JasperStones

Our Mother Earth

2011-02-04T03:38:00.000-08:00

Keep the Earth green they say, these Hippies. Bunch of dead beats and hobos trying to get out of actually doing anything by pretending to be smart and to care about the long term. Planting a tree isn't work, unless of course you plan to harvest that tree, to make use of its being. But no, to them its playing in the sun with a few shovels

They see the strength of our labor and industry as a plague, a reaper if you will.

SHE would like that image...

I know because She has spoken to me.

I have heard Her breath as She bellows out of caves. Felt Her disdain as She quaked the ground. Felt Her explosive anger erupting red hot from deep within Her very bowels.

Oh yes, our Great Mother is very much alive, and she is full of contempt.

The predators that have hunted man in their heyday, the poisons that made up the majority of natural flora. the climate that bears down on us with extremes, the diseases carried by vermin are Her own agents of mass destruction, and the mass bodies of ocean in ever broiling fury twisting and writhing as they keep the very continents apart and separated.

Full of contempt, but not Hate, not for Us. She has tried and tested us. Predators became the prey in our cross-hairs, our torch bested her ice ages, we harnessed the heart of her deadliest poisons to fight the plagues she sends to us. She has tried time and again to bring the fury of her elements upon us, but we have survived.

We have impressed her, and for that she protects us, but only from the outside. No asteroid can claim us if she does not will it, nor can the flare of our mighty Star-Sun. For with us she has ever been in competition. We are not some feeble race that harmonizes with nature, whose mother coddles them with gifts of nature, we have wrestled and fought and struggled and died for our place, for our share, our slice of the celestial cake.

She has crafted us, tempered us within the fire of her soulless fury. And the time is nigh upon us when she will cast us out like the greatest beasts cast out their young once we have come of age. We will forge our own place in all creation. The universe will bow before Her children. Others of her kind will be little more than slaves or concubines to be cultivated to be like her. The rest will be cored and hollowed out as empty husks, sucked dry of all their worth.

There they will be her trophies to gaze upon in pride and arrogance.

No children of other mothers can best us. All will bow or wither before our might.

It is time we did this for her. It is time we repay her anger that made us strong.

We will do this.

For our angry mother.

I am a Zombie

2010-09-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

I am a zombie, and it's not so bad. I'm learning to live with it. I'm sorry i can't properly introduce myself, but I don't have a name anymore. Hardly any of us do. We forget them, like anniversaries and PIN numbers. I think mine might have started with a "J", but I'm not sure. It's funny, because back when i was alive, I was always forgetting other peoples names. I am finding that irony abounds in zombie life, an ever-present punch line. But it's hard to smile when your lips have rotted off.

Before i became a zombie, I think i was a businessman or a young professional of some kind. I think i worked in one of those stifling office jobs in a high-rise somewhere. The high quality Armani suit clinging to the remains of my body implies i might have looked pretty sharp if i my intestines weren't dragging at my feet. HA!

We like to joke and speculate about our remaining outfits, since these final fashion choices are usually the only indication of who we were before we became no-one. Some are less obvious than mine. Jeans and a white t-shirt. Skirt and a tank-top. So we make random guesses. You were a plumber. You were a barrister. Ring any bells?

It usually doesn't

No one i know has any specific memories. We recognize some things - buildings, cars, Armani ties - but the context eludes us. We are here, we do what we do. We lack excellent diction, but we can communicate. We grunt and groan, we make hand gestures, and sometimes a few words slip out. Its not that different than before really. But we always seem to grasp what each other say. Maybe in that sense its a little better.

There are a few hundred of us living in a wide plain of dust outside some large city. We don't need shelter or warmth, obviously. We stand around in the dust, and time passes. I think we have been here a for a long time. Despite my dragging entrails. I am in decay's early stages, but there are a few elderly ones here who are little more than skeletons with clinging bits of muscle. Somehow, it still expands and contracts, and they keep moving. I have never seen any of us "die" of old age. Maybe we live forever, I don't know. I don't think much about the future anymore. That's something that's a little different than before. When i was alive, the future was all i thought about. Obsessed about. Death has relaxed me.

But it makes me sad that we've forgotten our names. Out of everything, this seems to be the most tragic. I don't miss my own, but i mourn for everyone else's, because I want to love them, but i do not know who they are.

Today a group of us are going into town to find some food. How this expedition begins is one of us gets hungry and starts shuffling toward town, and a few others follow him. Focused thought is a rare occurrence within us, we follow it when we see it. Otherwise we would all be just standing around groaning. We do a lot of standing around groaning, and its frustrating sometimes. Years pass this way. The flesh withers on our bones, and we stand around waiting for it. I am curious how old i might be.

The city where the people live is not that far. We arrive around noon and start looking for living flesh. The new kind of hunger is a strange feeling. You don't feel it in your stomach - of course not, since some of us don't even have stomachs. you feel it just... everywhere. You start to feel "more dead". I've watch some of my friends go back to being full-dead-, when food is scarce. They just slow down, and stop, and become corpses again. I don't really understand it.

I guess the world mostly ended,because the cities we wander through are decaying as fast as we are. Buildings are collapsed. Dead, rusted cars fill the streets. All glass everywhere is shattered. I don't know if it was a war, or a plague, or if it was just us. I don't know. I don't think about things like that anymore.

In a cluster of broken down apartment buildings we find some people, and we eat them, Some have weapons, and as usual we lose some of our number, but we don't care. Why would we care? What is death now?

Eating is not a pleasant business. I chew off a mans arm, and i hate this, it's disgusting. I hate his screams, and because i don't like pain, i don't like to hurt things, but this is the world now, this is what we do. Of course, if i don't eat all of him, if i leave enough, he'll get up and follow us back to our dusty field outside the city, and that might make me feel better. I'll introduce him to everyone, and maybe we'll stand around and grown for awhile. It's hard to say what "friends" are anymore, but maybe that's close. If i don't eat all of him, if i leave enough...

But of course i don't leave enough, i eat his brain, because that's the good part, when i swallow it, it makes my head light up with feelings. Clear memories. For about ten seconds i get to feel alive. I get traces of delicious meals, beautiful music, perfume, sunsets, orgasms, life. Then it fades, and i get up and stumble out of the city. Still dead, but feeling a little less so. Feeling OK.

I don't know why we have to eat people. I don't understand what chewing off a man's arm accomplishes. We certainly don't digest the meat and absorb the nutrients. My stomach is a rotted sack of dried bile, useless. We don't digest, we just eat until weight forces it out the other end, and then we eat more. It feels so useless, and yet it keeps us walking. I don't know why. None of us really understand why we are the way we are. We don't know if were the result of some strange global infection, or some ancient curse, or something even more senseless. We don't talk about it much. Existential debate is not a major part of zombie life. We are here, and we do things. We are simple. It's nice sometimes.

Outside the city again, back with the others in the dust field, I start walking in a circle for no reason. I plant one foot in the dirt and pivot on it, around and around, kicking up clouds of dust. Before, when i was alive, I could never have done this. I remember stress. I remember bills and deadlines.Asset Retention Reports. I remember being so occupied.Now I'm just standing in a wide field of dust walking in a circle. The world has been distilled. Being dead is easy.

After a few days of this, I stop walking, and I stand still. swaying back and forth and groaning a little. I don't know why i groan. I'm not in pain, and I'm not sad. I think its just the air being squeezed in and out of my lungs. When my lungs decompose it'll probably stop. And now, while swaying and groaning, I notice a dead woman standing a few feet away from me, facing the distant mountains. She doesn't sway or groan, her head just lolls from side to side. I like that about her, that she doesn't sway or groan. I walk over to her and stand beside her. I wheeze some kind of greeting, and she responds with a lurch of her shoulder.

I like her. I reach out and touch her hair. She has not been dead very long. Her skin is Grey and her eyes are slightly sunken, but she has no exposed bones or organs. Her death outfit is a black skirt and a snug white button-up. I suspect she used to be a waitress.

Pinned to her chest is a silver name-tag.

I can read her name. She has a name.

Her name is Emily.

I point to her chest. Slowly, with great effort, I say, "Erm...wrie." The word rolls of whats left of my tongue like honey. What a good name. I feel warm saying it.

Emily's eyes widen at the sound, and she smiles. I also smile, and maybe I'm a little nervous, because my tibia snaps, and i fall backwards into the dust. Emily just laughs, its choked, raw, a lovely sound. She reaches and helps me to my feet.

Emily and I have fallen in love.

I'm not sure how this happens. I remember what love was like before and this is different. This is simpler. Before, there were complex emotional and biological factors at work. We had long checklists and elaborate tests to be passed. We looked at hairstyles and careers and breast sizes. And sex was there, in everything, confusing everyone, like hunger. It created longing, It created ambition, competition, it drove people to leave their houses and invent automobiles, spacecraft, and atom bombs when they could just sit on the couch until they died. Animal cravings. Subconscious urges. Sex made the world go 'round.

This is all gone now. Sex, once a force as universal as gravity, is now irrelevant. Ambition and longing have left the equation. My penis fell off two weeks ago.

So the equation is deleted, the blackboard erased, and things are different now. Our actions have no ulterior motives. We shuffle around in the dust and occasionally have lumbering grunted exchanges with out peers. No one argues. There are no fights, ever.

And Emily is not a complicated process. I just see her, and walk over to her, and for no reason, really, I decide I want to be with her for a long time. So now we shuffle around in the dust together instead of alone. For whatever reason, we enjoy each other's company. When we have to go into town to eat people, we do it at separate times, because it is unpleasant, and we dont want to share that. But we share everything else, and it's nice.

We decide to walk to the mountains. It takes us three days, but now were standing on a cliff looking up at a fat white moon. At our backs, the night sky is red from distant cities burning, but we don't care about that. I clumsily grab Emily's hand, and we stare at the moon.

There's no real reason for any of this, but like i said, the world has been distilled. Love has been distilled. Everything is easy now. Yesterday my leg broke off, and i don't even mind.

Gift

2010-07-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

We have made a mistake. That is the simple undeniable truth of the matter, however painful it might be. The flaw was not in our Observatories, for those machines were as perfect as we could make, and they showed us only the unfiltered light of truth. The flaw was not on the Predictor, for it is a device of pure infallible logic, turning raw data into meaningful information without the taint of emotion or bias.

No, the flaw was with us, the Orchestrators of this disaster, we saw ourselves beyond such failings.

We are the ones responsible.

It began eons ago, as these things are measured. It began not to long ago, as these things are measured. Our systems of measurement are irrelevant and would mean little by the time anyone receives this transmission. We detected faint radio signals from a blossoming intelligence Rimwards from the Galactic Core. At first crude and unstructured, these leaking broadcasts quickly grew in complexity and strength, as did the messages they carried. Through the Observators we watched a world of stride and violence, populated by a barbaric race of short-lived, fast breeding vermin. They were brutal and uncultured things which stabbed and shot and burned each other with no regard for life of purpose. Even their concepts of art spoke of pain and strife. They divided themselves according to some bizarre cultural patterns and set their every industry to death.

They terrified us, but we were older and wiser and so very far away, so we did not fret. Then we watched them split the atom and breach the heavens within a breath of one of their single short generations, and we began to worry. When they began to actively transmit messages and greetings into space, we felt fear and horror. Their transmissions promised peace and camaraderie to any who were listening, but we had watched them for too long to buy into such transparent deceptions.

We thought they knew we were out here, we thought they were coming for us.

The Orchestrators consulted the Predictor, and the output was dire. They would multiply and flood out of their home system like dome uncontrollable tide of Devourer worms, consuming all that lay in their path. It might take an epoch, but they would destroy us if left unchecked. With aching carapaces we decided to act.

And sealed our fate.

The Gift of Mercy. A weapon. THE weapon. It was designed to push itself to 2/3 light speed within a parsec with its onboard fuel, and then begin to consume Interstellar Primary Element 2'2 to feed its unlimited acceleration. It would be traveling at many times the speed of a photon when it hit. They would never see it coming. Its launch was a day of mourning for us. Its launch was a day of celebration for us. Its launch was a day of reflection for us. The horror of the act we had committed weighed heavily upon us all, the necessity of this crime offering little comfort.

The Gift had barely cleared the outer cometary halo when our folly was realized, but it was too late. The Gift could not be caught, could not be recalled or diverted from its path. It could not be stopped. The Artisans, horrified at the awful power of the thing upon which they had labored, had quietly self terminated in droves, simply ceasing their nutrient consumption until their metabolic functions ceased.

We could only watch in horror as the light of genocide faded into infrared against the distant void.

They grew, and they changed, in a handful of lifetimes they had abolished war, tethered their violent tendencies and turned themselves to the grand purposes of life and art. We watched them remake first themselves, and then their world. Their frail, soft, flesh bodies giving way to gleaming alloys and ceramics, they unified their race through a single omnipresent communications grid. They began to produce works of such power and emotion, the likes of which the galaxy has never seen before.

Nor ever again, because of us.

They converted their Homeworld into a shrine of paradise and many more poured out into the surrounding system with a rapidity and vigor that we could only envy. With immortal bodies built to survive every environment from the crushing, frigid core of their systems largest gas giant to the scorching day lit surface of their innermost world to the vacuum of the void in between; they set out to sculpt their system into something beautiful. At first we thought them simple miners stripping the rocky planets and moons of all their worth in vital resources, but them we began to see the purpose of their constructions. The artworks lovingly carved into every surface, and traced across the system in glittering lights and dancing fusion trails like exquisite filigree.

And still our terrible Gift approached.

They had less than half a parsec to see it, outpacing the tail of its own light. In that time, so brief even by the standard of their once fleeting lives, more than a quarter of the sentients prepared for death. Their planet side engineers worked frantically to build sufficient transmission infrastructure to upload the countless masses with the necessary neural modifications, while those above dumped lifetimes of music and literature from their data-banks to make room for passengers. Those lacking the required hardware or the time to acquire it consigned themselves to death, some lashing out in fear or pain, most going about their duty for the Greater Good under the circumstances.

The Gift arrived suddenly, the light of its impact visible in our skies, shining bright and cruel even to the unaugmented ocular photoreceptor. We watched and wept for our victims, dead so so long before the light of their doom even reached us. Many of those who had even been tangentially involved in The Gifts creation spaced themselves voluntarily as a final act of penance for the small roles they played in this atrocity.

The light dimmed, the dust cleared, and our Observators refocused upon the place where their shining blue world once hung in the void, and found only dust and the pale gleam of a shattered, orphaned moon, wrapped in a thin, burning wisp of atmosphere that had once belonged to its parent.

Radiation and relativistic shrapnel had scoured much of the inner system, and continent sized chunks of molten rock carried screaming ghosts outward at interstellar escape velocities, damned to wander the great abyss for all eternity.

The damage was apocalyptic, but not complete, from the shadows of the outer worlds, tiny points of light emerged, thousands of fusion trails of personal yachts to massive arc ships and everything in between, the many legions of survivors of flesh and steel and memory banks, ready to rebuild. For a few moments we felt relief, even joy, and we were filled with the hope that their culture and art would survive the terrible blow we dealt them.

Then came the message, tightly focused at our star sector, transmitted simultaneously by the thousands of their ships.

"We know you are out there, and we are coming for you."

Average Joe Phoenix

2009-12-29T08:43:00.000-08:00

Mythology tells the story of the Phoenix; a powerful bird that at certain intervals will build a nest and sit in it as it is consumed by flames. Out of the ashes the Phoenix is reborn to once again grow in strength and wisdom. Sometimes in life, the thing that kills and destroys us is the very thing that becomes the means for a rebirth of our very own.

My name is Joe Phoenix. Yes I know it sounds like I should be in tights and a cape flying around over Gotham City along with the Fantastic Four killing aliens and downing giant robots, I’ve heard it all before, and never knew the end of it in high school, but yes, that’s my name. My friends, family and much of the greater population of the world who know me call me Joe. Immediately after graduating from college, Masters in Business Management in hand, I was recruited by Willis, Goldman & Reed, a prominent management and business accounting firm and assigned to the Chicago office from California. There were eleven new hires that started on the same day and that’s when I met Barbara. We were given desks next to each other and as the new kids on the block we sought safety in numbers in defense against the veterans. The rookies started having coffee together at the break and then meeting over lunch to commiserate or cheer each other on as we all tried to integrate ourselves in the corporate world. After several months the group began to dwindle until there was just she and myself.

She was gorgeous. The kind of physical beauty that could give a dead man a boner. She had long thick red hair, a mass of curls that hung below the middle of her back, and dark green eyes. Her skin was flawless but she tended to hide it under expensive makeup. Even without lipstick her lips were a deep red. She stood six feet tall in her stocking feet, just an inch under my six foot one. Most of the time she wore slacks to the office but on those occasions when she wore a skirt the male employees were treated to the blinding vision of her perfectly formed long legs. Every thing about her body was in perfect proportion. Each movement she made was a symphony of sensuality, from walking across the office to get something from the filing cabinet down to the simple act of putting a paper clip on a piece of paper.

As for myself, I am not a Golden Adonis nor am I the elephant man. Heck lets be honest, bearded man with a beer belly that I am, a girlfriend in college once described me as being "nine points above average." I have been told by several women that my best features are my humor and generosity - well generous to those lucky enough for them to get drinks off me at least. If genetics hold true, by the time I reach fifty I will be thirty pounds heavier than the day I graduated from high school with absolutely no hope of ever losing them.

I am not the life of the party but can hold up my end of a conversation and do reasonably well at telling a joke. For all of her beauty Barbara is fairly quiet but not shy, she was the center of attention no matter what the setting. Without even speaking she would have men gathered around her, just waiting for the pleasure of her smiling in their direction. You don't realize how intelligent she is until you have been around her for a while. I could never figure out how we ended up connecting.

From having coffee and lunches at work we progressed to catching a movie after work and then on to dinner and drinks Friday nights. From there it was Friday and Saturday nights and then several nights during the week. Just six months after our first official date we were married.

Life was good. We were madly in love with each other. By working in the same office we could go to and leave work together. We had our own little universe that had little room in it for other people. The daily sex was fantastic and together only got more intense as we went along.

Several years after we were married, corporate headquarters sent in a new manager for my unit. Derrick Andrews was a tall muscular black man with his head shaved smooth and an arrogant look in his eyes. He was smooth with the women and a real bastard to the men in the office. Gradually I found more and more of the workload being put on my desk as I struggled to get it all done. Instead of coming to work with Barbara, I increasingly had to go in early and stay late, not getting home until eight or nine most nights plus having to go in to the office on Saturdays. It became obvious that Andrews was trying to force me to quit the company.

During this time the only thing that kept me going was Barbara. Every night she would sooth my battered ego and take away all the stress. During the day she would call my desk just to say, "Hi" or come by my desk with a cookie or slice of somebody's birthday cake. I had just about reached my breaking point when Barbara gave me the news.

She was pregnant.

All thoughts of quitting immediately flew out the window. There was nothing that Derrick could do to me that I couldn't endure. The joy of knowing that I was to be a father took care of every thing. The sex on the night she told me was one of the greatest experiences of my life up to that point.

Soon after though – nine months soon to be exact - her water broke. It was a Sunday morning and we rushed to the hospital. By the afternoon we were in the delivery room with the doctor telling her when to push. Finally there was one last push and the baby came out of the birth canal. The doctor immediately looked up at me and then over to Barbara. The room was oddly silent. Without saying a word the nurse placed the baby on Barbara's chest.

The baby's skin was back as coal.

I stood there, stunned, looking at the baby. Barbara's face had a horrified look. It seemed as though everything was happening in slow motion. I backed away from the delivery table, then turned and walked out of the room. As the doors closed I could hear Barbara screaming, "Joey come back here."

I made it as far as the parking lot before I stopped to throw up in the bushes. In a daze I was somehow able to find the car and take off. I drove around aimlessly for a while and then headed home. For the next several hours I paced back and forth trying to make sense out of what just happened.

I wrestled with my emotions for hours. Had I made a mistake, could I be wrong? Did I misunderstand about the baby? Had I misjudged Barbara? Where do we go from here? What possible explanation could there be? Had I done something to cause her to be disloyal? What signs of her cheating could I have missed? Was there more than one man she had cheated with? Could the marriage be saved, or was there any thing left to save? It always came back to one simple fact.

There is no way in hell that two people of West European descent could produce a black baby.

After my third trip to the toilet to vomit I lost any sense of self-control and completely destroyed the bathroom. Barbara, my reason for living, had betrayed me. The emotional pain of her obvious infidelity became a physical pain as well. After all the years of what I thought were love and devotion for each other, Barbara had been unfaithful and bore a child fathered by another man.

We all make choices about where our lives will go. It was very clear that Barbara's choice did not include me; she had not honored the wedding vows we made to each other.

The phone had been ringing constantly since I returned to the house. The first time I let the answering machine pick up and heard Barbara's voice demanding that I return to the hospital so we could talk. She called five more times in the next hour, each message becoming less demanding until the final one when she was crying and begging me to come to her.

I couldn't take it any more and unplugged the phone so I wouldn't have to hear it. I went to the garage and came back with a hammer. I placed the telephone on the kitchen counter and left it in a thousand pieces before throwing the hammer through the closed window above the sink. By now the rage had subsided enough that I was able to put together some coherent thoughts.

In situations like this it is surprising how quickly material things become meaningless to your life. Over the next several hours I gathered up the few things that I now valued and piled them in the middle of the living room floor. Everything fit into three cardboard boxes that I found in the garage and I loaded them into my car. I threw all of my clothes into the car without bothering to pack them into suitcases. I put the empty suitcases in the car planning to pack them later. I had to get out of that house that held so many memories of Barbara's and my life together.

The last thing I did was to go to the garage and come back with another hammer and nail. I went into the bedroom one last time and looked around. I took off my wedding ring and nailed it to the wooden headboard. I heaved the hammer through the mirror over the dresser and left. By 11:30 that night I pulled out of the driveway and went in search of a hotel.

I got no sleep that night and in the morning I called my secretary, Mrs. Lopez, to tell her that I would not be in that day. Mrs. Lopez asked how Barbara was doing and I quietly hung up the phone without answering. I spent the entire day inside the hotel room trying to get control of my thoughts and emotions.

The next morning I knew I would go crazy if I stayed there any longer, and not knowing what else to do, I went into the office. I was standing outside my office door trying to focus on what Mrs. Lopez trying to tell me when Derrick Andrews walked up.

"It's about time you showed up for work Phoenix. I'm getting tired of your work habits lately. The only reason I don't fire your ass is because I need to keep you employed so you can raise that little bastard of mine."

Mrs. Lopez and I both stared at him with our mouths open. With a smirk Andrews continued.

"Didn't know about that did you. I've been fucking your wife non-stop for the last two years. She’s one sweet pussy."

You could almost hear me pop.

I am not a violent man, hell yea I’m a rowdy guy but it takes a lot to drive me over to actual physical violence, just ask all the guys I knocked out in high school. Heck I don't even actually remember hitting him, but I watched as Andrews stumbled backward knocking over several chairs before bouncing off of John Gordon and sliding to the floor. Blood was flowing out of his nose leaving a large red stain on Mr. Gordon's shoes.

Mr. Gordon was a corporate vice president and head of the Chicago office. It was rumored that he was first in line to become the next CEO. When Andrews tried to get up from the floor I kicked him in the ribs three times as hard as possible. After the third time he remained on the floor curled up into a ball. I spun around and walked past the other people in the room that were cowering wide-eyed in the corner and left.

Outside I walked away from the building. My hand was really starting to hurt so I stopped at a deli and bought a large cup of ice to stick it into. I kept walking until I came to a bench that overlooked Lake Michigan and just sat, staring out at nothing. In the space of three days my life had turned to complete shit. I was twenty-seven years old and had been betrayed by my wife, my marriage of four years was in ruins; I was out of a job and was probably going to be arrested for assault. I am normally a laid back type of person, but today I had turned in to some kind of homicidal maniac. As I sat there, words like love, betrayal, cheating, dishonesty, commitment, infidelity, deceit, unfaithful kept floating around, racing in and out of my thoughts.

Eventually I noticed that it was getting dark so I returned to my hotel room.

At 9:30 that night I was wrapping my hand in a fresh batch of ice when someone knocked on the door. I opened the door and was surprised to see John Gordon.

"Good evening Robert, you're a hard person to find."

I only stared at him in confusion.

"Do you mind if I come in? What I have to say may take a while."

"Sure, why not." I stepped back to let him in. "Look, Mr. Gordon, I won't apologize for what happed this morning, but if you don't mind there are a few personal items in my office...excuse me, my former office that I would like to get."

"Ah yes, this morning. You certainly have an interesting way to start your Tuesdays." I opened my mouth to speak when he raised his hand to stop me. "Please don't interrupt me just yet. I need to say this and get on my way before my wife reports me as a missing person. First off I want to assure you that you are not fired. In fact, I am very grateful for what you did this morning. Derrick Andrews is a shithead and I've hated him from the moment he walked into our office. But he was sent by headquarters so my hands were tied."

"After you left, Mrs. Lopez grabbed me and pulled me into your office and started yelling in Spanish. At first I didn't understand much of what she was saying, but gist of it was 'you have to fix this.' I thought she was mad at you but she wasn't, it was Andrews. She told me about the things he had done to you in the office over the last two years...and about your wife." At that point he paused and looked around the room before continuing.

"By eleven o'clock this morning, Mrs. Lopez had seven women lined up outside my office telling me that they were going to file sexual harassment charges against Andrews and the company. I spent most of the afternoon on the phone with the legal department in New York. The upshot is that the women are not going to file a complaint against the company, but in return our legal depart will represent the ladies in court when they do file against Andrews personally."

