Cinderella and Passover - the Magic of Midnight

    There is a story told across cultures, especially in Europe, of a woman oppressed by her stepmother and stepsisters, who, aided by magical or supernatural help, meets a fabulous prince at a ball. Whether her name is Aschenputtel, Cendrillon or our more common Cinderella, there is a common trope that she has to leave the ball by midnight or else all the magic becomes undone.

    At midnight the coach will turn back into a pumpkin, the horses back into mice, the gorgeous gown back into rags, and the marvelous glass slippers will disappear.

    There is this tendency in western literature to see midnight as the witching hour, the time that is most dangerous, when evil stalks abroad.

    It is no coincidence that Edgar Allan Poe’s the Raven begins “Once upon a midnight dreary” or that the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is described as “like a Midnight blast”. The dead of night is all that is unnerving, disquieting, unsettling, as the dawn seems endlessly far away.

    But the Pesach story is, in some ways, the opposite of Cinderella. Cinderella on the night of the ball was free and happy but at the stroke of twelve all the magic came undone - but in the Torah's description of the Exodus, in Exodus 12:29, we see that our freedom began at precisely midnight:

    29 And it came to pass at midnight, that the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the first-born of cattle.

    At that moment the Israelites were no longer slaves - the midnight hour indeed brought danger and death (even the Israelites had to protect themselves with blood on the doorposts) but it also brought redemption.

What is the significance of midnight?

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 23c

Part a is here.
Part b is here.

“The shields - the whole shielding system - it was your idea, you designed it.”

    “You designed it, is it going to work?”
    “What do you want me to tell you?”
    “I want you to tell me that we’ll do it, that we’ll save Luna-city, and ourselves. Ammi will have our child and we will all live happily ever after.”
    Jonah looked down sadly.
    “I wish I could tell you that, but deep down in my heart I know that is not how this story ends.”
    “Yeah, I know. The whole ‘IN THREE HOURS’ business. What was that about?”
    “It’s called prophecy, Josiah.”
    “You’ll excuse me if I don’t immediately accept that as an answer.”
    “I will,” said Jonah, smiling devilishly, “but for the purpose of this conversation let’s just take it as read.”
    “Okay, fine. So how do you get into this whole prophecy gig?”
    “You are chosen, and believe me, it is as much a curse as a blessing. I have been walking the earth for many lifetimes now, but soon it will be time to rest.”
    “If you can’t be more cheerful I might become more sceptical.”
    Jonah laughed again. Somehow, despite the growing patch of red and orange, that signalled the approach of Security, despite the growing image of Luna-city projected at the front of the bridge, somehow they had found calmness. But Josiah knew it was just the eye of the storm.
    “I shall endeavour to be optimistic, at least in conversation.”
    “That’s all I ask.”
    “So Josiah, what do you dream about?”
    “Haven’t we had this discussion before? I have the strangest feeling of déjà vu.”
    “Yes we have but times change and so do dreams.”
    “And is there nothing else to talk about?”
    “Nothing else worth saying - the world is run by dreams, the world is changed by dreamers. One should never cheapen the power of dreams.”
    The power of dreams. Yes, the phrase itself struck a chord within his soul but he could not say why. Power…
    He flicked the third switch. It was a delicate balance - too much plasma all at once and the whole engine could blow, ruining any chance they had of saving the city. Too little and they would not change course in time.
    The first rumblings pulsed through the ship as the starboard thrusters filled with plasma. Everything shook, first gently and then with increasing ferocity until Josiah had to cling to his chair, and was half afraid his teeth would fall out.
    Then the shaking subsided.
    “Well that was exciting,” Jonah said, sitting up and brushing dust from his clothes.
    “Yes but it wasn’t enough, we’ll need more to push us off course.”
    He looked up at the display - Luna-city seemed so close now, he could make out all the different buildings, the roofs, the domes, the towers. Was that Ammi’s hospital? It was hard to say. But this was what he was fighting for, and he would not let it go.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 20

    And there it was: a mountain in the heart of London, a snow-capped needle of glass and steel piercing the night sky. The Cathedral of the Steel God watched the world the way an earthly lord might survey his domain. Soaring amongst the clouds, it claimed a place in heaven. The icons of the Steel God were crusted in ice and snow, white on grey metal. The everlasting torch flicked from the top of the glass pyramid, a beacon for the lost.
    But the sight brought no cheer to Josiah as he trudged along the twenty-eighth skyway. He did not feel that stirring of heart that true believers felt on approaching the cathedral, nor did he feel the thrill he had once felt on nearing his place of work, looking forward to seeing Elijah. It was bitterly cold up here. He could have taken a lower skyway but this was the most direct route - Josiah begrudged any waste of time.
    Visions of Amber filled his mind. Tortured, caged, beaten. What were they doing to her? Anxiety gnawed at his gut and ate away at his stomach. If only the skycars had been running. This damn snow. The skyways were covered in a layer of black ice, slippery and treacherous. If he had had a car, Josiah might have taken the risk, but like everything else in his life, the Circle had taken it from him. He had known nothing else, and they had thrown him to the dogs. And now they had Amber. What more did they want from him? The machine - his last act of heresy, the last corner of himself. All he had left was his life, and what was that worth?
    When he had last rode the skyways he had been with Amber, driving till dawn. Now it was 3am Central Europe Time, and dawn was out of reach. Shivering violently, Josiah gritted his teeth, pulled his cloak around him, and marched on. Not far to go now, it was almost over.
    Josiah had not thought he would look upon this place again - he had thought that he had escaped the past but he was finding that he could not. He had spent fifteen years of his life in this place, his first memories were of steel fists and full moons. The Circle had been his family, Elijah his father and teacher.
    The Cathedral loomed ever larger as he approached, filling his vision, making him feel small and insignificant - as it was intended. For the last five years he had made this journey every day, and it seemed that each day his excitement had dwindled. Now there was simply a hole inside him.
    What would he find? And more importantly, who? If he got his hands on Lovecraft... She would be alright, they would both be alright.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 7 - JOSIAH

