Viva Las Vengeance by Daniel Klein

Author:Daniel Klein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2022-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

19

Elvis Interruptus

“The thing is, Miss Shiva, if all this payback don’t stop, it’ll just get worse. More folks dead or stung or burnt or whatever. On and on, like that war over there in Asia—it’ll just keep escalating.”

Elvis paced back and forth in front of his bed where Shiva Ree sat cloaked in a sheet. She had been waiting for Elvis when he returned, curled up on the bed as if she had never left early that morning.

“But how? How do you stop it, Elvis?” she asked softly.

Elvis paused a moment to switch the poultice Shiva had fashioned for him from his left eye to his right. The truth was, he didn’t have an inkling of a plan for halting this cycle of madness. But with all this payback spinning out of control, he was absolutely certain that halting any future crimes before they started was far more important than figuring out how the whole business got started in the first place.

“I’ve got this vision that keeps coming back to me, Miss Shiva,” Elvis went on, starting to pace again. “It’s the first time I saw you doing your dance downstairs in the nightclub. At the very end, with you on all fours, eye to eye with Abu, all still and silent like. What I thought was, ‘Now that’s the peaceable kingdom. That’s what all of mankind should be aiming for.’”

“You understood!” Shiva cried. “That makes me so happy.”

“And I’ve got to say, when I visited you up there at your place, the Center of the Light, I thought the very same thing again,” Elvis said. “Everybody being so natural and happy and gentle with each other. None of that friction you get everywhere else, especially around here. You know the kind I’m talking about—Who’s winning? Who’s making more money? Who’s going to do in the other guy first?”

Shiva jumped up from the bed, the sheet falling away. She was naked. She ran up to Elvis and threw her arms around him.

“God love you, Elvis,” she said. “You understand everything!” Elvis could have stopped his thinking right then and there, and just tumbled back into the bed with this wise and delicious woman. But he needed to work this thing through.

“I understand everything but that godawful food you eat up there,” he laughed. He kissed Shiva and she returned to the bed.

“So how do you get these people to go from here to there—from killing each other to acting peaceable with each other?” Elvis went on. He paused again, shaking his head back and forth. “Heck, I bet wiser heads than mine have been wondering about that question since the beginning of time.”

“Somebody just has to teach them,” Shiva said softly. “Teach them that they will all be happier loving than killing. Happier and more fulfilled in every way. It’s a simple lesson, really.”

“Maybe it’s simple, but most folks don’t get it,” Elvis said. “Of course not. That’s because they need to hear it from the right person,” Shiva said. “Somebody who puts it in a way that reaches way down inside them so they can feel its truth.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.