#i have lost myself in the tar-like sauce

[v-risalab]

quick question how can i make a game last 1000 hours, and make it so that I never get bored of doing the Tasks

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Don’t Do Sadness || Morgan & Deirdre (feat. Ruth Beck)

TIMING: Current

LOCATION: Houston, Texas

PARTIES: @deathduty & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan flies back to Houston to pick up Agnes’ bones. But there’s other family who need her attention first. 

CONTAINS: Mentions and discussions of past abuse

By the time the Houston trip finally rolled around, Morgan booked and planned their stay around her old hangouts in an autopilot haze rather than any eager sentiment. Thanks to modern technology, they largely avoided customer service desks and transitioned from plane to car to hotel without having to ruin anyone’s day. Morgan even put in a delivery order for her once-favorite Vietnamese restaurant from her phone and had it brought up like room service, with just a knock at the door and a quiet ‘thank you’ called into an empty hallway. There was little to say, since the gritty smog didn’t reach her nose and the lo mein she got for herself was soaked in soy sauce and sriracha before she could get a hint of any flavor aside from the brains she’d picked up on the way to the hotel. Morgan hadn’t even liked sriracha when she was alive. At the end of the night, they left the TV on (Titanic was playing on TNT) and laid down holding each other. Morgan thought of all the things she’d once imagined showing Deirdre, the cemeteries, the magic shops, the food, the landmarks. With crazy, non-existent zoning laws, high rises rubbed elbows with tire shops and mom and pop burger joints. There was no such thing as a ‘generic’ street until you were at least thirty minutes to an hour outside of downtown. But those were Alive-Morgan’s plans. This one just prayed that after they dug up what she needed tomorrow, they could bubble themselves up and forget all about White Crest and everything they’d left there on their last full day before they had to go crawling back.

But before they could dig up Agnes Bachman’s grave in the dead of night, Morgan needed to scope it out. And before she could do that, she owed her dead their respects. Sunrise seemed best for the visit. No one would be there except for the workers, the humidity was too intense, and morning traffic on the freeways was already in a gridlock. People would want to be anywhere but Washington Cemetery. Morgan reached for Deirdre’s hand as they passed through the gates, taking a second to appreciate the vastness of the sky. Houston was a flat swampland; from the right place, you barely had to tilt your head back to see as far as the human eye could see. The sky stretched above them like a golden purple dome, not a flash of wings or shadow or teeth in sight. The grass was patchy, but mowed even, so you could hardly tell the weeds from the rest. Flat headstones tiled the area in a perfect grid, so orderly you could play checkers on it with pieces big enough. Her parents were off to the side, near the roar of traffic and mumbling drifters. Every time she visited them, Morgan feared she would forget the way and get lost, but as soon as her feet met the pavement, she knew just where the next turn should be. “Agnes is kinda here by chance actually. When the older cemeteries got condemned, they split up the bodies to be re-homed or whatever, and some randos got the fancy cemetery next door, and Agnes and her kids got this one. They did some random algorithm or lottery thing, and apparently  it made my grandmother so mad that she would have to share space with her. But it’s really not that surprising, with our run of luck.” She winced. “I know it’s not…as pretty or anything as what we have back home. Not sure what Texas has against standing tombstones. Maybe it’s all the hurricanes? At least markers don’t drift off course when they’re nailed flat to the ground.” That didn’t sound how she wanted to either. “I’m sorry, what I’m trying to ask is, how do you like it?”

Deirdre would not let them drown. For all the sadness that congealed around them, for every shred of darkness that pleaded to be accompanied, Deirdre would be stronger, louder. For all the pain that weighed down her love, she would carry it in herself, and lift her free. Months ago, a trip to Texas together would have read like a happy occasion—they’d spent nights tangled together swapping stories of their homes. She knew Texas through Morgan’s eyes. The smells, the heat, the thick and sticky air, were not new to her mind, only to her ill-equipped body. Though Morgan moved like she wasn’t so much coming home as she was walking to her death, Deirdre held a measure of excitement about everything, despite everything. It was magical to be in the place that once only existed in the stories she loved. There were the trees Morgan described, and while not those ones exactly, they were just as important for Deirdre’s slowly filling image of Morgan’s life. Their hotel held a beautiful view, and a large, lush bathtub perfect for soaking off the Texas heat. Morgan couldn’t see it, she realized, which is why she pointed each detail out with a smile. It was fine, anyway, love didn’t need to be hundred to exist. Whatever tar was intent on dragging her girlfriend underneath, she would be the life jacket. She could love enough for the both of them; be enthusiastic as if she carried two minds and care as if she were born of two hearts. And, of course, Vietnamese food from such fame as Morgan’s stories of sad nights eating it alone, was just as good as she described it then. Titanic, played in low quality on some choppy basic cable, as featured in tales of Morgan’s viewing it, was just like she said it was. And the side-of-the-road cemetery was just like she heard it might be.

“I love it here,” she breathed, happily leaning over to stare down at each name they passed. Loving it here, was not entirely accurate. She’d complained about the sticky heat already, waltzing around in a thin summer romper and still feeling like her skin was melting off. And she always liked cemeteries, so much so that it wasn’t even a question worth asking. It was being here, in the places that Morgan walked, in the home that she knew, that Deirdre loved. It felt like she had a place in those stories too, in her life. “As if pretty matters...” she breathed. “Oh my love,” Deirdre turned her attention away from the names she didn’t recognize and smiled at her girlfriend. “Don’t worry about that.” She paused and drew her into her arms, picking her up for a quick spin and kiss. “I love you. Do you know how exciting it is to be here? I finally get to see the grass that you did, smell the scents that you did, see the—“ she gestured at the sky “—everything that you did. It’s like...being a part of you. Knowing you. And you—“ she grinned and pressed another kiss to her girlfriend. “—are my favourite thing to know. I would never tire of it.” Even if it felt like Texas was trying to dump hot glue on her. “Tell me more,” she asked, brushing Morgan’s hair back before she settled her hand on her cheek. “Show me more, whatever you feel like. It’d be impossible for me to hate it.” She turned her attention to the cemetery and chuckled, “were you worried about me not liking a cemetery or are you concerned about your touring skills?” Deirdre turned back with a smile. “I think you’re doing a wonderful job, and this isn’t the only time we’ll come back here—we can take a thousand trips, if you wanted them. So...don’t worry; I always enjoy myself when I’m with you. And you’ve got more important things to keep your mind on.”

Morgan’s eyes welled as Deirdre poured all her affection on her at once. She knew she was loved unconditionally, that whatever else came up, Deirdre would care and care and care as long as Morgan let her, but with the air beneath her feet and her banshee’s strong arms around her body, it all pierced her shell and rushed in as a flood. She had burned to give Deirdre pieces of her no one else in town, no one else alive possessed. She had kept them up for hours some nights, talking about how good, how interesting and exciting for all its mundaneness Houston was. The murals, the galleries, the roadkill, the sprawl, the smell. Now they were here and she felt so weighed down by herself. The air, so eerily imperceptible to her new body, felt like it was pulling her into the ground.

I want to be here, Morgan reminded herself. I need to be here.

She clung to Deirdre for a moment, anchoring herself in her body. “I love you too,” she murmured into her shoulder. “After this I’ll show you anything you want. We can go anywhere, I’ll take you to a play at the last minute, they have one with skeletons and murder in it. Or this Italian restaurant my mother would insist on going to that does brunch, or the little one my dad would take me to sometimes that’s not as fancy but makes the best fettuccine and you can have fresh scooped gelato there, and this giant chessboard, and the Rothko chapel, it’s all in black and the skylight is beautiful, but it’s always a little cold in a good way and you can pray to any being in the universe there, and…” The list tumbled out of her in a rush, even if her voice didn’t quite lift to the occasion. Half of the words on her lips were impossible to recapture the way she was. Fresh tears came to her as she parted with pieces of each memory. The awkward silence as she and Ruth scraped their forks at Birraporetti’s, running out of things to say about the ballet only twenty minutes after the show. The mess she made on her shirt with the gelato in Rice Village, the dangerous thrill of buying a new shirt at the boutique next door instead of mending it with magic while her dad lingered outside for plausible deniability. Having something new, and whole, and secret. And there were hours singing loudly in her car, sloppily slathering sunscreen on her forearms too late because she’d gotten so caught up in the escape of the moment.  It was all over and never coming back, as permanent as the ache her parents left behind.

Morgan breathed slowly and wiped her eyes, flashing Deirdre a sheepish smile. “Sorry,” she said. “I know everything is so awful back home and I’m trying to shake it off, but I am so glad of you, and so relieved. This is everything I want right now, even if it doesn’t look like it. I...stars, I hate not having anything to do after this visit most years, and now I do, and I’m not so painfully alone.” She jumped on her tiptoes and kissed her again as best she could. Wrapping herself against Deirdre as much as she could, Morgan led her around the next few turns along the path, guiding their steps by intuition and distant memory, until she saw two ghostly figures clustering by the fence.

Morgan stopped short. She couldn’t make out their faces, but she knew who her parents were. Somehow, even with all the Agnes drama, it hadn’t occurred to her that she might see them. Certainly not her dad. “Oh, stars…” Neither of them moved. Maybe they didn’t see her yet. “You see them, right? They’re really here, it’s not a trick this time. Shit, I can’t even…Deirdre, it’s my dad.” His face, from this angle, was whole and warm, and he did see her. He was just watching as serenely as he’d watched everything in life. His head tilted to one side, like he was working out how to parse a line of poetry, and Morgan burst with a laughing sob of recognition. He had the same ugly Hawaiian shirt he’d died in, and from this far away the sick on his shirt looked more like a food stain. It was so normal, so silly and safe and unlike anything in her life now.

Morgan didn’t know what to say to either of them, if they would be proud or even like the person she had become, but even having a fight in front of her girlfriend didn’t seem so bad right now. “It’s real, right?” Deirdre’s eyes could see them, if she tried. It wouldn’t be like before. How could it be, with her dad here? “We have to—he’s gonna love you, come on! Now!” She tore herself away and pawed for Deirdre’s hand, running for the spot so fast she nearly lost her shoes.

