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Danny The Prophet
Dedicated
Danny The Prophet:
A Fantastic Adventure Would anyone in his right mind want to be a prophet? Never! People get upset with prophets who tell them truths they'd like to forget. And a prophet has no life of his own. I planned to live my life my own way, so I was unyielding in my decision not to follow in my brother's prophetic footsteps. "Look, I won't be a damn prophet. I'm not cut out for it. I'm going into public relations so people will like me, not hate me." He wouldn't take no for an answer. "Daniel, just as our father was a prophet, and I am one, so will you be a prophet," he insisted in that formal way of his. "It is the will of The Power, Daniel." "What about my free will?" "A prophet gives his will over to The Power." "Not me. I'm not going to spend my life telling people things they don't
want to hear." "Count me out. He made us orphans by letting Mom burn up in that tenement fire. And our old man went around shouting messages nobody wanted to hear, and abandoned us to look for an unknown place called The Garden. Me? A prophet? No deal." My brother kept hounding me. When I said I didn't want to be a laughingstock like him, he said, "If The Power wishes me to be a laughingstock, I am content. The Power's will is my will." He was all I had, and I didn't want to hurt him, but I said I had to be free to make my own choices. "You are young and have much to learn. And you become agitated easily. Learn to be calm, Daniel, and seize your destiny. One day you must replace reluctance with enthusiasm, as Father and I did." "No way! And knock off that 'Daniel' routine. My name's Danny. Danny Lyons." "You are Daniel, and that is what The Power will call you when he anoints you." "I've got other plans." "Your plans are as nothing, Daniel." "It's a free country, so get off my back. I'm going to live life my own way, and that's that." I would have left him if he hadn't begun to fade physically. Then, at the end, he said he felt "deep sorrow" about how few people had believed his messages about The Power. "Maybe The Power's out of style now." "Bring him back into style, Daniel. The decline of values in our times is depressing. But you can be a force for good. Promise me you will open your mind to the possibility of becoming a prophet, Daniel." "Sure. Mm-hm. Right." I bent the truth a little, to make him feel better. Breathing his last, he said, "Be less uncouth, Daniel, as you serve The Power. I will see you... when you join...me and Father...in The Garden." "Mm. Yuh, right. In The Garden." As my brother died in my arms, he was a sorry remnant of what had once been a very wild-eyed prophet. And when he was gone, I stuck to my conviction that he was the last of the prophets. 2 My plan was simple. I'd get a factory job, save for my first year at college, get a scholarship, pick up a journalism degree, get a newspaper job, and parlay my experience into a PR job in Merchant City. I would also marry a pretty girl with a pleasant smile, have a kid, get a house in the suburbs, and later buy a second home on the Maine coast. All I wanted to be was a fairly successful guy, and I was willing to start at the low end and work my way up. First, I got an entry level job in a toilet tissue factory, and fabricated the cardboard tubes the tissue wraps around. I recall that job with reverence. The pay was good, and I acquired enough toilet tissue for four years of academic constipation and diarrhea. Applying for college, I hit a snag because of my fragmented early years. I was "self-educated," so I had to take a high school equivalency exam to get into the journalism school at Merchant City College. After I was accepted, I celebrated by taking a pretty girl to several nightclubs, then to her place where we said goodnight in the wee hours of the morning. I could hardly see straight when I left her, since the booze had moved me into a rest period in oblivion. Driving was a challenge, but I managed to get to my place without any accidents that I know of. As I hit the bed, the room whirled, so I let one foot touch the floor as I had been taught by senior boozers, and my spinning head quieted down. I drifted off to sleep, expecting to wake up around noon on Sunday when I'd squint my way to a bottle of tomato juice, have some black coffee, and work myself back to the series of events that seemed to make up my life. But my deep sleep was interrupted. At about 3 a.m. I was rudely awakened by a strange fluttering noise. Was I dreaming? Or was it my inner ear syndrome? I tried to ignore the sound and go back to sleep. But the fluttering persisted. "The noisy bastards won't even let a guy sleep." I clapped my hands over my ears, but the noise grew louder. Wiping my tired eyes, I crawled out of bed. "Sounds like flapping wings. Hope it isn't a bat." Shuffling toward the noise, I tried to focus my