OUT OF HAND- CONFESSIONS

The murder of Dora Hand was notable at the time because of the juxtaposition of glamour and treachery in the Wild West's most famous cow-town. Until her death, Mrs. Hand was fairly unknown. Following blogs will explain what a bizarre and perplexing set of facts her story was, and how the identity of her killer has remained a mystery for 140 years. I can't tell you who killed Dora, but I am fairly confident it wasn't the man whose name has been thrown around by western historians for all of these years. ********************************************************************************************************** James Kenedy may have been a person of interest, and he paid dearly for that, but after the judge's inquiry, the wealthy young cattleman immediately went back to Texas a free man and left Dodge City with a huge question which was never satisfied. Truth be known, James Kenedy and his Texas cowboys were as smitten as any persons who knew Dora and heard her sing. And the cowboys- Kenedy's and many others, most of them raised in Texas, would have turned on Kenedy if he did anything to even harm a woman. To harm a woman- even a prostitute, was not tolerated. It was as serious a taboo as ever existed in Texas and most Southern states. A beautiful young singer would have been valued far more than herds of cattle. ******************************** *********************************************************************************************** Vigilante justice was swift and ruthless in those days... and when James Kenedy was exonerated and released after nearly being killed by the posse, and with loads of false witness and baseless assumptions being spread all over town... homespun "justice" would have been served outside of town by hanging him from a handy telegraph pole. Even the coroner's jury... which by the way was led by the same judge who ultimately refused to seek indictment, had published the certainty of the man's guilt. Plenty of Dodge City men would have been frustrated enough to hurt somebody. The trigger-happy lawmen who ambushed Kenedy were indicative of the sentiments of all. Dora had been "foully murdered" and somebody had to pay! ****************************** ************************************************************************************************ Had young Kenedy even smelled of guilt, the many visitors and townsmen in the wild town would never have allowed him to escape justice... and never allowed Dodge's legal authorities to crater to any kind of economic blackmail... and would probably have been incensed by the modern historian's assumption: tired and unsubstantiated accusations that Kenedy's father bought off the court... or perhaps threatened some kind of economic boycott of the town... One cattleman, the supposed father of a woman-killer, taking his cows elsewhere would never have been enough leverage to quell a whole town still swooning from their adoration of this budding starlet. A savage murder had to trump eco-development, even in Dodge. So the mystery enveloped the whole affair, which was fed as much by the ineptitude of the lawmen and the impotence of the system as it was by the question of the unidentified killer. Hollywood chose to ignore the facts of the case and proceeded to assume James Kenedy's guilt, and made him out to be a contemptable villain... which is what they often do. But in real life, Dodge City turned him loose to live his life as a de-facto scapegoat. **************************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** Writers have continuously ignored the political climate, which had to have played a significant role in the outcome. Western buffs and those who have fed their "conventional wisdom" have pervasively alleged that Dodge City "fathers" capitulated to the Kenedy family's power and influence- and chose to release a murderer rather than try him, for fear of the loss of a customer, or maybe several. This would have required that mostly Republican-leaning town leaders, many former Union soldiers, allied with other Northen-bred idealists residing in Dodge, willingly traded potential cattle revenues from Rebel Democrats; outlaws who notoriously ravaged their city, for a pristine young woman's life; Supposedly they abandoned their sovereignty and American Justice, and indulged high maintenance clients and totally corrupted their credibility with their own town. Men like Mayor Kelley, a former favorite scout for General George Armstrong Custer... fearless avengers like Masterson and Earp and Tilghman... all folded to ecomnomic pressure. If that happened, then I'll eat my Stetson. *************************** ********************************************************************************************** So the number one suspect was sent home, disgraced and crippled, and there apparently was no number two. It is my contention that the lawmen were not trying very hard, or smart- and there were plenty of possible suspects. So I present my prime suspect number one! ******************************************************************************************* ***********************************************************************************************

