The Third Law Of Motion.

Harker took me to a room that was devoid of everything except for a wooden stool. On top of it sat a slender vase. In it was a delicate, yellow rosebud.

            “What’s this?” I asked.
            “It’s your target,” Harker replied.
            “This isn’t much of a target.”
            “On the contrary. It’s a huge target.”
            “Why do you say that?”
            “Because the rose is not your enemy. You have nothing against it, and it has nothing against you. So that makes it very important to the mission ahead.”
            My first instinct was to defer to him. He was older. He was my father. His knowledge of the world was vast and true, but this didn’t feel right. Did he really know the full extent of my powers? My eyes returned to the rosebud.
            “So I gather that you want me to destroy it,” I said.
            “On the contrary, Lady Abby. I want you to open it.”
            “Open it? What would that prove?”
            “In order to fully control the power within you, you must not only be able to conquer your enemies, you must be able to control the most subtle things in life. So go ahead, Lady Abby. Open it.”
            “How? How do I open it?”
            “Anyway you wish to. Heart will help you.”
            I had almost forgotten about Heart. She sat loyally by my side waiting to do my bidding. Could this blade of destruction really help me manipulate the beautiful flower in front of me?
            “Draw Heart from her scabbard,” Harker instructed. “Hold her in front of you. Point her at the rose. Then say to yourself: Wish. Dream. Want.”
            I drew Heart. She sat comfortably in my hand. It all seemed a little silly, but I did as he instructed. I pointed her at the rose, closed my eyes and concentrated.           
            “Wish. Dream. Want,” I said.
            “Do not close your eyes,” he said. “You must face the delicate and the deadly equally. Do not say the words out loud. Let them flow from in your mind. Think of this as a battle, Lady Abby. Think of this as a battle with beauty.”
            I raised Heart and aimed her at the flower. I tried to set my mind to purpose.
            “Wish,” I said to myself. “Dream. Want.”
            Nothing happened.
            I looked over to Harker. He nodded slightly and said, “Again.”
            “Wish. Dream. Want.” The words rattled in my mind. Nothing.
            “Tell Heart what you want. She will do your bidding if you are worthy.”
            Worthy? Was I worthy? I thought the words again. This time I focused them on Heart. Not all of Heart just her tip, the business end of this experiment.
            Nothing.
            “Again,” Harker said.
            I did as instructed. Wish. Dream. Want…. Heart began to glow. Rolling colors of the rainbow ran through her over and over and over again. Then the tip turned golden. It seemed to…
            …Shimmer….
            My eyes went to the rose. It was swaying back and forth as if caught in a breeze.
            “Control yourself,” Harker cautioned. “Open the flower. Do not destroy it.”
            It was already too late. Harker’s words had hardly left his lips when the rosebud burst apart with a loud “poof”. To this day I still remember the hurt. I had killed a great beauty. It was a metaphor for my life.
            Trig came from my left. He plucked the stem from the vase and replaced it with another bud. This one was pink.
            “Again,” Harker said.
            I pointed the sword. I repeated the words. Heart began to flow with colors. Her tip glowed golden. The flower evaporated before my eyes. I was filled with anger and sorrow. How would I ever do it?
            “Calm yourself,” Harker said. “Anger and frustration will not help you. It will only cause more havoc, and it will not help you in a time of crisis. We have plenty of flowers, Lady Abby. They grow wild in the Territory as you will soon see. Think of these few as sacrifices for the greater good. Calm yourself. Focus on the task.”
            We went through a dozen. Two dozen. Maybe more. Each time I would destroy a bud, Trig would appear with another. I wasn’t manipulating the flowers; I was executing them. How it saddened me. But I heeded Harker’s advice and forced myself to focus even though my head was beginning to ache and my arm tired from the strain. Then, nearly two hours into my training, something amazing happened.
            This rosebud was once again a yellow one. It was as if my task had gone a full circle. I focused. Heart reacted, but this time a slender slit of light emanated from her tip and slid to the rose. At first I was certain this was the end of it. The beam of light seemed like death, but that’s not what happened. The only word I could think of was that it tickled the rose. Tickled is not right, but I lack the ability to describe the interaction between myself, Heart and the rose properly. It began to slowly rock back and forth. For a moment I was certain it would gain speed until it flew apart, but that’s not what occurred.
            It opened.
            Graceful, radiant petals reached out to me then spread their wings. The beauty humbled me. Heart fell away from my hand and floated beside me. I couldn’t move; the rose had me in its grip.
            “So there you have it, Lady Abby, The Lady of the Rose,” Harker said with a wide smile. “The power to destroy, the power to bring forth the beautiful. It’s in your hand, in your mind. The ability to save Haven is within you.”

An edited scene from my novel, “The Lady of The Rose”

I woke up this morning thinking of Newton’s Third Law of Motion. It goes something like this: “For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.” I didn’t learn this law from a science teacher; I learned it from a black and white sci-fi movie one Saturday morning at the Bal Theater “Kiddie Matinee”.

Like most “monster movies” of the fifties, a giant bug tearing up a metropolis was usually caused by mankind’s obsession with blowing things up. In most cases it was linked to atomic bombs which at the time were being liberally tested out in the Nevada desert and the deep recesses of the Soviet Union. Atomic bombs, it seems, caused ordinary animals to mutate, or in the case of the aforementioned movie, caused part of Antarctica to melt exposing a terrible demon that had been safely encased in ice for millions of years. At the time, it made perfect sense to me, but I would not fear. The great B actor John Agar would find a way to kill it by the movie's end.

I love Newton’s nifty little law. Though now quite as grand as “things in motion tend to stay in motion” which could warrant a blog post of its own, the third law explains precisely how life and the world works. A decade later my 60s self would call it Karma. The Bible says you “reap what you sow”. It’s all the same thing. If you do something, be prepared for the consequences.

As a writer, I have always kept this in mind when creating a story. The scene from “The Lady of the Rose” I’ve included above is a perfect example. To unfurl the power of beauty, a few rosebuds have to be sacrificed.

Or something like that.

The fact that Trish and I had two children and now three grandchildren is also an extension of that process. We put into motion a series of events that will go on and on for generations to come, even as we are part of the process from generations past. Everything in this world is linked together in a third law of motion sort of weird way. We are all just a series of reactions to events that go all the way back to the Big Bang.

What action caused me to get cancer not once but twice? Beats me. At least God or whomever is controlling the universe could have given me a cancer that I could sue someone for. Get a little cash to ease my suffering, but it hasn’t been my fate. I am left wondering who the f**k did I piss off? All I know is that my illness if further proof of the universe's cockeyed plan for all of us.

I’ve been day dreaming of a town in early evening, but darkness hasn’t quite taken hold. It’s raining. The welcoming lights are on in the stores that line the street. Cars are inching by, going with the grace of the Third Law toward their homes. There are a few people on the street under umbrellas. I watch aloofly from an invisible corner. The air is cool with a hint of ozone. Life is as it should be. Dinner is waiting. It goes on and on like a great wheel forever….