He Felt these Words infill Him with Hope

Eric was not entirely a bad man, yet neither had he ever tried to be a good one- not like his Marley, he reflected, who would go all out to do the right thing every time.

As he thought of her, a vision of his funeral rushed towards his mind's eye - it was as if he were there in the party.

A moment later he found himself sitting right up on the coffin top looking at the flowers and over to the people in their seats. Someone was talking about him but he could not recognise who they were, or what they were saying exactly. The speaker told a little joke and everyone had a laugh - this felt very inappropriate.

His daughter got up to read something - she was shaking and her mascara had blackened her cheeks - he strained to hear what she was saying:

"Jesus Christ died and was buried.
He descended into Hell.
On the third day He rose again from the dead."

Strangely, he felt these words infill him with hope.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Anaphylactic Fits

Puck was boxing bulbs, when his friend and business partner Gordon walked in, having just arrived back from the World. 

Gordon's family - the Fabaceae (also known as the Leguminosae) were broadly associated with beans, but Gordon's branch were more along the peanut line, which for this Puck liked to call him Goober. (Puck had on occasion called him Monkey Nuts which also was a name for Peanuts, after which Gordon had settled for Goober.)

Puck could see that he appeared a little agitated, which was unusual for Goober who was ordinarily high-spirited at all times. He stood taller than Puck and leant over him a bit when they talked together. His appearance was that of a lanky thin man, in his twenties, dressing country casual. Today his eyes watered and he was coughing and sneezing profusely ... he looked awful.

"Passed out again yesterday - snap! just like that" he sniffed.

This was not unusual, for the elemental population were becoming symptomatic with the sicknesses associated with their family plant, as found the human world. If there were allergies in people, then they would suffer them too. Goober was continuously dropping out with anaphylactic fits that took him without warning. Fortunately it took only a splash of water to revive him.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Puck was Growing a Business

In his spare time Puck was growing a business - an heirloom seed farm situated not far from his tree house.

He held an intense interest in protecting the earliest of species, flowers and vegetables, trees and herbs - that were soon to become extinct, had it not been for his seed distribution keeping many varieties burgeoning within the world that otherwise would have abandoned to history.

The Plant Kingdom has entire families of faerie beings who are akin to the greenery themselves - they dwell within their properties, and are directly connected in many ways. The Roses, for example, have beings that live within their scent, and although unseen by humans, they dwell alongside that plant for the life of it and actually help to cultivate its growth. These ethereal landscapers call the life out from the ground, they sing the blossoms into being, they are the soul of the plant itself, even though they dwell outside of it.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Heritage Plants

 

The older the plant's history, the earlier the lineage of the family is that is attached to it. From the sweated jungles to the dewdrop gardens, there are royal varieties whose lines look back hundreds of centuries. Puck personally mixed well with the representatives of these venerable families. His longstanding relationships with such royalty made him the perfect keeper of their trust and propagator of their futures.

The heritage plants that he traded were sown all over the physical world to procreate in organic farms and speciality gardens who were unaware of the invisible folk that migrated with them and took residence upon their land.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

 

The Walk was now Beginning its Climb

He watched them being whacked by invisible sticks from the ghouls of souls who had been murdered, or worse again, would turn up to now taunt their foes in retribution.

Men who were once fierce and women who were beautiful, metamorphed into animal types with beast-like features becoming humanly unrecognisable.

Did they really believe that they could escape their own action's consequences? Foolishly optimistic and selfish, this procession of offenders had no idea where they were going or why. Unseen objects pelted them from afar, needles jabbed and knives gashed into their astral skin: it was a miserable sight to see.

The walk was now beginning its climb. Puck could hear two figures at the front fighting with one another. They had come in together after a drunken car accident and parts of their body were missing. One was still acting as though they were intoxicated, whilst the other was cursing angrily.

Puck moved up through the crowd to see who they were, to find that the brain boggled character was a woman, and the one swearing obscenities was Marley's father. Puck recalled that the man had a problem with booze and a terrible temper some decades before.

