#I had watched the original (1922) with friends before so I kept thinking about it and laughing

[cyanrendipity]

Watched Nosferatu yesterday and then I had a nightmare, coincidence? I think so, the nightmare had nothing to do with it

It was very disgusting! I think I liked it but right now I'm still thinking about how gross it was, it isn't really scary in the sense that there aren't many scares (there was a specially meaningless jumpscare in the middle that I feel was there just because horror movie gotta jumpscare) but it was a moody gothic suspense which is cool.

I liked that the Orlok is out of focus and in the shadows for most of it and that it's hard to find images of him online, I love when you can't take a good look at the monster, he was so DISGUSTING I feel sick just remembering the last scenes.

[lucisfavoritedemon]

Crossed Oceans of Time

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Summary: Y/n always thought her hope was lost till an unexpected call from an old friend has her traveling across time to save the man she thought was once lost in an ocean of time.

Warnings: angst, fluffy fluff, cursing, hopelessness (idk why I make the reader so depressed)

Word Count: 4122

A/N: This is written for @sweeterthanthis Quote Me On It 6k Challenge. The prompt I chose was “I have crossed oceans of time to find you.” -Dracula. This story takes place during the events of End Game. I have incorporated the quote into the story. It will be bolded AND italicized. All mistakes are mine. 

Enjoy!

Everything I had seen had been a blur up to this point. My life flashed by so quick I never had a chance to process it all. Originally born in 1922, I never believed I would be able to see the day when technology would thrive. Here I am in 2023, 101 years later seeing the miracle of technology. 

I am a super soldier. One of the first experiments before Steve Rogers, aka Captain America. I volunteered myself to Dr. Erskine's experimentation, so he could develop a better, more safe serum. 

I fought by Rogers' side in many battles, including the one that would take his best friend. There is something you do not know though, of me and Sergeant Barnes. 

I had fallen for him. Not just a usual school girl crush, no. It was full blown love. Like my body had been struck by lightning the moment I laid eyes on him. 

I could sit and talk for hours about Bucky, and how much he meant to me, but that would be pointless. Bucky was gone and yet I couldn't move on. Something was keeping my heart from finding love again. 

Steve and I fought one last time together to defeat Red Skull. We thought it was the end for us, that we would be with Bucky again, but fate is a cruel mother thing. Oddly enough, the serum in our veins stopped our bodies from dying. It preserved us and helped us stay alive. 

When I woke up, all I remembered was crashing the ship. I had no recollection of anything else after. That's when we found out we were in the year 2012. For 70 years we were on ice. Poor Steve was heartbroken about Peggy, and I couldn't help but wish I was with Bucky. 

Time flew by like it was nothing, and all I felt I did was stand still and watch it go by. Steve and I had parted ways after we got back. I was hired to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. which I didn’t mind till in 2014 it all came crashing down. Almost quite literally. S.H.I.E.L.D. had HYDRA growing right under its nose. I was again left alone with nothing but a shattered heart.

Nick Fury tried to help me get back onto my feet but I wanted nothing to do with him, or anyone anymore. I was too heartbroken to even think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I really just wanted my Bucky back. That’s all I could ever ask of the world. 

Five years ago, something happened. I felt like my life had fallen apart again. All the friends I had attempted to make, all disappeared. I wasn’t the only one who lost people they loved and cared for. I finally felt maybe other people out there were feeling the same way I did.

Here in 2023, I have been without the love of my life for almost 80 years. I kept asking why I got to live while he was taken from the world so soon. I never got the answer to that rhetorical question, asked to no one in particular. That was till I got a peculiar call from an unknown number. I answered it hoping it would be the reaper I hoped to be greeted by to take me to the love of my life.

“Y/n?” It was a voice I hadn’t heard in almost a decade. One I thought I’d probably never hear again either.

“Steve.” I sounded cheery for once since I had been out of the ice.

“Hey. How are you doing? I know it’s been years since we talked, but I wanted to see if you wanted to go for a drive? Just you and me.” He asked, and I could tell he was smiling some on the other end.

“That sounds lovely, Steve. I’ve been hanging in there. Since S.H.I.E.L.D. and the whole HYDRA thing, I’ve just been laying low.”

“Where are you living now?” Steve queried.

“I’m living in Brooklyn actually. In my old neighborhood. 

“You used to live in Brooklyn before the war?”

“Yep. I actually lived above the antique shop. You know the one.”

“Yeah. I didn’t know we lived so close, yet we never met you till Erskine introduced us.”

“Yeah. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel the way I do now…” I sounded melancholy.

“I’m not too far from where you are. Meet where the antique shop used to be. We can talk more then, I have something I think you would love to hear.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you there.” I said, and hung up quickly. I knew there was nothing he could have told me that would make me jump for joy. He couldn’t say anything that would make my smile come back. It was gone, and faded with time.

I met him where that antique shop used to be, and I could almost picture it all. The cobblestone streets, the kids playing baseball, the world used to be a different place back then. It’s not like it was anymore, and I wish that it kind of was. 

“Hey.” Steve smiled, walking up to me.

“Hi.” I gave a small smile, but he could tell I had sadness written all over my face.

“What’s wrong?” Concern spread across his face.

“Nothing. This is just how I smile now.”

“Whoever took away your beautiful, contagious smile is going to pay.”

“Time took my smile away.”

“”Come on. I want to talk to you about something.” His smile grew wider as he led me to his car. 

He opened the door for me, and I climbed in. I buckled up as he climbed into the driver’s seat. We headed out of the city, down the countryside. The scenery was beautiful, but I still couldn’t bring myself to start a conversation.

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. I have been for 11 years. What’s 40 more gonna do right?” I gave an extremely sad smile.

“Is this about Bucky?”

“There were so many times in my life where we could have met. Maybe just a year longer with him, and I would be able to move on, or maybe not. I was in love with him, Steve. The way I felt the night we first met, it was like everything in my life finally made sense. I felt like I had a purpose.”

“He’s actually the reason I wanted to talk to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was alive. I need your help getting him back.”

“What do you mean? That’s impossible. We both watched him die.”

“Remember when all those men were captured from the 107th, including Bucky, back in ‘43?”

“Yeah, and we went to rescue them.”

“Bucky was experimented on by Armin Zola. Turned into a super soldier himself.”

“Okay and?”

“Whatever Zola did to him, it helped him survive the fall.”

“So what I’m understanding is, you knew he was alive this entire time, and you’re just now telling me about it?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I need your help getting him back now.”

“Okay. You keep saying that, but if he is alive, why would we need to get him back?”

“Remember 5 years ago when half the earth’s population just vanished?”

“Yeah?”

“Bucky was part of that half.”

“And you think we can get him back?”

“I think we can bring back all the life lost 5 years ago. It requires us going back in time though.”

“Time travel? You’re promising time travel in a time where we thought flying cars were going to be a thing.”

“It’s possible though. We’ve tested it, and everything is up and working. We have all the dates in order, we just need the man power.”

“Alright, if it means bringing Bucky back, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”

Steve drove us to a huge building practically in the middle of nowhere. There I was greeted by a group of people, one of which I recognized from a brief meeting years ago. The others I didn’t know. I mean one man looked oddly familiar, but I could quite put my finger on where I had seen him before.

“Everyone, this is Y/n. She is an old friend of mine.” Steve introduced me.

“I may be old, but I sure don’t feel like it.”

“Join the club.” Steve chuckled.

“I’m Natasha. We met briefly in D.C. a few years back.” The woman I had recognized approached.

“Yes, I remember you. It’s nice to officially meet you on slightly good terms. While not being utterly terrified by a man with a metal arm.” I smiled slightly, trying to imagine how it would feel to see Bucky once more.

“So how do you two know each other?” The man that I swore looked familiar, spoke up.

“Steve and I fought together during the war.”

“Does that mean she also knew Barnes?” The man questioned.

“Yes. She did. In fact they were together for two years before HYDRA took him.”

“How does he know about Bucky?” I asked, growing concerned.

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m Tony Stark by the way.” The man spoke up, and everything was now coming together.

“I knew you looked familiar to me somehow. You look just like your father.”

“Yeah, well, join the club with everyone who says that.” Tony sounded irritated.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Y/n, it’s alright.” Steve spoke up before Tony could say anything.

He could probably tell I was freaking out. My goal was to help, not make things worse. I could tell by just opening my mouth, I was doing just that. Steve started to rub my back to calm me down.

“Is everything okay?” Natasha asked.

“She’s been through a lot. She didn’t even know Bucky was alive until a couple hours ago.” Steve replied.

“For so long I wished that something would happen so I could be back in his arms again. Now, I have a chance to see him again, and not in the afterlife. He is the man of my dreams, the love of my life. I have never felt this way about anyone before, and the fact that I have tried to move on, but couldn't just shows that I truly did love him.”

“Does she know about him?” Tony asked.

“Not about that. She doesn’t need to know.” Steve stated sternly.

“Know about what? Steve? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Stark, I agree with Steve. If she knew about him, her opinion of him may change.” Natasha interjected.

“She deserves to know the man she loved then will not be the man she is getting back.”

“What are you all going on about?”

“Barnes was the man with the metal arm you spoke of.” Tony blurted out.

“You’re wrong. Bucky would never hurt anyone. He was someone who put others before himself. He would never kill anyone.”

Steve just gave an angry look to Tony. I didn’t know who to believe. Natasha just gave me an apologetic look. I couldn’t read anyone, they all seemed to look angry or apologetic, and I didn;t know who to believe.

“Maybe the Barnes you knew wouldn’t, but over 70+ years, people change.” Tony stated before walking inside.

“Steve? Was Bucky really the man with the metal arm? If he was, I want to know. It won’t change how I feel. I just need to know, so I can help him when he comes back.”

“Yes. He was what the world knew as the Winter Soldier. He isn;t like that anymore. I promise, but he is broken and traumatized from what HYDRA did to him.”

