Sorry it has been so long - this is the second to last part of this story. Thanks to any who have kept reading it (Jody).
The floor was hard and cold like stone, Jaine noted as she regained consciousness.
No, she corrected, it was stone. She opened her eyes but could not see anything for
many seconds. As her vision sharpened, the first thing she noted was a wide grin
full of painfully white teeth. Was it Bedlam? No, the face was too angular, the nose
too sharp. Jaine sat up as her panic subsided. Her head had been resting on her
dictionary, and she pulled it close to her.
“Well, good mornin’, sunshine!” The man said loudly.
Jaine was shackled by one ankle, and the chain grated across the floor when she
moved. Her head pounded as she stared at the man across from her.
“Who are you?” she asked dully.
“I am just a messenger of light sent into this world to bring a bit of hope into it.
The name is Joel – I would shake your hand right now, but it’s a bit occupied at the
moment.” Joel’s hands were shackled at his sides. “What about you, missy, what are
your hopes and dreams?”
Jaine stared at him. “Where are we?”
“We are in a sad state of affairs, yes ma’am. But with some good old fashioned hope,
we may just get out of this place okie-dokie okay.”
Jaine still stared. The only door opened, creaking on its hinges. Sissy came through
it holding a large tray.
“Sissy!” Jaine exclaimed in her surprise, injuring her mental balance.
“Oh Jaine!” Sissy tried to smile simultaneously at Joel and Jaine, who were chained
to opposite walls. “I wondered when you would wake up. You’ve been asleep two days since you broke curfew. The ogress found you miles away, near some sacrifice alter.
She was very pleased that you ruined… what was it… a blue moon sacrifice? That was
it. Anyway, she gave us extra bread the next day.” Sissy’s voice was high and soft,
and she quipped like a nervous bird.
“The ogress knew about the sacrifice?” Jaine asked.
“Oh, yes. She…she said she sends girls out to some horrible, horrible monster, and I
wasn’t sure how this worked, but last time the monster cheated her on her price? Or
maybe the monsters master? But, oh Jaine!” Sissy began to turn red and her voice
choked. “To think if she had sent me out this time! I couldn’t have borne it!”
“There, there,” said Joel. “If you can be bold enough to believe in yourself, you
could be bold enough to face your monsters.”
“That’s right.” Sissy wiped her eyes on her sleeve, balancing the tray with her
knee. “Jaine, you are so lucky to be locked up with Mister Joel. He is so
encouraging.”
Joel smiled at Jaine. “I believe that the measure of a day is how many people I’ve
encouraged in it. Sissy just needed a little encouragement in her life, and now she
is being equipped to share that encouragement with the rest of the world.”
“Starting with our stomachs?” Jaine asked hopefully.
Sissy gasped. “Oh! Mister Joel, this is for you!” She kneeled beside Joel while
trying to hold the tray upright. She failed. “Oh, I’m sorry about your bread! It
doesn’t look too dirty, does it? There, I’ve brushed it off. Your drink is fine – I
didn’t spill a drop!”
Jaine watched as Sissy began feeding Joel his meal in jerky movements.
“Is the ogress not allowing me to be fed?” she asked hungrily.
“Oh no – you can eat as soon as you wake up. Well, you are awake now, but I didn’t
know that, so after Mister Joel eats I’ll fetch you your supper.”
“Ah… and how long must I remain locked in this chamber?”
“I’m not sure…” Sissy considered. “I didn’t think to ask.”
“Did you ask why I’m locked in this chamber?”
“No…but the ogress did tell me. She said you had to be punished since you were out
passed your curfew.”
“But had she not expected me never to return?”
“Yes, but you were still late.”
“Good point.”
Not wishing for nausea to interrupt her hunger, Jaine tried not to watch through the
rest of Joel’s feeding.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Joel called to Sissy as she tripped out the door. “She is
such a nice girl. She’ll have lots of nice things happen to her, I’m sure.”
“Why?”
“Well, miss Lady Jaine, because life is what you make of it. Haven’t you heard the
saying, what you get out of life is what you’ve put in?”
“Only in reference to privies.”