Deirdre leaned down to press her lips against Morgan’s neck, laughing in a warm flutter against her cold skin, afraid if she kissed her anyplace else, she might interrupt her. Her mind drifted as easily as Morgan rambled, she pressed nipping kisses in response to each point: a play would be divine, Italian sounds great, I’ve always liked fettuccine, what does a giant chessboard even look like? Houston held so many memories for Morgan, and just as many for Deirdre to learn. As well as she knew her girlfriend, there would always be some things that came new, and she could think of no greater delight than to know them. There was another feeling she didn’t know how to explain, something about life at her fingertips, a world under her lips. She loved their bubble in White Crest, but the earth was vast, and it could be theirs. Houston, Austin, whatever part of Texas Morgan wanted to show off—that was a new world for their taking. Was it so wrong for her to want more for them? To share in everything life had to offer, and then some? To love Morgan in White Crest, in Houston, on every inch of land they set their feet upon? Deirdre lifted her head from where she’d nestled it and smiled warmly. “Don’t apologize, my love. You don’t have to be chipper all the time, excited to show me restaurants and parks all the time….I just want to be with you, in whatever shape that takes. That’s always what I want. And if you want to do something after this, we can. And if you don’t, we can do that too. I’m really just happy to be here, and share in all of this with you….it means so much to me. Thank you, for letting me do this with you. Nothing will rob me of my excitement to be here. I love you, my Morgue, I always do.”

She held Morgan tight and careful, praying that her words might carry the power to soothe some worries. Visiting family graves was no easy task in general, there was no need for her love to be plagued by other thoughts. While the Dolan catacombs were a dark place of pride and worship—there was no sadness in death, after all, it was the greatest show of servitude—Deirdre imagined that Morgan, whose entire family was buried here, would find a visit heavier than most. She was prepared to hold her extra tight, even closer, kiss harder and love louder. She would not allow the sheet of sadness to smother Morgan. It was natural, then, that when Morgan happily yanked her along, Deirdre was shocked. She hadn’t even processed the information that Morgan’s father was a ghostly presence before she was running alongside her.

“W-wait! I’m not ready!” Deirdre yelped, laughing. She hadn’t expected to be meeting her girlfriend’s ghostly father either, and so she had no charming quips prepared. Should she have brought an offering? Did she call him Hector or Mr. Beck? Would he know what a banshee was? Was it appropriate to mention how rich she was before or after she explained the lengths at which she loved his daughter? “What am I supposed to say! All I know is that he likes musicals! I didn’t brush up on my musical knowledge!” She grew sweaty from anxiety rather than the heat, for once, blinking rapidly as her eyes spread into darkness and oh Fates, he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Of all the shirts she pictured he must have died in, that one wasn’t it. His face was soft like Morgan’s, and he tilted his head just like her and—Deirdre shook her vision back to normal and tried to think. She needed to ready herself. At this rate, her eyes would be glued to his questionable fashion and that’d just be rude. Did humans still do that thing where parents had to be asked before their daughters could be courted? Why was it that she suddenly couldn’t remember basic manners? They ran to a halt and Deirdre doubled over trying to collect herself. She huffed and tried nervously to straighten out the wrinkles in her dress. “What if he hates me because I forgot to bring flowers?” She mumbled to herself, deciding finally on a simple ‘hello’. She took Morgan’s hand back in hers for emotional support and as her eyes darkened, she rehearsed her introduction. Hello, Mr. Beck, so nice to meet you, I love your daughter so much I’d burn the world down. No, that was too strong. Howdy, Hector, lovely ghost weather we’re— “My love, I don’t see him.” Deirdre blinked her death-vision away, turning to her girlfriend. “...Morgan?”

Morgan only looked away for a second. It was too good to see him laughing to himself, beaming and shaking his head like he’d just figured out something wonderful and obvious to turn around every time she said, it doesn’t matter, it’s fine, you’ll be great. But she looked back once so Deirdre would know by her smile just how true it was, and when she turned to the grave where her dad was waiting for her again, he was gone. Morgan stopped short, staring at the empty space. There wasn’ anywhere for him to hide in all this open space. And he wouldn’t. He’d never played those kinds of tricks on her. She searched the sky, and the roof of a plain mausoleum across the way, the still-fluffy top of an oak tree, but he was gone.

“What the fuck…” she whispered. She had seen him. It hadn’t been in her head, she’d really seen him, and he’d looked at her. He’d been happy. He didn’t know anything about the choices she’d made since her last visit, but he’d been happy and he’d wanted to see her. “Where did he go? I don’t understand.”

“Oh, and what am I, chop liver?” Ruth Beck demanded.

Morgan was too hurt to hide her pained grimace. This wasn’t about her mother, at least she’d gotten to practice speaking to her once before. But she hadn’t had a conversation with her dad since she was eighteen, a stupid kid in over her head. Why hadn’t he stayed to talk to her? Why didn’t he want to meet her again? Morgan continued to stare at the emptiness over his grave, mouth trembling.

“They don’t bring you the metaphysical manual for ghostly rules and behavior, Morgan. You don’t seriously expect to be handed a tidy little answer to make you feel better, do you? It’s fine; I've known all along how much you two care about me.” Her tone cut with bitterness. “I knew he wouldn’t stick it out with me forever, but I’ll give him this, I don’t think it was an entirely conscious decision. Whatever you took or whatever spell you cast to see us like this, it scratched his itch and now he’s signed off and done.”

Morgan stiffened. Nothing her mother said felt untrue, exactly, but it all sounded so twisted and awful, like her dad had betrayed her by crossing peacefully or like Morgan should be sorry for missing him after having a second chance dangled in front of her. She could never just be; Ruth always demanded her due. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she mumbled, trying desperately to keep her tears in. “I am happy to see you too. I should have said so.” She swallowed, forcing her body to remember breathing. “Are you okay?”

Ruth scoffed, unimpressed, and turned her attention to the woman with her daughter. “Who’s this? She’s taking you talking to the air pretty well. Should I be concerned?”

She knew it. It was her ruffled romper or tousled hair that did her in. Or the sweat, maybe it was the sweat. Hector took one look at how sweaty Deirdre was and vanished out of disgust. Or maybe it was that she’d taken so long to introduce herself, she should have ran up with her greeting instead of standing around waiting for her chance to do it. Deirdre frowned, turning to Morgan to apologize when another voice cut across the air. Deirdre couldn’t see ghosts without summoning her vision, but she could hear them perfectly fine. And she remembered then, hearing this woman and her biting remarks, that she’d seen two figures—the now-gone Hector and someone who was unmistakably Ruth Beck. Out of politeness, she tried not to look angry. She knew Ruth Beck better than she did Hector, not because Morgan loved Hector less, but because Ruth controlled her life even in death. Her painful, complicated memory could not be shaken. Deirdre knew Ruth by way of tearful retelling, shaky explanation of locked rooms and denied love—and the infuriating hypocrisy of her journal, left behind as if to taunt her daughter. And she knew her now, by the sharpness of her voice, and the burden shuddering down Morgan. Eventually, politeness was dammed, and Deirdre’s face twisted with displeasure. She drew Morgan close to her, and then—though she knew it wouldn’t help anything—shifted their bodies so she stood between Ruth and Morgan.

Deirdre let blackness spill across the whites of her eyes again as she looked up and stared Ruth down. She had Morgan’s brilliant blues, and lips that might’ve looked like her daughter’s if they weren’t pulled thin. Her sour expression was different both from Morgan’s transparent emotions, and the pictures Deirdre had seen of Ruth’s past. There were a thousand things she wanted to say to Ruth. She blurted just one, the thing that burned on her tongue, pulled her brows together and her lips down. “Your daughter is dead.” Couldn’t she see it? Feel it? Was it really so important now to be thinking about anything else, when the life of her blood was a zombie? She’d wanted to ask about the locked rooms, about why her husband could find peace in seeing his daughter but she could not, about why she loved Morgan so poorly, or if she remembered being in that cursed coin at all, but Deirdre’s confusion stuck out instead. She’d known Ruth was a questionable mother, but hearing her more offended about a greeting than noticing her own daughter was dead, was something strange. “I’m Morgan’s girlfriend; Deirdre. I’m sorry your husband’s vanished so suddenly. I wonder how terrible that must be for someone who hasn’t seen him since he died. It must be exciting to see someone after that long, don’t you think? Perhaps you’ve been spending so much time remembering that there is no competition here that you forgot your own manners.” Deirdre didn’t know what she was saying, exactly, the words tumbled from her mouth freely. Unlike their forgotten meeting on the beach, Deirdre knew the kind of woman Ruth was now, and she wasn’t so eager to impress her. It would be nice for Morgan, she knew, if her mother approved of something she held dear for once. And perhaps Deirdre should have taken more care for her manners, but Ruth’s words were needlessly petty, and Deirdre didn’t care to make either of them listen to it. She stood straight, stern, breaking her stance only to attend to Morgan, and lend her strength where she needed it.

Ruth had to do a double, no, triple take at her daughter to see if this strange woman was telling the truth about her daughter. She had assumed that sentimentality had gotten the better of Morgan and she’d taken some drug or commissioned some truly powerful magiks to see if her talking to the air all these years amounted to something or not. But she looked, and even with this Deirdre woman blocking her full view, she understood. Then, of course, the woman kept talking, offering her opinion on things that weren’t any of her business. How could she know that Ruth had been looking forward to seeing her every November? Or how much it stung that when granted her ghost-sight, Morgan hadn’t said, it’s my mom and dad, it’s my parents. Only her dad, the one who had coddled and endangered her with his stubborn sensitivity, and then marked himself as a damn saint when he died just four months after Morgan turned eighteen. And this Deirdre couldn’t know how much she’d tried to shuffle off this god-forsaken coil, or how it felt to be left alone, for good this time, by the only person in her miserable life who had been stubborn enough to stay in the first place. No one knew. Even in death, Ruth Beck was certain she remained cursed. When she was sure this Deirdre was quite finished, she looked at the fluff of hair poking out from the woman’s arms. “Is this true, Morgan?” She asked.

Morgan let Deirdre whisk her out of sight, if only so she could compose her face and gasp out the few sobs that wouldn’t be swallowed away. She should probably be happy that all her dad wanted was for them to really see each other again, or maybe see her happy and loved. But her mind was still circling that one second. She could’ve squeezed out an I love you, or a hang on. Just hang on a little fucking longer, enough to meet my girlfriend, enough to know that I’m teaching at a real university, I’m going to make Constance pay for what she did to you, I miss you… but all those possibilities had evaporated in an instant.

But Morgan couldn’t evade a direct question from her mother, no matter how Deidre tried to shield her. Morgan lifted her head and nodded, still holding onto her girlfriend. “Surprise,” she said, breath shaking. “The curse got me, just like you said.”

