#would he want to keep his promise to martin and not become the pupil? but he did! he does! he does even when martin ISNT spiders! aaah

[gammija]

ive been trying for 30 mins to write a post about why the Web's plan is still confusing, but I think I should face the truth and admit to myself that it's not that it makes no sense, it's just... so convoluted

[shizucheese]

Hey y'all, new chapter of A Lovely Pair of Eyes is finally out! Sorry it took so long, I ended up being a big of a perfectionist with it and it gave me some troubles. But it's here now so read on! :D You can find the new chapter on AO3 here: Chapter 1

If you're new to the story and want to start from the beginning, you can check it out here: Prolog

Fic description: John and Martin survived the events of Mag 200 and ended up Somewhere Else, but now Martin has become an Avatar of the Eye. Now the two of them must navigate all of the complications of their still-new relationship now that they don't have a fear apocalypse distracting them, AND being in a relationship where both people involved are Eye Avatars, AND Martin's struggles as a baby Eye Avatar.

This story isn't going to have a cohesive plot so much as this is where I'm posting all of my stories set in a post-Mag200 continuity where John and Martin are Eye Avatar boyfriends together. Chapter description: Martin Wakes up. Full chapter can also be found under the cut.

Chapter 1

It took Martin a moment to realize where he was when he came to. But as his senses came back to him, he recognized the antiseptic smell and beeping sounds of a hospital room. He had spent enough time by John’s side when he was in his coma, how could he not?

At the thought of John, his memories flooded back to him. The Panopticon. The plan to kill Elias…Jonah…whatever…and release the Fears into other worlds. And John going ahead and killing him himself and becoming the new Pupil of the Eye, and then the horrifying realization that he couldn’t control it.

The knife.

The promise. The kiss. John. Oh God John.

Fear and worry spiked through him and he was distantly aware of the sound of the heart monitor in the room beeping faster. He tried to sit up, but found that he was too weak to do so, and the most he could manage was a weak moan and a flex of his fingers.

It was then he became aware of the hand that was holding one of his; long, cool, familiar fingers intertwined with his own. He rolled his head to the side and sure enough he saw a familiar head of black hair, streaked with grey. He seemed to be asleep, slumped over the bed with his head pillowed on one arm, but he was here, and he was safe.

“John…?” His voice came out weak and raspy and he coughed from the effort of it. He wiggled his fingers in a weak attempt at grasping at John’s hand.

John jolted awake, and Martin watched as one emotion after another flashed across his face as he blinked rapidly. Confusion, recognition, realization….

“Martin.” He said it as a complete sentence. This was Martin. He was Martin. Martin was here.

“John” Martin answered back.

“Oh God Martin!” John stood up and leaned over, cupping Martin’s face with both hands and examining him, as if searching for something, before stepping away. “I’m uh…I need to go tell the doctor you’re awake…” John backed away, his gaze never leaving Martin’s face, until finally he had no choice but to turn around and leave the room.

-

“Well, Mr. Blackwood, I’m happy to say that, all things considered, you’re in remarkably good shape. We’d like to keep you here for a few more days for observation but if all seems well, I see no reason why we would need to keep you longer than that,” the doctor said as he finished his examination. Somehow John had convinced the man to let him stay in the room during the whole thing and now he stood fretting in the corner.

“Now, I just need to ask you a few questions as part of the evaluation. Tell me, what’s the last thing you remember?”

Well, he most certainly couldn’t tell the truth about that, now, could he? He doubted the doctor would believe him; it was more likely he’d think he was completely crazy and would try to have him committed.

“J-John.” Martin’s voice was still raspy from months of disuse, although the longer he was awake, the stronger he felt. “I was with John. Th-there was an accident….” he trailed off, not sure what else to say. The doctor nodded and wrote something down on his clipboard.

“I don’t expect you to know the exact date, of course, but could you tell me what year it is?”

“2010.” The doctor nodded again and continued to write on his clipboard.

“And could you tell me who the current monarch of England is?” “Queen Elizabeth.” The doctor added a few more notes on his clipboard, and then stood up from where he had been sitting by the side of the bed.

“Well, that should be all for now. When you’re feeling a bit more recovered, we’ll go over your treatment and rehabilitation plan. Let a nurse know if you have any questions or if anything about your condition changes.” And with that, the doctor left the room, giving John a nod of acknowledgement as he passed him.

As soon as the door clicked shut, John was across the room and by the side of the bed.

“How are you feeling?” Martin could practically physically feel John’s eyes roaming over his face again. He took a moment to take John in himself, now that they were alone and had a moment. John was pale even in the best of times, and Martin would have thought, after four months of living in a world not in the middle of a fear apocalypse, that’s how John would look, but instead he was the same haggard kind of pale that Martin had grown used to seeing over the past few years, with the same bruise-like circles under his eyes. Martin wondered how well John had been taking care of himself while he had been in his coma. “Fine? You were there while the doctor was looking me over and asking me all those questions…”

“Yes, but you and I both know there are things that we can talk about between us that we can’t talk about to or around other people.” “Fair enough.” Martin closed his eyes and took a moment before answering. “I’m still a bit thirsty.” At that, John reached over for the cup of ice water a nurse had brought him earlier and held the straw up to Martin’s lips, and he drank from it gratefully. “I’m still tired, too. You would think after four months in a coma I wouldn’t be. Is that normal? And my head hurts…” “You should get some rest then.” “Tell me what happened first.” “We can talk about that later. You need to rest.” “John, I’m not going to be able to rest properly until I know what’s going on. Just…please, tell me.” “Right then…” John closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “When we released the Fears into the other worlds, it seems they took us with them, and we ended up here. The land where the Institute and the Panopticon were is a construction site in this world. That’s where we wound up…” John’s mouth quirked into a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I told the paramedics and the police officers that you and I had wanted to take advantage of the construction do some urban exploration in the old Millbank Prison tunnels. There was an accident and we both fell. You wouldn’t wake up….” The smile fell. His voice cracked. “I’m sorry.” “No, it’s not your fault. You were…” John trailed off and stared into the middle distance, his sentence left incomplete.

“So what are we going to do about like…our identities? We’re not from here so…wait, is there, like, another us here? Like the us from this world…? We aren’t using their IDs, are we?” John laughed ruefully at that.

“No, we’re not using their IDs. Let’s just say we weren’t the only ones who made it here.” “Who…?” It took a moment before Martin caught on. “Annabelle.” “Precisely. It seems the Web doesn’t like being indebted, particularly not to agents of one of the other fears. Her helping us is supposed to ‘balance the ledger,’ or so she says.”

“Right…and what are the chances that she’s going to balance it a little too much and we’ll end up being the ones indebted to her?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Getting someone to owe you can be a form of manipulation…” They were both quiet for a moment as they considered the implications of the situation they found themselves in. “What else?” Martin asked, finally breaking the silence. John looked up at him in surprise. “What else is there? What aren’t you telling me?” “I don’t…”

“John, please. I can tell when you’re hiding something from me. Please, just tell me.” The pain that had been pulsing behind his eyes since he woke up grew stronger. John closed his eyes, and his posture, which Martin had only ever seen him lose at the worst of times, slumped.

“You haven’t noticed yet, have you?” “Noticed what?”

“Martin…when the doctor asked you what year it was, you told him 2010. I never told you what year it was in this world.” “What…? Of course you did. You…” “No, Martin, I didn’t.” John’s face was full of…sorrow? Guilt? “Then I…I must have seen it on the—” Martin trailed off as he realized there was no calendar in sight. “Without your glasses? Although it appears you no longer need them...” Martin unconsciously reached a hand up to the side of his face, as if to adjust the glasses that, yes, he realized now, were not there. And yet…

“John, what’s going on?” And there was that pain again, flaring up as he tried to wrap his head around what was happening to him. “When you were in your coma, you didn’t have a heartbeat.”  John paused, and swallowed. “I thought you were dead. I thought I had lost you…” His voice cracked. “The only reason you weren’t pronounced dead is because Annabelle did…something and the doctors realized you still had brain activity. You were like that for four months…”

John looked at him straight in the eye, then, and…yes, there was sorrow and guilt and grief and pity in those eyes. “I’m so sorry, Martin. You’re like me now. You’ve become an Avatar of the Eye.”

[hellcheer-heaven]

star wars au when Eddie as jedi and Chrisy as sith

Hello dear anon, I absolutely love this idea! Again my apologies for take a lifetime to answer. Considering that both Star Wars and Stranger Things are big fandoms (the latter I’m sure is still growing), I would love a ST au! or a crossover involving Hawkins’ residents living in a galaxy far, far away. Now while my knowledge of SW isn’t as big as it once was, I think it would be neat to have these two in such differing roles. I’ll discuss this as an au! and crossover. I’ll also have pictures and titles included so it doesn’t become too confusing to read.

Eddie Munson

On Tatooine, Wayne raises Eddie on a the desert planet. They take care of their livestock and sell goods in Mos Eisley just to make ends meet. Eddie is the only one who is force sensitive and even shows Wayne his “cool powers” when he moves things with his mind. Wayne is well aware of the Jedi, but fears what could happen to his nephew if someone finds out. When Eddie is 8 years old, a few of the Jedi visit their booth. Yoda senses great potential in him. As difficult as it is, Wayne encourages Eddie to go with them, noting that he will have a better life out there. They must go their separate ways, and he promises to return to Wayne when the time is right (which he does, Wayne will live in this universe because I say so).

Chrissy Cunningham

Chrissy lives on the busy planet of Coruscant. She’s force sensitive as well and is also given a wonderful opportunity to train. However her mother (an important, respected, and feared politician) forbids it and does what she can to keep her daughter in line. She believes that the Jedi are barbaric and are no different from the Sith. Whenever Laura spots Chrissy using her telekinesis, she resorts to scolding and hitting her. She denies her food and water as a means of punishment too. After Chrissy turns 6, it becomes difficult for her to control her powers. Further adding onto the stress of having to be the “perfect” daughter for her mother’s reputation. One night Chrissy ends up using the Force as a means to protect herself from another beating. Violently shoving Laura until her back hits the wall. In that moment, Laura knows that cannot control her daughter, so she sends her away to the Jedi Temple, believing that they will straighten her out.

Jedi Temple and the Tale of Henry Creel

Eddie and Chrissy become friends and as they age, something more blossoms between them. But as the code states, Jedi are never to form relationships with anyone. This becomes a bit more challenging when they are sent off on missions together with a Jedi Master during their time as apprentices. When the two of them are allowed to go on their own, they share tender kisses and hold hands. They get to learn more about each other and they talk about their dreams. Even though it seems impossible, they hope that perhaps one day they can be together, even if it means that they’ll be kicked out of the temple for good.

Their education requires them to study the history of the Jedi and understand the Force as well. In the process, they also learn of a past pupil who had turned to the Dark Side. He was like them once, young, ambitious, and ready to face the enemy. Henry Creel was highly intelligent and very intuitive as well, he studied the archives and the ways of the Jedi. Yet his thirst for knowledge was as boundless as the galaxy. He wanted to learn about the Sith, get a better sense of their ways. When his interest was discovered, he was banned and kicked out of the temple. His anger fueled his powers, resorting to using the Force for his own means. Going as far as to kill anyone that stood in his way when he enacted his revenge.

The masters and knights managed to stop him from committing a horrible massacre and he was arrested. He was able to escape and he soon became an enemy to the Republic and to the Jedi. Henry sought out the likes of Count Dooku and Martin Brenner. They taught him the ways of the Dark Side, utilizing violent methods to train him. Brenner was the lesser of two evils, treating the young man like a son. Dooku highly disagreed with Brenner’s antics, believing that he was being “too soft on the boy.” And so he made sure to really push him to his limit and then some. Henry was always the target of his lightening strikes. Each strike became much more unbearable, disfiguring Creel over time until he became the monster that he was meant to be. When his training was complete, he commanded his own loyal following and committed such unspeakable crimes. He was willing to teach anyone that pledged their allegiance to him and to the Dark Side. However, there was one person in mind that he felt a connection to.

Sith Lord Vecna

Chrissy couldn’t help but find the tale of Henry to be fascinating, so she wanted to know more about him. Obi-Wan sensed that something was amiss with her, pulling her aside to let her know that she needed to be careful. She reassured him that she was fine, but he could not let this feeling go. This bad feeling felt a little too familiar, he feared of what could happen to her like he feared for his current apprentice Anakin.

One evening when she was meditating alone, she sensed an unfamiliar voice speaking to her, it referred to itself as Vecna. He managed to get into her mind, bringing back awful memories of her past. Planting the seed of doubt and fear within her, letting it fester until she started to let the darkness in. Chrissy felt that she was pushed to her limits during her training and used her hatred to her benefit during her missions. Eddie had to stop her from killing a corrupt politician, having to remind her that the Jedi do not kill. He brings up his worries to the council, all they can do is speak with her and let her off with a warning.

Chrissy despises what Eddie had done, believing that he betrayed her. He tries to reconcile, telling her that he only did it for her. He cares about her, he doesn’t want anything awful to happen. She disregards his feelings and continues to focus on what matters to her. Vecna continues to plague her thoughts, telling her that Eddie will destroy her one day. The two of them are no longer on speaking terms from now on.

A Never-ending Battle

Some years later during an important mission, Chrissy fully embraces her darker side. The sight of blood and cut up bodies no longer frightens her. She even goes as far as to hurt Eddie, leaving permanent scars across his body during an intense battle. She has the opportunity to end him, but she leaves him for dead thinking he’ll simply die of starvation. The connection between her and Vecna grows when she seeks him out. He takes her as his apprentice, he teaches her everything and more. She becomes the warrior that she was born to be.

Jedi Master Munson and Sith Lord Cunningham cross paths many, many times. Their battles are long, epic, and difficult. Yet they both manage to show equal parts strength, agility, and endurance regardless of whatever planet they’re on. She tells him each time to join her, they can create the world however they choose, and he refuses each and every time. He tells her to leave Vecna, to come back to the light. He promises to do whatever it takes to help her, but in the end she refuses and so their battle continues until they meet again.

A tragic tale of two friends, turned lovers, turned into enemies for life. It begs the question if they could have any sort of romantic connection anymore.

[bubonickitten]

TMA fic: Who’s There?

Sooo, I wrote a follow-up to this fic.

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

Summary: Jon has a panic attack after Elias shows him exactly what happened behind the door after Mr. Spider took its victim. Martin helps him calm down, and Jon tells him the story of his first Leitner.

[CW for unreality, dissociation/drdp, panic attacks, tactile hallucinations, descriptions of spiders/arachnophobia, blood/injury, self-harm mentions (accidental in the context of a panic attack).]

By the time Jon shuts the door to Elias’ office, he can barely stand.

  Trembling, he leans – nearly falls – back against the wall and squeezes his eyes shut. He's trying to untangle the dueling instincts to flee and freeze when his knees buckle and he slides down the wall to the floor. He’s breathing in gulps, shallow and quick, and when a long exhale dissolves into a shuddering sob, he Knows that Elias hears it and that he smiles, and Jon hates himself for it.

  Elias.

  A new wave of panic crashes over Jon when he realizes that the only thing between them is an unlocked door. The thought is enough to force him to stand, steadying himself against the wall with one hand as he makes his way down the hall on wobbly legs.

  It’s easy, he tells himself: one shaky step at a time, no need to overthink it, just keep moving –

  He’s nearly to the door at the end of the hall when it happens. Something in his mind fractures and he is a stranger to himself, a bemused observer floating somewhere else, somewhere outside himself  –

  …depersonalization: an altered state in which one feels unreal, as if one’s thoughts and emotions do not belong to oneself; often accompanied by a feeling of detachment from one’s own body and a dreamlike perception of the world around …

  The Beholding pummels him with the information, an intrusive thought somehow made worse by Jon's awareness of its supernatural origin. Jon usually finds it comforting to have a word to describe his experiences, but it's no consolation now when he did not ask for it, did not ask for any of this. The way knowledge forces its way into his head these days, seeps into his mind unsolicited before he even notices what’s happening – he hates the invasiveness of it, the sense of violation it brings. Facts and figures bleed into the edges of his mind like so many worms pouring in through the crack under the door and burrowing into him and –        

  …he is a marionette with gossamer wire wrapped twice, thrice, a dozen times around his wrists and…

  – Elias’ words wriggle in his mind like worms through flesh, writhing like a fly caught in a web, and just like that –

  …the spider silk winds its way through the crack in the door, sticky and writhing; slowly and deliberately it twines itself around his arms, his knees, his neck, and he is pulled inexorably…

  – and his head is full of cobwebs and all at once he is the struggling fly and the too-curious child and the hapless victim and the human prey –

  …you opened the book, you stood on the threshold, you just as good as opened the door…

  – and he is the hungry spider and the monster behind the door and the inhuman predator in the dark just watching, watching, watching –

  …we both know that the Archivist in you can’t leave a question unasked or unanswered…

  – as something Watches him back.

