"What's a pagan?"
I was a bit surprised at what Melanie had just said. It seemed as though she had been reading my mind.
"A pagan?" I asked, shocked.
"Yeah, what's a pagan?" she asked again. She looked at Kelly, wondering if perhaps Kelly knew.
"They're horrible people," said Kelly. "They sacrifice their children, and do all sorts of horrible things to them!"
"They didn't all sacrifice them," I corrected.
"Yes, but every pagan religion puts their children through some kind of horrible experience in their youth," Kelly insisted.
"Yeah... but..." I started thinking about this point. I always had a soft spot for pagans, even though I was always a devout follower of Christ. Or at least tried to be. When I was young, I was absolutely fascinated by Greek mythology. As I grew older, I started to delve into Celtic and Norse mythologies. And I always had a deep, abiding love for John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. I always kept that poem of his in mind, the one that read:
Three rings for the elven kings, under the sky
Seven for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone
Nine for mortal men, doomed to die
One for the Dark Lord, on his Dark Throne
In the Land of Mordor, where Shadows lie
One ring to rule them all, one ring to bind them
One ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor, where Shadows lie
It seemed like a powerful, cryptic message only certain enlightened characters could understand. I wanted, I hoped, that one day, I might be able to fully understand just what that message might be. I never said that out loud, though, since I believed it was wrong to ever speak about secret hopes and desires until they come to full fruition, and even then...
"Angelo!" said Melanie. "Earth to Angelo!"
"Oh!" I came out of my trance. I changed my voice so that I sounded like I was talking to her over a long distance radio. "Sorry, Houston, we had a momentary loss of transmission. Ten four?"
"Ten four!" said Melanie, and she saluted, for some strange reason. I didn't bother to explain that it wasn't an appropriate time to perform a salute. "So are pagans evil?"
"No," I corrected. "Not all of them. Many pagans do lots of good things. Some of them are good people."
"What kind of things do they do to little children?" asked Melanie. "They can't be that bad, since they're only kids."
"No," I said. "Some of them get carried away, I guess, lost in their own ideals. Some of them think they got big ideas, some of them think just a little things won't make much of a difference..."
And then I started thinking.
"I don't get it," said Melanie, shaking her head. Kelly couldn't help but shake her head over the whole situation. I just laughed, and then Melanie laughed too. Melanie had a way of making me laugh.
I said: "I just got trouble believing, when you look at some of the artwork they produce, especially the Celts, you have to believe there were enough good people in that religion."
"What's that supposed to mean," Kelly said. "Enough?"
"I guess if you don't have enough good people in a religion, you can't have very good artwork."
"Well, good is a purely subjective point of view."
I nodded. "In this case, you're right." I could have said more, but I held my tongue.
"Did the Greeks do bad things to their kids?" asked Melanie.
"Maybe," I said.
"How about the other ones?" asked Melanie.
"You mean the Celts?" I asked her.
"Uh huh," said Melanie.
"Maybe," I said. "They said so, anyways. I never read anything about the Greeks doing anything bad to kids."
"Could we please get back to the task at hand!" demanded Kelly, apparantly quite fed up with my insistance on paying any attention to Melanie.
I lowered my head, defeated by her beauty. Even when she looked at me with her scowl, I couldn't help but admire her beauty, the gentle slope of her head, the curls in her hair, her strong, solid chin, her tender cheeks. And her eyes. Her cold, cold, grey eyes, looking out from under her eyebrows, delicately curved like a ram. Whenever I stood next to her, I felt like I was standing next to something sacred. She was definately someone blessed by heaven itself. She seemed to burn like white fire, she even smelled like incense. I couldn't help but wish I could put my arms around her soft, delicate looking shoulders, and give her a great big hug, to have her rest her head against me. It seemed to me like she had been sculpted by some great sculptor out of living flesh. How dare I corrupt her with even my touch?
"What are you looking at?" demanded Kelly.
"Nothing, nothing," I said, and lowered my head again.
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