“Understandable. Now let’s go get him and everyone else back.” I smiled, and walked inside. I didn’t have to fake one anymore. I was just happy that I finally had the chance to see Bucky again. That maybe seeing each other again could mend our souls a little bit.

Steve led me to a room where he told me to suit up. I threw on the suit laid out for me, and met the others on the main level. Steve handed me two little vials which he told me would help take me where I needed to be. He told me I was to stay with him to make sure nothing happened to me. I was perfectly okay with that.

We were all ready to find these stones. Steve showed me a picture of the stones him, Tony, Scott, and I were to be getting. I just wanted to get this over with, to be with Bucky once more. I have waited a long time for this moment, and I just couldn’t wait any longer. 

“Everyone ready?” Bruce asked.

“See you guys in a minute.” Natasha smiled.

We all shrunk down, and our groups went separate ways. I made sure to not lose sight of Steve as we landed in our desired time. We all started walking the tattered streets of New York City, and I knew where we had landed.

“Banner, you find the time stone, Stark and Lang, you two get the tesseract. I’ll get the scepter.” Steve directed.

“What about me?” I asked, curious what my task would be.

“You are staying right here. We’ll all meet right back here once we have secured our items.”

“Why am I here then if you don’t need me?”

“In case things go south.”

I roll my eyes, “fine. I’ll stay here.”

“Thank you.”

They all walk off, and I stay put where they told me to. I listen to them talking on comms to each other. They were pretty entertaining if I was being honest. That was until they started saying they lost the tesseract. Things looked hopeless now.

“What are we gonna do now? The tesseract is gone, and we don’t have any more of the capsules.” Scott paced.

“I have an extra capsule that will get me where I want to be. Please let me do this Steve?”

“Fine. I think I have an idea where you might be going. Just be careful okay?” He hands me something, “put it in here when you grab it.”

“I will. I promise I’ll be careful. I’ll see you guys when I have aquired the tesseract.” I smile.

I plug in the time and date that I wanted, and shrunk down traveling back to January 1945. The day Steve and I put the plane in the water. I remember seeing Red Skull holding it that day, right before he disappeared actually. Maybe that’s what Steve meant by ‘be careful’.

I headed straight to the hanger, and climbed inside. I hid until I knew it was safe to come out. Which meant waiting till Red Skull took off. I waited for Steve, and I to start fighting Red Skull. I came out and prepared to grab the tesseract. I had the special case Steve handed me before I left.

When Red Skull disappeared, and Steve and I went to man the ship, I grabbed the tesseract. I plugged in the date to head back, and shrunk down again, heading back to the correct timeline. I arrived as everyone else returned as well. I looked around to make sure everyone was there, but one person was missing.

“Clint, where’s Nat?” Bruce asked, looking at Clint.

“Barton, where is she?” Tony asked, being more stern.

“She’s gone...it should have been me.” He sounded so sad. I felt for him. I knew how it felt to lose someone I cared so much about.

They all gathered by the water mourning Natasha’s sacrifice. I let them have their moment. It wasn’t my place to be with them while they grieved. It just didn’t seem right, or fair to them. I sat in the lab waiting for them to come back, and assemble the gauntlet.

Steve walked in and sat next to me, “how did it go?”

“It went well. It was weird seeing Red Skull and you, and me. I think I managed well though. Why did you give me an extra capsule?”

“I figured you would go and help us, then I’d let you go and be with Bucky. Get the time you lost back.”

“That makes no sense if I lose him in the end anyways.”

“Maybe part of me hoped you would change his fate. That way you never lost him. You would never have to know what it was like to lose him.”

“That’s really sweet of you Steve, but I don’t think that would be right. For me or him.”

“I understand. I just want you to know that your pain hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

“I’m glad it hasn’t, but I really wish you knew how much I needed you too. I didn’t just miss Bucky, you were my friend too.”

“I know, but you haven’t been the same since you thought he died. You have been more closed off, you don’t smile, or laugh like you used to. I just want you to be happy again. I want to see that beautiful smile, and hear your contagious laugh once more.”

“You will again one day. Right now though, you need to help the others make this gauntlet.” I gave a half smile before moving out of the way so the others could do their job.

I sat outside with my eyes closed. Just waiting for someone to walk up to me and make sure I was okay. The light from the sun was dimmed like a shadow moved in front of me. I smiled before opening my eyes, thinking that Steve, or maybe Bucky, was standing in front of me. When I looked, I saw something that looked like a meteor heading right for the building.

I tried to run inside, but it was too late. The ball, or cannon, or whatever had already hit the building. I wiggle my way out from under the debris, but I could tell I had a pretty severe wound on my abdomen. I tried to call out to someone, but I got no response. I hoped that everyone was alright. 

I finally was able to stand up, and walked outside. There I saw Thor standing, and watching someone. I walked over to him, putting pressure on my side to make sure I stopped the bleeding. That’s when I saw Steve walking up to him too.

“What’s he doing?” Steve asked, looking where Thor was looking.

“He’s just sitting there.” Thor responded. “He doesn’t have the gauntlet right?”

“Not that I can see.”

“Let’s keep it that way.” Steve said, walking over to me.

“Who is that guy?” I asked, looking confused.

“That’s Thanos. He’s the reason half the earth’s population disappeared 5 years ago.”

“Did he figure out what we were planning?”

“It’s not the same Thanos. The one from our time, Thor killed him.” Steve said, walking over to him.

“I used to think that destroying half the planet's life would be good enough, but the other half that stuck around seems to be ungrateful. Looks like I may have to destroy this world, and create a new one, one that will be grateful for the world I have provided.”

That’s when Thor charged at Thanos, and the fight began. Tried to fight as much as I could, but I was losing more and more blood every second. I ran at him, thinking he was going to hurt Steve, but he stopped me and threw me against some rubble. I attempted to get up, but the pain was too much to fight anymore.

I watched as Steve prepared to fight by himself. I wish I had the strength to stand up and fight next to him. I just couldn’t bear the pain anymore. That’s when I heard a voice over comms that sounded kind of familiar. 

“Cap, can you read me. On your left.” The voice said, and these vortex-like things opened up, and out walked three people.

Steve turned to me, and saw that I was on the ground. He reached his hand out to me, and I took it, standing up. He smiled at me, and prepared to fight. That’s when armies of people walked through these vortexes. I stayed close to Steve, finding comfort in the one person I knew fairly well. 

“You okay?” He asked.

“I’ll be okay. I just want this douchebag dead. He took Bucky away, and now he wants to destroy the entirety of planet earth. He deserves what’s coming to him.” 

Steve smiled, “you really haven’t changed a bit. More depressed than what I remember, but your attitude is still the same.” He chuckled lightly.

I giggled, and prepared to fight to the end. I didn’t care if I died, I just wanted Steve and Bucky to live. Steve stood at the front of the army he was leading, perhaps into our last battle. I was ready to do anything. I had found my hidden strength to keep fighting till I physically couldn’t keep fighting anymore. That was quicker to come than I thought. I knew I was losing a lot of blood, but I didn’t know how quickly. Turns out when Thanos threw makeup against the rubble, I created an even bigger wound. 

Only a few minutes into the now fair fight, I started to get really dizzy. I tried to grab a hold of someone before I fell, but there was no one around me. I hit the ground and I was out for the count.

~*~

I don’t know how long I had been out for, or if I was still even alive. To my surprise, and Steve’s happiness, I was.

“Hey there sweetheart.” Steve smiled, gripping my hand tightly.

“Did we win?” Of course that would be my first question. It was the first question I asked when we came out of the ice.

He chuckled, but his look turned sad, “we won, but we lost at the same time.”

“What do you mean? Did he snap them away again?” My heart was pounding in my chest. The fear painted across my face.

“No. Everyone who disappeared is back, but Tony...he snapped Thanos and his army away, but he didn’t make it.” Steve gave me an extremely sad look.

I squeezed his hand, not even paying attention to the fact someone had just walked into the room. I didn’t even notice the person till Steve looked over to them, and got up. I couldn’t quite tell who it was because where they were standing was kind of dark. That and my eyes were fully adjusted yet, but I could tell they were tall and well built, they also had semi-long hair.

“Go on. She’s been waiting.” Steve spoke up, seeing me stare at them.

The person came closer, and I was met with their mesmerizing blue eyes. I smiled at them as they came over to sit down. He seemed closed off, or just really shy. I couldn’t quite get a read on him for whatever reason. 

“Hey.” He gave a very small smile, almost shy.

“Hey.” I smile more. 

“I’ve missed that smile.” Steve spoke up.

I giggled, “well it’s thanks to you that I feel like I can be happy again.”

The man sitting next to me just looked down. I put my hand out for him to take. He grabbed it very gently. It was colder than I thought it would be. I looked down, and saw a metal hand. He tried to pull away, but I gripped his hand tight.

“You’re not scared?” He asked.

“Because I have crossed oceans of time to find you.” I smile wide, bringing his hand to my lips, kissing it gently.

Steve smiled, “you knew it was him the whole time didn’t you?”

“Of course. Those eyes are unforgettable, and his voice is unmistakable.” I felt the hand around mine tighten, and his smile got bigger.

“I’ve missed you doll. I’ve missed you so much.” Bucky spoke.

“I missed you too. I never thought that I would ever see you again.”

We stared lovingly at each other for a while. Enjoying just taking in the fact that he was back into my life. That I had him back. That the best thing that ever happened to me was back. It was the best feeling in the world, one that I thought I would never be able to feel again. I finally felt like my heart had been put back together, and Bucky held the mold in his hands.

[jwslw]

A silly story that just kinda popped into my head

The idea for this popped into my head while I was at work and I slapped it together over the course of several hours.  I don’t think I’ll do anything else with it but, I thought I’d share it.  

A Traveler from a Different Hungary

On Friday, June 12th 2015, a fatal vehicle accident occurred on 10th South Avenue in Great Falls Montana.  As one of the busiest streets in Montana, fatal accidents are not uncommon and in the modern world many would sadly not regard it as worthy of notice were it not for the strange state of the victim and the strange interest paid to the case by officials from Malmstrom Air force base.

