Silverback Spines

Failed, yet Bailed

Monkeys on my back,
Needed to be thrown,
Like demons; they try to tell me what I lack,
Yet they have no right to talk to me in that tone,
For I am the Lord’s child,
I am protected, albeit by a tainted anointment,
Eventually I crack if they have enough piled,
Yet if something comes up; I’ll change my scheduled appointment,
As the snow fell,
I could feel the big chip embedded in my shoulder,
That monkey hurt so much I had to start ringing the bell,
I exhaled a deep breathe of chained smoke and a weight lifts off me by the boulder,
Something I had to prove,
Doesn’t matter who or what for,
I had to write something; whether it deserves to be in the Louvre,
So I wrote my own truth; a piece o my Lore,,
And it may not be perfect yet,
But at least I’ve won a certain battle,
I see those demons around me beginning to fret,
For every time I pray, hope, or love is a closer moment to their death rattle,
Yea, that’s right, I’m finally beginning to understand the true meaning of love,
Even if I completely miss the point at times,
My inspiration; my reason; my hope; comes from above,
How else could I write all this prose and jot all these rhymes?
I’m letting go of this world,
Or at least attempting to take a pass,
Though around some things my heart is still tightly curled,
But with Abba on my side, how long do you think that’ll last?
So today I vanquished a small foe,
Who knows what tomorrow shall bring,
Every day is a chance for my spirit to grow,
For the language of God I’m still learning to sing...


Jacob’s Ladder

Passage
He gripped her hand in his, though he knew that she was slipping into eternity. He tried to smile, but all he could manage was a slight upturn of his lips. Tears fell steadily from his face, impacting the bed sheets and quickly disappearing within them. He could feel the warmth ebbing from her fingers, so he gripped them more tightly, as if his life force would keep hers from departing.
Fiera’s piercing green eyes looked up into his, smiling as though she knew something that he did not.
“Jacob, you know there’s no use crying. Hell, you know better than anyone, I’d like to live, but this isn’t so bad. I need you to take care of Fian when I’m gone. I promised him I would take him to the Verge, and see if those rumors about Starvyrns are true.” Jacob tried to chortle, and instead choked in his tears, spluttering to get a hold of himself.
“I will, I promise, but it shouldn’t be like this.... it shouldn’t end like this. This is not supposed to happen, not to you. I’ve prayed, I’ve prayed! You’re supposed to be healed!” he seethed.
“You’re probably right. Nothing should be like it is. I should never have been born, I should never have met you, but I did. And I am blessed for it. My life hasn’t been perfect, but because of Fian and you, I’ve known love, I’ve known peace.” she said, her vibrant red hair shining with the sunlight that was spilling through the small hospice window.
“What good is love when it can’t save you? What good am I, when I can’t save you? Why can’t there be a miracle?”
“Jacob! This is not your fault. Don’t keep blaming yourself. There’s nothing you could have done.” she said, in the most authoritative tone her now frail body could muster.
“Yes there was, I could have prayed more. I could have had more faith. I could of-“
“You know better than I do, Jacob Tren, that miracles do not work like that. They occur if they will and they won’t if they shan’t. I don’t know why God let this happen to me, but it did. And it wasn’t your fault. It was nobody’s fault!”
At this, the young woman began to cough violently. Her whole frame rocked the bed back and forth several times. Jacob reached for the glass of water by her bedside, tenderly tipping it into her parched mouth.
“You shouldn’t strain yourself like that, Fiera. The doctors say that every time you do the Crystal Blaze that’s already in your body multiplies. You should rest-“ he was cut off in mid sentence by Fiera’s curt sigh.
“There is no time left to rest, bring Fian in.” She picked up the ancient Old Earth bible that was on her bedside table and handed it to the slightly older man.
“Never lose that.” she said emphatically, a glint in her eye drove a crescendo of peace that momentarily transcended all his feelings of guilt and loss. It was a look of love that traveled beyond all romance, all siblinghood, and all friendship. It was a look that Jacob Tren would keep close to his heart for the rest of his life.
