Gaspar Loses All His Stones

WORD COUNT: 15,181

Now if these were gall stones, this would be a very good thing. But in a stroke of inspiration this morning, I'm recalling what I read in the operetta Amahl and the Night Visitors about (King? Wise Man?) Kaspar's box, where he introduces each stone to Amahl -- should I change the spelling to Amal, I wonder; I'm going with a phonetic spelling for Melkior (most often rendered Melchior), the crippled shepherd boy in the title and attributes magical properties to them.

For the purposes of the story I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month which centers Magi and their journey to visit Jesus and return to their own country another way -- I incorporate Gospel accounts, traditions, and some modern literary interpretations in "We Have Seen His Star In The East", which doesn't lose the quotation marks until it IS a book! -- I'm inspired for each stone to be used for its purpose, and then to be lost forever. Very Silver Shoes from Oz of me, wouldn't it be?

Anyway, I am behind on my word count (I'm supposed to be at 25,000 by the end of Saturday mid-month) and I thought as I'm also composing tomorrow's Ensign devotional -- hint: take yourselves back to 1992 -- and figuring out what the heck the Christmas program for Parable Playhouse can be (I got called yesterday by Karn and asked to write one for a class in ten days, which means I must type it up in five!) that you might want to see some of what goes on in my not-so-micromanaged mind.

Hint for enhancing word count: AVOID CONTRACTIONS. Never use one word when four will do.

David

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Amal did not believe what he saw as Gaspar brought the skin of water to his lips. Desert bandits could be easily repelled in this no mans' land between the Roman and Parthian domains but they exacted a toll -- five of their camel tenders and Artaban got separated from them. It was difficult as Amal fell to the soft, hot sand to even keep balanced and awake, but the other wise men urged him to.

"Amal? AMAL?" He could feel someone lightly shaking his body -- not Balthasar for he led the defense and likely ensured that the desert bandits would not menace anyone again, so most likely Melkior -- "We must keep our promise to your mother!" The Hindu called out, "WATER! Water, bring it here!"

"Please" was not a word those born to rule or those who advised the ones born to rule very often heard. But Gaspar who knew it his especial duty to keep Amal the shepherd boy safe rushed in his yellowed robes holding a small stone in his hand -- the one small jasper to help him find water, the life in the desert that the bandits were smart enough to slash through first, so even if the caravan got away from them they would likely die soon anyway and like vultures they could pick the remains and the riches.

The voice of Melkior began to rasp as he raised his hand to the sun to shield himself and Amal as much as call, possibly, for some divine aid. Considering his own story and how he came to ride with the Wise Men as one of them, that was unlikely ...

The land Alexander could not conquer -- or more accurately, his army refused to go into; astonishing, was it not, how even after three centuries one who never tired of encountering novelties still found himself incited as a horror for little children. Telling them that if they did not go to sleep "Iskander would get them" ... likely parents would still tell their children that hundreds if not thousands of years from now!

Melkior had heard it often enough when HE was a mewling infant and crying child ... but he had only said it once, to his own son of three years, in more anger than he thought he could possess in the land that birthed the Buddha and recycled endless cycles of the same lives. It terrified him and forced his dear wife to clutch their son to her, and he walked away for a time to collect himself.

When Melkior came back home, there was no wife, no son. And evidently no time to pack, as though they had just vanished. He searched the village and even the city they sat on the outskirts of and the ruins that city sat on the outskirts of -- some plain where it was felt and seen as though some massive explosion had occurred wiping them all away at once -- and even dredging the river in his craze, in his night brought neglect and his day seen desire to either be reunited with them in ...

He presumed too much to believe his wife and child dead, did he not? Until there was absolutely no possibility of finding them, and in this jungle it was easy to give in to ennui and despair, he would not give up. Traveling the distances a woman and her child could on foot after one night, after one day, after many days -- even in a forced march -- Melkior felt no, convinced himself to feel no, fatigue.

Such was he found one morning on the opposite side of the Ganges, the Great River, as the stars shone above him in the hour before they were beaten into retreat by the Great Star of the morning. His robes in tatters and his riches in rags -- he had lived in the village on the edge of the Ganges, the Great River, how he CHOSE to live -- he gathered himself to go back home again.

And now the simple structure there was gone as well.

Melkior did not even make the effort to keep his face or self calm, especially when he had learned that the days he thought he had spent traipsing through and hacking hard in the jungle and dodging monsters great and small were actually ... only ... two.

Kauras the area priest faced his down. "You call yourself a wise man, Melkior."

Melkior bent down on his knees and dissembled himself. "Wise enough that I could not save my family?"

Kauras spoke as though acting the part in one of those drama written or at least inspired by Kalidasa. "Wise enough to know that your life, the life of your wife, the life of your son ... all is dust." THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO CONSOLE HIM?

Kauras qualified himself upon the tiny hill where he stood. "If they are dead, they are reborn right now, their life is not lost. Nothing is lost

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I HAVE waited all my life for such a King, Monetta whispered. Even if I cannot meet him myself, perhaps one day such a King will come to meet me. She shed a tear as the Star which hid itself from the greedy and paranoid gaze of Herod winked and blinked as all stars save their own ... sun ... do.

Sun. Our sun. The son of God. OUR Son of God.

When it all was so complex and yet so simple -- what King would anyone travel so far to worship with themselves and lavish which such great gifts as the night visitors had brought with them, that she herself was told when she had yielded to temptation to take some of the gold that ... that the King did not even need! There in the middle of, for all practical purposes, nowhere, Monetta fell to her knees -- her work worn, weakened by age yet strengthened by faith, knees -- and cried.

How long had she been doing this before visitors heard her sob and heard her plead for ... there were no words for it, something greater than herself, greater than herself and Amal and the life they eked out for themselves after his father her husband had left not out of wickedness but rather to seek a living to earn a better life for them all. They could pray all they wanted, but after prayer they had to work as though it were all up to them.

A kingdom built on love? So the tall dark doughy one called Mel Key ... no, MELKIOR said when she had the gold in her hands. A cat that can play and a mouse that can dance, next.

His hand will hold no scepter, his hand will not wear a crown, and his might will not be built on your toil. Monetta, when she pondered the words of the Hindu Wise Man over and over again, could not believe it. AND THAT IS WHY SHE HAD TO.

Why they all had to, making the impossible possible.

It was several nights later that Monetta washing dishes for one in a flowing dance motion like the graceful one she had often alluded to be that she heard the jingle of bells. Excited and enthused, she rushed with cup and dish towel in hand out the doorway of her and Amal's house and beheld ... nothing.

She was so eager she must really be hearing things.

As Monetta turned back to enter her lamp lit house (oh how precious oil was in these days! she perhaps should have put it out, but then how would the Night Visitors, the Wise Men who had awed her so she first thought them Kings but they sought a greater King, find


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