THE OSSUARY By Charles Sarlanis Smashwords Edition Copyright 2011 Charles Sarlanis Smashwords Edition – License Notes. Thank you for downloading this free Ebook. It may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided it remains in its complete original form; share it freely. If you enjoyed this story, know that the pleasure was doubly mine. Thanks – For use of the cover photo razvandm2005@yahoo.com <<<>>> THE OSSUARY It came as a disappointment; surprised me, taking as it did longer than I had expected. No distress; at least, not at first. Goodness gracious, there is no life more ‘laid back’ than that of a monastery monk. In our candle-lit corridors, serenity and meditation are, if not synonymous, indistinguishable. Perhaps it only seemed that way because of the accommodations. I could not claim they were new to me. Every monk did basilica duty, trip to Saint Sophie, but that was the extent of it. Big difference let me tell you between shoveling and being shoveled. Not a comfortable feeling lying there in a jumble of disconnecting bones trying to look with cool dispassion as your flesh loosens and falls away from your skeleton. The thought that stuck was, ‘What am I doing here?’ The ‘here’ being inside the basilica which was the abandoned oven behind the old stable. It now served as a way station for the dead before transfer to the ossuary in the monastery cellar. The oven’s domed shape gave it the look of a small-scale basilica, with the cross installed on top completing the picture. A good replica in most respects: whitewashed clean, sturdy, secure; but, most important: out of sight ─ and smelling. Lying flat and immobile in that worm-pulsing mass of putrefaction was no picnic. Take my word on it; a decidedly fat goose spur to prayer is what it was. My soul filled with ‘angst’; no idea why. I had read the word, never had occasion to use it, but there I was bundled up on the oven’s stone surface, and that was what I felt. ‘Nervous’ did not come close to doing the job. ‘What’s this!’ was my reaction; and must admit, I was disturbed, disillusioned, ‘dis’ this, and ‘dis’ that; you name it. I held the standard belief, reinforced repeatedly by inspired writings and drawings, that the soul would rise in shining, shimmering glory; swoosh out of this earthly mud pie, and waft swiftly to ‘The Baker’, split-sec, express delivery. ‘What’s the hold up?’ I wondered. ‘Why the delay? Not another test surely?’ I was disappointed and critical, but I felt justified in both complaints. I had led a good monks’ life; not saintly, although I gave it my sincere best those early years when I was full of incense and loaded with candle power. I was young and rapturously in love with God. My days were spent in one continuous prayer broken only by my monastery duties and meals. In the basilica ─ prayer was non-stop. Outside of a courteous ‘hello’, inside there was no other conversation. I presume everyone was, like me, getting ready, honing his hopes, and being thankfully cooperative. Wondering. The answers to all those lifetime questions would now be revealed; and they were. From the standpoint of soul, you will be disappointed. There are no ‘Tales of the Crypt’ because everyone is cautious, afraid of thinking a wrong thought, and concentrating on blanking out everything but thanks to God for starting them on their way. All that, however, is prologue; for although the decay ‘lie-in’ was unpleasant and uneventful, it was but the start of my journey out of death; and it bulldozed my fantasies. When my lights went out and ‘The Light’ came on, I found myself on a slab, and leaning over me was Brother Ambrose, a certifiable saint by anyone’s definition. Saint Ambrose proceeded to tenderly wash and oil my corpse, paying attention to between toes, inside and behind ears. He trimmed my nails, hair and, while at it, shaved my ears and cut back my unsightly nostril bristles. Satisfied with the wash and oil, he tightly wrapped me in swaddling. I was thrilled as my ‘sanitized’ soul gathered itself for ‘lift-off’. Premature, presumptuous, naïve; take your pick. Ecstatic expectation was soon smashed against the merciless shock of reality. It was yet ‘starters’; I learned ─ the hard way. My soul felt claustrophobic; compressed so tightly in my funeral packet, it fled into my skull and took up permanent residence there, and good that it did. Saint Ambrose had me parked on the outside shelf, and with the oven shovel, opened enough space to slot me between two of the residents. It was a big oven but crowded. Flu had downed six oldsters; I was number seven, and three others were coughing close behind. Things were looking up for the novices. Satisfied, he dragged me and unceremoniously slid and pushed my cocoon into the stinking pile. A hasty sign of the cross, four-word prayer and he was out of there pinching his nostrils and slamming the oven door closed. Not much to say about the next months; only that it was no fun. Being exposed to