Jacob could feel the sobs trembling up to the surface of his visage. Before he could say goodbye, he had slammed the door behind him. Tears flowed down his bearded cheeks, as he fell to the floor, clutching his Bible. He knew that was the last time he would ever see her; at least in this life.
Loss
Cold walls on all sides. Jacob woke with a fright, a frosty sweat beading down his numb body. Switching on the dim electric light above his bunk, his eyes swiveled around the room. He was used to star flight, so his eyes adjusted automatically to the abrupt light. His eyes rested momentarily on the bible wedged between the uneven floor plating of the Starblazer. He quickly turned away from the sight. He did not need that memory coming back again.
The man rose from his bed shakily, donning his usual white vest and leather jacket, which he had left lying on the floor the previous night. He picked up an aged wooden cross necklace Fiera had given him years ago. The strap was severed, and the cross was slightly battered. As if it pained him to look upon it, Jacob cursed bitterly, and stuffed it into his tattered jeans’ back pocket.
The door to his room whisked open, and the youthful Fian Fincook appeared before him. His freckled face and red hair shone brilliantly in the Solitaire’s lighting. Magnificently vivid blue eyes blinked, as he smiled exuberantly. Bedecked in the finest of satins that seemed to flow from his slender form like a waterfall, the youth of less than twenty years spoke.
“Jacob- we’ve just passed Thor, last planet before the Verge. It’s been three months I’ve waited for this- and we could be seeing Starvyrns in the next several hours.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, kid. We don’t even know if these things exist, let alone if we will be able to see one with all the space debris floating around here. You know how your sister was with all her fantastic stories, she always had her head in the clouds back home on Olympus.”
“That’s why you love her.” said the boy tentatively, his eyes glistening with tears that had been forthcoming as of late. Tren stopped for a split second, and looked straight at his friend, almost daring not to breath, holding the moment for as long as he could. His eyes darted away eventually. The memories were all too real.
“Yea,” he settled on “that’s why I love her...loved her.” Jacob said with finality.
“I’ll be on the bridge if you want to join me for the last few moments of our journey.” Fian changed the subject, not wishing to rub any more sore wounds regarding his sister for Jacob.
“I’d like that very much. I’ll meet you there in a few.” Fian’s boots clattered along the star traveling vessel, filling the Solitaire with a sound strangely reminiscent to that of church bells.
Jacob bent down to strap his boots around his calloused feet. He passed through the door and along the shaft-like hallway that connected his room with the bridge. The door to the bridge lay before him; its steel face seemed harsh and unmerciful. Even though he was twenty-five, Jacob felt a stab of fear enter his being. He had no idea what lay beyond that door. He fervently wished that Fiera’s myth would not lead to false hope for Fian. The boy had seen enough disappointment in his life.
Despite this sudden icy feeling, the man pushed it down and entered the bridge. Fian sat on one of the chairs that were fastened to the floor panels, his feet up on the vessel’s control desk. The Solitaire must be on autopilot, guessed Jacob.
The view panel stretched across the breadth of the room, jutting out with the ship’s nose slightly. Two stubby wings used for landing on turbulent planets were barely visible on each side.
Stars were above and below them, around them, over and under them, and flying past them. Small meteorites spun in space as they sped by, already they were “venturing the Verge” as it was known as throughout the Astral Realms.
Thor had passed below them moments before, it’s icy interior barely noticeable among all the fleeting suns.
The Starblazer began to slow as they neared the coordinates of several fabled sightings of Starvyrns. A star, which hung slightly to their left shone brightly, casting light and shadows over the asteroid field that littered this section of space. The two young men looked at each other. Jacob’s heart sank as he glimpsed the naiive optimism that shone in his companion’s eyes.
In some ways, it was going to be harder to turn back on his friend’s last dying wish when they inevitably would find only rocks and dust than it was losing her.
Jacob wondered if Fian would ever forgive him. He sat down beside Fincook, and followed his example, adjusting his legs across the control panel in mock assuredness.