bloodshot eyes on the bedroom window. Then I saw it! A little sparrow was hanging onto the window screen outside, flapping his wings at a rate of speed beyond belief, and making more noise than the jets with flight paths over my apartment building. Realizing he might tear my screen right out of its frame, I growled, "Don't you know what time it is?" I slapped the screen, hoping to dislodge the intruder. "Get lost, you pest! I've gotta get some sleep." The sparrow not only refused to get lost, but it began making even more noise. Then, to my amazement, his wings flapped so fast they became invisible, and a mini-hurricane demolished the screen. Into my room flew the persistent sparrow, and he plunked himself right on top of my TV set! There was an awful ache across my forehead, and it was intensified by the glare of my nightlight. While I tried to come to life, the sparrow posed like a king on a throne, with his head tilted up and his eyes looking down his beak. "It's nice of you to drop by to say hello," I said to the sparrow, "but I happen to be in the middle of a little project known as getting a night's sleep." I expected no response. But this sparrow, the most perfectly groomed bird I had ever seen, looked at me and thundered, "O Daniel, you are a most difficult case. Why have you tried to run from me?" I felt weak at the knees, and my head pounded as I sat on the edge of the bed. "You can talk? Did I drink bad booze? Maybe it's a practical joke and the guys at the factory are putting me on and...." "I am no joke, and although you are inebriated, you are becoming sober. The being you see standing before you is The Power, O Daniel." "You're kidding me." "Why would I mislead you? Did I mislead your father and brother?" "I can't believe this. Am I dreaming?" "You are fully conscious," said the strutting sparrow, "and I am quite real in this form. I have come to anoint you and appoint you to be my prophet. The time for your predestined work has come. Do not fear. The Power will help you." Shaking my head in frustration, I said, "I can't believe this! What a way to introduce yourself to a potential prophet! You wake me up out of a sound sleep, tear my screen to shreds, and prance around on my TV declaiming and pontificating." "You are unbelievably irreverent." "I have a low reverence level at 3 a.m." "Your father and brother were reverent at all times. Besides, time has no relevance with The Power, O Daniel. Time is an illusion." "Oh? The time on my clock is unreal? And that darkness out there isn't darkness?" "You are getting close to the truth, O Daniel. But your attitude is unenthusiastic." "Why should I be eager to serve you? You made me an orphan!" Strutting on the TV set, the sparrow said, "Your perspective is limited. All that happened to you was part of your training. It was not cruelty." As he spoke, I pondered the craziness of our dialogue, and when he was done I said, "I guess I've gone over the border. Too long in the toilet paper factory. I've got my first year's tuition saved, but I'm losing my grip on reality." I shook my head. "This can't be happening. It's impossible." "With The Power, all things are possible, and the real and unreal are interchangeable. I come to you as a sparrow to demonstrate my Power for you. My voice was enough for your father and brother, O Daniel, but you are a hard case. I had to come this way to get your attention, and your agreement." I detected a way out. "Oh, I have to agree?" "How could a reluctant prophet perform the work? Enthusiasm is essential." "Then I'm not your man, TP." The nickname came to me in a flash, and I wondered if it would bother him. "I'm still pissed off at you for ruining my family life, so I'd make a very inferior prophet." "You will be trained, O Daniel, and then your reluctance will change to enthusiasm." "No way! I have my own plans, and if you're omniscient, you know what they are." "I know your plans, but you were born to be a prophet." He sounded less confident. "To consider using a reluctant person like me, you must be desperate. And what about free will? Hey, I'm just not interested in your deal. I saw my father and brother attract angry people like magnets, and I want to be liked, not hated. Give me a break!" "It is human, O Daniel, to desire admiration, but in time you will become enlightened and accept people's negativity as part of the prophetic process." I was not about to go tripping lightly into a life of tomatoes in the face, so I held my ground. "Look, TP, you've made it clear that time is irrelevant, so why not wait a few decades and let me live my life, and then come back and continue this discussion when I'm middle-aged and more enthusiastic?" "You give me something to ponder." He seemed to teeter on the TV, ready to keel over. Then, with eyes closed, in a listening mode, he nodded a few times. "O Daniel, if I were to permit you to follow the plan you have