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terresdebrumestories · 5 years

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Clakr Kent, of Krypton - 3/4: Superman

FANDOM: DC’s cinematic universe. RATING: Mature. WORDCOUNT: 29 999 (Fic total: ~98k words) PAIRING(S): Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne (main focus is on Clark, though). CHARACTER(S): Kal-El | Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Jor-El, Lara Lor-Van, Kara Zor-El, Zor-El, Martha Kent, Alfred Pennyworth, Diana Prince, Barry Allen, Arthur Curry, Victor Stone, John Stewart, J’onn J’onn, plus a quick cameo by Lois Lane. GENRE: Alternate Universe (canon divergence), transition fic with romance. TRIGGER WARNING(S): A great deal of anxiety and self loathing, especially in parts one and two. Some descriptions are heavily inspired by my experience of dysphoria-induced dissociation. SUMMARY: Batman crashes on Krypton a few days before the Turn of the Year celebrations and Kal-El's life takes a sharp turn to the left, on a path that will ultimately lead him to becoming Clark Kent.

OTHER CHAPTERS: [I. Kal-El] [II. Shadow] [IV. Clark Kent] ALSO AVAILABLE: [On AO3] [On Dreamwidth]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thank you, still, to @stuvyx for the wonderful illustrations and to @susiecarter for the beta :D

Healing pods are designed to be a blank space. A place where the body can heal and the mind be left idle, bathed in warm fluids and soft bubbling noises. There is nothing else, in a pod, save maybe the dizzying feeling left behind by the abrupt disappearance of pain. Kal floats in that warmth forever—or maybe just a minute—and the silence around him is occasionally broken by a deep sound, muffled, as if it comes from far away.

Then there is a vibration, a great noise of suction like the emptying of a sink, and Kal finds himself thrown headfirst into the bone-deep cold of reality, shivering and with half a mind to scream. He struggles, blind and disoriented, against the burning things trying to pull him—up? Down? There is no telling. Kal gasps, blinks against the veil that will not let him bring the world into focus. Twists away from the burn and ache of something else on his skin—and sinks into darkness.

The world comes back in snatches. Shivers—cold, then hot, then cold again. Gray-green so dark, it is nearly black. Voices overhead, talking...to him, perhaps. Or rather about him. Then there is dark, a vast emptiness that lasts for a long time, until Kal’s mind reaches the surface once more. Smells. Something dry, warm on his clammy forehead. A voice, deep and gravelly. The abyss.

The cycle continues for a while, though Kal could not say how long if his life depended on it. Several times, he almost wakes—brings images of what happens then into the next attempt—until he can finally open his eyes, blink, and know that he is in a spacecraft. More blinking, a painful twist of his neck, and he learns that he is in a Kryptonian spacecraft, most likely the one some El ancestor had the forethought to smuggle under the Citadel when space travel was banned, after the Lanterns’ war.

Pain and remembrance come to him all at once, then, as if one had called the other, and he gasps around them—breathes in, deep and hard, until his lungs hurt, his throat aches, and there are burning lines running from the corners of his eyes. His body aches, too, muscles still sore around the scar where he was shot, and his neck feels rigid under him, painful enough that his one attempt at raising his head tears another pained gasp from him. He tries to focus on this, and not the rest, but the memory of it—Kara’s face as he was lowered into the pod—rushes back, and back, and back every time he tries to push it away, until he has no choice but to surrender to the sobs or choke on them. There is a hand on his forehead, then, cool and dry and a shade too strong to be entirely comforting, and Kal wishes he could stop himself from leaning into it, but does not have the strength for it yet.

“Stop moving,” Batman says, something stern in his tone even after he tries to soften his voice. “You’ll make things worse.”

The snort escapes Kal’s throat before he can even think of stopping it, neck twisting again in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of Kryo’s silvery form. Hunits like it were never meant to pilot a ship like this one, let alone on an intergalactic journey. It makes sense that it would be keeping its entire attention on the task, added programming or no...yet Kal’s throat tightens again when he cannot find it, homesickness so strong for just a moment that it threatens to engulf him again.

He forces himself to swallow instead—accepts the water Batman presses to his lips, and asks, “How long was I—?”

“You were in the pod for about four days,” Batman says, “and unconscious for the next thirty-six hours.”

Kal manages a nod, throat tightening despite his best efforts. Six days away from Krypton—six days since he saw a glimpse of it for the last time in his life. The thought feels strange, in his mind—overpowering yet not quite there, like an obnoxious mirage waiting to be dismissed or reveal itself as reality, and Kal breathes in deep, tries to ignore the call of it. It is not an easy task.

“Well,” he forces out in the end, hoping against hope that a new thread of conversation might be of some help redirecting his thoughts, “I suppose it could be worse.”

“Hardly,” Batman replies, and Kal’s mouth clicks shut, what little resolve he’d managed to muster vanishing in an instant.

“Batman,” he starts, but, not for the first time, Batman snaps:

“Do not ‘Batman’ me. You have been walking around sick and sleep-deprived—you endangered countless lives with your recklessness, including your own. That shot could have killed you! You are lucky the healing pod was well-maintained, or you might be paralyzed by now.”

“I am sorry,” Kal mumbles, stomach slowly sinking to somewhere beneath his recovery bed.

Guilt presses at his chest, at his temples, at the corners of his eyes. Batman is, after all, perfectly right. In point of fact, he is being remarkably restrained about this—he could be much, much harsher on the topic and still say nothing more than Kal deserves, nothing more than the truth. Kal knew, the second the cycle began, that there would be no excuse for it.

“I knew you were green,” Batman continues, hissing more than speaking now, “but had I known you were such a reckless idiot—did you think yourself immortal? Did you think death would not take you?”

Kal looks away, biting the inside of his cheek until his focus narrows down to the pain and not the burn of words he would never be able to take back—until his eyes close of their own accord, lids burning as if someone were trying to seal them with melted wax. Overhead, Batman takes a sharp breath in, and Kal wishes he could fall out of existence as easily as dust from a shelf.

“Did you even care that it could?”

Kal does not answer. Eventually, Batman’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, squeezing tight—too tight: the skin might bruise, but the gesture is a comfort nonetheless.

“Kryo says we should reach Earth in a few hours,” Batman says in a voice gone from furious to entirely blank. “You should take the opportunity to rest.”

There is the barest of pauses, as if Batman had inexplicably faltered, before he turns on his heel and leaves. Kal remains alone in the healing chambers of the ship, unable to bring himself to open his eyes. Batman might be right: perhaps Kal will like Earth. Perhaps he won’t. There is no way to be sure, but the one thing that is certain is that he will not see Krypton again for a long time, if he ever does. Tears gather in his eyes as fast as memories in his mind, and he makes no effort to repel either. His arrival on Earth—his installation, as far he can tell—will require his full attention, after all. If he is to lose himself in grief, he might as well do it while there is nothing else to do.

Krypton...the Citadel may not have been the best home, for Kal, but it was his home. He knew every wall, every room, every tapestry of it. The Citadel was a vast cocoon of familiarity and a—tenuous, but real—connection to a family he could never help but feel removed from. It was not an ideal home, but it was home, and now that Kal has left, the list of things he must mourn seems to go on forever. No more sunsets setting the mountains aflame with red light. No more standing on the balconies of the Stateroom of Peace and admiring the Lords and Ladies’ Citadel residences below. No more comforting himself with the knowledge that, whatever else might happen, there would always be his labs and his plants—and Kara—to return to.

Who can tell whether there will ever be that sort of space for him on Earth? The ship, he supposes, might be kept...but it will not be on Earth. What if Kal never truly adapts? Batman survived Krypton without much trouble on the physical side of things, so Kal is not too worried about that. But what if he never finds a way to fit in? And what will it cost him to even attempt it? He is willing to make the effort; that is not the question. But he does know all too well that sometimes, even doing one’s best is not enough...and what then?

There is no way to know. Kal lies there, on a small medical cot in an ancient spaceship, with nothing for company but the icy emptiness of space and an alien who must be overjoyed to come home, until exhaustion claims him and he finally falls into an uneasy sleep.

Kal wakes up with a shout of pain on his lips, the entire left side of his abdomen tingling as if with static. Most of his muscles ache, complaining over their disuse, the skin around them too tight and too dry for comfort. Kal breathes in deep, taking stock. The cot under him is moving—not in the smooth hovering glide of Kryptonian equipment, but rather with a regular rattle of small wheels on a smooth, hard surface. It sounds like the sort of cabinets Kal has encountered in the older corners of the Palace, antiques meant to store documents too precious to be traded for digital copies. A brief flash of himself as an antique—left in a glass case and surrounded by two or three conservation-specialized hunits—makes its way into Kal’s head, and he snorts against the hard material of something like a mask pressing on the lower half of his face. There is a blindfold on his eyes, too, but the feeling of the air on his face speaks of cool darkness rather than sunlight. The smell of water is in the air.

Kal raises a hand to pull his blindfold off.

“Do not,” Batman says overhead. “You are not to exert yourself until you are both healed and used to Earth’s atmosphere.”

Kal does not have it in himself to chuckle, even grimly so. Healing, he knows, will take time, but adapting to Earth’s characteristics...who knows how long that will take? Just because Batman stopped panting like an ox every time he moved after three weeks does not guarantee Kal will achieve the same. Even if he does, there is no saying what other problems Earth may pose to him. The planet shares a number of characteristics with Krypton, it is true. Batman would have died, otherwise. But it is also much smaller and much younger—as are its sun and its lone, undamaged moon. Who knows what that will do to his body?

“Would you at least remove the blindfold?” Kal manages. Then, when that provokes no response: “The fabric on my eyes?”

Batman speaks again, but over Kal rather than to him. Someone else—deep voice, steady tone,a different cadence to their words—answers him, and Kal’s tired brain somehow manages to recognize English, although he cannot make out any of the words he has learned. He sighs, trying to let the two voices lull him to sleep—he trusts Batman, after all, not to lead him into a trap—but in vain. He is grateful when, after a while, Batman’s hand—Batman’s naked hand!—brushes against his temple as it finally pulls Kal’s blindfold off.

“Thank you,” Kal manages, even as he blinks.

They are, as he suspected, not outdoors: a smooth, geometrical ceiling about twenty feet high blocks his view, light rippling over it with gentle irregularity. The lights are dim but clearly artificial, and while the space is too full to really echo, there is still a hollow quality to it as Batman and his companion discuss something or another over Kal’s bed.

A twist of his head reveals nothing but a rough wall of untouched stone to the right, the edges of Batman’s cape floating into view as he guides Kal’s bed along what must be some sort of walkway. To the left, a vast empty space, part of a large cavern that hasn’t been colonized by Batman’s vigilantism just yet. Kal stares at a large rock, jutting out of the water like Vohc rising from the depths of his very first creation, and follows the line of it into the darkness on the other side where a wall must be hiding. The walkway’s ceiling blocks his view when he tries to look further up, and he does not have the strength to twist enough to get a good look at the back of Batman’s cave; but he does catch a glimpse of a brighter area further in, the space built around—a statue, maybe. A column of some kind, in any case, and something Kal is reasonably sure is person-shaped, though whether it is meant to be an altar or a more profane sort of display, he does not know.

“Are these your headquarters?”

Batman remains quiet for a moment, while he and his—companion feels too impersonal. ‘Friend’ does not quite encompass the feeling in the air between them, much more reminiscent of Kal’s conversations with Kryo than the ones he used to have with Batman...and of course ‘hunit’ would be a wildly appropriate term to apply to any living being, especially one Batman addresses with that level of familiarity and respect. Whoever he is, he and Batman wheel Kal to a stop, the silence between them almost stony.

“Batman,” Kal manages, and is met with an explosive sigh.

“Yes. More precisely, you are now in the infirmary. Which I have, because I am not entirely foolish.”

Batman’s company speaks from somewhere on Kal’s right, and he sees Batman’s cowled head turn to look at them, the edge of his jaw squeezed tight. He does not answer, however, and turns back to Kal with a glare that makes Kal wish he could sink into the bed.

“Batman—”

“You deceived me.”

“What?” Kal protests. “No, I—”

“You told me you wished to help the citizens of El. You presented yourself as a man with a mission—not a death wish!”

Kal swallows, hands finding the edge of the medical cot and squeezing them as he blinks a sudden blur out of his eyes.

“I was not trying—”

“Were you not? You ignored every warning your body had to give, put everything you and your cousin had built in jeopardy—and all for what? To preserve your ego?”

Kal opens his mouth to protest—closes it. ‘That is not why I did it,’ he had been about to say, but would it have been true? He spent so much time focused only on putting one foot in front of the other—he never truly stopped to ponder his motivations for it. He wants to say ego was not the answer, but can he swear to the truth of it? Or does he only want to be seen in a better light than he deserves? He does not know—does not know that he wishes to know. Besides, does the answer truly matter to anyone but himself? His attitude the past few weeks constitutes either a dangerous inability to do what must be done, or a dangerous attempt to preserve undeserved pride, neither of which Batman should accept.

How could he? Kal may only have had a limited look at the man’s headquarters, but they are vast. They are full, too: full enough that even in such a cave the echo remains quite low, almost inaudible. Whether this cave is Batman's main lair or a secondary base, it must have taken years to assemble. Years of successful secrecy, years of building things Kal would never even have dreamed of accomplishing on Krypton.

Whatever Batman may be to his planet—however right Kal’s assumption that he and Shadow strove toward the same sort of goal, despite dramatic differences in their levels of success, turns out to be—it is quite clear that he has been working at it longer, harder, and far more competently than Kal ever managed.

“I apologize,” Kal says in the end, turning his face away from Batman, from the infirmary—from all of it, if he could.

To his right, Batman draws a breath in, ready to pursue the conversation—stops when his companion speaks. Four words, maybe five, and with no more steel in them than there had been before, but it is enough to shift the air in the room. At first the tension grows, as if on the verge of explosion—and then there is the scuff of a foot, the soft sound of fabric on concrete. Batman departs with the click of a door. For a few blessed seconds, all is quiet, and Kal swallows and blinks. Brings himself back under as much control as he can manage before the sound of Batman’s companion tinkering peters out. Kal keeps his gaze averted when the person steps nearer, focusing on the large rock in front of him, until the feeling of a hand on his shoulder—brief, soft, impersonally kind—makes him close his eyes again.

He is alone by the time he reopens them.

Kal must have fallen asleep without quite meaning to: he opens his eyes to the ceiling of Batman’s infirmary again, just in time for the door to click shut somewhere to the right of his head. His side is still quite sore, the skin itching with returning health, but his muscles feel mostly functional. With a huff of breath, Kal rolls over until he can prop himself up on his right elbow and take a more encompassing look at the cave.

He looks past his feet first, blinking at the sight of large metal doors set deep into the wall of the cave, the mechanisms necessary to have them move all but invisible. Whatever their purpose is, they look like the sort of things meant to withstand a siege. To the left, the walkway Kal was wheeled in on, flanked with two wheeled vehicles—ancient things, by Krypton’s standards, but Kal is starting to suspect they might not seem so to the average Earth citizen—and some sort of bulky aircraft. Kal studies it for a moment; notes the build of it, the disposition of its rotors, the way it is clearly meant for a lone pilot, before he moves on to the rest of the cave. There is the boulder he noticed on his way in—somehow larger and more menacing now that he is awake to see it. Behind it, glittering in the dark, an underground lake explains the damp coolness of the air.

It takes some effort to keep looking—Kal has to pull on still-tender skin in order to twist and follow the rough lines of the cave’s natural ceiling and find the bright white light of yet another glass case...a weapon room, perhaps, though it is difficult to say for sure. Kal has spent quite a lot of time poring over old books and microscopes, after all, and while his vision is not poor, it does show signs of use most Kryptonians' eyesight would not. It is difficult, in these conditions, to ascertain whether the shapes on the walls are truly objects or simple swaths of paint.

The display case, however, is easy to identify, and the armor inside unmistakable from that angle. Kal is still frowning at it when someone clears their throat behind him.

He turns around—too fast: it makes him hiss, flesh still tender. Healing pods have extraordinary properties, but it is a well-known fact that it does no one good to leave all the burdens of recovery to them. Kal takes a second to wish that were possible before he looks at the newcomer.

They are of average height, lean but not scrawny. Gray hair, cut short, parts on the side of their skull, and despite the scruff on their chin both the—visual aids, perhaps—and their clothes are immaculate, though the cuts and fabrics are foreign. But the care—the posture, the careful refusal to intrude—is familiar enough. Hunits, after all, are not the only sort of servants to be found on Krypton.

Kal watches as the domestic deposits a tray bearing water and a bowl of what seems to be broth—lukewarm, Kal assumes. It wouldn’t do to put his body through more effort than strictly necessary at this stage...especially not when they have no idea whether he will even be able to digest much of Earth’s food, if any. Batman’s ability to handle Ellon dishes with barely any discomfort is encouraging, but it does not, in the end, guarantee a similar outcome for Kal in any way.

“Thank you,” he tells the servant in English, flushing when he has to repeat himself.

Fortunately, terrible pronunciation is not enough to deter the alien—the human. Kal is on their planet, now: he is the alien. In any case, mangled phonetics or not, Batman’s servant does not seem to think less of Kal, smiling as they watch him dig into his predictably lukewarm yet delicious meal. At least he is lucky enough to start his days on Earth with a good meal. So good, in fact, that he waits until he has scraped every last drop out of the bowl before he thanks the servant again and, touching his forehead, says:

“My name is Kal.”

He repeats his name for good measure, and smiles when the human touches their chest rather than their head—"Alfred," they say. The oddity of the gesture is as charmingly incongruous in them as it was in Batman. The smile dims when Kal realizes he will need to adopt that same gesture in the future, and a number of other things he has yet to imagine but might very well find much more unpleasant than this.

He does not understand what Alfred says next, but the tone is easy to decipher, and Kal dismisses the concern with a practiced smile and a shake of his head. Then he asks:

“Where is Kryo?”

“Kryo?”

The corner of Alfred’s mouth twitches when Kal mimes Kryo’s shape in the air, but Kal ignores the urge to shrivel—squeezes his knee tightly enough for it to hurt—and watches the human point at the ceiling with one finger rather than their whole hand. Kal thanks the human in shaky English again, and is in the middle of wondering how to initiate something of a conversation when Batman appears at the door, Kryo hovering a step behind him.

He swallows, tensing without meaning to, and forbids himself from looking at Alfred for reassurance as Batman steps into the infirmary proper. There is something stiff in the way he moves, and when he speaks, it is with the grammatical forms of a noble and the familiarity of an equal.

“I was—harsh. This morning. That was...unnecessary.”

“Think nothing of it,” Kal says, heart hammering against his ribs without any good reason.

“I would,” Batman says, “but Alfred would disapprove.”

Alfred’s clothes rustle, when they recognize their name, but they do not comment, and Batman continues:

“He is pushier than he seems, but he is—not entirely wrong.”

“Please,” Kal says, voice somehow thinner and firmer at the same time, “there is no need to—”

“Look, you didn’t deserve—”

“Stop!” Kal all but shouts, blinking in surprise at his own outburst.

It takes him several seconds to bring his breathing back down to something bearable, to beat the urge to block his ears into submission. When he manages it, eyes stinging with vanishing pressure when he opens them, he finds his knuckles white on the coverlet. He has to work some more to swallow the sudden knot of tears in his throat, but once he does—once he feels his voice will remain steady enough—he ignores Batman’s renewed stiffness, pretends to forget about Alfred entirely, and asks Kryo:

“How long have I been in this cave?”

“Twelve hours and fifty-six minutes,” Kryo replies in its usual monotone. “The pod’s sedatives are all but out of your system by now.”

“Good. How long, do you think, until I recover?”

“You should be able to leave the bed in the next few days,” Kryo says. “Complete recovery is expected in one to three months, depending on the way you tend to your injury, and barring unforeseen complications.”

It is a good thing, Kal thinks—though he does not say it—that he will have little to do but recover in the upcoming days. Weeks...who knows how long, really. He knows little of Batman’s life for the present, the man incredibly discreet about it even when he still considered Kal a friend, but he knows enough to realize it will not afford Batman much time to take care of Kal. Should he even wish to. Whatever the road ahead may have in store for him, Kal had probably better prepare himself to face it alone.

“Thank you,” he tells Kryo, relieved when he manages to keep his sudden dread out of his voice.

And that is not his only source of reassurance: he has been done with his broth for ten minutes or so, now, and has yet to feel any adverse effect from it.

“Please set yourself up in language acquisition mode, and begin preparations for a learning course as soon as you gather enough data.”

“I did not know it could do that,” Batman says from his spot near the door.

Kal musters a tired smile.

“I suppose it is never too late to learn. It is a pity circumstances made this function useless to you, but I hope it might at least save you the trouble of finding me a tutor and explaining my presence on Earth, at least for a while.”

Besides, this way, Kal should be able to communicate with all relevant parties until he finds a place to settle in, whether on Earth or...elsewhere. Coming here was, after all, never part of the initial plan—that would have been the version of events in which an injured Kal left with a fully qualified physician as a companion, in addition to Kryo. But the moment came, and Batman was there, and why would Kara have deprived the Dark Sun of a most valued asset—and set herself up for the trouble of having to smuggle them back—when anyone could listen to a ship’s instructions and manage a well-functioning pod? It might have meant further gambling with Kal’s life, but he would have insisted on it, had he been conscious. He might have been reckless, and idiotic and—and a number of other things Batman has been too polite to call him, but Kal does have a certain sense of priorities, if nothing else.

“It should,” Batman says with a nod.

Kal watches him turn around and busy himself with the medical readings—some in the English alphabet, some in Ellon. The pointed ears of his cowl glint like teeth even in the darkness. Things remain quiet while Kal musters the will to speak, the broad expanse of Batman’s back more frightening now than it used to be back on Krypton, back before he tried to apologize, like he’d done something wrong, and Kal—swallows, ignores the tightness of his throat, and asks:

“Is there any way I might sit up?”

Most beds on Krypton are at least equipped with a positioning mechanism, designed to ease the daily life of the elderly. A bead mattress such as Kal is used to would most likely be too much to ask, but perhaps a bend in the bed’s frame...Kal bites on a hiss when Batman turns back around and fiddles with a small white remote, the bed lifting Kal’s upper body in a way that makes his left side twinge. Batman’s lips thin.

“I apologize,” Kal says, and feels his teeth click together when Batman cuts in:

“You nearly died. Pain is to be expected.”

Kal blinks, struggling to breathe for a few seconds. Then, in an effort to take the focus away from himself, he asks:

“Does Alfred know your face?”

“Yes,” Batman says.

His face—what portion of his face Kal can see, at least—does something rather complicated, his jaw tensing for the briefest moment before he says:

“I’m afraid I’m quite unused to sharing that secret with people.”

It takes Kal a few seconds longer than it should before he realizes what Batman is saying, what the raising of his hand means. This time, it is easy to ignore the pain in his side when he pushes himself off the mattress, hand outstretched, and says:

“Oh, no, there is no need—”

But Batman breathes in once, sharp and determined, and unclasps something in the neck of his suit, and suddenly there he is, staring at Kal with an expression—Gods. Kal is—he knows himself well enough to realize he would be transfixed by Batman’s face no matter what expression it bore. The strong jaw, the slight dip in the chin. The way his hair falls into his eyes, mussed from the cowl. It would, Kal is sure, take very little for a face like this to enrapture him completely.

But the way Batman looks at him is—there is something in it that pulls at Kal’s insides, something wild and raw—frightened, almost, but then...no. This is—why would Batman be afraid of him? He has seen every inch of Kal so far, a side of him so pathetic he never even dared to allow it into the light of day in front of Kara. How could a man like Batman be scared of—of that? Ridiculous. Kal blinks, heart hammering against his chest, and when he is done he finds Batman composed once more, face as neutral as it ever was under the cowl.

Somewhere at the bottom of Kal’s stomach, a shamefully perverse part of him misses—whatever made Batman’s face look like that, and he is still trying to figure out what to say when Batman clears his throat and turns away to inspect one of his displays with a look of intense focus.

“Kryo says you have undergone a fifteen percent amelioration,” he tells the display in a painfully neutral tone, and Kal—

“Thank you,” he blurts out, using the most respectful forms he can think of.

Batman pauses—so brief, so swiftly smoothed—and fiddles with the display screen in his hands.

“You helped me before,” he says without looking at Kal. “It seemed fair to return the favor now that you were injured.”

“Yes,” Kal makes himself say, the heat of a flush all but setting his neck and ears on fire. “Thank you for that, too.”

He is almost entirely certain he does not imagine the click of Batman’s teeth when he closes his mouth again.

Three days come and go, although Kal would not know that for sure if it weren’t for Kryo’s help. He spends most of that time sleeping and, once the suit is returned to him, using part of the material as a reading screen to lose himself in one of his favorite Flamebird myths. Not that there is nothing else for him to do; far from it. He must learn English, for one, and it wouldn’t go amiss for him to try and discover more about Earth’s cultures—or at the very least, the one Earth culture he is most likely to encounter in the near future.

He does not, however, have the slightest idea of where to begin, no true study plan—as this particular function of Kryo’s relies on the quantity of audio samples it can gather, and both Batman and Alfred are rather sparse with their words. There is also, of course, the matter of Batman’s six-month-long unplanned absence to deal with, and while Kal cannot possibly be of any help to them in that regard, he does at least know how to make himself unobtrusive during times such as these.

It is this skill of his that threatens to send him and Batman into their next argument. Kal, after all, does not only possess a functioning sense of when he is not wanted, but also a state-of-the-art multi-function military suit. In the end, it takes him comparatively little effort—although it does require a healthy dose of irritation at being forced to use a bedpan—to ignore Kryo’s injunctions not to leave the bed, slip into the suit and, having adjusted it to his needs, make his own way to the nearest bathroom.

The distance between said bathroom and Kal’s infirmary bed is irrelevant: by the time he is done with his business, all it takes is a couple of steps—three, if he is feeling particularly generous towards himself—before he has to sit down, winded beyond even making use of the suit. He is still sitting there, breathing deep and trying to keep the pain at bay with an archaic prayer to Rao, the cold of the stone seeping into his back, when Batman happens to pass by.

He has discarded the uniform this time, clad in a simple white shirt similar to Alfred’s usual uniform—and a style of pants that reveals much more of his backside than Ellon clothing did while somehow making the definition in his thighs much harder to discern. Not that Kal spends all that much time looking, but Batman is a beautiful man, and it would quite possibly be harder not to notice these things. Besides, with Batman refusing to do anything but stand by Kal’s side and look down at him with an expression Kal finds himself incapable of deciphering, there actually is little for him to do besides admire his host’s physique. Until, that is, the silence becomes unbearable.

“May I help you?” Kal blurts out.

He has enough time to stammer through half an apology at the ridiculous nature of the question before Batman nods at his legs.

“You kept the color.”

Kal looks down at himself, where the white cotton of his night shirt—Batman’s eyebrows rose when he heard the request—gives way to the skin-tight crimson of Shadow’s uniform, the material thicker than usual but still utterly recognizable in design. He feels himself blush.

“Restructuring it takes some focus,” he admits, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “Altering the color for this seemed like a waste of energy.”

“By ‘this’, I presume you meant getting out of bed before you were supposed to?”

Kal blushes harder, but does not deny it. What would be the point? The evidence is more than damning. What he does instead is brace himself for the return trip, making the suit prop his legs through the motions of standing up, and then blink in surprise when he wobbles and Batman catches his elbow with a bare hand. Kal might well be slightly more aware of the contact than is entirely appropriate.

“Thank you,” he mutters, and focuses on his feet rather than look up at Batman’s face when he hums.

“I have been meaning to ask how you built it for some time, actually,” Batman says after a few steps, glancing down at the suit just long enough for Kal to catch the movement from the corner of his eye.

“Oh, uh...I—I didn’t, actually,” Kal admits. “It’s Zodri technology. I became quite lost during a visit to their Citadel and stumbled onto a prototype of it—it was a genuine accident,” he adds, when Batman’s lips quirk upward.

Before then—six months before then, to be precise—he had been doing what he could with more traditional equipment. The abandoned elevator shaft in his lab had been a pain to go through, and swinging between roofs far scarier than anything Kal would ever care to experience again. That is not a time he will ever truly miss, but it would feel wrong to take credit for a miracle he had no part in, save perhaps being his pathetic self and growing distracted by reflected light in the luckiest of places.

“I think they’d accounted for just about every method of stealing their new technology save for someone strolling through the door and cutting some of the nanites off the prototype. Kryo did more to turn that suit over to my service than I ever did.”

“Criminal oversight on their part,” Batman says, and this time Kal allows himself to smile down at his feet.

“Pride makes a fool of many a man—and you might have noticed the great Houses of Krypton have no shortage of it.”

“Except you.”

Kal remains quiet until they reach his bed again and he can fall on the mattress with very little dignity. He knows the pinch of his lips is too pronounced for Batman to miss it, how unsubtle he is being—how unsubtle he is, as a rule—but there is little else he can do against the wave of shame and tears threatening to submerge him. He looks around the cave instead; the back of it is quite familiar at this point, although Kal has yet to be allowed near the front, let alone the upper level.

None of what he sees seems remotely achievable by one man, let alone quickly, and he forgets to look for a minefield before he asks Batman:

“How long have you been using these facilities?”

“Twenty years,” Batman replies—smooth, controlled. Convinced, possibly, that Kal missed the breath he took before he spoke. “Give or take.”

Kal turns back toward Batman, unable to hide the awe that seizes him—nor anything else, for that matter, though at least Batman is kind enough not to remark on it. There is a pause between them while Kal debates on the merits of asking his next question, but then it becomes apparent there is precious little of his dignity left intact, and Batman was already dismissive of him long before meeting Shadow. Kal might as well ask.

“How did you survive all of this for so long?”

“I am a better fighter than you are,” Batman replies.

Kal’s mouth opens and closes, treacherous heat crawling up his throat and into his eyes like lava bursting out of a reluctant volcano. He turns around, then. Refuses to yield to Batman’s hand on his shoulder.

“Get out,” he manages through the tight fit of his throat.

The mix of relief and disappointment at how easily Batman complies is a bitterly familiar sensation.

Ten days after his hasty departure from Krypton, Kal is allowed to walk under his own power again. He wears the suit, still—although in the form of dark gray slacks rather than Shadow’s form-fitting leggings—and he has to brace himself on Alfred’s arm for it, but his legs are actually up to the task, and that is all that matters.

Kal has not had any significant conversation since his latest attempt to leave the infirmary, for Alfred suggested the day before yesterday that Kryo attempt connecting itself to something the old man called ‘the internet’. The hunit has since been quite busy attempting to download it all and, judging from the fact that it has yet to emerge from the task or send any kind of distress signal, is still at it. As for Batman...he has, so far, kept his distance, a fact Kal found himself altogether more and less bothered by than he would have thought, both at the same time.

“He’s just so—opaque,” Kal tells the old servant when they reach the front of the cave, and Alfred has to make it clear Kal is not to go up the stairs. “I—I understand why he wouldn't want to associate with me, and I don’t intend to force it once he sees fit to have me out of here. I just—well, he is the only person I can talk to around here. Could talk to.”

Of course, ‘have a conversation with’ would be a more appropriate way to phrase it, but still. Being used to a certain state of isolation does not necessarily make it more agreeable to bear. Still, with Batman apparently out of reach for the time being, Alfred remains Kal’s only company, and it would not do to antagonize him. Kal lets himself be steered back toward the rear of the cave, where Batman’s vehicles and medical equipment reside, but does not resist a glance back as soon as the artificial ceiling gives way to the natural width of the cave. (Nor, he notes, does Alfred seem too keen on preventing it.)

It is a weapons room up there—the weapons lined around the walls make that clear—but it is one in name only. In the glass cases in the wall, old armors glare at the void, previous versions of Batman’s uniform preserved like trophies, mementos of what could easily be confused for past glory, if it weren’t for the centerpiece. Kal does not recognize the design. Has no context for the different colors, not enough knowledge of English to recognize the words scrawled in bright yellow all over the torso. He does know a memorial armor when he sees one, though—has walked by his grandmother’s often enough to know the signs. The way the room is oriented around the case; the slight falter in Alfred’s touch when Kal pauses. The way Batman purposefully avoids looking at it as he comes down the stairs wound around it and locks eyes with Kal instead.

He is much less surprised than the would have anticipated when Batman comes down to his level of the cave and relieves Alfred of his duty. For a while, they walk. Their footsteps do not echo, the cave too well-engineered for that, but the silence between them is so absolute that Kal almost imagines that they do. The more frightened side of him longs for small talk—an update on Kryo; a remark on his outfit, oh-so-similar to what Batman himself wears.

What he gets instead is silence. A short breath—the last one before drowning—and then Batman’s voice, almost offensively casual:

“It seems to me like I came across as quite—cavalier during our last conversation,” he says.

Kal has not bothered with the royal forms of Ellon since he was on Earth, Shadow’s words simpler to maintain and devoid of the ghosts attached to Kal’s more formal speech. Batman however, has either failed to notice—unlikely—or refused to acknowledge the change, sticking to the ones Kal first taught him. They do not make the gap between them quite as wide as it was when the man insisted on addressing Kal as a prince—merely enough to tell a Citadel Lord apart from a Mountain Lord of equal riches—but they do imply some form of superiority on Kal’s part; and tonight, more than any other night, Kal wonders whether they are a misguided attempt to preserve his pride or a form of deliberate mockery.

He does not dare to ask, however, and only hums in response, eyes still firmly on his feet as he follows Batman’s lead down the walkway.

“I did not mean to offend you when I compared—”

“That was not the problem,” Kal retorts, anger flaring with the abrupt certainty that Batman is fully aware of that, even though those words die in his throat before he can truly consider saying them. “Your superior skills were never in contest. But I have—I was only Shadow for eight years. Eight! And it nearly—”

Kal breaks off. Pauses to breathe through the enormity of what he has just said. What he does not want to think about. He did not mean for things to work out in such a way, but then Batman—Kal did not exactly care enough to put much effort into preventing that outcome, either.

“I am not—I was not trying to—” Kal pauses again. Breathes in the scent of chilly water and underground moisture. Then, keeping a tight leash on his tone: “I was not working toward a particular goal, but I know what I risked, and I know what I did or did not do. I—I tried to be more like you. I wish I could be more like you—that I could...help you, somehow. But I cannot be Shadow anymore. I wish I could but I—”

Kal hisses, swallowing against the hard stone in his throat, but does not find it in himself to say the rest. To acknowledge what Batman figured out days ago. He takes the last few steps to the infirmary doors instead, leaning on the threshold to get away from the unbearable heat of Batman’s hand on his elbow.

(Away from the bone-deep wish that he could afford to lean into it as much as he wants to.)

“I already have help,” Batman says after a heavy pause. Then, when Kal can’t help but glance toward the cave’s upper level: “Had help.”

Batman does not turn around, and so Kal does not look at the empty armor again. He looks at Batman instead—the wrinkles in his brow, around his eyes. The lines around his mouth that might follow suit soon. He sees the tension around Batman’s mouth, and the very tip of a scar peeking out of his shirt collar—the rough lines of his hands so at odds with the fine fabrics he favors when not in his nightly uniform. How many years of climbing rooftops in the night does it take to create a man like him? What sort of will? Nothing that Kal possesses, that much has been made clear, but that does not make him any less desirous to figure the answers out.

“I trained him,” Batman says after a long pause, angling his body away from the armor at the front of the cave, his gaze away from Kal. “Worked with him. Then he died.”

Kal makes himself hold Batman’s gaze, though the gesture costs him more than he would have thought. It is the first time time Kal sees that sort of harsh resolve on Batman’s uncovered face; but not, he suspects, the first time it has graced the man’s features.

“We will bring you back to full health,” Batman says at last, the tone of his voice leaving no room for discussion, “and then I will help you reach a destination of your choosing. Our contacts within the Green Lanterns have to be good for something.”

Kal nods, and wonders why admitting that he would very much like to remain on Earth feels too momentous to voice.

It comes as a rather significant surprise, to Kal, that that particular conversation with Batman should make things easier for him, but that is still the end result. After all, if even the partner Batman trained himself was not skilled enough to survive, how was Shadow—with his minimal training, his isolation, his poor grasp on the prerequisites of a vigilante’s life—ever going to do this for much longer? It is luck, pure and simple, that allowed him to survive that long, and realizing he never truly had control over it is—it makes it easier to focus on the present, if nothing else. When Kryo finally finishes downloading the internet after three days spent on the task, Kal throws himself into learning English with the energy of a man with absolutely nothing else to do.

It goes both faster and slower than Kal would have expected—the grammar is much simpler than Council’s, to say nothing of Ellon, but English phonetics are...well, they exist. Kal keeps stumbling on some of them, and no amount of self-quizzing or perusing the resources Kryo managed to compile can erase the fact that he does not actually have that many occasions to practice spoken English, except during Alfred’s visits around mealtimes. On the upside, Kal is getting fairly good at distinguishing the nuanced tastes of broths and soups.

“What do have?” he asks Alfred that evening while they set the table.

There is little doubt, in his mind, that Alfred would rather be performing domestic tasks alone—the Gods know no servant on Krypton would ever allow a noble to help them in their daily work—but Kal is not a prince anymore, and he does have some practice with pretending not to understand a rule so he can get what he needs. All he has to do is to think of this as a mission—call up some of Shadow’s strength of will—and here he is, twenty days into his indefinite stay on Earth and almost able to set a table. He tries not to think too much about what his family would think if they realized how much he is enjoying this.

“‘What are we having’,” Alfred corrects as he brings his tray carrier over to the tiny table.

Kal recognizes the word ‘soup’ and some form of negation, which, combined with the new eating implements, give him some grounds to hope for solid food...a wish fulfilled when Alfred lifts the cover for the main dish, and Kal discovers an array of colorful vegetables with a simple sauce, most of which—he assumes—he has had as a soup before. He takes his seat at the table just as Batman enters the cave, and doesn’t let his smile drop until after they have both started on their salad.

“Is there a problem?” Batman asks after a couple more bites.

“I think that will depend on you,” Kal admits, voice growing too thin for his taste. He clears his throat, and makes himself continue: “I was...well, in all honesty, I’ve been growing rather bored here, so in an effort to distract myself and learn more about this planet, I asked Kryo—”

“You had it search for information on the Batman,” Batman says, voice gone entirely flat.

Kal has to steel himself for it, but he nods and keep his eyes level with Batman's anyway. He may not have had the intention to do any thorough reading—all he wanted was the name of Batman’s city, since the subject has only rarely come up between them and, when it has, has brought more grunts than answers. Still, snooping is snooping, and there is no point in denying it now.

“What I failed to anticipate,” Kal tells Batman, knuckles tightening on his cutlery, “was that Kryo would take Batman to mean you as a person rather than just your vigilante persona, so—”

“You know who I am.”

“I know what your civilian name is,” Kal corrects. “I didn’t read further than that. I also had Kryo destroy the file, and gave it firm instructions never to share that information with anyone unless you explicitly permitted it. I have no intention of exposing you, you have my word. But I thought you should know.”

There is a long, long silence while Batman chews on his salad with the sort of care that used to have politicians on their toes when Kal's aunt and uncle displayed it. Kal watches the man’s precise movements, the deliberate absence of tension in the line of his shoulders—his neck, his mouth—and fights the urge to curl in on himself as if he truly thought Batman would hit him.

“So,” Batman says eventually, tone so even Kal has to wonder if it is truly natural, “you know—”

“I know your name is Bruce Wayne,” Kal says, glad for some reason that Alfred isn’t here to overhear, “but nothing else.”

“Good,” Bru—Batman says.

Then he sets his fork and knife down with infinite care, dabs his lips clean with a delicate napkin, and excuses himself from the table with his plate only half finished.

“I talked to a friend,” Batman says as he enters the infirmary the next day. “She is willing to take you in.”

Kal blinks, entirely unprepared for this conversation, although he does have a sneaking suspicion that he knows exactly what prompted it.

“You are well on your way to recovery,” Batman continues without even a hint of hesitation, “and we have vetted enough Earth foods you can eat for you to survive outside this cave. There will be things to watch out for as you decide where you wish to go next, but short of keeping you here for another six months, this is about as safe as we can make you for the next step of that journey.”

“Of course,” Kal murmurs with a nod, not trusting his voice to come out right.

He has been getting a little stir-crazy, lately, and it will do him good to see other parts of Earth, especially if he wants to stay here. It will be nice to meet this friend of Batman’s, not to mention make new experiences for himself. Nevertheless, the timing of it is—it stings, just a little. But then Kal does not have any ground to stand on here, and so he listens as Batman tells him about a place called Kansas and a woman named Martha Kent.

“She helped me when I had nowhere to go,” Batman says in lieu of explaining how they met, or what he was doing several hundred miles away from his city in the first place. “We stayed in touch afterwards.”

Kal nods, wondering whether—and if yes, how—Martha Kent knows the name of the man she saved. It is possible; Kal can’t imagine Batman accepting anything less than absolute privacy, unless he were unconscious and cut off from Alfred entirely. But it sounds just as likely that the vigilante would have kept his face a secret even after Mrs. Kent helped patch him up. Kal will have to wait and see.

“Obviously, you do not have to agree,” Batman says, when Kal, lost in thought, misses his cue, “if you would rather not risk the security breach—”

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Kal cuts in, blinking once at the statement. “I trust your judgment. If you trust her, I am satisfied.”

Batman pauses to stare at Kal, lips pursed and eyebrows drawn down, and this time Kal widens his eyes in question. He does not truly expect a response—is not really surprised when Batman shakes his head rather than answer—but he would be lying if he said he was not curious about the reaction. Though with the way things have been going the past few days, Kal is starting to suspect this will merely join the long list of things he will never understand about Batman.

“The only problem,” Batman says after a moment, tone almost circumspect, as if he expects Kal to do something entirely outlandish any minute now, “is discretion. There is a shapeshifter in the Justice League who made sure Batman’s absence remained unnoticed, but Bruce Wayne has only been back on Earth for a few weeks. Transportation is not a problem, but—��

“Oh,” Kal cuts in when he catches Batman’s meaning, “my suit has a stealth function.”

He chuckles when Batman raises an eyebrow, but orders the suit to switch mode anyway. The camouflage is far from Kal’s favorite feature—he has yet to go through something as unnerving as being unable to distinguish the shape of his own body, even with floating hands—but it is efficient, and, once Batman tests it, proves decently resistant to basic scanning methods.

“Well,” the man says once he has gathered all the information he needed about this particular feature, “that solves a few problems.”

It takes a bit of time for Batman to organize everything—some of it spent verifying Kal’s affirmations regarding Kryo’s anti-gravitational properties—but on the twenty-fifth day of Kal’s stay on Earth he, Batman and Alfred finally depart for Kansas.

The first leg of the trip is entirely silent, owing as much to Kal’s current invisibility—and the subsequent need to pretend he doesn’t exist, lest someone think Bruce Wayne is losing his mind—as to Batman’s foul mood. Why that should be, Kal has no idea. Didn’t the man want him gone, after all? He should be happy. There is, of course, a chance that he is simply unhappy Kal gets to see the inside of his house—glass and metal everywhere. Not a spot of dust, not a single personal object left in view. Kal’s knowledge of Terran homes is practically nonexistent, but even then he fails to see what Bruce could find so embarrassing about it. It is almost as if no one lived there; what harm could possibly come of Kal seeing this? Still, it is clear Batman is uncomfortable the whole time it takes them to cross the house, and so Kal does not linger, nor attempt to strike up a conversation.

The sky outside is overcast, pewter gray rather than the deep ocher Kal is used to; but the smell of water in the air is the same, and the wind feels almost as cool on his skin as it did back in the Ellon mountains. The first fat drops of rain spattering on Batman’s car—a sleek black vehicle, which, if it weren’t for the wheels, would not have stood out too terribly on Krypton—are like a balm to Kal’s soul, the sky at least trying to match itself to the heavy feeling in his chest. He is, after all, leaving the first home he has ever known on Earth...which may not have been much of a home at all, not in the traditional sense, but it was a familiar place, and comfortable, by now. It is only to be expected that Kal would feel something like a pinch of nostalgia when forced to leave it.

Despite all that, things progress smoothly until they reach the airport itself. It is not so much the look of it that poses a problem. The pale gray shade and blocky shape of it are a far cry from Kryptonian architecture’s organic lines and darker colors, but that was only to be expected. The aircraft, however...Kal shudders.

“When you said ‘ jet ’,” he tells Batman under his breath, “I imagined something a little more advanced.”

“Are you scared?” Batman asks at a similar volume, angling himself so it looks like he’s talking to Alfred.

“At the risk of offending you,” Kal replies, unable to stop himself from sounding cross, “these look positively primitive to me.”

Batman’s snort is quiet, but the earpiece he wears makes it more than easy to pick up on. Kal, if he is honest with himself—which he tries to be, as a rule—is perfectly capable of admitting the fear seems ridiculous. He has made jumps far more dangerous than this, after all. Gods, if nothing else, Kal himself finds his own fear ridiculous...but the fact remains that he would much rather be swinging between the roofs of El than about to board one of these things. Even riding a h’mori as ill-tempered as H’raka seems abruptly preferable to flinging himself into the air on the back of what is, essentially, a spacious missile.

There is nothing to be done about it, though. Even were Batman willing to consider a last-minute change in plans, which seems unlikely given what Kal knows of the man, he did describe his jet as being at the forefront of technology. There is no smoother ride to be found on the planet, at least not on such short notice, and so Kal swallows the discomfort and follows Batman across the tarmac and up the steps with a weight in his stomach.

“Do you truly feel that uncomfortable with it?” Batman asks once he is seated, several rows away from Kal. “I’ve seen the beasts you ride on Krypton. Those can hardly be any less uncertain a ride than this."

“You’re right, for the most part,” Kal has to admit.

He still has vivid—and terrifying—memories of his first ride, seven years old and clutching the pommel of his mother’s saddle with white-knuckled fingers as the wind blew through his hair and swallowed his screams. But he had strong arms to hold him in place then, and a harness...and on the one occasion when he did fall, a trained animal with significant fondness for him that wasted no time in snatching him out of the sky.

“I would still prefer to fly on a living animal.”

“I am afraid we do not have any of those available,” Batman says, and Kal smiles under the helmet, thinner than he would like.

There is a pause, and then Batman says:

“You should take the opportunity to read up on Kansas while we fly. It would do you good to know some things about your new place of residence.”

“What is it like?” Kal asks, eyes drifting to where Batman is doing an excellent impression of a man hard at work—although for what reason, Kal can’t quite figure.

“Not this rainy,” Batman retorts with a jerk of his head toward the window, where the storm has picked up in intensity, streams of water gliding over the tiny windows. “And very flat.”

Nothing like El, then. Kal, abruptly glad for his invisibility, hums and braces himself for the pressure of takeoff.

The sky when they land is, if at all possible, even more uniformly gray than it was back in Gotham. Batman and Alfred both assure Kal the weather—although not the humidity—is usually better in the summer, but it does nothing to prevent Kal from longing for El’s dry mountain air. Earth, so far, has felt strangely like a soup, and Kal makes a mental note to include that in his next letter to Kara. It is a comfort to think this, in that it alleviates the loneliness of the place and allows Kal to remain quiet and composed as he climbs into Batman’s rented car. It still doesn’t quite make up for the foreignness of the landscape—the endless swathes of yellowed crops waiting for harvest, the ruler-straight lines of roads that have never had to find their way through knife-sharp rocks.

There is a turn, eventually—well, there are several turns, on several roads sitting at ninety-degrees angles from each other, but this one is an actual curve. It weaves through two fields: one mostly empty save for the yellowing grass on the ground and a four-legged mammal with a rather long neck; the next much wider and more trampled, filled with at least fifty adult mammals of a different sort. They are much rounder, for a start, brown where the other animal is black, and obviously heavier, even from a distance. The horns, though proportionally much shorter than a hurak’s, add to the impressive ensemble, and Kal can’t resist asking—in Ellon, for the sake of his own comfort—“What are these things, on the left?”

“Cows,” Batman replies. “Do you like them?”

“I think so,” Kal says with a shrug he knows Batman can’t see. “They look majestic.”

Batman chuckles at the word, and Kal is about to ask why when Alfred announces, “Here we are.”

Kal turns around and, taking advantage of his invisibility and the impossibility of his wearing a seatbelt while camouflaged, leans forward until he can fit most of his torso between the front seats and take a look at his home for the next undefined period of time.

He notices the red building—a barn, Alfred calls it—first. It sits to the left of the land, next to a larger blue building. Both are made of wood, both could probably use a new coat of paint, but only the blue one seems to have direct access to the left-hand field with its many cows—a shed of some sort, then? Behind them, a field of gray-golden plants lines the horizon, a few green trees sprinkled in the distance in a stark contrast to the pewter-gray sky. Kal follows the lines of it to the right, where the other animal—a horse, Batman says—grazes with a certain nonchalance, and from there to what must be the house.

It must have been white, originally, though age and the ambient light have turned it gray. A cubic building, two stories tall, with symmetrical windows on the facade and a comfortable front porch with a cushioned bench on the left. Golden light spills from inside, the sky overcast enough to make mid-afternoon feel like evening, and while Kal’s stomach hasn’t quite stopped lurching since he got off Batman’s plane, the sight of the open door makes something warm curl in his chest, and he smiles as he wills his suit into the shape of more ordinary clothes...and then, as he walks, there is a click of wood, the front door opens, and Martha Kent emerges from the depths of her home.

She is a fairly tall woman in a flower-patterned shirt and faded jeans whose loose black-and-gray hair floats in the wind even as she opens an umbrella against the first fat drops of rain. Kal, a step behind Alfred and two behind Batman, watches her push her hair out of the way and hurry towards them in plastic clogs, raising her umbrella high over her head and bypassing Batman entirely in order to shield...Kal. He blinks, surprised, and blushes when he fails to understand what she’s saying.

She laughs it off though, fussing gently at Kal’s shoulder and exchanging what he can only assume are remarks about the weather—he thinks he hears the word "rain" in there—with Bruce and Alfred. Together they hurry inside and shed their muddy shoes under the porch, Mrs. Kent’s eyebrows rising when she notices the nanobots starting in on the cleaning process. Then Kal is ushered inside the house and steered to the right toward a low couch upholstered in blue, a coffee table made of pale wood sitting in front of it. He stands just past the threshold, not daring to go further yet, and watches Mrs. Kent all but force a towel on Bru—Batman and Alfred each, the three of them amiably chatting all the while.

Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say Alfred and Mrs. Kent are amiably chatting. Bruce—Kal was really trying to keep calling him Batman, fairly sure a switch wouldn’t be appreciated, but the man trying to finesse his way out from under Mrs. Kent’s attention is clearly far too flustered to be Batman. He loses the fight, Alfred and Mrs. Kent clearly having decided to team up and lovingly bully him into self-care, and is about done toweling himself dry when there is a loud bang and the sound of metal crashing to the ground, and then Kryo appears on the other side of the screen door. Kal hides his face in his hand.

“I’m so sorry,” he tells the assembly in English, “I forgot...stop?”

All three Terrans are looking at him, now, and he switches to Ellon in an attempt to at least spare himself the embarrassment of not knowing how to convey a simple thought.

“I forgot to turn off the proximity protocols—they kept it stable in the trunk, but—”

“But now my car is ruined,” Bruce sighs—and yes, it is still Bruce.

It is...uncertain, whether this change happened before and Kal did not notice it, or whether Bruce was unable—or unwilling?—to be anything other than Batman while Kal was in the cave. Regardless, there is something different in the slant of his shoulders now, a—not a relaxation, exactly. Kal doubts, sometimes, that Bruce even knows how to truly relax—not that he is one to pull the first feather. Still, from the outside it seems like a certain lessening of tension has taken place, and it isn’t something Kal remembers seeing before. The contrast is subtle, but real, and it’s enough for Kal to only mildly panic during Bruce’s five-second pause.

“Well,” Bruce says afterwards, already gesturing toward the door, “I suppose we might as well let it in.”

He does, and Kal is grateful for it, as it means the rest of the conversation, though in rapid English, is perfectly understandable for him.

“This is Kryo,” Bruce tells Mrs. Kent, “Kal’s personal supercomptuer-slash-butler. It’ll handle translations as long as they’re needed.”

Kal gives Mrs. Kent a polite nod, and can’t stop himself from blinking when she turns to him with a wide grin—the kind that makes people’s eyes crinkle, even. The force of it is enough of a surprise that Kal misses Mrs. Kent’s words entirely, never mind Kryo’s superimposed translation. He’s still trying to collect himself enough to ask his new hostess to repeat herself when he finds himself gently but inescapably directed to an open kitchen and its well-worn table, its wooden cupboards and the smell of freshly-brewed coffee. On Mrs. Kent’s instruction, Kal sits down on one of the pale wooden chairs, and tries not to scowl when a look at Bruce reveals the man all but smirking at him. Kal blinks, blushes, and then does his best to convey ‘I know you’re just glad not to be the main focus anymore’ without opening his mouth.

“I was thoroughly briefed on your food restrictions,” Mrs. Kent says as she deposits a thick slice of apple pie and a mug of coffee in front of Kal, forcing him to turn away from Bruce—who he could swear is starting to look a little nervous at the edges.

“I may have sent along a few allergy warnings,” Bruce says, and Kal doesn’t need to turn around in order to picture Alfred’s face as he deadpans:

“Six pages of them.”

Kal...has some practice, controlling what sort of emotions he lets other people see. Bruce-as-Batman may have been witness to more slips than anyone else in the world, but for the most part Kal has managed to keep the worst of his inadequacies to himself—often by design, but sometimes also thanks to happy accidents. It’s the same thing that happens now: Kal’s nerves burst out of him in a short, sharp bout of laughter before the blush blooms in his cheeks—his forehead, his ears—and spreads warmth all through his chest. Out of every new thing he has tried since he came to Earth, after all, only two ingredients have caused him any trouble, and even then nothing worse than a long sneezing fit and a slight bout of nausea...nothing to fill six pages with, really.

(But then, he notes, he is sipping on a coffee with just the right dose of sugar, and Mrs. Kent didn’t have to ask him how he took it.)

“Your coffee is excellent,” Kal tells Mrs. Kent once he’s mostly recovered from his surprise. “Thank you very much for having me here."

He doesn’t think he imagines the way Bruce seems to relax on the other side of the table, but before he can make sure of what he’s seen, Mrs. Kent all but beams at him, and Kal doesn’t hesitate before answering in kind. In all honesty, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it, even if his body hadn’t barreled into the response without consulting him: how could he not smile at someone who feels like a small sun took a kryton form and decided to warm him specifically? It feels too good here, too warm not to smile—and then blush as red as the sun when Mrs. Kent all but coos at him.

“Well,” she says, “aren’t you a sweetheart.”

“Why, Mr. El,” Alfred murmurs, “it seems you have been adopted.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Kal retorts, and then he takes a deep breath in.

Alfred—he doesn’t know. Of course he can’t know, or something of it would have shown, but the reminder—the reopening of that particular wound here, of all places—Kal blinks, throat tighter than he thought it would be.

“I...apologize,” Alfred says, clearly perplexed by Kal’s reaction, which is evidently not as subtle as he wishes it were. “I didn’t mean any offense—”

“There’s nothing wrong with being adopted,” Mrs. Kent says, gentle but unyielding, and Kal blushes harder, stares at the green material of his coffee mug.

“I know,” he admits, relieved when his voice doesn’t quite break on the word. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. It’s just—I wasn’t, and—I thought you knew,” he finishes lamely, barely daring a glance at Bruce.

“Knew what?”

Kal blushes harder than he remembers blushing in his entire life before now, the heat of it prickling at his armpits and the palms of his hands. It is bad enough to know this about himself—bad enough to know what the rest of Krypton thinks of it—but to have to explain it here—

“That I’m—that I was...not adopted,” he says, cowering in the face of the revelation.

There is a long pause, during which Kal is quite sure significant glances are exchanges over his head, before Bruce asks, “Kal, what exactly does it mean to you when you hear ‘adopted’?”

“Well,” Kal manages through a tight throat, “properly grown, of course.”

He dares to look up, then, and can’t help a frown when he realizes all three of his companions look utterly puzzled.

“In the growing genesis chambers, in Kandor?”

Another pause, and then Bruce’s features shiver through half a second of shock.

“Wait,” he says, “grown, as in...growing a plant?”

“Well, yes,” Kal replies, nerves turning his shame to impatience—if he is to go through this humiliating an ordeal, he might as well get it over with as quickly as possible. “Normal families put in a request to the Wise Council specifying their social status, their respective Guilds, and the child’s chosen Guild; wait for the the engineering to be done; and pick their child up three weeks after harvest. But my parents were—they decided to—to—grow me at home,” Kal finishes with a dejected sigh, unable to remember the words to describe what he is.

“You mean your mother got pregnant with you,” Bruce says after a short, stunned silence.

The archaisms sound even worse than they usually do in Kryo’s electronic voice, and Kal wonders if having this conversation entirely in Ellon would have been better or worse. He nods.

“And then she gave birth to you.”

Kal nods again.

“Kal,” Bruce says, more careful of his words than Kal has ever heard him, “that’s how everyone is born on Earth.”

Kal raises his head so fast he actually does pull a muscle, and winces at the pain. From the other side of the table, Bruce gives him something that’s almost a smile, though his eyebrows are still caught in a frown, and Kal swallows, unable to figure out what, exactly, is pressing so hard at his throat. He thinks, briefly, of the whispers that used to follow him back in El—and then breathes a long sigh of relief when he realizes he’ll never have to deal with that here. No matter how he may feel about this whole thing—and that is definitely something he will need to pay some attention to in the future—this is an undeniably wonderful thing to learn about Earth, and he has to wipe at his eyes before he can say:

“Well, that’s—that’s good news.”

He doesn’t dare try to say more right away, not when he has no idea what he even wants to say; but fortunately the other three, if they have questions, keep them to themselves. Silence settles between them. It is not uncomfortable, exactly, but it is heavy with the strange tension of high differences in emotional states in a group—until the oven beeps.

“Right!” Mrs. Kent exclaims, rising from her seat and reaching for a towel on one of the cupboard handles, “I’d forgotten about dinner.”

Kal goes to offer his help when she turns to take a dish of what she calls lasagna—‘approved ingredients only!’—out of her oven, but finds himself promptly shooed back, while Alfred uses the confusion to retrieve plates and cutlery from a different cupboard. Kal smiles almost despite himself when Mrs. Kent gives the butler a playful glare, but otherwise allows himself to be served.

He shouldn’t—really, he shouldn’t. He isn’t a prince here, and if he is going to live as a regular person, he has to learn how to perform regular tasks, too. He is, however, aware that he has no idea how to actually help in this situation, and still reeling from the things he learned tonight besides. Perhaps it is best if he sits down and processes things for a while. He can always learn to wash dishes later on, after all. He’s no Batman, but he did survive as Shadow for a while: he can probably out-stubborn Mrs. Kent if he needs to.

In the meantime, Kal watches his companions set the table. Bruce, clearly used to Alfred and Mrs. Kent’s bickering about menial tasks—playful, but with an edge—has sat back too. Kal is abruptly struck by the realization that this, all of it, has been tailored specifically for him. Not for a prince, not for the House of El, but him, Kal. And what’s more, out of the people who were instrumental in creating this entire situation, the only one who even knows for sure that Kal is of royal blood—Alfred, he’s quite sure, has made an accurate guess based on Kryo, but hasn't said anything—has never paid any more attention to that than external circumstances required.

That is a first, in Kal’s life. Oh, he can’t claim to have lacked any material thing he might have wanted, of course! But if there was ever a time when all the people in his life worked together to make a situation more agreeable to him, without any other considerations in mind, Kal has forgotten it. This time, he has to sniffle when he wipes his eyes again.

“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Kent says as she sits down, “is everything okay?”

Kal, eyes still firmly glued to his plate—and frankly unwilling to raise his gaze for the time being—nods.

“Yes, thank you,” he says after a shaky breath. Then, because English has yet to prove capable of conveying the full meaning of what Kal wants to say, he adds in Ellon: “You are very kind to me. Thank you.”

Kryo can’t, of course, translate the grammatical forms Kal used—there is nothing in English grammar to indicate the respect due to a benefactor—but Mrs. Kent pats his hand anyway.

Once dinner is finished and the dishes done—again, without Kal’s help, owing to Alfred’s absolutely devious use of the phrase ‘are you questioning my abilities?’—Kal tries to have a hand in making up his room, at least, but finds himself turned down again. Mrs. Kent’s mouth quirks into an amused smile as she tells him, “Stop acting like this is going to be a permanent situation. Tonight you’re a guest and I’ll be treating you like one—tomorrow you become part of the household and then I’ll put you to work.”

Kal, if his host’s smile is any indication, doesn’t quite succeed in hiding his relief at the words, but that doesn’t bother him in the least. In fact, the satisfaction of knowing he won’t remain an imposition on Mrs. Kent for much longer is enough to settle his nerves for the most part, and he goes back down the stairs to the living room and then the front porch, where Bruce is watching rain fall down on the land.

“I told you so,” he says in Ellon when Kal joins him, “you cannot win against her.”

“We shall see,” Kal replies.

In front of them, the steady drizzle has turned storm-dulled greens and grayed gold even darker, puddles slowly growing in the front garden. It’s quite unusual to have that much rain at once, Mrs. Kent said during dinner, sparking a conversation regarding Earth’s climate change. That is a topic Kal wants to look into, eventually, the dangers of changing an entire planet’s composition as far beyond measure on Earth as they are on Krypton...right now, however, the rain does a good job of masking the landscape’s best features and promises, thus admirably mirroring his mood. That, however, is another thing he chooses not to look at too closely for tonight, acutely aware that he may not have that much else to worry about in the upcoming days.

“You should know,” Bruce says after a bit, “that there is a significant chance she will not allow you out of her office until she has built a space dedicated to you.”

Kal protested, at first, when Mrs. Kent mentioned rearranging her study. He is more than capable of—and entirely willing to—sleep on the couch. Mrs. Kent, however, looked offended when he suggested it, ordering him to stop his nonsense and insisting that she was not yet old enough to have forgotten the proper way to treat people, especially when they’re going to live with her. Kal suspects the surprise he felt at Mrs. Kent's vehemence didn’t play as big a part in his inability to tell her no as he would like to think.

“Was she like this with you?” Kal asks after a while, sticking with the comfort of Ellon for now. “When you first came to her, I mean.”

“Yes and no,” Bruce replies, leaning sideways into one of the porch’s support beams. “My injuries were worse than yours when she first brought me here, and she put a great deal of effort into caring for me until I could be moved back to Gotham.”

“But?” Kal prompts when Bruce’s pause lasts longer than anticipated.

“I am not as...disciplined a patient as you are. Or an exile.”

Kal breathes in, more sharply than he meant to, at the reminder, but Batman is not wrong. He is an exiled man. It would take a tremendous change in Krypton’s governments—both local and planetary—before anyone would consider even pushing back against what is sure to be a call for his death. And even were that to happen, Kal highly doubts they would allow him back anyway—not without debating it for several years, at any rate. The chances of him seeing Krypton again are…slim.

“Did you receive any news from your cousin?”

Kal nods. Even with Krypton's considerably advanced technology, it takes time for messages to travel from there to Earth, and then back. Writing to Kara—letting her know he was alive and on the way to a full recovery—was one of the first things he did when he woke up, not ten days after leaving Krypton. From there it took almost five Green Lantern Coalition Days—roughly the same length as Kryptonian days, and no more than three hours shorter than Earth days—for his message to travel through a multitude of relatively short-distance channels and reach Kara. Based on this, and knowledge of Kara’s constraints and habits, Kal isn’t expecting her second letter for another four or five Earth days, at best. Still, it makes for a piece of home to look forward to, and the thought is enough to bring a small smile to his lips.

“She’s doing fine,” he tells Batman. “The official version of evens is that Kal-El’s decision to elope—”

“Elope?”

“To run away,” Kal says, and doesn’t allow himself to falter before he adds: “Generally with the intent to marry—or at least live with—whoever you are eloping with.”

Bruce nods once, sharp, stiffer than he was a minute ago. It’s a bit of a surprise, considering how unruffled he usually is, and even Kal realizes the cover story is nothing more than a convenient way to leave Kara free to continue her work with the Dark Sun directly. Yes, it makes Kal want to blush, but it isn’t like his threshold for blushing is as high as it should be in the first place.

“I assume by ‘official version of events’, you mean the government is covering up your identity,” Batman says, several seconds late but in a steady voice.

“A fair assumption,” Kal says, stomach twisting, gaze falling on his hands.

Kara didn’t share any details about that—she didn’t share much of any detail at all, in fact, most of her letter dutifully comprised of reproach and lamenting his terrible life decisions, the feeling of betrayal that filled her when she learned of his secret identity. The shame it would bring their family, if any of this were to be made public. It was hardly the most pleasant thing Kal had read in his life, but at least it had allowed Kara to signal that she was safe, and that’s really all Kal could have hoped for. Given the circumstances, his present situation is, quite frankly, clearly superior to what he used to assume discovery would bring.

“And Shadow?”

“Soon to be tried,” Kal says, fingers squeezing harder at the railing. “Then...the death penalty, I imagine.”

There is no guessing who the man who will play his part in the trial might be, and no room for Kara to tell him, either. That, and any other question Kal has—how Kara managed to keep her involvement a secret even after the bug’s pilot saw her face, what the Wise Council will do to El after all of this—will most likely remain unanswered forever, or until they can meet one another again.

He is bracing himself for the moment when he needs to explain all of that to Bruce, but, whether because Bruce has reached that conclusion himself or because he is trying to be considerate—most likely the former, Kal thinks with unexpected amusement—Bruce doesn’t ask.

“It...might sound callous,” Kal confesses after several seconds have passed with only the sound and smell of rain between them, “but part of me is glad to be here.”

“It is perfectly normal to rejoice at being alive,” Bruce points out in a soft voice, and Kal smiles.

“You’re right. But I’m particularly glad to be alive here .”

He doesn’t have the time to check whether he imagined Bruce’s blush or not before the front door opens and bathes them both in golden light.

“The room is ready,” Alfred tells them, nothing but a dark silhouette in the light from the house, and the sight makes Kal smile.

“Thank you, Alfred,” Kal tells him. He turns back to Bruce then, nerves tingling without knowing why, and says in Ellon: “I believe that’s my cue to retire for the night...I assume the two of you won’t be long here after that?”

“No,” Bruce confirms. “I have things to deal with in Gotham.”

“Of course,” Kal agrees, the smile easier to summon than the end of his career as Shadow ought to permit. “We’ll stay in touch, then?”

Bruce nods. Kal waits a beat, but no further words come, and so he shuffles his feet a little before saying:

“Goodnight, Bruce.”

“Goodnight.”

A smile for Alfred.

“Goodnight, Alfred. Thank you for everything.”

“You’re quite welcome, Mister El,” Alfred replies with a small smile of his own.

Kal nods again and steps inside, climbing the stairs two at a time to get to the landing. There are only three doors there: the bathroom at the end of the corridor—open and lit, as if in waiting—Mrs. Kent’s bedroom door, and, to the left, the smallest room. Kal steps inside to find it crowded with rows and rows of shelves filled with binders and what Kal assumes must be boxes of files. A large black desk and its accompanying wheeled chair have been pushed to the not-so-far left of the room to make way for a brown fold-out armchair currently in bed position. Kal takes in the sun-faded pale yellow paint on the walls, the plaid blanket folded at the foot of the bed. There are pictures and other documents in frames on the walls, trinkets on the shelves...and, comfortingly enough, a potted plant on the windowsill.

“I know, it’s not much,” Mrs. Kent says in a rueful tone, probably mistaking Kal’s silence for disappointment, “but at least it’s comfortable.”

“Oh, no,” Kal protests, surprised himself at his sincerity, “no, it’s perfect. Really,” he insists when Mrs. Kent’s eyebrows rise high on her forehead, “it is. Thank you very much, Mrs. Kent.”

Mrs. Kent bursts out laughing at that, growing three shades pinker in the space of a second.

“Sorry,” she says immediately after, “I’m sorry. You’re quite welcome, but Mrs. Kent was my mother-in-law—you have to call me Martha.”

“Oh,” Kal says, pleasantly confused, “of course. Thank you, Martha. And please, do call me Kal.”

Martha nods again, still smiling—it makes it impossible for Kal to do anything but smile in response, even when Kryo all but buzzes in protest.

“Well, I have to go see Bruce and Alfred off,” Martha says after a puzzled look at the hunit, “but please make yourself at home—I’ve left you a toothbrush and something to sleep in on the toilet seat. Goodnight, Kal.”

“Goodnight, Martha.”

Kal watches her make her way to the stairs with a smile on his face, then turns back to Kryo, unable to restrain himself from frowning.

“Kryo,” he tells the hunit in Ellon, “I understand this is not part of your usual protocol, but you’ll have to get used to people calling me by my first name here.”

“You have lost the diction of a prince,” Kryo starts, but Kal shrugs it off.

“So? In case it escaped your notice, I also lost the status of a prince. Krypton has no relevance here, and even if it did, Earth would be Green Lantern territory. On this planet, I’m just an ordinary man, and people will address me like one. Please don’t protest unless I tell you to.”

“Very well, Kal-El,” Kryo says, and Kal sighs.

Hunits are not, generally speaking, programmed to emulate emotion, but that has never stopped anyone from feeling like they have expressed some, especially Kal. Still, he ignores the perceived disapproval to look inside his bedroom and sigh.

“I don’t believe you’ll fit in there,” he tells Kryo. “Not comfortably, anyway. Would you mind staying above the stairs for the night? You’d be free to wander, but the corridor is too small for you to stay there.”

“Of course,” Kryo says.

It bobs in place and goes to settle itself in the one place where it won’t bother anyone, and Kal nods at it before going to prepare for the night. The bathroom is small—barely the size of his closet back on Krypton. In fact, Kal is quite sure he could fit the entire floor in his old rooms. The equipment is foreign, and the shade of blue on the walls would be considered excessive and gauche on Krypton...yet he looks at it all—runs a hand over the worn-soft fabric of the nightclothes Martha picked out for him—and smiles harder than he remembers smiling in a long time.

Despite both Bruce's and Martha’s promises of sun-kissed summers, the next week is made of rain, rain, more rain, and the occasional light drizzle. It has the potential to become a real problem for the crops, and Kal, still something of a botanist even this far away from home and the reasons he started studying plants in the first place, spends more than a little time staring at the pouring skies by Martha’s side.

She didn’t lie at all, that first night: rain or no, there are things to be done on the farm. They feed the cows in the rain—and discover, to everybody’s surprise, that the animals have an inexplicable fondness for Kal and specifically for trying to lick his face. They repair a damaged section of fencing in the rain, and drive to the vet’s clinic and back in the rain—subsequently spending a good half-hour out of the the rain but in the shower to clean up Martha’s newly neutered dog. They spend so much time outside under the downpour Kal’s skin itches afterward, pinker and tighter than it should be on his cheeks and shoulders. They put it down to the cold, at first; then when the feeling doesn’t fade, Martha clicks her tongue and says something about polluted rain.

Thus limited to the inside of the house—despite Bruce’s insistence, on the phone, that Kal should consider coming back to the cave for a round of testing, even if it means Bruce has to send Alfred and the jet to collect him—Kal shifts his focus to household tasks. He learns, in no particular order: to bake a cake, to make his own bed, to play checkers, to sweep the floor, to play Chutes and Ladders, to do the dishes, and to never question Martha when she affirms Kansas has the only football team worthy of her support.

(Bruce, when Kal shares this discovery in a text, sends another team’s logo back, and Kal decides he doesn’t know enough about Earth sports to get into that debate.)

Kara’s reply arrives sooner than expected: barely a day after Kal’s arrival on Martha’s farm. He leaves the itching out of his response, but goes over everything else in as much detail as he can—it takes him two days before he is satisfied with it—and, when the exercise proves to be more difficult than he would have liked, asks Martha for a notebook and takes to writing down as much of the things he thinks and feels as he can. It might lengthen his letters to Kara, but if it means he can come back to his notes later on and remember what it felt like to watch Jeopardy for the first time, or to discover the taste of dark chocolate chip mint ice cream, Kal is willing to take it.

