He was Flanders Nickels, a man alone and a mortal in a world of magicians and mortals. With not a friend nor ever any girlfriend, he sat there alone at the picnic table at the park, and he wondered about God, the stranger to him. From where he sat he looked out toward the nearby shore and saw the green grass of the edges of this park; beyond that, he saw the sloping large flat-topped rocks; beyond that, he saw the many small stones; beyond that, he saw the little waves of the river washing ashore; and beyond that, he saw the rest of the large and wide river with the yellow sun reflecting off of its surface in many flashes and sparkles and rays of yellow. “I do not know You, O God,” he did say to the
Maker.
Just then he thought to see something floating out in the river some distance away from shore. It was there in the midst of the reflected sun on top of the waters, going up and down with the ripples.
And it looked to be dark. Straining his eyes to stare at it in the sunlit waters, his eyes watered, and he had to turn away and wipe his eyes dry. And when he looked back to find it, there it was, still there, a little bit nearer now than the last time. He turned away again to clear his eyes, and he looked back for
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it and saw it again, this time even closer to where he sat upon this picnic table. It stayed always in the sun, and it was making a straight line to shore, albeit not very quickly. And turning away and turning back, he saw it on its own volition traverse the waters in a journey right toward where he was. Flanders then got up and ran toward the river to get a good look at what was coming. It was definitely brown.
And it was ornate. And it was of wood. And it washed ashore right before where he was standing.
And Flanders Nickels knelt before it and studied it with his eyes, not touching it with his hands. The wood was smooth all throughout. It was about one-and-one-half feet long and a few inches wide and a few inches deep. Its base was a cube of three inches on one side. Its midsection was a rectangular prism, steadily narrower as it came toward its top. Its head was a tetrahedron. Strange words and odd symbols and incomprehensible notations were inscribed all throughout this object’s wooden self. Flanders then reached out his hand to pick it up. Then he changed his mind and drew back his hand before he touched it. This wooden staff looked to be a sceptre. Sceptres were not for mortal men like himself to pick up. What was a sceptre doing out here in the river and now on the shore? He stood up and thought about maybe more safely rolling this sceptre over on these little rocks with his shoe. But he dared not do that, either. He then thought about trying to pick this up with little rocks in his hands between his fingers and this wooden sceptre. He changed his mind about this idea, too. Then he saw a message underneath this sceptre’s base in gilded letters. He squatted down before it and read the message and its three words, saying, “Property of Gravel.” At once Flanders jumped back to his feet, and he ran back to his picnic table and did grab this picnic table in both hands and sat down on its bench, and did quake. This was the sceptre of Gravel, the Witch of the East, the famous Wizard Lady who ruled the world! All of the world knew Gravel, the Wizard Lady. All of the world’s history books said that no witch before Gravel had magic as redoubtable as hers. And all who lived in the world now, knew that no magician in this current world—wizard or witch—had as much power as did Gravel.
Except for Old Dominion, her wizard husband. Only Old Dominion in all the world could wrought
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magic more efficacious than her own. He was the Wizard of the North. Indeed, with her sceptre in her hand, there was nothing that Gravel could not do. What was the Wizard Lady’s utterly formidable sceptre doing here? How did it get here so far away from her throne in the East? Why was this not in Gravel’s hands right now? And the mortal man Flanders wondered in great bewilderment. Then he dared to look at it there on the shore from where he sat at the picnic table not far away. Curiosity tempted him to get a little closer to this. He stood and wondered in secret silence, What if I just touched it for a moment? He stared at it. It summoned him nearer. He wondered in more secret thoughts, What if I just went to pick it up? His conscience told him, “Sit down and turn away from it.” But thoughts from this sceptre told him, “Pick me up in your hands; wave me through the air; and you can do Wizard Lady’s magic.” Flanders did not want to have anything to do with witch’s magic. And he sat back down on the bench of the picnic table. But his eyes did not turn away from this sceptre. And his human mind began to ask other questions about this displaced magic sceptre: If he ran away for his own good now, someone else might find it, and who knows what that someone else might do with it? Or if he fled this sceptre for his life, what if a wave washed ashore and carried this sceptre back into the river, and it was never found again? Or what if another magician found her sceptre way out here—like the Wizard of the South or the Witch of the West? At the very least, if Flanders himself were to touch it, what might happen to him? Would he still be alive if he did so? Or would he have the power of Gravel herself? And Flanders stood back up before the picnic table. He took one step toward the beckoning sceptre. He took a second step. And a third. And he marched right back to where it was lying. And the curious mortal reached down and dared to pick up Gravel’s lost sceptre in both hands, and he held it in the air. And his tongue began to speak words of prophecy: “My eyes have been opened, and I see as gods see, knowing good and evil. I know from whence I have come. I know wherefore I am here. I know whither I shall go. O earth, earth, earth, behold me in what I have become this moment. I know wisdom passed down from generation to generation to generation. I
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understand knowledge of forefathers and of fathers’ fathers. I perceive that which will happen to children and children’s children even unto the third and the fourth generation.” A most overwhelming sensation of great magic passed from the sceptre into Flanders’s body. And he felt that he could perform magic with a wave of this sceptre, otherwise which was impossible for any mortal like himself
without this sceptre. And suddenly he coveted this witch’s magic which he had previously rejected.
