This past week on Wednesday, October 11th 1992, a miracle occurred. He has arrived and was happily born to our glorious messenger and the Holy Mother. When you see Father Pucci and Mother Rio and their little miracle, Daniel, be sure to say hi!- From the October 21st, 1992 Newsletter of the His Holy Messenger Church in Memphis, Tennessee.

  ~VK~

  October 11th, 1992.

  You're finally here. My child. The fruit of so much bor and time that it whiled through the years like nothing. And you're a good weight and warm. Loud too! Father Pucci had cried and praised God when you screamed out into the world for the first time...

  I can't wait to see you grow up.

  I love you already and you've only been here a few hours. My sweet little Daniel. Every time I look at you there are more possibilities id out for you. Far more than anyone ever set out for me. Every time I hold you, I feel like I could've made better decisions.

  I swear to you son, you weren't one of the bad ones.

  Church was boring when I was little but nowadays it's just noise. Sitting up near the front as my father preached of God's goodness and the loveliness of Heaven. How we're all guilty and that we deserved God's punishment.

  My father preaches so passionately, his dark eyes burning with fire as the sun shone in through the stained gss. More calls of 'amen' rise up and echo to him. His grayish-white hair almost making the light halo it brighter. His skin is dark and his voice radiates with power and drips with charisma. I wish I could speak like he could. That I could rise and procim my own message if I was this fabled miracle. Why haven't I gained the right to lead them? Why haven't I been given the keys to my own kingdom? If I was really that important?

  "God has left this world broken and bleeding on the steps of the universe!" he calls as he sweeps his hand towards the ceiling, "But I have found one truth. One of His messengers! The one of which the Miracle Child shares blood with!"

  "God has chosen to move through this child." he looks to me and I smile up at him, "God has chosen him to do great things. As will all the little children who inherit Heaven." his smile shines like a light I rarely see. After the first service Father would normally be shuttled off with his acolytes with people cmoring around him. But this time he stayed as I helped clean up the sanctuary. Watching me with those fiery eyes turning cold.

  I never understood why.

  He marches up to me, "Dio." he states as he grabs my hand and leads me out behind him, "Menial work is beneath one as holy as you." we walk through the halls of the church and past all the pretty columns and soaring windows. All of it making me fear what he'd have me do.

  "Father, I just wanted to help. Mother says-" I begin and we stop. He looks down at me with a harder expression but it softens.

  "Oh Dio, you're such a kind boy." he sighs and shakes his head tipping my face up to look at it better, "Do you remember your purpose here?"

  "To... save the world? Like Jesus?" I answer with my tone unsure of everything. The way he sounds is weird and sweet. I'd ter learn that it was one of his most cssic forms of manipution. But tome right now it worked like a charm.

  "Why yes. Almost." he nods and winds his arm around my shoulders, "See, you were a miracle sent by God sharing the blood of a great man. He wanted to save the world so badly, but people never understood him."

  "That's mean." I said.

  "Yes, it is!" Father excims with that fire in his eyes again, "But he persevered, even cheating death, and battling those that would get in the way of his holy mission." He sits me down next to him and runs his hand through my soft almost downy golden hair, "You're here now, however. There's hope for the world with you."

  "Now do you know why you're so important to me." he looks out into the courtyard where everyone else was working, "You're above them, Dio. You're the king of kings. God's fist poised to strike the sinners of the world. You're going to work wonders."

  For a long time... I had believed him. But in very few and far between instances there's this feeling of... boredom? Well, as I moved through the magnolias and the sweet smelling crops that we sold to gain money for our acts, the other followers all see me and stop what they're doing.

  "Why hello there, Daniel!"

  "Lord Dio! You look absolutely radiant today!"

  But one always seemed a little... too close. Her name is Elise Arcenaux, and well. She's wearing a simple white dress and long almost wimple-like head covering. She drops what she's doing and clings onto my arm.

  "Good morning, Lord Dio!" she coos with her blue eyes batting away, "How are you? Wasn't the service amazing? What're you up to?"

  "I'm going to see my mother, Arcenaux." I answer, "So let go." I gre down at her like she's a bug under my heel and I look at the growing crowd, "If you need a message, go see my father!" They all exult with...

  "Praise Lord Dio!"

  "Amen!"

  "Thank you!"

