Diamond Collection

In the land of Faerie there is a law about magic tokens: and that is, that their powers can go in reverse at any time, unexpectedly.



The same diamond that gave growth and reckoning to Nathanius, was also quite fickle in its properties, and could equally cause chaos and harm to its holder. Puck had recognised this, when Needles had dropped it into Eve’s car, just before the collision.



Puck tossed it up into the air watching the rainbows spark here and there. He then lifted the lid of a rather large stone jar and clink, dropped it in. There it now sat amongst forty or so diamond nuggets of the same. His collection had grown pretty large this century.




-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Azlan Speaks about Listening & Looking

There is a deep magic that few recognise, where in this world, the material world, you can hear what is being said, and from this you may catch the genuine truth thereby.



Often times, if you look at a man or a woman, you may also see the truth about them, especially when their glamor falls away and dissolves in the light of a pure enquiry.”




“To see and hear plainly the truth of a situation, or state of a soul, the mind and heart can locate the other’s co-ordinates at that moment in time of questioning.



Also, too, one should themselves practice speaking plainly and honestly, using few words unembellished.



Attire yourself according to your own nature, and be comfortable in that.



If you speak falsely your ears will shift their co-ordinates, and discrimination will be skewed with the fancy and fantasy of a troubled mind. For we may easily become confused by our own deceptions.



Equally if we attempt to present ourselves as something we are not, we fail to be able to recognise others for who they are in that moment of time.”







-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

House of Glass

The house itself was not made of sugar, but of glass. Bricks of glass that had once live insects and small rodents inanimate, suspended within. It gave an eerie appearance to the hut from the outside, to see so many glassy eyes staring out from the glassy bricks; and trails of creatures seemingly crawling up the sides, yet suspended in their thick glassy containment.

Asquith loved to shock the world. At least that is how he saw it. He was a performer that ever sought out a terror-struck audience, one that would feed him the energetic rapture coming from that great surprise. Yet he took it further than most, drawing from those close enough to enter into his curved orbit, a measure of upset that they would carry away, whilst he retained greedily what happiness he had stole from them.

This is how most magicians of the evil variety work. They are vampires who trade the light for the darkness, compelling their audience to believe that they are far grander than they really are - exceptional to creation - all the while their facade magically covers their devilishly corrupted and failing interior.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

The Magician

“The Magician", the fat man continued, “knows every evil sod from here to Hades”. He laughed. “That fur coach sounds to me a real easy association - he will know. Only my advice is, take him something. He won't warm to you if you go empty handed. It is important to trade. Oh, and be respectful.



“How do we find him?”


“Well, er, he looks like a child but is as old as my grandfather. He wears an emblem around his neck of a hawk eating a rabbit. His house is made of taffy sugar. Asquith is the name he goes by.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Green Dust

“There is a magician in the hills that can help you”, the fat man explained.

      

      The fat man, was actually the name that this merchant of cheeses went by - and he wore this title proudly. This had become his signature, and in his own way he felt substantial within the world by it. While emaciated beggars and their thinned offspring fossicked though the nobility’s cast offs, he, with his factory of dairy fat was an emblem of prosperity and good health. Yay, the King himself was portly, he would say boastingly, to his five stout children. And this was so.”

“Jonathon and Tindle watched him as he spoke - the man never stopped sampling his own creations. They hoped he would offer them to taste also, but he did not. Jonathon relented, handing one fake coin to the cheesemaker in exchange for a cloth bag of hard remnant pieces.

      

      “Just score the green from the sides like so,” he said showing his expertise at shaving mold. He continued, “keep it at the bottom, and it will encourage more of the same … and should you ever fever, the green dust makes an excellent tonic mixed with a little liquid that will revive you. It can cure all manner of malady.”

      Jon knew this to be wise advice. He had seen his Ma use the very same - although from bread - when his Pa had stuck himself with a horse shoe tack that seeded pus in a wound that would not heal. The green dust medicine had sure made it all right again.

      

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

A Sprig of Violets

She poured two cups, then added cream and sugar onto the tray - then placed four slices of buttered cinnamon toast and a bowl of blackberries.


On the way back into her bedroom she tripped and fell head first onto the carpet before her. The tray and its contents went sailing clattering with the fall.

Embarrassed, Eve picked herself up and wiped the cream from her face, took the courage to look over to the bed and found that her new lover was missing - and immediately her first thought was that he may not have seen her fall at all - which was very fortunate all things considered.

