An Aside

?It?s not really fear,? she finally offered. ?It?s more akin to shame. It?s also been self-indulgence, as I?ve been letting you try to sympathize with me. That?s a nice feeling. And, you may not realize it, but I do care what you think of me. It?s not something that I worry over, but? in truth I?m no saint my friend, and no innocent.?

?You think I?ll stop liking you?? I asked, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice. After the past two months it seemed pretty juvenile, especially coming from her.

Note: What follows may be distressing to some readers

?Not quite,? she replied, turning her head to one side to look at me. It was almost pretty, except for the cold seriousness in her eyes. ?What I am afraid of is that you?ll come to see me as dangerous. Wicked even. I don?t like that. But perhaps you should, and I don?t like that either. You might even come to fear me.?

?Fear you? I already do, at least a little. You?re something way beyond my experience. You?re rich and maybe even a little capricious. And,? I grinned, ?you pack a wallop.?

She smiled faintly at that, but her eyes didn?t smile with her lips. For a second, I wondered if she?d had more than one reason for bringing that pistol with her today. But as I thought it, she stiffened.

?You know you?re in no danger here, today. If you don?t know that, then? then we have little more to talk of now. Or ever.?

?It would help if you?d just tell me what?s on your mind. Why would I fear you?? As I said it I reached into my pocket and produced the recorder, deliberately turning it on.

She looked at it, then back at me, before turning her gaze out across the river again.

?I am a murderer,? she said, her voice expressionless.

?You?ve killed people. I can?t imagine living as long as you without being forced to do that at some point.?

?I?ve killed people out of convenience. I?ve killed? I?ve murdered because it felt good to kill, because I didn?t see any reason not to. I?ve killed men mostly, but also women? sometimes people whose only mistake was to encounter me when I just didn?t care??

I didn?t say a word, just waited. Eventually she spoke again.

?The first time? the first time was in a place much like this.

?Her name was Saennuz. She was the mate of the patriarch of the clan and as is often the case in such things she was the real power in the group. Her man enforced the rules and kept order, but in the dark hours of the night he took her counsel and marked it well. She was very intelligent, beautiful by the standards of the time, and quite ruthless. She despised me.

?I suppose it may surprise you but in the years after finding a new tribe for Attuz, I slowly learned that life was still easiest for me as a slave. I was wise enough to leave him behind before he aged, as painful as that was for the both of us. As I could not allow myself to fall in love again, life as a valued, skilled property was generally easiest if I were to stay among humans, and for the longest time I still did.

?So it was many years later that I found myself among Saennuz?s people. Seannuz?s man bought me from a village in a valley near his own. He knew I was barren and in the simple calculus of power politics he thought I would make for a welcome diversion in a clan that was somewhat bereft of women. I had been in the previous clan for several years, keeping time with the old shaman. I?d learned all I ever would from him, so I welcomed the chance to move on.

?Of course, he failed to consult with Saennuz on this. Mind you, she had nothing to fear from me. I couldn?t have babies and everyone knew it, but I was young, and healthy, and pretty, and strong. Jealousy overrode her common sense.

?I did everything I could think of to mollify her. I deferred to her in all things. I took every nasty, filthy task she could hand out and acted grateful to have the work. But nothing satisfied her.

?It came to a head that first summer, after there had been a gathering with some of the neighboring clans. A few matches were made and Saennuz concluded it was time to get rid of me.

?Her man would have sent me away if she?d told him to. He hated all the friction, but she never suggested it. Instead, after the gathering she became even more unbearable. She was pregnant again, her sixth child, and it made her insufferable in general. Perhaps that is why I failed to understand what she had in mind.?

Zsallia paused, and stared out at the water. Her tone had been almost a monotone, though there was a tiny waver to it that might have been from the chill. Finally she went on.

?Saennuz told me one morning to follow her to the river. She?d been having good luck with a fish trap she?d set up near the bank and wanted me to spend the day there. It was light duty even if it would be all day?and we would be alone. We arrived at the trap and I saw she?d set it up just after the bend of the river. Some trees offered shade, which made it easier to see the fish when they came up against the barrier of rocks. It was a nice piece of work, but it was also a bit treacherous. The current picked up a quite bit there, and the bank fell off into deep water if you stepped out too far.

?She asked me if I knew how to swim. I had my back to her, watching the fish trap, but something in her voice made me decide to lie so I told her ?no?.

?She must have used a rock because the next thing I knew I was floating downstream, choking on river water. My head was throbbing with pain.

?I managed to fight the current and make my way to the bank and once I caught my breath I realized I was not too far downstream. Strangely enough I wasn?t even angry. I considered leaving. I could let her have her little victory, move on down the river, and find a new place, but something about that idea left me cold. I liked this clan.

?I made my way up the river. It wasn?t far. I found Saennuz calmly working the fish trap and I stopped to watch her. She was just spearing fish and tossing them on the bank, humming a happy little tune, utterly unconcerned. Somehow that sight disturbed me far more than the idea that she had tried to kill me. I was over five hundred years old at that point, so she wasn?t the first to try that. But the idea that she would do it and then just go about her business? it annoyed me.

?I fetched up a good sized stone and waited for her to crouch over the trap, knowing she would be quite still for several seconds, then I let fly. My aim was true, but she flinched. Perhaps she heard me as I threw, but in any case it just grazed the right side of her head. She cried out and spun around, then froze as she saw me.

?She smiled. Laughed, actually. ?You?re tougher than I thought,? she said, ?now get back to work.?

?I walked towards her and her expression narrowed. She must have seen my intent. I?ll give her credit: she didn?t back down, but charged at me instead. The water slowed her, but as I struck out she shifted and threw her shoulder into me, forcing me to fall backwards as she scrambled up the bank. I reached out and caught her by her tunic, pulling myself up towards her. She lashed out with her foot and connected with my collar bone, and I felt it crack. My left arm went numb. She kicked again, aiming for my throat, but I grabbed her foot and slipped it to one side, and she slid down a bit. Her other foot caught my hip, and she shoved me back down the bank.

?Regaining her feet, she ran for the trees. I recovered and set after her. It wasn?t too hard, as she only had a couple of steps on me, and I was taller. I tackled her just inside the trees. She hit hard and I felt her breath escape in a rush as she curled up in pain, her arms encircling her midsection, and she was still struggling as I forced her on to her back with my good hand and straddled her chest. Her eyes met mine, and for the first time I could remember, I saw fear in her.

?My left arm was still numb, but I laid my left palm across her throat. She was trapped beneath me, my knees pinning her arms to the ground. My right hand settled on a rock, and seized it up as she finally drew a breath.

