creative Writing

Gosts part 12 M/F Story

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Series:  Strange Tales   Story:  Ghosts   by M Kizzia   part 12

            The symphony hall was not far away.  There was a little time yet before the concert since the sun had just about set.  They spent the time looking at the posters and reading about the season’s offering, and Nathan confessed that he used to have season tickets.

            “I had to give it up when my ears started going.”  He said.  “God knows that when you get older, all of the senses start to go, one by one.”

            “Can you hear me now?”  Mya whispered.

            “Yes I can.”  Nathan whispered back, and she laughed again, and Nathan thought it was a great pleasure to hear her laugh and he wondered if she was ticklish.  She was, and in short order they were both on their knees laughing as hard as any two people had ever laughed.  Finally, as Nathan got hold of himself, Mya had a thought.

            “Oh, but I have never heard a symphony before.  Mother only listened to country music.  What exactly is a symphony?”

            “What is a symphony?”  Nathan puffed.  “What is a symphony?”  He grabbed her hand, pulled her to her feet and rushed her inside.  They snitched a program and ran up the stairs to the box seats, Nathan hoping that the performance was not sold out.  “I used to sit here.”  Nathan said, catching his breath.  He was certainly under forty years old by then, but not by all that much.  Mya, who was not winded at all, had to be maybe and finally an honest eighteen, maybe.  They sat and Nathan explained all that he could about Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, and then after an intermission there was going to be a waltz by Strauss and a piece by Mahler.  By the time he finished, the hall was beginning to fill up and Mya began to get excited.  In fact, Nathan was giving her hand a fatherly pat as if to say, just wait, when an older woman came to sit in his seat.  Mya nudged him and he got up as quickly as he could, but it was not quick enough.  The woman’s shoulder went right through his shoulder.

            The woman paused and looked at the ceiling as if searching for the air conditioning vent.  She pulled her shawl up fully around her shoulder and took the next chair over so Nathan got to sit down again.  Mya was trying to hold back a laugh and Nathan was wiping his brow.  “That was close.”  He said to the woman, but of course, the woman heard nothing.  He turned back to Mya but she hushed him.  The orchestra was warming up and the lights were going down.  Beethoven was wonderfully done.  Nathan could not resist pointing out his favorite part in the piece, but he saw that Mya was just about moved to tears so he really did not need to say anything.  When it was over, he thought that Mya applauded more than anyone, and then it was intermission.

            The old woman beside them did not look like she was going to move, so Nathan politely said, “Excuse us,” even if she could not respond.  Of course, their legs inevitably sent through her legs, and Mya stopped them at the curtain for a moment to watch.  The woman bent down as if searching for the source of the breeze, and the she pulled her dress all the way down to cover her legs.  Mya did finally giggle a little, but there was no little girl sound in it.

            When they got downstairs, they found it very crowded and very difficult to get around without walking through people.  Several men turned up their collars at the sudden cold, and some women adjusted their shawls and sweaters, but really, Nathan and Mya disrupted very little.  Nathan felt bad, briefly, that he could not get them some of that famous watered down orange drink.  They found the water fountain but Mya said that even in the hospital all she could do was wet her lips.  The lights flashed and that startled Mya for a moment.  She grabbed on to Nathan, but he assured her it was nothing to worry about.  They went back up the stairs, more slowly than the first time, but when they arrived, even as the orchestra was beginning to warm up once more, they saw that two late arrivals were sitting in their seats.

            Nathan had a thought, and without saying anything, Mya asked, “What is it?”  She was beginning to know him rather well, too, and she could read the excitement etched across his face and eyes.

            “Come on.”  That was all he said, and they were off, running again, going down the stairs two at a time.  The lights were off by the time they broke into the orchestra seating.  They reached the stage as the applause for the conductor was abating.  He dragged her right up on the stage, her looking more than once nervously at the crowd even if she knew the audience could not see her.  By the time the first strains of the waltz began, he had her in the back corner of the stage, opposite the percussion section, where there was some room to move around.

            “What is it?”  Mya finally insisted.

            Nathan smiled and lifted his left hand.  “The waltz.”  He said.  “We should be dancing.”

            “Oh.”  Mya put her hand to her mouth.  “But I’ve never danced like that before.”  She almost protested.

            “Then time you learned young lady.  Come, come.”  He insisted.  She took his hand and he lifted her other hand to his shoulder while he set his hand gently on her waist.  “Just do what I do.”  He said, and they bumped legs.  “I mean the opposite.  When I step forward, you step back.”

            “Oh.”  Mya turned a little red and decided her only recourse was to keep looking into Nathan’s eyes.  He looked into her eyes as well and waited for the right time to start, and then they waltzed.  She was so unsure at first, but it was not long before she got it.  The waltz was not a complicated dance.  By the end of the Strauss piece, Mya was moving with delight, so gracefully and effortlessly, and Nathan was feeling a bit awkward as only a man can feel when dancing with a beautiful young woman.  He stepped back at the end to look at her.  Her school clothes were gone and she was dressed in a lovely gown, all pink and sparkling and a little bit low cut, he thought.  He still had on his suit, but his shirt was tight and spotless, the suit looked like it just came from the dry cleaners and he was wearing a tie.  He had not worn a tie in years

            Then it was over and while the people were applauding, he leaned over and kissed Mya’s cheek, and she kissed his.  Nathan was thinking that this was like dancing with his daughter on her wedding day.  It was a dance he never got to have.  She ran away when she was eighteen and when she came home she was already married.  It was not that she eloped, though.  She lived with the scum for two years first.

            Mya was thinking something quite different.  She still had to get a little on her tip-toes, though not much, and she kissed him softly right on the lips.  “You could be my boyfriend.”  She said.

            Nathan’s eyes got big for a minute before he grabbed her hand roughly and dragged her backstage and down the hall.  They went out the stage door, actually walking right through it without realizing it.  She was shouting, “Let go, let go!” and tugging against his big hand.  He was not speaking, but thinking terrible things.  When he got her outside, he found some stacks of crates in the alley and he threw her down to sit on a crate, not hurting her, but not taking no for an answer.  Then he spoke.

            “Stop it.”  He shook a finger in her face.  “I’m eighty-four and you are just seven years old.”  He knew that was a lie when he said it, but his mind was still telling him that.  “I don’t mind being your grandfather.  I don’t even mind being your father, but I’ll have no talk about boyfriend and girlfriend.”

            “And why not?”  She shot right back at him, not intimidated in the least.

