GHOST OF A CHANCE_CHAPTER 23_GOOD TO KNOW, DIFFICULT TO LEARN

{"The truth is forced upon us, very quickly, by a foe."
- Aristophanes.}

{Frazzled ghost of Sam Clemens here.

DayStar has left us in the supernatural jazz club, Meilori's,

just in time to be met by the ghosts of Bogart and Bacall --

and to be assaulted by Major Strasser of the Nazi Gestapo. Roland's journal carries on from there.} :

When the world goes insane, time does not freeze nor does it slow.

Your mind just kicks into overdrive and seems to lock onto the strangest things in rapid succession :

Strasser raising his luger to fire.

Bogart and Twain firing their automatics at the same time.

Strasser, a revenant, laughing as he twists aside both bullets easily.

His fingers going around the throat of a startled Bacall.

Marlene's saber appearing as if by magic half-way through the Nazi's throat.

Bacall tearing her own throat free as Marlene's saber cuts the rest of the way through the revenant's neck.

Life snapped back into fluid focus as I heard Marlene husk, "Heads I win."

As Strasser's headless body thumped on its butt to the tiles, Mark Twain grunted, "Tails you lose."

I stared at the body, quiet as roadkill ... but not as pretty. Strasser, being Strasser, ruined the moment.

"You fools," rasped the disembodied head. "I have been cursed by McCord. I cannot die."

Mark Twain muttered, "Seems like it was us that got cursed in that deal."

Humphrey tossed his napkin over the head. "For our digestion, Fritz."

"Get that off me, swine."

Lauren leaned down, lifting her husband's napkin, balling up her own, and shoved it into Strasser's open mouth. "Put a sock in it, Nazi."

Mark Twain said, "Valkyrie, you killed pretty easily there."

Marlene's eyes grew haunted. "To killing there is no easy nor is there pretty."

She squeezed shut her eyes as if to block memories that forced themselves upon her anyway. "Twice while I was entertaining the G.I.'s on the front lines, our position was over-run."

Her blue eyes opened, but they only seemed to see the past. "I was put with the wounded for my safety."

Her lips twisted. "Safety. The German soldiers knew I was there. More, they knew Hitler's price on my head."

She roughly cleaned her saber on Strasser's body. "To defend the wounded I had to kill."

She handed me the cleaned saber, her eyes locking with mine. "I did it without shame then ... and now."

She stared back off into scenes she couldn't forget or shake. She was trying to tell me something. But what?

I sighed. The truth. It was good to know, difficult to learn ... in time.
***