monday muddlings: in the valley of elah

I am thrilled–and a little nervous to try and explain–to announce a blog collaboration between David, Stephanie, and myself. A handful of weeks ago, David and Stephanie came up with the unique idea for all of us to blog together within our respective genres, to tackle some issue or idea through the varying lens we love. And here we are. Fiction for me, narrative nonfiction for David, and meditative essay for Stephanie.

We settled on the moving words of English professor and novelist Mona Simpson in her eulogy for Steve Jobs. “We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.”

As this concerns fiction, this was particularly hard to grapple with. Moreover, it being a reflection on life and writing. As for life, you’ll find it here. As for writing, I’m not sure. The story doesn’t address writing, but it addresses the act. For this story came together quickly, spilled out quickly, and is now not simply incarnate on the screen in front of you but is, in a cruel irony, somewhat dead itself. Of all my stories thus far, I both love this one and its potential the most and, at the same time, feel that it’s not quite ready or quite done. But it’s midnight and the deadline is here, the “Publish” button must be pressed, and in a sense the story of my story ends in the middle, ends before it’s ready to be.

And, as this story illustrates, that is the fearsome point.

As always, there’s some Scripture floating around in this. The names matter. I suppose that’s enough said on it for now. Tomorrow, I shall direct you to the words of David. Come Wednesday, Stephanie. But for now …

—

In the Valley of Elah

—

They had kicked off their shoes when they trekked down to the fields behind the house; billowing fairy princess dresses catching in fragmented fountain grass. Bryce with auburn hair pulled up high, fastened by bobby pins with starched fabric primroses at the ends, placed her bare feet certainly into the earth with each determined step. Brielle, all golden curls and tangled promises, tested every new movement with the ball of her foot before letting the fullness of her being rest there. It had always been that way between them, Bryce two years older and heavy with bric-a-brac grace; Brielle, two years inferior and wounded by the sting of it.

The sun hung low on the horizon, twilight drifting over the untamed fields in the quiet pause of the changing hour, the tilted planet caught in the between place of day and night, revelation and mystery. Eight chimes of the bell rolled over the grass toward them from the house, shattering against leaves and bark and stems, becoming a music of echo and round, circuitous harmony tangled in the feral.

Brielle stayed her movement, feet gently sinking into the whispering earth. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” she called to Bryce, who was several steps in front of her. “It was a silly idea to begin with and it’s too cold, regardless.”

Bryce turned, billowed emerald fabric rustling against legs and grass and lost innocence as she swayed. “We haven’t even been gone ten minutes and you already want to go back. Don’t be such a child, Brielle.”

That was usually the taunt, that she was a child. At fifteen, Brielle felt as one, but to admit it would be a kind of creedalism, which she feared more than anything except for doubt. When she was younger, she had been convinced that there would come a time when she was to do something extraordinary, to be called for a purpose. But that thought was only whisper and ripple, far off in the wild fields of neglected belief. Instead, her hands clenched into fists at her side, hidden beneath the ruffles of taffeta cerulean that matched in shape Bryce’s own dress. “Fine,” she muttered, stepping forward with a more assertive placement of her foot, the whole of it kissing the earth at once.

They continued on and Bryce began to speak of theological things, which she entertained as a kind of sport. She focused first on the goodness of the creation, then slid quickly into words about the atonement, rounding back to the nature of humanity, fallenness, and grace. Brielle always several steps behind Bryce, who meandered with a kind of frivolous destiny, moving deeper into the fields and through the trees toward the center, but in a dancing, blithe frolic that doubled the time of the journey, along with her speech, while Brielle solemnly kept her movements straight and certain.

The twilight waned and the night watch luminaries began to chart the courses of life above them, the Beaver Moon rising slow, glimpsed through broken branches and tilted treetops. Bryce kept her eyes to the earth and its offspring, gliding through the shadows; Brielle raised her eyes to the heavens after each step, chancing a look at dead angels offering their last light millions of miles away as the cold, eternal face hung low in the eastern sky.

“Bryce!” Brielle cried out, interrupting commentary on the transcendent presence of God, stopping suddenly beneath a low-hanging tree.

