Visitations
November 24, 2025 Leave a comment
Brooke was not one to go looking for treasure among the trash, but the sight of a huge yard sale where unwanted items were offered for a second or third chance at redemption, she could not pass up. She parked her car and joined the dozen or so couples walking among the array of tables each presenting a collage of things once valued, then set aside, then remembered and revalued, and now priced for sale. The once attached were up for adoption.
Atop one table sat a black 1926 electric singer sewing machine. Beneath it, against the leg of the table leaned a B & W photograph – a coastal landscape. Brooke bent down to look at it. The seller, an eighty-something woman got up from her chair and leaned across the table.
“You see something, don’t you dearie? Hang it where you will see it every night.”
The woman went on to say that she was selling her things because her son was putting her in a home “where memories walk the halls.”
A tall man with winsome blue eyes and a half smile walked up to her side. “Mom, that’s not so.” He spoke with a voice that, for some reason, reminded Brooke of a vanilla latte.
The woman grabbed his arm. “This is my son Chet.”
Brooke was curious. “Chet? I’ve not . . .”
“My father liked Chet Baker, you know, the jazz trumpeter and vocalist.” He showed her the Chet Baker Sings and Plays LP also for sale.
“Here,” proposed Chet, “this LP and this book of poetry go with the photograph.” He placed them in front of her.
Brooke held up the framed photograph. Unable to read any signature in the lower right-hand corner, she asked the woman who the photographer was.
“My late husband. Henry took up photography after he retired. He was a romantic soul with a wanderlust about him. He loved to drive back roads to new places and take pictures. This was taken when we were along the coast in northeast England.”
“It has a certain charm to it,” Brooke remarked.
“It has charmed me for years. Looking at it, I hear his sweet husky voice. But you don’t need to know all that. See for yourself.”
This last comment seemed odd to Brooke but it did lend to the photograph a certain mystical attraction. After imagining the photo hanging in her new studio apartment in the city, Brooke paid the woman and brought the three items home.
That afternoon she measured, nailed, and hung the framed 24 X 36 framed photograph in the middle of a white wall that held nothing else. She stood back to look at it.
The shoreline divided the sea on the left and cliff terrain on the right. Above the water, clouds blotted out the sun but rays of light streaked down from their edges. On the beach stood a woman. She was not looking at the water but back toward the land. What she sees is not in view. Her shadow is stretched out before her.
Brooke’s studio apartment was on the fifth floor, above the street lights. At night, the glow of the city, manufactured moonlight, immersed the small studio and the futon where she slept.
~~~
The next weekend, Brooke’s boyfriend Alex arrived to take her to dinner. He sat down on the futon to wait for her as she finished getting ready. On the side table was a book with a worn cover. He picked it up and thumbed through it and put it down.
“You reading poetry now?”
“I got it a yard sale last weekend. I bought the photo on the wall and the woman who sold it to me gave me the book.”
Alex looked over at the photo. “It’s kinda bleak. You know they make color photos these days, don’t you? And what is that woman looking at?”
Alex picked up the book again and turned to one of the dog-eared pages.
“Let’s see what Lord Byron says . . .”
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
“I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”
“Brooke, did I tell you that I wrote limericks when I was a kid?”
No, you didn’t,” Brooke responded from the bathroom.
“There once was a man from Tijuana
Who had a pet Iguana,
He played the trumpet
And so did his pet,
But don’t ask me if I wanna.”
“Want to hear another?
“If you must.”
“There once was a man named Paul
Whose name he couldn’t recall,
When the time came to sign on the old dotted line
The old man just had to stall.”
“Brooke, did I tell you that I’m reading a novel?”
“Oh yeah, which one?” Brooke walked into the living room.
“A Tom Clancy novel.”
“I’m ready. Let’s go.”
That night they dined at Cooper’s Tap, a pub that served beer and sarnies and big screen soccer. Brooke ordered a smoked gouda and apple melt sandwich and Alex a rosemary roast beef and brie sandwich.
During their weekend outings to Cooper’s, Alex, after a few pints, would be outgoing to the point of talking to everyone at the bar. He’d slap a guy on the back and place his hand on the back of the woman next to him, as if old friends. Brooke saw something endearing about that aspect of Alex but also something needy.
The evening ended as it had the last six months of dating – at the door. Brooke was not going to make any overnight commitment until she felt something substantial to hang her heart on.
With the futon opened and the bed made, Brooke nestled in for the night. She grabbed the book from the side table and looked for a poem. She settled on A Daughter of Eve by Christina Rossetti and read it aloud.
“A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
“My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It’s winter now I waken.
“Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm’d sweet to-morrow:—
Stripp’d bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.”
She put the book down and looked over at the photograph before turning out the light.
~~~
In the coming weeks her father, mother and sister would each make separate visits to see her new apartment, ask about her new job and meet Alex. Her father was the first to visit.
When Roland arrived, he stood in the middle of the 500 square foot studio apartment scratching his head over the amount of rent his daughter paid for such a small place. “You don’t even have room to have people over for a meal.”
Brooke said it was what she could afford and the apartment was just a few blocks from her job. She didn’t have a car payment.
Her father sat down on the futon and asked about her job.
“I’m an ER charge nurse now in the Level 1 trauma center. I oversee 15 nurses. We see about 35 patients a shift.”
“Do you like your job? Are you OK seeing all that gore?” her father asked.
“Well, I never ever get used to seeing someone without a face or massive amounts of hemorrhaging or exposed brain matter. Burns – especially severe ones- are gruesome. But I do what I have to do knowing that those brought in need patching up.”
“What about this Alex guy? You like him?
“He’s nice. He’s kinda like Joey, the guy I was dating in high school. He makes me laugh. But he is a bit too much, dad, so, I dunno. Maybe that will change over time change. You’ll meet him tonight.”
That evening Brooke and her father met up with Alex at Cooper’s. After a few pints and a couple games of darts, the two men wandered around the pub talking up those sitting at the bar. Alex introduced Roland to his bar-mates.
Brooke watched her father in his element. He could read a room and invite himself into it. As a sales rep, he wined and dined many clients. Tonight at Cooper’s, he was her father and someone’s sales rep and his everyman self.
It was her father’s out-of-town trips that were behind Brooke’s mother divorcing her father ten years before. That and the affair she had with Douglas while her father was not around. This, Brooke felt, left her father bitter and anxious to regain what he lost – a major customer.
When the evening ended, Brooke and her father said goodnight to Alex. On the way to the apartment Brooke asked her father what he thought about Alex.
“He’s a good egg. Fun to be around.” He paused. “Is your mother still seeing that creepy sweater-wearing guy?”
“Yes, dad.”
Brooke offered her father the futon for the night. He protested and said the air mattress he brought with would do. He spent a half-hour blowing into it, his face turning beet red. With a sheet, a pillow, and some blankets, he made his bed and settled in.
“Nite Brookes.”
“Nite dad.” Brooke turned off the light. The room took on the city’s silver glow.
“You can sleep with this garish light?”
“Garish? I’ve never heard you use that word before.”
“Janinne used it.”
“Who is Jannine?”
“I met her tonight. She’s a high school English teacher. She gave me her number.”
The next morning, Brooke awoke to find her father sitting in a chair taking antacid pills. His heartburn was bothering him again.
Brooke wanted to sleep longer as her father was up several times to the bathroom and when he was asleep he snored. But she got up to make some coffee for herself and toast for her father.
