Darjeeling Promoting Free Will 

A Visit With The Pope II

“Who gets the Mickey’s?” he laughed and stumbled spilling some of the drinks on the tray and the floor. The long haired man helped a now feeble Pope John to his chair and cleaned up the spillage. Pope John reached for the green bottle and smiled as he chug-a-lugged about half of it. The long haired man motioned to Darjeeling. It was apparent he was leaving but first he told Darjeeling, “Sit next to Mary.” Then he turned and left. Darjeeling followed him to the door, wanting to say something to him but didn’t come up with anything. He turned back around and fell back against the closed door. In front of him was another man. A man whose face was closely covered with white cloth and whose hands were gloved in white. His face was turned toward him but he had no eyes to see and no mouth or ears to talk or hear. The man just stood there “staring” at Darjeeling who looked at him imploringly. The man raised his right hand palm up and pointed at it with his left. In his gloved hand were several bent nails of different sizes. He offered them to Darjeeling but then pulled them back and pointed to the door. In the door frame were other similar nails which had been hammered into the wood. Where each entered the wood, a small drop of blood emerged. Darjeeling looked back at him and was shocked to see that his hands, both now palm up, had splotches of fresh blood in the palms. Tears came to Stephen’s eyes and he heard the door behind him open. The long haired man took the hands of the cloth covered man and turned him around, leading him to a chair beside the Pope. He motioned for Stephen to sit next to Mary.
Now above them another man appeared, playing a curious stringed instrument that looked like a triangular violin with three strings. He was in the balcony and tied the instrument to a rope, letting it down toward the floor. Then he grabbed hold of another rope and began to rappel down the crossbeam that supported the balcony. He looked menacing to Stephen who was now afraid for the Pope’s safety. The man looked at him and reassured him. “I don’t like to play at heights.” He had his bow tucked under his arm so it appeared that it was stuck in his side.
Darjeeling now noticed that the Pope’s feet had huge scars on them from the tops of the feet to well past the ankles. The Pope appeared debilitated and old and had to be helped to his feet by Mary and the man with the long hair. As they escorted him away, the cloth covered man and the musician followed. The Pope waved backwards with his right hand. “The audience is over Stephen.” And they went out the door. Stephen followed them and went through the door, stepping out into the warm Italian sunshine. There was no one to be seen in any direction and he was alone.

A Visit With The Pope

Darjeeling made his way down the grassy slope next to the wall of the Vatican. His travels had taken him there by accident as he was on his way back from Istambool. He was in kind of a predicament because while he stood outside the Vatican in St. Peter’s Square, the public square where travelers from all over the world wait to see the Pope come to the window and bless them, he suddenly realized that he needed to find a place where he could relieve himself because of the Mickey’s he had been drinking. He had them neatly tucked into his traveling cooler and was immensely enjoying the walkabout on the square while having a cold one. Some folks looked down on him but most of them didn’t even notice, and for the most part he was invisible as he walked to the southern wall that outlined the Basilica area on the south side of the Vatican grounds. As he walked along outside the Vatican walls he looked around at the beautiful grounds. He heard some people talking at a door just a little way ahead of him. He could see one of them, a tall man with long brown hair dressed in tanned leather robe that looked almost Souixan Native American to Darjeeling. There were some ornamental beads on the neckline and it was held at the waist by a three or four inch wide belt of the same soft, light brown leather. This man was standing outside the arched doorway and speaking to someone who was standing inside on the Vatican grounds. The two were having a theological discussion. That was appropriate enough Darjeeling granted as he walked toward the door. The outside man asked the one inside if he knew such and such a dogmatic principle of Catholicism that dealt with the Magisterium Magnum. “No,” the inside man replied. The outside man asked another equally esoteric question as he pushed the heavy wooden door in and stepped inside. Darjeeling heard the inside man reply, “No, I don’t know that one either.”
He could hear the two continue talking as he put his hand on the wooden door just before it latched, stopping it slowly so as not to make a noise. Waiting a moment, he pushed the door in slightly so he could get a line of sight to see if the two were gone. He saw them disappear into another doorway and, figuring out that it was safe, he went inside the Papal grounds, popping open another Mick’s as he looked at the beautiful gardens and flowers. He walked alongside the stone building wall up to the edge of the doorway. He pushed on the latch. The door opened slightly and the heavy brass latch fell making a loud noise. He stopped. He didn’t hear anyone or see anyone coming so he pushed his way cautiously inside where he found himself looking down a labyrinthine hallway. “Should be a bathroom here,” he thought to himself. He heard talking up ahead. Before he knew it, he was at the last doorway in the narrow hall and turning to go through he bumped into the long haired man and the Pope. The two seemed bemused by his presence as he slid by them saying, “Excuse me gentlemen, I was looking for the bathroom.” Pope John The 40th pointed down the hall to the end of a great room. “Over there on the right,” he said in perfect English. Darjeeling said thanks and really needed to get to the lavatory right away. He hurried down the hall and into the bathroom. When he came out he saw that he was in a great room with marble floors and a small swimming pool. In the pool, the Pope relaxed. He looked up at Darjeeling and smiled. “Sorry to bother you, Sir,” Darjeeling offered sheepishly.
“No problem, uh, Stephen, isn’t it?” Pope John languished in the pool, “But first, I would like to ask you a question.” Darjeeling pondered the how and why that Pope John knew who he was and prepared himself for some theological question.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” The Pope offered pointing to a clear glass carafe and some round bottomed glasses at the edge of the pool. He swam over and poured two glasses about half full of the very dark, red wine.
“Sure,” Darjeeling answered. He took the glass offered to him and turned around as he heard someone enter. It was the long haired man and a young woman. Darjeeling thought he knew her but couldn’t really verify that.
“Ah, Mary, you’re here with us, I will get us a bite to eat and some drink,” Pope John arose from the heated pool and walked past the three of them. “Get us some extra sandwiches,” Mary said as he went by, and he laughed as he went out the door. The three of them sat at small tables around the pool and soon Pope John returned with a tray of drinks.

