Rimrea

static

2009-04-08T16:10:00.003-04:00

static

…

My name is Ryker.
I never waver from routine.
I am almost sure that I am the only Ryker here, or anywhere.

…I wish that someone shared my name.

…

Ryker woke to unrelenting fluorescent light in his tired eyes. He quickly dressed, just as he did the morning before. He ate a somewhat indistinct meal, just as he did the morning before. He surveyed his room with jaded eyes, just as he did the morning before.

It was a bare, quiet room which left no room for imagination—

—the rickety metal bed with its crinkly sheets. The peeling yellow walls. The dingy concrete floor. A well-worn wooden dresser. An old AM radio – the echo of a time he did not know. The long twin tubes of garish light which, mounted to the ceiling, illuminated it all.

He left for work.

…

He left in a direction known well to his feet alone. Down a long cold hall. Down stairs. Outside into a deathly quiet morning with no one out, nothing but fitful overcast light, and all grey. Along the side of the building ran twenty-seven identical lockers, doors opening outward, each with a keyhole. Ryker’s key worked only for one. He unlocked #11, took out his bicycle, and looked at the locker next to his. The scratches around its keyhole were different from the ones around his. Ryker’s heart skipped a beat, just as it did every day.

It was not far to the office. He beat a path known only to the worn tires of his bicycle. Navigated through an intricate web of dying spurts of weeds desperate to be liberated from their cracked concrete roofs. Wove through streets hedged in by bare walls and locked doors.

He arrived at work.

…

It was a building indistinguishable from any of the others that made up the miserable jagged skyline which rose around the route Ryker took. The only thing that set it apart for Ryker’s eyes was the number painted on the scuffed door: 34. He went in. The only sound he heard in the hall was the sound his shoes made when they tapped on the smooth concrete floor. Two doors led out of the hallway – one to his office, the other to a place he knew nothing about.

…

The office held the same drab position in his mind that his room did – nothing but habit, practice, custom. Furnished by no more than a chair, a table, and an electric typewriter, it occupied the majority of Ryker’s waking memories. Little things – bits of dust and trash – were gathered in its corners, left there untouched by the infrequent traffic the room saw. A never-blinking fluorescent light hummed above his head, the only sound he heard. He was accustomed to it.

Ryker’s work was inconsequential insofar as he saw no purpose for it but to occupy him for the twelve hours he was allotted. He wrote what came to him. Mostly he wrote soliloquies about himself – what he did, what he saw, how he thought. They all ended up saying more or less the same thing each day. The only interruption of his routine happened at noon. Even then it wasn’t a real interruption – he had no concept of one – all he did was walk to the other side of the room to eat and drink. Five minutes later he was back at work.

Without fail, the papers that he typed up each day disappeared from the cabinet where he placed them as he left each night. He didn’t know where they went but assumed that somewhere in this maze of halls and empty rooms, someone was reading what he wrote, and perhaps doing something more meaningful with his impotent thoughts.

Once he had written something he had previously only thought about inside. He wrote about that other person – someone he didn’t know but someone he sometimes imagined. Someone who picked up his papers every night and read them. Someone he felt he knew well. The next evening, when he filed away that days’ work, those papers were still there. But he knew one thing now.

Someone lived who saw what he wrote.

He finished work, and went home the way he came.

…

In his room again, Ryker ate another vaguely identifiable meal. He knew, by force of habit, that he would be sleeping in another hour and thirteen minutes precisely. He knew, by force of habit, that he would spend almost one hour of that time sitting on his creaking bed, listening in numb silence to the old radio.

And he did.

But it was nothing but static. It was unwavering static every evening, every channel.

He listened to the static, straining his ears for a change in the pitch, in the volume, in the crackliness. None came, as he knew already.

He knew that his mind would not wander during this hour. He knew that he would spend every waking moment he had that evening listening, hoping that somewhere, out there, there was a person like him, who was listening to the same static he was, at the same time, with the same longing to establish some pathetic, but profound, connection.

It was the closest he ever came to finding someone other than himself.

For forty-eight minutes he sat motionless. At the forty-ninth minute, something changed – Ryker had had enough of his own company, his own habits, his own routine, of the unvarying path he wore in the ground every day and the unchanging history of his life he regurgitated each day for a typewriter. In a deliberate feeling of despair, a reaction which sprang from deep inside him after a long, long wait, he whirled and, with all his might, struck the wall behind his bed. He cried out with pain – a sensation well outside of his normal experience – and pulled his limp hand back through the crumbly yellowed plaster. There was now a hole in his wall.

Then something peculiar happened. He thought he heard a sound – a noise which he had not caused. Nothing like that had ever happened to him. The sound came from the hole. It didn’t stop. He placed his ear against the ragged opening, listened—

—what he heard clearly came from another room. It was a low, soft, even sound. He snapped his radio off to hear better.

He heard a creaking bed. And the soft hiss of static in the next room.

Research Paper -- To Kill a Mockingbird

2009-01-27T23:59:00.007-05:00

This is my end of term research paper from ENC1102 (writing about literature -- a class in which I learned nothing but got 3 hours of college credit and felt somehow cheated by "the system"). My goal was to make this paper not boring; because, quite frankly, research papers are usually boring. It is not a particularly great piece, but I enjoyed rushing to get it written in four hours. I hope you get something out of reading this product of the little that was left of my literary creativity by the end of taking that class. :)

---

Glenda (Joy) Minchin

Professor Sprinkle

ENC1102

01 December 2008

Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird

On Thanksgiving Day, I had a unique opportunity. I was able to eat dinner with one of the Tuskegee Airmen from World War II. The Tuskegee Airmen were a special group of black pilots with a stellar record and unparalleled bravery. And yet they have been virtually ignored and even maligned. Some even argued that they, being African American, were inferior to their white counterparts in the Air Force and should have been discharged from the military. In spite of all that these men did for the war effort, they were not officially recognized by the government for their actions until last year. By 2007, only a fraction of these men were still alive to receive the honor they deserved.

Racial prejudice has long been a disease that has permeated the very fiber of our nation. Even though we are nearer than ever before to conquering it, the lingering vestiges remind us of previous decades of gross injustice. This injustice is what Harper Lee addressed in her classic, Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.

To Kill a Mockingbird was set in a time when prejudice and racism were hot buttons in American society, a time when discrimination was rampant and inequality the norm. Harper Lee was very familiar with this time and aspect of American society. In fact, the book is very nearly an autobiography. Enclosed in the pages of this book are the very heart and soul of Harper Lee. She poured herself into a story with a message that has impacted and will continue to impact millions of readers. This is a narrative with so many complexities, and yet the timeless wisdom and profound message are startlingly simple. The message of the book is one of justice, equality, fairness, honor, courage, principle, and integrity.

Few people have those qualities today, and even fewer had them in the racially charged era and place in which this book was set. Few people are the same on the street as in their homes. Few people can treat others equally, no matter what color their skin is. In To Kill a Mockingbird, one man embodies all of this. His name is Atticus Finch. He is a well-respected lawyer in his town of Maycomb, Alabama. Author Joseph Crespino put it this way: “In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism” (Crespino).

Racism in Maycomb is disguised by polite smiles, pretended indifference, and ladies’ missionary meetings. On the surface, there appears to be little more than a ripple effect, and yet the current of feeling and emotion truly runs deep.

The story is told as seen through the eyes of Scout Finch, Atticus’ young daughter. She is very perceptive and sees things in a unique way. Her views on what is going on around her are innocent and humorous. Throughout the novel, it is interesting to watch her develop mentally and morally. She begins to gain her own moral code and a strong sense of justice, like her father.

Atticus is a good man, an honest man. He upholds strong morals and is led by his conscience. When offered a highly publicized and flammable court case, Atticus knows he will take it on. A black man, Tom Robinson, has been accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell. The punishment, if he is found guilty, is death. The whole town knows deep down that Tom is not actually guilty, and yet the depth of racism is so great that the cause of defending him seems to be a lost one from the onset. However, Atticus’ deep sense of right and wrong will not allow him to merely do nothing and let an innocent man be punished without the truth being known. He tells his children, “I wanted you to see what real courage is...It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do” (Lee 54). In spite of the severity of the bigotry and opposition, he sets out to prove that Tom is innocent. Truth was of paramount importance to him, as we can see from a conversation he had with a friend in which he said, “That boy might go to the chair, but he’s not going till the truth’s told” (Lee 69).
Atticus knows that he is going entirely against the ways of the town, but still he fights for justice and morality. He had decided that if he did not take on the case and defend with all his might what he knew to be right, then he couldn’t hold his head up in town; couldn’t represent this country in the legislature; couldn’t even tell Scout or Jem not to do something again. “Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience” (Lee 51). He fights for Tom with his conscience as a guide, standing up as a white man for a black man, for himself, for his family, for Maycomb, and for us all. Part of his reasoning was, “I couldn't go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man” (Lee 51). Few people would put themselves in the position that Atticus willingly walked into. He knew there would be repercussions for himself and his family, but he was ready to pay the price.

As previously mentioned, the point of view in this narrative is from Scout. Her upbringing has been respectful to people of all colors and classes in her society. This is shown in her relationship with the family maid, Calpurnia, as well as with children from school of lower class than she is. Many other children her age have adopted their parents’ prejudiced views, causing her no end of problems at school. Atticus’ position of defending a black man isolates his children from their peers and opens them up to a lot of teasing and taunting. Scout is mocked on a daily basis. She is continually defending her father, but the spiteful and bigoted remarks continue. These derisive words towards Scout and her brother Jem reveal how cruel children can be to other children. Scout feels the need to defend her father, even to her cousin Francis. He was taunting her with accusations: “At a safe distance he called, ‘He’s nothin’ but a nigger-lover’” (Lee 40). The malicious force of racism has disrupted their lives, especially Scout’s, through the discriminative opinions of the residents of Maycomb.

Atticus will not sit by and watch his two children being abused and their views twisted to match the society of racism they live in. He helps them build their own sense of morals and wisely helps them see clearly what is at stake. In the process, he is able to demonstrate a precise view of his own conscience.
The Finches are an example of egalitarianism while the tendency of their society is deeply rooted in prejudice and hate. In Atticus’ opinion, the courtroom is the only place that is truly fair. And yet even that opinion must change when the court ruling does not go Atticus’ way, and Tom is ruled guilty. The court will not convict a white man over a black man. Jem does not understand this and is literally frustrated to tears by seeing justice so abused and misused. Atticus consoles Jem quietly, “If you had been on the jury, son, and eleven other boys like you, Tom would be a free man” (Lee 106).