?Wait?? was all she managed to say before I brought the rock down on her head.?

Zsallia stopped talking. She was kneading the palms of her hands, and staring down at the river. I started to talk, but she just shook her head and gave me a quiet gesture with her hand. No, she seemed to say without words. I?m not done. Her voice when she spoke again was still dull, and flat.

?The rock?. it made a sound. A solid, sickening ?thok!? Then a high, thin squeal came out of her, like a whispered scream. But that stopped as I struck her again. And again. And again. And again??

She stopped again, drawing a deep, ragged breath that whistled as she exhaled. Her eyes were moist, but otherwise dead as she stared at the water.

?I would hit her? and her body would jerk underneath me, like spasms, or convulsions? there were pieces of bone? and so much blood?? she paused and her eyes turned towards me, almost pleading. But before I could react she shook herself, turned back to look out across the river, and went on.

?I kept hitting her until I felt all the breath go out of her, then I stopped, staring down at the bloody ruin of her face and head. I was fascinated by what I had done. I?d never simply killed anyone before. I?d seen death countless times, killed once in self-defense in a way that was almost a blur. But this?

?I was trembling as I crawled off her, my left arm and shoulder on fire, my right weak from exertion. I knelt by her body, my arms clutched together across my breasts as I shook and rocked, my belly churning with revulsion. She would twitch, a movement of an arm or a leg, and I would stop and stare, unsure if I could make myself strike her again should she resume breathing. But finally, I knew it was over.?

Zsallia was still not looking at me. Almost like she was afraid to. She just hugged her knees and rocked a little. I couldn?t think what to say or do, so I just waited again until she went on.

?I reached out and laid? laid my hand on the swelling of her belly. She had always had others, the women and the men, touch her like that, but she had never permitted me. I rested my right hand on it, and I felt it move.

?It was if my heart stopped and turned to ash in my chest.

?I wanted to scream then, but I could not breathe, I could not move. I held my hand there, feeling Saennuz?s baby move less and less until, inevitably, it stopped.

?A tiny, precious piece of myself died there, under those trees, by that riverside.?

The light breeze whispered in my ears as we sat. I listened to it, and the gurgle and rush of the river, she staring at the water, me staring at her. Unmoving. Finally she sighed again.

?So then I did the only thing I could think to do: I dragged her back to the river and pushed her body in, forcing it out into the swift current. I followed it downstream a ways to make sure it didn?t come ashore or fetch up on anything. After that, I washed up as best I could and returned to the village. I told them Saennuz and I had fought and she slipped in the water. That she?d struck her head and been swept away.?

She stopped again, still refusing to meet my eyes. I watched her, trying to gauge what she was feeling, but her face was like stone. I had no idea what to say. Could you try someone for a murder three thousand years ago, in a country that probably didn?t exist anymore? What kind of verdict could you bring to that? What court could judge it? What jury would know what to do with it?

?So they believed you?? I finally asked.

?Of course they did. By then I was an excellent liar. For that matter, how much of a lie was it, really??

?She was pregnant.?

?Yes. The baby would have come in the late fall?? she turned her face away, craning her neck so I couldn?t see, and seemed to shrink in on herself. Then her shoulders shook, just once. ?It probably would have died over the winter anyhow. At least that?s what I told myself.?

I found my voice. ?She tried to kill you,? I offered.

?I could have walked away. I could have gone down river and found a new home. There were people a few days away that knew me from the clan gatherings. I could have told them what happened.? She turned and looked at me finally. Her eyes were hollow, and whatever tears might have been there were gone. ?I didn?t have to kill her. I wish I hadn?t.?

?You feel guilty? Even today??

?Of course I do. I don?t lie awake at night agonizing over it, but??

?What did they do to you??

?To me? Nothing. At least, not right away. But it was not long after that that I learned?.? She stopped. ?I learned?? She stopped again. ?I?d like to stop talking for a bit if you don?t mind,? she finally said, staring at the water. So we just sat and listened to the stream for a while.

Then she asked me to take her back to her hotel.

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Shreveport

Having recently embarked upon what is surely the most foolhardy experiment of my existence, the result of which you who visit me here in this place shall no doubt live to pass judgment upon--I find myself alternately elated, defeated, and terrified. I awake every day gripped by the impulse to flee this place and every night I wrestle with the same urge before sleep takes me.

Yet I have committed myself: I must stay. For Jeremy's sake if nothing else, mad as that sometimes seems. The few mortal companions I have entrusted find me at times infuriatingly capricious, and I must admit I sometimes take a kind of sadistic delight in this, and at others I feel shame at my own pettiness in this regard. As a result I occasionally find I must take my leave for at least a few days, usually unannounced, with nary a word to those around me other than an unspoken promise to return within a relatively brief span.

This last month I found myself overcome with just such an urge. As I made my preparations for bed in the evening, alone at last after an exhausting day of explaining myself yet again to doctors and skeptics, I was overcome with the urge to bury my identity and disappear. I knew if I did nothing to stop this urge I would be gone, and gone for good: one more needle prick and I would surely kill someone.

So there in the dark of night, long after midnight, I crept from our home--my home with Jeremy, as I will always think of it--and left only a brief note near the door: "Back soon. Z."

I struggled to remind myself that "soon" meant at best a few days, at most a few weeks. A month would be rude; a year, a betrayal; ten years, a disaster. For some reason, only thoughts of Jeremy made me think it necessary to avoid disaster (Such a frustrating man he was!).

Entirely on impulse, I found myself at the airport buying the first convenient ticket to any destination not requiring a passport, seeking some place I had never been to. It happened to be a small city in Louisiana. I have been to beautiful, savage and deadly New Orleans, a city marred by recent tragedy but which has seen far worse. Yet instead I chose a place in the northern part of the same state, Shreveport, some hundreds of miles away, near the border with Texas.

Upon arrival I found that it is not much of a town, although strange in its own way: half New Orleans, half Texas, half its own entity. A nearby military base, a large university, and casino gambling.

Gambling?

I confess that gambling has never held much fascination for me. It has often seemed the close cousin of whoring: at its worst those who run the game ply their trade preying upon the weakness, desperation, failures, frustrations, and even the loneliness, of those whose lives never became what they had imagined or hoped for in their youth. Yet at its best gambling might simply be a pleasant distraction, a simple way to wile away time, which even the short-lived sometimes find themselves compelled to do.

I found myself on, of all things, a riverboat: a riverboat in Shreveport Louisiana, in the early 21st century. I was at turns amused and beguiled, for these modern "riverboat casinos" would have been the spectacle of the world only a century or so in the past. Walking about this "boat" I was impressed by how it seemed no different than any other miraculous modern building: one could not tell it was afloat, the floors were so solid.