Flanders Nickels had never felt this good before. And he never wanted to feel anything other than this again. This sceptre enhanced his spirit most desirably. And the mortal thought to experiment with an immortal’s magic. He raised his new sceptre in both hands above his head to cast it downward in front of himself and to seek to divide the waters of this great river.
But just then a pretty voice of a young woman behind him called out unto him in authority, “Young man, I command you in the name of the Witch of the East, to relinquish this sceptre and to renounce of that which you now seek to do with it.”
In obedience, Flanders did not follow through with this magic act he thought to try, and he let down the sceptre harmlessly, and he turned around to see this woman who had just spoken to him
so authoritatively. He beheld a most fair young woman, about thirty years of age, standing about five-and-one-half feet tall. She had most comely brown hair with long gentle curves across her forehead and down the sides of her head. She had pretty eyes of brown that shone with an inner spirit of godliness. Her voice was pretty to the ears and sounded like a song to him. And she was dressed in a brown plaid long-sleeved blouse, a brown leather vest unbuttoned, a brown flowing leather skirt down to the knees, and brown leather boots that covered most of her shins.
He then asked her, “Are you Gravel, O lady?”
“I am not she,” said this young lady.
“Who are you?” he asked.
And she said, “I am the Journeywoman.”
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“The Journeywoman?” asked Flanders.
“The messenger of Gravel,” she said. “I am the Wizard Lady’s mouth, her ambassador, her counselor, her best friend.”
“Have you come for this sceptre?” he asked.
“I have, O fellow mortal,” said the Journeywoman.
“You are mortal, too, like myself?” asked Flanders Nickels.
And the Journeywoman said, “I am mortal indeed.”
“With this sceptre in my hands, I have discovered all the wisdom of the world,” said Flanders in
sincere profession.
But this Journeywoman went on to say, “You think to have found wisdom, because you have my mistress’s sceptre in your hands? I ask you to hear what the true God says about wisdom in the Good Book and then reconsider. It is written therein, ‘I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength. By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.’ Proverbs 8:12-17.”
“What does all that say?” he asked, inquisitive.
“It says that only the all-wise God can give true wisdom,” said the Journeywoman.
“But what about this?” he asked, holding up this sceptre in his right hand in doubts of her words.
“It is not for you, O mortal man, to touch the sceptre of the Witch of the East,” gave commandment the Journeywoman.
“I feel one way right now, and you feel a different way right now,” he said, unsure now what to
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do with this Wizard Lady sceptre.
“What is your name, O young man?” she asked.
“’Flanders,’” he said. “’Flanders Nickels.’ What’s your name, O Journeywoman?”
“I am ‘Jodi,’” said this Journeywoman. “’Jodi Bar Graph.’”
“If I give this sceptre to you, what will happen?” he asked.
“If you give that sceptre to me, I will make sure that it gets into the hands of its rightful owner,” said Jodi Bar Graph.
“I do not know of any Journeywoman of Gravel,” said Flanders. “All the world has heard of Gravel, but no one knows of you, Miss Graph.”
“You do not know if I really am who I say I am,” said Jodi.
“And not only that, I like holding this in my hands,” said Flanders. “I do not want to let it go out of my hands.”
“I suggest prudence and great care, Flanders,” warned Jodi Graph. “You know not with what you are playing.”
“This sceptre, can it do something to me that is bad if I hold on to it for a while?” he asked.
“It can do something bad to you even if you hold on to it for just a moment, Flanders,” said Miss Graph.
“Maybe I should set it down,” he said.
“Take heed and do so at once, I beseech you most earnestly O mortal Flanders,” she said. He hesitated. “Your doing that would give me relief for your soul, Flanders,” said the Journeywoman.
“I will set it down, but I will not let you take it away from me right now,” he said.
“You are wise not to trust the not-well-known Journeywoman,” said Jodi Graph.
“Where should I put this where neither of us can grab it and run?” he asked.
“Maybe you should put it in a place where both of us can grab it just as easily as each other,”
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said Jodi Graph.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“How can a Journeywoman give you all of her own trust, O Flanders with my mistress’s sceptre?” asked Jodi Graph.
“Indeed, Jodi,” he said. “If I don’t trust you with this sceptre, how can you trust me with this sceptre?”
“Where do you think would make a good neutral spot to put this where it is within equally easy reach for the both of us?” asked Jodi.
“I was sitting at the picnic table just a little while ago,” he said. “I can put it on top of the picnic table between the both of us, each of us at opposite sides of the picnic table.”
“That would be good,” said the Journeywoman.
“And if I did give it to you, how would you get it back to Gravel without you yourself having to hold on to it for a long time?” asked Flanders in lingering doubts.
“I brought a large wooden briefcase with me when I came here,” she said. “Let us climb back up to shore, and I will show you this briefcase, and you can let go finally of my mistress’s sceptre.”
“Shall we go up to my picnic table, Journeywoman?” asked Flanders.
“Yes. Let’s,” said Miss Jodi Graph.
And they climbed up the rocky shoreline to the grass, and there was that briefcase for Jodi to bring back the sceptre to its Wizard Lady. “You were right, Jodi,” said Flanders.
