Enjoy Day #4, by reading the rest of my post.
Tom said, “For starters, what would have in our place? Would you prefer that soldiers or police? A big thing that we believe in is that we need a broader view in order to properly deal with all of the types of problems out there. There are just some things that are not doable with out a special power of God.”
Cool.
Tom continued, “Another thing is the idea of a force. We believe that our goal should not be to force people. We do do that, but we should not try. In this aspect, we are no different than the police force or military force, but we try to avoid using that word, so that we can remind ourselves to stay away from it as much as possible. You don't want us or the police busting down your door, do you?”
“No. Was there ever a time, when you did bust down a door, though?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“What about swords? Did you ever use them?”
“Oh, definitely.”
A smile popped up on John's face. “Tell me about that! Enough of the boring stuff.”
“If I ever told you about me using a sword, then it would be boring. Let me tell you about Corporal Reed.”
# # #
Corporal Reed loved confronting demons, so whenever we got a call about demonic activity, he would get all charged up, while the rest of us would see it as bad news.
A call came in about activity in the Surrey triangle, which was area of Surrey that had demonic activity for over a century. The boundary for the Surrey triangle went from Scott Road and 96 Avenue, along 96 Avenue, down King George Highway to 72 Avenue, and back up to Scott Road and 96 Avenue. We suited up, and brought our swords at our sides.
Reed always seemed to chomping at the bit to arrive there as soon as possible. In these types of situations he was so animated. He reminded us of Mohammad Ali dancing around in the ring, but not quite as much. The thing is that he was only 5'4”, and really wiry. He did not appear intimidating, at all. I often wondered if he looked like that on purpose.
We arrived at the scene. The neighbour had called us in. As soon as we got there, we knew it was the real thing: we could smell it; it was the smell of feces. We got ourselves lined up around the back and front. The platoon leader gave the signal, and we busted down the door.
The house's inside walls were smeared in feces. The only clean spots were symbols. Apparently the demon felt artistic. The demon possessed man was in the living room. He immediately went down into a fighting position, like an Olympic wrestler. He flashed his teeth at us and growled. His fingers were held tight, as if they were claws.
Demon possessed men are no match for bullets, and the demons know it. The big challenge was cornering them and holding them down. To help us with that, we had brought along a couple of strong poles with rims on the end to catch him.
The demon put up a good fight, but we got down.
When we had secured the place, Reed stepped forward. He let his down his rifle to hang by his side. It was attached to his armour. Whenever he confronted demons, and even some people, he often spoke as if he were telling a Batman story, by using action words. “Come on, speak to me. Who do you think you are?”
The demon said, through the man, “Go away! This is my place!”
“How dare you speak to us like that? Do you know who you are talking?”
“I hate you!”
“You don't know me. If you did, you would not be talking to me like that, because if do that again...POW! I'll blast with every bit power that I have, and send to the fiery pit of hell.”
“You wouldn't dare!”
Reed turned to me, and said, “Oh, I just love it, when they do that. I just love it.” All paladins were partnered up into pairs, and he was my firing team partner. He was the more experienced paladin, and I was still early in my first year. He pushed his horn rimmed glasses back up his nose, and turned to the man, and said, “Keep talking back to me, and it'll be all over! BANG BANG BANG! KAPOW!”
“Your childish threats are meaningless to me! You have nothing to intimidate me.”
“That's lying. You know exactly, who I am. You're just too stupid to do any better. Let's see that brings us to five, which means four more to go.”
“No!”
“Oh, yeah. Disturbing the peace, ruining somebody's life--”
“I have dominion here!”
“Hmm, yeah, that's true—for a few more minutes. Disobeying a lawful order...”
“No!”
“Oh, yeah! When we came in, and told you to SHUT UP, you never complied.”
“No!”
“Yeah, oh yeah. That's the way I like it. You guys are digging your own graves, and POW! We're just here to seal your fate.”
“If you really have power, then why don't you seal my fate now!”