The woman with him was not his wife, so Marley's mother must still be alive. Puck felt relieved at this and that he should go to Marley who must not have been given the news yet, else he would have felt her grief.
He took one more look over at her father in his wretched state - there really was nothing happy to report here. He had died exactly as he had lived and was still very much the same person as before. Puck felt the pity of it and scanned the crowd to see only futility everywhere.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Road to Hell

They say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but this is actually not true at all. Good intentions always point one to Heaven and really do count for something.

The road to Hell is paved with crumbled bones that have been softened into sand - and it is not really a road, or even a pavement, but more of a path that is very difficult to walk upon.

The distance travelled is not so long for the sorry fellows who travel its course. But it can feel tedious and frightening as there are visions along the way that are hugely terrifying, and occasions of assault where men and women are jumped upon and beaten hard - if this is what they themselves have done to others in their lifetime just passed.

It is often known as the 'walk of grief' or the path of Cinnabar.

Puck enjoyed his power walking down that path.

It wasn't so much that misery made him cheerful, it was more that this exercise renewed his enthusiasm to work hard for Humanity. He actually felt partially human himself the closer he got to their pain. He identified with their stories, he felt their disappointments, and he wanted more for the mortals enveloped in tragedy.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Bright Tunnel

"Father!" the elder cried out. Bartholomew (who had only just passed over) became overwhelmed to have someone actually waiting for him at the other side. After passing through the bright tunnel he had just kept running and this had led him right up to Jobe.

Jobe stared hard and then the recollection dawned. Visions of lives before ran past his inner eye and sadness swept over him with the realization that this wizened being was his first-born Ozmund of now five centuries ago - who he had lost at the age of eight to the fevers.

Jobe had wailed and protested that day when his little boy had gone cold and breathless - for this child had been the love of his life. Nothing had been the same after that: that was the moment he had lost faith in life completely.

Jobe took the big urn carefully from his grip and put it down, wrapped his arms around the small bony frame and hugged him intensely. "My boy" he wept softly, "you are safe now".

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

People have all Kinds of Bodies

Jobe was becoming a little agitated and impatient waiting for Puck. He was standing in a dark and gloomy spot and had lost track of how long he had actually been there when finally he could hear hurried footsteps approaching from behind.

He turned and saw that this was not Puck after all, but an elderly man, who was labouring with the weight of a large pail half his own size, that he carried in both arms outstretched. It was stuffed with small bits of paper. As he moved closer Jobe could see that they were lottery tickets encircled with red ink.

Jobe had been itching badly, having broken out in scabs from all the crack he'd been doing before. Although he no longer had a body to blister, the memory of it had stayed within his finer body that he was using right now.

People have all kinds of bodies - sheaths, like Russian dolls - with layers that can be discarded one by one. The shells are shed after death and some of the bodies still retain old details in their memory.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Face was Smiling

Jet had a bizarre feeling that someone was following him, and however inexplicable, it was always there in the back of his psyche.

He had first thought it could be God watching over him or perhaps a guiding Angelic presence - but when he began to hear actual footsteps these explanations paled.

When asking other people he met if they had ever felt as though they were being crept up on, and watched deceptively ... assorted big brother theories were confided to him with a solemn emphasis on conspiracy.

Recently when returning home he had closed and locked the front door behind himself, when only a few minutes later he heard it slam shut alarmingly, as though the invisible presence had actually let himself in following behind.

Then there was the uncanny time when an entire flock of birds gathered high in the sky, in perfect formation, lingering just long enough to come together and form the face of a man looking down at him - and worse still, the face was smiling.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

First Prize

First prize and he could not find the bloody ticket!

Just then the stitch inside his chest radiated right through to the centre of his being. He clutched the side of the chair before over-balancing and falling to the floor ... his heart had just given out. When he was found the next morning by his landlady she had wondered at the mess of papers there lying on the carpet.

"Usually keeps it tidy, he does" she earnestly pronounced to the undertakers as he was being loaded into the hearse.

She felt embarrassed for him having been found like that.

************

Puck did not think that the ticket would be missed.

He had just wanted to give Marley a really nice surprise this time and did not consider that Bartholomew had kept to the same numbers for over a decade and could remember them by heart.