In the end, Tom Robinson is dead, leaving behind a widow and children…and a memory of wrongs impossible to right. Atticus Finch did all he could, but one man could not stand up to an entire town. Harper Lee’s portrayal of a trial of an innocent black man and the white man who defended him in a small Alabama town is a poignant recollection of her own experiences growing up in a deeply prejudiced world. But is the situation of racism just a memory?

At this point in our nation’s history, remnants of racism and prejudice still exist. Indeed, old wrongs are slowly being put right, but the battle is not quite yet won. Each of us must continue to make an effort to judge everyone fairly and carry on the work begun by men and women like Atticus Finch. The issue of prejudice was not until recently on the forefront of my mind. Even reading this book did not completely wake me up to the realities around me. However, thanks to both this powerful novel and an 88-year-old war hero, I learned that I still need to do my part to end discrimination in our country.

Works Cited:

Crespino, Joseph. "The Strange Career of Atticus Finch." Southern Cultures 6.2 (Summer 2000) 9-29. 1 Dec 2008 .

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Anniversary. New York: Harper-Collins, 1999.

The Love Debate

2008-12-01T20:56:00.001-05:00

The rain poured sharp and fast on the western streets of upper Moscow. The winding roads were filled with frantic people who were trying all they could to shield themselves from the icy rain. The wet streets shimmered with the fading lights of the evening, and citizens peered down from the numerous stories of greasy flats that loomed over the thoroughfares. Peddlers shouted at one another as they packed up their wares and shuffled down the crowded sidewalks. Beggar children bundled their rags about them, and held out scrawny hands to urgent passersby, only to be shrugged off with indolent hurry. As the clouds poured forth their gloom upon the busy below, an old man struggled against the downpour. His drab overcoat was drenched, and his hat had flopped down over his ears, pouring streams of water down over his bent shoulders.
His breath came in visible puffs—quick and hurried as he attempted to fasten the clasps on his coat. He paused under a thick overhang, and watched for a gap in the bustle of carriages and horsemen. An opportunity was ascertained, and he stepped into the gutter. He shuffled across the cobblestone street, and successfully reached the other side, after nearly being run down by a snorting horse and shouting rider. He grumbled after the retreating figures and shook his felt hat in malevolence. He crossed the sidewalk, and entered into a crowded restaurant.
He inaudibly sighed, and struggled to remove his coat. The restaurant was crowded with equally wet patrons who had paused to come inside to avoid the rain. Ladies in drab frocks and men in wool vests and fingerless gloves sipped tea out of thick mugs, and stared dismally out into the grey landscape, waiting for the rain to abate so they could go about their business. The old man glanced around for a seat. No one met his gaze or offered a seat for him. Finally, he spotted an empty table towards the back of the restaurant.
The gas lamps flickered as he made his way towards the table, and a few people glanced sideways in indifferent curiosity at the shabby old man. He pulled at the chair and lowered himself into it with difficulty. He sat for a moment, observing his surroundings. Adjacent to his table sat a young couple. The young man sat with his elbows on the table, and looked into the eyes of the young woman with ardent tenderness. The young lady sat blushing and smiling, and returned the loving look with an equally sparkling eye. The old man grunted.
Young love. He thought. Just give it a year and then see how much they coo at each other. The old man leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms. Amid the muffled swell of mingling voices, the bell at the door tinkled, and a thin young man appeared in the doorway. He was wet as a string of seaweed, and looked like he hadn’t had a proper meal in months. He removed his dripping coat—a thin, pitiful thing all filled with holes—and began to look around impatiently. The old man groaned inwardly when he realized that he was looking for a seat. The only available seat in the restaurant was the empty one across from himself. The old man hastened to hang his overcoat on the chair to make it appear occupied, but it was too late. The string of seaweed was already making its way over to his table. The young man stood beside the chair.
“Is this seat occupied?” he asked. The old man shrugged. “Thank you.” The young man said, and sad down. The old man couldn’t help but think that the way his long legs stuck out from the table made him look like a giant cricket at an undersized table. The young man glanced around. “Have you been waited on?” he asked. The old man’s head jerked a negative.
A friendly neighbor I have found. The young man thought as he glanced around for a waiter. He finally caught the attention of one, and the waiter made his way over to their table.
“What would you have, sir?” The waiter jerked his chin at the old man.
“Coffee.” He growled. “No cream or sugar.”
The waiter nodded at the long-legged young man.
“Coffee with sugar and extra cream.” The waiter hurried off. The young man crossed his arms and glanced at the old man. The old man, arms crossed, glanced back with beady black glare.
“So,” The young man queried, “Do you dine here often?”
The old man coughed. “At this dirty joint? Never. I am here because the rain gave me no choice.” The young man tapped the side of his chair.
I wish it had. He thought. They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Do you have any family?”
The old man gave him a withering glance. “What’s it to you?”
The young man raised his eyebrows. Of all the stubborn, mule-headed old—He exhaled slowly.
“I’m Aleksander.” He said, stretching his hand across the small table. “What’s your name?”
The old man stared at the hand, and then shrugged. “Gavril.”
Aleksander withdrew his hand. They again sat in a brooding silence, each resolving that they thoroughly disliked the other. The young man rubbed his chin, and stared at Gavril.
“May I ask you something, Gavril?”
The black beads glared at him, and then the old man shrugged.
“Why are you so disagreeable?” he leaned forward. “Do you have some sort of grudge against me? I can’t sit anywhere else in this restaurant—else I would—why can’t you at least be civil?”
The old man leaned across the table as far as his stiff bones would permit. “And can I ask you something, young man.”
Aleksander crossed his arms and tilted his head.
“Why are you so insistent to pry into my affairs? If I wish to keep them to myself, what is that to you?”
Aleksander was losing patience. “Maybe because I want to be kind to a fellow human!” red flecks of color appeared in his pale cheeks. “Maybe because I want to show a little bit of compassion and love to a—“
“Hush, boy, hush!” The old man hissed, “You are drawing attention to yourself.” He shook his silvery head. “Love?” he snorted, his face erupting into a thousand wrinkles as he knit his thick brows. “Love?” He chuckled sardonically. “My son, you will soon learn that there is no such thing in this world.”
Aleksander sat back in his chair with a thump and threw up his bony arms.
“You sad, sad man!” he said, looking wonderingly at Gavril, “What horrid fate has left you with such a dreary view of life! Love is,” he looked at the sagging ceiling for inspiration, “as real as the world itself! It touches our hearts in so many different ways, at so many subtle times! The need for love and the desire to bestow it upon others was built in us from the day we were formed in our mother’s womb—to deny that it exists is to deny the existence of any human emotions or feeling. Love—or the absence of it—defines the way we act on a day to day basis! To say love is not a reality is—“
The old man held up his hand. “Aleksander, I was once young like you. I was youthful and passionate, and thought of love as one of the most glorious emotions that could ever charm the mind of man. I traveled to Italy, and met my future wife, Maria.” His eyes stared blankly ahead, lost in an absent mist of memory. “When I met her, something in me was captivated the first time she smiled at me. I was convinced that I was in love with her. She told me she was in love with me too, and so we ran away to be married. The first year or so was perfect bliss.
“ Maria and I got along perfectly, and seemed to love each other so dearly.” He sighed, and passed a withered hand over his eyes. “Then, we began to quarrel, and badger each other about our flaws, and soon, all presence of love disappeared from our marriage. I hate to go home now—I feel absolutely no love towards her, or anyone for that matter. I have ceased to believe in love—my past “love” for her must have been only a fancy or passing novelty. I wonder how people can believe in such nonsense.”
Aleksander stared thoughtfully into his coffee.
“You know Gavaril,” He began slowly, “Love is a choice—although it is a choice that often is accompanied by tender emotion, or feeling—it is still a choice.”
The old man’s bushy white brows twitched cynically.
“Aleksander, when I first got to know Maria, I don’t remember consciously thinking to myself, ‘You know, I think from now on I will love this young woman.’, just as I don’t remember consciously choosing to stop loving her. It just happened.” The rift between his brows deepened. “She probably despises me as well—bah—she won’t speak as much as two words to me.”
The rain had abated, and a few patrons had risen to depart into the chilly Moscow air. For some reason, the old man made no move to leave the table. Aleksander wondered at this, but continued the conversation with a question.
“But yet, would you agree that you chose to keep loving her, at least for time?”
The old man shrugged. Aleksander wondered if that was the only thing he ever did.
“If you could call it that, yes. If you would call overlooking her many faults on a daily basis love, than I suppose I did. But my patience eventually ran thin.”

*To be continued...

Silent Soul

2008-12-01T16:17:00.001-05:00

As the troubled ochre sky dimmed to grey, a lone man named Writhen walked slowly into a shadowy forest. Writhen may have been a strong, handsome man—except for the way he carried himself, lifting each foot and placing it in front of the other as if it was an afterthought, and hanging his head as if he had nothing to be proud of nor confident in. He wore a simple tunic under a dark thick robe. No breeze played through the branches or caught the hem of his garment. All was dead still in the lonely wood, even the rambling feelings of this one man’s heart.

He found a smallish clearing where the creeping dusk was not so oppressive and sat down on a fallen pine, hugging his knees to his chest, deep in thought. Thought? That was the only luxury still available him. The distraction of war had passed by his realm. And he had banished the very inner whisperings of love or any other feeling from his once-tormented soul.

In fact, his soul was barred from speaking to him now. He had made it so. Writhen turned away everything he received from his soul, and that is why he did not know he was lonely. He did know that he had abolished those old irrational qualms. He knew that his feelings would never get in his way again. Was he satisfied? Was he happy now that his soul could no longer speak? He could not possibly be—all of that was mere emotion.

Night fell slowly. Only here could his mind be away from other stimuli, free to explore on its own, to scrabble around as through a barren moor under a dark empty sky stretching to the horizon, to try desperately to make up for a soul that no longer spoke.

Writhen had lost his wife to war with a neighboring country three years ago. Unable to bear the cold, heavy sorrow, he banished his soul. Each time the pain of love lost stabbed through him, he willfully pushed it aside. It happened less and less now. Oh, his soul was still there, sulking in some dark recess of his consciousness, but by three years of practiced and calculated indifference, he had shoved his soul away.

Writhen’s body felt chilled and his mind silently responded. He collected wood in quick, mechanical motions, and built a fire in front of him. He could not be glad of the warmth or light—only use it for his own purposes, to push the distraction of cold from his mind.

For a man whose soul had a place, long reflection would bring back memories inextricably woven together with emotion: the joy of bringing a child into the world, the pain of witnessing suffering, or the satisfaction of earning glory hard-won in battle or trade. But no spectre of joy or suffering or glory passed through this man’s mind—only records, records of memories, records of victories, records of brutal war, of taking the innocent life of an enemy when it was unneeded—without a soul, the man coolly observed, one does things which others not similarly unfettered dare not do.