   Jon is barely conscious of where he is until he's crossing the threshold to his office, smacking his shoulder on the doorframe on the way. The impact snaps him back to the present with a jolt, like a puppet jerked backward by its strings, and all at once he is aware of the staring. His assistants’ eyes bore into him as he passes them by; he feels their judgment and mistrust and anger and fear trailing behind him like the wispy threads of a broken web –

  He shuts the door behind him.

  But there is no escaping the watching.

  The Not!Them watched him for months, delighting as he spiraled into paranoia and sabotaged his relationships. Elias knew all along, was always watching, is probably watching right now. And whatever patron Jon now serves – it never stops watching, does it? Watching him, watching through his eyes, watching through doors and walls and floors -  

  Is it still paranoia if you actually are being watched? 

  Jon is an insect under a microscope and a dispassionate Eye pries him open, considers the component parts, catalogs and categorizes, files him away and never once deigns to share its verdict: whether his classification is Jonathan Sims or Archivist, and what criteria should be used to measure personhood.  

  He is a thing behind a door, unsorted and undetermined, and he cannot breathe –

   Knock-knock.

  He opens bleary eyes and does not immediately recognize where he is.

  Knock-knock.

  “Jon?”

  There is someone at the door, he thinks absently, but everything is muted, thick, cloying, and the thought disintegrates in the fog.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  Someone is at the door, but the sound is distorted, as if he’s listening to it from underwater.

  “Can I come in?”

  His thoughts are molasses-slow as he takes inventory his surroundings: He’s under a desk. His desk. (He thinks it’s his desk.) He’s huddled under a desk like a child playing hide-and-seek and, oh, there’s someone at the door. 

  Knock-knock-knock-knock  –

  “Jon, please open the door.”

  He reaches up to rub his face and stops short, because there is something wrong with his hands. They're coated in something adhesive and coppery-smelling and when he clenches his fists and feels the skin stick, all he can think about is spider silk, tacky and clinging to his hands, his arms, his neck, his face –

  KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK- 

  There is someone hammering on the door.

  He is breathing too loudly. The thing behind the door will hear him.

  KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-

  He clamps his hands over his ears, mindless of the mess. The thing behind the door cannot hear him.

  Silence.

  Then:

  “Jon, I’m coming in.”

  As the door creaks open, Jon jumps at the sound, smacking his head on the underside of the desk. His eyes fly open and all at once he is present.

  “Jon? Are you okay?”

  Martin's voice, tentative and concerned.

  As the footsteps draw nearer, Jon hugs his knees tighter to him, shrinking as far under the desk as he can. It’s childish, he knows: there are only so many places to hide in here. He knows when Martin spots him because he can feel those eyes burning into him and –

  “Jon? What – Christ, Jon, are you bleeding?”

  Jon looks up then, pupils blown wide. Even the low light stings, and he squints against it.

  “Your hands are – is this your blood? Jon, let me see –”  

  Martin leans down to get a closer look and all at once Jon remembers his hands, covered in cobweb. He frantically rubs his palms on his clothes, digs his fingernails into his skin to claw away the layers; his heart is thundering in his ears, pulsating in time with his thoughts: get it off get it off get it off getitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoff - 

  “Jon, stop it! You’re hurting yourself!”

  And so he is: one of his fingernails catches the skin on the back of his good hand and now it’s bleeding freely. Jon stops scratching, recognizes the blood for what it is now. He begins flapping his hands uselessly, flailing, overwhelmed; he feels the tears coming again –

  “Jon! Jon, listen to me. You’re – you’re hyperventilating, just… look at me.”

  It takes a moment, but he does. His hands still.

  “I want you to breathe with me, okay? Just – watch me, okay?”

  Jon watches. He does not blink. 

  “Okay, copy me. Four seconds in, hold seven seconds, eight seconds out, okay?”

  Jon breathes, mesmerized as he watches the steady rise and fall of Martin's chest.

  “That’s it. You’re doing great.”

  Jon isn’t sure how much time passes, but eventually his breathing evens out and the palpitations start to recede.

  “Okay. Okay.” Martin sighs; Jon can hear the relief in it, almost feels it vicariously. “Listen, Jon, stay right here –”

  Jon’s eyes go wide again and his lips move in wordless protest.

  “I’ll come right back, I promise, I just – I want to get a damp cloth, clean off some of the blood, okay?” Jon hesitates, but gives a curt nod. “Okay. I’ll be right back. Just… keep breathing, okay?”

  Martin stands and moves away slowly, quietly, like one might around a wounded animal. Once he’s out of sight, Jon hears him pick up his pace.

  Martin leaves the door open.

  Jon isn’t sure how to feel about that.

  He focuses on breathing.

   As soon as Martin enters the break room, three pairs of eyes fix on him.

  “Well?” Basira begins, schooling her expression into careful neutrality. “What was –”

  “Just a panic attack,” Martin replies, walking briskly to the sink. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” Tim says, feet on the table and tipping his chair back until the front two legs are dangerously high up off the floor.

  “Martin,” Basira asks, “is that blood?” 

  “Yeah. Your friend slit his throat, if you hadn’t noticed.” Martin hadn't intended it to come out as biting. In fact, he didn't even register how angry he was until the words had already left his mouth.

  In all the commotion, Martin hadn’t really had time to let it sink in, but now that he's seen the damage up close, he feels properly horrified. He thinks of how proud Daisy had sounded in Elias’ office when she admitted that she had slit Jon’s throat. He remembers how she interrogated him when Jon was missing, how she didn’t care about what happened to Sasha, how she had already decided that Jon was guilty, how she seemed to be enjoying herself. He realizes now that all along her plan was to hunt Jon down, to murder him, to leave his body in the woods where no one would ever find him, to - 

  To let him become another goddamn mystery.

  A quiet fury coils tight in Martin's chest, heated and itching to claw its way out.

  “I thought it had stopped bleeding,” says Basira. She doesn’t sound cold, exactly – just tactful, cautious. It’s a de-escalation voice, Martin realizes. The caretaker and mediator in him recognizes it - he makes frequent use of it himself - but in this moment it just makes him bristle.

  “Yeah, well, he opened it back up,” Martin mutters, turning on the faucet and holding one hand under the stream, waiting for the water to run warm. “It’s fine. There’s just – there’s a lot of blood.”

  “Can’t he deal with that himself?” Leaning against the wall nearby, Melanie rolls her eyes in disgust. “He’s a grown man. You don’t need to coddle him.”

  “Lay off, alright? He’s scared –”

  “He’s scared – Martin, we’re all scared,” Tim snaps, rocking forward in his chair. The front two legs slam back into the floor with a loud crack. “He’s the one who went and –”

  “I know, alright, I know – and you’re right to be angry.” Martin would be lying if he said he wasn’t still hurt over Jon’s behavior toward him in the previous months, but he’s had this discussion with Tim so many times now, and he's tired of talking in circles. “I’m still not just going to leave him like that –”

  “Why not? If he wants to wallow in his office, let him,” Tim says viciously. “It’s all he’s good for these days anyway.”

  “That’s not fair,” Martin says, tight and defensive but trying so, so hard to keep his voice even.

  “None of this is fair,” Basira chimes back in.

  “No. No, it’s not.” Martin sighs as he pulls a large bowl out of the cabinet and sets it in the sink to fill. “But fighting each other isn’t solving anything.”

  “More to the point,” Basira says, still composed and so deliberately impartial, “we all saw what he can do. We need to talk about that at some point.”

  "Is he really all that different from Elias at this point?" Melanie makes it sound more like a statement than a question.

  “He’s nothing like Elias." There is no hesitation when Martin speaks. 

  Melanie lets out a derisive laugh.

  And Martin’s anger finally boils over.

  “You know, it’s not Jon's fault you’re here, Melanie!”

  Martin rarely loses his temper. He hates conflict, hates the inevitable second-guessing and guilt that always settle over him after the moment has passed, hates how his size and height can make his anger look so much more threatening than he feels. Whenever he senses tension building, he puts all of his energy into modulating his voice, regulating his emotions, mollifying and pacifying until the storm passes, even if it means swallowing his own hurt in the process. 

  Right this moment, though, he doesn’t have the mind for appeasement. He’s angry with Elias. He’s furious with Daisy. He hates being in the Archives with the ever-present feeling of being watched. And he’s frustrated with Jon for – for always being in danger, for turning up every day with fresh hurts and new scars. Martin knows he’s not being fair – Jon can be reckless, and careless, and self-destructive, and his obsessiveness eclipses his sense of self-preservation to an unhealthy degree, but it still isn’t his fault that so many things want to hunt down the Archivist. It’s just – Martin worries, and Jon gives him a lot to worry about.

  When he feels Melanie’s glare on his back, senses her gearing up to tear into him, he slams the faucet off and whirls around to face her.

  “You chose to come here the first time, and you chose to keep coming back, and – and you were just as curious as he is, just as fascinated, just as obsessed, just as – as reckless." He breathes a short laugh. "God, you two are so similar sometimes, you know that? You chose to go chasing monsters knowing full well you were putting yourself in danger, and – and hell, Jon wasn’t even here when you took the job!” 

  Martin is shaking. He takes a deep breath, counts to ten, tries to rein in his outburst.

  “I don’t care,” Melanie spits, her voice low and dangerous and laced with venom. “He’s toxic. This whole place is toxic and he’s so wrapped up in it he may as well be part of it.”

  “We’re all part of it."

  “Whatever.” Melanie throws her hands up and stalks towards the exit. “Go fuss over him and have him berate you for caring.” Pausing at the threshold, she adds, scathing, “Seems that’s all you ever do.”

  With that, she storms off, leaving a heavy, electric silence in her wake.

  “She… didn’t mean that last bit,” says Basira after a moment. “She’s just – she's not herself lately.”

  “Yeah,” Tim says, all sarcasm and resentment. “Welcome to the Archives.”

  Martin says nothing. He grabs the overfull bowl of water, snatches a dish towel from the counter, and heads for the exit, water sloshing out of the bowl and onto the floor on his way out.

   Jon hears footsteps coming back down the hall – Martin’s, he thinks distantly; isn’t it strange how you unconsciously learn to distinguish a person’s footsteps when you spend enough time around them? – followed by the soft click of the door as Martin closes it behind him. He walks around the desk and kneels down, slow and soft and careful, as if any quick movement would shatter Jon’s uneasy calm.

  “Sorry for the wait,” Martin says with a forced smile. He tries to keep his tone light, but Jon can sense the strain underneath.

  Jon had heard the shouting echoing down the corridor, had been faintly surprised when he heard Martin raise his voice, however brief. He couldn’t make out everything that was said, but he had a general idea. He didn't have to Know; it wasn’t that hard to guess.

  Martin places a bowl of water on the floor, dips a dish towel into it, and looks at Jon expectantly. “Is it alright if I –?”

  Jon nods once, slowly. Martin starts with his hands, wiping away the congealed blood coating his skin. It’s odd, Jon thinks, how absorbed he is in the task. Martin pays attention to the smallest, strangest details; scrubs at the blood-encrusted cuticles and scrapes away the stains under the tips of Jon's fingernails, frequently dipping the towel in the water and wringing out the mess.

  There’s a little crease between his eyebrows, Jon notices, the familiar one that he gets when he’s deep in concentration. Jon plays back all the times he’s seen it: Martin standing in the break room, carefully measuring sugar before stirring it into his tea. Martin judging a trajectory as he aims to throw a crumpled ball of paper into the bin across the office. Martin making handwritten notations when working on his assigned statements; whenever he made a connection, one corner of his mouth would quirk up and his writing would become more feverish. Martin writing poetry. And Jon could always tell when Martin was composing poetry at his desk rather than doing his job: he worried his lower lip between his teeth, and he always leaned closer to the page.

  With a distant sense of wonder, Jon notes that he… never really made a conscious decision to memorize those details. He ponders vaguely whether it’s something he Knows, or if he’s simply been paying attention all along without even realizing.

  “You doing alright there, Jon?”

  Jon inclines his head and closes his eyes. It’s – surreal, how safe he feels just then. He lets himself drift, loses himself in the sensation of a soft touch.

  When Martin turns his attention to Jon's burned hand, healing but still stiff and sore, he braces himself for the searing pain, but it doesn't come. That feels wrong, somehow, and - and, God, what does that say about him? When was the last time anyone touched him with kindness? He didn't realize until just now the extent to which the boundary between physical contact and intentional bodily harm has eroded for him lately; how automatic his associations between touch and fear and pain have become. 

  When Martin pulls away - How much time has passed? - Jon's eyelids flutter open groggily.  

  “Will you be okay if I clean your neck?”

  Jon lifts his head to expose his neck and sits up straighter and -

  He immediately hits his head on the underside of his desk again. That seems to animate him. He huffs irritably and glowers up at it as if it’s the desk’s fault for being in the same place it always is.

  Martin snorts at that, then winces. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to laugh –”

  Then Jon's mouth twitches in a tentative smile, and Martin relaxes. 

  “Are you alright to come out from under there now? It’ll make this easier.”

  Jon says nothing, just scoots out from the little hollow under his desk. He still presses himself up against the side, still feels safer the more compact he makes himself, but he's unfurling, slowly but surely. 

  “Okay, tip your head back for me. That’s it – just, hold still.” Martin pauses, considers Jon’s nonverbal state. “Tap me if you need me to back off, alright?”

  Closing his eyes, Jon lets himself drift again, allowing Martin to dab at his neck with the damp cloth. How is he so gentle? Jon isn’t relaxed, exactly, but he can’t remember the last time he felt safe enough to let down his guard like this. It was only hours ago that he had experienced firsthand how simple it would be for someone to take a knife to his throat and press; he should be much more hesitant to expose it like this, to have someone touch it when it’s still raw and stinging, and yet… somehow, this is fine. Good, even.

  Jon’s hair has gotten long - When was the last time he had a haircut? - and some of it clings to his neck, matted with drying blood. As Martin peels the strands away from the skin, Jon shivers.

  Martin draws back immediately. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Mm.” Jon’s lips move mutely for a few moments before he manages, “No.” It comes out as a hoarse whisper and he clears his throat. “Ticklish.” Still raspy, but better than before.

  “There you are.” Even though Jon's eyes are closed, he knows - Knows? No, just knows - that Martin is smiling. He can hear it in his voice, can almost feel it radiating off him. Martin adopts a deliberately bland tone when next he speaks. "You... really did a number on yourself."

  “Accident,” Jon croaks out. Opens his eyes, clears his throat, tries again. “There were – they were in my throat, and I – I needed to – I wanted them out.”

  It’s still fuzzy, but he vaguely remembers scratching at his throat, trying to chase away the sickening feeling of hundreds of tiny legs skittering down his throat and into his lungs and –

  That little crease is between Martin’s eyebrows again. “What was -" 

  “It was – nothing, stupid, imagined, just – felt them crawling and I couldn’t –”

  “Worms?” Martin guesses.

  “No, no. Too many legs.” An involuntary shudder rips through him; for a moment he can feel feather-light legs scuttling across his skin again; he flexes his good hand, chasing the tactile distraction, nails biting little crescent shapes into his palm. “It – just, too many legs. And – and cobwebs, blocking my – couldn’t breathe –” Growing agitated, his hands start fluttering again.

  “Okay,” Martin soothes. “Okay. Stay with me. You’re safe. Take some breaths for me.”

  “Mm.” Jon breathes, ragged at first, but evening out after a minute.

  “Good.” Martin leans back in and continues dabbing lightly around the wound on Jon’s neck. "Keep breathing, just like that."

   Several minutes later, Martin pulls away and drops the towel in the bowl. The water is stained a muddy red, now, and Martin frowns at the sight. God, he wishes Jon was better at keeping his blood in his body.

  There are still some watery, diluted traces of blood on Jon's neck and hands, but at least he's not caked in the stuff anymore. Looking at the inflamed gash on his neck, Martin feels that little flicker of rage again, and tries not to let it show on his face.

  “I have to change out the water before I do more. It might be easier to do the rest in front of the sink, though. And we should really bandage your neck and - and your burn. You, uh, probably want to change, too – you’ve got blood... well, everywhere. I assume you still have some spare clothes in the storage room?”

  Jon is looking down now, picking at a ragged cuticle on his burned hand. Martin assumes that means he’s not ready to move quite yet.

  “Do… do you want to talk about what happened?”   

  “No,” Jon whispers, but he has a peculiar look on his face, like he’s working up to something. Martin recognizes it – a sort of faraway look, like he’s gone into his own head for a moment to commune with his own thoughts. It always puts Martin in mind of a wait cursor or a blinking ellipsis. 

  It isn’t uncommon for Jon to trail off and walk away mid-conversation. When they first started working together, Martin assumed it was that he said something wrong, or that it was just one more way for Jon to snub him. But more often than not, a few hours would go by and Jon would pick up the conversation right where it left off, as if it had never stopped. Jon is buffering, Martin thought to himself with a smile when he first realized what was happening. It was almost endearing, the idea of Jon taking something - something Martin said, no less - so deeply into consideration that he spent hours thinking on it before composing a response. 

