#the second one was flying along a river with a huge fish already in its talons | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

belphegor1982 · 7 years ago

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Way back in December 2015 I made a post that started with (tldr) “I’m writing the sad and I’m afraid I’ll fuck up”. Well, I finally finished the chapter, so I’ll leave you to judge whether I fucked up or not.

BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS AND THE PLAINS

Chapter One: September Chapter Two: The Clandestine Chaplain Chapter Three: Tidings of Comfort and Joy Chapter Four: Giosuè

Chapter Five: Vigil

Quand la vie ne tient qu’à un fil, c’est fou le prix du fil ! (When life hangs by a thread, you won’t believe the price of the thread.)

Daniel Pennac, La Petite Marchande de prose (Write to Kill)

August 1944

In the heart of summer, heat is no laughing matter in the Lowlands. Whoever decides to go out on the roads in the dead hour, between one and three in the afternoon, when the air trembles above the ground and you can burn your fingers just picking up a pebble, needs at the very least the protection of a hat if they don’t want to keel over from sunstroke. Going from the cooler houses out into the sun too quickly feels like being on the receiving end of the hottest, most powerful slap in the face you can imagine.

When the sun is at its zenith, everything is painted white: the sky, the roads, and even the grass on the dykes. Thin shiny threads of stagnant water stretch in the bottom of canals whose proportions then look completely excessive to an outsider. Lizards and grass snakes loll on hot stones, birds hide in trees or in the cool of hedges. Everything slows down, everybody waits for the worst to pass. The searing heat makes it hard for anyone to believe that the world hasn’t just stopped and that things, presumably, are still happening somewhere.

And yet.

* * *

It was an hour after lunch on one of the hottest Thursdays of August. Don Camillo was slumped in his armchair with his eyes closed and his collar undone. It was too hot to light a half-cigar or even read; a nap in the relative cool of the rectory seemed the best way to pass the time until the heat abated. Besides, it would be a welcome distraction from his thoughts.

The procession of the Assumption had been two days ago. Windows and doors all around town had been decked with the traditional flowers and garlands to celebrate the Madonna as her statue was carried along the streets, but only half the usual people turned up; most of the ones who did looked nervous from start to finish, glancing around anxiously and jumping at sudden noises. In the end, instead of Nazi or Fascist tanks, only Guglielmo Fantoni, the head of the local Blackshirt section – which consisted of half a dozen men and a dog – showed up on a bicycle to watch the proceedings.

Toward the end of the procession, however, as the cortège crossed the main square back to the church and people started to relax, they became aware of a low humming sound that quickly turned into the roaring whine of plane engines. It grew closer, so much that the terrified people picked up their children and their old folks and scattered; in the blink of an eye Don Camillo was alone in the middle of the deserted square with the statue of the Madonna. He ran to the terracotta statue, gritted his teeth, and lifted it with a huge effort. A few minutes and a lot of sweat later, he had carried it to the parvis, under the porch of the church, just in time to look up and see the planes fly over the square, so low you could make out their markings, and continue north-west to the river and the Canalaccio.

Two or three seconds later, the earth shook. The Germans had just lost three trucks, a tank, and half a dozen men; on the other hand, fifteen villagers of a nearby hamlet had lost their homes, and two families had lost their lives down to the last child.

The funerals had taken place this morning. The carpenter had to borrow wood from Boretto to finish the nine coffins, even though two of them were no more than a hundred, a hundred and ten centimetres long.

It was not uncommon for Carlino, the current altar boy, to fall asleep in the middle of Mass and forget to ring the bell at the moment of the Elevation1; Don Camillo usually muttered “Carlino, the bell!” between his teeth and, if it didn’t work, woke him up with a smack to the top of his head. Although he never let his hand do more than brush past the boy’s hair – otherwise he would probably knock out Carlino altogether – it was always more than enough for Carlino to yelp awake. This time, though, the reason the boy missed his cue for the bell was because he was sobbing too hard to pay attention; one of the dead children had sat next to him in class for the past two years and they were good friends. Don Camillo sighed, and ended up gently taking the bell from the boy’s hands and ringing it himself. Nobody blinked at the anomaly.

Grief won over fear. The entire town accompanied the bodies to the cemetery.

After the funeral, Don Camillo stayed in the church for a long time to talk to the crucified Christ on the main altar, as usual when the coffins lowered into the ground that day were a little too many, or a little too small. As lunchtime drew near, though, heat and hunger overcame sorrow, and he retreated to the rectory for a bite to eat and a nap. Or at least some shut-eye.

Don Camillo was just starting to doze off when someone knocked at his window so frantically he almost fell off his armchair. Once he was the right way up he ran to the window, where he saw the upturned nose and freckled face of thirteen year old Angelina Mozzini from the Boschetto. She was in such a hurry that her bicycle lay discarded on the ground.

“What happened?” Don Camillo asked, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

Angelina, panting after a ten-minute bicycle ride at full speed under the sun, inhaled deeply and said in one breath, “My dad told me to tell you my grandpa is very sick and he wants to see you right now and there’s no time to lose.”

Don Camillo hastily put his collar back on and fastened up the couple of buttons he had undone as a concession to the heat. Then he rushed out of the rectory and into the church, followed by Angelina.

“Did he have an accident?” he asked loudly as he rummaged in the sacristy then under the altar for the holy oil, the vestments and the usual things needed for the last rites. “Or was it the heat? He was fine this morning!”

Angelina had stayed in the aisle; she twisted her index finger in her right hand and said nothing, looking red in the face and rather distressed, so Don Camillo did not insist. He locked the door of the church and tied his bag to the pannier rack on his bicycle. After a second thought he ran back to the rectory to take his hat. When he got back to his bicycle, Angelina had picked up her own and was already halfway across the square, pedalling towards home.

The Boschetto was one of the frazioni of the town, a few houses planted here and there next to the little grove that gave it its name. It took Don Camillo a few minutes to get there, and when he did, Angelina’s bicycle was already propped up against the wall of her house.

He found her inside with her parents and, more surprisingly, her grandfather, who was sitting in an armchair reading a newspaper and waved cheerfully when he saw Don Camillo.

“What—”

Angelina interrupted him. “I’m really sorry I lied to you, Don Camillo,” she said, visibly upset. “I didn’t want to.”

Her father gave her a comforting smile and turned to Don Camillo, looking grave.

“Sorry about the trick, Reverend,” he said. “I believe there is indeed someone who needs the last rites, but not here.”

“You mean in the mountains?” asked Don Camillo slowly. He had suspected Maurizio Mozzini to be in contact with the partisans for a while now, but since he was not absolutely certain, he had said nothing. Besides, there were so many brigades and small bands roaming the mountains and the hills. Who knew which one, or which ones, Mozzini communicated with?

Mozzini nodded. “I have a radio,” he said after a moment of hesitation. “I usually use it to relay information and report the Germans’ and the Black Brigades’ troop movements. I just received a message that said, ‘Tell Don Camillo that Agostino’s cousin is in a very bad way and wants to see a priest right now’; since it wasn’t part of any code I know, I sent Angelina to get you. Does that make sense to you?”

Don Camillo nodded, suddenly worried. ‘Agostino’ was Signora Antonietta’s code name. No cousin of hers lived nearby. It could only mean one thing: she was sheltering somebody who might not be long for this world. Angelina’s father had been right. There was no time to lose.

Since Angelina still had guilt written all across her face in capital letters, however, Don Camillo said quickly, “Look, you didn’t lie to me. You said your dad told you to tell me those things. That wasn’t a lie, was it?”

She shook her head, looking a little relieved. Don Camillo hastily saluted everybody – old Mozzini gave him a toothless smile from his armchair – and took off on his bicycle like a rocket towards Pasotti’s.

A few weeks ago, Pasotti, tired of having to get out of bed or stop working every time Don Camillo needed his motorcycle, had given him a spare key to his barn. Don Camillo took the motorcycle, leaving his bicycle in its place, and sped off in a roar of engine and a cloud of dust.

Riding a motorcycle, especially in the summer, had nothing on riding a bicycle. Not only the machine made him gain precious time and save up on energy, but the speed created a wind so strong he had to tie a handkerchief around his hat to keep it in place. After the trips to the Mozzinis’ and Pasotti’s with the sun beating down hard on his head and his shoulders – respectively covered with a black hat and a black cassock – he felt like a fish the fisherman had just thrown back into the water.

Who could be the poor soul in need of the holy oil? A soldier, maybe, with some information he could only tell to someone who would keep his secret to the grave? A civilian? One of the partisans?

And why had they asked for him?

The motorcycle swerved, jerking Don Camillo from his grim train of thoughts. He shoved the worry to the back of his mind and twisted the accelerator.

Despite the air shimmering above the ground that made it look like puddles of water in the distance, the dirt road was very, very dry, and by the time Don Camillo reached Roccaverde, around three in the afternoon, he was covered in white dust up to his hair. He barely took the time to brush off the worst of it before knocking on Signora Antonietta’s door.

Nobody answered.

Don Camillo knocked again, louder this time. Since he still didn’t get any reply, he tried opening the door.

It was unlocked.

The transition from the blazing sun to the darker indoors – the shutters of all the windows facing south and west were closed – was so jarring that it took a few seconds before his eyes got used to the lack of light. As he blinked and opened his eyes as wide as he could, there was a dull thud and sudden movement next to him.

The first thing he could make out clearly was a gun pointed straight at his face. The second was a pair of eyes just behind the gun.

Don Camillo had never been afraid of weapons, but he knew enough about human nature to freeze at the sight of those eyes. The person they belonged to was clearly beyond knowing friend from foe and could shoot without a second thought. All of a sudden the sweat that had been running down his temples went cold, and he shuddered.

“Brusco,” he said with a placating gesture, “it’s me. Calm down and put that gun aw—”

Two things happened at the same time: Brusco recognised Don Camillo and lowered his weapon, and Don Camillo took a better look at Brusco and gasped. The man’s clothes were spattered with blood and his hands and arms were blotched almost up to the elbow.

Brusco slowly put his gun back in his belt and bent to pick up what he had dropped: a mass of sheets with large stains of a colour that was instantly recognisable, even in the half-light. The expression in his eyes had shifted slightly. Not that it got any easier to look at.

A lot can be said without anyone opening their mouth at all. The two men stared at each other in wordless dialogue for a few seconds, then Don Camillo ran to the corridor.

The trapdoor to the attic was open, the ladder down. He clambered up, still dragging his bag.

What he saw when he scrambled to his feet made him stop dead. The bag fell from his hands with a thump on the dusty floorboards.

The tiles lay directly on the rafters and the purlins, and the rays of sunlight peeking between them were more than enough to see by. Signora Antonietta used the vast space mostly for storage, but also to hide fugitives stalked by the authorities, partisans between two actions, or downed Allied flyers. Small boxes of stuff that were not sensitive to cold or humidity were strewn here and there; in the back, a few piled up crates and boxes usually served as a low makeshift screen to isolate the old mattress she kept for the occasional traveller in transit. Signora Antonietta sat beside it, her sleeves rolled up high on her sinewy arms, taking knife-like tools out of a tureen full of red water and cleaning them with ethanol in slow, deliberate gestures despite the fact that her hands shook a little. When she was done with one of them, she handed it to the man sitting opposite on the dusty floor, a middle-aged bespectacled gentleman in his shirtsleeves who handled the knives with the kind of familiarity that comes with long experience. He took them one by one and carefully put them back into a long, thin box.

There was someone lying on the narrow mattress behind the two of them, and Don Camillo’s heart seized up in his chest, because it was Peppone.

Not the Peppone he knew, the one he had last seen just a week and a half ago as he waved him goodbye, face and arms very brown after almost a year of outdoor living, one hand gripping his submachine gun’s strap, firmly planted in the ground like a tree. This Peppone was still, silent, limp; his skin was grey, his eyes sunken, his lips almost as white as the thick bandage around his midsection. His jacket, his neckerchief and what was left of his shirt lay in a heap nearby, so drenched in blood that the floorboards underneath were red.

Don Camillo felt around for something to lean on. The nearest rafter was too far, and he swayed on his feet. Signora Antonietta had looked up at the sound of Don Camillo’s bag hitting the floor; when she saw the expression on his face she stood up with some difficulty and hurried to him.

The man vaguely looked up from his bag. He was drenched in sweat and looked exhausted.

“I’m afraid you won’t get much of a confession from this one, Father,” he said, taking off his glasses to clean them. “I hope it’s not that much of a prerequisite to get to Heaven.”

Was it the pervasive heat, or the pungent, sickly smell of blood and antiseptic mingled with dusty wood? Don Camillo’s legs wobbled and would perhaps have given out if Signora Antonietta hadn’t taken a solid hold of his arm and supported some of his weight. She glowered at the man, her eyes gleaming out of her pale face.

“He’s a friend,” she said sharply, bending down to retrieve Don Camillo’s bag from the floor and walking up to the mattress and the prone form on it. Don Camillo didn’t correct her. He followed like a ghost, his head strangely empty, as though full of winter mist.

The man – obviously a doctor – put his glasses back on and sympathy softened his expression.

“I’m sorry, that was thoughtless. He’s still alive; I managed to take the bullet out and sewed up the wound and what I could inside. The damage to the internal organs wasn’t all that extensive, considering, and I gave him an antibiotic to ward off infection. But he did lose a large amount of blood, and I’m not equipped to give him a transfusion – even if I could find out his blood type and find someone with the same I don’t have the proper equipment here. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, but…” He shook his head. “Honestly, it’ll be a miracle if he even lasts the night.”

Don Camillo half-fell, half-sat heavily on the floor.

Funny how some kinds of silences can have different textures, different colours. The doctor’s voice had been low, and nobody else made a sound, but the silence suddenly became even heavier as a fourth person – fifth, if you included Peppone – added his own lack of words. Brusco had come back with clean hands and a pile of folded-up sheets just in time to hear the last sentence, which had frozen him in his tracks.

Signora Antonietta sighed, and went to take the sheets from him. Between the four of them, they managed to make a decent bed without jostling Peppone around too much. Peppone did not complain or even make a sound the whole time. The only outward sign of life he gave was his chest rising and falling imperceptibly along with his thin, uneven breaths.

The doctor retrieved his jacket, his hat and his bag, and took his leave. Signora Antonietta picked up Peppone’s shirt and jacket and followed him down the ladder, adding in a tired voice that she was going to make some tea, being out of coffee. The red neckerchief – now a much darker red – fell from the heap of clothes right next to Don Camillo. Don Camillo picked it up automatically, then let it go as though it had burned his hand. The fabric was soaked through and through, probably from an attempt to stem the flood of blood.

Brusco went to sit down next to Peppone, staring into space. He and Don Camillo stayed silent a long time. The only sound that mattered to both of them was that faint irregular breathing.

Then, at some point, Brusco rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Bad luck. That’s what it was. We’d subdued the driver and the passenger, and were about to take the truck and go when that damn—that Kraut came out of nowhere. Turned out he went in the woods to relieve himself, lost track of his squad and bumped right into us. Still had half his trouser buttons open. Can you believe it?” Incredulity broke from behind the dark despair, then was gone as soon as it had come. “He only fired one shot. We got him before he could fire a second, Nino and me. One of us shot him right in the head. Might’ve been me or Nino. No way to tell.”

From downstairs came the muffled sound of the front door opening and closing. The middle hinge always creaked a little, no matter how often Signora Antonietta oiled it. Outside a goat bleated.

“Peppone insisted we bury the body before anything else, because there’s always reprisals when the Germans get wind that one of their own got killed. He’s the boss, and the wound didn’t look so bad at first, so we took care of the corpse and handed the guys from the truck to another band we’d rendezvoused with. Signora Antonietta’s house was a dozen kilometres away, so I took the truck and headed there with Peppone.

“At one point Peppone said that we’d have plenty of things to tell the chaplain next time you came to visit. It was a narrow, dangerous road to drive on, so I didn’t really pay attention. Then a little later he said, ‘You couldn’t stop by my house, could you? There’s something I forgot to mention to the wife.’ He was getting white and the seat was getting red, so I stepped on it. And then a couple of kilometres later, he gripped my shirt and said real quietly, ‘Get him. Go. Now.’ He stopped talking pretty quick after that.” Brusco cleared his throat and continued with an effort. It was the longest Don Camillo had ever heard him talk. “When we got here I sent Smilzo to get the doctor in Borghetto and wrote a message for Francesca to send over the radio. I’m supposed to meet with the others in half an hour, with or without news.”

