Glen hardly sat before a new angel came to fetch him.  “Come, come,” the angel said and ushered him far enough toward the center of the room where he could see no outside walls at all.  “We have not got a lot of time before my regular case load starts, and I do want to be fair about this.  Have a seat.”

            Glen sat beside the desk as the angel got behind the desk and began to tap on his computer keyboard.  Glen got a word in.

            “I was not aware I was expected here.  How do you know you even have the right person?”

            The angel showed Glen the computer screen.  The picture certainly looked like him.  Then the angel rattled off his name, birthday, social security number, several driver’s license numbers from the several states he had lived in.  He told Glen his mother, father, brother, sister, wife, children, and Glen surrendered.

            “Now, let’s see,” the angel said.  “I see you were quite the artist.  It says here you acted in several films before you were thirty and even wrote a couple.  You were a musician, and wrote some music which sold quite well.  As you got older, you turned to writing books and had several bestsellers among the fifty-seven books you wrote.”

            “Wait,” Glen protested.  “Whose life are you reading.  I didn’t do any of those things.  That is not my life.”

            The angel paused, but only to give Glen a look that said that was not the time to lie.  “Now, let’s see what you did with all that wealth.  I see you kept it all to yourself and hated even to share it with your own family.  It says you abused your parents, wife and children.  Oh, look, you even abused your dog.  This says you were a great atheist who preached hatred and violence, and just before you died, you gave big sums to satanic causes and converted the rest to hundred dollar bills to burn.  You said you would rather burn the money than let anyone benefit from it.  And you died cursing God.  Does that fairly summarize things?”

            “No!”  Glen really protested now.  “None of that is true.  I served in the ministry for years and worked in management for several national retail outlets.  I never had money, struggled near poverty all my life.  I certainly never had money to burn.  But I gave what I had, my whole life really to others and to my family.  It was never about me.”

            “Your record says otherwise.”  The angel was unconvinced.

            “Look, who wrote that drivel because none of it is true.”

            “Your guardian angel.”

            “I haven’t got a guardian angel.”

            “Don’t be absurd.  Everyone is assigned a guardian angel at birth.” 

            “Well, I wasn’t,” Glen said.  “Look, can you trace and see who filed that report.  I tell you none of it is true.

            “I told you who filed it.”

            “You said you wanted to be fair.  Was that just talk?  Do you want to be fair, or are you just going to railroad an innocent man?”

            The angel rolled his eyes, like he had heard that an infinite number of times before, but he agreed and checked, and then paused before he spoke.

            “This is odd.  There are always words that come out of the darkness, but we ignore them because a guardian angel cannot lie.”  The angel began to click furiously.  He spoke haltingly.  “It appears as if this whole report is out of the darkness.  I cannot seem to find your angelic report.  Who is your guardian angel?”

            “I told you.  I haven’t got one, at least not one that I know of.”

            “Don’t be absurd.  Everyone has a guardian angel.  Sometimes the guardians don’t bring their charges all the way here, but that is generally when they are quickly reassigned.  It happens at times, but surely you met yours when you died.  You can’t have died without meeting yours.”

            “And that’s another thing,” Glen sat up straight.  “I’m not dead yet.  At least as far as I know I haven’t died.”

            The angel looked at Glen and appeared almost ready to believe him when something popped up on the screen.  “Aha!  Here we are,” he said.  “But wait, that can’t be right.”

            “What?”  Glen asked.  He could not see the screen, but he saw the angel look from him to the screen and back again several times rapidly before he reached out and pressed a big red button on his desk.  There was a whistle, like an alarm that echoed throughout that whole room.  Most angels were just arriving, but Glen saw them all stop and stand at something like attention.  He saw the angel at his desk also stand and bow his head. 

            There was a brief shimmering in the air beside the desk before the most perfect creature Glen ever saw appeared in a shower of light too bright for the eyes to behold.  The presence of this creature made Glen tremble to his bones.  He was terrified, but at the same time there was something old and oddly familiar about this angel.  He had to speak.  It was just one not unexpected word, but it was said like a name.

            “Angel?”

            “Glen.”  Angel showed some sign that he knew Glen in some fashion as well.

            “Lord,” the angel behind the desk had his eyes lowered and trembled even more than Glen, but he took the sign of familiarity as an opening to speak.  “The record shows that you were assigned to be guardian angel for this man, but we have no report from you regarding his disposition.”

            “I am not this man’s guardian angel,” The response was unarguable in a way that was hard for Glen to describe.  “I have other duties.  Either another was assigned to this man or he has lived his life without a guardian.  Let us hope it is the first, and to be sure, I do not know why he is even here.”  With that said, Angel’s light grew brighter and stronger until it filled the whole room.  Glen not only had to close his eyes, he had to cover them with his hands to protect them.  Then all at once, the light went out and Angel was no longer with them.

            Glen opened his eyes, blinked from the spots, but saw that the angel behind the desk was now looking at him with fear and uncertainty.  The angel said nothing else, but slid the red button back from its location on the desk.  There was a second, deep-set red button beneath it.  The angel pushed it and Glen found himself covered in darkness and falling.

            Glen woke to the first rays of a new dawn and the peep of birds at his window.  The bed was wonderfully comfortable, the pillows, sheets and puff just perfect so he was neither too hot nor too cold.  On any other day, he could have luxuriated for some time in that bed, but on this morning he was too hungry.

