Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

Jack was sitting beside Torstein, and now he leaned over, and put his arm around Torstein’s shoulder, and his head against his chest. Jack was so young. Maybe he’d turned 20 when I wasn’t looking, but he was still, to me, a kid. His hair was brown and softly curly, and he closed his dark eyes as he leaned on Torstein’s chest, and he murmured, “What is it? What’s wrong, Torstein? What’s happened?”

Jazz was sitting next to Jack, and he reached over and gripped the back of his kid brother’s neck. Maggie was sitting beside Torstein on his other side, staring at him with a soulful expression which was equal parts confusion and despair.

Pete and Phyllis were next to me. He was still fuming. He didn’t like this talk of sadness and loss and laying down lives, and he wasn’t going to cry about it like Jack. He was going to fight it. Phyllis still held onto his arm from when she’d tried to shush him, but she was looking at Torstein, too. Marigold, beside Maggie, had been so happy when Torstein had complimented her about Story Hour ... now she just looked bewildered. Bruiser had almost an identical expression.

“What’s it all been for then?” Ferdy asked. “It was all just a lark to you, and this is the end? That’s rubbish. Some of us invested our lives in you, Torstein. For you to throw it away now — that’s an insult. Don’t you get it? Don’t you get that there could be a gold mine at the end of this road? We gave up our jobs and our ambitions to stick by you, don’t we deserve something better than this?”

Torstein looked up at him, his deep, clear blue eyes seeming gray and infinite, and said, “Do what you have to do, Ferdy. Do it now.”

“Do what?!” Ferdy said, standing up, shrugging, looking at all of us as if we’d all betrayed him. “What’s left to do if you won’t move forward? What was it all for, anyway?”

He turned around and stormed out of the Starbucks.

Jack had sat up straight again, but he was still looking at Torstein with deep concern.

“What’s going on?” he said again.

“Things are changing,” Torstein said. “It’s important, for what I’ve been trying to do, to teach you, that this movement doesn’t get focused on one person, here, in Patriots Park. It needs to come alive inside each one of you. And it needs to be clear that what’s inside me, is inside you. In order for what I’ve been trying to do here to live on, inside you, and the people whose lives you touch, I have to get out of the way.”

“No,” Pete said. I thought he was going to get as mad as Ferdy. “That’s like saying for a dog to live on you have to chop of its head! That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh, Pete, Pete,” Torstein sighed. “Don’t talk back for once, OK? I’m talking about a seed — a seed can’t come to life unless it gets stuck in the ground, planted. It has to die a little before it springs into amazing life. Don’t tempt me to see this your way, because it can’t be your way. I can’t be everywhere at once, but all of you, with a little seed of me inside you, you can be everywhere. You, and the people you raise up after you. I only have one life while I’m sitting here with you ... but when each of you takes on this life, then I’ll have 12 lives, 15, a hundred, a thousand — more even.

“Now listen, there’s not much time, and there are some things I want you to know, and remember, and share. But first I want you all to be clear: when the time comes, I’m going down, alone. Nobody else needs to get hurt. Everyone agreed?”

“No!” Pete said again. “I’m not going to desert you.”

“Yes, you will,” Torstein said. He reached out with one hand to grasp Jack’s forearm, reached out with the other to grip Maggie’s hand. He looked into Pete’s eyes, glanced around at all of us. “You’ll all desert me. Pete, you think your strength and your loyalty are the foundation of all you are, and they’ll never fail you, but they will fail. You’ll desert me. You’ll deny me. You’ll run away. But it’s OK. It’s what has to be. And when I come back, it won’t matter. Just trust me now.”

“Come back?” Pete said. “Come back, how?”

“I will come back. But here’s what’s important, starting now. You all have to be me, to each other. You have to love one another. I know I’ve been saying this, and you’ve been agreeing with me. But this is a new mandate, friends, and I mean you have to love one another the way I love you, and cling to one another, and no matter what happens, live for one another. You’re going to need each other, now more than ever. Because I won’t be there. But inside you I’ll be there.”

I was getting the fidgets now. Things had been going so well! We’d heard nothing from Nikolai in ages, despite we were harboring his son and his son’s mother. The TV news features had been good publicity. That detective, Waverling, all his threats had been empty. Just when I’d been prepared to declare victory, now Torstein was prophesying defeat, and a huge defeat, the worst possible kind.

“That’s where your strength is, in love,” Torstein was saying. “When you remain in this love, when you act with the absolute best interest of each other ahead of your own interests, then you’re following in my footsteps and you’re shaping this world into the place it was meant to be. So, remember all what I’ve told you, let it live in you, and always, always, let love be first place.”

He glanced around, and I guess he saw bewilderment and fear in every face looking back at his. He laughed, and his blue eyes sparked with a bit of their iridescent shine. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “We’ll be together again. I’m not letting any of you go. Except Ferdy. I don’t know what will happen to Ferdy.” He stood up suddenly. “Come on. Let’s go,” he said. We fell in line behind him and followed him out of Starbucks. As we went, he began to chant this reggae song ...

“Woke up this morning, smile with the rising sun — three little birds, perch on my doorstep. Singing a sweet song, in melody pure and true. This is my message for you ...”

Jack and Jazz, relieved that Torstein sounded more like himself, had taken up the tune, and we wandered down the street singing together ... “Baby don’t worry about thing, ’cause every little thing is gonna be all right ... said don’t worry about a thing — ’cause every little thing is gonna be all right ...”

By the time we arrived at the park, Torstein was dancing at the front of the line, his green coat shimmering as it always did. He was doing some soca steps that he must have thought matched the calypso tune, and I thought:

Every little thing is going to be all right.

Like Dragonfly on Facebook!

Read the next chapter