Dark Heart - Chapter Three

MONDAY,  MONANDAEG, MOONDAY, VERO NIHIL VERIUS. Nothing is truer than truth.

Wow it was windy.
“Pazuza, you old devil” said Jack, and he laughed.
Luckily in England there were no deserts for him to whip up a wind or sandstorm. Too many trees and stable mud prevented this devil from having any real fun. Though Jack had seen him at work a few years back in the Sahara, that had been a frightening experience but he wasn’t in the Sahara now, he was in his home town, of the chased and mystical White Hart, this being the same hunting ground King Henry the Eighth had enjoyed, (as well as many others) north of the Chiltern’s chalky hills’ and the old land by the Ridgeway. He had just dropped his daughter off at school and was now walking in to the main town. In Jacks opinion it was not the best of places to live though it could be a lot worse he thought, though he didn’t want to think what the worse would be like, he was in no mood to put the world to rights.

There were some good points.  There was a bronze-age burial site ten minutes walk from where he lived. All you could see now was a bit of a raised tree area and a plaque that was very old, 1970’s probably. It was very overgrown. There was a beautiful and very special house with one-of-a-kind, beautiful paintings on the walls that was no longer open to the public, all saints’ stuff but this was now privately owned just down from where he lived, although he could still remember going there as a child, and he also remembered the coaches full of people visiting, again something else now lost to private owners. This sort of thing was so heartbreaking to archaeologists and people who cared. He was himself an archaeologist, and writer and a few other things too.

This house was a five minute walk from his house, but five minutes in another direction towards the round-a-bout, the ground by the park would show you where there was once a roman villa. The local library has a copy of the dig which took place in the 1960’s, but it was covered over again with grass, the local authority couldn’t do anything with it, the cost apparently was too great.lt was a pity that this town wasn’t like its neighbour St Albans that it could show off it’s hidden treasures. There was of course a rumour that a tunnel ran from the old flint church in the old part of town, to Ann Bolyns house, if it ever was hers, but that’s all it was a rumour, and no proof, but the church was interesting inside in many ways, if you knew where to look. Jack liked the knights’ graffiti. There was also an old hunting lodge practically on the same land, at least that’s what the locals thought it was, ok so there was only one bit left, but at least it was there, what now remained looked a bit like a chimney with a door in it.

There was the old listed pub that had been pulled down, needlessly, the land had not been used for many years after that,(the towns people still talk of that terrible decision, and people still ask who made a lot of money on that disgusting deal), and people still remember  the old mill that got torched that had once stood by the river Gade, with new houses built  a little too quickly on the plot afterwards, that was one of the many problems with this town, too many houses, too many people and no hospital, even though there could have been a huge disaster in the town a few years back, it was only because it happened on a Sunday that many people had not been killed. So what was our protection, well the mystical white hart of course! The one on the road welcome signs. The firemen, in the disaster had been fantastic, and all the others that helped. The whole world watched on the news as the huge black cloud of smoke wafted over the whole of the S.E of England, Black-Sunday, but then the hospital was closed, years and years of protests all of no use. The town in Jacks’ opinion was going to the dogs. No, it had already gone to the dogs. He decided to think about something else, he really didn’t want to put the world to rights.

So he forced his brain to think on other thoughts, preferably positive ones. There was the new Red-kite breeding programme going on in the Chilterns, the hills were just up the road from him, he wished them luck with that. Jack often saw them flying round the school now. Majestic and royal, as all birds of prey are, that was great, and even Buzzards seemed to be on the increase, wonderful!  The kites did something different from most birds of prey,  they’re not real birds of prey in so much as they don’t actually make the kill, preferring to eat what was already dead, more like a raven, a bit like us. Just then the wind kicked up again, this time bringing the rain full into Jacks face.
“Go to the desert! “

Kia wasn’t too impressed either. Her shoes, she had discovered, leaked. She squelched her way down to the town. The pretty sunflower umbrella was doing its job well. It was a pity it didn’t cover the legs too. Yes, granted she would look a bit silly, but it would save her from a total soaking. A cup of coffee, and she would feel much better. Jack had reached the bottom of his hill, the one in the opposite direction to the hill that Kia was walking down. He also decided he’d grab a coffee. Jack chose the coffee shop on the quiet side of the street, and Kia had decided on the one that served the big mugs of exotic coffee with the whipped cream, with lashings of white chocolate sauce, with a milk chocolate flake. She needed it. This coffee house was in the middle of town. After both had quenched their thirsts and doing their shopping, they had inadvertently passed each other several times.

