Lessons from A Minor Psychopomp

A Short Story

When you die, you only get one chance.

What do I mean by that? You set your affairs in order as best you can in advance, and hope you’ve helped more beings than you’ve harmed.

Sudden death? Wham! Hit by the proverbial bus? Felled by a faulty valve in your heart or a blood clot in your brain?

Hope you did some work to prepare, or its going to be harder on your loved ones after the fact.

If you have loved ones.

Death that creeps up slowly? Well, you extra better have done your prep work. Settled things. Given your thanks. Made your passage as easy on those around you as you could.

If you don’t? Well, that’s selfishness, in my book. I mean, I get being avoidant or afraid, but come on… buck up and figure out how to do the right thing, okay?

See, in life, you get hundreds of chances to make things right. Every single day is a chance to start something new. Take a fresh breath. Think a fresh thought. Apologize. Work harder. Get more rest. Write that novel. Sing that song in the shower. Play with your kids. Follow your dreams.

What do I know about life, you may ask? Well, I’m a psychopomp. I guide people to the next phase of their journey when the final breath rattles from their lungs.

Whether they go to get their heart weighed, or walk toward the Summerlands, or to those gates of pearl, I’m there. See, I’m a pinch hitter. The big guys, like Anpu, the Heibei Wuchang, Samael, or old Hel herself? They get busy.

Sure, they like to tell people they will personally escort them through the door, but just do the math. How many people die every second?

A lot.

Heck, even the realms who use human priests (or priestesses, or priestexes, or whatever you want to call them) don’t always have enough to go around. And don’t get me started on the atheists. You think it’s easy, escorting someone into Nothing?

Try it. See how you feel afterward. Me? It makes my skin crawl and I always have to shower afterward. The Void. Is not. Fun.

So, psychopomps like me—the Mask Wearers—we get to escort folks to all sorts of places. The Land of the Dead. The Underworld. The Realm of the Light Elves. Heaven. Hel. Sheol. We put on Anpu’s jackal head, or a Valkyrie’s wings, and show up, surrounded by mist or light… then we ferry the dead person on to wherever their hearts expect to go.

And we pray that they’re ready for what’s coming, because the things we expect usually turn out way different than, well, expected.

You’ve had that happen, right? You cook a meal, sit down, and the greens are way too salty. You book a long-awaited vacation and get blisters and sunburn and the museums are closed because there’s an uprising in the streets.

Life is chaos, right? That’s part of what makes it interesting, at least for me.

Death? Sometimes that’s chaotic, too. Other times though? It’s the most beautiful, tranquil thing I’ve ever experienced. Brings a tear to the eye. Some deaths are the only places I’ve found real peace in all the worlds.

But how about life after death? That’s the question you want answered, isn’t it? I can’t tell you because that would be cheating. Besides, I took a sacred oath to not give the secrets of the dead away. Don’t want to influence how you live.

All those people who try to scare you into living different because you might get punished later? They don’t know any better than you. They got no special insight. They’re just control freaks and are out to take something from you. That’s usually money, or power, or both.

And those people who tell you your suffering is noble because you’ll get some reward later? That is even worse bullshit. A distraction from your current conditions. A salve for your burning exploitation. Better form a union or something, that’s what I say. Organize. Get a better life experience while you can, because, like I said, there’s no way for you to know what’s coming.

No way to know that it’ll be better.

So, you may as well make it better now.

Take my advice, or don’t. I’m just a psychopomp, and a minor one at that. I’m no OmniGod, ever present, all seeing, all knowing, all powerful, all good… because that’s all crap, too. There is no OmniGod. Are there beings bigger than us? Sure. Just look at whales. Are there beings smarter than us? Sure. Just look at an octopus, or an elephant.

But if a being is All Powerful and All Good, why in all the interlocking worlds would they allow such suffering, greed, and pain? Like, if you knew something very bad was gonna happen to someone you loved, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to stop it?

If you don’t, then you’re not All Good, are you? As a matter of fact, I’d call you a right shithead.