At ten o'clock that morning, a man named  Antal Kovács was struck and killed by an oncoming Semi Truck.  After a lengthy investigation by the city police the driver of the truck (name withheld to protect his privacy) was cleared of any wrong doing, maintaining to this day that he did not see Mr. Kovács until he hit the poor man.  What I don't believe he has ever told anyone is just how literally he means that.

Mr. Kovács was rushed to the city hospital but, pronounced dead on arrival.  Amongst the man's personal effects were a back pack full of period costumes, a wallet containing a large amount of currency of unknown origin, cards and paperwork identifying the deceased as a citizen of the (seemingly no existent) Greater Slavic Confederation, a ten shot .32 pistol of unknown manufacture, a journal written in a slightly archaic form of Hungarian, and a 12inch by 12inch by 4inch electrical device resembling a CB radio, but, it was seemingly damaged in the accident as the investigators claimed they were never able to make it work. Linguistic experts at the University of Providence were consulted to translate the journal but, nothing was ever publicly revealed, beyond the experts' assertion that the journal seems to have been part of an elaborate hoax.

While it is unknown when the personnel at Malmstrom became involved,  several anonymous sources that claim to be connected to the police force insist they were called in after the journal was translated, only to confiscate everything as a matter of national security.  

Now I suppose we come to my part of the story.  I am a small time writer and academic in a small northwestern town, about a year ago, I began researching this story on a whim after a journalist friend of mind directed me to the case.  Well she calls herself a journalist, the rest of us call her a conspiracy vlogger but, she does occasionally find some fascinating, and frightening things.  For most of that time I felt like was repeatedly throwing myself at a brick wall.  Everyone I contacted would either directly tell me that the story was nothing more than an attempted hoax gone wrong, or act like they knew something only to point me to another person that would.  I had become quite discouraged until two weeks ago when a mysterious package with no return address arrived in my mail.  To my surprise, it contained a manuscript that perported to be the translation of Kovács journal, with a note that read, “This is the translation as best as I remember it, the Air force took the actual journal and the translation as I'm sure you know, still I don't think anyone cares about the event anymore, so you should be able to publish it yourself if you would like--- A friend”.  I do not know if I believe this story, but, I present this it here for the public to read and decide for themselves.

The Research Journal of Antal Kovács  

Pages 1-18: Seem to have been forcibly ripped from the book, possibly as a measure of secercy.

Page 19:

Date; 11th March, 2010

I have finally succeed, after ten years of work, ten years of failures and set backs, my time travel device is finally complete and functional.  I have yet to test the device on myself, but, test runs with the device and a camera secured to both inanimate objects and animals has shown that the spatial dislocation and automatic recall mechanism are functioning within desired parameters, however I still can not send the device into the future. I will have to run more tests, but, I should be ready to time travel myself before the end of the month.

Pages 20-26:  Strings of calculations seemingly to solve the issue of not being able to travel forward in time, page 26 reads, “the calculations say I should be able to do it but, all attempts have failed.”

Page 27:

Date; 24th March, 2010

I have completed my first trip, I traveled backwards in-time 72 hours and trans-located from my home Sopron  to Madrid Spain, and then back again with the automatic recall.  I remained in the past for six hours, purchasing souvenirs and eating dinner, before  returning to my home, as I have observed with my previous tests, using the automatic recall spending six hours in the past means returning to the present six hours after I left, tomorrow I will test the manual return mechanism.

Date; 25th March, 2010

Success, at 12:00 I went back in time almost a full year, spending a week in Naples Italy before returning to the present at 12:05.  All tests indicate that a it takes four minutes to fully transition between time periods and I am not yet ready to see what will happen if to versions of myself exist within the same space/time coordinates.

Page 28: Scribbled calculations and shopping notes for the next trip

Page 29:

Date; 9th April, 2010  

Close call “today”, I departed from my basement laboratory for intent on spending a month in the 11th century exploring the Congo region.  However, upon my arrival I startled a formation of tribal warriors seemingly preparing for a battle, my sudden appearance caused much excitement among the assembled warriors, with much shouting and gesticulations in my direction.  Finally the warriors seem to have come to the conclusion that I was a good omen and set off for their battle.  Unable to contain my curiosity I followed the tribal warriors at what I hoped was a safe distance (as an aside, no it is not easy for a man who has maintained a mostly sedentary life, keeping up with a group of hunter gatherers is not easy).  When we reached the battle site, the warriors I had followed engaged their enemy, the battle lasted for over two hours and while it seemed at several points that what I had come to think of as “my” warriors, would win the day, their opponents eventually drove them from the field.  I don't know what what the survivors were saying as they retreated towards me, but, I really was not eager to find out.

Page 30:

Date; 22nd April, 2010

Was captured by a gang of bandits while exploring 13th century Ireland today, fortunately they were much more interested in the coins and food I had assembled for the trip and I was able to slip away while they squabbled over the “spoils”.  Other than that it was great trip, and I was able to gather a significant number of covert digital photographs of daily life seven hundred years ago.

Pages 31-34: More calculations, at least two pages were heavily water damaged

Page 35: A hastily scribbled note reading “It seems the Western Interior Sea Way covered more of Cretaceous North America than geologists think.”  

Page 36:

Date; 2nd June, 2010

Three near misses today, first I accidentally transported myself into the nest of what I believe was a Megalosaurus.  Upon fleeing back to my lab, I made preparations to travel to ice age Siberia, where I was attacked by cave lions. Finally I traveled to 14th Century France where I was immediately spotted and pursued as a warlock.   I may need to obtain some form of self-defense if I am to continue my explorations.

Page 37:

Date; 9th July, 2010

It took some effort but, I have obtained an army surplus bayonet, 7.65mm pistol and 11mm lever action rifle for trips to less settled time periods.

Pages 38-50:  Several pages rendered unreadable from dried blood possibly caused by the accident.

Page 51:

Date; 15th September, 2010

I had to shoot an actual Neanderthal today.  I was wandering the ice age Germany documenting the wildlife when I accidentally interrupted a Neanderthal hunting party, spooking the deer they were stalking.  There were three of them, and all of them charged me,  I fired two shots into the air which startled two of them but, the third kept charging, so I began to give ground until I was backed into a corner and I had to shoot him.  I don't know if I killed him or not, I simply fired on him till he collapsed and I transported myself home.  

Page 52:

Date; 1st August 2011  

I have put off using the device for almost a year, and yet in that time I have never told anyone about my device, there is something I must do first.  My own fumblings do not seem to have harmed history in any significant way.  But, what if someone that truly wanted to alter history were to get there hands on my device.  I have a plan I will go back to 1922 and assassinate Nikoli Simonov, the leader of the Russian army during the great war and the reason that Belarussia is not part of the Confederation today.  After I have assessed the good or harm done by this action, I will return to 1922 and stop myself to see what happened.

Page 53-54:

Date; 7th August, 2011

I don't know were to begin, I just don't know were to begin.  I traveled back to 1922 and, just as I had planned, I assassinated Nikoli, I watched him for weeks until I had my opportunity, and I took my shot.   I narrowly escaped the guards and transported my way back to 2011, only to learn that in this new time-line, Nikoli's replacement proved to be an even more cunning tactician and the Confederation was crushed.  I spent weeks or months of subjective time leaping from battle to battle, watching the battles, watching how different post war international politics changed.  Finally when I felt I'd learned enough, recorded enough, I returned to 1922 Russia, ready to stop myself.  I searched all of Moscow, but, never found myself.  I was confused, I clearly still existed in this time-line, my house was full of my things, many of my friends still existed, they recognized me, they made the same comments about how withdrawn and hermit-like I'd become, that they made in my original time-line.  Confused I returned to 2011 once again.  When I returned the world was exactly as I left it before setting off to kill Nikoli.  How can this be, every other point I jumped to was clearly part of my new time-line.  Did my alternate self simply not embark on my grisly task?  This will take further research.

Pages 55-60: More formulas, strange flow charts and seemingly unrelated strings of words

Page 61:

Date; 10th June, 2015

I have done so many things, if I have a soul it is well and truly damned.  I burned down Doctor Alverez laboratory before she could begin her ground breaking research into radiation, I shot down the Chinese inventor Hu Xiang as he made his 1900 flight, I prevented Dr Grosman from formulating the theory of relativity, and so much more.  Everytime the same result, I come back to an altered 2011 or 13 or, I don't even know any more, I've aged my self almost twenty years while only four have passed.  And every time I jump around from decade to decade to see what has changed, only to finally go back to stop myself and I'm not there, but, when I return to the present, everything is as it should be.  I think I have finally gathered enough data to reveal my invention to the world, but, I must perform my last experiment.  I will alter the entire course of the Confederation, and its so simple, every school child knows the story, in 1213, Agoston Juhász, the man who would become the first leader of the Greater Slavic Confederation was riding through the Carpathian mountains and came to a fork in the road, one leading higher into the mountains the other leading into a pleasant valley.  He chose to take the high road and that night a land slide wiped out the valley.  My plan is to simply go back in time, convince him the high road is blocked.  Once I've seen all I wish of the alternate future I have created, I will return, and my alternate self will never arrive.

Well, that's were the account ends. Is it true, damned if I know, I do know that  Agoston Juhász means “Exalted Shepard” in the Hungarian language, and I'm not even certain if either word were in use as names in thirteenth century Hungary so take it as you will.  As for me I'm going make sure my security system hasn't been mysteriously deactivated.

----Efrain Phelan, freelance writer

[mothernerd]

Dust to Dust (12)

Summary: Where did Hydra come from? An idea? A twisted dream? For an organization that spans centuries, it kept relatively quiet until contemporary times.The Super Soldier serum wasn’t dreamt up over night, but was the product of numerous experiments both unethical and violent over the course of the century. It was going to be the end of all conflicts between good and evil. Scientists died trying to determine the next level of the serum, only for it to be stolen by enemies. Back and forth until one side had the advantage.