What took ten years of investment for Bartholomew just took ten seconds for Puck to abscond with - and he was fast, so fast that no one even saw him enter or exit the building.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Three Tree Sections

His tree-house was divided into three tree sections: the underground, the ground level and a top level.

 At the top level he meditated, slept, scribed and scryed.

Ground level had the indoor salt swimming pool, ten guest bedrooms, four small barns; a dining room, servery, home- theatre, and a reading room library.

The underground comprised of one lock up cell (large enough to hold ten guests) a storeroom, clothing and costume wardrobe; troll accommodation suitable for all kinds of beings who preferred the cavernous lifestyle; and lastly, a passage to a vault of which he spoke little of.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series  

Puck's 'Tree-house'

Our physical world is one of the fewer fixed habitats in existence; however even in its microcosmic regions the latitudes are infinite.

Yet concerning Space itself one finds that the prospects are indeed limitless, and map it though we might, we can only define Space by what it is that fills it, and not by that of its own substance and size.

Puck's 'tree-house' stood over eighty foot high and was decorated with hundreds of brightly coloured flags that climbed to the very highest branch.

If you were to walk around its massive leathery base it could take a hundred steps or more to arrive back to where you first began.
Amber sap glittered and dripped in voluptuous globs; knots and knobs and insect holes, peppered its exterior.

Puck had crafted a small whistle from one of the boughs and with two shrill notes, the entrancing doorway would appear.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Space 1.01

Between the borders of Faerie and the physical World stands an ancient forest where the trees are exceedingly tall; and although no longer visible to men, their roots go deep into its earth.

 They came from a time when the blend of the neighbouring realms was apparent, and magic was all about - almost commonplace.

Blyton and Barrie wrote of these trees - whose wide girthed trunks became portals for 'other worldly' residence - with the proportions of a Tardis and the comforts of a luxury home inside.

The cosmic fields are brimful with such realities - for space itself is not pre-determinedly fixed or confined, but is rather concessional to both cause and reality.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

The Sanity of Divinity is Reason

Puck had seen firsthand how words could be turned to contaminate the truth, and what a dark magic was worked when folk were careless with what they said, putting hurtful ideas out into the ethers.

People seemed to lack deference to relevance these days.

Relevance, he thought, was key to reasonability.

The sanity of Divinity is Reason, and the passage to that reason is relevance.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

I only buy on a Saturday

There was a carved pipe collection, a real rabbit's foot brooch (with a diamond set at the top); a box of christening mugs, masonic memorabilia, exonumia, old maps; vellum books and assorted pairs of roller skates. Amongst this snapshot of history the smell bespoke its age - along with the frankfurter and cigarette aromas that wafted through from the back room - from which a horse race being called through a tin can, could be heard from the vintage radio.

 "I only buy on a Saturday" a voice yelled abruptly, "you'll just have to come back then".

Jobe fingered the gun in his pocket nervously. It felt cold and uncomfortable and the metal made his fingers ache. He was beginning to wonder if he should just turn around and go back out again.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Maybe they were Angels of sorts?

Puck shook his head in a disconcerted manner, and then asked, "You mean the Angels?"

"No" said Jobe, "those freaky Apes that have wings and keep guard at the top of the rock" he sighed.

"Yes" replied Puck a little firmly, "they are Angels alright, just making sure that no one gets lost down in the immeasurable void - for nobody really wants to lose their soul that way, now do they?" Jobe had wished he could have leapt down there on more than one occasion, and shuddered as he felt fate brush past him.

The weight of Puck's words hit hard for he actually believed in what he had just said. He remembered back to gargoyles he had seen in lifetimes past - that were fixed outside Church walls and doors with watchful eyes - they had looked pretty similar to the apes he reckoned ... maybe they were Angels of sorts?

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Anyone for a song?

They could do all kinds of things that they once did in the world - eat, drink, smoke etc. - but it wasn't real. The lack of freedom and being stuck with one's own company seemed to be what caused the greatest anguish of all - that, and the absence of beauty.

Not one thought they should be there. They cried injustice, they screamed for vengeance. They cursed their enemies; they bemoaned all their grievances.

