THE LEGEND OF SANTA DOG

I was born thirteen days before Christmas.

December babies frequently get gyped. Being so close to Santa's excursion,

our birthday's pale in the gift giving scheme of things...So I thought I'd make my last story a gift to all of you.

Happy Holidays to one and all. You have given me more than mere words can begin to express.

THE LEGEND OF SANTA DOG

by

L.J. Holmes

Once upon a time in a land far to the North, Santa busily prepared for his most hectic day of the year. All the elves scurried and hurried filling this sack, painting the eyes on that doll, and making sure ladders attached to each bright red engines went up and down without a hitch.

In the kitchen, Mrs. Claus bustled from stove to table making sure Santa's girth would expand to fill out his Once-A-Year Suit...

But deep in the stable yards, where the reindeer grazed, there was anarchy afoot..."Why should we sail off into the night sky yet again and freeze our antlers off for a world filled with disbelievers?" grumbled Donner.

"Yes, yes, yes," chimed in Blitzen. "My lumbago has been more irritating this year. I see no reason to expose it to this whirlwind trip. It is time Santa realizes Christmas has lost its soul and let us grow old gracefully."

All the reindeer added their words of discontent, forming a unanimous front against Christmas.

Soon word spread throughout Santa Town the reindeer were not going to fly come Christmas Eve. Santa hightailed it away from Mrs. Claus' table to the stable-yards and tried every argument in his extensive book...a man as old as Santa has many to draw on you can be sure...but the reindeer were adamant!

What was he to do?

He called a meeting in the town hall and all the citizens of Santa Town arrived. Many ideas were offered, but none proved possible...time was running out.

Unbeknownst to Santa and the people living in Santa Town, deep in the hills surrounding Santa Town, lived a beautiful German Shepherd Dog...abandoned as a pup, the dog traveled long and hard, ending up in these very hills. From his vantage point, he watched the comings and goings in Santa Town as he grew from puppy-hood to full grown dogdom.

Secretly he longed to be a part of Santa's team, but if his owners had abandoned him, he reasoned, surely Santa would see how unworthy he was...yet, he continued to watch and learn.

He watched the reindeer; saw what they ate and how they they trained their young...He duplicated their acts, eating the same berries and brush from the Santa Town forests and practicing the same exercises...

Lo and behold, miracle on miracles one evening he found he could fly!

Still, he was sad. He could fly, yes, but he was nothing more than a lowly dog. Santa would never let him be one of the team.

In his sad aloneness, he slipped into the moonlit darkness the very night of the town meeting, closed his eyes and lifted into the air to soar.

Inside the meeting hall, heartsick that Christmas would not happen this year, Santa turned his eyes to the window to beseech the Moonlight for widsom.

There, refelcted in the glow of the moon was a flying dog! A smile as big as the world spread across Santa's broad face, and a twinkle merrier than any he'd ever twinkled before glittered in his eyes. Eureka!!!

Out through the night, Santa ran...well ran as fast as a man who can fit in the Once-A-Year-Santa-Suit could run, keeping his eye on the flying dog.

When the dog landed, Santa was waiting...

Seeing Santa, the dog, embarrassed and afraid, tried to run into the woods, but Santa called out.

"Please, oh wonderful dog, do not leave. You are the answer to all my prayers."

Hearing the conviction in Santa's voice, the dog stopped, turned and saw...was it?...admiration?...for him?...a lowly dog?

Yes, Santa admired the dog and praised him most soundly pouring out his need of him. The dog bowed, nodded twice and reverently trotted after the head of all Santa Town.

The reindeer quickly learned the tale of the wondrous dog, and realized not all of the magic of Christmas died...for deep in the heart of a wondrous dog was the spark of pure simple love...and that is what Christmas is all about.

The team returned, and for the first time ever, at the front of the team was the newly named Santa Dog...So this year, if you hear a happy barking well into the night...listen carefully...It may just be Santa Dog leading Santa right to you.

FORGIVENESS

It's the ELEVENTH of December already and

I's still here...

One more day to go and I have met my personal

Nudge dare...Will I make it? There's no rhymn or reason to what I have come up with so far.

Nudge takes over me and you get what you get. So will Nudge stand up under the final hours and minutes?

We'll see.

