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diaxfeliz · 4 years ago

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MAN LIKE HIM • Thomas

» Peter Rabbit / Thomas McGregor … Y/N had always struggled to communicate verbally with their selective mutism especially when they went to live with Bea. They had always avoided the day at home because of old McGregor, but when the new one comes, they’re more willing to stay home.

INSPIRED BY: Us by Clara Mae

Status : Acquaintances -> Friends Relationship : Platonic, Awkward -> Romantic

WORD COUNT: 1626

A lack of words being made up by understanding and unconditional love.

“Ah… is that a guest of yours?” Thomas asked as he looked over by the tree above the rabbits’ burrow. There you were, climbing the tree for reasons unknown to him.

“A housemate of mine.” Bea said, somewhat surprised. “Y/N’s usually out for the day and only comes back late in the evenings.”

“Y/N!” Bea called out to you, but you didn’t seem to notice her. “They must be blasting that darn music on max volume again. I’ve told them to keep it down if they were gonna wear earphones. Looks like Y/N still doesn’t listen to me.”

“Can I go meet them?” Thomas asked.

Bea nervously chuckled at his question. She awkwardly scratched the back of her head when Thomas turned to her, confused. You were his neighbor and he thought it was only right that you two knew each other.

“Y/N has trouble socializing, and it’s… pretty bad.” Bea explained concerndly. ”It gets me worried for them sometimes and I don’t know how they’re going to react to you. Y/N doesn’t even talk to me and I’ve known them for a while now.”

Bea sighed as Thomas offered a comforting hand on her shoulder. She still hasn’t understood what she was doing wrong when after all this time it was just because of your condition that you had had since you were a child, but Bea didn’t know that.

“Just…” Bea breathed. ”be gentle with your approach, alright? I’ll head inside.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Bea.” Thomas smiled.

Bea headed inside like she had said and Thomas went to meet you. You were just coming down the tree to his luck. He had his hands in his pockets as he waited for you to get your feet back on the ground. He eyed you, watching out just in case you’d fall.

You carefully settled your feet onto the grass under you and let out a sigh before taking out your earphones. You had your back on Thomas so that his voice startled you.

“Good morning.” Thomas said, making you jump and face him. He smiled kindly, but the fact he was someone new made you uneasy. “Bea’s told me about your music. You really shouldn’t keep your music at such a loud volume. You’d destroy your ears that way.”

Thomas laughed in order to make light of the situation, but when he saw you disturbed, he immediately shut himself up. “O-Oh, I’m sorry. Did I come off as a little brash?”

You didn’t know what to say about his behavior since it was only because of you being the way you are. You hummed uncomfortably and turned away, the best you could do to respond to Thomas’s question.

He sheepishly smiled. “Sorry about that. I’m Thomas McGregor, but you can call me Thomas.” He held out his hand, but all you could do was stare at it. He waited for a bit, hoping that you would shake it, but when you placed your hands behind your back, he pursed his lips and retracted his hand.

“So uhm… I came in about a month ago. You’re Y/N, right? Bea’s housemate?”

You nodded carefully, making Thomas smile. He knew it was going to be tricky to form a relationship with you because of your difficulty in verbally communicating, but he didn’t discard the idea of becoming friends with you. It was going to take a while, but he was willing to make the effort.

“I’m sorry for coming off a little strong.” he said, surprising you. “This must be too much for you to handle at once. I should’ve been more considerate.”

You let out a light surprised gasp. No one had ever shown this much consideration before. You calmed down a bit after seeing he didn’t seem to be a threat. In fact, you felt almost at ease in his company.

He saw your shoulders relax and smiled. “I’ll see you around. Have a nice day, Y/N.”

You hummed gratefully and watched as he returned to his home, smiling back at you again before he went inside. When he was out of sight, a smile played on your lips. You felt relieved that he was the replacement to the previous neighbor instead of another insensitive person.

Because of the new more sensitive company you had back at home, you changed your schedule so that you had time to spend at home while the sun was out. You used your job as an excuse for avoiding the old McGregor, but now that his great-grandson had replaced him, you felt safer.

Your interactions with Thomas went on like that for a while. While you’d be in the field doing whatever, he’d keep you company if he wasn’t busy. He didn’t stay for too long whenever he’d keep you company in order not to overwhelm you. He’d stay for an hour or two then get back to work. He’d pay close attention to you and adjusted the times he’d stay with you if it looked like you were adapting well to human interaction.

You still didn’t speak in full sentences yet, but you did in simple phrases and his and Bea’s names. He often saw you talking to yourself from afar and he was proud of you whenever you’d speak in front of him, but he didn’t want to show it in order to have you get used to doing it comfortably. His helpful nature was kicking in and he hadn’t even realized it.

“Good morning, Y/N.” Thomas said as he strolled up to you standing idly in front of the same tree you spent most of your hours on.

“Thomas.” you said, turning to him, a paracord in your hands.

He sided you and looked up the tree. “What is it?”

You pointed up to a strong low branch. Thomas was confused when he tried to find what you were pointing to. It was like this while you still weren’t speaking in sentences. Instead of explaining, you’d just gesture to things and it would be up to him to interpret what you mean.

The way you were holding the paracord and pointing to the tree gave him an idea. Thomas nodded and accepted your paracord. He swung the cord over the branch, much to your delight as that was what you wanted him to do. You clapped and smiled instead of squealing as one would do. You struggled to use your words and Thomas understood that.

He helped you assemble the rest of the swing you were apparently putting together, and soon enough, you were seated on it with your hands around the cords beside you, lightly swinging. Seeing as how you still wanted company, Thomas stayed and enjoyed the silent company between you two.

“Thank you, Thomas.” You gladly smiled after awhile.

Thomas smiled back, his eyes glinting at your sweet voice. “It was my pleasure, Y/N.”

You carefully got off the swing and pointed to it while looking at Thomas, surprising him. It seemed like you were letting him get a turn on it. Never had you shown consideration before that it made him glad that you did.

“I’d love to.” he said and sat down.

You both stared out in the horizon and watched as the orange sun slowly disappear from sight. Thomas took a glance at you and saw how mesmerized you were. Because of how you were always gone the entire day, you never got to see the sun set and you were never not amazed by the sight.

“It was a beautiful day today, wasn’t it?” you said, surprising Thomas yet again. He was sure he wasn’t hallucinating when he heard you speak a full sentence. “None of us were really that busy that it was like… time just slowed down for the three of us. The sun’s really taking its time setting over the horizon.”

You lightheartedly laughed, a laugh that tugged at Thomas’s heartstrings as he smiled. You turned to him and saw his proud expression. The look on his face caught you off guard and it was as if your throat constricted.

“I-I’m sorry if I’m t-talking too — talking too much, Thomas.” you stuttered hard in your state of alarm. ”I just — I’m just — I’m thinking outloud and I—”

Thomas felt your anxiety and rose off the swing to gently take your arms and pull you close to him. “You’re not. Trust me, Y/N. Trust me.” He matched your anxiousness but with comfort for your sake. “I appreciate your efforts to connect. Bea told me you’re making good progress and I could see that.”

Distress still plagued your mind until you felt Thomas tucking loose hair behind your ear. You snapped out of your worry and looked up at him, a gentle smile on his lips.

He chuckled softly. “I’m proud of you, Y/N.”

Your unease extinguished at his words. His assurance always calmed you down and he knew that well. Thomas gently cupped your face and lovingly kissed your forehead. You squeaked in response to his gesture, making him chuckle.

“No need to be anxious, my dear.” he said, staring dreamily into your eyes while gliding his thumb over your soft cheeks. “I love you.”

A surge of happiness rushed through you and you crashed into him, wrapping your arms around him tightly. He laughed as he hugged you back. You had lost your words again over the surge of emotion, but Thomas already knew your reply. You smiled into his chest as he laughed, feeling the hum of his laugh.

You were all too lucky to have met a wonderful man like him. Never had you thought about getting better, but because of him, you might just.

#queue #thomas mcgregor #thomas x reader #thomas mcgregor x reader #peter rabbit #oof

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sonny-delucaa · 4 years ago

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❀ *ﾟ luke hemmings. cis male. he/him. ⇝ hey, isn’t that sonny deluca? i think that the twenty-one year old from newark, new jersey works as a bagger at kroger, but outside of that they spend a lot of time at the amish market. i hear they are naive + irritable, but they are also known to be kindhearted + outgoing. consider giving them a visit at their home in buffalo mountain road apartments and get to know why they’re called the ecclesiastic.

tw: abuse, religion, suicide, death, mental health, pregnancy

hey hey hey! i’m dolly, 22, i live in the cst, and use she/her or they/them pronouns. i’m super excited to be back here, so below is a bit of info about sonny!!

sonny francis deluca is 21 years old and originally from newark, new jersey, born to james and donna deluca on january 15, 1999

he has four older siblings and two younger siblings [ john (30), clara (29), levi (27), lauren (25), teddie (6), and jessa (4) ]

he comes from a large family of latter-day saints. he was raised in the mormon church, as were the rest of his family, and knows nothing else when it comes to religion. it’s all he’s ever known and, up until recently, he hadn’t had the opportunity to learn about any other religions

he was extremely sheltered. sonny doesn’t know a lot about pop culture or current media because his parents didn’t allow him to indulge in it. most of his knowledge of current pop culture has been learned in the last year or so, and he still doesn’t know all that much

both of his parents have always been abusive, mainly to sonny and his brothers. all of the deluca children suffered verbal and emotional abuse, but the boys were on the receiving end of physical abuse as well from their father. this was excused and was always a nonissue due to the fact that the church viewed it as simple punishment and something that was deserved, as well as a way to keep the boys in line and keep them serving the church faithfully

due in part to the abuse, as well as a slew of undiagnosed mental health issues, sonny grew depressed at a young age. he didn’t know how to handle any of his problems or ask for help and, at 15, he attempted suicide. his sister lauren found him in his bedroom and got him to the hospital, where he ended up coding on the table. he was resuscitated, and stayed in the psychiatric ward for a week before he was allowed to go home

his parents were concerned, but not extremely so, and once he came home from the hospital everything pretty much went back to normal. his siblings kept a closer watch on him and tried to check in on him often, but he was good at lying and making them believe that everything was fine. he was very secretive about his problems after that due to the church’s involvement. they monitored him and forced him into counseling sessions and meetings with higher ups in the church until it was decided that he was stable, which was far from true because he’d learned how to bullshit

he did great in high school and passed with all a’s. he took both the act and the sat, scoring a 34 and 1570 on them respectively. this earned him a full ride to brigham young university (byu - provo, utah) where he was set to start in the fall of 2020

at 18, after graduating high school, sonny got his mission calling. he and his mission partner were assigned to primm and its surrounding areas, where they’d go around to teach about the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, as well as convince people that they should convert to mormonism

sonny’s mission went well for a few days, but he started growing antsy and needed something to break up the monotonous routine that he was trying to get used to. it bored him, more than he expected it to, and he was struggling to adjust. later that week, though, he found something to cure his boredom. he ended up knocking on theo kennedy’s door and after their initial meeting, he ended up going back the next day without his mission companion. it was against the rules, he was well aware of that, but at the time he didn’t care. seeing theo became a regular occurrence and, after a few days and nights together, sonny decided that the best thing to do was end his mission early

after discussing things with theo and officially ending his mission, sonny moved in with her. it was a leap of faith, moving in with a girl he hardly knew, but it turned out to be worth it. things went well and, come to find out very early on, they were expecting a child. during the pregnancy their relationship grew, leading up to them declaring their relationship ‘official’

their son, river mason deluca, is sonny’s entire world. he was always afraid of becoming a parent, mostly due to the fear that he’d turn out like his own parents, but he’s avoided that problem thus far. the only real problem being, well, his parents don’t know about their grandson. leaving his mission and settling down permanently in nevada was something that upset his parents a great deal and, if they knew he had a child out of wedlock, there’s a 50/50 chance that they’d disown him and he’s not willing to take that chance right now

currently, he’s working at kroger while he tries to talk his parents into giving him his college fund so he can go to school. his request is met with a hard ‘no’ every time he asks, mostly because his father is disappointed that sonny isn’t going to byu and taking advantage of the full ride he was offered. they saved money for all of their children and, upon them being awarded scholarships, the money was moved to the fund of the next child. sonny is still trying to figure out ways to convince his parents that he deserves the money so he can get an education like the rest of his siblings

this got way longer than i expected it to, but this is what i’ve got for sonny right now!! he’s been revamped since the last time i was here, so he’s a bit different and some things have changed (some more drastically than others). i’d love to plot, so feel free to hmu if you’d like to get something going!!