  All false and happy smiles, all hiding who they truly are, and it makes me sick. All accepting the constant services and the tiring rhetoric over and over and over. All the live-long day.

  Deep down my annoyance is palpable. Boiling under the surface like the summer heat of the city outside of this compound. It's almost like a square within a square like a Socialist's paradise. All pristine and beautiful... and still I want to see what's beyond it all.

  A southern mansion complex, a chapel modern but simple, and tiny houses dotted throughout it with a farm around that. Something Mother said was archaic but somehow okay because they willingly gave themselves for the cause. Everyone here treats me as if I'm something special as Father had said. But at the same time it leaves a hole as deep and as cold as anything else. Everything was at my beck and call, I could ask for a drink and twenty, thirty, or forty would come along ice-cold and ready for me to suck down straws.

  I ask for food? Even if the others were given their allotted portions they would use them to feed me without regard for themselves. It's deeply annoying. A prison with beautiful confines and happy people who wait on me hand and foot. They walk away and I take a breath. Thank goodness.

  With Mother, things are a different story. She is mostly in that same venerated position I was as the Holy Mother and the Miracle Child. She smiles at me as I come in to our shared little house in the center of the compound. It's a grand mansion that soars far above the other houses almost colonial in its grandness and even though it was just for the two of us even bigger than we needed. But to me it was the one respite from everything being handed to me.

  I open the door and call out, "Mother? I'm home!" I hear soft music pying on the speakers inside. It was Cir de Lune. Mother comes out of the living room wearing a nice blue dress with her dark hair tied back from getting in the way in a short braid.

  "Daniel, how was it?" she asks, her soft-red eyes glimmer happily and all I can think of is how she reminds me of those paintings of the actual Mary, "Was it normal or...?"

  "Yes, it was." I nod and hug her, "I want to talk with you."

  "Anything, dear." she smiles and I follow her into said living room. We don't have a television but we have plenty of books, records, and other such things. She had tea ready and I accept the cup with a smile.

  "I... have a question." I start, "I know I'm not supposed to ask this but it's been eating away at me." Looking out the window at the controlled and beautiful garden outside and the pristineness of the world beyond.

  "Go ahead, I'm all ears." she leans forward on her hand and I take a deep breath. This question has pgued me for years ever since I was little and Father gave me a non-answer. The one searing question that settles in my stomach like a weight constantly burning a hole in it.

  "What's beyond the walls?" I ask, and her expression darkens. Of course the idea of what's beyond the walls has crossed my mind before. In some secret times I would climb onto the roof and watch the lights twinkling far off into the distance.

  "You climb out onto the roof, you know what's out there." she answers with a knowing look, "I never tell Father Pucci what goes on with you. I swear."

  "But I want to experience it, Mother! How can I save the world if I barely know anything beyond what he tells me?" My voice softens, "I mean... wouldn't you want me to be a good hero?"

  "What I want is for you to be happy and *safe.*" she sighs, "I know you're at that age where you should be out in the world but Father Pucci does what's best for you." she looks at me with a mischievous smile.

  "Pleeeeeeaaaasssse?" I wheedle, "Come onnnn, I'll do my chores and pay better attention in my lessons, just let me go outside a little bit! I won't go far!"

  "But maybe exploring a little bit won't hurt." she reaches across and squeezes my hand, "Stay to well-lit areas, and don't even try to drink, mister." Mother gets up and I do too. She kisses me on the forehead and hands me some money.

  I put it into my wallet and slide it into my suit jacket's inner pocket. Just to be completely safe, "I swear on your life I'll be safe, mother."

  I creep out to the wall on the far side of the compound a piece of it not exactly patrolled by the watchmen. It's weird we even have those in the first pce. But I concentrate on the wall's surface with a white-bandaged arm with gold bangles near its shoulder and on its wrist coming out of my back and punching it.

  A golden pulse thrums through it and the bricks strip back the cement and assemble neatly in a pile as if they were never stuck together to make a wall in the first pce. I step through the gap and the bricks reassemble and restick together, leaving no evidence of my leaving. Smiling I step out onto the sidewalk and begin my trek into the city. Humming Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. I spread my arms and make airpne noises, "Sheeeeewwwwww! Whisssseewwww!" I can't help but ugh at how good it feels to be free!

