MONOLITH

MARVELOUS HOUSE OF INFINITE JOY

A novel by Roy-David Woodward

Chapter 1

DAMMIT! I’M GOING BACK! She threw herself out of the huge arched doorway with all of the pent up fury in her Olympic trained body. Jami Portchuka was mad, madder than she had ever known herself or anyone – Swinging down the glistening golden corridor she stopped at the Lagoon fountain –a mass of wetted color, phantasms of iridescent beauty spraying up a hundred feet, containing itself in but a circle the size of an umbrella from the deep bottom up to the fanning top.
And she wept. Great convulsing sobs jerked her platinum head. She fell on the counter of the Lagoon, low, wide –stone-like but soft, resilient to her splendid form of sinew, muscle and grace undisputed, never beaten down there – On Earth.

The two tall figures of The Counselor and his aid flowed out through the great arch, looking down through the sparkling, dancing sheen of the hall. Shaking their heads, lowering them on their large chests, they reentered. The hall and everything seemed to dim, the colors fading into milky gloss.

I don’t know what to do –for once in my life up here, I JUST don’t know what to DO! He hit the marbled slab desk. It quivered. His Aid started to speak. The taller man waved – No, not now, let ME THINK! This is an epic condition. The Rules say...he drifted off, and our Hearts say...drifting still. The two men sat down in Lotus, their sheen robes wrapped tight around them. Quiet enveloped them like a blue fog. They wept.

Jami Portchuka? Yeah, that’s her wallet, this is her. Any breath? She’s gone, Mitch, what a waste... Do you know who this is?! Yep, I know. His eye wetted. He brushed it away. The Gurney Sheet drew across her bloodied face, her hair a tangle of debris and water. The two paramedics drove silent down the rainslicked blacktop, blood dripping silently down to the ribbed aluminum floor.

Caring for, countering hostile or sorrowful situations for those in Heavenly compartments requires superior qualities, especially the best of good help. The two counselors knew their job, had certain leeways for unusual cases. Tonight in Sector 27 the lights dimmed and ‘good help’ went to bed with an ice bag on each head. Did they finally come to view the un-solvable problem?

Outside Complex A, Sector 27, a dim but eerie soft rose - violet hue, like gentle fog, spread slowly into the chasm of valleys and canyons that was known as the Green Belt where no being had ever been allowed or known to have visited. Miles high Redwoods, dwarfing those below on Earth, swayed and moaned in the light of three large Moons and their enfolding, spinning layers of specked swirls - few knew what housed their orbs for those specks were Worlds -entered occaisionally by the black entrances that sucked and pulled as a mouth breathing from below the ceaseless canyons. Things here were large, infinite and mind challanging. One of the counselors gazed out of his bedroom window. Adjusting his ice bag he breathed slowly, ‘We need YOUR help, these two are different and this is different, we mustn’t disappoint them but precident trys to rule my head, Father. My heart crys out for Jami and Clint.’ At his last words the three Moons seemed to increase in light and rotation. He rubbed his eyes, the ice bag emittied a slight steam as it’s contents immediately melted. He fell back on his pillow, tears and a smile fashioning his face. He remembered Earth and the many times he had needed such signs that his prayers were heard... ‘It will work out’, and he drifted off to sleep and dreamed of weddings, laughter and a pair of twins -a boy and a girl...named Jami and Clint, in a future long ago and far away...
 
CHAPTER 2

He had no idea she had felt what he was feeling, didn’t even know for sure where she would be, how she would be. A form of Heavenly Rehab? A Ceremony of White Angels? Her parents there, crying for joy, while he was tearing his insides out in sorrow, hate, disbelief? Ohhh.. Why...? That was all that would come out or even make sense to speak – WHY?
So the nights came, the long, dark silent nights came. Did they go? He couldn’t tell –all one night of wet pillows, a torn sheet or two, the clock no longer ticking it’s cheap, creeping, click –click as it went on it’s duty of grief bearer now a mass at the bottom of the wall across from the bed. How many nights, he couldn’t tell, all alike. What was HE doing like this, no reason to just give in, feel sorry... for who? Everyone that knew Jami. Thinking her name, not even speaking it anymore made it’s mark on his heart. He sat, now, at the kitchen table where once they had thrown oatmeal out of the circular box, at each other that New Years night. When they had kissed long, strong and he had scooped her up, taken her out under the million stars and kissed her – and kissed her, there on their awesome patio, in their awesome garden under that awesome Moon. That’s how she had described it to her girlfriend, she said...Awesome! It wasss, Jami, it wasss...
He got dressed, first in a month. Then a knock at the door, doorbells broke - he reminded himself. FIX it!

In front of the screen a slight, brown man, scarcely 5’4”, maybe 120 soaked. He grinned as Clint opened the door puzzled. Jami send. Clint trembled as the man held his hand engulfed in Clint’s. Whaatt? Clint san, Jami send! Jami! As if he didn’t know who Jami was. What do you mean, Little Fella? You want Jami, come? Clint San, listen to Little Fella... His jaw aside, Clint stood on one hip, knee bent, hand on the screen casing. Look...I don’t know what you’re here for, what you want or if this is some creepy joke, but...NoNo! No!, Clint San, Charlie tell true!, he took a breath, She want come back, love Clint San, need Clint San help! He raised on tip toe, grabbed Clint’s shoulders, pulled him down. Whispered - me Angel..... No tell peoples!