If it were meant to be that Fiera’s dreams would die here, then he would sit with her brother and watch them fade. He was already beginning to lose hope. But he couldn’t. This was the last thing she had asked him to do. So he would keep searching, for Fian’s sake...for her sake.
Tren could not count the hours that both he and Fian spent staring out into the blackness. Seldom did they speak, each almost drowning in the proverbial sea of thoughts and memories they each had that were trying to brim to the surface.
It was almost eight hours later that Fian’s head rested on his friend’s broad shoulder, his slender chest rising up and down in discontented sleep. Jacob tried to keep his eyes open and his head from titling to one side, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Even his eyelashes had begun to ache. The tiniest shift in shadow caught the corner of his eye, and his whole head swerved, his cheek bumped against Fian’s red hair. The youth awoke, startled, and then looked to where Jacob was frantically pointing.
A distant wing flapped from a crater within a spiraling asteroid. Two crushed hearts leaped simultaneously. Her truth would be revealed.

***

The wooden door of the hospice room creaked open. Jacob Tren already knew what had happened, as the slim silhouette of Fian Fincook shuffled into the reception room dejectedly.
Jumping up from the seat he had been praying, crying, and sitting upon, the man ran behind a pillar. Fian could not see him like this. Not yet. Fiera had asked him to protect her younger brother, and he would do just that. Even from seeing his own pain.
Tears, which stung his eyes with their heat, trickled along his brown beard. These were no longer tears of pity and pain, but tears of rage. He breathed heavily and rapidly; a feeling of outright betrayal gripped his very heart and soul.
He violently ripped the necklace from his neck, and flung it on the floor in a seemingly childish temper. If God would not listen to him, he was done listening to God. He had prayed, he had obeyed, and in return, Fiera, a friend that he had cherished from the very bottom of his heart, had died. Now, he swore, his faith had died too. How could you believe when all that you tried to do ultimately avails to nothing? When love avails to nothing, what is the point of having faith in the mirage?
Then he stopped his racing mind, and heard the sobs that emanated from behind the pillar. Fian’s cries ricocheted off the walls, ceiling, and floor like an anguished banshee. His parents, and now his beloved sister; gone- just like that, just two years apart.
He was all alone in this world. Not if Jacob had anything to say about it. He would carry out Fiera’s last wish, he still had that much love left in him. Jacob Tren walked towards his kneeling, sobbing friend. Fian gazed up from his aggrieved stupor, snot and tears streaming from every orphus on his face.
“The doctors said the Blaze Crystal content from that asteroid she had the accident on were rising too high in all her veins. They tried to save her...she fought for months...” the boy could not complete his sentence, and fell into another bout of uncontrolled splutters and moans.
Jacob forcibly pulled the boy by the shoulders into a standing position facing him. Pulling Fian towards his broad chest, he fiercely hugged him. Despite the shirt he was wearing, his chest became soaking wet in the first few moments. They stood that way for what seemed hours. They sobbed into one another, oblivious to any passing traffic.
Eventually, there were no tears they could cry anymore. Both men could not sustain any more; at least not for now, their eyes dry and red.
“Well, pack your belongings. We’re taking a ride in my Starblazer, the Solitaire.” said Jacob matter-of-factly.
“Why?” asked Fian
“We’re going to search for those Starvyrns of Fiera’s.”
“I couldn’t think of a better send off for her. We always promised each other as kids, if one of us couldn’t, the other would find them. Thank you.” Fian weakly smiled.
Hope
“I knew it, I knew it! I knew she was right! Good ole’ Fiera! Never could prove her wrong!” Fian shouted, jumping up and down in an excited fervor.
Jacob Tren couldn’t even bring himself to open his mouth. It seemed his throat had closed and all the saliva in his mouth had dissipated. Even if he could speak, he would not have been able to find the words to describe all the emotions he was feeling. The sight was too beautiful, too terrible, too profound, and now obviously too inevitable for him to fully understand.
The wing flapped experimentally in the starlight, and then pushed off with a force that Jacob could feel cause a tremble that rolled straight through his gut.