“I told you,” Ruth began. “On our last phone call, I told you, Morgan--”

“Yeah, well I tried anyway!  And actually I got kinda close, but…you were right and I was wrong.” Morgan shrugged, her smile pulling into a pained gash on her face. “So now I’m this. Sad zombie lady. About seven months and counting. And it’s the worst, but I have at least a couple of friends, and Deirdre, who loves me, and who you would probably like if you weren’t spending so much time scrutinizing her like she’s a science problem. She’s insightful, and clever, and curious. She loved me even before I was like this, and she’s still here. So I can’t say I truly regret any of my actions, because I don’t want to know where I’d be without her. But I know that doesn’t sound like good news to you, so I’m at least partially sorry for that, I guess.”

Morgan changed the topic by way of reaching into her bag and fishing out a now partially crumpled bouquet of flowers. “I was gonna split up the bunch in two, but I guess they’re all yours now.” She held them up for inspection out of habit, before realizing that Ruth may not be able to take them for herself and so knelt in the grass to cram them into the bronze vase welded to the gravestone for this purpose. As she arranged the mess, the real news she wanted to share burned on her tongue. But some habits were hard to break, and she was too stiff with ritual fear to begin without first asking, “Are you really okay, Mother? Is there something I can do for you?”

Ruth Beck didn’t say anything for a good long while, but stared, just barely holding her heartbreak at bay. “Oh, pumpkin. I told you going to White Crest would only bring you more suffering,” She sighed. She looked over at Deirdre, defiantly transparent in giving her a critical once-over. “And what are your thoughts on this nonsense? If you’ve been with her through death, you’ve had to learn about our little family sickness eventually. Has she told you what happens to nice, loving girlfriends yet? I’d give you three guesses, but you just saw one of them disappear. And just how are you perceiving me, exactly? I don’t think you’re the one responsible for granting Morgan an extra half-life, but the exorcists and the wannabes who come out here don’t generally get ink in their eyes when they look at me.”

Morgan bowed her head as she worked, visibly cringing at the exchange. “Please be nice to her, Mother,” she said, barely above a whisper.

Deirdre had been expecting more bite, perversely, she had hoped for it. Not for Morgan, but onto herself. She hoped, perhaps, that if her annoyance shifted someplace else, Morgan could be freed from it. Yet, as she had been learning about Ruth, the woman could not make herself easy to hate. Complicated was less like a descriptor and more like a way of life. Even Deirdre, who had no intentions of conceding to Ruth, slumped a little when her bait wasn’t taken—embarrassed that she tried it in the first place. But she shook the sensation away and watched Ruth carefully, listening with an attentive ear. If that bite ever came back, she’d swallow Morgan up in a hug again and stand between them...but if she could be gentle...Deirdre shifted, releasing her high wall of protection for a sturdy one of support. Though she felt a little more like a guard dog, ready to snap if anything came too close. She anchored herself to Morgan’s side, even as she moved, as if stuck there. She hadn’t been expecting, either, that Ruth would address her again. She thought one angry comment was enough for her to ignore her, but Ruth was, as Deirdre supposed, terribly complicated. All she had really wanted to say to Ruth was how dare you and if she had some corporeal body, she might have settled for one dramatic slap. She knew Ruth by her failures as a mother, and as someone who loved Morgan as well, she was the harshest critic of the woman. Just as, she imagined, Ruth was in turn harsh of her.

“I love Morgan very much,” she began, though speaking to Ruth, she smiled warmly at Morgan. “I’ve loved her for a long time. If you’ll let me be dramatic to say it, maybe since I’ve met her. I intend on loving her for a longer one.” She turned to look at Ruth, her smile colored by confusion. Surely the woman who loved, and started a family, understood why Deirdre stayed, so was she testing her? Or did she really not know? “I always have. I’m not so afraid of death, that I would refuse to live. You and your husband have had a good life, wouldn’t you say? She has told me what happens, it might have been the first real thing she told me—and even if it wasn’t, you and I both know that Morgan wears her emotions freely.” Deirdre tilted her head to the side, withholding remarks about how terrible it would be to stamp that away. Or that she couldn’t understand how Ruth would know how badly her daughter wanted love, and then deny it. And if she could understand it, then she certainly couldn’t grasp how a mother would do that, and then expect that her daughter might still be excited to see her. She either played the villain and accepted it, dealt her tough love and recognized what it must have done or...well, she was the standing example of what happened when someone didn’t. “In a good way; in the best way,” she added quickly, nearly in a hiss. “I thought it was noble of her to want to fight fate, silly maybe, but the spirit to fight is a commendable one. How could I not want to be by her side? Maybe we would have had five years, or a few good months, maybe she would have won and freed herself...all I knew then was that I loved her, I wanted her to be happy, and if I could be there too...maybe we could make something together. Pain is unavoidable for anyone, death is equally as demanding, but somethings are worth it, aren’t they?” She had more to say about risks and love and much she knew that death could take prematurely, but that she was always ready. It never was so much the length of time, but how well it was spent. That she knew, better than the average person, just what fate she might have agreed to, and that she didn’t care. She loved Morgan more than letting fear rule her, or them.

But she realized quickly that Ruth was not as endeared to her long speeches and Morgan was, and left it there. ”I’m a banshee,” she explained simply, pressing a kiss to Morgan’s forehead. “And you didn’t answer her question: how are you?”

Ruth’s face remained impassive as the woman, the banshee, spoke. She understood a great deal, though how, Ruth didn’t know. It hadn’t been from Morgan. It would have been nice if she had been able to put those desperate puppy eyes Morgan seemed to have for her to good use and stop her. Keep her alive. But of course she hadn’t. The only way to get Morgan to do anything she didn’t want to was to make her. “I can see why she likes you,” Ruth said. “You’re a romantic fool as much as she is. More common sense, but…” Not enough to keep her in check. “In a less cursed lifetime maybe more of what you said would be true. Maybe wherever the heck you come from, it is. I guess I’m glad she stopped being a liar long enough to tell you.”

“Mother—“

Ruth continued as if she hadn’t heard Morgan’s interjection. “You seem kind, Deirdre. Enough to deserve better than whatever being attached to us is going to bring you. Everything is a bargain, Deirdre. And sometimes the universe cheats. And if she’s gone and made herself a zombie and made this mess last until some dumbass with a sword comes along, I’m not sure if you can know what you’re signing up for.”

“The curse is over, Mother,” Morgan said, hand clenched in Deirdre’s. She feared what looking away from her mother would do, if she would be left dangling and abandoned again or if her mother would read something cruel into it, so she only held onto Deirdre, tight, and hoped she understood that her love was keeping Morgan from falling apart. “I didn’t break it, but it’s done with me. And there’s more, something good and more I want to tell you, but for the mother of earth, I wish you’d just tell me anything about how you’re doing or what I can do for you.”

“I’ve been about as well as you can be after three years being a specter in this place. Neither of you want to know how well I’m really doing.”

Morgan exhaled stiffly. “I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t—I died too, okay? I ‘m not a ghost but I do get something about how awful—

“Don’t say that like it’s something I want,” Ruth’s voice managed to cut without raising to a scream. “If you had just listened to me, if you had accepted for once that I know what I am talking about and I’m not some evil gorgon bent on ruining your life, maybe you wouldn’t.”

“I am trying to tell you that I am taking our power back, Mom!” Morgan flinched to hear the way her voice snapped with anger. She always took the bait, no matter how long it had been or how much she said she wouldn’t. And realizing this made no difference. She couldn’t stop herself from going louder, more determined. “I found the miserable little witch who cursed us. I ripped her out of the ether to make her confess and after she came back to finish the job she started, I found a way to make her pay. She is going to suffer as much and as long as a ghost can for what she did to me and to you and your mother before you and mother before her. I am doing that. Me, Mother! I am taking control of our lives and if there is some miserable little Bachman descendant out there, they aren’t going to have to suffer another cursed year when I’m done with her! I am as free as I am ever going to be, and when she is ground into nothing but floating particles, she is never going to be able to cast her shadow over me or you or anyone. That’s what I wanted to tell you.” She smiled sadly. “I thought it might make you happy. I may not be doing what you wanted, but I am doing something right.”

“Morgan—”

“I’m not finished. I know you lied to me about going to White Crest. I met Nisa and her kids. I found your stuff. Everything you kept from me about your time there. I know, Mom. Everything you pretended you never were.”

“White Crest was a mistake. If you knew, it would only give you hope, it would encourage your outrageous tendencies to reach for something that’s not yours to have. I wanted to keep you safe, Morgan. Are you trying to say that’s a crime, now? Clearly I didn’t do a good enough job teaching you or protecting you, but now I’m a demon for even bothering?”

Morgan hung her head and wondered why she bothered.

“I’m waiting,” Ruth murmured.

Somehow her quiet tone hit Morgan worse than the rest. The words on her tongue started to dissolve. The questions she had for her drifted away like so much dust. What had she really expected? What could there have ever been to hope for? Morgan didn’t have it in her to hold back her tears. Everything went into keeping her voice even. “Maybe the way you tried was. Maybe…” Maybe it should have been.

