tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60799828098082771432024-02-19T00:42:06.257-06:00the bandit's postUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-49641259909548262402018-04-01T22:00:00.000-05:002018-04-01T22:00:52.241-05:00Antique RestorationAs sand continues down the funneled glass<br />
And buries all beneath its steady flow,<br />
It drowns all memories good, and ill regrets,<br />
And grinds them down to barest grain below<br />
The sticky stains we've slathered on to seal<br />
Mistakes into the past—leaving<br />
Naked wood to build upon anew.<br />
<br />
How can I make disjointed thoughts align<br />
To craft a message whose conflicting parts<br />
Share only good intent—no sense malign<br />
Nor promise false or strangled hope on either<br />
Side? I spy no way to cross this span:<br />
No words, no plan, no scheme, no possibility<br />
Of love returned, no friendship (weak<br />
And insufficient by contrasting weights—<br />
So torture, truly, would it be, since there's)<br />
No hopes, no trust, no dreams, no honored path,<br />
No malice, no revenge, pretense nor pride<br />
Nor anger, wisdom nor advice...all's stripped<br />
To rawest element, left vulnerable,<br />
Naked, and exposed.<br />
<br />
How glorious a sentiment to share...except for un-<br />
Requited heart's exposure's just as awkward and<br />
Indecent exhibitionism as perverted bodily display!<br />
And nothing's span can cover it; but love.<br />
<br />
This ill-directed passion! How can nonfecund<br />
Emotion thrive so potently?<br />
What use this endless spring, with no one t'give<br />
Its drink? What purpose suits its purity,<br />
If poison 'tis to me? Its quandary leaves<br />
Me thirsting dry with nought to staunch its flow.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-25557888386301999882015-08-21T20:51:00.000-05:002015-08-21T20:51:41.781-05:00War from Gloam GrowsWar from gloam does grow, doom from deep.<br />
At the edge of daylight, darkness creeps.<br />
White Lady shines when’s time to sleep.<br />
On down on ground forever lie<br />
Beneath the light of bright forever sky.<br />
<br />
Ago, ago, began the flow of power<br />
And strength: opposed in dusk an’ opposed in dawn.<br />
And thence that eddying, estuarial bower<br />
All earthly life did spawn and flower.<br />
Yet, mixed betwixt the beats of blood and breaths,<br />
‘Twas also the birth of diametric strife<br />
Created through inherent frictions’ depths<br />
In balancing and driving life with death.<br />
So up through those ebullient waters sneak<br />
Tentacles, occluding with elation<br />
To snuff the spark in inky darkness’ beak<br />
And deep aphotic devastation wreak.<br />
<br />
War from gloam does grow, thinkest not<br />
Vorpa’s disrobing matters aught.<br />
White Lady cools what burns too hot,<br />
An’ tamed in flame forever vie<br />
Beside the lights of bright forever sky.<br />
<br />
On up, on up, come bubbling tears of earths;<br />
Then down, then down, they pour forever lower<br />
Together, seeking more and more ‘til curse<br />
Of drowning deaths does froth and roar—a hearse<br />
Borne swiftly out to sea. Yet warmth does rise,<br />
Out of drowning depths, the resonating dew,<br />
Which waters life upon all life from skies<br />
A-dimmed by seeming gloam, a rude disguise—<br />
Or ‘haps a truth revealed by lack of Sol.<br />
Too much of one, too little the other, takes<br />
The same in course whichever source: control.<br />
Beware, it’s bits of both that makes us whole.<br />
<br />
Soul from Sol does glow, hope from strength.<br />
Forever’s measured in moral lengths.<br />
White Lady comes to forge the links<br />
Of He of She forever tied,<br />
Become the lights of bright forever sky.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-31366188861379419922015-03-12T09:11:00.003-05:002015-03-12T09:11:56.929-05:00SkazkaThere once was a young man just grown, who was neither ugly nor handsome but just so, neither thin nor fat but just so, neither weak nor strong but just so, and neither meek nor bold but just so. His father, a merchant-man, died and left him a small fortune. Now, he and his father had lived shrewdly to build up that inheritance, and the young man said to himself, "Why should I go on and suffer now that I am alone in the world?"<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So he set about to spending his money on fancy clothes in which to strut about town, lavish things by which to live comfortably, beautiful horses on which to ride about the country side, and warm drinks under which to revel and carouse. Soon he found himself friend of all in the town and welcome wheresoever he traveled in the kingdom. He bought fine jewelry and dresses for beautiful girls who strolled about town on his arm, laughed and lounged with him in his comfortable house, shrieked and whooped upon horseback in the country, and blushed and leaned in close to him in the cool evenings. He even kept company with the Princess herself on occasion, and gave to her a cottage in the woods.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And so he enjoyed himself for quite some time, for his father had been as shrewd and prudent a steward as the son was not. After many years, however, the man -- who was no longer young -- had spent all to the last copper coin. Without his purchase of flowing beer and wine, his friends no longer came round to make merry with him. Without his purchase of sparkling jewels and gifts, the lovely maidens no longer paid any mind to him. And without his patronage of their wares, the merchants and artisans no longer tipped their hat when they passed him on the street.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So the man knew that it had come time to make something of himself in the world. He sold his comfortable house, used the money to pay part of his debt for the cottage he had gifted to the Princess (who had been married to a Prince in another country), and bought himself a single-room shack which did little to keep out the winter's cold. Then he rattled the doors of all the shops he had once patroned, looking for work. Yet he had learned no useful skills in his years of merrymaking, and time had made him more ugly than handsome enough for barking, more weak than strong enough for hard labor, more fat than thin enough for royal service, and more meek than bold enough to press on in his search.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the same town there lived a woman the same age, who was also neither ugly nor beautiful but just so, neither thin nor fat but just so, neither flat nor buxom but just so, and neither shrewish nor pleasant but just so. Her parents had been poor and left her no dowry. She set about to find herself a husband in the town, but none could be interested in the prospect. "Wait some more and some man will come along," said the townspeople. And though she waited for a man to make her his wife, year after year they passed over her for others. In the meantime, the woman, whose name was Skazka, dedicated herself to acquiring skill in cooking, cleaning, spinning, and weaving, through which she made a living and built up a dowry on her own.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now the man cast his eye about town and it fell on Skazka for the first time. "Ah," he said to himself, "Here is a fine lass with which to be serious, and grow old pleasantly." And so he set about wooing the woman, in hopes that she would marry him. But he bought her no fine jewelry or wedding gown, because he had already spent his money during his youth. "And a good thing, too, for a good wife should not be so concerned with such material things."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Poor Skazka had longed for a suitor to come knocking at her door, and at first felt that her perseverance had finally fruited. But then she remembered the years and years in which the man had never invited her to stroll about town on his arm, nor lounge within his comfortable home, nor fly about the countryside on horseback, nor warm at his side in the cool evenings. "Oh, whatever will I do?" Skazka asked herself, and others in the town, who all agreed that it was good and just that she should settle down with the man. "After all, isn't that what you wanted?" they said. "And aren't you a perfect match for him?"<br />
<br />
But Skazka could not console herself with this, and she wept bitterly all the night. Then she got up early and set out on the road to beseech the King for advice. The palace being some ways off, she was still traveling as the day wore on. She came upon where the great Snake had lain himself down across the road to warm himself in the afternoon sun, and could not make her way around him.<br />
<br />
"Please, sir Snake," she said, "Move out of my way so that I can go to see the King."<br />
<br />
"And why do you want to see the King?" asked the Snake.<br />
<br />
"A man who did not want me now has little choice than to marry me, and I go to seek the King's advice on my dowry."<br />
<br />
"Would you make a good wife?" asked the Snake. "Can you cook, clean, and sew?"<br />
<br />
"I can host a party with nought more than hock and stale bread, laid out to eat off a dirt path, with a tablecloth made from the grass of the field," Skazka replied.<br />
<br />
"So you say," Snake said, "but I shall see for myself, and if true I shall bring a husband worthy of such a prize. First, make me a slicker of leaves to keep off the rain." And he thrashed his tail to knock over a tree.<br />
<br />
Skazka sat down by the roadside and used the tree to spin its leaves into thread, from which she made a splendid jacket. It was woven tighter than the Snake's scales; not a seam could be seen on it. After putting it on, Snake was well-pleased, and said, "Next, clean out my home. You shall find it not far yonder in a cave in the woods. I shall come along at sunset to sup."<br />
<br />
Skazka went to Snake's cave and swept it clean until not a speck of dust remained. Then she polished and shined all the rocks until they sparkled like fine jewelry. But there was not even a rind to cook for the Snake's supper! So she looked about in the woods for something to make into a meal. "If I don't find something for him to eat, he will like as not gobble me up myself!"<br />
<br />
Spying a nest up in a tree, she climbed up to see if there were any eggs. The mama woodthrush, seeing that her clutch would be lost, begged Skazka not to take her eggs. "Please spare my children, and I will do you a good turn."<br />
<br />
"But what good will it do me if I am eaten up by the Snake?" asked Skazka, and she considered taking the eggs anyway. Again, the mama woodthrush said, "Please spare my children, and I will do you a good turn." So Skazka relented.<br />
<br />
She walked on in the woods and came upon a boar who had become trapped under a fallen tree. "Ah ha," she said, "Now I have found supper." So she began to sharpen a stick with which to kill the boar. But as she was doing so, the boar begged for his life. "Please spare me, and I will do you a good turn." He kept on and on, and Skazka used her stick to free him from the tree trunk instead.<br />
<br />
She walked on and met a mountain goat with a kid. Skazka sat down to milk the mountain goat, but she implored Skazka, "I need my milk for my young. Please, spare him, and I will do you a good turn."<br />
<br />
"But what good can you do me if I am eaten up by the Snake?" asked Skazka. But the mountain goat begged her again, and her kid bounced around with vigor, and Skazka relented.<br />
<br />
"Now I am in for it," Skazka said, "for it is almost sunset. Oh well, there is nothing for it." Fetching water from a nearby stream, she went back to Snake's hole and stirred the ashes of the stove into a roaring fire. Then she put a cauldron on the fire.<br />
<br />
Out of the fire popped a little man! He asked Skazka what she was doing in Snake's house.<br />
<br />
"I am making supper for him," Skazka said. "But I do not have anything to cook!"<br />
<br />
"Ah, simple," said the man. "Make button soup!" And then he hopped back into the fire.<br />
<br />
So Skazka cut the buttons off her dress and plopped them into the cauldron. About that time the mountain goat came clopping by the door. "Here are some carrots for the soup." And the kid was carrying onions. So Skazka put them in the cauldron. The mountain goat and her kid left and about that time the boar came grunting by the door. "Here are some mushrooms for the soup." So Skazka put them in the cauldron. The boar left and about that time the woodthrush came chirping by the door. "Here are some fine herbs to flavor the soup." So Skazka put them in the cauldron. The woodthrush left and about that time the Snake came slithering through the door.<br />
<br />
"My my," the Snake said, flicking his tongue out to smell the soup. "But you have cleaned up this place and made a supper that does better than a Russian smell." The Snake ate up the soup. "Well, you did not lie. So I shall keep my promise, and I shall keep you as my wife!"<br />
<br />
Now Skazka set to trembling, but she smoothed her skirt and said only, "Supper has surely made you feel warm. Let me make your bed for you." And she put hot stones from the stove all around the bed. The Snake slithered in and went fast asleep. Then Skazka took the stick she had sharpened for the boar and drove it into the Snake's head. And so the Snake was defeated. But as he died his body thrashed and Skazka had to flee from the cave.<br />
<br />
Now it was dark, but the road was clear of the Snake so Skazka walked on. Suddenly, behind her, there came a clip-clip-clop of a horse. Skazka stood to one side and turned to look. There, in the moonlight, came a man riding on a fine horse, much finer than any that her potential husband had ever ridden. He came a-galloping down the road, but when he saw Skazka standing there he stopped.<br />
<br />
"What are you doing on the road at this hour, all alone and with your buttons missing?" the man asked. So Skazka told him. "I am going to visit the King, but I was delayed by the Snake."<br />
<br />
"What luck!" the man said. "I am going to the King, and I will give you a ride." He hopped down from his horse, but then he pushed Skazka into the ditch, tore her clothes, and left her there as he galloped on.<br />
<br />
Skazka picked herself up, wrapped her torn and button-less clothes about her, and walked all night to the palace. When she arrived at the gate, the guards stopped her, thinking she was a beggar. But Skazka said, "I have come to report the condition of the King's roads," and they let her pass. At the palace door, the guards stopped her, thinking she was a beggar. But Skazka said, "I have come to report the condition of the King's roads," and they let her pass. At the King's court, the guards stopped her, thinking she was a beggar. But Skazka said, "I have come to report the condition of the King's roads," and they let her pass.<br />
<br />
When she entered the King's court, all eyes turned to see her, for her clothes were torn and stained all over with mud, yet she entered the court with the bearing of a queen. She walked directly to the King's throne, the people parting on either side of her, and there she bowed deeply before the King, who spoke to her.<br />
<br />
"How is it," he asked, "that you have come to the King dressed as a beggar?"<br />
<br />
"I set out on the King's road to ask the King's advice on my dowry, but I was waylaid by the Snake. After I passed his tests, I set out again on the King's road, but I was waylaid in the night by a man on a fine horse, and he wronged me so that now I cannot even work as a scullery-maid, but must live by the road-side all my days. I have come to report on this to the King."<br />
<br />
Upon hearing this, the King sent everyone out of the court. And he questioned Skazka as to the man on the fine horse, how he was dressed, and where he was going. After she answered all his questions, he sent her to work in the palace as a scullery-maid. "Take care that no one troubles you," he said, "because you have the King's favor."<br />
<br />
Skazka devoted herself to her work in the kitchens; soon the head cook trusted her with all of the King's dishes. In time, she gave birth to a boy whom she named Ivan. Then the King moved her to nursery to work as a nursemaid for the princes, where Ivan grew up with the King's own sons (heirs to the throne after the old Prince died). Ivan kept so closely with the princes that many in the palace did not know that he was not a prince himself. Meanwhile, Skazka was well-regarded in the palace, and she came to oversee the royal weavers, seamstresses, maids, and kitchen staff. So she and Ivan lived for many years under the King's favor.<br />
<br />
Then there came a time when the kingdom went to war with the Morskoi Tsar. All the princes and young men in the land left to fight, and Ivan went with them. All of the mothers in the kingdom waited for their boys to return home, but none did, for great and powerful was the Morskoi Tsar. And Skazka waited with them, until she turned old and broken with grief.<br />
<br />
Then the King gave to her a cottage in the woods, one of the best in his kingdom, which had once been owned by the Princess (until she became Queen of another kingdom). She lived alone but for her servants, and the cold of winter hurt her.<br />
<br />
One day, a messenger of the King brought word that many of the kingdoms' sons had returned home, freed from the dungeons of the Morskoi Tsar. Skazka heard the news as she lay on her bed, for she was dying. She begged the messenger to return at once and search for her son Ivan, that he might come and see her before she died. "If I can but see his face once more, my precious son, I can die happy."<br />
<br />
But when the messenger returned, he said her son Ivan could not come, and that the King was coming instead. Skazka turned to the wall and wept bitterly, for she would end life the same as she had begun. She said to the King's messenger, "Send my thanks to the King, who has treated me better than the husband I waited for in my youth. But tell him to turn back and not worry over this old woman, unless to find my son and send Ivan to see me before I die."<br />
<br />
The messenger left, but word came back that the King's procession was still on its way to Skazka's cottage. So Skazka had the cottage cleaned and swept and prepared to receive the King. But she could not rise.<br />
<br />
Trumpets sounded, for the King had arrived. Skazka sat in her bed and faced the door. In came Ivan! He wore a crown upon his head, as did the beautiful woman at his side. Skazka received them both into her arms, weeping tears of joy. Ivan had defeated the Morskoi Tsar and become King, but he was still her son, and so had come to pay his respects. He introduced his Queen, one of the Morskoi Tsar's swan daughters. And the King and Queen stayed at the cottage with Skazka until her time. After, the whole kingdom mourned for the loss of its Mother. They brought her back with them to the King's chapel, where every citizen attended her funeral dressed in black. And never did they mourn so before or since, because Ivan and his Queen ruled the kingdom wisely and well.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-62935367973207497532015-01-05T19:48:00.000-06:002015-01-05T19:48:47.712-06:00My Fool HeartI looked for her, you know, my fool heart curious at each new name. I saw her: my sort of pretty, sure enough, but something was missing -- some spark of a smile. We danced, and though she knew all the steps, she had nothing to offer.<br />
<br />
I bade her goodbye; my fool heart belonged to me.<br />
<br />
I walked with her, happy enough for company, my fool heart flattered at her interest in its hidden romances. We sat on a bench and looked at the stars. The night grew cool and she curled upon herself; I could not take what I would not give.<br />
<br />
I heaved then a sigh; my fool heart belonged to me.<br />
<br />
I turned her on her back and found more beneath than I expected. I asked what Providence wanted of her, and her uncertainty grated out over knives of exasperated sincerity. I stumbled about, my fool heart wanting to run where we walked, until I turned around and found her standing close by, patiently waiting for me.<br />
<br />
She smiled and said "Hi"; my fool heart belonged to she.<br />
<br />
I waited on her, trusting in words as footsteps diverged. Ambushed, neither could rescue the other from soul-sapping success, and each overcame apart -- and so we grew. Defiant of the tide, we set a honeyed course for the moon. My fool heart, anxious for an end to the cold isolation inhabited by lonely claws, revived and believed.<br />
<br />
It had been a lie; hie, fool heart, along to me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-70784042826708822362014-12-23T15:43:00.000-06:002014-12-23T15:44:54.866-06:00The Bandit's Beard<i>(A snapshot from a much larger tale.)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
Like a flock of their namesake, the Crows descended upon and blackened the countryside. Strange it was for brigands to be making camp so openly, but then it was likewise strange for bandits to move in numbers more closely approximating an army. As the sky darkened to match their raven dress, glimmers of fire began to blink forth throughout the encampment in a scattering as random as the stars and streams above. Crows gathered around the firelight for warmth, and company, and the challenge of bettering their peers in tallness of tale.<br />
<br />
"He's queerer than three-ounce doubloon, I tell ya." The declaration came from a man with skin wrinkled and darkened by Lux's rays, and the firelight cast his winding scars and patchy stubble into stark relief. "But Crows wouldn't follow a fairy around. So's he grows a beard."<br />
<br />
"Puck's fire!" was the response of one of the man's three companions, a younger lad with lighter, unmarred skin and a darker, unbroken brow. "We all know the stories. He's famous for wenching. All the brothels loved him!"<br />
<br />
”So’s he’s grown many a beard. Great stories, they are.”<br />
<br />
"Aye, Triv, the legend runs that he pinned all the fancy flowers in his hat," said the oldest brigand there, stocky and white of hair, and wearing dilapidated gentlemen’s clothes, "but also that he never paid for any favors. Peke's claim isn't impossible."<br />
<br />
A cheer went up a couple of campfires over, where a veritable bonfire had been raised, its flames licking at the moonstreamed sky. As the random cacophony of voices died down, a steady clapping continued, accompanied by the music of an impromptu band. Figures could be seen dancing in a carousel of shadow and flame.<br />
<br />
Triv snorted. "Hear that? He's dancing with her right now. You've seen how he jigs."<br />
<br />
"Dancing's different on your feet than in your bed, boy," Peke said. He emphasized his point by poking a long yew pole at the branches crackling in front of him. "It's all just a show for Crows. 'Sides, his skill at prancing about like a city dandy proves my point. Even ol' Mac agrees."<br />
<br />
"Not necessarily," the white-haired Mac demurred. "I merely stated that the original proposition wasn't entirely devoid of merit. I can't agree that I find the fast waltz unmanful."<br />
<br />
"But he claimed her on sight! And, did you see her? What man wouldn't?"<br />
<br />
"Aye, Triv, I saw the stripes on her back. A slave girl ain't much a prize to claim. Better for sharing, 'less there's a reason he thinks taking her for himself would better keep the Crows following."<br />
<br />
Mac coughed. "There could be the logistical problem of there not being quite enough to share for so many of us...."<br />
<br />
"Them's as wanted her and could still make use, old man."<br />
<br />
"See, Peke's just upset because he wanted her." Triv laughed. "And who can blame him? Slave girl or no, that hair, that shape, those eyes! She looked like a dream, like a princess, like... like a...."<br />
<br />
"Fay," said the fourth man at the fire. Though he spoke softly, his voice resonated with power, a quiet confidence that instantly commanded the silent attention of the others. The flickering light smoldered in his dark eyes and danced over the ink carved into every inch of his visible skin -- from the knuckles of his hands to the top of his shaved pate. Tendrils of smoke drifted about his nostrils, but not from the fire: he held a hand-carved pipe in one hand. He was a thick-boned man, neither muscular nor fat, but nonetheless heavy and imposing of body. He wore leather garments, soft leathers built for comfort rather than protection, with an apparently random assortment of feathers, jewelry chains, and cut stones sewn into the raiment, so that even as he sat silent and unmoving the eye was drawn to his sparkling presence.<br />
<br />
"C'mon, Proff, you don't really mean--"<br />
<br />
Peke punched Triv in the arm. "Shaddup and let the Shahman speak if'n ya wanna learn something."<br />
<br />
Proff looked up past the others. Everyone turned, following the shaman's eyes to a pair of silhouettes passing in the moonlight, just beyond the fire's radiance, as they made their way from the bonfire. The first was willowy enough to pass as a woman, if not for the clomping boots, the broadness of his shoulders, and the make of his hat. The flamboyant billowing of the tails of his long jacket could be seen even in silhouette, while the fluffy white feather in his hat glowed as it bobbed in the moons’ light. He reached a tent, the largest representative of the few of its kind in the brigands' encampment, and lifted its flap, patiently holding it open for his companion.<br />
<br />
She, arrayed in a white blouse and skirt, not only passed as a woman but could not be mistaken for anything else, except perhaps a spirit. The length of her hair -- no slave's crop, this -- floated behind her like dark, wispy clouds chasing the full moon of her face. The actual light of the moonstream bounced off her clothes and pale skin with such intensity that she seemed almost otherworldly, an angel of light in this reality of darkness. No, it was the opposite: she was more real, and the light of her reality caused the rest of the landscape to dim in comparison.<br />
<br />
She hesitated a moment at the tent's entrance, long enough that the gentleman rolled a hand in insistent but pleasant invitation for her to enter. After she disappeared into the tent, he followed, letting the flap drop after him.<br />
<br />
"Understand," Proff rumbled, "the truth runs in the middle. It is all a show, but he also claimed her because he loved her on sight. He's not queer, but queerly bent. Broken, some might say."<br />
<br />
Triv's eyes grew round and wide, enhancing his nonplussed blink. "Broken?"<br />
<br />
"His heart's like a pot with a crack in it. It'll hold meal, but leaks water."<br />
<br />
Peke scowled. "You're speaking in riddles again, Shahman."<br />
<br />
"Long ago, before there were Crows, he cracked himself upon a Fay."<br />
<br />
"Right. <i>Fairies</i>. And if it was before the Crows, how would you know?" Triv asked.<br />
<br />
Mac cleared his throat. "Proff here goes back further than the Crows. He knew him when he was a lone thief."<br />
<br />
"I did." Proff nodded. "And I witnessed him court the pixie."<br />
<br />
"Ha ha, even I do not believe the pixie story!" Triv shook his head, smiling. "The Fay are just fodder for campfires and old wives."<br />
<br />
"Just so. And we sit now at such a campfire."<br />
<br />
"I mean they're not real!"<br />
<br />
"Just so. Fay are creatures of fantasy. And that is why he cracked."<br />
<br />
Proff leaned back and puffed on the long stem of his pipe. He exhaled a cloud of tobacco smoke, but did not speak again. His companions exchanged looks.<br />
<br />
"Er, um, Proff, good sir," Mac said, "Perhaps you could explain better how you think an unreal being of fantasy could break a real, flesh-and-blood man."<br />
<br />
Proff sat in silence for a few moments more. The embers in the fire snapped and popped, their color matched by the bowl of the shaman's pipe, the orange light of both appearing as twin sparkles in his dark eyes as he stared at nothing. The smoke of his pipe hung in a haze about his head.<br />
<br />
"Well--" Triv began, before Peke rapped his shins with the stick. "Ow!"<br />
<br />
Triv rubbed at his legs, frowning at Peke. For his part, Peke remained focused on Proff with an uncharacteristic air of respect. Mac's eyes were also on the shaman. Triv leaned back and sighed, then also turned his eyes to the fourth man. The fire snapped and popped again.<br />
<br />
