The Stone of Idris

I watched as I was called before a disciplinary committee of senior University lecturers and staff. I watched weeping as I was stripped of my honours and tenure and dumped out of the University I had spent my entire adult life working in.

I watched Katey, Jasmine, Tina, and all of the lovers and friends I had made turn their backs on me in disgust.

I watched in tears as Janela tore me down in front of Beatrice and took her granddaughter back to the Philippines.

I watched in despair as the bank foreclosed on my mortgage and took the only house I had ever lived in.

Crying, I saw everything I was, and everything I had, destroyed because of how I had been using the stone.

"Is this my future?" I demanded of the stone. "Is this what I am doomed to do, to become? Show me there's a different path. Show me this isn't all there is."

The stone relentlessly ground my future into my face. I watched as I became homeless and a drunkard. I wailed in despair as I was shown myself dying alone. Unloved, unlamented, and unmissed.

"You okay, Mr Muzz?" A soft voice asked at my elbow. "You were crying out in your sleep."

Beatrice had heard me from downstairs and at the other end of the house.

I sat up as Beatrice flicked the bedside lamp on. She saw my stricken face and tear-filled eyes.

"What's up, Mr Muzz?" She asked concernedly.

"I was shown my future in a dream, Bea," I told her. "My future is to die alone, unloved and unlamented. It scared me, is all."

"I believe there are many different futures, Mr Muzz," Beatrice said, sitting on my bed. "The choices we make today change the future every day. I have to believe that, otherwise there's no point. I thought my destiny was to be a massive Hollywood star, I was going to be a famous model and then star in many romantic movies.

Yet here I am, 27-years-old, living with my grandmother and working as a maid for a man who thinks I'm a child and pays no attention to me.

She was referring to me, I realised, in wonder

But I believe this isn't my future. I believe in love, marriage, and children, Mr Muzz. I believe in a full life lived with a man that I can love and respect. I believe in growing old with him and delighting in grandchildren as they appear.

Isn't that nice, Mr Muzz? Isn't that a great future?"

"It sounds perfect to me, Bea," I told her. "I once hoped for that dream myself."

Beatrice sighed. "As mammy says, 'you men are all so stupid'," she said. "I respect you, Mr Muzz. You're a good man. Kind to me and mammy. Now you've lost weight, you're physically attractive. We could build our dream together. All you have to do is stop being so blindly dense.

Mammy didn't set up the candlelit dinner I did. And what did you do? You, oh so romantically, turned on the lights, blew the candles out, dumped the wine I had so carefully chosen for you, then got yourself a beer.

Mr Romantic, not!"

To my shock, Bea was crying.

"In Filipino culture, it's not unusual for a woman to choose a much older man as her husband." Beatrice continued. "Mammy thought you might be a good match for me, so she invited me over to meet you.

I agreed with her, so I stayed. But you're so dense, so blindly stupid that you didn't even notice my overtures.

What do I have to do? Throw my panties at you?"

She reached over, opened my top drawer, then threw the five pairs of panties I had souvenired on the floor.

"When we get married, there will be no more sluts, John!" Beatrice said, calling me by my name for the first time. "My man will be true to me only!"

Exasperated, she stood up and turned to me. I noticed a few things immediately: Her hands were on her hips, her elbows wide. Her shoulders were flung back and up. Her right toe was pointing directly at me, and she was holding my gaze steadily with her head tilted toward me.

According to my research, these were all signs that she was interested in me romantically.

"Well?" She demanded. "Are you going to ask me to marry you, or do I need to take off my panties and throw them at you?"

I couldn't help myself, "Well, I think having a pair of your panties to hold to my nose would be delightful," I joked, completely inappropriately.

I waited for the explosion.

Instead, Beatrice threw her head back and roared with laughter.

"Here I am pouring my heart out to you, afraid you're going to reject me because you haven't given even one sign you find me attractive, and you're making jokes?"

She rolled her eyes theatrically, "Men!" She huffed.

I reached my hand out to her. Beatrice took it and allowed me to pull her to my chest.

"I have loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you, Bea," I told her. "I've carefully kept my feelings and emotions for you well hidden because you are one of the world's most beautiful women and I am just a fat and old University Professor from California. What could you possibly ever see in me?"

I got down onto one knee and took her hands in mine, "Beatrice Garcia, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"

"Yes, you big lummox," Bea affirmed, kissing me. "I thought you were never going to ask."

We made love. I didn't need the stone. It was as beautiful as I had imagined.

The next morning we told Janny. She was as delighted as we were.

We got married in the Our Lady of Remedies Catholic Church in downtown Manila. Katey came over, she had agreed to be my best man.

I left the stone in my Great-great-great-grandfather's mansion back in the hills of West Hollywood.

It's 2022 now. Bea and I have five children, and she's pregnant with our sixth. She's even more beautiful now than ever. We split our time between L.A. and Manila. I became Professor Emeritus of the University I have so long worked for. I do quite a lot of teaching at The University of Manila, but I mostly spend my time with the Catholic Priests who work with the poor trying to help them read and write.

The stone is still in the shuttered mansion. You're welcome to try and get it if you want, but...

'Beware all that use me for I am power'.

The End.