#Past Life Beckum

[pixieinatalespin]

The Sacrifice

Happy Birthday to the beautiful soul who helped bring this all to life. 

His father’s old rocking chair moved gently back and forth and the motion had put her to sleep. She was safe in his arms. She was safe in the dilapidated house they’d made their own. Safe from the outside world and the wicked people who walked it.

But the gentle rocking and the comforting arms could not keep her mind from finding danger.

Zena cried out and twitched in her sleep.

 “We have to go back.”

The two men reined in their horses and looked back down the road the way they had come, down beyond the wagons that remained and the people that still lived. Charles and Matthew had to lead their people to safety now; their father was among the dead. Everything had changed and it had changed so fast.

The two brothers had been fighting when the first arrows had whistled through the air. Had it not been for Matthew’s good hearing, an arrow might have ended up in Charles’s back. They had been trying to beat each other senseless, trying to hurt each other over a young woman whom they were both in love with.

A young woman who had been left behind. One life to save many. And she had been the one brave enough to make the sacrifice. She had been the one to urge them all to go, to save themselves. She had been crying but resolute as they rode away.

“We have to get our people to safety first. Our duty comes before our hearts.”

“How can you say that!” Matthew snarled at his brother, ready to restart the earlier fight. “She is back there and in danger.”

“And what of these people? What of the children? What of Louisa’s Grandmama? Would Louisa forgive us if we left them to fend for themselves and returned to her?”

Matthew opened his mouth to argue but then he saw the pain in his brother’s face. This was eating Charles up as much as it was him.

“But what if they…”

Charles gritted his teeth and looked at the ground. He could not answer his brother’s question. He could not bear the thought. But he knew what was required of them, and what Louisa had begged them to do. He would not dishonour her bravery by breaking their promises to her.

“We need to keep moving, the sooner we reach the city and safety, the sooner we can go back,” Charles replied after the silence had stretched out.

“But you said…” Matthew looked sideways at his brother.

“I said we have to do our duty first, I said we had to get our people to safety first.”

“Oh,” Matthew grinned at his brother and then spurred his horse on, a wild excitement taking him to be done with duty and rescue their girl. “Well, come on, brother. Get a move on.”

 **

 Louisa had never thought herself to be a very brave person. She screamed at spiders and needed to light a candle before she could move her feet out from under the covers at night. Today she had found a bravery that she had not known, she had stood up to outlaws and negotiated freedom for her people.

Just two hours ago she had been sitting in the back of a wagon loaded with fabric, negotiating with David and Lea for some maroon lace for a dress she wished to make before the next moon festival. She wanted a pretty dress to wear in hopes that someone might finally find enough courage to make his intentions clear.

Now David and Lea were dead, their wagon emptied of all the expensive fabric they had planned to sell. The wagon had left filled with people. Many of the horses remaining with the outlaws, as Louisa did.

The brothers had not wanted to ride away and leave her behind. She had not wanted to be left behind but she had made the bargain and made them promise. In tears, she had made the two men promise to ride to safety with their people and leave her to her fate.

Because of it Louisa had found out she was brave. She had found out that she could be a hero like in the stories. Without sword or shield, she had stood up and become a hero. People lived because of her courage.

She would have been proud of herself if she had not been so terrified.

There were at least a dozen men in this gang of criminals. They were not the outlaws of noble heart, robbing the rich to give to the poor. These were terrible men, scar covered and violent, and each looked at her in such a way that her skin crawled. There was violence in their hunger, and Louisa had heard stories…

She knew what was to come and her mind raced as to how she could avoid it, or at least buy time. Not for rescue, she had sent the two men that might do so away. She hoped to buy time for her escape. Hours had passed already and there had been no chance to escape. The men squabbled over the spoils of their attack. They seemed to fight over everything.

That gave Louisa an idea.

A hand rubbed over her back and Louisa jumped, turning she found a gap-toothed man leering at her.

“Are you the leader of these men?” Louisa asked.

“Ha! He wishes!” Another man laughed loudly.

“So,” Louisa said turning to the laughing man. He reminded her of a rat with his long, thin nose. “Does that mean you are?”