“You and I got mixed up in this together, Flanders,” said the Journeywoman. “I am sorry that you found the sceptre before I did.”
The two then sat down together at opposite sides of the picnic table. Flanders unhappily set the sceptre on top of the picnic table between him and the woman, his good feeling leaving his heart when the sceptre was no longer in his grasp. And he sighed. He stole a look at the briefcase not far off to the
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side of the picnic table, then quickly turned back to Jodi Graph and the sceptre. Her hands were steadfastly upon her bench to both sides of where she was sitting. Maybe he could trust this self-proclaimed Journeywoman. He then turned away toward the briefcase for a moment and turned back to the girl and the sceptre. Still her hands did not move from her bench. Then he turned away toward the briefcase for a while and then turned back to this picnic table. Still her hands were not moved from her bench. “Do you trust me now, Flanders?” asked Miss Graph, seeing what he was doing.
“I can see that you do not want the sceptre for yourself, Jodi,” he confessed. “Your only desire in coming here is to bring back this sceptre to the Witch of the East.”
“In the name of the Lord, that is why I have come here,” she said.
“How did you find it here just like that from out of nowhere?” he asked.
“I do not know,” she said. “I just happened to come here, and, lo, a mortal man holding my immortal mistress’s sceptre. I have never seen such a contradiction before in all of my life.”
“Did I look silly?” he asked.
“You looked formidable,” she said, “but way out of place.”
“There is a saying,” he said. “It goes like this: ‘Absolute power corrupting absolutely.’”
“Well said, O Flanders,” she said. “Witch sceptres are meant for witches, not for mortals.”
‘No witch can hold a sceptre as well as Gravel does, and no man sings with such magic as does Old Dominion her husband,” praised Flanders Nickels the two rulers of the world.
“Alas, poor Old Dominion,” said the Journeywoman. “His magic of song has ceased.”
“Poor Old Dominion?” asked Flanders. “What is wrong with the Wizard of the North that he cannot make magic with a song anymore?”
“You did not hear the news, Flanders?” asked Jodi Bar Graph.
“What news, Jodi?” asked Flanders. “What happened?”
“Old Dominion passed away yesterday,” said Jodi.
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Flanders let out a gasp and could say nothing. How could this wizard of wizards die? He was supposed to live forever. Old Dominion was invincible, invulnerable, indomitable. He had been around for forever, and he was supposed to be around for forever. How could even death prevail over such a magician?
“Gravel is now a widow, Flanders,” said the Journeywoman.
“How did he die, Jodi?” asked Flanders.
“Death by natural causes,” said Miss Graph.
“He was over a thousand years old!” exclaimed Flanders Nickels.
“Even wizards die of old age,” said Jodi Graph.
“What can a mortal like myself say? I’m shocked,” said Flanders. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I was there when it happened,” said Jodi Bar Graph. “I was there alone with Dionysius their daughter and with Gravel and with Old Dominion. We three were with him in his last day in the North Region. There was an open meadow there rife with field grass with a shallow flowing waters that ran by called, ‘Warm Springs Creek,’ a creek of healing waters. Old Dominion made this healing creek with a song one day. It was made for the curing of magicians. He lay dying, partly in this creek and partly out of this creek. His body was trembling with approaching death. His head was resting upon Gravel’s lap, her worried hands caressing his pale and sweating face. She tried to warm up his bones from their coldness with her magic, but even Wizard Lady magic cannot prevail over death when death comes knocking for all. She cried out with tears, ‘O my husband, I fear greatly.’
And he replied quietly yet lucidly, ‘Fairest wife, I, too, fear. For the first time in my life, I am afraid.’
‘Dominion, O Dominion, art thou leaving me?’ asked Gravel.
‘Thine husband has learned now that there come upon the years of even magicians a most sobering and conclusive finality. And it has now come unto me,’ he said to her.
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‘Thou art passing away?’asked Gravel. Her wizard husband nodded his head. Wizards did grow old and die after all. So, too, must witches in their time of longevity as well.
‘Gravel, my Gravel, in my present dying, I am now learning the last thing that there is to know which I had not known before as Wizard of the North,’ he said.
‘My love, sing a song and make your death go away,’ she begged of him.
“Neither Wizard Lady sceptre nor wizard gentleman song can take my imminent death from taking place, O my beautiful wife,’ declared Old Dominion.
And Gravel uttered a love ode of farewell to beloved Old Dominion in their final living moments together here in the flowing creek as Dionysius and the Journeywoman looked on in great and fearful regard from the tall grass of this creek’s shoreline: ‘Finest husband, ever-loving and ever-faithful: I have loved thee for the ten centuries of a millennium. And thy love for me was alive as life living free. The history of the ages of this world shall proclaim thy singularly redoubtable wizard’s magic as the single greatest force upon this Earth in all of Earth’s annals. But thy love for me was greater still than even thy magic of magics. Thou hast turned this winter wilderness of the North and its tundras into a garden living and green. Thou hast done such for me thy wife, because I had once spoken and said, “I am cold up here.” I do remember that first song I had heard come from thy lips from afar that first day. It was coming into me in the East from way far into the North. My woman’s heart fell in love with that song and with that song’s singer. I heard the love of a lonely wizard seeking a wife his equal in witchcraft. And thy approval that day I did esteem higher even than my rule and sovereignty over the East. I sought this singing wizard right then, and I found him, and he found me.