The ruffled emerald fabric swayed slightly, ghosted whisper, before the other turned back again. “What, Brielle?” Exasperation. Her eyes were haunted pools of an anxious life spent in the spite it felt for itself.

“I heard something.”

“Yes,” Bryce nodded emphatically, “Me. You heard me.”

“No,” Brielle insisted, taking tentative steps toward her sister. “Behind us.”

Bryce’s face softened in the moonlight, a lingering haunt of uncertainty slipped off the angled corners of her narrowed eyes. “Behind us?”

“In the earth.” Brielle picked up her right foot from the ground and studied the bottom of it, fragments of dirt clinging close as the rippling blue of her dress rose and fell. “Something beneath us.”

Bryce worried her lower lip, then began to laugh. “Stop it,” she scolded, all airy tones and recovered confidence, “It’s just the leaves crunching under foot. You’re looking for an excuse to turn back and there’s no turning back now, we’re nearly there.” Emerald fabric rippled as she turned away once more, resuming words on the holiness of God as she headed deeper into the woods, taking up her dance again, gliding across the trembling earth. There was a moment when she thought she heard something too, a murmured howl slipping up from the soil, but she cast it away as fantasy, as she always did, for there was nothing more real than the present, the place of her feet upon the ground, the feel of her dress against her flesh. There was nothing more real than that moment, that place, and the watchful God far away on His throne in Heaven.

Brielle tried to keep from being sullen, though her feet drug a bit as she followed, all straight lines and uncertain grace and her thoughts began to wander. They had had a visit from the Bible salesman that morning, driving up in his light blue Cadillac that spat dust from behind it like Lot’s wife caught in the wind. He had been a rotund man who smelled of leather and tobacco, carrying a small briefcase with an assortment of Scriptures—a few King James, something modern that Brielle couldn’t name, and a slightly thicker volume that the man had referred to, upon learning that the family were staunch Methodists, was suitable only for “Mary worshipers.”

The man hadn’t stayed long, discovering that the family was more than situated with Bibles of varying kinds—including a pristine copy given by a traveling Mormon, which the Mother had refused to place in the fire on principle and had further refused to open because of mortal fear for her soul—but he had stayed long enough to accept a glass of iced tea and provide a few anecdotes from his experiences on the road. He told of a woman in New York who paid him by dissembling her jeweled rosary, a family in Minnesota that had bought every King James he had so that no one else would ever have to be enslaved to its language, and on and on. He had a story about every translation and every denomination. Bryce and Brielle had listened curiously. Bryce nodded sagely after each story, catching the insight the salesman offered about the varying denominational tendencies. But Brielle had spent the conversation wringing her hands under the dining room table and cutting her teeth in her lower lip, a question burning in her since the moment the man had begun to speak.

“Why do you do it?” It came out all blurted curiosity and wonder.

The Bible salesman took a slow drink of his tea, pursed his lips, then let out a soft sigh. “The Lord’s work.” He offered it flatly, as if it were a sort of resigned truth, the way people spoke of tornadoes and hospital visits and Sunday evening services.

Bryce nodded intently, indicating that she understood, while the Mother and Father exchanged perplexed glances and made to usher the guest out, but Brielle was unsatisfied.

“But you sell all sorts of Bibles to all sorts of people. It doesn’t bother you? Like the family who bought all those King James from you so that no one would read them. That doesn’t bother you?”

Bryce made to intercede with a comment about Brielle’s childishness, but the Bible salesman raised a hand.

“I came upon a baptism once,” he said, taking in a deep breath and shifting, leaning over the table to look at Brielle intently, “Way out in the middle of nowhere. Grassy fields and dead trees and a little congregation all gathered around a pond. The preacher stood in a white robe in the middle of the pond and raised his hands high as the candidate came forward, all slow steps and white robe himself. Preacher asked, ‘Do you renounce Satan and all evil?’ Man said he did. Preacher asked, ‘Do you renounce all the evil of this world?’ Man said he did. Preacher asked, ‘Do you turn to Jesus for His grace?’ Man said he had. Preacher asked one last time, ‘Do you turn to follow Him all your days.’ Man said he would.”

