Heaven on Earth
By tyson
- 731 reads
Heaven on Earth
Darkness endureth for a night but joy cometh in the morning.
At the last count Jason Jones had nine parents, none of whom cared a
fig for him.
Conceived as the result of a drunken frolic when his mother was still
under age, and born after a shotgun marriage to the wrong man; his
arrival was viewed by all and sundry as an unmitigated disaster. When,
some three months later, his mother revealed his true paternity, his
unnatural father heaved a sigh of relief and successfully sued for
divorce.
His maternal grand parents, never noted for their tolerance, showed
mother and son the door.
The ensuing eight years contained a period of unremitting social
climbing by virtue of a generous dispensation of his mother's favours;
five of these liasions being conducted under the nuptial rites. Her
latest, a gnarled octogenarian of somewhat decayed physical charms and
immense wealth, had almost refused to marry her when he heard of poor
Jason. He eventually did so on the clear understanding that he should
never meet the boy.
By great good fortune, Lady Beauchamps Smythe - as she now was - met
Jason's carnal father behind the manager's desk at the bank where Sir
Beauchamps Smythe had his account. This made the forcing of a
confession to his wife and the shouldering of his paternal burden a
simple matter of blackmail.
Already blest with two fine sons, Mr Jones - for it was his
unexceptional name that Jason now bore- regarded the product of his
youthful indiscretion with undisguised hostility. Mrs Jones' attitude,
perhaps with better cause, was even more stringent.
As all of his parents found him never less than irksome, Jason was
denied any of the genuine affection that is so important for a child's
emotional development.
In his early days at the Jones household the family affairs of the
Beauchamps Smythes were further complicated by the arrival of a son and
heir to Sir Willoughby. As he had been sterile from adolescence,
following a riding accident, this happy event was put down to divine
intervention by all but the more cynical members of the clan. When,
some ten months later, a second boy was born to her ladyship it was
generally held that the almighty was labouring the point. To remark
upon a strong resemblance between the infants and the gamekeeper was to
invite elimination from the will, which did little to inhibit those
that had no expectations in the matter.
None of this improved Jason's lot one iota. Previously an embarrassment
to all, he now became an affront to the otherwise unblemished home life
of both his 'natural' parents. The few crumbs that were casually
brushed from the family table never seemed to reach him. In short,
nobody wanted him; and those that should have done so entertained a
deep seated dislike of him.
This was doubly unfortunate as he was possessed of a loving and
sensitive nature. From his earliest days he was aware that he was not
loved as the children around him were loved. From that time on his one
desire was to achieve a similar status to the others. Seeking someone
to cherish him, he sought to lavish upon his parents all the devotion
and love that his vulnerable psyche could muster. Everywhere he was
rebuffed with a studied indifference or accusations of attention
seeking.
It was with a sense of release that they dispatched him, aged eight to
a boarding school where he was never visited in term time and
ungraciously accepted during the holidays by the recalcitrant family
Jones.
Far from viewing this apparent rejection with dismay he welcomed it as
an opportunity to demonstrate his worth. He went determined to shine in
all that he did so that his parents would come to be proud of his
attainments.
Half way through the first term it became apparent that his best
efforts were not going to be enough. Endowed with a mediocre brain,
inexpertly nurtured at the dame school he had previously attended, his
performance was such as to give encouragement to the dimmest of his
peers. A spindly and uncoordinated physique rendered his sporting
efforts even more inept. By the end of his first term he had become a
byword for inadequacy and the butt of many of his fellows' crueller
jokes. His report, rendered in duplicate, merely confirmed the low
opinion that his family already held of him.
His distress at his inability to utilise this last path to
respectability was deep and terrible. Nightly he cried himself to
sleep, first at home and then on his return to school. Eventually even
that safety valve was denied him by an unsympathetic dormitory captain
who claimed that it kept him awake.
As with everything, time healed on the surface. Gradually the pain of
rejection was consigned to the sub conscious and became a dull ache
rather than an agony of mind. By the time he transferred to the senior
boarding house at the age of eleven he had learned to assimilate
injustice with very little display of emotion. As his contacts with
other people had been almost universally unpleasant he became a
loner.
On arrival at the house at 7.30 he would go straight to the attics.