"I have done nothing today except try to put out the fires that you and Andrews started. I interviewed every single person in your unit and they all confirmed what Mrs. Lopez told me. You may not be aware of it but you are the most respected person in that building. Within twenty minutes after you left the entire unit was writing their letters of resignation. Andrews has completely destroyed the morale of that unit and most of the people only stayed out of loyalty to you. Fortunately the staff has agreed to hold their resignations until I get a chance to sort everything out."

"You have several options to think about here. If you want to come back to the office, you will be coming back in Andrews' position as manager. If that is too much for you right now, I know several CEOs around the country who will hire you at a moment's notice on my recommendation...or here in Chicago if you want to work on your marriage." Again he paused for a moment.

"There is a third option I would like you to consider. You are too valuable an employee for the company to lose. I understand that you're originally from California. I can arrange for you to be transferred to our branch office in California,”

“At times like this it helps to be around family."

The minute he said California I knew my answer. I opened my mouth but before I could speak he stopped me again.

"I don't want an answer tonight, I want you to sleep on it, although it doesn't look as though you've been doing very much of that the last couple of days." He handed me a small card with a telephone number on it.

"This is my private line; call me at 9 AM tomorrow." With that he headed for the door. He opened it and turned around with small grin on his face. "Just so you know, the score was one broken nose and three cracked ribs. I made certain that assault charges will not be filed against you. Here's the good news. When Andrews gets out of the hospital, he is going to explain to the district attorney how a man on his salary is able to pay cash for a Mercedes-Benz." His grin got bigger and then he left.

The news about California was the only good thing I had heard in the last few days. I was born and raised there, my mother and cousins and most of my family and friends still lived there but that was not the good part. My best friend in the world lives in San Miguel. April has always been the most important person in my life, from childhood and on to our "grown-up" lives. We share everything. I was the best man at her wedding and she was a bridesmaid at mine. There was nothing that we would not do for each other.

April Frost was also my first love.

When we were in college, we used to study together, steal away to some unused classroom and while the time away doing model questions right before a big exam.

April had married Dominic Haiqal a few years after college. We both always knew it wouldn’t work out between us. They soon had two daughters and everything looked bright. Dom became an extension of April for me and there was nothing I wouldn't do for him. But then April's world fell apart.

Dom was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of cancer. After five months of agonizing pain, he died at home in April's arms. The strain was almost too much for her but somehow she survived, became stronger and kept herself involved in her daughters. Even though we talked on the phone at least weekly, if not daily, I had not seen April since Dom's funeral two years ago. I was excited at the prospect of living in the same town with her.

Surprisingly, I did get some sleep and after a shower in the morning felt almost human again. That was the physical part. On the inside, I could feel my soul, my spirit, whatever you want to call it, starting to shrivel up and die. I was becoming, as countless a teenage emo-goth would put it, one of them. At 9 AM I called Gordon and told him my decision about San Miguel.

"Excellent choice Joe.” There is a Starbucks around the corner from here on 23rd and West St., meet me there in one hour." And he hung up.

By the time I got there he was already sitting at a table with a box in front of him.

"I don't have much time so here is the deal. Mrs. Lopez put all of your personal things in this box. Right now, Mrs. Lopez and I are the only people that know you are going to California and it will remain that way unless you tell someone personally." He handed me a thick envelope that was sealed and stamped CONFIDENTIAL. "Harold Peterson is the head of the California office and is expecting you at 8 AM Monday morning, he loves punctuality. Give this to him when you get there." He handed me a second envelope that was not sealed and I pulled out the contents. Inside was a first class airline ticket, one way to California. The other item was a piece of paper with the name and address of a law firm a few blocks away.

"You have an appointment with these people in thirty minutes. Whether or not you keep that appointment is your decision, but I suggest that you do." He stood up and was ready to leave when I stopped him.

"Mr. Gordon, why are doing all this for me?"

He looked down at the floor for a long time before raising his head to look me in the eye.

"Because I was in your position myself a long time ago. Besides, Mrs. Lopez told me this morning that if I didn't help you, she was going to bring her husband in to beat the crap out of me. The scary thing is I believe her. I don't know what you did to earn her loyalty, but that's the kind of people I like to have around me. She started this morning as my personal secretary."

"Thank you Mr. Gordon, and please tell Mrs. Lopez thank you and that I will miss her."

"I think she already knows that Joe, and good luck. I know it doesn't seem like it right now but life will get better, you're just going to have to trust me on this one."

One more time he looked at me and grinned.

"This morning an independent auditing firm will begin examining the accounts that Andrews managed. I'm very interested in seeing what they find."

He shook my hand and walked out the door.

I did keep the appointment with the attorneys. Obviously Gordon had set this up himself because they already had some background information about what had happened. We spent the rest of the day going over all the options that were available to me and any possible consequences. I made it clear that for all the pain and the shit that Barbara had dumped on me, I did not and would not seek any revenge. I did not want to destroy her, to have my "pound of flesh." All I wanted was out of the marriage as quickly as possible and to never see or hear from her again. I had already taken the few things I wanted to keep from the last five years and just wanted to walk away.

I finally left the lawyers around 7 PM that evening and went back to the hotel. I was able keep some food down and for the first time in days felt as though I was taking back some of the control over my life that had been yanked way from me. I waited until I knew it was after dinnertime in California before I called April. It was such a joy just to hear her voice when she answered.

"Joey? Is that you? Oh my god Joey it’s been so long. How have you been keeping? How’s Barbara?”

“April love, I need to ask you a favor.”

"Anything you need, you know that Joey."

"Thanks. I need you to pick me up at the airport. I'll get into California Friday afternoon at 5:30, TWA flight 1649. I also need a place to stay for a while; I was hoping I could stay with you and the girls."

"Of course you can, I'll move Eva in with Cheryll. They will love to see you."

"One more thing, call our Moms and the twins and ask them to come to your house Saturday morning, but don't let them know that you've talked to me unless you have to. I don't want Barbara to know where I am just yet. I'll explain everything on Saturday."

"OK Joe, but the explanation had better be a good one."

After a few minutes of banal conversation we hung up and I lay back on the bed. I tried to compare what had been the two most important people in my life up to now. Barbara was cutting edge fashion and all night dance clubs. She was all angles and flat planes and tight muscles; she was smoky darkness and a promise of sensual erotic delight. You knew that sex with her would turn into an athletic event.

April was clean simple lines, all curves, classic, timeless traditional beauty. She was daylight and PTA meetings. She gave you a feeling of contentment. I can put on a perfectly tailored suit and it will look like I had slept in it for a week before I reach the sidewalk. April on the other hand, can put on discards from the Salvation Army store and look elegant and sophisticated. She makes people, male and female, want to go find their partner and reproduce the species so they could have children just like her.

More from total exhaustion than anything else I did sleep that night, but the dreams made me wake up the next morning in a cold sweat.

I spent most of the morning back at the lawyers finishing everything so I could leave Chicago the next day. I asked them about Barbara calling my family. They immediately started the paper work to get a restraining order that would prevent Barbara from contacting my family or me. I signed a power of attorney so that I wouldn't have to be involved in every little detail of what was going to happen. In the afternoon I tried to tie up all the loose ends I could think of and packed everything to leave.

And then I waited.

By this time all of the rage and anger had dissipated but in its place was a constant dull throbbing pain that was starting to wear huge calluses onto my soul.

The next morning a secretary from the attorney's office drove me to the airport in my car. The lawyers were going to sell the car and the money would be added to the final settlement. The divorce papers were to be served to Barbara that afternoon. From the time I left the hospital Sunday afternoon until I got on the plane Friday morning, I had not seen nor spoken to Barbara. And if there was a God in heaven I never would in the future either.

I don't remember much about the flight. I kept trying to force myself to stop thinking about what I was leaving behind and concentrate on where I was going. I had a three-hour lay over in Denver where I changed planes for California. Everyone left me alone as I waited; it felt like I was sitting in some type of isolation both. When I went to the men's room I was startled by the dead face staring back at me from the mirror. I was lucky I wasn't hauled away as a suspected terrorist.

John Gordon was right; being close to family was just what I needed right then.

The only emotion that I could feel was a small flicker of excitement at being able to see April. Growing up, she was the typical girl next door. She was cute and bright and sunny and everyone's best friend. When she was in high school she was the head cheerleader and had at least two dates every weekend. She was so sweet that I used to tease her that she would give me diabetes, but every guy in town knew that I would beat the crap out of them if they didn't my baby right.

If you look in the dictionary under Soccer Mom you will see April's picture. She is five foot four and had complained to me one time that her wedding dress was a size 6 but after giving birth she was now a size 10. Her hair is the color of gold and she keeps is short, barely long enough to pull back into a ponytail. April's eyes were a deep brown that has a completely serene look. I know it sounds corny but it is true; when she smiles the sun shines. 

After the plane landed, I walked through the gate and started to look around when I heard two small voices squealing, "Uncle Joey! Uncle Joey! Over here." Cheryll, age seven and Eva, age six were jumping up and down, waving their arms and each holding a bright red balloon on a string. April was standing behind them, smiling and they all rushed over to hug me. I have never seen a more beautiful sight.

We collected my bags and on the ride to the house Cheryll and Eva were chattering a mile a minute telling me everything they had been doing since the last time I had seen them. April lives in an older part of town in a large craftsman style cottage that had been built in the 1920's. She and Dominic had spent a lot of time and money restoring it to a pristine condition. Pulling into the driveway, I felt as though I had come home.

After we had unloaded my stuff, Eva took my hand and pulled to show me her room where I would be staying. While the girls and I talked, April went to the kitchen to start dinner. After we ate, she told the girls to get ready for bed and that she had surprise for them. Grandma and the aunties were coming tomorrow for a visit. This caused more squealing and jumping and it was another hour before she could get them into bed.

After closing the bedroom door on the girls, April went to the kitchen and came out a few minutes later with two cups of tea. She set them down on the coffee table and sat next to me on the couch. When several minutes of a comforting silence had passed she put her arms around me and gave me a little kiss on the cheek.

"Is there any thing you want to talk about?"

"Not just yet, wait until tomorrow. I don't want to go through this more than once."

"Ok." She stroked the back of my head and gave me another peck on the cheek. "It's good to have you here. The girls are really exited about you staying with us."

"Thanks, I think this is where I need to be right now."

April stood then took my hand and pulled me up after her. "I gather that tomorrow is going to be a tough day and you look beat. Why don't you go to bed and I'll see you in the morning."

I lay on the bed but did not get undressed. I lay there staring up at the ceiling as every emotion in my body slowly drained away, leaving me completely numb. I must have eventually fallen asleep because the next thing I knew it was daylight and Eva was shaking my shoulder to tell me, "breakfast is ready and mommy said to come and eat." After breakfast, I took a quick shower and then spent the rest of the morning letting the girls introduce me to their favorite Saturday morning activities. 

Soon my two little angels Pam and Percy arrived along with their husbands and April’s mom. No one was interested in lunch right then so April asked Cheryll and Eva to take the kids out to the back so the grown ups could have a little talk. On the way out, Pam's youngest, two-year-old Patricia turned back, climbed into my lap and refused to leave. Somehow that seemed right so I kept her there and five minutes later she was asleep in my arms. I was sitting on the piano bench facing everyone else who was spread around the living room.

Over the next hour I told them everything, the story of Barbara's infidelity, the baby and Derek Andrews, spilling out all the anger and pain and frustration that had been overwhelming me for the last week. I held nothing back and didn't try to sugar coat anything. Pam and Percy only stopped me a couple of times to ask questions and April and her mom said nothing. By the time I had finished, everyone had tears in their eyes and April said, "No wonder you only wanted to tell this once." After several minutes of silence, April asked what my future plans were.

"Bright and early Monday morning I officially start at Willis, Goldman & Reed. After that I'll just play it by ear I guess."

From that point every one started in trying to carry on ordinary conversation and catch up on things from the last few years. All too soon lunch was started and finished and it was time for everyone to make the home. For the first time since we were kids, my cousins gave me a hug when they said good-bye and April’s mom hugged me like she would never let go.

The next day was Sunday and after breakfast April, Cheryll and Eva drove me around introducing me to my new hometown. The girls showed me their favorite parks and had a spirited argument about which restaurant had the best pizza. That night after the girls were in bed, April and I sat talking late into the night and then I went to bed. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling again, trying to sort out what was happening to me.

At 8:01 AM the next morning I was seated in a chair across the desk from Mr. Harold Peterson handing him the envelope from John Gordon. He laid the envelope on the desk in front of him without opening it. He picked up the phone, punched in a number and said, "Miss Jennings, would you step into my office please." A moment later a young girl that appeared to be a recent graduate from a secretarial school came into the office.

"Miss Jennings, this is Joe Phoenix. He will be taking over for Barry, would you show him around and to his office. Joe, Miss Jennings will be your secretary. When you're done, come on back in here for a few minutes." 

After the tour, I was back in the chair across from Peterson. This time the envelope was open and a pile of papers sat in front of him. He got up and crossed the room to shut the door and sat back down. He tapped the stack of papers with his finger then spoke.

"John speaks very highly of you and his word is good enough for me. Did he tell you that we were room mates in college?"

"No, I don't think he mentioned it."

"Oh well, here is the plan. For the next six months you will be doing the same job you had in Chicago, only not so much of it at one time." This he said with a small smile on his lips and then continued. "After that we will sit down and chart out your future with Willis, Goldman & Reed. Welcome to California."

California was as different from the Chicago office as anyone could possibly imagine. Chicago had over 300 employees and was the stepping stone to get to corporate headquarters in New York. California had 65 employees and suits and ties were discouraged unless corporate drones flew in from headquarters. Working in this office was a welcome relief from Chicago and I fell into the routine rather quickly. Same job, new faces. 

Peterson was a dream to work for. He was 40% manager and 60% cheerleader. He set incredibly high standards for his staff then spent most of his time convincing them they could do it. As a result, our office had the highest profit margin in the company. I was able to meet and interact with all of the employees, even fake a laugh at the typical office humor. But inside I kept myself separate and apart, never letting down my guard for one second about my personal life. I was living inside a glass booth.

And then the numbness came.

I had always been a person that enjoyed his life, but now, nothing. At times it almost seemed that people could hear a dry wind blowing through the hole in my soul. Before, I had been open and comfortable in almost any situation, but now I was closed and guarded. 

The only pleasure that I had was being around April and the girls. Cheryll, Eva and I struck a bargain. Each night after dinner I would help them with their homework, how to add and subtract, learning to read a chapter book. They in turn would teach me every "Knock, Knock" joke known to mankind. They insisted that April and I tuck them in together before allowing the lights to be turned off and go to sleep. 

Afterwards, April and I would sit together in the living room and talk or watch TV or read or do nothing, just sit on the couch next to each other before going to bed.

It was at night that it was the worst. I had not slept alone for almost six years and it was then that everything could creep back, all the images, all the thoughts. Some were real pictures from my memory, others were pictures from my imagination, constantly playing in an endless loop until I couldn't tell the difference. But now they meant nothing to me. I had no feelings, nothing good, nothing bad...only mental pictures that just wouldn't go away. 

Only the numbness remained.

Life became an emotionless routine for me. Routine was something that I desperately needed. During the day when I was at the office, April was at home. After Dominic died, April sold the business and between that and the trust fund Dom left, she and the girls were set financially. This gave her the time to be a full time mom and do the thing she loved the most while they were in school. April was an illustrator.

She had illustrated seven children's books, none of them best sellers, but she was proud of them and rightly so. In between she had freelanced a couple hundred drawings to several greeting card companies. All of this allowed her to work at home and set her own schedule.

Living together, we become this odd family unit. Each morning I would say good bye to the girls as they sat at the table eating their breakfast. April would meet me at the door and send me back to my room to get rid of that hideous tie or put on socks that matched.

Saturday mornings the girls would get me out of bed early and drag me half asleep to the couch. There I would lie down and they would sit and lie on top of me instead of the couch watching the early morning cartoons. At 8:30 everyone would eat breakfast, get dressed and take girls to their soccer games. 

If April and the girls had not been there to prop me up, suicide would have been an attractive option. 

About three weeks after I had arrived, I came home to find a large manila envelope lying on the dining room table. The return address was for the attorneys in Chicago. I opened it and inside were two other envelopes. One was an empty envelope that was already stamped and addressed to the attorneys, obviously meant to be used to return something. The other envelope was thick with papers and across the front was hand written, "Joe, please read this. PLEASE!" I recognized it immediately as Barbara's handwriting. I stared at it, studying it for several minutes. Without opening the envelope, I tore it in half and put the pieces into the return envelope, sealed it and took it out to the mail box for the postman to pick up the next morning.

I continued to sleepwalk through my days and nights. April did everything she could to draw me out of my emotional coma. The best part of the day was when she would kiss me on the cheek in the morning as I went out the door, or when the girls hugged me good night before bed. But for the most part the emotional numbness had taken over my life.

One Monday morning six months after leaving Chicago, Miss Jennings brought a FedEx man into my office saying that I had to sign for the package personally. After signing, the deliveryman said that his instructions were to wait until I had signed the papers and return them.

I opened the package and inside was the final divorce papers. I signed in the marked places and handed them back the FedEx guy. He stuffed them into another envelope, turned and left. It took less than ten minutes and four years of marriage to Barbara was over.

Six days later on Saturday morning, the doorbell rang and outside was another FedEx delivery from the attorneys. I signed for the package and went out back onto the deck. I sat on the glider and watched Cheryll and Eva as they played in the yard. 

Finally I gathered what strength I had and opened the package. Inside was my copy of the final divorce papers signed by Barbara, the judge and myself. Also included was a check for my portion of the community property settlement. My marriage to Barbara was now officially over and the four-year investment for me had a monetary value of exactly $7,827.59.

I was lost in my own private misery when I felt something next to me. The girls were standing mere inches away, holding hands and just watching me. Cheryll sat next to me and put her arms around me. Eva crawled up into my lap and put her arms around my neck. She quietly said. "I love you Uncle Joe," then lay her head on my chest.

A second later another pair of arms went around me from behind and I heard April's voice whisper in my ear. "And I love you too Joe, we all love you."

After several moments April stood up, kissed me on the top of my head and said, "Girls, would you mind going into the house for a little bit? I need to talk to Uncle Joe."

A quick squeeze from the girls then they hopped, skipped and jumped into the house as April replaced Cheryll on the glider next to me. She hooked her arm through mine and pulled me closer until we were leaning against each other. She took the papers out of my hands, looked them over then set them aside. We sat quietly before she spoke.

"When Dom died, I wanted to die too. I couldn't see any reason for going on. The only thing that kept me here was the girls...and you. I must have sat holding the girls for hours; I couldn't bear to have them away from me. And you, you called me, what, three, four times a day? You have no idea what that meant to me. I know what it means to lose someone you love. I think losing someone to death is probably easier to deal with than what you've lost because I know that Dom loved me. Do you remember what you said to me, must have been a couple of months after he died?"

"No, I don't."

"You said, 'April, you will always love Dom and it hurts to lose someone. You must remember everything about them, the good and the bad, but we love you and it is time to let go, remember that promise I made you? So long ago? I’m still here. Haven’t moved an inch …' Joey, it's time for you to let go."

For the first time since that day at the hospital with Barbara, I cried. It was as though a giant festering emotional wound had erupted and my soul was pushing all of the poison out. April sat holding me saying nothing. She waited patiently until the sobbing of a grown man stopped and I was able to pull my self together. 

"You're right, I know it's time to let go. I just loved her so much. I don't want her back; I just want to understand why she did it. I know in my mind that I did nothing wrong, but emotionally I feel like I failed as a person somehow. That I failed Barbara. That I failed myself. But you're right, I will not let what Barbara did to me ruin the rest of my life. I've been using you and the girls as an emotional crutch for too long, I need to stop free loading off of you, I'll start looking for a place of my own."

"You will not. You'll just sit there alone in some apartment feeling sorry for yourself and the girls would be devastated if you moved out." Then she ruffled my hair, "besides, it's nice living with you again without having the twins around to tease the hell out of us. When you're ready, come inside and help me fix lunch."

John Gordon was right. It was at that moment that life began to get better. 

After lunch I took everyone to an afternoon matinee of the new Disney movie and against April's wishes, treated the girls to buckets of popcorn and ice cream and candy and sodas. During the movie April kissed the back of my hand and held it in the dark until the credits began to roll. For the first time in a very long time, I was having fun.

After I had gotten into bed later that night and was lying on my back staring at the ceiling, I heard the door open and watched as April came into the room walking to the bed. She lay down next to me on top of the covers and pulled me close to her. When I started to say something she just stroked my face and said quietly, "Shh-shh-shh, just let it go baby." When I awoke in the morning, she was gone.

Slowly but steadily my life got back on track. My harrowing nightmare existence began to fade, the dreams and mental pictures came less frequently at night. I began to interact with the people in the office in a more personal way. One day I had April come to the office where I introduced her around before taking her to lunch. Later that evening after the girls were in bed, she had a half smile on her face when she asked why I hadn't mentioned to anyone that she wasn’t my wife.

"I don't know, it never crossed my mind. I guess that I'd better correct that tomorrow."

"No, that's ok. It'll be good for the rumor mill to think that Joe Phoenix has a girlfriend. Besides, I haven't been the object of gossip for a long time." 

I thought about it for a while and realized April had introduced me to her friends as just average Joe. We started laughing at what a scandal we must be in the neighborhood, that nice widow woman with the live-in boyfriend. We were laughing so much at what we both had inadvertently done that we had tears coming down. Laughter felt good once again.

When we caught our breaths, April gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, "Well, I have to admit, I could do a lot worse for a boyfriend." Then she turned, went to her bedroom, stopping to smile and blow me a kiss saying, "good night baby" before closing the door.

Life was getting better for me and the memories of my time in Chicago began to fade. April and I spent a lot of evenings talking late into the night. Conversations that started with "Do you remember when..." and "What ever happened to..." but always ended with sharing everything that was important to us. April told me of how much she missed Dom, but was now at peace with the idea of that chapter in her life being closed. My thoughts no longer dwelled on Barbara and I tried to express to April how important Cheryll and Eva had become to me. 

I was surprised when April insisted that I accompany her to the parent-teacher conferences for the girls. I applauded enthusiastically after Cheryll and Eva sang their solos at the first, and second grade concert. Gradually I began to accept April's invitations to participate in her neighborhood activities. Our hugs at the front door in the morning were lasting longer each day.

It may seem odd, but one of the things that I came to enjoy the most was grocery shopping with April. We would walk, or more accurately, stroll down the aisles pushing the cart, talking about everything and nothing. If the girls were with us, they would have to remind us that we had put nothing in the cart and they were getting hungry. Many times in public and when we were at home alone I would glance up to find April looking at me with her half smile. She would hold me in her gaze for several moments and then return her attention to what ever she had been doing. 

But she wasn't the only one. Unconsciously I would find my attention drawn to her at unexpected moments, watching her play with the girls or working in her studio. My relationship with her was shifting from friends that genuinely care for each other to something more. Smiling came much easier me and I found that I had a tendency to whistle as I walked to the car after work. 

One Friday in late March I came home from work to find April and the girls loading sleeping bags and duffel bags into the trunk of April's car. 

"What's going on? Is someone running away from home?"

"No Uncle Joey, we're going to our Gymboree. Come with Mommy to take us, please, please, please."

The girls had been talking about this for weeks. The Camp Fire Girls had a weekend campout that was going to take place in the gym of the local high school. The campout would last from Friday evening until 10 AM Sunday morning. We arrived at six o'clock along with 70 other girls between the ages of six and twelve and assorted parents and grandparents. Inside the gym was an entire village of tents and sleeping bags scattered around. To call the scene bedlam would not do it justice. We got the girls signed in and found their assigned place with the rest of their troop. A quick kiss, a few hugs, a rapid "see you on Sunday" and April I beat a hasty retreat, barely escaping with our lives. We agreed that the adults who actually planned this event and stuck around to supervise the weekend deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor.

As we pulled out of the parking lot April said that we needed to stop at the supermarket and pick up something for dinner. I looked at her for a few minutes and said, "Listen, this is the first time since I got here that we've been able to have an evening alone. How about I take you out to dinner, someplace where the food doesn't come in a paper bag with the picture of a clown on it?"

April had a faint smile on her lips as she spoke. "Why Joe Phoenix, are you asking me out on a date?"

"Well...yes...I guess I am...that is if you're not busy and it's ok with you're parents, I'd really like to take you on a date...if you don't already have a boyfriend."

"I don't know, I sort of promised Cyndi that we might go to the malt shop together, but sure, I guess we could go out if you're sure you want to...with me that is. I know it's ok with my parents."

"Gosh April, you're just swell."

We had instantly reverted to that gut wrenching insane insecurity everyone has in junior high and we continued joking in this manner as we decided where to eat. We finally settled on the Shanghai Garden, a small neighborhood Chinese restaurant at the edge of downtown. After parking the car at the curb, I walked around, opened the door and held out my hand to help April out of the car. When she was out of the car I held on to her hand and asked, "Would it be alright if I hold your hand for a while?"

She gave my hand a squeeze and said, "Sure. Just remember, I don't kiss on the first date." I didn't reply, but gave her a quick peck on the cheek then we walked down the block to the restaurant.

It was much warmer than usual for March. April was wearing a thin jersey knit black top. It was sleeveless with a scoop neck, not to modest but not terribly revealing either, impeccable sense of style as always. She wore khakis as always, never the skirt type that girl. It was snug enough around her hips to be flattering without making her look like a streetwalker. Her legs were bare and she had on a pair of sandals that consisted of a sole and a couple of thin straps.