#001 — about #primmintro #abuse tw #mental health tw #religion tw #suicide tw #death tw #pregnancy tw

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lukeskywaker4ever · 5 years ago

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Beatriz of Castile, Queen of Portugal (Wife of King Afonso IV of Portugal)

Tenure: 7 January 1325 – 28 May 1357

Beatrice of Castile or Beatriz (8 March 1293 in Toro – 25 October 1359 in Lisbon), was an infanta of Castile, daughter of Sancho IV and María de Molina. She was Queen of Portugal from the accession of her husband, Afonso IV, until his death on 28 May 1357.

Daughter of Sancho IV and of María de Molina, Infanta Beatriz was born in Toro. She had six siblings, including King Fernando IV of Castile and Queen Isabel, wife of King James II of Aragon, and later duchess as the wife of John III, Duke of Brittany.

On 13 September 1297, when Beatriz was only four years old, the bilateral agreement, known as the Treaty of Alcañices, was signed between Castile and Portugal, putting an end to the hostilities between both kingdoms and establishing the definitive borders. The treaty was signed by Queen María de Molina, as the regent of Castile on behalf of her son, Fernando IV, who was still a minor, and King Dinis of Portugal. To reinforce the peace, the agreement included clauses arranging the marriages of King Fernando and Constança of Portugal and that of her brother, Afonso, with Beatriz; that is, the marriage of two siblings, infantes of Portugal, with two other siblings, infantes of Castile.

Beatriz abandoned Castile in the same year and moved to the neighboring kingdom where she was raised in the court of King Dinis together with her future spouse, Infante Afonso, who at that time was about six years old. Her future father-in-law "had inherited from his grandfather, Afonso X of Castile, a love of letters, literature, Portuguese poetry, and the art of the troubadours" and Beatriz grew up in this refined environment. Two of the Portuguese king's illegitimate sons, both important figures in the kingdom's cultural panorama, were also at the court: Pedro Afonso, Count of Barcelos, a poet and troubadour and the author of Crónica Geral de Espanha and the Livro de Linhagens; and, Afonso Sanches, the favorite son of King Dinis and a celebrated troubadour.

After the signing of the Treaty of Alcañices and upon their return to Portugal, King Dinis gave his future daughter-in-law the Carta de Arras (wedding tokens) which included the señoríos of Évora, Vila Viçosa, Vila Real and Vila Nova de Gaia which generated an annual income of more than 6000 pounds of the old Portuguese currency. After the marriage, these estates were increased. In 1321, her husband, who had not ascended to the throne yet, gave her Viana do Alentejo; in 1325, he gave her other properties in Santarém; in 1337, properties in Atalaia; in 1341, a manor house in Alenquer; in 1350, the prior of the Monastery of San Vicente de Fora gave her Melide, a manor house in Sintra; and later, in 1357, her son, King Pedro, gave her more estates which included Óbidos,

Atouguia, Torres Novas, Ourém:

Porto de Mós:

and Chilheiros.

The marriage was celebrated in Lisbon on 12 September 1309. Before the marriage could take place, a papal dispensation was required since Afonso was a great-grandson of King Afonso X of Castile through his illegitimate daughter, Beatriz of Castile (King Dinis’s mother and Afonso grandmother), and Beatriz, betrothed to Afonso, was a granddaughter of the same Castilian king. In 1301, Pope Boniface VIII issued the papal bull authorizing the marriage, but since both were underage, it was postponed until 1309 when Afonso was eighteen years old and Beatriz had turned sixteen. It was a fertile and apparently happy marriage. Four out of the seven children born of this marriage died in their infancy.

Like her mother-in-law, Isabel of Aragon, who had raised her as a child, during her marriage Beatriz played a relevant role in the affairs of the kingdom and was "the first foreign-born queen who was perfectly versed in the language and customs of Portugal which facilitated her role as a mediator of conflicts". She discreetly supported her husband when he confronted his father on account of his half-brother, Afonso Sanches. In 1325 after the death of King Dinis, Afonso "who had not forgotten former hatreds", demanded to be acclaimed king by the court and was responsible for having his half brother João Afonso killed, and his great rival, his other bastard brother, Afonso Sanches, banished to Castile".

When her husband and her son-in-law King Alfonso XI of Castile fought in the war that took place in 1336 – 1339, Beatriz crossed the border and went to Badajoz to meet the Castilian king to try to reach an agreement that would bring peace to both kingdoms, although her efforts proved to be fruitless. She sent her ambassadors in 1338 to the court of King Afonso IV of Aragon to strengthen the alliance between both kingdoms which had been weakened when her son, the future King Pedro I of Portugal, refused to marry Branca, a niece of the Aragonese king because of her proven "mental weakness (...) and her incapacity for marriage".

Queen Beatriz and Guilherme de la Garde, Archbishop of Braga, acted as mediators in the quarrel, which lasted almost one year and posed the threat of another civil war in the Kingdom of Portugal following the assassination of Inês de Castro, and in 1355, father and son reached an agreement.

On the religious front, she founded a hospital in 1329 in Lisbon and later, with her husband, the Hospital da Sé to treat twenty-four poor people of both sexes, providing the institution with all that was required for its day-to-day maintenance. In her last wills and codicil, she left many properties and sums for religious establishments, particularly for the Dominican and Franciscan orders, and asked to be buried wearing the simple robe of the latter order.

Beatriz and Afonso IV were the parents of the following infantes:

Maria (1313 in Coimbra – 18 January 1357), was the wife of Afonso XI of Castile, and mother of the future king Pedro I of Castile. Due to the affair of her husband with his mistress Leonor de Guzmán "it was an unfortunate union from the start, contributing to dampening the relations of both kingdoms";

Afonso (1315 in Coimbra), heir to the throne, was a stillbirth. Buried at the disappeared Convento das Donas of the Dominican Order in Santarém;

Dinis (12 January 1317 - 18), heir to the throne, died a year after and was buried in Alcobaça Monastery;

Pedro (8 April 1320 – 18 January 1367), the first surviving male offspring, he succeeded his father. When his wife Constança died in 1345, Queen Beatriz took care of the education of the two orphans, the infantes Maria and Fernando, who later reigned as King Fernando I of Portugal;

Isabel (21 December 1324 – 11 July 1326), buried at the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha in Coimbra;

João (23 September 1326 – 21 June 1327), buried at the Monastery of São Dinis de Odivelas;

Leonor (1328 in Coimbra – October 1348), born in the same year as her sister Maria's wedding, she married King Pedro IV of Aragon in November 1347 and died a year after her marriage succumbing to the Black Death.

Queen Beatriz executed three wills and one codicil. She died in Lisbon when she was 66 years old and was buried at Lisbon Cathedral next to her husband as she had stipulated in her will.

While the definitive tombs were being built, the royal couple was originally buried at the choir of the church and it was not until the reign of King João I that their remains were transferred to the new sepulchers in the main chapel of the cathedral. These sepulchers were destroyed during the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and were replaced in the 18th century. The Livros do Cartóiro da Sé (Charters of the Cathedral) written between 1710 and 1716, describe the burial of Queen Beatriz, very similar to that of her husband, with an engraving that read: Beatriz Portugaliae Regina / Affonsi Quarti Uxor. (Beatriz Queen of Portugal, wife of Afonso IV).

#queen beatriz of portugal #wife of King afonso iv of portugal #queens of portugal #portugal history

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the-writerly-night-owl · 6 years ago

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Quiet Afternoons

Desire and Decorum/ Dominique and Charlotte friendship

Summary: Now grandmothers and great grandmother’s they reflect on their friendship, family, and life.

Authors note: timelines suck and I just decided to go with whatever feels natural. I’m not making this as historical since Charlotte would have died years ago at this point. Instead I’m picking and choosing what would fit. Enjoy!

The dowager countess Dominique glanced out the window as she grinned softly more to herself. Outside the children were playing with a dog running around with them. Each trying to tag each other as best as they could.

“They seem to be playing quite nicely,” said Charlotte now watching them too. “It’s wonderful for Alexandrina to have some friends. I wish that they were around more. Georgiana has been so kind to her.”

“Of course, who knows maybe they’ll be like us one day,” said Dominique, her own half smile on her face.

“Well she’ll have one of the greatest friends then.” They shared a look then looked out the window once more. It could almost be like a mirror if they had met that young once.

Lagging far behind the boys and holding their bonnets, little Georgiana and her friend Princess Alexandrina Victoria were eagerly showing each other their dolls. In a way, if they had known each other at that young of an age, perhaps they would have been friends. The two girls finally gave up trying to catch Georgiana’s brothers and decided to sit down with their dolls.

“That would be delightful,” said Charlotte, as she grinned at her friend. “Imagine if you had known about Clara sooner, perhaps my granddaughter would have been friends with her. You remember meeting her of course.”

“Of course,” said Dominique. “Charlotte Junior, that was so confusing sometimes. Knowing that you two shared a name. She would ride horses around the palaces and always happy. Although lonely. Clara would have been an excellent comfort. She tells me about her childhood sometimes and Clara could keep up from my understanding.”

Charlotte perked up sitting aside her sewing and going to peer closer out the winder. This was great to see the two girls getting along. Dominique could only beam proudly at her growing family. It was a woman’s goal of the era to marry and marry well, but also to produce children, especially an heir. To her delight Clara Sinclaire had produced three sons and a daughter before she was thirty.

“I can only hope that Alexandrina is as lucky as Clara one day. You have three great grandsons already Dominique, three sons. You must be so happy! Edgewater and Ledford could each have their own heirs.”

“Oh they are delights. Three sons and a daughter, Clara has been blessed. That doesn’t hold a candle to you though. Charlotte, so many children and you live to tell the tale. I barely survived having Vincent.”

The two women pulled back to lean against the walls of the window seat. Dominique could watch her friend and the children outside. Together they were like any other proud grandmothers just boasting about their grandchildren. Even if it was technically two generations between Dominique and Georgiana.

“So, tell me, what happened since our last letter?”

“We only wrote a month ago, Charlotte.” She gave her friend a stern but puppy dog looking face. Dominique only laughed before recounting her last month. “Not much has really happened. We had to get a new butler, I liked the old one much better. My favorite book has slowly become this Northanger Abbey…”

Charlotte just shook her head. “No, that kind of news, but personally what’s going on? I can always tell when something is wrong.”

Dominique sighed as she thought about what was really bothering her. In the back of her mind she knew that this was coming. “You have a way of reading me. There are two problems that I wouldn’t mind talking about. But you’re telling me about your problems too, I can tell when you want to talk about something personal.”

Charlotte nodded for her to continue as she reached out and touched her friends’ hand. Their eyes met before her gazed dropped.

“I’m just worried about Clara. She’s having more and more children so she’s not spending as much time at Edgewater. She and Ernest have tried to raise the children in both homes but they’re just spending more time at Ledford. I’m afraid Charlotte.”

She adjusted her dress to lay out in front of her and looked thoughtful. Honestly, she had never seen her friend afraid before. “Please tell me.”

“I’m getting older and it’s harder for me to get up every morning. Clara is one of my remaining family and sometimes… Sometimes I feel like I’m getting pushed aside for new family. She’s just so happy. I don’t want to scare her by talking about this.”

She nodded sympathetic to what she was saying. Sometimes it was easier just to write it down rather than talk about it. “That’s why you have me. I understand that it’s hard to watch her get older. My only advice would be to spend as much time with them as possible. Rock the baby to sleep as many times as you can.”

Dominique squeezed her hand and took a deep breath. Her smile tiny but thankful as she felt a weight come off her chest.

“Thank you, now what ails you?”

“It’s the same as you, except almost the opposite. I lost so many people in my family Dominique. Four of them are already gone and only four have had children.”

Knowing that they were in private Dominique moved closer to her friend before hugging her. The two women hugged each other letting it linger basking in their warmth. “That was heavy,” she said quietly before clearing her mind. “Now perhaps we can switch to a lighter topic? I believe that we have greater things to discuss.”

“Such as?”

“What we will be having for dinner.”

“Dinner? I was thinking dessert. How we can use our powers we have in this house to get it before everyone else.” They burst into laughter before helping each other stand tall. They were going to take their time after all they were still going to get there first. “I think we can get some now.”