A quiet rustling in the bushes pierced the unlit trail of his thoughts. Acting on carefully practiced reflex, Writhen crushed the hot embers under his boot and melted into the long shadows of the underbrush. His eyes watched the clearing keenly, adjusting to the moonlight that streamed fitfully through the trees above. He could hear a person or large animal tramping through the woods.

In a moment, the dim figures of an old man and young woman came into the clearing. The lady tiptoed to where the fire had been and held her hand over the dirt. “It is still warm, Father,” he heard her say. “It was a fire that we saw.”

“Can we start it again?” the old man asked. “I feel that I cannot travel any further tonight.”

“Certainly.” the girl replied. “But I wonder who left it so quickly.”

“It was I,” said Writhen, stepping from the shadows. Both travelers gasped and stepped back. “My name is Writhen. You have nothing to fear from me,” he continued. “I will light the fire again.” He quickly reassembled the wood and kindled some dry grass, starting a happy crackling blaze. He sat back on the log and resumed his customary brooding silence.

“Thank you,” the young lady ventured, after a few minutes of awkward stillness.

“I did not do it for you or your father,” the man replied in a measured voice. “The cold distracts me.” He looked up to see if she understood and they locked eyes. What the woman saw only confirmed what she heard. His eyes were empty.

Many evil men have eyes of hatred or pride; eyes that reveal their inner selves. This man’s eyes conveyed no hidden beauty or ugliness because he had none. Even in the firelight, the lady could see that.

“Yes, I am bereft of soul,” the man said, seeing the girl’s questioning stare. “Three years ago my wife died in war, and I have rid myself of sorrow for the loss and hatred for her killers.”
“Do I like it this way? I cannot say,” the man continued in an even tone. “But I do not hate you, nor do I feel compassion for you, nor do I feel the need to offer you a place closer by the fire. My mind and body serve me.”

“Serve whom? You are not a person—what are you?” the girl shot back.

“I am a person, only one with a silent soul.”

“No, I mean a person—one who loves, and hates, and one that rejoices and suffers and triumphs and fails, one that looks forward to the rising of the sun and fears the coming of night. That is the person you are not,” said the young woman. Her father leaned forward to the fire, listening.

“And that is precisely why I do not choose the way of fettered man—bound by hatred, suffering, failure, fear—what could possibly induce any mind given the choice to choose this?” Writhen asked, not raising his voice.

“Because—because when I feel what I think, it becomes more real,” she said. “My emotions make every experience more tangible and meaningful when I live not only by intellect, but by the impact my intellect has on me.”

Writhen laughed—a laugh not born from happiness, but one commanded by his mind to fit the situation. He leaned forward, looking into the fire. “When I used to impact my decisions with emotion, it made me partial,” he said. “Sorrow, which you think so needful, only got in my way. Now I think in a void, unencumbered.” Writhen glanced back at the girl. There was a look in her eyes that he had not seen in a very long time. She looked pained—almost sad—but still with that concern for him. “Why do you look at me like that?” Writhen said, getting to his feet. “You do not need to pity me! Waste your compassion elsewhere.”

“I have every reason to feel compassion for you,” she said quietly, locking eyes with him, till he could bear it no longer. He blinked and looked away.

“I do not need pity.”

“You cannot see yourself from where you are, Writhen,” the girl said. “Everything is alive around you, but you are dead inside—life isn’t just about breathing. I should pity you.”

“You should indeed,” Writhen scoffed.

For several minutes the old silence resumed. Then in an impulsive moment, the girl’s father leaned forward, asking, “If you were given the choice, would you rather have a blade of steel or a blade of grass?”

The cloaked man did not hesitate. “A blade of steel.” No one spoke for a time.

“When your wife lived,” the old man asked, “would you have chosen her over a blade of steel?”

“I would have then. Now, I’m not so certain,” the man replied.

“Why do you value a sword over grass? Do you have a reason?” the father asked, smiling.

“Because it is of more use to me,” he said.

“And that is a reason, correct?”

“Yes,” the man said, wondering if he had made an implicit concession.

“And you must have had a reason to value your wife over your sword three years ago,” the old man suggested, stealing a sidewise glance at the cloaked figure.

“Yes, but only because at that time my soul could speak,” the man asserted, his brow tightening.

“Then yours was a reasonable love?” the old man asked with a smile. Writhen did not answer him, and the whole group was plunged again into the ominous silence that wrapped around Writhen like his cloak. The old man leaned back again. “I fought in the war where your wife was killed. You lived in a town just across the river. It was one night—a sudden raid—we did not know that we were raiding your house—she was slain in her sleep.” The old man sighed and was silent for several minutes. “It was me. I am sorry,” he finally said.

“It was you?” the cloaked man asked, looking at him for the first time.

“Do you not remember the older man who held the sword above you when you woke, and took you as a prisoner to your enemy’s camp? You were spared because of your rank.” He paused and added quietly, “I wouldn’t have killed her if I had known who she was.”

An awkward silence followed. The man with the silent soul probed each of his unwelcome guests with his piercing eyes.

After holding the two in his iron gaze for some time, he released them and looked away. “I will stay awake the night,” he said, not turning his head back. “You are safe here.” He heard them trying to find a comfortable place on the hard stony ground. After some time the rustling stopped, and the clearing was again plunged into quietness.

The look that he had seen in the girl’s eyes had brought a long-forgotten empty achiness to his stomach. Just the thought of what he had seen dredged up countless memories which he dutifully repressed. And the mere thought of his wife’s killer brought to mind a host of other emotions.

The unrequited compassion the girl showed him did not seem reasonable. He had, for the past three years, come to believe that love was not a reasonable thing—by the sheer force of believing, he had no longer needed to prove it to himself.

But he couldn’t prove it to the girl when she prodded him to do so. She had a reason for feeling compassion for him, as inane as he thought it. She saw the lives of others around her, and how they enjoyed those lives, tumultuous as he knew they were. Did they have something he did not?

No, he had experienced their life and his. Did he like having a silent soul? He couldn’t know. Long-forgotten memories began to surface.

Only a few weeks ago, he had been walking through the rough streets of an unfamiliar town. A little beggar-child had hobbled out to him on one leg and a crutch, holding out his cracked, dirty hands for a piece of bread, a copper penny—anything to satisfy his hunger. One look at the little boy’s pinched white face had brought back that echoing ache to his mind. In his haste to escape his tormented soul, he had shoved the little boy’s hands away and passed by without a word.

Now, as his wandering mind crossed the thought of the old man’s confession, a red flush crossed his brow. Perhaps it was nothing more than an old whisper of the past, that distant memory of unsatisfied hatred.

He certainly had a reason to hate the old man now—any man would have reason to hate whoever murdered his wife. He caught himself thinking from the perspective of those who had souls. But I am not like them. Three years ago, when this man had murdered his wife, he had hated. When the hatred burned him up inside, he pushed it and everything else away, reasoning that he had no cause for anger—the deed was done, and he was only distracting himself. The old man had carefully prodded his notion of the unreasonableness of feelings—though perhaps to his own detriment.

A memory rose up inside him from his past like old, stagnant water from a mossy well. His brooding visage had never been an asset to him, and on one particular day he felt that flush of the brow as a broad-shouldered shopkeeper had flippantly jeered him in the streets. He had turned and walked away, feeling nothing more than that tinge of inner flames. A battle of conflicting thoughts pounded through his troubled mind.

The three passed the night this way—Writhen thinking, the old man and his daughter trying to sleep on the hard ground. When the old man woke again, the man with whom he had spoken the night before was in the exact same position—hand on chin, elbow on knee, staring into the fluffy ashes of the dead fire. A creeping pre-dawn greyness was already upon them. “Where are you traveling?” Writhen asked, moving nothing but his lips.

“Just the next village to the east,” the old man said sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

“I know it well,” Writhen said, turning finally. “Shall I lead you there?”

“Certainly,” the old man said, “we would be glad of assistance.” He woke his daughter and they bundled their scarce possessions together into a blanket.

“I can carry that for you,” Writhen said, standing up and offering an upturned palm. The old man handed him the bundle, and the young lady glanced up at him with a look of wonder. He did not return her gaze, but turned swiftly and began walking down the faint path from which he had come the evening before.

Writhen walked with long strides through the forest. The young woman and her father could barely keep up with his pace, though it was only a short distance to the surrounding plains. The intensity of the ambient light around them grew slowly as time passed. Just as they cleared the edge of the forest, a fragment of sunlight crept over the horizon, bathing them all in ruddy early-morning light. The fresh cold dew in the grass sparkled as the sun’s rays scattered through it as through a field of perfectly cut gems. The girl and her father could both feel the liveliness of the world around them—almost as if life itself were seeping from the ground.

“There is the town you seek,” Writhen said, indicating with his finger a small group of cottages just in view across the fields.
“Thank you, sir,” the old man said, extending his hand. Writhen shook his hand and smiled. It was a grim sad smile, but unmistakably real.

“You’re welcome,” he said simply.

The sunrise shone full into the man’s face. As the young woman turned to thank him and bid him farewell, she saw his spirit in his eyes. She did not yet know what to think of the new man revealed to her—a curious warring mixture of hatred and love—but knew that he had found himself once more. She smiled, turned, and walked away.

Writhen sat down suddenly on the wet grass, watching the two retreating figures. He felt numb, unable to feel anything around him. He only felt on the inside now.

As the months passed, Writhen slowly learned to listen to his soul again—he loved, he hated, he rejoiced, suffered, triumphed, failed, hoped, and feared.

His soul was back, and it was not silent.

Bint

2008-12-01T16:15:00.001-05:00

Mornings in the Forest of Newell—when it didn’t rain—were always more beautiful than any morning nearby, and this one was no exception. The chirping birds in the branches above the main road through the wood sang merrily to a procession of nearby royalty, accompanied by velvet-garbed courtiers and jolly men-at-arms. The morning was going splendidly for all, and especially for one particular princess who rode near the front. She was young, fair to behold, and the object of special attention by the joking young noblemen who rode around her. She chatted lightly with them all, their threads of effervescent conversation diving in and out of broad and shallow topics like the swooping songbirds in the branches above them.

