oleicim

[aztectansandiego0]

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[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 3.8.19 ‘Dealing with the darkest depths’

“I don’t know how the government does it, but, on my word of honour, Monsieur, I’m no Jacobin, Monsieur, I’m no troublemaker, I don’t wish them any harm, but if I were the ministers, on my most sacred word, it’d be a very different story.”

This hits differently knowing Thenardier is based on the dictator Hugo fled into exile to escape.

And, of course, both Thenardier and the title of this chapter are talking about the two levels of mines. Thenardier points to the upper mine--the Jacobins--and says “at least I’m not that,” and from the bourgeois point of view, he’s RIGHT to. As we learned earlier, the people in power consider Patron-Minette the lesser of two evils--sure, they cause violence and mayhem, but not violence and mayhem that overthrows existing power structures. In fact, they make people more afraid of anyone who does threaten existing power structures. PM is good for the state--it’s the more constructive upper mine that the bourgeoisie really fears.

The kind of magnetic instinct that alerts the eye made Monsieur Leblanc turn round almost at the same time as Marius.

--I pointed out last chapter the similarity in the journey Marius and Valjean are on here. Here’s another explicit linking of their povs.

Thenardier becomes bizarre in this chapter, moreso than usual. There’s a fairy tale aspect here, as one, two, three--four men with obscured faces come in and sit on the bed. Each time, Monsieur Leblanc is asked to take no notice.

Thenardier rants and rambles and begs him to buy his terrible painting, and it feels like a parody of the other scenes of misery. Thenardier is using the forms of other people in distress and asking for help, but it’s the grotesque, uncanny valley version of it. His histrionic voice doesn’t match his expressionless face. He keeps repeating the same things with different prosody.

He’s killing time before it’s time to spring the trap, clearly.

But his long rant about the construction of pasteboard boxes is detailed and sounds as plausible as every other description of factory work from misérables in this book. How does he know that much about it? Did he genuinely look into this as a trade for his daughters? It does make sense that he might have--before he chose more profitable work for them.

It also recalls the fact that Madeleine was a factory owner. Thenardier feels here like the ghost of a past factory worker, come to haunt a former capitalist. The details are very different, and Madeleine was relatively humane in his treatment of workers--but not so humane that he didn’t make huge profits while people like Fantine struggled. It’s not an invalid thing to haunt Valjean with.

Thenardier’s rant keeps reminding me, rightly or wrongly, of the part in the convent section where a corpse, a dead fish, an outgrown garment, and so on, come to implore the living to take them back. He’s that level of uncanny.

Jondrette repeated two or three times, using all sorts of tonal variations within the same imploring, drawling style: “There’s nothing left for me to do but throw myself in the river! The other day I went down three steps over by the pont d’Austerlitz with that in mind!”

He sounds a lot like Eponine, who talked about how she would have thrown herself in the river except that it was too cold. I don’t doubt her for an instant, of course, and whether Thenardier is telling the truth is a lot more questionable.

But it’s possible he is. Under the fawning and the lies, he’s channeling genuine desperation. And I certainly don’t doubt his rage.

[the-awkward-outlaw]

Second Chances - Ch. 20

Burn Down the Mission

Warnings: swearing, light smut, blood, gore 

Word count: ~6700

Masterlist 

Read on AO3

Arthur leads you up north, out of Lemoyne and into New Hanover. You’re glad to see the Heartlands again, the distant blue mountains cloaked in snow. You’re even glad to see the town of Valentine, despite the muddy streets and stench of manure. 

Arthur hitches Artemis outside the store, claiming he wants to pick up a few supplies. Just as he’s walking up the stairs with you, two boys standing in front of a young woman points to him.

“You, mister!” one of them says. 

“What you want?”

“Can I ask you a question? Do I look like a coward to you?” asks the boy in a blue suit. You look to his brother in yellow, realizing they’re nearly identical. “I mean, obviously I do because I look like that milksop!” He gestures to his brother. “Can you help us with something?”

“Maybe,” Arthur says, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Excellent, why don’t we go back somewhere more conductive to utter displays of gallantry and deep seated inadequacy?”

You’re still trying to process what the man said as he leads the group behind the store, his brother calling to him.

“Oh, you’ll be no match for me, brother, you simple minded scoundrel!”

The boys stop beside the building and spare a quick glance to the young woman who has followed you. 

“Now,” the man in the blue suit says to Arthur. “I bet you, unlike my dear and dumb brother, can punch. Do me and the lady a favor and thrash this impudent wretch!” 

“No man alive can thrash me!” his brother declares proudly. 

“I bet this man could easily!” 

“I have an idea. Punch us both as hard as you can!” the brother in the yellow suit says. “You’ll break his glass jaw and I’ll be left standing.” 

“Good idea!” his brother snaps. “Hit me, sir! Don’t hold anything back! Wouldn’t want you disappointing your lady friend there.” 

Arthur glances back at you and chuckles, turning back to the boys.

“A’right, but if anyone asks, you told me to do this.” 

Arthur balls up his fist and hits the yellow-suited brother in the face, who clutches his nose. You can tell Arthur was holding himself back; he’s hit men a lot harder than that.

“Hardly felt it!” the man says, though his eyes are blinking quickly.

“Ha ha! You really walloped him! My turn!” 

Arthur dutifully hits the other brother just as hard. The man’s body jerks to the side as he clutches his jaw. 

“Good Lord above! Doesn’t hurt at all!” 

You try not to laugh and steal a glance over to the young woman the boys are trying to impress. She’s acting quite distraught, but you can tell she’s also enjoying the show. 

“Again! Hit me again!” the yellow brother says. “Hit me right in the gut, mister!” 

Arthur just sighs and sinks his fist into the man’s stomach. Again, you can tell he’s holding back. The man grunts loudly, crouching slightly. 

“Weren’t you taught never to hit girls?” his brother says. “Come hit a real man!” 

Arthur approaches him and gives him the same treatment. The man clutches his stomach briefly before doing his best to straighten up. “Barely even felt it!” he says through clenched teeth.

“Only one thing for it!” the yellow man says. “Hit me in the manhood!” 

“You serious?” Arthur says, shaking his hand. 

“Absolutely! Mine are made of steel, although you may cause his to explode! Come on!” The man stands with his legs slightly spread. Arthur just sighs and thrusts his leg up into the man’s groin. He crumbles, grasping himself. 

“They’ve come out his ears!” the blue man laughs. “My turn!” Arthur walks over to him and does the same, causing him to clutch himself before he, too, falls.

“Had enough, gentlemen?” Arthur asks, frowning at them.

“Yes!” the blue man squeals. “I hope you killed the leprechaun!” 

“He’s still alive?” the yellow man says, his voice an octave higher. 

The woman walks over to them, helping them to their feet. “We need to get some steak on those wounds.”

Arthur shakes his head again. “Madam, gentlemen, take care.” He walks over to you, hiding a small smile. The three behind him begin walking out towards the main street, although the men are still hunched over. 

“You know,” Arthur says, gesturing for you to walk with him. “I done a lot of dumb stuff to impress women, but ain’t ever done nothin’ that stupid.” 

“Oh really?” you say with a smirk. “I can’t imagine that at all, Mr. Morgan.” 

He glances at you, smiling. “Well, I’ve never asked someone to give me a beatin’ just to prove a point.” 

You laugh and loop your arm through his. “No, I suppose not.”

Arthur leads you into the store and he buys you a few supplies. You see on top of a small shelf in the corner a display of books. Most of them are Otis Miller books, which you’ve already read. Among them, you read other titles such as The Junglebook and The Portrait of Dorian Grey.

“See anythin’ you like, darlin’?” he asks. 

You pick up a thicker book. “How about this one?” you say, holding it to him.

“Dracula?” he says, taking it from you and flipping through it.

“You ever read it?” 

“Course not. Don’t even know what it’s about.” 

“Me neither, but let’s give it a shot.”

Arthur just shrugs his shoulders and places the book with the other items to buy. He goes up to the counter, pays and then leads you out to the street. Before mounting up, you both put on your coats and gloves. 

Arthur leads you out of Valentine and further north. You recognize the trail as the same one that leads to Cattail Pond, where you and Arthur had your first kiss. You reminisce on that memory as you cross a river. After travelling up a steep hill, the air becomes frigidly cold. The ground slowly turns from green and brown to white and after travelling a little further on, the horses begin having to pick up their feet above the thick powder.

“I can’t believe there’s still this much snow this late in the year,” you say, rubbing your arms.

“Me neither, but we had a hell of a spring.”

Arthur leads you on past a frozen pond. A large bull moose slips on its icy surface in an attempt to get away from you and Arthur. You wonder if this is Lake Isabella, but Arthur continues on up the white mountain to a high ridge. Once there, the land opens to a wide valley and settled in its bottom is a large, half frozen lake. An island draped in pines sits almost exactly in the middle of it. 

“There she is,” Arthur says, pausing and patting Artemis’s neck. Rannoch breathes heavily from the steep incline, his breath exploding in frosty clouds. 

“So remind me,” you say, your teeth chattering a little, despite the white sun above you. “We’re here for a white buffalo and a giant salmon?”

He looks over at you and laughs, his own nose and ears pink. “That’s right. I’m hopin’ we don’t have to be here more than a day. Depends how easily we can get these two.”

Arthur nudges Artemis on down the mountainside. Rannoch follows her without you having to guide him, slipping slightly on rocks hidden beneath the snow. Finally the ground levels out and the horses step onto the ice of the lake, which creaks but holds.

“Arthur, let me take one of the animals, we can get this done faster.” 

“I’ll take the fish, sweetheart,” Arthur says, dismounting on the island. “I know you done plenty of trackin’. This buffalo should be easy for you. You still got them poison arrows?”

You pull up your sheath and look through it, spotting the arrows Charles had given you some time ago. You nod to Arthur and he smiles. “Good. Well, let’s do this before we lose too much sunlight.”

Arthur gets back on Artemis and heads over to the south end of the lake, which has the least amount of ice. The cold, dark water beckons to you gently in the wind and you shiver. 

You turn your attention to the north, looking for the most likely places to find traces of a buffalo. You know it would stay out in the open of the valley and most of the sides of the mountains are covered in thick pines. You grab your bow and begin moving towards the path curving the west side of the lake. 

Something white moves ahead of you on the trail. You stop, thinking it’s the buffalo, but as your eyes adjust to the blinding snow in the sun, you make out the form of a small, white horse. Its curved face marks it as an Arabian. You study it for a moment before moving on.

Close to the edge of the trees, you finally come across promising signs of buffalo dung. Inspecting it, you find that it was laid down maybe an hour ago. In the snow leading away from it and towards the north end of the lake, you see the faint tracks it left behind. You follow them as they wind around to the western side. You kneel down and inspect a bush with clear signs of having been browsed on when you hear a loud snort. Looking up, you spot between two evergreens the massive form of a buffalo. Just as Arthur had said, its coat is as white as the snow surrounding you. 

Slowly you take your bow and one of the poison arrows. Taking aim, you fire and the arrow slams into the animal’s shoulder. He roars in pain and surprise, charging away from you. You give chase, nearly losing your footing more than once in the snow. You run over a small rise and find him collapsed on the other side. Approaching him slowly, knowing even in this state he’s still dangerous, you ready your knife. You quickly plunge it into his chest and he gives a final cry before falling limp. You begin to skin the giant animal with some difficulty, but you do your best to keep the pelt in good shape. Once it’s done, you whistle for your horse and Rannoch comes pounding towards you.

“Hey boy,” you say affectionately as you throw the pelt over his hindquarters. You prepare to mount him when your foot slips on a hidden rock and you fall on your back into the thick powder. You swear, picking yourself back up and brushing yourself off as best you can. 

“Let’s try that again, boy,” you say, being more careful as you mount up. You guide him back down to the frozen lake and spot Arthur standing on the edge of the ice, his rod pointing over the water. He spots you and waves; you return the gesture. 

“Glad you didn’t have too much trouble,” Arthur says as you stop Rannoch near Artemis. 

“Yeah. He went down pretty easy. Gotta love them poison arrows.” 

He agrees with a small laugh as you dismount and stand next to him. 

“Any luck?” you ask.

“Nah. This bastard’s been toyin’ with the lure a bit, but he can’t decide if he really wants it.”

Arthur sighs and collapses his pole.

“What’s wrong?” you say.

“Nothin’. How about we get a fire goin’, let you at least stay warm while I fish for this monster.”

“I can do that myself, Arthur. Why don’t you keep fishin’?”

“‘Cause I need a break.”

You shrug your shoulders and the two of you walk on the ice, slipping a little, over to firm land. There, you scour the area for anything you can use to light a fire, finding a few small logs that are fairly dry. Arthur begins the fire and you set up the tent. 

“Why don’t you get some of that bison cookin’?” he says, adjusting his gloves.

“Okay, you gonna try again?”

He shrugs his shoulders and walks back to the water, pulling out his pole once more as you kneel down to begin cooking. 

The sun is beginning to set by the time Arthur finally hooks something he thinks is a big fish. He reels it in, fighting with it every few moments. 

“Think I finally got this damn bastard,” he grunts.

You put down the book you’ve been reading aloud and stand up as Arthur pulls up a giant red salmon.

“Jesus, he is a monster, ain’t he?” you say.

“Yeah. Hope that idiot will be happy.” 

“What idiot?”

Arthur tells you about a man he met several weeks ago named Jeremy Gill. He explains that the man will pay a lot of money for big fish that he will then sell to his fans so they can say they caught it while fishing with him. The idea confuses you. 

“People seriously pay money to pretend they’ve caught some monster fish?”

“I guess. Don’t make much sense to me,” Arthur says as he wraps the fish up and throws it over Artemis. He looks up at the red sky. “Hmm, probably too late for us to do much travellin’. You okay if we stay here, darlin’?”

You’re just about to suggest that you can travel through the night just fine when a long, low howl comes drifting over the snow in the direction you’d have to take to get out of the snow. You sigh and decide that the lake might not be a bad idea after all.

Arthur sits down next to you as you hand him a strip of bison and a can of corn. 

“Damn this cold,” he says.

“You’re the one that wanted to come up here,” you tease. 

“I know, but at least the company makes up for it.”

You blush and smile. “You flatter me, Arthur.” 

He chuckles, sitting next to the fire and staring into the flames. The sky is black except for the full moon, bathing the landscape in silver. Arthur yawns heavily.

“Come on, cowboy,” you say, standing up. “Let’s get some rest.”

You’re just about to walk into the tent when he grabs you. You turn and find he’s unbuttoned his coat, revealing his blue shirt beneath. Without a word, he pulls you in tight against him, wrapping his coat around you. You’re immediately enveloped in his heat as you bury your face into his chest.

“You cold or somethin’?” you say, your hands resting on his sides.

“Or somethin’,” he grunts, making you laugh. 

“Big, tough gunslinger.” 

He chuckles and kisses your forehead. “What? A man can’t enjoy holding his girl like this?” 

Warmth blossoms in your chest again. You look up at him. “I love you, Arthur Morgan.” 

“And I love you, Y/N.” He bends down and places a gentle kiss to your lips. You smile up at him and pull off your gloves. Draping your arms around his shoulders, you press your cold hands to the back of his neck, making him flinch. 

“Woo!” he says as you laugh. “Your hands are cold! What happened to your gloves?” 

“Nothin’, they’re here.” You withdraw your hands from his neck, showing him your gloves. 

“Well that ain’t too nice,” he says. He lets you go and starts walking towards the tent. Just as you’re putting on your gloves, something cold hits you in the face. You jump and brush yourself off, looking up to see Arthur grinning. 

“Karma, sweetheart!”

“I didn’t hit you in the face, Morgan!” you yell and charge him. He laughs and braces himself as you plow into him. His foot slips, sending him down onto his back as you both chuckle, you propped on him. You study his blue eyes, the scar on his nose, the tip pink, the pair of scars on his chin. Leaning down, you kiss him, his gloved hand tangling into your hair.

When you break away, he smiles up at you. “Think I’m feelin’ a bit warmer now, darlin’.” 

“Arthur!” you playfully smack his shoulder as he laughs. He gets up, helping you get to your feet and enters the tent. Laying in the cot, he holds you close, wrapping his coat around you once again. 

The next morning, you and Arthur take down camp and head south out of the snow. Once you reach the railroad, you both take off your thick coats. 

“Well, Arthur,” you say. “Hopefully we won’t need an excuse to head up into the cold again for a while.” 

He chuckles. “I don’t think we will, darlin’. Hope you didn’t hate it too much.” 

“I would have if I was by myself, but you made it bearable.” 

He laughs again and leads you across the river towards Valentine, claiming he needs to send the fish to Jeremy Gill. He stops just outside the train station and heads in with the wrapped up fish. While he’s in there, you stay outside, leaning on the fence and enjoying the warm sun. You suddenly notice a pair of men across the road staring at you. Something about them seems familiar, but you can’t put a finger on them. One of them is wearing a bowler hat with a green band around it. 

Arthur comes out of the station and mounts up on Artemis. 

“Well, guess we shouldn’t wander too far from town,” he says. “Think Eagle Flies wants us to meet him close to here. No point headin’ back to camp yet.” He turns Artemis to head into town and you see that the two men are gone. You look around to find them but don’t see them anywhere.

Arthur stops by the butcher and sells the buffalo pelt for $25. 

“What do you want to do until sunset?” you ask from the back of your horse. 

“Oh I got an idea, I think,” he says with a small wink.

“You gonna tell me?” 

“Nope. Just follow me, princess.” 

You roll your eyes as he mounts up and leads you south out of Valentine. You travel along the road, past the cluster of trees marking Horseshoe Overlook, heading further south until you approach the massive Flat Iron Lake. 

It’s just past noon by the time you reach the shores, surrounded by a thick grove of trees.The day is unusually hot, a stark difference from the snows you’ve left behind. You wipe your face with your bandana as Arthur dismounts Artemis. 

“What are we doin’ here?” you ask, hopping onto the sand. 

“Nothin’ special,” he says. “Hold on a minute, I gotta do somethin’.” 

You lead Rannoch to the water as he strolls off into the trees, leaving you in the small clearing. Figuring he’s relieving himself, you sit on a large rock. A few moments pass and he still hasn’t reappeared. You’re beginning to worry, remembering those fellows from town. You hear something rustling in the bushes.

You turn and see Arthur walking towards you, completely nude except for the hat on his head. You raise your brows as you take in his body in all its glory. He smirks at you, seeing where you’re staring. He stops a few feet from you and puts his hand on his hip, thrusting it out to the side. 

“What are you doin’?” you say, forcing your eyes up.

“I don’t know ‘bout you, darlin’, but it’s hot as hell. Figured we could enjoy a good swim.”

You smile nervously and look behind him into the trees.

“You sure we can’t be seen?” you ask.

“Why do you think I chose this spot?” He smiles again at you and walks past you into the water up to his waist. He turns back to you and lifts his hands to you. “Well?”

You shake your head and stand up, quickly removing your clothes, painfully aware of his eyes trained on you. Once you’re naked, you wander towards him into the water.

“Okay, honey,” you say, stopping a few feet from him. “You got me here. Now what?”

He smiles down at you and approaches you. He takes off his hat and places it on your head. It slides down past your eyes, so you tip it up and smile at him. “Hmm, think it looks better on you,” he says. 

You chuckle and close the distance between you. He folds his arms around you, his hands sliding over your back. You stretch up to kiss him when he suddenly pushes you away and dives under the water, purposefully splashing you. You rub your eyes, looking for him. You glance down and see nothing but your toes digging into the mud. You hear a splashing several feet behind you and so you turn, spotting him popping out of the water with a playful smirk.

“Oh so we’re doing that, are we?” you say. You rip off his hat and toss it to the shore. He suddenly stares at you hungrily, his eyes lowering to your exposed chest. You sink down into the water until the water reaches your chin and you grin at him. He begins approaching you, chuckling. Just as he’s about to reach you, you dive beneath the water and swim away from him, quickly circling him. Once you’re behind him, you jump up and grab onto his back. You hold yourself against him, your face pressed to his firm back. His hands grab your arms, pulling them tighter around him. 

“You know,” you say. “I never did pay you back for that day in the woods all those weeks ago.”

“Sweetheart, I didn’t do that with thought of payment.” 

“All the more reason,” you say. 

You slide your hand down his body, studying his skin until you find his half-hard groin. You begin stroking him, your other hand wandering down to join. He sighs heavily, tipping his head back as his length stiffens in your hand. You begin pumping him as his hips begin to thrust gently. 

You take one of your hands away from him so you can turn him to face you. His face is deeply reddened as your hand returns to his cock and continues pumping. He groans heavily, his hips continuing to thrust as his length throbs. You lean in close to him and lick his neck, his hands tangling into your hair. 

“Oh God, darlin’,” he grunts, his voice wavering. You smile and continue to lick and kiss his neck. You pump him harder, his breathing starts to quicken. His hips suddenly lift as he explodes in the water. 

