‘ACQUIESCE’

Inheriting the Will of a King

 A man on a train nods to the passenger asking about the destination and simultaneously to the voice within him that he reckons isn’t himself nor his.

Upon the departure where the creaking steel wheels begin to roll along the rail as the carriage picks up speed shifting its weight side to side and the rush of air passing below, the window is rolling film of the open blue sky who has brush stroked clouds suspended in like time in a photograph.  Time’s pen held at present, as is, bleeding onto paper.  Like blank vinyl tape are constant inaudible thoughts. Yet, leaving long sharp creases impossible to iron out are the answers from an arresting dilemma that crucify him to a cross.  The burden hallowed in him is written in his name and light as a floating seed, a son of a King.

Expanding territory walls outside the stronghold limits are the little ruler’s order.  Increase that which is increasingly increasing.  No victory guaranteed other than that of one lord; the lord who is all wisdom.  And Fitzroy is the little king of this expanse that is to be called Acquiesce.

Fitzroy is lowly in demeanor, however stoic in the way he carries himself and is in a sense more refined that your usual man, by fires, sorrow has undoubtedly had its way with him in character.  This has led him to a solitary life.  One of which is actually to be the antithesis to his story.  For in the encounters where Fitzroy will indeed be tested it is apparent there is one who is always there about the wind.  In a deep sleep the imagination is stretched creating triumphal and glorious abiding states for well being, though in the thickets of adversity. 

It was in those first motions toward virtue that a source of peace would endow his mind with greatness.  Not in his own strength, but from this mighty hand that directs him along the unsearchable course that would soon be set before him.  The signal would come bearing on Aristotle’s Probable Impossibility [referring to a situation that is impossible to happen in the real world, but is probable in the universe of imaginary events that is assumed to exist].

And for her, Abigail, the veil was lifted and when she awoke, though not sleeping, visions long suffered were to come to pass.  Fitzroy knocks at her door.  He had traveled beyond measure from a distant past.  As prisoner to her will these moments of reflection tormented him, nevertheless he stood waiting on the steps leading up to the entrance of her dwelling.

“Who be it at this hour to come knocking without notice and if I am alone who then can protect me from intrusion,” paused Abigail behind her squinting eyes.  “Dare I answer or shall I pretend I am not at home,” brooding as she crept closer to the door and side stepping swiftly to the window with curtains drawn where she peered through a slit and a ray of sunshine cast onto the dark green wall.  She looked away at the old painting of her grandfather handing crooked in gold frame; his countenance assuring her no harm would come.  The crimson curtains swayed as her apron grazed them, then her small thin hands caressed the cool brass knob as she grasped. 

“Are you still there? Whomever it might be?” Abigail confidently made herself known behind the heavy oak door in the scent of lemon oil from the morning.

Fitzroy cleared his throat and gave his best to articulate, “Greetings, well, hello, it is I, Fitz, your former…” he could not continue and his heart sank.  In less than a second he sensed he had made a grave mistake to come knocking at dusk just after the sun had set.  Returning to his words, he sang softly, “Forgive me, my dear, to make my intentions clear.  If I could have just a moment,” and his eyes fell downcast from door to floor.

The sound the lock made, as it was heard, he will never forget.

“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter” oscillating in Fitzroy’s intellect.  Was it a dream?  Or a nightmare that came like a terror in the night?  He was still seated next to a window on the train and beads of sweat arose from his brow.  He pinched the top of his nose firmly and felt a dagger, the memory of his true love for whom he could not bring himself to forget.  Not a soul knew his name in this foreign land, yet he came not to occupy a space, but to fill the void of his understanding and come to a conclusion.  It was his duty to fulfill the order of the King and his inheritance is the truth to be established.  What purpose did he serve other than that which was right before him, which was in every detail of the day.  Tomorrow never comes until yesterday has passed.  A glance at his watch and it is 19:04.  Four minutes past the time he entered the carriage.  Four minutes ago he knew his destination and now it is a long ride to the gate. 

An hour later, thunder erupted in his head.  The words on the page of the book he was reading disappeared and he shook.  Fitzroy trembled in silence.  Abigail he needs.  She is a strong woman.  It is not good for a man to be alone.  To her, his character was split with two heads: one of a man she loved and the other of a man she loathed.  Such is the matter that is to be revealed.