 

FORGIVENESS

by

L.J. Holmes

Forgiveness is such a simple English word...even though it is a lot more than four letters long. Actually it's eleven...hmmm today is the eleventh of December and this word has eleven letters. Prophetic?

Eleven little letters, lined in a row, blended to form an idea destined for emotions now stirred, that make it so very hard to let the pain go.

Who came up with the concept of it? Do you think they knew the monumental tasks this word requires a person wade through before coming out the other end, bloodied from the battle?

Memories consumed me.

Tears rush to fill these throbbing eyes, while blood thunders through my veins. Normally I do not feel my circulatory system, but "normal" flew out the window the moment you arrived and asked for forgiveness.

Shaking my head, not in negation, but conufsion and something else, I try to wade through it. I gave you my trust...I gave you my all. You took what I had, then tore me apart, through a betryal so deep, I'm not sure if I exist any more. Did I die, or does it just feel like I did?

You stand here, all these years later and ask forgiveness from my vanquished soul, and that trust be returned as if all shiny and new. How can I do that? Every time I see me in your eyes, I see the reflection of the fool who gave all her love and innocence to you.

I see your contrition, and the creases of your anguish, but tell me, how do I find the rainbows again? How do I open myself to the world with trust when every breath I take reminds me of this razor sharp pain? You reduced me and my love to nothing more than a mere moment of lust.

Forgiveness. The word rolls so easily from your lips I wonder if you fully understand how deep the word must travel to find the center of the hurt you inflicted? How else was I to survive?

Love truly is a a double bladed thing, honed upon the leather of the strop,  and truth a rule that is filled with the essence of gold. You gave me the blade but not the truth, so I doubt you really cared.

Here is my truth, the only truth I can find...Forgiving you would be the easist part of all of this, or at least I'd like to think it would, if, that is, I could find it within my heart, to first forgive the fool, that's me.

Thank you again for your visit, and I wish you all the best Christmas and New Year.

A SEARCH WITHIN

December 10th...the month is in double digits already?

Wow!

Today's offering makes my fourteenth new posting. Guess the brain is still chugging right along.


Christmas has always been a special time for me...even though I was a bit deprived of birthday cheer, being a

December baby...I still adored the magic of the twinking lights, gay wrappings, sparkling bows, and special meals.

My Grandma, my most important role model, taught me about the love of family, and how important family is...I dedicate this to you,

Nonnie. I miss you so much.

A SEARCH WITHIN

by

L.J. Holmes

My father came to visit me recently. He's a frail man now, a mere shadow of who I've always known him to be. The booming voice that used to make me quiver in my Keds, little more than a squeak now. Gone is the girth, the overpowering strength, replaced by this fragile skeleton before me.

I looked at him, remembering the fear I lived with in the face of his often unreasoning anger, but for the first time I saw just a man...a man with simple human flaws. I wondered had he sometimes lain in his bed, long in the endless night, scared about the repsonsibilities that come with being a parent...a dad...the bread-winner?

He is a man, who never knew how to speak of love. Was he speaking of love when he blasted me for racing outside, across the stoned driveway he'd just had the nearby quarry deliver to, my Keds tucked beneath my bed, my bare feet happily callused against the uneveness of the land?

"Where are your shoes," he bellowed, the vein popping in the side of his neck as he glared at my naked toes. "You're not some poor street urchin."

Did he not speak words of clear love because, perhaps, no one had ever spoken them to him?

He's just a man who, good or bad, was still the father that raised me, the only dad I'd ever know, but smaller now, rickety, shorter even, some how...a man who I realized, is dying...perhaps not today, but soon.

The thought of him dying has since been on my mind. How do I, the daughter who carries the layers of his cruelty, both intended and not, on my inner spirit, feel about him dying?

My mind swirled with the enormity of lost chances. My mother died long ago, before I'd learned the beauty of forgiveness. With Dad I still had the chance to let the past truly be behind us. 

Just as I was ready to speak the words, one of his digs, spoken shakily, escaped those shriveled lips.

I felt my heart and soul react, but in truth, it was up to me whether he hit his target or not.

It didn't.

I will in, all probablility, never be close to my father...some things are beyond us both this time around. I regret that deeply. Perhaps in a lifetime to come, or in heaven with God there to guide us, we will find the bridge to undo the disconnect that exists so staunchly between us.

For now it's enough that I could step close to this shriveled man and hug him, forgive him within my heart, tell him I loved him, not wince when his next words cut once more, and turn him over to a power higher than anything I held inside me.