“I had a dream last night,” her father began. “I saw Janinne on the beach. She was looking for me.”
Brooke pointed to the photograph.
“Yeah, that’s what I saw.” He walked up and looked it over. “That’s what I saw. That is Janinne.”
“C’mon.”
“That’s her.”
“You only met her last night. And how could she be in a photo taken by some guy on a trip to the northern coast of England?”
“That’s her. She told me to come to her on the beach.”
Brooke smiled. “Are you taking anything else besides those antacid tablets?”
“Kismet. I’m taking kismet,” her father replied.
“Is that another word she taught you?”
“Yeah. She knows a lot of fancy words.”
That day Brooke took her father to the hospital where she worked. She introduced him to the RNs on her staff. Later they ate a sandwich at a bistro and then took in a movie her father wanted to see: “a shoot-em-up with car chases and women who liked bad boys.”
That night they returned to Cooper’s. Her father was hoping to see Janinne. He called her earlier that day but had to leave a voice mail. Father and daughter played several games of darts and went home early.
Back at the apartment, Roland sat in the chair feeding himself antacid tablets and looking at the photograph. He called Janinne’s number again and left a message again asking if everything was OK and if she had ever been to England’s northern coast.
“How about a poem dad?”
“Huh? A poem? Do I look like I need a poem?”
“This is Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda.”
“Oh, boy.”
“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
“I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
“I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
“and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.”
“That’s what Kismet does to a person. Makes their stomach ache.”
When Brook turned off the light, the cool reflected light of the city filled the room. Her father complained again about the light and then slept and snored and got up three times. In the morning, he kissed his daughter on the forehead as she lay in the bed and said goodbye.
~~~
Two months later, Brooke’s mother Shirley arrived for the weekend. Douglas stayed home.
Her mother, an interior designer, brought potted chrysanthemums and a bowl of oranges to “feng shui up” the apartment. “The flowers,” she said, “would bring positive energy and the oranges would enhance the level of energy and promote peace, luck, wealth, and prosperity.”
Looking over the studio apartment, Brooke’s mother commented that she liked the space and what her daughter had done with it. She loved the photograph. Brooke told her how she came by it.
“You can find such interesting things at yard sales,” her mother said. “That’s where I met Doug. He was looking for vintage wine glasses.”
In the evening, the pair went to the Hope and Cheese Wine Bar. Shirley talked about Doug’s palate for wine tasting, his love for pinot noir, and his recent divorce. Then she talked about her yoga classes and the clients she meets there. Brooke talked about her job.
“Is your father still belting down the beers and taking those Rolaids?”
“Yes, mom.”
Shirley swirled the wine in her glass, then picked it up and sniffed the aroma. “This wine reminds me of chocolate chip cookies baking.”
When they returned to the apartment, Brooke set up the futon for the night. Her mother would share the bed with her. Before turning out the lights, Brooke showed her mother the book of poems.
“Poems. Oh, how charming.”
“Listen to this, Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe . . .
“For the moon never beams,
without bringing me dreams
of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise,
but I feel the bright eyes
of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide,
I lie down by the side of my darling — my darling —
my life and my bride,
in her sepulchre there by the sea —
in her tomb by the sounding sea.”
“Lovely dear. Please turn off the light.” Her mother turned over and Brooke turned off the light.
That night, rain pelted the large street window. Each droplet became a small rivulet that with the city lights gave the room an animated other world feel.
In the morning, Brooke awoke to find her mother sitting in the chair holding up her phone.
“Listen to this poem Doug sent me . . .
“How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn’t touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn’t resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin’s bow,
which draws *one* voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.”
“Who wrote that?”
“Ah,” she scrolled down, “Rilke. Rainer Maria Rilke.”
“I talked to Doug this morning. I told him about your apartment and the wine bar. He said he thought of me last night as he sat drinking a glass of pinot noir. He imagined me standing on a beach waiting for him. Can you believe it. I didn’t even tell him about your photograph. Isn’t that coincidence or karma or whatever they call it?
“Kismet.”
“Yeah. Kissssmet. Dougie made reservations for the two of us at Do Tell Inn. It’s right on the Do Tell Vineyard in California. We will spend the week tasting wines.”
“How nice. I was planning to go to church today. Wanna come?”
“You go to church now?
“Yeah, ever since I moved here. I . . .”
“You need a good man in your life, Brooke. And church. Isn’t that for old folks on their way out. I was hoping to go see that furniture store on fourth avenue.”
“How about we go to church together, then go to the furniture store if it is open on Sunday, then to Hope and Cheese and then later you can meet Alex and booze it up with him.
“Brooke! That’s not me!” she huffed. “Alright, I’ll go to church with you and we’ll do the rest.”
They went to church. The priest gave a sermon about the hope for new creation and hope requiring imagination to see beyond one’s immediate circumstances. He ended by reading a poem.
After the service, Brooke and her mother found the furniture store to be closed so they headed over to Hope and Cheese.
With two Chardonnays poured and a plate of cheese, Brooke asked her mother what she thought about church.
“He’s hot. I love his sweet husky voice.”
Brooke looked at her. “What? You mean the priest?”
“Yeah. Is he married? You should find out.”
“I meant about what was said.”
“Yeah, well, your father could use some of that down-to-earth stuff. Who knows what planet he’s on.”
With that Brooke decided to end that conversation and let her mom go back to talking about Doug. Later, after a nap, the two met Alex for dinner at Cooper’s.
The evening began with introductory conversation and several pints for Alex. Shirley didn’t like the house wine so she began drinking pints with Alex when he showed her how to play darts. Brooke watched Alex and her mother having a good time and couldn’t picture her father and mother ever having fun together.
Later that night back at the apartment, Brooke asked her mother about this.
“Oh yes, we had some good times, but things, things, well, you know, things change. He treated me like equal friends when we began our marriage. I loved that but after I had you and Bailey, I realized that I had different needs. I was taking care of you and your sister and pursuing my interior design business and your father needed to be on the road to sell. Then I met Doug at the 2020 Interior Design Expo and I couldn’t see myself the same way. Things change, Brooke. One day you’re a soccer mom in a van driving kids to activities and the next, kisskarma, someone sees you as a creative artist and drives you to wine tastings.”
The next morning, they got up early, hugged, and said their goodbyes. Brooke had to go to work and her mother had to catch a train.
~~~
A month later, Brooke’s younger sister Bailey arrived at the airport. Before heading to Brooke’s apartment, they drove over to Sense of Bean for coffee.
There, Bailey talked about her job as an HR manager and asked Brooke how it went seeing mom and dad.
“Ah, well, you know them. The same as always. Dad starts conversations with everyone he meets and mom finishes everyone’s conversations. It’s weird seeing them with someone else.” Brooke went on to talk about the time spent with them.
“Are you still seeing Alex?” Balley asked.
“Yeah, we still going out. But . . .”
“Why?”
“I dunno. He’s likable, but . . .”
“Have the two of you . . .?”
“No. I want to see who he is without it.”
After coffee, they walked down the street to Off the Hook clothing resale shop. Bailey bought a plaid flannel shirt and Brooke, a paisley sherpa jacket and a vintage coral bracelet. They headed to the apartment with their purchases.
Inside, Bailey gave the studio a quick look. “It’s small but you don’t need much.” She went over to the large window. “Buildings everywhere you look. And grey everywhere you look.” As she stepped back from the window, a bird glanced off the glass.