  On the other hand, Jon was equally as likely to dismiss something outright without even entertaining the possibility of a discussion. The contrast could be jarring, and even after all this time, Martin still hasn’t quite discerned any pattern that will let him predict which version of Jon he’s dealing with at any given time.

  Either way, Martin is good at sitting with silence. And this silence is heavy, but not uncomfortable.  

  “I don’t,” Jon continues eventually, frowning slightly. “But… but I think I should?”

  “Okay?” Surprise slips into Martin’s voice before he can tamp it down, but if Jon notices, he doesn’t comment on it.

  “Apparently Elias can – can put knowledge in someone’s head? Or – mine at least, I don’t know if it has something to do with what I am, or if he can do it to anyone, but he…” Clearly searching for the right words, Jon opens and closes his mouth a few times. “I mean, I was already on the verge of a breakdown, wasn’t I?” His voice breaks and he covers it with a bitter smile. “I suppose I – I just needed one more little push.” 

  Martin resists the urge to point out that having the threat of imminent death hanging over your head every waking moment is more than a little push.

  “He showed me – I saw – it… he made me Know, and I had to watch, and I felt how it –”

  “Stay with me, Jon.”

  Martin rests his palm on Jon’s unburned hand, then pulls back immediately, instinctively feeling as if he had crossed a line.

  But Jon chases his hand and grasps it tightly. He doesn't make eye contact. “Is this okay?”

  “I – sure, I mean – yes, of course,” Martin sputters. He feels his face heat and hopes Jon is still too foggy to notice how flushed he must be.

  “Mm.” Jon shakes his head and laughs nervously. “I… this is harder than I thought.”

  “Would... would it help to frame it as a statement?”

  Jon seems to consider that for a long moment before shaking his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. I already gave a statement about this matter, and it feels... wrong, in some way, for me to offer the same statement a second time.”

  Martin doesn’t really get it, but he takes Jon’s word for it.

  “What if I… if I asked a direct question, would that help? I mean, I can’t compel you, obviously, but –”

“Okay.”

  “What?”

  Martin has never known Jon to be this receptive to his input. Jon just shrugs, not meeting Martin’s eyes.

  “Ask me.”

  “O...kay. Right. Um, so, what did Elias say to you?”

  After a moment's pause, Jon begins to speak. 

  “He… he Knew something that I never told anyone before.” He starts slow, but seems to gain confidence after a few words. “The thing that first pushed me toward the supernatural, that started me on the path to – well, to all of this. Odd, to think that just… opening a book could lead me here.” His voice drops to a near-whisper. “I was only eight.”

  “A book?” Martin frowns. “You don’t mean –”

  Jon smiles, but it’s a fragile, humorless thing. “My first Leitner.” He takes a deep breath and speaks through the exhale. “A Guest for Mr. Spider.”  

  “Oh,” Martin whispers as the pieces fall into place.

  “Yeah. I knew it was – wrong, somehow, but I just… I had to know, so I opened it, and I… I read.” Jon swallows hard and leans forward, curling in on himself somewhat. “I started walking. I didn’t know where the book was taking me, and I couldn’t stop reading, couldn’t even blink.” A pause as he maps out his next words. “There was… an older kid in my neighborhood. He wasn’t very keen on me. I was an annoying child, easily bored, always trying to show off how much I thought I knew. Never really was good at people.” He huffs a short, self-deprecating laugh. “Guess that hasn’t changed. Anyway, he – he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or – or maybe I was, but he decided to knock the book from my hands and it… broke the hold it had on me.” Jon gives a little half-shrug, and his voice drops to a low murmur. “He didn’t mean to, but he saved my life.”

  Jon’s thumb rubs absentminded little circles on Martin’s hand, and Martin feels his heart skip a beat. Focus. 

  “Anyway, he – he picked up the book, and he opened it, and then he was reading. And he started walking. I didn’t know what to do, so I followed him.” Martin notices frantic, rapid little movements behind Jon's shut eyelids. “And then he was standing in front of a door, and he knocked, and it opened, and the – the thing behind the door pulled him in. I never saw him again.” Jon falls quiet for a long moment, his jaw tensing and unclenching. When he finally opens his eyes, they’re brimming with tears. “I don’t even remember his name. He died in my place, and I don’t – he deserves to be remembered, but I can’t –”

  Martin gives Jon’s hand what he hopes is a reassuring little squeeze.

  “I – I never knew what really happened to him, you know? The door closed, and I just… left him to his fate, what was supposed to be my fate. I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened after the door closed. I was certain he must have died – hoped he was dead, because the alternative was...” Jon shudders miserably. “I obsessed over it, how he died, how long it took, whether it hurt, whether he was afraid, and – well, you can guess what a child’s imagination can do with that. Though I rather think my imagination now is just as overactive as it was back then. Certainly still obsessive enough.

“There’s something uniquely torturous about the not knowing, about the way the brain can flesh out a scene with mere scraps. I used to think that – that if I knew what happened behind the door, it would be better, because at least I would know, and I wouldn’t have to see a million variations in my nightmares. I could just – just have the one nightmare, and acclimate to it.

"But I was wrong. Elias – he showed me – showed me what happened, and made me feel it and it – I…” His voice gets very soft, and he glances at Martin with haunted eyes. “You know how spiders feed, Martin.”

  “Oh, Jon.” Martin can hear his voice crack. “I’m so sorry, I – I knew you didn’t like spiders but I didn’t realize – God, all the times I’ve prattled on about them –”

  “No, I – it’s fine, you couldn’t have known.” Jon waves him off. “In fact, I actually used to seek out information on them when I was a child. I thought if I learned everything I could about them, examined them through a – a detached, academic lens, I could get over the fear. But apparently a phobia doesn’t care about – about ecological niches, or the wonders of evolution, or…” He trails off and a shadow passes over his face. “I suppose I’ve always assumed that I could solve a problem if I just learned everything there is to know about it. Spent years making myself miserable obsessing over spiders and nothing changed.” His laugh is brittle. “Knowledge at any cost."

  Another heavy silence falls. Judging from Jon's expression, there's more; he treats conversations like impossibly complex puzzles sometimes, picking his way through words to find one that will slot just so into a sentence. Martin wonders how Jon would react if he ever told him that that's what writing poetry is like. 

  "The thing is, though," Jon continues after a minute, "I think it’s only right, for me to know what happened to him in the end? Because why should I be spared from the knowledge when it’s my fault he –”

  Jon’s breath hitches; he struggles to compose himself before continuing.

  “But beyond that, it just feels right for me to know. Like I’m owed every scrap of knowledge that comes my way, as if I have every right to consume and possess these stories. And I hate it, Martin,” he says with sudden, surprising ferocity. “I hate it because I’m just this – this uncaring watcher drinking it all in, and there’s a sick, detached fascination that comes with it, and I don’t know if that’s me or whatever master the Institute serves – that I serve, now, or… I hope it’s not just me, but even if it isn’t, I – I still feel it, it still feels right. But it’s not. I know it’s not,” he says, breathing in erratic, shaky gasps.

“When I read a statement, it’s like I’m there, experiencing it right along with them, but the fear is also – muffled? Like the fear is being filtered through the words – through my voice, before it reaches me. And hovering in the background there’s this alien thing – part of me, but not me – gorging itself on a story that doesn’t belong to it, doesn’t belong to me, doesn’t belong to anyone except the one who actually lived it. It just… worms its way into my mind, forces me to feel its pleasure at their fear. At my fear.”

  He shakes his head, his voice thick as he chokes back tears. “God, I’m sorry. I’m treating you like a therapist.”

  “It’s alright, Jon.”

  “No, it’s really not.” Jon sighs. “I tried counseling once in uni, you know. Georgie suggested it. Quit after a few sessions, though. Not good at opening up, I suppose.” He shrugs. “And – and now? I mean, what am I supposed to tell them? That - that closed doors make me uneasy because I almost met a monster when I was eight, and let it take someone else in my stead? About the flesh hive, how some days I still feel the worms burrowing into me and it’s everything I can do not to – to grab a corkscrew and start digging for them?” He laughs, a little hysterically. “That any time I look at my own hand, I can still smell the flesh melting? That a man dropped me into the sky and let me fall, and then he was shot in front of me by a rogue cop who made me dig his grave? That she tried to shove a knife through my voice box for good measure? That I’m becoming a monster, no different than that thing behind the door, and I can’t stop it, and it’s my own fault for asking too many goddamn questions?”

  He’s not even crying anymore, Martin notices. There’s something… hollow about his voice. Resigned. Tired. Martin’s heart aches with it, and he grips Jon’s hand more tightly.

  “Jon, listen to me. You’re not – you’re not a monster.” Jon scoffs. “I’m serious. Look at you. I mean, no offense but – you’re a mess. Right now all I see is a frightened, exhausted human covered in his own blood, putting way more thought into what it means to be human than most humans do, and – and when’s the last time you even slept?”

  “I don’t know,” Jon murmurs. He loosens his grip on Martin's hand and pulls away, scrubs at his eyes to wipe away the residual wetness there. “That’s not high on my list of priorities right now.”

  And just like that, Jonathan Sims throws a wall back up between them. Martin recognizes the slightly stiff quality his voice takes on, and knows that he won’t get anything more out of Jon today.

  But then - 

  “Thank you, Martin.” Jon’s voice is quiet, but somehow loud in its impact.

  “Oh! Don’t worry about it, it’s – it’s no big deal –”

  “It was to me.”

  “No, that’s not what I – I didn’t mean that it’s not a big deal, I just –” Martin puffs out a breath of air, feeling flustered. “What I mean is, I’m glad that you – that you trusted me to help.”

  “I trust you.” There’s a finality to it. It’s similar to the terse this-conversation-is-over tone that Martin is so familiar with, but somehow… gentler. Warmer. “Present tense.”

  “Oh.” Martin’s voice is very, very small.

  “I just…" He heaves a sigh. "Thank you. For being here. For being patient with me. I know I’m not – I’m not exactly pleasant to be around. I don’t make it easy to be near me. And I treated you, and Tim, like enemies when I - when you - when all of us needed allies.” He looks up and meets Martin’s eyes. “I'm sorry. But - I’m trying to be better. So, thank you. It… means a lot.”

  He can’t stand to see Jon hurting, but some small, guilty part of him is still glad that Jon trusted him, opened up to him, accepted help – Martin’s help – for once.

  Martin smiles. He intends it to be reassuring, but he’s pretty sure it comes off as a little delirious instead. “Any time.”

  When Jon tries to stand, he accepts Martin's outstretched hand without another word. 

[bibliocratic]

@osirisjones jonmartin prompt:  Nothing wrong with some good ol cuddling in bed after a nightmare 👀

tws in tags, warnings for some tma-dark imagery despite being ultimately fluff

On the coast somewhere. A sentinel-stance, his hair knotty, wind-rushed. There's a craggy moss-stubbled headland jutting out like a broken jaw. The edges of his trainers toe the starting line of a curb. Before him, the grey waves of a cold-snap sea, broken by an irregular fortification against immersion, a patch of sand the colour of ashen skin that will soon be submerged.

A figure on the shoreline. Eyes out to the horizon, hair untethered, coat-less and shoe-less and immovable, reckless and wreckless against the sea that promises such storms.

Martin's the only one who can see the strengthening waves in the distance. Disturbed and agitated by some disaster, gathering to a tsunami.

There are stone steps, aged, foot-scored and weight-worn, and they're adorned with black railings kissed by rust. The steps curl around their path like hair around fingers to the beach front below.

Martin takes a step, and feels the glass of his legs crack. A hollow sound, reverberating with warning, the echo spiderwebbing through him. It doesn't hurt, not exactly, not really, and he takes another step, another, his eyes on the tide, the figure on the shore. The faster he goes, the more it splinters through him, feeling himself fragment, fracture, smithereens of glass crunching disconnected in his shoes, his socks, his trouser legs. Still he hobbles down the unforgiving stone, feeling limbs shatter with every shock of pressure, of misuse in a dull diamond cascade of the pieces of him that gather in his clothes where a man once was, and still he runs.

He's crumbling, an eroded cliff edge, a sand-swiped edifice to lost things and missed chances.

The figure on the beach doesn't move back, though surely they must hear how the wind is rising, surely they can't have failed to notice the tooth-filled snarling ferocity of the waves. Martin's throat is a sheen of slippery glass where words have no purchase, can't escape the lock of his throat.

The wind's wiping tears into his eyes that freeze into painful ragged shards almost immediately, and Martin feels the friction of his broken pieces as he tries to keep his shattered body moving, to go a bit faster, to get a bit closer.

The figure doesn't look back as they tread in the low tide and the wave ascends to greet them.

Curling round immediately, mummified in sweaty bed blankets, something lost and feral scrabbling in his throat that soon manifests into sound.

Sleepy, rousing to wakefulness.

'Martin? Oh. Oh, right.'

Arms pulling close. Neck at an uncomfortable twist, ear over collarbone, but he buries himself in the thick embrace of it.

'It was – ' he feels obliged to say. 'It was nothing, just a stupid – I'll, I'm fine, I'll...'

A default slide into poorly build but easily manned habits. A 'hush', fingers wiping sleep from his damp eyes.

'Do you – do you want to talk about it?'

An offer given more easily than he takes it, but he is reclaiming the ground of himself steadily.

'I think you were there.' Whispered to the dark, to the hazy heat of under-covers. 'You wouldn't turn around, and I was so – I thought …'

Fingers setting in the handholds of hips, another 'it's alright, it's alright' as he relates his horrors to the patient dark.

                                                                  He follows Peter's bloody map to the forbidding centre of the Panopticon. The mouths of empty cells, their bars like bared teeth, all facing dead centre, the stage of this horrible show.

The throne has a newly crowned king.

They've taken Jon's eyes. The blood tracking like warpaint scratched down his cheeks, and what they plucked out, they replaced improperly, with eyes that are not eyes, wide gaping chasm things like the backs of moth's wings.

The magnetic tape of all those statements, those carefully archived reels, they've been unspooled and it gathers like it's clogged in Jon's mouth, down his throat. The black lines of it spilling out like the straw of some macabre scarecrow, and Martin's hands are shaking and he prays, ill-worded little invocations to an almighty scraped together from school assemblies, that Jon wasn't taken like that, choking on fear, overwhelmed and airless, fingers scrabbling at a winched-in throat as he tried to breathe around the morass of other people's terrors.

Martin's prayers are that Jon felt nothing at all.

His ribcage has been splayed open, pivoted neatly with hinges like the top of a musical box. Weirdly bloodless for all it is a gory butchery of a human body, sand-white ribs that Martin finds himself counting. The heart is still there, shrivelling, wrinkled by strain and abuse. The rest of his chest, where other lungs and organs and the mechanisms of life should be harboured, is compacted as though with stuffing, the brutal gavage of some farm-reared delicacy. The eyes that expand and swell in this space roll in their vitreous parcels like twitching frogspawn. And then they all swivel with the fluid grace of owl necks, look at Martin, a thousand bobbing pupils staring out of the meat of Jon's chest, and that's the moment Martin realises Jon isn't dead.

'M-martin! Martin!'

A harsh insistence poorly cloaking distress, hands against his shoulders, moving in aborted rocking shakes.

'I – er, what, fuck – was I...?' Returning does not sweep away the agitation, the shaking like an earth tremor through him, the branding recollection of those fathomless eyes.

'You were shouting.' Hair being wiped from his forehead, two eyes, two normal, worried, crow-footed eyes staring down at him.

'W-what time is it?' he asks, but it's not an answer he wants or needs, he's just making sounds, fronting calm he doesn't feel. Runs clammy fingers over the bony column of a throat, the round of an adam's apple, a shirtless chest unmutilated and breathing shallowly.

He feels the question form there, at the centre, the tentative journey it traverses before he hears 'Can I.... I mean, do you want to...?'

The question isn't fully born before he's heaving great waves of sobs into the chest he's pillowed on.

Like clockwork, the arms come round, always an inch too tight a grip, and somehow that makes this easier to bear.

There are no monsters. In the dream that is not a dream, more a memory played out to its worst extremities, Martin walks, meandering and careless, along a beach. The sand is greyer, colour-sapped, and the waves are choppy, over-touched with foaming white like a poorly rendered oil landscape painting. There are ships out to the distance, but they're too far away, dirt flecks on the windscreen of horizon.

After a while, he sits down on the sand. Soaking the seat of his trousers, the backs of his legs. He watches the immutable horizon, blank like a lost opportunity, like a canvas where something meaningful could have been painted, anything at all really other than nothing. There are no clouds, no birds, and around him the day happens, unfolding in undemanding hours and minutes that leave no footprints, ruffle no waves.

He didn't bring any gloves and his hands cramp, the skin of his cheeks pinched with the tweaking chill. There are the marks of hoar-frost, sparkling and spiking, beginning to carpet the hairs on his arm, the skin of his exposed ankles.