On Kal’s second Tuesday at Martha's farm, he wakes up much sooner than he thought he would, something different in the air compared to all the other mornings he’s spent there. He opens his eyes with a reluctant sigh, gaze falling immediately to the blinds and the pale gray light filtering through the cracks, and blinks until his brain finally catches up. Scrambling out of bed, he jumps over a stack of cardboard boxes labeled ‘Jonathan’—the clothes now mostly waiting in the hamper for him to wash them and wear them again, while Shadow’s suit sort of...stands there—and rushes to the window. He struggles with it somewhat, making what must be quite the racket, but finally manages to unstick it with a triumphant noise, pushes the blinds open, and doesn’t even try to stop the awed ‘oh’ from leaving his lips.

The world is still shrouded with mist at this hour, lending the air a cool, silvery sheen sharp enough to remind Kal of home when he inhales. To the right, the orchard’s trees stand vigil in the pre-dawn mist, indistinct shapes waiting for the world to wake up like children still caught in dreams. Kal sweeps his gaze over the fields, still all but impossible to tell apart from the sky, and then to the storehouse and the barn, standing still as mountains while the day rises out of yesterday’s rain.

Kal watches, fascinated, as the long streaks of brighter light overhead incline far enough to kiss the top of the barn’s roof and turn it from gray to a vibrant maroon, the trimmings pale gold until sunlight catches the red paint and turns them almost orange with it. Slowly, softly, like a flower blooming, Kansas emerges from the mist, blue at the top and gold at the bottom, Martha’s barn the sort of vibrant vermilion even Krypton with its red sun and red moons and red dust has only ever dreamed of. It draws the eye at first, but the slope of its roof leads back down to the wheat below and then farther, and farther still, trying to catch a horizon so vast it makes Kal sway with the force of a feeling almost like standing on top of the Citadel, back in El, and pretending he could catch sight of its neighbors far in the southern mountains.

“Do you like the view?” Martha asks behind him.

Kal, still quite unable to close his mouth, nods and whispers, “I’ve never seen colors like these.”

“It sure is something,” Martha agrees, making her way over to the window so she can stand by Kal’s side. “I forget, sometimes, how beautiful it looks.”

“Krypton has a red sun,” Kal explains after a short silence. “It doesn’t look anything like this.”

Chances are, too, that the Melokariel Proposition will put enough dust in the atmosphere to turn Krypton's sky darker than it already is. What used to look like fire catching on the mountains will disappear, eventually, lost to time and failing memories. The thought puts an ache in Kal’s chest even as the beauty of what is before his eyes soothes him, and he’s still trapped between the two emotions when Martha asks, “How do you feel about working outside today? I’m sure the cows would enjoy a visit from you.”

Kal joins in Martha’s laughter at the thought, chest possibly warmer than it really ought to be. She did explain that cows sometimes enjoy licking the salt off people’s skin, and it’s possible Kal is different enough that he tastes like a treat to them. Even so, it is hard to ignore how soothing their affection is, how much a part of Kal’s soul will never tire of that sort of unconditional love. It would, perhaps, sound a little sad if he were to mention it to anyone else—he has, at any rate, carefully avoided any word of it in his letters to Kara and his phone calls to Bruce—but it is what it is, and Martha treats him to a fond grin as he makes his way out of the room and down to the kitchen.

Besides, if nothing else, it does have the potential to make both Martha’s and her dog’s jobs easier for a while.

Martha leads the way outside after breakfast, and Kal sinks into her routine with a delight even he couldn’t have anticipated, the repetition soothing enough that he can ignore the growing itch under his skin without much effort. There are, after all, so many things to discover! So many new things, new words, new colors and smells and sounds—an entire world of concepts just waiting for Kal to apply his mind to them, and no one to deny him the right to satisfy his curiosity because he doesn’t have the genetic code for it! Everything he does here he does for his own sake, because it pleases him, and Kal cherishes the novelty of it with enough enthusiasm that the soreness in his left side seems to evaporate within a few hours. By the time Kal follows Martha away from the barn and storehouse, he is no more than an inch away from substantiating into pure, distilled delight.

He’s savoring the bright burn of it in his chest and on his neck when the first explosion comes.

Kal throws himself to the ground with a shout of surprise and fear before he can control himself, and only then does he remember he isn’t alone here.

“Martha!” he shouts, as loud as he can manage, and prays to be heard over the cacophony. “Martha!”

There is another sound, just as close and devastating as the first, and Kal slaps his hands over his ears. Another boom. Another one—louder. Heavier. Kal whines. Boom, boom, boom—something else, fast, getting impossibly closer, shaking through every inch of Kal, and he wants to look for Martha, he does, but he can’t—it hurts! It hurts! Kal can’t hear, can’t breathe, can’t think—where’s Martha? Gods, he has to—what if she—another explosion, and Kal falls to his knees in the late asparagus, screams harder when even the ground provides no relief. There’s too much noise there—scratching and falling and digging and so many other things Kal can’t possibly tell apart and he screams and screams and screams and—

—quiet, just for a moment. A single second of answered prayer. Kal blinks. Blue sky, darker. Martha, her lips moving. Kal loses himself in the infinity of her voice and—

—blinks, eventually, groggy and scared and still lying on the ground in a crushed batch of asparagus. He breathes in, shallow at first. Waits from the implosion he’s sure will come, sooner or later. How he took control of this, Kal doesn’t know. It’s easy to tell, however, that the barest second of inattention now could be fatal. Send him back to the excruciating space where he lost a whole day—more, even, judging by the growling of his stomach.

Kal pushes himself to his knees with infinite care, and pauses there, just in case. If he is going to fall over again, he might as well mitigate the damage, even if the last time didn’t so much as leave him feeling sore. He sighs in relief when nothing terrible happens, and blinks up at the stars. If he knew them better, he could figure out for himself how long he spent...wherever his mind went all that time. He doesn’t, though, and so he makes himself go the rest of the way up and turn toward the house.

The journey there is both too long and too short, and Kal doesn’t notice the sleek black car in the lane until he steps onto Martha’s front porch and Bruce opens the door with an unreadable expression on his face.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce whispers.

Kal takes stock. Nothing feels broken, or bruised, or even sore. He’s exhausted, yes, and hungrier than he remembers being in quite some time, but overall...not bad, considering.

“Not too bad,” he tells Bruce, voice hoarse despite keeping his volume at the same level as the others.

He sends a smile to Martha over his friend’s shoulder.

“Surprisingly well, actually.”

“Good,” Martha whispers, clearly restraining herself from sighing.

“How long was I—out?” Kal asks, fumbling for the right words in English, and jumping when it’s Kryo who answers:

“Almost eighteen hours.”

Which puts the time at—Gods. Almost four in the morning. No wonder Kal is famished, though it is a wonder he isn’t equally as sore.

“We couldn’t move you,” Martha said. “You just seemed worse every time we tried to touch or talk to you.”

“We would have at least monitored your vitals,” Bruce whispers in Ellon, “but you weren’t wearing your suit.”

The words are little more than a breath on the air, and yet Kal hears the flat disapproval in them as easily as if Bruce had shouted it. He blinks.

“Well, I hadn’t exactly anticipated that particular situation,” he admits, and knows it was the wrong thing to say when Bruce’s expression goes from skillfully neutral to outright flat in less than a second.

“Of course you did not,” Bruce says in chillingly controlled Ellon. “Why am I surprised?”

Kal gapes this time, stunned out of his mind just long enough to hear the tail end of Kryo’s translation and Martha’s shocked exclamation. Honestly, he’d be lying if he said he disagreed. As if he could have planned for this!

“I couldn’t possibly have guessed,” he protests, forgetting to keep his voice down in his haste, “how could I—”

“You should have anticipated something like this. You are the very first Kryptonian to ever set foot on Earth—”

“That we know of—”

“You should have known better than this!” Bruce insists, voice raised to ordinary volume in its turn. “Now we have no idea what caused any of it—”

“Fine,” Kal concedes, although if he’s being really honest, it’s more out of a desire to end the conversation before it gets worse than true acceptance of Bruce’s point. “I’m sorry. You’re right, we don’t know what’s out there—I’ll wear the suit again.”

“Oh, don’t you take that flippant tone with me,” Bruce warns, switching back to English in his annoyance. “Do you have any idea of the sort of danger you put yourself in?”

“I said I’d wear the suit!” Kal protests. “What more do you want?”

“I want you to take basic measures of self-preservation and care about your own survival,” Bruce retorts, volume held to a normal conversational level by what Kal assumes is sheer force of will. “Otherwise I don’t see why I should.”

“Bruce!” Martha exclaims while Kal gapes.

He breathes in deep—in and out, in and out, the way he used to try and push Shadow’s nights out of his mind—and counts to ten as slowly as he dares...and, when that isn’t enough to calm him down, he closes his mouth and heads for the stairs.

“Martha was wondering if you’d stay for dinner,” Kal says when he finds Bruce in deep conversation with Kryo an hour later, half-hidden behind Martha’s ancient blue tractor.

Bruce’s head rises so sharply at that, Kal almost fears the man is going to give himself a stiff neck. He narrows his eyes as soon as he realizes who’s talking to him—Kal barely manages to catch the split-second look of surprise on his face—and straightens up to his full height, shoulders squared and jaw set. Kal carefully doesn’t sigh.

“Listen,” he says in English, hoping to keep Bruce more relaxed by sticking to his native language, “I’m sorry. I will wear the suit again. I’m wearing it now.”

Bruce remains silent. Kal counts to five.

“I know I wasn’t careful enough. I’m sorry. Please come to dinner?”

Bruce huffs and starts toward the house, but his shoulders don’t unwind, and it feels to Kal like the man takes special care not to touch him. It’s...not a pleasant thought. That Bruce would be upset is understandable, and Kal is willing to admit—albeit with some effort—that he was too quick to dismiss the man’s concerns, but to flinch away from him? Really? Maybe it shouldn’t sting, but it does. Kal stays quiet, though, determined to keep the peace as long as possible...which is probably why it surprises him so much when Bruce says:

“Previous data was encouraging.”

Kal blinks. What is that even supposed to mean? Data is absolutely not the topic here, especially when Kal already apologized—and even then, if Bruce wanted to harp on this subject, why would he pick Kal’s own argument to...oh.

Kal resists both the urge to roll his eyes and the impulse to speak, opting for a smile instead. No reason to ruin a good thing after all.

Bruce does stay for dinner, but he is a terribly wealthy—and proportionately busy—man who also moonlights as Gotham City’s very own vigilante. Kal hasn’t made the mistake of using Kryo or the suit to look Bruce up again, but he is getting better at English far faster than he’d anticipated despite the violent headaches he gets when the sounds of the world grow too loud again, and it’s easy to get a general picture from news articles. All in all, it’s a surprise Bruce lingered in Smallville as long as he did, so Kal doesn’t allow himself too much disappointment when the man leaves.

There are still chores to be attended to, a language to learn, and far too many hours spent wandering through Wikipedia—not to mention the task of responding to Kara’s newest letter, and the long process of explaining both what happened to Kal’s ears and what Kryo and the suit have found out.

“I think it would be easier to deal with if I knew what to expect,” he confides over breakfast about three days after the hearing incident.

The Ship is still in orbit around Earth—and that’s another thing Kal will need to worry about soon. Even a vessel as ancient as this one should be able to evade most of Earth’s technologies for years to come, but that doesn’t mean Kal feels comfortable leaving out there for anyone to find. None of the simulations it has run for him have hinted at any negative change in Kal so far, but even so it’s difficult to predict how much or how fast he will change as he stays on Earth.

Krypton has been orbiting its sun for far longer than the Earth has existed, and where Rao was once a golden youth, age has long since shrouded him in calmer—and wiser—red. Life on Krypton has had a long time to adapt and make the best use of what little light it can get. In every corner of Krypton, even the deepest recesses of the most forgotten Principalities, people have learned to consume other living things to make up for the lack of nutrients given by the sun, the nourishing power of its light negligible enough that turning the gene for absorbing it dormant has been standard practice ever since it was found the act lowered the risks of dying from k’luris...but, of course, artificially dormant genes mean nothing to someone who was gestated rather than grown.

The Ship’s models have found nothing alarming, that’s true, but what resources does it have? There are almost no records left from the time when Krypton’s inhabitants routinely gestated and gave birth to their offspring, and what remains is all but useless once climatic changes are taken into account. Any simulation anyone could run on that basis is nothing but pure speculation and, quite possibly, wishful thinking.

“That’s understandable,” Martha answers over the rim of her coffee mug, one eye lingering on the sports section of her newspaper before she turns to Kal. “But on the other hand I think you might have been surprised even then. This way, at least, you get to brace for anything.”

“That’s sort of the problem,” Kal mutters. “The last time I got tense for an extended period of time, I ended up here.”

Sure, Kal likes Smallville better than he did the Citadel in many, many respects, but the move still hurt like nothing else, and he’s not done mourning the life he might have built for himself there by any stretch of the imagination. He sighs without meaning to, and flinches when he realizes Martha has fallen into an uncomfortable silence. He’s stammering through an apology, trying to reassure Martha that he does like it here on the farm, but instead of answering she takes his hand in hers and guides him upstairs to the office.

Kal remains silent while Martha goes straight to the corner, where the ‘Jonathan’ boxes have been stored out of reach of Kal’s clumsy feet. They haven’t—Kal has mostly been pretending he didn’t notice them, so far. He knows the top two boxes are where his first sets of clothes came from—and those are the main inspiration for the way he shapes the suit every morning nowadays—but other than that...Martha hasn’t offered any information and Kal, sensing a delicate topic, hasn’t asked. Martha gets the bottom box out now, though, and after some rustling she extracts a small black frame and hands it to Kal.

Kal recognizes Martha in the picture: perhaps thirty years younger, wrapped in a fluid, half-sleeved white dress. Her long dark hair flows from under a veil, and her smile is so wide it stretches Kal’s mouth into a smile of his own before he even realizes what’s going on. In the picture, Martha holds hand with a young, dark blond man whose hair curls around his ears. He looks just as radiant as Martha, his free hand holding a small white cap on the top of his head as he speaks to someone outside of the picture—sharing a joke, maybe. The white shawl on his shoulders is half slipping off, but it must not have been that important if it is left unfixed. Both Martha and the man have one foot raised, ready to step on a white glass laid on some kind of handkerchief.

“That’s my Jon,” Martha says, quiet and tender from her precarious perch on Kal’s folded bed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him talk as much as he did at our wedding.”

Kal isn’t surprised, when he glances up, to find Martha looking wistful, gaze lost in a past she clearly misses. In her hands is a thin blue booklet, white curls and swirls framing words in an alphabet Kal doesn’t recognize.

“It’s a book of songs,” Martha explains when she catches Kal looking, “a book of hymns. They’re meant for the guests, usually, but Jon insisted we keep one for ourselves. He loved singing—was terrible at it, but it never stopped him.”

Kal smiles, but Martha doesn’t see him, too caught up in her memories.

“We were married for eighteen years,” she continues. “Eighteen years of handling everything life had to throw at us—the farm, my father’s death, the stupid fertility treatments that never worked, giving up on that dream...and then one day there was a storm when we were driving home. A tornado. I followed the crowd beneath the underpass. Jon—I swear, he was right behind me, and then…he must have realized we’d forgotten the dog in the car. I turned around and he wasn’t there anymore. I saw him by the car, opening the door—he could have made it, I think. But then he fell down, and—”

Kal doesn’t try to catch Martha’s eyes when she lowers her face, black-and-gray hair obscuring her expression. He does reach out to squeeze her hand though, holding just a little tighter when she sniffs and takes a deep breath. Then she lifts her gaze again, not trying to hide the glistening of her eyes as she says:

“It’s been twelve years, and I still cry over it sometimes. I’ve never been exiled, but I know what loss feels like. So don’t you ever feel like you have to pretend you’re not grieving with me, you understand?”

“I understand,” Kal says, rougher than he expected but unwilling to do anything about it. Then, after a quiet moment: “Will you tell me more about him?”

“Oh, he would have loved you,” Martha says, her smile genuine if far wetter than Kal has ever seen it. “Especially the bit with the cows.”

Kal and Martha laugh together and, for the better part of the morning, Kal listens to her story—how she met Jonathan Kent at their local synagogue, how they fell in love, how they lived together after they were married. He hears happy stories and sad stories and everything in between, including that one time Martha and her husband fought so hard over their inability to conceive a child Jonathan got blackout drunk for the first and only time in his life.

“I imagine that isn’t the sort of thing people fight over, back where you’re from,” Martha says a while later, when she’s done brewing coffee for the both of them.

Kal allows himself a huff of bitter laughter.

“People would have to even consider gestating their children for that to happen,” he says. “I’m—there’s no one else on the planet who did what my parents did.”

Besides, as far as Kal is aware, his parents never did fight about the lack of a second offspring. The Gods granted them only one son, and that must have been that. Kal’s failure to live up to his divine destiny and attain the leader’s position Rao must have intended for him was, he is sure, of far greater importance to them, especially after they’d promised so many people they would regret their harsh words when Kal came into his true potential.

“I’m sorry,” Martha murmurs when Kal is done explaining all of that, eyes red and nose still stuffy with tears. “That sounds like a lot of weight to put on one person’s shoulders.”

Kal shrugs.

“I mostly wish I’d been able to fulfill it—I wish they’d seen me as more than a disappointment.” He scoffs. “The frustrating part is—I still miss them. I don’t think we’ve had a meaningful conversation in over ten years but now I’m here, and they don’t want to talk to me, and—”

He cuts himself off, hunching over on himself, one hand coming up to cover his face even as he bites his lip and tries to stop fresh tears from falling. He breathes in, harsh and strangled, when Martha’s free hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and after a while he clutches at it like it’s the only thing preventing him from falling over.

“Sometimes, we mourn things we never expected to,” Martha says in the quiet of mid-afternoon, the cows mooing quietly outside. “I never used to care about family names, even when my father complained that once I got married and he died there wouldn’t be any Clark left in Smallville. Then Jon and I realized no treatment was going to make us able to have children together, and suddenly I was crying in my mother’s arms and asking her if she thought my father would still love me.”

Martha snorts, just a little, when Kal looks up at her. The expression on her face is more rueful than anything else, now, but Kal still offers the best smile he can muster, both grateful for the offering and sympathizing with Martha’s past pains.

“I’m no expert, and I’m sure Bruce would have something to say about sample sizes, but it seems to me like grief in Kryptonians isn’t any more rational than it is in humans.”

“I think you’re right,” Kal agrees.

Then, after a long pause—and in a rather sheepish tone:

“I’m so sorry, but...what’s a Clark?”

Kal blames the long time it takes for Martha to stop laughing and explain on their nerves.

Kal was expecting his body would keep changing. He was . That doesn’t make the first time he sees the cows’ internal organs any less of a shock.

“Deep breathing,” Bruce tells him through the phone half an hour later, once Kal has managed to make his way back to the house and focus long enough to locate Martha’s landline. “Find something else to focus on.”

“I can see my bones every time I look down,” Kal feels compelled to point out, faintly proud at how steady he manages to keep his voice.

Oh, the edge of panic is easy to hear—more so for someone like Batman—but at least it hasn’t tipped into the realm of hysterical shrieking. And, frankly, that’s about the best Kal can hope for, because he is seeing his skeleton through his hand and he’s fairly convinced even Bruce wouldn’t be able to just take that in stride. He would probably at least blink. Maybe even stare a little bit. Kal...well, Kal is staring a lot.

“Kal,” Bruce says in a tone that suggests it isn’t the first time he’s said it, “this isn’t an apnea contest. Breathe!”

“I am breathing,” Kal protests, “just...more quietly than I thought I would be.”

He couldn’t possibly be feeling as good—relatively speaking—if he weren’t breathing. He might have grown up in the mountains, but still. It’s been minutes, he doesn’t have that kind of training.

“Good,” Bruce says. “I have been looking at the files Kryo sent me. According to this morning’s readings, your eyes are still mutating, though I cannot tell what the trend is toward—”

“Well,” Kal says when he...squints the wrong way, or something, and suddenly he has a more detailed view of his hand—and his cells—than he ever thought he would, “I...might have an idea.”

At least, he thinks as he describes what he’s seeing to Bruce and tries to figure out what all the grunting means, it’ll make studying the structural composition of Terran life much easier for him. And if the thought prevents him from panicking too much when he tries to explain what’s going to Martha, or tries and fails to reach a maximum distance he can see at—lead blocks him, but, as he discovers through trial and error, the planet’s core doesn’t—well, it’s just a really nice bonus.

(He does stop experimenting when it turns out that he can see ridiculously far indeed, but cannot, in fact, see Krypton.)

About one month into his stay on Martha’s farm—fifty days, to the day, since he came to Earth—Kal decides it’s high time he started thinking about what to do with his ship and immediately proceeds to let Bruce know via the brand-new phone Batman insisted he have. It...hasn’t been used much. Kal is still a little—reluctant—to disturb Bruce, and despite the progress they have made towards being friendly again, he has yet to find his footing in this new world of theirs, where Kal is nothing at all like Shadow and Batman is not his mentor anymore. There are—some shades of that remain, of course, what with all the things Kal has to discover, but Martha handles as much of the teaching as Bruce these days. It isn’t as if their connection is even half as vital as it was on Krypton, and considering Batman doesn’t call...Kal shakes his head. No need to dwell on it.

Both Kryo and Shadow’s suit have been made to resist extreme temperatures and depressurization, so it’s easy to wait for the right time—dusk, conveniently enough—to put the suit in stealth mode, and let Kryo carry both of them up. From there, navigating the default security settings is a breeze, and in less than five minutes Kal is inside with Kryo trailing behind him and his helmet off.

The inside of the ship is impressive, if unsurprising. It was Kara who found it, abandoned in a secluded hangar by an El ancestor who clearly disagreed with the Wise Council of their time on the topic of space travel. Kal understands the decision, though he doesn't agree with it: if he’d perceived space travel as the sole reason one of his planet’s moons had been destroyed, he’d have wanted to ban it, too. Given the circumstances, though, it’s hard to feel anything but grateful for that nameless El person and their refusal to let go of their colonial vehicle.

“Perimeter intrusion,” the ship warns about half an hour after Kal boarded it, not a minute after he’s taken full command of it. “Earth vessel, uncategorized. Should I contact?”

“Show it to me,” Kal says, relieved to find out the Ship has kept itself apprised of what is happening on the planet.

It’s a clear residual subroutine derived from its primary function—to assess local life and help devise the best way to colonize and, if necessary, kryptoform the new planet. But if it means the Ship won’t have trouble understanding English, Kal is willing to take it. Meanwhile, in front of him and under his feet, the hull shifts, reshaping and recoloring itself to give the illusion of transparency, like a vast window opening on the universe. Earth is so huge like this, so blue, Kal doesn’t even notice the spacecraft right away. He blinks when he does, but in his defense he really wasn’t expecting to find Batman’s plane—the Batplane?—hovering right there in front of his nose.

“Grant access,” Kal tells his ship. “And please add the pilot to the list of authorized personnel.”

The ship obeys, and not ten minutes later Kal watches Bruce exit his vehicle in a ridiculously bulky variation of the Batman suit. He tries to cover his amusement, but he must fail because Bruce gives him a glare potent enough to be felt through the full-face mask.

“Nice suit,” Kal dares in English, and presses his lips tight when Batman only grunts in response. He gives himself a few seconds to sober up before he says, “I wasn’t expecting you to come along.”

Not that it isn’t appreciated, but, well. Bruce is a busy man. It would have been understandable for him to stay down on Earth.

“If this ship is going to stay in orbit,” Bruce says in Ellon, “I want to know what it can do.”

Kal feels his smile turn rueful. Of course it’s a purely practical visit. There shouldn’t be any surprise there. Still, it’s good not to be alone for this. The first few minutes were—Kal was—it’s easier, not to be alone for this. Counterintuitive though it may be, it seems less crowded here, in these walls so close in color to those of the Citadel, when he has a—an ally beside him. So, with a smile, he gestures for Batman to precede him and, armed with years of clandestine readings on the topic of space ships, proceeds to give Batman the grand tour.

“You have quite the impressive setup,” Bruce comments two hours later when they’re back in the command center, Kal hoping he’s done an adequate job of keeping his explanations as short as possible. “What do you intend to do with it?”

Kal shrugs.

“I haven’t thought about that.”

That’s a lie, of course, and he’s fairly sure Bruce knows it. Kal has...had a lot of time to think, in the past two months. About himself. About his life—what it was, what it is. What it could be. About the way Earth is changing him, and all the things he can do now that wouldn’t even have been dreams back on Krypton. About the television in Martha’s living room, crackling to life with news reports about the Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Aquaman. The Green Lantern, singular, as if there weren’t hundreds of thousands of them throughout the universe.

Kal has thought about all of that and about Kara’s letters, all the things they say about Krypton’s situation—and all the things they don’t say, but Kal can guess anyway. About what the news reports must sound like in their sector of the universe, and the things he will never be able to do for his planet. About the uses someone like Batman could have for a ship like Kal’s.

None of that has solidified into anything concrete though, each element bringing more questions than answers, more doubt than certainty, and Kal sighs when, sure as anything, the set of Bruce’s mouth turns skeptical.

“I’m...not sure yet,” he amends. “I don’t know that I should make that sort of decision before I’ve...stabilized. Somewhat.”

According to his latest readings and the sheer quantity of everything he consumes these days, that isn’t exactly a close benchmark. He still has...time. Time to absorb the world a little better, to inform himself; to understand, maybe, a fraction of what he’ll need to survive on Earth, let alone blend in. More time to...adjust, too, to a life where Krypton is a distant memory, where Kara is nothing but a bi-weekly letter and Kal might be better liked than he’s ever been in his life but is also even more of an anomaly than he was back there.

Bruce makes a noise in the back of his throat, the significance of which escapes Kal entirely, and then, rather than offer advice, asks, “How is your cousin?”

He uses formal grammar to refer to her, a stark contrast to the more casual grammar he uses with Kal nowadays, and Kal can’t help but tense at it, just a little, feeling his face pinch before he can stop it. He makes himself relax—though too late, as always, to hide the emotion before Bruce sees it, and he isn’t surprised when the man’s mouth tightens in turn, just a bit. Kal can’t blame him for it, either: who wouldn’t find it frustrating, to try to be polite and considerate, only to be judged for their grammar? Kal wouldn’t like it either.

“She’s fine,” he says, careful to keep the sudden spike of loneliness out of his tone. “Still in a precarious position—I’m not to expect any news for the next month, at best—but nearly into Tu’an’s arms, as the saying goes.”

Bruce nods. Kal, unsure of the appropriate etiquette in this sort of situation, nods in return, and they both turn to stare down at the Earth below. It’s strange, Kal realizes, to see it like this. He never did get to see Krypton this way, and unless the planet undergoes drastic changes, he never will. His family may have kept his role as Shadow a secret from the rest of the world, but they know about it—and so does the Wise Council, and Kal knows for a fact they don’t always act aboveboard. They might not be in a position to try and condemn him openly, should he return, but Kal has no desire to fall over a balcony’s railing in his sleep.

Gods, he can almost hear the whispers already—nobles sharing his birth story between them, maybe attributing the apparent suicide to that finally catching up. A noble sacrifice for his family’s sake, at best, yet another pathetic move at worst; Kal’s jaw clenches at the thought, fingers tightening into fists before he can remember he’s not alone.

Batman, when Kal looks up, gives his clenched hand a pointed look and Kal takes a breath, musters a strained smile.

“I think I’m ready to go back down,” he tells Bruce in English. “I...I think I’d like to talk to a friend now.”

“You don’t think we’re friends?” Bruce asks, and tenses immediately.

Kal blinks. And blinks again. By the third time, Bruce has retreated into Batman’s stance entirely, mouth pressed into a thin line, a faint pink bleeding out from under his cowl. It’s the sight of him closing his eyes—the sound of his teeth grinding together, loud enough for Kal to hear even without opening his senses to it—that spurs Kal to blurt out, “Are we?” He clears his throat. “Are we really friends?”

Under the cowl, Bruce’s eyes widen.

“We’re not—not,” he says.

Kal doesn’t know what it means, for Bruce’s mouth to fall open when Kal smiles, but right now he feels happy enough that it doesn’t matter.

For the next week or so, it feels like Kal’s body is taking some kind of break, in that no new abilities—powers, as Martha calls them—seem to develop. Oh, sure, the tingling in his skin is still there, but it’s weak enough now that Kal can ignore it most of the time, and the violent, burning headaches of the past few days are almost gone. Which is a good thing, because Kal did not enjoy the feeling of having fireballs behind his eyes, thank you very much.

Kal enjoys the respite, frankly, and continues to learn everything he can, ranging from the history behind Martha’s Shabbat rituals to the proper way to change a car tire, how to milk a cow, and why it’s a bad idea to try to investigate unknown buzzing sounds in the bathroom. He sets up exercises for himself after that, trying to gauge how far his hearing goes—New York, to the east, but somehow it feels like he might be able to hear further—and how precise his sight can be. He trains himself to mix the X-rays and the insane zooms, to combine his abilities in different ways. The sheer range of what he can see or hear is—it’s exhilarating. Terrifying, too. All-around breathtaking, really, and Kal finds himself getting lost in it more than once, much slower to pull himself out of the chaos around him than he should be on the rare occasions when he still zooms in by accident.

It’s not a problem, though. Not really. Sure, it makes him look like an airhead, and it makes Martha laugh when he just freezes in the middle of a task, but really, that’s harmless, and so Kal doesn’t pay too much attention to it. After all, it isn’t like he couldn’t control it. He could. He can, now that he’s really applied himself to it—with a dedication even Bruce seems to approve of, if Kal interprets the tonality of his grunts over the phone correctly. It’s just that there are so many things to see, so many things to understand, and observation has always been the best way to understand something, and—there’s just so much! And it isn’t like Kal can tell himself ‘this is mud, you’ve seen mud before’, because every patch is unique, its own microcosm at any given moment, the changes in scale so dramatic it always takes him a few seconds to adjust anyway so why not let himself take the time to watch? After all, there’s no reason not to.

Or at least, there’s no reason not to stop and watch whatever he accidentally gets caught up in, until he freezes while Martha is maneuvering her tractor back into the shed and Kal doesn’t realize he’s standing in her blind spot until the sound of bending metal tears him back to the world’s regular scale.

“Ah,” Bruce says somewhere to Kal’s left. “I believe Martha might have downplayed the extent of the damage somewhat.”

Kal, who sat down on the floor the instant he and Martha realized what happened to the tractor and hasn’t dared to move since, curls up a little tighter, bringing his arms up to cover the burning back of his neck. There is a pressure building in his eyes, hotter than tears, hotter than anger, and Kal desperately doesn’t want to know what it is, what new levels of freak he will reach with this one.

“Please,” he manages in a croaking voice, “leave me alone.”

“I do not believe that would be a good idea,” Bruce replies, still in Ellon.

Kal can’t help snorting.

“If the tractor couldn’t hurt me—”

“You cannot stay in here forever, Kal,” Bruce cuts in. “You will have to move at some point. That might as well be now.”

Kal takes a deep breath and, when the heat recedes from behind his eyes, he raises his head to glare at Bruce.

“I think you and I can agree I’m not very safe to be around right now.”

“No, indeed,” Bruce replies. “But staying here is not helping matters.”

“Well,” Kal starts, well on his way to peeved now, “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry,” Bruce cuts in. “Be better.”

Kal gasps, shame flooding his guts and clawing at his throat. He closes his eyes again, unwilling to watch Bruce survey the damage—not just the tractor, but the shed’s outer wall, too, where Kal stumbled away in surprise, and at least one stool, plus another metal beam...and then Kal did go the cowardly, childish route and sat down, refusing to move, refusing to even let Martha touch him until Bruce, having already planned to come and visit, got there.

And it’s...stupid and useless and probably not the sort of thing Batman would have done but what else was Kal supposed to do? Walk to Martha’s house and risk breaking it down? Risk injuring her, or worse? No. No, there’s no way he could have done that, and if it means he was...naive, or stupid, or anything of the sort, well, then Kal is going to have to learn to live with it, because there is no way he’ll risk hurting anyone again, thank you very much.

“But you did not hurt anyone,” Bruce says, sounding uncharacteristically puzzled, once Kal is done explaining that as best as he can.

“I haven’t hurt anyone yet,” Kal retorts. “I destroyed a tractor, Bruce! And I wasn’t even doing anything—can you imagine what would happen if I—”

Kal knows he sounds self-pitying. Gods, does he know that. But what else is he supposed to do? Walk out there and pretend he isn’t inches away from fatally injuring anyone—any living creature within reach? Everything that came before—the hearing, the X-rays, the super vision—that was—that was weird, but it was a useful kind of weird, and Kal—he knows how to be weird. He’s done it before. It isn’t fun, and he thought—he’d hoped to leave that back on Krypton, for the most part. But he knows how to be weird.

But this? Being dangerous? He has no idea how to do that. He doesn’t want to be that. And if that’s what he is now, if that’s the price he has to pay to stay on Earth, then maybe—

“Breathe,” Bruce tells him, and Kal glares again.

“I am breathing,” he says.

Bruce’s mouth tightens for a second, but he doesn’t push the matterwhich is a surprise, but in this case a welcome one. There’s enough on Kal’s mind without adding a Bat-lecture to it all. Still, Bruce does have a point, in that staying where he is and not moving will do nothing to improve Kal’s situation. He should do something, but the thing is—

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits, face growing even warmer than it already was. “I don’t—what if I—I mean, Martha—”

“Martha would be perfectly fine if she did not have to worry about your mental state,” Bruce interrupts. “Do not waste your energy crying over something that has yet to happen—especially when you can prevent it.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Kal asks, picking overly respectful forms of Ellon on purpose. “Have you trained someone not to crush a skull by accident?”

“Do not use court grammars with me,” Bruce warns with a snarl. “And in case you forgot, I do work with Wonder Woman and the Aquaman on a regular basis. If they can control their strength well enough to live normal lives, so can you. Now stop sulking and come have dinner.”

Kal feels his ears redden again, and his stomach still feels lined with lead, but he does get to his feet after a while, brushing dirt off the seat of his pants. There is no denying, after all, that it is a comfort, knowing Batman is going to help with all of this.

With a deep breath, Kal gets to his feet to follow Bruce, and freezes in shock when he realizes they are not, in fact, going back inside the house.

What they do instead is sit down with Martha on a large, checkered blanket in the middle of the garden, a varied assortment of candles and electric lanterns set around the blanket, ready for use. In the middle, three bowls of soup and a golden loaf of challah bread wait for them, flanked by long thin tubes of plastic. The whole thing looks like it jumped out of one of the movies Kal has taken to watching with Martha every other night, and the sight of it settles over his heart like an affectionate smile. Kal sits down with infinite care, unsure what might happen if he just fell to the ground, and then looks up to find a strange expression on Bruce’s face.

“I haven’t celebrated Shabbat in a while,” he says with a tone of wary apology, “ever since—”

“That’s okay,” Martha says when it becomes clear Bruce won’t finish his sentence. “To be honest, I wasn’t very diligent with it myself before Kal came around...a lot of things seem pointless when you have no one to celebrate them with.”

Kal nods in silence, unwilling to disturb the sudden atmosphere of quiet grief that has settled over the blanket. He didn’t know Bruce and Martha shared a religion, and he knows this particular moment isn’t meant for him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t relate to the sentiment, to some degree.

He blinks when he catches Bruce’s gaze though—lowers his eyes for an instant, glances back up, and when Bruce’s eyebrow rises even further, he sighs.

“Some of our ceremonies in El...they are meant to be celebrated with family, too. Especially for the worship of Rao. He was—he was the helping God, you see, before he was the leading God.”

Long, long before, it’s true; many Ellon people have forgotten it, but it is easy, when one looks, to find the root of some remaining ceremonies in the ideas that honoring Rao is to help, and one’s inner circle is where one can have the most impact...thus, the emphasis on celebrating these moments as a community rather than alone.

“These aren’t—I don’t think many people keep those particular rituals,” Kal says after he explains—or tries to explain—the sort of God Rao used to be. “I...I’d have liked to, I think, but...well, like you said, what’s the point of a collective celebration when you’re alone?”

He thinks he’s done a decent job of keeping his voice stable—hopes so, at least, even though the way Martha smiles and Bruce just looks at him indicates he might not have been as successful as he wanted. Either way, the subject comes to a close, and Kal watches Bruce and Martha go through the various rituals of Shabbat. When they are done, the three of them sip on their broth in silence; Kal declines Martha’s offer to feed him some challah directly. Kal feels himself oscillate between lingering embarrassment at all the damage he has caused—“You’ve read enough press to know I can pay for that,” Bruce says with a dismissive hand gesture. “But you shouldn’t have to—” “Kal. It’s pocket change to me. Let me.”—and the suffusing warmth of knowing both Martha and Bruce care enough about him to endure a frankly unexciting meal for his sake. It’s almost—it’s well worth the embarrassment, actually.

“So,” Bruce says after they’re done with dessert, fireflies dancing around them in the now-complete night, “before I came to get you Martha and I had a talk about how to deal with this newfound strength of yours.”

Kal nods, tensing despite himself. He manages a smile in answer to Martha’s, but doesn’t really relax until she says, “Mostly, we were considering ideas for how you could try and learn to control your strength...and I think we’ve come up with something that could work.”

“You came up with it,” Bruce says, blank-faced.

Martha grows a little pink, but catches herself quickly.

“Anyway,” she says after clearing her throat, “we thought about trying to find something you couldn’t break to start with, but given the state of the tractor and how that happened, we’re not sure how long that would take.”

“Or if it’s possible at all,” Bruce says.

“Or that. So, at the risk of making things more frustrating for you, we thought we’d cut to the chase and start with smaller things right away.”

“These,” Bruce explains in English in the middle of the next afternoon, “are medicine balls.”

He’s helping Alfred and Martha unload a truck full of them as he speaks, sweating through the T-shirt he’s wearing while Kal tries to stay focused on the task and not on...things he shouldn’t be focusing on. He’s not sure how successful he is at that, but at least no one seems to have caught on, and Kryo isn’t here to point it out.

“They’re exercise equipment for humans,” Bruce continues, either unaware of or ignoring the bead of sweat making its way down his neck, “and impossible for us to break with our bare hands. If you can learn to handle them without breaking them, it’ll be a significant step in the right direction.”

“Plus,” Martha adds, rubbing at the small of her back after unloading yet another ball, “they’re only filled with sand, so you won’t have to worry about debris.”

That, Kal has to concede, is good news. It’s...it isn’t the same as a guarantee the exercise will work, but at least it mitigates the risk of injury quite a lot. Kal keeps himself out of the others’ way while they finish the job, exchanging the occasional few words with Bruce, until Bruce asks:

“Where’s Kryo?”

“I sent it up to the ship,” Kal replies with a little smile. “I haven’t needed it to translate anything for a while now, and it’s too big to fit in the house comfortably.”

Not that Kal himself can fit in the house, period, until and unless he manages to curb his own strength, but at least he’s somewhat less austere-looking than the hunit.

“You don’t need translation anymore,” Bruce says, voice flat.

Kal blinks.

“Not really, no. I understand enough to deal with new words on my own.”

“After two months.”

“...Yes?”

Kal blinks again when Bruce all but scowls. From the corner of his eye, he can see the way Alfred’s eyebrows have risen on his forehead—the press of Martha’s lips, trying not to laugh, but he doesn’t dare join her. Surprise, he would have understood. He didn’t expect to learn English that fast either; the memorization has always been the hardest part of language learning for him...but for Bruce to scowl? That he really doesn’t get—not when Bruce hasn’t seemed to be the envious type before.

“Sorry?” Kal tries after a few seconds, but Bruce’s only response is a twitch of his fingers against the medicine ball Alfred just tossed at him—the last one.

“Now that that’s done,” Bruce says after a short pause, giving Alfred and Martha time to retreat toward the house, “let’s begin.”

It makes sense, really, to begin right away. Every ball Kal destroys by accident will be one less his three companions will need to transport to the storehouse...but that doesn’t make the explosion of sand that hits Kal in the face when he tries to catch the ball any more pleasant. It doesn’t make much noise when it pops, which is a relief, but it does leave his ears even more freedom to pick up on Martha’s aborted snort of laughter, for the back of nis neck to flush hot even as he wipes the worst of it off his face.

He looks at Bruce, then, expecting to find him with something like triumph on his face—a revenge taken upon the man who didn’t have to put all that much effort into learning the local language? But instead what he sees is the way Bruce’s shoulders have relaxed just a little, the looser tilt of his mouth, almost like...well. Almost like relief.

Not for the first time today, Kal blinks in question, and then yelps when Bruce tosses the next ball at him with the same results. Oh, boy.

“This is useless,” Kal grunts as he sits down two hours later, Bruce finally too tired to keep going or resist all of their not-so-gentle suggestions that he take a shower.

Kal hasn’t even come close to breaking a sweat.

“It’s only the first day,” Martha tells him as she picks up one of the balls and goes to carry it to the storehouse. “Give yourself some time.”

“I don’t have time!” Kal protests, forcing himself not to flail in case he accidentally hit Martha and maim her—or worse. “I need to be safe to be around now , but I—urgh.”

This—it’s the most petulant Kal has ever been. He knows that. He knows he should stop, too. Preserve what’s left of his dignity and wait until he’s alone to indulge in the pressing urge to sulk—but then, he never did claim to be a perfect man, and in the end what he does is sigh again and say:

“I hate this. All the rest—I can deal with being a freak, but a dangerous one? I can’t—”

“First of all,” Martha says as she turns back toward him, face genuinely stern for the first time since Kal has met her, “I don’t like that word, so I’ll thank you not to use it while you’re on my farm. And secondly, I for one am very glad you've developed this ability, because if you’d been anyone else, you’d never have—”

Kal stares, dumbfounded, while Martha cuts herself short and takes a deep breath, dropping her medicine ball so she can rub at her temples with the tips of her fingers.

“I thought I’d killed you,” she says at last, voice catching in her throat. “For those first few seconds I was so sure you’d died! But then there you were, completely unscathed, and if that isn’t good news, then I don’t—”

This time it’s Martha’s turn to end her sentence with a frustrated grunt, and Kal finds himself blinking at her for a moment, before he hangs his head.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, “I didn’t—I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, of course not,” Martha says, wiping at the corners of her eyes with, perhaps, just a little more force than necessary. “You’re like Bruce that way.”

“I don’t think I’m—” Kal starts, but he cuts himself short—and holds himself very, very still—when Martha rises to the tips of her toes and gives him what should be a crushing hug.

“No one else could have survived this,” she whispers fiercely. “So you might not like what the sun made you, but I’m damn glad for it, and you won’t be able to change my mind on that.”

She pulls out of the embrace and picks up her medicine ball before Kal has any time to respond, and he just...stands there, speechless. Because—Kal isn’t anything like Batman, clearly, but...he really didn’t think about that. About what really happened there, and how his body would have been affected back on Krypton, and what a miracle it is that he survived the accident, let alone unscathed. How many times, as Shadow, has he wished he could push past the aches and pains inherent in the mission? How many times has he wished he were able to do more, bear more, help more? And Earth...Earth is not Krypton, that much is true, but help is help is help, no matter where you go in the galaxy, and Kal...well. If he does get his strength under control, he has the potential to help on a much larger scale than most.

“...Did you even sleep last night?”

Bruce looks wide awake, but very reluctantly so, one hand firmly clutching a mug of coffee while the other readjusts the waistband of his pajama pants. His voice still has some sleep-induced gravel in it, and the whole thing makes him sound so much like a grumpy m’lo, Kal can’t help but smile. Granted, the fact that he did not, in fact, sleep last night may make the expression just a tad more manic than he was aiming for, but the whole thing proves entirely worth it when he can pick one of the last medicine balls off the ground, toss it in the air like it weighs nothing—which it doesn’t, for him—and grin at Bruce.

“Not a wink. What’s phase two?”

Phase two, as it turns out, begins with Bruce breaking his stoic facade in order to grumble a lot of things Kal doesn’t really want to catch—he does overhear the words ‘when’ and ‘timid simpleton’, though, and surprises himself when he...actually doesn’t mind that much. It isn’t—the words are still accurate, in many ways. There’s a reason Kal has yet to meet anyone who isn’t Martha, after all. The farm is spacious, the landscape fascinating, and the streets of Smallville, not thirty minutes away on foot, look awfully tempting...until Kal tries to picture himself having a conversation with any of the inhabitants, and quietly retreats back to Martha’s farm. It doesn’t matter how familiar Kal has gotten with the surrounding fields and the nearby river: people still stump him. Which is kind of ironic, considering his project. But try as he might, no matter how much he changes—and oh, Gods, is the Kal he is now much more confident than the Kal he was then—there is still a part of him that balks at the thought of letting itself be shown, shying away from the light and easy way Martha has of chatting with her friends on the phone, the attempts she’s made at taking him into town.

He doesn’t—there’s no real hope, in his mind, of him ever shedding any of that completely. But, for what might be the first time in his life, Kal is...almost okay with it. Or, at the very least, he feels like he might be able to deal with it, even if it is in a weird way.

So, all in all, it isn’t that hard to spend the day waiting for a couple hundred basketballs to be delivered to Martha’s farm, or the day after that making said basketballs explode between his hands for two hours straight. And then, when Martha—sweaty, short of breath, and most likely sore as anything—asks him if he wants a break, it’s no big deal to say yes.

“I think I’ll go for a quick run while you rest, if that’s all right with you?”

It isn’t like he’s gained enough control over himself to help with the farm yet, unless there’s a need to move heavy machinery. Since that isn't required at the moment and Kal doesn’t really feel tired, he might as well keep pushing his limits.

He isn’t really prepared when he ends up running a thirty-mile circuit in less than five minutes, though.

(“Just you wait until you’ve got fine motor control again,” Martha tells him that night as they sip on their soup in the garden. “I intend to make full use of that super speed of yours.”

Kal laughs and says, “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”)

So this is actually mostly accidental. Kal will say ‘mostly’ and not ‘completely’, firstly because it is true—he hadn’t counted on actually being able to run to Gotham, but he did pick Bruce’s voice as a honing beacon on purpose, just to see if he could track it efficiently. And then also because with a little luck, or a lot of it, the honesty might decide Bruce in favor of not murdering him. Maybe.

Kal is, after all, probably not supposed to barge in on four ordinary strangers while they get a tour of the Wayne Manor renovations.

“Oh,” Kal manages intelligently. “Uh...hi.”

He waves a hand in the air, pleasantly surprised when one of the strangers—a lithe young man in a red plaid jacket—returns the gesture, open mouth or no. Behind him stands a tall, dark-haired woman whose pose and surprised expression echo Bruce’s. Then, to Bruce’s right: a tattooed giant in a t-shirt with a rather feral grin on his face, and—oh. Oh. Not so ordinary strangers, then, Kal thinks as he nods at the one the news reports name Cyborg.

“Kal,” Bruce starts, but he’s interrupted by a loud:

“Oh my GOD!”

There’s a crackle of electricity and a loud bang that makes Kal flinch, and then the lithe man—the Flash, then—is at his side, bouncing on his feet and firing questions so fast Kal doesn’t even catch one word out of every ten he speaks. Fortunately for Kal, he’s saved from having to answer any of it by the sight of a man in a Green Lantern uniform landing not six feet away from the group and asking, “What’s going on?”

“Flash has a crush,” Cyborg says, and the aforementioned speedster crackles to his side in an instant.

“Dude! He got there before I could see him! I don’t even—how fast were you even going?”

Kal looks down to check the display of his suit, still switching between numbers at the tail end, and says:

“Around two thousand and two hundred miles per hour?”

The Flash makes a high-pitched noise, and behind him the giant—Aquaman, then, since all the others are accounted for—sneers and warns, “If you even think of having a nerdgasm—”

“Ew! Gross, Arthur!” Flash protests.

Kal ignores the two of them as they descend into bickering, and walks up to Bruce and the others instead, one hand uselessly trying to rub the embarrassment out of his neck.

“I’m sorry for barging in,” he says. “If I’d known you all were here, I’d have—”

“Oh, it’s quite all right,” Wonder Woman tells him with an amused smile and a pointed look at Bruce. “We’ve been wanting to meet you for a while now.”

“Oh,” Kal says, feeling his face grow pink, “well I—it’s an honor to meet you all. And uh—thank you, sir, for helping with the whole...administration. Thing.”

A little to the right, Kal can feel Bruce all but trying to burn a hole in the side of his head, and he clears his throat in response, scratching at his neck again.

“Anyway,” he says, “I’m sure you’re all very busy and I don’t—I just wanted to talk with Bruce but that—I’m sure it can wait until you’re done doing...whatever you’re doing.”

“We’re deciding if we really want to have our headquarters here,” the Flash says, popping up next to him with another blue crack, “seeing as it’s Bruce’s house and all.”

“Barry!” Cyborg snaps, only for Flash—Barry—to turn back to him with an offended expression.

“What? It’s true! He doesn’t even look like he wants us here.”

“Also, he’s a rich asshole,” Arthur-the-Aquaman chimes in.

Kal chances a look toward Bruce, and is absolutely not surprised to find him clenching his jaw, eyes briefly closed against what Kal can only assume is a strong wave of frustration. He’s fairly sure Shadow would have felt...well, roughly the same, really, and it’s only the patience that came with his new environment allowing Kal to deal with all of this any more serenely.

“I think it’s more the part where people aren’t supposed to find out Bruce Wayne is Batman, and that’ll be easier to do if the Justice League doesn’t settle on his private property,” Cyborg says, only for the Green Lantern to add:

“And we’re not entirely sure we’re comfortable with giving the US government grounds to claim us as part of its jurisdiction. We are agreed on that, right? We’re either working with every country or none of them.”

The others nod with various levels of focus—Barry and Cyborg are still bickering to one side while Diana settles a sympathetic hand on Bruce’s shoulder—and then Bruce releases a small sigh. From what Kal has seen of him so far, he’d say this is the Batman equivalent of slapping a hand on the table in frustration. He winces, just a little, in sympathy, and then Bruce says, “Again, if anyone has a more practical alternative—”

“Actually,” Kal blurts out before he can start overthinking it, “I might be able to help with that.”

Bruce gives him a suspicious glance, while the others stare in confusion.

“I mean,” Kal explains, “I do have a giant spaceship I’m not using.”

Bruce seizes him by the collar and drags him away from the other five.

“Meeting adjourned,” he tosses over his shoulder, and Kal barely has time to wave goodbye to the rest of the Justice League before they reach Bruce’s car.

Bruce peels off the gravel road before Kal is done buckling himself in, and before long they pull over in front of a long house made almost entirely of glass...Kal doesn’t even have to use the x-ray vision to see to the other side of it, which in turn allows him to catch the exact moment Alfred notices them.

Kal follows the old man to the kitchen—or rather, the counter that serves as a kitchen, considering there don’t seem to be any actual walls to partition the various rooms here—and helps himself to a cup of coffee accompanied by a helping of cream and another of sugar. Then, when Bruce fixes him with something that would be a full blown glare on anyone else, he clears his throat and says, “So. That was actually part of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Giving your ship away to the League?”

“Well, no,” Kal admits. “That part was a bit more...spur of the moment. But I’m not just—”

He cuts himself off, frustrated and flustered by the way this conversation came about. He didn’t even mean to have it today, exactly. Or rather he wasn’t sure he’d be having it today—he thought maybe if the whole ‘hi, it turns out I can also run ridiculously fast’ conversation went wrong, then he could keep the other two things he needs to share with Bruce for a later time. It would—he’d probably feel a little less panicked that way. Hopefully. But then he actually got there, and the League was there, and they don’t really have a place to go; and so here Kal is, with absolutely no way out except through.

Oh, Gods.

“Kal,” Bruce says after a while.

He’s about to say more, Kal’s sure, but at this point it’s probably best to just get the first part over with, and deal with the consequences later.

“So,” he blurts out before Bruce can get another word in, “obviously the fact that I’m willing to let the League use my ship wasn’t what I was here to talk to you about, but it is related to...uh. Topic number two.”

“I assume,” Bruce says after a beat, “that topic number one was the speed.”

“Yes,” Kal confirms. “The other two are...somewhat related to one another, and to the reason why I offered the use of my ship to the Justice League.”

Bruce’s posture is impeccable under most circumstances, but he does still manage to give the impression of someone straightening up as he says, “I’m listening.”

Kal breathes in. This is, he knows, a key moment for him going forward. It isn’t that he won’t go on with his project if he doesn’t have Batman’s blessing; it is that he wants it—wants to prove, to both of them, that’s he’s evolved and changed enough to do this. That he’s ready for it, and won’t fail this time. With another breath in, Kal lets a little bit of Shadow settle onto his shoulders, slip into his voice. His spine straightens almost on its own, his eyes rising. He feels the change on his face, too: more solemn, more solid than his usual demeanor, but without the harsh tension of Shadow’s expressions.

“I want to help,” he says in a voice deeper than usual, and feels dimly rewarded when Bruce slides into Batman’s body language without missing a beat. “I...won’t be Shadow, here,” he adds, using the Ellon version of the name. “He was made for Krypton, and he should stay there...but I do want to help whoever I can here, and given your position—and everything you’ve done for me in every aspect of my life, I thought it would be only fair to let you know.”

“I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” he cuts in, firm but not harsh. “I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”

There is a pause, during which Batman’s features remain as neutral as they ever are—but he thinks he can still see something...touched, perhaps, in the tick of the man’s jaw. Eventually, the silence passes, and Batman says, “You realize you can’t just jump into that?”

“I do have some experience with this sort of business,” he retorts with a chuckle. “Enough to know I can’t possibly prepare for everything on the first try. But I did get started.”

“How?”

“Well, first of all, I wanted to assess the state of my resources,” he explains. “I asked the ship to scan for and network with any Kryptonian tech it could access.”

Batman's tensing is so subtle, he’s tempted to think he’d have missed it if he didn’t have especially keen vision.

“There’s something on Earth you didn’t bring with you,” Batman says.

“Yes,” he replies. “A pre-settlement fortress in the Arctic. Part of the last wave, judging by the technology, but still more than enough for my personal use.”

“So you’d just give the ship up?” Batman asks.

He smiles.

“I was thinking more of a long-term lending plan. The League would have full use of the ship, but I would remain in command of it. The offer stands whether I am allowed to join or not, by the way.”

“How generous of you.”

“Like I said,” he replies with a shrug, “you would have more use for it than I will.”

“If we can get there,” Batman points out. “You should be aware by now that going to space is a little complicated for us humans, and we can’t just yell ‘beam me up, Scotty’.”

“Of course not,” he agrees with a chuckle. “I don’t think Scotty is a very dignified name for a spaceship, anyway. But there are technologies that could allow for teleportation, and I’m sure between your Green Lantern officer and I we could either build or obtain some.”

Batman stays silent for a moment, only moving to bring his hands up and steeple his fingers over the table, assessing him with a piercing gaze. He doesn’t move—doesn’t even really feel the need to squirm here, confident in the merits of his idea, if nothing else.

Then Batman says, “I’ll need more details before I put it up for consideration before the League. As for your membership...we generally wait to see what someone is capable of before we invite them in.”

“That’s not exactly what I understood from the news reports,” he says, without restraining an amused smile, “but that sounds fair enough.”

“Do you plan on...helping...in jeans and a t-shirt?”

His face still feels a little like Shadow's; but the smile that cracks across it is Kal’s, full of pleasant surprise at how fast Batman seems to have come around to the idea.

“Now,” he says, slipping back out of Kal, “that would be a waste of an exceedingly smart suit, wouldn’t it?”

Batman’s face remains entirely blank, and so he rises to his feet.

“Martha and I had a long talk about it the other day...let me know what you think.”

“Aren’t the colors a little...bold?” Martha asked in a careful tone when Kal finished sketching what he had in mind. “Not that the other heroes don’t have colorful costumes, mind, they just aren’t usually that….”

“Saturated?” Kal asked, and smiled when Martha gave him an embarrassed nod. “I guess you’re right, but...I like them. There’s Kansas’s blue sky,” he explained, pointing at the body, “Krypton’s red...and here, gold for the sun, and for Rao.”

If he was going to help, after all, he might as well bring something of his patron God into the uniform.

“And that?” Martha asked, pointing at the diamond shape and flowing crimson line on its golden field. “What does that mean?”

Kal couldn’t help the bittersweetness of his smile as he looked down at his sketch and the El family’s coat of arms over the uniform’s chest. It had, after all, started off as a symbol for Rao, and had only been incorporated into the El crest several centuries after the birth of their lineage. But it would have been a lie to say that Kal hadn’t kept that in mind when he chose the symbol. It was a piece of his world, after all; not only a part of Krypton and El’s history but a part of his childhood, too. Years of distress, of dissatisfaction, of disappointment for every member of his family...and here, finally, he’d found a way to reclaim it all. To make the crest his, rather than cower around it in every part of his existence.

Adding this to his design—even just putting the first curve of it to paper—had felt like figuring out a key piece of a puzzle. If there was only one part of this costume that wouldn’t change, it was that one, no doubt about it.

“That’s my family’s crest,” Kal explained, then. “It used to be an ancient symbol for Rao and the light he brought to Krypton. See how the line comes and goes, but never disappears?”

Martha hummed.

“It is supposed to represent the power to do what is right by those you care about. The power to help where you are needed, and the strength to ask for help when you need it. It’s also—it’s supposed to tell you that powerlessness, helplessness, they’re only temporary states. Sooner or later, you will have the opportunity to help others—or help yourself—again.”

“Oh,” Martha said, her smile brimming with affection, “so it means hope, then.”

“So?” he asks, when Batman remains motionless too long for comfort. “What do you think?”

“You look—”

Bruce—because it was Bruce’s voice there, not Batman’s—cuts himself off with a sharp inhale. Clears his throat, a faint pink dusting his face for some unfathomable reason, and corrects:

“It’ll do.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me I need to wear a mask?” he asks, surprised.

“You’ve seen the people I work with,” Batman says, something almost dejected in his tone. “I try to pick my battles.”

He laughs, but Batman doesn’t join him.

On the second of August 2019, a little over two months after his arrival on Earth and about two days after he told Batman about his intention to join Earth’s growing League—Guild?—of helpers, there is a fire on the outskirts of a city called Metropolis. It isn’t the first one he's heard burning during those two days, of course, but people know how to handle fire, most of the time. And when they can’t, well. Flash does operate mostly around the Midwest, so he can take care of these things, when needed.

On that day, though, Flash is busy dealing with a hostage situation up north in Star City, and the firefighters called to intervene are discussing the difficulty of the operation before they even get there...so, obviously, he changes into his uniform and runs to join the rescue efforts.

It’s a residential building he finds when he arrives. Old; filled with dry wood, old paper, and more than a dozen elderly residents trapped on the last floor, too slow to escape the flames and too frail to get out on their own. He slows to a stop next to the firetruck and filters the screams out as he walks up to the man who seems to be in charge and asks, “How can I help?”

“Stay out of the way,” the man replies with barely a glance at him. “This is a delicate operation, and I don’t have time to shepherd a clown in leggings!”

He follows the man’s gesture to where the truck’s ladder is malfunctioning, and sucks in a breath. No wonder everyone looks panicked—even if someone makes it to the third floor through the inferno, there’s no way they’ll be able to get everyone down that way. Not with human speed or strength, at any rate. Stepping aside from the firefighters, he opens both his hearing and his vision until he figures out where to go first.

Using his speed, he climbs up to the correct window, punching and kicking holding points in the old brick. Once there, he blocks the interstice under the door with his cape, scoops the elderly man and his poodle up in his arms and, taking care not to jostle them too much, climbs back down to the ground in order to leave man and animal to the care of emergency services. Immediately, he can hear the firefighting chief redirect his people’s efforts so they can take the residents in charge sooner and aim their streams of water toward the newly-opened window.

He repeats the rescue process for each of the twelve residents trapped in the house, taking the time to reassess who is most in danger between each round, then goes back for two wheelchairs, a pair of canes, and, despite the firefighters’ inquietude, the ashes of the first resident’s husband. The man takes them from him with a grateful sob, and he smiles in return, wishing him and his neighbors a speedy recovery as they are taken to the nearest hospital.

A small crowd has gathered around the building while he was working, concerned neighbors and gawking bystanders alike, several smartphones raised to capture the scene—which can’t have lasted more than twenty minutes, including the time he took to chat with the resident who broke her arm in her panic, trying to relax her as much as he could. When he turns around, flashes erupt all around him, and a red-haired woman waves her arm high in the air.

(She mutters between her teeth as she does so, something about finally having a ticket out of the doghouse if she can get a statement, and he allows himself a smile as he walks up to her. Help, after all, can take many different forms, and it isn’t like this is going to cost him anything.)

“Good morning,” he says, though at this point they are veering towards lunchtime. “May I help you?”

“Yes,” the woman says in a determined, no-nonsense tone. “Lois Lane, Daily Planet. Could you tell me what you were doing here?”

“I heard people calling for help,” he says truthfully, “and I knew I could help, so I did.”

“Can you tell me your name?”

He was expecting the question—even tried to come up with an answer for it, back when he first discussed it with Martha, but nothing he could think of seemed quite right, either too arrogant or too banal. So, in the end, he does what he’d decided on and evades:

“It seems to me like naming helpers is traditionally the press’s prerogative.”

He smiles a little, but Ms. Lane doesn’t return the expression, tilting her head to the side instead.

“Helpers?”

“People like me, who have certain...unusual abilities, and who use them to help where they can.” He pauses, curious, careful not to frown. “Is that not what you call them?”

“People like the Wonder Woman or the Flash get called heroes,” Ms. Lane says. “Do you think you should be called a hero?”

“I don’t think that’s my decision,” he admits, forcing himself to ignore Kal’s urge to blush, “but I’ll certainly do my best to be worthy of the comparison.”

“One last question,” Ms. Lane starts, but she has a look on her face that makes him fear the sort of question he really won’t know how to answer, and so he tilts his head to the side, pretends to listen for something for a second, and says:

“If you’ll excuse me—I’m afraid I have to go.”

He takes a step back to scan his surroundings—far too many people on the sidewalk for a dignified exit that way, even if he were to speed away immediately after, and there’s nothing behind him besides the burning building where the firefighters are only just getting the flames under control. Without a better option—and, more importantly, without the time to look for one—he sends a quick prayer to Rao to make his legs as strong as his arms, something he has yet to put to the test, and jumps away from the crowd. He lands on a nearby building with a much louder crash than he would have liked, though at least he manages to roll enough to avoid cracking the rooftop; and when he realizes the crowd can still see him, he jumps away again.

His second landing is even less dignified than the first: he lets the suit stretch downward as he falls, redistributing material from his cape to the bottom of his feet, but because he now knows he can manage the jump, he forgets to prepare for the roll on the landing. He hits the roof face-first as a result, startling a cage full of pigeons and getting more or less tangled in his cape, which is embarrassing enough on its own and becomes worse when he hears someone laugh above him.

He gets back up too fast, trips over his own feet, and stumbles off the building all in the same movement, Wonder Woman gasping in surprise and reaching for his hand...until they both realize that he isn’t, actually, falling to—well, not to his death, clearly; but someone like him falling from that kind of distance could easily kill whoever happened to be passing by. So it is still a relief when he manages to right himself up and find his footing on the roof again.

“Good catch,” Wonder Woman tells him with a smile.

“Thank you,” he replies, allowing himself to blush a little. “That has to be the best timing for a moment like this so far.”

She tilts her head to the side. In her uniform, she looks younger than she did in her jeans and leather jacket, but also more dignified somehow. She reminds him of Kara—the way she carries herself is just as confident, if not more so, and it speaks of someone used to commanding people’s attention without effort. No wonder the press seems to hold her in such high regard.

He wonders if they’ve ever seen her look like this, though—just a little puzzled, but smiling in a way that makes it look like she’s anticipating nothing but a good answer.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I couldn’t exactly—do that, on Krypton,” he admits. “Though I guess I’d have had less trouble with vertigo, if I could have.”

Wonder Woman laughs, striking a delicate balance between the dignified laughter of a queen and a delighted giggle, before she says, “Well, I wouldn’t have guessed you’d never done this before if you hadn’t told me.”

He smiles, just a little too nervous for the man he’s supposed to be right now.

“You weren’t half bad down there, either, you know,” she says with a conspiratorial smile.

She turns her head to the left then, eyes unfocused as she listens to something in the distance, back where he came from, before she offers him a hand to clasp.

“It seems they have decided what to call you. Welcome to the helpers, Superman.”

#Superbat #Clark Kent #Bruce Wayne #DCU Fic #Superbat Big Bang #SBB2019 #My Posts #fic: Clark Kent of Krypton #Fanfiction

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feral-nights · 6 years

Text

CH IV: The Beasts of an Elf

Trigger Warning: This story contains graphic violence, including castration. You’ve been warned.

“Ah, Thero’shan. There you are, I have been searching for you for days.” A tall, elvish figure spoke out gruffly. With a sigh, he continued. “I fear that you spend too much time with beasts, Shaythis. It can lead you down a dangerous path.”

The man was seemingly disregarded by the girl he was addressing. A bored and nonchalant expression crossed her face as she reclined against two impressively large frostsabers, Neis’ta and Ygos’ta respectively. “Shan’do Sagebough, you always harp on me about this dangerous path I walk. ‘Oh, you’ll lose your mind and become more beast than elf!’ You always yell whenever you find me bonding with my new family.” The gaunt elf mumbled. “It was you who even showed me this path.”

With an irritated grumble the elderly druid stepped forward to grab his Thero by her cloak and pull her up to her feet and away from her frostsaber ‘family’. “Listen here, I found you dashing through the forests blind as a damned bat! You attacked everything that you came across… Including me!” He shoved her back a few paces. “And ever since I started training you, you’ve just become more and more wild. More uncontrollable! You lack balance, Shaythis!”

Shaythis recoiled from the shove, letting out a low and beastial growl. “Balance? Shan’do all you’ve gone on about is balance! You’ve yet to teach me anything useful! It is all, respect the wilds this, listen to their call that! You’ve preached how to live in the woods, and went on about things that I already fucking know! You act as if I am some inexperienced child, a novice who has not lived amongst the land for thousands of years!” with a snarl, the blindfolded druidess in training stepped forward to return the shove against her Shan’do, forcing him back with a surprising amount of force and toppling him over onto his back. “Do you know what the wild’s tell me, Nedris?” she snapped, as the two hulking sabers prowl forward to stand protectively in front of their surrogate child, a low grumble in each of their throats as a warning to the man.

“What is it that you hear then, Shaythis?” Nedris questioned with a raised brow from his position upon the snowy ground.

As she planted her heels into the frozen earth and squatted down behind her overprotective ‘parents’ she retorted in a sharp tongue. “They tell me that you know nothing, they can show me the way faster and better than you can. They’ve granted me the vision to know this to be true, that you are nothing but a senile old fool.”

Nedris took in a deep breath as he slowly rose up to stare down at his Thero’shan. “It was against the advice of the others that I took you in as my student. They warned me that you were unstable when I had brought you to the glade. But I insisted that I could help you, that you could be helpful to our cause. The potential you showed in your ability to survive and thrive on your own with such a disability.” He gestured to her blindfold, more for his own satisfaction rather than hoping that she’d see his motion. With an adjustment of the darkened knuckle claws that sat atop his hands her stared her down. “I would advise rethinking your next action, Shaythis. I have walked this path thrice the length of your entire life, and I still have my eyes intact.” he snorted, showing no qualms in returning the acidic remarks to her. “Now come along, we’ve some more lessons to go over today. By my count, a week's worth!” he chortled, stepping closer to his student to grab her by the cloak and tug her along down the snowy path. “Must that damned cloak be the only thing you wear, girl?” he huffed in clear displeasure at her apparent lack of clothing, save for the heavy cloth cloak that encompassed her body and a loose slash that held a small feline carving underneath.

“Considering that it is all that I have left, Shan’do. Yes, the weather does not bother me though, as my family has done well to keep me warm.” she replied in a far less hostile tone, stumbling along the frostbitten path she was being lead down.

As the pair walked several miles down the path, Nedris glanced over his shoulder with a frown. “I dislike how those two follow us. It is not natural for frostsabers to wander this far away from their hunting grounds. I know not how you did it, but such a sight greatly disturbs me Shaythis.”

“An’da and Min’da shouldn’t concern you, Shan’do. They merely wish to see to my safety… They’re curious, that is all.” she cooed, offering a wave of her hand back towards the two colossal beasts that followed in their footsteps, taking care as to not walk directly on the path, nor be too close to the two elves.

Eventually Nedris and his student, Shaythis would make their way to a frozen waterfall at the other end of Winterspring; the land of eternal frost. “Alright, Shaythis. Like we’ve done countless times I want to see how far up these falls you can get before slipping down.” he pointed up the steep, unforgiving slope of Hyjal. And with a sigh, the girl would let the large cloak fall free from her body, exposing her bare to the frigid environment. Her body was riddled with countless scars with the most noticeable being the three large gouges on her right side from where she had been clawed by a Frostsaber. As she flexed her slowly deteriorating form, the olive green, thorny vines that encompassed her body as a extensive and intricate web of tattoos seemed to writhe about. A snarl left her lips before she dashed off towards the falls, bounding up the slick ground and digging her nails into the permafrost and black ice. With loud breaths she scaled up to the actual mountain side where she went about pressing her naked body against it to begin clambering up the cliff face.

“Shaythis! Watch out for the-!” Nedris called out to try and warn her of a buildup of snow that hung several inches away from any solid rock, but by the time he managed the words her hand had grasped onto it and caused the snow to break apart, toppling the elf several feet down the mountain until she crashed hard into the frozen fall and slid down. “Thero’shan!” he cried out again as he rushed to his pupil’s side and held her up in his lap, draping her with the cloak. With a long prayer muttered, the old druid’s hands flashed green, grass and flowers sprouted amongst the earth to be consumed by the cold as he channeled his essence into healing his student’s injuries. Such a spell would leave him drained and out of energy as his student came back to consciousness and turned her head towards him.

“I didn’t need your help, Shan’do.” she muttered, pushing herself off and away from Nedris and casting the cloak aside.

“That is your problem, Shaythis. You think that you can do everything on your own, you refuse to take any form of assistance from others and that is a bad mindset to have. I do not know if it stems from your recent loss, or if it is something that runs much deeper but this behavior needs to stop.”

A low snarl left the blind elf as she snapped back towards her Shan’do, baring her recently sharpened teeth. A feature that caught Nedris with a gasp of worry and confusion. Unsure if she had filed away her front teeth down to points or if such a change occurred through magic. “Thero’shan….” he muttered out, still in shock at the sight. With a deep breath, Nedris calmed himself. Resolve forming in his body as he took a single step forward. “I am sorry, Shaythis. I have failed you.”

“Failed? /Shan’do/ you have not failed me, you’ve shown me the path!” she thrust her arms out to each side, exclaiming. “If it was not for you, I would still be blind and afraid! You made me what I am today, Shan’do and for that I should thank you.” Her words boomed out over the frozen landscape as Nedris kept walking forward, one hand hiding behind his back. Closing the distance he’d place one hand on his blind students shoulder to inform her of his close presence.

As the ancient elf’s hand placed itself against Shaythis’ bare shoulder, a blood curdling snarl echoed through the trees. The two frostsabers that had been following them began dashing forth, swiftly closing the distance! In a flash, there was the wet sound of knife piercing flesh. In that flash, two bodies hit the now blood stained snow with a thud. “MIN’DA!” she shouted in a surprised rage. The female frostsaber, Neis’ta… ‘Min’da or Mother’ as Shaythis would call her lay on top of Nedris. Her massive body and weight forcing the wind out of the old man’s lungs. His ribs cracked from the force of impact, collar bone fractured by the dagger like claws pressing into his shoulders. The massive fangs mere centimeters away from the man’s shocked face.

The dying eye’s of the cat were the last thing that Nedris would see before the world before him went black. A skull cracking ‘Thwap!’ The tree branch crashed so hard against the man’s forehead that the wood splintered and cracked.

With scrambling feet, Shaythis moved away from the face of her unconscious mentor and to the side of Neis’ta. “Shhh.” she cooed as she pushed her surrogate mother off of her teacher and his blade. Her hand moved to press against the cat’s deep wound, her body trembled. Blood, there was so much blood. Wet, warm blood. Pooling in the snow, staining the fur, covering her hand and bare body as she shifted to press herself against Neis’ta. The druidess’ hands flashed a bright, natural green several times over the next few minutes as she tried desperately to save her companion. “Min’da… No.” She cried out, sobbing tearless cries as she tried first calling out to the wilds to help her save the cat, then she tried forcing them, bending them to her will in vain. But the forests would not respond to her pleas, only greeting her with the deafening silence. Ignoring her, in her most desperate time. “AAAAAAGH!” she roared into the night sky, bringing her blood soaked hands up to her face. Her nails dug into the flesh as she pulled down, mixing her purple tinged blood with the red from the great beast’s before her. Streams of this dark mixture fell from her face as bloody tears now fell from her recently, reinjured eyes. Her grief and despair turned into a blind rage.