“Mom would say that is a sign,” said Bailey. “Some force in the universe is trying to get in touch with you about your future, your romantic future.”
“I think the bird took it as a sign to not fly into a solid wall of glass in the future,” replied Brooke.
Bailey turned and saw the photograph. “That photo. Is that you?” She walked up for a closer look.
“That’s . . . I bought it at a yard sale. Chet . . .”
“Chet? Who’s Chet?”
“He was at the yard sale helping his elderly mother sell her things. He offered me this book of poetry,” she held up the book, “and an LP along with the photograph.” Brooked pulled the LP out from the closet and showed Bailey.
“Is Chet the guy on the album?” Bailey asked.
“No, his father named him Chet after,” she looked at the record jacket, “Chet Baker.”
“Don’t know him or his music.”
“I have no way of playing this.” Brooke replied. “Alex doesn’t either.”
That evening Brooke and Bailey went over to Cooper’s so Bailey could meet “dentist Alex.”
Inside, pints were clinking and conversations thrummed. Alex was standing at a small table talking to someone at the next table. When Brooke and Bailey walked up, he broke off his conversation.
“This must be Bailey.”
“It is,” Brooke replied. “She’s here for the weekend.”
The bar maid walked up, handed them menus and took their drink order.
“So, you’re a dentist Alex,” Bailey asked.
“Yes, I am,” Alex replied. “I help people put their money where their mouth is.”
“How’s that working out for you?” Bailey asked.
“Good. I have a lot of word-of-mouth referrals.” Alex flashed a smile. “Brooke says you are an HR manager. Will you be doing a performance review of me tonight?”
Bailey laughed. “I didn’t bring the forms. And, anyway, before I’d hire you, I would need three references and they can’t be from your mother, your cat or your dental hygienist.”
Alex flashed another smile. “I heard that Victor Frankenstein used human resources. Is that true?”
“He found what he needed on Monster.com,” Bailey shot back.
The back and forth between Alex and Bailey went on all evening. Brooke had never seen this side of either of them before tonight.
Later that night, back at the apartment, Brooke asked Bailey what she thought of Alex.
“Well, he’s kinda nice kinda screwball.”
“Help me make up the futon bed.”
Before turning off the light, Brooke asked, “Are you ready for some poetry?”
“Bring it on,” replied Bailey.
“This is Wild Nights—Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!
Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!”
Bailey responded “Ooh la la!”
“Here is some Lord Byron . . . She Walks in Beauty:
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes”
“Oh boy! He’s so dramatic!” remarked Bailey.
“That photograph, that’s you, isn’t it?”
“How so?”
“You are standing alone on a beach, a vast ocean behind you, and you are looking or waiting for someone on shore.”
“Maybe that’s why I bought it. That and . . .”
“He made an impression on you, didn’t he?
“There was something . . . “
“A book of poems, a Chet LP, and thou beside me is the vibe I’m sensing,” Bailey teased.
“He probably wanted to help his mom get rid of stuff.”
“He probably thought you walk in beauty, like the night. How does the rest of it go?”
“The rest is goodnight, Bailey.” Brooke turned off the light.
~~~
The next day, Saturday, Brooke and Baily returned to Sense of Bean for coffee and a scone. After coffee, the two headed down the street to Bound to Be Bookstore.
After browsing and finding nothing of interest, Bailey asked, “What should I read?”
“Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen,” Brooke replied. “You’ll meet Mr. Darcy and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and Elizabeth and her sisters Jane, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia.
Bailey flipped through the pages. “I don’t know. Too stuffy.”
“Anna Karenina. You’ll meet Anna, Stiva, Levin, and Dolly. “
“It’s too long and those Russian names.” Bailey left the bookstore with Book Lovers by Emily Henry.
In the early evening, Brooke and Bailey went to Hope and Cheese Wine Bar. The atmosphere was chatty with cool jazz playing in the background. They sat at the counter and ordered chardonnays and a plate of cheese to share.
The wine server talked up the wine, its origin, and its flavor notes. The ladies liked the attention.
At one point, Bailey asked, “Do you know who Chet Baker is? My sister here was given an LP of his music but she doesn’t have any way to play it.”
The server, a short mustachioed man in his sixties, said, “Yes. You’re in luck.” He went behind the wine bar. Moments later, a male voice began singing in a sensual half-whispered way.
“You don’t know what love is
‘Til you’ve learned the meaning of the blues
Until you’ve loved a love you’ve had to lose
You don’t know what love is . . .”
The man returned from behind the wine bar. “That’s Chet. You’ll hear his horn in this recording, too. He was part of the West Coast cool jazz sound in the early 1950s. How is your chardonnay, ladies?
“It’s a bit too fruity, “Bailey replied. Brooke nodded.
“I’ll pour you an oak-barreled chard.” He proceeded to pour two glasses. “This has notes of vanilla and butterscotch and a buttery smoothness.”
Brooke, having watched her mother, swirled the wine in her glass, picked up the glass, held it to her nose for a few seconds, took a sip, and said “There was a picture postcard that fell out of the record jacket.” She reached into her purse, pulled it out and handed it to Bailey.
“The postcard is addressed to Chet from his parents in England.” Bailey turned the card over and read the inscription on the B & W photo, “Captain Cook Monument, Whitby.”
“Chet would like his postcard back,” teased Bailey. “It’s destiny. You should go back to the yard sale and hand it to him and find out if he is married.”
Brooke hemmed her response: “The yard sale is every Saturday May through August, but I doubt he’s still there.”
“Go to his house. You have his address. He’s waiting for you to come back. Look, you live the big city by yourself and mister smiley boyfriend – find out what love is.”
Bailey took another sip of wine. “Yum. You could ask Chet about your photograph. You could ask him about Captain Cook.”
Bailey then asked the server for another pour of wine and if he knew who Captain Cook was.
“Is this Trivia night? I . . . I couldn’t guess.”
A man sitting at the bar heard the question. “He was a British naval captain, navigator, and explorer who sailed the Pacific Ocean and expanded the horizons of the known world. How’s that for an answer?”
“You win,” replied Baily. She turned to Brooke. “Expand your horizons, girl.”
At the end of the evening, Brooke and Bailey returned to the apartment and went right to bed. It was planned that early the next morning Brooke would drive Bailey to the airport and hopefully arrive back in time for church.
~~~
On the way to the airport the next morning, Bailey talked about what her husband and two boys were up to. And she talked up Chet. Brooke listened until the last few minutes before arriving. She had hesitated to say anything to her younger sister about the traumatic nature of her job. She didn’t know what Bailey would do with the information. But in the last few moments she felt compelled to say something about her reality.
“Just the other day a woman arrived in the ER with severe burns all over her body. A verbal argument between the woman and a 45-year-old man escalated and the man poured flammable liquid on her and set her on fire. She’s in critical condition at a hospital.”
“Every day EMS brings in patients transfigured by what people do to each other and to themselves. My compassion is wearing thin. I need a life-line of my own. That is why I’m going to church. To find that.”
As the car pulled up to the curb Bailey put away her phone and pulled a plane ticket out of her purse. “Smiley not doing it for you? Call me. I’m having the family over for Thanksgiving. Bring Chet. Thanks.” She got out and headed to check-in.
Driving back from the airport, Brooke had time to reflect: managing life-or-death situations in the ER had become second nature and so did the ritual of going to places like Cooper’s or Hope and Cheese or Sense of Bean. But what was also becoming second nature was accepting that there was nothing more to this life.