            “Because I’m too old for you, I mean way too old.”  He shot back.

            “Don’t you think that is for me to decide?”

            “You can decide anything you like.  I don’t care.”

            “Well, I don’t care either.  I don’t need you hanging around, you know.”

            “Oh no?  Where are you going to go?”

            “I don’t know.”  Mya shrugged.  “What do you care?”

            “I don’t care.”

            “Well, I don’t care either.  I’m grown up and I can take care of myself.  I don’t need you.”  She folded her arms, turned her head and stubbornly refused to look at him.  Nathan paused.  He just realized something he had overlooked.

            “But I need you.”  He said.  “Your insight and willingness to go through all of this no matter what is the only thing that has kept me going.”

            “Really?”  Mya asked, turning back to face him, her eyes growing terribly wide with surprise.

            “Really.”  Nathan confirmed, and he lowered his eyes, unwilling to look into hers.

            Mya got up and put her hands on his arms, not hugging him exactly, but inviting a hug.  He responded by squeezing the breath out of her, and she found a few tears.  “But don’t you know?”  She said.  “You saved my life.”

            “I tried to.”  He answered, suggesting that he failed.

            “No, I mean really.  I thought you were nice from the very beginning, and I was right.  I was wonderfully right.  Don’t you know you are the most wonderful man in the whole world?”

            “Hardly.”  He said, looking once again into her eyes and loving her smile.

            A voice came from overhead where there were likely some apartments, though they could not see a speaker in the dark.  “Hey, buddy!  Could you keep it down?”

            Another voice joined the chorus.  “Take her home and screw her brains out, you’ll both feel better in the morning.”

            “Come on.”  Nathan said and Mya was right with him.  That last was certainly a line he was not going to cross, but the taking her home bit made some sense.  His condo was not all that far away, and they walked hand in hand, but both were quiet.  Neither was willing to bring up the boyfriend-girlfriend thing again; but in Mya’s heart, that was the way it already was, and Nathan kept telling himself it could never be that way.

Ghosts part 11 M/F Story

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Series:  Strange Tales   Story:  Ghosts   by M Kizzia   part 11

            After that experience, neither felt any desire or need to return again to the scene of the accident – the name they finally settled on calling it.  Nathan decided that they needed something good to do, so he led them to a nearby garden which he knew and which always seemed to have something in bloom, and certainly at that time of year promised plenty. 

            While they walked, Mya found a question that started with her short summary of recent events.  “So, the suicide bomber thought he would go straight to paradise, but he didn’t.  That young man thought God owed him tons of good, but nothing happened there.  The minster refused to believe that he was not already perfect, though he was still stuck on a park bench, and the burly man refused to believe in anything at all, even if his own experience proved the opposite of what he was saying.  I don’t get it?  Why don’t they just say, I was wrong and get on with it?”

            Nathan looked at Mya and slipped his arm over her shoulder.  She responded by placing hers around his waist.  She was looking up at him like a girl might look up to her father to explain the hard bumps and curves of life in a way that she could understand.

            “I have made plenty of mistakes in my time, and I have generally admitted them, but for most people these days that is not how the world works.”  Nathan began.  He paused for a moment while he remembered a story.  “There was a woman in church way back when Mildred and I were going.  I remember whenever the preacher started talking about sin; she would arch her back and give him terrible stares.  I heard her once going out the door in front of us.  Even as she was shaking the preacher’s hand she said, “Some of us don’t think of ourselves as sinners.”

            “But that’s crazy.”  Mya said.

            “But she was absolutely sincere.  You see, the world has become a very hard and fast place.  If you admit doing something wrong, and especially if you apologize and say you are sorry, most people see that as a weakness, as something they can hold over your head and manipulate you with.  Consequently, most people will never admit a mistake even if they know better, and they will never, ever say they are sorry.  Do you follow what I’m saying?”

            “Yes.”  Mya said.  “You are telling me the whole world has gone crazy.”

            “Maybe the world is crazy.”  He would not object to that description.  “But it gets really bad when you think that no one can ever start over.  You see, when you admit the wrong and apologize, you get over it and it gives you the chance to try something else, something different or new; but if you never admit that you were wrong, you get stuck.  It’s kind of like telling a lie, and then trying to cover it up with another lie, and then another.  If you don’t confess, you never get over it.  It just gets worse and worse.”  Then Nathan added another thought.  “I think the whole problem with every one of those men is they are unwilling to admit that they were wrong.”

            “What about you?”  Mya asked.

            Nathan leaned over and rubbed his knuckles gently, lovingly really on the top of her head.  He spoke instantly.  “Sorry.  That was wrong of me.”

            Mya pinched him in the roll he still had around his stomach, causing him to yelp.  “That might have been wrong of me.’  Mya grinned.  “But I’m not sorry.”

            Nathan grinned right back at her.

When they arrived at the garden, Nathan was not disappointed.  It was as beautiful as he remembered.

            “It’s lovely.”  Mya remarked.  “So charming and quaint.”  She was trying out the words, and then she tried something else.  She got on her tip toes, steadying herself with a hand on Nathan’s arm, and she kissed Nathan right on the cheek.  She smiled as she stared at him with true love and affection in her eyes.  No one would have ever guessed that a day ago they were complete strangers.

            Nathan coughed to bring her back to the flowers.  He also took her to a bench where they sat and drew in the myriad of scents.  Mya kept saying how beautiful everything was, and she got up a couple of times to take a closer look when she saw a more distant flower with a new color.   Nathan could hardly bring himself to move at all.  He was amazed at being able to catch all of the aromas, which were indeed beautiful, and he found he could even pull out the scent of one or more flowers independently from all the rest.  Poor Nathan could hardly smell anything after the age of seventy-five or so.  Now, the return of this most vital sense was positively overwhelming him with pleasure.

            He was startled out of his reverie when he heard Mya let out a little shriek.  He bolted to her side, his first run in more than twenty years, but he found her delighted, indeed, enchanted and not in danger as he feared.

            “Look.”  Mya pointed, and there was a kind of light fluttering around one of the flowers.  Nathan looked again, and he noticed that there were several lights in that corner of the garden.  Then he looked closer, giving his new, wonderful eyes their first real workout, and he saw a little human-like figure with wings, a figure no bigger than a hummingbird hovering over a rose.  He noticed, because the light was right then noticing him.

            “Fairies.”  Mya named them and she clasped her hands together in pure delight.  Obviously her seven-year-old world view had no trouble accepting such things.  But that was not fair, Nathan thought, because she was clearly now more like seventeen, and he knew it.

