Gabriel's Story - Part 2

I'm starting something new and I hope you will take this journey with me. I've teamed with a good friend to write a novel - the first in a series. We're working on getting it published, but until we do, I'm going to drop some ideas here that I'm working through. Some of these posts will be raw, unedited sections of our new book. Others are backstory that won't make the book but serve as the "world" according to Rick (the story's creator). Still others are unique short stories or anecdotes that come to me in my dreams or my prayers. I'd love to hear your thoughts - good, bad or indifferent. Drop me a line and let me know what you think!

Gabriel's story continues...

As evening approached, Gabriel couldn’t shake the feeling that his life had changed. If he was honest, nothing looked different and as much as he would like to have “felt” changed, he still felt like the same old Gabriel. He couldn’t put his finger on why he felt his life was different, other than the fact that everything seemed different. Maybe it was just a new perspective?

He couldn’t get the vision of his father out of his mind. Unlike previous visions that acted like a passing daydream or creative thought and quickly dissipated with time, this one hung in the front of his consciousness like a slowly building thunderstorm. Everywhere he turned he was reminded of the spirits in the hall or the fear that the vision invoked or even his father’s face. Shortly after seeing the vision, Gabriel had walked through every room of the house declaring the preeminence of Jesus and demanding that any unwanted spirit leave and never return – just like he was taught in Sunday school. Growing up Pentecostal, the son of a Hellfire and Brimstone pastor, Gabriel knew the power of prayer and the name of Jesus, even if his mid-forties self had long since walked away from real devotion to the church.

That was this afternoon. Since his new encounter, Gabriel had tried to forget the vision and the emotion that it invoked, but he couldn’t. As the evening waned, he succumbed to the nagging and sat down in his study with his Bible. He didn’t open it right away, instead choosing to close his eyes and revisit his father’s face. In the quiet of the room he pictures himself from a distance, standing in the purple room, being confronted by his father’s ghost. He recounted the spirits passing through the hallway, this time much more vividly than before, and he thought casually that the problem with recounting visions was that his imagination always blurred the lines between what he really experienced and what he wanted to see. “Is it live or is it Memorex!”

Gabriel settled his breathing and focused his attention on his father. The room, the spirits in the hallway, and even his own caricature faded as his father’s face became clearer. In his mind, Gabriel traced the lines of his father’s face and smelled the familiar scent that was a combination of his father’s preferred shower gel and laundry detergent. He tried to avoid seeing the hatchet buried deep into his father’s skull, but his mind’s eye was drawn to it. Upon closer inspection he could see the deadly implement wasn’t actually in his father’s skull as much as it emanated from his brain. It was at that point Gabriel realized he could see into his father’s skull and wondered “live or Memorex?”

Despite his doubt, he dug deeper into the vision. The tip of the hatchet appeared to collapse into a needle-thin point that then exploded into thousands of tiny fingers enveloping the Pre-frontal Cortex. As he watched, the “fingers” morphed into pulsating nerves whose electrical signals raced back and forth between various parts of his brain and the hatchet handle. Gabriel understood from undergrad biology that the frontal lobe was responsible for many of our emotions, and he wondered why the hatchet was there at all. His father had suffered from headaches all of Gabriel’s life, to that point that Gabriel had confronted him on his misuse of prescription pain medication. Could Gabriel’s own mind be trying to reconcile his vision with what he knew of his father’s condition?

At what he thought might be a revelation; Gabriel was drawn to his father’s lips. He could see his father mouthing something, but the words remained unintelligible. He was aware that in certain dream or meditative states that the human mind deactivates Broca’s and Wernicke’s area, which makes deciphering text and speech nearly impossible. However, since he had previously communicated with his visions, and since he wasn’t asleep, rather he was in deep meditation, Gabriel focused on his father’s lips, listening and reading, struggling to understand his words.

“Gin cherry…

…Kin will ferry…

…Your kin will ferry two…” He couldn’t quite understand.

“Your sin will bury you!”

Gabriel’s eyes snapped open. He’d heard that same voice speaking to the spirits in the purple room, but this time it spoke to him. He could read his father’s lips clearly – your sin will bury you. After a second to regain his composure, Gabriel realized he’d been typing on his computer while he was meditating. The search engine had pulled up results for “hearing voices – the Bible.” He scanned the entries and found topics like, “that still small voice” on gatewaybibleproject.com and “Voices in my head – Satan or Angel,” a book written by famed Christian author Dr. David Touchstone. But at the top of the list he found Ezekiel 2:2.

“As He spoke to me the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet; and I heard Him speaking to me.”

Gabriel looked down to find his Bible open to Matthew chapter 13. As he scanned the page, he found verse 11. “When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit.”

Gabriel pushed back from his desk, grabbed his phone and dialed a number as he bolted from his study. He dropped his phone trying to put on his jacket and picked it up in time to hear a voice on the other line.

“Hello? Gabriel, are you alright? I’ve been thinking about you today.”

“Pastor Dave, where are you right now. I need to talk.”

(Photo: Youtube)