The Geode King Read online

  T H E P I T

  BOOK I:

  THE GEODE KING

  BY

  H. A. TISDALE

  with illustrations by

  SINCERELY SARAH STUDIOS

  Text copyright © by H. A. Tisdale. All rights reserved.

  Illustrations copyright © by Sincerely Sarah Studios. All rights reserved.

  This story is clearly fictional and thus does not portray any actual person or event.

  To

  Rebecca

  a wondrous light

  in a world of shadows

  Contents

  Chapter 1: The Book

  Chapter 2: Born of the Boulder

  Chapter 3: Murals in the Mansion

  Chapter 4: Victory Hill

  Chapter 5: Kisscelia

  Chapter 6: The Windless Valley

  Chapter 7: A Windy Path

  Chapter 8: Storm of the Ruakia

  Chapter 9: A Married Mirage

  Chapter 10: The Master of Kairou

  Chapter 11: Murals in the Manor

  Chapter 12: Dreams in the Stream

  Chapter 13: Sings, Strings, Stings

  Chapter 14: If You Dig It, You Doug It

  Chapter 15: Hippo Critters and Leeches

  Chapter 16: A Worm Welcome

  Chapter 17: Later Litter Gator

  Chapter 18: Lake Shale Burns

  Chapter 19: Moonlight Chimes

  Chapter 20: In Search of the Sun

  Foreword

  Had I not seen the Sun,

  I could have borne the shade,

  But Light a newer Wilderness,

  My Wilderness has made.

  -Emily Dickinson

  I am absolutely fascinated by the process of transfiguration. One minute it might just be a group of words, and the next minute, a poem. When a first impression melts to then be solidified turning a stranger into a friend. When a plain face suddenly changes the very definition of beauty in your heart because you really know that person. It is an altogether deeply spiritual process. There is only one person I have had the honor of knowing and remembering his entire life—yes even from his birth. My little brother, Harry, is one that other people are naturally drawn to despite any effort from him. We used to joke and call him the golden boy (and really still do), because it just seemed like everything came easy for him while my sister and I would have to try so hard for every little thing. Until, one season, it did not. Real life challenges hit hard. Our family was desperately worried. If you had asked me 7 years ago if I thought I’d be writing this foreword for this particular book, I would have laughed in your face. Now, if I were with you, I would laugh in your face too. A transfigured laugh of surprised joy and delight. A laugh that knows now that God has a plan for every tough situation.

  There is not much in this life that gives me as much joy as knowing Harry knows Jesus personally. For years, it had been my constant prayer and hope for him to have that peace and assurance. We, a very imperfect family, tried everything to fix every situation for our golden boy, but until his heart was changed by the only true Fixer, it was never going to be fully okay. Now, I treasure every conversation with Harry about life and faith and so much more. I am encouraged by his disciplined trust in God’s wisdom. I know our golden boy is now reflecting a light greater than we ever could have imagined. He has seen the Son, and that has made all the difference.

  The story you are about to read is true in the way all good stories are. You will find wonder, danger, betrayal, belonging, and love. I hope, of all things, you, dear reader, know that you are dearly loved and that there is always hope.

  Once a friend encouraged me to memorize the following lines when I was down in the pit of despair, so I will leave you with them.

  “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” – The 2nd letter from Paul to the church at Corinth

  Sincerely,

  Sarah

  The Geode King

  Chapter 1

  The Book

  My name is Benjamin Bolden, and I would like to share with you my dream, a dream I had in my dinky apartment. But I must first discuss the fateful events that led to that dream. So to begin, I will show you my end.

  One day, I was sitting on my shabby mattress in utter despair, looking down at the pistol in my hand. Outside, thick clouds covered the sky, casting darkness through my bedroom window. Inside, hopelessness weighed heavy upon my mind, and emptiness echoed through my soul as my aching heart tortured me with every beat.

  Ba Bum.

  “I’ve had it, Benjamin! If you’re not happy here, then just go live with your father already and leave me to my misery.”

  Ba Bum.

  “Your mother was right sending you away. If only I had that luxury.”

  Ba Bum.

  “Benjamin, that kiss meant nothing. Honestly, I don’t know why I did it. But I love Derek. Not you.”

  Ba Bum.

  “I’m sorry, Benjamin, but our decision is final. We are letting you go. Your work just doesn’t quite cut it for this company.”

  Ba Bum.

  I moved the loaded gun to my head with my finger on the trigger. The black barrel of the weapon felt cold against the sweat on my forehead. The heart-wrenching pain of rejection had plagued me for too long, and I yearned for the misery to cease. I just wanted my life to be over already. Thus, I closed my eyes, inhaled anxiously, and held my breath. My lifeless heartbeat quickened within me, providing an untimely countdown to my final seconds: ba bum….ba bum…ba bum..ba bum.ba bumba—Click.

  But something went wrong. The gun did not go off. My eyes opened wide with alarm as I panted uncontrollably, unable to catch my breath. I tried to swallow, but my throat felt too dry. I had really pulled the trigger. I had really tried to end my life.