The voice that once told her to survive resurfaced in her mind. This time it spoke to her in a darker tone. “It is not your place to heal, no it is your place to take vengeance. Exact upon them the pain they’ve struck upon you… RIP AND TEAR!” it barked out, a demon entirely fabricated by her broken mind commanded. “I will guide you.” it reassured the girl.

“No!” Shaythis snapped her head in the direction of the other saber. “He doesn't deserve such a fate, An’da.” she snarled. Ygos’ta in turn, ceased his motion of preparing to bite the head off of Nedris for killing his mate, a growl of protest rumbled from his throat before he slinked back in understanding and agreement.

“You will have your time, An’da.” She sickly cooed, forcing herself up and away from Neis’ta and shambling towards her unconscious shan’do. Falling to her knees before him, she placed her hands upon the man and felt around, searching for not only the knives he bore, but anything else that she could use. From his hands, she pulled away leather, fingerless gloves. On top of them, each sat a dull moonsteel disk, three curved claws protruding from the leading edge. After sliding them onto her own hands she tore away the fur kilt he wore. His belt with various pouches would suit her nicely, herbs and other supplies to hold her through the rest of the winter. His leather wrappings of boots, easily refitted by rewrapping everything as well. Eventually the man was naked on the snow and her time for revenge would be upon both of them.

With the time passing quickly as she set up, her Shan’do would begin to stir and awaken. At the outside of his knees, pressed right up against the flesh stood stakes. Buried deep within the ground so they would not budge. His wrists tied off with sharp briar to more stakes. Testing his bonds, Nedris tried to wiggle about, back and forth. His legs painfully stretched against the stakes at his knees with two more stakes down at the inside of his ankles. “Shaythis! Let me go, this instant! You’re making a grave mistake.” he hissed as he continued to struggle about until a sickening crunch filled his ears. A short yelp left the man’s throat before being snuffed out by the spew of bile that had risen as a result of the sudden and insurmountable pain that overcame him from the snapping of his knee. The joint, forced outwards to the side against the stake twitched uncontrollably, the leg, only attached by flesh, found itself at a near right angle around the stake from its breakage.

“Oh yes, Shan’do! I just love to feel you squirm… Does it hurt?” She hissed before dashing her hand upwards, claws first towards Nedris’ groin. Nails roughly digging into the grundle before ripping forward and effectively hand scooping out his genitals in short, jerky movements. “Good, I am glad it hurts.” She hissed after she finished the scooping motion, harshly throwing her handful towards a nearby tree. There was a splatter, and a squish before the sounds of a beast eating meat came out, masked by the ear splitting screams of agony.

Ygos’ta growled and snarled as he devoured the scraps that were thrown to him, perhaps himself reveling in the cruel revenge, or simply being a beast of instinct.

“Enjoy An’da.” the blind elf hissed out towards the large frostsaber before moving forward on Nedris’ body, her hand extending up to cusp his jaw. Clawed fingers jabbed inward, her pointed hand extending under his chin and poking out of his mouth. “A quick death does not befit you, do’rodne” The elf growled, yanking her hand back to the sickening ripping and popping noise of Nedris’ jaw being pulled out of joint, the muscle and tendon being shredded and the lower half of his face being held on only by skin.

A snarl left Shay’s gullet as she continued to yank and pull on her Shan’do’s dislocated jaw, at this point the man had all but passed out, or expired. With this realization, Shaythis gave off an irritated roar and lunged back. Her master’s jaw still in hand as she recoiled, stomping a foot down on his throat, the jaw released from its body and ripped forward with a wet, scritching sound as excess flesh came with it. What remained of Nedris’ tongue flopped about, having been torn in half from the removal of his jaw. Another piece discarded to the ground.

“I curse you to never find peace in the afterlife, Nedris. May you walk this land forevermore, lost, confused and as angry as I. May you share my pain and my sorrow. My rage, my loss and with my damnation I will seek to damn you.”

The elf’s damning words seemed to haunt the frozen wastes, her curse taking hold amongst the wailing winds and whipping snow blasts. With a blizzard seeming to pick up in response to her hatred, the land itself matching her feeling as she disappeared into the snowdrift. Ygos’ta trailing behind. Nedris’ jaw seeming to have vanished with the pair while the rest of his mutilated body was left for the scavengers to claim.

#violent #fantasy #dark #night elf #short story #fiction #world of warcraft

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samingtonwilson · 7 years

Text

Marriage Material - Part 22 - Jim Kirk

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20 / Part 21

Summary: in this chapter, you swear to God.

Warnings: language, lil angsty

A/N: sorry this took so long! my mental health’s been slippin’

Jim carried his tension in his shoulders and carried his guilt in his back. He carried his exhaustion in the dark bags under his eyes and carried his anxiousness in the tips of his fingers. He carried his sadness in the drooping corners of his lips, in the crevices of his stomach that flipped intermittently, in the deepest parts of his chest that ached far too often and carried the love that was ruining him everywhere else.

It was a red feeling and it burned in his every vein. It made it tough for him to eat, it made it difficult for him sleep, it made it impossible for him to do anything other than go through the motions he was required by job description to follow.

He would see you in the corridors every now and then and the red feeling would scorch deeper. He had to resist the urge to scream an apology each time and had to resist the even stronger urge to scream an “I love you” each time.

His eyes would follow you, though, and he did nothing else. He would look longingly after you with his lips forcefully shut, his hands forcefully clenched into fists, his heartbeat forcefully knocking against your ribcage— but he did nothing else.

Because he did love you— he loved you so goddamn much it was almost crippling.

Crippling because his love for you ran so deep and had run so deep for so long that he couldn’t stand the idea of not giving you what you wanted. Crippling because what you wanted was space. Crippling because what you wanted was space from him.

He kept himself far away from everywhere he knew you’d be— you did want space, after all. As such, he avoided the senior officers lounge, avoided the observation deck right above his ready room, avoided the far back right corner of the commissary, and avoided the medbay to the best of his abilities. He would only walk through the doors leading to stark white walls, rows of biobeds, and blue uniforms when Leonard practically forced him to have a drink.

He didn’t expected you to come searching for him, nor did he expect you to pass a message through Leonard or Uhura that would eventually find its way to him.

He just hoped for that.

He hoped you would show up outside the quarters you once shared with him, features as soft and mesmerizing as the last time he’d seen you, and would say with the most thin sheen of tears over your eyes, “Jim, I love you. Let’s talk about this.”

But he knew that wouldn’t happen.

So he hoped you would ask Leonard or Uhura to tell him that you loved him and wanted to speak to him.

But he knew that wouldn’t happen either.

He sat in Leonard’s office, in Leonard’s large chair with his feet atop the desk, legs crossed at the ankle. He held a glass filled a third of the way with whiskey at his eye level, narrowing his eyes as the auburn liquid. He then smiled, small and genuine, as he repeated something you said to him the last time he saw you drunk, “If alcohol was actually intoxicating, the bottles would sway, too.”

“What?”

He shook his head at Leonard who stood with a questioning gaze at the agape doorway. “You coaxed me into coming here only to have me drink alone. I could’ve done that in the comfort of my own quarters.”

“S’the first step towards alcoholism. Drinking in your home alone.”

Jim frowned in consideration. “I always thought the first step was genetic predisposition.”

Leonard snorted, shaking his head once. “Listen, I hate to do this to you but we just got a full swarm of red shirts in— some sorta jefferies tube collapse. You might be here by yourself for a while.”

“Do what you have to, Bones. No need to feel guilty on my account.”

“Don’t feel guilty at all, Jim. Just thought I should notify you before you scream abandonment.”

Jim mouthed Leonard’s words back to him imitatively and very childishly before waving his hand dismissively. He was a grown man. He didn’t need constant supervision and a real father of a best friend. He could be alone for a few moments, he would just need a distraction.

He began scrolling absentmindedly through his PADD, opening his messages to Spock to maybe irritate the Vulcan.

He shook his head to himself and decided against it, draining what remained in his glass only to fill it once again.

He then opened his thread with you, smiling immediately at the last incoming message dated nearly two weeks ago.

I know you’re drinking with Len tonight for some manly men sharing their feelings time but I love, want, and need you so please cancel on him.

He couldn’t believe how fast he’d canceled those plans— he hadn’t even given Leonard a chance to protest— and he knew he would do it just as quickly again.

He tossed the PADD back down after he typed out I miss you thirteen times only to delete it thirteen times, the tablet clattering against the desk’s surface.

With a sigh, his head fell back against the edge of the chair’s backrest. His eyes slipped shut.

There was a loud laugh just outside the door that prompted him to pick his head up, his heart leaping to his throat as he strained his hearing.

“I look amazing, Chapel. And not just for someone that hasn’t slept in forty-eight hours,” you quipped, your voice growing louder and closer until you raced to Leonard’s doorway— it was open so you assumed the doctor was in.

Taking hold of the doorframe so the momentum of your quick steps didn’t carry you too far, you sighed out with your eyes still on your PADD. “Len, I was reading so someone better be dying—”

You stopped speaking when you looked up, meeting a delicate blue gaze which was simultaneously too far and too close. You felt something lodge itself in your throat.

Though it’d only been three days since he’d caught even a fleeting glance, he could’ve sworn you’d gotten more beautiful, far more enchanting. He swallowed thickly. “Jefferies tube accident.”

You nodded, there was sandpaper where your larynx used to be. “Okay.”

“Bones is out there.”

You nodded again. “Aye, Captain.”

And you were gone— no smile, no matter how momentary, pulled at your lips like the foolishly hopeful part of him had wished and searched for.

“Fuck,” he groaned loudly, an ironic laugh falling from his lips as his head fell back once more.

As you snapped gloves onto your hands and picked up a handheld dermal regenerator, you made a face at Leonard. “You couldn’t have told me he would be in your office?”

“Who would be in my office?”

You smiled sarcastically, sitting before an ensign with a few minor cuts and bruises on her arms. “You-know-who is in your office, Len— drinking alone, which I think is the first sign of alcoholism.”

“It is,” the ensign replied, her voice soft and timid. She had a small smile over her pink lips when you glanced at her, mousy brown hair a mess from what you assumed was quite the usual engineering fiasco. “It is the first sign.”

You motioned towards her when you looked at Leonard once again. “See?”

He peered at you from the corner of his eye, pausing in his movements for a moment as he sat atop a stool before another red shirt. “Didn’t know you were suddenly concerned about him.”

“I’m concerned about everyone— I’m a doctor, I took an oath to be concerned about everyone’s health in general.”

“Yeah? Not about him in particular?”

You shook your head silently.

“Is he talking about the captain?” the ensign before you nearly whispered, leaning towards you as she spoke. Her eyebrows were raised and she wore another smile. “Is Dr. McCoy talking about Captain Kirk?”

You met Leonard’s gaze before meeting hers again. You shrugged.

“Are you two fighting?” she asked, eyes wide before gasping out, “Are you splitting up?”

You shook your head. “No one’s splitting up, we’re just fighting.”

“You are?” Leonard inquired loudly, smirking as he wrapped gauze around his patient’s ankle. “Might wanna tell Jim that, sugar— he’s awfully concerned this is permanent.”

When you were certain she was no longer looking, you made a face at Leonard with gritted teeth. “I’m gonna let him sweat it out.”

“He’ll be dehydrated soon with low long you’re lettin’ him sweat it out.”

“Then start him on an IV and stop pushing it,” you pressed, narrowing your eyes. “I’m done here. Anything else the nurses and other doctors could do for you that you need from me, Doctor? I did work alpha and beta so it’s not like I’m that tired.”

“Cut the attitude.”

“Cut the child-of-divorce act.”

“Divorce?” the ensign gasped, grey eyes wide when you looked her way. “You are splitting up!”

“It’s an expression,” you explained, scowling. “We aren’t getting a divorce, Doctor McCoy is just acting like we already have.”

“You’re actin’ like you already have.” Leonard twisted in his stool to face the ensign, his patient hobbling off. “Hasn’t even told him she loves him for days.”

Another gasp from the ensign and you rolled your eyes with a heavy sigh. “Len, I swear to God,” you nearly shouted in frustration, rising from your stool and handing off your dermal regenerator and PADD to the nurse behind you.

You stormed past every remaining red shirt, of which there weren’t many, and ignored the curious looks you received. Stepping into Leonard’s office, you slammed your hand down on the control panel beside the door and spun around to meet Jim’s wide eyes.

“Are you—”

“I thought you were going to give me time,” you said as you crossed your arms over your chest. Though it sent your heart into your stomach to even look at him, you kept your eyes on him and didn’t let your gaze waver— you needed to keep your resolve.

His eyebrows came together and you found yourself memorizing the crease on his forehead. “I have been.”

“Really?” you laughed without humor. “You think by not speaking to me but sending Len to do your bidding, you’re giving me time?” You nodded upwards, trying not to focus too long on the droop of his lips, the wetness of his eyes, the tension in his posture. “You think by having him talk about you, praise you, and make it seem like I’m in the wrong, you’re giving me time?”

“I didn’t tell him to do any of that,” he argued, setting his glass down and standing up so you could commit even his movements to memory. “I told him to leave you be.”

When you asked with a sarcastic snort, “You sure, Jim?” he found himself disliking the sound of his name in your voice for the first time. “Because I’ve never heard or seen propaganda quite like that.”

“Propagan—” he sighed out with a chuckle under his breath, he took a few steps towards you. “I wouldn’t ask him to say or do something to propagate myself, not when I feel like everything—” he sighed again. “Not when everything’s my fault.”

“You should know me better than that,” he added quietly, finally able to tear his eyes away from the horribly fallen look in yours.

“How can I know anything about you, Jim? For all I know, all of that giving me time, giving me space, giving me what I want could just be another way you manipulate me.” You looked away as well, wiping the skin under your eyes harshly. “Why should I believe anything you say to me anymore?”

“Because you know me, because it was a mistake, because I love you!”

“This isn’t how you love someone!” you shouted back, your voice cracking. “You should’ve told me— if not that morning, then any time after. You had so many opportunities.”

“Why would I have thought to do that? You would’ve—”

“I would’ve, what?” you asked, sniffling and wishing you hadn’t met his gaze again. “Said no? You could’ve just told me how you felt. I liked you a lot— it wouldn’t have taken much to convince me to go on a date.”

“You never gave me any indication of that.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to lie to get what you want.”

He nodded and took another step in your direction, continuing to do so as you both spoke. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“I know I’m right, I don’t need confirmation.” You almost smiled at his quiet snort. “You lied to me.”

“I know.”

“You don’t lie to people you love.”

“I know.”

“I’ve been heartbroken for two weeks,” you continued, shaking your head. “I haven’t been able to sleep, or eat, or breathe.”

He was right in front of you now, his warmth forcing the restlessness in your fingers to cease. “Neither have I.”

Your nostrils flared and you bit down on your bottom lip when another wave washed over you, your eyes welling up. Before you could help yourself, you fell into Jim and wrapped your arms around him. “Yeah, well, it was your fault.”

His arms wound around you instantly, holding you tight enough to knock the air from your lungs. He turned his face to bury it in the crook of your neck, the tension leaving his shoulders when your arms tightened. “I know.”

You sighed out and let your eyes shut when a soft tingle slid up your spine.

“I didn’t mean to manipulate you. I just couldn’t stand the idea of losing whatever chance I had with someone I’m so in love with.”

You nodded. “You still should have told me. Would’ve saved us from whatever this is.”

“I know.”

“I hate my new quarters.”

He laughed through his nose, this thumbs moving out of sync against the fabric of your uniform. “Move back.”

“I can’t.”

He pulled away and set his hands on either side of your face, his thumbs now gliding across your cheekbones. His blue eyes seemed to be pouring whatever he felt into you and you looked away before it became too much. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not doing this backwards nonsense anymore if I don’t have to.”

“Starlight, —”

You took a step back and away so his hands were by his side again. “I can’t be married to you anymore.”

PART 23

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#jim #jim kirk #jim kirk imagine #kirk imagine #jim kirk x reader #kirk x reader #star trek #star trek imagine #captain kirk #captain kirk imagine #captain kirk x reader

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yeoldontknow · 7 years

Text

It Was The Night: 4

Author’s Note: WELCOME BACK TO CHANVEMBER!! I hope everyone is having The Best Time <3 Pairing: Chanyeol x Reader (oc; female) Genre: drama; historical au; suspense; romance Rating (this chapter): PG Word Count: 2,122

IV.

From that day forward, I weekly received letters placed carefully under my pillow, scraps of sheet music folded over with the letters A.S in perfect calligraphy. Most days, they contained notes on my performance, praises or critiques to help structure my performance as Antigona. I enjoyed these notes, most particularly the ones that contained praises. These sent a flock of butterflies alight in my stomach, made me smile and resolve within myself the will to please this imagined maker.

But some days, the days that kept me living for the next, the letters would simply contain verses. I did know if these words were intended for song or intended for scripture, all I knew is that they were intended for me alone. Each line contained the essence and notion of a high romance, an ideal that every young craves. Between the lines I could discern the affection, the respect, and the yearning, or perhaps it was simply my own projection of longing that made me cleave so desperately to these notes.

I had yet to encounter his visage, but in these letters I was weekly encountering his soul, weaving his spirit and his nature into my own. So entwined and enamoured with him was I, that not long after the commencement of these letters did I start to think of myself as betrothed. This was a secret I kept tightly to my breast, refusing to give anything away - even when the seamstress asked why I suddenly had given over to airs of lightheartedness. It was not that I was apprehensive of refuting this belief, for I very well knew the difference between sentiment and reality, simply that I did not want the gold of it all to be tarnished.

Mysterious and alluring as he was, he was still a stranger to me, a man and a myth that moved only in shadow - a shadow, still, that only I had seen. Explanations always eluded me, and yet I did not have it in me to feel fear. Fright for me was disregarded in place of glorious confirmation that my opera ghost was one and the same as Aeon Smith. Beyond that, I cared for very little.

Still though, questions tore their way through my mind at alarming speed:

Why had he picked me as his star? Where were these pieces of music from? With regards to the extra music, surely not all could be composed just for me? Why would he hide? How long had he been living? Was he trapped within the walls of the opera, a construction accident gone horrible awry?

He was my favourite and most dear mystery. And, in consideration of his features, there was not a single moment where I imagined him to be anything less than magnificent. True, I did not know how to picture him and thus he was a grey thing, a formless thing whose edges bled into their surroundings, but even this warmed me, made my heart flutter within the confines of my chest. At my young age, I decided this was love, or at least something like it, and let the knowledge of this turn my blood into honey.

On the opening night of Antigona, just before the gala of the first performance, I received my first full piece of instruction from Aeon Smith. In my dressing room, so full of objects, wigs, costumes, and finery brought to me by patrons of the house, I immediately noticed the single, most humble piece of paper placed gently on the vanity with a box of chocolates as its weight. The nature of its origin was immediately apparent, the red sealing wax catching my eye even from across the room.

Receiving chocolates was an entirely new experience, his gifts taking the shape of words and music, scratched ink that bled through parchment and likely stained his fingers. It became apparent, then, that the sweets were a cover, an excuse, a reason for the letter to exist so plainly at all.

My fingers were eager, shaking in their excitement, as I tore the letter open. With careful eyes, I glanced around my dressing room, checking for maids or eager companions, hoping no one would burst through my door in a fit of glee. I wanted silence, then, wanted this moment of intimacy, as public as it was. Perhaps that is what made the moment so thrilling, the risk of exposure in plain sight.

I am the unseen sun. Keep close to my shadows, where the burns of modernity shall never mar thy skin.

Meet me in the chapel at 01:00. A gift remains to be given.

All at once the matter of polite society became a most vexing curse. How was I meant to continue the evening, shaking hands with the ennui that encompasses members of high society, when the very essence of truth was waiting for me? In my blood, the nerves that coursed through my veins shifted suddenly from those of performance jitters to the trepidation of truth. It suddenly seemed impossibly easy to perform in front of a full house, for every piece had been rehearsed. I knew my music, knew my lines, had blocked every scene, but had been wholly unprepared for the responsibility that came with knowledge.

Looking back, I view the opening night performance as rushed and hurried, messy simply because I was too eager to meet my angel. The only thing that slowed my tongue was the thought of my angel watching me, high in the balconies or even above the stage, moving among the ropes and rafters. Then, more than ever, I wanted to make him proud. At the end of the performance, I practically ran to the chapel as the last of the patrons departed, adept at timing Madame Catherine’s rounds to remain completely unnoticed, coming to pause only at the slightly ajar wooden doors.

A wave of excitement consumed me, carried my feet in hurried motions through winding halls. In there air, there was a chill that licked at my ankles, made my skin turn to gooseflesh, but I paid these sensations no mind. With every step, I was closer: to answers, to love, to him. A wry smile pulled at my lips, the sight of the chapel doors opened minutely, just enough for slivers of coloured light, filtering through the stained glass windows, to dance along the stone floor. Just beyond the threshold, I stopped, closing my eyes at the sounds of an organ softly being played by adept fingers. The gentle music coaxed the nerves from my bones and left me feeling somewhat weightless, as though I were floating through time towards the arms of my lover.

Silently, I slipped through the door, admiring how very different the chapel appeared in the night. The statue of Mary at the head of the room, body bowed in mourning, appeared haunted in the light of the moon by something far more sinister than the crucifixion of her son. Something about her marble seemed too bright, her shadows too deep, the genuflection of her grief too profound. Turning in the center of the room, my fingers danced along the cold wood of a pew, making the wood creak against my touch as though the seat itself had come to life.

At this sound, the music came to an abrupt halt and I found myself standing the precipice of great disappointment when, from above me, a letter glided elegantly through the air, ornately folded and sealed with the same crimson wax I had come to adore.

I leapt to catch it and quickly tore it open, my impatience taking an uncharacteristic hold of me.

‘I knew you’d come,’ I read aloud, my voice little more than panted breath.

Distantly, and from the direction of the letter, I heard soft footsteps bending the wood high in the ceiling and I raised my head to stare at the angels in the mural above me. Idly, I imagined them as the keepers of our secret, the watchful eyes of cherubs and holy beings silently offering their blessing.

‘How could you know?’ I whispered to them, wondering if he too had been blessed with soft wings.

‘It’s in your eyes when I see you in the mirror. You’re so hungry for knowledge.’

The voice came, strong and melodic, from an entirely different part of the room. He seemed to be surrounding me, every direction consumed by him. In my mind, he was the chapel, the opera house itself, and I suddenly felt terribly ignorant to have imagined him as anything else.

Eyes scanning every crevice my gaze could touch, I found myself desperate to know him. ‘Who are you?’

‘You already know,’ came the echo of his tenor.

‘Aeon Smith?’ I did not mean for it to sound so lost or even so unsure, I simply needed to know the truth.

‘Are you questioning yourself?’ he intoned, suddenly behind me. As I turned, eager to see him, I smiled at the sound of his gentle, teasing laugh. ‘I deemed you more clever than this.’

It was melodic, this sound, tearing through from somewhere within the walls, and I found myself starting to swoon.

‘Only because that cannot be your real name,’ I countered, though the intensity of my smile as I turned, chasing his noise, made this statement sound terribly playful.

‘And what would you have my name be?’

The question came from the seat of the organ, his neck and shoulder illuminated by the moon. He sat so straight and tall, I imagined him a partner to Mary, standing beside her in great contrast and allowed only on hallowed ground so long as I remained in the room. My legs took care of action and thought for me, my hands clutching the letter to my stomach and as I moved forward.

‘Stop,’ he commanded. ‘Do not come any closer.’

‘Whyever not?’ I whined. ‘I want to see you.’

‘I am not to be seen. Not now, and certainly not here.’ He sounded so remorseful I had to stop myself from reaching out to him. Within minutes he’d turned me into a greedy, obsessed little creature. I shivered, wanting to melt this new skin away and remain as he liked me, curious and pure.

‘Won’t you tell me who you are?’ I begged, sounding somewhat petulant. ‘What you are?’

‘You know who I am,’ he said, patiently, keeping his tone even. ‘You’re the only one who’s ever known. I’ve told you from the start.’

‘Aeon Smith is not a name,’ I repeated, exasperated.

‘Aeon Smith is a truth,’ he replied, taking one tentative step forward, though I still could not truly see him, ‘and a scandalous one at that. Aeon Smith has grown tired of hiding.’

I sighed, and placing my hands on my hips as I spoke. ‘And what do you think you’re doing at the present?’

‘This is not hiding,’ he chuckled. ‘In the darkness, I exist. The darkness makes me real.’

‘Things exist in the daylight,’ I countered, feeling slightly dazed from the sound of his playful laugh. ‘Many would argue the darkness renders you into nothing but a dream.’

The shadow of his head cocked to the side, and I imagined him to be smiling. ‘Do you happen to be sleeping?’

‘Still waking sleep, that is not what it is. This love feel I, that feel no love in this,’ I breathed, though even today I do not know why the words came to me. In that moment I fancied myself Juliet, sleep walking and living without the return of my desires. I was just as lost and confused as the tragic characters I seemed born to play, speaking to a blackness that threatened to swallow me whole.

‘You have proven you know me without proving it to yourself,’ he said. ‘In one simple quote you have revealed me. Now you must reveal it to yourself.’

With that, he disappeared from the room before my eyes could adjust to the path he took. Disgruntled, I slowly walked the long path that lead to my bedchamber, fondling the letter in my hands and running my fingers over the wax seal.

And that was when I noticed it, the warped and bent pattern, purposely broken and misshapen in the press itself. I had to stifle a laugh as I could not believe I hadn’t noticed it before: it was almost exactly the same as the pattern on Monsieur Park’s waistcoat buttons. Within moments, the mystery was no mystery at all.

What’s in a name!, I wanted to cry.

Aeon Smith, the unseen sun.

Aeon Smith.

I am the son.

#chanyeol x reader #chanyeol fanfic #kpoptrashtag #kwriterskollection #noonanet #chanyeol au #chanyeol fanfiction #chanyeol scenario #exo au #exo scenario #exo fanfic #exo fanfiction #park chanyeol #kpop fanfic

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dorothyliker420 · 6 years

Text

huuhhoOh my GOD slrprfrsrfl(more lip licking noises)ooooh my GOd whoaoaohah. *huffing* a completeed chorus 2! HOLY SHIT oh my gohd

(silky made me this image as per request ily silky)

WELL HERE WE GO!!!!!!! A COMPLETED CHORUS CHAPTER 2!!!!!!!! CLOCKING IN AT 20,588 FUCKING WORDS AND 45 PAGES IN GOOGLE DOCS! lets see how many bs words I can add to that count am I right ladies

because of, I dont know, any italicization or bolding in the text itself was lost when I copy/pasted it to here so I guess the Experience isnt as Deep BUT ITS ALL GOOD ANYWAY because only I get to type in bold. thats how you know its me and not a rabble, but I also italicized lines that I really wanted to talk about

ill put all the Canon Real Text in an indent tho happy reading,

A Long Awaited Duet ---------------------------------***********************---------------------------------

The new canon is that in between those dashes is a really terrible swear word that the author censored with asterisks. only he knows it and he’ll unleash it when you criticize his fic

Pacing quickly around her room in a long, frustrated circle, Lisette’s worries were quickly drawing to a boiling point.

lisette’s circles make me long and frustrated am I right fellow dudes

Typically, she was a very easy-going person, the kind of girl who’d shrug off most concerns and instead focus on keeping a positive outlook. However, after spending her entire morning going through the motions, feeling trapped in a listless, uneasy funk, even she couldn’t help but be affected. It was almost noon already and still she couldn’t move her thoughts past yesterday’s tea party, to the look she’d seen weathered across Alto’s face.

Lisette is right to be threatened and uneasy. this is like the scene in the opening where the village is getting crystallized and its too late for rosa and shes like SAVE YOURSELF except instead its sexification

She hadn’t had the courage to say anything at the time, but it had haunted her thoughts ever since. Making it worse, when she’d attempted to find her mother to ask her for her advice, she hadn’t been able to find her anywhere, so she’d wound up simply spending the previous night with Marie.

the ghosts of the last chapter vaguely implying alto is too horney to sleep in the same bed as marie have returned and im frightened

“He’s… he’s still on edge, isn’t he?”

It wasn’t right. The fighting was over and peace had been won, but even when he should have been relaxing with his friends, Alto was still wearing the same guarded, strained expression. It was the same heart-breaking look she’d seen from her friend all throughout their battles, at all the times she’d stood at his die, watching him make the most difficult decisions of his life.

STOOD AT HIS DIE

She didn’t think any of the others had noticed. Perhaps she was the only one that would even be able to recognise the difference, after all, she was the only one who’d known him before all this. Back in Mithra he hadn’t been anything like that, he’d smiled freely and his gaze had was always carefree, to the point of being cheeky. Their entire lives had changed ever since she became a Witch and he followed to become her Knight… but she’d always hoped all this time that it could still return to how it was when everything was finally over.

“No,” she corrected herself, her body sagging with a deep sigh. There wasn’t any point lying to herself about this, “I’m not that naïve, I always knew it wouldn’t be that easy…”

“gee” said lisette out loud to herself with no one else around, “I am lisette from the video game stella glow. I am five foot four and my blood type is

Because, she knew Alto. And she knew, for him, that it had never been about the battles. He didn’t fear fighting, he would recklessly throw himself into danger without even a second’s thought if it meant he could help someone. As she’d told him so many times, his overwhelming compassion was both his best and worst trait. He was courageous to the point of stupidity, all he cared about was protecting the people important to him, keeping the people he loved safe and happy, as best he could. That was all the fighting had ever meant to him. And that was why she’d always known it couldn’t possibly be that easy for him.

im giving this alto analysis a 2 alto is a liberal degenerate who really loves hunting and also u dont know anything about him jl “AWOOOGAA” davenport if u tell me about him again ill kill you

Crying out in annoyance, Lisette slumped across the room and threw herself onto her bed, sinking deep into the large, soft mattress as if to try let it absorb a fraction of her worries.

I cannot shake the feeling he was thinkin bout her tiddies when he wrote this

‘Alto’s still fighting, even now,’ she knew that. It was a truth she’d struggled to deal with for days now, ‘The war isn’t over for him yet, because he’s still pushing himself to try find a way to keep every one of us happy.’

fuckin dumb ass horny ass bitch. mediocre ass, pathetic ass, money grubbing, fucking stupid bitch ass you dont put apostrophes around thoughts its ugly as shit

It was a painful thought, the elephant in the room and something she hated thinking about. But somehow, not thinking about it, pretending to simply ignore had become even worse.

does lisette know what an elephant is. does that expression exist. this is third person limited so its kind of weird to use that kind of anachronism

After all, if Alto was still fighting, then she wanted to fight alongside him! She was his family, his comrade, his first Witch and even his (prospective) girlfriend,

I had to cut this off because it was next level dumbshit literally anyone is his prospective girlfriend with that state of their relationship. im his prospective girlfriend

there wasn’t a single part of her that wanted to do anything less than to support him with all her might. He was a part of her soul. He was the man she loved and someone who she would never allow herself to be separated from, she’d known those feelings for absolute certainty ever since the moment she’d woken up from death’s door and travelled around the world to stand at his side. Just thinking about him wracking himself with worries and her not helping him was terrifying!

2. that last sentence is the worst written thing in, if not human existence, then the century

And, she spared a glance over at the mirror she’d been avoiding looking at all day, even aside from that, could she really say she was any different? Was she truly able to smile like before, only because their fighting was over?

hackles raised at the prospect of mirror kink

Lisette gave a dry laugh, reaching out and squeezing the small stuffed pig Popo had given her, pressing it against her considerable chest.

1. the pig is kinda cute like maybe but who tf is vending these smutfic items. who is crawling around in the back alleys selling cursed objects that make people horny as fuck. did ewan make a deal with the devil to sell all his twilight-zone-monkey-paw shit from his brief sponsorship with baddragon

2. die

3. lisette’s chest is CONSIDERABLE all right. it makes me CONSIDER ending it all

For all their outward appearances, in this, at least, she doubted it was any different from any of the others, no doubt that was why everything had seemed so off lately, “We’re all just stuck in limbo, aren’t we?”

this is the longest string of indirect pronouns ever like whomst??? and what an eerie sentence to end a section on. though u kno what stay in limbo

---------------------------------***********************---------------------------------

those dashes are containing the massive power of the cuss word. if even one of them falters or breaks formation the sheer obscenity would vaporize us all

Unfortunately for Lisette, her self-examination came with no easy answers or steps forward. Even though she’d accepted that being stuck in place as they were was only making things worse for all of them and particularly for Alto, there was no obvious solution she could latch onto, to change things.

this literally picks up? exactly where the previous section ended? like. with information that flows from the previous paragraph. if youre going to make that fucking big then why is it functionally useless

However, now more than ever, she was a determined woman and slowly -as the time passed and the morning faded away into early afternoon- slowly, her resolve held out and she was able to fearlessly consider even the truths she’d previously tried so hard to avoid.

why is this the ugliest formatting ive ever seen have you ever heard of an em dash or, a comma. also im losing shit at Determination Resolve Holding Out Shes Never Done This wasnt this like the sole bad point of her tunings

She knew she loved Alto, that he was the only man who’d ever made her feel complete

But, she also knew that the other Witches felt just the same, she forced herself to accept the fact that he was just as important to them as he was to her.

ok nvm im not done being pissed at The Only Man like yeah lisette its called comphet im rewriting this so that lisette realizes shes a lesbian and also that whole Complete Her thing is all of whats wrong with lisettes arc like all of it this is what men do

It was something they’d all consciously avoided discussing, something that none of them seemed to know how to deal with. Her companions, the other Witches, were all as close as family to her, she loved them all dearly… And yet, they were all competing, in their own way, for the same man.

alto is three years old

She was sure they must feel just as awkward about that as her, there was a reason why even the ever impulsive Popo or the harsh-blunt Sakuya

tell u whats harshing my blunt........this fic ((takes a weed puff

had never said anything and why, no matter how much they talked and how much they shared, this single topic was never once addressed directly, they’d all been working on the same process as her- that it was too strange a situation and too difficult a conversation to deal with, that the best thing to do was simply wait till after the war when Alto would be able to reciprocate their feelings, and then there the problem would solve itself. Well… The war was over. And they were all still tiptoeing around each other’s hearts, all waiting for the same response from the same man. “We must all seem so silly.”

tf were they supposed to do to address it? like lets just accept the gross situation but was they supposed to so call everyone to a room lisette spins around in a big chair and says We’re Here To Discuss The Het or maybe this happens

She could just imagine how ridiculous this situation must appear from the outside; five best friends all in love with the same man, all waiting for him to respond to their feelings and all marooned in the same silent stand-off, walking on eggshells while pretending everything was fine. No doubt her mother found it hilarious.

thats the worst line ive ever seen in my life. oedipus rex has nothing on this bitch

that aside like accepting them all as comphets for the moment. literally never interacted on a regular basis with another boy their age. except hilda I guess but it doesnt matter this is so dumb! yall is a bunch of trauma victims you cant just jump directly into the boinking

“Grrr! This is all your fault Alto! Stupid! Since when did you get so popular anyway!? You weren’t like that in Mithra! You’re just… you’re just too dependable… You mean so much to all of us, we can’t help but love you…”

deadass u told me this was dialogue from the anime where the tiddies bounced when the girl blinked? id believe it

He was their conductor. They all loved him. They all wanted to be with him. They were all waiting for him to favour only them…

dont like how its treated that its an absolute that witches will just fall for their conductor thats like sayin no one is safe around bi ppl. reach perhaps but its the same dumbass ideas

Perhaps that was the worst part of all. The more she thought about it, the more she was starting to realise just what an impossible situation their feelings and expectations had put Alto into. She knew better than anyone just how much he cared for each of them, she’d healed the scars on his body time and again that showed just how far he’d go to protect any of them… And yet, without ever really thinking how, they were all still asking him to then choose between them, to decide which of his Witches he loved the most.

but also I just had the revelation that author does not know what romantic love is like, at all, and the smoke cleared I am enlightened and theres nothing I dont understand

And, she couldn’t help him at all, could barely even support him in what must be an incredibly painful choice for him. All she could do was leave it to him, and trust that when he did choose, that he felt the same way about her as she did about him and they would finally be together. As for the rest… She didn’t know… The thought of him choosing one of the others over her was almost too painful, to terrifying to consider, but the knowledge that her friends would have to go through that was no less terrible…

tired of u demonizing r*mantic love. fuck its th most exhilarating experience of my life. that and having a baby shark sit in my hands. dont give all these Oh No People Get Hurt to justify just fuckin whoever u want

That was the mire they were all stuck in. That was why Alto was still looking so stressed and why none of them had been able to move forwards. There wasn’t anything any of them could do and there was no way to make everyone happy. She frowned bitterly. ‘…Would… Would it even make us happy?’

me, who had never been as happy as I am prior to being in love: hell yeah bitch dis go hard as hell flocka

It was a strange thing to consider, something she’d never once thought before this very moment- she’d thought for so long she was waiting for Alto to return her feelings, she’d wanted so long to be with him and to be together forever. But, would she really be happy like that? Could she truly be happy being with the man she loved at the expense of watching the companions she held dear, the friends she’d bled and cried together with, becoming heartbroken? Mordi, Popo, Sakuya, and especially Hilda, after all they’d been through, after how important she knew Alto was to each of them… Her heart clenched in her chest just imagining it!

if this is a question then ur not in romantic love idiot! shut up

But… That was how it had to be, wasn’t it? They’d all been foolish enough to fall for the same man, there was only one Alto. No.

dumps the big ass mess of gl***ng pr**e poly edits here but im not saving it to my computer so u gotta imagine it

Lisette propped herself up on the bed, a previously unfathomable conclusion quickly becoming clear to her. No. She couldn’t accept that. And Alto surely wouldn’t accept that. He’d never accepted that they couldn’t stop the Eclipse. He hadn’t accepted that they couldn’t fight against God. And, at the end of everything, he’d refused to accept that Mother Qualia had to be their enemy. A solution that put the entire burden on Alto and led to all her friends being heartbroken? How could she ever accept that!? How could she ever have thought something like that would make her happy!? That wasn’t how they worked! They were the Tuning Knights, humans that had defeated God and saved Marie! They would never accept such a lukewarm compromise.

fucking................mormons..................................

‘Well now,’ she laughed, ‘If I really think about it, the solution is pretty obvious, isn’t it?’ It was reckless and crazy, nothing at all like anything she’d ever imagined herself doing… But then, didn’t that just make it the same as everything else they’d done?

this isnt even how polyamory works!!!!!!!! sorry im not being funny I just really value r*mant*c love and listen NO ONE would just sit down and think “yes clearly the healthiest thing for the person my heart is devoted to is to juggle 6 relationships”

“Yup! I’m not gonna accept anything like that!” ultimately, all that mattered was the same conclusion she’d come to, ever since she’d returned to life. She already knew what she wanted, she just had to make it happen, “Alto, I’m by your side. Always. I’ll support you!”

hi im lisette and this is my boyfriend alto! we’re queering heterosexuality by having him fuck a ton of girls at once! swipe right if you want to hop on that dick. no gays allowed

---------------------------------***********************---------------------------------

me: this is bad content

jldavenport: h*mg*n*n*l*b*ng*s*gl*m

me: vaporized in silhouette against the wall from the sheer power

Finishing off a long day of meetings, reports and training, clad in his usual attire (sans the armour,

oh shit its sans thearmour!!!! gonna have a bad time that being said makes sense that hes european the gross fuck

thankfully for him) and returning from the dormitory baths with a relieved sigh, Alto scarcely had time to close the door to his room behind him before he was suddenly jolted from his thoughts by an excited knocking. “Eh? Lisette?”

the phrase “dormitory baths” pisses me the fuck off where do you get off jldavenport. probably all over your keyboard but stop saying shit like that this isnt your canon bitch

A late-night visit from his orange haired friend wasn’t especially unusual, but to see her standing around in her Witches outfit

epithets, especially those that refer to hair color, are awful and amateurish but because he still doesnt know this apparently: Redhead. Is. A. Fucking. Word.

in her Witches outfit

that wasnt good enough to warrant that large of an image but like that movie fucked me up so bad lets see what scars me worse the mouse scene or this fic

at this time of night certainly was. And even stranger than that, she was wearing the original outfit, the one she’d worn since the first time she’d awakened to her powers in Mithra, rather than the more dazzling Goddess robes she’d gained after he’d finally tuned her heart, ‘I suppose it’s probably easier to sit around in this one?’ If he had to wear something as flashy as any of the dresses the girls wore, he was sure he’d spent half his time worrying about ripping it.

honestly content notwithstanding this reads like an instructional on what NOT to do when writing. you write like this? dont. its very entry level like I cant say that I necessarily write better but do what I say not what I do

throwing the goddess thing out there is like him saying LOOK!!!! A FACT i KNOW ABOUT THE ACTUAL CANON!!!!!! HAHA

Despite standing staring at him from the hallway, with her face flushed and eyes not quite meeting his, she still hadn’t said anything, “Er, Lisette? Is something wrong?”

knocking on someones door and forgetting why ur there is a neurodivergent feel lisette has adhd now and theres nothing you can do about it

“Ah!” she jumped before finally shaking herself off and responding with a slight anxiousness, anxiety. see me after class “No, no not really. I just… I’ve had a lot of mind and I thought it’d be better if we could talk a bit? Do… Do you mind if we spend the night together, again?”

lisette u were literally talking to urself five minutes ago abt havin him fuck everyone and now ur all anime blushus. bitch

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. She wanted to share his bed again? Spend the night holding hands like back then? Stopping himself short of giving her an answer, Alto suddenly realised just how imploringly she was looking up at him.

they literally used this exact Mouth Suddenly Dry thing last chapter do ppl who enjoy this fic actually like that r smthn. they get wet 4 the dry

“Huh, it’s not like you to actually ask…” He teased softly. Usually Lisette was far more insistent about this sort of thing, he’d normally expect her to simply march into his room and seat herself on his bed. He only realised as she spoke that for her to act like this, for whatever reason she was acting like this, it must be important to her that he did accept her request

ugly sentence. ugly, ugly sentence. ew. im actually so bored by this sentence im ceasing work on this for the night good bye

She didn’t want to force it on him. Still… He couldn’t help but hesitate. It was stupid, he knew, but he’d felt awkward spending time alone with any of the girls since after the war, lest any of them get the wrong idea.

“get the wrong idea” DONT FUCKING WRITE ALTO LIKE THIS I AM IMMORTAL MY SKIN IS ADAMANTINE YOU SHALL FALL BEFORE ME

A moment passed and still Lisette didn’t say anything; clenching her hands nervously below her wait -and unintentionally pushing her impressive bust out even further towards him-

the commissioner, apparently upon seeing stella glow:

she silently awaited his response. Blushing a little under her low gaze, Alto realised it was getting harder and harder to remember the days when he’d seen her just like a sister.

this proves its inhuman and disgusting because it gave me visceral flashbacks to fire emblem fates so lemme post some of my fave incest quotes from that, starting with the ones it made me astral project into

did that last one haunt u because for a split second you imagined a world where lisette said them? good bc that shit keeps me up at night. im tired of cropping these quotes out so like we’re done my point has been made

In the end though, he couldn’t possibly deny her. Not for no reason, and not when she looked at him like that, “Yeah, of course Lisette. That sounds fun.”

the begging thing from the last chapter hit me full force in memory and I honestly hope it comes back bc ive got a dynamite joke locked and loaded

Breaking out into a bright smile, the Water Witch sagged in relief, taking him by surprise as she reached out to take his hand in hers, letting her body fall soft and warm against him as she did so. Her breath tickled hot across his collar and Alto’s heart jumped in shock!

DONT EVER USE EXCLAMATION POINTS LIKE THIS im serious. it is about as ugly, 2007-fanfic-net-core you can get.

Her hands felt smooth and gentle, wrapped warm around his…

HIS WHAT

he’d felt that before, it was pleasant, although not anything new. But feeling her head falling lovingly to his shoulder like this and having her entire body now laying against his… His mouth went dry,

Wet 4 The Dry Confirmed

he could even feel her breasts pushing large and heavy against his own chest! ‘Woah… S-So soft… They’re even bigger than Rosa’s, aren’t they?’

can you believe this was written completely unironically? like, people find this hot? if it didnt deplete the experience of reading this fic id replace every line referencing boobs with a comment from nicki minaj’s instagram

For just a split second, no matter how much of a gentleman he was, standing there like that, it was impossible for him not to compare the mother and daughter.

WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SON

“Li-Lisette?” he choked out, desperately reigning in his thoughts before they rampaged down a dangerous direction. “Mmm, Alto, hehe, I’m glad,” she giggled happily, skipping back and beaming up at him as she tugged on his hands, leading him off, “Even just being like this with you, I feel better already!”

ok I have NO idea what movement theyre doing. shes like, skipping and then she comes back and takes his hands and idk probably his dick or something

Absolutely caught up in her rhythm, they were halfway down the hall before Alto finally realised she’d pulled him completely out of his room!

heres a coded message just for katt: e*****t w** d****** **m!the narration means he was aware she was pulling him so like where the fuck did he think he was going if not outside his room

“Uh, h-hey, Lisette? We’re going somewhere? I thought you wanted to go to sleep?” “That’s right,” she nodded simply, giving up and tugging him and instead falling into step beside him, “But your bed’s too small for it to be comfortable, so we’re gonna use my room instead!” Alto almost dug his heels in from sheer indignation!

im sorry. im sorry I had to cut this up but come on. come the fuck on. indignation. like she made a point and alto is all “insolent female requesting things of me” have you not met alto. authot is from r/incels

She’d come all this way to see him, just to drag him back to her room!? How self-indulgent could she be!? And, it wasn’t as if his bed back in Mithra had been any larger and she’d never complained before. Eventually, he just sighed and followed her lead, it wasn’t worth getting worked up over. If it would make her happier, then that was fine. It might be nice to spend a night in someone else’s room for a change too.

Walking hand in hand through the halls like this was fairly embarrassing, thankfully it seemed that it was late enough that no-one else was around. He really, really didn’t want to suddenly run into Rusty like this, let alone Giselle, or Sakuya… Supressing a shudder, Alto hurried on.

“let alone giselle” wh???? I am so baffled by this. obviously rusty or sakuya would give him shit but whats giselle gonna do??? is alto being bullied by a robot?????? I want giselle to appear and smash alto’s frosting into the ground

“I won’t hesitate, bitch,” said Giselle, pointing her laser at altos dick and shattering it into one million individual pieces

Unlike the tiny spare room he’d been assigned so long ago now, Lisette, as a Witch, had been housed in the premium quarters on the other side of their dormitory.

stop. stop saying dormitory. this is not a college

Luckily in this case, unlike the Palace, the building wasn’t overly large so it was only a short trip to her room. They arrived a few minutes later, just as his heart was beginning to settle down.

…

what happened to the long ass aterisks break. oh god the swear word is coming isnt it

Unfortunately, the moment Lisette opened the door and they stepped inside, Alto’s breath was one again caught violently in his throat, “H-Hilda!?” And indeed, kneeling serenely atop a small cushion in the middle of the large room, the Time Witch was sipping calmly from her usual green ceramic tea-cup, as if there was nothing strange about her presence here at all.

I dont like how shes sitting on a pillow in the center of the room that sounds ritualisitic

(bangs pink cup on the ground) She Sits On The Sacrificial Fuck Pillow ((group of hooded figures behind me start chanting “Fuck Pillow! Fuck Pillow!”

Watching as she settled the drink aside, perfectly in synch with the sound of Lisette locking the door behind her, Alto’s mouth went dry.

theres so much wrong with the syntax and shit but im pushing that all aside to say how fucking difficult it is to sync sound like that even on purpose so yeah theyre def doing a cult sacrifice to the original sex god, elcrest

A moment of silence reigned and somewhere in the back of his currently panicking mind, the bewildered Conductor couldn’t help but notice that Hilda too was wearing her standard Witches’ outfit, the same form fitting black dress

“dress” very generous for mr boob grower

and wide sweeping hat she’d become associated with for so many years. However, in her case, this wasn’t much of a surprise. As far as he’d seen from the White-Haired woman, she didn’t seem to actually own any normal, casual attire and, while he knew she deeply adored he beautiful white dress she’d unlocked when he’d purified her lonely heart, he also knew that even she couldn’t help but feel rather self-conscious, wearing something that was practically a wedding dress as an everyday outfit, he hadn’t seen Hilda’s Goddess Robes since the end of the final battle.

I literally cannot read any part of this paragraph except the capitalization of White-Haired and Goddess Robes this was either written in the 1700s or modern day by me dissociating in a target bathroom this is so funny if the fic gets any funnier ill die

“Alto? I’m surprised. Isn’t it a bit late for you to be visiting a woman’s bedroom?”

horny dont got business hours babe

“Ah, H-Hilda! It’s, it’s not what you’re thinking, I, Lisette!? Wha-” “Relax Alto,” the Water Witch giggled softly as she stepped forward, taking his hand again, but this time wrapping herself around his arm, “She’s just teasing you.” “Wha… Abuh?”

this is harem anime/fire emblem dialogue right down to the “Abuh?” actually thats the defining thing you hear someone say that youre in a straight anime and you need to run for your fucking life

“My apologies,” Hilda nodded, offering him a small smile in recompense as she matched Lisette’s movements, taking hold of his other hand, her pale face burning bright red as her soft fingers entwined with his, “I just, got a little flustered seeing you so suddenly… I… I wasn’t sure what to say.”

ok first of all you cannot write hilda in any realm of possibility but also like this is yet another thing to not trust men for: emphasizing the whiteness of a womans skin. he is a racist, plain and simple

Her hand squeezed nervously around his and Alto realised just how easily he could feel her racing heart through the light fabric of her dress when she pulled his arm against herself. Not that Lisette was any different, he couldn’t possibly believe in the confidant front she was showing after knowing her as long as he had, not when he could feel her entire body trembling against him.

hilda is like two ft tall howd she even reach his arm. also like there isnt even any fabric boy u raw touchin her

His mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t think what to say, he wasn’t mentally prepared for any of this! He’d gone from expecting to go to sleep, to being visited by Lisette, to being dragged through the halls, and now he was being sprung with some surprise meeting!? And both of them were clinging to him like never before!

this is in character alto not wanting to have a threesome so he can go nap

He couldn’t possibly keep up. Before he even realised it, he’d been pulled all the way over to Lisette’s bed and was sitting with a girl wrapped around either of his arms.

what a problem! what a terrible day for him! what are the odds of this happening!

“What… What’s going on?” “Something good.” Hilda answered in her own cryptic fashion, her voice almost breathless and her blazing red cheeks half hidden behind his cloak as she shyly slid in right next to him.

it is most certainly not good ma’am

“That’s right,” Lisette agreed, happily snuggling up against him as she squeezed herself around his other arm, “We’re gonna help you come to a decision!”

we’re gonna make u C*M...............to a decision ;)

Alto blinked, “Eh?”

petition for this to turn out like the friends episode where ross got kicked out of a threesome with his wife and another woman bc they were lesbians so he left and made a sandwich

conveniently the fic decides to break here anyway so thats all you get for now. I’ll finish the other parts later (im expecting like maybe five because of the gargantuan size of this travesty) and link them direct from here

Part 2 here! (coming soon)

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archive-creamycomet · 7 years

Note

Same gal who asked about the alpha/omega/beta dynamic aND HOLY SHIT SO MUCH WISDOM, and if you get the chance can you write a one shot (or full blown story) cause that would be amazing! Also I'm so fucked up cause the idea of Gaku exploiting Satoru in heat is just LORD HAVE MERCY HOT

(whispers quietly) i am a sinning man and these are my sinning hands.

Also on AO3 here: [link]

People often asked Satoru what it waslike, waking up after fifteen long years. They wanted to know whether he sawlight at the end of a long, dark tunnel; whether he heard anything when he wasasleep; what thoughts went through his head while he lay there, eyes closed andunmoving. More often than not, Satoru was able to answer with a little shrug ofhis shoulders. It took days before his eyes had adjusted, so he didn’t seeanything. His ears were the same—he hadn’t even heard when his mother hadwished him that first good morning. And as for what he thought—

Nothing. One moment, Satoru had beenleaving his house in the morning, frantically looking for his recorder andracing off to school. The next, he was in a hospital bed. There was noin-between: just the nothingness of sleep, deep and dark and over in aninstant.

But what he does remember, from the moment he first became aware of himselfagain, was that he wasn’t alone.

Before any of his other senses, Satoruhad felt it: something that wasn’t himself, mingling with his mind. A gentlehand grazing against his soul, curious and holding its breath, not yet daringto hope. And though he couldn’t move his limbs, couldn’t even bat an eyelash,he weakly reached back out to it—and Satoru felt his own consciousness tanglingwith the other, offering a feeble little nudge in the void.

And then too much—devotion and awe and unrestrained euphoria—crashed intohim like a tidal wave. The presence pushed its way into his head, wrappingSatoru’s thoughts up in an embrace that was desperate and tight. It clutched athim in a crushing, suffocating grip—yet Satoru found himself sinking into itall the same, feeling these feelings that were not his own, too weak to fightthe pure joy he felt humming across the bond.

It’s you, itwhispered, disbelief etched in every word. You’reawake.

It was that familiar, comforting voicethat lulled him back under.

Everything smelled. The next timeSatoru felt himself stirring, that’s what hit him first: all the scents thatwere now assaulting his senses, stirring him awake. The muscles in his facetwitched, his nose curling in displeasure. For some reason, everything carriedan aroma, even the air itself, and it made his head spin. Made him want to turnand bury his face in his pillow until he fell back into a deep, scentlesssleep.

But he couldn’t even move his head,let alone do anything as ambitious and moving. So with every inhale, he workedat identifying what he could: antiseptic, laundry detergent, fresh plastic,cleaning supplies. And distantly, buried under it all, something else:something inherently softer, comforting and warm. Something that smelled likecooked rice and home.

Slowly, Satoru peeled his eyes back,only barely managing to stare at the blurry world beyond his eyelashes. A darkshape moved into his vision, and a voice came to him muddled and distorted, asif he were listening from underwater. He couldn’t make out the words, butSatoru knew that sound—and his aching voice left him in a sigh. “M…om…?”

Her hand slipped into his, giving areassuring squeeze. And in his skull, that not-him was also there, dutifullywrapping his anxiety in a warm blanket of emotion. It wasn’t perfect by anymeans, but it would do; Satoru let himself go, floating somewhere betweenasleep and awake, wrapping himself in his mother’s scent. Feeling her fingers,tracing soft little circles against the back of his hand.

Days must have passed, but Satorudidn’t remember them; there were just bits of awareness, bubbles occasionallyrising to the surface of his mind. One moment and his mother was there, thenext she wasn’t; sometimes he could see light, blinding and bright—andsometimes none. The only constant was that feeling of someone else: alwaysthere, always coaxing and comforting, soothing and smoothing out the franticthoughts in his head.

Well, that—and Kitamura-sensei.

Satoru watched the doctor bustlearound his hospital room, inspecting machines and replacing IV bags withsingle-minded purpose. He liked Kitamura. He was little straightforward andlacking in tact, but the honesty was refreshing. His mother, the nurses—Satorucould tell they were side-stepping his questions, placating him with a smilebefore changing the topic. At least Kitamura didn’t… coddle.

Satoru observed the doctor with acertain detached interest, his head leaned back against the pillows. His bodystill wasn’t strong enough to move on its own, so all he could really do wasgaze at the world from his bed. Powerless to do anything but watch therevolving door of specialists and orderlies, cycling in and out of his hospitalroom.

At least Kitamura smelled better thanthe others.

“That’s probably because I’m a beta,”the doctor replied, tapping at the IV drip.

Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that outloud.

Satoru stared pointedly down at hishands, his fingers twitching restlessly against the blankets. Kitamura wassilent for a moment as he stared down at his clipboard, flipping through thecharts and check-up notes. He eventually broke the silence with carefullymeasured words, never tearing his eyes from the page. “Can I ask you something,Satoru?”

He weakly nodded, his neck aching withthe effort. “Sure.”

“Do you remember when you presented?”

Satoru stared at him for a longsecond, his mouth parting. Of course, he’d assumed he must have presented atsome time—he wasn’t a child anymore, and his body had gone through puberty,even if his mind wasn’t along for the ride. But as for the moment itself, likeso many others, it was lost in the haze of his memories. Just one more piece ofhimself, pulverized by his jumbled mind. “No.”

Kitamura paused, before letting thepapers flip back into place. “I see. That’s fine.”

Satoru frowned, his shoulders shiftingagainst the mattress. Now that they were talking about it, he’d be lying if hesaid some part of him wasn’t curious. He’d wanted to ask this entire time justwhy the world seemed to smell so strong,and it was increasingly clear that Sachiko wasn’t going to tell him. So hesteeled his resolve and stared his doctor in the face, his stomach tight.

“What,” he started, swallowing thecroaking in his throat. “What am I?”

The physician tensed for a longmoment, not tearing his eyes away from his clipboard, as if it were suddenlythe most interesting thing in the world. Satoru could practically see thewheels in the man’s mind turning, before he tucked his notes back under his armwith an awkward shuffle. “An omega,” he answered.

Satoru’s brain stuttered, and heblinked up at his doctor. “A—what?”

“Omega,” Kitamura repeated, staringSatoru in the face. “You presented a week or two before the accident. I’m notsurprised you don’t remember.”

“Oh.”

And for some reason, Satoru—wasn’t assurprised as he should have been, either. Just like when he had seen his new,adult face, the shock just… didn’t come. The truth settled into his brain andbones easily, like an answer he had known all along—like a puzzle piece finallyslotting into place. Satoru stared down at his lap, trying to ignore thatpresence that was still brushing affectionately against his own, practicallypurring in his head.

“I, uh,” he started, struggling forsomething to say. “I thought only girls could be omegas.”

Kitamura stared at him for a longsecond, before pulling up one of the fold out chairs and lowering himself intoit. “99.9 per cent of the time, you’d be right,” he explained. “It’sexceptionally rare, but male omegas do exist. And you’re one of them.”

Satoru’s nose crinkled. “Is that whyeverything smells so much?”

Kitamura tried to hold onto hisimpassive stare, but the corners of his mouth were twitching up. “Basically.Your hormones are playing a bit of catch-up, so your body is kicking itselfinto overdrive. It’ll settle down eventually.”

Thank god. But that wasn’t the worstof his concerns, and Satoru’s fingers twisted and tangled nervously in thesheets. “So, does that mean I can get—” He stopped, the word clogging in histhroat, but he forced it out anyway. “P-pregnant?”

“No,” Kitamura promised. “You’re anomega, but your body is still male. Your hormones and biology just—aren’t reallytalking to each other.” He paused and adjusted his glasses. “Think of it likethis: your body is tricking itself into thinking it can carry a child, even ifyou can’t. So you’ll still be having heats, unfortunately.”

He leaned his head back against thepillows, feeling a shiver crawl over his skin. An omega heat: Satoru couldn’tremember ever experiencing it for himself, but he could just barely feelsnippets of it, the muscle memory buried deep in his nerves. The feeling ofthat never-ending hot, boiling under his skin—the primal need for something totake the fever away. The desperate scramble to get rid of the ache coiled inhis core, by any means necessary.

By anyone.

Something possessive and dark growledlow through the bond, and that was all the warning he got before the lustpoured in. It hit him like a wall, knocking the air out of his lungs. It was—Satoru, my omega, my mate—making his body burn, and he panted desperately againstthe feeling. But it was so hard to breathe when he could sense that gaze on hisnaked skin, when he could feel teeth bearing down on his throat. A cold leatherglove, brushing against his cheek—

Satoru squeezed his eyes shut andgasped, his heart monitor jumping wildly. He needed to calm down, he needed—need, yes, please—needed to get this under control. His head was trying toreign it in, but it was like riding a mechanical bull; all he could do was holdon to whatever logic he had, trying not to get bucked by the foreign lustflowing in his veins.

A glass was pressed against his lips,and Satoru found himself gratefully swallowing down water. It was a cold splashto his system, shocking it back to reality. As he drank, he could feel theintruding thoughts retreating—pulling back with little half-apologies scatteredin their wake.

When Satoru opened his eyes again,there was still only Kitamura, frowning as he pulled the empty cup back.“Fujinuma—?”

“Sorry,” he murmured, gratefully inhalingoxygen as he sank into the pillows. He could feel a thin sweat covering hisskin; he at least wished he had the strength to wipe it all off for himself. Heforced his eyes open again, half-staring at the ceiling as his heart steadiedout of its staccato rhythm. “That—wasn’t me.”

The doctor’s scowl deepened. “Wasn’t…you?”

Satoru weakly nodded. His body feltcold, colder than before—all of him soaked and damp, craving someone’s touchand shivering without it. “It’s like,” he started, brows furrowing, “likethere’s… someone in my head sometimes.”

All the time, really—but Kitamuradidn’t need to know that.

“I… see,” the doctor murmured, hiseyes narrowing as he gripped at his chin. For a long second, he just stared atSatoru, something calculating passing through his gaze—but then it was gone,and Kitamura was pushing himself to his feet with a small sigh. “I’d like youto meet a colleague of mine this afternoon, if you feel up to it.”

Which was code for you are absolutely seeing anotherspecialist, whether you like it or not—so Satoru just nodded along, eyesclosing. “Okay,” he murmured, sinking under the blanket. Right now, all hewanted to do was rest. Wanted to curl up on himself in his bed and wrap hisarms around himself, as if he could trick himself into thinking he wasn’t alonein the sheets.

He’d deal with the afternoon when hegot there.

But later and eventually alwaysended up turning into now—and Satoruwished he’d bothered to ask Kitamura even a single question about this wholething. As it was, he was already caught unaware: after forcing down some foodand sleeping most of the afternoon away, he’d been woken up by a knock on hishospital door. Satoru had barely managed to wake up when the door slid open,and the smell of sugar cookies jumped into his nose.

Satoru stared at the new face, a bitof hair still stuck in the drool drying on his cheek. She wasn’t like any ofthe other doctors that had visited him so far: there was no lab coat, nostethoscope, not even a clipboard—just a little notepad and a warm smile, acozy sweater draped around her frame. She looked… pleasant. And disarming. Evenher scent screamed comfort: sweet and slightly maternal, inherently omega. Shewas charming, in every sense of the word.

A little too charming, actually. Every alarm bell in Satoru’s skull wasringing, flashing neon warning lights, and he felt his weak body tensing underthe blankets.

“It’s nice to meet you, Fujinuma-kun,”she started, clicking her kitten-themed pen as she took a seat by his bed.“Your attending physician, Kitamura-sensei, asked me to have a quick chat withyou. Is it okay if I asked you a few questions?”

Satoru continued to stare at herwarily, his hands curling into fists. “I… guess.”

“Great!” She started brightly, tuckinga bit of hair behind her ear. “We’ll get this over with quickly, okay?” Shepressed the nib to her notebook, never taking her eyes off her patient.“Kitamura said sometimes you feel like you’re not alone, is that right?”

Satoru blinked at her, his mouthparting a little. Is that what this was about? As if sensing his surprise, thatother presence gave him a small and curious tug, as if confirming that Satoruwas still there. For the moment, he ignored it; the specialist was stillstaring at him, waiting with a patient but expecting glance. Satoru couldn’tescape the feeling that he was being assessedsomehow, and it made his mouth go dry.

“I, uh,” he started, rubbing at theback of his neck. “Yeah, sort of.”

She immediately began to scribbleblindly on the page, nodding knowingly. “What would you say it feels like?”

He furrowed his brow. It was a goodquestion; he’d never taken the time to really try to dissect the feeling, buthe gave himself the luxury now. Steadily, he began poking at the foreignexistence that hung in his head like a fog. He’d often felt it making itselfknown, but this time, it was Satoru who pulled at the sensation—and wasimmediately rewarded with an eager and overflowing affection, warmth spillinginto his chest.

Satoru stopped and stared down at hishands. When he was a little kid, he and Atko had made a telephone made out ofcans and a piece of string. To a four-year-old, it had been the coolest thing:that he could feel Atko’s voice, thrumming up the thread and into his ear. Fordays he would insist on only speaking to his mother through the make-shift toy,feeling the vibrations humming against his little palms.

It was something like that—but that seemedtoo difficult to explain, so he flexed and unflexed his stiff fingers, feelingthe phantom thrum. “Like… a thread, I guess.” It felt like a terriblecomparison, a huge oversimplification of whatever this was—but it was theclosest thing he could think of.

The doctor tilted her head to theside, continuing to frantically take notes. “What’s at the other end?”

“Someone that’s not me,” he mutteredwith a small shrug, “with feelings that aren’t mine.”

“But you feel them?”

He nodded again, feeling the affectionat the other end of the telephone steadily twisting into concern. As much as hecould, he tried to ignore it—tried to force back down his own guilt welling upin response, threatening to spill over. “They’re not my emotions,” he said,“but I can’t help but have them anyway.”

She gave a small hum at that, stoppingsuddenly and staring at his face. For a long second, she just scrutinized hisexpression, her tone measured and careful. “Fujinuma-kun,” she asked, raisingan eyebrow. “Is it there right now?”

Satoru paused for a second, toyingwith the end of his blanket. “Yeah.”

“I see,” she muttered, pressing theend of her pen against her lips. “How long have you had this, again?”

“Since I woke up.” And probablybefore. He didn’t remember ever experiencing this feeling, but that didn’t meanmuch; there were still plenty of blank spaces in his brain. The memories were in there somewhere—he knew that, at least—but they were marred andburnt-out, like damaged film reel. No matter how much he tried to get it toplay, all he saw was the black. Who knew what his mind was or wasn’t hidingfrom him.

The specialist gave a low hum, her pentapping against her chin. For some reason, the sound put him on edge, a twitchingand anxious restlessness crawling under his skin. That formless other personwas immediately there, all guilt and worry and protective, and Satoru tried topush them back—tried to create distance between him and the “other” in hishead.

“Okay,” she said suddenly, droppingher hand back into her lap. “If you’re willing, Fujinuma-kun, I would like youto try something.”

He eyed her carefully. “Something…?”

“You said it was like a thread,” sheconfirmed. Carefully, she set her pen and notebook down against her thighs,balancing them in her lap. With two fingers, she formed a crude imitation ofscissors, snipping at the air. “If you’re comfortable with the idea, I wouldlike you to try to cut it.”

For some reason, the words stabbed himthrough like a knife, his breath snagging painfully in his lungs. Something inhim was snarling at the very idea, something he couldn’t blame on that otherpresence. Though he didn’t know why, Satoru knew that this feeling—this defensive, protective, aggressive something—was entirely his own. Hisshoulders rose like hackles as his breathing quickened, adrenaline beginning tobeat through his veins. “Why?”

She didn’t seem surprised by hisreaction, but he could pick up her scent, cranked up to eleven—sickeningly,pacifyingly sweet and soothing. It only made him more on edge, his eyesnarrowing as she spoke. “I’m just curious if you think you’re able to,” shesaid easily. “If it’s not something you feel up to, then you can forget I saidanything.”

Satoru’s lips twisted into a frown. Hisgut reaction was no, absolutely not, whoare you to even say that—but even he didn’t understand why he was feeling that way. And it wasn’t like there weren’t timeshe wished he was actually alone in his own head, free to think and feel withoutinvisible eyes following his every move. A part of him undeniably craved thatprivacy, that autonomy.

Was it really such a bad idea, then?

His head was still roaring at theidea, but he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to breathe past the growling in hisskull. “Okay,” he muttered. “I’ll try.”

“Alright,” she said, her smile brightand easy-going. “Take your time. There’s no need to rush it.”

Right. Satoru let his eyes fallhalf-lidded as he began to blindly feel for the intangible string that tied himto the stranger at the other end. As if on cue, the presence gave a curioushum—and Satoru could feel the thread, reverberating between them. Felt ittangling around the fingers that only existed in his mind, the cord slidingover his palms.

His eyebrows scrunched together as heconfirmed its shape for himself, testing its strength, tugging and pulling andexploring. The outsider was there, watching attentively, half-curious andhalf-amused—but standing respectfully back, giving Satoru the space toinvestigate to his heart’s content. Which he did: it was the first time hethought of this thing as a thing, somethinghe could grasp for himself. Something he could control and manipulate.

Slowly, he took a long, deep breath,holding that thread in one hand—and imagining a pair of scissors in the other.Imagined the feel of the metal, heavy and cold; imagined sliding the stringbetween the blades, his fingers ready to snap down. For the briefest ofseconds, Satoru hesitated; he paused to take a long, deep breath, steadying hisnerves.

There was a jolt, as if the string wassuddenly pulled taut, before—

Satoru’s eyes shot open, and he screamed.

His hands snapped to his head as pain, real pain speared into his skull. Someone had stabbed a red-hotiron between his eyes, carving and slicing up his brain; had taken asledgehammer to his head, smashing the bone to bits. The pain even strangledhis lungs, twisting and wringing the air out of his chest—but his mouth wasstill open, choking for air, he couldn’t breathe—

There were hands on him, pushing himagainst the mattress, but he couldn’t feel any of it; voices that were callinghis name, but he couldn’t really hear them. All there was was that screechingin the very core of himself, full of betrayal and rage and heartbreak and no, not ever, I won’t let you go, don’t you dare try to leave me! The wordswere like claws, reaching across the bond—and they buried themselves intoSatoru’s soul, the talons digging in deep.

A tight and strangled noise toreitself out of his throat. Satoru shook his head frantically, trying to push boththe pain and the voice away. His feet kicked wildly against the empty airbecause he needed it gone, needed itto stop, begging through the bond to please, make it stop, I can’t—

Something pierced the base of hisneck, and everything went blissfully black.

For the hundredth time, he woke up tothe sound of beeping.

Satoru stared blankly at the dark ceiling,his vision unfocused and eyes only half-open. There was a hissing in his ears,and it took him longer than he should have to identify it: the sound of oxygen,rushing into the mask on his face. He was too tired to even turn his head, hiswhole body heavy like molasses and lead—but he could hear the whirling of atleast half a dozen machines, scattered and stationed around his hospital bed.

And, more distantly: voices, muffledby the closed door separating his room from the hallway. Everything—his limbs,his mind, even the thread—it was all numbed, but he still strained his ears,trying to catch snippets of conversation. His mother’s voice cut through thehaze easily, strained with a barely-contained fury. “What the hell happened?”

“I asked Satoru to try to sever thebond.” Was that… the specialist? Her voice sounded—different. Professional andclipped. It had been an act, then.“If it was an accidental bonding, then the bond might not have beenpurposefully maintained. In which case, he should have been able to sever iteasily.”

“Obviously, that’s not the case.” Ah, Kitamurawas there too.

“So,” his mother started, her tonetight, “you’re telling me this bastard wantsto be bonded with my son?”

“It would appear that way,” thespecialist said. “For one reason or another, the culprit has maintained hisbond with Satoru and kept it strong, despite him being comatose for fifteenyears. And he seems unwilling to let that drop now.”

“I’ve spoken with the police investigatorsin charge of Satoru’s case,” Kitamura added. “We’ve come to the mutualagreement that it would be best to have an officer stationed outside ofSatoru’s room from now on.”

There was a long, tense moment ofsilence, before Sachiko spoke again. “You think he’s going to come for him.”

“If he feels so strongly about beingbonded to Satoru,” Kitamura said, speaking slowly, “then we shouldn’t take anychances.”

Bonded…? And who… was coming for who?Satoru blinked up at the ceiling, trying to detangle the words, but it was nogood. It was all jumbled together like a knot of string, his muddled brainunable to work it through. On the other side of the door, his mother gave aharsh sigh, before her voice dipping low to a whisper. “How is he?”

“Sedated,” Kitamura said. “It was apretty intense shock to his system, but there isn’t any permanent damage, asfar as we can tell. But he’ll need plenty of rest, I’m sure.”

“Fujinuma-san,” the specialistinterrupted. “There are ways to… silencea bond without severing it. Once he is feeling strong enough, I think it wouldbe best if Satoru familiarizes himself with them.” Her voice dipped lower, abit of concern seeping into her tone. “Bonds are powerful things. If your son is bonded to the one behind his incident…it would be best to minimize his influence before it gets worse.”