We first met. We first fell in love. We first married each other. And all the world said that the mighty Wizard of the North married the most beautiful woman in the world. Thou hast called me that every day of our blissful days together ever since. I promised in vow unto thee on our wedding day, O handsome husband of mine, “I shall never sorrow again.” In all of our thousand years together as
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husband and wife, thou hast never raised thy voice at me, even when I was the one in the wrongdoing. Thou hast been unto me forgiving, long-suffering, patient, kind, gentle, good. As thy wife, I have been honored and flattered by thy many praises and thy loving words. Thou hast begotten unto me our only child, our beautiful witch daughter Dionysius, destined to be as great in magic as thou and myself. And I vow unto thee, O Dominion my beloved, before Heaven’s host of angels, as my love is for thee now, so shall it be for always and for evermore, neither less exultant, nor less poignant. My love for thee in life will continue be my love for thee in death. This I do duly promise. Wait for me where thou dost go. I shall follow soon. So shall it be. Ever and anon. My precious and dear finest husband.’ And
thus ended my mistress’s farewell to great Old Dominion there in the creek in the north that fateful day upon Earth.
And then the Wizard of the North uttered his love ode of farewell to Gravel in his last words on Earth as he lay dying in the creek and out of the creek: ‘Fairest wife, ever beautiful and ever caring. I also have loved thee for the one hundred decades of a millennium. Among the mortals there is a saying–”a match made in Heaven.” With thee as wife, a wizard can almost believe in such a Place. About thee, O beloved wife, witch and warlock and mortal man and mortal woman all say that there has not come upon this world another wizard lady like unto thee in power and in wisdom and in sovereignty. Yet thy husband thine only equal has found a magic in thee greater even than that which thou bringest to pass with thy sceptre. And that magic is thy celestial beauty of thy female person. I do
extol thus thy goddess’s tresses of brown; I do extol thus thy angel’s eyes of brown; I do extol thus thy witch’s slender frame. In all things feminine that doth make thee what thou art unto thy husband, it is thy grandeur of beauty that doth exceed thy magic of sceptre that hast stolen thy wizard’s heart. As a wizard’s wife, thou hast been beguiling, of all manner of female wiles and women’s charm, fiercely faithful, self-sacrificing, giving, compassionate, wondrously alive with living life, meek, demure, chaste. Thou, O most comely Gravel, hast completed a wizard who could do anything. Thou hast
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conceived unto me our beautiful daughter Dionysius, whose beauty is like unto thine and whose destiny as Witch of the East she shall perform equally well. I promise thee, O my beloved, that even death shall not part thee and me. I shall come back unto thee, and I shall be again with thee. We shall talk. We shall sing. We shall laugh. We shall weep. We shall walk. We shall run. We shall love forevermore in spirit and in soul. Fairest Gravel, bear with thy husband for his last promise unto thee: “I shall never say unto thee, ‘Farewell.’”’
And Old Dominion died in Gravel’s arms that day in the creek of the North, O Flanders,” concluded Jodi Bar Graph a story whose actuality only four in all the world were privy to as it happened—the wizard, the wizard lady, the daughter, and the journeywoman.
“All of this is like knowing more than a mortal like me should know about,” said Flanders.
“I am a mortal, and I was there,” said Jodi Bar Graph.
Then a most logical question came upon Flanders Nickels’s tongue when he looked back down upon this Wizard Lady’s sceptre here upon the picnic table far away from where Gravel and the late Old Dominion had lived, “How did Gravel lose this, if you dare explain, Miss Graph?”
Again the Journeywoman said, “I was there when it happened. My mistress was so overcome with grief that right after her wizard husband passed away, she stood up, held her sceptre in the air in her right hand upside-down for her first time, and did cast a spell in assault against her own sceptre.
Gravel said to it, ‘I rebuke thee, O sceptre! I command thee in thine own magic, “Be thou cast away from me!” And flee thy bearer to a place on the other side of the world!’ And instantly this sceptre disappeared from her own hand. Even Gravel did not know where it had traveled to. She just knew that her sceptre disappeared, went to the uttermost parts of the world, and reappeared somewhere she knew not where.
“That’s a crazy story to tell,” said Flanders.
“It’s the truth, Flanders,” said Jodi Bar Graph. “Do you believe?”
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“Truth is stranger than fiction indeed,” he said. “And I believe. How else could it be here of all
places without Gravel anywhere near it?”
“Later on, my mistress changed her mind. And she wanted her sceptre back. And she sent me looking for it. Somehow her sceptre must have sensed my presence here. And her sceptre wanted to be back with its bearer. And it began to float toward me on the river from the opposite shore. And you just happened to come along at the wrong moment and got between the scepter and the Wizard Lady’s Journeywoman. And now you have it in your possession upon this picnic table.
“Why doesn’t the Wizard Lady look for this sceptre herself, Jodi?” asked Flanders.