            One part of Nathan’s mind tried to say that fairies were impossible, but it was another piece of his mind that parted the silence of his lips.  “I knew it.”  He said.  “I always knew this universe was not the way I was taught.”  Mya looked curious, so he explained.  “Like the burly man.”  He said.  “We were all taught that this earth was no more than dead matter and energy, that our minds, our consciousnesses were merely an accident of nature.”  Mya was shaking her head as if that did not make any sense, especially in light of their experience.  “But somehow, deep inside, I always knew the universe was alive, everywhere.  I bet there are all sorts of things in the real world about which the living with their closed matter and energy minds have no idea.”  He concluded and Mya nodded as if to say that now she understood.

            The fairy flew up to Mya’s face and then Nathan’s face, and finally began to fly around them in a circle of streaming pink light.  Other fairies were attracted to this and joined in adding golden, lavender and pale blue lights to the mix.  Round and round they went, faster and faster so that Mya and Nathan could not keep up and began to get dizzy.  The two humans drew closer to each other, and eventually held on tight, getting as close as they could lest they inadvertently bump one of the speeding fairies that they could no longer distinguish from the light.  Then the circles of light began to rise and for a second, Mya and Nathan thought they were going to rise with it; but as soon as the circles got above their heads, they began to contract in size, becoming smaller and smaller circles until it came to a point and the light and the fairies vanished altogether.

            Mya clapped her hands and nearly squealed with delight.  If she had been younger, like closer to actually being seven, she probably could not have resisted making the sound.  Nathan stood with his mouth open in wonder.  It was the most glorious sight he had ever seen!  Then he remembered the angel and said to himself, the second most glorious.

            Nathan started to let go of Mya, though he felt very comfortable holding her in that way.  Mya also did not seem to want to let go, but they did, and Nathan had a terrific thought.  He held out his hand, palm up as he spoke.

            “Would my lady care to attend the symphony with me this evening?”

            “Yes.”  Mya said a bit loud and much too quickly.  “A date?”  She asked.

            Nathan shrugged off the implication even if he could not stop smiling.  “No, no,” he said.  “You are supposed to say, “Yes, My Lord.  I would be delighted.”  And then you put your hand, palm on my palm, and give a little curtsey while I bow.

            Mya laughed briefly at the idea, and it was no little girl giggle.  She offered her hand and spoke as requested, and then Nathan drew her in to hold his arm again, noting that she was now as tall as his shoulder, and then just a little bit more.

Ghosts part 10 M/F Story

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Series:  Strange Tales   Story:  Ghosts   by M Kizzia   part 10

            There was a second gate that let out of the fenced area down closer to the actual scene of the accident.  Nathan was reluctant to lead them past the angry young man again, though he added that man and the minister to his prayer list, even if that list was growing rather long.  He knew the angel only asked him to pray for the terrorist, the young suicide, and he was tempted not to worry about the others, but he also knew that Mya’s prayer list was very long and that she was praying regularly, if not continually for them all.  He could only imagine her asking God to love and help others in a completely kind hearted, loving and selfless way, and he thought that perhaps that was another lesson the grown-up world could learn from the young.    

            They saw the man as soon as they got through the gate.  He was pacing back and forth on the edge of the street.  Nathan had no trouble identifying the man as the big, burly fellow who moved up at the last to sit behind him.  “What is it, friend?”  He asked without hesitation, feeling very gregarious with Mya so close beside him.

            The man turned to face them and Mya gasped and buried her face in Nathan’s side.  The man was missing the side of his face, down to the bone and including his eye.  His right hand was missing almost up to the elbow, and the stump was a bloody mess that looked to be festering.  He recognized them right away, too, though his vision of them seemed a little skewed through that one good eye.  “The old man and the little kid.  What are you, a hundred and something?  And Kid, you must be, what, four or five?”

            “I’m eighteen.”  Mya picked an age, though she probably was not that old yet.  “And he isn’t a day over forty, though he probably was.”  She brushed Nathan’s hair again behind his ears and this time he did not mind at all.

            The big, burly man stared at them for a moment and Nathan prepared to run and drag Mya after him if necessary.  He was a bit surprised that the man did not respond to her teenaged flippancy with anger.  Instead he looked up and threw out his good hand.  “What is wrong with everybody?”  He shouted to the sky.  “So just tell me this.  When is the ambulance going to get here?  I could die before they show up.”

            Mya and Nathan looked at each other with the most curious expressions.  It was Mya who spoke.  “But we are already dead.”

            The man frowned as far as they could tell from what lips were left.  “Don’t be stupid.  We can’t already be dead.”

            A woman took that moment to come by on the sidewalk.  The burly man jumped out in front of her and began screaming.  He raised his arms, including his stump and yelled.  “Would you get me a fucking ambulance!”  Mya and Nathan were repulsed by the man’s anger, but not as shocked as they were by the woman’s response.  She screamed, making Mya burry her face again a bit deeper to prevent her own scream.  And then the woman shrieked something about a ghost and she hurried off back the way she came.  It was the woman’s terror that Nathan and Mya felt most of all, and as strongly as they felt the cruelty in the woman with the puppy.  Nathan was suddenly glad that they had not spent much time around many living people since the accident, and it reminded him once again that he and Mya had become very sensitive to the disposition of the souls of the living.

            “Damn selfish bitch.”  The burly man was saying.  “Can’t she see that I need help?” 

            “Why not?”  Mya looked up again, now that the feeling of fear had passed, and she was genuinely confused.  “I mean, we are already dead.  Why can’t we be dead?”

            “Eh?”  They had the man’s attention again.

            “You said we can’t possibly be dead.”  Nathan reminded the man.

            “Because missy.”  He spoke to Mya.  “If we were dead we would no longer exist.”

            “Not if there is a God.”  Mya said forthrightly. 

            “Maybe the spirit can survive after death.”  Nathan tried to add his own thoughts but stopped when the burly man’s frown deepened and a little piece of lip fell to the ground.  This caused Mya to hide her eyes a third time. 

            “Don’t give me that God crap and all that spiritual mumbo-jumbo.  That’s all just so much shit and you know it.”

            “No.  I know the spirit can live after death.”  Nathan was completely certain about that, obviously, and his words reflected his certainty.

