Amaris and the Paper Airplane Prophecy

One cloudy, melancholic morning, the gates of Heaven opened up to let an angel, Uriel, fly down to the World and bring good news to a high-spirited maiden named Amaris. As the angel was flying down, blazing through the sky like a flaming bird, the Little Boy, Master of the Ivory Tower, laid eyes and ears on her. On top of the tallest mountain on the top of the word, the Ivory Tower's Master heard the angel muttering and sputtering, "Ave, Amaris! The One True God promises you success in that matter that you dread doing. Stand up, accomplish your deed, and give glory to the One True God!"

As the Legend of the Ivory Tower would have it, the Little Boy was incarcerated in the tower because he professed great knowledge that displeased the Sun and the Moon. The crime was blasphemy and pride and the punishment was futile knowledge of everything that concerned the Four Corners of the World. Even so, the Little Boy had not learned his lesson; he was still proud of getting attention to himself, so when he heard this angel, this absent-minded Uriel, fly across his horizon with news to bring to Amaris, he wanted to the deliver this news and pose as God's messenger.

Though the Sun and the Moon built the tower out of ivory and made sure that their prisoner can only perceive the epiphanies and the revelations of the four Dominions, they were not able to control an unfortunate piece of paper that was blown over and into the Ivory Tower by Hamsin, the southerly wind of Israel. With this wind-blown piece of paper, the Little Boy saw an opportunity for mischief. He wrote Uriel's message down, folded the piece of paper into an airplane, and sent it flying towards Amaris. The little paper airplane of a prophecy flew fast, for the Little Boy possessed the knowledge of origami and aeronautical engineering. He was so brilliant that the paper airplane flew faster than Uriel. However, his aim was not good; the little airplane was supposed to land on Amaris' lap in Israel, but it landed in Lebanon on the lap of a girl with the same name.

If Amaris of Israel was high-spirited, Amaris of Lebanon was a weak, introverted, and hesitant in personality. Amaris of Lebanon never did anything. She didn't think that she was strong enough, good enough, nor useful enough for anything. However, this didn't mean that she didn't have innermost desires. She wanted to go out to dinners with her friends, but she feared the dark. She wanted to become a nurse, but she thought she might not be capable of caring for sick people. She wanted to go to the zoo, but thought that she might get lost. More deeply, Amaris of Lebanon, of all things, wanted to cure herself of the fear of vampires.

As she is capable only of little things like turning book pages, she loved to read. In her room, she read books that were written to dispense courage and knowledge. Through her reading, she read that having sanguivoriphobia, the fear of vampires, should not concern her for the learned men think that vampires are not real, and she will never come across one in any of her lifetimes. Nevertheless, she was still afraid of vampires and of almost anything that she thought she cannot do.

As it happened, the little paper airplane landed on the wrong hands, the wrong Amaris. With her curiosity piqued, she unfolded and read the message on the piece of paper. As the message was divinely inspired, although it was handed down to the wrong person, the message was enough to inflame Amaris' courage and do all the things that she planned on doing. She went to a dinner party of one of her neighbors, which brought them amazement. She studied to become a nurse, which her ailing parents supported for the most practical reasons that their aching arthritic joints snapped at them. She was successful. After 4 years, she graduated and lived a life of courage and success. Even so, she wasn't happy because she has one more fear to face.

With this sanguivoriphobia left uncrossed on her list of things to overcome, she sought her parents' blessing to face this fear. "Amaris, vampires are not real," said her disapproving mother. "Even if you waste your life looking for vampires and use the next lifetimes that you will live, you'll never come across one, so leave it be. Let yourself be afraid of one thing," counseled her coughing father. "No, father!" Amaris cried out. "You named me Amaris, 'Promised by God.' That is all true and I've received this letter, this promise from God. I shall see a vampire and conquer my fear of it!" With those words, she left her house to seek a vampire.

As luck or the promise of God would have it, it didn't take long for her to find a vampire. As she was walking in the Jeita Grotto on Mount Lebanon, she stumbled upon a sleeping shape submerged in the soil of the inner sanctum of the grotto. As many phobic people know, there is an automatic, almost precognitive sensation when coming across the object of fear. It was like a trickle of cold sand down her back for Amaris. She knew that she found a vampire. It was already dusk when this happened so she decided for herself that the vampire must wake before she renounced her fear. She didn't have to wait long because the vampire chose to sleep deep in the subterranean cavern where the light of the Sun does not reach. As the Sun tuck its last rays in the West, the vampire woke and saw that Amaris was standing over him.

"My name is Amaris, and I am not afraid of you -- not anymore," she proclaimed.

The vampire raised an eyebrow. "Ow, is that the truth? Why are you not afraid of me who drinks the waters off of the Red Rivers of Life?"

"I am Amaris, ‘Promised by God.’ He, the Most High, told me that I will succeed in anything that I dread doing. I dreaded your kind even though you were thought of as non-existent. I am here, brave and standing -- proof that I have already succeeded in my deed," answered Amaris as she held the paper prophecy that the Master of the Ivory Tower sent flying with trembling hands.

"Did your god promise you that you'll live to say that you succeeded? Did your precious revelation tell you that you'd continue to breathe after your deed? I do not claim that I know your fate nor your god, but I do know myself enough to say that you will fail in the bloodiest manner," triumphantly taunted the vampire.

With a quick step and a deep kiss on the nape, Amaris fell dead, drained, and defeated in the deed that she thought she could succeed in. The vampire was victorious and, once again, wallowed in the red waters of the River of Life. After feeding, he took the paper containing the message that the girl blindly believed. He noticed that there were creases that caused him to fold it back into a paper airplane. As a joke to God and His glory, the vampire went out into the Lebanese night, climbed up Mount Lebanon, and let the paper airplane fly back to Heaven.

Like a redundant redundancy, the airplane, the paper that Hamsin blew up to the Ivory Tower some 4 years ago flew back into the tower and crossed the horizon of the Little Boy, the Master of the Ivory Tower. As he was granted faultless perception, he saw the sad fate that he had caused Amaris. He saw the paper airplane that he sent out and caught it in the wind, but contrary to his initial design, his intent to beat Uriel in delivering a divine revelation, he was only successful in leading a girl into a foolish feat and a deadly doom. There and then, the Little Boy, on top of the Ivory Tower, on top of the highest mountain on top of the World went into a fit while sputtering and muttering that he needed practice in aiming paper airplanes to reach the right destination.

Thanks once again to Deviant Art for giving me rose-emily-power (Sad Eyes, middle left), windfalcon (Lady of Dreams, top right), verificus (Paper Plane, bottom left), and Google Search that lead me to Russian Paintings and Matrehin Alexander (Canyon, middle right).