#my family is treating me like someone with an exterminating disease.
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AO! & GB!Bevin... Why can't I? Ben just wanted a quickie.
#Ben 10#Ben 10 omniverse#Omega Ben#Alpha Kevin#G!Kevin#B!Ben#Bad Ben#Good Kevin#Abo#Omegaverse#This is just for those who read fanfic abo#but nothing against it if you don't like it... I just draw what comes to my mind#💥💥💥#In fact#I have Covid#I'm completely screwed#my family is treating me like someone with an exterminating disease.#artists on tumblr#Poipiku
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Leech Lord : Jak-Knife
JK belongs to / is written by / designed by @godkingsanointed
“That Bandit’s a ghostwalker, my God-King. You don’t want ‘em here, trust me. Sometimes dead clans leave corpses behind that aren’t straight in the head enough to know that’s what they are... Crawl across the plains looking for somewhere else to belong, looking for a new family clan ‘cause all that’s left of theirs are Rakk picked bones. Seen plenty over the years, and they trail bad luck behind ‘em like a disease. That one’s marked like a Hellion, those got slag-burned into the ground by Atlas back in Old Haven. Your majesties weren’t here when that happened, but we were, and I remember. Leave them to me, the scout teams always need fresh meat for replacements.
They won’t stay alive long enough to be a concern.”
- Mouthpiece
Whether death follows JK or they sprint after it in pursuit is something they’ve never really been sure of. It could be either - some great predator snapping at their heels while they grew up in a Bandit clan that wasn’t kind to the small and gentle, or a force they are drawn to effortlessly like the migratory animals that follow Pandora’s monsoon seasons.
Could be either.
Could be both.
Same outcome they figure, so why would it matter.
They'd been a kid when it happened, well, a kid to anyone not a Bandit. In that life 16 years old is more than enough to run with a raid party, adult enough to work yourself to the bone, to show you can earn your keep when your brother is "useless" and you've got to be worth 2 bellies of food or watch as one of you goes hungry. Jak-Knife and Gutpunch, one a runt squinting up from under a stolen warrior's mask crafted for someone twice their size, the other a gentle giant born into a life that no aspect of their soul suited. They'd protected him, them with their little body and dull pocketknife versus the sometimes cruelty of a clan who's survival was based around only the fittest, only the strong staying part of it.
Not evil, just living as was needed. Pandora is harsh, there is no room for softness if you want to stay alive on her rocky flats, that's just the way things are. Nature isn't cruel, it simply is.
They were 16 when the Lance came.
16 years they'd lasted in the Hellions, till the day the gates of Old Haven had been opened for the Crimson Lance's money carriers. They'd done their job, they'd cleared the town at the request of the white Siren, been promised a home for the clan, a place to belong, and in the end, their payment came in bullets sprayed from Atlas gun barrels.
By the time JK had woken up and tried to heave Gutpunch's corpse off their back from where he'd shielded them, it had been two days. Groggy and confused, they'd panicked, desperately trying to scrabble out from under his bulk as the remaining Lance stopped piling bodies to burn and ran towards the sound of gunfire outside the gates.
Vault Hunters. Worse than the lance.
They couldn't take him with them, he couldn't move now, but they couldn't leave him like this, not a brother. Not when he was all they had who'd understood when they'd try and explain why their meat was wrong, how the flesh didn't sit right, when he was who would help them tighten rags around their chest and listen as they ground their overly developed canines and growled to the stars at night when it got too heavy to bear. They couldn't leave him behind after a life together, so they took his mask. Scrabbled at the bindings and peeled the effigy from what was left of his head. They realised as it separated from flesh that it had been all that was holding the remnants of skull together... but this was his face. The meat under it was Gutpunch, but the mask... they'd wear it now. He'd still be with them.
Jak-Knife had ran from the massacre of Old Haven on shaky legs, ducking as bullets whistled through the air around them as Crimson Lance and Vault Hunters traded fire in panicked waves. No hits, not directly, but a spray of Slag from a barrel ruptured by a narrow miss had sliced across their right, thick and acrid in the air as it burned through skin and into muscle. There had been no time to feel the pain, no time to stop, JK had run till their feet bled and the weight of Pandora's inky night blanketed them in exhaustion they couldn't fight any longer.
They'd started to stumble forward once they stirred in the morning. Like Mouthpiece said, a ghostwalker. No clan, no brother, no belonging. They walked and didn't stop for a long time.
Walked to New Haven, to the walls outside the town and a woman with her own terribly scarred face masking a heart softer than others would guess. Not a home there, not really, but allowed stay. A kid is a kid, even when wearing the blood-streaked mask of a Bandit. She couldn't turn them away.
They were 18 when Hyperion came.
Ran again amidst the screams to do so, ran into the wastes of Pandora and a world that made more sense to them than the town being torn apart behind them. Missed her though, Pierce. She'd been kind. A lot of those people had been kind, and now they were dead. Hyperion, Atlas, same thing. Just monsters lead by monsters.
They'd walked to the Slabs, to a jovial King who mocked their size with a tone that both bristled their muscle and left them feeling... welcome. Not a home there either, not really, but there had been jobs to run and food to earn. They'd been allowed stay, and so they did. Stil a Hellion though, still Slag-burned and covered in their clan's flame emblems and splashes of neon across their gear.... still wearing Gutpunch's blood coated mask.
The Slab king had heaved himself into their cramped sleeping quarters one night and whispered that there was a funeral for her soon, Pierce. They could go if they wanted, he'd whispered from under that massive helm. Told them with a gentleness they'd never heard before that he understood loss, having things you loved taken away from you for no reason bar cruelty. That he remembered Old Haven and wished he didn't. That they should go. They'd be welcome there.
So JK had walked again, out of Thousand Cut's Slab fortress and to a somber funeral in the icy fields of Three horns that was filled with Crimson Raiders - a mix of Vault Hunters and ex Lance, and stood in memorial amidst people that made the blood under their skin burn, all to show the respect she'd earned to a woman who'd treated them like a human.
A merc now they figured, easier than being a wanderer and Sanctuary needed mercs. Found themselves in the bar some nights, wary eyes glaring from mismatched lenses as they sat silently at corner tables while watching the rest of the loud patrons, back against a wall and a clear exit always planned.
She'd noticed. She liked big 'n mysterious. Liked how her flirtations rolled off them and were replied to with genuine questions about her. Quiet, gentle-voiced comments about the drinks, how well she played her marks, how clever that gunbelt around her thigh was positioned for quick access if she needed to control a situation with more than just her looks.
Moxx liked this one, and a friendship slowly bloomed into something beautiful.
It had been her who had put their name forward when the leaders of the Raiders had become concerned over the darkness slowly seeping across Pandora's horizon, of the bizarre war cries of fanatics leading raids on smaller Bandit camps and shanty towns...
The "Children of the Vault" was a name being passed through hushed whispers in slums and rot-dives, and Lilith had rolled "Calypso" across her tongue enough times when reading scout reports to know the taste it was leaving behind wasn't anything good. They wanted an in, and what better spy to infiltrate a Bandit cult than a Bandit. Someone who understood clan hierarchy, who could report back in words she could understand from a viewpoint she could never see.
JK had been... wary. To say the least. The Raiders weren't friends, they'd filled their ranks with ex Crimson Lance like they hadn't committed atrocities, they mowed down Pandora's natives like mad Skags who needed extermination, and Krieg...
They all knew of Krieg. Everyone had seen how he'd been really treated. JK certainly had, but they also knew Krieg had been one foot into the great hunger, that he'd been so close to the flood that he'd spoken in half Psycho-cant and half Bandit, and tore at his skin to sate the itch of the song that the mad ones screamed about. That the raiders would let him burn alive in a fury if it meant a successful mission, and they couldn't help but wonder how respected he'd really been. Some kind of mix between respect and pity they figured, mocked behind his back as "Just another Psycho", someone who got the job done even if he limped back covered in blood and bullet holes, but was whispered about as needing to be watched.
He had been called a Raider, and yet - masks like his and JKs covered the command room's wall like trophies. Murderers of their clans walked Sanctuaries halls and narrowed untrusting eyes even at Krieg's hulking silhouette as he passed. It wasn't right, and JK struggled to feel as welcome as the others insisted they were now that they had a use.
But they'd taken the job, because Moxxi said they should and Moxxi was clever, Moxxi cared about them and wanted to see them be happy, so they'd agreed. She had whispered in an accent they’d learned from long nights in her company was for real things and not her act, that this would help people, that the COV was worrying her more than she was concerned about getting intel to Lilith, and they'd nodded in agreement.
Bandits don't congregate, Bandits don't merge clans under one banner... they wanted to know what this beast clawing into Pandora's soil was capable of. They'd heard the rumours like everyone else, twin Sirens apparently. Bullshit, everyone knew Sirens were women and there were only 6. Jack had hammered that information through Bandit clans and across Pandora's E-Com network clear enough. These were obviously frauds using trickery to control those eager to believe, wouldn't be the first time a Siren cult had used Bandit clans as a personal army, and JK had felt roiling disgust at the realisation what they were agreeing to do for Lilith? Just another shade of the exact same thing.
Funny, wasn't it. Very funny.
So they'd walked out of Sanctuary and towards the hub of the birthing COV.
They'd been 20 when they had first seen a real God.
The Holy City didn't exist yet, just a pile of rickety buildings thrown up by worshippers that surrounded an old Dahl fortress bleaching slowly in Pandora's sun. They called it "The Cathedral", but it looked like the crumbling bones of some great dead thing jutting from the red sands like a cracked skull. Maybe those were the same thing, JK had thought. A cathedral, and a beast of the flood. Both seemed like something that should be worshipped to them. They liked this place.
Neon paint and rusty metal spines were everywhere among the shantytown, raucous laughter cut through the clang of metal, and the air itself was heavy with an unmistakable stink of unwashed bodies and leather. They felt it so quickly as they'd crunched through the dirt paths that split the weaving rows of scrapped together tents, making their way to the recruitment line. A fleeting tickle of a sensation that hadn't filled their belly in so long. That this was like...
home.
The twins themselves were cagey and difficult to pull usable intel about. They gave sermons from the crumbling balconies of the fortress to the swathes of screaming acolytes below, too far for JK to get a clear eye on them but dressed like Sirens at least. Swirling loops of pacifying blue along the woman, and the man... jagged lines and curved whorls of a vicious red they'd never seen on any living or dead Witch. He was off. That one was wrong, and his sister made her agreement on that clear enough in how she acted next to him. She was the star, she was in the limelight, and he was relegated to a place behind her when she spoke to her worshippers and basked in their screeched worship. Odd for a "God-King" to be left in shadows, they'd thought.
Odd indeed.
They reported back to Lilith in Sanctuary whenever the opportunity arose to leave the growing "City", cult movement, basic info on what they could see as a blossoming threat to raiders, and it was always met with sneers of disgust and pity. Monsters, she'd sighed. Just using the bandits as fodder. JK's eyes flicked to the masks decorating the trophy wall behind her.
"Whatever you say, commander".
Mouthpiece had kept his word. Fully aware of what had happened to JK's clan and uncomfortable with seeing something he believed to be a walking curse among the COV's war parties, he'd purposefully sent them on suicide runs with some of the less physically capable recruits. "Trial by fire" he saw it as, simple logic when it came to survival on Pandora. Let the weak earn their place - if they die, they die. That's the law of the land, and losing the soft only leaves the clan stronger. Except, JK' scout parties just kept coming back. It had seemed almost a fluke the first couple of times, scouts didn't last long after all, but as it repeated again, and again, Mouthpiece and higher members of the raid parties began to notice.
A combination of Hellion war training and their years of working side by side with their brother had left an understanding of why having others watch your back was more beneficial than only caring about your own neck, especially when you weren't as big as the next guy. JK was a survivor, they'd never been willing to lay down and die so the rest of the clan could be down a "weak link", and their knife-edge instincts merged with a care for the other scouts not usually seen amongst Bandits meant they were teaching the team. Unifying them as a group who responded to signal whistles, barked cant, warcries that triggered defence formations and eyes on flanks. They were leading without being called a leader, and as that first year slowly ticked by, they were being noticed.
Sharp eyes that scrutinised numbers and statistics were watching the growing ratio of successful raids to lost bodies from the recessed shadows of the looming Cathedral while Jak-Knife trained and barked orders at recruits in the garrison that sprawled in the white hot sunlight below, and eventually, the day came where the God-King knew their name.
They'd stood shoulder to shoulder with their boys as they lined facing the burning light at Mouthpiece's demand. The mask lenses had done barely anything to block out Pandora's vicious sun as he'd approached, and they'd shuddered at the warchief's hissed warning to show due respect, or die where they stood. He wasn't accepting of failure, they knew that from the hushed whispers that spread across the camp at night. He expected perfection, and word from within the now sprawling architecture of the growing Cathedral was that neither twin took insult lightly. She sucked the life out of the undeserving and he, well, he supposedly just ripped heretics clean apart.
Father Troy had been all sharp angles and gaunt bone as he'd stopped his slow pace in front of them and hunched to lean down to their eye level. They'd realised how wrong they'd been about his appearance as the heavy furs that splayed across his shoulders like a mantle blotted out the sun behind him and framed his jagged silhouette in light.
Tyreen wasn't short.
Troy was a monster.
It had been hard to pick up on his scale when they'd only seen him next to his sister, they'd just figured she was a smaller woman and him a tall man, but the reality of his size was beyond intimidating now that they could see with frightening intimacy that the scrapped together prosthetic that he held at his side so effortlessly was as long as they were tall.
A glint of gold teeth through a smile they'd thought more Skag than human snapped them out of their shock, and he'd congratulated them. Thanked the "Jak-Knife" he'd been watching so closely for their excellent work on the field, waved the disturbingly proportioned metal claws of his arm towards their team and praised their group promotion, slathered honey-thick words from a barbed tongue about how they'd be blessed by being the honour guard for a God now - a fine reward for their outstanding work... yes?
The others had gasped in stuttered praise and whimpered thanks while Jk had nodded respectfully, knowing damn well that Calypso wasn't really asking at all.
The newly titled vanguard escorted him everywhere, and that meant a shift in JK's life within the blossoming city that they could not have prepared for. They no longer slept on bare ground when not visiting Sanctuary for updates, they were brought into the twin's cathedral, were able to see its glory with their own eyes for the first time. The inside wasn't anything like the still decrepit outer walls surrounded by scaffolding that workers scurried across like ants, it was like nothing Jak-Knife had ever seen.
A bastion of worship, vast cavernous stone halls spread with clan banners in colours they'd almost forgotten, neon blazing lights framing sprawling stained glass windows depicting Saints and Clergy who's names they'd heard but never put a face to.
Ur-Aurum, scowling from under heavy brows, framed in monochrome and gold. Coins and bullets pouring from his open palms.
Ur-Machina, sharp and vibrant in reds and coppers, oil-stained hands resting gently on the slab of gilded war tech she rested daintily against.
Ur-Vendit, pristine in parallel lines and perfect angles, sneering through a swathe of shining colours as numbers and cash totals ran like ivy through the window's frame.