“            If you believe that, you’re an idiot.”  The man walked to the back of a parked car.  “Look, I know what is real and what isn’t.  It’s like this car is real.”  He pounded on the hood, and though in fact he was putting his hand right through the hood, there was no doubt that he thought he was pounding on it.  “Science tells me what is real, and that is good enough.  If you want to believe in some fairy tale, that’s your business, but I’ll say you are an idiot.”

            “But maybe there are some things science doesn’t know.”  Nathan suggested.

            “I’m sure that is true.”  The burly man responded.  “But when they figure it out I am also sure it will be as solid and real as this car.”  He made to pound on it again and went through it again.

            “But please.”  Mya could not stand listening to the pain in the man’s voice.  “We all died yesterday.  The accident was a whole day ago.”

            “Yes.”  Nathan took up the cause.  “If you were bleeding for a whole day, you would be dead by now, except you are already dead.”

            “What are you talking about?  Did that concussion rattle your brains?  That kid only blew up ten, not five minutes ago.”  He went as if to look at a watch, but that part of his arm was missing.

            “But.”  Mya was not for giving up, but the burly man was not going to listen.

            “Look.  I don’t want to hear about your God.  I don’t want anything to do with a God because there is no such thing.  I don’t want some freakin’ fairy tale hanging over my shoulder telling me what I can and cannot do.  I am my own man, the captain of my soul and master of my fate or whatever.  And even if there is a God, I don’t want anything to do with it.  A pox on your moronic God.  He should leave me alone forever and I’ll do just fine without him, and when I die, and when you die, I am sure we will all just blend back into the universe and cease to exist.”

            Nathan was concerned for the vehemence and seriousness of the man.  He thought it best if they did not tempt him any further, but Mya was still not giving up.

            “But.”  She tried again, but the man’s shout cut her off.

            “Screw your God.  He can leave me alone, forever!”  He said, and suddenly he began to sparkle like the old woman sparkled, except his sparkles were pitch black, of a kind that swallowed all of the light rather than giving light.  It started out in small spots, but as it spread, the spots began to join with others and became black blotches all over him.  The man screamed.  Nathan heard, “Not that.  I never knew. Not alone.”  Or Nathan thought he heard those words.  Mostly he just heard screams.  Mya had her face pressed into Nathan’s chest and she was crying her eyes out.  Nathan was frightened half out of his mind, but he could not tear his eyes away to save his sanity.  Then it was over.  The man was gone and only a black wisp like smoke remained.

            Then Nathan heard a voice come from the smoke that frightened the other half of his mind.  “Would you like to join him?”  The voice asked.  “It will be very easy.  Curse God and die.”  Nathan nearly lost his wits completely on hearing that, but Mya was dragging him to his knees by then and he wrenched his eyes from the black wisp to see her kneeling and watch her clasp her hands in the classic position of a child at prayer.  Her eyes were shut tight, too, and Nathan thought that was a good idea.  Nathan squeezed his eyes shut and felt his mind and his heart go out to the God of Gods.  “Please, please.”  That was all he could think at first.  “Let there be light.”  That came to him.  “The darkness can’t stand against the light.” And slowly he regained his wits.  “God, give that man another chance, just a little more time to see the light, and please send a better messenger than me.  Please, please God, please.  The man can’t hear me.  I tried.  I tried.”  After another moment he opened his eyes, and he saw that there was an actual light shining over his shoulder.  He knew, without looking, that it was the angel, and the wisp of darkness stood no chance at all.  When Mya opened her eyes, she saw the man sitting on the curb, gasping for air.  With that done, Mya took Nathan’s hand and quickly led him away. 

            “We have so many to pray for.”  Mya remarked.  Nathan agreed and he lifted up a prayer then and there for the suicide bomber.  He was told to pray for the man but thus far he had not actually prayed a bit.  He had just said he would like he always did when he was alive.  Then he added a prayer for the angry young man, and one for the minister, and another one for the business man and the hungry man from the hospital.  Then he started on his daughter and eventually worked his way through everyone he could think of.  He did not pay much attention to where he was going, but trusted Mya implicitly to lead him carefully down the street.

Ghosts part 9 M/F Story

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Series:  Strange Tales   Story:  Ghosts   by M Kizzia   part 9

            “Well, I am glad that is settled.”  There was a man sitting on the park bench, their park bench, and he was reading the newspaper.  Nathan did not have to guess who it was, and when the man lowered the paper, Nathan saw that he was right.  “So the terrorist does not understand why he is not in paradise, and Mister Thomas thinks God owes him, and the little old lady has vanished to who knows where, no great loss there, so what is your problem?”

            “None.”  Nathan answered honestly.

            “We’re just great.”  Mya said.  She stepped up and took Nathan’s arm for the first time.  She was tall enough now that she could do that, and as she placed her other hand on Nathan’s bicep, she glanced down at her own breasts.  She thought they were turning out just right as she imagined they were not even finished growing and she was still smiling about being called beautiful and attractive and sexy.  It was heady stuff for her.

            “Nothing?’  The minister asked, skeptically.

            Nathan was surprised to see that the minister was hardly changed at all by the experience.  He was a good looking man with a full head of black hair that was just beginning to gray a bit at the temples.  He looked fit besides, like he ate all the right foods and worked out regularly at the gym.  Indeed, Nathan got the impression that this was just the sort of man who would actually go to the gym.  Nathan shrugged as he spoke.

            “I was thinking that there have been a lot of cultures throughout history that believed the spirits of the dead could not pass fully over to the other side until they were properly buried.”  He could think of no other reason for their still being there.

            “Not catholic, huh?  This is not purgatory, you know.  There is no such thing.”  The minister sounded like he knew all about it even though Nathan guessed it was his first time being dead.  “So don’t you wonder why you are not in heaven, or someplace else?”

            Mya and Nathan both shook their heads and laughed a little about sharing the same response.  Then Mya spoke.  “I assume when God is ready he will take us to where he wants us to be.”

            “Blind faith.”  The minister looked disgusted with that idea.  “It is just one step before ignorance.  I spent my whole life fighting blind faith and trying to educate the ignorant masses about the ways of God.  I regularly made profound statements from the pulpit, most of which would probably go right over your heads.  And then I lived it out.  That is very important, too.  I fed the poor and clothed the naked and visited those who were sick or in prison.  Let me tell you, the only question anyone should be asking is why I was not translated instantly to heaven to receive my reward.”

            Mya was cocking her head to the side a little in a very teenage maneuver.  It was like she was trying to get a different perspective on the man as if that might make things clearer.  “Maybe God wanted something else from you.”  She suggested.