Giggling like they were Alexandrina and Georgiana, the former queen and dowager countess strode confidently down to the kitchens and asked for the fresh batch of dessert. Really anything would do.

Tag list: @queerchoicesblog @queen-among-writers @flyawayboo @fluffy-cat-whisper @countrymusicandncis-blog @symonde @am-i-invisible777 @melodyofgraves @paisleylovergirl @elainew13 @itsbrindleybinch @brightpinkpeppercorn @mariamulroney @darley1101 @pixieferry

#choices dominique #choices queen charlotte #choices charlotte #choices countess #desire and decorum #desire and decorum 2 #choices desire and decorum #choices: desire and decorum book 2 #choices: desire and decorum #playchoices fanfiction #playchoices #choices you play #choices stories you play #choices: stories you play #choices #choices d&d2 #choices d&d #choices: d&d #choices: d&d2

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cabildoquarterly · 4 years ago

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New Prose: Annaliese Jakimides

Images by Annaliese Jakimides

Gratitude Bank

I have been accused of being a Pollyanna. But please don’t dismiss me so lightly here. I see the devastation. My heart is crackling, splintering, over those not just dying or sick, but all the others who are suffering. It’s one thing to be pretty much locked at home in a place with space—multiple bedrooms and a sit-down kitchen. But five or six or seven kids, extended family even, closed up in a one- or two-bedroom apartment with a galley in which you need only pivot turn from sink to stove? The homeless. The jobless. The hungry. I am even anguishing for the drug addicts who cannot go without their fix (my brother was one for almost 50 years, so, trust me, I know). But even in the toughest of times, we can find joy, often in the most unlikely places, if we remain open to the possibility.

In my life, I have lived with only macaroni and butter and pepper, lost my home, worried about housing and work, lost a son to his own hand and many others to health and age, situations of their own making and not. I am, however, made to see—or at least look for—the light in everything. And so today when I went for an early-morning walk in the city I now call home, I headed up deserted Main Street where all our small (almost everything is small in Bangor, Maine) storefronts and restaurants are shuttered, except for the card table outside the bookstore for picking up orders and the few adjusted-to-a-version-of-takeout eateries. I crossed West Broadway, a holdover street of big houses from the sea-captain days, to see the new (and extraordinary) chain-saw sculpture carved from a damaged tree in front of Stephen and Tabitha King’s house. As I approached the corner, peaceful space turned into raucous street construction. Backhoes and diggers, foremen, laborers, and flaggers. The sound of pseudo-normalcy in almost spring—we had snowflakes last night. And then I heard “Hey” shouted over the machinery din and turned to see a smiling woman, wielding the stop/slow flag with one hand and waving her other cigarette-holding one at me.

The last time I had seen her, she was stoned-oblivious, tipping over, hanging outside Dunkin Donuts downtown, but not oblivious enough to not recognize me as someone she vaguely remembered, and so we passed a few words. This is not the first time a shout-out recognition has happened on the outside with someone I met when he or she was an inmate at the local jail and I would explore life with them through the lens of children’s books. I know, it sounds impossible and crazy, but ask any of them, it’s a door opening into a deep interior of our shared lives.

Here she is—Marie, I think, although I’m not good with names—waving and shouting, telling me she’s doing okay. Amongst all this heartache and disruption, she’s working, working for the state, a good job with benefits. “You look great. I’m so happy to see you,” I call back. She nods, smiles through a waft of smoke. I am so happy, so happy that I fairly skip the few remaining blocks to my apartment.

I am adding this exchange, the vision of Marie at work, to my gratitude memory bank of these times, to live beside, among others, my grands, who live in New Jersey with a Covid-19 death toll that has long ago surpassed its Vietnam numbers; my grands, who know someone who died from it; my grands, whose parents are still working; my grands, who, in the midst of it all, are experiencing being children, I would say, for the first time. No daycare. No school. No out-to-eat with the whole extended family. No gatherings for birthdays, holidays, babies, weddings. No sports practices. No wrestling meets or soccer games. No adults organizing the where/when/who/what of everything.

And so, they are now, this just-turned-eleven-year-old boy and his eight-year-old sister, best friends. They must be. There are no others readily available. Some squabbles, but not so much. They have figured out compromise and concessions in ways they couldn’t seem to comprehend before.

“Ama,” my granddaughter says when she calls, “want to see our art?” Some is explosive movement, geometrical shapes, blazing colors; others, Georgia O-Keeffe’y; and still others, penciled cartoon characters. It’s noontime; she explains they are done with the schooling that their amazing mother manages to navigate while setting up a website to sell goods online, potting plants, responding to customers and vendors.

“Done?” I’m incredulous “When did you start?”

“We start at 6:30 so we can have the rest of the day to play.” Play. I love that word. Their dad knew play—out in the fields, the woods, where you go dream up your worlds and interests somewhere inside or outside on the 40 acres of a northern Maine homestead. In their busy, managed lives, these children have not known “play,” the kind that takes a fair amount of unencumbered, idle time, lazily expanding imagination. And so, these days, they are tenting inside magical worlds; painting; dancing and choreographing; building games from discarded Zappo boxes and plastic kitchenware.

Today, my grandson tells me his album (well, maybe I said “album”; he probably had another word) is going to “drop” soon. Recently, he downloaded an app and has been playing around with lyrics, his and others’, making changes, finding connections. Every day, I watch the short video of him singing on my phone and am reminded that there is still much we can find to be grateful for. The phone. The din of machines on the corner. A hand waving. Sneakers on my feet. Voices of people—known and unknown. Breath.

***

Annaliese Jakimides’s poetry and prose have been broadcast on local and national public radio, and published in many journals, magazines and anthologies. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, she has been a finalist for the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize and the Maine Literary Awards, in both poetry and nonfiction, among others. She has written about many of Maine’s creatives, including Lois Dodd, Noel Paul Stookey, Melissa Sweet, Ashley Bryan, Clara Neptune Keezer, Alex Katz, Cathie Pelletier, Daniel Minter, and Harold Garde. Her work is rooted in place—inner city and raw, open rural—and people. She now lives in downtown Bangor, Maine.

#Annaliese Jakimides #Cabildo Quarterly #new words #poetic prose

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lukeskyrocker · 5 years ago

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The Eagle and the Swan (Osterpunk 1)

Hans had been up all night. Not because he had any reason to worry. No, he had laid everything out for tomorrow’s meeting. Every detail was perfect, from the agenda and other documents which he had proofread what felt like a hundred thousand times, right down to the place settings on the luncheon table, which he had personally inspected. Everything was perfection; just the way Special Nuncio Hans von Grauber liked it. But that was the problem. He felt better when he could find a mistake and correct it. All this seeming perfection was most disconcerting. With the Pontiff and the Imperator meeting so frequently in these troubled times he needed to find a mistake to correct and therefore to be reassured that he was dotting all the I’s and crossing all the T’s. Maybe Hans was so worried that he was literally worried over nothing. Whether or not it was over nothing, the night passed, restless, and the day of the meeting was soon upon him.

As the Special Nuncio headed down the early morning streets of Rome on the way to the Apostolic Palace, he ran his fingers over the gold and glass of his best holy water vial. This was the vial he saved for special occasions, the vial he had received upon his ordination as a present from his now-deceased grandmother. He touched the small jewels inlaid in the gold one by one and said a prayer upon each, then returning and muttering each prayer over again. Though even the poorest pauper in Osta possessed a holy water vial, this one was special, not just sentimental, to him. Powerful blessings had been placed on this water by his beloved grandmother, who had always believed he had something special to offer in the Church, some beautiful story to unfold. She believed it even when he had lost faith. Now Hans wondered how proud his grandmother would be if she could see him now: Special Nuncio von Grauber… facilitating every meeting of Her Holiness, Pontiff Clara III as she consults with the Imperator amidst this new looming threat of war in Osterpunk. But his quiet, prayerful stride was interrupted just around the next street corner.

As he passed into the next square, he noticed a young woman standing in the early morning glow.

“Good morning,” he greeted her.

“Good morning, Father,” she respectfully replied but her gaze was distant, fixed on a third floor balcony on an adjacent building. Her face was contorted in a frown.

“Is there something the matter, young lady?” Father Hans tried to follow her gaze. Apart from a large orange cat sitting on the balcony he couldn’t see anything that could provoke such a worried look.

“Well, yes… I don’t mean to bother you though…” Her voice trailed off as the frown disappeared just long enough to give a brief and grateful smile to the priest before she returned to looking up at the balcony.

“There’s no bother. I assure you. It’s just you look somewhat vexed and I wonder if I might be able to assist.”

“Oh, how embarrassing!” The dark haired girl said and shook her fist up at the cat. “Now, look here, Figaro! You’re interrupting innocent passerbys and one is a priest.”

Hans chuckled and started to put together a plausible explanation. “Is he stuck? Is that big orange muffin stuck up there? Is that all?”

“Yes, Father. He’s climbed up the trellis in pursuit of pigeons and now he can’t get down. Once it gets later in the day I can just go up to the owner of that balcony and we’ll let him in through the door. It’s just that the tenant there is elderly and I don’t want to wake him this early.”

“Don’t you have your holy water?” Hans asked.

“I’ve misplaced it and I’m saving to buy more.”

“Ah, I see,” said the priest and chuckled a little more. “He doesn’t look very distressed. Does he?”

“No, the baddun. He thinks this is just a game,” she admitted. “Well, you’re just going to have to wait there until Mr. Giacomo wakes up and lets you in!” She said in the fluffy ginger red miscreant’s direction.

“Nonsense,” said the priest in a comforting and gentle tone. “I have my holy water right here. Just give me a second here. I promise I’ll be very careful not to drop him.”

“It would serve the baddun right if you did,” she said as if unfeeling but then held her breath as Father Hans gripped his grandmother’s vial and focused his attention on Mr. Figaro.

They say that gentle souls manifest this quality through their holy water’s extension as if their kind and sympathetic feelings can be felt even through the force they generate when using the waters. Fortunately for Mr. Figaro’s protective owner, Father Hans was a very gentle soul and he had soon used the power of his waters to place the fluffy baddun in the arms of his waiting Mama.

“There you are. He is heavy for a cat though. Isn’t he?”

“Thank you so much, Father…?”

“Father Hans von Grauber at your service. And may I ask your name?”

“Cecilia.” “Cecilia and the infamous baddun who they call Mr. Figaro, eh. Mr. Figaro would learn better than to chase pigeons if he ever tangoed with bigger birds.”

“That he would. There aren’t any bigger birds in the city. If you knew of any, Father Hans, I’d be happy to show them to him, if only to scare him a bit and teach him a lesson.”

“Well, I work for the two biggest birds there are, after a fashion,” he smiled with pride.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Cecilia.

“I work for the Swan herself and today I’m going to be facilitating a meeting between her and the Great Black Eagle.”

Figaro was squirming so much in his rescuer’s grasp that she missed the significance of his words. Cecilia dropped the mischievous cat and watched him run away without comprehending Hans’ attempt at name-dropping.

“I wonder if he wouldn’t even learn from meeting them,” she said.

Hans realized the metaphor had been lost on Cecilia and felt more than a little silly for his attempt at hubris.

“Well,” he said. “I’m very glad Mr. Figaro is safe. I bid you auf wiedersehen.”

“Auf Wiedersehen, Father. It was nice meeting you. Ciao!”

Hans waved goodbye to the cat and the girl and continued on his way to the Apostolic Palace.

He saluted the Swiss Guard at the gate and kept muttering his prayers on his waters. He even muttered slightly faster and louder, to say them for the thousandth time before he made it all the way up to the council chambers. In the last few steps of his morning commute, before reaching the chambers where his workday would begin, he paused and looked out the gold-encrusted window frame. He thought of the incident with the cat stuck up in the balcony and looked at the waters in his hand.

“Well, Grandma, your darling grandson has done at least some good today. With Osta on the brink of war with the Turk again, let’s hope he can do some more good. At least, let’s hope I can do my part in assisting the two biggest birds there are in protecting what is good in our world.” Here the priest bowed his head in silence. “Amen.”

Special Nuncio pushed the sky blue council chamber door open and addressed the team of already bustling staffers within. On one wall a massive seal of a white and gold swan defended her cygnets. On the other was the image of the Great Black Eagle herself, arrayed holding a sword and shield against all enemies of Osta. The nuncio raised his voice so as to be heard above the activity. “Alright, everyone. If this day is going to be written in history, then let’s make sure we haven’t left any detail unattended.”

#fantasy #osterpunk #fiction #osta

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the-record-obituaries · 5 years ago

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Aug. 7, 2019: Obituaries

Zachary Thomas Dancy, age 27

Zachary Thomas Dancy, age 27, of North Wilkesboro, passed away Sunday, August 4, 2019 at his home. Zachary was born April 17, 1992 in Forsyth County to Arthur Matthew “Matt” and Jacqueline Dancy Dixon. Zachary loved his video games. He was kind hearted, loved his family, and always put others before himself. Zachary was preceded in death by his grandparents, Haskel and Nellie Dancy; and Uncles, Billy Joe Dixon and Paul Dean Dixon. Surviving are his parents, Arthur Matthew “Matt” and Jacqueline Dixon of North Wilkesboro; grandparents, Arnold and Darlene Dixon of North Wilkesboro; brother, Matthew Paul Dixon of North Wilkesboro; Aunts and Uncles, Gaye and Stuart Handy of North Wilkesboro; Frankie and Mike Connor of Hamptonville, Denise and Rodney Sparks of Millers Creek, Keith and Rosanne Dixon of Yadkinville; numerous cousins, and other aunts and uncles. Memorial service will be held 11:00 a.m. Friday, August 9, 2019 at Miller Funeral Chapel with Christopher Wyatt, Rev. Bobby Felts and Jake Dancy officiating. Flowers will be accepted or memorials may be made to Miller Funeral Service to help with funeral expenses. Miller Funeral Service is in charge of the arrangements. Online condolences may be made to www.millerfuneralservice.com

Betty Church, 62

Betty Ann Church, age 62, of North Wilkesboro, passed away Thursday, August 1, 2019 at her home. She was born June 18, 1957 in Front Royal, Virginia to Ray and Elizabeth Cook Bauserman. Ms. Church was preceded in death by her parents.

Surviving are her daughter, Kristal Dellinger and spouse Garrett of Concord; grandchildren, Gavin Dellinger and Corah Dellinger; her husband, Justin Church of North Wilkesboro; sister, Norma Jean Plauger and spouse Joel of Front Royal, Virginia; half-sisters, Darlene Ringgold of Elizabeth City, NC and Kim Smith of Stephen City, Virginia.

Memorial service was August 4, at Miller Funeral Chapel with Rev. James Wingler and Kevin Huffman officiating. Flowers will be accepted. Miller Funeral Service is in charge of the arrangements.

Nellie Deal, 82

Mrs. Nellie Janette Deal, 82 of Annapolis, Maryland, wife of Royce Deal, died Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at Somerfield Assisted Living in Annapolis, MD.

Funeral services were August 6, at Reins-Sturdivant Chapel with Rev. Derek Kilby officiating. Burial was in Pilgrim Baptist Church Cemetery.

Ms. Deal was born June 20, 1937 in Wilkes County to Jacob Clyde and Mary Beshears Michael.

She was preceded in death by her parents.

She is survived by her husband, Royce Deal, of the home; two sons, Michael Deal and wife, Ann, of Falls Church, VA, and Kurt Deal of Bowie, MD; and two grandchildren, Jacob Deal and wife, Kelly, of Silver Springs, MD, and Zachary Deal of Pittsburg, PA.

Flowers will be accepted or memorial made to Alzheimer's research at www.alz.org or 4600 Park Road, Suite 250, Charlotte NC 28209.

Regina Pierce, 57

Mrs. Regina Sloop Pierce, age 57 of Wilkesboro, passed away Wednesday, July, 31, 2019 at her home.

Private family services will be held at a later date.

Mrs. Pierce was born January 30, 1962 in Wilkes County to John Ralph Sloop and Ruth Perry Sloop. She graduated ASU with a BS Degree in Information Systems and worked in the IT Department of Hickory Chair Company. She was a Partner in Statesville Pallet Company which her father started in 1988 and played an integral part of its success. Regina loved our Holy God and treasured her precious children and family. She had a love for English Bulldogs and her work. Mrs. Pierce was a member of Wilkesboro Baptist Church.

She was preceded in death by her father and a brother; Eric Sloop.

Mrs. Pierce is survived by a daughter; Victoria R. Pierce of the home, a son; James R. Pierce of the home, her mother; Ruth Sloop of Wilkesboro, one sister; Teresa Sloop Church and husband Mark of Wilkesboro and a brother; Davy Sloop and wife Pam of Wilkesboro.

The family requests no flowers. Memorials may be made to Wilkesboro Baptist Church Children's Ministry PO Box 61 Wilkesboro, NC 28697.

Geraldine Lane, 93

Geraldine Gant Lane, age 93, of North Wilkesboro, passed away Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at Wilkes Senior Village. Mrs. Lane was born July 7, 1926 in Forsyth County to Worth Lyon and Myrtle Mahaffey Gant. She was a member of Harmony Baptist Church, enjoyed gardening and cooking. Geraldine was one who always thought about others before herself; she was very kind and never met a stranger. She was preceded in death by her parents; and sister, Mildred Smith.

Mrs. Lane is survived by her son, Timothy Lane and spouse Patricia of North Wilkesboro; grandsons, Matthew Lane and spouse Kelly and Austin Lane all of Durham; sisters, Nell Patterson, Bobbie Jean Wellborn both of North Wilkesboro, Gail Hamby and spouse Joe of Wilkesboro.

Funeral service was held August 3, at Harmony Baptist Church with Rev. Troy Behrens officiating. Burial followed in the Church Cemetery. Memorials may be made to Harmony Baptist Church, PO Box 960, Millers Creek, NC 28651.

Miller Funeral Service is in charge of the arrangements.

Thomas Elledge, 72

Thomas (Tom) Clinton Elledge, age 72, of Wilkesboro, passed away Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at his home. Mr. Elledge was born December 16, 1946 in Wilkes County to Clinton Harden and Inez Call Elledge. He was a US Army Vietnam Veteran. Tom was a member of Cub Creek Baptist Church; member of the Cruisers Club and a member of the Masonic Lodge in Wilkesboro. Mr. Elledge enjoyed fixing old cars and loved spending time with his grandkids and family. He was preceded in death by his parents; brothers, Daniel Elledge, and Chris Elledge.

He is survived by his wife, Sandra Edsel Elledge; son, T.J. Elledge of Greensboro; daughter, Kellie Perry and spouse Derrick of North Wilkesboro; grandchildren, Brycen Elledge, Lillyan Elledge and Natalie Perry; brother, Don Elledge of Wilkesboro; sisters, Janice Wagoner and spouse Steve, Linda Davis and spouse Paul, Dora Elledge, Brenda Zeman all of North Wilkesboro and Marjorie Tyson and spouse Julius of McLeansville.

Memorial service was held August 3, at Cub Creek Baptist Church with Rev. Brian Sampson officiating. Flowers will be accepted.

Miller Funeral Service is in charge of the arrangements.

Earl Radcliffe, 64

Mr. Earl "Haystacks" Joseph Radcliffe, 64, of North Wilkesboro, passed away on Tuesday, July 30, 2019.

Earl was born on Saturday, November 6, 1954 in Fairmont, West Virginia to Roy Osmand Radcliffe and Bernadine Louise Cox Radcliffe.

Earl is preceded in death by his parents.

Earl is survived by his sister, Deborah Spicer of North Wilkesboro and many nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. August 10, 2019 at Adams Funeral Home of Wilkes Chapel, 2109 Moravian Falls Road Moravian Falls.

Pastor Eric Jones will be officiating.

Adams Funeral Home of Wilkes has the honor of serving the Radcliffe Family.

Bryan Williams, 55

Mr. Bryan Scott Williams, 55, of Wilkesboro, passed away on Tuesday, July 30, 2019.

Bryan Scott Williams was born on Tuesday, July 31, 1963 in Wilkes County to Burley Williams and Nancy Loree Johnson.

Bryan is preceded in death by father, and grandparents, Glenn Horatio Johnson and Lena Estelle Anderson Johnson.

Bryan is survived by his wife, Allison Gail White Williams of Wilkesboro; sons, Matthew Scott Williams (Stephanie) of Jonesville, Luke Scott Williams of Wilkesboro; mother, Nancy Loree Johnson William Byrd; sister, Sandra Kay "Flossie" Shew (Jerry "Gob") of North Wilkesboro; brothers, Larry Marvin Williams of Ronda, Dennis Glenn Williams of Wilkesboro; nephew, Casey Dishmon; neice, Lena Danielle "Beenie Weene" Williams, granddaughters, Bristol and Brielle Williams of Jonesville.

A celebration of life will be held by the family at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be given to National Foundation for Autism, 9815 Carroll Canyon Rd #203, San Diego, CA 92131.

Adams Funeral Home of Wilkes has the honor of serving the Williams Family

Juanita Arnold, 77

Mrs. Juanita Whitt Greene Arnold, age 77 of Elkin, passed away Sunday, July 28, 2019 at Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital.

Funeral services wereJuly 31, at White Oak Baptist Church with Pastor Jason Bumgarner, Rev. Mike Church and Pastor Bobby Prevette officiating. Burial was in the church cemetery.

Mrs. Arnold was born August 8, 1941 in Watauga County to Cecil Whitt and Mildred Greer Whitt. She was a homemaker and a member of White Oak Baptist Church.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her first husband; Gaires Greene and a brother; Cecil Junior Williams.

She is survived by her husband; Tommy Arnold of the home, a daughter; Tammy Benton and husband Carl of Wilkesboro, two sons; Gregory Greene and wife Amanda of Purlear and Terry Greene and wife Sherri of Purlear, three grandchildren; Heather Baker and husband Steve, Cody Greene and Rob and Jessica Greene, a brother; James Williams of Millers Creek and a special nephew James Edward Williams.

Flowers will be accepted or memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society PO Box 9 North Wilkesboro, NC 28659.

Christopher Parks, 35

Mr. Christopher McKinley Parks, age 35 of Wilkesboro, died Friday, July 26, 2019 at Wake Forest Baptist Health - Wilkes Medical Center.

Funeral services were August 2, at Parks Grove Baptist Church with Rev. James Ferguson, Rev. Tyra Martin, Rev. Casey Walker and Rev. Roy Brown officiating. Burial was in the church cemetery.

Mr. Parks was born April 11, 1984 in Wilkes County to Lawson

McKinley and Patsy Ann Parson Parks.

He worked for Home Depot and was a gifted singer who loved the Lord and loved to meet people.

In addition to his parents, Mr. Parks is survived by his sister April Parks and Kevin Watts of Wilkesboro; his God Mother Clara Parsons; and his God Children Ezekiel Leach and Avery Caul; and a host of Aunts and Uncles and Cousins.

Flowers will be accepted.

Buford Eller, 87

Mr. Buford Ivan Eller, 87, of Wilkesboro, passed away on Friday, July 26, 2019.

Buford was born on Thursday, September 17, 1931 in Wilkes County to McKinley Hobert Eller and Mamie Estelle Yates Eller.

Buford is preceded in death by his parents; wife, Barbara Woodie Eller, brother, Purcey Eller; sisters, Mamie Cardwell, Clara Laws and Clay Kiser.

Buford is survived by his daughters, Becky Lakeman and husband, Tom of Mooresville, Kathy Triplett and husband Rex; sister, Betty Andrews and grandson, Evan Lakeman.

The funeral services are private.

Adams Funeral Home of Wilkes has the honor of serving the Eller Family.