“There are no leaders, we are all equal,” another man said. He looked at the others with an expression that made Louisa think that he thought he should be the leader.

“But if there is no leader, then who will I give myself to.”

“All of us!” Another of the men yelled with great enthusiasm and made a lewd gesture. The others all laughed.

“Oh, that won’t work. I want to give myself to the strongest of you, the leader. Only to the strongest will I give myself to willingly and with great passion. So, which one of you is the strongest?” Louisa moved to a tree stump that was clearly often used as a seat by the gang; the wood was smooth. She crossed her leg up over the other, her torn dress flashing her legs.

“I am the strongest!”

“No, it’s me!”

All the men began to yell each other down. Louisa pretended to be unconvinced by their words. Maybe even a little bored. Inside she was terrified and it was all she could do not to shake in her seat.

The yelling turned to pushing and shoving. Punches were thrown.

Louisa watched the men descend into their darker nature. Knives came out and Louisa nearly screamed as one man stabbed another.

They were trying to kill each other, and it was over her! It was insanity. Louisa took no pleasure in the fact nor in the way they were hurting each other. It was awful. But fewer men meant her chance of survival, of escape, increased.

“Whoever is left standing gets me. And to find out what I can do with my tongue.” Louisa called out the words and smiled, gesturing for the men to keep fighting. She had no trick with her tongue but she had heard one of the women say similar in the last town they had visited. The woman had been trying to get Matthew or Charles to purchase her services. Louisa had thrown an apple at the back of Charles’s head, as he was turned away from her. It had served to ruin any moment that might have been happening.

It was that woman that Louisa now pretended herself to be as she waited for a chance to run.

And then the moment came. There were no eyes on her. Four men lay dead and still the others fought on. Louisa slipped from the tree stump and around the trees, she found a horse. One of her own people’s horse. It knew her and knelt for her to get on. She straddled the horse easily in her torn skirt.

The men did not take long to realise she was gone.

Louisa had been born to people that rode, she had been riding since she was tiny and this stallion was young and strong. He moved swiftly taking them back to the road and hopefully to safety. Louisa rode as hard as she could, never looking back.

Perhaps she should have, she heard a rider approach suddenly. How he had appeared so quickly beside her she did not know. She glanced at him and did not recognise his face from the camp and the fight. They must have had others still out on the road waiting for new travellers. Louisa had not thought about that possibility.

The rider leapt from his horse and knocked Louisa from hers. They fell hard to the ground and rolled. The rough ground damaged clothing and skin. Louisa hurt everywhere. She felt as though all the breath had been knocked from her body and she could not draw more. She rolled around on the hard ground clutching her knees up to her chest as she tried to breathe.

More horses approached and Louisa knew her gamble had failed. Now they would not fight over her. Now they would not leave her free to escape. At least Louisa had tried.

Louisa rolled to her knees and tried to crawl away. The man from the horse grabbed her by the hair and pulled her backwards. He tugged her back beside her before striking her in the face. Louisa scratched his face in retaliation and punched him in the throat. He let go of her.

“Leave her alone!”

Louisa looked up and was surprised to see that two of the horsemen bearing down on them were coming from the wrong direction. She was more surprised to recognise them both. It had been Charles that had yelled out. He was in front of Matthew and he leapt from his horse while it was still moving.

A sound behind Louise made her turn back to her attacker. She found a pistol aimed at her face. She had never seen one up close before. None of their people were allowed to carry one.

“Wench!”

The man pulled something back on the weapon that Louisa could not see and then fired. A figure moved and the figure hit Louisa instead of the bullet.

Charles was struck in the shoulder and he lay against Louisa on the ground, bleeding. Matthew yelled as he leapt from his horse, and his blade ended the other man’s life before he could reload.

Louisa cried out. She did not know what she was saying. She cried out over and over, her arms flailing around…

 “Zena, Zena, wake up, wake up. It was just a dream.”

She opened her eyes, she was back at their sanctuary, no horses, no bad men. Just them. Zena snuggled in against his chest and sighed. “Charles will find us again, Matthew. I know he will.”