Their frivolity was suddenly interrupted by the sound of raucous, nonsensical chattering. Ahead on the path, three little figures bounded into view. Each of them couldn’t have been more than three feet tall, but they made up for their stature by their curious antics. One somersaulted down the path, landing on his feet with his arms spread wide, grinning foolishly at the nobility. Another spun towards the group in crazy circles, his hands whirling about him, till he fell in a heap next to his friend, and the last did a cartwheel and flopped into the dust of the road, laughing. Then, in a moment, the royal mounts reared in panic, whinnying and kicking wildly. For the little creatures were rushing through the lines of horses, poking and prodding them all into an uproar. One imp—for that was what the little creatures were—took a wrong step, fell to the ground, and was pounced upon by the angry guards. They held him by his rough orange hair and the collar of his green suit till his homely face screwed up into a painful grimace. Once the courtiers brought the horses back under control, the two other imps scattered, laughing and singing little nonsense rhymes to each other as they bounded into the forest. The one that had been caught struggled manfully, wailing in terror when he saw a man-at-arms raise his sword to dispatch the little troublemaker. They stopped when the princess said suddenly, “Oh, don’t kill it—let it live; I’m sure it won’t bother us again.”

After a dreadful pause (for the imp, that is), the guards set him down again, mumbling through their beards something about Justice and Order. The little forest imp did not scamper off like the others; he stood rooted to the ground, gazing up in the princess’ face, which by this time had turned back to her admirers, laughing and chatting again as if nothing had happened. The imp stood there for a moment, his usually lively green eyes fixed gravely on the princess. Then he reached with one stubby hand into a little cloth pouch around his neck and withdrew a polished green stone.

It was his most prized possession. He had found it in a pebbly brook when he was just a young imp, and the greenish sparkle caught his eye. Each imp was required by long tradition to have a gem or stone of some sort—almost like their identity, it was the most important thing each imp owned. Some of the more superstitious men still believed that imps were not born, but called up by means of their stone. Over the years, this imp’s stone had been worn smooth by constant handling in his dirty hands, but it had never lost the glassy green hue he found it with. He tugged gently on the reins the princess held. She looked down, a smile still on her lips. He held the little green stone out to her without a word, and she took it from him. “What is your name, or do you have one?” the princess asked, eyeing the stone with the hint of a smirk.

“Bint,” the imp said, in a thick woodsy accent.

“Bint,” the princess repeated, giggling and turning back to her suitors to laugh about this new topic. He just stood there, palm still outstretched, waiting to see if she’d turn back and speak to him again with that melodic voice. When the guards saw that she had turned away, one cuffed Bint with the back of his hand and the other pushed him roughly out of the procession and into the underbrush at the side of the road.

Wiping suddenly-forming tears from the corners of his eyes, Bint stumbled into the forest and watched from there until the procession set out again and disappeared from sight. Then he stepped out into the road and plodded along after them well behind, careful to stay out of sight. The one peculiar thing about imps is that, no matter how mischievous they may be, an imp will do almost anything to find a real friend. The imps who had escaped into the wood were not really his friends—only his companions in mischief-making. They ran away after he was caught, a proof to the kind of friends they really were. Bint thought he had found a true friend in the laughing princess who had saved his life, and he was determined to pursue her and do whatever he could to win her friendship.

He kicked at the rocks in the road with his bare feet as he walked, keeping his eyes down on the road. Then his foot struck a dusty green pebble. He picked it up and wiped it with the corner of his ragged coat. It was his little rock, the one he had given the princess. She must have dropped it by accident in the road as she went by. Slipping the stone reverently into his pouch, he resumed walking, determined to return his stone to the princess.

The sun climbed and then fell in the sky as the little imp followed the confused hoof-prints left by the procession. He could still hear them talking, laughing, and enjoying their light and petty friendships somewhere in the distance. Perhaps they were still talking about him.

In time the road led through a large town with a walled keep in the center. He had to be careful when trudging through these streets—the only reason an imp came into the city nowadays was to make mischief for the shopkeepers and townspeople. He ignored the raucous gaffes, insults, and blows aimed at him by passers-by—Bint’s only thought was to keep the procession close by and find the princess when he could.

He hurried along until he found himself at the iron gate of the little castle. It had just closed behind the princess and her entourage, and two tall guards with crossed poleaxes stood to bar his way. Seeing him gazing up at the walls, one barked, “You little fiend! What are you doing here?”

The guard advanced, and in a flash, Bint ducked under his spear and scampered over the wall. He was used to climbing in the forest, and the wall posed little difficulty for his adept fingers and toes. Slipping between the merlons, he slid down the other side and landed in the courtyard. A cry of alarm from a guard on the wall startled him as he ran towards the princess, who was just dismounting with the help of an attendant. She looked at him, puzzled, as he neared her. At that moment, an arrow pierced his back, shot from the top of the wall.

The princess screamed as Bint cried out and tumbled to the ground at her feet. She knelt before the gasping Bint. One of his hands was outstretched to her, closed tightly and trembling. The princess held the imp’s tiny hand in hers. It opened, and the green stone dropped into her palm.

“You dropped this,” Bint said, “And I wanted you to have it because…you saved my life.” The princess took the little stone in the palm of her hand, not daring to tell the imp that she had dropped it purposefully.

“I told you…my name,” the imp wheezed, his green eyes opening a crack. “What’s your name?” He coughed from the effort of speaking.

“Eileen. My…my name is Eileen,” the princess said, holding the stone clasped between her hand and Bint’s.

“Eileen. Eileen,” Bint said faintly. “Thank you for…for saving my life in the wood. You are so…so grand and beautiful—and I am just an imp—but…can I…be your friend?”

“You can be my friend, Bint,” Eileen said, as a crystal tear formed in the corner of her eye. “You can be my friend.” She raised his shoulders up gently.

Bint smiled, closed his eyes, and lived his last breath in the arms of a true friend.

A tale of the Holocaust...

2008-11-25T22:46:00.006-05:00

The putrid stench hung in the air of the crowded room. Hollow faces blinked out of the dark ranks of bunks at other hollow faces. The odor of dirty, disease-torn bodies crowded close was enough to make one gag, but the children stuffed into Bunkhouse 14 didn't seem to care. The hungry eyes of the numerous boys and girls stared out of blank sockets, marked with the striking gleam of sickness and starvation.

The walls of the room (if they could be called so) quivered and groaned as trucks rolled by—trucks hauling more hollow faces to other crowded bunkhouses. Here and there in the smoke-sodden walls the chinking had fallen away, allowing small strands of blazing light to pierce the greasy darkness. A beam of light fell on the face of a shivering child who was huddled in a corner. She blinked her large blue eyes in the glaring stream of light. The light gleamed on her face, penetrating the translucent skin and carrying with it a breath of heavenly warmth. A sigh of comfort escaped her thin lips, and for a moment her sorrowful brow relaxed. She rested her slight frame against the boards. Suddenly, an enormous weight was thrown against the opposite side of the wall.

"Schauen Sie mich an!"

The child screamed and sprang back from the wall. Crash!

“Jüdisches Schwein! Jewish pig!"

Through the gaping slits in the boards, the horrified children watched as uniformed Nazi soldiers repeatedly beat a prostrate figure with their guns. With one strong kick, the man was again hurtled against the boards of the bunkhouse. He moaned, and then lay still. A soldier laughed coarsely. Grabbing the still form by his naked feet, the soldiers dragged him away through the mud, shouting hoarsely and slapping each other on the backs.

The little girl was now shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. The room was deathly quiet except for the weak wail of a baby, and the choking sobs of the little girl. After a few long seconds of agonizing silence, a figure quietly descended from the topmost bunk. He was a boy of about fifteen, his age nearly unintelligible because of the effects of slow starvation. Only shreds of an ill-fitting suit covered his thin frame, and his feet were bare and covered in scabs. But something extraordinary distinguished this boy from the other forty or so bedraggled inmates of Bunkhouse 14. Something almost unknown to the frightened and impoverished children. Out of his clear grey eyes shone an indescribable light—a light that seemed to pierce the mottled darkness of the room—a glow that soothed the darkest shadow of terror. A light that was at once sad, but wonderful—at once depicting deep anguish, but radiant joy.

The boy quietly lowered himself to the ground and placed his pale hand on the head of the sobbing child. Her tearful eyes met his soft gaze. Her sobs began to subside, as if under a soothing balm. She instinctively reached out to him, and he folded the small form in his arms.

"Shh, my dear Greta…" He wiped the tears from her face. "We are in His hand—Yeshua knows our sorrows.”

"Yeshua?!" a snort came from nearby bunk. "Oh, you must mean that hoodlum Jesus!" the owner of the voice raised himself from the darkness, revealing the savage, starving face of a boy of about seventeen. "So!" He sneered, "You are one of those Christ-followers! Rotten heretics! Why do you so stubbornly follow the fairy-tales created by a man who's been dead for almost two thousand years! As if your Jesus could save you now…” he spat at the boy’s feet. “You should have been crucified with Him."

The dark-haired boy did not raise his eyes, but at the last words of his antagonist, an incredible pensiveness came over his face.

"That would have been an honor I never could be worthy of," He closed his eyes. "although I deserve every stripe that was laid on his innocent shoulders, and every insult that was hurled at his pure name. And yet," he cradled the small child in his arms, and smiled wonderingly. "He freely gave his life for you and me."

"Psssh!" the boy hissed malevolently. "Shut up! This nonsense is hurting my ears. If I were stronger I would thrash you!" his threat ended in a rasping fit of coughing. His thin frame contorted with each racking spasm. The dark-haired boy gently set the child down and crossed the room to a grimy stool, on which sat a bucket of fetid water. A ladle dangled from a hook. The boy took the ladle and dipped it into the bucket, gently pushing aside the sludge that floated on the surface so that none slipped into the cup. He walked back to the coughing figure, and silently offered the ladle, his eyes soft with compassion. The boy snatched at the ladle, and took a drink.

"Faugh!" he choked, spewing the water in the boy’s face, "Do you mean to poison me?" he hurled the ladle against the wall, and turned as a coughing spasm seized his body. “The Nazi’s give their dogs better water than this filth.”

“Avi,” the dark-haired boy said softly, “even the most pure water could never ease your thirst, or cure your pain.” he reached inside his tattered shirt. From a frayed cord around his neck, he drew out a small, well-worn Bible. “But,” his eyes gently sought Avi’s averted gaze, “this Book tells us of Water that can satisfy our deepest longings…forever.”

Avi turned his face towards the boy standing by his bunk. His face was contorted with rage.

“Do you think that I care?” He exploded, rising up on a thin arm. “Do you think that I care about your Jesus? Fool! You’re a fool to think that your Jesus can do anything more than provide a good story.” His breath came in heaving rasps. “Leave me be… you chazir!” He flopped back into his bunk, his face contorted in pain.