your own rotting flesh every minute of every day is . . . is grossly disgusting. Time passed; it always does, doesn’t it? And, it was Brother Ambrose once more who came to do the unwrap, bone scrape and polish. I could find no fault with anything he did, meticulously correct and respectful treatment for a brother monk, and far better than my own remembered hurriedly, perfunctory efforts. My soulful thanks drifted his way, but unnoticed. It surprised me somewhat because I had, in all playful teasing mind you, sometimes remarked on his unctuousness. ‘Running for sainthood and wants our vote,’ I chided. Innocent monastery humor, and I was proud of my talent for making others laugh. He always took the jesting in the spirit intended and smiled back at me benignly. As I said, you live and learn, but you have to die to ‘know’. Finished with the clean up, Saint Ambrose carried my bones in a box cradled under his left arm while he played walking ‘toss and catch’ with my skull; all the while whistling a jazzed up version of some dirge I could not identify. His changed attitude filled my soul with unease. ‘Why the whistling? Where the liftoff? More delay? Did he know something I didn’t?’ No, I learned; the answer came on arrival at the ossuary. He emptied my bones into the communal well atop the other thousands, stood for a few seconds holding my skull at arms length, and bark-barked a laugh which can only be described as ‘unsaintly’. Whistling a happy tune, he patted my skull, and forced a space between the skulls of Mark and Mathew. There was not enough room, and the fit made my skull stand out inches above the others. Being conspicuous was embarrassing, and I did not appreciate it. What worried me more was the instability of my precarious perch, balancing as I was between Mark and Mat, and resting on the shelf’s narrow lip. That was the reason for Saint Ambrose’s glee. He had placed me right smack between the skulls of my clumsiest foils, both humorless and dry as kindling. He turned their faces to me, and, standing back, stared for a few seconds. Apparently satisfied with the positioning, he then held his nose to my ‘no nose’ and let loose a devilish laugh that wrecked my faith in monk sincerity. Good apprentice saint that he was, Brother Ambrose did not get mad; he got even. Forthwith now my story, the tribulations of Brother Charles’s time on ‘death row’ you could call it. I will recite it to Brother Basil, so if you are getting the story second hand, Praise God, you will know I am elsewhere. I have never minded the ossuary, it is quiet night and day, and weather is of no concern. There is more than enough company although conversation is mostly in the nature of prayer swaps ─ like favorite recipes among cooks. If you hoped to hear confessions, you will be disappointed. I have a sparkler I would like to swap, but no one is interested. Brother Ambrose’s dirty trick lost importance very soon. As I said, I had expected a quick lift upstairs, and felt fully qualified and deserving. Mark and Mathew couldn’t wait to break the news to me. God, I learned, and it came as a shock, is not all that straightforward in his dealings with mortals. What other I learned was bones were of absolutely no consequence. Anyone with a missing limb or digit can rest at ease. The skull would also be worthless one day but not until it was vacated and soul consolidation complete. My soul was now cringing uncomfortably inside my former skull more as squatter than owner. The metaphysics of skull ownership elude me. Behind me came the soulful buzz of prayers out of what sounded like scores of soul-occupied skulls. The realization of what that meant to me personally was devastating. If Mark and Mathew were still earthbound after over two year’s dead, what did that foretell for me? Those two were slugs, but they were faultless in qualification for ascension. I could see I was in trouble. A thousand questions but neither would reply. Their pettiness probably explained why they were still stuck to the launch pad; and, in a perverse way, the thought gave me satisfaction. I spent every minute of every day praying to the Almighty begging forgiveness with all the force I could muster, but in the back of my soul there was that nagging doubt I could not hide. Not a question of God’s existence; halleluiah, proof of that was everywhere in the ossuary crammed with praying souls – waiting. But, the worry persisted: did God play fair? Leaving my earthly body was a welcome relief, but there was always the fear that I would be found wanting, but prayer was supposed to patch those holes. I rated myself above average in faith and so did the abbot. It came as a terrible shock therefore that what I expected was radically different from the actual. Soul there was, I was dead proof of that, but the rest was smoke. All I have related so far has probably given you what you might call ‘the dark side’ of death. Balanced against that you will agree is the now unencumbered