Before… what got worse? Satoru could feel his eyelids starting to droop. Hetried to force himself to stay awake—this was important, he needed to… neededto… needed to what, again? He couldn’t remember, couldn’t keep his eyes open.The pull of sleep was too strong, and he slipped off the edge of consciousness,the voices fading back into nothing.

The next time he opened his eyes, thehospital room was bright.

Too bright.Satoru immediately winced and squeezed his eyes shut, but it didn’t help asmuch as he’d hoped. Light was filtering through his eyelids, and he resignedhimself to waking up, cracking one eye hesitantly open. Someone had opened thewindow, and sunshine was pouring in, carrying with it a cool breeze. Satorutried to breathe it in, but only got dry and filtered air, pumped through hismask. He frowned and weakly reached up to take it off, IV tubes following hisarm.

In the end, someone else did it forhim. Satoru looked sleepily up as his mother unhooked the machine from hismouth and nose, a coy and exhausted smile on her face. “Finally decided to wakeup, huh?”

Satoru stared at her for a moment,before his nose twitched. Something floral was tickling at his senses, and heslowly turned his head towards his nightstand. The vase on his bedside tablewas stuffed with fresh flowers, pale petals and soft hues bursting andoverflowing out of the rim. Sitting next to it was a smaller glass jar, clearand brightly-coloured candy waiting inside.

“Yashiro-sensei brought them for you,”Sachiko explained, setting the mask down beside the gifts.

“Ya… shiro?” he whispered, his voicedry.

“That’s right.” Sachiko was alreadyreaching for the water jug, pouring him a glass. “We told him you weren’t seeinganyone today, but he insisted on having them brought to you.”

Satoru nodded as he accepted the drink,precariously holding it in both hands. He sipped at it slowly, still staring atthe presents out of the corner of his eye. Yashiro-sensei… some memories werejumbled up in his brain, but he remembered Yashiro very well. The teacher who alwaysoffered an understanding smile and a listening ear, ruffling his students’ hairat the end of each day.

His hands fell back to his lap,loosely balancing the empty glass between his palms. For some reason, thinkingof Yashiro-sensei felt—warm.Comforting and calming, like a hot spring welling in his chest. Satoru couldn’tresist the small smile that melted onto his face as he thought back to thosedays, to the man laughing easily as he leaned against his desk. Yashiro-senseihad always been kind, hadn’t he?

(A prickling, tingling sensationitched at the side of his neck. Satoru ignored it.)

The easy feeling didn’t last long. Itwas only seconds before Satoru felt itagain: the presence at the other end of the thread, humming and crooning at him.He inhaled sharply as it made itself known, memories of pain making his wholebody tense. His grip tightened on the glass until his pale knuckles were a purewhite, his eyes shutting and bracing for another round.

But it didn’t come. The strangerremained distant, tentative and unsure—though Satoru could feel its distressall the same. It carefully reached out like a wounded animal, approaching withits head bowed low. Satoru grit his teeth as it brushed against hisconsciousness, gentle and apologetic, like fingers tucking away a stray hair.It was in that brief moment that he felt it: remorse, self-loathing and guilt, intense enough to make Satoru’sintestines twist up into his throat.

And beneath it all, the littlest speckof hope, a weak little plea for forgiveness.

Satoru jerked away from it all as ifit burned, scrambling as far away as his mind would allow. The outsiderimmediately retreated as well, bitter disappointment and fresh regret trailingin its wake. Satoru waited for a few seconds to make sure it wasn’t going toapproach again before giving a harsh sigh, his grip on the glass finallyfalling loose.

He should have cut the thread when hehad the chance.

“And—Satoru?”

He looked up, and his mother gave himan unimpressed look. “You didn’t hear a word I just said, did you?”

“Sorry,” he murmured, shakily settinghis empty glass down on the nightstand.

“I was saying,” Sachiko began again,sitting at the edge of her son’s bed with forced levity, “an inspector will bestopping by with Kitamura later. They want to talk about your case.”

He frowned. “I still don’t rememberanything.”

“I know,” she said, offering her sonan oddly sad smile. “But I think you’re going to be the one asking thequestions this time, Satoru.”

They told him everything.

Satoru had already pieced togetherbits and pieces of what must have happened that night, but not much. Only thatthere had been an “accident,” that they had pulled him out of the frozen river,and that he’d slept for nearly fifteenyears. But beyond that, nothing. Most of the month leading up to his comawas a blank page he couldn’t fill in on his own, no matter how much he wrackedhis tired brain.

And now the inspector was there,sitting at the foot of his bed with a grim expression, walking him through itall with an almost clinical detachment.

It hadn’t been an accident at all. Abasketball was found wedged against the gas pedal, purposefully pushing the carinto the water. The seatbelt lock had been tampered with, keeping him trappedto his seat. There were abrasions all over his chest when they brought him in:deep red lines where he’d struggled against the strap, trying to force his wayfree.

There were so many problems with hisbody—the lack of oxygen to his brain, the hypothermia, the fact that he wasn’teven breathing on his own—that theydidn’t address the last one until the police had already arrived to photographthe evidence on his skin. “You had a bite mark,” the inspector told him,pointing at the base of his own neck. “Here.”

Satoru pressed his hand against theskin of his throat, the crook between his shoulder and jugular veins burningand itching beneath his palm. A thousand questions were already racing throughhis head—a frantic clamoring of what andwhere and why—but nothing could getpast the stupefied silence that had killed his voice. “And,” the inspectorcontinued, watching Satoru intently with hands entwined in front of him, “someof your clothes were torn.”

“What?” Satoru muttered, his braintrying to play catch-up with his ears. The implications were already forming inhis brain, but some part of him just couldn’t accept them; something continued to whisper wrong wrong wrong, prickling under his skin. He pursed his lips together,keeping his hand defensively against the side of his throat. “Why didn’t youtell me sooner?”

“You didn’t remember,” Sachiko said, ashred of guilt making its way onto her face. “We thought it would be easier foryou this way.”

Satoru’s frown deepened, his own nails digging into the sideof his neck like teeth. The inspector cleared his throat, looking seriously inthe patient’s direction. “It’s likely you were targeted because you’re anomega,” he explained regretfully. “Probably by an alpha with a… tendencytowards children.”

But that’s wrong, Satoru’sbrain screamed, but he swallowed down the thought—and tried to ignore the factthat the officer was an alpha himself, his strong and heavy smell spiced withcigarette smoke. “So why are you telling me this now?”

Kitamura finally spoke up from his seat, carefully adjustinghis glasses. “That feeling you said you have,” he explained, “it’s called amating bond. It can occur when one person bites another, usually on the neck.It’s most common in alpha-omega pairs, for some reason or another.”

Satoru could see where this wasgoing, and his stomach was already stirring, furiously nauseous and churning.He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from being sick. A the shivercrawled across his body, seeping into his bones; distantly, he could feel theother presence in his head—worried and fretting—making itself known. Satoru breatheddeeply, a bead of sweat crawling down his neck.

“Then,” he started quietly, “thatperson tried to kill me.”

No one said a thing, but they didn’t need to. Hisfirst instinct was to deny it all: the voice in his head had been kind, always trying to comfort him withwordless assurances. Satoru could feel what it felt, devotion and affectioncoming as naturally as breathing. And when he’d first stirred awake, it hadbeen overjoyed, relief flooding over them both and grabbing onto Satoru like itnever wanted to let go. It just—didn’t feellike that person wanted him dead.

But. His body still remembered that pain. How it had seared into his skull, tearinghis limbs and muscles apart; he could feel it even now, raw and achingsomewhere beneath his skin, like a wound that hadn’t healed. Could stillremember how it had roared and raged like a hurricane inside his head, violentand unrelenting; yet cold and calculating, like claws and thorns made of ice,digging into his flesh.

A deep certainty settled into Satoru’s bones. Thatpresence, that person—they had killed before. Definitely.

He dropped his hand away from the bite’s phantom pain,still pulsing on his neck. “How do I get rid of it?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Kitamura said, tucking hishands into the pockets of his lab coat. “Not right now, at least. It’s amiracle your body managed to withstand what happened yesterday. Maybe whenyou’re stronger, we can try again.” He gave Sachiko a quick glance, beforeturning back to Satoru. “In the meantime, there are ways for you to shut themout.”

“That being said,” the officer interjected, “if youhappen to feel anything across the bond that could help the investigation,don’t hesitate to tell us, Fujinuma. There will be an officer outside your doorfrom now on—just let them know if you think of anything relevant. Evensomething small can be a huge help.”

“Right,” Satoru murmured, staring down at his lap. Hecould see where the inspector was coming from, but frankly, the last thing hewanted to do was engage with the killer atthe other end of the thread. The sooner he could tune him out completely, thebetter.

There was barely a beat of silence before his motherwas there, stepping away from the window and fixing both men with a hard look.“Kitamura-sensei,” she said, staring directly at the doctor. “I think that’senough for today.”

The doctor easily gave a nod as he stood to his feet.“I agree,” he said, stretching his arms over his head. He’d probably longlearnt not to even try against Fujinuma Sachiko—but the officer wavered for amoment longer, standing but not moving, watching Satoru out of the corner ofhis eye.

“Here,” he said, slipping a business card onto the nightstandnext to Yashiro’s gifts. “In case there’s anything.”

Satoru nodded without a word, and watched as hismother ushered both of them out of his hospital room. Only when the doorslipped shut again did both Fujinumas release a slow breath, their shoulderssinking together in slow motion. Together, they listened to the sound of thetwo of them walking away, their voices hushes and footsteps fading. Only whenit was all silent did Sachiko turn back to her son, her brows furrowed. “How doyou feel, Satoru?”

Confused. Conflicted. A bit irritated, though hedidn’t know at what or at who or why. But most of all, he felt powerless—unableto do anything one way or another, trapped in this goddamn bed. His handscurled into fists in his blankets. “It’s,” he started, turning to look at thejar of candy by his bedside, “a lot… to take in.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed again. “It is,”she confirmed, the corners of her mouth tight. “More than you should have to.”She tipped her head to the side to stare at the flowers for a long moment, hervoice coming out achingly soft. “What do you want to do, Satoru?”

“I…” He stopped, staring at the presents on the table.He could barely figure out where—or who—he even was right now, let alone wherehe wanted to be. It seemed like every day he was learning something that threwhis reality for a loop. He didn’t even know if he could trust the voicesringing in his own head, didn’t know what emotions were even his anymore. But what he did know was—

“I want to stand,” he said firmly, turning in hismother’s direction. “Alone, on my own two feet. And then, I can move forward.”

Sachiko stared at him for a second, before a smilebroke out her face, small but fiercely fond. An almost-laugh left her lips in arush of air, even as her eyes turned wet. “I watched you change for all theseyears,” she said, a tear managing to slip out of her eye, “but you really are agrown-up now, aren’t you?”

“I already was one before,” he countered sulkily, andhis mother laughed again.

“I think you might be right,” she said, patting hisknee. She took a moment to wipe at her eyes, before fixing him with a genuinesmile, strong and determined. “Alright. Let’s start getting you on your feet,then.”

As promised, the bond specialist taught Satoru how tokeep the killer out. Apparently, it wasn’t too different than cutting thethread—which is probably why they had two nurses standing by with anestheticand sedatives, just in case. Satoru tried his best to ignore them, turning hissenses inward, to that dark and formless place; breathing steadily until hecould follow the string again, floating and swaying between their minds.

The person on the other ended was immediately atattention, observing hopefully, with longing thrums echoing along the bond.Satoru shuddered, because he didn’t want any of it; didn’t want something so affectionate coming from someone who killed people. Who had tried to kill him, for some reason he still didn’tunderstand.

“It’s easiest for most people to imagine a wall, or adoor,” the specialists offered, whispering in his ear.

Satoru nodded, pursing his lips tight. A door: eversince waking up, he’d felt like his memories were behind a locked door, so itwas easy to imagine it. In his mind, he could see a pair of big, impenetrablewooden things, thick and branded with metal plates; the string ran through thetwo, swirling and disappearing into the invisible beyond.

With a shuddering breath, he began to push the gatewayclosed. There was that shock of realization and panic from the other end of theline—just like last time—and Satorugrit his teeth and tried to move faster, scrambling to close off theconnection. This time, there was no pain: just sorrow and pleading, a bitterresignation, and then—

The doors slipped shut, and everything went silent.Satoru let out a soft sigh and opened his eyes, blinking as the bright lightsof the hospital room came back into view. The specialist was there, her kittenpen clutched tightly in her hand. “How does it feel, Fujinuma-kun?”

He waited for a moment just to be sure, before a smallsmile made its way onto his face. “Quiet.”

A week ticked by, and then two of them.

Mostly, things stayed the same. Bit by bit, Satoru wasallowed out of his hospital bed—only ever in his wheelchair, of course, but atleast it was something. More oftenthan not, he found himself out in the gardens, inhaling the fresh air andfeeling the unfiltered sun on his face. With his sense of smell still out ofcontrol, the freshness of the outside world was a welcome change. Inside the hospital,there was the constant stench of medication, antiseptic and sickness. In thecourtyard, there was only the grass, the leaves, the wetness that came afterrain—

And the police officer, following a couple of stepsbehind him.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, being constantlywatched and observed. They never came into his hospital room, but Satoru couldstill see them through the frosted glass, a constant reminder of the killerthat was still in his head. For better or worse, the bond hadn’t been broken—andSatoru was forced to learn the hard way that a silenced bond wasn’t completely silent.

The locked door kept him from feeling the other’s emotions,but the outsider was still there, hovering on the other side. Every so often, Satorucould feel a knocking—a set of three gentletaps against the door, politely asking for re-entry, to be permitted back intohis mind. As much as he could, Satoru ignored it; tried to drown it out withthe Wonder Guy theme song, playing through a pair of headphones.

Sometimes, it worked. Other times—

Satoru stumbled, just barely managing to catchhimself, his grip on the wooden beams tightening. His body was hot, every limb aching as they wereforced to move again—and through the sweat on his face he could see thephysical therapist, arms out and ready to catch him if he fell. “You’re doinggreat, Fujinuma,” he promised. “Just a few more steps, okay? Almost there.”

Satoru winced, but nodded. The polite knocking hadgiven way to a frantic pounding, asif the killer was trying to tear down the door between them by force. Asalways, he tried to ignore it—tried to focus on the fire burning in hismuscles, the heat under his skin, the way his breath was coming out indesperate pants for air. Tried to focus on the next step, his legs screaming asthey were forced to move.

His foot shuffled across the mat, not really able tolift, barely managing to move forward. Just one step, then another. But thistime, Satoru’s entire body spasmed as the killer threw themselves against thedoor with a bang—and this time hisgrip on the bars wasn’t strong enough to keep him from hitting the floor.

His limbs landed with a soft thump against the cushioned ground, his muscles shuddering. Bothhis hands reached up to clutch at his head, a low growl of pain and frustrationmanaging to slip past his grit teeth. The therapist was there in an instant,crouching down next to his patient. “That was great,” he assured him, his voicebright. “You’re making real progress, Fujinuma.”

The pounding was already starting to ebb, and Satorulet his hands drop, flopping against the mattress as his body heaved. Usually,the mats were refreshingly cold—but right now, all he could feel was the heatstill pouring off his body. “Not,” he panted, “not enough.”

“You have to be patient.” The man beamed down at him.“Your efforts won’t be in vain, I’m sure of it.”

Ijust couldn’t let your noble efforts end in vain, Satoru.

Satoru’s eyes widened. Who had… said that before?

A ragged gasp ripped itself from his mouth, his headthrown back. Satoru could feel his body suddenly convulsing, every muscle screamingunder his skin. For some reason, he couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t manageto cool down. There was a deep ache coiling not in his limbs, but somewhere deepin his stomach; and he wrapped his arms around his middle with a high-pitchednoise of wanting. His body was hot,too hot, but he couldn’t worry about that now—not when there was that voice,ringing in his ears but far away, whereare you—

His legs weakly squirmed against the mat, a desperatewhine coming out of his throat. He could hear his therapist’s voice, but that’snot right, that’s not who should be here.His hand clapped down on his nose and mouth as his body twitched, trying toblock out the scent of not him, it’s nothim! Satoru’s vision was blurring in front of his eyes, his mouth openlypanting, his skin burning, the smellof—

—leatherand candy, assaulting his nose. It had brought him comfort once, but now itonly strangled him, panic tighteningaround his throat like a noose. He couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything exceptwatch through the car windows as Ishikari faded into the distance behind them.Satoru could smell his own scent, frantic and distressed, pumping out of hispores: the sweet smell of vanilla, stained with adrenaline.

Besidehim, Yashiro paid it no mind. The man didn’t even look in his direction as herolled down his car window, staring up at the sky. “It’s snowing, huh?”

Thecar—the car had stopped. Desperately, Satoru threw himself against theseatbelt. He repeatedly plunged his fingers into the buckle, trying to press itloose, his shoulders twisting. No good, no good, no good: it didn’t so much asbudge, and he gave a short, frightened whine, his legs frantically kicking atthe air.

Tohis right, Yashiro just continued to stare out at the river, his voice even.“It’s game over. For you and for me.”

Asob tried to rip itself from his throat, but Satoru bit it down, his lipsshaking with the effort. This wasn’t happening, it wasn’t happening, this was alla lie, it just had to be. He squeezed his eyes shut as he thrashed, hot tears cutting down hisface. He needed to escape, he needed to get away, or—or he was—Yashiro was going to—!

“Tobe honest, I’m stunned you cornered me like this.” Beside him, his teachereasily unbuckled his own seatbelt, and Satoru could do nothing but watch as theolder man leaned over him. His body froze as the alpha’s scent stormed hissenses, thick and predatory, coveting. Atwisted smirk curled slowly over his features, wild and deranged, so unlikeYashiro-sensei that it sent a shiver down Satoru’s spine. “It’s almost likeyou’ve seen the future.”

Fingers,cold as ice, reached up and brushed against his cheek. Satoru inhaled sharplybefore hitting the hand away, a small snarl rumbling out of his throat, even ashis legs and knees curled defensively close. “D-don’t—don’t touch me!”

Thosefingers drummed against the headrest of Satoru’s seat, and Yashiro tilted hishead, bangs falling across a pair of sharp eyes. “I did a little research,Satoru,” he started, still leaning over his prey. “Did you know? Since theystarted counting, only 127 male omegas were ever reported in Japan, notincluding you. Tell me—how many of them do you think made it to their thirties?”

Satorupressed his lips together, eyes red-rimmed and wet.

“Sixteen,”Yashiro continued, “out of 127. A little over 12.5 per cent, mathematicallyspeaking. Do you know why?”

Hecontinued to glare, his hands still wrangling with the buckle, the seatbeltdigging painfully deep into his chest. “Because of people like you?”

Yashirothrew back his head and laughed—a joyless sound, dry and cold. “Yes, I supposeyou could say that,” he responded. “Sexual assault, discrimination, abuse.Extremely high rates of suicide. Many died from health complications related tosuppressant overdose.” Yashiro’s eyes were practically red in the low light,his fingers still tap-tap-tapping just over his student’s shoulders. “And somejust disappeared. You’re a smart boy, Satoru—I’m sure you can figure out why.”

Asmall growl, pitiful and high-pitched, tore itself from his choked-up throat.“Wh-what’s your point?”

“Well,I obviously have to kill you,” Yashiro said. Satoru’s stomach flipped, collidinginto his lungs and kicking his breath out of him. There was no emotion to thewords, no feeling; if anything, his teacher looked bored,staring down at Satoru with a detachedcuriosity. “But someone will always wonder. Why you? Why Satoru Fujinuma? Whatdid he know?”

Itwas then that a killer’s smile stretched slowly across his face. “So I thoughtto myself,” he whispered lowly, “why risk turning you into a martyr… when I canturn you into a statistic instead?”

Thewords hadn’t even sunk in when a hand clamped down onto Satoru’s throat.

Hegave a strangled gasp as Yashiro’s fingers wrapped around his windpipe, hishead thrown back against the seat. His immediate reaction was to scream—but thegrip was tight, too tight, his cryfor help coming out as more of a stifled gurgle. Desperately, Satoru’s fingersreached up to claw at the offending arm, his legs trying to kick away at thealpha looming over him. “L-let—me go—!”

Athumb grazed against his jugular vein, and Satoru felt it press down at thebase of his neck. A shock shuddered through his system like lightning, his entirebody tensing. Already, he could feel the pheromones and endorphins rushingthrough his veins, melting the tension in his muscles—and Satoru could donothing but whimper, his limbs struggling to keep up the fight. “B-bastard…”

“Language,”Yashiro chastised, his thumb continuing to rub circles into Satoru’s scentgland. That hand remained tightly wound around Satoru’s throat, coaxing hisbody into an unwilling submission—but the other moved farther down. Satorucould feel the cold leather glove slipping under the neck of his shirt,brushing against his collarbone.

Yashiro’shand curled into a fist and pulled. Satoru winced as his shirt tore with along, slow rip, the thin fabric falling apart easily. He shivered as cold airmet exposed skin, his hands weakly trying to dislodge the grip still wrapped tightlyaround his throat. No use: it might as well have been made of steel, for allthe good it did him.

Methodically,Yashiro’s hand moved lower, fingers slipping into the miniature belt loops onhis jeans. Satoru shut his eyes tight as the killer tore his pants apart, hischeap clothes splitting at the seams. He knew that the killer didn’t sexuallyassault his victims—not the Ishikari ones, at least—but that didn’t stop hischest from rising and falling rapidly, panic flushing into his lungs.

Eventually,Yashiro leaned back with one hand still firmly keeping Satoru pinned by thethroat. He gave a small hum, his eyes roaming across the omega’s form,assessing his work. “It feels like something is missing,” he hummed. “Wouldn’tyou agree, Satoru?”

Hecouldn’t even shake his head, let only speak—so Satoru continued to glarethrough wet eyes, swallowing thickly. Slowly, steadily, the grip on his throatcrawled upwards, the thumb trailing up and tracing the arteries beating underhis hold. Satoru could feel Yashiro’s other hand clutching at his shoulder, trappinghim firmly against the seat. There were fingers digging into his chin,wrenching his head to the side. For a brief moment, Satoru didn’t understand,didn’t know what was happening—

Butthen hot breath brushed against his skin of his neck.

“No!”he gasped, his fingers digging into Yashiro’s sleeve. The heel of his footcollided with Yashiro’s stomach, but nothing happened: the older man didn’t somuch as flinch, wet exhales landing against his scent gland. Satoru staredfrantically beyond the windshield, his heart leaping into his mouth as theman’s teeth grazed against his throat. “Yashiro—!”

Theman’s teeth sank into his veins, and this time, Satoru really did scream. Thecanines split the thin flesh apart like knives, sending fire shooting throughhis blood. It set his entire body on fire, like everything under his skin was boiling,sweat and tears rushing down his face. Even his breaths felt like they weregetting swallowed by the murderer’s maw, his lungs and chest hitching, unableto even inhale as Yashiro’s jaw worked at his throat.

Afterwhat felt like hours, Yashiro’s teeth slowly slipped out of his neck, a longtrail of saliva following his lips. His tight grip on the omega was suddenlygone, and Satoru gasped as the air flooded his lungs, his legs curling in tightas his hands flew to his throat. The wound underneath his palms was slick andhot, pulsing under his touch. When he pulled his fingers back, even in thedarkness, Satoru could see the red that was smeared all over his skin.

Thesame red that was staining Yashiro’s lips. The man wiped at his mouth with agloved hand, the leather smearing a streak of blood across his cheek. Satoruglared up at him, futilely trying to stem the bleeding as tears ran down hisface. “W-why?”

“Didn’tI tell you, Satoru?” he explained, reaching behind him into the backseat.“You’re going to be a statistic. Just another male omega who didn’t get to growup, killed by an alpha who couldn’t resist your scent.”

“Y-you’rean alpha!” Satoru yelled. His head felt heavy, like molasses was pouring in tohis brain; he tried to keep his head clear, focusing on the sharp sting still throbbingfrom the bite. “You’ll be at the top of the suspect list!”

Asmile twitched at the corners of Yashiro’s mouth, and he pulled a duffel baginto his lap. “There are rules about working with children, you know,” heexplained, slowly unzipping. Satoru watched every movement, his body heaving.“I’ve been on suppressants ever since I started teaching. A single blood test,and my name will be cleared.”

Hishands lifted the basketball out from inside the bag, a grin stretching acrosshis face, revealed his blood-stained teeth. “Besides,” he added, a fake andmocking sadness seeping into his tone, “I didn’t even know you were an omega.Your friends did such a good job of hiding it, after all.”

Satoruwatched as Yashiro unlocked the door on his side with a flick of his wrist, thebasketball balanced on one hand. “Just to be clear,” he continued, “I’m notdoing this out of revenge. Honestly, I bear no hatred towards you, Satoru. Ihope you understand that.”

“Ithought you said it was game over for you too!” he snapped, his skin tingling.His clothes were ripped, it was the middle of winter—yet Satoru felt oddly hot,his breath coming out in little bursts of white fog.

Yashiropushed his door open and stepped out, one hand resting on the roof of the caras he peered inside. “It is,” he said simply. “I’ll be leaving Ishikari. You’veearned this town’s peace. Isn’t that what you wanted?” he asked, smirking. “AndI earn a death for my sake, at my hands. We all deserve a return for ourefforts, don’t you think?”

Thefire underneath his skin exploded into a rage, and Satoru threw himself againstthe seatbelt holding him down, his lips curled back into a snarl. “Yashiro—Iwon’t die until I see you destroyed!”

Thekiller stared at him for a moment, before jamming the basketball against thegas pedal. “That,” he said, stepping back, “is what they call aiming too high.”

Afrustrated cry shot out of Satoru’s throat as the car began to roll steadilyforward. His hands—slick and soaked with blood—frantically reached for the beltbuckle again, his hips trying to twist out of the hold. As always, it held: themechanism didn’t so much as shudder, and Satoru felt the car pitch wildly aroundhim. His head whipped up just in time to watch the water surge over thewindshield, the glass cracking under the weight of the river.

Liquidice poured in from the open windows, and he gasped, the cold shocking hisoverheated body. The surge buffeted against his face, the taste of wintercrashing against his cheeks. He shook his head, as if it could somehow stop thetorrent flooding into the car, his legs kicking wildly. He needed to get out,he needed to get out now—but the water was rising, the river rapidly crawling up his stomach.

Satorusqueezed his eyes shut and cursed again. He didn’t want to die here: he wantedto eat his mother’s cooking again, and go camping with Kayo like he promised.He wanted to thank Airi for believing in him and talk with Kenya on the stairsagain. He wanted—

Hewanted to survive.

Satoru’seyes shot open, and deep in the core of his being, two puzzle pieces snapped loudlytogether. For a second, all he could feel was the vertigo—the feeling offalling, before being yanked back, his entire soul wrenched and pulled along.But then he felt a tether, holding it together; a bond, tying his mind down,wrapping his consciousness in spider’s thread.

Andfrom the other end—through his own fear and panic and screams of I want to live!—he felt it: adeep-seated satisfaction, a thrum of happiness and pride, twisted and pervertedpleasure beating from the wound in his neck. Instinctively, Satoru knew whoseit was—and he clamped both his hands down against the bite, throwing his headback.

“Yashiro!”he shouted, his fingers digging into the blood with a piercing cry. “I knowyour future!”

There:a tug of curiosity, confusion lacing that homicidal delight. Satoru let out ashuddering breath, before the river licked at his chin; with a panicked yelp,he took a deep and desperate inhale. The water slipped over his nose, lickingat his temples—and then it overtook him completely, silently swallowing him whole.

Shit!His feet stamped against the bottom of the car, his torn clothes floatingaround his body. His fingers were turning stiff and unruly, his grip slippingoff of the buckle; his body was losing the ability to even feel anything exceptthe cold all around. Already, he could feel his limbs slowing to a stop, hislungs burning and threatening to burst inside his chest.

Hewasn’t going to make it. The truth had settled into his brain, but he didn’twant to believe it; his body continued to weakly jerk against the seatbelt, alast-ditch effort to survive. Eventually, even that stopped—and Satoru wasforced to finally open his mouth, the last of the precious oxygen slipping awayfrom his lips.

Atendril of blood floated in front of his face, staining the river red. He couldvaguely taste it on his tongue as he inhaled the water, the world alreadystarting to dim. His body wouldn’t—couldn’t—move anymore. Even his brain wasshutting down, he knew; even the panic was gone, replaced by an empty resolvethat he couldn’t fulfill.

Fromsomewhere far away, it felt that moment of realization, the clarity cutting thekiller’s mind in two. Desperately, the other presence reached for him; anddespite himself, Satoru weakly reached back, their two minds reaching for eachother in the void. How weird: now, it was the other one who wasafraid—desperately pleading for Satoru to wait, to hold on, to just keep hiseyes open until—

—his body lurched, gasping and heaving, raw airscraping its way down his throat. Burning burning burning: the cold was biting at his body, only it wasn’t cold atall. No—no, this was heat: all-encompassingand inescapable, as if burning embershad been buried under his skin. Desperately, his fingers clawed at his chest,his head throwing itself back against the mattress. It needed to stop, how didhe make it stop—

A cool cloth was gently placed on his forehead, andSatoru immediately sighed, his chest still heaving despite the respite. Still,he reveled in the small comfort, trying to focus on it—and not the painshooting through his stomach, the ache between his legs, or the wet feelingthat was smeared all over his thighs. Not the growing, hungry need for someone who smelled like candyand leather, his toes curling with a desperate whine.

Someone was calling his name. Satoru forced his eyesto crack open, his mouth open and panting, legs twisting against thesweat-soaked sheets. “Ki…tamura?”

“Hey there,” the doctor said, wringing out anotherwashcloth. This time, he pressed it to the omega’s neck—and Satoru had toresist the urge to force that hand to go elsewhere,his arms wrapping around himself and gripping at his shirt. But he stillarched his neck back, revelling in that amazing chill, giving a happy exhale.

“You gave us quite a shock,” Kitamura continued.“Usually, omegas show signs before going into heat.”

Satoru opened his mouth, but another jolt of pain shotthrough his stomach, swallowing his words with a desperate groan. “Youshouldn’t talk,” Kitamura continued, frowning slightly. “This is your firstheat in fifteen years. You’re going to need all your strength.”

Heat? His eyes shot open, his lungs leaping in hischest. He’d—gone into heat? When? How? Frantically,he looked around, and realized that this wasn’t even his hospital room; therewere no flowers or gifts, no comforting yellow walls, not a hint ofsentimentality. Instead, this place seemed almost sterile: the walls and floorsa pure white, the room empty of furniture except for the large bed he was in.

He turned his eyes to his doctor, pleading andconfused. “You’re in one of the hospital’s heat rooms,” he explained. “It’sscent-proof and soundproof. Your hospital room would have been too… open.”

Satoru weakly nodded. That made sense, but—but beinghere, in this place devoid of scents and sound and people sent something in him on edge. It made him want to thrashand scream and cry out, because this place wasn’t familiar, wasn’t safe. All the pillows piled up aroundhim didn’t change the fact that he was isolated and alone, when all he wantedwas his mate.

Wanted Yashiro.His eyes widened suddenly, a ragged gasp scraping out of his mouth. YashiroYashiro Yashiro: his mate, his alpha. His fingers flew up to his neck,but the bite was gone—and that alone made Satoru want to scream, his nailsdigging into the skin of his throat desperately. He needed him here, he neededthose teeth to sink into his neck, he wanted Yashiro to tear off his clothesand mean it. He needed—

He needed to tell someone.

Satoru grit his teeth, his breath quick and rabid. Someoneneeded to know that Yashiro was the killer: Satoru wouldn’t be able to stop himlike this, but someone had to—or morepeople were going to get hurt. Somehow, that logic managed to cut through theheat-haze; weakly, he reached out to his doctor, his fingers curlingdesperately into Kitamura’s sleeve.

“P-please,” he panted, sweat trickling down his face,“K—Kenya.”

Kitamura stared at him for a second, before droppinghis hand onto his patient’s wrist. “Satoru,” he started slowly, “I know you andKobayashi are close, and that he’s an alpha you trust. But you need to getthrough this alone.”

What? No! Satoru gave a frustrated whine, his armtwitching. “I just—I need,” he grunted, eyes squeezing shut, before shaking hishead against the pillows. “Then—p-police.”

“There’s one outside,” Kitamura said, placing Satoru’shand back across his stomach. For the first time, Satoru noticed the long, thintube attached to his arm: an IV, the needle nestled in his veins. “A beta, ofcourse. He’s going to make sure no one goes in or out but me, but he’s notcoming in.”

For fuck’s sake, how can someone so smart be so stupid? Satoru gave a strangled curse asanother round of pain and lust punched him in the gut, his entire face twistingin discomfort. His hips squirmed against the bed, desperate for relief—but thiswas more important. He needed to make Kitamura understand, he needed to makesure someone knew.

“The killer,” he whispered, swallowing thickly. Heopened his mouth, but the syllables died on his tongue. All he had to do wassay the man’s name—Yashiro Gaku, Nishizono Manabu, whichever—but for some reason, his voice failed him. His lips couldn’tform the words, reined in by something desperate and wanting, hot and coiled in his core.

“He isn’t going to get anywhere near you,” Kitamuraassured him. “There’s the officer outside the door, and security at everyentrance to the wing. You’ll be safe here.”

Justsay it. Satoru parted his lips, but the heat had strangled hisvocal chords. Deep down, something was growling that it would be a betrayal, atreason, protect your mate. Satoru’sfingers curled into the sheets, and he gave a short and irritated cry, rage andfrustration burning in his bones. He wanted Yashiro brought to justice, he did,he did—but something kept it allcorked inside, and he felt like he was going to explode.

Kitamura readjusted the wet cloth on Satoru’sforehead. “I know it’s hard, but try not to pull out your IV. It’s going tohelp keep you hydrated,” he explained, pulling the stand closer to the bed. “Ihave to go now, but I’ll be back in a few hours to get some food and water inyou.”

It’sYashiro! He tried to kill me! He’s going to kill someone else! Butno matter how loudly his mind was screaming, it never made it out of histhroat. After all this time, Satoru had finally found the answer he was lookingfor—and he couldn’t even tell anyone. As it was, his body couldn’t even move;the limbs too weak to do anything but thrash and squirm, powerless against thehormones rushing through his veins.

Satoru could feel the failure pooling in his eyes, saltyand wet. It was just like the car all over again. He couldn’t do anything.

Kitamura pushed himself to his feet, giving hispatient a slightly sympathetic glance. “I’ll see if I can get something youhelp you with the symptoms,” he said, walking towards the door. “Until then,try to hang in there, Fujinuma.”

The door clicked shut behind him, and Satoru wasalone.

For a long moment, Satoru just stared at whereKitamura had disappeared, his body heaving and panting. With a loud grunt, he somehowmanaged to roll himself onto his side, his face desperately burying itself intothe pillows. The scent he was looking for—familiar, warm, mate—wasn’t there, and he hated himself for looking for it in thefirst place.

Goddamn it. With Kitamura gone, without anything totake his mind off of it, his body was even harder to ignore. A single washclothdid next to nothing to stave off the heat-wave crawling along his skin, impossiblysweltering and hot. It felt like someone had dropped him in the middle of adesert, and Satoru tangled both of his hands in his sweat-soaked hair, growlinguselessly at the world.

But the worst of it was concentrated below hisstomach. Between his legs he was aching, andhis hips weakly tried to rut against the mattress. It was so desperate that it hurt, and all he wanted was relief,wanted someone to come along and take it away.But even he knew that that fingers and touches alone wouldn’t be enough;the slick pouring down his thighs made that very clear, his pants alreadysoaked through.

Bleary-eyed, he stared forward into space, his handsslipping down—one resting on his neck, and the other travelling lower. Slowly,Satoru slid that hand beneath the band of his pants, his fingers weakly takinghis length in hand. He tried to get a grip, tried to move at a speed that wouldat least take the edge off—but his muscles were too weak, and a needy groanrumbled out of his throat.

He couldn’t do this alone. He needed someone to come,to help take all of this away. With nothing else to do, Satoru took a deepbreath and tried to pretend that he wasn’t here. Immediately, his mind took himback to that dark car, watching the world become small in the rear-view mirror.

In his mind, the car would stop somewhere far away,private and unseen—and this time, he wouldn’t flinch when Yashiro came closer.The very idea of the locked seatbelt—keeping him held down, unable to escape,practically on display—made the ecstasy spike under his skin, and Satoru pantedopenly, lust building in his belly.

He knew this was fucked up, disgusting and wrong in so many ways—but Satorucouldn’t stop it, his head rushing away from him faster than he could hold on.Yashiro would be slow, but firm; every touch just a little too rough, a littletoo tight. Too easily, Satoru could imagine himself coming undone under thosehands, the feel of cold gloves moving against his exposed skin. The pricking ofthe older man’s teeth against his neck, breath hot and heavy against the wintercold. The feeling of his knees being pushed apart as Yashiro—

Satoru’s eyes shot open, the fantasy broken.

For a long second, he just waited there: panting asquietly as he could, his eyes suddenly jumping to the door. He hadn’t imaginedit, had he? All of his senses were more sensitive, his hearing included—and hecould have sworn he had heard something, but now there was only silence. Satorustrained his ears as much as he could, trying to hear the world over the soundof his own frantic heartbeat.

Then it came again: that three-tone knocking, echoingfrom inside his own head.

“Yashiro,” he whispered, his skin crawling. That washim: his Yashiro, his alpha—reachingout, calling from behind the locked door. So close and yet so far, but yet nothere. Satoru could feel his entirebody itching and prickling with ecstasy, every fibre of his being craving theperson behind the barrier.

Ifyou open the door, his traitorous mind offered, he’ll come.

Satoru slapped his hand over his mouth, his teethsinking into the flesh of his palm. No: he couldn’t. After everything Yashirohad put him through—killing his mother, killing Kayo, not to mention drowninghim—he couldn’t just, just let the killer back in. No matter how much hewanted it, no matter how much his body shook and shuddered with need—

Yashiro knocked again, and the breath left Satoru’slips in an uneven moan.

He knew the older man had regretted everything: Satorufelt it every time they brushed together, the man’s deep-seated guilt buried inevery emotion. Yashiro had been kind, affectionate and warm since the moment hewoke up; comforting him, making him feel safe.Despite himself, Satoru could feel his mind already crawling closer to thedoor; could feel his heat-hazed brain trying to claw at the locks, fumblingwith fever.

“Don’t,” he whispered out loud, shaking his head. Hetried to hold on to the memories of pain:the ripping, tearing, all-encompassing ragewhen he’d tried to sever the bond. More than once, that person had hurt himmore than anyone ever had. Satoru tried to tell his head that, tried to get itthrough his own thick skull. Yashiro Gaku was dangerous, he was a killer, he—

He’syour mate, his mind reminded him, before it threw the doors open.

The reaction was immediate: Satoru could feel theother presence, relieved and elated—and he couldn’t hold himself back anymore.His mind was a hurricane of lustdesperation anxiety lonely where are you please help me—and he could feel the moment the force of it hit Yashiro,the other man practically staggering in surprise. Still, desperately, Satoruclutched at him, wrapping himself up in his mate’s head, his distressshuddering across the bond.

Satoru could feel as the realization dawned onYashiro, his own thoughts echoing Satoru’s own. First came lust, then thefrustration and fury of being apart, simmering angrily and low. Still, hemanaged to send comforting thoughts thrumming up the thread—and Satoru let outa pleased sigh, the shivering of his body slowing to minor shudders. Steadily,Yashiro’s thoughts seemed to settle into something firm and resolute, a promiseentrenching itself in both their minds.

Don’tworry. I’m coming.

That was bad. That was very, very bad. People couldget hurt, and Satoru knew that, knew he had to tell him to stay away—but despite himself, he found himself nodding, reliefflooding through his system.

Yashiro was coming. And then everything would be okay.

Time went by agonizingly slowly when you’re alone inheat. Satoru remembered that from his past life: the few times he hadn’tmanaged to suppress his heat, the days seemed to crawl by, every minute feelinglike an hour. This time was no different, except that it was possibly worse: this body had only ever had itspresentation heat, and nothing since. Almost an entire lifetime worth ofhormones was hitting him at once, and there was little Satoru could do but liethere—squirming, sweltering, suffering.

And waiting. He breathed openly against the pillows, droolingand swallowing down precious air. Yashiro was still there in his head, resoluteand single-minded, a man on a mission. When Satoru reached out to him, theother man was quick to offer assurances and comforts—but he was clearly focusedon something else, overtaken by a single-minded determination.

But still not here.Satoru didn’t know if he was relieved or betrayed—maybe both. Just havingYashiro there in spirit did wonders for the emotional side of his heat, but hisbody was still being ravaged by the hormones, spasming wildly when another wavehit. There wasn’t much he could do but whine and ride it out, watching the sundip lower and lower in the sky outside his window.

He suspected he might be slipping in and out ofconsciousness, but he couldn’t really be sure—or, hadn’t really been sure until he jerked suddenly awake. Satoru cameback to his senses with a jolt, frantically looking around his empty room. Inthe evening light, the sterile white room looked orange and warm. But thatwasn’t what woke him up.

It took Satoru longer than he should have to identifyit, staring blankly at the ceiling, his lungs heaving.

There was a ringing. For a second, he thought it waslike the knocking—something coming from inside his own head, bouncing aroundhis skull—but no. His nose twitched, and immediately, Satoru could smell…ashes, and smoke. His brows furrowed together slowly, his hazed brain slowlychurning, before the conclusion snapped together in his brain.

The fire alarm. The hospital’s fire alarm was goingoff. Satoru’s eyes widened, inhaling the scent of burning as he turned overonto his side. His heart was hammering inside his chest, fear and hope beating togetherin time. Coincidence? No, there was no way: the timing was too perfect, tooconvenient. It had to be—

“Yashiro,” he whispered.

Yashiro was here. For him. For a second, joy surged through his body and soul, a softsmile breaking out on his face. He would make all of this better; he would makethe heat and the pain go away. Satoru swallowed thickly, his wet thighs squirmingin anticipation. Yashiro was coming, any minute, any second—

The killer wascoming.

Satoru’s eyes widened, his body freezing. That’s right:Yashiro was the killer. The person who had tried to drown him, all those yearsago; the person whose deadly resolve he could feel in his head, even now. Thesirens continued to wail in his ears, and he breathed frantically, his eyesdarting to the door.

He needed to get out of here.

Satoru grit his teeth and forced his arms underneathhim, his limbs shaking as he pushed himself away from the mattress. The dampsheets stuck to his skin, and he weakly kicked at them, detangling his legs.Just propping himself up sent his head reeling, nausea and vertigo making theworld spin in front of his eyes. Satoru panted, and slowly began to crawltowards the edge of the bed, grunting with every inch.

His fingers reached out blindly, and Satoru felt hisfingers hit the IV stand. With one hand, he grabbed hold, the tube tying hisarm and the bag together—with the other, he reached for the needle end, stillburied under his skin. Satoru took a deep breath, and pulled. Fuck, it hurt—the needle scraped againsthis vein the entire way out, leaving a bleeding patch of skin where theconnector had been.

With both arms now free to move, Satoru gripped holdof the IV stand, and began heaving himself to his feet. Immediately hiswobbling legs tried to give out from under him—they hadn’t been able to supporthis own weight in rehabilitation, and that was with supporting bars and braceson his thighs, not to mention his heat. Still, he refused to fall—so he leanedalmost the entirety of his weight on the metal pole, his knees buckling. Hislegs quivered with the effort but remained, ultimately, standing.

It would have to do.

Sweat and slick were still coating his every pore, andjust breathing seemed to invite more of the hotinto his lungs—but Satoru forced himself to take one shuffling stepforward. Every fibre of his body was screaming against it, heat-weary andexhausted; Satoru couldn’t even stand up straight, hunched over and panting,clutching at his make-shift support. But—

He needed to get out of this room before Yashiro gothere.

The door slid open, and Satoru froze, his headwhipping up to stare at the figure in the doorway.

The two of them met eyes, and then police officer’sshoulders sagged in relief under his uniform. “Fujinuma-san,” he started,“thank goodness you’re awake.” The man took two tentative steps into the room,making every movement slow and deliberate, his hands help up in a placatinggesture. “It looks like we’re going to need to evacuate you to another wing,alright? I’ll get you—”

Satoru barely saw the shadow crawling up from behindthe officer, before he felt the hot blood splatter across his shirt.

His eyes widened, his overheating pulse turning cold.Slowly, Satoru’s eyes dropped down to the floor. Red, bright red was splashedall over the pristine white room; he could already feel some of it was poolingat his toes, seeping under his feet. Somehow, the police officer was on theground—his body writing in pain, his mouth opened wide in a silent scream. Bothof his hands clutched at the fountain of blood gushing out of his neck, crimsonpooling out from between his fingers.

Satoru stared, his mouth parting but unable to make asound. The officer ripped one hand away from the wound, reaching blindly forthe two-way radio strapped to his hip—only for a pair of feet to step forward,crushing the man’s fingers with a crunch.Satoru shuddered, and followed the arch of that leg, his gaze crawling up untilhe was staring the killer in the face.

He was dressed in doctor’s scrubs, latex gloves on hishands and a medical mask covering his features—but Satoru would have recognizedhim anywhere. Under the thick metallic taste in the air, he could smell it: theheavy scent of leather and candy, possessive and overpowering, filling theroom. Nonchalantly, Yashiro tossed a bloody surgical scalpel to the floor,dropping it into the growing puddle spreading under the officer’s body.

Then he turned his attention elsewhere, and stared theomega in the eye.

Satoru gripped the IV stand in both hands, holding itdefensively in front of him like a weapon. Through his sweat-soaked bangs, heglared at the intruder, his arms and legs shaking with the effort. Everythingin his being was buzzing—it’s him, yourmate, he’s here, he came, just like he said he would!—but Satoru tried toswallow it down, even as the slick slid down his leg.

“Get,” he started, one foot sliding backwards, “getaway from me!”

The alpha stared at him for a long moment, unmoving, untilthe police officer’s movements slowed to a stop. Then, Yashiro lifted his footfrom the man’s hand, purposefully stepping closer to his mate. Satoru’s entirebody tensed, bracing itself as Yashiro closed the distance. The older manstopped in front of him, a pleased and fond sigh escaping his lips from behindthe mask.

“After all these years,” Yashiro whispered, reachingup and brushing his fingers across Satoru’s cheek, “you truly haven’t changed.”

Satoru stared up at his face, and felt somethinginside of him snap like a thread.

His knees were the first to go. There was a moment offreefall as Satoru’s legs gave out underneath him, his body lurching forward. Twoarms wound themselves around him, catching him and cradling him against someone’schest. Yashiro clutched him close, whispering comforts into his ear as helowered Satoru towards the ground. Distantly, he could hear the IV standclatter to the floor, bouncing in the blood before lying still.

A desperate whine escaped Satoru’s throat, and hesquirmed in Yashiro’s grip, the heat engulfing his body like wildfire. Thelogical part of him knew he needed to fight back, needed to get away—but none of his limbs werecooperating, all of them stiff and twitching. Even his head had rolled back,his neck wide-open and exposed; gently, he felt someone’s thumb brushingagainst his throat, hovering above his scent gland.

Satoru’s eyes fell half-closed, his breath hitching inhis chest. “D-don’t—”

“Shh,” Yashiro whispered, pressing down. Satoru’smouth fell open, the last of the fight ebbing out of his bones. He wanted toprotest, to fight back—but everything was already getting muddled in his brain,the finger swirling firm circles against his skin. Every muscle had turnedlimp, his arms and legs hanging uselessly and unmoving. Even his vision wasblurring, the world fading together into colours and shapes.

He opened his mouth to call for help, but all thatleft his throat was a shuddering moan.

“That’s it,” Yashiro continued encouragingly.Eventually, the finger left his throat—and Satoru could feel an arm looping itselfunder his knees, the other adjusting itself to cradle him his shoulders. With asmall grunt from the older man, Satoru felt himself being lifted, his head landingagainst the crook of Yashiro’s neck. Eagerly, he inhaled that familiar scent:leather and lollipops, just as strong as it was that day. It filled somethingin Satoru that he didn’t realize had been empty; a void in his own heart, screamingout for his mate.

“Don’t worry, Satoru,” Yashiro said, carefully steppingover the corpse. “No one will separate us again.”

Weakly, he gave a little hum, his eyes finallyslipping closed. How strange: like this, in Yashiro’s arms, with the scent ofblood still still clinging to them both—for the first time since wakingup, all those weeks ago—

Satoru felt completely at peace.

#yashisato #ABO!au #omegaverse #boku dake ga inai machi #erased #it feels like this fic goes from zero to sixty #t-though it takes fourteen thousand words to get there

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goffilolo · 7 years

Text

Demise of Midoriya Izuku (part 1)

Hi. I have managed to write a bit of demise!au. I’m not sure whethe ri will write anymore beyond this extract, but i will try my best to conitune with this au. Its my first time writing a fanfic, but i hope you like it. TW for suicide attempt.

The first thing Izuku notices upon regaining consciousness is the pounding in his head. The second is the dull, stinging sensation in his right arm. Opening his eyes comes with a great difficulty, feeling rather sluggish, yet having a feeling; a strong itch in his head that refuses to go away, that there’s something he should remember.

Slowly, but surely, all his senses come back to him. The sterile smell that always makes you anxious and want to crawl out of your own skin, ‘Oh, I’m in a hospital’ Izuku thinks, but doesn’t say, not feeling quite in control of his body just yet. Next came the dryness and metallic taste in his mouth, while uncomfortable, it wasn’t overwhelming. When opening his eyes, Izuku was met with the strong fluorescent lights being the only thing to focus on, the rest of his surroundings a blur, almost like his his eyes were a camera lens that stubbornly remains out of focus. The overall feeling was that of his senses being turned down in a way that it felt both not enough and too much at the same time, from not receiving enough input and being hyper-focused on whatever little the boy could get his hands on. It’s the frustrating feeling of being aware of the itch, but not being to scratch it and make it go away.

While trying to focus on anything other than the obnoxious light, Izuku listens intensively to the sound of dripping liquid, the sound itself quiet enough, but within the eerie silence of the hospital room it might as well be played from the speakers at full volume. He looks in the direction of the sound; an IV drip, and upon closer inspection Izuku notices that it’s attached to his arm. As the dripping continues, he becomes more irritated, feeling like every single droplet mocks him for getting into this predicament. Trying to voice his discomfort was another matter however, “Uugh..” was all he could say, because less is more and the dryness in his throat did not allow Izuku to form full sentences.

“Izuku!” called a tired, but full of concern voice from his left, which upon thinking for a second, Izuku recognised to be his mother’s. Turning his head in her direction only made him more aware of the pounding in his head, making Izuku hiss at the sensation.

“Oh honey try not to move, the doctor said you got quite a concussion and a broken leg but it’s actually not that bad considering what happened” - That’s Midoriya Inko for you, always there when you need her, always fretting over her only son; understandably so, whenever there’s space for her to do so and sometimes even when there isn’t. The circles under her eyes, making her look like she hasn’t slept in the past three days and the messy bun on her head being enough of a proof.

The silence on Izuku’s part only made Inko’s worry even greater. She looked her son in the eyes, their green dullness contrasting the brightness of the room they were in “Izuku, do you remembered what happened?” She fidgeted in the plastic chair she was currently sitting at, not knowing how to breach the subject of why her son was currently in a hospital.

Izuku’s mind was whirling. Of course he remembered, how could he not?! It was at this point in his life, stuck in a hospital bed with a concussion and a broken leg when Izuku truly appreciated the wisdom of the words ‘Ignorance is a bliss’. Unfortunately life did not have any bliss in plans for him, as Izuku was now forced to face the consequences of his actions; he was supposed to feel remorse for making his mother worry needlessly, feel anxious about being unconscious for god knows how long and missing school, feel grief about going as far as jumping off the roof of his school partly out of desperation, and partly to spite his childhood friend-turned bully.

Except, Izuku didn’t feel any of those things. Truth be told he felt...nothing.

While he was aware on some level of the adrenaline pulsing through his veins while falling, of a hundred and one thoughts running through his head, of the burned notebook that is probably still in that pond; soaked beyond a point of saving, he just couldn’t force himself to care about any of those things.

Izuku wanted nothing more that drift back into the warm and welcoming arms of the unconsciousness, where he didn’t have to worry about any of those things. His contemplation regarding the catatonic state of his emotions had to be stopped as Izuku remembered that his mother asked him a question and was patiently awaiting some sort on an answer, so he figured he must’ve started mumbling. When faced with his mother’s face; tired, but full of concern, just like her voice, Izuku found himself with words stuck in his throat and settled for simply nodding to get the message across.

She wanted to ask more, he could tell from the way she hunched closer to his bed, her eyes now more alert, attentive, looking ready to take in as much as possible, but he wasn’t ready to talk about it. Not now, not ever. Not when he’s been told by every single person in his life that his dream to become a hero is just unrealistic, not when blindly holding onto that dream lead to nothing but bruises, burns, ripped notebooks and his ever so anxious mother gaining even more reasons to worry. Not when the only way to wake up from that dream and accept the truth was by trying to take his own life. It only confirmed how weak and foolish he is, and no amount of analysis on heros will ever make up for that.

However, Izuku felt that his mother deserved a much better answer, maybe not a full answer, since Izuku himself was unable to fully articulate his thoughts and feelings, but some sort of an answer was due.

“I...I’m sorry” - Not exactly what he was going for, but it was a start.

“Honey, don’t apologise-” Inko couldn’t hold it in anymore as she burst into tears “I just want to know why! Is it...is it some trouble at school? So-some bullies?..or is it my fault?!”

“Not, it’s not your fault! Don’t ever think like that. I-I was just tired, so so tired and hopeless. But it’s alright-”

“Oh Izuku”

“-it’s alright, because you were all right. I can’t become a hero! Never could and never will, it’s cancelled!”

“But it’s always been your dream-”

“Well it was stupid! I was stupid!”

“Don’t. Don’t say that about yourself.”

“YOU CAN’T BECOME A HERO WITHOUT A QUIRK AND LOOK AT ME!!! NOT ONLY DO I NOT HAVE A QUIRK, I’M ALSO WEAK, SO FRICKIN’ WEAK, NO WONDER ALL THE KIDS MADE FUN OF ME! BUT YOU KNOW WHAT’S THE WORST PART?! THAT IT COST ME A SUICIDE ATTEMPT TO FINALLY REALISE WHAT EVERYONE HAS BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS!-” Izuku was now panting, not used to shouting so much, his emotions getting better of him. “- THAT’S HOW STUPID I AM! BUT IT’S ALRIGHT NOW, BECAUSE I’M ALIVE! I’M FUCKIN ALIVE BUT THIS DREAM IS NOT, THIS DREAM IS DEAD!!!”

Finally when his rant was over, did Izuku become more aware of his surroundings. First he noticed his mother crying, now feeling even worse for lashing out on her, when she hasn’t wronged him in any way. There was a nurse standing by the door, who quickly said something about getting the doctor, before scattering away, probably to give Izuku and his mom some privacy and resolve their family drama.

He was also very much out of breath and felt even more exhausted than before. However he felt somewhat light, by admitting all of this out loud he made it real. It wasn’t delivered the way Izuku hoped for, but he got the point across, especially the last part, and while he felt the familiar tightness of disappointment and self-loathing, almost suffocating him, he also felt content. Sort of. Admitting to himself the unlikeliness of his dream coming true and his own limitations was something that had to be done a long time ago. Izuku by no means felt better, but rather came to accept the truth. Now it was time to try and make things better, though he wasn’t sure he had the energy or will to fix everything that’s been broken, including himself.

“I’m sorry mom”

His point still stands.

Midoriya Izuku’s dream is dead.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #demise!au #fanfic #midoriya izuku #midoriya inko #tw: suidice

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thorntonkrell-blog-blog · 5 years

Text

THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK

PLURAL IS THE NEW SINGULAR

Roses are red. Violets are blue. I'm a schizophrenic and so am I So what the hell is a couple of weird guys like us doing in a nice place like this.

As usual, we are trying to make something out of nothing and then make a big deal out of that something while preserving its basic obscurity so it won't escape and wreak the havoc it usually does when the recluse becomes a wreck on the loose.

We offer proof that plural is singular as we try to discover what we've never possessed and try to rediscover what we possessed and lost while hoping this is the last place that we will have to look.

We come to this place for what fills the space rather than for the blank space that is this place before we begin to fill it.

Somebody built it so we come like pilgrims minus our Mayflowers.

We come to this place to forgive as the hyacinth leaves its gift of fragrance on the heel that crushes it. Even if that heel is Mark Twain or Sam Clemens who was himself another plural singular.

We're here because we're on vacation between infinities and yesterday we came out of sedation.

We're here for the beer, the ballgames, the movies and for everything except a paycheck because we're here for the art.

I and Me and Thornton too if the time is right.

We're here because faith has revealed to us that we still have a job to do and this place is part of that job, a legacy according to my doctor

Stop in and watch us work. You'll laugh. You'll cry. Warning; there is plenty of death, a dearth of sex, a presence of yearning and way too much urine.

You'll learn and as you learn, you teach and all teaching is about forgiveness.

Just remember, all generalizations are false including the last two which causes a contradiction which means one of them may be true in spite of itself or this whole place is one beautiful paradox or two.

INDIANA SPIN

We thought we had located heaven but we had to pass through Indiana first. I was wondering why the hell somebody decided to name this state “Indiana” when we cruised into a blind spot.

The first moment that I realized we were in a blind spot was when I saw the front fender of a semi smashing through the driver’s side window. We were going 70, I don’t know how fast the semi was going but somehow the driver never saw us when he attempted to change lanes.

I remember flying up in my seat and hitting my head against the roof of our vehicle. Then the swerves began as the semi hit the brake while it pushed us down the road. For a moment we were perpendicular with the eighteen wheeler and taking up both lanes. I remember thinking….we can’t die here. I’ve got to teach next week. Nobody will know who the hell we are….our friends back home will never understand how we came to crash and burn in this weird place.This can’t be the end but it must be. Nobody ever lives to tell this story.

We disengaged from the semi and the high speed spin began.The laws of physics must be obeyed. The swerve into spin continued forever. I lost consciousness. When I came to a second or a minute, an hour or a lifetime later, our totaled van was in the median between the lanes of a four lane highway. I figured that I had just learned how to die. It was simple really. You hit your head and the video tape called life goes dark for an undetermined time and when you wake up, you’re in a median in Indiana.

Slowly, I got the impression that I might be alive but what about Lynn? She.was driving She must be dead. I saw the fender smash through her window. I saw the flying glass Her head was against the steering wheel.

There was blood.

She had to be dead.

The whole goddamned thing was my fault.

I was the one who thought we could find heaven.

Whatever this was; it didn’t look like heaven.

I had a lot to learn about heaven.

I had a video camera. Soon I would use it. In my dreams, the camera never works. I hit the “on” button and the light flashed. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a dream.

to my mortal amazement, Lynn was as alive as I.

To my immortal wonder, perhaps she was as dead as I.

I saw the truck coming through her window. No way that she could have survived that collision as long as there were laws of physics that governed force, mass, speed and velocity. If she was alive…these natural laws had been circumvented which put us in the realm of the supernatural where we have remained ever since.

And the blood? We both had slashes above our right elbow from the shattered glass….nothing serious. We were able to exit the vehicle without much trouble. I went to my video camera It seemed to be working.

I turned on the camera and started recording. The semi had come to a stop about 150 yards in front of us. The driver was still in the cab. I pointed the camera in the other direction and noticed a person coming towards us.

I kept the camera aimed at his face so I got a closer up look than I would have without the camera. I focused on his eyes. For all I knew, this might have been St. Peter. His eyes told me that he thought he was looking at a couple of ghosts. When he got within speaking distance, I put down the camera.

“I saw the whole thing”, said St. Peter I thought you guys were goners? Are you okay?”

I wasn’t sure.

We walked around to the side of the van. Lynn was leaning up against it. I kept the video running. The tape would later be seen at least three times on national teevee.

FORWARD FIFTEEN TO DREAMLAND

We have blizzard conditions in upstate New York.

On polar vortex days like this,we hibernate and daydream of Summers past and Springs to come We thank God that it's February and not November as the end is now in sight.

I remembered back to the afternoon that Lynn and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversay on a sunny afternoon 15 years ago.

We thought it would be loverly to re-visit some of the places where our relationship began and our love blossomed. After stopping at a few such places, we decided to drive to Sea Breeze, good old Dreamland Park on the shore of Lake Ontario. Dreamland Park is an old fashioned amusement park featuring the famous Jack Rabbit one of the first of the wooden roller coasters.

Dreamland Park was the site of our very first date which occurred the afternoon after the dance where she saw me standing there and astonished me by asking if I wanted to dance.

I don't think I would have had the nerve to ask her, so radiant was she as she continues to be.

I did have the nerve to kiss her during our second slow dance which was our third dance in a row. I'll never forget those first three songs. "Hurt so Good" by John Mellancamp. "Loving You" by Elvis and "It's All in the Game" by Tommy Edwards. When in "Alli in the Game", Tommy sang "and he'll kiss your lips" I kissed her lips.

Our lives were changing by the second. She was at the dance with a gal pal of hers and had to take the friend home. She gave me her number and wondered if I would call. We kissed goodnight. I raced home and called her immediately.

We talked on the phone until sunset and decided to rendezvous the next day.

She asked me where we should meet and I picked Dreamland Park, which was closer to her house than to mine. I suggested we should meet at three on the merry go round.

She agreed

I got there twenty minutes early so had my choice of what horse to ride. I chose the white one that went up and down. Even then, I sensed that this was going to be an afternoon we would never forget. I rode the carousel a few times before she showed up. Her first sighting of me would be aboard the white horse. She made me feel brave. I wanted to be a hero. Prince Charming Valliant.

She appeared like a dream, exactly on time. I signalled her to climb on the carousel. She did and we began to go round and round as the ancient calliope added more melody to our moments and memories. I was cool and in control. I knew I was making a good impression.

Fifteen minutes later, we took a whirl on the Tilt-A-Whirl one of those rides in which the cars are traveling in one direction while spinning in another. This is when I discovered vertigo. Vertigo is impossible to be cool with. Suddenly I was sweating profusely and whispering to myself 'stop the machine' as I closed my eyes and tried not to hurl.

My heroic facade was permanently as blurred as my temporarily whirled veritginuous vision. She took it all in stride. We staggered over to a bench next to the Jack Rabbit. I had to lie down. My equilibrium was gone. Even prone, the world was barely tolerable. The mighty had fallen. She could deal with it.

Twenty six months later we got married. We've been on the merry go round ever since with more than an occasional side trip to the Tilt a Whirl.

So fifteen years later, we returned to Dreamland Park for the first time in all those years. Things had changed in the park.The original merry go round had burned to the ground and had been replaced. The only way you could get in Dreamland was to pay for an all-day ticket.

We only wanted to take one ride on the carousel.

As we approached the gates, a burly security guard was comforting a little girl who had become separated from her parents. We waited for the guard to finish before we asked his advice on how we might celebrate our anniversary with one ride on the carousel.

He directed us to the Park office where someone would be gald to take care of us. We made our way to the office and related an abbreviated version of our love story to the person behind the window who said "what a great story. I'm sure it will be no problem. Lert me check with my boss."

A few minutes later a very friendly young woman who looked disconcertingly like Annie from Field of Dreams emerged and said "I just heard your story. Let's go take a ride on the carousel or two or three if you'd like. Right through these doors"

Beautiful.

The three of us walked through those doors. We headed over to the carousel. I climbed aboard the white horse and she got on the chestnut horse next to mine. The night was warm. The Polar Vortex was unimaginable. Romance lives in memories of Dreamland even in the midst of February hibernation.

Whenever she loves me, I am brave.

BEATLEJUICE

I had zero symptoms and was felling fine. I just wanted to get the hell out of the office.

In his ongoing attempt to convince me that my situation was serious when I refused biopsy because “I didn’t want to know”, the urologist asked the old question in a new way. "what's the difference between ignorance and apathy?"

We answered the new question in our old way. "we don't know and we don't care"

This time the doctors said; "wrong answer" and made a decision.

A month and a half later, we were sitting in the pre-op room telling the nurse, who had recently graduated from groin holding, our life story and our love story and how hard it was at times to know the difference between Iowa and heaven but after all these years, if it were anything Iowa would have been purgatory at best.

We started to wake up when the IV needle went into our hand. Apparently what we were doing was real yet nobody seemed particularly worried not even us. We were in a place like this. When the doctors came in, we tried to apologize to them for our past hostile, ignorant and apathetic behavior which they couldn't possibly have forgotten although they seemed to be pretending that they had.

Next came in the doctor who was going to knock us out. We had been told that he looked like a kid but he was very good at what he did. We told him all we wanted was some Beatle juice. He sorta smiled and said "I can do that". The nurse said we can play some Beatle music in the operating room if that's what you would like.

They wheeled us into the OR. Sure enough we heard the Beatles singing "Love is all you need".

A couple of hours later, we woke up. We had confronted our first fear, The biopsy was over. We went home and resolved to forget that this was probably not the ending, this was more like the beginning. But soon we would know and now we cared. Not in the old way but in a new way.

Yes, we have cancer.

Who are we? We are I, in all my different hats and moods. We are all those who love me and all those whom I love and all those who love them. We are everybody who knows me and everybody who knows them. We are everybody who reads about us.

You are we.

Our cancer will affect you as it effects all of the we's of all the folks who have or had this cross to bear. You know us, some of you know us better than others. We are public people who seek a private place; a place like this. We've been in a lot of places from the front page of the New York times to the middle of Entertainment Tonight ahead of Bob Hope. We stay awhile, make a difference and head out for some place else.

Now, we are here in a place like this.

Some of you, even in a private place like this recognize us from our work and from our past shared experiences and now know my great secret.

We don't want to be the "about" in the "holy shit did you hear about them?"

We have cancer and we don't want the whole world to know until we want the world to know and we'll let you know when that day comes. We promise.

We intend to describe this journey with accuracy and honesty soo, you can tell others what we say but please don't tell them whom we are unless you are speaking for yourself because you are we and we are you and we are altogether

Goo Goo ga joob.

So what do you think when we say the word "cancer".

Everybody thinks something different and everybody is probably right to some degree. We've changed our understanding of the C word as well as the meaning that we give to the C word since we now have to apply it to ourselves and thus to you. The word that best conveys our current interpetation of the C word is this: TREATABLE.

Please stay tuned; for we're very sure that this is part of the job we were put here for, especially in a place like this.

You are welcome here as welcome as we are.

DOIN DA DEAN

You've had a tough day. Nothing traumatic but deadly in its own way. Repetitive. Uninspiring. Marginalizing. Alienating. Too listless to even qualify for frustrating. One of thousands of days like this that will be forgotten by everyone everywhere including you except in your subconscious where it will feed into your recurring nightmare of helpless, hapless abandonment.

Ya know what I mean?

Of course you do.

Well, I have come up with a remedy.

Actually James Dean started it in Rebel Without a Cause. Here's how it works.

Position your hands so that your left thumb is under your left ear with the pointer finger above the ear....your litle finger should extend almost to what is/was your hair line. Now do the same with your right hand.That's right...thumb under ear...pointer finger....little finger....yeah..yeah...you got it.

Now pull backwards with both hands as if you're trying to remove the wrinkles from your forehead and widen your eyelids....really pull Goddam it...pull.

Now, look in the mirror and scream at the top of your lungs...."YOU"RE TEARING ME APART". Hold the pose for three seconds...keep pulling....now open your eys as wide as you can just before you stop pulling.

There you did it. Are you starting to feel a little better?

Does your day seem a little different from all the other days that were exactly like all the other countless days/daze until you did the Dean and tore yourself apart?

If not do it again or even better yet, if you live with someone ask them if they have a moment and repeat the exercise right in front of them.

Having a forgettable argument with the spouse? Dean me up, Scotty.

Just found out ya got cancer? Do Da Dean

If you want to have a truly memorable, good or bad, day...go downtown and start doing the Dean in front of people that you don't even know

In the movie Disaster Artist James Franco who once played James Dean in a biopic did a tremendous imitation of Tommy Wiseau doing a crappy imitation of James Dean doing the Dean.

Look at all the attention Franco has gathered.

If you can get somebody to take your picture while you're doing the Dean and you paste it on facebook without any further comment, you will gert some likes which will brighten up your day.

Caution, when you're doing the Dean and the photographer is getting ready to snap the image....don't anticpate the climax. It's hard to do especially if the photographer is one of those "okay one, two, three" types. At the count of two, your liable to pose a little bit which cuts down on the vulnerability which gives the exercise its authenticity resulting in an homogenized look referred to as a Clean Dean.

A great place to do the Dean is at a sporting event where you can exercise at will and yet give the illusion of containment.

Once a year, the State of the Union speech is a great motivator. I did the Dean at least a hundred times during the last one...slighly more than one a minute. When I went to sleep that night I dreamt that Elvis Presley was president.

Finally, a wonderful time to do the Dean is immediately after reading an instructional essay on the cathartic effects of the exercise.

Like right now.

Try it.

Your dreams will improve.

STILL IN THE GAME

I'd miss Mr. Baseball more if I didn't dream about him so often.

I dreamt about him again last night. He was laughing and healthy. I remember telling him in the dream "Hey Dude, I thought you were dead”. To which he responded "Do I look dead to you”. In my dream/s he looks as far from dead as imaginable. He's radiant with vibrant light. He even looks like he dropped twenty pounds. We're laughing like we always were. Laughing and talking wonderful trash.

I call him Mr. Baseball because he won a bet with me and the stakes were whoever won the bet had to be called Mr. Baseball by the loser for the rest of their lives.

I didn't mind calling Mr Baseball Mr. Baseball because it ended another argument we had going. His first name was Gerry and my given first name is Jerry. We both claimed that one of us was an imposter with the wrong letter starting his name. I'm Jeremiah, he's Gerard.

Mr. Baseball taught Spanish. One day I walked past his classroom and we exchanged winks. He held up five fingers which I knew meant that he had five weeks left until retirement.

He was a world traveler and had big plans.

His wife Rosie had her retirement dinner that very night.

Rosie and Baseball attended Rosie's dinner and midway through, according to Rosie, Baseball turned to her and said "I feel like I've just had a shot of novacain."

With that, he collapsed on the floor.

They rushed him to the hospital. He had suffered a massive stroke. The doctor's said he wasn't going go regain consciousness. Rosie was faced with the decision....should they keep him on life support or let him go.

Rosie chose support.

Mr. Baseball was still in the game, at bat but it was the bottom of the ninth with 2 0uts, two strikes on the batter and the home team down by 10.

Much earlier in Mr. Baseball's game but only a couple of years in the past. We were walking in the hallway together when the secretary from the main office breezed by us. As she passed Joanne observed "you two guys are the slowest walkers I've ever seen."

Then in a flash she was down the hall at full giddyap with what she called her purposeful stride.

I've always been a slow walker unless I was late for a class or headed for the men's room. In retrospect, I'm not sure if Mr. Baseball was a naturally slow walker. The extra weight that he had gained over the years had resulted in a bad back and bad knees. Both the back and the knees would become factors as the innings of our lives passed at differing velocity.

Of course we were talking baseball. The prospects of the Chicago Cubs was the subject when Baseball, as he liked to do, swerved into another ursine subject from a Christmas party past.

"Remember that fiberoptic bear", Mr Baseball asked.

I did and he knew damned well that I did.

That's why he asked the question in the first place. To piss me off.

As I was remembering, Joanne still in giddyap passed us going in the other direction."Whatever you two guys are talking about it must be interesting" Jo observed.

"It sure is" said Mr. Baseball.

Mr. Baseball and I had been talking about a Christmas Party and the jist of a Christmas Past.

I hadn't attended a Christmas Party for 30 years. At the last one I attended everybody got smashed which presented a vibrational, intuitional overload resulting in way too much information and a couple decade long grudges

I was working in the building where Mr. Baseball was teaching Spanish.

A few weeks earlier, my wife Lynn and I had gone to the movies with Mr. Baseball and his wife Rosie. We had dinner at Bugaboo Creek after the movie and somehow the conversation turned to an oncoming Christmas party. Although I was now retired, I had been filling in for a woman who was on maternity leave. I wasn't crazy about the assigment. I had been a twelfth grade teacher and all of a sudden I was teaching ninth grade.

God bless anybody who teaches ninth grade.

