The Wand

Here is yet another interesting story, motivated by the Star+Gate cards. This is a truly special story that may well inspire meaningful contemplation.

When I decide to create a StarGate story, I have no subject matter in mind until I pick the cards from the deck, which are initially drawn from a deck, face-down. As I draw the cards and turn them face-up, a story suddenly emerges full-blown.

Be sure to read about how these inspirational stories came to be and what they are, in my introduction to the first story, posted in this blog.

Here are the drawn cards that inspired this story:

 

The band leader used a toy wand from her childhood to keep the beat. She didn’t think much about this or about her work for hers was a second rate band, unimportant. She would dress in a sequin dinner dress, act as the lead singer, and entertain tired visitors in half filled smoky lounges in hotels that were not too frequented.

That was her whole life.  She traveled from town to town, was uninvolved, unattached to family or friends, essentially without purpose.

The years had gone by.  Members of the band had come and gone but she had stayed with it.  Essentially she existed just to keep existing, was alive to keep on being alive.  There was little meaning to her life.

Then one day “something” happened.

The band had finished their engagement and it was 4:30 AM when she returned to the small hotel room whose windows embraced the lights of the all night bowling alley.  The lights blinked monotonously on and off as she flung off her clothes and wearily creamed her face, sliding off the heavy makeup until she could glimpse the pale redhead beneath it – those pale eyes minus the makeup – a country girl’s watery eyes, as bewildered now as they had always been and as without a place in the world.

As she replaced the lid of the jar and tossed the soiled Kleenex wearily away, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, that her wand was positioned precariously near the edge of her dresser.  She went to straighten it up.  This was the last day of this three day run, they would be moving on to Milwaukee on Thursday.

She reached for the wand and when she did she noticed that it would not move with her touch.

”Stuck”, she thought “Ridiculous…”

But when it still would not move after several tries she became puzzled.  “What’s going on?” she wondered. “Some trick?

She checked it out and found she was not imagining what was taking place.  The wand refused to move.  It was as though welded to the top of the dresser.  She tugged powerfully, using all her farm girl muscle to unwedge it, but no matter how much she pulled it would not budge.

A slight shiver went through her.” Have I gone crazy?” she asked herself.

Now what to do?  Ring up the sleepy clerk at the front desk at this hour?  She decided not to do that.  So what if it waited until morning?  It was just an inconvenience.  So what?

She backed off as she always did from unpleasant things.  She simply did not confront the issue but instead flung herself into bed and jabbed out the light.

The bowling alley was still casting red neon rays on her ceiling at predictable intervals – on –off – on – off.  “Damn those lights” she thought and rolled over onto her other side.  This allowed her to face the dresser and when she did so, she saw that the wand was, strangely, glowing in the dark.  It seemed iridescent, as though glowing with its own light.

“Oh my God!” she cried, throwing off the covers.   “Something is going on here.  Something is happening.”

She knew that whatever it was, it was Big, and that it had to be addressed.  This time she couldn’t back off.  She couldn’t just pull the covers over her head because there was the wand shining in the dark with a sort of halo around it, its tip encircled by golden light.  It looked to her now like those wands in children’s fairy tales

In watching it an odd thought came to her mind, a childish thought.  It came from somewhere back in her childhood when she used to pour through her grandmother’s old illustrated books of fairy tales on the farm.

”Suppose”, she thought, “suppose it’s a magic wand.  Suppose it’s magical and will bring me anything I want…  a million dollars maybe, or more than a million – ten million!  Why not?  Maybe all I have to do is wave it or something and it will bring me anything I want!”

She got up from the bed.  It was cold in the room and she fumbled for her bathrobe and draped it around her.  Then she looked about to be sure that no one was watching – she didn’t want anyone else to get a chance at that wand.  It was hers.  The neon lights were blinking furiously but she was pretty sure that no one could see in from the street.  No one else could see that wand but her.

She approached it cautiously.” I’ll make a wish.” she thought,” I‘ll wish for what I want most in the world.”

