The Wrath of Jeremy (6 page)

“Oh, really? Because according to your
grammar school records, in seventh grade your teacher and class
said you were attacked by something not there; I like to call it …
stigmata.”

“Yeah, well, it happened quickly, so it’s out
of my mind.”

Suddenly, Jeremy had a memory of his
stigmata: flashes of light came with his thoughts, showing him
sitting in class reading out loud, when suddenly blood pierced
through his hands, feet, and all around his head, causing his body,
with the pain and agony, to shoot toward the blackboard of the
classroom, and turn it blood red. With the blood pouring from each
of the wounds and developing a puddle that his eyes couldn’t
forget, the sounds of classmates’ screams could be heard. Jeremy
then pushed away that memory by force, and said to Mary, “I don’t
really want to talk about it, Mary. It was a long time ago, at
least to me, and my church didn’t rule it to be anything of the
sort!”

“The reason why is because they didn’t
witness it themselves and your parents wanted to cover it up. I am
just trying to tell you, Jeremy, and prove to you that I know a lot
about you, and you can trust me. I don’t know why this is happening
to you, or why you had those stigmata before, but I am here to help
you. So, to get off of that horrid subject, let’s go down the list
of the things you told me. Now, you already told me that your
father is a lawyer and your mother is a housewife. Let’s see, you
are an only child. Oh, I know, tell me more about Jennifer. How
long have you two been dating?”

Jeremy covered up his wrists by putting his
hands in his pants pockets, allowing him to forget the last
conversation about one of his terrible secrets, and move on to a
more cheerful and normal subject, his love life. He liked Mary’s
character, feeling comfortable with it, like talking to an old time
friend. So he smiled and gave out a laugh, and replied, “Well,
we’ve been dating for a little over six months and we’re not having
sex yet. Um, she broke up with me last week because I’m a freak.
You see, I went over to her house for supper with her family and I
began to see a statue of Jesus that was on her supper table moving
about. But she called me up yesterday and said she wanted to talk.
So hopefully we’ll get back together. Is that enough for you?” Mary
began laughing at his last words, while Jeremy giggled as well in
the cheerful melody of humor.

“I think that’s sufficient. Except, Jeremy,
you are not a freak.”

As she said her words, Jeremy started to
stare at six little children on the green grass next to two
beautifully filled oak trees, all holding hands and singing “Ring
around the roses”. Mary began saying something else, but Jeremy
went into a trance, still gazing at these children laughing and
spinning about, feeling his own sweat beginning to form as fast as
a hummingbird’s wings could flap, and his eyes widened toward this
scene so that he could feel a bit of pain from his lids stretching
past their normal point.

“Jeremy, what’s wrong?” Mary asked, seeing
this abrupt change in behavior and not liking it.

Jeremy got up slowly from the bench and
walked toward the children, with the singing going through his mind
as he said in softness, “I’ve seen that before.” Jeremy realized
that a memory was coming back to him, a memory he never knew he
had. As he watched the children spinning in what seemed to him was
slow motion, the children dropped to the grass and began laughing.
Mary got up as well and stood behind him while he watched, and then
suddenly Jeremy passed out and found himself in another part of his
mind that separates dreams from reality. It was like he was in
between.

The children’s singing went through his mind
still, with him seeing clouds and the children who were holding
hands. A sudden flashback commenced for Jeremy, with one child
saying, “Come on, I’m tired of this game!”

One of the children asked, “Well, Michael,
what else do you want to play?”

Jeremy gazed around at this new landscape,
waiting for his eyes to come into full focus, and realized he was
standing on clouds, with green valleys and trees of wonder and
delight, with miniature fairies and other mythical creatures
frolicking about this world. Ice-capped mountains and a summer’s
breeze swarmed together as one, with lights of gold and blue that
were fairies floating about, running all through the sky. He smiled
and began walking closer to the children, realizing they were
angels, with wings of beauty hanging from their backs and mystery
of a heavenly wonder sitting in their eyes. His confusion grew
rapidly. The young child angel named ‘Michael’ sat on the ground of
heavenly clouds, asking the angel that wanted to play another game,
“I don’t know, what do you want to play, David?”