Who said psychopomps can’t have opinions?

So yeah, some religious stuff makes me angry, though my sponsor tells me I need to learn to let it go. Go with the flow. But my sponsor is Taoist, so they would say that. For them, the flow is Everything. Me? I’m wound a little tighter than all that. But I’m trying to learn. Do my breathing exercises. Meditate. Cut back on the sugar and caffeine.

Not the cigarettes, though. I’m smoking one now and hope it doesn’t bother you. Cigarettes are the only way I can clear the formaldehyde stink from my nostrils. Or the smell of blood, or decomp, or char, depending. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, though usually I get to people long before the chemical pump begins—and isn’t that the most disgusting thing to do to a body after the breath leaves the shell?

Even though we lesser psychopomps live a right long time, my will says “no chemicals” I can tell you that, right now.

But I digress. Yeah. I smoke. It’s a little piece of danger that keeps me happy. Sue me. Used to be everybody smoked, then found out it caused early death. Hah! So, I kinda like that part, too. A minor death deity courting Death itself.

But we all court Death in our own ways, every day. Don’t we? Think about it.

Which brings me back to my earlier message: Get your shit together while you still have your hundreds of chances. Don’t wait on someday, like the poor sap I’m picking up today.

She thought she had all the time in the world, until a patch of ice took her out. She left things quite a mess. I’ll pick up part of it, but most of it will be left to her remaining three friends. And that sucks.

You’re still breathing. You got today.

Make something right. Even something tiny.

One small thing can make all the difference, in life and death. One parasite or microbe. One kind word. One phone call. Turning left instead of right.

Life is a series of choices. But it's up to us to make them. Even a mask-wearing psychopomp like me.

T. Thorn Coyle, 2023

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Dangerous Days:

in Memoriam for Shuhada’ Sadaqat

“These are dangerous days, to say what you feel is to dig your own grave.”

— Sinéad O’Connor, from Black Boys on Mopeds

The responsibility of the artist is to reflect the world as they encounter it and to imagine something new.

There are many ways to tell the truth: through gentleness and the soft scent of roses, through the angry slash of paint on canvas, through the delicate sweep of ankle and foot on a wooden floor, through the howling of a voice through the shrieking feedback of a microphone.

Some of us are lions. Some of us are lambs. Some of us are both.

The artists I love best straddle the thresholds of day and night, love and anger, fear and hope, joy and anguishing pain.

The artists I love best all have broken hearts, for a heart cracked open brings truths to light.

Shuhada’ Sadaqat, the great Sinéad O’Connor, is dead. Her music was fierce, loving, gentle, and incandescent. Rage poured from her lungs, and so did wonder.

One translation of Shuhada’ Sadaqat is “witness to the truth.” Shuhada’ witnessed the truth, over and over. She also told the truth, repeatedly.

Telling the truth got her vilified and attacked from all sides. The aftermath of truth-telling, I imagine, added more cracks to her heart. Somehow, she managed to reach inside that open vessel and keep making music.

That is what we all must do, those of us fortunate to have the skills, tenacity, or support needed to survive.

She wrote and sang after severe childhood abuse at the hands of her mother and representatives of the Catholic Church. She sang through raising her own children, spiritual journeying, and through mental illness setting her to flight until her wings were singed and she crashed once again to this broken, beautiful earth.

Through it all—until the death of her son—she continuously returned to hope. Through it all, she sang. Despite dishing out its worst, she loved this world.

I will be forever grateful to her for witnessing and speaking the truths she experienced. I will be forever grateful to her voice.

Sinéad O’Connor—Shuhada’ Sadaqat—is one of the artists who took hold of my heart when I was young and never let go. Her bravery helped me to become braver, too.

My wish for us all is a little more courage and a lot more love. Let us tell the truths we encounter. Let us make art. Let us live.

T. Thorn Coyle

Portland, Oregon, July 2023

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This memoriam was made possible by my Patreon supporters

Bittersweet Symphony

A Morningstar Encounter Short Story

Devonte hadn’t been to Paris in a decade.

