Tuesday the Emptiness opened its hungry jaws and
swallowed my soul. I felt it sliding, sloshing, falling into the abysmal darkness,
and for a moment I could not hear my heartbeat over the deafening sound of my
longing. But my fears slowly disappeared in the light of hope that slipped through
the cracks of the walls that formed the temple of the Circle of Peace.
* * *
The Guard looked
over my Note carefully and turned it over again and again. He clicked his tongue
and raised the visor, scratching his chin with his gloved hand. "This is all you've
got?" he grunted, and the metal armor clanged back into place.
I rocked uneasily in my swivel chair and nervously spun to the right and to the
left. "Er, um, yes, actually..."
"And you expect to get In with this nonsense? You've got to be kidding!"
The guard stared at me through the visor and I looked away in embarrassment. Then
I remembered the Wizard, and I jumped to my feet in defiance as the Wizard's wisdom
of the Power of Words jangled in the back of my mind.
"Why
yes," I said with confidence, and I stared back at the guard with the same bull-dog
ferocity I received. (But out of the corner of my eyes I watched my chair roll
backwards and plunge into the moat. Fierce scraggly crocodillic monsters snapped
and snarled and devoured the chair, rollers and all, and they seemed not the least
bit perturbed that I wasn't still seated.)
"Oh," the guard swallowed, glancing once again at the Note for something he might
have missed. "Well, okay, then, but close the Door after you, will you, I've got
to get a bite to eat." He handed me back the Note, jumped into the moat and rode
away on water skis pulled by a crocodillic team of tap-dancing, hat waving crocodiles.
I tucked the Note carefully
in my vest pocket, making a mental reminder that once again the Wizard's wisdom
had won out against the odds of chance and persuasion. Then I turned the door
knob and entered Inside.
