Short Fiction

... and the Wardrobe

C. S. Lewis's wardrobe fascinates me. It's a boundary separating dissimilar worlds. That's what thresholds do.

Bent against a bitter wind, a traveler steps over a cabin threshold and he's warm and safe;

A civilian crosses a gangway threshold and he's a sailor off to war;

Three children enter a wardrobe threshold and they're in Narnia, where animals talk and adventures abound, where boys are kings and girls are queens.

In Lewis's wardrobe the ordinary ends and the fantastic begins and those who trespass are never the same again.

We cross thresholds every day. Not all are magical. Some serve merely to divide our lives into manageable compartments.

In time there is one threshold every man must cross, the one separating this life from the next. We need not fear the crossing.

Imagine death as a wardrobe threshold. On the other side awaits adventure, self-realization, and a lion king.

© 2007 Jack Cavanaugh

Appears in:
The Lion and the Land of Narnia, Illustrated and Compiled by Robert Cording, 2008.

The Missing Piece
by Jack Cavanaugh

I dumped the pieces on the dining room table. A montage of images began to appear— Protestors thrusting guns at heaven. Trembling towers on fire. Swollen-bellied children, food for flies. A yellow-taped crime scene. An infant’s funeral.

Compared to these, my troubles paled. Was I to feel better for this?

I called my friend.

“This isn’t helping.”

“Do you see where grace fits in?”

“Grace? There’s no grace in this puzzle!”

“You’re not ready. Call me when you’re ready.”

Weeks passed. A dozen times I moved to clear the table. Something wouldn’t let me. The puzzle took shape, piece by disturbing piece.  

And then, it made sense.  I phoned my friend.

“I understand!”

“It’s complete?”

“There’s one piece missing.”

“I’ll be right over.”

Together we pondered the turmoil of the images.  

In the center of the puzzle was a cross-shaped hole.

My friend said,

“It’s the only way to make sense of this world.”

“The missing piece…do you have it?”

With hand outstretched, he offered me the cross.

© 2007 Jack Cavanaugh

_____________________

Song of Abdiel, Seraph of Heaven
by Jack Cavanaugh

Before the clock of cosmic time was wound,
In heaven, fresh made, there dwelt a holy race.
Conceived in light for worship we were cast
To walk in luster and eternal grace.

Until a fatal wickedness was found
Hidden, a cancer deep within a soul.
Thus Lucifer turned thought to plan and deed,
With dragon’s breath set heaven’s fields aflame
With war. He scorched the Father’s pristine realm,
Laid waste unblemished joy.

Defeated, he and all the host who loved him,
Cast down to worlds new born. Archenemy now,
Confined in time, a cosmic spectacle.
The rage that ravished heaven’s brotherhood,
Now terrorizes earth with lies and strife.
Its borders breached, the warring hoard descends,
And what began in heaven now scourges man.

(from Kingdom Wars: A Hideous Beauty)
© 2007 Jack Cavanaugh