A Peaceable Kingdom
“The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.”-Isaiah, 11:6–8
The bedroom pulsed from each move made by the decaying figure of Cernnunos. His goat eyes mere slivers of opaque glass, his horns curved like a crescent over his ram’s head, his body mocked the figure of an earthly man. His movements, mechanical and stiff, thickened the air as though it were water. For on this side of the Gates, the earthly air assaulted his body and severely stunted his soaring nature.
He hovered over an infant boy. The boy stared at the decaying Pan. Cernnunos breathed with a thunderous rumble of rotting flesh and mucus, slowly inhaling the poison air, occasionally stomping his hooves like a nervous horse. All else was silent. Then Cernnunos closely examined the babe’s eyes as though they were mirrors. The tiny creature cooed. But the rest of the world was unaware.
“He rubbed dirt all over my chest!” Charles declared at an open window, assuming someone was listening.