She stood before the wand, hypnotized by its glow, trying to decide what it was that she wanted most in the world.  To her surprise, however, she couldn’t think of anything that meant that much to her.  She didn’t know what she wanted.  She had absolutely no idea.

Then she heard the hum.

It was a very sweet, high pitched hum as though coming from some delicate female voice and it seemed to be in just one long never-ending note.  The hum was coming from the wand.  It was its voice.  That hum, that voice, did something to her.

“Why, it’s the voice of an angel…” She heard herself say softly.

Music had always had a special effect on her, which was  the reason why she had learned the piano and taken singing lessons and left home to (of all things!) run a third rate band in dingy hotels.  But she had” gone into music” and that voice which was singing out that forever-drawn-out note reminded her of an afternoon long ago when she had been singing in the church choir on Palm Sunday.

It was the day that Martha Edgars, beautiful accomplished Martha Edgars, had been invited to be the solo singer in the holiday choir, and it was on that day (she remembered it clearly) that Martha’s voice had raised itself like a butterfly moth above the local parish and the small crowded congregation, and above the fly- specks drifting upwards on the sun’s rays.  Martha’s voice had been like thin silver threads on that day, threads so pure that it hurt you down deep to think of it– and her voice on that day had surely been that of an angel, too rare for this earth, and calling out on a note that seemed to fold into eternity, so long and perfect was it.

Then she remembered the secret prayer that had then come into her mind, “Oh God, and gentle Jesus too,” she had whispered with hands clasped tightly before her thin little chest, “Please let me sing like that, just once.  Just once, let me sing like that.  Thank you God. Amen.”

It had been an endless moment.  She remembered how Martha’s pure winged voice had hung in the air, trembling, like a flutter of gossamer wings.  Time had ceased.  There was just that voice that seemed to rise over the stiff little choir box, go right up to the stained glass window that depicted the last supper, then melt right through it and go straight across the fields and across the sky itself and into the clouds to who knows where – to forever it seemed.

Martha’s voice had escaped!

“Free,” she repeated ever so softly to herself and she touched the wand with her fingertips.

As she did so she heard a whooshing sound as of wings.  Very slowly she turned her head to see what this was.  She was quiet now and no longer afraid.

What she saw was an arrow quivering on the windowsill.  It was pointing upward toward the sky.

“Freedom!” she said, more loudly now, as though commanding the arrow.

The arrow hesitated, quivered, then took off with a silent rush, and she watched as it soared upward like a rocket.  She saw it swerve as it gained momentum and then angle over the bowling alley.  Then she watched it turn and head straight up toward the heavens.

“Freedom!” she called out to the arrow and found herself breathing deeply, fully, and without fear now, for the arrow carried her with it and the dullness of her life could no longer hold her down.

She watched as she saw it rise over the rooftops and over the highest buildings.  She saw it soar above the lights of the city and then disappear into the darkened countryside.  Then she could hear its hum as it went steadily on its way over the slowly spinning world and entered the silence of the stars and then went beyond that to rise above them.  So straight, so clear, so sure was the arrow that she knew it must be moving toward its destination with barely a tremor.

“Freedom!” she whispered. “At last…”

She laid her cheek against the cool window sill and half closed her eyes in relief.  As she listened to the hum of the arrow which was also the song of the universe as it embraced and absorbed the arrow, she knew that it had come to her as a messenger and that now it was leaving in the same way, as a messenger.  She sent her thanks to it by a slow wave and a smile and a lingering whisper that sounded a little bit like the word ”Freedom…” , but this time that word came from her heart.

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The StarGate stories have many meanings, none of them clear to us “for sure”, but this story reminds me that change can come to a person in an instant, no matter how lifeless their history may seem.  It also suggests that freedom always remains a possibility, however it may decide to express itself.  But I am interested in hearing YOUR interpretation of this story.  If you would like to share your thoughts on this, please use the form below.