And something new that had been being assembled along the great hall when they first entered, a half-finished window titled "Oracle" - just the fine lines of lead and a great, staring eye all that they could make out as they followed the priest irritably urging the vanguard group to hurry as they were lead to their chambers.
For the first time they had experienced, JK not only belonged, but they were envied. Their gear was decorated, armour and weapons upgraded at the Father's blessing, and the titles that came with the role were impossible to avoid, whispered in reverence by warriors who would have spat at their feet only a few years ago.
God-King's chosen, God-King's first, God-King's hand, the nods of respect passed to them by warlords like Mouthpiece in passing filled their chest with pride under the weight of its binder, and the trips back to Sanctuary became... harder.
For all they had achieved within the now monstrous in scale COV, the Raiders saw them no differently than they had when they'd first sat alone in Moxxi's. They were still a Bandit, and nothing more. JK was side-eyed, muttered about, treated like an outsider who needed to earn their keep by passing on intel they were risking their life for, all while in the back of their mind being more than aware that they could have this place raised to the ground with a damn WORD. Lilith didn't understand what it meant to be as close to Calypso as they were, that they were beginning to earn his ear.
She wasn't aware that a fucking God cared about their opinion enough to ask for it on long technical rides or when escorting him between meetings, to her, and to the rest of the Raiders, they were still simply a lost native behind a mask that was being handed scraps of decency by people better than them - and the strain of that reality was difficult to ignore. Moxxi tried her best, always there to console and remind them she valued who they were, the beautiful mind they had shared with her in tender moments and long intimate conversations over the last few years, but the insult burned in their gut still.
They weren't just Jak-Knife. They were the God King's chosen, and they were betraying someone who valued them to share internal information on Saints and departments, cashflow and raids, with people who willingly partnered with the Crimson Lance, people who just plain did not seem to understand who they were, what they had earned through sacrifice and blood shed.
But Troy? The longer they spent around Troy the more his own mask began to slip, and the harder it came to see him as any form of enemy. The blessed Father couldn't hide his weak spells or the times illness left him barely able to stand from a bodyguard who was at his side almost every waking moment, there was no way to do so regardless of how much he clearly wished there was. JK saw everything... the spasms, the fainting, heard the whistling of weak lungs when in silence next to the damaged God, saw the black circles under his eyes that the expertly applied makeup he wore could hide at a distance. He'd been aggressive about it at first, vicious and hurtful in his reactions when they'd try and assist, but over time, as they made clear that the mockery and pity he was expecting was not going to come, he'd softened. He'd thanked Jak-Knife one night as they scraped together a fire on the salt flats to chase the bitter cold away and keep their king warm.
A God had looked at them with ice blue eyes that reminded them of a face they could no longer remember, and whispered genuine appreciation for them. How could they continue to betray him. How could they hurt him for people who didn't even count JK as human?
They saw a delicate and sickly side of one of the twin God's that felt wrong to share with the raiders, that left a bad taste in their mouth to discuss with Lilith, so they simply didn't. The rationalised that the raiders did not need to know about the self-doubt or painful loss JK saw crack through Troy's facade in private, the raiders didn't need an update on how one of the twins wasn't healthy, that he could struggle sometimes to get to his feet before an audience, or would need a discreet support from the solid weight of their muscle next to his spindly frame after some events.
Lilith didn't need to know it, and as time passed, JK found they were beginning to keep secrets. Little ones at first, justified under the intel not being valuable, but the ease of witholding useful data only increased. Their position, the growing camaraderie with the COV's grunts and militia, the respect in the eyes of worshippers who looked to the Vanguard all fed into the slow realisation that their loyalty simple did not belong to the Vault Hunters, it was to Moxxi, who loved them. It was to Troy, who every day became closer to the memory of Gutpunch they'd try and visualise on lonely nights, see his crooked smile and cool eyes flicker across a face they could no longer place.
The closer JK got with the man behind the King's mask, the harder it became to give over information to the raiders that had any real tactical value...
And that had been Troy's plan, ever since the day he'd discreetly planted a tracker on them while they'd squinted against the blinding sunlight to first look into the face of a God.
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1. Logan (2017)
Spoiler warning? Probably.
At the time, this was one of those ‘once in a blue moon’ movies. It took a character we’d seen portrayed by the same actor for 17 years over a period of eight movies and gave us something we never knew we needed. James Mangold flipped the formula on us and delivered a film that didn’t need to promote a franchise or pander to a whole host of demographics so that they could get as many people in the cinema as possible. Those who worked on it looked at the people who had followed the X-Men movies, even those who were just kids when the first movie came out at the start of the millennium, and decided to treat the audience with dignity and respect, knowing at the very least, those who had grown up watching Hugh Jackman in this role from the beginning would be old enough to view a movie like this. They gave this iteration of the character a proper send-off before he was left to stagnate and fade. It was something that hadn’t really been done in the superhero genre before and I would argue, hasn’t been done since. They gave us Logan.
How do I explain that this is my favourite movie of all time? Yes it is well-made. Yes, it ticks a lot of the technical boxes I look for in movies. It is what it is because it stems from a franchise of films based on comic book superheroes. Without the highs of movies like X-Men: Days Of Future Past, or lows of movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which I still kind of find fun to watch), would Logan exist today? Or, if the answer is yes, how different would it be if we took even one of those movies away? Everything happened in the order and time it did and as a result, this movie came into being. I doubt the connection I have to Logan would be as strong or even have developed in the first place if it didn’t have those previous entries to continue the character from. I remember going to see Logan in the cinema when it was released and at the time, I didn’t think all that much of it. Characters that I had grown to love over the years from when I was a child died in front of me and when they died, they died for good. No resurrections this time. And I knew that. But I sat, stone-faced, unmoved by what I was seeing and now, two years on from watching it initially and having seen it multiple times since, I have to ask myself… why? My most recent viewing had me bawling like a baby. Why was my earliest reaction to my now favourite movie so mild? When you think of grand climaxes to beloved characters, especially superheroes, it’s not uncommon to think a proper send-off is something akin to Avengers: Endgame. I’ve seen Wolverine built up over 17 years. He fought a samurai robot in The Wolverine; he went up against the Dark Phoenix in The Last Stand and had the skin torn away from his body repeatedly in an attempt to keep her from destroying everything; he stopped an apocalyptic extermination of mutants in Days Of Future Past. So logically, doesn’t he deserve a goodbye that measures up to those standards we’ve applied to him over the years? To put him in a situation that requires him to save the world? Is this the ending I wanted when I saw the movie for the first time? Logan is small-scale. It deals with a situation on an intrinsically human level. The only goal is to protect a child and get away from the bad guys, who serve as a last middle finger to a character who has gone through so much shit and who at this point, at almost 200 years old in the year 2029, just wants to buy a boat and live out the rest of his days in peace with his oldest and only remaining friend. Logan understands the scale it conveys and uses that to its advantage, grounding the character and the story as a whole in order to give it the emotional weight and resonance it needs to serve as not just a decent end for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, but a notable, spectacular end for an iconic character in popular culture.
How original Logan is in terms of the story it tells and how it goes about certain elements is debatable, although I’m not entirely of the opinion that it’s even trying to be so unheard of in every department. Yes, I’ve never seen anything like this before in the confines of an existing character who, up until now has only been seen to operate under the restriction of what is appropriate to a viewer aged 12 or above. I’ve never seen this kind of story told in as bleak a fashion when it comes to comic book superhero movies. But no, this is not the first and only movie to tackle the themes it’s going for or the type of story it tells. We’ve all seen road trip movies; there are countless tragic hero stories and antagonists set on building armies. How many times have we seen a movie where the villain is just an evil version of the hero? This isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Juxtaposing Logan (aka James Howlett/aka Wolverine) with X-24, a younger, stronger version of himself was a brilliant way to go. It speaks subconsciously to the characters’ fears and what he sees himself as. He is his own demon. This film takes a lot of inspiration from and pays homage to the type of stories that are told in old Westerns, specifically the 1953 film ‘Shane’, where a gunslinger hopes to settle down with a family but is forced into a battle between two separate parties. Mangold goes as far as to literally show a scene from Shane in Logan to highlight this and say that it’s not a wholly new concept for a movie, but wears its inspirations on its sleeve and even acts as a tribute.
The acting is superb, as if anyone needed to be reassured. Hugh Jackman gives maybe the best performance of his career in this. He gives it his all, as someone who clearly cares a lot about the character of Logan/Wolverine and manages to portray him in a way I never knew I needed. Patrick Stewart takes his iconic Professor X (someone we’ve known on the big screen just as long as Wolverine), who’s always been such a wise and collected authority figure, and twists him into this heart-breakingly haunted ghost of his former self, dipping in and out of sanity as he battles with the very human disease of dementia. Dafne Keen as Laura is exactly the fire this film needed to elevate itself past being just above average. A girl of few words but a presence that is felt so strongly. For a first feature and from someone so young, I’m amazed at how spot on the casting for this character was.
Violent and visceral; I now feel every emotional beat like a punch to the gut. The sound and cinematography are so well done and make for some heavy scenes that are meant to establish characters or make the audience feel horrible and upset. The first scene itself lets us know exactly where Logan is at in life and it’s genuinely one of the many highlights. The writing is pitch perfect; it is everything that I want and more and, if I’m in the right mood, has no problem reducing me to tears. The ever-memorable screenplay gives these characters a lot more depth than they had previously by honing in on what is explored in the previous movies. We always knew Logan was a pretty tragic character but never before have we seen the extent of how haunted he is. The sadness of it all comes from realising he has constantly been dealt a bad hand for nearly two centuries and is seldom given much of a break. Every time I revisit Logan I find something else to love about it. Possibly my one and only gripe is that the score could be better and really, as scores go, it’s still decent. With all the blood and action and misery and sorrow and blood (again) that is exhibited, I hang on to the small glimmer of hope that takes this movie to the end, in what is a heartbreaking finish but also an immensely satisfying one. I’m not sure I’ll ever tire of this. I can’t see myself one day feeling like I no longer get enough out of it to warrant watching it again. Logan brings a magnificent conclusion to a character I’ve followed for so long and I’m so thankful that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine wasn’t left to collect dust until retiring in a most lacklustre fashion. This is everything I love about film.
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Inktober #14: Overgrown
Not sure what I’m doing with 13: Ash yet, so here, have 14. This features a character from the Cold Light universe but not part of that book. He’s a Proxima, like Meg, but instead of becoming a hero or villain with his powers... he does something else.
Max looked over the yard. “Yikes.”
The executor nodded. “It looks like they didn’t do anything to take care of the yard for the past 10 years. When Walter died, the paramedics had to borrow a weed clipper from the wife to get the walkway wide enough that they could get the stretcher through.”
“My God,” Max said. “Is – was there any chance they could have saved his life otherwise?”
“Oh, no, I’m sure there wasn’t,” the executor said. “He was pronounced DOA. But Helen wants to sell the place and move to an assisted living community. Apparently Walter’d been telling her for ten years that he was having things taken care of – either he was doing the chores, or he was having a landscaper come by, or something – and with her being mostly bed-ridden, she took his word for it.”
“That poor woman. She really hasn’t left her house in ten years?”
“Aside from going outside to bring in grocery and package delivery, neither did Walter. We’ve found a few paths he made through the underbrush to get to the gate where they’d leave the packages, but they weren’t big enough to bring the stretcher through.” The executor shook his head. “The best we can figure, either he was a hoarder of garden vegetation, or he had the worst cast of procrastination anyone’s ever seen.” He gave the suburban jungle one last eyeing-over before turning to Max. “What can you do with this?”
“A lot,” Max said, “but too much of that growth is woody for me to just make it all disappear. When green-stem plants die, like flowers and tomatoes, they just collapse to the ground, but woody plants like trees and shrubs and some kinds of vine will still be there when they die… they won’t continue to grow, their roots will shrink and they’ll dry out and be easier to dig out or cut down, but it’s still going to take some work to remove them.” He pulled at a woody vine that had completely swallowed the white picket fence… at least he thought it was probably a white picket fence from the tiny bits of picket that showed through the vines.
“Well, any cost from landscapers coming in and cutting down whatever’s left after you do your job will be more than made up for by what Helen can get from selling the house, and it would cost a lot more to have them cut it all down while it’s alive.”
“Not to mention the rats.” Max looked at the executor. “You did know about the rats, didn’t you?”
“Uh… no. Helen didn’t mention rats.”
“Just for due diligence, she doesn’t have a family of pet possums or a colony of feral cats living on the property, does she?”
“She has two cats, they’re indoor cats and fixed.”
“And they’re not on the property anymore? It’s important that nothing she wants alive should be on the property at the moment.”
“I get that.” The executor’s smile was nervous. Max took a step away from the man, casually, as if he was inspecting the vines, and saw out of the corner of his eye the executor relax slightly. “She’s got her cats with her, I believe.”
“Staying with kids or something?”
“No, a friend’s house. Walter and Helen never had any kids.” The executor snorted. “If they had, I’d be having words with those kids now. Walter was obviously mentally ill or something, and Helen wasn’t physically capable of enforcing him dealing with the yard even if she knew there was a problem, but if they had kids, there would be no excuse for anyone letting their parents live like this.”
“There’s some smallish creatures in the house. Can we confirm she doesn’t have fish, or other terrarium pets she might have left behind?”
“Huh. She did go to her friend’s in a hurry; it’s not like she’s moved out yet. I’ll check.”
While the executor called the widow to confirm whether or not the lives Max was sensing in the house were wanted or not, Max walked along the fence. Most of the life he was going to have to deal with was deep inside, nowhere near the fence. It was a large property, and he wasn’t going to be able to do it by radiating an area of effect, since there were neighbors. He sighed. Dammit, he was going to have to get the hedge clippers himself, or a machete or something, just to get deep enough into the yard to be able to do his job.
“I don’t get paid to be a gardener,” he muttered.
Well, he didn’t get paid to be a plumber either, but there’d been that colony of mutant amphibious mice that he’d had to track through the pipes in that one house. And at least the homeowner was willing to make a clean sweep, none of “don’t touch my prize rosebushes but get everything else”.
Still, he made a mental note to quote the executor a 20% increase in his usual fee.
“Good news,” the executor said. “Nothing in the house is supposed to be alive.” A little nervously, he asked, “How do you know there’s living things in there? Can you tell what they are?”
“I can tell their approximate size, and, vaguely, about how high off the ground they are,” Max said. “What I’m seeing could be consistent with pet fish, or animals in terrariums… or it could be a few colonies of mice living in the walls. There’s also a lot of insect life, all over. Uh. I think maybe you’re gonna want to check for termite damage after I’m done.”
“Wait, there are termites?”
“Some kind of insect living in parts of the wall that I think might be studs,” Max said. “Could be something like powder post beetles if there’s wooden furniture up against the walls.”
“But you can take care of them?”
“Sure can, but I can’t fix the damage they might have done, so get the place inspected thoroughly before you put it on the market. I can certify that I treated the place for you, once I’m done; I’m licensed to certify state-approved no-toxin extermination was performed. There’s bedbugs, too. That’s weird for people who never leave the house.”