These had been equippped with a selection of books and an ancient
gramophone together with a battered collection of classical records.
Here he would sit, listening to the records and reading whilst his
peers ran riot below or sat transfixed in front of the
television.
It was while he was thus engaged that it happened.
Taking a recording of Elgar's 'Morning Song' he placed the needle head
upon the lead in. It produced the usual preliminary crackle but -
suddenly - it stopped and a child's voice as dulcet as a glass harp
called his name,
"Jason, Jason, come and join us, come and join us. We are the lost, the
unloved. But it need not always be so. Come to us and our joy can be
complete".
At that point the opening chords of the piece extinquished the
voice.
Jason, by now thoroughly alarmed, and doubting the evidence of his
ears, replaced the needle at the beginning of the record for a second
time.
Once again the voices spoke, " Jason, Jason, you cannot wait. Tonight
is the night of the lost and can never be recalled. Go to the cellars
below this house. There you will find a hole in the wall near the
ceiling. Climb into it and crawl down the passage as far as you can. At
the end you will find a gap almost too small for you to go through.
Push as hard as you can and we shall meet you there. I must go now - I
am called."
With that the music started, leaving Jason frightened and confused. A
third time he placed the needle on the record but nothing out of the
ordinary occurred.
He sat back and tried to steady his quivering nerves. What should he
do? To tell someone was to invite derision, but to ignore it could
result in a lifetime of regret. It was a small enough thing that they
asked of him, and if it was another ingenious joke he had lost little.
He would have to attempt it.
His resolve strengthening by the moment he left his chair and began his
descent to the cellars.
The cellars, although forbidden to the boys, were always left unlocked.
Anxious to avoid being seen, he lingered in the hall until there was
nobody to see him disappear down the steps to the cellars. As he waited
he reflected on the meaning of it all. Certainly he was unloved. He
also had a great need to bestow his love where it was needed and
appreciated. Could it be that what he had heard was the an illusion
born of a deranged mind? Had he really heard anything at all? He simply
could not tell, but he knew how to find out.
Once the cellar door was shut he switched on the light. Three paces on
the passage turned sharp right and then left. Here he began to grope
his way along the wall. The vestigial shards of light from the distant
bulb only served to accentuate the blackness of the shadows. His nerves
as taut as bowstrings, the cellar appeared to be filled with spirits of
the night.
"Go back! Go back!", mouthed monstrosities crouching in the
corners.
"Go back! Go back!", snarled disembodied heads in the cobweb covered
ceiling.
For the first time it occurred to Jason that he might be dealing with
the forces of evil.
His resolve repeatedly on the point of breaking, he took five hesitant
paces forward. This brought him level with an oblong aperture half way
up the wall.
He had never been here before and there was the cavity. No longer could
the voices be attributed to his imagination.
Scrabbling with his feet, he pulled himself into the opening. On trying
to sit up he banged his head. The darkness around him was now total.
Bitterly he regretted not having brought a torch.
Although he knew it to be only the ceiling of the cavity, he felt bat
winged creature flick him as he crawled forward.
"Go back Jason ! Go back!", they squeaked.
The surrounding blackness pushed harder and harder upon him. His
questing hands brushed the long dead skeletons of nocturnal animals
trapped below.
"Go back! Go back!", they rattled and croaked.
For ever and for ever the long crawl continued but, at last, Jason's
hands touched decaying mortar and he could go no further. Another cruel
joke.
He started to turn for the return journey. Feeling to his right there
was a space where there had been only wall. Remembering what the voice
had said, he turned upon his side and tried to force his head and
shoulders through. three times he stuck and three times he wriggled
free until, with a final heave, his hips cleared the gap and he started
to fall....
Faster and faster he went, leaving behind his poor,ugly body and his
burden of sorrow. The mist of misery that had clouded his brain blew
away and the darkness became a brilliant light.
Suddenly he no longer fell, but flew. Rising up to meet him came a band
of winged children calling out welcomes in voices that rang like glass
harps.
A tracker dog found Jason's body the next day, broken and still at the
bottom of the old well into which he had fallen. On gaining the light
the search party was puzzled to find that on his face there reposed a
beatific smile such is rarely seen this side of heaven.
- Log in to post comments