Excerpt from Under The Banner Of Red

1
Like a bee darting in and out of the sweet nectars of a flower garden, so the idea of romance with a mighty one occurred in order to seduce Diana.
Life for Diana, from childhood until adolescence proceeded in fairytale mode. She was affectionately loved by family and admired and envied by associates. Yet, because of her naïve and vulnerable mindset, she never considered the future with much thoughtfulness as to how her existence can affect it. Diana just lived each day as it came.
Her enthrallment with the unseen made her realize that there is much to discover in this world that her mother forbade her to delve into. Diana possessed such a strong desire to attain a secret knowledge that could not be easily found. She kept seeking it, but it never sprung out to her.
Diana was a vibrant individual, who loved nature with its awesome displays, dancing, and poetry, yet she valued her privacy and did much to protect her space and individuality. Her true emotions were hidden away from others and in her own space, she would ponder on life’s occurrences. This would occur in the most public of places, like in the pews of her neighborhood church or in the classroom as the teacher spoke.
Each stage in her life she would perform half-heartedly, just going through the motions of what was expected of her. Diana experienced many strange anomalies that were often explained away by her mother as a neuro medical condition or that her imagination was playing tricks on her.
These moments always infuriated Diana, since she really needed someone to understand and advise her. This continued always as she was the one that could be labelled as misunderstood. Continuously there would always develop within her company, those who would misinterpret her intentions and her words in a negative way. This in turn brought many uncomfortable moments for Diana. Seeking an alternative to the everyday routine is what she began to search for.
Cascading thoughts on the matter of religion and the truth of the matter brought Diana to the doors of the library regularly. She searched and searched, but what she sought would not materialize for her. The research yielded bland discoveries that did not cause the light within her to spark. Educational and entertainment were what she found. Not that what she expected met her eyes when she read. Diana would often sigh in frustration and moved on to other reading materials.
One Tuesday evening while going through this very routine, she noticed a familiar visitor to the library paying attention to her peculiar behavior. He kept looking at her and just as she was about to look his way he would look away and pretend to be preoccupied with gazing through the book in his hand. There were a couple more moments of these when he would play hide and seek with the eyes, he suddenly held his gaze upon her face. She not expecting this move became confused and confounded looking back at him a bit embarrassed by his stares. Diana realizing that she too was staring, then gradually nodded. This seemed to be the invitation he was waiting for. He confidently strutted across to where she was sitting and introduced himself but not in the usual way.
He leaned forward slightly propping his elbow on the chair in front of him. He looked down at her with his intense hazel eyes while she meekly peered back at him through sugar brown irises. She tried to look beyond the eyes, but she couldn’t. His imposing manner ensured it was the only place she could see. Finally, he said “If only you could find that book that would bring delight to your soul and answer the deepest burning questions of your thoughts wouldn’t that make your day? My name is Miseur Ogarro.”
Suddenly her gaze seemed to snap. Finally, she could look beyond his eyes to peruse the face of the familiar stranger. Starring at his lovely lips she muttered “Diana, you may call me Diana.” She began to raise her hand towards him but then discovered, that despite his amazing features she felt a deep disliking towards him. Thus, instead of shaking his hand she brought her hand to rest upon her desk and smiled towards him.
Breaking eye contact, he sharply inhaled and said, “Very nice to meet you Diana.” Mizeur then straightened his posture and while pushing his hands slowly into his jacket pockets he continued speaking “I know you find me quite forward.” He kept looking at her every facial expression “But you, seem unhappy, somewhat dissatisfied with your reading material.”
Diana nodded while confessing that she was unable to come upon that exact topic she was searching for. Mizeur did not miss the invisible cue by saying “I happen to have just the books you would be interested in having.” She looked at him squarely her curiosity rising, then asked “How Mr. Ogarro would you be privy to know what I would be interested in reading?” He smiled raising a thick perfectly shaped eyebrow to reply “I just know Diana when someone’s curiosity has peeked when someone needs to know more. And so, I am here to help if you need ……in fact just try calling a book you might want to read, and I assure you I will have this in my personal library."
Almost certainly Diana could not have foreseen her day encountering this stranger and so she tried to keep guard against the sweet imposing stranger, Mr. Ogarro. “I could name one book I heard of that will contain the sort of knowledge that I seek. That’s Hidden Knowledge and Kingdom by Dravid Dutchman. Do you have this?” He smiled delightedly to find that he was correct in his assessment of her yet shrugged rather nonchalantly when he answered “By all means lady, you have barely begun to scratch the surface of my collection. When and where shall I deliver it to you?” Excited Diana blurted out immediately “Tomorrow right here at about this same time, I will be waiting!”
Mizeur laughed lowly revealing perfectly even teeth adorned with a small spacing on the top row. His gazing made her uncomfortable and even more so when she realized that she was overly enthusiastic about his offer and his collection of books that she needed to get her hands upon. That feeling of want had emerged into a need and now she had encountered this one who offered to fill that urge for knowledge. Diana felt mildly embarrassed, but she knew well how to keep her wits about her.