Her's was an optimistic nature. She turned to go find him and knocked lightly on the bathroom door, pushed it open to find he was not inside there either - nor was he in the kitchen or the dining room - and then it dawned on Eve that he had simply gone. She went back to the bedroom and saw waiting for her the tray with the food as before - with one difference - there was a crystal vase upon it with a sprig of violets inside.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Feeling Lighter than Ever

Joseph Paton

Eve awoke to find herself enveloped in the broad arms of a man she could not recognize. She shimmied and wriggled sideways to the end of the bed and drew back, looking once again through foggy eyes … staring at the sleeping figure who seemed so very familiar.

He was still very much asleep.

Long, very long, curly hair draped over his pillow … well, it was her pillow - with his head on it. His skin had a sheen that was hard to describe … it did not look pitted and pored like an ordinary body - it actually did not look real at all and a feint aura of light seemed to emit from it - she squinted to try to clear her eyes and refocus - she could not determine his age, only that he was very tall and with the body of a god.

Eve slowly withdrew from the sheets and slyly huddled into a nearby silk robe, leaving to make coffee. Although she should have felt alarmed the truth was she felt lighter than ever, in fact, she felt better than she could recall ever feeling. Happiness travelled the whole length of her body.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

At the End of the Tunnel

There was a tunnel, and a light and at the end of the tunnel, and through this light, was another tunnel and a brighter light. In the middle of this brighter light was a little box. Inside the box was a key to its lock. 

Mr Dickens arrived just in time to see the white rabbit abscond with the box, right before he could claim it for his own. He thought he heard the rabbit mutter something about being very late, dropping a pocket clock as he left. Mr Dickens picked up the small clock and saw its hands moving backwards.

Years later he related this story to a friend whose name was also Charles.

“You know how clocks keep step with the time in the present?” he began.

“Yes yes,” nodded the cleric, packing his already stuffed pipe.

"Well it appears that my pocket automata dictates time itself - it leads the dance, so to speak."

“How so?" asked Charles to Charles. He was not disconsiderate - in point of fact, he seriously admired his colleague and loved him for his great fascination of the world. Anything that Dickens said he sincerely believed.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Dragon Energy

The people often spoke of ‘dragon energy’ - not knowing exactly where it came from, or what it was.

When, as a little boy, Nathanius Tindle had placed his hand around the diamond cough drop, whereupon something of the energetic force was imparted, thus it was that he went on to grow to such an unusual gigantic height.

This was not its only gift, for his mind had accelerated also - and he took great pleasure prescribing mathematical solutions to configuring complex formulas, and geometrical understandings of geometry and the wonders of astronomy.

He knew that the principle of ‘as above, so below’ was in deed a primal fact: and that all forms within the material world had their essential patents elsewhere in the universe - that life was constantly repeated through these heavenly guidelines - forming and un-forming Creation.

It was probably just as well that Nathanius had lost the diamond, for its powers would have soon become too much for him, too great, too bold, for any one man, to know.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Magic Shadow

Dmitry Krutous

“Dead Wood" - that was how they had described him, and it stung.

To a dwarf this is a very great insult - possibly the worst insult - for each being of Faerie has their own dedicated tree, and so to call him ‘dead wood’ was to suggest he, and his tree, was without life.

There are beings who emanate further life to life which is around them and then there are those who have ceased to participate - and their transactions with the ethers go just one way.

Pine-Needles loved life and its nature and his fellow beings - he had fallen ill and that was simply all. But now, with the illness fallen from him, and the healing of the ecto vapours from Puck, he was renewed. He had also an especial fondness for Eve by association - and committed to be her chief defender, prime project, and magic shadow.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Black was Back

“Have you a special question today Sir?” Eve asked politely.

“Yes indeed” the timbre was sophisticated. He continued: “Do you think that chickens can see into the ‘other worlds’?"

“Could you please repeat the question?” she nervously asked, biding time, dismayed at being caught off guard.

“Well, er, Mr … ”

“Black” he said calmly - as though he expected to be taken seriously. “Can chickens see spiritual phenomena? he pressed: are they clairvoyant?”

“That really is a very interesting question Mr Black - can I ask what made you think of it?”

“In my opinion sparrows can see the invisibles - most breeds do - but I have not been able to say with certainty that the chicken, hen or rooster is so qualified. It's their brains you see - very flighty. They do say that the rooster can feel the sunrise as it approaches, and its healing forces infill his song.”

Eve paused to think - her show was interrupted conveniently by a local sponsor’s advertisement.

