Sweet Feeling of Uttermost Silence

When Pietro-Bruce-Chan stepped back and moved away, Calvin got closer to Francis. His heart was full of pity for the tall hippy laying there.

He had a handsome face - a kindly face - a noble face. A fine gold cross had fallen into the sand, pulled from his neck when Charley had ripped his shirt away from his wound.

Calvin picked up the necklace and placed the cross into Francis’s hand. Calvin closed his eyes and all at once felt a spiritual pull, as though he was sinking into the deepest of deep waters, down into the most quiet place imaginable - and the voices and the noises of everything around him could no longer be heard.

It was a sweet feeling of uttermost silence, an inner chamber of resonant harmonies allowing him to breathe once again the ethers of perfection. He sighed, and to everyone’s surprise he began to pray audibly - he was praying for the broken and the bleeding man before them.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Door to Death

Puck was beside his daughter, standing quietly, waiting for Calvin to initiate something.

He had an intuition that this might just be the catalyst to get him back. He waited patiently - however time was getting short, as the Ambos were now on foot with the stretcher making their way down the track from the parking zone.

Pietro-Bruce-Chan kneeled beside the silent body - his own face weary with the sadness of the ages. It was as though he felt there and then every disappointment he had ever known and he was so tired by them.

He could not follow Francis wherever he had gone, the door to death was still closed shut to him - no matter how many times he had tried to push through.

Still, perhaps, just this one more time he could go again. 


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Day Knows not its Eternity

It is impossible to comprehend something that you simply cannot comprehend: such is Death. The night knows not the day, and the day knows not its eternity.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Memory Came Flying Back

Puck put his hand onto Calvin’s shoulder and said, “You can do this, you can do this …”

Calvin seemed entranced.

A siren’s whirring scream was getting louder in the distance.

And then, a memory came flying back to him, and Calvin knew. He knew with certainty. He forgot that he had forgotten: but then, all of a sudden, he knew.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Deja Vu

“I’ve never seen anything like this.”

These words drew deep impressions in Calvin’s brain … because he had - at least he felt he had - seen something exactly like this. Deja vu?- an horrific deja vu at that.

It was a pitiful sight. Francis was a big man and yet already his frame seemed to have shrunk back. His soul must have been enormous because his body by contrast looked hollow without it.

The tree-root had pierced him through his very centre, whilst his head bled also. Franco’s eyes were open, and shot with black. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind about whether or not he was ‘gone’.

Charley had torn open his shirt further to see what she could do and put her head to his chest to hear his heartbeat. Her curly hair was touched throughout with his blood. Her cheeks were streaked with mascara from crying. She looked like the world’s saddest clown.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Charley & the Chinaman

“He’s so careful, he’s so intuitive, I don’t understand how this could have happened.”

Calvin had phoned the ambulance depot and then grabbed the first-aid satchel from the kitchen, snatched the wound jar from the shelf, and a box of surgical gloves - moving as quickly as he could onto the path to the back of the compound, to the rear gate. He hoped that Charley was exaggerating and that he would find Francis laughing about a tumble with just a few scrapes along the way.

Charley and the Chinaman were right beside him running fast - Bruce-Pietro had overheard about the accident, and was becoming heartbroken all over again. He really could not bear the goodbyes with his son. He picked up his pace and ran ahead.

“Remind me, why is the cleaner coming with us?" Calvin asked Charley absentmindedly as they made their way along the sandy track watching the small figure get ahead of them in the distance - the elderly man running faster than any man should go.

They still had at least another five minutes to reach the base.

“Chinese Medicine?” she said hesitatingly.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Fall from the Ledge

Charley saw Francesco drop from the top of the great rock ledge, and although she did not realize, she had screamed out loud at the sight of it.

Her father heard this from afar: for his elvish telepathy was alerted by such alarms, and he transported himself literally within seconds to be beside her.

Together they found Francesco’s body bent, lying deranged at the base of the cliff.

“He must have dropped at least sixty feet” said Puck to Charley shaking his head.

“Have you any reception out here?" he continued - not having a phone of his own these days.

She drew her iPhone from her back pocket, shook the sand off it, and pressed the home button. The signal was not showing.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances