"Young man, you have a devil at your back!" he exclaimed rather fearfully. Puck's immediate thought was that this guy was being plain unkind.
"I was not mocking you old man - I was just trying to tell you that I have met Him and I agree with your sign right there."
"Look, look behind you!" he pointed, semi-hysterically, "the way he constrains that child, he is dangerous and ought to be stopped...”
They had been at cross-purposes. Puck turned around in a flash to find Forsythe travelling in the opposite direction, hurrying down the street, moving very clumsily, struggling with Charley who was trying to wriggle free from his hold.
Both Puck and the old man caught up to them very quickly. Charley outstretched her tiny arms to her father, but Forsythe had clamped a child restraint around her chest - it looked to be made for a dog, and was pinching her neck, pulling her back.
"Aye Robin Toad Fellow - look who I have" he said smarmily squeezing her tight.
Charley threw up all over the pavement. Puck quickly scanned his mind for Marley hoping she might be following behind and could help the situation, but could not feel any sense of her whereabouts.
-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series
As Puck walked out onto the main street a light rain tumbled scantily down, refreshing the musty city from its staleness. Happily preoccupied, he walked bang into an evangelist who was giving out flyers beside a large sandwich board that read "HE LIVES".
Puck smiled at the old man apologetically for nearly knocking him over. He had been distracted in a blissful haze, overjoyed at how things had all turned out. Finally, it seemed, a little happiness was coming his way.
He glanced down at the sign and remarked to the elderly man:
"He does, you know."
Puck had said this agreeably and then added, "The last time I saw the Master he was looking real buff - as though he works out." The blue truth dust was still making him talk carelessly.
The old man handed Puck a pamphlet and gave him solemn directions to his meeting place that always offered a free cup of tea. What Puck had said seemed to pass right over him ... it was as though he had not heard it at all.
-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series
All was calm, the silver bells were silkily tinkling; the Angelic host moving about, performing their unseen duties; the spheres rotated in perfect obeisance and marshmallows dripped from their sticks with a tacky glistening sweetness.
All was well with the world, in between its calamities.
There were those gentle, quiet moments, when one forgets death and all of the inevitabilities that dog each move into the future.
The ordinances of life contrive to multifariously disarrange our perspectives - enough to communicate the firm earth of our spirit-land with the sweet aroma of its cordial symphonic ethers.
-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series
Gribbles reluctantly passed the half eaten box of chocolates over to Herod, who tipped the lot face down into the dirt.
Why did he have to go and spoil everything? It was beyond the comprehension of even the worst of the Demons.
"You know that they say misery loves company?" he drily asked.
"Yes."
"Well, he doesn't - so get out of here and don't come back until you’re invited!"
"But I live here Great One."
"Not anymore" Herod was displeased that Gribbles showed weakness at every turn and he suspected criticism being thought whenever he did or said something - this he found to be a constant aggravant.
"I shan't come back" the young Demon threatened, taking up his backpack with a sneer.
"If you do come back we will eat you - and that's a promise." Herod slammed his fist firmly onto the steel table - the one that was used for both meats and dissection.
Mark Forsythe came in just as Gribbles was leaving. He had his usual business with Herod, and as ever, turned up unannounced.
"Your son seemed largely upset" he commented, as Herod got up to offer him the executive chair.
"Just disowned him fer good" he grunted.
"Only son?"
"No, there's fifteen more."
-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series
"Move in with me please" Marley asked Puck, hugging him tight as he was preparing to go. "I want us to live together like a family."
"Gladly" he said with unreserved truthfulness, genuinely happy. "Or you and Charley can come live with me - it's a bit bigger where I'm staying."
"What if I forget us again? What if I can't see you next time, what if I can't see you tonight or tomorrow? Oh Puck, I have this most awful feeling..."
"Well" he stopped and thought for a moment, taking her concern very seriously. "I'll promise to never make you want to forget anything between us, and if you are agreeable, if I have to, I can record some video to show you - like on that movie with all the first dates" he laughed, he loved making a reference to something current in the world. "But honestly Marley I don't think we will need anything like that after what has been said between us today. We can make it work. Our minds are one now."
"And hearts," she said, following him to the door to give him one last kiss before he left.
-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series
Puck stood back up and swept his hand in the air - the tiny fragments of shining glass drew up from the floor and reformed into one large clear marble that he handed over to Charley to play with. Some of the truth particles must have caught inside also because it was shimmering blue as she turned it side to side.
"What if she swallows it?" Marley said with a motherly worriedness.
"It’s too big to swallow and she plays with marbles all the time, much smaller...”
"Plays with marbles? When has she played with marbles?"
Puck wanted to stop the conversation there but the moth dust prevailed.
"When she comes over to my house", he said quietly.
"When she does what?" Marley asked. This took a bit of explaining and the three sat on the bed together talking then until lunch time with the occasional interjection from the rabbit, who had his own list of memorandum to be heard - including the incident when Charley had pulled one of his ears off. He wanted it stitched back on.
-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series
The contents of the hourglass had brought Marley's clairvoyance back into being. It was as though earthly cataracts had lifted and the otherworld had become very obvious again. The room seemed to blaze with light.
Puck had appeared very manly to her standing there when he first arrived. He had come in such a hurry that he was still dressed in his gardening gear- strong leathers, a linen shirt that was woven through with a metallic thread, his long farmer's coat, that looked as though it belonged on a squire several centuries before, except for the scrawling artwork tattooed onto the leather. Tall, strong, tanned and muscular - his meditations had been working wonders these days.
"I never left you Marley. You might not have seen me, but I have been around." he then added, "on the few times you have known me, you forgot me just hours later". His jaw tightened slightly as he said this, but a minute later he could not help smiling as he now sat with her. He was remembering back to when Charlene was conceived, and how generously Marley had received him into her.
Marley thought Puck looked doubly attractive when he would look at her like that. His stare was intimate. It saw into her being, and touched her. Once they had locked eyes for minutes at a time, and she knew, just for a while, what it was like to be him. He was amazing.
-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series