I watched him leave, this fragile little man, climbing into his shiny boat of a car, but as he pulled away, I asked God to enfold him in His vast well of love, and guide my dad, now, and when he is taken away.

Bless you, Dad. I love you.

Again I wish you all a very Happy Holiday Season and Thank you for your ongoing support and your deeply appreciated comments.

The Miracle Unveils

December 9th. Three more days to go. I can't believe how fast this month is

flying by, especially with me doing this.

I want to thank one and all for your ongoing support. My doctor called me on Monday evening with the results of the Brain MRI...actually I called the office during the day and the nurse told me I was on my doc's call list to discuss the results.

That's never a good sign. It's true I had a mini-stroke...a much milder one than the one I had in 2008, but there's also evidence I am in the early stages of MS...so keeping my brain active is vitally important, but I want Y'all

(thank you Gail) to promise me if my words become mishmashed too badly to please let me know. I need you to help me know when it is time for me to let

Nudge, my inner voice, take a long...permanent...vacation.

And on that note...let's begin:

THE MIRACLE UNVEILS

by

L.J. Holmes

Celestial angels, a choir conducted by God.

On the twilight before the advent, the world seems still, but from this distance, the truth is revealed; only to those with eyes that see beyond all veils.

Glittering stars twinkle here, above the atmosphere. Moonbeams shimmer and dance around the lone body of the child. His soft, sweet body, propped on the billowy cloud, he leans over, just a little, so he can peer down, at the lush earthy topography below.

Opening his eyes, like the lens on a rapid speed camera's shutter, he giggled with his exhilaration, eager to see what awaits below. 'Soon,' he claps, his body vibrating with excited glee while narrowing his gaze to zoom in on just one home.

'That one,' he  quivered happily. 'The one with the blue-black shutters!'

One day, one day very soon, his human feet would pitter-patter inside that suburban house, and oh what a cherished little boy he'd be.

'Soon,' he thought yet again, his finger-tips tingling as he clapped in merry abandon. 'Oh my,' his little mind gasped. 'There he is! The man who will be my very own.'

With avid attention, the cherub watched the tall man unfold himself from the narrow confines of the land-craft; they call them cars, and stand up. 'Oh My!' Would he one day look like this man so tall?

The ethereal child gnawed on that question a second or two, arching his small head this way and that, taking intricate note of the tall man's finest details.

'Blue eyes,' the cherub nodded. 'Yes,' he reflected quite honestly, 'I would very much like having blue eyes too.' He liked blue...it was the color of the sky supporting the cloud he bounced on.

'Dark, expertly cut hair,' the child continued. 'Perhaps a bit too expertly cut, but all-in-all, not bad. Not on the whole, anyway. The hair? That would be a minor thing, just a snip of a thing.'

He giggled at his joke then sobered. He felt certain, knowing himself, given time, and careful direction, from close exposure to one such as he, the man would find the looser, happier little boy still living within.

Actually, that would be his task; his assignment so to speak, reintroducing the man to his little boy, still lurking around, buried by time, beneath the mantle of the big man shell. A daunting task, but one he eagerly anticipated creating.

"Yes, him! He is your job!" the Big Boss had lovingly commanded back at Home Base...how long ago?

Above the child, another shimmering white-gold cloud descended. Joseph, the child's mentor, stood on the larger cloud.

The child adored his mentor and was deleriously happy to see him heading his way.

Once even with the child's cloud, Joseph stepped from his billowy conveyance onto the child's. Looking past the child, with knowing eyes, Joseph cracked an almost grin. "Busy observing your future father, Zachary?"

Zachary blushed...well as much as a cherub could. "He's a busy man," Zachary responded shyly.

"Too busy," Joseph agreed, wisely. "Sometimes we have noted, once in the flesh the spirit forgets. The flesh changes them. We do not fully know why, but suspsect the denisty of form, or the lowering of spiritual rites cause this. All we really know for sure, is the struggle our children face in flesh, pushes all of this," Joseph said, waving his white robed arm expansively to include everything surrounding them, "out of mind. In their daily grind, sadly, they forget."

Joseph turned back to look deeply into the cherub's eyes, locking the young one with his power from the ages. "It is our job to intervene when we sense they are ready to learn again."

"Will he hear us?" Zachary frowned.