Like the dragons of Old Earth’s ancient lore, the Starvyrn was indeed a sight to behold. Two wings that must have had a forty-meter wingspan flapped on seemingly nothing. There were obviously no air currents that the creature could logically fly upon. But, Jacob had just ceased to believe in logic.
The body was the same color as the asteroids, a mottled brownish gray, which both the humans assumed to be used for camouflage, but they both couldn’t even conceive what the magnificent beast could be hiding from, other than man.
Muscles rippled all the way along the Starvyrn’s chest and stubby limbs, which were tucked expertly underneath its girth. Leathery skin gave way to horns and spines that glinted off the sun’s light like a hundred phoenix alighting all at once on a cloudless day. Its eyes shone with the strength of a thousand moons, icy light blue irises cascading over dark blue pupils. The Starvyrn’s mouth opened, and Jacob felt as though he was hearing music on a harp being played for the very first time.
Even though the two travelers were in an airtight vehicle, they were still able to hear every inflection and tone in the animal’s song. The serenaded lasted over an hour, as the Starvyrn looped, twisted, dodged, and barreled through the asteroid starscape. As the creature sang its song and flew- if that’s what one would call it- it seemed to release a vibrant energy that seemed to resound around the whole area. The sun, to the asteroids, even the smallest and seemingly insignificant grains of dust, seemed to be alive with the joy of the Starvyrn’s life force.
Though haunting and seemingly from an age gone by, the song held a hint of triumph that was bursting forth; despite the struggle, despite the pain. In a place that seemed to be barren, abandoned, and lonesome, the animal was letting go of itself and tapping into the ebb and flow of the universe.
For the first time in months, Jacob began to realize what he had truly lost. He turned to Fian, who had tears flowing down his cheek, a dazed smile spread across his features. Tren could not help himself; he too began to weep with the joy of letting Fiera, letting a part of himself go. Yet, he was not truly letting her be claimed by past memories, he was letting go of all the rage, all the bitterness, all the sadness he had been feeling. It was replaced by a feeling of blessing, blessing to have had her as a friend, despite its brevity, and blessing to enjoy such a magnificent sight with such a close friend.
Jacob could feel a smile spreading across his face, rising from a sense of exuberance that had been building within his chest, within his very being. Breaths of life were erupting from within him, and he found himself laughing with the sheer absurdity of the rut in which his mind had become accustomed to operating in.
“How do you think it works?” he said.
“What works?”
“You know- well, how do you think he flies?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” Fian was also beginning to laugh.
Tension that had been rising between them, despite their unity in grief, began to fade, what was left was a feeling of contentment with each other. It was a feeling of knowing exactly what the other one was thinking, without even having to say it, just by looking at the person from a certain angle, they could be certain that each had faith in the other, each could trust one another. That peace, which is closest word we have for the state of mind, was what they each had held for Fiera. A peace that Fiera had left them with, which they had not been noticing until that point.
Only then did Jacob realize the real reason why Fiera had sent the two that she had loved most in the world on a journey to find this mythical, beautiful, joyous diamond in the rough. It had been to find answers, it had been to find the truth. The truth, which had lain within them all along.
“She sent us here on purpose. She told me to protect you, but perhaps she meant for you to protect me.” He said, epiphanies trickling from his mind like a continuous stream. At this, Fian started giggling almost manically, like a geyser expelling all trace of waste.
“Funny, she told me to protect you as well.” He said. Jacob already had guessed she had said something like that to Fian. He loved her for it.
A long pause, interrupted only by intermittent chuckles from both sides of the bridge, ensued. Fian finally broke the silence.
“So, where should we go from here?” asked Fian, gaining control, at least slightly, of his giggles.
“I have no idea. I don’t think anyone does. All I know is, we’ll go where we’re meant to.”
Jacob Tren reached into his back pocket for the cross and string, and pulled it out. He tied it around his neck. He looked above him at a point in the ceiling. Jacob smiled the biggest smile he had yet to smile.
Where we’re meant to...