The quiet figure sadly lowered his head. Suddenly, the clatter of boots was heard on the steps of Bunkhouse 14. The helmeted heads of two Nazi soldiers appeared in the doorway.

*This story is still in progress...please feel free to suggest improvements on writing style, grammar, etc.!

Missing Pearls

2008-05-01T16:55:00.004-04:00

A little girl sifts through the sand
Peers at wet gravel in her hand

She looks for something shining bright
For shells, sparkly sand dollars, white

For something large, with glamor filled
Won't settle for one till she's thrilled

But all the while, she passes by
Little things that don't catch her eye

And through her fingers slips the prize
This little girl was not so wise

The pearl drops down, the girl wants more
The pearl that's missed lies on the shore

This foolish girl, who dreamed of shells
Missed pearls, now lost in ocean swells

Library

2008-05-01T16:07:00.001-04:00

I sprinted down the long straight corridor, the soles of my shoes thudding on the worn linoleum floor, footsteps echoing down the hall. The bare doors rushed past me in a blur, but I paid them no heed. An old brass key on a worn piece of twine slapped against my heaving chest. I dared not think to remember the price that I had paid for this key --- or would pay when the Authority found me out. The end of the hall came closer, and I slowed to a quick walk. In this desolate corner stood an old wooden door, faced with iron and held shut by an old lock. With trembling hands, I withdrew the key from my sweat-soaked shirt and furtively glanced behind me. The way was clear. I tried to push the key into the old padlock, but it would not go in. I grasped the lock and blew quickly into it. A cloud of dust puffed out. Coughing, I inserted the key again and turned, straining against years of rust and age. After a high-pitched grating sound, I heard a faint click.

The heavy door swung in silently and effortlessly, as if its hinges had been carefully maintained since the day long ago when it had first been hung. The first breath of air I took left me with a curious scent: an aged, dusty smell. I took a step into the room and was surprised to find dust-matted carpet in place of the drab linoleum in the hall. Wiping the dust away with the side of my foot, I saw a faint vestige of its long-forgotten pattern: it had once been intricately woven and brilliantly colorful. The room itself was a small one, lined with deep mahogany bookshelves on either side. Inside was dark and warm when contrasted with the garish light and cold in the hall. I found a small switch to the right of the door and clicked it on. In an instant, the room was flooded with warm golden light from a dusty brass chandelier carrying a dozen old incandescent bulbs. I could now see in the center of the room a large leather chair, an ottoman, and a glowing lamp sitting atop a small table.

I closed the heavy door behind me and began slowly walking by the shelves, my head inclined sideways --- though craning my head sideways hurt my neck dreadfully. The reeducation programs through which I had gone never encouraged reading --- and all they gave us to read was Authority propaganda --- but I could still understand the titles. As I saw one which intrigued me, I would take it down from the shelf and gingerly place it under my arm. After I had accumulated a stack of seven or eight, I walked to the chair, but as I passed a shelf, one volume caught my eye above all others. It was perhaps older --- or less well-preserved --- than the titles I held under my arm. I set my stack of books down on the dusty carpet and slid this one out carefully.

I held in my hand a rather thick, leather-bound book. I could tell that the book had once been beautifully made, but the gold-edged pages had long since been scored beyond recognition and the dark leather spine was cracked along the edges. I could barely read the title, but it took my breath away. I had never heard this word before.

The Bible.

What could it mean? With trembling hands, I lowered myself into the deep leather chair and gingerly opened the book near the middle. I could hear the faint peeling crack of the pages, long-joined together, opening for the first time in unnumbered years. The musty smell that leapt off the page at me was not a sour, foul scent, but one that exuded timeless age and wisdom, something that hearkened to long study and discovery of knowledge, to the uncovering of long-forgotten truth. I knew that something about this book, more than anything else --- not something as trivial as the smell or the name --- was incredibly precious. I began reading.

It told the story of a perfect Man who died a horrible death. Somehow I got the impression that He died for those around Him, and that somehow, His death erased their sins. For me, the realization of depravity and this Man's perfection was earth-shattering. The Authority had told me none of this. All I knew was what they had told me --- till now. I continued reading --- this time about the impact of this Man's death and resurrection on the people around Him. It read like a great work of fiction, yet I felt that it was more real than just words. I read for hours.

I jumped up suddenly, hearing the loud clump of many booted feet coming down the hall. I glanced around furtively. There was no escape from this room. In my trembling, white-knuckled hands, the precious book lay. Without warning, the door crashed open and four white-uniformed Officers burst in. In a moment they had beaten me to the ground with their night-sticks. One tried to wrench the book from my iron grip. I released it only when I knew that struggling would destroy the book. I let my body go limp, waiting for them to stop beating me. Finally, after a terse, commanding word, the four Officers stopped. I looked up through bleary eyes and saw the polished black boots of a Superior Officer standing in front of my face. One toe tapped impatiently on the carpet. I looked up further. The book was in his hands. He was reading it.

The Officers pulled me up to a standing position and released me. Bruised and bloody, I waited in tense silence as the Superior Officer finished. He snapped the book closed and tested its weight in his gloved hand. He stared at me for several moments, but said nothing. Then, in an impulsive flick of his wrist, he slapped the book across my face. He nodded to the Officers behind me, and they pushed me out of the room and back into the hall. From behind me, I heard the scrape of a match. The Superior Officer came out of the room as the crackling sound of flames rose in my ears. The Officers shoved me down to my knees as the Superior Officer turned smartly to face me, his heels clacking together.

The look of quiet, clinical hatred was plain on his face. For him it was not an emotion --- it was a way of life, a creed --- not a means to an end, but an end itself. For the first time in my life I recognized depravity --- mine and his alike. He held in his gloved right hand a black service pistol. He idly fiddled with the safety as he stared coldly at me. But he knew. He knew that I knew. He knew that I believed. The bullet wouldn't stop anything.

Another Keystone Excerpt

2008-04-04T14:08:00.002-04:00

A warm touch—it was the first thing Veneficus felt. Indeed, it seemed as though he had felt nothing else pleasant for years and years. Bitter cold stung his skin and chilled him to the bones. All felt frozen except for his cheek, on which rested a warm, tender hand. He dared not stir, lest he frighten away this comforting touch. Suddenly the hand moved, stroking his beard and occasionally brushing his chin. It felt wonderful! The ice which had frozen his veins melted and rippled through him like liquid joy.
At last Veneficus dared to open his eyes. A pair of large, brown eyes in turn stared back at him just inches away. Long, soft lashes framed them, occasionally batting together like the wings of a resting butterfly. The black pupils jumped back and forth every few seconds, taking it in turns to stare into each of his eyes. The hand on his cheek lifted away to brush a lock of wavy chocolate hair from the enchanting face before him...
Veneficus drew a sharp breath. Rubbing his eyes, he lifted his head and realized that he had been lying on his side, face-to-face with this person. She too sat up, smiling broadly. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but someone seemed to have stolen his voice.
“Veneficus.” said the woman, speaking his name as he had heard it spoken before by only one person.
“Ar—arabella?” he asked, hardly daring to hope. His heart had stopped beating.
She raised an eyebrow playfully. “Was there someone else you expected to see here?”
“A—are you—real?”
“As real as you are mister, and don’t you forget it!” she huffed, still grinning.
“I won’t! I mean it’s…how did you get here?”
“Does it matter?”
“Well, yes!”
“Why?”
He paused, but couldn’t think of a satisfactory answer. All he knew was that the love of his life was sitting here before his eyes—something he thought was no longer possible.
“Then can you honestly tell me that you’re not some kind of dream or fantasy?” he asked, trying to remain rational.
She smirked mischievously, and Veneficus knew already the joke she was dying to make. But she instead decided to answer sincerely. “No, I’m afraid I can’t.”
Veneficus sighed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”
She crossed her legs and pulled herself closer to him across the sunlit, white linens. Touching his shoulder, she frowned. “Don’t I feel real?”
“Well, yes. But isn’t that exactly what you’d expect from a dream?” he asked.
“Hmm…well I can’t say that I’ve had that many dreams lately. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I even slept.”
“You don’t need to?”
“Oh no, of course not! But enough about me. What have you been doing since I left? How are things getting along at Mystice?”
Veneficus wasn’t at all in the mood for small-talk. His head was positively spinning, and he couldn’t make a scrap of sense out of any of this. Where was he? How was this conversation even possible? And most importantly, how could he keep himself from waking up and leaving this wonderful place?
“Veneficus?”
He looked up. Arabella had leaned very close now, and was trying to catch his gaze again. Her expression had drastically changed.
“Please talk to me.” she said, blinking a little more quickly than usual. “I’ve missed you—so much.”
Veneficus wanted more than anything to seize her in his arms and hold her. His heart ached to kiss her and stroke her hair and feel her heartbeat next to his. He longed to sense that she was really there—to keep her forever hidden away—to protect her from the vast and terrible netherworld that had swallowed her up.
But too many years he’d greeted the cold mornings alone, staring bleakly into the void of his own heart. He’d hunted down and killed every last remnant of love and affection in his life, trying to shield himself from reliving the pain of Arabella’s death. He couldn’t possibly love her a second time. He hadn’t the heart to do it.
“It’s been so long since we last spoke.” she whispered, relaxing her shoulders in a subtle invitation for a hug.
Veneficus remained rooted to the spot, refusing to succumb to the terrible longings of this dream.

After a moment’s silence, Arabella’s shoulders went rigid and stiff again. The soft light in her eyes vanished, replaced by bitter disappointment. She blinked angrily, trying to stifle a flow of tears. “You’re not the same Veneficus I knew.” she said. “You’re cold and dead inside. You’ve forgotten how to love! You—you don’t even love me anymore!”
“That’s ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “Of course I do!”
“Really? It shows.” she replied sarcastically.
“Arabella! How can you even say such a thing?”
“Veneficus, stop pretending with me!” she sobbed. “I know you far too well for that. You may deny it, but you’ve grown to hate the thought of our love. You’ve started to hate the very memory of me. The fact is Veneficus—you hate me.”
“No! I love you! I’ve always loved you.” he rebuked, trying to take her hand. She pulled away from his touch.
“Then why do you try so hard to forget me?” she demanded, her lips quivering and her dark, tear-soaked eyes trained on him.
“Because…” he began, searching for the right words. “I—I can’t take it, Arabella. I just can’t bear to live every day wondering what it might have been like if—if you were with me! It’s because I love you so much that I want to forget!”
She shook her head. “And you think that by washing away every trace of affection from your heart, you can escape that pain? Veneficus, it is obvious to me that you have only increased your suffering by denying yourself love. We were not meant to live alone—cut off from everyone as you have tried to be. Depriving yourself of love will not ease the pain, because the pain does not come from love. It comes from Death!”