I had started my career there. It was kinda cool that I was finishing it in the same building, the same room in fact that I had begun thirty five years prior. I liked the people, teachers and staff, who worked in the building. They treated me with respect and kindness. They liked to say that I was their idol because I was retired.

When I shared my hang up about Christmas parties, Rosie ,Lynn and Baseball gave me a collective 'get over it" response. To my surprise, Lynn seemed interested in attending the party. She told Mr. Baseball to” pick up two tickets for us” and we'd pay him at the party.

Since I hadn't been to a faculty party in decades, I wondered how the attendees passed the time before and after the buffet. Baseball told me that a "white elephant" activity was on the agenda. I didn't know what a white elephant activity entailed so I asked Baseball to sum it up for me.

"You bring in some piece of junk you've got hanging around the house that you don't want, you don't know what to do with and yet you don't want to throw out. You wrap the junk up as nice as you can or in your case have Lynn wrap the junk up. You give your precision wrapped junk to somebody else. They give the piece of junk that they don't want to you and everybody's happy, sort of"

The whole exercise sounded like a microcosm of most of the relationships that I'd observed in my lifetime and thus possessed a certain minimal degree of valididty along with existential possibility....

A week later, on a snowy December night, Lynn and I arrived at the scene of the party. I had forgotten about the "white elephant". I asked Lynn if she remembered and of course she had it "covered".

We entered a little early so we had our choice of seats. We saved two places for Rosie and Mr. Baseball. As it turned out Chris, the principal and his wife along with the vice principal Ken and his wife chose to sit with us.

Once the crowd had gathered, Chris went around with a manilla envelope which contained a bunch of numbers. I found out that I had to draw a number from the envelope. The number that I drew would have something to do with the order in which I would select from the well wrapped white elephants on the "elephant" table.

Mr. Baseball picked first and pulled out the number 4 which he immediately described as "Lou Gehrig" the famous first baseman of the Yankees....the Iron Horse....the luckiest man....wore number 4. Lou Gehrig was Mr. Baseball's father's favorite player. Lou had died with the disease that now carries his name.

I picked next and pulled out the number 32 (Jim Brown)

I shrugged as once again, I was at the bottom of the barrel. I glanced at Mr. Baseball and tried to make the best out of yet another calamitous draw.I expected to see a big shit eating grin; instead I saw a shadow of worry cross Mr. Baseball's face. The cause of the umbrage was not yet discernible to me.A few minutes later I understood why the moonshadow had danced across the face of Mr. Baseball.

Sadie, the school psychiatrist, explained the rules of the White Elephant game. "Each person draws a number. The person who draws number 1 goes first, picks any gift/elephant....opens it and sits down. Number 2 person has a choice, he/she can pick a gift from the unopened/mystery elepant prize table OR if he/she likes the gift that number 1 opened, he/she can ignore the mystery pile and STEAL what number 1 had just pulled from the pile which would send Number 1 back to the pile to pull another prize and on and on until all the elepants are gone and everybody has what they have. The higher the number you drew, the more elephants you have to choose from. Stealing is encouraged but no elephant can be stolen more than three times and no elephant can be stolen back to back"

I had the highest number which meant I would have the choice of any elephant that hadn't been stolen three times OR the last wrapped prize in the pile.

The person who drew Number 1, a math teacher named Betsy, stepped up to the table and picked out a nicely wrapped medium sized prize. She opened the prize package and inside was a little teapot, short but not particularly stout. Person 2 stepped forward, inspected the teapot, shook his head and opened a package that contained three frosted martini glasses. Person 3 a business teacher unwrapped an elephant that contained a dozen castte tapes from the 70s/80's.

The next person to choose was Mr. Baseball. Baseball slauntered up to the prize table. In case you haven't heard the word 'slaunter,' it's an uncomplimentary verb that Lynn used to describe the slow walk employed both by me and by Mr. Baseball. Slaunter means a slow, sloppy saunter.

When Mr. Baseball got to the table, he turned his head to look over his left shoulder then turned it to look over his right shoulder then shook his head and shrugged. His body language indicating that he didn' t want anything that had been chosen so far so WTF, he might as well choose from the pile where he picked the very package that Lynn had wrapped and which contained an empty wooden box containing A to Z dividers in which coupons could be kept and organized.

Lynn was delighted, Mr. Baseball not so much. His thrall diminished even further when he returned to our table and I loud whispered to Lynn in a volume meant to be overheard "we've been trying to get rid of that piece of junk for years".

Once again it dawned on me that we had a decent deal. I didn't know if Lynn understood our good fortune so I mansplained to her that we had the last number and that meant we could steal ANYTHING that had been chosen. To illustrate my superfluous explanation, I asked her if she wanted the martini glasses. She said that "we had more martini glasses than we needed already".

Next, a very pregnant woman picked a huge package from the table which was obviously a stuffed animal of some sort. The package turned out to be a gigantic teddy bear which Laura said would be perfect for her baby to play with in a couple of years and for the rest of her life. Everybody, almost everybody oohed and aahed at the appropriate cuteness of the story. Lauara was the first person to be pleased with her selection.

Almost everybody was shocked when two picks later, Rose a recent grandmother said "I'll take Teddy, thank you”. Rose went over to Laura and took the teddy bear that Laura's child would seemingly never cuddle.

Laura, clearly disappointed, picked again. This time the elephant turned out to be a series of interlocking picture frames for three by five photographs which Ivan a photography teacher commented, "Oh that is so stolen." and took the frames from Laura who immediately took the teddy back from Rose.

The game was heating up.

Lynn nodded, willing now to steal.

And Mr. Baseball still had our junk.

Two picks later, Ava stole the teddy bear from Laura. According to the rules, Ava owned the bear.

Next came a random stampede of elephants including but not limited to an attache case, a toaster, a fiber optic bear, a plastic chess set, a glass sculpture, a glow in the dark snowman, box of golf tees, a wallet, a pair of gloves and another ten items whose non-descript existence escapes my recall.

As the game went on, patterns seemed to emerge, Laura kept opening the best packages and those packages would be stolen from her. This happened at least three times. The later it grew, the more enthusiastically folks waved their newly acquired pieces of junk hoping that whoever's number was up would steal the junk from them and give them another shot at the elephant.

Remember, the junk that each of them was trying to get rid of was the very junk that somebody else had already successfully gotten rid of by getting rid of it to the very people who were trying to get rid of it again in the hopes of getting yet another piece of junk that they would be less willing to get rid of..

The usual.

"This box contains all twenty six letters of the alphabet. Great for coupon clippers and debt collectors."

"Everybody loves to play chess. Chess sharpens the mind. Here's a beautiful little chess set."

"Don't you dare come over here and take my fiber optic bear."

"This whatever it is would make a great whatchamacallit."

When only a few items remained on the table, we had to get serious about our decision making. Like most husbands, my happiest moments come when I'm able to put a smile on the face of my wife. Like most husbands, I always want to know what it is that my wife wants Like most husbands I ask her what she wants too much which irritates her because at a certain point I'm supposed to know what she wants without asking her and if I ask her what she wants at the point when I'm supposed to KNOW what she wants without asking well, she "doesn't want anything, thank you" and that's not good.

I was approaching that sensitive point when Lynn astonished me by looking directly into my eyes with an expression that was very close to "kiss me" and saying with purrfect clarity. " I love that fiber optic bear. Get it for me."

All of a sudden I was elevated to the next level...Knight errant...man on a mission. I had an opportunity to earn a smile.I was in perfect position.

The fiber optic bear had drawn zero attention through the entire game and this was the end of the game. Brad the librarian had drawn the bear early and throughout the game he had used reverse psycholgy "Don't you take my fiber optic bear. I love this bear. etc" all of which proved ineffective as he was still stuck with an unwanted bear which would be in Brad's garbage can within 24 hours.

When my turn came, the bear was right there.I went to the table. I listened to the various offers. "I know this is gonna break your heart, Brad, but give me that bear."

Brad didn't even fake heartbreak, when he handed me the bear.

I took my trophy back to the Lynn. She looked at the bear with tenderness and then turned her loving eyes for towards me. She gave me a sweet kiss on the lips as almost everybody ooohed and aaahed. Momentarily I was young and brave.

In the meantime, Brad had decided to keep the game going by stealing once again from Laura. I wasn't paying much attention. I was focused on my refountained youth and courage. The reverie was rudely interrupted when Laura, the oft-wronged Laura, burst into my space. "I'll take the bear,Jer."

"Don't take the bear, Laura," I pleaded as my courage began to dissolve.

"Hey, you're retired and you make more money than anybody here so say goodbye to the bear, Jer"

Laura and the bear trundled back to the other side of the room.

It was my turn to choose again. If I took the last elephant, the game would be over. On the way to the table, I forgave Laura. She had a bambino on the way plus she had been stolen from at least four times and was still being tortured by Ava and the teddy bear. Mr. Baseball was still saddled with my piece of junk.

I decided to keep the game going, maybe I'd get another shot at the bear.

Once again I heard the cacophony of pleas.

One plea stood out. "Jerry, take this whatever it is and assign your students to write a composition to figure out what the hell it is."

I stole the whatever it is/was from a weird guy named Chuck, a science teacher welll known for incomplete passes at female colleagues.

The stolen object was a glass "sculpture" about a foot long and ten inches high. The "sculpture" looked vaguely like some sort of drug delivery system or a synthesis of Sideshow Bob and a snake crawling out of a saxophone resting on lava. Trying to be good natured and retain composure. I said that I would indeed use this as a composition subject. I brought the questionable "sculpture" back to my seat where Lynn looked too flabbergasted to speak.

Chuck followed me over to my table and stole from Mr. Baseball our cardboard classification system.

I heard Chris, the principal mutter under his breath...."what's Chuck gonna do with THAT? Keep record of his strike outs?"

Mr. Baseball jumped to his feet and slauntered over to Laura."I'll take the fiber optic bear." Baseball came back to our table, and set the fiber optic bear next to Lynn within her reach but far beyond her grasp.

Laura took the attache case from Ken.

Ken ended the game by choosing the last elephant which turned out to be a candy jar full of Hershey kisses.

For a moment, I thought that Baseball had redeemed the bear in order to gift it to Lynn.

"Hey Baseball, I'll give you this beautiful glass sculpture for the bear."

"Baseball turned to me with the previously absentshit eating grin and said: "why should I take that ugly thing back, I've been trying to get rid of that piece of shit for the last five years."

The party was over.

A few minutes later Lynn and I were silently driving home in frigid, black ice weather that could be described as an Arctic assault appropriate only for polar bears.

MAN HAT ON

Sixty eight years ago, Doc Zilla bought a Stetson. Doc died thirty five years ago. He passed the Stetson on to my father who immediately passed it on to me.Vin thought that I would think that the hat was retro.I did.

I thought the lid was retro which meant I thought it was gimmicky in a cool way and would separate me from everybody else. I was too young for the hat.It separated itself from me.

I proved that conclusively a couple years later at a disastrous cabin party. It's always nice to have Jack Daniels in the room but not a good idea to give him the mike. Consequently, I told everybody off in a tragic effort to save the world before peeling out bareheaded at 90 miles per hour. Not only had I left behind a few acquaintances but more importantly I left behind the Stetson. I never saw the hat again. I hope it found the head of someone more worthy.

I vowed that someday, somehow, when I was ready, I would get that hat back again. I had faith that a path to the Stetson would be revealed to me.I started wearing baseball hats as a penance. They separated me from nobody except Yankee haters and Red Sox fans. I can't say that I missed them.

I am a patient man.

I also believe that vocabulary shapes destiny. I didn't have an articulate enough hat vocabulary to describe the Zilla Stetson that I was seeking and until I did, the lid would linger somewhere out there beyond my destiny.

All this happened during my first marriage. The marriage outlasted the hat but not by much even though Jack had permanently left the building.

Lynn came into my life after both my hat and my first wife were long gone.Lynn never saw my hat and I had trouble explaining it to her. Lynn had seen my first wife a few times and had no trouble explaining her. Because we are human, it is easier for us to explain than to understand.

Lynn also had no trouble explaning baseball hats and how juvenile she thoght they were especially for a guy like me who still had "good hair".

I began this story as a thirty year old kid trying to ironically wear a man's hat and then I devolved into a man wearing a kid's hat. One day, Lynn and I decided it would be better if I tried being a man wearing a man's hat. With this agreement, revelation ignited somewhere in the near future, we simply had to make our way into that future and the mystery would appear to us in the form of realization. That's the way the world works. When you say somethng in the present and you really mean it, that something starts to happen in the future. As we approach that future, the gimmick is to hold onto the vision we had and keep it in place until we reach that future and POW there it is.

Of course, you've got to really mean what you say and since most of us most of the time don't really mean what we say the future is catastrophically non-linear brightened by the good fortune randomly generated by occasional, almost accidental outbursts of optimistic sincerity from a nearly forgotten past.

About a month later a visual clarity trumped my vocabularic inadequacy and a path to the hat suddenly appeared. Then, out of nowhere, Lynn suggested that we go see The Aviator which is screening in the discount house a couple of miles away. The discount house known as Movies 10 is the last stop for feature movies before the brief hiatus when they disappear and are prepared for Netflix etc.

In other words this is their last stand at the box office. The popcorn costs as much as the viewing of the movie which is a straight up perk to the discount chain dispensaries.

I'm not a fan of bio-pics especially if they are built around people and events that I can remember. I always remember the people and the events depicted as so much more complex and dramatic than the condensed imitations that constitute the majority of biopics. I already had a full dose of the real Kate Hepburn and wasn't thrilled about watching Blanchett channel Hepburn in a battle of dueling Kates.The deciding vote as usual belonged to Lynn.

We went.

During the showing itself, I fidgeted in my seat. I put my elbows on the back of the seat in front of mine and rested my chin on my palms. Typical sulking jerk exercising a little pent up passive aggression.

We were the only people in the theater.

All of a sudden on the screen, DiCaprio gets out of a plane or a car or something. I'm shocked to see that he's wearing my hat.I leaned back in my seat.

"That's my hat. DiCaprio's got my hat", I whispered too loudly.

Lynn shushed me.

A little later DiCaprio and the hat appeared again on screen. This time, Lynn whispered to me in a far more appropriate volume, even though we were the only two nuts in in the dark. A light had gone on in her head. "Oh THAT's your hat. I like it."

I said "that is exactly my hat."

I didn't have the words but I had the image, the visual. Usually when I write, I have the visual and the vocabulary comes to me. In the case of the hat, I had the image and now so do you but I still can't give you the words. But we're making progress, ain't we?

With visual vocabulary firmly in place and with destiny drawing closer to revelation, I made an appointment to meet the Master Hatter.

Lynn and I went to lunch before the appointment and our conversation dangled a few minutes past the appointed time to meet the Hatter. We arrived late and were informed in no uncertain terms that we would have to wait because the Hatter "is a busy man". Or we could just leave. Whatever.

We waited an hour in his tiny vestibule while people came and went, collecting their laundry. Eventually, the Hatter made his way to the counter of the dry cleaning establishment that serves as a front for his creativity. He makes his hats in the back. The dry cleaning joint is the cottage for his industry.

It became very evident that when you talk to a clear eyed man like the Hatter about hats, you better know what the hell you're talking about and if you don't have the coin or the courage to purchase the hat that you better know what you're talking about well then, he knows that you know that he knows that you're just wasting his time as well as your own, only his time is more valuable than yours because he knows what he's doing and you don't know what the hell you're doing. Etc.

I told him I was in the market for a hat. I told him about the Doc Zilla hat; how I had come to own it and lose it. He seemed interested or at least interested enough to ask the essential question. "So, what kind of hat are you looking for?"

I knew the answer, sort of. I told him I had just seen The Aviator and the hat in that movie was exactly the hat that I had lost and wanted to regain. I asked him if he had ever seen The Aviator.

As soon as I asked him that question, something in his demeanor changed. Up to the Aviator question he had been more business like than friendly, more challenging than engaging. He was sizing me up. As a hat maker, size definitely mattered.

At that point, he invited us to step out of the vestibule, past the counter, past the racks and racks and racks of other people's clothing. The Hatter invited us into the backroom where he interviewed serious hat seekers. We had passed the entrance exam.

As we made our way to the inner sanctum, we passed a stool upon which was a beauty of a hat.

"Now, that's a hat", I said in passing.

"That's MY Hat" replied the Master Hatter.

I still lack the chapeau vocab to describe that hat on the stool but suffice it to say that a hat made by a master hat maker for his own dome is indeed a joy to behold. The Hatter picked up on my joy regarding his hat which made the dozen steps into his back room much less threatening.

I knew the Hat makers name but he didn't know mine. Many more people seek the Hat Master than are sought by him. I had told him my name when I called to make the appointment. I told him my name again when we met at the counter. When we got to the backroom, he told me something I already knew and asked me something that I had already told him.

"My name is Brown" said the Hat Maker, what's yours?"

After he said Brown, I resisted the urge to say "if you tell me again, I'm gonna knock ya down".

"They call me Ice" I said.

Brown resisted the urge to say "that's cool".

We shook hands.

"Now, tell me again. What kind of hat do you have in mind?"

"Did you see The Aviator?", I replied again.

"Oh yeah" said Brown.

Once again, I felt more at ease, more connected. Movies are readily available cultural metaphors. Whenever we share metaphor we share a bit of truth."Leonardo DiCaprio was wearing my hat in that movie. Do you remember that hat? That hat is my hat or should I say that hat was Doc Zilla's. THAT is Exactly the hat I'm looking for.”

"Exactly THAT hat?" Brown asked

"Exactly", I asserted.

Brown said " Look at the top of that hat rack. Do you see that hat? That is exactly the hat in the Aviator. Reach up and get it. Take a look for yourself".

I followed his directions. I pulled the hat down and took a close look.

"It looks like the Aviator hat" I estimated.

"I've got news for you Ice. Not only does it look a lot like the hat DiCaprio wore in the movie. It IS the hat he wore. I made that hat for the movie and you've got that hat right in your hands."

"THIS is the hat that Leo wore in the movie? What's it doing here?"

"Often when I make hats for movies, they send the hats back to me. I hold on to the hats and keeps them safe in case the film makers have to reshoot a scene and they don't want to screw up the continuity. That's the actual hat I made for Martin Scorcese to use in The Aviator to go on the head of Howard Hughes as played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

"Leo wore this hat," I asked incredulously.

"That EXACT hat" said Brown.

I tried on the hat.

Size matters. The hat was too big.

"Whoa, Leo's got a big head" I observed.

"Why don't you try Richard Gere's hat from Chicago. That one's on the back behind Leo's hat"

I pulled down the Chicago hat and tried it on for size. Gere's hat was too small.

" I think you're closer to Leo than to Richard, Ice. Gere wears a seven and a quarter. Leo wears a seven and five eighths. Figure you're about the size of George Clooney. I'm working on his hat right now"

When Lynn and I were waiting in his vestibule, Brown had been making a hat for George Clooney. "George is a seven and a half" said the Hatter. "It's better to have a fit that's a little loose rather than a little tight. We call that 'headroom'.

Brown took out his measuring tape and wrapped it around my dome. "Seven and a half, Ice. Same size as George."

I had my size. I had my style. Not bad for a guy coming in with zero hat vocabulary. Still, as I looked at the Aviator hat, something was wrong. It was the hat band. The Doc Zilla brand was a darker brown. Hatter grabbed a darker brown band, a 'chocolate' brown and wrapped it around the Aviator hat that I had on my head.

Thanks to Jack Daniels, I couldn't remember the last time I saw the Doc Zilla hat. I could remember a picture someone had taken of me the last time I wore the hat when I was trying to save the ozone and preserve the integrity of art with profanity while insulting everyone around me in a dazzling triple play of boorishness.

Not a pretty picture, except for the hat.

The picture was in black and white. I recalled a differentiation in the tone of black between the hat and the hatband. The hatband was definitely darker as was the one that Paul wrapped around the exact Avaitor hat. Still uncertain, I asked for a second and third opinion.

Both Lynn and Brown agreed that the combination looked great but the final decision was mine. I decided I would go for MY hat which was Doc Zilla's hat which because of the darker hat band wasn't EXACTLY Leonardo's hat which wasn't actually Leonardo's hat anyways but Howard Hughes's hat as played by Leo as envisioned by Martin Scorcese and his wardrobe director. I am my own wardrobe director and I sure as hell am not Leonardo DiCaprio nor Howard Hughes nor Matin Scorcese.

As if reading my mind, Brown said "Leo's surprisingly tall"

"Do you know Leo?" I asked

"I fitted him for that hat you got on your head. I'll tell you something else, Leo's weird."

"Whaddya mean Leo's weird", I wanted an answer because I didn't want to believe that Leo was weird. Considering Brown was running his hat business out of a dry cleaning store, I thought maybe it was the Hatter who was mad. That's been known to happen.

"Let me tell you about his fitting", Brown began.

"First of all, Alec Baldwin didn't like the hat that I made for him. I had to calm Baldwin down by explaining that the hat was authentic to the year and to his character as well as the fact that the hat had been made to the exact specifications sent by the wardrobe director and approved by Marty himself.

"Baldwin finally calmed down and headed back to his trailer, hat in hand. Without Baldwin around, the atmosphere grew less tense and more expectant. Everybody knew that Leo was next on the schedule which was a big deal all the way around. Right on schedule, the door opens and in walks Leo. A silent, barely visible swoon filled the room. Leo's a lanky guy, surprisingly tall as I said before and very thin. He introduced himself as Leo. I introduced myself as Dave. We shook hands. I pulled the hat out of the box. This is when Leo got weird.I stepped forward to put the hat on his head. Leo stepped backwards, spooked, and he disturbed the air between us with a double open palm, ten finger pushback. The signal was clear. 'don't touch me, man and get that hat away from me'. "Feeling like I had caught the plague after stepping in a pile of dogshit, I took a few steps back", Dave recalled.

"With that, Leo turned his back on me and walked across the room to the full length mirror. He stood in front of the mirror, studying his reflection for what seemed like an hour but was probably five minutes. The room was completely quiet. After about forty five minutes or maybe four, I whispered to the wardrobe assistant on my left. 'What the hell is he doing?'

"She whispered back, 'I think he's getting into character'.

"A minute or fifteen later, Leo turned away from the mirror and headed over in my direction. The guy coming over to me, however, was no longer the guy who had turned his back on me 300 or 3000 seconds earlier. The guy coming towards me was Howard Hughes. Leo was gone and Howard Hughes was ready to be reunited with his hat.

I put the hat on Howard's head. The fit was perfect as I knew it would be. The studio had sent me the exact measurement of Leo's head as a reference. With his hat on his head, the reincarnated ghost of Howard Hughes walked back to the mirror. He tilted his head from the left to the right. He pulled the back of the hat down, which made the fron of the hat tip up slightlt. He nodded in approval.

Howard Hughes turned away from the mirror and paused for just a moment. In that moment, Leo took Howard's hat off his head. He walked towards me, hat in hand. He was a different man from the man on whose head I had placed the hat a minute ago. In the space of about ten minutes, this guy had become two entirely different people.

Leo/Howard looked at me and said ' that's exactly the hat, Dave'.

Dave continued “We shook hands again. I'm pretty sure I was shaking with Leo and not Howard because the handshake was strong and Howard Hughes wasn't known for the strength of his handshake. I thanked him for the compliment. Apparently I had the right guy as I called him 'Leo'. He after all had called me 'Dave'. I guess it was right because he went on his way and as he left, the swoon in the fitting became more visible as did the relief. That's what I mean when I say 'weird'. I've met a lot of actors but I'd never seen anybody do that or have that effect. Baldwin,the actor, didn't think his hat looked good on him. DiCaprio had no concern how the hat would look on him because it wasn't his hat anyways. The hat belonged to the character of Howard Hughes. Before Leo could evaluate the hat, he had to see the hat through the eyes of the character. Like I said, concluded the Hatter. Leo's weird."

By the time the Master Hatter had finished his Hollywood tale and the weirdness of Leo, I had already decided that I wanted the hat.

But there were complications.

I didn't want Leo's hat or Howard's hat. I didn't even want Doc Zilla's hat anymore. I wanted MY hat and the hat that the Hatter put on my head with the darker band was exactly that hat. The deal was almost done.

The price tag was next and it was hefty.

We entered the area between stiumulus and response.

That time of final objection which comes before the moment of acceptance or rejection.

Lynn, who is all about maintenance, found her voice. "Well it's a nice hat but a very expensive hat. I'm concerned about the care of the hat. How will it stand up to water?. What if the hat loses its shape? If he gets caught in the rain, can he bring the hat back to you for reshaping. Will rain ruin this hat? Can he wear it in a rainstorm?"

The whole deal was up in the air with the machine gun of those questions.

I was worried.

I should have had more confidence in Brown.

He looked Lynn straight in the eye and said, "Mrs. Rivers, the hat is made of beaver and beavers are pretty good with water."

Bam the first volley returned

"And remember," the Hatter continued, "When it begins to rain, that's not the time a man takes OFF his hat. That's the time he puts it ON. He'll be wearing this hat for the rest of his life so if you divide cost by years, this hat is a bargain."

Game, set, match.

We ordered my hat.

I've worn it ever since.

I don't wear it everywhere. I only wear it on those occasions when I want to look exactly like myself.

One of those times occurred a couple of months ago when I was invited to a beer tasting event put on by the alumni foundation of one of my colleges. By this time I was full of radiation and barely able to control my urges and there was only one small water closet at this event so we stayed very close to it and I rushed it a couple of times in the hour that we spent.

At this event, I noticed someone at the bar. I couldn't take my eyes off this guy. Everytime I looked at him, he was looking somewhere else. When I find myself in that situation, I'm pretty sure that the person looks back at those moments when I'm not looking.

Finally, I went to Lynn.

"See that guy sitting at the bar? Is that Beau?"

Beau is my son from my first marriage. I hadn't seen him nor spoke to hime in almost twenty years.

Lynn said she thought it was Beau.

I tried to figure out what I would say to him of if I should even say anything after so much pain. I decided I would say something. I didn't know what. I figured the words would come when I got there. I headed over in his direction.

He was gone.

I don't know if he saw me or not but if he did, he saw me looking like myself.

DEER LAKE AND BEYOND

I read his auto-biography, The Greatest.

Towards the ending of his book, Muhammad Ali invited anyone who had read the book that far to come and visit him at his training camp where they would be welcome. He even gave simple directions. Go to Deer Lake. Go to the gas station in the middle of town. Turn left at the gas station. Come up the mountain road. Watch for the boulders along the side of the road. The boulders have names of past champions painted on them. If you see them. you're in the right place. Drive to the top of the road. Park your car.

I had a few days off with no particular place to go. I had a truck. I had a wife and a three year old son. We got in the truck. We trucked to Pennsylvania. We drove to Deer Lake. We found the gas station.

(Oh my God there's the gas station)

We turned left on the mountain road.

Oh My God, there's the boulders.

We were unmistakably on the turf of Muhammad Ali.. We kept going. We parked the truck.

I couldn't believe how simple it was. Exactly how Ali described it in his book. We were on the property of perhaps the most famous man on earth. No one had stopped us. Searching for parallels. I tried to picture myself pulling into Ronald Reagan's ranch. I imagined security guards with sunglasses and rifles. I imagined a few years in federal prison.

Here there was no security, only a collection of cabins and 7 A.M. Pennsylvania morning silence and fog. I was happy just to be there enjoying the electrified serenity. I didn't dare wish for anything more. For all I knew, I was breaking a law. What was I going to tell the cop? "I read the book. I turned at the gas station. I thought I was welcome etc." I didn't think that sounded too good.

My son climbed out of the truck and headed over to a boulder. We looked at a few of the boulders. I told him a little story about each of the names on the boulders.

Then I heard my wife say, "Ice"!I walked back to the car, just a few steps away.

"Does Muhammad Ali have a moustache", she asked.

"Not that I know of. Why do you ask"

"Because some guy with a moustache just walked into one of those cabins"

She pointed.

Almost immediately, I saw a back emerging from that cabin. Only one person on earth had a back like that. Muhammad Ali

"It's him", I whispered in alarmed awe. In fright, the usual choice of fight or flight arrived. Fight? Well this was the heavyweight champion of the world I was looking at and I was an interloper on his property. Fight wasn't going to work for damn sure. Flight? I could back up, grab my son and take off, if not like a robber in the night certainly like a stalker in the sunrise.

By this time, Ali was a few feet from my truck.

I stepped out of the truck and walked towards him. "Good morning Champ" felt about right so I dropped it on him.

He looked at me, through me and somehow spotted my son.

"Be careful your boy over there on the rock"

I glanced over and there was my boy precariously perched on the Jake LaMotta boulder. When I came back to the truck, Ali was waiting for me.

"Ya wannna see a magic show" said the Greatest to my boy and me.

I said "Sure,I'll get my wife"

He nodded. He waited.

A few moments later, my wife, my son and I were following Muhammad Ali into his empty mountain gymnasium. He opened the door, we four went inside.Ali locked in on me. He asked me what I did.

I told him I was a teacher.

He replied in a voice so soft barely audible, the whisper of an old man. If"you so smart? What did Lincoln say when he woke up with a hangover?"

"I don't know Champ" I responded.

"I freed the who?", Ali answered.

And there it was, one of the most heavily identified and analyzed racial figures of all time was making my acquaintance with a complex little ethnic joke.

I didn't know what the hell to do.

I laughed.

We all did.

It was the right thing. I was still the most important man on earth in the eyes of the most famous man on earth.

For the next half hour he made scarves come out of my ears and made cards disappear all the while making the three of us, feel as if we were the absolute center of his universe. A couple of times I almost felt sorry for him, he was trying so hard to please. Then I would remind myself where I was and whom I was attempting to feel sorry for.

Muhammad Ali

Somewhere during the half hour, other people began to show up.

Soon the number was up to fifty and Ali was still locked on us.

He had other people to lock on. Another day in training camp was beginning as our time together was ending. Ali knew hows to close.

His last few words to me were these

"You a teacher...be good to those kids. Tell 'em this story"

Then he feinted that left jab at me.

That was goodbye.

We would meet again.

FLASHBACK

I got blizzarded and sold out of the first Ali-Frazier fight.

Yes, a March 8 blizzard made driving nearly impossible and I lived a long way from the Auditorium. The Auditorium was the theater that screened the HBO production of Ali-Frazier. Back in those days, a pay per view event did not appear on teevee. We had to travel if we expected to participate. By the time glascaded to the Auditorium, the unthinkable had happened. The venue was completely sold out and occupied. Absolutely zero tickets were available.

We cross-countried home and listened to a heavily edited version of the fight on the radio in my living room along with brother Deke and the great Johnny Crown. I'll tell the story of that evening some other time, for now it's merely prologue. Let's just say we lit our victory cigars too early and with fake confidence.

Ali lost.

I vowed I would NOT miss the rematch.

As usual, I overcompensated.

When the inevitable rematch was scheduled for Madison Square Garden, I contacted my buddy Kevin in New York City and asked him to pick me up two ringside seats for the fight; one for me and one for Deke.

The ringside tickets cost an unheard of 100 bucks apiece.

The day of the fight arrived. We put on our rented tuxedos and flew to New York. All of our buddies were going to watch the fight on closed circuit again at the Auditorium. This time everybody bought their tickets in advance. My pals gave us a big send off at the airport as part of their pre-fight celebration.

We arrived in The Apple and made our way over to Crazy Joe's apartment. We had a few beers at Joe's and headed to the Garden. The gigantic poster in Times Square at the time was of Al Pacino as Serpico.

We made our way to the Garden.

We paused outside for gyros and souvlavki.

We went inside.

Our "ringside" seats proved to be pretty far from ringside because even though we wore tuxedos our name wasn't Sinatra or anything close to that although the actor who played the Son from Sanford and Son had the seat next to mine.

Big time, baby.

I had a nice new 35 millimeter Canon DSL. I was proud of that camera and thought I was Ice Sports Illustrated Photographer Pacino. This was the first time that I was ever in the same room as Ali and Frazier. It would not be the last

Chan Shake Handshake

There's a line in the Grateful Dead's “United States Blues”. "Shake the hand that shook the hand of PT Barnum and Charley Chan." Now if you shook that hand, then anytime anybody shook your hand they would also be shaking the hand of Charley Chan.

That's a Chan shake.

We're all in one big fraternity without the gender restriction and the secrret handshake. The unifying, not so secret handshake is our humanity. When we literally do shake hands, we emphasize the familial nature of our humanity and we pass it on. We drop our weapons.We've all got powerful Chan shakes to pass on to one another. Here's a very brief snapshot of what you get when you shake my hand.

I shook hands with Jim Irwin, a man who walked on the moon.

I shook hands with Norman Baker who navigated the papyrus raft the Ra across the Atlantic from Africa to South America.

I took part in Hands Across America. I was standing at the very begininng of the East Coast line in Battery Park looking directly at the Twin Towers.

On my way home, a couple of days later, I happened to run into a woman who had been at the end of the line in California. Naturally, we shook hands which linked the line in the East with the line in the West; a cross country handshake.

So that covers the United States from shore to shore and extends to South America to Africa and then flies us all to the moon.

Not a bad distance.

To fill in some other blanks, I shook hands with Muhammad Ali. Imagine all the hands that have shaken Ali's hand and all of the hands that have shaken the hands that Ali's hand. Lot's of people starting with uh, pick two, Malcom X and the Beatles.

Let's call our individual articulated collective handshakes our Chan Shakes. Chan shake with me and you get all of the above.

Before leaving the Chan Shake, let's momentarily go in another direction. Let's call it Face in the Crowd.

Thousands of people saw Buddy Holland and Bobby Darin perform live.

Thousands of people saw Elvis perform live twice.

Thousands of people saw George Harrison perfom live.

Thousands of people saw Dylan and the Band on their Planet Waves tour.

Thousand saw the Dead on their Wake of the Flood tour.

Thousands saw Secretariat win the Triple Crown at Belmont.

Thousands saw the Mets clinch the National League Pennant at Wrigley Field in 73.

Thousands saw Affirmed win the Triple Crown at Belmont.

Thousands saw Seattle Slew win the Triple Crown at Belmont.

Thousands saw Foolish Pleasure win the Run for the Roses under the Twin Spires.

Thousands saw the match race between Foolish Pleasure and the mighty Ruffian which ended in tragedy at Belmont Park.

Thousands have seen World Series games between the Yankees and the Dodgers at the old Yankee Stadium.

Thousands of people saw Joe Frazier fight Muhammad Ali at Madison Sqaure Garden,

Thousands have visited the Field of Dreams in Iowa.

Thousands have been on the front page of the New York Times.

Thousands have been on Entertainment tonight.

Thousands of folks have given commencement addresses at a high school graduation.

We're probably gettng close to a million here.

That's a lot of people.

How many people have done all of the above.

I'm guessing one. That would be me.

Whereas the Chan Shake is an exercise in universality, this one is an exercise in uniqueness. We're all unique and we're all faces in the crowd.

Let's shake on it, while we still have time.

FRONT PAGE TIMES

Thousands of people have had their picture on the front page of the New York Times. Aside from possibly Muhammad Ali, I haven't met any of them. Except for myself. Yup, my picture made the front page of the Times. Here's the scoop. I was sitting around my house one day when the phone rang. The caller was a researcher from the Times who was gathering information for a writer who was planning an article about feminism in America.

I hit it off with the researcher. I had her laughing hysterically as she asked me yes or no questions about feminism that I turned into short answer/essay replies. Most of my answers were coming from the perspective of a guy whose marriage was on the brink of ending and who was realizing how little he knew about women, marriages, feminism, and life in general.

I was skinny as a rail from the worry of impending marital catastrophe. I had even shaved off my beard for the first time in many years so I had a weird mustache working on the grill of a guy who still was learning how to wear the expressions on his face without the benefit of the beard to camoflauge a startling degree of vulnerability.

I was suffering from soberiety as well.

So, I was bitterly honest in my conversation with the researcher which she found hilarious. Nothing as funny as sad truth.

She said that she would pass on my opinions to the lead reporter and recommend that the reporter get back in touch with me because, according to the researcher, my answers were not only honest and hilarious but as near accurate and sensible as any she had received during the entire process of the researching that she had done on the subject.

Sure enough, the writer doing the story called me back a couple hours later. Same thing all over again. Different questions....similar wounded, truthful, ironic replies. The writer had the same reaction as the researcher. Laugh,larf, laugh.

After about ten minutes into this routine she asked if she could use my quotes in the paper. I said sure.

The interview continued......the larfing, the wisecracking, the comedic pain, the receptive audience.

After 10 more minutes she asked "Can we use your picture?"

Again I said sure. She thanked me for the various permissions.I thanked her for the patient, active listening. A couple hours later, I got a call from the local AP photographer. Would I be available for a picture in the next hour or so? I told him that I was ready now and wouldn't be any less ready in an hour... so come on over. The guy showed up. Big guy. Big beard. He wanted to know for what subject the picture was being taken. I told him it was for my opinions on feminism. The guy took a spit take and asked me "well what are your opinions on feminism".

I told him that I was glad he asked. I'll rant them to you and instead of posing, you can just shoot all you want during the rant and then pick out something you like." I only remember the beginning of the rant. It started like this: "Women? I'll tell you about women!", slapping the back of my right hand against the palm of my left. This was followed by a ten minute imitation of Ralph Kramden going off on "goddamned bitches, kings and castles and flights to the moon” etc with forehead slapping, hand clapping, finger snapping, eye rolling gestures as Gleason-like as I could make them.

All made tongue through cheek.

The photographer was laughing so hard that he could barely snap the pictures. He took at least a roll of film during that ten minutes.

Remember rolls of film?

36 exposures.

Now all of this was pre-internet. I didn't have a subscription to the Times.

For the next couple of weeks, I went to the drug store near my house that sold the Times. I'd pick up the current issue, scan through it and put it back.

I was beginning to think that I had imagined the whole thing.

Then, one Sunday, I went to the drugstore. I didn't have to leaf through the pages. There it was. My picture, front page under the headline "Americans Assess Fifteen Years of Feminism".

And there I was.....mid rant.......palms up....shoulders ashrug....body language screaming "I don't know what the hell to make of it"

They included only one of my quotes in the artcle itself as apparently they figured they could let my picture do my talking and in retrospect....it kinda did.

After fifteen years, Americans didn't know what the hell to make of feminism.

JUST US

On balance, I'm not a fan of the word "just". "Just" as an adjective is fine and in the case of this sentence, it is fine as a noun.

"Just" as an adverb is a walking red flag.

I hate it when I say or someone says to me "just relax" or "just have fun". I realize when I'm in a tense situation that I should relax. In a tense situation it's difficult to relax.Nothing "just" about it.

If I'm not having fun, I can't "just" say this is fun. Not having fun is not fun. Just or not.

I very rarely suffer from writers block but if/when I do, I'm not gonna tell myself to "just write" or "just relax" or "just have fun". On a more sinister level..." I was just whatever" is often a sign that the person who "was just" is a person who is often accused and in all probability abused regularly with false accusation.

"I was just" becomes a reflex mechanism for the shock of abuse. Abuse is almost always a shock. A shock is more demoralizing than a surprise. Abusers are not abusive one hundred percent of the time. So, when out of nowhere an abuser or accuser asks "what the hell are you doing" the usual shocked response is a variation of "I was just".

I was just in the bathroom.

I was just taking a walk.

I was just standing there.

I was just on the computer etc.

I was just minding my own business.

ad nauseam.

So how often are you shocked? Who's doing the shocking? Can you just please effing relax.

I'll tell you who seems to be shocking America every day. Our President. I was just watching CNN. I was just getting over the last outrage.I was just thinking that maybe this is gonna calm down.I was just starting to relax.Then, another shock.Oh well, it's just another shock.

We can just deal with it.

It can't be abuse or false accusation.

This America.

This is just us.

This is justice

This is just.

I'm just sayn'.

We'll just adjust.

SHOWDOWN ON MAIN STREET

Every so often, I'll find a volume in my office library that takes me by surprise. I don't remember acquiring the book so I don't remember the moment that it arrived in the brary nor the duration of its shelving.

Such a volume was “Main Street” by Sinclair Lewis . The volume is paperback and the publishing date is 1980 so it couldn't have been hiding for more than thirty seven years before it leaped into my hands.

Although I don't remember when or how I got it, I can understand the reason why. Sinclair Lewis was a favorite author of my father who kept in HIS library both “Babbit” and “Arrowsmith”. When I first became aware of his library shortly after becoming aware of reading and books, I asked him about the books: “Babbit” which I hoped was gonna be about baby rabbits and “Arrowsmith” about Robin Hood. I was probably five years old at the time.

After he told me that they weren't about rabbits nor archers, I asked the inevitable followup question "what's are they about?".

He explained that they were big person's book and I probably wouldn't like them until I got big but when I did, I would.

I opened the book anyways hoping to find some pictures like I had found in his history book and his book by a guy named Collodi named “Pinocchio”.

No pictures in Babbit or Arrowsmith.

I stashed the disappointment/anticipation away in my memory with the vague concept that someday or other, someway or other I would be big and would read “Babbit”.

Many years passed and some how someway Donald Trump became president of the United States. In the furious backlash that followed I became aware of a book by Sinclair Lewis called "It Can't Happen Here" which was regaining relevancy at the conclusion of 2016.

I went to the public library to get a copy but they didn't have one.

I ignited a search on Kindle fire and found a copy. I bought it, read it, loved it was amazed how horrorific and hip it was. Sinclair Lewis was in the pipeline.

Fired up another look in the pipeline and there it was; “Babbit”.

99 cents.

I'm big now. Much older than my father was when he read it. I figured I could read it now. I did. Loved it. Found it totally relevant. Started talking to my reading pals about Sinclair Lewis most of whom thought I meant Upton Sinclair.

"I haven't read him since high school. His book made me sick that's about all I can remember" as they remembered “The Jungle” by the wrong Sinclair.

So I took a detour and read “The Jungle”. It was as depressing as I knew it would be but the price was right on Kindle.

99cents.

I read and appreciated the novel for its historic and reformative value but Upton Sinclair was no Sinclair Lewis.The next day, I was browsing through my private library and there it was.....”Main Street” by Sinclair Lewis.

Now comes the showdown. I had the paperback in one hand, my Kindle in the other. I searched for “Main Street” on Kindle.

Found it.

99cents.

I hit the button to buy.

Now the two formats of “Main Street” walked down a dusty Main Street at high noon in my mind.

Kindle drew first. I opened up that format. I went the distance. I never opened the paperback.

Given the choice between new school and old school reading. I chose new school.

The showdown and the result of the showdown shocked the hell out of the dusty little town called my intellect.

Here are some of the reasons why Kindle won.

I can read the Kindle in the dark. I prefer darkness when I read. It reminds me of my childhood when my parents demanded that I turn the lights off at night and I wished I had a little tiny night light that I could read by without turning on the bedroom light and getting busted. Now I have one. I can even read without waking up my wife.

I can change the font size on the Kindle. I have learned that during some sessions I prefer larger print which is of course less a strain on the eyes. Other days I shrink the size so that I can read faster. I find a co-relation between the two.

Kindle comes with the dictionary and wikipedia link up. Prior to Kindle, I never bothered to look up a word that I didn't know. I wasn't gonna go from paperback book to paperback dictionary and slow down my reading time. I read everything in context so it didn't matter at all if I didn't recognize a word. I still got the picture. Now with Kindle, I can get that definition almost instantaneously. My vocabulary is growing which is enlighteneing my past life as well as enriching my present life even as it influences my destiny.

In other words, I'm learning to read all over again.

As I learn how to read, I will learn to take firmer possession of the intellectual property that my reading has gained for me. As you can see from these words that stay, I am becoming more interested in writing ABOUT what I have read which locks down that comprehension and retention in my mind.

When I read, I make mental notes about concepts that come up in the source material that remind of an idea that I am approaching. With the Kindle I am learning how to highlight that particular material and lend my notes permanancy. An infinite set of inspiration points that tend to piggy back one another, when I compose.

Yup, when I got "big" enough, Sinclair Lewis leaped into my hands and changed my life. When the student is ready, the reacher will appear.

Now to wrap this up, let me compare and contrast Sinclair Lewis with Upton Sinclair or vice versa.

Let's look at their awards.

Upton Sinclair won a Pulitzer which makes him a literary All Star.

Sinclair Lewis won a Nobel which makes him a literary Hall of Famer.

In other words, Upton is no Sinclair and Sinclair is no Lewis.

HENRY THE BARBER

Just as dogs were once wolves, barbers were once doctors.

I remember going to the doctor before I remember going to the barber. Perhaps this is why I was afraid to go to the barber as a child.

My father took me for my first hair cut.

He took me to Henry.....the neighborhood barber. Henry cut everybody's hair in the East Side of the eighteenth ward. He had been cutting my father's hair since my Dad had come back home after his time in the Phillipines during WW 2.

When I saw Henry in his white smock, I didn't want to enter his shop. I was afraid that it would hurt. My father reassured me that it wouldn't hurt but he had told me the same thing the last time we went to the doctor's office.

It had hurt.

I was comparing smock to smock while standing between the barber poles. Henry, in his momentarily empty shop must have seen the terror outside on the sidewalk. Pretty sure my father had been telling Henry about me every two weeks when he sat in Henry's chair to get his trim.

Henry stepped outside his door.

"Vinnie is this big boy your son?"

"Yeah, Henry he is"

" Nice to meet you, son. Your Dad is so proud of you."

Henry shook my hand and before I knew it, I was sitting in his chair.

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that Henry was authentically moved as he must have recalled my father as a boy sitting in the same chair that I was sitting. Pretty sure he had been concerned about my father during the war and happy when "Vinnie" had returned. Pretty sure a lot of neighborhood guys who went to war never returned to Henry's chair. Pretty sure he had known about my Mom's pregnancy. Pretty sure my father had sat in this chair the day that I was born. Pretty sure Henry had smoked one of the celebratory cigars. Pretty sure, they had discussed well in advance. what kind of haircut I would get this first sitting and what my mood would be.

Henry was more ready than I.

He gave me the same kind of haircut my father had been getting for years.

It was called a GI.

Henry had cut many a GI. He was good at them. He didn't hurt me one tiny bit.

I liked that.

I would return to Henry's shop for many years always getting the GI.

Always feeling relieved and connected.

Pretty much up until the Beatles hit, when I stopped getting haircuts for a long time.

Every once in awhile I would walk past Henry's shop but I didn't want to visit. I was kinda guilty that I wasn't seeing him regularly anymore. He hadn't done anything wrong.

I don't think many people were seeing him regularly anymore.

I went to college.

Whenever I came home, I cruised past Henry's shop until Thanksgiving. The shop was gone. Salons were destroying barber shops. Henry had sold his shop and according to rumor had moved to Florida.

The neighborhood had changed as well and was on it's way to dangerville. Neighborhood kids were getting GI's courtesy of Uncle Sam and heading to Nam.

People were getting hurt.

The barber poles were fading memories.

I still hated doctor's which almost killed me 40 years later.

I never forgot the day that my Dad told me the truth.

He told me that it wouldn't hurt.

Barbers were no longer doctors.

DADDIO

When I was a pre-school child I played with miniature plastic cowboys and Indians. My parents referred to them as “characters”.

I liked ‘em all, the cowboys and the Indians. Sometimes they got along, sometimes they fought. They always had personality, thus individuality.

They were part of an ongoing story that I was continuously creating.

When they fought, someone would get wounded usually in the shoulder.

At some point, I became aware of the concept of death.

And the concept of loss and burial.

One day there was a big war in the story and four characters died.

Two of my favorites died in that war, an Indian swinging a tomahawk and a yellow, plastic cowboy who was charging forward with a rifle.

For some reason I called the yellow soldier Daddio and the Indian with the tomahawk was Tommy. Tommy was made out of some kind of weird rubber.

After the war, I couldn’t just bring them back…they were dead.

They needed to be buried.

I buried them one day.

Literally. I dug four little holes. Four shallow graves.

I put rocks/sticks over the spots where they were buried; two in the front yard and two in the back. The back yard had a cherry tree; a hill, a garage and barbed wire keeping our yard separate from the yard next door. It was big enough that later we would learn to play baseball back there.

Daddio was in the front yard. Tommy was in the back. Another character was buried near each of them

I didn’t want to lose them forever. I just needed them to be dead for awhile…a week or two.

I was interested to see what the other characters would do when Tommy and Daddio were gone.

I wondered if the survivors had learned any lessons about love and war and death and loss while I was learning about their learning.

The surviving characters were alarmed when they heard about the four burials. They indicated that the loss of life was not as frightening as the undertaking.

I learned that they realized that they were not actually alive so the loss of life was no deterrent to their belligerence. Burial was a different story as they were afraid that I would not be able to locate the burial sites and therefore Daddio and Tommy et al would be lost.

As I learned then and we all know now, toys fear being lost.

They immediately went back to war and said they would continue the carnage until I buried them all or I brought Tommy and Daddio back to the surface.

Furthermore, they wanted me to start using red nail polish to indicate their war wounds.

I thought that was a good idea so I did.

A couple of weeks passed

After a lot of bloodshed, I decided enough was enough so I went out to retrieve the buried leaders to stop all the suffering.

I found Tommy and his companion in the front yard. No problem.

I found Daddio’s companion in the backyard but I couldn’t find Daddio.

I must have forgotten to put a marker over his location.

Daddio was gone. I dug a dozen holes and I got the kid from across the street to dig a few holes with me.

Suddenly the backyard was a real big place.

My parents were getting worried.

We never found Daddio.

I returned Tommy and his companions to the wounded.

The polished characters decided they didn’t want to play anymore and neither did I.

Lost and loss and learning.

That same week, I saw my first baseball card.

Roy Face

Everything changed.

I’ve just seen a face. I remember the time and place.

The face that I’ve just seen is the face of Roy Face. What a face on Roy Face.

He looks like a juvenile delinquent skeleton skull with a Pittsburgh Pirate lid on its dome and a forkball on its mind.

I see him in my memory as I remember the buried Daddio.

Roy Face’s face was on the first baseball card I remember which was the moment I stepped away from wounded plastic characters.

I haven’t thought of Roy Face’s face nor of Daddio for a long time.

The last time I thought of Daddio before yesterday was when I remembered a poem that I had written 40 years ago called One of My Childhood Burials.

That poem disappeared as well.

I gave it to a fake Elton John who was going to use it as the lyrics to a song he was supposedly writing. According to his plan, I was gonna be the fake Bernie Taupin within that collaboration and we were gonna get rich.

Right around that time another person wanted to collaborate with me on writing porno. She was the wife of the man who once was the kid across the street who helped me dig some holes when we were looking for Daddio. Her name was Christine Sullivan but she called herself Michelle Le Carte.

This was Michelle’s proposal to me: “I’ve got a filthy mind and you know how to spell.”

She disappeared almost immediately as did the poem, the fake Elton John, the imaginary song and the anticipated riches of each goofy dream.

The Roy Face card had disappeared long before that, 3 or 4 years after the burial of Daddio.

But here’s the kicker. Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know then.

Nothing ever disappears.

Things get buried.

Things get lost.

We forget.

Matter is indestructible.

If I went back to my old backyard and dug it up,

I would find Daddio.

Daddio is plastic so Daddio didn’t decompose.

He’s still in that backyard,

two miracles and a life short of sainthood.

Buried.

The backyard is more real than real estate

The backyard is also the subconscious.

Everyone has a backyard.

Daddio is one of millions

of memories

that lurk in my backyard.

Everyone, everything and every thought

ever is in all backyards.

Daddio is everywhere.

In the backyard of everyone

reading these words.

Always been there

Everything in the backyard is trying to come to the surface,

to get back into memory,

to be unearthed,

discovered,

remembered,

analyzed,

misunderstood,

turned into an idea

an elaboration

a formulation

a realization

an inspiration……

Roy Face

Fake Elton John

One of My Childhood Burials

Michelle LeCarte

Linda Lipstick

They all made it to the surface yesterday

because Daddio came to the surface and elevated them with him.

They connected.

They ascended.

Happens everyday to all of us all the time.

Occasionally we write it down

or play it on a trombone

or dance in the moonlight all alone

YES WE ARE AFRAID

We are afraid.

We've been cat scanned and bone scanned. Our secrets photographed. Even the secrets of our secrets are now up for inspection; an invasion of privacy in search for a truth that is out there and in here at the same time.

Today is Saturday.

Our day of reckoning is Monday.

Monday is the "consultation" with Dr. Somebody who performed the biopsy and is the office mate of Dr. Somebodyelse who made the bad news call and described the secret secret by a number; Gleason score 7.

The various scans will reveal the level of spread that the cancer has achieved in its attempt to take over our world. All we know so far is that it's a Gleason 7 and has been around "for years".

Trying to imagine the first words of the consult......the first dozen words.

Gleason score 7 might be amongst those dozen words.

Like many guys my age, 7 is my favorite number because it was on the uniform of Mickey Mantle and of course we all love Ralph Kramden aka Jackie Gleason. Both men, however, are long deceased which is a condition more in my mind than ever as we go forward with the pessimism of intelligence, the optimism of will and the courage of caution.

We are afraid but we are not worried.

Fear is the natural reaction to mortal threat and the place where courage can be found. Fear is the department of defense. The only thing we have to fear is fearlessness itself. We embrace our fear. We confront it with a minimum of worry and awareness of faith.Yet there is regret as we prepare to confront the scans of my secrets. It's as if I'm expecting to see all of the cigars, the cigaretes, the potato chips, the red meat, the diet cokes, the pasta, the reefer, the Budweisers, the lack of sunsceen during all that golf and swimming, all of the things that over the years have been revealed as carcogenic killers all of which we have enjoyed. We are about to see the damages and fear the "I told you so" as much as the damages themselves.

We don't dread the reckoning as much as we are afraid of it. We can handle it, whatever it is. Worry or dread is not going to change the results of the cat or bone scan. We can even write a little bit. Ice Rivers has taken over that delight in the last week or so and managed to keep the cancer on the low, which we very much appreciate.

Stay tuned and focus on the word TREATABLE.

One way or the other, we'll be back soon.

See ya on the other side in a place like this.

WHY DO WE FEAR FEAR

The only thing we have to fear is to fear fear itself.

Why do we fear fear?

Fear is an involuntary response to the possibility of pain or death. Fear is intuitive and will do the best it can to help us survive and/or endure.

Fear is different from worry.

Worry is voluntary.

We can choose to pick that worry phone up or we can choose to put that phone down or never answer it at all. If the worry is connected to pain or death, don't worry, fear will take over and do it's best to see us through.

For those of us who worry a lot under the mechanism that most of what we worry about won't come true which makes worry sort of a protective amulet, we need to be careful to make sure that this worrisome weather doesn't turn into a climate of anxiety.

So here's the deal...if you're worrying about say the results of a biopsy that you took last week...worrying won't change the results of that test and you will be dealing with those results soon enough anyways so why let them get in the way of enjoying the days before the result is revealed?

I know this sounds simple and truly it is, we just love to make things more complicated for various, very human reasons. Perhaps we should all return to the mid-20th century to our once and future idol Alfred E Neumann and "what, me worry?"

Some of my teachers said reading Mad magazine would ruin my life. By that time, of course, I was already a faithful reader of Mad magazine so I began to worry that I was already in trouble or my teachers were not as infallible as I thought they were.

It's almost impossible today to recognize how popular, subversive and influential Mad magazine was in the middle to late fifties and early sixties. The price was 25 cents (cheap) and Alfred E Neumann appeared on every cover.

Alfred E was the "what me worry kid" and free as he was of worry, his dim grin suggested a wacky degree of self-satisfied over confidence mixed with despair not recognizing the validity of anything or anyone including himself and the very magazine he was representing.

The epitome of authentic absurdity resonant with the times and reflective of the times ahead. The fifties ended and not everybody was worried.

But I was and still am.

I worry a lot, always have.

Trump just landed in Saudi surrounded by Arabs with swords.

Yeah, I'm worried but I'm not afraid of fear.

Maybe my teachers were right.

LEARNING TO MISUNDERSTAND SEX

When I look back at my childhood, I'm staggered by the innocence.

I grew up deep in a city in the time that it was inevitably turning into a war zone.

My next door neighbor was named Mrs. Good. Her yard was separated from our yard by barbed wire.

I always called her Mrs Good. I called her husband Bill.

Bill was easy going. I found out decades later that one of the reasons Bill was so calm was that every day he drank whiskey on his walk down the Avenue from the bus loop on the corner of Parsells and Culver so that by the time Bill got home to Mrs. Good, Bill had a good buzz on.

Next to Mrs. Good lived the bad influence of our neighborhood...a kid a few years older than me and my friends. His name was Kenny but he called himself Duke. We were all afraid of Kenny/ Duke and that's the way he liked it.

When he wasn't listening, we called him Big Duke Clod. Of course, he never knew that.

Needless to say, there was bad blood between Duke and Bill and Mrs Good especially if a ball got knocked into her yard. Clod's house was also separated from the Good House by barbed wire.

We learned how to climb barbed wire early on the Avenue.

When we got into Good's backyard, we were amazed at how well taken care of it was. Fountains, flowers a cherry tree etc.

Duke's backyard was all concrete.

My backyard was almost as nice as Good's.

We had a cherry tree back there and a summer house and a shrine to St. Theresa which of course had been blessed by Father Murphy one proud day.

We learned to play baseball in my backyard.

Every once in awhile, a pop foul would land in the Good yard.

The Goods' didn't mind if we went in their backyard as long as we asked them.

Duke wasn't gonna ask anybody about anything, especially when he could pound one of us until we climbed the barbed wire.

Mrs Good loved my parents who called her Connie.

Every once in awhile. she'd catch us in her yard without asking. When she did so, she immediately told my parents. My parents would get kinda mad at me but they also thought that Connie was overreacting.

Before baseball, I used to run around in my beautiful backyard and didn't always have clothes.

No problem.

I hadn't yet learned about shame.

That would take awhile.

Duke helped with that.

He also helped me to misunderstand sex.

One of the first sexual misrepresentations that Duke hit me with was this:

"How'd you like to go to bed with THAT"

Duke would ask this as a reaction to seeing a pretty girl walking down the Avenue. He would say this when looking at an actress in a movie magazine. He would say this all the time.

I didn't know what the heck he was talking about but I kind of figured out that what he meant was the girl or woman or picture of a girl or woman that he was questioning me about was someone he thought was attractive.

I learned to say " Yeah, I'd love to go to bed with THAT".

I can't be more than six years old at the time.

Later he would ask if I'd like to JUMP in bed with that BROAD

Of course I would LOVE to JUMP in bed with that BROAD.

I figured Broad mean't woman and jump in bed meant that the woman was good looking.

Other little neighborhood kids my age didn't quite know how to answer Duke's question.

He called those kids Fairies.

He made them eat grass

The only fairy I knew about was Tinkerbell who I kinda liked. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with being a fairy but I didn't want to be called one. I could avoid this by giving Duke the right answer when he asked that question.

"Of course, I'd LOVE to JUMP in Bed with that BROAD"

I'm no fairy.

I don't need to eat grass.

In the twenty first century, I knew that there was a relationship between distance and time.

Back in the fifties, at the age of eight, thirty miles was a world away from Parsells Avenue

Crystal Beach was thirty miles away.

In the summertime, which in itself was a loooonnng time, I spent most of my weekends far, far away from the city at place called Canandaigua Lake at a beach called Crystal.

Duke Clod was nowhere in sight but his influence tended to linger.

I was blessed to be relatively middle class so guess who WAS in sight...that's right my relatives especially those on my father's side.

Many of them had collaborated on the actual construction of 'the ranch house' which was the name of the second cottage that my grandfather built in 1952.

I caught a lot of that sound and fury which later proved to have great significance

By 1954, the arguing, cursing and drinking that went on during the building of the Ranch House had dissipated. The place was inhabitable and open to all my kin.

Not all my kin appreciated the muddy road to the ranch house nor the 'honey bucket' that passed as the toilet nor the fact that the only water available other than the lake required a trip to the well and a return trip bucket lugging fifteen pound of water,

None of this bothered me too much so we were the most regular visitors to the Ranch House.

One time, we were down there and my Uncle Bill showed up.

Uncle Bill was an elegant old guy. Always well dressed and in great posture, Uncle Bill was an engaging figure whom I saw rarely enough to render mystical. The main thing about Uncle Bill is that he was ancient. My grandfather, even though everybody called him Danny Boy was old but his brothers Mike and Bill were older still. Bill was the oldest of them all.

He was known, naturally, as Old Uncle Bill.

Me, I was the first son, the grandson, the first nephew and the youngest kid at the Ranch House. I was held in a position of esteem.

Everybody knew my grades were excellent, that I read with uncommon comprehension as well as speed. I had a commensurate vocabulary and consequently admirable spelling ability. Most important of all for life at the Lake, I could swim.

All my relatives knew this.

What they didn't know was the influence and existence of Big Duke Clod.

Sooooo, one July weekend, I found myself alone in the company of Uncle Bill. I found a movie magazine lying around. I was looking through the magazine when I came across a picture of Anita Ekberg.

I had never seen anyone who looked quite like Anita Ekberg.

I figured I'd ask Uncle Bill if he had an opinion about Anita Ekberg.

I called him over. I showed him the picture and asked 'Hey Uncle Bill, how would you like to jump in bed with that BROAD'

It's hard to describe the look that crossed Uncle Bill's face at that moment. It was a look that reflected him pulling a visual of his 200 year old self jumping in bed with Anita Ekberg which he must have been spontaneously cross-referencing with the dueling visual of his 60 pound, 8 year old grand nephew jumping in bed with Anita Ekberg.

The expression transmogrified and concluded ended when he must have visualized all three of us ...he, me and Anita Ekberg all jumping into bed together.

To this day, I've never seen an expression like it.

Basically it was a look of astonishment with shades of consternation, curiosity, fear, hopelessness, surprise and suspense all colliding in a complicated, asymmetrical smile.

A smile was his answer to my question.

So I took it to the next level.

'I'd LOVE to JUMP in bed with that BROAD.

Silence again.

Even more complicated smile accompanied by a couple blinks that might have been intended to be winks.

Somehow, I stopped myself from asking Uncle Bill if he was a fairy.

I knew Goddamn well thatI wasn't.

I definitely wanted to go to bed with Anita Ekberg.

EXACT ROCK BUBBLES

Every time I make the effort to look at the past, positive experiences look the same only better.

One hot July afternoon in my boyhood, my father and I were splashing around and cooling off in the shallow waters of Crystal Beach, Canandaigua Lake. Crystal Beach is very rocky bottomed in the shallows.My father picked a rock from the bottom, examined it closely and showed it to me and said "take a close look". After I looked at the rock closely or at least what I considered closely at the time,he took the rock from my grasp and threw it in the water, maybe ten feet away.

"Bring that rock back to me, Son."

I walked 10 feet to the approximate spot where I thought the rock had entered the water. When I looked into the crystal clear water, I saw what sorta looked like the rock, The only problem was that the rock next to the rock looked like the original rock as did the rock next to that rock as did the one next to that one as did all the rocks in the area as in fact, I realized, did all the rocks in the lake. I became aware that the lake was full of thousands if not millions of rocks. I chose one and brought it back to my father.

"Is this the rock that I threw?", he asked.

"Yes" I answered.

"How do you know for sure."

"It looks like the one you threw, doesn't it?" I answered his question with a hopeful question of my own.

"Did you notice that they all look like the one I threw?'

"Uh huh."

"Only one rock in this entire lake looks EXACTLY like the rock I threw, precisely like itself in every way. The rock that you brought back, is not the one that I threw."

I could have been discouraged, could have pouted, could have left the water but knowing what a good teacher my Dad was, I realized I was about to learn something so I was curious rather than afraid. I asked the question that he clearly wanted me to answer, a question that would change my life.

"How do I find the exact rock?"

"The exact rock is the one with bubbles coming from it. Look for the bubbles and you'll find the exact rock."

I picked another rock from the bottom. I examined it more closely and noticed a couple of unique features.I gave it to my father to scrutinize. Before throwing the rock, he gave me another bit of advice. "Don't walk to the rock. Don't run to the rock. Running riles up the water and makes the bubbles harder to see. Swim to the rock like a fish, underwater with no splashing and eyes wide open. Shallow dive for the rock as soon as I throw it. The faster, the clamer you get to the rock, the more bubbles you will see."

He threw the rock into the water again about ten feet away. I hit the water as soon as the rock did. The moment that I opened my eyes under the surface, I could see the bubbles.I swam to the bubbles rather than to the rock. The exact rock was right where it was supposed to be, under the bubbles.

My father was telling the truth. I grabbed the exact rock and brought it back to him.

He kept throwing that rock, I kept finding it. The throws kept going further and further. The further the throw, the fainter the bubble trail by the time I got to the rock. When I focused on the bubbles, I didn't have time to complain about the distance. When focused on the bubbles, I didn't have time to worry about the depth even though I was now in over my head. The depth made the bubbles fainter, yes, but the bubble trail grew longer and even more beautiful in its fragility.

Eventually, I reached my childish limit for distance and depth and breathless time under water.I lost the exact rock.

I came back to Dad empty handed. I had transformed that rock into a kind of treasure and now it was gone forever.

My father could read the loss and disappointment in my eyes.

"Don't worry Ice, there's a million rocks in this lake and most of them haven't moved for decades. By moving your rock so many times, you changed the lake a little and for the better. Let it go. It's safe and it's where it belongs. Let it go and let's get something to eat."

We climbed out of the water. We walked up the steps to the road leading to our cottage. When I got to the top step, before I hit the road, I looked down at the water.

Another treasure had been added.

An every day rock had been paid attention to, thus enriched.

My Dad had taught me a lesson.

The lake looked the same only better.

And that as they say, was just the top of it.

FULL

At first, I was a "when are we gonna get there" type kid, like every kid on early journeys.

The monotony of every journey was interrupted by stops at service stations. Whenever we stopped into a station, my father would ask for "a dollar's worth". My first memory of that request goes back to a time when gas was probably about a dime a gallon. My Dad' dollar's worth of gas bought us ten gallons.

I didn't understand what " a dollar's worth" meant until I was about 10. By the time I was 10, I had a brother to share the ride with so the trip wasn't so boring. He took over the "when are we gonna get there" duties while I was punching him in the shoulder.. He had no idea about the cost of gas.

Gas stations were on every corner. Occasionally, they would drop the price on one corner only for the purpose of luring the customers to that corner and away from the other three corners.

Eventually, they all drove each other out of business but that's another story.

I was 12 when we took a trip and got caught in a gas war.

My Dad noticed the economic combat. He drove and drove looking for a station that was selling gas at 16 cents a gallon. He passed many a station selling at eighteen and a couple selling at 17 cents. Finally, on the verge of empty, with my 5 month pregnant mother making that condition VERY clear, my father spotted a sign that read "gas sixteen cents a gallon a mile ahead". My old man said "that's as low as it's gonna get."

We made the mile on fumes. We pulled into the station. Sure enough, the price was right. Dad said something that I'd never heard him say before. He said "Fill er up' and he did so with pride and a wink at Mom. We caught the wink in the backseat. Mom was looking out the window. She missed it. Intentionally.

The attendant filled the tank, wiped the windows, checked the oil and wished us all a good day. We felt like we were rich.

We pulled out of that station. We went down the road, not even half a mile when another sign appeared "absolute lowest price on gas.... 15 cents a gallon". We all noticed the sign but out of respect for my father we didn't say anything (although my mother turned and winked at us and we winked back).

When we reached the 15 cents a gallon station, my Dad immediately pulled off the road and up to the pump. For the second (and maybe last time) and the second time within five minutes, he said "Fill er up".

The attendant agreed to do just that and he had a grin on his face as he realized that for this car, for this family, on this trip, his price had won the gas war with the morons down the road.

He stuck the nozzle in the tank and began pumping. The price on the pump read 2 cents when the overflow began. The attendant stopped pumping, rubbed his eyes in astonishment and said two words...two words that live today in cherished memory as we think of journeys, times and lives passed.

The attendant said "It's full."

My dad handed the kid a dime and told him to not bother with the windhshield “keep the change”.

For the rest of our lives, as we tried to figure out our father, at those moments when his wisdom, common sense, sense of humor, cheapness and courage was beyond our reckoning, my brother and I would look at each other and simply say "it's full".

When his life journey ended. When I held his urn before passing it to my Mom who would put it into the ground, I whispered to my brother "it's full".

SKINNING THE CAT

The swing set was on a hill overlooking the crystal water of Canandaigua Lake. Nothing fancy at all. Two swings suspended by thin chains. We had learned how to swing in the city, in the playground, fifty feet from the jungle gym.

We had left being pushed behind.

We knew how to walk back wards as far as our legs would take us and then jump on the swing. Thus we gained momentum.When we swung back to the start position, we would cross our legs as the momentum reversed. When we reached the limit of backward momentum we would stretch our legs straight out. This initiated and accelerated the forward motion taking us higher faster.We called this “pumping”.

When we really got going, we’d stretch that chain out to its maximum and our height was nearly as high as the balancing bar on the set.Twelve feet high.

The swing set on Crystal Beach was the same swing set that my father had used when he was a boy.

He knew all about it.

He told us about the leap of death.

When the swing had gone forward as far as the swinger dared to take it, the leap began.With legs outstretched, the swinger released from the swing and flew into the air with all the momentum that physics would allow. Regaining balance in the air, the swinger would drop to the ground and land on both feet.The further the drop, the more deathly the leap.

The first leaps were tentative but as confidence grew so did the risk and the thrill.We learned to launch ourselves into motion on that hill above the lake.

At first release on that hill above the lake, it looked as if we would fly all the way into the lake.

We knew what we were doing and we were fearless.

We were kids having fun.

Then my father told us about the ultimate.

Skinning the Cat.

To Skin the Cat meant to gain so much momentum from your pumping that the swing went all the way over the top of the swing set. After skinning the cat, a leap of death was the coup de grace.

My father claimed he had done it.

Thinking of the possibilities, we tried all summer. Although there were many leaps of death nobody ever skinned the cat.

Finally on the last day of summer, we convinced our father to get on the swing.

He got on the swing and took off. He took it higher than we had ever seen.So much power...so much grace..so much skill...so childish. When he had gone higher than any of us had gone...he took the leap.He landed perfectly.

Like a father should.

“What happened to skinning the cat” we asked.

“Wait until next summer” He replied.

We thought that there would always be another summer.

TERRI AND BILL AND KEN

My wife was telling me about the intoxicating smell that came from the packaging of Barbie dolls and Barbie accessories back in the day. I related that smell to the smell of a pack of baseball cards back in my day.

My father was a smoke eater. Neither the Barbie smell nor the card smell opened his olfactory doors to any extent.

He knew as much about dolls and cards as we knew about hooks and ladders.

Fifty years ago, I was losing the urge for cards. My sister, however, was in the ‘She Loves You’ stage of her Barbie mania.

She wanted/needed a companion for her Barbie. She needed a Ken and Christmas was approaching.

My father was all over it.

Pretty sure he told my Mom “I got this”.

Christmas arrived.

The gifts were under the tree.

One of the packages was a man wrapped rectangle.

Everybody knew what that rectangle contained under the ribbons and bows.

My parents distributed the gifts. Sweaters and shirts and socks came first while anticipation for the ‘good stuff’ built to a crescendo as the packages dwindled.

The good stuff was always at the end and the best thing was the last thing.

Finally, the only package left was the rectangle.

My sister was getting warmed up for that fake cry of surprise that we gave when we got what we wanted although we knew that it was coming.

My Dad, full of confidence and good cheer handed her the rectangle.

Terri opened the package slowly, savoring the moment. All eyes were upon her.

“ oh my God…thank you Sooo much…it’s a …..”

She hesitated to make sure…..the plastic didn’t smell right.

“ a Bill!?”

“You got her a Bill, Vinnie” asked my mother in subdued shock.

“yeah”, answered my Dad. The guy at the store told me Bill was better than Ken”.

He knew he was in hot water. Even though he was used to heat, This heat grew to stifling in a matter of seconds. There were no hoses available.

My sister, to her credit, refrained from dousing the fire with tears.

I’ll never forget the way she said “it’s a Bill.”

The celebration continued although smoke was filling the room.

As I recall the moment today, I can imagine what was going through my father’s mind when he bought the Bill.

To him, a doll was a doll and the fact that one doll looked exactly like the other doll and yet cost half as much made the Bill a much better doll than the Ken.

Hands down.

No doubt.

My sister guessed the inevitable solution so she wisely underplayed her reaction.

She took the Bill upstairs to meet Barbie.

The meeting was awkward, I found out later.