“Now miss Lady Jaine, that is a very cynical view on life. If you just change your
way of thinking, I think things will start looking up for you. You may have made some mistakes before, but that doesn’t make you a bad person. The good thing is that with every new day, you get a new chance at life. You may need to start your day with a good look at yourself, and think, ‘I’m Lady Jaine, and my life is going to be what I make it. I was made for great things, and no one can stop me from having them.’”
“So what did you do that you were sent here?” inquired Jaine.
“This? I don’t consider being here a problem – no, every problem I see, I see as an
opportunity. I may have some ups and downs, but I don’t let any of my
disappointments hold me back. In fact, I expect good things to happen shortly in my
future. If you go into life thinking of all the things that could go wrong in it,
then they probably will, but that is a problem with your attitude, not your life. If
I were hired to build a cathedral, but I spent all my time thinking of how this task
is too large for me, or I don’t have all the right tools, then I’m going the wrong
way about it. I need to prepare for great things to happen, otherwise they won’t.
When I woke up this morning, I pushed away all of my negativity and thought of all
the great things that may happen. What about you? What was your first thought when
you woke up?”
Jaine considered this. “My first thoughts upon awaking were: ‘I’m cold and uncomfortable,
thus I am probably not dead; unless I have misperceived death by excluding the possible continuance of characteristics of life, especially in concern over coldness and discomfort.’”
“See, there you go,” said Joel. Jaine suspected him of smugness. “You go assuming that things will be bad, and because of that, you may cause them to end up like you expected.”
Jaine’s eyes narrowed on him. “Are you saying that my own perceptions can change reality?”
“It depends on the type of reality, but yes.”
“Type of reality – that sounds interesting, please explain.”
“Well, I am not the author on this – though I do intend to write a book on this
topic – but I just follow the things that I understand out of my book.”
For the first time, Jaine noticed the book that waited in Joel’s shadow. It rested
just at his fingertips, but Jaine did not see how he could open it with his wrists
being shackled as they were.
“It is my dictionary,” Joel explained.
“You carry a dictionary? But, so do I!” Jaine felt unnerved by this revelation. Her
head pounded harder.
“See, and there you were on the right path all along!”
“Brilliant! Do you mind if I look up the word death and see if my negative or
positive opinion on it changes its state?”
Joel gave her a look of pity. “You would have to use your own. Mine doesn’t contain
any negativity.”
This befuddled Jaine. “You have a special edition?”
“It’s my own. Go ahead, look, if you are interested.”
Jaine was. She dragged her chain to its full length, and was able to read Joel’s
dictionary. As he had said, the word was not contained there; more accurately, the
entire entry had been marked through. Continuing to look through the book, Jaine saw
that many other words were obliterated, including obliterate. Flipping to the front,
she noted the following words missing: abandoned, alone, argue, assault, and avoid.
Near the middle she could not find limit, lonely, mistake, or the obvious, negative.
Additionally, positive words were circled, with the especially happy ones poorly
illuminated. Great had stars around it, friend had a symbol of holding hands.
“You have ruined it!” Jaine exclaimed.
“Ruin isn’t in there, you’ll find. I’ve improved it, actually.”
Jaine threw the book toward him. “You’ve made it worthless. What good is a dictionary with only the words you like? How are you going to know what I mean if I
call you a nescient philistine?”
“I don’t need to know any negative words, because I’m so busy thinking about the
positive ones.”
“But what does positive mean if you take away negative?”
A scolding look fell on Jaine. “My little Lady, you seem to be clinging to your
negativity, possibly because it is all you know. You can let it go, though, and let the positive energy flow inside of you, heal those broken feelings and desires, and
then maybe your life will take a new turn.”
“I don’t want a new turn! I liked the old turn!” Jaine was beginning to panic. The
room felt smaller than before, and her head felt larger.
“Now, I’m not here to judge you, because that’s not my job. No, my job it to help
guide you to a better place and let you know that it is okay to let go of all that
negative energy and accept what is good in life. Can you do that? Can you let go of
what is holding you back and filling places that were meant for good things? Just
let it out, and just toss all that negativity away from you. Can you do that today, Jaine?”
Jaine nodded. Then she vomited.
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