Deirdre grimaced, pulling Morgan in so she could be tucked tight against her chest. It would have been wholly inappropriate to throw salt at Ruth, but that didn’t stop Deirdre’s hand from inching towards Morgan’s purse. “Hey,” she cooed for her girlfriend’s ears only. “You’re okay; you’re doing good.” She wrapped her arms around her tighter, just the way she liked, like the two of them were the only people who existed. She pressed her lips to the top of her head, hard as she could, and turned to look at Ruth. “It’s a terrible crime, actually. To let fear masquerade as love.” She pulled back just enough to lift her hand up and thumb Morgan’s tears away, as covertly as she could—not that the tears themselves were shameful, but because she understood the desire not to lend any more ammunition to an angry mother. “May I say something?” She asked Ruth, having no intention of listening to her answer anyway. “It’ll be long, so bear with me. But if anything, maybe we can let it serve as a breather for this conversation. I ask you, Mrs. Beck, do you love your daughter? Is there an answer to that you can admit? I would assume you do, and if so, there’s just something I don’t get...let me try and understand you a little better. Correct me where I’m wrong, but let me take a stab at your life.” Deirdre breathed in, drawing her attention away from Ruth so she could care for Morgan. There were tears to wipe, and strength to work back into her bones. Look at me, she was saying, don’t think about your mother, look at me. And like that, she began. “You hate the way your mother raised you, Mrs. Beck. It was cruel, and unfair, and I’m sure she must’ve justified it to you—if your life was suffering, if you loved nothing, there would be nothing to take. Or maybe she just didn’t care, she didn’t want a child anyways. But you grew up, and you got away, and you lived your terrible, tragic life until you found your way to White Crest with hope. But your curse, and the pursuit of its end, hurt people or it would hurt people, eventually. Good people, kind people, even yourself. Maybe the guilt was too much to live with, maybe you tried and tried and there really was no end—not without something too drastic even for you. So you left. And then you met your husband. And he, like you’ve called me, was a romantic fool. Stubborn, I bet. What did he say when you told him about the curse? That it was okay? That he would stay with you anyways? That he didn’t care?” Deirdre looked up at Ruth, smiling softly. “So, he finally convinces you and you two get married. And then you think, or maybe he gets through to you, that there might just be a life around your curse. If you’re smart, and careful, maybe you can make something good. And then you start a family, maybe by plan, maybe by surprise, it doesn’t matter how just that it did. And you have a daughter. And you realize that you can’t raise her like you were, so you try to be better. You don’t tell her about the curse, because the curse only brings pain, and ignorance can be a powerful thing. Either that’s your idea or it’s your husband’s, but that doesn’t matter either. You don’t say anything, and neither does he. But his love is open, yours is not. And how could it be? You know the dangers of love better than anyone else. You’re smart, and careful. And so your daughter wonders, tragedy after tragedy, what’s wrong with life. But you don’t tell her. And ignorance isn’t enough, she needs to be more careful, like you. You try to teach her how not to laugh, love, look forward to things. But you know it’s not working, despite your best efforts, because your daughter is like her father, in that regard—open. And then he dies, and there are some secrets you can’t keep alone. And suddenly all your daughter’s self-hatred has another place to go, and you know what happens next. You’ve lived your life, you know what it does to hope and argument. You try to tell her that she can make a good life with her curse, a smart one, a sensible one. You did it, after all; for those few years. And then you die, and she goes anyways, and you wait for her every year like clockwork. But you see, what I don’t understand with this story is how? How did you ever expect her to learn how to be happy in between the years when you taught her to fear happiness? How are you so blind to the fact that you hurt your daughter? How can you claim to know her so well, and yet speak with such ignorance? How is it that you can love your daughter, and yet never say it? She wasn’t wrong to go to White Crest, just like you weren’t. It’s a courageous act. How do you not know that? Her recklessness, her naïveté...none of those things are bad. She hopes, she fights, even when her odds are impossible and to do so doesn’t make her wrong, it means she was able to do something you couldn’t. How are you not proud of her? Morgan is the strongest person I know, strength she learned not because of you, but in spite of you. How can you think so lowly of her, that you don’t trust that she understood the risks? How?”

Deirdre shook her head, sighing her speech away. “You know what effect you have on your daughter. I know you see it. The curse is gone now, and even if it wasn’t, you’re both dead. You don’t have to keep this up, Mrs. Beck. I know you want to be a good mother, there’s nothing stopping you now. I ask you again, do you love Morgan? And are you sorry, for the role you’ve had to take in her life? Or do you want to float there and justify it to us like your mother might’ve?” Deirdre offered another smile, small but not but less sincere. At least, if everything she was saying was wrong, she hoped Ruth could see that her love for Morgan was true. And if she really cared about her own daughter, then they’d be two people on the same page. “Why don’t we try this conversation again, Mrs. Beck? Maybe listen to Morgan a little better, for once.”

“You don’t know fear,” Ruth tried to interrupt. Whatever airs this woman put on, she didn’t understand what it meant to be a mother, or what the cost of their existence truly was. She didn’t know how much of the banshee myths were true, but she couldn’t know enough about the universe to know when you were pinned down and doomed. “You don’t know me--” But the woman wouldn’t be stopped, and Ruth fell quiet. For the first time, she began to believe that Morgan had figured some things out. She had at least figured out enough for Deirdre to connect most of the dots. She didn’t have enough to make the spell work, to see Ruth as she truly was. Her affection for Morgan, blasted and cursed and biased, was too strong for that. But it was more than Ruth had expected. She couldn’t help but be stricken by it.

The only thing that kept Morgan from turning into Deirdre’s arms and hugging her was the pull of her mother’s face. The more Deirdre went on, so gently and kindly and with so much confidence, the more Ruth seemed to crack. It probably wasn’t visible to Deirdre, but Morgan had scrutinized her mother’s face for years searching her mother’s face for approval, for forgiveness, for a shadow of affection. She could transmute any scrap of tenderness into just enough to hope for. She knew the widening of her eyes, the way the edge dulled in her jaw or her frown slackened, there was something there. Some feeling that was for her. Morgan wished then for any passer-by to wander past them so her mother could borrow their body for a second, just long enough for Morgan to throw herself into her arms and beg and drag that feeling out of her.

“Mommy--” She whispered.

“It was a mistake.” Ruth said, clenching her airy fists. “I didn’t want to bring a child into this world with my problems, my curse. I am aware that I lack the typical temperament people look for in a good mother. And besides that, I wanted to be the end. And my one job above all else was to protect you. Not to be your friend, not to coddle you--”

“Mommy, please.”

“You need to understand.”

“I do! I do understand why you hurt me! I know you tried and I know you were afraid of loving me because of Constance’s fucking curse, but that doesn’t mean it was okay! And you can’t throw me into a room anymore just because you’re afraid that I’m having too many feelings for you to handle!”

“I wasn’t afraid of loving you, Morgan,” Ruth said, more quiet and stiffly controlled than ever. “I was afraid because I already did. I took one look at you, doughy and red and screaming and I loved you. And say all you want about chemicals and hormones in the wake of a pregnancy, but I couldn’t shake that love no matter how stubbornly you disobeyed me or how miserable you tried to make me. A love like that could only mean it would find you sooner rather than later. So I protected you.”

Morgan’s face crumpled with tears. She had waited her whole life to hear her mother say she loved her and now she wanted to scream to drown it out. “You hurt me. You didn’t even want me and you hurt me.”

“I changed my mind about wanting you as soon as I saw you.” Ruth said.

“That doesn’t matter. Like what, if your mother was here and she said she loved you, that would excuse how she destroyed you? Everything she took and burned and beat out of you?” Morgan stared wide-eyed at her mother, daring her to challenge what she said. “She turned you into someone capable of locking your kid away all day. Someone who would try to yell at her out of a fucking panic attack. Someone who would rather gaslight her child into hating herself to the point of danger than admit the truth. Someone couldn’t say I love you for her whole life. Is making you capable of that okay if she loved you? Love isn’t supposed to hurt like that, Mother. It’s not anything a person should want or be giving if it’s giving out licence to be cruel too.”

“Sometimes, pumpkin--”

“No. Not with love. Other reasons, fear, jealousy, anything else. But not that.”

“Then what is it you want from me, Morgan?”

Morgan had to think. She couldn’t touch the thing she wanted, not if it came with accepting all those miserable years, all that misguided bullshit, the skewed equations that meant her self-hatred was worth this so-called perfection and calling it love. She clung to Deirdre’s arms, fastening her tight to her back. It had been a difficult autumn, but what they had was never cruel, never calculating. Their mistakes and lapses were honest. They told each other what was wrong and what they needed. They were honest. They were sorry. Morgan threaded their fingers together as she cried. She tried to breathe with her, steady and confident. “I want you to apologize,” she said.

“I did the best I knew how. I swear to you, no, you--” she pointed at Deirdre. “If I am holding back even a little truth, I will vanish from this cemetery and haunt somewhere else for the rest of my days. I swear--”

“Don’t, Mother,” Morgan said softly. She let go of Deirdre and slipped away, coming right up to her mother until they were face to face. She needed to do this much on her own. “You don’t have to swear. I get it. This is hard for you. And you just want to feel like it was all worth it. All those mistakes, those shitty choices, all of that pain you made both of us carry. You want the exchange for what you sacrificed. But the spell isn’t what you thought it was, Mommy. You got it wrong and it’s not going to bring you what I feel like you’re asking me for.” She sniffled and tried to cup her hand around the shape of her hand. If she could just squeeze it, if she could hold even a piece of her for a second-- “Now, I’m going to destroy the person who really started this. Because you used to be just a sad little kid like I was and none of it was ever going to be fair and you deserve to know that she’s going to be punished. I’m gonna do that for us. Her soul will be nothing and she will hurt as much as we have the whole way. But I can’t get rid of what you did by destroying her. If you want something back from me, you have to at least tell me--” Morgan shuddered as her resolve crumbled one word at a time. “Tell me you’re sorry and you know now it was wrong. Just tell me that much.”

Ruth didn’t say anything for a long time. She could not bear to look at her daughter’s face, unnaturally pale as she began to sob. Morgan always grew red so quick. She forgot how to breathe, it was like she was so ready to run from any suffering, she’d try and take herself into the ether to hide from it. How she made Ruth panic when she hyperventilated. Her eyes would grow big she’d wheeze so helplessly, expecting Ruth to simply know the antidote. “I love you, Pumpkin,” she whispered, just for her daughter’s ears. Then she leveled her gaze at Deirdre. “My vow still stands. I swear I shall not haunt this place another moment again if I am holding any lies or doubts in my heart. I was wrong. I was wrong and I’m—I’m—”

There was a terrible pause before Morgan saw her mother dissipate. She had expected the trick as soon as the words had begun, but there was no bracing herself for the silence that claimed her mother’s voice and in the farthest, saddest parts of her, she thought she screamed just so she didn’t have to hear it.

