Category: A Very Short Story

From the Short Story Vault

A Peaceful And An Easy Feeling

An excerpt from my book, “Red Jewel.” Read more from the links above.

“The moon? Oh, the moon. By now it was a large bright orb that appeared on our eastern horizon just after sunset, rising. How bright it was and a welcome sight. It will be our companion until the early hours tomorrow. You could read a book by it and its pale light gave the color of the sea around us a silk-like, midnight blue colored texture. And under the moonlight the boat’s phosphorescence came to life, glimmering and sparkling bits of plankton that transformed itself magically into sheets of translucent but shimmering diamonds or star-dust running down the hull from the bow to the stern. Like a sorcerer’s mix this phosphorescence transformed the boat’s bow wave into a magical mix that was exquisite and breathtaking to look at. It was God’s manifestation of His physical presence in this world. A reminder. Our stern wake took on a paranormal ghostly appearance as it snaked its way astern then dissipated into the nothingness and magnitude of the dark blue seas behind us. It was as if God was telling us to take note, as his presence is revealed to us by the mysterious and miraculous sea world around us.

With the moonlight upon us the night was no longer an ominous threat. Then, as the night progressed, and the moon rose higher and higher, it carried a golden ring that made its radiance brighter in intensity. It was so bright and clear that I thought I could make out the American Flag that was planted on the moon by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin back in 1969. Or is that the man in the moon I am seeing: an expression that was clearly defined as he or her smiled down upon us. And at sunrise the sky revealed a rising sun in the east and a translucent, pale looking moon to the west. It was magical. It was transcendental as it was very spiritual. Looking out into the infinity of the universe and of its perfection and complexity I know with certainty that there is a God.

It was during these times, in the middle of the night, that I found myself miles and miles ahead of myself or mentally distant from my current reality. This is what occurs to you at sea in the middle of the night with only your thoughts for company. I stare at the moon and study every nuance of its surface consciously while unconsciously my mind drifts away into the past where I am able to remember minute and insignificant details of my life with renewed clarity and understanding and peace. No longer am I afraid of what or how life may present itself to me but looked forward to all that life has to offer. For now, in this beautiful setting of God’s given and most powerful elements of sea, wind and sky; and the stars and planets that form all of the constellations, I can recognize a true powerful and living God and thank him with all of my heart for all of his blessings that he has bestowed upon me. I look to my future with assuredness, anticipation and confidence. It is in this moment of time and space, and clairvoyance, on this boat in the middle of the central Pacific Ocean, that I am filled with elation and happiness. It is an unbelievable feeling of wellness and joy and one that I have rarely experienced in my lifetime.

Then or now.

And without a moon? A gazillion pricks of light appeared. You sit there in your element as if you were on a plain of fluid bobbing around and trapped inside of an inverted bowl. Above you were millions and millions of stars forming a canopy of infinity that is only limited by the relatively minuscule and human visual boundaries from the eastern horizon to the west, and from the northern limitations to the south. It was an eerie sight, and feeling, attempting to visualize infinity: The Alpha and the Omega. A mystery of life itself. You couldn’t even attempt to measure it or define it. And from within the bowl, the stars appeared like some celestial audience that was watching our every move and trek across their world and their universe.”

And that is why I firmly believe there is a God. I see his presence all around me, in all of our visual landscapes. That…that reality brings me a peace. A peace in a world that is firmly out of control. A world in which one’s spiritual beliefs and values can get one persecuted…or in our current vernacular…cancelled.

A beautiful song:

 

And another song that puts a smile on my face.

 

Have a great day.

No worries for God is in control…of everything.

Check out my books through the links above. They are available through Amazon.

Thanks.

www.johnmorrisonauthor.com

 

A Haunting Manotick Mill

Mark Hogan Photography - Watsons Mill

I lived in Manotick Ontario for 11 years. It provided me a welcome respite from the daily trials and tribulations of working at Disneyland on the Rideau, lovingly referred to as the Department of National Defense.

Manotick is a lovely and quaint village located on the Rideau River. It is located about 20 minutes south of the Ottawa Airport. Its foundation is / or was the Mill, which became operational in 1860. Today Watson’s Mill has been restored to its original form and is a reflection of a slower more sedate and peaceful time. It is also haunted.

The following is a poem of that haunting:

The Lady Of The Stone

 

When the moon shines bright on a cold winter’s night

As the wind frost chills the bones

While life is asleep ‘cept for the spirit it keeps

Amid the cries and the wails and the moans

 

All alone in the night in the soft winter’s light

Runs a river that’s cries as it leaps

Over weir and some falls as if dancing it calls

For the lady of the stones on the wheat

 

There stands all alone from a structure of stone

A whisper of death and despair

A suffering soul who cries out for her beau

Lost, breathless, alone she will stare

 

A lady so pale in her death knell she wails

For her time that was so tragically brief

Her soulful spent mourns and her perpetual scorn

For her life that was wrought by a thief

***

Moss Dickensen came to this landscape whose name

Its mantle Ojibwayan speak

Of a land all alone in a river that roams

From Big Rideau to the Ottawa it seeks

 