Where am I…? Jeremy’s mind questioned over
and over again, while he walked closer to the angel children,
listening in on their conversation, hearing the angel named ‘David’
ask another angel out of the six, “I don’t know. Hey, why don’t you
think up something, Lucifer? You have the most powers.” The
question David asked was in sarcasm, and the other angels laughed
toward the angel Lucifer, picking on him through their giggles.

Jeremy stood his distance, seeing their
beautiful silhouettes but not having their faces in focus, and only
having their voices in perfect volume to understand them. He saw
the angel they called ‘Lucifer’ shrugging his shoulders in sadness,
and hearing him say in defense toward all the angels, “That’s
right, I do have the most powers!”

The giggles worsened, like they were jealous
of Lucifer’s gifts, and wanted him to think they didn’t believe he
had the powers they all wanted. The giggles showed evil in them
all, while Jeremy looked at the sadness on this innocent angel,
with a history of evil, in concern, allowing Jeremy’s head to be
confused at this oxymoronic sight he saw.

The angel David stuck out his tongue toward
Lucifer, pushing him against the other angels and having them
pushing him back, creating a circle where the ball was him, and
their motive for throwing it was that of jealousy. It was like they
were bullies in a schoolyard, with David screaming out, “No you
don’t. Our father has the most powers of all!”

A tear fell from Lucifer’s eyes, screaming in
defense that allowed Jeremy’s own ears to hurt, “No he doesn’t, he
gave me more powers than himself!”

“Oh yeah? Then why don’t you show us? Why
don’t you go up to him right now and use your powers on him?”
Michael yelled.

Jeremy sat down on the clouds in disbelief,
actually feeling sympathy for a creature that his own world has
been taught to hate for very good reasons. Evil was being picked on
in front of Jeremy’s eyes, and good was being the bully. He felt a
gut instinct to stop this charade, or else stop this abuse of the
creature called Lucifer. Jeremy felt that if something was good or
evil, no one should cause pain or agony by teasing another person.
So, without a thought, without any force in himself to hold Jeremy
back, he got up and began walking toward the angels, seeing them
push the angel Lucifer even more, allowing more tears and pain to
shed from Lucifer’s eyes and wings of beauty. Jeremy’s walking
turned to running, passing by miniature fairies as they stood on
rose petals and sunflower leaves, watching this argument and trying
to yell toward Jeremy not to get involved. He did not hear their
faint voices, and kept up his stride, wanting this scene to stop,
knowing he was here, in this realm, for a reason. His feet began to
feel heavy, that of a dream landscape, yet he fought the weight,
and kept up his run, finally reaching the circle of angels, and
yelling at the top of his lungs, “Leave him alone!” But the
children couldn’t hear him.

All Jeremy could do was listen to the next
abusive word, and pray that this scene would be over with soon, and
he could return to the park with Mary to comfort his new
experience. “Hey, Peter, do you think Lucifer is the most powerful
of all?” Michael asked in a sarcastic way. Michael then yanked one
of Lucifer’s feathers from his silvery white wings of beauty,
plucking it out in an instant, causing it to bleed and have the
blood running down Lucifer’s back. He held the feather high in the
air, like a wand of power, proving to all, especially Lucifer
himself, that he was not powerful at all. The feather was a prize,
and the blood shed on his back was the entertainment.

The angel named Peter, seeing Michael still
holding the bloody feather, laughed out loud toward Lucifer’s
crying eyes, and shouted, “Hey, Christopher, how about you, do you
think Lucifer is the greatest, the most powerful being ever?”

Christopher giggled. “No, I think he’s the
weakest angel of all!”

The five angels of beauty, with souls of
disgrace, folded in more toward Lucifer, yelling, taunting, and
laughing at him, watching his back bleeding and not caring about
the pain he had in him. Jeremy, full of puzzlement and sadness, saw
one shining tear out of many falling from this angel Lucifer’s
eyes, like his soul was bleeding out with agony. Jeremy tried once
again to stop the other angels from picking on him, but they still
couldn’t see or hear him. Jeremy turned a bit, and saw millions of
fairies standing on millions of flowers in the distance, all crying
themselves, and Jeremy just stood there, not knowing what to do.
That’s when Jeremy stood silent and watched the scene, saying no
more to stop the battle.

