The Torrent: Day 752: 5 Minute Freewrite - Prompt: helmet
"Make yourself a capacity,"
God said to Angelina, "and I will make myself a torrent."
Callie came up with her own mission:
Make myself a target,
and my sister's killers will after me,
and this time, they won't get away with murder. She was ready to die if that's what it took, because this time, surveillance cameras and DNA evidence and other tools of modern science and technology would do what small-town police could not, or would not, fifty years ago.
Come and get me, you bastards!
Social media being one of the new tools of the 21st Century, Callie started using it to "out" the suspects.
- a minister
- a sergeant who'd been in the Navy in Vietnam, aided and abetted by
- a local lawyer,
- a low-life drug dealer, now someone's beloved white-haired grandpa,
and at the bottom of the list, maybe just an accessory,
- a car dealer and
- a tavern owner.
Callie had ruled out all the others, the "red herrings" and serial killers and now-dead men that the conspiracy theorists had fabricated, crazy sh^t that the police and/or/maybe the DCI and/or/probably the FBI had released to the public--while keeping statements of fact from actual witnesses off the record. For 30 years Callie had believed the misinformation in the newspapers:
Jill Fielding Last seen on Main Street before 5 p.m.
Lies. Lies. And more lies. Someone let it slip that Jill had in fact made it to work that night. Callie relayed that information to the agent listed at the Cold Cases site, and as always, she got no reply. Was someone hacking his inbox, keeping her "new tips" from reaching the agent?
Make myself a target, not some other innocent, she had resolved. Trouble is, it wasn't Callie getting the threatening phone calls and headlights in the night following her home. It was the young journalist in Canada who got all that. And now, radio silence.
No listening God at work here. Saint Angelina of de Foligno must have sprung a leak somewhere. God, making himself a torrent. Angelina, his "capacity." The path of self-emptying she followed is the path all holy men and women must follow. Meh!
Emptiness. Well, hell. Callie knew all about that.
Fifty years. Half a century since Jill was killed, stripped of her jewelry and clothing, and stuffed into a culvert.
Callie wanted the jewelry back. She bought that turquoise necklace, earrings, and ring for Jill's high school graduation gift, and their mom got her a big jewelry box, which Jill secretly declared "ugly" and left it behind for Callie to claim. Whoever stripped everything from the body of Jill Fielding did a good job destroying every trace of it. This was no would-be boyfriend, no jealous co-worker, at work. This was a dirty job done by a pro. Someone in the police department who knew how to cover his tracks.
Make myself a target, and they will come after me.
I will make myself a torrent! Callie vowed.
And I will catch them.
source: ArtTower on pixabay
Biblical Justice
was a crock of sh^t. "Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, but Callie didn't see much veracity in all the promises of God. She did see a lot of inconsistency. "God loves me. God might burn me in hell." And "Sex is dirty. Save it for the man you will love, honor, and marry." Riiiight. Makes perfect sense.
Loins girt with truth; breastplate of righteousness; shield of faith; helmet of salvation; sword of the spirit. The pen is mightier than the sword.
God seemed to like battles, burning cities, threats of hellfire and damnation, and stashing a man in the belly of a whale.
Callie's sword, helmet, and shield were metaphorical, but her quest for truth and justice was as real as the naked body that washed out of the culvert after a long, cold winter.
Jill the iconclast, Jill the rebel, would have applauded Callie's mission; she would have done the same for Callie, had their roles been reversed.
But it wasn't Callie who became the target.
Now, to find out what had become of that young Canadian journalist.
That wasn't too far off from five minutes!! Woot!!!!
Day 752: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: helmet
Blessed Angela of Foligno DVD by Bob & Penny Lord, New | eBay
Saint Angela of Foligno, T.O.S.F. (1248 – 4 January 1309) was an Italian Franciscan tertiary who became known as a mystic from her extensive writings about her mystical revelations. Due to the respect those writings engendered in the Catholic Church she became known as "Mistress of Theologians".
Saint Angela of Foligno’s story
Some saints show marks of holiness very early. Not Angela!
Born of a leading family in Foligno, Italy, she became immersed in the quest for wealth and social position. As a wife and mother, she continued this life of distraction.
Around the age of 40, she recognized the emptiness of her life and sought God’s help in the Sacrament of Penance. Her Franciscan confessor helped Angela to seek God’s pardon for her previous life and to dedicate herself to prayer and the works of charity.
Shortly after her conversion, her husband and children died. Selling most of her possessions, she entered the Secular Franciscan Order. She was alternately absorbed by meditating on the crucified Christ and by serving the poor of Foligno as a nurse and beggar for their needs. Other women joined her in a religious community.