Brusco fell silent. Then he got to his feet, his body unfolding limb after limb, looking like every joint should be creaking at least as much as Signora Antonietta’s front door did.

“When… If… Anything happens, leave a message in the usual tree. We’ll check whenever we can. The sooner we know, the better.”

Don Camillo was still incapable of forming a coherent sentence; he only nodded. The situation felt completely unreal, yet at the same time he felt as though somebody was hitting him in the head quite soundly with a thick plank.

Signora Antonietta climbed the ladder to bring the tea and give Brusco the go-ahead; Brusco downed a steaming cup in almost one go, most likely burning every single taste bud in his mouth. When he was able to speak again, he whispered a few words, probably in thanks. Signora Antonietta responded in kind and laid a gentle hand on his arm, but Brusco shook his head and left without looking back. A minute later the front door creaked again as he closed it.

Signora Antonietta put down the tray on a box and drew a crate to sit on. She was silent for a while, nursing her cup of tea and absent-mindedly rubbing her fingers. Most of the blood was gone and she wore a clean apron, but it was obvious from the way her hands still trembled a little that she would keep seeing that particular shade of red on her fingers – the same shade that was now on Don Camillo’s from when he had picked up the red kerchief – for a long time.

She put the other cup in Don Camillo’s hands. Once he noticed the tea, he drank it up, like Brusco had done – and, like with Brusco, it set his throat on fire. Only after the burning sensation started to fade and his face went back to a more normal colour did the world really come into focus again.

It was not a pretty sight.

Signora Antonietta slowly drank the last of her tea. Then she picked up Don Camillo’s bag which was lying on a box nearby and gently put it down next to him.

“I imagine you’re going to need this,” she said quietly. She took the empty cups and the tray to put them away and added, “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything. There’s a lot of washing to be done and the goats need milking. I’m going to close the trapdoor just in case; knock four times if you want the ladder.”

“Thank you,” said Don Camillo in a voice he didn’t recognise. He heard her footsteps thud across the attic and down the ladder, then all sounds from downstairs were muffled as Signora Antonietta shut the trapdoor. This time she had taken the bloody kerchief with her.

As the silence stretched and stretched, it seemed to weigh so much that his heart and his limbs felt like they were made of lead. Reaching for his bag was an effort. When he looked inside, though, he immediately closed it again.

Don Camillo knew, for having learned it in seminary all those years ago and practising it all too often, that the holy oil was not only for the dying, but for the sick as well. Extreme unction existed to help souls on the way to Heaven, make sure they got there quickly and didn’t get lost along the way, even if said soul still had quite some time to spend on earth. It was ‘just in case’.

It was that ‘just in case’ that kept some people from calling the priest until the very last moment, when they or their loved one was practically drawing their last breath – almost as though the oil was not seen as a consequence of someone being at death’s door, but as the final confirmation that the person would indeed die.

There were priests – generally from big cities – who shook their heads at that and called it ‘silly rural superstition’. Don Camillo had always found it anything but silly. It was superstition, of course, but how could anyone call ‘silly’ people who just aren’t ready to say goodbye to a parent, a child, a friend?

Don Camillo took a deep breath and reached for the bag again. Then he closed it once more.

No, not now. It was too early.

The only sounds that came from outside was the occasional bird song and the ferocious thuds of the washing paddle on wet fabric below. Signora Antonietta was otherwise completely silent as she worked. Considering the amount of blood that had stained her sheets, she would be at it for a long time.

It was the heart of the afternoon; the sun had left the zenith a couple of hours before but was still beating brutally on the trees, the ground, and the rooftops. In the attic, directly under the tiles, the heat was crushing. Don Camillo wiped the sweat from his forehead with the hand that didn’t have blood on it and looked down at Peppone, who was still breathing shallowly, grey-faced and sunken-eyed.

Don Camillo looked at his bag again.

No. There was still time.

Don Camillo shifted position to get on his knees – little bones popping in his back and shoulders – and started praying.

They weren’t the usual prayers one said at someone’s death or sick bed; his missal was in his bag and he wasn’t opening it for the world (not for the moment at least, as he kept telling himself). Rather, he borrowed from Masses: the daily ones, the Sunday ones, the weddings and baptisms. The Ave Maria, the Magnificat, the De Profundis. The prayers addressed to God directly and the others, addressed to men in comfort or consolation.

And still time crawled by, agonisingly.

* * *

Signora Antonietta came up around four with a pitcher of water. She managed to have Peppone down the contents of a glass.

“Try to have him drink at least every hour,” she told Don Camillo, adding before she went down the ladder again, “and it wouldn’t be a bad thing if you helped yourself, too. It can get fairly hot up here.”

As understatements went, this one was rather spectacular. Don Camillo had to make several trips to the kitchen pump.

When temperatures started to go down a little and the sunlight softened and turned gold, then orange, then red, Signora Antonietta climbed into the attic again, this time with a bit of broth and bread, hard cheese, and culatello. Peppone drank the broth without waking up; Signora Antonietta ate half the rest of the food. When she insisted that Don Camillo should have something, he politely but firmly declined.

A while later, Signora Antonietta looked at him, sighed, and brought him a blanket.

* * *

Don Camillo spent one of the longest nights of his life, huddling under a blanket on that hard, dusty floor, staring into space and listening with unprecedented attention to one particular sound. Time was suspended to that faint breathing, right there, fifty centimetres from him. A few times, it slowed to a crawl, and Don Camillo’s heart froze and only started beating again when he realised it hadn’t, in fact, stopped.

When Latin started to slip away from his mind – because it’s always right when you think hardest about something that your memory fails you – he switched to Italian. At some point he realised he was praying in dialect, too.

Seconds passed, turned into minutes then hours, then abruptly turned into seconds again. Peppone kept breathing. Don Camillo kept praying. The bag remained unopened.

* * *

“Reverend?”

Don Camillo had not realised he had closed his eyes. When he did, his heart gave an ugly lurch and he quickly looked down at Peppone.

Not much had changed. He was still deathly pale and almost completely motionless, as though keeping what little life he had left huddled in his chest to keep his heart and lungs working. Breathing looked a little less like a huge effort, however.

The faint blue light of pre-dawn seeped in through the spaces between the upper tiles. Signora Antonietta was crouching in front of him, already dressed and with a shawl around her shoulders. When she saw his panicked glance, she gave a wan smile.

“He’s still with us, thank the Lord. I brought breakfast. Do you want some?”

“No, thank you,” said Don Camillo, rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand that didn’t have dried blood on it. “I can’t before morning Mass.” He took out his pocket watch; it was a little past four. There was still time for him to make it home before morning service.

The last thing Don Camillo wanted was to leave Signora Antonietta’s attic, but he knew that if he stayed away for too long, there would inevitably be gossip, especially from the little old ladies who never missed even the six o’clock mass barring snow, sleet, or buckets of rain. Gossip was not that dangerous in and of itself, but since the German invasion, anything could be turned into a weapon. Having already missed vespers last night for no apparent reason, he could hardly afford to miss another Mass.

He rose to his feet with some effort. Signora Antonietta put down her cup of tea on a box nearby and gently touched Peppone’s hand. Peppone didn’t stir.

“You’ll come back, won’t you?” she asked softly. She wasn’t quite looking at him, and she wasn’t quite looking down either, so Don Camillo wasn’t sure whether she meant him or Peppone. He nodded all the same and left silently.

* * * *

Pasotti’s motorcycle flew towards the horizon as though on its own accord. Its rider was too preoccupied to consciously do a good steering job. The fact that they both reached Pasotti’s farm intact was nothing short of a miracle. It was only when Don Camillo took up his bicycle again that he realised he had left his bag in Signora Antonietta’s attic.

There was quite some time left before Mass, but Don Camillo didn’t stop at the rectory to brush the dust off and change. Instead, he slipped into the church through the little door of the bell tower.

The church was cool, still, and quiet, as it usually was this early in the day. Sunlight was still halfway down the belfry and it would be a while before it reached the stained-glass windows. The candles next to the altar and in the little chapel devoted to the Madonna had gone out, but the little light on the main altar still burned as it always did.

That little light had never failed to comfort Don Camillo, not once, for as long as he could remember. Now, though, as he stared at it, it seemed to him that it shone from afar.

His head still felt empty, but his heart was full to the brim, like the river when swollen with winter rains. And, like the river, it suddenly overflowed with barely any warning.

He raged against the Germans, who invaded lands that did not want them and murdered their people; against their guns, and their bullets, and the harm they did; and, most of all, against idiots who had wives and children and still went out to fight like they thought they were Garibaldi. He strode back and forth along the railing before the altar as his words filled the little church.

The church and its surroundings were deserted. The only people up and awake at this time are the farmers, who know that land and livestock don’t keep office hours, and they don’t come to the heart of town to work. Nobody interrupted or interfered, and after a while, Don Camillo simply ran out of steam and collapsed on a front pew, his face in his hands.

The silence that followed was not quite as absolute as it had been in Signora Antonietta’s attic, but it came close.

Then there was a sigh.

“Don Camillo.”

Don Camillo didn’t move.

“I know you are worried, Camillo, and upset, but this is not the way to go about it.”

Don Camillo finally let his hands fall. On his cheeks, tears had left tracks in the dust.

“Whose fault is it, then, Lord?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and barely audible.

“You’ll always find blame if you go looking for it in others and in yourself. But where it truly lies is in hate and indifference to the fate of other men.”

“But if they… if he just…” The blood on his right hand had dried, gone brown and cracked, now a little smudged in places. He stared at his feet to avoid looking at it. “That soldier had a choice. Peppone had a choice. He could have… I…”

“Of course they had a choice. But why did they make it? The soldier shot, because he was taught to hate and to destroy the enemy. Brusco and Nino killed him because he had shot Peppone and threatened to shoot other people. And the soldier’s family will wonder forever whether they had a choice, too.”

“A soldier knows he can get killed at any given moment in war.” That lesson had been learned quickly in 1917: the uniform, no matter what kind, painted a target on your back. People even shot at stretcher bearers – and chaplains – provided they wore a different colour.

“Peppone knows this, too,” said Jesus kindly.

“He hasn’t been a soldier for over twenty-five years!”

“If you asked him, I think he would say it doesn’t matter right now.”

“I can’t,” said Don Camillo, trying and failing to swallow the lump in his throat. “I can’t ask him right now, because he’s… not here.” He sat up straighter and, for the first time since he had come in, looked up at the crucified Christ on the main altar. “War is a young man’s game. What possessed him to go looking for German soldiers, and at his age too? He’s got four children!”

“People have different ideas of what it means to protect the things they love,” said Jesus. “Are you angry with him because he made a choice, or because you are afraid?”

“I’m not angry,” snapped Don Camillo. Then he cleared his throat and said quietly, “He can’t die, my Jesus. He just can’t.”

“Only souls are immortal, Camillo,” said Jesus very gently.

Don Camillo lowered his head. “I don’t want him to.” He ran a hand across his eyes; his cheeks were still wet. “Not like this. Not without a confession, not without his family around him. They didn’t even get to say goodbye, Lord.”

“I know. Such is the way of things sometimes.”

Silence fell again, because Don Camillo had no idea what to say. Words had tumbled out of him earlier; now they deserted him completely.

Outside, the sun was rising, sunlight slowly descending on the church, warming the stone walls and drying up the dew. When the first ray of sunshine hit the top of the stained-glass windows, a small rainbow spilled out inside on the wall opposite, and it was like watching a second sunrise.

Don Camillo, lost in his own head and still looking at his feet, did not see the colours. Then, slowly, he unfolded his great mass from his pew and disappeared into the rectory.

It was much too early to go buy candles from the general store, so he took the four or five he had left and went to light them near the main altar. Then he lit the other candles around them and the ones near the terracotta statue of the Madonna.

He watched his candles burn in silence for a dozen minutes, shoulders hunched and hands folded behind his back; then, as it was nearly time for Mass, he went down on one knee and made the sign of the cross before going into the rectory for a wash and a change of clothes.

* * * *

There was never much of a crowd for first Mass on weekdays. Only a few little old ladies, a couple of old men, and the town’s road mender sat in the church.

Don Camillo went through the entire liturgy like a sleepwalker. He did not get one word wrong, but people noticed something off about him. They were not accustomed to a faraway voice and unfocused eyes from their giant of a parish priest, who on some days seemed the human embodiment of a thunderstorm.

Carlino, though half-asleep – as usual, so early in the day – seemed to catch on, too. He kept throwing him furtive glances; when he realised that he had completely forgotten to ring the bell for Elevation and Don Camillo had said nothing, he looked downright scared.

“Are you all right, Don Camillo?” he ventured after the few faithful had left, sharing puzzled looks.

Don Camillo looked at him absently and waved him off. “Go home,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound like him at all, “and be careful.”

Carlino ran off, still in his altar boy attire, wondering what calamity could make such a drastic change in someone. Surely it was something awful. Maybe the end of the world.

When Carlino slipped out of the church he left the front door open. Don Camillo went to close it, out of habit.

Outside, the sun was already shining bright as it rose in the cloudless sky, the promise of another scorching day. People took advantage of the relative cool to go about their businesses, riding by on bicycles and walking under the arcade that bordered the square, left of the church. Stores opened, people greeted each other cheerfully, and a few children played marbles, watched lazily by a dog drowsing in the shade of the statue in the middle of the square.

Don Camillo watched life happen for a little while, then asked quietly, “Jesus, is Peppone still alive?”

“What do you believe, Don Camillo?” came a voice behind him from the heart of the church.

“I believe I should go back. He shouldn’t be alone.”

“Signora Antonietta hasn’t left his side. And no-one is ever alone.”

“Signora Antonietta is a good woman, and I know You’re watching over him, but if he… He needs someone from home. And Brusco and the rest of the gang are in hiding.”

“And you left your bag with the holy oil at her house,” Jesus remarked.

A few seconds passed in silence. Then Don Camillo closed the door and turned to face the crucified Christ.

“I won’t need the holy oil,” he said slowly.

“Do you think so?”

“I believe so. Peppone is not going to die. Not today.” Don Camillo locked the door and walked up to the main altar with new purpose and energy. When he was at the foot of the crucified Christ he hastily crossed himself. “I have to go, Lord, sorry. I’ll talk to You on the way.”

Don Camillo rushed up the rectory stairs to his bedroom to take his hat; after a second’s reflection, he grabbed the little wooden crucifix on the wall above his headboard and put it into his pocket. Then he ran out to where he had left his bicycle only a couple of hours before and pedalled like mad towards Pasotti’s farm.

* * * *

When Don Camillo reached Signora Antonietta’s little farm, he was drenched in sweat and covered in dust, just like he had been the day before. Unlike the day before, the owner was there to let him inside when he knocked.

“How is he?” he asked immediately.

Signora Antonietta looked tired and worn; his heart skipped a beat. But she gave a small smile.

“Still hanging on. Looks like he decided to prove the doctor wrong.”

Don Camillo mentally thanked Jesus, God, and the Madonna as fervently as he could, and all but ran to the ladder to the attic.

Yes, Peppone was still limp and ashen-faced, his eyes were still closed and his breathing ragged, but he was still holding on to life like the pigheaded mule Don Camillo knew him to be. Relief hit him like a cannonball, powerful enough to make him see stars, and he exhaled slowly.

“I’ll only say this once – sometimes it’s not easy being your chaplain.”

Peppone, being unconscious, didn’t say anything. In nigh on forty years Don Camillo had never seen him remain silent for so long. There was something he found profoundly disturbing about it.

Still, he reminded himself, being a chaplain is not something one decides to be because it’s easy.

Something jabbed his right hip and he remembered the crucifix in his pocket; he propped it against a box near Peppone’s head and looked around. His bag was where he had left it, out of the way to and from the trapdoor, within easy reach.

Like last night, Don Camillo didn’t open it. Only this time something in his heart told him he wasn’t wrong not to.

To his surprise, the white spots just wouldn’t disappear no matter how much he tried to blink them out of his eyes; worse, the world started to spin suddenly and he had to lean on the framework to avoid dropping to the floor. That was how Signora Antonietta found him as she climbed up the ladder. She took one look at his white face and hurried to Peppone’s makeshift bed, hitching up her skirt and her apron in her hands.

“Did he—” She made sure he was still breathing, and looked up to Don Camillo, puzzled. “What’s the matter with you, Reverend?”

If Don Camillo had had the energy to, he would have blushed.