The Bible salesman raised his shoulders slightly, adjusting in the chair that groaned complaint beneath his weight. “I have come to conclude,” he spoke with a learned tone, “That by whatever means the Holy Spirit uses to pluck us from the fire of Hell, to ransom us from Satan and all evil, is good enough for me. I sell all kinds of Bibles to all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons, but my reason is the same for each—” at this he brought his right hand up and put his finger in Brielle’s face, “—the salvation of their immortal soul from the pit of Hell.”

Brielle’s forehead had furrowed and she had made to object, to point out that the means were as important as the ends, but Bryce had cut in with a monologue about the mysterious reality of conversion and grace, the latter word she stressed in particular, but with a miserliness that made it sound strained through her teeth as she spoke it. The Bible salesman nodding, rose, made his way to the door as the Mother slipped him some money for his work—the Lord’s work—and the Father looked on with a detached sense of passivity.

“Isn’t the magnificent creation of the Holy Father beautiful?” Bryce gasped, emerging from the woods into the clearing surrounding the small pond. She ran to its edge and stared into the darkened water, watched it ripple as the moon hung low. Her reflection in the pooled water teamed and rippled, her eyes narrowing as the outline of her face blurred and she saw herself, for a moment, as she was: one eye looking a bit larger than the other, the pupil full and haunted.

Brielle was close behind her, thoughts slowly returning to the present, to the evening when they had decided to wear their Halloween costumes and sneak down to the pond for a dance and swim in the moonlight. They were to be as fairies, sharing the secrets of the beautiful in the outskirts of Eden. It was something Bryce had said, all radiant smile and certainty. Brielle had only nodded, avoiding an argument, though she would have much rather stayed behind.

“Be careful,” she cautioned, coming up close behind her sister. Brielle looked over her shoulder into the water, seeing the reflection dance. Her own face was a placid whisper, meeting the pooled water just as it was: plain and determined, awash with the foolishness of peace. A sudden rustling beneath Brielle’s foot caused her to hastily step back, looking down to the earth. It shifted slightly before her, then with a quiet pop some of the soil flung up and a winged creature emblazoned with wings that glinted as the fire of Holy Ghost sprang into flight and buzzed around them in frenzy.

Bryce heard the fluttering buzz and darted to avoid the unseen attack, stumbling forward into the pond and collapsing into the water. It erupted violently as she fought within the dark water that sought to immerse her, Bryce’s left foot tangled in a root and sunk deep into mud and the water ever rising, seeming to want to drown her. She fought wildly, fiercely, and when a sudden rush of dark water tumbled over her head, she verbally rebuked the flow with a profanity and her foot suddenly became loosened and Bryce swam free, surfacing above the dark water and reaching the edge of the pool. She pulled herself out, the form of her dress awash, matted in the darkness. Her hair had lost its pins, the primroses drifting along the waters like forgotten prayers. Water slowly dripped off the hem of her dress and trembled when it struck the ground.

Brielle stood curiously facing her as slick lacquered wings aglow in the quiet night, the hum of a wounded soul in dance, fluttered about then until silence came sudden and frightful, the insect buzzing toward Brielle and landing upon her left breast, upon her heart, idly crawling across the moon-washed fabric.

“What happened to you?” Brielle asked, eyes wide.

“What is it?” Bryce asked tentatively, revulsion curled in her lips. She pointed to Brielle’s breast, slowly walking toward her.

Brielle blinked, quixotically, and looked down. “A cicada,” Brielle whispered in fascination. “An old one. I read about these a long time ago. They can live in the earth for a decade before they come up from the ground.”

“It’s not the season for cicadas,” Bryce insisted, eyes narrowed as she watched the insect gently circle across the fabric. Its body was a luminous red, caught in the ghostly light. Across its back, streaked black lines seemed to dance like the tree limbs of the forest. They twisted, writhed, and formed a face. The face stared out at Bryce as her own had done in the pool. One eye was larger than the other and one side of the face was emaciated. The pantocrator face. The face watched her with a silent judgement, mouth held tight as the Word slipped into the dusty space between Brielle and her sister and Bryce felt the sudden revulsion of grace.