Finally, Proff spoke. "It is the nature of Fay to fool men to fall in love with them, but the pixie also fell in love with the fantasies he created for her, because such things were real to her. Together, they created a fantasy whereby he could win her hand, but to claim his prize would be to make the fantasy real. She would be undone. The pixie would not become mortal for a mortal, and so the game ended.<br />
<br />
"But it was too late for him, and so he did the only thing that he could to be able to stay with his beloved: he, too, became a fantasy, a legend among men, a Fay who moved among humans and received their hearts but knew them not. Since his reality had shattered, he simply slipped through the cracks and left reality behind." Proff tapped the contents of his pipe out onto one of the stones ringing the fire. The others looked back and forth from the shaman to each other.<br />
<br />
"So's I'm right," Peke said. "He <i>is </i>a fairy. And she's his beard."<br />
<br />
Proff chuckled. "Yes. And no. For she is more than that; in his eyes, she is his beloved."<br />
<br />
"So he lives his pixie fantasy out with the slave girl." Mac tutted to himself.<br />
<br />
Triv glanced at the tent. "The slave girl alone is enough of a fantasy for me." Peke loosed a lewd snort and nodded agreement.<br />
<br />
Proff, however, shook his head, and slipped his pipe through a loop on his shirt so that it joined his dangling assortment of ornaments. "He performs the role required of his fantasy, and loves the girl on sight as his beloved, but he won't become real for her. Nothing is as it seems with the Fay."<br />
<br />
"Wait. I think I understand now," Mac said. He leaned forward, his eyes glowing in the firelight. "He seeks from her not the writhing and rolling of reality, but the twisting and turning of his fantasy. In other words, to him, she's not so much a fleshly beauty as an essential plot device to his tale. And so he gravitates toward her because she spins within his universe; he's as fixed upon her as Terminus in his moonstream above. He loves her as himself, as part of his fantasy that he weaves. He doesn't need her to serve as a marker for his manliness, no, for that's already been established in the previous pages. Instead, he acts the chivalrous knight and saves her from his very own band of thieving cutthroats. That means she's not his beard, a ploy to keep the Crows following, as much as she's his -- oh my. Oh dear."<br />
<br />
The white-haired old man stared at Proff.<br />
<br />
“It can’t be. Can it?”<br />
<br />
The shaman cocked an eyebrow at Mac.<br />
<br />
“He didn’t. Did he?”<br />
<br />
Proff gave a slight nod that served both as a confirmation and a compliment. He stood.<br />
<br />
Mac stood with him.<br />
<br />
"Wait," Peke said. "What?”<br />
<br />
"You shaman and your arrogant mysteriousness! How long,” Mac said, “were you going to just sit there while you knew such changes were afoot?”<br />
<br />
The shaman shrugged. “Long enough to leave my friend’s fantasy unbroken.”<br />
<br />
Triv looked around at everyone, baffled.<br />
<br />
“There’s no more time for dilly-dallying.” Mac raised a hand to his chest. “I'll back you, Proff. You can keep the Crows from becoming a scourge upon the folk, and you have power and seniority."<br />
<br />
"Thank you, old friend,” Proff said. “And you are right: There is little time left for wonderment and the ceremony of surprise. We must act now. Marlbough must be caught off guard. Only by our foresight can we outflank that sly fox and stack the odds against him."<br />
<br />
Peke stood up, squinting. "I didn't tag along to polish Marlbough's boots. What do ya need from me?"<br />
<br />
"Tork will be a problem," Mac said. "Same for Derril and his men. Round up men that you trust, then buzz those factions out. Quietly."<br />
<br />
In response, Peke rapped his heavy yew pole against the ground. "Sure, I can do that," he said. "But I didn't quite understand the point of all yer five-ducat words before. Why are we acting as if our fairy god-bandit leader will be buggering off?"<br />
<br />
"Because," Proff replied, "he already has."<br />
<br />
"WHAT?" Triv said. He didn't jump to his feet as much as stumble backwards from the fire.<br />
<br />
Peke hissed at the boy. "Fool boy, never shout. Not in this line o' work."<br />
<br />
"But we just-- he's in his tent. With the girl! We all saw them go inside. Everybody did! He can't be-- can he?"<br />
<br />
Triv looked at the faces of the older men. Peke rolled his eyes. Mac lowered his. But Proff met his gaze for a few moments, then closed his eyes and shook his head. "I am sorry, son."<br />
<br />
The boy took a few halting steps backwards. Then he turned, mindless of Peke's quiet curses grasping at his back, and sprinted over ground as invisible and infinite as the night above, racing toward the tent belonging to the leader of the Crows. He did not slow, but burst through the entrance with a loud slap of body against leather, plunging into the even greater darkness within.<br />
<br />
He immediately froze. What if it had all been a prank? An elaborate setup to embarrass him into bursting in on his commander like this?<br />
<br />
Nothing but a void, black wall met his eyes. He stilled his shuddering breath and listened, but heard no sound other than an occasional, erratic flapping of fabric. He sucked in a deep gulp of air. "Sir? Uh, the men were, uh, worried about you and sent me in to check on, uh, things." His voice came out as a whisper. He swallowed, and spoke louder. "Sir?"<br />
<br />
Nothing. Triv edged around the tent, keeping one hand on the fabric of the wall to orient himself until he bumped into a wooden obstacle. He fumbled blindly on the surface of the table, then found what he was looking for. He struck a match and lit the lamp. An oversized cot dominated the center of the tent, its pillows and covering unruffled. Beyond this, a thin vertical slit had been cut into the back of the tent, its loose edge rasping in the night breeze. Triv fell to his knees.<br />
<br />
The bandit and the slave girl were gone.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-17973463909947557562014-11-14T15:44:00.001-06:002014-11-14T15:46:39.106-06:00A Wrong About RainbowsOh, rainbows follow stormy skies:<br />
Or is it storms that follow them,<br />
From the many-colored wraith the tempest flies?<br />
Oh, when it rains, my love, I think of you,<br />
And when I think of you, my love,<br />
Then torrents pour and water drops anew.<br />
I knew the sun awaited dreary's end...<br />
But I was wrong and now I long for my rainbow back again.<br />
<br />
Oh, rainbows bear a promise, love,<br />
On which you firmly can depend.<br />
Yet if you forward rush, retreat it does:<br />
Forever out of reach, it moves apace<br />
And shares itself tantalizingly.<br />
Adults no longer give the sprinklers chase;<br />
For children, though, it thrills without end,<br />
And poets' songs sing on and on of their rainbows' magic bend.<br />
<br />
Oh, rainbows can't corrupted-be,<br />
My love, nor forced to others' ends.<br />
Their subtle glory ineluctably<br />
Belongs to dreamers' dreams and lovers' schemes<br />
And fairy tales of hidden wealth<br />
For the foolish wise to realize, reclaim, redeem....<br />
And though it illusion might have been,<br />
I'll be ever wrong and ever long for my rainbow back again.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-34603176351899141312013-03-13T12:10:00.000-05:002013-03-13T12:10:25.966-05:00For name's sakeSo now you've come<br>
I hear news on the wing<br>
Whilst only half high and not yet a king<br>
<br>
So now you've gone<br>
I hear from the peak<br>
Just as I planned a visit this week<br>
<br>
As you start out<br>
They'll tell you to climb<br>
Higher and higher and up all the time<br>
<br>
There is no doubt<br>
One should not fear height<br>
Yet search not in sky for heart's delight<br>
<br>
Go test your mettle<br>
And learn how to scale<br>
But that is not where people live well<br>
<br>
In valleys they settle<br>
And thrive on their crops<br>
With happiness higher than mountaintopsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-57004854508082880942012-03-02T16:21:00.003-06:002012-03-02T17:12:38.098-06:00distracted<span style="margin-left: 25px">I wish to write of my fond notion of you</span><br />poems resonant and pretty, visions of you I create<br />through metaphor and rhyme and description of traits<br /><span style="margin-left: 115px">of yours which have my heart attracted</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 25px">but I find it hard to concentrate</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 50px">when I can think of naught but your next call</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 75px">when my mind is taut with your waiting down the hall</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 100px">when caught by thoughts that enthrall</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 100px">like how your hand folds so neatly within mine</span><br />how can I create when you have me so enervatedly distracted?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 25px">I wish to speak with my devotion to you</span><br />words clever and pithy, so with you to relate<br />and commune deeply, without need to prate<br /><span style="margin-left: 115px">a perfect conversation interacted</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 25px">but I'm hardly able to concentrate</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 50px">when nearby you're all silken curves and shining lips</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 75px">when your eyes are pleading to take mine in sips</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 100px">when your sighs of happiness thunder forth, eclipse</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 100px">any intelligible facets of my mind</span><br />how can I relate when you have me so frustratedly distracted?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 25px">I wish to move on my emotion for you</span><br />in fluent, unvarnished ditty, with steps firm and straight<br />smooth and suave with a debonair gait<br /><span style="margin-left: 115px">a perfect dance enacted</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 25px">but it makes it hard to concentrate</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 50px">when to me and the music you readily acquiesce</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 75px">when up against me you softly press</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 100px">when about me your arms in enwrapping caress</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 100px">submerse my heart within an emotional brine</span><br />how can I step straight when you have me so intoxicatedly distracted?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-26384605787198796412012-01-24T15:07:00.002-06:002012-01-24T15:16:10.252-06:00knackeredThe day had been bright and fresh, but as evening fell so did a haze, which spread thickly into the sky until the sinking sun shone as through smoked glass.<br /><br />"Ill omen," rumbled a bear of man as he squinted at the sky. His soft leather garments hung loosely from his large frame, allowing the myriad of feathers, chains, and cuts stones to jangle about whenever he moved. Even in his usual pose of meditative stillness, however, the light from the campfire played about the reflective maze and pressed on the eyes like starbursts.<br /><br />"Nonsense, my dear mystic," said his companion with a laugh. As he leaned back with a griddlecake freshly plucked from their cooking pan, he gave the burning sticks a vicious kick. Sparks and smoke circled one another like enraged wasps as they vaulted up into the sky. "Where there's smoke, there's fire. And we're looking for fire tonight, Proff."<br /><br />Proff grunted. He tore a chunk of meat from a legbone with his teeth, then chewed morosely. "Dragons are not fire beings but earth. Earth is bad for water beings like you, Bandit."<br /><br />"Weak water," said the Bandit. "And earth is where you get gold, which is good for beings like me."<br /><br />"I think this is a bad idea."<br /><br />"I think you are just tired from my wenches keeping you up last night."<br /><br />"Let me see it."<br /><br />The Bandit took a bite of his corncake and rolled his eyes, but even so he reached under the collar of his white linen shirt and pulled at a silver chain about his neck. An Oriental serpent dangled from its end.<br /><br />"And what did the message say?"<br /><br />"That tonight I'm to go to the Dragon's Lair and find this thing's twin."<br /><br />"Are you sure of this message?"<br /><br />The Bandit popped the last bit of griddlecake into his mouth, chewed for a moment, swallowed, and then gave a toothy grin.<br /><br />"I'm not certain of anything except the only way to find out. Come on, Proff, let's shake a leg." He stood up and pivoted on one leg, causing his long black coat to twirl artistically and then drape over him as he leaned down to kiss a grey-haired woman stirring a stew pot. "Goodbye, mum, thanks for the chow."<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />Dusk had given into night when the pair found themselves before their destination: a hole in the ground. Its shadows seemed to seep into the cracks and vegetation that surrounded its foreboding entrance.<br /><br />"Wot ho, here we go!" said the Bandit. Then he strode confidently into the darkness of the hole.<br /><br />Proff stood outside, looking at the gloom into which his companion had disappeared. A few moments later, the sound of the Bandit's agonized yell floated out from it.<br /><br />Proff cursed, called forth a few protective chants, and then ran in after his friend.<br /><br />He found him doubled over on his hands and knees in a surprisingly well-lit chamber packed with objects and scurrying little men.<br /><br />"Look at it all!" the Bandit wailed, stretching out his arms in despair. "It's all... all... JUNK!"<br /><br />Proff looked around. Indeed, pile upon pile of rusty tools, moldy codices, broken furnitures, and pewter figurines filled the interior of the cave. At various piles diminutive -- but not otherwise disfigured -- men moved, adding, subtracting, or performing arcane methods of junk divination.<br /><br />"It ain't no dragon's lair with treasure at all," the Bandit said. "It's a bunch of knackers and their junk!"<br /><br />"Hmm," said Proff. "Maybe they have the pendant's twin."<br /><br />"Right so." The Bandit leapt up to his feet and clapped his hands. "Let's have a lookabout, wot?"<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />Proff found the Bandit slumped against a pile of busted lanterns.<br /><br />"No luck?"<br /><br />"I looked everywhere. I even asked a couple of the knackers. Nothing." The Bandit waved the pendant about on the end of its chain. "Nothing like this."<br /><br />His pile of lanterns spoke. "Nice dragon."<br /><br />The Bandit yelped and somersaulted to his feet, while the pile began to whistle a little tune. Though still crouched with his hands crossed protectively in front of his face, the Bandit cocked an eyebrow. He and Proff then watched as a wrinkled man with a hoary beard raised his head from behind the lanterns and set his chin upon a bent lantern case, still whistling his tune.<br /><br />"Um, yeah, it has some fashionable qualities about it, yes?" said the Bandit. "Have you... seen ought like it, maybe?"<br /><br />"No, not myself, no, no," said the old man. His eyes peered to and fro. "Why?"<br /><br />"Well, I'm looking for its twin, or something. Someone said I'd find it here."<br /><br />"Oh. Looking poorly, I think, yes."<br /><br />The Bandit frowned. "Oh? Would you suggest a different approach?"<br /><br />"Less lying on piles, I think."<br /><br />Proff laughed.<br /><br />"You should be more systematic."<br /><br />The Bandit stood frozen with a leg pulled back in preparation for kicking his laughing barbarian friend. "Systemawhatchit?"<br /><br />"Systematic." The old man came out from behind the pile of lanterns and approached the Bandit. "May I... see it?"<br /><br />The Bandit reluctantly dropped the pendant into the old man's hand, then even more reluctantly played out the chain and released it.<br /><br />"See, the other may not have the chain. It can lie on the floor like this," said the old man. "Or it can lie on a pile like this. You should look pile by pile like that."<br /><br />He handed the pendant back. Then began whistling again.<br /><br />The Bandit squinted at the old man, then at the many piles in the room, which he had already perused earlier.<br /><br />"Kinda like a needle in a haystack, wot?"<br /><br />"Yes, yes, a little bit, yes. Someone must dislike you."<br /><br />"He is a bit of an impudent wag," Proff agreed.<br /><br />The Bandit shrugged. "Right, right, should've played nice."<br /><br />He turned to the old man. "How very, ah, helpful. Thank you, my dear-- I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name?"<br /><br />"I am The Fifth."<br /><br />"The fifth what?"<br /><br />"The Fifth."<br /><br />"Ah," said the Bandit. "Well, my dear fiver, it's been fun, wot? But I've got to get my mystical friend home before he turns into a vat of melted cheese. Thanks again for the help!"<br /><br />A short while later, the Bandit and Proff stood in the darkness outside the knacker hole. The Bandit was humming the eery old man's tune to himself.<br /><br />"I thought we were leaving?" said Proff.<br /><br />The Bandit continued humming, rocking back on his toes and heels.<br /><br />Proff sighed.<br /><br />"Oh, I'm glad you are still here," said the old man from just inside the cave. "I think I saw something like your dragon on a pile near the door."<br /><br />The Bandit grinned. "Is that so?"<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />A short while later the Bandit jaunted through the forest, each step marked by the clink of two dragon pendants striking together on his silver necklace. Behind him Proff trudged, rolling his eyes as his companion continued to hum the bars of the old man's song.<br /><br />"Can you believe the next step calls for wenching?" asked the Bandit as he finished his tune.<br /><br />"Ill omen," the burly shaman replied.<br /><br />"Wenching! Now that's more like it! Wot ho, here we go!"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-51858237145329068002011-12-18T19:17:00.002-06:002011-12-18T19:22:58.022-06:00Words UnspokenWish at night I held you tight<br />To keep away cruel darkness' chill<br />Wish each day to make you smile<br />smile all th' way through<br /><br />Wish to share all that there's<br />To have: life's joys, its pains,<br />Its strifes, surprises, and refrains<br />refrain is what I do<br /><br />My passion's river runs far deeper--<br />Bottomless to wonted streams of men--<br />With more than just lusts and interests.<br />I've reservoirs measured in lifeblood's treasure<br />That in_a lifetime you could'n_drink_it all in.<br /><br />Words unspoken leave hearts unbroken<br />except for mine, except for mine<br />There's no hurtin worth forlorn's burden<br />it just takes time, it just takes time<br />And when all is said and done, we are both only one<br />Two silhouettes on distant shores<br />nothing more, nothing more<br /><br />In this winter I will shiver<br />And wrap a blanket around myself<br />I'll wrap my arms around no one else<br />no one else but me<br /><br />Before the fire I'll retire<br />And take in hot drinks in sips,<br />While thinking of the warmth your lips would give<br />your lips would give to me<br /><br />There's no confessing my obsessing--<br />Nor will you give admission to yours--<br />We stare across a hazardous ocean,<br />Two silhouetted lovers longing for each other<br />From two very distant, different shores.<br /><br />Words unspoken leave hearts unbroken<br />except for mine, except for mine<br />There's no hurtin worth forlorn's burden<br />it just takes time, it just takes time<br />And when all is said and done, we are both only one<br />Two silhouettes on distant shores<br />nothing more, nothing more<br /><br />Were I to take your hand,<br />Were we to walk these lonesome avenues<br />laid out in veins and pulse,<br /><br />Would my heart with you lie?<br />Could it be that I were true to you<br />whilst to my self were false?<br /><br />Does doubt mark sooth, or<br />Are choice and action sufficiently true?<br />or am I<br />deceiving<br />us both?<br /><br />Yes, words unspoken leave hearts unbroken<br />except for mine, except for mineUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-88905815409035563942011-12-17T18:12:00.001-06:002011-12-17T18:12:47.782-06:00clemencyYou are dear to me, sweet one.<br />Fold into me as I wrap around you, a blanket<br />To warm you cozily this winter night a while yet.<br />Come the warmth of day,<br />You and I will go a separate way.<br />But until such time,<br />Let our fingers clemently intertwine<br />To provide ourselves what comfort we may.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-47281188640843807182011-09-26T20:26:00.001-05:002011-09-26T20:27:51.833-05:00Catching ButterfliesIn catching butterflies, avoid strength's dereliction:<br />Greedy needy grasping tight and scales will crush and wings will rend.<br />And self-recrimination to unworthiness forfend:<br />Your blood and tears and mooning earn just moths' affection.<br />Neither be the world-wise snake who wins a wide selection<br />Netted through a subtle mesh that grounds them out from skies they wend:<br />Abused, intoxicated, mounted, counted, labeled, pinned;<br />A thousand little deaths the sum of that collection.<br />No, appreciate their beauty, need it not, let'em know you've seen<br />Amidst the air resplendent color bright, which flutter-dips<br />To nectared flowers tended kept in case they choose to stay.<br />Let sunny warmth and garden-work on skin collect a sheen,<br />Then laugh at tickling kiss of puddle-mud on fingertips,<br />Your open palm extended kept in case they fly away.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-78048136230738616932011-09-18T14:05:00.002-05:002011-09-18T14:15:32.658-05:00Kinetic CommunionIt was a cleansing, always; but not a physical one. They met at night, after the needling clangor of the sunlit preoccupations of man had receded into a low susurration over which their souls might be properly heard. During the day they toiled as hard as any other fellow pilgrim of the mortal coil—no, I dare say: <span style="font-style: italic;">harder</span>—but here they released their ceaseless cyclings and obviated the demands on their attentions. As the music poured over them, they allowed it all to wash away in mirror to the ablutions that precede and follow such things. Rhythm and rhyme and sweat ran down their skin in so many streaming rivulets.<br /><br />It was an intensely private affair, of course; but an open one. They welcomed any and all who might be willing to join them—even, I dare say, begged. Not hidden away in basements or burrows, they conducted themselves in grand halls and greatly windowed rooms set visibly atop the horizon, though not as a beacon in any traditional form, for the lighting was muted, drawn down and dimmed. Subsequently, newcomers shambled around in awkwardness until they adjusted, when dilation allowed for greater reception of the twinkling lights of celebration within, those of the cityscape without, and those of the universe above. And when the pupils of their souls widened, when they learned to draw deep from the light of one another, then newcomers were no longer so, and no longer stumbling.<br /><br />It was an escape, perhaps; but not a shirking one. If love is merely a fuller appreciation of another—and I dare say that it is—then they came together in that darkened, lamp-lit room in an act of love for life: one expressed in body, mind, and soul; in both unity and individuality. Where others wound their escapes by imbibing spirits, they enlivened their own. Where others wound their escapes in dulled senses, they spun in graceful arcs and balanced motions that exhilarated their own. Where others wound their escapes in head-pounding oblivions unremembered in morning’s light, they in the sunset of their lives would recur their adventures: evoked, say, by a song on the air or the steady rock of a chair—the limit of their motions, which, in tune with such melodious memories, brought languid contentment.<br /><br />It was an addiction, to be sure; but a hale one—and, I dare say, a symbolic one. Here they were alive, the wind in their lungs as fierce as a runner’s, the pounding in their chests as buoyant as a musician’s, the song in their soul as passionate as a lover’s. They operated in partnership and communicated on a level deeper than mere words. They held one another and breathed in concert. They drank deep and were sated for all times even as they thirsted for more. An addiction, yes, to an expression of life itself: it drove them with the same power as the will to live. Hours passed them and they noticed not. When came the time to cease, they ignored it. When the time to cease could no longer be ignored, they lingered in the glow of the touch of one another, only reluctantly parting at the need to rest their bodies or cease a more physical hunger, and some times not until the sun cast its signal for the commencement of the return to toil for another week. They reserved for it prior, reveled in it during, and relished in it long after.<br /><br />It was a secret, I suppose; but not an intentional one. They exulted and explained, spoke and shared, talked and taught, posted and published, announced and advertised, and yet: it could not transmit thusly. It was only to be experienced, and saddeningly too few who heard of or witnessed it were also brave and persistent enough to truly plumb the depths of its joy. I knew the secret because I watched them. I saw their beckoning hands and allowed myself to be taken into the pleasure of their embrace. I knew because I became one with them, and—I dare say—I would never be otherwise again.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-61124017807001537492011-01-14T01:05:00.002-06:002011-01-14T01:09:09.714-06:00Open Minds (Partial)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:usefelayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults ext="edit" spidmax="1026"> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout ext="edit"> <o:idmap ext="edit" data="1"> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">In submission to the 12/10/10 Friday Challenge, "<a href="http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/12/friday-challenge-121010.html">Telepathy</a>," <span style="font-style: italic;">the opening scene of what will maybe one day be a longer story. It was certainly too large of a story for me to finish on time.</span></span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Ahabrim could still hear her incoherent dreams as he walked out his front door.<span style=""> </span>Her unconscious babbling had served as a pleasant white noise while he had shaved and dressed.<span style=""> </span>Where the anticipatory silence of morning would have weighed on his spirit, she instead filled it with a vapid pleasure that in turn filled him.<span style=""> </span>Her mental presence brought with it a strange Freudian joy, so that it was not his razor but her hand that caressed his cheek.<span style=""> </span>It was not his dress shirt but her arms that wrapped around him.<span style=""> </span>It was not his toothbrush but her tongue inside his mouth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So when Ahabrim left his apartment, both his looks and his spirits had a strong, sharp edge to them.<span style=""> </span>Whatshername had served him better in this than she had last night—not to diminish last night.<span style=""> </span>He closed the door, cutting off the last weak detections of her stream of unconsciousness with the vibrant rays pouring in from the window down the hall.<span style=""> </span>Ahabrim squinted and smiled into the morning sun.<span style=""> </span>He jogged down the stairs and took a deep, appreciative breath before joining the sounds of Humanity.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">He walked briskly down the brilliantly lit sidewalk.<span style=""> </span>His street was a Letter Street, so it ran east-west; the pleasant sun morning sun peered down from between the tall buildings.<span style=""> </span>Aside from the sunshine, the street was also flooded with cars and pedestrians.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Many of those who walked or took the subway took advantage of portable music devices.