NewMap 5

                                            

A brief tale of spiritual smoking…

There comes a time in certain people’s lives when they are called to a level of celestial awareness far higher than anything they have known before; for Randolph Piazza that time came one cold afternoon in February when he was twenty-six years old.

Randolph had had, to put it mildly, a difficult past. His parents and only sister had been killed in a car crash several years earlier—an inebriated, numbskulled politician ploughed into them as he drove the wrong way down a motorway following a race meeting. Most unjustly, the charmed politico survived the smash.

Randolph’s grandmother, Rosetta—a gentle soul, not strict at all—genuinely loved her grandson and had welcomed him into her home in his hour of need.

Her address had become Randolph’s permanent domicile in the period since the cruel accident. It was there he was taken on that first dreadful night. “It’s just a stopgap,” his uncle Enzo had said. “Your grandma’s much too old to take you in. She’ll be going into care herself soon.” However, to Randolph’s great fortune, Rosetta had proved far spryer than Enzo imagined and the arrangement had lasted years as opposed to weeks.

The house itself was modest in nature, though extremely warm and comfortable. It was situated at the end of a mature street in the inner suburbs of Bludgeon city. Randolph Piazza was more than happy to hole up in such surroundings.

So, there he was, smoking, and going over things in his head—as opposed to on his computer screen—while eyeballing the public park that spread out like an inviting smile across the street from his room.

It was February the 13^th. Saint Valentine’s Eve. Old love had taken prime hold and was permeating the atmosphere; filling the cold air outside, as well as the centrally heated warmth of Randolph’s lair.

A tempest was gathering over the city as the young man nestled in his bedroom. The park was empty and windswept. Loose garbage rattled along its paths and its trees began to bend to the oncoming gale. Randolph’s roaming eyes saw a massive dark cloud above the grass and he knew that the rain would start at any moment.

He had recently begun dating a most alluring young lady by the name of Angela Deville. They had arranged to meet later for a trip to the cinema, and tomorrow—Saint Valentine’s Day itself—the nascent couple were due to have dinner at a fashionable restaurant in one of the more chic parts of town.

Angela had brought a new joy into Randolph’s life and he could feel himself falling—with wonderful dizziness—deeply in love with her.

That being said, his life was not without its sour points. He still missed his family terribly and carried a survivor’s guilt around with him, racked by the notion that he ought to have been travelling in the doomed car that star-crossed day.

He got to thinking of various people round the city and how they reacted to him of late. In particular: certain cousins, a number of friends, a drug counsellor he attended monthly, and some strangers whose aghast expressions were still lodged in his head. It was most upsetting. Every last one of them seemed to tire of him without delay. Some, like the shocked strangers, recoiled openly.

The fact was, odd as it may sound, Randolph enjoyed talking about the car crash that had killed his family. When in company, he never missed a chance to bring the indelicate matter up. Sometimes, he talked of little else!

Of course, it was a coping strategy on his part—this relentless dwelling on such a traumatic subject. It was Randolph’s way of defending himself—even now, years later—from the great grief of that day, when, as an optimistic, callow lad, he’d seen his entire family wrenched from him without warning.

He raised the accident so often purely to keep alive a connection to his loved ones. It was beginning to dawn on him, however, that others might not wish to hear about the violent pile-up of bones and metal to quite the same extent. It’s no wonder, Randolph thought, so many people yawn and flinch at me these days.

Needless to say, post-accident, the young man’s optimism about life had waned considerably. For a long time he didn’t set foot outside Rosetta’s door. Then, when he finally braved the world, it was simply to roam the streets—a wan wraith with mumbling lips—overwhelmed by the cruelty of existence.

Lately, though, to quote a phrase, he had begun to feel the worm turn.

Alert and calm, he stubbed out his smoke and exhaled the pungent fumes. His eyes remained fixed on the squally park. Several scurrying souls entered it from the right of his view. How wind-tossed they looked, on the receiving end of a right old battering as the gusts—those angry harbingers of rain—eddied violently.

Randolph felt a gust of giddiness strike him hard and he smiled broadly at the pleasant feeling swirling with such force around his body. Thoughts and fantasies of Angela Deville were having a wonderfully uplifting effect on his soul. His sense of delight was high as he envisaged unclasping her brassiere in the darkness of the picture-house as the evening show got under way.

With these thoughts tramping round his head like an intoxicated burlesque troupe, he was keen to get going and leave the comfort zone of his room.

He touched the bible on his bedside locker and made a point of thanking the Creator for the blessings in his life. He surprised himself by speaking so warmly to God, for as recently as a short week ago Randolph had been an avowed non-believer. But a new joy, indeed a fervour, had entered him in the last few days. Angela—a zealot in the religious field—had converted him with a single passionate clinch on the evening of their first date.

Now, as his hand lay firmly upon the holy book, he closed his eyes and thought he caught a glimpse of the future: he saw all the goodness that would surely unfold—the many beneficial outcomes—between himself and Ms. Deville. As he opened his eyes, his light-headedness grew stronger and he continued to look fixedly upon the scene outside.

Over the park the mass of dark cloud was thickening exponentially. It looked to Randolph like an enormous raindrop in an inexorable descent towards the Earth.

He lit another smoke, dragging on it greedily, holding the chemicals a little longer in his lungs. Suddenly, he was startled out of his wits and began to blink and splutter for he’d become transfixed. Randolph gazed—thunderstruck!—skyward: there, in the centre of the nimbus: his mother, father and dear, dead sister, all smiling peacefully in his direction. He blinked once more and they were gone.

His sense of elation motored along like a finely tuned engine. He felt his soul expand beyond the reaches of his bedroom. He touched his bible again, wondering if Abu, his dealer, touched his Koran at similarly numinous moments.

Outside, the tall angels were walking erect as the first of the raindrops fell in the squall. Randolph, longing to meet sweet Angela Deville, reached for his jacket and was out the door.

© Brian Ahern 2012