Her best friend looked at her strangely. He shook his head and cuddled her tightly. “You’re safe now, Zena. You’re safe.”

And she felt safe. The dream was fading away and there was nothing else but the rocking chair, the sound of the rain and his arms around her. She was safe now, she was always safe with him.

[dustedmagazine]

Aaron Beckum — Obsolete (Self Released)

Obsolete by Aaron Beckum

“Some people say I’m stuck back in time,” Aaron Beckum sings on the title track of Obsolete, his Bakersfield country/new age account of the ills visited upon his head by technology (broadly defined) and love (specifically defined). Without getting bogged down in the question of how much of an author’s life we can or should read into their work, let’s note that, though Beckum is preoccupied with tech and its discontents, he’s a filmmaker and Obsolete is a digital-only release. Sure, Obsolete was recorded to four-track tape and a laptop he assures us was broken, but at the very least, Beckum, songwriter, is more tech savvy than Beckum, character, lets on.

However, even if he’s putting us on, Beckum has learned the right lessons from classic country music: you can do a lot with three chords and there’s not a great distance between funny and sad. The best tracks on Obsolete are simple but not half-assed, and its best lyrics are clever but not self-satisfied. Many prolific country legends have released far worse songs than “Fallin’ Asleep at the Wheel,” and the very good “Credit Card Divorce” could have been a Buck Owens b-side, had he lived long enough to sing about “the lawyer on the internet [who] has three-and-a-half stars”. “Born Forlorn,” the first of Beckum’s renunciations of tech/love, is a real charmer if you’re at all sympathetic to Beckum’s cosmic schmuck schtick, and standout “Whiskey Pyramid” allows him the fantasy of escaping into the past and having Tutankhamen talking him through his post-breakup bender.

Back to Obsolete’s technophobia. There are plenty of good reasons to fear, fight and flee the rise of what social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism, and while we’ve all felt like saying, “I swear someday I’m gonna drop this phone in the toilet/and flush it out to the deep blue sea,” Beckum is misidentifying the source of his malaise. “Flowers Dead in the Vase” is a jeremiad against selfies which feels about five years late — stuck back in time, indeed. Saying that selfies are inherently narcissistic (more narcissistic than releasing an album? Discuss.) is a roundabout way to get at the real issue: his ex is having fun without him. It’s clever to the extent that you’re willing to put some distance between the author and the song, but either way it plays into that ol’ toxic binary: Men=authentic/Women=frivolous. Fear of new technology is at least as old as the invention of writing, but it’s a lot younger than reading your romantic turmoil onto the world.  

But I’m being hard on him. With his strained, sad-sack voice, burbling 1980s synths, and willingness to describe himself as a “particle beam,” it’s fair to assume that Obsolete is a largely conceptual lark. Taken in stride, it’s a fun one, and when Beckum (mostly) drops the bullshit on what should have been the closer, “Slow Road,” it’s affecting, too. Yes, self-released cosmic country album by a moonlighting filmmaker isn’t a confidence inspiring pitch, but the surprisingly competent Obsolete is a goofy, workmanlike, take on the sound of California country, from Bakersfield to Esalen.  

Isaac Olson

[a-v-a-a-d-0-r-e-blog]

Sportsbook

02/05/2012 - Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tom Brady set a Super Bowl record for consecutive completions and threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to Aaron Hernandez that helped the Patriots take a 17-15 lead over the Giants after three quarters.

Brady's 16th straight completion going back to the first half found Hernandez across the middle and the second-year tight end broke a tackle by safety Deon Grant to get into the end zone.

After completing his final 11 passes in the first half -- including 10 on a 96-yard touchdown drive that tied a Super Bowl record -- Brady was 5-for-5 on the 79-yard drive that opened the third quarter.

Brady's 16 straight completions tied his own postseason record and broke the Super Bowl record of his idol, Joe Montana, during Super Bowl XXIV in 1990. Brady's 16 postseason wins are tied with Montana for most playoffs victories by a quarterback in NFL history.

Brady also passed Kurt Warner (1,156) to take the all-time lead in Super Bowl passing yards.