He turned to leave bowing slightly he said “Tomorrow it shall be my lady. Have a pleasant evening.” He did not wait for her reply but walked away and headed straight for the exit. That night Diana was very restless. She felt so warm that she flung open her windows which she would normally shut tightly. She starred at the starry heavens for quite some time and was not aware of when sleep came to her.


2
Perusing the book that she so longed to have in her possession, brought about a feeling similar to a newborn suckling on its mother’s breast. Diana drank it all in. Re-reading sentences and paragraphs so that she got a true sense of what was being said.
Now Mizeur was turning out to be a close acquaintance as he continuously provided books upon her request as often as she demanded it. He asked for nothing in return but to discuss what knowledge she gathered and inquired as to whether she understood completely what she was reading. This seemed a bit strange to her that he wanted nothing in return but a student-teacher relationship.
However, one day after she completed reading one of the books, it referred her to another, which she requested that he provide her with the referral. He paused before quietly declining to allow her to have that particular book. Diana asked why, but he never really gave her a reason. Instead, he brought her another one that proved to be equally interesting, but her mind kept pondering over the reason why he would refuse to loan her that book. That would be the first of many other times he would refuse to give her particular books yet substitute it with another.
Diana once more began to view Miseur suspiciously. He began giving her accompanying books so that she could rise her spirituality to another level. They began having arguments where she would raise her voice forgetting that they were in a quiet zone. Diana and Miseur never met outside of the library, neither would they leave together. So, Diana felt safe in knowing that their relationship, which was strictly platonic, was private. This made her feel so responsible and free that she can actually respond normally to someone of the opposite sex and have no emotional ties to them. Or did she?
Late one-night Diana lay on her bed reading a book she requested from Miseur. She began practicing some of the things she found to be uplifting to her personal self-development regimen and attitude. The book she was reading offered a lot of advice in that regard. Yet she found that she was being taken away into the spirit world of visions without her even realizing it.
A feeling of floating out of her began to transpire. She saw him, a creature that appeared to be an angel for he bared wings, but his face was not seen. She was unable to see beyond his neck clearly. The light about his face was so bright she was unable to look upon it. Soon he appeared behind her when next she looked around and she lay on a bed of lilies and he knelt in front of her, kissing her most delicately. He himself was naked save the seven orchids that hid what she knew was there and quite private. Before she could speak, he began to ravish her, and she squirmed until she came right out of that vision and opened her eyes to see that she was literally naked and apparently squirming.
Diana felt like hands were all over her body, she could feel his touch. With that in mind, she threw open the windows to see if someone was running through the backyard, but the night was still and there was no one. She checked all the doors and windows in the house that night but found them all locked and secured. Doubtful yet wishing to be thorough in her search, she even checked her parents’ and brother’s room as they slept which yielded the same results.
Diana once more dressed into her nightgown. Her mind was in great anxiety over what might have been. She wondered how and who, but even more importantly why her. Immediately her eyes fell upon the open book on her bed and she wondered if Miseur had anything to do with this occurrence. The atmosphere in her room certainly altered somewhat since she encountered him. She was due to meet him the next day and would be sure to confront him about these things. Diana slept peacefully for the rest of that night.
It was quite unlike Miseur to be late, far more being one not to show up, but on that Friday afternoon, he was noticeably absent. Diana felt slighted, then felt stupid for feeling that way, after all at their previous meeting she did give him a good tongue lashing. So, she reasoned that he perhaps was not in the mood to meet with her and that was okay. Nevertheless, as the time slipped by, she became disconcerted and decided to give him a call. Besides she was unable to read past a paragraph since she sat there for the past two hours. She put the books in her bag, draped it across her, and went outside to make the call.
Diana had his number in her possession but never had the cause to use it before, so she felt so strange when she kept listening to hear his voice answer on the other side. Just as a weird sensation began to take over and she was about to hang up she heard him answer “Now you call me. Better late than never.” Now she really felt like hanging up but then she heard herself saying “I…I was just wondering, why you …well how I …you were absent today.” He laughed and to her, it seemed all so orchestrated but then she had no control over her actions neither her tongue. Miseur answered, “Oh no, I am not absent at all, but I am right here with you.” Diana felt someone touching her shoulder and as she spun around there he was, smiling ever so innocently as he shrugged and pressed the ‘end’ button to terminate their online conversation. He continued “And so I am here. Shall we step across the road to have a hot cup of tea? It is sort of chilly out here this October afternoon don’t you think?”
As if the forces of nature were also in agreement, a sudden gust of cold wind swirled around them carrying dry leaves and loose paper around her feet. Words and occurrences were appearing so rapidly, that all Diana could do was nod in agreement smiling shyly. She was a bit taken aback by the moment, but then felt hooked in a trap of some sort, yet not wanting to get out. She then crossed the road in the company of Mizeur, never once looking in his direction as she may reveal what she herself did not know.