  I then looked at the gun as if seeing it for the first time, and the sight of it sickened me. I quickly tossed the pistol on the bed and held my hands over my face, covering my eyes, muffling the unsteady breaths. An arrhythmic series of tearful sobs followed, and I wondered how I had ended up at this point. How had I let myself reach rock bottom?

  But then, I felt warmth on my skin. Light was piercing through the cracks of my fingers so that it rested on my eyelids. Slowly, I lowered my hands, opening my eyes to the sun rays beaming through my bedside window. Outside, the clouds were dispersing. The sun was breaking free. And its light was sweet, bringing a gentle pleasure to my weary eyes.

  Off in the distance, I could see children playing in Midbar Park, laughing as they jumped around in the sandbox. The scene seized my grieved heart, and I envied the innocent joy of the kids as I remembered similar times from my own childhood, simpler times when everything seemed lighter.

  As I observed the sunlight overtake the rest of the park, more than anything I desired to walk outside, to bask in the glory of the soothing sun. My eyes peered back at the gun on my bed, and I immediately felt the need to escape the ominous object which provoked in me the most unpleasant feeling of condemnation. I hurried out of my bedroom and exited the front door so quickly that I forgot to grab my raincoat.

  The air outside felt so fresh on my skin, and the warm breeze ruffled my hair. Still quite unsettled though, I walked briskly as one might walk with a guilty conscience, looking all around me with nervous glances. A few people passed me on the sidewalk and gave me concerned looks. I needed to get a grip on myself. So as I rounded the pond at the front of the park, I closed my eyes to regain my composure a
nd took a few deep breaths by the water.

  Deep breath in…I heard my yoga instructor’s soft voice in my head, and release. Deep breath in…and release…In…and release. I opened my eyes and noticed a pile of stones gathered together by the pond. Curious, I picked up one of the stones, and the stone that I chose felt cool, cool and smooth. I closed my eyes again, enjoying both the sun on my face and the stone in my hand. And I smiled.

  With my composure regained, I randomly desired to know if the stone could be skipped across the pond. So I opened my eyes and cast the stone away. One hop….two hop…three hop..four hop, and after the fourth bounce, the stone’s trajectory evened out just above the surface so that the stone appeared to be gliding on the water. I marveled at this miraculous sight as if I were dreaming, having never witnessed a stone skipped so perfectly. Remarkably, the stone crossed the full length of the pond.

  In complete awe, I wanted to retrieve this perfect stone. So I walked around the pond in search for my new treasure. Upon reaching the other side, I searched for the stone I had cast away, but alas, the stone lay nowhere in sight. This saddened me. This saddened me greatly.

  I took one last look before abandoning my search and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the pond. A horribly miserable creature stared back at me from the water, so I quickly smacked the surface to break up the egregious glassy image. To further ignore what I saw in the water, I tried to look on the bright side of things. The sun still felt nice, and that’s what compelled me to come outside in the first place, not some rock by the water. So I continued my stroll in the sun, no longer preoccupied with the sorry sight of myself.

  Even though Midbar Park lay within walking distance of my residence, I had not ventured there once since I moved into Tufflon Terrace Apartments, so now that I walked there for the first time, I knew not where I should go. As I pondered the direction of my path, a peaceful breeze blew which mixed nicely with the sun, so I decided to follow the wind and see where that might lead me within the aesthetic establishment.

  The wind led me sporadically beneath many towering trees, though the sun still found its way through their canopy of leaves. With the breeze and the sun, I soon put the stone out of my mind. With the breeze and the sun, I put every care away.

  But suddenly, the sweet rays of sunshine disappeared. Another thick cloud mass blew in with a gale, and as a result, a truly profound sorrow overtook my heart. Feeling too heavy to stand, I sought comfort on a nearby rock which served as a park bench.

  As I sat on the rock, I heard birds chirping throughout the trees. Their musical tones from the shadows caused me to think of life as an overwhelmingly sad song, a song I think most people can understand as they grow older. In short, the song illustrates how happiness tends to be fleeting, and the moment one starts to think, “Life is good,” is almost always the moment when happiness begins its departure.

  So from the birds’ melancholic melody, I concluded that nothing good was worth living for since nothing good ever really lasted. At this point, the gun from the mattress seemed to be beckoning me back to my inevitable fate of perpetual gloom.

  Desperate to escape the gun's call, I leaned over across my jeans and wished for things to be different. I wanted a world where the sun would always shine, where my heart could be whole. But what could a wish do to alleviate my pain? What could a wish do to alter the reality I had always known? In this particular moment, I doubted that a wish could do anything at all, but I made my wish anyway.

  For a while after wishing, I lay across my legs, still struggling with the deep inner turmoil. And when all hope seemed to fade away for good, I lifted my head and stood up on my feet, ready to depart.

  "Hey man, are you okay?" I heard from behind me. I turned around to meet a tall, friendly-looking, old man with gray hair and dark skin, holding a giant leather book in his hands.

  "Oh, uhh, yeah," I replied, trying not to appear quite so pathetic.

  “Are you sure?” the old man inquired, his reading spectacles magnifying the kindness in his blue eyes. “Is there anything I can do for you?"