outlined for your life, would you enter into a covenant with me during your middle years to do my prophetic work?' "Sounds good to me." "We will defer the day of your anointing, O Daniel, until a more propitious time." "Are you saying it's a deal?" "I prefer to call it a covenant. You will be a deferred prophet. Remember what has happened here. Until we meet again, O Daniel, peace to you." With a roar of flapping wings, TP flew out the window, leaving me with a shattered screen and a splitting headache. So I slammed the window shut, and popped some aspirin, but the ache remained. Finally, I got to sleep, and when I woke up that afternoon, the ache lingered, along with the memories of the arrogant sparrow who had crashed through my screen and tried to take over my life. As I made myself some strong coffee, I muttered, "I got really smashed last night. Better watch out or I'll end up a worse boozer than the old man was. But that sparrow seemed so real! Imagine The Power coming in the form or a bird. Hard to believe." I stood shaking my head for a while. "I'll have to be more careful about what I drink. Maybe I'll even have to taper off a little." 3 The memory of my time with the sparrow dimmed as I pursued bliss by studying for a degree in journalism. My professors said I had a way with words, although I leaned toward the colloquial. But I argued that everyday language was the wave of the future, and inflated verbiage was on its way out. When I wrote stories about life with my brother and father, the professors found my memoirs "clear, coherent and vivid." Also, they respected my ability to transform complicated phrases into simple terms. I had a problem with sentence fragments though. Like this one. But I showed them that fragments were used by many excellent writers. So they accepted my deviation from the college essay norm. I graduated with honors, and this led to a job as a reporter for the Merchant City Herald. Then I was on my way. For a while I was a journalistic jack-of-all-trades. I got sent everywhere, and never complained. I loved the work, no matter where it took me. And after paying my dues in the city room as a general assignment reporter, I developed a specialty as an environmental writer. At first, all I knew about the environment was that we needed air to breathe, and it would be nicer if the air were clean. But I learned fast by interviewing the top experts, and became a widely recognized expert myself. Thriving on controversy, I was called "gutsy." I started out covering air quality conferences and environmental hearings at the State House. And soon I was writing about the big issues in Washington. They created a new niche for me at the Herald, making me Environmental Editor. And that led to my own column called "Danny's World." It really caught on, and became a labor of love. In the media, contacts are your lifeblood, and my Rolodex was a Who's Who. One of my contacts was a young activist named Judith who was very pretty, smart, and pleasant. We met at a clean air rally where I was a key speaker, and she told me she was a fan and read my weekly column with a passion. Judith. It became a name to remember. And soon we pledged our undying love. As for my career plans, she was enthusiastic. So we were married on an old clipper ship in Merchant City Harbor, had a lavish reception, a Swiss honeymoon, and toured Europe. Then we returned to work on that life plan of mine, with her in my corner, for better or for worse. "What's good for you is good for me, honey," My wife, I soon learned, planned even her "spontaneous" actions. There would be one child, a boy who would go to select nursery schools, then exclusive private schools, then an illustrious private academy, and finally, he would matriculate at a very prestigious college. "Nothing but the best for our son," she said with determination. Thinking as one, we had our son, got our suburban home, dined at the finest restaurants where they called us by name, bought fancy cars, and took short international vacations at whim. I kept advancing my career, and after making my mark nationally, I decided it would make sense to leave the paper and open my own public relations agency specializing in environmental issues. "This has been my dream for a long time," I told Judith. "I've always wanted my own PR agency." "What's good for you is definitely good for the three of us, honey." Driven by obsession, I left the newspaper, syndicated my column, and in no time Danny Lyons, Ltd. had a very respectable clientele, paying me healthy fees to spread their gospels. Soon I had the top-ranking specialized PR firm in Merchant City. When my syndicated column went national, I was invited to environmental conferences all around the world. And I became a popular guest lecturer on the environment and on public communication. Life became my oyster. At forty, I was a member of exclusive businessmen's clubs, on