“I haven’t eaten anything since noon yesterday. I only just remembered.”

Signora Antonietta eyed the big black-clad mass in front of her and frowned.

“Father, that’s not very sensible.”

“I agree,” said Don Camillo over the rumbling of his stomach.

“Sit down, I’ll bring something up.”

Signora Antonietta came back with bread, cured ham, some tomatoes and a couple of eggs, and shared an early lunch with Don Camillo. Don Camillo ate slowly, steadily, until the last spot was gone from his vision. From time to time, he glanced at Peppone, who still hadn’t stirred.

“You’re missing out, comrade,” he told him between two mouthfuls of bread and cheese.

Signora Antonietta smiled behind her glass of water. She straightened the little crucifix, which had slid against the crate and threatened to fall, and looked at Peppone.

“He’s lucky to have such a good friend.”

Don Camillo almost choked on his bread at the thought of the face Peppone would make if he heard.

“We’re not friends,” he said with emphasis once he could breathe correctly. Then, as Signora Antonietta stared at him incredulously, he added with his index finger in the air, “We’re enemies thrown together by circumstance.”

“And,” asked Signora Antonietta, who seemed to have trouble suppressing her smile, “how long have you been enemies?”

Don Camillo did some quick mental arithmetic.

“Thirty-nine years, more or less.”

Signora Antonietta gave a solemn nod.

“That makes you very faithful enemies.” She looked at Don Camillo from the corner of her eye. “I told you once that folks around here think you valley people are mad. From what I’ve seen this past year, Reverend, I can say that everyone from the Lowlands that I’ve met has a screw loose.”

“Take it up with him,” said Don Camillo, pointing at Peppone with his thumb. “He’s the mechanic, not me.”

But there was something like pride in his smile.

* * * *

The doctor was true to his word: he came back around two o’clock to change Peppone’s bandages, looking less harried but more tired. He was somewhat surprised to find his patient still clinging on doggedly to this world.

“He must be stubborn, to say the least,” he said as he opened his bag and pulled out his tools of the trade.

Don Camillo gave a shrug. “That’s how it is in the plains. We’re nothing if not persistent.”

“Today it’s a good thing. Do you know his blood type?”

“Yes,” said Don Camillo, “we have the same.”

The blood-transfusion instrument the doctor took out of his bag had tubes, a pump, and syringes; Don Camillo remembered seeing one in action exactly once before, on the battlefield in early autumn 1918. It looked just as barbaric then as it did now. He also distinctly remembered that the soldier had survived.

Back home, when Don Camillo rolled up his sleeves, people took it as a hint that blows were about to be exchanged with whoever was taking off his jacket at the time, and ran off to watch from a respectable distance and count points. This time, though, blood got drawn when he rolled up one sleeve, but no violence was involved.

The whole affair seemed to last a long time; by the time the doctor cleaned the syringes and put the whole thing back into his bag, Peppone’s colour had improved a little. Then again, it had been so awful to begin with that it might not mean much.

“Well,” said the doctor after he finished changing Peppone’s bandages, “he seems to be in good hands; if nothing else happens he might just make it. No strenuous activities for a few hours, Father,” he added while Don Camillo rolled down his sleeve on the brand new bandage around his elbow. “Eat something, and drink a lot of water.”

“I’ll see to it that he does,” said Signora Antonietta with a warning look at Don Camillo. To tell the truth, he was oddly exhausted, like after a long fever, and had no desire to do anything that might qualify as ‘strenuous’. Thus he gave Signora Antonietta his most innocent look.

The stony stare she returned told him he didn’t have much choice in the matter anyway.

The doctor saluted Don Camillo and followed Signora Antonietta down the ladder. Don Camillo looked down at Peppone, who seemed to be breathing deeper, and gave a small smile.

“Jesus, how angry do you think Peppone will be when he finds out he has priest blood in his veins now?”

“Is it really necessary for him to know that?” came Jesus’ voice from the little crucifix.

“Maybe not, but once he’s better he’s going to ask.”

“And you will of course show the kind of true humility and goodness of heart God asks from His ministers and not torment him in any way.”

“Of course, Lord.”

Only half of that was a lie. The scare had been a little bit too great.

Soon Signora Antonietta came back up with bread, a pot of jam and some tea; this time she only stayed a few minutes, having things to do around the little farm that couldn’t wait. When he was done, Don Camillo went downstairs to wash the cup, put away the jam jar, and place the rest of the bread in the bread bin.

Once back in the attic, he grabbed his bag and sat on the floor, in the same spot he had been a few minutes ago while the doctor worked. It wasn’t any softer, or any less dusty. From his bag he took out his breviary, carefully avoiding the holy oil. The cover was slightly worn, the pages had forgotten the meaning of ‘crisp’ years ago, but the familiar Latin words slowly soothed a piece of his heart that had been frayed and torn for the past twenty-four hours. Occasionally he glanced at Peppone and at the cross he had put down next to him, and returned to what he was reading a little more peacefully.

From the sounds that filtered from outside, not counting birdsong and a slight breeze rustling the tree leaves, Signora Antonietta tended to her horse, worked the garden, cleaned out the stable, and did a thousand things that needed to be done.

The heat was ferocious in the attic under the tiles, just like the previous day. The sounds of life outside the house seemed to come from a great distance, and Don Camillo, lulled by the faint but thankfully constant breathing next to him, gave in to tiredness and finally fell asleep.

* * * *

“…here?”

“Wh—what?” Don Camillo awoke with a start. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was, and why he was half-sitting, half-lying on a hard wooden floor with his breviary open on his stomach. He looked up, expecting to see Signora Antonietta, but no-one was there.

Then he looked down at his right, and met Peppone’s puzzled gaze.

Peppone hadn’t moved from his spot at all; the only change was that his eyes were half-open, and looked here and there sluggishly, as though he was trying to make sense of everything he had missed.

Don Camillo’s heart leapt in his chest. What threatened to be a huge, beaming smile started making its way across his face; naturally, he fought it tooth and nail. And failed.

“Look who’s decided to join the world of the living!” he said, closing his breviary and handing Peppone a glass of water. “You took your time.”

Peppone sipped the water carefully, and stared at him. One could practically see the cogs of his brain working at full speed under his deep frown. He lifted a hand that appeared to weigh a ton and felt the bandage around his stomach, wincing; then he looked around at the attic and rubbed his face with a sigh.

“The lads?”

“They’re fine,” replied Don Camillo immediately. “No-one else got hurt – nobody in your squad, anyway. I saw Brusco, he told me what happened.”

“Where is he?”

“In the mountains somewhere, probably worried up the wall about you. You almost bled to death on his passenger seat.”

“I remember,” muttered Peppone in a hollow voice. Then the look in his eyes sharpened as he focused on Don Camillo. “I sent for you, didn’t I?” It was barely a question.

Don Camillo nodded. “You did.”

“And you came.”

“Of course I came.”

“I…” Peppone blinked. “This I’m not sure I remember.”

“You wouldn’t. You were too far gone to…” Don Camillo’s voice trailed off, and he cleared his throat, hoping Peppone wouldn’t notice the shaky breath that came with it. “Well. Although you also could have sent for the priest of Roccaverde or Borghetto. It’s much closer, they would have got here a lot quicker.”

“I didn’t want any old priest I’d never seen before in my life,” said Peppone abruptly. “It’s my chaplain I called.”

This answer was to Don Camillo the equivalent of an uppercut to the chin. It caught him completely off guard, and he remained thoroughly speechless.

For once Peppone didn’t press his advantage. He still looked very tired, very pale, and very much not up for verbal boxing.

“What time is it?” he asked in a low voice after a while.

Don Camillo took out his pocket watch and told him. Peppone’s eyebrows went up.

“So I only blacked out for four or five hours?”

“Twenty-nine, more like,” said Don Camillo, sharper than he intended. “You got shot yesterday around one o’clock.”

It had been the ghost of the hollow, empty shock which had dogged him all day and night talking; Don Camillo regretted it immediately when he saw Peppone lose some of what little colour he had left.

A few deep breaths later, Peppone had recovered enough to ask, “Did you tell my wife?”

Don Camillo shook his head.

“No. I just returned to the village this morning for first Mass and I didn’t see her.”

“Good. I don’t want her or the kids to worry.” Peppone squinted up at him. “You were here a long time, huh.”

“Well –” Don Camillo shifted uncomfortably “– only as long as it took.”

“While I was… gone, you didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to give me extreme unction, did you?”

“Peppone,” Don Camillo said in the tone of someone who squares up for a fight, “when I give you the last rites, I’ll do it proper. To do this I’ll need a confession, and you’ll need to be conscious to give it.”

“Then you’ll have to wait a long time, Reverend,” said Peppone with some self-satisfaction, “because my last confession was some twenty-five years ago and I don’t intend to break with tradition.”

Don Camillo was about to retort something scathing, but stopped as Peppone made to sit up, turned stark white, and muttered a profanity his mother could have smacked him for, no matter his age. Peppone stilled, drew a few careful breaths, and turned woeful eyes to his old enemy.

“Now I know yesterday was bad. I’m sure you would have said something back if I wasn’t half-dead.”

“I would have, believe me,” muttered Don Camillo. “But it hardly seems fair right now.”

Peppone gave a mirthless laugh. “See? I knew having you for a chaplain was a good choice.” He blinked at the ceiling a few times, then his eyes landed on something on his left. “What’s that?”

“I would have thought that even a godless Bolshevik could recognise the Crucified Christ.”

“Oh for the love of – I mean what is it doing here? Did Signora Antonietta put it out to pasture?”

“Peppone,” roared Don Camillo, “quit it or you might just go from half-dead to completely dead.”

“Oh yeah?” Peppone bellowed. “I’d like to see you tr—”

This time Peppone did not swear. He gasped, and spent the next few minutes clenching and unclenching his fists, his eyes screwed up in pain. When he finally relaxed he was drenched in sweat.

“All right,” he panted, “truce.”

The state of things in Don Camillo’s head was a little complicated: anger and fear vied for first place, closely followed by good old exasperation, with sympathy lagging behind.

“Truce, but once you’re well again, we’ll have scores to settle, you and me.”

“You can count on it,” murmured Peppone in a tone that said, I hope so.

The silence that fell then was not quite the comfortable, companionable silence that sometimes reminded Don Camillo that words – or punches – were not the best way of communicating; but it was infinitely better than the previous day. Peppone’s breathing was still shaky and his eyes clouded, but he was here, with his sharp mind, his bad temper, his infuriating bullheadedness, and the big heart he didn’t bother hiding most of the time.

Don Camillo’s anger evaporated like the dew under the morning sun. It was too hot to stay angry.

“I put it there.”

“Eh?”

“The crucifix. Figured you might need help finding your way back.”

Peppone let out a deep breath.

“It’s good to know I had you in my corner, Father.”

“I didn’t mean me, Peppone,” sighed Don Camillo.

“I know. I’m grateful for that, too.”

It was as close to an actual truce as they could get, and under the circumstances Don Camillo didn’t insist. In the quiet that followed, both heard the front door creak, and then a clacking sound as the ladder was placed against the wall and the trapdoor opened. Signora Antonietta hoisted herself up and pinned both men with a look that was not quite a glare, but was fairly close.

“I was in the barn and I thought I heard yelling, so I figured both of you woke up.” She put her hands on her hips and asked incredulously, “Why is it that, every time you two are in my house, you have a shouting match? Can’t you just get along? Don’t you think there’s enough fighting the world over that doesn’t need adding to?”

Don Camillo and Peppone looked wordlessly at each other. While they figured out what to say, Signora Antonietta had crossed the space to Peppone’s mattress and crouched down. From up close she looked exhausted, with a few wisps of straw in her hair and smudged dirt where she had tried to wipe the sweat off her face; when she put the back of her hand to Peppone’s forehead she smiled thinly.

“You don’t seem to have a fever. That’s good; it means the wound is not infected.”

Don Camillo caught Peppone’s side glance and saw his own relief reflected in his eyes. Both had seen their share of the ravages infections could cause in the Great War. Most veterans lived in horror of the word.

When she had finished her inspection, Signora Antonietta stood up, a hand on the small of her back, and nodded.

“Well, I’m no doctor, but from what I’ve seen, you just might be out of the woods. No, don’t move,” she said as Peppone tried to sit up again. “I’ll be right back.”

She was gone a couple of minutes, and came back with a big pillow in an old-fashioned pillowcase that smelled like lavender and just a touch of mothballs.

“It’s from my daughter’s bed,” she explained as she and Don Camillo carefully put it under Peppone’s head and shoulders.

“Won’t she miss it?” he asked once he was settled, looking very grateful to be able to see something else than the rafters and the tiles, not to mention have something soft under his neck.

“I doubt it. She’s been married for two years now and lives in Parma. But since her husband is an idiot and a ne’er do well, I’m keeping her bedroom intact just in case she realises it and wants to return to the farm.” She shot an apologetic look at Peppone. “I’m sorry I have to put you up in the attic when there’s a real bed downstairs. Sometimes Germans come up here to patrol, or take a chicken or a slab of butter they rarely pay for. If they’d seen a strange man in my house with a bullet wound, they’d have shot you – and me – without asking questions.”

“Or worse, they could have asked questions,” muttered Peppone.

“Exactly.” She straightened up, tucked a stray strand of hair back into her bun, and gave a real smile. “Welcome back. You gave us quite the scare.”

Peppone returned the smile slightly, looking somewhat uncomfortable. Then he and Don Camillo caught each other’s eyes.

There were a lot of things Don Camillo wanted to say or could have said. Some of it were downright lies, some of it was true, and a lot fell in between. Therefore he remained silent, and so did Peppone.

As a result, they understood each other perfectly.

* * * *

The return trip could not have been more different from the previous day. Before going back to Pasotti’s motorcycle he had left in Signora Antonietta’s barn, as usual, Don Camillo went to the old dead tree to leave a message for Brusco and the rest. Then he rode home under a blazing sun, on the long strip of dust devoid of any trees that became an oven in the summer.

He was just in time for vespers. There still was some dust in his hair when he stood in front of his congregation; this, however, wasn’t what people noticed. What they did notice was that their priest, unlike for morning service, not only said all the right words at the right places but also appeared focused on what he was doing. They concluded that he must have got sunstroke, then got better, and they moved on.

Carlino, oddly, seemed quite happy with the return of the status quo. He was daydreaming again at the moment of the Elevation and barely heard the familiar mutter “Carlino, the bell!” in time. When he looked up and saw the priest scowling down at him, he rang the little bell with such a relieved expression that Don Camillo quite forgot to be angry with him.

After Mass, as Don Camillo was putting his vestments away in the sacristy and Carlino was almost at the door, they felt rather than heard a rumble that made the stained-glass windows shiver in the stone. The boy froze and turned absolutely white; Don Camillo grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and stuffed him under the altar until the planes were gone. It took him a while to make sure, because his heart was pounding in his chest fit to burst.

Bombs didn’t fall on the village that day, but on another village about forty kilometres to the north. Don Camillo delivered a still trembling Carlino to his parents’ doorstep and told them that, if the boy missed first Mass the next day, nobody would hold it against him.

Then he returned home to the rectory, closed the door, leaned heavily against it, and wiped the cold sweat off his face with a shaking hand.

* * * *

Three or four weeks passed before Don Camillo was able to take his field altar, borrow Pasotti’s motorcycle, and go back to his duties as clandestine chaplain. A rainstorm had come and gone; the sun now shared the sky with a few white clouds which made the horizon look like looming snow-capped mountains well before the actual mountains came into view.

This time the rendezvous point was a good fifteen kilometres from the dead tree. When Don Camillo got there, the old crowd came to greet him and several new faces stared at him, running the gamut between curiosity and suspicion. He went through the group, saluting people and shaking proffered hands, sidestepping crates of supplies and ammunition. Finally he found what he was looking for and stopped near a wreck of an armoured car standing on four concrete blocks.

The old Lancia was a sorry sight; it had probably seen more of the Great War than Don Camillo. Between the peeling paint, the rust, and what appeared to be fire damage, it looked like a war memorial for armoured cars fallen in battle.

Two legs stuck out from under the bodywork next to a toolbox. It was half empty, the tools lying neatly side by side on a big chequered handkerchief spread out on the short grass. From the various sounds that came from under the car, some serious tinkering was underway.

Don Camillo searched his pockets in vain for a cigar butt. “Do you really think you can get that ruin to run?” he asked.

The tinkering stopped, then started again.