“I don’t think it cares if it’s the wrong season, Bryce,” Brielle laughed slightly, oddly at peace. The insect crawling across her had brought with it a sudden sense of profound calm, quiet promise that relaxed her shoulders. “Look at its wings,” she admired, eyes trained down to see it well, “Like fairy wings. Why didn’t we put wings with our costumes?” She looked up in time to see Bryce hastening toward her, all fury and wrath, hands outstretched as she struck the cicada from Brielle’s breast and then smashed it into the earth with her foot. As she did, a crack of lightning ripped open the sky above them and the earth trembled terribly.

“Why did you do that?” Brielle demanded, eyes uncertain as she took a step back from her sister, feeling the earth beneath her quake. A fragrance of myrrh wafted up into the air, slipping up the dry folds of her dress before kissing her throat as with fire, the coal placed on the lips of Isaiah, brushing upon her own worried lips and then filling her lungs as she inhaled deep and calm. The effectual call burned into her being and she knew, in the fierceness of the grace that wounded her heart, the purpose for which she was made.

“It smelled of death.” Bryce gasped, labored breath and wild eyes. “It looked of death.”

Brielle felt a flame spark in her throat. “Isn’t that the point?” She stepped forward, the quiet stars keeping close watch overhead. “You spend all your time talking about God, using a vocabulary about God, but what of God? What of the crucified God? Death is the choice put before us, Bryce. We must die so that He may live.”

Bryce stiffened, straightening her back as a cool fury flashed in her eyes, pupils narrowed. “I have rejected Satan and all his evil,” she announced it violently, spoken as condemnation that stretched out from her lips but fell as ash when it touched against Brielle’s skin.

“And yet you do not die,” Brielle whispered. “And yet you fail to see that it is daily death. Each day.”

“Death is defeated!” Bryce announced.

“It is into His death that we are baptized. Or do you refuse the baptism of the Christ?”

“Grace—” Bryce began.

“—is sometimes violent.” Brielle snapped. “It is sometimes a fearsome thing.”

Lightning rippled across the sky once more, but no clouds were in sight.

“You’re just a child!” Bryce screamed, the dark waters dripping off her as the forgotten prayers of the saints as the earth beneath her strained.

“Receive the Holy Ghost,” Brielle whispered as lightning broke the sky and struck the earth between them. The soil split open and a sudden choir of violent wings burst into the night, thousands of cicadas swarming into the sky, the haunting pantocrator face of the enlarged eye and the emaciated side alight by the fire of the low hung moon as Bryce turned in fear and fled to the water.

Stumbling into the pond and sinking beneath the waters as the mud pulled her close like a forgotten lover. She emerged once as the fury of ghostly wings announcing judgement came upon her head and fluttered across her lips, but she rebuked them with a curse and fell beneath the waters once more. When she could no longer breath, Bryce came up from the darkness with a loud, rasped gasp, and a cicada emblazoned with the fire of the Holy Ghost, flew into her open mouth, catching in her throat, as a cry of violent, gracious fury went up into the evening sky.

Far off in another county, the Bible salesman opened the door of his light blue Cadillac and slowly ambled up to the front porch of an old house. He rang the bell thrice, a copy of the King James carefully tucked against his heart, awaiting the opening of the door.

The shot ripped through the side glass that framed the door and broke through the King James and the Bible salesman respectively. He staggered back and fell to the ground as a commotion built inside. There was screaming about the bank man who had come to collect on the house threatening foreclosure, then a woman crying out that it was the wrong man, and still another man who said that someone ought to be called.

The Bible salesman lay on his back, the wound slowly spilling life onto the earth. Somewhere in the distance, a choir of cicadas whispered across the sky and by chance, one of them fell to the earth and landed on his wound, making a slow inspection of it as it circled.

It was a funny day to be All Saints Day, the man thought, then breathed his last, his breath slowing into the eternal quiet as the cicada burst into flight and the pantocrator face went on into the night.

© 2011, Preston. All rights reserved.