Jack noticed an advert in the civic centre. He was there because he had to sort out some land issues. He was trying to purchase some land. Half an hour later, Kia noticed the same advert also in the civic centre, when she was paying the rent. This didn’t leave her with much money, but it was handy only paying half with Mary. It was a good arrangement. Mary was like a mother to Kia, and had been there for her when the terrible accident had taken both her parents. They had been taken away too soon, after having been given a fantastic job they just couldn’t refuse. The accident was the job; it had taken her parents away mercilessly. Kia had long ago forgiven them for that decision, or at least she tried to and Mary had tried to help Kia, substituting her role as a family friend to that of surrogate mother. Kia had moved in to Marys’ house before her parents had left, after all, she had only been a teenager. So the parents were not dead but as good as. She never got to see them as they lived abroad. They exchanged Christmas and birthday cards and presents, and her parents always wrote long letters describing how fantastic their life was. It had been tough as a teenager, it was still tough as an adult but Kia was now twenty-something was very mature and independent, and this situation caused her no pain anymore. Her opinion was not open to discussion! Mary was the opposite. Anything for a quiet life, and that’s what she liked, a quiet life with no changes and no surprises. Everything being safe was how she liked her life she didn’t think her life was in the least dull. The two women got along really well in a matter of fact, both being ardent readers, so much so the  T.V. was hardly ever on, except for the occasional supernatural programme or vampire film, that Kia just loved to watch.

Mary had hoped that Kia would grow out of these at some point, but apparently not. This was not very Christian view, but, as we all think, each to their own. Mary said nothing, although she would sometimes wonder how Christ would change her attitude. He’d probably not bother. Here's a question for you reader, do we fit the God or do we make God fit us? Seems to me we change them to what suits us, what we want....but is that good or bad? The wheel is change. The world continually changes so are the God/s not to change, to stay stagnant? Men are born, toddler, child, youth, man, old man...and die, same as everything else that breaths. Life is constant change, should the God not do this? Not evolve, but what are the consequences of this? Mary did not think about this sort of thing. She believed everything in the bible in its entirety, and would not venture pass those words written by the wise men of the bible. It would never be a discussion that would take place between the two women especially then as Kia was too busy singing in the kitchen, that old song with the DVD of the un-dead, by the bloke that had died last year, very famous, but she couldn’t remember his name, not her choice of music. She wondered if that was the pop star who had owned a monkey.

But the Fates or The weavers (the three sisters) were about to step into the story of Kia and Mary, with the intention of shaking their lives up a bit. So step they did, and screamed at the two ladies, as they love to do; those Harpies of life and death. Shakespeare captured them well...
Kia and Mary were oblivious to this of course, but a few miles away, Jack felt a shiver run down his spine, like nailed fingers had lightly raked his back. Actually he loved the feeling, it was a bit sexual to him, but he knew what it represented.
“Here we go!” He thought.
The two women were about to get their ‘God-coincidences’ as they called it. Jack had them too of course, it was his life but the weavers were about to give him a different role, something he had never done before. His old Christian minister would have said it was good to come out of your comfort zone and help people, even if you did not want to, but he done that anyway and enjoyed it, and he did not have to be seen to be helping like so many others he knew, but the old man had said a lot of stuff, some of it inspirational and some of it a lot of old crap too, according to Jack. His main problem, when he had attended church, was that no-one listened to his opinion and he had felt like an outcast. If the sentence didn’t have Jesus in it then no one was interested.