"Not without a major wrestling," Joseph responded, sorrowfully. He shook his flowing white mane. "We have been trying to reach him for quite some time, but hurts from long ago, have built determind defenses around his heart and his soul.

"The choices he has made have bent his spirit low. He thinks he is unworthy. We've tried to guide him, but he shakes off our whispers; calls us his imagination, if you can but guess. So the veil grows thicker between us with each passing year."

Joseph turned his saddened eyes back beyond the clouds down to the house with the blue-black shutters. "He chooses to ignore us; refuses to slow down long enough to hear our tender voices. You, Zachary, My Wee Young Cherub, will open his heart, so our songs can sing, and remind him of us and what a miracle he really is."

It was an important assignment. Zachary hoped he was up to the task. The last thing he wanted to do, was disappoint the Big Man upstairs.

"Will I be allowed to remember?"

Joseph's radiating gold eyes, gentled upon the face of the wee cherub. "You will always hold the memory of us inside you, but you will have to pass through the Veils of Gossamer at birth."

The Veils of Gossamer, as any entry level cherub knew, was the portal between spirit and flesh. Once Zachary's spirit moved through its fine netting into the density of flesh, being created this night for him, his spirit memories would begin to dim.

'How would he help the man if he did not remember?'

Joseph heard the cherub's silent musings. "Look around Little One. All clouds carry messengers from us. Angels every single one of them in God's Mighty Batallion. You may not remember we are here, Little Zachary; you may not hear our voices; you may even believe, like many do, that what you hear is only your own imagination at work.

"But, you will still hear us, and a seed will take root and spread." Joseph stressed pointing towards the man below. "To help him find his inner light, though, you need do no more than just be Zachary. He will find his miracle just from that."

Zachary smiled, a beatific child's smile. He looked upon the many angels riding the puffy clouds, and then back at the man disappearing into the house. "I will like being his little boy," he softly decreed.

Joseph's smile this time grew so brilliant, a stream of multi-colored sparklers shot out and lit up the Earth-bound sky.

Down below, just as the man turned to close the door behind him, a rainbow, more beautiful than any he'd seen before, stretched as far across the sky as he could see, igniting a happy spark, deep inside him.

He may not be aware of it yet, this man down below, but on the hovering cloud Zachary and Joseph both knew, the miracle had just begun.

To all my readers, I wish you a glorious, miracle filled Holiday Season and all the days to follow.

The Bells Chime

The Bells Chime

by

L.J. Holmes

Family tradition, it was all I had left of the one who nurtured me when I so desperately needed nurturing. Through the years, I passed those traditions down to my own beloved child.

December arrived this year with a spectacular blizzard. As a child I used to sit with my nose pressed against the picture window, watching with awe the swirling elegance and grace of the snow flakes making their way to join the sparkling blanket their brethren already made.

Now, in my twilight years, I content myself with watching the new flakes swirl wearing a shawl and a blanket to keep out the bite from the cracks I am too old to caulk any more, but delighted with this proof that Christmas is just around the corner.

Yes, cold, I feel it more these days. I guess what they said when I was young is true...the older you get the more your body's immunity to life's harsher realities fades into distant memory.

Earlier today, I managed to creak my way into the attic. Christmas is coming, and nothing, not even bones riddled with arthritis could keep me from following through on the traditions I still cling to.

Rumaging through boxes I'd forgotten to label, had been enlightening. Snippets from my life long ago, and some from a yesterday mere heartbeats away reminded me of so much.

My tired eyes filled with soft tears when I opened the box that held the Christening Gown my baby girl wore less than one month after her birth.

Touching the lace and velvet I'd hand made from the gown I'd married in, with my tired, wrinkled hand, made me travel back in time, to the young mother, beaming down at the baby girl nestled so securely in my loving embrace. I loved being a mom.

And the sound of bell chimes filled the attic. I smiled...both a sad smile and a smile of quiet peace.

I miss her. Especially now with Christmas coming. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children, but a drunk, a selfish drunk, chose to drive after a liquid lunch...

I remember the sound of the car's brakes squealing as it shot over the embankment onto our property. I made it to that same picture window I watched the snowflakes fall from just in time to see my little girl roll beneath the jeep truck the drunk operated, and could still hear my screams as I shot from my house...too late...too late...too late.

