The Obscura
It was the 5th of May, 2021, as a man stood at the deck edge of the water instructing his proteges, that the Obscura slipped between his intercostal space and squeezed him in a spastic collapse. The man fell and writhed in tombed posture and his lifeblood retreated inward, for the Obscura had laid claim to his heart, and all else of him thus dimmed beyond thought and memory.
At this the proteges called for valiant help, and at their action came the rush of medical masters of the highest order and quality. With all contrivance of skill and apparatus, they held his body and breath above deck, but for naught could they wrestle away neither atrium nor ventricle, for the Obscura, with the grip of taut-sinewed fingers, held tight from the sepulchure below. Only thus could the masters, both on the deck and once the man was in bed, provide him air, daring to hope he should roll back and inhale it. They had otherwise no power of science nor discipline to deliver the man from the Obscura.
So it was that the proteges, having finished their attempt at rescue, did call upon the Great Lady to whom the man belonged. Upon hearing of her man’s demise, the Lady spoke thusly:
“Saddle me my white mare, and leave no space for pity, nor fear, nor sorrow. Saddle my white mare, and I shall ride through the night for as long as distance requires, until I reach the sunless valley where the Obscura holds my man by the heart.”
And calling upon the Great Host to offer up a petition to the Light en masse¹, the Lady departed to confront the Obscura. “For I shall ride all night, until I overtake my man,” said the Lady. “I shall ride to overtake my man, or I shall die.”
With fury the lady spurred her mare and charged beyond all safe haven, arriving at dead of night in the sunless valley where the Obscura held her man. And upon dismounting, the Lady took stance in the face of the Obscura, drew her saber, and demanded his surrender.
“What care I for your valor?” hissed the Obscura. “What care I for your devotion to this man and his sustenance…for I have now taken hold of his heart, and forever in my grip it shall remain.”
The Great Lady was unwavering. “I do not believe,” said she, “that the heart of my man wills to stay within your sinewed grip, nor to remain immersed in the shadow you’ve cast in this sunless valley. I do not believe it, and I shall remain until I see the vindication of my incredulity.”
“Incredulity indeed!” screamed the Obscura, with a deepened, slithering smile. “I know full well what is to be believed and not believed, for I feel the balance of it within the myocardium I now clutch in my eternal grasp. The weight and measure of this man’s heart betrays rest and peace with his doom.” With these words, the Obscura advanced upon the Lady in a gioco stretto swipe of the razor-clawed fingers wielded upon the free right hand, whilst the claws of the left hand remained gripping of the man’s heart.
“You know nothing of my man, or of me,” said the Lady, parrying with deft sidestep. She offended and fended off the Obscura, tilting shifty and fast before her great mare.
“I know this,” howled the Obscura, pulling the man in retreat up the valley. “I know that your man is at an end of his folly, and so too has ended his memory of folly, and so too has ended his fear of future folly. Your man is at blissful end to all fear and folly, and so too shall he remain in such bliss forever, for I have taken his heart and made it so.”
“You know nothing of my man, or of me,” repeated the Great Lady, now advancing on the Obscura’s retreat whilst deploying with her saber a barrage of foyne at which the Obscura bore foul teeth and pierced the shadows with a shrill, wordless scream.
As if deaf to the shriek of the banshee itself, the Lady marched forward, and spoke again: “You know nothing, for I care not for the memory of my man’s folly, nor do I care for the future folly that further life will enable him. I care not for my man’s folly, but only for his heart. For he is my man, and his heart belongs to me alone. I will thus stand fast and force my advance upon you until you release it.”
So did the Great Lady stand sentinel in the sunless valley, her white mare aprés, for the remainder of the night, laying a prayerful siege of Light that was buttressed by the continuous petition of the Great Host encamped beyond the perimeter of the shadows…they who kept watch at her order².
The Obscura remained before her, gripping her man’s heart. A fouler impasse could a lady scarcely be imagined to endure, for in the sunless valley did the Obscura call upon all manner of despairing creatures from the depths of gloom, who conjured a rank mass of denigration and perpetuated it for the duration of the night:
“You have no power” … “You are alone” … “Your man has forsaken you” … “So too has the very Light”… “Succumb to the shadow and join your man” … “You are too short in saving, nor does your man deserve it” … “Nor does he DESIRE it”…”Alone, alone, alone…ALONE and forever, your man is never…”
At the first trolling onslaught did the Great Lady in reflex parry once again with her saber, but at the redoubled troubling of the demons at hand, she sheathed her weapon. New day was breaking beyond the sunless valley, but where she stood before the Obscura, the Lady could not perceive it. Only could she hear the faint beckon from some in the Great Host who remained in petition beyond the shadow. But the Lady heeded nothing and stood at rest on naught but her feet, and the crook of her mighty arm rested on the saber’s hilt.