The Giants responded to Hernandez's touchdown with a 45-yard drive that ended in a 38-yard field goal by Lawrence Tynes to get them within 17-12. The drive was set up by Jerrel Jernigan's 34-yard kickoff return.

New England went 3-and-out after that, with Giants defensive end Justin Tuck sacking Brady on third down and driving the quarterback's left shoulder into the turf.

New York, with good field position at the Patriots 48, turned around and kicked another field goal to get within 17-15. Tynes was good on the 33- yarder.

Earlier, Brady threw a four-yard touchdown pass to Danny Woodhead to end the 96-yard drive near the end of the first half and give the Patriots a 10-9 lead going into the break.

Brady was 10-for-10 on the drive and completed his last 11 passes in the half. The 96-yard drive, coming after the Patriots were pinned in deep by a punt, tied a record for the longest in Super Bowl history.

Giants quarterback Eli Manning was also completing most of his passes.

In fact, Manning started the game 9-for-9 and threw a two-yard touchdown pass to Victor Cruz to give New York a 9-0 lead after the first quarter.

New York also got two points on a safety when Brady was called for intentional grounding on New England's first play from scrimmage.

Brady's pass, under pressure, was thrown 45 yards downfield from the front of the end zone with no receiver in the vicinity and was the sixth safety in Super Bowl history.

Manning led the Giants on a 78-yard drive after that, which included a penalty on New England for too many men on the field that reversed a fumble by Cruz. The drive was capped by Manning's short pass to Cruz behind two defenders with 3:24 left in the quarter, making it 9-0.

The Giants ran 19 of the game's first 20 plays from scrimmage as New England had trouble getting out of its own way early.

But the Patriots started a 60-yard drive that spanned the first and second quarters and ended in Stephen Gostkowski's 29-yard field goal, pulling them within 9-3.

The game is a rematch of the 2008 Super Bowl, which the Giants won, 17-14, on Plaxico Burress' 13-yard touchdown catch with 35 seconds remaining. The game- winning drive, led by MVP Manning, included David Tyree's famous helmet catch.

The game is also a rematch from Week 9 this past season. Manning threw a TD pass in the final minute of that one to give the Giants a 24-20 win over the Patriots.

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[pixieinatalespin]

Appearances

My master wasn’t a bad man. In fact he had once been a kind master until he met Nell. It was like the married woman had bewitched him and he changed to please her.

She was truly a witch and rightly the other rhyming slang to go with it. Married thought she was she had taken my master as her lover. To make this fact less obvious to all others, they set up a ruse that it was I who shared his bed. Truly the only time I spent in his bed was the nights when he was not in it. The other nights I spent on the floor.

Nell’s idea.

She said I was nothing more than a dog and she treated me as such. It was a nicer life when my Master Walt did not bring her home.

To keep with the illusion that I was Walt’s lover and pet I was not allowed much life of my own for fear I might give something away. And I was not allowed to even let my eyes linger on a man lest it reflect poorly on my master.

One time I did, and Nell had me beaten for it. Walt seem to try to intercede but what his dearest wanted, she always got.

***

Celeste was a servant girl to a wealthy land owner. Walt Henrickson. She had served him since childhood alongside her mother and father, God rest their souls.

Celeste was a hard worker and a sweet girl, never causing any fuss for her master. She did not know why Nell had picked her to be the one who would pretend to be his lover and live a life that seemed worse than the one she had been leading. Celeste did not know she was beautiful and that this was punishment for being pleasing to the eye and a temptation for her master. The way she lived and was treated degraded her, made her lesser in Walt’s eyes. No longer potential lover but lowly dredge.

Tonight Walt’s lady spent with her husband, now returned from travelling. Celeste sat in her bedding on the floor near the fire darning. She was grateful to be fed, clothed and warmed. Others were not so lucky.

“Are you happy, Celeste?” Walt asked suddenly. The question caught Celeste off guard and she was not certain of the correct response to the question. It could be a trick.

“Excuse me, Master?” Celeste gave him a puzzled look before averting her eyes once again. “I do not understand.”