There were several reactions Deirdre expected—anger, acceptance, sorrow. But for all she expected, Ruth was undeniably hard to read. She reminded her of her own mother in that way, as if her only emotions were anger and pride. Deirdre had yet to see the pride though, but she imagined it would come. And she hoped, as anyone who loved Morgan might, that it would be the right kind. She watched her intently, knowingly. Ruth had an answer delivered to her on a plate in two courses; an admittance of love, and an apology. She knew one would be easier than the other, but as Morgan had taught her, she hoped for both parts. And she waited. And she listened and she cut her ears through all of Ruth’s filler. And she waited. “I don’t accept that,” she mumbled, rejecting her vow. How could she? Neither of them were asking Ruth to leave, only to accept the truth all of them knew. There was no reason to swear to her, and Deirdre held no desire to humour her game. She would stand there and she would be honest on her own merits. She would listen to the sound of her own voice for once. And so she waited. The love came strangely coated in guilt, before her attempt at bolstering a fae bind, but at least it came. As Ruth continued to speak, Deirdre realized her vow was some manner of a performance. She had been withholding the truth from the start, hadn’t she? And now she wanted her exit, and freedom from Morgan. How would her daughter ever find her if she haunted some other place and she had no more magic to search? The hope she had, little as it was, shrank. Ruth revealed herself to be many things: a liar, a coward, and a bad mother. “I don’t accept,” Deirdre mumbled again. She wanted to ask her what it was this time, fear or guilt? Which did she let disguise itself as care? But she was gone soon, perhaps realizing Deirdre hadn’t created any promise between them, and she needed to be away from any more ideas she didn’t like. Deirdre turned her gaze to the cemetery gates, half expecting to find Ruth there, tip-toeing her way out with her bag of stolen goods over her shoulder.

Satisfied that Ruth wasn’t lingering behind some tree, Deirdre blinked her death-vision away and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, trying to pull Morgan against her, “I’m sorry.” As it was, even trying to show how much they understood of her—how much her daughter, the very woman she didn’t think understood much, knew—and how she had no more places to hide, she still manufactured her own escape. “I’m sorry your mother is...like that.” She surrounded Morgan with her love, affection that would not leave, and hoped it could make something okay. “I didn’t accept her promise, by the way. It didn’t seem right to let her have that. But I suppose she just left anyway.” Deirdre sighed, and tried to meet Morgan’s eyes. “How are you, my love? Are you okay?”

Morgan whipped her head around, one side, then the other, searching for where her mother had gone. How far could she have gone? Where was she? Her chest burned and she clenched her fists to keep herself together. “You coward!” She screeched. She strained her eyes on the horizon, hoping to see her silhouette, even a vague Ruth-shaped blip nearby. How good could she be at this after only three years? “You don’t love anything, how dare you!” She kicked the bronze flower holder, over and over until it bent and the flowers spilled over. “You don’t want to talk to me, fine!” Her voice broke and she slumped in Deirdre’s grasp, weeping and gasping. “I should’ve known, I should’ve known she would never--” She grit her teeth and shook her head. “I heard you, and I knew you would never, you wouldn’t take her from me…” She shuddered, choking on sobs. “I don’t want you either!” She screamed to the sky. Maybe she was hiding there, or in a treetop, or behind a car. “I don’t want anything from you until you can tell me that, you coward!” She screamed again and buried her face in Deirdre. “I should’ve known she wouldn’t ever--” Change. Be different. Be better. She had died cruel and now she was determined to be that way. All that fear, all those stupid horror stories and bad memories-- Morgan sobbed and sagged against her girlfriend. “I’m sorry,” she said, still gasping. “You shouldn’t have had to put up with her, and what she tried to put on you.” At least she had run away on her own terms, if that could even be counted as a bright side. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I guess at least I don’t have anything left to say to her,” she laughed bitterly. “I don’t know. I wanted her to be better. If she was here, I was hoping she would...be someone who wanted to be better. I thought if I just understood…and I do, I do understand her pain. But she couldn’t…” Morgan shook her head and let it fall onto Deirdre’s chest. She was tired, and she wanted to be somewhere else.

“It’s not so bad—not so wrong—to hope.” Deirdre hummed, holding her girlfriend close, arms weaved around her as tight as she could manage. “I did too. I really thought she would—“ Deirdre swallowed, sighing the rest of her sentence away. It didn’t matter so much now that they had; Morgan wasn’t at fault for expecting her mother to...be a mother. Deirdre breathed her girlfriend in, pressing her lips against her jaw. There was much she didn’t know about motherhood, or family itself, but she had hoped that Ruth loved Morgan enough to face herself. She couldn’t imagine any other feeling being stronger than love. “It’s okay,” she kissed her cheek now. “Don’t be sorry to me. I’m okay.” She reached her hands down, and felt around Morgan’s purse for a pen and a tissue. “Let’s go back to the hotel, okay?” She kissed her again, pulling back and clicking the pen. “And we don’t have to do anything else. And if you’re feeling up to it, we can come back for the bones tonight like you planned, or we could do it tomorrow, or I can get them, or—“ Deirdre smiled softly. “Let’s just go back, and we can figure out the rest from there. We always do.” She scribbled carefully on the tissue, showing its contents off to Morgan when she finished. “Our address,” she smiled, stuffing it under the bent flower holder. “In case she wants to be civil for Yule. If not, I can throw salt at her. Ghost mothers are convenient like that.” She stepped back, her eyes drifting to the small note she left in the corner “if you want to try it differently”. Deirdre took Morgan’s hand in hers. “All good?”

Morgan rested in Deirdre’s arms, barely standing at all. There was something so counterintuitive and strange and gratifying about knowing Deirdre had hoped too. Even with all she knew of the world and all she knew about Morgan’s mother, she had it in her to hope. Morgan hiccuped another harsh sob and squeezed her girlfriend tight. “I love you,” she mumbled. “And I never, never want to hurt you the way either of us were. I love you and I want our life to be better. And I don’t need anything she has if it’s not going to fit with that.” She just wanted it. Or rather, she wanted her mother to learn to give something she could keep. Just one thing. One nice thing. Morgan hadn’t been able to give her peace with anything she had to say and she had nothing left in her to offer. She clung to Deirdre’s body as she fiddled in her bag and scribbled on the tissue. The rawness in her throat eased as she saw the note, the hope Deirdre was determined to carry for her, for both of them. She felt like a discarded pumpkin, hollowed out and too soft to stand. When Deirdre had finished her work, Morgan squeezed herself flush against her body again. “Thank you,” she said. “I...really like that. I guess when she can choose different…” Morgan shrugged, even as her trembling lip gave away the lingering pain.”Maybe she’ll be at peace. Maybe we both will.” Because that ache was still in her, the one cut by the girl she’d been, banging on her locked door and begging her mother for another chance, for her love. Morgan told the ache to hush, and wait, and have hope. She breathed slowly, trying to make her body still again. If it worked at all she couldn’t tell, but with Deirdre’s hand in hers, it didn’t matter. She nodded and started walking back toward the parking lot. Morgan cast one more glance at the cemetery, watching the shadows and the ripples in the short grass. Was she here? Was she watching? Was Agnes? But there wasn’t a soul to be seen, living or dead anymore. Morgan tucked herself into Deirdre’s side, murmuring, “I still want today to be good. I just need to lay down with you for a little bit, in our world. And then we’ll do all those things we said. And when we come back for Agnes--” She cast one more look back at the cemetery, lingering on her mother’s grave before turning to the spot where she knew Agnes was buried, too much in the shadow of the mausoleum for  the grass around her to grow even, her placard probably weathered down to nothing. Morgan squeezed Deirdre’s hand to signal that she’d be back. She scooped up the fallen flowers and ran them over to Agnes’ neglected grave. It was so old, it wasn’t even granted a bronze vase with the others. Who was alive to care about her? Morgan laid the flowers down as neatly as possible and ran back to Deirdre’s arms. “We’ll make things good for Agnes too. If she’s still around here, we’ll help her too.”

“I love you too.” Deirdre said, marveling at how right those words always felt tumbling from her lips. Like breathing, she thought, and couldn’t imagine how anyone else thought they could be so hard to say. She nodded her agreement to Morgan’s words; they would be good to each other, as good as they possibly could be; they would be kind; they would be honest; the hurt they had endured would never be the hurt they left in the world. She could understand Ruth’s fear and cowardice, but only where it had come from, not why it needed to be clung to. She would not emulate her, and she knew Morgan wouldn’t either. It felt so simple then, holding Morgan in the cemetery that held her family, that they could be good. But as she had started to learn, simple did not mean bad. “Are you sure you want to—?” Deirdre swallowed, nodding. “Okay.” She watched Morgan with fondness and curiosity melded into one soft smile and head tilt. As she had also begun to learn, “good” was not some looming branch, fruit too far above to be plucked, it was smaller than that. Seeds, perhaps. Old roots, maybe. It took many shapes, just as evil did. Good was, sometimes, flowers for a neglected grave, dirt brushed off an old name. It was listening to a girl who knew far more about the world than anyone gave her credit, even her own mother. It was life’s discovery, one day at a time. It took the shape of people, or of arms wrapped around. “Yes,” she breathed, leaning down to kiss Morgan finally, fiercely. “We can make it good for her too, even if she isn’t around, even if she is.” Good was not one thing, once, but many things, all the time—shifting. It was choice. And there was no one who knew choice better than Morgan Beck.

[kazlifeadventures]

Trinidad & Tobago - Carribean dreams...

I am so ‘vex’ that I won't be ‘liming’ in this beautiful place any more. I have been one lucky person to have been able to come here and hang with a local for almost a week. Jasmine has shown me her Trinidad and for that I am truly grateful. I have eaten so many local foods and they have all been fantastic. I have impressed the locals no end with my love of pepper sauce. The food here is tasty, spicy, and pretty much specific to this island. ‘Nah boy’, I am so very much enamoured with this country! One of my friends asked me if I had posted photos of the food. Truth be told, I don’t have a lot of pics, its not the most photogenic, and I seriously just wanted to eat it! I have partaken in the local speciality of doubles, with ‘plenty’ I might add - for those unaware that is with extra hot sauce and/or the mango bone that is infused with more pepper. Doubles is made with 2 baras filled with a curry channa (chick peas), it originally started as a breakfast food, progressing to be an anytime of the day food. It’s nutritious, tasty, and sold at street side vendors everywhere. Apparently even pizza and KFC taste better over here. This I can now say I agree with. Not sure if the food tastes better, or if its adding the ketchup, mustard, and pepper sauce that assists with the taste upgrade.....