“My mistress dutifully chose to mourn over the late Old Dominion for a while,” said Jodi Graph. But her loneliness for her lost sceptre was quickly growing more intense than her loneliness for her late husband. And I would not be surprised were she to start looking for this sceptre any time now.”
“And I touched it and held it!” exclaimed Flanders. “I am in trouble with the Witch of the East.”
“You are also in trouble with the sceptre itself, O Flanders,” said the Journeywoman.
“I am in trouble with a magic wand?” he asked.
“That sceptre has Gravel’s engrams within its very wood, Flanders,” said Jodi Bar Graph.
“How I wish that I had given this to you right from the start, Jodi,” he said. “I should never have let my curiosity drive me to do what I did with this.”
“Would you give it to me right now, and let me return with it to its appropriate bearer, Flanders?” asked the Journeywoman.
“Yes! Take it!” he said.
Just then a gentle breeze blew upon the two from the river. And the sceptre turned over a turn to
one of its other sides upon the picnic table. “The sceptre turned over in the wind, Jodi, and the wind hardly moved my bangs.”
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“It hardly blew my hair on the back of my neck, Flanders, and it still turned over a wooden sceptre,” said the Journeywoman.
“How odd,” he said.
“The Wizard Lady is coming now, Flanders, from the other side of this Earth,” proclaimed the Journeywoman.
“You mean that she is coming here right now?” asked Flanders.
“That wind comes from the wings of the great Bird of Flight which she rides on long flights, Flanders,” said Jodi Graph.
“She knows we’re here?” asked Flanders.
“And she knows that her sceptre is here,” said Jodi.
“I’m a dead man,” he said.
“I think that it is time that I told you about the Lord right now, Flanders,” she said.
“No, No. There is no time for us to talk about God at a time like this, Jodi,” he said. “Take this sceptre and run back to the East with it. I never want to see it again.”
“A man who is at risk of dying and who is rightfully afraid of dying is the one man who needs the most to talk about God, Flanders,” said the Journeywoman.
“I bet that Old Dominion did not have time to talk about God in that creek in the North,” said Flanders.
“Old Dominion rejected Jesus, and he died in his sins,” said Jodi Graph. “I do not want the same thing to happen to you, O Flanders,”
“You are a rejecter of Jesus. Are you, Jodi?” he asked. “Are you living in your sins?”
“No. I am not,” she said. “I am a born-again Christian.”
“I am not a born-again Christian,” said Flanders.
“Then you are a rejecter of Jesus, and you are living in your sins,” said Jodi Graph. “All who
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die in their sins end up down in Hell.”
“Did you tell your mistress this?” asked Flanders.
The Journeywoman hung her head down in shame and said, “I never told the Wizard Lady about my personal Saviour.”
“You didn’t tell Gravel about your God?” asked Flanders.
“I was afraid,” said the Journeywoman.
“You are more afraid of a witch than you are of the Lord,” said Flanders.
“Do you know what the Wizard Lady could do to me? She could turn me into a toad or into a frog!” exclaimed Jodi.
“You are not afraid about telling a mortal like myself about this Jesus,” said Flanders. “I cannot turn a Journeywoman into a toad or a frog.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jodi Bar Graph. “I guess that I make a better journeywoman than I do a born-again believer. I have failed God in my years with Gravel.”
“How long do we have before the Witch of the East gets here?” asked Flanders.
“We have a while. She comes from the East. We are in the West,” said Miss Jodi Graph.
“And we can feel the breeze from her bird’s wings way over here right now already?” asked
Flanders.
“The Bird of Flight is the world’s biggest bird. It is the only one of its kind,” said the Journeywoman.
“I think that the wind is becoming stronger now from the East,” said Flanders.
“What I must do in getting you saved from your sins must be done quickly,” said Jodi. “Would you listen to an errant daughter of God whose soul-winning life is spotty at best?”
“No one is perfect. Christians are not perfect, either,” he said. “Bur the way you know your Bible verses in the book of Proverbs that you shared with me when you first came here, I feel that
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I need to hear what you have to tell me. Preach to me the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
“I shall preach the Saviour’s life and death and resurrection,” said Jodi Graph.
Just then Flanders was in a world of peaceful blackness, floating through a pleasant void, and seeing a most comforting light far away toward which he was going. He was happy, content, anticipatory.
“Flanders, what happened?” he heard a woman’s voice from far behind him. “Your face is utterly blank. Are you here?”
He did not turn to look back. He stared straight ahead. He kept his eyes on that pleasing light up ahead. And he continued flying toward it in this black utopia of good hope.
“Flanders, where are you?” she asked. It was a pretty voice that spoke to him, and he did not know who it was that was speaking to him from behind. But he wanted to be alone with this light.
Up ahead was paradise. He turned not back to this voice coming from another place.
“Flanders, are you having an out-of-body experience?” asked this young woman’s voice.
“I do not know,” he said, irritated at this intrusion of his heaven. “Go away. I need to be alone.”
“Flanders,” she asked from a world behind here, “What you are experiencing is of the devil.
The devil is deceiving you, putting you in a vision of false peace. Get out of there.”
“Leave me alone, whoever you are, lady,” he said. “I am going to Heaven, and I do not want anything else right now.”