The stranger kept talking: “The dog is dead, Albert is in Bermuda, and the nagging spirit is not his wife, but his mother.”

"Click"- the phone-line died.

Eve hurriedly shuffled her papers to find the one she had prepared earlier to read to her audience … she bit her lip - its subject was ‘psychic animals’. How could the caller have known?

She laughed when all of a sudden she recognized who was at the other end of the line - somehow she just knew it was that crazy spirit that had wandered into her apartment a few days before, and now it appeared he was back.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Radio Show

Back at the radio station Eve had got off to a great start - the switchboard was clamouring with ardent enthusiasts. Management always took it to be a ‘good sign’ when the public responded ravenously to a host - proving that again spiritism was still very much a hot topic, even in this modern age.

Caller number one had lost their dog, and was phoning to ask the medium if she could sense his whereabouts. Caller two had lost their husband: and could not verify if they were dead or had absconded, or perhaps was lost, and had asked Eve pitifully if she could sense Albert’s whereabouts.

Caller three had lost his wife, but wanted to know if there was a way he could hide from the spirit of the deceased, who nightly haunted him with chores that she considered he was meant to be doing. 

Caller four had an unusual stride in the way they spoke - it was almost playful. He introduced himself as a student for all things esoteric.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Very Zen

The fat grey moth appeared to have given up, having succumbed to the sticky tangle that had entrapped him.

Puck gently blew on the failing creature, and in that one breath the bondage dissolved and the creature flew free.

Out in the rocky outcrops of Utah a lone climber was wedged in between two rock walls that earlier he thought he could crawl through. His body had swollen in the heat of the struggle, and now the adventurer was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place, opposing his efforts to move forward or back.

He could not reach his phone, or flick the ants from his nose. The heat of the stone was burning his bare shoulders, and his fears were strangling the very breath out from him. He closed his eyes momentarily to find respite from the panic, when a warm sweet wind passed over him from behind. He opened his eyes to find that the wall beside him was breaking up into sand, and with all the effort he could gather, he wriggled free. The young explorer dropped safely and softly onto the dirt beneath.

Back in his one-windowed room, Puck picked up his satchel to leave, and then stopped to clairvoyantly enjoy the exhilaration of the climber as he ran towards the entrance to the national park.

“How very Zen” he said jokingly to the ghost of Master Shen, who saw also the remote event watching through his friend’s eyes.

With the hint of a smile, he every slightly nodded a bow to Puck on his way out. The old ghost touched his shoulder affectionately and whispered, “Two-fer”.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Master Shen Yun

Puck enjoyed his stay-overs with the Buddhist brotherhood. He had a special room set apart from the main quarters, from where he could come and go undisturbed and largely unseen.

Master Shen Yun, a century before, had offered him this arrangement, and in kind, Puck would bring the community a variety of seeds that did them well. Over a hundred years later he was still delivering farming supplies to his favourite retreat.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series

Buddhist Monastery

He folded his silken robe lovingly, and placed it on the top of the two camel hair blankets resting on his woven bamboo sleeping mat.

Puffs of humid rain were misting into the little square window of his room. An elderly moth rested awkwardly on its ledge - his furry feet were caught in the remnants of an obstinate web.

The low moans of the morning’s chant could be heard from all around, although as though, from one voice alone. This deep song found its way into the gardens, the wash house, and the temple; punctuated with the rhythmic swish of the switch calling to action the will of the spirit in all quarters of the Monastery.

Duty thrummed throughout the community’s heart; motivating the aching hand, thrashing the strained and tired back - consoling fervently the ever reaching mind … seeking out the peace of the Heavens.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Emissaries of the Angelic Order

Sydney Sime

There are some dark places on the Earth where the presiding Angels have withdrawn - for they are sensitive to evil, and have no will of their own to defeat it - and so they simply must leave.

Yet the innocent and the afflicted are never without their helping presence - sustaining them with radiant love and guidance, ever within for those who are always without.

Secondarily there are emissaries of the Angelic order who do the work as is necessary … helping in varying forms and race.

Needles aka Einstein, had been one of those beings, who was commissioned to a mortal known by that same name. In fidelity to his spiritual ‘brother’ he had taken his name also.

Needles the human, had suffered a ruptured aneurysm at the age of just twenty-eight. His last shot had caused his kidneys to overload and his brain to seize - placing him now in a retirement home with an absent mind, listening to waltzes and the intermittent screams of the fellow residents about him.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Angel is, as an Angel does.