Mabel Foster was everything the ideal woman should be in 1914. She was well brought-up, wealthy, educated and the heiress to a large fortune. When her father died in a much publicized U-boat attack by the Germans, Mabel made a decision that changed the course of history by enlisting in the French Army during WWI.

After an ambush gone bad, Mabel found herself captured by an early group of Hydra.100 years later she’s discovered in a desolate Hydra base and is taken by the Avengers for safe-keeping and questioning. Little do they realize that all of their destinies and pasts are directly connected through the nest that Hydra weaved.

Pairing: Bucky x OFC (Original Female Character)

Rating/Warnings: Mature- Graphic violence, torture, PTSD, smut

“No, I’ll stand my ground.  Won’t get turned around.  

And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down,

but I’ll stand my ground and I won’t back down.”

-Tom Petty (Won't Back Down)

Before she met Joseph Rogers, Mabel spent a lot of time with a French soldier named Jacob.  

He’d sat next to her on the train when they’d departed from Paris in 1914, rambling on about being a hero and ending the war before the next winter. 

Mabel had sat quietly and listened, still trying to assume the personage of Pierre Garnier before they reached the camps and nervously fidgeting with the coat Marie had given her .  

Jacob had lost a lot of friends in the field.  Mabel thought that was his downfall.  She reasoned that the less people one grew close to, the less likely the hurt will be when they inevitably die.  

She brought this up in the mess a few months after they’d gone to the line and Jacob laughed, nearly choking on his dinner.  

“What’s so funny about that?” she’d asked him, taking a sip of the red wine a local priest had given the small unit as a gift.  

“It’s so dour,” he’d explained.  “Everyone dies in the end.  Whether you’re 100 or 10, you’re going to die.  Do you not make friends in your childhood or throughout life?”

She took a bite out of a piece of bread in lieu of answering the question.  Her mind drifted to Marie and the real Pierre, two friends who’d risked a lot to let her go on this suicide mission.

There was no doubt they’d worry, no doubt they’d fear for her safety between letters and photographs…

“You’re something else, Garnier,” Jacob had patted her shoulder and took another swig of wine.  “Perhaps that cold attitude will end up saving us all.”

The French news was playing when Mabel walked into the common area a day before she was supposed to leave for the city.

“...the French government has ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city center and the areas outlined in red, those in yellow zones should be prepared for evacuation if the order comes.”  

She plucked an apple off of a nearby table and hovered behind the sofa, watching the screen intently with Tony and Sam.  

“Another attack?” she questioned, earning an affirmative grunt from Sam.  

“So far, no one is taking credit for the attack.  Authorities have begun a list of suspected groups and will be reaching out to the UN and the Avengers for feedback as soon as possible.”

The image cut away from a female reporter to a burning building at the center of the city.  

“Musee d’historie de la medecine,” she realized out loud, recognizing the familiar structure of the small building from her history catch-up readings.  

“Have you been there?” Tony’s gaze flickered in her direction and she shook her head.

“I read about it,” she replied with a shake of her head.  “It was made after the war.  1920s, I believe?  It’s not a very popular tourist destination…”

She trailed off, watching the flames in the video lick up the sides of the university building where the small museum was located.  

��It does seem like a very specific attack,” Sam agreed.  “Was there anything controversial or new moved in recently?”

Tony perked up.

“FRIDAY?”

“I’m on it, boss.”

“We still moving to the city?” Sam questioned with a glance in Mabel’s direction and Tony nodded.

“I think we might need to leave today,” he replied, his phone giving a buzz.  “Like, in an hour or so.”

“Think you can move that quickly?” Sam asked the petite blonde and she smiled.

“I believe I can handle it,” she replied, taking the last bite out of her apple and turning on her heel to her room.

Mabel was elated that she was still able to accompany the duo to the city.   She hadn't heard from anyone aside from Tony and Sam for the last few days and she was growing stir crazy.  

She had only one suitcase with a few changes of clothes and a neatly bound book of photographs and letters.  Sam had offered to help her organize her box of memories when he saw the pile on her bed one afternoon.  

Mabel had never been one for material things.  Though before she zipped her bag, she carefully tucked Steve's letters, her watch, and the red scarf neatly in the top of the bag.

Tony mentioned that he'd take care of weapons and pretty much anything else aside from personal belongings.  Mabel thought she was packing fairly heavily, having only used a small bag for food and survival supplies during her years in the field.  

“That's it?” Sam asked when she arrived at the jet an hour later, he raised his brows to his hairline in shock.  She looked at the large duffle he held over his shoulder and shrugged at her tiny suitcase.  

“I have the essentials,” she replied lightly, following him onto the plane and looking around with wide eyes.  

She was, admittedly, wary about the short jet ride to the city.  Sam had given her a few exercises to work through the anxiety and Tony assured her that the jet was significantly safer than commercial planes.

“Early images from the Paris attack are coming in,” Tony announced, climbing onto the plane and holding up a hand.  A holographic screen appeared in front of the trio, revealing a group of masked figures breaking into the museum and igniting the fire.  “The flames just cleared up.  One casualty, a security guard who was trapped.  They're doing an inventory now.”

Mabel swallowed at the image of the young security guard that flickered across the screen.  He didn't look much older than some of the boys she'd commanded.  Such a pointless death during peacetime.  

“Do they think it's connected to the November attack?” Sam questioned, earning a sigh from Tony.  The entire jet seemed to move to life while the pair talked over the details.  The back of the jet sealed up, the engine hummed to life, and the familiar voice of FRIDAY chimed through the speakers.  

Mabel didn't even feel the jet lift from the hanger into the air.  

“Sir, I found something you might be interested in.”  FRIDAY's voice pulled Mabel back into the conversation.  The screen lit up again, revealing an inventory log from the small museum.

“World War 1 research had been sent there to be analyzed and authenticated three days ago.  From the museum files it looks like it contained multiple medical and scientific records compiled by a Dr. Friedrich Krauss.”

Tony's brows shot up and Mabel could feel the pairs eyes bore into her back.  The name seemed familiar.  It was just in the depths of her mind, a face she could almost see, a voice she could almost hear.  

“Mae,” Tony's voice was low.  “Do you know anything about Dr. Krauss?”

The blonde swallowed.  Sam and Tony seemed to know something she didn't.  It was written all over their faces.  What ached the most, however, was that she couldn't pull the information they needed to confirm whatever it was they knew.  She shook her head.  

“FRIDAY, what were the dates of the reports?” Tony questioned the AI, leaning back into his chair and watching the screen light up with scanned files.  

“Looks like they were clustered by year,1917-1922.  There were more years according to an achieve note but that was the bulk of it for the Paris museum.”

“Why don't you find out where the rest of the information is located, for funsies?”

“Already on it, boss.”

Tony grabbed a tablet off of the wall panel and began poking at the screen. The cabin was tense, Sam avoided eye contact while Tony knotted his brows in silent concentration.

“All right Foster, remember that game we were playing where you filled in information that was redacted?” He passed her the tablet and she could feel her cheeks flush at the mission report on the screen.  “This is the final level.  Boss fight.  Tell me a little bit about what happened August 11th, 1918?”

Her fingers froze on the glass surface of the tablet.  That had been the mission.  The mission to end it all and wrap up the war against the Germans nice and tidy.  

She hesitated for words before Tony spoke up again.  

“I'll make it easy for you,” he paused in thought before nodding to himself.  “Your team had been sent to retrieve something.  What was it?”

She frowned at an intrusive memory.  The schematics that Joseph had managed to bring back before dying.  The machine that killed thousands in a single heartbeat.  

“A death machine,” she answered, her voice cracking through the memories.  “The Germans had taken powerful scientific minds from around the world.  They rallied around this… cult that had remained fairly quiet during the war.  You know the cult today as Hydra.”

Sam stilled, listening to the woman talk.  They'd touched on Hydra from time to time, but everyone had been to nervous to touch the topic of how she'd ended up in the monster's hands in the first place.  She continued, her eyes flickering across the blacked out words on the screen.

“I had a four man team,” she recalled.  Marsh, Meyer, Thomas, and herself.  “I was the sniper and lead on the mission.  I handled the security forces while those three attacked from two different sides.   The enemy was supposed to be moving into the building we ambushed, so their numbers were reported to be low.”  She frowned at the lettering on the paperwork that confirmed the mission as a failure.  All four men had been reported deceased.

“They knew you were coming,” Tony mumbled, his fingers toying with his goatee while he continued listening in interest.  

“It all happened at once,” Mabel could still hear Meyer’s shouts in the back of her mind.  “They had stronger weapons, more men.   We had been a small reconnaissance team and were utterly unprepared for the ambush.  I jumped into the fray and got into the compound with Marsh.  I was so close to completing the mission.  I had to detonate a single bomb.  I'd already killed off their primary leaders…”

One bomb.  She needed to get it to the east side of the base, no matter the cost.  Mabel had been so close until she'd been caught.  

When the end of the gun had hit her head, her last thought echoed a prayer.  In that moment she was certain she was dying.  

And yet-

“What was it you were supposed to destroy?” Sam pressed.  His knuckles were white from squeezing his hands together.  

“Picture an atomic bomb,” Mabel tried to keep her voice level.  She held her hands up and mimicked the shape of the mushroom cloud.  “It irradiates, it attacks, and it destroys.  Now, imagine a weapon of similar capabilities that is detonated with no warning.  There's no mushroom cloud.  No time to run or cover.  With this weapon, they were able to potentially wipe out cities in seconds with no trace of the weapon itself.  Just the ruins it left behind.”

“How?” Tony demanded, his fingers pulling his holoscreen in front of him.

“I'm not a scientist,” she confessed.  “It was explained as a type of sound wave.  The Germans believed they had gotten their hands on a material of the heavens .  We called it ‘The Ark’.  They called it something that roughly translated to Peacekeeper.”