soul; a fragment of holiness, spotless, free at long last, unattached but on its way to ultimate union ─ the fulfilling rapture of return. Forget it. There is nothing special about soul minus the encumbering body. If you think back, body never really had any significance that you were aware of until health became a factor. Nothing like an ear or toothache to remind you. That’s how it is here, but without the distracting inconvenience of body discomfort. What I am trying to explain is there is absolutely ‘no difference’. The souls around me are all ‘soul’; and yet, we are all different one from the other. You would think souls being ‘SOUL’, that if two came into contact they would merge like beads of holy water; and, meeting others, like tiny trickles, flow together into rivulets, become rivers, and fill a soul lake at the lowest spiritual, gravitational point. The opposite is true. There is no attraction and no repulsion; about the same condition enjoyed when you were full-bodied. Makes you wonder; at least, and unfortunately, it does me. Is ‘The Soul’ upstairs like a jar full of beans? A patchwork quilt? I try to avoid these thoughts by concentrating on prayer, but they intrude uninvited, giving me something to think about, which is the last thing I need. Soul, you see, is many but one, a radiance pulsing from God’s essence. OK, I agree, it is a hazy description, but that is the general opinion here in the head-shed. To put it in the plainest language possible, soul is like God’s overcoat; not of Him, but close enough to share His warmth. That’s the best I can do. It was that discovery which so disconcerted every skull in the ossuary; that is, all those still soul-tenanted. The occupied skulls were loaded with individual souls, former owners, still worriedly praying for a good call on the final judgment. The shock was finding out there was no substantive change over what went on during mortality. God was in no apparent hurry, and that made this wait worse than the first. I felt cut adrift; this could go on forever. One other detail that might interest you. When you get to the bones of a situation such as ours, it is every monk for himself. You hear no suggestions for choir practice or group ‘pray-ins’. Even requests for pairing off, to double the thrust of a prayer in hopes of having it stand out from the singles, that too is a dead issue. We are all on our own. Sound familiar? Brother Timothy was a pitiful case. Over fifty years of patient prayer and still no ‘Word’. He sadly confided to me that he feared God had forgotten him. ‘God,’ I rote-reassured him, ‘hears every prayer.’ That put him on a new worry track. Reminding God of the long wait, he feared, might not be such a good idea. I was not on the rack a full week when I witnessed an ‘absorption’; that is, in so far as witnessing is possible. Nobody had a precise term to describe the time when a soul vanished from its skull nest. It was Brother Samuel, and he had been on the rack for only ten days. There was no question in anyone’s skull where Silent Sam had gone. Sam was a saint if there ever was one and fully deserved the fast burn. Because I was so new to the company of the waiting, Silent Sam’s early lift off thrilled me as much as it distressed the others. To me it proved, despite Tim’s delay, God was keeping close inventory; to the others it was like a step backwards, a reminder of their own inadequacy in His eyes. My soul was filled with the ecstatic glow, the warm prelude to my entry into ‘The Soul’ which was perhaps God Himself, or ‘of’ God, whatever. Those were the brightly hopeful days, the happy times, singing His praises, soul full of rapturous expectation; but, no longer. One hundred and sixty years of shelf time dulled the edges of my optimism and took the lilt out of my prayers. Old, purposely forgotten sins boiled out of the morass of my sinful life; inflating them with noxious gases and, on resurfacing, exposing them to pox-mark scar my conscience. As the full extent of my sinfulness became more evident, I shifted into full-power prayer garnished with tactful reminders to God of Christ’s message, re: ‘Forgive those what repent.’ No dice; fizzle; makes you wonder about the relationship. The waiting years were not uneventful. Things happen even in an ossuary. The death of Brother David, or rather, the arrival of his skull and soul on my rack was traumatic for me, to say the least. That inept, half-brain, Brother Thomas tried to squeeze Dave’s skull onto an already overcrowded rack. Wedged as I was between Mark and Mathew, my skull toppled, hit the stone floor, cracked and gave me a small cranial skylight. Unconcerned, Brother Thomas picked up my damaged skull, examined it unemotionally, kicked the loose splinters under the racks, went to the well, looked into the darkness . . . at me . . . hesitated, thought better of it, carried me to the back row and inserted me out of view into the company of the ancients. My soul gave a