The course he had attended had been really good, it had given him the opportunity to ask some very (hard to answer) questions, not many of which had been answered to his satisfaction, but he’d still tried to fit in, but it had never worked, he wasn’t one for small or polite talk. Yet he was so tolerant of other people religions and sometimes bizarre beliefs, but he didn’t like religion anyway, he spoke directly to his God, and shouted at him sometimes, or her, or them, they always listen if you have feelings behind your words, no matter what the feelings or words are! One thing that Jack, Kia and Mary all had in common was that...well actually they had nothing in common as yet, but that was about to change. Jack was about to be rescued by someone in a religion he had come to almost despise, not that he acknowledged this, he suppressed it. The fates didn’t like that, so they weaved... he too would learn a valuable lesson, one that he had so obviously forgotten. One single snowflake gently fell to the ground.

Two Days Later...
Pouring rain had kept most people inside. The streets were awash with water, the earth was awash with water, the people were soaked within seconds of stepping outside. The gutters over-flowed with the wonderful sound of dripping H2O, (water) like a mini waterfall and the pavements glistened. The birds knew better and stayed inside their nests, probably filled with water! A few brave souls had managed to almost swim to the civic centre, which was holding the meeting they wished to attend. Some also wished they had a little boat. It would have been of some use, and a really cool way to get around the almost flooding town. All right it wasn’t that bad but it was raining heavily. The rain had soon turned into a torrent. It was quite late when Kia and Mary walked into the reception area. They asked a man on duty what room the meeting/discussion of the local church thing was to be held; up the stairs on the left. Room number three. They were glad to be out of the rain. Kia had changed into her boots before leaving the house, in hope of keeping her feet dry this time, the last time it had rained she had worn her shoes and had got very wet feet, only to discover her old boots were just as bad as her shoes in that they let in the water too. She really had to go shopping at some point, or next time, wear her wellies.

The lights in the building had a comfortable feel after all the darkness and rain outside, though not quite the light of God, which was the best light in the world, but at that moment of time it was the next best thing. They quickly found the room they were looking for after being given brief instructions from a security guard and they found that some people were already there, so they took a couple of seats after dropping their dripping coats over the backs of some chairs, like the other participants had previously done. Fifty-six people had signed up to attend this meeting, according to the man who was looking at the list on the wall, he was the spokesman. He had the other job of greeting people as they walked in. He looked around the room. There was in fact actually only a hand full of people. 56 is a divine number you only have to ask a Kabbalist, or anyone interested in the Avebury stones. One of the men in the room could have told you all about that, and he too had read the list of names and realised the number significance, but he didn’t look much into this, he was too busy cursing the rain. His new shoes now squeaked. He wondered if tonight was going to be a waste of time. He closed his eyes and quickly meditated, instantly calming his body and soul. His breathing slowed, his heart slowed, his mind and body became calmer and everything in the world became a little clearer. His lips curled into a smile and as he opened his eyes he heard a chair scrape the floor at the far end of the room behind him, again he paid no attention. The meeting was about to start.

“Thank-you everyone for attending this meeting tonight, it is such dreadful weather to venture out in.”
The spokesman was not comfortable speaking in front of people like this. He got tongue -tied, but nobody else had wanted to do this meeting, so his boss had told him that he was the best person for the job. Forget that his wife was at ill at home, which obviously did not matter. He had been chosen as the spokes-person and that was that.
“So the reason why we are here is the local churches are trying to get together, and bring different religious groups together so that we can all help make this community a much better place. So we thought the first thing to do tonight is...to establish what backgrounds, that is I mean what religious backgrounds everyone here represents. So I need to know roughly how many people and how many different religions are here tonight.” He had a look at his sheet, there had been a lot more people suppose to attend, but in this weather he could hardly blame them for staying away. He was also in fact also a bit wrong with his information. It wasn’t just the local churches, but local groups, a big difference.
“How many Christians are there here, if you could just put your hands up, and I can make a quick note.”