If there was more than what she saw every day in the ER – the cruelty and sadness of life, the suffering, and random casualties, what was it? If there was more than what she saw every time in the diversions of city life, what was it? Her full-but-empty life was one-dimensional and lonely. Being alone in the big city didn’t bother her. Being alone in the universe did.
She wondered if the ritual of going to church and connecting with God would add depth to her life and to help her see things differently or would it become another routine. Would that connection help her deal with the impact of her job?
She reflected on the fact that this was her fourth time attending church, beside going with her mother one Sunday and attending a friend’s wedding many years before. During childhood her family never bothered to attend. On Sundays, her father wanted to be home after traveling all week and her mother was busy with friends and interior decorating clients.
Brooke made it to church that morning. She followed the printed liturgy. Someone read scripture about knowing the love of Jesus that no one could begin to fully comprehend and someone read about a shepherd looking for a lost sheep. The priest gave a sermon about the lost sheep that was once attached to the flock being found by the shepherd and brought back into the fold.
After the service, Brooke went over to the flower shop on the main flower of the hospital and bought a Golden Days Basket of fresh cut fall flowers arranged in a wicker basket. She placed the arrangement of sunflowers and asiatic lilies, red roses, gold and burgundy chrysanthemums, solidaster, and brown copper beech on the lamp table next to the futon.
Before turning off the light that night, Brooke thought about the yard sale and Chet and Thanksgiving dinner with mom and Doug and dad and whoever and Bailey and her husband and kids and whether Alex should come with her and tomorrow morning in the ER.
She remembered the insert that came with the church worship guide the day she attended with her mother. It contained a poem by Luci Shaw, The “O” in Hope. She read it.
“Hope has this lovely vowel at its throat.
Think how we cry “Oh!” as the sun’s circle
clears the ridge above us on the hill.
O is the shape of a mouth singing, and of
a cherry as it lends its sweetness
to the tongue. “Oh!” say the open eyes at
unexpected beauty and then, “Wow!”
O is endless as a wedding ring, a round
pool, the shape of a drop’s widening on
the water’s surface. O is the center of love,
and O was in the invention of the wheel.
It multiplies in the zoo, doubles in a door
that opens, grows in the heart of a green wood,
in the moon, and in the endless looping
circuit of the planets. Mood carries it,
and books and holy fools, cotton, a useful tool
and knitting wool. I love the doubled O
in good and cosmos, and how O revolves,
solves, is in itself complete, unbroken,
a circle enclosing us, holding us all together,
every thing both in center and circumference
zeroing in on the Omega that finds
its ultimate center in the name of God.”
When she turned off the light, windowlight illuminated the room. The B & W photograph stood out in relief on the white wall. And there was the woman on the beach standing alone and looking at something outside the frame. And Brooke said “Oh!”
©J.A. Johnson, Kingdom Venturers, 2025, All Rights Reserved
Cindy Wity 
The Fowler’s Snare Chronicles
November 3, 2024 Leave a comment
There is no way back but there is a way through.
The day that brothers Bryce and Blake returned to campus after a fencing tournament they were immediately escorted to the IU auditorium where the first session of the Ex Novo Institute in Basic Life Process had already started. It seemed to them that the whole student body was in attendance. They stood at the back of the balcony with the others who came in late.
Up front, a large screen projected a woman’s face. Her owlish eyes darted back and forth behind the circular frames of her glasses. The small, and yet imposing woman, had cropped black hair and was dressed in something like a military uniform. She was speaking from a podium off to the left of the screen.
“There will no longer be any recognition of the past. Clear your mind of all that came before. You are students of today. Your mindset is today. Your thoughts are today’s thoughts. When you complete the Basic Life Process course, you will become stewards of the New Way Forward and not of the dug-up past.”
Bryce and Blake gave each other a puzzled look.
“You will no longer be weighed down with the obligations of tradition and faith. Tradition and faith brought you guilt and prejudice and racism and greed and violence. You are to rid yourself of such baggage. Your motivations and direction will come from Central Screen. Central Screen will be your personal Event Horizon.”
A logo appeared on the large screen. Beneath the words “Central Screen” was what looked like graph paper curved into a cone pointing down. At the edge of the taper was “Event Horizon”. The cone’s tip was labeled “Singularity.”
“You will be given a new set of values from Central Screen. All that is good will come from Central Screen. There is no such thing as a morality that stands outside human society. Morality is subordinated to the General Will as shown on Central Screen.
“You will no longer have to worry about what is good and the right thing to. You won’t need religion. The Central Screen software will make particular ethical perceptions clearer by demonstrating how they exemplify more general rules based in scientific certainty. The software will provide a systematic accounting of reality that our intuitive moral perceptions and judgements can only hint at.”
When the first session had concluded, a student approached the speaker, Director Argans. She scanned the student’s face with her CenSoid App. “Yes, Alistair?”
“Director Argans, I am currently in the humanities doctoral program here at IU. My doctoral thesis is on Dante, Botticelli, and the Florentine Renaissance. I rushed back from Italy for this required course. Am I to understand, what you’re saying is, that the independent study of the humanities, the study of all languages and literatures, the arts, history, and philosophy is no more? Everything is to be found on Central Screen?
“Alistair, as you will learn on Day Three, anything that holds a bellicose inspiration from the past is a danger to the organization of peace. You will learn what unites us as world citizens. You want to live free from oppressive and pugnacious attachments to the past, don’t you Alistair? To see what can be, unburdened by what has been.
“It was pope Francis, Alistair, who said “a conservative is one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that.” He also said that it was a “suicidal attitude because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box.
“And, wasn’t it Rousseau who said that people in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence, however, is corrupted by the evils of society? We are in the process of creating a new society using simple rational principles provided through Central Screen.”
“Well, Miss Argans, I never thought of art as bellicose or of being in a dogmatic box.”
“Alistair, you will after session three. Humanities stirs the emotions and emotions cloud reason. You will be given a new set of “realistic” or “rational” values to work with. In our workshops you will learn a new way forward with Central Screen AI. What will it profit you, Alistair, if you gained that doctorate and lose yourself with a suicidal attitude in the process?”
Another student broke in and Alistair wasn’t able to ask another question. He walked away stunned by what he had heard.
~~~~
“That was ten years ago this month.”
Comet got up from his chair and looked out the attic window of the Victorian house on Jefferson St. in Martinsville, Indiana. Seeing no threat, he sat back down and faced Scribe who was typing.
“That Ex Novo session was ten years ago this month. Make sure to note the dates in this chronicle. And listen, sis,” Comet emphasized, “no real names go into this eyewitness account. If these chronicles get into the wrong hands we’d be done for and so would mother and father and Grace downstairs. We are recording the diabolical acts of the Save Democracy party as Comet and Scribe. Let’s call this next chronicle Surface.”
“Surface?” asked Scribe.
“The Save Democracy party wants nothing to do with the past. Many in our world read and study history to know how to proceed. Practical wisdom is case based. But the Party studies the future, rewrites the past and proceeds with abstract theoretical reasoning or surface knowledge.
The party leadership operates like a ship’s captain heading out to sea and who ignores the traditional knowledge passed down through generations used by navigators to read the stars, winds, and currents.
“The Save Democracy party leadership ignores the guidance of the vast ocean underneath and the vast night sky above, the enduring connection to the space and time we all travel in. It ignores charts and says “I know my way around. I know where I want to go. I know the way forward just by looking at the surface” and “I know how to use a rudder.”