“If I know my craft,” came Peppone’s voice, “the only thing this car needs that I can’t give her right now are four new tyres and some petrol. I’ll just have to get them – from somewhere.” His voice tightened on the last word. “Pass me the 12 point spanner, would you? This ruddy bolt just won’t let go.”

Don Camillo chose one spanner and put it into the big brown hand. After a few seconds the bolt surrendered and Peppone crawled out on his back from under the bodywork.

He looked good – a great deal better than the last Don Camillo had seen of him. His colour had almost completely returned, and although he moved somewhat gingerly, with a care that was foreign to his character, his eyes met Don Camillo’s with their usual sharpness. Don Camillo reached out to help him up, and his hand was warm and strong when he grabbed it.

When Peppone stood in front of him, his face still smudged with motor oil and dust, grass and earth all over the back of his shirt, and wearing the same old red kerchief around his neck, a small piece – a tiny speck – of the world that had been askew for weeks finally righted itself.

“Come to bring God to the mountains again, have you?” asked Peppone with a grin, pulling a large handkerchief from his pocket and rubbing his hands with it.

“God is everywhere,” replied Don Camillo absently, righting the strap of the altar box on his shoulder. “This is just the reminder.”

“Right. Speaking of, I have a favour to ask.”

“Speaking of what, exactly?” asked Don Camillo suspiciously before he even thought of asking about the favour. He followed Peppone to a makeshift tarpaulin shelter – of which there were a couple now – and watched him take out a long, thin bundle wrapped in paper and tied up with string.

Don Camillo untied the string and raised one corner of the wrapping paper warily, half-expecting to find dynamite sticks. Instead he found a somewhat large candle.

“Bought it in a village not far from here. Normally I’d have it engraved, but I didn’t have that much in my pockets and I didn’t want to stay there longer than necessary.”

“Where do you want it?” asked Don Camillo when his voice came back. Peppone hesitated.

“Well, if you think there’s room for it near the main altar…”

“There is.”

“Then you can light it there on my behalf.”

“I will.”

“Thank you, Reverend,” said Peppone with feeling. Don Camillo nodded with a smile.

Then they talked while Don Camillo prepared the field altar for Mass, and found that for once, truce didn’t have to mean silence.

* * * *

When Don Camillo had given Pasotti his motorcycle back and retrieved his bicycle, he made a stop at the church. He put down the field altar next to the railing and unwrapped the paper around the candle.

“Jesus,” he said excitedly to the crucified Christ on the main altar, “look at this!”

“It’s a beautiful candle, Don Camillo,” said Jesus with a smile.

“Isn’t it? This is from Peppone, in gratitude for being alive. He’s sorry to be unable to come light it himself, but you know how things are.”

Don Camillo carefully lit the candle with another, and placed it next to the one he had bought after the last time he had come back from Signora Antonietta’s attic. Like Peppone’s, the candle was devoid of any ornament, because, like Peppone, he had lacked money for trimmings and hadn’t wanted to arouse suspicion. The two candles stood there among the smaller votive candles, one burned to the last quarter and the other still shiny and whole. Their flames made a pretty light, and Don Camillo sat on a front pew to watch them with his chin in his hands.

“Lord,” he said after a while, “there’s something I’m still wondering.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a lot of villages up in the mountains. Most of them have churches. Why did Peppone go to the trouble of taking his candle with him back to camp, and then give it to me?”

“Did you ask him?”

“No, Lord, I only thought about it on the way back here.”

Jesus let the lie pass and replied, “Maybe he wanted his chaplain to light his candle; maybe he wanted his candle to burn in the church he got baptised and married in; maybe he wanted something of him to remain here, in his village, while himself cannot. Or maybe it’s all three. Does it really matter which?”

Don Camillo thought about it for a minute.

“Not really,” he said eventually. “I think I understand.”

Exactly what he understood, he didn’t say, but stayed watching the candles in silence for some time.

Notes:

1In Catholic liturgy, before communion, the altar server rings a little bell while the priest raises the holy host. Carlino sleeping is a nod to Cinema Paradiso and the first time the viewer sees Totò as a child. I really love this movie. It’s one of the few melodramas that I really love.

I’ve had the idea for this chapter in mind since... August 2015 :o) (even made a post about it.) Basically, from the first film and one of the first stories:

PEPPONE: “Remember I have a weak spot in my stomach from that bullet I took in the mountains. No low blow or I’m grabbing a bench.” DON CAMILLO: “Don’t worry, Peppone, I’ll land them all upstairs.” *punches him on the ear*

*throws out her arms* How could I not do something with a hint like that? :D

Next up: Carol of the Bombs.

#Don Camillo #fanfiction #my stuff

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m8nhr · 5 years ago

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미래주의 선언(1909)

전체 내용에 다 동의하지는 않지만, 어릴 적 나에게 많은 영감을 주었던 마리네티의 미래주의 선언 ;)

The Futurist Manifesto _ F. T. Marinetti, 1909

We have been up all night, my friends and I, beneath mosque lamps whose brass cupolas are bright as our souls, because like them they were illuminated by the internal glow of electric hearts. And trampling underfoot our native sloth on opulent Persian carpets, we have been discussing right up to the limits of logic and scrawling the paper with demented writing.

Our hearts were filled with an immense pride at feeling ourselves standing quite alone, like lighthouses or like the sentinels in an outpost, facing the army of enemy stars encamped in their celestial bivouacs. Alone with the engineers in the infernal stokeholes of great ships, alone with the black spirits which rage in the belly of rogue locomotives, alone with the drunkards beating their wings against the walls.

Then we were suddenly distracted by the rumbling of huge double decker trams that went leaping by, streaked with light like the villages celebrating their festivals, which the Po in flood suddenly knocks down and uproots, and, in the rapids and eddies of a deluge, drags down to the sea.

Then the silence increased. As we listened to the last faint prayer of the old canal and the crumbling of the bones of the moribund palaces with their green growth of beard, suddenly the hungry automobiles roared beneath our windows.

"Come, my friends!" I said. "Let us go! At last Mythology and the mystic cult of the ideal have been left behind. We are going to be present at the birth of the centaur and we shall soon see the first angels fly! We must break down the gates of life to test the bolts and the padlocks! Let us go! Here is they very first sunrise on earth! Nothing equals the splendor of its red sword which strikes for the first time in our millennial darkness."

We went up to the three snorting machines to caress their breasts. I lay along mine like a corpse on its bier, but I suddenly revived again beneath the steering wheel — a guillotine knife — which threatened my stomach. A great sweep of madness brought us sharply back to ourselves and drove us through the streets, steep and deep, like dried up torrents. Here and there unhappy lamps in the windows taught us to despise our mathematical eyes. "Smell," I exclaimed, "smell is good enough for wild beasts!"

And we hunted, like young lions, death with its black fur dappled with pale crosses, who ran before us in the vast violet sky, palpable and living.

And yet we had no ideal Mistress stretching her form up to the clouds, nor yet a cruel Queen to whom to offer our corpses twisted into the shape of Byzantine rings! No reason to die unless it is the desire to be rid of the too great weight of our courage!

We drove on, crushing beneath our burning wheels, like shirt-collars under the iron, the watch dogs on the steps of the houses.

Death, tamed, went in front of me at each corner offering me his hand nicely, and sometimes lay on the ground with a noise of creaking jaws giving me velvet glances from the bottom of puddles.

"Let us leave good sense behind like a hideous husk and let us hurl ourselves, like fruit spiced with pride, into the immense mouth and breast of the world! Let us feed the unknown, not from despair, but simply to enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd!"

As soon as I had said these words, I turned sharply back on my tracks with the mad intoxication of puppies biting their tails, and suddenly there were two cyclists disapproving of me and tottering in front of me like two persuasive but contradictory reasons. Their stupid swaying got in my way. What a bore! Pouah! I stopped short, and in disgust hurled myself — vlan! — head over heels in a ditch.

Oh, maternal ditch, half full of muddy water! A factory gutter! I savored a mouthful of strengthening muck which recalled the black teat of my Sudanese nurse!

As I raised my body, mud-spattered and smelly, I felt the red hot poker of joy deliciously pierce my heart. A crowd of fishermen and gouty naturalists crowded terrified around this marvel. With patient and tentative care they raised high enormous grappling irons to fish up my car, like a vast shark that had run aground. It rose slowly leaving in the ditch, like scales, its heavy coachwork of good sense and its upholstery of comfort.

We thought it was dead, my good shark, but I woke it with a single caress of its powerful back, and it was revived running as fast as it could on its fins.

Then with my face covered in good factory mud, covered with metal scratches, useless sweat and celestial grime, amidst the complaint of staid fishermen and angry naturalists, we dictated our first will and testament to all the living men on earth.

MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM

We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds.

It is in Italy that we are issuing this manifesto of ruinous and incendiary violence, by which we today are founding Futurism, because we want to deliver Italy from its gangrene of professors, archaeologists, tourist guides and antiquaries.

Italy has been too long the great second-hand market. We want to get rid of the innumerable museums which cover it with innumerable cemeteries.

Museums, cemeteries! Truly identical in their sinister juxtaposition of bodies that do not know each other. Public dormitories where you sleep side by side for ever with beings you hate or do not know. Reciprocal ferocity of the painters and sculptors who murder each other in the same museum with blows of line and color. To make a visit once a year, as one goes to see the graves of our dead once a year, that we could allow! We can even imagine placing flowers once a year at the feet of the Gioconda! But to take our sadness, our fragile courage and our anxiety to the museum every day, that we cannot admit! Do you want to poison yourselves? Do you want to rot?

What can you find in an old picture except the painful contortions of the artist trying to break uncrossable barriers which obstruct the full expression of his dream?

To admire an old picture is to pour our sensibility into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward with violent spurts of creation and action. Do you want to waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished, trampled on?

Indeed daily visits to museums, libraries and academies (those cemeteries of wasted effort, calvaries of crucified dreams, registers of false starts!) is for artists what prolonged supervision by the parents is for intelligent young men, drunk with their own talent and ambition.

For the dying, for invalids and for prisoners it may be all right. It is, perhaps, some sort of balm for their wounds, the admirable past, at a moment when the future is denied them. But we will have none of it, we, the young, strong and living Futurists!

Let the good incendiaries with charred fingers come! Here they are! Heap up the fire to the shelves of the libraries! Divert the canals to flood the cellars of the museums! Let the glorious canvases swim ashore! Take the picks and hammers! Undermine the foundation of venerable towns!

The oldest among us are not yet thirty years old: we have therefore at least ten years to accomplish our task. When we are forty let younger and stronger men than we throw us in the waste paper basket like useless manuscripts! They will come against us from afar, leaping on the light cadence of their first poems, clutching the air with their predatory fingers and sniffing at the gates of the academies the good scent of our decaying spirits, already promised to the catacombs of the libraries.

But we shall not be there. They will find us at last one winter's night in the depths of the country in a sad hangar echoing with the notes of the monotonous rain, crouched near our trembling aeroplanes, warming our hands at the wretched fire which our books of today will make when they flame gaily beneath the glittering flight of their pictures.

They will crowd around us, panting with anguish and disappointment, and exasperated by our proud indefatigable courage, will hurl themselves forward to kill us, with all the more hatred as their hearts will be drunk with love and admiration for us. And strong healthy Injustice will shine radiantly from their eyes. For art can only be violence, cruelty, injustice.

The oldest among us are not yet thirty, and yet we have already wasted treasures, treasures of strength, love, courage and keen will, hastily, deliriously, without thinking, with all our might, till we are out of breath.

Look at us! We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired. For they are nourished by fire, hatred and speed! Does this surprise you? it is because you do not even remember being alive! Standing on the world's summit, we launch once more our challenge to the stars!

Your objections? All right! I know them! Of course! We know just what our beautiful false intelligence affirms: "We are only the sum and the prolongation of our ancestors," it says. Perhaps! All right! What does it matter? But we will not listen! Take care not to repeat those infamous words! Instead, lift up your head!

Standing on the world's summit we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars!

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memsmedic1 · 5 years ago

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Family, Work, and Divemastering (Nov 5, 2018-May 23, 2019)

At noon on Monday, November 5 Nathan and I, along with a couple of our more adventurous team members, took our scuba tanks and gear into downtown Yangon to the public pool I’d scoped out the week before and gotten permission to use from the pool manager.

We were going in order to practice some basic diving drills to refresh our skills (and have fun) in preparation for an upcoming dive. Nathan had been diving several times over the spring and summer since he was working on his instructor certification, but I’d always had other responsibilities and hadn’t been able to go with him. I’m pretty sure nobody at the pool had ever seen anything like it before because soon we attracted several amazed spectators!

The night of the 7th Nathan and I met up with one of our friends, Dr. Than Win, to drive 5 hours northwest of Yangon out to the small coastal fishing town of Ngwe Saung, on the Bay of Bengal, to go scuba diving again. Arriving at the beach after an exhausting, bumpy ride over narrow, primitive roads, we parked in a vacant lot for a few hours until dawn and then hauled our gear bags over a rickety wooden bridge spanning a small estuary and across a wide sandy beach to the predetermined rendezvous point with the boat.

The boat, was, as we should have expected, enormously late. This was not a problem though, as it gave us the opportunity to watch a sunrise wedding photoshoot and visit with three other young divers who were traveling the world on a cruise ship while enrolled in a ‘study at sea’ type of college program!

A small outboard motorboat finally arrived to ferry us out across the crystal clear water, just a little bit warmer than the early morning air, to the larger boat we would be diving from. This boat was a great hulking wooden monstrosity, with a huge, loud, water-cooled, underpowered inboard engine taking up the entire hold. When the engine cranked over several liters of greasy oily water belched out from the bilge directly onto the deck of the boat moored next to us and commenced spreading out in a thin film over the water.

As soon as the gear was stowed and the anchors weighed we started on what was supposed to be a 45 minute ride out to some small islands where the dives would take place. The problem though was that our boat was slow. We were on the slow boat to India! We couldn’t see it on the way out, but this boat was so slow that on the way back the incoming swells were rolling past us as if we were standing still!

Scuba diving in Myanmar is relatively uncommon, probably because it’s like trying to herd cats to get anything done here; very little English comprehension, outdated regulations, atrocious roads, restrictive lodging requirements, and the list goes on. (Could the not-uncommon Saltwater Crocodiles be another factor?)

Safe and conservative diving is recommended when diving in Myanmar because Myanmar healthcare facilities and infrastructure are so substandard. Also, poorly maintained equipment, minimally trained “instructors”, or instructors and Divemasters with expired licenses result in the level of professionalism and the quality of the dive gear being lower than what international divers would expect. Diving accidents should therefore at all cost be avoided.

I was glad we had all our own gear, including a fully stocked custom-built med bag to deal with any unavoidable diving-related emergencies that might arise, whether medical or trauma, because it’s a bloody long way back to anything resembling a hospital, and even farther to Monkey Point Naval Base in Yangon, which currently boasts the only operable hyperbaric chamber in the entire country!

Finally we arrived at the dive site just off Bird Island, and after getting geared up, entered the water to start our first dive. The water was warm and pristine, with crystal clear visibility for over 100 feet! This amazing visibility gave us a nice buffer to keep a sharp lookout for Saltwater Crocodiles, which are commonly seen in the area, but fortunately we didn’t see any.

Sadly though, unbridled fishing practices including heavy dynamite fishing has decimated the coral reefs and other marine life, and the water was sparsely inhabited in general. I was, however, able to see a lionfish, a bluespotted whiptail ray, several nudibranchs, small reef fish, and flying fish while on the way back to shore.

Diving here reminded me of a fascinating though disputed story that occurred on an island just north of our dive location during World War 2: for six weeks during January and February of 1945, Ramree Island, situated just off the coast of Burma in the Bay of Bengal, was the setting for a bloody battle between Japanese and Allied forces.

The Battle of Ramree Island was part of the Burma Campaign during WW ll, and was launched for the purpose of dislodging Japanese Imperial forces that had occupied the island since early 1942, along with the rest of Southern Burma, and establishing an airbase there.

They were met with stiff resistance from the Japanese, and vicious fighting ensued. Finally, after a long and bloody battle, the Allies captured the enemy base, but a platoon of an estimated 1,000 Japanese soldiers escaped, and since they were surrounded on three sides by the British, they decided to retreat straight across the island through 16 km of dense tidal swampland to rejoin a much larger Japanese battalion on the other side.