the board of the International Society of Earnest Gourmets, and had a silver gray Rolls Royce for me, a red Bentley for Judith, and a black Jaguar for Junior. Our home in the quietest suburb west of Merchant City was a facsimile of Jefferson's place at Monticello. And our custom-designed octagonal beach house in Maine, with its walls of glass, had an uninterrupted view of the rockbound Atlantic. It was the showplace of Chapelsea, a seaside village so exclusive no ordinary person had heard of it. As for Junior, Judith enrolled him at a college so adored that its name was only uttered in a reverent whisper. We wined and dined with the high and the mighty, at home and abroad. Then a chance remark from the publisher of the Merchant City Herald introduced me to the political bug. "Danny, have you ever thought of running for political office? You get more visibility in the media than the Governor." It wasn't long before they had me running for State Senator, and I had the right backing. As Senator Danny, I got the lay of the land at the State House, and worked my way up the committee structure, aiming always at one special committee. Ways and Means was where the power was. Finally, after some high level maneuvers for the Senate President, I was named to Ways and Means, and a few intentional twists of fate moved me into the post of Chairman of Senate Ways and Means. Now I was a key political figure. At the sound of my name the Governor would get a catch in his throat. I relished my power at Ways and Means so much that higher offices at the state and federal levels held no interest for me. I truly enjoyed being Senator Danny, and with my media experience I rapidly became what they call "a personality," appearing as a repeat guest on major TV and radio programs not only in Merchant City but statewide and in neighboring states. Then, when the world seemed to be my private oyster, on the half shell, I thought I could settle on a comfortable plateau. I had my syndicated column, my environmental PR agency, and my public role as Senator Danny. What else could I desire? I had wanted to be an average fairly successful guy, and instead Danny Lyons had become a name to be reckoned with. I had it all. Judith, my dream girl. My son Junior. Fame. Power. Money. A suburban palace. A royal retreat on the Maine coast. What a contrast I saw between my life and the lives my brother and father had endured as prophets. They didn't have a clue about life at the top. Once in a while that visit from the sparrow would enter my mind, but I would remind myself that it must have been a figment of my booze-soaked imagination. A sparrow with divine powers? Hah! Hey, I've paid my dues, I told myself. I've chased my destiny and found it. I deserve this success, and I plan to hang onto it. But I hadn't planned on the series of events that came next. 4 As I entered middle age, I wanted to rest on my plateau and twiddle my thumbs instead of feverishly chasing new goals. But life had other plans. It started with the public's new thirst for accountability. When pressure at the Senate built, I had to spend more time there, and when I wasn't around to motivate my PR firm staff, business suffered. Then an economic recession hit, and we lost clients, which meant financial deficits. And as the heat built at the State House, fear set in. I wasn't paranoid. My enemies were real. First came the investigation into the ethics of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Then I began to get anonymous threats. And some of the newspapers subscribing to my column "Danny's World" dropped me. How did I react? "I'm getting the jitters, Judith." "You're turning into a loser," she responded. And soon she was on her own tangent. "I'm picking up where I left off when we were married." Her new cause was women's rights. And you'd think she had been cruelly stripped of all freedom. When she launched her State House campaign, she soon made the professional lobbyists look lazy. "Oh-oh! Here comes Danny's wife again," my pals would say as she marched militantly toward their offices. "Hup. Two. Three. Four. Left. Right." She created The Lyons Public Interest Group, which I called "The Lyons PIG," in a lighthearted attempt to soften my colleagues' irritation with her. But "Danny's wife" was so power crazy she shattered many of my legislative relationships, and managed to reduce my credibility to about zero. Complaining to her was wasted energy. "What's good for you is good for me, honey" had shifted to "I have to do this for me, Danny, so back off." Rapidly my power eroded, and I lost my seat as Chairman of Ways and Means because of "seeds of doubt" that arose during the investigations of our ethics. And when Judith heard the news, she said, "You've lost your touch, Danny. You're going down the tube. Too much booze. You've had it." In my deepening depression, I agreed. "You're right, Judith." Yes, I had