“Ah, because I want to enjoy this.” Reed began to move about as if we were a fighter warming up for a fight. He hopped about, punched the air, and moved his head around. “The more time I give you, the deeper that you dig, and the less likely that I'll ever hear your STUPID voice EVER AGAIN!” As he punched a couple of times, he said, “KAPOW POW! Whoo-oo-oo yeah.”
“Liar!”
“Oh yeah, that's six. That's four more to go.”
Reed turned to me, and said, “I find that the smarter ones tend to button up early, around one or two.” He turned to the man. Reed touched his own head, with his own finger, and said, “They know that something is up.”
“I don't have to put up with this...” With a deep growl, the demon possessed man grabbed the two poles that restrained him, and slowly pushed them away. He thrusted the poles hard, and the four men, who had tried to restrain him, fell back.
Reed detached his sword and sheath, and smacked the man's left knee, and said, “Attacking a paladin: POW! That's seven!”
The man leaped at Reed, and while he was in midair, Reed caught him, sidestepped, and threw him onto the floor in the middle of the room. The man absorbed the shock of the fall, with a grunt, and without a stop, rolled, bringing Reed along. Reed should absorbed most of the fall, but his cheek smashed against an outer corner of a couch. Reed groaned, giving the demon the split second that he needed to leap at a pair of paladins. They stumbled backwards, while maintaining their grip. Another pair of paladins jumped in, pressing the man's torso into the floor.
Reed, who was on his feet again, said, “Attacking a paladin? That's eight!”
“You foul bastard children all have one mother named Mary!”
Even though that insult was so far from the truth, Reed took that insult personally. He said in a deep even tone, “That makes nine.” He held aloft the sword, while it was still in its sheath, with the handle pointing up, and the sheath tip pointing down. The blue jewel in the butt of the handle began to glow. “By the power God invested in me...” The jewel grew brighter. “...I now order you to the ninth level of hell...” We started to squint. “...where you shall suffer for your nine trespasses...”
The demon said, without moving the man's mouth, “No!”
“...for inflicting and harm and filth on the community...” We squeezed our eye lids shut, and covered our eyes with our arms. “...and you shall suffer with no chance for appeal.”
“Plea-ea-ease!”
“Go!” Reed thrust the tip of the sheath onto the floor, and the jewel flashed, and some of its power shot out through the tip at the floor, in a wave of light in the shape of an ever expanding ring. As the ring passed over the demon, it shocked him, causing him to lose control over the man. The man lay unconscious. The ring disappeared in the walls. Parts of the demon's body appeared outside of the man, as the demon flailed about, struggling to grip on anything, but it was as if the floor were water, and as if he were drowning. Another surge of power came from the jewel, through the tip on the floor, but this time it was slower. It was as if thick glow-in-the-dark paint were poured on floor. As it washed over the demon, it covered him, again like paint. It appeared as if the demon had fallen into a hole in the floor, while the man stayed in place. All of the light began to follow the demon down the hole, while he struggled and shrieked. The light from the power darkened as it went further down.
Another paladin quickly touched the man's chest, and closed his own eyes. The man's chest and belly rose. The man's eye flashed open, and he shot out all his air. He panted deeply.
We could see the fear in his eyes. Reed's hit had left a big bruise, but the laying of hands had healed that, when he was brought back from unconsciousness. He appeared to be severely malnourished, so we called an ambulance.
# # #
John said, “So, you rescued the guy, and sent the demon to the deepest part of hell?”
Tom said, “Yep.”
“Pretty cool. Honestly, I was hoping for a sword fight, but that was pretty intense.”
Tom nodded.
“How long was he in the hospital?”
“Oh, probably just a few days. He could have recovered just as easily in his cell.”
“Wait. What?”
“We had to arrest him.”
“But what did he do wrong?”
“Disturbing the peace and feces on the wall, just for starters.”
“But I thought that the demon did all that.”
“He did.”
“And he controlled the man.”
“He did.”
“So, how can you possibly punish the man for being out of control.”
“We could punish him, because he was out of control.”
“That's not fair!”
