Pinky Pirate

It began as a bright day and the wind was fresh. We positioned ourselves right in the centre of the field in a long straight line across the width of it. There was such excitement amongst these youngsters as they took their places and began to display their unique skills. They were each in a white suit that fitted them perfectly, with individual markings of their own signature colour. One lifted off the ground and began to somersault in the air while another had lightening coming from their hands, another played with balls of fire or threw one of their mates up into the air who then in turn disappeared and reappeared. How these little wonders shone in the sun doing what came naturally to them, all their giftings in full operation without a trace of doubt or strife.

I stood alongside towering over them as their protector and escort, a ‘watcher’ of considerable height.

At the end of the field was a crowd, a right rabble to behold facing us as we faced them. They were all different shapes and sizes, some looked more ominous than others and as a group gave a dysfunctional impression. As I set my gaze on them I noticed that amongst their motley presentation there was a hint of white with a colour branding very similar to the youngsters beside me, just on a part of someone’s arm or on a shoulder or the side of one leg. As I surveyed this crowd opposite I began to realise that there was such potential in them, that there was a part of them that revealed the same ability carried by the shining little beauties beside me.

There was the odd fiend amongst them but they were way out numbered by the rest. Were we on this field as opponents? We faced them and they faced us…. it was a definite stand-off…. so were we here to be against each other? All I wanted to do was to show them what I could see on them…. the same gifts these youngsters now imbibed and thrilled in. Would they mind if we ran over and made friends?

At that moment I noticed one of the little ones who now stood in front of me looking up franticly, desperately waving to get my attention . To my surprise the boy was my son… there was a look of shock and horror on his face as he shouted up at me, ‘They’ve been taking us out from behind….’ A veil fell on my ears, this was news I did not want to hear.

All along I had known that there were others behind us, further back but ‘on our side’ non the less. I had not turned around to look at them but surely it was fine because we are ‘on the same side’….but oh my heart sank now as I became concious of the heaving mass behind me. I had wanted to believe all was fine and so squashed the feeling that maybe it was not. My head turned to see that which I dreaded….all was not fine, there behind us was a grey sea of people covered by what can only be described as the most filthy cobwebs. The layer of web blanketed their forms, devoid of colour and raspingly death-like.

My boy yelled at me again tugging at my leg, he was in disbelief and such anguish, ‘They have been shooting us from behind….LOOK!…’
He thrust a card at me, it contained a picture of his friend in his branded white gear doing his best move and his name on it read ‘Super Nova’…. ‘HE’S GONE!’, my little one shouted.
Shaking, he proceeded hand me card after card of his friends, all of them had been shot from behind and there were only a few of them left still alive.

It only took moments to wake up to what had been going on but already bullets were zipping past my elbow from behind. I seized my boy and hit the ground face first but I was too late, as I fell I took a bullet in my back directly into my spinal chord. I lay on the ground holding my son my mind fully alert, this cannot be how this ends I thought, this is not just about flesh and blood….I can push this bullet out…so I squeezed my body together to the point I knew my spinal chord was contracting in a pincer movement slowly dislodging the bullet. It was half way out through my skin and I awoke.
I could still feel the pressure on my spine even though I had been pulled out of sleep.

Later that day I stood with my maker remembering the squeezing out of a bullet from my back but nothing prior to that except the residue of a harrowing dream. As I shut my eyes I was taken back through the whole scenario again reliving every moment of the dream. How I cried as I watched the utter beauty of the next generation shining in the Son and operating fully in who they were with out a qualm. I was sick to my stomach by the look on my sons face, shocked that such betrayal was possible because I had not noticed or had not wanted to face up to the danger behind us.
I stood again in the middle of this field studying those in front, our supposed opponents who looked quite inviting and full of potential. I looked behind at the cobwebs and realised the sad reality that those on the ‘same side’ were a far greater threat than those that ‘oposed’ us. Here we were right in-between and totally vulnerable. Dismayed, I turned to my Maker and asked how we were to protect ourselves from being shot in the back.