Nights on the Soul©

“Ah, the dark look,” Brian said. “It’s just for show. For fun. To make the young ones wonder. There is truly nothing to fear in this world, except when you cannot accept the realization. For then you would be doomed to living in a parallel existence with belief and disbelief. Which, sad to say, is the state you are in now, young Mira. Deen, let’s have that tea, no honey for me.”

Deenie brought her kettle of hot water to a boil again and prepared three cups of tea, two of these sweetened. Soft music swept over the darkened room in a Midnight Concerto of Nocturnal Symphonies. Brian offered his cigarettes and I willingly overturned my abstinence. That first drag had my head spinning.

“Ah, the smoke of a thousand nights. What thoughts I’ve wondered while smoking. Do you suppose perhaps he’s thinking of me?”

“Who, Dave?” Deenie asked. “Why, of course, for he could never think of anything else. You, Mira, as his soul mate are eternally embossed upon his thought patterns. Through every existence of your own, and this long forever of his, your every breath is drawn as one together. Each moment you have consciously or unconsciously experienced with your soul is felt by he that loves you and when you accept his blood as your own, and believe in his soul as your truth, you will know his past and his present as though you’ve been with him from the dawn of time’s beginning. That’s how it was for Brian and me. I know his movements like my own.”

“Sometimes, Deen, I do feel his thoughts. Sometimes I dream his dreams. I know he’s in my body. And sometimes I see with his eyes. I see him looking at me in the mirror. I’m looking at my own face, but his eyes are behind my own. Sometimes when he’s been in me, I’ve seen God.”

“Well, my darling who hasn’t really? It’s just the awareness that you truly do envision God in every conscious moment of this blessed life. I see God in every flower and tree and bird and being and house and on every road of my path. I feel the caress of wind upon my body and know that it is the touch of God reminding me of his presence. The sounds of life all around me are but the whispers from God’s mouth. This shell I embody as myself is God’s greatest gift to mankind for it allows me to embrace all that is. Brian and myself and you and Dave and the others who have evolved into this state of immortality. We have realized heaven on earth!”

“Oh, yes, Deenie! That’s all true! I know it is! My life is glorious and I love god and all that exists. I love knowing the truth. But with Dave, I saw God’s all encompassing light. We ascended and we were one with God. We became the light of his light. Oh, it was too beautiful. Why does he punish me so in this desertion?”

“Mira, this separation is so temporary, really. Dave is with you. You just said so. It couldn’t be any other way. The physical separation you are now enduring is merely the prelude to everlasting light and life and love. You must give up all of your past beliefs about relationships. For now, sweet love, your true life is just unfolding. This is the reality you were always meant to live. Everything up till now was a dream of life. This is what it is to be saved. This is God’s paradise here and now in this tiny little apartment in this progressive little town for you and me and all the others who will realize it. You are one again, Mira, a Goddess, an angel, a vampire, a Christian, a holy ghost, an immortal, a soul. You’ve been bled. Your mate and you will never be alone again. That’s what makes people so sad. Their feelings of aloneness and separation from all things. This is what makes them cold and hard and mean and uncaring. When you meet your mate and become blood of this blood, body of their body, you meet before God and become one, as all souls are meant to be.”

“Then why doesn’t Dave come back for me?”

“Mira, I cannot tell you how or when you shall meet again, but rest assured, it will be.”

After our tea was drunk, we all three walked over to the Woodlawn Cemetery. Deen did not often leave the apartment, she was so involved in reading and her music. She was composing a piece on paper without use of any instrument. She said when the time was right, the piece would be played by an orchestra of her choosing. She had yet to find the perfect ensemble, but one day would. Occasionally we could get her to put on something other than one of her many flannel nightgowns to go tipping through the tombstones. She could not often resist a graveyard. Deen got dressed in some of Brian’s clothes. Brian loaded his pockets with several packs of cigarettes. I draped myself in a black shawl from one of their couches.

Even in my life before today, during the life of Miranda Verlaine I had made many visits to graveyards in my town and others. I used to like to photograph their angels, and often have I prayed to the many Mary images. I once made a grave rubbing off the epitaph of Edgar Allen Poe in Baltimore. I also left a penny on the ledge of his monument. Sometimes I would bring flowers to the graves of strangers. Long ago I found a silver Mary medallion at a site in Northern Virginia, near a lake on the grounds where I sometimes fed bread to the ducks. I still have that medallion. I had visited Woodlawn many times in my past. I’d bring my books of poetry to read in the quiet calm of this otherworld. I once had a picnic in the cemetery, basket and blanket and boyfriend. He thought it was kind of weird, I remember.

This night was a sort of sanctification of our friendship. I at first wandered alone among the many familiar stones. I loved all the overgrown grasses and the big old trees dripping with Spanish moss. In the dead of night there is a pervasive silence, not often enjoyed by the sleeping world.

I saw Brian kicking at a broken memorial, as if to remove the top of this stone box. It was crushed in the middle and collapsing inwards. We lamented the vandalization after a recent rash of theft and further destruction. I pointed to a huge statue of an angel broken off at the knees. I found this sad.

“Probably kids expressing their rebellion against society. If I saw them in here I’d give them a good scare or two.”

Brian could look truly menacing if he so wished. He explained how he would purposely present himself as a demon image. He saw the emulation of his vampiric image reaching massive proportions. It amused him and led him to more daring displays of imagery. Sometimes, however, he would dress in a priest’s gown and collar to donate large sums of monies, or dole out food to beggars and various other deeds of charity.

We sat down in the dark underneath a mammoth oak threatening to uproot a mausoleum. He handed me a pack of cigarettes from which I took one and pocketed the rest. He whistled a quick tune and Deenie immediately joined us. She was so sweet in her innocent joy of the evening and its’ starry sky. She pointed out constellations to me of which I knew not. It seems there were many Gods and Goddesses of whom I was not aware, but were familiar with Deenie and Brian.

I formed a bond with my two new friends that evening, one outside time and judgement. They were the only people on earth who could begin to empathize with my situation. Indeed the world at large scarcely knew I still existed.

Brian and Deen would expound for hours upon subjects of the metaphysical realms. Deenie was thoroughly well read in world theology, mixed with her own brand of other worldly theology, as it were. And Brian could recite vast works of poetry by some of my favorite romantics, Byron, Shelley, Keats and Donne. I told them all that I could remember of my human past, though my distinct memories were fading in to suspect dream territory. Perhaps my previous incarnations were slipping into my current repertoire of reminiscence.

I did start to sleep during the day. At dawn I would say bonne nuit to my friends and walk home alone to Emily Street, which was not far away. I loved to come into my house and feel its presence. I’d slip into a hypnotic daze and dream all day. During the day, then, I was not alone. Dave.

***