And there came the downfall, and the bit of disappointment: intellectually I knew I was on a ship, and yet there was no feeling of being on a ship. No smell of salt, brine, or river; no luscious shift and ho at the ankles. It was just another modern concrete and steel construction, identical in most ways to the many marvels of modern men: clean, airy, roomy.

Yet I could still marvel at the design. This was a casino easily the match of anything found in the fabled Riviera or the living legend that is Las Vegas. Indeed it possessed all the marks of the modern casino: the ample but soft lighting that made room for the bright blinking lights of the gaming machines with the constant buzz of bells and music creating a constant din, yet none of it loud enough to hurt the ears. There was the very slight smell of alcohol and tobacco, yet it was never enough to overpower the nose or offend the eye, even as smokers and drinkers could be seen everywhere; and everywhere were the machines holding their mesmerized patrons, tables and wheels surrounded by men and women all convinced that if they waited long enough, the Manna from Heaven would arrive for them.

I prefer my games to be personal, a contest between willing opponents, yet I sat down to a solitary game. Not wanting company, I chose an electronic machine, an altar to the Gods calling itself "Pick'em Poker." It would generously accept most any sacrifice I had to offer, so long as it were numbered $1, $5, $10, $20, or $100. I absently shoved five copies of Benjamin Franklin's face into its eager maw and began to play. I had learned the game of Poker before anyone present in the entire establishment had been born, and was mildly interested to know how this mechanical beast would interact with me.

Gambling at its worst is an exercise in predation. At its best it is a game of mental agility not unlike chess. At its most mediocre, it is mindless repetition. After some time worshipping at the altar of "Pick'em Poker," I began to realize that it was a game somewhere in that sadly uninteresting middle.

As I was about to give up, having lost $300 of my $500, a soft baritone voice to my left said, "You aren't playing it right."

It was a male voice, but not at all flirtatious or aggressive. I turned to find it possessed by a man perhaps in his early 30s, dark haired and fair skinned, with a slight paunch but a pleasing face and an unassuming demeanor.

"You're just trying at random," he said. "You aren't thinking about how the game works."

He was entirely correct. I did not much care if I won or lost. I only enjoyed the mindless repetition of the soft bells and tones and the occasional win amongst the far more common losses.

Although I could tell he was not stupid, I chose to play the part of the clueless female. "Oh really? Could you explain it to me?" I asked.

I could tell that he responded immediately to my flirtation, but not in any overt manner. Instead, he launched into a lengthy discussion of the most intelligent way to play with the "Pick'em Poker" machine. Over the last four years, he came to tell me, he had been playing this particular game two or three times a week for two or three hours at a time.

"In all that time," he said, "I've won a lot but not too much, I've lost a lot but not too much, and mostly come out just a bit ahead," he told me proudly.

The snarling and nasty part of me silently opined that he was inordinately proud of having spent so much time while achieving so little. But the more forgiving part noted there were far worse ways to spend your time and money. He was a light drinker, a light smoker, and a light gambler, and he had managed to become neither predator nor prey. Given the circumstances there was something to admire in that.

We chatted amiably as I allowed him, in his male way, to teach me more of the finer points of the "Pick'em Poker" machine: and how to play it (as he calculated it) by losing no more than 99 pennites out of 100. He also tried to teach me how to game the casino system so if you played constantly they would consider you a "high roller" and give you all sorts of perks, including free meals, free show tickets, and so on.

"By days I'm a pharmacist," he said. "I?ve been playing this game for four years, and in that whole time I've lost no more than a thousand bucks a year. I had lots of fun doing it, and gotten lots of free meals and shows and stuff for the whole thing," he said. "I love coming here; it's the only place I get to relax."

This was when I learned his dark side. He was an inveterate gambler, yes, but he never gambled too much. He enjoyed coming to the casino, but it never became the center of his life. But then when I asked him his name, he said it was "Moe." Suddenly I noticed something strange in his demeanor.

A kind of honesty had developed between us, and I instinctively said, "Moe?"

He looked at me a bit sheepishly and said, "Well, technically it's Moishe."

I smiled and looked around us. No one was paying the least bit of attention so I leaned into him a bit, grasping him by the elbow, and whispered softly in his ear, "Would you like to have a little fun, Moishe?"

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3532

Yes, the date was chosen by me rather than fate, and yes it is little more than a best guess, but I guessed and I chose to satisfy the curiosity of one who simply had to know.

So as the Vernal Equinox approaches, allow me to offer another bit to those who simply must know...

Portrait by Mary Madigan, to whom I owe so very much. Your patience rivals my own.

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Boston

I found myself in Boston once again, wandering streets I walked decades, or even centuries ago. This city has been a touchstone for me, a place I return to when an old life must give way to the new. I can measure my years on this continent by the changes wrought upon this city. It was never a conscious thing, not plan or design, merely happenstance transformed into habit. Habits are dangerous for me. I have maintained a dwelling in this city for more than thirty years so perhaps it is for the best this now comes to an end.

The apartment is empty now- I cannot imagine why I felt the need to come here yet again. It is not as if I am banished from this place, Boston being no great distance from Harrisburg in this modern age, yet for some reason this parting feels so? final. So I roamed, covering old ground, seeing through the veneer of this modern city to revisit those places so familiar. The houses I knew, the ghosts of people I could have loved, or perhaps should have loved, but did not. Revisiting scenes of moral failure, opportunities lost to fear or mere fate, things undone that cannot ever be done, standing on the Common, the chill breeze working persistent fingers into my flesh as memory erased today revealing visions of the past.

I lingered such that I missed my flight, but South Station was there before me, the 2171 train scheduled as if pleading for my company. As we rolled from the station I could feel the ghosts of the city clinging to me, unwilling to see me gone for they needed my remembering, but I can serve them no longer. I may yet return here, but I know my absence shall measure by the score.

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Weakness

He wears English Leather. It is an old man?s cologne, but on him the scent is so distracting. He is quiet and unassuming, but I would not call him shy. I feel his eyes upon me when he believes me unaware. He will not approach me for I am his benefactor- a free education and extravagant living conditions are not something he is willing to risk.

I cannot hold myself from thoughts of him. He is only nineteen years old.

I may have made a mistake.

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Interlude

Pennsylvania, April, 2005 CE

She wasn?t looking at me, but was sitting back in her chair with her hands clasped behind her head and her bare feet up on the coffee table, staring out the window. I turned her words over and over in my head, but there simply wasn?t any way to avoid what she?d just told me.