  "No, really, I'm fine," I assured him, not wanting to bring up my inexpressible issue.

  “Alright, well, I’m here for you if you need me. Also, since I have you here, could I have another minute of your time? I'm trying to promote this book I’ve got," the old man explained.

  ”Umm," I rubbed the back of my neck, "surrree, we can sit on this rock if you want.”

  "Thank you so much, young man. Our boss pays us on a commission basis, so you're really doing me a favor. My name's Beverly by the way, and you are?"

  "Uhh, Benjamin."

  "Benjamin, pleasure to meet you," Beverly smiled as he shook my hand with vigor.

  We sat down on the rock with the leather book placed between us. I looked down at it and saw the words The Book written in gold on the cover right above the buckle of the strap that held the giant book shut.

  "The Book?" I questioned, scrunching my eyebrows.

  "Hah, I know, real creative right?" Beverly responded facetiously. "But I promise you the contents are way livelier than its title. I can assure you, the author really knows what he's doing in this thing."

  I decided to humor him. “Okay,” I said plainly, “so what's The Book about?"

  Beverly chuckled. “Uh oh, that's a difficult question I'm afraid. As you can see, this is one hefty book. It's very multi-faceted, and to tell you what it's about would take hours, maybe days even. It's really better if you just read it for yourself," he claimed as he slid the giant book in my direction.

  "Oh, I'm not so sure I want it," I quickly expressed. "How much does it even cost?"

  "Now that's something I can tell you, and it's the best part. This book costs absolutely nothing!" he enunciated with a great big smile.

  My eyebrows scrunched even more as my confusion for this situation continued to grow. "This giant book costs nothing?" I asked skeptically.

  ”That's right!" Beverly assented, still smiling.

  "But I thought you said you got paid on commission?"

  "That's right,“ he said with a nod.

  "I'm so confused. Where does your revenue come from then?"

  "Oh, money is not a worry for us because the boss has always been a very rich man and doesn't need any more money for himself. And since he doesn't need to work to make money, he wrote this in all his free time. So now he pays us to distribute copies as he considers this story his life's greatest work."

  "So you're saying I can just stand up right now and take this home with me free of charge?”

  "That's right! Oh, please do take the time to read it though. I always hate giving them away and finding out later that the person didn't even glance at it."

  I looked down at the giant book and thought about how long it would take someone to read that many pages. "I'll see what I can do," I said, unsure whether anyone could actually read such a sizable text in a reasonable amount of time.

  "Oh wow really? That's just swell. You're going to love it. I know I might be a little bias, considering I've read it a few times," he stated, causing my jaw to drop at the old man’s outlandish claim, "but I think it's safe to say that it's objectively a good read. Anyway, I’ll leave you alone now and let you get to it. But hopefully, I'll see you around the park soon, so we can discuss the contents together. I'm always curious to hear a person’s favorite part."

  The old man stood up and put his hand on my shoulder. "Pleasure meeting you, Benjamin. I'll see you later I'm sure."

  Beverly strolled away, leaving me speechlessly bewildered by the interaction. Unable to fully process what had just taken place, I lifted the giant book from the rock and laid it on my lap. There must have been a thousand or so pages, for its full weight felt like a cinderblock on my legs.

  Beverly had made an effective pitch though, and I felt compelled to give this book a chance. At the very least, I could read the first few pages. So I lifted the giant leather book and headed back toward my apar
tment.

  Looking up at the dark sky on the way home, I suddenly remembered the unspeakable act I had tried to commit in my bedroom, feeling very chilled by it. I had dealt with depression my whole life, but I could not figure out what had brought me to the tipping point. What specifically had caused me to pull the trigger?

  Maybe it was the world at large, which had been falling apart since my childhood, and nowadays, I could not believe what my news-feed would show me on a daily basis. Massacres, natural disasters, human trafficking, riots, war, disease, famine, poverty, unruly politics, and countless other calamities would somehow rear their ugly faces every single day.

  Maybe it was not the world as a whole though. Maybe my personal life had gotten the best of me. To start, all my grueling years of school had only amounted to a dreary desk job that always felt so pointless, and the computer screen sucking the life out of me was not worth the pay. Moreover, I carried a great deal of baggage. Growing up in a typical broken home, my formative years had been robbed of the peace for which I yearned. This led me to live rather wildly in my adolescence as I attempted to find fulfillment in various, empty ways.

  In the course of this misguided soul searching, many female companions passed in and out of my life, but lasting affection rarely resulted from those relationships. One woman, however, did have a rather detrimental impact on me.

  Amber Aurelius was her name. She grew up in my neighborhood, and the two of us always considered each other good friends. But one night, Amber made an unexpected move on me, kissing me with the sweetest intimacy I had ever known.

  Expecting a full-fledged relationship to follow, I felt very discombobulated when I met the hammer of her rejection. Eventually, I learned that Amber’s heart had never belonged to me but instead was wrapped up with her ex-boyfriend Derek, or as Derek liked to refer to himself, D-Rock. Unfortunately for Amber, D-Rock wanted to swim with other fish in the proverbial sea, leaving Amber a mess and me with a broken heart.