The only thing that had changed were fewer cars. The people were still beautiful, walking down the tree lined boulevards, crowded beneath green awnings, drinking coffee at tables in the spring sunshine.

If he’d had more time, he would have entered the shadowy recesses of the venerable Les Deux Magots himself, given a nod to the two Chinese magicians cast in bronze, who watched over the bar and cafe before taking his own seat outside in the sun. Perhaps found a philosophy student or budding writer to talk with. Plant the seed of an idea in their heads. Ideas that would root in the subconscious and emerge six months or three years later, fully formed.

Ideas that could influence the course of history. Make a minuscule change to nudge one person’s actions, then another.

But there was no time. It would have been polite to greet the two bronze magicians before heading out on his errand, but the ancient figures would understand. Some powers waited on no one. Or not for long.

He hurried along St. Germain, light coat flapping around his black trousers, green leather brogues heading toward the Odeon metro and the university, where he turned, heading toward St. Michel and the wandering Seine.

He was heading to St. Michel. Devonte had an appointment with this statue three years ago and missed it when a blow to the head from an angry Balrog took him out of commission for six months. And then there had been Rafael. Rafael who fussed over him, made him beans and rice and cuddled him close when the night terrors took him over.

It had been hard to leave that cocoon of love and safety. Get his head back in the game.

There was still a world to save, wasn’t there. Whether he felt like it or not.

Finally, heading up Rue de St. Michel, he approached the broad intersection and the small plaza from which the fountain rose.

Built in the 1860s on the end of a Beaux Artes building made of tan stone, it showed a bronze Michael, wings outstretched, triumphantly holding a bronze sword with a wavering blade aloft as he stepped upon a fallen figure, supposedly a demon—supposedly the Christian devil himself. The figures were high on a plinth overlooking the plaza, set into a curved niche, flanked by dragons spitting water into a series of shallow pools.

Devonte stood across the busy confluence of boulevards as pigeons pecked and startled, and people rushed.

Watching. Waiting. One couldn’t be too careful. There was no telling what sorts of creatures were about, skulking in the shadows or hiding in direct sun. And the Powers? Well. Those forces could be anywhere at anytime. Luckily, Devonte was on good terms with most of them.

At least the ones he knew. Or he hoped he was. Sending up a quick prayer to the Mother of Waters, he took one last look around. Just shoppers. Tourists. Local people heading to or from lunch. A gaggle of school children out with not quite enough adults to keep their antics in check.

Time to cross. He waited for the green and sauntered toward the plaza, as if he was simply a man out for a walk in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

As soon as the chunky rubber sole of his highly polished green leather brogues touched the concrete tiles of the plaza, he felt the change.

She was there. Waiting. The way she always was.

“Morningstar,” he said. Though she had not materialized yet, he breathed her in on the scents of river, perfume, and car exhaust, in the sounds of laughter, pigeons cooing, and the splash of water from the dragon’s mouths.

And there she was, bright as day, skin as dark as night, hair as red as flame, shaved on the sides, with a waterfall of fiery flames cascading down her back. She wore perfectly tailored black trousers over boots with heels. A burgundy shirt, buttoned up to her throat, beneath a long black coat, summer weight.

Gold rings pierced her eyebrows, her nose, and ran in rings up her delicate ears. More gold festooned her graceful hands, a blood red ruby catching the sun from the central finger of her left hand.

“You cut your hair,” Devonte said, as if her appearance was as commonplace as the pigeons taking sudden flight across the plaza. “I like the color.”

Her amber eyes bored into his, and he almost shat himself. But then she smiled.

Her smile was the best thing in the world. It contained every fleck of light on every blade grass. Each gurgle of a babe in arms. Every flight of fancy emerging from a poet’s mouth. Each spark of revolution lit in every heart, right in the moment when a person or a people were about to give up. To give in.

Such was her power. Such was the power of dawn. Breathtaking in the literal sense.

He was awestruck. There was no other way to be.

“I came to see Michel,” Devonte finally said, when he could take an easy breath again.