<span style=""> </span>But Ahabrim loved the roar of the crowd.<span style=""> </span>It reminded him what he was fighting for.<span style=""> </span>With this many streams the chatter was largely indecipherable and incoherent, but as with the girl’s dreams, Ahabrim received energy from it.<span style=""> </span>It rolled along with him like an ocean wave as he walked the mile and a half to Central, cresting only when he reached out and opened the double glass doors that led him from the mighty river of Humanity into the lesser eddy of his work.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here the streams became more intelligible.<span style=""> </span>Mostly acknowledgments that “Marshal Marx is here,” though to a few secretaries and interns, it was “Breem.”<span style=""> </span>Ahabrim did not acknowledge any of them beyond recognition, nor did they dare interrupt him when his mind was focused on the task ahead of him.<span style=""> </span>He walked quickly down the halls and into the Department of Domestic Security.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Annie immediately walked up to him.<span style=""> </span>She had been waiting for his arrival, file ready in hand.<span style=""> </span>Her thoughts reached him before she did, already informing him that there had been no change in the situation since the prisoner’s arrival.<span style=""> </span>Still, as she handed him the file, she properly acknowledged him with voice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Marshal Marx, sir, welcome,” she said.<span style=""> </span><i>Looking good, old man.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Annie,” he said.<span style=""> </span><i>Thanks, I feel good.<span style=""> </span></i>He knew she used the ‘old man’ label to distance herself while simultaneously creating a special intimacy.<span style=""> </span>In her thirties, she was just over half his age, but she also knew that he regularly bedded younger than her.<span style=""> </span>But the Department of Reproductive Health would never approve an application between the two of them, working so closely in the same department as they did, and so she could only admire and tease.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">He reviewed the file again, refreshing his memory.<span style=""> </span>He looked forward to cracking Elijah Samuel Long, who was rather high profile when it came to radical shardists.<span style=""> </span>Annie, in the meanwhile, was filling up with dread at the thought of their meeting.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Stop worrying,” Ahabrim said.<span style=""> </span>Worrying insulted his abilities.<span style=""> </span><i>Get me a cup of coffee.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Annie immediately felt ashamed, though she passed his request down the line.<span style=""> </span>She looked at the floor.<span style=""> </span>It was only that he was obviously troublesome, or they would have never sent him here.<span style=""> </span>A third transfer for a verbal dissident, across several thousand miles.<span style=""> </span>And then this earlier this morning several Directors showed up—</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ahabrim brightened.<span style=""> </span>Directors?<span style=""> </span>Here?<span style=""> </span>His interview would be observed.<span style=""> </span>This carried potential for further promotion, possibly even a Directorship for himself!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Annie’s fears vanished into awe.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>They sent Long here because I am the best</i>, Ahabrim thought to her.<span style=""> </span><i>I may be an old man, but this morning I feel as strong as when I was in the War.<span style=""> </span>Watch me crack this nut.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ahabrim took the file and left Annie lusting after him in his wake.<span style=""> </span>Someone gave him a cup of coffee at the Interviewing Room door.<span style=""> </span>Ahabrim tested its heat with a sip while eyeing the two security personnel standing at either side of the door.<span style=""> </span>He thought that they looked like green-thought pansies, who had never seen any conflict like he had in the War.<span style=""> </span>The one on his left felt unfairly offended but powerless, so then he shrugged the insult off with his job being more important than the thoughts of a retired old man.<span style=""> </span>The one on the right decided that it made sense that a veteran of the war would have a steel mind like his.<span style=""> </span>Ahabrim thought that the coffee tasted like water from the gutter.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“See you boys at lunch time,” Ahabrim said.<span style=""> </span><i>I might be promoted by then</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The kid on the right believed it possible.<span style=""> </span>Ahabrim chuckled and entered Interviewing Room.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As he closed the door behind him and looked over at the prisoner, he was once again starkly reminded why they were called Silent Ones.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The moniker had never made sense to him back in the War.<span style=""> </span>On the battlefield, the shardists were loud of mouth as well as weapon, yelling and screaming at themselves and their enemies long before receiving any wounds deserving of cries.<span style=""> </span>How different they were from the steady organization of his squad, orders traveling at the speed of thought.<span style=""> </span>They were like wild animals, growling and barking in the heat of the moment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was not until he came here, as an Official Interviewer for the DDS, that the label seemed appropriate.<span style=""> </span>Here, alone in the IR with them, where his world collapsed down into only his own thoughts, even as Long looked at him from the other side of the table.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ahabrim glanced over at the tinted glass, the window on the right, not the regular observation room on the left, but the special room reserved only for the Directors.<span style=""> </span>He could not hear them, either, nor they him, even over the come system. <span style=""> </span>But he knew they were there.<span style=""> </span>He walked over to the interview table and set down the file and his cup of coffee.<span style=""> </span>From the corner of his eye he could see the bright orange of Long’s clothes, cut by bands of brown where he was restrained, and topped with a splash of light brown where his shaggy hair fell about his ears and face.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ahabrim inhaled deeply, then looked up into Long’s eyes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Long sneered at him.<span style=""> </span>So he would be one of those; defiant and contemptuous, mentally propped up as some sort of barbarian martyr, taking pride in how long it would take to crack.<span style=""> </span>He knew that Ahabrim could not learn anything that he did not voice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But Ahabrim also knew that it was a two-way street.<span style=""> </span>Long could only know what Ahabrim voiced.<span style=""> </span>The contest had begun.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“You are Elijah Samuel Long,” Ahabrim said.<span style=""> </span>He slowly seated himself with patient authority.<span style=""> </span>“Known amongst shardists as <i>L’oncle</i>.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Long continued to smile defiantly at him.<span style=""> </span>Ahabrim said nothing, but simply looked expressionlessly back.<span style=""> </span>Several minutes passed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Yes,” Long said.<span style=""> </span>Then he grinned.<span style=""> </span>“But your accent is terrible.”</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-45846644249226819282011-01-01T01:11:00.001-06:002011-01-01T02:14:55.072-06:00Happy New Yearhappy new year? sure, if you're in it<br />the way that I am thinkin it can wait another minute<br />every day I've seen passes just the same<br />the morning gleams with the sunshine rays<br />...with the sun shine rays...<br />...all my days...<br /><br />on its axis the world spins on<br />the moon comes up and the day is gone<br />and as it climbs up in the starry sky<br />time flies by 'til the night that you die<br /><br />...but we're still here, happy new year!<br /><br />the midnight bells chime you ready for this?<br />it's time to give your lover a brand new kiss<br />I turn to my right but nobody's there<br />hard to celebrate when ya got nothin but air<br />...nothing but air...<br />...no one's there...<br /><br />and so for the while it is what it is<br />wear a big smile an' sniff the champagne's fizz<br />dance to the music and laugh with your friends<br />and run down the street banging pots and pans<br />...yeah bang those pans!<br />...while you still stand!<br />...in the sun shine rays!<br />...nothing but clear mornin air all of my days<br /><br />...yeah, I'm still here, happy new year!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-15270639226891299602010-11-30T19:47:00.005-06:002010-11-30T20:16:50.791-06:00NaNoWriMo: Girl of my Dreams<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5b3RK3xUnF4FqYDiwL_JYOAXTpx1YuLg1mL2EkEl6f__sfudAIsJoYF-KkEGOP2uTtjt_GWjFdmefsnF8UQ2PoxCg1-cOQ65OJME-30jfZoQv-Lm6sZ0mpISny59ZLjNMFiM9FxpcEH4/s1600/nano_10_winner_120x240-6.png"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5b3RK3xUnF4FqYDiwL_JYOAXTpx1YuLg1mL2EkEl6f__sfudAIsJoYF-KkEGOP2uTtjt_GWjFdmefsnF8UQ2PoxCg1-cOQ65OJME-30jfZoQv-Lm6sZ0mpISny59ZLjNMFiM9FxpcEH4/s320/nano_10_winner_120x240-6.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545529390066864418" border="0" /></a><br />Based on the feedback I received in response to the pell-mell gathering of scenes I came up with for "<a href="http://thebanditspost.blogspot.com/2010/08/summer-of-my-dreams.html">Summer of my Dreams</a>" back in August, I decided to run with that story idea for the 2010 National Novel Writer's Month (NaNoWriMo [NaNo]) challenge. I am proud to declare that I am an official 2010 NaNoWriMo winner, writing 55,552 words of the novel between November 1 and today, November 30. <i>Girl of my Dreams</i>, if I choose to finish it, would be a youth fiction book dealing with the themes of dreams (in the metaphorical sense) and teen sexuality in modern America.<br /><br />In acknowledgment of the work that I put into it this month, I wanted to post a thousand-word excerpt from the manuscript that NaNo produced. When I finished writing this scene, I knew that my protagonist would hate me forever.<br /><br />~ * ~<br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The buzzing alarm ploughed through Mike’s sleep like a semi truck through a dense fog.<span style=""> </span>Mike struggled to free his arm out from beneath his tangled sheets and blanket, finally slapping at the clock a couple times before successfully silencing it.<span style=""> </span>He looked at the dial.<span style=""> </span>4:30 am.<span style=""> </span>Mike turned back over and laid the same way he had been the moment before the alarm had awakened him.<span style=""> </span>He tried to remember what he had been dreaming.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He sighed.<span style=""> </span>He could not even remember if he <i>had</i> been dreaming.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The information on lucid dreaming that Mike had been reading talked so plainly about it all. It made it seem so simple and easy.<span style=""> </span>But Mike was discovering that his dad’s “official response” was turning out to be the most accurate:<span style=""> </span>you cannot control your dreams.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Every source Mike had found emphasized that the first step to consciously directing dreams was being able to remember the dreams in the first place.<span style=""> </span>This was a problem, because Mike actually rarely, if ever, remembered his dreams.<span style=""> </span>Before he had started reading up on the subject, he had been under the impression that he just rarely dreamed at all.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">One trick to help start remembering dreams was to interrupt them with an early alarm.<span style=""> </span>But it had not worked for Mike so far.<span style=""> </span>True, he had only been at it a couple of days now, but he had thought, even if it might take him a while to learn to lucid dream, that interrupting his REM sleep would work immediately for at least remember his dreams.<span style=""> </span>He had even asked his mother to get another spiral notebook (in addition to the ones she had bought a few weeks ago for the beginning of the school year), which he had laid on his dresser with a pen, ready to record his dreams.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">But so far its pages remained empty.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Mike sighed and rolled over onto his back.<span style=""> </span>Even if he was failing at just remembering his dreams, he saw no harm in practicing the techniques for lucid dreaming.<span style=""> </span>As he lay in bed, waiting to fall back asleep, he focused on his breathing, counting each breath.<span style=""> </span>In, out, one.<span style=""> </span>In, out, two.<span style=""> </span>In, out, three.<span style=""> </span>Mike could hear the wind blowing violently outside, hissing through the tree limbs, and bringing with it the promise of a chilly fall day.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Mike was startled by his alarm buzzing again.<span style=""> </span>He turned over and saw that it was already 6:30 am.<span style=""> </span>He had not even realized that he had fallen asleep!<span style=""> </span>He turned back onto his back and lay still for a moment and tried to remember what he had just been dreaming.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He sighed.<span style=""> </span>Once again, he remembered nothing at all.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He kicked off the sheets and blankets, got out of bed, and headed to the closet.<span style=""> </span>He did not even bothering to turn on the light as he grabbed some clothes from his closet and socks from his drawer.<span style=""> </span>He yawned.<span style=""> </span>The wind outside was practically shaking the house with its force.<span style=""> </span>He imagined that he could feel its reverberations through his toes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He trudged down the hall to the bathroom and brushed his teeth.<span style=""> </span>He did not even bother to mess with his hair.<span style=""> </span>The wind would muss it up just fine.<span style=""> </span>He went to the kitchen, but his mother did not seem to be up yet this morning.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He went to the cupboard and got out some cereal, which he drenched with milk from the refrigerator.<span style=""> </span>He poked listlessly at the cereal, still a bit disappointed at his failed attempts at dream recollection.<span style=""> </span>Soon the milk had soddened the cereal into more of a sludge than anything.<span style=""> </span>Mike glanced around the empty kitchen.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It was a bit unusual for his dad not to be up and in here yet.<span style=""> </span>But he could smell coffee in the coffee maker, and it was not an automatic, so somebody had been up.<span style=""> </span>He paused and listened.<span style=""> </span>The wind wailed and stormed over the roof, but Mike could also hear the sound of his parents moving around in their bedroom and bath.<span style=""> </span>They were just running behind this morning.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He dumped most of his cereal down the garbage disposal, then went over to the refrigerator and poured himself a big glass of orange juice, which he chugged in five seconds flat.<span style=""> </span>Then he headed back to his room for his book bag.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">But all that liquid had him really needing to go to the bathroom.<span style=""> </span>He made sure to lock the door behind him, rather than have his mother try to inspect his urinary habits as well.<span style=""> </span>Actually, he really, really had to go, to the extent that he fumbled with unzipping his pants in time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Fortunately, he retrieved himself just in time, sending a strong stream of urine into the toilet bowl.<span style=""> </span>The jet of liquid sent the water in the bowl spinning like a whirlpool, the front edge of which brought an expanding yellow dye.<span style=""> </span>The water kept flowing and flowing and rising higher in the bowl.<span style=""> </span>Suddenly Mike found himself facing a situation he had never faced before:<span style=""> </span>he was in peril of overflowing the bowl.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Mike glanced frantically about the bathroom.<span style=""> </span>He could try to spin around and pee in to the tub.<span style=""> </span>But he would spray the wall, and probably even himself, in doing so—or practically the whole bathroom if he turned the other direction.<span style=""> </span>He could try to make it into the sink.<span style=""> </span>That would just pee on the waste bin and the floor between the toilet and the sink and a little of the counter.<span style=""> </span>That would be much easier to clean up after.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He looked back down at the bowl.<span style=""> </span>The yellow, spinning whirlpool had reached the lip of the bowl, and he did not feel any indication that his flow would be dwindling.<span style=""> </span>In a split-second decision, he decided to make the jump, for better or worse.<span style=""> </span>He did a little side-step spin to the sink, only mildly spraying the area between it and the toilet.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He had to stand on his tip-toes, but the sink’s drain swallowed his golden stream readily.<span style=""> </span>He relaxed.<span style=""> </span>He had made it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Then to his horror, he saw that the toilet was overflowing anyway.<span style=""> </span>Water was welling up over the bowl and onto the floor.<span style=""> </span>Still using one hand to direct his still-flowing stream, he performed a balancing act that would make a circus performer proud in order to lean over and flush the toilet.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">But—of course, he realized, as soon as he had pressed the lever—that had the immediate effect of just dumping more water into the bowl. <span style=""> </span>Or, rather, <i>out</i> of the bowl as it welled up over the sides and traveled across the bathroom floor.<span style=""> </span>Just when Mike thought it could not get any worse than it was already, the toilet <i>then </i>started making a ridiculously annoying noise while it continued to belch yellow water over its bowl.<span style=""> </span>The toilet had apparently chosen this perfect moment to go on the fritz.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">His mother banged on the door.<span style=""> </span>“Mike?<span style=""> </span>What’s going on in there?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Mike looked at the door, then at his peeing in the sink, then at the overflowing toilet, and finally decided that he had no good response to that question.<span style=""> </span>The toilet continued to pop and buzz and grind and pour water everywhere.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Mike?<span style=""> </span>Are you in there?”<span style=""> </span>She tried the knob on the door.<span style=""> </span>“What’s that noise?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“The toilet’s busted,” Mike mumbled.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Mike?<span style=""> </span>Turn off that noise!<span style=""> </span>Do you hear me?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“MIKE!<span style=""> </span>TURN OFF THAT NOISE!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Suddenly Mike found himself laying in his bed, his alarm clock blaring at its highest level.<span style=""> </span>He blinked at the ceiling in confusion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Mike, I’m coming in!” his mother announced from the hall.<span style=""> </span>His door opened and she flew into the room on her slippered feet.<span style=""> </span>She silenced the alarm clock.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Mike was still blinking groggily.<span style=""> </span>“Sorry, Mom.<span style=""> </span>I was… I was having a weird dream.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Well, try not to let your alarm blare for so long.<span style=""> </span>It seems like it’s been going off all morning.<span style=""> </span>I could have sworn I heard it before five.<span style=""> </span>Now hurry up and get up before you make your father late.”<span style=""> </span>She turned and whisked out of the room like she was riding the wind currently roaring outside.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">As Mike shifted himself to sit up, he noticed his sheets sticking wetly to him.<span style=""> </span>And that’s when he realized that he had wet the bed.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-49342234098958343302010-10-30T22:15:00.001-05:002010-10-30T22:17:52.432-05:00Hey Corpus Christihey Corpus Christi<br />though not the loveliest beaches<br />like a lover's arms that reaches for me<br />you draw me in in a way I can't refuse<br /><br />hey Corpus Christi<br />though murky in waves' reflection<br />got a sweet sincere affection drives me<br />wild, drives away my blues<br /><br />no exotic isle can make me smile<br />the way I laugh with you<br />no famous sands with velvet hands<br />can hold me like you do<br /><br />hey Corpus Christi<br />no rich man's destination<br />but when I need a vacation from this<br />world, my worries're made easy to lose<br /><br />hey Corpus Christi<br />when we dance across your jetties<br />seashell sun sparkled confettis shower<br />down and no other would I choose<br /><br />the way your waves make me sway<br />you're like a rhythm to my soul<br />fill my life up with your tides<br />flood in and make me whole<br /><br />hey Corpus Christi<br />no rich man's destination<br />but when I need a vacation from this<br />world, my worries're made easy to lose<br /><br />tall and tan and young and lovely<br />the girl from Corpus Christi goes walking<br />and when I wave she smiles<br />and takes hold of me<br /><br />yeah, Corpus Christi<br />you and your lovely beaches<br />are like a lover's arms that reaches for me<br />draws me in in a way I can't refuse<br /><br />yeah, Corpus Christi<br />I don't care about your complexion<br />cuz your sweet sincere affection<br />mm, it drives away my blues<br /><br />hey Corpus Christi<br />a da ba dabba da da<br />a da ba dabba doo wa<br />and no other would I choose<br /><br />bop, ba da, da ba ba<br /><br />yeah, Corpus Christi<br /><br />ah dabba dabba ba ba<br />a da daUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-77247301299531973602010-10-30T21:40:00.002-05:002010-10-30T21:46:45.399-05:00Maycool spring's promise of greens and shade trees<br />burned away by sudden summer sun,<br />came too soon, it came too soon<br />fall's dry curse has brought you to your knees<br />dead cold in winter's grip, will you never come again?<br /><br />May, sweet May, May, May...<br />why'd you have to go away?<br />May, my dear sweet May...<br />passion's heat and lonesome's chill waylay<br />to mark off weeks afore a single day of May<br /><br />summer's heat bore down from blue burning Sun<br />and like Icarus up you flew<br />flew too high, flew too soon<br />but it wasn't your choice to come undone<br />someone else took you there, never to return again<br /><br />May, sweet May, May, May...<br />burned and left to go astray<br />May, my dear sweet May...<br />passon's heat and lonesome's chill now fray<br />the ends before begins a single day of May<br /><br />foundation ripped from under you<br />yet now they say to build anew<br />but with wobbly knees and stick-like arms<br />how can you keep yourself from harm?<br /><br />oh May, sweet, sweet May...<br />did no one keep the wolf at bay<br />from May, my dear sweet May...<br /><br />it's hard to dream when you can't sleep<br />it's hard to sleep when you don't dream<br />it's hard to dream when you can't sleep<br />it's hard to sleep when you don't dream<br />yes, it's hard to dream of<br /><br />May, sweet May<br />May, May, May, May<br />yeah, May, my dear sweet May<br />why'd you have to go away?<br />May, sweet May, May, May...<br /><br />cold space pulls into the black, spins the earth<br />for another time round and round<br />spins too fast, spins too soon<br />your turn to push it on, show your worth<br />but how to move the heavens and live again<br />when you were barely holding on to start with?<br /><br />oh May, my dear sweet May...<br />by summer's sun done burned away<br />came too soon, it came too soonUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-14446960099977071772010-09-21T22:43:00.002-05:002010-09-21T22:47:50.060-05:00The BoxesThe children stared wide-eyed at the four boxes on the coffee table. Plain brown packaging paper wrapped individually over cardboard bottom and lid, bound tight with plain brown twine, and small enough to rest on two hands: the boxes possessed nothing impressive by outward appearance.<br /><br />Yet the boxes called to them. The demure toggery only enhanced the mystery of the boxes’ importance, tantalizing the children’s imaginations with the prospect of what fantastic gifts might lie within such humble containers.<br /><br />After all, Grandfather’s insistence of staid attention before receiving them meant something was different about these gifts in comparison to the others they had received at birthdays and Christmas. And also, today was nobody’s birthday, nor did the scent of pine and cloves hang in the air—only the sickening-sweet and ever-present smell of his pipe. Mother and Father disapproved of Grandfather’s old ways, not the least of which was his pipe; still the children would forever picture him with it hanging from his whiskers, and whenever in life they smelt pipe tobacco, they would remember his eyes sparkling from beneath bushy white eyebrows.<br /><br />Even now, Grandfather sent a puff of tobacco smoke up toward the ceiling, as he sat on his easy-chair throne and regarded his subjects with a kind smile and a stern eye as they in turn stared at the boxes on the coffee table before him. He picked up one of the boxes, displaying it on two hands before the children.<br /><br />“I told you these gifts were special,” Grandfather said. “And they are. They may be most precious in all the world.”<br /><br />Little Mary, her hair up in ribbons and curls, gasped in appreciation.<br /><br />“But,” Grandfather continued, his glittering eyes meeting each of his four grandchildren in turn, “they are also special because they are unusual. They are not for you to open.”<br /><br />“What?!” cried Johnny in dismay. “What kind of stupid gift is that?”<br /><br />“It is a gift that you give to someone else,” Grandfather said.<br /><br />“Who?” asked Sally.<br /><br />“The person you choose to love more than anyone else.” He smiled down at his grandchildren. “Do you understand?”<br /><br />The children all nodded. They all eagerly reached forward with their hands, then flinched back self-consciously, unsure of how to accept a gift they were not going to open. All except for Billy, who patiently held his hands out in front of him.<br /><br />Grandfather gave each their box, and dismissed them to go put it away and play childish games while the day was still young, and then retired to his study for his regular afternoon nap.<br /><br />Johnny thought this idea of giving the box to someone else was rubbish. It was his box and he was going to open it. As soon as he was away, he cut the twine and tore off the lid. Inside lay a crystal ball, its surface lacking any defect. With breathtaking beauty, the ball captured whatever light shone on it, nearly dancing with scintillating sparkles and beams.