The temperature drops, though the sky doesn't change. His fingers are gripped into numb claws now, and he wonders without much of a sense at all if he'll lose them to the cold. The frost is curdling in his lungs and it's hard to breathe. It has become a sensation like all the rest of them, like hunger and fright and panic, it is something happening to him so far away, to the him before, the one burdening himself with feeling like a pack-mule and wondering why he never moved forward.

The light refracts snow-blind off the white of the waves, and soon it is easier to close his eyes. He is not tired, but maybe he could lie down for a moment. It would be so simple to –

Arms wrapped around chest from behind, a twinge as his ribs protest, his mouth forming a confused, displeased sound.

'Jon. W- are you ok? You having a nightmare?'

A voice night-rough and dry rumbled against the dip between his shoulder blades: 'You were going away again'.

'Oh'.

The taste of chill is still enchanted and twisted up in the marrow of him, but it thaws in the near-ache of such a grip. Threading fingers together, palm union with palm, the soft rucks of scar tissue sliding against dry skin. He is held and beheld so tightly he lies there for a moment, his skin prickling with newly rediscovered heat.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

An offer. Given and given and given, no thought to retraction. It is hard to be Lonely when that holds such a lantern to the dark of the forest beyond.

'I'm, I'm ok, Jon,' he says, meaning it. Pulling arms  slot around his stomach tighter. 'Thank you'.

A grunting 'don't mention it', already sweetened by a doziness. The weight against his back closer, the arms flung around him like  a mooring line.

Martin drops back off sweltering in the muggy heat and sleeps dreamless till morning.

[sinfulfolk]

On Writing: About Moral Gravity and Pleasure and "Comfortable" Writing (and Stephen King)

Last week, I picked up a book that’s been on my shelf for a long time. This was Different Seasons by Stephen King. This book is a collection of four novellas, and was his first publication that reached outside of the horror genre. The book includes the novellas Apt Pupil, The Body, The Shawshank Redemption and The Breathing Method (I had only read Shawshank Redemption before I picked up this book). I began reading the book purely for pleasure, and then I began asking myself about why precisely this book was pleasurable to me as a reader. This paper is about a few of the specific pleasures that I found King brings to a reader. I’m enumerating them here because I hope to duplicate these particular attributes in my own writing.

The thing about Stephen King is that he is predictable. This is not a bad thing. Setting expectations for readers is something that every writer does. We announce to readers with our titles, our writerly personas, the marketing blurbs and in our writing style (Noir? Lyrical? Journalistic? Hemingwayesque? Faulknerian?) what the reader should expect. No reader – I hope – enters into a Cormac McCarthy novel hoping to find a sweet cozy mystery or romance. No one reads romance for blood and gore. But I fear I’m alluding to genre here, when I mean to speak about an attribute of writing that I find particular to King and other writers who have gathered large and consistent audiences.

Yet what Stephen King does is so utterly consistent from book to book that his readers trust him. I knew when I picked up a Stephen King book that I would get human characters that will have a life that I recognize, and that I know as familiar in standard human terms. If behavior must be explained or illuminated for me (as a reader), Stephen King will take the time to explain the behavior until I come to understand that behavior on its own terms and recognize it. This is in stark contrast to a writer like, for example, Jonathan Franzen or Cormac McCarthy, who do not explain their characters in terms of motivation, inner life or external behavior. Their characters thus exist as ciphers to many readers. Some readers find that pleasurable: many others do not.

However, for this reason, some readers (and notably some high-brow writers) believe that Stephen King writes “clichéd” books that contain “stereotypical” characters. This is a valid critique, but I think that all too often writers rely on originality as the prime objective, without realizing that they must ground their stories – and their readers – in the recognizable and the familiar before they take a flight of fancy into the unknown. Part of the reason so-called “dirty realism” fiction (such as that originally popularized by Raymond Carver in the MFA world) became the norm is that it starts with the recognizable, and then the originality is found in building a new perspective or a new framework around the already-known world of the truck driver, the wheat farmer, the mill worker or the down-and-out-drunk. Carver limned his characters in quick stark strokes, with a minimum number of words and descriptors. Yet there’s hardly an “original” character among them: Carver writes no Dickensian Oliver Twists or memorable Martin Chuzzlewits, and will never be known for a character like Scrooge.

In the way he writes characters, King is like a low-brow John Irving, painting characters vividly so that they stay in your memory. Yet unlike Irving, King does not create caricatures or characters who are memorable for specific traits, behaviors, attitudes or presence in the world. There are no transgender football players, pet bears, or horrific sex accidents in King (cf. Irving’s World According to Garp). King may describe a character with many more words than Carver, yet in the end they are both writing about an “average” mill worker, or police man or homemaker. Both Carver and King start with the average, the norm, and establish that firmly in order to describe what happens to these average characters.

Consider the novella “Apt Pupil” in Different Seasons. In this novella, a young boy is drawn to an older Nazi, and gradually “learns” from him how to be a serial killer and how to discard human lives like leaves. What is really interesting about this story is that I thought I knew the basic plot going in. Old Nazi would entice young boy in a pedophile-like embrace, and gradually things would go to hell. King didn’t write it that way at all. Instead, in the words of one of the main characters, he wrote:

[T]he story of an old man who was afraid… of a certain young boy was, in a queer way, his friend. A smart boy… At first, the boy was not the old man’s friend… At first, the old man disliked the boy a great deal. Then he grew to… to enjoy his company, although there was still a strong element of dislike there […] Part of the old man’s enjoyment came from a feeling of equality… You see, the boy and the old man had each other in mutual deathgrips. Each knew something the other wanted kept secret. (King 191-192)

King’s brilliance here is to make the old Nazi a vulnerable, afraid human being. When a young boy reaches out to him with a threat, they gradually become equals in terms of terror and secrets. I did not expect this at all, and the story entranced me because of the unique approach King took to a story that could have been quite hackneyed. What I meant earlier by “predictability” should instead be characterized as “fully fleshing” his characters. I know that there will be no easy-to-categorize “evil” human beings. Instead, there will be human beings who are flawed and trying to do their best with what they have to work with. He fleshes his people, which is harder to do than it looks.

The other thing that I find intensely “comfortable” about King is that events have moral weight in his novels. Let me explain this point by reference first to Bret Easton Ellis – a writer who I believe avoids moral justice like the plague. Ellis might disagree with this point, and in fact, he often portrays his novels as parodies or satires of moral immorality. Yet at heart, I really think satire is a genre without moral justice – or in mockery of moral justice. Ellis’s characters get away with hell on earth – both in their behavior to other people as well as their behavior to themselves. They don’t live lives that are considered or meaningful, because their actions have no consequence and no moral weight.

King, on the other hand, even if everything is going to hell – and especially when very bad things are happening – manages to carry his readers through by making an implicit promise that the bad will be accounted for, and that the good (on some level) will triumph. Bad actions have consequence in King, even if they are (as in “The Body”) momentarily avoided. In the end, those who commit crimes are always discovered by themselves or others, and must pay for their actions. And those who quietly do well are discovered in a different way, and rewarded. King is the contemporary writer who most honestly embodies Tolkien’s famous aphorism that it is “the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness, and love” that ultimately defeat evil (Jackson / Tolkien). King adheres to this maxim, almost to a fault. There are no magical mages in King, and very few people with special powers (none that I can think of who understand or control their powers purely for good). There are no melodramatic good guys, and very few purely evil characters. Instead, there is an Everyman or Everywoman who has to struggle with the laundry, self-esteem issues, and their upset spouse, all while struggling with unimaginable forces from the beyond. They are small everyday deeds that ultimately keep the dark at bay. And it is telling that even in these everyday lives, King manages to keep the moral compass clear. In contrast to many other contemporary writers – both literary writers like Paul Auster and commercial writers like Scott Turow – King ensures that we can trust him to bring a moral gravity to his work that is hard to do well, and trite if you don’t pull it off well.

I read King still when I just need some moments of pleasure, because I can trust him to be predictable in terms of his human characters and I trust the moral weight of his books. I’d like to be a writer who is as successful in these two attributes as King has been: even if I never have a Stephen King like commercial success. I think that these two attributes will stand the test of time.

A literary update from NedNote.com Readers can find my books at these bookstores:

Works Cited

King, Stephen. Different Seasons. New York: Signet, 1983.

The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey. Dir. Peter Jackson. Warner Bros, 2012. Film.

On Writing: About Moral Gravity and Pleasure and “Comfortable” Writing (and Stephen King) was originally published on Ned Hayes

[starringemiliaclarke]

Press: Emilia Clarke, on the Hollywood throne

The original article is in French and I just used Google to translate it so it might not be 100% correct.

    THE PARISIAN WEEKEND. As she is currently shooting the latest episodes of the Game of Thrones series , the actress is on the new Star Wars saga . Meeting with a feminist who knows how to assert herself.

  On the third floor of the chic New York Edition, in the heart of Manhattan. Pink complexion, luscious lips and eyebrows provided, a small silhouette of 1.57 meters advances towards us. British actress Emilia Clarke , 31, breaks the screen in Solo: A Star Wars Story . This tenth film stamped Star Wars , in theaters on May 23, focuses on the youth of Han Solo, cult character of the intergalactic saga.

  His name may not tell you much. The actress is best known for playing, since 2011, Daenerys Targaryen (aka “Khaleesi” or “Mother of the Dragon”), one of the main roles of the medieval-fantasy series Game of Thrones .

  For those who have never looked at it, booster shot. Daenerys, fallen heiress, reduced to slavery by a band of savages, will gradually free himself from his chains by taking the lead of an army of oppressed. The episodes follow one another and the young woman, a fine military strategist, asserts herself as a leader of men and dragons (yes, yes). His goal: to run for the famous Iron Throne.

  “To embody this character, it really gave me confidence,” she says. Surrounded by her “court” – makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist and press officer ready to respond to any of her desires – Emilia Clarke, stern look, seems to have been impregnated with the imperial charisma of her double on the screen.

  This natural brunette even sports, for a few months, immaculate blonde hair , like his character! But the Game of Thrones adventure will stop soon. The last episodes of the series are currently being watched and will be broadcast from April 2019.

  “I will soon have to find out who I am without Daenerys. It’s very exciting ! She enthuses. Her dreams ? One day play a female James Bond and share the poster with Leonardo DiCaprio.

  Emilia Clarke has ambition. It goes back to childhood. The young woman grew up in the countryside of Berkshire County, between Oxford and London. His father is a sound engineer for musicals. His mother climbed the ladder of a consulting firm. “He gave me his artistic fiber, he taught me to sing and play several instruments. She gave me her character as a lioness, “she says proudly.

  The desire to become an actress comes to him very small. At home, she watches over romantic comedies with Audrey Hepburn. She follows her brother to St Edward’s School, a private school in Oxford. A “different” pupil, Emilia does not find her place among her comrades “who all dream of becoming lawyers”. She then postulates at several schools of drama. What refusals!

  The young woman leaves a few months traveling in Asia, then retries her chance. She is finally admitted to Drama Center London, one of the most prestigious British theater schools, from which Colin Firth and Michael Fassbender, among others, have come out.

  “This training is very demanding. It prepares you to face an industry that does not forgive mistakes, “she says. Nicknamed the “Trauma Center”, this establishment has the reputation of pushing its students in their entrenchments. It is mostly played roles of old lady or prostitute. Obstinate, Emilia Clarke graduated in 2009.

  His first year out of school is difficult. She gets a role in Triassic Attack (2010), a TV movie series Z broadcast on the channel Syfy, but has to chain the jobs of waitress or employee in a call center to pay his rent … It speaks then an audition for “a series with dragons”. The producers are looking for a blonde and slender actress. She is dark and not very tall.

  Without really believing, she does some research on Google to learn about Game of Thrones , the literary work of a certain George RR Martin . The creators of the series are finally seduced by her spontaneity, her humor – Emilia Clarke embarked on a “chicken dance” during her audition – and her strength of character.

  The first season of Game of Thrones airs in 2011. It earns the actress the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a drama series. Then Emilia Clarke gets noticed in two discrete British films: Spike Island (2012), Mat Whitecross, a comedy drama never released in France, and Dom Hemingway (2013), Richard Shepard, a crazy thriller where she plays alongside of Jude Law.

  Nudity on the screen, a sensitive subject

  Game of Thrones , whose popularity is growing year by year, is at the center of the debate. Praised for her female characters who lead men by the nose, the series is also labeled “machismo”, especially for its tendency to strip her heroines, Daenerys – and therefore Emilia Clarke – in the lead.

  However, when asked the young actress, elected “Sexiest Woman of the Year” by Esquire magazine in 2015, his opinion on the issue is the radio silence. His press officer even orders us to change the subject. We touched a chord.

  She who expressed herself willingly a few years ago decided to say nothing more. No doubt she keeps in mind that in 2013, when she walked the Broadway boards in the room Breakfast at Tiffany’s , the critics had much more talked about the time when she entered naked in his bath that his performance .. .

  Anxious not to be stowed in a box, she even declined to star in the series Fifty Shades of Gray (2015) because of her too many sex scenes. And has reduced his naked appearances in Game of Thrones as the seasons, when it was not replaced by a lining.

  Better paid than a man

  Emilia Clarke prefers to mention her commitments. Anti-Trump assumed, the English spoke against the Brexit and posted on his Instagram account a message of support to the British Labor Party. A convinced feminist, she confirmed that she chose to choose independent women’s roles. In Terminator: Genisys (2015), she plays, alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sarah Connor, rebel icon of the saga. And in the romantic movie Avant toi (2016), she plays a fanciful and determined young woman.

  “Feminism is leading the life I want without being defined by my gender. I think that if we say “no” to films that do not give enough space to women, they (producers, Ed) will stop doing, “she says.

  Emilia Clarke, with a character to say the least, is formidable in business. For her role in Terminator: Genisys , she would have been better paid than Schwarzy … and would have received more than 10 million dollars for his participation in the season 7 of Game of Thrones ! Without confirming these rumors, she concedes with a laugh: “I am a good negotiator! ”

  Next project for her, creating her own production box. “As soon as I finish Game of Thrones , I put myself in it,” promises the one who is already writing a screenplay. After the dragoons, Emilia Clarke intends to tame Hollywood.

    Gallery Link:

PHOTOSHOOTS & OUTTAKES > 2018 Le Parisien

  Press: Emilia Clarke, on the Hollywood throne was originally published on Enchanting Emilia Clarke

[creativitytoexplore]

My Deal With The You Know Who by Lawrence Martin https://ift.tt/2OJnN6Y A successful author longs for some musical talent, and is prepared to sacrifice his very soul; by Lawrence Martin.