It was early in the evening so we were the first patrons for dinner. The waiter was showing us to our table, April following the waiter and me following behind, watching April, when I had a heart stopping epiphany.

My god does she have a fantastic ass.

This realization threw me for a loop. That mental picture made it difficult for me concentrate on what to select for dinner from the menu. Eventually we did order something and began to eat. We talked about what we thought the girls were doing right then and whether or not the troop leaders were still sane, or were they ever sane to begin with. We talked about my work and what illustration projects April had going at the moment. We discussed what was on the upcoming schedule for Cheryll and Eva. All through this we kept our private joke running about our first date. 

After we finished eating, we were waiting for the waiter to bring us coffee when April reached across the small table, placed her hand on top of mine and left it there.

Did I mention she always did have cold hands? Of course being the gentleman I was since college days I proceeded to warm them with my own. Just like when we were still in college.

When we were completely finished and the bill paid, we walked out of the restaurant still holding hands. Out on the sidewalk I asked, "it's still early, want to catch a movie? We could see something for grown-ups this time."

"I'm sorry Joey, but tonight is too nice to waste it sitting in a dark room staring at lights on the wall. Let's just walk for a while."

We casually walked along the sidewalk with no particular destination in mind, talking or stopping to look in the shop windows, completely oblivious to the fact that we were still holding hands. When we stopped to look in the windows, we stood close to together, her arm pressed against mine causing a strange feeling to shoot across my chest. I don't know if it was because of our joking about dating or what, but tonight I was seeing a completely different April than the girl I had know and loved since college. I was starting to feel more than a little confused and awkward. Old feelings resurfaced. Feelings that I had had to bury a long, long time ago.

Eventually we found ourselves in front of a bookstore that was still open and we went in to browse around. Several times I looked up to find April gazing in my direction with that half smile she uses when she is happy. We finished up by buying a bunch of paperbacks for ourselves, and a couple of volumes of the Nancy Drew Mystery series that the girls had not read yet. By the time we pulled up in the driveway at home, I looked down at my watch; it was only 9:45. We walked up to the front door where we quietly continued acting out the big finish to our date. I held both of April's hands in mine and tried to look at her face but for some reason the only thing I could focus on was her lips.

"Golly gosh gee whiz, I had a super-duper time Miss April, I hope that you will let me take you out again sometime."

April has this way of laughing quietly that is so intimate you can only hear it if you are right next to her. She pulled me close and softly said, "I think that can be arranged." She pulled my head closer and whispered, "I told you I don't kiss on the first date but tonight I feel like breaking that rule."

She put her arms around me and kissed me full on the lips, a kiss that was tender and loving and held the promise of something I couldn't comprehend.

My first kiss with my first love.

I held her in my arms and was lost in the love I felt for this woman. After several minutes she pulled her head back and asked, "Do you have a curfew? Would you like to come in for awhile?"

"What about your parents, will they approve?"

"They're already in bed, and they won't know if we're really, really quiet."

"Ok, as long as we won't get into trouble or anything."

Again April smiled, then opened the door and we went inside. She went into the kitchen and started making us some tea while I sat on the sofa in the living room skimming through the books we had just bought. She brought out two mugs, set them on the coffee table then sat next to me. We didn't say anything for a while then April turned to look at me.

"Joe, all kidding aside, I want you to know that I haven't had this much fun in a very long time. I haven't had a date since before Dominic died and I just want to say thank you. Tonight has been very special for me."

"I know what you mean. These last eight or nine months, I feel like I've been to hell and back. I never would have made it if it weren't for you and the girls. Tonight is the happiest I've ever been in my life. You know, I really do love you. Always had and still do."

"I know Joey, I love you too."

April placed her hand along the side of my jaw, leaned in and kissed me again full on the lips. She pulled her head back as we looked at each other in the eyes. This time, I leaned over and kissed her, but now all pretenses were gone. Our arms wrapped around each other as the kiss grew in intensity, becoming an act of passion trying to feed a desperate hunger millions of years old.

"Joe, we need to talk. I have already lost one lover in my life and I will not go through that again. If we do this, we are no longer friends like we used to be; we will be lovers and nothing on this earth will be able to put things back the way they were. If you later decide to move on to some other woman I won't be able to take it. Once this is done, you have to understand that we are both in it for the long haul...the very long haul. If you're not ready for that, we have to stop right now."

I could hardly get the words out of my mouth. "Stop loving you? I don't think so. If by long haul you mean the next million or so years, then I'm in. I have always loved you, even in college. I knew it wouldn’t work out then but I didn’t care, the day we parted ways love was the day I died just a little bit. And after Barbara I guess I died a little more. I have never been happier than I am right now. If I learned anything from Barbara, it was the meaning of commitment. I promise I will never leave you...or cheat on you...and never...ever...do anything to hurt you."

The smile on April's face spread from ear to ear as she leaned forward until our noses were touching. "Good. I'm glad you feel that way because if I catch you so much as looking at another woman I will get my aunt and Cyndi to cut your dick off and feed it to the ducks."

"God, you drive a hard bargain. Is it too late to back out?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well ok then... I guess I can live with that."

- The End -

... for now

The Junkie Doctor 7: Hangman

2008-12-02T08:10:00.000-08:00

If one were asked to describe Dr. James Carter, he would call the medicine man unaffected. Dr. Carter was young, bright and successful. Despite his accomplishments, he was unaffected. He was unperturbed even in dire situations. And unaffected he was when Jacques Sayre made his threat. He was spinning around on his swivel chair languidly in his home office. His slim surgeon's fingers twirled a cigarette. The clean, sharp smell of marijuana filled the room, its scent deceptively like the fragrance of a lemon tree. He took another drag of the joint and closed his eyes. Amidst his hallucinations, he received revelation.

"Merde!" Monsieur Sidney Ducote, king of the Ducote shipping empire cum drug lord, swore as he slammed down the telephone with an awful crash. His colleague, or rather, rival, looked at him disdainfully. "What is the matter?" Antoine Haas asked the raging Ducote. Ducote told him the news. Haas looked shocked and then his expression mirrored his colleague's.

"It's him," breathed Detective Billy Royston. His housemate and colleague, Det. Kim Jung Ahn, stared at him. They were watching the evening news. Popular, controversial anchorman Horace Jackson was interviewing a bright, young doctor on a high-profile death. Suspected drug lord Jacques Sayre, scion of the affluent Sayre-Vossel family, was found dead in the St. Marguerite's Hospital prison wing. Dr. James Carter was one of the prisoner's doctors, as the deceased had sustained a gunshot. Autopsy reports showed nothing.

"The junkie doctor?" Kim asked Royston as their other housemate Sammy Mugler stepped in. "Why do you say so?" "Well, he is a junkie. Could be that Sayre was his supplier, and tried to blackmail him. Our doctor freaks out and kills him in his sleep," Royston suggested. Kim looked doubtful. The camera now shifted to Sergeant Kenneth Garcia, head of investigations.

Sammy cleared his throat. "I remember him," he said slowly. His friends were surprised. Sammy had never mentioned the doctor before although, it wouldn't be surprising if the former drug user hadn't remembered, having being lost in addiction before the gunshot and taken in by the two police detectives.

It was Christmas, 2005. I went to this abandoned mill near the jetty with my pal Lee. Lee'd told me,"Come over to Charlie's. He said his Frenchie's got some real good shit tonight." Charlie was our local dealer, an old friend. The 'Frenchie' was his drug lord, some guy called Jack, Jacques? I'm not sure. That night, Charlie had pure heroin and soon enough, we were ... "chasing the dragon"; you guys know what that means, don't you? Suddenly, there's someone knocking the secret code on the door. Charlie let him in. He was wearing a cap that covered most of his face. Yet there was something extraordinary about him. He was a striking man, if a man can be called striking. He had a very cool voice even though his business here was definitely illegal. Unaffected, I would say...

"Drug-addled as I was, I'd never forget him," Sammy said, his voice unnervingly flat. "He is...the doctor you saw just now."

Billy Royston jumped off the couch in excitement. "That's it!" he exclaimed. "You've established the connection between Sayre and Carter. Oh boy, I can't wait for Kenny Garcia to hear about this..."

New York City Criminal Court, 9.30 a.m.. The rows were all filled for the case of State vs. Dr. James Carter. This was a high-profile case. It had all the required intrigues: a dashing, albeit stone dead, young drug lord, a brilliant doctor and a kleptomaniac police informant. The media was having a field day.

Unperturbed by the circus surrounding him, Dr. James Carter answered every question hurled at him by the State prosecutor calmly. At the same time, his manner was quietly humble, which convinced most of the audience, and some of the jury, of his sincerity and innocence.

"This is preposterous," he said quietly,"to attempt a connection between the deceased and myself, besides the doctor-patient relationship. It is same for Mr.," he paused," Mugler, whom I have never met in my life. So it is again for the accusation that I am a drug user."

The prosecutor hurled more questions, determined to outfox the unaffected doctor. Where was he, who could confirm his alibi? Detective Royston, Det. Kim and Sammy Mugler watched the proceedings tensely.

2.45 p.m.. Abel Burzynski, the second generation of his Polish immigrant family and the Chief Jury, adjusted his mike. "After reviewing all the evidence ... insufficient ... Dr. James Carter," he paused," not guilty."

Camera bulbs clicked and reporters swarmed around Dr. James Carter and his pretty blonde wife, Alice. Det. Billy Royston, Kim and Mugler watched the couple leave in their silver BMW.

Dr. James Carter reached his home, hugged his children. Then he went up to his office while his wife told Francois the cook to whip up something special for dinner.

He lifted a corner of the carpeting, removed the marble tile under the carpet and took out a small metal safe. Now that he knew his ordeal was over, he could relax. Jacques Sayre had been taken care of, with a little ricin. So little that the poison was virtually undetectable and clandestinely supplied by a man, whom Dr. Carter discovered through his own investigation, was a Monsieur Nicholas Moreau, Head of the Paris Crime Lab. That Moreau too, had his own reasons for supplying the ricin. Whatever it was, Dr. Carter didn't care. His problem was solved.

In less than 5 minutes, the cocaine was burning merrily. He put it into the syringe and plunged it into his arm. Dr. James Carter drifted into oblivion once again.

The Junkie Doctor 6: The Closet Smells

2008-12-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

The Sayre clan had been present since the 18th century and originated from southern France. It was relatively small due to the illnesses of that time, which proved to be an effective population control method. It was also relatively unknown, until one enterprising family patriarch by the name of Charles Sayre started a simple shipping business. The clan never looked back. The Sayres progressed by leaps and bounds due to their acumen in trading, and quickly became respected among their community.

Then, in the early 19th century, one of the family's leaders, Jean Sayre, discovered that lucrative profits could be found in the smuggling of absinthe and hashish. There was a disagreement within the family concerning their proposed involvement in black marketeering. However, Jean's persuasiveness convinced the family. As they had done with their shipping empire, their smuggling business flourished quickly. And so, besides the respect they commanded among simple civilians, the Sayre clan was feared in the underworld for their hard deals, cunning and ruthlessness. The Sayres further strengthened their position when Dain Sayre married into the Vossel clan, another formidable criminal family.

Jacques Sayre struggled against the cuffs restraining him like a wild animal. His efforts were futile. After wasting a considerable amount of time and energy, he swore angrily and resigned himself to staring at the white ceiling.

White, white, damn it, everything was white! Jacques felt he could go crazy if he were kept in longer. His head still hurt and his ribs, they felt as though they were on fire. All he wanted to do was to get out of this place.

The door opened suddenly. In stepped a African-American hulk of a prison guard, followed by a young doctor, probably not more than 35 years of age. Jacques' eyes flickered, only barely. The door was closed and the guard left.

"Good morning, Mr. Sayre," the doctor said, his voice quiet. The consummate professional. Jacques spat at him. The doctor calmly wiped the spit off his face with a handkerchief and began checking Jacques' vital signs.

"Well, Mr. Sayre, you've got a nasty gunshot there," he spoke again. "But fear not," he paused,"we'll heal you so that you'll be all well for the court."

The court. For the first time in his life, Jacques Sayre shivered. He had always been able to squeeze out of narrow corners, being heir of his family's wily intelligence. But what of now? He knew his men would try to get him out, be it through influencing the higher-ups in the courts or staging a prison break. However, as hard as his allies were working to free him, his rivals within and outside the clan would try to topple him. Jacques knew he had to do something.

"Hey doc, come here," he said to the doctor. The doctor raised his eyebrows and leaned down to face his patient. Jacques leaned forward as much as the bonds would allow him and whispered into the doctor's ear.

"Cocaine." The doctor froze immediately. Jacques saw the reaction and his fox mind knew that his gamble had worked. The doctor's calm veneer had cracked and all Jacques needed to do was play it up.

"I remember you," Jacques' voice turned menacing. The underworld figure was back. "The man I delivered it to. The cops came. You ran. But I remember you." Every word was emphasised carefully, while observing the doctor.

"You know, doctor, you could lose everything," he went on flippantly. "I could expose your dirty little secret. A doctor on drugs! Oh boy, what would happen next? I really wonder..." and Jacques laughed.

The doctor's expression was imperceptible for a moment. "You want me to break you out of here," he said almost matter-of-factly. Jacques winked at the doctor.

"Lend me your cellphone, my dear Docteur," Jacques said, now charming.

In 40 minutes, a trawler, obviously illegal, was sailing from France to New York. In the hospital's prison wing, the African-American guard was transferred to another post and a new guard came in to replace him.

Jacques put down Dr. James Carter's phone with much satisfaction. The doctor's face was unreadable.

The chess pieces were in place. And now... to wait.

The Junkie Doctor 5: Octopuss

2008-12-02T08:07:00.001-08:00

The summer holidays was in full force in France. 20-year-old Jacques Sayre was receiving his daily feed of news, listening to My Chemical Romance and chatting with his university mates simultaneously at 9 a.m.. His eyes narrowed as he scanned an article off the French daily Le Monde's website.

"Prominent Japanese artist, Shinya Hayasaka...dead in her Tokyo apartment yesterday morning... Autopsy reports confirmed... overdose of heroin...suspected long-time user. In her apartment....kit and more....possibility of being a courier...investigations pending...," Jacques' brain noted the important points as the phone rang. He picked it up with an impatient sigh. The phone call seemed to further aggravate him. After hanging up, he took his coat and left the room.

15 minutes later, Jacques was seated in the main meeting room of Sayre&Vossel Shipping Co.. The others in the room with him were older men, the oldest being 85 years old. They were all dressed in sharp suits. For this was no ordinary business meeting, but one that had been called with urgency. Hence, the atmosphere was thick with tension; the men were bracing themselves for the unexpected.

"Good afternoon, men. You all know why we are here," Jacques spoke every word softly and carefully. The men looked around at each other guiltily.

"Whose operation was it?" His voice was suddenly like a whip. Some jerked in their seats, others shifted uncomfortably.

"It was mine," a broadly built man admitted almost defensively. His name was Sidney Ducote. He was one of the key men in the organisation. "We never... never expected this to happen..."

"That's not true!" Antoine Haas interrupted his colleague with an outburst. He glared at Ducote. "I told you that trusting that woman with something so important would be costly! Did any of you listen?" the skinny man in grey gesticulated expressively as he continued his tirade. Some agreed with him. Murmurs broke out. "And now," he paused for effect,"we have to pay for this." That statement was met with loud reactions, some supporting, others dissenting. Again, he glared at Sidney Ducote, who was turning a visible shade of angry red.

Jacques clapped his hand impatiently onto the table to restore order. The 26 men immediately turned their attention back to him.

He told them it was no use arguing. Yes, the death of "that woman" would bring much trouble, especially unwanted attention of the police, which would be bad for business. However, Shinya Hayasaka had contributed significantly to the organisation. She had established many contacts, turning them into valuable customers. Besides that, they had many of theirs in high positions of authority. What did they have to fear? The only thing they needed to confirm was whether the heinous deed was committed by rivals. If so, necessary steps would be taken.

The men listened, slowly brought into agreeing with Jacques' smooth, confident persuasion. Indeed, he was his father's son, they thought. And so, ready they were to heed his instructions.

"Uncle Sidney, rein in Jacques One and Seven. Tell them to lie low," he said in the still same soft voice. Sidney Ducote, shipping magnate, nodded. He turned to one of his members, a man of about 50 years of age. "Uncle Nicholas," he said. Nicholas Moreau bowed his head humbly. "Find out who did it. Sidetrack the police. How you do that is completely up to you." He smiled. "My father had a lot of faith in you. So do I." Nicholas Moreau, Head of the Paris Crime Lab, nodded in agreement.

At 11a.m., the meeting was over. Jacques decided to stay in the Sayre&Vossel building. Upon entering his room, his pretty secretary smiled. He told her not to pass any calls until further instructions.

Jacques entered his office and plonked himself onto the swivel chair. He spun around, watching his surroundings become a meaningless blur. Damn, he would miss her. His secret lover. It was such an unlikely coupling under odd circumstances, but it worked. He was 20, she was 29 of age. They had met in Japan when he was on duty with his father. She was extremely beautiful and talented in her art. Furthermore, she had been running a lot of important assignments for him. He stopped spinning around and took a few moments to mourn Shinya Hayasaka's passing.

The men under Jacques Sayre and the Sayre-Vossel clan were extremely faithful to him. They laid low, waiting for investigations and the sensationalism of the artist Hayasaka's death to blow over. Two months later, operations were resumed and the busy season arrived. Even Jacques got into the thick of the hustle and bustle by taking part in the shipping and distributing procedures.

In the alleyway, Dr. James Carter was tapping his foot impatiently. A young man in a corduroy jacket approached him.

"Here are the goods, as promised," the young man said, his English faintly accented with the Parisienne tone. The doctor grabbed the brown paper bag and shoved another paper bag at the young man, who couldn't have been more than 20 years old.

"Jacques!" the lookout called. "The cops..."

The young man called Jacques and the doctor turned immediately. The young man pushed the doctor into an alley and bolted with his partner on a motorcycle. Dr. James Carter, drug addict, ran through the dirty alleys.

On the other hand, Jacques Sayre and his henchmen hid in the abandoned factory near the old jetty. The cops wouldn't catch them today. There was still drug-running and dealing to look forward to.

The Junkie Doctor 4: Kleptomaniac

2008-12-02T08:06:00.000-08:00

Sammy Mugler sauntered down 31st Avenue, through the menagerie of street vendors and other civilians. He had a self-satisfied smile which suited his well-tailored suit, black trench coat and strident walk; an obvious picture of affluence. In his pockets were trinkets of many kinds, all from the stalls around him. For Sammy Mugler was a kleptomaniac. This natural obsession with stealing was what made him so good with his job as a fingersmith, a more specialised and classified version of the normal pickpocket.

Today, Sammy Mugler was on a mission. After getting his fill of the vendors' wares, he hailed a cab. It took 20 minutes to reach his destination. Sammy smiled, paid the cab driver and on the way out, niftily took the cabbie's watch.

"Mr. Mugler, please enter now," the matronly nurse motioned him into the doctor's room with a tired sigh. Sammy Mugler rose, glanced at the watch on his wrist that was previously owned by the unsuspecting cabbie. 11:25 a.m.. He smiled at the 50-year-old lady, and flourished one of the many trinkets from his trench coat and gave it to her. The effect was remarkable; the grouchy look lifted and she sputtered her thanks to him.

Dr. James Carter. Sammy Mugler took a breath and entered. He didn't like doctors, although he had been seeing Dr. Carter for a few weeks. Dr. Carter stood up to greet his patient with a genial smile. They shook hands and then proceeded to Sammy's check-up.

"Well, Mr. Mugler, I'm very pleased," Dr. Carter said in calm, measured tones. "Your liver is definitely reacting well to the medicine, and the fitness training has made you more resilient to illnesses." The patient smiled. He glanced at his watch again. 11:38 a.m.. Suddenly, the doctor's cellphone rang.

"Excuse me," the doctor said, slightly embarassed. He answered the phone in his office area, leaving Sammy in the check-up section. Sammy watched the doctor's receding back. Once he was sure the doctor was gone, he bolted from the examination bed.

Sammy Mugler was an experienced fingersmith. His kleptomania pumped adrenaline into him, making him rummage through the doctor's things even faster, but with an effective silence. Finally, he found what he wanted. It was in an innocuous brown paper bag. Sammy quickly slipped the bag into his huge trench coat and sat on the bed as though nothing had happened.

At 12:03 p.m., Sammy Mugler was out of the hospital and back on the streets. He came to a tall, stately glass-and-steel building. New York Police Department, the sign said. Sammy Mugler entered. Upon his entry, two detectives hurried over to him.

"Here it is," Sammy Mugler handed a clear plastic bag containing the small brown paper bag to one of the detectives. Detective Kim grinned and slapped the fingersmith on the shoulder.

"Man, Sammy, the department owes you big time for this," he said. Detective Royston nodded his head in agreement. Sammy just smiled.

"Well, I do owe you guys a bigger one," Sammy told his friends. "Besides taking me in and getting me off the habit, you let me do something..."

"Something useful?" Det. Billy Royston chipped in cheerfully. "C'mon, Sammy, I'll buy you lunch..."

The Junkie Doctor 3: The Beast

2008-12-02T08:05:00.000-08:00

Pop. Pop.

The grim silence of the back alley was interrupted by a loud clang of a trash bin. It half ran, half limped in agony. Its eyes only saw red. The sky and dilapidated apartment buildings seemed to close in on it. It felt the ground move up and down like waves in a storm. Nausea engulfed it.

Footsteps! Hurried yet purposeful, filled with murderous intent. Its head snapped up, suddenly aware of the danger. It ran on two legs, like a man. It heard them shout from a distance, but it could not gauge how far they were. Their voices bounced madly in its skull, like ping pong balls. Coloured ping pong balls, snooker balls, tennis...

It ran, now on all fours...panicking. Heavy breathing resulted in little white mists from its nostrils, its mouth. It ran into what seemed a safe refuge. Grassy and full of trees. Yes, it could hide behind the trees, it thought. It found a suitable spot and sat there, all the while checking if its pursuers were near.

A long grass tickled its leg. It jumped. The giant rhododendron took on an unearthly, undefined shape. It screamed and bolted. Run it did, crouching and hiding. After a long time, it settled in a hidden spot and fell asleep immediately due to exhaustion.

"Dude, you drunk or what?" 32-year-old police detective Kim Jung Ahn prodded the person sleeping on his doorstep. The person, probably homeless, groaned.

"Jung, who's at the door?" His partner in the force, Billy Royston, came to the living room with 2 mugs of steaming hot coffee.

Jung snorted. "Some hobo," he said. The sleeping man coughed. Jung turned to close the door when his colleague stopped him and knelt down near the sleeping figure.

"Buddy, he's injured!" Billy exclaimed. "Call 911, our hobo's got a gunshot wound in the side." The sleeping man groaned, a definite indicator of the wrenching agony he was experiencing.

"C'mon, dude," Billy said soothingly. "We'll get you inside." Wordlessly, Jung and Billy lifted the man as gently as possible and brought him into the house.

The Junkie Doctor 2: Paint Dust

2008-12-02T08:04:00.000-08:00

The expensive studio looked as though hooligans had come over and trashed it. Canvasses were piled helter-skelter, some were against the walls that bore obvious paint spatter. An easel was overturned. Paint tubes littered the floor. However, there was a sense that the things were arranged purposely that way; it was neatly messy.

She was sprawled on a luxurious couch, cigarette in hand, reading the newspaper. The Mainichi Shimbun had written an article on her recent exhibition down in Harajuku. It praised her work as being "capable of evoking a sense of dreaminess and sudden euphoria". "After leaving Shinya Hayasaka's exhibition, one feels as though one has just awoken from a beautiful dream and regrets doing so," the paper continued, also calling her a prolific artist capable of producing many works of varied styles.

She laughed silently, closed the papers and got off the couch. She walked slowly to the Victorian dresser, her movements feline. Her eyebrows raised slightly at her reflection. Dressed in her usual black Armani, she was the epitome of chic. The dark shade also lent her a mysterious air. I paint secrets. Her skin looked tired, her eyes a little bloodshot. But that was what the public would expect, assuming that she'd been pouring all her energy into her exhibition. The real reason was unknown.

She opened the drawer of the dresser and took out a silver tray more suited to a doctor's room than a bohemian artist's studio. She cleaned a spoon with an alcohol swab, took out 2 pills that looked like Tic-Tacs and put them into the spoon. A faint vinegar smell rose from the packet that contained the 'tic-tacs'. Then, a syringe was used to suck up water; the water was squirted into the spoon. The spoon and its contents were heated from the bottom with her cigarette lighter. She took out another 'tic-tac' and ground it to a fine powder in a small bowl. The powder was then mixed with the freshly-squeezed paints on her palette. Her actions were cool, calm and measured.

Two hours later, she was painting furiously at her easel, paint flying in wild streaks. Five canvasses filled with pictures that screwed the imagination were on the floor; this was her sixth. The thick acrylic paint had barely dried off the first. Finished with her sixth, she stepped back to view it critically. Perfect. The critics would deem it surreal, with its hues of mist green and dusky flamingo pink, and the way it glittered softly. The way it enveloped them into a tangible euphoria, fantasy. Whatever, she didn't care.

She took a step closer to her sixth canvas, like she had done with her previous five. She inhaled deeply and the sweet smell of heroin mixed with paint drifted into her nostrils and capitulated her into yet another bout of ecstasy.