Once his release has passed, he looks down at you, his flushed face sweaty. 

“Okay, sweetheart,” he says, his hands still in your hair. “I don’t want you sayin’ you owe me no more.” 

“Okay, Mr. Morgan.” 

Without warning, his hands travel down to your waist. He picks you up and you wrap your legs around him. He walks forward to the shoreline before he topples on top of you. There, he makes love to you under the blazing sun. 

By afternoon, you and Arthur wake up from your midday nap and decide it’s time to get dressed and make your way up to meet Eagle Flies. You tighten your boots and stand as Arthur brushes off his hat. 

“We should do that more often,” you say with a smile. “That was...well.”

“The best we’ve had?” he finishes with a smile.

“Exactly.” You study the two small bruises on his neck, a mark from your activities. 

You mount up on Rannoch with a small wince which Arthur doesn’t miss. “Sorry, darlin’.”

“Don’t be, Arthur. The price to pay for something that good.” 

“Well, let me know if you need to stop.” 

He leads you out of the trees, heading back up north. You cross into the Heartlands and back up towards Valentine. After a few moments, the tall tower marking the oilfield comes into view. You spot on a ridge overlooking the field a dark man standing next to a horse. Arthur sees him too and canters directly up to him. You recognize him as Eagle Flies and he nods to you.

“You came,” he says.

“We said we would,” Arthur says as you both dismount. 

Eagle Flies hands him a pair of binoculars and explains about a foreman named Danbury, who holds the subject reports in his office. 

“The reports will be destroyed if Danbury suspects anyone is coming for them,” Eagle Flies finishes. 

“There’s only one of me, son, I don’t plan on bein’ spotted,” Arthur says. 

“You mean we don’t plan on being spotted,” you say.

“No, I mean me. You’re gonna stay here with Eagle Flies. This’ll be easier if I do it alone.” 

You roll your eyes but decide not to argue, knowing you won’t win. Arthur asks a few questions regarding the reports. 

“If there’s a problem, call for me,” Eagle Flies says, his face stony. 

“Thought the whole point was so no one suspects you.” 

“Ideally,” Eagle Flies says. 

A covered wagon travels down the path beneath the ridge towards the oil field. Arthur dashes down the ridge and catches up to it, hopping into the back and out of sight. 

“Come on,” Eagle Flies says. “I suspect he will need some help to get out. It’s unlikely he will escape unseen.” 

“Give him some credit,” you say, pulling out your binoculars and watching the wagon Arthur’s hidden himself in. 

“Forgive me if I harbor some doubt,” Eagle Flies hisses. “I never trust mercenaries.” 

“He ain’t a mercenary.” 

“Then why am I paying him to do my people’s work?” 

You lower the binoculars. You can understand his frustrations but decide not to tell him the truth behind Arthur’s motives when it comes to money. “It’s complicated.” 

“Well, whatever it is, I think we ought to be ready just in case he needs help escaping.” 

He hops onto his horse, which is almost completely white except for the large sandy spot covering the majority of its back. You follow him down the ledge on Rannoch, Artemis following silently. Eagle Flies leads you to the tall oil rig and he stops. 

You watch for signs of Arthur through the darkness as the sun vanishes beyond the mountains. Nearly fifteen minutes pass when you hear a man shouting at someone to stop and put their hands up.

“He’s been spotted!” Eagle Flies utters. “Let’s burn this place!” 

“Let me! The less likely you’re seen, the better.” You reach into your satchel and pull out a bottle of alcohol and some cloth. You soak the cloth quickly and stuff half of it into the bottle, lighting the other half. As it begins to burn, you toss the bottle towards the tower and the black ground it sits on. The bottle explodes and the ground quickly catches fire. Several yells of shock and confusion crack through the air as gunfire rings out. You and Eagle Flies slip past the burning ground as you pull out your rifle, firing it at some of the guards who dash about. Through the smoke, you see Arthur running towards you.

“Come on!” Eagle Flies yells to him, shooting an arrow into a guard’s head. Arthur jumps up into Artemis’s saddle and the three of you gallop onto the plains, depending on the darkness to cloak you. Three men on horses follow you, but they’re taken down quickly. 

Eagle Flies leads you to the ridge where he met you and stops. The three of you look down at the burning fields before dismounting your horses. 

“That explosion came just in time,” Arthur says.

“It was her idea, but I was happy to see that oil burn,” Eagle Flies says. “Did you meet Mr. Danbury?” 

“Yes, he was very obliging. Thought you wasn’t gettin’ involved?”

“And I thought you were going to leave silently,” Eagle Flies says, handing him the money. 

Arthur shakes his head and tells him to keep it, handing him the reports. “You saved my life.”

“Thank you, Mr. Morgan. I hope, well, I don’t know what I hope. Maybe these will be of use.” He thanks you and mounts onto his horse, cantering away. 

“I hope things didn’t go too badly?” you say to him as you both hop onto your horses and trot down the ledge. 

“Nah. Had to scare that foreman near half to death to get them papers, but he didn’t seem too brave to begin with.” 

Arthur leads you away from the oil field, south into the Heartlands. On top of a tall mountain overlooking the burning fields, he stops and you both set up camp. After cooking a quick meal, you climb into the tent and snuggle close to him. His hands brush through your hair until you fall asleep. 

In the morning, you quickly pack up camp and Arthur suggests heading back to Shady Belle. You don’t feel like returning yet. Not only will Grimshaw fly on you faster than the devil himself, you haven’t enjoyed camping there. It’s not just the bugs, alligators and muggy air. Something about the place just doesn’t feel right.

“It’s still pretty early, Arthur. Maybe we should do some hunting?”

“Shoar. You wanna stick together or split up?” he says.

“Let’s split up, we can cover more ground that way.” 

“A’right, darlin’. If you need anythin’, just fire your gun three times.” 

You agree before he heads west on Artemis. You go further south, patting Rannoch as he trots through the tall grass. You spot the tree with whiskey bottles dangling from its branches, remembering the night when you’d first seen it while looking for Arthur after he was captured by the O’Driscolls.

“Hey, stop your horse!” two men yell, quickly rounding a bend in the pathyou. They’re pointing their rifles and you stop Rannoch, recognizing them from Valentine. The lilt in their voices tells you they’re O’Driscolls. A third man pops out from behind the tree and grabs Rannoch’s reins. He points his pistol at you.

“This has gotta be her!” he yells to his companions. 

“Why don’t ya slide off your horse?” one of the men on the horses says. “Make a sound or even touch your pistol, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground.” 

You eye their guns and do as you’re told. As soon as your feet touch the ground, the O’Driscoll lets go of Rannoch and he slams his pistol into your face, shoving Rannoch as he throws you down. Rannoch rears up in fright and darts off as the man ties you up. You try to fight him off, but you’re dizzy from the hit to your head.

One of the others laughs as he hops off his horse. “You really think this is her?” 

“She was with Morgan,” the other says. “She has to be the one who rescued him.” 

“So you’re Morgan’s whore?” the man who tied you up says. He reaches down and unbuckles your gun belt, tossing it to the side of the road. He flips you over on your back as the three stand above you. 

“Let me go, fella,” you say. “Let’s just put this all behind us. You almost killed Mr. Morgan and you killed Kieran Duffy. I think we’ve had enough blood shed, don’t you?”

“Oh no,” the man who tied you says. He kneels down beside you and sharply stuffs a bandana into your mouth. You’re beginning to panic. The ropes are so tight your hands and feet are tingling. You can’t see a way out of this now that you’ve no way to use your voice and call for help. 

“What should we do with her?” one of them says. “She’s got a pretty big bounty in Blackwater. Should we take her there?” 

“She killed my cousin!” the one who tied you yells. “I say we send her back to ol’ Morgan the same way we did with Kieran.” 

The other two laugh and agree. The man who tied you up whips out a knife, running his thumb across the blade. “Let’s start with the eyes.” 

He kneels down beside you, hovering the blade above your face. His free hand painfully grabs your chin, preventing you from turning your head. 

Something behind him explodes and you hear the sound of something heavy thudding on the ground coming from the direction of the onlookers. The man holding you releases your face and stands up, his head suddenly bursts, splattering you in blood. His body collapses onto your thighs and you grunt into the gag as another shot rings through the air. You watch as the last O’Driscoll is flung back by the impact, his pistol firing into the sky.

You look over and see Arthur dismounting his horse. He stalks over to you and throws the body off your legs. “Goddamn bastards,” he mutters as he removes the bandana from your mouth. You gasp, glad to breathe freely.

“Oh thank God,” you say as Arthur cuts the binds around your ankles. He helps you to your feet and frees your hands. You turn back around and are just about to say something when he pulls you into a hug. 

“You okay?” he rumbles into your ear. You wrap your arms around his waist, trying to hide how much you’re shaking.

“I’m okay, Arthur. How’d you know to come looking for me?”

He lets you go enough so you can lean back and look at him properly. He runs his thumb across the cut on your forehead from the O’Driscoll’s pistol. “Rannoch came runnin’ over. When I saw you weren’t on him, I knew you was in trouble.” 

“Where is he?” 

Arthur turns and points behind him and you see your appaloosa standing next to Artemis. He snorts as you walk up to him, smiling. “You saved my life, boy.” 

“Sure, and I did nothin’,” Arthur teases, walking up behind you. 

“I’m sorry, Arthur.” You stretch up and kiss his cheek. “Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it, darlin’. Let’s just get out of here before more trouble comes our way.” 

You both mount up and head in the direction of Emerald Ranch, hunting along the way. Once away from the ambush sight, you travel with Arthur down into Lemoyne and towards camp. You’re glad to be leaving the Heartlands for a while, as beautiful as they are. You rub your raw wrists and do your best to stay calm, but the aftershock of the attack is beginning to set in, causing you to shiver. Being behind Arthur, he doesn’t notice. 

Arthur leads you through the trees towards Shady Belle and you hitch your horses. Once you dismount, Arthur walks over to you, his hand sliding around your waist.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks. 

You nod, although you’re still shivering a little, despite the heat. “Just… just a little shaken, I guess.” 

“That’s normal, sweetheart. Come here.” He pulls you into a tight hug once more, cradling your head to his chest. His scent and his warmth are comforting and familiar, you’re already feeling less shaky. 

Something stomps through the wet grass in your direction and you look up to see Grimshaw looking angrier than ever. 

“Here we go again,” you mumble loud enough for Arthur to hear. 

“Ms. Y/L/N!” she roars, putting her hands on her hips as Arthur lets you go. “We been slavin’ away in this dump and you been off playin’!”

She makes to grab you but Arthur lifts a hand to stop her.

“Ms. Grimshaw, she was helpin’ me find leads in Saint Denis.”

She lowers her hands and glares at him. “And did you find anything worth while, Mr. Morgan? Everyone’s gotta earn their keep!” 

“We did, actually. Plus, we did some huntin’. I promise, we were workin’ the whole time.” 

“Well fine, Mr. Morgan By the way, Dutch needs to speak to you. Y/N, I think you need to stay in camp the next few days. We could really use your help. ” 

She marches off, muttering to herself and you sigh. “Thanks, honey.” 

You both take your hunting load up to Pearson. “Excellent. I can finally make a good stew.” 

Arthur claps a hand to your shoulder and says he’s going to speak with Dutch. You make your way over to the crates where the other girls do the sewing. You sit down yourself and pick up one of Bill’s torn shirts. Mary-Beth sits beside you, unusually quiet while Karen hums to herself from the last remaining crate. 

“How you holdin’ up?” you ask Mary-Beth in a soft voice. She shrugs her shoulders, not looking up from her work. 

“He was such a gentle soul,” she finally says, lowering her sewing. “I still don’t understand how anyone could hurt him.” 

“Some people,” you begin, not really knowing what to say, “are just born bad. Kieran was the last person who deserved that. He was a good man.” 

Mary-Beth sighs and returns to her work. Arthur strolls towards you. He stops and looks at her before putting a hand on her shoulder. 

“How you doin’, Mary-Beth?”

“I… I’m okay, Mr. Morgan. Just promise me those bastards will get what’s comin’ to them.” 

“We will, Mary-Beth. If it helps, we killed three of ‘em this mornin’.” 

She nods and returns to her work again. Arthur turns to you. “Sweetheart, I gotta go to town again. Trelawney found a way onto that boat you heard about. I guess women are allowed on the boat but I don’t think they can go into the parlor. If you wanna come…” 

You smile up at him and shake your head. “Sitting in some lounge waiting for you to rob some fools doesn’t sound like a ton of fun, Arthur. Besides, I think if I step foot out of camp again, Grimshaw will skin me.” 

“Okay,” he chuckles. “Well, keep Mary-Beth company.”

You nod and he bends down and kisses you briefly before making his way back to Artemis.

“That boy’s crazy about you,” Karen says. You smile at her, but you feel slightly guilty being so open in your romance in front of Mary-Beth. She and Kieran may not have had anything going on, but it was obvious they were sweet on each other. 

For the next few hours, you and the others work on chores, but no one picks up a long conversation. By late afternoon, Hosea walks up to Pearson looking pleased.

“We shouldn’t be here too much longer,” you hear him say. 

“Why’s that?”

“That bank job should get us enough to get out of here, then we can go north or west or wherever Dutch thinks might be best.” 

“Thought I heard him mention Tahiti?” Pearson asks.

“Yes, he wants to go there, maybe pick up ranching or mango farming. Who knows? The point is this bank job’s going to help end our troubles, Pearson.” 

Hosea pats him on the shoulder and walks off to the gazebo, coughing slightly as he lights his pipe. 

“You really think we’ll go to some tropical island?” you say to Karen and Mary-Beth. 

Tilly’s scrubbing laundry behind Karen. She leans back to look at you. “Maybe. I been hearin’ Dutch talk a lot about it.” 

You secretly hope the gang doesn’t decide to go to some island. Something doesn’t feel right about it, and it’s unlikely your problems will be any less. Not only that, you’re beginning to miss the west, the open country. 

Night falls and Arthur still has not returned. You’ve noticed that Strauss and Javier are absent as well and figure they’re helping him with the job. You sit by the fire, finally finished with the day’s work, sipping from a bottle of beer. John suddenly plops himself down next to you.

“Hey, Y/N,” he says.

“Marston.” 

You fall into an easy silence for a moment. “How’s the boy and Abigail?” you finally ask.

“They’re fine. Abigail… well, she still nags me every chance she gets. Wish I could get Jack to stop saying them weird Italian words that son of a bitch taught him.”

You chuckle as you take a drink. You’ve heard Jack saying a few foreign words since he returned from being Bronte’s captive, as well as mentioning strange foods such as spaghetti. 

John sighs and rubs his hands over his eyes. Abigail calls to him from the balcony of the house, demanding he come help put Jack to bed.

“It never stops,” he says and gets up. You bid him good night and turn back to the fire. You debate whether to go up to your own bed or to stay up and wait for Arthur. After a while, you decide to get some sleep, so you drain the last of your beer and head up.

[yellingmetatron]

The Light in Heaven

So.

Well.

Something like two freaking years ago, or thereabout, I told @kissofmistletoe I was writing a little character study about Metatron and Baldr.  Various things took up my time, I had difficulty getting into a desired headspace, and this little character study never materialized-- until now.  It’s short and it’s not beta’d but I think that it does what I set out to do, and again, it’s been something like two years. So, to @kissofmistletoe: Sorry for the wait, and I hope it’s at least somewhat entertaining.  Hope other people enjoy it, too.

----

Metatron has always enjoyed watching people.  It’s a good thing, considering his purpose, and especially considering he has so many other inclinations that seem at odds with that purpose.  But life can’t be all torment, even for an archangel.

There’s something about perceiving a person, recognizing them as another self that Metatron finds… what’s best word?  Enrapturing, enthralling, intoxicating?  None of those words seem to speak very well of the person being enraptured, enthralled, or intoxicated.  All of them imply loss of control, and Metatron hates not being in control, especially when the matter is self-control.

Metatron often hates things he thinks he shouldn’t want.  Often, but not always.

Baldr wanders the wildlands of the Shamayim, Heaven, like a native.  The geography of Heaven is much like the geography of the Levant, but as it was before so many empires demanded their tithes of lumber for ships and incense.  Aromatic cedars stretch tall and wide all across the mountains, boughs covered in snow.  In the valleys between the mountains, ice-cold rivers run into the eternal sea of Heaven that stretches quite literally into infinity.  Baldr has told Metatron before that he was pleasantly surprised by Heaven.  He had feared it would be a dead, white place.  Metatron had managed not to be offended, at least not by Baldr.

How do humans keep getting things so wrong?

Metatron watches Baldr. The god had seen the sun rise over the mountains, and expressed a desire to take in the winter sun.  Metatron had told him of course he could, and he didn’t need to ask: He was an ambassador, not a prisoner.  Baldr mused there was overlap in those categories; after all, his presence must be accounted for, his movements verified.  Metatron had told him nobody expected him to sit in his room all day and only come out for political discourse.  That sort of treatment was reserved for Sheol, not Shamayim.  Baldr had smiled, but then said that of course the most responsible thing he could do as a guest was to seek the approval of his host before adventuring.  He had tilted his head in innocent inquisitiveness; wasn’t he Metatron’s charge, for the time being?

They had gone on like that for a while, a kind of verbal play-fight that ended with Baldr on his back—as it were.  The kind of deference shown by someone who knows they’re going to get exactly what they want, and who knows a little show of submission can be a balm.  Baldr, fuck him, had worked out long ago that Metatron liked it when people were mindful of his authority.  So few of his siblings were, nowadays, and the lower choirs were only frightened, most of the time.  One of the humans, some Italian or another, had once said that love and fear could hardly exist together, and that if you had to choose, fear was the safer bet. But fear is lonelier than love. It’s lonelier even than simple respect. Well, Baldr gives Metatron respect, and as for the other thing—

--that doesn’t bear thinking about right now.  Baldr fits the landscape too well.  He shouldn’t; for one thing, he’s not wearing a fucking shirt, and it’s only just above freezing.  If he were a human, this would be a clear sign of madness or masochism.  But the incongruity somehow melts away in the image as a whole: A lone, golden figure, ankle-deep in snow, meandering the mountains with no purpose but pleasure in the cold and quiet.  The winter light seems to flow over Baldr’s skin like anointing oil, tarrying over the angles of his body, reluctant to leave him. Metatron has seen deer walk through the snow, lean in the winter yet somehow serene, patient for the Spring. As Baldr stops, turning around to see how far he’s climbed, chest rising as he breathes in cold air and the scent of snow and cedars, Metatron knows Baldr doesn’t need to be patient for Spring: Warmth and life are already inside of him, and will be always.

It's so fucking infuriating.

The archangel may as well be a statue as he watches.  His arms are folded in across his own broad chest, and his wings, six in this form, are stock still, not a feather out of place.  His expression is difficult to read; it could pass for either melancholy or irritation depending on the beholder.  He feels neither-- not exactly.  There are two feelings that come to mind, neither of which translate well to English nor Aramaic nor Hebrew.

Saudade.

Hiraeth.

But neither of them fit perfectly.  Both imply longing, a quiet-leaning-to-unquiet desperation for something lost or missing.  The former implies an unconquerable expectation, and that’s accurate enough but not complete.  The latter implies time and place specifically (he remembers old mountains that once were taller, he remembers lavish tents and smoke that smelled of incense and burnt offerings).  But what do you call a longing that isn’t quite?  How to you express an incomplete yearning?  Because however much he misses the past, he doesn’t want it back.  However much there is of an old god left within him, he wants to be an angel more.

Metatron remembers the Old Days, when he and his siblings were young and terrible.  He had a chance to challenge Haddad for kingship, and he vehemently refused it.  Strictly speaking, not much is stopping him from issuing a challenge now.  He has a duty to the One-As-Three, but it could be fulfilled in many ways.  His angelic brethren would be horrified, of course, but he knows for certain that a number of his Canaanite siblings hold a quiet conviction that Metatron—Malakhael, some still call him-- would make a better king than Haddad.  Not enough to agitate for it while it’s clear Metatron doesn’t want the job, not enough to plead with him to reconsider his loyalties, but…

Oh fucking cactus-sodomizing shit, now Baldr is lying down in an actual fucking snowbank.  And he looks so fucking pleased about it.  He’s luxuriating in the winter sun like a snow-leopard, not caring about the cold but only the light.  That sounds like some kind of stupid inspirational quote mortals would plaster on their dorm bedroom walls.  Something corporate-sponsored snowboarders would quip with a vapid grin.

The light that shines off snow can blind men and animals.  There’s a fucking quote for you.  But it’s nothing to gods and angels, and Baldr himself shines more brightly than anything else around him and oh fucking Sheol why is Metatron thinking like this?