I entered Jake's Deli on Cleveland's west side and, as instructed, took a seat in one of the booths. The waitress came over and I told her I was waiting for someone, and we would order together. A minute later he walked in. From a distance, he seemed to be just another guy coming from the parking lot. Though we had never met, he seemed to recognize me right away. He walked straight to the booth, sat opposite me. "Hello," he said, in a deep baritone voice that sounded affected. I was still skeptical at that point. We shook hands. His hand felt cool, almost clammy, and his grip quite strong. "Hi," I said, rather meekly. "Why did you choose Jake's Deli for this meeting?" "They have great pastrami, of course. Good enough reason." I searched for some sign of his identity and think I found it in his face. The angles were sharper, more unnatural-looking, and his eyes were deeper into the sockets than normal, as if he was made up for some horror movie. He wore a felt hat and I am certain there were two protrusions, one on either side of his head, poking up the felt. This was no imposter, or if so, a very good one. Our waitress returned and didn't look twice at the new arrival. "What'll it be?" she asked, after depositing two waters. He ordered pastrami on rye. I ordered lox and a bagel. "Are you paying?" I asked, sort of joking. "Yes. You'll pay later." He was not joking. I cleared my throat. "So," he said, in a somewhat haughty manner, "what exactly do you want?" "To play the piano. Well." "You play now, but not well?" "Hardly. I am a beginner. An adult beginner. Still at level one. In fact, my current instruction book says it's written for seven- and eight-year olds." "Ummm," he said, suggesting some interest. "And how old are you?" "Just turned fifty-five." "And playing for how long?" "Lessons for a year. No prior musical experience." "But you're an accomplished writer," he said. "Thank you. How do you know that?" "Ah, Howard Greenleaf, New York Times best-selling author. Murder mysteries, private-detective thrillers, I believe the genre is. Yes, I read the papers. In fact I read everything that's printed anywhere, every day. I focus on the obituaries, I must admit." "Funny." "Death is not funny, my friend. That's my business." "I am aware," I said. "Just what level of piano playing do you wish to achieve?" "A higher level," I replied. "Much higher. To play classical. Beethoven, Rachmaninoff." "Impressive," he said. "Ludwig, I had nothing to do with, a true non-believer. But of Sergei I am familiar. Almost had him, but in the end he changed his mind. Brilliant composer, pianist. This will take some doing." "And to play like Barenboim." "Ah, a true prodigy. You ask a lot." "I wouldn't ask if you couldn't deliver. Just tell me the terms." "The usual. Your soul, plus." "Plus? Plus what?" "A time limit. I am patient but there are limits." "I won't accept an early death, before I can enjoy the fruits of my new talent. We must agree on that date, and you must honor it." "Of course. I honor all my promises. That's more than you can say for the other fellow." "I don't want you to pull a Robert Johnson on me." "Ah, poor man. He couldn't keep his hands off another's wife. Such talent. Only after he met me at the Crossroads, of course." Quicker than expected, the food arrived. It looked delicious, and I felt hungry. We both began eating. "Best pastrami in your town," he said. "So, how much time would I have to enjoy my new talent?" "This change will be a lot of work," he said. "First you must sustain some brain trauma, which I can arrange. Nothing serious, but it must be a medical event, or you will not be believed. There are many cases of sudden musical genius following head injury, so that will give you some cover. It also makes my job easier. Then, I think a decade would be fair." "Just ten years? I die at sixty-five?" "Mozart died at thirty-five, and I had nothing to do with that." "That was over two hundred years ago," I protest. "Just a minute ago, in my book." "Yes, but he had a head start. Even with his early death, a thirty-year career. How about fifteen years? I could live with that." What an ironic statement, I realized. After a brief pause while eating, he said, "I can do fifteen, with a caveat." "Which is?" "To the extent you are successful in your new career, you are unsuccessful in your current one." "You mean as a writer?" "As a writer." "Okay, I can handle that. Writing's a chore anyway. And my agent is a pain in the ass. The publisher's no bargain either. They want my books, which are all best sellers, and they only give me fifteen percent. I've even thought of self-publishing. Everyone wants to nickel and dime you. Hey, wait a minute? What will I do for income? My wife doesn't work." "People are always worried about the minor details," he said. "You'll still receive book royalties, at least for a while. At some point you may find your thrillers, shall we say, out of style. But you can make it with your music, that's how good you will become. Though I have a disclaimer, which I give to all talent seekers." "Talent seekers. You make it sound like a category." "It is. One of my largest. Second only to those seeking sudden wealth." "All right, I'm listening." "I will give you the talent. I will not control what you do with it. How you handle the notoriety, how it affects your personal life, will be up to you. Handle things poorly and you may come begging for less time than the allotted fifteen years. I've seen that happen before." "Fair enough. I understand. Say, what exactly does it mean to give up one's soul?" He looked hard at me, took one last bite of his pastrami and said, "Trade secret." Then he let out an eerie-sounding laugh that sent a chill down my spine. I looked around and no one seemed to notice. Perhaps only I heard it. "Do we have a deal?" he asked. I was desperate. Tired of playing Mary Had a Little Lamb, London Bridge and Alouette like a kid still wetting his pants. Tired of struggling through the F and G scales with both hands, while trying to memorize their numerous chords and inversions. At my rate of progress, I would be able to play Beethoven's Für Elise in another fifty years. "Yes!" "Then we shake hands," he said, "and there is no turning back." We shook hands. He took out a $50 bill from some pocket, placed it beside his empty dish and walked out of the deli.

"Call 911!" I heard someone yell, just outside Jake's Deli. "I think he's alive." Of course I was alive. A Toyota Prius had just come over the curb, aiming right at me. Were it not for the light post between us, I would not be what the bystander said. The car wrapped around the post, hit me broadside. I fell to the pavement and conked my head. I saw stars and darkness but could hear. Minutes later I lay in Memorial Hospital's Emergency Department. Then came the CT scan, the elevator ride to the neuro ICU, the endless stream of doctors, and explanations. "A severe concussion, small subdural hematoma, he'll recover. He's lucky. No loss of motor function." That's good, I thought. Wow! So quick. Didn't expect it. I began thinking of the keyboard. Do I know anything? The C-major scale, what is it? C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. Good. I still know something. Probably no more than before. They released me from the hospital three days later. Cynthia, my wife, drove me home. Our one son had visited me in the hospital and, assured of my full recovery, was back in college, a thousand miles away. "Do you want to lie down?" she asked, as soon as we entered the house. "No, I want to play the piano." "Really? When is your next lesson?" "I have to call to reschedule." "Well, I hope you haven't forgot everything," she said. Cynthia went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. I sat at my Yamaha 650DX electronic keyboard and pressed the 'on' button. Played the C scale, then the F scale and G scales. Nothing different! No more fluidity than before. Same hesitancy. I wanted to cry. I opened up the piano book, Level 1, to London Bridge. Right hand treble clef, left hand base clef. I could read the simple notes, as before.

London Bridge is Falling Down

I began playing, and humming. 'London Bridge is falling down, falling down'. "Sounds good, honey," Cynthia called out from the kitchen. I decided to go faster. And faster. She came in to the living room. "When did you start playing so fast?" she said. "I don't think you missed a note." "Really? I don't know. Just tried it faster." Could it be? I went to another piano book, with more complicated songs. Must be careful, I thought. Didn't want to alarm her. I put on earphones, so only I could hear the notes, and opened to Scarborough Fair. Always had trouble with that one. I zipped through it effortlessly. Not possible! Can't be. I did it again. I ran to my computer, printed out Für Elise, Beethoven's simplest melody, a piece any conservatory student could do half-awake but was forever beyond my reach. So many sixteenth notes! Impossible.

Für Elise - Beethoven

Zip! No problem. Before the accident I could read and tap out the notes but never play them with any hint of musicality. Cynthia put a hand on my shoulder. "What are you doing with the earphones?" "I don't want to bother you," I replied and continued playing the tune. "You're not bothering me. I'm glad you can still play. Who knows what that injury could have done to you?"

With some trepidation I went for my next lesson, in the home of Mrs. Esther Marples. She is a nice middle-aged woman, always patient with my piano klutziness. I didn't know how she would adjust to what I could now do. Did she even teach at the higher levels? Most of her pupils were kids. "I heard about your accident," she said. "I'm happy you seem fully recovered. Have you had a chance to practice?" "Yes, and I've tried something a little harder." "Oh? Let me hear it." She expected to hear something from the Level 1 book, but instead I removed from my folder the Beethoven sheet music, and placed it on the piano. "Für Elise? Really? My, you are ambitious." I begin playing. Flawlessly. She let me finish, then said, "That was nice." "Thank you." Her smile then turned to a frown. "But that is not you. I've worked with you for some time, I know what you can and cannot do. Have you been hiding this from me?" "No, honestly, after the accident..." "Accidents don't make people better players," she said. "I don't understand. Why have you come here week after week, struggling with the notes, if you can really play like that? Here, play Alouette for me. That is so ingrained in my mind, I know how you handle it." I could not fake my old way. I played like a virtuoso. She closed the piano book and stood up. "Howard, I cannot instruct you. Something strange is going on, some type of change that is beyond me. I have no experience with pupils like you. I suggest, no really, I insist you find another instructor." We were cordial. I thanked her and insisted she take the check I had in my pocket. I did not ask for the name of another instructor. If I was to find another, I would prefer they not know each other.

I needed validation and did find an instructor in a distant suburb, a highly recommended professional pianist. I used an alias: Howard McGuffin. I felt thankful my fame as a writer was by name only, unlike, say, a movie star whose face anyone might recognize. I explained my playing history as starting in childhood, and that I worked as an accountant. Under this guise I progressed rapidly, and was playing Mozart and Beethoven sonatas in less than a year. My instructor said I should qualify for Juilliard except for my age, and asked if I'd ever performed in public. I said no, I didn't want to. He said I had to give a recital, and that until one performs in public, one never knows if they have the stuff to be a good pianist. He would program me into his next one, a semiannual event for his most advanced pupils. The recital - a local for-charity concert - took place in the community's high school. I was the oldest performer, but there were several young adults and the rest teenagers. All quite talented, I must say. The event sold out. I played a Mozart sonata: sixteenth and thirty-second notes! Here's a few of the opening measures.

Mozart: Sonata No 3

Someone recognized me, and afterwards a suburban newspaper reporter sought me out. I could not lie. Yes, I play under the name McGuffin. Yes, I wrote under Howard Greenleaf. Yes, that Howard Greenleaf. The next day, in the suburban newspaper, the headline read: Once-famous author debuts at recital under alias. Then the sub-headline: Developed sudden talent after hit by car. The "once-famous" hurt. I had done no writing since the accident, held no book signings and given no interviews. I was beneath the literary radar. Worse, my last manuscript, submitted just before the accident, had been rejected by the publisher because "it's too much a copycat to your previous book." The editor had suggested a rewrite, which of course I could not do: too busy practicing. Actually, that's only partly true. I did try to rewrite one chapter and but had no interest in finishing it. No, that's not true either. I didn't know how to do it. I had lost my writing skill and my desire. As predicted. It was now music or... senility. Book sales fell off and my income plummeted. Fortunately, the recital proved a success and I was approached to do piano gigs. The first and best offer came from an unexpected source: Majestic Cruise Lines. They were looking for a no-name but accomplished pianist to play in one of their ship's lounges, short classical pieces preferred. Their clientele were the ultra-rich and ultra-sophisticated. Free room and board for two weeks, for Cynthia and me, and a stipend of one grand to boot. I jumped at the chance. The route included several ports of Asia. The cruise was exhilarating. I only had to play two hours a day, so we were able to enjoy most of the sights and shipboard activities like everyone else. Mid-cruise, while alone on the deck looking out over the Pacific, I heard that same deep baritone voice from Jake's Deli. "Enjoying yourself?" I turned and faced him. "What the hell are you doing here?" "Ah, Howard, watch your language, please." "I have many more years to go." "Of course, of course. Just checking up. It's our first anniversary. Just making sure everything is working as promised. I have delivered, have I not?" "Yes, now let me be, please. I want to enjoy this trip." "As you wish," he said, and then disappeared. Not literally - he just walked through the revolving glass door leading to the starboard cabins. Strange, though, I never saw him on the ship again. As luck would have it, one of the ship's passengers was a professor from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, only forty-five miles from our home. This professor taught music theory and played piano himself, but did not perform professionally. He came up to me one evening, praised my playing and offered some unexpected insight. "You are very good," he said, "but if I had to guess, I would say you came to the piano late in life, probably in your twenties." "Oh? Why is that?" "I can tell. There is a difference between prodigies who start as kids, and those rare adults who learn to play well after full maturity. Tell me if I am wrong." I wanted to tell him 'age fifty-five', but knew he wouldn't believe me. "You are correct," I said. "Started in my late twenties." "Ah, so. Once you start late, it is very difficult to acquire the skills of someone who started at five or six or seven. I believe Barenboim was six. Mozart only four." I knew he spoke the truth. And despite my new-found ability, its limitations pained me. He must have seen the pain in my face. "I can help you," he offered. "I think you should come to Oberlin, let me work with you to see if there isn't some room for improvement. Just a suggestion, nothing guaranteed. If you commit, there will be no fee. You will be part of my research." I agreed instantly. Was it just a coincidence that this professor taught near the very city in which we lived? Later, in our cabin, Cynthia had some doubts. "Are you going to commute? It's over an hour from our home, more if there's a lot of traffic. And what about your gigs?" she asked, concerned about our plummeting income. "I can still do gigs but not as many. Maybe I can stay in Oberlin during part of the week, come home on weekends." We agreed I should give it a try. I stayed in Oberlin Monday through Thursday, and came home for long weekends. The professor secured a dorm room for me, as a hotel was too expensive. One night, alone in bed and lonely, I called home but Cynthia did not answer. I called her cell and got a voice message. Where could she be at 10pm on a Tuesday night? Obviously a concert or something, but I got worried. No, really, I got suspicious, so I drove home right then, arriving around 11:30. She was not home. She returned to the house at midnight and was shocked to find me waiting. At first, she feigned disbelief that I would question her, but then she cried. Yes, she was with another man, she admitted. "I'm lonely," she said. "It's got to either be me or the piano." Then I remembered the conversation in Jake's Deli. How you handle the notoriety, how it affects your personal life, will be up to you. I had no notoriety, but my personal life was suffering by devotion to the art. I did not want to risk losing Cynthia. That had not been part of the bargain and did not have to happen. And I had no intention of giving up the piano. I professed my love for her, vowed not to let her transgression interfere with our relationship (though I did think of killing the guy), and in the end convinced her we should sell the house and move to Oberlin. With the money from the sale we could easily live in an apartment, and she could enroll in college courses she'd always thought of taking, mainly art history. And so we sold the house and relocated. The professor turned out to be something of a taskmaster, determined to prove that late starters could learn to play as if they had begun in childhood. I was the oldest adult player in his research project. Somehow I managed to avoid discussing my "early years" of playing since, of course, they didn't exist. Later, he did hear that I became a pianist only after a car accident, at age fifty-five, but I don't think he ever believed it. In any case, it never became an issue. The important thing is that, under his tutelage I played better and better, until one day he asked me to perform with the Oberlin Symphony. The fiend had delivered on his promise. I knew the day of reckoning would come, and I'd have to deliver on mine, but tried not to think about it. Time passed and I became somewhat famous on the second-tier concert market. After Oberlin I played with the Toledo Symphony, then had gigs with orchestras in Columbus, Louisville, Indianapolis and Little Rock. I played mostly the easier piano concertos. Before my accident, these concertos would have been unthinkable. Now I must fast forward. Life was good until it wasn't. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent surgery that curtailed my performing career for several months. The doctors were optimistic but I was less so. How could I live fifteen years if my life was cut short by cancer? After all, we had a bargain. He showed up in the hospital the day after my operation. "Just want you to know, I had nothing to do with this," he said. "What?" I was incredulous he would make an appearance at this time and disclaim responsibility. "I get you at fifteen," he said. "Sooner if the other fellow chooses to interfere. So don't blame me." As if he had a conscience. "I don't blame you," I said. "Just make sure my talent isn't affected. It damn well better not be." He smiled and then, as he is wont to do, exited quickly, without another word. I did recover, and my talent wasn't affected. Still, I was living from day to day, always practicing but never making enough to get by comfortably. Meanwhile, I concentrated on Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, the magnificent Emperor - my ultimate goal. Anyone who can play the Fifth has arrived. The years went by, and I won't bore you with the life of a second-tier concert pianist. But Cynthia stayed with me. And never once did I think of ending my bargain earlier than the allotted fifteen years. Nor did I ever wish for the old days of writing bestsellers. I let music be my passion. Then one day I was invited to play with the famed Cleveland Orchestra, in a children's concert at Severance Hall. Their pianist had taken ill, and I was the closest good one around. It also helped that I was available on short notice - one day. The program included brief selections from Mozart and Tchaikovsky. My playing must have impressed, because the conductor asked what I could play at full length with the orchestra. Without thinking, I said "Beethoven's Fifth." "Let's see," he said, and arranged a rehearsal. I passed, and he programmed the piece. But not in Cleveland. In Carnegie Hall, New York City. The Cleveland Orchestra performs there every two years or so, and they were delighted to feature Ohio's "newest musical prodigy," as one trade publication later put it. Cynthia and I traveled to New York two days before the concert. There would be only one rehearsal. I was so involved with preparation that only when we arrived in New York did I realize the concert night was the fifteenth anniversary of my handshake. So the big night came. I scanned the audience and didn't see him. You may not believe me, but I did not feel nervous. I played my heart out and the audience loved it. From the opening multi-octave notes Beethoven wrote in 1811, I was transfixed, transformed, in another world. It was as if I had transcended the stage, the hall, the city, and was no longer of mortal flesh but with Beethoven. Yes, with Beethoven. Forty-one minutes later we were done. A moment of silence, then the audience stood, clapped and cheered. They were, it seemed, rooting for me. Not just for my musical ability but for me. The performance over, the orchestra members began drifting away. Just then a tall man in tuxedo entered from the left wing. He stood out because he wore a bowler hat. Of course I knew it was him but, still elated by the performance, played dumb. "What do you want?" "It is time." "I suppose so," I said, ready to meet my fate. I just didn't think the end would arrive at the very pinnacle of my career, on the threshold of becoming, if not famous, at least financially secure. "However," he said, "I must admit, I was so impressed with your performance tonight, I am truly reluctant to call in the chit at this time." "What?" "If you continue to give performances like that, I am willing to extend the term, with no further conditions." What could I say? He was giving me more time. And no conditions! "I don't have to do anything else?" "It would be a pity to snuff out this talent, and where you would be going, sadly, there are no pianos. Continue to play well, my friend." And with that he left, as abruptly as he had appeared. I felt excited and elated. Now I could continue playing, what I loved and wanted most. By this time I was alone on the stage, with the vast auditorium nearly empty. I walked to the front of the stage, to take one last look at the vast space. Carnegie Hall! Magnificent. Suddenly, all the stage lights came on at once, blinding me. I lost my footing and fell forward, head first. On the way down I heard an eerie, high-pitched laugh - vindictive and horrifying in its meaning. His laugh. I started screaming. "No! No! No! No!" Then everything went blank. I woke up in the ambulance with a severe headache. Oh, not again, I thought. Yes again, only this time to New York's Central Park West Hospital. Same routine as fifteen years ago: exam in the Emergency Department, followed by head CT scan and hospital admission. "You've suffered a concussion, and because you blacked out we need to keep you overnight for observation," said the ED physician. When I reached my private hospital room, there were already messages from the Orchestra's conductor and concertmaster, wishing me well, and stating my performance had been great. The conductor said to call him when fully recovered. Very encouraging. Cynthia did not want to go back to the hotel alone but, being assured by the doctors that I would survive, left the hospital around one in the morning. She was told she could pick me up around noon. So I am now sitting in bed, updating this whole saga on my portable PC. For the record, I am a fast typist. Of course you want to know if I can still play the piano. You're perhaps thinking that with the new head banging I might have lost the ability. Well, I wonder also. I can envision the notes for Beethoven's Fifth in my head, but can I play it? I needed to find out, and just after Cynthia left went searching for a piano. All sizable hospitals offer music therapy and keep a keyboard that can be wheeled to patients' rooms. So I got out of bed and walked to the nurse's station, demanding access "to the hospital's keyboard." I might as well have demanded a double dip butter pecan ice cream cone. The night nurse told me, "It's the middle of the night. Everything is locked up. I'll leave a message for the day shift to see what we can do then. Now get back to bed." Okay, she did say "please". Rebuffed, I have just returned to my room. I want to sleep but can't, still excited by the night's events. What you are reading now I typed at two in the morning in bed, on my laptop computer. What's this? Someone has just wheeled in a portable keyboard! My request was honored. Wait. That someone is a tall male nurse. It's him! Dressed in nurse's garb. I must record everything, not get excited. Will type and save as long as possible. I am typing, he is speaking. He says I asked for the keyboard, here it is, he will be happy to listen. And he has my medicine, he says. "What if I can't play?" I remind him I've suffered a concussion. I want to ask if he pushed me off the stage, but sense the question would serve no purpose. Now I remember his words back at the Hall: If you continue to give performances like that, I am willing to extend the term. "We have a bargain," he says "How did you get in? You're not really a nurse, are you?" "We made a deal," is his reply. "Do you not want to play? Just a few opening measures of Beethoven. That will be fine. Then your medicine." I can say no. I want to say no. I want to go to sleep. But there is the keyboard. There is my salvation. Could the concussion take away fifteen years of musicality? I am curious. I am scared. I am getting out of bed. For the record he is dressed in a nurse's uniform and I see the Central Park West Hospital logo. So a male nurse from this hospital. He won't give his name. He just says to play. I am scared. But I want to see if I can still play. If you don't hear from me again, goodbye.