            Glen opened his eyes and realized he was naked.  He could not remember how he got in that condition, but decided he would rather not know.  In any case, his clothes, such as they were, hung on a wooden butler beside the bed.  They were relatively dry, so he slipped on his pants, socks and shoes and remembered he had no shirt.

            While he dressed, he took a good look around.  The double four-poster bed poked out from one wall in a room that was hardly bigger than a standard hotel room, though with only the one bed it felt like a bigger room. The table was wooden, oak and rectangular with four chairs pushed up to it instead of the expected round, light brown plastic covered two chaired menace of a wobbly table found in most motel rooms.  The only other furniture was a desk with plenty of writing paper and pens available.  There was no television or dresser, or door for a closet as far as Glen could tell.  It appeared that the place was very transient.

            It was the table that attracted Glen, pushed back as it was toward a window mostly covered with curtains.  The curtains were not pulled tight and it was in the center crack and around the edges that the sun peeked in.  That light showed the dishes of food that covered the surface of the table.  It was most of Glen’s favorite dishes as well, though to be sure it looked like it had been sitting for quite some time and so some of it was probably not safe to eat.

            The door to the room opened and one of those angel people came in.  Curiously, the person still had an angel look about him even after a full night’s sleep and a bit of cold and hard mashed potatoes.

            “Ah, I see you are awake.  This is a good thing.  I was just sent to wake you.”  The angel stepped around the table and opened the curtains to the full force of the sun.  Glen squinted.

            “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Glen said.  “But might there be something to eat a bit fresher in this place.  This food is all wonderful I am sure, but it appears to have been sitting here for some time.”

            The angel turned to face him.  “This food is the leftovers from your banquet.”

            “I had a banquet?”

            “Two nights ago.  You weren’t here.”  Glen remembered the night.  He huddled on the edge of the forest in a torrential rain where the lightning, thunder, and demons tormented him all through the night.  “Normally, come morning the leftovers make a fine meal,” the angel continued.  “These dishes have been sitting here for a whole day and night more than they should.  They were not made to sit so long, but you may find something edible.”

            Glen was hungry enough to eat some of it despite how bad it might be.  “So I had a banquet, except I didn’t because I wasn’t here?”

            “Oh, yes.  Everyone has a banquet when they arrive in the house.  There is a banquet every night.”

            “So there are leftovers from last night’s banquet?”

            “Oh, yes.  But they belong to others, don’t you see?”

            Glen saw.  “Might I have a shirt?  I haven’t got much to wear.”

            “Ah!”  The angel drew out the sound as if to say listen, this is wisdom.  “But what you shall wear is what we shall determine.”  Glen nodded, though he had no idea what he was agreeing with.  “Odd to say, I cannot remember any time in history when a person did not arrive in time for their banquet.  Now, many have come without their guardian, but that usually does not speak well for the person.”

            “So how does it usually go?” Glen asked.

            “Well, a person arrives when they are due.  There is a feast of celebration, a banquet to honor the new arrivals.  When it turns late, everyone is shown to their rooms where most sit at the desk for long hours composing their thoughts and last words to all the people they will never see again.  It is a great cleansing for the soul.  Then they sleep at last, and when they awake… “

            “But wait,” Glen interrupted.  “What if they have so many letters to write the morning comes before they have time to sleep.

            The angel shook his head.  “As long as there are words to purge, the night will continue.  And then it will continue beyond long enough for a good, restful sleep.”  At once Glen knew why he finally slept in the midst of the terrors of that night.  He probably reached the point of utter exhaustion and could not help but pass out.  Then again, if he had stayed awake, the night might have gone on forever.

            The angel continued.  “So when they awake, they feast on what is left from the banquet and whatever morning treats they wish.  I apologize there are no morning treats prepared for you, but you never came to your banquet.  In any case, when they are ready they are taken to the Hall of Grace and Justice.  That is where it is determined where and how they shall spend eternity.”  The angel shrugged as if to say that was pretty much it.

            “How I will spend eternity?”  Glen had to think about that.

            Glen spent a long time in silence pondering how he might spend eternity.  The angel in the room was clearly pondering something else and the angel was the one who finally broke the silence.

            “So how did you find your accommodations?”

            Glen looked up, brought his mind into focus and answered.  “Fine, why?”

            “This room is in the military wing.  It is more Spartan accommodations and normally only used when there is turmoil and a great influx of people.  In your case, there were great arguments on both sides, but in the end it was determined unsuitable to leave you sleeping in the hall.  You see, the room you would have had was assigned to another.  This was the best we could do on short notice.”

            “Sorry to put you out.”

            “As I said, no one in history ever missed their banquet, as far as I know.”

            Glen stood.  He could not stomach any more stale bread.  “So now what?”

            “If you would follow me.”  They stepped out into a great hall and headed for the stairs.

            “So what ever happened to the big man I told the doorkeepers about?” Glen asked.

            “I wouldn’t know.  That is not my department.”

            They walked down the stairs and entered a new hall.

            “So why did you come to wake me up?  I would think to be fully rested one would have to wake up naturally.”

            “It was decided your case must be adjudicated at first light, before the normal course of events begins.  You know, none of us just stand around here with nothing to do.  There are no open slots where we can plug you into the normal lineup.”

            They entered another stairwell and went down another flight.

            The angel continued.  “When I drop you off now, I will have to hurry to my charge.”

            “So, were you supposed to be my guide, if I had come to my banquet?”

            “Porter?  Yes,” the angel said. 

            They stopped at the door to a tremendous room.  It was so big, Glen’s eyes could not find the back wall, or see the side walls for that matter.  Glen was told to sit in a chair and wait, but he had one more thing to say before Porter vanished.

            “Thank you for taking the time to do your duty, even if I did not show up on time.”

            The angel looked at him before at last the smallest smile came to the angel’s face.  “You are quite welcome,” and he vanished behind the big doors.

            Glen pushed through the prickers and burrs until he came to a dead patch.  He thought that was a bit of grace when he first saw the weeds quit and only patches of hardy grass ahead, until he got to it and realized it was an oil slick, and maybe tar.  The oil was hard to navigate.  There were pools from waist deep to over his head that he dared not slide into.  But the tar was worse.  Glen could only envision getting stuck and sucked under like quicksand.  Glen imagined the consternation of the archeologist who dug him up in the future beside the dinosaur bones.  That brought a chuckle, but made him all the more careful.

             Glen managed to get through that area with only one minor mishap.  He slipped, careful as he was, but he kept himself from falling into a pool of black crude by grabbing on to one of those stubborn bits of grass.  His face fell forward and slapped against the oil.  He came up sputtering and wiping the awful stuff from his mouth, nose and eyes.  All he could think was it can’t have helped his appearance. 

            After that, Glen saw the river on the surface of the land.  He got excited.  He ran to the edge of the chasm, but found only a cliff where the river cascaded down to the bottom in a great waterfall.  He tried to think.  He could not imagine how that chasm was made, but it seemed there were cliffs on both ends and all along the sides.  At the end where Glen started, the hedge made crossing impossible.  Now, the waterfall did the same thing.  The river was much too swift and wide and deep for him to navigate. 

            Still, it was water, and without too much thought, Glen washed off all the briars, oil and cleaned his reopened wounds.  He drank, not caring if the water was poison itself.  He drank until his stomach was full.  Only then did he think that a stomach full of water was not so wise.  He still had to travel.

            He moved on until he came to a little bit of a rise.  It was the first break in the flat land he had been traveling.  He paused at the top for a good look and two things caught his eye.  The first was near, on the other side of the rise.  It was the big man with the dark hair, dark eyes and cut beneath his left eye who paused the day before long enough to beat Glen senseless.  At first Glen thought he was asleep.  But then Glen noticed the man was cut in any number of places and his shirt was torn off and lying nearby.  To be honest, he looked beaten far worse than Glen was ever beaten.  Glen suspected the man was unconscious, though not dead because his fingers still moved now and then and tapped against a rock.

            The other thing Glen saw was where the road on the other side of the river curved toward the water.  There was a bridge in the distance and the road rose up a ridge that stood watch over the river valley.  On top of that ridge was a tremendous dwelling.  It might have passed for a rustic hotel like one might find in a national park.  It might have been a monastery or nunnery.  It was big enough to be all three combined, only at the moment Glen did not care.  It represented in his mind food and shelter and a bed out of the wilderness.  He wanted nothing more than warm covers and sleep, hungry as he was.

            Glen’s eyes darted back to the man down below.  He took a deep breath.  Despite everything, he could not just leave him.  He went down, half-expecting the man to wake, but as he drew near he heard only one soft moan.  The eyes never opened.  Glen found the man’s shirt and went to the river to soak it.  He came back with it dripping and washed the man’s face where the blood was beginning to cake.  The man never woke.

            After his cuts were washed, Glen thought to turn him over.  He imagined if he was cut on the front he was likely cut on the back as well.  It took some effort to turn such a big man and a couple of moans on the part of both of them, but when the man was turned, Glen took a step back.  He had been whipped.  The marks were clear and deep.  Whole strips of flesh had been ripped off and Glen ran to the river several times and did all he could for the poor fellow. 

            At last, he wrung out the man’s shirt, but before he laid it over the man’s back.  Glen had a thought.  Even wrung out, the wet shirt would not offer much protection.  He glanced again at the distant building to be sure it was not an hallucination, and then took off his own, relatively dry shirt and laid it gently against the man’s back.  Then he spoke.

            “I’ll be back,” Glen said.  “I’ll get help.  Just hang in there.”  Glen did not want the man to die.

            Glen found then that his legs had more in them than he imagined.  He could only walk, but it was at a good pace, especially after he came out from the bushes and found himself on soft, green grass.  He hustled and scrambled up the ridge.  He fell to his knees over and over before he made it to the top.  He huffed and puffed, but bent over, with one hand on his knee, reached up and clapped the knocker three times against the great wooden door.  He did not have to wait long.

            A man came.  Glen supposed it could not be helped that the doorman appeared to be an angel.  He was dressed all in white, and he had a most welcoming smile before it turned into a frown.

            “There is a man,” Glen started to speak and pointed back the way he came, but the one in the doorway interrupted.

            “You are late.  Where have you been?  There is no excuse.  You were expected yesterday.”

