A report on whacky Sarah

Here be the first draft of the report on a person who shall be here referred to how they called themself, for we have no evidence nor a good reason to substantiate why we shouldn't call them "Sarah". The report is commissioned by the Carnival-Master, whom requires this documentation on the unfortunately deceased Sarah and their role in saving the entire carnival from assured disaster. Praise be to God, guiding them to do the unimaginable heroics. O serene Sarah, how we can only honor thou with burial and this report. May thou rest in peace and find thy true desires up there, and forgive us for failing thee.

So begins the report on Sarah, proclaiming nothing but reporting what we could gleam from the scene and from the key witnesses.

Twenty-four hours ago, at "Larkeyvalley Woods" park by the outskirts of Canterbury, was first spotted our whacky Sarah doing their usual walk. Though not a singer, they mused on whatever psalm or poem they read in a library or heard along the way. Like always, the forest caretakers would soon spot and hear our modest Sarah on her daily walks. It has been routine for them to take breaks upon our soon-to-be-reported Sarah singing their way to work. Some of the workers had mused that Sarah is a witch for how often Sarah's clothes were more dirtied with branches and leaves while still looking pristine and unfazed. Albeit such silly belief exists not amongst the clergy of the Mother Church – that witches have real power or whatever – and we send many a priest to calmly disintegrate the harmful superstition, the inquisition had to educate the forest caretakers on the theological implausibility of witchcraft. While the rumor ceased with them – albeit it regrettably stays as a joke amongst themselves – and it shall spread no further than themselves. But, we do have at least one testimony from these caretakers on Sarah:

"Sarah, Sarah. Like the birds that tweet and chirp about, providing beats worth not disturbing! Poor Sarah, how we wish they could still be among us. Dead Sarah, we called you a witch, but all you did was bewitch our hearts – craving a joy we must now depart from as you now depart to greater things! Albeit we won't have to clean up your mighty march whenever you do cut a straight line through the forest, it was what brought us to seeing new things in a forest over-explored and treated by us!"

Where everything else is heresay and indefencible rumors, least of which includes Sarah impossibly summoning the behemoth "Lockness" up in the north, for which we shall just move onto the next place that makes sense to investigate – their workplace. Sarah was working, when they were alive, their regular routine at the rubbage-sorting site. As the proficient prole they were in sorting, they usually found themselves leaving early before high noon. Or so says the union-leader who has been weeping along with her co-workers for the past hour to us. The union-leader, and so this report quotes, says:

"Our joyful light in the darkest of storms, our fool in the grimdark, our helping hand for our weary bones, our divine stand-in in the face of hellish fights against the luddites and thuggish arms bought by a still upset boss that lost legally against our court case with him! They, our now resting Sarah, have done a lot to help us grow and they – in return – grew from our collective struggles. H***, I as a union-leader learned that a joyous tone and an iron will are sometimes needed to survive the most troubling tempests and harassing heats . . . Sarah, what more can we praise of you, our laboring hero, than what we have failed to fully do? May the Almighty bless thee to tread and sing serenely next to Them, and be the saint and advocate of the working masses up in Heaven!"

Going from their unionized workplace to the church of Canterbury, some shop-keeps and vagabonds do swear that this was always Sarah's pitstop after work regardless of how hungry or truly tired they themself were. Usually midday mass was their preferred time of being serviced by the church of Canterbury, and neither the father nor the deacons reported anything out of the ordinary of their daily parishioner on this day. As expected, like the rest of Mass possessed by their ever-challenged and ever-challenging convictions, they did what all parishioners do and without failure. Although, it is reported by the father of this church, Sarah requested to voluntary step down as choir-leader – a position they filled excellently and were abdicating many choirists claim! Here we must trust the father's word with some grains of salt, for we have no one else to counter-check his proclamation of the events:

"My beautiful Sarah, my heart suffered a striking stroke when they requested to abdicate their role! And here I was thinking I could land them with leading Canterbury's competitive choir, but then they pull the proverbial rug under my feet! Whether a divine sign that was instructing me in my hubris or a human accident that whipped me – mentally – just as hard, I must say I am still repenting for my mean-spirited follies though I did reluctantly agree to relinquish their role. I sarcastically suggested to them to go to the local carnival hosted yesterday night, they stuttered a bit; then I felt divinely possessed and dropped my sarcasm, urging them that to have some fun and perhaps it'll change their mind on abdicating their choir-leader role. They quivered a shy response that they hadn't gone to one in many years, saying further of people who clearly failed to be good parents towards this true follower of the Lord! . . . Whom I can proclaim shall sit in the high heavens, observing us all from above! . . . Now while I don't advocate for heroics lest divinely possessed, Sarah's heroism truly saved us all while they became our martyr against recklessness and death."

It is further reported by other parishioners that they left Mass yesterday with a determined smile, taking a winding but quick path to the Carnival. And through you, the Carnival-Master, we find out that after the midday mass did Sarah travel to the Carnival directly – being on top of a tower surely does make it easy to scope and coordinate things. Dry laughs aside, you – Carnival-Master – report further to us that you saw them directly exploring the festival construction areas and sent guards to oversee and keep Sarah safe. Albeit we all know the incident would occur later, we hypothesize that they must have learnt the essential landmarks and pathing through their curiosity of the festival grounds. So much so that one of your security guards corroborates the hypothesis:

"Since I was the speedier of the two, I spotted and got to them before the more armored-chestnut battle-buddy caught-up with me. And like a scout, eagerly eavesdropped on what they were saying. Like a festival-minister inspecting the Carnival's very wholeness, I almost mistakenly thought that the Carnival-Master was a doofus to mistake the festival-minister for any curious-cat creeping carelessly! But then my nutty armored-mate-in-arms rolls himself, of which I had to plunge to stop him from making a miscalculated move in these steep alleyways. That's when they heard us, seeing us stacked upon each other; pulling out some real rum, they poured that sweet liquid to our alcohol-less lips. After the pain was numbed could we only erect ourselves and finally confront the curious-cat, and well I should let my partner speak since the rum hit me real hard for the small amount they poured down my mouth-hole."

Giving us a general direction to where his battle-brother was, we then took it upon ourselves to scale the debris and rummage that one of your security guards, O Carnival-Master, was all too frightened to be upon. Finally being with ear-distance of the over-armored ball of steel, we can only say that he was balling his eyes out and it rusted his hand and leg-plating to a fine dust-brown. Albeit we couldn't at first get to him, we did chose to write this down:

"Oh you, a human-borne guardian angel that flowed like a leaf in the breeze! Wackily did you traverse through fire like a daredevil, hustling to save those trapped bodies! Perhaps you were scared like me, but your heart of courage overcame and consumed the hopelessness gnawing away at you. Maybe if I wasn't afraid and took the pains like you, I could have shown to both of us that our hopelessnesses was truly defeated by our newly reinvigorated courages. Did you chose to risk yourself because you couldn't stand the possibility that you probably have bloodied ashes on your hands if you saved them not? Do pray answer with the Divine Silence that penetrates all of our ears now, since I now know how evil I was and the worm of consciousness gnaws at me for all the guilt that shame me for my vices that night!"

Albeit the report is not about us, it would be a lie and an ill-reporting if we excluded the emotions of others and of ourselves. And we would be double lying if we didn't say we wept, especially when the baritone guard song his depressive ode to Sarah! However, we trudged on with our difficult work and climbed further up the pile of rubble. But then we had gotten interrupted by an inquisitor at the bottom of the debris pile who yelled for us:

"Inquisitors hired by the Carnival-Master, let him mourn. He already told me all that is needed to know, I'm sure you can understand that the two gay guards want nothing more than to be at peace now. Hither, I shall pray report what I know and what can aide ye both in both of yours journey . . . So says that knight on the rubble that they told Sarah to be careful about these parts, fearing for their safety and all that. I was told further by that same knight that they both didn't see Sarah until the hour of the incident and the fleeing crowds. Supposedly a fire-dæmon crept up from an unsecured torch and torched any cloth it could fine, supposedly further they both heard from the fleeing crowds that Sarah was fighting this fire-dæmon with only a bucket of water and a think blanket. Hurling the water at the fire-dæmon, they stunned it successfully but couldn't catch-up in time to suffocate the air that the fire-dæmon relied upon. The fire-dæmon then shot into the sky and exploded like a fireworks, spreading and sowing more wildfires in this zone of ashes and rubble! That knight also says from other people fleeing – whom also claimed to have been saved by Sara – that Sarah then took it upon themself to haul all those trapped from these smoky and burning buildings. The descriptions of Sarah's appearance vary all throughout the night, but the general chronology can be figured that over time they appeared more charred and possessed less bodily-strength to handle trapped victims of this unholy fire terrorizing us all . . . Come inquisitors, I shall lead ye both to some of the survivors and let them speak for themselves about our dear Sarah, before and during the grievous incident."

With no alternatives nor reasonable doubt, we followed with haste and stumbled into the field hospital that still is working as we write this report. Being brought into the tent, the inquisitor kissed our cheeks and headed off to inquire with other survivors to ascertain more clues and anecdotes of Sarah's actions before their very death. Seeing how the people were sitting and being treated, we correctly assumed they were arranged in the order of how Sarah's condition deteriorated as their heroics grew bolder. Talking to the first survivor, we inquired on the pre-incident appearance of Sarah and she answered as faithfully as she could:

"Sarah, Sarah. I actually used to work with Sarah in the rubbage-sorting site, well before the site was unionized; I had to quit due to my many, many years working there to only break my back without decent pay. Of course, the union gave me a pension to help recover and stay afloat between work; while I was with Sarah, they really made the union better and easier than what it was five years ago. Now, of course, I must talk about last night . . . oh my poor Sarah am I sorry you had to go this way . . . Okay, time to speak. So, I saw Sarah shyly stumbling to the central plaza; had a cute dress, very spring-like. Oh how I loved their tight embrace, as if we never separated each other despite our two separate labors at the time. We walked, albeit they was still reluctant to be seen by anyone; I shouldered them in the hips, joking that maybe I should hook them up. They blushed a rosy red, and I grinned like a mischievous gremlin! They balked my smile, verbally smiting my grin with something like: 'and what next: yer gonna kiss me?' And did my pecker touch theirs, oh did she blew steam through those ears as they yelled: 'yer lucky I still love yah, siostra! Me fury woulda buried yah, especially because metastes that white chocolate lips of yers – y'know mehates that type of chocolate, but damn do meloves it when y'peckingly try to infuriate me. Meet me back in my place, I'll show y'what a real pecking is!' Then their fingers held my head in place as they smooched me, ah! They winked as they stormed off, but that was the last I saw of them was way later . . . yes, they saved me and a few other drinkers by telling us to use the back-exit that they opened up."

With those last words, she peacefully rested on her medical bed. Moving to the next few survivors, all of them could only describe Sarah's appearance as getting charcoal-y without a specific action in mind except carrying them all from their deathly spots. It was the fifth one that had something to say, since the ones right after him were already asleep or still recovering. Sitting in front of him, he recounted his experiences:

"I'm the flame-jester and someone set me up so as to cover their murderous tracks against Sarah! Now I know little of Sarah, indeed I was hired the next county over! The one time I saw Sarah before the Carnival was initiated was when they stumbled into the pub, flipping a coin perfectly into the pub boss's hand. Sitting next to me, looks like they got roughened or whatever. Nice outfit, but someone smeared the makeup. Yet I thought nothing more, we probably had a chat but I was a wee bit too drunk and probably spoke gibberish. Though I do remember them saying they hated the spotlight and I ask innocently: 'why so?' They rambled on but recapitulated with a 'because that reminds me of where I used to be'. I stupidly pressed on, but they budged forth: 'forced to do everything perfectly, my life measured by the amount of applause I get'. I felt that, so I said my sorrows and pushed a coin their way; they pushed it back, saying: 'næ anyone's fault here, 'tis cause they thought I was just a fool like y'all – when really I was just stumbling like a knave, moving about like me eyes where gone . . . at least people really smiled here, no strings attached'. That sliced so sharply . . . I indeed will probably be one of the few survivors to recount a pre-incident them, and did they look so determined to quell the fire-dæmon in the first few moments of its existence. I don't know where I was when everything around me was burning, but I know it wasn't the stage I was just on a forced concussion ago! Yet there they were, charging like a boldly brave bull into the burning wood in front of me! For the few moments they wheezed pure carbon from their lungs, I saw how seared they were getting. And yet they throw me over their back when they spotted me, unfazed by the clear deterioration had they sprinted away from the chaos without taking a break! They chucked me to the baritone-sounding knight over a wide trench of fire, but I passed out after being caught because I still was suffering from that suffocatingly fire-filled air. The rest is history for that night, I cannot say anymore than this fair inquisitors."

And while there are many things to unpack what the fire-jester had said and many more people to inquire with to corroborate the fire-jester's words, we have mainly been writing under the field hospital's roof for a good few hours. While people did come in-and-out to provide some snippets like how Sarah was a bit drunk and getting lost, others saying they played some of the Carnival's games with adults and kids, others mentioning how Sarah noticeably looped around for a quarter-hour before someone asked them if they wanted directions and so forth, it was easier this way to condense all their anecdotes to this short sentence. What's fascinating is the anecdotes points to Sarah being constantly confused with the street-pathing, but then miraculously knowing the road-layout perfectly to save all these victims. Perhaps there were copycats, maybe not. However, the report is on Sarah. And as far as we care: the more helpers there were, the more merrier it was for all of us.

In conclusion: despite this being the first draft of the report, you can be satisfied, o Carnival-Master, that Sarah was indeed a hero that night and deserves the praise they are getting.

Signed,

The Canterbury Locale of Rome's Inquisition