?How long?? I started, but that wasn?t the right question so I started over. ?How many? how many people did you kill??

?It wasn?t killing,? she replied, her voice still flat and ominous, ?it was murder.?

I didn?t argue. I noticed that the hair was standing up on the back of my neck, and had been for almost an hour.

?Less than one thousand?? she went on. ?Yes, perhaps somewhat less than that, but not by much. It went on for some time, thirteen years. Once it took hold of me I?d say I managed to strike at least once a week, on average anyhow.?

?Why? What could it possibly mean to you??

She turned her gaze on me and just stared, which was almost worse than any response I could have imagined. Ever since I?d come to Pennsylvania she?d seemed to be on this downward spiral, her personality oozing away and slowly replaced by this thing sitting in the chair, casually recounting horrors and cold-blooded murder. I remembered the story she told me about the pregnant woman Saennuz, but that was so different than this. Where was the regret, the quiet admission of being wrong? For that she?d seemed to want forgiveness, but for this she seemed unremorseful, almost dismissive she was so casual about it.

Her face was still completely expressionless, but she struggled to speak for a bit, then finally answered.

?They were vile,? she said, finally showing some emotion. Not remorse or regret: it was contempt. ?They?d stolen something from me,? she went on, ?something precious. I was determined to have it back.? She paused then, looking into my eyes. What she saw there made her frown, then she sighed, ?It truly was that simple.?

?I don?t buy it. You had to know there was nothing to gain. How could you not know??

?Nothing to gain?? she snapped back, and I saw genuine anger in her face. She suddenly leaned forward, her feet falling to the floor, and her voice became louder, almost threatening, and I recoiled a little as she went on. ?Who the hell are you to tell me what I felt I had to gain? Who are you to presume to tell me what I had to have known??

I leaned back and put up my hand almost?I was a little embarrassed to admit?to ward her off. Defensively, I answered. ?All I?m saying is that after everything you?ve told me up to this point, this sudden? spasm of violence seems out of place. Yes, Rufus was dead, yes it was unexpected, yes it was certainly humiliating, but? why lash out? Why didn?t you just leave? If these people were all just ephemeral to you, what was the point of hurting them so much? I don?t understand it.?

?Of course you don?t understand it. You can?t!? Her voice struck me like a club, not shouting, but almost violently emphatic, and it set off something inside me that probably should have been left where it was. Fight or flight I guess: I went from fear to anger.

?That?s bullshit, Princess, and you know it,? I snapped.

She snarled and stood up suddenly, her fists clenched, and took a step toward me. I swear to God, without even thinking I leaned forward and shifted my weight to the balls of my feet, making to grab her as she lunged at me. My heart was pounding so hard in my throat and ears I almost couldn?t hear anything else. But she didn?t lunge. Her eyes just blazed at me, and then suddenly they went out. She was just staring at me, almost through me.

?Do you really think you could stop me from snuffing you like a cheap candle, little man?? she said, her voice a complete monotone.

?I won?t make it easy,? was all I said, keeping my voice as level as I could, even though my heart was doing a drumbeat like Bonzo from Led Zeppelin and my stomach felt like alligators were trying to get out of it. She just kept staring at me like a tiger ready to pounce.

Finally, infuriatingly, she started laughing at me. Contemptuously. She plunked back down in her overstuffed chair and threw her leg over one of the arms, still laughing a little and muttering to herself. I couldn?t tell what she was saying. It sounded like Latin, or maybe that guttural old barbarian-talk she?d taught me a few words of. She wasn?t even looking at me, just shaking her head.

?You didn?t hire me to take abuse,? I said.

She stopped and just stared at me. I went on. ?If I don?t understand something it?s my job to ask.?

?You?ve lived what? Thirty-five years? You?re nearly halfway through your life and you know there?s an end to it. I was more than thirteen hundred years old? I was already far beyond human terms. I know you dislike that notion, that you prefer to think of me as basically just like you with a few added quirks, but it is not the case. It hasn?t been the case for a very, very long time.?

?So you?re just an utter mystery? Something fools like me can?t ever know or understand? If that?s the way you feel why are we even doing this? What?s the point??

?I am,? she pronounced with certainty, ?just what I am. I am not what you would like to think me to be. You can?t fully understand because no matter how much empathy you bring to the table my experience lies outside your understanding. You haven?t got anything to compare it to other than your own life and the stories you?ve internalized through the years. This doesn?t make less of you or?? the she paused and sighed, looking down, sounding resigned. ??or any more of me. It just describes the differences between us. Important differences.?

She was relaxed now, but still wearing that cold demeanor. I was pretty sure she wasn?t going to yield an inch in this.

?So you refuse to even try to explain any of it? Why you did it??

She stared at me for almost a full minute, still looking almost through me. Finally she shook her head ever so slightly from side to side.

?No, of course not. I?m just not certain I can put it into terms you?ll be willing to accept.?

?Try me.?

Her eyes closed and she sighed. After another moment she finally spoke again.

?I loved Att, loved him in a way I?d never allowed myself to love anyone before. Until I met him I don?t think I was capable of loving anyone like that. And he loved me. I was everything he ever wanted in a woman. He knew I was different, but he never knew how or why. He never knew the truth, and I can?t be sure I ever would have told him. If there was any stain on our love, that was it. I knew he would die, but I pushed that all aside because I was so desperate to have what he offered me.

?When Att died? when he died it was sudden, and unexpected, but it wasn?t a mystery. I understood what had happened because I?d seen such things before. And I had Attuz, a chance to honor Att by seeing his son safely in the embrace of a new family. It was as if I?d been given the chance to somehow seal our relationship, to make it so real and so? permanent. Despite all its flaws, that love was perfect in my memory. Its only failing being that it was so terribly brief.

?After that, I never dared to allow myself to love. I knew how dangerous it was, how fleeting. Att gave me something precious, but it was special because nobody else could have done it, and it could only have happened precisely when it did. I had four centuries behind me, but they had been dead and thoughtless, aimless and pointless years. I understood nothing, had no grasp of what it truly meant to be what I was. Loving Att, and losing him, brought that home to me.

?Rufus? I knew better by the time Rufus came along. I saw him, and I hated him. He was just another mortal with an enormous ego. Yes, he was handsome, but that just made him more intolerable. Then he defied me. He pursued me, captured me, and humiliated me. After that I hated and feared him as I had hated and feared no other human being before.?

She stopped, her eyes closed, and she didn?t speak for some time, but I could see things, her face changing as if she were remembering something painful.

?But you came to love him, eventually,? I said.

Her eyes snapped open and locked on my face, but there wasn?t any of the cold anger in them anymore. Instead she looked? confused.

?I?m not really sure anymore. I thought I knew, I thought I loved him? we certainly had a passion for each other, that?s undeniable. But love him? I think I was in love with what he promised me he would be. I attached my fate to his far more deeply than I could ever have imagined and it made me ignore things? things I shouldn?t have? and when it all came to naught I was sent reeling.

Her voice wavered a bit as she went on ?Once I?d fallen under his spell it never occurred to me that he might?? She stopped, and closed her eyes again. ??that he might fail.?

Her voice cracked, ever so slightly, on that last word. She didn?t open her eyes. I just waited.

?He created a world about me that was so real, so very familiar, all his talk of Gods and Goddesses and the twists of fate that brought us together. Even in those final days when I began to wonder, to have doubts, his absolute confidence in himself succeeded in overwhelming me. He truly did not see his end coming. It must have pained him so when he realized there was no undoing it and that we were finished. And yet??

Her voice caught again, and I was surprised to see a glimmering of tears around the edges of her closed eyes. She visibly forced herself to take control, shaking a bit before she continued.

?And yet he sought to protect me. In the end he sent warning. He thought he?d failed me. He told me to flee. Instead I sought to save him, to confront whatever mischief his wife had set in motion? and found myself powerless.

?I once had the power to send armed men fleeing before me in terror. Those who worshipped me, they did so out of fear. They knew that to hunt my woods without paying homage meant death, and that to confront me meant punishment even more drastic. I was a real deity to them because my anger had very real consequences, and I had been a part of their existence for more than three hundred years. But amongst the Romans? Amongst them I was nothing. They stripped me of my power, first luring me away from my lands and the peoples I knew, then laying waste to the hopes and dreams they gave me. Rufus thought he had failed me, but the truth is I failed him. I allowed my desire to lead him to his doom, and allowed myself to be robbed of my godhood? then of all my hope.?

I cleared my throat. ?So it was revenge?? but she held up her hand to silence me, her eyes still closed, her head tilted back, although she was becoming calmer.

?Killing those men and women made me powerful again. At first it was the thrill of embracing the raw hate buried inside me, but it grew into something more insidious, and more desperate. When I killed I had power over those people. Not just the victims, but their families, friends, neighbors. I could twist them to my bidding, turning my one murder into two, or even more as they flailed about in vain attempts to find and punish those responsible. I was able to play the part of the frail innocent too perfectly, and to manipulate those around me too well. I began stalking some victims, finding people who had open enmity with others, then weaving my spell. Sometimes just a few minutes effort with my hands, or perhaps a well-placed drop of poison was all it took. And then I could watch the aftershocks ripple outwards, and I was a goddess once again.

?When it was over? I told myself it was revenge. But it was never about revenge. It was just about my hunger to return to that place of power.?

Her eyes stayed closed, and then she suddenly sighed, and seemed to relax. She was almost completely still. ?You could not understand,? she said, quietly. Almost as if she were falling asleep from exhaustion.

She was wrong though. I did understand what she was saying. She sounded like every confessed serial killer I ever read about.

?I was evil,? she said. It was as if she?d read my mind. Her eyes were still closed, her voice a quiet whisper. ?Naked, unfettered evil. Such is the price of love for me.?

I had to say something, but I was honestly afraid to provoke her. I wasn?t sure I could bear to listen to any more of this. My thoughts kept sliding back to Joshua and his fears. I had to admit they might not be as foolish as I?d thought. Remembering that caused something to come to mind though, something so obviously important that I couldn?t let it pass without asking.

?Yet you fell in love again. Why?? She sat up and her eyes snapped open. They were cloudy, stormy, but not angry. She just looked lost. She stared at me, her eyes almost accusing, but I thanked whatever higher power there was anyway because she?d finally lost some of that horrible blackness. ?You fell in love again,? I repeated and I waved my hand around the room, ?You spent twenty years here, and you?re living in this house today with descendents of his family. Why??

She turned away from me and looked at the floor, her hands clasped tightly together in front of her. When she spoke, it was almost too faint to hear.

?I don?t know?? she said forlornly. Her eyes were still brimming a little at the edges, anger warring with regret. But then she took a deep breath, sat up straight and scrubbed her face, and looked at me fiercely. ?Have you had enough yet tonight?? she said, sharply.

I paused. ?It?s up to you but you haven?t finished telling me what happened.?

Her eyebrows moved down a little, then one raised slightly. ?What??

I was afraid of this question. ?Why did it stop?? I asked. ?Or did it ever stop? completely??

?Oh,? she said. Her head tilted back a little and her eyes rolled up a little and to her left. ?Yes it stopped.?

?When?? I asked.

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Interlude

Pennsylvania, April, 2005 CE

She woke me up the next morning some time after sunrise. She was already dressed and told me if I didn?t shower and come downstairs soon I?d miss breakfast.

When I got downstairs she seemed cool, distant. She was making pancakes, eggs, and bacon, puttering around and humming absent-mindedly. She insisted I sit down and not help. As she poured me some coffee and put a plate of hot bacon, eggs, cakes, and grits in front of me, me told me she normally had servants come in and cook but she didn?t want anyone around today.

She seemed constantly distracted, like she didn?t want anything but small talk. As I ate I occasionally caught her staring at me, only to look away quickly. When I finally started to ask her what was up, she promptly said, ?So I understand you ride. Finish your food and then we?ll take the horses and I?ll show you around.?

Clearly she didn?t want to talk, so after breakfast she took me out to the stables. Pretty soon I regretted even agreeing to this. I hadn?t been on a horse in ten years, but she took me on a three hour ride around the area, all around the estate, then through the woods to other areas, showing me the other farmhouses, pointing out historic spots where some homes had once stood but were now gone and generally chattering endlessly without saying much of anything. Still once in a while I?d catch her looking at me oddly, sizing me up, calculating in some way I couldn?t fathom. But I mostly tried to shrug it off.

By the time we got back for lunch I was exhausted and I had to take a nap. When I woke up later in the afternoon I was a mess: my legs were on fire, I?d gotten too much sleep, and I was grumpy as hell. I took some aspirin and a long shower, and then went looking for her.

As I came downstairs I heard her humming. The huge empty house was otherwise deathly quiet. It seemed spooky, but I followed the sound of her humming, and found her reading a book in what looked like an old smoking room, with big overstuffed chairs and a bar at one end.

?Well are we going to talk at all today or just play around?? I asked, walking in and plopping into one of the chairs. She just looked at me, almost accusingly, like I was being rude. I sighed and said, ?Okay, sorry, you?re the boss.? I drummed my fingers and looked out one of the big double windows.

?No, we?re here to talk. Go on, bring out that infernal recorder.?

I looked at her and yanked it out. She was still looking at me weirdly, and I couldn?t tell what was behind those eyes of hers now. So I just launched into it.

?Okay, so, you don?t want to talk about Jeremy just yet,? I said. ?I get that. But you know we haven?t talked about Rome since we left Ann Arbor. You kind of left me dangling on that. You told me you learned how to read there, and I guess that must have been a mindblower.? She gave me her smoky half-smile and nodded. ?You also said you thought you could have saved Rufus. But from what??

She sat back a bit when I said that, and then slowly, a little ruefully, shook her head.

?Rufus could have been a great man? probably would have been. Instead, he ran into me and got his head filled up with notions of destiny. Why not? He thought the gods were with him, yes??

?There you go again,? I said, making sure I was smiling when I said it. ?Everything is your responsibility, right??

?In this case? I certainly had something to do with it, don?t you think? Rufus wanted his uncle?s seat in the Senate, but he had no realistic chance of achieving it. His cousin Livius was very well established, and Rufus?s side of the family had not been seriously active politically for a generation. He knew this. Had he returned from that expedition to Gaul without ever meeting me he certainly would have channeled his aspirations in some more constructive direction.?

?I hate to say it because I know you liked the guy, but? he doesn?t seem like he was a very nice man. I mean? you talked about him beating slaves and even... well?? I stopped, feeling a little repulsed, not sure I wanted to ask, but I went ahead. ?Did you mean that part about him cutting out a slave?s tongue? Literally??

?That was not uncommon among the Romans,? she said, her brow furrowing a little, almost like she wasn?t sure what I was driving at.

?Well Jesus!? I said. ?I mean, he tortured you! He cut people?s tongues out for chrissakes??

I just stopped. She was staring at me with a look I didn?t like. It wasn?t even angry, just emotionless. She seemed to be calculating, watching me, like she was deciding something. Finally she spoke again.

?Before we left my lands, he wiped out the entire village near where I was captured? then killed all the men who had witnessed me killing his soldiers. Called them traitors and liars who were spreading tales to discredit him. He had his fellow Romans cut all their throats.?

?Christ!? I said. ?Why??

?It would have shamed him if anyone had known that he had allowed me to live after killing his men. So he eliminated everyone who witnessed it. Well, save for Marieko.?

I just stared at her. She was still utterly without emotion. Her look was almost alien. ?So you were okay with that?? I finally asked, more than a little repulsed.

?The world is a harsh place. I?ve met harsher men. I?ve been even harsher myself. You do not realize this about me by now??

I took a deep breath. I thought back to my conversation with Joshua, and tried to keep my face passive. ?So are you like that now??

She just stared at me, then gave the barest hint of a smile. ?You really are a good Christian boy, aren?t you?? she asked.

At first I thought she was mocking me, but by now I?d learned to count to ten before responding to almost anything that seemed provocative. Her tone didn?t seem mocking. It seemed almost affectionate and I couldn?t decide if that was worse or not. Either way, the question bugged me on more than one level. Finally, I just laughed.

?Princess, I?m not even a believer??

?No? Are you a hypocrite, then?? she asked. There wasn?t even a trace of hostility to the question.

I frowned. ?Okay look, I?m not a religious guy, but? this guy wasn?t nice. You weren?t nice either. I?m just asking you?? I stopped and thought about it. ?Crap, I?m not sure what I?m asking you.?

?It is so simple for you, isn?t it?? she smirked, ?Brought up in this modern American utopia of yours, ensconced in the bosom of a well-defined moral universe. You have your rules, your directions all laid out before you, easy to see, easy to follow? you have no idea what it means to not know what is right and what is wrong.?

?I don?t think it?s all as simple as that,? I shot back. ?And I don?t buy into moral relativist bullshit. I know you know right from wrong. It?s all through everything you?ve said to me, or in your journals, or even on that weird web site of yours. Or was that all a lie??

Her eyes narrowed, but her face was otherwise impassive. ?It is the end result of thirty-five centuries of fear, of mistakes. Of loss and horror. You realize don?t you,? she said, a little melodramatically, ?that by your biblical accounting of three score and ten for a normal lifespan, I have already seen 50 lifetimes?do you not??

I thought for a second. ?Okay, yeah.?

?So are you so foolish as to think that regardless of your lucky freedom to believe or disbelieve as you please? due to this lovely liberal democracy you were born in, this apex of civilization you are the inheritor of? are you so foolish as to think that you haven?t had your moral certainties handed to you on a silver platter? And yet you presume to judge me? Or the people I have chosen to love? Who do you think you are??

?Yeah whatever!? I snapped. ?This isn?t about me!? I immediately regretted that. But it didn?t seem to upset her. She just chuckled?dryly, humorlessly. Then she stood up.

She walked to the window, looking out.

?No. No it is not, is it? Still my friend?? she stopped, still facing out the window, her hands behind her back. ?I don?t call many people that, by the way. You know that don?t you?

?Well,? I said, suddenly feeling embarrassed. ?Yeah I guess so.? I felt apologetic, but wasn?t sure why.

She gave a little nod, still looking out the window. ?Still I must ask you,? she continued, ?Do you believe for an instant that your affected disbelief, your supposed atheism, somehow erases a lifetime of conditioning??

Once again I counted to ten. She had a tendency to leap to conclusions that could be really destructive and I wasn?t about to feed that beast again. Then, as I thought about it, I had to wonder if she was wrong. ?Okay, I don?t believe in some white-haired God in the sky, or the Saints, but I do believe that there were great and wise men in the world, and that Jesus was one of them? and that people have learned a lot with time??

?You are even less willing to lie to yourself than you are to lie to me, aren?t you??

I grinned a little. ?It?s not about me.?

The words just sat there for what seemed like an eternity. Finally she spoke again.

?Perhaps by your judgment Rufus was an evil man.? She stopped. ?By your judgment I am probably evil myself.?

By my judgment? I thought about that for a minute. I was afraid to let this out, but I decided there was no better time.

?Joshua tells me you murdered a man in Georgia about 140 years ago.?

She didn?t move, although I could swear I saw a little flinch. ?Joshua knows about that, does he?? she asked.

I didn?t answer. I just waited. She stayed completely calm. ?The family?s detectives did good work,? she said. She was calm, matter-of-fact. Her gaze never strayed from the window, her hands locked firmly behind her back. I began to squirm a little. Her tone reminded me of a moment back at the hotel room in Ann Arbor. She?d been fiddling with her gun, and I?d asked her if she was planning on shooting someone. ?No. That would probably just complicate things,? she?d said, looking at me with no expression. It was the exact same look and tone she was using now: dead, expressionless, matter-of-fact: cold.

?You keep your promises don?t you?? I asked, not sure why I was asking. ?Especially the ones to yourself.?

?You are in no danger from me,? she said. It was flat, factual, certain. It wasn?t what I?d asked, but for whatever reason I believed it. We both just sat there for a bit, me in my chair fiddling with the hand rests, her quietly staring out the window.

?Murder is a horrible thing, but there are worse things,? she finally said, evenly. Then she took a deep breath.

?I do not kill lightly, not since?.? Her voice trailed off, and she didn?t finish the sentence. ?Even when I think I must kill, it leaves a stain upon me. I learned long ago not to do it if I could avoid it. If I could?? She suddenly took another deep breath and swallowed, her voice catching a little. She kept staring carefully out that window into the back yard, though her voice started grating a little.

?That man in Georgia deserved to die. But I do not kill lightly. Not anymore. The price? the price is so very high.?

Finally I decided to change the subject. ?So you figured out Rufus wasn?t going to become a God with you? and trying to be one was his undoing??

Without changing expression or looking at me, she suddenly turned and walked to the bar. Every time we reached a point where I was getting under her skin, the scotch would start flowing and she?d light a cigarette. Even as I thought it, there she went again, knocking a cigarette out of the pack with one hand as she poured a drink in the other. I couldn?t help but laugh a little.

She didn?t look up, but she obviously heard me. ?I amuse you, do I?? she her, face and voice still impassive as she lit her cigarette, staring into the flame as she puffed.

I grinned. ?You?re predictable, Princess. Every time I try to point out that you might not have been in control of everything, you get up, light up, and pour a drink.?

She turned and stared at me for a minute and I thought I might have gone too far, but then her face cracked into a grin, and she looked human again. She deliberately tossed her freshly lit butt into her scotch glass and turned back to me, leaning against the bar, hooking one bare foot on the side of a barstool, her mouth in a little half-smiling moue. She just looked at me like that for a minute until I spoke up.

?Anyway,? I said, groping for words. I felt a little nervous, but she was starting to look normal again and that was good. ?I guess I understand what you?re saying. It was a harsh world and I guess the Romans weren?t more brutal than most people, huh??

?They were even more brutal than most actually,? she said. ?In some ways. But in others?? she stopped, and nodded a little curtly. ?Sometimes they were kinder.?

?Okay, but still, it?s like? it?s like you can?t stand the notion that maybe, just maybe, Rufus was just another arrogant glory hound whose own ambition did him in. I mean, seriously, Roman history, hell, human history, is chock full of guys just like him. You say it all went bad, and I can almost see it coming from what you?re saying. His idea to be a god and take over the world was crazy. But why does it have to be because of you? What the hell happened that makes you so certain??

?Rufus,? she announced flatly, ?committed suicide. He did it right before my eyes. Before his entire family, with all his friends and supporters in attendance.?

?Wow. Why??

?He stood accused of treason.?

?Because of you??

She looked impatient. ?He had a plan to usurp power. His first step was to discredit his cousin. His uncle was a Senator and Rufus?s cousin Livius was his heir apparent. Rufus started rumors that his cousin enjoyed loving men.?

?Huh? You said yourself that Rufus was a switch hitter.?

She smirked again. ?Indeed. But the rumor was that Livius was fond of performing fellatio on his more handsome male friends, and of receiving anal pleasure from them. That he extended those favors even to his slaves.?

?So wait a minute, you say it was okay to? but not to?? The light finally went on in my head. ?Oh. I get it. Okay to be on top but not on the bottom.?

?Quite,? she said. Then she straightened up and started walking aimlessly around the room, looking at her paintings, fiddling with her plants. I could usually tell by now when she needed to be quiet, so I just waited as she glided around. This seemed to be her favorite place in the house because it was well lived-in. There were comfortable leather chairs, low tables, another of the ever-present fireplaces, and the bar? Finally she stopped at the same window again and stared out at the back yard.

?The Romans had some very strict notions about what constituted proper behavior amongst males,? she said, a little flatly. ?My Rufus was spreading the notion that Livius was disgustingly weak and decadent.?

?So that?s treason?? I asked, forcing my brain back into gear.

"Oh, no, that was just a piece of the plan. It wasn?t enough that Livius should be thought weak and disgraceful. Rufus had to be seen as a stark contrast to him. Rufus needed his cousin?s weakness to threaten the Republic.?

?So how did he do that?? I asked.

?Young Livius had substantial holdings outside Arretium, including a farming estate not far from Rufus? own estate. So Rufus set about fomenting a rebellion amongst Livius?s slaves, particularly amongst the laborers who worshipped Diana. Many of them were Carthaginians and Spaniards.?

?So he was?? I stopped. ?I?m confused,? I said, finally.

?Rufus thought to ?fortuitously? uncover a rebellion by Livius?s slaves. He would then crush it personally and lay the blame squarely at the feet of his weak, effeminate cousin.?

?So wait, Rufus was trying to talk the slaves into rebelling, so he could turn around and stab them in the back??

?Precisely. The slaves would rebel, and bring other slaves in with them, and then Rufus would put them down.? She paused. ?Fomenting a slave rebellion: That,? she said, ?was treason.?

?And you knew he was up to that?? I asked.

?Certainly. Then he would kill them all.? Her voice was flat again, and that look was creeping back again.

?And you were okay with that?? I asked.

She slowly turned to face me, and I stiffened a little. Her face was completely dead, with that deep, almost inhuman presence behind her eyes. It was almost lizard-like. The other times I?d seen that it?d disappeared pretty quickly. This time it stayed, and it was almost like I was seeing something behind the mask. It was unnerving. When she spoke again her voice was like ice dragged across a rough stone floor.

?Rufus miscalculated: he thought the slaves were more loyal to him?and more stupid?than they were. He was filling their heads with odd notions about the goddess Diana, whom they loved, and how they might throw off their shackles and find freedom with her blessing.?

I opened my mouth, but something in her look made me shut it again. She went on, still cold as ice.

?Mind you, he planned to sacrifice them all to Diana. But first he was making them think he was their friend, that he and I would support them in rebelling and escaping. Then he would make it clear that the rebellion was a direct result of his cousin?s weakness, and kill each and every one of them.?

She said it like saying Rufus planned to crush an anthill. She just kept looking at me, expressionless and cold.

I shivered a bit. ?Okay,? I said. ?He came up with a harebrained plot and messed it up. Get to the part where it?s your fault.?