EXHIBIT 15 Above certified and submitted in toto and without alteration, Case #27633, New York City, NY January 8, 2--- Cynthia Greenleaf, Executrix of the Estate of Howard Greenleaf vs. Central Park West Hospital, in the wrongful death suit of Howard Greenleaf...

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY In 1906, Saxton (Cristopher Lee), a renowned British anthropologist, returns to Europe in the Trans-Siberian from China to Moscow . With it he carries a box containing the frozen remains of a primitive humanoid creature he discovered in a cave in Manchuria. He expects it to be a missing link in human evolution. Dr. Wells (Peter Cushing), Saxton’s friendly rival and his colleague at the Royal Geological Society, is also on board but traveling separately.

Before the train leaves Shanghai, a thief is found dead on the platform. His eyes are completely white, without irises or pupils, and a spectator initially confuses him with a blind man. A Catholic monk, Father Pujardov (Alberto de Mendoza), spiritual advisor to the Polish Count Marion Petrovski (George Rigaud) and Countess Irina Petrovski (Silvia Tortosa), who are also waiting to board the train, warns that the contents of the box that wants to move Saxton is threatened by a prophecy, something that Saxton rejects as a superstition. Saxton’s eagerness to keep his scientific discovery secret awakens the suspicion of Wells who bribes a doorman to investigate the contents of the box. The humanoid that is inside (Juan Olaguivel), the result of defrosting, wakes up and murders the goalkeeper and then escapes.

The humanoid, while traveling the train, finds more victims on its way. Each new victim has the same opaque and white eyes. Autopsies suggest that victims’ brains are draining from memories and knowledge. When the humanoid is shot by police inspector Mirov (Julio Peña), the threat seems to have been eliminated. Saxton and Wells discover that external images are retained by a liquid that is found inside the eyes of corpses that reveal a prehistoric Earth as seen from space. They deduce that the real threat is somehow an amorphous extraterrestrial being that inhabited the humanoid’s body and now resides within the inspector. Pujardov, feeling the presence within the inspector and believing that it is Satan’s, renounce your faith, promising loyalty to the entity.

Russian authorities get news of the murders. An intimidating Cossack officer, Captain Kazan (Telly Savalas), tackles the train with a handful of his men. Kazan believes that rebels are being transported on the train and is only convinced of the alien’s existence when Saxton turns off the lights and Mirov’s eyes shine, revealing that he is the alien’s host. The alien has absorbed the memories of Wells’s assistant, a train engineer and other victims on board, and now seeks the metallurgical knowledge of the Polish count to build a ship with which to escape from Earth. Kazan shoots and kills Mirov, and the alien is transferred to Father Pujardov.

Passengers flee to the freight car while Pujardov kills Kazan, his men and the count, depleting all his memories. Saxton rescues the countess and stops Pujardov at gunpoint. Saxton, after discovering that the bright light prevents the alien from draining minds or transferring to another body, forces Pujardov to enter a well-lit area. The alien Pujardov explains that it is a collective form of energy from another galaxy. Trapped on Earth in a distant past, after being left behind in an accident, he survived for millions of years in the bodies of protozoa, fish and other animals. You cannot live outside a living being for more than a few moments. The alien begs to be saved tempting Saxton with his advanced knowledge of technology and the cure of diseases.

Saxton and the Countess flee but the alien raises all their victims as zombies. Battling down the train Saxton and the countess finally arrive at the tail van where the rest of the survivors have taken refuge. Saxton and Wells work desperately to unhook the tail car from the rest of the train. The Russian government sends a telegram to an intermediate station, ordering them to destroy the train by diverting it by a cut track. Believing that the war has broken out, the station staff starts the maneuvers. The alien takes control of the locomotive. Saxton and Wells, finally, manage to separate the tail van from the rest of the train. The alien tries to stop the locomotive but fails to do so, crossing a barrier of spurs, and plunging into a deep cliff. The tail van rolls precariously at the end of the track before stopping a few inches from the cliff. The survivors leave quickly while Saxton, Wells and the countess contemplate the ravine and witness the explosion that surrounds the train and its supernatural inhabitant.

DEVELOPMENT Pánico en el Transiberiano better known as Horror Express, stars British horror icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Greek-American Telly “Kojak” Savalas, Argentinean Jorge Rigaud and a host of well-known Spanish actors. The director, Eugenio Martin explains how his first full-blooded horror movie got off the ground: “When I made Horror Express, I was under a three-movie contract with Phil Yordan, although he had somebody else (Bernard Gordon) fronting this project, and the picture was made as an Anglo-Spanish co-production.”

The inclusion in the distribution of the two icons of the British producer ” Hammer Films “, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing , helped to give more prestige to the production. Both had a separate contract to film a movie with Yordan, so he thought it would be a good idea to put them together in a film. The duo ” Hammer ” was joined by Telly Savalas , very popular at the time for ” Kojack “, the well-known detective TV series, which he accepted without hesitation, since he was joined by a certain friendship with Eugenio Martín . “Suggested to unite the two and everything was on wheels. The script was sent to the two actors, it was also talked to Telly Savalas who had just worked with me on ‘Pancho Villa’. We got along very well and then we gathered three great stars .

Different sources variously credit the final screenplay of Horror Express to any or all of the following: Martin himself, Arnaud D’Usseau and occasionally to Julian Halevy (a pseudonym of Julian Zimet, who also cowrote Psychomania with D’Usseau). As becomes clear from the synopsis, the end result of these scribes’ efforts is a veritable patchwork of themes and styles, verging on pastiche.

Much of the film’s technical team was Spanish. The reason for the inclusion of native professionals was purely economic. The Spanish technicians were very competent, and did not charge large sums of money for their work. They were not imposed by the director. “No, more than an imposition of mine, that was the result of an economic approach by Philip Yordan and Bernard Gordon. They just had the idea to say; ‘As in Spain, the cost of filming is cheaper, there are good technicians … what does Spain need? International figures in the cast. Well, I take international stars and employ national technicians. ‘ Even as a director, he spoke with several people he knew in Spain and at that time I was well placed because he had made a film that had worked. You already know that in the cinema a director is up or down according to the last movie he made, and mine made money and my name sounded right away and also the circumstance occurred that he could speak in English, not perfectly but he defended me, and we had a meeting and we understood each other very well. By the way, Gordon spoke a little Spanish and asked me: where have you learned English Eugenio? And I told him the truth, that he had learned doing some courses at the University of Granada. And your Spanish?; In the tavern, in the tavern!  And that told me that this guy had more talent than me”

“For the opening scenes,” Martin recalls, “we used a real locomotive filmed at Madrid’s main rail terminal, dressed to resemble the Chinese station at the turn of the century. For the interior shots, we constructed a number of cars in the studio. To get the effect of movement, we built them on rocking hydraulic platforms. We’d run through the rehearsals with the carriages in static mode, and once the camera started to roll, we’d set them in motion. There was a revolving backdrop to achieve the effect of scenery flashing past the windows, and we used the usual dry ice machine to simulate steam and fog. It was all perfectly simple and straightforward. We intercut these scenes with long shots of the model train, and I think the final effect was pretty convincing.”

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“Anyhow,” Martin continues, “the producer had got a hold of this marvelous large scale model train which had been used in the movie Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), and he came up with the idea of writing a script just so he would be able to use this prop. Now at that time, Phil was in the habit of buying up loads of short stories to adapt into screenplays, and the story for Horror Express was originally based on a tale written by a little-known American scriptwriter and playwright

Beyond its first-rate technical qualities, Horror Express is superbly acted by all involved. Martin has nothing but fond memories of his three “foreign” stars. “Working with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Telly Savalas was an absolute delight,” he says. “Apart from being wonderful people, they were tremendously responsible and professional. I found Telly to be the more “emotional’ one as an actor, while Peter and Christopher were rather more rational, so to speak. I mean, if we occasionally strayed from what was written on the page, they seemed to be at a bit of a loss, whereas Telly was always more open to improvisation, to playing it by ear, so I’d say that from my personal point of view, Telly was more fun’ to direct in that sense. But the three of them gave perfect performances; they were magnificent.”

“From the beginning the casting was Telly Savalas who had just shot with us. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing had a principle of agreement to shoot another film. They were sent the script, it seemed good and they accepted. Martín says that Cushing, depressed by the death of his wife, did not want to work. The grief and loneliness I felt were very strong. It was his partner Christopher Lee who had to convince him to continue in the film. ” It turned out that as Cushing did not want to work because he had an obsession that he felt very lonely, that he wanted to leave and it was Lee who told Bernard Gordon and me; Quiet and do not worry and leave it to me that tonight I talk to him at the hotel. I think it was a day or two before filming and Christopher Lee told him; ‘Well Peter, tomorrow we were to go together to the filming in the car and such’, and Cushing stared at him and did not say anything and they started the movie . ”  Despite feeling very affected by the death of his wife, Cushing, he behaved at all times with great education and professionalism. ” Exquisite. In the first place he was a man who dragged his recent pain over that death. But it is also that his way of being and behaving was so polite and helpless that we all appreciate it immediately in a unique way . “

“Alejandro already had a great experience when he made this movie. He was a very fast man in his work. It was a standard type of photography, but using the standard word in the best sense. I mean, it was a pretty American photograph, where you could see everything and there was always a lot of volume, many shadows, many shades between lights and shadows that gave a tone to the film very similar to the American ‘B’ series films, which is what we wanted, and in that sense he did it very well and very quickly. I am very happy with Alejandro’s photography . – Eugenio Martín on Cinematographer Alejando Ulloa

Director Eugenio Martín

Horror Express is just one of your many fantastic pictures. When did you realize that you wanted to spend your life in cinema? EUGENIO MARTIN: When I was a child. After the Spanish Civil War, we had no money to go to movies. But every time I was lucky enough to see you, I just went to the street, surrounded by other poor children, to tell you about the picture of the first. I succeeded in getting my “audience” enthralled that I supposed I was a jester, a buffoon. Telling tales suited me.

The film was produced by Bernard Gordon and written in part by Julian Zimet (as Julian Halevy) and Arnaud D’Usseau, three expatriate victims of the McCarthy witchhunts. Do you think any socialist politics ever made their way into the storythe creature’s persecution, perhaps? EUGENIO MARTIN: Well, first of all, Arnaud D’Usseau actually did not write anything for the script at all. In order to use the train we had left Pancho Villa, D’Usseau and Gordon sent him away. The actual authors of our script were Zimet, Gordon and myself. We understood each other so well on a human level, we got so nicely, that there was no need to actually discuss any political leanings. Anyway, I have so much their situation, the exile situation. It was very difficult for them. Whether or not any of that is in the film. who’s to say? You can find many underpinnings in almost all good stories if you look hard enough. But we never did that kind of writing on purpose.

Horror Express What the first movie Peter Cushing made the death of his wife Helen, and he almost did not do it. What are your memories of him? EUGENIO MARTIN: Peter was not only a marvelous professional, but also a very sweet person. He touched his fingers, made him feel more vulnerable, so he loved him on screen and off.

How about Christopher Lee? EUGENIO MARTIN: He was very easy to direct, a perfect professional as well. He never missed a line, never made a wrong movement. As an actor and as a human being, just terrific. He was very happy making the picture, I might add, and used to sing opera arias and Russian folk songs all the time on set God

I understand the commercial need to put on an international cast in thesis sorts of films, but having a bald , Savalas in the movie was opening an eccentric touch. What is some of that performance improvised? EUGENIO MARTIN: Oh yes, I gave more freedom to Savalas because of his having had a bit of baroque madness thrown in. It was a nice contrast with the mannered English of Cushing and Lee, and his performance is a highlight of the film , As far as the rest of the cast, the Spanish actors in the film spoke enough to manage, so it all worked well.

Jon Cacavas’ score is just great, all based on that eerie whistled refrain we hear almost as soon as the movie fades in. EUGENIO MARTIN: You’re right-it’s a brilliant piece of work. The sinister whistle of the creature! I could not work with Cacavas did much Either in pre- or post-production, Because we were solving many production problems elsewhere, so I just entrusted the music to him, and it paid off. Actually, we ran a great risk with him. INITIALLY. He was a good musician and a good friend of Savalas, but he was new to movies. When Savalas proposes him to Gordon, he asked, “Salary?” And Savalas replied: “He does not get any money.” He is a beginner in film. This pleased Gordon, of course, who gave him the job!

Did you treat the movie as “product” while making it, or did you aspire to greater heights? EUGENIO MARTIN: It seems to me that you use the word “product” in a sort of negative way. This film is a simple and beautiful adventure story with no pretensions, but with fantasy and subtle humor in its narrative, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s never needed to be anything else. I’m sure that if we had attempted to introduce an original theme or tried to make a movie, the result would have been false. Let’s remind you of David Mamet’s words that I think are very true: “For centuries, people have tried to change their lives, to influence them . ” I concur.

PRODUCTION/SPECIAL EFFECTS In charge of special FX was Pablo Pérez, who, like Martin himself, had worked on a number of movies during the heyday of Hispano-U.S. co-productions; he subsequently handled the FX on Paul Naschy’s Dracula’s Great Love in 1972 and Amando de Ossorio’s Templar opus Night of the Seagulls in 1975. “Pablo had done a lot of work on American productions, and in fact, the materials he used when we made Horror Express were stuff left behind when the Samuel Bronston outfit packed up their operations in Spain.”

The special makeup for the creature’s victims consisted basically of bright red blood flowing from eyes, mouths and noses and grotesque, bulging blank eyeballs like the eyes of boiled fish,” as one character remarks. To achieve the desired effect, chief makeup artist Julian Ruiz had special contact lenses made by Madrid opticians Óptica Collet-all white ones for the corpses and red ones for the bodies possessed by the alien.

Pablo Pérez helped with his ” FX ” to make the film’s tricks credible, and the makeup artist Julián Ruiz frightened a whole generation with his ” Zombies “”, The hominid creature found by Lee at the beginning of the film, the brain dissection of the key-keeper and the fluorescent red eyes. This effect was achieved by placing a few tiny bulbs to the red lenses of the prosthesis placed in the eyes of the actors. The bulbs were charged with a small battery powered by the actor himself. More complications brought the white lenses of the ” Living Dead “. A Madrid optician made them in exchange for the establishment’s name appearing in the credits, but the desired effect was not achieved. After two months of testing, it was possible to create white contact lenses through which nothing could be seen. The actor was totally blind.

