MADNESS AND LOVE MIXED: PART 5 — Pre-Arc
Isaiah — Holy Monk Without a Monastery
Poet of God, Reluctant Streaker, Eternal Prophet.
Misunderstood Herald of Yeshua’s Immanence.
The leaves seem to lay still, slumbering now that the autumnal wind has taken its sleepy-time tablets and refuses to rise. The temperature is warm, the absence of breeze making it feel like summer in my old home of New Hampshire instead of fall in North Carolina.
We sit back with the laptop in front of us, having already survived the migraine from earlier this morning.
Louie barks incessantly at the back patio door, wanting to be let inside.
The frustration is maddening as I try to shift frequencies and slide to the band that Star, Zeke, and I use to host our bizarre heavenly family talk show.
The day is pleasant.
The details stand out as glaring inconsistencies — the rustling leaves, Louie’s impatient whimpering — his 14-month-old Shih-Tzu brain incapable of calm now that our niece is visiting and the household rhythm is off.
As the sun continues fighting the migraine medication and restarts the fission reaction behind my eyes, we remind ourselves that patience is a virtue best lavished when least available.
We breathe deep. Refocus.
Reach out our mental thread to the dial.
Reality shimmers — the multidimensional layer becoming translucent — as Louie and I phase into the frequency of the Eternal Now. Still in our backyard. Still on our patio. But different.
Three chairs. One already occupied.
Star-Dust sits across from us wearing head-to-toe hot pink — glittering denim, a matching hoodie, and hot-pink Sully slippers. She glimmers like a cosmic disco ball of sanctified chaos.
Meanwhile, we’re in a black hoodie and our “recycled but not too dirty” wide-leg denim.
To preserve the denim, we lie to ourselves.
We groan our way into the middle patio chair, arms sore from pushing too hard at the gym again.
“Star,” we complain. “Why do we insist on going so hard every time, swear we’ll never do it again, and then repeat the cycle?”
She shrugs.
We are the way we are.
A shimmer appears to our left — heat-wave distortion.
Then the giant Santa-impersonating, Harley-culture, hairy-hippie muscular bulk of Zeke solidifies in the Adirondack chair, carefully balancing a trio of Starbucks cups.
He hands one to us. One to Star.
Then leans back with his own and sighs, deeply satisfied.
“Ahhh… this is the stuff.”
We pop the stopper, take a generous sip — silky brew, no bitterness, aftertaste like a hug.
“Zeke! Did you bring this from Home?”
We gulp another. It’s impossibly good.
Who knew sin affected flavor that much?
We slam the rest like a teenager gaming at 3 a.m. and glance over at Star — who has not yet taken a sip.
We flick our eyes at Zeke to distract her.
He nods, grinning mischievously.
“Star! Why so silent, sister?” he calls loudly.
We flick our wrist and swap cups. Smooth.
We take a victorious sip of her untouched drink—
—and instantly regret it.
Full-bodied dung smoke.
Fecal festooned liquidity.
The taste of prophetic gastrointestinal trauma.
We gag into our hand, stumble to the corner of the yard, and retch violently.
Star approaches, concern etched into our shared ancient hazel eyes.
She rubs our back gently.
“Did you think we wouldn’t notice, little me?” she whispers.
Then she shocks the ever-living tar out of us by wrapping us in a massive bear hug — warm, solid, maternal, smelling of patchouli and acrid herbs.
We melt into it, realizing sometimes we must comfort wounds only we can sense.
We shuffle back to our chairs, wiping stray drool.
Zeke looks sheepish.
“Sorry, Dust. I, uh… may have swapped your drink with mine by accident.”
He whistles innocently, though the unmistakable aroma rising from the reclaimed cup says otherwise.
Star and I pale.
Mortified that Zeke drinks things like that voluntarily.
We contort our face into an expression that no dictionary could define — lips retreating toward chin, nose wrinkled like a snoofling Shih-Tzu.
“Zeke, hun… no. That’s taking the prank theme somewhere we cannot follow.”
What we do not tell them is that we swapped their drinks with something a little more dramatic — heavenly laxatives.
Not enough to affect the interview, but the upstairs facilities will see heavy traffic later.
Star and Zeke turn toward us sharply.
We cringe.
Shrinking.
Realizing we thought too loudly again.
“How does anyone function in heaven if every thought is broadcast like Divine Bluetooth?” we cry.
They explode laughing — deep, rolling mirth — and we join them, deciding maybe it’s time we took ourselves less seriously.
A few hours later
“So, Star,” we ask, “who’s next? We can feel something quaking in the spiritual realms. This one feels… important.”
Zeke leans forward, his cologne wafting spiced notes through the thinning air.
“Izzy,” he says softly, rubbing his hands together.
“Izzy?” we raise an eyebrow.
“I—saiah,” Star says. “We call him Izzy. You and he are very similar. Mirrors, nearly. Same origin point. Divergent ends.”
We swallow hard.
Isaiah.
The prophet whose voice shaped our own as a youth.
The reluctant streaker.
The poet who saw the Ancient of Days and somehow lived.
The man sawn in two for telling the truth.
The weight settles on us like a spark waiting for the fire it deserves.
Zeke murmurs,
“Poet. Prophet. Philosopher. Zealot. Fool for Christ.”
Star adds,
“He doesn’t speak often. But when he does, we all fall silent.”
We sit back, rubbing our smooth chin, imagining stubble that isn’t there.
His encounters.
His visions.
The ache behind his eyes.
The world that rebuked him.
The glory that sustained him.
We glance to the sides — both chairs empty.
Star and Zeke have slipped away, shifting frequencies, knowing instinctively that what comes next is not entertainment but appointment.
We lean back as the sumatriptan massages the migraine from behind our temples.
The air chills.
Louie curls on our feet, silky hair warming our slides.
Soon, the interview begins.
The prophet comes.
Next Episode is live.
Eiri Waters