Dora had posted her divorce suit against her husband around Sept 24th in the Dodge newspaper, less than two weeks before she was shot dead. It seems nobody then made the assumptions made often by modern police of today; that most murders are committed by a close associate, if not a family member; That very often the murderer is actually the decedent's spouse. Local reporters and many writers since insisted that Dora Hand had "not an enemy in the world." Yet she had accused her husband of infidelity and left him and filed for divorce. And before the court could ever bring the two together for a divorce hearing, she was cold in the grave... well supposedly. And her hubby Theodore Hand went on with his life, no questions asked. *********************** ************************************************************************************* Well, maybe it's passed the time for some questions, but I will ask them anyway. Mysteries drive me crazy. Injustice drives me to do something! And the murder of Dora Hand was both. So let's ask Mr. Theodore Hand some questions! Bear with me, he is right here in my study, and has come a long way today so that we can all be satisfied, once and for all... I have gone through great trouble and expense to arrange this exclusive interview, and was only able to get it because, after 143 years, Mr. Hand has finally shouldered the burden of his guilt, and has tentatively consented to tell the truth... something he never did for the courts in Pennsylvania... ******************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************** “Mr. Hand, thank you for agreeing to do this interview. I hope your trip here was uneventful...” *********** ************************************************************************************** “Sure, no problem... glad to come. But I have no idea how this happened. I think I will have more questions than you do...” ************************************************************************************* “Really, like what?” **************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** “I realize that the world has changed... exponentially, I expected for there to be great wonders and inventions... everything sped up and people going every direction... and actually much of it has a familiar feel... I spent a great deal of my life in Philadelphia... It's obvious that women finally got the rights they wanted... so who raises the children? If women are earning wages, and infiltrating the work place, what do men do? They will never be able to compete! It will soon be like Lesbos...” ************************************************************************************************ “You are quite astute. And you are right, so this inquiry might take a long time... I had better go first. Mr. Hand you have been invited here because I think that you may have known, or even once been married to a woman Americans today know as 'Dora Hand.' She was a singer? ” ******************************************************************************************* *********************************************************************************************** “I see.” ***************************************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************** “So did you?” ************************************************************************************************ ********************************************************************************************** “Did I know her?” ********************************************************************************************* ********************************************************************************************** “Yes, Mr. Hand, please don't be coy... you are dead after all, and it does not matter...” ********************* ********************************************************************************************** “Maybe not to you..” ******************************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************** “Please just answer my questions... then I promise that you will get to ask some...” *************************** *********************************************************************************************** “Alright. I know where you are going with this... I tell you what, I will spill it all, if you will write it up and put it in the Harper's Weekly...” ********************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** “That would be impossible... but I will do my best to get it out there. Please Mr. Hand... Just start at the beginning, and I will take notes.” ************************************************************************************************ ************************************************************************************************ “Very well. Yes, I knew 'Dora.' That was really just a pet name of mine. When I met her I noticed how much we looked alike … and thought alike... I was Theodore... she was Theo-Dora. She seemed to like that. She called me 'Dore,' I called her 'Dora.' I met her while on a vacation excursion in Vermont, and it was love at first sight... She was brilliant... yes a singer, greatly loved by her community, and the school where she attended. She was performing at a local Chautauqua and billed as 'The Queen of Song.' ************************************************************************************************* So she was local sensation... and she was gorgeous, and so easy to talk to... but there were problems... ********* ************************************************************************************************** You see, I was already engaged to be married- to an old sweetheart in Philly. And Dora was still in a finishing school. She was studying music, even though none of her professors had her talent or her stage presence. I used to kid her that she would never leave Rutland, because they would have her in charge of the whole place by the time she graduated. She was dubbed there as the "Queen of Song." You see that I smile even now remembering those things. It was beautiful. Two handsome, healthy people in love. Before all of the troubles began to muck it up. ****************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************************************** I guess I began to have my doubts when I discovered that she had misled me about her age. Most of the young women at her school were in their teens... a few in their early twenties... Old maids, sort of on extended studies... I of course