“Like the Ark of the Covenant,” Sam looked to Tony who let out a snort.  “Open the box and end all the wars?  You've read the Bible haven't you?”

“I saw Indiana Jones,” Tony replied.  “And even if that was fiction, something that powerful in the hands of some future terrorists is a bad combo.  Any idea what happened with it?”

Mabel shook her head and passed the tablet back to the billionaire.

“They captured me shortly after,” she replied. “I didn't see the light of day until the 1950s, at least that I remember.”

The group fell into a contemplative silence after that.  FRIDAY reported they were about thirty minutes from the city and Mabel could feel her shoulders tense at what was to come.

Bucky and Steve got the report that the others would be joining them while they'd been scouting a Hydra cell in Harlem. It was right before an explosion blew them and their small squad of SHIELD agents into the middle of the road.

The team had been swamped the last couple of weeks.  After months of silence, it seemed like the terror group was having a type of renaissance.  They had new weapons, new members and murmurs suggested a new leader had taken control.  

The team was trying their best to keep it all together but with random attacks throughout the city and now the world… it was becoming a bit of a mess.  

The backup was more than appreciated.  

After Tony’s call and the disaster of an intel mission, the super soldiers had returned to the Tower.   They were a little worse for wear from the mission, their clothes lightly singed while they made their way to the debriefing room.

“God, I'm gone for a week and you two nearly get yourselves killed,” Tony entered the meeting room where the pair was being debriefed by Natasha.  

“They had twice the numbers we'd estimated,” Bucky scowled, leaning back in his chair and huffing a sigh.  “Barely got a few good hits in before Stevie called us back.”

“They ignited the safe house like it was nothing,” Steve explained.  His hand were clasped in front of him on the table.  He knew he'd made the right call to abort the mission, it just bugged him that Hydra had gotten the jump on them.  They should have had the upper hand with the intel they’d been given.

“Sounds similar to what I'm hearing in Paris,” Tony “tsk’d” under his breath and dropped down next to Barnes to listen to the rest of the debriefing.  

“We found two more safe houses on the Eastern Seaboard with what information you two managed to get from them,” Natasha pointed to a screen over her shoulder.  “We can dispatch teams to both, or wait until we have to intervene.  Are we planning a response for Paris?”

Tony sat up, realizing the question had been directed toward both him and Steve.  

“You have the information,” Steve gestured for the brunette to take the lead.  Tony swiped a hand from his tablet upward, pulling the Paris attack images onto the screen.  

“We have tentative images coming in from the security cams and civilians.  Whoever it was, they were ballsy.  The museum was set to open roughly an hour after the attack,” he zoomed in on a bulky man in armor.  “Now I don't want to jump to conclusions, so I'll let you all simmer on this figure.”

The man in the video looked directly at the camera for an instant, his disfigured face making a small smirk before the image cut out.  

“That's Crossbones,” Steve's expression shifted from interest to fury.

“I thought he died before the Accords?” Bucky shot a look around the table.  “Or did he not?”

Natasha swallowed and spoke up.  

“We never found a body,” she muttered, a sidelong look in Steve's direction.  “There were survivors of the blast, so it's possible…”

“Or a copycat,” Steve announced firmly.  Bucky knew that the events in Lagos had weighed heavily on his friend’s conscious.  It'd all been an accident.  Hell, from what Bucky had seen of the footage, if Wanda hadn't intervened, there would have a much higher casualty count.  

“Regardless,” Tony passed around a few bound packets of paper to the trio.  Bucky's attention immediately drifted to a familiar name on the document: Hydra.  “These are some of the documents they may have gotten their hands on in the vault.”

“Dr. Krauss?” Steve eyed Tony before sending a concerned glance in Bucky's direction.  The paperwork outlined some of the doctors work post-World War 1.  It was gruesome, disgusting and exactly what Bucky expected a Hydra scientist to be involved in.  

What Bucky didn't expect was the sinking feeling in his stomach or the shaking of his hand from pure rage.  He hadn't realized that what had happened to him had been standard procedure by the time he'd come around.  By the second page, the doctor had outlined his final patient; a female, roughly 26 years of age, blonde hair, and hazel eyes.  

He could have smashed a fist through the table.  

“Buck?” Steve broke the former assassins concentration.  Bucky looked up, his eyes wild at the trio of faces watching him carefully.  

“What are we doing about it?” The soldier demanded, his flesh hand clenched in a fist under the table while he attempted to pull his head straight.  

“We need figure out where he’d go next,” Tony decided firmly.  “If there’s a possibility he’d slip into one of the Hydra safehouses stateside, we do that.  Do we have any information on Hydra cells internationally?”

“I have my people working on it,” Natasha replied.  “Fury also has SHIELD agents listening all over for murmurs.”

“If this is Crossbones, we need to handle this very carefully,” Steve warned the group.  “He knows Bucky’s triggers, and now he knows Krauss’ research.”

“The things that haven’t been redacted over the years,” Tony mumbled with a sigh of relief.  “We still have time.  What we need to focus on is on the last page of the packet.”

It was a photocopied print out from a military record from August 11th, 1918.  

“This is-?” Natasha began but was interrupted by Stark.  The redhead shot him a glare, but allowed him to continue.  

“Mabel filled in where she could,” he explained.  Bucky scanned the document and noticed that Mabel’s neat handwriting filled in the spaces where the typed information had been blacked out.   “We’re talking a world ending machine.  She believes it works with sonic waves or something, to destroy entire cities without a single trace.”

“That’s impossible,” Bucky scoffed, but narrowed his gaze while he continued reading the details of the report- right up to where it noted four elite soldiers had lost their lives in its pursuit.  A lump formed in his throat and he coughed.

Mabel wouldn’t have risked her life for something as petty as a rumor.  She had a good head on her shoulders, despite her more impulsive tendencies.

“I thought the same thing until FRIDAY dug through the original SHIELD leak,” he pulled up a frozen black and white image.  It was grainy, reminding Bucky of the soundless films he’d watched with Steve back in the day, the theaters had saved money by showing aged films in lieu of newer ones for their poorer audiences.

Tony started the clip.  It was a shaky image of a forest.  Bucky couldn’t quite figure out where the forest was, but the video’s intentions became clear.  In seconds, without so much of a shift in the camera, the entire forest was wiped flat.  

Even nuclear bombs left behind some skeletons.  

“It’s authenticate,” Tony voiced the concern before anyone could speak.  

“FRIDAY found it in a buried archive on the SHIELD server from Hydra.  It was really the only media they’d been able to store from that period, aside from a few photographs.”  He pulled up a black and white image of a mustached man.  “At least we finally put a face to the monster.”

“That’s Krauss?” Steve looked to Tony for confirmation and the billionaire simply nodded.  “Has Mabel seen this?”

Tony frowned and shook his head.  

“Sam, Bruce, and Wanda are working with her later tonight,” the look he gave the group was painful.  “It probably won’t be pretty, but we need to tap into that head of hers and find out everything we can,”

“And use her like a guinea pig?” Bucky spoke out before he could stop himself.

“She volunteered,” Tony corrected sharply.  “I wouldn’t subject anyone to this without their consent.”

Bucky growled a profanity under his breath before Tony dismissed the meeting.  He certainly wasn’t happy about Mabel being subjected to what seemed like rapid memory recollection, but he respected her choice.  

Even if, in his opinion, it was a stupid one.

Mabel was curled up on her bed, neatly organizing the photos she brought onto the walls around her.  It wasn’t much, but it made the sterile white and grey room a little more like home.  

A soft knock on her door pulled her out of her early century daydreams and she softly called for the guest to enter.  

To her surprise, Wanda entered the room, a weerie expression on her features.

“How are you settling in?” she asked, glancing politely at the pictures scattered across Mabel’s bed.  

“Just finishing unpacking,” Mabel reported, gesturing to her empty suitcase at the corner of the room.  Wanda looked at the relatively untouched room and gave the woman another small smile.  “Was there something you needed?”

“I wanted to talk to you about this evening,” she crossed the room to sit on the edge of Mabel’s bed, giving the blonde plenty of room with her photographs.

“I’ve been writing down everything I can think of,” Mabel gestured to a closed notebook next to her bed.  “And focusing on the specific missions, like Sam suggested.”  She eyed the Sokovian curiously, the brunette woman’s expression shifting slightly.  

“We don’t have to do this,” Wanda stated, looking down at her hands.  “It’s a painful process that nearly destroyed Bucky.  Tony is asking you to pull memories that have been buried by torture and abuse.  It will all come back.”

Mabel spine straightened and she bowed her head, considering Wanda’s words.  

“Would a more specific memory help?” she asked quietly, her eyes drifting to a photograph of the Avengers that Sam had given her.  In particular, she studied Steve’s familiar features.  “It’s a painful memory, but if I can remember specific details it might help.”

“Do I know this memory?” Wanda’s voice was barely above a whisper.  

“You know the agony associated with it,” Mabel replied, her eyes flicking up to meet the hero’s.  “And the last moments of it.”

“Joseph Rogers' death,” Wanda realized without hesitation.  “It was a mission, was it not?”

Mabel nodded slowly, pulling bits and pieces of that particular day forward.  He was dispatched to retrieve documents from a lab outside the front.  Slip in, grab them, slip out.  The cult, somewhat unknown at the time, was losing funding.  

There were very few guards.  Honestly, it’d been one of the cleanest missions since Mabel had enlisted.  The team stole the documents, but on their way out- that’s when it turned into a disaster.  

“He had the original blueprints for the device,” she explained, the idea beginning to take shape.  “I saw them.  It was brief, but I did get the chance to look at them before he died.”

Wanda paused in thought.  Mabel could practically see the young woman weighing the pros and cons of pulling up that particularly painful memory.  

“We will have to start with his death,” she stated after a few seconds of silence.  “That’s the anchor.  Sam mentioned to me that it already might be connected to one of your triggers, which is understandable.”

Mabel hummed in agreement and allowed her to continue.  