<br /><br />The crystal ball became Johnny’s toy. He learned to juggle with it. He mesmerized girls with staring into its interior and told them their fortune. Sometimes, he used its heavy weight as a weapon against other boys who threatened him. All this marred the perfectly smooth surface with scratches and chips until the crystal ball no longer caught and danced with the light, but lay dully on his bedside table. And Johnny grew old, having never fully given his gift to anyone.<br /><br />Mary knew of Johnny’s crystal ball, and wondered if her box contained the same. One day she carefully worked at the twine around her box, loosening the knot ever so gently, and lifted the lid a smidge to peer inside. Inside lay a cake. Mary dipped her finger into the frosting and found its taste extraordinary. Her heart pounding, she slapped the lid back on the box and reworked the knots of twine so that no one would ever know that she had opened it.<br /><br />A while later, Mary again loosened the twine so that it slipped right off the box. She tried out a full piece of the cake. Still later, she shared a piece with her boyfriend, and the boyfriends that followed after him. Each time, she carefully rewrapped the box so that no one would know that she had opened it at all. But when the day came for her to give her box to the person she chose to love most in all the world, only crumbs remained.<br /><br />Sally shook her box, trying to guess what lay inside. She knew Mary had secretly opened hers, and wanted to be better than that—but at the same time, she did not want to be surprised when her own box was opened. She wanted to know what to expect. She wanted to be ready. She listened to stories of people opening their boxes. She went to the library and read books on boxes and what treasures they held. She learned that most boxes contained jewelry of some sort.<br /><br />Sally loved jewelry. She shook her box again, wanting to ascertain what sort of jewelry it might be. She pinched its sides to feel its contents through the cardboard. She squeezed and bent and warped the box—but she was careful never to actually open it. (After all, she was better than Mary.) And through all her finagling, she decided that her box contained a pearl necklace.<br /> <br />The day came when Sally gave her gift to the person she chose to love more than anyone. He opened the box. Inside lay no pearl necklace. Shocked, Sally saw only a tightly wound rope with frayed edges. It had once been a sash, woven with the finest materials and brilliantly colored with intricate patterns—a grand symbol of respect and position. But it had been smashed and frayed and tangled and twisted through Sally’s prodding, and in her mind it could never be more than a ratty rope in comparison to a pearl necklace. Disappointed, Sally used the rope to fetter the person she chose to love more than anyone.<br /><br />But Billy took his box and put it away in the back of his closet. He found that if he kept the box out of sight, then it also stayed out of mind. Of course, sometimes he would sit innocently minding his own business and the box would appear out of nowhere in his lap. At those times he would remind himself that the box was not his but someone else’s, and return it to its place in the closet; and he would puff on his pipe until his nerves calmed.<br /><br />He shrugged off whatever he heard of others doing with their boxes. He laughed when he heard people say keeping the box unopened was impossible. He did not worry when his friends made foolish taunts or remarks, even when they hurt. He thought of the person he would choose to love more than anyone else, and he went out and bought expensive red paper and silk ribbons and wrapped up the box even more.<br /><br />The day came when Billy gave his gift to the person he chose to love more than anyone. Her eyes sparkled as she unwrapped the box. Inside the box lay another, smaller box. The smaller box was hinged on side, its outside velvety soft and inside—Billy took the box from her hands. He knelt down and opened it before her, revealing the most beautiful diamond ring that the girl had ever laid eyes on. And she accepted his gift.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-34361418536457202992010-08-31T16:38:00.001-05:002010-08-31T16:38:00.276-05:00Summer of My Dreams<span style="font-style: italic;">In submission to the <a href="http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/08/friday-challenge-82710.html">Aug 27 Friday Challenge</a>, "What I Did Last Summer."</span><br /><br /><br />I bubbled in the last spot on my Scantron, then set my #2 pencil down on the desk and looked around the classroom. The air was quiet with teen concentration, which hung over the room like an oppressive cloud, disturbed only occasionally by sighs and soft scribbles of lead on Scantron cards. I propped my arm on the desk and cupped my chin in my hand and sighed myself.<br /><br />This was inhumane. Finally done, and still held captive.<br /><br />I rolled my pencil back and forth between my thumb and my fingers, but the reverberations across the desktop seemed particularly loud in this quiet, so that I became exceedingly conscious of the noise. I worried that Mrs. Fletcher would look up and frown. A frown might mean that freedom would be deferred longer for one last lecture of the year.<br /><br />I silenced the pencil.<br /><br />I looked one row over and four rows up at Becky Lou Harrison's blond hair. Cut short, but still long enough to be considered "chin-length," it afforded me no glimpse of her face. But the hair was enough. Like cascades of shimmering sunshine, bobbing slightly as she read over her exam. She looked only halfway done, but that didn't seem right: Becky was head of the class. Oh, she must be checking over her work.<br /><br />For a brief moment I considered whether I'd do better at my exams if I checked my work, too, then I tossed such a silly idea out the window in favor of continuing to stare at the graceful curve of Becky's neck. But after a couple of minutes my mind began to wander. I yawned.<br /><br />Folding my arms across my desk, I bent my head down, sinking my nose down into the crook of my elbow so that my eyes were buried in the warm darkness of my arm. I continued to let my mind wander, but remembering my technique I stayed conscious of where it went, keeping it close at hand.<br /><br />I decided to explore further the cloud of teen concentration. It condensed around me, blotting out the classroom in a dense fog. I wafted through it and realized it was formed by the steam pumping out of everyone's ears. I got up from my desk and walked around in the cloud. Mrs. Fletcher wouldn't be able to see me through the cloud. I walked straight to the front of the classroom and slipped quietly out the door.<br /><br />The halls were empty. There was nothing to see in the halls. Besides, I needed freedom. I need the sun. I flew down the halls and burst out the double doors. A homeless man gave me a thumbs-up as I passed him, then shouldered his school bag and entered the building. Of course, it was summer, so he'd have a place to stay while school was out, and Mrs. Fletcher might even teach him to read.<br /><br />I needed to find something unusual to see. The parking lot was no good. I rounded around the building and headed for the portables. I didn't have any classes this semester in the portables, so I never spent any time around them. They seemed more maze-like than I remembered. I frowned and kept going deeper into the portable jungle. I needed to find something unusual to see.<br /><br />The arts and crafts portable had been turned into a zoo. A giraffe had its head poked out of the window, looking down at me. He licked my ears. I shrugged him off and kept searching. I needed to find something unusual to see, and I felt like it must be at the back portable.<br /><br />When I got there, I peeked in the window. Just students taking their final exams. Mr. Dunlap pacing at the front of the room. This would not be helpful. I walked up and down the access ramp a couple of times. Then I noticed the kittens.<br /><br />I did not hear them, of course. But I knew they were there. I hung by my toes over the railing at the end of the ramp and peered into darkness beneath the portable. A panel had come loose and hung lopsided. And just inside lay a stray mother cat and her kittens. The cat looked at me and I knew it growled. I didn't mean it any harm, I was just excited to see something unusual. Then Mama Cat opened her mouth and began ringing.<br /><br />The door to the portable burst open and all of Mr. Dunlap's students began pouring out. Then their voices and footsteps slowly merged with the sounds of movement back in Mrs. Fletcher's class. I lifted my head and blinked blearily at the brightness of the fluorescent lights. The sound of the schoolbell stopped reaching my ears but kept echoing in my mind.<br /><br />I yawned and stretched, and slowly stood up, gathering all of my things. Most of the students had moved much faster than me, and a hefty stack of Scantrons was growing on Mrs. Fletcher's desk. She bade everyone a good summer as they passed by.<br /><br />I set my own Scantron down on the stack. "Later, Mrs. Fletcher."<br /><br />She smiled almost happily at me. "Have a good summer, Michael."<br /><br />"Will do, Mrs. Fletcher." I hurried out the door.<br /><br />In the hall, I found Marvin waiting for me. "Dude, Mikey, that's it! It's summer! We're done!"<br /><br />"Yup."<br /><br />"This calls for a celebration! Wanna go see a movie or something?"<br /><br />"Sure, but there's something I gotta do first."<br /><br />"Like what?"<br /><br />"Eh, just come along, it'll only take a second."<br /><br />We headed out the back door of the school, walking against the flow of excitedly liberated teenagers. Marvin had to skip and jump to keep up with me as I wove my way through the crowd.<br /><br />"Yo, Mike, what are you doing?"<br /><br />"I just have to see something before I go."<br /><br />"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure Becky was heading the other way, you know, to summer."<br /><br />"Uh huh."<br /><br />The crowd thinned out as we got into the portables area. I walked directly to the farthest one back, Mr. Dunlap's portable. Marvin followed me up the ramp, but chose to simply lean on the rails after I swung over them.<br /><br />I crouched down to peer underneath the portable. Marvin peered down at me from above. "Got any big plans for the summer?" he asked.<br /><br />My eyes adjusted to the darkness beneath the portable and I could somewhat make out a furry form. A couple of high-pitched mews struck my ears. I smiled.<br /><br />"Yeah, I'm going to make Becky Lou Harrison fall in love with me."<br /><br />Marvin scoffed. "Yeah right, like that's gonna happen. Maybe in your dreams, Mike."<br /><br />I grinned up at him.<br /><br /><br />ONE MONTH LATER...<br /><br />I squinted at the sunlight coming through the window. With a groan, I turned my face into the cool dark of my pillow. Don't wake up yet, I told myself. Remember where you just were. You had walked down the street, it was daytime. The Sanderses were throwing a lawn party for the CIA. You picked up some punch, continued walking, because you had some business to do at the church. Made it down to the church, looked up at the marquee....<br /><br />I leaped out of bed, tossing the covers aside. Sprinting down the stairs, I burst out the front door. The sidewalk was still cool in the morning sun as I padded down the street. Mrs. Sanders watered her begonias to overflowing as she stared at me running past. I continued running, barely stopping to check for traffic as I crossed the street to the church.<br /><br />I stopped at the foot of the church sign, my bare chest heaving as I gazed wide-eyed at the reader board with interchangeable letters beneath it.<br /><br />It read:<br />SUNDAY SCHOOL<br />9 - 10 AM<br />SERVICES<br />NOON-03:01<br /><br />For a moment, I wondered if I was still dreaming. The fact that I was standing out on the street in nothing but my boxers and more people were starting to stare (in addition to Mrs. Sanders) did not help me with that. But I could feel the cold and wet of the dew on the berm beneath my feet. I pinched my stomach hard and felt actual pain, not just pressure or knowledge of pain.<br /><br />I was awake. And the sign had been rearranged.<br /><br />I raced back home, as much with excitement as with desire to get away from my staring neighbors. I went straight for the phone.<br /><br />"Hi, Mrs. Peterson. This is Mike Reeves. Is Marvin available?<br /><br />"Marvin! Meet me at Sam's as soon as you can! I did it!"<br /><br /><br />Sam's Diner was situated just off the highway at Pleasanton and Main. It had the best ice cream sundaes in town, and Marvin and I often relished them in the far back booth of the diner.<br /><br />Marvin was sucking the mixture of melted ice cream and syrup out of the bottom of his glass, the straw making loud percolating noises as he regularly caught air. He paused in mid-suck and squunched his eyebrows.<br /><br />"Are you sure they were in the correct order before?" he asked.<br /><br />"Listen, Marvin, this isn't something easily confused like with your dinosaur models. I know the sign read correctly yesterday. I wrote down last night that I wanted to reverse it. And this morning--"<br /><br />"But I thought you couldn't read in dreams." He resumed his sundae woodwind performance.<br /><br />"You can't. Well, not like when we're awake. But you can see text, and I just had the goal of switching ends back and forth. Cripes, bud, are you finished with that yet?"<br /><br />Marvin stopped sucking on his straw. "How'd you reach the letters, anyway?"<br /><br />I shrugged. "I dunno. Flew, or maybe I dreamed up a ladder."<br /><br />"So what does the book say to try next?"<br /><br />I pushed the empty glasses aside and wiped clean some space on the table before laying down my heavily dog-eared copy of Malachi Alfred Chaplin Hewett's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Untapped Mind</span>. I opened it up to the section on Astral Projection.<br /><br />"I'm basically there. The next step is communication with another dreamer."<br /><br />"So you're gonna do it. You're gonna walk your dream self over to Becky Lou Harrison and tell her that you love her." Marvin looked like he was going to choke.<br /><br />"Well, not exactly. That won't do much good anyway. Instead, I'm gonna hold her and tell her that she's safe with me."<br /><br />Marvin squeezed his eyebrows together again. "Don't you think that's a little creepy? Crawling into her bed while she sleeps and brainwashing her to love you?"<br /><br />I felt my face growing hot. "Well, of course it sounds creepy when you put it that way! Geez Louise, Marvin!"<br /><br />"That's basically what you're doing, though."<br /><br />"Not at all! First of all, this is not a sort of mind control; there's an entire other chapter on mind control and none of them are done by dream projections. And second, I'm not going to do anything inappropriate to her! 'Incubism is a perversion of the gift.' " I smacked a hand down on the book as I quoted from it. " 'But one can express deep affection, a closeness which is possible for the dream recipient to reject.' I won't be forcing her to do anything."<br /><br />"Okay, Mike, if you say so."<br /><br />That night I wrote down in my dream journal that I was going to the Harrisons' backyard to sleep in the hammock. When we had first started school last year, Mrs. Fletcher had made us all write essays about summer and read them aloud to the class, and Becky's had mentioned that she often liked to sleep out on the hammock on warm summer nights. I knew I had no ill intent, but Marvin's words had gotten to me, anyway, so I figured dreaming together on the hammock was less offensive than appearing at her bed.<br /><br />I made it out to the hammock, but there were only stuffed teddy bears there. It began raining, and I wrapped a tree around myself to shelter from the rain. A cockroach danced about in the hollow of the tree, and then we all drained down together into the sewers.<br /><br />The next night I could not remember my dream, but I knew I had been unable to reach the hammock.<br /><br />But the third night I stood over Becky Lou Harrison as she slept in the hammock in her backyard. Her angelic blond hair was tangled and tossed over her eyes, but her cute little nose shone pale in the moonlight. She had a coverlet tossed over herself.<br /><br />I slipped in from underneath. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and we had spent the evening talking. The netting of the hammock felt tight along my back and legs, but the night air was pleasant and the pillow soft. Becky laid her head on my chest for her pillow, her eyes closed happily and her breathing soft and steady. She had accepted my presence. I had one arm wrapped at her side and the other hand over her hand on my chest. As I lay on my back, looking at the stars that appeared through the cracks in the leaves above, I realized that this was the happiest dream of my life. I never wanted to wake up again.<br /><br />I dipped my head, letting my cheek touch that golden hair, and listened for her dream thoughts. I listened, and then I heard evil.<br /><br />Evil was in the house. I floated up through Becky and the coverlet and appeared at the back porch. Something was not right. I entered the house and wandered through the dark rooms, looking for the source of the wrong. In the bedroom, Becky's bedroom, a man with a dark face and gloves -- a burglar!<br /><br />I had to stop him. What if he left through the back and found Becky? I had to protect Becky!<br /><br />The burglar was looking through her dresser drawers. "Hurry," I told him. "Rip out the drawers as fast as you can, there is not much time."<br /><br />He began a more frenzied search of valuables. Jewelry? Drawers opening, shutting. How could I stop him? Maybe I should try to wake Mr. Harrison.<br /><br />"Check the wardrobe," I advised the burglar. It was tall and dark and made of very heavy wood. I squeezed into the less than an inch of space between the wall and wardrobe. It was very cramped. The burglar was pawing through the other side. I squirmed up toward the top of the wardrobe and pushed, toppling the wardrobe over on top of the burglar with a tremendous crash. Then I ran out of the room to get the police.<br /><br />I woke up in a cold sweat. At first I wanted to call 911, but then I figured the operator would laugh at me when I told her I had seen a burglar at the Harrisons' in my dream. So I went downstairs and got a glass of milk and sat at the kitchen table until dawn.<br /><br />That evening, Dad looked over at Mom during dinner. "Did you hear?" he said. "The Harrisons' had a burglar break into their house last night."<br /><br />Mom gasped. "Oh no, that's terrible! Is everyone all right?"<br /><br />"Oh, yeah, and they caught the guy," Dad said. "Apparently he's a klutz, and knocked a wardrobe over on himself as he was looking for stuff to steal."<br /><br /><br />TWO MONTHS LATER...<br /><br />"I can't believe summer is over already," Marvin whined, then tossed another potato chip into his mouth.<br /><br />I hardly heard him. I crunched my empty brown bag up into a little ball.<br /><br />"I mean, geez," Marvin continued, "Mr. Sura gave us homework already. The first day! What's with that, man? Who wants to write about what they did all summer?"<br /><br />I kept gazing across the room.<br /><br />"What are you gonna write about, anyway, Mike? It's not like you can write about all your dream adventures."<br /><br />"I dunno," I said, "Maybe I could write some of them up and pass it off as fiction. Surely an English teacher would have to appreciate my creativity."<br /><br />"Psshhh," Marvin scoffed. "No way. Teachers take points off when you don't follow the assignment to the letter. You'll get failed for not saying what you really did this summer."<br /><br />"I'll write something boring then. Mowed lawns, read books, slept in, that sort of thing. Might as well let Mr. Sura know early I'm a slacker, for all the time I'll probably be sleeping in class."<br /><br />Across the room, Becky Lou Harrison got up from her table. I bolted up from my seat.<br /><br />"Huh? You going somewhere?" Marvin asked.<br /><br />"Yeah," I said. "Dreams are fine, but one of the things I did this summer was grow up. It's about time for me to start making my dreams a reality."<br /><br />Then, still awake, I went to hold a conversation with Becky Lou Harrison.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-26440416216483256982010-07-30T17:30:00.002-05:002010-08-12T12:53:12.027-05:00The Rabbi, The Nun, The Talking Dog, and Everything<span style="font-style: italic;">In submission to the <a href="http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/07/friday-challenge-73010.html">7/30/10 Lesser Friday Challenge</a>.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">EDIT 8/12: In response to feedback, added two -- um, er... stanzas.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Hopefully it will make the story a little less confusing. Just a little less, though.</span><br /><br /><br />An important man, a powerful man, a not-actually-religious man: The Rabbi. He listens with patiently concealed impatience.<br /><br />A nobody woman, a desperate woman, a really-quite-loving woman: The Nun. She pleads with barely concealed emotion.<br /><br />A large sum, a small sum, a requested two-hundred-percent-addition-to-the-regular-monthly sum: $10,000. With it, The Nun will save The Orphanage.<br /><br />"The Children are our future," she says, "without them we have Nothing."<br /><br />"I haven't the money," says The Rabbi.<br /><br />~ ~ ~<br /><br />A wicked idea, a crazy idea, a worth-a-quarter-million-dollars idea: The Talking Dog. The man drinks with woefully loud regret.<br /><br />A healthy animal, a friendly animal, an unfortunately-quite-speechless animal: The Talking Dog. It pants with markedly mute happiness.<br /><br />A paltry sum, a sneaky sum, a potential-for-one-thousand-percent-profit sum: $25,000. With it, The Rabbi will buy The Talking Dog.<br /><br />"I wasted it all," the man tells The Rabbi. "I sunk $50,000 into this failure. If I could but recoup half of that, I might not end up in the gutter. Watch the beast while I take a whiz, will you?"<br /><br />"I thought that whiner would never leave," says The Talking Dog.<br /><br />~ ~ ~<br /><br />An important man, a powerful man, a pulled-a-few-strings-to-get-here man: The Rabbi. He presents with hardly concealed excitement.<br /><br />A skeptical group, an impatient group, a willing-to-give-it-a-second-try group: The Board. They listen with slightly hopeful avarice.<br /><br />An invested sum, a withheld sum, a merely-provide-proof-of-product sum: $250,000. With it, The Board would buy a Talking Dog.<br /><br />"Come on, boy," the Rabbi tells the dog, "Speak! Speak like you did at the bar! Come on, Speak!"<br /><br />"Woof woof," barks The Talking Dog.<br /><br />~ ~ ~<br /><br />A crafty man, a generous man, a not-afraid-to-bend-a-few-laws man: The Bandit. He walks with jauntily nimble steps.<br /><br />A nobody woman, a desperate woman, a once-cared-for-a-certain-street-urchin woman: The Nun. She weeps with hopelessly lonely despair.<br /><br />A nothing sum, an everything sum, a still-leaves-ten-large-for-expenses sum: $15,000. With it, The Bandit will ring the doorbell.<br /><br />"Special delivery," he says, "Envelope from the trade district. No return address, though a note instructs that it's intended for the Orphanage."<br /><br />"I wonder who sent it?" says The Nun.<br /><br />~ ~ ~<br /><br />An angry man, a chagrined man, a looking-to-rid-himself-of-his-embarrassment man: The Rabbi. He bestows with kindly concealed disregard.<br /><br />A relieved woman, an excited woman, a saved-by-an-anonymous-benefactor woman: The Nun. She thanks with sincerely sincere sincerity.<br /><br />A healthy animal, a friendly animal, an unfortunately-quite-speechless animal: The Talking Dog. With it, the Children will romp at The Orphanage.<br /><br />"I have no use for the pup," The Rabbi says, "and so I figured I'd give it to the Children. After all, the Children are Everything."<br /><br />"Woof woof," barks The Talking Dog.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-87604467022987411462010-07-27T10:33:00.000-05:002010-07-27T10:34:36.854-05:00BluesMusic plays softly<br />She listens without her ears<br />A single weight shiftUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-27786889597770009112010-07-01T19:18:00.011-05:002010-08-31T15:51:26.738-05:00America's Backbone<span style="font-style: italic;">Some of you may remember the <a href="http://thebanditspost.blogspot.com/2009/07/hillside-history-lesson.html">peculiar Fourth of July celebration</a> of the Ladrey family from last year. For this month's <a href="http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/06/friday-challenge-6410.html">Greater Friday Challenge</a>, we return to see how the Ladreys are doing one year later on July 4, 2050.</span><br /><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It was ridiculous to be unmanned like this, by a bunch of flowers.<span style=""> </span>I had once faced down three armed mooeys with nothing but a knife.<span style=""> </span>I had hoofed it on foot out of that ghetto in <st1:city st="on">Chicago</st1:city> through two hundred miles of some of the most fiercely contested territories in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style=""> </span>I wasn’t afraid of nothing.<span style=""> </span>But, nevertheless, as I stood on the hot <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state> sidewalk in front of the shop’s window, dumbly drawing my eyes up, down, and over the various arrangements of colorful petals and green leaves, I felt powerless.<span style=""> </span>The vibrancy of the flowers seemed to mock and jeer at my weakness and ignorance.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t know enough about flowers to know what kind I was looking at.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t even know what kind she liked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Flowers hadn’t really been her thing.<span style=""> </span>Amy didn’t care much for make up or hairstyles or any of that typically girly stuff.<span style=""> </span>She didn’t need it, she said, keeping with her simple ponytail and face freckled from all her time spent outside.<span style=""> </span>Though she was wild and free, I still found her stunning.<span style=""> </span>Maybe she sent my heart to pounding <i>because </i>her beauty was mixed up in wildness and freedom.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">But flowers seemed the right thing, here.<span style=""> </span>Everything else Amy cared about she already had or had lost.<span style=""> </span>Giving her a box of 7.62 just didn’t seem appropriate.<span style=""> </span>Almost like mocking her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I put my fist against the plate glass and gave it a reserved tap, secretly wishing that I could take out my frustration on it.<span style=""> </span>Or the set of jihadis and Mexicans who had put me into this situation.<span style=""> </span>Our relationship had been so much simpler when I could give Amy an old SAS parang as a Christmas present.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Christmas.<span style=""> </span>I should’ve collected bloodied <i>shahadah </i>bands, prizes for each head like the warriors of old, for each kill I had made in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Kentucky</st1:place></st1:state>.<span style=""> </span>I’d have had nearly twenty of them.<span style=""> </span>But that had lost its romanticism in the stone age, if it had ever had any at all, even if it was appropriate here.<span style=""> </span>Better a bunch of dead jihadis than a bunch of dead plants.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Though I was starting to hate these plants just as much.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I gave the window another feeble tap, then closed my eyes and took a big breath.<span style=""> </span>When I opened them again, I was startled by the approach of Amy’s dad, Jakeb Ladrey.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The bright <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state> sun gave the window’s reflection enough strength to be a mirror, so that I could see his wild brown curls and angular features clearly as he walked up quickly from the street, covering the ground quickly with the smooth strides of his tall legs.