Angelina
Angelina was murdered, strangled to death. At the edge of a farmer’s field. In the mud--the last vestiges of an unseasonable thaw. As the fronds of parchment grasses rasped in the bitter wind. And a pair of rusted cultivators—stalwart sentinels--sat abandoned in the middle of plowed ruts frozen into dirt waves. Their shadows an eerie sight in the moon shine. It was an ugly place to die.
SHE HAD NOT, as they claimed, wandered off from the facility in a haze of depression and prescription drugs searching for a place to kill her sixty-something self. No. Not wandered away…lumbered away. Purposefully. Clomped away. Deliberately. Left. With purpose. Determined as a camel plodding through sand seeking an oasis to quench its thirst. An elegant red and golden shawl, hand embroidered, graceing its hump like hope and a promise.
Often, she fantasized about jumping on a plane. Hopping on a bus. Travelling to a city. Philly. Where she’d soak up the excitement and inhale the action. Where she would not have to endure the slog of hours organized into childish pastimes by bored attendants. She craved the outline of tall buildings stenciled onto a clear sky. She needed to be around normal people. Not caretakers. Not people too broken to function in the outside world. She needed to hear live music. She needed to dance. She needed to be free…of medical procedures…of psychological interventions. She needed to be free of them. She was not suicidal, as they assumed. The exact opposite…she wanted to live. So, she walked away. Miles away.
The bar was a dive, somewhere between honkytonk and hoedown. But the music was wonderful, and the stool felt rock solid. Sturdy enough to support her old bones while the whiskey buzzed through her veins. The whiskey…the whiskey. Golden amber. More potent than she remembered. Pulling a soothing fog over her brain. Awakening something long buried. Something sensual. And free.
“Let me roll out the red carpet,” the cowboy said. John? Johnathon? She didn’t quite catch his name. “It’s Moron,” someone shouted from across the room.
She liked his look. Hat, all brim, pulled low over dark hair that curled around his ears. Starched white shirt. Normally, the short sleeves would’ve bothered her. She liked him even with his pot belly and the buttons gapping just above his belt.
He was a working man--a farm hand. Proud to be a man who knew his away around tools. And livestock. Horses. He could fix fences and bale hay. And change a tire on a tractor faster than any grease monkey with a pneumatic lug wrench: reeep reeep. He even let her peek at his tattoo—a cowboy gripping the reins on a bucking bronco—inked across his left shoulder blade and riding roughshod down his back.
He was a lot younger than she was, somewhere in his early fifties, she thought. She was flattered. It had been a very, very long time since a gentleman had flirted with her.
But he was no gentleman. And fear locked her inside its tomb when he jerked her into a bear hug on the dance floor and complained about her wanting to “take it too slow.”
In an explosion of panic, she broke free. And fled. Out the door. Into the night. Where the pine tree couldn’t conceal her. Where the farm hand chased her, crunching across gravel and stone. And crackling patches of ice. She scurried like a terrified rabbit and stumbled into a truck boneyard where a fleet of corroded moving vans teased her with the promise of escape. Collapsing to her knees, she belly-skidded, clawing and scratching at the earth until she disappeared beneath a hulking mammoth.
Yet he caught her. Yanked her by the ankles. Punched her in the face, snarling, “So you won’t talk.” He pushed her. Dragged her. Shoved her into the weeds at the edge of the farmer’s field. Where he squeezed her neck until bones broke, mumbling his mantra, “So you won’t talk. So you won’t talk.” And sexed her. Raped her until her flesh tore and wept blood.
In a convulsing burst of magnified perception—with a fury worthy of hell itself— Angelina hurled herself out of her mangled body. Seething with rage, she watched the red and golden threads of hope and promise violently unravel. And in that moment of utter anguish, permanently united her rage with the murderer’s brutality. And forever strapped that matted, hairy tumor of hate onto her back. Where it grew…
Initiated by a vague nod from law enforcement, I began connecting with Angelina a year after she vanished. Over seven years ago now. The police were never really interested in the information I received from her. I understand. The paranormal world carries the baggage of cultural prejudice, and many of its practitioners are unreliable. At its most elevated, mediumship is an organizing principle—a channel for the emergence of light and truth. At its lowest, deceitful and predatory. However, impenetrable skepticism paralyzes the flow of vital information.
Eventually Phil and I contacted a missing person’s website and forwarded all we had available. Coincidentally, Angelina’s remains were recovered soon after. Reportedly, an empty bottle of prescription medication nearby. That claim effectively branded Angelina as a victim of suicide.
Angelina’s story is homicide. Not suicide.
Though I think of Angelina often and she is always in my heart, it had been five years since I had last connected with her energetically. Now I wanted to know if there was anything else she needed to add to her story. There was… I expected more wrath.
Tuesday, November 9, 2021. She is bathed in peace so profound, her aura warms my skin—a radiation of the infinite. A serenity unattainable by anyone without the benefit of a mountaintop and wings. And in the space between breath and heartbeat, through a nimbus that surrounds the flame of candlelight, Angelina tells me that she has abolished her anger. She has walked away from the rage that disfigured her for so long. She knows and accepts that the murderer will never be brought to justice. The consequences of his actions are no longer important to her. It is her work that defines her now.
The work of a butterfly, light dancing on its wings. She is a white light waiting at the cusp of “the expansion” where she welcomes and embraces those who have passed the initial stage of their transition. She is, she tells me, at profound peace.
Butterfly.