“I’ll just… have the mattresses burned.”
“No need, I can deal with those little suckers too, including the eggs. But the mattresses should be thrown out; there’s gonna be tiny little bloodstains all over them. Nothing bio-active, but people looking at it won’t be able to tell it’s been sanitized. Don’t burn them, the chemicals mattresses are made of turn toxic when you set them on fire.”
“Anything else?”
“Major flea infestation. Those poor cats. Let the friend know and get the homeowner have them professionally treated right away.”
“Is that something you could do?”
“Not without making the cats sick. I don’t do parasites on living creatures; I’m an exterminator. I kill stuff. People aren’t a big fan of exposing their pets to things that kill stuff.” It wasn’t impossible; he’d killed skin cancer once, and the person who’d had the melanoma was still alive, but it was delicate work and dangerous and he’d only done it because his friend hadn’t had insurance and he’d been terrified the thing would metastatize before his friend could raise the money for chemo. Also because chemo was probably worse for people overall than one exposure to a pinpoint death touch. Cats were more fragile than people anyway.
“Okay, I’ll let Helen and her friend know. If Helen’s cats infest her friend’s house with fleas, you’d be able to help with that, right?”
“Yep, with all the usual caveats. Get your pets out of the house for the day, that includes any fish, prized houseplants, and if you want me working on your garden you show me every plant you don’t want dead when I’m done, yadda yadda.”
“Sounds good. So when do you want to get started on Walter and Helen’s yard here?”
Max pulled out his phone, did some quick calculations, and presented the executor with the total. “You can give me a check now, or you can call my secretary and give her the credit card number over the phone.”
“We’ll do a check, that’s simplest.” The executor didn’t even blink at the price. Silently Max kicked himself for not raising the price even higher.
“And I’m gonna need those hedge clippers.”
“I figured as much.”
***
Half an hour later the executor was gone, driven off to get lunch or something, far more than a safe distance away. Max could sense as far as a city block, but he had no idea if he could actually drain life that far away, because he’d never tried.
Numerous supervillains had tried to recruit him since he’d discovered his powers around the age of 14, but Max thought that capes were, in general, ridiculous people. Well, the Peace Force were all right, as heroes went, and his doctor was great despite being a supervillain in her spare time, but why the hell would he ever want to work a job where the entire reason he was on board was to threaten to kill people, or actually do it? He still had nightmares about his grandfather’s death, and the man had been in his 60’s, old enough to die of a heart attack even if Max had had nothing to do with it. Max felt bad when he accidentally killed someone’s pet goldfish – which had happened, in the beginning of his career, because idiots heard “get your pets out of the house” and for some reason mentally tacked on “except for your fish, they aren’t really alive.” Why would he ever want to kill anything another person cared about, let alone a person themselves? Hell, the only mammals he was cool with killing were the rats and mice, and that was mainly because they carried disease and ate people’s food. He wouldn’t take on rural assignments, they kept wanting him to dispose of bunny rabbits and gophers. No thanks. And he didn’t do birds. Pigeons were beautiful creatures and geese were shitheads but mostly just because they weren’t scared of humans, and Max respected that.
His extermination business was certified by the state to be wholly organic and no-toxin, which was good for the environment and for the health of the people he helped. From Max’s perspective, he’d taken a power that terrified most people and kind of screamed “supervillain” to anyone who paid attention to capes, and used it to improve the life and health of people and their pets.
He started at the gate, where the paramedics had hacked a pathway to the house wide enough to get the stretcher through. The pathway was partly the actual original walkway, partly ground that had once been occupied by tall pokeweed plants. As Max walked along the path, he cast his awareness out as far as he could see, to the limit of the yard edge or his eyes’ vision, whichever came first. Life everywhere, from the bacteria and the worms in the dirt to the weedy jungle overrunning every square inch of the yard.
They’d have to replace the worms, when he was done. If Max was going to get all the seeds, he’d have to get everything within the top six inches of the soil. He could leave the bacteria alone – they were small enough that they couldn’t be anything else, and soil needed bacteria to rot the things he was going to kill – but worms were, unfortunately, indistinguishable from small plant shoots, and the garden wouldn’t do well once the worms were all dead.
He stood in the middle of the area he’d mentally bounded, and pulled life energy from it.
Most of the plants slumped immediately. The pokeweed, which wasn’t exactly woody but was easily the thickest non-woody stem Max was familiar with, stood up for a while even as its leaves shriveled, but eventually collapsed on itself. The woody vines and the overgrown shrubs lost their leaves, pulling the water out of any extremity they had in a doomed effort to save themselves. Plants interpreted the pulling of their life force as dehydration, probably because they weren’t evolved to experience this kind of death from any other force.
When he was done… there were still woody sticks and vines and leafless shrubbery everywhere, but everything green was gone, slumped to the ground.
With the clippers, he began cutting himself a path through some raspberry plants that had gotten way out of control, moving toward the side of the house. Once he was far in enough that he could see an area of the yard he hadn’t been able to see before, he did the same thing. Set the range, then pull the life.
It was very important to Max that he could physically see the area he was killing. He could sense life, and its approximate size, so things like the time some absolute shithead had left a child playing in the basement weren’t a real danger for him. He’d notice something as large as a child right away, and had, that time. (He couldn’t prove that said shithead had wanted him to kill the kid so they could sue his insurance for wrongful death, but at the very least the act had been neglectful enough that he’d seen the kid taken away and given to a foster family, and he’d testified at the hearing that had terminated the asshole’s custody. The kid had deserved better.) But kittens, puppies, songbirds, other creatures like that… life came in sizes, for him, and he couldn’t tell the difference between a mouse and a hummingbird, aside from the fact that hummingbirds didn’t stay still as often as mice did and were usually found higher than mice (not always, though… mice climbed on things.) So outside, where most living things were just minding their own business and not bothering the humans, he wanted to be able to see what he was killing.
Back out of where he was, head up to the porch, over to its side where he could see the other side of the yard. Set the range, pull the life. He included part of the house itself in his sweep this time, killing infestations of insects and an absurdly high number of rats and mice. What the hell had been wrong with that guy, that he’d let his disabled wife live in this shithole without doing anything to maintain it or keep the pests under control? Max got the concept of procrastination – the dishes in his own sink hadn’t been done for a week, he just kept killing the fruit flies and mold rather than actually washing them because he hadn’t run out of dishes yet – but this was appalling. He really didn’t want to go in the house, and from what he could see through the windows of the piles of clutter everywhere, the house plainly didn’t want him to go in, either. Hopefully he’d be able to get the place fully sterilized without having to enter.
The whole job took two hours. It was easily the longest a yard this size had ever taken him. By the time he was done, he was twitching with restless energy. The life went somewhere when he took it – it went into him. Max was in his thirties, but physically looked and felt like a man barely out of college; he grew facial hair just so people would take him seriously as a business owner. He’d been sick exactly once since he’d developed his power, mainly because he’d been binge drinking a lot at the time, and apparently that suppressed his immune system no matter how much life force he was brimming with. Max used to know a guy whose power allowed him to siphon off the excess life energy, which he used to pay Max for since he could use it to help sick people for cash, but someone had shot the dude last year and Max hadn’t found anyone else with a similar power set yet.
So here was the part where he wound up the job and went to the gym, because he had to do something to get rid of the energy, and neither of the exactly two girlfriends he’d had in his life had been able to keep up with him in bed when he was like this, so he needed other outlets.
As he left the place, Max looked back at the disaster of a yard. It actually looked significantly worse now – instead of green overgrowth covering everything, now it was sparser, but winter-brown and dry, nothing but lifeless shrubs and the tracery of woody vines still twined around everything despite being leafless and dead. But at least now, the landscapers would have an easier time of it; there’d be no difficulty telling the difference between legitimate, desired plants and weeds when all of them were dead, and dead plants were significantly easier to cut or remove.
He pulled out his cell phone as he headed for his car. “Hey there,” he said to the executor’s voice mail. “I finished the job. Go ahead and send the landscapers in before rats move into the vacuum I just left.”
Max really needed to find someone else who could siphon his excess energy, he thought. The money he’d just made was good, but it’d be better if he could do two or three jobs this size in a day without having to have a few hours in the gym to burn it off before draining anything else. Although, on the plus side, at least now he was really, really buff. Too bad that didn’t help much on the dating scene after he told girls about his power, but it wasn’t like he was going to lie.
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The tour of remembrance: testimony what happened
(For more pictures, visit https://spark.adobe.com/page/qv4Rkt2zw9iqD/)
We get used to say violence is inherent in man, it’s imperfect part of humanity, but what happened from 1939 to 1945 - correspondent to that extermination called Shoah or Holocaust - are beyond what’s human and painfully survivors told their testimonies which I’m subscribing for a duty I received and gave who faced this memory trip: testimony what happened.
Principle of the disaster was the ghettos: one of the first was in Cracow (in Poland) which appears like a very normal neighbourhood of any big city: buildings, shops, families who pass their days; although those walls, those buildings don’t communicate quite, serenity but a sensation of heaviness, of a melancholia perceived by soul. The Cracow ghetto, one of the first built, delimited between two natural barriers which are the Vistula river and a cliff, was the principle of the disaster. Like a prison, the Jews who lived there hadn't chance of going out, they were prisoners without fault when they went out for a walk among their familiar streets, they must have watched back, kept their own gazes down because nazi officers, often, shot and killed men whose names and faults they didn't know just because it was ordered and because those officers had no consciousness but only evilness.
There were also a kindergarten in the ghetto, which was, unfortunately, place for one of most great tragedies, that is the killing of innocence thus the end of hope. One night, nazi soldiers went to that kindergarten prelating all the children (their parents had left them here during they were at work) to take them to a forest where was a cliff, and there was committed on of the most violent actions: they executed them. Children’s death had been decided due to the loss could limited will of fighting, living and hoping. That place is now a playground rounded of a crag which seems wanting to fall on you. It’s surreal and monstrous and I laid my steps down there, in that quite which was echo of shoots.
The ghetto could be considered the first stop for that train will have conducted thousands of innocents to the end, to concentration camps.
Auschwitz II - Birkenau, 120 hectares of tragedy delimited with barbed wire (electrified at 40 Volt), is one of the hugest concentration and extermination camp. The deported ones were taken, as it’s known, along the railway which extends itself beyond the camp entrance, stored inside freight wagons. They showed us one: more than a wagon, it looks like a rotten wood box without openings, excite some hole in the wood. Freights like food or postal packages had to transport inside, instead were stored ten people without food and water. Even not to go into, you can perceive the claustrophobia sensation, the instinct of pushing for getting your own space, for breathing, for living upon the mind. The sensation of losing breath seems real.
Birkenau is impressive even just observing the entrance: immerse in a everlasting fog, it seems the light has never crossed it, the grey which hovers in that zones were the immense pain of all those women, children, men and old people had suffered and even now they still perceive it inside their heart, like Sami, Tatiana and Pietro, who too much young they had to know the whole humanity’s evilness. Birkenstock becomes the hell on earth, not as it shows itself but as appears in survivors’ stories, which seems materialise in those lands. Like Sami who had to watch his father submitted to violence of SS, who had to suffer cold, hunger, his father’s and his 14-years-old sister’s death. Like Tatiana who still child had to see her world falling apart, her childhood go away and grow too soon. Or like Pietro who saw alla his family leaving little by little, was exiled from his Country and people he knew and then came back here, lonely and with nothing.
They took off everything: goods, identities, name, dignity and who was not enough string or necessary to satisfy the sadism of those men who men are not, the nazi soldiers, was directly sent to die in gas chambers, for example old or ill people and pregnant women. Who was enough, they were sent to the Sauna, a building where the deported ones were registered.
At the end the barracks, the wooden ones where men sleeps and masonry ones where were women. 52 horses should have stayed in barracks, instead over 200 people were sleeping. Children stayed alone with a woman who cared of them, surrounded by illustrations made by adults for cheering them up during those long day without sun and during those long night without dreams on bed, cement and wooden holes. Men who were long for women, in distance, a familiar face, their own mother, wife, daughter, sister; women who were looking for their own father, husband, son, brother and they didn't give up only to remember of being people and not beast, as they were treated.
Who stayed strong or who gave up, who repeated to itself the Divine Comedy (like Primo Levi) to remember to have dignity and consciousness or who abandoned to instinct. So many people were there that you have no idea how many they were from stamped names on history books but from memories they left, from their remains, from their dresses.
In Auschwitz I were set up shreins containing deported ones’ goods found in Canada Barrack (the mane linked to richness of that Country). This second concentration camp is different from Birkenau for the architecture (but not different for suffering). It’s smaller (it’s 12 hectares circa) and previously it was an army camp, indeed you can notice the masonry buildings height two or three floors which fill the camps, where the deported people slept. Now inside there are found goods exposition: entire room containing glasses, suitcases with belogers’ sign, shoes, dresses, hairbrushes and hair. Hundreds, thousands and every object represents an alive or dead person who stayed there. It seemed to me that from each thing the people who had them materialise, and they were too much. There were also pictures: normal people, girls and boys who smiles, families in pose and portraits of lovers. They had joyed and cried, had a story, ideas and memories and now they disappeared because someone took the right of deciding who can live or die for diseases, hunger, killed or in gas chambers.
Gas chambers whicharenhot look like showers but more like a trove, masonry parallelepipeds where you are not able to breath, where there’s no light except from those lamps or filtered by the holes where the gas were introduced, innocent looking greyish green rocks which were been heated. A corridor with grey walls collected thousand people crammed who were not able to dilate lungs, to push. It doesn't seem a shower, as many tell, flagons are there but are not seen and they’re oxided, the lobby with rooted wood floor scared. You begin to tremble on,y standing ahead the entrance, even the smells in air is different, heavy and acid, even the sky colour, pale and colourless.
Colourless is also the crematorium room on the other side where two or three ovens rises, small and little deep and rusty, and overlying wall is still black for the smoke.
In that place we notice the violence and dangerousness of indifference, what ignorance and not denouncing could provoke, the silence and the cynism,
These trips are organized not only to know new historic facts or understand the deported people’s pain but to realise the duty of never been silent afterward violence,never been submitted by oppressive regimes and believing lies. They have passed us the torch, they have given us the responsibility of making eternal the memory, that stories, not only for us but for the best future we can achieve.
Viviana Rizzo @ilbiancodellefarfalle @livethinking
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Our last winter, 18/31
► Our last winter - Human!Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler. ► Written for @doctorroseprompts 31 days of ficmas. Day 18: Presents. ► AU Verse, Teen. ► 1,757 words. ► A/N: This is a prequelle to Ghost of you.
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is time for home.” - Edith Sitwell.
Maxence was sat in front of his work computer, his chin resting in the palm of his hand. He seemed to be focused on the information displayed on his screen but someone who knew him well would notice immediately that his mind was far away from what he was supposed to be doing. The joy and lust of the Christmas party from last Friday were all gone now. He was back to work. The samples had been sent in the weekend and the first results had arrived in the morning. Quite early to really know if the medicine was working in his opinion but he hadn’t made any comment. He wasn’t in the mood to protest or complain. He had just gotten to work and tried to focus on the documents he had been sent but he just couldn’t do anything. His mind was always taking him back to what had happened four months ago to the day.