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s dad wasn’t as big as I was, nor really as strong, but despite his lanky features he still intimidated me.<span style=""> </span>When I had thought about it, many months back, I realized it wasn’t that he could take me in a fight—though I was certain he probably could—it was that he naturally thought on a level higher than I even considered.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I began to whirl to face him so that he wouldn’t think it a big deal where I was standing, then realized that would indicate more than anything my guilt, then turned back to the window kicking myself for feeling embarrassed at all.<span style=""> </span>Stupid dead plants still unmanning me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">As usual, Amy’s dad smoothed away any awkwardness.<span style=""> </span>“Oh, there you are, Brent,” he said as he walked up.<span style=""> </span>With a smile that I could feel as well as see in the window’s reflection, he put a hand on my shoulder.<span style=""> </span>“Thinking of getting something for Amy?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I nodded.<span style=""> </span>I looked over at him.<span style=""> </span>“Do you know what kind are her favorites?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He gripped my shoulder.<span style=""> </span>“Roses.<span style=""> </span>Especially odd colors or those modified multi-tones.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Oh,” I said, wondering how much modified flowers cost.<span style=""> </span>“Should I get some of those then?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Nah,” he said.<span style=""> </span>He let go of my shoulder and gave me a pat on the back.<span style=""> </span>“I’d have to go back and withdraw more money to help you afford them.<span style=""> </span>Just like a Ladrey woman to be content with sleeping in a pup tent and eating beans and tuna for days on end, and then fancy the most expensive flower in the store.<span style=""> </span>And then she’d be furious that you wasted that much money on her.<span style=""> </span>Though,” he added, giving me a wink, “sometimes women like it when you make them furious like that.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Then should I—”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“You know what else she likes? <span style=""> </span>Books.<span style=""> </span>And she’s got a lot of time to read them.<span style=""> </span>That’d be a thoughtful gift, don’t you think?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It really did.<span style=""> </span>Amy was incredibly smart, like her dad, and she loved to read.<span style=""> </span>“But aren’t books just as expensive as mod-roses?<span style=""> </span>What with most the major publishers over in the Islamic States?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“We’ll stop by the library on our way out.<span style=""> </span>I’ve got a membership.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s always complaining that our local branch doesn’t have enough literary journals or philosophy.<span style=""> </span>We’ll grab several <i>McSweeney’s</i> and maybe some Kierkegaard from the big city branch to bring back to her.<span style=""> </span>She’ll love it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">That sounded like a really good plan.<span style=""> </span>Of course, Amy’s dad was known for his good plans.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We walked together back across the sizzling blacktop of the street to the long, well-shaded parking lot of the bank and climbed into his ’38 Ford Independent.<span style=""> </span>The radio was tuned to a station that played old-time music recorded over a century ago, what Amy’s dad called “classic dance songs.”<span style=""> </span>The truck merged onto the highway.<span style=""> </span>I watched the concrete barriers whizzing by.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Austin</st1:place></st1:city> highway system makes it seem like you have to go way out of your way to get anywhere.<span style=""> </span>Even going a straight shot up a single highway can feel like you looped way out of your way to get to your destination.<span style=""> </span>As it was, the trip to Dr. Guerrero’s took only a quarter of an hour, but it felt more like half.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The doctor’s office was on the eighth floor of a private business tower.<span style=""> </span>The door on the office that block lettering that read, “Pablo C. Guerrero, M.D., P.T., C.Tp.” and then the office hours in smaller letters underneath.<span style=""> </span>The door looked and smelled like it had recently been repainted or shellacked or whatever.<span style=""> </span>And instead of glass in the full-length windows flanking the door, plywood had been put up.<span style=""> </span>A piece of paper was tacked to one.<span style=""> </span>It read, “THIRD GENERATION AMERICAN.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad did not pause a moment at any of this, but simply walked briskly to the door and entered the waiting room.<span style=""> </span>He held the door for me, so I hurried to follow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The waiting room was rather large, as far as private practices go, with chairs easily enough for a dozen patients and then some.<span style=""> </span>However, nobody else seemed to be waiting today.<span style=""> </span>I sat down in a chair facing the door and picked up a copy of <i>America’s 1<sup>st</sup> Freedom</i> while Amy’s dad walked up to the receptionist’s window.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Good afternoon, Mr. Ladrey,” said the woman on the other side of the counter.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“’Afternoon, Betty.<span style=""> </span>Can I go on in?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Sure.<span style=""> </span>You’ve got perfect timing.<span style=""> </span>Dr. Guerrero just finished his telexamination.”<span style=""> </span>The receptionist lowered a shoulder and an electric buzzing sounded at the door.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s dad walked over and opened the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Thanks,” he said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Down the hall and the third door on your left.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The door latched shut behind him.<span style=""> </span>I watched the receptionist for a while as she busied herself with papers, then paged through the magazine without really registering anything before my eyes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I hated waiting.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">That was the worst part of war.<span style=""> </span>The constant waiting.<span style=""> </span>Waiting for the enemy to act.<span style=""> </span>Waiting for the Independents to move.<span style=""> </span>Waiting for a jihadi patrol to work its way fully into your ambush.<span style=""> </span>Waiting for the next sound of a bomb detonating in the city.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I hated waiting.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s dad always seemed infinitely patient; Amy, too.<span style=""> </span>I had a lot of respect for her ability to lie motionless for hours on end from her sniper’s position.<span style=""> </span>Running with her dad’s group had eventually drummed into me the importance of patience on the battlefield, but I had noticed it also had an unexpected side effect:<span style=""> </span>I no longer had any patience to sit around in civilian contexts.<span style=""> </span>Especially when I was anxious.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I put down the magazine and paced in front of the row of chairs.<span style=""> </span>The walls of the waiting room were decorated with pictures, but I made a full circuit of looking at each of them in no time at all.<span style=""> </span>There was a calendar, still turned to May though it was the last day of June.<span style=""> </span>I flipped the page over to July.<span style=""> </span>Every month’s picture had some play on the year.<span style=""> </span>June was a pile of twenties and fifties; July had 2050 spelled out in fireworks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The receptionist looked up as I passed the counter; I gave a friendly smile and kept pacing.<span style=""> </span>She smiled absently back and returned to her work.<span style=""> </span>When I glanced back, she was getting a file out of a cabinet and then disappeared into the back of the office.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I made a few more circuits around the room and then stopped at the counter.<span style=""> </span>I leaned in through the opening, but I couldn’t see a sign of anybody.<span style=""> </span>I jumped up and balanced my hips on the counter to reach into the office.<span style=""> </span>I felt around the underside of the desk with my fingers and finally found the button for the door.<span style=""> </span>I pushed it and hopped down to open the door before the circuit opened.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I peered cautiously around the other side of the door, but nobody appeared.<span style=""> </span>I walked quickly down the hall and soon caught the sound of Amy’s dad’s voice.<span style=""> </span>I crept up next to the door to get a better listen.<span style=""> </span>It had not been closed completely and a strip of light shone between the door and the frame.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“…no way to reduce the price?<span style=""> </span>That’s incredibly more expensive than I was expecting.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I’m sorry, Jake, I really am, but I can’t do any better.<span style=""> </span>That main lab got hit last month and there’s a shortage.<span style=""> </span>I’m giving it to you at-cost as it is.<span style=""> </span>I can’t afford to take a loss on it, not with the recent drop-off in clients—”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad sighed.<span style=""> </span>“The sign didn’t help?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I’m afraid not.<span style=""> </span>You saw the windows.<span style=""> </span>You should’ve seen what they did to the door and the office.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I’m sorry, Pablo.<span style=""> </span>It’s a load of bull, you know.<span style=""> </span>Our dads grew up together.<span style=""> </span>You’re just as much an American as me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I don’t know about that.<span style=""> </span>You don’t see me taking tours in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state> or along the Valley.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The room grew silent.<span style=""> </span>I hazarded to lean over and peek through the crack.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s dad was sitting on the exam table with his head in his hands.<span style=""> </span>Dr. Guerrero stood patiently beside him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He sighed again.<span style=""> </span>“How many more treatments will she need?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“It’s hard to tell at which dosage the nanocytes will become effective.<span style=""> </span>She’s showing some promising signs…”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Promising enough that she might get by without more doses?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Dr. Guerrero shook his head.<span style=""> </span>“No, stop the treatment now and you might as well never have started it at all.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Another long silence.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Okay,” Amy’s dad said.<span style=""> </span>“I’ll get you the rest of the money somehow.<span style=""> </span>Can I take the next batch with me?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Sure, Jake.<span style=""> </span>Let me go prepare it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I only managed to take a couple steps back before Dr. Guerrero came out of the room and ran face to face with me in the hall.<span style=""> </span>He grunted in surprise, then nodded grimly at me before proceeding down the hall.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Ah, Brent,” said Amy’s dad from the doorway.<span style=""> </span>“I was going to fill you in on Amy’s progress on the ride home.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">People in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state> tend to describe distance by time rather than length.<span style=""> </span>The Ladreys’ property was about two and a half hours west of the capital, a winding drive through beautiful hill country still largely untouched by the fighting.<span style=""> </span>I held the books on my lap.<span style=""> </span>The package from Dr. Guerrero’s, roughly the size of a shoebox but more square, sat at my feet.<span style=""> </span>The label across the top read “Neural-Generative Nanocyte Cartridges – 12 CT Pablo Guerrero Prescribing Physician Patient America Ladrey.”<span style=""> </span>Outside the window, barbed wire fences, rocky hills, stands of green oak, and flowered meadows proceeded endlessly by.<span style=""> </span>All the while, Amy’s dad told me about how Amy was doing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I knew most of it, because Amy had kept me informed by messages on wave, but she had apparently wanted to keep me from worry and shown a brave face, because everything was worse than I had realized.<span style=""> </span>The treatments had not seemed to have any beneficial effects—only bad ones.<span style=""> </span>Still confined to her bed, she was in constant discomfort and pain because the stimulation to her nerves had caused them to become overly sensitive, so that her bones ached and her skin felt chafed and burned, like it had seen too much sun.<span style=""> </span>She had borne the pain well, but sometimes it was too much for her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s mom stayed by her side day and night caring for her.<span style=""> </span>From the way Amy’s dad spoke of it, the process was wearing on both of them.<span style=""> </span>Recently, Amy’s uncle and aunt had come out to help Amy’s mom with stuff around the house and provide moral support.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“It’s all she can do some days to keep Amy exercised, cleaned up, and get her to eat,” he said.<span style=""> </span>“Amy’s sense of taste is messed up by the treatments, too.<span style=""> </span>Everything tastes bad—not just bland, but actively nasty.<span style=""> </span>Between that and her mood, she doesn’t eat enough.<span style=""> </span>It’s weakened her.<span style=""> </span>She’s lost a lot of weight.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He glanced over at me.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t know what to say.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“It’ll be good for her to see you.<span style=""> </span>She’s been looking forward to it.<span style=""> </span>But I realize it’s going to be uncomfortable for you both to see her this way.<span style=""> </span>If you need some time to collect your thoughts, we don’t have to go straight to the house.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I didn’t say anything.<span style=""> </span>I stared blankly out the window, hardly noticing the landscape, much less my own thoughts.<span style=""> </span>The slowing down of the truck pulled me out of my disconnect.<span style=""> </span>I looked up in confusion as Amy’s dad pulled over to the gravel shoulder at the side of the road.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He seemed to avoid my gaze, looking grimly down at the steering wheel even after shifting into park.<span style=""> </span>I looked outside but did not recognize anything special about our location.<span style=""> </span>A wide berm filled with the orange flowers that were everywhere this time of year lay between the truck and the barbed wire of the nearest property, which was well supplied with large live oaks.<span style=""> </span>Hilltops peered over from a distance.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The noise of the engine and road having ended, the cab filled with an expectant silence.<span style=""> </span>I looked again at Amy’s dad, still hunched motionless over the steering wheel.<span style=""> </span>I felt more curiosity than anything.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He sighed, then looked over at me with a weak smile that strengthened as his words came.<span style=""> </span>“Well, you wanted to get her some flowers, didn’t you?<span style=""> </span>This looks like a good spot to pick some!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I smiled back, and popped open the door.<span style=""> </span>The <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state> heat embraced me as I stepped out onto the gravel.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The flowers had a brown center shaped like a thimble, with thin petals extending from its base.<span style=""> </span>Though at a distance they appeared uniformly orange, up close the petals were darker at the center, burnt to nearly match the central brown, gradually lightening to a yellow that formed a halo about the edge.<span style=""> </span>The thin green stalks made for a lousy bouquet, so to compensate I had gathered nearly a hundred of them until the petals bunched together in a thick cluster of orange dotted with brown.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I had been to the Ladreys’ property before, their home situated at the back of a plot of several acres filled with tall pecan and fruit trees and a front lawn with rows of lavender.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s dad parked the truck and ushered me inside, immediately guiding me to the back of the house and up the stairs to Amy’s room.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He paused and knocked on the door.<span style=""> </span>“Sweetling, I’m home.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Dad!” came Amy’s voice from inside the room.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s dad opened the door and entered, with me following a few hesitant steps behind.<span style=""> </span>Amy was sitting up in bed, with sheets drawn up to her waist and pillows supporting her back.<span style=""> </span>She held a book in her lap.<span style=""> </span>Her brown hair wasn’t in her usual ponytail, but fell straight about her neck and shoulders.<span style=""> </span>She had indeed lost a lot of weight, her face looking more thin and hollow than I would have thought possible.<span style=""> </span>Next to her bed, Amy’s mom was sitting in a chair.<span style=""> </span>She was a small woman with wispy features; brown hair like Amy’s was done up in a bun.<span style=""> </span>She wasn’t really old enough to have gray hair, but some streaks of it ran at her temples, though this did nothing to diminish her attractiveness; Amy’s mother possessed a beauty that had a sweetness to it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Both women smiled as Amy’s dad entered the room; sincere, yet strained smiles.<span style=""> </span>He gently, so very gently bent over and hugged his daughter.<span style=""> </span>“How ya doin’, babe?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s eyes were closed and her expression blank as he gently squeezed her.<span style=""> </span>She patted his back with an unbelievably thin arm and looked at me from over his shoulder.<span style=""> </span>“Not a bad day, Dad.<span style=""> </span>Ooh!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad froze.<span style=""> </span>“You okay?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Fine.”<span style=""> </span>Her brow was tight.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He stood up.<span style=""> </span>“I guess you’ve seen the stray dog I picked up on the way here.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">She smiled at me.<span style=""> </span>My heart skipped a beat every time she did that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad scratched his head.<span style=""> </span>“Do you think we should keep him?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I dunno, Dad, do you think he’s housetrained?<span style=""> </span>He might have mange.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s mom spoke up.<span style=""> </span>“Aw, he looks all right to me,” she said, standing up.<span style=""> </span>She smiled at me and crossed over to give me a hug, the top of her head coming just short of my chin.<span style=""> </span>“Hi, Brent.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Are those for me?” Amy asked from the bed, pointing at the bouquet of flowers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“What?<span style=""> </span>Why would these be for you?” I asked her, snatching my chance to tease her in return to the stray dog comments.<span style=""> </span>“I only give flowers to beautiful ladies.”<span style=""> </span>I held the small cluster out to her mother.<span style=""> </span>“These are for your mom.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">When she saw that I was serious, Amy’s mom accepted the flowers.<span style=""> </span>“Why, thank you, Brent.”<span style=""> </span>They had no real scent, but she brought her nose down to them, anyway, and her eyes smiled over at her husband.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He gave her a wink, and then went out into the hall and came back with a larger bouquet of flowers, which he handed to me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“These, on the other hand,” I said, “these are for you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s eyes sparkled as she accepted the bouquet.<span style=""> </span>“Wow, so many!”<span style=""> </span>She, too, sniffed them, drawing in a deep breath, but her face bunched and she groaned.<span style=""> </span>“No, no, I just have to remember not to do that,” she said, waving off her mother.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad reached over and took Amy’s bouquet from her.<span style=""> </span>“Why don’t we find some vases to put these in, dear,” he said, putting his free hand around her mom’s waist.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s parents left with the bouquets.<span style=""> </span>I remained standing near Amy’s bed.<span style=""> </span>I thought I had been prepared for this.<span style=""> </span>I had seen Amy like this, right after she had been injured, but I must have held some sort of false hope that she would be better by this time.<span style=""> </span>She was much worse.<span style=""> </span>She looked extremely weak and pathetic against the memory of the athletic and fiery girl I had known.<span style=""> </span>I clenched my fists at how unfair it all was.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“So, how was <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Kentucky</st1:place></st1:state>?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I shrugged off my dark thoughts, and gave her a smile.<span style=""> </span>“It was a hell hole.<span style=""> </span>The fighting along the <st1:place st="on">Ohio river</st1:place> has gotten pretty intense.<span style=""> </span>The militia had several major engagements while I was there.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Then I’m glad you made it back whole.<span style=""> </span>I prayed for your safety all the time.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Looks like he saw fit to answer your prayers,” I said.<span style=""> </span>But not mine.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Could you sit?<span style=""> </span>You’re making me nervous, standing over there like that.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Oh, sure,” I said.<span style=""> </span>I went over to the chair where her mom had been sitting.<span style=""> </span>“By the way, these are for you, too.”<span style=""> </span>I held up the stack of books we had checked out from the library.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy shifted herself in bed to better turn toward me but then gave a cry of pain.<span style=""> </span>I cast aside the books onto the nightstand and would have leaped out of the chair to her had she not put up a hand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“No, it’ll pass.<span style=""> </span>Thank you.”<span style=""> </span>She shifted herself hesitantly, and settled back down with a groan she kept swallowed deep in her throat.<span style=""> </span>I watched helplessly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">She smiled faintly and looked over at the spines of the books.<span style=""> </span>“Ah.<span style=""> </span>I had been hoping to read some Kierkegaard.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Now you can,” I said.<span style=""> </span>I frowned.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The sound of the cicadas drifted in from the window, which was beginning to turn a bright crimson as the day began its end.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Amy,” I said.<span style=""> </span>“I’m sorry this is happening to you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">She smirked at me.<span style=""> </span>“What are you sorry for?<span style=""> </span>You didn’t cause this.<span style=""> </span>Nobody did.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">My face burned.<span style=""> </span>“If I could know which of those cowardly jihadi scumbags <span style=""> </span>launched that missile, I’d see to it that they’d pay.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I know you would,” she said.<span style=""> </span>She reached a hand out to me, which I took gingerly in my own.<span style=""> </span>She bit her lip as I did so.<span style=""> </span>“But please don’t talk like that.<span style=""> </span>I don’t want you to feel that way.<span style=""> </span>Surely you already made plenty of them pay up along the <st1:place st="on">Ohio River</st1:place>.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Knock knock,” said Amy’s dad from the doorway.<span style=""> </span>He had the flowers in a vase of green-tinted glass, which he placed next to the books on the nightstand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He put a hand on my shoulder.<span style=""> </span>“I’m sorry to interrupt you two, but I’m afraid we need to administer the next treatment as soon as possible.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s face fell.<span style=""> </span>She closed her eyes and swallowed.<span style=""> </span>She nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad reached into a drawer and pulled out an injector.<span style=""> </span>He sat it on top of the books.<span style=""> </span>“I’ll go get it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">After her dad left, Amy looked at me and squeezed my hand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Brent,” she said, “My heart is very glad to see you again.<span style=""> </span>But I don’t want you to see me right after a dose.<span style=""> </span>Could you give me a few days?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I frowned, but she cut me off before I could reply.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Please?”<span style=""> </span>Her eyes pleaded with me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Okay,” I said hoarsely.<span style=""> </span>She squeezed my hand again, satisfied.<span style=""> </span>I got up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Thanks.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad returned with a vial that looked similar to one of those CO2 cartridges used for BB guns.<span style=""> </span>He inserted it into the injector.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He glanced at me.<span style=""> </span>“It, uh, has a pretty immediate reaction, Brent.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I nodded and walked towards the door.<span style=""> </span>Grunting and groaning, Amy rolled over to her side with her dad’s help.