Traveling through the thick, muck-filled swamps, over maze-like mangrove roots, and under tangled vines was slow and exhausting work, made worse by the clouds of mosquitoes biting to distraction and spreading malaria and dengue fever, as well as leeches and the various poisonous spiders, scorpions, and snakes slithering through the mud and underbrush like it was the forest of Endor.

During the night, as the fleeing soldiers struggled on towards the safety of their reinforced beachhead, British troops reported hearing panicked screams of terror and gunfire emanating from within the dark swamp. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the swamps of Ramree were infested by countless, very large Saltwater Crocodiles, which can grow over 20 feet long and weigh over 2,000 pounds.

Drawn by the tasty sounds of the weary and bloodied soldiers thrashing clumsily through their territory, the opportunity was just too good to pass up, so they didn’t. Out of just under 1,000 Japanese soldiers that entered the swamps of Ramree, only about 20 were found alive by their reinforcements the next morning!

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On November 12th I was “surprised” by visitors when my mom and little sister Lexi came to see me! They flew into Yangon where I met them and we all went out to a Burmese restaurant for supper and to catch up on everything. They came loaded with food and gifts from my family and some of my Montana friends which was another big surprise and very much appreciated!

The next morning we took a taxi to the bus station and caught the bus traveling from Yangon to the small hill station of Kalaw, high up in the mountains of Shan State, the same town that hosted the half-marathon Trail Run our ambulance stood by for last year.

Kalaw is also one of the best places in Myanmar to go trekking, which is the reason we were here. I’d already researched the best trekking outfits and found out who was available, so that evening after checking into our hotel we went out and talked to a couple of them in person and made reservations for the next day.

Early morning on the 14th we started on the 3 day, 36 mile adventure by walking through the expansive early morning street market in Kalaw with our Pa’O guide, David, and 4 other adventurers with whom we became very good friends by the time we reached our destination of Inle Lake, on the other side of the mountains.

During the 1st day we walked through high pine forests, grassy wildflower strewn meadows, small scattered villages, and rich mountainside farmland where farmers were plowing with water buffalo and cultivating crops of ginger, chilies, mountain rice, and niger seeds.

In the afternoon a sudden rainstorm blew through, even though we were already several weeks into the dry season. Very quickly the trail became cold, slippery, and treacherously muddy. There were several spills and one of our group even had both their shoes sucked off their feet going through an especially wet and leechy stretch of the mountains!

In the evening we came to the village where we would be spending the night. After taking a bucket bath from the open communal well in the center of the village, I went up the stairs to the large communal bedroom that one of the villagers rented out and rolled out my blanket, then we all went to another villagers house and had a delicious (spectacularly) supper.

Maybe it was all the exercise, but the food on the trek was some of the best examples of Burmese and Pa’O (the predominant tribe in this part of the country) food I had while living in Myanmar, with a few exceptions when foreigner food was attempted (the pancakes on the final morning would have made great pothole fillers).

On the second day after breakfast we struck out again, soon leaving the high mountains behind dropping down into an expansive valley interspersed with rolling hills, small villages, and a cantankerous cow. We passed villagers shelling cobs and laying the corn out to dry in the sun, harvesting tomatoes and ginger, and weaving intricate baskets out of delicate strips of bamboo.

It was substantially hotter in the valley than the mountains, so when we came upon a medium sized river meandering along beside the trail and our guide suggested we stop for a swim and a rest, we were happy to take him up on it!

This was actually the very same river whose terminal end we would canoe out of and into the lake at journeys end, but David explained that its course was too serpentine and roundabout to warrant building a bamboo raft and floating out on it, which I had been thinking would be far more ameliorative for my blistery feet, the shoes of which were disintegrating before my very eyes as the trek unfolded.

Late in the afternoon we finally reached the lower bamboo and jungle clad mountains on the other side of the valley, which we began ascending for a couple hours. Just as dusk was falling we arrived at an enormous, ancient wooden monastery, which appeared to have been built in the middle of nowhere, and here we stopped and were granted lodging for our second night.

The fun thing about staying here was that a couple dozen small novitiate monks lived here in the monastery, and they challenged us to a game of pickup football (soccer) with them when we first arrived before it got dark. I’m convinced the only reason we were beaten so roundly was due to the various hardships of our journey, for example blisters and leech-induced anemia!

Early on the third morning, after finishing breakfast and patching up our feet as best we could, we continued on, first up, then down through the mountains, eventually coming upon a beautiful cobblestone road left over from colonial days which we followed all the way out of the mountains into another beautiful valley, and on towards Inle Lake, the second largest lake in Myanmar, and one of the highest, at 2,900 feet (880 meters). Near the lake, the ground is at or below water level, and the road was flooded in several areas even though the rest of the country was well into the dry season.

Finally the road ended entirely and we climbed a rickety wooden stile, crossed a rickety wooden catwalk over a boat canal that connects the village to the river, balanced along a slippery, muddy dyke, and finally arrived at a villagers house where we could rest and have lunch.

After lunch we walked back over to the canal and climbed into a long, wide, wooden outboard canoe and started on the last leg of our adventure. First we floated past all the houses through the village, then we entered the river from the day before which shortly opened into a huge area which was nothing but amazing floating tomato gardens, the rows of vines clearly bobbing up and down over the water, with the farmers (settlers? colonizers?) living over the lake in stilted huts and doing all the trellising, harvesting, and other farm work from their small wooden dugout canoes.

These are the Intha people, a very small tribe who only live around Inle Lake and who make their living farming on the lake and fishing, using unique cone-shaped basket-like fishing traps, and an even more unique method of paddling using their leg to grip the oar, standing on the other leg in the back of their canoe.

Finally we entered the open water of the 13 1/2 mile long lake and sped along up the lake enjoying the sensation of effortless movement, taking in the spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, Intha fishermen, and all the other boat taxis and lake traffic out enjoying the fresh air and pleasantly warm sun on the sparkling, though very murky, lake. Arriving at the northern end of the lake in Nyaungshwe, a small fishing town with as many boat canals as roads, we bid our guide and traveling companions farewell and went our separate ways.

After the trek the three of us traveled to the capital of Shan State, Taunggyi, to attend the annual Tazaungdaing Fire Balloon Festival, where hundreds of amateur teams compete over 4 days to launch the best hot air balloons, sometimes shaped like various animals, birds, and mythological creatures, and filled to capacity with homemade fireworks. Sometimes the balloon is too heavy or poorly designed to even make it off the ground before the payload ignites, or it catches on fire soon after takeoff and plummets into the thousands of spectators. There are fatalities every year but there’s just the right twinge of danger to keep it interesting. The festival occurs close to the end of the Buddhist Lent and marks the official end of the rainy season. While a huge celebration and local phenomenon, its deeper purpose, like so many “Buddhist” traditions, is to ward off evil spirits; the giant balloons are just upsized Chinese sky lanterns.

On November 18 we had to take a night bus back to Yangon in order to make it in time to catch our plane! The only bus I could find that was able to take us was a bottom-tier 3rd class bus with absolutely no legroom and innumerable stops throughout the interminable night.

Early the next morning we flew from Yangon to Kuala Lumpur where my mom had some meetings and had invited us along, then we flew to Malaysian Borneo to go scuba diving. My mom had been a diver in college and my sister had wanted go diving ever since I myself started diving, so now they both finally had a chance! Diving was wonderful, with my mom deciding to renew her license and Lexi vowing to get hers.

From Malaysia we flew up to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, for a few days, and then, after meeting up with friends, drove out to Sunshine Orchard, where Lexi would be residing while interning as a paramedic at a small nearby clinic in the middle of the jungle.

After seeing all my friends at Sunshine Orchard and visiting for a few days I had to return to work, so I told my mom, sister, and SO friends goodbye. On December 4th my mom and I drove into MaeSot where my mom took a bus down to Ayutthaya to spend one more week before flying back home and I walked across the Friendship Bridge to the Myanmar border and took the night bus back to work. Lexi of course stayed behind to work at the jungle clinic.

During the last week of November and first week-and-a-half of December Nathan was back in Thailand finishing his scuba diving instructor course and upon completion received his NAUI Scuba Instructor certification!

On December 7th I took a taxi to the bus station and traveled back up to Kalaw to join my ambulance and partial crew already present to stand by at the Trail Run for the second year in a row. This event is a fun assignment for several reasons: The crisp, sunny, humidity-free days and cold, invigorating, mosquito-free nights are a pleasant change from the oppressive lowlands, the food at the antique Kalaw Heritage Hotel where the race is hosted is delicious, and it’s fun to see our friends there, especially my friend who is the doctor for the Australian Embassy in Yangon, who collaborates on projects with us from time to time.

The morning of Sunday the 9th the race began, with nearly twice as many participants as last year. We were fairly busy treating the expected maladies- blisters, twisted ankles, scraped knees, heat cramps, but there weren’t any major injuries.

After the race was over and most of the people had left we packed up our gear and drove directly to the very old city of Sagaing, in central Myanmar, where we would begin teaching an EMR course to 24 students from Sagaing Emergency Rescue Team and a few volunteers from other nearby groups the next day. This is why I hadn’t ridden to Kalaw in the ambulance, because we needed a team to go early and drop off our training materials in Sagaing on their way up to the Trail Run.

The leader of SERT, Mr. Soe Min Oo, had been our best student at our fourth ever EMR training, and he had been trying to get an EMR training for his group ever since, but there had been major scheduling issues on both sides until now.

The Sagaing EMR training ran from December 10-21 and was unusual in that it was covered by a major national television channel, so I’m happy to say that it went very smoothly and was probably the best overall EMR course I had ever taught!

I did have to go intercede on one students’ behalf though because the rescue group he works for was making him man their “dispatch center” every night even though he was the only person from that group attending our course! They were doing this to low-key punish him and try to make him fail class for trying to get training which they hadn’t endorsed and would put him at a higher-trained level than the leaders of his group. But despite this he was still coming to our class and arriving on time in the mornings! Fortunately, after all the formalities of the visit to this rival rescue group were out of the way they agreed to find someone else to fill in for him until training was over, and he ended up being one of our students who passed the class and received our internationally accredited EMR certificate!

After the EMR course, we packed up and brought all the training supplies back to Yangon to be cleaned and stowed until next time, and then spent the next week catching up on end of year paperwork, delayed CPR-AED and First Aid trainings, and continuing to respond to emergencies.

At 9 AM on Sunday, December 30th, Nathan began instructing his first scuba diving course to 4 students, with myself as an assistant. We spent the first day in the pool in Yangon, familiarizing the students with the equipment and teaching basic principles and skills like how to use the buoyancy control device (BCD) and regulator to breathe underwater and control depth. The next morning we drove out to the beach at Ngwe Saung and again spent the whole afternoon in a pool there teaching and practicing skills, although Nathan and I did manage to squeeze in a shore dive that evening!

January 1 and 2, 2019 was the open water component of the course, a fantastic way to start the New Year! As luck would have it, we happened to draw the same boat as last time, and found ourselves putzing along at a feather-star pace (one of the most graceful animals in the sea, though never known to win a race). At least we certainly couldn’t complain about the location, scenery, or company!

On our way out to sea for the 2nd day of open-water, the boat decided to needle us a little more than usual and the engine died about a quarter-mile offshore, leaving us at the mercy of the incoming tide and letting us drift dangerously close to a small, rocky island before the “engineer” could get it started again. We finished the voyage and scheduled dives without further incident and after putzing back to shore late that afternoon, washed the saltwater off us and our gear, ate supper, and then drove back to Yangon during the night.

Early the next morning on January third, just a couple hours after arriving back in Yangon from our scuba class, Nathan went to the airport and flew back to our school property in Thailand to begin preparing it for a Remote First Aid class that we were scheduled to teach that next week. The day after Nathan left I also started traveling to Kanchanaburi, taking the night bus from Yangon to Myawaddy, and crossing into Thailand the morning of the 5th. I really wanted to stop for breakfast at one of the amazing restaurants in MaeSot, but as I was hoping to catch the day bus down to our school in Kanchanaburi, I took a Songtau straight to the bus station and bought a ticket for a van that would take me over the steep, always-under-construction mountain road to Tak, an hour and a half from the border, where I could catch the bus I needed.

Arriving in Tak I rushed to the ticket counter and discovered that I had just missed the morning bus and would have to spend the day in the bus station until the night bus arrived at 11 PM (story of my life). After a day spent thinking about taking two night-busses in a row and all the other things I could be doing instead, I finally boarded my bus and arrived in Kanchanaburi mid-morning on January 6, then jumped on a local bus which took me out to the village near the school where Nathan met me in our ambulance.

The rest of that day and all the next we worked around the property getting it brush-hogged and trimmed and weeded and watered, then we cleaned out and scrubbed down the classroom we would be holding the training in.

Monday evening after work we drove into Kanchanaburi to pick up my sister Lexi at the bus station. She had been working the medical beachhead along the Thai-Burma border ever since I’d last seen her (no joke either; suturing knife wounds, treating breasts hollowed out by mastitis, sick babies, drowning victims, strange and wonderful tropical diseases...). For some reason, she had decided to have an ocular emergency of her own which had prevented her from traveling south with me when I crossed into Thailand. Now she was coming down to accompany us to a real beach and finally get her diving certification at the next scuba diving class Nathan had scheduled to teach immediately after the RFA.

From Jan 8-10 Nathan and I taught the Remote First Aid class to local rescue volunteers plus the owner and some of the employees of a Bangkok-based rock climbing company specializing in guiding climbing tours to scenic and remote locations across Thailand. They had been looking for a company to give their guides some medical training in case someone had an emergency and they were thrilled to have found us.

On Friday Nathan and I loaded up our Thai ambulance with scuba tanks and dive gear and with Lexi we drove out to the local military base where we have a quid pro quo that allows us to use their training pool for swimming and diving. Along the way we picked up Pi Top and Pi Game, two of our local friends who were also taking the scuba diving course.

At the pool, the 5 of us met 5 more prospective students sent by the local rescue diver foundation, who had given Nathan and I our first scuba diver training two years ago. Now that Nathan was a NAUI Instructor, the foundation leader was sending him the first of many foundation divers to receive real training, since all their previous training to date had been 2nd or 3rd hand at best and entirely empirical.

So, the former students taught the former teachers, and I was again assisting as with the first course to provide an adequate student-instructor ratio and just to help streamline the process. For instance, if someone panics or has trouble equalizing their ears while practicing underwater skills I’m there to help them regain control or fix their problem instead of having to pause the whole class and bring everyone else up also.

The next day we hung out at the school, picking fresh limes and making fresh limeade, and just relaxing. Early Sunday morning we reloaded the ambulance and all piled in to drive 10 hours farther south to the ocean near Krabi, Thailand for the open-water part of training. Heading out of town we parked our ambulance at Pi Top’s gas station and transferred everything into Pi Game’s vehicle, which is also an ambulance, but it’s bigger than ours and we needed all the space we could possibly get since both he and Pi Top were coming along, plus Lexi and I, and Nathan with his family.

On the 14th and 15th we rented a wooden longtail fishing boat and dove as many times as we safely could. This completed the first level of scuba diver, and our two friends went back home, but Lexi and Nathan and I stayed and got a couple more dives in on the 16th to start fulfilling the requirements for Lexi’s advanced scuba diver license, since she loved it so much.

We weren’t able to finish that course immediately though, because Nathan had some family of his own coming over to Thailand for a visit and had to leave, leaving Lexi and I to poodle around the beach on our own for a couple days. This was great fun and also gave me a chance to look around for a dive shop that might be looking for someone to intern with them.

(I had completed my divemaster training over a year before, but in order to be certified I needed to have a certain number of logged dives, and despite our best intentions, with all our other responsibilities Nathan and I hadn’t been diving as much as we’d have liked, which would have more than satisfied my pre-DM-cert dive quota. So... before our Remote First Aid class we had talked and decided that after the next scuba training I would stay behind and try to find a divemaster internship to complete my training.)

I was worried about finding an opening because Thailand was currently experiencing an unseasonably low volume of tourists due to recently changing their tourist visa requirements, but when I checked at one of the very first shops I came to, which I only knew about because this is where one of the instructors who’d helped teach Nathan and I our initial divemaster course now worked, they were delighted to have another diver help them out and offered me the ternship!

After seeing my sister off back to her clinic internship on the 19th, I started my divemaster ternship the very next day, Wednesday, January 20. This entailed learning and doing everything a divemaster does, plus helping the other divemasters and instructors with everything they needed help with, in exchange for gaining the essential experience I needed to qualify me for my DM certification.

