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Breaking Silences, cc&d v173.5 front cover, 2007

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cc&d v170

THE CROSS

Mel Waldman

    It was an ordinary spring day, he believed, perhaps a little hotter than the rest. The old man sat by his window and looked out at the confused city folks below. The window was wide open, and the green window curtains were spread as wide and as far apart as possible to let the sun in and the sound of people. He craved to have the outside world come into his life and prayed for the noisy and chaotic intrusion of people and people’s toys. But all he received was a further sense of despair and the bitter taste of air pollution, which filtered in from the outside.
    The old man coughed, for he was smoking again. At 70, he might have been a dried up prune, but there was juice to him yet. He was a poisoned smoking machine that defied the laws of nature. His visit on earth was longer than expected. Indeed, he prayed to God every day, and sometimes 25 hours a day-for death.
    He sat on a green butterfly chair, puffing and puffing, inhaling and exhaling and falling into an infinity of space and mind-a womblike meditation in a womblike, circular butterfly chair. He remembered the way it was, in contrast to the way it was now.
    He whispered to himself: “This is my best. I’ve missed the mark. What happened to the dream of kings?”
    He remembered the beginning as it was, or as he thought it was, the way it looked and moved and grew within. There were explosions followed by silence, and then nothing. He burst, split, and saw his being scatter throughout the universe. As he flew through space, he ate his flesh alive. He flew beyond good and evil, or into them. There are many ways to be untouched. After, he returned to the human form, and evolved in it, although one lived and died in every form, at once. The old man was a man of another dimension-a half-breed, half man and half God. And he sat in his butterfly chair.
    He found safety in his chair and peace in the vast motion picture of his mind. He saw the good and the bad, the whole gamut of reality, and all was welcome. From his point of view, nothing could be excluded.

    He saw a boy coming home from school. The boy lived in a big house with his father and mother. Father was a traveling salesman. Often he went on trips for weeks or months at a time. Sometimes Mother went with him. If she did, the boy stayed with Grandpa and Grandma. The boy loved the old folks. They were kind and gentle toward him. When Father was home, he beat the boy, often without reason. Mother tried to control the man, but he was fierce. The boy, frightened and withdrawn, turned away from reality. He found solace in another world-a world of God and magic. He was only a little boy, but even little men could be magicians.
    The little boy became a fine magician. He did marvelous things in his dark room upstairs. And his magic worked. Father and Mother thought he was stupid. Father despised him, but out of pity, stopped beating him as often.

    The old man shouted to the black walls: “Ah, you old fool. You’re returning to childhood. Worse. You sit back and watch the world move forward. Helpless and impotent, you defy the process by reversing it. Stupid old man. Can’t distinguish between real and unreal. You tell the tale, often with fabrication, distortion, a perfect unity of falsehoods and poor memories, so the history of one man told by the same years later is false. Old man, you’re a dirty liar.”
    He laughed heartily in his chair. A second later he was back in the dark room chanting to God and singing hallelujah. But the boy was aging and the old magic was becoming ineffective. A change was necessary if he were to survive.

    The Man was sitting in the park. The boy, just out of school, passed him on his way home. The Man with golden eyes was sitting among a crowd of ugly people. When the boy saw him, the Man grinned in his seat. The boy went home and ran upstairs. He chanted new hymns, kissed his hands, and spat into the darkness which suffocated him. The new magic had come.

    For a while, he didn’t see the Man. He sensed a time for preparation. Didn’t know what was coming, yet he craved the unknown reality. Although he missed the Man, the separation enhanced his being. His glorious fate was approaching.