The name struck Veneficus like a ton of bricks. And indeed, the word she’d spoken was a name. No one who’d heard her tone could have doubted that.
The two stared at one another for what seemed like hours. Veneficus felt no anger, pain, or even a desire to forget. He felt only the echo of Arabella’s last word, ringing through his mind and chilling him once more to the bone. At last, he broke the silence, hoping to melt frost in her eyes.
“You’ve seen Him, haven’t you?”
She nodded.
“Was it the night you…”
“Yes.” she replied, the sorrow in her voice replaced by a fearful hush. “Though, His power over me was limited.”
“What do you mean?” asked Veneficus, trying to ignore the shivers running down his spine.
“Death—Lord Mortis I mean—owns the heart of every human being on earth. We all belong to Him by law. It’s—it’s in our blood. We’re a corrupted race—bound by the chains of lust and greed and treachery.”
“But you said His power over you was limited.” said Veneficus, his voice filled with confusion. “I don’t understand. He—He took you.”
Arabella’s gaze fell and the color drained from her face.
“That’s just the first stage.” she said. “Yes, He destroys physical life by rending the spirit from the body. That happens in one painful but quick moment. It’s terrible but it doesn’t last long. I ought to know.”
She paused, lifting her gaze once more toward Veneficus, a frightened, wide-eyed expression on her face.
“But then, she said, “He wreaks true death—eternal death—upon the spirit. Of that death, there is no end.”
“But how can someone possibly “die forever?” asked Veneficus, fear and doubt clouding his mind simultaneously.
Arabella shut her eyes tight, a single tear rolling down her pale cheek.
“Words could scarcely describe it.” she choked. “Believe me. I’ve seen it.” There was a moment of silence during which her breathing calmed. Then she looked up, her eyes less desperate than before. “But I have been spared from that fate for the time being.” she said.
“How?”
“Because I believed with all my heart that salvation would find us. I knew that somehow, the Creator would make a way for our world to escape Lord Mortis.”
“What do you mean? Who is this ‘Creator’?”
“I’m afraid that no one can answer that question for you, Veneficus. It’s something you must discover for yourself.”

Living in an empty square

2008-02-26T21:31:00.000-05:00

Living in an empty square. The shadows weren’t dark, weren’t light, were just grey. The drab stone gates, statues, long-dry fountains, scattered haphazardly—they weren’t rotted or cracked—just mildewed, old, silent, dead. The square wasn’t empty in the physical sense, just meaningless, hollow. The fog hung limp around it, not a wet fog, not a cold fog, just a still, incoherent haze. To find your way by the meandering walkways was too hard, they turned too many ways, never stayed straight, led you always to the center of the empty square.

Running through the silent forest. No wind moved the dead leaves, no animals crawled across the rotting bark, no grass shot through the dead scrubby undergrowth. I tripped and fell, sinking into the dry, rotting bracken, the forest floor. The fall made little noise. I stood again, pushed myself forward, staggered for the center of the empty square. The center of the empty square? Nothing there, nothing more than the same you’d find anywhere: an empty courtyard, stone cobbles brushed by shuffling dry leaves; still, quiet statues that stood still and cold, icy sentries. We envied them. We worshiped them. Nothing more to do, nothing grander to see. Nothing more than to find a path that did not lead to the center of the empty square.

Running away from the over-trod paths. Nothing more could be found and exhausted in the square: it was all spent, all wasted, we all knew that and ran to the corners, the limits, the extremes. Live no more in the square, maybe outside we’d find more to do? No one had ever been there. I found the edge, disappearing into an oily black. New wonders there to conquer? Someone came up next to me, reached out, touched the blackness, withdrew his hand. It was dead, but he laughed. Here was something new. He flung his body headlong in. Nothing more was heard.

Running away from the edge. Feverish, panting, side aching, pain as real as the square was hollow or the blackness was void. If that was death, and this was life, was there nothing else? Was this all we had to live in? A small empty grey square, surrounded by an endless nameless sea of unspeakable horror? I fell to my knees in the forest, digging through the dry crumbly peat with anxious fingers and short breaths. A few inches below, my fingers fell into cold blackness. I felt the numb cold sting of death pass near to my hand. Too close, the life of death too close, and all around!

Running back to the center. Would the old hollow fulfillment of bowing to the statues, loving the statues, find me there again? I found the center, fell to my face before the stony figure, wrapped my arms round the spongy pedestal, willed my eyes to stay closed. The sculpture tingled in my arms. I stood up again, touched the statue. It crumbled beneath my trembling fingers, leaving a inky emptiness into which the feeble light drained.

Backing up in disbelief. I turned away, not willing to see, but daring to believe. The darkness of the death after life dropped like an icy stone on my heart. A noise behind me. I turned around. Blinding flash of light! I dropped to my knees. But not a flash, for it burned unabated. A gentle voice woke me, soothed me, I opened my eyes. Sinuous tendrils of white-hot light curled and flowed across the worn cobbles to meet my knees. I looked up tremblingly, saw the torch-bearer.

“The torch will guide you,” the torch-bearer said.

“To the path that does not lead to the center of the empty square?”

“To the path that leads where none lead: up.”

I grasped hold of the torch. The light abated somewhat and I could see. Standing tensely and warily, I held the torch for the light to spill around me.

“Do you see it there?” the torch-bearer asked, hand on my shoulder, pointing with a long, straight arm to the center of the empty square. By now a flood of golden light like molten metal poured from the torch and filled the courtyard, basking the lifeless square in its powerful, regal glow. A pure crystal stairway, brilliant, circular and endless, stretching to the pale sky above, began in the middle.

“Where does it lead?”

“The journey will answer your question.”

“Will I be fulfilled?”

“Your expectation of what you’ll find at the top will fulfill you now. Later, you will not need to be filled.” The torch-bearer led me to the foot of the spiral staircase. I stepped up the first step.

“Look around,” the torch-bearer suggested. I did. The hollow, empty square was far away now, and much smaller. Beyond the reaches of the forest, the blackness was rolled up like a scroll by flowing rivers of golden light. The pure clear stair dwarfed it all.

“Will the journey be a hard one?”

“Very. But fear not! Take my hand. Follow my lead.”

Exerpt from KEYSTONE

2008-01-18T23:08:00.000-05:00

This is a section out of a book I've written and which my agent is currently promoting in the CBA. It's always been one of my favorite moments in the story because of how it comes across to most readers. These paragraphs might easily be the most vivid and pleasant bit of narrative I've ever turned out. Enjoy!

__________________________________________

Exerpt from Keystone, chapter V: A Dove Amongst Eagles

They listened. Sure enough, there came a sound. It was a noise which, over the years, Verona and Garvin had grown intimately familiar with, so that they couldn’t possibly mistake it for anything else. It sounded like rhythmic thunder, muffled by heavy clouds or great distance. With each peel, the thunder came closer, filling their ears with deep, graceful vibrations. The two looked up expectantly, but saw nothing.
Just when they began to wonder if their ears had been playing tricks on them however, the burgundy dogwood limbs overhanging the field’s edge swooped aside in a mighty breeze from above, shedding most of their leaves and revealing four massive wings.
Over the trees and out into the expanse soared two colossal birds of prey. The sea of ocher grass beneath them rippled as their forty-foot wings beat down with hurricane force. The larger of the two was covered entirely in rich reddish-gold feathers, giving him a noble and courageous appearance. A wave of resolute bravery welled up inside Verona at the sight of him. The smaller bird sported light ginger plumage which faded evenly into a head of pure white.
Both monstrous eagles wheeled about, scrutinizing the two small humans before them with amber eyes the size of saucers. The great raptors swept toward Verona and Garvin only inches from the grass-tips, unfurling gigantic black talons. Then, before the two humans had time to leap aside, the vast birds swooped elegantly down into the meadow and came to a stop only a few feet in front of them.
“Margen!” Verona cried gleefully, springing forward and seizing the smaller eagle’s neck in a loving embrace. Instead of resisting, the bird merely lowered her head, clicking her huge beak together with pleasure. Garvin waited for Bærnan to fold his expansive red wings before striding over and patting his friend softly on the neck.
Speaking gently to Margen, Verona coaxed the great bird to lie flat on her muscular breast. Then she pulled from her pack a tightly rolled leather strap with holes evenly spaced along most of its length. Carefully passing it around the eagle’s lower neck, she lovingly smoothed out the feathers beneath it as she went. When she had finished, she slung the strap’s two perforated ends over Margen’s brown-sugar nape and slid her hands into the soft, warm gap between the eagle’s body and folded wing. Then with one swift motion, Verona hefted herself onto the left wing and slid into place just behind the eagle’s supple shoulders.
Most of the time, she and her companions would use lightweight saddles specially designed for each bird. For now however, she and Garvin would have to ride bareback. Verona smiled to herself, gently digging her hands beneath the layers of feathers and caressing the lumpy, warm skin of Margen’s shoulder. She loved to ride this way, unencumbered by the bulky saddle which so often separated her from her bird. Without it, she could pull herself in close, burying her face in the fragrant plumage, and let her stomach thrill to the incredible sensations of flight. And although an eagle-saddle would keep a rider securely strapped by the thighs should she lose her grip, Verona preferred the risk and excitement of hanging on with her own hands and legs.
She glanced over to see Garvin watching her, an amused expression on his face. Verona felt her cheeks grow hot and quickly leaned forward to retrieve both ends of the nape-strap. Passing one half through the thin steel buckle of the other, she pulled it fairly tight and locked the strap in place.
“Ready?” teased Garvin, apparently long-finished with Bærnan’s straps.
“Thoroughly.” huffed Verona, tucking the loose end under her buckle.
“Then you know what to do.” he said with a wink.
“So do you!”
“Yeah, but you look funnier doing it.”
Verona shot him a supremely unpleasant look and spread her arms out as wide as she could. Without a harness to guide their birds’ flight, they would just have to use old-fashioned signals.
“Screee!” Verona shrieked rather harshly, coming nowhere close to the elegant call of an eagle. Margen nonetheless got the message, for she suddenly lunged forward, catching Verona off balance and nearly throwing her backwards. Quickly steadying herself, she grabbed the leather strap and held on for dear life. Out shot the wings, down pushed the legs, and in one glorious instant Verona found herself racing skyward, the field and forest fleeing behind her into the vast twilight.