Neither Bill nor Barbie knew quite what to say.

Of course, my mother knew what to do.

The next day, Bill disappeared and Ken had a great first date with Barbie.

Everybody was happy. Including my Dad.

Over the next year. he would ask Terri about Bill.

One day, he walked into her room to watch his beautiful daughter play with her Barbie and her Bill.

My father looking at Ken and mistaking him for Bill said “Bill and Barbie look happy.”

My sister agreed.

So did Ken and Barbie.

FICTION IS THE NEW TRUTH

I’m pretending to be a writer. I’m also pretending to be the narrator in an ongoing story in which I am pretending to be one of the main characters created by the writer that I am pretending to be.

And most of it is true except, of course, for the lies which I tell to the characters that I pretend to create as a fictional writer and whom I pretend are my confidantes.

In return, I realize that the characters that pretend to confide in the character that I pretend to be are also telling the truth most of the time except when they lie to me which sort of defeats the purpose of them pretending to confide in me which is quite an amusing technique for the writer who is pretending to be me and as such is pretending to write about pretending to be amused by a technique that reeks of despair and mistrust.

It all goes back a few years ago to that moment when Jeff Bridges came to town and I pretended to be sitting next to a character who was pretending to be Stingray. Stingray was pretending to agonize over the integrity of taking a picture of Jeff Bridges after he had learned from a character pretending to be a blue haired old bitch that photography of any kind was prohibited.

Very near to that moment, Stingray realized that he was in fact The Dude that Bridges had tried to portray in The Big Lebowski and therefore he was a fictional character looking at the actor who had pretended to play him.

Of course, even that fictional character was me pretending to be him.

When it all became too much for Stingray, he spotted me pretending to be Thornton Krell sitting next to him. I pretended that Sting was perceptive enough to realize that the guy who was pretending to sit next to him was also the guy who was pretending to be the writer that had got Sting into this situation in the first place and who therefore probably knew how to get him the hell out of there.

And that’s where fiction started to become the new truth. Remember?

It’s all there in black and white if you go back to the beginning.

Or even better

Pretend to go back to the beginning and I’ll pretend to believe your lies. I’ll believe you understand the back story to all of this illusionary pretension and we’ll start all over again.

And that’s the truth

CALL ME STINGRAY

Clearly, I’m not as stupid as I appear to be or pretend to be, that wouldn’t be possible although it might be preferable to the marginal state of bliss that I occupy now as I try life with double elephant ears for pockets,while I wander from the concrete concession stand that I call home.

No, I’m not stupid. Ya see it’s a combination of the oversight committees of my internal legislation combined with poor intelligence gathering that is responsible for the current comedy of errors that I laughingly call my existence. It’s not Trump’s fault nor Pelosi’s fault that keeps me from dreaming the American dream.

I’m all about the Dream.

Dude is the American dream for me.

Dude is Jeff Bridges.

Big Lebowski.

Dude is my idol.

I love the Dude, man. When I found out the Dude was coming to town, I rubbed a couple of nickels together and headed to the Dryden Theater at the George Eastman house where Mr. Kodak himself screened movies for his guests until he decided that his work was done and he shot himself in the heart at this very house. Somehow, I had another double sawbuck so I took the tour of the house, checked out the elephant head in the lobby overlooking the giant organ and an array of flowers and gingerbread houses. I strolled into the exhibition hall and looked at the photos on display taken by Jeff Bridges. Next, I bought my ticket for the flick that Dude was going to introduce in the theater.

I’m an hour early. I walk down to the front. Figure for the money I’m paying, I might as well get as much indoor times as I can. Rochester is one cold, dark, dangerous town. So, there I am sitting safely, minding my own business when out of nowhere, a gray hair walks up to me and spying my unhidden camera says in a real snotty voice..“You can’t take pictures in here.”

Wait a minute, I think to myself. I’m in the home of the guy who popularized photograpy, the guy who made the art available to the masses as well as the messes and here’s some drainer telling me I can’t take pictures even though I’m using a Kodak camera loaded with Kodak film and I’m wanting to take a picture of a guy because HIS photographs are on display in the exhibition section of the museum. In other words, I’m a photographer in the birthplace of photography trying to take a picture of a photographer and somebody tells me “no”.

I should be more specific about the drainer. She looked a lot like Barbara Bush in Bar Bar’s days as first lady with the shocking white hair. The imitation was breathtaking. Part of the breathtaking aspect was the “perfume” she was wearing. Imagine the smell of lilacs inside a trash bin, well that was the stench that was taking my breath away. I whiffed her before I saw her and by the time I saw her, she was in my face telling me what not to do.

God I hate that.

I had paid six bucks to get in and six bucks is a whole different ballgame to me than it is to the fake Barbara Bush. Six bucks has bought me four days and four nights of winter warmth at Movies10 which costs a buck to get into the show and once you’re in, if you play your cards right, you can hide out for twelve hours. Six bucks is what I paid to get a picture of Jeff Bridges. Six bucks should entitle me to that.

BarBar stalked away leaving a trail of fetid flower stank residue. The guy sitting next to me, another early arrival, looked astonished or alarmed or whatever you call an expression that is a combination of thunderstuck bemusement and outrage. I’m no stranger to that expression. I get and give that kinda look quite often

I had been talking to this guy a few minutes earlier and I can tell you what kind of guy he was. He was the kind of fiftyish guy who looks like he’s pretending to be someone else and the person he’s pretending to be is a shorter version of a fake Donald Sutherland.

He told me his name was Ice.

I don’t need notes to remember stuff like this so I never take ‘em.

I would hesitate to call Ice a dude although he was too old to be a nerd, to tall to be a dweeb, too small to be a doofus, too friendly to be a dork and too well informed to be a nimrod. I guess he was just a normal guy . Still, even he didn’t know what to make of the fake BarBar.

I said to Ice, “There ain’t no signs around here that say you can’t take a picture.”

Ice reached into his pocket and pulled out one of those fancy phones.

“I didn’t see any signs either,” he said with a ‘we’re all in this together but you’re the one who got busted by a fake Barbara Bush as if you were Al Franken on a plane’ kind of wink.

I wondered if the photographic prohibition was posted on my ticket. I looked at the ticket which didn’t look much like a ticket,just a crumpled piece of green paper featuring a large ADMIT ONE.

Nowhere on this ticket did I see anything about not taking pictures.

I showed Ice my ticket and he pulled out HIS ticket and goes right to the fine print.His ticket cost thirty five bucks and since we were sitting right next to one another the main thing his fancy ass ticket bought him was more writing because his ticket said that photography was prohibited at the request of the artist.

Let’s see…no prohibition on my later cheaper ticket …clear prohibition on Ice’s reserved more expensive ticket. This pretty much sums up my life. Forget about being reserved. Show up early and the cheaper you live, the more freedom you have.

So me and Ice sat there like twin particles ready to collide at the edge of a black hole. Something was about about to happen but nobody knew exactly what. I wondered if perhaps Ice’s last name was Jones.

We both got out our cameras and our contradictory tickets. I’m trying to feature the Dude prohibiting photos in a situation like this and I can’t see it.

One thing we know about the Dude…he abides.

I’m tawkin’ bout the Dude who always adhered to a pretty strict drug regimen to keep his mind, ya know, limber. What kind of limberminded photographer like Jeff Bridges would bar other photographers from taking pictures of El Duderino himself.

Also, I hoped to ask Jeff a few questions. Did he do his own bowling scenes and because of the whole brevity thing did the Dude prefer being called El Duderino, Duder, His Dudeness or simply the Dude or Dude?

Decisions were soon to be made.

Making decisions without accurate intelligence is like applying mathematical theories to non-mathematical facts. It’s like grabbing a pool rack and putting the rack into sink full of swamp water in the hopes of creating a liquid triangle or a fertle delta. It don’t work. I’ve tried versions of that experiment many times if not most of my life.

And once again, at the Dryden, I found myself trying to rack up innocent water although this time I was closer to Ice than to actual water. I’ve also learned that when you subtract mathematical theory from contradiction, you eventually wind up with paradox. Ice, although heavier than water floats upon it. Paradox means you face a crossroads of two clear ,equally balanced, oppositional ideas options that are uncompromisingly win/win or lose/lose in their execution.

Sink or swim

Contradiction also abides

Then, the curtain rustled and out comes the Dude himself in the person of Jeff Bridges. Dude looks exactly like he does on screen except a whole helluvalot smaller. As I decided whether or not to take his picure, at least ten guys ran down the aisle like stealth bombers in hoodies and beards, snapped off several rounds of flashes and then ran back down the aisle, out the door, into the parking lot, into their POS cars and down East Avenue towards Wegman’s before BarBar could even get her panty hose unwadded.

Dude didn’t look like he minded the snapping. I suppose it helped that the stealth crew snapped him before he even had a chance to give two shits.

Dude, as Jeff ,started to speak about how misunderstood his father Lloyd’s career had been as Sea Hunt became a mixed blessing for the Bridges family. The money was the good part. The bad part was that the viewing audience thought that Dude Dad Lloyd actually was a skin diver, actually was Mike Nelson the role his Dad had played on the teevee show. Dude said most of his life somebody has been coming up to him all teary eyed and saying “Thanks to your father, Mike Nelson, I’ve become a skin diver and all my children want to become marine bilogists or harbor masters.”

Imagine, confusing an actor with a role that he played

One of my childhood friends had the same confusion, sort of. I guess that’s why he started calling himself “Mike” and strapping a waste basket on his back, sticking a garden hose in his mouth, putting a pair of underpants over his face and a huge pair of rubber galoshes on his feet, he would “skin dive” by crawling around on his belly in his backyard in the rain until he reached the end of his hose and crawled back before his air ran out remembering all the while to keep the crawl slow as to avoid the bends.

Good thing my friend didn’t see High Noon when he was a kid, otherwise he might have grown up either a craven coward or a “boy not a man” as Katy Jurado had called Dude’s Dad when Dude Dad bailed out upon the return of Frank Miller as the clock ticked real time towards noon.

In real time at the Dryden, Dude was five feet away and looking straight at me, I was coming to a conclusion of my own. It was the flash in his face not the photo itself that the Dude objected to and wanted to minimize with the small print on the fancy ticket. Since my disposable didn’t have a flash, all I had to do was wait until Dude looked away for a second and I could snap his picture as I felt that I had the right to do. In all likelihood, the flashless picture wouldn’t come out anyway. Dude wouldn’t know that I had taken a picture that didn’t come out and everybody would have a win. Paradox confronted and overcome. Slick as snot on a doorknob.

While I waited Dude kept rappin’ and looking right at me while he spoke.

The way he was looking at me, reminded me of the phenomena of paired neurons. You see, when we watch somebody do something that we’ve done, paired neurons fire off in our brain similar to the neurons firing off in the brain of the person who is doing something that we’ve already done. If you play the guitar and then go and watch somebody else play the guitar, you are having a whole different neurological experience than a person who doesn’t play the guitar. And the guy playing the guitar can usually recognize you in the audience because he can feel your neurons firing in synch with his which makes him play the guitar better which makes you get more into his performance and fire more neurons which makes his guitar play even better and refire etc ad infinitum.

Anyways, this is the way that Dude was looking at me.

Certainly, I was firing ‘you are the Dude" neuronic vibes to the Dude but to my amazement he was firing back 'no YOU are the Dude’ neuros back at me.

I wondered if anybody else noticed.

I took a quick look over at Ice who was trying to pair up with the vibe and cop off it but he was unable to but he was taking notes, just as I suspected.

I turned my attention from Ice back to the Dude who took my glance at Ice as a vibe breaker rather than an icebreaker. Dude looked away.

My opportunity arrived.

I snapped my camera.

The camera didn’t flash.

Dude never noticed.

The whole transaction didn’t count.

Like an at bat that takes six pitches; two fouls and four balls.

And just like that, except for reflection and analysis minus thought and regret, it was pretty much over. Dude never looked back. He finished his spiel and took a seat in the middle of the theatre to watch the screening of his Dad’s old flick. He didn’t take any questions from the audience. Pretty sure he snuck out early.

My job was done as well. I didn’t sere any sense in keeping my seat way over to the right of the screen in front of the vacated rostrum.

I went up to the balcony and found some degree of calm along with an opportunity to reflect using my feelings rather than my thoughts to process what my intuition had gathered.

Certainly, paired neurons were firing between the Dude and me. What was he doing that I do? What was he doing that I was going to do in the future? What had I done that he had done? What did he know that I knew that only we two knew? What did I know that he NEEDED to know and was surprised to find out that I knew it and knew that he knew that he needed to know.

Or vice versa.

First, I felt that it was the Big Lebowski film that had brought us together but my intuition told me that the neuron firing was too intense for that shallow of a conclusion. There is a big difference between a guy in a movie and a guy who’s a fan of that movie, not that Jeff wasn’t a fan of the Dude. Even I know that. I recognize the difference between illusion and delusion. Movies themselves are an illusion created by light and dark. Believing that movies are real and not reel is a delusion.

Dude had been in movies, I considered my whole life to be a movie or if not a movie, at least a book and if not a book at least a story and if not my WHOLE life than at least the last three hours of it or maybe my short term life was three hours within which a story could be noted, imagined, located, decided and written by somebody else and that was the purpose of my life and after that I would disappear and exist only in words that stay or in the memories of everyone who read those words.

If this was true, then I was a fictional character.

Now, one thing a movie star knows a lot about is fictional characterization. Stars earn their money playing them. When Jeff looked at me, his realization neurons fired off this message. “the guy in front of me with the crappy camera is LIVING what I do for a living. He’s a fictional character in a story and he doesn’t understand that a) he’s fictional b) he’s in a story c) as a fictional character he’s got a lot more in common with the Dude than I do and d) this whole realization/connection/ neuron firing thing (myself included) is part of the story that this guy is the only fictional character within but also the unreliable narrator of.

That’s exactly the moment that Jeff ricocheted my "you are the Dude” vibes to him with an even more powerful “no dude, you Are the Dude, dude vibe back at me just before I turned away and looked at Ice and snapped my flashless photo.

With that, I realized the truth of my situation. I was fthe fictional part of a factual story.

I was part of a faction.

I was and am a factoid like Thornton Krell.

That’s my story folks although I didn’t write it.

Ice Rivers wrote it.

He gets the credit or the blame.

GOLF

Golf took a gigantic leap forward with the invention of the hole.

Up to that point, golf was simply a lot of people with sticks and balls walking around some very lovely terrain doing all sorts of things with their sticks and balls.

Most of the people with balls were men who were trying to get the hell outta the house/cave because the "woman’s driving me bonkers etc.” I’m sure it was all very spontaneous, creative, individualistic, time consuming, non-judgemental; usually comic in its pointlessness but occasionally tragic in its masculine temperamentalism.

Then somebody dug a hole in the middle of the environmental splendor. The idea was to try and use a stick to put the ball into the hole. Since putting the ball in the hole was the final act of each hole, the stick used to ‘put’ the ball in the hole came to be known as the ‘putter’ which originally rhymed with footer because sometimes a golfer in frustration would just kick the ball into the hole. Eventually the stick for putting the ball in the hole took on a new rhyme. Putter began to rhyme wiith both nutter and mutter. A lot of nutters muttered about their putters until they just kicked the ball in with the foot which was counted as a put not a putt.

In another example of the beauty and simplicity of our language amidst the wonder of rhyme, the word hole rhymes with the word goal. At first there was only one hole in the whole three mile walk and players counted the number of swings it took to finally put the ball into the hole. Putting was not as essential a skill as it is now.

The goal of the hole, although it increased judgmentalism and decreased individuality, proved to be a such a great idea that another goal was eventually dug into the ground and then another and another and another until somebody said “Damn, how many holes we need for this game?”

With our human tendency toward excess, 175 holes were dug before the guy who was digging the holes realized that he had enough of this and decided he would just as soon go home and listen to the troubles of the wife than dig any more of these goddamned holes which were a lot bigger than the tidy holes that we have today.

The first holes were big enough to bury an eagle in case one of them got killed during the invasion of their air space by the men with sticks. It became a short-lived superfluous tradition because no one ever killed an eagle although many smaller birds were dispatched. Dispatching a small bird was considered a good thing and came to be known as a birdie.

Eventually the size of the hole was reduced to the height and width of three golf balls which because they were made of wood and were almost impossible to hit into the air was a lot bigger than the golf balls of today.

After playing a couple rounds of 175 hole golf, it was determined that too many goals produced a “game” strikingly similar to no goals at all because everybody quit at different time and in various degrees of rage having long lost the number of swings needewd to reach the breaking point.

It was at this juncture that Lord Ferguson Calloway, came up with his revolutionary idea. “ A half dozen isn’t enough,” thought the good Lord “and neither is a dozen. I got it. Of course, a dozen and a half is ideal.”

And thus we arrived at the first course of eighteen holes.

Par is the standard for each hole.

Par is an exemplar representing skillfull reaction to the specific problems presented by each well defined goal/hole.

As each hole developed a standard level of difficulty measured by the number of swings required to put the ball into the hole, someone else came up with the idea of adding all the standards together and coming up with a standard for the entire course.

Shortly after coming up with the standards for each hole and then the entire course, some other wizard…perhaps Lord Bellamy Foxtrot decided to record all of those standards so that each golfer at the beginning of his walk had a clear idea not only of the goals of the “game” but also of the standards of each individual goal and each individual course. Individual holes from different courses could be compared as well as courses themselves.

The longest most difficult holes required five swings of the stick to put the ball into the hole.

Shorter holes required four swings.

The shortest holes required three swings.

Since most courses contain four holes that allow five swings to meet the standard, four holes that allow three swings to meet the standard and 10 holes that require a standard number of swings to be four. Add that all up and most courses have a par of 72 swings to put the ball into eighteen holes.

A score of less than 72 on most courses is considered under par.

Under par is good because it means it took less swings to complete the course than the standard requires.

A score of 72 means, a round of golf played exactly to the standards of the course.

A score of 73 or above means over par which indicates a playing of the eighteen holes with a number of swings more than needed by better players to complete the course. Each hole is its own measure of standards. If the goal is achieved on each hole by taking one less swing than the standard, that effort is called a “birdie”. If it takes 4 swing to put the ball into the hole of goal that has been established as needing 4 swings to complete. that effort is known as a “par”.

If it takes one swing more than the standard for putting the ball into an individual hole, that effort is known as a “bogey”. Two strokes over is a “double bogey” Three strokes over is a “triple bogey” Four strokes over par on a par four is known as a “snowman”

Five strokes above par has no general name but there is a name for anyone who regularly needs more than five extra shots and there is a term. That name is “duffer” and that term is “pick up the goddamned ball and either get off the course or go on to the next hole.”

Most of us are duffers in this world. It takes us a lot more time to finish a task than it takes other folks to finish that same task. We keep reinventing the square wheel.Not only does it take us more time but the task we completed is a shittier version of the task completed by people who possess what I have come to know as “talent”.This lack of talent however usually doesn’t stop us from trying to achieve the impossible while ignoring the possible.

Not too long after the invention of “the hole”, another great moment in golf arrived; the invention of the green. The green is the closely mowed area immediately surrounding the hole. If the hole stands for the essential goal then the green stands for the important goal, a more general place to aim. To reach the green predicts looming realization of essential pursuit.

A century or two after the invention of the green, another great moment occurred; the invention of miniature golf. Let’s skip the whole driving and fairway thing. We’re not as interested in the journey as we are in the destination. We read the last chapter of a mystery novel first so we know who did it all along and who cares about anything else?

Miniature golf is a concentration of essential goal with a diminishing interest in important goals. As it turned out, many people became activated by the single minded pursuit of the essential and thus the world dicovered a new use for miniature windmills, aquarioums filled with enamel fish and plaster dinosaurs holding fake candy canes.

Shortly after the concept of truncated activation peaked with miniature golf, some true star invented yet another form of abbreviation namely the “driving range”. This one deals with the other end of the spectrum and once again gets rid of the “hole” as history once again rhymes with itself in a colossal retreat. Here the golfer can exercise a specific strategy, while sacrificing other important activities including the essential goal.

Both of those innovations diminished the concept of “walking” which at one time (before the invention of the hole) was in fact the primary goal of the game. Unless you count the husband’s goal of getting the hell out of the house and the wife’s goal of getting him the hell out of the house yet keeping him away from the harlots. Everybody used to win.

Miniature golf requires some walking while the driving range requires only getting out of the car and waking to the tee, usually grabbing a beer on the way. This means that the guy gets home before either he or his wife wanted him too or he stretches it out by stopping off somewhere and sometimes with a “golf instructor”

Shortly after the appearance of driving ranges and miniature golf courses, another synthesis reared its head. This manifestation included some walking, some iron driving, an important goal (The green) and an essential goal (the hole). This innovation became known as par three golf as the fairways were shorter and narrower and the expectation is to be able to reach the essential goal with two swings and a putt..

Even with this myriad of manifestations, golf has remained a non-essential activity. Therefore, people discover or ignore the game based on their own interest and time table. Some folks activate through miniature golf. Others activate through the driving range. Still others activate because of the par threes. It’s imposible to choose betweeen the game of golf and these three activators other than for purely personal reasons including the need to go “shopping” by the wife and the need to get the hell out of here by the husband who fully realizes how much his wife cherishes her private time.

I’m going to step away from the history of golf, like a pro who hears a fart in the gallery.

I’m gonna talk about My game.

Talkin Bout My Game

I’ll tell you about MY game. Since it’s my game, it’s my rules. This is why I prefer to play alone. When I do play with someone else, the game is best ball. My partner and I are playing against the course by co-operating with one another.

Here’s how it goes; my partner drives.His drive is straight and true and right down the middle.I hit my drive straight into the woods. Together we go look for my ball.We find it and we head to HIS ball, the Best ball…hence the name of the game.

We take our second shots. His shot lands in the trap. My shot lands on the green.We retrieve his ball from the sand. We putt from my ball on the green.

My approach putt is short. He knocks his putt in. We have a birdie…The hole was a par four and we took three strokes to get it in. We’re pulling for each other on every shot.

Best ball.

When I play alone, I start out with a mulligan. That means sometime during the round, I won’t count a shot that I hit. That non-shot is called a mulligan. I only allow two putts of the first green.I’m not warmed up yet so…two’s the limit.

When I hit the ball into a trap, I just pick the ball up and underhand it out of the trap onto the green.

If I hit the ball into the water, I go to the place where my ball hit BEFORE it went into the water and I hit it from there. Every horrible shot I hit, I find solace in the reality that no matter how bizarre the shot…I’ve definitely hit worse.

If the ball gets lost in the woods, I play as if it went into the water. I never forget that I’m here to relax and now here to recover.

I usually have my camera with me and I take pictures. I keep score in my head. If I score five on each hole that’s 45 as I only play nine holes at a time.45 is pretty good.

That night as I go to sleep, I replay all of the forty five shots in my head which usually puts me to sleep.Sometimes, I’m out on the course all by myself with no one else in sight.

At those moments, baby I’m a rich man.

Today, I’m a richer man. I won’t be alone. I’m playing a best ball threesome. Because we have three guys hitting every shot, we’ll have a lower score than any of us would have had if we had played alone.My partners are Deke and Crown.

Deke, Crown and I have done a lot together. We did the great American road trip in my truck from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We camped out almost every night under the stars down by the river. We visited the Ponderosa Ranch in Nevada and got drunk in the saloon where the Cartwrights drank. We played blackjack every day and learned to count cards only to lose everything one endless night in Lake Tahoe. We got kicked out of Candlestick Park.

We’ve been to the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont.

We’ve been through births, deaths, wedding, divorces, sickness, health and every stop in between.

We’ve climbed mountains and worked on Horse farms.

When Crown was an MP, he arrested Jane Fonda.

Deke got married at Graceland

Deke and Crown were there the night that Pete Rose broke the record for all time hits.

Crown and I saw Secretariat win at Belmont.

Deke helped my dying father into the ambulance in which he died.

Crown had a heart attack at the Kentucky Derby and since then has had colon cancer and open heart surgery.

Nobody can plank like Deke.

One thing we had never done before is play golf. Two years ago, it looked like Crown wasn’t going to survive his illnesses. Last year, I had my moments of doubt. Deke is the youngest of us and still is in great shape. He doesn’t owe anybody anything. Everything is paid up. His house. His car. His college loans. His credit cards. Everything. So we’ve lived this great life together but until yesterday we had never played golf together.

Deke hadn’t lifted a club in 10 years.

Crown, like me, played only 27 holes last year.

I can’t lift the ball out of the hole anymore which explains why I NEVER miss a five foot putt.

Crown can’t get the ball out of the hole either. At least he thought he couldn’t. Yesterday on the third hole, he reached down and plucked it out.

Way to go, Johnny

Now, because Deke is still flexible enough to pick the ball up out of the hole, we had no excuse to take gimmes on any putt. That killed us as we missed one five footer after another over and over and over and over ad museum. We played amazingly from tee to green and from a distance might have passed as younger men but when we got on the green……fuggedaboudid.

Of course we used carts as this is the reason that God invented them.

And brothers

And friends

The sky was blue, the clouds beautiful. We talked about life. We laughed. We rejoiced. We remembered. We were present with our eyes on the ball. It was worth the wait.

Golf they say is a sample of sorrow

A walk in the park scarred by frustration

Then we hit THAT shot…come back tomorrow

For more sorrow amidst celebration.

We retain our most ironclad of grips

We visualize keeping elbow tight

We take dead aim and we let er’ rip

When we lift our eyes we see ball in flight.

When we lift our head a little too soon

Too anxious to see the ball in the air,

We won’t see the sky, the sun or the moon

We’ll see our ball on the tee sitting there.

We promise to always keep our head low

Then we strike a beauty and on we go.

SALAMANCA FUNDAMENTALS

My former brother-in-law Tim and I were great friends before both our marriages crashed. Tim was a lumberjack, a master with ax and chain saw.

One afternoon, Tim and I were working on a case behind the cabin that he had literally carved out of the forest for himself and my first wife’s sister deep in the hills of Salamanca. Somehow or other after about ten beers apiece, the conversation stumbled towards golf, specifically the origin of the game, more specifically the origin of golf clubs and finally the origin of the clubs called woods/ woods called clubs.

I speculated that in its most primitive incarnation, cavemen just used the all purpose clubs they had for survival, courtship and domestic tranquility. These clubs were made of wood. From the first moments of civilization, clubs have been a factor.

Tim liked that idea. Next thing I knew Tim had his chain saw fired up and was cutting into a log. Wood chips flew everywhere as Tim transformed the log into an L shaped object, handed it to me and said “here’s a wood.”

I held the club in my hand. The “wood” weighed about seven pounds. I told Tim the club was a little too cumbersome. Tim fired up the chainsaw again and trimmed about two pounds off the club while shaping a bit of a handle on top and leaving most of the weight on the bottom.

He handed me the reshafted club and I took a few swings beteeen a few swigs. The club felt great but what I wondered was what did the first golfers hit with the first club. As we worked a little deeper into the case, we began to speculate on that problem.

Once again, Tim fired up his chain saw this time transforming another piece of wood into a solid kinda round object about tthe size of a baseball. Tim handed me the object and said “here’s your ball.”

As I looked at the “ball” I was amazed to observe that an object with so many flat sides could resembles something round. The invention of the ball caused more casework and label laughter.

Here’s where I made my only contribution. I went over to the nearby woodpile, found a sturdy splinter, handed it to Tim and said “here’s our tee”. Tim took out his jack knife and whittled a roundish, flattish hollow at the top of the splinter. We put the “ball” on the 'tee" and returned to the case.

At this point our wives, annoyed by our prolonged absence from the cabin , burst upon the scene and were immediately aggravated by what they saw. In the midst of her aggravation, Tim’s wife grabbed the “club” that was leaning against a tree, walked over to the “teed” up “ball” and furiously and unknowingly hit the greatest golf shot I had ever seen with the first and only swing of her life. “The "ball” flew twenty yards, bounced off a couple of rocks, rolled a few feet and disappeared from sight.

Fueled by the combination of apology, concern and amusementthat most men use to confront aggravated spouses, Tim and I went to look for the “ball” as the sisters stormed back into the cabin muttering something about “five more minuted” and “wastes of time”.

The ball had found its way into a “hole” dug at some time long ago by some person or something. The “hole” was almost the exact size of the “ball”. Up till that point, this was the first hole in one that I had ever seen.

FACTION IS THE NEW FICTION

As our president demonstrates each and every day, alternate truths are just a click away. Trump has already presented more than a thousand versions of the truth and since our country is based and was founded on the concept of a fantasy land, we get to choose how many of these alternatives we will swallow to determine whether or not we are red or blue with white still being a wild card.

Currently, we are trying to interpret the alternate truths that have led to the “invasion” of immigrants. Red is more convinced of invasion than blue. Red folks are even more convinced of invasion by whites and they have the history to prove it which everybody kinda ignores and for which ignorance many a casino has been built and many tobacco products sold.

We don’t really know who shot either Kennedy. Even Helter Skelter begins to wobble as yet another alternate reality by Vincent Bugliosi to avert attention from Hollywood. Oh and OJ was not guilty until he was.

As usual, Tarantino got ahead of the game with his altered visions of the past including the death of Hitler (Inglorious Basterds) and the once upon a time cancellation of Helter Skelter by Leo and Brad.

All of this alteration of history can be summed up in the word “faction”, Faction is both more and less than fiction and non-fiction. Faction is the intentional fictionalization of non-fiction in order to tell a better story. One of the ways to achieve faction is to have the story itself written by a fictional character If the author isn’t real neither is the story no matter how closely it sticks to the facts. If the author is “real” person, she/he can grab the faction mantle by the utilization of an unreliable narrator.

Holden Caulfield admits to being a liar, right off the bat.

The Girl On The Train was drunk.

The Woman in the Window is a man

So faction is reality filled with interesting, conspiratorial lies.

Faction is the new fiction as well as the new non-fiction.

All it takes is a fraction of fiction to turn non-fiction into faction

And a fraction of non-fiction to turn fiction into faction.

Then all you need is some characters and action

And ya know what else helps a lot

Some rudimentary semblance of plot.

And for a dash of innovation

Add some internal motivation.

Who cares about “truth”. Truth is 'soo’ two years ago and it was shakey then.

We don’t need it.

Fuggedaboudid. We got faction and I know you love it so I’m gonna give you some more. Because I’m neither real nor reliable although, unfortunately, I’m sober.

FUZZY SCIENCE

Meanwhile, I’ve been poisoning a patch of innocent pea pods just to see what would happen to the peas.

Other pods, I’ve left alone just to give those routine peas a chance.

Naturally I’ve been raising almost as many caterpillars as I’ve been poisoning pods.

Just to see what might happen to the moths. Most of the caterpillars that I’ve raised are immune to the poison that I’ve been putting in the pods. They can eat all the poison they want and live to eat more on another day. God knows that there’s enough poison to go around.

The main reason I’ve been poisoning the pods, besides seeing what might happen to the peas, is to see what might happen to the spiders. Ya see eventually the caterpillars that eat the poison peas will turn into moths. These moths will look exactly like the moths that emerge from the caterpillars who ate the unpoisoned peas.

They will look the same and maybe even taste the same but the immune caterpillars who ate the poison peas will have a different truth when they become moths then will the other batch of moths whose pea digestion was restricted to the non-poisonous peas back in their respective caterpillar days.

“Different truth, different consequence” as Aristotle might have whispered to Krell if they had ever met. Of course, the likelihood of fictional meeting non-fictional is always very poor no matter what happens to the spiders, if ya smell what I’m cooking.

And there’s a lot cooking in California.

Too bad we couldn’t have doused the fires of California with the floods of Katrina and called the whole thing a wash.

But so much for wishful thinking, even thought it is my favorite defense mechanism ( especially when the perceived threat is emotional rather than physical)

Let’s return to the practical and the poisoning of peas.

What will happen to the spider? Since all the caterpillars looked exactly alike whether or not they had eaten the peas from the poisoned pods, they would eventually grow into identical moths that I could throw into spider webs just to see what the spiders would do. Moths fly into spider webs all of the time whereas the odds of a caterpillar showing up in a spider web are roughly those of a turtle sitting on a fence post.

I had to make sure that the caterpillars weren’t gonna turn into butterflies. Butterflies are too strong for most webs. I made sure to use the fuzziest of caterpillars. Fuzzy happens to be my nickname because my last name is Fuzzier

Both the turtle and the caterpillar would need help to get to the top of the fencepost or the silk of the web and spiders are a lot smarter than fenceposts. A fencepost ain’t gonna worry about how a turtle got upon it whereas a spider might have some concern about how a caterpillar got into the web. The spider might be a little suspicious.

Since spiders are smarter than fenceposts, suspicion is a form of intelligence. Nothing breeds suspicion like jealousy. Nothing breeds jealousy like love. Love always begins with attraction.

Attraction begins with notice.

On their way to delectable mothhood, two fuzzy little caterpillars noticed one another. The male caterpillar was named Yar. The female was named Asil. Asil was the more mature of the two which meant she thought more about reproduction than did Yar who was concentrating on chewing and crawling.

How much did Asil think of reproduction?

Let’s put it this way, she was jealous of fireflies. Asil had no idea that the peas she was eating were from the poison pod patch, unlike the peas that Yar was digesting.

Yar’s peas came from a totally different patch.

I know this for a fact because I’m the guy who personally poisoned the pods and I’m the guy who determined which caterpillars got the poison peas and which ones didn’t. And I kept em separated. I’m also the guy who fed the caterpillars. I’m the guy who bred the caterpillars. Like most breeders, I’m a feeder.I knew lots of things that the caterpillars didn’t know. I’m a man for God sake. Let’s hope I got more brains than a caterpillar.

Here’s what I knew that the caterpillars didn’t know. I knew that they were immune to the poison peas that they didn’t know they were eating. I also knew the purpose of their lives and why they were bred and fed in the first place…….Just to see what would happen to the spider.

Although Asil was jealous of fireflies, she didn’t love fire flies. A caterpillar loving a firefly would be sick. Asil wasn’t jealous of fireflies because they could fly. Asil knew that someday, somehow she too would be able to fly. Asil wasn’t jealous of fireflies because of their fire because Asil sensed something that almost everybody senses unless they’re sitting around a campfire.The sparks coming from a campfire are very different than the fireflies flying near the campfire.

What appears to be fire in fireflies is really a mixture of luciferin and luciferase. The resulting mixture is not a fire. Fires, like truth, emanate light and heat. Firefly fire contains no heat, only light. Sort of like compassion. Asil wasn’t interested in truth or compassion. Asil was interested in breeding and feeding.Asil was more developed than Yar who was interested only in feeding.

No, Asil wasn’t jealous because she loved fireflies. Asil was jealous of the way that fireflies loved fireflies Fireflies flash when they’re hungry or when they want sex. Every flash is a semaphor of desire either to feed or breed.In this scenario, the female waits in the weeds untl she is luciferinated for a half second by the flash of the male flying above her.

Asil had seen this seductive behavior frequently from fireflies. She thought it was cool. Cool as a fire without heat yet hot as a fire without light.

FUZZY’S BLUES

I’ve watched the caterpillars grow into moths. I’ve picked out the two moths that look the best. I’m gonna throw them one at a time into a spider web that I’ve found. In the meantime, I want to sing you folks some blues before we all find out what the spider’s gonna do. Maybe I don’t have the voice or the strum of Genesee Johnny but here we go…..

Well, it looks like it’s come down to the final two

Yes, it looks like it’s come down to the final two

One looks at the other and says “up to me and you”.

I don’t know if caterpillars have names.

If they don’t they oughta cause they both look just the same.

I’ve chosen the spider, I’ve approved her spinning.

I’ve chosen that spider, I’m down with her spinning

The game is sudden death, I can’t see two moths winning.

Both of the pillars have grown up to be moths.

Both caterpillars have grown up to be moths.

They’re gonna get all caught up in a game of webtoss.

The lady caterpillar’s chock full of poison peas.

Yeah, the female pillar all fulla poisoned peas

Yet the moth she became ain’t suffereing no disease.

The male caterpillar of poison peas is free

The caterpillar man of poison peas is free.

There’s a load of silk underneath the apple tree.

I’ll conclude my experiment when I’m done with strummin.

I’ll end my experiment when I finish this strummin’

Spin on Mona, Your poison trick or treats a comin’.

I’m gonna have some rum and apple cider too

Gonna drink some rum and suck some cider too

Then we’ll find out what the spider’s gonna do.

EVENTUALLY

Of course, the caterpillars eventually became moths. When they took wing, Asil became Lisa and Yar became Ray. By the time they became reacquainted, Ray’s scent brushes were loaded with alkaloid. Lisa could smell that from ten feet away. Lisa was sitting on a wire perch chemically treated with poison peas. The chemical treatment lured Lisa to the wire and Lisa lured Ray.

Lisa had already lured a dozen others to her in her four days of fertility but there was something about Ray that suggested that his alkaloid package would be the package selected for warrior offspring.

Maybe it was his size. The bigger the moth, the more the alkaloid. The more the alkaloid, the more the male moth advertises his reproductive eligibility.

This is the message Ray was sending to Lisa. 'Look at all the alkaloid I’m carrying. I get this from the flowers. If you want your kids to be able to gather a lot of alkaloid from the flowers make sure that their old man brings a load of alkaloid to the bargain’.

Ray looked big and he smelled big. Ray hovered over the wire. Lisa called to Ray. Lisa called with her scent. Although Ray was not a butterfly, he did know how to flutter by. He did just that.

His scent brushes came out when he got in range. Once, twice, thrice, in less than a second. Lisa was impressed. She accepted Ray. The rest is moth love, too private and exquisite to describe.Even on a weekend when practically no one is looking.Except just a few who wonder what the spider’s gonna do.

MONA

Mona the spider is fastidious. She knows how to use her silk. Her silk will be far less useful if it becomes cluttered so Mona spends most of her visible time cleaning the debris from her web. The more debris in the web, the less clear the signal becomes when something of value is caught up in the silk.

Mona can not see all of her web so she waits between spinnings and cleanings. She stays out of sight and waits for a signal. Her web is filled with silk spun of different levels of water content. The more water in the silk, the more elastic. The most elastic silk is in the middle of her web. These are the waterworks. When prey falls into the web, they are confronted with mysterious elasticity far beyond rubber. Caught in the center of the silk, the prey in its struggles puts very little tension on the web. Every attempt at escape only results in tighter wrapping.

Mona reads the level of tension. She has her escape routes well designed when the tension gets too high. Mona only feeds upon appropriate tension. All the prey can do is pray. Mona isn’t looking for a fight. Mona is looking for food.Even on weekends, when things are so quiet elsewhere.

I know all about Mona but not yet enough. I’m gonna use Lisa and Ray to find out what the spider is gonna do. And Lisa will be a momma soon, if she survives the tension.

Moth tossing is a skill. I’ve had a lot of practice. I’m a professional. I wouldn’t try this at home if I were you.

I kept the two moths that I had raised from caterpiilars and poisoned or not poisoned in two separate vials. I took the bigger of the two out first. I knew he was the male. I figured that with his strength, I would have to get him closer to the center of the web. I grabbed him by his wings and tossed him.

My hours of practice paid off. He landed right smack dab in the middle of the web.

I opened the second vial and removed the female. I wanted to get her off to the side of the web, closer to the spider. I grabbed her wings and tossed.

Perfecto.

The female landed off to the right, very close to where I knew the spider was hiding. The male flailed more then the female but the elasticity at the center was greater. He got all wrapped up in the web. His strength and struggle didn’t cause much tension on the web. The elastic web was more water than fire.

The female landed on a portion of the web that was more adhesive than elastic. She would have generated more tension on the web if she weren’t so tightly stuck to her spot.

I couldn’t help but notice that they seemed to glance at one another intermittently as they tried to escape. Each of them had a clear look at the fate of the other. I wondered if they wondered what the spider was going to do.

I wondered if they even knew that spiders existed. I wondered if they were afraid. I wondered if they were sympathetic towards each other.The male got even more wrapped up when he realized the female was in a predicament. Was he trying to rescue her?

Of course the possibility existed that they thought this was play, perhaps even foreplay. I know I wasn’t playing. I know there is such a thing as spiders.I wondered what this spider was going to do.

Mona was middle aged. She was six months old. Every spider month is equivalent to seven years of human life. In human terms Mona was forty two. The last of her spiderlings had balooned away. Her mate died right after mating with Mona. Such is nature.

If you’ve seen Spiderman, you know what balooning is. The spiderling projects a single thread of silk which sticks to a nearby object. The spider then swings to that object and baloons again. Depending on how far they want to get away from their mother, the spiderling continues to baloon and baloon.

As a mother, Mona paid attention to the spider parental creed. Make sure the spiderlings get webs and wings. This creed meant that it was important for each spiderling to feel a sense of security so that they would be willing to leave the web and establish a home of their own. The stronger the sense of web the stronger the sense of wing. The more that a spiderling loved his mother’s web, the further he would distance himself from it when he finally balooned. The further away he got, the less competition his web would be for the web of his momma.

Mona’s spiderlings were far, far away. They had been well raised and they loved their mother.Mona was an empty webber.

She was acutely aware of the double disturbance in her web as she sat in her den. Her experience had taught her that it was very unlikely for two disturbances to occurr so simultaneously. She figured the commotion could be traced back to one of two possibilities. The disturbances, soon to become prey, then to become liquid then to become food, must have been romantically involved. That’s why they were fluttering so near to one another.

And flying blind.

Or else the Giant had delivered them.

The Giant had been feeding Mona since she was a girl, before the mating and the spiderlings and all that jazz. She had grown to trust the Giant. Most urgent, however, was the hunger.

I should be more specific. Mona wouldn’t take a nibble. Mona would take a suck. Before sucking, Mona would inject either Ray or Lisa or both with venom that would turn their insides into liquid. She would go back to her den and wait for the innards of her prey to liquify. Then she would begin to suck. Sometimes, the sucking took place right out in the open. Other times, Mona would take her silk wrapped supper into her den where she could suck in private.

I’ve tried to imagine what it must be like to feel my insides turning into liquid. I had food poisoning once and that did some serious liquefying. Maximum diarrhea mixed with technicolor yawning.

I have experienced emotional liquification more frequently than physical liquification over the course of my life. When I am injected with the contempt of another person, my convictions tend to liquify. Contempt is a powerful venom. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Resentment is the natural reaction to contempt.Here’s the equation to avoid.

You have contempt for me, I have resentment for you. Or vice versa.

If turning someones insides into liquid can be viewed as a physical manifestation of contempt, then I suppose the prey being liquified must be pretty resentful. Resentment resembles jealousy and jealousy is the green eyed monster that mocks the meat it feeds upon according to Shakey.

Contempt is an eight eyed, eight legged empty webbed widow who injects whatever she has trapped with a poison that turns their convictions into liquid so she can suck them dry and ignore their resentment. Does contempt poison itself when it inadvertently sucks up poisoned convictions concealed within resentment? I wondered if I would be able to pick up on any of these emotions or answer any essntial questions as I patiently sat and watched and wondered

what the spider might do.

PALP FRICTION

I play the guitar a little bit. I drink a little bit. Sometimes I drink a little bit before I play the guitar. Sometimes people tell me I sound better on the guitar after I’ve drank a little bit. I’m pretty sure I don’t sound any better but somehow when I play, I make the people who listening to me want to drink. The more I play, the more they drink. The more they drink, the better I sound.So I drink even more so I can sound even better so they can drink more because I sound better which makes me want to drink more so I can sound better which will make them drink more which will make me drink more so that…….

Ya know, the usual.

I’ve often wished that I could drink while I was playing the guitar not just before or after. I’ve wondered if that would actually make my guitar playing sound even better to the folks who were listening because unlike me when I play, they are actually drinking whlle they are listening whereas I am playing under the disadvantage of not drinking at the same instant that I am playing which puts me a little out of synch with the drunks who are listening.

I wish I had a couple of extra hands coming out of my mouth.

If I did, I could pour the beer down my throat while at the same time playing the guitar with my other two hands.

Spiders have two little hands coming out of their mouths. Those two little hands are called palps. Spiders use those pulps to hold on to whatever they are going to sink their fangs into. Sometimes they use the palps to make changes in the thread of their webs. They grasp the thread with their palps and amend the web with thier mouths. Spiders don’t play the guitar unless of course, they happen to be Martians.

The moths are in the web. I’ve got a cold beer in my hands. I’m sipping the beer and wondering what the spider’s gonna do.Let’s remember, the moth nearest the spider was the moth who ate the poisoned peas.

I figured that the spider would go to the nearest meal. The spider would nibble on the pregnant moth with the poisoned peas. The spider would realize that something was wrong. The spider would choose one of her escape routes. She would return to her corner. She would feel weak. She would ascertain from the vibes coming through the silk that the meal furthest away was too strong for her to overwhelm. She would wait until her queasiness subsided. Then she would return to the near meal and nibble a little bit more.

I knew something that she couldn’t possibly know. The meal she was nibbling on was poisonous. Every nibble would make her weaker.I didn’t know who would die first, the poisoned spider or the moths struggling in the web.I wondered if it was the silk that killed the moth or was it the spider. If the spider died first, I would free the moths from the web.

I figured the whole deal might take a day after the first taste. This is what I thought the spider might do.

I waited to find out what the spider would actually do.

SIX YEAR DAY

Every day in the life of a moth is like six years in the life of a human.

Lisa was six days old in real time which means thirty six years old in human time. Lisa had spent the first twenty four years of her life in heat. During those years she had rubbed plenty of abdomens while being embraced by many a clasper. Twice she had felt threatened during a momentary mating session. Moths are pollinators not fighters. When the choice comes to fight or flight, the moth will choose flight. Lisa and her lover took off as one, the claspers coming off his abdomen holding her close even as they fluttered away, conjoined amorously, from the perceived danger.

Lisa remembered both of those occasions. They were thrilling and embarrasing at the same time. Even though they were memorable, the couplings were meaningless. Lisa and her mate were both distracted while flying away from danger and although they completed their intercourse, lack of purposeful, reproductive concentration assured that neither coupling would be fertile. In human life, this is known as a flying fuck. Of course humans can not fly and will very often choose fight over flight when threatened. The human term “flying fuck” refers to not paying proper attention to an endeavor due to a lack of committment in that project.

When Lisa finally met Ray, they both had a chance to concentrate. Ray was a big moth to begin with but he transferred ten percent of his body mass, in the form of spermatazoa, into Lisa. This transfer proved to be fertile. Lisa, in the web, was very pregnant.And loaded with nutrients. And poison.

Ray had struggled with liquidity and silk before. He didn’t think it was such a bad thing. Ray held no resentment for that struggle. As a matter of fact, he saw his situation as another shot at renewal. Remember, Ray had ben Yar. Dejavu all over again.

When Yar, the poison free caterpillar, had reached his full size, he had already prepared to complete metamorphosis, the radical change in body form that turns a caterpillar into a moth. Yar had pupated himself to a twig. To anchor himself to his twig, Yar had spun a button of silk from his mouthparts, then grasped the silk button with his cremaster, a clawlike structure at the end of the abdomen. Hanging from the twig, Yar had shed his skin to reveal the pupa underneath. Before becoming a pupa, Yar had spun a cocoon of silk around his body. The silk of the past had protected Yar from predators and from drying out. Silk was neither an enemy nor a stranger.

Within the pupa, Yar’s tissues and organs had broken down into a soupy liquid, and then reassembled into the tissues and organs of Ray. Groups of cells known as the imaginal discs remained complete, and Ray’s mighty structure took shape as directed by these cells.

When Ray’s development was complete, he had split the pupal shell and crawled out. Then he had unfolded his wings which pumped blood into his veins. Ray remembered spreading his wings until they dried and hardened. Ray flew away and eventually mated with Lisa.

And now he found himself in silk once again.

Ray was confident this was just another stage of maturity.

He would emerge from this silk and fly away again. Ray thought he was turning into a bird. He looked forward to spreading new wings. Ray had no idea that spiders even existed so he didn’t wonder at all what Mona would do.Ray had changed a lot since the days of Yar. Ya might say he matured. He was no longer thinking primarily about crawling and feeding, he was thinking now about flying and breeding. He suspected the web was another form of cocoon which meant it was another stage in development.

Another passage.

Another promotion.

Ray was happy that Lisa was involved in the same passage, the same struggle, the same silk at the same time in the same place.

Ray began to understand love.

He and Lisa would become birds together. They would build a nest on some distant chapparal and have babies. He would become Ayr. Lisa would become Sail. Together they would sail through the air until they found the acre or two of brushy teritory which would be their secret homeland.

They would be secure.

They would be mates for life. They would never wander from their nest. Their nest would be a compact cup of grass, fibers and bark bound with silk.

Each day, they would make the rounds of their territory, right up to the river. They would feed, bathe, take care of their young and fend off interlopers. Sail would be Ayr’s constant companion. They would take delight in bouts of mutual preening as they took care to inspect and arrange each other’s plumage. By night, they’d huddle together against the chill. They’d face in the same direction so near together that they would appear as a single ball of feathers from which tails, wings and feet protruded. They would always be together.They would stay out of sight. They would be heard more than they would be seen but they wouldn’t be heard very often. They’d live in a tree fifteen feet off the ground when they weren’t sailing through the air.

Ray was thinking about Ayr and Sail when Mona sank her fang into him.

Love hurts.

After the puncture, while his insides were turning to liquid and just before his final breath Ray, still expecting to become a bird, thought his final thought. This is what he thought: It could have been worse.

Lisa, on the other hand, continued to be more mature than Ray. Lisa had moved beyond contemplations of breeding and feeding and had moved towards contemplations of death and deliverance but not in that order. Lisa observed the death of Ray. She felt no sadness.Ray had done his job. She still needed to do hers. She needed to deliver the eggs that she and Ray had created.

She knew she was going to die.

Ray, in his immmaturity, had considered himself immortal with death merely another stage of metamorphasis. Ray’s immaturity prevented him from the fear of death.

Lisa was afraid to die. Lisa knew that her life was incomplete. Lisa had learned what a spider is and the part a spider can play in deathmaking.Lisa knew she was next.Her eggs would die with her.

It couldn’t get any worse.

The spider returned and rappeled down the silk towards the moth that I had raised on poisoned peas.Poison’s a funny thing. Poison consists of chemicals. After we ingest poison, our liver uses enzymes to convert those chemicals into poisons. If we don’t have the enzymes that convert the chemicals into poisons than the chemicals within the poison are of no threat to us. They might even cure us.

The moth was missing the enzymes that would turn the chemicals from the peas into poison but the spider possessed those enzymes in spades.

If the spider ate the moth whose innards she had already liquified, there would be no problem.

If the spider ate he second moth, there would be a big problem.

Death by poison for Mona

Death by liquidity for Lisa.

Choices, decisions, consequences.

The spider was all fangs and palps. The moth was all vulnerability except for the wild card of hidden toxicity.

The spider decided that she didn’t want the moth. She backed off. She began cutting. She took the thread with her palps and put it in her mouth. She cut a perfect window in the web with her sharp fangs.

The moth fell free from the web.

The moth took flight.

The spider returned to her watch.

I found out what the spider would do.

Lisia delivered.

Spiders will do what Mona did.

They recognize poison when they sense it and hungry is better than dead, especially with delicious Ray a goner in the silk.

After the puncture, while his insides were turning to liquid and just before his final breath Ray, still expecting to become a bird, thought his final thought. This is what he thought:

It could have been worse.

Lisa observed the death of Ray. She felt no sadness.Ray had done his job. She still needed to do hers. She needed to deliver the eggs that she and Ray had created.

She knew she was going to die.

Ray, in his immmaturity, had considered himself immortal with death merely another stage of metamorphasis.

Ray’s immaturity prevented him from the fear of death.

Lisa was afraid to die.

Lisa knew that her life was incomplete.

Lisa had learned what a spider is and the part a spider can play in deathmaking.

Lisa knew she was next.

Her eggs would die with her.

It couldn’t get any worse.

The spider returned and rappeled down the silk towards the moth that I had raised on poisoned peas.

Poison’s a funny thing. Poison consists of chemicals. After we ingest poison, our liver uses enzymes to convert those chemicals into poisons. If we don’t have the enzymes that convert the chemicals into poisons than the chemicals within the poison are of no threat to us.

The moth was missing the enzymes that would turn the chemicals from the peas into poison but the spider possessed those enzymes in spades.

If the spider ate the moth whose innards she had already liquified, there would be no problem.

If the spider ate he second moth, there would be a big problem.

Death by poison for Mona

Death by liquidity for Lisa.

Choices, decisions, consequences.

The spider was all fangs and palps.

The moth was all vulnerability except for the wild card of hidden toxicity.

The spider returned to her watch.

I found out what the spider would do. Lisa delivered.

Spiders will do what Mona did.

They recognize poison when they sense it and hungry is better than dead, especially with delicious Ray a goner in the silk.

I felt pretty good after I found out what the spider did. I didn’t know whether or not the spider would be smart enough to avoid the moth who had eaten the poisoned peas. The spider was smart enough to discern the presence of poison in her web. If we were all smart enough to know which moth is poisoned and which one ain’t. If we resisted the urge to do what we can do and instead focused on doing what we should do, the world would be a much better place.

Speaking of better places, Lisa’s delivery was a better begining. Her offspring, half poison and half not would never have to liquefy in silk and contempt.

As evening fell, I decided to smoke a cigar.

My work was done.

I know I shouldn’t smoke but what the hell, I had just learned a great lesson. Avoid poison when possible.

The night was still. Fireflies were everywhere. I lit a candle. I stuck the end of my cigar into the flame of the candle. I took a couple of puffs.

I blew three perfect smoke rings.

Perfect smoke rings are possible on a windless night.

As the third smoke ring floated away, a moth flew right through the midddle of it and headed towards the candle flame. As the moth neared the flame, I noticed threads of silk dangling from the wings of the moth. The moth didn’t get any nearer to the flame than moths always get to a flame but not too many moths are carrying a thread of silk.

It was the silk, not the moth, that kissed the candle. The flame shot right up the silk. The moth burst into fire and headed towards the smoke rings expanding in the distance.

The moth momentarily stood out amidst the fireflies.

The moth had become flying fire.

Then it disappeared from my view forever.

Peace, at last.

FIRST DOZEN WORDS

On the way to our reckoning, our memory connectors were on alert and searching for omens.

We found one almost immediately.

Two minutes from our house, an ambulance with lights a flashin' was pickin' up a poor soul and taking them somewhere. Yikes. Not what we were looking for yet as we passed it became clear that the ambulance was bringing somebody back from somewhere instead of taking them away.

Naturally, we took this return as a good omen.

We take what we can get in the realm of faith as it ricochets towards reckoning.

We made it to the consult and discovered we were early which meant a bonus half hour of looking at the complex aquarium in the waiting room and imagining the first fateful dozen words from Doctor Somebody.

We in this case being my wife Lynn and my daughter Mary and me myself and I.

Our name was called and we walked into the examination room which was posing as a conference room. We were as prepared for the worst as we could have been prepared for the worst but still pretty sure we were somehow unprepared.

The door opened and Dr Somebody entered the room with all kinds of documents in his hand. These were the first dozen words of the reckoning.

"Something smells good in here and I'm pretty sure it's not you."

He was looking at the part of we that is me.

Of all the imagined first dozen words, these twelve had never approached our imaginings.We took that as a weird compliment to the way that the we who were women in the room wore our perfume.

I remember the first couple of minutes after that and the rest is kind of a blur.

Doctor Somebody described how the results of my various scans indicated that the cancer had not worked its way into the bones or surrounding organs. As a matter of fact, the surroundings were all in good shape.

A previously unknown level of relief and happiness surged through us immediately.

We started talking about offense now for the first time. What we could do to attack that cancer and get it the hell outta here. Removal of the prostate, eight weeks of radiation or insertion through surgery of radioactive seeds.

The unknown backed away. The amorphous shape took shape. Doctor S admitted that the time in the shadow of the unknown is the worst of times. We're on the attack now.

Long story short, the word is TREATABLE. All of the options are on the table. Doctor S asked us for our choice after describing all of the alternatives. We all went for the seeds.Now we have to speak to the oncologist radioligist to see if the seed surgery is a realistic, viable approach. That conference is coming next week and we're good wif it.

We're not out of the woods yet but the bears seem to be behind us rather than in front of us.The story is far from over. The after effects remain profound. We're aware of those changes.

We don't mean to underestimate.

We are aware that bears can move forward by moving backward and can in fact step in the exact same tracks that they made when they were going forward before moonwalking backward/forward. As for tonight, we have already been changed by the profundity of cancer. We looked into the abyss while walking through the woods. Even then, we had faith.

We are delighted so..... Now, right now, we're gonna back off and boogaloo. Stay tuned. I'll write more when we come back to earth. And if we don't I'll write from wherever we are but damn, we like it here.

FROM OBSCURITY TO HERE

I look at my work and see that it's good. Gawd, I'm a great writer. One of the best I've ever read anywhere.

And then an internal strawman advocating Satan jumps up and brays "if you so good den why aintcha rich and famous".

Of course I know the answer for that. I ain't gonna sell out. I'm an obscure artist. I don't want the hassle of fame nor the complication of wealth. Andrew Luck said it best...enough is enough.

I take it one step further.Not enough is enough because I still have my pride.I got plenty of pride that's another reason why I and guys like me always got plenty of nuthin which is always plenty for us.

We're the ones with talent looking for opportunity. Because the opportunity never comes along...Because the phone never rings and the voice on the other end never says"I've googled Ice Rivers and my God, your wistful prolificity as a writer is only equalled by the unassuming magnificence of your photographic images. We're sending a limo over to pick you up and put an end to your self-induced obscurity. In other words 'c'mere Cat, we gonna make you a star'"

Da phone, she don't ring.

That's the pickle we're in, obscure martyrs and artists that we are.So we turn our pride into anger and discontent that fuels our literary and artistic drive. Of course all of this is self indulgent non-sense because America is the land of opportunity.If you believe in capitalism which is to say if you believe in in America then you believe in happiness then it eventually becomes apparent

that in America...

wait for it....

Opportunity seeks talent rather than the other way around.

Most of us who feel we are talent looking for opportunity are inherently angry because the talent we have discovered in ourseves is not our true talent but only a facade, a compulsion, an obsession or rationalization. We are fighting a chin first bout against the stupidity, insensitivity and selfishness of the society that surrounds us

and its lackey dogs

and its vampires Then we realize that the whole concept of capitalism is..

wait for it.....

to capitalize on talent

talent must be discovered if capitalism is to survive and since capitalism is doing pretty well if you are at the top of the pile then the ongoing search for talent is also working out quite satisfactorilly Now and then we can stop perceiving ourselves as sanctimonious talent compulsives looking for opportunity and start realizing that opportunity is looking for talent and everything will turn out fine in the end if we can just be happy

truly happy

not fake happy

not I give up happy

just happy

as I learn a little more

every day about whom

I imagine I am and thankful that Im alive

And see that it is good.

THE DOODLE THAT I DO

I doodle.

It's always awesome when I find out that others doodlers do the doodling that I do and even more awesome when the doodlers who doodle what I do have come up with a name for the doodling we do.

Apparently the doodle that I do as well as the doodle that they do is called "tangling". Next thing you know, there will be rules for "tangling" in order to differentiate the doodle that they do from the doodling that I do.

Master tanglers will emerge to let me know that the doodles I've been doodling for the last thirty years don't qualify as tangle doodles for some arcane reason like lack of cross hatching or violation of color agreement.

This, of course will lead to one of those dangling conversations when someone is trying to teach you what you already know and have rejected. Those irritating moments when it's appropriate to say "I overstand you" but better to just say nothing and wait for the barrage to conclude.

Then I'll depart down the untangled path that I've already spent decades perfecting the imperfections of. Since it's kinda like a tangle, I'll call my work a dangle. Then we can have a pissing contest between the merits of tangle doodling versus dangle doodling until some genius comes up with a synthesis called dingle dangle tangle doodling and makes a lot of money and provokes several suicide attempts by tangle doodlers who are now passe.

All of this amuses the dangle doodlers like myself who knew we were just wasting our time in the first place and were amazed when all of a sudden somebody made a big thing out of what we were doing/doodling when we were trying to think of anything else than what we were thinking of when we started doodling and we let our intuition take over to link whatever is going on in the present to the dream world of disassociation which helps us grasp the situation we are trying so hard to absorb without over reacting to.

I did a doodle two hours before I headed into the consultation with my surgeon which would describe the aggressiveness of my cancer.I finished it, while occasionally glancing at the aquarium he had in his waiting room as I dreaded his first dozen words.

After I heard his first dozen words in the consultation, I held up my doodle...to which he delivered words 13 and 14.

"Modern art".

Naturally, I was very relieved.

RADIATION

Today was my first day of radiation. The beginning of active warfare against the terrorist cells hiding in my prostate. The whole deal took about fifteen minutes and most of that time was spent in positioning my body to get the best shot at those son of a bitches and stop them before they spread any further.

We're going to be bombarding them for the next 28 days...27 now.

They were trying to stay hidden and had built up a little bit of a fortress over the past couple of years before the biopsy identified them and the cat and body scans located their hideout.

They were trying to kill me.

We got 'em now.

We got a great team.

We're done with their sneaky shit.

They are invading us baby boomers at a frightening rate. You want to know the chances of a male to have a significant secret invasion going on in his prostate? It's simple, take your age and subtract 25.

If you're fifty, it's a 25% risk etc.

We're sick and tired of these terrorists.

We've learned how to find 'em.

We can find' them before they spread and we can blast the shit out of 'em.

I started radiating the bastards today. I plan on enjoying the hell out of the next 27 sessions.

Of course since this is war, there will be some collateral damage...bring it on.

Every day as a species, we get more precise at droning and defeating these cells. I'm one of the first baby boomers. I'm proud as hell to be making my stand.

Boom.

We're not gonna take it.

SELFIE AT THE CIRCUS

Monkeys chattering in my brain

Minimize the gain of pain

While I form a Congo line

Of I , me, myself and mine

And we sit as one for our group shot

Trying to remember what fortune forgot.

We pose with tilt and smile

Recoiling for a little while

Looking into the user friendly lens

The merciless mirror where distortion ends

And realize we're back again

Jack Daniels in the lion den.

With a twist of hocus pocus

We manuever myself into focus

Depress the shutter

Utter a mutter

As we cough

Precision wanders off.

Another blur produced.

We wonder "what's the use"

We know it's getting awful late

For any youthful self-portrait.

We steady our grip

We let "er rip.

The one man horde

Always going forward

Lives another day

A hunger artist without the hay

Who longs to feed again

Further down the bend

Heading towards humbling dawn

Because the forget me nots are gone.

Lookin' one last time around

Findin' the circus still in town.

IN VANISHING VALLEY

Forty plus ago, on a startling, clear August afternoon, I was smack dab in the middle of everywhere, the Grizzly Mountains of Montana. To be more precise, my Outward Bound group was in the midst of crossing a boulder field in the Grizzlies that had appeared as a routine valley on the topographical map we were using.

We were four days deep into the wilderness of Beartooth.

I had backpacked about a half a mile on top of these boulders always hoping that the boulder I was treading on would lead to another boulder and not an unjumpable crevice that would force me to backtrack God knows where. Also only God knew how or when those boulders avalanched into the vanished valley between mountainsides in the first place without showing up on any maps. Yet here they were and amongst them, incongruously was I. If I could have given up, I would have.

I thought I was in trouble.

I knew I was in trouble when while galumphing from one boulder to the next, I came upon a snow, white mountain goat. I couldn’t believe the goat was sitting so still, as I stupefied, drew closer. The goat was obviously a lot more at home in mountains than I.

I got about three feet away from the bearded wonder. The goat continued to look straight at me while remaining absolutely motionless. Upon closer examination, I understood why the goat wasn’t moving. Two of its legs were broken, folded beneath his body. The goat had picked this boulder in this vanished valley between Grizzly mountains as his dying place.

Perhaps this dying place had picked this goat.

Who knows.

You know who.

I looked at the goat with his beard as white as snow in Ireland. The goat looked at me. Neither one of us knew exactly what to do. I'm sure I was the first human this goat had ever seen. In the face of his oncoming death by exposure, I, a mere mortal, didn't phase that goat one damned bit.

I considered puttting the goat out of his misery but the best I could have done was a head bash with a rock, if I could find a lethal enoguh rock amongst or atop the boulder.

While looking around for a clobbering rock, I absorbed another view of the boulder field. My eyes swept over the former valley as far back and forward as I could see. On the boundaries of the boulders, I saw mountainsides. Above the mountainsides, I saw clear blue sky. Off in the distance, I heard the echoing shouts of my scattered Outward Bounders. Each of them hoping that the next boulder they chose to leap on would lead to another boulder and not a crevice.

I had another kind of decision.To bash a bearded moutain goat or not to bash, that was the question. I began to wonder exactly what misery I thought I was putting the goat out of? What did an interloper like me know about misery in the mountains? I also reflected upon this undeniability. Before me was a creature who had lived its entire life bounding from rock to rock before making one last, fracturing fatal error in judgment. Before that creature was a human whose idea of bounding and diving from rock to rock was playing in a rock band at a bunch of dives. Yet the former was mortally injured and the latter was attempting to pass judgement.

I wondered if the goat had bounded into one of the dives where I had once played Louie, Louie whether he would have been tempted to pull the wires from our amps.

Then I refocused......

I realized that the clouds, the sky, the mountains and the boulder couldn't care less whether the goat lived or died or for that matter whether I lived or died along with the goat. The sky, the mountains, the clouds and the boulders had played out this kind of drama, minus me, millions upon millions of times before without any of my help and would continue to play out this tableau long after I left, if I lived long enough to leave. If this dying place didn't choose me as well. I looked once again at the goat who was motionless, aware, at peace, dealing with the pain, and prepared for infinity.

That's about as close as I've come to seeing You Know Who.

Some silent, sacred time elapsed.

I set my sights on the next boulder and headed for it.I never looked back. Everything was perfect in the wilderness. That night, I decided for sure that I wasn't going to shave my whiskers. I still have the beard today.And it started turning white last year.

Meanwhile, back in the land surrounding Vanishing Valley there rose up more sound and fury than usual indicating more than the usual level of nothingness in the mountains.

As I left the goat behind, I listened to the world and discovered the sound of nothingness under which I could pick up indications of tremendous sound and fury. The stillness was lyrical..

When I came down from the mountain, I knew things that no one else knew. At the same time, I didn't know something that almost everyone, unless they had been out in a boulder field in the middle of Everywhere, knew only too well.

Nixon had resigned the presidency.

I missed all of that. I traded it for Mt. Tempest, Grasshopper Glacier, skree, gorp and a glimpse of You Know Who.

When I got the news about Tricky Dick, I rewound in my mind to where I was at the exact time that he was waving goodbye. I'm pretty sure I was between boulders, in a hard place, gazing at a goat and deciding to grow my beard to always remember the time I almost saw You Know Who.

CHAMPION HILLS

This is a true story of golf, cancer and human nature. On my third day of radiation I couldn't stop thinking of Champion Hills. I had to confront the reality that medical costs and recovery time would make it impossible for me to keep up my membership. I made up my mind to go over to the club to say goodbye after this morning's radiation.

The head pro at Champion Hills is named Darlene. Obviously, she can hit the ball a mile and putt with precision. Two weeks ago, Darlene had sent out to the members a note informing us of an increase in fees. Lynn responded. In her response Lynn mentioned the fact that I had cancer and was taking radiation. The increase in club fees was gonna be difficult for us as we couldn't predict the progress of the radiation nor the potency of the after-effects.

The irony is that golf might be therapeutic. I just couldn't afford to play at my club anymore. Pulling into the parking lot I remembered summer days past. The course was beginning to reawaken. When I got to the clubhouse, Darlene was giving a lesson and preparing for a meeting with board of governors. She opened up the conversation with this; "Ice, you picked the worst time for us to talk"

"No problem Darlene. I'll stop back another time"

"How are you Ice ? What kind of cancer do you have"

When I told her it was prostate, Darlene said "Isn't that the one that's most treatable"

I said "Yes, I'm very lucky. I hadn't been doing a lot of planning lately other than thinking about each day"

I was warming up to resign as April 1 is the deadline for the fees.

Darlene said, "I was hoping you could take some more pictures of the course this year".

"Of course I will"

Then Darlene blew my mind..."and as far as membership goes" she waved her hand dismissively "consider your dues paid. You're a member once again. What do you think about that?"

I was stunned. I thanked her for her kindness.

She said You're a good man"

We both had tears in our eyes.

She went back to her lesson.

I returned home to give the news to Lynn.

She was on the treadmill.

"Well, what did Darlene say?" she asked.

"We don't have to worry about the club anymore" was my cryptic response" and after a moment "Darlene said she would wave the membership fees this year".

Once again I was reminded about the millions and millions of random acts of kindness that are committed every day but overlooked in the sensational fog of the hundreds and hundreds of random acts of cruelty.

I could feel another cell of cynicism disintegrate, clobbered by the power of human understanding.

WAFFLE IRON MYSTERY

Luck? I'll tell you about luck.

In November my wife ordered a wafffle iron through Amazon. Time went by and no waffle maker. We were getting irritated, not so much by the absence of waffles but rather by the delay in delivery

A couple of weeks later a very large box arrived at our doorstep. I asked Lynn what the hell is this? The package was a lot bigger than any waffles I have ever consumed.We took the package into the house. We opened it. The package did not include a waffle maker.

Lynn, immediately got on the phone.

She's great on the phone; polite, attentive, determined, patient and persistent She made contact with a representative whose accent was a lot different from ours. Lynn told her about the erroneous delivery.

The voice on the other end offered a remedy. All we had to do was “rewrap the package, take it to the post office , send it back. and we'll credit your account”

The ears on our end were not pleased.

The voice on our end had another remedy. We aren't gonna rewrap this thing nor take it to the post office. This package is here because of an error on your part. We don't intend to make up for your error with our time and our gasoline.

The voice on the other end needed a moment to listen to the voice of her supervisor.

For five minutes there were no voices on either end.

Then the voice on the other end offered another remedy. We may keep the package and they would send the wafflemaker.

The voice on our end accepted the remedy. Another win for Lynn.

Four months later having discovered our cancer, we decided that we would fight the condition with radiation. After we made the decision and began to schedule the treatment dates, a nurse entered the room with piece of paper that listed some of the potential side effects during radiation. Among the side effects were these two: Urination Changes and Bowel changes.

Urination changes include burning with urination, urinating more often and more urgently. Possible incontinence .Bowel changes include increased gas, urgent or loose bowel movements sometimes activated by the increased gas. Considering the alternatives, we considered and consider our selves very fortunate. We got this covered, no problem. And not thank God with a waffle iron.

The mystery package that we kept , even though we couldn't imagine a use for it at the time, contained 36 extra large adult diapers. This is what I mean by luck and it's all true.

No shit.

SHIT

The seventh day of radiation proved to be informative. Maybe too informative, if ya know what I mean.

The night before, I was up all night because of continual urination. I overslept after I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, I was late.

I had to jump in the car and white knuckle it through a rainstorm and construction and past an accident to get to the hospital on time. You don't want to be late to radiate because there is a very tight schedule of people coming and glowing.

I got there just in the nick of time. I admit, I was feeling shitty.

They called me in and almost immediately.... "Are you alright, Ice?"

"No, I'm half left. Let's do this thing."

I hopped on the sled. They put me in position. They left for the viewing station. I went under the scan. I felt like I was under for a long time. They came down and said I was "positioned wrong" and had to start the whole thing all over again, which they did. Little did I know how polite they were being.

I got up, put my clothes on and left without telling them my usual horrible joke. On the way out, I told a nurse about the problem with leaking. She said, "It's a normal side effect but it's a little early for it to be starting. If it doesn't go away by tomorrow, I'll prescribe something".

Still feeling shitty, I stopped on the way out of the hospital to have a bowel movement. I got home and the peeing continued unabated. For the rest of the day, I was going to the john every 10-15 minutes. It became clear that I couldn't sleep with my wife as my constant getting up and going to the bathroom made it impossible for HER to sleep as well. I moved upstairs to another bedroom with a full bath. I woke up seven times to pee before I finally woke up for real.

I showered and went off to the hospital, this time leaving 45 minutes early.Sure enough, I ran into a traffic jam that cost me 20 minutes and during that time I somehow managed to contain myself.The rest of the trip to the hospital took another ten minutes.

Let me say, I was relieved when I got there.

They called me in and asked if I was feeling better.

"Aside from being up all night peeing, I feel great why do you ask?"

