Siren

It is ironic that I spend so much time thinking of death only to be surprised by it. There we were, a conspicuous group, planning as we do...for mounds of wrecked humanity no longer discernible through oblivion and carnage. I was in a hospital.

We discussed as we always did, preparing for the inevitable- reveling in our planned ability to react with a measure of courage above our fellow man...and then at once there it was...

A shriek of pain...

It was so close...and yet I had no connection to her...and yet I could not pull my heart from hers.

From deep within her this pain called...it was the kind of pain only a woman can feel...her cry was that which finds its birth only in the heart of a woman.

I could not see her- we were separated by a soup of cement and steel and glass...and yet at once her cry of sorrow called the entire universe to her side and I was among it.

No, I could not see her but I could see her legs give way...demanding the very presence of the ground to her side.

Her shriek of pain was so pure that at once it penetrated my consciousness and separated my soul from this world...if only for a moment- and pulled me into the Divine.

This divinity was generated by her pain- its power called to angels who, in their infinite compassion and generosity, afforded her their loving caress...