They tell me I was a zombie in the days, weeks and yes, months that followed. I think I died that day, but my body was too stupid to realize it....until that first Christmas Eve.

Certain I imagined them, I ignored the bell chimes at first, but they refused to be ignored. Everywhere I went I heard them...but no one else did. Grief can make you do and think crazy things. I dismissed them at first, but the chimes surrounded me the closer Christmas came.

Turning my rheumy eyes from the snow storm I gazed at the tree, twinkling across the room...the only illumination actually in the house other than the crackling and popping in the fireplace.

My daughter loved the magic of Christmas, but I wanted nothing to do with it after...well...after...

Until the chimes.

The night before Christmas, that first year, I steadfastly refused to celebrate the season. All I wanted was to curl up and follow my beloved child.

The fireplace crackled that night too, but my heart was filled with dark pain. And then the bells chimed again, the ones that had been following me everywhere for weeks.

I wanted to scream at them and tell them to shut up. I even opened my mouth to spew my fury, when a golden bell drifted down before me; it's ring the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard. Still I did not want to find anything beautiful. My life was empty...my child gone.

The bell hovered in the air between me and the fire, and began playing my child's favorite Christmas hymn. Golden motes of sparkling essence shot out from the bell with each note, and as I watched those motes coalesced into an angel...my angel...my angel-girl.

Her radiance reached into my broken heart and filled it with love, unconditional. All around me bells joined in, a choir of angels. Like a miracle, my daughter, my angel-girl rose to the top of the tree and became my Christmas Angel while the Choir bells chimed most beautifully. The room, lit only by the fireplace, grew brighter with the sparkling glow from halos and wings filling my heart until it had no darkness left within it.

Into my heart and my mind, my Angel-Girl spoke, giving me comfort and assuring me she had not left me, even though I could not always see her. She promised every Christmas Eve, the bells will chime and my Angel-Girl will come and share our tradition once more.

The snow outside swirled, and the sounds of bells chiming grew louder. The Christmas tree blazed with celestial beauty when one gold bell sent off motes that became my Christmas Angel, atop my tree...My Angel-Girl, come once more to share with me our love of Christmas, each other, and a tradition not even death could destroy.

To all I wish you all the miracles of the Holidays and may you know the wonder of your

Angel-Girl.

THE LION ROARS TONIGHT

Five more days...I think my hair is whiter than when I started this challenge back on November 27th. Was I insane to do this? Obviously...which is kinda counter-productive since I took this on to PROVE the brain is still working despite the TIA hiccup I had four?...five?...weeks ago now?

But alas, I am a creature of habit...I dared myself, and I never turn down a dare...so here is today's new tale...a lot darker, and probably scarier...especially with Christmas so nearby, but anyone who can face the Christmas shopping hoardes, is fearless. To them I dedicate this story.

The Lion Roars Tonight

by

L.J. Holmes



She'd heard the legend...who hadn't? The legend ranked all the way up there with the legend of the werewolf, or the vampire count. As with most legends, the telling and retelling of the scary tales had added to the mystique surrounding the original story...which was probably based on nothing more terrifying than a rabid alley cat.

BEWARE OF THE ONE WITH THE HAIR THAT GLISTENS LIKE THAT OF A STALKING PANTHER, A BODY HONED AND CHISELED LIKE THAT OF THE MIGHTY PUMA, THE BRAND OF THE TIGER ON HIS RIGHT UPPER TORSO, AND THE MESMERIZING GOLD OF THE LIONTYNE KING IN HIS EYES.

The legend, whispered on dark stormy nights, kept young and old shivering in their skins as lightning and thunder crashed like cymbals and firebrands with each eerie detail of the Legend's feats.

"He mauls, then devours all who cross his path," cackled many a spinstery old lady.

"No, no, no!" counter the wickedly demonic old men. "He ravishes young beauties who dare go walking unprotected in the night, and then at the moment of ecstasy, releases his victim from life in one mighty swipe of his sharpened claw."

Yes, she had heard them all ever since she was old enough to sit up and shiver before a crackling fire on many a tempetuous night. But she was no longer a tiny tot, shaking in her Doctor Dentons, nor was she terrified of the silver blasts of illumination from a lightning storm in summer.

She'd reached the age of majority...a woman now. Her long. flowing red-gold hair almost down to the middle of her back, her vibrant hazel eyes sparkling with intelligence, and her shapely body moved through the darkened night with the ease and steadfastness of one who has often walked this way.

