Sealed Doors

Richard Browne

“Now, let me see …we can’t think our way in, not this time - because we’ve been blocked from doing so, and this portal is being guarded. This fortress has been sanctified against the likes of you and I.” 

Desert bats fluttered past their heads in waves of a hundred. The landscape was imbued with colour, yet was depressingly repetitive. The dawn birds were calling to one another, and the waterhole in the distance was crowded with the animals that had congregated for their morning’s refresh. There were wallabies and bilbies, mudlarks, possums and rabbits a plenty. 

The mysteries of the natives of Australia were fluid … spiritual … they would shape-change to avoid being caught by the unworthy. The conservership was always with the Elders who fully knew the potent magic that literally linked the oldest period, before written history, to now. It was a custodial privilege to be a living testimony to time itself. It was this deep magic that made the outback so mysterious.

The doors remained closed to them.

“They require a pin-prick of blood to identify the caller - and everyone knows that the Elvish don’t use blood within their systems.” Puck said quietly. “The locking devices behind these doors are distinctly set to repel the otherworldly - they have astral mesh.”

“Turnip juice - a powerful motivator.” said Goober handing a large bottle over to Puck. 

Every time they had tele-transported themselves through to the other side of those doors they had been pushed out of the underground compound back up into the air above, onto the hot red sand with the glaring sun beating down on them. There seemed to be a three second delay, actually setting them back in time further every time they were pushed out.

They barely had a moment inside when the forcefield had expelled them again with a remarkable aptitude for the magic it required. 

“What am I missing here?” Puck asked … I knew it would not be easy, but I really don’t like the way I hear laughter every time this happens. Moreover, we cannot walk away - not when we know the damage Marsden is causing to all of the realms right now as we speak.”

“Too true, too true”, said Goober deep in thought. His head was beginning to pound, “I swear the sun is brighter here than most places” he grumbled. 

“And the grit is sharper too.” 

“And the sky is bluer”, he added with an attempt to be cheerful. They had now been inside and straight back out again seven times.

The red dust swirled and circled around them, a chorus of green flies and gnats, sting beetles and red ants were swept up in the circular force, propelling them into their faces and clothes, stirring up the powder dry ground beneath. 

When the dirt came to settle a dark figure appeared, with a bare chest, partially dressed, with a tall decorated spear on one side and the Azlan standing at the other. 

Puck knew in that moment that all would become well. 

Upon the ridge of stone in the distance there appeared over three hundred such tribal men. Each had a radiant light flaming from the tips of their spears, piercing the brightening sky above.

The Elder now standing face to face in front of them looked straight at them with the deepest dark brown eyes and kindly face. His bony hand rested on the Azlan’s head. Three red dingos circled in the background, keeping their distance, pacing throughout the scrub. And behind them, in the far distance, there was Mother Nature watching on.

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

Who Roo Fare

 What amulet?

What luck can be worked?

What may save this world?

Other than love?

Cobwebs of clouds laced their way over the deepening sky.

“Am I imagining trumpets?” Goober asked faintly, after having collapsed on a red rock once again outside the desert fortress.

A brown snake had made its way to his boot, Puck took it by the neck and hurled it back into the moat it had come from.

Goober was very pale, and his energy low.

“This might be my end”, he said out of breath.

“No” said Puck firmly, “it was the second helping of fried ice-cream and that blue syrup you just gorged yourself with. What were you thinking oh great one? Especially when we have such serious work before us, we have already delayed far too long.”

And as he stood up the very tall and once thin elf was showing a pot belly congested with half the menu from the Who-Roo Cafe.

He groaned. “Maybe we should do this tomorrow? have a good night’s rest and come back our best?” he asked hopefully.

Goober had blisters from the heat frying his feet. The walk to the camp seemed to be taking longer and the options were few.

Puck ignored his request.

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

Memories Flew Right Back to Her

Eve was sitting at a bench, soaking in the sun, eating from a tub of ice-cream that had been delivered to her caravan door. It was just what she felt like eating - there was something about the intense heat that made one want to eat ice-cream all day long.

It felt so good to be back in the world and already most of what she had experienced over the last few days was drifting fast away from her recall. She did not question at all how she got to be in outback Australia - but was just pleasantly day-dreaming away in the sun. Her spirit had shifted, and she was a very different woman to the one who she was a week ago.

Jupiter was still trying to find his way within the constraints of his new body. When, as Granoldi, he had experienced all of the physical limitations that the body endures, he had a totally different set of senses and ‘thinking’ to participate with. Becoming a man was very differently nuanced, and, there was a joy he had not known before - a lightness, a happiness, in just being alive.

He found Eve just as she devoured the tip of the cone. He could sense her wellbeing also.

“I’ve found you” he said, wanting to share with her his newly formed humanhood.

Eve was still in her state of holiday (holy-day) feeling carefree and completely at peace. She had no idea who this stranger was, but she did feel that she had known him from somewhere before, and knew him now.

“Have we met?” she asked, brushing her untidy hair back from her face, which was a little reddened, either with the heat or a blush, or both.

“Yes” said the stranger, looking hopeful that she might recognise him.

She gazed at him - he seemed fit for fortyish, wearing white shorts and a track suit zipper jacket - with a sports singlet beneath. His sunglasses looked expensive. His smile was so familiar …

He held out his hand as if to shake it … and although it seemed a little corny, she reciprocated. The very minute their fingers touched the memories flew right back to her: she could see in her mind’s eye her time with him as Granoldi, and she as Hannah; and then into this life, and how it led to the lower heavens where she came to see him as Jupiter. The man before her was her friend - no, he was more than that … her soul-mate.