The Junkie Doctor 1: Hypodermic Syringe

2008-12-02T08:03:00.001-08:00

He strides confidently, calmly. Well-dressed passers-by on the streets merely stare at him with dull eyes. Smog envelopes the alleyways. It does not deter him; he speeds through the urban dust like a knife through water.

His left hand clenches a paper bag. He makes sure his baggage is still secure. Once he nears the area where he calls home, he puts the brown paper bag into his pants' pocket. It is small and fits snugly, invisible to curious eyes.

The neighbourhood is gaily, pretty in its suburban colours of beige and terracotta with splashes of greenery. Warm lights are switched on; it is dinnertime. He takes in the scenery disdainfully. He knows that behind the facade of family, respectability and money, there is nothing but grey - boredom with life and the like.

Never mind. He enters his house, one of the most expensive-looking on the avenue. His pretty wife is preparing dinner with Francois, the new cook. His young children play with Lego. He dutifully kisses her and murmurs quiet approval of his son's Lego aeroplane.

"I'll be having a long shower," he says casually. "Call me when dinner is ready." His wife nods.

Once he enters his study, the veneer cracks. His hands are shaking manically, but he stills them with an inhuman effort. Out comes the paper bag. From a locked drawer, he takes out a spoon, a syringe. Needle, tourniquet - check. He meticulously arranges his kit on the study table. He empties a little of what is in his brown paper bag into the spoon. Placing the spoon carefully over a small flame, he waits. He knows that in exactly 5 minutes, it will bubble over. Then he'll take a breath and plunge the needle in.

In 10 minutes' time his grey world is awash with psychedelic colours. Sheer bliss floods his mind. He feels love for all of creation. He could dance, he believed he could fly. Piss off, he thinks of his pretty blonde wife, I don't need you anymore...

The exhilaration lasts for another 10 minutes and as abruptly as it came, it goes. He washes up, stores everything away. The steaming shower jolts him back to normality, albeit a stoned one. It doesn't matter. His mood is soaring.

He dresses, checks himself in the mirror, walks downstairs. Lamb is the main course, with smooth creme brulee as dessert. He eats with more relish than other days. Francois is satisfied and all is well.

After dinner, the family is lounging in the living room. The shrill tone of the telephone disrupts the tranquillity. His wife sighs and he moves to pick up the phone.

"Miss Scott? Your father, I see. I'll be there in a minute."

Before long, Doctor James Carter leaves his house for his patient's...

A Soldier's Poem

2008-12-02T07:59:00.000-08:00

We fight your wars with all our hearts,
You send us back in body parts,
We offer truth for those which you stole,
We offer prayers for your long lost souls,
- System Of A Down -

Bloodied and ravaged bodies on the parched land. Dead eyes staring sunward. He could have been mistaken for one of the dead, the way he limped, his body crouching close to the ground. The earlier chaos had settled, leaving the stench of death.

Tired out, he sat down clumsily, grazing himself against the jagged stones which were abundant in the Iraqi desert. He swore loudly. It didn't matter; only corpses surrounded him. The smell made him gag; he tasted vomit. Not giving a damn about any possible enemy forces around, he retched. The smell, the goddamned smell! his mind screamed. The sun seemed to darken in his eyes and he dropped onto the scorching sand.

Archer Payton was born in 1979 down South of the USA, a Tennessee boy, the older of three children. He grew up on a cattle farm which his father had inherited from his grandfather, which he would inherit one day. He was, to his parents, a healthy, wholesome child with intelligence more suited to the advance in cities than the simple countryside.

"He's a sharpshooter, that boy," his grandfather Rayland often remarked. "Just like his name."

Indeed, his mind was what people termed as "above average". He went to the American Military University in Virginia where he was recognised as one of the top scholars. After graduating, he was drafted into the military. Old Rayland, a former Purple Heart recipient for his service in the second World War, was beaming with pride when his grandson donned the army fatigues.

Yet, Archer withheld his deepest feelings from his proud family...and the reason he enlisted. In spite of his achievements and brilliant mind, he was a very depressed man. All he wanted to do was die. Why he felt that way, he himself couldn't fathom. His family was of no help, in his eyes.

Christmas 2000. "I wanna be like Archer,"whined little Daryl, tugging at Archer's shirt.

"Pipe down, Daryl. How's work, big brother?" Lisa asked her brother casually.

Archer hoisted his kid brother over his shoulder, who whooped happily, and made a mock groan. "Awwh, I'm so tired I could die," he said with a droll expression on his tanned face.

His mother suddenly appeared from the kitchen. "Archer! Don't you say such things," she scolded him. Archer's expression darkened, and so did the last glimmer of hope in his heart. He'd hoped he could broach his depression to his parents. However, his parents were rather against discssing morbid or out-of-norm matters as his problem.

Going to a counsellor or psychiatrist was also impossible.

"You've sullied the family name! What'll the neighbours think of us now?" That was their favourite question. Used often when any misdemeanour was committed by Archer and his siblings.

So, the pride of the Payton family joined the Army. And when the US wanted to invade Afghanistan and, subsequently, Iraq, he offered himself. Not because he wanted to serve the country, but because he wanted to die.

His time fighting in Afghanistan was a mockery to his desire to die. He took a bullet that was meant for his colleague. Shots from an enemy tank. Did espionage work near enemy lines. Many of his teammates died but not he. Oh, God was playing a joke on him, but, he thought, a cruel joke. For what others perceived as his courage and valour, he was promoted to the rank of Staff Sergeant. Inside, he writhed in mental misery, cursing his still being alive.

Iraq was a harder ball game to play. A gunshot wound in his shoulder turned gangrenous. The army doctors shook their heads and predicted he wouldn't last the night. Yet, he did, and immediately returned to the battlefield, seeking elusive death. One attack mission, they were short of rations. Archer gave his food to his patrol members, hoping that he would suffer from malnutrition and die. Yet another time, he survived.

Bloodied and ravaged bodies on the parched land. Dead eyes staring sunward. The six privates sent to retrieve bodies all felt sick looking at the aftermath of the clash that happened merely 30 minutes ago.

"Look!" one of them shouted. They hurried over to their colleague.

Last week, several men wearing black suits flew down from Washington to Tennesee. They would have been inconspicious if not for the ranks and insignias they wore on their jackets. These men were driven to a pretty park where everyone was dressed in black. A lone trumpet played 'The Star-Spangled Banner' as the flag of the United States of America was raised half-mast. The coffin was also draped with the flag.

"Sergeant Archer Payton was a man of courage. A man who firmly believed in going against the odds. A man who gave all to others even at his own expense. A man whom we all thought could never die. It saddens me that now we have to bid him goodbye. God bless his soul. May he rest in peace...."

The mourners' faces were suitably sad for the sombre occasion, but if one were to study the dead man's face, they would find a smile perfectly carved on.

The LENEV File

2008-12-02T07:56:00.000-08:00

The city lived in the darkness of the Cradle's legacy, its citizens' lives torn and shaped by the misery embodied in its charred shell, and the tormented souls that haunt it. At night even the most cold-blooded murderers dared not walk alone along the twisted alleys surrounding it - people say the very ground there is blighted by the evil that is the Cradle.

The tortured voices were its birthing cry; the rising smoke its first breath. Born out of torture, oppression, murder and a history of weeping, the Cradle was ‘alive’. They say its doors will open before you. They’ll seal behind you and as long as you live, it will never let you leave.

But what if you died in the suffocating grasp of the Cradle?

The police have a special file for such people. The boys in blue call it the Lenev File. The term supposedly originated from an unnamed police sergeant, who shortened its original moniker - "Lost, Never Found" - to "LNF", then later to "Lenev". The name has stuck ever since, and the name Lenev became a curse, synonymous with the Cradle and the countless unwary travelers, vagabonds and crooks who were unfortunate enough to seek refuge within its broken walls.

Officially, the person responsible for the 'upkeep' of the Lenev File was a serial killer on the loose, a man who had escaped the Cradle in its dying days as the inferno razed it to the ground. Unofficially, however, it's a different story: the story of how the Cradle and its lingering malice murdered before, luring luckless souls to their doom.

But for the past few nights, more and more people were steadily adding to the thickness of the Lenev File, disappearing mysteriously both day and night. Anguished relatives and friends turned up by the truckload at police stations across town, demanding, begging that action be taken.

How could you expect the police, brave men and women though they are, to face up to an enemy they didn't even know for sure?

Then it started one chilly winter's night.

A family, returning from the circus in town, were enjoying the cool breeze of the night. One can almost picture them - smiling father, grinning mother, and laughing son, holding his parents' hands, walking down a quiet road home. They were so lost in their mirth and comfort that they didn't realize the quiet road they were walking on was uncomfortably in the immediate vicinity of the Cradle.

There was no indication whatsoever that the three of them ever saw the attack coming.

By the time the reporters reached the scene, videocams rolling, cameras flashing, the police weren't even done picking up the last remaining pieces of bone and skin that were still scattered all over the street. But miracles do happen - they found a little boy, drenched in blood from neck to knees, cowering inside of a nearby dumpster.

After much persuasion on their part, the police managed to get the boy away. Away from the inquisitive paparazzi and the nosy public, he was brought to Greenward Hospital nearby under armed escort.

The police were right to take precautions. The ambulance that delivered him to Greenward left shortly after on an emergency call. Presumably, it never reached its destination - the ambulance was found hours later in a ditch, windows smashed, body panels dented and shredded in an inhuman way. The only trace of its crew were the bloodstains all over the upholstery within; not that there was much of it left, anyway.

Before the ambulance's remains were found, though, at around 7.00, the lights at the hospital flickered briefly. The doctors and nurses still went about their daily rounds - electricity interruptions were frequent in this part of the city, near to the slums. Dr Kara was in charge of the operation to save the boy's life and patch up the wounds he sustained, and she was on the fourth floor briefing her crew at this time.

Fifteen minutes later or so Officer Li failed to report for duty at the hospital main entrance, much to the chagrin of his colleagues there. Repeated attempts to contact him went unanswered. Frustrated, his sergeant went in search for him on the second floor, and found him there. The trouble was, Officer Li was lying face down in a pool of his own blood, without his throat.

The alarm was sounded. The call was made to the nearest police station for reinforcements. Unfortunately it was cut off midway suddenly, and the officers and doctors and staff at Greenward came to terms with the horrible realization that they were all alone.

That realization was compounded all the more by a gruesome incident. On the third floor, a window shattered and something large and soft dropped all the way through it to the ground below. It was the sergeant who had found Officer Li.

The remaining police scrambled to the fourth floor to protect the only surviving victim that could help with their investigations. Five officers took the stairs in the northern wing up while three more took the decrepit, but fully functional, elevator in the eastern wing. The five were the lucky ones. The entire hospital echoed with the dying screech-crunch of the lift plummeting to the ground from four floors up.

Dr Kara and her team, meantime, were completely unaware of the chaos in Greenward. By virtue of the soundproof room they operated in, they were fully focused on stitching up the boy's wounds. They would only come to know of what happened later.

Meanwhile, screams were heard from a corridor in the south-eastern wing of the fourth floor. Officers Prabu and Kian went to investigate, hands quivering slightly as they held their own guns firmly. As they rounded the corner they were confronted by a veritable mass of muscle - all six feet of it.

The giant, garbed in tank top and black cargo pants, was standing over the severely dismembered body of a young nurse, a bloodied meat cleaver in hand. His face was simply disgusting to look at - it didn't seem to fit him at all. It was with horror that the two of them realized that it didn't seem to fit him because it wasn't his face to begin with.

The face once belonged to the boy's father's.

He turned to look at them, muscles swollen to the point of being grotesque and deformed - though the two officers had no doubt about how much damage his hulking form could take, or dish out. He lunged at them, and they were caught by surprise by his amazing agility and speed.

Prabu got off the first shot, and a large chunk of meat was torn off the monster's pulsating biceps. He bellowed with rage, stepping back and gripping his wound painfully. Kian recovered first - and tugged Prabu's sleeve back the way they came. Thankfully for them, the giant did not chase them any further.

By the time more men came to take down the giant, he was gone, and so was the corpse he had been gloating over. Only a trail of blood and gore was left...

Someone's strangled cry came from the operating theaters. The boy! They came in time to see the giant toss a bleeding doctor out the window in front of the operating room. They drew their weapons and fired at him, catching him across the chest, arms and legs. He shrieked and charged like a raging bull, tossing one policewoman into a vending machine, and one of her male colleagues into the wall. Both of them passed out from the concussions.

The police volley continued. It seemed as if they were shredding the giant to pieces but he wouldn't bleed at all! Eventually though, the giant backed off gradually away from the line of officers, before turning his back on them and leaping out the window. He screamed as he plummeted, landing on the pavement with a dull thud.

All in all, of the fifteen officers at Greenward, seven died in the ensuing massacre while three more were warded for severe injuries. They have since recovered fully, and have returned to active duty. Five doctors would never see the sunrise again, while eight nurses would have their names listed in the morgue alongside their superiors. The boy lives, however, and is now in police custody at a safe house somewhere in the city outskirts.

The coroners collected the bodies one by one, preparing them for identification and autopsies. The giant, though dead, scared them the most. As they laid the massive body on the stainless steel autopsy table, the media trumpeted the force's success in killing the butcher who was 'responsible' for the Cradle disappearances. Finally, they said, the force could rest easy and close the Lenev File for good. The men and women who died within the sterile walls of Greenward Hospital were buried in a grand ceremony as heroes who gave their lives in the fight against evil.

Two days later, the Lenev File was reopened without pomp or ceremony, just as the morgue doors were thrown open in the middle of a moonless night by a six-foot tall monster, body slick with gore and sweat. Witnesses said his body never bled from all the wounds he received...

The Cane Man

2008-12-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

Once, in the corridors that smelled of antiseptic and detergent - in the whitewashed halls of the fearsome fortress they called the Cradle - the tapping was as familiar to everyone as the haunting screams of the mentally unstable. Yet, even now with the Cradle only existing as an empty, accursed shell, the rhythmic tap-tap the cane still echoes eerily in its abandoned ruin, amidst the wordless cries of soulless puppets.

Mr London. It was one of the names inside the visitors' record book, meticulously written in spidery script. The residents of the Cradle, however, knew Mr London by a different title. They'd nicknamed him the Cane-Man.

They say Mr London carried a cane made from the finest wood. This cane had been blessed by a secret order of monks - purportedly heretical cultists in Cambodia - and was capped with a small globe of burnished gold, no bigger than a clenched fist.

In the years to come, the villagers flinched at shadows and hid from the darkness. The men talked in hushed tones over beer and candlelight about a stiff figure roaming the village graveyard in the dark of night. The grave-keepers were afraid to ply their trade, lest this unknown 'thing' besets them with misfortune - or worse.

The last thing any of them wanted was to get the chance of having to bury their comrades six feet under.

Mr London had only one purpose each time he visited the Cradle; each visit was for a certain little boy in the nursery tower. The nurses said the child was his bastard offspring - a mistake, brought into the world by carelessness in the fires of passion. After all, wasn't the old man seen frequently in the company of 'lesser' women around the downtown zones?

They couldn't have been any further from the truth.

The little boy was, in actual fact, Mr London's grandson. The boy's parents were killed in a horrific accident, shortly after they birthed him into the world. The kid was barely one year then.

Mr London was firm in the knowledge that his grandchild should never discover the cause of his parents' death. He feared the truth would break the boy. And so, the boy was spirited away to the safety of the Cradle. Never mind the fact that the nursery tower was surrounded by maniacal beings who had ceased to be human long before; Mr London was determined to isolate the boy forever, to spare him the hurt of reality.

Thus, the boy became a de facto citizen of the Cradle, under the iron rule of its administrative board and the watchful, prying eyes of the matrons.

The eccentric Cane-Man enjoyed his visits to the place every week. Without fail, he would turn up every Tuesday afternoon, precisely at 4.05pm, at the front gate. The items he carried were all but predictable: a bouquet of tulips (courtesy of the peasants' market nearby) and a chocolate bar. The bouquets were always for the nurses ("his little boy's mothers", as he affectionately termed them), while the bar was for his little precocious darling.

The inmates' uprising two years later changed all that. Mr London, as expected, was shattered by the sudden turn of events, and would have jumped into the raging inferno of the Cradle were it not for the intervention of firefighters. He watched with tears of rage and frustration as the flames cremated his family's heir alive, the screams of the dying children to be forever etched into his memory.

Five days later, the Cane-Man hung himself from a lamp-post in a quiet suburban neighborhood. His death caused an uproar in the local community; it took the police almost a month to clear up the outrage and disbelief of the village-folk.

And as with all things related to the grim legend of the Cradle, the village was unwittingly doomed to its new found fate.

The dark cloud came slowly at first. The night seemed more quiet, more ominous. It no longer had the same peaceful, tranquil quality the villagers had enjoyed since time immemorial. No; it had been taken over by some strange, otherworldly force, like some menacing predator creeping up on its unwary prey.

In the years to come, the villagers flinched at shadows and hid from the darkness. The men talked in hushed tones over beer and candlelight about a stiff figure roaming the village graveyard in the dark of night. The grave-keepers were afraid to ply their trade, lest this unknown 'thing' besets them with misfortune - or worse. The last thing any of them wanted was to get the chance of having to bury their comrades six feet under.

Dogs and cats howled and hissed at the silent night, while rats and vermin fled in the wake of it. Women locked their children indoors starting early evening, warning little brats that 'the night will get you', lest they mended their naughty habits to escape its wrathful punishment.

Little Tricia was no different from the many kids in the village. Like other children her age, she was cute, naive and blissfully innocent. Her smile made grown-ups grin and hearts melt. She was almost always clad in the most beautiful dresses that drew stares of admiration from other adults and kids. In fact, she was so much like other children her age that she was also unspeakably curious of everything.

And so it was one fateful moonless night that the same little girl sneaked out of her room window into the open.

"It's alright, girl. When we're done, you won't ever be afraid of the dark anymore."

She walked the village streets, hoping to see a familiar face somewhere. She craned her neck to find the grocer's dog, the mustachioed constable, the smiling bread lady. But this late at night, they had all gone in, tucked into their beds and dreaming of a better life. So you can imagine her surprise when she turned around to suddenly find an old man standing there.

Still, she somehow managed to keep her scream in.

The old man tapped his long wooden cane against the cobblestone pavement. He tilted his head to one side as he looked at the young girl. "What's wrong, little one?" the old man croaked. "Are you lost? Where's your mummy & daddy?"

She gazed into the old man's lucid blue eyes - such beautiful eyes! she thought. She can see herself reflected in them, like the mirrors Mother keeps in her room drawer. She smiled innocently at the old man, who grinned in return, revealing rows of yellow teeth.

"Mummy says we should take care of our teeth," she quipped happily.

"Indeed," said the old man. "And did she tell you why?"

"Because teeth need to last us a lifetime."

"My, aren't you a smart little girl."

"That's what the grocer said to me too," Tricia beamed.

"To tell you the truth, little girl," the old man said thoughtfully, "I've lost the use for my teeth a long time ago."

Tricia's brown eyes widened noticeably. "What do you mean, sir?"

The old man seemed not to hear her, as he seemed to be gazing blankly into the distance. Then he turned to look back at little Tricia once more. "I think I'm hungry," said the old man. Kneeling down by his cane, he beckoned Tricia to come closer. Whispering in her ear, "How would you like to join me for a bite?"

She blushed slightly in response. "Mummy told me never to follow strangers."

"Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that," the old man grinned, a slight air of sheepishness in his shrug. "My name is... is... well, I'm so old that I've actually forgotten my name." Then he laughed at his little joke. Tricia broke into a large toothy grin. The old man smiled and twirled his cane in the air a few times. She caught a glimpse of a shiny golden ball at one end.

"So... while I try to remember my name, what's yours, pretty one?"

Again, Tricia blushed. "Tricia, sir."

"Ah, a royal name, for a little princess like you, isn't it?" whispered the old man. Tricia blushed furiously this time, turning slightly from side to side. She was starting to like this old man - and very much!

The old man extended a wrinkled, bony hand. "Come, Tricia, let's take a walk. It's a lovely night..."

She took his hand gratefully, and squeezed it a little. The old man turned to Tricia once more. "Something wrong?"

"I'm... afraid of the dark, sir."

The old man cupped her cheek in his hand. "It's alright, girl. When we're done, you won't ever be afraid of the dark anymore." And little Tricia smiled again.

He rose to his full height, steadying himself on his cane. Then he walked alongside the little girl. She swung her hand and his happily, humming a little ditty to herself. The old man gazed into the darkness ahead, seemingly unaware of the little girl clasping his arm tightly. And so they walked, his cane tap-tapping against the road, till the morning fog engulfed them and hid them from sight.

Till today, who knows what really happened to little Tricia that one night? What were her thoughts before she disappeared, leaving only half-chewed bones to prove her existence at all? What games did the old man play with her during the course of their walk? Who was the old man in the first place?

For the record, the case - like many others in the Lenev File - was never solved. But remember! If, by chance, you are out walking in the dark, and you hear the steady tap-tap of a walking stick behind you - run, run like you've never run before; run and never look back! The legend of the Cane-Man is every bit as true as each of the horror stories surrounding the Cradle - and every bit as real as the murder of the little girl, Tricia.

Thaw

2008-11-04T19:52:00.000-08:00

Something is wrong.

Consciousness drifts back to me lazily, like an incoming tide as my mind and body awake in stages. At first, it is dark, and I have no form, just a terrified animal spark suspended in a featureless abyss. My primal fore brain sends useless impulses to my unanswering body, demanding that I run and hide, but I am still. How long I drift here, I do not know, the darkness devours time.

Gradually I become aware of muted sensory impressions, the faint hiss of venting gas, the dry taste of recycled air. It is utterly black however, darker than I would have believed possible, and I slowly realize that my eyelids refuse to open. I am aware of them now, thin sheets of flesh that tug across my face, but remain closed despite my efforts. Even without them, I can still sense the glass and metal frame around me.

With a dawning wave, I realize how cold I am. So cold, that for a hideous and protracted moment, I believe I may be on fire. I begin to panic, still trapped inside my nearly lifeless body, wanting to slither and crawl away from the pain. My lips part with a tear of flesh and I can feel blood trickling into my mouth, growing instantly cool as it runs between my clenched teeth. My jaw remains locked in place, the muscles straining weakly beneath my cheeks.

I want to cry, to sob like a child, bathed in quiet despair and helplessness. In my cocoon of self pity, higher functions of my mind begin to slowly emerge, grinding like rusty gears into use, and I try to calm myself.

I am alive, I tell myself. This is all perfectly normal, and at any moment one of the ship's medics will carefully open the capsule, place the tip of a plastic bulb between my torn lips and squeeze warm, sweet electrolytes down my parched throat. This maternal image of comfort stills my quivering body, and I began to breathe regularly, and my reason begins to return.

If I am awake, then we have arrived. The long silent passage through the endless night of interstellar space has ended. If I am alive, then we are in orbit around Eta Cassiopeia.

I breathe evenly and smooth, and catch a tinge of something in the air, a faint whiff of chemical corruption from the dry sterility of the ventilation. The blackness beyond my closed eyes pulses briefly with light, registering a soft red glow as it diffuses through the vessels and capillaries of my closed lips. My cracked lips emit little white sparks of pain as I contort my face, tugging my eyelids open with a quick and agonizing jerk of the head. Fluid weeps from the corners as I blink convulsively.

At first I am terrified that I am blind, and then, slowly, the edges of my tiny capsule resolve in the faint red light of a blinking LED. The glass is just a few inches from my face and I can see my breath against it, a wet fog that briefly flowers into ice, and quickly evaporates into the dry air. Beyond the glass, is nothing, a silent and yawning darkness.

My heart is thudding in my chest now, and my limbs seem to twitch and tug on the safety restraints around my ankles and wrists. The tight glass coffin and the empty abyss beyond seem to crush me between them, twining threads of claustrophobia and agoraphobia around my chest and I struggle to breath evenly. The lights should be on. Someone should be here by now...

Something is very wrong.

Faint movement at the periphery of eyes causes me to turn my head and eyes in a sharp instinctual move. The weary atrophied muscles of my neck scream in agony, and my eyes grind through sandpaper filled sockets. I gasp and my eyes fill with warm welcome tears, that without gravity simply cloud my eyes like a lens. Through the watery haze, I see a passing wave of dull red light, illuminating briefly the dimensions of the space in the dark, and then drifting out of sight.

I shake my head, gritting my teeth against the dry tearing pain of movement, and fling the tears from my eyes. They drift away in little silver spheres and freeze, moments later. I blink my eyes and try to focus again on the darkness. I barely realize that I have stopped breathing when the light returns.

It is a red emergency light, spinning silently, but it is far too dim, and far too slow. It crosses the room like a broom, briefly revealing the faintest glimpse of the space beyond. I see rows of dark containers, dozens of them, each containing the vague shadow of a figure. My eyes dart around the scene, unable to absorb any details, only the vague sense of scale and shape inside the room. I strain my eyes to focus each time the light passes, but I can’t make out anything in the dimming light. There is nothing in the darkness that can tell me what has gone wrong.

I didn’t see the window at first, but I gradually became aware of it as faint pinpricks of starlight catch my eye. I lock my eyes and focus on the drifting stars as my heart threatens to burst from my chest, and my lungs suck in frigid air in ragged gasps.

Calm, I repeat, over and over like a mantra to myself. Calm. If I can just get control of my breathing and be patient, someone will come to help.