<span style=""> </span>I glanced back at her when I reached the door; her eyes were watching me.<span style=""> </span>Her dad’s hand was steadying her at her shoulder, and she was reaching up with the same arm to grip his forearm, his flesh drawn white from the pressure of her fingertips.<span style=""> </span>Her dad pulled back the sheet; he seemed to be placing the injector at the small of her back.<span style=""> </span>He looked up at me.<span style=""> </span>I closed the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It did little to block out Amy’s screams.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Downstairs, in the hallway, I could still hear her cries.<span style=""> </span>I braced my back against the wall, staring blankly at a china cabinet opposite as her anguished screams echoed in my ears.<span style=""> </span>A jade tea set, elaborately carved with Chinese symbols and Oriental pictures—dragons, bamboo, buddhas, and the like—was laid out on display upon its main board.<span style=""> </span>I knew that Amy’s grandpa had visited <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region> several times before it closed to Americans; various Chinese pieces lay throughout the house.<span style=""> </span>There, over on the wall, was a drawing with calligraphy, and—</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s scream pierced my thoughts.<span style=""> </span>Unable to take it any longer, I rushed down the hall and out the front door for some fresh air.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I let the screen door slam behind me.<span style=""> </span>The air was still hot, and thick with the drone of cicadas and crickets.<span style=""> </span>It was that time in the evening where the sun had already disappeared behind the horizon, and though everything on the ground was already shrouded in murky darkness, the sky retained its memory of the day and shone brightly in light blues and the occasional pink or purple cloud.<span style=""> </span>The moon, too, seemed brighter than it would be in half an hour when the day’s light had completely faded and the stars winked into existence.<span style=""> </span>For now, only the brightest specks were visible, and the black silhouettes of the trees reached backlit toward them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I paced across the front deck, my heel sounding against the wood boards with each step.<span style=""> </span>I walked two times back and forth, then grew irritated with the sound and hoisted myself over the rail and onto the dirt below, my work boots swishing through the well-trimmed St. Augustine instead as I rounded the house.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I had passed the utility shed and the propane tank when I smelt the cigarette smoke.<span style=""> </span>I took several steps away from the house and looked up on the roof.<span style=""> </span>A small dot of red glow confirmed my suspicions.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I had been here with the Ladreys during the Christmas tragedy in which Amy had been wounded.<span style=""> </span>It was the first time I had met her extended family.<span style=""> </span>Afterward, I had stayed on and helped with repairs to the house.<span style=""> </span>Her younger brother and I had done most of the work on the roof; it had also been an excellent place to get away from it all.<span style=""> </span>I walked back around the house and hoisted myself up the large oak we had often used instead of a ladder.<span style=""> </span>It was an easy climb because of a split base and well-spaced limbs, from one of which it was possible to hoist arm-over-arm down onto the metal roof.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The roof was still hot from the day’s heat.<span style=""> </span>Though visibility was low, the route was still familiar to me, even in the dark, and I was in no danger of slipping on the rubber soles of my boots.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Hey, Brent,” said Amy’s brother as I approached.<span style=""> </span>The red glow of what little remained of his lit cigarette brightened as he took a pull on it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Hey, T,” I said.<span style=""> </span>I sat down next to him and offered a fist.<span style=""> </span>T was several years younger than me; I figured he must be sixteen now, since he was fifteen when I met him.<span style=""> </span>He and I had gotten along well together, and he had come up with a secret handshake.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Glad to see that you hadn’t forgotten it,” he said.<span style=""> </span>“And, of course, that you made it back from <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Kentucky</st1:state></st1:place> in one piece.”<span style=""> </span>The words were friendly enough, but there was no joy in them at all.<span style=""> </span>He smothered his cigarette on the roof and toss the butt into a can.<span style=""> </span>Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a pack and offered me one.<span style=""> </span>When I declined, he shrugged and put a new one between his lips.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Your dad know you smoke?” I asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">T shrugged.<span style=""> </span>“Probably.<span style=""> </span>Not much gets past him.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I guess not,” I said.<span style=""> </span>If his dad hadn’t lectured him on smoking, I sure wasn’t going to.<span style=""> </span>Though it seemed odd that his dad would be okay with it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We sat in silence.<span style=""> </span>I couldn’t actually hear Amy from here, but in the silence my imagination tricked my ears into inserting snips of her screams in the ebb and flow of the night’s song.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“You get to see Amy?” T asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Yeah, but then they gave her a treatment.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Ah.<span style=""> </span>That explains why you’re out here.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I nodded.<span style=""> </span>“Is it usually that bad?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“No,” said T.<span style=""> </span>“Sometimes its worse.”<span style=""> </span>The he looked apologetically over at me.<span style=""> </span>“She’s strong, though.<span style=""> </span>The doctor says it might still work.<span style=""> </span>I hope it’s worth it.<span style=""> </span>I don’t know how Mom deals with being in that room all the time like that.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“She’s a strong woman.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Heh, she’d have to be, in this family.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I leaned back on my hands and looked up into the darkening sky, remembering the first time I had met Amy’s mom.<span style=""> </span>She had gotten the drop on me in a field in southern <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Illinois</st1:place></st1:state>, not long into my flight into the Independent States.<span style=""> </span>I had met the rest of the family with my hands on my head and her gun at my back.<span style=""> </span>Hard to believe that was not even a year ago.<span style=""> </span>I laid all the way back against the warm roof, using my hands for a headrest.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">T continued to sit, leaning his elbows on his knees.<span style=""> </span>“You see any action while in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Kentucky</st1:place></st1:state>?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Three major conflicts, and some skirmishes,” I said.<span style=""> </span>I caught myself scratching the fresh shrapnel scars at my ribs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Yeah?<span style=""> </span>What was that like?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I was pretty sure T had seen more action than I had.<span style=""> </span>“You know what it’s like.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He spit off the roof.<span style=""> </span>“Not after Christmas, I don’t.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The tone of his voice startled me.<span style=""> </span>T had always had a spring in his step, a youthful excitement that even witnessing close combat had not obliterated.<span style=""> </span>But that had all changed after Christmas.<span style=""> </span>I was surprised that the dark brooding he was going through when I had left still remained.<span style=""> </span>I suppose a death in the family had brought the war to home in a way that no other casualty had been able to do before.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He took the cigarette out of his mouth and set it down on the roof, the laid down on his back to join me at looking at the sky.<span style=""> </span>The stars were beginning to reveal themselves in full.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Do you think we have a chance, Brent?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The question startled me.<span style=""> </span>“What do you mean?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Sometimes… sometimes it feels like <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is getting smaller every day.<span style=""> </span>Crumbling like the <st1:place st="on">Roman Empire</st1:place> to the relentless waves of barbarians.<span style=""> </span>You know, a century ago, our country stood against tyrants and spread freedom all over the globe.<span style=""> </span>But the world is submitting, it seems, one region at a time.<span style=""> </span>Freedom doesn’t seem to be gaining any ground anymore.<span style=""> </span>We’ve got the jihadis gunning for us from the north and the—hell, the <st1:country-region st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region> states ceded <st1:place st="on">Southern California</st1:place> to the <i>razistas</i>.<span style=""> </span>And on top of all that, we’re still rotting on the inside from the same sort of ignorances that led to the Separation of the States.<span style=""> </span>It’s like we’re on a island of freedom that’s sinking into the sea.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I wasn’t sure what to say to that.<span style=""> </span>“You don’t think continuing to fight for freedom makes a difference?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He thought for a moment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I used to,” he said.<span style=""> </span>“Just on principle.<span style=""> </span>But after Libby died… well, recently I’ve been wondering if we’re not just the fevered twitches of an idea that died before I was born.<span style=""> </span><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Liberty</st1:place></st1:city> is an exception in history, after all.”<span style=""> </span>He sighed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I echoed with my own sigh.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t necessarily disagree with him.<span style=""> </span>Some days it did seem rather hopeless.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“You know,” I said, “in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Kentucky</st1:place></st1:state>, there were times when I felt like giving up the hope of fighting.<span style=""> </span>But then I’d always remember, that if I didn’t fight there, sooner or later Amy would be fighting them here.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Well, that’s just the point, isn’t it?” said T.<span style=""> </span>“Sooner or later, they’ll be out beyond that rise, with this sky flashing with explosions.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Maybe,” I said.<span style=""> </span>“But I would also remember something your dad once told me.<span style=""> </span>He said that when it comes to life, the outcome doesn’t matter as much as where you make your stand.<span style=""> </span>Even if the ISA pushed all the way down here, I couldn’t consider myself much of a man to not fight them every inch of the way.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Plus,” I added, with a bit more fire, “I want to make them pay.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Amen to that, brother.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Since Amy’s Uncle Jon and Aunt Mary were staying in the guest room, Amy’s mom put me up on the fold-out in the living room.<span style=""> </span>By habit, I woke up at dawn.<span style=""> </span>I stayed awake, listening to the birds’ cheerful songs and the crowing of the rooster.<span style=""> </span>I laid there until I heard people moving around in the kitchen and smelled the coffee brewing.<span style=""> </span>I folded up the bed and put the cushions back on the couch before padding across the hardwood floor into the kitchen, now following the scent of sizzling bacon.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s mom was hovering over the frying pan, tending to the thin strips of bacon.<span style=""> </span>She looked strange, like the same woman I had known but drawn too tight across her reality.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s mom had always impressed me with how at ease she always appeared, even when toting her two kids through a war zone.<span style=""> </span>But on this visit, her spirit seemed rigid and tensed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s aunt was seated on a stool at the island, facing her sister-in-law.<span style=""> </span>She had blond hair and a model’s face, though it was beginning to noticeably line with age.<span style=""> </span>Whereas Amy’s mom was short and thin, her aunt was tall and thick.<span style=""> </span>She cupped her mug of coffee with both hands both when she held it on the counter and when she brought it up to sip.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“…how you can stand it,” she was saying as I walked into the room.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Just have to take it day by day,” Amy’s mom said over the stove.<span style=""> </span>“And today’s a new day.<span style=""> </span>Good morning, Brent.”<span style=""> </span>She gave me a brief smile.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Good morning, Mrs. Ladrey, and other Mrs. Ladrey,” I replied.<span style=""> </span>“That smells good.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I’m almost finished with this set.<span style=""> </span>Will you get a plate from the cabinet and put some paper towels across it for me?” Amy’s mom asked, pointing over to the appropriate cabinet door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Anyway, on top of that having to prepare for more guests!” said Amy’s aunt, apparently continuing the previous conversation.<span style=""> </span>“Jake’s quite a man, but sometimes I think he doesn’t wait for the rest of us to keep pace.<span style=""> </span>What’s he thinking, asking for a thing like that?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Well, it just makes me appreciate all the more you and Jon coming out to help us for a couple of weeks,” Amy’s mom said.<span style=""> </span>I set the plate with paper towels on the counter next to her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Thanks, Brent,” she said.<span style=""> </span>“Would you like some coffee?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“No thanks.”<span style=""> </span>I retreated to the island and sat on the stool next to Amy’s aunt.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“He hasn’t even told you who or how many or what for!” Amy’s aunt exclaimed. “Aren’t you at least curious?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s mom was lifting the cooked bacon over onto the plate.<span style=""> </span>“Oh, you know how he likes his surprises.<span style=""> </span>I trust his judgment enough not to scorn him a few details.<span style=""> </span>He did say for Monday, which is the Fourth, and said enough chickens for two dozen, so…”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Well, I won’t hear nothing of it,” said Amy’s aunt.<span style=""> </span>“You just take care of your daughter, and I’ll take care of the chickens, and the housecleaning, and whatever else needs to be done around here in preparation for his little Fourth of July mystery party.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Thanks, Mary.<span style=""> </span>Hey, could you get the biscuits out of the fridge and set ‘em up in the pan?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Soon Amy’s aunt had two pans of biscuits in the oven and Amy’s mom had eggs sizzling in the bacon grease.<span style=""> </span>The house was coming alive with footsteps up and down the halls and stairs, and shortly I found myself sitting at the dining room table with T, opposite Uncle Jon and Aunt Mary, with Amy’s dad and grandpa at either end.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s mom disappeared with two plates up the stairs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I had not seen Jon since the events at Christmas, though I had spent time with him out in the field prior to that.<span style=""> </span>Jon was a big black man with thick limbs and short-cropped hair.<span style=""> </span>He had a broad, infectious smile that often shined beneath the mischievous look in his eyes.<span style=""> </span>He was easygoing in peace and hard as flint in a firefight.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He was taking full advantage of his captive audience to regale us with the exploits of the most recent of “the Bandit’s” forays, which Amy’s dad had planned but he had executed.<span style=""> </span>The group had escorted some New England refugees through <st1:place st="on">Appalachia</st1:place> into the Independent States.<span style=""> </span>Jon was a natural storyteller, with both timing and charisma, and he had us nearly in tears as we laughed over his tales of his whining charges, colorful contacts, and bungling hostiles.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“So we missed having you there, bub, but it all worked out well enough,” said Jon, mopping up the remnants of egg and bacon with what was left of a biscuit.<span style=""> </span>“I’m looking forward to whatever you have planned for the summer, though I’m hoping something a little more troublesome for the enemy.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I don’t have any plans for the summer,” said Amy’s dad.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Don’t give me that!<span style=""> </span>You’ve got your wife preparing for guests come Monday.<span style=""> </span>You wouldn’t gather the Highwaymen without a plan for mobilizing them.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I sent word to most of the Highwaymen that if they plan to fight this summer to coordinate with their local militia rather than me,” said Amy’s dad.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Jon stared with wide-eyed disbelief at his brother.<span style=""> </span>“What?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“There will be no activity of the Highwaymen this summer.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Jon pushed his plate to one side and turned to fully face his brother, one arm leaning on the table.<span style=""> </span>“Don’t tell me that you’ve lost the nerve, now of all times!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I’m sorry, Jon, I meant to tell you earlier.<span style=""> </span>I need to take a break and focus on the family.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Sorry, nothing!<span style=""> </span>You can’t disband the Highwaymen right now, with the ISA gearing up for what will probably be the most aggressive push yet!<span style=""> </span>With the <i>razistas </i>emboldened by their takeover of Southern California, and likely to come gunning for the other <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">border states</st1:state></st1:place>!<span style=""> </span>With the drug lords cooperating with the jihadis to bring the fighting directly to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state>!<span style=""> </span>The people need the Highwaymen more than ever, and you’re just going to take a summer vacation?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I was also dumbfounded by this news; part of why I had returned from <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Kentucky</st1:place></st1:state> down to the Ladreys was to join up with the Highwaymen for the summer.<span style=""> </span>And I had to agree with Jon that action was sorely needed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad looked cross, but his voice remained even.<span style=""> </span>“Family comes first, Jon.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Jon was fuming.<span style=""> </span>“Family comes first?<span style=""> </span>Family comes first?<span style=""> </span>What about <i>my </i>family, Jake!<span style=""> </span>Wasn’t I focusing on family when those damn jihadis launched a missile that killed my daughter in this very house?<span style=""> </span>You’re family will still be coming first when the next botched missile strikes and kills your daughter who you’re putting through so much pain right now!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad stood straight up.<span style=""> </span>“I will attribute that last remark to your continued grief.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Yeah, I’m grieving,” Jon shot right back.<span style=""> </span>“Every day I’m grieving.<span style=""> </span>But the only way I can work through the hole in my heart left by <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Liberty</st1:place></st1:city> is to fight so that maybe other Independents will not lose what I have!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Don’t you see?<span style=""> </span>Don’t you see?” Amy’s dad was beginning to meet his brother in intensity.<span style=""> </span>“They win!<span style=""> </span>If we are forced to sacrifice the most fundamental aspect of lives, our own very families, the very building blocks of civilization, then they win.<span style=""> </span>Don’t let them win, brother!<span style=""> </span>You still have your wife, your two sons, your other daughter, your nephew, and your niece!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“My niece, who screamed at the top of her lungs last night because of the jihadis’ malice and your cowardice!”<span style=""> </span>Jon pushed himself away from the table.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Oh, I am a coward now, am I?” Amy’s dad shouted, chasing after him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I glanced wide-eyed at the others.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s aunt had her face in her hands; I think she was crying.<span style=""> </span>T was drawing circles on his plate with his knife.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s grandpa just stared thoughtfully, almost placidly, in the direction in which his sons had left, and continued to do so as their angry voices carried in from the kitchen, reaching a fever pitch punctuated by the slamming of the front door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Excuse me,” Amy’s aunt said, and she hurried away from the table.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">T left wordlessly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I sat there uncomfortably for a few moments, wondering what I should do.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s grandpa was still sitting silently at the other end of the table.<span style=""> </span>I did not know him as well as the others; he was the sort of man to entertain awkward silences even in the best of situations, much less something like this.<span style=""> </span>I found it strange that such an unsettlingly taciturn man had ever been a politician, much less an important one, but it occurred to me that above the awkwardness his silence also seemed to signal a grasp of wisdom and perception that would be fitting for a statesman.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I decided to wait for his signal of what to do.<span style=""> </span>He remained there, his wrinkled brow lifted in apparent thought.<span style=""> </span>He had a rather large nose dotted with visible pores that sat above his thin mouth and below his sharp blue eyes.<span style=""> </span>His hair was white and buzz-cut, the hairline pushed back on either side of his forehead like Mickey Mouse or Dracula.<span style=""> </span>He had his son’s thin frame but without the sense of sinewy strength—perhaps because of his age—though at the same time he did not seem frail, either.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He suddenly realized I had been looking at him, and looked at me with surprise as if he had forgotten I had been there at all.<span style=""> </span>Then he looked down at the table.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He looked back at me and smiled.<span style=""> </span>“Well, that was certainly a clever way for them all to leave you and me with the dishes, don’t you think?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He stood up and began gathering stacking the nearby plates and silverware onto his own.<span style=""> </span>I quickly stood to help.<span style=""> </span>We took the pile of dishes in to the kitchen.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I’ll wash and you rinse and dry, what,” he said, immediately taking up the wash rag to scrub the first plate.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We worked in silence for several minutes, clean plates forming up in a pile on the left side of the sink.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s grandpa cleared his throat.<span style=""> </span>“They’ve always fought like that, you know.”<span style=""> </span>He handed me a plate.<span style=""> </span>“Actually, back when they were boys, it was worse.<span style=""> </span>Doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Yeah.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“They’re family, and they’re both trying to defend family.<span style=""> </span>They’ll patch up when they realize that.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I nodded.<span style=""> </span>I took a pile of clean plates over to the cabinet to put them up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“You’re a good man, sticking by Amy,” Amy’s grandpa called from over by the sink.<span style=""> </span>“I’ll be proud to have you in my family.<span style=""> </span>Do you think you’ll ask her to marry soon?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I nearly dropped the plates.<span style=""> </span>“Um, I hadn’t thought, what with the…”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Oh, there’ll always be something, son.”<span style=""> </span>He turned off the running water and turned to smile at me.<span style=""> </span>“Maybe when her treatments settle down, maybe when the border skirmishes are settled, maybe when the war is over, maybe when you’ve found a civilian job, maybe after you’ve got enough saved up to buy a house—there’s always another maybe.<span style=""> </span>Don’t let your plans for the future get in the way of living life right now as it’s still here.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“That seems like good advice, sir.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He chuckled.<span style=""> </span>“I should hope it doesn’t just seem it.<span style=""> </span>If you love my Amy enough to stick by her through this, well, the rest of us approve of you, I think you should start considering when to start a family.<span style=""> </span>Remember, family is what it’s all about.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Yes, sir.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We finished up the dishes, and Amy’s grandpa left me with a smile and a pat on the back.<span style=""> </span>I decided that I definitely liked him.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style=""> </span>Neither Amy’s dad nor Jon returned home until shortly before supper, but they returned together and with no sign of resentment for the argument that had taken place that morning.<span style=""> </span>When it became obvious that they had put the dispute behind them, the rest of the family did, too.