lost my touch. And my confidence was gone. As for the booze, I told myself that a lot of guys drank much more than I did. Then she hit me below the belt, in the genital area. "You're hopeless! You're washed up in the Senate, losing clients at the agency, and also getting very mediocre in bed. You've had it." In a burst of self-worth, I said, "Your new lifestyle's a big factor in my decline and fall." "You're the one whose to blame for you becoming such an armpit! You alone are responsible." "I think I detect some negativity, my dear." "Stick around, and I'll show you negativity!" Judith kept her promise, and her terms of endearment for me such as "jerk" and "creep" made it clear that the girl of my dreams had been replaced by another kind of energy. Then, to complicate matters, she hooked up with a guy ten years younger, who was also crusading for women's rights. Harvey was short and thin, with a little pointed beard, and a black plastic briefcase filled with case studies. When she spent increasing amounts of time with him, my self-esteem dropped even more. Sharing my feelings with my bottle, I said, "Hey, who cares? No problem." Money was a problem though. My shrinking income paid "our" bills, and only God and Judith knew where her increasing income went. "Look, you creep. You conned me into being the happy homemaker, and I let my talent go to waste. It's my turn, and things are different now, Danny." When I said she had basked in my success, she screamed, "It was just role playing, you male pain in the ass! And you don't call the shots anymore." As my income went down, so did Judith's opinion of me. And her thinking became Junior's thinking too. Eventually, when my donations to his lifestyle became scarce, he simply told me, "Your whole life doesn't add up to a hunk of day-old dog shit!" I think I replied, "A point well taken." Did I feel isolated, alone, and unappreciated in my own home? I was an ambassador without portfolio. A nonentity. I started driving economy cars, reduced my office space, and even cut back on gourmet food. When I was on the board of the International Society of Earnest Gourmets, we'd hop over to France for those little birds you catch and fatten up and swallow whole. And off we'd go to Africa for special ants, and to South America for snails. If there was something nobody wanted to eat, we'd find a way to cook it, or spice it, and eat it. The inconvenience, the cost, and the awful taste were all part of the fun. It was a letdown to be ushered off the board with a vote of thanks for my "years of splendid service." In other words, "It was nice knowing you when you were successful. Good-bye, Danny." So there I was, declining and falling as all empires do. Then I had a flash of insight. "Judith, we're growing apart, the situation at the firm is depressing, the Senate isn't what it used to be, and the problems of the city are spreading out here to the suburbs. I think we should change our lifestyle." "What do you suggest?" "We should sell this mansion, consolidate our debts, and move to the place in Maine year-round. You could commute to your office. I could commute to the firm, resign from the Senate, and continue my column for the newspapers that still use it, and...." "Let's do it." "Let's do it?" I knew she didn't mean anything sexual. "You agree with my plan?" "What's good for you is good for me, honey," she purred. "Why would you think otherwise?" "Uh...Mm...Well, I..." I decided not to remind her about her hostile behavior. She organized the mansion's sale, dividing the proceeds so all our debts were paid from my share and she got the rest. "They're your debts, Danny." I announced my decision to leave the Senate "for a simpler life after two decades of public service," became the guest of honor at several testimonials, and we moved to Chapelsea on the Atlantic, with its invigorating Maine air and slower pace. For a while, we thrived on the simple life. But the word "bored" became common in Judith and Junior's conversations, and one day Junior shouted, "Look, I'm sick of this half-assed place and I'm gonna trek on down to Merchant City." Then Judith screamed, "I hate this morgue." And she began staying in Merchant City "on business." Again I shared my feelings with the one I could trust, my bottle. "Ah, who cares!" Finally, Judith's Declaration of Independence was delivered. "I can't stand you anymore! I hate the way you chew your food, the way you walk, the way you think, the way you dress, your receding hairline, your neatness fetish, your wrinkled forehead, and your fading sexual capacity. You're a jerk, Danny." "A few points well taken, Judith." "Here's another point. Junior was smart leaving this morgue. I'm leaving too. I'm going to divorce you and forget every rotten day I've lived with you." "Will we be able to describe our separation as amicable?" I tried to be funny. She ignored my remark. "I've put a deposit