The Swan and the Cheetah

2008-01-15T20:44:00.000-05:00

[This is a short story written a few months ago by my eight-year-old sister. Enjoy!]

once a pona time in a far away land, when I was a wee lassie...there where savages and wild beasts and inchanted castelse . and one king was a lion and his daughter was a swan. Now, the spell came apon the place when his daughter was in town, a witch came to the door of the palace and knocked, the guard anwered the knock with a shrude 'WHAT IS YOUR BIUSSNESS HERE AND WHAT DO YOU WHANT' I want to see the king. ' VERY WELL I WILL SEND YOU TO HIM' so the king said the shrude greeting over again. The witch said : if you promise marridge to my son to win the hand of your daughter then you will be given the rose of buaty, the king, valuing his daughter more than the rose, Refused the offer and ameedietly was turned into a lion , and his daughter a swan. and it was in the land that the spell was upon, there lived a prince ( who was a cheetah ) had a mother who was very ill and that cheetah loved his mother very much, so, he spent all the days of his life working to keep his mother alive , and it was on that day of the arivel of the witch that the prince (the cheetah ) came apon a serpent, and the serpent (who was the witch's son ) sade do you want to marry this girl? Said the serpent shoing him a magikell screen and the prince ameedeitly in love with the girl said will it harm my mother? Oh, said the serpent , she will dy if you come with me and marry the girl. then I will not go if my mother is going to dy. foolish prince you will never then marry the girl. The prince was cooking up a plan , he will kill the serpent and work more until his mother was well then he will go to the palace and marry the girl and at these words he sall a great shadow build up in front of him and he heard a tereified screem and he looked up and sall a gyganteck dragon in front of him and a swan crying out to him HELP and the cheetah ameediitly sprang to achon and killed the dragon and took the the swan that had fainted on his back and carried her home. Now the king was getting very worried and sent out the watch and then the sad watch came home and , without the prinsess and the king cried day and night. The prinsess was sad her self though she loved the prince, to. And the prince worked harder to feed the second mouth . and it was so that the prince had extra money so he bout a map and sall where the palase was and so he wated to take his soon to be bride and one day he had more money and bout a nife and it was on that day he met the witchand her son and suprized them both by killing them and when he came hom and suprized the prinses and the mother and the mother was so happy that the evel witch was dead she jumded write out of bed and was well. And the prince took his bride to the palase and the king being so happy rewarded the prince the hand of the prinses and the spell was broken and that's the end

P.S. I THOT YOU WOULD LIKE IT

LOVE HANNAH.

Zimbabwe

2008-01-11T19:24:00.000-05:00

I wrote this last month for a very specific purpose. I had to give a speech on this paper while simultaneously adhering to the dreaded MLA format. Here is the original essay, unedited and in its original "Modern Language Association" glory:

Minch Minchin
Richard Dickson
ENC 2210
6 December 2007

Polluted Pumps and Pathetic Presidents:
Zimbabwe’s Calamity
The current Zimbabwean economic outlook is frightful. The current Zimbabwean medical outlook is frightful. The current Zimbabwean political outlook is frightful. The current Zimbabwean societal outlook is frightful. The current Zimbabwean diplomatic outlook is frightful. The current Zimbabwean agricultural outlook is frightful. Basically stated, Zimbabwe is the worst place to live in the entire world - as shall soon be apparent. Consider the following facts:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the average life expectancy for Zimbabwean men is 37 years and the life expectancy for women is 34 years of age, the lowest in the world in 2006 (WHO).
The Zimbabwean government, in its current state, is incapable of effecting positive change. The Cato Institute, a broad-based think tank based in Washington, decries the current status of Zimbabwean government as being characterized by “…incompetence, callousness, greed, and barefaced lies” (Tupy 2).
Investment Markets, an online capital venture journal, says, “Zimbabwe’s inflation crisis spiraled to an almighty 7,638% annual rate of inflation for the month of July - the highest rate of inflation on the planet” (Mahler). Other sources cite last month’s rate as high as 20,000%!
The 2007 CIA World Factbook states that the most recent verified unemployment levels (from 2005) were “estimated at 80-85 %” (“Zimbabwe”).
Annually, Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product (GDP) is in decline. This past year, it dropped 4.5%.
After reading only a few of these statistics, the typical American reader can no longer place the significance of these statements within their proper contexts. They numb the mind and become incomprehensible, lacking either meaning or profundity. Unfortunately, though, even if we cannot cognitively process this information, the reality neither dissipates nor assuages. The horrible truth of Zimbabwe’s plight remains. As already inferred, the people of Zimbabwe are suffering in nearly every conceivable way. This vast array of problems often seems to create the general assumption that improvement and reform are unattainable. Wisdom suggests that no rational person would deny that positive change will be difficult for Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, despite the apparent foreboding future, Zimbabweans have a reason to hope. [Warning: peculiar metaphor forthcoming.] Historical precedent has shown that a “silver bullet,” specifically designed to neutralize the werewolf of national woes, may indeed exist.
The contributing factors to Zimbabwe’s dilemma are often difficult to ascertain. However, one determining dynamic stands flagrant and ominous above the rest: the Robert Mugabe regime. Statistically speaking, if Robert Mugabe were head of state here in the States, then you would not be able to read this. You may think that this is because a decent education is hard to find in Zimbabwe. If you think this, you would be partially correct - but only partially. The primary reason why the odds would be against your reading this would be because you’d probably be dead. (This hypothetical scenario does not even address what Mugabe would do to I, Author if he caught me with this…) Put simply, this dude’s done a bunch of bad stuff. Early in his tenure as Prime Minister (to allay any confusion, he was known as “Prime Minister” from 1980-1987 until he changed the name of his position as chief of state to “Executive President” in 1988), Mugabe solidified his governmental control by killing hundreds of political opponents and outspoken dissenters. These collective atrocities, known to some as “the disappearances,” and to others as “thugocracy,” were quite effective in quelling insurrection and ensuring long-term authoritarian rule.
Since those early days, Robert Mugabe has enshrined himself in the dubious hall of shame as one of history’s worst African dictators. While not as internationally infamous as Idi Amin, or as diplomatically charged as Muammar Qaddafi, Robert Mugabe has, nonetheless, distinguished himself quite notoriously on the domestic front. Under his leadership, Zimbabwe has experienced severe economic decline, horrific human rights violations, chronic corruption, governmental incompetence, election rigging, and other nefarious actions and incidents.
Two regions that suffer the greatly from Mugabe’s dastardly policies are Harare, the nation’s capitol and largest municipality, and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city.
Directly pertaining to the issue of water, many problems have arisen under Mugabe’s guidance both within the cities and without. Here is a partial list of some of the major water-related urban dilemmas currently facing both Harare and Bulawayo:
Ill-conceived governmental water dispersal policy.
Lack of enforcement of existing (though inadequate) governmental water-dispersal policy.
Mismanagement of precipitation collection.
Inadequate sewage facilities, waste disposal, and sanitary awareness.
Inability to fund purification systems due to paucity of budget.
Industrial water pollution.
Invasive plants within aquifers, proliferating and clogging flow.
Grossly corroded pipes and conduits.
Lack of funds to generate wide-scale water supply.
The human need for water never dissipates. In their search for water, haggard residents of Bulawayo and Harare have taken to taking matters into their own hands. In both cities, citizens have begun to dig their own private wells behind their houses and huts, trying to find water. Many of them have. Unfortunately, doing so only exacerbates their dire situation. The majority of these hand-dug urban wells are so shallow and small that they do not penetrate enough to be sanitary. Studies have shown that they quickly become breeding grounds for water-borne diseases such as cholera, schistosomiasis, dysentery, and diarrhea. (Since August in the city of Bulawayo, for instance, an average of forty people per day contract dysentery or diarrhea. In Harare, it is nine hundred per day.) Within their heavily populated environs, these shallow wells are unintentional depositing-holes for waste runoff. Thousands of illnesses and deaths can be directly attributed to these deadly, hand-made wells.
The lack of potable water invites a whole new set of problems for the rural district between the two cities. One such (unexpected) example is malnutrition though protein-deficiency. When the United Nations or another humanitarian aid group goes to an impoverished rural region, generally the only protein-fortified food they take is powdered milk. Without sufficient potable water, no milk can be made. This has often created a lack of protein consumption – which inevitably leads to health problems including the deadly disease, kwashiorkor.
[Warning: odd alliteration forthcoming.] Plainly, potable water’s palpable paucity poses problematic predicaments. Nevertheless, care should be taken to construe the situation correctly before one lets his imagination run wild and gets the wrong idea of how to fix the crisis. For the short term, water is a daily necessity and must be supplied. As a general rule, people have an insatiable thirst for the stuff. It has to be provided every day otherwise people will parch and ultimately die. However, to merely focus on water provision alone would be an erroneous step to take – no matter how well intentioned it may be. Metaphorically, the well must be plugged of its holes before the bucket is dropped therein. The major holes in Zimbabwe’s well are primarily governmental by nature. Therefore, those who wish to help fix the problem need to see things from a broad, long-range perspective.
In order to most efficiently deal with the problem in a substantial, enduring way, the first issue to handle must be a change of leadership. Robert Mugabe has been in control of Zimbabwe for twenty-seven years and he has shown himself over and again to be incapable of effective leadership. Reform is quite impossible until he is gone. (Of course, in order for reform to be reached, Mugabe’s successor must not possess Mugabe-like traits and characteristics.) Once a new government is in place, then the silver bullet can be loaded into the chamber. (This is not to say that it necessarily will.) A plan for reform must include any or all of the following actions:
Elimination of artificially fixed prices below laissez-faire rates.
Development of pragmatic tariff system.
Encouragement of privatization through specialized tax breaks.
Short-term government subsidization of specific artificial fertilizers.
Creation of an exclusive, centralized national bank.
Governmental emphasis on expediting large-scale, national transportation.
Distribution of congressional power through a two-branched government.
Passage and enforcement of industrial codes.
Legislative support of all corporate charters, both foreign and domestic.
Pursuit of all legislative and judicial steps that encourage investor confidence.
Minimization of governmental economic interference.
Establishment of essential freedoms: press, petition, fair trial, free speech, etc.
Those who say that Zimbabwe does not have the means to extract themselves from their humanitarian cesspool are either lying or misinformed. Zimbabwe contains vast regions of untouched raw materials and ore. Incompetence has ruined them. Zimbabwe receives copious amounts of rain every year. Poor policies have crushed them. Zimbabwe was once a relatively wealthy nation. Robert Mugabe has destroyed them.
In a very scholarly article written at the Center of Global Development, Todd Moss and Michael Clemens address many of Zimbabwe’s vast array of problems (including water). After many pages of description and explanation, they came to the inevitable final conclusion: “Misrule kills” (6).
The motto for Harare, Zimbabwe is “Forward with service to the people.” From his palatial home within Harare’s decrepit borders, Robert Mugabe is performing a great ironic tragedy. He is presenting and bequeathing some of the greatest disservices imaginable – and the nation is going backwards.