“The most important effects were those of the contact lenses because at that time there were no means and we had to do a lot of tests before starting the shooting, we even got to establish a kind of contract with an optics house, one of the main ones in Madrid at that moment. An agreement was reached to sign the name of that company in the film. With this company we spent two months doing tests but that did not work. It was very difficult and in the end it worked on the basis that the actor was blind because with the lens he was wearing he could not see anything, then of course, the actor could not be told to perform a long or complicated scene because he did not see anything. It was the hardest thing to solve. It is good but at that time a problem that did not have to be, gave us problems to solve it.”

When the actors were totally blind when the contact lenses were placed, they had to walk with great care for the decoration. ” There was always a previous test. In the trial the actor already knew what he had to do. I had to walk five steps … be careful with a small table on the left … Always with a little trial and error. It even seemed to include a bit of mystery . ”

Let’s talk about the creature created by the make-up artist Julian Ruiz and let’s uncover the mystery. Who interpreted it? ” He was played by a very big guy, very clumsy. Juan Olaguivel, was a beast. It was hard to explain things to her because it was very closed. We took it, not only because it was already a monster , but because it had this aspect “.

The American composer of Greek origin John Cacavas , recommended by Savalas himself, was the author of the famous main theme. A simple melody that takes center stage when listening to the conductor interpreted by Victor Israel while he whistles her during his chores. ” The musician brought Telly Savalas. He was a friend of his from Greece and Telly wanted to give this musician a chance. He made the proposal to me and to Philip Yordan and then he gave us to listen to some things about him and I liked them a lot. I passed a report to Yordan and he asked me, “How much does it charge?” , and since I was going to charge little I accept and in effect, it was a success. I think it was very good . “

CONCLUSION ” Panic in the Trans-Siberian ” sold very well all over the world . In the Spanish billboard had a moderate acceptance. Martín blamed the little repercussion at the box office on the political climate that Spain was experiencing in the first half of the 1970s. “In America, in England … Everywhere. It worked much better than in Spain. Here it premiered at a very bad time. It was the end of Francoism and it was a time when in Spain or you made a film that supported anti-Francoism or you were a pariah, you were nothing in the cinema. At that time, making a fantastic movie had no interest for Spanish critics. Then the time has passed and they have said … ‘Hey, well, if it turns out that this movie is okay’, but they have had to spend many years ” .

At present it is a film very appreciated in great part of the world. His director is invited to Festivals and shows to talk about the most remembered film of his entire extensive filmography. ” Yes, I notice it because sometimes they invite me to talk about her and I tell them, but do you really want to talk about something that was done so many years ago?  Sometimes I do not explain it, but in finish. Bernard Gordon has told me; ‘You cannot imagine what they asked me. I go to universities and places to talk about this film ‘and I have been amazed, really . ”

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In his autobiography, Lee recalls his dissatisfaction with conditions at what he calls the “unspeakable, ghastly studio.” Although the Studio 70 complex had only recently been inaugurated, with a mere four films being shot there prior to Horror Express, it appears that the quality of the food and dressing rooms, among other things, were far below Lee’s expectations. Fortunately, a gentle reproach from Cushing brought him down to earth, and Lee gave another fine performance despite his off screen tribulations. The old magic evident in most Lee/Cushing collaborations is clearly present here, as in the scene where the pair sets off to track down the creature’s latest human host. The wary Inspector Mirov protests, “The two of you together. That’s fine. But what if one of you is the monster?” Cushing and Lee exchange a look of indignation, and the former delivers the priceless retort, “Monster? We’re British, you know!” Horror Express proved to be a big success, both financially and critically, almost everywhere-except in Spain. “Yes, it went down really well abroad, but nobody thought much of it here,” sighs the director. “The Spanish critics reviewed it following their usual negative criteria, writing it off as nothing more than a throwaway commercial sub-product for mass consumption, and as such unworthy of serious attention. Actually, I was a bit surprised myself at the film’s popularity overseas, but it didn’t really do a great deal for my subsequent career.”

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CAST/CREW Christopher Lee as Professor Sir Alexander Saxton Peter Cushing as Dr. Wells Silvia Tortosa as Countess Irina Petrovski (dubbed by Olive Gregg) Telly Savalas as Captain Kazan Alberto de Mendoza as Father Pujardov (dubbed by Robert Rietti) Helga Liné as Natasha (dubbed by Olive Gregg) Alice Reinheart as Miss Jones (dubbed by Olive Gregg) Julio Peña as Inspector Mirov (dubbed by Roger Delgado) Ángel del Pozo as Yevtushenko José Jaspe as Conductor Konev George Rigaud as Count Marion Petrovski Víctor Israel as Maletero the baggage man Faith Clift as American passenger (credited as Faith Swift) Juan Olaguivel as the Creature (credited as Juan Olaguibel) Barta Barri as First telegraphist

Production Design Ramiro Gómez (as Gomez Ramiro)

Set Decoration by Ramiro Gómez

Makeup Department Rafael Berraquero assistant makeup artist Fernando Florido makeup artist Romana González assistant hair stylist Julián Ruiz makeup supervisor

Special Effects Pablo Pérez special effects Fernando Pérez special effects (uncredited) Visual Effects by Brian Stevens optical effects

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Monsterworld No. 2 September 2007 Famous Monsters of Filmland#105 Fangoria#186 Fangoria#305 Starburst Magazine 419

Horror Express (1972) Retrospective SUMMARY In 1906, Saxton (Cristopher Lee), a renowned British anthropologist, returns to Europe in the Trans-Siberian from China to Moscow .

[typical-trope]

Where Senility Ends

Summary: Logan cares for Charles in the silo. Did I already write this setting? Too bad, have another one. I don’t even know if it’s heartbreaking or just worn out anymore.

WARNING: a rather graphic quote from x-men is used, regarding Auschwitz. It’s marked with a (5), and is that entire paragraph. It can be skipped

Logan walked into the fallen silo and slammed the door closed, making sure Charles wouldn’t be startled by his sudden appearance. It had taken him several months to realize the professor wasn’t always home anymore, and the times when he wasn’t were coming more and more frequently. Especially as Logan found the necessary medicines harder and harder to come by. It wasn’t that Chuck was becoming senile. He would just lose himself in his powers more often.

It hadn’t been so bad when Magneto had been around to help draw out the younger man. Logan had always admired Erik for his ability to remind Charles of just who and where he was. But the first of the seizures had taken that option out of the equation rather soundly.

Logan walked over to Charles bed and fell on the uncomfortable, stolen, hospital cot. He closed his eyes to the ranting professor, hoping to get some rest before he needed to go back out to the limo and pick up the next ungrateful fare.

“(1)We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. (2)The taxpayers should not be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business. (3)Destroy a whole generation of those who have known how to walk with heads erect in God’s free air, and the next generation will rise against the oppressors and restore freedom.”

Logan threw an arm over his eyes. He already knew blocking out the mishmash of rhetoric was impossible. He couldn’t even know why Chuck was quoting old speeches. He really wished it would stop, though. Just for a few minutes. Just long enough for him to get some fucking shut-eye.

“(4)Good evening my fellow citizens: This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet Military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.”

Logan groaned and turned on his side, pressing a pillow over his ears. He had heard the damn speech enough times to have it memorized himself, and he wasn’t even American. It had been one of the first things that really clued the Institute off that all might not be well with their beloved Professor.

And it had been the emotionally constipated Magneto to notice it.

Logan still wasn’t sure why that particular speech had been the one to set off alarm bells, but it had certainly gotten old metal-bender’s panties in a twist. Or it would have, if he’d ever worn any.

And now, it was the only speech Charles would actually finish with any consistency. Of course, the Emancipation Proclamation was also on the short list, but that one showed up rather infrequently.

“(5)My name is Max Eisenhardt. I’ve been a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz for almost two years. I watched thousands of men, women, and children walk to their deaths. I pulled their bodies from the gas chambers. I dug out their teeth so the Germans could take their gold. And I carried them to the ovens, where I learned how to combine a child’s body with an old man’s to make them burn better.

“Alright, bub. That’s it for today.” Logan rolled off the cot and stumbled over to the man pruning his tomato plants.

“Oh, Logan, when did you come in?” Cloudy blue eyes tried their hardest to focus on Logan, as aware of him as they ever could be.

“About ten minutes ago, Chuck. I think it’s time to go to bed now.” Logan leaned more heavily on the wheelchair than he typically would, using its sturdy build to keep his aching bones upright.

“I can see that the sun is still up. I don’t really see the need for that quite yet.”

“Well I want some sleep, and you know I always sleep better when I know where you are.” There had been a time when such a confession would have prompted a wave of affectionate amusement from the man. Now, though, the telepath was always so drugged up that he couldn’t focus on projecting emotions. Or, that’s what he always claimed. Logan had the sneaking suspicion that Charles was far more coherent than he let on, and was simply avoiding the one mind that could give him all the answers he feared knowing. Logan understood and even approved of the hesitancy. He already had to take the burden of the school’s death on his shoulders. He didn't need the added work of comforting a heartbroken nonagenarian.

“(6)He was not at all an unpleasant person really, but clever, quick, proud, passionate and ambitious. He was one of those people who would be neither a follower nor a leader, but

only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned it.”

Logan huffed as he carefully set Charles on the mattress. Moving the blankets out from under thin legs was always the hardest part, if only because he was impatient to join the man. Having to listen to him spout off sonnets about dead people was just a bonus. “I know you love him, Chuck. You don’t have to remind me.”

“Why do you always assume I’m thinking of Erik?” Charles turned onto his side, expression soft and open as he watched Logan kick off his boots. “My words apply to you just as much as they ever do to him.” As soon as Logan was stretched out beside him, Charles nuzzled closer, wispy hair tangling with wiry beard. “It’s not my fault you’re an illiterate brute.”

Logan snorted and pulled the frail body closer to him, pressing in for comfort more than warmth. “(7)Well then, kiss me, – since my mother left her blessing on my brow, there has been a something wanting in my nature until now; I can dimly comprehend it, – that I might have been more kind.” Charles’ hand tightened its grip on Logan’s between them.

“Don’t leave me behind, Logan. I’m so alone already, and I don’t know why. I don’t know where my family has gone, and I’m rather afraid to ask.”

Logan’s old heart twisted at the way Charles’ voice shook. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat, unable to present even a white lie. He knew it would ring false in their proximity. Instead, he kissed the bald pate below his chin, offering comfort and assurance of his presence. “I ain’t much anymore, Chuck, but you’re stuck with me.” He waited for a response, and glanced down when none came.

Charles was asleep, his breathing even, though his body still tense in fear. It would take a few minutes for Logan to relax, and cause a similar sensation of ease in the telepath. But it would happen. And in the evening, Caliban would enter and wake the pair. He wouldn’t comment on their intimate positions. Just on the lateness of the hour, and the need for a continued income, if they were to avoid unpleasant side effects.

It was one of the many reasons Logan managed not to stick his claws in the albino. Discretion. Dependability. Culinary skills. All were invaluable in the middle of the fucking desert Logan would call home until he had the funds to sail Charles out to sea, surrounded by water, surrounded by memories of Erik, and end their forsaken lives together.

Quoted speeches:

1. “I Have a Dream” Martin Luther King

2. “Checkers” Richard Nixon

3. “What is an American?” Harold Ickes

4. “On the Cuban Missile Crisis” John F. Kennedy

5. X-Men: Magneto Testament Vol 1 #14

6. “The Once and Future King” T.H.White

7. “From the Old Astronomer to his Pupil” Sarah Williams

[lordraveondagooseofdolallytap]

Barry’s Day

Thursday 6th June 1968

The new headmaster, Mr Barret, had them all in the hall just before dinner time. He has stopped the morning lessons and told the teachers to bring all the children right away. He had something to tell everyone. Barry Bridger was heading in that direction.

Weedy looking Barry Bridger was altogether a sad looking sight. The flappy shorts summed it up. Forever sliding from his hips. He walked along with the others in the direction of the hall, hitching up his shorts every few steps. It was now a pattern, Barry, was that boy who was always having to pull his kegs up.

Mrs Sparrow, watched as Barry went by. She spoke to a younger female teacher, a twitchy looking probationer, “Why for God sake doesn’t that lad’s mother get him some pants that fit…and a handkerchief while she’s at it. Look at the snot crusted on his sleeves. It’s always the sad little buggers who live in places like Hunslet that have Catarrh? Never the bloody Alwoodleys.”

Barry looked to the back row for an empty chair. If he were not sharp he’d end having to stand at the end. The ‘fourth years’, like him, were at the back because they were taller than the smaller kids, and so could see over their heads (Barry was not and barely could). Them in 4S were almost all eleven and would be off to the secondary after the summer holidays. A few to the Grammar, but the rest were for the Secondary Modern. His mum said that was fine. He would be able to leave when he was fifteen and start earning.

Barry had figured the call to the hall would be about the stealing that was going on in the cloakrooms. People’s dinner money was getting taken, and somebody had nicked the big jar outside the office with all the pennies and stamps for Africa in it. Then Barry noticed the outsize TV on a trolley down at the front. The one they watched the school programmes on. Maybe this was not about stealing.

Mr Barret clapped his hands together and called out for everyone to be quiet. “This is a bad day for the whole world,” he said”. He waited until everyone looked up. “Somebody in America had shot a man called Robert Kennedy, who wanted to be President”. Kennedy’s brother had been killed five years before in the same way. This was very sad. A lady teacher then turned on the TV. A live broadcast coming in from America. They sat quietly for a minute waiting for the set to warm up and the picture appears. Nothing happened, then there was a bad smell and the children on the front rows giggled. Something in the set had blown, so Mr Barret told the lady teacher to turn the TV off and unplug it at the wall.

Unperturbed Barret picked up a card from a table and said he wanted to read out something that Mr Kennedy had said in a speech a while before he was shot on another bad day. He had just found out that another man, a black man called Martin Luther King, had been shot. That man was trying to make things better for other black people because things had not been fair. Kennedy was being a good man and trying to help the people who were getting upset about the black man’s murder .Mr Barret added that “lots of people got shot in America”, and they were all lucky to live in Leeds.

Barry was to forget most of Kennedy’s words spoken that day, but one line stuck itself in his head. Odd ones maybe for a young lad, “Tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world”. Barry remembered that. Always. No that’s wrong. He remembered it, then forgot it for a long time, but then remembered it just in time.

 At the Cubs that night Akela asked if anybody had something important happen that week. One boy said his sister had a baby and it was coming to live at his house. Barry decided that his news at least matched the importance set by that report. He spoke with earnestness “A man called Robert Kennedy who wanted to be President in America has been shot. Now people have to “Tame the Savageness of man”. Akela looked surprised

Later on, there was a special ceremony they had when you got too old for the Cubs, and it was time to be a Scout. Everyone stood in a circle except Barry who was in the middle. At the front, there was Akela again and next to him, the Akela for the Scouts. He, Barry had to recite the Scouts promise and then the Cub Akela had said that he, Barry “tried hard and was very good-natured and did his best at all times”. Then Barry was a Scout. He didn’t have the uniform yet, but he told the Scout Akela his mum was looking.

When cubs finished, he bought some chips and set off home. He pondered on what the Cub leader had said. Barry knew people thought him backward or ‘Remedial as they sometimes called it. His mum said he was a slow learner but reminded him everyone also said he had a heart of gold. Mum had told Mrs Sparrow not to put him in for the 11+ exam for the Grammar School, as it was pointless and would just make him feel bad. Mum would always go on about how he would do well in other ways. Ones that would count for more in the end.

The other people made it sound like being ‘nice’ was a sign of being Remedial, that he was too stupid to be nasty. Barry walked on.

The last stretch before home was through the derelict houses still waiting to come down twenty years after the Germans had dropped bombs on them. Barry had sometimes ‘got a hiding’ there. He was small for his years, and his shorts too long and baggy, so he would get thumped. The girls would laugh at him, and then the lads would debag him, pull his kegs down and run off with them so he had to go home bare arsed.

All this picking on him had got a lot worse since one teacher, Mr Potter, who took them for sports started calling him, ‘Namow’. Potter gave him that name and now everyone used it.

“Barry Bridger, you’re a Namow, a bloody Namow. Now ask me what that means”

Barry’s eyes had filled up, but he did as he was bid. “What is a Namow, Mr Potter,” he barked in imitation of his teacher?

“It’s a backward woman, Bridger. And that’s what you are. A Backward Woman. You should be at the spastic’s school or with the ESN’s”. The girls laughed, and so did all of the lads he thought might have been friends. Barry knew they had to or Mr Potter would get them next.

It was all going to get worse at the secondary school, come September. They had lads there who were fifteen. Some stayed on till they were sixteen. And he, Barry would be bottom of the pile. He had seen the letter his mother got from secondary school.

