This is not Happening

"It can't be, I can't be! No, you have to be wrong. False positive - something like that...”

"Ms Silver both your blood and your urine tests have returned positive and your scan just confirmed fourteen weeks. Give it a day or so...”

Marley drew the white gown around herself protectively; her mind went blank with the shock of it all.

"You don't understand," she persisted very definitely, "I simply can't be - I mean ... well, I have not been with a man like that. This is not happening - it is just not possible."

The Doctor looked concerned and a little irritated also.

"This can be a natural reaction I promise you - especially when your hormones are fluctuating, emotions become confused. In time you will familiarise yourself with the idea of motherhood...”

Marley glared back at him.

"Doctor Tilden, how can I possibly be pregnant if I have not as much kissed a man in well over a year?"

"Here" he said in a much quieter voice as he drew back the curtains, "you can get dressed now and when you are ready come out and talk with me we can go over your history and treatment plan."

Marley hurriedly put all her layers back on and tried her best to compose herself. She realised, quite rightly, that the doctor was very uncomfortable with her.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

A Tabloid Acceptance of the World

One year later and Marley's business had begun to decline badly. She had not been able to source the unique floral substances that were the base notes of her perfumery.

She had tried to match the aromas with high-end synthetics, but because she had used some ghostly olfactory counterfeits, they had taken on the signatures of the cheaper brands. The ever responsive public quickly moved to the counters beside her's, taking their money with them.....

Her fairy-luster charm had fallen away, and, in the eyes of most, she was quite insignificant. Her former glamour had been taken for granted, and now Marley was at a loss as to where her attractiveness had gone.

She thought commonly with paraphrases and spoke using blanket judgements. Marley lived with a tabloid acceptance of the world, unquestioning the 'norm' - resolute, resigned, and although only in her early thirties, her demeanour had grown decidedly elderly.

She preferred her own company second only to the cat, who would idly brush up against her now and then with an unspoken yet persuasive dominance.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Too much Sun

There was a noise coming from down the road - angry voices were name-calling and shouting loud. He looked and could see a man, a tall man, sitting astride a very small donkey.

Darius loved donkeys and his immediate inclination was to go and pat his furry head. As fortune would have it the beautiful beast had stopped right in the front of the sweetbread shop.

With a round bun in his little hand he went over to feed the shaggy animal. Missiles of waste and pebbles were being thrown in his direction and long palm fronds stretching out from irritants within the crowd were pelting the man from the sides of the road.

A piece of rotten fruit caught little Darius on the ear. Master Donkey had stopped still to contentedly chew over the bun he had been fed - Darius steadied himself, putting one little hand upon the thigh of the stranger, who caught him by the wrist just before he was to slip being struck by yet another rancid missile.

The noise from the clamouring spectators was raucous and rude - but he was not frightened, keeping his hand inside that of the man's. He stared at his face wonderingly. The eyes of the stranger looked back as though they were trying to tell him something - and he felt happy - really happy - and everything around him seemed to sparkle.

***

"You've had too much sun out there my boy", his father had said when he tried to describe the sparks and stars he was seeing almost everywhere about him.

And, the face of the man - that man...

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Famous Nails

They stood and waited dutifully. After five minutes Darius's legs were getting sore and he wanted very badly to go home. His father saw his boy fidgeting and handed him a roasted nut from his pocket fold.

Another usher with silent footfall came in and drew back a black curtain from the wall. Behind it sat a throne and upon its seat was a character enmeshed in woven gold, wearing a metal mask that had a weave of craggy horns high above his head.

This figure produced a small pouch and handed it to his father. It weighed so heavy that it bulged the material. Inside was a fine metal dust, so fine it looked like black flour and sparkled in the lamplight as he opened it.

The usher who had been waiting behind them moved forward and motioned to silently leave through another door to their left. He then took them through the maze, with no words having been spoken until they were back into the light.

"Portius instructed me to tell you that you will prosper in your business. You are to add a dram to each bale of molten iron and the metal will be all the stronger for it. Success will come shortly ... and fame of your wares will span the centuries."

This was a great honor and the prophecy did prove true. The foundry flourished and the metal polished strong - and they secured the city's tender ... a consignment of nails to be supplied, in all sizes.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Expedition into the Caverns

Darius hid within the folds of his father's robe. He did not like these expeditions into the caverns.

The people down there scared him greatly, for they wore bizarrely decorated costumes, which when seen only in the half-light looked very threatening to such a small child.

He could hear the sound of trickling water and the whole enclosure smelt exceedingly damp. The rock was warm to the touch, and incense wrote over the notes of the vaporous mould.

Women, or perhaps young men, were veiled all in black, moving all about. They blended with the shadows well, for their faces were covered also.

They transported the offerings and replenished the firelights - some had trays to sup from, some drove out the rats and swept the halls.

Smaller caves were hollowed out from the larger one.

When an usher in black led them into an anteroom Darius saw his face through the veil, and how his skin was black too - shining like polished wood.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Puck's Advice

Some of his advice was as follows:
Always tell the truth and never depart, even a little into deceiving others.

Speaking falsehoods - he said - interrupts the clairvoyant faculties. To gain entrance into the spiritual worlds one has to be aligned with the truth; for if the consciousness defers to inaccuracies and self-made fiction, it becomes inhibited into seeing only that of its own making.

Pray hard; exercise hope; look forward; project ideas; try to imagine; cast a net; write a list; summon ideals; visualize good outcomes; specify and itemise clearly ... but do not live in a phantasy of goals that you have not yet obtained. Be clear with what you are, and what you are not, and what it is that really you want.

If you fall into melancholy it is because too much unclaimed desire has overtaken your commonsense.

And, he added - throw some balls, fly a kite, and aim high.

It was this last bit that completely annoyed her.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

A Bout of Viral Materialism

Marley sat in the coffee-house crying into her handbag, which there within contained hundreds of little slips of paper that had kept appearing – all telling her not to worry and that somehow this would get fixed.

She had been, it seemed, infected with a bout of viral materialism and the main thing now was to be careful not to overeat or overly panic. Hopefully it would pass in a day or so.

Materialism is not dissimilar to dementia - an apoplexy of the spiritual recall. The faculties of imagination and precognition are restricted, whilst the sense of the eternal is reduced down to just momentary concerns. A very bad case of it can result in atheistic behaviours - and, at its absolute worst, it can manifest a deathly condition of unrest, chronic disbelief with relentless argumentativeness.

Like any other atrophy or paralysis, the sufferer needs to exercise what little perception they have left. Puck had given Marley a list of exercises, although her heart just was not in doing them - in fact, if anything, she seemed a little ungrateful every time he reminded her.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series