            A second angel came up and a third, but Glen’s mind was stuck.  “There is a man,” he started again, while the two newcomers reached for Glen as if they intended to carry him inside if necessary.  Glen backed away.  He would not budge until he delivered his message and they just had to wait until he got it all out.

            “Don’t worry,” the first angel said.  “We will send others to fetch him.”  Glen nodded, and then he was not sure what happened.  He probably passed out.

            It is getting difficult for me to give critiques these days.  One reason is because virtually every book I look at begins with a prologue, and virtually every prologue is nothing but background information with a nebulous connection to the story itself.  There is a reason why so many agents and editors don’t like prologues.

            Background information is important for a writer to know in order to present a consistent character – to know what motivates them and know how they would react or respond under certain circumstances.  It is rarely important for the reader to know.

            Imagine if Hitchcock began Psycho with scenes of a young Mister Bates suffering under a controlling, demanding mother.  The movie would not have had the same impact it did when the mother’s corpse was revealed.  Picture a young couple gallivanting around Paris before meeting up again at Rick’s café.  A murder mystery best starts with a dead body, not the detective’s troubled childhood.  The skeletons in the romantic couple’s closets are best revealed down the line in any case.  And after all these years I have concluded that Lucas was right to start the Star Wars movies with episode IV.  Movies I-III suffered from too much background (in my opinion).

            I have found that the background inevitably belongs… in the background.  Tolkien wrote one of the greatest works of fantasy in history and never once referred to the Silmarillion, and while he did refer to the original fall of Sauron and the 3,000 year journey of the ring, it was only in context and in a small and general way.  It was not a background story before the story. 

            I truly believe it is best to start a story at the beginning of the story, or better yet, inching toward the middle of the story as far as possible.  As a reader, I want to read a story.  Ten pages of preface, prologue or background information masquerading as the beginning of a story and you have lost me.

            Generally, I have found there is nothing in the background SO important that it can’t be shown in her actions (where the reader is led to understand that aspect of a character), or a couple of sentences of dialogue (in the right place and time) where the character explains her actions, or (as a last resort) in introspection, as in: “She remembered the gut wrenching nights, the tears and her inability to sleep over those first few months after her father left her.  She was eleven, a very vulnerable age.  She knew she should not cling to the men in her life, that making demands on them tended to drive them away, but sometimes she couldn’t help it.”  There.  Six pages of background done.

            I used to write too much background, but I am getting over it.  I used to want to explain everything in great detail and did not trust the readers to figure it out.  I am getting over that, too. 

            I see this all the time when I critique the work of new writers (especially in science fiction and fantasy).  Background is important for the writer, but don’t bog down your reader.  Avoid prologues at all costs.  Start the story where the story starts.

            When the story is done, without any particular reference to the past, allow a few trusted readers to say if they were confused and might be helped by knowing something in advance.  Work that in, but in the appropriate place and only what is needed to make it clear.

            Of course, having said that background belongs in the background, let me also say that there are always exceptions to every rule…

            The loneliness rose up from the back of Glen’s mind and covered him like a shroud.  He had no one to hold him up, to hold his hand, to help him along the way.  Not one would reach out in his time of need.  No one was there for him.  He looked to the sky and felt the crush in his soul.  “Jesus,” he cried out, but he only heard the wind and felt the scratch of a thorn against his hand in response.

            Glen paused when he saw there was no escaping the shadow of night, and worse, with the night came the rain.  It started out soft, but it was enough to halt his progress and drive him back to the edge of the trees.  As the rain and wind picked up steam, he found several smaller trees grown close together.  He prayed that their overlapping leaves might deflect the worst of it and that they were not tall enough to attract the lightening.

            Glen squatted down and washed off some of his own caked on blood.  He opened his mouth and looked up like a turkey in the hope of slacking his thirst.  He closed his eyes and tried to think of nothing.  He prayed for sleep.  By the wee hours, the lightening was constant and the roaring never ceased and he was afraid – afraid of everything that night.  He was not ashamed to say it.  There were sounds and shadows that danced around him in one horrific flash of demonic shapes after another.  He wondered if God might take his soul that night.  It was not the first nor the last time he wondered such a thing.

            When Glen woke, the sun was already up for a time and he was surprised he had actually fallen asleep.  Then again, exhaustion can do that.  Glen found he was still squatting, though leaning on a tree, and he was still damp everywhere, and stiffer than ever.  He moaned as he stood and straightened his legs.  Then he sighed.  God had not chosen to take him, yet.  Such a thing might have been a blessing, he thought.  He wondered if he might ever know what a blessing was, if he might actually experience one someday.

            Even if it was a decrepit and impossible path, you would think getting out from beneath the trees and into the sun would have helped.  You would think walking might have alleviated the stiffness as well.  In truth, Glen eventually felt better, but that feeling came imperceptibly slow.  Nothing ever came easy.

            It was not long after his staggering forward became more of an actual walk when he heard a loud crack and crashing sound in the forest to his left.  He leapt back just in time as a great, old elm tree toppled all the way across the path so it stuck out over the chasm.  The tree had been stuck by lightening and noticeably, not for the first time.  He imagined any number of trees came down in that storm in the night.  Curious that this one should happen to fall just when he came into peril. 