“Perhaps if I can pull out the full memory from that point, we can get an idea of what to look for,” she spoke as her thoughts rolled around in her head.  “It might just work.”

“We should talk to Dr. Banner,” Mabel confirmed with a short nod at her companion.  “And figure out the best way to transcribe the information from me to you to a way Tony can understand.”

“Leave that to me,” Wanda stood up from the bed and offered a hand for Mabel.  “We were due to start soon anyway, would you join me in the lab?”

Mabel moved a few pictures and took the woman’s hand, allowing Wanda to guide her through the hallways of the Tower.

“It’s a gorgeous view,” Mabel commented, glancing at the nighttime skyline that surrounded the building.  “Bigger than it used to be.”

“The foundations may crumble, but home will always be home, my friend,” Wanda smiled warmly and pulled her toward the elevator where they chatted about Wanda’s homeland.  

“All Pietro and I knew was war,” she confided as the numbers on the elevator counted upward.  “Sokovia has a difficult past.  Have you read of it’s founding?”

Mabel shook her head, frowning sympathetically to her.  

“I made it through the 1980s before we left,” she confessed.  That was another thing Mabel hoped to focus on during her stay.  The geography of the world had shifted so many times throughout the years, she was having trouble keeping up.  From what she understood, Sokovia was a result of the Soviet Union breaking up, but Mabel didn’t know the specifics.

“There was a very strong culture with my people that differed from other regions,” Wanda explained.  “Unfortunately, our numbers were small and within those numbers, we simply could not agree.  That’s the short version.”

“I’m very sorry you had to suffer through that,” Mabel looked to her with sincerity.  “No child should lose their innocence through violence.”

Wanda didn’t say a word, as the elevator had arrived at their destination and their attention fell on Bucky waiting outside the lab.

He was pacing, barely glancing up to acknowledge the women.  He did a double take and saw Mabel standing with the psychic and briskly walked over, grabbing Mabel’s upper arm forcefully and pulling her aside.

“Are you aware of what you’re doing?” he questioned in a low voice.  “Because I don’t think they are going to tell you the details of how fuckinghorrifying this is.”

“We did it before,” Mabel stated dryly, she shook her head trying to follow his thoughts.  She pulled her arm from his grip and studied him over.  He was more expressive than Mabel had ever seen him.  There was worry, anger, confusion, and a tiny bit of agony as he spoke.  

“This is something else entirely,” he warned.  “It’s the opposite of the wipe.  You’re forcing the memories they pushed away, back to the surface.  It’s excruciatingly painful and I need to know that you’re doing this willingly and not because Stark guilted you or you have this hero-complex.”

“Anyone would do the same thing in my position, Bucky,” Mabel said with a soft shrug.  “You did it.”

“I didn’t do this,” he noticed Stark walking out of the lab to greet Wanda and turned to block Mabel out of view.  “You’re pulling it all out at once.  Didn’t they tell you that?”

She bit down on her bottom lip and looked away before speaking.

“I suggested it.”

He paused, clearly at a loss for words.

“You could hurt someone, or yourself,” he reached and grabbed Mabel’s shoulders gently.  “Please rethink this.”

His plea made Mabel’s heart ache in a way she hadn’t felt since Joseph’s death.  The particular feeling startled her and she pulled away from his grip.  

“I spoke with Wanda and we’re going to try something a little different,” she admitted, matching her eyeline with his.  “It will be difficult, but she says it is possible to pull off.  She’s talking with the others right now.”

Mabel was frozen in place while Bucky digested the information, his face exposing some of his thoughts.  The slight tug of his lips suggested unease, the tiny arch in his brow suggested irritation.  

“I need to me in there with you,” he decided firmly, offering Mabel no other alternatives.  “I don’t care if we have to kick Stevie out.  You’re not doing this alone.”

“Tony will be there,” she smirked, watching that slight arch in his brow.  

“Even more reason for me to be there,” he threw an arm around Mabel’s shoulders, pulling her closer to his torso.  Mabel felt herself stiffen at the sudden gesture, unfamiliar with the less conservative forms of public affection.  Slowly, she wrapped and around around him and he pulled away, satisfied with their agreement.  

“Let’s get this over with,” he commented, gesturing her toward the lab and opening the door for her.  

“Miss Mabel Foster,” Tony greeted from across the lab with a nod.  “Wanda told us your idea and I’ve got to say, you might be a genius.”

“That’s big coming from you,” Bruce scoffed with an eye-roll.  “It’s a good theory. We're willing to test it, if you’re up for it.”  

Wanda, Tony, Bruce, and Bucky all looked to Mabel expectantly.  

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

PART 13

[nerdyindigeniousart]

Kaya babbin

I found this story in a book published in 1983 by a wadjella man who grew up in South Perth – somewhere down at the northern end of Suburban (now Mill Point) Road in the 1920s and 1930s. The hotel and racing course mentioned are long gone, but were somewhere near the bottom of Hurlingham Road.

I really enjoyed this story and thought you might like it too, so I have obtained the permission of the publisher to share part of it.

Just a couple of notes – I have edited some of the wording to bring it up to today’s protocols but the original words and phrases were not intended to be inappropriate.

Tom Mix and Ken Maynard were actors in early American movies and played cowboy characters.

The Western word for woomera was ‘mero’, but as ‘kilee��� became better known as ‘boomerang, eventually the mero was more widely known as the ‘woomera’.

The author would have been about 11 years old at the time the story takes place which would make the period around 1922. I couldn’t find any records of the fulla mentioned in the story but if anyone knows any members of the Good Mob I would love to know whether anything more is known of Simon.

********

When I walked out into the bright sunshine at the other end of the stables I nearly bumped into an Aboriginal man sitting on a box. His skin shone and his teeth were very white. His hair was black; parted over one ear and combed right across the top of his head. It smelled of brilliantine.

He was dressed in grey denim pants like my father's, and a grey flannel shirt with short sleeves that showed the muscles in his arms. He had on black socks and shiny black elastic-sided boots with long, pointy toes: you could see where his feet came to in them, and the shape of his toes inside. On the ground beside him, on the dry grass and gumnuts, there was a wide-brimmed black felt hat like the ones Ken Maynard and Tom Mix wore.

“What are you doing with that?’ I asked him. He was rolling and squeezing a lump of marri-gum between the pinky-brown palms of his hands.

‘Making a woomera.’

'What's a woomera?'

What I really liked about him, straight away, was that he spoke to me as if he was another boy, like me; better still, as if I was another man, like him. Equal. When I asked him what he was doing with the ball of gum he told even me. Most people would have said: Nosey Parker!

The man was looking at me, smiling. I suppose he wondered what I was thinking about. I said: 'Do you work here, now?'

'Yeah. I work here.'

'Where do you come from?

He gazed around at the stables and the marri gums and the old hotel. 'Round about here. '

I looked across the polo ground. I could remember it before, when it had been the old Teagardens Racecourse, and we used to run around the course playing racehorses, and scamper like possums all over the old weatherboard grand-stand: it was still there, falling to pieces under some big gum trees and our parents would have had a fit if they'd knowns we went near it. The judge’s box and the two big ponds they used to water the horses at, and right down the bottom of the ground, Billy Bew’s little plaster-and-board cottage at the top end of his garden above high-water mark in the biggest floods.

I couldn't see how the man could have come from all that, because we played on the racecourse all the time, and if he'd been there I would have seen him. I turned around and looked at him.

'You can't have come from here. There was races before. With a grandstand, and everything.'

'Before that, sonny. He smiled again. 'I was only a little feller. My daddy used to catch possums in the trees, used to be all over the paddock.' He pointed down to the river. 'And crabs, down there.'

'We still go crabbing,' I said, 'in summertime, after tea. You can get a chaff-bag full.'

'Yeah I know.'

I thought he must be very old, perhaps even as old as my father and a thought struck me.

'Did you ever sell clothes props when you were a little boy?' I wondered whether that was where he'd really come from: trudging along Suburban Road in the dust of the carts, selling gum saplings for clothes props, like other some Aboriginal people.

'No. We never sold no props.' He'd been smiling while I spoke but he'd stopped. 'We left.'

'Where'd you go?'

'Oh all-about. Up Murchison way. My daddy worked for farmers, and I learned about horses.'

All the time he was speaking he kept on rubbing and pressing the marri gum between his palms. I watched him for a while, and then I said' 'What's your name?'

'Simon. Simon Good. What's yours?'

'Tommy', I said. 'Show me what you're making with the gum?'

He leaned sideways and picked up something I hadn't noticed in the grass beside his hat – a peeled white gum stick about an inch thick. It was a bit flat down one side, maybe three feet long and straight as a ruler. He felt along the band of his black hat and took out a piece of white shining stone about three inches long, shaped to a point at one end. It was the sort my father had told me, once, was called quartz. He said it was the kind you found gold in. Then Simon took a little coil of fine copper wire out of the breast pocket of his shirt – you could see it had been straightened out from a piece of electric-light wire.

‘What’s all that for, Simon?’ I said.

‘You’ll see.’

He stuck a wad of the gum on the flattened side of the stick, close to one end, and pressed a shaped wedge of wood into it. Then he laid the white stone on the piece of wood so that the tip of the stone stood away, maybe half an inch from the side of the stick. It looked like the barb of a fish-hook. Then he wound a few turns of the copper wire around the stone and the stick, binding them together. He smeared the bind with gum, made some more turns with the wire, and smeared on more of the gum. He kept on doing it until there was a knob of wire and gum around the stone: as big as a pigeon's egg maybe. Only the very tip of the stone poked out of the gum. Then he held up the stick and looked along it out of one eye, squinting with the other and frowning a bit.

‘Did the black people have those things?' I asked, and he nodded.

Then how did they tie them up?' I felt very smart. 'They didn't have any copper wire.'

He smiled again. 'Pulled the strings out of kangaroos' legs.’

‘What's it for anyway?' It all sounded a bit wonky, but I let it go. ‘What do you do with it?'