"You didn't look like you were feeling good yesterday and we were worried about you"

I explained "that I was feeling shitty yesterday because I'm a guy who always gets to a place early and when I have to white knuckle it to an appointment, I always carry a trace of the frustration that I had trying to get there on time. It has an effect on my mood when I first walk in."

Mike said "Amy has the same problem"

Amy concurred" Yes I'm always arriving right on time or a minute late. Always in a big tense rush to work"

I said, "Amy, there's a whole different and beautiful world waiting for you that you know nothing about. Your job and your life will change immediately if you get to work a half hour early. You can grab a cup of coffeee, read the paper, have a chat, whatever and then when you're ready to start, you're ready to start"

She said "I like the way you put that. I need to start doing that."

I told her that once I had started getting to work early it totally changed my work experience. "You know how yesterday, I appeared rattled and ornery because I got here in the nick of time. Remember, how clear it was to every body that I wasn't the same guy. That guy is the guy that you are when you get here in the morning in the nick of time and just like you recognized that in me, your co-workers recognize that in you"

I climbed into the sled, They positioned me. They hit me with the rays. They lifted me off the sled.

Amy came down from the viewing booth. She told me that what I had said was was good advice. I encouraged her to try it and see. "If you set the goal to be a half hour early even if you're twenty minutes late, you're still ten minutes early."

Amy laughed and said she had never looked at it like that.

On the way out, the Doctor was ready to see me. She asked me about the peeing. I described it as best I could. I've never been real good at describing the act of urination so it was kind of awkward.

She asked me if I had eaten anything unusual during the weekend.

I told her that I had attended two Easter buffets and whatever I had, I had a lot of but no, there was nothing exotic.

Then she asked me about bowel movements.

Again, I don't have the vocabulary to be accurate so I told her that "Yesterday after the radiation. I got rid of a lot"

She said," I'm glad because yesterday DURING your scan we noticed you had a lot of stool so we couldn't get a great picture. In today's scan there was much less stool and a much better picture." Needless to say, I was flabbergasted at this iinformation which is just part of modern technology that can find just about anything within your body except your soul.

I've got to realize now that every time I get on the sled, everybody in the room is seeing exactly how full of shit I am in three dimension. I clearly was feeling like shit the day before and the reason why I was feeling like shit, apparently, was that I WAS full of shit.

Everybody knew it but me.

That's usually how it goes when somebody is full of shit and it's probably why people feel shitty in the first place.

Just sayn'.

So the doctor fixed me up with another prescription that should confront the constant urination problem. Finally the she advised that I start drinking a lot of cranberry juice so maybe next time, I wouldn't be so full of shit.

Of course she didn't SAY exactly that but that IS exactly what she meant.

Smoove.

And I've managed to type this whole thing without having to get up and pee even once.Now, I'm gonna go downstairs and hit up some cranberry juice.

TROT ON THE BLOCK

I remember my first Thanksgiving in a previous wifetime. We had been married a month and a half. We had built a chicken coop together. We had horses. We had a goose. We had a mule. We even had a peacock. The chickens were laying. We also had a couple of turkeys. As Thanksgiving approached, I wondered about the fate of the turkeys.

My wife didn’t wonder. She acted.

She coaxed one of the turkeys out to a stump that unbeknownst to the fowl was a chopping block. She got the bird to stretch his neck out on the block. She took a mighty swing with her ax. Contradicting rumors of stupidity, the turkey lurched out of the way as the ax buried itself in the stump.

The turkey trotted away as if nothing had happened and tried to regain his dignity.

My wife was accompanied by her friend Beth who was eager to help but who was laughing her ass off.

The turkey meanwhile doubled down on rumors of stupidity and walked right back to the stump and confidently stuck his neck out. This time, Beth grabbed the turkey’s back legs. A moment later the axe fell.

I was photographing the whole thing.

Although the actual photograph, like the marriage itself, is long gone…I have an imprint of the photograph indelibly recorded in my mind.

It is the moment of contact.

Beth on the left is flinching.

Cindy on the right is baring her teeth, arms fully extended.

All of it is in a slight blur except for where the ax has come to a sudden stop as it passed through the neck of the bird and hit the stump. The ax and the neck of the bird are in perfect focus. A darkened area on the axe is the blood erupting from the birds neck as the ax has passed through.And yes, the turkey did run a round a little bit after his head was cut off.I think it was the first time for everybody.

I know it was the first time for the turkey.

I was pretty sure I got the picture.I proceeded to my dark room and made a print while the women were finishing up with the turkey. Because I was working in my own darkroom, the image was in black and white and it turned out exactly as I described it above. The black and white nature of the image enhanced the reality of the situation.

We had invited several guests to come over and join us for Thanksgiving the following day. The picture was so remarkable that we decided to frame it. We put the framed picture in the dining room.

Our guests arrived, smoking joints and drinking shots as was the custom of the day. John McCormack, who three years later died sober in a drunken car accident was the first to notice the image.“Wow, what a picture”

People came over and looked at the image with varying degrees of astonishment. Finally, someone asked the inevitable question. “Is that photo a picture of the turkey we are about to eat?”

We nodded.

Beth spoke up.

“This is thanksgiving”

When the transformed fowl appeared on the table, John asked if he could do the carving.

He did one helluva job.

There was plenty of meat to go around and a multitude of Thanks were given as a certain degree of reality grasped the gathering.

God, how I miss Roseland.

Starting with Galloping Gertie, through my first round of miniature golf, into the Penny Arcade across from the changemakers where I got an authentic Tom Mix photograph, beyond the Wild Mouse, through the Bumper Cars next to the shooting gallery behind the Cotton Candy stand near the restaurant which eventually became a beer stop where one of my friends once asked what the penalty was for punching out a clown. Back to the hot dog stands beneath the swings and beyond the Skyliner with skeeball coupons in hand. Tee shirts, cut offs and a pair of thongs, for decades we'd been having fun all summer long.

I knew Roseland big time and the feeling was mutual.

I had to be present for her last night.

We all knew the date of the execution. Condominiums need to be built.

Lots of Landlovers showed up, most young only in heart.

We traded in all of our skee ball tickets which we had amassed over the last ten years and won a forty inch plaster statue of a bearded guy in a yellow raincoat holding on to a bunch of lobsters as if his plaster depended on it.

We posed for pictures in front of or onboard all of the rides.

When my mother died many years later, the picture of her riding the merry go round was the photo nearest her flowers.

We kept trying to pretend that the fun, the eternal summer was never going to end. We knew in our hearts that some point the cups would stop whirling.

During my last ride on the carousel, I began to wonder if, in fact, the rides would stop that night. The operators after all were mostly college kids on the last shift of their summer jobs, probably a week or two from the quad. What would stop them from keeping the rides going all, night, hell all weekend. What could happen to them if they did? They certainly didn't have to worry about getting fired.

But before that paradoxical showdown, the management would present one final fireworks show out over the pier on Canandaigua Lake. The fireworks would begin at eleven. We took our rides on everything as eleven approached.

It was a startlingly clear star spangled evening; a Roseland night.

At ten-thirty the announcement of the fireworks started to come over the p.a. system. Everybody in the park wanted to be in on this event, including the ride operators. So like some kind of blissful, mourning army, we all strode to the site of the fireworks.

At eleven o'clock, the main park was deserted. I distinctly remember looking at that deserted park. I don't remember Roseland ever looking brighter or more inviting, resonating not only the remnants of that night's crowd but also all of the crowds of all the decades past. Although Roseland trembled, it appeared alive and ready to get up on its feet and sprint all the way to Rochester, to Lake Ontario thirty miles South to say goodbye to Sea Breeze.

Complete

Vital

Vibrant

vigorous

empty

throbbing

trembling

pulsating

eternal Roseland over my shoulder.

And then the first fireworks exploded in breathtaking perfection over the lake. The crowd as one ooohed. At that exact instant, I tore my eyes away from the miracle in the sky for one last peek and saw all of the lights in the main park slam off at once, never to come on again.

Total darkness. A silent sound as deafening as any I had ever not heard.

Most of the crowd

As if on cue

turned away

from the sky

gasped

laughed

and cried

Roseland

died.

Sgt Pepper’s Radiation Team

We got a great team at the hospital.

So let me introduce to you

the radiation therapists

Who deal with me every day.

They're Amy, Maggie, Paul and Mike.

Bompop Bombpop, Bompop, Bompop Bompup

Bompop, Bompop Bompop BUMBUMBUMBUMBUM Bop Dooah.

They put me on the table every day

They make sure that my feet are in the cast

Then when all is ready, they quickly run away

And from the booth send out another blast.

They're Amy, Maggie, Paulie and Mike

They're learning who I am and what I like

They always seem to know the exact words to say

To help me through another healing day

etc.

It's always nice when I start to write and bam...it goes right into Sgt. Pepper but sure enough I'm getting by with a little help from these friends. And I've got to admit, I'm getting better.

Okay, Okay, I'll stop and break into prose.

Gradually

Amy looks like a grown up version of a friend from high school. Maggie looks like a grown up version of a friend from college. Paulie looks like a grown up version of a guy I played baseball with.Mike looks like the guy who played guitar in my band.In other words, they all look familiar. So right from the get go I had the feeling I was with friends.

When I told Amy that she looked familar. She said " a lot of people think I look familiar"

Looking familiar is a pretty good thing don'cha' think?

The first task is getting me on the sled. I'm nowhere near as flexible as I used to be so they team up and gently lift me into position. They've made a cast of my lower body and that cast is on top of what at first looked like random sheets. I have to get my feet into the cast part shaped for my feet and then the therapists take over.

They tell me to "lay heavy" and I'm learning how to do that. Of course at my weight, it comes kinda natural. I'm getting pretty good at laying heavy. Laying heavy means when I feel movement beneath me, I resist the urge to move with that movement. Of course the radiation blasts have to be exactly precise, so when I am laying heavy they are maneuvering the sheets beneath me to put me into the right postion without my feet leaving the mold. They pull on the sheet and that puts me right where they want me.

All this time we are making small talk and laughing.

Then one of them will say "perfect" and they duck away to a protected area where they watch me through the glass. While watching me, they are also seeing a three dimensional rendering of my inner lower body projected on to a computer screen and making sure that the zaps are zapping the tatoo where the zaps should be zapping.

I'm laying heavy and except for the radio playing in the background, there is silence. I am under the linear accelerator, looking up at the ceiling where I see a red laser cross.The accelerator moves around me and does what it's supposed to do for about five minutes. Then I hear one of them say "great" and next thing I know, they are lifting me off the sled.When my feet first hit the ground, I experience some vertigo. I sit down in the chair and usually tell a story.

The first story on the first day was what happened when the skeleton walked into the bar. The bartender said. "whaddya want". The skeleton said "a beer and a mop".

The second story on the second day had a fish walking into the bar. Bartender said "whaddya need".

The fish said "water".

The third day,a duck walked into the drugstore. The duck asked for lip gloss. The astonished pharmacist brought back the gloss. The duck said "I don't have any money, just put it on my bill.

The fourth day, ham and eggs walked into the bar. Bartender said "we don't serve breakfast.

The fifth day Jesus Christ walked into a wine bar etc. The wine pourer asked," what would you like". Jesus answered 'just a glass of water.

Every story got the reaction I hoped it would get. They acted as if they had never heard the story before and then after a pause like after the fish says "water," they gave me the kind of laugh that indicates an amused aha .

Perfect.

Unfortunately I had used all of my clean jokes.

So today, the ninth day, I went with golf. Jesus and St. Peter are playing Pebble Beach. St Peter tees up and blast a beautiful drive right down the middle of the fairway. Jesus whistles in admiration and steps to the tee box. He hits a little dribble that barely makes it to the cart path of the elevated tee. The ball rolls down the path and gets picked up by a rabbit who starts bounding away only to be captured in the talons of a magnificent swooping eagle who grabs the rabbit and starts to fly down the fairway. A flash of lightning hits the eagle who drops the rabbit who drops the ball which lands on the green, takes a giant bounce hits the flagstick and plops into the hole. St Peter turns to Jesus and says "Hey, are you gonna play golf or just fuck around."

Everybody laughed again. I'm starting to enjoy this here radiation.

Go team go.

WILD BILL FROM BABYLON

I'm starting to wonder how long I will last. I'm already older than I deserve to be; based on the way that I've conducted my life. I want to give credit before I go to people who should already be famous if they gave a shit for fame.

One of those people is my friend Wild Bill. We've been buddies for over fifty years. I asked him to be my daughter's Godfather. I couldn't have made a better choice for her. I haven't spoken to Amanda for at least five years but Wild Bill has and he tells me she's nice.

Thank you, Godfather.

Wild Bill will never be married but to this day he carries ten rubbers in his wallet on his never ending quest to "get laid". Ya gotta love guys like that.

Sometimes he does, God bless him..

He's always having misadventures with cops maybe because of the dozens of messages on his car, the latest being FUCK DONALD TRUMP.

We pissed, side by side, into Walden Pond.

Sitting shotgun on the Long Island Expressway with Bill is a shit your pants experience.

He's seen the Dead fifty times at least. He had a conversation with George Harrison. Nowadays, Bill's the oldest man at every concert and the most energized.

Nobody dances like Wild Bill.

He was a friend of Bobby Vee.

He's a roller coaster fanatic.

I've seen him punch a taxi cab driver on Fifth Avenue.

He's got season tickets for both the Yankees and the Mets.

He cried when he heard that my mother died.

He sends birthday cards to all of his friends even though none of us have the slightest idea when His birthday arrives.

Christmas cards, Father and Mother’s day cards as well

He's a master of trivia, an expert on the Bobby Fuller Four.

He's the last of the great mooners.

He gets along with dogs and cats.

He's got my back.

He should be a movie if he gave a shit.

He's Wild Bill from Babylon.

One remarkable afternoon, I was sitting at a booth in Kennedy airport slamming some suds with my brother Deke while waiting on Wild Bill to pick us up for a weekend of irresponsibility.

Naturally, Bill being capricious from the get go was already two hours late. Responding in kind, I took the opportunity to waste even more money with the rest of the clubless apes on overpriced beers drafted at the airport watering hole.

While in the midst of this activity, I happened to notice a guy sitting at the bar. The guy had his back turned to me. Apparently, he too was waiting for his connection because every ten miutes or so I could hear him say to the barkeep, "I'll have another one please" with a sorta under control yet fighting panic quality to his request.

The guy was in the bar before I got there and I'd been there a couple of hours. I figured our consciousnesses were at the same level of disarray. I never saw the guy's face but something about the tone of his voice reminded me of the voice of the astronaut in 2001 who on the Jupiter Mission gets locked out of his ship by the computer and trying to keep his composure under control without panicking, keeps insisting that the computer open the portal for him to retake control of the ship.

"I'll have another one please" sounded exactly like "Open the pod bay door, Hal" to my altered listening.

Judging from the size of the guy's back and the fact that this was Kennedy Airport, the possibility did exist that this was in fact Keir Dullea, the actor from 2001.

I passed my perception on to my brother. I said "Listen to the way this guy says 'I'll have another one please'. I think that's the guy from 2001".

My brother equally committed to his beerz but still acutely attentive to timbre detail, laughed at my Bud soaked perception. Childishly egged on by his laughter, I decided to approach the guy at the bar.

I took a seat on a stool next to him. I ordered yet another brewski and got a side view. The side view kept me in the ballpark. The guy ordered another drink and the recognition possibilty grew even stronger.

Finally, I tapped the guy on the shoulder and said "Excuse me, are you Keir Dullea?"

The man turned to me and before he spoke I knew, holy shit he's the guy.

Keir said "Yes I am, do I know you."

I said "not really but you're in one of my favorite movies....2001. I've seen that movie ten times and even though I love it, Im not sure what it's about."

Keir said that it was one of his favorite movies as well but he wasn't real sure what it was about either. He thought it was "something about God". Apparently he had been called by Kubrick, accepted the job...worked on his scenes for a month or so and then left the production not knowing anymore about the entire project then what he had experienced while acting in it. He told me that when he saw the movie after it's release, he was "stunned."

We carried on a conversation for about fifteen minutes. I told him I was a teacher and he told me how much he respected the profession and how flattered he was that I recognized him.

A great guy.

I excused myself and went back to my table where a great commotion had taken place as Wild Bill finally arrived. I had enough respect for Dullea's provacy that I didn't tell Bill about what had just happened.

When my brother asked, I said "yep, it was him. check him out and let's get outta here before this whole thing gets too absurd". Deacon took a look. I could tell he was astonished by the whole situation.

We started to head out of the airport in a huge, blurry hurry considering we were already an hour late for that night's concert.

Bill started relating the wild excuses he had for being so late. I told him don't worry about it. Let's make the most of tonight, after all as Noel Coward once said "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow."

STARLIT HUMAN NATURE

I didn’t feel like working one Friday night at the Starlite Drive-in. I wasn’t too concerned because we were playing yet another in a long line of low budget Jean Michael Vincent flicks that nobody came to see anyhow. I figured that I’d hang out with the projection crew and the homeless derelicts who were living in the projection booth until between movies when I’d man the concession stand. Then I’d go home and feed a few unpurchased meatball sandwiches to my pig Seymour.

Driving down West Henrietta Road, I ran into an unexpected, unexplainable traffic jam. I wasn’t in any particular hurry so I cranked up my eight track and started listening to Arthur by the Kinks. By the time I got to “Brainwashed”, I could see what was causing the clot. All of the cars were pulling into the Starlite. I rechecked the title marquee and although a few of the words were misspelled, the basic idea remained; something about a Hawk starring Vincent and Will Sampson was indeed playing.

I pulled into the long, gravel road that led to the ticket booth and that cubicle was empty. When, at last, I got to the booth, I discovered that the restraining rope was down. The ticket seller had unlocked the rope, opened the booth and as I learned later, in a fit of self-righteous drunken, immature irresponsibility had decided to quit his “godamned shitty job”. He took off and left the gate unattended. I never saw the guy again but I heard he opened a fruit stand in Irondequoit specializing in illegally imported bananas.

I was ambivalent about the situation. It didn’t hurt me any that more people were attending the show, since I was paid a commission based on the sales of the concession stand. The more people who came to the flick, the more money I would make. Remember though that I didn’t feel like working that night and since I hadn’t expected anybody to show up, I was all by myself which meant I was going to have to do the work of three people maybe four even if I got a couple of the derelicts living in the projection booth to stop smoking weed, get off their asses and help me out a bit.

When I pulled into my stand, the projectionist greeted me. Drunk as he was, he didn’t particularly care how many people were in the lot. He was being paid by the hour. I told him that the reason that all of these people were here was because Mark had opened the gate and abandoned the booth.

One of the great mysteries of this night was how in the world did the people get the word that the movie was free and how did it spread so fast. If we had put FREE on the marquee, probably nobody would have pulled into the lot.

Reminded me of a friend of mine, named Rick who was trying to get rid of an old refrigerator. He put the thing in front of his house for a couple of days with a big FREE sign on its door. Nobody even sniffed it. Finally on the advice of another friend named Charlene, he put another sign on the fridge....$50. That night somebody stole the fuckin’ thing.

Art, the projectionist, and I were pondering these matters while also trying to figure out what the heck we were supposed to do. We had a parking lot full of freeloaders. Should I start popping the popper? Should Art start reeling the projector?

We looked around and got an eyeful of human nature as the sky grew dark.

People started to lean on their horns.

They were honking to start the movie.

That freakin’ did it!

A parking lot full of freeloaders defreakinmanding that they get what they didn’t pay for and expressing their rage by leaning on their horns. I told Art, “I’ve got to say something.”

I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say but I knew that somebody had to say something and since I was still sober and giving a shit, it had to be me.

I went into the projection booth. I fired up the PA system.I grabbed the mike and this is what I said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a situation here. The guy who takes tickets left his post so all of you are here for free. Look around, the place is packed and nobody has paid as much as a dime.Now, I can’t blame you for taking advantage. I sure as hell can’t throw all of ya outta here. I do want you to know that this is NOT a FREE show and staying here would be like stealing. Stealing is wrong. I do have an idea, a solution. We’re going to send somebody back to the ticket booth. The right thing for you to do is exit the drive in on the right onto Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road...then turn left and re-enter the lot. The ticket person will charge you half price and you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you did the right thing. We will begin the show in 10 minutes.”

Art had been listening to this with a look of astonishment on his shitfaced grill. He asked me what I thought would happen. I said “I believe in people.”

Silence ensued.

Honking stopped.

Then I heard a car engine start up. Then another and another. I saw a line of cars heading for the exit, God bless’ed, every single car that I could see headed out the exit. Moments later we got a call from the ticket booth out front. “It looks like an invasion out here! There’s a procession of cars coming down West Henrietta Road and pulling in. What should I do?”

“Charge ‘em half price and say thank you”, I told my man.

The drive-in filled back up not quite as full but almost. Ten minutes after my announcement, we started the movie. I gave away free popcorn all night. The owner made more money that night than he had any right to make. The people saw a movie for half price and got free popcorn along with the satisfaction of, on this occasion, doing the right thing.

That night, I went home and had a moonlight talk with Seymour about human nature. Pretty sure Seymour didn’t understand a word I was saying yet between gulps of his meatball sandwiches, although he grunted and farted at appropriate times.

ERIKA FROM A DISTANCE

Sometimes it's important to see things through the eyes of others. We received this letter from a niece named Erika who lives in North Carolina. Lynn responded to the letter before I even saw it. I was gonna respond but Lynn covered everything pretty objectively. Of course she left out the part about my brave, courageous, inspiring battle but that's probably because I've left it out of my own behavior especially when seen up close.

Anyways, here's what it looks like from a distance.

Erika's letter and Lynn's response.

Hey guys,

So I just wanted to reach out and let you guys know you are in my prayers everyday. Cancer is a very scary word. Usually I shy away from reaching out on a topic that I don't understand. Today I was thinking about it and I realized how selfish that was. I was so scared to bring up something you guys deal with everyday. But really as family its only right that we are here for each other through thick and thin. Even if we are scared we stand tall for the ones we love. We are the people who lend a shoulder to cry on. I want you guys to know I can and will be that person if you guys ever need anything. I've always looked up to you guys for being very knowledgable and kind and do not deserve this disease to come into your life. But, God works in mysterious ways and I strongly believe you guys will beat and overcome this obstacle. Love you guys and miss you! Hope to see you soon!!

Erika

What a wonderful letter. So full of love, concern and support. Thank you very, very much. Uncle Ice has just six more radiation treatments. They won't know if all the cancer is gone so he will have to go in for regular blood tests to check his PSA level which will tell them the potential threat of cancer cells remaining or not. He has been experiencing fatigue, depression and Incontinance . He is on meds for all of that which gives him some relief. No sleep at nites though which can make him zombie like. But the good news is that a few weeks after radiation he should return back to how he was before the radiation started. We are getting thru this by feeling how lucky we are that it was caught in time and the treatment just involves radiation not surgery or chemotherapy. He tells me that when he writes his book about recovery, he’s gonna include your letter.

With love and appreciation,

Aunt Lynn and Uncle Ice

MORE SEYMOUR

I’ve almost forgotten how much fun it was to drink beer with Seymour, my pig.

Remember those delicious meatball sandwiches that only existed at drive-ins? We took a lot of pride in our meatball “sank witch” when we ran and cooked at the Starlite concession stand. We always threw in a load of extra sauce and cheese. Those subs were nuclear powered.

Some times we’d make a few subs too many. I’d take whatever leftovers we still had hanging around and feed them to Seymour. At that juncture, feeding meatballs to a pig was my idea of a savings account.

I’d usually bring at least twelve pack of Bud to accompany the meatball sandwiches. I’d take the winding path down past the barn, past the manure pile, past the chicken coop and the duck pond into the wired off part of the pasture that we had converted into a pig pen.

I’d stand next to the pen, throw a few sandwiches on the ground and wait for Seymour to emerge. I was usually working on my first Bud while I was bringing the sandwiches to Seymour’s slophouse. By the time I got to Seymour’s place, I was finishing my second. I’d finish my third by the time Seymour emerged from his little tin hut.

At this point, I’d pop open my fourth Bud and pour the fifth and sixth beer into the black, circular, plastic container that we used as a watering tough for the pig.

Seymour could drink even faster than I could when he put his mind to it, in other words when he wasn’t peeing, pooping’ eating’ or sleeping’. The whole purpose of chilling with the pig in the first place was to avoid any semblance of pressure or constraints or manners. Burping, farting and even puking was no problem. I’d drink at my own pace and whenever I finished one I’d pop open another one for the pig and another for myself.

I’ve heard about dogs, who come to a kitchen table, sit on a chair, put their paws on the table and wait to be served. These are dogs who think they are humans. Seymour did not think he was human. Seymour knew for damned sure that he was a pig and when he partied with me I think he figured that I was one too and he weren’t far off. Seymour was all attitude, identity and appetite.

There was nobody else around except me and the pig. The stars were bright; the temperature perfect. The only sounds of the night were the natural sounds of the pasture and the pen along with the snortin’, slathering’, plopping’ burpin’ leaking’ sounds that Seymour routinely made at times like these. It was peaceful. I had been productive as in “I’m going down to feed the pig now, honey.” Life in the pasture drinking with the pig was a bizarre Bud commercial waiting to be made and shown at the Super Bowl.

One time, near the end, when we had come to grips with the sobering eventuality that Seymour was destined to become ham, bacon, sausage, etc, I had a barn party over at my house. Some of my buddies had heard me bragging about the peace of mind I enjoyed while drinking with the pig. Apparently they thought it was a good idea because by the time I got down to the trough, Seymour was passed out in the cooling mud, getting a bit of a sunburn, his trough still half full of beer.

I went back to the barn and asked how many people had been drinking with the pig. Six guys raised their hands: Tommy Tron, Bruce, Jack Stafford, Wayne, Wild Bill and Uncle George. I told them to come down to the sty and see the fruits of their labor.

The six of us walked down the path together. As we got close to Seymour, a reverent silence descended, When we arrived at his trough the stillness continued as we gazed and gaped at the five sheets to the wind bovine blacked out and basking in his combination of mud, Bud, swill and perceived freedom, catching some rays and judging by his apparent ease of breathing, completely relaxed, at peace with the world, unconcerned with appearances.

A few weeks later I recruited all of these guys to help me load the corpulent and non-co operative Seymour into the back of my truck to take him to processing about ten miles down the road. Seymour was no longer a little piggy on his way to the market. We had a rough, sweaty, shitty and muddy time trying to get Seymour into the truck until somebody got in touch with a guy named Fuzzy who suggested putting a pillowcase over his face. We did. It worked. We led Seymour into and out of the truck and into the processing pen where they spray painted the word “RIVERS” in large letters on his no longer sunburned hide.

I remember taking one last look at Seymour. There was another huge pig in the holding pen with him. I imagined those two pigs looking at each other’s hides, seeing the black spray paint and thinking “this ain’t real good”. Then I shut the door and left Seymour in the darkness.

Seymour was no longer just involved. He was committed.

The next time I saw him he was in packages

Over the next few decades, every time that I’ve gotten together with any of those guys, particularly during All Star games, somebody always comes up with “remember Seymour” and the next round of stories take off from that common point of departure as if Seymour the Pig was a space station and all previous stories were shuttle crafts arriving to be refueled enroute to homecoming or deeper exploration

MENDON SEA CRUISE

As in the case with most epics, many colorful events occurred during my final days at the Starlite. Most of those colorful events were driven by colorful people, people that I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for the Starlite which was sort of a vortex of idiosynchracy. One of those colorful people was Wayne Green.

Wayne was a regular at the Starlite, as well as a drive-in afficianado. One particularly slow night, Wayne came in from his car and we began a snack bar conversation about drive in culture etc. Wayne became so engrossed in the conversation that he missed the second feature which was The Deep with Nick Nolte and Jackie Bissett. Due to no fault of our own, we had been playing the movie one reel short and out of order but nobody complained except one time when the sound went off for a minute or two and a few people honked. That’s when I realized that people didn’t give a shit what they were watching as long as they could hear it.

Wayne asked me how to operate the popcorn machine, I showed him. He was immediately hooked on concession stand life.

I told Wayne that anytime he wanted to stop by and help me run the stand, we’d let him in for free. Most nights, Wayne would show up and volunteer his services as popcorn popper. Wayne wasn’t the only one. Towards the end I had six or seven people who enjoyed the concession stand so much that they would come to the drive in just to hang around, every so often going back to their cars to drink beer or whatever. The concession stand became an oddball country club. Almost every night one or two or more of these volunteers would show up to pop and pour. In the end, they were basically running the stand and I was spending more and more time in party cars.

Outside of the stand, I didn’t know much about Wayne or the other “volunteers but I figured they were either geniuses or lunatics and probably both. We’d get into some pretty crazy conversations on slow nights and since we kept playing Jean Michael Vincent level movies without half price admission or free popcorn, there were a lot of slow nights.

One night Wayne and I were talking about making lemonade of lemons, making a fortune out of a misfortune. Wayne told me about a guy that he knew whose truck caught fire the same week that the engine of his boat blew up. Wayne told me that the guy welded the body of his boat on to the frame and motor of his car, got some dealer plates and drove around in his truck boat.

I had trouble believing that one. I told Wayne so. He assured me that the story was true. I said “yeah, right” and forgot about the whole deal.

About a month later, I was mowing my lawn when a boat with dealer plates pulled into my driveway. Wayne was at the wheel. How can I describe this contraption? I know. A speed boat on wheels and that’s exactly what it looked like although you couldn’t see the wheels too well. I called up a few people and there were already a few folks partying in my house. Everybody changed into shorts and swim suits. The guys stripped off their shirts. Before long we had a boat chock full of nuts all singing “ooh Wee, Ooh wee Baby, come and let me take you on a Sea Cruise.” We set off driving through Mendon like five dimensional survivors from a demented Beach Blanket Bingo flick minus Frankie and Annette with Beach Boy, Dick Dale and Surfaris music blasting from the deck on the deck.

You should have seen the cars as they passed us. Imagine a cool late September afternoon. You’re driving down Mendon Town Line Road. Suddenly you see a speed boat approaching you full of lunatic/geniuses mash potatoing, twisting and watusiying to Msirlou or I get Around or Wipeout. My only regret is we didn’t take the time to grab Seymour the pig, throw some shades on him and include him in the voyage.

We cruised around Pittsford and Mendon for a half hour. Truck boats use an awful lot of gas. Eventually, we pulled back into my driveway and abandoned ship.

I never doubted Wayne again.

The Starlite era had ended. The truck boat had been revealed. Apparently Wayne’s purpose in my life was fulfilled, including one bit of information that I was awake enough to remember. As we were heading back to the house, Wayne asked me if I wanted to take the wheel. Paranoia set in. I could see the headlines, “Local teacher crashes into telephone pole in truck boat filled with passengers without seat belts or life jackets.”

Wayne was silent for a moment, keeping his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. He asked me “if I remembered the night when all the cars pulled out of the Starlite and then pulled back in.”

I said, “of course I remembered that.’

Wayne said that He hadn’t believed ME when I told him that story.

Wayne believed it now because he knew the guy who was the first person to pull out, the guy who had started the entire righteous exodus. The guy who helped right the wrong. Turns out the guy was on his first date that night and legitimately wanted to see the movie because he and his date were fans of Will Sampson and Tonto.The guy’s named was Ovid and his date was named Julia.The date had been a success.

LAST DAY OF RADIATION

Today's the day. Last night was the night. I only had to steal one mirror last night so I got my first half way decent shuteye in months.

At this moment I am resisting the urge to hit the sack and indulge in fatigue.

I'm thinking about the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Nightmare on Elm Street. In both of those flicks, sleep was to be avoided unless you wanted Freddy to slash through your walls or wake up as a pod.

Those movies always bothered me.

I hate the feeling of falling asleep when I don't want to fall asleep. This used to happen to me all the time, particularly on Wednesday nights when I was young.

Because I was big fan of horror films, my parents used to let me stay up "late" to watch Shock Theater which played all of the Lugosi, Karloff and Chaney films. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Raven, the Mummy, the Black Cat, The Invisible Ray,The Ghoul,The Werewolf of London etc. The show came on came on past my bedtime so it was quite a privilege and quite a challenge.

Plus, I was actually scared by the movies or at least I expected to be.

I would take my position on the carpet in front of our timy teevee set. The movie would start and before too long, I would realize that I was falling asleep. I learned to recognize the feeling and the "oh no" that accompanied it. I would invariably choose to "rest my eyes" for just a minute during a commercial. I learned after awhile that once I started to rest my eyes, the rest periods would increase in frequency and duration until at last I was asleep on the floor and had to be carted of to bed all the time insisting "I'm awake, I'm awake"

The morning came and I awoke with a sense of failure and a determination to make it all the way through the next week. I realized that once I started to "rest my eyes", it was all over. I would make a conscious effort to "resist the rest" but week after week I failed.

I wasn't used to failure back in those days and it frightened me more than the movies did. I was learning about temptation and my inability to resist it.

This was my first previews of fatigue but I really didn't know what fatigue was until a few months ago. There's a difference between fatigue and being tired, passing out, blacking out, dozing off or being exhausted.

For the past few months, I've suffered fatigue and it's a lot different from "resting my eyes" because in fatigue I'm not even interested in the "movie" that is my life. All I want to do is sleep, well not exactly sleep but more like escape but evdn in the escaping there is the over-riding sense of failure and guilt as days melt away and merge with nights.

Fatigue sucks.

So as I write these words, I am resisting the urge to "rest my eyes" and to go downstairs to my cave/pit. The urtge is strong but not as strong as yesterday and yesterday wasn't as strong as the day before.

They told me after my last blast of radiation that sometimes the fatigue starts to go away after a week and a half but sometimes it can continue for three or four months or in some cases forever.

Today is exactly a week and a half since my last blast. I'm gonna go the distance. I'm not goin' downstairs. I'm not gonna turn into a pod person again today. No way. I've charged up my camera. I'm snapping flowers. I'll be leaving for the ballpark in three hours. I'm gonna look good. This is the day I marked down on my calendar for the beginning of my comeback and I'm not gonna rest my eyes until I get back from Frontier Field.

My brother is my best friend and I haven't seen him during this whole situation. I want to see him now. I want him to see me snapping pictures, keeping score, drinking a beer and rooting for the old home team.

Freddy Fatigue can't get me at Frontier Field if I keep my eyes on the ball.

OVID WARREN PEETS

Even though I think I'm a smart ass, I'm not as smart as I think I am.My name is Ovid Peets.

I'm here to tell you a story about a guy who was proud of his ignorance and worried that he wasn’t as dumb as he thought he was . Over the course of our acquaintance this man gratified himself by proving conclusively that he was even dumber than he had hoped.

His name was Thornton Krell. He was my professor. I was taking a seminar class called Metaphysiction at a place called Montgomery Community College. I didn't know what the hell Metaphysiction was and neither did my advisor, Ward Stokes. As soon as I found out that Stokes was vague on the seminar, I decided to throw it into my schedule. I figured I could drop the course later and blame the drop on Stokes who would have to admit that he didn't know what the hell he was talking about when we first discussed the offering.

Everyone knows that in a fire, the survival strategy is to drop and roll. Only MCC students know that academic survival strategy is to enroll and then drop.

I can remember the first few minutes of the first class without looking at my notes. I can’t look at my notes from any class before Krell’s class because I never took notes. I used to draw pictures. I had contempt for anyone who actually took notes. What a waste of time. What a waste of paper. I figured it was all posturing because anytime I would ask anyone to see their “notes” they would always say they didn’t have any notes either.

They must have been drawing pictures too or writing those little love letters that begin “I‘m sitting in class bored out of mind and thinking about what we did last night…...

For some reason I used to draw a hockey rink as seen from a nosebleed seat. After I drew the rink in great detail, including stick figure crowds, I would rest the point of the pen somewhere on the “Ice” and wrist flick the point towards the “Goal” which resembled a large E turned without the middle perpendicular. If I managed to stop the point within the E, the stroke counted as a goal. I would disallow goals in which the stroke was slowed down enough to mimic conscious purpose. Only subconscious strokes counted. Sometimes the pencil and the “ref” would get in long arguments about whether or not a goal should count or not. In this way, with an occasional fake “I’m listening and I’m interested” glance at the teacher, class time passed.

When I wasn't drawing hockey rinks, I was drawing drum sets. This habit was about to change within the first ten minutes of encountering Krell.

They say that a student pretty much makes up his mind how he will get along with a teacher within the first five minutes that the teacher is in front of the class. Even while Krell was taking attendance and reviewing the institute rules, which everyone had heard at the beginning of every class at MCC (and still disobeyed) I was forming my impression of Krell. I kept hearing the song “96 Tears” playing in my brain. Anytime I hear ninety-six tears in my brain, I remember the group that sang the song…..Question Mark and the Mysterians with Question Mark written as ?.

So, my initial and lasting impression of Krell was of a mysterious guy who would have a lot of questions for me to consider and about whom I would have a lot of questions which he would probably never consider because I would never pose the questions what with the hockey playing and the drum sets.And that someone would cry: cry, cry, cry; ninety six tears yeah.

The first thing he did after the preliminary administrivia was to turn his gaze upon the class and make these sounds: (and now I consult the notes that I didn’t have at the time that Krell was making the sounds) “Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega”.

Next, he took out a match. Before striking the match he informed us that the sounds he had just made were the letters of the Greek alphabet. He said his first goal was to have everyone in the class be able to repeat those sounds in the time it took a match to burn down to the finger tips. With that he struck the match and recited the alphabet and with a flourish blew out the match in plenty of time.

“I’m going to repeat the alphabet. You will take notes while I recite. Then, I’m going to call on one of you. . I will light the match. You will recite the Greek alphabet before the match burns my fingers. You may use your notes”

With that, he repeated “Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega“.

I stopped drawing the hockey rink and right there on the still freezing ice, I took my first serious notes Alfa, Bayta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zayta, Eighta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mew, New, Zi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Sigh, Omega.

I wasn’t looking around to see if anybody else was taking notes.

Krell paused at Omega. He looked at the attendance roster. He took a match from the pack. He said “Mr. Troy. You will give me back the alphabet. You may use your notes. I will count to five and light the match”

I don’t remember much about Mr. Troy except that he was wearing a tee shirt that said “Weed Man”. When Krell got to five, Troy got to his feet and headed to the door. With the match still burning in Krell’s hand, Troy looked back at the spontaneous combustion in the front of the room. “Kiss my fart” he yelled and walked out the door.

Krell kept the match burning in silence until it reached his finger tips at which point he said “Ouch” and shook the match out.

“Kiss my fart” Krell mused aloud "what an interesting juxtaposition of the physical upon the invisible. He might have been a great student but alas, I’m afraid that’s the last time we’ll see Troy although we will talk about him quite often.”

He took out another match. “Let’s try it again. Helen Kamp, it‘s your turn”

Helen read the alphabet from her notes. She finished with plenty of match to spare.

“Very good. Haylen” said Krell while snapping his fingers with the loudest snap I‘d heard since my left handed sixth grade clarinet teacher snapped me out of music lessons for incorrectly counting measures. Krell’s snaps, on the other hand, conveyed praise not criticism “How do you account for your success?”

“I read from my notes” said Helen.

“And before you read them……..”

“I wrote them.”

"And before you wrote them?” Krell asked.

“I listened, Mr Krell.”

“And in literary terms, Haylen, what verbal exercise are we involved in right now?”

“A dialogue.”

“A Socratic dialogue to be more specific. Thank You Haylen for introducing the basic tenents of this class. The dullest pencil on the roughest paper has a better memory than the sharpest brain in the smoothest intellect. Aristotle, the student of Plato wrote very little...what remains of his work is a hodgepodge of his notes combined with the notes of the students he was teaching in his Lyceum, Any questions?”

In the pause that inevitably follows any teacher asking if there are any questions, two impressions raced through my mind. 1: Helen might be the Hawking of the class which greatly increased my odds of bozohood and 2: The teacher had a Southern accent when he called on Helen. He called her Haylen.

The pause ended as it always does with a dork with a question.

Arthur Gregor raised his hand. Krell nodded in his direction.

Gregor asked “Well, Mr. Krell what exactly is the definition of metaphysics and the relationship of that defintion to metaphysiction”

Krell responded, “ With all due respect, the answer to that question comes at the end of the class not at the beginning because the entire purpose of this seminar is to explore the intellectual journey that led to metaphysics and later metaphysiction".

Krell continued, "Haylen has already touched upon some of the primary components. We will be learning how Socrates led to Plato how Plato led to Aristotle and how Aristotle led to metaphysics. In a nutshell, Socrates asked questions in verbal dialogue. Plato was the student of Socrates. Plato listened to the dialogues that Socrates narrated. Plato recorded the dialogues which were a history of the philosophical life of Socrates. Socrates only spoke. Plato listened and took notes. Plato added his own thoughts to the thoughts of Socrates which he had noted. He passed his thoughts and notes on to others who were taking note of his thoughts which were the thoughts of Socrates filtered through the lens of Plato. Thus, Plato became a teacher."

Krell went to the blackboard and printed the words Socrates, Aristitole and Plato. He began drawing lines between and amongst the names and explained; "Aristotle was a student of Plato. Aristotle added his own thoughts to Plato’s thoughts which were themselves notes upon the thoughts of Socrates which led through logic and biology and astrology to metaphysics. Aristotle was the first teacher of metaphysics. I’m not going to even try to describe the lineage that led from Aristotle to Krell because it’s taken me my entire life up to this very second to unravel that journey which is continuing even as I speak and upon which you, Mr. Gregor are a fellow traveler until you follow the path of Troy“.

By this time, the hockey game had ended and I was, for the first time, taking notes furiously, afraid that I would be called upon to suffer the fate of Troy. I know for sure that I was taking notes at this time because the above paragraphs are an interpretive reconstructions of the words of Krell based upon the actual notes of that first class on that last hockey rink upon which I glanced as I composed the last paragraph and will be consulting for the rest of this effort.

See,another thing about notes is, they stick around. If they didn’t there would be no Aristitle and God knows what else there wouldn’t be...maybe even God.

If nothing else this class of Krell’s was, by definition, noteworthy.

I’m not sure if my notes are worthy of the noteworthiness of Krell’s class (what with the high probability of bozos on this bus) because I myself may be a bozo and if you’re on this particular bus, holding on to the handrail next to mine, you may be a bozo as well.

Unless you're a Hawking.

By the time I left class that day only three of us remained, myself, Helen and Julia. Arthur had taken an early lav break and had not returned. Weedman Troy had apparently enrolled and dropped, at least that's what Krell said at the end of the period.

"The bad news is that five is the minimum enrollment to hold a seminar. The good news for you four survivors, if in fact the seminar survives, is that if we continue the class and I use the traditional grading curve, the E has already directed me to kiss his fart."

When you're riding in my bus, in which failure is always an option, it's reassuring to hear the E has left the building. I made up my mind I was in this class for the duration. I even had notes to prove my determination.

Riding this wave of confidence and conviction, I decided to approach Helen and confess my embarrassment at Krell's mispronuniciation of her name.

"Excuse me. I was in your Metaphysiction class. I couldn't figure out why the teacher had a Southern accent only when he said your name. Helen is such a nice, classical name. I'm sorry he had to butcher it."

Helen looked at me as if she were looking at a dog turd tidbit on the sole of a wedding shoe.

"Why thank you for your sensititivity Oafid. Not only have you underestimated the teacher but also you've insulted me and my parents. My father's name is Haynes. My mothers name is Helen. They named me Haylen. I'm sorry my name isn't classical enough for you"

Haylen turned on her heel and was gone before I had the opportunity to clear either my throat, my name or hers or her parents or Krell.

SECOND CLASS

I beat the teacher to the second class. We all did. I was the last to arrive not including Krell.

Arthur, Haylen and Julia were all in their seats. I nodded at Arthur, tried to avoid Haylen's gaze by looking down at the floor. Then after noting the awesome old school sandals that were between the floor and Haylen's soles, I got a better look at Julia.

Julia was not a beautiful woman but there was something about her that demanded my attention. After about two seconds I realized what that something was. Julia was dressed in an exact replica of the curtain rendered green velvet gown that Scarlett O'Hara had worn to visit Rhett Butler when he was in jail where he was sick and tired of seeing women in rags; where he was relieved to see that Scarlett was not in rags and was ready to give her anything until he discovers that her hands are filled with callouses.

I was surfing in this state of stupefication and cinematic reverie when Krell entered the classroom. Apparently I had walked in on the conclusion of the customary debate about how long the class waited for the tardy teacher before disbanding, five minutes for adjunct or TA, ten minutes for assistant professor, fifteen minutes for full professor.

Nobody knew what category Krell was so I have the feeling if he would have been five seconds late, the class would have been empty by the time he entered which would have spelled the end of metaphysiction, right there. But there he was right in the nick of time. I took out my notebook and pencil. I gazed at the Greek alphabet just in case we began where we left off.

Krell said "Well folks it looks like we have a class. It seems that after Paris burned out, he immediately dropped the class which caused Ryan Montana of interdisciplinary to have a meeting with June Brickwood of the bursars office which led to a meeting with Kay Stafford of the philosophy department which led to a meeting with Dr. Gary Gottschalk of the English Dept. which led to a meeting with Charlene Bellavia the supervisor of instruction which led to a meeting with Scott Lemmer of adjunct education which led to a meeting with Dean Mike Champion who okayed the class fifteen minutes ago while I waited outside his office."

"In case you're wondering, everyone of those people make much more money than I do"So, Julia, when I strike this match, tell me the Greek alphabet and when you're finished I'll explain education to you."

With that Krell struck his match and Julia finished her recitation beautifully before the flame was gone with the wind.

Krell congratulated Julia and began his lecture.

"Once upon a time there was a guy who was a terrific learner. Let's call him Torch." Krell began and continued. Everything activated Torch's curiosity which fired up his intellect which filled him with inexhaustible creative, emotional, intuitional and investigative energy. Torch learned everything he could about each person, place, thing or idea that he encountered with his senses, with his emotions, with his feelings and with his intuitions.One day it dawned on Torch that the best way to increase his own learning was to give away what he had. Torch decided to teach."

Krell printed the word TEACH on the board and continued.

"When the teacher is ready, the students will appear and when the students are ready the teacher will appear. In the early days of Torch's teaching, there were many appearances and disappearances. Usually, they were out of synch.Sometimes, Torch's teaching schedule got a little unpredictable what with the perpetual investigations of all things attracting his attention for random amounts of time. Similarly, his students, their curiosity activated by Torch, were out and about making their own discoveries, building their own toys. Eventually, one of his students, let's call him Arclipides, came up wih an idea."

Krell wrote ARCLIPEDES on the board and continued.

"After a session of sharing on the steps of the Atheneum, Arclipides asked ‘Why don't we all come back here to these very same steps on the same day at the same time next week’. Next week arrved and everybody showed up. Everybody was only four people and Torch, the teacher. The four people were Lysis, Arclipides, Sachelli, and Lyvia. As time went on the four people grew to forty people. The forty people grew into a hundred people. At this point Arclipedes came up with his second big idea, ‘why don't we break this group into four groups. One group can meet on Monday, the next group on Tuesday, the third group on Wednesday and the fourth group on Thursday’.

Krell wrote SCHEDULE on the board and continued.

"Torch had a little problem with this big idea. Even though meeting with the people was definitely feeding his learning habit, four days a week was a bit much. Torch suggested two groups on Monday and two groups on Wednesday. Arclipedes went along with the idea. Arclipedes divided the hundred into four groups of twenty five and told them which day and time to show up on the steps.As time went on, the hundred turned into thousands and the thousands turned into millions and the millions turned into billions.The steps turned into hundreds of thousand of schools.Torch continued to learn.Sachelli, Lysis and Lyviia went on to become the first faculty. Arclipedes became the first administrator.

Krell wrote ADMINISTRATOR on the board and next to the word a dollar sign. Then he continued

"Eventually, Arclipedes and his followers started telling everybody where to go, what to learn and how to teach.All of the followers of Arclipedes seemed to have a natural interest in finances so the gathering places grew bigger and bigger as a price tag began to be attached to learning. Torch never had much interest in money and neither did Sachelli, Lysis or Lyviia. Learning was their treasure and giving away what they had earned (after all, learned is earned plus an l for either life or love) was the best way to preserve and enrich their intellectual treasure.This was fine for Arclipedes. Altruism always cuts cost."

Krell paused for a moment as a bell rang somehwere.

Krell shrugged his shoulders at the sound of the bell as if indicating "See that's a perfect example of what I'm talking about".

Then, he continued: "Way, way back before the steps turned into schools, Torch and Arclipedes were on a collision course. When the crash finally happened only Arclipedes walked away. Arclipedes had amassed more money and with more money had come more power.All Torch had was teaching, learning and the love and respct of his students. Trouble. Mismatch.Arclipedes insisted that what Torch was espousing was not good for the people. The powers that be agreed. Torch drank the Kool Aid."

Krell wrote HEMLOCK on the board and continued.

"The remaining faculty insisted upon some degree of intellectual freedom if they were to continue coming back to the steps. This was the beginning of tenure.Tenure is to education what beer is to Homer Simpson; the cause of as well as the solution to all of the problems in the classroom. Arclipedes ‘not good for the people’ eventually turned into the standard administrative method of suppressing progressive ideas while sustaining status quo. ‘Not good for the people’ became ‘not good for the kids’ if an innovative idea needed to be stopped or ‘good for the kids’ if a stale idea needed to be preserved.”

Krell paused, looked out the window and wrote STATUS QUO on the board before he continued.

"Today, for example we have middle schools. Not only do we have middle schools but those schools usually start the earliest in the morning and contain the kids who would benefit most from getting more sleep.Going back to K-8 schools would simply be ‘not good for the kids’ until the decision was made to return to K-8 schools, the justification for which will be that it has suddenly become ‘good for the kids’.Other examples abound.The factory schedule. SAT exams. Standardized testing. The categorization and separation of knowledge into subjects and departments. The hierarchy of the sciences. How did anyone ever determine that biology was easier than chemistry and chemistry easier than physics.For those seeking entry into the closed fraternity/sorority of "science" biology is traditionally taken first, then chemistry then physics.This is how that particular hierarchy was determined.An Arclipedean confronted this choice at the beginning of the twentieth century and determined the order of scientific investigation,the way Arclipedians determine many subdivisions of learning. Alphabetical order.”

“Thus we have”, and Krell wrote ont he board

Biology

Chemistry

Physics

and

they are all

Good

For

the Kids

Until

They're

Not."

Krell wondered if there were any questions.

I raised my hand.

"So, Mr. Krell, physics is no more difficult than biology?"

Krell turned his gaze on me as a cat gazes at a mouse except with kindness rather than ferocity. "You're name is Ovid, right? That's an unusual name. Where did it come from?"

"My father named me after an eye doctor who cured him of lazy eye. His name was Dr. Ovid Pearson. He operated on my Dad's eyes."

"The reason I asked", said Krell, is that I have a great affection for the Latin poet Ovid whose most famous work is the Art of Love."

As if on cue Arthur sneezed snottily.

" Well, Ovid, do you think it's more complicated or important to figure out how we got here than who we are or how to build a television. All the sciences are the same. We've constructed the borders as another means of educational elimination of the unworthy."

He took a sip from whatever he was drinking and continued.

"The more the Arclipedeans took over the steps, the more schools came to resemble businesses. This was the great Arclipedian strategy. Find something essential, turn that essential into a business and keep the business a secret.Thus we have the great experiment of American public education. The schools serve as filtering devices for American society. The idea was for the rich to get richer, the poor to get poorer and for the multitude in the middle to miss the picture entirely.And for the Arclipedeans to make money, raise tuition and determine what is "good for the kids".

Krell wrote TUITION on the blackboard and then he continued.

"Arclipedeans realized that everybody loves rags to riches stories, so the most brilliant 2% of the poor and 18% of the middle class were permitted to pass through the screen. This permission was based upon stupendous grades which were largely based upon persistence, note-taking and subscription to values that were ‘good for kids’. Value to society was determined by the college attended at the end of the twelve year rainbow of public education. The kids with the most money went to the best schools which were, by Arclipedean definition, the schools that cost the most to attend. As soon as those kids graduated, they were expected to contribute generously to the alumni fund in support of their schools which kept the coffers of their selected schools full which enhanced the reputation of that school which made the prestige of a degree from that school so much greater. It was possible for a child from a rich family to go to a great school and become the most powerful man on the face of the earth even as that kid without the money could or should have Peter principled out as an assistant manager at Wendy's."

Krell wrote HAMBURGER on the board. I wanted one bad.

Then he continued.

"This is what Arclpedes foresaw when he said "let's all meet here at the same time next week".What to do with the masses of people who didn't have the money, the brains, the values or the persistence to make it through the screen to the Ivy League or even the Big Ten or even the SUNY system.There must be business posibilities in that mess er mass. We built colleges without dormitories and called those colleges junior colleges or community colleges. At these places we set up one last screen for entrance to the American dream. One final fling to begin to grab the brass ring."

He wrote MCC on the board. He looked around the room and continued.

"We can always find teachers who will work for next to nothing. We can put those teachers who will work for nothing in front of students who have next to nowhere to go.We can hire a load of budding Arclipedeans to keep the cruise on course, even if the cruise sometimes resembles a cross between McHale's Navy and the Love Boat. They can be Deans (short for Arclipedean) and department heads and project managers and instructional specialists and financial aid counselors and bursars etc, etc, etc.They can help us determine ‘what's good for kids’. In the end there will be a classroom with a minimum of five students and a teacher

in our

case,

four."

I noticed that whenever Krell wanted to make a point, he seriously

slowed

down

the pace

of his speech.

I looked around and noticed that neither Julia nor Arthur were taking notes of any kind. I was still too embarrassed to look at Haylen. I did look at her foot and noticed that her awesome sandal was half on and half off.

Did that mean she was taking notes or not?

When I raised my glance upward, I noticed that Arthur had a gloved hand in the air. I hadn't noticed the glove before. I figured Arthur was doing some sort of Wacko Jacko comedy act or something.

Krell spotted the glove and nodded at Arthur.

"Question?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "Are we gonna have a test on this stuff".

Arthur looked over at Julia, who nodded her head first at Arthur then at Krell.

Julia raised her hand. "Yes" said Julia "how exactly will we be graded in this course?"

Krell answered, "Let me answer the second question first. The grading will be metaphysical and as far as the first question, thank you for reminding me to bring up another early Arclipidean

whose

name

was

testacles"

Krell wrote TESTACLES on the board and continued."Back in the torch-lit prearclipidean days of learning, all instructional elements were in balance. Structure was in balance with substance. Sensing was in balance with thinking. Feeling in balance with intuition. Process in balance with coverage. Evaluation in balance with instruction.The distance between evaluation and instruction was minimal. Evaluation was part of instruction and instruction part of evaluation. Self-evaluation was evident. If a student could follow the instruction that meant the student could grasp the body of knowledge within the instruction. The level of individual grasp could be ascertained by the intensity with which the student applied the instruction to his, or in Lyviia's case, her life. In other words the illumination of torch was built upon two principles: 1) Take what you need and leave the rest. 2) By your works, you will be judged. Something about this didn't sit well with Arclipides. The problem began with sub-division and led to differrentiation. How could differentiations within sub-divisions be articulated.That's when Testacles revolutionized education. "Why don't we demand that the students repeat the words of the teacher to show that they have heard the words"

Krell wrote the word REPETITION on the board and then wrote it again and smirked.

"Arclipedes thought about this for a few days. When next he saw Testacles, he said "I like your idea about the students repeating the words of the teacher. The student who repeats the words most accurately gets the highest ranking in his subdivision.We need a word to describe the instrument that we will use to determine the level of repetition and the differentiation based upon that repetition. I've decided we should name that instrument after you, because it was your idea. When we ask students to repeat the words of the teacher,we'll call that demand for repetition a test. Now we need a word to call the differerentiations themselves. What should we call the results of the ya know, the uh test. It should be something like steps indicating movement up or down. What's another word for steps, Testacles "

"Ummm, steps are actually grades"

Krell wrote GRADES on the board and continued, pretending that he was both Arclipedes and Testacles. When speaking as Arclipedes Krell spoke in a higher, more rapid pitch. When Testacles, Krell slowed down and spoke in a deep basso profundo.

"Grades is great, Testacles. Students will take tests to earn grades. The higher the grades, the greater the rewards. 'Testacles, you're a genius'.Relentless, determined Testacles (pronounced test ah kleez) was honored but he had yet another question. "which words of the teacher should we demand that the students repeat on these tests. Should the same words be asked of every student even if they have different teachers/"

"The words', answered Arclipedes, "should be the words that are

best

for

the people"

Testacles, whose spirit was not easily broken, had one more question. "Who then determines what words of what teachers are best for the people/"

Arclipedes knew the answer to that one. "Testacles, my virile friend,

are

the people."

The class continued but my notes ended with

are

the

people.

STOPPING AT THE LIBRARY AFTER CLASS

After class I decided to cruise over to the town library to see if I could check out a copy of Cat's Cradle, Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye or Crime and Punishment. Hey if I can save a buck using the library, I'll save that buck.

Libraries are great anyways. Where else can a guy go to search for something that he wants, find that something and have somebody give him that something for free as long as the guy promises to bring that something back in a reasonable time.

Of course, even that level of freedom and civilization poses an ethical problem for some guys.

I know a guy who steals books from the library. In his mind he's not stealing them, he's just making his own due date. He'll swipe a book. He'll take it home. He'll take a lesiurely five month read. He'll slip the book back in the slot when he's finished, if he gets finished.

No problem.

Anyways when I was walking into the library, I noticed that somebody had unloaded maybe fifty cardboard boxes full of books on the sidewalk in front of the building. There were at least a thousand and maybe twenty five hundred books in those boxes. The sky was gray. Rain was drizzling down upon these abandoned books.

I stopped by the pile and looked at a couple of titles. One of the books that I picked up was called Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll. Another book which looked like a prayer book was called As Bill Sees It. A third book was called Myths and Facts: A guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

I tried to form a mental picture of the guy who had read and deep-sixed all these books and what kind of drama led to that abandonment/donation.

The only guy I could think of was Krell.

I assumed that all of the books in his collection would be equally compelling/comKrelling. I figured that when I came out, I could grab a dozen or so soaked books, dry them out and make them mine.

I entered the library. I picked up Catcher and Catch. I walked around the stacks for a few minutes looking at periodicals. Unlike the guy I told you about earlier, I checked out my books at the circulation desk in a civilized way.

Maybe twenty minutes had passed. I went outside, intending to grab some soaked books.The garbage truck had beat me to the books. Of the fifty boxes only four remained. I watched as the burly garbage guy picked up box number forty six of fifty and threw it into the grinder. Forty five boxes had already been devoured. Millions of words. Hours, weeks, years, centuries of attention and creation. The garbage guy noticed me looking at him. He hit me with a glance that howled "yeah?"

I said, "kinda sad, really"

He said, "It will all be recycled"

I said "You got it" and walked to my car.

I had learned something about life, death and eternity. The garbage guy had been yet another teacher. His name might as well have been Yoric. Mine might as well be Torch

I got in my car and headed South.I wondered what the guy who had brought all of those boxes of books to the library would have thought if he knew his beloved books would not even get into the door of the library. His donation was in vain.

It reminded me of the time that a buddy of mine accidentally ran over a stray cat who was looking for some shade. He was backing out of my family's driveway. He heard a tiny thump.He got out of the car. He found the lifeless cat. He put the cat in a bag. There would be no letting this cat out of this bag, not as a functioning cat anyways. My buddy brought the bag full of broken cat to our front door. He rang the bell. When my mother answered the door, my friend said: "This cat died in vain"

I've often wondered about that quote. My friend was suggesting that the cat in the bag had been ripped off before realizing its purpose in life. This suggests that cats actually have a purpose in life. If that purpose is to live nine lives, then the cat in the bag definitely died in vain.

Or maybe the cat's purpose in life, like all of ours, is to simply not be hungry or to get run over and become part of a legend.

I was feeling hungry so I stopped at Dee's delicatessen and bought a ridiculously huge submarine sandwich with everything aboard.

I continued to aim South, heading towards Keenan Park.

KEENAN PARK

Keenan Park is a great place to relax, meditate the purpose of cats, contemplate American education, take a nature walk and/or eat a sandwich. As I approached the Park, I noticed paper plates with arrows and words nailed to telephone poles. The plates read Civil War Re-enactment ahead. The arrows pointed towards Keenan Park. I noticed another word on some of the plates. That word was FREE. Hey, if it's FREE it's me.

Me, the words, my car, my submarine sandwich and the arrows were all headed for a collision at the same place.

I got out of my car at Keenan and started looking for a bench upon which to sink into my submarine. That's when I came face to face with Robert E. Lee.

General Lee was heading North as I was heading South. I was amazed to see General Lee. What do you say when you're walking South into a park to eat a submarine sandwich after a morning with Krell and you run into the replica of a dead rebel general who has reconstituted himself and is heading North?

I figured a crisp salute would be a good start. I snapped one off. General Lee smiled beatifically upon me and said "At ease, Johnny".

I relaxed and spoke "General Lee, you were a genius. You waged one hell of a campaign. If only the artillery had been more accurate, Pickett's charge might have worked and we'd be in a whole different ballgame right now."

"Actually," said General Lee, "Maybe not all that different. American politics today are more or less dominated by the old Confederacy if you think about it. So my men who were slaughtered goin' up the hill didn't totally die in vain"

"Unlike a cat I once owned", I replied.

"I have a cat too" said General Lee. "I mean not me as General Lee but me the guy who dresses up like General Lee at these here re-enactments. My cat once killed a Doberman named Duke"

"That sounds like one helluva story, uh General Lee"

"Just call me Lee. That's my given name, son. Lee Edward Roberts. I guess it was inevitable that I would end up masquerading as Robert E Lee. For all my years in school, they kept calling my name directory style whenever they took attendance. Ovah and ovah and ovah. One day, it hit me. My purpose in life. A simple twist of fate"

I wanted to hear about the cat and the Doberman but my stomach was starting to growl. I resisted my urge to inquire further. I snapped off another salute and said the only thing I could think of at such an odd moment: "Thank God for Aristotle"

General Lee nodded in agreement.

"Generally, I agree" is what I think I heard General Lee say as we parted and I headed further down the path, deeper into the Park.I continued to head south towards the bench in front of the pavillion past the meadow. As I strode towards the bench, two dozen people on horseback began to congregate at opposite ends of the meadow. A dozen were dressed in blue, another dozen in grey. All twenty four were brandishing wooden swords.

I reached the bench. I vowed never to be hungry again. I unwrapped my sub and began chomping just as the two dozen cavarly men began to charge towards each other.

I didn't mind the noise. I actually kinda liked it. The submarine tasted a little better because of it. It wasn't the noise that was causing my thought processes to grow blurry and dark.

I wasn't sure if what I was watching was a calvary or a cavalry re-enactment. I knew one of them was the correct word for the place where Christ got nailed and the other was the correct word for soldiers on horses.

I knew that soldiers on horses must have been quite the military breakthrough and quite an advantage over terrified, soon to be trampled soldiers not on horses.

I knew that soldiers on horses turned out to be quite a disadvantage when the fabled Polish calvary encountered German soldiers not on horses but rather in tanks. The Polish cavalry was blown to smithereens.

Even in my mind I started using both words for one meaning. I could settle for a fifty percent grade on my internal vocabulary. If I kept my mouth shut, no one would discover that I didn't know the difference between calvary and cavalry.

My muddled thoughts grew darker when I thought of that proud Polish calvary splattered across their particular slaughterfield. That was a bad scene for sure but nowhere near as bad a scene as nailing the son of God to a cross after whipping the crap out of him and crowning him with thorns like they did at cavalry.

Meanwhile the cavalrys in the meadow were having the time of their lives running into each other while flailing their wooden, fake swords. I realized the swords were crosses painted black and silver with one perpendicular four times longer than the other.

These replica forces were attacking each other with crosses.

I imagined all of the crosses with an outstretched figure upon them. I imagined the blue and the gray horsemen attacking each other with half-assed crucifixes.In that way, my description of the charge as either calvary or cavalry would have been correct.

Oh yeah, even on this bright afternoon my thinking had once again grown dark and out of focus.

"......................... .................... in focus"

I heard her before I saw her and I didn't clearly hear her until after I saw her. When I saw her, I didn't really see her. I saw Scarlett and Scarlett was hugging me.

"Are you talking to me?" I said in subdued DeNiro as I turned my head to the left. The face I saw inside the green bonnet belonged to Julia.

"Yes, I am" said Julia," and I was talking to you before when you were lost somewhere in dark space. I said 'hi', you didn't answer. Then I said, 'get your thinking back in focus' and you turned your head my way, all Taxi Driver. If you don't mind me saying so, you still don't appear to be seeing things too clearly"

I returned her greeting, told her that I didn't mind her saying so and added "that's quite a projection", even as I noted with internal alarm and external denial how accurate she was.

Julia said "I know a lot about projection. My grandfather was an arc-light carbon projectionist at the old RKO Palace. My father was a projectionist at Loew's before he became a megaplex manager. He would like me to become a professional projectionist but my mother has different ideas. She wants me to keep my projections intuitive."

"Well, what made you project that I was out of focus?" I asked

"Guys between eighteen and twenty five are always out of focus, sometimes more so than other times but always muddled, always absorbed by noise. Lots of times the puddle grows darker than it ought to be" said Julia.

I remembered how much the noise of the calvary charge helped me to enjoy my sandwich.

Julia/Scarlett was starting to scare me.

I feigned indifference.

"And upon what does your Dad base his projection"

"He bases his projection about the attention span of people on his policy for projectionists at his plex".

"He bases his projection about the attention span of people on his policy for projectionists at his plex? Is that what you said" I asked Julia.

"That's what I said", she answered."There's nothing wrong with your listening"

"Well, Julia, do you want me to project as to how your Pop's policy for projectionists at his plex affects his projection about the attention span of people or are you going to explain"

"Ovid, I'm flattered, You remembered my name. Why don't you go ahead and project"

"Julia I'm afraid my projection, according to your father's projection, would be dark and out of focus. Why don't you go ahead and explain"

I finished up my plastic twenty ounce bottle of Diet coke and tossed it at the waste basket next to the bench. A miracle...it went in. I pumped my fist and said 'yes' which Julia took as a signal to explain.

" Fair enough. Back in the days of Grand- Dad" Julia began, "movie theaters could seat many more viewers. Some, if not most theaters could sit a thousand folks at a time. Still, for all those people, they had only one projectionist operating two projectors. Each projector would carry a reel of film. Just before the reel ran out on the first projector, the projectionist would flip on the second projector which he had just loaded with the next reel. Didja ever notice those little scratches or circles that show up on the upper right corner of movies and wonder if you were seeing things?"

"Yeah, I've noticed those marks. They even show up on teevee when the old movies are played"

"Those marks signalled that the reel that was playing was coming to an end. The projectionist would fire up the second projector and at the exact second that projector one ran out of film, projector two picked up the slack and threw its light on the screen. As soon as projector two took over, projector one went into rewind. When the rewind was finished, the projectionist would take that rewound reel off the projector and replace that reel with the next reel which would be ready to go on projector one as soon as the film ran out on projector two."

"That's reely interesting" I punned as I felt my focus starting to slip. Julia missed the quip and continued.

"Those were the old days. One theater, one screen, two projectors, one projectionist. My Dad's multiplex has sixteen theaters, only two of which have more than three hundred seats. One has five hundred, the other has three hundred fifty. The other twelve range from one hundred to three hundred, Most of them are three hundred."

"Ya know, Julia, it's funny. I've always wanted to bowl a three hundred game. I think I'd rather bowl a three hundred game than hit a hole in one. It's close though. Which would you prefer"

"I'd prefer that you maintain your focus and let me finish what we started. If that's too much to ask just say so"

Here I was presented with the perfect storm, the ideal situation to use the greatest line of all time. I knew that all I had to do was say, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn' turn my back on Julia and exit stage North. I would have a story for my future wife, my future kids, my future grand-kids maybe even Krell.

And I was pretty sure Julia would sit there, watch me

walk

away

and

say

tomorrow

another

day.

I'm polite. I blinked. Castles made of sand melt into the sea.

Julia continued.

"Nowadays, in the megaplex, we have one projectionist operating eight projectors.This bit of planning saves us seven salaries for starters. That's part of the reason why we stagger the starting times of movies. Another reason is to keep a stready stream of customers passing by the concessions stand".

"Who can watch a movie without popcorn?" I asked.

Julia, at least one step ahead of me answered "And who can eat popcorn, especially popcorn loaded with extra salt and butter, without having a soft drink.?

"I'm getting thirsty just talking about it", I said while glancing at the empty Diet coke in the waste basket and wishing I had more.

"That's why the invention of cup holders in megaplex seats actually saved movies" she said while unfastening her bonnet.

Julia continued. "The projectionists can change the reels on eight projectors at a time by changing reels on one while the other seven go unattended. This more efficient operation does run the risk that other films not being attended to might snag in the projector and get burnt by the lamp. To prevent this from happening, the projectionists who work for my father routinely expand the gap between the gate that supports the film and the lamp. This provides a margin of safety. It also results in the films being shown out of focus.The higher the population of males between eighteen and twenty five in the opening weekend audience, the greater the gap between the gate and the lamp. Nobody ever complains. Ever."

Whoa. I thought that I was beginning to see the big picture.

I reflected back to Julia's original projection with a question"And you're projecting that we young guys don't complain because we don't know the movies are not in focus because our perception of life itself is out of focus therefore in synch with the out of focus film being projected behind us that shows up in front of us ?."

"Exacata mundo". replied Julia "And there's more. See, Dad's got to save money on projector lamps. Those things cost a grand a pop. The more play we can get from the bulb, the more money we save. So we play the out of focus movies that you guys watch on the projectors with the dimmest lamps.These are the lamps that we should replace but we can use on you guys because you never complain about the darkness or the out of focus projection because we turn the volume ten percent louder in the dim bulb auditorium than we do in the other auditoriums. As long as you guys hear a lot of noise, you don't particularly care what you see. And whatever it is that you're seeing, you don't mind if it's dark as long as it's loud."

The cavalry charge in the background had quieted down for a moment. I hoped the noise would begin again so I could concentrate on what Julia was saying and not be so distracted by looking at her. Especially without her bonnet. She was starting to piss me off.

Julia stood up suddenly and took a furtive look North followed by a lingering look South. As she stood, I got another look. Julia was vee shaped, or should I say vee vee shaped with the bottom vee inverted and the top vee tottering precariously on the the bottom vee.

No woman looks like that. Julia was wearing a corset. Why not, Scarlett wore one. Julia was channeling Scarlett . Fiddle Dee Dee.

To my great relief, the calvary in the meadow started another charge. The din helped me relax. I wanted to ask Julia about the corset but didn't know where to start. I figured that I'd feign innocence and since she was so good at reading my mind maybe she'd take the bait.

" Julia, your dress is beautiful. Is your outfit authentic?"

She smiled infuriatingly and changed the subject.

"Where did you ever get a name like Ovid."

"Well, when I was young, I had a problem with my eyes and......"

Julia interrupted and stepped a little closer " Oh yeah, I remember now..what’s your middle name?

“Warren”. That's my middle name."

Julia repeated my name aloud a couple of times "Ovid Warren Peets hmmmm.Ovid Warren Peets.

I had the feeling she'd get half the puzzle and she did.

"War and Peace. Damn, your last two names are war and peace"

"That's only the half of it" I confessed.

"Explain, Warren" She demanded.

"My first name is Ovid.Like Krell said in class, Ovid was a Roman poet. His most famous poem was The Art of Love. If you put the whole thing together, my name is Art, Love, War and Peace. My father thought that pretty well summed up life"

I could tell Julia was impressed because she shut up for a couple of minutes while she once again stood and looked North and then South. She moved a little closer still and asked “what do you prefer Ovid, art or love?”

I tried again. "Is your dress comfortable"

She came even closer, tilted her face upward and fluttered her eyelashes.

BIVOUACKED WITH BOBBI ROBERTS

Twenty four hours earlier, Julia was bivouacked in the midst of a huge misunderstanding between the over-all Confederate commander Robert E. Lee and his wife, Barbara 'Bobbi' Roberts'.

Julia had been participating in these encampments semi-willingly since she was a child. Because she no longer felt that she was a child, Julia didn't want to come to these "freak shows" any longer. The dustup began when Julia arrived in civvies and reported directly to the commander.