The Liturgical Feast of Saint Angela of Foligno is January 7.
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Aha. Just found your post that this change went live Sunday night.
Thank you!
https://steemit.com/cc/@commentcoin/over-3000-cc-comments-written-and-rewarded-by-us-and-you-in-less-more-since-14-day-s-thank-you-everybody
@carolkean You are welcome. Happy day and commenting. Greetings @wakeupkitty
Of course I will read every single one of these, but I have mixed feelings about learning more of the fates of Jill and Callie. You are one brave soul.
Your father is still alive? And he was with you this past weekend too?
Yes. Dad is alive and kicking - and ANGRY.
Mom is more resigned. She doesn't cook anymore. (Not much, just a bare minimum.) And yes, I saw them Wed. through Fri. (hence my haste to get the Favorites post done in case of zero internet up north; they're more rural than I am, but as it turns out, I have the slowest internet speed in the Midwest!)
Thanks. I don't know if I'll keep going with this story.
It's a new take, and very strong with the biblical references and the missing journalist. Love the list of possible perps (somebody's white haired grandpa...). Callie has the determination to get the job done. How old is she? Must be in her sixties if I'm doing that math right.
What was your Dad angry about? I had an angry father, but he mellowed as he aged. I found out liked him after all.
Thank you!
Our dad mellowed out so much, I was actually taken by surprise when he blew up about my sister's cold case and the way the community "didn't care" (he believes), but some classmates told my sisters their parents instructed them to SAY NOTHING to us because it would only be upsetting if people came around offering condolences. That was our world. These days, communities rally around the family and put up posters and so on, but we were a small population of stoic Germans who believe in suffering silently and alone....How to show someone you care without being "in your face" and re-opening the wounds....?
All we can do is leave the old mindset behind and live our own lives in the now...
Yes, Callie has to be going on sixty, in the story.
"Make myself a target" - that is what I did, but it backfired, and the French journalist said her mother told her to let it go when the threatening phone calls and the computer crash struck. "Keep yourself alive." I never asked that journalist to take up Julie's story; she found it on her own; I'd never heard of her until she started tweeting. Then I started retweeting her tweets and copying them to a Facebook group where I'm confident the culpits are watching. Alas. I never dreamed they find her real name (even I don't know what it is) and go after this small-town journalist in France.
Make myself a target - not others who seek justice!
I was feeling defeated and demoralized, but after my dad's outburst, I felt motivated to keep pressuring Law Enforcement and the public to stop saying "Oh well, we tried," while murderers walk free among us. To what extent must we "put up and shut up," anyway...?
Sorry. And thanks again @owasco for your thoughtful comments!
P.S. You have a story there: in his old age, your father mellowed, and you liked him after all.
I'd read it! even if the real-life details are disguised in fiction.
I am always taken aback by how much of your fiction cleaves closely to your real life.
So this was fairly recent with the journalist in France. I can see how that would open a deep anger in anyone. Whoever did this feels vulnerable, that's the good news. And though you make yourself a target, you never get hit?
Maybe I'll work that mellowing into the Edgar and Elsie story somehow. I'm fixin' to do that story, I really like a lot of it.
Ooh yes, more Edgar and Elsie!
A lot of my fiction is also sheer fiction, or sheer wishful thinking. I am never as competent as my protagonists. :)
I'm still angry about that young journalist forced to shut down her social media (no trivial investment in time and effort) and play it safe.
So I'm off to walk the dogs and cast anger to the wind... sub zero wind chill here. Ugh.
Chill! you bet I will
Just make sure that you don't make yourself a target, please!
Sadly, it appears in putting myself out there, OTHER people were jeopardized. Those who told me things. I didn't use their names - "The Man in the Park," aka "Denmark," e.g. - and as for the French journalist, I don't know her real name or her home town, but criminals are smarter than I am. They silenced her. She's probably alive and well but her Twitter page (which showed a considerable investment of her time and investigative skills) is GONE. And that makes me mad. And sad. My social-media-sharing led to this. On the one hand, it shows that my sister's killers are still out there, still menacing those who'd out them. On the other hand, it empowers them when we let them silence us. I often wonder just how big this ring of drug trafficking killers really is. Las Vegas to Mason City, down the corridor of small towns... what else did they do.... what did college sophomore Lisa Peak, at age 19, uncover, that she was killed only six months after my sister's body was found..... how do so many citizens just shrug and say "Oh, well, it wasn't my child," so life goes on....?
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