            The minister got agitated.  “I’ll have you know, I was called to ministry at a very early age.  I have given my whole life to God since that day.  Who are you to question my calling?  Young woman, I’ll have you know there is probably a whole book in heaven listing the names of people that have been brought to the faith by my work alone.”

            Nathan interrupted.  He was feeling close enough to Mya by then that he imagined he could understand some of the ways she was thinking.  “Oh, she is not questioning your calling, and I take nothing away from all of your good work and all of the names written in heaven.  Nor is she questioning your intellectual honesty and no doubt brilliance.  I am sure all of that is very important, and I am sure God is grateful.  No, I believe she was thinking of God maybe wanting something entirely different.”

            The minister’s face reddened a bit.  He was getting beyond agitated, but he refused to show it which in its way was less honest than the young man they left by the gate.  Nathan thought steam might come out of the minister’s head at any minute.  “Like what?”  The man spoke through his teeth, barely slitting his lips in the process.

            “Like your love.”  Mya said in all sincerity as she straightened out her head.  Nathan nodded his silent agreement.  He could see that.

            The minister turned pale for all of a minute before responding.  “Now that just proves your ignorance.”  He said at last as the color began to return to his face.  “We cannot love God, you see?  At least we cannot love God the way he has loved us.  We are not going to die for him.”

            “But haven’t you just said you did that?”  Nathan asked, but it was a genuine question.  From Mya’s teenage lips it would have sounded flippant.

            “In a sense, yes, but what I mean is the way we show our love for God is in doing what is right and good and true according to his divine will.  You see, that is why I said that I lived out my faith.  A faith that is only words and a matter of the mind is really no faith at all.”

            “So what you are saying is it is impossible to love God, directly, I mean.”  Nathan said.

            “I know love by the way I feel.”  Mya interrupted.  “I feel my love for God.  Isn’t that the way everyone knows love?”  Mya’s simple innocence caused her to look up at Nathan in case she had it all wrong.

            “That is exactly how we know love, sweetheart.”  He patted her hand on his arm and began to move her away from there.  The minster swallowed, and Nathan was quite sure without asking that the man had spent his whole life trying not to feel anything at all. 

            Mya looked up at Nathan and opened her big brown eyes even bigger than usual.  “You called me sweetheart.”  She said.  It was almost an accusation.

            “Because you are.”  He said.  “I think you have the kindest and sweetest heart of anyone I’ve ever known, and I am beginning to believe the adult world would do much better if we listened to more seven year olds.”

            Mya nearly frowned on hearing that, but instead she sighed and laid her head against Nathan’s arm.  She was almost big enough by then to set her head against his shoulder, the place where she slept so comfortably in the night.  Nathan responded by giving her hand another fatherly pat.

Ghosts part 8 M/F Story

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Series:  Strange Tales   Story:  Ghosts   by M Kizzia   part 8

            The base of the bus stop sign was broken off and jagged.  The police had put some orange cones around it and strung yellow “Police Line, Do Not Cross” streamers between the cones, otherwise, though, it hardly looked like anything happened.  People were walking up and down the street, cars were moving in their early to mid-day routine, and they even saw a bus pull to the stop and wait a minute before starting up again.

            “This is it?”  Mya complained.  “We died here, just yesterday afternoon, and this is all there is to show for it?”  She certainly sounded very teenager.

            “What did you expect?”  Nathan asked the rhetorical question.  “Unless there is a personal connection, the world of the living does not want to think about the dead and dying.  Death is a subject best left buried in normal conversations, if you know what I mean.”

            “Fuck you.”  Both Mya and Nathan heard the words and were startled by them.  They looked and saw a young man just inside the gate, staring at them.  He came out to confront them.  “What did you expect, a monument?  In a week, no one will even remember that we ever existed.”

            “My mother won’t forget.”  Mya insisted.

            “And my daughter won’t let anyone else forget.”  Nathan added.

            “Fuck you.”  The young man said.  It seemed to be his favorite phrase.  “I don’t care what people think.  I’m still here.  God can’t get rid of me that easily.”

            “Why would God want to get rid of you?”  Mya asked, showing her innocence once more.

            “Because God owes me, stupid.  I got nothing but bad all my life, so God owes me tons and tons of good, and I will accuse him to stinkin’ high heaven and bring down the whole racist lot of them if I have to.”

            “But why do you think God owes you?  Who told you that?”  Mya really did not understand, but Nathan drew her a little closer for her own protection.  He had an idea of where this man was coming from and he knew it was a hair trigger from violence.

            The young man looked at Mya like she was as thick as the fence post and almost as smart.  He pointed sharply at Nathan in his suit.  “I don’t expect some motherfucking rich man and his daughter to understand, but I learned from a very early age that I did not have a chance in this world.  I was born poor trash and I would never be anything other than poor trash.  You see?”

            “What’s being poor got to do with it?”  Mya was searching for understanding and looked up at Nathan thinking that maybe he could explain it to her.

            “Man, are you stupid!”  The young man backed up a little, threw his hands to the sky and almost turned in a circle before settling down to explain.  “My mama and grandma told me all my life that a poor man in this Goddamn America would never get a break, and they were right.”

            “Maybe you shouldn’t have listened to them.”  Mya suggested.

            “What?  Not listen to my mama and grandma?”  The young man looked at Nathan for support in his argument, but Nathan could only shrug.

            “Don’t look at me.  My mother was a penniless immigrant and my grandmother died at Auschwitz.”  That made both Mya and the man pause and stare for a minute.  Mya had heard the word and knew it was something terrible, and a lot of people were killed.  The young man knew exactly what Auschwitz was.

            “You a fuckin’ Jew?”

            “In part.”  Nathan said, looking at Mya in a kind of reflex action to see if it made any difference to her.  It did not, and Nathan wondered if she ever met a real Jew before.  Probably, he decided.  “I’m actually sort of a Baptist-Jew.”

            “Awesome.”  The young man settled down a little in his attitude and vocabulary.  “So tell me, Jew-boy, how did you manage such a hot lookin’ daughter.”  He leered at Mya and Nathan almost said something, but Mya nudged him.

            “Do you really like what you see?”  Mya asked, setting her hands on her hips and swaying just a little as if to show herself off.

            “Mama, you and I could make love all night.  Sweet sixteen I bet, and I could kiss you all over.”  The young man responded.  Then Mya pushed it too far.  She leaned forward to emphasize her young breasts just a little and she lowered her voice in imitation of a movie she once saw. 