“Nobody can fault you, if your house gets struck by lightening, and then catches on fire, but we can fault you for playing with matches on the carpet. Fighting demons, villains, thieves, and fools, is our responsibility. However, safe behaviour and being cautious is everybody's responsibility.”
“I don't know...it's not as if he's opening himself to the demon making him smear poop all over the walls. Who wants that?”
“Who is open to setting their houses set on fire? Only arsonists, but they aren't the only ones setting houses on fire. I don't see why you seem to object to this. The man got good treatment in prison. His wounds were healed. Remember? He got the help he needed to get back onto his feet. If it hadn't been for us, he probably would have been dead a few hours later. The demon was probably going to kill the man, and move on. Even if the man weren't guilty, we would need to still do him a favour, and get him away from his bad life.”
John looked away at the floor, and reflected on the story. “Why did the demon want to kill the man? To me, that makes no sense. If it were me, I would keep the body, and move around, without getting attention.”
“You know, it doesn't matter to you. You're a civilian. Knowing the demon's motives is more than you are ever going to need. Knowing the motives is only important, when casting judgement. It's similar to dealing with people. We need to understand the motives of the sinner, before we can judge honestly, and righteously. A civilian doesn't need to know about demonic motives. Even some of the paladins don't need to know. All you civilians need to know is that they are dangerous and conniving. They are always scheming. They are always looking for weaknesses to exploit. They are always hating. There is just no understanding them. Even when they obey people like Reed, it's because they are cornered and looking for the only way out. They just want to get back to hurting people again.
“We, and especially people like Reed, need to understand the demons, so that we can punish them as badly as possible. We need to understand people, so that we can punish them as little as possible.”
“Interesting. I never thought about that.”
[“Reed must have been some character. He must have been real tough.”
“You know, I'm not so sure about that. Whenever he wasn't 'in the zone' in one of those 'special' situations, he always seemed to be a bit of a push over. We could pat him on the back to congratulate him, and he would always stumble. Also, his armour was always too big for him. He never liked working out with us. He was indescribable. I bet that he liked that reputation, just so that he could confuse the demons, and encourage them to take him on.” He shrugged, and said, “I don't know.”]
[“You see these arms? Look at how thin they are. Are you going to let somebody like me tell you what to do? Just because I have a badge?” he said, as he patted the left side of his chest.]
Tom nodded in understanding. “Yeah, neither did I, until I really got some experience under my belt. By the time that I saw my friend in the supermarket, it was easy to figure out what to do for people like him. We could see in his body language that he was all talk. We followed procedures, and expected him to actually have a gun, but honestly, we never expected him to use it.”
“But what about sword fighting? I mean real sword fighting; like in the movies.”
Tom smiled.
“You know.” John connected his fists, as if he were holding a sword. He moved his fists about, and said, “Ch ch chshh...”
“I'll tell you, but you have to promise me that you will always remember that being a paladin isn't about 'Ch ch ch.'”
“All right.”
# # #
As with always, this story starts with a call. We always listen to the caller for key words; words like “crazy,” “weird,” and “strange.” That's when people like Reed get excited, and we bring along our swords. This call was for Hastings in East Vancouver.
When we arrived, there was oriental guy running along the sidewalks without a shirt, screaming and waving a sword. We couldn't understand a word that he was saying. I think that it was Japanese, or Chinese, or something. We pulled out our guns, rights away. I was pretty sure that this was going to get messy. It usually does, when the person has a weapon, or is real interested in fighting.
The platoon commander said, “Stop! Stop right there!”
As we expected, he just smiled, turned his attention to us, and got into a fighting stance.
The commander said, “Put you weapon down!”
The swordsman said, “No. You put your weapon down. There is only one of me, but I out number all of you.” He then swung his sword faster than Bruce Lee could punch.
Right away, you could tell that he was just plain old crazy, as opposed to demonic crazy, because demons tend to start talking about authority, dominions, and power, and stuff like that. Crazy people tend to be a little more incoherent. There is an ordinariness about them. These are not hard and fast rules, but they tend to be trends.
The end. Thank you for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment