RDP Friday: PATIENCE
Lost in the forest of family trees
in a part of the Wood that not many people visit or many trees grow is
my family tree.
It’s not as tall or lush as the other trees,
and on a hot day it will be indifferent to your discomfort so it won’t provide with you a
jot of shade and even though the branches are a bit twisted and thick and sturdy, if
you think that during the winter ice and snow are permitted to take up temporary
residence along it’s limbs, you would be wrong.
My family tree is alone in a forest of family trees and it is just fine with it’s place in the
woods.
After all, it holds the bones of my Great Aunts from generations ago named Patience
and Experience and their father Lancelot.
Patience and Experience were given those names and were sent out into the world by
their father Lancelot where they visited villages and jails to offer spiritual guidance to
people accused of witchcraft, of doing deals with the Devil.
After these visits they would return to their home and report to their Father who
always waited for them in the chapel on the grounds of there home, their
heads bowed, their hands hanging limps at their sides.
” Well? ” he would ask, his eyes brimming with hope and shining with tears.
” Not one, not one damned soul among them to save.” Patience sobbed.
” People. ” Experience would wail. “They were just, people.”
Their father would fall back into his chair, he would drop his head into his hands, and
then he would- as I have been told-
howl like a beast from the darkest corners of Hell.
Or maybe I have it wrong, maybe I heard it wrong.
Maybe they meant he howled from Hell like the beast he was.