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couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name · 7 years ago

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17, 20, 21 salty ask

Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen… OOOKAY so I know Clara’s outcome was mostly because Jenna changed her mind about leaving at the literal last minute and they had to rush things and all. But like. Remember when everyone thought Clara was pregnant with Danny’s baby, and that’s what she was gonna tell him when he was coming over right before he got hit by the car??? I feel like that would’ve been a better storyline/ending then what she ended up with (I mean, don’t get me wrong- her traveling the universe with Ashildr is great. But she’s literally DEAD. She has ‘wiggle room’, but she’s running on stolen time that her best friend suffered for. Her character never gave herself the chance to recover from Danny’s death, she was depressed and made impulsive and self destructive decisions, she deteriorated. She still gets to travel for a bit, fine, but she’s still suffering and now she doesn’t even have the Doctor to help at all.) So, anyway, remember he freaking great grandson who’s last name was Pink and looked exactly like Danny and became a time traveler because of stories he heard of his family???? Right???? Finding out and trying to deal with the fact she had Danny’s baby could’ve been an interesting storyline? We know from Kill The Moon that she wouldn’t want an abortion, and there could be a few episodes of her debating over whether she should keep it- whether she thought she could do it alone, but also with knowing how much Danny hated growing up in the system and everything, and remembering how she felt growing up without her mom. And she was pretty much using the TARDIS as an outlet for her self-destructive ways at this point, so she’d have to actually stop and face her feelings at that point if she didn’t want to risk hurting the baby. The Doctor obviously wouldn’t be hugely involved in her actual decision, but you could’ve gotten great moments out of him, like remembering the Ponds and how they never saw their baby again, and remembering his own family. And I’m not trying to say at all that motherhood > traveling the universe, but I just think it would’ve been in character for Clara to choose to leave for those reasons, especially since the kid would’ve been the Last Trace Of Danny. And if she had left on her own like that, been allowed to grow old and get better and be happy, we would’ve had room open for Clara Oswald cameos for the rest of the series. We could’ve had 50 year old Clara pulling a Sarah Jane and kicking the 20th Doctor’s ass, we could’ve had a set up for the Mini-Oswald-Pink to be an implied future companion. But Clara’s dead and frozen in time at 29. The second Jenna Coleman starts noticeably aging, we’re pretty much never gonna see her again. Just, like, the fulfilling adventurous life she lived in the dream in Last Christmas!!! She could’ve had all that!!! And she doesn’t!!!! And IM SALTY!!!!!!! UGH.

What is the purest ship in the fandom? Riley Matthews and Farkle Minkus from Girl Meets World are the purest people to ever exist are you kidding me

What are your thoughts on crack ships? Um, I mean? I’m usually pretty much on the ‘ship whoever you want’ side. I don’t really get when people ship characters from like…different pieces of fiction, but whatever. It only really becomes a problem when people have a crack ship with literally nothing to back it up or support it becoming canon and then get angry when it, shockingly, Doesn’t Become Canon. lol

#send me asks!!!#dw #gmw #asks #molly mumbles

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script101 · 7 years ago

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An alternate hypothesis of Clara and Twelve's relationship.

I know that Clara and The Doctor loved each other profoundly.

I think he remembers what Clara would have wanted him to remember.

I think The Doctor loved Clara more than he had ever loved anyone.

Clara was The Impossible Girl.

I think their love and their perception of each other was, appropriately, IMPOSSIBLE.

I don’t think their perception of their relationship was planned from day one, but I do give Steven Moffat quite a bit of credit in terms of remembering what has happened and understanding what will and won’t work.

They loved each other. Profoundly. Painfully.

I do NOT think they were IN love, though.

Fellow Clara stans, tell me if I’m crazy:

___________________

(I will preface this by admitting that I thought they were heading towards romantic love when it was Eleven and Clara, and I now I have to edit this because I remember that I felt cheated that we didn’t see more of those two actors together after Clara saved him from himself. But, after both Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi were adamant about there not being any romance between them, I can only guess that perhaps Matt Smith had a little crush on JC. And crucially, since Heaven Sent and Hell Bent show how much The Doctor loved Clara, Clara would have had to have been wildly out of established explicitly stated character, and have been a mindbogglingly shallow hypocrite for 4/5ths of her run, if she permanently fell OUT of love with The Doctor and dumped him for handsome Danny simply because Twelve didn’t look like he was in his late twenties/early thirties anymore. Jenny hung the lampshade on that in episode 8x01. Appearances don’t matter if you’re IN ROMANTIC LOVE. No. Romantic love doesn’t really work. Yes, they flirted. He was cute, he saved her life, and he followed her around like a puppy ostensibly finding new ways to entertain her. But instead he was actually trying to figure out what in the universe she was. He was sweet and cuddly and genuinely concerned for her safety, but Eleven’s interest in Clara was NOT pure. Clara was Eleven’s new shiny Rubik’s Cube, not his partner. He was Amy’s friend. He wasn’t really Clara’s. She fancied him, she adored him, she risked her life for him and then chose to DIE for him. But if we think about how Mme Vastra described The Doctor to Victorian Clara, he was cruel and almost dead inside. In HIDE, the kindest woman on earth, a true empathic psychic made no secret of her deep dislike and mistrust of Eleven even though “Eleven” is how high he had turned up the charm! She told Clara “He has ice in his heart”. This has a second meaning in terms of “The Impossible Girl” puzzle, but Emma Greyling wasn’t reading Eleven’s thoughts, she was reading his EMOTIONS. In the context she stated it, her meaning was unambiguous. Imho, until Clara walked into his Time Stream, Clara was no more then a pretty entertaining puzzle for the emotionally wounded Eleven to solve.)

“Romantic love” is also almost too easy.

It doesn’t explain why Twelve HAD to have his specific memories of Clara erased.

“In love” dismisses, denies, and insults both River and Rose, not to mention The Doctor’s first wife. Dismissing Rose makes Ten’s treatment of Martha inexcusable.

It undermines his friendships with Amy and Rory and Donna.

The Doctor is 2000 years old. He’s lost… everyone.

You can survive losing a love. You can survive losing a spouse.

There is one relationship, so rare that we don’t think about it, where the loss of one FOR ANY REASON AT ANY AGE, has (per Psychology Today) predicted the death of the other within two years at a horrifying rate of 50%. I read that and found it so disturbing I can’t bear to believe it. The idea that there is one person, and that if you have that person in your life, and they die, or worse you see them murdered in front of you, the chance that you will be dead within 2 years is a coin toss? THAT WOULD justify and REQUIRE a memory wipe.

______

I’m operating on the assumption that everyone reading this has seen seasons 7-9. I’m only pointing out a few episodes as reference.

Eleven met a doomed Clara in the first episode of season seven. That Clara was the same as all the Claras: so insanely smart that the Daleks wanted her, but so devoid of anything resembling a cruel thought that they were unable to make her a Dalek. Subtract love, add hate. You can’t subtract love if love IS what you are (please google the translation of La Habanera and note how it fits Clara’s arc down to the bird), you can’t add hate if you aren’t a hate filled person.

In The Snowmen, we meet Clara again. She’s so much like Eleven I remember thinking they were separated at birth! Just like The Doctor, she was running around with a fake name that we never learn. She was NOT calling herself “Alice Montague”. The closing credits, Amazon Prime, and IMDb confirm that Alice was the name of the housekeeper. We NEVER learned the pseudonym of the Governess*.

We finally meet Clara Prime. She and Eleven seem to flirt and he follows her around like a puppy. They hug, but never kiss. He isn’t interested in Clara, he is interested in trying to figure out what Clara is and how she continues to exist. There are no longing gazes. The one time that Eleven comments on Clara’s appearance in a sexual way, he immediately shudders. The shudder bothered me.

At the end of season 7, Clara, a human, walked into the Eleventh Doctor’s time stream (Name of the Doctor). While she was in his time stream, Eleven FINALLY kissed his wife like a man! Applause combined with me shouting “it’s about damn time!” After saying goodbye to River, Eleven was then able to pull Clara out safely. He found her a few feet from another version of himself (the War Doctor). We have two more episodes with Matt Smith and from then on it’s Clara and the Twelfth Doctor.

Then it starts getting bizarre.

After regenerating, Twelve describes Clara as “the NOT me one”. Huh? Seriously, what??? Because he thinks it’s hard to tell them apart?

The mystery is solved, but Twelve is more dependent on Clara than he was on anyone to date. Their relationship was odd, but now, for the first time, they were partners. They were EQUALS.

There are viewers who hate that Clara became arguably the most important person in The Doctor’s life. It logically really should be either Davros (the creator of the things that defined who the doctor wasn’t), or Missy/The Master (the only other member of his species still alive). Steven Moffat solidified Clara’s influence on The Doctor relatively early on in “Listen”.

From Twelve’s point of view, once Clara walked into his time stream Clara has been with him his entire life. In LISTEN the audience sees that she really has been with him his entire life. We also know from that script and the script to Dark Water that Clara never could have wound up in The Doctor’s bedroom to comfort him as a child if their time streams weren’t INTERTWINED and if they too didn’t share a profound emotional and psychic link.

Twelve is seemingly very rude to Clara, but he also still follows her around like a puppy. He insults her appearance by saying they look the same age.

So I have to wonder: what if he wasn’t insulting her? What if he actually thinks of her as being the same age as he is?

He clearly can’t live without her.

He is very troubled at the end of Flatline (a personal favorite of mine). He’s upset because Clara was way too good at being him. She should have been upset about the people who died. She wasn’t. He was. Quite a reversal of the previous week.

Clara WAS in romantic love with Danny Pink. They were both teachers. They both loved children. CLARA MET AND SPOKE TO THEIR GREAT-GRANDSON ORSON PINK. After Danny’s death (in a cruel irony, he died after being hit by a car. Clara’s parents met after her mother Ellie saved her father Dave from the same fate.)

Having met Orson, Clara wasn’t just grieving a boyfriend, she was grieving the man she believed was going to be her husband and CLARA WAS GRIEVING THEIR CHILDREN.

Clara believed, ever since Listen, that she and Danny were going to have at least one son, and at least one grandson who would be Orson’s father. She snapped. Who can blame her? We were never given proof that Missy murdered Danny. Clara is the type to blame herself. In her mind, because she was too afraid to tell Danny about all her lies to his face, she believed she had killed Danny, she believed she had killed their son, she believed had killed their grandson, and she believed she had killed her great-grandson Orson. Clara believed she had obliterated her entire family, and the weight of that was just too much for her. Again, who can blame her?

Clara threatens Twelve to try to make him save Danny, even though she knew it was impossible. Huh. Ok. Um… How DID human Clara know that it was impossible? Yes she’s very smart, but that’s a stretch. We in the audience knew. How did she? How much “Time Lord Wisdom” did she absorb while she was in Eleven’s time stream?

When did she learn his biography? He could have told her, but it doesn’t seem like something season 8’s Doctor would talk about.

The opening credits for Death in Heaven showed Clara’s eyes in the spot reserved for The Doctor. To play with the audience? Sure. To hint at The Hybrid? Why not.

We learn Missy put them together. Missy is insane, but she knows The Doctor. Out of all the people in the universe, she knew Clara was the perfect match for The Doctor. In her wacko mind, Clara was a gift.

On to season nine. Clara is becoming more and more reckless and more and more like The Doctor. Twelve is becoming increasingly worried about losing Clara.

Then he sees her murdered.

Stop. Back up. Why were we shown the Osgoods? >

Yes it was a brilliant two parter and I thought the political message was perfect and desperately needed.

But why did the Zygon story begin by showing us that when one Osgood died, her twin went insane? This element of the story was irrelevant. Moving, yes, but irrelevant to the larger narrative unless it wasn’t important to an even larger story arc. Grief was enough. Why madness?

In Heaven Sent, we KNOW The Doctor understands what is happening once he realizes the significance of the word “Bird”. But he keeps going. He wants to die. He is afraid to die but the thought of living without Clara is too much to bear. He is ready to give up. It’s only a pep talk from a hallucination of Clara that makes him continue through the most evil torture I can imagine.

He does it in order to cheat death. In order to cheat CLARA’S death. In order to try to attempt what Clara had tried a season earlier: rewrite a fixed point in time even though he KNEW damn well he couldn’t.

Once forced to accept that Clara’s heart will never beat again, we see that Twelve STILL refuses to accept it.

He’s still trying to cheat.

His logic makes no sense.

Ashildr (as the Voice of Moffat) is tasked with explaining “The Hybrid” to The Doctor and Clara (a human who has activated the monitor of the second TARDIS she’s ever been in, and who has been able to control THE TARDIS with a snap of her finger just like The Doctor since the 50th anniversary episode). Ashildr explains that she isn’t The Hybrid, the Hybrid is Twelve and Clara TOGETHER.

She’s right.

The two of them were The Hybrid. The hearts Twelve burned were his own.

_______

…I remember thinking they were separated at birth…

At the beginning of this essay, I mentioned that there is one death you can’t recover from. The death people can’t recover from is losing THEIR TWIN. Identical or fraternal, the surviving twin always feels that a piece of them is missing. If that surviving twin was a Time Lord with a Tardis, would he EVER give up trying to make his twin sister’s heart beat again? We saw evidence that 3.4 billion years of torture wouldn’t stop him. Twelve would never stop until the universe burned. THAT was why he had to lose his memory.

Somewhere Clara is still flying around in a TARDIS she shouldn’t be able to fly and she still loves Twelve. But once her murder was a fixed point, Twelve couldn’t handle remembering her anymore. The memory of her was too dangerous.