On Sunday night, February 24th, I took a 12 hour bus ride from Krabi up to Bangkok where I immediately switched busses to take another 12 hour bus ride on up to MaeSot where I switched yet again to a Songtau and went up to visit Lexi and everyone else at Sunshine Orchard for a few days before continuing on to Yangon on March 1st. I had to make this trip back to Yangon in order to apply for a new Thai visa, and also to pack up and move my stuff out of our office/house, as there was a contemplated upgrade on the horizon. I brought my stuff back to Thailand and parked it temporarily with a friend in MaeSot. Here I again met up with Lexi, who had taken a Songtau down from Sunshine Orchard and was going to accompany me back down to the coast, because Nathan was now available to finish teaching Lexi her advanced scuba diver course.

From March 19-21 we dove off the coast of Krabi and Phuket, completing the necessary skills for Lexi to be certified at the advanced level including: light salvage, underwater navigation, night diving, shore dives, wreck dives, and Nitrox dives, plus Rescue Diver skills.

Afterwards, I went back to complete my DM internship, working there until May 24, when I started making preparations to go to Africa and work at a rural clinic in Ethiopia!

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ulfwolf · 5 years ago

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Wolfku Musing 117

Sunlight to starlight to sunlight again as Life to Death and then Life

Twenty-four hours. Day to night to day again. We don’t reflect on this too often, but this cycle really is a lifetime for some, say a mayfly who, indeed, wakes up one morning to fly about all day but most likely will not fly at all the one following.

By the way, why is a mayfly called a May-fly anyway? Well, if you have heard that these little darlings start hatching from their water-larva state starting in May each year (to then continue to hatch, hatch, hatch through the balance of spring and most of summer) then you’ve heard right. Yup, that’s why the name. So, next time you see, or run into, a swarm of these flying critters, be assured: the days have been getting longer for a while.

It is also true that the mayfly is incredibly short-lived. Once out of the larva stage, the female mayfly gets bored with life on Earth after about five minutes, and departs this world then and there while the more long-lived male can make it through not only one day but on occasion a whopping two. But these boys don’t waste a single second of the 86,400 to 172,800 they have been allotted, and spend most if not all of them mating and reproducing.

In other words, sexing like there’s no tomorrow.

As for nicknames, I don’t know where on earth they got it from, but it’s true that there are folks in our land that refer to them as Canadian Soldiers. Why? one wonders. Not a clue. They are certainly not called that in Canada, where they’re better known as shadflies. And then the British had to weigh in with the more observant and anatomically accurate: up-winged fly.

To some, the mayfly looks like a multi-sectioned flying ant for its abdomen consists of ten individual segments. Strangely enough, some of these segments carry open-and-closeable gills (like a larva hangover). Why? you ask. Well, with so many sexual seconds to fill, perhaps they need to take a break now and then and go for a swim, only to discover that they don’t know how to. No worry, no drowning here. We have gills. I think the word is amphibious.

Actually, I think the word is sloppy evolution, in-elegant.

Most people don’t like mayflies. One people, however, loves them, and these people are called fly fishers; and they love the mayflies because from May on, a fly fisher’s favorite fly to fish with is a mayfly fly (I can say that 23 times in a row, and fast, without screwing up). You may have noticed (or not) that once the mayflies start to hatch, the avid fly fisher starts using artfully made flies resembling this flash in the insect pan. The reason? you ask.

Well, I answer, the mayfly is an extremely popular dish for many a fish, trout included, and since fish keep a close eye on the calendar and know when May rolls around, they will then lunge for anything mayfly-like and if they’re really short on their luck—or karma’s not so good—they’ll swallow an artificial one, much to the fly fisher’s delight and the trout’s dedark.

I think that’s a devious tactic, though, and should be outlawed.

Here’s another interesting mayfly tidbit: they are winged protein and are good food even for humans. What is seen as a nuisance in America is seen as a gift in Africa. Locals around Lake Victoria, for example, gather mayfly adults along with Chironomid midges to make a type of patty called ‘Kungu’. Yum. In fact, this protein-rich food is an important part of their diet.

And bakers in Malawi add them to breads and cakes. Yum, again.

Weird, you say, but did you know that children in the Congo will eat live larva that they dig out of trees, these white larvae so fat that they explode when you bite into them. No, I don’t know this from personal experience, from books. This, though, is my way of offering that there’s no accounting for taste.

So, other things (fish and humans) like to eat them. But what do they eat in turn? The answer is nada. Nothing at all. Why? you ask.

Because they don’t have mouths, I answer.

There is, in other words, no such thing as over-eating in the mayfly world; no diet issues or cookbooks. No counting calories.

Really, it stands to reason, since for adult mayflies, as different from the two-hour old adolescent nymphs, every second (except for those spent swimming slash drowning slash using gills) is earmarked for reproduction and, yes, feeding the occasional lucky fish.

They simply don’t have time to eat so they never developed functional mouths. As larvae, on the other hand, the have very good mouths indeed, which they use consuming tons and tons and tons (as a species) of algae.

I wonder if there are mayfly fly-fishers who fly-fish with algae looking flies?

Turning now to reproduction: mayflies have lots of babies. Let me restate that: mayflies have LOTS of babies. The female mayfly (who, remember, only lives about 300 seconds, spends the tail-end of those valuable seconds (having first been duly mid-air impregnated) laying anywhere from 400 to 3,000 eggs on waters surfaces. These eggs soon sink to the bottom where they eventually hatch into hungry larvae—look out algae.

Oh, I can hear the question now: How, with about five minutes’ worth of life, does the female mayfly manage to get pregnant? Well, let me enlighten you.

This is what happens:

A mayfly’s life cycle starts with a bunch of horny males forming a cloud-like swarm of “come-and-get-it” above the water for the females to fly into (and they do) to mate—in-flight, no less. The words airborne and orgy comes to mind.

The clouding male mayfly, who is equipped with elongated front legs developed for this very purpose, grabs a passing female and the pair then mate in the air, on the wing (which could be one reason they have very well-developed wings, come to think of it). Done sexing, the male lets go of the female, who now—with a precious minute or two left to live—descends to the water surface where she lays her tons of eggs.

Once done, literally spent, she then collapses on top of the water, gives up her ghost, and now, motionless with her wings spread on the water, does a different “come-and-get-it”, this time for the fish who now pick them off at their leisure.

The male mayfly (say that fast, ten times) rarely returns to the water but, as the final hours approach, instead wings off to die on dry land. Should he, however, return to the water for a late-life swim, he will not, gill-equipped as he is and as we’ve already discussed, drown.

One curious thing about mayfly eggs, by the way, is that they are extremely sensitive to pollution. They like, even demand, clean water. Even modest levels of water pollution can kill up to 80 percent of the eggs, and that is why scientists sometimes use the density of viable mayfly eggs to quickly determine the purity of the water.

I biologists are to be believed, they have been around for a long time, the mayflies, and have over the years caught the attention of many of us humans; Aristotle mentions the mayfly in his “History of Animals.” The poet George Crabbe used the mayfly as a symbol for the brevity of life. And these days many people gather to witness the swarms that form and rise during hatching season. In some regions, the number of insects is so incredibly voluminous that they show up on the local weather radar.

The selfsame biologists say that mayflies have been around since before the dinosaurs, and after more than 350 million years of trial-and-error evolution, they have now perfected what they consider the art of life. Not so sure I’m all that impressed.

They start as eggs that soon turn larvae, which after a month or so hatch into nymphs (also called naiads) who emerge from the water to then, give them an hour or two, mature into adults to reproduce and then start a family of at least 400.

That’s some schedule if you ask me. They all should wear T-shirts saying “live fast, die young.”

Taking a closer look at their development: one of the many characteristics that makes mayflies the unique insects they are is their two-step evolution from larva to adult. Hatched from the larva as a nymph the mayfly-to-be emerges from the water as a dull-colored sub-imago (or dun) that seeks shelter in bankside vegetation and trees. After an hour or so, the sub-imago now sheds its nymph skin to transform into the brightly colored imago (or spinner). It is not clear why mayflies have retained this unique step in their lifecycle; however, it is thought that they may not be able to achieve the change from nymph to sexually mature adult in one step—which doesn’t say much for mayfly intelligence, I think, if, indeed, they’ve had 350 million years to figure things out.

Some mayfly species exhibit an amazing hatching synchronicity. For example, one North American mayfly species hatches in huge numbers from the Mississippi river every year. The total number of mayflies in this hatch alone are estimated to reach 18 trillion—more than 3,000 times the number of people on earth.

Another thing is that these guys are attracted to lights from riverside towns and villages which on occasion has forced the local authorities to deploy snow clearing vehicles to remove small mountains of mayfly corpses. Not a pretty thought.

What a creature.

Of course, this is not what this Wolfku is about, it’s about our local sunlight vs. our remote suns’ lights, e.g. starlight. It’s about life to death to life again.

It’s about impermanence—a fleeting state of affairs much more easily seen and recognized among our mayfly friends than among us humans. However, if an alien species with a lifespan of, say 30,000 years took a closer look at us, and at our ridiculously short lifespan of 80 years or so, they would indeed be justified in calling us mayflies.

It’s all relative, isn’t it?

P.S. If you like what you’ve read here and would like to contribute to the creative motion, as it were, you can do so via PayPal: here.

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talesofhawaii · 5 years ago

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We humans are strange. I don’t know of any other living being on earth that does so deals horribly with nature and the environment like humans. He not only exploits our earth massively, he also poisons it with his filth. He simply throws all of his produced garbage into the environment without ever having thought about the damage he is doing with it. According to the motto: out of sight out of mind. We speak of “cycles of nature” etc., but we do not want it to be true that this bad deed of us humans returns fully and directly to ourselves and hits us hard. Because this is the cycle of nature!

Tourist in the middle of the garbage ©Foto: Gérard Koch, 2017

Hawaii is a dreamlike paradise in the Pacific Ocean. Already in 1967, after barely 8 years under the United States government, Hawaii reached the first million tourists, especially since around 7 million visitors from all over the world travel there every year. But Hawaii has a major environmental problem due to these tourists and its geographical location, which one is happy to suppress. My wife and I were able to experience this ourselves in 2017 in Kahului, Maui on the beach. The whole beach was overflowing with plastic, microplastics, old fishing nets and other garbage. Warning signs for swimming were also appropriate. In short, we decided to collect the rubbish on this small stretch of beach.

Collecting the waste – ©Foto: Gérard Koch, Dez.2017

In order to perhaps document the understanding with a few numbers, I have given just two examples:

The smoker habitually throws the rest of the cigarette onto the street, into the river or wherever after his satisfaction. The world is the biggest ashtray. Although cigarette consumption is declining in Europe, 5.6 trillion cigarettes are smoked worldwide every year (2011 figure), 4.5 trillion of them are being carelessly thrown away. In terms of weight, this means that 1 million cigarettes weigh exactly 1 ton. This is about 5 million tons of cigarette waste in nature every year. Human mortality from smoking every year is around 6 million people. One cigarette contains 4,800 chemicals, including 250 poisons (as of April 3, 2018, SZ.de), 50 of which are carcinogenic. The other chemicals are still under investigation. The cigarette filter is made robust by chemical processes during manufacture and takes 10 to 15 years to dismantle. If a cigarette butt comes into contact with water, it contaminates 200 liters of it and, through chemical reactions, generates around 7,000 poisons in the water, which does not benefit wildlife and nature. In the water, the filter decomposes into its microplastics, which is taken up by the plankton (microorganisms in the water), which in turn is the basic food of the fish, which we, the fish, in turn consume. A great cycle, I only wish you a good appetite!

Another example is plastic:

The oceans and the sea are used by our society, industry and government as cheap dumps. Studies estimate that 675 tons of garbage are disposed of directly into the sea every hour, half of which is plastic. The dismantling of the plastic, one is amazed, takes about 500 years. Almost 1.5 million tons of plastic were produced each year in the 1950s, today it is almost 400 million tons. Let’s take the 128-year-old company Coca-Cola, which produces over 100 billion plastic bottles a year. This is about 3,400 bottles per second! According to the Greenpeace studio, 60% of these are single-use bottles that can be found in any way in nature and the ocean.

Researched and registered by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), 4.8 to 12.7 million tons of plastic end up in the sea every year. The ocean currents then create the giant new plastic continents in the middle of the oceans, which cost around 135,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds each year. The best known new continent is the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in the North Pacific between Hawaii and California.

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We humans urgently need to be more careful, gentle and close to nature with our environment and nature, because we have only one earth, where we all live together. We have to do something as soon as possible and clean up and detoxify our landfill. If we can all throw something on the floor, we can all pick something up from the floor, right? Let’s do this as our new sport.

Born in Mexico, Fernando, who has lived in Hawaii for 20 years, took this to heart. When he walked along the Ala Wai boat harbor and saw the splendid, colorful fish swimming in the immense pollution, he took the initiative and began cleaning the harbor basin from debris. Without an order from the city or the community, he goes to the port in Honolulu once or twice a week after his 100% job to clear the debris. Instead of being grateful for his free, hard work, the government put stones in his way and tried to prevent him from cleaning the water. Regardless of this, Fernando goes his way and not only cleans this port in Honolulu, but extends it to the island and cleans nature with great diligence. We should all be grateful to him and support him in this. One possibility would be to help him or to start freeing the environment from civilization ballast in the area, on his own doorstep. Fernando is a great role model for me, a hero. He shows us what to do and opens our eyes. My request to you, dear reader, please become active like Fernando. Support him wherever you can, be it financially or just that his social media community is growing, which you can find here: Instargram: @greenmanhawaii facebook: Green Man Hawaii

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Mahalo nui to Hawaii Volcanic

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My contribution to him is that as soon as I can fly back to Hawaii, I will keep my promise to Fernando and help him fish the garbage out of the water for a day or two. I will also suggest him as a real hero at the organization at Trash Hero World, so that he may also get support from there.

A huge thank you and Mahalo nui to Fernando, as well as an appreciation for everything he does. Fernando, is a hero!

Photoalbum

Motor of a car – Big Island – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

the rest of a car – Big Island – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Fishernet – Maui – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Everywhere is tresh – Maui- 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Harbor of Kahului – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Warning for swimming – Maui – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Tourist in the mittle of waste – Maui – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

It say byself… , Maui – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Cleaning up by Kahului, Maui – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Everywhere the trash… Maui – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Almost the End of Cleaning Maui – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Good feeling after cleaning,Maui – 2017 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Ala Wai Harbor Honolulu witch cleans Fernando, Oahu – 2018 ©Foto Gérard Koch

Link:

Bericht über Coca-Cola Die Welt-Zeitschrift über Coca-Cola Watson Coca-Cola Schweiz Coca-Cola Global Citizen über den Abfall in Hawaii Reset United Nations Environment Programme UNEP Pollution in Honolulu Oceanservice – Plankton Australien Museum – Plankton

Fernando, a tireless hero We humans are strange. I don't know of any other living being on earth that does so…

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goswagcollectorfire · 5 years ago

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CARL’S BLOG: BLUE SKIES OF EL DORADO, ARKANSAS; carlsblog.online; http://sbpra.com/CarlJBarger

2-15-20: Obadiah tours the city of El Dorado, Arkansas with his family from Autauga, Alabama. Obadiah and Penelope share their wonderful news with the family.

The second day started off with a huge breakfast. It was like

feeding an army. Mattie, Betsy, and Big Jim came through

in flying colors. No one left the table hungry. After breakfast,

we loaded two wagons and our family carriage, and off we went

to El Dorado.

We spent the better part of the day with Mary and Virgil’s

family and touring the city of El Dorado.

Everyone was quite impressed with my doctor’s clinic.

While there, they had an opportunity to meet both Elizabeth

and Beth Ann, who were holding down the fort, so to speak.

Both ladies are very capable of handling minor emergencies and

some diagnoses.

They were impressed with Virgil and Mary’s large general

merchandise store as well.

After returning to Three Oaks, we had an outstanding meal

consisting of Betsy’s fried chicken and all the trimmings. After

dinner, we adjourned to the parlor. Our parlor is the largest room

in the house and can easily seat all the family. We announced

at dinner that we had a special announcement to make in the

parlor after dinner.

I saw my mother smile and wink at Dent. Could she know

something already? I thought.