sigh of released tension and grateful thanks. The only ‘soul-full’ skull on that rack was that of Brother Andrew, and meeting him filled me with dread and renewed foreboding. Brother Andrew was still ‘in waiting’ after hundreds of years. I did not know if my soul had the strength to take this latest shock. Would I break? Was this another of God’s ways of exacting penance? Could I go on like this for millennia? For eternity? Time did not seem to much matter to God. I decided to get with Andy to learn what he, or we, had done; to perhaps do the opposite of what he was doing in hopes of getting back into God’s good graces. From the lives of those brothers I had known personally, and the little gossip I was able to pick up, it seemed to me neither Andy nor I had done anything worse than the others. No answer from above; never a clue. It’s enough to make you wonder if it is worth the trouble of non-stop prayerful thoughts. Brother Andy, Brandy, for short; thinks it makes no difference, but then Brandy’s ‘down-time’ sort of argues against what Brandy thinks. If I had paper and ink I would write a book on what the main theories are as to selection criteria. I lean to that of Saint James who was with us for not even a full day. Talk about ‘presence’. We all have one to some extent, but ours is reticent by comparison. Saint Jim’s soul burst out of his skull, spread out and hovered over us. He was furious at what he found in the ossuary; not the conditions, and not the surprise we all experienced. ‘We are in God’s hands,’ he roared, and that was enough for Saint James; ‘what’s to question?’ he thundered. He was fighting mad at being exposed to so many unrepentant sinners and spent the entire time preaching to us about saving our souls. He pounded us with God’s hammer and flayed us with His whip. Souls smoked as his thunderbolts struck sins exposed by prayer. ‘Fools, weaklings,’ he cried, ‘when your soul reaches a state of purity, it will lift of its own accord, and without any assistance from God.’ He harangued us unmercifully for eighteen hours non-stop, paused for breath . . . and . . . disappeared. The collective soulful sigh of relief was almost audible. Saint James was solid proof; God knows what He wants when He hears it. If Saint J is right; I’m a ‘gonner’, or rather, like Brandy, a ‘stayer’. All of the other theories are tied one way or another to prayer, the more the better, getting the mix right, hoping to hit God when He has a weakness for that particular refrain. I can’t do it. My span of devotion is too short and memory fails me. I probably repeat the same five or ten prayers over and over. After a month it all begins to sound monotonously insincere. What do you imagine it sounds like after a hundred years? A soul leaves without any notice, no squeal of jubilation; no ‘see-you-upstairs’ gleeful shout; no whoosh and no flashing lights. A skull is soul-full one minute ─ hocus pocus, alakazam ─ and ‘not’. It can be sensed, but only after the fact. Nothing precedes it, not even a break in conversation or prayer. God is probably too polite and considerate to rudely interrupt; or, too sly to give a hint. Who knows? My prayers ask He overlook and forgive my shortcoming; and, I wait in humble anticipation. His answer filters through my conscience, and it goes something like this: ‘FOR ANYONE ELSE, YES; FOR A MONK, NO WAY!’ I ask you please not laugh at what I say next because I am serious. I can sometimes feel my soul is being man- or God-handled; that it is being gently placed on a palm-scale and then returned to its place of rest. Afterwards, I can still feel the impressions left by the contact, like floured fingerprints on soft dough. These episodes bring on bouts of depression, but, good or bad, frequency is falling off. Brandy says he has been through those stages, and it gets worse over time. What would I do without him? By his own admission he has done some bad things for a monk to have on his conscience. He was a cook, which any monk will tell you is, as an occupation, a steaming stew of temptation, the least of which is gluttony. Had he been a bad cook, says Brandy, he would now be in God’s warm embrace. ‘Why did He give me cooking genius when He knew I was too weak to resist temptation?’ I have to agree. Brandy was a chef of renown, he says, and claims he held a Michelin five-star rating. ‘I was sent everywhere to palaces, presidential suites and the homes of industrial giants. The pope required a monthly visit.’ ‘Didn’t that make you feel proud?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘why would it make me proud? I was happy to be of service to others with my God-given talent. The talent was not mine, but simply on loan from Him.’ ‘Then why did you fail the first draft? That is top drawer humility. It borders on saintliness.’ Brandy wheezed a soulful sigh which was far from repentant, or I am no judge of sighs; and sighs, mind you, are part of a monk’s basic training. He grew wistful, and his soul misted. ‘What can I say? I sinned outside the walls of the monastery where temptation abounds.’ ‘Certainly you confessed?’ ‘Immediately upon my return. Every time?’ ‘Every time, what? You mean─?’ ‘Yes.’ And his soul was transparent in its unrepentance. ‘So many times, each and every one; simply unforgettable. How repent for time spent in paradise? I try so desperately, but I cannot work up the sincerity. Given the opportunity─’ ‘Don’t say it, Brandy! He is always listening in. You will be here forever.’ ‘It’s no use, Charles. Memories interrupt my prayers and take me back, making me wish I could relive . . . It was not my fault; no man could resist Eve. I refer, of course, to her apples.’ ‘Apple.’ ‘No, Peter; the others, those protruding so provocatively front and rear, standard fixtures found in every kitchen.’ He went silent in what I hoped was the start of true repentance. False hope. ‘The kitchen staffs were always female; mature cooks offering, among other things, delicious, gourmet dishes, and delectable young teens offering themselves unseasoned. You must sympathize, Charles. I was a chef superstar, and I could not fight them off. In twos and threes they had their way with me. My sin? I was too weak physically to withstand three on one, and too weak spiritually to resist a determined solo attack.’ ‘And now you rue and sincerely regret?’ ‘I try, but as you can see, my ‘rueing’ and ‘regretting’ have not been as emphatic as my sinning. I cannot find it in my soul to repent for what was one hell of a good romp repeated a thousand times over.’ Prayer emanated from his soul as he gave thanks to God; but for what? In my pity for Brandy, I slipped into envy of his experiences. Bad company, I realized, and bad news for us both. I prayed for my Holy Father to forgive and take Brandy to His Bosom, but God could see through the sham of my prayer. If He forgave Brandy, there must be hope for me. Brandy was my index, and it was not encouraging. Being on the rear shelf with all those empty skulls, and only Brandy for company, news was always late in arriving. It made no difference because it concerned but two subjects: prayer of the week and the latest absorption, or lack thereof. The only times our peace and quiet was interrupted was upon arrival of another skull and the clatter of bones dropped into the well. Those souls on the front shelves sometimes saw the eyes of tourists or pilgrims staring through the small, barred aperture in the locked door. Children held high to peek in suffered one reaction ─ fright followed by screams and a lifetime of bad dreams. It also made an impression on the adults. There is a no more poignant reminder, no more positive proof, of one’s mortality than a warehouse of unsmiling,chinless skulls. The door was locked long ago, said Brandy, because of visitors’ penchant for picking up or fishing souvenir bones out of the well. Even skulls disappeared, but, since no inventory was ever taken, the thefts went unnoticed. Of no real significance for a soul- less skull but unforgivably disrespectful to one occupied. ‘How awful,’ I lamented, and felt sincere compassion for my lost brothers. ‘That was bad,’ he continued, ‘but hardly the worst.’ ‘There was worse?’ ‘Indeed. Worse came at the hands of our brothers.’ I felt his soul go cold in righteous indignation. He waited; and I stared back in puzzlement. It came to me; and my soul recoiled in shame, for I realized my own guilt in the desecration. What Brandy was referring to was our many saint’s day celebrations when a skull was arbitrarily selected and used in the service. During the ceremony the skull was treated with full respect, but rudely afterwards. There was never any hurry in returning the bone head to its place; it was a chore left to novices; who, having other concerns, usually deposited it anywhere convenient. ‘Some of those skulls,’ bristled Brandy’s soul, ‘were never returned. Your guess is as good as mine, but they were either given candle-holder duty or discarded by one of our dear brethren here.’ Brandy thought the thought out loud enough for all to grasp, and I caught sight of two souls which flared in guilty admission. ‘That cracked skull to your left is Brother ‘So-Good’ Daniel. Good Dan was delivered back air mail, tossed roughly against the wall and rolled over the others until he wound up upside down. That was too much for God. He took Dan before the skull had come to rest. Whoever did that must have that little baby burning holes in his conscience.’ A bright soul flash in row ten was verification. ‘But, Brandy, God’s a Good Guy. He must have it in His heart to forgive anything where soul repentance is sincere.’ ‘Why? What makes you think He is all heart? Why assume sex is a Godly component? He may be a neutral universe of soul; anything is possible. Worst case? He might be a ‘she’. If that’s true, Brother Charles, and it is my main worry; I am here for eternity. Females are different from us in ways we can love but never satisfy, ergo impossible to understand.’ ‘Did you feel it, Brandy?’ ‘Yes, but I didn’t catch who it was.’ ‘Brother Andrew from row eighteen.’ Brandy deflated. ‘That’s the thousandth Andrew to beat me out of this dungeon. Sometimes I think God takes them ahead of me on purpose.’ ‘Come now, Brandy, He has better things to do than conspire against you. None of us is of any significance to Him.’ ‘I won’t argue the point, but have you considered another possibility? What does He do in His spare time? How get His kicks? Want my guess?’ Receiving no answer, he went on. ‘He plays with my soul. Fun for Him, but not for me because it hurts. Oh, how it hurts!’ Brandy’s soul vibrated in such pain, pulsed and misted so intensely, that I was overcome with compassion as I watched him suffer. ‘I am in such agony,’ his soul cried out, and all the souls, captured by the intensity of his anguish, turned to look. ‘I suffer, suffer, suffer and pine for Him; to be wrapped in His Love.’ All prayer in the ossuary stalled. The depth of my friend’s distress overwhelmed me. I couldn’t help it. I misted along with him, felt his hurt and prayed with all my soul for his deliverance. Wave on wave of prayers joined mine in beseeching God in Brandy’s behalf. There was an atmospheric change, and it didn’t take me long to figure out what it was. I found myself misting there in the back row all by my lonesome. Brandy was gone. My soul filled with sincere thanks for the end of his long suffering. Upon reflection, however, it made me wonder anew about God’s motives. What I had witnessed seemed to confirm Brandy’s worst fears. God was not averse to playing games using His monks as toys. New fears filled my soul. I was now the oldest skull occupant in the den; and, God help me, it filled me with pride. Back row is quiet; you can say that much for it; and silence can be golden. You can say that also; but, on top of that, it is lonely; lonely as all get out. All of the skull souls, I don’t know why, interact with those in the same row or ahead. The assumption being, perhaps, nobody wants to make friends with someone who will (relatively speaking) be soon gone. Then again all the skull openings are in front and sides, or it may simply be a soul feature. Who knows? Whenever a brother delivered a new occupant, I prayed he would place him next to me; but no luck. They always held to tradition by extending or adding to the front rows. There was room enough for eight or ten hundred years of skull row additions. It got so bad I found myself begging God for company when I should have been working on Him for deliverance. My prayers really got hot and heavy when a novice returned a used skull. ‘This way!’ sang my soul. ‘Toss him over here . . . please . . . please.’ Do dreams come true? Wishes? Some do, and, amazingly, which is another way of saying ‘God’, Amos threw Brother Basil right at me, bouncing off my cob without widening the top crater. Does God play? You can bet on it? Does he play fair? Brighten up. He plays by His own rules. So much for preamble. Please believe me. I am as open-minded as the next soul, but there are limits, and everyone can plainly see they are set by nature. Brother Basil’s is a soul as religiously good as any in the history of monkhood. You could not fault the sincerity of his faith; heart and soul he is one of God’s true monks. But Brother Basil, or Billie, as he likes to be called, is of a different persuasion, the curse of monastic life, and, as I saw it, an affront to man and God. I could not stand having his soul close and politely drew back whenever his approach threatened intimacy, or, God forbid, soulful contact. Billie was oblivious to my revulsion. He thought I was shy, or coquettishly playing hard to get. Broad hints bounced off his soul like popping corn. Forgive the old cliché; but, don’t wish too hard ─ it might happen. It had for me and with a vengeance. Billie was a nightmare. Here was a brother with not the remotest chance of making it into ‘God-Space’. How could he ever repent being what he was? I was stuck with him forever; two back row lost souls. Now I understood why Billie had been given the ‘heave ho’ to the back of the room. I took it for as long as I could but finally broke down and told him: ‘Keep your grubby soul off mine.’ ‘Whatever gave you the idea I could possibly be interested in a fractured crown like you? Not if you were the last soul in the ossuary. Boo Boos were never my type.’ He laughed at me; imagine the nerve, and it stung. We kept our distance after that and went several years without any contact; both concentrating on prayerful deliverance. The détente was shattered by the arrival of Brother Bernard, or rather, Sister Bernadette, which she preferred, and in consideration of her former anatomical construction and equipage, was the more appropriate. Unlike the physical imposter, Billie; Bea owned a female soul, which is I found, if it is of any theological difference to you, no different from males’. It probably all has to do with the Adam’s rib business. Who’dathought? ‘Why,’ I asked her, when she had settled in and recovered from the shot putt delivery, ‘not hit a nunnery? Wouldn’t a convent be a more appropriate road to God?’ ‘Never was inclined in that direction; my preference is for strong men in dresses and black stockings, although cassocks and tights are an equal turn on. I liked the boys, and the monasteries were loaded even after subtracting the Billies; and, being a first class smithy, never had a problem finding an opening in a monastery. Bald head, blacksmith arms and leather clothing always did the trick. After that, my friends ‘covered’ me. ‘This was my tenth monastery, and I was getting up there in the age and down in looks departments, and that’s what did me in. My mistake was coming clean in expectation that my past honorable service would produce a retirement package. I opened my heart and soul to the abbot. Big mistake; he had me poisoned, and buried me in here to hide the murder. It didn’t hurt, and I have no hard feelings. It was fun while it lasted.’ ‘You poor thing,’ I said. ‘You will be here after I have gone and even after Billie; perhaps, forever. How can God accept repentance from someone whose soul is so stained by unforgiveable sin?’ ‘Don’t sweat it, Charlie. I have fond and loving memories enough to carry me through eternity, and then some. My memory treasure chest is full to overflowing, and I’ll polish those gems while I reminisce. You boys just keep up with your praying, and . . . I’ll try to stay out of your way.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said, but my soul was drawn to her, and I could sense the feeling was mutual. So could Billie. He became agitated. ‘We can’t have her here.’ Uncharacteristically brusque, I said, ‘Why don’t you pack your tent and move elsewhere?’ That did it. Billie berated us, exploded out of his skull, swished down to the front rows, and ducked into one of the vacant skulls. But not for long. Four or five other souls rushed to his new apartment and entered. It was a reunion; and, if not party time, it was close enough. Prayer was at full stop as furious souls poked in and out of skull holes. They were having trouble containing their anger at this diabolical turn of events, the corruption of the ossuary’s chapel environment. The chaos that followed was the result of what I did then. All souls were concentrating on Bill’s den of iniquity when I slid out and ushered Bea into my place. But the room was too small for that to go unnoticed. Explosion cannot describe what took place next. All of the souls erupted as one and swirled around the room like a swarm of hornets. They swooped, swerved and dove, but gradually their anger waned and dissipated as it was replaced by the thrill of flying freedom. They exulted and joyful love filled the ossuary for the first time ever. It was contagious, and even Billie’s company joined the flying circus. Looking up I noticed the swarm was gradually decreasing in numbers. To make certain, I held Billie in view and sure enough, at one point, he disappeared. The last twenty or thirty went out in a single blink. ‘Saint James was right.’ ‘Saint James?’ ‘He was a short-timer here, but he had the answer. God does not pull the souls up to His kingdom. They rise under the power of true repentance, but the sinner must know his heart has been made pure. Cutting the anchor of doubt sends the soul aloft. It became obvious to them all when they took flight out of their skulls as it did for Saint Jim, but he left too quickly for us to grasp the message.’ ‘What about Billie?’ ‘Well, I imagine if he doesn’t tell, He won’t ask.’ I looked at Bea. ‘Want to join them?’ ‘Not especially. It’s nice and comfy here, and I always wanted a place of my own, one with a sun porch. How about you?’ ‘I think I have incurred an obligation. I must stay behind to teach the others the true meaning of repentance.’ ‘Then maybe we should cuddle because it makes conversation easier.’ And that was when our souls came together, as one – for eternity. End Copyright 2011 Charles Sarlanis charles_sarlanis@yahoo.com Novels ‘Purple’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109928 ‘The Cheerleaders’ Last Cheer’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/103840 ‘FirstMac Shirley’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/107393 ‘Bible Booker Kansas’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/115851 <> Free short stories ‘The Ossuary’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/96461 ‘The Wizard of Us’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/96855 ‘The Ministry’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/117492 ‘The Ubiquitous Secret’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/94817 ‘Puffy’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/101666 ‘Putin’s Pal’ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98934