marcoujor: The Carriage Driver³ - Forty-six Hours

​This month’s edition of Inspiration Station is a piece of fiction written by friend and fellow writer, Mike Friedman of Mockingbird Books.

Mike’s The Carriage Driver series (Volume One and Volume Two) are filled with inspirational and heartwarming stories. In each chapter, people of all walks of life are escorted by Griffin (The Carriage Driver) and his beloved horse, Nuelle to the paradise of their choice for the next leg of their journey.

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Some readers may remember those 46 hours in June of 1999 which were some of my darkest days.
 
Now 18 years later, I am ever grateful for my life, my health and the family and friendships I treasure.
 
Thank you, dear Mike, for giving me such a comforting story to focus on during this month. (This really might be my favorite chapter. 😊)​

The Carriage Driver³ - Forty-six Hours

Griffin stood by the carriage talking to Nuelle. They had shared their apple as was their habit while waiting their passenger’s arrival. “It’s not like anyone to stand us up,”  Griffin told Nuelle as he patted her neck. He watched the activities going on across the public park.  There were police and emergency vehicles and a helicopter flying overhead. There were two vans from local television stations. Griffin whispered in Nuelle’s ear and walked toward the fray.

He ducked under the yellow ‘do not cross’ tape unnoticed by the crowd and walked inside the large brick building that was drawing all the attention. It was a large municipal building, one designed to hold vast amounts of busy people. Griffin walked the abandoned halls. He peeked in one office and the next. An eerie quiet engulfed him. As he walked along the ground floor, he called out ‘hello,” but there was no response. The unnatural echoes of his words did not ring well with him and he stopped calling out. He climbed the stairway built for emergencies and the energetic as he continued his exploration. The long empty corridors betrayed their icy institutional nature.   

On the third floor, he walked by a door with a glass window and stopped cold. It took a moment to register what he saw. A woman sat on the floor with her back against the wall. She was bleeding from her arms and one foot. Next to her sat an older woman, frail and wearing a mask of fear.

Across from them was a husky looking man. Griffin thought he recognized the look on his face. It was that look of misery. The look of complete despair. It was the look of a man who had been at war with himself and lost. All reasoning was surrendered to the voices in his head. It was the look of a madman.

He opened the door and stepped inside.  The woman who has injured seemed to acknowledge that something had shifted in the quiet but supercharged atmosphere. Griffin saw a flicker in her eye.

She looked at the madman, and toward her friend. Their senses did not seem to be alerted.  Griffin went to her. He removed his coat and shirt. He tore the shirt and dressed the wrist wounds and the ankle wound. He took the belt from his jacket and used it to hold a compression pad, made from his shirt around the wound in her side.

A movement startled the madman and he turned and fired another shot at the wounded woman. Griffin inhaled as deeply as he could and blew the bullet from the path of a vital organ. But it still hit her.

He yelled into the wind. The noise went unheard, but not unfelt. The madman took a step back.  Griffin stood and went to the window. He saw a number of police and other emergency personnel milling about. Some scanned the windows for any signs of movement.  

He went back over to the two women. The older woman was shivering. Griffin draped his coat as best he could over the shoulders of both women. He sat with the wounded woman. He took her hand, “You are doing good. There are many people ready and able to help you.”

“Who sent you?” The woman asked.

The madman looked over at her. He was out of his mind with his internal rage. Griffin stood and went to the desk. He moved the chair, making as much noise as he could. The movement startled the madman, deep inside it scared him. He pulled back to the far corner of the room.

“Why can’t he see you?” The woman asked. She looked at her friend. “She does not seem to see you either.”

“He is going to see another emissary from the beyond. It won’t be one of my clan.”

Griffin wondered if Nuelle had watched where he went and if she could find him.

Griffin examined the sounds. He made another compression bandage and applied it. “You asked who sent me. Well, let me tell you.” He took her hand. “I was working. There is a name in my book and I arrived at the appointed place and waited. Nuelle and I… Oh, Nuelle is a beautiful white horse, she and I are partners in a transport arrangement between this earthly plane, and what has been promised. Anyway, I was working. Across the park all this activity began and as more and more vehicles showed up, I came over to see the goings on.”

The woman adjusted herself against the wall. She found comfort and strength from this man’s voice. Her friend pushed close to her on one side for comfort and warmth. Griffin pushed himself close to her other side. Between the two, she was pulling in energy and reasonable warmth.   

The madman walked over and viciously kicked the chair in retribution to the ghost who had startled him. He screamed as would a wounded dog.

The wounded woman took a deep breath, a satisfying breath of determination. Griffin sat and hummed an old song from his soldiering days. Soon there was a song in the wounded woman’s mind. She withdrew to a lagoon, where the sun was shining and the water glimmered. She swam in the surf as the gulls floated in lazy circles nearby. Her resolve was not to fall asleep, thinking she may lose control. The night hours melted, like a lazy summer day.  Griffin held her hand.

The dark gloom of night tugged at the madman’s mind. The quiet stung like a thousand needles in his solitude. “Why don’t you talk? You always had something to say. Talk, damn you.”

“You are going to rot in prison and then you are going to rot in hell.” She smiled. The seconds of the second day ticked by.

He picked up the chair and threw it at the window, breaking the glass. The noise brought all the people on the ground back to their purpose.  A group of armed men entered the building and cautiously moved up to the third story toward the room with the broken window.

They found positions where they were very close by. They exercised too much caution with the thought of saving those held against their will. Below a voice on a megaphone called out. The madman went to the window to peek out.

Nuelle pulled from the curb and brought the carriage closer.

The men in the hall burst through the door. The madman turned and fired two shots. One hit the wounded woman and one hit the woman that sat next to her. The men tackled the armed man and threw him to the ground while screaming, “Get, out! Get, out!”

There was a rush. More men came flying through the door. The madman was carried away. Men with a stretcher reached the hall where the wounded woman pulled herself along the floor. She was scooped up and put on the gurney. Six men attended to her as she reached back, hoping to see her friend. An ambulance, helicopter waited for her.

Griffin looked around the carnage left behind by the madman. A young woman in a colorful summer dress waited for him. He reached out his hand and the two walked down, the now bustling corridor, down the stairs and out the front door.

Griffin spotted Nuelle waiting for him. The crowd crisscrossed back and forth around her and the carriage. Not giving her any attention. Griffin and the young woman reached the carriage. Griffin held out his hand to help her step inside. She smiled a smile of true tranquility.

Griffin walked to Nuelle and patted her on the neck, “Thanks for waiting.” He reached for his jacket pocket, and realized that he had left it during the course of the forty-six hours. Nuelle and he would have to wait to share another apple.​

​If you are looking for some excellent, thought provoking summer reading, please check out Mike’s The Carriage Driver series, available on Amazon in both book and Kindle format.

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ShoutOuts

☙ Green Screen Test via molometer

☙ Morning Coffee is On via Fireside with Rolly

☙ An Artist and A Sage via WarnerWords

☙ Highlighting Alicia Jaye Phillips, author, painter, photographer, holistic healer

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Until next month wishing you peace of heart and mind.
 
Hugs,
 
mar

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