The Archbishop: AndThe Maiden
Faith believes,it also trusts: and it also tests.
“I am the Archbishop of Brugge,?he said to his guest in a most ingratiating voice.
“And I am Jokaneen of the Asteroid-Ice Cap, at the end of your Solar System, and a ting beyond…” she responded: this huge female figure sitting in a sofa chair provided by a monk for her in the Archbishop’s chamber—a fine fire in the heath and a bottle of scotch on the table between them two.
Said the stranger, “I am on my way to: Moiromma!?br />
Replied the Archbishop, “I never heard of the place,?thinking it must be some city in the Americas. He did not all together like the stranger, her uncanny ways, but he was drawn nonetheless to her odd shape, huge bone structure, and skin discoloration, of a scabby green. Thus, in essence, he was unable to decline better judgment not to be seen by her; the invitation was at best, feeding his suspicious mind of life on other planets.
As Jokaneen continued to explain herself to the Archbishop: that is, her background, the Archbishop became more engrossed into her pedigree—obsessed with the unusualness of the subject, almost intoxicated by it; if anything, her existence was extremely perplexing to the Archbishop, especially when she said she was born on an ice like asteroid, and at a young age was taken to live on another planet but a short distance away, called Moiromma. She herself was close to seven feet tall, rather short for her kind: looking more mannish than feminine, at least to the eyes of the human clergy; to the Moiromma she was one of the few who looked more feminine than moderately male. But this would explain—to a certain degree—the deaths that had taken place sometime in the not so far past with the Butcher of Brugge, so the holy man listened closely to every word the female from the Asteroid-moon had to say. Then reminiscing, he voiced:
“There was such a creature or thing as you describe a few years back but the Butcher, who would terrorize, is serving time in prison for selling spoiled meat, he was the cause for many citizens to have gotten sick beyond the city walls of Brugge and within the city.?br />
Jokaneen mentioned it was only her second week on earth, but she had picked up the French language quite well: as it was not uncommon for her species to put together words and phrases of other languages quickly. She explained she had committed suicide; that is, with a little demonic help, and when she woke up she found herself on: “Blind Donkey Street.? Evidently the Archbishop knew right where she was talking about, for a river ran nearby, and the Butcher that now was serving time, the one they had talked about, lived nearby that street, actually his building was right next to it.
The Archbishop’s curious reluctance found himself asking:
“Ms Jokaneen, I suggest you stay here in my castle, as my guest, lest you walk among the public and be mistaken as a devil, and chased into the countryside, and hunted by hounds and all.
It seemed a bit safer, so she accepted the invitation at face value, and feeling it was more out of kindness than out of greed, for what did she have to offer, hence, it had to be for such impropriator things, if not vanity. And as time went on, she found out the Archbishop was not only a man of God, but a man of science as well; for many rooms in his cellar had different kinds of apparatus?
The Stay
After several weeks passed on by, the godly Archbishop served Jokaneen one evening a glass of wine, it was not that unusual, but he did have an alternative motive this time: for now he had drained her of all the mysteries of Moiromma and Ice-cap, her Asteroid-moon home. The Archbishop was amazed as it was riveting to hear each night, and he dreamt of the two locations, and its inhabitants. He was spellbound, magnetized to its existence, like one is magnetized to football or fishing or hunting: obsessed you might say. For it was in the purring of the voices each and every night, he’d stay up and listen to her, and lay in bed calculating, going in the cellar to figure out dimensions; running to the city to talk to doctors, est. Yes, all this time the Archbishop was planning something, unsure of it himself, that is, unsure of it until this very evening.
She now had sat at the same table in the study room she had when she first arrived, she sat there again this very evening as the Archbishop brought in a large goblet of wine for her. She did take a liking for the stuff, although her body was not suited for it, and it often made her sick. It was a chilly evening, he dismissed all his servants, and the abbots, and all in his castle, dismissed them all and told them to return tomorrow, that he needed to be alone, have peace, wanted to think: needed to be steadfast in prayer; and so they all left, and in consequence, he served his guest more wine.
He filled the goblet up for the second time. It was now 2:00 AM in the morning. When he was convinced she was drugged, intoxicated to the point of being passed out, he commenced to go ahead with his plan.
The Plan
With no more hesitation, the Archbishop opened the front doors of the castle, allowing three doctors to come in, then all four carried Jokaneen down into the basement, to one of the cellar rooms, where they prepared to do a total transfusion with her blood, draining her body and his, but branch [wing] his with her blood. The Archbishop was crazed with his plan, and would not listen to any alterations in it, and subsequently not wanting to get on the bad side of the Archbishop, all did as they were told, and were paid quite well. The 78-year old clergy laid down next to Jokaneen on a separate bed, as the transfusion was about to take place (eerie was the quarters in the cellar, the thick walls of the abbey): what he really wanted was to live on, and on, and on, evidently, not holding on to his Christian faith that dying was not death, rather simply a transferring point; for some odd reason, he believed know more in the Jokaneen’s blood, than of a spiritual resurrection. At seventy-eight, one often questions such things—faith can evaporate when under fire: then comes to its conclusion, lest he die confused. And in this case, the Archbishop seemed to be trading for a few different reasons.
As the transfusion took place, the Archbishop was doing everything to keep himself calm, but the pain and the discomfort became unbearable, the cold blood of Jokaneen was freezing his insides (as his body started jerking on the table), his veins were turning into ice, frozen from thick blood entering, and expanding the blood, clogging up in the shoulders to a point it was turning into black blood, so compressed it could not circulate properly; as the blood flow stopped, as the color of the skin turned a milky rose white, and blue and at different sections of his body, burse colors. His white and bent formed body was melting away into a death like jellyfish texture. His veins were popping out of his skin, then they started to crack, and icy blood was melting on her body as well as his, until his body could no longer withstand the numbness of the freezing insides, and he died of several complications.
The walls of the operating room were filled with vapors from both their bodies, a pasty yellowish vapor stuck to the walls. One could only see the shadows of the doctors in the room, for they were hiding behind a dressing enclosure, as if these two bodies were to get up and become zombies. But no such thing happened.
Jokaneen had woken up, and seen the Archbishop laying to the one side of her, and the three doctors hiding behind furniture, and the transfusion equipment—the whole room was filling her eyes with disbelief; she simply shook her head, almost as if it was an amnesty (as if the clergy man knew not what he was in for), and laid back down on the bed to die, and did within a few minutes, for she did not receive his blood, and had lost most of hers: she knew death was immanent.
The Archbishop now woke up, he looked about to assure himself he was not dead: the last thing he remembered was forms and blurs and fog, he stood still for a moment, then he seen Jokaneen, she said: “Welcome to Asteroid-Ice Cap, you’re on your own now??and she walked away laughing, holding on to her gut, and after every few steps would turn around and see him following her as she laugh more. He was naked and in the chilled air of Ice Cap.
Dennis Siluk author/Poet, http://dennissiluk.tripod.com his present book, "Spell of the Andes," is up for an award, I shall not tell which one, but a big one, if he gets it.