on a condo near Merchant City Harbor, and Harvey's moving in. So sell this place and give me my share after you pay the debts and capital gains. With what's left, get a shack up the street so you can be with your stupid chipmunks and boring surf and idiotic birds. I'm getting out, Danny!" "Several points very well taken, Judith." Soon Judith was gone, and I was alone at the huge beach place with nobody to talk to except a few resident spiders. And I began to wonder about the set of experiences I had once described as "my life." I shared my thoughts with the one I could trust. I drank, and wondered, and drank, and then, instead of me doing the drinking, the drinking was doing itself, and I was just a container to pour it into. My interest in the "Danny's World" column declined. What world? I phased out the column, resigned from the gourmet society, and neglected the few clients I had at the PR agency. They complained about my performance, so while I had something left to sell, I made a deal with my staff associates. As part of the divorce, we sold the beach house. And by the time the lawyers got through with me, she had a tidy settlement for herself and Junior's graduate education. What was left after absorbing all our debts was just enough to buy a little cottage a mile from our former Utopia-by-the-sea. Also, I managed to divert a modest sum from the sale of the PR firm into an annuity to pay my downsized living expenses and support me till retirement age. When the transition was over, I was a legally emancipated person with no family responsibility and no employment. I was free to buy a large supply of scotch. Free to drink as I pleased. Free to sit and watch the surf and seagulls at Chapelsea Cove. Free to feel the awful feelings that came over me as I shook my head in a mixture of awe and dismay. Talking into the wind, I said, "I feel like the original shrinking man. Hey, Danny, where are you?" I had a swirling mind filled with memories, but I felt like there was no me left. "I feel so alone!" I shouted to the wind, "I've got nothing and nobody! I'm a has-been, and I feel like a never-was!" I sat on the hard rocks of Chapelsea Cove, very inebriated, and amazed at what had happened to my life. Looking over my shoulder at the back patio of the oceanfront estate that had been mine, I muttered, "Nouveau riche idiot! You're on the inside and I'm on the outside looking in. Persona non grata." To get to the ocean I had to walk a mile from the little cottage up on the hill, buried in a pine grove. In Chapelsea, your view indicated your social status. So I had a sliver's status because my view was partially obstructed by a neighbor's pine trees. I dreamed of cutting them down, but didn't have the energy. So my view was a sliver, and I was a sliver of my former self. All I could do each day was take my weary body, stumble down the crooked path near my former summer home, trip on exposed cedar roots, and sit on a large rock near the cove, slugging down scotch from my flask, while whispering or shouting to the wind, "Junior and Judith were right! They knew me and could live nicely without me." Maybe I had made sense once, as Judith had admitted in a weak moment, but now I had a shrunken life. At age fifty, I felt like one of those old Chinese men who had lived more than a century. My past was a dream. My present was a blur. The future had no meaning. And I had an absence of desire, except the wish to drink from my bottle. "Does this absence of desire mean I'm a Buddhist?" I asked in a soliloquy on the rocks. "If I'm in Nirvana, I hate it. I might have been better off being a half-assed prophet like my brother and father. Or I could have been a quarter-assed one." That night I fell into an alcohol-related sleep. And at 3 a.m. a fluttering noise woke me. I thought I was dreaming, and ignored it. But it persisted. "Damn! What's this about?" The noise got louder. "Sounds like flapping wings. Is it a seagull with insomnia?" Dragging myself out of bed and into the den, I saw a little sparrow hovering outside the window near the TV, waving his wings at incredible speed, and making a large bulge in my screen. "Don't you know what time it is? Get lost!" I was about to smash the screen with a newspaper when I recalled a similar scene. "Okay! I'll open it! Don't break it! I have enough mosquitoes. Up we go with the screen." Then, in a rush of wind that relocated every piece of paper in my cottage and sent window shades and curtains flying, the sparrow made his entrance and plunked himself on top of my TV set. "It's you again! TP!" I said. "It is I, O Daniel," said a voice that nearly split my eardrums. "I am The Power." "Well, I'll be damned." "There is no need for such extremes, O Daniel." 