Her oafish feet trample plants. Her square hands hold out for all to see her prisoner — a squirming, squealing, foul-mouthed bat-winged imp.
“Stop, stop, stop, you stupid girl!” yells the Virgin.
But St. Ursula is not at all a stupid girl. She is a stout-hearted girl addled by Holiness. She’s a child. Solid as an anvil, yes, but still a child. She died age twelve when the Huns chopped off her head along with the heads of her 11,000 virgins.
That’s a lot of heads. They are preserved, lined up like spare parts in a warehouse, stored on eleven hundred free standing shelves in a Heavenly basilica that’s seen better days but still attracts tourists. The disembodied girls offer advice to the lovelorn for a modest donation. Mostly, they chatter among themselves, teasing and tale-telling as youngsters do, surrounded by their maidenly bones* all sorted and displayed, mounted up the walls in clever tessellations. That’s a lot of bones.
Poor, zealous Ursula. So sure, so certain. She knows deep in her chaste bones that she is right.
Poor, maddened Virgin. Almighty Queen of Heaven, Mother of Gods, Holy Wisdom. All that deification and yet, here She stands, helpless to keep an idiot out of Her garden.
Tara sees what’s coming. The Virgin is going to tip over into one of Her unfortunate rages. Compassion won’t stop it. Tara can radiate Compassion until the stars fall into the sea and it won’t turn off a tantrum. The Madonna of Magnificent Mercies is not one to interrupt a grand passion. Tara will just have to disrupt it for Her.
Time for an intervention.
It’s what friends do. If Tara can’t stop the Virgin, she will stop the World. And that will force-quit the Virgin’s nonsense.
The Girl-Buddha color-shifts into the ruddy red of action and leaps into Her Heroic manifestation. She vaults onto Her floating lotus throne. Her mighty arms reach up into the aether of Heaven’s sky where She searches among the aery spirits. What a busy place is Heaven’s atmosphere! Flying, soaring, hovering citizens, visible and invisible. Tara’s blood-red hands snatch from out of thin air those trouble-making triplets: Past, Present, Future.
See Her juggle the trio until their eyes rattle, their joints clatter, until from out of their corners and inner spaces there tumbles the greatest grifter of all, Master Time. He falls onto the sun disc Tara whips out of her pocket. It’s an excellent dance surface for when Her Wrathful Body feels the need to trample something.
Bejeweled, be-skulled, Red Tara brandishes weapons made of deadly flowers, stomps killer feet, and Master Time crunches like a beetle beneath Her.
Crushed Time STOPS, and the World STOPS.
Paralysis. Silence. No revolution. No rotation. No going forward. No going back.
Then, throughout all creation there arises one movement, one sound. Heroic Tara is dancing to the beat of Her chanting voice. It drones 108 recitations of the Heart Sutra cry:
गते गते पार गते पार संगते बोधि स्वाहा
GAH TAY GAH TAY
PAH RAH GAH TAY
PAH RAH SAHM GAH TAY
BO DHI SWAH HAH
Gentle Reader, we zoom out now for the big picture. Look from a far distance, and see Planet Earth — that stony she-beast of a turning wheel — no longer turning. She is stalled, STOPPED, suspended in the ropy dark matter* of space.
Quickly! Zoom up to Heaven. What’s happening here? Heaven is shaking off Its frozen state. Celestial choirs bellow with song, raising a joyful noise* …
all shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of thing shall be well
Why is Heaven celebrating?
Because — Holy of Holys! — Our Lady of Perpetual Grace is now SMILING!
Tara has broken through. The Virgin’s royal hissy-fit is ended. Our Mercurial Madonna is suddenly as mellow as a summer afternoon, is raising up Her Hallowed Hands in blessing.
The firmament vibrates with song*.
O HOLY Womb! O sacred Breast!
Pure couch, where Jesu loves to rest!
The Virgin Most Prudent & Cause of Our Joy issues a proclamation in honor of Tara, Her dear companion:
“Greater Love hath no Lady, than that She STOP the World for Her Friend.”
The mundane world is indeed arrested. Master Time, laid out on the sun disk, appears squashed for good, but he’s known to be a resilient fellow. As long as anyone can remember, celestials have debated whether or not Master Time might, in fact, be an Immortal. Even as Tara’s toenails shred his bones, he abides patiently.
The Awe-Full Virgin Mother adds to Her official statement:
“Your Buddha-heart tames My unruly passions.”
Angelic scribes scribble Her words in Sacred Books.
Heaven’s a cappella choir tears it up:
Pearl of Virgins!
Eye of prophets!
Stone of martyrs!
Terror of the treacherous!
Treasure of the faithful!
The Virgin gestures at the choir to lower its volume. She clears Her throat.
“Now, Girlfriend, let’s release Master Time. I’m hearing reports of earthquakes and tidal waves. The World will tear apart if It doesn’t get back to Its cyclical routine. Physics, you know. My Boys are all into the physics of things.” She waves dismissively toward Ursula. “As for that worthless Saint? I promise, Tara, cross my heart, not to eviscerate her.”
Tara bows. She lifts one red foot.
Master Time, badly bent, scuttles away. The World shudders. It lurches. It backfires once, starts turning again, then settles into Its rotation. Oceans lie down in their beds and winds rise up in their courses.
Beneath everyone’s notice, Sarconsson farts and grins.