Moss Dickensen possessed as Joe Currier confessed

Great insight and vision to spare

One thing that he knew from this river would brew

Great fortune, great wealth and great fare

 

A partnership grew with Joe Currier, Moss proved

That a mill would be true to their dreams

A town that would grow from the natural flow

From the Rideau and land in the stream

 

The building that grew, stonemason’s cuts true

Majestic with a Scottish-like ring

The millstones were laid, then dressed and well made

From the skill that Tom Langrell’s hands bring

 

From the weir and the falls as the water is culled

By the timbers the current it bleeds

Directed through stalls, turn turbines, run sloughs

For the seed that a town dearly needs

 

Like grist to the mill old Manotick filled

With millers and farmers and feed

Prosperity grew from raw powered hewn tools

From a river that flowed to their needs

 

Joe Currier was blessed with good fortune and zest

That he married the girl of his dreams

Ann Crosby did come from Lake George she did run

To the arms of her lover, she beamed

 

Yet fate has a way of having its say

When life is idyllic and sane

For the riches and fame for Joe Currier’s reign

Like the king of the Rideau in name

 

But one fateful day in March so they say

In eighteen sixty-one

The first anniversary of the town’s new prosperity

On a day that should have been fun

 

Joe Currier is seen with Ann Crosby they’d been

From their wedding just one month before

Brimming with pride, a new life and new bride

His fortune had come to fore

 

With their wives by their side the men went inside

The mill had just started to run

The stop logs removed and the water gushed through

The turbines they started to turn

 

The shafts all-awhirl, the millstones grind shrill

The walls and the floorboards did sing

A deafening roar as the water gushed forth

Was music to the ears of these men

 

A danger in sight but blind to their plight

The couples they walked up the stairs

On the second floor stage, they stood in a daze

As the music did play through the air

 

Ann walked out in time oblivious in kind

As she looked at the marvels unfold

But mechanical whirls will tear off the swirls

From loose coats and those crinoline folds

 

Quick as a flash Ann faltered and smashed

Her head to the pillar and shaft

For her crinoline caught in a running gear fraught

With danger and death as it laughed

 

Her cranium whacked like a walnut it cracked

‘Gainst the pillar and shaft and the gears

Her eyes all ablaze in a mad induced craze

Amidst the screams and the wails and her fear

 

The light of her soul dimmed slowly then cold

As the darkness had captured her being

Her spirit was lost to mortality’s cause

 Forever to mourn at this scene

***

As the years fell away and the memories fade

And life carried on as it will

The turbines still turn and the millstones still churn

Like time, like grist to the mill

 

Stranger be warned of a town that was born

From a river and land that was tamed

By men of such strength that they went to great lengths

For some profit, some glory, some fame

 

For a specter appears from a window so clear

For lost lovers, lost souls and lost tears

Poor Ann all alone in her death spell she roams

Amid the pillars, the shafts and the gears

 

For alone in the night in the soft winter’s light

Runs a river that’s cries as it leaps

Over weir and some falls as if dancing it calls

For the lady of the stones on the wheat.

 

© John Morrison, June 2005

Manotick, Ontario

Speak of the Devil: Don't Look Now, But The Ghost Of Countess Bathory ...

 

Watson's Mill in Manotick

Oh and today 28 May is Pentecost Sunday. Here is an appropriate and beautiful Christian song.

Have a nice day.

Say What?

This could be mankind’s future if we let the UN and Globalists get their way with us.

Say What?

Around the world, politicians have either just passed or are on the cusp of passing sweeping new laws, which would allow governments to censor ordinary citizens on social media and other Internet platforms.

Governments aim for total control. In Canada, a state agency can filter and manipulate what Canadians see online. In Australia, a single government official can compel social media companies to remove posts.

Canadian reality?

Canada’s foreign service spent thousands of dollars staging performances where seniors shared their sexual encounters on stage in Austria, Taiwan and elsewhere.

According to a press release by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), the stage show by the Toronto theatre troupe Mammalian Diving Reflex was titled “All the Sex I’ve Ever Had’ and received $12,520 from Canadian taxpayers, or one dollar for every sexual encounter.

Too much detail if you ask me. But no one does.

Mammalian Diving Reflex? Is that like “Gerd.”

Global Affairs Canada paid for the trips to Austria, Taiwan and Australia via the Mission Cultural Fund (MCF), with the keynote word being…affairs.

I’m sure we want to know this…NOT!

And this Canadian inclusivity moment:

A Winnipeg high school is ending observation of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day to “transition to a more inclusive practice.” Whitey be damned. Inclusivity is Canadian code to strip generational Canadians of all of their traditions in order to appease other cultures who come here for a better life. So those of us who have been here for generations have to change our culture so as not to offend the new arrivals. This is what out of control immigration and appeasement leads to.

And this:

The parents of an Ontario high school student currently barred from education for his views on gender have both been put on leave from their teaching positions and placed under investigation in what appears to be a case of guilt by association.

Canadians? Wake up.