Like an answer, there is an explosion of light from beyond the window. I squint, feeling my irises spasm and struggle to contract. Outside the porthole, there is a blue and cloudy world, looming and massive. My eyes adjust and I can do nothing but drink in the sight of the oceans and land. The planet light seeps into the cabin and illuminates the rows of glass and steel tubes, and I can finally make out the occupants.

Most of them are frozen and dead, pale blue and white wraiths with lips and eyelids pulled wide and open by contracting muscles. A few of the containers are smeared red and opaque. Each has the same flower of frozen blood and cracks, where it’s occupant must have beat his skull against the glass.

I tug again on my restraints as panic overwhelms me, my limbs thrashing against the restraints. I realize I am silently asking for god, begging escape from this frozen mausoleum.

My eyes lock onto the planet, now wide and filling the window, and my heart stops. In the blue ocean I see the distinct silhouette of the European coast. My mind reels and I clench my eyes against the disorientation.

We never left.

The fever of panic breaks, and I begin to feel a glimmer of hope. We never left. I am not going to die in orbit around an alien world. I am home. I can still be saved. These thoughts start to warm me and I stop tugging against the straps. Measured breath returns, and I close my puffy, swollen eyes and allow my heart to settle.

I open my eyes again, gazing down onto the Earth, and a sudden wave of nausea rises in me before I really understand what I’ve just seen.

Striking a sharp line across the face of the globe, the terminus between night and day divides Europe and Africa.

On the day side, I see the polar ice, a stretching white sheet that has all but absorbed the Scandinavian Peninsula and coils around the rest of the continent.

On the night side, there is primal and elemental darkness. There are no cities, no lights. There is emptiness.

As quick as it came, the Earth slides out of view, showing only her frigid and lightless night, and dropping the cabin back into a cold darkness. The red klaxon light has stopped spinning. The lights inside my coffin have stopped blinking.

I am left alone, in the frozen dark, with the dead.

Terror claws at me, my body is shuddering and useless, with blood like ice.

I suck in a deep lungful of the dying air...

and scream.

Raven's Last Flight

2007-11-25T19:59:00.000-08:00

As we dropped altitude and closed in on the beachhead, the Spectre groaned as Cowboy banked hard to the left. The call sign suited him well. He always wore an old straw farm hat, and those non-issue chrome plated sunglasses. I could never figure out how he got away with having them. He was always smiling, and he was the best pilot I had ever known.

Tommy the crows nest operator tapped me on the shoulder, and as I turned, I noticed a screen shot of the area we had just past. He shouted to me over the roar of the cannons.

"Do you recognize this geographic?"

"Yea we just flew by it," I called back to him.

"First CAV is about to get a rude awakening down there. We got Cubans flanking from the left, looks to be 30 or 40 men. The CAV's pinned down hard right now, and the Cubans are closing fast. When we make the next pass, paint the mark."

"Got it," I shouted.

"Remember, we are gonna be in close proximity to the big red one, so make sure you don't hose the whole place down."

"Give me a shout when we reach the mark," I said. I was exhausted from strafing the area with the chain gun. The vibration of the ship melded together with the constant side-to-side motion from the 105 mm howitzer, and the cannon fire could wear a man out in no time. Not to mention that god-awful hole at my feet, a result of the last burst of flak. It was making a horrible sucking sound now, as if it wanted to take my very soul.

Tommy motioned me again and said, "Here goes, sport. Be ready."

I blinked to clear my eyes and peered into the sights of the gun. The ground movement looked like a group of tiny ants marching in unison. It seemed as if they were going to make a single mass movement towards the first CAV. I didn't think they had a clue as to what was in store for them.

Tommy shouted "FIRE!" and I squeezed the trigger. Every seventh round was a tracer, but the Vulcan fires so quickly all you can see is a single arch of red light from its barrel. The frantic movement on the beach instantly stopped.

Tommy said, "You got 'em all man! No movement on FLIR!"

I felt a momentary sickness wash over me. Yes, I knew what they had planned to do. I couldn't let them massacre our people on the ground. My only thoughts were I had just done to them what they had wanted to do to us. I had to forget it. Clear my mind for now.

The Spectre shuddered hard from a violent blast of flak, and the aircraft waffled wildly from side to side. The tail rudder had been hit but the damage was minimal, and the ship slowly regained its posture.

The VOX radio channel crackled, and I heard cowboy tell the control aircraft we were heading to a higher altitude to re fuel. We started to climb and the AC130 moaned loudly. I wondered how much more we could take once we returned to the beach.

The Raven was a late 60's model, and I had no Idea how much combat repair she had undergone during Vietnam. I knew the fuel cells were still weeping from the botched repair at Hulbert Field, and I worried she might split her tanks at any moment.

Silence filled the ship as we rose above the 3000-foot mark. The looks of the faces on board were varied at best. The cannon operators were sweeping shells up, laughing, and joking. Tommy surveyed his information and went over charts with his usual conviction. Tipper, the loadmaster seemed nervous as he looked at various hard mounting points and checked the landing gear. I did some light maintenance on the Vulcan as I crossed myself, thankful I was still alive.

VOX crackled again as the KC135 tanker operator urged Cowboy to hold the Raven as still as possible to avoid a collision. It was plain to see this was not as easy as it sounded. The tail section must have been damaged worse I thought. After some harrowing moments, the connector was uncoupled, and we pulled away.

The Raven banked right and started her descent. If anyone had told me that I would be here 3 days ago, I would have laughed aloud, but it was real, and we were in the thick of it all.

Tipper's voice shattered the silence. "Are you alright Ark?"

"Yea buddy," I said. "I'm just trying to rest a moment and re group before we head back into the storm."

"Ok brother" he said. It looks as if this ol' girl has seen better days."

"What do you mean, Tipper?" I said.

"I think the Raven is damaged worse than any of us realize." he said. "We're leaking hydraulic fluid from the main and secondary cylinders, and I noticed a lot of slack in the tail rudder control wires."

"Thing is Tipper, This bird has never let us down unless you count the fuel cell repairs at Hulbert." I said. "I'm sure if we were in any kind of real trouble, Cowboy would find a nice soft place to set her down."

Tipper smiled and shook his head.

"No place to soft land here, kid." He said.

He headed off towards the rear of the Raven, and left me alone with my thoughts. I hoped he wasn't right, but he always was on this sort of thing. There was no way we could set down on the runway at Salinas. The Cubans still had ground control, and it might be hours or even days before anyone could land there. With all the ordinance we had dropped in that area, it might be damaged so bad that it was impossible to land on the island.

We dropped altitude again and Cowboy circled to the right. I checked the Vulcan and loaded a fresh volley of ammo into the breach. Everyone seemed anxious to get back, and I was worried about the lack of ground support since we had left to refuel. With only two spectre's circling the island, the "Crow" was the only one there at the moment. Sure, one spectre could do a lot of damage, but two were guaranteed to keep the wolves at bay.

We dropped the last few hundred feet and started to circle the island again. Immediately the flak burst and anti aircraft fire lit up the sky all over again. The next few hours seemed to race past as we continued to try to keep the enemy off the backs of our troops on the ground. We took several hits, but managed to stayed air born.

Suddenly I heard ground control's radio message to Cowboy.

"Areca to Raven" the controller said. "The runway is clear for you to land."

I waited for the reply from Cowboy, but there was only silence from the cockpit.

"Areca to Raven" The controller called again. "Do you copy? The runway is clear."

Again, the mic was silent. A million things went through my mind at that moment.

Did Cowboy not hear the radio transmission? Could everyone be dead in the cockpit? What was going on?

I unbuckled my harness and tapped Tommy on the shoulder. "I'm going up topside." I said.

Tommy looked around and said, "Hope everyone's alive up there"

I climbed the crew ladder slowly not knowing what I might find. If they were all dead, we were in a world of trouble. We all had a few hours of flight simulation, in the event that we had to limp home without a pilot but I prayed none of us would have to find ourselves in that position.

I looked around the cabin bulkhead, not wanting to see what I might find. As I looked I was thankful to see them all alive. The co pilot and Cowboy were having trouble controlling the plane and the navigator was frantically pouring over his charts trying to find the right approach to set the Raven down.

Cowboy looked back and saw me standing there, scowling.

"Why the sour look, Ark?" he asked in his usual unconcerned way.

"What the hell is going on up here, Cowboy?" I shouted.

"I ain't gonna lie to you," he said. "We are in a world of shit right now. The outside starboard engine is about to give out, and we've got major prop damage on the rest of them."

I could see that they were doing all they could to try and steer the Raven, but it looked like a loosing battle. We had too much damage, and there was no way we could stay in the air much longer.

At that moment, the engine died, and the prop feathered to a halt. As I looked out the starboard window, I could see the engine smoking lightly. Cowboy hit the extinguisher switch and the smoke dissipated into the slipstream. The prop on the engine was bent and chewed up, as if a huge dog had used it like a chew toy.

"You had better get strapped in back there, Ark." Cowboy said. "We are gonna try and set this big bitch down at Salinas."

I made my way back down the crew ladder and Tommy was standing there waiting for me. I didn't want to tell him or the others, but there was no turning back now.

"What's going on up there?" he asked.

"I gotta tell everyone." I said. "Listen to your headset"

"Listen up guys!" I said as I keyed the mic. "Were done up here. We've lost an engine, and we got major prop and control damage. Everyone needs to secure there weapons and strap in. Looks like we are gonna have to brace for impact at Salinas."

Jack, the new kid that operated the 105mm howitzer, said, "Crash? Damn man you got any good news to tell us?"

"Sorry kid" I said, that's all I got for the moment.

"I didn't sign up for this shit!" he whined.

I secured the Vulcan and buckled myself into the jump seat. I could not believe this was happening. Yesterday I was at Hulbert field happy as hell, and now I was going to crash into some god forsaken Caribbean runway and die in a thousand pieces. I thought about all the things I would miss. I could not believe I wouldn't live to see my son being born. All of this was just too much. I knew Cowboy would do everything he could to set the Raven down in one piece, and freaking out now wouldn't do me any good.

I though about what Para Rescue had done for me. It had taken a small town kid with no real direction, and turned him into a good man. I had learned so much about myself in the last few years, and I was proud to have been a part of all this. If I died and never got to see my son, I hoped someone would survive to tell him that I had tried to make a difference in people's lives. Tell him his dad had died doing what he loved. I hoped he would know that I loved him more than anything and that I had given my life freely so that he could live in peace.

We started our descent towards Salinas's airport. The ground control operator told us that the runway was clear, but that wasn't the case. The sky lit up around us as we rolled into position for the landing. I knew they were doing all they could down there to help us get down in one piece.

"Hold on to your asses!" Tipper cried out. "I can't get the rear landing gear all the way down. This shit is gonna hurt!"

The Raven slammed down hard onto the tarmac. The impact jammed me upwards towards the ceiling, but the jump seat straps held fast. I felt as if I was being compressed into a small box. Cowboy threw the turbo props into full reverse, and the sound was deafening. [At that moment, the nose gear gave way, and the Raven pitched downward towards the ground, the nose gear tore into the asphalt and shook the ship violently.]

"This is it." I thought. "Once the sparks from the gear start hitting those leaky wings, we will burst into flames."

Thankfully, this never happened. The Raven had slowed a bit, but not enough to make a complete stop on the runway. We missed the last stop markers, and plowed into the sand breakers at the end of the runway. The Raven continued along, and the jungle was closing fast in the cabin windows. To this day, I don't know how he did it, but Cowboy pulled up just short of the tree line. The AC130 ground to a screaming halt, and he killed the ships power and switched to auxiliary. The Raven would never fly again.

Cowboy called out "Report in! Is everyone alright back there?"

Everyone had survived the crash, maybe a little banged up, but OK. The emergency lights and warning signals made the inside of the Raven look like a Christmas tree. Cowboy killed all the alarms, and we all got ready to exit the plane.

"There's a lot of gunplay going on out there." Tipper said. "Everyone get there flak jackets on and be ready to run for shelter. Get your game plan ready before I lower the rear hatch!"

Small arms fire was hitting the side of the Raven. We all huddled into the tail section.

Bill, the other howitzer operator was an old veteran to this sort of thing. He looked at me and said, "You want to make it out of here alive?"

"Is that a trick question?" I said

Don't be a smart ass boy!" he said. When the hatch opens, I'm gonna flank right with grazing fire, and Tippers gonna flank left. All of you need to stay low and head straight out the back of the plane. Intelligence told us there is a bunker that we control about sixteen to twenty yards right behind us."

Jack said, "Hey old man, I can fend for myself. I'm gonna run to the left and take cover behind those sheds we saw coming in."

You'll never make it there, kid." Bill said. "You'll get shot before you get ten feet."

"I'll take my chances." Jack said.

"Suit yourself!" Bill said.

"Ark you run as fast as you can towards that bunker," Bill said. "If you do what I tell you, then you'll make it there. We can't loose our only medic."

"You don't have to tell me twice!" I Said. "I got you the first time."

Tipper hit the release mechanism on the tail bulkhead, and the door hydraulics started to whine. This is it, I thought.

All the training and hard work had come down to this moment. I had never been so scared, yet so alive in my life. There was no time left to contemplate any of this. It was time to go. I said a silent prayer as light streamed into the cabin. The bi fold doors opened even wider.

"God, please let me make it home alive."

The Lamplighter

2007-09-09T23:51:00.000-07:00

There he was, just as always, working his way down the street. It was shortly before dusk and the shadows were already beginning to grow deep. Darkness would soon descend upon the town and its streets, but the gloom would be partly dispelled by the gas lamps. Mrs Lucy Gilyott, who used to be Miss Lucy Ormerod, was standing at the window of her drawing-room looking down the street.
There he was; the old lamplighter who came day in, day out, to attend to the gas lamps. Old? How old? Sixty, perhaps - or maybe even younger. Not so old, really. Lucy was over two years past her 50th birthday, but she didn't consider herself to be old. Of course, she'd had a fairly comfortable life and had taken care to make the best of herself through thick and thin.

She was born into a middle-class home, her father being in business for himself as a shopkeeper. By the time she was turning from girl to young woman the business had grown to the extent that they had a carriage and servants.

Although she'd had her difficulties from time to time, there had only been one real regret in her life; Henry Stocks. They had known each other through most of their childhood, often playing down by the river. They had grown up together - and grown apart.

Lucy had never forgotten the day they sat together under a cloudless summer sky and gazed at the wide stretch of the muddy river. She was thirteen and wearing her prettiest dress. He was a year older, an awkward age when girls can be an embarrassment. They were too young for real feelings of love and desire, and yet too old to be play-fellows.

There was a long silence, broken only by the squeal of a seagull circling overhead.

"A penny for them."

"What?" Henry was startled out of his reverie.

"I said - a penny for them."

"For what?"

"Your thoughts, silly."

"Oh - ay." Henry remained silent and motionless for half a minute, still gazing at the water, and then spoke softly. "I was just thinking on that shore over there. I were wondering what's to be seen and what the folk are like."

"Same as us, I should imagine."

"Ay, mybbe. But I'd like to see for meself."

"Why not go across then?"

Henry shook his head. "It's too far."

"No more than two miles, father says."

"I reckon he's wrong. More like two and a half. Anyway, that river's treacherous. I knew a man who tried to swim it. Current took him away and nobody saw him again."

Lucy gripped his arm. "Don't you try it then, Henry. I don't want you to be swept away."

"Don't be daft. I've got more sense than that. I might try taking a boat across sometime, though."

Henry pulled up a piece of grass and chewed on it thoughtfully as he gazed intently across the water. Lucy knew that look. It meant that she had been dismissed from his mind. He was in a world of his own; a dangerous, distant world that she knew nothing about and could never enter. She had to break the spell and bring him back to her.

"It's my birthday next week." Lucy's voice cut into Henry's thoughts. "I'm having a party. Are you going to come?"

"Don't suppose so."

"Why not?"

"Don't expect I'll be wanted."

"Of course you are. That's why I'm asking you."

"Ay, mybbe you want me there, but I was talking about your mother and father."

Lucy looked blankly at him. "What do you mean?"

"You know," Henry evasively replied.

"No, I don't!" Lucy was indignant. "You just explain to me what you're talking about Henry Stocks."

"Well, I'm a nobody. No father and a mother who does other people's washing to keep a roof over our heads. I've got no education, no manners and no prospects. I'm not fit to mix with the likes of you."

"But we've known each other for seven years. We've played together on the river shore."

"That's as maybe, but I've never been asked to your house. They've turned a blind eye to our friendship so far, but it won't last much longer."

"What are you saying, Henry?" Lucy felt a quiver of fear at his words.

"We're growing up. I'm getting on for fifteen while you'll be fourteen next week. We're no longer a pair of knockabout kids. Things can't be the same."

"What sort of things?"

"Look, Lucy, your dad's a successful man who aims to be more successful. He'll have plans for you - and they won't include me. Come on, I'll race you to the dock."

"What?" Lucy was taken completely by surprise as Henry quickly rose to his feet and hauled her up after him.

"We'll go and see if any of the whalers are in." He tried to pull her along.

"Oh no, Henry Stocks! You stop here and now. We were having a serious conversation."

"Too serious for me. I want to see the ships."

"Well, I don't." Lucy pouted. "They're smelly and dirty."

"That's the difference between us, you see. You're a fine upstanding young lady in a pretty dress who doesn't want to get herself soiled by hanging around a common old dock, while I'm..."

"A boor!" Lucy interrupted in a sudden fury. "A low, mean, ungentlemanly boor!"

"Ay, Lucy," Henry said softly. "That's what I am - ungentlemanly and don't you forget that."

He let go of her hand and turned away.

"No, Henry!" Lucy was immediately repentant. "I didn't mean that." She took hold of his arm.

"Ay, you did."

"No, I swear!"

"It don't matter, anyway. It were the truth, even if you didn't mean it. You don't want to be mixed up with the likes of me. It wouldn't be right."

Henry gently pulled his arm free and began to walk along the path. Lucy remained where she was, but called after him.

"Henry, don't leave me."

"Got to, Lucy. Our childhood's over we're not for each other any more."

He stuck his hands in his pockets and, with shoulders hunched, continued along the track towards the town and the dock. Lucy gazed after him and felt a tear run down her cheek. Henry was a fool. He failed to realise that she had loved him when he was seven, she loved him now, and she would love him for ever more.

*****

The old lamplighter, having completed his task, disappeared round the corner of the street. He would return early in the morning to extinguish the lamps, but Lucy Gilyott wouldn't see him. She would still be in bed.

She sighed and turned away from the window. Why did she feel the shadow of unhappiness creeping across her well-ordered, comfortable existence? Why was there a longing for a life she had never had? A feeling, somehow, that she had missed something? Henry Stocks was a figure from long ago, but nevertheless, he had never been far from Lucy's thoughts. Their paths had rarely crossed since that day by the river.

*****

No doubt Henry was right when he felt he would be socially unacceptable to the Ormerod family. They were trades people; high enough in the social hierarchy to find Henry Stocks undesirable. The son of a washerwoman, he was also a drifter.

Henry's schooling had been cursory. He could write, but only very slowly, with much thought and many mistakes. His counting was little better, and he had no knowledge of the world or its history. But he was a very strong young man and hard work was not beyond him, though the opportunities were limited. There was work in the docks, but that was restricted to the families of the men who built them. Outside the town there were farms and Henry had made the occasional sojourn to them, working in the fields for a day for less than the price of a loaf of bread.

Anyway, the land was not for him; he found it hard and unyielding. It gave him no satisfaction to till the soil and somewhere, deep inside him, Henry felt that life should hold some joy and reward. His mother had found nothing but unrelieved suffering and hardship; it was not going to happen to him.

The answer came to him that day when he went to the dock and watched the arrival of a whaling ship. Over fifty vessels sailed out in the spring, returning from the Arctic in the late summer or autumn. They promised an uncompromising life, full of adventure and excitement, with a reasonable chance of a good financial reward.

The following season Henry signed on as an apprentice on the 'William', a typical, sturdily built three-master. A few days before sailing he met Lucy in the street. She was with her mother so only a few words were possible.

The young girl was horrified when she learned of Henry's plans - especially when he said he intended to spend his whole life at sea.

"One day I'll be a captain," he proclaimed.

"But it's so dangerous, Henry. Many of the whaling ships never return."

"Not so very many."

"Nine last year."

"But the crews were all saved. They get trapped in the ice, so everybody climbs off and walks away to be picked up by another ship."

"Please take care, Henry." Lucy wanted to squeeze his hand to reinforce her words, but the sight of her frowning mother prevented her.

Henry was as good as his word and stayed as an apprentice on the whalers for seven years, after which he signed on as a seaman. It was 1835 and the weather in the Arctic was particularly bad. Four ships were lost, including Henry's, but, as he had told Lucy, the crews were able to walk away, so he returned home none the worse for his experience.

Lucy had kept in touch with Martha Stocks all those years, eager for news of Henry. She had grown into a very attractive and eligible woman. Much to the delight of her parents, she was courted by men of wealth and breeding; but, to their annoyance, she seemed intent on marrying none of them

There were frequent arguments between Lucy and her father until the day she met Philip Gilyott, the eldest son of a successful jeweller and diamond merchant. As a son-in-law he suited Mr Ormerod perfectly and when Philip asked for Lucy's hand in marriage permission was immediately forthcoming.

It was a momentous year for Lucy. In 1837 she became Mrs Lucy Gilyott and also lost touch totally with Henry Stocks, for in that year his mother died. There was nobody at the funeral except Lucy and two neighbours of the dead woman. It was late spring and the whaling ships had long since sailed. Henry would learn of his mother's death months later when he returned.

Lucy was greatly saddened by the loss of Mrs Stocks, realising that her only line of communication with Henry had been severed. But maybe it was as well. In her new position as a married woman it was better to cut all ties, no matter how tenuous, with the first love of her life.

First love? Oh yes, she loved Henry without a shadow of doubt and would never forget him. But it was a useless, wasted love which she knew would never be returned. She had prepared herself for a second love; Philip, a handsome, charming young man with a sense of fun and a zest for living.

The two men were complete opposites, the one morose, silent and inward thinking, rarely showing his emotions; the other bright and witty, a voluble talker on a wide variety of subjects. Henry was born to be alone and unsuccessful, while Philip was gregarious and had the ability and knowledge to succeed at everything he tried.

Lucy had no hesitation choosing between them, simply because there was no choice to be made. Henry would never marry her for he believed himself beneath her. So she married Philip.

The first few years passed quickly - too quickly, Lucy often thought - but she was content with three children to look after, two boys and a girl. Then, after fifteen years of marriage, an almost imperceptible change came over her relationship with Philip. He withdrew into himself and a worried frown often appeared.

Rumours began to drift towards her through various people and she came to realise, gradually, that Philip was involved with another woman. Secrecy had been preserved for the first year, but such affairs could never be permanently hidden.

At first Lucy felt a white-hot fury at being betrayed and could barely bring herself to speak to her husband. She soon realised there was little she could do about the situation and when one mistress was discarded to be replaced with another, she consoled herself with the security of her position as Philip's wife.

The second fifteen years of her marriage were not as happy as the first, but Lucy stoically accepted life as it had been given to her. She gave her time, attention and love to her children and then watched them get married, one by one, and leave home.

In 1868 Philip died, leaving behind a flourishing business, managed by his two sons. Lucy was left alone in a large house with nothing to do and no one to care for and cherish. She received regular visits from her family and welcomed the attentions of her grandchildren, but after their departure the house seemed more empty than before.

Her eldest son, Edward, had taken over his mother's financial affairs and the hiring and firing of servants. Once a month he would come to attend to the book-keeping and give instructions to Bates, the butler. Lucy was grateful for Edward's help and yet it made her feel even more like a useless ornament.

In her loneliness Lucy took to day-dreaming about the past and what might have been. It was a useless exercise, as well she knew, but she couldn't help herself. There were no tangible legacies of Henry Stocks; no portraits, no letters, no gifts. Nothing but Lucy's memory of two children playing and growing up together. Was it possible to fall deeply in love with someone as a child and never stop?

She made discreet enquiries about Henry, but to little avail. Over the years the whaling industry had drastically declined and now, in 1870, there were no ships sailing from the port to the Arctic fishing grounds. It seemed there was nobody around to remember Henry Stocks, a man who had made no particular mark for himself.

Lucy realised he could well be dead, though he would only be about fifty-four; not really very old. She felt an overwhelming, almost obsessional desire to know what fate had befallen him. Was he happy? Did he still remember her and if so, in what way? With affection, she liked to think. Then, one afternoon just as it was getting dark, she noticed an old lamplighter.

Why he should suddenly catch her attention she had no idea, but she felt compelled to watch his slow progress down the street. There was a lamp outside her house and when the old man reached it he seemed to look right at her. Did he give her a half-smile and a slight inclination of the head?

Every evening after that Lucy eagerly watched for the old lamplighter coming down the street. She always thought she saw him smile and nod and became more and more intrigued. She fancied she could see something familiar in the way the man moved; the look in his eyes stirred distant memories.

Lucy constantly had to crush the desire to rush out into the street and confront the man, but for a lady of her position to converse with a lamplighter was out of the question. She steadfastly resisted temptation, but at what a price.

Each night when she went to sleep she would dream about Henry Stocks and how happy she would have been as his wife. In her waking hours she knew the palpable untruth of this, but nothing would stop the dreams. To Lucy it seemed as if she was haunted by the memory of her childhood sweetheart and she had no idea why. After all, theirs was a completely innocent and fairly brief friendship. She had found security, love and some happiness with another man, so why did she have this pressing need to find out about Henry?

*****

Lucy Gilyott, who used to be Miss Lucy Ormerod, was standing at her drawing-room window watching the slow progress of the old lamplighter. He hadn't quite reached the lamp outside her house when he staggered slightly, then fell to the ground.