She threw her arms around him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“How about a bear hug?” he asked jovially, when she pulled away.

He put his arms around her this time, and looked straight into her wondering eyes.

Needles, who had been there the entire time, decided it might be best if he left the two of them for a while. He set out onto the dirt road to go find the shuttle-bus to take him to Puck and find out what was happening with him and Goober.

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

Chronos & Helen

People often attribute time in the World to the master Chronos whereas it is he, as a veritable Shiva, that brings ageing and finitude.

It is from Helen we are given the pathways into eternal life - yet within this world it is the same road as that of Chronos that will take us into further life also.

Chronos loves to mark each segment, to gauge, and to name, and to map a course … he is the surveyor of time’s evaporation, and the scholar of its persistent dying.

Helen maps nothing: she is the mother of adventure and possibility, and she lives for the eternal day, and is forever prescriptive to the undulations of Heaven.

Mother Earth is the child of these two: our planetary spirit held briefly within the tension that such as these Gods permit.

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

Flamed

The ancients understood that flame, such as candlelight, was superior to any other form of light into the world, save for the violet light Mother Earth employed.

Electric light was deficient, and brought with it just one stream of influence, one octave among many; yet light from combustion, from burning, actually fed its environment where its glow permeated, because it came, and comes from the universal light: that the flame comes from the one flame, and thusly it brings the cosmic flame into that room, or that space, to which it is lit.

Electric fire does not have this, it can only impart energy from its own realm of the hobgoblins.

This world has seen many evolutions, and science has proclaimed with imputation its superior knowledge and findings, only to be surpassed by those who seek authority above the very gods, believing that with a twiddle and a tweak they can transverse the trajectory of life itself, with arrogance or infirmity, or perhaps merely a naivety. And to be fair, there is nothing that is safely to come from a man or a woman, until that man or woman is morally balanced, and so how are they to know?

Puck was never sure of there being an existence of the Devil, however he had met with many devils in his own experience. And these characters were tireless. They did not like candles - or lit light - they did not like fire: the fires of Hell are purging, they are not a conscript of the demons at all.

They also, and quite obviously, have disdain for sunlight, moreover.

Puck reached across the table for the pepper pot and doused his pancake whilst Goober was talking.

“You never told me what happened when you confronted Romulus?” he said this casually, draining his blue cup.

“Well it was pretty straightforward” said Puck - “The goat did its business and managed to distract him sufficiently for me to read his thoughts and told me all I needed to know.”

He continued: “Do you recall the bookkeeper that we used to house, that chap with the chocolates?” he continued “The miser? Well I knew of him centuries prior, and even before that we had a connection … he never quite fulfilled his aptitude, as far as I could see. Opportunity would take him only so far and then drop him. If anything, it was that diamond that got to him and distorted his futures.”

“I think I know the one you mean”, Goober replied, turning it over carefully in his pocket.

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

Tinkerbell

F.D. Bedford

There was a vicious, almost nasty side to Tinkerbell the fairy. She just had to get involved sometimes - even when she was not invited. The truth was plainly that she was just unhappy.

All of nature seemed to be running out of time to her: not running out of time itself - no, there was plenty of that … it was either running too slow or too fast, and the missteps would come because of this constant misfit.

The young wore the frowns of the old, the elderly behaved like irresponsible youth. The trees grew so fast they could not drop roots to save themselves and were felled by the first whip around of the circulating ethers.

She really did not like lies - particularly the ones perpetuated by those ‘ignorant mortals’ sporting micro smirks and sanctimonious pouts … she found herself just wanting to punish them.

And most of all, beyond everything else, Tinkerbell was overly aggrieved when no one would believe in her.

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

Tele-transported to the Bodhi Retreat

Pro Hart

The outback diner aptly named the Who Roo offered a big breakfast all day long, with unlimited refills at the cafe-bar machine, of help-yourself coffee, powdered tea and slurpees of frozen ice in shades of blue, red, and something green.

Goober served himself an icy blue cup with a double shot of the azure goo that discharged abruptly, letting off a satisfying hiss and a squirt, sludging into his pint-size cardboard cup.

He returned back to the booth where Puck was looking under his pancake as though he was expecting to find something there.

“Tu would have liked this place” he said wistfully - he was fond of the lad and sorry to see that he had not make it very far this time.

* * *

Five years earlier …

Scabs and vomit clung onto Stuart’s matted hair, through which many sizes of lice busied themselves with orderly pursuits throughout.

When Puck had found him face down, the corpse had already been cold throughout the chilly night: a melancholy heart had let his spirit adrift. He, the ghostly soul, had no where better to go; and it sat beside its scrawny body as if it was waiting patiently for it to wake as usual.

“Here we are again my friend,” said Puck gently to the hollow spirit.

“There is no place for me”, Brogan replied to the sombre Fae.

Puck clasped his hand to his forehead in exasperation. The elvish do not cope well with mortals who feel defeated. The two sat together for a few hours longer, until the first lick of light appeared.

“I know of a place that might be good for you” he finally said. “the Bodhi Retreat, a community I know well, and I do trust the people there to look after you and your recovery …”

Minutes later he had tele-transported them both to an iron doorway set in a garden wall that surrounded the monastery completely. Without having to announce themselves the door swung inside open, and a noviciate welcomed them in.

“His name is Stuart,” Puck said nodding to the monk who recognised him at once. “But you can call him Tu, for short.”


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