“Do you like what you see?”  She asked again.  She was maybe fifteen or so by then and quite capable of enticing any young man with such a move, but of course she was just play-acting, imitating a movie.  She had no idea of the reaction she would provoke.  The man leapt for her, no doubt with the intention of raping her on the spot, and Mya screamed.  A woman waiting at the bus stop also screamed and backed up a couple of steps.  Nathan reached for Mya to pull her to safety, but he was a bit slow.  The young man went right through Mya as if she was just a ghost, which she was.  The man fell on his knees on the pavement and let out a frustration scream of his own.

“It’s not fair!  God, you owe me big time!  Goddamn you God.  It’s not fair!”

Nathan hustled Mya through the iron gate and up toward the park bench before he scolded her.  “Ok?  Are you happy?  Do you see what a good looking young woman can do to a man?  Part of growing up has to be learning to keep your sexy self to yourself.  There are certain things you just don’t go around flaunting all over the place unless you want reactions like you just got.”

“Am I really good looking?”  Mya heard him, or at least the part of what he said that her teenage mind could process.  “Am I really sexy?”

Nathan stopped.  He remembered scolding his own daughter more than once, and he thought that this time he could afford to be a little softer.  “Yes.”  He said.  “You are very beautiful and enormously attractive, and I think you are doing a remarkable job of growing up under the circumstances, but you have to promise to be more careful on just what you do.”  He was speaking out of genuine concern, and she knew it.

“I promise.”  Mya said, raising her hand as if signifying a pledge not to be broken, though to be sure, she was not exactly certain what she was promising.  Her mind was stuck on the words very beautiful and enormously attractive.  She needed to hear that.  She needed her best friend in the whole world to say that.

Ghosts part 7 M/F Story

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Series:  Strange Tales   Story:  Ghosts part 7   by M Kizzia

            “I have a daughter, Lisa, and she is basically a good girl, or she would be if she would just let go of her Jezebel spirit.”  Nathan talked as they walked.

            “Her what?”  Mya asked as she chose to let go of Nathan’s hand and walk at his side.  She felt like she was getting too big to be hand holding like that, and anyway, he said she was growing up so she decided she had better start acting more grown up.

            “It means she always has to be in charge and control everything.”  He said.  “She has driven out three of the last four preachers at the church.”

            “I thought priests got appointed.”  Mya said.  She did not understand.

            “Not in the Baptist Church,”

            “Oh, we’re Episcopalian.”

            “I’m sort of a mix myself.”  Nathan let out a little smile.  “I guess that is why I fit well with the Baptists.”

            “I’ve always been Episcopalian.”  Mya said in all honestly.

            “Anyway, I have a daughter, Lisa, and she is all right I suppose, but a hard woman.  She does not put up with any nonsense and does not have much of a sense of humor.”

            “So you are married?”  Mya said, seriously, but it was like a question.

            “Was married.”  Nathan answered, coming to a stop.  He stooped to pick up a stone from the curb and tossed it into someone’s yard.  He missed the tree he was only half aiming at.  “Mildred ran out on Lisa and me when Lisa was about your age, seven I mean.  Actually, she was eight.”

            “I’m not eight anymore.”  Mya said with a grin.  Once again, Mya had accepted all that was happening to them.  It was Nathan who was having a hard time thinking of her as anything other than a crippled seven-year-old.

            “So she abandoned us.”  Nathan went to pick up the story but he felt Mya’s hand on his cheek and in his hair.

            “Poor baby.”  Mya said, softly and with all gentleness.  Nathan turned, and there must have been something in his eyes because the girl quickly withdrew her hand and looked almost like she was scolded, even without a word.  “It is what my grandma always says.”  She cringed a little as if defending herself.

            Nathan softened.  “I didn’t mean to startle you.”  He did not want to upset her because after all, she was only a child.  “I got over it.  What?”  He asked what because she was staring at him.  Her hand reached very hesitantly for his hair again, and he did nothing to stop her, so she combed it behind his ear.

            “You have brown hair.  It’s nice.  You know it isn’t so gray anymore.”  He did not know, but to be sure, he found the whole idea of getting younger a bit disturbing.  He was glad for her, that she was growing up, but he was not sure he wanted to get much younger.  He lived a good long life and he was afraid that he might start to forget who he was.  He decided that he needed to get them back on the subject so he started walking again and she walked at his side.

            “Anyway.”  He exaggerated the word.  “I have two grandchildren.  My granddaughter, Susan, is twenty-eight and lives in California with her husband and two perfect children.”  He rolled his eyes for her and that made Mya giggle.  “My son, Stephen is local, and still married, sort of, and they have a daughter, my great-grand Emily.  She is eight.”

            “What do you mean, sort of still married?”

            “Separated.”  Nathan shrugged.  “But they are in counseling so who knows?  Maybe they will reconcile.  Personally, I am not holding my breath.”

            “You don’t sound very happy with any of your family.”  Mya said, thinking hard about it.

            Nathan shrugged again.  “I suppose I blame myself.”  He held up his hand to keep her quiet until he explained.  “I am the one who raised Lisa to be the way she is.  I don’t know, but I think she needed her mother, a mother, any mother.  I was working way too much and I put too much on her shoulders at too young an age.  I made her grow up too fast, you see?  That is my only real concern for you.”

            “I will be fine.”  Mya said quickly, taking his hand once again to reassure him.  “I don’t need to be in charge of anything.”

            He glanced at her.  “You say that now, but wait until you’re a little older.”

            “You mean ten minutes from now?”  She asked, and they both laughed a little.

            “Anyway.”  Nathan stressed the word again.  “I’m the one who made Lisa into a hard woman, and she raised Susan and Stephen to be warped in their own ways.”

            “I think your wife might be blamed for some of it.”  Mya suggested.

            Nathan shook his head.  “I can’t blame her.  She wasn’t there.”

            “Exactly.”  Mya said.  “My mother and I are alone, too.  I know that is not the way it is supposed to be.  My father should be there.  I am sure I missed out on lots of things because he was not there.”  She paused, wondering ever so briefly if she was clinging to this man because he could maybe be the father she never had.  “I am sure my mother has had me take responsibilities that I should not have to take, or have taken, back, you know, when I was seven.”

            Nathan let out his breath in what was almost a little growl.  “Parents talk all of the time about raising their children, but I think most of the time all we do is ruin them.  We fill them with our disappointments, our anger and frustrations with life and twist their little minds until they become something they were never meant to be.  I suppose that is the nature of sin.  I never realized it before, the way the sins of the fathers keep getting passed on from one generation to the next and twisted in the process until it becomes something downright wicked.”

