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by Charles Carreon
Suddenly, he was there. Talking with the
stewardess about his seat, easily agreeing to sit in an alternative empty
seat, since his assigned one was occupied. Agreeing to sit on the aisle
seat in her row, leaving a comfortable space between them of one empty
seat. Stowing his bags away quietly in the overhead compartments. Sitting
down sort of comfortably, sort of carefully. Placing a book between them
on the empty seat, something thick and worn, with a bright blue cover and
embossed silver letters.
He was kind of tall and definitely thin. Wearing black jeans, black
pullover, and black tennis shoes with a white patch and blue star on the
inside of each ankle. He had a ponytail braid about a foot long, knotted
tight like a whip, with loose strands at the end, unbound. He had a kind
of unusual face, pale, with dark eyebrows, framed by curling grey wisps at
the temples. His voice was sort of sweet, accommodating, perhaps a little
childlike, but with a firm base.
She smiled with her own full lips. She thought about her makeup. Had she
put too much on? No, she'd checked it closely before she went out. For a
moment she wished she'd worn some lipstick, then pressed the thought down,
like an unneeded item in a cluttered purse. He was smiling back.
The conversation began. Some small overture on her part was taken up like
a hand she'd extended at the start of a dance. His voice was soft and
continuous, and her responses were not weak or demurring. The conversation
took off like the short-hop jet itself, as they both talked over the
in-flight announcements, the safety lecture, the roaring turbines of the
jets and settled into the stratosphere of communication.
He was a roguish person. Not salacious or crude, not at all -- she
wouldn't have liked that at all. But he had a bit of a teasing style of
suggesting one outre concept after another, and then adopting it as his
own, just as she allowed that such a view did not frighten her.
And indeed it did not frighten her. For even if this man were a devil, as
seemed quite a bit more possible with each successive word that danced
from his lips, even if ... she was strong in her faith, a faith nothing
could shake. The faith of her fathers, strong as stone pillars, hallowed
as the tilled soil of the heartland, as pure as the maiden skin of her
virginal belly. Faith upon which other faiths were broken, the rock of
ages.
He, on the other hand, professed only a strange faith. He claimed to do
good by easing the weight of justice on the backs of criminals. He talked
about drugs and sex and family abuse like they were everyday occurrences.
He professed a belief in kindness as the supremely divine attribute, the
hallmark of God in humanity. He made an argument against the existence of
hell as a permanent condition on the grounds no god could be so cruel as
to permanently condemn his creatures for sins of transient importance.
Then at last, she had to venture forth. Her questions came one upon the
other -- did he believe in reincarnation? Did not justice require
punishment? Was not her book the supreme authority? Could both of them be
correct in their beliefs? If she were right, as she knew she was, did not
an eternity of torment await him?
His statements became more difficult to follow. He gazed more deeply into
her eyes. She felt he was looking at her more closely than anyone else
ever had, certainly any stranger. He seemed to be prolonging his words,
punctuating them with his gaze, trying to get her to hear the silence
between the words. He quoted scripture -- "be still and know that I am
God." She protested that empty space was not knowledge. He insisted that
words of doctrine were not stillness.
She retreated, raising her weapons again, beautiful weapons. Her faith was
safe, never had been imperiled. The edge on her sword of belief was sharp,
gleamed with light. The weight of her shield was comforting, and she
raised it before, proud of the golden cross that adorned it. From behind
its shelter, she expressed her regret that he was so close, with his
sincerity and love of kindness, and yet so grievously mistaken, so
unavoidably doomed. She saw him, foolish in his professed wisdom, like a
common wildflower tossing its head without a care for the morrow, heedless
of the scythe. He did not yield his ground, the stranger, and his eyes
continued to twinkle as his mouth seemed more resigned.
There was something he was not saying, some argument he would not bring
forth. She knew it. It left her feeling confused. At one point he seemed
to come close, but then he said something so strange it felt as if she had
been handed an imaginary object that dissolved upon touch.
He could not say, would not say; it would be unseemly and taking advantage
of her youth to say -- love, my child, burns all your theories, all the
pages of your book. Love wrecks the smooth skin of your belly and the
innocence of your thoughts. Love averts the hailstorms and the lightning
threatened by the lawgivers. Love smolders on your lips, consumes your
mind, and razes your heart. Love takes you where the wind will blow and
the water flow. He did not say these things, and thus his argument seemed
incomplete. The plane landed.
Her flights were mixed up. She had hours to wait. They crossed paths again
in the airport. He was leaving just then. She felt a little lost. The
hours would be wasted. Perhaps a few more moments, and she could have
heard the rest of the story, and made a last bid to save this errant, and
troubling, stranger.
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