It took Fitzroy the whole evening to sort through the documents he had prepared to present to the office administrator at the Ministry.  Enclosed in an envelope was a letter he had written to serve as a record in case of his death.

Dear Recipient,

            My identity remains unknown to them.  They believe I am a commoner born within these borders.  There is a mark on the left side of my middle toe on my right foot that appears to be a dark brown dot; also, a thick scar atop my left shoulder from an incision.  My nose is aquiline or Roman and to my hairline is attributed a prominent widow’s peak.  I own nothing to my name and all who recognize me are distant acquaintances.  I was the illegitimate son of a Monarch, so I have adopted my own surname: Acquazzone.  My full name is Fitzroy Abner Acquazzone.  The location of my birth and who my parents are and my birth date were never found.  My teeth are that of 46 and I was raised by angels.

My earliest memory is at the foot of the southernmost mountains by the Strait of Gibraltar.

F.A.A.

  There was nothing other than small multi-colored village houses with wood shingle roofs across the grassy plains where the dew fell and few dim stars lit the night.  The eyes of the man travelling began to close repeatedly as he struggled to stay awake and then eventually nodded off in an upright position with the documents on his lap.  The letter identifying himself had slid underneath the seat in front of him as his leg shifted.  In deep sleep his eyelids fluttered as his eyes moved rapidly over heavy bags and dark circles underneath them.

In an unknown garden he stood naked with his back to the east. An intense orange yellow red sun in his eyes spotting blue and purple and the presence of joy liberating his heavy heart and his emotions took flight soaring into utter bliss.  He was completely lost in the present moment as if in a trance and the palm of her hand took his and their eyes met with light raindrops hitting their faces and a radiant light in their hair that encompassed everything.  He knew she was his bride and that he was her groom and it was the face of Abigail.  The woman’s lips opened and a small still voice uttered: “Acquest”.

Fitzroy came into a state of consciousness, the firm pulse of his still heart beating like that of a drum to the march of what he had experienced in the dream and he held it like a gift that was a treasure.  Faith filled his mind with hope in the everlasting and eternal.  No longer would he question the foolishness of his feelings for her.

“Ticket please,” the attendant spat and a bit hit his chin.

“Oh do pardon me, I’ve got it here in my front pocket,” breathed Abner and cleared his throat.

The attendant put a hole-punch in it and handed it back with a sad half smile.

“It looks like you’ve dropped one,” raising her head to the paper letter under the seat. 

Quickly snatching it up, Abner turned to look at her again and she was gone.  He needed Abigail.  She always kept him in better condition and in good health of mind.  But, he would be forced to forget about her.  It could be months, years or never again. 

Crucible in Fire

            The year is ----, and from the future is furnished a divine impartation.  I exited the train.  The essence, the core, the crux, the substance, the marrow, the meat is in the cleft of the rock.  However, I vaguely presume that here in my first steps in which I crawl to this hiding place everything is brought into the open and the hindrances scatter.  Ever so slightly concave is this ground beneath my feet, filled with wonder and an air of despondency.  It can only be made flat by pressing one direction or the other.  The weight shifts causing me to follow a path unsuited for any other son.

There, eroded roads, sidewalks forever diagonal, structure in rows like block walls, a thin red river and this bridge to be crossed in the shape of an X.  Four points to reason, for four seasons of suffering and five, the fifth point is the center of it all; the intersection.  This point is where I stand and there where four of me that entered from the four beginnings.  It was when I walked into the wilderness that I separated north, west, south and east counterclockwise.  I became quadruplets in a sequence.  I wandered out of this wilderness from a German forest after what seemed to be many moons.  Everything is quiet now.  Except, a small buzz ringing in the left ear. 

I know there is only one of me.  The prophet from the north, the pilgrim from the west, the seer from the south and extricated man from the east join heads in conjunction to birth a fifth; the whole man standing in the X.  The linear narrative is absolute and universal as twisted together in a braid and rope that hangs me.

I transported and was facing the midnight green gate to the humble home of Ilya, the pragmatic philosopher and an old friend.  It swung open in the breeze.  It was as if it had weathered a thousand storms by the looks of the exterior.  From an open window I could hear him inside reciting verses to himself.  Ilya’s voice was as low thunder rumbling and the gate slammed behind me loudly with a clap.  A white cat bolted between my legs and vanished.  Ilya interjected in a flash of the moment, “Who beckons you to render bidding to my disposal?  Is it madness who none alone can shake?  Make yourself known before you find yourself courting disaster,” and his guffaw echoed in jest.

“It is I, the rolling stone, old friend!”  A scratch in my throat, a dry cough and a great thirst to my tongue as I proceeded closer.

Popping his large head out the window aimlessly then teetering around the corner out of the side door, “Well, well, well - look at what the cat drug in!  If it isn’t an old familiar face I have long forgotten, then I should have my shotgun,” his words fired at my chest and his heavy hand slapped me on the shoulder.  All I could do was grin with a slight tear.

From my mouth came three words: “Desire is destination.”

Repeating the three words he sent to me via telegram.

“I am going to have to beat it out of you aren’t I?”  Now a light in his countenance grew even brighter.  And I followed Ilya inside.  A shelf to the ceiling filled with many books tightly fit to its capacity, a small bed with one pillow and a blue blanket, a round three-legged table with two chairs next to a fire stove, a bear rug in the middle of it all and an accordion propped up against the wall near the window.  Ilya boiled water as I took a place at the table and watched him prepare something for us.  I could see the wheels turning in his mind and I waited like a child.

“I have something for you, Abner, though it may be something you do not want to hear.  Nevertheless, I shall make it known to you.  The promise you keep is a gift not an essential part of your nature.  So, as compromise can offer no refuge for a man who has lost his way, I am not able to afford anything other than this, a solution to get you where I believe you need to be.  And it goes like this, there is a man who walked a field with flowers in his thoughts until they wilted and every petal fell from them, until he came to a well and lowered the bucket to bring water to quench his thirst.  When the rope was lowered and raised the bucket was filled with blood.  He drank of it and it tasted like wine and filled his veins with life.  All guilt surrounding the flower was washed away and a battle hymn was orchestrated in his heart.  The call to go beyond, that which was inevitable, was clear to him.  Dance with me, dare with me, yield in trust for Wisdom to carry you through it all.  Listen to her tell you what you need to hear.  Lean not on your own understanding.  All is well with you, but you must be sure and ready to answer.  Your life is not your own.”

I was there at the well, yet did I really drink?  Was it real?  Nothing kept me from answering the call.  I was here on my journey seeking the furthering of the kingdom with the boundaries of my discernment.  Suddenly, I knew what Ilya was pointing at and it flew like an arrow into my gut.  The best solution is the only solution and the only solution is war, to fight for the greater good with purpose and intent, to examine everything from a higher perspective.  The key dangled from a chain on my neck.  I grabbed hold of it and transported it back to the center of the X-bridge.  When I looked to the sun the bridge became a pier and I was placed at the end of it looking out into the ocean, birds darting across the sky.  It was dusk and a strong wind blew offshore.  The door was out there on the horizon hovering in the heavens.  I let go of the key.  My palms were sweating and I urged on from the train station.

It was necessary that I find a hotel to have a bed to sleep in, but since  I had already slept on the train I walked the streets in search of a café where I could regroup and get things in order and get to a place of alignment.  People were all around and about their business and daily routines.  I politely addressed every passerby with shrewd innocence.  Shortly, less than a kilometer from the station was Mila’s, and I peered in through the glass and saw a vacant area to sit.  Nobody took notice of me for I dressed in the attire of the day and I kept my face clean and hair combed.  The hat I wore was black and I removed it from my head as I came through the door.  I took off my coat and made myself comfortable, ordering a cup of coffee, no cream.  I took out a bit of bread that I had wrapped in a napkin in my pocket and quickly chewed and swallowed it.  I took what I needed from my briefcase and laid it out to review.  It was a letter of all the details to accept and present to the Ministry for the deed of ownership I was to receive as an inheritance.  I was registered and had received a post in the Tarragona citadel.  It was a considerable distance to travel by train here, but all I remember from it was the dream, the lock on the door and the imprint it left on my soul.

Black and White Patterns

            I encountered many different creatures in the Black Forest.  So many of these I do call messengers.  Were they animals or were they spirits?  In my childhood the seven angels brought me up to see the world around me through their sight.  They had this view that every person that ever lived was placed under certain circumstances in various seasons and intensity levels designed to shape and mold them into the character that creation had predisposed them to endure.  It is probable some were made widows, orphans, poor or imprisoned for others to look to perceive from an angle that juxtaposes vividly the fortunate by nature to those who derisively constitute the evils that contrast human long-suffering.