            “Stop it.”  Mya interrupted his tirade.  “I am sure you did just what you told me to do.  I am sure you did the best you could and my grandmother used to say you can’t expect to do any better than your best.”

            “I suppose.”  Nathan said, but then he became quiet for a time.

            “How come you never remarried?”  Mya asked at last.  Nathan looked at her for a minute before he answered; wondering what was going on in that little mind of hers.

            “Because it never seemed the right time or the right woman, I don’t know.  It had to be right for Lisa, you know.  Not just for me.”  He shook his head and looked away from the girl, taking a deep breath before speaking again.  “I guess I did not want to go through all of that again.  I was thirty-four when Mildred left, but I still feel the sting of her rejection.  She ran off with a minister, though how you reconcile infidelity with ministry, I – I.”  He shrugged again, not having the words.  When he looked again at Mya, she was deep in thought.  He nudged her rather than ask what was on her mind.

            “Uh?”  She looked up.  “I was just thinking that I hope my mother remarries, especially now that I am, you know, gone and all.  I think she needs a chance to start over, and I was thinking that maybe I was kind of standing in the way of that, do you think so?”

            “I don’t know.”  Nathan said.  “I can’t imagine you standing in the way of anyone’s happiness.”  He smiled and she did too, drawing a little closer and striving to match his stride as he walked.  Nathan noticed that Mya now stood as tall as the half-way point between his elbow and shoulder.  She was certainly growing.  Her bumps were getting bigger, too, and she was showing more curves in that figure. She was turning into a beautiful young woman and he was happy for her.  He put his arm around her in his happiness and in true affection.  “You’re as tall as my heart now.”  He said, sounding very much like the grandfather that he thought of himself, or the father Mya presently imagined him to be, and she stopped and gave him a big hug.

Ghosts: M/F Morning Story: SF/F

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

It occurred to me some time ago that there are no markets for Long Stories (20,000-80,000 words); but a writer does not know when beginning how long a story is going to be.  I thought a Monday morning post to get the week started, and a Friday morning post to take away for the weekend might work.  Enjoy.

Series:  Strange Tales   Story:  Ghosts   by M Kizzia   1 of 17

            Nathan managed a foot on the platform, but then he had to hold on to the rail to drag the rest of his decrepit body up the steps.  It always took too long, and though the bus driver never said anything, the other passengers gave him hard and cruel looks.  He couldn’t help it.  He was eighty-four and no longer allowed to drive, so it was the bus or nothing and he feared that soon enough it would be nothing.  God knew how his knees hurt.  He sat heavily on the bench just behind the driver where there were plenty of metal bars to hang on to in the turns.  Once he was settled, his lower back shivered as the muscles let go of their great effort to keep him upright against the hard pull of gravity.  Of course Lisa, his nag of a daughter wanted him to take the metro, but there were steps there, too.  Besides that, even if the walls were white and the lights were bright, there always seemed to be something of a going down into the pits of Hell about the place.  Nathan much preferred the sun, even if the bus windows were terminally dirty and it looked like rain.

            Nathan looked down at his suit jacket.  It was terribly wrinkled.  He supposed he should have it dry cleaned but he had long since given up on getting to such places on his own.  He knew he could ask Lisa.  She would do it, but she would also pay for it and more important than that, he would pay for it because she would use that as an excuse to start going through all of his things and weeding out what she did not like or what she did not think was important.  His hand came up to smooth out some of the worst wrinkles in his suit, but all he saw was age spots and more wrinkles where his hand used to be.  Getting old was as hard as gravity.  He let the winkles lay, like sleeping dogs, and decided that no one would notice an old man in a disheveled suit, or if they did, they would not care.  He might have sighed, but he used up all of his sighs ten years earlier.

            Nathan looked at the other passengers to pass the time.  There was a young man about mid-way to the back.  Ha!  Young?  He had to be forty or thereabouts even if he was still clinging to the outrageous clothes of youth and still projecting the attitude of the disaffected and disenfranchised.  Nathan could read it in the man’s eyes.  He felt sorry for the man who was probably convinced from a very young age that he was incapable of doing anything.  Ha!  He should not feel incapable of doing anything until he was at least eighty! 

            With that thought planted firmly in his mind, Nathan turned to look at an elderly woman who was probably older than he was, and she was smiling, for Christ’s sake!  Nathan remembered the ninety-three year old he ran into in the supermarket the other day.  She had two gallons of cherry vanilla ice cream, a can of cat food and some other stuff that he could not remember.  When he remarked on the ice cream while they waited in line, that she must really like that flavor, her response was interesting. 

            “Two scoops doused in two jiggers of brandy is really good.  How do you think I got to be ninety-three?”

            Nathan had not thought, so he just smiled and she checked out first.

            Now this elderly woman was like that one, smiling, and Nathan concluded that it must be the brandy.  He could not imagine any alternative that would cause such an old woman to smile and concluded that the little-old-ladies club must pass around recipes.  Nathan rubbed the back of his hand a little as if the age spot was a bit of dirt.  Then he rubbed the back of his stiff neck and held on while the bus came to the next stop.

            “Stupid car!”  The man virtually swore and Nathan heard, everyone heard, before they saw the man.  Nathan noticed the collar right away, and he supposed that the man was a priest or a minister of some sort.  He had practically shouted the words “Stupid car!” as he dug for the cost of the bus ride, making everyone wait and dig out their hard and cruel looks in response; but evidently the man wanted everyone to hear and see.  Nathan understood that it was the man’s way of saying that he did not normally ride a bus and he would not be caught dead on one now if his car had not behaved stupidly.  Nathan was not sure it was just the car that was behaving stupidly, and he watched as the man looked down the aisle, noticed the young man and the old lady, looked at Nathan, and took the seat in the front, opposite.  Before Nathan could speak, just in case he had something on his mind to say, the minister pulled the Washington Post from under his arm and ignored everyone.  The bus started again.

            Nathan coughed and produced a large bit of phlegm.  He even disgusted himself, but he had a handkerchief in his suit pocket so he kept his disgust to a minimum, and while he was at it he rubbed his nose before putting the handkerchief away.  He imagined that it was a remarkable thing that he did not embarrass himself more often.  He had lived alone for too many years and was of an age where he should not care, yet he did care about others – not what they thought of him, but to not disgust them if he could help it.  Too many men, once alone, went to pieces.  At least most of Nathan’s dishes were currently clean and put away.