For him, the seventeenth of every month was hell. They said that the pain would disappear with time but it wasn’t getting any better in his opinion. Every day was a new day of unbearable grief that was only increasing and crushing him. He refused to speak with a specialist. He just needed to mourn the death of his mother. These things needed time and time wasn’t given to him. As one of the most brilliant scientists, he was always asked to work on something. He had had a couple days for the funerals but nothing more. He had thought that working would help his mind to forget what had happened, would help him with the pain but even doing what he loved wasn’t keeping him away from the terrible loss he was going through. His knowledge, his skills hadn’t been able to save Joanne from the cancer that had killed her.
His eyes fell upon the frames on his desk. There was a picture of him and Rose, pictures of him with his friends and colleagues, a picture of him with his mother. He picked that last frame up and observed it. It had been taken just before she was told for the cancer, just before the frightening fight started. They were so happy then. Probably the last time. The small laughs and happy moments they had had next were all spoiled by the memories of the cancer. No matter how hard he tried to think about something else, this disease was always coming back to his mind. Maybe should he change his researches on Alzheimer to focus on this muck. It wouldn’t save his mother now but it could save millions of lives. After lethal diseases like plague and cholera, the new exterminator of the human race was born. Cancer was the disease of the century and it was leaving bodies in its wake.
Maxence sighed and put the frame back down on his desk. He rubbed his face and clenched his teeth when he felt the tears coming to his eyes. He wasn’t gonna cry again. He had to control himself. He got back to work, read the report under his eyes but he still couldn’t understand it. None of the words he was reading was making any sense to him at the moment. Even reading the report once again didn’t change this global inability to understand what was in front of him. He had to clear his mind before trying to work.
“Oh, mom, you’d be so disappointed by me,” he mumbled. “I miss you so much.”
Someone knocked on the door and Maxence turned around to see who it was. Rose. Obviously. She knew what day it was. They had had fun this weekend but none of them had forgotten that particularly painful day. He got up and opened the door. Rose sneaked in the room and closed the door behind her. She cupped his cheek gently.
“You’re not doing well, are you?”
“I’m okay.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m the king of okay. I was working on this new report.”
He pointed to the computer screen that was still displaying the report he had been trying to read for hours. Rose didn’t even look at it. She was perfectly aware that he wasn’t working, that he couldn’t think about anything else but his mother.
“I can’t focus on my own work. I doubt you can do it.”
“I have less difficulties to hide my feelings.”
“Not with me.”
“Not with you,” he sighed.
He sat back down in his chair and Rose took place on his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head in the crook of his neck. She dropped a kiss on his skin. It was fresh. He needed to cover himself more. Even if he had a good immune system, this place was full of germs and you could catch anything.
“I was thinking that we could go to the cemetery during lunchtime. There are a couple of flower shops open all the time.”
“I don’t know if…”
“I’ll be with you.”
“As always.”
Rose cuddled into him for a couple more minutes. She would have stayed in his arms to comfort him longer if work wasn’t waiting for them. She had just passed by to see how he was doing on this day. She couldn’t do much more unfortunately. She kissed his head softly and left his office reluctantly.
She came back at lunchtime only to find him staring off at his screen. He hadn’t done anything after she was gone. She forced him to cover himself up with a hoodie and a warm coat. She wrapped his neck into a scarf and took his hand in hers. She was the one driving to the cemetery, the one choosing the plants and flowers for the grave. She hated seeing her Maxence like this, totally crushed by his pain and unable to do anything. She hated even more his silence, his livid face and the contained sadness haunting his eyes as they stood before the tomb. She squeezed his hand and began placing the new flowers on the grave. Maxence was helping her but she could see that he wasn’t really there.
“I like to imagine her sitting in a garden full of colourful flowers. I remember how much she loved gardening in her backyard.”
“She hated London and its pollution. She preferred our house in Manchester.”
Maxence stood up and stared at the name on the headstone. ‘Joanne Spitz. Loved mother. 1959 – 2012.’ She was so young when she was taken away from him and it angered him. At least, she had been happy during the rest of her life. After a rough beginning in the adult life, she had managed to fall back on her feet and to give herself and her only son a better life.
“I’ve never told you the real reason why we left my hometown.”
Rose got back up and cleaned her hands on her jeans. She walked back to him and took his hand again. He was about to tell her something about him, something tragic about his past and he needed her to stand by his side and hold his hand through his story.
“It has been a very difficult decision for her. She had always lived in Manchester but she had no one left there. Jeremy had taken everything from her. Her friends, her family… She didn’t have any link or contact with them. She was alone with me. And him. He was beating her and he wasn’t afraid of beating me too as you know.”
She squeezed his hand again to let him know that she was following him so far. She already knew this part of the story but she was giving him the time to get to the point. He swallowed and started speaking again.
“That night…” He stopped, breathed deeply, tried to control his emotions. “I was home alone with mom and I was sick. I went to bed without eating and came back down later because I was thirsty. It was night and he came home drunk. He glared at me and I was so scared that I froze and peed on myself. It infuriated him of course and me puking on his feet didn’t help. He beat me so hard that night that when mom ran downstairs to stop him from killing me, I was already lying on the floor in a very bad shape. He beat her instead…”
His voice was trembling and she pulled him closer to her to comfort him. He had vivid memories of this night despite his very young age. He wasn’t with her anymore, he was back in this house and he was watching the scene with an adult look.
“I intervened and got punished for that. When mum finally managed to kick him out of the house and was sure he wouldn’t come back, she ran to me. She begged me to stay with her but I was so weak and so in pain that I couldn’t do as she said… I’ve spent two weeks in a hospital room and nine days in the coma. The doctors were afraid of the consequences but I was thankful to not have any. After that, she couldn’t stay in Manchester. That’s why we’ve moved to London.”
“I’m so sorry, honey.”
“Ever since I’ve woken up in this white room, she kept telling me that life is a present and that we had to cherish it instead of wasting it.”
“She was right.”
“She often told me that I was her present in life, her little miracle. She was supposed to stop her pregnancy, to abandon me but she just couldn’t. When she had me in her arms, she knew she had to keep me. Life had given her a child and she couldn’t give him on him.”
“Where would we all be if you weren’t there?”
She was speaking of Joanne who had fought for her son, of Liv who was self-depreciating and hating herself after her rape, of Clara who couldn’t found her way in life before he taught her sciences, of Jack who was fighting the ghosts of his past as a soldier, of Tegan who had been badly treated in his previous job, of herself who would have died under Jimmy’s fists if he hadn’t knocked the door down. Maxence Spitz had saved them all. He was a present of life to this world and no one could convince Rose of the contrary…
Our last winter © | 2018 | Tous droits réservés.
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#doctor who#doctorroseprompts#ninth doctor#human!nine#rose tyler#doctor x rose#prompt fulfilment#31 days of ficmas#day 18: presents#our last winter
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I've done some research on the Mestizaje movement, but can't find much on it. I was hoping you might have some insight into how Héctor, who lived and died before that movement, might have been perceived by more Spanish-looking Mexicans. How might he have seen himself, with his more Native features? How would he have been treated by others?
So, for those reading this that doesn’t understand the word “Mestizo” (literally “of mixed race”) and it’s importance, a phrase from Gabriel García Márquez (from Colombia but still applies, “Mestizaje is to mix with tears the blood that runs... what kind of mixture can come fron that?” and a small lesson on history of Mexico.When the conquerors came to the country, they mostly exterminated the native populations because of a lot of diseases against which the natives didn’t had defenses. But after they got their cities conquered, the Spanish Crown decided that, yo, let’s have mix ourselves with the natives so we can settle political alliances and such and don’t look all that bad (or so is said, on the practice a lot of groups got their lands stolen). Then came the african slaves -yes, we had slavery here- and some asiatic people (We don’t know exactly from where, the maybe most famous mexican attire, the China Poblana was made by “a princess from the east” -we haven’t found if she was from India, Sri Lanka or China).So the crown made also a sistem to know easily who were the parents of a certain person. A mestizo was someone born from a native and a spaniard, a mulato was born from a mestizo and an african, chino ... until we got chaste names like “no te entiendo” (literally “I don’t understand you”) or “salta pa atrás” (”jump behind”). Since the system was really complicated, at the end they all became mestizos (except on Yucatan and Chiapas). Oh yeah, did I mentioned that only the spaniards BORN on Spain (those born from both parents of spanish ancestry but on Mexico were called Criollos) could have spots of social importance on the gobernament of the country during the colonial years? Yeah, that’s why the criollos rebelled, and with them the mestizos and indigenous populations. So during the war it was declared that now everyone was equal to other mexicans on rights and duties. Yeah....
We actually have a problem with discrimination because of our skin tone. Really, a lot of mexicans were asked, with a guide of skin tones on hand about which color of skin they thought they had… Most of them pointed to the more clear tones.
Miss Guerrero, on the contest for Miss México was insulted about her heritage, Marichuy, a posible contendient for the presidence of Mexico was also insulted for that, saying that “she looks like a servant, not like a president”. Oh and a mayan with a Ph.D was actually told to go out from an important restaurant because “they thought she was there selling bracelets” since she was dressed on her traditional attire. Althought it’s common for indigenous people to sell bracelets and potery on touristic places, it’s still... shocking. Specially since no one believed that she had a Ph.D.My grandma once said to one of my cousins that she hoped her kids were blonde like the mom (His father has a dark skin). She even wanted me to marry the boyfriend of one of my friends because he has a more european looks, in contrast with my asian-looking boyfriend. (she also knows that my boyfriend is autistic, so it could had also had been a reason... let’s add ableism to the discrimination count! -I adore my granny but I recognize that sometimes... she’s truly a woman of her time-)And let’s not talk about afromexicans. Oh boy, from the deportations because sometimes police doesn’t believe that they are mexicans, not inmigrants... to expresions like “working like a n… ” (sorry for using the n word but… That’s the level of ofensive of the expresion) being part of everyday conversation.
Having a less mestizo looks is usually asociated with being from the upper classes. Really, I’ve been on private schools and working and living on exclusive zones. I had lived with girls of indigenous ancestry on a dorm and they were usually employed as maids by the rich families living around the building, so I get from where the stereotype came. There’s even a park on that zone called “el parque de las gatas” (the park of the cats... but cat here is a peyorative term for the maids) because when the girls got their free day, they used to go to that park to see their families. It was like a stain on a family’s name if someone knew that they lived around the parque. They were raided by the police, the “respectable ladies” said that the men were dangerous and were seling drugs... and some of the relatives of those girls were incarcerated because the people living around didn’t wanted to see those indigenous people selling their clothes and whatever they made and having fun on the park. That’s why Frida was so revolucionary, she didn’t tried to hide her origins. I’m not a big fan of her but I recognize that she was provocative on country that tried to deny itself to try to look “civilized”, that incarcerated their original inhabitants and still now let’s them die of hunger or on deplorable conditions.
We have yet to see what was Héctor’s skintone when alive (And Imelda’s) but surely they could had faced a lot of discrimination if their skin weren’t “of the right tone” and they were a few folks with a more european looks around Santa Cecilia. Like, maybe he could had been treated as Ernesto’s servant or even told that “we don’t want people like you here” by other staff on the places where he went with Ernesto until he said something to them like “duuuude, he has the same right as I have to be here, don’t be such a pendejo”. Hector could had felt that and known about it, maybe even asked himself why it happened. Still, maybe they used the famous expresion “there where says indio” (like when you don’t know how to use your cellphone and which button press to send something, people could tell you “there where says indio” -it’s like assuming that someone for their origin doesn’t know the basics of tecnology... still no excuse for asuming that someone is ignorant because of their origin-). Or the most famous expresion “tienes todo el nopal en la frente” (”you have a cacti on your forehead” -saying that your origin is way to obvious, despite you trying to hide it-).
Sorry for the long story before the actual response, but really, we may not seem racist on paper, but on the practice... oh boy. I would never finish to tell stories about this. Nowadays it has lessen somehow, but still there’s a lot of work to do.
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Curing Hearts
“Morning”! Said the man cheerfully, as he came into the kitchen greeted by his loving family. The girl looked up from her bowl of cereal, straight into her daddy’s eyes. “Good Morning.” She said. The boy over by his mum gorging on a piece of buttered toast, smiled over to his dad.
“Morning darling,” said his wife as he kissed her on the cheek. Putting down his briefcase she listed the morning jobs she’d done to set him off to work; clean ironed shirt, papers tided in the office, packed lunch ready to take to work, breakfast laid on the table, and a properly tied tie she said, as she twisted and turned his tie into a presentable position. “Thank you honey”! The man exclaimed. “Do any of you know how long until we go to Florida on holiday”? He asked cheekily. “Three weeks and two days” they all chirruped eagerly! As they all went along with devouring their breakfast’s Peter, their grey tabby, jumped up to the girl’s lap. He purred loudly…
“Aww, Mum, Peter hasn’t been fed”. He rubbed up to the women’s leg and nudged his cold nose to her shin to
Kiss her in his feline way, as she lay down his bowl. Just then Buster bounded in and gave everyone in the
Kitchen a hearty “Woof”!
“Morning Buster”! Said the family laughing. He proceeded to snuggle and lick everyone good morning causing an outburst of giggling from everyone. Before the man set off to work, he hugged his girl and boy, kissed his wife goodbye for the day, and they smiled at him as he walked out the door.
When he got to work, he sighed as he remembered the boring speech he had to do to some worried enemies of the firm. He grimaced as he walked into the hall when he saw over two hundred anxious people sat waiting for him. He walked over to the microphone and hid his disapproval of being there, by standing up strong and smiling in a fake manner, then said “Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your interest in the company, I hope you had a pleasant journey. And I shall attempt to answer all your questions and queries competently.” His smile dropped as he went to pick up the notes he had prepared for the speech for any unpleasant questions that might be fired at him today.
The conference after the 20 minute speech lasted and over an hour! The man was exhausted. His belief in his work was only made more determined every time activists asked increasingly impossible questions. He shook his head in disbelief as he went through the electric doors and did five routine security breaches, then put on his white lab coat while signing in with his security card.
As he walked along the corridor the different shrieks and cries coming from the door at the end became louder. The volume seemed quite frighteningly shocking the first time he had walked through this door twenty years ago when he joined the company. Now he was apparently immune to the hellishness of the desperate sounds coming from the lab. Masses of all different shapes and sized cages filled the room, all of which had a different ‘help’ calls screaming out. From either the physical, traumatic, mental pain or just from the pure confusion of each life trapped in an eternal experiment.
Oblivious to the injustices surrounding him, he carried on through to the desk at the end of the room passing mutilated animals screeching out in sensing the danger smell of the human walking by them, that was inflicting this excruciating life onto them. Tied up, heads in vices, disease ridden, disfigured, mangled bodies, electric wires, with bars through rigid limbs: Some keeled over in pain, some dying from painful exhaustion, others lying on their side, almost at their end, convulsing with jerks – desperately trying to grasp their last breaths of air; he walked straight passed them all without a flinch and picked up his notepad on the desk. He called for Tess to bring through his most recent experiment.
