The Second Coming
Authors: J. Fritschi
Copyright © 2012 J. A. Fritschi
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-9855-5210-7
ISBN-13: 9780985552107
eBook ISBN: 978-0-9855521-1-4
For my wife Shannon. For you to me are the only one.
Thank you to all of my family and friends who supported and encouraged me throughout this process. A special thanks to Clay and Tanner for inspiring me every day.
The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats 1865–1939
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)
Contents
O
AKLAND
, C
ALIFORNIA
, 1970
David Carpenter was overly protective of his youngest son. He had to be. His wife died due to complications while giving birth to him; at least that is what he told everyone. He couldn’t tell people what really happened for fear of what the church would do if they discovered his dark secret. Only David and his doctor knew what happened on that fateful night; at least that is what David hoped.
So when he and little Johnny found a dead snake curled up in the dirt under some bushes in his back yard on a bright Sunday afternoon, David told his son to stay away from it while he went to get a shovel and bucket.
As soon as his father was out of sight, Johnny’s curiosity got the best of him and he slowly crept toward the glimmering snake coiled in the shade. As he got closer, he was fascinated by its dark colors and scales. He crouched down and examined the white eyes of the reptile.
“I wanna play with the snake,” he thought innocently enough as he reached his tiny hands out and picked the snake up. The snake’s eyes came to life as it began to writhe in Johnny’s hands. He didn’t wish for it to come to life. That would have been too much of a concept for a little boy to understand, but just the fact that he wanted to play with the snake was enough to bring it back to life. Little Johnny was filled with wonder as the snake slithered in his hands and looked at him with opaque eyes and a flickering forked tongue.
“I wanna touch his tongue,” he thought intrigued as he held his finger striking distance from the snake’s mouth.
At that moment his father came walking around the corner carrying the shovel and bucket and was shocked with what he saw. He was about to yell at Johnny to put the snake down, but then he realized the snake was not a danger to his son. As a matter of fact, from where he was standing, it appeared as though his son was in control of the snake; as if he was some sort of snake charmer. He couldn’t believe it. He thought for sure the snake was dead.
“Let’s put the snake down,” his father instructed in a calm manner. “Carefully place him on the ground so he doesn’t bite you.”
“Okay, Papa.” Johnny nonchalantly set the two foot snake back in the dirt and it slithered under the bush where they found it.
David knelt down by Johnny’s side and placed his arm protectively around his son as they gazed at the now coiled snake. He glanced at his toe headed son who was smiling from cheek to cheek. How was that possible? He was sure the snake was dead. It didn’t move when he poked it with a stick. It must have been playing possum. It was the only logical explanation. At least that’s what David told himself until a couple of months later when it happened again.
David and his 5 boys ranging in age from 4 to 10 were sitting around the dinning room table one morning having eggs, bacon and toast when all of a sudden there was a loud explosion as something crashed into the window shattering glass all over the boys and the table. David jumped from his chair and all of the boys were screaming except Johnny. David was consoling everyone when he noticed Johnny crouching next to a dead Black Crow lying on the hardwood floor. David knew it was dead because there were a couple of drops of blood next to its head and its neck appeared broken. David watched in awe as Johnny carefully picked the bird up and cradled it in his palms. It was as large as his head.
David saw his son’s lips move, but he couldn’t hear what he was saying over the screams of his children. He watched in amazement as Johnny walked over to the shattered window and lofted the black bird out.
“Fly away,” he said barely loud enough for David to hear over the chaos. The bird flew out the window into the great wide yonder. Now, David couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He looked around the table at the other boys to see if they saw what just happened. His two oldest boys were staring at Johnny in awe.
“Did you see that?” Peter said excitedly. “Johnny picked up the bird and threw it out the window.”
“That was so cool,” Simon exclaimed proudly.
Johnny just smiled and bounded back to his chair and sat down like nothing happened.
Later that night, when David was putting Johnny to bed, he asked him why he picked up the bird and tossed it out the window.
“Because I wanted to help him Papa,” Johnny replied innocently.
“What did you say to the bird?”
“I said ‘poor little bird’ and then told it to fly away.”
David shook his head in disbelief as he looked at his son’s angelic face. His little boy had a power that he was not even aware he possessed. David brushed his son’s blonde hair to the side of his forehead.
“You can’t keep saving animals that are hurt, especially in front of other people,” he said softly.
“Why?” Johnny asked confused.
David pondered the question as he stroked his son’s cherub cheeks. He wasn’t sure how to explain to a 4 year old boy that if people knew about the power he possessed, they would exploit him for their own gain. How could he put it in terms he would understand?
“Because you have a special gift and if the wrong people find out about it, they may try to make you do bad things.”
“Why?”
“Because there are bad people in the world.”
“Did the bad people take Mommy?”
David sighed as he looked at Johnny with affection. “No. Mommy is in heaven. I’m surer of that now than I have ever been.”
David never saw Johnny bring anything back to life larger than the Black Crow and he figured it was because he didn’t grasp the concept of what he was doing. He was too young to know how to use his powers and David soon realized it was his responsibility to make sure that Johnny got the right mentoring. That is when he turned to the church to help raise his son. He would seek the guidance from men of cloth and have the church involved in every aspect of his upbringing. His son would be raised to fulfill his destiny as the second coming of the messiah as foretold in the Satanic Codex.