            He stared at the tree for a bit before he realized it was sticking about half-way across the gorge.  He wondered if he could crawl out on it far enough to make the leap to the other side.  He stared at it a bit longer.  He did not like heights.  At last he mustered the courage to get up on the trunk, thinking that only a quarter or less of the tree was sticking out over the drop so all of the weight was on solid ground.  He could not imagine his weight would make much difference.

            Once up, Glen noticed that the path on the other side was not only free of brush and brambles, it was actually cobblestone paved, like a road.  What is more, there was no dark and threatening forest over there, and he felt the strong urge to try and reach the other side.  He was careful to step out on the tree, held tight to every branch he could and watched where his feet went so as not to stumble.  He reached the edge of the chasm before the tree began to side.  The mud under the fallen elm was giving way.  He panicked. 

            Glen tried to run back, but that was not quick enough so he jumped off, only to be caught by a big branch and dragged toward the precipice.  He rolled over the branch, ducked under the one that followed, ran straight out and prayed, only to be whacked as the roots slid past.  He was spun around and dropped, back to the ground, and hit his head on the dirt which did not feel very muddy soft.

            He watched the tree as it slid toward the other side.  He saw when it stopped.  It pressed its top into the far cliff face about three yards down into the chasm.  The roots were still on Glen’s side, above the hole.  Glen looked more closely.  He was tempted for about one second before he spoke out loud.

            “No way.”

            Nine feet to climb was too much to expect even if there were rock outcroppings on that jagged cliff for his hands and feet.  Besides, Glen felt somehow that the stoppage was only temporary and this time the least little weight would send the tree plummeting to the river below.  Glen got to his knees to look.  The river appeared to be a small, thin blue ribbon, but he knew down there it was at least as wide as the chasm above it.  As if in answer to his thoughts, there was a loud snap and the tree finished sliding over the side.

            Glen scooted back from the edge, and just in time as the tree began to spin and a long root rose up behind him.  It surely would have pushed him over if he had stayed where he was on his knees.  After a moment, he thought he heard the splash from down below, but he could not be sure since it was so far away and the tree took such a long time to fall.  Besides, Glen was busy pulling the splinters out of his hand and listening to his stomach grumble.  He would have been happy with bread and water, or since all that rain, even just bread would do.  There was none to be had, so when he finished grimacing as he bloodied his hands removing several sharp bits of wood, He stood and continued on.  He tried not to think about bread, but it was not easy.

            Glen paused again when he heard the sound of voices up ahead.  He almost scooted into the forest, but then he recognized laugher and singing.  It was a party of some sort and his stomach immediately thought of food and dragged his feet forward. 

            It was on the other side of the chasm.  Glen fell to his knees and fought back tears.

            The place looked like a rest stop along the road, with plenty of picnic tables, all covered with massive amounts of food.  The people, men, women and children all looked normal, happy and well-fed.  Glen cried out in a loud voice.

            “Please.  Help me.  Might I have a piece of bread?  Or a chicken leg?  Please, something to eat?  I am starving.”  His voice softened.  “Help me.”  Glen could not imagine the way he must have looked or the look on his face, but the look on the people’s faces, those few who looked up spoke volumes.  One man looked ready to reach for a gun.  One woman gave Glen such a wicked stare, he could only imagine her prayer was that he go away, curl up and die.  One young boy spit in Glen’s direction, though of course he was much too far away, being on the other side of an impossible chasm.

            Glen wept.  He could not help it.  But very quickly he got back to his feet and continued on.  Perhaps he felt ashamed, though he had nothing to feel ashamed about.  Perhaps he was afraid to let them see him cry, or simply did not want them to see.  Perhaps he felt there was no reason to stay and beg since his experience of begging was it never gained what was wanted or needed.  It is hard to say.  What he honestly felt at that time is still clouded in tears.

            Glen came out of the woods on to a scruffy, bramble filled path that was barely discernable in the dim light of the afternoon.  The sun was setting behind the trees at his back and he briefly wondered if he could outrace the shadow.  After so long among the trees, the idea of being bathed in light was inviting.  But then he saw a sculpted hedge to his right and he thought he might take a closer look, not the least because it took him away from the darkening forest.

            The hedge was tall, perhaps eight feet, and there did not appear to be a break in sight.  Glen followed along with the thorn-filled path and the trees to his left, still moving to get out from the shadow, only not as quickly as he first thought.  He paused when he spied a sign.  “No Trespassing,” it announced in bold print.  A few feet on and another sign said “Keep Out,” and they alternated every few feet:  “No Trespassing.”  “Keep out.” 

            It was not easy going, pressing through the ferns and stubborn weeds, avoiding the bees and other insects, watching out for snakes.  Several times Glen had to make a wide birth around some bush grown up against the hedge.  Still, the hedge held strong and remained unbroken until a small wooden gate presented itself. 

            The scene through the gate was bucolic.  It was a pasture of lush grass without a weed or thorn or so much as a daisy.  There were sheep there, grazing quietly under a sun which was not nearly as low in the sky as Glen thought.  The sun made the wool glisten golden and stark white so it was hard to look at for its brightness.  There was a pool of clear water in that meadow.  Without the least ripple of a wave, Glen could see the sand and smooth round stones at the bottom of the pool.

            Glen was so thirsty.