5 As I began to awaken, and got a good look at TP, I realized that instead of the slick image of the original TP, this bird looked as if he had flown into an electric fan. His head seemed to be tilting off center, his feathers were going in all directions, and he didn't have the arrogant bearing he once had. "If this is a dream, TP, it's the most realistic one I've had, other than your first visit." "This is not a dream, O Daniel." "Then tell me, TP, what's happened to you? You look like you've been banged around." "My condition is not the subject of this meeting. It is you I wish to discuss. Your glow of youth is gone, and I see a deteriorated middle-aged man. The flesh on your abdomen overlaps your pants in a most unflattering way. Your beard is unkempt. Your eyes are bloodshot. And on your nose I observe veins signifying years of excessive alcohol consumption. "You came to believe I was only a dream, O Daniel. It has pained me to see you join the world of illusions instead of performing your prophetic mission. But I have come to fulfill the covenant we sealed during our first meeting. It is my earnest hope that your decline and fall, as you call it, has made you more willing to perform your mission." Although I was groggy, his remark about me living an illusion didn't sit well. "Hey, maybe things have gone a little sour lately, but I had quite a life before that, didn't I?" "You achieved status in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of The Power you were making gods of such illusions as fame, power, and money." "Oh, was that trip to Tahiti an illusion? And the Rolls Royce? How about the success I had with my PR firm? And was I just a make-believe Senator? Give me a break, TP. I think I've done pretty well." TP's voice rose a few decibels. "Self-indulgent pursuits were your stock-in-trade. And often you were deceitful in achieving your goals, or the aims of your clients and constituents. Your sense of right and wrong was warped. I am aware of your service for your fellow man, but how can such earthly pursuits compare to serving as a prophet of The Power?" As his voice reverberated through my sensitive nervous system, I wondered if I had gotten him so upset that he was now planning ways to shaft me. Reading my thoughts, he said, "It is good to feel some fear, but it is love I give you and expect from you. Out of loving concern, I train my prophets rather than punish them. I have infinite patience, but you are a difficult student. Your losses and failed goals have not brought the desired results. Instead of coming closer to me, you have often cursed me while denying my existence. O Daniel, it is contradictory to curse a being whom you say does not exist." "You have a point, TP, but why shouldn't I be ambivalent about you after what you did to my family? Anyhow, you're as out of style now as the Henry J. Remember that car? We live in a fast-paced society. If you don't keep up with the times you're on the outside looking in. You haven't kept up." "I have no need to be in step with my creations. Look at yourself, and your alcohol-soaked mind, your financial distress, your abandonment by wife and child, and your loss of reputation." I took a deep breath, watched the little sparrow pace back and forth on my TV, lecturing me, and I wondered if I had even a minuscule grasp on reality. "Have I lost your attention?" "I got a bit distracted. Could you repeat those last few sentences?" He complied, and then I said, "I admit I've had some bad luck, but it'll take a turn for the better." "Did I not observe you on the rocks bemoaning your state, and thinking about the prophetic life?" "I was in a bad mood. Hey, if you know the answers, why ask me the questions?" "I prefer to have the answers come from you." "I wish you'd go find a better prospect. I've got my cottage, my booze, a modest income, and no interest in becoming a prophet." TP resumed pacing, as some college professors do, and he summarized the benefits of serving him. "You will be transformed from your present shallow condition into a magnificent prophet." "I'm too tired to do anything but drink." "Your drinking is an effort to evade your destiny. But your experiences on the wrong path will increase your compassion for other deluded ones." "Look, if I become your prophet they'll laugh in my face like they did with my father and brother." "O Daniel, do you not recall that you sealed a covenant with me?" "It was intimidation. Look, there are plenty of people who'd do the job better than me, so why don't you put an ad in the Merchant City Herald? I bet you'd get a hundred replies right away. Or you can organize a contest on radio and TV, and...." Before I finished the sentence, a gust of wind like a tornado swirled around me, lifted me up, spun me around like a top, and then dropped me into the lounge chair with my head spinning. "Cease your excessive verbalizing. I am trying to get a message across to you." "I get your point, but I still want people to like me, not hate me!" "A prophet cannot please everybody, but I will keep your personality in