Suddenly, Lucifer shouted, “Alright, I’ll
show all of you, I’ll prove I’m the most powerful!”

“I got to see this. God isn’t going to like
this one bit,” giggled David, with all of them following Lucifer as
he walked toward a forest of gold.

Jeremy followed them at the same time as the
clouds of white became dark green meadows of wonder, and entered
the forest of gold, turning into a forest of pure green on the
inside. The animals, fairies and Jeremy followed these six angels
as they walked fast, with Jeremy stopping for a second and gazing
up through the trees toward the sky, filled with rainbows of colors
that he didn’t even know existed. He was in a trance, seeing angels
upon angels flying and soaring through the sky like automobiles on
a highway. Jeremy was intrigued. But then he heard a loud noise,
like a door slamming, and turned away from the heavens, only to see
that the angels were gone from his sight, and in his view was the
angel Christopher running around a corner and toward Jeremy, like
he was being chased from a fear that came abruptly to his angel
eyes. Jeremy grabbed Christopher as he passed him and asked,
“What’s wrong?”

Christopher’s young and beautiful frightened
eyes looked up at him and answered, “Lucifer’s gonna get in trouble
if he goes against Father!”

“Wait, you can hear me? Where am I?”

Before Christopher could answer Jeremy, he
disappeared into thin air, allowing Jeremy’s eyes to show
frustration at this new mystery of appearance. He saw the corner
where Christopher came running from before, and ran toward it,
following it, only to have his mouth drop once he passed it. Before
Jeremy stood a palace, a gigantic palace that had thousands of
stairs leading up to it, as it floated in the heavens, with the
angels circling around it like a twister of love. His eyes followed
the stairs, seeing that they led to two enormous doors. As he
looked closer, he saw the palace was on a single cloud, like a
magical secret uncovered, and his eyes were the only witness.
Without thinking, Jeremy ran toward the first stair and stepped on
it, questioning, “How the hell am I gonna walk up all these stairs?
It’s gonna take me at least a day!”

Before he began his journey up the staircase,
the angel children came soaring down them, shooting past Jeremy,
knocking him down. It was all the children, and they were pushing
at Lucifer. The angel David shouted, “You see, I knew you couldn’t
do it!”

“I could to, I just didn’t want to do it
now,” defended Lucifer’s young self, before Peter and David started
hitting him on his angelic head.

David yelled toward Lucifer, while pushing
him, “Just because you sit on the left-hand side of Father doesn’t
mean you’re more powerful than him!” David slapped Lucifer in the
face while finishing with, “It just means you are a kiss-up and a
chicken!”

“You’re just jealous of me, all of you,”
cried Lucifer, with Jeremy falling to the marble staircase in
weakness.

This scene confused Jeremy once more, saying
in fatigue, “I didn’t know angels talked like this.”

David kicked Lucifer in the leg, shouting,
“Oh, yeah, I’m jealous of your bright pulsating self. Listen, I
wouldn’t want light coming from me, you look like a firefly that
Father just created in one of his works. Lucifer, he just gave you
simple powers, not the power to create, like Father does every time
he paints a picture. You are nothing but a bright thing.”

Lucifer started to cry more, especially after
this realm took over the silence, and the silence took over it,
deafening his ears and causing a weakness that he couldn’t
understand where it came from. Lucifer whimpered, and cried, “One
day I’ll show you—I’ll show all of you.” He took flight and
disappeared into the skies of wonder, with pain to his flight.

They laughed again, then the angel Gabriel
asked, “When is that going to be?”

Jeremy tried to get up, but his weakness was
growing, and David asked, as he spotted Lucifer in the skies,
“Yeah, when are you going to do it?”

Lucifer turned around in the sky and was
still, waiting to speak, craving to find the right words. They all
waited, while this angel of future evil shined his body light more
and opened up his mouth.

“It’s going to be in about an hour,” a voice
said, with Jeremy opening up his eyes and seeing the words coming
from Mary talking to a stewardess, walking away from him and Mary.
Finding himself on a plane, his tired eyes opened more with
bewilderment, bouncing up from his seat and yelling, “What the hell
happened? Where am I?”