Jas took me to the home of street food a little town called St James, and made sure I got to have saheena, (seriously amazing spicy little deep fried spinachy deliciousness ) as well as alloo pie...amongst other things. The locals only really eat out at restaurants on special occasions so that meant Jas cooked for me a lot of the time, and wow, just wow. I loved the chicken curry (brown), smoked herring, baigan choka, salt fish, home made roti, the fabulous goat curry.... I could rave on, but google Trinidadian food and you’ll understand. Jas lives out in the ‘country’ to the South of Port of Spain, the capital. We spent one evening heading around to some of the local rum bars. Rum bars are everywhere here. Beer is cold and cheap (and made here - love the Stag and the Carib!). I got to meet a few of the locals. Over here they will buy you a drink even for something as simple as the fact that they had to order over you slightly. At the bar. They loved to meet the ‘white girl from Austalia’, as out here they dont see a lot like me... The good thing is none of it was them just trying it on with the foreigner. These are genuinely lovely, polite, caring people. I had a dance off with some girls from Venezuela, and ended up drinking way more drinks then I paid for, eating (they sell bar snacks and’cutters’ only at the rum shops) some tasty wontons at one place, and some really tasty fried chicken at another. We then got some free food from another lovely local who bought us a drink, and also then brought us across some Souse and Corn soup from his food stall (across the road from the rum shop). Anyway I can now say I have tried Souse, not sure I’d eat it again, it was flavourful, but pigs trotters in broth with onion and cucumber is not on my list of things to eat again! I think I have decided that I need to come back to Aus and start my own Trini food store, I think it’d be a huge hit. Love the local beers. Love the rum here. Jas made sure I tasted the Puncheon rum - 75 % and you never get a hangover or upset stomach... I wanted to bring some home, but alas no room in the suitcase! One of the biggest things, I was not aware that this is the home where Angostura bitters is bottled. It was first created in the town called Angostura in Venezuela by a German surgeon stationed in Venezuela, originally produced there between 1824 - 1830. In 1875, the plant was moved to Trinidad and that’s where it’s secret recipe is still produced today.

One of the main religions here is Hindu, they have a giant (85 feet - 26m) statue of Lord Hanuman Murti located in the grounds of Dattatreya Yoga. The statue is the second tallest in the world, and the tallest one in the western hemisphere. When we pulled up onsite there was one man looking after the bookstore who allowed us to enter the grounds and take photos. We weren't allowed to enter the temple/yoga centre as we weren't appropriately dressed. The gentleman then showed us the book explaining how the statue had been built and answered all my gazillion questions. It was like having our own private tour! Jas then took me down the road a little further to show me the temple in the sea. This temple was originally constructed by hand 1947 -52 by Sewdass Sadhu an immigrant from India. It has since been added to, and tidied up, but it's an amazing place, and a site of pilgrimage for Hindus. It's also one of the designated locations for Hindus to perform the funeral pyre. Hindu religion requires that the dead are burned near water and a holy place.

Brian Lara is still HUGE here. He is a home town Trini boy so I completely understand. Cricket is massive, and the new Brian Lara stadium is a huge landmark. They had a cricket game on when I was here (Trinidad vs Jamaica) but they had sold out the tickets otherwise we would have gone.

I spent a day at the beautiful Maracas beach, located on the northern part of Trini. On the way there we stopped at the lookout and had a quick look at the food stalls. I got to try some ‘Chow’, a garlicky spicy way of preserving such things as Pineapple, apple, mango, cucumber... its yummy and not too spicy and I really appreciated the stall holder giving me a taste ( and Jas’s friend Isabelle for buying some of the pineapple one). Maracas beach is a favourite with the locals and its a thing to do to have a ‘bake and shark’ when you go to the beach. Betcha cant guess what I had... Can I say amazing (again!!) You not only get your bake (which is a deep fried Roti) You get beautiful fresh deep fried shark fillet inside it, then you go to a buffet like area and add as many of the additions as you want . Yep, of course I added a bit of EVERYTHING . I had to taste it all. Seriously that thing was amazing. BTW I do taste everything first before adding pepper sauce... pepper sauce heightens the flavours. Jas’s friend Isabelle got her son in law to give us a shout out on the radio station he worked at ( they had it playing at the beach), so ‘Karen from Australia’ is now Trini Famous... love it!!

Jasmine took me out to the Pitch lake, in La Brea, and I’ll admit, I had no idea what it was ( I thought it was a lake!!) Anyway, some how we ended up with a colourful local as our personal guide, he was You tube famous and has apparently featured on David Attenboroughs visit to the lake. I have to sit and edit my ‘documentary’ when I’m back in Australia, it’ll be awesome.. I promise. Suffice to say the lake is the most amazing tar pit. Seriously amazing tar pit. The roads leading into the area are all like travelling over mini crazy hills due to the impact of the tar movements in the area. You have to use an authorised guide on the site, which is fair enough as a wrong step could see you disappear forever into the tar... literally... Trinidads pitch lake is the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world (estimated to hold about 10 million tonnes) Its covers about 100 acres and is about 250 feet deep. There is a cool legend involving the origin of the lake the involves a hummingbird (I like the story), Historically Walter Raleigh re-discovered the lake on his expedition there in 1595. It has that charming rotten egg smell, and the mud and sulphur water apparently have healing properties. Locals were there immersing themselves in some of the pools while we were there. As we didnt have swim suits we had to settle with getting coated in the mud on our legs, and for me, also my face...lol!!! I didnt get a chance to put it on myself, out guide was very keen to smear it all over my face... (and shirt and hair.. etc...). Rinsing it, after it had set, was a whole other process involving splashing what looked Iike green water all over my face (and legs), all I wanted to do was rinse my face with some fresh water afterwards - and it took over an hour or so until I finally got somewhere to do it. Let’s not talk about how much scrubbing it required later that night to get the last bits of our skin! A great fun day though, made all the better for our colourful guide! I have had a crash course in some of the Trinidadian slang/words and between that and their accents I am sometimes lost in a conversation... (definitely accents particularly when you are trying to enter the country and the border control guy is talking to you and you have to continually say, sorry what??? ) I’m a lot better now!!

Jas couldn’t make it over to Tobago as she had work scheduled at her house that she needed to be around for. So I decided to head over for a night, hire a car, and see what I could see. Its literally a 20 min flight over (only costs about 50 US return) FYI 24 hrs isn’t really enough to see everything. I didnt get to the water fall or national park. I had headed down to Store bay beach when I first arrived with instructions to try the curry crab, conch and dumplings in Tobago (its their local specialty, amongst a few other things). Have to say I liked the conch, crab was over cooked and dry, and dumplings were kind of chewy. The ‘provisions’ that I got with it were really nice though - Plantain, Potato, green banana, avocado ..I would have liked to have tried another outlet to give a second opinion, but didnt have the time. I did get to the beautiful Pigeon Park, a natural reserve area, filled with some shops, water sports hire, beautiful beaches and glorious spot to watch the sunset. I also got out to the Fort of King George in Scarborough hiking up the giant hill to take in the glorious views. Hilariously there was a traffic hold up on my way there due to some goats being herded along the road. Island time boy. I would have to say, as much as its a part of the one country, Tobago island is completely different to Trinidad. Its a lot more touristy for a start, it has more servicible beaches. The roads are not as pot holed as Trinidad. The people are still lovely, but you get the tourist scouters who are looking to sell you on anything they can. Its a beautiful place and I’m so glad I got to go across and visit. As always, I can always go back!

My time in the Caribbean has come to a close. (9-16 Oct). What an adventure. I have had a fabulous time, and recommend to anyone to come here and see this place, taste the food and meet the people for themselves. The country has their own issues with government corruption which impacts the improvement of infrastructure like roads etc. And there are warnings around safety as there are elements involved in crime that impact locals and tourists alike. This just makes Trinidad Tobago, not unlike a lot of other countries that I have visited on my adventures. It just means the more prepared you are to be open to new things, different ways of doing things, different cultures. The more you are aware of your own safety, and that of your belongings , the more you can avoid crime. Crime can impact you anywhere in the world, countries like this dont have it any more or less than others, it just seems to be in the media more....

[fivibtempcamp1983-blog]

KKW Body. I not a fan of any of the Kardashians and I find the bottle to be incredibly tacky (it like a sandpaper covered body that shaped like Kim? I guess?) but by God if it doesn smell amazing. I used Ulta points to cover the whole purchase, so I guess I technically didn pay for it.. What a film. When I wasn mesmerized by the insanely beautiful dance scenes, I was bored to tears by the characters explaining the plot each other or trying to cover my laughter in the theatre. Some of the scenes were hilarious, for example, "shit, Tito fried" had me covering my laughter so hard. "Yes so long as it's Conservative rogues," said Miss Cornelia, marching off with the honors of war. "Men and politicians are all tarred with 김제출장안마 the same brush. The Grits have it laid on thicker than the Conservatives, that's all CONSIDERABLY thicker. Being said, I still don like him though, but I a liberal. My parents though are black conservatives (admittedly more moderate ones) and they DESPISE Trump. They supported Obama for both of his elections too and voted for him in 2012 (when they finally became citizens). I been trying to lose weight now in earnest for around two months, and so far have lost 12lbs. When I went through the summer clothes process earlier this week, a few of those skinny items actually fit me! And some others were a little snug, but I should be able to wear them by the middle of the summer if I keep up my progress. I only had to pack away a few things "for next summer." That felt really good!. Actually a couple months ago she went on a long rant on Snapchat saying she's not ashamed, has nothing to hide, and laughed at the idea that she would lie about it because she saw no reason to. She pointed at all the areas in her face that she had filler previously, and made it clear that she didn't love it enough to do it again so she didn't. I believe she ended the Snapchat by saying all "this" (circling her face, with exception to her lips) and "this" (slapped her butt) was all her with some extra weight. Enter natural tooth whitening options. These won't whiten teeth the same way an OTC whitening kit or a dental procedure will, because they don't 김제출장안마 contain bleaching ingredients. There are some tricks, however, that will help to remove surface stains caused by some of the most common tooth staining culprits: foods and drinks we consume every day, like tomato sauce, wine and sports drinks. I used to sub to Ipsy, Birchbox, and Beauty Box 5. BB5 I stopped because of low quality. I stopped Ipsy when I built up a makeup collection. Overall I think my diet is good, but I find myself binging on certain foods namely grapes, Wheat Thins, and milk (fat free lactaid milk that I mix with sugar free hershey syrup, and it find it kind of addicting). Kind of a weird trio of foods to binge on, but it kind of just worked out that way. I think because of this I not losing the 5 or so pounds I like to lose (I 5 136lbs).. You are right about the possibility of patchiness. It because they are two liquids that don mix, even more so than the juicy shakers, hence the "shaker" part. So if you just rub your lips together the two parts don always blend well. OK so I am casually working on a bunch of different Genesys modules right now, just for fun. At the moment, I giving the most attention to a module set in faux ice age Earth. It kind of a pastiche, never really existed prehistory (so I can just have a greatest hits of cool extinct animals, without worrying about accuracy).