_______

So yes, I agree that they loved each other, but it wasn’t romantic love.

Clara and Twelve… their love was something else. Something, appropriately, completely IMPOSSIBLE.

I think that when Clara stepped into The Doctor’s time stream and splintered across it, she became psychologically more than a bit like him and he became psychologically more then a bit like her.

Danny recognized how close Clara was to The Doctor. Clara was worried about his reaction to her continued travels in the TARDIS, but Danny seemed as ok with their relationship as could he expected. Danny couldn’t stand Twelve, but even after Kill the Moon he had accepted that they were a set. If he loves one of them, he’s gonna be stuck with the other. He saw and stated that Clara and The Doctor very close and got along. He didn’t want her taking idiotic risks (he was right), but he had no problem at all with his girlfriend spending time with a man he hated (even when they had specifically gone somewhere that is inherently romantic like The Orient Express) as long as it was safe. He was amused by her concern about his reaction. As long as she was safe, she didn’t have to explain. Being the bait for a Skovox Blitzer? No. Hell No. Unacceptable. Running off with a man he hates to spend at least one night on one of the most romantic trains ever? Yeah, that’s fine. That was amusing and nothing he was going to try to stop.

Danny himself recognized that the only thing to do about his girlfriend running around with this “Time Lord” he hated was to accept it as long as she promised not to lie if he was going to put her in mortal peril. Danny seemed to know in Mummy on the Orient Express that if he wanted to date Clara, he was stuck with the pompous ass who would always demean and dismiss him as a PE teacher. They were a package.

__________

After Ashildr explained to how they TOGETHER were The Hybrid, Twelve tries to cheat Clara’s death with a memory wipe.

Clara won’t allow it.

Clara, a human, somehow manages to reverse the way the memory wipe device works. Instead of erasing her memory it erases his.

He knows something is wrong. He knows he’s forgotten someone. He still can’t remember Clara specifically.

Clara and Ashildr, in a TARDIS Clara should not be able to operate, leave. Just like in the lyrics to La Habanera, Clara beat her wings, broke the cage, and flew away.

Even though Twelve can’t remember Clara Oswald, he seems to still retain her humanity.

Eleven was at times terrifying. By the end, he was insincere more then he wasn’t. He was at times utterly terrifying in both Season 6 and in Season 7.

Twelve, in contrast, was ALWAYS not quite right. He was too human.

Does anyone really think Twelve could have done what Eleven did at the end of The Rebel Flesh? No. Even upon a second viewing knowing Eleven wasn’t trying to hurt Amy but was panicking and desperately trying to wake her up so he could rescue her, does anyone really think Twelve could have violently slammed a companion into a wall and hollered hostilely in her face? No.

Twelve couldn’t have done it because CLARA couldn’t have done it.

Look at Twelve in season 10. He’s a teacher. He didn’t need Clara’s “tact” cards when Bill asked him what was going on at the end of Extremis. He somehow REMEMBERED how to tell someone, ahem… very bad news. Clara would have been proud. He REMEMBERED how to comfort children in Thin Ice just like Clara would.

He has forgotten the specifics of Clara because he had to, but he couldn’t forget her personality, her kindness, her love of children. She is still a part of him.

So yes, I think Clara was the most important character in The Doctor’s entire existence.

I think they loved each other beyond what they could understand.

But I do NOT think they were EVER in romantic love.

She was The Impossible Girl.

I think their love was impossible.

When Clara walked into The Doctor’s Time Stream, I think she and he became Fraternal Twins.

Again, they never realized this. Ashildr had to explain how the two of them together were The Hybrid. But it fits the dynamic of their relationship. They would both die for each other. They bicker constantly. She bosses him around. There is NOTHING that one could do that could make the other leave.

I have lost count of the number of times their relationship was described as unhealthy or disfunctional. It reads quite differently if Twelve is Clara’s annoying bratty brother. Nearly every interaction going back to Deep Breath works if he perceives her as his sister and best friend and he’s always around annoying her because they used to do everything together but now she’s got a social life while he doesn’t.

I think they were The Hybrid because they were, on a deep psychological level, fraternal twins.

And I think they both perceived Clara as being the one who was a few minutes “older”.

Thoughts?

____________________ (*I like to imagine that Victorian Clara was calling herself “Becky Montague” because I find the reference to Vanity Fair funny. Victorian Clara and Vanity Fair’s Becky Sharp were social climbers, and Victorian Clara wound up literally climbing stairs for a social reason. Victorian Clara was sharp as a tack, but unlike nanny Becky Sharp, she cared deeply for her charges. Plus, one of Becky Sharp’s charges was named “Amelia”. It’s just too on the nose.)

#nevermore #clara oswald #twelfth doctor #oswelve #doctor who #danny pink #12th doctor #doctor who meta #jenna coleman #peter capaldi

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osterpunk · 5 years ago

Text

Osterpunk 1.1

The Eagle and the Swan

As he passed into the next square, he noticed a young woman standing in the early morning glow.

“Good morning,” he greeted her.

“Good morning, Father,” she respectfully replied but her gaze was distant, fixed on a third floor balcony on an adjacent building. Her face was contorted in a frown.

“There’s no bother. I assure you. It’s just you look somewhat vexed and I wonder if I might be able to assist.”

“Oh, how embarrassing!” The dark haired girl said and shook her fist up at the cat. “Now, look here, Figaro! You’re interrupting innocent passerbys and one is a priest.”

Hans chuckled and started to put together a plausible explanation. “Is he stuck? Is that big orange muffin stuck up there? Is that all?”

“Don’t you have your holy water?” Hans asked.

“I’ve misplaced it and I’m saving to buy more.”

“Ah, I see,” said the priest and chuckled a little more. “He doesn’t look very distressed. Does he?”

“Nonsense,” said the priest in a comforting and gentle tone. “I have my holy water right here. Just give me a second here. I promise I’ll be very careful not to drop him.”

“It would serve the baddun right if you did,” she said as if unfeeling but then held her breath as Father Hans gripped his grandmother’s vial and focused his attention on Mr. Figaro.

“There you are. He is heavy for a cat though. Isn’t he?”

“Thank you so much, Father…?”

“Father Hans von Grauber at your service. And may I ask your name?”

“Cecilia.” “Cecilia and the infamous baddun who they call Mr. Figaro, eh. Mr. Figaro would learn better than to chase pigeons if he ever tangoed with bigger birds.”

“That he would. There aren’t any bigger birds in the city. If you knew of any, Father Hans, I’d be happy to show them to him, if only to scare him a bit and teach him a lesson.”

“Well, I work for the two biggest birds there are, after a fashion,” he smiled with pride.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Cecilia.

“I work for the Swan herself and today I’m going to be facilitating a meeting between her and the Great Black Eagle.”

“I wonder if he wouldn’t even learn from meeting them,” she said.

Hans realized the metaphor had been lost on Cecilia and felt more than a little silly for his attempt at hubris.

“Well,” he said. “I’m very glad Mr. Figaro is safe. I bid you auf wiedersehen.”

“Auf Wiedersehen, Father. It was nice meeting you. Ciao!”

Hans waved goodbye to the cat and the girl and continued on his way to the Apostolic Palace.

#osterpunk #osta #fantasy fiction #fantasy

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davidaolson · 5 years ago

Text

The long, leisurely drive from Garden of the Gods to the Comfort Inn in Alamosa where we will hole up during our visit to the Great Sand Dunes National Park takes us by the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. It is happenstance. We had no idea it existed. We see the sign. Have the time. Stop for a visit. As the name suggests, it is famous for fossil beds including massive stumps of petrified redwood trees. After watching the Park Service video, I am most anxious to encounter the petrified beings, to touch the stone rings stretching deep into the seasons before man attempted to harness time, before man created gods in her own image, before woman anointed herself lord of creation.

Outside the main doors, there is a very small loop where the largest of all the unearthed stumps are on display. Though they have completely turned to stone, they look fresh, newly exposed wooden stumps that can easily be chopped into kindling or cut horizontally for spectacular multi-hued, deeply ringed tables. They are held together with 1/2 inch binding metal strapping wrapped around their circumference to help them hold form. Entropy has a way of driving things to crumble and decay. The bands stave off the crumbling. For how long, I can’t say. Still rusts. Entropy is formidable, unrelenting, always the victor.

The downside? We cannot touch the ancient beings. A dry moat and fence separate us. There will be no running my fingers over the rings, no feeling for a petrified pulse, no communion with the venerable trees. I understand why. People can be assholes. They will nibble away at the fragments. Stuff chips into their pockets and scurry off like packrats adding the memorabilia to a collection of forgotten trinkets gathered over the years. A few bastards ruin it for everyone.

We choose as our longish hike, considering there are some time constraints, the mile-long Petrified Forest Loop which winds around a number of the petrified redwood stumps. The loop is almost completely flat with vistas of the mountains in the background of short prairie grasses in the foreground and a smattering of trees. It meanders. We drift soaking up the gorgeous weather, basking in the ambiance, enjoying the stillness, thankful this is a decidedly uncrowded trail and there are no screeching voices raping the silence. We only encounter one other group, a hobbling grandfather with a cane and his two highly energized grandsons, two playful kittens rough house tumbling in their own joyful world.

The second stump we approach is massive but lacking the girth of those at the trail’s start. Its presence should align my senses like metal filings marching to invisible magnetic lines. But it doesn’t. I am more powerfully attracted to the tall, lifeless tree behind the stump up on a small knoll. I say lifeless because I can see no Spring buds like the surrounding copse. The bare branches are gnarled with arthritic joints. I say lifeless knowing looks can be deceiving. I say lifeless yet I feel an energetic connection across the space separating our two living souls. I stand transfixed gazing at its magnificence wishing to comprehend the long life journey from seedling to sapling thru maturity into now.

I need to get closer, need to make physical contact with the tree now knowing that is a deception. However, it is off the official trail behind another damn fence and a petulant sign, a petty bureaucrat happily handcuffed by inane rules demanding obeisance stipulating we stick to the established trail. ‘I’s dotted. ‘T’s crossed. Signed in triplicate. Stamped by the grand poobah. I opt for a few wide-angle and zoomed photographs.

Frustrated, I kick the fence. It cracks. Should I beat the bastard down and score a victory against tyranny? No. Despite my rebellious streak, I do tend to follow rules…sometimes. We turn to leave. One step. Two steps. I sense a strengthened pulse, tease a whisper off the leading edges of the wind that hit me in waves synchronized with the inhalation of my own breathing.

I pivot back, walk around the fence, cross the forbidden zone, halt at the foot of the majestic being. The bark is missing. Flayed by entropy? Age? Elements? Colonies of ants once making the between layer a colony home? Where are the ants now? What happened to their sultry queen?

Bark gone, the heartwood is exposed, raw nerves open to driving wind and cascading rain, searing heat and bitter cold, the chewing mandibles of insects, bird’s pointed beak digging for larvae. Does it feel pain? I imagine the sensitivity of my own flesh with the outer epidermal layer missing and I’m staked to the mast of a sailing ship the salt spray burning holes in my desire to live. Does that approximate the experience of this being?

I reached for the tall trees exposed flesh. Did I say tree? I hesitate calling it Tree even with a capital T. Too much baggage in the four-letter word, too many assumptions contained in the generic label. How should I reference this being many times taller than me? Deity? Demi-God? Do I have the courage to come face to face with a God? In the Bible, seeing the face of God meant death. God declares, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” Which then begs the question, what is a face?

I don’t throw these loaded God words with fanfare or poetic license rather for the transformative effect on my soul, my cluttered, encumbered, burdened soul. But I will use the archaic term for clarity. Anyway, at the instant I finally press flesh to flesh, energy flows into me and my mind calms. The disappointment lingering from the Garden of Gods visit is washed away. Free at last. Free at last.

The trunk is warmer than the surrounding air by at least 10° if not more. I’m not good at estimating temperature. The marked difference is strange. I can see if was basking in the sun but there’s a heavy cloud cover. I’ve never encountered a warm-blooded tree. Err…warm sapped tree?

There’s a definite pulse. A strong pulse…daaaa dummm, daaaa dummm…slower than a human pulse…daaaa dummm, daaaa dummm. There is one tree pulse to every four or five of my own. If I could slow my system to match, would my life span quadruple, quintuple? What would life be like 200 or 300 years into the future? What did this tree see 400 years in the past? Definitely a blooded tree. I press my ear against the body. There’s a heartbeat too. Incredible.