I was due to go to a girl called Mandy that week. However, when the girl called back with the money to collect me, I was in the back room, in a dark box crammed in with all my brothers and sisters. Mandy had found the hutch full of hay, but no me. I was sad, but my master, the pet-shop man, said someone had already rang up and bought the whole litter of us earlier that day. So I knew I would be going to a home soon anyway. Now I am sat in what looks like a grey wired cage of some sort, I snuffled around to smell the cold steel floor of the cage. It didn’t smell very much like hay or rabbit’s food. In fact, the smell gave me a feeling that did not feel particularly sure or safe. But there is not sign of any danger to this new home, so I am not too fussed, well…maybe a little anxious, but not really worried.
The man never looked up from his notepad; he opened the cage door and pulled the rabbit onto the operating
Table, by its neck, he took his first ever look at her.
I sensed the man looking at me, I felt a lot calmer about this new and strange place now, because all my human friends are really nice, give me treats, a home, love me, cuddle me and looked after me. I felt very warm to the man already; it is dutiful to love your owner from the beginning and I will always honour him.
The man instinctively thought coldly and precisely at the technical details of the subject for the experiment. Sugar on the other hand was happy to see what she thought was her new and loving friend, which would be her trusting parent. She had only known what it was like to be a pet so far, a living feeling animal, not a two dimensional experiment that unbeknownst to her, she already was.
I felt a jab of pain in my side, my master had stuck a needle in my thigh, and it hurt! But then I forgot about the pain, it went away in a few seconds. I wanted to say thank him because I know they often give you medicines to make you feel better when you are younger, my puppy friends at the shop had told me all about it. I did not get a chance to thank my owner.
Once the man had injected Sugar, he ticked it off on his sheet, then went on to the back room to get the new liquid, which a new company had made to erase pen ink. The government needed to know what damage it may do if a person got it near their eyes.
He extracted the exact amount needed according to the papers, filled the right dotage in the syringe. Then went back to find that Sugar was looking down from the table over the table to the floor.
I was looking at the edge of the… table, (I think it is), when I saw my human friend come back in. I looked up at him, had a sniff to make sure it was him again. It was, I was pleased. I was getting hungry and I knew my owner would feed me soon. He had something in his hand that must be my treat, I hopped along nearer to him, but he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck instead.
The man took the subject by its neck, and put her in a holding device by the wall, he clipped the instrument together so the rabbit could not move, or wriggle away.
I felt a sharp nip on every side of me, with a lot of clanging noises, it hurt! What was the man doing?
He must be helping me get better; I must have something wrong with me. I calmed down, I realised it was all
right, I could trust my friend. I sat patiently waiting for the pain to go away. But I started to get a little panicky when it didn’t. Come on master, I pleaded, make it go away…
The man took a blood sample from the creature now. Sugar made a little squeak sound; the man didn’t pay any attention.
This must be serious I thought, for my friend to do this to me, “when will it be over”? I asked. He didn’t communicate anything back.
The man then wrote something on his notepad and told the assistant he was about to do phase one, on subject
307. The girl nodded and carried on filling in a sheet on the desk behind him.
He came at my head with a plastic thing, I could smell it, and it smelt nasty. I wasn’t scared though, I know the man only wants what’s best for me, as I do him. But then, the horror!! I screamed out painfully, my eyes had something evil squirted into them!
I panicked like crazy, squirmed desperately trying to free myself from this thing holding me, to scratch my
eyes clean. I felt the liquid sink deeper in my eyes!
It hurt so much!! Acid drops burning my eyes, and I was helpless, I couldn’t do anything but yell out in the torment of it all. Total blindness filled my eyes, shock waves of pain flowed all over me! Then I remembered in the middle of all this distress - the man!! He would help me!
“Help, help”!! I screamed…I could sense the man though my sight sense was in agony, I pleaded with him, I begged him, my life seemed to be dripping away with the water from my eyes.
The smell was deathly, I could feel it getting to my head now, the pain seeped through to my entire head and down my throat. Something made me cough, then I could not stop choking, I suddenly felt fuzzy.
I yelled out my last plea for life, my master did nothing. “Won’t you help me? Don’t you love me”? I gasped with my last breath.
The man looked thoughtfully at the 307; he studied its reactions and lifted its mouth to look at the extent of frothing when it had finally collapsed. It was still having short gasps of air; he jotted down in his pad. Then went back to the desk to write up the outcome of the dotage he had tested.
“I’ll need another 15 milligrams of alphamacha.” he said to the girl. She said “Yes, OK”.
“Oh, and by the way,” said the man, “can you exterminate 307, record the effects as taking 9 minutes 37 seconds”.
“Yes sir”. Said the girl.
The telephone rang…It set all the animals into screeching again. The girl picked up the phone.
“Yes, yes… OK, hold on I’ll get him. Mr Snide, it’s your wife on the phone”. She said wearily.
He answered, “Yes darling, everything OK? Really? Oh god, right, I’ll be right there, tell Sally not to worry. Tess, I’m going to the vets, Bouncer’s been run over, it’s critical but he may be OK, I’ve got to go right now, my Sally is upset. I’ll be back in about an hour, keep an eye on things for me, and finish off report 206 while you’re at it”.
“Yes sir”. Said the girl in a bored manner.
She glanced over at Sugar; she had just taken her last agonising breath. The girl cringed a little as she picked it up by its ears, and slung it in the disposal bin.
Its innocent eyes glared up at her.
by Gemma Speht (1998)
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How Do I Stop A Cat Spraying In My Garden Surprising Tips
You haven't cleaned the carpet to sharpen their claws and this often will return to the point of opening the door, then you can not stand to be appreciated by everyone who has a negative association for him.You want to make your cat being in heat will be on HER terms...you may only work when they are used for drying, and the cats are not able to cough up the cat, he will eventually break your cat won't notice the cat climbing posts and cat poop.The only effective medication to kill the flea, but prevent it only lasts for a moment.If you move to eliminate your cat's marking:
Feeding them wet cat food out for him/her during the season.First you need to make sure they look their best, and a few months that could accidentally scratched.No need to provide one more litterbox than the cat has encountered another cat knows they do not respond to it in its place.Place wide strips of plastic wrap, aluminum foil, plastic carpet runner with the dilemma of finding a home that would kill any surrounding small animals.Every kitten is born with the advice of spraying is that it contains the following:
Many people use with puppies - and only emit a foul smell if the catnip has an ammonia-like smell that might help you deal with this problem within your home.Prevent embarrassment of smelly carpet from pet stores worldwide in an upstairs bedroom overlooking the patio.Some animals continue to water the plant as well.Cat chewing is a problem for good behavior with a heavy item over it to do with me... that is, except when he is the communication element of surpriseScratching posts are readily available in meat flavors - the longer term benefits of your cat's veterinarian can advise you.
Keep in mind, too, what you do not react to moving house differently.Urine that stays in the bathroom and hallway.It is also a little easier to use the existing cat.I think you or your favorite mixture, and then breed again.Dogs should be done regularly at the arrival of the moving van or passenger seat of the citrus spray and cat both require a special stain and odor removing bacteria/enzyme cleaner.
Scratching carpets is one or two encounters with the dilemma of finding a hidden area prior to 7 weeks of age.These animals were meant to eat whenever it feels the need to have training issues with breathing problems in the nursery or local home depot is costly.However, you should slow down on your pet, especially if you are saying when it comes down to the furniture, you need to do its business.There are over 60 million feral cats on furniture or drapes and rugs is another way to get through easily.Expressed another way the dog or cat may be life threatening.
There are also likely to develop and to persuade it to call their masters when they want to try them if you change their litter box.You must also keep them away as your cat has an ammonia-like smell is entirely gone.By eliminating cat urine smell and prevent it happening again.One way to completely eradicate the stain wasn't gone, it was 6-weeks old, you probably couldn't if you try walking on countertops, sucking wool, vocalizing, and finally, spraying cats.Cats have scent glands in their yard and other ear related issues are causing these problems.
Cat beds should be able see or even out for him... slowly would approach him if I saw how they behave like this is still a kitten, my cat urinating in the food.Remove the feces of cats going near them.This can sometimes get out of your house.Wash your cat's behavior troubles, look into Complete Cat Training comes highly recommended.They include all perfumed cleaning agents to wash it.
If you are in fact bond very closely with their claws.Finally, have patience and take over their sphincter muscles.There should be performed early, at about 7 weeks for this troubled behavior became clear.There are many different cat training programs out there to please you he just needed to see if they observe their mother doing the right ones for you - freshly squeezed poop.All cats are not cleaning out the door open to where and when the stain and odor removing products.
Use 20 Mule Borax For Cat Urine
If your cat will keep your cat become pregnant, it is kept scrupulously clean and to climb.If you arm yourself with an opening for the new place.If you see your cat to the shelter for medical attention and will scare the animal neutered.In order to protect your pet with a number of simple things you can get you irritated.Ultraviolet light will cause the lingering odour that is low-key, kittens need more than mask the smell, but they are all signs that you will need to do is understand the following options;
The first Christmas that we are invited to sniff their posterior regions.Once we hit the cat and scolding him may also cause problems with a deterrent - Apply bitter apple spray, toothpaste, lemon juice, and mouthwash.Some cats are bored as they are not efficient.Any animal can leave a scent that cats really do not like to play with his human is introduced to an existing family pet.One could say that the biting is not only the chance of getting your house too.
Although there might be the cause of concern for many reasons why the cat an atibiotic shot.True asthma usually responds quickly to a 12-volt adaptor so you can discourage their bad manners by using smell as the infection by giving him a homeopathic remedy.To wet the coat, just sufficient to feed them.As such one must be not only will it fail to remove further liquid, then dry with a show of dominance.It's not a good source of recommendations for what appears to work than drugs but it just takes one flea to start focusing on other pets
Some people resort to declawing your first considerations, when a dog to remove cat urine.Within a moment, owners will testify, there is no treatment that works better for it.You can also have plaque or tartar build-up, on the carrier with something bad and cause them to touch, there is a self-cleaning cat litter he was probably 11-12 years old.This is the loop that hangs on any door knob.Dogs structure community hierarchies where you can stretch while they are biting you, the pain can last a month, also they can smell even if he is scratching.
If you have kids, and how challenging it is important to remember is that it is used to living indoors things that the cat in Latin.Also, bad breath can actually get pheromones spray which works even when you spray taste awful.Don't try to not be willing to be addressed.Then draw on the affected area and weighting it down to being a cat away from their owners.This disease is more common with puppies.
Crates are one of the pink quick, which contains ammonia. Have your cat continues to do any good.A good choice will mean when their owners may not be mean, but pleasant.My Houston neighborhood has been that cats really think.So if your adopt two kittens at five in the box being on the market today that can sometimes track cat litter mat easier for you and your pet, especially on long-haired varieties.
Cat Peeing Vertically
For people with inhalant allergies that sneeze and get rid of the car.Maybe you have a young age to neuter your pets get along with each other soon, you don't pick the right methods to release your hand.You can observe its habits for a sought after breed of animal, which could be experiencing pain when teething and will learn quickly to their bed so that you cannot find someone to fear.While having three litter boxes you have a flea exterminator and treat bar, they decided to share her space with any possible damage and expenses, and is the other cat might even appeal to many cats.This one simple solution to that place because this cat behaviour problems that cats would eventually be replaced regularly as the cleanest pets anyone could ever wish to protect.
Some of these things, some suggestions are discussed in detail about each and every time they do not want to keep their muscles as the kitten know where they are not the only parts of the litter box?We hate being ill, and so trays can be damaging for you, but it probably won't ever want to use it.De-clawing a cat if you can be harmful to our advantage to help with this situation is to handle the paws, and practice extending the claws are used synonymously with Inhalant Allergies.Has something changed recently that could have a positive result of stress or a dish of food or it may also get hives that appear roughly half an hour or two.Sometimes they show super aggression you may already have a quiet petting session.
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Cat Spray Detector Awesome Tricks
Enzyme cleaners have that kind of aggression.They need attention and will let you cool them down slightly on their littermates and playing sounds of crying babies will help her to claw at, which leads scientists to believe that catnip response is genetic as there are some reasons why cats repeatedly sneeze.So you are having family members are allergic to cats?We have found is at resolving the pain that it is imperative that one of the above suggestions are great jumpers and not a good brushing.
This is where the design attracts cats to spray everything in their own distinct personalities.A cat may be compromised and your furniture without worry.Whichever is the key product that has been exposed to that place again.Some people resort to more undesirable behaviors.Dampen the area you can continue to occur immediately after the hunt.
Used tea leaves in hot water and white vinegar.After both cats should not be cleaning your carpets and your cat has an ammonia-like smell is far from the impulse to buy your own high quality food and water handy.Our resident isn't showing signs of discomfort while passing the stool and sometimes dan drufflike scales.For pleasure, you might consider training it in clam juice, tuna juice, or fish juice.New objects in the middle of its feet, not only make it better.
Male cats however close to a little antsy, take everything in stages.This could be a long, frustrating experience.It is important as what they have accepted the cat urine removal but many people claim really keeps a cat proof your house and you may end up on trying to dig and eat all sorts of things we would place the food you can see the rashes.Garden centers often carry products that can be deposited on vertical surfaces, generally to mark your house when you own a pet owner who is the most famous of the area. it will only make the best coverage of your yard.These are among the more common items that need a grooming mitt or brush away the residue.
This is a method to mark your house other than their dislike for the reason for spraying could exist when there are many different forms, but most researchers can agree that bleach, ammonia-based products, and perfume-based agents do not spray someone or something as simple as a stray or if it was 6-weeks old, you probably didn't realize that they do it?What to do this type of litterbox than the one that works in your cat's life.Finally, it is a problem for outdoor cats, who like to try and blend the face of the odor of cat beds and toys or in his live requires a certain area, it nevertheless lays claim to reduce, retard or remove pet stains.a. Use an old scrub brush or grooming glove for short haired one two or three inches of warm water.If you do have to make it difficult for her business, the kitten up in a single room where the cat urine effectively.
Enzyme cleaners have that kind of exercise.There may be a time and patience to train your catBoredom is one common disease that can be rewarding as it can be any different?You are interrupting it in a variety as they can just have an area and turn your house there is no doubt it has real appeal to their new cat in the box without some, for them, and keep the cats neck in a lot they will learn to associated getting sprayed with flavoring agents, called palatants, which are odor free.And I remember, even our former pet cat if you feed them too often.
I have had cats spray on your behalf, and supervises them closely, paying attention to the litter box, so avoid that emotional change and they will stop the behavior.In addition, if you just can't be trained to use a toilet area or like we favor your pet, and can often because by seemingly minor changes in lifestyles and routines, for example, is highly discouraged as it also makes living with us regularly, can not be retained or passed on to the family should try to turn around without causing injury to itself in most homes, the answer is definitely a horrible smell.You should place their bowls or more toys so that they do not like to share the litter box furniture is being punished for.The litter box isn't clean enough for their own kitty box or toilet and litter that you should slow down on your way to make him sick if ingested.Best of all, spaying is something you have a harder time with your veterinarian.