“So I see. You missed your window. He’s busy now. On another mission.”

Devonte crossed his arms over his chest and felt the disappointment wash through him. “Right.”

The statue had not moved since he arrived. There was no flicker of fire from the sword. The bronze demon lay, inert, crushed beneath the archangel’s heel.

Michel was to give him a boon. An amulet of power. To help Devonte find his way. Instead, Devonte had lost more time and lost the best chance he likely had to make things right.

To avenge his mother’s life and fulfill her dreams.

“I can help you,” Morningstar remarked, as if remarking on the weather. As if she could not read every thought that crossed the magician’s face.

“How?” Devonte whispered. “No one can help me.”

And they could not. He had traveled to the six holy women of Peru. The last remaining shamans in Siberia. The witches in Benin. The priests in Japan.

Devonte had traveled all over the earth, trying to find someone who could lift the curse laid on his heart. The curse of grief. Of despair so deep nothing would drown it.

Oh, he had tried that, too. But alcohol, LSD, anonymous sex, MDMA, more alcohol, more random sex, hours of prayer and meditation… none of it shifted the stone that was his heart. So, he gave all of those up, too, and did his duty.

The duty his mother told him he must never lay down.

“The people need you, son. There is evil in this world that must be confronted, every day. You have the ability to fight. I gave you that. And nothing, not even your own pride or despair, can wrest that from your arms.”

“I’m so tired,” he said to the waiting, amber eyes.

“I know,” Morningstar said. “Let’s take a walk.”

***

Devonte expected Morningstar to take him to the banks of the Seine. After all, water was known to have healing properties.

Instead, she took him to the Basilica de Sacré Coeur, on the butte of Montmartre, near the cemetery where famous dead people were too numerous to count. Artists. Musicians. Writers. Actors… All were laid to rest beneath the trees.

They walked up the hill, past a small boulangerie, toward the three white domes of the church.

“Why do you like churches so much, Morningstar?” Devonte’s calves complained from being forced to walk an hour and then climb a hill.

Morningstar shrugged. “They’re peaceful these days, most of them. I like all sorts of places though. Synagogues. Temples. Menhirs in the woods. Any place that humans gather and remember there is more to life than their daily sweat and bread.”

Made sense, he guessed. As much as anything did anymore. Devonte had no felt peace in entirely too long, though. And places made sacred by sheer will and prayer didn’t seem to make a difference, one way or another.

“You’re going to make me climb to the damn dome, aren’t you?”

Morningstar laughed, that soul shaking sound causing every head in the vicinity to turn, to look up, to see what strange bird had emitted such a noise. Every face smiled. One old man even did a soft shoe shuffle before setting his cane on the pavement once again.

The top of the dome had a promontory with some of the best views of Paris in the city. Devonte had climbed it himself, many times. But he wasn’t up for it today. Not after all this walking. Not after all this heartache. Not after Michel was not there. Not at the fountain.

“No. Today we shall sit beneath the dome instead. I think it will help you.”

He was skeptical but followed the click of her boot heels across the marble floors. Followed as she calmly walked past tourists taking photos and a few people kneeling prayer. Followed beneath the high curved vault of the large, central dome, under the watchful eyes of Jesus on the ceiling, surrounded by light and sky blue.

Finally, Morningstar slid into a smooth wood pew, somewhere near the center of the basilica. He slid in after.

What a pair they made. Her, with her dark skin and bright red fall of braids. Him, far more ordinary. Just a simple magician in a spring weight coat and green leather brogues.

He was no Power. Not like her. Not like the Jesus painted up above. Not like Brigid, or Tonantzin, or Legba, or Freyr.

Devonte was simply a man who saw evil and tried to vanquish it but was never quite quick or thorough enough to do much good.

“Just sit,” Morningstar said, as if she heard the churn of his thoughts. “Sit and breathe. Close your eyes if you like. There is nothing you need to do right now except be.”

All right then. Devonte sat beneath the massive, curved vault with its lingering scent of benzoin, frankincense, and myrrh. The slight whiff of sulfur and beeswax from the tall, thick candles. A hint of spring perfume.