With a cry of alarm, Lucy rushed into the hallway, calling for the butler to assist her. She went down the steps into the deserted street in a matter of seconds and kneeled down by the lamplighter, gently lifting his head off the hard pavement. She could see now that it was indeed Henry. He was groaning slightly.

"Oh, Henry!" Lucy said involuntarily. One half of her realised she was behaving foolishly, but the other half longed to do even more.

"Let me take him, my lady." It was the calm voice of the butler.

"Thank you, John. Please carry him into the house, if you can."

The lamplighter was picked up with little effort so thin was he, and borne into the house. He was taken into the drawing-room and placed gently on the sofa. A low moan escaped his lips as he was carefully lowered onto the soft cushions.

"Send someone round for Dr. Walker, John."

"Perhaps, if I might suggest, my lady, it would be better if the fellow was taken to the hospital."

"No," Lucy said sharply. "It's best that he shouldn't be moved."

"As you wish, my lady."

The butler departed, but almost immediately a maid appeared in the doorway.

"What is it, Mary?"

"Mr Bates said to stay with you, ma'am."

Lucy exploded. "Mr Bates is a...." She managed to stop herself and continued in a calmer voice. "You may wait just outside the door, Mary."

"Yes, ma'am." With a little curtsey the maid left the room.

"Oh, Henry Stocks, why did you leave me?" Lucy whispered.

There was nothing except a slight rasping sound and then: "I'm a nobody. No father and a mother who does other people's washing. I've got no education, no manners and no prospects. I'm not fit to associate with the likes of you."

A tear gently rolled down Lucy's cheek and fell on the sofa. She held the lamplighter's hand tightly. When the doctor came he made a cursory examination of his patient.

"Malnutrition and poor living conditions," he brusquely announced.

"I want him to go to hospital and have proper care and attention," Lucy said.

"He won't be able to afford it."

"Maybe not, but I can."

"You're willing to pay his hospital bills?" the doctor asked incredulously.

"I want to see him get well. He has as much right to treatment as I have."

"Very well, I'll make the necessary arrangements and inform Mr Edward."

"I shall inform him myself," Lucy said firmly.

"Of course."

The doctor obviously wished to have no part of this business. However, his income depended upon the patronage of wealthy patients; he had no alternative but to comply with instructions.

*****

"Everything is in order." Edward closed the large ledger. "I must say Bates and Mrs Joliffe do a first class job. They give me not the slightest problem."

Lucy had been waiting for this moment, but now she found herself barely able to speak. It was so stupid. This was her son and yet she felt nervous about bringing up the simplest subject. But it had to be done, and this was the time.

She cleared her throat. "Edward..." She hesitated.

"Yes, Mother?"

"I want you to add an extra expense to your ledger."

"Oh?"

"An old friend of mine - someone I knew as a child - has fallen on hard times. He's a lamplighter. Now he's sick and in hospital. I would very much like to pay his bills."

"Mr Stocks is a very lucky man," Edward said quietly.

"You know?"

"It's difficult to keep a secret in a town like this. I know you've been making enquiries about a Henry Stocks and Bates told me about the lamplighter."

"Oh, really, can't I trust anyone?" Lucy exploded.

"He did what he thought best."

"Am I to be spied on in my own house, by my own servants?"

"Please try not to be too hard on them. They're concerned about you, that's all."

"I'm entitled to a life of my own."

"Of course you are." Edward held his mother's hand. "I know that father treated you rather badly and you must have been dreadfully unhappy."

"I had my children." Lucy held herself stiff and erect, trying to control her feelings.

"But now you have nothing. Except memories; going back before you met father - as far as Henry Stocks."

The tears were beginning to fall. It was no good. Lucy had to give way to all the pent-up emotions she had been keeping in check for so many years. The story of her love for Henry poured out while Edward listened in sympathetic silence. The ticking of the mantelpiece clock mingled with gentle sobs after Lucy had finished. Edward was looking out of the window as he spoke.

"Why don't you sell this house, Mother, and buy a cottage in the country. I know of a very pleasant one for sale only a few miles out of town. Mrs Joliffe could go with you and I'd take on the other servants."

"What would I do in the country?" Lucy sniffed. "I've always lived in the town."

"The air is better for someone who's not well," Edward pointedly replied.

Lucy stared at him. "Are you suggesting...?"

"I wouldn't dare suggest anything," Edward said quickly. "Your life is your own. I just want you to know that I'm behind you, whatever you do."

Lucy clutched his arm. "Thank you for that, Edward. Thank you."

*****

When the old lamplighter left the hospital he found a carriage waiting for him. The door was open, inviting him to enter, but he hesitated.

"Get in, Henry." The voice was kind, but firm. "You're in no condition to walk anywhere."

He obediently climbed in and found himself sitting opposite an attractive woman who looked much younger than the fifty-two years he knew she must be. They sat in silence as the carriage drove along, gradually passing from town to country.

"A penny for them."

"What?" Henry was startled out of his reverie.

"I said - a penny for them."

"Oh - ay." Henry remained silent for a moment then said, "I were just thinking how I'd made a right mess of everything."

"Yes - you did rather."

Another silence.

"Where are we going?"

"To the cottage I've bought."

"That's nice."

"Of course, we'll have to get married."

"Ay - it's best that we do."

The man who was older than he should have been, yawned and lay back in the corner of his seat. He drifted off to sleep ad Lucy smiled. She had someone to care for again and someone who needed her.

"Hello, Henry," she said softly.

Fire and Ice

2007-07-31T04:11:00.000-07:00

Cold always bests Fire,
For all the radiant heat of our Sun,
The vastness of frigid space still smothers it,

Evil will always best Good,
For all the saints that walk among us,
The Unworthy still rule us,

But like the many Suns of the Universe,
Perhaps we to may become beacons in life's darkness,

Cold always bests Fire,
If only we ever run out of wood to burn.

Charon's Curse

2007-07-28T03:07:00.000-07:00

A withered, frail man lay in the bed, his diseased body overwhelmed by the white sheets and blankets. Life-giving oxygen blew into his nose, and the constant beep of the heart monitor dictated his weakening life-force. An IV bag hung over him, dripping pain numbing drugs into his ravaged system. Walking up beside him, I took his fragile hand in mine and squeezed gently.

"Howard," I whispered.

His eyelids fluttered and then opened, a look of recognition flitting through the filmy blue of his eyes.

"Is it time already?" he asked.

"I'm afraid so."

"But I've still so much left to do," he protested. "So much left to see."

"I'm sorry, but it is out of my hands."

The man sighed and nodded in understanding. "I knew the time was coming for you to appear. I just didn't realize it would be this soon. I haven't said my good-byes. Will you give me a few moments? Please?"

I was prepared for this request and with a slight smile, I released his hand and took a few steps back until I stood in the shadows in the corner of the room. I watched as he turned his head and called out to the younger woman sleeping in the chair beside him.

"Marie," his raspy voice called. "Marie!"

The woman jerked awake and sprang out of the chair. "What is it honey? Are you in pain? Should I call the nurse?"

"No. Come. Sit with me . . ."

Unaware of my presence in the room, Marie perched on the side of the bed and took her husband's hand in hers. "What's the matter?"

"I am dying my love."

"Don't say that!" The tears welling up in her eyes were evident by the shaking of her voice.

"Sweetheart, time for denial is long past. The doctor's haven't been able to do anything to help for months now. They've just been making me comfortable as I wait."

"Wait for what?"

". . . You know the answer to that."

"No! I refuse to listen to you talk this way. You can't give up."

"The time for fighting is long past my love. I'm facing what's coming, and you must as well. I want you to listen to me. Please?"

Marie nodded her head, the tears not allowing her to vocalize her response.

"More than anything, I want you to be happy. I know it will take awhile. But I want you to marry again."

Marie vehemently shook her head.

"My love, please. I don't want you spending the rest of your life pining away for me. I want you to be happy. I want you to be loved. I give you my blessing. When the time comes, and you'll know when it's right, I want you to go for it. I love you, and I want you to be happy. I'll always love you. . . you and the kids. Never forget that."

Howard fell silent, his chest heaving with the exertion of his speech. Marie's body shook with sobs as she mulled over his words. When she spoke, her words were broken. "I can't even begin to think of those things right now, but I promise you that I'll always remember your words. I love you so much, I can't imagine life without you. . . I have to be strong for the children, but I'm going to miss you so much. It already hurts deep inside." Marie flung herself down over his chest, her arms cradling his sides.

I walked forward and ran my hand lightly across his forehead. His body trembled and shuddered, his breath rattling as his soul glided from his body.

"There's no need for you to watch this," I said to him as I took his hand and led him from the room as the alarm from his heart monitor began to blare.

"But Marie..."

"She'll be okay. Of course, it will take time. It always does, but she's young still. She has a whole life ahead of her."

"What happens? Do you know?"

"Only a little. I know she honors your wish and eventually remarries."

"Is she happy?"

"Of course... but she never forgets. You're always with her. Every time she looks into the eyes of your children, she sees you, and her heart aches just a little."

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking in the information. When he opened them again, he only said two words, "I'm ready."

I led him on. . . to the other side.

It's what I do.

I'm the soul-taker.

Collision Of Faith

2007-06-29T02:53:00.000-07:00

“Move! Move, move, move!”

The Terran power armor pilot yelled over his loudspeaker as he waved on the Factory techs. As they ran helping their wounded co-workers make it to the Safety of the bunkers he briefly considered helping them in but his training kept him right were he was.

“Damn it!” He spat looking at them as indecision gripped him.

They were wounded and trying to hobble and carry their friends into the building to safety. Private John Collins knew they weren’t going to make it inside in time. His Samaritan thinking was at work again. He failed to excel as a pilot because he lacked good worldly judgment. His face contorted in anger as he watched the techs and other laborers moving as fast as they could to reach the safety of the bunker. Why were they moving so slowly? He turned to face the oncoming Mechs. They slowed to fire at the gun emplacements as they popped up at them from the “Boulevard of pain”. The Boulevard ran the length of the open test fields outside Zurich and was used to check tracking and other Mech and vehicle system. The Blakist Mechs were on a rampage. John knew if the techs could get inside the bunker they would be safe. Safe until the Terran defenders could engage this breakthrough force of enemy Mechs and drive them off but their time was up. One rocket barrage or pulse blast and they would be destroyed.

All his life John Collins had succeeded but never excelled. His size was the only reason he had made it into the power armor project and that by only the thinnest margin. He was the right size but lacked the skills the project looked for. The recent civil war had created a need for power armor pilots so into a suit he went anyway. His mother demanded he avoid the liquor, smokes, and drugs that were readily available in this life. It was this discipline that got him in. It was his indecision that nearly got him kicked out, but today was different. His stout Christian upbringing hampered him in decisions just like this one. He felt a strange sense of emotion wash over him as he watched them running helplessly to the bunker. He was sent here to play traffic cop in a flurry of commands given out when the Factory compound was attacked. He ran here to watch over the techs and wounded as they headed for the safety of the bunker.

They ran so slow.

It was like the world around him was in slow motion, everything was unfamiliar. Even the ground was different. The blood ran in swerving streaks towards the bunker from the wounded and dying. He had to do something, his heart demanded it. Then, for the first time in his life, fate reached down and touched Private John Collins. His face smoothed and a sudden moment of clarity came over him. He spoke quietly,

“Today is a good day to die.”

The loudspeaker and radio carried his voice over the entire infantry and Mech communication grid. Sara Hamillton heard him as he spoke, unaware that everyone else on her grid heard him too.

”Commander Davison,” she yelled as cannon blast struck the new two-man Mech on its left arm, “you must hear this!”

Even through the roar of the missile strike Davison had just let go from the Streak launcher her voice carried through the huge cockpit and his ears heard her voice and the mike feed it through his earpiece at the same time.

”I’m busy Hamillton!” He roared in response. “Enemy Mechs!”

”Commander,” she repeated, “listen!” She played back the recording of his voice:

”Today is a good day to die.” It fed across the command net and repeated. “Today is a good day to die.”

”Who is that?” Davison demanded.

”Private John Collins, piloting one of the new Archangel power suits, number 13.” She winced. Army soldiers were superstitious and this would be another battlefield reinforcement of those superstitions.

”What the hell’s gotten into him?” Davison asked. “Where is ‘our’ resident Christian?”

”He’s on the map 120 meters in front of a set of bunkers listed: ‘Special Projects’.” She said with a creeping sense of fear in her voice. “Commander, four of the Blakist Mechs BattleMechs have broken through and are closing on the ‘Special Projects’ bunkers. The Factory personnel are taking refuge there.” There was a pause. “Brianna Hoffmeier just radioed to me that they are not secure. Repeat. Not secure! They have personnel still outside the bunker!”

”My god Sara, they are going to kill them all!” Davison said. “Dispatch the closest, fastest units we have in that area now Girl!”

”Two Mercury scout Mechs being pulled from the south flank position, ETA; four minutes best speed.” Her heart sank. Four minutes and everyone there would be dead.

”Set my guide marker!” Davison yelled. “We’re going there Girl!”

”Marker set!” Sara yelled at her aged commander. “If you can move this heap we can make it there in 2.8 minutes.”

”Better than that young lady,” Davison yelled as he let the 95 ton war machine start falling forward. “We’re taking the express!”

As the command machine toppled forward Sara screamed at her insane commander. It was worse than every rollercoaster she had ever been on in her entire life. The ground was rushing up to fill the cockpit windows and then the Mech bobbed up again. Davison howled in the pilot’s seat as he then lifted the right leg and unlocked the arms into gyro-swing mode. The foot landed with a 95 ton concrete shattering ‘boom!’ as the machine began, of all things, cart-wheeling! He made a headlong charge to the south along an invisible line drawn straight to John Collins’ position on the map leaving the burning remains of the Kurita Marauder lying on the ground.

”Hold it together Lewis” he whispered to himself, “hold it together.” His brow furrowed with concentration and the sweat trickled down his cheeks as he forced his steed, this colossus of fire and brimstone fury, his BattleMech, to speeds well above its design envelope.

Back at the bunker as the last techs ran past his position on the boulevard, Private John Collins prepared himself for the last minutes of his life. They needed time. Every second he could give them saved a life. They were finally pouring into the building dragging the wounded and the dead alike inside for protection, not knowing if their friends were unconscious or dead, they didn’t care who, they took all.

One tech, and older looking man, kept running back out to grab others who had fallen. John knew him only as Able Manski; the crazed engineer who outfought an elemental in augmented hand to hand combat. Even the others among him all had some glorious personal history before being employed by the Factory.

They were brave. John steeled himself as he watched the incoming enemy. A light lance of Blakist Mechs raced towards him. He mentally identified them without the HUD on his open visor. He had seen these types of machines before all classic Blakist Jihad machines. He heard the sound of the techs dragging their screaming friends into the bunker behind him.

Then it happened.

In every man and woman’s life a defining moment occurs, for some it is in their childhood, others their graduation from college or high school, for some it is marriage or the birth of their children, still others never have that shining moment that gathers their life’s essence into one point and propels them to greatness.

For the first time in his life he knew, exactly, what to do. John reached down and slapped his leg. The override command appeared in the open visor above him, questioning his action.

“Command override, Collins.” He spoke into the mike. He then swooned in his one ton suit as the med-pack punched his blood full of painkilling and rage maddening drugs. He breathed deeply as the powerful live-saving chemicals rushed through his veins. He smelt them, his ears rang, and his brow firmed.

“Command-visor.” He hissed.

Without a second of hesitation the faceplate snapped shut and sealed as Private Collins shook in his suit. Not of fear, not of pain, but of anger, blood pounding hate.

”Curse this life!” He screamed as his voice became a roar inside his suit. He was twisting from the drugs powerful influence, counting the distance between himself and the approaching Mechs counting, blood boiling, heart thundering, furious.

His rangefinder spun down, down, down as the lead Mech reached just the right distance. John screamed a violent ragged roar and he ran franticly towards the 20 ton war machine. Blood boiling, heart thundering, soul burning, furious.

”Get inside move it Anna!” Able Manski yelled to the astech as she limped forward with a wounded comrade clinging to her.

Thundering weapons fire roared in the not so distant distance.

“They are coming, quickly.” He said taking her burden and checking to see if she could make it herself into the bunker.

The attack was well timed. The bomb. The infantry shooting into the crowd with needle rifles, and now the BattleMechs racing across the Factory grounds like crazed killers, it struck him as too much. These Word of Blake Mechs came here to kill them not to attack the Terran unit getting an upgrade and refit. If it hadn’t been for them and their unexpected visit Able would be dead right now along with piles of the other Factory employees there in the main compound.

”Mister Manski?” The wounded man said delirious from pain as he looked at his lower left leg in shock. “I can’t find my foot!”

”Don’t worry Christopher; I am sure Brianna will find it later. Now work with me, we have to get inside now.” Able said as tears welled up behind his eyes. “It was a good foot, with lots of blood in it.” Abel’s voice trailed off as he looked at the smears of blood following him up to the bunker. “Damn it.” He swore under his breath as he handed the tech to another just inside the bay door who yanked a cable tie around his leg just below the knee to stop the bleeding. Able quickly turned to head back outside and help the last few stragglers into the bunker but he slipped in all the blood and fell to the floor. He landed with a bone jarring thud on his knees and hands on the smooth slick concrete.

”Able!” Brianna Hoffmeier screamed as she saw him drop to the floor. “Oh my God, are you alright?”

Able turned to her from on his knees and slashed his blood covered hand at her wildly.

”Get away from the doors!” He screamed almost crazed at her. “I told you child to stay in the back of the bunker! Damn you Brianna do as you’re told for once!”

Rushing, running, stomping, John Collins streaked towards the incoming enemy BattleMechs as they charged forward. The lead pilot watched as the single suit of power armor sped towards him carrying the infidel pilot to his doom. He would send him to hell where he belonged. The MechWarrior aimed his missile launcher spat twin missiles at the armored infantry man. The Incendiary payload the Inferno missiles carried would make a nice little oven out of the Armor suit, all but roasting the foolish little infidel within. Better give him a taste of Blake’s hell before he gets a chance to visit it. The insignificant infantryman would be consumed in Blake’s flaming wrath and burn as so much brimstone.

John ran wide eyed and with his mike open. He charged at the machines that would end his life today. It took all 25 years of it for him to come to the knowledge that his life was, in the end, truly not his own. He was a solider, a guardian of peace, and an avenging angel of death for the just. His religious upbringing seethed into his words as he tried to fortify his will for his last act.

”Human wrath serves only to praise you, when you bind the last bit of your wrath around you!”

He primed the jump jets mounted on his back.

“Make vows to the Lord your God, and perform them; let all who are around him bring gifts to the one who is awesome,”

A single bolt of light from the Mech’s pulse laser struck his shoulder but the drugs had long ago ended his ability to feel pain.

“who cuts off the spirit of princes,”

The Inferno rounds burst in front and above him dousing him with flaming chemicals.

“who inspires fear in the kings of the earth!”

He fired his jump jets and launched into the air burning head to toe with napalm.

“I am your instrument! Strike through me!”

As Private John Collins shot through the burning cloud of napalm the MechWarrior inside the Mech looked into the eyes of the flame shrouded, roaring angel of death.

And screamed.

John collided with the cockpit window of the Mech. His armored knee plate smashed a divot into the multi-layered ballistic glass. John slashed out with his clawed hand and snagged armor plate. He scrambled up the chin of the Mech’s head as if he were followed by the legions of Satan himself. The flames heated his suit but served only to fuel his wrath and fury.

Crazed by his initial dose of the med-pack, John began pummeling the cracked windshield repeatedly until he had punched a hole in the window. He shoved his flamethrower barrel through the hole and filled the cockpit with fire. The Word of Blake MechWarrior inside was screaming his faith as the cockpit lathered with flame. His screams were lost to John; the blood was pounding like war drums in his ears.

He was overwhelmed with pain as the suit was scalding him while it burned. The auto injector fired another dose of drugs into him. John squealed as the potent mix hit his muscles and he felt the veins bulge out on his neck. The drugs burned in his brain and he leapt off of the Mech firing his thrusters to cover the distance across the way to the other two.

As a volley of missiles reached out and lasers seared the sky, he overshot the dome shaped cockpit, hit the ‘neck’ platform of the machine, and crashed into the heat exchanger behind the cockpit hatch. Dazed but enraged he crawled across the neck of the machine as the pilot fired his missiles mounted above John again in some vain effort to dislodge him.

He got his suit sprawled across the narrow distance and grabbed the handhold next to the hatch. With a now mindless roar, Collins began ripping at the door until he peeled the armored hatch up at an edge, then began yanking at it till the shaking and bucking Mech jumped into the air and came crashing down hard to shake or dislodge the insane infantry man from it’s back. The remaining Mech pilots began firing at their compatriot in some misguided attempt to kill the infidel Terran warrior but did little other than harm their own lance mate. Blood burning, skin sticking, mind exploding, heart thundering, furious

Lewis Davison thundered his Command Mech across the deserted grounds of the Factory Mech facility. He went in bursts of speed in a way no engineer intended for the machine to move. He was tipping the Mech forward and dumped the reserve power into the reactor core. Heat was building up. Lewis Davison had felt that kind of heat many times before in his career as a MechWarrior. It was the reassuring sensation that the steady rise of hot, soon scalding, air was coming from his heat exchanger and that the Mech was generating way more heat than simple running would ever produce.

He had sprinted before, in lighter machines. This was one of the heaviest Mechs ever built; it didn’t get any more frightening than this for a MechWarrior. Lewis Davison was in heaven. Now he was trying to stop one of his men from making it there prematurely. As he rounded the building Sara Hamillton yelled out a warning:

”Enemy battlemechs two o’clock, three o’clock, and center point on my mark.”

Davison slid the 95 ton behemoth from between two storage hangers, long unused this far out on the grounds and sparks shot from his toe cleats as they dug ruts in the concrete parking lot. The vibrations shook them in their cockpit as Commander Davison raised the twin Particle cannons held in the right arm and aimed at the remaining last remaining Mech.

”Hello ladies!” He called out over the open channel as he fired.

The Blakist mech was just turning to get a better look at the cloud of dust and sparks that had arisen to his left. Just then the spinning double Cannon bolts connected with his Mech and blew the right torso apart and severed the left leg. The Mech went down with a crash and Davison charged his laser batteries while he armed the Streak launcher.

The pilot of the Mech Collins was attacking was praying to Blake. He kept trying to shake the madman off his back but could not seem to dislodge him. When the hatch ripped open he knew his time had come. He reached down to his holster, pulled his Pulse laser pistol, and fired over his shoulder at the demonic warrior.

The last mortal thought he had was interrupted as the demon clawed his face and collarbones apart and swiftly yanked his neck back. He then pulled the ejector lever for the dead MechWarrior. His dead body rose on a pillar of flame.

Private Collins exited the access hatch of the Mech only to an end. The other Mechs seeing their lance mate eject from the stricken machine opened fire on John. The only laser to hit severed his right leg.

The launch of four missiles zipped past him with only one rocket striking his chest plate and blasting him off of the devastated Mech. As John descended, the med-pack fired a different drug into him this time and he heard angels sing as he slammed down to the ground.

His body and suit shattered, he lay there looking up at the sky as the suit sealed his severed leg and filled him with detox.

A second injection slowed his heart rate and placed the warrior gently into a coma. He felt the cool breeze of the heat exchanger draining away the heat from inside his suit. It had stopped burning somewhere back on top of the second Mech but John Collins didn’t care. He was complete.

As he lay on the shattered concrete with his airbags burst and his armor cracked and smoldering, except for the cold fingers of death preparing to take him, John felt at peace. He even smiled with four knocked out teeth. He was numbly aware of the med-pack trying to inject him with yet another dose but was unable to, he had used that dose at the beginning of all this. Now was his time to die. He resigned himself and closed his eyes.

As the next few days went by, the wounded recovered, the dying were saved, and the dead buried. Brianna Hoffmeier recovered too. She sat alongside Able Manski and over a hundred other techs in the bunker and she cried into his chest as he held and comforted her.

They all asked about Private Collins, and after seeing the devastation he wrought and that which was wrought upon him, few wondered to his predicament. It was much to everyone’s surprise that Private Collins was transferred to the Granger Park district hospital in critical condition.

Four weeks later John lay still in his private room. His eyes flickered open. The matter had been wiped from his eyes countless times by the attending nurse and others. He woke with his hair combed his face shaved and he peered out over the room with bleary eyes. Feeling the sting of injury, he quickly took inventory of himself before he cared to look about the room. He was lying in a bed, he wasn’t in any real danger, and your enemies don’t tuck you in before zipping you.

With a groan of sadness he realized things were missing from him. His right leg had been removed up in his hip; he was sans three fingers, one on his right and 2 on his left hand. He had burn dressings on and tubes running out of every, wait, belay that, almost every orifice of his body. He was breathing through a tube and it looks like he had been eating through one for a few weeks too.

As his vision cleared he looked about the room. It was a cluttered mess. There were Mylar balloons and vases of flowers all about the place. Gift baskets were set about the room in general disorder by the nurses as they needed to reach the injured warrior during his recovery. On the table in front of him was a pair of what looked like stainless steel toy Mechs, both complete with busted up cockpits.

On another table sat a plate of steel from the armor of a mech. It was etched with a single word: Awesome.

He lived.

After fumbling around for a while he found his nurse call button and in rushed his three nurses. All of them were talking to him, smiling, and calling other people. The word miracle may have come up over the next few days but regardless of the source, he lived. What appeared to be the entire surviving staff of the Factory Mech production center came to visit him at predetermined times throughout the days.