Three Zephyrs II

The little silver wind chime hung in the window of the bedroom inside the house. Inside because it was so delicate that the winds had punished it severely on several occasions until it was feared that it would be broken. Inside it was safe, but on the same note, inside it was silent. It hung there radiating light but no sound, bereft of its intended purpose like an unplayed violin or an unridden kid’s pony. But there was no mistaking the note it played that night. Jing! Only one note struck out of six silver chime tubes that hung on black threads from a wooden disk. The wooden clapper struck the note and Darjeeling woke up. Fighting sleep, he tried to open his eyes but failed and returned to dreaming. Jing! A second note. The same pitch, the same silver tube struck again by the clapper and again he awoke leaving his sleeping body lie upon the bed not moving. He was awake now, his eyes were open, but it was one of those times when you wake up and are cognizant that you are awake but your body has not yet figured out that it is. He didn’t or couldn’t move. Instead, he lay there looking and thinking just as the third note struck. Jing! With that he sat up immediately and looked in the direction of the sound. The wind was howling outside, blowing the trees violently in circles. He heard the old metal lawn chairs blow over and across the patio. The wind blew across the end of the plastic pipe laying on the ground making an eerie sound like a didgeridoo, sending chills through him. He looked about the room and then noticed the bright light in the living room. Getting up out of bed he rushed out there, realizing that the light he was seeing was coming from outside. Looking further and putting his eyeglasses on, he saw the flame in the fireplace. It was blazing two or three feet high and sparks were blowing everywhere. “Fire,” he thought and headed for the patio door. He stopped short at the door with his hand on the doorhandle and stared at the fire outside.
A white shape hovered over the octagonal deck, inside the octagon inscribed at its center. It was a person. A small figure of a man covered with a white robe, with white hair half covered by a white stocking hat. He was looking at the fire and gesticulating with his hands. Darjeeling slowly opened the patio door and stepped out onto the upper deck. The old one turned and looked at him with a serious look and then turned back to the fire and pointed to it with his right hand. The flame of the fire rose out of the fire pit at his bidding. The wind was now howling and again Darjeeling heard his whispered name: “Stephen, what are you doing?” The old man made the flame go wherever he pointed. If he pointed up, it went up. If he pointed down, it went down. He could make it larger or smaller by pulling or pushing it with his hand. He swung his arm in an arc over his head and the flame became a fireball that formed a complete circle about six feet in diameter. Inside, the circle was pure blue like the warm daytime sky he had seen that afternoon. He turned and looked at Darjeeling as he held the circle intact with his right hand and pointed at the center of it with his left, beckoning to it with his finger. From the center of the fire-circle Darjeeling could see a human leg emerging, stepping out onto the wooden deck. It was a female leg with an oriental shoe on her foot. The other leg followed and then the rest of her came from within the circle of fire and she was standing on the deck with the old white-haired man who was still staring at Darjeeling. He stopped the flaming circle with his right hand and continued to point at the women with his left. Now he pointed toward Darjeeling who felt himself being lifted off of the upper deck and transported toward the two. He floated down to the deck and stood facing them. Looking into the eyes of the old one he could see the circle of flames turning and he was transfixed on them. “Stephen,” he turned his head toward the slim Chinese woman and marveled at her beauty. She was ethereal to say the least, with a green cast to her skin and eyes of the purest blue, like the blue of the fire circle. She was dressed in traditional ancient Chinese style; bluish green silk brocade emblazoned with red dragons that moved about on the surface of the sheer fabric. Darjeeling couldn’t speak or move until she put her finger to his lips. It was like he had just woken up. He started to speak. “I am Kuan Yin,” she said as she took his hand. All he could do was follow her toward the flaming circle. It was apparent that she was taking him with her back inside it. He turned and looked at the old man whose circle-of-fire eyes blazed up as the wind whipped his white beard off to the side. He laughed at Darjeeling and pointed at him. Kuan Yin was stepping into the circle holding his hand, but he was powerless to do anything even if he wanted to. Instead he watched as she stepped in and then turned around to face him, pulling him also into the blue sky. It was as if they were soaring up and away from the old man on the deck. He could still see him for a little bit but soon they were out of sight, flying faster and faster toward the full moon. He looked at her and she smiled.
Darjeeling found himself lying next to the limestone fireplace. His cat, Zeeb, was licking his face and the wind had stopped blowing. In his hand he clutched the wind chime which sounded all six notes as he stood up and brushed the ashes and dirt off of his chest and arms. The fire had burned itself out so he made his way across the deck wondering what in the world had happened. When he got to the center he thought about playing T’ai Chi Chuan and then laughed it off. “What am I doing?” He kept repeating as he walked back into the house. “What am I doing?” Echoed off the house and then he thought he heard his whispered name.