Not sure what this is about? Here's my introduction.

Chapter 5 is the continuation of the story of Josiah begun in chapters 1, 2 and 5. But remember Jos and Joe, as all three stories impact each other.

Josiah woke with a start, shaking and trembling. What was going on? It was too dark to see anything. He looked around in panic, eyes wide, breathing quickly. He was drenched in an icy sweat, bed sheets clinging to his body. Then he realised that he was in his room and collapsed back into the bed, shivering with cold and the remains of terror. It had all been so real, Security was everywhere. Duke had been killed, and Amber… crushed beneath falling barrels. Amber was dead.
    Wasn’t she? No, it was just another stupid bad dream, Amber was fine.
    But they had gone to the market, followed the small man, hadn’t they? When did reality end and the dream begin? As he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, he wasn’t sure. He needed a drink. But first...
    “God of Steel, watch over my soul as it drifts from my body,” he began automatically. What are you doing? There is no God of Steel, no soul to leave my body. You aren’t a Priest and you don’t believe in Steel. Why are you still praying?
    After a few words he gave up. There was no comfort there.
    Josiah clambered from bed, switched on the light that swung just above his head, and poured himself a glass of water. His hands were shaking and he spilt half the glass on the floor. Why was he so clumsy? Fact and fiction continued to intertwine inside his head. The blood exploding from Duke’s body, the barrels falling for eternity. He had been too far away, there was nothing he could have done. Was Amber dead? He knew that he had dreamt it but had the dream reflected reality or was it all in his mind?
    A coffee would help straighten his thoughts. He pressed the button for coffee but nothing happened. A gurgling sound and a smell of burning drifted from the Provider. The steel fist emblazoned on the machine stared at him. He sneered at it and knocked the Provider to the floor. It was some sort of cosmic joke, and he had had enough.
    He turned to the wall and ripped down the fist that hung there. Its sharp edges cut his finger but that only made him angrier. He threw the damned thing with furious strength. Shards of grey plaster scattered as it hit the wall.
    Then the phone rang.
    He switched on the monitor, aware that he was not yet dressed and was still trembling.
    “Merlin!” cried Amber excitedly, “good morning.”
    Confusion and relief intermingled in Josiah’s mind as he struggled to think of an appropriate thing to say.
    “What time is it?” was all he could come up with.
    “It’s 5:56 am precisely,” Amber answered, “I thought you might want to come for a drive.”
    “Do you normally call people at six in the morning?”
    “Well, you’re up aren’t you?”
    Josiah had to smile, all anger evaporating. “I suppose I am,” he answered.
    “Then what’s the problem?” Amber rejoined, “I’m on level 28, see you when you’re dressed.”
    Before Josiah could say anything else, the screen went dark. Embarrassed, he had to laugh.

Radiance 35 - Epilogue - Ein Sof/Without End

     Dan Black stood in his Manhattan-sized kitchen, and for the third time that evening, waited for the kettle to boil.
    ‘A watched pot never boils’, his mother would have said, but he didn’t like to leave the kitchen when the gas was on, not with Jonny wandering around and playing with everything he could get his fingers on.
    And if he was being honest, some of his guests in the living room were a little… unsettling.
    After that Saturday afternoon, he hadn’t expected Asher to show up again, not really. Five years without much of a word had felt like an eternity, even with the all-present Facebook keeping them in touch.
    But then a text message from nowhere - ‘can we meet up? I’ll buy us some beers -Ash.’
    And so they had met in a bar downtown, and, a little cautiously, renewed their friendship.
    There had been something different about Asher in that meeting, and not just the missing hand that Dan hadn’t dared ask about - something deep and dark, lurking beneath his eyes, a greater seriousness than he had ever seen before.
    “The daughter became the mother,” was all Asher would say about it, and laughed a little hollowly.
    Not that Dan himself had been fully present in the conversation. Since the day of the ‘earthquake’, nothing had been quite right in his mind. He could have sworn that he remembered witnessing a sanity-defying serpent rise up from the Hudson, serrated teeth like swords, black poisonous spines, mile-long coils spreading and wrapping themselves around the city, people screaming and dying as the world crumbled around them.
    But no one said a word about it - no one seemed to remember but him, and then only in the dark of night, when nightmares would find their way into his dreams.
    No, Dan hadn’t been himself for a while.