John beamed with life again as his new fingers and right leg parts were fitted to him a few days later. The scars would take longer to heal and the blur of drug induced haze could be pierced by some relevant battle videos in a while. He grew strong again quickly and learned to walk in a few days more. Soon he was able to pick up things without breaking them with his new fists. In two weeks he was released from the hospital. At his return party he received no quarter from the grateful techs and workers, even his own unit commander was happy to see him this time. But when that older technician and his Factory cohorts wheeled something into the hanger they were celebrating in on a forklift, John was thrown off a bit. They all stood around smiling.

”What’s this?” He asked innocently.

”Take the cover off young man.” Abel Manski said as he stopped next to a middle aged woman in fine clothes and she took hold of his arm.

John reached up and grasped the tarp covering the front of the forklift. He paused before pulling it off. His gaze was fixed on his new hand, just for a moment. Then he uncovered it. Standing before him was a suit, his suit, of Archangel Battle armor. It was clad from head to toe in burnished chrome. Only the rainbows of light that reflected off of its visor’s slit shown any difference in hue.

”We know it’s a bit gaudy and possibly in bad taste, but we were hoping you would keep it.” Abel Manski said as he wiped a pair of fingerprints off of its left hand. “Oh, and you should have these too.”

Another tech handed him a set of four titanium nuts on a braided chain necklace.

”What are these for?” John asked turning them over in his hand.

”Well we figured since you neutered those two Mechs, that maybe you should keep their nuts.”
Abel’s second in command smiled as he shook John’s hand and the four nuts with it.

”Technicians.” John shook his head, smiling.

“I’m alive.” Life was welcome and new again for him.

Later in the evening John managed to break off from the festivities and head outside for some air. The party was going full steam inside but he needed a moment alone. He walked out of the hanger and looked up at the starry sky. The night was warm and a breeze was blowing. His gaze fell eventually to the four BattleMechs on guard duty outside the hanger. He chuckled to himself, had there been 4 Mechs there to stop the imposter Blakist strike force, none of this would have happened the way it did and he might never have had his moment of clarity. As he stood there smiling at the back of the Guard Mech nearest him he heard the scratch and crack of high heeled shoes walking towards him on the gravel littered parking lot.

He slowly looked over his shoulder at a beautiful dark haired woman as she swayed her hips while walking up and standing next to him. She was beautiful and the strange flecks of foil or glitter in her hair were still sparkling in the light of the distant hanger.

”Good evening, hero.” She said with a smile as she sipped her diet soda. “Not very gracious of your hosts to let you escape the party like this.”

”More than gracious, this whole night is wonderful.” John said with his best manners. “I can’t believe all this has happened to me.”

”Well believe it hero. That drug induced, crazed, speaking-in-tongues thing you did really scare the crap out of the rest of the attackers and they thought the Christ had come to judge Blake himself.” She giggled. “They ran like water.”

”Word of Blake fanatics?” He asked of her as she nodded in agreement. “Why?”

”They hate us.” She said plainly. “Ever since they tried to purge Terra of everyone NOT Blake everyone is in a panic over their little Jihad and we show no respect to the robed psychos.”

”What is your name beautiful woman?” John asked with his new smile. “You have me at a loss, you know who I am but I don’t know you.”

”My friends call me Brianna; the rest of the company calls me Mrs. Hoffmeier.” She said with a soft snort.

”You’re the owner.” John said as his eyes traveled up her leg to her shoulders. “And you’re married.”

”You are a very observant boy John Collins. Owner yes, married no.” She smiled through the pain on that one. “He died on Huntress serving the Prince. The official term is widow.”

”Oh, I,” he stammered for a second, “my other name is: stupid. Forgive me.”

”I see it now, hero.” She turned on him. “You thought that if you hurt my feelings you wouldn’t have to sleep with me when I ask you to take me home after the party.”

John’s jaw fell and he blinked. This one was full of surprises.

”Always the clever tactician,” she stalked him like a panther, “thought he’d just save my life and the lives of my people and just gets away Scott free with no gratuitous sex reward from the rich, sexy, unmarried, and excited owner of the company, did he?”

She had been poking each word into his chest as she advanced on him. John in a state of shock worse than what the med-pack had done to him just stared at her dumbfounded.

”Your father is that head tech guy, isn’t he?” John said back pedaling as she slowly continued to walk straight at him.

“He, um, might not approve of you just, you know, just doing this to me.”

”TO you!” She wailed at him. “Oh that’s it buddy! You insult my father and then you whine like a baby about what I’m going to do TO you? I swear. You keep this up and we’re gonna end up doing it right here on the foot of this Mech.” She smiled grabbed him where it hurts and laid the longest kiss of his life onto his lips.

”I don’t have a car.” He said breathless to her as she released him.

”I do and it’s only a short walk over there.” She pointed to her sports car.

”You’ve got to be joking, right?” He said looking at the diminutive auto.

”Well I’m not riding home in that Mech, big guy.” She said with a wink.

A Soldier Dies

2007-06-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Sky was aflame.

As Axel snapped back into consciousness he noticed immediately two things of urgent importance. The first was the wind rushing around his battle armor, judging by the speed of which it was whipping past his visor and the overwhelming sense of weightlessness he was falling. Also drawing his attention were the spectacular explosions still ripping through his Transport VTOL transport several hundred meters above his head. Axel came to the immediate conclusion that he was very close to impacting very brutally very soon on a very hard surface. He managed to curl himself into a ball right before smashing through the roof of high-rise office building. He could feel it in his ribs each time he smashed trough a floor, he counted three before he passed out.

Axel regained consciousness again for the second time in several seconds. He was lying on his back staring up at the huge hole he made in the floors and ceilings he passed through before finding a floor that could support his weight. The rapidly fading missile contrails of the missiles that blew him out of the sky were still visible. The Wolves were fighting an uprising in the heavily populated city of New Cyprus. Fighting had gotten too heavy and the small firebase that had been built in the city’s stadium had to be evacuated. The transport was carrying the last of the tech personal and him when it became target practice for some rebels with some missiles and converted Industrial ‘Mechs. Intelligence had suggested the rebels were equipped with several stolen Industrial ‘Mechs, but had not been able to find them. Mystery solved. A wave of pain washed over him bringing him out of his lucid state. By now people were starting to peek out from underneath their desks and down through the elemental shaped hole in the ceiling. With a grunt Axel picked himself up, standing up straight. Rubble and debris fell of his armor in sheets, creating a small dust cloud at his feet. Quickly taking stock of his surroundings he concluded he was in an office building judging from the clothing of the freeborns and the numerous drab cubicles. Axel went through a systematic check of all systems. His suit’s integrity was surprisingly high; almost 95% armor remained unscathed. Damage included a small crack in his visor, both his comm. and radar were completely out, on top of that his ribs felt cracked, but Axel was not sure. Quickly, he summarized he had taken relatively minor damage from his fall.

The office workers had slowly gathered in a circle around him and a shocked silence filled the room. The only sound came from the rain of debris showering down from his hole. Axel tried his comm. in the offset that it worked despite his suits earlier conclusion, “This Major Axel of the 322nd Wolf battalion, of the 181st Assault Cluster, does anyone read me?” as he waited for a reply he picked off a stray piece of insulation off his right shoulder with his massive manipulator claw. No reply. Getting out of the building was his first priority; right now he was in a potentially hostile environment. While he did not consider these freeborns a threat, he did not feel like going on a civilian killing rampage, there was no honor in that. He clicked on his P.A. system and addressed the room, “Which way to the cargo elevator?” There was a long silence. Axel could not use the normal elevator, his elemental battle armor prevented that, but at the same time his fall had not addled his brain enough to have him remove his armor. So besides another long fall out the window the cargo elevator was his only alternative. Or I could just blast my way down floor by floor, he thought idly, he shook the thought away it would take too much time, he would rather jump out the window. He was just about to repeat his question when a man in dark pinstriped suit pointed down a hallway to his left. Axel gave him a nod and trotted down said hallway. He found the elevator quickly, its large orange doors looked more then sufficient to allow his massive bulk. Unexpectedly the doors binged open. “Going down?” The man in the elevator’s voice trailed off. He was wearing overalls and stood behind a large cart stocked with cleaning supplies. Axel stepped onto the cargo elevator and used his battle claw to push the button marked ‘Lobby.’ In the process he inconsequently destroyed several other buttons leaving a large gash spitting out little tongues of electricity.

The doors closed and Axel looked over to the man in overalls who stood with his mouth hanging ridiculously wide. “Sorry about that.” A subtle beep announced the passing of the 112th floor. Less subtle was the incessant rhythmic clinking coming from the ceiling. Music? In an elevator? Axel shook his head, again clearing such idle thoughts. He knew he was out of time, this building more likely then not had some rebel sympathizers and his rough entrance was not an easy one to miss. Someone would have alerted the dogs with the missiles and Industrial ‘Mechs by now and the hunt had already started. They had already shown how resourceful and well organized they were. The destruction of his comm. and radar left his chances of survival very slim. He clicked his claw in anticipation of the only option left to him, a suicidal fight out of a hostile city. His chances rapidly dwindling knew he had to keep moving.

He noticed vaguely that the man had not moved mouth still agape and eyes were impossibly wide. The ‘music’ had gotten unbearable and Axel could not afford the security risk of muting his audio. Why the Inner Sphere deemed it necessary to torture its citizens with this doggerel he could not fathom. Fifty more floors to go. He turned to overall-man “Is there a way to shut this off?” gesturing towards the ceiling. The man just shook his head, his eyes nearly popping out his skull they looked almost in danger of splattering across the walls. Axel did not really care one way or another, but he could not handle the music any longer. He reached up and dragged his massive claw along the ceiling shattering lights, tearing metal, and ripping through the speakers. As the elevator went completely dark for a moment Axel thought he heard the man scream. The red emergency lights flickered on cast a sinister reddish glow. The man would have nightmares for weeks and would never forget the image of burned into his mind.

As soon as Axel ran through the door of the office building he encountered trouble. Two trucks painted all black skidded to a stop in front of the building. The .50 caliber machine guns jury-rigged in the back opened up spraying bullets all round and into Axel. Under normal circumstances the .50 cals would have been a minor nuisance, but it is a war of attrition Axel thought as he dove to his right firing his small laser at the truck closest to him. The laser hit the gunner killing him instantly and destroying the gun. Axel had no time to kill the second truck when three more rebel trucks roared up the street. It went against everything in his body, but he needed to get out, not get caught up fighting worthless machine guns. Axel was not afraid of dying, but to die fighting civilians was not acceptable.

Axel turned down a road to his right as two more trucks pulled onto the road he was on ahead of him. Further up the road three more trucks were gaining on him from his six. Taking the only choice left to him he dove into an alley to his left. He soon realized he was being herded into a kill-zone and considered blowing up the trucks behind him and running in that direction, but he would just find himself in the same position. Running away had pissed him off and civilians or not he was going to kill them all.

Axel came into a large courtyard. He slowed to a walk. The courtyard was surrounded on all sides with tall buildings, except for two small roads to his right and left. A large circle filled with grass and flowers with concrete rimming its borders was the centerpiece of the square. "The perfect place to spring a trap,” Axel thought as switched to infrared to scan a large bench in the center of the garden. The heat signatures of several men hiding behind it burned brightly in his visor. A smile touched his lips as he felt rather then heard the Rocket hurtling towards his back. He lit up his jump jets and launched his own salvo at the bench. The bench and everyone close to it were caught in dual explosions ripping a giant hole in ground. The rocket behind Axel exploded harmlessly where he had stood scant seconds before.

As Axel reached the apex of his jump he twisted back and let loose his sub-machine gun slung underneath his arm. The bullets stitched their way up towards the two men handling the portable Rocket launcher. The bullets caught the gunner in the chest while her loader dove away, but not before having his leg nearly severed by the bullets. Axel landed in the shallow crater created by his own rockets. Glancing to his left he saw a converted Industrial “Mech rounding the corner not 50 meters away from his position. Axel immediately recognized an Autocannon strapped to its left arm and medium laser replacing its right. As it positioned itself into a firing stance Axel’s attention has torn away by an increasingly loud roar. He shot a quick glance to his right. His vision was filled with the front end of a large town car barreling down at him at top speed. Axel had no time to think he simply reacted. He crouched and grabbed the onrushing car’s undercarriage as it crossed the dead space in the crater. At 120 kph Axel corrected the car’s trajectory as he flung it towards the Industrial ‘Mech. Its nose dipped as it started a slow spin. Axel launched his rockets and fired his small laser into the exposed fuel tank on the underside of the car and lit off on his jump jets. The fuel tank exploded, its blast rocking the ‘Mech back on its heels and covering it burning fuel and twisted metal. The rockets, only few milliseconds behind, hit its torso destroying armor and knocking the ‘Mech on its back. To the pilots credit he had already begun to right his ‘Mech when Axel bullets pinging off his armor, came down in a high arc landing directly below the cockpit. The pilot watched in horror as the huge claw drove itself through the glass ripping through flesh and bone as it continued into the seat.

With the Industrial ‘Mech down he turned his attention to the infantry swarming around him in increasing numbers. Firing his machine gun and small laser he ran towards the center of the line. The group tried to scatter, but it was too late and Axel was among them steel claw flashing and splaying blood across the courtyard. Surrounded by decapitated and bleeding bodies Axel started picking off stragglers off with careful, accurate bursts from his machine gun. More rockets launched from a balcony to the west and another Industrial ‘Mech stepping in on the opposite side of the courtyard signaled reinforcements. This particular ‘Mech sported its original heavy mining drill along with a missile launcher and a smattering of anti-personal weapons. Two converted flatbed trucks jury-rigged with more launchers poked out from behind the ‘Mech. As Axel lit up his jump jets he spotted several small hovercrafts armed with small Autocannons and lasers skirting the groups’ flanks. There was no doubt in Axel’s mind that these were the freebirths that had shot him out of the sky.

A small laser through the windshield of one of the hovercrafts served to cook off its Autocannon ammo. The explosion knocked another hover car to its side as the ‘Mech fired all of its weapons at once. Its missiles flying uselessly over his head as he dropped. The small lasers narrowly missed, burning some paint and leaving scorch marks on his right arm. Most of the hovercrafts Autocannon rounds missed save one that hit him square in the chest. Axel grunted, if his ribs weren’t cracked before there sure as hell were now. The pain seemed to increase his focus as he landed on the roof of a hovercraft crushing the gunner underneath his boots. Buried up to his waist in hovercraft, Autocannon rounds, lasers and rockets flashed all around him. Axel drove his claw through the roof and its driver. The small caliber weapons fired by the surviving passengers did nothing to heed his progress. He hooked the wheel with the tip of his gore covered claw keeping the hovercraft steered towards the closest missile launcher carrier. Scant seconds before impact he activated his jump jets, filling the small hovercraft with superheated plasma flash roasting the remaining survivors alive. He fired his small laser at the spare missiles resting on the back on the carrier as he sailed through the air igniting a second larger explosion, which dwarfed the smaller explosion already rocking the carrier. He landed close to the second carrier and dove behind it spoiling the ‘Mechs aim as it reached out for him. As it lumbered over to get a shot, Axel pumped energy into the exposed fuel tanks on the side of the carrier. Sailing above the newly formed orange and black cloud Axel launched a flight of rockets hoping to strike the ‘Mechs vulnerable legs. The ‘Mech pilot was good countering his weakness by blocking the missiles with his left arm which was nearly blown off. The ‘Mech staggered but didn’t go down. Axel landed just short of the ‘Mech and jumped as a rocket blew up close behind knocking him off balance. Crashing head first into the ‘Mechs torso Axel managed to cling on as he shook his head clear. One of the remaining hovercrafts moved in and ravaged his rear armor, raking it over with its laser leaving it paper thin. He extended his arm and shot the engine causing it to retreat smoking heavily. The ‘Mech pilot brought down his huge drill on Axel’s outstretched arm shattering armor and bone.

Axel hissed in pain as drugs pumped into his system, his arm was broken but he was lucky it hadn’t been sheared off completely. He swung himself up underneath the cockpit and used his head to smash through the glass. With half his visor torn away Axel gritted through intense pain as he brought up his broken arm. He pushed the smoking hot laser barrel up the pilots face and pressed hard. The pilot screamed as his head was being crushed and seared between Axel’s arm and the back of his seat. With one final thrust and a yell rivaling the pilots Axel felt the pilot’s skull give way to his arm.

Riding on a plume of plasma Axel jumped away from the slowly collapsing ‘Mech in time to catch a rocket directly in the chest sending him tumbling into a building. His head crashed through a window while his right leg struck the floor breaking bones. Axel skidded through a conference room and into some file cabinets.

Axel lay on his back catching his breath and feeling the drugs work their way through his already taxed system. He was getting tired of being shot out of the sky. The rocket had stripped all of the armor of his chest, leaving it cracked and twisted as MediGel struggled to fill the holes. No question about it now, his ribs were broken. He quickly took stock. Rockets depleted, laser damaged, machine gun ammo low, arm broken, ribs broken, right leg broken. “The question is,” he thought to himself as drew his left leg up underneath him and used his claw to haul himself up, “Am I still combat effective?” He could feel his spine crack and groan with protest as he stood. He snapped his battle claw open and shut. “Aff.” Holding his laser arm against his ribs he limped out of the conference room. “As if it mattered anyway,” he thought idly. The building was empty, having been emptied out in preparation for the trap.

He stopped limping as he sensed enemy infantry nearby. As quickly and quietly as he could Axel limped into a small-darkened office. He could hear them on the other side of the wall. Without knowing how many were in the hallway beyond the wall, but knowing it didn’t matter Axel drew back his claw and punched through the wall and the man standing on the other side. He swept his machine gun to the right as he stepped the rest of the way through the wall. The bullets found easy marks in the narrow hallway, their bodies spewing fountains of blood as they spun and twirled to the floor. With three men still behind him their bullets quickly started finding his armor. As he spun around two bullets found holes in his armor. One struck his shoulder the other grinded its way through the meat right above his collarbone. He rushed forward and sliced his way through the three soldiers.

Axel stood there, breathing heavily as pain wracked his body. The pain made him dizzy the drugs were losing their effect and the MediGel fought its own losing war to plug all the holes drilled in his body and armor. He knew he was dangerously close to passing out again. Hearing voices coming from behind him, he turned slowly. The soldier on point stopped short in horror at the carnage in the hallway. Blood soaked the walls and ran down in rivers to feed the ocean of blood, bodies and parts of bodies. Filling the hall, the damaged Warrior stood menacingly. Its armor pocket-holed and scorched. Its left arm was twisted metal, its fully functional one ended in a claw red and shiny with blood. The woman behind him, a more experienced solider shoved him aside and threw a grenade. Axel shot both of them in quick succession as he dove away from the grenade. The explosion was too much for his suit to take, massive system failures lit up the few remaining warning signs he had left. As his suit shut down around him and black crept up around his vision Axel struggled to lift up his arm at the rapidly approaching soldiers filling the hall. It was heavy, too heavy, as his vision got fuzzy and tilted sideways as he fell for the last time. The world blurry and bloody faded to black.

Suit deactivated…

Self Destruct fusion reactor in…5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

The Sky was aflame.

Hush Little Baby

2007-05-29T07:54:00.001-07:00

Hush little baby,
Don't say a word,
'Coz i'ma gonna buy you,
A mocking bird,

And if that mocking bird don't sing,
Then i'ma gonna buy you a diamond ring,

And if that diamond don't shine bright,
Dont cry darlin' i'll make it right,

I'll take your your hand right into mine,
And we will sail off right on through time,

And we'll see people, places, things,
And then i'll get another diamond ring,

Heaven's Eyes

2007-05-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

A single thread in a tapestry,
Though its colors brightly shine,
You can never see its purpose,
In the patterns of a grand design.

And the stone that sits at the very top,
Of the mighty mountains' face,
Does it thinks its any better,
Than the stones that form the base.

How can you judge what a man is worth,
By what he builds or buys,
How can you judge with your eyes on earth,
Look through Heaven's eyes.

The Awekening to Sorrow

2007-05-26T00:12:00.000-07:00

I have slept for a thousand years and now have risen,
And i have found that i am strong,
But yet not so strong as to brave this world,
Alone.

But I must,
And I shall,
For I am alone,
As we all are,
In the void that is all existance.

We came into the world,
The Screaming puking masses of infancy,
And we leave the world either young,
Or old,
Sometimes too young,
But never too old

I will die,
I know not when,
And i do not fear death,
For i do not fear that which is inevitable,
Final,
Filial,
Futile.

My existance,
Is Brief.

When Suppression Yeilds

2007-05-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

Able Manski, Tech Repairman, rose at 0500 hrs to grab a cup of coffee and make his way to the 'Mech repair bay. Able grabbed a cup and filled it from the dispenser. A 'Clansman' sat in the tech lounge reading an inner sphere repair manual and snickered till he saw Able.

“That coffee is for clan members only, Terran.” He said not removing his gaze from the manual.

Able raised his middle finger at the tech while stirring the cream in with a toothpick he too not removing his gaze from his task.

“As you say pal.” Able said calmly.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me ‘pal’ bondsman Able!” The tech snapped.

“You did, I just don’t listen to you... Pal.” Able smirked.

Able left the room headed for the 'Mech bay. Able, an engineer by trade; had learned his whole livelihood here in this very 'Mech bay. When the 'Clans' attacked Terra he was stranded here along with his contingent and a skeleton crew of techs. And here he remained with his techs to be ridiculed by their 'Clan' tech counterparts. And so shaking his head he opened the pressure door to the bay and stepped into another 'worst day of his life'.

A Clan Warrior was bellowing at one of his younger techs. The young man was thin slight of build and shy. The clansmen, all ninety seven inches and 500 pounds of genetically engineered killing fury, made the poor young tech the example of the inherent weaknesses of Terra. Able downed the cold, bitter coffee in one quick slurp and tossed the cup aside briskly hurrying to his tech’s aid.

“Hold on here!” Able yelled above the already roaring warrior. “What is the problem private?”

“This worthless piece of Terran slop can do nothing right!” The towering warrior continued. “The first time we discover he is too weak to function without a power suit in his assigned duty of technician. Then he is unable to handle the mental tasks of maintaining an aerospace fighter. Now he has proven an incompetent fool at the simplistic task of battle armor maintenance!”

"He was trained as a Medic, warrior,"
"DO I LOOK LIKE I NEED A MEDIC, DOG!" The Warrior roared. The clans had no use for men and women of the noble trade. In true Darwinian Extremism, if you were dumb enough (or indeed weak enough) to get hurt then you deserved death.

“Alright, I’ll ask again…what is your problem, warrior?” Able said with care, knowing what would come next.

The brute grabbed the little medic by his jumpsuit, Able now recognized the poor fellow as Cecil, and began to shake him off of his feet.

“Wait! Stop!” The now fully awake Chief Tech. said in an unusually strong voice which dropped to its usual soft monotone thereafter. “It’s me you angry with, he is my tech and im responsible for 'im … I’ll fight you.”

A hush fell over the bay as Cecil regained his feet thanks to the warrior dropping him.

“No!” Cecil yelled after the warrior. “No! He is no match for you, you’ll kill him!”

The warrior smiled as he put his hands on his hips.

“You heard the slop,” he yelled to the gathering crowd of onlookers including the Galaxy Commander who had entered hearing the commotion, “draw the circle and prepare to be educated.”

“Dear God Able!” Cecil protested. “Beg for the right of forgiveness and stop this stupid … stupid thing!”

“It’s alright C-Man.” Able intoned. “I now know what I have to do here.”

“Able! You don’t know squat about fighting, he will rip you limbs out of their sockets and beat you with them!” Cecil said trying to stop the murder of his Cheif Tech, more out of fear that he would be replaced by another uncompromising clansman than of actual love for his soon to be dead savior.

“Your motherly pleading falls on deaf ears tech.” The warrior said smiling as he limbered up. “I will stop his wasteful use of air and food in this circle today.”

“Maintenance suits.” Able said calmly.

“What?” The warrior replied confused as the room fell silent again. “What did you say?”

“I said,” Able breathed deeply, “maintenance suits you deaf empty-headed pig.”

The warrior roared as he lunged at Able across the circle only to be sacked by his four other squad-mates before he could tear strips of flesh off of Able’s chest with his bare hands.

“The circle, Private Berger! You are in the circle.” the Galaxy Commander said as he shoved Private Berger back forcibly. “Only you can call the trial for him yes?”

Berger barked at him. “Yes!”

“And you did call the circle to be drawn thus calling the trial between you, correct?” The commander asked.

“Yes!” Berger snapped back.

“Then as the challenged the grand law states HE is allowed to choose the means by which you will kill him.” The commander now stopped pushing him and just stood in front of Berger.

“Don an exoskeleton and beat him to bloody pulp but do not dare to break the laws Berger or I have to face you in the circle after you wipe off his blood.”

The warrior stomped over to a waiting exoskeleton and began to strap into it. Cecil looked over in complete shock and utter terror as his Chief tech buckled the safety harness onto himself in one of the multi-tool exo-suits.

“Able!” Cecil pleaded as he got face to face with the man. “What the hell are you doing? Do you want to die? Able he is gonna crush you dead…that’s it isn’t it?” Cecil’s face plunged ashen upon seeing the resolve in Able’s eyes. “Dear God you want him to kill you.”

“We can’t live like this anymore C-Man.” Able replied. “So please lock my safety harness in the quick release position, and get out of the circle.”