Almost everyone put there hands up, he was not surprised, well it was to be expected, this town was predominately a Christian town. He knew it would be like this. He made a quick head count asking the same of the other main religions, Jewish, any Muslims, and any ‘others’, he did not specify what these others might actually be. There were a few who did not believe in any god, a couple of pagans, they got a few dirty looks from some people, and a Satanist, but he chose to leave almost immediately as he had decided that the phone call he took was much more important than listening to a bunch of God-worshippers prattling on about how good they all were, and so important to the world. That and the fact his mate had gone down the pub instead. One man had not put his hand up. He had silently come into the room, a little bit late. No-one had noticed, or rather paid no attention. He was dry, which was strange because it was still pouring down with rain. He sat at the very back on the only comfortable chair, and looked expectantly, waiting for the fun to start. He had been a little disappointed when the Satanist had left, but knew the fun was coming. The feeling was good, he loved to shake people up, blow the cobwebs from people’s minds. He was going to enjoy this. All work and no play did not make Jack a dull boy.
“I would like it if one of you would kick this evening off by just saying your first name, and tell us what God means to you...”

No-body seemed to pick up on the fact that the spokesman had himself forgotten to tell them his own name.
“’then maybe when we are all done we could ask some questions and then I shall outline the plans that my church have. Who would like to go first?” Jack’s hackles were immediately raised at this point. So that’s how this meeting was going to go, outline the plans HIS church has, so much for working together, when will people learn he thought.   
“Yes Madam,” he said, and instantly weighed up the women who had put her hand up, she had come with a younger friend, and both were dressed smart, so she seemed a good safe choice to start off with. Mary stood up. She loved talking about Jesus, and would not miss this opportunity to do so again.
“My name is Mary, and I have been a Christian for over twenty years now.” Jack groaned inwardly.

A tea lady at this point had come into the room, and started passing round tea and coffee, she had decided to serve the drinks now rather than wait till the specified time as she supposed that some of the guests would be cold. She was not wrong, some were indeed shivering. Jack noticed her and said thanks, some of the others were also polite, but some could not be bothered with such trivial good manners. She was a tea-lady, therefore below them.
“The Christian story starts with the birth of Jesus. He was born of a virgin and...” Jack decided to shut her up, he presumed this women would talk all night if he didn’t act quickly, and besides the man had only asked for her name and religion, not the whole nativity story, so he rudely interrupted,
"A bit like Mithras then.” Mary was not impressed with the interruption but continued, nor did she recognise him, after all she hadn’t taken any notice of any one at the movie night.

Why would she?“
He was born on the 25^th of December,”
“It’s the same for Mithras.”
“He is our saviour.”
“The same can be said of Mithras.”
“Can we have one at a time, please?” The spokesman jumped in.
“I thought this was supposed to be a discussion group, that’s what the advert said. Not a history lesson on Christian myths.”
“Yes well....umm,”he couldn’t think of anything else to say, as the young man was correct. The advert had said it was to be a discussion.
“He was born in a stable, though some people say a cave,“ Mary tried to continue.
“Bit like Mithras”.
“Will you please stop talking about Mithras Sir?” The spokesman had noticed that the woman was getting a little fed-up with this man. Which was hardly surprising, unlike the rest of the congregation, who were getting more interested with every second.
“Wasn’t he supposed to be in the royal line of David?” The out-spoken man asked. “Only shouldn’t that mean he could have afforded a room at the inn. He could have pre-booked!” This statement of course brought a bit of laughter from the non-believers.

“Please...” Said the spokesman, bringing out a handkerchief and wiping the sweat from his temple, that being the temple on his face, and not a building.
“I’m sorry, please continue.” The man said leaning back in his comfortable chair. He picked up on the fact the spokesman was very stressed, he dug deep into his training and realised that the mans wife, or some close relation was ill, so he sent a healing to the women first and then to the man. He guessed that it was his wife. The spokesman suddenly felt very calm, and replaced his handkerchief in his pocket. 
“Three wise men brought...” continued Mary.
“They are called, the Magi “continued Jack.
“Frankincense, gold and myrrh”
“Were they not astrologers, the three wise Magi? So they were probably Babylonians then or possibly...hey! So if they brought gold, he could have afforded a room at the inn!” The non-believers burst out laughing, so did one of the Christians, it had been the timing Kia thought as well as the fact that he had been quite funny, he was also gorgeous, she felt like she had seen him before somewhere but couldn’t think where.