“It is really quite simple, Celeste. Are you happy? Yes or no?”

“I’m frightfully grateful for all you’ve done for me, Master Walt.” Celeste replied quickly. “I eat so well when I dine in your rooms.”

“Yes, that is all well and good, but are you happy? Are you often found with a smile.”

“I do try to smile, to always have a smile for all I come in contact with.” Celeste replied truthfully.

“But do you wear a smile for happiness?”

“Might I ask why you ask, master?” Celeste replied to avoid answering the question.

“I was simply thinking of happiness. My dearest, Nelly is with another tonight and I find myself jealous knowing what shall transpire between them.”

“You are not happy, master?”

“No, and call me Walt, please, when we are alone.”

“You are displeased that she will be with her husband and share his bed.”

“I am more unhappy that she is not unhappy about it. She was almost cruel in her delight in making sure I knew and would be jealous.” Walt frowned. “Perhaps I should be taking pleasure for myself while she does. See how she likes it.”

Celeste froze working out just where he was going with this. “Please, master, Walt, she will not take kindly to such thing and it will not be you who bears her wrath.”

Walt did not argue though he scowled some. She was not sure whether it was for the truth or that Celeste had insulted his love.

“Very well. I will ask you to share my bed tonight but not to give me pleasure. I would ask you to warm my bed and myself.”

“Please, I am sure she will not like that…”

“You would disobey your master?” Walt growled and she felt should she continue to argue she would bear his wrath, that which he could not take out on lover or the husband.

She felt tears roll down her cheeks knowing that one way or another she was going to get beaten for this. She stood.

“First, go and fetch us food. I am hungry.”

“Yes, Master.” Celeste nodded her head and curtseyed before leaving the room to head for the kitchens. 

[pixieinatalespin]

The Princess and the Pirate - Another time, another life

“I do not wish you to go, Javersyn.” She threw her arms around her brother as they arrived at the gangplank of the ship. The clouds overheard and grown quite thick and large heavy drops began to fall, slowly at first but she felt each one hit her. “But I understand that you must.”

“I do not wish to leave you sister, and I am torn about it.” Javersyn crushed his sister in a bear hug and then stepped back and took her face in his hands to look at her. “Remember, your name is Rosalyn, only the captain has any hint of who you are and I did not tell him exactly, I believe he suspects but I gave him enough gold that he will not ask questions and he will not betray us.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Go on, go, and I will find you again.”

She nodded, tears in her eyes and then let her brother go, turning to walk up on board the ship without looking back. The rain started to fall harder as she stepped on board and was greeted by some members of the crew.

“Lookie here boys, the captain’s precious cargo has arrived and we can shove off.”

“I think I’d like to shove in, if you know what I mean.”

The crew crowded around her, most leering at the princess, unaware of her status and such things could get them beheaded under different circumstances. “I do not care to wish to know what you mean.” The princess, now known for this journey as Rosalyn, replied. She was digusted by the way some of them looked at her and she wondered just how safe she would be. “If you will take me to the captain, please.”

“Oh, I’ll take you all right, miss.” One of the men set a hand on her backside and squeezed it and she yelped. “Bad luck to have a woman on board unless she’s here for the crews enjoyment, whores be nothing but good luck.”

“Perhaps you should not think of me as a woman, then.” Rosalyn’s patience was at an end as he tried to cop a feel of her breast. She turned to face him and let her power rise within her. “Perhaps you should think of me as Goddess.” She lifted the large man from the deck with only the power of her mind, she lifted him high and pressed him to the mast. His crew mates started freaking out, there was yelling and some hooting in amusement. Rosalyn lifted ropes with her power and lashed him to the mast letting her magic fall away once he was secure.

“What in Poseidon’s name is this ruckus?” A roar came from further down the ship and everyone fell silent, Rosalyn expected it must be the captain but through the crew she couldn’t see him.

“She started it.” The man on the mask growled. “Just me and the boys having some fun.”

“That was not fun, that was assault and I would hold my tongue or maybe next time I’ll just rip it out.” Rosalyn growled, very much used to being in a position of power, well at least until her step mother had taken to having her locked in her room.