At the Lady’s disarmament, the creatures and the Obscura revelled, expecting in sequence for the Lady to remount and depart. The Great Lady, however, did neither, and digging her feet into the toxic soil of the valley, she spoke into the foul pitch:
“You are in the right,” said she to the Obscura and the gathered posse of ghouls. “I have no power. Never would I have done what the masters could not and wrench my man’s heart from the clinch of your limbs. I am thus at an end to my offensive, and an end to my words.”³
“Your words have been muted from the start,” whispered the Obscura, “and they have dissolved into the shadow unheard by anyone…your man least of all. Depart.”
The Lady neither moved nor spoke, but trained her gaze upon her man. He hung limp by the heart from the animate gallows of his captor, who leaned at the Lady and whispered again:
“Depart, and salvage the pathetic remnants of this man’s years. The exercise shall reveal its own futility. Depart, for your man has departed from you.”
Still did the Lady stand, and still did she fix her gaze on her man. None on Earth could have seen the predilection on her face, even had one stood before her in the sunless valley, for the murk fogged her countenance beyond even her own recognition.
“Stay then, if you please,” said the Obscura, swaying in the miasma before the Lady. “Stay only a few moments more, and the borders of the valley will close about you, and you shall join in your man’s oblivion.”
And so did the Obscura carry on with both of such louring and luring for the remainder of the hours that were counted as “day” for the Great Host in petition beyond the sunless valley. And so did the Great Lady carry on her siege in silence, her unseen predilection grown more tender, and her surrender grown more yielding to where even the crook of her mighty arm moved off her saber’s hilt.
As she had throughout the impasse, the Lady trained her focus on naught but her man. Just as the Obscura carried on with utterances whose vulgar syntax hung jagged and plain before the ear, so too did the Lady carry on a petition of love for her man so sweet that none heard it but the Spirit who carried it with groaning intercession to the Light.⁴
The hours crept within the shadows. Night fell again beyond the valley. Crooked beings emerged anew from the murk with despairing whispers and disparaging threats. The Great Lady paid no mind. The Obscura tweaked in betrayal of growing fluster.
“Death is before you!” grunted the Obscura. The words rolled off a foul tongue and seethed between thorny teeth. “Death is below you. Death is all about you. Soon, should you not depart, death will be within you. Depart, for Death rides now to this valley for your man. It will trample you should you linger. Depart, and leave Death to its spoils. Depart now to your remnants.”
At this, the predilection of the Great Lady’s countenance shone brighter in the shadows, such that the Obscura snarled with fluster and narrowed gaze. “I have no answer to your threats,” said she. “Nor do I have a plan contingent on their coming to pass. I have only the Light, and a love for my man.”
With these words, the Lady unbuckled her sheathed saber and let it drop onto the toxic soil. So too did she whisper into the ear of her white mare, and with a single stroke of its mane, she sent it galloping off to beyond the borders of the valley.
Davina Obscura heaved at the sight and screamed “FOOL!,” and slinking forward to come nose to nose with the Lady, continued the tirade: “This is DEATH! You are ALONE! Your man has departed! He is at an end to despair, but yours has only begun!” The Obscura gesticulated and gyrated in foul offense before the face of the Great Lady, tweaking more hysterically with each utterance.
“Your obstinance is your DOOM, for you could NOT. LEAVE. HIM. TO. MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
The Obscura bellowed the final word into the height of the murk, and with such force of rancor that the razor-clawed sinew of left hand loosened its grip on the man’s heart.
The man dropped onto the soil of the valley. At an instant did the murk dissipate, and the Obscura and the ghouls along with it. The only shadows cast now upon the Lady were from those of the Great Host who stood within the frame of true sunlight.
It was morning.
The Great Lady’s countenance showed her expectation of this moment and yet also her utter dismissal of any part she had played in bringing it about. She smiled as her man opened his eyes to her. He squinted at her as if she were a celestial heroine.
“Do you know who I am?” asked the Lady.
“You are my wife,” whispered the man.
The medical masters set about to improve the man such as to send him into the Lady’s nurture at their home. And nurture the man she did. Though his heart remained whole, it was scarred and sore from the grip of the Obscura.
“My heart has condemned me,” said the man to his Lady. “It granted leave to its assailant and then tarried within the grip, only to be preserved for more folly.”
“The Light is greater than your heart, my love” said the Lady. “The Light knows everything. Your heart does not condemn you, my love. Have confidence before the Light.⁵ I care not for your folly. Only do I love you. Only would I wait for you in the dank valley where you were held.”
“No memory have I of that valley, nor can I say whether I tarried there in bliss or despair, or fear or peace,” said the man. “Aye, my love, the Light knows everything, but I know this: being in whatever such state as I was, I would flee from it as lightning for even a moment more with you.”
“I know it, my love,” whispered the Lady. “Hence did I lay siege to your captor.”
And so the Great Lady did carry on with her man for many more mornings and evenings together, for she had ridden to his rescue and made it so.
[1] James 5:16
[2] Nehemiah 4:9
[3] Psalm 73:26
[4] Romans 8:26
[5] 1 John 3:19–21