This seemed pretty much continual, until one day when a very tall, well clothed, pointy ears fellow appeared and said,

"Anyone for a song?"

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Aani

In Egyptian mythology, Astennu (also spelt Asten, Isten, Astes, and Isdes) refers to a baboon associated with Thoth. It was also stated that Astennu was merely another aspect of Thoth, as the god could take the form of a baboon. He was one of four baboons who stood around the lake of fire at the place of judgement in Duat, and consequently associated with Utennu... Baboon may be an equivalent term for dog-headed ape. 

Among the Egyptians several kinds of apes were regarded as sacred animals, but the most revered of all was that which was the companion of Thoth, and which is commonly known as the Dog-headed Ape. In the Judgment Scene he sits upon the standard of the Great Scales, and his duty was to report to his associate Thoth when the pointer marked the middle of the beam.

In Ancient Egyptian religion, Aani is the dog-headed ape sacred to the Egyptian god Thoth. "One of the Egyptian names of the Cynocephalus Baboon, which was sacred to the god Thoth."
  

An image [above] in the Papyrus of Ani (ca. 1250 BC), a version of the Book of the Dead, has been described as follows:

The scene shows four cynocephalous baboons sitting at the corners of a rectangular pool. On each side of this pool is a flaming brazier. The pool's red colour indicates that it is filled with a fiery liquid, reminding one of the "Lake of Fire" frequently mentioned in the Book of the Dead.


-From Wikipedia 

The Flying Apes

Then, before he had a chance to decide otherwise, he was hurled back at the 'drop' falling face forward into yet another time, and another place, but with pretty much the same story all over again ... now ending up stuck on a stony plateau with a hundred mumbling idiots in a tangle of moaning and whimper.

He really wished their noise would stop, but experience had taught him this would not be any time soon.

The flying Apes kept prodding them all back from the edge. Every now and then, one would just give up and take a leap into the abyss below, but the Ape would follow, scoop them back up and deliver them to the stony ledge they were captured on, shrieking and hollering even louder than before.

It really was depressing.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Three Feint Ghostly Moons

Steam was rising from the stone, sweet odours erupted from bright pink cacti; clouds of humming flies brooded, and insects that bore pointed spears, hurled themselves in tyrannical nuisance to anyone who walked that road.

Furthermore, in speaking of walking, one had to be very careful not to slide and slip over - as all of the ground was sodden and slimy, and unfavourable to the feet's footing.

There could be no sun to be seen, yet the sky above was intensely bright and bore three feint ghostly moons suspended in their cloudless space.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell- Azlander series

Guardian at the Gate

It was customary for folk to have to leave their clothes at the gate, however Puck could pass through and back again, without the usual requirements of the earthly detainees.

An Ape sat importantly on a post that controlled the latch - picking at his own filth. This brutish character was an appointed guardian who took his work very seriously.

His name was Yang, and Puck did not warm to him well.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Iron Gates of Hell

The outside really gave nothing away as to what lay inside the iron gates of Hell.

The gardens about dripped with bulbous fruits. Huge statues worked in lapis and gold depicted sylph-like forms; exposed and entirely naked; appearing to be entwined in comforting embrace; yet when one gave a closer inspection you found that they told sinister stories of torture in the queerest of poses; with knives and gaping mouths, and their hands bound in subservience – it was suffering memorialized.

Marble Gryphons stood in the forecourt, eerily translucent - appearing very life-like, yet bloodless - and were vomiting dirty water into fountains so deep their floors could not be seen.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Babies See Ethereal Beings

Usually in the material world he would appear as tall, or taller than any normal man - but to the infant he looked like a doll and could do vanishing tricks to amuse her and pass the time.

Babies naturally see ethereal beings until the age of three or so. Puck could stay with her longer, because his ability to be present in our world is strong, and he remained within her vision until seven, when she began to actually question who her imaginary friend exactly was.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Nature Herself is Driven by this Wild Card

Alan Howe

This could be said really for all of the fey folk - that they are cocksure and speak with the bravado of one who knows.