Relax the muscles. Soften the belly. Let the mind release its grip. Breathe.

He sat there, next to Morningstar for what felt like an aeon, but was like half an hour.

He sat. He breathed. He relaxed more deeply, with the knowledge that, should evil walk through the massive doors behind them, or burst through the glass above, Morningstar would have his back.

Tears warmed his cheeks. He sniffled.

And then, Devonte’s heart began to warm and buzz. He gasped, but kept his eyes firmly closed.

“Stay with it,” Morningstar murmured. “Let the light surround and fill you.”

The warmth spread as she spoke, spilling from his heart, swimming through his chest and down his limbs. Light surrounded him, he could see the change through his closed eyelids. He imagined that he must be glowing. Everything was glowing.

“It’s too much,” he gasped out. Too bright. Too beautiful. Too…

Everything.

One warm finger touched his temple.

“Morningstar?”

“Yes.”

And he Saw. And he Heard.

Devonte gasped again, like a baby taking its first breath in a new world.

He felt the light flow through the basilica, down the steps, down the rolling tarmac of the hill, past the boulangerie, rolling toward the blue gray snake of the river, bathing the city in a song of possibility.

Every aching heart, soothed. Every uncertainty made certain. Every whip, stilled. Every gun, twisted into nothingness. Every brutal shout, hushed.

And then, the city of Paris began to sing.

And Devonte let himself cry in earnest, for the first time since his mother had been sundered from this earth.

Next to him, Morningstar gathered him into her arms and rocked him as he wept.

“You are going to be all right, Devonte Miller. From this day forth, if you want to, you shall work for me. You shall root out hatred and spread the light. You shall walk strong and tall upon the earth. You shall find love and pass it on. You shall look evil in its face and change it into clean, fresh, soil.”

Devonte felt it. Felt it all. Felt the truth of Morningstar’s words.

“And you shall bring the fire of liberation when times are hard.”

Then she released him from her arms. He sat up, fished around for a handkerchief in his trousers. Wiped at his face and blew his nose.

Then he looked around. The basilica was as it had been when they arrived. A few old people shuffling toward the altar. Tourists taking photos. The sounds of spring outside. The scent of candles and incense.

But everything was slightly brighter than before.

“Is it me… or everything?” That had changed, he meant, but could not quite speak the words.

“Both.” He felt the smile in her voice and turned toward those amber eyes. They were the most beautiful things he had seen in his life.

“Do you accept?” she asked.

He held her gaze. Wondered what it would be like to kiss her lips. Would they burn like fire? Incinerate him like Icarus flying too close to the sun?

Then he realized she was waiting. Had asked him a question.

“Yes. I will work for you and with you, Morningstar. I will do my best to carry forth the light.”

There was still something he did not understand, but he could not sit on this hard seat forever. He needed the spring air outside. A crusty roll. A cup of coffee. To walk among the monuments of the dead.

The dead. His mother. And too many others.

Devonte rose and this time, Morningstar followed. The started down the white steps, walking in silence beneath the sun.

As he descended toward the street, he asked, “Why me? Why now? Why not before? Why ever?”

“The spark of liberation is within you, Devonte. It always has been, but you needed grief to crack open the protections around it. You were too certain of the world before. And too much hubris begins to twist your magic.”

“So, my mother’s death?” he asked as they reached the black tarmac and headed toward the boulangerie. More half questions, but Morningstar didn’t seem to mind.”

“That cracked you open just enough, shattered the building carapace of your arrogance, and set you adrift for a while. I watched, to see what would happen, and then you came here. Ready to fight along Michel’s side.”

“The sword of liberation.”

He held open the bakery door, awash in the smells of yeast, and coffee, and baking bread.

“Yes. I simply gave you a push to set it free.”

Humans. Even magicians. We are so fragile and powerful, he thought, as they approached the glass cases and the young woman waiting at the counter. But anything is possible, isn’t it?

Even a croissant and cup of coffee in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

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