“The ship will move and be tossed about because the ocean surface is never still. Wind-driven waves and currents will steer the boat this way and that. It may take on water and go all Titanic. If not, it will end up lost at sea without a way back to port. Scribe, we have escaped. But most have been forced into steerage aboard the Surface ship of fools!”
“Got it, said Scribe. “I think.” She inserted another sheet of paper into the typewriter. “Did you finish what happened during that first Ex Novo Institute?”
“Ah, no. After the first session I came up and questioned Miss Argans about my law classes and finishing them up. She told me the same thing she said to the guy in front of me. When I left her, I noticed that I was being followed. I went to the second session – we all had to. It was the same lecture as the day before: tear it all down and start over. That time many of the students were clapping. Maybe out of fear or maybe because the words resonated with what they had been taught over the years.
“During the third session I saw the same people who had been following me. They were removing people from the auditorium. I snuck out. I went into hiding. We’ve been hiding ever since.”
Comet got up and took another look out the attic window. He remembered the day he saw the Rooms for Rent sign in the front yard. The widow Grace was happy to have them around to help keep things up and to keep her company. She also needed the money. The socialist economy had created hyperinflation. She let them rent two rooms.
Comet and Scribe arrived together. Their parents, who didn’t want either of them to grow up in the Save Democracy system, thought it best if they stayed out of sight together.
The house was a good location for Comet, a former astronomy student at IU. He spent many nights at IU’s Goethe Link Observatory just eleven miles north of Martinsville. He felt safe there in the middle of the night.
~~~~~
The street was quiet. What Comet thought unsettling was the Save Democracy party headquarters in the Morgan County Courthouse a few blocks away and the massive 5G tower standing next to it monitoring all digital communications and transactions.
“So, you were going to tell me what happened before all this Ex Novo business.” Scribe put another sheet of paper in the portable Smith-Corona typewriter.
Seeing no threat on the street Comet began pacing to give his account. “Let’s call this next chronicle The Surface Comes to Power.” Scribe began typing.
“Four years before the first Ex Novo days, a November election was held. But the man elected was not allowed into the White House. The Save Democracy party and a few others in the House of Representatives passed a resolution saying that the man was an “insurrectionist” and therefore disqualified under Section 3 of 14th Amendment “insurrection” clause. With Secret Service agents counting the electoral votes, together they refused to certify the election on January 6, 2025.
“The Counting and Certification of Electoral Votes in Washington, DC, had been designated a National Special Security Event by the Secretary of Homeland Security. The military received an amended directive allowing for their direct involvement in civilian law enforcement operations under emergency conditions, including situations where there is an imminent threat. The military was used by the Save Democracy to facilitate a coup, a coup set in motion four years before on January sixth. An “insurrection” setup scenario had been initiated by the Save Democracy party in concert with the FBI, “deep state” actors, and later with a show trial.
“Right after the election, the twenty-fifth amendment was used to depose the current feeble-minded president. He was replaced by a puppet, the feeble-minded Vice president. The elected Vice President was given an office but no access to the White House or policy.
“The Save Democracy party, over time, having taken control of both the house and senate with the votes of non-citizens, absentee votes counted after the election, and massive voter fraud, then removed the conservative members of the Supreme court with expulsions based on made-up ethics violations.
“The court was then reconstituted to hold fifteen members of the Save Democracy party. All challenges to the constitutionality of such sweeping changes failed because the plaintiffs were told they had no standing. No subsequent challenges were brought before the court after the Save Democracy party Speaker of the House tore up the U.S. Constitution during a State of the Union speech.
“It was then declared that the electoral college would be abolished and all future elections would have the oversight of the new Elections Council.
“Using the military “under emergency conditions” to keep the peace, Save Democracy members were quickly installed throughout state and local governments and the courts where there hadn’t been support for the Save Democracy party. The newly installed were given a mandate to defend One People, One Equality, One Equity, the motto of the Save Democracy party. The ensuing reign of terror went well beyond the atrocities of the French Revolution.”
Scribe stopped typing. “French Revolution? I don’t know what that is. Will the readers know?”
Comet sat down and faced her. “You were only six years old when the Save Democracy party took over the country. The party didn’t want anyone to learn history as it would expose them and their ways. You weren’t given a chance to learn history. I’ll explain the French Revolution later. You are an autodidact. You’ve learned a lot on your own already. I better go on. Have you got everything so far?”
“Yeah, go a little slower. I’m not used to typing on this thing” Scribe added another sheet of paper to the typewriter.
“OK. The Save Democracy party members immediately enacted permanent martial law. The Party media said that martial law had been imposed because of the civil unrest due to “perverse and macabre” political foes – those who didn’t accept what had happened to their country. Martial law allowed the Save Democracy party members to keep in check “extremist elements”, to control the drug trade for profit, and to exploit terrorism for its own ends.
“The operation of new penal codes was entrusted, not to legal authorities, but to local oversight committees. They hunted down those thought to be a threat to the community. Anyone could be accused of being disloyal to the Save Democracy party even based on hearsay. Anyone – father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, and child – could be imprisoned, tortured or executed for allegedly being critical of the Save Democracy party. Many were arrested on fabricated charges just to keep people living in fear of the local Save Democracy party.
“A favorite form of torture in many towns was the “Underneath pit.” An arrestee was thrown into a ten-foot-deep hole in the ground. The hole was exposed to the elements. The width of the pit was barely bigger than the person thrown in. He or she would not be able to bend or change their position. The hole was the prisoner’s latrine. After many days the person would become a sliver of flesh with only the feeling of anger keeping them alive. These tortures are still going on today.
“With the new power they had been given, local Save Democracy party members kept up the perpetual and brutal oppression of citizens. They loved to dehumanize. For them it was a game. They found new ways of doing so and posted them on Central Screen. Limitless coercion and terror were essential to the Save Democracy party’s New Way Forward.
“Random terror was meant to convey the constant and unyielding force of the Party’s control over humanity. It emphasized a future devoid of freedom and individuality. The end product was to create mindless and unfeeling oxen for the party.
“Out of fear of being sent home and losing benefits – a threat made on Party media – fifteen million illegal migrants voted for Party candidates every election.
“Once the Save Democracy party had full control, it was decided that vast numbers of the population had to be culled, as the welfare system, hospitals, schools, and prisons were overwhelmed. Some in the party just wanted to lower the population numbers out of climate concerns. So, a gain-of-function virus was released from a bioweapons lab in California. Millions of people suffered and died from the higher levels of spike protein in the One Health self-amplifying mRNA vaccine.
“The Committee of Public Singularity was established out of fear of a viral outbreak of past knowledge. The Committee created the Ex Novo-Institute in Basic Life Process to deal with the Underneath, a mindset that had been banned as extremist.
“The idea behind the institute was to make a clean sweep of human nature. At the compulsory meetings people were told that the Save Democracy party was building from scratch a new ideal society on the concepts of humanitarianism, social science, and collectivism using Central Screen programming. The analog past was to be replaced with a digital future controlled by Central Screen AI.
“What I learned during the Ex Novo sessions was that voiding the past and human attachments were required by the New Way Forward. Old thoughts, old habits, old culture, and old customs had to be destroyed. No one was to experience any connection with family, friends, children or about anything, past or present. They were to die to all that. All of life was to come from the Party’s Central Screen. All of life was to come from the Surface.”