assumed that she was in that age bracket... and she certainly seemed young to me in the beginning...” ********************************* ************************************************************************************************** “But you found out differently?” *********************************************************************************** *************************************************************************************************** “Well, not exactly, not until much later on. Men see what they want to see. But the signs were there; her wisdom and vocabulary and musical talents were head and shoulders above all the others... it turned out that she was several years older than the oldest of the girls. And she was not really there to study... It was all very confusing, but she would never tell me what was going on... I figured out later that she must have been a sort of mole in the little college... perhaps to dig up scuttlebutt on one of the faculty members... sexual indiscretions, that kind of thing... There were rumors in the community about... well... some improper conduct... anyway... I eventually became paranoid that she might have been planted in my path... to spy on me! But I am getting ahead of myself. ************************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************************************** I was working my way up through the Philly financial world, working long hours, keeping books for several institutions... and eventually ended up as an assistant clerk for the county. One weekend while visiting Dora, we lost our minds and became engaged... We told no one. That was when she came clean and admitted that she was 24. She made up some story of having been sickly as a youth, and starting her finishing school late... I was infatuated with her and frankly would have believed anything. ************************************************************************************************** I spent my weeks with my nose in the books, but always thinking about her... and how I might lure her into going public... and starting our life together... but in order to do that, I had to release my Philly fiance... and that was a problem... when I found out that the job I presently had was because her father had pulled some strings... anticipating that we were to be married. One woman owned my love, one my career. ************************************************************************** *************************************************************************************************** Then I came up with the answer. You've seen Dora, a man would do anything for a catch like that. In order to go public, I first had to make enough money somehow so that I could afford to walk away from my county job. Then I could tell my fiance that I had found someone else... and then Dora and I could have a public wedding... and live happily ever... but it was not to be. *************************************************************************************************** So anyway I became a ruthless embezzler! It was much, much easier than I ever imagined. I was in a place where I could move around huge amounts of county tax dollars and not be detected... and I began to believe that I could get away with it... You see, many people payed with cash... all I had to do was dispose of our copies of their receipts... make receipts for lesser amounts... call them installments... it would be a year or maybe more before they would discover that many tax revenues were never recorded. Others, less common, large corporate cash payments I recorded, but I slipped myself a stack of $100 bills at every opportunity... And since I was the one who tabulated everything at the end of each day, all I had to do was enter the exact amount which would be deposited. Some full payments were entered as "partial installments," to avoid detection. Auditing and discovering such theft is time-consuming and expensive, and the county would not do it every year. With any luck, they might not audit our books for years. And I would be in California by then. **************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************ I never told Dora what I was doing. I did not want her to know... she was religious and so naive, and I wanted her to stay that way. Eventually some co-workers caught on to my scheme, but I was able to persuade them to give me time to correct the books... and then after I could not, I had to share the proceeds or they would turn me in... This must have been around 1876. I had been stashing large amounts of cash for almost two years. *********************************************************** ************************************************************************************************ But it was not long until I was working more just to pay off my co-worker-EXTORTIONISTS, as they taunted me about how they would take care of my fiance while I was in prison... The JACKALS! I had to embezzle three times as much now to realize my own scheme... and stay out of trouble. ********************************************************************************* ************************************************************************************************* Dora was about to graduate in another year, and she was talking about moving west. She wanted us to start out somewhere fresh and without any social stigmas... since a public wedding was getting less and less likely. I never explained why we could not... and she was very amiable... very trusting... It was about then that I realized that I needed to protect myself... and I hinted that we should go ahead and get married. She seemed agreeable. I needed to test her loyalty. She needed to know what I was doing, so that she would understand how and why I was approaching our marriage like I was. And I almost pulled it off... I planned to quit and bolt with Dora as soon as she could leave Rutland, which was in June of '78... but that March... of '77, my supervisor approached me about some inconsistencies in my tabulations.********************************************************** ***************************************************************************************************