            He quickly found the latch and discovered the gate was not locked.  Even if it had been, he could have easily jumped it.  It was a gate, but just enough gate to keep in lazy sheep, and Glen wanted no more than to sip that water, to touch and follow the sheep, to find the shepherd who surely must be the most wonderful master to provide such a perfect place.  He was ready to enter when he saw the big sign.  “No Trespassing.  Keep out.  You are not welcome or wanted here.”

            Glen stepped back like one struck in the face.  What could he do?  He tried not to think about it as he turned away and continued along the edge of the hedge.  Soon enough, the gate was out of sight behind him, and at that point he heard the sound of rushing water, somewhere far but not far away.  After a few yards of travel, he found the source.  The hedge made a sharp right turn in that place and followed a cliff top before it picked up on the other side.  There was no way across that cliff.  The hedge grew right to the edge.  And that cliff ran along the end of a deep chasm where a great, rushing river made its way into some underground course beneath the cliff.

            Glen looked to the other side of the chasm.  It looked a much easier journey there.  But the chasm was too far to jump and the hedge, which he judged again, actually stuck out over the edge making travel across that cliff-top impossible.  Glen took two giant steps back from the edge of that chasm, not being enamored with heights, and then he considered his options. 

            He could return to the gate and claim he never saw the sign, but no.  He was never a good liar.  He could go back into the forest and see if there was another way into the green pasture.  But no, being stuck there as day turned into night was not what he wanted.  He could follow the path of brambles and thorns – the one on his side of the chasm to see where it lead, and hope that he might find a place ahead to cross over to the easier path on the other side.  It was that thought that got his feet moving again.  He would find a way to cross over, though it meant walking beside the darkness for a time.

            It was less than a half-hour when Glen saw a figure in the distance, coming his way.  He waved.  When he saw it was a man, he cupped his hand to his mouth and hollered.  “Hello!”  The man said nothing, but looked up for the first time so Glen knew he was seen.  As they approached, Glen realized that this was a very big man.  “Hello, friend.”  He spoke up, smiled and added the word friend just in case.

            The man stepped up to Glen without a word, and Glen saw that he was big, indeed.  He was also handsome in a way, with dark hair to match his dark eyes, but the eyes were also bloodshot, sweat dripped from his brow, and his cheek showed a touch of blood from a cut just below his left eye.  He stared at Glen with that eye for a moment before he grabbed Glen’s collar and planted his big fist in Glen’s face.  All Glen could think was this one was on drugs.

            Glen broke free.  He danced among the shrubs and moved and tried to defend himself, but it was no good.  The man was faster, stronger, and crazy, so in the end the best Glen could do was collapse and pretend to be unconscious.  The man grunted, and kicked Glen twice before he moved off and left Glen to bleed on the weeds.  Glen was not sure he so much as bruised the man, but then Glen was only trying to defend himself.  Sometimes he regretted trying so hard to take control of his temper when he was young.  Now, when the adrenalin started to pump, his body shut down.  Glen won’t let himself fight.

            It was not long after the big man moved off when another man came along.  This was an older, more normal sized man, and Glen called out to him as well as he could.  It was not a strong call.  His throat was dry and his lips were cracked, He was surprised he could make a sound at all.  He was also breathing rather shallow for fear of the damage his body might have taken.  He dared not move much in case his ribs were as cracked as his lips.

            The man did not stop.  He moved closer to the chasm rather than get close to Glen.  The second man was the same.  He would rather risk falling off the cliff into the raging waters below than acknowledge Glen’s presence and a person in need.  The third man lead an ass in his wake.  He at least paused, and for some time he stared at Glen.

            “Please,” Glen said, and reached his hand out to the man.  But in the end that man shook his head.

            “I am not for you,” he said.  “You do not belong,” and he followed the ones before him, down the path and out of sight.

            After that, the shadow of the trees caught up to Glen and he knew he had to move.  He was stiff and hurting everywhere, and not sure if a few bones might be cracked.  He decided he was lucky none were broken, but he limped all the same to find the sun again. 

            Generally, it was the course of Glen’s life more than any given people that bothered Glen – and as time went on, it was more people than just family and teachers who were told in advance to make it hard.  Brother Tom, of course, got all the best teachers.  Mother made sure of that.  She also made sure Glen did not have any of the same teachers Brother Tom had.  Draw your own conclusions.

            Once, Mother took Glen and Brother Tom to pick out a suit jacket.  Brother Tom liked the one that Glen described as the light pea green that was left after someone threw up the soup.  But Brother Tom wanted it so Mother bought that jacket.  Glen did not begrudge the jacket his brother wanted, but he wondered out loud why she brought him if his opinion mattered so little.  She answered because Glen would get that jacket the following year.  Yeah, when colors like that are completely out of style.  It also did not seem to matter that Tom was more tall and thin while Glen was more short and stocky.  Glen was just supposed to make do with whatever Brother Tom handed down, when he was finished with it.

            So it went.  Brother Tom would write and share with Father.  Baby Carol and Mother would be the girls together.  The parents had their boy and their girl.  Glen would be alone in his room, dreaming, but afraid to dream because every dream he ever had was crushed.  He did some acting in high school and for a couple of years after.  He was pretty good and knew it, but then came a summer – one not touched by his parents for a change – and he suffered the scorn of a young woman whose big brother happened to be the musical director for the company.  She wanted Glen, but since he did not feel the same way about her he did not so much as get invited to be in the chorus.