Baldr still hasn’t gotten up from the snowbank.  Metatron wonders if he’ll doze off like that.  It’s not as if frostbite or hypothermia are a problem, and he’s angled so he’d be getting sun pretty much for the rest of the day.  For a Prince and state dignitary, it really doesn’t take much to make Baldr content.  Maybe he won’t even feel the need to get up at sundown; these past few nights have been clear and cold as glass, the moon and stars shining down with rare intensity.  It’s because of Baldr, Metatron is sure; light celebrating its ultimate source.

Mortals sometimes have difficulty wrapping their heads around the fact that more than one divinity can be the ultimate source of anything, that two or more celestials can personify the same concept.  It doesn’t help that it’s hard to explain it in a way they can understand, some answer limited to four dimensions.  Metatron’s go-to answer is “What’s infinity plus infinity?” which has the benefit of being no answer at all.  It almost works, and sometimes almost is enough.  Most people manage to be quite content with almost.

Metatron and Baldr are both beings of truth and light.  They are more than that, they transcend that-- and they are not the same entity.  There is more to each of them.  And yet somewhere, deep in Metatron’s sephirah, there is something that makes no distinction between himself and the godling.  The phrase “kindred spirit” is used carelessly by mortals who don’t understand the depths of those words taken together— certain saints and poets being an exception.  The highest level of self-awareness most mortals attain is the ability to look in a mirror and know, That’s me.  Gods and angels don’t have the luxury of leaving things at that.  An archangel must be careful when looking into certain gods’ eyes, because in an instant they may recognize something even deeper than mere surface-self.  Two sets of eyes can lock, and suddenly the line between I and Thou becomes dangerously blurred.

And oh, we must be careful of that.  It’s such a sweet poison, like wine and mead.  Two selves lost to each other.  Quintessence seeing itself, shattering any illusion of division.  All light is light; all truth is truth.

It would be so easy to leave the illusion of a lone ego behind.

But what would one come back to, when one is no longer one?

Metatron discovers that unthinkingly, he has managed to turn away from Baldr and his light.  Now his expression is recognizably melancholic.  Letting a feeling besides anger make it all the way to his face is an indulgence, but he needs some kind of outlet, and anyone no-one’s around to see.  He walks back into his library proper from the loggia from which he had watched his guest.   It’s well-lit, lamps burning with the clean light of Heaven, and yet it seems undeniably dimmer.  As he walks down the porphyry-columned hall, past the cyclopean bookshelves, under dome and arch, Metatron feels lonely—but only briefly.

Pining, still? Comes Sandalphon’s voice in his mind. The question would be intolerable from anyone else, but this is his sister, so it makes him smile a little instead. She’s not here physically—so much work of her own to do—but they’re never really apart.

I will concede that I am, he replies.  He stops a moment, and suddenly the hall isn’t a hall, it’s a reading room—there are still porphyry columns, of course.  One has standards.  Though I couldn’t tell you for… what, exactly.  He reminds me of so many things, achoti.

Its been a long time since you’ve had much traffic with elohim outside of the family, Sandalphon notes. And then suddenly she is present physically, reclining on a sofa by the window, wings tucked neatly behind her. Metatron sits on a perpendicular sofa. Mediterranean seating arrangements used to be much easier for people with wings, and in Heaven there’s no need to discard useful fashions.

“Don’t see family having much to do with it,” Metatron says.  “As making much difference one way or another, I mean.  I get fucking moody when I have to talk to Haddad, too.”

“But not moody like this, achi.  You’re used to Haddad.  He doesn’t make you so… nostalgic.  Not the best word, I know, but it will do.”  She smiles, a little sadly.  “You’re so used to each other.  When you look at each other, you don’t think eloah or angel, you both think brother.”

“I have dealt with foreign elohim before,” Metatron says a little more impatiently than he intends—but of course Sandalphon knows his heart, and takes no offense.  “None of them… did this to me.  It’s like…” he sighs, running a hand through snow-white hair. “It’s not just that he’s an eloah.”

“It’s the kind of eloah he is,” Sandalphon says.  “I understand.  But I do think the intensity of your feelings is due to how novel all this is.  It’s been so long, achi.  So long since you’ve had anyone but me to be so close to.”

“I have my subordinates,” Metatron says wryly.  “And hey, who needs more fucking company than people who are all kind of terrified of you?”

They are silent together for a time.  The sun of the Shamayim sinks a little lower, and the shadows of the bookshelves move with it.  The moon is barely visible, a ghost against the blue.  Metatron at last breaks the silence.

“Am I worrying you, achoti?”

“Always, Metatron,” Sandaphon laughs, “I’m your sister, that’s my prerogative.  You’re much more fun to worry about than anything else.”  He smiles crookedly in return.

“I promise I won’t… withdraw from this,” he says, “Because I know that’s the big fucking worry.  I can handle having feelings, Sandalphon.  Just a little out of practice.”

They stand and embrace. Metatron realizes it’s been a few months since they last hugged.  He squeezes his sister tight, and when the separate she gently punches his shoulder.

“Just remember,” she tells him, “I won’t have anyone treating my twin worse than he deserves to be treated, and that includes you.  If you need to talk, about this eloah or anything else, come to me.  Everything’s easier together.”

And then she’s gone, but not really.  They’re never really apart.

Metatron smiles softly, and looks out the window.  He can see Baldr from here—really, he could see him from anywhere in his palace-library. The young god is wandering leisurely back towards palace, still fucking shirtless.  Really, that’s insufferable.  The dimming light is just as flattering.  And worst of all, his expression is one of perfect contentment.  He’s had a good day.  He’s thoroughly enjoyed his time here, in this place that Metatron rules.  He’s probably going to make irritatingly excellent conversation tonight, especially over wine.  Metatron’s going to have to deal with so much sass.

The angel’s hand goes to his chest thoughtlessly.  His sephirah feels warm.

He allows himself a brief, sweet awareness that it’s not so different from a flesh-and-blood heart.

[the-magnus-archives-archiver]

The Piper

Case: 9220611

Name: Staff Sergeant Clarence Berry Subject: His time serving with Wilfred Owen in the Great War Date: November 6th, 1922 Recorded by: Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London

A lot of people call me lucky, you know. Not many came through the entirety of the war in one piece. And if you discount the burns, then I did indeed do just that. Even fewer spent all four years at the front, like I did. I was never sent for treatment for shell shock or injury, and even my encounter with a German flamethrower only ended up with me in a front line hospital at Wipers. I was still in that field hospital when the fighting started at the Somme, so I suppose that was lucky too. Four years... I sometimes feel like I’m the only one who saw the whole damn show from start to finish, as though I alone know the Great War in all its awful glory. But deep down I know that honour, such as it is, has to go to Wilfred. You wouldn’t have thought it from his poems, but all told his time at the front totalled not much over a year. Yet he got to know the war in a way I never did. He’s certainly the only person I know that ever saw The Piper.

I grew up poor on the streets of Salford, so I joined the army as soon as I was old enough. I know you’ve heard the stories of brave lads signing up at 14, but this was before the war started, so there wasn’t such a demand for manpower and the recruiters were much more scrupulous about making sure those enlisting were of age. Even so, I was almost too skinny for them to take me and barely made the required weight. But in the end I made it through and, after my training, was assigned to the Manchester Regiment, 2nd Battalion, and it wasn’t long before we were shipped off to France with the British Expeditionary Force. You seem like educated sorts, so I’m sure you read in the papers how that went. Soon enough, though, the trenches were dug and the boredom started to set in. Now, boredom is fine, understand, when the alternatives are bombs, snipers and gas attacks, but months at a time sitting in a waterlogged hole in the ground, hoping your foot doesn’t start swelling, well... it has a quiet terror all its own.

Wilfred came to us in July of 1916. I’m not intimately familiar with his history but he clearly came from stock good enough to be assigned as a probationary Second Lieutenant. I was a Sergeant at the time, so had the job of giving him the sort of advice and support that a new officer needs from a NCO with two years of mud under his nails. That notwithstanding, I will admit taking a dislike to the man when I first met him – he outranked me, and most of the others in the trench, in both military and social terms, and he seemed to treat the whole affair with an airy contempt. There’s a sort of numbness that you adopt after months or years of bombing, a deliberate blankness which I think offended him. He was unfailingly polite, far more so than I was accustomed to in the Flanders mud, where the conversations, such as they were, were coarse and bleak. Yet under this politeness I could feel him dismiss out of hand any suggestion that I gave him or report that I made. It came as no surprise to me to when he mentioned he wrote poetry. To be perfectly honest I expected him to be dead within a week.

To Wilfred’s credit, he made it almost a year before anything horrendous happened to him, and by the following spring I’d venture to say that we might almost have been able to call each other friends. He had been composing poetry during this time, of course, and occasionally would read it out to some of the men. They generally enjoyed it, but personally I thought it was dreadful – there was an emptiness to it and every time he tried to put the war into words it just sounded trite, like there was no soul to what he had to say. He would often talk about his literary aspirations, and how he longed to be remembered, to take what this war truly was and immortalise it. Were I prone to flights of fancy, I daresay I would call his words portentous. When he talked like that, he had an odd habit of trailing off in the middle of the conversation with a tilt of his head, as though his attention had been taken by a far-off sound. The spring thaw had just recently passed when it happened, and we were on the offensive. Our battalion was near Savy Wood when the orders came down – we were to attack the Hindenburg Line. Our target was a trench on the west side of St. Quentin. It was a quiet march. Even at this stage there was often still some excitement when the orders came down for action, even if it was usually stifled by that choking fear that you got when waiting for the whistle. Yet that morning there was something different in the air, an oppressive dread. We’d made this attack before and knew that the change from the valley exposed us to artillery fire. And artillery was always the scariest part of it for me. Bayonets you could dodge, bullets you could duck, even gas you could block out if you were lucky, but artillery? All you could do against artillery was pray.

Even Wilfred felt it, I could tell. He was usually quite talkative before combat. Morbid, but always talkative. That morning he didn’t say a word. I tried to talk with him and raise his spirits, as is a sergeant’s duty, but he just held up his hand to quiet me, and turned his head to listen. At the time I didn’t know what it was he was hearing but it kept him silent. Even when we crested the ridge, and the rest of us tried to drown out the deafening thrum of artillery with our own charging cry, even then he made no sound.

The ground shook with the impact of the mortar shells, and I ran from foxhole to crater to foxhole, keeping my head low to avoid the bullets. As I ran, I felt a shooting pain in my ankle and pitched forward into the mud. Looking down, I saw I’d been caught by a length of barbed wire, half-hidden by the damp upturned soil. I felt a surge of panic begin to overtake me and frantically tried to remove the wire from my leg but only succeeded in getting my hand scratched up quite badly. I looked around desperately to see if there was anyone else nearby who could help. And there, not twenty yards in front of me, I saw Wilfred standing, his face blank and his head swaying to some unheard rhythm. And then I did hear it – gently riding over the pulse of mortars and the rattle of guns and the moans of dying men, a faint, piping melody. I could not have told you whether it was bagpipes or panpipes or some instrument I had never heard before but its whistling tune was unmistakable and struck me with a deepest sadness and a gentle creeping fear. 

And in that moment I knew what was about to happen. I looked at Wilfred, and as our eyes met I saw that he knew as well. I heard a single gunshot, much louder than any of the others somehow, and I saw him go stiff, his eyes wide. And then the mortar blast hit him and he was lost in an eruption of mud and earth. I had plenty of time to mourn him, lying in that dreadful hole until nightfall, when I could free my leg as quietly and gently as possible before crawling back to our trench. It was slow going; every time a flare went up I could only lay motionless and pray, but the good Lord saw fit to let me reach our line relatively unscathed. I was quickly bundled off to the field hospital, which was overburdened as always. They didn’t have much in the way of medicine or staff to spare, and certainly no beds free, so they washed my wounds with iodine, bandaged them, sent me on my way. Told me to come back if I got gangrene. I did have a look around the place to see if I could find Wilfred, but there was no sign of him to be found anywhere. Asking around the trench, no-one had seen him return among the wounded, so I began to reconcile myself to the fact that he was dead. He wasn’t the first friend I’d lost to the Germans nor even the first I’d seen die in front of me, but something about that strange music that I heard in the moments before that explosion lingered in my mind and left me dwelling on Wilfred in many a quiet moment. 

It was probably about a week and a half later I heard shouting from the end of the trench. It was a scouting party who had been reconnoitring the river that flowed near Savy Wood. Apparently, they had found a wounded officer lying in a shell hole there and brought him back. I made my way over and was astounded to see that it was Wilfred. His uniform was torn and burned, he was covered with blood and his eyes had a distant, far off expression to them, but he was most definitely alive. I rode with him back up to the field hospital, along with the Corporal of the squad who had found him. Apparently he had been lying in that hole for days, ever since the battle. They’d found him there, half-dead from dehydration and fatigue, covered in the gore of another soldier. Whatever shell had created the hole he’d ended up in had clearly annihilated some other poor soul and it was in his gory remnants that Wilfred had lain for almost two weeks. I waited outside the hospital tent while he was being treated. The doctor came out shortly, a grave look on his face. He told me the Lieutenant was physically unharmed – something I considered at the time nothing short of a miracle – but that he had one of the worst cases of shell shock the doctor had ever encountered and would have to be shipped back to England for recuperation. I asked him if I could see him, and the doctor consented, though he warned me that Wilfred hadn’t said a word since he’d been brought in. 

As soon as I stepped inside the medical tent I was overwhelmed by the sweet scent of decaying flesh and the moans of pain and despair. The sharp smell of the disinfectant brought back unpleasant memories of chlorine gas attacks. Still, I eventually found my way over to Wilfred’s bed and, sure enough, there he was, staring silently out at the world, though with an intensity that alarmed me. I followed his gaze to a bed nearby, and there I saw a private I didn’t recognise. His forehead was slick with sweat and his chest rose and fell quickly, then abruptly stopped. I realised with a start that a man had just died, and nobody had noticed except Wilfred. 

I tried to engage him in conversation, rattled off a few meaningless pleasantries. “How are you doing, old man?” “Heard you had a bit of close call.” “Glad you found yourself a crump-hole.” All that sort of nonsense. None of it seemed to produce any reaction in him, and instead he turned to me and after a long while he simply said: “I met the war.” I told him that he certainly had, not many walk away from something like that and lying in that hole for so long, surrounded by all the death... Well, he had definitely met the war and it was rotten bloody business. But Wilfred just shook his head like I didn’t understand, and to be honest I was starting to feel like I didn’t, and he told me again that he “met the war”. He said it was no taller than I was. It struck me that perhaps he was describing some dreadful mirage that had come upon him as he lay in that wretched place, and I asked him to tell me what the war looked like.

I remember exactly what he said. He told me it had three faces. One to play its pipes of scrimshawed bone, one to scream its dying battle cry and one that would not open its mouth, for when it did blood and sodden soil flowed out like a waterfall. Those arms that did not play the pipes were gripping blades and guns and spears, while others raised their hands in futile supplication of mercy, and one in a crisp salute. It wore a tattered coat of wool, olive green where it was not stained black, and beneath, nothing could be seen but a body beaten, slashed and shot and until nothing remained but the wounds themselves.

I had heard quite enough by this point, and said so to Wilfred, but if he heard me he gave no indication of it. He told me that the war, “the Piper”, had come to claim him, and he had begged to remain. The thing had paused its tune for but a moment, and with one of its arms it reached out and handed him a pen. He said he knew it would return for him someday, but now he too would live to play its tune. The way he looked at me at that moment was the same way he’d looked at me before the shell hit, and for a moment I could have sworn I once again heard that music on the breeze. 

I left almost immediately after that, and was later told that he’d been shipped back to Britain, to recuperate at Craiglockhart. The other men grumbled about officers’ perks and a nice holiday for the Lieutenant, but they didn’t know what he’d been through, and I found it very hard to envy him myself. At one point I asked some of the squad who brought him back whether he’d been holding a pen when they found him, but they told me he hadn’t. The only thing they’d found nearby were the tags of the dead man among his remains. A man named Joseph Rayner.

And for a long while that was that. Wilfred was back at home recovering and taking on lighter duties, while I slogged on through the mud of Flanders. I had a few close calls myself – including the flamethrower that marked me so distinctively. Could have been worse, of course; if the rain hadn’t almost liquefied the mud of no man’s land I’d have gone up like a lucifer. I did start to notice something among the troops, though. Every time we lined up to go over the top I would watch them, look into their faces. Most of them showed naught but the starkest fear, of course, but a few of them seemed distant. The whistle would startle them back to themselves and with wide eyes they would surge forward. I had seen this before all that business with Wilfred but had always assumed it was simply the mind trying to choke down the likelihood of its own death. Now when I watched, I found I could not help but notice the slight tilt of the head, as though gently straining their ears to hear a far-off tune. Those men never made it back to the trenches.

You know the phrase “to pay the piper”. I thought on it a lot through those many months – the debt of Hamelin, who for their greed had their children taken from them, never to be returned. Did you know Hamelin is a real place in Germany? Yes, not too far from Hanover as I recall. We had a prisoner once from there – I wanted to ask him about the old fairy tale and what, if anything, he knew of The Piper. The poor soul didn’t speak a word of English, though, and died from an infected shrapnel wound a few days later. He spent his last minutes humming a familiar tune. That night, as we scrambled through mud and broken metal in another futile attack I began to wonder: were we the children stolen from their parents by The Piper’s tune? Or were we the rats that were led to the river and drowned because they ate too much of the wealthy’s grain?

Still, those are musings for poets, among whom I do not number. I did keep up with Wilfred’s work, though, and was startled to see how much it had changed since he left. Where once it could have been dismissed as frivolous, there was now a tragedy to it that flowed from the words. Even now I can’t hear Exposure without being back in that damned trench at wintertime. And the public clearly felt similar, as one of the few newspapers we actually got through to the line had an extensive article praising his first collection. Despite all this, there was something about it that sat uneasily with me. 

Wilfred returned to the 2nd Manchesters in July of 1918. He was clearly much changed from his time away, and seemed to be in good enough spirits, though we talked little any more, and when he looked at me, I saw in his eyes a fear that he was quick to hide. The war was grinding towards a close at this point. There was a fatigue that could be felt everywhere; even the enemy machine guns felt slower and more begrudging in their fire, but this charged our commanders to spur us on to more and more aggressive actions. Some desperate attempt to push Germany into a surrender, I suppose, and our attacks grew to a crescendo.

On the first day of October, we were ordered to storm the enemy position at Joncourt. I remember that the weather that day was beautiful – a last day of sunshine before autumn pressed in. We charged with some success, as I believe the German artillery hadn’t been lined up correctly, and for the first time since his return I found myself fighting alongside Wilfred. I can say without a word of a lie that across all the war I never saw a soldier fight with such ferocity as I saw in him that day. I hasten to add that that statement is not given in admiration – the savagery I saw in him as he tore into a man with his bayonet... I’d just as soon forget it. As he charged, he howled a terrible battle cry and, just for a moment, I could have sworn that I saw him cast a shadow that was not his own. I read in the paper he won the Military Cross for that attack.

It was a month later that I woke up to find him sitting next to my bed. He stared at me, not unkindly, though there was something in his eye that put my ill at ease. “Almost over now, Clarence,” he said to me. I said yes, it did seem to be all coming to an end. He smiled and shook his head. He sat their quietly for some time, at one point a flare burst in the sky outside, and enough of that stark red light came through the dugout’s makeshift doorway for me to see that Wilfred was crying. I knew he was listening to The Piper’s tune. He asked me if I heard it, and I told him no, I didn’t, and I wasn’t sure I ever really had. He nodded, and said he didn’t know which of us was the lucky one, and neither did I. Still don’t, really. 

Wilfred Owen died crossing the canal at Sambre-Oise two days later. There wasn’t meant to be much, if any, resistance, but some of the soldiers stationed there returned fire. I found myself crouching behind him as the Captain, who had been shot in hip, was pulled to safety. As we prepared to charge, Wilfred stopped all at once and turned to me with a smile on his face. At that moment I saw a trickle of blood start to flow from an opening hole in his forehead. I feel like I should make this clear – I have seen many people get shot. I know what it looks like and how a bullet hole appears. But here, the bullet hole simply opened, like an eye, and he fell to the ground, dead. It was told to me later that it was on that day the first overtures of peace were made between the nations, and the Armistice was signed almost exactly a week later. We were shipped home soon after.

I believe it was not merely on that day, but at that very moment, when Wilfred fell, that the peace was finally assured. No-one can convince me otherwise. Did The Piper spare him before? Did it simply use him, later to cast him aside? I don’t know, and I try not to think about it overmuch. I have a wife now, and a child on the way, but I still get nightmares sometimes. The parade for Armistice Day passed by my house last year, and I had to shut my window tight when the military band marched past. It wasn’t a tune I cared to hear.

Archivist Notes:

Well, if further evidence was needed of my predecessor’s disorganisation, here we have it. A statement from 1922 filed among the mid-2000s. Obviously there’s not much research or further investigation to be done into a case almost a hundred years old, especially when it involves so well documented a figure as Wilfred Owen. Still, an interesting enough tale, and I feel like I recognise the name ‘Joseph Rayner’ from somewhere, though for the life of me I couldn’t say where. I’ve had the case returned to its proper location in the archives.