“The Devil is lying to you, Flanders,” she said. “He is telling you that you do not need Jesus to go to Heaven.”
“You cannot say that,” he said. “I know what I see, and I know what I feel. You know neither.
I see a bright light up ahead, waiting for me in this benevolent darkness, and I am going to the Better Place. What can you know?”
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“I know the Scriptures, Flanders,” this irritating and persistent voice said to him. “Turn back toward me right now, and you can escape.”
“Why would I want to get out of here?” he asked. “And what do the Scriptures say about what is happening for me that I know is true because I am in it right now?”
“It is written, ‘We have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed,…’ II Peter 1:19,” she said from afar. “God’s Word says here that Peter saw his vision at the Mount of Transfiguration of the glorified Jesus and the resurrected Moses and Elijah with his own eyes in this real experience. And God’s Word says here that Peter heard in this same vision God the Father saying about Jesus, ‘This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased’ with his own ears in this real experience. But this verse I told you says that the Bible is even more true than our experiences. Do not put all of your trust on what you see and on what you hear and on what you feel. Put all of your trust on the Word of God. That is what Peter is saying in that Bible verse I shared with you, Flanders. The Bible is more true than our experiences as we see them.”
“Are you trying to tell me that I am not on the way to Heaven up ahead right now, woman?” he asked.
“The devil is deceiving you, Flanders,” she said. “The peace you are feeling is a false peace.”
“If this that is happening to me right now is a false peace from the devil, how did it just come to happen, woman?” he asked annoyed at her persistence.
“It must have happened because you held on to the sceptre too long, Flanders,” said the voice.
“The sceptre,” he said, remembering. “I picked up the Wizard Lady’s lost sceptre. Is that you, O Jodi?”
“It is, O Flanders,” she said in gladness.
“It is good to hear your voice now,” he said. “I remember everything now. How can I get out of here?”
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“In your case right now, simply turn away from the bright light at the end of the tunnel and turn to look back toward where my voice is coming,” said Jodi Bar Graph. “And you will be back with me here at the picnic table.”
And Flanders did so, turning to look back from his out-of-body experience of the devil, and, lo, he was back with the pretty and saved Journeywoman at the picnic table in the park under the sun.
“Ah, welcome back, Flanders,” she said. “Your face show awareness once again. I almost lost you!”
“I almost died!” he said.
“Flanders, you almost went to Hell!” she exclaimed.
“The witch’s sceptre is nothing to mess around with,” he said.
“I pray God that the sceptre’s residue will no longer affect you, Flanders,” said Jodi Graph.
“The wind is stronger now,” he said.
“The Wizard Lady is nearer,” said the Journeywoman.
“What do you need to tell me from the Bible that never lies to us as experiences can lie to us, Jodi?” he asked. “You were going to tell me about Jesus’s life and death and resurrection.”
“Oh yes,” said Miss Graph. And she began to tell of Jesus’s life: “It is written, ‘Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:’ I Peter 2:2. The Lord Jesus is the only man who never sinned even one time in His whole life. His was the only perfect life ever lived down here in this sin-cursed world. He was indeed God in the flesh. And because of that, only He could be the sacrifice to die for the sins of all mankind. His blood was perfect and pure and sinless.”
“The wind is blowing a little harder now, Jodi,” Flanders said.
And the Journeywoman began to tell of Jesus’s death: “It is written, ‘But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.’ Isaiah 53:5. Jesus shed His blood for you and for me, Flanders.
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Wicked men no worse than ourselves scourged Him front and back with a cat-o-nine-tails, drove a crown of thorns down upon His head, nailed His hands and His feet to the cross of Calvary, and thrust a
spear into His side as He hung there on the cross. And his last words on the cross were, ‘It is finished.’
And when Jesus died on the cross, His work for the redemption of fallen mankind was finished.”
“The wind is getting worse,” said Flanders.
And Jodi Bar Graph began to tell of Jesus’s resurrection: “It is written, ‘He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.’ Matthew 28:6. Again it is written, ‘…: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.’ Mark 16:6. Jesus’s tomb was empty three days after His death. He had arisen from the grave. He lived again. And He lives today. This is the Easter miracle. This is the resurrection. And this is the true God.”
“The wind is getting really bad now,” said Flanders.
The strong wind was blowing quite hard now. And the sceptre was rolling around on the picnic table top, not at all still. Then man and woman saw the wind knock down the briefcase near the table where they sat. Jodi’s pretty long brown hair was blowing all about her head. Flanders held on to his bench to keep himself there in this wind.
And the Journeywoman said, “My mistress and her great Bird of Flight have entered this West.”
And she ran and retrieved the briefcase and brought it back to the picnic table, and she did pick up the sceptre now for her first time, handling it like a poison, and quickly put it into the briefcase, and shut the briefcase up, and set the briefcase upon the table. And she and Flanders held it securely upon the table to keep it from blowing away in the gale storm that was coming upon them.
“Now what?” asked Flanders. “Do we wait?”
“Flanders, what are you going to do about Jesus?” she asked. “Flanders, what are you going to do with Jesus?”
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“I will ask Him to save me,” said Flanders. “I will ask Him to become my personal Saviour.”
“Glory! Glory!” praised Jodi Bar Graph the King of Glory Jesus Christ.