Angelina was murdered, strangled to death. At the edge of a farmer’s field. In the mud--the last vestiges of an unseasonable thaw. As the fronds of parchment grasses rasped in the bitter wind. And a pair of rusted cultivators—stalwart sentinels--sat abandoned in the middle of plowed ruts frozen into dirt waves. Their shadows an eerie sight in the moon shine. It was an ugly place to die.
SHE HAD NOT, as they claimed, wandered off from the facility in a haze of depression and prescription drugs searching for a place to kill her sixty-something self. No. Not wandered away…lumbered away. Purposefully. Clomped away. Deliberately. Left. With purpose. Determined as a camel plodding through sand seeking an oasis to quench its thirst. An elegant red and golden shawl, hand embroidered, graceing its hump like hope and a promise.
Often, she fantasized about jumping on a plane. Hopping on a bus. Travelling to a city. Philly. Where she’d soak up the excitement and inhale the action. Where she would not have to endure the slog of hours organized into childish pastimes by bored attendants. She craved the outline of tall buildings stenciled onto a clear sky. She needed to be around normal people. Not caretakers. Not people too broken to function in the outside world. She needed to hear live music. She needed to dance. She needed to be free…of medical procedures…of psychological interventions. She needed to be free of them. She was not suicidal, as they assumed. The exact opposite…she wanted to live. So, she walked away. Miles away.
The bar was a dive, somewhere between honkytonk and hoedown. But the music was wonderful, and the stool felt rock solid. Sturdy enough to support her old bones while the whiskey buzzed through her veins. The whiskey…the whiskey. Golden amber. More potent than she remembered. Pulling a soothing fog over her brain. Awakening something long buried. Something sensual. And free.
“Let me roll out the red carpet,” the cowboy said. John? Johnathon? She didn’t quite catch his name. “It’s Moron,” someone shouted from across the room.
She liked his look. Hat, all brim, pulled low over dark hair that curled around his ears. Starched white shirt. Normally, the short sleeves would’ve bothered her. She liked him even with his pot belly and the buttons gapping just above his belt.
He was a working man--a farm hand. Proud to be a man who knew his away around tools. And livestock. Horses. He could fix fences and bale hay. And change a tire on a tractor faster than any grease monkey with a pneumatic lug wrench: reeep reeep. He even let her peek at his tattoo—a cowboy gripping the reins on a bucking bronco—inked across his left shoulder blade and riding roughshod down his back.
He was a lot younger than she was, somewhere in his early fifties, she thought. She was flattered. It had been a very, very long time since a gentleman had flirted with her.
But he was no gentleman. And fear locked her inside its tomb when he jerked her into a bear hug on the dance floor and complained about her wanting to “take it too slow.”
In an explosion of panic, she broke free. And fled. Out the door. Into the night. Where the pine tree couldn’t conceal her. Where the farm hand chased her, crunching across gravel and stone. And crackling patches of ice. She scurried like a terrified rabbit and stumbled into a truck boneyard where a fleet of corroded moving vans teased her with the promise of escape. Collapsing to her knees, she belly-skidded, clawing and scratching at the earth until she disappeared beneath a hulking mammoth.
Yet he caught her. Yanked her by the ankles. Punched her in the face, snarling, “So you won’t talk.” He pushed her. Dragged her. Shoved her into the weeds at the edge of the farmer’s field. Where he squeezed her neck until bones broke, mumbling his mantra, “So you won’t talk. So you won’t talk.” And sexed her. Raped her until her flesh tore and wept blood.
In a convulsing burst of magnified perception—with a fury worthy of hell itself— Angelina hurled herself out of her mangled body. Seething with rage, she watched the red and golden threads of hope and promise violently unravel. And in that moment of utter anguish, permanently united her rage with the murderer’s brutality. And forever strapped that matted, hairy tumor of hate onto her back. Where it grew…
Initiated by a vague nod from law enforcement, I began connecting with Angelina a year after she vanished. Over seven years ago now. The police were never really interested in the information I received from her. I understand. The paranormal world carries the baggage of cultural prejudice, and many of its practitioners are unreliable. At its most elevated, mediumship is an organizing principle—a channel for the emergence of light and truth. At its lowest, deceitful and predatory. However, impenetrable skepticism paralyzes the flow of vital information.
Eventually Phil and I contacted a missing person’s website and forwarded all we had available. Coincidentally, Angelina’s remains were recovered soon after. Reportedly, an empty bottle of prescription medication nearby. That claim effectively branded Angelina as a victim of suicide.
Angelina’s story is homicide. Not suicide.
Though I think of Angelina often and she is always in my heart, it had been five years since I had last connected with her energetically. Now I wanted to know if there was anything else she needed to add to her story. There was… I expected more wrath.
Tuesday, November 9, 2021. She is bathed in peace so profound, her aura warms my skin—a radiation of the infinite. A serenity unattainable by anyone without the benefit of a mountaintop and wings. And in the space between breath and heartbeat, through a nimbus that surrounds the flame of candlelight, Angelina tells me that she has abolished her anger. She has walked away from the rage that disfigured her for so long. She knows and accepts that the murderer will never be brought to justice. The consequences of his actions are no longer important to her. It is her work that defines her now.
The work of a butterfly, light dancing on its wings. She is a white light waiting at the cusp of “the expansion” where she welcomes and embraces those who have passed the initial stage of their transition. She is, she tells me, at profound peace.
Butterfly.
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