Source: Official Transcript and Podcast (MAG 7 The Piper)

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As Always: text is provided only in the event of access expiration or post deletions from the hosting site. Whenever possible, always read the article at the link.

Note: https://www.vnews.com/Woodstock-vampire-lore-18668228

Among the Undead in Woodstock

(Shawn Braley illustration)

By EmmaJean Holley Valley News Staff Writer Monday, July 09, 2018

By modern-day standards, 20-year-old Frederick Ransom was dead to begin with.

But when someone died of tuberculosis in 1817, one could never be too careful. Before modern medicine shed light on the idea of contagion, even doctors in Woodstock thought that a string of deaths within a household could be due to a vampire in the family, who would return from the grave to feast on the lives of their kin.

Ransom’s brother, Daniel, was only 3 years old at the time of Frederick’s death. But he would recall for the rest of his life how much it frightened him when a local physician, Dr. Frost, paid a visit to their home — it seems that more than he remembered Frederick, Daniel remembered “keeping shy of the Doctor, fearing he would freeze me,” he wrote some 80 years later in his memoir, an excerpt of which was provided by the Woodstock History Center’s education coordinator, Jennie Shurtleff.

Had Daniel known what was coming, he might have feared being burned instead. The antidote for vampirism was thought to lie in a cauldron over a flame.

These exorcisms involved exhuming the suspected vampire from their grave, and examining the corpse for symptoms of being undead: bloating, blood around the mouth, blood in the heart or liver, hair and nails that continued to grow after death. To protect others in the family from the same fate, the blood-filled organs of the dead were to be burned down to cinders, and often consumed in some way — eaten, imbibed or inhaled — by their relatives.

Ransom’s father figured it might be wise to take precautions. So the Dartmouth College student was disinterred, his consumptive heart cut out of his body and burned in a blacksmith’s forge on the Woodstock Village Green.

“However, it did not prove a remedy,” Daniel Ransom wrote, “for mother, sister, and two brothers died with that disease afterward.”

Tuberculosis has existed since ancient times, but was in Ransom’s day called consumption, for the way it seems to eat away at a person’s body, leaving them wasted and pallid. Today, we know that the airborne disease is caused by breathing in the rod-shaped bacillus bacteria, which spread through the lungs and form nodules that the Encyclopedia Brittanica characterizes with the unfortunate descriptor of “cheeselike.” These masses may create cavities in the lungs and will eventually destroy the respiratory tissue, a death that sometimes takes years.

Late in the 19th century, doctors would begin to prescribe certain climates for tubercular patients— clean air, fresh air, mountain air, desert air, ocean air — and sanitariums opened throughout the United States and Europe as treatment facilities for those who could afford them. In 1882, the German pathologist Robert Koch would discover the microbe that causes the illness, Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Half a century passed before drugs were discovered that could treat TB. The first cure, an antibiotic compound called streptomycin, would be discovered in the early 1940s, and in the 1950s would become widely available in the Western world, eliminating tuberculosis as the death sentence and public health menace it once was.

But of course, the microscopic processes of the body were invisible to the townspeople of Woodstock in the early 19th century. What they could see was the blood — bright red spots of it that would bloom into the victims’ handkerchief or pillowcase when they coughed — and the deadliness of the disease, which killed one in seven people in the United States at the time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than half of those infected would die.

Outbreaks started in colonial New England around the 1730s, and by the 1800s had become a bloody stain on the collective imagination: If there was indeed something consuming the settlers, its appetite seemed bottomless. The ceremonial burning of Frederick Ransom’s heart was one of many similar exorcisms that took place during the New England vampire panic, the best known of which might have been that of Mercy Lena Brown, in Exeter, R.I.

According to the folklorist Michael Bell, who wrote Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires, these affairs were often held in secret, under cloak of darkness and glow of lantern — but in Vermont, they tended to be more public events, sometimes even convivial ones. Bell’s book states that town selectmen and other community leaders would often preside over or even perform the ceremonies, which could draw crowds of 100 or more.

Like the existence of vampires themselves, some of these ceremonies have been difficult to verify, the truth having been tweaked and embellished by tellings and retellings over time. But Frederick Ransom has not been the only suspected vampire to plague the people of Woodstock.

In 1830, another exorcism of a tuberculosis victim — this one a young man in the Corwin family — is said to have taken place, also on the village green. The exorcism story, supposedly an eyewitness account from an old woman who was present at the ceremony as a girl, first appeared in the Journal of American Folk-Lore in 1889, and in 1890 was reprinted in The Vermont Standard.

Six months after Corwin died, his brother started showing the telltale signs of consumption. So the dead man was dug up from his grave in Cushing Cemetery, about a mile outside the town center on Old River Road, his heart found “undecayed, and containing liquid blood.” Physicians in Woodstock — including the founders of the Vermont Medical College — agreed that this was a case of “assured vampirism,” the article states.

The exorcism supposedly drew “a large concourse of people,” including such prominent townspeople as Norman Williams (for whom the town library is named), and other “old men of renown, sound minded fathers among the community, discreet careful men,” the story goes.

Into the cauldron the bloody heart went, “until it was no more than ashes,” Shurtleff said. After the townspeople were satisfied with the obliterated condition of the organ, they placed it 15 feet deep in the ground, and covered it with a seven-ton block of granite from the Knox Ledge, a nearby quarry on the hill behind Lincoln Street.

They filled the remaining hole back up with earth. Then, to be safe, they sprinkled the granite-sealed grave with more blood — this coming from a bullock, or young castrated bull.

These exorcism traditions did not spring from nowhere — the relationship between burned cardiovascular tissue and consumption also played out on the 19th-century American frontier, where eating a fried rattlesnake heart was regarded as a cure for the disease — and in fact are rooted in medieval times, such as the bullock blood from the Corwin story, which harkens back to a time when the colonist’s ancestors would spill the blood of a sacrificed animal as a rite of purification.

And so when the bullock blood soaked into the earth over Corwin’s grave, the townspeople thought that was that. Except it wasn’t, Shurtleff said. Not quite.

“A few years later, a group of people, having heard about the burial of the heart, decided to dig it up — and got scared off,” Shurtleff said. “Rock, pot, ashes and all had disappeared.”

The 1890 Vermont Standard story, adding on to the original journal article, reported that the hooligans had had a brush with hell: “They heard a roaring noise, however, as of some great conflagration, going on in the bowels of the earth, and a smell of sulphur began to fill the cavity, whereupon, in some alarm they hurried to the surface, filled up the hole again, and went their way. It is reported that considerable disturbance took place on the surface of the ground for several days, where the hole had been dug, some rumblings and shaking of the earth, and some smoke was emitted.”

Shurtleff is quick to point out that none of this — not Corwin, not the woman, not the ritual proceedings and certainly not the underground conflagration — should be taken at face value.

“We’ve done some research,” Shurtleff said. “We are unable to verify any of the facts.” There is no Corwin grave in Cushing Cemetery, at least not one that this reporter — or other investigators — have been able to find. Based on town records, Shurtleff can’t be sure the man even existed. The article’s writer does not provide the old woman’s name, or any other evidence to corroborate the story, and Shurtleff suspects that the account reflects an alchemy of misremembered details, fiction and the dramatic enhancements of time.

But it is a compelling tale nonetheless, one whose longevity illustrates the human impulse to understand the most ghastly of natural mysteries, and from where, in our desperation, we may cobble together our most satisfying explanations. In her book Our Vampires, Ourselves, scholar Nina Auerbach writes, “Every age embraces the vampire it needs.”

Every age and also, Auerbach notes, many cultures. In Greek mythology, the demigoddess Empusa seduced young men in order to drink their blood and feast on their flesh. An undead Old Norse creature called a draugr, who could change size and who smelled of decay, also stalked and fed on the living. In India, there’s lore of a vampire who feeds specifically on the livers of its victims. A vampire in Japan dines on infants.

Perhaps it can be easier to believe in the supernatural than it is to accept having so little control over the human body, the human life.

“Where medical science failed, folklore took over,” said the paranormal investigator Thomas D’Agostino in a 2010 Standard story that revisited the Woodstock vampire history, which received a mention in D’Agostino’s then-recent book. It seems that, with scientific understanding of disease lying years into the future, the townspeople of Woodstock looked, instead, to the past.

Put another way: Even if we know all we will ever know about the suspected vampirism in Woodstock — and the precautions taken against that vampirism — they make for good stories. And good stories can tell their own kind of truth.

EmmaJean Holley can be reached at ejholley@ vnews*com or 603-xxx-xxxx.

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See the evolution of summer's sexiest shorts from the 1940s to the 2000s

Few clothing items usher in summer quite like a perfectly worn-in, frayed, and ripped pair of denim shorts. Some call them jorts (aka jean shorts), while others might prefer “cutoffs.” They’re a 21st century festival staple and a street-style favorite, with price tags that span the gamut from a couple bucks for some vintage Levi’s dug up in a thrift store, to roughly  $1K for this Valentino pair, embroidered with butterflies.

But, before there were jorts, there were jeans. It’s nearly impossible to imagine a world or closet without denim, yet the durable, universally beloved garment only dates back to late 19th century, when Levi Strauss (along with a tailor, Jacob Davis) invented “waist overalls” in 1873, named for where the style starts on the body, compared to the full-body overalls of the past.

From left to right: Students at Los Angeles City College in 1958, Karen Erickson, 19; John Zinda, 20; Annette Schiff, 19; Biggio Pennino, 21; and Al Ponce, 19, look on as Jerry Brooks, 18 (second from left), reads a campus order instructing students not to wear shorts. (Photo by USC Libraries/Corbis via Getty Images)

Shorts have been around since the early 20th century, remaining taboo through the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, for both men and women. There were even dress codes against, and fines for, wearing shorts, in certain cities throughout midcentury America.

Though it’s unclear when in the 20th century, exactly, the denim cutoff was born, denim itself was invented in the 1700s in Nîmes, France, and was initially touted as being completely tear-resistant. (The word “denim” actually refers to the birthplace of the sturdy fabric: it’s derived from serge de Nîmes in French, which translates as serge (a sturdy fabric) from Nîmes.

Punk rock singer and poet Patti Smith poses for a studio portrait. (Photo by Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

Long before jorts was a word — a dictionary-official one, even, but more on that later — the shorts style picked up popularity in the 1970s. The edgy twist on a beloved American staple was particularly big during the decade famous for punk and rock musicians. There’s a subtle but powerful symbolism in literally ripping apart a material that, while invented across the pond in France, had become strongly associated with American workmanship.

In the latter part of the decade, Patti Smith, a denim devotee in general, often donned pairs of roughly chopped and cuffed jean shorts, topped with oversized tweed mens’ blazers, loose T-shirts, or baggy button-downs. Smith often sported her cutoffs with black tights underneath, and wore them in a slew of situations, often photographed with her partner Robert Mapplethorpe, as well as onstage while performing.

Debbie Harry of Blondie on the beach at Coney Island (Photo by Roberta Bayley/Redferns)

Another musical icon to memorably rock the rebellious style was Debbie Harry: The Blondie frontwoman donned a very short, very ripped pair of cutoffs while cavorting on the beach in Coney Island, Brooklyn, in a series of shots from 1977 by rock photographer Roberta Bayley.

Daisy Duke, played by Catherine Bach in “The Dukes of Hazzard.” (Photo: Everett Collection)

The garment was most powerfully immortalized by actress Catherine Bach in the TV series The Dukes of Hazzard, which aired from 1979 to 1985. Bach’s character, Daisy Duke, frequently flaunted her gams in extra-short cutoffs to help her get out of perilous situations that she and her two brothers found themselves in. The hot-weather answer to denim wearing become synonymous with a stereotypical, Southern flirtatious sex appeal, thanks to the show, and bequeathed them an enduring nickname: The shorts  are (still!) often called “Daisy Dukes.”

However, despite their breezy, bare-legged appearance, the cutoffs featured on The Dukes of Hazzard weren’t exactly styled in the most beach-friendly manner. The show’s network, CBS, deemed the minuscule shorts inappropriate for TV, and Bach had to wear flesh-hued tights under her cutoffs in every scene.  

Behind the scenes on “Stunt Women”: Cindy Crawford in 1992 (Photo: Shutterstock)

Cutoffs got the Vogue treatment in the early 1990s. Supermodel Cindy Crawford wore a pair as part of a photoshoot on a Malibu beach in 1992, Herb Ritts shot Cindy Crawford for the November issue of Vogue, cavorting on the beach in Malibu with her husband at the time, Richard Gere, her supermodel physique displayed nicely in a pair of frayed Levi shorts. Before cutoffs made a Vogue cameo, their full-length predecessors were notably featured on the fashion bible’s cover four years before, when the magazine’s then newly minted editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, featured a pair of blues on her very first cover, in 1988. 

A big part of the charm of cutoffs is how democratizing and DIY-friendly they are; crafted for a couple bucks, or free, even, using any old pair of jeans and a sharp pair of scissors. The advent and popularity of the premium denim market in the late ‘90s and early aughts ushered in previously unheard-of triple-digit prices for the wardrobe workhouse, from brands like Frankie B, Seven for All Mankind, Paper Denim & Cloth, and True Religion. Shorts versions of pricy premium denim also took off, whether intentionally sold with abbreviated hemlines or in DIY form.

A model on the runway at the Spring/Summer 2000 Chloé ready-to-wear collection designed by Stella McCartney, wearing white tube top with smocking at top edge, fringed hot pants, high-heel sandals with white and gold ankle bands, and carrying a straw bag with cat-face design. (Photo: Getty Images)

But the humble cutoff has also gotten more upscale runway treatments: In 1999, for one of Stella McCartney’s final collections as creative director of Chloé, she showed ultrashort white shorts with a low rise (as was the preferred, hipbone-exposing silhouette of the era) and extra-distressed hems.

Then, the shorts reconnected with their musician-vetted roots in a new way, thanks to their growing ubiquity with festival fashion. Specifically, with one increasingly popular festival: Coachella. The annual three-day blowout in the desert of Indio, Calif., which began in 1999, is where many a trend has hit critical mass in the 21st century, particularly in the past five to 10 years, be it jorts, flower crowns, or chokers.

Jessica Simpson in the film version of “The Dukes of Hazzard.” (Photo: Everett Collection)

In 2005, Jessica Simpson introduced Daisy Duke (both the character and her signature shorts) to a younger generation with the film version of The Dukes of Hazzard. Unlike the O.G. Daisy Duke, Simpson didn’t wear tights under her cutoffs. Plus, the entire ensemble (both the shorts’ length and fit, and the snugness and cleavage-baring factor of her tops) were sexed up in the modernized, silver-screen take on the campy TV series.

Kendall Jenner in 2016, wearing a fringe jacket, jean shorts, and velvet boots. (Photo: Getty Images)

In 2015, the term “jorts” became a legitimate, official noun: the term, a portmanteau of “jeans” and “shorts,” was added to the Oxford dictionary that year, along with other modern vernacular, like selfie, twerk, and guac.

In the past decade, denim cutoffs have yet again cropped up on runways, in their fanciest, priciest form fathomable. During designer Hedi Slimane’s stint as creative director at Saint Laurent from 2012 to 2016, one of the (many) sweeping tweaks  he made to the venerable French fashion house was peppering his collections with supershort hemlines and punky vibes, sometimes translating to cutoff shorts (and even cutoff denim overalls, like this spring 2016 Saint Laurent look).

Alexander Wang Spring-Summer Collection 2016 at New York Fashion Week (Photo: Getty Images)

Alexander Wang trotted out some artfully beat-up, ultrashort pairs in his fall 2016 collection, too. 2016 also marked the year supermodels Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid added jorts to their model-off-duty street style.

Gigi Hadid in 2016 wearing jean shorts, a T-shirt, and navy coat. (Photo: Getty Images)

Beyoncé wears the Saint Laurent sparkle boots alongside Jay-Z. (Photo: Instagram)

The most epic jorts moment in recent memory came courtesy of the one and only Beyoncé, at what’s become the most important modern natural habitat for the garment: Coachella. While headlining the festival in April 2018, Queen Bey slayed in her first of five outfit changes throughout her set: a heavily shredded, customized pair of Levi’s High-Rise shorts, paired with a bejeweled yellow satin hoodie, flesh-toned fishnets, and iridescent sequined boots. The superstar had another memorable cutoffs getup a couple months earlier, in December 2017, thanks to a pair of black cutoffs paired with glittery Saint Laurent knee-high boots.

Beyoncé at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April in Indio, Calif. (Photo: Getty Images)

These days, denim cutoffs are less associated with their late 20th century connotations of Daisy Duke and punky DGAF rock legend style, and more with celebrity street style (and, of course, festival garb).

A plethora of stars regularly don cutoffs, both off-duty and, occasionally, on the red carpet. To wit: famous fans of jorts include Kate Moss, Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Victoria Beckham, Gigi Hadid, Rihanna (in another epic Coachella getup, pairing jorts with a Gucci bejeweled bodysuit and matching balaclava), and longtime cutoffs connoisseur, Chloë Sevigny.

So, just like the enduring, universal appeal of jeans — despite changing silhouettes, rises, and inseam lengths that cycle in and out of trendiness over the years — denim cutoffs are the indispensable warm-weather counterpart.

Rihanna wears a Gucci sparkle bodysuit and balaclava with her jorts at Coachella. (Photo: Instagram)

The appeal varies widely: For some, there’s a sort of Southern sexpot vibe, thanks to the surprisingly sartorially memorable television character, Daisy Duke, while others might associate with it a punk-rock insouciance, à la Patti Smith. Or, perhaps, a carefully curated but “carefree” quintessential Coachella look.

Expect this wardrobe staple to stick around for many more decades, sure to be championed by a new generation of style icons, across music genres and various creative fields, personal style preferences, and price points. In other words, love them or loathe them, in all likelihood, jorts are here to stay.

Read More from Yahoo Lifestyle:

• See the evolution of the prom dress from the 1940s to the 2000s • Olympian Adam Rippon on coming out before a major skating competition: ‘I felt power going out there’ • Innovative, resilient, woke: Ready or not, Generation Z has arrived 

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.

[watchonlinewds]

In California: Newsom talks tough on reopening public schools; more details in Smart case

I'm Winston Gieseke, philanthropy and special sections editor for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, bringing you the day's key headlines on this windy Wednesday.

In California brings you top Golden State stories and commentary from across the USA TODAY Network and beyond. Get it free, straight to your inbox.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that all California schools should reopen when the new academic year begins next fall. His frustration was evident: “Money is not an object now. It’s an excuse," he said. “I want all schools to reopen. I’ve been crystal clear about that.”

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Newsom spoke at an elementary school in Santa Rosa that began welcoming students back this week. But his wishes remain an expectation rather than a mandate in California’s decentralized education system, where 1,200 school districts negotiate separately with teachers unions and ultimately govern themselves.

Facing political pressure and a recall effort, Newsom has said he plans to lift most of California's coronavirus restrictions on June 15 as part of reopening the state to business as usual. Earlier this month, he made a similar pronouncement, but many districts and teachers remain reluctant.

Newsom has repeatedly said he sees no barriers to getting the state's 6.2 million public school students back into classrooms now, as California's COVID-19 infections continue to drop and more residents are being vaccinated.

"If current trends and best practices continue, the next school year can begin with offering full in-person instruction to all students," the California Department of Health said in a presentation Wednesday that focused on school reopening. It specified that schools should plan to offer full days of instruction, five days a week.

How is this OK?’: Meanwhile, frustrated parents throughout the state, say that while students may be permitted to return to school in person, more than half will stick with distance learning.

Associated Press reports that Kira Gaber said she’s been told to send her kindergartner back to his San Francisco classroom with a laptop and headphones — while his teacher works online from home. “How is this OK? This is completely not in-person learning,” said Gaber, who doesn’t plan to send her son to class with a computer. “I’m going to send him with worksheets and a coloring book.”

Frustrated parents in San Francisco have even coined a new phrase for their latest classroom reality: "Zoom in a Room."

As more California counties open up vaccines to younger adults — tomorrow the state opens eligibility to everyone 16 and up — California public health officials warned of decreases in supply, the result of a national reduction of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The state has received about 2.4 million doses this week, and it expects 2 million next week and 1.9 million the week after. This is in addition to vaccines shipped directly to pharmacies and community health centers from the federal government.

This week, availability remains mixed, with some places reporting an excess of open appointments. Humboldt County in Northern California, for example, urged residents to make an appointment, saying that “hundreds of doses” were available through the weekend.

Similarly, a mass vaccination site at California State University, Los Angeles, announced it would take adults on a walk-up basis because of excess appointments. But by late Tuesday morning, the site was turning people away because of demand.

Paul Flores will face first-degree murder charges in the 1996 disappearance of Stockton college student Kristin Smart, authorities say.

Police said they believed that Flores, now 44, had been attempting to rape Smart, his fellow Cal Poly student, when she was killed inside his dorm room. His father, 80-year-old Ruben Flores, is charged with accessory to murder after the fact for helping to conceal Kristin’s body.

Both men were arrested Tuesday morning. The arraignment is set for Thursday.

“We’ve got physical evidence, we have witness statements, things that in our view in the totality bring us to the point where we believe we can go forward and prosecute Paul Flores for the murder of Kristin Smart,” San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow said during a press conference Wednesday.

Smart's body has yet to be found, but authorities received evidence in the last month regarding a possible location where she was taken, Dow said. He also did not rule out a plea deal with Paul Flores in exchange for information leading to Smart’s remains.

A venomous snake bit an employee at the San Diego Zoo Monday, according to zoo officials. A spokesperson for the zoo said the wildlife care specialist was immediately transported to a hospital for evaluation and treatment.

“Although the San Diego Zoo cares for a number of venomous reptiles, incidents like this are very rare, and the snake was contained at all times with no risk of an escape,” the zoo said in a statement.

The snake involved is an African bush viper, also known as Atheris squamigera. Native to parts of western and central Africa, their venom can cause fever, hemorrhaging and possibly death in humans, according to the University of Michigan's Museum of Zoology website.

While there is no known antivenom for an African bush viper's venom, per the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, New York, patients can be treated for their bites using antivenom created for other snakes' venom.

And finally, if you're a fan of woodies — those vintage cars with their signature wooden frames that evoke images of surfers transporting their boards to and from the beach — you are in for a rare privilege.

The Central Valley Woodie Club will be sponsoring its 15th annual Woodies in the Valley, an all-woodies car show, Friday and Saturday in Visalia. A sampling of the vehicles from 1928 to 1951, including original, restored and full hot-rod woodies, will be on display.

For more information on the event, visit valleywoodies.com or contact Wayne Yada, president of the Central Valley Woodie Club, at (559) 967-1357 or info@valleywoodies.com.

In California is a roundup of news from across USA Today network newsrooms. Also contributing: Associated Press. We'll be back in your inbox tomorrow with the latest headlines.

As the philanthropy and special sections editor at The Desert Sun, Winston Gieseke writes about nonprofits, fundraising and people who give back in the Coachella Valley. Reach him at winston.gieseke@desertsun.com.

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Hiking in the Catskills

Nov. 8-15, 2020

It was November 2020, NYC, and a third, larger wave of covid-19 was well and truly on its way around the globe, limiting travel possibilities. Even individual US states had their very own travel restrictions and quarantine requirements, so I decided the least risky option to get some hiking in was to stay within NY state and head to the Catskill Mountains.

I was met by a cheerful Chinese-American woman, 70’s, at the amusingly named ‘Morning Glory’ B&B in Woodstock – I expect it was something to do with the way the sunshine beamed through the thinly veiled windows at dawn. The numerous paintings covering the walls of this 1800’s colonial style property hinted at the owner’s artistic nature. During the coming week I would come to meet her daughter, Diane, 40’s, and her granddaughter, Isobel, 20 – men were clearly superfluous to requirements in this place being run by three generations of industrious Chinese-American women!

I’d planned on doing a number of long day hikes and over the week settled on four -- a modified route of the Mink Hollow Devils Path Loop, the Devils Path to Hunter Mountain Loop, the Escarpment Loop/Kaaterskill Falls and then part of the Burroughs Range:

Mink Hollow Devils Path Loop (slightly modified route) - 15 miles

I hiked the first mile from the parking spot with Diane under clear blue skies before we went our separate ways – she was carrying on back to Woodstock while I was heading over Indian Head and Sugarloaf Mountains where the views would be spectacular and turn out to be the best of the week. 

In the heat I was soon down to my t-shirt with the bottom parts of my hiking trousers zipped off. It all took a bit longer than expected so I ended up being in a rush to get off the mountain, with its tricky scrambling sections, before dark. To make sure I can get somewhere in time I tend to assume speeds of  2.5-2.75 miles/hr for mixed terrain, 2.00-2.25 miles/hr for slower uphill/scrambling stuff, and 3.00-3.25 miles/hr for easy paths and road sections. In the event I did make it off the mountain just as the light was fading but then had a two mile dangerous walk along the dark road back to my car, with a few fast cars to contend with.

Devils Path to Hunter Mountain Loop – 11.4 miles

The first part of yet another Devils Path, connecting the car park to the loop which I would walk in an anti-clockwise fashion, was a treacherous steep half mile uphill over slippery wet, leaf-covered rocks, clearly earning some infamy and its name over the years. The low cloud would persist for most of the day where the only other hikers I met were an intrepid outdoorsy looking family that had the look of being an integral part of these mountains -- I felt honored that they spoke to me as an equal, as though I was also part of this exclusive all-weather outdoors club.

I thought about how different these mountains looked when skiing, the only other time I’d been on Hunter, and how the passage of time not only affects their visual appearance. Of how water-under-the-bridge gives an alternative view of the world.  I tried to get a look above the clouds by climbing the fire tower on the summit of Hunter but when I got to the top the latch into the lookout had been padlocked – although life can sometimes feel like this, I knew another door would soon appear in a different time and place.

Escarpment Loop, Kaaterskill Falls – 7.4 miles

It was a misty start under a fine drizzle as I headed up the steep, wet, slippery trail beside the roaring falls which spoke to me in a language I’ve yet to decipher – half heard messages drowned out before I could quite grasp their meaning.

 Then, walking the loop in a clockwise fashion, flat woodland trails lead to a still reservoir, a silent and desolate contrast under that blanket of thick fog. And when I eventually came to the ridge along the top of the escarpment facing south, the mist would periodically clear to show tiny patches of dazzling blue sky and hints at the extent of a view I might be missing – like flashes of insight into your dreams, dreams which you keep hidden in the mist, afraid to believe what might be possible for fear of being let down. Why not take a look?

Burroughs Range (partial route) - 11 miles

How to do a point-to-point hike and still have your car at the end of it? Our plan was that I would drive Diane’s car to the parking spot at the westernmost point on the loop and she, with Isobel, would drive my car to the parking spot at Woodland Valley Campground. I would then walk anti-clockwise, she would walk clockwise, and we would meet in the middle at Cornell Mountain for lunch and to swap car keys.

Best laid plans though! As I parked up Diane’s car after the steep uphill drive, acrid smelling smoke and steam emanated from under the bonnet – feck! A quick inspection revealed no water in the cooling system reservoir and a probable split hose. I dumped almost all my drinking water into the reservoir before I left for the trail. I was feeling guilty that I’d pushed her mini too hard up the hills, but when we met for lunch at the half-way point she just said “oh yeah, I’ve been noticing that for a while. Can’t remember the last time I put water in. They’ll sort it out at the service in a couple of months”. It made me think of life’s multitude examples of how the cost rises when we don’t address problems quickly – when we don’t nip them in the bud. There was the ten years of worsening scratches on my apartment’s wooden floor before I got rubber protectors to go under my sofa’s feet; then the water damage on the wall next to my bath/shower which is yet to be sorted; and of course the irrevocable damage to a marriage from not being completely ‘present’ when I needed to be.

With little drinking water I was grateful to come across a spring just after Slide Mountain – the numerous large signs clearly evident for half a mile in each direction made me smile. Flashing neon lights would hardly have made the spring more conspicuous! There’s something instinctively satisfying though about slaking your thirst straight out of the ground – a human need akin to the warmth from a fire, the freedom of stretching your legs under a blue sky, the touch from someone special...

Real Estate

On the one day it chucked it down I stayed off the mountains, instead driving towards Hudson to check out the real estate – I stopped en-route to have a stroll along Poets Walk in the misty rain. It was a welcome change to wander over gently rolling terrain like pipe-smoke in a billiard room as I considered whether I might have been a poet in another life, rather than a scientist.  

Over the past couple of years I’ve been considering whether I might leave New York City at some point since many of my good friends have left and my job no longer keeps me here – I’ve often thought if there’s nothing to keep me in an expensive city then why not leave? I’m completely open as to where I might live if I do decide to leave. My sons live in London and Lyon but who knows where they might end up in the future. And the world is a small place – the time to fly from the US east coast to western Europe is about the same as flying from the US east coast to the US west coast. I could live anywhere and fly as much as I wanted to see my sons, ethics of carbon footprint permitting of course. I’d already been checking out New York state real estate in Woodstock (and earlier in Cold Spring) where it seemed the pandemic had driven New Yorkers out of the city to quickly snap up property at increasingly elevated prices.

Although Hudson’s prevalence of high ceilinged Victorian style architecture had an attraction for me, I wasn’t overly impressed – maybe a rainy day is not the best time to visit but it seemed a tad neglected and desolate to me – other than the luxurious Maker Café, located inside the upscale Victorian Maker Hotel. Rhinebeck, just a tad further south and also usefully situated on the Amtrac line from New York City, had more appeal for me, with a smaller, less obvious center surrounded by upscale residential areas.

Good restaurants and bars are an added attraction to relocate somewhere and Woodstock had plenty. I spent a few evenings at my favorite place, the A&P Bar, with its super friendly staff serving up excellent cocktails and top quality British nosh.

The Italian food and wine were excellent at Cucina where I had an illuminating conversation with a fellow patron sitting at the bar. It was convivial enough until going off on an unexpected tangent when the topic of Covid and vaccines came up. She said something like “so what’s the scoop on how the Pharma companies released the virus?”. I decided she was just having a laugh and retorted “yeah, good one”. But when she pushed the point I realized she was serious and told her she’d been watching too many movies involving the ‘evil pharma companies’ and that she could ask many justifiable questions of big pharma, such as whether they’re charging too much for their drugs, but to suggest they’re increasing profits by releasing diseases that they can provide treatments for is ridiculous. Of course I wasn’t aware at the time of the massive US movement which subscribes to this ‘Big Pharma Conspiracy Theory’. It was a great restaurant but I decided it best to stay away for the rest of the week.

Overall it had been a very enjoyable week’s hiking and exploration of the Catskills and I look forward to when I can stay in that friendly and amusingly named B&B in Woodstock once again.

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The Beautiful Daughter of Liu-Kung

In one of the central provinces of this long-lived Empire of China, there lived in very early times a man of the name of Chan. He was a person of a bright, active nature which made him enjoy life, and caused him to be popular amongst his companions and a favourite with every one who knew him. But he was also a scholar, well-versed in the literature of his country, and he spent every moment that he could spare in the study of the great writings of the famous men of former days.

In order that he might be interrupted as little as possible in his pursuit of learning, he engaged a room in a famous monastery some miles away from his own home. The only inhabitants of this monastery were a dozen or so of Buddhist priests, who, except when they were engaged in the daily services of the temple, lived a quiet, humdrum, lazy kind of existence which harmonized well with the solitude and the majestic stillness of the mountain scenery by which they were surrounded.

This monastery was indeed one of the most beautiful in China. It was situated on the slope of a hill, looking down upon a lovely valley, where the natural solitude was as complete as the most devoted hermit could desire. The only means of getting to it were the narrow hill footpaths along which the worshippers from the great city and the scattered villages wound in and out on festal days, when they came trooping to the temple to make their offerings to the famous God enshrined within.

Chan was a diligent student, and rarely indulged in recreation of any kind. Occasionally, when his mind became oppressed with excessive study he would go for a quiet walk along the hillside; but these occasions were few and far between, for he made up for every hour he spent away from his beloved books by still closer application to them in the hours that followed.

One day he was strolling in an aimless kind of way on the hillside, when suddenly a party of hunters from the neighbouring city of Eternal Spring came dashing into view. They were a merry group and full of excitement, for they had just sighted a fox which Chan had seen a moment before flying away at its highest speed in mortal dread of its pursuers.

Prominent amongst the hunters was a young girl, who was mounted on a fiery little steed, so full of spirit and so eager to follow in the mad chase after the prey, that its rider seemed to have some difficulty in restraining it. The girl herself was a perfect picture. Her face was the loveliest that Chan had ever looked upon, and her figure, which her trim hunting dress showed off to the utmost advantage, was graceful in the extreme. As she swept by him with her face flushed with excitement and her features all aglow with health, Chan felt at once that he had lost his heart and that he was deeply and profoundly in love with her.

On making enquiries, he found that she was named Willow, that she was the daughter of the chief mandarin of the town in which she lived, and that she was intensely fond of the chase and delighted in galloping over the hills and valleys in the pursuit of the wild animals to be found there. So powerfully had Chan’s mind been affected by what he had seen of Willow, that he had already begun to entertain serious thoughts of making her his wife; but while his mind was full of this delightful prospect he was plunged into the deepest grief by hearing that she had suddenly died. For some days he was so stricken with sorrow that he lost all interest in life, and could do nothing but dwell on the memory of her whom he had come to love with all the devotion of his heart.

A few weeks after the news of her death, the quiet of the retreat was one day broken by a huge procession which wound its way along the mountain path leading to the monastery doors. On looking out, Chan saw that many of the men in this procession were dressed in sackcloth, and that in front of it was a band of musicians producing weird, shrill notes on their various instruments.

By these signs Chan knew that what he saw was a funeral, and he expected to see the long line of mourners pass on to some spot on the hillside where the dead would be buried. Instead of that, however, they entered through the great gates of the monastery, and the coffin, the red pall of which told him that it contained the body of a woman, was carried into an inner room of the building and laid on trestles that had been made ready for it.

After the mourners had dispersed, Chan asked one of the priests the name of the woman who had died, and how it was that the coffin was laid within the precincts of the temple instead of in the house of the deceased, where it could be looked after by her relatives and where the customary sacrifices to the spirit of the dead could be offered more conveniently than in the monastery.

The bonze replied that this was a peculiar case, calling for special treatment.

“The father of the poor young girl who died so suddenly,” he said, “was the mandarin of the neighbouring city of Eternal Spring. Just after the death of his daughter an order came from the Emperor transferring him to another district, a thousand miles from here.

"The command was very urgent that he should proceed without delay to take up his post in the far-off province, and that he was to allow nothing to hinder him from doing so. He could not carry his daughter’s body with him on so long a journey, and no time was permitted him to take the coffin to his home, where she might be buried amongst her own kindred. It was equally impossible to deposit the coffin in the yamen he was about to leave, for the new mandarin who was soon to arrive would certainly object to have the body of a stranger in such close proximity to his family. It might bring him bad luck, and his career as an official might end in disaster.

"Permission was therefore asked from our abbot to allow the coffin to be placed in one of our vacant rooms, until the father some day in the future can come and bear the body of his beloved daughter to the home of his ancestors, there to be laid at rest amongst his own people.

"This request was readily granted, for whilst he was in office the mandarin showed us many favours, and his daughter was a beautiful girl who was beloved by everyone; and so we were only too glad to do anything in our power to help in this unhappy matter.”

Chan was profoundly moved when he realized that the woman whom he had loved as his own life lay dead within a chamber only a few steps away from his own. His passion, instead of being crushed out of his heart by the thought that she was utterly beyond his reach, and by no possibility could ever be more to him than a memory, seemed to grow in intensity as he became conscious that it was an absolutely hopeless one.

On that very same evening, about midnight, when silence rested on the monastery, and the priests were all wrapped in slumber, Chan, with a lighted taper in his hand, stole with noiseless footsteps along the dark passages into the chamber of death where his beloved lay. Kneeling beside the coffin with a heart full of emotion, in trembling accents he called upon Willow to listen to the story of his passion.

He spoke to her just as though she were standing face to face with him, and he told her how he had fallen in love with her on the day on which he had caught a glimpse of her as she galloped in pursuit of the fox that had fled through the valley from the hunters. He had planned, he told her, to make her his wife, and he described, in tones through which the tears could be heard to run, how heart-broken he was when he heard of her death.

“I want to see you,” he continued, “for I feel that I cannot live without you. You are near to me, and yet oh! how far away. Can you not come from the Land of Shadows, where you are now, and comfort me by one vision of your fair face, and one sound of the voice that would fill my soul with the sweetest music?”

For many months the comfort of Chan’s life was this nightly visit to the chamber where his dead love lay. Not a single night passed without his going to tell her of the unalterable and undying affection that filled his heart; and whilst the temple lay shrouded in darkness, and the only sounds that broke the stillness were those inexplicable ones in which nature seems to indulge when man is removed by sleep from the scene, Chan was uttering those love notes which had lain deeply hidden within his soul, but which now in the utter desolation of his heart burst forth to ease his pain by their mere expression.

One night as he was sitting poring over his books, he happened to turn round, and was startled to see the figure of a young girl standing just inside the door of his room. It seemed perfectly human, and yet it was so ethereal that it had the appearance of a spirit of the other world. As he looked at the girl with a wondering gaze, a smile lit up her beautiful features, and he then discovered to his great joy that she was none other than Willow, his lost love whom he had despaired of ever seeing again.

With her face wreathed in smiles, she sat down beside him and said in a timid, modest way:—"I am here to-night in response to the great love which has never faltered since the day I died. That is the magnet which has had the power of drawing me from the Land of Shadows. I felt it there, and many speak about it in that sunless country. Even Yam-lo, the lord of the spirits of that dreary world, has been moved by your unchanging devotion; so much so that he has given me permission to come and see you, in order that I might tell you how deeply my heart is moved by the profound affection that you have exhibited for me all these months during which you never had any expectation of its being returned.“

For many months this sweet intercourse between Chan and his beloved Willow was carried on, and no one in the whole monastery knew anything of it. The interviews always took place about midnight, and Willow, who seemed to pass with freedom through closed doors or the stoutest walls, invariably vanished during the small hours of the morning.

One evening whilst they were conversing on topics agreeable to them both, Willow unburdened her heart to Chan, and told him how unhappy she was in the world of spirits.

"You know,” she said, “that before I died I was not married, and so I am only a wandering spirit with no place where I can rest, and no friends to whom I can betake myself. I travel here and there and everywhere, feeling that no one cares for me, and that there are no ties to bind me to any particular place or thing. For a young girl like me, this is a very sad and sorrowful state of things.

"There is another thing that adds to my sorrow in the Land of Shadows,” she went on to say, with a mournful look on her lovely countenance. “I was very fond of hunting when I was in my father’s home, and many a wild animal was slain in the hunting expeditions in which I took an active part. This has all told against me in the world in which I am now living, and for the share I took in destroying life I have to suffer by many pains and penalties which are hard for me to endure.

"My sin has been great,” she said, “and so I wish to make special offerings in this temple to the Goddess of Mercy and implore her to send down to the other world a good report of me to Yam-lo, and intercede with him to forgive the sins of which I have been guilty. If you will do this for me, I promise that after I have been born again into the world I will never forget you, and if you like to wait for me I shall willingly become your wife and serve you with the deepest devotion of which my heart is capable, as long as Heaven will permit you and me to live together as husband and wife.”

From this time, much to the astonishment of the priests in the monastery, Chan began to show unwonted enthusiasm for the service of the Goddess, and would sometimes spend hours before her image and repeat long prayers to her. This was all the more remarkable, as the scholar had rarely if ever shown any desire to have anything to do with the numerous gods which were enshrined in various parts of the temple.

After some months of this daily appeal to the Goddess of Mercy, Willow informed him that his prayers had been so far successful that the misery of her lot in the Land of Shadows had been greatly mitigated. The pleadings of the Goddess with Yam-lo had so influenced his heart towards Willow that she believed her great sin in the destruction of animal life had been forgiven, and there were signs that the dread ruler of the Underworld was looking upon her with kindness.

Chan was delighted with this news, and his prayers and offerings became still more frequent and more fervent. He little dreamed that his devotion to the Goddess would be the means of his speedy separation from Willow, but so it was. One evening she came as usual to see him, but instead of entering with smiling face and laughter in her eyes, she was weeping bitterly as though she were in the direst sorrow.

Chan was in the greatest distress when he saw this and asked her to explain the reason for her grief. “The reason for my tears,” she said, “is because after this evening I shall not see you again. Your petitions to the Goddess have had such a powerful effect upon her mind that she has used all her influence with Yam-lo to induce him to set me free from the misery of the Land of Shadows, and so I am to leave that sunless country and to be born again into life in this upper world.”

As she uttered these words her tears began to flow once more and her whole frame was convulsed with sobbing.

“I am glad,” she said, “that I am to be born once more and live amongst men, but I cannot bear the thought of having to be separated for so long from you. Let us not grieve too much, however. It is our fate, and we may not rebel against it. Yam-lo has been kinder to me than he has ever been to any one in the past, for he has revealed to me the family into which I am to be born and the place where they live, so if you come to me in eighteen years you will find me waiting for you. Your love has been so great that it has entered into my very soul, and there is nothing that can ever efface it from my heart. A thousand re-births may take place, but never shall I love any one as I love you.”

Chan professed that he was greatly comforted by this confession of her love, but all the same he felt in despair when he thought of the future.