He had discovered around $12,000 missing. I apologized profusely and promised that it was just an error... but eventually they had me. It was... it was horrific. Everything came apart. They quickly raised the figure to $18,000, then $50,000.00. I knew it was many times that much. But by then I had a new scheme... I decided to take my licking... but turn in my blackmailers... and say they made me do it... and that they now had the lion's share of the money. I could stash my cash away... do my time... and then Dora and I could live like lords. ******************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************************** At that point, I wanted to be in prison, out of reach of my co-workers, and in touch with authorities as a State's witness. The state would protect me, and gather evidence against my co-workers, and fry them hotter than me! Since they were in on it, and knew of my dealings, and were low class individuals, the state would nail them to the wall, and I would get off light. I went to Dora and kind of forced her to marry me... she was about to know too much, and if we were married, she would not be elligible to testify in court against me. I got a Justice of the Peace in Rutland to unite us... ************************************** **************************************************************************************************************

Then, on our honeymoon, which was quite extravagant, I told Dora everything... I had after all, done it all for her. If anything, I, in my mind, had proved my devotion... the honeymoon was just a taste of our life together once my legal problems were over. All I wanted was for her to stand by me... and it would all be worth it... there was just a delay... maybe a few years. And one well worth the sacrifice. And Dora could have had a n y t h i n g in the world that she ever wanted... **************** *************************************************************************************************** Needless to say... you can imagine... I had misjudged her. She did not react in any way that I had hoped. No... she was suddenly a different person. She said she never knew me.. and I sure never knew her. She turned on me like a viper... became incorrigible. So much so that I began to suspect that she was somehow working with the police. After I told her everything, she told me to go away and to never see her again... As if our marriage meant nothing to her. I had never witnessed such... disloyalty... and I was … I was stunned, broken-hearted. I had done so much, trying to create a life for the both of us... and now she treated me like a criminal! ************************************************************************************************************ ****************************************************************************************************** And maybe I was... but a wife should stand ber husband, no matter what.

Soon after our falling out, I was in jail... and then the trial... for embezzling $50,000. So much of the revenues which I stole were never recorded, they could not ever reconstruct how much was gone. I told the District Attorney that my co-workers had stolen much more than they knew, and how. The more they discovered, the more they blamed my blackmailers... and I began to be very useful to them. To make sure that the authorities believed me, I had a man stash $100,000.00 under one of my co-worker's houses. And I twiddled my thumbs while they spewed like fat in the fire. It was a blame game, and I won. ********************* ******************************************************************************************************* I wrote Dora, and begged her to reconsider. But she was resolute. About that time the D.A. found out about her, probably snooping in my mail... I'm not sure, but my letter and my terms may have made her angry... and she may have gone to the prosecutor as far as I know. And I was afraid at that point... With what I had told her, she could blow the whole thing to kingdom come. My lawyer told me that she had offered to testify, but she could not because … alas... she was my wife... But it became obvious later that she set out to change that before they tried my former co-workers, who were now ready to kill me. I had a friend who had been running interference for me... and not cheaply, who agreed to talk to her... I should say rattle her bones... and convince her to back off... and to go west as she had dreamed and never look back, but for God's sake not to talk to the police. I paid him $500.00. That was in May of '78. ********************************************************************************************* **************************************************************************************************** He acted like a family member at her graduation that June and got her off in a corner and told her how the cow ate the cabbage. She left for St Louis the next week. I can''t tell you how relieved I was. But he must have scared Dora... because she changed her name... took the name of one of her classmates... I understand it was also the name of a riverboat on the Mississippi... She called herself Fannie Keenan and got jobs singing in St Louis beer gardens for cheap. It was good riddance as far as I was concerned... But her real motive was to get out of my reach. She did not know, that a man with the kind of funds I had could track down anyone. But I did not have to. She made the mistake of advertising where she was.