~~~~
“You staying with me, Scribe?”
“Yeah. This stuff you’re telling me is nasty. I don’t like thinking about it.” Scribe shivered.
“Yeah, it is. That’s why we are making a record of it. People need to know what happened. Right now, the Save Democracy party is erasing anything connected to the past. Let’s keep going.”
Once again, Comet got up and looked out the window. The neighborhood was quiet.
During the first days at the house, Grace talked about Martinsville. The first settlers, she said, arrived in Morgan County in 1822. Large numbers of Quakers migrated here from the south because of their opposition to slavery.
She also said Martinsville was nicknamed the City of Mineral Water. Oil workers discovered the foul-smelling mineral water while drilling. Mineral water was thought to have healing properties. It was used in the Martinsville Sanitarium which operated as a health resort until about 1957. But now, she said, the Sanitarium was being used by the Party for optogenetic experiments on citizens.
That’s what her last renters, neuroscience students, told her. The Party is controlling subjects with the presence of light to alter cell behavior with regard to reward, motivation, fear, and sensory processing.
Seeing nothing on the street that concerned him, Comet continued dictating while pacing.
“In tandem with the Ex Novo-Institute, there was an even more invasive program: ReCognify Conditioning. The Save Democracy party, along with the social programmers of the World Economic Forum, claimed that human nature is no different to that of a programmable machine.
“Transhumanist scientists began implanting vast numbers of the population with synthetic memories using brain chips to create a new ideal human. The ReCognify program had been initially tested on criminals. According to one unauthorized release of Party documents, customized AI-generated content converted visual information into codes delivered directly to the brain and stored in DNA and RNA, forever altering the subject.
“Prisoners were implanted with synthetic memories of their crimes – but from the perspective of their victim or victims. The embedded artificial memories prompted reactions like remorse, empathy, and understanding.
“The ReCognify program then began to be used on the general population to wipe away past memories and to make people docile and pliable to the Party’s party authority. The Ex Novo Institute was the means to bring in those subjects the Party thought would be troublemakers. But not everyone would submit to ReCognify and the “forced forgetting” process.”
“Hold it,” said Scribe. “The ink is beginning to wear thin. I need another ribbon. I wonder if . . .”
“We’ll ask Grace if she has more,” Comet said. “C’mon. We need a break.”
~~~~
“We know that the son of God has come and given us understanding so that we know the truth. And we are in the truth, in his son Jesus the Messiah. This is the true God; this is the life of the age to come.”
Father Denny stopped reciting 1 John from memory when the barn door creaked opened. Everyone drew quiet. Bryce and Blake and their wives appeared at the door. Father Denny waved them in. The couples greeted him and six others of the Underneath community.
The group met to support each other in a barn on a southern Indiana farm. They had been living on the farm, hiding from the Save Democracy for the past ten years. The refuge was Father Denny’s idea.
Anglican priest Father Mason Denny, a gaunt bewhiskered marathoner, left his Indy parish and moved to the sweeping 80-acre working farm to help his friend Tom and his wife Sally. The Binghams were in their seventies and working the farm had become too much for them. They had no idea what happened to their children. They hoped the Save Democracy party hadn’t taken them.
Seeing the possibilities and after much prayer, Father Denny knew that he had to create a refuge to help those of the Underneath escape the “fowler’s snare,” as he called the Save Democracy party’s operations. A portion of the farm land was already being used as a short-term RV campsite. Using all of his retirement funds, he converted the campsite into a mobile home park and began rescuing students.
When the Ex Novo Institute staff began pulling students out of the audience for the ReCognify program, Father Denny brought several students to the farm. The students knew Father Denny and trusted him. He had been a chaplain on campus, providing spiritual services in the Beck chapel on the IU campus. This was before the Save Democracy party banned all such meetings as subversive.
The rescued students lived in the mobile homes and worked the farm. From their organic garden they harvested green onions, Italian greens, tomatoes, asparagus, spinach, strawberries, green beans, heirloom tomatoes, summer squash, blackberries, melons, and herbs. From the field, they gathered sweet corn.
They grew an array of flowers – zinnias, gladiolus, dahlias, and sunflowers – and tended goats, rabbits, and chickens.
Every Saturday they held a farmer’s market to sell produce, goat cheese, pastured eggs, and pies and to barter with locals for butter, flour, meat, and diesel fuel.
Father Denny found a way to sustain the Underneath, a mindset that had been banned. But it had come at a personal cost.
~~~~
Comet and Scribe sat at the farmhouse kitchen table with Tom, Sally, Father Denny, and Skippy, Tom and Sally’s three-legged Airedale.
Comet and Scribe had recently found their way to the refuge. Grace, the woman they were staying with, gave them directions to the farm after local Party authorities came around one day looking for them. One of her neighbors, who had received a ReCognify implant, had given them away.
Comet asked Scribe to read the transcript of what Grace related about her husband.
“Bill was a mechanic in a manufacturing company. He told me that every day in the lunch room there were news reports on the TV saying that inflation was transitory and that the economy was doing great and that wages rose again for the fourteenth quarter in the row. Bill began posting his pay stubs on his tool box to show that it wasn’t true. His foreman came along and told him to take it down or face dismissal. Bill didn’t take it down and he was dismissed. The Party wouldn’t allow him to work again.”
Comet described how he and Scribe were recording what took place the last fifteen years. He explained his use of “Surface” to describe the operation of the Save Democracy party.” Father Denny agreed with his analogy.
Comet and Scribe were eager to hear Father Denny’s story. They said they would record the story and use false names and places.
“Scribe, you don’t have to keep lugging that portable typewriter around.” Tom offered. “We can hide it under a floorboard in the other room. No one will find it there.”
Scribe nodded and smiled in relief.
“Are we ready Scribe?” Father Denny asked.
“Ready, sir,” Scribe replied. Father Denny began.
“During my twentieth year as rector of an Indy church, I lost my wife Ellen to the effects of the mandated vaccine. Despite my protestations and my own refusal to take the mRNA vaccine, she thought it a Christian thing to do to obey the authorities, especially as the Party had mandated “No vaccine. No church gathering.”
“After Ellen’s passing, I came to realize that the authorities had more in mind than a vaccine mandate. I was faced with a choice.
“You see. Churches not obeying Save Democracy party directives were closed. The churches with what I call “cultural Christians” – those that obeyed mandates and focused on . . .” he paused and looked over at Comet, “. . . Surface issues pushed by Central Screen Apps, issues such as social justice, equity, race, gender, sexuality, and creation care – remained open.
The Party knew that the fate of its project of atheistic secularization was tied to the religious feelings people had. The Party saw that it couldn’t convert the religious with ideology. But it could use religion to further its ideology and fill the void of absence of spirituality.
“I saw that the spiritual way of life was to be replaced with the Surface way of life. Religious symbols were to be replaced with secular symbols. The church and the gospel were being replaced with Assemblies of the General Will and the “well done” of social credit scores. The Party worked to fill the ideological and spiritual absence of religion.
“As a way to reorient churches, ministers were forced to sign a social contract acknowledging that Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains and that all people should unite with the General Will of the people to bring about the common good of the New Way Forward.
“The General Will, as dictated by the Central Screen app, meant the total subordination of citizens. All rights, all property and all religion would be subject to the General Will. Freedom would be associated with obedience. As such, the General Will directive provided Party members a defense for oppressing and destroying those who did not obey including those of the Underneath.