“How do I do that, Jodi?” asked Flanders Nickels.
“Just pray and ask for so great salvation, Flanders,” said Miss Jodi Graph. “I will help you through the prayer.”
“Yes. Let’s do that. Right now,” he did say, quietly and reflectively.
“What, Flanders?” asked Jodi Graph. “I couldn’t hear what you said in this wind.”
“I said, ‘Let’s go for it,’” he rephrased his profession above the noise of this wind.
And the two bowed their heads in prayer for his salvation. And Jodi Bar Graph began to lead Flanders Nickels through the sinners’ prayer: “Dear God, Who is in Heaven:”
“Dear God, Who is in Heaven:” he repeated after her this soul-changing prayer.
“I am a dirty rotten sinner,” she said.
“What’s that that you said?” asked Flanders. “This nasty wind is fierce and loud.” She yelled the next line of his prayer for salvation above the noise of the wind, and he repeated after her, “I am a dirty rotten sinner.”
She then yelled, “I am sorry for all of my sins. Please forgive me for every last one of them.”
Suddenly the briefcase slid off of the picnic table and down to the grass to the side. In this moment of prayer, both had inadvertently taken their hands off of the briefcase to put them together to pray. From where he sat, Flanders reached out his foot and set it upon the briefcase where it lay to keep it from moving again. And he said the line of prayer that she had prayed: “I am sorry for all of my sins. Please forgive me for every last one of them.”
Then she said for him to pray, “”I ask You now, O Lord, to help me to repent.”
The wind was now taking some of his breath away. But he did pray and say, “I ask You now, O Lord, to help me to repent.” And he took a breath in and a breath out in this choking mighty gale.
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Jodi Bar Graph then said, “I proclaim the truth that Your Son Jesus Christ the Lord died on the cross for my sins.”
“What’s that, Jodi? I can’t hear you,” said Flanders in necessary shout.
Jodi had to shorten her lines of prayer now to compensate for the roar of the wind of the coming Bird of Flight, and she said instead, “The Lord Jesus died on the cross for me.”
And he said, “The Lord Jesus died on the cross for me.”
He had to now put both of his hands in a tight grip upon this picnic table in order to remain here in the midst of his prayer in this straight line wind. Miss Graph followed through in like. He then had to put his second foot also upon the briefcase next to him.
Keeping this next line of prayer brief for these most unpropitious circumstances, Jodi Graph said, “He lives today!”
Flanders could not hear her even right here with her. She said it again for him, and he read her lips as she spoke them. And he said in prayer, “He lives today!” Christ had risen from the grave.
Right now this picnic table was liable to be lifted up off of the park. This wind was now a hurricane.
She said next for him to say, he, reading her lips, “Become my Saviour!”
He yelled at the top of his voice, “Become my Saviour!” He could not even hear his own voice in what he had just said. God could, though.
The wind was lifting his feet up from the briefcase. The wind blew man and woman off of their benches of this picnic table. Flanders landed upon this briefcase, and it did not blow away in the fierce supernatural gales. Miss Graph, rolling away in the grass reached out her hand toward him for help.
He grabbed her hand in both of his hands as he sat upon the briefcase. He held her, and she held him. And the picnic table lifted up and away in this most forceful wind seen in the West. A tornado then descended down to the ground in this very park not far away.
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This Christian journeywoman then spoke final words of prayer for Flanders’s sinners’ prayer to say. But with the noise of the tornado and with the force of the tornado blowing her brown hair wildly about her face and this hair covering her lips as she spoke, Flanders Nickels could neither hear nor see what she had just spoken to finish his petition for salvation this moment. She said it a second time.
He could not hear her nor read her lips this second time, either. And a third time. And this third time was like unto the first time and the second time. He could not tell. But he began to remember that it seemed to him that when born-again Christians finished their prayers, that they always closed their prayers to God in Christ’s name. So that must be what he must do in like to finish his prayer to God for salvation. He must close this sinners’ prayer in Jesus’s name. And he looked up to Heaven, where God was, and he prayed in closing, “In Jesus’s name. Amen.” Behold, Flanders Nickels had just become a born-again believer.
Suddenly all the storms ceased. All was calm. All was still. All was benign.
Looking at Flanders, the Journeywoman said, “The Bird of Flight has lighted.”
In manifest understanding, Flanders, looking at Jodi, said, “The Wizard Lady is here.”
They both looked up from where they sat, the briefcase on its edge between woman and man, and there she was for real in all of her supernatural attraction. The two mortals stood up in respect before this immortal.
“I bid you greetings from the East, Flanders Nickels, and my good Journeywoman,” said Gravel.
Flanders fell down upon his knees in worship of this Witch of the East, so overwhelmed was he with this great and beautiful lady.
Jodi Bar Graph rebuked him with the wisdom of another believer, “Worship only God, O Flanders.” And he shamefully repented of his impulse and stood back up on his feet.
The Journeywoman held up the briefcase in both hands and held it up before her mistress.
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“It is right in there, O Wizard Lady,” said Flanders.