[withabackpackandcamera]

November 9th, 2018

Day 7: A Slow and Lazy Last Day in Yangon

Whoa, what a sleep last night! I was in such a deep sleep that I had a ridiculously vivid dream that I can no longer remember. Hopefully there was no sleep talking involved... else the quiet dorm room would’ve been quite disturbed.

This morning, I had to wake up early to finish packing, eat breakfast, and take my taxi to Heho Airport for my flight back to Yangon. I had a chance to say goodbye to Christian, Sebastian, and Marion before thanking my great hostel hosts Amy, Erica, and Fiona, all of whom did an awesome job of taking care of us and our needs and always remembering our names! What great people!

An hour after I left the hostel, I was at the airport, and a little more than an hour after that, I was back in Yangon. The first stop of the day after a quick break at the house was some lunch at Rangoon Tea House. Because I wanted to use today as a day to try certain well-known dishes in Myanmar knowing it was my last day to do so, I asked my two new friends Kyi and Sandar where I should go for mohinga, the national dish of Myanmar; they recommended Rangoon Tea House, a more upscale restaurant for food, known to be a little pricier and more conducive to foreigners, but still authentic. Originally, when I had made this plan to try mohinga, I heard from Jack in Nyaungshwe that Lucky Seven Teahouse had great mohinga but decided that going with the local recommendation would probably be more authentic. So I went to Rangoon Teahouse, which was actually super crowded, mostly with tourists. I ordered the Four Fish Mohinga, Pote Man Si Lone La Phey Yay (traditional Burmese tea with different proportions of evaporated and condensed milk), and No-Bake Chai Tea Cheesecake, which was black chai infused cheesecake with a sour cream topping. The food was so delicious! The mohinga was so yummy and so full of flavor and fragrance. A great meal to start my last day! And the tea was super good as well, a bit like Thai tea. After just the main meal, I was so uncomfortably full haha. Dessert was not such a great idea… but it was good nevertheless!

After stuffing myself, my next mission was gift/souvenir shopping. For this, I went to Bogyoke Market. My goal was to buy something that I could use to decorate the apartment back home (especially since I wasn’t able to buy something in Morocco last time); in this case, I was looking for a nice painting that Cynthia and I could add to our wall space. After searching the market at lightning speed, I finally found a couple of stalls selling the paintings I was hoping to buy. At first, I took a look at my different options and gauged pricing. I also looked through some samples to determine what style of painting I liked the best. And finally, after probably an hour of looking, I finally found a stall with enough options of a particular artist’s work to pick from (the artist was Ko Khine Thin Tar). After looking through all of the stall’s options, I finally settled on two 11x15 paintings for 27000 kyat after bargaining down from his asking price of 31000 kyat. Sadly, I couldn’t get it any lower, but that’s ok since it was still really cheap.

With my mission complete, I started my walk home, with a quick detour to the air-conditioned modern shopping center that was located right across the street from the market. And it was like any other big, major shopping center and provided a stark contrast to the market I had just come from. I strolled through briefly, took a look around, and left for home as the sun was starting to go down. It wasn’t a far walk until I reached home and once I was comfortable, I just chilled and took a quick nap until it was time to be picked up by Sandar for dinner with her and Kyi. By the time I was picked up, I was so tired that I wasn’t even hungry.

After sitting with Sandar in the car and driving through traffic to a part of town I hadn’t been to yet, we eventually made it to a restaurant called Jing Hpaw Myay, where we ate traditional Kachin food that originated from a region in northern Myanmar. Sandar ordered everything (it’s much easier to let the locals order for you) so I only have an idea of what we got (chicken, beef tongue, pork soup, stringy beef thing, another vegetarian dish, banana sprouts, quince juice) but overall, it was different compared to other foods I had had in Burma. I would describe the food, in general, as a bit more sour-y in taste. Not really my preference but it was a unique experience nevertheless. And it was nice to get a chance to see and eat with these two again and tell them a little bit about my week’s worth of travel stories in Bagan and Inle Lake.

With our plates cleaned and stomachs full, we parted ways with plans to meet up in the morning for breakfast before my flight to Taiwan. Again, Kyi was nice enough to drop me off back at the house. After cleaning up and packing up, I took the opportunity of a free evening to catch up with Cynthia, my family, and the world. Before long, it was late and I was pooped and ready for sleep. What a tiring and slightly uneventful travel day hahaha. But sometimes you need lazy days like this.

5 Things I Learned Today:

1. Mohinga is so delicious!!! It’s like a southeastern version of soup curry in Japan! Because of the fishy taste that is more characteristic of southeast Asian food. So very flavorful, so delicious! And in this case, it was a four-fish-based soup with vermicelli noodles. The soup base is from 4 fishies (at least at this restaurant, they were butterfish, sturgeon, catfish, and daggertooth), with lemongrass, coriander, fish sauce, and fresh chickpeas. My soup additionally had a clay pot duck egg, pea fritters, fish cake, gourd, and onion fritter. So freaking good!!! Highly recommended!

2. Si Lone tea, which is sweet black tea with evaporated and condensed milk, tastes like a mix between milk tea and Thai tea. Delicious!

3. Supposedly, when Kyi was in the later stages of his education, right before he entered university, there were university students strikes against the military-run government in 1996.

Essentially, the strike was to try and get the military government to step down. Unfortunately, it didn’t work and as a result of the strike, universities were closed for at least two years. As a result, many Burmese kids at that time who were seeking to pursue further education were unable to do so and had to leave the country to seek those missing opportunities. After a period of time, the universities were opened again. But because so many people weren’t able to go to university during those closed years, a ton of people applied leading to a huge logjam of students who needed education. To account for the huge influx of students, the schools just fast-tracked a ton of people through school, for good or for bad. Luckily, during this time, the medical school was able to remain open and operational.

4. The Rohinga Crisis from the perspective of a Burmese local: The conflict between the Burmese Buddhists in northwestern Myanmar and the Rohinga has been ongoing for decades, since the 1960s. Supposedly, the locals feel that the conflict has been blown a bit out of proportion to what is really going on, though it is true that there has been a recent escalation in violence. The local who I spoke with said that the Rohinga in northwestern Myanmar have not been good citizens of Myanmar and have not positively contributed to the Burmese community. Per the local, they were being extremely aggressive with their spread of Islam. For example, supposedly, they were selling off local lands to those with Islamic ties as a way to increase Islamic influence in the area and to push the local Buddhists out of the area. Because of those aggressive actions and behaviors, the local Buddhists, with backing from the government, lost their patience and decided to retaliate. As a result, the crisis was born. And unfortunately, it sounds like both sides are contributing to the violence and deaths of many innocent people.

5. The restricted areas all throughout Myanmar are mostly related to violence (the Rohinga crisis) or due to the drug-smuggling scene (opium, etc).

[harmonyresonant]

Limitations of wisdom and its affect on motivation.

The last time I fell in love I knew it was destined to fail, perhaps in one of the worst ways it could. I said to her it felt like two galaxies colliding, but galaxies can either group together or tear themselves apart and fly away.

Those moments come to me more than most I think, at least consciously, the thoughts that are so easy to let escape as trivialities, impulses to be excised with just as much fervour as their entrance, but yet if only accepted, could stop a mistake, or change your life.

What's the criteria for distinguishing these kinds of thoughts? Risk? Cost? Benefit? Joy? Importance? Substance? Love? I've spent years trying to find the real source of motivation, of my motivation, because at the end of fear is truth, and fear will only propel so far as your body and mind allow it.

Justifying motivation is not esoteric for the starved of food or hungry for love. Motivation and its reasons are intertwined with purpose, and with it - our sense of direction, and with that, our sense of growth or death.

Polony and tomato sauce with white bread, Bread on its own, Chips from the fish n chip shop, Nutri grain with no milk for dinner, no food brought to school, a home of bullying, dream killing, suppression. I'm just the tip of the iceberg. I empathise with the meth addict on the street, the Mum that boils her baby daughter, the husband that murders his family, each a victim of environment and circumstance left to play out its default option.

I know all about default. I know nearly everything that needs to be known about how it plays out. When I rejected it, I was commanded by every single person and circumstance around me to let go of the fight. I watched as my friends became the victims of it, drop outs, pregnant, jailed, drugged, abused, stiffled, angry, lost. Stop it. That's wrong. Are you sure? I can't believe you would do that. Take this, you owe me. Be more considerate. Let's have a talk. You just need to be a 16 year old. Your results are in. That's just how it is. It's time to move on. You seem chaotic. You just seem upset is all. I'm just trying to help. I think you need to see a psychologist. I think we should just be friends. If there were words to describe the amount of fury and anger I hold towards individuals of my past I would save you from them because I have shown each of these comments their due diligence and marvelled at my own self control. To entertain those people in my mind gives them an authority I refuse to allow, so I move on.

When global weather patterns are shifting and solutions are being found by quantum computer augmented AI systems as pornography fills every void that opens - spite, seemed like the most reasonable response to such as unreasonable world. At 11 through to 22 It worked to dissociate my want of meaning in my circumstances, a want of meaning in where I felt I should belong and where I am, people often pointing out I should be a drug addict and dead or in jail, adjunct simultaneously to those same individuals pressuring success with their own benchmarks. All three things only not the case because of a mixture of calculated precision and blind luck. They wouldn't know, because they are unable to know, they refuse to know, outright, in front of you, so I would achieve because fuck you. Anger and rage is bottomless, perfect for a mixed up misunderstood adolescent male. The nerve of family to attempt comparisons of their standards with my own makes me laugh with a deep seated sickness. They arent any better off knowing differently. I couldn't control myself if I indulged myself in their correction. I've done it to some, corrected them, but my capacity for flooding someone with sadness and tearing their soul from them isn't so much fun as violently calculated. It's what comes after, my mothers death a calculated suicide of neglect, the insidious idea to die and make everyone your victim to alleviate guilt for failing to be held punished for your sins ready like a conspiring death eater to leach its next victim through me. How she coughed up black tar of putrid rotted lung flesh and congealed blood as CPR accidentally flooded her airways, typical of wanton excess of disgust. These details are best left undisclosed until times like this. How they saw me as a victim when i spared them. Of course though, they were too cowardly to ask. Hugs as it were. For their embrace, but they soon realised I wasn't available for receiving empathy because when I look at people I see directly into their soul, and when they are ready, they tell me what they are afraid of, in their own way, and it was too much for my family to cope with, because they're afraid they were responsible for killing her and conspiring to create the circumstances albeit naively in arrogance which eroded my Mums mental health and therefore my sister and I's life. I looked directly at my Uncle Warren in the emergency department without a tear in my eye watching the circus unfolding in front of me and I saw it written over his face, laughing at her losing her job, her sadness, her divorce with the members of the Smith side, now she lay dead, then he looked away. The too hard basket became my home because that's what these people do to hard things, they are the lowest kinds of human, the ones that lie to themselves about their affect on children, and can't help but make it worse by leaving them there alone scared with no excuse other than fear. Besides, school was starting up in 4 weeks, there was ironing to do. Clothes to fold. Forms to sign. He'll be fine. He'll get over it. The young soldier boy. How if they demonstrated any strength to cry in front of me in regret i would explode, they don't deserve to cry. I hold onto this until they either die or reconcile it. I'm good at waiting.

