When Angels Sing: Chapter Eight

And not only thanks for returning but thanks for the critiques from time to time. As I explained early on, this is in no way a finished book. All of my writings begin as writing exercises. For me, this was an attempt to write in third person, something I had never done before. It was also an attempt to write a prequel to my first novel, “The 12/59 Shuttle From Yesterday To Today”, and to do so in a whimsical style completely different from anything I had ever done before.

Your suggestions are helpful. As always I will read the suggestions, consider them and most likely incorporate them into the finished product a year from now. So you really are being quite helpful and it in no way upsets me when you make suggestions. I left my ego at the door when I entered this particular Fun House.

Having said all that, shall we return to our story? Sheila is now eleven years old and she is about to make a suggestion that will greatly alter her life and the life of her parents.

Shhh, there she is, just entering the kitchen where her mother and father are having licorice tea and fresh scones.

The child named Sheila, as adorable a child as you are ever likely to meet, smelled the freshly-baked scones from the barn and scampered (yes, truly scampered) to the house, up the steps, across the porch and into the kitchen, where she found her mother, Heather, and her father, Sam, buttering scones and pouring tea into cups. She was salivating, yes salivating, in anticipation as the aroma caressed her nose and made her all giddy, although in truth she had not one clue what giddy meant or how it felt to be so.

All she knew for sure, at that moment, was there was a rumbly in her tumbly.

“There’s my whirling dervish,” her father exclaimed as a drop of butter slowly descended his chin and plopped on the kitchen table. “Come, Sheila, sit down and eat with your doddering old parents and tell us all about your morning.”

Sheila’s mother buttered up another scone, poured a glass of goat’s milk into a glass, and placed the feast on the table for her daughter. She then wiped her hands and joined her husband and daughter for a farmer’s late-morning banquet.

“Yes, Sheila,” Heather said. “What wonders have you experienced this fine spring morning?”

For it was, indeed, a fine spring morning, a “howdy, neighbor” sort of morning, a “good day sunshine” sort of morning, a morning so brilliant as to leave one in love with the gift of life.

Sheila took a bite of the heavenly scone, savored the wholesomeness of the milk, wiped her mouth ever so daintily, and smiled.

“Father, you are going to write a book, and that book will make you famous, and twenty years from now you will be the head of a religious/scientific movement followed by hundreds of thousands of loyal believers. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Now, some parents would be taken aback by such a proclamation, but these were Sheila’s parents, and as such, they were quite accustomed to their daughter and her “glimpses” into the future.

“Well, pray tell, Sheila, what is the name of this book I am going to write?” asked Sam as more butter dropped in his lap.

“The book will be titled ‘Enlightenment in the Back Seat of a ’55 Chevy,’” Sheila explained between bites. “In the book you will explain a new way of viewing life called “Transcendental Stimulation of the Senses,” and shortly after the book is published you will have thirty-eight transcendental centers across the United States and oh, father, won’t it just be wonderful?”

Mother looked at Father, and Father looked at Mother, and Mother smiled at Father, and Father at Mother, as communication occurred without a word being spoken, and there, at that table, on that fabulous spring morning, three lives changed course and accepted the fates bestowed upon them by the Mother of All Things.

“Well, Sheila,” said her mother. “I do love the back seat of our ’55 Chevy. Your father and I have certainly enjoyed ourselves there from time to time. Please, dear, tell us more.”

“Well, Mother,” said the nearly-precocious child, “it is all about parallel universes, and coinciding universes, and colliding universes, and of course the central energy source which provides life to us all, meaning when Delilah, my ladybug friend, sneezes here in Olympia, a hurricane occurs in Belize six months later, but at the same time a hurricane occurs in the Bahamas six months in the past. Could you pass me another scone, please?”

“And you say this will make us famous?” inquired Sam as he buttered another scone for his daughter.

“Most definitely, Father, richer than rich, richer than our wildest dreams rich, rich like chocolate frosting on an Angel Food cake, oh I do so want some cake right now, don’t you?”

“And why are we waiting twenty years, Sheila?” her mother asked patiently and a bit skeptically, although she would never let her daughter know of her confusion, being a highly-supportive parent long-before soccer moms were soccer moms. “It would be so nice if we had a few extra dollars right now, what with the tractor broken down and the ridiculously high cost of licorice tea.”

“The reason, Mother, is because the world is not ready for this message yet,” Sheila replied as the butter flowed freely onto the table. “We humans believe we are enlightened, the masters of our universe, but truly we are but children with a miniscule understanding, and like children, we are frightened when too much enlightenment occurs in a short period of time. No, Mother, I’m afraid we must wait until our fellow men and women are ready for the message.”

And with that proclamation the child named Sheila rose with a clatter and once again scampered out of the kitchen, her midnight hair flowing, her jade-green eyes ablaze with excitement, as Heather and Sam cleaned the butter from the tabletop.

“And what do you think of all that, Heather?” her adoring husband asked.

“Well, Sam, I’ve never known Sheila to be wrong yet, so I believe you and I should rush, in haste, to our old ’55 Chevy, climb into the back seat, and proceed to practice what Sheila preaches.”

The twinkle in Heather’s eyes and her mischievous grin for sure stimulated a response in Sam, and laughing, husband and wife raced out the door in search of enlightenment.

And in the barn, Sheila smiled.

I would be embarrassed to proceed. Suffice it to say Sam and Heather did, indeed, find the answers they sought that morning, or at least the immediate answers to their immediate questions, or needs, or, well, you get the picture.

We’ll join the little family next week. I’m sure they will not disappoint us.

Admit it, you’re a little bit jealous that you didn’t have parents like Sam and Heather.

Thank you so much for joining me as I continue to work on this prequel. I appreciate your input.

I would also appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about this story. My ultimate goal is to become the Greatest Unknown Author, and it really would hinder my progress if you told too many people about all this.

2016 William D. Holland (aka billybuc) #greatestunknownauthor