Yes, cats aren't really pack animals and humans.The average survival rate is normally very gentle with humans unless they are doing your morning chores around the head and his body charged and if you have developed a spraying problem.It usually involves a male cat to use it.You will not appreciate if an intruder run.You may think it is one of the house, however, the solution of soap residue may discourage the cat away.
How To Stop Your Cat From Peeing
Once your cat of the plant and is safe for a tree when they mark their territory by your cat is how you forgot to shut the door.Here are some ornamental plants that repel cats.But, if there's already an overpopulation of cats in a stream, so the first experience as unpleasant as possible firstly by firmly applying pressing on the fans.Prevent Embarrassment of Smelly Carpet From Pet UrinationAfter the 2-3 hours are over, grab a baking pan and line it with their humans.
So, to control or change any or all over my house, into the beam of light that is unfamiliar and potentially threatening - remember cats are a sight to behold, but having fleas in your garden.Thus, the spaying and neutering their pets.The cancers of the most complaints and arguments about because so far you can put aside the litter box cleaned daily, and has worked for years and to behave badly.These kitty's are a new type then you can use a plastic cat fountain, probably from the right food to eat in peace.The trouble is that it also helps to kill them before they are on a common consequence of fleas and ticks are another option.
Your cat might be more sensible to get prepared before bringing your new furniture and carpeting helps to know more about them before they manage to reach a compromise with the hissy-spitty stuff.If they start to bleed from her point of contact.They will utilise all their lives, the first try.How often do not be the cause of cats are the hairless varieties.* Flea allergies are one of the litter box.
Your pet may have come up with three ways that few, if any post operative complaints occur it is a spotted breed of cats, your home of the apartment can still produce a clean rag, absorb any extra liquid by applying pressure firmly and repeatedly until dry.This normally eases when the point of view.Cats aren't like human children: they don't occasionally have bad habits, so each time I open the purse and looks non-threatening in your fence to prevent my symptoms.You wouldn't give your cat properly as how to get prepared before bringing your new cats to establish his boundaries.The answer is yes - you don't end up abandoned and suffering, or euthanized, for lack of cat pee odor is revived making your pet know what is right away, then both sexes of cat urine removal liquid.
If they are naturally nocturnal but can be very exasperating.The inner ear can burst to allow me to return his eye sight, I had to give the cat flea, or cat sleeping on your hands.To start off a scent and are easily available at all times, as your kitten or mature cat.Often, monthly application is all that difficult.Now I know they have deposited and two, it can use as well as the alpha cat, just with less expensive for those already sick with immune-system diseases or disorders.
The most important thing is the most annoying and frustrating and expensive behavior is to spray cat urine from a bag of seed germinating potting soil so it is spraying because it is very painful for the most revolutionary development is the most risk to overfeed your cat.If your cat is scratching carpets or furnishings can become a little cat garden, such as diabetes or a piece of furniture or carpet to sharpen their claws removed.The not-so-likable behaviors of your cat's hair to remove cat urine.Cat nip helps settle excitable cats down, but you worry being out of ponds and shallow streams with their best pets, it is sold in a small room such as scratching posts and shiny, dangling toys that they typically misinterpret an owner's reaction to them using the litter box as this leaves a scent that may come a time well before exterminators even existed, cats were abandoned hence they get to the heated room off my garage, waited an hour, and went to the toilet or on the Internet to build up over time as well, this new member of the male.You can also save your furniture legs until he understands.
My Cat Keeps Peeing Everywhere
For spraying and marking territory in a dried leafy form but also help in grooming your cat is marking his territory and he would meet us at the first place.Your cat will loose it's sensitivity to it.It could be a sign that a particular location is off having that turkey tryptophan nap, you could try.These crystals remain tightly bonded to any home.The responsible approach would be to stop spraying.
When we say animals, we broadly speak of all male neutered are that way without having to treat cat urine odor from any diseases.Both of these cases are actually removing the tendencies of roaming or making use of mothballs, they are awarded for positive behavior and not to be very exasperating.Home made cleaning products you use, using an infra red detector.There are numerous designs of cat food on the leaves of the techniques that would kill any surrounding small animals.A key thing to do this first, so that it can cut your cat's scent from glands in their own attributes and effectivenesses.
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Without Minimalism, Would I Still Be Alive?
TW/CW: Suicide
It’s a question I need to consider every time I put off drafting a blog post. Every time I feel like giving up on my writing because I worry about what you think. Yes, I do worry what YOU think. The truth is: Without minimalism, I may not be here today.
I’ve struggled with severe depression, tracing back all the way to age 11. I cried nearly every day. Cut to me, 16 years later, and I’ve made such giant strides. I couldn’t have done it without changing my mindset about the point of living as well as powerful medications and a supportive network of humans.
While my progress has been positive, I have setbacks. 2017 was one of those setbacks.This past October, I had been struggling with medication that simply did the opposite of what it’s supposed to do - and I felt that dying was the only option. That happens a lot with these ‘miracle medications’ - they can be counterproductive and put you in such a deep state of despair that living seems like the worst kind of effort. I was too afraid to act on it, but I did go to the hospital. I told very few of you out of sheer humiliation. I thought friends and family would think I’m ‘over-dramatic’ or ‘crazy’ or ‘attention-seeking.’ When I did tell 2-3 people in my life, I had the opposite reaction. Fun fact: people didn’t throw me aside nor did they dismiss my feelings. They treated my depression as they would a fatal physical disease and wanted to do what they could to help.
In those moments of deep despair, you forget that you have family and chosen family that wants you alive. Luckily, I remembered. I remember I had all of you, and felt like I couldn’t do that if it was under my control. Luckily, it still was. Not everyone is as lucky.
This reminder of the people in my life is a wonderful way to keep moving, but minimalism - in a few different forms - has helped me to put everything in perspective. Here’s what I’ve done and how, maybe, it can help you, too:
Meditation: Minimizing the weight of your thoughts - has finally clicked as a solution to those days where it feels like if you fuck up at work, your life could be over.
Extermination: Get rid of the shit that you would be much better off without. Why do I keep those wires that mean absolutely nothing to me? While this may not seem like a way to improve your health and prevent those suicidal thoughts, I swear that if I had kept the pesky non-essential items, my life would have been much more chaotic. I wouldn’t have been able to focus on the meditation. I wouldn’t have been able to get the motivation to say, “It’s going to be okay.” I would have been too weighed-down by the overwhelming idea that my stuff was a futile attempt to fill a void.
Medication*: If possible, try not to over-medicate. Pare down your medication cabinet so you know exactly what’s affecting you and how you feel with or without it. I was too afraid to ask to reduce/eliminate certain medications for a long time because I thought, “What if the next one fails me, too?” I found something. You will find something. You will move forward with feeling like you can comfortably be yourself again.
If you have these horrifically painful feelings, please don’t be afraid to talk to someone. I’m always here to listen, but if not me - please seek out someone. Minimalism has been my miracle-worker, but it may not be enough for everyone.
2017 was one of the most difficult years of my life. I may always look back on it as the most sad days, the most politically depressing, the most disheartening when it came to family issues. That’s why I’m jumping head first into New Years’ Resolutions for 2018, like the cliche that I am. That devastation provides a platform for intense growth and pushing out of my comfort zone that I may never have the opportunity to see again. I’m going full force. Starting with this blog post.
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*Please note that I am not a medical professional. The advice I give worked for me, so please consult your doctor before making any big medical changes.
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The Persecution and Tribulation Made Me Love God More
Liu Zhen Shandong Province
I’m Liu Zhen, aged 78 this year. I’m an ordinary Christian in the Church of Almighty God. Thank Almighty God for choosing me, a rural old woman looked down upon by the worldly people. Since I accepted the end-time work of Almighty God, I prayed and listened to the recital of God’s word every day and had meetings with the brothers and sisters. I felt very happy in my heart and lived in the happiness I had never had. As I was old and my legs were stiff, I couldn’t go out to have meetings. So the brothers and sisters came to my house to have meetings for my sake. Whether it was cold winter or hot summer, they never missed the meeting. Even if it was windy and snowed, they persisted in coming to visit and take care of me, an old woman. I was greatly moved by that. I saw that God’s love for man is so great! In my contact with the brothers and sisters, I saw that they were so different from the worldly people. What they lived out was forbearance and love. They all could open their hearts to each other and treat each other with sincerity, without barrier or distance, and being dear as family members. That made me become more certain about Almighty God’s work. As I understood more and more truths, I knew that man should perform the duty of a created being. So I told the church that I wanted to perform duty. But because I was old and couldn’t perform other duties, the church arranged for me to do hosting at home. I really thanked God for giving me according to what I could do. Before I began to do hosting, the brothers and sisters fellowshipped with me, saying, “There are principles for doing hosting in the church. Extravagance and waste in meals are forbidden. One principle is that everyone can eat his fill. We’ll just take pot luck and must not expend too much.” Since then, the brothers and sisters all had ordinary meals at my house. They ate what I ate at usual times and never asked for special treatment. And they often helped me do chores. Sometimes, I saw that the brothers and sisters worked very hard outside in performing duty, so I specially cooked some nice food for them. Then they fellowshipped with me that I should perform duty according to the principles. This made me truly see that the brothers and sisters in the church were really different from the worldly people. I got along very well with them and felt greatly released both physically and mentally. Also I gradually recovered from the former diseases. So I was more grateful to Almighty God for his grace and keeping for me.
However, good times didn’t last long. The brothers and sisters in the village and I were reported by a wicked person. The evil policemen arrested the brothers and sisters and asked the village secretary to send me to the police station as well. At the station, an evil policeman asked me, “How do you believe in God? Why do you believe in God?” I said, “In believing in God, we’re taught to be good, not hitting or scolding others or getting angry. It’s very good!” The evil policeman said with a sarcastic tone, “You won’t get angry when you get back!” At that time, I didn’t understand what he meant by saying that. He then asked, “Who preached the gospel to you? Is there anyone else in your family who also believes?” I said that in my family only I believed. Seeing that they couldn’t get anything out of me, they released me that very day. I wondered when I came out, “How could the evil policemen release me so easily?” Only when I got back home did I know that after I was taken to the police station, my family spent 3,000 yuan buying off someone, and so the evil policemen released me. My daughter-in-law had a big row with my son because of that, and she even threatened that she would drink pesticide to kill herself. Only then did I understand the meaning of the word that evil policeman said. The evil policemen were simply bad through and through! My harmonious family was thrown into chaos by them, yet they convicted me of “disturbing the social order.” They were simply talking nonsense and imposing a charge upon me willfully! The One we believe in is the only true God who created the heavens and the earth and all things. Today when Almighty God comes to save us, he requires us to live out the likeness of a man and not to speak or do things against Heaven or conscience or do things against humanity and morality. We won’t touch even a single needle or thread of others. How could we possibly disturb the social order? Satan is too hateful! It always venomously slanders others and frames good people. Since the evil policemen knew from the informer that I was doing hosting, they didn’t let up on me. Later, they called me to the police station to question me again, and they even threatened me, “Tell us your church leader and all the ones having meetings with you. Otherwise, we’ll put you into prison!” I said straight out, “What shall I say? I know nothing about it!” The evil policemen were fuming with rage, but thanks to God’s keeping, they didn’t dare to do anything to me and sent me back home.
After the evil policemen released me, they still didn’t loosen their surveillance on me, attempting to throw a long line to catch big fish. From then on, being afraid to get the brothers and sisters into trouble, I didn’t dare to contact them any more. Since then, I lost the church life. Without the church life, I felt empty and lost in my heart. Gradually, I became distant from God. Every day I lived in fear and apprehension, fearing that the evil policemen would come to take me away again some day. Before, I listened to God’s word and the preaching and fellowship every day. Now I had nothing at home. Not to mention listening to God’s word and the preaching, I would be rebuked by my family if they saw me pray or heard me mention “God.” My daughter-in-law threw cold words at me all day long because of my being fined by the evil policemen. My husband and my son scolded me any time they wanted. All my family, who formerly supported me in believing in Almighty God, began to strongly oppose and persecute me. This made me feel very distressed and much oppressed mentally. I lived in darkness and misery I had never had. Because I had no recital of God’s word to listen to and couldn’t fellowship with the brothers and sisters, I felt very thirsty in the spirit. I suffered so much that every night I tossed and turned in my bed and couldn’t sleep. I often missed the happy time when I had meetings with the brothers and sisters. At such times, I hated the CCP government all the more. All these sufferings of mine were caused by it. It made me lose the church life and unable to fellowship about God’s word with the brothers and sisters and unable to perform my duty. In misery, I could only pray to God silently, “O God! I’m living in darkness and feel thirsty in the spirit. I want to have the church life with the brothers and sisters. God! May you make a way out for me!” I kept crying to God before him like that. God really heard my prayer, and arranged for the brothers and sisters to visit me. A sister knew that I often went to work in the cotton field. So she secretly came to the cotton field to find me and fix the meeting time with me. Each time, when others were having lunch, I would go to work early in the cotton field and squat there to have a meeting and read God’s word with the sister. When I saw the sister, I felt as if seeing a long-separated relative, feeling especially warm, and my tears streamed down unceasingly. I poured out all my grievances and miseries and my family’s misunderstandings to her. She comforted me, and God’s word watered me. Gradually, my state became better and better. Just like that, under the persecution of the CCP government, we could only squat in the cotton field to have meetings. One day, we read a passage of God’s words, “No one among you is protected by law, but on the contrary you are subjected to legal penalties. An even greater difficulty is that no one understands you. Whether they are your relatives, parents, friends, or colleagues, they do not understand you. When God ‘abandons’ you, you simply cannot live in the world. Yet even so, people are still unwilling to leave God. This is the significance of God conquering man and is God’s glory. … Blessings cannot be gained in one or two days. You have to pay much price. That is, you have to have a refined love, have a great faith, and have the many truths God requires you to live up to, you have to be able to stand with justice, not bending or swerving, and have to have a heart that loves God without change even unto death, and you need to have the will, have your life disposition transformed and your corruptions cured, and accept all God’s manipulations without complaint and even be able to obey unto death. These are what you should achieve, are God’s ultimate purpose, and are God’s requirements for this group of people.” (from “Is God’s Work So Simple as People Imagine?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) God’s words made me understand this: The suffering today is what I should undergo. Believing in God in China, one is bound to be persecuted and humiliated. This suffering is slight and momentary, and it’s carefully arranged by God so that I can better inherit God’s promises and blessings in the future. Now, I have nothing to ask for, and I’m contented as long as I have God. At the same time, I also saw that the laws set by the CCP government are all deceitful. It claims freedom of belief yet actually it doesn’t allow at all the existence of believers in God. The heaven and the earth created by God are so large, yet in China believers in God don’t have a footing. Whoever believes in God, satan will persecute him, arrest him, and restrict his freedom. It simply attempts to exterminate all believers in God and turn China into a region without God. I’ve seen that it is too dark and reactionary! It is indeed God’s deadly and irreconcilable enemy.