mind. You will be much loved when you do your prophetic work." "I'm too exhausted." "You will be filled with energy and enthusiasm." "Sounds unlikely, but based on my condition now, what have I got to lose? And I get tired of being here all by myself. Let's make another deal. If you try your best to train me and you don't succeed, will you agree to get off my back once and for all?" "That is worth considering, O Daniel, just as our first covenant was. I accept." "It's a deal?" "It is a de--. I mean, it is a covenant." "Then what comes next? Fill me in." "Tomorrow at this time you will be on your way to The Cave of Contemplation." "I've always been fascinated by caves." "You will take your world-weary body and mind to The Cave and you will consume The Books. Then you will go to The River of Life and Death, where you will be set adrift among The Islands of Danger. You will experience your share of perils, but you will survive more or less intact and...." "More or less intact? I'm in no condition for endurance tests, you know." As if he hadn't heard me, he said, "You will be taken to The Delta of The Four Rivers, where you will find The Bridge of Decision, which will bring you to the man-eating Golden Turtle. Then, after...." "After what? Come on, what kind of crackpot adventure do you think I'm...." His voice boomed. "After you confront The Golden Turtle, you will be immersed in The Ocean of Whirlpools. Finally, O Daniel, you will arrive at The Mountain of Mysterious Secrets where you will learn truths few mortal men have ever understood. Also, you will see events that have yet to occur." My journalistic curiosity was piqued by his remark about my getting to view the future, so I listened intently as he went on. "When you have experienced many events on The River of Life and Death, you will be ready for a mission suited to your personality. A mission to Merchant City." "Great! I can see it now. My former colleagues in the Senate. My former PR clients. The guys at the Press Club. My old drinking buddies. My brother gourmets. Boy, will they laugh at Crazy Danny!" "You tend to grossly exaggerate." "And you tend to expect too much of me. Hey, I have an appointment I forgot. I've gotta go and...." TP strutted on the TV again, in an agitated way, his head held high as his voice rose many decibels. "You are such a hard case, O Daniel, but you will learn to be calm and confident when you have been imbued with wisdom in The Cave of Contemplation. "Tomorrow, eat a light breakfast, but there is no need to trim the stubble on your face. You may gaze briefly at the birds and chipmunks. Also, imbibe no intoxicating beverages as you often do in the morning, because you must start your journey with a clear mind, not a cerebral muddle. "Proceed directly to Chapelsea Cove, along the dirt path through the junipers and cedars. Since the tide will be low, go around the large rock near the ocean's edge, then follow the smaller rocks to the largest rock on the south side of the cove. As you pass around that rock you will see a formation resembling the mouth of a canyon, and in the rear of the canyon you will see darkness. "Enter that space and move steadfastly into the moderate darkness. Then, at the base of the rocks, in a location usually covered by the tide, you will see a small opening. Crouch down, enter the opening, and proceed into the deep darkness, and you will be on your way to prepare for your mission as a chosen and anointed prophet for these disturbed times. "I must go now, O Daniel. Remember that The Power will be with you, as a voice, or as a spirit." "Right, TP. Maybe I'll give it a try and...." Instead of responding, TP flapped his wings until they were invisible. Then the wind built up to tornado strength, everything in my place began to fly, and out the window went TP, right through the screen, and off into the great beyond. "Another trail of destruction," I muttered. My mind whirled with his words, and to deal with the confusion I turned to the one I could trust. I poured a Bailey's Irish Cream and flopped into my lounge chair for a while before returning to bed. "It was real. TP was here. Imagine that little sparrow lecturing me from on top of my TV! Hard to believe. What a way to recruit a prophet. Very...." My eyes began to close, and I thought I was going to sleep. Then I heard myself exclaiming, "Cave of Contemplation? In a hole in the rocks at the cove? There's no hole there! Absolutely nothing." After another Bailey's, I shuffled back to bed, muttering, "I don't get it. You'd think he'd want a religious fanatic. Why me? Well, out of curiosity I'll try to follow his instructions in the morning. There's not much else to do around here anyhow." ..to be continued... We would appreciate your comments! Send to info@sanctuary777.com NOTE: Agents and editors interested in reprint or film/video rights may contact publisher at info@sanctuary777.com |