“When next I shall see you,” he said with a sigh, “I shall be getting so old that you, a young girl in the first flush of womanhood, will not care to look at me. My hair will have turned grey and my face will be marked with wrinkles, and in the re-birth you will have forgotten all that took place in the Land of Shadows, and the memory of me will have vanished from your heart for ever.”

Willow looked with loving but sorrowful eyes upon her lover as he was expressing his concern about the future, but quickly assured him that nothing in the world would ever cause her to cease to remember him with the tenderest affection.

“In order to comfort you,” she said, “let me tell you of two things that the dread Yam-lo, out of consideration for your love for me, has granted me—two things which he has never bestowed upon any other mortal who has come within the region of his rule. The first is, he has allowed me to inspect the book of Life and Death, in which is recorded the history of every human being, with the times of their re-births and the places in which they are to be born. I want you this very minute to write down the secret which has been revealed to me as to my new name and family and the place where I shall reside, so that you will have no difficulty in finding me, when eighteen years hence you shall come to claim me as your wife.

"The next is a gift so precious that I have no words in which to express my gratitude for its having been bestowed upon me. It is this. I am given the privilege of not forgetting what has taken place during my stay in the Land of Shadows, and so when I am re-born into another part of China, with a new father and mother, I shall hold within my memory my recollection of you. The years will pass quickly, for I shall be looking for you, and this day eighteen years hence will be the happiest in my life, for it will bring you to me never more to be separated from me.

"But I must hasten on,” she hurriedly exclaimed, “for the footsteps of fate are moving steadily towards me. In a few minutes the gates of Hades will have closed against me, and Willow will have vanished, and I shall be a babe once more with my new life before me. See, but a minute more is left me, and I seem to have so much to say. Farewell! Never forget me! I shall ever remember you, but my time is come!”

As she uttered these words, a smile of ineffable sweetness flashed across, her beautiful face, and she was gone.

Chan was inexpressibly sad at the loss he had sustained by the re-birth of Willow, and in order to drive away his sorrow he threw his heart and soul into his studies. His books became his constant companions, and he tried to find in them a solace for the loneliness which had come upon him since the visits of Willow had ceased. He also became a diligent worshipper of the idols, and especially of the Goddess of Mercy, who had played such an important part in the history of his beloved Willow.

The years went slowly by, and Chan began to feel that he was growing old. His hair became dashed with silver threads, and wrinkles appeared in his forehead and under his eyes. The strain of waiting for the one woman who had taken complete possession of his heart had been too much for him. As the time drew near, too, when he should go to meet her, a great and nervous dread began to fill him with anxiety. Would she recognize him? And would she, a young girl of eighteen, be content to accept as a husband a man so advanced in years as he now was? These questions were constantly flashing through his brain.

At last only a few months remained before he was to set out on his journey to the distant province where Yam-lo had decided that Willow was to begin her new life on earth.

He was sitting one evening in his study, brooding over the great problem that would be solved before long, when a man dressed in black silently entered the room. Looking on Chan with a kindly smile which seemed to find its way instantly to his heart, he informed him that he was a fairy from the Western Heaven and that he had been specially deputed by the rulers there to render him all the assistance in his power at this particular crisis, when they knew his heart was so full of anxiety.

“We have all heard in that far-off fairyland,” he continued, “of the devotion you have shown to Willow, and how during all the years which have intervened since you saw her last you have never faltered in your love for her. Such affection is rare among mortals, and the dwellers in fairyland would like to help in bringing together two such loving hearts; for let me assure you that however strong your feeling for the one whom you are so anxious to see again, she on her part is just as deeply in love with you, and is now counting the days until she will be able to see you and until you need never again be parted from each other. In order to assist in this happy consummation, I want you to take a short trip with me. It will only take a few hours, and you will then find that something has happened to remove all your fears as to how you will be received by Willow.”

The fairy man then led Chan to the door, and gave a wave of his hand in the direction of the sky. Instantly the sound of the fluttering and swish of wings was heard, and in a moment a splendid eagle landed gracefully at their feet. Taking their seats upon its back, they found themselves flashing at lightning speed away through the darkness of the night. Higher and higher they rose, till they had pierced the heavy masses of clouds which hung hovering in the sky. Swift as an arrow the eagle still cleft its way upward until the clouds had vanished to an infinite distance below them; and still onward they were borne in the mighty stillness of an expanse where no human being had ever travelled before.

Chan felt his heart throb with a nervousness which he could not control. What if the bird should tire, he thought, and he should be dropped into the fathomless abyss below? Life’s journey would then come to a tragic end. Where, too, was he being carried and how should he be ever able to return to his far-off home on the earth? He was becoming more and more agitated, when the fairy took hold of his hand and in a voice which at once stilled his fears, assured him that there was not the least danger in this journey through the air.

“We are as safe here,” he assured him, “as though we were standing upon a mountain whose roots lie miles below the surface of the earth. And see,” he continued, pointing to something in the distance, “we shall arrive at our destination in the course of a few seconds.”

True enough, he had hardly finished speaking when a land, fairer than Chan had ever seen on earth or pictured in imagination, loomed up suddenly in front of them; and before he could gather together his astonished thoughts, the eagle had landed them on its shores, and with outspread wings was soaring into the mystery of the unknown beyond.

The fairy now led Chan along a road surrounded by the most bewildering beauty. Rare flowers, graceful trees, and birds which made the groves resound with the sweetest music, were objects that kept his mind in one continual state of delight. Before long they arrived in front of a magnificent palace, so grand and vast that Chan felt afraid to enter within its portals, or even tread the avenue leading up to it.

Once more his companion relieved Chan’s anxiety by assuring him that he was an expected guest, and that the Queen of this fairy country had sent him to earth specially to invite him to come and visit her, in order that she might bestow upon him a blessing which would enrich the whole of his life and would enable him to spend many happy years with her whom he had loved with such devotion.

Chan was ushered into a large reception hall, where he was met by a very stately lady, with a face full of benevolence, whom he at once recognized, from the images he had often worshipped, as the Goddess of Mercy. He was startled when he discovered in what august presence he was standing, and began to tremble with excitement as he realized that here in actual life was the famous personage whose image was worshipped by the millions of China, and whose influence spread even into the Land of Shadows.

Seeing Chan’s humility and evident terror of her, the Goddess spoke to him in a gentle, loving voice, and told him to have no fear, for she had summoned him to her presence not to rebuke but to comfort him.

“I know your story,” she said, “and I think it is a beautiful one. Before I was raised to the high position I now occupy I was at one time a woman like Willow, and I can sympathize with her in her devotion to you because of the wonderful love you have shown her from the first moment that you saw her.

"I know, too, your anxiety about your age, and your fear lest when Willow sees you with the marks of advancing years upon you, her love may die out and you will be left with your heart broken and in despair. I have foreseen this difficulty, and I am going to have it removed.

"The fairy who brought you here,” she continued, “will now take you round the palace grounds, and if you will carry out my wishes, the fears which have been troubling you for years shall entirely vanish. You will then meet Willow with a heart as light as that of any man in the flush of youth, who awaits the coming of the bridal chair which bears his future wife to his home.”

Chan at once, without any hesitation, followed his guide through the spacious grounds which surrounded the palace, and was finally led to the edge of a beautiful little lake embowered amongst trees and ferns, and rare and fragrant flowers. It was the most exquisite scene on which his vision had ever rested.

With a kindly look at his companion, the fairy said, “This beautiful piece of water goes by the name of the ‘Fountain of Eternal Youth,’ and it is the Queen’s express desire that you should bathe in it.”

Quickly undressing, Chan plunged into the pool and for a moment sank beneath the surface of the waters. Emerging quickly from them, a delightful feeling of new-born strength seemed to be creeping in at every pore of his body. The sense of advancing age passed away, and the years of youth appeared to come back to him again. He felt as though he were a young man once more; for the weary doubts, which for some years past had made his footsteps lag, had gone with his first plunge into those fragrant waters.

By-and-by he came out of this “Fountain of Eternal Youth” with the visions and ambitions of his young manhood rushing through his brain. His powers, which seemed of late to have become dull and sluggish, had recovered the impetus which in earlier years had carried him so successfully through many a severe examination. His thoughts, too, about Willow had so completely changed that instead of dreading the day when he should stand before her, his one passionate desire now was to start upon his journey to keep his appointment with her.

Chan and the fairy then proceeded to the edge of the vast and boundless expanse which bordered the palace of the Goddess, and found a magnificent dragon waiting to convey them back to earth. No sooner had they taken their seats on its back than it fled with the swiftness of the wind through the untrodden spaces of the air, until at length the mountains came looming out of the dim and shadowy distance, and with a rush Chan found himself safely landed at the door of the temple from which he had taken his departure for his amazing journey to the Western Heaven.

Whilst these wonderful things were taking place, Willow—or rather Precious Pearl, as she had been named by her new parents, who of course had no knowledge of her previous history—had grown up to be a most beautiful and fascinating woman.

During all these years she had never ceased to look forward with an anxious heart to the day when she would once more meet the man to whom she had betrothed herself eighteen years ago. Latterly she had begun to count the days that must still elapse before she could see him again. She never forgot the night in the temple when she bade him “Good-bye” just before she was reborn into this world. The day and the hour had been stamped upon her memory, and since then the years had seemed to travel with halting, leaden feet, as though they were loth to move on. But now only a few months remained, and no doubt ever entered her brain that Chan would fail her.

Just about this time her mother had an offer of marriage for her from a very wealthy and distinguished family, and contrary to the usual custom of mothers in China she asked her daughter what she thought of the proposal. Pearl was distressed beyond measure, and prayed and entreated her mother on no account to broach the subject to her again, as she could never entertain any proposition of the kind.

Amazed at such a statement, her mother begged her to explain her reason for such strange views. “Girls at your age,” she said, “are usually betrothed and are thinking of having homes of their own. This is the universal custom throughout the Empire, and therefore there must be some serious reason why you will not allow me to make arrangements for your being allied to some respectable family.”

Pearl had been feeling that the time was drawing near when she would have to divulge the secret of her love affair, and she considered that now was the best opportunity for doing so. To the astonishment therefore of her mother, who believed that she was romancing, she told her the whole story of the past; how Chan had fallen in love with her, and how after she had died and had come under the control of Yam-lo in the Land of Shadows, that dread lord had permitted her spirit to visit her lover in the temple where her body had been laid until a lucky resting-place could be found for it on the hillside. She also explained how it had been agreed between them that she was to wait for him until after the lapse of eighteen years, when she would be old enough to become his wife. “In a few months the time will be up,” she concluded, “and so I beseech you not to speak of my being betrothed to any one else, for I feel that if I am compelled to marry any other than Chan I shall die.”

The mother was thunderstruck at this wonderful story which her daughter told her. She could only imagine that Pearl had in some way or another been bewitched, and was under a fatal delusion that she was in love with some hero of romance, to whom she believed she was betrothed. Still, her daughter had always been most loving and devoted to her, and had shown more brightness and ability than Chinese girls of her age usually possessed. Her mother did not like, therefore, to reprove her for what she considered her ridiculous ideas, so she determined to try another plan to cure her of her folly.

“What age was this man Chan,” she asked, “when you entered into this engagement with him?”

“He was just thirty,” Pearl replied. “He was of very good family and a scholar, and had distinguished himself for his proficiency in the ancient literature of China.”

“Oh! then he must be nearly fifty now. A fine mate he would make for you, a young girl of only eighteen! But who knows how he may have changed since last you saw him? His hair must be turning grey, and his teeth may have fallen out; and for anything you know he may have been dead and buried so long ago that by this time they have taken up his bones, and nothing is left of him but what the funeral urn may contain of his ashes.”

“Oh! I do pray that nothing of that kind has happened to him,” cried Pearl, in a tone of voice which showed the anguish she was suffering. “Let us leave the question for a few months, and then when he comes for me, as I know he will, you will find by personal knowledge what a splendid man he is, and how entirely worthy he is of being your son-in-law.”

On the day which had been appointed under such romantic circumstances eighteen years before, Chan arrived in the town, and after taking a room in an inn and making certain enquiries, he made his way to the home where he believed that Willow resided. On his arrival, however, he was roughly told by the servant that no such person as Willow lived there, and that they did not like strangers coming about the house. Indeed he was given plainly to understand that the sooner he left, the better everyone would be pleased. This treatment was of course part of a scheme devised by Pearl’s parents to frustrate any plans that Chan might have formed for seeing her. They were determined not to give their daughter to a man so old as he must be, and therefore they decided that an interview between the two must be prevented at all hazards.

Chan was greatly distressed at the rebuff which he had received. Had Willow after all made a mistake eighteen years ago when she gave him the name of this town as the place where her new home was to be? He had carefully written it down at her dictation, and it had been burned into his brain all the years since. No, there could be no mistake on that point. If there were any, then it was one that had been made purposely by Yam-lo in order to deceive them both. That idea, however, was unthinkable, and so there must be something else to account for his not finding Willow as he had expected. He at once made enquiries at the inn at which he was staying, and found that there was a daughter at the very house to which he had gone, and that in almost every particular the description he was given of her corresponded with his beloved Willow.

In the meantime, poor Pearl was in a state of the greatest anxiety. The eventful day on which she was to meet her lover had opened for her with keen expectation of meeting him after their long and romantic separation. She had never for one moment doubted that he would keep his engagement with her. An instinct which she could not explain made her feel certain that he was still alive, and that nothing in the world would prevent him from meeting her, as had been agreed upon between them at that eventful parting in the temple eighteen years before.

As the day wore on, however, and there were no signs of Chan, Pearl’s distress became exceedingly pitiful; and when night came and her mother declared that nothing had been seen of him, she was so stricken with despair that she lost all consciousness, and had to be carried to bed, where she lay in a kind of trance from which, for some time, it seemed impossible to arouse her.

When at last she did regain consciousness, her mother tried to comfort her by saying that perhaps Chan was dead, or that he had forgotten her in the long course of years, and that therefore she must not grieve too much. “You are a young girl,” she said, “and you have a long life before you. Chan is an old man by this time; no doubt he has long ago married, and the home ties which he has formed have caused him to forget you. But you need not be broken-hearted on that account. There are many other men who will be more suitable for you than he could possibly be. By-and-by we shall arrange a marriage for you, and then life will appear to you very different from what it does now.”

Instead of being comforted, however, Pearl was only the more distressed by her mother’s words. Her love, which had begun in the Land of Shadows, and which had been growing in her heart for the last eighteen years, was not one to be easily put aside by such plausible arguments as those she had just listened to. The result was that she had a relapse, and for several days her life was in great danger.

The father and mother, fearing now that their daughter would die, determined, as there seemed no other remedy, to bring Chan to their home, and see whether his presence would not deliver Pearl from the danger in which the doctor declared she undoubtedly was.

The father accordingly went to the inn where he knew Chan was staying, and to his immense surprise he found him to be a young man of about twenty-five, highly polished in manner, and possessed of unusual intelligence. For some time he utterly refused to believe that this handsome young fellow was really the man with whom Pearl was so deeply in love, and it was not until Chan had told him the romantic story of his life that he could at all believe that he was not being imposed upon. Eventually, however, he was so taken with Chan that he became determined to do all in his power to bring about his marriage with his daughter.

“Come with me at once,” he said, “and see if your presence will not do more than the cleverest doctors in the town have been able to accomplish. Pearl has been so distressed at not seeing you that she is now seriously ill, and we have been afraid that she would die of a broken heart.”

When they arrived at the house Chan was taken into the sick-room, and the girl gazed into his face with a look of wonderment. “I do not seem to recognize you,” she said in a feeble voice. “You are much younger than Chan, and although there is something about you that reminds me of him, I cannot realize that you are the same person with whom my spirit eighteen years ago held fellowship in the monastery where my body lay unburied.”

Chan proceeded to explain the mystery. “For years,” he said, “my mind was troubled about the difference between our ages. I was afraid that when you saw me with grey hairs and with wrinkles on my face, your love would receive a shock, and you might regret that you had ever pledged yourself to me. Although you had vanished from my sight, my prayers still continued to be offered to the Goddess of Mercy. She had heard them for you, you remember, when you were in the Land of Shadows, and through her intercession Yam-lo had forgiven your sins, and had made life easier for you in that gloomy country.

"I still continued to pray to her, hoping in some vague way that she would intervene to bring about the desire of my heart, and that when in due time I should meet you again, every obstacle to our mutual love would be for ever removed.

"One day a fairy came into the very room where your spirit had often conversed with me. He carried me away with him to the Western Heaven and brought me into the very presence of the Goddess of Mercy. She gave directions for me to bathe in the 'Fountain of Eternal Youth,’ and I became young again. That is why you see me now with a young face and a young nature, but my heart in its love for you has never changed, and never will as long as life lasts.”

As he was telling this entrancing story, a look of devoted love spread over the beautiful countenance of Pearl. She gradually became instinct with life, and before he had finished speaking, the lassitude and exhaustion which had seemed to threaten her very life entirely disappeared. A rosy look came over her face, and her coal-black eyes flashed with hidden fires.

“Now I know,” she cried, “that you are Chan. You are so changed that when I first caught sight of you my heart sank within me, for I had pictured an older man, and I could not at once realize that you were the same Chan who showed such unbounded love for me in the years gone by.

"It was not that I should have loved you less even though you had really been older. My heart would never have changed. It was only my doubt as to your reality that made me hesitate, but now my happiness is indeed great; for since through the goodness of the Goddess you have recovered your youth, I need not fear that the difference between our years may in the near future bring to us an eternal separation.”

In a few days Pearl was once more herself again. Her parents, delighted with the romantic turn that things had taken and highly pleased with Chan himself, arranged for the betrothal of their daughter to him; and in the course of a few months, the loving couple were united in marriage. And so, after years of waiting, the happy consummation was accomplished, which Heaven and the Goddess of Mercy and even the dread Ruler of the Land of Shadows had each taken a share in bringing about; and for many and many a long year the story of Chan and his wife was spread abroad throughout the region in which they lived.