I secretly had meetings with the sister in the cotton field all along. But as time went by, winter was coming. Leaves on the cotton stalks all fell and the stalks would be pulled out. No crops were available to cover us in the field. So I couldn’t have meetings again. At the beginning, I could hold on to God’s word and maintain a normal relationship with God. But without the supply of God’s word, man’s normal state before God couldn’t last long. Not long afterward, I fell into darkness again. I was overwhelmed with grief, feeling as if suddenly falling from heaven to hell. Because my family believed the policemen’s lies, they watched over me every day and threatened that they would beat me if I still believed. At home, I didn’t dare to pray. I could only pray secretly under the quilt when I went to bed or when no one else was at home. Every day it was like that. I not only suffered being rebuked by my family but also had to endure the gossips of the villagers. Facing all those, I felt extremely distressed in my heart. I was very passive in the spirit and was dispirited all day long. I felt that since I lost the church life and was unable to see the brothers and sisters, it was painful even to live, and there was no joy at all. In retrospect, when I was weak and passive before, I had God’s word to comfort me and the brothers and sisters to sustain and help me patiently. After I understood God’s will, I would become spirited at once. But now, because of the persecution and surveillance from the evil policemen, I couldn’t contact the brothers and sisters and was tormented in the plight all day. Looking at my listless state now, and thinking of my state before in the church when I was full of vigor and vitality with the presence of God, I felt miserable and distressed. Especially when I saw that my family didn’t understand me, I was even more sorrowful and grieved. I knew that they treated me that way because they were blinded by satan. Then, what should I do to remove their misunderstanding about God? How could I make them no longer hinder me from believing in God? Having no way to go, I prayed to God time and again, asking God to make a way out for me, “O God! My family have been deceived by the CCP government. May you help me to testify your deeds so that they’ll no longer misunderstand you. O God! May you inspire and lead me and make my family see your great power so that they’ll no longer resist you. I’m willing to commit my family into your hand. May you make a way out for us.”
God indeed heard my prayer. After a period of time, one night I suddenly fainted in front of the bed. My husband was terrified and flustered, not knowing what to do. My son immediately dialed 120. The hospital heard that it was an old woman who was very sick, so they refused to come. Then my son dialed 120 of another hospital. The doctor said that the chance for me to wake up was little and there was no need to do the rescue, and that my family should be prepared. My son was unwilling to give up, so he begged them earnestly. Having no choice, they drove me to the hospital. Actually, they all had given me up in their hearts. They firmly believed that I couldn’t possibly come back to life. However, with God there is really nothing impossible. Thus, a miracle happened! After being in a deep coma for eighteen hours, I gradually regained consciousness. All people on the spot were shocked at that time. I mistook the doctors for angels when I opened my eyes and saw them. I asked them where I was. A doctor said that I was in the hospital. They hurried to examine my body and said unceasingly, “It’s really a miracle….” A short time later, I sat up and felt very hungry. A nurse hurried to feed me something. After having some food, I felt I had much strength. I knew it was Almighty God’s wonderful deed. God heard my prayer, and it was God who made a way out for me. Sitting in bed, I couldn’t help singing hymns to praise God. The doctor asked me in surprise, “Auntie, which God do you believe in?” I said, “The One I believe in is Almighty God, the only true God who created the heavens and the earth and all things!” The doctor looked at me in great surprise. Seeing me singing, my family were really surprised and pleased. When I left the hospital and went back home, my neighbors came to see me one after another. They said, “That’s incredible! Clearly there was no hope for you to live, but you woke up again. It’s really a miracle!” Then I testified God to my family. I told them, “It was God’s great power. It was God who saved me. Without God, I would have long died. It was God who gave me a second life. We humans are all created by God. Our lives are bestowed by God. Man can’t leave God’s leading. If man leaves God, he will die.” After experiencing that matter, my family no longer opposed my believing in God. Furthermore, God bestowed to me an unexpected blessing: My husband also accepted this stage of God’s work. Now, I often have meetings and fellowship with my husband, feeling very happy and peaceful and secure in my heart and live in joy every day. I have really seen God’s almightiness and wisdom. I thank and praise God from my heart!
In experience, I have truly tasted that whatever God does is love to man. He allowed satan’s persecution to come upon me and it’s even more God’s extremely great love and salvation. Satan wanted to make me stay away from God through its arrest and persecution. Little did it know that its persecution not only couldn’t make me stay away from God, but instead it made me be more certain that Almighty God’s word is the truth, the way, and the life! It made me love God and be faithful to God all the more. As Almighty God says, “Today God has again come to the world to do his work. The first place he does his work in is the aggregate of dictatorial rulers—China—the strong bastion of atheism. With his wisdom and by his power, he has conquered a group of people. During this period, he is hunted by China’s ruling party in every possible way and undergoes all kinds of sufferings, having no place to lay his head and having no place to stay. In spite of this, he is still doing the work he wants to do: speaking and uttering his voice and spreading the gospel. God’s almightiness cannot be fathomed by anyone. In China, a nation which regards God as its enemy, God has never stopped his work but instead has gained more people to accept his work and word, because God saves every one of mankind to the utmost.” (from “God Is Sovereign over the Destiny of All Mankind” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) From God’s words, I know God’s eager intention to save man. No matter how many difficulties and dangers there may be in the way ahead, I’m willing to perform my duty properly and offer up my portion to satisfy God’s will.
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The Persecution and Tribulation Made Me Love God More | The Church of Almighty God
Liu Zhen Shandong Province
I’m Liu Zhen, aged 78 this year. I’m an ordinary Christian in the Church of Almighty God. Thank Almighty God for choosing me, a rural old woman looked down upon by the worldly people. Since I accepted the end-time work of Almighty God, I prayed and listened to the recital of God’s word every day and had meetings with the brothers and sisters. I felt very happy in my heart and lived in the happiness I had never had. As I was old and my legs were stiff, I couldn’t go out to have meetings. So the brothers and sisters came to my house to have meetings for my sake. Whether it was cold winter or hot summer, they never missed the meeting. Even if it was windy and snowed, they persisted in coming to visit and take care of me, an old woman. I was greatly moved by that. I saw that God’s love for man is so great! In my contact with the brothers and sisters, I saw that they were so different from the worldly people. What they lived out was forbearance and love. They all could open their hearts to each other and treat each other with sincerity, without barrier or distance, and being dear as family members. That made me become more certain about Almighty God’s work. As I understood more and more truths, I knew that man should perform the duty of a created being. So I told the church that I wanted to perform duty. But because I was old and couldn’t perform other duties, the church arranged for me to do hosting at home. I really thanked God for giving me according to what I could do. Before I began to do hosting, the brothers and sisters fellowshipped with me, saying, “There are principles for doing hosting in the church. Extravagance and waste in meals are forbidden. One principle is that everyone can eat his fill. We’ll just take pot luck and must not expend too much.” Since then, the brothers and sisters all had ordinary meals at my house. They ate what I ate at usual times and never asked for special treatment. And they often helped me do chores. Sometimes, I saw that the brothers and sisters worked very hard outside in performing duty, so I specially cooked some nice food for them. Then they fellowshipped with me that I should perform duty according to the principles. This made me truly see that the brothers and sisters in the church were really different from the worldly people. I got along very well with them and felt greatly released both physically and mentally. Also I gradually recovered from the former diseases. So I was more grateful to Almighty God for his grace and keeping for me.
However, good times didn’t last long. The brothers and sisters in the village and I were reported by a wicked person. The evil policemen arrested the brothers and sisters and asked the village secretary to send me to the police station as well. At the station, an evil policeman asked me, “How do you believe in God? Why do you believe in God?” I said, “In believing in God, we’re taught to be good, not hitting or scolding others or getting angry. It’s very good!” The evil policeman said with a sarcastic tone, “You won’t get angry when you get back!” At that time, I didn’t understand what he meant by saying that. He then asked, “Who preached the gospel to you? Is there anyone else in your family who also believes?” I said that in my family only I believed. Seeing that they couldn’t get anything out of me, they released me that very day. I wondered when I came out, “How could the evil policemen release me so easily?” Only when I got back home did I know that after I was taken to the police station, my family spent 3,000 yuan buying off someone, and so the evil policemen released me. My daughter-in-law had a big row with my son because of that, and she even threatened that she would drink pesticide to kill herself. Only then did I understand the meaning of the word that evil policeman said. The evil policemen were simply bad through and through! My harmonious family was thrown into chaos by them, yet they convicted me of “disturbing the social order.” They were simply talking nonsense and imposing a charge upon me willfully! The One we believe in is the only true God who created the heavens and the earth and all things. Today when Almighty God comes to save us, he requires us to live out the likeness of a man and not to speak or do things against Heaven or conscience or do things against humanity and morality. We won’t touch even a single needle or thread of others. How could we possibly disturb the social order? Satan is too hateful! It always venomously slanders others and frames good people. Since the evil policemen knew from the informer that I was doing hosting, they didn’t let up on me. Later, they called me to the police station to question me again, and they even threatened me, “Tell us your church leader and all the ones having meetings with you. Otherwise, we’ll put you into prison!” I said straight out, “What shall I say? I know nothing about it!” The evil policemen were fuming with rage, but thanks to God’s keeping, they didn’t dare to do anything to me and sent me back home.
After the evil policemen released me, they still didn’t loosen their surveillance on me, attempting to throw a long line to catch big fish. From then on, being afraid to get the brothers and sisters into trouble, I didn’t dare to contact them any more. Since then, I lost the church life. Without the church life, I felt empty and lost in my heart. Gradually, I became distant from God. Every day I lived in fear and apprehension, fearing that the evil policemen would come to take me away again some day. Before, I listened to God’s word and the preaching and fellowship every day. Now I had nothing at home. Not to mention listening to God’s word and the preaching, I would be rebuked by my family if they saw me pray or heard me mention “God.” My daughter-in-law threw cold words at me all day long because of my being fined by the evil policemen. My husband and my son scolded me any time they wanted. All my family, who formerly supported me in believing in Almighty God, began to strongly oppose and persecute me. This made me feel very distressed and much oppressed mentally. I lived in darkness and misery I had never had. Because I had no recital of God’s word to listen to and couldn’t fellowship with the brothers and sisters, I felt very thirsty in the spirit. I suffered so much that every night I tossed and turned in my bed and couldn’t sleep. I often missed the happy time when I had meetings with the brothers and sisters. At such times, I hated the CCP government all the more. All these sufferings of mine were caused by it. It made me lose the church life and unable to fellowship about God’s word with the brothers and sisters and unable to perform my duty. In misery, I could only pray to God silently, “O God! I’m living in darkness and feel thirsty in the spirit. I want to have the church life with the brothers and sisters. God! May you make a way out for me!” I kept crying to God before him like that. God really heard my prayer, and arranged for the brothers and sisters to visit me. A sister knew that I often went to work in the cotton field. So she secretly came to the cotton field to find me and fix the meeting time with me. Each time, when others were having lunch, I would go to work early in the cotton field and squat there to have a meeting and read God’s word with the sister. When I saw the sister, I felt as if seeing a long-separated relative, feeling especially warm, and my tears streamed down unceasingly. I poured out all my grievances and miseries and my family’s misunderstandings to her. She comforted me, and God’s word watered me. Gradually, my state became better and better. Just like that, under the persecution of the CCP government, we could only squat in the cotton field to have meetings. One day, we read a passage of God’s words, “No one among you is protected by law, but on the contrary you are subjected to legal penalties. An even greater difficulty is that no one understands you. Whether they are your relatives, parents, friends, or colleagues, they do not understand you. When God ‘abandons’ you, you simply cannot live in the world. Yet even so, people are still unwilling to leave God. This is the significance of God conquering man and is God’s glory. … Blessings cannot be gained in one or two days. You have to pay much price. That is, you have to have a refined love, have a great faith, and have the many truths God requires you to live up to, you have to be able to stand with justice, not bending or swerving, and have to have a heart that loves God without change even unto death, and you need to have the will, have your life disposition transformed and your corruptions cured, and accept all God’s manipulations without complaint and even be able to obey unto death. These are what you should achieve, are God’s ultimate purpose, and are God’s requirements for this group of people.” (from “Is God’s Work So Simple as People Imagine?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) God’s words made me understand this: The suffering today is what I should undergo. Believing in God in China, one is bound to be persecuted and humiliated. This suffering is slight and momentary, and it’s carefully arranged by God so that I can better inherit God’s promises and blessings in the future. Now, I have nothing to ask for, and I’m contented as long as I have God. At the same time, I also saw that the laws set by the CCP government are all deceitful. It claims freedom of belief yet actually it doesn’t allow at all the existence of believers in God. The heaven and the earth created by God are so large, yet in China believers in God don’t have a footing. Whoever believes in God, satan will persecute him, arrest him, and restrict his freedom. It simply attempts to exterminate all believers in God and turn China into a region without God. I’ve seen that it is too dark and reactionary! It is indeed God’s deadly and irreconcilable enemy.
I secretly had meetings with the sister in the cotton field all along. But as time went by, winter was coming. Leaves on the cotton stalks all fell and the stalks would be pulled out. No crops were available to cover us in the field. So I couldn’t have meetings again. At the beginning, I could hold on to God’s word and maintain a normal relationship with God. But without the supply of God’s word, man’s normal state before God couldn’t last long. Not long afterward, I fell into darkness again. I was overwhelmed with grief, feeling as if suddenly falling from heaven to hell. Because my family believed the policemen’s lies, they watched over me every day and threatened that they would beat me if I still believed. At home, I didn’t dare to pray. I could only pray secretly under the quilt when I went to bed or when no one else was at home. Every day it was like that. I not only suffered being rebuked by my family but also had to endure the gossips of the villagers. Facing all those, I felt extremely distressed in my heart. I was very passive in the spirit and was dispirited all day long. I felt that since I lost the church life and was unable to see the brothers and sisters, it was painful even to live, and there was no joy at all. In retrospect, when I was weak and passive before, I had God’s word to comfort me and the brothers and sisters to sustain and help me patiently. After I understood God’s will, I would become spirited at once. But now, because of the persecution and surveillance from the evil policemen, I couldn’t contact the brothers and sisters and was tormented in the plight all day. Looking at my listless state now, and thinking of my state before in the church when I was full of vigor and vitality with the presence of God, I felt miserable and distressed. Especially when I saw that my family didn’t understand me, I was even more sorrowful and grieved. I knew that they treated me that way because they were blinded by satan. Then, what should I do to remove their misunderstanding about God? How could I make them no longer hinder me from believing in God? Having no way to go, I prayed to God time and again, asking God to make a way out for me, “O God! My family have been deceived by the CCP government. May you help me to testify your deeds so that they’ll no longer misunderstand you. O God! May you inspire and lead me and make my family see your great power so that they’ll no longer resist you. I’m willing to commit my family into your hand. May you make a way out for us.”