Every morning I was lifted from slumber with gratitude for the undone; not in the aching maladies wrought in the grumbling attitudes muttered between the teeth.  This I owe to the seven angels: Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red.  Though orphaned, I was never left without care.  I drank milk from the open air and abandoned everything to separation sewn in the fabric decorated with truths and untruths, unacquainted with dissimulation.  My fondest being the salvation carried in the seconds, half seconds and milliseconds like mothers holding children.  Audacious internal power formed flint into tools against weapons such as fear forged in solitude.  Joyful songs grafted to the tips of my fingers played at every touch.  Darkness was a comforter blanketing me in its depths.

The Hawk, the Wolf, the Chamois and the Zander made manifest a royal band of witnesses, flattening dubious arguments, overthrowing a lurking accuser and were marshaled emblems to the family crown.  All these familiars always appeared gold and were assigned to the four parts of reflection: Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night.  Deemed the Night Hawk, the Evening Wolf, the Afternoon Zander and the Morning Chamois for the four sections overlapping.  One day consisted of layers coinciding.  I would be with each animal in synchrony.  And all of them spoke in German.

Did these events happen really as I describe them?  I can only recollect.  Was I in hospital for the mentally ill?  No, may it be asserted these recollections are like The Diary of a Madman which I am reading as I settle in at Mila’s.  The pages went blank and I composed my own diary.  There has never been an occasion when I have taken alcohol or Pharmacia and I do not subscribe to sorcery, divination, incantation, wizardry nor witchcraft; only the raptures and enchantment of one woman have entered me.  Perhaps, I am suited for a straight jacket, although, I should have you know it is superfluous to indulge in search of such explanations and clarifications regarding causes that govern me.  It is a law that has diverted my calculations and deters me.  I am fully aware of my trespasses.  Suppose I present to you the idea that every living metaphysical element conceits a poetry amassing the accumulation of un-foretold tales in the bounds of unspoken words.  From this location I was born.  I was not created in the pattern of this world and neither were my counterparts.  I am the Morning Chamois, the Afternoon Zander, the Evening Wolf and the Night Hawk, but they are not me.

What year is it, really?  Aren’t we always, at the end?  Just so, I must put an end to reality and live in the imagination.  I separate everything on the surface.  These things are unreal to me, temporal and perishing.  The waitress bringing my coffee, setting it in front of me, flashes like a ghost. I can already hear the door closing behind me.  I am no longer at Mila’s.  I am now stepping around the corner until I pass an old blind woman beggar.

“I saw you sitting in there”, the old woman spoke to me as I approached her.  A long pause, I stop in my tracks a few steps past her, not saying anything and almost holding my breath.

“All colors of the rainbow, a little boy, and a forest,” her face became more tense and worried.  “A fish, a goat, a dog, a large bird.”  She stopped and the atmosphere swirled around her.  A sharp pain in my neck drove me forward.  I looked back, but kept going.  My stride accelerated and the momentum of frustration carried me for 6 blocks, to the edge where the town met the river, which was wide and black.  I saw some rocks on the other side that led up and on a mountain hiding the horizon.  I saw myself as a baby swaddle on the stones and crying flush faced and panting.  Then the angels were there and I was looking up at their faces peering down at me.  They picked me up and took turns cradling me in their arms.  I rocked back and forth and could hear them whispering softly.  The torture and agony ceases and I am out of breath.  I need to find a hotel room.  Two boys were sitting a little ways up the river and with fishing poles, so I decided to inquire about them since they appeared to be locals.  As I got closer I thought to myself that I was hungry.

“Good day, excuse me, lads, can you point me in the direction of the nearest boarding house?”

“Yes sir, keep going along the river and after the bend you will see in red, The Intourist.” 

“Thank you, kindly,” and tossed him a coin out of my trouser pocket, but he didn’t catch it and it fell into the water.

He shrugged his shoulders.  I lit a cigarette and continued on my way.  Puffs of smoke I blew traveled like a dust storm, a burn in my throat inhaling and exhaling in mediation.  I wasn’t worried about anything really, not a care in the world.  A profound peace settled in my spirit.  The kind of peace knowing it all was slowly and surely coming and going in divine revelation, one foot in front of the other until I reached the bend. There is nothing I need and contentment has conquered the absolute; every shade of grey removed with the variability in meanings encashed.  The gem is and rests in the unseen.