Hans Thoma 

Angels are embodied in many forms. One could say: that an Angel is, as an Angel does.

Were it not for the body of Angels, manifestation would not be possible.

Their living body consists of co-operative spirit - cohesive interplay - one that coerces magnificently an otherwise fractured system.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Bewitching Herb

“Yes, yes, he met with the girl right here”, he said pointing to the corner seats - “he would dip his spoon into her soup, and she seemed largely aggreived by it.

“It is possible”, he added under his breath, that this fancy Pelt Lord had added some bewitching herb - I say this to you because the maiden was drowsy when it came to her finding her feet to walk out of here. He had to hold her upright … we had just thought her tipsy with spirits - but in looking back, there was no whore’s demeanour about the child to begin with.

“Find that carriage I say,” he nodded knowingly, “and you will find her.”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Abductor

It was a fine sight to see the two companions walking together: with the size and height of Tindle beside Jonathon, who was all four heads shorter than his gentle friend. Jonathon was not a small man, it was just that Tindle was an oversized Welshman.

Their mirth was marred only with their concern for Fatima - who they had since learned had been taken away by a carriage that wore emblems of an eagle atop a winged silver serpent.

The townspeople who had seen Fatima leave were impressed with the rarity of the coach itself, as it was upholstered, on the outside, entirely in bear pelt.

“What can I tell you?” the proprietor of the broth cafe off-handedly asked … he continued: “The Eu-rope-eans take pleasure in a very different style.”

He grimaced thinking back to its famed passenger, who wore the same fur also as a cape.

The abductor was toothless, but for two canines that protruded when he spoke.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series 

Twofers

Over the many centuries Puck had explored the Mortal world, and had developed affections for many of its inhabitants. His powerful nature could endure the very best, and the worst, of both the spiritual planes and the periods of the planet.

He was not without his own sadnesses. His heart was large (much bigger than most), and privately and broadly it synthesised the sorrow around him - meaning, that he could empathetically feel another’s pain with exact replication - and over time this hardship became incorporated into his own experience and being.

He knelt down to help a grasshopper who was labouring to walk, as a black beetle had attached itself to the creature’s hind leg. The weight of the beetle was proving too much to drag, and very soon she would be forced to stop, thereby becoming open prey to the wandering birds looking for snacks.

Puck absentmindedly shot a blue light into the clinging beetle and it exploded with a small ‘pop’ while the grasshopper hurried away.

Somewhere on the other side of the world a terrorist’s back-pack prematurely ignited - killing only the black clad conspirators holed up in an underground tunnel.

Puck smiled to himself - he enjoyed the simultaneous two-fers - where portents of a greater evil may be lambasted and thwarted through the remedy of the smaller. One of the many mysteries of life …

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

No Ordinary Elvish Man

Puck was no ordinary Elvish man - or manly Elf - he was, as the Elders would say, worlds apart from both the races he identified best with.

His origin predated both the Fay and the Mortals at a time when the vision of the Earthly Kingdoms was hermetically sealed, sleeping in the vault of the greater gods.

He had witnessed their Creation, and seen their realms unfurl exquisite life with its marvellous beings. In this respect he himself was very much one of a kind - for he had seen their long histories, and remembered them all.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Hindsight

Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach

The Azlan speaks: 

Without the heights and depths to travel,
Man would know neither up from down.

"Hindsight is a gift from the gods. Literally it is the ability to review times past and learn accordingly.

'The Mortals wrestle with hindsight perpetually, thereby referencing all knowledge up-to-date acquired. From eons to hours, this is the ability to look back, before proceeding forward.

"Balanced between remorse and continuum, this talent is to review what has past most thoughtfully, and glean a wisdom, or a gratitude; to recall how to do as was done, or whether best avoid it completely.

"This persistent review is strengthening to the soul. We all, ever momentarily, use hindsight as our guide to expectation.

"And also there is the comfort: perceiving the ever ceaseless heartbeat and the rising of the Sun. From hindsight we measure and predict that which is to come.

"To this also, we find our misdeeds and subsequent falls from Grace succour our inner divinity, putting reason to what might appear but random - that we might learn those actions that are convivial to Life, from those that would darken our familial hemisphere.

"The cynics contextualise hindsight as the mocking Spectre of an after-effect - saying wryly, that we may never know of something, ere it happens.

"And yet, this is - over aeons to moments - for our travelling souls - the very meaning of its talent that it affords us."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses: Azlander Series