            The result was he had to get a real job that summer instead, and he never went back to the stage.  You see, by age twenty he was questioning, what’s the point?  He had no one.  He had no encouragement, no support.  He had no one to stand behind him, least of all his own family.  At best, Mother thought the theater might be a nice hobby when he got old.  So with only discouragement in his face, he gave up, but…  He would try something else.

            That is key.  Glen never simply gave up.  He was not a quitter.  In fact, many would say he continued to try in many positions long after those position became untenable.  So it was not the giving up part that mattered, it was the trying something else part.  It was more like. Okay, that did not work so let’s go try something else.  He searched, but for what? 

            Surely there had to be something to which he was called.  There had to be something he could be good at that people would actually recognize and say good, supportive, encouraging things.  There had to be something that his parents, while maybe not proud, might at least not call stupid, wrong and forget it.  Glen had to find that thing.  After all, he died when he was three-and-a-half, but he was brought back to life.  The question still remained: Why did God let him live?

            That question burned in his dreams.

            Glen woke up every few days or weeks or months or in some cases years.  He woke up and wondered where he had been all that time.  He lived so often like a sleepwalker.  The memories did not seem real.  It was like some ancient golem or some modern android lived his life and downloaded the memories upon his return.  What made it especially hard was the substitute Glen had no initiative.  It spoke when spoken to, did as little as it could, and kept as low a profile as it could keep.  It lived the routine – the pattern Glen set on his departure, sometimes to embarrassing ends which Glen then had to deal with upon his return.

            Glen’s only grace was when he awoke, he always remembered something: an image, a place, an idea, something unnatural, impossible, fascinating.  It was never a full memory and never a complete picture, but all the same he wrote these things down from as early as he could remember.  He wrote things down from the day he learned to write.  He filled notebooks, a whole library with islands, nations, armies and navies, great battles, monsters, struggles and some joys.  They were shattered images, like shards from a broken mirror, able only to reflect the smallest pieces of the picture.  They were like thousands of jigsaw puzzle pieces thrown together in the same box.  What could a single piece really tell him?

            Glen would try to remain awake and aware every day, but invariably when he tried, he would wake up a day, week, month or year later and ask, what just happened?  He remembered, but it did not seem real.  The reality seemed to be in the elusive pieces that always managed to stay just beyond the corner of his eye.  Perhaps if he remained in focus, his life might have turned differently.  But he could not, and it did not. 

            Every time he found something good, it got discontinued.  And every time he strove for the light, the darkness would drag him back down.  He had nowhere to turn when even the twenty-third psalm turned against him.  He did not blame or even question God, necessarily.  He simply did not understand… 

            There are a million stories of Glen and his family and their days overseas like seeing the Mona Lisa, which is now covered most of the time, and climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which no one is allowed to do anymore, but those stories can wait.  They visited battlefields, like Bastogne, Verdun and Normandy, and palaces like the Alhambra and the fountain of lions which was pretty good for a people who had no graven images.  There were castles and a whole walled city of Carcassonne, and the beaches at Cannes where the children were not allowed to go.

            Sister Carol fell off a canon in Lisbon and left her stuffed animals in Rome.  They got mailed to a future stop, the animals I mean.  It would have cost too much to mail the canon. 

            Brother Tom made a baseball bat and found an acceptable ball during a week’s rest stop in Austria.  Several German boys joined the game, but it was hard to play ball in a field where the grass came up to the knees. 

             There was a Ferris wheel in Vienna so big it had train cars for coaches, and the Lipizzaner Stallions that danced as good as Trigger.  There were so many things and so many stories, but eventually the family found a big boat in Rotterdam and headed for home.

            School was just school after that, though it was hard to get into the routine again.  Glen missed his one room school, Don Antonio at the chalk board, and that early morning bell that rang merrily from the church steeple and called the children to come and learn.  By contrast, the bell in his school sounded like a prison bell, and the school felt a bit that way as well.

            Still, life in general went back to the way it had been before the trip overseas.  It was almost as if that trip never happened.  Glen supposed it was to be filed away for later remembrance.  So Brother Tom got all the attention and managed the parents to his liking.  Sister Carol, being the baby as well as the only girl certainly got her share, and Glen went back to being the disappointment and afterthought if he was thought of at all.  In a way that was fine, because Glen understood that when he was thought of it was in the most negative and critical way possible.  Even when he did something right, it was never right, and when he did something well it was still no good.  Life was empty and hard for Glen, but at least Glen imagined it could not get any worse.

            It got worse.  Yes it did.  

            Glen was taken to the school psychologist who supposedly knew all about children.  After only a single one hour examination, the man, an amateur, rightly surmised that Glen was not working up to his potential because he found certain things boring.  Glen wished he knew enough back then to suggest that what he needed was some positive reinforcement, but he did not.  The solution the man came up with could not have been worse if it had been conceived by the devil himself.  He said, don’t make it easy for him.  If there are obstacles in Glen’s way, he will rise up and overcome them.

