Dragonfly

[inkspot]

He was smiling at us, the picture of health, of something beyond health, the picture of resurrection. Maggie had been right! His jacket was golden, his wounds were healed, and if anything he was more alive than we’d ever seen him before. He was ultra-alive, to the point where he was almost too much, too big, to be in the wheelhouse.

Maggie threw herself into his arms, then Phyllis did. I think my knees buckled, because suddenly I was sitting on the bench opposite Pete, and I think this time my jaw had dropped. I was just staring. I wasn’t alone, though. Bruiser was staring, too, and Franz and Mateo.

It was as if the sun had come up behind us ... and climbed right into the boat with us! The two boys and the ladies came running from the bow, with Jack leading them, and he threw himself at Torstein as shamelessly as Maggie and Phyllis had. Torstein was embracing them all, somehow, when Marigold and Caroline and Tawny piled in.

I’ll tell you something. At a moment like this, you don’t really have the time or ability to think: This can’t be happening. And it’s not at all like those dreams you sometimes have of dead people where it seems normal they’re there, and you ask them about being dead, but they’re real casual about it. You knew, in some remote and impoverished corner of your mind, that this can’t be, and yet at the same time, you were overwhelmed by the warmth, the brightness, the life, the love — everything that used to emanate from Torstein before — now just poured out of him in waves. It swept us all up in him.

Pete, he had just been sitting and staring, like me. But he was squinting, almost as if Torstein were too bright to look at.

Torstein was kissing everyone on the forehead, and then pushing them, gently, away from him. He turned to Bruiser and me, and kissed us, too. It felt like the touch of a cool breeze, it smelt like the salt of the sea air, and then, I think, I slumped back against the wall, amazed, and happy.

“Mateo, you came,” Torstein said. I watched as he took Mateo’s face in his hands, kissed his forehead, and smiled at him. “I knew you would.”

Mateo’s eyes began to shine. The pale and desperate man from the previous morning was completely banished, and the former mobster’s man looked like Sully or Van, like a kid at Christmas.

Then Torstein was standing in front of Pete, who was still looking down at his knees where he sat.

“Pete, Pete,” Torstein said softly. “Don’t you love me?”

“Of course I love you,” Pete said to his knees. “But I —”

“But nothing! Do you love me?”

“You know I love you.”

“Do you — more than the rest of my friends?”

“Yes! Of course, yes,” Pete said, looking up miserably now.

Torstein was smiling at him, that brilliant smile now kicked up a thousand watts. “I know you do,” he said. “Do you know what your name means, Peter? It’s from petra, Greek for rock. You’re my rock now. I think before, you thought you were a rock because you were strong, and you were tough, and you were fearless. But that’s not your foundation Pete. That’s not what makes you a rock. It’s love. Love is your greatest weapon, and love is your firmest foundation. Forget what you used to believe about yourself, and embrace this instead. Embrace love.”

He reached out and gripped Pete’s shoulders, pulling him up to standing, hugging him hard, slapping his back.

[DestinyLies]

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. I love it!!!! It's awesom Jax!

[inkspot]

I am actually rewriting now based on comments here and elsewhere, but here's the rest as it stands now...
_________________________________________________

The sun had risen now, the day was bright. The blue water bobbed in white caps that sparkled like no shining ocean I’d ever seen before. The boat was drifting as Jazz stared in wonder at Torstein — and Pete, who drew away from him a new man, standing taller even than before. The awful pallor, that had colored him from the moment those thugs had driven away with Torstein, was now replaced by a flushed radiance of joy that reflected the glow of our amazing friend.

The ladies were crying, so touched were they by Torstein’s words. I guess I was still staring, silent, mute.

“Look here,” Torstein said. “I’m going away. To my Father — and your Father. You’ll follow me there in his good timing, but until we meet again, you know what you have to do. Love is your common bond. Joy is your strength. Beauty, grace, forgiveness, mercy. That’s all I can leave with you. And it’s all you need.”

“Do you have to go?” Sully said.

Kneeling down to face the boys, Torstein replied:

“I’m already gone. Look at me. I’m already too alive to be here. Did you ever see anyone glow like this?”

“You always glowed ...” Sully said.

“So do you,” Torstein said, pulling both boys close, hugging them. “Now you’ve got to go on glowing, and glow even more, because I won’t be here. You’ve got to be the sunflowers that spring up from my seeds. That’s what I’m asking you to do. Will you do it?”

Both boys agreed they would, though I doubt they understood what he was asking.

He stood up, buoyant, full of life, and it was easy to see that what he’d told the boys was true. He wasn’t dead anymore, but he was too alive for this place. His vigor was overwhelming the clothes he wore, even somehow the body he inhabited — and we could tell that wherever this vitality came from, it was bursting to get back there. It was too much for this world. It was something huge and powerful, beautiful, but just too much.

“It’s all right,” he said. “you’ll be like this, too, when you continue on the way of love. Your body may wither and die, probably you’ll perish violently like I did, but the spirit you’ve inherited from me today will grow and abound and expand until you’ll be too big and too alive to stay here. Looking back from the other side, you’ll see this world was a cold, dead place compared to the world to come, the world that is, waiting for you — where I am.”

“I thought you said we created the world we’d always wanted when we acted in love,” Tawny said.

“Exactly! You’re changing this world, and you’re being changed by it. You’ll find that in the end you come to the same place, the place of life that’s more living than any life you’ve ever lived.” He grinned as if he were making sense, and all the light around us on this bright spring morning seemed to coalesce in his eyes. “That place is pulling me back. And right now, it’s beginning to pull at you, too. From this moment on, you’ll only be growing more and more homesick for this place of abundance where you’ve never been. But I’m there, and I’m with you.”

I can’t begin to tell you what happened after that. I don’t think I rightly know. There was an enormous amount of light, but of a kind that didn’t seem to hurt our eyes. And there was a wonderful sea breeze with a tangy taste and smell of salt that somehow cooled and refreshed. There was a hole in the sky where the clouds made way for a glimpse of deepest blue, like dark night beyond. And there was Torstein, over all, above all, in all ... And then he was gone.

Jazz turned the boat around, to take us back to the mainland. In our eyes, and in our hearts, each of us carried a little bit of the astonishing glow that had leapt from Torstein’s smile. We had begun to live in the corners of that smile. We’d begun to be called to another land, another world, only reached by militant loving ... radical caring ... outrageous giving ... furious forgiving. And we wanted it so badly, we were committed to pursue it, and to share it, with all our lives.

If and how we’ve managed to change the world since that day, history will judge.

One thing I know: once I was blind, but now I truly see.

[DestinyLies]

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am sad it's over..yet glad!! LOVE IT JAX!!!!

[inkspot]

Thanks, you're so sweet! You're about the 4th person to have read it all the way through. I have some rough spots to work out and a few plot changes to make, and then it will really be finished, I hope! But the majority is done, now. I wrote an "Afterword" that told what happened to all the characters, but maybe I will keep that one to write sequels from.

[DestinyLies]

Aw sweet! I feel special! haha. Can't wait to read more (if you post any)