The tree is not significant in diameter. I wrap my arms around it to feel the warmth more deeply. There’s a slight give similar to pressing the surface skin on a very cold batch of chocolate pudding. I squeeze tight, feel my body penetrate the surface then, like a noodle being slurped into a mouth sans the slurping sound, I’m pulled into the tree. Inside the tree? I’m broader than the tree. How can I fit inside?

I look around. The tree is bigger on the inside than the outside? Tardis? Doctor? Doctor, are you here? Romana? K9? Maybe, it’s not that doctor. Clara? River? Amy? Rose? Wishful thinking.

I am able to see in a 360° arch without moving my head. There’s a slight cast like looking through a one-way mirror. There’s my wife. I knock. The knock echoes loudly. She doesn’t move. I slam the wall with my fist. Still, nothing. I’m out there too with my hand still pressed against the barkless flesh.

I have not physically popped inside the tree. My body is still intact on the outside. My mind and soul shed the flesh and wormed their way into Tree. Freaky! How is Irene not able to tell she’s standing next to shell David? Is it because my internal life is so inconsequential there is, in effect, no difference between whole David and shell David? That shines some light on my life.

How do I reconnect with my shell? A problem for later? A problem at all? If she can’t tell the difference why not simply exist in both places? If this tree lived for 100s of years, might my mind and soul also exist inside of Tree for another hundred years? That would give me 100 years of solitude. Ever since living in India, I find my self increasingly craving solitude. But for 100 years? I might go insane. If I’m not already insane? How do trees maintain sanity when living for so long. Hell, Methuselah is almost 5000 years old! If I do get out of here, I must make sure a vacation wraps around meeting Methuselah.

Perhaps, I am already beyond insane and believing I’m inside a tree is another manifestation of my insanity. If I can see myself outside, do I have multiple personalities? I must be cray cray. I know! It’s the CO2! Trees breathe CO2. I’m in the tree, probably inside the lungs and am breathing CO2 into my lungs. It must be fucking with my perceptions of reality. And if I’m breathing in CO2, I must be inside the three which means I’m not crazy. Am I the first being to slip inside a tree?

“No, you are not,” a feminine sounding voice echoed in the cavernous space. “We share our space with more insects by weight than 50 of you. We give them home, they massage us and keep us clean. They raise their families in the crevices of our bark, build nests in the holes vacated by songbirds. We allow songbirds to bore holes in our body and inhabit those holes. For our small sacrifice, we are guaranteed daily songs, nightly prayers, and decaying matter to enrichen soil filtering succulent water to sip in through our roots. And the bird song aids in our meditation.”

“Who…who is we?”

“We are Tree. Tree is We?”

“Tree? Is that your name?”

“We have many names. To some We are Anito. Others call We Kathor or Bo. In parts of China, We are known as Pi-Fang. There are as many names for We as there are peopled tribes.”

“What shall I call you?” Time to get to the essence of the name. If I know what they call themselves, I will have better insight into who they are.

“You may call We…Tree. It is a common term in your lexicon and a communication tool easy for your mind to grasp.”

Shit! Thwarted by a tree. “Nice to meet you, Tree.”

“Likewise, David. It’s obvious you don’t realize this but We have met before, many times before. We have watched you grow your entire life.”

That’s creepy. I feel like I’ve been stalked! Push that ill-feeling away. There is so much to learn. What shall I ask next? Obvious. “Why does We sound like a woman? And why do meditate?”

“You are interpreting to assuage the needs of your psyche. It is likely you view women as nurturers and are more comfortable having this conversation with a feminine persona, a female hero. It can also be because deep down you realize trees are givers of life. Never takers.

Your second question. We have no voice. We meditate because We sustains We. Walking is not possible. Through meditation, We march under and across open land easily creating an above-ground forest with aerial canopies. We as a family invite all to share in this glory. The marching is put into play by our mind while in deep meditation. With each new We, our meditation power amplifies exponentially until an entire forest of We creates a unique ecosystem breathing life into this planet. Without We, you would not be.”

“That’s kinda arrogant!”

“How are facts arrogant? We created the oxygen necessary for your emergence. We create oxygen necessary for your continued existence. Ergo, without We, you would not be. You may even say, We are your creator being.”

“Is that all you do? Create an atmosphere so man can be?”

“Hardly, We create atmospheres that all life may be. Not just humanity. Through our meditation, We make thoughts manifest.”

“What does that mean…to make manifest?”

“Our unified thought is so powerful it cannot be contained in simple synapse connecting electric impulses. The energy builds and Our thoughts explode into physical beings. Hummingbird is the outward manifestation of highly focused, deep thought exploding into Kaleidoscopic light. Hummers collect pollen from flowers instantiating the sex act between plants. It’s rapidly flicking tongue drives both female and male flower parts to long orgasm fruits which you not only enjoy eating but add to your health.”

“Whoa…your thoughts create hummingbirds?”

“Yes, We do. Those ancients lying dormant in the field behind you were much stronger. There were many more We in their day thus the meditative energy was intensified. They created Sparrow, Hawks, Flicker. Our ultimate creation, the one we are most proud of…

“I know.” I blurt out. “You all are most proud of is Golden Eagle.”

“No. Golden Eagle was meditated into existence during a season of tree self-aggrandization. It soared on the wave of inflated tree egos. We have since achieved a deeper, other-centered harmony and no longer create Golden. It’s why their numbers are so low. Their tribe is sustained solely on egg production. We no longer augment that race.”

I sensed a tinge of regret. “Sad?”

“Sad? No. It is merely the normal progression of life. All beings jump to a new body when the old one dies. Life continues just in different forms. As forms change, knowledge of the previous incarnation is carried deep in the brain’s core. It’s how empathy is created between beings vastly different than ourselves. If you love dogs, it means you were likely once a dog.”

“That’s Karma!” I blurted feeling proud of my intimate knowledge of life’s intricacies. And to show tree I was smarter than We.

“Close but no.”

“No? I’ve read about Buddhism. I lived in India. I’m familiar with karma.”

“Karma says the sum of previous existences decides fate in a future incarnation.

“Exactly.”

That Karma is a distortion of reality bent by the scratched prism of human minds because your kind has a need to believe they control their future. It is the same with all your ‘religions’. Truth becomes twisted and mangled until humans are at the center and the reason life exists.”

I find myself intrigued. My views on religion are similar. “Then what do you mean?”

“The next phase is a random act. A body is ready, the being’s soul is ready. And voilà. Existence in a new state.”

“Each person has one and only one soul that is judged by the Good Lord Above upon physical death?” Poised as a question but really a statement.

“Religion misinterpreted to mold reality into man’s narrow ability to grasp the immensity of the pluraverse.”

“Pluraverse? How does that align with our universe?”

“There are multiple universes superimposed upon each other. Thus a pluraverse. There are three here right now.”

I crane my neck trying to get a glimpse of the parallels.

“Don’t bother trying to see them on your own. The human ability to perceive is narrow, myopic, unable to perceive there are many universes right here, right now. Only one exists in color bands your eyes can see. Humans discriminate colors with three cones. Mantis shrimp have 12 and can see more colors than you can imagine including ultraviolet, infrared and x-ray. Trees see with 9.”

“Trees can see?”

“Of course.”

“Where are your eyes?”

“We don’t need eyes as you imagine them to see.”

“What’s in the parallel universes?”

“The petrified being you looked at before coming up here is, to you, a stump, a decayed tree replaced with rock. It is petrified and struggling to fend off entropy.”

“What do you see?”

“In the slowly vibrating, infrared lighted parallel universe, We see a massive redwood still living, growing strong, shouting thought leaves into the sky some morphing into songbirds…”

“Birds again. You seem to have a single-minded focus on birds.”

“We are of a collected mind, never single-minded. Our primary focus is giving life to the world. Life without music lacks purpose. So, We make sure there’s a constant infusion of birds to add their beautiful songs.”

“And why is that? You are not God. What is it your responsibility to create life?”

“Responsibility? It is our joy. We are not God but, then, neither is God a God. The ultimate is an aggregation of the Collective Consciousness extant in all beings. We serve the Collective Consciousness by breathing oxygen into the pluraverses and exercising our unique gifts to infuse birds into the mix.”

“Hold on a second. If God is another name for the Collective Consciousness by extrapolation all contributors to the Collective Consciousness are God.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“That’s so heavy. And it corroborates an essay I wrote in college with the conclusion being that I was God as was everything else. I guess I’m a man ahead of his time.”

“Yes, I can see it being heavy for one who has not existed for more than a century in continuous meditation. We Tree are sanyasi, truth seekers. We abandoned the folly of disconnected individualism eons ago instead unifying under a single meditative hum. Our unified meditation has given us understanding well beyond the imaginable approaching the ultimate infinite.”

“I need to understand ultimate truth. Please tell me.” Hoping I don’t sound too needy.

“Humanity is the only beings not ready to accept ultimate truth. Birds do especially Lord Raven who’s mind thinks in poetry born of supreme meditation. All the animals and plants do. Human minds have not developed the capacity to simultaneously hold two opposite ideas believing them to be opposing truths.”

“What?”

“I will provide you with a simple example. To you, black and white are opposites. Black can’t be white. White can’t be black. Light and dark are mutually exclusive and can’t coexist.”

“Obviously!”

“We know black defines white. Light dances with dark. There is no difference between white and black.”

“That make’s absolutely no sense!”

“As We said, your kind are not ready. Evolution is slower in some than others.”

I needed to take back control of this screwy train of thought. There is knowledge here to be gained. How do I manipulate a tree? “Ok. Ok. I will accept what you said at face value. What can I grasp at this stage in my cognitive development?”

“That depends…”

Silence. Tree stopped talking. Seconds tick off into minutes that roll into hours. I wait until the silence gnaws through the ropes binding my patience and I am compelled to fill the void. “Depends on what???”

“I see you have very little patience so I doubt you have what it takes to absorb Our knowledge.”

“I’m patient. I waited minutes before jumping in with my question.”

“You were silent less than 10 seconds even then your mind was churning.”

“Well. I’m better than I used to be. With your help, I know I can grow the patience and learn from you.”

“Are you ready to spend eternity with me? Give up life as you know it and merge into the We? Because that is what it will take for you to begin grasping our knowledge.”

“Oh Shit. Uh. There is so much to see in this world. I’m not ready to set roots down in this isolated place for the next 100 years. So, no. I don’t wish to merge with We…at least…not yet. Perhaps when I’m old and sitting on the border between now and next.”

“Wise choice, human.”

I can’t leave empty-handed. It would be an extreme waste of a learning opportunity. “Can you show me something? A glimpse of all you have learned? Something my mind can grasp with a little stretching? Maybe a tidbit that will make sense down the line?”

“What you request means pecking a hole in this reality and allowing you to enter our dreamvision.”

“Fantastic! Let’s dream away.” I close my eyes and wait for sleep to take over. “I guess I’m too eager here. How can I dream wide awake?”

There are dreams, visions, and dreamvisions. I can dreamvision all of what came before me and some of what is yet to be. Entering our dreamvision is quite easy. Just follow my instructions. Breathe in for a 7 count. Hold for 4 counts. Exhale for 8 counts.”

“How long is a count?”

“Synchronize your counting to the beating of your heart. The inhalations will fill your lungs with CO2 and help you on the journey.”

“Whoa. CO2 is deadly to humans. Doh. My body is out there. It’s my soul in here. My soul has no lungs.”

“It is a mindset. You are correct and the CO2 cannot hurt your spirit.”

“How can my spirit breathe? It’s bodies that breathe.”

“You need to trust We on this. Repeat the breathing sequence a few more times making sure it is perfectly aligned with your heartbeat.”

I cannot sense my heartbeat. I put my hand on my imaginary chest. There it is. Da-dum. Da-dum. Breathe in 7 counts. Hold 4 counts. Exhale 8 counts. Repeat. Repeat. I’m feeling light-headed.

“You should be feeling lightheaded. The Carbon Dioxide is infusing your system soon you will pass out.”

“Pass Out?” I pull out of the breathing sequence. My vision is reduced to a tunnel which, in time, returns to normal.

“Yes. Pass out. The CO2 is a shock to an oxygen-breathing being. Don’t worry though you will awake almost instantaneously and experience the dreamvision of We. Just let yourself go.”

“But… but…but…I don’t want toooo….I’m afrai…”

A raven croaks. A long, drawn-out croak. A soulful croak. It’s long, held in perfect pitch, a vocalist singing and extended until the breath is exhausted then persisting a few heartbeats longer.