‘It helps you to throw a spear, maybe.’

‘Woomera,’ he called it, and it sounded wonderful. Old and strange and wonderful.

Show me how?'

‘Not with this one. It's new. The gum's got to set real hard before you can use it. Wait a minute, eh?'

He got up off the box he'd been sitting on and went into the stables. There were two little rooms for the men to sleep in, the ones who worked there all the time. One of them would be his, now, and I guessed he was going into it.

When he came out again he was carrying another woomera like the one he'd just made. And he had brought along half-a dozen straight flower stalks off a grass-tree: I knew them all right, because we used them for spears ourselves, when we played black men out in the bush. He stopped beside me held the woomera out to me, the little stone hook pointing upward. ‘See?’

He put one of his fingertips on the stone. 'You fit the end of the stick against the stone, like this.' He showed me how, and I could see that the end of the spear had been hollowed out a bit so that the point of the stone wouldn’t slip off it. 'You hold the spear against the woomera, right at the other end like this. See? Then …’

He bent backward into a sort of a curve. He looked like the spring of an alarm clock I had got from a boy at school. He raised the arm with the woomera and the spear and pointed it at a kerosene tin against the stable wall.

I didn't quite know what to expect, and what he did next took me by surprise. It seemed as though he let go the spring in his body all of a sudden so that he stood up straight and his arm shot out in front of him straight as a die. The grass-tree spear flew at the kerosene tin, harder and faster than I thought anyone could have sent a spear just by hand. The tin went rolling with a clang. I don't think I’d ever seen anything more wonderful.

'Who showed you how?' I said.

‘My daddy. When I was a little feller, like you.’

'Can I have a go?' I said.

He handed me the woomera and one of the spears. I stood there staring at them, and my fingers curled around them. It made my back ripple. I felt as if the big trees were still standing all around the racecourse, full of possums for Simon's father to catch. And I remembered they used to come and play in our ceiling, and make it wet in places, and hiss and fight, before the trees were all cut down and dynamited and burned, and you never saw possums any more.

I thought of the Aboriginal people selling their clothes props at our front gate, and how they sounded crying out: like the flocks of black cockatoos that flapped over our house in stormy weather, on their way to the shelter of the hills. I felt as though I was looking through the window into Simon's room in the stables, watching him sitting on his bunk and making the woomera and the spears his father had taught him to make: now when really he had no use whatever for them anymore.

Come on,' he said, 'I'll show you how to throw a spear.'

He took my shoulders and turned me about, so that he stood behind me. Then he put one arm around me and guided the fingers of my throwing hand into the proper hold, so that I’d be able to let the spear go while I still held onto the woomera. All the time he talked to me about what we were doing and the horses, and about the Murchison where he'd grown up and had got to know all about them. Before very long I’d got the knack of it. I could send a spear nearly all the way to the kerosene tin, and usually in the right direction. I woke up to what time it was when the groom came out of the stables with his friend and banged the door behind them.

‘We’re going, Simon,’ he sang out, ‘You got the keys?’

‘Yes, I got them.’

They took off through the marri gums towards Suburban road.

'You got jobs to do at home?’ said Simon, ‘It’s getting a bit late.'

It was getting late. Most of the bees had left the marri blossom, and Roberts’ cows were making their way in from the paddocks to the milking shed, mooing and swinging their udders. Down at the bottom of the polo ground Billy Bew's little cottage got caught in the last of the light, and it looked as if it was on fire inside. Before dark I had to be home to milk our cow, cut the wood and feed the chooks.

I didn’t miss going out on the horses. Inside a couple of weeks I was hitting the kerosene tin most times and once I even hit a beer-bottle.

From Stories from Suburban Road by T.A.G. Hungerford © 1983 published by Fremantle Press. Reproduced with permission.

[constantviewings]

The TV Show Trials - Lore

Lore is a horror anthology television series developed by the creator of the podcast of the same name, Aaron Mahnke. The show combines documentary footage and cinematic scenes to tell horror stories and their origins.

After two months in a row of reviewing serial TV shows, I decided to take a break and watch another anthology series. For some reason, I was originally under the impression that this was going to be a fiction series (mostly because I hadn’t researched it before I watched it) but I was pleasantly surprised by the documentary-cinematic hybrid. Before I review each episode individually, I will mention that the entire series is only twelve episodes so I was unable to review my regular fifteen episodes.

They Made a Tonic

Before we knew how disease spread, medicine was as much superstition as it was science. And in the small New England towns of the 1800s, there is a belief that consumption can only be stopped by making sure the dead are actually dead.

This episode was the perfect introduction to this series and I was incredibly surprised by the amount of random information that I learnt from this episode. Such as the origin of the phrase ‘saved by the bell’ and the cultural origin of vampires; something I thought was completely originated in fiction.

 Echoes

Dr Walter Freeman is the father of the icepick lobotomy. He believes the ten-minute procedure will all but end the need for the mental hospital. He has the best of intentions but winds up creating an entirely new kind of horror story.

I didn’t think it was possible to go from not knowing who someone was to hating them in the span of twenty minutes, but this episode did just that. Though this episode wasn’t the most entertaining, it provided an insight in a practise that I thought was long dead by the fifties.

 Black Stockings

In 19th century Ireland, folklore has a strong hold. Michael Cleary is convinced his wife, Bridget, has been replaced by a fairy called a changeling. And his belief drives him to the most extreme act.

This is the highest rated episode of the series and I understand why. That being said, I don’t have much to say about this episode as I don’t remember most of the information it presented; which may mean that I didn’t enjoy it too much.

 Passing Notes

In 19th century America, at the height of the Spiritualist Movement, a haunted house is not just the stuff of ghost stories. Many believe the dead can talk and, sometimes, will come back from the other side to wreak havoc on the living.

This episode is my second favourite of the first season and the last episode I watched; as I somehow managed to skip it. I feel, as more episodes cover similar phenomena, I should preface that I don’t believe in ghosts, demons, or anything else of that kind. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode.

 The Beast Within

Werewolves are now movie monsters. But they were once thought to be all too real. In 1589, villagers in Bedburg, Germany, are convinced that werewolf is killing women and children only to discover the killer is really one of their own.

This episode covers the origin of another fictional legend, werewolves. While I somewhat enjoyed this episode, I wish the origins of a silver bullet being able to kill a werewolf had been covered in the episode; even though they have no relation to The Werewolf of Bedburg.

 Unboxed

Robert Gene Otto is a child without friends. That is, until he received a doll as a gift. He names the doll after himself, Robert. They become fast friends and soon the boy believes the doll is real. But to everyone else…Robert the Doll is a curse.

Robert the Doll is an entity that genuinely spooks me, not because of any supernatural reasons, but simply because he looks gross. This is my favourite episode of the series as it covered a topic that I already knew parts of, but also revealed information that I didn’t know.

It should be stated here that Season 2 takes a completely different approach to Season 1 as it turns from a combination of dramatisations and documentary footage to strictly cinematic portrayals of spooky historical events.

 In The Name of Science

Two shunned Irish immigrant in Scotland start off as grave robbers to sell the dead to doctors, but decide that creating their own inventory is much easier, and become the most prolific mass-murdering due in history.

Thanks to my obsession with Horrible Histories, both the books and the TV series, in my younger years I already knew the full story of Burke and Hare. Unfortunately, that made this episode almost unbearable to watch; its extended runtime of 50 minutes didn’t help either.

 Mirror, Mirror

The ageing Countess of Blood, running out of virginal peasants to drain of their youthful essence, brings in a bright-eyed noble to start a new cycle of torture and murder.

The first thing I noticed upon starting this episode was the drastically different runtime from the previous episode, a meagre 20 minutes. This is a recurring issue with the second season that I will elaborate further in my final thoughts. Another issue with this episode is that I didn’t know who Elizabeth Bathory was before I started this episode, and frankly I still don’t care.

 Ghosts in the Attic

In the German hinterlands, between World Wars, a family goes to bed, not knowing that their killer has been living in the walls and attics of their home like a ghost, watching, waiting for his chance to strike, in one of the most famous unsolved mysteries of all time.

Much like almost every other episode in this season, this episode is extremely boring and slow paced. It doesn’t help that the acting in this episode isn’t great either.

 The Curse of the Orloj

As two clockmakers race against the curse of the Orloj, a curse that has already driven the city of Prague to madness and death with the Black Plague, these brothers will discover the price of trying to change history.

There are three words to perfectly surmise my thoughts towards this episode: I don’t care. I uttered this phrase under my breath almost every ten minutes and I kept checking the runtime to see how much of this I had to bear until it was over. If these two things don’t tell you how much I despise this episode, I don’t know what will.

 The Witch of Hadley

A young woman, raised in a town controlled by a religious zealot, must rectify a fatal mistake before a ravenous mob hangs the Old Witch, Mary Webster, in this story set just 11 years before and 100 miles from Salem, Massachusetts.

First off, Mary Webster was already covered briefly in season 1 where a character says “you are haunted by Goody Basset, a witch hung the 6020s” . That’s all you need to know about her, so why did they make a fifty minute episode elaborating on a single sentence? Not to mention that Mary Webster doesn’t have anything to do with the Salem Witch Trials and the fact that she was killed 11 years and 100 miles away from them is pure coincidence.

 The Devil and the Divine

In 1922 only one person, Jack Parsons, believed that we would send a rocket into space and conjure a demon. By 1952 he had done both. But all he cared about was the Scarlet Woman he had both summoned, and lost, Marjorie Cameron.

Here we are that the only good episode in season 2. The main reasons I covet this episode so much higher above the others is because it’s a well-made episode and it isn’t mind-numbingly boring.

Final Thoughts:

Season 1 what great, Season 2 was terrible

The runtimes for Season Two’s episodes were inconsistent ranging from anywhere between twenty and sixty minutes

Did I like this show? Season One, yes. Season Two, no.

Will I continue watching? As Lore hasn’t been renewed for a third season, I can’t continue watching it, but I will give the podcast a chance.