 

This was not what we signed up for:

European Globalists Use ‘Sustainable Development’ to Export Liberal Values.

The United Nations and the European Union join hands to strong-arm countries (like the Netherlands, SRI Lanka) into advancing revolutionary social goals that ultimately destroy their way of life…ESG!

It is time we got out of the UN. This is not what we signed up for:

United Nations Charter

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

But not to control every aspect of our lives.

 

Crowning Achievement

Canada’s new crown:

Canada was founded on Judeo-Christian values, considered not relevant anymore.

Canada Unveils New Heraldic Crown Emblem Stripped of Religious Symbols

The Royal crown is unveiled by Samy Khalid (L), Chief Herald of Canada at the Canadian Heraldic Authority and Donald Booth, Canadian Secretary to the King, during coronation celebrations in honour of King Charles III in Ottawa on May 6, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Spencer Colby)

Reflects our new reality.

Cross at the top is replaced by a snowflake – Canada’s new reality. After all Canada’s Snowflake in Chief is the Governor General with her jester of a snowflake Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

Don’t we get a say?

I guess not. I have always believed that our electoral system equates to an elected dictatorship. The PM, once elected, can do whatever he or she pleases for 4 years.

Next on the chopping block? Our coat of arms.

Arms of Canada - Wikipedia

With our coat of arms you can be damn sure that the Union Jack will disappear but not the Fleur de Lis and that the crown will be replaced with a snowflake. The rainbow flag will replace the Union Jack. The lion on the left will be replaced with a beaver and the unicorn will stay.

Our crowning achievement? Hosers with stubbies

Bob and Doug McKenzie take on a worthy cause, eh - The Globe and Mail

Poo poo our veteran legacy:

Official Art - Vimy Ridge | Canada and the First World War

I wonder how many of the Canadian Gen Zeders know or even care about the sacrifices made at Vimy Ridge – or even what war it was born out of?

And of our government’s push for a Central Bank Digital Currency equates to more control. Watch this:

Of course in the knowledge free zone of the Gen Z and Millennials, young Canadians will sign up for this enmasse.

Freelunch is disgustingly arrogant.

Our other national anthem.

Written by Alexander Muir in 1867, the year of Canada’s birth as a nation. He wrote it after his stint in the Queen’s Own Rifles (Victoria) after the Battle of Ridgeway against the Fenians.

The trashing of our traditions and national symbols by the Liberal government is what happens when uncontrolled immigration and divershity occurs. A nation loses its identity because new arrivals do not have the same shared values or experiences that their host nation celebrates, nor are they encouraged to do so. In time the national traditions, on which Canada is born, are whittled down or disappear altogether. That is what is happening in Trudeau’s vision of Canada as the worlds first post national state.

Canada is, in reality, Ontario (Upper Canada) and Quebec (Lower Canada), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (1867). The rest be damned.

https://languagefairness.ca/docs/presidents_message/2016/justin-says-canada-has-no-core-identity.php

Darn. I want a new country and a new Prime Minister. As long as the Liberal Family Compact continues there is no hope for the rest of us, especially out here in western Canada.

Kurofune and other books I have written. Good reads with great reviews.

www.johnmorrisonauthor.com

Check them out at: www.johnmorrisonauthor.com

Heil Canada

The Canadian Reich!

Trudeau's biggest threat after NAFTA—himself - Macleans.ca

Leftist policies start out seemingly reasonable and compassionate before they become totally monstrous. (Germany 1933) Initially, there are sympathetic test cases, they started out with arguing that raped 12-year-olds should be able to get an abortion, and then before you know, it’s partial-birth abortion for bored celebrities. Euthanasia was supposed to help those with fatal illnesses suffering a great deal of pain. And then, in typical fashion, it morphed into killing teenagers and the depressed.

Where to in the Great North? How about killing the homeless and the poor?

Half of Canadians would agree to allow adults in Canada to seek medical assistance in dying due to an inability to receive medical treatment (51%) or a disability (50%). Fewer than three-in-ten would consent to expand the guidelines to include homelessness (28%) or poverty (27%) as reasons to seek medical assistance in dying.

Canadians are split when pondering if mental illness should be a justification for an adult to seek medical assistance in dying: 43% support this idea, while 45% are opposed.

That’s 1 in 4 on board with euthanasia for the poor and the homeless. Among the 18-34 crowd, it’s 40%.

And that means that this is the next bar. The conservatives will die off or be killed, leaving an exciting new electorate that has come around that the solution to a lot of problems might lie in killing inconvenient people.

Isn’t social justice wonderful? (From Frontpage)

Canada’s Covid tyranny brought out the worst in Canadians, especially all those Karen’s and Ken’s out there.

History repeats itself but most Millennials or Gen Z have no clue as they know of no history. To them history or day 1 of the common era began with their birth.

I always tell them where would they be if their parents aborted them?

God is not amused.

Life is good.

Kurofune and other books I have written. Good reads with great reviews.

www.johnmorrisonauthor.com

Check them out at: www.johnmorrisonauthor.com