Life had taught her there are many things that could cause her harm and fear, but rarely were they the manifestations of old legends.

On this particular night, she wore a deep blue velvet cape that shielded her body from the pelting rain. On her feet, she wore the same shade of leather boots...not really rain boots, but she'd treated them with waterproofing so they would stand against the flowing rivulets racing down the streets towards the gutter openings.

If it were not for the luminescent coloring of her hair, she would easily blend into the turbulent darkness surrounding her. But unbeknownst to her one in the shadows watched...and waited.

Logically, she should not be out in this, she reasoned, and then laughed that thought away. She loved Mother Nature in all her many guises, even when she raged with the force of a nor'easter. If anything, the power of the storm energized her, made her burdens seem miniscule...made her own person, seem little more than a speck in the overall scheme of things.

A sports car zoomed around the corner on two wheels sending a spray of water up in its wake that doused her completely. Although it was summer, the storm cooled air against her now totally drenched body made her shiver.

She should get back. The last thing she needed was to come down with pneumonia.

Had she not turned around at that very moment, she would never have known...or perhpas it would be more accurate to say, she would not have known until it was too late.

He was not far...had he been there a moment ago? She did not think so.

He was leaning, casually, against the door-frame of one of the stores along the main concourse. His eyes glittered in the dim light, much the way the eyes of a jack'o'lantern would glitter from the candle's flame within...But there was nothing hollow about the shadowed silhouette in the door frame. The golden eyes were attached to a very solid, very real man-creature.

A tremor orbited through her that had nothing to do with the icy tendrils caused by the wind against her wet skin. For one seemingly eternal moment, she froze. Just as quickly as her body went rigid, her mind began chastising her for her fooilishness. He's a man, nothing more, nothing less, and she was not without ample skills to protect herself against anything a man might try.

Squaring her shoulders, she placed one foot in front of another, ever conscious of the shadow framed by the storefront. He did not move. She wasn't even certain he breathed, but  sticking around to find out, out of the question.

Still she refused to give in to fear and run. Each step seemed to take forever, and brought her closer to where he stood. The closer she got, the more the air seemed to be permeated with a raw animal musk scent that set every one of her nerve endings on high alert.

She was almost past him when a hand...or a claw, reached out and in one continuous move, pulled her hard against raw, solid strength. She would have screamed...at least she was fairly certain she would have screamed, but his pelt covered muzzle came down crushing her lips, forcing them open, claiming her mouth with a determination that stole her strength. Her knees began shaking, and her body quiver. There would be no escape.

Without breaking his assault upon her mouth, his free hand...claw?...reached down and tore the cape and blouse open. The claw, it had to be a claw, began cupping the supple flesh beneath.

Fire began licking her in places the beast was not exploring, deep in her womb and it spread.

Dear God, she thought frantically, this...creature...was making her climax, right here, standing in the pouring rain, her blouse in shreds, her lips swollen and her nipples tender and hot.

Without breaking stride he tore her skirt, again with one rip. Before she could try to squirm, he arched his body and with one powerful thrust, entered her deeply, completely.

She wanted to cry out...whether in fury or in ecstasy she couldn't be sure. Her body felt like a living blue flame, the hottest element within a fire, and it was moving through her like a furnace.

Rapidly he moved, this primal creature, mastering her with the sheer force of his control.

Lightning lit up the sky and thunder boomed at the exact moment he tipped her over the edge and her life erupted from her.

Death had come.


She awakened the next morning in her bed. Beside her, her legend slept deeply. It had been a long night for them, competing with the fury of Nature's temper. How she loved stormy nights when her beast came out to ravage and devour her over and over again.

A smile played on her lips. They were calling for another storm tomorrow night...Mmmmm she would have to make sure to repair, wash and make ready her "Lady in the Night" togs again.

She reached over, ever so gently and placed her lips on the brand of the tiger; a tattoo that spoke volumes about her beast's passions. Stifling a contented yawn, she grinned once more, snuggled down close to him and drifted off into sleep once more.

The closer we get to the Holidays, the more my jingle is merry.

So Happy Holidays all.

AN OMELET IS...

December 6th...only six more days to go to complete my challenge.