[littlenomo]

The tales of Lombok and the great big volcanic rock

Phew! It's been a busy 10 days in Lombok. However the toughest challenge we faced here (or perhaps ever!) and the most painful for me to have to relive is that of climbing Mount Rinjani, so I'm going to tell you about that first. We did a 3 day trek up the volcanic Mount Rinjani, not quite to the summit, but still 2600m up (and down) and then 600m down (and up!) to visit the lake and hot springs in the crater of the mountain. It was definitely the hardest physical challenge I've ever had and Alex said it was more intense that the Inca trek and probably wouldn't have taken either of us if he'd known how hard it was going to be!! Day 1 - The Climb After our customary 2 hour wait at the hostel, we met our very international group (Finland, Spain, Malaysia, France, and the Lake District) and set off for a 30 minute journey in the back of a truck to our starting point. What started as a nice gradual climb through rolling hills with clanging cows' bells and a little woodland area, quickly torpedoed after lunch as the route got rockier, more treacherous and; most painfully, steeper throughout. It also didn't help my self esteem that our whole group were super humans. The British guy, Cory, had done the 'Lakes in a Day' challenge and seemed to be looking at the whole climb as if it were a race, Ville from Finland was about to begin training to be a ranger out there and Spanish Marija had been on Everest!! Needless to say, they were at least an hour ahead of us at all times. The last three hours (of 8!!!) were hell and I seriously doubted if we were going to make it even with our guide, Bihan, being so patient with us and making me a stick to help me. The last section (when our legs were about ready to give way) was near vertical with loose rocks on a twisty hillside. It gave me vertigo to look back and see how high up we were. However when we came out of that last wooded area, and turned to see a full moon above the vast valley below us, despite my weariness, I was still blown away by the view. The sun was just setting so it was perfect timing to reach base camp, with the full moon surrounded by pinky hues on one side, and then a bright colourful sky on the other as the sun set behind the crater with a glassy, calm lake at the bottom. I felt a brief moment of elation as we collapsed after taking a few photos, but then the pain kicked in. I think my body must have been in shock, as I was having leg and foot spasms, hot and cold flushes (it got cold very quickly once the sun was down), and didn't have much of an appetite; though the dinner was delicious. My only option for relief was to sleep. It was a small tent with a hard mat and a smelly sleeping bag, but I honestly didn't even notice. Day 2 - Hot springs and Lake While the rest of the crazies climbed to the summit at 2am (another 1000m climb), we had a relaxed morning at base camp; I mostly slept, and Alex had some quiet time watching the sunrise. Oh and guarding our tents from dozens of monkeys looking for leftovers! Eventually our group was back (one couple took over eight hours to do the summit - it sounded very precarious!!) and we persuaded a guide to take us to the hot springs. A landslide on our planned route meant we had to try a bit harder to figure out what was happening and what we were able to do, but we got there in the end. The trek down into the crater and back would have been hard on a normal day, but our already aching limbs made it all the harder. At least this one was 50% steep incline and 50% flat(ish) walking! The springs themselves were amazing to behold: steaming greeny blue streams flowing down between huge cream rocks. The water was extremely hot and I only managed to get my feet in (though they appreciated the special treatment!) before I was craving a cool down, so we headed to the lake for a swim. It seemed like a different world, though only 5 minutes away. It was misty and grey so that the lake looked like it went on forever. When the clouds cleared we realised we were close by to the cone (the most active part of the volcano) which was smoking away. It was such a shame we didn't have more time down there so we could really appreciate the springs and the lake. We were certainly wishing we were camping there for the night rather than facing the climb back to our beds, but climb we did. The second night ended much in the same way as the first; my body just willing for it all to end. Day 3 - The Descent Still knackering, and with a few hairy moments, I must admit once we got past the first super steep bit, I almost enjoyed parts of the descent, especially after my Immodium kicked in (yep, tummy still not quite right!) and I'd swapped my blistering boots for some freeing flip flops. I had a moment where I even felt grateful that I'd got to see such beautiful and remote things that lazy people like me usually never get to see. However, as my feet started aching, the last hour dragged and I could feel myself getting more and more worked up so that when I rejoined with Alex at the finish line, I wasn't surprised that I cried (making it a grand total of 4.5 waves of tears throughout the trek, but only one full blown meltdown: A:"You look miserable" N:"I AM MISERABLE!"), this time mainly just from relief that it was all over. In conclusion, I'm probably never going to climb another mountain like that again (not sure I even should have in the first place!), but we met some great people (Jonah from New York with his brilliant hiking hat was the highlight!), saw great things and certainly pushed ourselves to the limit, which I guess is a good test so early in a marriage! Oh and I've never enjoyed a hot shower and a nice hotel room so much in my life as I did that afternoon. The rest of our time in Lombok has been a stark contrast of relaxation, beaches and just your more your average holiday vibes and we were in the perfect locations for it. Firstly in our very plush hotel in Senggigi which had a really nice pool with an incredible view down over the hillside to the sea and secondly by the unbelievably beautiful south coast in Kuta. This time consisted of mainly of sunbathing (/burning), massages, mosquito bites, ice cream, shopping, swimming and Alex did a bit of surfing, but of course there were some highlights... Firstly, the day before we did the trek we were taken by our rather charming 15 year old guide, Ali, to see some waterfalls in Senaru. Alex got a rather harsh back massage from the first one, but it was really the second waterfall that blew us away. It was a crescent of smaller and narrow flows of water coming down a huge curved rock side in the rainforest, surrounding one bigger, more powerful jet that pushed out into the middle. I'm not sure my description does it justice but it really was amazing!! We also had the fun but slightly disconcerting journey back through the tunnels that bring water down to the town from the waterfalls (so that we could avoid all the stairs back, so it was for good reason!). With water up to my knees, it was pitch black in the tunnels apart from the occasional windows to the pathway which illuminated dozens of intricate dewy spider's webs. The ground underfoot was mostly smooth but did have the occasional hole (goodness knows where to!) that Ali skilfully helped us avoid. A really interesting and fun afternoon!! In Senggigi the main highlight was when we went for dinner in a deserted restaurant (as we've grown quite accustomed to; it's apparently "rainy" season here at the moment, though we've had someone watching out for us on that front so far!), so the live band were essentially just performing for us. The singer, Ronnie, came to chat with us in his break and I made sure to mention that Alex was a bassist. Low and behold, he was up playing "Sweet Child of Mine" with them in the next set, it was great. After the gig they then invited us to their house as it just so happened to be the day before Mawlid (Muslim equivalent to Christmas Eve) and they were having a get together at one of their houses. We said we definitely wouldn't want to eat (as we'd already eaten) and Ronnie assured me it would be OK if I didn't want any, but as I suspected this was met with disdain (I felt like a huge bloaty balloon, I couldn't even attempt it!). Either way, it was so nice of them to ask us there and their singalongs and copious amounts of food did make me excited for Christmas with our families, even if Alex was told off for eating with his left hand! I was sad that the woman who had made the meal wasn't part of the socialising itself, despite Alex trying to invite her in. Apparently it was a men only affair (apart from the tourist!). Kuta was, as I mentioned, breathtakingly beautiful. The kind of beaches you see on exotic postcards and perfume commercials. Aside from just riding around on our hired moped and soaking in the scenery (and eating incredible Mexican food!!), we did also have the closest we've had to a night out on the whole trip! Early on Alex was up to his usual chatty tricks and made friends with a local bar owner, Yoko. He helped us with moped hire and took Alex surfing, and it was his bar that hosted the Friday live music night that seemed to attract in the whole town - we haven't seen that many people gathered together in weeks!! It was a good giggle chatting to lots of drunken surfers from all over the world, fighting off, but simultaneously laughing with kids selling bracelets, doing balloons (Alex had another crazy deja vu experience), and having a dance at a safe distance from the crazy locals who were pouring beer all over each other. The final crescendo of the trip was a walk on our last night out to sunset point, which is every bit as romantic as it sounds. It is a set of surprisingly green rolling hillsides (you could believe you were in Cornwall!) on a peninsula that juts out into the sea at the end of one of the particularly beautiful beaches. There are small foot-made paths over the hills which lead to a variety of amazing vantage points of the stretching coast line in magic hour's golden light. On our way out we saw some cows that from a distance looked shimmery and almost waxy, but which, on closer inspection, turned out to be caked in mud from an unexpected mud bath just over the verge of the hill - a cattle spa! And, at the top, we saw a legitimate flying man! I've never seen it before (not even sure what it's called?), but it was a guy quite simply flying over the hillsides in a seat pulled by a big crescent kite which he controlled from levers in each hand. It was scary but amazing to watch him glide gracefully down the slopes and over the shimmering ocean. He managed to stay in the air for about an hour using only the power of the wind. So yeah, it's been great! However, I must admit, I'm hoping Flores, our next stop, will have less pushy salesmanship. It made me so sad seeing kids as young as maybe 6, selling bracelets at all hours of the day and night and one woman started telling me about how she was married at 15 when she was selling us sarongs and I could feel my blood start to boil!! All that aside, Lombok was one of the most picturesque places I think I've ever seen - certainly any honeymooners dream - and we are sad to go.

[the-record-newspaper]

The killing of Rhonda Hinson: Part III

Judy Hinson, the mother of Rhonda Hinson, shows the dress worn by her daughter at her senior prom. It was the only time Rhonda wore the dress. Record photo by Larry Griffin

By LARRY J. GRIFFIN

Special Investigative Reporter

…I just finished my trig exam and I was thinking about you.  I love you!  Please don’t let those exams get you down.  OK?  You’d better be happy or I’ll get you.  (remember [sic] I have a shotgun)  Just kidding….—Greg McDowell letter to Rhonda Hinson

 Rhonda Hinson was changing.  Her family noticed.  Her friends and acquaintances noticed and said as much.  And from the tenor of his notes, cards, and letters to his girlfriend; Greg McDowell noticed.

“During her senior year, Rhonda started struggling in school,” her mother, Judy Hinson recalled. “I don’t remember what all she was taking; however, she did have French, I believe—she didn’t like it. Rhonda had always done well in school before; but her last year was different.”    

Rhonda’s best friend, Jill Turner-Mull, was surprised by that observation.  “I personally didn’t notice anything unusual about Rhonda’s performance at school—neither of us was a straight-A student; but, we did well.  Usually, it is the junior year that is the toughest academically—not your senior year.”  Ms. Turner-Mull mused that maybe it was something else—perhaps stress related to her relationship with Greg McDowell.

But other of Rhonda’s acquaintances—in general—noted an alteration to her usual happy-go-lucky demeanor.  Her levity of spirit became more serieux, and the ease of social interactions, for which she was noted, devolved into disease.  Her friends remarked that she became more distant, less spontaneous—even sullen—and the ubiquitous smile she readily radiated appeared infrequently.  

Characteristically, when something was troubling Rhonda she rarely talked about it; when asked, she tended to be reserved.  

“She built a glass wall (much like some people build a brick wall)…but with this thick glass wall, you could see her, and you thought that you knew her; but, you didn’t know what she didn’t want you to know.  She just didn’t talk about feelings or what might have been bothering her,” averred Rhonda’s first cousin, Dr. Christina Hardin.  

Rhonda and her cousin, ‘Christy,’ enjoyed a very close relationship.  They grew up together, played together, shared mischievous childhood adventures, and held sacrosanct the concomitant secrets about them.  For instance, when Cousin Christy and family visited the Hinson home, the two girls would exit the house through the back door and follow a path through the woods that lead to a berry patch.  

“I don’t remember why, exactly; but we were not supposed to do that; of course, we did it anyway and kept that secret between us. Rhonda and I could communicate without really using words—the way she stroked her hair, facial expressions, and body language were the ways we communicated.  But during that last year [she lived]—especially that summer—something changed,” recollected Christina Hardin.  “The change was subtle and unspoken and you couldn’t put a finger on it or describe it.  But things were different—just different.”

But there were some notable behavior changes that her cousin recounted during a telephonic interview.  “Rhonda became less talkative—she usually was very chatty, always having something to say.  And her word choices tended to be less…optimistic and—though not exactly dark—tended toward the dark side.  That just wasn’t the way she typically talked.”

Mother Judy Hinson recounted a time when Rhonda confided in a minister whose church provided daycare services for the community and, at which, she and her daughter were employed.  “I was working at the Valdese First Christian Church Daycare and Rhonda worked there after school her senior year at East Burke.  I noticed, one day, that she approached the minister of the church, Rev. [Richard] Blackwell, and talked to him for a good while. To this day, I don’t really know what was troubling her or even the topic of conversation.  Maybe she was talking about her struggles with school or even her relationship(s)—I just don’t know.  But that [talking about her problems with someone] was just not like Rhonda.”

Rhonda’s boyfriend could not help but notice the alterations in her behavior—especially the disappearance of her smile—and commented often in his communiqués.  In a couple notes, he fabricates ‘smiley-faces,’ using round, orange stickers upon which he drew eyes and broad smiles.  In one letter, Greg reminds his girlfriend that she can unburden her troubles upon him:  

…Please don’t ever forget that I love you and if anything [writer’s emphasis] is ever bothering you, please tell me so we can talk about it, OK?  

PS. Now that you’ve read this mushy letter, how about a kiss and a smile?

By every indication, Greg persisted in his subtle subterfuge to encourage Rhonda to write notes to him during the school day—a behavior that, much to his consternation, he had failed to inspire in her. “It’s lunch so I thought I’d drop you a line.  (Hint, hint, you can do the same for me sometime, the cards are in my locker!)”

As troubling for her boyfriend was Rhonda’s failure to arrive at school in time to see him prior to the homeroom bell—even when she promised to do so.   And Greg commenced to comment frequently on that shortcoming—at first playfully before assuming a testier tone.  On one note card that he left at her locker, Greg writes:  “…Well, the bell just rang and my HONEY is not at school yet.  What am I going to do with you?”

With frustration seemingly escalating, he subsequently complains:  

Well, the bell just rang and you’re not even [writer’s emphasis] here.   I’ve been waiting to see you since 8:00 but what can I say?  I guess I’ll see ya when you get here.

Love always (even when you’re late),

Greg

With the dawning of Spring 1981, the thoughts of the graduating class of East Burke High School turned toward graduation—before that, however, there was the excitement of prom night.  

“Rhonda had placed her dress on layaway at Melville’s in the Valley Hills Mall in Hickory,” Judy recalled. “Bob and I went down and surprised her by getting the dress out for her.”  To this day, Judy has her daughter’s prom dress carefully preserved in a box.

Rhonda and Greg attended the senior prom, as did their friends Jill Turner-Mull and Mark Turner.  The quartet spent considerable time together, double-dated on more than one occasion, and ventured out on trips. 

Greg McDowell and Rhonda Hinson on their way to their senior prom. 

As her friend had done, Jill purchased her dress at Valley Hills Mall and recalled assisting Rhonda as she prepared for the stellar event.  

“To my recollection, prom was held in April…and we must have gotten dressed together that evening, because I recall doing her hair and makeup.”  

Rhonda rarely wore makeup—her mother remembered as much.  “She told me that when she was wearing makeup, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. In fact, I can only recall three times in which she wore makeup—prom night was the first.”

Of course, the Hinsons captured that rite-of-passage moment-in-time with their Polaroid after Greg arrived to pick up their daughter.  

On Tuesday June 2, 1981 at 8 p.m., East Burke High School conducted its graduating commencement in the Cavalier’s football stadium.  In excess of 300 seniors received diplomas during the ceremony—among which were Rhonda Hinson, Greg McDowell, Jill Turner-Mull, and Mark Turner. (Ironically, this writer was one of the congregants within the considerable congregation of family and friends who had gathered to witness the graduation of their young women and men—among whom was my sister, Jackie Griffin Berry.)

Interestingly, the top 11 honor students for the Class of 1981 were listed in the program.  Greg McDowell, who had served as the only male Junior Marshall in 1980, was not among them.  

In the late Summer of 1981—subsequent to graduation—Rhonda, Greg, Jill, and Mark journeyed to Myrtle Beach to celebrate.  Mark Turner remembered that trip.  He recalled staying at his grandfather’s mobile home in Lakewood Campground and that Greg drank Budweiser beer to excess.  “He put the cans or labels up on the refrigerator,” Mark recalled of his friend.

During their holiday, Turner recounted Greg’s attempts to entice Rhonda to have sex with him—she rebuffed his overtures.

“Greg went out on the beach and tried to pick other girls up for sex.  Rhonda caught him and an argument ensued.  He or maybe Rhonda threatened to walk back home.  I do not recall Greg ever hitting or pushing Rhonda.  They did argue quite often.”

But the Summer of 1981 correspondence that passed between the young couple suggests that their relationship was devolving from amorous into abusive, both physically and emotionally—the evidence of which was referenced in a rare, terse handwritten response penned by Rhonda Hinson.  In it, she breaks her shielded silence to protest Greg’s treatment of her:

Since I am such a liar, I ain’t saying nothing.  Thank you for hurting my lip and jaw where my tooth hurts.

No longer your,

Fuzzy Lassie

[addictionfreedom]

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[dfroza]

A starting line from an ancient Psalm that coincides with Today

“The Lord is my Shepherd; I have everything I need.”

The Book of Psalms, Song 23:1 (New Century Version)

A verse of Scripture that was printed on an envelope made for Dayspring cards while working at Love envelopes, inc. in Tulsa, Oklahoma back in late ‘04 until early ‘06

A photo i took after driving there from michigan on Saturday, march 2 of ‘19

and Today’s reading in the ancient book of Psalms and Proverbs for monday, march 23 of 2020 with Psalm 23 and Proverbs 23, accompanied by Psalm 5 for the 5th day of Spring and Psalm 83 for day 83 of the year

[Psalm 23]

A song of David.

The Eternal is my shepherd, He cares for me always.

He provides me rest in rich, green fields

beside streams of refreshing water.

He soothes my fears;

He makes me whole again,

steering me off worn, hard paths

to roads where truth and righteousness echo His name.

Even in the unending shadows of death’s darkness,

I am not overcome by fear.

Because You are with me in those dark moments,

near with Your protection and guidance,

I am comforted.

You spread out a table before me,

provisions in the midst of attack from my enemies;

You care for all my needs, anointing my head with soothing, fragrant oil,

filling my cup again and again with Your grace.

Certainly Your faithful protection and loving provision will pursue me

where I go, always, everywhere.

I will always be with the Eternal,

in Your house forever.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 23 (The Voice)

and mirrored in The Passion Translation:

The Good Shepherd

David’s poetic praise to God

The Lord is my best friend and my shepherd.

I always have more than enough.

He offers a resting place for me in his luxurious love.

His tracks take me to an oasis of peace, the quiet brook of bliss.

That’s where he restores and revives my life.

He opens before me pathways to God’s pleasure

and leads me along in his footsteps of righteousness

so that I can bring honor to his name.

Lord, even when your path takes me through

the valley of deepest darkness,

fear will never conquer me, for you already have!

You remain close to me and lead me through it all the way.

Your authority is my strength and my peace.

The comfort of your love takes away my fear.

I’ll never be lonely, for you are near.

You become my delicious feast

even when my enemies dare to fight.

You anoint me with the fragrance of your Holy Spirit;

you give me all I can drink of you until my heart overflows.

So why would I fear the future?

For your goodness and love pursue me all the days of my life.

Then afterward, when my life is through,

I’ll return to your glorious presence to be forever with you!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 23 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 5]

For the worship leader. A song of David accompanied by flutes.

Bend Your ear to me and listen to my words, O Eternal One;

hear the deep cry of my heart.

Listen to my call for help,

my King, my True God;

to You alone I pray.

In the morning, O Eternal One, listen for my voice;

in the day’s first light, I will offer my prayer to You and watch expectantly for Your answer.

You’re not a God who smiles at sin;

You cannot abide with evil.

The proud wither in Your presence;

You hate all who pervert and destroy what is good.

You destroy those with lying lips;

the Eternal detests those who murder and deceive.

Yet I, by Your loving grace,

am welcomed into Your house;

I will turn my face toward Your holy place

and fall on my knees in reverence before You.

O Eternal One, lead me in the path of Your righteousness

amidst those who wish me harm;

make Your way clear to me.

Their words cannot be trusted;

they are destructive to their cores.

What comes out of their mouths is as foul as a rotting corpse;

their words stink of flattery.

Find them guilty, O True God;

let their own devices bring them ruin.

Throw them out, and let them drown in the deluge of their sin,

for in revolt they brazenly spit in Your face.

But let those who run to You for safety be glad they did;

let them break out in joyful song.

May You keep them safe—

their love for You resounding in their hearts.

You, O Eternal, are the One who lays all good things in the laps of the right-hearted.

Your blessings surround them like a shield.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 5 (The Voice)

[Psalm 83]

An Asaph Psalm

God, don’t shut me out;

don’t give me the silent treatment, O God.

Your enemies are out there whooping it up,

the God-haters are living it up;

They’re plotting to do your people in,

conspiring to rob you of your precious ones.

“Let’s wipe this nation from the face of the earth,”

they say; “scratch Israel’s name off the books.”

And now they’re putting their heads together,

making plans to get rid of you.

Edom and the Ishmaelites,

Moab and the Hagrites,

Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,

Philistia and the Tyrians,

And now Assyria has joined up,

Giving muscle to the gang of Lot.

Do to them what you did to Midian,

to Sisera and Jabin at Kishon Brook;

They came to a bad end at Endor,

nothing but dung for the garden.

Cut down their leaders as you did Oreb and Zeeb,

their princes to nothings like Zebah and Zalmunna,

With their empty brags, “We’re grabbing it all,

grabbing God’s gardens for ourselves.”

My God! I’ve had it with them!

Blow them away!

Tumbleweeds in the desert waste,

charred sticks in the burned-over ground.

Knock the breath right out of them, so they’re gasping

for breath, gasping, “God.”

Bring them to the end of their rope,

and leave them there dangling, helpless.

Then they’ll learn your name: “God,”

the one and only High God on earth.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 83 (The Message)

[Proverbs 23]

When you’ve been invited to dine with a very important leader,

consider your manners and keep in mind who you’re with.

Be careful to curb your appetite and catch yourself

before you fall into the trap of wanting all you see.

Don’t crave their delicacies,

for they may have another motive in having you sit at their table.

Don’t compare yourself to the rich.

Surrender your selfish ambition and evaluate them properly.

For no sooner do you start counting your wealth

than it sprouts wings and flies away like an eagle in the sky—

here today, gone tomorrow!

Be sensible when you dine with a stingy man

and don’t eat more than you should.

For as he thinks within himself, so is he.

He will grudgingly say, “Go ahead and eat all you want,”

but in his heart he resents the fact that he has to pay for your meal.

You’ll be sorry you ate anything at all,

and all your compliments will be wasted.

A rebellious fool will despise your wise advice,

so don’t even waste your time—save your breath!

Never move a long-standing boundary line

or attempt to take land that belongs to the fatherless.

For they have a mighty protector,

a loving redeemer, who watches over them,

and he will stand up for their cause.

Pay close attention to the teaching that corrects you,

and open your heart to every word of instruction.

Don’t withhold appropriate discipline from your child.

Go ahead and punish him when he needs it.

Don’t worry—it won’t kill him!

A good spanking could be the very thing

that teaches him a lifelong lesson!

My beloved child, when your heart is full of wisdom,

my heart is full of gladness.

And when you speak anointed words,

we are speaking mouth to mouth!

Don’t allow the actions of evil men

to cause you to burn with anger.

Instead, burn with unrelenting passion

as you worship God in holy awe.

Your future is bright and filled with a living hope

that will never fade away.

As you listen to me, my beloved child,

you will grow in wisdom and your heart

will be drawn into understanding,

which will empower you to make right decisions.