[pwylldavydd]

All the Realms

The Gods

I was fortunate to be present for the reunion. Or reconciliation, as it was intended. While a recent arrival in Toronto – and only twenty-three years old – I’d ingratiated myself in its society of booksellers, writers, and scholars; although the events I experienced, or persons I met, often found me out of my depth. Not unlike my first exposure to Buddy Ebsen, as Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies. I was only twelve years old then and didn’t know he’d been a song-and-dance man in the movies and vaudeville. (He was going to be Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz no less, but he couldn’t tolerate the makeup.) Barker Fairley, one of the two desired to be reconciled, was himself less famous than his depth might recommend. A poet and painter, he’d written a landmark study of Goethe, and was friends with members of the Group of Seven and other distinguished persons in the Arts and Letters Club circle. He’d painted A.Y. Jackson in 1939, and Fred Varley had painted him in 1922, when he was thirty-five. By the time the launch for his book of poems was being refashioned for rectification in 1977 he was ninety. Everyone thought the two had better patch things up, because they weren’t going to live forever and people ought not go to the grave with things unresolved. In fact, he didn’t die until 1986, at the advanced age of ninety-nine. Thoreau MacDonald, the one from whom Barker was estranged, also had many years still to live, passing away in 1989 at the age of eighty-eight. He was and is among Canada’s most distinguished artists. His preferred medium was woodcut illustration, and he’d decorated and lettered poems of Barker Fairley’s in the 1920s. But they’d had a falling out and hadn’t spoken for forty years. It was Thoreau who got up from his chair that evening at the party. He walked over to where Barker was sitting and leaned forward slightly on his walking stick. “Hello, Barker,” he said. “Hello, Thoreau,” Barker replied. Then Thoreau turned and walked back to his seat.

Demigods

You could spot the men and women who travelled with the company, as opposed to the local hires. They were deeply tanned. Seasoned. Vaguely dangerous. They had their own train! Which you could see parked on a railway siding beside the fairground while the show was on. At its peak Royal American Shows was the largest carnival company in North America, which after the War included a number of city fairs in western Canada where I lived. You’d often read in the newspaper back then how people wanted the midway cleaned up, or modernized. Little was changed or updated over the years, and by the late 60s the Royal American train was a rolling anachronism, loaded with the artefacts of an already-bygone era. Today, exhibition midways are mostly amusement rides and games of chance offering plush toys for their hapless winners. In that earlier era, carnival operators had those things, but they also had sideshows, announced by hand-painted banners, hung in rows like huge lettered sails. There was Leon Miller’s Club Lido, a burlesque tent that travelled with Royal American. Blaze Fury! The Human Heat Wave the banner announced, famous for twirling flaming tassels. The company was also renown for its girl-to-gorilla illusion, a must-see, portrayed on one of these colourful flags. Next to that, a banner for Serpentina, the Reptile Queen! in the Museum of Mystery. At bottom, it was this everyone wanted “cleaned up.” The freak show. The circus tradition of parading shocking medical anomalies and persons of peculiar talents (such as contortionists and sword swallowers) in a sideshow tent came to trouble public conscience. Not so for the Wall of Death, though, where daring motorcyclists rode stunts on the inside wall of a carnival motordrome, like a giant wooden barrel 16 feet high and 30 feet across. We watched from the spectator platform around the top edge above as they entered the arena floor below, waving up at us as they started their stripped-down Indians and Harley-Davidsons, the roar of the engines engulfing our applause.

Humankind

1930 was not a good year to be born in Tibet. In your late twenties, as you reached your prime, your home and culture and country would be smashed by foreign military forces. You would likely be imprisoned and tortured, and your mother and father would be brutally murdered in front of your eyes. On the other hand, 1930 was the best year ever to be born in the west, especially in Canada or the United States. Too young to serve in World War II, you enjoyed the buoyancy of its patriotic mood in safety as a child; then had many veterans’ benefits available to you when it was over. A time of terrific waste and excess, you suddenly and relentlessly mowed down vast forests, raped the great oceans, and burned huge quantities of petroleum. With these assets, you enjoyed stunning economic and technological prosperity, never before imaginable. And jazz. You had jazz music. Especially swing. Swing was a big band sound for dancing, full of primal rhythms. The best of swing were the bands of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington. For me, their finest moment was Sing Sing Sing, written by Louis Prima and made famous by Benny Goodman. Born in 1954, I was too late for the original passage of all this, although enjoyed the tidewater of its prosperity later. But as a teenager I scorned the jazz singers, like Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, and Ella. And scorned my dad for loving them. Which, when I got to my forties, suddenly flipped to a powerful lesson of just how wrong you can be. My dad was gone so I couldn’t tell him I’d come to this realization. Although opera was my first love then, not jazz, and I woke up to CJRT radio at 6 am for the classical program. One day in a mood of mischief, the announcer played Sing Sing Sing at 6 am for his still-sleepy classical listeners. While I lay there in bed listening to the huge chorus of brass, and Gene Krupa pounding his drums, this seemed to me the very essence of the entire possibility of living.

Animal Kingdom

My supervisor explained that people noticed I was always staring at the shapely young women who came in the shop. I replied I wasn’t looking at all of them; and besides, I wasn’t staring, I was just trying to comprehend them. Besides that, he wasn’t really my supervisor. I was supposed to be working in the back, doing cutting and collating and other bindery jobs for the document printing and copying the others did out front. But I always seemed to drift out to the retail counter, where the supervisor was, where the men and women were, and where I thought I could be more useful. Although, there was the guy who came in one day and grabbed my shirt, saying he’d have killed me if I’d been there in the meeting when he handed out the misfed photocopies I’d done for him the day before. I explained it was really up to him to inspect the work, that the machines weren’t completely reliable. What machine could be! The accounting girl wasn’t my supervisor either, but she caused some trouble when she shooed me out to breakfast one day. There was a restaurant next door where I often had an omelette in the morning, but I was kinda late that day and my boss said “no,” that working hours had started; but a little later the accounting girl said “go ahead,” and I did. But my boss came into the restaurant for his coffee and saw me there and took me back to the shop by the throat, which I thought was excessive. When the new shop expansion opened there was no counter to stand behind, but my boss was still never happy with me, although I was there working even when he wasn’t. It was not unlike how one day a customer came in with a short story to copy. Behind the counter we stood about nine inches higher than the customers down in front, which gave me a sense of superiority to them, but not to this man. I was reading his story and it was moving to me. Like my boss, the character in the story was not happy. He’d become traumatized after he’d seen a bumper sticker that said Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you’re an asshole.

Hungry Ghosts

The soles of my shoes were squeaky on the mat my office chair rode over at work, which kept its wheels from grinding the carpet. She said they must be sticky with muck from the raisins I’d mashed. Well, I ate lots of raisins, but I hadn’t mashed any on the plastic mat. But then, only about ten minutes later, what do you think? I mashed a raisin on the mat! Under my shoe. I hadn’t said anything, but I think she knew I couldn’t imagine myself mashing a raisin under my shoe, but then I’d just gone and done it! As though some part of my subconscious brain just had to go and prove I might indeed do the raisin squashing. I remembered how once when I was working at University of Toronto Library I noticed I’d never goofed up my lunch break, going at 12.00 instead of 1.00, say, if I’d been scheduled at 1.00 that day. (When later I first started at the record company my boss said he wanted me to start at 1.30, but he meant $130 dollars a week, not 1.30 in the afternoon, which confusion was awkwardly resolved.) Anyway, the very next day I went for the wrong lunch! Nobody was mad at me because I was usually so reliable and they knew it was just a mistake. But it was as though my mind sought the experience I believed I’d never have, even though when I missed the lunch I’d already forgotten the thought I had the day before. But when I realized my mind would do this, I started thinking, Oh, I’d never see that girl naked! when I went by a beautiful woman on the street, or Wow! An Austin Healey 3000! I could never, ever own a car like that! Everywhere I went I was thinking about the things I’d be so unlikely to have happen. There was no lottery then, or I’d surely have considered that the most unlikely thing of all. But, hey, if I rescued the son of an oil sheik in front of the Ritz Hotel in London, he’d certainly reward me, although it was so improbable I’d be on the spot right at the crucial moment, and would be modest even though I’d have been injured.

The Hells

The air changes when it falls below -40 degrees. Too cold to hold moisture, it becomes dry and still. The air was cold and dry and still every winter in Alberta before the 1970s, when the warming began. A young child then, I didn’t realize there were places elsewhere in the world where winters were mild. I’d seen photographs of tropical islands in Life magazine, abundant with hibiscus flowers and pretty young girls, but I didn’t know they had mild winters, or no winters at all. That they’d never seen sun dogs, or knew the air could be as cold as that. That they didn’t know the sun only shone six or seven hours in a midwinter day, and had never once seen the northern lights. I took our winters in graceful stride, knowing no other life. I knew how to protect myself outside, and how to warm up coming in. How to avoid swollen hands and ears and cracked lips. I don’t know how we could possibly have had jackets and gloves and hats and boots warm enough, but I do remember being upset with my dad for bringing home a new jacket for me, a faux-furry jacket, which I thought was effeminate and I was embarrassed to wear. My friend Grant Hagen didn’t have to wear a girls’ jacket. Grant and I were school patrols on December 15 1964, in Grade 6 at Crestwood Elementary School, the day it was colder than it’d ever been before. The radio announcer didn’t say ‘Crestwood’ reading his list of school closures, so we went on our way, fulfilling our charge at the 96th Avenue crosswalk along the way, unaware that thousands of beef cattle were that moment freezing solid in their shelters. The blizzard raged with heavy snow, high winds, and bitter cold. I saw on the front page of the Edmonton Journal that evening, delivered by another boy indifferent to the crisis, a chart showing the windchill temperature of -92 degrees F. Back then the transit bench by the crosswalk on 96th Avenue was painted with the slogan Rest and Read the Journal, but there was no one relaxing there with the newspaper that day.