    One day the Man sat in the park. The boy knew he was there and ran to the Man with golden eyes. He screamed with thunder. His lustful screams echoed through the park. Suddenly, his dead body was alive.
    They left the world he knew. The Man took him to an isolated farm, where life was new and fresh. The Man entered a dilapidated shack, forbidding the boy to follow. The boy left to explore the countryside.
    He traveled until the shack was no longer in view. He saw a cave in the distance. It fascinated him. When he was about a hundred yards from the cave, he got on his knees. He crawled toward the cave, at times gasping for breath, for the air seemed poisoned. As he approached the cave, his body weakened. He looked up at the sign which adorned the entrance. Before him was a huge cross. He wept in agony for the cross that stood firm and strong and beautiful-for all to see-for all to love.
    The cross was above the entrance to the cave, untouched and pure. When he tried to kiss it, the cross was always far away. Finally, in one painful move, he turned away from it. He never looked back. In the distance, the vast emptiness cut through his bones. Up in the sky, he saw dark blues and heard the sound of night wings. Enchanted by the fluent colors above and the sound of night wings, he lay in the field and fell asleep. His peace was soon interrupted by the sounds-of voices chanting, of silent intervals, of his heart. Moments later, the chanting got louder. Trapped in a circle of darkness, he waited. And then a circle of fire, within the darkness, surrounded him. He was at the center of the fire, watched by faces. Many ugly faces observed him. And the Man spoke.
    “Night wings return from the long journey. I smell them in the dark. I hear them swinging, clapping, drifting in the cool air. They swing back and forth kinetically, and ricochet from the heavy walls of polluted air. I feel their dark, mobile eyes searching for me in the heavy mist. They lust for me. They beat me and burn my body with jagged wings. They rip my insides to shreds. They leave, yet I wait for the sound of heavy, dark wings coming at me from all sides.”
    The boy screamed. The Man walked to his side and gave him a gun. “Feel it. Yes, it feels good. Night wings will return. Kill them.”

    “Shoot up into the sky!”
    The boy shot wildly into the sky. Nothing fell. The bullets flew through the naked sky and disappeared. But from the circle of fire, came a frenzied man shouting at the boy: “Murderer! Killer!”
    The boy turned and pulled the trigger before he understood. And Father was dead. When the boy screamed, the crowd of ugly faces disappeared.

    “You look rested,” the Man said as the boy opened his eyes. “We must go now.”
    The boy wanted to ask him what had happened, but he was afraid. They returned to the park, where the boy left the Man.

    When he got home, Mother was sitting in the corner of the living room giggling, for no apparent reason. “You’re home early.”
    He looked at her quizzically. Then he went to his room. But before he shut the door, Mother shouted: “Your father’s going on a trip. Say goodbye to him.” He shut the door.

    Father was downstairs screaming at Mother. The boy filled his mind with magic and found courage too, hidden deep within, perhaps buried in a dark room in the dark house of his soul. He ran down to the living room.
    “Come here, son. Come say goodbye to your father.”
    He didn’t move. Father had a cross around his neck. The boy was crushed. Finally, he said to Father: “Ain’t you dead?” And he ran upstairs, where he chanted. He pointed his fingers up toward the sky.

    A little past midnight the doorbell rang. Father was back. The plane had engine trouble. It was grounded for the night.

    All night he chanted. He took eight boxes of matches which he had hidden in the closet. He placed dozens of matches side by side till they formed a huge circle in the room. He lit the matches and watched the circle light up. Then he stood outside the door and screamed fire.
    “Father, help me!” he cried. When he heard footsteps coming up the stairs, he hid in the bathroom. Father leaped into the burning room for his son. Mother was downstairs screaming, her frenzied eyes on fire, burning with madness.
    The boy ran back to the room, shutting it furiously. And after, he shouted: “Father is dead-is dead!”
    He waited. But the smoke forced him downstairs. As the house went up in flames, the boy and mother escaped.
    “He is dead-is dead. It happened,” he repeated again and again.

    Tomorrow came. The boy awakened and went downstairs. Father was leaving. He left.

    The boy stayed in his room. The telephone rang in the afternoon. Mother was about to get the phone. But the boy yelled from upstairs: “I’ll get it.”
    He picked up the phone. He smiled. Listened carefully. Put the phone back on the receiver. Went downstairs and told Mother: “Father is dead-is dead. The plane crashed. There was a big ball of fire.”



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