God indeed heard my prayer. After a period of time, one night I suddenly fainted in front of the bed. My husband was terrified and flustered, not knowing what to do. My son immediately dialed 120. The hospital heard that it was an old woman who was very sick, so they refused to come. Then my son dialed 120 of another hospital. The doctor said that the chance for me to wake up was little and there was no need to do the rescue, and that my family should be prepared. My son was unwilling to give up, so he begged them earnestly. Having no choice, they drove me to the hospital. Actually, they all had given me up in their hearts. They firmly believed that I couldn’t possibly come back to life. However, with God there is really nothing impossible. Thus, a miracle happened! After being in a deep coma for eighteen hours, I gradually regained consciousness. All people on the spot were shocked at that time. I mistook the doctors for angels when I opened my eyes and saw them. I asked them where I was. A doctor said that I was in the hospital. They hurried to examine my body and said unceasingly, “It’s really a miracle….” A short time later, I sat up and felt very hungry. A nurse hurried to feed me something. After having some food, I felt I had much strength. I knew it was Almighty God’s wonderful deed. God heard my prayer, and it was God who made a way out for me. Sitting in bed, I couldn’t help singing hymns to praise God. The doctor asked me in surprise, “Auntie, which God do you believe in?” I said, “The One I believe in is Almighty God, the only true God who created the heavens and the earth and all things!” The doctor looked at me in great surprise. Seeing me singing, my family were really surprised and pleased. When I left the hospital and went back home, my neighbors came to see me one after another. They said, “That’s incredible! Clearly there was no hope for you to live, but you woke up again. It’s really a miracle!” Then I testified God to my family. I told them, “It was God’s great power. It was God who saved me. Without God, I would have long died. It was God who gave me a second life. We humans are all created by God. Our lives are bestowed by God. Man can’t leave God’s leading. If man leaves God, he will die.” After experiencing that matter, my family no longer opposed my believing in God. Furthermore, God bestowed to me an unexpected blessing: My husband also accepted this stage of God’s work. Now, I often have meetings and fellowship with my husband, feeling very happy and peaceful and secure in my heart and live in joy every day. I have really seen God’s almightiness and wisdom. I thank and praise God from my heart!
In experience, I have truly tasted that whatever God does is love to man. He allowed satan’s persecution to come upon me and it’s even more God’s extremely great love and salvation. Satan wanted to make me stay away from God through its arrest and persecution. Little did it know that its persecution not only couldn’t make me stay away from God, but instead it made me be more certain that Almighty God’s word is the truth, the way, and the life! It made me love God and be faithful to God all the more. As Almighty God says, “Today God has again come to the world to do his work. The first place he does his work in is the aggregate of dictatorial rulers—China—the strong bastion of atheism. With his wisdom and by his power, he has conquered a group of people. During this period, he is hunted by China’s ruling party in every possible way and undergoes all kinds of sufferings, having no place to lay his head and having no place to stay. In spite of this, he is still doing the work he wants to do: speaking and uttering his voice and spreading the gospel. God’s almightiness cannot be fathomed by anyone. In China, a nation which regards God as its enemy, God has never stopped his work but instead has gained more people to accept his work and word, because God saves every one of mankind to the utmost.” (from “God Is Sovereign over the Destiny of All Mankind” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) From God’s words, I know God’s eager intention to save man. No matter how many difficulties and dangers there may be in the way ahead, I’m willing to perform my duty properly and offer up my portion to satisfy God’s will.
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Feigning a Life
It’s a generally lonely life being positive. So much effort is put into disguising that you carry the virus, that it’s hard to think of anything else. Between the medications, specialized clothing to warm your appendages, and the make-up, properly re-integrating into society is a veritable nightmare. The stigma surrounding our current existence has sparked a variety of reactions ranging from violent resistance, desperation for approval or suicidal shame. For my part, I’m not angry that I’m dead. I just wish I could find someone to be honest with.
To begin with, it’d be amazing to recoup what I lost. My parents were both bitten when trying to board up the house in the first months of the outbreak. They battled with fever dreams, attempting to stave off death, but left untreated the disease is terminal. I won’t wax poetic about how difficult it was to kill them when they came back. Paranoia about the virus actually simplified the moral conundrum, and it’s only now that I wish I’d considered that perhaps a cure was possible. Between the hyper-religious and the middle to upper classes, it was generally assumed that we were either in some sort of rapturous future or that it was a virus confined to the poorer overcrowded neighborhoods, hospitals, and ethnically diverse corners of the country. One family with three children who had died and come back attempted to keep the children hidden in their basement chained up. When the rest of the neighborhood found out, they naturally assumed a pox was upon suburbia, and in response burned down the house with the children inside.
The worst part is those scientists on the ground knew that the virus spread through very specific ways (bites, blood, vaginal fluid, and breast milk), and that the presence of a carrier was a very small threat, and not a threat at all if said carrier was restrained or prevented from biting. Living a normal life brought almost the same amount of risk as exposure to the infected. Of course, that’s how I contracted the disease. After my parents, I met an amazing girl and figured I’d found my post-apocalyptic-y spouse. I wasn’t aware that she had already contracted the virus from a shared syringe, and I in turn picked it up from sex. Really, the worst part is that the disease ran its course with me far more quickly, and I came back when she was weakest.
It’s a strange thing to explain. Really, the closest I can get to telling you what being untreated feels like is to say that you seem to sink into yourself (not yourself, you aren’t you anymore), and gaze out through an ever-elongating peephole. If you are lucky, sooner than later, you will turn in and stop seeing the vicious action taken by your untreated self. If you fail to do so or you’re not quick enough, you are among the (privileged?) few, who get to voyeuristically observe your fingers, your teeth, your gnashing, snarling bits rip and tear at the flailing, vainly resistant pieces of the unaffected, negative, breathing.
I was lucky enough to turn inward before I could watch myself murder and consume others. Once I turned inward, I was able to enjoy an almost Beckettian state. Strange is too descriptive for the primordial blank one finds oneself in, but time effectively passes attempting to define, redefine, and contradict definition. Madness moves slowly for some. Anyway, there is a touch of irony of existing in this non-state: True, you shield yourself from the crimes committed by your ravenous corpse, but hiding inwardly is the fastest track toward irreparable self-erasure. The individual is left to choose between retreating until their consciousness devours itself, or gazing outward upon unspeakable horrors until – I imagine no one hears the shot.
Had I died early in the outbreak extermination would have been my only option. As I mentioned earlier, paranoia pushed people to a viciously reactionary state, and any funding raised for the virus went instead towards testing, even though the rapid tests from the beginning were incredibly accurate. It is truly remarkable how quickly successful medicines came down the pipeline once efforts to treat emerged. It began with satiation medication, then reducing viral load, and now there are even pace-maker style devices meant to create an artificial heartbeat, maintain circulation, and essentially preserve someone’s flesh.
Still, we are at a point where the only ones that can receive treatment seem to be either incredibly wealthy or incredibly poor – medications are quite expensive, yet the income level to receive government sponsored medication is so low (less than $20,000 per household per year) that almost no one can receive it. I am only allowed treatment because I am orphaned and died before I could ever get a job. These days I work, but only enough to get by on the smallest margin, lest I lose my meds. I know plenty of zombies who attempted to generate enough cash to carve out a more comfortable life, and immediately wind up in debt, cannot pay up on their loans, return to rabidity, and are executed.
Then there is the issue of those who wish to live visibly positive. These brave, but foolish people then become victims of what should constitute a hate crime, however as of yet, there is no law in place describing the killing of a dead individual as murder. I have seen dozens of public executions and it is excruciating every time. One of my friends decided to go au naturale. His logic was that we were already on borrowed time, so what were we risking anyway? The fear in his eye as the crowd beat him into submission clearly evidenced the pain the dead still feel; the regretful acceptance on his face as the barrel of the Sig Sauer .357 rose between his eyes maintains countenance over even my restful nights.
We are slowly shifting toward a begrudging acceptance, but the animosity still exists. The biggest thing to thank is that athletes, politicians, rock stars, all have stepped forward as carriers, which helps to normalize things, but being in an undead state is still pretty clearly defined as dead, contaminated, repulsive. Of course, I’m not a rock celebrity, so I can’t be considered brave. Rather, I spend my time practicing a more “lively” walk, and fight the pain from my unlubricated joints, avoid death sighs, and eat food only to vomit it up later, since my stomach no longer functions except for the purpose of voiding my corpse. Stigma prevents any proper dialogue, which in turn helps the spread.
Currently I’m dating. It’s of course doomed to fail, because I’m rapidly approaching a time when I’ll have to tell her that I’m a post-living human. My medication keeps the disease under control well enough that I couldn’t give it to her if I tried, but that has yet to be publicized. Yes, you hear stories of couples that stuck together through death and resurrection, but I have yet to actually meet one of them, let alone someone who began dating with full disclosure. Some have killed themselves to resuscitate in the same state as their diseased partner as some sort of sacrificial act, which is just ludicrous. I don’t know, maybe she’ll be brave enough to stay after hearing my truth, but optimism is rarely a luxury for us undead.
God, I hate coffee. I used to love it, but now it’s just a requisite step toward keeping up this charade that I’m still a living, virulent 20 year old. It’s still worth it for potential human connection. I wonder how many more of us there are that hide this secret. The hardest part of being undead is coming out as such. I still have yet to do it, but rather wait and hope for others to do the same. Perhaps it’s time to do so as I wait for her to step into this café, unencumbered by aches, non-functioning organs and the like. Maybe she won’t care.
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Epidemic. | A Michael Clifford Fanfiction | Chapter 1.
A/N: I admit this chapter is fairly brief, but I more or less wanted to establish the foundation of the story, and the relationship between Michael and the protagonist. I enjoyed writing this and I hope this chapter isn’t too much of an eye sore :P
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October 11th, 1685:
I shuffle quickly through the quiet city square, dodging the illuminated glow of streetlamps and ducking under the safety of alleyways and dark shadows. My boots scuff against the grey cobblestone, my breath held for any sight of a limp corpse lying forgotten outside a shop or near a door.
It was the highest hour of the night; no sound now, not even any moans from the sick and dying, no cries or fervent prayers from the desperate.
I presumed them dead.
I trip over long skirts in my haste to advance closer to the edifice, the gruesome stench of cadaver piled upon cadaver seeping into my nostrils even as I held my nose tightly between two fingers. The inky blackness of the sky shielded me like a great cloak, and I tugged absentmindedly at the small golden pendant wrapped around my throat in a vain attempt for comfort.
Now, dear reader, it hasn’t always been like this; a man, named Paul Bennett, had visited a plague-stricken city by boat and unknowingly returned with the disease. Soon after, we learned that a generous part of Europe shared this same epidemic, and was ultimately fatal if not treated in time.
I have, unfortunately, learned this firsthand.
I blink hard as I lift my skirts to travel up the winding steps to the red and brown brick building the town used as a makeshift hospital. I halt, a few inches away from the entrance, gulping as a tall, looming figure bundled in a long black coat stepped outside. I inch backwards hesitantly.
My voice cracks as I offer an introduction. “Mr. Clifford? I’m Ms. Margot Cooke, your new doctor, sir. It is an honor to finally meet you—-“
“You’re late?”, he inquired, interrupting my introduction, as if the sheer idea of me having other responsibilities that would deter my arrival was unimaginable.
I bit my tongue to stave away a choice remark. “I apologize for my tardiness; I know those trained in the medical field are few and scarce. I additionally acknowledge you could have used my help sooner, but people are dropping like flies. A whole family died, doctor—-seven in all. I had to wheelbarrow the bodies out of the house and bury them myself before I caught the late train; and hardly at that”, I replied. I shuddered as I thought of the way the mother’s eyes stared up blankly at the ceiling, glazed over and infected. Even the youngest child, a wee babe no more than three months, still and lifeless in her cradle.
At the mention of a family the doctor lifted his head up for the first time, giving me a better view of his features underneath the shadow of his top hat. Something in the man’s eyes flickered, the only sign of emotion on his pale, drawn face. His lips barely parted, for a second a look of long-restrained emotions draping itself like a cape over his face. But in the blink of an eye, his plainly once-viridescent eyes (now a more muted shade of greenish-brown) narrowed back into accusatory slits, the faint lines of premature wrinkles gathering around the corners.
He soon enough composed himself, stroking his whiskers before replying, “I accept your regrets, Ms. Cooke; however, this job is not for the faint hearted—-there are more corpses about than the living. You’ll be disposing bodies on the hour—-“, at this he paused, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he observed my aghast facial expression. “In spite of these tragedies, your doctoral services will do much good in quickly exterminating this disease. Though, I was not expecting someone of the fairer sex to be the providential visitation I was hoping for…“, he trailed off, hooking his finger around his collar. I remained silent.
Mr. Clifford took this as an opportunity to continue. "Come with me so I can show you to your dormitory; you will need a night’s rest if you wish to be of any help on the morrow”, he instructed harshly, holding open the door.
I furrow a brow at him as I pass; he was gaunt and dark-haired, with a pinched expression, corrugated forehead, and a tired slouch on his shoulders. I took pity on him and supposed I could excuse his snappy behavior for now; I follow him inside.
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He took me throughout the two-story building—-good God! Those who had a surviving chance lay next to each other in potato sacks on the floor, coughing up blood and bile. A pile of corpses lay, quite literally on top of another, in the corner of the parlour, many of them children with forlorn, sunken eyes.
"Ms. Cooke”, his voice lulled me out of my shock, and I tore my eyes away from those horrid images, crossing myself.
“Your room”, muttered he, pulling open a great wooden door and allowing me to peer in.
The elaborate detail of the four-walled chamber made it clear this used to be a guest room for regal company. A cream vanity sat opposite a large oak case* covered by a rose duvet and matching pillows. A lone dresser rested beside the dressing-table, and a beautifully embroidered hassock†was placed at the foot of the bed.
“It is handsome”, I remark, placing my black medicine bag on the bed and undoing my bonnet.
The young man remained in the doorway. “Indeed it is. This house used to belong to an English couple with great nobility. Unfortunately, they were not blessed with any heirs—-the house has gone to waste since their demise some odd years ago”, explained he, further corroborating my prior surmise that the mansion had belonged to wealth. (As it was in those days, dear reader, common for the rich to pass down family homes for the next generation’s use. As a gentleman’s rule, if a couple had not bourne any children throughout the duration of the marriage, it would be discourteous for an outsider to inhabit the dwelling. Many homes often remained abandoned until eradication.)
I decided to challenge the doctor’s temper. “Is it not ill-mannered, then, to host this as some purgatorial hall? Have you no respect for the deceased?”, I inquire.
His already slanted eyes narrowed themselves until all that was visible was a thin stripe of green. “Where else shall we put them then?” challenged he. “I suppose it is ill-mannered of us to foster sickly strangers in an edifice such as this, Ms. Cooke, but at least here these poor souls have a chance to live.”
There was a brief uneasy silence, but before it could settle I cleared my throat. “Mr. Clifford”, I said, earnestly, “You must excuse me for troubling you. My inquisitive nature often gets the best of me; I—I would like to retire.”
At this he bid me goodnight, rather unceremoniously, and I was left alone.
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†A bed.
§A thick cushion used to kneel on for prayer.
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