When everyone found a seat in the parlor, I began my speech

by saying how much Mother, Penelope, and I were enjoying

their visit. I motioned for Penelope to come stand by me. We

held hands and smiled at each other. I’ve never been one who

beat around the bush, so to speak, so I continued my speech.

“Penelope and I have some very special news to share with

you. We wanted to wait until everyone was here so our good

news could be heard by all. I’m happy to announce tonight that

we are going to have a baby.”

Mother rose from her rocking chair and said, “I knew it, I

just knew it! Praise the Lord!” Applause was heard throughout

the room.

After a short time of congratulations, Dent asked for everyone’s

attention. “I want to offer up a toast, if I may,” he said.

“First, I want to say, this is the best news we could hope to

hear on this trip. Secondly, knowing both of you, this baby is

going to be the luckiest baby born in Union County. He or she

will want for nothing. Thirdly, God certainly knew what he was

doing when He brought you two together in holy matrimony.

I commend both of you for waiting and pledging your lives to

each other. May God give you a long life together and many

children! We love you both!”

No sooner had Dent finished when John raised his wine

glass and said, “Here! Here!” Everyone again applauded!

The adults stayed in the parlor while most of the children

went outside to play. There was another full moon, which aided

the kids in playing games.

On the third day, we shared in an early breakfast, loaded

three wagons, and headed out to Calion Creek, which isn’t far

from our plantation and is known for its blue channel catfish,

mud catfish, and lots of sunfish and bluegill bream.

To most fishermen, Calion Creek is the most popular. The

Ouachita River is often swift and deep. The high, sloped banks

on the Ouachita make it difficult to sit and stand. The Calion has

several sandy bars suited for swimming, building fires, cooking,

and setting up camping tents. It was ideal for our outing.

Dent and John requested we camp on one of the sandy bars.

Since Dent, John, and I are not good at cooking, we brought

along Bill and Big Jim to do the cooking.

This is our night out for us men and our sons. Dent, John,

and I remember our father taking us camping when we lived on

the Black Oaks plantation in Cahaba, Alabama. We loved it and

know it will be fun for the boys.

To make things interesting, we had a fishing derby. Whoever

caught the largest fish would win a price. We separated the boys

in two age divisions, making it fair for everyone.

The boys had from the time we got there until we left to vie

for the champion fisherman.

Several catfish and bream were caught, more than enough

for our dinner meal. When it came time to turn in for the night,

Everett, Dent’s son, and Obie, Hank’s son, were leading the pack

in catching the biggest fish. Everett had caught a five-pound

catfish. After considerable tugging, Everett was able to drag the

big catfish safely to the bank.

Obie was first in his age division. He caught a two-pound

catfish that gave him a real struggle to bring in. He, too, was

successful in meeting the challenge.

As dawn came, I smelled bacon and sausage cooking over

the open fire. Bill and Big Jim were busy preparing breakfast

for us. Our breakfast consisted of fried fish, eggs, bacon, and

sausage. Mother packed some bread and jelly to go along with

our breakfast meal.

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gwiinpatton · 6 years ago

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Scaly Golden Beasts : Carp on the Fly

I think every angler that lives in the US can think of a handful of “secret” spots that have “tons of huge” carp in them. When I hear this it definitely sparks my interest but it’s at that moment I know this conversation is about to go one of two different ways. It’s either about to be a great conversation filled with stories about battling them on conventional or fly and followed by some epic pictures of the huge golden creatures. Or it goes goes the other direction as they begin to tell me about how Common Carp are “Trash Fish” and the evil villain of the freshwater angling world. They then proceed to show me pictures of dead carp with arrows through them. When I’m at work and this happens I just bury my feelings and try to remain calm but inside a whole other conversation is taking place and it’s not very nice. The term “trash fish” quite honestly just pisses me off. Over the last few years as a fly angler I’ve really grown to love these misunderstood creatures. Aside from the fact that they look cool and are built like bull dozers , they also fight like it . It’s pretty hard to go back to chasing bass when in reality NO black bass will ever rip me into my backing 10 seconds into a battle . A 5 pound Common Carp however will give me an 8-10 minute battle and if it has the room to swim will definitely show me that neon orange braided core at the heart of my reel.

Now I know what you’re thinking , “So they fight hard but they can’t be that hard to catch…right? I used to catch them on corn as a kid.” Actually carp are one of the hardest North American freshwater fish to catch on fly hands down. Aside from being omnivores and their food of choice changing day to day. They are also hyper aware of their surroundings when up in the shallows and feeding. This is where they are most vulnerable. Carp species have a huge lateral line that help them sense even the slightest vibration or electrical currents . That matched with decent vision , sensitive barbels and a huge tail fin make for a fish that with one hard push of the tail can be gone in an instant. Leaving you scratching your head and staring at a cloud of sediment or mud where it just was. This makes them so much fun to stalk from the bank or kayak.

Common carp have been the favorite target species of fish for friends in the U.K. for hundreds and hundreds of years. Most Americans can’t begin to understand the amount of money spent on carp specific gear and the ones who do know it all to well , as they are probably Euro -style carp anglers , but that is a different topic all together.

In the 1800s two fish were brought to America both for table-fare and sport. The Common Carp and the Brown Trout . According to Kirk Deeter, author of the Orvis Guide to Fly fishing for Carp, in 1872 Julius A Poppe brought 5 Common Carp to California and within 4 years the fish had proliferated into a successful fish farming operation. Then in 1877 the U.S. Fish Commission launched a major effort to cultivate these fish throughout the country. The first shipment of fish from Europe was deemed so valuable that it was guarded around the clock after they had been acclimated to the Druid Hill pond near Baltimore Maryland. The Brown trout was brought over and planted into the Balwin River in Michigan in 1884. Highly revered for its “sporting” characteristics and widespread commercial value. The problem was that this fish couldn’t just be dumped anywhere. It had to have specific requirements to thrive and reproduce. It required cool , clean water and tons of bugs and freshwater invertebrates to survive. It’s other European buddy ,the carp , could survive in the opposite . Dirty warm water with low oxygen levels were no problem at all. Now fast forward to present day. Seeing where these two species ended up in the “social status” of the angling community is insane to me . Carp thrived and took hold in literally every body of water they were introduced to . Clearing muddied silty flats , helping keep back certain plant and invertebrate species but by the turn of the 20th century we’re already being labeled a nuisance species . Brown trout however, which are considered to be one of the favorite trout species to fly anglers , were hard to keep alive and destroyed native trout populations in certain water bodies but remain at the top of prized fish species . The reputation that both species gained is a little crazy in terms of their effect on local waters and native species . I’m not arguing the fact that carp eat fish eggs and muddy up certain areas of rivers but in reality what kind of creature doesn’t eat fish eggs!? The answer is everything eats fish eggs! There there is a little history of where carp came from and how they got spread throughout the country . Let’s get into what the this article is about. Stalking and catching carp from the kayak!

I’ve already talked a little bit about how much fun and rewarding it is to stalk these fish from the bank but silently paddling up to your target fish , getting everything ready for the cast are the moments I live for . As I said earlier these fish are hyper aware of their surroundings and are ready to bolt at a moments notice . This makes them tough to target from the yak. The slightest bump on your deck can send even the heaviest feeder into the safety of the deeper water .

For me sight fishing is the way to do it. I’ve heard of anglers just blind casting into muddied flats and catching monsters but have yet to witness or experience it myself. I prefer to find them early in the mornings while their crawling around on their bellies in the shallows . 1-3′ deep water , sandy or muddy flats with little to no flow are the spots I tend to find them feeding in numbers . The clearer the water the more stealthy you have to be .

As far as gear goes it really just depends on the angler’s preference . I know guys that fight carp on 3 wts and love it but I also know guys who won’t cast anything less than an 8wt. Myself I prefer my trusty 6wt Orvis Helios ZG with Mirage lll reel loaded with a weight forward floating 6wt line. A 7 1/2 foot 10 fluorocarbon leader with a small buggy neutral colored fly. Some of my favorites include the FlyGeek RioGetter , Carp-it Bomb , Rainey’s Size 6 CarpTease , Egan’s Headstand , Loco Moco and the Hipster Dufus but like I said anything small , buggy and neutral colored will work. The only thing I’ve found that they absolutely can’t stand is anything with lots of flash in it. For whatever reason they simply can’t stand it.

When it comes to casting on carp I always find that it’s better to cast far in front of them and far back . For example : If I paddle up on a large fish feeding in 3′ of water I will land my fly in front of it about 5 or 6′ and then past it by the same amount . Try to figure out what direction the feeding fish is headed and intersect with slow steady strips of the line. Once the fly is within 1-2′ of the fish ,if it hasn’t been spotted already , kill the action. Then give it tiny little strips just to make it twitch. At this point , a feeding fish will usually have already inhaled your fly.

Setting the hook at the perfect moment is key to a successful carp session. Most carp will suck in their prey and immediately blow it back out then repeat so setting the hook on the take is when it needs to happen. Don’t be afraid to put some ooomf into it. It takes a bit of force and an extremely sharp hook to bury into those rubbery lips . Usually a good strip set and simultaneous rod tip forced into the air is good enough to drive it home. This is when the real battle begins so hold on tight . If given the room to run it’s guaranteed that you’re going to see the backing line on your reel. The large tail fins combined with the sheer weight and muscle of these fish make for an intense fight and ability to pick up speed at any given moment . Chances are you’ll have a great sleigh ride but every time you gain some line they will take it right back. In my experience it’s always better to get your feet planted on firm ground in order to end the battle. If not it just becomes an intricate back and forth of taking and losing line while spinning in circles. Firmly plant your rod combo between and paddle (forwards or backwards ) to the nearest accessible bank to finish the fight. Once your feet are planted it’s time to go to work . You want to steadily gain line but not bully the fish because they will break you off. You know when you can reel and when you can’t and if you don’t the fish will tell you by taking more line . Just be patient and tire the fish out. After 2-3 times of trying to land the fish with your rubberized net they usually lay on their side come right to the net out of pure exhaustion.

I hope this short article has sparked your interest in pursuing carp on the fly and you won’t fully understand the fun that comes along with it until you’ve hooked your first one. Just remember that this journey will begin with tons of frustration but will end with a battle that will definitely change how you view these scaly.

Scaly Golden Beasts : Carp on the Fly published first on https://realpaddleandpole.wordpress.com

#kayaking #kayak fishing #Michigan kayaking

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expertfitnesstipsblog-blog · 7 years ago

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Stop everything, these wellness breaks need to be on your bucket list

Stop everything, these wellness breaks need to be on your bucket list From yoga retreats to gourmet getaways, these are the new travel hotspots for wellness chasers. Wellness tourism is booming. In fact, it’s currently worth more than $700 billion, and its meteoric rise isn’t expected to slow down any time soon. Thanks to the world’s obsession with all things health, the landscape of travel is forever changed. Workouts, meditation sessions and spa treatments are no longer supplementary – they’re the main event. Here are the latest travel destinations putting wellness at the forefront of their tourism offerings.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica

Best for: yoga Before you book that yoga retreat in Bali, check out the sprawling forests and unrivalled coastline of Costa Rica. The beach town of Santa Teresa has already made a name for itself as a yogi hub, so pencil in a vinyasa class under the trees before hitting the surf and fuelling up at an organic cafe. Go luxe: Unwind in a beachside villa at Florblanca (florblanca.com) and practise your backbends in the open-air studio. To pick up the pace, ask the hotel to organise a horseback ride through the jungle or test out the famous zip lines. Spend less: Mix yoga with guided surf sessions on a Vajra Sol Yoga retreat (vajrasoltravel.com). Perfect for beginners, it bookends each day with a little Savasana and leaves you plenty of free time to roam the gardens. instagram

Paro, Bhutan

Best for: cycling Swap the busy streets of Nepal for the tranquil paths of Bhutan and you’ll be one step closer to inner peace. Nestled between India and China at the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas, Bhutan is home to ancient monasteries, snow-capped mountains and evergreen forests, so it’s no surprise it’s often described as the happiest place on Earth. A hike is a must, but the rugged landscape is best explored on two wheels, which is why more visitors are choosing to cycle their way between villages. Go luxe: Book a room at Como Uma Paro (comohotels.com) and start your day with a cycle along the famous Chele La Pass and a hike to the Kila Nunnery. Recover at a Bhutanese bathhouse, then feast on a traditional lunch. Spend less: Take a seven-day cycling tour with Firefox Tours (firefoxtours. com) and discover stunning temples, villages and valleys between Paro and Thimphu. End your journey with a muscle-busting hike to Tiger’s Nest Monastery. instagram

West Coast, New Zealand

Best for: gourmet tours Sitting pretty between the Tasman Sea and the Southern Alps on New Zealand’s South Island, the West Coast is a land of untamed beauty and even better food. Drive down the 600km coastline and be treated to native whitebait patties, smoked salmon and venison, plus wild deer and boar for the more adventurous foodies. Go luxe: Set up camp at the secluded Rimu Lodge (rimulodge.co.nz) and you’ll be surrounded by farmland, the roaring Hokitika River and the region’s best freshwater fishing spots. Spend less: If you only have a few days on the West Coast, be sure to visit the Salmon Farm & Cafe (salmonfarm.co.nz) in Paringa. Perched above a pond, the restaurant provides a true farm-to-table experience. instagram

Sedona, US

Best for: meditation Sedona is dotted with crimson sandstone peaks, crystal shops and high-end spas, so it’s no wonder travel experts are calling this Arizona desert town the number-one wellness destination in the US. Made famous by its ‘spiritual vortexes’ (aka energy centres or places of extreme natural beauty that promote healing), it’s synonymous with self-exploration and outdoor meditation, so a mindfulness session under the towering cliffs is a must. Go luxe: Whether you’ve been meditating for years or you’re just starting out, a stay at the award winning Mii Amo (miiamo.com) is sure to elevate your practice. Book in for the ‘spiritual exploration’ package to enjoy a mix of massage, guided meditations and crystal therapy. Spend less: Walk past the twisted juniper trees, marvel at Sedona’s red rock formations and connect with spiritual sites on a one-hour meditative hike with the team at Spirit Quest Retreats (retreatsinsedona.com). Expect to leave restored and recharged. instagram

São Miguel, Portugal

Best for: hot springs Portugal is having a real tourism ‘moment’, and although the terracotta rooftops of its buzzing capital Lisbon might be flooding your social media feeds right now, the bubbling thermal springs of São Miguel are about to take over. Located off the west coast of Portugal, in the island chain of Azores, São Miguel and its network of natural springs and iron-water pools are quickly becoming Europe’s go-to destination for those looking to rest and recharge. Although São Miguel has been a local hotspot for centuries, the long list of resorts now making use of the mineral rich waters mean it’s never been easier for visitors to soak their stresses away. Go luxe: Boasting the largest concentration of thermal pools in Europe, Furnas Boutique Hotel (furnas boutiquehotel.com) is the perfect place to unwind. After taking a dip in one of the thermal swimming pools, treat yourself to some reflexology or a massage in one of the 10 treatment rooms. Spend less: Stay at the art déco Terra Nostra Garden Hotel (terranostragardenhotel.com) and you’ll have the botanical wonders of the Terra Nostra Garden right at your doorstep. Once you’ve explored the grounds, take a long soak in the huge 18th-century thermal pool. instagram

Ishigaki, Japan

Best for: watersports Declared by TripAdvisor as the top-trending destination of 2018, Ishigaki – a tropical paradise in Japan’s Yaeyama Islands – is rich in white-sand beaches and coral reefs. You can try your hand at snorkelling, fly boarding and pedal boating on the pristine shores of Fusaki and Sunset beaches, or spike your heart rate on a kayak tour on the jungle-lined Miyara River. Go luxe: As well as including all your gourmet meals, an all-inclusive stay at Club Med Kabira Ishigaki (clubmed.com.au) features a long list of land- and water-based activities. Spend less: Sign up for a dive cruise with Prime Scuba (primescuba-isg.com) to learn the basics of open water diving and go in search of manta rays. instagram

The original trailblazers

Nordic countries have been putting wellness at the forefront of life for decades. Experience it first-hand at one of these relaxing retreats. Ion Adventure Hotel, Iceland Trek across ancient glaciers, go fly-fishing in icy rivers, soak in geothermal pools and chase the northern lights at the epic Ion Adventure Hotel (ioniceland.is). instagram Järvisydän, Finland Overlooking Lake Saimaa, Järvisydän Hotel & Spa Resort (jarvisydan.com) will reset your senses with forest hikes, aerial yoga and its impressive spa. instagram The Well, Norway The largest spa and bathhouse in the region, The Well (thewell.no) allows guests to recharge with relaxation rooms, onsen hot springs and rhassoul clay treatments. instagram For more travel inspo, these are the best out-of-town wellness breaks for a quick weekend getaway. Plus, we’ve found the dream holiday locations that will allow you to relax and stay fit. Know someone who would find this interesting? Share this article with them! Got 60 seconds? Get relaxed and happy all at once Source link Read the full article

#breaks #bucketlist #stop #Wellness

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judithghernandez87 · 7 years ago

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How to Write a Book: The Secret to a Super-Fast First Draft

Hey, everyone! This post is a trial run of a new blog post format, and we’re using a video guide I created in 2015 on how to write the first draft of your book to test it out. Basically, I want to make it as easy as possible for you to digest, enjoy, and benefit from the content I produce—and my videos in particular!