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I spent the next day with T helping his dad and uncle trim and spruce up the yard, as well as wash the outside of the house.<span style=""> </span>Then in the early evening we helped Amy’s aunt clean up around the house.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The morning after that Amy’s mom offered for me to take Amy’s breakfast upstairs to her.<span style=""> </span>Having not seen Amy but that once briefly when I first arrived, I was very grateful for the opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with her.<span style=""> </span>I carried the two plates of steaming hot “breakfast casserole”—more like quiche than anything—quickly up the stairs, nearly spilling the contents when I reached the top, so excited I was to see Amy again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I balanced the two plates on one arm and hand and knocked on the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Come in,” I heard Amy say from the other side of the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Brent!” Amy’s face lit up as I entered, and my heart skipped a beat.<span style=""> </span>She still had an effect on me, laid up and deathly thin though she was.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Lone Star Breakfast Casserole, they said this monstrosity is called,” I said, handing her a plate.<span style=""> </span>I set my own plate on the bedside chair so I could unfold the tray the Ladreys had for her to use as a table.<span style=""> </span>I pulled her silverware, carefully wrapped in a napkin, from my pocket and set it on the tray for her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s mom showed up with two glasses of orange juice.<span style=""> </span>“All right,” she said, after handing them to each of us, “do y’all need anything else?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“We’re fine, Mom,” Amy said.<span style=""> </span>Her mom kissed her on the forehead, then gave me a smile and left the room.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy took a couple of bites of her breakfast.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I looked at the yellow, brown, and green mixture on my plate.<span style=""> </span>“So, is it any good?” I asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Dunno,” Amy said.<span style=""> </span>“I remember it being rather spicy, sort of like squishy sausage.<span style=""> </span>I always liked it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I covered my embarrassment of asking such a stupid question by shoving a bite quickly into my mouth.<span style=""> </span>“Mmm,” I said.<span style=""> </span>“You’re right; it <i>is </i>like squishy sausage.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I’m hoping to start in on one of those literary journals you brought me today,” Amy said.<span style=""> </span>“Thanks so much for bringing them.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Of course,” I said.<span style=""> </span>“Can’t have you getting bored up here.<span style=""> </span>Otherwise, next thing you know, you’ll have your bed moved over to the window so you can snipe chickens in the yard.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Her laugh was still the same, but it cut short and she put a hand over her stomach.<span style=""> </span>“Or take pot shots at you guys while Dad has you in his yard labor force.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I took a swallow of my orange juice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Hey,” Amy said.<span style=""> </span>She was looking at me intently.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Yeah?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I would understand, you know, if you decided to leave.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style=""> </span>“What are you talking about?” <span style=""> </span>I stuck my fork in a new hunk of breakfast casserole.<span style=""> </span>“I haven’t even had more than a couple of bites yet.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Not that, silly.<span style=""> </span>I mean if you decided not to stick around for a girl who may never walk again.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I set my fork down and looked at her seriously.<span style=""> </span>“Where else would I find a girl who can hit a quarter from eight hundred yards, or who’s smart enough to read <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cicero</st1:place></st1:city> in the original Latin? <span style=""> </span>I didn’t just choose you for your hiking ability.<span style=""> </span>I’m not going anywhere.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">She beamed at me.<span style=""> </span>I set my plate on the bedtable so I could lean over and kiss her, gently.<span style=""> </span>Gently.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Then I sat back.<span style=""> </span>“Now eat your breakfast.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">She stuck her tongue out at me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I stared at her.<span style=""> </span>“How do you do it, anyway?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Do what?” she asked, putting another bite in her mouth and chewing it with a slight roll of her eyes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“This,” I said, indicating her bed, “has deeply impacted everyone else in the house.<span style=""> </span>They’re all on edge, they’re all grieving, they’re all worried and upset and mad.<span style=""> </span>You’re not at your best, but you don’t seem depressed or anything.<span style=""> </span>It would make more sense if you were.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Some days I am, but…”<span style=""> </span>She looked away from me.<span style=""> </span>“When the missile hit, last Christmas, I was sitting right next to my cousin, both of us there, on the couch.<span style=""> </span>I’d seen enough combat to know immediately that we were goners; what surprised me was to find that I was not dead.<span style=""> </span>But Libby was.<span style=""> </span>Just like that.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">She looked back over to me.<span style=""> </span>“We grew up together, you know.<span style=""> </span>We were more like sisters than cousins.<span style=""> </span>We talked about everything, clothes, music, internet, boys, everything.<span style=""> </span>We were going to be maids of honor at each other’s weddings.<span style=""> </span>And now she’s gone and can’t talk about any of those things.<span style=""> </span>She’ll never hear the newest song by Trackshun.<span style=""> </span>She’ll never get married.<span style=""> </span>So I can’t sit down here and feel sorry for myself when I’m still here and she’s not.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Libby had been a pretty girl, with a broad smile and a cheery personality.<span style=""> </span>It angered me, thinking about her, and that she had been robbed of all Amy had said.<span style=""> </span>The flame that had been smoldering in my heart flared at the thought of those responsible for her death getting to experience anything she was now missing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s eyes flickered with an equally intense ferocity.<span style=""> </span>“No, I have to live.<span style=""> </span>And I have to live to the fullest, despite having to force-feed myself because food tastes like crap, despite being stuck in this bed, despite any amount of pain, I have to push to live life to the fullest that I can possibly live, I have to make the best of what I have, because now I have to live for Libby, and get to do all the things that she can’t, in her memory.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I bit into the last few bites of my breakfast casserole, which did not provide enough resistance to allow me to chew as angrily as I wanted to, thinking of those who killed Amy’s cousin.<span style=""> </span>Amy, apparently inspired by her own words, tore into her own breakfast and cleaned her plate.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I don’t have another treatment until Monday,” Amy said as I gathered up the plates and silverware to take downstairs.<span style=""> </span>“Do you think you can hang out with me more today?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Your dad asked me to help him with a trip into town, but I could—”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“No, you help him with that.<span style=""> </span>I need to get cracking on that copy of <i>McSweeney’s</i>, anyway; you could be returning it if I had opened it yesterday!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“And bringing you a new one.” I shook my head.<span style=""> </span>“Oh, well.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Hah!<span style=""> </span>Yeah.<span style=""> </span>We can play cards or something tomorrow.<span style=""> </span>Come up and let me know when you get back, though.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Sure thing,” I said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I walked down the stairs and into the main hall.<span style=""> </span>As I walked past the china cabinet, I noticed circles of undusted wood where the jade tea set had been laid out; no other sign of intricately carved tea set remained. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Half an hour later I was once again with Amy’s dad in his Ford Independent, winding our way through the hill country.<span style=""> </span>We stopped first at a pawn shop; Amy’s dad went in with a cardboard box and then came out all smiles, commenting that the owner recognized value.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Then we dropped by Dr. Guerrero’s again so Amy’s dad could pay the bill in cash.<span style=""> </span>From there we got back on the highway and headed home.<span style=""> </span>We stopped in <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Marble</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Falls</st1:placetype></st1:place> at their superstore, and I watched with somewhat uncomfortable surprise as Amy’s dad loaded up on enough briscuit, sausage, beer, sodas, chips, and salsa to feed a small army.<span style=""> </span>At the checkout, he also had the checker ring up a dozen bags of ice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Grab the ice, will ya?” he asked me as we exited the store.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I could only reasonably carry four bags at a time, so I headed out with my first load and joined him at the truck.<span style=""> </span>He had put the meat in the bottom of the ice chests, and I put the bags of ice on top of that.<span style=""> </span>I turned and headed back to the store while he continued to load the other groceries into the back of the truck.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I stepped out of the way to let an older lady, a Hispanic-looking woman hunched with several bags of groceries, out of the store, then went to the freezer just inside the door and got the next batch of ice.<span style=""> </span>I passed the same lady on my way back to the truck; she was shuffling along at a snail’s pace.<span style=""> </span>I filled up another ice chest and returned to the store for the final set.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“That’s the last of it,” I said when I returned.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad didn’t respond.<span style=""> </span>He was turned, looking down the parking aisle.<span style=""> </span>I followed his gaze, at the same time noticing the sound of teenage laughter.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">A group of boys were harassing the lady I had seen earlier.<span style=""> </span>They were circling her, giving the occasional shove.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Why don’t you go back to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Mexico</st1:place></st1:country-region>?” I heard one of them say.<span style=""> </span>They shoved her harder, causing her to lose her grip on the sacks she was carrying.<span style=""> </span>Groceries spilled out on the parking lot.<span style=""> </span>Other people were giving the scene sideways glances and a wide berth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">But Amy’s dad was walking rapidly toward them.<span style=""> </span>I dropped the bags of ice and moved to follow.<span style=""> </span>He walked straight up to the biggest of the four teenagers and sent him toppling backwards with a punch to the nose.<span style=""> </span>Before any of them could react, he had kicked another in the stomach, causing the kid to collide backward into a third teen.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The kids turned to face their attacker, but by that time I had also made it to the scene, and looking at the two of us they hesitated to make a move to strike back.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“What the hell, man?” said the first, daubing blood from his nose.<span style=""> </span>“What are you, some Mexican sympathizer?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad spat at the ground.<span style=""> </span>“What are you, some cowardly Yankee refugee who came down to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state> rather than fight for your freedom in the north?<span style=""> </span>‘Cause you damn well ain’t no Texan, ‘cause any born and raised Texan would know that people like this lady’s ancestors fought beside us in the War for Texas Independence.<span style=""> </span>You can’t tell if she’s a <i>razista</i> by looking at her, and when you act like you can, you’re no better than the <i>razistas</i>. <span style=""> </span>Now get out of here before I call the cops.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The kid glared at him, but after pressing at his nose a couple more times, he let his friends usher him along and soon they had all left.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s dad watched them go, then bent down and started gathering up the groceries that had spilled on the pavement.<span style=""> </span>I picked up a bag and held it open for him to put the stuff he had gathered.<span style=""> </span>The woman also helped, admonishing us for troubling ourselves to pick up the stuff.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“There you are, senora,” Amy’s dad said when the last of the groceries had been picked up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Thank you, sir,” she said.<span style=""> </span>“Thank you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“No need to thank me.<span style=""> </span>I’m sorry they troubled you.<span style=""> </span>Here, let me and my friend help you get to your car.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We helped her carry her bags to her car and saw her safely head out of the parking lot before walking back to the truck.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Such ignorance,” was all that Amy’s dad said.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We drove out of town, stopping only for some more gas, and then about half an hour later, at a fireworks stand, where once again Amy’s dad purchased enough munitions for a small army, though he stayed away from the big ticket items and stuck with small crackers and sparklers and similar small-scale things for individuals.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“What?” he asked as we got back on the road.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I guess I had been letting my expressions get the better of me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Nothing,” I said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“You’re wondering how come I’m spending all this on firecrackers and such,” he said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I, uh, noticed the jade tea set disappeared,” I said.<span style=""> </span>“Wasn’t it sort of a family heirloom?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Ah, a <i>family </i>heirloom, yes,” he said.<span style=""> </span>“My dad agreed to us using it for this, if you were wondering.<span style=""> </span>And Amy.<span style=""> </span>She was most likely to inherit it some day.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I understand using that for Amy, but I’m still…” I stopped.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t my place.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I understand.”<span style=""> </span>He sighed.<span style=""> </span>“I’m not sure what I can do to explain it.<span style=""> </span>You could say that Amy’s treatment and my plans for Monday are one and the same in purpose, though for different patients.<span style=""> </span>I consider both invaluable.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I didn’t understand where he was going with this, but figured I’d take advantage of this moment in which he was sharing his thoughts with me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“So what’s the deal with Monday?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He smiled.<span style=""> </span>“You’ll just have to wait and see.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Sunday afternoon, Amy had me playing cards with her, this two-player card game that she loved where you add the cards up to fifteen and move little pegs about a board.<span style=""> </span>I understood it well enough to play—she had taught it to me before—but not nearly well enough to keep her pegs from moving way faster than mine.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">About the third time she had beaten me mercilessly, her dad interrupted and asked me to come help him with hanging lights in the yard for the next day’s party.<span style=""> </span>Jon and T had gone into town to borrow tables and chairs from the local church, who hadn’t been able to spare them until after their own Fourth of July picnic, so it was just me and Amy’s dad out in the yard.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“We’ll run them from either corner of the house, hang ‘em from the trees to form a big square.” He pointed down the yard all the way to the fenceline.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Up all the way to the fence there?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Yeah.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“That’s a lot of space,” I said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Gotta have room for fireworks.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He started the line at the corner of the house, then held the ladder for me as I hung the lights across the limbs of the trees.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Brent, I want you to know that you can stay here all summer if you’d like.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“That’s a really nice offer, Mr. Ladrey,” I said.<span style=""> </span>“But since the Highwaymen aren’t mobilizing this summer, I’m thinking of joining up with the militias along the Valley instead.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Oh,” he said.<span style=""> </span>He stepped aside as I came down the ladder and we walked over to the shed near the fence.<span style=""> </span>He set up the ladder and I climbed up to string the lights across the shed’s roof.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“I feel like Jon has a point, that it’s a critical time for the fighting,” I said, not sure why I felt the need to explain myself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“He’s right in that assessment,” Amy’s dad replied.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Besides,” I said, coming down the ladder, “fighting in the Valley will give me an opportunity to strike back at the worthless scum who launched the Christmas missiles.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The hand on my shoulder twirled me around and slammed me up against the shed so quickly that I barely had time to be surprised.<span style=""> </span>With an iron grip on my shirt, Amy’s dad pressed his forearm into my throat and held me against the shed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“That’s no good, soldier.”<span style=""> </span>His face was deadly serious.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I easily weighed more than him, but the surprise and his intensity left me feeling helpless.<span style=""> </span>“Sir?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“You want to go kill the jihadis who hurt Amy?<span style=""> </span>Or the drug lords who let them?<span style=""> </span>Is that it?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I nodded, speechless.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“That’s no good.<span style=""> </span>You can’t fight for that reason.<span style=""> </span>You can’t die for that reason.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He released his grip on my shirt put the hand on my shoulder instead, his other hand bracing against the shed as he leaned forward, his head lowered.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Brent, you may have to fight the jihadis every day of your life, and one day they may break my little girl’s heart when they kill you, and if that day comes, I would want you to die for the right reasons, and vengeance isn’t one of them.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He raised his head to look me in the eye.<span style=""> </span>“We can’t fight their bloodthirstiness with vengeance.<span style=""> </span>We have to fight them on principle.<span style=""> </span>We have to stand and fight in order to stop them from doing more harm, not in order to make them pay for what they’ve done.<span style=""> </span>Do you understand the difference?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I did, and it made sense coming from his mouth, but in my heart I wasn’t quite sure I could just let it go like that.<span style=""> </span>However, I nodded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Do you think you can fight for the right reasons?”<span style=""> </span>He stared into my eyes.<span style=""> </span>No trace remained of the anger which had shoved me against the wall.<span style=""> </span>His eyes seemed to be pleading with me more than anything.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I swallowed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He nodded.<span style=""> </span>“I don’t think you fully understand, yet. <span style=""> </span>Stopping the jihadis from taking over the world, that’s not what’s most important.<span style=""> </span>It’s important, yeah, but it’s not everything.<span style=""> </span>No, Brent, you are everything; you are what’s important.<span style=""> </span>You can’t throw away what’s important for revenge, especially if running after vengeance will cause it all to become meaningless.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He pushed himself away from the shed and got out of my face.<span style=""> </span>He straightened my shirt and patted me on the shoulder.<span style=""> </span>“Sorry.<span style=""> </span>Hey, look around tomorrow, when all these lights are on and everybody’s here.<span style=""> </span>See if you can’t better understand what I’m saying.<span style=""> </span>Then think it over and let me know what your plans for summer are going to be.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We finished hanging the lights in silence, Amy’s dad looking more apologetic than anything.<span style=""> </span>I thought over his words as we hung the lights, and continued to consider them when T and his uncle got back with the table and chairs, and was still thinking over their meaning that night as I lay exhausted on the fold-out listening to the crickets.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Monday morning dawned warm and soon progressed to hot, with a steady succession of puffy white clouds providing the relief of occasional shade.<span style=""> </span>The house was busy with last-minute preparations for Amy’s dad’s mystery party.<span style=""> </span>By eleven, he had the grill fired up.<span style=""> </span>Shortly after, the guests began arriving.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Oh, wow, Paw-paw and Mema!” exclaimed T as a long RV pulled up the drive and parked next to the barn.<span style=""> </span>A tall man got out, with a thick forest of white hair, accompanied by a short and thin woman who looked like an exact copy of Amy’s mom, only thirty years older.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“And Aunt Jaclyn!” T ran up and hugged a woman who looked startingly like an older version of Amy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The day continued, with more and more relatives of the Ladrey household arriving.<span style=""> </span>T introduced me to aunts and uncles and cousins and more cousins.<span style=""> </span>Even Aunt Mary’s parents showed up with her and Uncle Jon’s two sons and daughter.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad had organized a Fourth of July family reunion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Everyone brought a dish of food to share, so that before long a literal feast lay out upon the serving table.<span style=""> </span>People sat about in foldout tables and chairs, eating food and sipping beer or lemonade.<span style=""> </span>Little kids ran about the yard, chasing the butterflies, grasshoppers, and each other.<span style=""> </span>I met members of the Ladrey family that I didn’t even know existed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The feeling of love was notable, like a lubricant in the social occasion that put everyone at ease and made everything run smoothly.<span style=""> </span>Many of these people had not seen each other for months or years, and most had not even met me before, but everyone was happy to see one another.<span style=""> </span>Everyone smiled at me and gave me a hug.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The afternoon rolled on, the time passing quickly as stories were told and dominoes were shuffled and watermelon seed-spitting contests were held.<span style=""> </span>When dinner rolled around, I stopped and looked at all the people and realized that this was something special.<span style=""> </span>What was happening could occur in no other situation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">And the atmosphere was more than just pleasant.<span style=""> </span>It was a salve.<span style=""> </span>T was chasing and laughing with his much younger cousins.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s mom was enjoying the company of her family, looking relaxed and happy as she sat talking and drinking lemonade.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Uncle Jon came out of the house carrying Amy in his arms, so that she wouldn’t miss out on her family.<span style=""> </span>He sat her down carefully on a sun chair on the back porch.<span style=""> </span>A bunch of her little female cousins immediately gathered around her. <span style=""> </span>She laughed with them and wove flowers into their hair.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“A toast!” Amy’s dad announced, as the sun began to lower in the sky.<span style=""> </span>“A toast!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">He stood at the porch, addressing everyone.<span style=""> </span>“Thank you all for coming.<span style=""> </span>It gladdens my heart to see you all again, and it is an honor and a privilege to be part of your family.<span style=""> </span>I know that some of you traveled for hours to be with us today, and I appreciate how that shows how much you value all of us.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“But not everyone could be here today,” he continued, “and one member in particular has been lost to us.”<span style=""> </span>He looked over to his brother and sister-in-law.<span style=""> </span>“And so I propose a toast, in the memory of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Liberty</st1:place></st1:city>; to family!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“To family!” everyone cried, and drank.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“And now,” Amy’s dad said, raising his arms like a ringmaster in a circus, “dancing and firecrackers!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Music belted out a dance tune and many people hopped up to dance.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s dad grabbed his wife and twirled her about in the grass, showing off an extensive array of twists and turns.