“Oh dear, It looks like Moses just came down from mount Shara.” The man said looking at Mary’s face and using his best sarcastic voice. The look on Marys’ face was daggerish.
“The mount was Saini!” She said in a bit of a temper.
“Read the book of Jasher...oh no you cant, it wasn’t included in the bible was it! It didn’t have what they were looking for when the book was put together, by men I hasten to add. It was not all right for the Judeans, the Edomites were ok about it, so its politics again, the bible is full of that.” This little bit of banter was completely lost on a lot of the people listening, but good fun all the same. But suddenly not with Kia, this man was verbally attacking Mary, and what she believed in.
“What do you mean?”  Kia powerfully asked. Silence quickly went round the room. There was a new player in the argument.
"The bible is man made, it was written by men, used by men, its incomplete and full of lies. It’s full of politics. Only when you can take away the crap, can you see it for what it is. You don’t lose anything by doing this, you actually gain, though most people don’t want to, its hard to except the truth sometimes. It hurts. When you can do this, strip away the lies, you realise what a wonderful piece of God you have left. The problem is that most people can’t do that. It is rather hard.”

The man looked directly at Kia, she suddenly realised it was the man from the picnic! Then she said the worst possible thing she could have said to him.
“Prove it!” A massive smile crossed Jacks face.
“Ok.” He said very slowly, and everyone in the hall suddenly got an extremely uncomfortable feeling inside themselves.
“Are you ready to see?” Jack closed his eyes, and mentally surrounded himself in a pure white light, for protection of course and immediately sent himself into a semi-trance. In all mental work he done this, it would be stupid of him to ignore the most basic of laws. Kia on the other hand rubbed her eyes, she was tired and everything had gone out of focus.  Mary was doing the same, when she opened her eyes they were no longer in the civic centre. Where in Hades were they? What the bloody hell was happening? Mary could not really believe her eyes, and said nothing; she was not sure what to say, as she thought she was having a psychotic episode.

They stood on grass, in the middle of the countryside. Kia blinked. Then tried to comprehend what had just happened. Was this a vision? She looked over to Mary who was looking a bit blank, and wondered if her friend was all right. Of course she was not, but what was she to do, she didn’t understand what was going on.
“I need to get a grip,” she said to herself. This sort of thing does not happen, not in this town, nothing ever happens in this town she thought. Kia was beginning to get a bit frightened, and then she noticed Jack. He was standing a little ahead of the two women, looking impassive. Now Kia got angry. This was his fault, she had no idea why or how, but she had to blame someone. Then she remembered that she had asked him to prove something. For the life of her she could not remember what.
“Are you ready to start learning?” He asked in a soft voice, but her attention had been caught by a flash in the sky. She dismissed it as she brought her attention back to Jack. She was finding it very hard to concentrate. Just then voices came from the distance. A man and a women appeared by a wood, to their left. The woman was trying to tell the man something, Kia could not understand the language. The woman was waving her hands about. It looked like she was gestating madly to the man to fetch or go back to others, by the look of her body language, but the man knew he had not the time. The ritual must be now, he did not expect her to know this, but he expected her to trust him. The woman tried to pull away, but he held her tight, and promptly hit her in the face. He could not afford to be late as the power was almost at its highest. The women hit the floor hard.

