the collector ~ ice skater

Morgan Pym had two clients this week ~ a 16-year old ice skater and her coach, also her dad. Only he didn't realize it. The Devil - he likes to manipulate the truth ... or, at the very least mislead. At any rate, Morgan only had time to save one of them ... and so, of course, he worked with the client he thought he had ~ the girl. Apparently, pride prevented the dad from admitting to his daughter that he made a deal, the dead which got her into that mess. Isabelle never really had the talent which sprang her right to the top. She won all those competitions, and even a spot on the olympic team all on the false talent she received from the Devil. But, she so wanted to please her Dad, who had also served as coach to her late mother ~ a truly talented skater with much promise until she got herself 'knocked up.' Ahhh ~ but what you don't know can definitely hurt you. What Isabelle didn't know did, indeed hurt her, and those around her.

You see, dear old Dad really wanted that olympic medal ... that olympic glory. He so wanted it, in fact, that when he found out his first protege "had a bun in the oven" ... well, he wanted her to get an abortion. Yes, that's right, he didn't ever really want his daughter. He would have much rather had his girlfriend's/wife's olympic glory! And, when Isabelle's mother killed herself, sent to the edge by her husband's selfish berating, well, how convenient that he had another tool through which to achieve the glory for which he so hungered.

So, as usual, Morgan has 48 hours to try to redeem his client. In this case, first he's got to convince the client, a 16-year old girl, that she even made a deal with the Devil, because she has no recollection. Her Dad suspects that his deal maker has come to collect, but never lets on that he knows ... that he made a deal with the Devil ~ a deal in which the Devil would let Isabelle gain world class skating talent (that's the pride I spoke of earlier). Instead, Dad thinks he can thwart the Devil by leaving the country with Isabelle. Of course, that never works. Accountability for one's own action follows one. The universe seeks balance. That balance will occur, for every misdeed, mis-decision, whether we like it or not. Often we don't like it. And, of course, when we try to superimpose our own will upon the universe, it eventually comes tumbling down, like a house of cards. And what's that they say about pride? Pride goeth before a fall? Yeah, that.

Pride ~ a man's pride, and selfish desire for self-glorification. In the end, it did him in. How ironic, because, despite the fact that he never wanted that child which he father, she grew on him ... and he indeed wanted to give her the moon and stars. Instead, he ended up driving her mother to suicide, and then wasting her life carving talent which never belonged to her, in the first place ... and for one final blow, he paid for his deal with his life ... with his soul. So, he leaves his daughter with all something he never wanted her to have ~ pain and suffering, for the his misdeed. Yeah ... poetic justice. A man who devoured two lives, in seeking self-glorification, loses his own, and never really receives the glory for which he so thirsted. And Isabelle, she's left with none of the life she thought she had, and all of the life which she never dreamed she would have.

If only we knew what damage we cause to the balance of humanity and the universe, when we make our own petty will more important that the divine will. And also, the way in which, not only our Selves, but those around us also, suffer for our mis-deeds.