<span style=""> </span>It nearly looked like an extension of the music, fluid as it was.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">T broke out the box of fireworks, distributing punks and munitions to all the kids and watchful adults.<span style=""> </span>Pops and spinning lights began to occur steadily over by the fenceline.<span style=""> </span>The string of lights were turned on, and the fireflies came out, and soon all of the light and noise seemed sewn together in one seamless garment of joy that the evening wore proudly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">After a good set of dance tunes, Amy’s dad played a series of patriotic songs.<span style=""> </span>I was sitting over at a side table near the porch with Amy’s grandpa and aunt, watching the kids jump and spin with their sparklers, when “<st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> the Beautiful” came on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Oh my God!” Amy’s Aunt Mary brought her hand up to her mouth, an expression of absolute disbelief on her face.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I turned to see what she was staring at.<span style=""> </span>Amy’s dad stood with a hand extended toward his daughter.<span style=""> </span>Slowly, slowly he helped Amy stand, then scooped her closely into his arms as she leaned against him, and they slowly shifted to the music.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I jumped out of my chair.<span style=""> </span>I looked over to see Amy’s grandpa smiling and Aunt Mary sniffling.<span style=""> </span>All of the family near the porch had taken notice of what was going on, and a spontaneous burst of applause broke out.<span style=""> </span>Amy buried her face in her father’s shoulder as they continued to slowly sway to the music.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Amy’s dad looked over and found me, and jerked his head a couple of times, calling me over.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Would you like to take a verse?” he asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We carefully switched places, making sure to support Amy’s weight as we did so.<span style=""> </span>Her eyes and nose were red from tears, but she smiled at me before wetting my shoulder.<span style=""> </span>I held her in my arms and we slowly swayed.<span style=""> </span>And I knew exactly where I would be for the rest of summer.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-11196909531987457922010-05-21T05:12:00.004-05:002011-01-24T16:31:35.533-06:00Catachronism<span style="font-style: italic;">In submission to the May Greater Friday Challenge, "<a href="http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/04/friday-challenge-43010.html">The Land Before Zip Codes</a>."</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Inspiration came too late for me to work up what I would write to change science fiction history, so we're left with Mr. Scribbler's crummy piece.<br /><br />UPDATE July 2010: A reworked version of this story was bought and published in </span><span>Stupefying Stories, Vol. 1 "It Came from the Slushpile"<span style="font-style: italic;">! You can <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982897405">purchase the short story collection from Amazon</a></span>.<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><br />I glanced up as I typed the salutation line, then looked up again, idly drawing my eyes over the papier-mâchéd surface of the wall as the metal heads of the typewriter struck ribbon and paper.<br /><br />There were seventy-nine of them, posted there on the wall before me. I had tacked up the first in defiance of its criticism, determined that within a week I should be able to face it triumphant and call it a liar. Instead, it was joined by more like it: first a dozen, then two, then more. Each was tacked up in the same haphazard orderliness that governed my small city apartment, random at a glance but organized in discrete sections according to publishing magazine and extent of criticism. I saw them as a challenge, a symbol of the adversity through which I would persevere, a source of resolve and occasional self-pity that would evolve into the motivating energy of righteous anger, assuring myself that one day I would clear them all away and in their place post an acceptance letter, the first of many.<br /><br />But at the moment they still hung on the wall, puffing out like ruffled feathers on the neck of a strutting pigeon, each letter mated to a failed story. And this one would fail, too, I thought. So is the lot fate has given me.<br /><br />The thought came unbidden, and hung in the air like a tossed bedsheet, the sudden snap of its movement nearly causing me to gasp out loud, and then it softly drifted down and blanketed my shoulders, head, and even the typewriter with weightless oppression. The ribbon continued to jump steadily with each strike of a key, and my hand moved with fluid and practiced ease to slide the spool back after each line, but the hopelessness could no longer be denied, and it marched quickly in time with the drumbeat of the typewriter directly into the waiting arms of despair; then the emotions spilled out onto the page without reservation.<br /><br />I concluded the cover letter with morbid finality, and next I knew I found myself in my coat and locking the door to my shabby apartment, my manuscript still inside by the desk and the letter still scrolled into the typewriter. Pocketing my keys, I headed quickly down the narrow streets of South Bronx.<br /><br />I needn’t cross so far as to be over the water, I reasoned, just to the tower, at which the height was sufficient. Soon enough, though not too soon for my legs to have grown tired and my breathing to have become audible, I came within sight of my destination: the Hell Gate Bridge. I walked along the edge, glancing over the side as I went to continually gauge the distance to the ground below. Heights did not bother me like the water.<br /><br />The tower rose up before me, and soon its brooding shadow blotted out the warm spring sun. I steadied myself against the smooth concrete while gazing over the grounds below and the river further beyond. The subdued coolness of the tower’s shadow seemed to heighten the intensity of the green of the grass and trees, the baby blue of the sky, the deep red of the bridge, and even the sickening brown of the water. I put the toes of my shoes over the edge and willed myself to spread my arms and fly, but my hands stayed by my side at the end of limp, unresponsive limbs. The resolve I had built up pushed feebly against the deeper, unconscious drive of self-preservation, with as much effectiveness as a palsied elder pressing against a boulder. I sighed and sat down, dangling my feet over the edge.<br /><br />An hour or so later, a train brought me back into my thoughts, its immense passage causing my teeth to rattle and ears to ache. I walked the lengthening shadow of the tower and headed back to my apartment.<br /><br />In the hall, I hardly noticed the familiar tapping sound until I stood in front of the door. It sounded odd, distant and muffled as it was by walls and wood, rather than directly before my face as usual, accompanied by the smell of electricity and ink. Confused, I looked to the metal numbers on the door. 714. I did not have the wrong door. Yet the sound of typing continued steadily from within the apartment. Is this how my neighbors perceive me?<br /><br />I quietly slipped my key into the slot, gritting my teeth as the lock turned with an audible click. I held my breath. The typing continued unabated on the other side of the door. I heaved open the door, letting it slam into the wall as I burst into my apartment to confront the trespassing typist.<br /><br />A young man with short, curly brown hair sat at my desk. His fingers continued to fly across the keyboard, heedless of my interruption as he peered through rectangled reading glasses that rested on his large triangular nose. I gaped at him. He was wearing a pair of my slacks and a wrinkled shirt from my closet. My clothes hung loosely about his thin frame.<br /><br />He reached the end of a page and pulled it out of the typewriter, laying it facedown on a surprisingly thick pile on the desk. He glanced over to me as he reached for a blank page and began spooling it into the typewriter. “Couldn’t go through with it, huh?” he said. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”<br /><br />“Cripes, man!” I stared at him, dumbfounded. “What on earth do you think you’re—”<br /><br />The young man shushed me, holding up a finger. “Don’t make me lose my place. This is the last page.” He then continued his work at the typewriter, not giving me a second glance.<br /><br />Feeling somewhat awkward standing at the open door, ignored by this complete stranger tapping away on my typewriter in my apartment as I stood with my knees bent and arms spread wide like a football player preparing for the play, I sheepishly shifted myself to close the door and then looked again on the young man, trying to decide whether or not I should call for the police.<br /><br />“Ah, there. Finished it.” The young man pulled the sheet from the typewriter and added it to the stack on the desk. He turned and smiled at me, leaning the chair back onto two legs while resting his arms on the back of his head. “Congratulations.”<br /><br />“Congratulations? What in—congratulations for what?”<br /><br />“For your first successfully published story, which also happens to be the greatest piece of science fiction in history.”<br /><br />I stared at him. “What are you going on about?”<br /><br />The young man let the chair slam back forward onto all four legs, clapping his hands against his thighs. “This calls for a toast. Hey, grandfather, you got those drinks ready yet?”<br /><br />I jumped a full foot off the floor in surprise as an older man entered the room from the kitchen. His white, curly hair was pulled back in a shoulder-length pony-tail. He too wore clothes from my closet, though my brown tweed suit flapped loosely across his frame. He smiled genially, as if perfectly understanding of my reacting to his entrance as if he were the bogeyman, and handed me a glass of Scotch. He pulled out the near chair at my dining room table, apparently meaning it for me because he then seated himself at the other side and sipped from his own glass as he gazed out the window.<br /><br />I stared back and forth between the two intruders. “Who—who are you people?”<br /><br />The young man smiled. “I guess the most honest response is that we’re travelers, though seeing as how we’ve raided your closet, pantry, and liquor cabinet, I suppose it’d also be fair to call us Bandits.” He stood. Picking up the manila envelope in which I had placed my recently completed story, he pulled out the manuscript and tossed it into the wastebasket.<br /><br />I cried out in protest.<br /><br />“Oh, it was rubbish, anyway, and you know it, as your cover letter so clearly proves.” The young man picked up the papers he had typed and put them in the envelope instead. “Anyway, I hope you won’t be miffed by our presumption upon your living space. In my opinion, it’s all a fair exchange for the history that will be made in your name.”<br /><br />He sealed the envelope and set it on the desk, then returned to the wastebasket. Reaching in his pocket, he brought out a matchbook. He struck a match.<br /><br />Feeling protective over my creation, even if one that had nearly caused me to toss myself from Hell Gate Bridge, I rushed to set my drink down on the table and stop the young man, but it was too late; by the time I reached him, he had already dropped the burning match.<br /><br />My face grew hot. “Now, wait a minute! What right do you have to—what do you think you are doing? That hasn’t even been submitted yet!”<br /><br />“And it won’t be,” said the old man at the table, still staring out the window. His voice was gravelly and quiet. He took another sip from his glass.<br /><br />I felt the heat as my manuscript took to flame. I dove for the wastebasket.<br /><br />The young man held me back. “No, no, friend, you’ll burn yourself. Don’t worry about this flaming heap. Instead, we’ll be submitting your pièce de résistance, which I just typed up for you. It’ll forever change science fiction.”<br /><br />“That…you just…typed?” My body began to shake, most like as a physical expression of the complete and utter confusion I was experiencing psychologically. “What…what do you…what is…?”<br /><br />The young man patted me gently on the arm as the flames licked up the last of the contents of the wastebasket. He steered me over to the table and sat me down, pushing the drink back into my hand.<br /><br />I pushed it aside and looked over to my addressed and stamped envelope in which the young man had put his papers. “Do you mean to say that in that envelope is a science fiction story that will finally be accepted?”<br /><br />“Not only accepted, but pivotal in your writing career,” said the old man.<br /><br />I stared at him, incredulous.<br /><br />“Oh, sure,” said the younger man, “it’s a bit odd in its unconventional first-person point of view, and it’s ridiculously dull, mostly being the record of a conversation in a failed writer’s apartment, but the ideas that it expresses will forever alter the course of history.”<br /><br />“The course of history?” I repeated in stupefaction. “How in the world can you say that?”<br /><br />“When you’ve lived to be my age,” said the old man, “you’ve seen a lot of history. Some of it twice. History repeats itself, you know, but doubly so when you run a loop.”<br /><br />I looked back over at the younger man. “And you expect me to believe this history-shaking piece of fiction was just written by you the few hours that I was gone?”<br /><br />“Well, no. I memorized it beforehand, so really all I had to do was type it out just now.” He laughed at my dumbfounded expression. “Careful, at this rate your face will freeze like that.”<br /><br />I simply shook my head.<br /><br />“Here, let’s see if I can’t explain.” He walked back over to the desk and dragged the chair up to the table, then sat backwards on top of it, straddling his legs as if on a horse, his elbows leaning on the back of the chair. He helped himself to the glass of Scotch I had thus far neglected, and exhaled with satisfaction.<br /><br />“I picked up a science fiction anthology as a child that had your piece in it,” he said. “I found the premise fascinating, so I never forgot about it. Later, when it became more of a big deal, I was already familiar with it. Now I know what you’re about to say,” he continued, when I started to speak up. “If I read the story as a child, doesn’t that preclude its being published now by you, but it doesn’t, because it hasn’t been published or read by me yet. Won’t be for another couple of decades.”<br /><br />I blinked at him. “Are you saying that you are from the future?”<br /><br />“See? That’s the mind for the fantastic that made you famous. You’re not as stupid as your baffled looks would imply.” He grinned at me.<br /><br />I frowned. “I don’t—this is some sort of a scam.”<br /><br />“No, no! Here, let me show you.” The young man emptied his glass down his throat and leaped up to run over to the desk. He pulled two blank sheets of paper and a pair pens, then returned to hand me a set.<br /><br />“Write anything. Anything at all! Make sure it’s got some length to it, not something simple with half a dozen words or anything. I’ll be over at the desk facing the other way.”<br /><br />I watched him sit down at the desk and begin to write. I considered for a moment, then wrote down. <span style="font-style: italic;">Seventy-nine rejection letters in mated pairs with my stories; so robbed of my dignity, why should I not be robbed in my apartment by lunatics, too? I fear they took my sanity while I was out.</span><br /><br />As I finished scrawling the note, the young man spoke up from across the room. “Finished? OK, let me read it aloud to you.” Then, looking at his sheet, he spoke what I had written verbatim.<br /><br />I stared at him. “I, uh, think I need that drink now.”<br /><br />The young man nodded. “Grandfather? Nobody makes them like you do,” he said with a wink, “and I’m afraid I stole our esteemed host’s drink. In addition to his sanity, that is.” He grinned, obviously pleased with himself.<br /><br />The older man nodded and raised himself up from the table. I guessed him to be at least in his seventies, though he looked healthy for his age. There was an obvious resemblance between the two. It did not take the old man long to return with another drink, nor for me to drain it and require another, which he also politely got for me.<br /><br />“How did you do that?” I asked the younger man, after I had taken a gulp of my refilled drink.<br /><br />“It’s no parlor trick,” the young man said, returning to the table. “I only knew what you were going to write because I had read it thirty-eight years from now in the story you will publish this year.”<br /><br />“How is this possible?”<br /><br />“OK, roughly fifty years from today, mankind will begin to make breakthroughs in time travel, largely through the efforts of a company financed by grandfather, here.”<br /><br />The old man nodded. “Expensive investment, but a lifetime of an unbelievably consistent ability to invest in startup companies that become Fortune 500s will make me wealthy enough to undertake it. When it finally came down to developing time travel, the biggest hurdle to overcome was finding a means to specify the targets of travel. Eventually a solution will be reached involving DNA signatures and nanotechnology—”<br /><br />“—tiny robots—” inserted the young man.<br /><br />“—that will allow specific individuals to travel through time. Unfortunately, the process will prove unstable, because the nanorobots will replicate outside the timeline and outside our control, pervading humanity in an instant, and then simultaneously firing indiscriminate of destination. The end result? A population of six and half billion scattered throughout history.”<br /><br />I tried to grapple through the fog of my shock and confusion to understand this revelation. “And you two get sent back together to 1960?”<br /><br />The old man shrugs. “As I said, the program was designed specific to an individual’s DNA. It’s not surprising that we’d both end up here together. As to the year, well, that’s a result of random chance.”<br /><br />“And then you broke into my apartment? Why?”<br /><br />“Traveling through space and traveling through time is equivalent.” The old man ran a finger slowly across the surface of the table. “You can’t travel through one without passing through the other. In fact, the first successful time travels were actually attempts at teleportation.”<br /><br />“OK, say all of this is true. What does this have to do with me successfully publishing a story?” I asked.<br /><br />“This event is the inspiration for your story; it tells about two men from the future visiting you in your apartment,” said the young man. “Which means your story will predict the fallout of humanity’s timeline half a century before it occurs.”<br /><br />“How is it my story if you wrote it?”<br /><br />“I didn’t write it,” said the young man, rolling his eyes. “I just memorized it and typed it out for you.”<br /><br />I stared at him blankly. He continued, “It ends up being published, but mostly ignored for the first couple of decades, not really garnering any attention until after some events take place which it predicts with uncanny accuracy, such as the giant leap of mankind in walking on the moon, the assassination of the President of the United States in the same year as a prominent black pastor, and the clay army in China. After that, some people begin to wonder to themselves, ‘What if this story isn’t fiction after all?’ The idea particularly grips sci fi geeks and nerds on the internet.”<br /><br />“The int—”<br /><br />The old man coughed. “Er, think of it as a telephone system using television sets.”<br /><br />I took another swig of my drink and tried to picture that concept, but it failed to make any sense to me.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the young man had become excited with recounting the historical impact of the story, his eyes alight and a big smile on his face. “The idea of modern humanity scattered across timeline gives a strange amount of sense to a lot of the fantastic mysteries of history, you see. Cave paintings of airplanes, that human footprint inside a dinosaur print, as well as fabled personalities like Merlin and the Greek gods. The speculation regarding the theory will begin to grow and take shape, eventually gripping a significant portion of the population.”<br /><br />Flipping the piece of paper on which I had written the note, the young man drew a straight line across its entire length. He then scribbled darkly over both ends, leaving only a small segment in the very middle. “You see, the greatest portion of the population will be instantly killed: sent too far back or forward in the timeline, they’ll land in a period of history during which life on earth is unsustainable—if they land on earth at all. The remainder will also be disadvantaged, probably landing in hostile localities or situations resulting in their deaths.” He bisected the small segment and put a big X through the right side. “Half of those will end up in the post-apocalyptic world that will necessarily follow the sudden timeline disappearance of all humanity in 2012.”<br /><br />Then, with obvious relish, he slowly circled the remaining inch of the line. “But a tiny fraction of the population will land in the historical timeline. And of those, the ones that survive to leave a historical footprint will largely be those who prepared for the event. From that realization, those who believed your story to be a truth stranger than fiction began a frenzied search of history, hoping to find a clue their future self will leave in the past so that their past self can prepare for their future destination.”<br /><br />The young man sat back, obviously at ease as he prattled on. “I know one guy in our user group who was convinced he would be Genghis Khan. And I’m rather certain myself that that short Italian I met was Napolean—how else do you explain France’s biggest general turning up from some nowhere island? And everybody was hoping that they would give birth to twins in the year before the event, so that they could claim to be the parents of Romulus and Remus.”<br /><br />I found myself losing focus on the young man’s words, whether from disbelief or disinterest in such posturing I couldn’t say. Outside the sky was beginning to fade into pinks and purples, while the sun’s reflection burned brightly across the rooftops. Writing normally kept me up late into the night, so my drowsiness couldn’t be on account of the hour. I sniffed and shook my head, then finished off my drink and brought my attention back to the young man’s words.<br /><br />“Of course, all of these historical speculation shenanigans are poorly received by society at large; most of them regarded us as lunatics on par with UFO abductees. Our community’s avid interest in preparing the skills we expect to need in the past ended up getting us labeled as a cult. Then Catholic and Protestant clergy became particularly hostile after someone speculated idly that in all the infinite possibilities for destination combined with the unique DNA of a child in the womb could feasibly end up with at least one babe transported back into a virgin’s womb.” He snorted. “He was mostly trolling for trouble at the outset, but it certainly was a terrible blow for our already-weak PR.”<br /><br />I was losing track. Certainly I need to understand all of this, I thought groggily, if I am to write about it. I pointed across the table at the young man, resting elbow on the table and propping up my head with my hand. “And you were one of these individuals? You knew you’d be sent back to my apartment today?”<br /><br />The young man winked at me. “Of course.”<br /><br />“And you’re happy with this?”<br /><br />He pursed his lips. “Oh, sure, it would have been cool to watch the building of the pyramids or captain a pirate ship in the Caribbean. But in the end, I’m rather content with my assigned role in history. After all, it’s pretty cool to be the inspiration of the story that will alert humanity to their fate, which makes me nearly as instrumental as you, who wrote the story. Certainly everyone who will have learned of it—who are truly the only people of importance, in the end of things—will know of me, so I’ve made my mark on history, without even having to leave the era of modern convenience. Plus, it’s rather relieving to know that I’ll lead a long, successful life.”<br /><br />The young man smiled at the old man. I frowned, trying to understand. My mind seemed to be growing duller by the minute. I rubbed at my eyes. “But, how does the story end up being published? I’m a failed writer, I can’t see why they’d pick up this nonsense and after rejecting all of my other submissions.”<br /><br />The old man cleared his throat. “There’s some mystery surrounding its publication. It’s a known fact that you are extremely hydrophobic, yes?”<br /><br />I nodded, but furrowed my brow. Long word, and I felt as if I suddenly had to grope in the dark for its meaning. Was I truly…whatever he said?<br /><br />“How do you bathe?” the old man asked.<br /><br />“Only standing water is bad,” I replied, blinking. “I just take showers and never fill the tub.”<br /><br />The old man seemed to expect this answer. “So, when the hydrophobic writer is found drowned in his bath tub on Thursday, and his manuscript postmarked on the following Monday, there’s some strangeness afoot. Sure, the police rule it a suicide based on the cover letter in the typewriter, and people will later say some soft-hearted officer posted the manuscript, but you have to wonder, don’t you? Just like the rest of us will do: ‘What if it’s true?’ So, a certain amount of pity, combined with the calculated hope that the mysterious death will create a buzz of interest in the work, will lead to its acceptance by the editor, it being received posthumously and all.”<br /><br />Somewhere in the back of my mind I screamed a warning to myself, but darkness and confusion drowned it out. Had I had too much to drink? Something was wrong. The old man looked grimly across the table, while I faintly felt more than saw the young man stand and haul me out of my chair. I looked blearily at the old man, whom I could no longer tell apart from the young man, with the world gone all fuzzy like it had, and I heard him saying, as from a distance, “…will haunt us for the rest of our life, but history must be made, you understand.”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6079982809808277143.post-15056743129840208522010-05-12T17:31:00.003-05:002010-05-12T17:37:11.966-05:00One does not paint liliesOne does not paint lilies, or one their beauty erases,<br />Smothered away into stiffness, a splendor conveyed<br />With which even King Solomon was never arrayed;<br />Yet we take the beauty of walls and put them on faces.<br />A certain pride in appearance, no critique I impart:<br />Errant hairs aligned or clipped, teeth whitened, skin scrubbed and smoothed,<br />Form-fitting threads; likewise, on occasion, how marvelous<br />The effects of shadowed eyes and ruby lips in thumping heart,<br />Twist-turned curls turning heads.<br /><br />Yet still, in the wont of men, we exceed limits and sense<br />Piling on the foundation of beauty with powders and creams,<br />Superfluous weight cracking where should be laid frames and beams;<br />For no house needs two foundations, aside from mere pretense.<br />Yet press we on, architects of our own master plan,<br />And stultify life's vibrancy with death, solid and white<br />From mercury and lead; what means to beautify buries<br />Our image six lengths beneath illusion desired by man,<br />And poisons and blinds instead.<br /><br />The social spotlight shines none near as bright as actor's venue.<br />Why veil the spots where e'en the Sun yielded to desire and kissed?<br />Quite more thrilling true blush than the rouge that cause it to be missed,<br />To bring away memory of soft cheek than residue.<br />Allow me a rag, some oil, to gently remove the veneer<br />And unmask concealed beauty that my heart has been longing.<br />I beg you, I plead: Shed the layers, look into my eyes<br />And in their reflection see, as I daub away your tears,<br />There is no need.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0