And today's is weird, but then a lot of my offerings of late have been weird. How weird? To paraphrase the little, news criers standing on corners at the beginning of the

last century hawking the latest bulletins from the newspapers of the time, may I just say...Read all about it!

An Omelet is a Terrible Thing to Waste,

by

L.J. Holmes

When you awaken and there is a strange man at the foot of your bed, you have every right to question where your sanity went while you were sleeping. Obviously it's not still with you.

So when I saw him there, looking different, and yet somewhat familiar, I had to check out the rest of the room. No men in white coats? Had I sleep strolled into some bizarre other dimension where we were about to rehearse a play I have no memory of signing up for?

Finding my voice took a few starts. You'd be amazed how blocked your vocal chords are when you awaken to a strange man at the foot of your bed. Clearing the throat makes some of the most godawful sounds, but eventually you can string more than a few hacking words together.

"Who," I asked a bit breathlessly...not the passionate kind of breathless, more the, 'have I stepped into the Twilight Zone?' kind of breathlessness..."are you?"

"Hmmph," the crazy man said, "You don't recognize me?"

I wasn't quite sure how to answer that. I knew who he resembled, but also short of a brain meltdown, which I probably was experiencing, no way could he be who I thought he resembled. So I stammered..."Uhhhh."

"Trust your first guess," he said with an awkward grin. He didn't open his mouth to give me a big grin...and then I remembered...wooden teeth. Do ghosts have wooden teeth?

Shaking my head, I scooted back so I was now resting against my backrest, after adjusting my pillows without once taking my eyes off of him. I know, seems impossible, but I'm multi-talented, and I was so not taking my eyes off of him. "You can't be him," I denied vigorously.

"Can't I?" he asked shrugging his broad shoulders. "You more than most know the truth."

"But," I argued, "if you are who you seem to be, why me?"

"Well now, why not you? Of course it helps that you can see me," he said with a twinkle in his wise eyes. "Mind if I sit down?" he asked pointing to the folding chair, my meditating chair, propped against my far wall.

I nodded and watched the impossible to be here visitor walk to the chair, wrestle it open, plop his impressive self down and turn those powerful eyeballs back at me.

I gulped. 'Oh Lord! I've gone over the edge!' No other explanation made sense. My sanity had been comforting while I maintained it. Now that I'd flipped, I wasn't sure I liked the dark side of my brain.

"You can stop frowning," the apparition said. "I really am here, but don't worry. You're not the only one waking to find one of us waiting patiently to talk to you."

"I'm no one," I insisted. "But you..."

"Me? I'm a dead man...a long in the dirt, dead man. And I really am who you think I am."

"If you are, why would you seek me out?"

"You're smart, and you'll figure out how to present my presence and what we're going to discuss for the masses."

"Huh?"

"Interesting word, 'huh'. Okay, let's get down to business. You do recognize me, right?"

"Well," I said with a reluctant twist to my lips, "you look like..." I so didn't want to name this apparition, or figment of my imagination, but as twisted as my mind must now be, it urged me on. "George Washington?" It came out as a high pitched squeak, but it was now out.

The man in the folding chair grinned. "I knew I hadn't been forgotten. Had a bet with Ben Franklin and John Adams...who are, by the way, visiting with others at this very moment, along with several others," he said all seriousness all of a sudden.

"Why?'

"That's what we're here to talk about. Everyone thinks once you move beyond the veil, you have no interest in what's going on here, but it's not true. At least not for all of us."

George's eyes met mine and held them like Krazy glue. "You want to take notes?" he asked.

Actually I wanted to go back to sleep and really wake up from the dream I obviously was snared in, but I dumbfoundedly nodded, reached inside my bed stand, pulled out the inevitable notebook and pen every writer keeps close at hand, and opened it to a blank page.

"Are you ready? I promise I'll speak slowly enough, since I know you never took shorthand."

I raised my eyes and felt them go wide with shock.

"Again, we do keep tabs, especially on those we mean to reveal ourselves to. You're smart as a whip, but no body's secretary, so why bother with learning shorthand?" he said in a deep, resonating voice.

Sitting here, propped against my bed rest, staring at the maybe ghost of the first President of the newly formed United States, was surreal. Hearing his voice, I understood why he once commanded the entire army of the Revolutionary War.

"Your history books no longer teach the truth,"he said starkly. "They teach a minuscule, white washed version, and that's why so many of us have elected to reach out and share the truth with a few that can in one medium or another, remind our descendants why we did what we did."

