Epilogue (634 words)

Here's the first fruit of your Galumphing Chart. The words selected at random were: Hummingbird, Sales Clerk, and Church. I turned it into an epilogue to the bomber story.


Epilogue
by W David MacKenzie

My wheelchair bumped and bounced across the cobblestones as Joshua pushed me through the crowded colonnade. The open-air temple teamed with worshipers intent on begging the attention of the Buddhist saints and sages tucked away in every alcove and altar of the ancient complex. Every supplicant carried a bundle of foot-long incense sticks to build bridges of smoke and spicy odors between heaven and earth, to carry their prayers and dreams to their chosen patrons. Aged grandmothers sought relief from arthritic pain or pleaded for an ailing grandchild. Harried businessman petitioned for favorable negotiations or safe travel. Newlywed couples asked for healthy sons and daughters to enrich their lives.

I wasn’t here today seeking blessings or boons; I’d come to offer thanks for a blessing already given, for a life spared against impossible odds, my life. A large basket of flowers sat in my lap; red-petalled daisies with butter-yellow centers, enormous pink and white lily blossoms with long green stamens tipped with yellow pollen, towering spikes of salmon shaded gladiolas, and fuchsia orchids shaped like the outstretched wings of dainty butterflies. I struggled to hold the mass of flowers as I bounced along.

Joshua slowed as we neared the shrine of the Sage of Healing and Medicine and he maneuvered the chair so that I was close to the offering table but not so close that I could just reach out and place the basket of flower on the shiny metal surface. He locked the chair’s brakes and then stepped back and waited. For everything the sage had done for me, for sending the stranger to warn us of the bomb in my ice cream parlor, for sparing me from the worst of the bomb’s blast, for speeding my recovery in the hospital, I had prepared two gifts of thanks. The flowers were just the traditional gift.

I tucked the flowers tightly in the crook of one arm and used the other to grip the chair as I slowly lifted my body from the seat. My legs and back flamed with pain but I fought it back. Muscles that had been battered and torn in the explosion and had not carried my weight for a month screamed now at the abuse I forced upon them. I willed each wounded tendon and ligament to move in concert with my battered muscles until I stood, trembling, before the Sage and his offering table. Relaxing my clenched jaw, I began to recite the Sage’s mantra. I shuffled my left foot forward, then my right, and then my left again. I offered up my strength of will to the Sage and, when I reached the table, I added the basket of flowers to my offering.

I stood there beside the table, eyes closed to help control the pain and reciting the Sage’s mantra over and over in low tones. The scent of the flowers filled my nostrils with delicate perfumes and a soft buzzing swelled and faded in my ears. Curious as to the cause of this sound I opened my eyes. The gladiolas stood only inches from my face, green stems studded with peach velvet blooms, and dancing among the flowers was an iridescent green and blue hummingbird. It hovered over a stalk of blossoms and probed each one in turn with swift plunges into the flower’s trumpet, a backwards drift, then more delicate probing.

When it had worked its way to the top most gladiola, the Sage’s messenger floated before my eyes, a living gem of feathers and ceaseless energy. It had tasted my offering, and acknowledged my gifts. My hands flew to my astonished face and tears of joy trickled down my cheeks. The messenger hovered a moment longer then flitted up into the wide blue sky and vanished, carrying my gratitude to the Sage.