Slaying the Dreamer

Slaying the Dreamer
Some call it a horrid crime
I call it mercy


This work by Ronald Mina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Time Lost

In lost memories
Ancient glories never fade
Time, eternal foe


This work by Ronald Mina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Field of Blades

I welcome you adepts
To this benighted place
Matters not how ye fall
For I rule in this world

The King of Swords, am I
Of ye, I stand highest
Mighty though you may be
To me, be ye weaklings

Look 'round you at my realm
Blighted landscape of hell
By our hands denuded
Heroes of many wars

Endless struggle our lot
We masters of the field
Look 'round ye to the sight
This boundless, parched desert

This realm is for the heroes
For us, endless battle
Each step taken with care
Bladed tombstones abound

This land where rain falls not
Blades as far as eyes see
Each one for those who need
A marker for their deaths

Here is our memento
For our battles cease not
This is the afterlife
Welcome to the Field of Blades.


This work by Ronald Mina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

King of Heroes

Knight of greatest loyalty
Forge your soul into a blade
So that you do not lose your way
This is the path of the Highest Duty
With many lives is it paved

Knight of greatest loyalty
You will never know peace in this world
The next is filled with eternal battle
Build your will as you would your strength
For it is your soul that leads you

Knight of greatest loyalty
You will rise to the state of legend
The future shall look to you as the past
To you is the highest of praise
As the King of Heroes


This work by Ronald Mina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

This Body is Merely

This body is made from iron
Blood of fire and heart of glass
Crossing countless battlefields
Not once retreating
Not once being understood
Eternal loneliness
Waiting for one's arrival
If there is no meaning to my existence
then this body is merely a sword


This work by Ronald Mina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

84

Wheels of time, one per person
Relentless flow forward
Sometimes fast, sometimes slow
Slaves to its eternal turning


This work by Ronald Mina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

What is Time to You?

A short story I wrote. I went a bit theological with this one. Cassiel is the angel of solitude and tears, who observes the cosmos with very little interference. He presides over the death of kings, and given who and what he is, I feel a certain empathy towards him. I added some real Hebrew to keep this legitimate.

What is Time to You?

His last memory was pain. The pain had come from all sides, sharp, piercing pain. He had not expected it. He had sat in his chair, lost in endless paper work, when they had come up to him with a petition he had no intention of granting. He had enough people inimical to his cause to even consider adding another. So he refused, and continued to refuse.

He had finally snapped an angry command, and looked back down at his paperwork, determined to get it done before the meeting started when he felt a violent tug and hot, searing sensation. He was a soldier; he reached out and grabbed the cur’s hand, startled to see glittering steel dripping crimson.

He could only exclaim in horror as the lot of them surrounded him. Violence. Pain. Struggle. He had not cried out. He fought. He resisted, but in the end…

שָׁלוֹם

A voice not of this world spoke, emanated. He shivered. “I know that language.”

He turned to the voice that had come behind him. For one of the few times in his life, he gawked in shock.

The figure was strange, a tall being dressed in flowing white robes and a hood that concealed his face. In his right hand, he held a white scythe, curiously wrought but marvelous to behold. Just as impressive, the being had six wings, but for what purpose one needed six wings, he knew not.

“Who are you?

פציאל

Once again, that sensation, that power that he had never felt anywhere before. “That is a word in your language I do not know. Do you not speak a language I do know?” he demanded, beginning to grow frustrated.

He did not know why, but he could have sworn that the specter before him was staring at him. He felt more than saw the slightest twitch of the sextuple wings, the merest shift in weapon hand, tremors that most eyes, including his own at this point, would have missed. But yet, he had the feeling.

Ani Mitzta'er, I am sorry. I shall speak in a tongue you prefer. I am Cassiel.

An apparition that could speak his language was something he could deal with. “Cassiel? Is that a name or a title?”

A name.

Not a talkative fellow. “What are you?”

A messenger.

“From who?”

Adon HaShamayim veEretz

“The Master of Heaven and Earth? I suppose it is no time to bandy theology, but I had not thought that the Jews would be correct as to the nature of God.”