“The deeper-than-surface Christianity that I call the “Underneath” was an ideological, political and spiritual problem for the Save Democracy party. The “error correction” of “the science” didn’t work on the Underneath. Its underlying history, tradition, and transcendent gospel had to be rooted out and destroyed.
“The Save Democracy party understood that those like myself and those here on the farm and elsewhere – disciples of Jesus – are not directed by Central Screen. We are directed by the Lord of heaven and earth. We don’t compromise and hold back a reserve of ourselves to maintain the status quo and avoid trouble. We speak to the fiction and lies around us and that has brought suffering.
“The cultural Christians of Central Screen desire the good feelings of social justice activism but none of the adversity attached to proclaiming the gospel message. They portray themselves as being and doing right with social justice standards. Jesus quoted Isaiah to the Pharisees and legal experts when a dispute arose about a manmade imperative:
‘These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they are worshiping me,
but they don’t mean it.
They just use me as a cover
for teaching whatever suits their fancy,
Ditching God’s command
and taking up the latest fads.’
“Compromised, they live within the lie. They perpetuate and legitimize the ideological fiction of the Party. They become oppressed and the oppressor, persecuting critics of Central Screen activism.
“The party also knew that it couldn’t convert those of the Underneath with what they called the “Reformation” – the ideological work of scientific atheism through the Ex Novo Institute. They saw those of the Underneath as tenacious holdouts.
“Ex Novo programming was meant to show that The General Will is the purpose of life. Faith in The General Will was to become an inner conviction. Then, they assumed, all illusions about heaven and the afterlife and the kingdom of God fade away and disappear. The Surface was to be one’s spiritual refuge.
“When the vestry came to me one day and said “we need to show pronoun hospitality” I told them that I would retire. I could see that many in the congregation did not believe the lies of Central Screen, but they felt, as Vaclav Havel wrote in his essay The Power of the Powerless, that they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who did.
“Havel went on to say that “They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.”
“Seeing this mindset in the congregation, I told the vestry I would leave and go on the road and see the country. I ended up here on Tom and Sally’s farm in southern Indiana. I expected my son to join me here at the farm when he returned from his doctoral research trip to Italy. But that didn’t happen.
“I lost contact with him son after he returned to the states. I was frantic and looked for him all over campus. Those I asked said that the last time they saw Alistair was at the end of the first session of the Ex Novo Institute. They said he was asking questions.”
“I was there. I was behind him in line,” Comet jumped in.
Father Denny felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. “I know Alistair. I knew that he would question things and exercise his point of view. But I also knew that the Save Democracy party accepted no challengers. So, I imagine the worst and pray for his safe return.”
Father Denny sighed heavily. “That was ten years ago and I haven’t heard a word about my son since.”
~~~~
The rescue from the third Ex Novo Institute session that December day happened quickly. The students were not able to inform their families. Telling them their whereabouts would put their families at serious risk. When the students didn’t sign in for the next Ex Novo Institute session, their families would be contacted and would be forced to take Truth Test Serum to tell the Party’s enforcement squad where they were. Having no knowledge of where the students were, they would be released. Father Denny later found a way to tell them that “they were safe and not to worry.”
Refugees Erin and Joseph were fourth-year neuroscience students. Jeremy studied computer science. Quinn had been a biotechnology major and worked part time at the Ray Bradbury Center at the IU Indy campus. Steven and Melanie were pre-med students.
Bryce was working on a Masters in epidemiology when he met Bryn, who was studying Environmental Health. Blake was working on his master’s degree in Business Analytics when he met Alice who was studying Business Admin Medicine. Father Mason Denny married the two couples in a ceremony held on the farm.
Mobile homes housed the former students. Each couple had a mobile home. Erin, Quinn, and Melanie shared a mobile home, as did Joseph, Jeremy and Steven. Father Mason Denny had a room in the farmhouse. Comet and Scribe had rooms in the farmhouse.
The members of the Underneath brought with them as many books as they could when they escaped Ex Novo and ReCognify. Father Denny brought his library to the farm. No other books would be available.
The Save Democracy party had dictated that books and education created inequality and unhappiness and were therefore banned. Libraries no longer contained books. Libraries were converted into ReCognify centers. The outside world had been cut off from knowledge that wasn’t Central Screen provided.
There were no electronics – phones, computers, TVs, radios, GPS devices – and no Central Screen app on the farm grounds. This was done to secure the location. Father Denny told the group that “The farm isn’t off the grid. We are hiding in the open and keep a low profile.”
Isolated from their families, members of the Underneath farm refuge supported each other. Weekdays were filled with farm work. At night the group ate together and then gathered in the barn or at the fire pit behind a thicket. They read texts out loud and recited memorized scripture. Each had committed entire Scripture texts to memory.
Father Denny had told them that “memorization is a means to internalize information of sacred nature, a transmutation of the metaphysical into flesh and blood and marrow.” It was also, he said, a means to create a memory palace – a mental sanctuary of information tied to farm scenes so that they can recall what was memorized. This, he said, would sustain them if captured by the Party.
On Sundays, the farm’s Underneath community came together for a liturgical service. They sang, prayed, and recited scripture. Father Denny administered to the group and administered the Eucharist.
Comet and Scribe set all this down under the heading “Rescue, Refuge, and New Reality.”
~~~~
The nights of the Underneath community were filled with readings and recitations, music and drama.
One night, Alice read Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor. Over several nights, Father Denny read Vaclav Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless. Other nights he read Father Brown stories. Over several nights, Jeremy read Robinson Caruso and Comet read Treasure Island. Quinn recited the poem ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold.
Alister talked about his trip to Italy, and about the Italian Renaissance, Dante, and Botticelli.
Sally played the piano, Melanie played the flute, Jeremy the guitar, and Father Denny played some of his Big Band LPs for dancing.
One night they acted out Hamlet. Bryce and Blake played Hamlet and Laertes and fenced during the last Act. The brothers had, at one time, been in the U.S. Olympic fencing team.
One fire-pit night Alice quipped that women make the best archeologists because they are good at digging up the past. And Bryn said the smarted person in the Bible was Abraham: “He knew a Lot.”
One night they came together to listen to Quinn read Fahrenheit 451.
When Quinn finished reading the first chapter, Jeremy said “Read the part again, the part where fire chief Captain Beatty explains to Montag about how books had lost their value.”
Quinn turned back a few pages and read.
“Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally ’bright’, did most of the reciting and answering while others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn’t it this bright boy you selected for beatings and torture after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?’
“Wow!” Said Jeremy. “That’s what the Party was pushing during Ex Novo. Exactly that!”
Father Denny added, “Polish poet Czesław Miłosz once said that “In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.””
Comet and Scribe took notes.
~~~~
Comet brought his refractor telescope with him to the farm. One late night the group headed outside to explore the night sky. The area around the farm had little light pollution, so the evening sky sparkled with illumination.
The moon was full that night and the entire earth-facing surface was clear to see. Comet pointed the telescope at the lunar surface. Everyone took a turn viewing.
Scribe, waiting her turn, caught sight of something coming from the road. The moonlight-etched figure walked and weaved toward them like one of the disoriented ReCognits. The figure stumbled down, got up and tried to wave but fell down again and stayed down.
The group moved closer. Bryce turned the man over and lifted the soiled hair from his face.
“It’s Alister! he shouted. “Help me get him up.”
~~~~
Alister opened one eye and saw his father sitting in a chair. He was asleep.