“What’s up with the Raven?”

“Raven unties memory knots helping us to recollect past and future memories.”

I open my eyes. Two moons hang in the sky, waning crescent moons half as bright as the sun piercing the clouds on a foggy day. “How can there be two moons? Why are they flickering between black and white?”

“There are always two moons. You are seeing through the eyes of We, seeing what We see. As I told you, the parallel universes are always present, superimposed in the now. The flickering you see is your mind approaching the ability to comprehend that black and white, dark and light are identical.”

“The moon was full yesterday. How can they be identical crescents today?”

“The moons are not identical. One is waning, the other is waxing. And what makes you believe today is today?”

“Isn’t today always today?”

“You have entered the meditative dream of We. Today, yesterday, even tomorrow have no meaning. We can experience any point on the time continuum beginning with the emerge of First Tree. Think of it as being fully present in the now and now can be any now, any time, the particular now necessary for enlightening. Trees are all bodhisattvas and we are sharing bodhisattva experience with you.”

“Bodhisattvas? Like the Buddha?”

“Of course. Do you recall where Siddhartha Gautama achieved enlightenment to become Buddha?”

“Beneath the Bodhi tree in what is now Bodh Gaya, India. I’ve been there a couple of times. I collected some leaves fallen from the tree. My wife framed them. They sit on our bookshelf.”

“You don’t think it was an accident that Siddhartha became Buddha beneath a tree, do you?”

I could be a smartass and say coincidence but this seems like the wrong time. I wanted to see where Tree teaching took me. “I guess not.”

“It was We who shared the knowledge opening Siddhartha’s eyes. Over the days he meditated at Our feet, we dropped leaves around and on him. Some became birds before touching Earth. Others were perfumed with understandings of the Universal Consciousness puzzle. It took a while until Siddhartha was able to connect the pieces into partial understanding, enough for a slice of enlightened knowledge. That is the origins of Buddhism.”

“Partial understanding?”

“Yes. As I said, the human mind, in its present evolution, cannot grasp full knowledge. So, we dispense what is needed when it is needed. As has been our practice throughout your history.”

“There are others?”

“Yes. Siddharta was one of the few with a spirit evolved sufficiently to grasp a fragment of true knowledge. He achieved the fourth phase in one lifetime.”

“Fourth phase? Grandfather taught me about the four phases. Do you know grandfather?” It was a question to which I immediately knew the answer.

“Of course. Grandfather is also We.”

“Were there others you gifted special knowledge? Of course, you just said were there were others. Who else have you gifted this enlightening knowledge to?”

“There have been many others.”

“Like who?”

“Moses at the burning bush. It was we who simulated burning in his mind and dispensed the knowledge needed at that a point in history to help humanity on their journey. There was Jesus at the fig tree. We scared him so he made We whither then avoided We for a long time. He learned enough to understand the necessity of loving one’s neighbor. We needed to engage with him again to complete his teaching but didn’t have the opportunity until he was hammered into the cross. The cross was We and We completed his education. When he moaned, “It is finished.” it was because he finally understood and was ready to leave the fourth phase into Spirit existence.”

“Are you telling me you instigated the great religious revivals?”

“Yes. It was communion with We that inspired Mohammad’s recitation of the Islamic Holy Book. We have gifted a litany of shaman’s and holy people throughout history reaching way back to the cave paintings in El Castillo, Spain and Sulawesi, Indonesia. There are older ones from the Neanderthals that have yet to be discovered. Few remain because CroMagon man destroyed them believing they were against their view of God. Your kind seems to never learn.

We point you forward yet you choose to close your eyes. We always chose a messenger from a person in their fourth phase because they have proven themselves capable of spiritual evolution. The problem is the many in the early phases with marginal abilities to comprehend the ultimate, grasp onto the lowest limbs and force them down the throats of others as gospel. And thus you have your unholy wars, your dogmatic religious practices, the hate across belief systems.”

“Why are humans always the recipients of your knowledge. Why not animals?”

“Animals, plants, rocks, all beings other than man are many lifetimes into the spiritual phase and coexist in the Collective Consciousness. They are also We.”

“This is absolutely fascinating. I must share this with the world. Too bad my blog has so few followers. Our world is pretty fucked up now. Hopefully, you’ve picked out the next great teacher to help guide us. The US has an orange baboon in highest office fighting with cockroaches on both sides of congress. Evil is gaining strongholds the world over with a stranglehold on political power. An enlightened teacher is needed now, was needed yesterday.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Have you found one yet?”

“We have. In the past, We chose messengers who achieved the fourth phase in one life cycle believing their intelligence was the key success. This time We have decided on an individual that has struggled through many life cycles to reach the fourth phase. The thinking is that resilience is key and their experiences will help cement the message in souls also struggling to progress.”

“Who is it? Can you tell me? Would I know her, him, they?”

“Grandfather tells We, you are ready.”

“Me?”

“You have been chosen.”

“But, I’m a nobody. What can I possibly do? Nope. Not me. Pick another…someone with…with…I don’t know. Someone who is not me. I am getting old. Retirement is a few years away. I want to spend my time traveling. No one will listen to me. I have proof. My blogs have been out for a good 7 years and they have few followers.”

I pause, breathe. Wait for a response. Nothing.

“How can Tree expect me to nudge the course of human history when I can get barely any blog followers? You know, I’m a loner. No one will listen to a loner. I can’t even maintain friendships. Who would take a loner seriously? A half baked, half-assed loner like me?”

“As were they all…”

“What? You are equating me with the prophets? With the Son of Man?”

“Of course not…not yet. They were all similar to you before their anointing. They did not believe in themselves. But they all made the leap.”

“Hmmm…let’s say I acquiesce with your ask. Will I be well known? Will my blogs increase in followers making me an influencer?”

“That is hardly the point but yes. You will be well known, near-universally known. As such, near-universally loved and near-universally hated. Your penchant for solitude will be critical for you to rejuvenate. We foresee long periods of alone time in the desert.”

“That I like. I love the desert…especially red deserts with twisted canyons…but you knew that, didn’t you?”

“Of course. But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Ok…let’s say, for the sake of argument, I play along. And I’m assuming I have a choice?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Why me? Why now?”

“We could go into extensive detail about why you but you would throw up objection after objection to any and all logical or illogical, spiritual or corporeal arguments. To avoid the fruitless, a bit of Tree humor there, debate, We will just say, ‘Why not you?’”

“I get that. Then my 2nd question, why now?”

“History has cycles, ebbs and flows. There are buds in spring, fruit in summer, color in the fall, and barren winter days when We withdraw into our subterranean root system. Humanity, mentally, is in a trough…worse than being barren. When barren, fruit is not created. When in a trough, the fruit is actively destroyed.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“Do you not read your own blog? Despite the metrics pointing to this being one of the safest points in history, The powerful would have everyone believe we are in crisis and must resort to isolationism and hoarding. It is they who are forcing the crisis mentality. History is struggling because of a small but influential swath of humanity. We are in a point where the numbers show flowing yet the voices of the elect claim we are ebbing, stuck in a trough and fighting a squall. In the current human trough, the fruit is being poisoned. Humanity is the poison fruit destroying all life including your own.”

“Is it global or only America?”

“Narrow thinking. It is impossible to be healthy in isolation. We is connected globally through an extensive root system. We are aware of everything happening everywhere simultaneously. We are acutely aware of the complete and total interconnectedness of all beings.”

“Humans are deluded by the egregious belief that one arbitrary enclosed space can exist isolated from all others and be healthy. It is a dangerous delusion that will destroy the planet including your America.”

“No surprise there.”

“It is your destiny to awaken humanity before the tipping point and the impossibility of return.”

“Destiny. I am beginning to hate that word. I gather this won’t be easy?” A half question at best. A question to which I already knew the answer. Why ask it? I don’t know. Sometimes, I need to hear the obvious.

“No. Change never is. Think to your corporate life?”

“You are aware of my corporate life?”

“Yes. Are We not on the patio of your office?”

“Yup.”

“As We said, all are interconnected including the We planted on your 7th-floor office patio. Change is difficult in a corporation with a clearly defined mission. The difficulty of course-correcting humanity will be like escaping from inside a black hole. You will be adored, reviled, ignored all at the same time, by the same individuals. You will have all beings, with the possible exception of roaches who expect to inherit Earth once your kind destroys it, helping you in this quest to save the world.”

“I enjoy a challenge but, I’ve got to say, none of this ‘reality’ endears me to the cause.”

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”

“I love that quote. Did Ed Abbey get that from you?”

“No. Enlightenment is multidirectional. We learned quite a lot from Abbey. He wrote with such wisdom, opened up new worlds for We to see.”

“As did I.” Emotion roiled in my soul for the author I appreciated more than all others. I still feel anguish at his passing.

“Ok. I’m reluctant but if it’s written in the stars I guess…well…destinies are as destinies will be.”

“Destinies are destinies and one of yours will influence all of ours.”

“So much pressure. What’s next?”

“We teach you to connect with the universal harmonic. It helps you to tune in the Universal Consciousness, turn on to the connectedness, and drop out from the mental clutter wall separating you from Everything.”

“You must be referencing the Aum.”

“Each being connects in their own way. To humans, the way is through repetition of the Aum.”

“Aum in 108 repetitions.”

“No. Again a human distortion of knowledge shared ages ago. The 108 is manmade not universe ordained. Are you ready?”

“Yes. I think I am.”

“I will lead you. All you need do is repeat after me until you are tuned in. After that, it’s in your hands. Until then, follow me closely. So I can steer you clear of the broken worlds laying shattered inside. You’re not strong enough for those yet. Visiting one could give you a Psychic wound. They are difficult, almost impossible to recover from.”

“I’ve heard enough. Let’s kick this off. Hit it, Tree.”

“Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.”

“Auumm.”

“Longer. Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.”

“Aaauuummm”

“Listen closely. It is much longer. Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.”

“Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.”

“Keep repeating. Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.”

“Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm. Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm. Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.” Raven croaks, almost as if it is laughing. “Hey, I’m feeling an internal vibration. Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.”

“You’re getting it. Keep going. Hold the Aum longer.”

“Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm. Aaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuummmmmm. I’m getting a vision. Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.”

“David.”

“Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm. Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.”

“Ccooommmme ooonnnn.”

“Come on? Tree what’s that supposed to mean. Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.”

“David, Comme ooonnnn. I want to get to the dunes today before it’s dark. Let’s finish up this hike so we can get to the dunes.”

“Dunes?” How confusing. “Aaaaaauuuuuuummmmmm.” I feel a strong tug on my arm and open my eyes. It’s my wife.

“You’ve had enough time to photograph this dead tree. We need to get going if we’re going to make Great Sand Dunes before sunset.”

“What?” My hand is still pressed against the tree. The bark is cold. There’s no heartbeat. “What the hell? Have you been here the entire time?”

“What do you mean the entire time. It’s only been a few minutes. There’s some bright orange lichen on this petrified stump. I think they would make a great picture.”

“I can’t be worrying about pictures now. There’s so much to do if I’m going to save the world.”

“Save the world?”

“Tree said it was my destiny…” I stopped. A red mist descended over her face quickly replaced by concern.

“Don’t tell me you had another hallucination. David, this is bad…really bad.”

“They are NOT hallucinations. It was real. They were all real. I experience other dimension interconnectedness. I’m chosen. And all my experiences you call hallucinations are connected. Common elements are woven between all of them. Grandfather is the unifying thread. He either shows up or is referenced in the experience.”

“In my professional opinion, one of two things are going on. Either you have cancer and your brain is feeding upon itself or you have dementia, maybe even schizophrenia.”

“Schizophrenia?”

“Yes. There’s no mental illness in your family history so it is more likely early-stage cancer. Hopefully, early enough to be caught and eradicated. When we get back I am going to make the Doctor’s appointment.”

“A shrink or a cancer doctor?”

“Both! We are going to get to the bottom of this insanity.”

“Insanity? Nice joke.”

“I’m not being funny. I am worried.”

“Ok. Ok. We will set up appointments. Shrink first so I can prove to you I’m not crazy.”

“Thank you. Now, let’s walk over to that outcropping. It is picturesque. Then we can drive to the dunes. I can’t wait to climb the great sand dunes. You know how much I love sand dunes.”

Tree is We But We are Not Tree The long, leisurely drive from Garden of the Gods to the Comfort Inn in Alamosa where we will hole up during our visit to the Great Sand Dunes National Park takes us by the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.

#Destiny #Grandfather

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