            From that day on, Glen’s life became a living Hell.  His parents were already inclined to be negative and critical toward him.  Now they had official sanction to ruin whatever he was involved in, interested in or went after.  The man said don’t make it easy, but Glen’s parents interpreted that as meaning make it as hard as possible if not impossible.  What Glen needed was guidance, to find something he was good at that he could pursue, something that his parents could support, where they could be proud of him.  What he got was their every effort to make everything as difficult as possible, and in every sense, for a child, impossible.  Under no circumstances were they going to say a positive word, and Glen floundered, directionless for the next twenty years, which just reinforced in their minds that Glen was hopeless and useless.

            I cannot tell you how many things in Glen’s life his parents, and in particular his Mother with her prime networking skills destroyed.  They got him fired from two jobs and in a third they moved him from the fast track to the never to be promoted in a million years track.  Back when Glen was trying to invest in church ministry, he struggled in three churches.  There is nothing but circumstantial evidence that they interfered, but it is very strong circumstantial evidence, and Glen has often wondered exactly who his mother called and exactly what she said. 

            “Thank you for hiring my son.  You will need to keep on his back to get good work out of him.  I wish you the best.”  That would be enough.  Any employer or church member would hear:  “Thank you for hiring my no-good, retarded son who needs his mother to call on his behalf.  He is lazy and useless so I sarcastically say, good luck.”

            It was not far along and the ground improved.  A hardy desert grass obscured the path, but it was a welcomed sign.  Glen felt sure he was getting somewhere, and it was not much further before he smelled the green.  His eyes caught it moments later, though it was still far off  He heard the wail of the men that followed him and thought they might stop and might even go back to their cave.  They did not stop, and he was actually glad for the company, poor as it was.

            “There is life up ahead,” Glen spoke to the air.  “I can see the green and smell it in the air.”

            “It is perdition.  It is purgatory.  It is death.”  The three men responded to Glen’s words.  Glen could not see it, but he did decide it would not hurt to walk carefully and keep his eyes open. 

            “Now gentlemen.”  He spoke up so they could hear him.  “I don’t know what perdition is, I don’t believe in purgatory and life isn’t death so there you go.  Besides, it smells like home – not mine, mind you.  Like Dorothy where if you go looking for your heart’s desire you don’t have to look any further than your own back yard.”  The others said nothing.

            It did not take long to see the big house behind the trees, and it was a real big house like an old southern plantation home or the kind of manor house sometimes found on out of the way roads in England.  It also did not take long to see the chain link fence.  It was laid out perfectly.  Scruffy, dull green tufts of thick grass with barren brown dirt between was on one side and a lush carpet of green, well landscaped with trees, bushes and flowers was on the other.

            “What is with the fence?”  Glen turned at last to face his three followers.

            “There is a sign,” the Leader responded and the Officer pointed a short way down the fence.

            “What, no Cheshire cat to go with it?”  Glen was joking but they were not smiling so he lost his grin, stepped down and read.  “Keep out.  You are not welcome or wanted here.”  He turned to look at the three, but they looked surprised.   They whispered before the Leader asked.

            “What sign are you reading?”

            Glen raised his brows and pointed to the sign.  “This one right here.”

            “But that is not what it says,” the Treasurer said.

            The Leader hushed the man and read the sign he saw.  “Welcome.  Come around and in by the gate and you can have a mansion of your own.”

            Glen squinted at the sign.  He did not see it.  He squinted at the three men in their pompous rags, and decided to encourage them toward something better.  “So, why don’t you take them up on the offer?  It sounds pretty good.  New clothes, I bet.  A warm, comfortable bed to sleep, food whenever you like and who knows what all.”  He let his voice trail off because they looked horrified by the whole idea.

            “But I need to be the leader,” the Leader said.

            “And I need to decide everything,” the Officer said.

            “And I need to keep the accounts,” the Treasurer said.  “And all the money.”

            They turned as one and began back they way they came.  There was no chance of saying anything more even if Glen could think of something to say.  He looked again at the sign.  It clearly said, “Keep out.”

            “Pardon me.”  Glen turned and saw a man through the fence.  He smiled because the man was smiling, but he held his tongue.  “Why are you on the wrong side of the fence?” the man asked.  “You should be in here.  I am certain.”  Glen watched as a young woman came to join the man and add her smile to the group.

            “The sign says Keep out.”  Glen responded.

            “Not possible,” the man said.  “Surely you belong here.”

            “You certainly don’t belong there,” the woman added.

            “Story of my life.  I don’t belong here but I don’t belong there either.”  Glen lost his smile and had a sudden insight.  “Your home is in heaven?”

            “Yes, certainly,” the man said.

            The woman looked up at the man.  “It must be.  It can only be heaven.”

            Glen nodded and turned away.  He ran to catch up to the three men but never found them and never passed them.  When he got back to the cave they were not there, either.  It did not make sense, but he thought overall the whole adventure made more sense then he imagined it should.  He squeezed through the crack in the back wall of the Leader’s room and found his flashlight.  The world outside the cave was beginning to fall into night and he knew he had to go.

            It was not easy climbing back up that steep incline, but he had to get back to where he belonged – or at least where he belonged more than where he had been.  The flashlight slipped from his hand when he reached the top.  He heard it clatter back down to the cave below.  There was no way he was going back to retrieve it.  All he had to do was shove himself the last foot.

            When his mother came in to wake him up that morning, Glen felt like he had not slept a wink.  He had not, and what is more, his flashlight was missing.