He was going to be in a class called ‘A8’. A cousin had told him with glee that the, ‘A’ meant he was a pupil in the first year, and the eight meant he was ‘a Remedial’. That is somebody who is thick, as that is the very bottom class. So there were seven classes above him who were cleverer and none below who were worse. And that’s not counting the Grammar School kids who were better even than the ‘A1’s in the Secondary Modern School.”

The cousin told Barry he was a ‘Spazzer’ but also that there would also be lads in his class who were ‘Toughies’. Boys like John Busby, who sometimes had fights with the teachers. Busby had once punched Barry on the head but hurt his knuckles doing it.

Truth be told Barry was not soft nor for that matter stupid either. In time people would find he outstripped those who were supposedly smarter than him. He did that by finding his niche in life but success is a long way off and Lord God this boy was going to go through the mill. And first, he had to deal with bloody awful teachers. Kids like the Spazzers and the Toughies always got the rubbish teachers. Like Higgins who they had in the second year who made them play strip spelling.

Instead of stupid Barry was two other things. A slow developer and “wholly literal about everything”. Mrs Sparrow had said that last thing. Barry had thought she said ‘Holy Literal,’ and that meant something bad in RE, but mum had put him right. It could become one of his special powers. That was her idea.

“Teachers, taken as a group are not what they are cracked up to be”. This is mum making a grand announcement one time. “They are rubbish at understanding how children grow along their own path and how it can take longer for some to get to where they are heading. These children are going slow all the way through, but keep going when everyone else stops. That because they are literal. Like your uncle Bernie, who kept plodding on regardless till one day he looked around and was amazed”. Then she said about the Ugly Duckling story and that had spoilt it.

Barry knew other boys who were clever at just one thing but Remedial at everything else. They might not do well all round, but got very good at what they liked. One boy collected photos of all the Church of England Bishops in the world. They were signed pictures and the boy spent all his time at home finding out about these men. No one else knew more than him about Bishops. He had them all on a world map in his bedroom. If anyone asked who the Bishop of Cape Town was, he could tell them and say what their hobbies were and where else in the world they had been. Places like Malawi. Barry did not have anything to be special at.

Other boys were Remedial but instead of going sideways like the Bishop Boy they went bad and were touchy about everything. They would say things like “who are you looking at” and then thump that person. Bray them really bad sometimes. And they were not scared of the teachers about anything. Barry did not know what happened to the Remedial girls. Mum said they had babies.

Mum had to stop saying that his special powers were niceness’ and that it would win out in the end, but how does niceness win when everyone hates people who are nice unless the Holy Literalness was something along the same lines?

Barry’s was right about Hunslet not being a fancier of niceness or anything like it. London and ‘down there’ was all peace and love, Hunslet favoured meanness and admired the callous. You saw it without looking for it. Lads walking off to Moor Edge in search of mixy rabbits to bray with sticks or tormenting the Mongol lad who peed himself or terrorising the old woman who was trying to find her baby. If the place had a motto, it would be “don’t be different”. When you were smaller the women might intervene and stick up for you but now they said to fight your own battles.

Hunslet smelt of sulphur. Gave you a catch in the throat. Made you spit. Run your finger across any surface, and you got a smear of grime. It was to the south of the city centre and little below the filthy and corrupted River Aire. In 69 the body of a man kicked about by Leeds City Police would end up face down in that river and for a time everyone got to see the badness. It was there on the front page of the Yorkshire Evening Post each night.

Industrial premises, shabby terraces and the gaping spaces left by bombs and slum clearance. A seeping, septic boil on the backside of mucky old Leeds.

In pristine Norfolk market towns, civic-minded people might scrabble about on their hands and knees if they dropped a scrap of paper. In Hunslet, they would let it be, cough up some phlegm and then spit on it, and then tell jokes about shop doorway whores, VD, bodily functions and the fucking Pakis. Who was going to stick up for kids like our Barry?

Eleven-year-old Barry Bridger was about to witness the ugliness of this place again: left to himself, as he was, the boy would have to make his own mind up.

He heard the dog before he saw it Yelping and whining. He followed the sound out of an instinct of concern. When he turned the corner, he saw a small group of boys hurling scraps of rubble at an emaciated dog cornered in what had once been someone’s cellar. The creature struggled to get up on its feet, the bones of its hind legs smashed. There was a terror in the dog’s eyes, but rather than drawing pity from lads it drove them on.

The boys were only a couple of years older than Barry, but they were already aping the dumb cruelty of the city’s worst types, Vying with one another in callousness and crudity. Nasty Leeds. Every bit of me hates you.

Barry ran right for the middle of the group. He grabbed a half brick on his way, leapt and then brought it down with force on the tallest boys head. The youth buckled at the knees and dropped like a sack. Barry’s righteous rage was not blown. He grabbed a rust sheaved length of the railing and lunged with a great outward swipe at another boy. It caught him on the tip of his chin and sent his head pivoting backwards in a brutal, jarring movement. He too fell. Barry turned and now stabbed with the railing at the head of another boy, but this time the lad ducked, and then scrambled away, quickly followed by two others. Little Barry had felled or driven off five boys a full head taller than himself; and he felt righteous and strong like an avenging superhero. Places had been traded. They were now the scared ones.

Barry decided he had done well, like the dead man, Kennedy.

He looked over at the whining, broken creature and the boy wept with a burning pity. Now he had to be strong like Kennedy. He picked up another brick and smashed the dog’s skull. It was something that a good person had to do even though it might seem bad if you didn’t know the whole story.

[romancatholicreflections]

21st May >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflection for Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A (John 14:15–21): ‘ I will not leave you orphans ‘.

Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A Gospel (Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Canada & Southern Africa) John 14:15-21 Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If you love me you will keep my commandments. I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever, that Spirit of truth whom the world can never receive since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you. In a short time the world will no longer see me; but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will understand that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them will be one who loves me; and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and show myself to him.’ Gospel (USA) John 14:15–21 I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate. Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” Reflections (3) (i) Sixth Sunday of Easter There is a story told of a primary school teacher who wanted to get her pupils to memorize the Apostles Creed line by line, the shorter of the two creeds. She explained that it was written in Rome in the second century and how it has twelve main statements corresponding to the twelve apostles after which it is named. Twelve children were picked to represent each of the apostles and each one had a part of the creed to say. Her intention was that these twelve would repeat their piece each day at the beginning of class. One day it seemed to be going along fine. ‘He ascended into heaven’, one boy said. ‘And is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty’, said another. ‘From there he will come to judge the living and the dead’, another continued. Then there was complete silence. The teacher looked up and a little girl said, ‘Oh, Eric is the one who believes in the Holy Spirit, and he’s sick today’. The teacher may have been tempted to ask at that point, ‘Hands up all the others who believe in the Holy Spirit’. The statement in the Apostles Creed about the Holy Spirit is very brief, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit’, and that’s it! We are only two weeks away from the feast of Pentecost, the feast of the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first disciples, and the Sunday readings have begun to mention the Holy Spirit more frequently. The Holy Spirit has often been referred to as the forgotten person of the Blessed Trinity. Archbishop Anthony Bloom, a well-know writer of the Russian Orthodox Church, recalls a time when he was discussing Christianity with a learned Japanese writer. The writer told the Archbishop, ‘I think I understand about the Father and the Son, but I can never understand the significance of the honourable bird’. Perhaps he is not alone in that regard even among Christians. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as an Advocate or, in some versions, a Paraclete. The term that is used for the Holy Spirit there was originally a legal term. It refers to someone who is called upon to stand alongside a person who is in court on some charge. The paraclete or advocate was the person who defended them against the charge, who helped and supported them in a pressurized situation. In the gospel reading Jesus is speaking in the setting of the last supper. He is about to leave his disciples and return to his Father, but as he does so, he promises his disciples, and all of us, that he won’t be abandoning them. He won’t leave them like orphans, as he says. He will come back to them through the Paraclete or Advocate. He will be present to them through the Holy Spirit, helping them, supporting them, defending them, especially when they find themselves put on trial by the world of unbelief. When he says that he will send them ‘another Advocate’, he is implying that up until now he has been their Advocate. He has been their friend, supporting them, defending them against their critics. Now he will be sending them another Advocate, the Holy Spirit. He will continue to befriend them through the Holy Spirit, especially when they encounter the world’s hostility because of their proclamation of the gospel. Jesus is explaining the significance of the honourable bird! He declares that in and through the Holy Spirit he remains present to his disciples after his death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit enables Jesus to be present, not just to a group of disciples at a particular time and place, but to disciples of every generation, in every place. The Lord promises to be our Advocate through the Holy Spirit, to stand by us and strengthen us, especially when we find ourselves on trial, in the dock, before a hostile world. Many believers, and many Catholics, feel themselves in the dock today more than ever. It seems at times as if the assault on the church is relentless. We can be tempted to keep our head down and become invisible. We need the Paraclete, the Advocate, today more than ever. It is the Holy Spirit who keeps us hopeful in the midst of all the negativity. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the courage to witness simply but firmly to our faith. It is the Holy Spirit who, in the words of today’s second reading, encourages us to ‘give the reason for the hope that you all have… with courtesy and respect and with a clear conscience’. No matter how bad our own personal situation is, or the situation of the church as a whole, the Lord never abandons us. His love for us endures; it is as tenacious as the love of a parent for his or her child. That is why Jesus uses that expression in the gospel reading, ‘I will not leave you orphans’. The Lord has come back to us through the Holy Spirit who is with us, who is within us. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of his faithful love. According to the gospel reading, what the Lord asks of us in return is that we love him by keeping his commandments, especially his one, new, commandment, to love one another as he has loved us. And/Or (ii) Sixth Sunday of Easter We know from our own experience that we can be closed to some proposal at one moment in our lives and then open to that same proposal at another, later, moment. We can find ourselves saying ‘no’ to something, and then, later on, saying ‘yes’. We often need time to come around to accepting what we were initially inclined to reject. Such a change of mind and heart over time is not necessarily a sign of weakness or of inconsistency on our part. Rather, it often indicates a readiness to reconsider, to look again, a willingness to acknowledge that there is more here than I first realized. Most of us admire people who are able to say that they have had another think about something, and in the light of that are now ready to accept what they had dismissed. According to St. Luke in his gospel, when Jesus first attempted to preach the gospel to the people of Samaria, they rejected him and his message, because they realized that he was a Jew whose face was set towards Jerusalem. In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells us that when Philip went to a Samaritan town and preached the gospel, the Samaritans welcomed the message of Philip with great joy. Although they had rejected Jesus, they now received his messenger. What Jesus was unable to do in the course of his earthly ministry, the risen Lord accomplished through Philip. The Samaritans’ initial response to the gospel was not to be their final response. The Lord did not take the Samaritans’ initial response as final. He continued to offer the gospel to those who had initially refused it, and in time, they received it. The story of Jesus’ relationship with the Samaritans reminds us that the Lord remains faithful to us, even when we are not very responsive to him. The season of Easter celebrates this faithfulness of the Lord. When the risen Lord appeared to his disciples who had abandoned and denied him, he said to them ‘Peace be with you’. The Lord was giving them an opportunity to make a different response to him to the one they had made during the darkness of his passion. The Responsorial Psalm declares, ‘Blessed be God who did not withhold his love from me’. The risen Jesus reveals a God who does not withhold his love even from those who rejected him. Easter celebrates the good news that the Lord’s faithfulness is stronger than our faithlessness. That is why Easter makes us a hopeful people. We are hopeful because we know that, as St. Paulputs it in his letter to the Romans, ‘nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ - not even our own tendency to say ‘no’ to the Lord. St. Peter in the second reading calls on believers to always have ‘your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have’. The hope that we have does not come from anything in ourselves; it is rooted in the Lord’s faithfulness to us. We are hopeful because we know that the Lord will never turn away from us; we are hopeful because we know that his ‘yes’ is always stronger than our ‘no’. Peter tells us in that reading that Christ died for us to lead us to God. We are confident that the Lord will stop at nothing to lead us to God, and that is why we are hopeful. In the gospel reading Jesus assures us that if we do respond to his initiative towards us, if we strive to love him in response to his love for us, then we will experience the coming of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. ‘If you love me’, he says, ‘I shall ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever’. When the Samaritans finally made their response to the preaching of the gospel, they experienced the coming of the Spirit into their lives. Their response to the Lord met with an even greater response to them from the Lord. The Lord gives generously to all who open their hearts to him. If we turn to the Lord and seek him, he will give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. We often associate the giving of the Spirit with the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. These are indeed special moments when we are given the Spirit, but the gift of the Spirit is not limited to these moments. The Lord gives us this gift whenever, like the Samaritans, we respond to the Lord’s initiative towards us. We are only two weeks away from the Feast of Pentecost. In preparation for this great feast, we might commit ourselves to praying each day that simple but powerful prayer, ‘Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful’. In today’s gospel reading, the Spirit is spoken of as the Spirit of Truth. A little later in John’s gospel, Jesus says that ‘when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth’. The Lord gives the Spirit to those who love him as a guide. We are only too well aware of our need of guidance, especially when it comes to taking the right path, the path the Lord wants us to take, the one that leads towards him who is the Truth. And/Or (iii) Sixth Sunday of Easter We know from our own experience that we can be closed to some proposal at one moment in our lives and then open to that same proposal at another, later, moment. We can find ourselves saying ‘no’ to something, and then, later on, saying ‘yes’. Our initial reaction to some proposal that comes our way is not always our final reaction. We often need time to come around to accepting what we were initially inclined to reject. Such a change of mind and heart over time is not necessarily a sign of weakness or of inconsistency on our part. Rather, it often indicates a readiness to reconsider, to look again, a willingness to acknowledge that there is more here than I first realized. Most of us admire people who are able to say that they have had another think about something, and in the light of that are now ready to accept what they had dismissed. According to St. Luke in his gospel, when Jesus first attempted to preach the gospel to the people of Samaria, they rejected him and his message, because they realized that he was a Jew whose face was set towards Jerusalem. The same Luke tells us in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s second volume, that when Philip went to a Samaritan town and preached the gospel, the Samaritans welcomed the message of Philip with great joy. Although they had rejected Jesus, they now received his messenger. What Jesus was unable to do in the course of his earthly ministry, the risen Lord accomplished through the ministry of Philip, a Greek speaking Jewish Christian. The Samaritans’ initial response to the preaching of the gospel was not to be their final response. The Lord did not take the Samaritans’ initial response as final. He continued to offer the gospel to those who had initially refused it, and in time, they received it. The story of Jesus’ relationship with the Samaritans reminds us that the Lord remains faithful to us, even when we are less than responsive to him. The season of Easter celebrates this faithfulness of the Lord. When the risen Lord appeared to his disciples who had abandoned and denied him, he said to them ‘Peace be with you’. The Lord was giving them an opportunity to make a different response to him to the one they had made during the darkness of his passion. The Responsorial Psalm declares, ‘Blessed be God who did not withhold his love from me’. The risen Jesus reveals a God who does not withhold his love even from those who have rejected him in the past. Easter celebrates the good news that the Lord’s faithfulness is stronger than our faithlessness. That is why Easter makes us a hopeful people. We are hopeful because we know that, as St. Paulputs it in his letter to the Romans, ‘nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ - not even our own tendency to say ‘no’ to the Lord. St. Peter in the second reading calls on believers to always have ‘your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have’. The hope that we have does not come from anything in ourselves; it is rooted in the Lord’s faithfulness to us. We are hopeful because we know that the Lord will never turn away from us; we are hopeful because we know that his ‘yes’ is always stronger than our ‘no’. Peter tells us in that reading that Christ died for us to lead us to God. We are confident that the Lord will stop at nothing to lead us to God, and that is why we are hopeful. In the gospel reading Jesus assures us that if we do respond to his initiative towards us, if we strive to love him in response to his love for us, then we will experience the coming of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. ‘If you love me’, he says, ‘I shall ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever’. When the Samaritans finally made their response to the preaching of the gospel, they experienced the coming of the Spirit into their lives. Their response to the Lord met with an even greater response to them from the Lord. The Lord gives generously to all who open their hearts to him. If we turn to the Lord and seek him, he will give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. We often associate the giving of the Spirit with the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. These are indeed special moments when we are given the Spirit, but the gift of the Spirit is not limited to these moments. The Lord gives us this gift whenever, like the Samaritans, we respond to the Lord’s initiative towards us. We are only two weeks away from the Feast of Pentecost. In preparation for this great feast, we might commit ourselves to praying each day that simple but powerful prayer, ‘Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful’. In today’s gospel reading, the Spirit is spoken of as the Spirit of Truth. A little later in John’s gospel, Jesus says that ‘when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth’. The Lord gives the Spirit to those who love him as a guide. We are only too well aware of our need of guidance, especially when it comes to taking the right path, the path the Lord wants us to take, the one that leads towards him who is the Truth. The Spirit will help us to discern where that path lies and will also give us the courage to take that path. That is why we need to pray, ‘Come Holy Spirit’. Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland. Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ieJoinus via our webcam. Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC. Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf. Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.