I’d love to hear if you find this new format useful. Please let me know your thoughts and feedback in the comments!

If you’d prefer to watch the video version of this blog post on YouTube instead, click here.

youtube

Book writing is something that used to be a constant struggle for me. Read on to learn about the process I used to write over 36,000 words in the first two weeks of 2015—and that I’ve been using ever since with great success. I’m also going to give you one tool that is saving me so much time and helping me achieve up to 180 words per minute.

A book is such a huge undertaking. It’s really funny, because I can write a blog post—3,000 or 4,000 words—in just a few hours, but when it comes to writing a book, I struggle a lot. That’s why I have a couple unwritten books just sitting on my computer, in Scrivener, which is the tool I use to help write books. It’s a great tool—the reason those books weren’t finished was because I just couldn’t do it.

I remember sitting for hours. I would block out four or five hours of time during the day, just sit in front of my computer and finish my book or work on it at least, and come out of that with an extra 300 words for four hours of work. It was completely defeating—and I know a lot of you can relate to this. I know a lot of you also, like me, feel you have a book in you—maybe even many books in you. So I’m going to show you a book-writing technique that has changed my life in terms of productivity. I used it to write my book Will It Fly?, and within the first couple of weeks of 2015, I was able to crank out 36,000 words.

Using Post-it Notes to “Brain-Dump” Your Book’s Topics

I’ve adopted this technique from a lot of other people’s strategies and tips for writing books, and it’s involving something that a lot of other people have used before: Post-it Notes. I love Post-it Notes, because you can write on them and move them around. They’re small, but not so small that you have to squint to see them. So they’re perfect. I’m going to show you how to mind-map your next book using Post-it Notes, and how you can achieve incredible words per minute in terms of the rate at which you write your book.

I’ll also show you some tools I’ve been using along with my Post-it Notes, as well as some special things you can do in terms of where your Post-it Notes are that’ll help you crank out books like none other.

The first step is to get some Post-it Notes. Make sure to get a bunch of different colors. I like the smaller ones, because you’re just going to write one or two words on them. Then you want to pick a color—I’ll start with neon green—and just start writing. Just start with anything that comes to mind involving the book that you’re going to write, put it down, and stick it to the surface that you’re working on, whether it’s a desk or a whiteboard or some other surface.

To demonstrate this, I’m going to pick a topic. Something I always talk about on the blog is fly fishing, and it’s something I know a little bit about. Using the example of fly fishing, I’ll show you how I can start to put together my hypothetical book. You’ll see that once you start to put all your ideas onto this board that you’re working on with these Post-it Notes, you can move things around. Then the chapters and subchapters start to form, which will help create what becomes your outline. The next step is to take bits and pieces of that outline and move them to a place where you can then focus on those little bits and pieces. That’s why I love Post-it Notes, because you can move them around into different places.

So, fly fishing. I’m first going to pick a color and place it in the middle to label my central idea. I’m going to pick a pink note and write “fly fishing” on it. With this process, you write anything that comes to mind; there are no rules here. You can always throw things out, but you don’t want to stop yourself. This is the creative process. You don’t want to edit in your head. You just want to put things out there, and later on you can edit.

I’ve got “fly fishing.” Next, what is involved with fly fishing? There’s obviously “fish,” “flies,” and “rods.” There’s “casting techniques” and “reels.”

Again, write down anything that comes to mind. You want to put the stuff that’s in your brain down on paper, because then you won’t have to think about it anymore. You can focus on organizing it later, but we’re not at that part yet. What else? “Lake fishing” or “lake fly fishing.” There’s “rivers and streams,” and there’s “oceans.” Let’s see, what else? There’s “tying flies” and “tournaments.”

What else comes to mind? “How to dry things off after you’re done” . . . which is “equipment!” Good! I like that. Maybe “clothing,” too, because we’ve talked about “rods” and “reels” already. Also, different types of fish I know are popular, so “trout fishing” and “bass fishing.” I know a little about fly fishing, but I’m not a fly fisherman. You’ll obviously know a little bit more about the topic you’re working on, so you should be able to fill up your work surface pretty easily. When I was writing my last book, the table was completely filled with notes.

“Fly fishing”: what else?

Let’s see, “fly fishing for kids,” and maybe “destination areas.” You also need “boots.” You need “safety.” You need a “license,” typically, too. You need a “net,” of course, and need to know how to “catch and release.” By the way, I’m using a different color—green—now.

There’s also “etiquette.” What else is there? “Snacks” that you should bring. Obviously, there’s “where” in the lake—i.e., where in the water should you go?

I probably shouldn’t be doing this on fly fishing, and I’m not going to be publishing a book on fly fishing any time soon, but you’ll get what I’m doing here shortly.

What else? “Fish finders,” “wading boots,” maybe “boats.” “Boats,” “floats”—I feel like I’m doing a word game right now with my son or something. What rhymes with “floats”? “Coats,” “jackets.” Again, anything that comes to mind.

Starting to Create Some Order

At this point, you should have a whole board or desk full of Post-it Notes. Next, you want to start looking at all of them so you can start to tie them together. Pull them off and start moving them to different places, organizing them in groups that make sense to you. You’ll see that your brain will just start to organize them. Again, it’s nice that it’s all here for you because then it’s much easier to move things around.

For example, I can put “jackets” and “wading boots” together. Let’s see, “equipment” and “clothing.” That’s the top-level one here. Then I have “reels” and “rods” and “flies” over here. Then I have behavioral stuff like “etiquette” and “time flies” and maybe “casting techniques” over here. I have “oceans,” “lakes,” and “streams” over here. “Snacks,” which is something to bring, so maybe that’s over here in the equipment area. “License”—that’s another thing that you’ll need before you go out.

“Safety”—I can put that in the behavior area. “Tournaments”—I don’t know what goes with that right now, but that’s okay. Here’s some more “equipment:” “boats” and “floats.” “Destinations”—that could go with “oceans,” “lakes,” and “streams.” “Where in the water,” “what to do with kids,” and “fish finders”—that’s another piece of equipment. “Casting techniques”—that’s its own thing. There’s probably a whole array of different kinds of casting techniques.

“Kids.” You can take them with you on these destinations, so maybe we’ll have one for “kid-friendly.” Now I have four different sections here I can see, maybe five, because of “casting techniques.” Then what I can do is I can start to create a hierarchy, so I can see that this is “equipment,” and “clothing” is here, and then stuff to “bring with you” when you go and then more “fishing-related equipment” here that you’ll need before you go out. Already, I can see a chapter here, and then subchapters happening in this section.

Again, I’m starting to organize; I’m starting to form my book here. “Fish”—that’s a top level thing, obviously. “Fish.” What kind of fish? “Trout,” “bass,” and there’s a whole bunch of other fish. How about “fishing equipment” like “rods” and “reels” and “flies”? That can be separated out from here, so that becomes a nice little chapter. Then what you can do is start to pull out another color and begin to create second or third levels within these.

If I knew a little bit more about fly fishing, I would probably know that there were different flies that I could tie. I don’t know all the names of the flies, but I think there’s a “nymph” fly, so I’ll put that down. What are some other flies? People who actually fly fish are probably going to be mad at me for this, but there’s a . . . “housefly.” There’s “nets.”

Again, you begin to create your chapter on “flies” here, and then maybe under “nymph,” there are two different “nymph” ones. I also know that there are two different kinds of flies, so I’m going to create one for “dry”—those are flies that float—and then “wet.” “Wet” flies—those are the ones that sink. Then within that, I’m going to use a different color to create another level, and put “when to use.” So you can just go deeper and deeper. Then maybe “what to use” based on the type of fish or season.

Then maybe “casting techniques.” I know there’s something called the “roll cast,” so I’ll just create a new level here: the “roll cast.” Then I could create a sub-level under that: “how to use it” and “when to use it.”

Starting the Writing Process

You can see how I begin to structure everything; I start very top-level. I bunch things up, and then I start to break things out a little bit. That will help me decide what my chapters are, what order everything should be in, what my subchapters are, and my subsections. Then, what I typically do when I start to create this order of events here and start to organize them in a sequential pattern, is start from the top. I pull out those Post-it Notes and move them onto my other desk.

That’s when I start writing about that specific topic. Everything else that’s here on the first desk is still here, but I’m not focusing on it, because I’m just writing that little portion. That’s something I struggled with when I was writing books. I was envisioning the whole thing, and thinking about every other part of the book and how it was going to relate. Instead, you’ve got to focus only on that next little section. When you do that, it becomes so much easier, because as you complete them and move things aside, then move on to the next section, and the next section—little by little, you’re chipping away at it. You’re adding more words every single day, and by the end of it, you will have gotten rid of all these Post-it Notes. You start to make progress, and it’s completely motivating.

There’s one more little secret I want to share with you that goes along with this technique, and I’ll show it to you next.

The Technique That Will Dramatically Upgrade Your WPM

You’ve created your Post-it Notes, and you’ve started to see what’s happening in your book in terms of the outline and the chapters, the subchapters, and the little sections within each of those parts. Now it’s time to start writing. Like I said earlier, you’re going to pull out little sections. I might, for example, pull out the sections on how to get involved with “fishing tournaments,” and there’s probably some more hierarchy involved within this one as well. I think there are different types of tournaments, so those would go in here as well. Now that you know this is what you’re focusing on—tournaments—you can start writing about it, and your mind is just focused on this topic. Everything else is still there on the table, but you’re only focused on this one.

Now, for me, writing and actually typing all that out would still be a struggle at this point. I’m a little bit more focused than I was, but my mind still gets into editing mode whenever I get in front of a computer. It works for blog posts, but when I am writing a book it just becomes much harder for me mentally. Even though I can try and treat each of these things as a single blog post, I still want to edit along the way, as if I’m crafting it like a blog post that’s going to be published tomorrow.

Now, the very best strategy I know of if you want to upgrade your writing efficiency is to “puke” what’s in your head onto the screen. Basically, you just want to put everything in your brain about your topic onto the page. I know some people who actually take the “delete” button off their keyboard, because they don’t want to let themselves even accidentally edit. They are just in creative mode. Later, you can come in and edit and move things around, and you’re probably not going to be using a lot of what you write down, but what comes out when your brain is in creative mode is going to be extremely good for your book.

When I was in editing mode, I just wouldn’t let myself think creatively. I would just stop myself, because I had to edit this thing and move things around. It’s not what you want to do. Now, the big trick I use, and the app that I use to help me achieve extremely high words per minute, is called Rev. With Rev, I’m actually not writing, and I’m not typing; I’m dictating my book.

Rev is an app for iPhone and Android. It’s basically an audio recorder, but the cool thing about it is you can take that audio recording and send it to the people over at Rev, and they will transcribe it for you at $1 per minute. You can even just transcribe it yourself or have somebody else on your team transcribe it for you, but Rev does a really great job. The quality is really good, and when it comes back to you a few hours later, it’s all the words you dictated related to that specific item.

So that’s the trick I use to get up to 180 words per minute. It’s how I’ve been able to complete the first brain dump of each of my books over the past two years. You can’t even really call them drafts, because they’re just everything in my brain about these particular topics, on these Post-it Notes, all dictated. Actually, they’re 95 percent dictated, because I start writing on the computer, but then I go to Rev, which has been game changing. Then I go through the book a second time with a little bit of editing mode in mind, and I can then shape and move things around and craft these stories in a way that makes sense for a book. It’s not going to make sense for a book when it comes from your voice, but you can get so many amazing stories and pieces of your book out through your voice.

So, record it on Rev, transcribe it, and you’ll see you have a lot of stuff to work with. And your book’s going to be finished sooner than you know.

To recap:

Brain dump all of your ideas about your book onto Post-it Notes.

Move them around, organize them, shape them, and sequence them to a point where they come to look like a book in terms of chapters, subchapters, parts within those subchapters, and so on.

Pull out individual pieces and talk about those things, then record them.

If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine; you can write them, too. But just having that Post-it note there that you’re focusing on is going to help quite a bit.

That’s my process!

Good luck, and I hope it’s helpful for those of you out there working on your first (or next) book! Give it a try, and let me know how it goes in the comments.

How to Write a Book: The Secret to a Super-Fast First Draft originally posted at Dave’s Blog

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andrewmrudd79 · 7 years ago

Text

How to Write a Book: The Secret to a Super-Fast First Draft

I’d love to hear if you find this new format useful. Please let me know your thoughts and feedback in the comments!

If you’d prefer to watch the video version of this blog post on YouTube instead, click here.

youtube

Using Post-it Notes to “Brain-Dump” Your Book’s Topics

I’ve got “fly fishing.” Next, what is involved with fly fishing? There’s obviously “fish,” “flies,” and “rods.” There’s “casting techniques” and “reels.”

“Fly fishing”: what else?

There’s also “etiquette.” What else is there? “Snacks” that you should bring. Obviously, there’s “where” in the lake—i.e., where in the water should you go?

I probably shouldn’t be doing this on fly fishing, and I’m not going to be publishing a book on fly fishing any time soon, but you’ll get what I’m doing here shortly.

Starting to Create Some Order

Starting the Writing Process

There’s one more little secret I want to share with you that goes along with this technique, and I’ll show it to you next.

The Technique That Will Dramatically Upgrade Your WPM

So, record it on Rev, transcribe it, and you’ll see you have a lot of stuff to work with. And your book’s going to be finished sooner than you know.

To recap:

Brain dump all of your ideas about your book onto Post-it Notes.

Move them around, organize them, shape them, and sequence them to a point where they come to look like a book in terms of chapters, subchapters, parts within those subchapters, and so on.

Pull out individual pieces and talk about those things, then record them.

If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine; you can write them, too. But just having that Post-it note there that you’re focusing on is going to help quite a bit.

That’s my process!

Good luck, and I hope it’s helpful for those of you out there working on your first (or next) book! Give it a try, and let me know how it goes in the comments.

How to Write a Book: The Secret to a Super-Fast First Draft originally posted at Homer’s Blog

0 notes

davidmhomerjr · 7 years ago

Text

How to Write a Book: The Secret to a Super-Fast First Draft

I’d love to hear if you find this new format useful. Please let me know your thoughts and feedback in the comments!

If you’d prefer to watch the video version of this blog post on YouTube instead, click here.

youtube

Using Post-it Notes to “Brain-Dump” Your Book’s Topics

I’ve got “fly fishing.” Next, what is involved with fly fishing? There’s obviously “fish,” “flies,” and “rods.” There’s “casting techniques” and “reels.”

“Fly fishing”: what else?

There’s also “etiquette.” What else is there? “Snacks” that you should bring. Obviously, there’s “where” in the lake—i.e., where in the water should you go?

I probably shouldn’t be doing this on fly fishing, and I’m not going to be publishing a book on fly fishing any time soon, but you’ll get what I’m doing here shortly.

Starting to Create Some Order

Starting the Writing Process

There’s one more little secret I want to share with you that goes along with this technique, and I’ll show it to you next.

The Technique That Will Dramatically Upgrade Your WPM

So, record it on Rev, transcribe it, and you’ll see you have a lot of stuff to work with. And your book’s going to be finished sooner than you know.

To recap:

Brain dump all of your ideas about your book onto Post-it Notes.

Move them around, organize them, shape them, and sequence them to a point where they come to look like a book in terms of chapters, subchapters, parts within those subchapters, and so on.

Pull out individual pieces and talk about those things, then record them.

If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine; you can write them, too. But just having that Post-it note there that you’re focusing on is going to help quite a bit.

That’s my process!

Good luck, and I hope it’s helpful for those of you out there working on your first (or next) book! Give it a try, and let me know how it goes in the comments.

0 notes