“Dad,” Alister whispered.
Father Denny jolted up from the chair. “I just had a dream that you came home.”
“I had the same dream,” Alister replied. “I guess we’re on the same wavelength.”
Father Denny felt Alister’s head. “You have a fever. Here, drink this water.” He propped up Alister and helped him drink. “How do you feel?”
“I feel weak. I have a headache and a stiff neck. I ache all over.”
“Can you talk about what happened?’
“Maybe later today.” With that Alister closed his eyes and fell asleep.
That evening Sally came downstairs and told father Denny that Alister was awake and his fever was down. Father Denny, Tom, Comet and Scribe went up to see Alister. He was sitting up in bed with Skippy on his lap. He smiled when they entered the room
Father Denny, seeing that Alister’s face was no longer pale, put the back of his hand on his forehead. “You’ve cooled down, thank God.”
“I’m ready to tell you what happened.” Alister took a long drink of water. The four took their place around the bed.
“After that first Ex Novo Institute session, I went up to Director Argans to ask about continuing my doctoral program. I won’t go into all she said right now, but I left with the understanding that the Party had put the kibosh on everything pertaining to cultural memory and intellectual diversity. Everything was to be the General Will of the people.
“When I left the auditorium, I went to my room and packed. I was going to come here. But then two Save Democracy party goons came in and took me to their headquarters on campus. There, over many days I was subjected to constant Central Screen videos. I was deprived of food and sleep. People I knew came in and tried to coax me into signing my allegiance to the Party. I wouldn’t.
“They must have seen that they needed to break me even more so I was placed in solitary confinement. They put a sign above the cell. It read “The Divine Comedy.”
“I don’t know how long I was in there. What sustained me was my faith in God and what I had learned.
“Sometime, after a lifetime in that cell, I was brought outside. The fresh air in my lungs revived me. But then they dropped me into a deep hole in the ground. They said that if I wanted to be part of the Underneath that I would be put underneath.
“The hole was so tight that I could not move side to side or up and down. And it was so deep that I could not climb out. I was left there, day and night, in all kinds of weather and with bugs. I was in there maybe twenty days. Then one night I felt a rope on my face. I looked up and saw no one.
“I pulled on the rope and it was secure. I tried to climb it but I was too weak. But then a voice said “Hold on.” So, I did.
“I was pulled out to the surface and onto the ground. When I looked, there was no one around. No one.”
The group looked at each other.
“I found my way here.”
~~~~
When Alister had fully regained his strength, the Underneath community held a Eucharistic service in thanksgiving for his rescue and homecoming.
The first reading, Jeremiah 51:45-48, was read by Bryce:
“Get out of this place while you can,
this place torched by God’s raging anger.
Don’t lose hope. Don’t ever give up
when the rumors pour in hot and heavy.
One year it’s this, the next year it’s that—
rumors of violence, rumors of war.
Trust me, the time is coming
when I’ll put the no-gods of Babylon in their place.
I’ll show up the whole country as a sickening fraud,
with dead bodies strewn all over the place.
Heaven and earth, angels and people,
will throw a victory party over Babylon
When the avenging armies from the north
descend on her.” God’s Decree!”
Alister read from Psalm 124: 6-8:
“Oh, blessed be God!
He didn’t go off and leave us.
He didn’t abandon us defenseless,
helpless as a rabbit in a pack of snarling dogs.
We’ve flown free from their fangs,
free of their traps, free as a bird.
Their grip is broken;
we’re free as a bird in flight.
God’s strong name is our help,
the same God who made heaven and earth.”
Blake read the epistle, 2 Corinthians 6:16-18:
“Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God’s holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way:
“I’ll live in them, move into them;
I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
So leave the corruption and compromise;
leave it for good,” says God.
“Don’t link up with those who will pollute you.
I want you all for myself.
I’ll be a Father to you;
you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”
The Word of the Master, God.
Father Denny read the gospel, Luke 21:11-19:
“Jesus went on, “Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Huge earthquakes will occur in various places. There will be famines. You’ll think at times that the very sky is falling.
“But before any of this happens, they’ll arrest you, hunt you down, and drag you to court and jail. It will go from bad to worse, dog-eat-dog, everyone at your throat because you carry my name. You’ll end up on the witness stand, called to testify. Make up your mind right now not to worry about it. I’ll give you the words and wisdom that will reduce all your accusers to stammers and stutters.
“You’ll even be turned in by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. Some of you will be killed. There’s no telling who will hate you because of me. Even so, every detail of your body and soul—even the hairs of your head!—is in my care; nothing of you will be lost. Staying with it—that’s what is required. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry; you’ll be saved.””
Using the Jeremiah text, Father Denny spoke on “Come out of her, my people! The world, Babylon, would have you come out as its own creation but we have come out as sons and daughters of the Father.”
He then read Revelation 18:4-5:
“Get out, my people, as fast as you can,
so you don’t get mixed up in her sins,
so you don’t get caught in her doom.
Her sins stink to high Heaven;
God has remembered every evil she’s done.
Give her back what she’s given,
double what she’s doubled in her works,
double the recipe in the cup she mixed;
Bring her flaunting and wild ways
to torment and tears.
Because she gloated, “I’m queen over all,
and no widow, never a tear on my face,”
In one day, disasters will crush her—
death, heartbreak, and famine—
Then she’ll be burned by fire, because God,
the Strong God who judges her,
has had enough.
The Eucharistic Feast followed.
~~~~
On the following Saturday, at 9 AM, two tables were set up along the roadside. They were covered with fresh produce, flowers, eggs, goat cheese, and a cooler with rabbit and chicken meat. Local people began to come along and exchange goods.
Bryce thought that everything was going well that beautiful August morning. But then he noticed something and whispered to Blake, “Don’t look. I think that’s Director Argans getting out of that car on the right. She has white pointy hair now.”
Blake, conversing with customers, saw her approach the table. When the farm stand customers saw a uniform, they got in their cars and drove off.
“Where is your sign?” It was Director Argans.
“I’m sorry ma’am. What sign?” Blake looked puzzled.
“The “People of The General Will Unite” sign!” She crossed her arms and waited for an answer.
“Ma’am, here is our sign.” Blake grabbed the grease board from the table, erased “THANK YOU FOR COMING OUT,” and wrote something on it. He read it out loud: “We are compliant and obedient and there is no need to worry about us.”
Director Argans looked it over, huffed, and then her black eye brows shot up above the frames of her round glasses and her jaw dropped. She was looking between Bryce and Blake. Alister had come up to the table. Director Argens grabbed an apple from the basket on the table and headed back to her car.
Bryce breathed a sigh of relief. He looked over at Blake and said “Good one! She doesn’t know who we are compliant and obedient to.” And together, they said “There is no need to worry about us!”
~~~~
Comet and Scribe created a circular letter to send to other Underneath communities in hiding.
It began . . . “These chronicles have been written with eyewitness accounts so that you may know the history and extent of evil in the land. There are many other evil acts of the “Save Democracy” party which are not recorded here.
“These Fowler’s Snare chronicles have been written so that you may share in our faithful witness:
We have escaped like a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped.
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.”
©Lena Johnson, Kingdom Venturers, 2024, All Rights Reserved
Rate this:
Filed under 2024 Current Events, 2024 Election, Christianity, Short Story, short story, social commentary Tagged with apocalypse, Bible, Christianity, faith, FICTION, Indiana, Short Story, tyranny, writing