorway she reaches back and touches the German Woman’s shoulder, she does not know if she forgives this Nazi soldier, or if she pities her, or curses her, she just needed to touch before there was nothing of this life.

Several weeks later Sgt Haller is ordered to exterminate the newest delivery in the very railcars, they are too high risk to be allowed out.  Sgt. Haller points her gun at the doors as they slide open.

“STOP!” Haller orders before she realizes she is out of line.

“I mean, I don’t understand, they are underfed dogs, why not just feed them?’

“Because they are the jews dogs and the faggots dogs and they are not OUR dogs, so put them down. That is an order!” The higher ranking male officer demands and does not wait for a response.

Fehlen Haller is torn, but she does what she is told, she is an officer of Third Reich, she always does what she is told.

47 starving wide eyed mutts are methodically shot in the head and she thinks she is done, but there is a whimper.  She shoves the bleeding carcasses over her wide shoulders and finds a bitch giving birth to pups, under all of the death this ridiculous she- bitch is trying to bring life, Here,  and one more shot is fired.

For a moment there is silence, the human death row inmates finally inhale, the killing is over for now, but they know that they will all be holding their breaths again very, very soon.

The SS Officer goes to check on Haller when he hears a gunshot. He enters the railcar to congratulate Haller for a job well done until he finds her holding the corpse of a dog and three strangled puppies.  He reports the atrocity to the Command Leader.

 The next day the German Military Forces are given a Memorandum, it simply reads:

 First Promoted Ranking Female Officer Sgt Aliisa Bretta Haller found dead by self inflicted gunshot wound to the head.  She is declared an Enemy of the State and her name will Forever be stricken from our records.