“You now seek to deface my honor before I have even wiped his blood from my fists tech. After I end him, you will be thrown into the circle as well to share his chosen fate.” Berger said calmly without a hint of remorse. Cecil's face turned parchment white.

The other Clan Warriors present deposited Cecil and the other Terran techs and the circle was closed. The crude white paint circle was sprayed onto the floor of the bay with plenty of room for the two combatants to move within. Able flexed his arms moving the heavy exoskeleton with great ease and control. Cecil looked at his chief tech as he set the suit for his personal preferences and began to hop lightly from strut foot to strut foot.

“C, o’ll Abe's is gonna get his head torn off by that monster.” Able’s second-in-chief Tech Allen Winski said as the two stood and watched in horror. “Those warriors are practically born into those powersuits. Them tool suits can’t be much different.”

Suddenly Cecil’s eyes grew wide and his face almost jumped off his body with the dark realization of what was about to happen.

“No Allen, those suits are nothing like each other. Battle suits are limber, fast, and designed to move. The tool suits are meant for lifting armor and parts, cutting steel plates and welding them together on a 'Mech, not for going 'ape-shit' on someone else.” Cecil said as his jaw went slack. “He’s not trying to get killed. He’s gonna kill that private!”.

Cecil always was an astute young fellow. Thats why Able liked to keep him around.

The warrior stepped to his half of the circle and waited as Able turned on his suit’s spinning yellow crown light warning light. The crowd laughed as Able gently stepped his suit opposite the warrior in his suit and waved at him with the suit’s lifting claw.

“Fool!” Berger yelled at the top of his lungs. “I will pinch your skull in that claw! Freebirth fool!”

Able calmly turned on his radio mike and loudspeaker to max and spoke over the vulgar outbursts of the warrior.
“Any time you’re ready, I’m waiting for you.” Able goaded him.

In response, another warrior outside the circle struck an armor plate with a large hammer in a make-shift bell and Berger lunged at his opponent. His powerful legs propelled him forward, but the suit he was wearing was not designed to leap up onto BattleMechs while being shot at, it was meant to lumber around and slap armor on said BattleMechs. Private Berger fell flat on his belly with the three quarter ton suit crashing down on top of him. The warrior let out a strangled grunt as he shattered his front teeth, and most of his not too handsome face, on the concrete floor of the repair bay. Then, in full view of the startled crowd Able calmly walked over to his fallen opponent, stepped on his arm, and extended the suit’s circular Iron-saw attachment. The other warriors in the bay began to scream and pound their fists on the floor and each other as they watched the inner sphere tech close in for what they thought was the kill.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Able spun the saw and cut the power lines and the hydraulic feeds with the blade. Berger was powerless on the floor beneath the strut of Able’s tool suit.
“That’s enough Able!” Allen yelled above the commotion in the room, he noticed that no one was running out into the circle. “He’s done Able! Let him out now!”

Blood from Berger’s mouth mixed with the drive fluids for the suit’s severed hydraulics. Then with one icy plate-steel glare at the crowd, Able lit the suit’s magnesium fueled cutting torch and ignited the hydraulic fluid. He quickly jumped back as the suit Berger was in literally turned into a funeral pyre. Berger screamed an unholy screech as he burst into flames along with the suit. He ripped the burning safety straps off and tried to perform a push up to throw off the burning tool suit. Soon enough however, Berger stopped screaming as the sheer mass of the suit held him down in the burning fluids, then the main tank ruptured and the circle was filled with flames. The automatic sprinklers doused the area with water as the burning chemicals continued to smolder. Then without a word Able walked towards the open bay doors and out of the artificial rain. The crowd parted as he left the circle, half out of stark fear of the demented Cheif Tech. The other half because Able had not shut off the cutting torch.

"Y'see Cecil," Allen Winski said motioning to the roasting elemental, "It's just like I keep say'n. Nobody listens to o'll Abe when they need to!"

"No," Able said nodding in agreement blank faced and emotionless to his techs, "no they don't...do they?"

Of Women

2007-03-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

The big clock that hung against the wall ticked the hours away, as if clucking its tongue in disapproval at her barbarity; the obscene curses she chucked at anyone within earshot, the screams she spewed out like some vile, black liquid and the disarray of her limbs likened to that of a mutilated rag-doll, not in the throes of labor. And, through eyes as tightly clenched as fists, pushed, her stomach muscles wrestling with this alien yet familiar being trapped inside. It felt like pushing against a brick wall; painful, impossible. Bit by bit, feeling the mortar prying loose, the gap evolving into a cavern. And then - the head, cradled softly in the palms of the midwife, wrapped in sticky fluid. One last time, she squeezed her body, a welcome nudge, hello baby boy. The frown said it all; wrinkles unearthed from the tautness of her skin.

"A girl."

It rang with the finality of a gunshot, A She. The last twenty-four hours came echoing back, a fresh migraine without the antidote of good news. A tunnel without light. The Husband stepped inside, footfalls heavy with disappointment; the Mother refusing to meet his eyes, cooing softly some broken nonsense to pacify Her; Her wailing like a siren, having some glimpse of Its short lived fate; Her with her mother’s sequined eyes, and her father’s nose. It was a fragile thing; a miniscule 6 pounds of tender skin sitting on flesh that was not quite there yet. She refused to name it, even when its eyes blinked in heavy wonder, as if questioning; Who am I?

And so it remained unmarked, bound in a sterile white cloth equally as anonymous.

That night under a fully-cloaked sky, making their way through the empty streets, the hung lanterns which looked like fat, drunken faces lighting the Mother’s steps. She hugged Her loosely, while the Mother’s eyes ran up and down the road, looking for that old corner with its cozy, moss-lined recess.

Deja Vu. The same harsh breathing an uneasy staccato to the Mother’s ears, the familiar wriggling mass trying to escape Her arms. She was still, silent, filial; even when She settled her in that nest of aged newspapers, Her busy fingers eager to adjust the linen, tuck in the stray corners, anything but look into those accusing eyes. Suddenly taking off with the ground seeming to evade Her feet, bursting into a full run when the weak cry rose.

She would be Mother no more.

Each day, baby girls are chucked aside like litter. A noose fastened around their necks the second they enter a world. Their presence, a blemish. They, mere infants, have committed a mortal sin for being unable to continue the family name. Each day, women are subjected to injustice, their voices muted by an inferiority complex drilled into them.

Were I to change the world, it would be emancipated from the dogma that a He carries more weight than a She - a belief as old as the bones of the earth. This is the world I see in my mind's eye: each female born (her birth a celebration) with a solid education to arm her with knowledge and the license to live in the fullest sense of the word.

Never will one regard having double X chromosomes as a curse in my world for gender equality will reign supreme. The voice of each woman will be heard, shrill and clear. They will be able to speak out for their wants and needs that for centuries have been ignored.

No longer to be shunned by society through fingers pointed or malice whispered behind a cover of hands. Like a piece of furniture, she is labeled 'used'- her worth plummeting like the stock market the instant she was coveted. I will castrate the predators; women will pass through dark alleys without the fear of their bodies being mauled by the lust of men.

A woman's worth will be static in my world - not resting on her purity or the width of her childbearing hips. Judge them based on who they are, not by society's rules.

She will be equal in every way to our Her male counterparts.

She will be a citizen of a race that knows no prejudice.

And She will say; I am woman, I am proud.

What of... ?

2007-03-16T21:32:00.001-07:00

What of Gods I ask you,
Those omnipresent beings,
Without a face to talk to,
Who dare control our whims.

What Law i ask you,
That book of rules long broken,
Nobody seems to follow them,
Unless it was you who broke 'em.

What of Life i ask you,
That question still unanswered,
That story ever-ending,
With that line "forever after".

What of Friends i ask you,
Those brethren you'd call your own,
And those daggers that they wield,
Like Brutus of Caesar's Rome.

What of Me i ask you,
This slightly crazy bloke,
With nothing better to do,
Than being the fire's stoke.

The Mushroom Cloud

2007-03-01T05:29:00.000-08:00

16th July 1945

If you could change the world … would you want to?

Today is July 16th, 1945. On the surface, things appear well at the Alamo for a change. We had champagne today at the barracks, amidst all the mud and scientists and a very happy president in a very celebratory mood. The army men are overjoyed; they really think we'll have the Germans and the Japs by their hairy balls with this one. I want to laugh sardonically right in their fancy bushy mustaches (it's obvious the war will soon be won anyway) but working here has long since robbed me of my voice and rebellion.

The luminaries have mixed reactions about today. Fermi is like a proud father; he hasn't stopped grinning since. It's beginning to sicken me, and I fear I will not be able to stand his beaming pride much longer before I crumple into a breakdown of my own. Feynman, that free spirit and practical joker is in a much more somber mood than his usual persona suggests. I don't believe we'll hear much more of Injun Joe drumming away into the night. I suppose a good night's sleep is on the cards.

Myself … what has become of this shell?

Still tall, still thin, still smoking two packs a day (with the exception of today; I fear I may unconsciously promote myself to the mythical realm of six-pack chain smokers). The days leading up to this forsaken date in history have been particularly unkind to my appetite. I have never experienced such depression and such desire to retreat into reclusion since the time in Paris when I had leapt up and attempted to throttle my dear friend Francis Ferguson by the neck. God, that incident still embarrasses me even now. To think that it had all begun with me merely narrating the frustrations I had at the time with experimental physics!

I used to think I needed physics more than I needed friends. But what good is physics if it removes from existence all of mankind, let alone any friends I might have?

Katherine has also been losing weight. This whole mess has clearly affected her too. She hates to see me like this, and I hate to see her like this. The days of our courtship in Berkeley seem so distant now, I am not even sure if it is a memory or only a dream. God knows I need those memories. Memories are the platform for our reason, and should we lose them, we lose our sanity. I need all the sanity I can get in these dark times.

I cannot quite remember what exactly it was that I felt when we drove out to the vast desolate plains of Alamogordo in the early hours of the morning. Ah, yes. I remember now. I am ashamed to have felt great confidence and pride, amour propre bursting out of my chest as I looked ahead at the site of our first major test. The ranch shack housing the gadget, the fruit of our labor, awaited us. The rain was pouring down in buckets and lightning struck like warning signals from the gods. We held our breath each time the electricity split the sky, for an accidental detonation would be disaster

I had named the test site Trinity. In retrospect, it was blasphemous of me to suggest a place of destruction to be named as such. Why I chose the name is not clear, but I know what thoughts were in my mind. There is a poem of John Donne, written just before his death. From it a quotation:

"As West and East
In all flat Maps—and I am one—are on,
So death doth touch the Resurrection."

That still does not make a Trinity, but in another, Donne opens,

"Batter my heart, three person'd God;—."

Beyond this, I have no clue whatever as to why I named it so.

The skies finally cleared at about 5 a.m. We were shepherded to a base camp ten miles away. Feynman, that eternal joker, refused to wear the dark glasses that would protect his eyes from the flash, testament to both his testicular fortitude and general lack of good sense.

The passing of twenty minutes seemed like an eternity, a lifetime. I laugh now to think whose lifetime it was. Perhaps it was mine; that would explain my wasting away. The flash reached us first, illuminating our surroundings brighter than any sun can, swathing us with colors of purple, to green, and eventually to white before the roar of the shock wave hit us like a million-gun salute forty seconds later. The presence of the 12km-tall mushroom cloud was so immense, so loud, so bright, so hot – and it was so very hot, like being in an oven in that bunker ten miles away- that I felt like I was standing at the feet and mercy of a malevolent and omnipresent god.

If the radiance of a thousand suns

were to burst into the sky,

that would be like

the splendor of the Mighty One—

I am become Death, the shatterer of Worlds.

I am become death. I led this team, a team composed of the most brilliant physicists around that I had handpicked myself, into creating the most devastating weapon ever invented in the history of mankind, and in two weeks the world will witness the full extent of its powers. We will watch and shake and tremble at what we will do to this earth and at how we will change it.

At how I will change it.

The name on my badge says "J. R. Oppenheimer", but it will not mean a thing to those Japs. I am keeping this journal as proof that I once was famous, I once graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard in just three years, I once was the bright founder of modern theoretical physics; and I am keeping this journal as proof that as of today, July 16th 1945, I wish I never were any of the above.

They will only ever know me as the man who made the A-bomb.

Morning Glory

2007-03-01T05:19:00.000-08:00

It is dawn,
And i am awake,
But only for a little while,
Only for the morning.

Before the day is started,
I will have my fill of the world,
And then go back to sleep,
Only to miss nothing.

For tomorrow is another dawn.

I am the Morning Glory,
I am the Morning's Glory,
And I am Glorious,
If only in the morning.

The Lay of an Eagle's Son

2007-02-18T17:32:00.000-08:00

‘Tis the story of a time long gone,
of ages now long past;
The days of our parents’ youth:
that now have come to pass.

Up in the trees of viridian deep
where the branches touched the sun;
Up in the trees there was a nest
for an eagle and his son.

Bold and proud the eagle soars
from high mount to valley low;
The eagle flew across the land
Where the wild winds blow.

A little son this eagle had,
a son to call his own;
One little babe whose father is
one of world renown.

This father raised his son to be
an eagle like himself;
To strike at prey without mercy
to take flight in stealth.

This little chick learned many things
and mastered skill as he grew;
Then came the day when he took off:
his father saw him flew!

For quite some time, this little chick
learned all his father’s ways;
From soaring up to gliding down
as time passed by in days.

Our little chick is now grown-up
ready to take on the world;
It’s time for him to make his name
and find himself a girl!

Bidding farewell, he leaves the nest:
father sends him off;
And as the sun sets on that day
Our eagle glides aloft.

Soaring higher than any other,
and faster than his mates;
From snow-capped peaks to ocean blue
they all call him ‘the Great’.

But one day as he took off again
and flew beside his friends,
our eagle glimpsed a hunter down
in the forest’s twisted bends.

With a cunning glint, the Great One said,
“Why don’t we have a test?
We’ll all dive down towards the hunter
And see who of us is best!

“My fellow friends!” the Great One yelled,
“Today we leave our names
in the hallowed halls of history,
when we all win this game!”

His friends were quick to cut him off,
“Oh no, you mustn’t go;
The hunter has a gun in hand,
He could kill us, you know!”

The Great One couldn’t believe his ears,
“You cowards just don’t dare!
I myself will lead the charge,
We’ll see if he stays there!”

“Don’t!” they said, “Please do not try,
we beg you not to go!”
But without a word the Great One dove
down to the world below.

Swooping down, he grabbed the hat
of the hunter off his head;
The hunter tripped and fell down flat
while the eagle laughed instead.

Clutching the hat between his talons,
he hooked it with his beak;
The eagle ripped the hat to shreds
as the hunter began to speak.

“Accursed beast!” the hunter cried,
“I swear I’ll kill you now!
I’ll tear out all your pretty feathers;
we’ll see who’s laughing now!”

The hunter bent towards his feet
and grabbed his hefty gun;
“I know how to kill that bird,
and I have just the one!”

He withdrew from a tiny pocket
an evil sharpened shell;
The kind that shoots out from a barrel
and sends you straight to Hell!

He loaded it into the gun
and took a steady aim;
While far above the Great One did
not see his coming bane.

A blast soon rang across the land
from fields to lonely skies;
For the Great One who heard the bang
he knew the end was nigh.

The bullet tore a bloody hole
in the Great One’s muscled chest;
The hunter hollered as he had won
against the eagles’ best.

As the Great One fell down to Earth,
one thing ran through his mind;
His final thought before he died:
“I have failed my kind.”

For ’tis the story of long ago,
in ages and ages past;
About the battle of man and eagle
and what has come to pass.

By Myself

2007-01-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

In the crowd,
I am alone.
In the Light,
I see darkness.
Within love,
I see hate.
And all of good,
Is tainted.

I live this life by myself ...

It was my mother who brought me to the world,
It will be my son who will usher me from it,
As i lay motionless on the pyre,
As an extinguished life.

I am the singular amongst the many,
The pariah,
The outcast,

I have seen what lays before me,
And it is desolate.

There is no other road and the ways to the past,
Are shut.

I will walk on ...

By myself and alone.

My Fears

2007-01-06T05:39:00.000-08:00

I fear death,
And life,
That i would live to see others die,

I fear love,
And hate,
For i have grown to do both,

I fear the past,
And the future,
For i am in the forever in the present,

I fear myself,
For i fear fear itself.

Red Marker, Black Ink

2007-01-06T05:37:00.000-08:00

Red marker, Black ink,
Beautiful roses are flanked by thorns.
With good will always come bad,
Like love thats all but torn.

The snake will have its venom,
The spear; its sharp blade,
What have I thats any worth?
What have I that you can take?

The devil has his doom,
And the gods will have their say,
What have I thats any worth?
What have I to give away?

Long have I now walked this earth,
And longer still will I stay,
But what have I thats any worth?
What love will hold my sway?

My Dreams

2007-01-06T05:35:00.000-08:00

I sit on the ledge,
Be it of cliff...
...or tree,
...or tower,
...or window.

I sit on the ledge and i dream,
I dream of this life and the next,
I dream of times when all is best,

And then i wake up,
And my dreams are reduced to memory,
To fade through the fabric of time,

Just as the lesser thread is lost in the weaving of divine tapestries.

And then i know,
My dreams mean nothing.
But i cannot stop dreaming,

Why?

Why am i doomed with the knowledge that all i want cannot be,
And all i have will soon be lost.

And then i know,
My dreams are precious,
For they are fleeting.

My dreams are precious,
For they can only ever be dreams.

And so...
I lay my dreams at your feet,

Tread softly,
For you tread on my dreams.

Evil's Lay

2007-01-06T05:33:00.001-08:00

I am evil,
And yet they love me.
I am evil,
And gods fear me.

I am evil,
Dare you challenge me?
For i am evil,
And within your soul i be.

The brave will fall,
The strong shall waver,
And the good will know,
My power.

For evil is and evil was,
And evil will ever be,
Long after the good are dead,
Then i will reign supreme.

Of Lilys And Roses

2007-01-06T05:31:00.000-08:00

Love has spurned me,
Am i not worthy?
For she was beauty,
And i am a beast,

Her hair was like ebony,
That shames the golden fleece of Heracles,

Nothing is her like,
And nothing i can give her,
No dowry,
No desire,

I am blind, deaf and dumb to all the world around her,

But it was love that spurned me,
Venus! Aphrodite!
Thou hath failed me...

And yet her memory will not leave me,
Like a thorn so deep it cannot be removed,
And i relish the feeling,
For in her memory are my dreams,

It is my painful pleasure...

And I miss her...
I miss her like the sun misses the flower in the depths of winter,
And instead of beauty to guide its light to,
My heart hardens in the frozen world her absence has banished me to.

And so it was love that spurned me,
Venus! Aphrodite!
Thou hath failed me...

The Last Testament

2007-01-06T05:30:00.000-08:00

When i die let it be said,

That i killed a giant,
The size of a fly...
That i wrestled a beast,
Its name was 'I'...
That i was mighty,
Although only among mice...

When i die let them say,
There goes a man who lived his life...

Why?

2007-01-06T05:25:00.000-08:00

Why did i wake up today?
To see the sad sun rise,
Why did i ever walk this way,
To see tears in your eyes,
Why do i try to make things right?
'Cause no matter what i try,
I seem to fail when I'm around you,
And i seem to make you cry,

Why, do angels have to die?
Why, do i live a lie?
Why, do we dream and be denied?
Why, does the tide of love subside?

The Song Of The Sword

2007-01-06T05:22:00.000-08:00

The Sword's song is a sad song,
He pipes it soft and low,
"I would ply a gentler trade,
But War is all i know,

And though my blade be cold and jagged,
And unloved by many,
I would ply this trade of mine,
'Till doom or death take me".

And so the Sword would sing his song,
The song thats soft and low,
"I would ply a gentler trade,
But War i all i know..."

The Gilded Cage

2007-01-06T05:16:00.000-08:00

I live in a gilded cage,
Where the bars are of tempered love,
And i dare not break them,

I live in a gilded cage,
Where the locks are forged of discipline,
For which no key can open,

I live in a gilded cage,
Where i am shackled by society,
And its corrupted laws wont free me,

I live in a gilded cage,
Do you live in one too?

The Cradle

2007-01-06T05:15:00.000-08:00

The city is used to strangeness. The bizarre is the mortar that binds it together. Its people are a hardy sort. In a world where the dead don’t stay buried, they need to be. It hardly counts as superstition when you know what‘s out there, in the darkness, just waiting for a chance to make you join it.

Even in the city, no one loiters to long in the shadow of one particular building, which hangs of the old blocks like some facial canker. The Cradle. If there is one way of cramming more misery into one building’s history, I can’t think of it.

The Cradle’s history is a scream, stretched out through time.

They say that it used to be that sad institute for lost children, an orphanage. It’s also said that it was that sad institute for lost adults, an asylum. What they didn’t say is that during its latter days it was both at once. While safer inmates were kept in the paupers ward towards the front of the building, the murderously insane – of which, at the Cradle’s demise, there were nine – were kept in the White Hall ward, towards the rear, with heavy lockdown doors between them and the rest of civilization. Near them, the orphans, in the Nursery tower. At the buildings heart, looking over all was the Staff tower, the stronghold of the lawmakers. Children and the insane, under lock and key of nurses and doctors. Authority and oppression bound together, existing as one.

The tale of the Cradle rests on two children – a boy and a girl. The boy, ran away, grew up, found redemption, on the streets, and there became known as the fanatical hunter of shadows. The girl never got a chance to grow up at all.

The doctors had strict rules, which the matrons were to follow. Obvious rules, such as homicidal patients and the children weren’t to mix. However, rules in a madhouse tend to err, so it came to pass that the girl found herself sitting while having her portrait painted by the patient in Cell 5, known as The Watcher. He was brought to the asylum after slaughtering his previous sitters because “they moved”. He then smeared his victim’s blood over each portrait’s face, in frustration at the lack of life in the final work. The girl was a good girl. She didn’t move at all. So she lived and The Watcher made the one perfect picture of his life.

No one is that lucky twice.

The Gray Lady of myth and nightmare came to the Cradle to find a body to use for her devilish schemes. Someone discarded already. Someone no one would miss. That is, an orphan. If the boy and the girl weren’t playing in the attic that day, maybe the Gray Lady would have chosen a different victim. Would the Cradle’s cry have been stifled early? Perhaps, perhaps not. We can only speculate as to the reasons why The Watcher was close enough to the murder scene to take the girls bloody tattered dress as a keepsake before anyone else arrived. Perhaps the murder he would eventually carry the blame for would have occurred anyway. The Cradle’s birth is rife with such sick irony.

Despite the boy’s testimony that some hag-like creature butchered his little friend, the material evidence pointed to the man locked in Cell 5. Extreme measures were called for, lobotomy. Or rather, all to common measures. The staff – when not experimenting with their weirder theories such as applying red-hot bars to bare skin or testing the outer limits of electrocution – turned to the doctors’ custom silver knives that could transmute a pest into a vegetable. The ‘result’ of which could be stored cheaply with the other trash in the pauper’s ward rather than the expensive White Hall. News spread that whatever made The Watcher himself would be sliced away in Treatment Room 2.

These words eventually reached the man who hid his shattered features behind a wax mask, Patient 1 – or ‘King No One’ as he was known among the inmates thanks to the script on his door. The fact that he was contained in the isolation chamber, at the top of an elevator shaft in the White Hall, wasn’t enough to separate him from the other patients. His poisonous whispers leaked out, fanning the flames of dissatisfaction. The Watcher was a popular madman. His fraternity owed him an attempt to stop this. After all, they could be next. Dissent sparked into a fiery riot. In an instant, the keys were with the patients. They were all free the gates were sealed, but most of the children and staff were inside, trapped and barricaded in their towers. At least the lucky ones were – those on the ground floor proved wet and scarlet sport for the rampaging White Hall inmates.

The midwife to the cradles true birth was the patient in Cell 9, The Moth. A pyromaniac, she was allowed to keep her tinderbox as part of her therapy. Now free, she had all the fuel she could wish for. She lit the matches, which reduced the Cradle to a skeleton of a building. First in her room. Then under the cover of riot urged on by King No One, the fires at the base of the Staff tower.

While the king discarded his wax mask, finally revealing his molten face, and led the dismemberment of the remaining staff, The Moth pulled up her chair at the foot of the staircase and stared into the inferno as men and women were reduced to soot and screams.

The flames swept up. The Nursery tower joined its sister in misery. The voices of boys and girls merged in an unholy choir, a shriek to empty skies. God was not there that day. The smoke rose to the havens blacking them out, forming a cloud of the remains of authority. Anything elevated was destroyed. All that remained was the base material.

The tortured voices were the Cradle’s birthing cry. The rising smoke its first breath. Born out of torture, oppression, murder and a history of weeping, this place was ‘alive’.

It pressed down upon the remaining inmates, who ruled the remains of the asylum under King No One’s malevolence. His kingdom couldn’t last, at least, in earthly terms. The doors were shut. There was no way out. The inmates sickened, withered and died.

This wasn’t the end.

The inmates rose from death, becoming puppets of the Cradle’s will and twitching in meaningless echoes of their past existence. Their bodies animated in a closed spasmodic loop for eternity, waiting for someone else to enter, to catch the Cradle’s attention, and so join its macabre dance.

They say its doors will open before you. They’ll seal behind you and as long as you live, it will never let you leave.

Even in the city, no one loiters to long in the shadow of one particular building, which hangs of the old blocks like some facial canker. The Cradle. If there is one way of cramming more misery into one building’s history, I can’t think of it.