A man in the desert can find wisdom.

“Or heatstroke.”

A sense of humor. Tut Mir Hano'eh.

“That pleases you?”

It is not often I encounter a king with a sense of humor.

He had had enough. A king? A hundred ignorant fools ranting at the top of their lungs that he had taken away their rights, that he had usurped power and made himself a king. He would set this specter on the straight and narrow.

“King? I am no king. I am duly elected official!”

You are a king.

“I am no king! We have no king! There has been no king for over five hundred years!”

The figure was still, facing him. His eyes could sense nothing, but again, he felt it. Amusement. The unknown being before him was amused? His temper was up. “What’s so funny?”

Ani Mitzta’er. It is not often that I come for such a one as you.

“Such a one as me?” He scowled. “I am no king! I wear no crown!”

Is a crown the only measure of a king?

“A crown is what defines a king!” Oh, he was angry. There was no need to bother him with such petty arguments at this stage. But he would have at least one being, mortal or not, acknowledge that he was no king. “A king has absolute power that no one can challenge! A king has no equals, only sycophants! There is no one to struggle against, to compete against!”

Was anyone left alive who could be your equal?

He fell silent. All of his rivals were dead. There was none such left. But that did not mean he would concede the point.

“Semantics.”

Truth.

“I am not a king.”

You have the blood of a king in your veins.

“I am merely a descendant of Venus and Aeneas, of Mars and Romulus.”

An interesting metaphor, the truth lost to forty generations.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded, peeved.

E-l Adon. There is no other God besides him.

“Then who are my ancestors, if there are no other gods but yours?”

You wish to know?

“Amongst other things, I am a student of history.”

Your ancestress was a sacred queen, a chosen priestess who was thought to incarnate your Venus. Your ancestor was a sacred king, a warrior who was thought to incarnate your Mars, and who fought to the death before he passed on kingship to the next warrior.

“So I am descended from Venus and Mars.”

Simply not in the way you believed.

“Human perception is influenced by facts and emotions. So that is why we felt as we did. We had a tendril of truth, but not all of it. No matter how we misunderstood, however, it was our belief that made it true, even though it was actually false.”

A scholar.

“Another pleasant surprise for you?”

Indeed, Melekh.

“For the last time, I am no king.”

Did you not admit that perception colors human belief? Understanding is a three-edged sword; your side, their side, and the truth.

“The truth is that I am not a king, you blighted psychopomp!”

Stubborn.

“I never claimed that I was not.”

You are a king. Though you took wives, you were married to duty, to responsibility. You did not step aside into history, though you could have. You stood there, alone, above all, striving ever higher, reaching beyond life into history.

“I admit the latter, never the former!” he snapped, goaded beyond belief by the detached voice emanating deep within that cowl.

The king’s unspoken duty is to teach, sometimes by horrible example. You taught. You will teach far beyond your lifetime.

He allowed his satisfaction to show. Then all was not for naught. He had succeeded in the goal he had set himself as a lad. Then he stopped himself. He realized he had accepted Cassiel’s judgment, without even thinking. He shot an accusing look deep into the shadow of the face he could not see. Cassiel said nothing. He said nothing. It was a long moment, an infinite moment, but neither said anything. At last, he spoke.

“I understand the Jews have a place. Gehenna. Am I to go there?” he asked, unconcerned. Jews had been tenants in his mother’s building; he knew quite a lot about them since he had grown up around them, and that question bothered him.

Always a question the knowledgeable ask.

“Then the answer should be something you repeat by rote.” The reply was as dry as the Syrian desert.

He shall judge where you go from here, whether He raise you up or cast you down.

“How reassuring. I can but hope there is some generosity in His judgment.”

He is fair. Justice and mercy you shall receive in equal measure.

“Then lead on, messenger Cassiel. I have no desire to put it off any longer.”

Chutzpah. The same quality you held at Alesia you have now, at the moment of your death.

“Has it been only a moment? I feel as if it has been an eternity.”

What is time to you, Gaius Julius Caesar?

This work by Ronald Mina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.