Works Cited
Clemens, Michael, and Todd Moss. “Costs and Causes of Zimbabwe’s Crisis.” The Center of
Global Development July 2005 .
Mahler, James. “Zimbabwe’s Financial Crisis.” Investment Markets
22 Aug 2007 .
Tupy, Marian L. “Bureaucratic Heart of Darkness.” The Cato Institute
16 April 2006 .
World Health Organization. “Country Health System Fact Sheet – Zimbabwe.”
2006 .
“Zimbabwe.” CIA World Factbook 2007.

Receiving criticism

2008-01-02T20:50:00.000-05:00

When I first wrote So much had changed since then, the inaugural post on this still-new blog, I rather liked it. Sure, I knew it probably had its defects, but I had read it through a few times and didn’t find any glaring errors, confusing points, inconsistent descriptions, or obvious typos, so I decided I would post it.

But then I stopped. I had judged the readiness of my short story by what I, the writer, saw—not by what any potential readers would see. Looking for a broader perspective, I opened the story up to criticism from any of my instant-messaging friends. About ten responded. What they told me drastically clarified many various and sundry points which were confusing to them—but not to me. Had I relied on my own instincts, these readers would be confused with the finished product when they read it on this blog.

Those critiques opened my eyes to allow me to see the story from the perspective of the reader. It was literally my most valuable writing asset for this particular short story. A second—or third—perspective is absolutely imperative. I struggle with getting a a candid opinion on anything I do, but I am profoundly grateful that I did in this particular instance.

Here is what I learned: don’t be afraid to send out the raw material to some close, literary-minded friends for criticism. It may hurt to hear their candid assessment, but it will do you far more good when you decide to publish it for the world to see.

If you were one of those who reviewed my short story, you have my deepest thanks. If I did not include a change which you felt was necessary, don’t feel slighted. Your words still had a genuine impact on So much had changed since then.

Subscribe to blog by email

2008-01-01T11:08:00.000-05:00

Starting now, you can subscribe to Rimrea by email. Simply enter your email address in the box provided in the column to the left, and each time a new post comes up on Rimrea, you will receive it directly to your email inbox.

Footprints

2007-12-29T22:05:00.000-05:00

The sun was shining on a breezy September afternoon eight years ago. I can picture the day so clearly in my mind. I relished the pleasant sensation of soft, freshly turned earth between my bare toes. I can recall the sweat trickling down my back and soaking through my bright pink shirt. But the best part was the footprints. My grandad had walked through his newly plowed garden, leaving behind hundreds of footprints. I was following them back and forth, back and forth.

I believe that the actions I take in life will be the footprints I leave behind. Just as I literally followed Grandad's footprints as a child, I am figuratively following them now.

Grandad was so full of life and personality. I loved to visit him! I would jump out of the car, run into the house and get a big hug and "some sugar." Then Grandad would take my hand and lead me to "The Corner." There, in glorious confusion, resided bubble gum, chocolate candy bars, sour gummy worms, peppermint sticks, lemon drops, taffy, jawbreakers of enormous size, and the strange pickle-flavored gum that tasted so bad it caused my brother to exclaim, "Ouch!" the first (and last) time he tried it.

Our next destination was the old fridge. Its light brown surface was chipped in some places, but that didn’t matter. Inside, it was full of all kinds of refreshing beverages. I usually would pick what Grandad called a “Co-cola.” What a treat on a hot summer day!

When I visited him in the winter, Grandad would take me out to his orchard and pick an orange right off the tree. In the spring, his just-planted garden held great attraction for me. I couldn’t wait for the little sprouts to begin popping up out of the ground! In the summer, he would show me the luscious blackberries growing on the fence by his house. We would grab a pail and pick some together for a mouth-watering cobbler. When we visited his pecan grove in the fall, he would show me how to find the brown nuts nestled in the leaves. Then we would crack them in the old barn and shell them while watching football on the small television in his house.

What memories! Grandad seemed to me to embody all that was good. He was loving and loyal. He didn’t own much but was content with what he had and would have given you the shirt off of his back. He loved God and others and demonstrated that love in everyday life. He was humble, wise, witty, and my hero.

Watching him become old and frail was very difficult for me. Standing by his bed the day before he died made me understand the importance of making my life count. I finally understood that when I die, what I have gained in life isn’t important. What really matters is what I have given.

The old fridge is gone. “The Corner” is just a normal corner now. I will never again chase Grandad’s footprints through the garden.

Now I am following different footprints, ones that matter even more. I am following the footprints he left by his actions.

I often ask myself what kind of footprints I am leaving by the daily decisions I make. Because I believe that just as I am following Grandad’s footprints now, someone else will follow mine in the future.

So much had changed since then

2007-12-26T10:18:00.000-05:00

So much had changed.

Since when? He could not remember how long ago it was. But eight years ago he and Doris had been here Christmas shopping. She was tired and had wanted to find a bench to sit down on. By the time they found one, it was too late. The heart attack struck without warning. Now he stood in the parking lot outside that very same bright, extravagant megastore. What was it that had changed since that night? Parking was still as hard as it had been. The same glaring, white-letter sign lit up the sidewalks. The same off-duty sales associates milled around the entrance enjoying the last of their cigarettes.

A honk startled him. He mumbled an unheard apology to the impatient driver and stepped onto the sidewalk. The car screeched past. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. Why were there no bell-ringers? He missed their cheery smiles and bright red Santa hats. He missed digging through his pockets for loose change while laughing with them. He missed the warmth their service brought to his heart.

The automatic door squeaked open, letting out a burst of heat, shouting voices, and tinny holiday songs. He hobbled through. A cluster of rowdy school children, unheeding of the sign above the door that said No Exit, pushed past him and out into the nippy December air. He passed quietly through the inner doors and onto the scuffed linoleum sales floor. He was here for his only grandchild—a young boy of eight who liked sports. For years he had dared not come back here—the memories were still too fresh, too raw. Now, perhaps, that too had passed by him. He pulled off his gloves and tucked them in the front pocket of his dress slacks. A young employee in a green shirt stood near, hurriedly unloading talking plastic Snowmen onto a rusty metal shelf. “Excuse me, sir…” the old man ventured. The young man did not turn around. In a louder voice, he said, “Excuse me.” The young man glanced behind. “Need somethin’?” he asked shortly. "Where are your sporting goods?”

“Follow the signs,” the associate suggested, returning to the Snowmen.

“Thank you…” the old man said. He walked deeper into the store. There it was. A gaudily decorated sign indicated the direction of the sporting goods department. As he shuffled down the crowded aisle, he shook his head glumly. Just those eight years ago, a kindly old sales associate had helped Doris find a size four Christmas sweater for her neighbor friend. He had even gone so far as to check in the back when they could not find one that was just right for her.

So much had changed since then.

He passed the small appliances aisle. A loud crash momentarily interrupted the chorus of babbling voices. A tired young woman with a crying baby on her hip had been trying to reach a coffee maker on the top shelf. She had the coffee maker clutched between her arm and shoulder…but a pile of half-price blenders lay around her ankles. Her baby began crying with renewed vigor. The old man went to the pile and silently picked up a box. “No, don’t do that…” the woman muttered, putting her child into the cart and stooping down to take another one. But he was not tall enough to reach the shelf. Gazing at the tired mother with a look of pity, he put down the box and shuffled on. Other shoppers streamed around the pile and her cart as they kept searching for the best deals. No one stopped to help her. But just those eight years ago, he would not have been the only one trying to help.

So much had changed since then.

He found the sporting goods department, no thanks to that brusque sales associate. He tried the first aisle. Basketballs lined both sides. He could not remember if his little grandson liked baseball or basketball better. Two young boys rounded the shelves in front of him. One held a large red rubber ball in his hands and was just a little ahead of the other. They ran forward and wriggled past the old man, laughing and yelling. Then, losing interest in their game, they dropped the ball and disappeared around the corner. The ball rolled to the old man’s feet. What use was it anyway? Gifts held a child’s attention for such a short time nowadays. He closed his eyes and remembered his childhood. A ball like that would have provided hours of games for him and his friends. But now, children’s attention spans had lessened from hours to moments.

So much had changed since then.

The garish cacophony of desperate shoppers rose around him. The old man’s shoulders slumped. He shambled out of the aisle and into the busy main thoroughfare. The crowds surged around him fluidly, paying no mind. Brassy holiday music grated on his mind. The dregs of material lust lay bare and plain on each side. Why bother fighting over the good deal, he thought, when it never was good in the first place? Why bother placating a domineering child with a toy whose newness will wear out in mere minutes? Why bother celebrating Christmas when that was all that Christmas offers?

He must have something to show for his troubles. Why come all this way and buy nothing? He turned down the candy aisle and found a slim pack of gum, one of the five-stick Wrigley’s. Sliding into the long snaking line at the cash register, he took a deep breath and waited. He did not notice the long wait. Neither did he notice the irate business executive arguing with other patrons over whether or not he should be in the express line. Something was miserably wrong. He glanced up. The cashier looked back at him expectantly, her upturned palm outstretched. He handed over the pack of gum and she slid it across the magnet with a huff. “Thirty-two cents,” she said. He fumbled through his pockets but couldn’t find enough loose change. Finally, he opened his wallet and took out a dollar bill. The cashier rapidly counted out his change. He pocketed it and the gum and left. As he strode through the squeaky doors, a small voice called out, “’scuse me, sir,” and a small hand tugged on his elbow. He turned around. A little freckle-faced girl, probably no more than six, looked up at him with a smile. “Did you drop this?” she asked, holding out his wallet.

“Why, thank you! I suppose I did.” He looked up. About twenty feet away, the child’s mother stood watching, smiling warmly. He waved.

“And God bless you this Christmas!” the little girl added bashfully. She turned and ran back to her mother. The old man slid his wallet back into his pocket and smiled.

Some things had not changed since then.

Welcome to Rimrea!

2007-12-12T15:01:00.000-05:00

In case you are wondering, Rimrea is a writers blog, in which myself and several other writing friends will write about writing. I started the Rimrean Writers' Corner because I wanted to learn from other young writers around me. But instead of simply asking them about writing, I decided to start a blog and let them all share the knowledge.

Please feel free to comment all you like about each post! We love feedback.

John

In case you were wondering about the significance of the word Rimrea, look no further. Rimrea is the name of a mythical island in a story I wrote with some friends some time ago. We're still dabbling in everything Rimrean, and it's an interesting, unique word. It reminds me of writing.