'Oh Boy!' I thought. I have a bad digestive system under the best of circumstances. Somehow I doubted my intestines, all the many miles of it, were going to be happy when all this was done.

"The Revolutionary War," George began, his voice bouncing off of every wall in my bedroom, "was a vicious battle. Wars are not pretty and should never be undertaken without knowing the full devastation it brings into all the lives of those who engage in them.

"Wars of late have been waged by people who have never stepped into a uniform, have no family member wearing the uniform, and don't understand from personal experience what war is. To them it is like directing a game.

"And that's just it...it's not a game. It's not a chessboard with pieces to be sacrificed to save the King. We fought our war to end the rule of the King, and it was a bloody, godawful war," he said taking a deep breath before continuing.

"The winter in Valley Forge alone came close to destroying our focus. Had I not been there, in the trenches with my men, I don't think we would have won our war.

"Many stayed in Philadelphia, it's true, but I was right there, and when I became President, I could have held onto that position for the rest of my life...but we would have replaced one king for another.

"The men that followed me into office, and those that made up the first Congresses all knew what it was like to be in the trenches. Today only one in five hundred of those making up high ranking positions have either served or have family members who've served.

"In my day, it's true, we did not include women, such as yourself, to become a part of government. That is one progressive move we all approve of. Surprised? Just as you are a product of your time, we were products of our time.

"There are other forward thinking things America has accomplished, but war is not a whim, and to not treat it with the reticence it deserves, and not make all subject to it's destructiveness is wrong.

"In my day, we valued the truth of war and appreciated what winning it meant. We fought for our land, our dignity, our right to be respected, and our future. Men and boys from all walks of life joined the cause, always knowing today might be their last day.

"Once you've spilled blood, watched your friend, spill blood, then you know what war truly is, and you'll give it the wide berth it deserves. War has become too easy because so few who make the big decisions have donned the uniform, lifted the gun and faced their own mortality and the mortality of the enemy."

The silence that followed George Washington's words hung heavily in the air between us.

"Mr. President," I finally said after gulping a time or two, "what can I do? Again, Sir, I am no one. I have no power. I haven't the ear of anyone who does have power. I am nothing more than a woman with disabilities too numerous to mention."

"No," George disagreed shaking his white powdered, and bewigged head. "Many who rose to the status of 'hero' during my time, were alleged no-bodies before their heroic act got them in the history books for all time. Betsy Ross sewed some strips together, added some stars, and created a flag, yet today she is praised because she knew how to thread a needle.

"There is no such thing as a nobody, and that is why wars should never be started without careful thought and everyone having a stake in the outcome. 

"I don't know why the draft was eliminated, but in doing so, America is no longer equal. All men," he said, and then nodded his head wryly, "and women, are created equal. No one is more dispensable than another. And that's what we, the Founding Fathers want you, our descendants to remember. You cannot afford to treat one cog in the overall wheel as less important than any other cog. 

"Child, somehow you must share my words with the rest of the descendants who've inherited this amazing world we fought so hard to begin. 

"Abraham Lincoln did not want to declare war against his brethren, and he battled long and hard against it. Gettysburg, another town in Pennsylvania carries the moans of so many lives cut down, over what was the right thing for all of America. That war was regrettable, but necessary.

"Times changed and he recognized what some of us in my time did not...because of his wisdom, the President currently living in the White House was given the opportunities my generation denied his people. 

"War is not clean and we should never jump into one without knowing what war is.

"That, My Child is my message. We need to bring back the fairness of all being subject to paying the price for the decision of war. When the draft was ended, the depth of the destruction war brings has been lost to the masses. It needs to come back."

"Mr. President, who will listen?"

"No one, if the words aren't out there, but like the pebble in the lake, it makes little impact, one would think, but the ripples that pebble releases  eventually alter every inch, every fathom, every creature within that lake. 

"So you have my message. I will leave you now, and let you figure out how to spread my message."

I watched what moments ago seemed to be a solid man, fade into sparkling motes of energy and then just disappear.

Looking over the notes, I felt my gut flip a time or two. I am not a militant person, but everything the President said made sense to me. 

In that moment though, I knew my title...An Omelet is a Terrible Thing To Waste. Because I had a feeling my brain had cracked and an omelet a la brain was on the menu.

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