When the commander asked Julia why she was out of costume, Julia nuclear dumped."I'm out of costume because I'm sick and tired of feeding people crappy popcorn at the plex. I never want to have that giant salt shaker in my hand again. I've lifted my last box of Diet pepsi syrup and brewed my last batch of fake pop. I'm tired of Dad, thinking that I'm going to get into the theater business. That business is falling apart.Everybody knows that movies now are nothing more than sneak previews for DVD's and pay TV. Mom wants me to be a seamstress. I can't sew worth a damn. She knows it. I know itI'm going to community college now. I'm going there because my grades sucked in high school because I missed way too much school traveling around to these encampments.None of my history teachers gave me any credit for being here.The other teachers just thought encampment was odd; a gathering of live in the past doofusses with too much time on their hands. I'm having trouble keeping up in my classes. There are too many students in all of them, except one and that one has only four students and a weird teacher. There's a guy in that class who wears a glove all the time, who looks like he's got some complicated issues but he doesn't pay any attention to me. I don't like the other two students and I don't know what in hell the teacher is talking about nor how he intends to mark anybody."

By this time, Julia had tears streaming down her face." I can't stand my job. I'm a disappointment to my parents. I'm invisible at school. I have no future plans. I might get thrown out of a flunky college. I'm attracted to a weirdo with a glove who doesn't know I exist.I've come to believe that these encampments that I used to love are egotistical freak shows. I'm not the cute little kid at the camp anymore. I'm a nobody, a nothing."

Lee Lee was a bit conflicted.

Lee Roberts was picking up a snootful of the most alluring perfume emanating from Julia, desperation, vulnerability, sincerity and low self-esteem. This combination of pheremonic emotional aromas has always created an irresistible bouquet for the opportunistic male. Lee Roberts was such an animal.

General Robert E Lee, on the other hand, was all about empathy, action, and healing. General Robert E Lee was a God-like perfect example of man at the zenith of courage,compassion, chivalry, and Confederate culture. Lee Lee was a combination of both. So too was Robert Roberts.

The commander put his arms around Julia. She leaned her face against his shoulder. The tears increased. The commander ran his hand soothingly along the back of Julia's head.

"I wish you were wearing your snood", he said.

Julia began to laugh, wondering what that comment would sound like to anyone overhearing the comment who had no idea what a snood was. The commander pulled her in a little tighter. Julia felt safe. She felt protected.

"Why don't we take things one day at a time. Come back here tomorrow. Wear that Scarlett O'Hara curtain dress that I love so much, that we all love."

"But", said Julia, "I have classes tomorrow."

"I figured that you did" said the commander " Here's what you do. wear your dress to the classes. I'm sure you'll get noticed not only by the guy with the glove......" at the mention of the guy with the glove Julia laughed again"but also by the other folks in the class. It might even be a good time to ask the teacher about how he determines his grades. You certainly wouldn't look desperate or vulnerable or uh"

Lee Roberts hesitated. He was afraid that he was letting his mask slip.

"Or what?" asked Julia.

"Or lacking in confidence" Lee continued. "Then after class, meet me right here and we'll talk again. Does that sound like a plan"

"You always have such brilliant strategy, General Lee" Julia whisperered even as she was coming up with some strategy of her own.

The rebellious embrace tightened before it relaxed. As they pulled away from one another, Julia brushed her cheek against the beard of Lee. Her lips might have grazed his cheek as they passed. Maybe more than grazed.Maybe lightly kissed. All in the eye of the beholder. The South had risen again. Or hadn't.

The General’s wife, Bobbi Roberts had seen the whole thing.Buxom would have been an understatement. Reubenesque an overstatement. Voluptuous might have worked at one time when Bobbi had curves in places in which other women didn't even have places.

Simplicity is best.

Wide is the word.

Everything about Barbara "Bobbi" Roberts was wide, including her teeth.'Wide and white' is how Bobbi herself described them. She was proud of her teeth. They were her most outstanding physical feature, a feature that demanded maintenance to preserve the sparkle. Bobbi was all about maintenance.

Bobbi was in costume and her costume was flaunting her wideness. Her sleeves were wide. Folds on her bodice lent a further sense of width at the sholders and the bustline. She wore a wide hoop skirt which grew even wider as it descended towards her wide feet. The only thing relatively narrow about Bobbi was her waist which was narrow only in comparison to everything else and emphasized by gathers from her bodice and skirt. The narrowness at the waist only emphasized, by contrast, the width of her sleeves whenever her hands rested at her sides.

Bobbi parted her hair in the middle and her simple flat hairstyle added to the dimension of her width by accentuating the width of her face. She gathered her long hair in a mesh net known as a snood at the nape of what reamined of her retreating neck. Bobbi's snood was ornamented with bows and ribbons.

Bobbi was proud of her snood and also aware that for some reason her snood seemed to, uh shall we say 'invigorate' her husband.

A photograph of women during Civil War times usually caught the subjects with their lips tightly closed, often to conceal poor teeth. Bobbi's lips were tightly closed even though her teeth were far from poor. Bobbi's lips were closed because she was furious at what her eyes beheld as she looked through the window of the cabin in the park, the imaginary headquarters. Her husband, the so-called commander, was hugging and kissing some young hussy in civvies. Since the slut was in civvies, there was no way that Lee could justify his action as part of his duties as Commander. The dirty, cheating son of a bitch was whispering some indiscretion to that little crying/laughing harlot. Probably trying to arrange a slimy rendezvous for more intense cradle robbing.

Bobbi bided her time. She watched as the embrace ended with, what was that? was that a kiss?. She resisted the urge to barge into the cabin while the strumpet was still in residence. She would wait until the whore left then she would charge into that cabin and make life living hell for the commander, which she proceeded to do.

Besides her teeth, Bobbi had two other major assets that she could use as weapons, tools or adornments. Bobbi had a voluminous vocabulary and could wield that weapon with deadly, withering lucidity. Bobbi didn't need the eff word and had contempt for those who did. She used the language precisely rather than inarticulately to express her rage.

DUELING MERCY MANNERS

Bobbi was an inveterate reader of Miss Manners and was excruciatingly aware of correct behavior. This was asset number two. When Bobbi synthesized the two; withering lucidity with excruciating observation, the results were devastating. Bobbi confonted Julia and delivered a scorching criticism which was masked under a veil of maternal advice about oversharing and inappropriate familiarity. Bobbi knew her words could be taken many ways and she was ready to pounce on Julia’s response

Julia was not devastated. Julia was a lot like Bobbi except far younger and far narrower and not so well teethed. Julia was likewise a fan of Miss Manners. Julia also eschewed profanity in her discourse. Julia was not convinced of her innocence. She was going to have to convince herself with her spoken words. Julia leapt to her own defense.

"Mrs Roberts, you're advice is well taken but superfluous. I've made a habit of faking delight at worthless presents during Christmas time. I've shown false pleasure in the success of my competitors. I've expressed curiosity about the lives of the terminally boring who don't have much of a life for anyone to be curious about. Perhaps I did step over the line in my sharing with your husband and for that I am sorry. I hope you will accept my apology."

Bobbi, astonished at Julia's response, had an unexpected autonomous response. She succumbed to an inevitable natural phenomena. She burped.

Inexcusable.

Julia was aware that Bobbi had burped even as Bobbi attempted to cover the burp by treating it as if it were a cough. Bobbi formed the fingers of her hand into a wide fist and placed the thumbside of that fist against her mouth.

"Excuse me" said Bobbi, still pretending that the burp was a cough but aware that Julia probably knew the difference.

"There's no need to for me to excuse you, Mrs Roberts. Society recognizes the necessity of breathing and ingesting but ignores digestion as much as possible. I take digestion as a natural consequence of ingestion. Life is all about inclusion, exclusion and toleration. Sometimes we can not tolerate what we include and our bodies stammer before they exclude. Wouldn't you agree, Mrs Roberts?"

" That's true" said the General's wife who found herself starting to like the girl in the Scarlett O'Hara costume "And of the three, inclusion, exclusion and toleration, we spend most of our time in toleration. Our main troubles occurs when we attempt to include someone or something that we should have merely tolerated or completely avoided"

Jula nodded in agreement and prepared to explain the projected "kiss".

General Lee, meanwhile, had reached the meadow and was continuing to head North.

At the same time, a few clicks further North,Ovid grabbed his submarine sandwich and Diet Coke before booking out of his car which he had just parked after a weird morning with Krell.

Before Julia could begin her explanation of the projected kiss, she was surprised that Mrs. Roberts broke the silence first.

"On the subject of tolerance, we must be careful not to abandon our sense of right and wrong only to preserve transparent tranquility passing as toleration. We must not become doormats in a perpetual state of forgiving. We need not accept every apology. Or is this what forgive and forget is all about, pride swallowing and resignation?"

"No, Mrs Roberts, if that were the case, we wouldn't need to forgive and forget, we'd just need forget. There are two parts to that equation and we can always do one without the other. Surely, you have forgotten situations that you didn't choose to forgive. I know that I have. I don't want to load up my mind with those troubling distractions so I let them go. Still, I don't want to pass off toleration as absent-mindedness."

Bobbi Roberts was impressed by Julia yet not quite won over. "My dear, a few minutes ago, you apologized to me. You asked for my forgiveness. Doesn't that indicate some guilt on your part. Why else would you ask for forgiveness. How can I forgive you for something that you haven't done? Something that I clearly haven't forgotten? What does forgiveness mean to you?"

Julia thought for a moment. She was not afraid of wait time.

"Forgiveness, Mrs. Roberts, is a contract. Forgiveness is a two part deal. Forgiveness is a response to an apology. Just as we have become a society unwilling to pretend happiness, we have also become a society unwilling to apologize. Without apology, there can be no forgiveness. We have become an unforgiving society filled with unforgiven members. And no, you should not assume my guilt because of my willingness to apologize. In a more tolerant world, a more forgiving world for accidents or mistakes, even those obviously lacking in ill will or intention, would require an apology. That is the reason why I once again ask your forgiveness. I am prepared to explain my lack of ill will if you require that as a condition of your forgiveness"

Once again Julia was ready to explain the projected kiss.

Further North, Ovid saluted General Lee as the cavalry prepared to charge.

Bobbi was by now genuinely impressed.

"There is no need for further explanation. I accept your apology.You are a young woman of great promise. Furthermore, the quality of mercy is not strained.......

"It falleth as the gentle rain from heaven" Julia continued. Both women laughed. The storm clouds disappeared. Sunshine appeared over the meadow.

'Thank God for Shakespeare' Julia thought to herself in the momentary silence that ensued.

Julia knew the etiquette of social kissing but she was relieved that she didn't have to review that etiquette with Mrs. Roberts, the wife of the man with whom Julia had tested the boundaries of that etiquette. She was sure that Mrs Roberts knew the same rules that she did and that any misstep might bring back the storm or even worse, the whirlwind.

Julia knew that five areas were available in the realm of acceptable social kissing: the lips, the right cheek only, the right cheek followed by the left cheek and/or the hand. Julia knew that when she pulled away from her embrace with General Lee that she had perhaps kissed his right cheek. Even if she had for sure kissed his right cheek, that indulgence would fall safely within the boundaries of acceptable ettiquette.

Julia also knew that as the woman in the embrace, it was her privilege and not General Lee's to initiate a public kiss on the lips. Julia was aware that if she presented her lips by tilting her face upward without moving it to either side, any gentleman would have no choice but to accept her offering. Especially if she closed her eyes after fluttering her lashes amidst the face tilt. General Lee was without a doubt such a gentleman. Any such offering would have been enthusiastically accepted. Julia was certain of that consequence.

Julia remembered that she had considered that posture and for the sake of propriety had decided against it. This recollection nearly enabled Julia to rationalize her peck on the cheek of General Lee as an innocent expression of affection. Nearly but not completely. Julia did have the remnants of a nagging self-suspicion. Had she loaded up an extra thrill charge on the peck? She suspected that she had.

She needed a further demonstration of her innocence along with a reason to get away from Mrs Roberts while the getting was still good.

That's when Julia spotted Ovid as he walked past the meadow and headed for the bench. It was time for the “fake boyfriend” trick.

"Please excuse me, Mrs Roberts, but that's my boyfriend over there with the sandwich. He said he'd come over here today and there he is"

Bobbi was relieved that Julia had such a young boyfriend. She chuckled at the foolishness of her own suspicion that one as young as Julia would be in any way interested in one as much older as her husband.

"Oh, he's cute" Bobbi lied. "Go over and greet him right now. We'll talk later"

"I'll take my leave then" said Julia and started heading over to Ovid.

The old and reliable fake boy friend trick had seemingly worked again but Julia was going to need an almost immediate hug and maybe even a subsequent kiss from Ovid to seal the illusion. She didn't think that would present much of a problem. Julia knew how to flutter and flatter.

Meanwhile Ovid was trying to grasp the difference between cavalry and calvary.

A PRAYER IN THE MEADOW

Julia surprised me by giving me a quick hug as if I were her boyfriend.

At that very instant I realized that Julia and I were totally different. Her embrace felt to me like the kind of embrace a cat would throw on a mouse if the cat and the mouse were about the same size and if they were standing on their hind legs and if the cat was wearing Scarlett O'Hara gear and the mouse had just finished eating a submarine. The mouse might try to put his arms around the cat but since the arms of the cat are so much longer than the arms of the mouse, his embrace would be considerably less determined than hers; as was my embrace of Julia.

Even as I held on loosely I could sense that Julia was not above stealing apples to get her free ride to skull island. I thought she might look real good strapped to a stone altar. I figured that she was the kind of woman who would make a tiny man live in a dollhouse until she accidentally knocked him down the cellar stairs and assumed he was lost in the flood.

That's when I sensed her moving away from our embrace. That's when I felt her lips brush against my right cheek.That's when she lifted her chin, tilted back her head, fluttered her eyelashes and closed her eyes.

I'm no gentleman.

I did the same thing.

As we both tilted our heads in opposite directions, I had a moment to think. If a photographer came by and snapped a picture of the two of us at that instant, the picture might look as if we were praying.

I know this is true because a photographer did snap a picture at that moment and a week later it was published in the paper above the caption, Prayer in the Meadow. In the picture Julia looks a lot like a female praying mantis.I look like the male mantis who an hour earlier had been telling his mantis friends "Man, I'd love to be torn limb from limb by that."

Back in real time, I opened my eyes, looked down at Julia with her pursed lips and realized that I had one more chance. This time, I took it.

"No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."

Julia whispered "But Ovid, I need a little kiss right now" Our lips were so close that an onlooker would have thought we kissed and imagined Atlanta in flames behind us.

Damn, she had given me yet another opportunity. I took it.

"That's your misfortune".

I broke from her embrace and started heading North.

I resisted the urge to turn around for one final look at Julia. I figured that she figured that tomorrow would be another day. As I neared the parking lot, I once again encountered General Lee, who was heading South. He was heading back towards the battle ground. Once again I saluted.

"I've been thinking about your cat story that must have been one bigass cat"

"I imagine it was"

General Lee straightened himself into his full height. Dude was tall. I felt myself growing smaller.

"That fool dog must have made the mistake of getting between the big cat and her kittens. That strategic position is a must to avoid whether it's cats or humans; individuals or armies" observed Lee Roberts. "Sometimes, it's not the size of the dog in the fight or the size of the fight in the dog, it's the size of the fight in the cat in the dogfight"

"Cats are cats. Dogs are dogs. As a rule, they don't get along. Cats and dogs are not people" I saluted again looking to be discharged.

"That's right Johnny. We are the people" concluded Lee Roberts as he dismissively and somewhat doggedly returned my salute.

I'd heard that one somewhere before.

General Lee went South. I went North. I recaptured my car, put it into reverse and then pointed it towards my apartment.

TUBE TIME AT THE PAD

By the time I got home, I was ready for some serious tube. I hit the couch, grabbed the remote and checked the guide. The Incredible Shrinking Man was going to start in five minutes. I locked in and flashed back.

When my brother was a baby, my parents got their first VCR. My folks had a lot of chores to do around the farm so he did a lot of solitary playpen time. They'd stash him in the pen, turn on the VCR and go about their business. Our VCR collection of movies consisted of two; King Kong and The Incredible Shrinking Man. I used to stand by his playpen and watch those flicks over and over again. My parents tell me that by the time he was three, he must have seen each of those movies over a hundred times each.

I’ve seen each of them at least 50 times.

As a matter of fact, as I was driving away from Julia and General Lee I did what I usually do when times get complicated, I started thinking about Scott Carey, The Incredible Shrinking Man.

I wondered what kind of vision Scott had. I wondered if Scott's wife could hear him yelling when she booted him down the cellar stairs. I understood once again, why cats are not my favorite animals. I recalled the terrifying strength of spiders.

I know a thing or two about eyes. I know that we need light to see. I know that the amount of light we recieve is determined by the size of our retina. When Scott Carey grew smaller, I assume that the size of his retina grew smaller in proportion to the rest of his dome. Otherwise, Scott would have been an eyeball, way beyond 'bulging', atop tiny legs scurrying around the floor. Scott's body would have been eighty percent eyeball We would have had an even more horribly absurd movie, particularly if somehow during the scurry, the bulging eyeball with feet had blinded itself which under the circumstances was probably inevitable

I imagined an observer of the scurrying impaired eyeball watching as the miniscule monster ricocheted from wall to wall. "Oh, my God, what could be worse than to be just an eye" , the observer might say to his companion who might reply "well, it could be blind" which in this case it would have been which wasn't of course the case in the uh movie.

The case in the movie was that Scott had normally proportioned retinas about seventy times smaller than the retinas he had before he started shrinking which means that he was stumbling around with hardly any light flying through the pinhole of his retina. Just think how scary everything is in the semi-darkness, especially the blurry semi-darkness. Scott's blur was infinitely more dark and out of focus than any projector Julia might try to imagine.

Although there were a lot of loud noises.

Besides the cat and the spider and his wife's high heels, Scott had to deal with perpetual semi-darkness.

And as his vocal chords shrunk, his ability to generate sound waves also shrunk. I'm sure that Scott was screaming his head off at his wife before she kicked him down the stairs and equally sure that she couldn't hear a sound he was screaming which may have been just as well because with diminished hammer, anvil and stirrup, he wouldn't have been able to understand her reply any more than we are able to make out the words in thunder.

Is Thunder really Godspeak for "it's raining".

Hmmm.

This of course made me think about ants. Are they trying to yell something at us as we step on them? Are we huge, incomprehendible thunderhead blurs in a dark world trampling upon them even as they warn us about their homes and their children and the work that has to be done?

I think not. They're different from Scott Carey. They never shrank.

The movie started. I watched it again for the first time in at least ten years.

I realized how much I had grown.

RETURN TO KRELL”S CLASS

" Phi, Chi, sigh, omega"

Haylen smiled. She had completed the Greek alphabet twice on one match. She hadn't even glanced at her notes.

While Krell nodded at Haylen; Arthur, Julia and I exchanged glances that screamed " we're the bozos on this bus".

A moment later, according to my notes, Krell started in about Socrates.

"Socrates was born in 469 BC and lived until 399 BC. If you do the math, you'll see that Socrates died when he was only thirty two years old. Go ahead and do the math and find out for yourself."

I did the math.

We did the math.

No problem. Socrates was only thirty two when he died.

Then Haylen raised her hand.

Problem.

"Mr. Krell, according to my math. Socrates was seventy when he died."

"Seventy, Haylen?" Krell raised his eyebrow.

I thought maybe the three of us were geting off the bozo bus or at least making room on board for Haylen. Haylen continued. "Yes sir. In this case, the count is backward rather than forward. Socrates wasn't one year old in 470 BC. 470 BC was also 1 BS."

Krell seemed not only to understand but also to be entertained. "What, may I ask for the good of the class, is 1 BS?"

"Sure" responded Haylen. " 1 BS is one year before the birth of Socrates. Socrates was born in 469 BC. One year before his birth, the year would have been 470 BC not 468. In 468 Socrates would have been one year old. Of course, he didn't know the year was 470 or 468 or anything BC. Nobody had any idea when Christ would be born or who Christ was or why Christ would be important or why their very birthdays would be determined by the future son of a carpenter"

"Very true, Haylen. Now how does your counting backward mechanism work" asked Krell.

"It took sixty nine years to get from 469BC to 400 BC. Then you add one more for 399 and that leaves you with seventy. Socrates lived to be seventy"

I did the math. Haylen was absolutely correct.

"Do the math again and you'll find that Haylen is absolutely correct. You should also learn to think carefully about anything that your teacher says. Particularly if that teacher is I" said Krell.

At that moment because I had done what Krell had said before he said it, I felt like an Advanced Placement Bozo. I was still on the bus but I was moving a couple of seats closer to the driver.

"Before we go any further, does anybody know anything else about ancient Greece that would be illuminating for the class to consider?" Krell asked.

The usual silence followed.

The usual silence was followed by the usual two follow ups. "Anybody?.....Anything"

I was feeling pretty smart in a stupid way so I decided to step up.

"Yeah, that's where the first French fries were made"

Julia, got all over that observation. "No they weren't they were made in France. That's why we call them French fries"

Krell came to my rescue.

"Wherever they were made, they were indisputably made in Grease. Good one Ovid"

Julia laughed out loud.

Arthur and Haylen were pissed.

Arthur must have felt marginalized because he responded with a snarky comment to Krell which he read from a three by five index card. "My father told me that Socrates, despite his place in history, was over-rated. He actually wrote nothing because in essence he felt that knowledge was a living, interactive thing. Most of what we know of him comes from the historical inaccuracy and misinterpretation found in the works of Plato and later Thomas Aquinas."

Krell answered " Well Arthur, your father seems like quite a smart man. I imagine he's had a great influence on your life. There's a lot of truth in what he says but like all truths it bears closer examination"

Arthur seemed to wince at the mention of paternal influence.

Krell continued.

"First of all, let's deal with the concept of over-rated and let's consider the list of the over-rated. I'll bring up a few: Shakespeare, Caesar, Elvis, Lincoln, Marie Curie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Meryl Streep, the Beatles,Amelia Earhart Picasso, Da Vinci, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, Katherine Hepburn, Mother Theresa. All may be considered over-rated simply because they are famous. Fame is an integral part of iconic over-rating. How can you be over-rated unless you're famous? Nobody's gonna over-rate Sid Gertner, the guy who lent Lincoln the pen that Abraham used to write the Gettysburg Address. Where would we be today if at that moment of inspiration, Gertner didn't have a pen. The reason nobody's going to over rate Gertner is because nobody knows that Sid, performing one of the millions of unnoticeded acts of kindness that characterize human behavior lent the pen to Lincoln in the first place.”

Krell write SID GERTNER on the board and continued

"Of course, you might say that since I identified Gertner and Gertner is long departed, he must be somewhat famous and thus susceptible to be over-rated. The problem is that I don't know whether or not Gertner gave Lincoln the pen. Somebody probably did. That somebody has been totally forgotten by history so just because I name that somebody Gertner doesn't mean that Gertner becomes a figure of historical importance although I'm sure that exact mechanism has occurred in history many times over.”

Krell wrote OBSCURITY on the board and continued "Even when that somebody, like Gertner, might not have existed at all at least under that name.We remain alive as long as anyone who ever knew us or knew of us remains alive. The people who live the longest are those who have created enduring works of art or who have had enduring works of art created about them or who are simply remembered by the most people.These people are famous. These people may end up over-rated.Socrates was such a one as for that matter was Plato and Aquinas. So Arthur, I agree with your Dad about part one."

Krell paused.

PLAY MEATBALL

Ya know how when you go to concerts there's always some doofus yelling out for the performer to play their most overplayed song as if the performer doesn't realize that people want to hear the overplayed song and no matter how much he hates playing the overplayed song over and over again, he's going to have to play it some time during the show and he's already figured out when and where it will fit into the program that will cause him the least discomfort and cessation of creative momentum? Usually that place will be at the very end of the show when the artist can't put it off any longer and where momentum can mercifully end.

Ya know the guy standing fifteen feet away from Dylan after Dylan opens his show with Maggie's Farm who starts yelling for Like a Rolling Stone as if Dylan is not going to play that song.

Or even worse, the guy who starts yelling for "Blowin' in the Wind". Ya know, the guy who has never heard Visions of Johanna but knows every word to Blowin in the Wind and has come to the show for a hootenanny after walking down many roads that have led him to the conclusion that he can indeed call himself a man. And his wife next to him, the woman who married him anyway, who somehow thinks Dylan is going to sing Puff the Magic Dragon or If I were a Carpenter.

Whenever I hear one of those guys, I try to balance out their request by yelling out a request for a song that nobody knows, not even the artist because the song doesn't exist. I picked out a title for this imaginary song, a title unlike any title I have ever heard for a song. The title of the non-existent song that I yell out for the artist to play after a nimrod has just yelled out the name of the artist's most overplayed song, the title of that song is MEATBALL.

I yell out "PLAY MEATBALL".

I've even gone so far as to light my lighter while yelling out PLAY MEATBALL. I've even been pro-active and yelled PLAY MEATBALL before the other guy has yelled out say PLAY BORN TO RUN at a Springsteen show.

Once, sweet Jesus, I was in the front row for a Neil Diamond show with a single ticket that I had won after accidentally being the seventeeth caller. I knew the blue hair next to me would be screaming for "Sweet Caroline" so the instant that Neil took the stage I beat her to the punch by yelling "PLAY MEATBALL". Neil heard me. I think he put a mental comma after "play" so he heard "PLAY, MEATBALL" before he had song a note or strummed his guitar.

Neil was more puzzled then pissed.

So was the blue hair next to me.

Who, now that I think about it, looked a lot like Barabra Bush.

But that's unusual.

Usually, the people around me look at me as if I know something that they don't know which might even indicate that I am an actual "friend of the band" because actual friends of the band are always yelling out things to their friends in the band that nobody but the guys in the band or the friends of the band understand. The old fake in-joke trick.

Those who don't mistake me for an actual ‘friend of the band’ often regard me as an expert on the band because only an expert on the band would know such an obscure title as MEATBALL and have the insight expressed through his bellowing to suggest to the performer who may have forgotten the song that the exact instant of the yell would be a great time to reach into an ancient bag of tricks, to redistribute the stones in the kaleidoscope by twisting the barrel in a new-old fashioned way.

I usually get a lot of respect when I yell PLAY MEATBALL.

After Krell's bit about the torches in response to Julia's snit fit, I wanted to yell PLAY MEATBALL to see if I could get him back on track but since this was a college class and not a concert I decided to do a variation of PLAY MEATBALL.

I yelled out

"What about Socrates"

Krell continued

THE STORY OF SID

"The story of Sid touches upon the subject of historical inaccuracy. You or your Dad's charge of Platonic misinterpretation, Arthur, leads me to a subject that in the study of metaphysics is probably unavoidable and certainly embedded. That subject is physics. This is a good time to oversimplify and humanize the laws of thermodynamics of which there are three. The first law basically states any change in the internal energy of a system will be the result of work done on or by that system and any heat flow into or out of the system. In other words, the universe assures us that we can never win, that is if winning means getting out more than we put in. Or as the over-rated Beatles once sang "and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make"

Krell wrote BEATLES on the board in small letters and continued.

"Except it isn't. It's a little bit less. That's what the second law of thermodynamics tells us. Not only can't we win, we can't even salvage a tie. The second law states that in any process to convert heat energy that flows from a hot object to a colder object into Work, there will inevitably be some loss. That loss can be attributed to the entropy of the systems involved. Entropy is the natural state of the universe. Entropy is disorder.Try as we might to put things in order, entropy will always rear up and demand our attention or else matters will naturally grow more chaotic.Let's assume that in learning, the teacher is the hot object and the student is the colder object. The teacher tries to transfer some of his heat to the student when the student is ready. The teacher can not transfer all of his heat. The natural entropy of the transfer insures misinterpretation Certainly, Plato misinterpreted Socrates. Certainly Aquinas misinterpreted Plato's misinterpretation of Socrates. Your father, Arthur, is misinterpeting the Aquinas misinterpretation of the Platonic misinterpretation of Socrates."

Krell noticed that I was taking notes furiously.

"Even as I talk" Krell continued, "I notice that Ovid is taking notes which assures me that I will be misinterpeted when Ovid rewrites his notes. The misinterpretation will not be limited to Ovid but also will be shared by anyone reading Ovid's rewritten notes. So my interpretation of Arthur's father's misinterpretation of Aquinas misinterpreting Plato misinterpreting Socrates will also be misinterpreted. And that's in the present. Imagine what would remain after twenty three hundred years of misinterpretation and entropy."

Krell drew a breath.

Arthur asked another question "what's the third law of thermodynamics"

Krell summarized, "if the first law means we can't win and the second law means we can't even break even, the third law means we can never get out of the game. We being in this case, Socrates, Plato, Aquinas, Arthur's father, Arthur, me, Ovid and anyone who will ever read's Ovid notes.We're in this game forever and we can't win."

In the momentary vacuum, I started imagining the twenty seventh inning of a meaningless September ballgame between the Tigers and the Mariners tied at four to four with two outs and nobody on and nobody getting warm in the bullpen with everybody on Earth watching and nobody giving a damn who wins, not even the players themselves because both teams are expecting to lose.

My reverie was interrupted by a follow-up question from Julia.

"So if I misunderstood you correctly, you're about to present yet another misinterpretation of the life of Socrates which we in turn will distort according to our individual, emotional entropy. Then at some point, you will give us a test which will measure our misinterpretation against yours and the difference will produce a profile of the intensity of our academic or intellectual chaos which, you will then translate into a 'grade' of some sort ?"

Krell paused for only a moment before replying. "Well Julia, in the unlikely event that I understand what you're asking I'd have to disagree that you misunderstood me correctly but add that yes you have understood me incorrectly which shouldn't come as any surprise based on the laws of thermodynamics which I just misrepresented through over-simplification."

Arthur was more or less lost in these particular woods but at Julia's mention of a test, his impulse towards defintion engaged and he asked another concrete question.

"So is Julia right about the test?"

Krell replied.

"Arthur, in the midst of her misunderstanding, Julia did strike a little gold. I will test your misinterpretation of my misunderstanding of metaphysics and use my more constant misunderstanding as a yardstick to measure my evaluation of your more random misinterpretations. Remember though that the grades themselves will be misconstrued by whomever looks at them. Not only will the grades be misconstrued but the actual title of the course will be misunderstood, as you yourselves have already been fooled by the course which I unintentionlly misrepresented in the course catalogue which is in itself a studied collection of chaos presenting itself under the illusion of clarity. So, I wouldn't worry too much about the tests or the grades."

Julia again, "Then what should we worry about".

Krell again "I'm going to start worrying about the life of Socrates and how it relates to the writing of Plato and how Plato influenced Aristotle and how Aristotle created metaphysics and since I'm the teacher, part of your job is to read my mind so that your misunderstanding can more closely resemble mine. You might start worrying about Richard Boone, because when I was a kid my favorite teevee show was Have Gun Will Travel and the influence of Paladin keeps popping up uncalled for in my mind when I least expect it, like right now for instance, and that's the mind that you guys are supposed to read if you are to get an A in this course. I hope I'm not making myself clear"

This sounded to me like an opportunity for a rallying cry.

I yelled out "Yes, you're not. Let's hear about Socrates"

Krell continued......

"Last class, I created a straw man called Torch. Perhaps you imagine that Torch was a lot like Socrates. That would be no accident if you did because I was trying to paint a picture of a person who would remind you of Socrates yet not be Socrates."

Julia raised her hand again "Isn't Torch an unfortunate name for a straw man”

"I wanted to get across the idea of illumination, " Krell responded. "The concepts of spontaneous combustion and subsequent immolation were only glowing on the periphery of my metaphoric construction but since you've highlighted it, then yes, the choice of Torch is not as unfortunate as you might imply"

Krell wrote ILLUMINATION on the board

"And let's finish up this little exercise in misinterpretation with the demise of the angry towns-people galummphing through village greens at midnight, heading towards the forest pursuing some heresy and trying in vain to interrupt the inevitability of that heresy's ultimate ascension to mythology and/or orthodoxy. Who were the guys leading that parade? The local torch makers led those exercises in violent, mob induced misinterpretation. At one time, torch making was a highly sought skill and as sure a sign of leadership as the ability to throw rather than the ability to lift. When the mob finally reached the windmill, the castle or the bridge or whatever was the target of their misinterpretation, which of the torch bearers usually took over leadership? That's right, the guy who threw his torch at the castle, the the bridge, the windmill or the whatever. It's amazing how often a single torch hit the hay just right which caused the formerly indestructible castle to ignite and burn to the ground along with the collection of disparate,walking cadaver parts and the insane quack who sewed them together in the name of progress.Ever since Edison invented the light bulb, we have had a dearth of torch driven angry mobs. I for one miss them. I say we should bring them back. What would happen if tonight a group of students met on campus; ignited a bunch of torches and then marched through the town? It ain't gonna happen because torches are illegal. Yeah, you can get those fake kerosene torches for your random midnight barbecues but the days of the good old fashioned torches used to whip a group of lunatics into a misguided outburst of ill conceived frenzy led by the best and seemingly least belligerent torch thrower in the town have passed us by

unless

count

Donald Trump

and teevee."

Krell continued

"Ovid's response is a perfect example of what we call in education 'a window of instructional opportunity'. In show biz, that's referred to as giving the people what they want or putting the light on the star. Apparently, Ovid wants me to get on with the story of Socrates which is what I wanted to do in the first place but hesitated to do so because I felt as if the venetian blinds were covering the windows and then when we started down the road, we had to take a small detour at the straw man.

Krell opened the venetian blinds and continued

“The good teacher, of which I'm sure Socrates was one, recognizes these windows of instructional opportunity when they arise and uses them to the advantage of the class. So on we go with Socrates.Socrates as a child wasn't handsome but he was probably rich which is a trade off many of us would accept. We assume that he came from a prosperous family because as a young man he had enough leisure time available to master the philosophy of his era.The emerging philosphy consisted largely of various attempts to provide scientific explanations for the origin and structure of the universe. This wasn't going too well because we still hadn't discovered that what goes up must come down and just about everything else regarding science including the concept that the sun rather than the earth was the center of our astronomical system and that the Milky Way is composed of an infinite number of stars and the Milky Way is one of an infinite number of solar systems and that man might not be the center and purpose of the universe. Of course, Galileo added much of that information two thousand years after Socrates and the great Italian scientist was immediately confronted with a mob carrying torches who took him to the Inquisition where the Pope made him promise that he wouldn't tell anybody that the earth moves."

Krell wrote GALILEO on the board and continued.

"A smart guy like Socrates could see right off the bat that lots of problems existed within the emerging scientific explanations among them no television, no radio,no cars,no internet and a flat earth but he also understood that they were much better than the mythological explanations that were prevalent in his time. It's not clear what levels of academic success Socrates attained in his study of science or physical philosophy but we do know that by the start of the Pelopennesian War which occurred when Socrates was in his mid thirties, he had abandoned physical philosophy and began the examination of conduct that he would continue for the rest of his life.

Krell wrote WAR on the board and continued.

"Apparently that transition which began with alienation from science was precipitated by Socrates' interpretation of an inquiry directed to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi by an Athenian named Chaerephon. According to the oracle.........."

Julia again.

"How do you spell that last name that you mentioned. The guy who asked the question of the oracle. It sounds like 'chair on a phone but I'm sure it's not spelled that way."

Then Arthur

"And how do you spell the name of the war that was going on when Socrates was in his thirties"

Krell wrote Chaerephon and Pellopenesian on the board.

Then Julia again

"And, uh, isn't the Milky Way a galaxy and not a solar system?"

Then Haylen

"How do you spell that last name that you mentioned. The guy who asked the question of the oracle. It sounds like 'chair on a phone but I'm sure it's not spelled that way."

Then Arthur "And how do you spell the name of the war that was going on when Socrates was in his thirties"

Krell wrote Chaerephon and Pelopenesian on the board.

Then Julia again "And, uh, isn't the Milky Way a galaxy and not a solar system?"

Krell heard Julia's question with his back.

The questions were coming hard and fast as questions do when a class suspects the opportunity to fluster, contradict or break the teacher.

When he finished writing the two words on the board, he turned and faced the class."Solar system or galaxy, what's the difference?" Krell shrugged his shoulders as if he had been asked to explain the difference between an aardvark and an anteater.

Julia answered. "I should think there would be quite a huge difference as a solar system is part of a galaxy which means a galaxy is bigger than a solar system"

Arthur chimed in. "yeah, and a solar system is smaller than a galaxy"

Krell responded, "Thank you two for overstating the obvious. I was being metaphysictional which is of course unfair because you guys still don't even know what metaphysics is."

This response fired Arthur's obsession with definition. "Well then, Mr. Krell, can you finally give us a definition of metaphysics"

"Arthur, I can give you a definition of metaphysics but that definition by definition can not be the defintion of metaphysics. Voltaire said 'when he that speaks and he to whom he speaks, neither of them understand what is meant, that is metaphysics '

I thought I understood so I yelled out "I don't understand what you mean"

To which Krell joyfully responded "And I don't understand what you mean when you say you don't understand what I mean"

To which Haylen added "Eureka. At last we arrive at an example of Voltairean metaphysics, if I am understanding you both incorrectly"

Krell was obviously pleased with the lesson. The venetian blinds were opening and the sun was streaming into the consciousness of at least three of us in the room.

Krell continued.

"I always consider solar systems and galaxies to be similar because of the beach. When I walk on the beach, I realize that there are as many stars in our solar system as there are grains of sand on all the sandy beaches of our planet. The sun is one of those grains of sand. Our grain of sand is surrounded by by nine planets, thirty one moons, thousands of planetoids, millions of comets, innumberable meteoroids and vast quantitities of interpplanetary dust and gas. Can you grasp that Ovid"

"No I can't grasp that Mr, Krell"

"Excellent, then I will continue.

Krell continued. “Our grain of sand, our sun, appears toward the outer rim of our galaxy in which there are billions of other grains of sand like our sun, millions of which are surrounded by moons, planetoids, comets, meteorites and are thus known as solar systems. Now we continue walking down the beach and pick up yet another grain of sand and realize that there are as many galaxies out there in the universe as there are grains of sand on all the beaches on our planet. Every time that we increase the magnitude of our telescopes we discover more galaxies which means the number of galaxies may well be infinite which is even more galaxies than grains of sand. And the universe is expanding and with each expansion more beaches, more grains of sand. Can you comprehend what I'm saying Haylen"

"No sir, I can not comprehend the enormity of what you are saying," answered Haylen.

Julia again, "I can clearly understand what you're saying. You're asking what's the difference between a solar system and a galaxy and you're answering your own question by saying 'hey they're both grains of sand on the grand scale of things so what's the diff'. That's what you are saying"

Krell again

"Thank you Julia because what you are saying is a perfect example of exactly what I've been saying but I don't suppose you understand why it is such a perfect example"

Julia again, "No, I don't"

Krell again, "You're learning"

"But what is it that I'm learning?" Julia wanted to know.

"Julia, if you had understood me a little less correctly, I would guess that you had learned something about the way we as humans misinterpret the consequentiality of the physical and have therefore embraced the metaphysical.Certainly, it's fine to deny the immensity of the physical as defined by the incomprehensibility of the cosmic but all of that changes the moment someone hits you in the face with a rock.A rock is not theoretical.”

Krell wrote ROCK on board and kept on. “A rock is nothing but a fact.And as far as an abstract idea like freedom goes, my freedom to throw a rock ends where your freedom to have a face begins. Once we have defined the actual boundaries of an abstract idea like 'freedom' we can begin to explore the consequences of another abstract idea known as 'justice'.. Both 'freedom' and 'justice' are based upon the shaky alliance between the abstact and the concrete"

I decided I better try to get this locomotive back on track. "Metaphysics rawks. Rawk on Sawkrates"

Krell took the hint and returned to CHAIR ON A PHONE.

"When Chaerophon inquired at the shrine of oracle of Apollo at Delphi, he was informed that "no man was wiser than Socrates". Chaerophon passed this message to Socrates. Socrates knew that Apollo could not lie but he also knew that he himself possessed no great wisdom. Thus Socrates arrived at the riddle that would inspire him for the rest of his life.”

"I look at the clock and realize that our time together today is just about up. The sand has passed through the hour glass so to speak. I'll save the riddle that haunted Socrates for next time. Any questions?"

"Yes," said Julia. "Let's imagine that you are the oracle at Delphi and I am Chaerophon. My question Mighty Apollo is this, who is the smartest person in this class?"

Krell stepped right into the role " no one is wiser in this class, no one is wiser in this college, no one is wiser in this city, no one is wiser in this state, no one is wiser in this country than ........."

Krell made eye contact with everyone in the room

"No

One

Wiser

Than

Ovid."

I was more stunned than anyone in the class when Krell made his observation. I lingered around after class to see if I could get some validation from Krell about the seriousness of his remark. Julia was hanging around too, pretending to organize her notes but in reality, trying to make sure that I wouldn't get a moment with Krell.

Krell was getting edgy.

He looked at the both of us and asked "are you guys ready to get outta here"

Julia scurried out of the room without a word.

Now me and Krell were alone.

"Did you mean what you said when you were pretending to be Apollo?" I asked Krell.

Krell on his way out the door, turned back and said, "Does a bear shit in the woods?"

Then he was gone.

I left the room right behind Krell. I was thinking about bears and wisdom. Grizzly bears in particular. Grizzly bears are my favorite animal for a lot of reasons but the most outstanding reason is that Grizzly Bears have the ability to walk backwards in their own footprints for up to two and a half miles in order to confuse whomever/whatever is tracking them.

I started imagining, not for the first time, this gigantic ferocious grizzly bear somehow picking up one foot after another then stepping backwards daintily with that ponderous paw/claw and placing it exactly claw for claw in the track it had made leading up to the retreat. It's like bear moon-walking which certainly must befuddle, astonish and amuse whatever is tracking the bear.

And the next question is, of course, how and why did bears learn this distinctive survival trick. How often in the wild is something actually tracking a bear and what, if not a guy with a gun, could that something be? A grizzly bear is at the top of the food chain. You'd have to be an awesomely hungry cougar to be tracking a bear. Moose freak out at the tiniest whiff of bear crap. It's obviously not Bullwinkle tracking the bear. So if it's not a man or a moose or a cougar and the maneuver has been around long enough to turn the moonwalk behavior into an instinct, then who in hell is tracking a grizzly?

The only answer I could come up with was dinosaur.

I know there's a few billion years difference in the time that these species blundered through their respective forests but what else would bears be intimidated by enough to learn how to walk backwards in their own tracks to confuse whatever was theoretically threatening them.

And furthermore, what happened when the bear moonwalked all the way back to where he was face to ass with whatever was tracking him, what's the bears plan? To attack the dinosaur with its ass?

I wondered if this constituted wisdom.

Learning to walk backwards in our own tracks until we confront our imaginary Jurassic enemies with our asses at which point we back asswards attack?I also knew that bears hibernate most of the winter. So the answer to Krell's exit question which was his answer to my question is this:

It depends on the time of the year.

LIGHTS OUT AT THE LIBRARY

I know I ain't wise. No matter what Krell says. Yet Krell did definitely say that no-one was wiser than me. For the next couple of days I took a look around, a close look.

Particularly at the guys. I was already convinced that both Haylen and Julia were smarter than me

I was looking to find a guy smarter than me. If I found that guy, I could ask him what Krell meant when he said that nobody in town was smarter than me.

If the guy was smarter than me, then that would disprove the thesis of Krell, that nobody was wiser than me, which the guy smarter than me would be trying to explain while at the same time debunking.

I was smart enough to know that I wouldn't be able to pick out a guy smarter than me simply by the way he looked. Everybody looks smarter than me. I had to have standards other than appearance.

I started with three standards.

I figured that a guy wiser than me would be older than me, would be married and have kids.

Most of the guys who I knew in that boat were your typical hard working Joes. Guys who did their job when they could find one. Guys who paid the bills when they had the dough. Guys who raised good, pain-in-the ass type kids. Guys who went to church as often as the wife could drag them there. Guys who bowled Wednesday nights and drank Buds before dinner. Guys who were easily exasperated but not easily defeated. These guys were especially hard to defeat or discourage when defending a half-assed scheme. Guys whose character shines through most clearly when the thin ice is crackling beneath their skates.. A leaking roof, an unexpected complication at work or the growing pains of their kids are enough to throw these guys into freak city. A Hummer from out of nowhere smashing through their front window and planting itself in the hallway during the ball game? No problem.

These are the guys who can turn a minor problem into a nuclear disaster and a nuclear disaster into a walk in the park.

These are the guys that everybody watches with mixed awe;half fascination and half apprehension. These guys are capable of fixing anything or breaking it into smithereens. You never know when these guys are going to over-react or be oblivious.

I hoped that one day I would be wise enough to be amongst them. In the meantime, I wanted to ask them questions about justice, courage, love, temperance, faith, hope and charity. I was looking for a wise man in America.

I didn't have much time.

I needed some answers before the next class.

Once again, I made my way to the library, the seat of all local knowledge. I spotted a guy standing outside the conference room who seemed to have the standard qualifications; two of them for sure based on his wrinkles and the wedding ring on his hand. I asked him his name and told him that I had some questions I needed to ask for a college course. I was prepared to take notes. I took out my pen and paper

The guy told me his name was Otto.

My name is Ovid.

I tried to remember the last time I talked to another guy whose name began with an O. It's not often that two guys whose names begin with O get to talk about the Lone Ranger. Especially if one of the guys names is a palindrome. I learned about palindromes in eleventh grade English when my teacher, Mr. Sagan, wrote the most famous palindrome on the board "A man, a plan, a canal. Panama". I've been palindrome sensitive ever since. A goddam mad dog.

So there we were, two O guys, one a palindrome, who had met two minutes ago, sitting at a table in a library getting ready to talk about courage, justice, life etc.

Otto reached into his wallet and pulled out his own piece of paper. His piece of paper looked like it had been through a war or two, which I found out later that it had been.

"Let's start here" said Otto. "It's the beginning"

"Always I good place to start" I agreed.

Otto read from his paper, "with his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order, in the early western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yester year......From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again"

"What the heck was that" I asked.

"That was the way the Lone Ranger radio show began every week. I'll read it again. Listen and ask your questions"

Otto read it again.

I asked my first question "why did he wear a mask"

"Good question" observed Otto. " His real name was John Reid. He was a Texas ranger. Before he became a Ranger, John and his brother Dan had been partners in a rich silver mine strike...."

I interrupted. "Is that why he named his horse Silver"

"Yup and that's also why he fired silver bullets which he made himself at his silver mine. One day John, his brother Dan and four other Rangers got ambushed in the badlands by the Butch Cavendish gang. The Cavendish gang fired down on the Rangers with high-powered rifles. The Rangers were trapped. All six were hit. The Cavendish gang lingered to make sure everybody was dead, then they rode off"

"Five of the rangers were dead but......."

I jumped ahead "one of them miraculously survived which made him 'The Lone Ranger' and he decided to wear a mask to hide his identity while he hunted down the Cavendish gang"

"Damn", said Otto, "You are one smart kid"

"Am I ?" I asked thinking maybe Krell was right after all.

"And you're getting smarter every time you ask a question about the Lone Ranger"

"Okay" I agreed and continued my pursuit of wisdom. "How did Tonto get into this?"

"Good question" said my guide with a twinkle in his eye. I figured it had been awhile since anybody had asked hin that question.

"After the Rangers were bushwhacked by the Butch Cavendish gameTonto came upon the badly wounded Ranger. Tonto nursed the Ranger back to health and they road together from that point on. The real story though is for the show to continue, the Lone Ranger needed someone to talk to so that his inner thoughts and plans could be related to the audience in a form other than monologue." my guide explained.

"It was convenient to make the character a noble Indian to amp up the irony a little bit. The real kicker occurred when they decided on a name for this noble savage. They chose Tonto which in Spanish means fool. Now depending upon your meaning of fool, Tonto was either a wise warrior whose words always contained a double meaning and thus an element of truth or he was the doofus who walks into every trap and has to be continually saved by the Ranger. You could take it either way or both."

"So the Ranger was calling Tonto a fool every time he spoke to him?"

"You could say that" Otto replied

"Well what did Tonto call the Lone Ranger"

"Yeah well Tonto called the Ranger ke moh sah bee which means "best friend" in the language of Tonto which unknowingly to Tonto are the words of a fool." Otto said.

"So" I reasoned, 'when you see two best friends one of the friends is usually the fool?"

"Usually", said Otto," but lotsa times they both are. Like me and my buddy Lights Out. We been friends and fools for a long time. He's in the conference room. I want you to meet him"

Otto returned before Lights Out.

"He'll be here in a minute. Before he comes in though, I wanted to give you my definition of courage. Courage is knowing what not to fear."

"That sounds a litttle bit like ignorance is bliss' I said.

"No son, ignorance is not knowing what to fear and courage is knowing what not to fear. There's a big difference"

I understood incorrectly and thus metaphysictionaly but also realized that I was living somewhere in the middle. I knew that I was afraid of almost everything.

With that Lights Out suddenly appeared. I noticed that he too had come from the conference room. I also glimpsed a sign on the conference room door that I hadn't seen before. the sign said 'Tune in Yesterday'. The reason these guys were in this lirary at this particular time was because they had come for a conference about the golden age radio before teevee

If Otto looked like an elephant without tusks, his buddy looked like a wildebeest carrying a full load of invisible lion on his back and a wedding ring to match. Otto turned to his friend. "Lights this kid is looking for the secrets of life. What can you tell him"

"Otto" said Lights Out "looking for the secrets of life is like looking for the license plate number on a car that's pulling out ninety feet away on a street that's as deserted as a warm bottle of beer. Whaddya want me to tell this kid"

"Tell him something that you know for sure. Tell him something simple. Tell him what you glimpsed. Tell him something from your radio days. Ask him a few questions. This kid is smart" Otto insisted.

Lights Out turned his spooky gaze my way.

"Kid, " he said, "lots of people will tell you that life imitates art. I'm here to tell you that art imitates life"

"Art was an interesting fella" Otto agreed sorta. “We used to call him Glove.

Mister Out fixed his frightened and frightening focus full upon me."When I was a kid, my favorite radio show was called Lights Out. I never missed a program. That's how I got this nickname. Churchbells would ring twelve times and the announcer would say 'LIGHT'S OUT EV-RYBODY'. Around the twelfth toll of the bells, an announcer would say 'This is the witching hour. It is the hour when the dogs howl and evil is let loose upon the sleeping world. Want to hear about it? Then turn out your lights'. I'd turn out the lights and get scared to death. The stories were scary for sure but it was the sounds that went along with the stories that I can never forget. Otto says you're a smart kid. Let me tell you how a few sounds were made and then let's see if you can figure out what those sounds imitated."

Sounded like a plan to me.

"Im ready. Go ahead."

Mr Out went ahead. "Here's an easy one. Maple syrup dripping on a plate?"

"I'm gonna go with drops of blood hitting a floor” I had caught on to the game.

"One for one" said Otto. "Throw him another one, Lights".

Mr Out was just getting warmed up. "How about a blade chopping through a head of cabbage"

"I'm gonna go with a guy getting his head chopped off"

"Two for two" said Otto

Out again. "This one's more difficult, I'm going to describe three sounds and how those sounds were made. See if you can tell me what's going on in the scene. One, frying bacon. Two, sparks flying produced by attaching a telegraph key to a dry cell battery. Three, a ringing telephone."

I caught a whiff of the drift.

"Let's see. How about a guy getting zapped in the electric chair even as a call is coming in from the governor demanding a stay of execution"

"Three for thee" said Otto.

"Here's my last one. Soaking a rubber glove in water and turning it inside out while a berry basket is crushed"

"That's not fair" said Otto.

"You got me there", I admitted.

Mr. Out seemed pleased, quite a bit too pleased in fact. "That, young man, is the sound of a man being turned inside out when caught in a demonic fog. You see. Art imitates life"

I objected meekly. " Can't be sure about that because I've never been turned inside out in a demonic fog"

"Be patient, kid. Give the world a chance" said Lights Out in a distinctly foggy voice.

Otto added “wait until you fall in love”.

I thanked the men.

I left the library.

A dog howled in the distance. Maybe it was another dog getting killed by another cat.

LAST CLASS

A couple of days later, I arrived at Krell's class with at least a minute to spare.

Apparently Arthur was expecting an exam that day or had already had one in an earlier class because he was wearing an examination glove and explaining to an astonished Haylen how he had made his choice of gloves.

"When it comes to latex gloves, I have two choices: the Accu- care Plus or the Universal 3G. The Accu is yellowish white and the Universal is white. I wore the Accu for a test last week in History. I fanned on that test. So I went with the Universal for this morning's test in Astronomy. As far as powder goes, both brands are equally free"

When Krell came in, Julia had a surprise of her own. She asked Krell if she could recite the alphabet and hold the match herself. Krell gave her permission. Julia pulled out a tube of those extra long matches that people use to light candles and fireplaces. She lit the match and calmly recited the Greek alphabet ten times before the flame finally burned out.

Krell seemed impressed.

"I don't think anybody's going to top that act so we can put an end to the alphabet on a match recitations once and for all"

Then he turned his attention on me.

"And Ovid, how has it been for the last couple of days walking around as the smartest guy in town"

I told Krell that I had gone around and tried to find somebody smarter. I told him that I had met two men and they were both smarter than I was so I had given up and was okay with my stupidity.

Krell said that "he doubted either of the two guys were any wiser than me". He said that "they probably had given me a mass of confused and contradictory opinions, derived from stories or traditions or memories and that those stories and traditions and memories and contradictory opinions had been no doubt changed at will to match the march of time and circumstance."

He said "such opinons were not knowledge".

He said "such opinions were only used to reinforce personal biases.and that such opinions do not establish wisdom although all people who hold such opinions consider themselves wise and usually appear so to others".

He said that "Socrates spent his entire life under the belief that he had been identified by Apollo as the man whose mission in life was to destroy the false conceit of knowledge which had blinded his countrymen to their real ignorance and had in fact stupefied them wilth a false, fearsome sense of security and self-importance."

Krell told us about how Socrates would question everyone and then prove how worthless the answers to his questions really were. Socrates didn't offer any answers to his own questions because as he openly admitted, he himself was completely ignorant.

"Or as you have told us, Ovid. He was 'okay with his own stupidity'. Because he did so, Apollo had judged him to be the wisest of all. And that's how I've judged you. And you went out and proved me right"

Julia passed me a note. The note read "PROJECT YOURSELF"I could tell everybody in the class wanted me to say something.I gave it a shot.

"Well, I did discover something in my questioning of the two wiser men who probably aren't as wise as I thought they were. I discovered what I want to do with the rest of my life"

Everybody was paying attention now, particularly Julia.

"I've decided that I want to become the Lone Ranger of writing. I want to do the right thing anonymously and write about right when I do. First thing, I'm gonna do is write up the story of the last few days. I'm gonna use my notes. The next thing I want to do is ask Julia if she'll go out with me tonight to see a Will Sampson movie at the Starlite.

Haylen looked disappointed.

Julia said "love to."

Krell seemed to understand.

And" Krell asked "what was the name of the man who inspired you to make such a decision"

"His name is Otto Dingfeldt," I said.

When he heard that name, Arthur turned his glove inside out and looked as if he wanted to punch a berry basket.

Play Meatball

Lights Out.

I left the campus. When I reach the end of the campus road I always turn left, this time I turned right towards the Starlite

DUMMY AT STANFORD

Who knows where Krell would have ended up it if not for the ankle of Lou Henry Hoover?

Krell knew that without Paladin, Krell would have never become the Krell that he became. Krell also knew that without Richard Boone, Paladin would not have become the Paladin that he became. Krell also knew that without Paladin, Richard Boone would not have become the Richard Boone that he became.

Boone might not have become Paladin if he hadn't been thrown out of Stanford.

Boone had enrolled at Stanford in 1934. He went out for the boxing team and was one heluva good light-heavyweight. These were the golden days of fraternities and Boone became a member of Theta Xi. One day, the brothers of Theta had nothing to do and no particular place to go. They collected a bunch of rags and bottles. They used the rags and bottles to create a life size dummy. They covered the dummy with ketchup and threw the thing in the road in front of the fraternity houser to be hit by the first car that passed.

Sure enough, the first car that passed hit the dummy.

After the collision, the intimidating Boone ran into the street and began shreiking "You've killed my brother" at the innocent, terrified driver.

The driver panicked and sprang from her car to confront both Boone and the dummy. She slipped on some of the fake blood and sprained her ankle, much to the delight of the frat boys watching from a safe distance.

The woman with the sprained ankle, the innocent, terrified driver turned out to be Lou Henry Hoover; the wife of ex-president Herbert Hoover.

"A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage" and a fake dummy getting run over by the former first lady's car when she takes that car out of the garage for a leisurely spin around campus.

Boone was expelled from Stanford soon after the foolish incident.

If Boone had some particular place to go that day at Stanford, he might not have gone on to become Paladin. If he had not become Paladin, Krell might not have become Krell. If Krell had not become Krell many, many other incidents would not have occurred including the incident that sent a kid named Ovid from the classroom one day, contemplating the possibility that he was the smartest guy in town.

And all of the rest of that saga.

Thank God for Herbert Hoover.

ADDICTION

In my first years of teaching, I was always suspected to be "some kind of beatnik commie" because of the length of my hair. A supervising dinosaur introduced me to a group of parents as “our resident Bohemian”

Apparently, I didn't "look"like a teacher.

I look back at pictures of my hair in those days and am amazed at how short it actually was. Perhaps the problem was that it covered my ears. This was about the time when most middle class white folks truly believed that marijuana immediately prouced reefer madness and turned users into playground pushers.

One day, I was in the coven known as the teacher's lounge when I was surrounded by a conversation about the evils of weed. Then, into the conversation burst a ray of light. One of the vice principals, a tall mouse studying to be a rat named Wolf, entered the room. The coven, afraid that an authority figure might have heard them talking about "drugs", immediately clammed up. Somehow, Wolf correctly translated the silence and asked if he had interrupted a "conversation". One of his minions, petrified that she might be "covering up", admitted that the conversation was about "marijuana and it's addictive effects"

Wolf seemed pleased to be included in such a frank discussion. In a most reassuring yet dismissive and accusatory voice, Wolf said "I don't know what the effects are because I've never tried it.......why don't we ask Mr. Rivers?"

Wolf seemed to understand that I was almost as alien to the gossip of the teacher's lounge as he was. I hadn't said a word during the whole discussiion other than a few cryptic nods. All of a sudden, all eyes were on me. I clearly remember my answer to this day. "Well" I said "I imagine it's a lot like reading."

Although I didn't consider anyone in the room to be much of a reader, I could tell they held reading in the sacred contempt that many non-readers do, especially Wolf who made some kind of sound, turned his back and left the room.

I wish I had paid more attention to my own words because my reading addiction was at the stage where I might have been able to do something about it, having recently escaped from college.

Instead it kept growing. It would eventually cost me thousands of dollars, my first marriage, dozens of friends, and led me into the company of irresistible pushers like Penny Rider, Patricia Lindsay and Sarah Kimmel who enabled my habit with frolicking enthusiasm.

I had to have it.

I realized the problem started when I was a child.

Both my mother and my father had shown symptoms. Not only did they fail to discourage me, they encouraged me. I became part of a cult known as “bluebirds”.

I almost kicked the habit when I went to college. Somehow I lost my desire as the habit was foisted upon me by professors for whom I had little respect. I didn't want to be dragged into their world.

I'm deciding to come clean today after another night of revelry and fifty years of increasing intake As usual, I was up until all hours of the morning, indulging myself. I rarely sleep with my wife anymore as she tries to put reading limitations on me. I don't blame her for doing so but I can't resist.

A few years ago, someone suggested that perhaps if I started writing about my experience, perhaps it would lessen my dependence.

I did.

It didn't.

Now my writing has only intensified the problem.

The addiction is reading. I’m still pushing it.

Yesterday, I did something unusual. I started reading my writing. This exercise energized the problem to another dimension. I spent most of last night in a half sleep trying to figure out what I meant by my own writing.

I started editing in my mind.

That's when I knew I had to come clean. My mind started to formulate the confessional words that I am writing now, which you must be reading if you've come this far. As a matter of fact, I'm reading them myself and will continue to read them a couple of more times as I in Sysyiphisean mode, attempt to edit them.

Then it's back down to the cellar where I will continue reading free samples from Kindle, wishing I had the money to buy all these samples that interest me and knowing that the only way I can afford them is if I win some kind of writing contest in which I might use this "composition" as my entry but probably won't because it's too metaphysictional to understand and might not match the taste of the judges in the contest. Then I'll go to the library and see what I can get for free but I'm having trouble at the library because they say I didn't return a book that I know I returned because I don't have it in my house even though I've torn the house apart several times to the horror of my wife.

The missing book is "Metamorphosis, The Hunger Artist and more stories from Kafka"I know I returned it. They can't keep fining me forever can they? I'm innocent but I'm trapped. What if I can't use the library anymore?

I'll have to win a contest or publish a book to feed my need. I can no longer separate myself from my addiction. I am what I read

And so are you

Be very careful, if it's not already too late.

LUCIDITY IN DISGUISE

“Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes”.

Lucid dreams are a whole different subway system. In a lucid dream, the dreamer suddenly realizes that he/she is dreaming. Upon that realization, the dreamer brings some conscious decision making onto the inner screen projected by rapid eye movement. In this mode, the dreamer begins not only to watch the movie but also to direct it as well as screenwrite and star in it. After such an integrated exercise, the dreamer awakens with a clearer memory of the dream and brings that memory into their morning mediatation along with this accompanying subthought.

Thank God I got out of that one just in time.

The dreamer begins to live the dream.

Once in a while, the living of the dream recalls other parts of the dream that the dreamer didn't actively bring to consciousness. These bits and pieces of scrambled subconscious produce deja vu.

Sporadically, a culture experiences a universal deja vu. A movie becomes a hit. A novel becomes a best seller. A philosophy becomes a code of operation. A leader emerges. Revolutions begin. Penguins crouch. A star is born.

A wrong is righted.

Clarity replaces paradox.

A consensual reality emerges. We fix something before it breaks.

Reading is close to lucid dreaming. The reader rapidly moves his/her eyes along the page as you are doing now. Unskilled readers, because of the task of decoding and subvocalizing move their eyes more slowly across the page. The slower the eye movement, the blurrier the picture on the inner screen; the less the sense of interaction with the text and connection with the writer. The reader is watching the words rather than rewriting them, directing them or starring in them.

The more skilled the reader, the more rapid the eye movement. The more rapid the eye movement, the more vivid the projection on the inner screen. After such a reading exercise, the reader emerges with a clearer memory of what he/she has read and often brings that memory into their ongoing meditation.

The reader begins to internally live the text.

The living of the text recalls other parts of other texts that the reader didn't actively bring to consciousness the first time through. These bits and pieces of scrambled subconscious coalesce and produce insight which illuminates confoundings of the past.

The reader goes forward with a better understanding of the slings and arrows of waking life. Then after a brisk day of living, the reader goes back to bed an dreams a lucid dream. The reader picture himself on a boat on a river or swinging on a swing made of clouds while looking up at blue trees under a wooden sky in lipstick land.

A FULLER GRASP OF FILLER

In order to attain a fuller grasp of the concept of filler, we must detour through anacondas, alligators, dinosaurs, LSD, and birds. Let’s start with anacondas, alligators and birds,

Ready?

Every so often I would get a job moving objects from one place to another. I had a brand new Crew Club Dodge truck with matching cap. My buddy at the zoo admired my truck and asked me if I would be willing to do some under the table transpo for him. I responded with my usual response , "why not?".

I arrived at the local zoo on time and moments later he emerged with a very large canvas bag that was destined for a zoo in Buffalo. He loaded the bag into the back of my truck. "You're all set. They're waiting for you at the zoo."

"Cool, what's in the bag?"

" Our anaconda".

"what's it doing in the bag?'

"doped up and chilling."

"'MMMkkkaaayy. I'm gonna get truckin'"

So me and the anaconda in the canvas bag set off for Buffalo. I wasn't worried at all because to me the reptile was in the bag and the bag was just cargo. I did think it was kinda cool though and might be the beginning of a story that I might tell someday.

When we got to the zoo, the herpetolgy guy came out and removed the snake from the bag. He pronounced it both female and fit. This pronunciation guaranteed that I hadn't arrived at the same time as some other guy who was supposed to arrive in a Dodge Crew Cab and that I wasn't trying to pass off a sick, male anaconda while the other guy purloined the healthy snake bitch.

Or something.

For my reward, the herpetology guy decided to give me a tour of the innards of the snake house, apparently a rare extravagance.

As we walked through the snake house, the herpetology guy explained in exquisitely excruciating detail what would happen if he or I got bit by any of the venomous snakes that we were passing. All of the poisons were different and needed a different serum and usually by the time help got to the unconscious poisoned person it was already too late. Matter of fact that's how he got the job. They found the herp dude before him passed out on the floor and by the time they figured out the problem, it was too late for him.

The dude was dead.

Then we proceeded over to the alligator pond where he invited me to watch the alligators have lunch. At that moment, a bunch of starlings were thrown into the alligator pond. One of the "pain in the ass birds" landed directly on the head of a partially submerged gator.As I looked at the bird doing a morbidly comic homage to a raven on the bust of Pallas, I asked the obvious question."why doesn't the bird just fly away?"

"we already clipped his wings. He ain't goin' nowhere."

The alligator with the bird on his head wasn't goin' anyplace either. He just sat there motionless wearing a delicious starling hat.

"How come the gator isn't moving."

"Oh, they don't move much. They move only when they need to. The rest of the time, they do what he's doing."

"oh yeah, I asked, "what is he doin? Is he asleep or is he awake?."

"Well, he ain't awake and he ain't asleep. It's something in between."

Of course as a human being I was only aware of two states of consciousness...either awake of asleep. This was before my various surgeries and adventures in anesthesiology.

"He's what they call dormant."

Dormant is a deeper variation of chilling. I understood that the anaconda in the bag had been doing the same thing.

Alligators spend most of their lifetimes dormant waiting around for something to happen and not particularly concerned when nothing happens

Just gatoring.

When we as humans gator, I call that condition "filling". We spend most of our lives in a zone beneath memory and the common product of that zone is “filler.”

BAGMEN WILL STAND

Family plays a big factor in my friendship tree.

I knew Crown and Wild Bill. I introduced them to each other and to Deke. Deke is my brother.

Deke, Crown and Wild Bill are now friends.

Deke knew Bruce and D'argento before they knew me. He introduced them to me and I introduced them to Crown and Wild Bill.

Me, Deke, Crown, Wild Bill, Bruce and D'argento are now friends.

Crown knew Walt and Hank before Walt and Hank knew Wild Bill, Deke,Bruce and D'argento.

Me, Deke, Crown, Wild Bill, Bruce, D'argento, Hank and Walt are now friends.

My sister Terri knew Jack before he knew Deke who knew Jack before I knew Jack and before Jack knew D'argento, Crown, Wild Bill, Bruce, Hank, and Walt.

This cluster is the core cluster in my friendship tree. We celebrated this cluster every year for 35 years at Deke's place on Canandaigua Lake. We gathered at the baseball all star game which is in mid-July. At the gathering we made announcements and predictions and we shared old stories of announcements and predictions past. I could and perhaps will write a book about those announcements, stories and predictions as well as the men who made them.

The tradition ended when we moved South

They are the funniest, smartest, most trustworthy men that I know. They are the reason why I rarely laugh at comedians and their 'craft'. My crew is so much more hilarious.

I think I'll start with Bruce.

Deke met Bruce when they were both in high school part time picking up trays as weekend food service workers at Park Avenue hospital. Over the years, I have heard many stories of what went on in the locker room of the hospital, the pranks that were pulled and the fun that was had.

Bruce is the star of my favorite story of that era. Bruce tells it beautifully at the All Star game every year.

Seems that a guy named Steve had pulled off a few nasty tricks on others so the others were looking to get even. One day Steve was in the locker room stall taking a crap. While Steve was sitting on the throne, Bruce picked up a laundry bag full of soiled towels. Bruce tossed the twenty pound bag through the opening at the top of the stall onto what must have been an astonished Steve. The bag was heavy but soft. After tossing the bag, Bruce immediately began his getaway.

Steve bolted out of the toilet with a turd in his hand. Bruce turned around and saw the flung dung heading for his face. He moved slightly and the turd went splat against the wall. Bruce describes that SPLAT moment in great detail as it seemed to be happening in slow motion.

I try to imagine the incident from Steve's point of view. You think you're alone in a critical moment and suddenly a laundry bag falls on you. It doesn't hurt but it startles the crap out of you. You react to the situation immediately. You grab hold of your warm creation and with your pants still down, you burst through the stall door. You see everybody running and laughing. You spot Bruce. You're an all star third basemen with a terrific arm. You fling your turd and it looks like it's going to hit Bruce in the face until at the last moment he swerves and SPLAT. You go back in the stall, clean up, pull up your pants and take off.

Nobody knew what ultimately happened to the splat on the wall but the conjecture went like this. Al Brown was the evening clean up guy and when he got to work that night, his boss told him to make sure to clean up the locker room because there was a "mess" down there. Al spent most of his evening shifts handicapping the horses for the next day at Finger Lakes. He liked to work fast so he could have more time sitting on his ass, smoking and handicapping. He went down to the locker room. It didn't seem too messy until he noticed the splat on the wall..."Goddamn, there's a turd on the wall"

He took care of the mess but always wondered how that turd got so high up on that wall.

Now you know what Al Brown was never able to figure out.

And you know a litle bit about Bruce and my friendship tree.

Remember this all went down before I even met Bruce. Deke had told me the story.

I finally met Bruce at the famous Watkins Glen Concert featuring the Dead, The Band and the Allman Brothers. There were 300,000 people at that event. We got as close as we could when we spotted a large blanket and a motorcycle. We made our way to the blanket and that's where I met Bruce. The Dead were singing "Bertha don't ya come around here anymore".

It's always a good thing when I can remember what song was playing when I first meet a person. When that song is "Bertha" and it's being played live by the Dead in the midst of 300,000 people on a day so sunny that torrential rain is a possibility at any moment, well that's a good way to meet.

Yes, the torrential rains came. Everybody started scrambling to escape the storm. Bruce went over to his cycle and opened his saddle bag. He took out three blue garbage bags. He put the bag over his head and pulled it down to cover his body all the way to his knees. Like a turtle, he pushed his head through the top of the bag. Then he punched his arms through the side of the bag. He had made himself a raincoat. He threw us the other two bags and we did the same thing. We were the Bagmen. Not a lot of people were standing most were hiding under whatever sparse cover they could find. I looked at the situation and said "The Bagmen Will Stand." We stood up proudly through the whole storm. When the sun came back out and the pounding rain disappeared, those people around us who had been seeking shelter from the storm began to emerge and started praising us for bagging it. They thought the bags were cool. A few people wondered if we had anymore of those bags. Bruce did have a few more and he shared them. They repeated the turtle and arm move. Before long there were three more bagmen and two bag ladies. Everybody laughing. Soon many of those who had brought a plastic garbage bag to the concert started wearing them like we were wearing them and making their way over to our space for some good wearing and sharing.

Thus began the Bagman Ball.

Every March we had a blowout party at wherever Bruce was living at the time. The higlight of the party was putting on the bags. Bruce supplied the bags pro bono. When everybody was in their bags, we'd put on "Sympathy for the Devil". Every one would start singing "Doot Doo" and conga lining throughout whatever space was available in the house.

The consensus opinion was that Kay Stafford wore the best bag. It became another tradition that when people were putting on their bags, they would ask Kay to come over and custom fit. Kay designed quite a few different styles. I’ve heard many a bag lady, upon receiving a complient for the style of her bag respond ”It’s a Kay Stafford design”

Aside from Bruce and Deke and I no one really knew why they were putting on bags and "Doot Dooing" but the whole scene was so bizarre and hilarious and filled with gentle peer pressure that all the participants enjoyed the exercise and the party was united. How can you be pissed off at somebody who's wearing a garbage bag exactly like the one that you're wearing.

We continued to have that party for the next 25 years. We called it the Bagman Ball.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman showed up at one.

Maybe you attended one or two.

I’m talking to you Mr. Stubs and Maureen. And all of you Rich brothers and sisters

I’m talking to you Tommy Tron and you Michelin Man.

I’m talking to you Pete on stilts, you Bill Downey and you Gary Gottshalk and all of the Caroll brothers and sisters

If you did all I can say is "Doot Doo"

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