By the time she got to Dodge City, Kansas, she was ready to go public... and she filed for divorce... when nobody except a few people even knew we were married. But it was to my benefit, because now I knew where she was. Divorce was her only ace and she played it. She was out to destroy my credibilty when I testified against my co-workers. She and the prosecution knew it would not reflect good on me as people were testifying in court about my various dealings... and then I realized... IF she got that divorce? They might be able to put her on the stand. ************************************************************* ************************************************************************************************

Dora was now a threat to my freedom... and my nest egg. And it was a big one... a couple of million dollars. If she did not want it, fine, but she was not going to cheat me out of it. I had it all set up... the prosecutors were meeting with me weekly in prison to get names and check out my story, which was causing a great political scandal all over Philadephia! Her filing for divorce would be like a Roman candle going off... so time was now my enemy... the D. A. would subpoena her... as soon as the divorce was final... they might even get the trials postponed... and then she would testify and ruin my scam and what was left of my life. I had until the end of October... to respond to her suit. She had fired the first shot, but I would answer with hellfire. ****************************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** I paid two thugs from Scranton to find her... and... well... you know... arrange our “divorce.” $1500.00 they cost me, but that was better than paying alimony all of my life. Or spending my life in prison! I hated it, but she had made her choice. She was moving around a lot.. I guess she knew she was being followed. She had taken up with some old army scout... the mayor of Dodge or some such... anyway my men finally caught up with her... They told me later that they saw her sing at a flashy dive... then followed her home that night after her performance, and came into the shack around 1:00 in the morning, and put a bullet in her back while she brushed her hair on her bed. They were gathering their horses for a long ride to Hays City at the livery stable, when they began to wonder if she was dead. They knew they would not get the other half of their money if she lived. So they went back! It still makes me laugh. Never send a boy to do a man's job. ********************************************** ********************************************************************************************** You've heard of a comedy of errors? This was that... and a comedy of terrors! My two fumblefingers got back to the mayor's bungalow about 3:30 and, wouldn't you know, somebody else was in the front of the house. Moving around... they said they thought it might be another woman... Later I learned it was another entertainer who had just come in. If she was to discover Dora's body, before they could leave, they would have the law down on them in strange, open country. That made their escape much tougher. They needed time to hop on a train... So she had to die too. These men do not take chances... Anyway they decided to try to get her to open the door, and then quietly slit her throat. I'm telling you, these were bad men...

I know. ******************************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** It's gruesome... but they were not about to let a couple of whores spoil their big prize... so they rode up and tried to get the second woman to open up... pretending to be customers... Johns you know... and she told 'em to go to hell! So they tried to shoot her through the door... and I think she shot back at them... and they finally decided to get out of Dodge! Learned later that Dora was in fact dead... **************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************* What a waste. *************************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************* And that was the worst of it. In a couple more years, after actual millions of dollars were discovered missing, the prosecutors again went after a bunch more of my former co-workers... and the trial went well... several of my co-workers were convicted... of course the money was never recovered... they had no idea where it was! And I was released by 1881... as they were being sentenced. I married my old fiance... she never knew about Dora. Even got a job again as a bank-teller... Lived rich and happy... kids, big house... every once in awhile I thought about Dora... my first wife... my first true love... But I regretted ever meeting her... A beautiful woman like that can make you do crazy things... ************************************** ************************************************************************************************* So... does that answer your questions?” ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************************************* “Well... not all of them. How did you live with yourself? It seems like you are a regular sort of guy... intelligent...” ************************************************************************************************** “Well... thank you, but I am not. I got away with over 2 Million bucks! For just four years in the pen... Not too shabby for a 'regular guy,' wouldn't you say? And while other despicable, low-life bastards paid most of the price! I learned early in life, that nothing in life comes free... there is always some kind of sacrifice necessary. And I promised myself, since there is only one life, that somebody else was going to make that sacrifice... I just never would have thought it would have been Dora. *************************************************************************************************** The prosecution totally changed their tune when she was killed... figured it was their bad luck I guess... suddenly I had all the leverage, and they took care of me... got me out on good behavior. Of course, I had to grease a few wheels... you would be surprised what $500.00 here and there would buy you in good old Pennsylvania... Anyway after I was released, a new prosecutor went back and figured out the real theft... stirred it all up again, tried to rattle my cage... but I had already been tried for the crime... and done my time. No matter which funds they thought they identified as stolen... those would be the ones I had been sent to prison for. You can't be tried twice for the same crime. It wasn't my fault that they did not know just how big it was!

And Dora? They never even suspected. Wyatt Earp shot some poor cowboy... it was a circus out there. Those big cowboys strutting around like they were in charge, 'keeping the peace.' They were clowns, all of them. And once Dora was dead, then they made some kind of fallen angel out of her. And I guess she kind of was. But disloyalty is a despicable thing... and self-righteousness... her fragile bubble was bound to get popped. And for two million dollars, well I had to be the one...” ************ ********************************************************************************************** That's about the size of it..." *********************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************** “So you call that a confession? Sounds more like you are bragging, Theo.” ****************************************** ************************************************************************************************* “You asked... I'm just telling it like it was. No good to be sorry now. Whatever happened, happened.” *************** ************************************************************************************************ I hated at this point to talk with Theo any further. I had heard enough. But I had promised to answer some of his questions... and I was still trying to measure the spirit's conscience. *********************************************************** ************************************************************************************************ “So what else did you want to ask me, the sole representative of the Twenty-First Century?” ************************** ************************************************************************************************* “So did they finally prove Charles Darwin's theories of Evolution? You know, everything came from some kind of spontaneous, serendipitous accident in the ocean... or someplace?” *********************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** “Uhm... No, they are still working on that. They cannot find any links between the various phylums... nothing in the fossil record at least, to prove everything evolved from a predecessor all the way back to an amoeba... But most of Modern Science, including Medicine, is built on the assumption that he was more or less correct.” ******************************* *********************************************************************************************** “Hmmmmm.... that is surprising... many of us so-called intellectuals back then were banking on his theory... since it explained the world and everything in it... without a god to make it... **************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** No god, no heaven or hell, no right or wrong... just animals living out an existence, dog eat dog... we were betting on his explanation... it sure made what I did a lot easier... *************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************* So what religion proved to be the right one... you know, if God is real?” ***************************************** ************************************************************************************************* At this point I am choking... mentally and physically, talking to a spirit fresh from an eternal separation from a God he chose not to know. And I already hated the words I was forming in my mouth... “Most religions today are kind of like Modern Science... struggling with lots of man made theories... not one has emerged omnipotent. As far as Darwin, some Christian theologians argue for a Creator simply because of what they call “Intelligent Design”; Complexities, patterns and inter-relationships within Nature which defy accidental mutations, especially millions of them. They say it takes more faith to believe that it all happened by accident... and within a process which scientists still cannot identify, much less duplicate.” ************************************************************************* *********************************************************************************************** He was ready to discussss it though... intellectuals, even dead ones love to argue. “The old butterfly and caterpillar thing... To me it was simple. If there was God... you know, a good, caring, loving god? He would never have allowed me to do all the things I did... he would have struck me with lightning or something! I did everything I knew that could infuriate a supposed god, and he never raised his hand. I decided it must not have been there.” ***** ************************************************************************************************ [I am incredulous, now anxious to break it off.] “So your being here now... talking to me... proving that there is something after life on earth... some kind of life after death... does that not leave you a little curious... about how you might have been wrong?” **************************************************************************************** *************************************************************************************************** Theo Hand sits and appears in deep thought for a bit... and then he smiles... wickedly... “Yeah... that is kind of amazing... spectacular really. So you are suggesting that because I am a spirit-person... that proves I was wrong about the whole shooting match?”************************************************************************************************************ ***************************************************************************************************** “Well?” [Is all I can say... it seems obvious to me. But people, even spirits, don't give up their theories easily.] **** **************************************************************************************************** “We used to pose questions, like, how do we know what is real? Maybe everything is inside of our minds... and none of us are actually even here. So if there was a god, all he did was fill a bunch of ghosts with hallucinations! It's all nothing... means nothing... whatever you did, how ever you lived, it's all in your head anyway... It's no loss one way or the other. If I was wrong... I had one helluva good time. If life was a game, I won. If it is just a stage, like Shakespeare said, then I starred in my own drama... And if it was just a product of