Don’t live in the excesses of drunkenness or gluttony,

or waste your life away by partying all the time,

because drunkards and gluttons sleep their lives away

and end up broke!

Give respect to your father and mother,

for without them you wouldn’t even be here.

And don’t neglect them when they grow old.

Embrace the truth and hold it close.

Don’t let go of wisdom, instruction, and life-giving understanding.

When a father observes his child living in godliness,

he is ecstatic with joy—nothing makes him prouder!

So may your father’s heart burst with joy

and your mother’s soul be filled with gladness because of you.

My son, give me your heart

and embrace fully what I’m about to tell you.

Stay far away from prostitutes

and you’ll stay far away from the pit of destruction.

For sleeping with a promiscuous woman is like falling into a trap

that you’ll never be able to escape!

Like a robber hiding in the shadows

she’s waiting to claim another victim—

another husband unfaithful to his wife.

Who has anguish? Who has bitter sorrow?

Who constantly complains and argues?

Who stumbles and falls and hurts himself?

Who’s the one with bloodshot eyes?

It’s the one who drinks too much

and is always looking for a brew.

Make sure it’s never you!

And don’t be drunk with wine

but be known as one who enjoys the company

of the lovers of God,

For drunkenness brings the sting of a serpent,

like the fangs of a viper spreading poison into your soul.

It will make you hallucinate, mumble,

and speak words that are perverse.

You’ll be like a seasick sailor being tossed to and fro,

dizzy and out of your mind.

You’ll awake only to say, “What hit me?

I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck!”

Yet off you’ll go, looking for another drink!

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 23 (The Passion Translation)

[joeahj]

It was a spring Friday night when one of Japan’s best-known television journalists invited Shiori Ito out for a drink. Her internship at a news service in Tokyo was ending, and she had inquired about another internship with his network…In a news conference in May and a book published in October, she said the police had obtained hotel security camera footage that appeared to show Mr. Yamaguchi propping her up, unconscious, as they walked through the hotel lobby. The police also located and interviewed their taxi driver, who confirmed that she had passed out. Investigators told her they were going to arrest Mr. Yamaguchi, she said — but then suddenly backed off…Elsewhere, her allegations might have caused an uproar. But here in Japan, they attracted only a smattering of attention. As the United States reckons with an outpouring of sexual misconduct cases that have shaken Capitol Hill, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the news media, Ms. Ito’s story is a stark example of how sexual assault remains a subject to be avoided in Japan, where few women report rape to the police and their complaints rarely result in arrests or prosecution when they do. On paper, Japan boasts relatively low rates of sexual assault. In a survey conducted by the Cabinet Office of the central government in 2014, one in 15 women reported experiencing rape at some time in their lives, compared with one in five women who report having been raped in the United States. But scholars say Japanese women are far less likely to describe nonconsensual sex as rape than women in the West. Japan’s rape laws make no mention of consent, date rape is essentially a foreign concept and education about sexual violence is minimal…The police and courts tend to define rape narrowly, generally pursuing cases only when there are signs of both physical force and self-defense and discouraging complaints when either the assailant or victim has been drinking. Last month, prosecutors in Yokohama dropped a case against six university students accused of sexually assaulting another student after forcing her to drink alcohol. And even when rapists are prosecuted and convicted in Japan, they sometimes serve no prison time; about one in 10 receive only suspended sentences, according to Justice Ministry statistics. Earlier this year, for example, two students at Chiba University near Tokyo convicted in the gang rape of an intoxicated woman were released with suspended sentences, though other defendants were sentenced to prison. Last fall, a Tokyo University student convicted in another group sexual assault was also given a suspended sentence. “It’s quite recent that activists started to raise the ‘No Means No’ campaign,” said Mari Miura, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “So I think Japanese men get the benefit from this lack of consciousness about the meaning of consent.” Of the women who reported experiencing rape in the Cabinet Office survey, more than two-thirds said they had never told anyone, not even a friend or family member. And barely 4 percent said they had gone to the police. By contrast, in the United States, about a third of rapes are reported to the police, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. “Prejudice against women is deep-rooted and severe, and people don’t consider the damage from sexual crimes seriously at all,” said Tomoe Yatagawa, a lecturer in gender law at Waseda University. Ms. Ito, 28, who has filed a civil suit against Mr. Yamaguchi, agreed to discuss her case in detail to highlight the challenges faced by women who suffer sexual violence in Japan. “I know if I didn’t talk about it, this horrible climate of sexual assault will never change,” she said. Mr. Yamaguchi, 51, also agreed to speak for this article. He denied committing rape. “There was no sexual assault,” he said. “There was no criminal activity that night.” A taxi outside the Sheraton Miyako Hotel in Tokyo. The police interviewed a taxi driver who said he had taken Ms. Ito and Mr. Yamaguchi to a hotel, although the woman had asked to be taken to a train station…Ms. Ito had met Mr. Yamaguchi twice while studying journalism in New York before their encounter on April 3, 2015. When she contacted him again in Tokyo, he suggested that he might be able to help her find a job in his bureau, she said. He invited her for drinks and then dinner at Kiichi, a sushi restaurant in the trendy Ebisu neighborhood. To her surprise, they dined alone, following beer with sake…When she woke, Ms. Ito said, she was underneath Mr. Yamaguchi in his hotel bed, naked and in pain. Japanese law describes the crime of “quasi-rape” as sexual intercourse with a woman by “taking advantage of loss of consciousness or inability to resist.” In the United States, the law varies from state to state, with some defining the same crime as second-degree rape or sexual assault….The driver said Ms. Ito was conscious at first and asked to be taken to a subway station, according to a transcript of an interview with the driver. Mr. Yamaguchi, however, instructed him to take them to his hotel. The driver recalled Mr. Yamaguchi saying that they had more work to discuss. He also said Mr. Yamaguchi might have said something like, “I won’t do anything.” When they pulled up to the hotel, the driver said, Ms. Ito had “gone silent” for about five minutes and he discovered that she had vomited in the back seat. “The man tried to move her over toward the door, but she did not move,” the driver said, according to the transcript. “So he got off first and put his bags on the ground, and he slid his shoulder under her arm and tried to pull her out of the car. It looked to me like she was unable to walk on her own.” Ms. Ito also appears incapacitated in hotel security camera footage obtained by the police. In pictures from the footage seen by The New York Times, Mr. Yamaguchi is propping her up as they move through the lobby around 11:20 p.m. Ms. Ito said it was about 5 a.m. when she woke up. She said she wriggled out from under Mr. Yamaguchi and ran to the bathroom. When she came out, she said, “he tried to push me down to the bed and he’s a man and he was quite strong and he pushed me down and I yelled at him.” She said she demanded to know what had happened and whether he had used a condom. He told her to calm down, she said, and offered to buy her a morning-after pill. Instead, she got dressed and fled the hotel. Ms. Ito believes she was drugged, she said, but there is no evidence to support her suspicion. Mr. Yamaguchi said she had simply drunk too much. “At the restaurant, she drank so quickly, and in fact I asked her, ‘Are you all right?’” he said. “But she said, ‘I’m quite strong and I’m thirsty.’” He said: “She’s not a child. If she could have controlled herself, then nothing would have happened.” Mr. Yamaguchi said he had brought her to his hotel because he was worried that she would not make it home. He had to rush back to his room, he said, to meet a deadline in Washington. Mr. Yamaguchi acknowledged that “it was inappropriate” to take Ms. Ito to his room but said, “It would have been inappropriate to leave her at the station or in the hotel lobby.” “It is not only my mistake but also her mistake to lose control,” he said. He declined to describe what happened in his room or say whether he had sex with Ms. Ito, citing the advice of his lawyers. But in court documents he submitted for Ms. Ito’s civil suit, Mr. Yamaguchi acknowledges that he had sex with her and claims she was conscious and did not resist. And in emails that he exchanged with Ms. Ito in the three weeks after the night at the hotel, Mr. Yamaguchi wrote that he had undressed her to clean her up and laid her down on one of the beds in his room. In civil court documents, Mr. Yamaguchi said Ms. Ito later woke and knelt by his bed to apologize, he said. “So it’s not the truth at all that I had sex with you while you were unconscious,” he said in a message on April 18, 2015. “I was quite drunk and an attractive woman like you came into my bed half naked, and we ended up like that. I think we both should examine ourselves. However, I cannot totally accept the fact that I am the only one to blame.” In a message on May 8, 2015, Mr. Yamaguchi appeared to acknowledge that the two had intercourse by telling Ms. Ito she could not be pregnant because he had an “extremely low sperm count.” In another email, Mr. Yamaguchi denied Ms. Ito’s allegation of rape and suggested that they consult lawyers. “Even if you insist it was quasi-rape, there is not a chance that you can win,” he wrote. When asked about the emails, Mr. Yamaguchi said a full record of his conversations and correspondence with Ms. Ito would demonstrate that he had “had no intention” of using his position to seduce her. “I am the one who was caused trouble by her,” he added. ”I have not done anything illegal,” Mr. Yamaguchi said. “There was no sexual assault. There was no criminal activity that night.” Shame and Hesitation Ms. Ito said she rushed home to wash after leaving the hotel. She now regards that as a mistake. “I should have just gone to the police,” she said. Her hesitation is typical. Many Japanese women who have been assaulted “blame themselves, saying, ‘Oh, it’s probably my fault,’” said Tamie Kaino, a professor emeritus of gender studies at Ochanomizu University. Hisako Tanabe, a rape counselor at the Sexual Assault Relief Center in Tokyo, said that even women who call their hotline and are advised to go to the police often refuse, because they do not expect the police to believe them. “They think they will be told they did something wrong,” she said. Ms. Ito said she felt ashamed and considered keeping quiet too, wondering if tolerating such treatment was necessary to succeed in Japan’s male-dominated media industry. But she decided to go to the police five days after the encounter. “If I don’t face the truth,” she recalled thinking, “I think I won’t be able to work as a journalist.” The police officers she spoke to initially discouraged her from filing a complaint and expressed doubt about her story because she was not crying as she told it, she said. Some added that Mr. Yamaguchi’s status would make it difficult for her to pursue the case, she said. But Ms. Ito said the police eventually took her seriously after she urged them to view the hotel security footage. A two-month investigation followed, after which the lead detective called her in Berlin, where she was working on a freelance project, she said. He told her they were preparing to arrest Mr. Yamaguchi on the strength of the taxi driver’s testimony, the hotel security video and tests that found his DNA on one of her bras. The detective said Mr. Yamaguchi would be apprehended at the airport on June 8, 2015, after arriving in Tokyo on a flight from Washington, and he asked her to return to Japan to help with questioning, Ms. Ito said. When that day came, though, the investigator called again. He told her that he was inside the airport but that a superior had just called him and ordered him not to make the arrest, Ms. Ito said. “I asked him, ‘How is that possible?’” she said. “But he couldn’t answer my question.” Ms. Ito declined to identify the investigator, saying she wanted to protect him. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police would not comment on whether plans to arrest Mr. Yamaguchi were scuttled. “We have conducted a necessary investigation in light of all laws and sent all documents and evidence to the Tokyo Prosecutors’ office,” a spokesman said. ‘I Have to Be Strong’…Scholars say the disparity is less about actual crime rates than a reflection of underreporting by victims and the attitudes of the police and prosecutors in Japan. Differences in rape laws also play a role. Over the summer, Parliament passed the first changes to Japan’s sex crime laws in 110 years, expanding the definition of rape to include oral and anal sex and including men as potential victims. Lawmakers also lengthened minimum sentences. But judges can still suspend sentences. And despite the recent cases, there is still little education about sexual violence at universities. At Chiba, a course for new students refers to the recent gang rape as an “unfortunate case” and only vaguely urges students not to commit crimes…The allegations did not affect Mr. Yamaguchi’s position at the Tokyo Broadcasting System, but he resigned last year under pressure from the network after publishing an article that was seen as controversial. He continues to work as a freelance journalist in Japan. Ms. Ito published a book about her experience in October; it has received only modest attention in Japan’s mainstream news media. Isoko Mochizuki, one of the few journalists to investigate Ms. Ito’s allegations, said she faced resistance from male colleagues in her newsroom, some of whom dismissed the story because Ms. Ito had not gone to the hospital immediately. “The press never covers sexual assault very much,” she said. Ms. Ito said that was precisely why she wanted to speak out.

http://web.archive.org/web/20171229173540/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/world/asia/japan-rape.html

[daziechane]

Bear the Babies, Bear the Brunt

(an essay for English 306, Environmental Literature, University of Kansas, Spring 2016)

Bear the Babies, Bear the Brunt

“By slow violence, I mean a violence that occurs gradually, and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all.” (Nixon, 2)

 “That night our mother went to the shop and she didn’t come back. Ever.”  (Gordimer, 11)  With those few words, Nadine Gordimer sums up the bleak reality that many women and children face when affected by slow violence as Rob Nixon describes it. Whether it be from erosion picking away at their fields, or from aftermath of war dooming them to becoming refugees, women and children across the globe bear the brunt of delayed destruction.  In The Ultimate Safari, a small family of orphans, displaced by war, accompanies their grandparents across dangerous Kruger Park to reach relative safety.  This story brings up important points about being women or children faced with not only the real and present dangers of wild animals or warring factions, but women and children faced with the "slow" dangers of malnutrition, access to healthcare, and the burdens women especially must take on when men aren't around.

In The Ultimate Safari, the family is often without any food, and almost always without nourishing food. "Little Brother" suffers the most, with a healthcare worker suggesting to his sister that "there's something wrong with his head, she thinks it's because we didn't have enough food at home, Because of the war. Because our father wasn't there." (Gortimer, 18) More to the point, because of the war, the family lost what little it had in terms of farmland, livestock, and income.          

"Our grandfather used to have three sheep and a cow and a vegetable garden but the bandits had long ago taken the sheep and the cow, because they were hungry, too; and when planting time came our grandfather had no seed to plant." (Gortimer, 12)  

While this story is a fictional account, access to the benefits of healthy food is a focal point for many environmental justice studies, including that of Alison Hope Alkon and Kari Marie Norgaard, whose study Breaking the Food Chains: An Investigation of Food Justice Activism revealed

"Through access to land and water, black farmers and Karuk fishermen once provided  the bulk of their community's food needs.  Today, West Oakland residents and Karuk tribal members live in food deserts.  They cannot purchase what they once produced on their own."  (Hope, 300)

Alkon and Norgaard also discovered that "because of the greatly reduced ability...to provide healthy food to their community, the Karuk experience extremely high rates of hunger and disease."  (Hope, 299) Diseases such as diabetes and heart disease are markedly higher in both populations that were studied, and it is attributed to the fact that the communities have been denied access to traditional food sources, such as family farms and rivers full of fish.  

           Little Brother’s health problems also highlight another sad fact of slow violence, that of poor, indigenous peoples’ inadequate access to adequate healthcare, as well as increased exposure to environmental contaminants. In their study Indigenous Peoples of North America: Environmental Exposure and Reproductive Justice, Elizabeth Hoover et al. examined the fact that 

“Indigenous American communities face disproportionate health burdens and environmental health risks compared with the average North American population. These health impacts are issues of both environmental and reproductive justice.”  (Hoover, 1645)    

What the team discovered was that after years of poor treatment and historic antagonism toward non-native governments, some native communities deliberately avoided seeking help and assisting research that would alleviate continued illness in the community.  

           It would be easy for some to write off Hoover’s work as being “just” about Indigenous Americans, and fail to see the bigger picture of healthcare and environmental impacts on groups of lower socioeconomic standing worldwide, but a recent study Climate change and fetal health: The impacts of exposure to extreme temperatures in New York City, penned by Nicole S. Ngo and Radley M. Horton, researchers found that “increasing heat events from climate change could adversely impact birth weight.”  (Ngo, 158)  Their study focused on New York City, “not only due to its large urban population of 8.4 million, but because temperatures in NYC increased approximately 1.5℃ between 1901 and 2011.”  (Ngo, 158)   This is obviously of worldwide concern, and even more so as we consider Little Brother’s upbringing in sub-Saharan Africa.  Researcher Kyle Clendinning wrote “Projections show that the African continent is likely to warm this century with the largest temperature increases occurring in the drier sub-tropical regions.” (Clendinning)  It is also interesting to note that Clendenning went on to say “As environmental resources decline due to climate change, so too will the livelihoods of those dependent upon them. Taken together, these challenges can increase the prospects for violent conflict.” (Clendinning)  Since Little Brother was born during wartime, in sub-Saharan Africa, we can postulate that maternal stress, poor nutrition, and excessive heat all contributed to his health problems during and after his family’s relocation.  

           Nadine Gordimer contrasts Little Brother’s weakness (albeit- weakness not his fault) with the strength of Gogo, the grandmother.  Interestingly enough, Gogo is the only person in The Ultimate Safari who is granted a name.  This alone would set her apart in the story, but her actions go further.  Unlike patriarchal family structure more familiar to Western readers, Gogo’s family organization is decidedly matriarchal.   From the very start of the story, we see what the children’s mother had to do after their father had gone, she fixed the roof after “bandits” burned the village, she walked through a decimated village to get oil for cooking.   After mother’s disappearance, Gogo took on the responsibility of the children’s safety, even though she was already dealing with a husband who had some problems of his own.  Gogo scavenged for greens for the family, she sold her clothes, even her church shoes, all to help her little family make the arduous journey through Kruger Park.  When it came time to make the decision to remain looking for her husband or helping the children to shelter, Gogo put her own needs aside and made sure the children were safe.  Time and again she was forced by circumstance to make tough decisions, and to bear the brunt of the family’s problems.  

While this matriarchal hierarchy might seem unusual to Western readers, African women in the past were traditionally farmers and cultivators. However, due to “the colonial bureaucracy’s authoritarian paternalism” (Nixon, 139), women were supplanted in their role of provider by men, often with disastrous effects, such as the soil erosion in Kenya due to deforestation that drove Wangari Maathai to start her Green Belt Movement. According to Rob Nixon, in his chapter on Maathai,

“Rural women suffered the perfect storm of dispossession: colonial land theft; the individualizing and masculinizing of property; and the experience of continuing to be the primary tillers of the land under increasingly inclement circumstances, including soil erosion and the stripping of the forests. As forests and watersheds become degraded, it was the women who had to walk the extra miles to fetch water and firewood; it was the women who had to plough and plant in once rich but now denuded land.” (Nixon, 140)  

Even though it was her husband who’d had the livestock, and who had looked for the children’s mother with help from young men from the village, it was Gogo who shouldered the burden of getting everyone to safety as best as possible.  “So they decided - our grandmother did; our grandfather made little noises and rocked from side to side, but she took no notice - we would go away.” (Gordimer, 12)

           In this way, Gogo echos strong women of the past, including Rosie the Riveter, and even my own grandmother, Lois Allen, who was a schoolteacher in rural Nevada, serving mostly poor areas.  In a recent biography of Allen, my mother Shirley Mink wrote:                        

“At one point during the summertime construction, there was a spate of vandalism, broken windows, graffiti, and the like.  Sun Valley still had no law enforcement quartered in the community, so Lois decided she would prevent further damages.  Every evening for a few weeks, she took her dog, drove to the school from her home in Sparks, and remained there overnight.  She made sure the word got out that there would be someone in the building at night, and the vandalism stopped.”  (Mink, 3)

Just as Gogo sold her belongings to ensure her family’s safety, Lois Allen did what she had to do to make sure “her” children had what they needed (ie: a school) to succeed, even though they were poor and from a rural area.

           We can look at The Ultimate Safari as a thrilling adventure story, full of outlaws and wild animals, we can see it as a commentary on postcolonial ecotourism, or we can view it as an ecological justice piece, which reveals the delayed destruction and attritional violence that Rob Nixon describes, especially as it affects women and children.  As the narrator of the story says “We were in the war, too, but we were children...we didn’t have guns.  (Gordimer, 11)

  Works Cited

Alkon, Alison Hope, and Kari Marie Norgaard. "Breaking the Food Chains: An Investigation of Food Justice Activism*." Sociological Inquiry 79.3 (2009): 289-305. Web.

Clendinning, Kyle. "Climate Change and Conflict: The Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa." Earth Reform. 23 Apr. 2012. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.

Gordimer, Nadine. "The Ultimate Safari." 10 Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing.  Oxford: New Internationalist, 2009. Print.

Hoover, Elizabeth, Katsi Cook, Ron Plain, Kathy Sanchez, Vi Waghiyi, Pamela Miller, Renee Dufault, Caitlin Sislin, and David O. Carpenter. "Indigenous Peoples of North America: Environmental Exposures and Reproductive Justice." Environ Health Perspect Environmental Health Perspectives (2012). Web.

Mink, Shirley L. "A Biography of Lois Allen." Biography.

Ngo, Nicole S., and Radley M. Horton. "Climate Change and Fetal Health: The Impacts of Exposure to Extreme Temperatures in New York City." Environmental Research 144 (2016): 158-64. Web.

Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2011. Print.