So for a while I forgot what love even was. Then she stepped in. Blind luck reared its head, and she showed me a warmth, depth and love so beautiful, graceful and innocent I felt like if I touched her my fear and hatred would spread like a disease. There are certain decisions we make in life as people that we don't understand, and we wear the consequences. I am not blessed with that capacity, I was not afforded the resources needed to make the conscious skills we develop young, into the subconscious - everything became consciously calculated, what I wear, what order the day is in, what words I use, my tone, my posture, my timing, what people i need to manipulate, what are their current moods, their buttons, when the rain falls or the concrete cracks it has always been my fault or my responsibility - better me than my insane family. Of course you don't win by playing nicely. You don't learn by being comfortable. And of course, through the gauntlet, you don't feel good about it. Good or great, make your decision, and in poverty when you're broken, you are forced to choose great, usually for as long as it takes until your circumstances begin to sustain themselves, and there is only space for a few so you have to do what's necessary for as long as necessary. There were plenty of times I would punch my windows, the walls work cartons and scream, how pathetic, I got a hold of myself quickly. Got psychological problems? Bury them. Getting worse? Bury them. Life is not a documentary or a game, fail to achieve certain things in certain timelines while the cards are stacked against you and the consequences are extreme. Even more so without financial or social securities/networks. So after years of neglect she began to make me feel like I could rest. Like I deserved it. She helped me forgive myself for the stress I had caused myself and other people. She forgave me for being sorry that I couldn't be the guy she needed me to be, that I couldn't be Nathan because I was unsure who or what that even was.

Spite evaporated and then I was purposeless, my motivation gone, it disrupted my focus, my academic results, the routine of my fractured world. And she became my angel, she became the person that would forgive me for failing and tell me it would be alright and I would believe her because she understood me, I live in those moments just by remembering her, but as soon as she opened her arms she was gone. She was doing things my mother didn't and she coped a lot of difficulty from me for doing it and the legacy of failure in parenting, guardianship and neglect continued to haunt me, as it started to haunt then eventually remove those I loved. It wasn't the first time either, a pattern like many other. It was at that point that I made the decision to never allow it happen again. I would finish what she helped start, and with any luck, find a positive reason to endure the absolute crushing isolation of being the source of problems for those you deeply care about or die finding out, unable to be reached, usually impossible to help but this time different, now without the offensive weapons which I used to shield myself. I'm sure it would've been easier to approach me if I was outright hostile but people were watching, vultures waiting with their 'here to help check list' with step 1 as, 'Take a break'. Idiots.

The process is finished.

Now I am appreciating and beginning to give back in small ways to life.

I don't really remember what it feels like to love someone voluntarily. I guess that's how it's supposed to work, by accident, time, something like that, but I'm approaching a stage in my life where I'm too exhausted to care, maybe my Mum took it with her to her grave. Maybe I have had too many people come and go for good reasons to believe in holding onto someone. I finished the race first and early or last and everything's been packed up but for me it was always about finding a home in my heart, so I wouldnt look for it in someone else's, something that's as much given to you as much as fostered by yourself. It always felt like though I had reached the mountain peak, as soon as I got there I realised there's no way to go further up, so its time to look across and down at everything that's been done, take a break and look across to the next peak. I have no option but to hold onto the good things that've happened to me in my time, even if they're in totality a bit messy, as for the girl that saved me from myself, I'm no longer scared or fearful when I think of her now, like I might be dishonoring her, in a lot of ways she's still my angel. I hope we get to be friends one day once we've settled down so we can compare notes, we moved too fast to keep our both our feet on the ground long enough to be together but until then wherever she is I hope she is smiling and being taken care of because she is of such a rarity of courage and authenticity that it seems only she can reach people like me and that deserves happiness and real love.

Spread your wings.

[castlehead]

2. [bird crosses threshold of sweet air. you can taste the lightwaves. mouth running and railing here. bird crosses in periphery in other words inner eye. you want to bleed and achieve then also bleed from somewhere else, first it was yr nose. now what?

you wrenched two migraine pills off the counter and stuck them in there, that bleeding cavity, to be swallowed into languishing tar to drip someday and out thus the bitter asshole. that asshole is a whole delta the U.S. conceives, conceives as tho to one day be able to get there, and out into the Wild Blue; but its purpose here being as a hinderer of progress, kind of like with Reagan and Crack Cocaine.

an endgame to history in particular, and everybody anybody kings a-sudden wafted to lithe life by wht an eagle might wager’s a less than normal wingspan.

we are so gr8 we think, so then can write this and have it be interesting; then also think anyone’s inner eye’s already usd to their life enough, without me shoving mine holy stink under their nose. just as surely as ‘snowm[d]en’ is tucking his glasses into the rims of a bleeding nose bridge for a promo clutching the american flag and smiling, then taken aside to receive punishment to the solar plexus for the hours between takes.

the lost dexterity of mind, the achievements lost, the inevitable wane only that for the poesy in inevitable, unsealable anythings. my radicality shrinks; i take the pills and hear breathy sex heave against the walls my computer cups devices around in quadrilateral paths themselves walls of tech and wire.

i considered a mirror more than i considered the selfhood a hanging thing, there, seeing GOD and things, resolving myself not from but those bony arms, saved, arched to whack the page though soon, you c it in the shoulderblade; what crumbles you is the idea of the guy from that movie π, and bone mass surprisingly does pretty well for itself and wreaks all over this dead body taking a screwdriver to finally end the pain in his temples to his temples, then, a brain touched, though all the time by these mute waves of light, this assault of media and garbages of wasted moments clandestinely forming one’s personality out of that brutal, acrid sauce of regret, lessness!,

heed no one, watch no form, dissect derelict practices. then, o tragedy, the pang hit or button hit sways you once again into headaches that jar and amplify the simplest sound into a complex roomful of GOD and GRACE, and white, spritely, exquisitely]    

[randyscarpetcare-blog]

Viktor’s Law (OR: How to know if you can clean a spot or if you should call in a pro)

Murphy’s Law is “If it can go wrong, it will.” With this in mind, it’ll be no surprise to you, dear reader, that the day after I last cleaned my carpets, a meatball got up off of my little boy’s dinner plate and committed suicide, leaping from the table top, splattering on the carpet by Vik’s feet. A red radius of grease, shrapnel, and tomato sauce exploded from the orb as it made impact. Oh, the carnage!  Come to think of it, given the timing of this incident, it has got to be an example of another law altogether, not necessarily pertaining to what can go wrong so much as when. Let’s call it “Viktor’s Law.” We’ll state it as, “If it can go wrong at an inopportune time and/or location, it will.” It’s Murphy’s Law in spacetime.

Now, I’m fortunate enough to be trained as an elite specialist in this kind of situation. Not only could I adeptly navigate Vik’s mourning of his lost meatball (with a rousing chorus of “On Top Of Spaghetti”), I also possess the know-how to deal with the crime scene. The trick is to treat for the grease, but the red tomato sauce could pose another problem and may require an alternate solution. No problem. I’m a professional carpet cleaning technician. I got this.

But what if I wasn’t a carpet cleaner? What if I was an accountant who didn’t know all of the words to “On Top of Spaghetti,” let alone how to remove a spot from the carpet? How would I know what to do in this situation? Would I even know whether or not the spot was something that I could treat myself? Probably not.

Because no two spills or spots are the same, different chemicals and different processes are required in order to get optimum results. Let’s look at a few spots that you could handle on your own, and then we’ll talk about other spots which are best left to a professional.

Vomit and feces, gross as they may be, can usually be cleaned out of your carpet without calling in a professional. I’ve outlined this process in detail here. Gum can also be taken out with DIY methods. What you want to do is, fill a sandwich bag with ice, seal it, and leave it on top of the gum for 20-30 minutes. Once the gum is frozen(ish), it’ll be simple enough to scrape it off of the carpet strands. Whatever spotting is left can probably be removed with hot water and a little dish soap. Don’t use other soaps. Unless you can rinse and extract, soaps will leave residues in the carpet that act like a tar pit; every dinosaur that walks by will leave a fossil behind, and the cleaned spot will get dirty again quick. Instead of soaps, distilled water, vinegar, and hydrogen peroxide are better options. Vinegar’s a fine disinfectant (and bleach alternative) and peroxide is excellent for organic spots. Peroxide and cold water may even do the trick for cleaning blood out of your carpet, but I wouldn’t risk it if I were you. If you apply any heat or chemicals, you could end up cooking the blood, making it impossible to remove.

So, cooked blood. Yeah. This is a good point to discuss what to call a professional in for:

Red wine. Attempt to clean this yourself, and you risk shifting the PH, which will make cleaning more difficult, maybe impossible, even for a professional.

Plant messes. You’ll make things worse by grinding dirt into the carpet’s backing.

Paint, nail polish, ink, or wood stain. Don’t touch it. Abandon ship. Run away! Let it dry. If you attempt a cleaning, you could spread it.

Urine. I’ve written about this in detail here.

Anything spilled on wool or other natural fibers. You’ll ruin the carpet. Remember Murphy’s Law?

Murphy reminds us that things will go wrong, and Viktor reminds us that things will go wrong in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you’re in West Michigan, you’re lucky to have Randy’s Carpet Care available to right these wrongs for you – any time, any place. Estimates are always free, so when in doubt, call (616)392-1400 and ask Angela or Mindy to send me out to meet you. Just be gentle if you want to talk about leaping meatballs. The wounds are still fresh.