            Nathan straightened his shirt collar and sat up a little straighter for a minute.  He had not worn a tie, of course, since he retired all those ages ago.  He leaned out to look down the aisle once again and noticed the minister with the newspaper slid a little closer to the window which was beyond touching distance, just in case Nathan wanted to touch, and the man turned the newspaper page as if to say, “I’m busy, leave me alone.”  Unfortunately, there was little more to see beyond the young man and the old lady.  There were other passengers, but they were hunkered down to where Nathan, with his not so good eyes, could hardly catch their hair color.

            A man stood.  He was a big, burly kind of a man; the kind of man Nathan never was.  He staggered a little in the swaying bus and jerked a bit as the bus came to a stop.  He sat behind Nathan and Nathan guessed he would be getting off at the next stop.

            The air whooshed and the bus door opened.  Nathan turned to see a little girl who came slowly up the steps.  Nathan waited for the mother or father to follow, but none came while the bus driver asked for his money.

            “Please, sir.”  The little girl spoke softly like she was shy or embarrassed and Nathan would have had to turn up his hearing aid if he had not been sitting so close.  “I missed the school bus, but I have to get home.  My grandmother is very sick.  My mother will pay you when we get to my stop.”  That took real courage.  Nathan admired the little girl

            “Sorry kid.  You’ll have to walk.”  The bus driver looked sympathetic, but it was his job, and Nathan wondered how many rotten things were committed in the name of doing one’s job.  He hated that expression.  “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”  Here is the little secret.  Business or not, everything in life is always personal.

            The little girl looked about ready to cry.  “I can’t.”  She said and both Nathan and the bus driver were drawn to her feet where one shoe looked stiff and metallic.  Nathan did not know if it was a club foot or the result of some disease or accident, but come to think of it, the girl did seem to limp up the steps.

            “Listen, kid.  I’ll lose my job.  I’m sorry.”  The bus driver spoke kindly but shook his head before looking back into the bus as if to suggest that someone from the city might be there spying on him.  Nathan knew no paper pusher would leave the warm security of an office to ride a bus, but he allowed that the bus driver might have thought this was a set-up to see who they could fire, given the current state of the economy.  “I need my job.”  The driver said honestly enough.

            The little girl began to cry, softly.

            “Look, I’ve got family too.  I have to get home.”  The burly man spoke over Nathan’s shoulder.

            “Yes, can we get on with this?”  The minister spoke from behind his newspaper.

            Nathan glanced back and saw the young man turned toward the window, ignoring the whole scene, while the old lady was digging through her purse.  Nathan preempted her, pulling a bill from his pocket.  “Here, child.”  He said.  “You sit right up front with me and sit by the window so we don’t miss your stop.”  Nathan pulled himself slowly to his feet while the bus driver made change.  The little girl hesitated and looked once into Nathan’s sad, old eyes while he looked into her sad, young eyes.  They understood each other in that moment, and the girl scooted past him to sit next to the window.  Nathan barely got his change pocketed and sat down again before the bus driver shut the door and took off.

            After that, Nathan put the rest of the bus out of his mind as he looked at the back of the little girl who was dutifully staring out of the dirty window.  He judged her to be about seven or eight and he wondered what kind of world we had become to have school busses leave without their passengers accounted for.  Surely the school must have some resources for those inadvertently left behind; and especially for a little girl like this, lame as she was.  Nathan understood being lame even if both of his feet were normal for his age.

            “Do you know which stop is yours?”  Nathan asked, not certain if he would get an answer out of the child.  She had to be scared, all alone with strangers as she was.  He was pleased to see her able to respond.

            “Yes, thank you.  I have ridden this bus before, with my mother.”  The girl said as she gave up on the dirty window and turned to face front and the hard plastic translucent board that separated her from the bus driver’s back.  “And thank you for paying.”  She added as if remembering her manners.  She looked up into Nathan’s old face as if seeking his adult approval of her polite words and Nathan, catching that look in her eyes, smiled in response.

            “So what are you, eight?”  Nathan asked.

            “Seven.”  She said.  “I’m in the second grade.”

            “Second grade.”  Nathan repeated as he thought a long, long way back.  Fortunately, the ancient days were easier to remember than that morning’s breakfast.  “So you know all about reading and writing.”

            “Oh, yes.”  The girl said.  “I love to read, but my writing needs some practice.”

            Nathan nodded.  “Do you stick out your tongue when you write?”  He asked.

            “No.”  The girl shook her head.  Clearly she did not know what he meant.

            “Like this.”  He let his tongue a little way’s out of the corner of his mouth and pretended to have a pencil in his hand.  “You see?”  He pretended to write on the translucent plastic in front of them.  “A-B-C.”  He spoke as he wrote.

            The girl put her hand quickly in front of her grinning mouth.  “That’s silly.”  She said.

            “But it helps.”  Nathan insisted.  He did it again.  “D” he said, and he pretended to have trouble with the letter and let his tongue move as his hand moved.  The little girl giggled and Nathan smiled again.  He had a grand daughter – no – a great-grand daughter that was seven.  “My name is Nathan.”  He introduced himself.

            The girl paused to examine his face before speaking.  “Mine is Mya.”  She said as she lifted her little hand up to touch his wrinkled, craggy face.  “You are very old, like my grandmother.”  She said.

            Nathan lost his smile, but slowly.  “You grandmother is not well.”  It was a question though he said it like a statement.

            Mya nodded.  “She is in the hospital.  My mother is going to take me to see her tonight.  I think Grandma is dying.”  Mya took her hand back and straightened up.  Her eyes looked once again near tears.  Nathan thought we are all dying; only some of us are closer to it than others.  He forced a smile.

            “Now, enough about dying.”  He said.  “You just give her a big hug when you see her and tell her that you love her.  That is all that really matters.”  He wanted to hug the little girl himself and pat her hand to comfort her in her distress, but he did not dare.  Surely someone would accuse him of terrible things, and he wondered again what sort of world they had become.  All he could do was lift his heart in a kind of prayer for this little soul while the bus brakes brought them to the next stop.  The big man started to get up as the doors opened, but before he could move far, someone jumped in and ran right past the driver babbling something about paradise and Satan and you demons.  The minister hid behind his paper.  The Bus driver grabbed and missed.  The big burly man also made a grab, but it was too late.  Nathan instinctively threw himself over the little girl like a shield of flesh and blood.  There was a deafening sound, a moment of pain, a brilliant, blinding light and then nothing.