Tending to her current business as Witch of the East, Gravel turned to her Bird of Flight, and she said to it, “I thank thee, precious Drago. Thou hast succoured me much in my brief sojourn without my sceptre.” Why, this bird was the size of a whale of the sea! Its feathers were all jet black. Its wingspan must have been fifty feet across! Its beak could pick up a tree from its roots. Its eyes shone in luminescent coal black. And its legs were the size of a mammoth’s legs. The Wizard Lady, a tall woman of about five feet eight inches, was dwarfed by this most singular of fowls. The Bird of Flight looked like he could eat this Wizard Lady for breakfast and still be hungry. Yet in all things and for all good reasons and for wisdom’s sake, this Bird of Flight was completely in submission to this Wizard Lady. That was how powerful that Gravel was in her magic. And her magic for this moment that so dominated this colossus of a bird was even without her sceptre in her hand. No Bird of Flight could contend against this witch woman in any altercation. It was no match for the Witch of the East. In gladness it served her in all due allegiance. Then she reached up her hand toward its very high head, and the Bird of Flight lowered its very high head down toward her hand, and she petted it affectionately upon its head. And then Gravel to it, “I now dispatch thee with due gratitude, O good and faithful Drago.” The great Bird of Flight then lifted back up into the skies in obedience. The gale storms came back upon this park for a moment. But as the great bird flew away, the great gales quickly dissipated.
The storms with the Bird of Flight leaving were not as the storms with the Bird of Flight coming.
And quickly the winds became calm and tranquil.
And Flanders was alone with the Wizard Lady and her journeywoman. With her wisdom of witchcraft, Gravel said unto him, “Thou art Flanders Arckery Nickels, and thou hast found my lost sceptre.” She paused in her salutation. Then she said, “I thank thee, brave mortal man, for thy great care over it. I trust that thy curious contact with the wood of my sceptre has not harmed thee. Thou hast chosen well to give this unto my loyal and trusted Journeywoman.”
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Gravel then raised her right hand in magic, and, behold, the briefcase left her journeywoman’s
hands, flew through the air toward Gravel’s right arm, and settled itself in its owner’s grasp. The Wizard Lady then spoke to her Journeywoman in praise and affection, “I thank thee, good friend Jodi,
for being here where this sceptre has been found. Thou hast come upon it even before I have come upon it. No witch has had a journeywoman or journeyman serve her as well as thou hast served me.
I thank thee for thy most abundant friendship.”
Then Gravel opened up the briefcase, paused to admire this old sceptre with her beautiful sorceress eyes, and took it out and held it against her breasts in a most beatific homecoming. “It is good to have you here with me again, O my heart’s desire,” sang out Gravel in love. “I’ve missed you.”
Then she turned back to Flanders, and she said, “I thank thee once again, O Flanders, for finding my lost precious as you did. Thou hast done the East a great service and a great deliverance
in thy care for this sceptre in the brief time it was thine. Thou art a man of great integrity. If there is a God Above, a Lord Who rules even over magicians, He shall reward thee in His time and in His way.
I, too, shall come to reward thee in my time and in my way. At a convenient time, I shall summon thee to my temple, and thou shalt speak to me about the Lord Jesus Whom thou hast asked for salvation this day as I was traveling here.”
Then the Witch of the East said, “It is time, good Journeywoman. We must away to my temple. I have the East to take back and to guide. I have been remiss in my betrayal with my sceptre, but I have it back now. Old Dominion would never have approved of what I had done in sending this away as I had. I shall not do so again.”
Jodi Bar Graph said, “Farewell, Flanders. We shall not see each other again, until we come home to Heaven. Praise Jesus for so great and eternal salvation.”
“Farewell, most fair Jodi,” said Flanders. “I thank you for having led me to this so great and eternal salvation. I’ll miss you.”
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The Journeywoman then came up again faithfully at the witch’s side. The Witch of the East then cast her sceptre in a downward stroke. And suddenly Wizard Lady and Journeywoman were not there. They were now back home at the Temple of the East.
And Flanders Nickels was alone now in this park. Though so much had happened here this day, the biggest thing of them all for him was having gotten saved from his sins as he did. Not even wizard ladies could do such a miracle as God did for him through Jodi this day. Maybe Jodi might find the boldness of utterance to tell Gravel everything about the Saviour of the world as she had with him. Even the all-great Gravel was nothing compared to the Jesus whom he had found as personal Saviour. The Wizard Lady was too beautiful to have to end up in Hell with Old Dominion. Flanders just had to have her with him in Heaven in his life to come. Maybe God would have him to tell Gravel about this Jesus. He then saw the empty briefcase lying upon the grass where gorgeous Gravel had been standing. She did not need this briefcase anymore. It really belonged to Jodi for her mission of the day. He picked it up, held it, and fell in good sweet reverie of a beautiful widow witch. Maybe she could become his girlfriend. Maybe he could become her boyfriend. Maybe she could get saved. Maybe he could lead her to salvation. Maybe she could renounce her sceptre for the cause of Christ. Maybe she could learn to love Christ more than she loved her sceptre.
And the Holy Spirit spoke good Words of brave new scripture unto this brand new convert in His still small voice about what God wanted him to do someday: “It is written, my son, ‘Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.’ Isaiah 6:8.”
“Here am I, Lord. Send me,” prayed Flanders Arckery Nickels.
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