Allied so closely with the Kingdom of all-things-green they are famed for their rampant sexuality. Nature herself is driven by this wild card, which is not of promiscuity but of promise. The raptures of the flowers and trees, the fruits and berries, the crops and their foods - these ecstasies are rooted in productive purpose and result: the essence of true sexuality is never just a barren orgy.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Making his Yuletide Trip

It was seventeen years ago on Christmas day, that Caroline had first entered this world into her new life - of what turned out to be that of a very sickly child. From birth she had been given the spirit of a poet and the body of a spirit.

Puck had been making his yuletide trip to the hospital, bringing gifts of enchanted dreams to the sufferers who were bedded down indefinitely in white sheets, and in grave need of the release that a good dream can bring.

When he first saw her, he thought her to be the most beautiful mortal he had found this century. Seventeen was a most perfect age for the physical form. He was drawn to her grace, her expression, and countenance of kindness. She seemed good for the world and far too young to be dying.

With half opened eyes she could watch the light shimmering through the tree branches outside of her window, as the curtains inhaled backwards and forwards with the breeze. She could not see him watching her.

"What day is it?" she asked her nurse softly - who had cuffed her arm and pumped the pressure with an awkwardness that showed her nervousness with death. She was uncomfortable, and fumbled with the pen upon the chart, whilst replying that it was Christmas, not even bothering to look up.

Caroline herself said nothing more - her soul had other plans now and was preparing to move on. Puck remembered that day and how she fled from the world without complaint or expectation.

After her passing she was immediately occupied with a crowd of relatives and friends who came to greet and chat in spirit speak, and embrace her with spirit arms.

He held back from introducing himself - she was so busy, and now happy - there really was no need.

From time to time he would go and find her, to see how she was faring. He never showed himself - she would not have known him - but nonetheless this pure soul was now on his list for people to care for.

Just three decades later Caroline returned to be born again - this time to a frosty family who did not treat her well at all.

As an infant she would be left crying on her own for long periods of time - cold, hungry, saturate and red faced. Puck would go to cheer up the child as best he might - presenting himself to the baby Marley (which was her name now) as being only eight inches high. Usually in the material world he would appear as tall, or taller than any normal man - but to the infant he looked like a doll and could do vanishing tricks to amuse her and pass the time.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

The Dark-hearted

The dark-hearted are not vampires, ghouls, or any such other - they are simply humans gone bad: who have been morally challenged, have battled and lost - men and women who have forsaken all that truly matters - no longer being able to take in a sunrise, or care for any other … not even for themselves. 

Empathy, virtue, cheerfulness and nobility are crudely exchanged for their wretched desires. And just as an artery to the heart can become clotted, selfishness over time closes those portals where the light of life can come in through to nourish the soul.

—  Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Which Door Will You Open?

Introducing Puck

Puck was always a little misunderstood wherever he went - for it was unusual for a fey-man to visit the material world and its demon infested hell - to travel out so far from his native land, the golden etheric realm.

One black night he followed a sorry fellow, down into the Underworld, who had passed out and away from a cold bed of newspapers and urine.

This poorly man had been sickened by a black-heart condition, and Puck had wanted to see what would happen to a mortal after dying so pitifully destitute. He had trailed his shadow from the moment the corpse was vacated, and throughout the journey that followed after.....

Puck's superior airs frequently presented as downright vanity, but often his estimations were perfectly correct. His kind hold recollections that span centuries (because they do not die as we do) and one can accumulate quite a bit of knowledge over such ages.

He could appear as young as he wanted - his preferred glamour was that of a twenty-eight year old mortal- tanned and muscular, with dark choleric eyes (that would turn blue sometimes) shaded by sunglasses when out in the common world. His attire - whether it was street-wear or formal - always appeared expensive and clean, fitting him perfectly. He wore his hair groomed short, even though overnight it would lengthen into six-inch ringlets and require cutting every morning. He had an energetic handsome face that was neither gay nor straight, but rather reminiscent of a Greek demi-god with pointed ears.

His fascination for death was lately disturbed by an increasing sadness he held for the epidemic of desperate men now diving fast into Hell. What within Earth could be the cause of such numbers? Puck had set himself the task of discovering why so many were afflicted at this time.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series