  I run and spin, feeling the night air billowing my long blonde hair and breathing in the sharp air tinged with bad stuff I didn't know. I continue my dance and spin around almost tapping and shuffling it out. The compound itself seems to be overlooking what's called Downtown. The high rises and the streets dotted with headlights and trolley cars has me spellbound. Even the odd popping noises off in the distance also don't take away from it all.

  Just as I'm about to enter the city itself... something growls in the darkness. Slinking towards me in torn and shredded revolutionary war uniform with most of it pocked with all kinds of bullet holes until my Stand appears in full with white wrappings flowing, golden Pharoah-like armor, and a peacefully sleeping face.

  "Sacred Heart, attack!" I yell, "Make sure this monster doesn't touch me!" Its eyes snap open and my stand rushes forward with a heavy kick before it gets stopped by the monster's own tube-like sinewy arms.

  "Muuuudaaaaaaa!" My stand yells as it pushes back against it, "MUDA!" breaking the csh the monster stumbles back. My leg lights up in pain and I fall to one knee.

  The monster looms over me and in the golden light of my own Stand I notice it's stitched together from all kinds of other fabrics and metallic parts, "Seudddddeeeeeee..." it snarls and I crawl away back towards where I came from but before I could strike back with Sacred Heart it closes in fast!

  "SHOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS!" It screams as I match it, squeezing my eyes shut and cpping my hands over my ears as if that would protect me. The world is scary! I want to go home! Father was right! Mother was right! I'm not ready! Someone, help me!

  Suddenly there's someone on top of me. Shielding me as it goes running away. I open my eyes to see Father holding me, "Dio! Thank goodness you didn't go far!" he sobs, "Oh my poor sweet Lord Dio!" He squeezes me tight and pushes me off him, "Who put you up to this?!"

  His voice is full of anger and rage and all I can do is fall apart, "There there, Dio. It's alright, my son. It's a dangerous pce. Luckily I heard you left from one of your friends." he smiles and carries me back towards the compound.

  I gnce over his shoulder and even though I'm old enough to walk and would be hard to carry... Arcenaux stands there praying over where Father's Stand once was. My hands clench into fists. Of course! She's been over near the house anyway! How much does she know?! Once we get back to my house, Father takes care to bandage my leg which was cut up by the Stand's blow. It was like a million knives at once cut into me. He does his work almost reverently. Winding the bandage after cleaning the wounds. (I ended up biting the inside of my cheek to avoid any sounds of pain.)

  "Dio, please. Tell me who put you up to this." he urges, "I'll handle their punishment."

  "No." My voice is ftter than a board, "I won't throw them under the bus. It was my own decision and my own actions." I smile, "So if anything I should be punished."

  Mother is sitting nearby. Not even emotional, kind of dead-eyed but seems to smile a little at what I said. Father looms over me and gently tips my face up towards his.

  "Absolutely not, Dio. You are beyond reproach." he states, "Of course I had given you both the courtesy of not being monitored but clearly there must be a lesson to be learned here." he pces his arm around my shoulders and it makes me flinch hard.

  He almost never keeps his promises. My thoughts just focus on my mother. What're they pnning for her? Why can't I do anything? That dance and run towards the city was the closest I'd ever gotten to escaping...

  So why did I let that Stand paralyze me with fear? I'm Dio! I must fear no one, and instead be the one inspiring fear and awe no matter where I go! But... I look down at my hands and they're shaking like leaves. I can feel fear, I can feel doubt, and at this point rage is just a given. But as I'm taken away and see my mother get dragged off by the crowd of cultists there's only one feeling inside me. A clenching of my heart so fierce and angry it's almost murderous.

  Sacred Heart looms above me and Father looks at me.

  "Be gentle with her, my children!" he snaps his fingers and his Stand echoes that out to them. They stop being so rough with my mother and just shuttle her off. He smiles.

  "It is because of your mercy that she'll live. It is by your orders that they'll all live or die. I've given you the world, my son." He sighs, "Why do you want to leave it?"

  I think about it for a moment, and then some more, and even then some more. It's not that I've never thought about the why. But every thought was vague. The idea of why I would want to be free when everything was met? Then deep inside there's that ghastly drive for more. That ever-present need to get on top of the world and rule with whatever kind of fist I'd like. It seeps into me like a poison as I shuffle off to bed that night.

  The guilt...

  It also seeps in, too.