The man suddenly looked towards Kia and Mary, who were now huddled together. Time was running out. This man looked similar to Jack, Kia thought.
“It’s you!” She said, turning back to Jack.
“He looks like me, but it’s not me. His name is Thorn.”Jack retorted, with sadness in his voice. The man, now carrying the women walked passed Kia, when she turned around she could see a circle of wooden posts, surrounded by a few bigger posts made of stone. Some lay on the floor, others stood upright, all looked new. Carvings of axes and swirls had been newly incised on them. She could see the antler marks clearly. This place looked strange, as some of the temple was covered over with grass, while other bits of the temple was totally exposed to the elements, workers tools lay strewn over the ground, Kia made no sense of this, except she wondered if Stonehenge had ever been covered over too?

The man carried the women gently over to the inner circle which also seemed to be incomplete and carefully placed her down onto a slab of stone that lay in the very middle. This slab had a channel running down either side of it. It looked ominous. He wore a long woven robe and deer skin boots and carried a wolf skin bag, the strap was made of leather which he carried over his shoulder, out of which he took a bone-handled knife. He placed a wooden cup at the woman’s side.  Then he raised his arms and began to sing. A beautiful, haunting melody which sent shivers down the spines of the on-lookers, they were the watchers.
“He wanted to be a god. That was the plan. The people needed it. There had been famine, lots of death, the children and the old had suffered the worse, there was hardly anywhere safe from the pestilence. But like Babel, he was trying to reach what he was not meant to have.” The man plunged the knife into the woman. At that moment the sky was momentarily lit with the comet Kia had already seen. Kia and Mary screamed. Jack looked to the sky. Through the upright stones the comet travelled, showing itself in the little windows that had been carved out, for this purpose? No, not entirely, it was complicated. The moon and sun were important, but other things were too. The Earth was special here, very special, it healed in this place. This was to be the place of the new Hanging Stones, but not yet, soon to be dedicated to the sky God, but it was an older site than that.

The woman’s blood gushed out, and a bit of blood splattering onto the Priest, Thorn. He lent over the body and removed her heart, and bit into it, with one tiny tear plunging down from his face. Kia and Mary gagged. Jack just watched in silence, looking sympathetic.
“Animals and sometimes people were sacrificed, he had no choice.” Jack looked at the two women, Kia looked shocked, and Mary looked like she was going to be sick.
“I want to go home.” Kia said.
"You’re choice.” Mary mumbled something but it could not be heard clearly. It’s a pity these two women did not understand that this sacrifice was not a sacrifice, well not in its usual meaning. The women was dying and in a lot of pain. Thorn loved her very much and gave her the best send off he could. He sent her up to the sky riding the fire-star. It did not get much better than that! More sound reached their ears. More people were now rushing up to Thorn.
“Over 7000 years ago is a long time ladies. You have to go back this far to understand. I can help you both get closer to your god, but you have to listen. Do you want to learn, or just stay in you little box of comfort?” He pointed to the circle. Watch and learn was his meaning. The comet was still passing through the windows of the stones. Kia wondered if time was going more slowly here, things seemed to be a little surreal, and oh what was she saying!
“Every few thousand years or so, something like that, something really special happens.” Said Jack, and he pointed to the comet. The people knew more about this planet than we do, or so it seems. The Egyptians called it the Phoenix.

“It was brilliant. With just one problem, no-one saw it. The priests had been preparing for this moment for years, not only here in Britain, but all over the world. There are circles everywhere. China, Egypt, Iran, South America, Persia, Atlantis, the list goes on. The God of creation had sent the information to man. Told him to prepare, but oh no, we didn’t want to worship, we wanted to harness and control the power as usual, that’s what humans are, all control freaks. So it is back to politics again, all the power and glory. We create just like the gods, but it’s what we create is the difference and what we do afterwards. Free will was a terrible curse to this planet. We became Adams and Eves. We were placed here to have life, to be happy in that life, the most amazing thing ever! He placed us here simply to enjoy ourselves, and he could take pleasure in his creation of life! We had that, but we soon fucked that right up.  . So now we spend so much time trying to re-connect to something that we’re still connected too, and we blame him. We keep making contracts with him, but we don’t have to. What was the meaning of life?...Oh give me a break the answer is so simple...and the way out of this mess is too, but you have to get rid of control and we can’t do that can we?

Please click here to read Chapter 4