Three Zephyrs

Three zephyrs went by Darjeeling one day. He didn’t notice the first one until the other two had gone by. It was a clear Indian summer day in Kansas and he was working out in the winery, wiring in some overhead fluorescent light fixtures. He stopped to take a break with his cat, Zeeb, and to have a cold Mick’s. Walking into the backyard he grabbed some dead tree limbs that had shaken out of the ash and walnut trees and threw them on the pile he had started in the outside fireplace next to the octagonal deck. He kicked his way through the walnut leaves carrying Zeeb in one hand and Mickey in the other, laughing at the American flag emblems on his new Chippewa boots. “Last pair of boots I’ll ever buy in this world, Zeeb.” Zeeb looked up at him and purred. “Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Mani Padme Hum,” Darjeeling purred back at Zeeb assuring a higher order of birth for the cat in its next nine lifetimes. As he drug down the dregs of the Mick’s, a little puff of wind pushed him along. It felt good. It was warm and it swirled around the trees, knocking the last vestiges of the hedge leaves off and twisting the tops of the trees in a circlular fashion. He didn’t think anything about it, that before that moment when it intruded on him it had been completely calm with no clouds in the sky. He didn’t notice the swirling wind pick up the leaves on the ground and scoot them away from the fallen walnuts. He just noticed the downed limbs and was intent on adding them to the fireplace and starting a nice outside fire for the evening. The wind turned around and came back at him, trying to get his attention. The hair on Zeeb’s back stood up and he growled a low growl in his throat. “Easy, Zeeb,” Darjeeling let the cat drop onto the deck and continued to search for dead firewood. He thought about playing T’ai Chi Chuan on the deck that he had built for the little green people but then forgot about that, too, as the wind now blew one of the old fashioned lawn chairs over. He remained oblivious to it. It whistled through the screens on the windows blowing out puffs of dust. It rattled the half-open garage door and blew over one of the honey bee hive boxes he had stacked up outside. In a last ditch effort to get his attention, the wind clacked the clappers of the wooden wind chime hanging under the redwood stairway and Darjeeling looked up a bit as Zeeb took off running back to the winery with his back arched and tail frizzed out like a Halloween Black Cat.
Darjeeling stuffed the cardboard Mickey’s case box under the wood and stuffed some leaves into it. He lit it with only one match. That was his code with regard to starting fires. You only use one match to start a small fire and then build up to as big a fire as you want. The leaves caught first and then the cardboard. He watched as the twigs he had lain on the box fired up and then the pieces of bark and small seasoned hedge limbs that followed. Soon the fire was blazing and he continued to stoke it with increasingly bigger logs, including some nice big red oak logs he had pilfered from the church in town. It was still early in the afternoon and he returned to his work in the winery, stopping every now and then to have a cold beer and go poke around on the fire. The fireplace was built out of native limestone and mortar and did a good job of directing the heat toward the deck. You could sit there in one of the old lawn chairs and be warm and that’s what he liked. The fireplace held a good supply of wood and he had extended the front with limestone flat on the ground to make a place to stand if the ground was muddy. He was standing there admiring the fire when the second zephyr of wind came by. This one he noticed. It got his attention right away. Blowing in from the South it had come right across the fireplace and sparks flew at him. The heat was enough to cause him to back up until he came in contact with the deck. A spark blew onto his Moosecreek shirt and burned a little hole in it. “Kind of like a seed pop,” Darjeeling lamented at the pinhole in his new shirt.
“Stephen.” He barely heard his whispered name. “Stephen.” There it was again. There was no one there, he knew that. It seemed to be the wind saying his name as it tore across the back yard like a dust devil, spiraling leaves up into its vortex. He chased after it but it was already gone. “Weird,” Darjeeling thought, but then weird was part of his life. A major part. He chucked a couple of more branches on the fire, the last ones he had scrounged around the yard thinking that this fire was big enough and that he didn’t need one that would get out of control. Heading back toward the winery, he looked back over his shoulder to see that the fire was all right and that the wind was gone. It was calm again. And warm. He stuck to his work the rest of the day, coming in at sundown, stumbling a little under the influence of the beers in his head. After supper, he sat at the table thinking about the wind, until he became drowsy and headed off to bed.