my imagination, then nobody was hurt!” ******************************* ****************************************************************************************************** “But if it is, after all, a test of your soul... for an Eternal destination?” [I feel here that I have pinned him to the wall] ****************************************************************************************************** “Yeah... well, it's too late to think about that. When I get to Hell, I'll find Dora and we will have a couple of beers and I'll explain it all to her... maybe she is not mad at me anymore... and I will apologize I guess...” ********************** ***************************************************************************************************** [I am tired of this narcissistic sociopath... I begin to worry that he might hang around for eternity... I have to get rid of the pompous Purgatorian. Suddenly I am ready to insult him, whatever it takes: “That may be what Hell is for you Theo... sitting on a bar-stool in outer-space for eternity, apologizing forever to an angel you have murdered, and no matter how many times you say it... it will not matter, and you will still be in hell. But in the end you will finally be right, because nothing you do at that point will matter..” ************************************************************************************************ ************************************************************************************************ “So... then why am I here? Why have I been brought back to hash this all over one more time...?” ******************** ************************************************************************************************* “I do not know... but I know that God will not bar any soul unjustly from his presence for eternity... Maybe He was letting you reveal your heart after your soul had some down-time... so that He and everyone in Heaven will be satisfied that you... had.... every.... chance.... to fathom your evils and seek a Savior.” ********************************************************** ************************************************************************************************** “I told you the truth... What else does HE want? *********************************************************************** *************************************************************************************************** Savior? I was raised on the streets and learned to take care of myself, I always had a plan, and I made sure that I always had a back door. Religion is for the weak and the pathetic. If HE was so interested in my soul... why am I just now hearing about it? Why didn't he STRIKE ME WITH LIGHTNING?” ***************************************************************************** **************************************************************************************************** “Earth would be a pretty crazy place if God struck everyone with lightning every time they needed it...” [I cannot believe I am arguing with a spirit... or that God needs me to defend him.] ******************************************************** ****************************************************************************************************** “Yeah... that's pretty funny. But I sure could have used it.” ******************************************************** ****************************************************************************************************** “You ask a lot from a God whom you doubt even exists. You see, in the end, everybody gets what they wanted. You doubted God, His authority- even His existence... You did as you pleased, lived comfortably with "dog eat dog." It was the world you chose. You chose a certain world, every day you wove the tapestry of your life upon the assumptions which best served your view of the world and life. You did not want God. But He was there, offering his hand the whole time... but you never wanted it. And He will not force you to hold it now.” **************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************** “So.... those who seek god...” ************************************************************************************* ************************************************************************************************** “Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you...” *********************************************** *************************************************************************************************** “Sounds familiar... So people who want God... He wants. That's fair... But that's just a construction inside of your imagination... You can't prove any of it.” **************************************************************************** *************************************************************************************************** “I don't have to... God has proved Himself by the incredible world around you. Can you fathom the absurdity of a vicious creature like yourself demanding proof from the Pure, Righteous Creator of the Universe? It's pointless to reason with a lost soul... but I said I would try to answer some of your questions... You need to go... on to where ever, whatever it is you came from... You have taught me much... in your own way. And thank you for being truthful.” ********************************************* ************************************************************************************************** "It was WEIRD! Interesting actually... kind of freeing..." Theo Hand hears his own words and thinks of his prison of death and a strange emotion fills him. It is the last gasp of a long-neglected conscience. He stands alone... disappearing, not wanting to let go, and looking like a scared kid left out in a storm. “I know it is silly... but I thought maybe I would get to see Dora... just one more time...” *************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** [Before I can answer, he is gone. Just as well, I have no idea what to say...] ********************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** That was a never-before explained blast from the past... Theodore Hand's out of hand story... a confession without contrition. Now I wonder if we can get Dora for the next blog? Maybe she would like to share her angle on the mystery of Dora Hand.