?He was going to sacrifice them to Diana? she said, her face still expressionless. ?On my behalf.?

?Well that?s a pretty harebrained?? I started.

Coldly, she cut me off. ?It wasn?t ?harebrained.? It was genius.? Her only emotion was a slight annoyance, which was really creeping me out. ?The slaves were stupid fools anyway and probably deserved their fate.? She just went on, not even reacting to my expression. Deserved what Rufus had in store for them? I thought, but said nothing.

?Rufus was subtle in all his workings. It took him well over a year to bring events close to where he could spring his trap. His cousin was just beginning to suffer from the whispering campaign against him and had yet to act in his own defense. The timing was crucial. His cousin and his uncle were well respected in Rome. Once they took a public stand it was unlikely the rumors would prevail. The rebellion had to erupt just before they were forced to act. The combination of the two: that was to be the fatal blow. Rufus had it planned perfectly? Perfectly, except for one, small thing.?

I shivered a little, but she just kept staring at me with that dead look. ?So? what did he forget?? I finally asked.

?That bitch?? she said. It came out in a hiss. ?Vipsania.? She spat the name out, her face still impassive, but her voice dripping. ?Vipsania,? she said again. ?I should have snapped her neck the instant she set foot near our house.?

Our house? I wondered. But I just looked at her, and waited for her to go on.

She stood there, her face like granite as she stared at me? or not so much at me as through me, like I wasn?t even there. The rest of her was so still she almost looked like a statue. ?Rufus was a fool and hinted at his plans to her when he visited her in Rome, about two months before he was ready to make his move. I?m certain that he only hinted? but that was enough. It was his undoing. And mine.?

I wanted to ask her more, but her eyes were still boring into me, and behind those eyes was just? nothing. Emptiness. Soullessness. I felt like I couldn?t breathe. Then finally her eyes slid off me, down to a spot on the floor in front of her. Then she turned her head again, and directed that lifeless gaze outside. It was like I wasn?t even there all of a sudden, but it was a relief not to have her looking at me that way.

I shook myself, straightened and cracked my neck, then got up. She still didn?t move. I went to the bar and took two fresh glasses. I poured myself a drink, then a double for her, and grabbed her cigarettes and lighter. Part of me didn?t want to get close to her. But I knew? I hoped? I could wipe that terrible inhuman look off her face.

As I walked up she was so motionless I wondered if she were even breathing. It was almost startling when she suddenly turned her face to me. Her deadly eyes locked on mine, cold and bottomless. Then they dropped to my hands, where she stared at the scotch glass like it might be dangerous.

Suddenly, she chuckled.

It was just a short exhalation of breath, but just like that it seemed like the room was warm again?and just like that she was human once more. She smiled and took the drink, then let me light her cigarette for her.

?A superb idea,? she quipped, lifting the glass to me before she drank. I took a gulp out of my glass as she took a hard drag off her cigarette. She took another look at me, and her eyes asked a question.

I searched myself for a minute, then took another sip out of my drink. I looked at the paintings on the wall across from us, then looked back at her. She was still staring at me, but without malice. She looked a little embarrassed, but knowing. Her eyes waited for me. Almost like she knew what I was going to ask.

?So? What did I just see?? I asked.

I could tell she knew exactly what I meant because her shoulders dropped just a bit. She looked a little resigned, but behind it I still saw something? something a little bit? alien.

?So you saw me,? she said. When I looked a little confused, she went on. ?So you finally saw me,? she said, a bit of resignation in her voice. She also sounded a little amused, but still there was something a little alien in her countenance. I was still confused.

Her eyes suddenly returned to that chilling look. ?Just me, nothing more, nothing less.? I thought about it, and said nothing. ?It?s not pretty, is it?? she asked.

?I saw a?? I paused. I took another sip. ?We?re just kind of things to you sometimes, aren?t we?? I asked.

She paused and tossed back the rest of her scotch, then looked out the window again. ?Sometimes I forget where I am? what I am. I get lost in the moment and the person I am supposed to be? what people expect me to be? falls away, and all that?s left is me. Raw and naked.? She looked at me again. ?I am not one of you.? She said it flatly, coldly, without even a hint of remorse or regret.

?Are you saying? that this is all an act?? I couldn?t help but think about that afternoon in Joshua?s office. What would he make of all this?

?An act? My entire life is an act. I pretend to fit in; I learn to make the appropriate responses so that no one sees just what I am. I suppose it?s a natural consequence of living the way I have for so many centuries.? She took a breath, and I thought I detected a little bit of regret. ?Sometimes it?s hard to understand where the act ends and I begin.?

That was something I hadn?t really expected her to say, and I wasn?t sure what to do with it. I knew at some point I?d have to explore it with her again, but not now. Instead I asked the obvious question.

?So, who the hell was Vipsania??

?Vipsania? Vipsania was Rufus?s wife.?

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Interlude

What follows is the recounting of a conversation told not by me, but by my companion. I will admit to finding some of his characterizations mildly irksome.

-ZM

Ann Arbor, March 2005

I stared at her, waiting for her to continue, but she just stared at the floor for the longest time. Then she sighed and looked up at me.

?What?? she asked, seeing the look on my face.

?You went back.? I said it flatly, not sure whether it was even a question.

?I believe that is what I just said, yes.?

I chewed on that for a minute, but it didn?t taste right.

?You went back to him and he talked you into going back to Rome with him? As his slave??

?Not to Rome. Arretium. As to being a slave? you?re something of a liberal, aren?t you??

?What? Well, yeah in some ways, maybe not others??

?Yes. Well slavery was difficult to accept but not so much as you might think. I had been one many times before, sometimes a valued one. It was a normal thing for most of the peoples I had encountered, from my earliest days, and Rufus assured me that it was in name only. He said it was the only way other Romans would accept my presence, and as time went on I saw that was obviously true. He told me to see it as merely pro forma. I believed I could leave at any time, and he assured me that I could. I didn?t believe he could stop me.? She paused. ?I wasn?t quite right about that, but it was mostly true.?

?But wasn?t it still a big step down for you??

?I chose to view it as a meaningless mortal concept that did not truly apply to me. You modern Americans have a different view of slavery than was once common. Slavery was not always a horrible bereavement.?

?I always thought that was just, well, you know, something white people say so they don?t feel bad about slavery in America.?

She made a face. ?Such concepts are not? do we really need a philosophical debate on the differences between American and Roman slavery? Neither were good things in the final analysis, but we are not talking about the American experience here.?

?Okay, okay,? I said, backing down. ?I?m just trying to understand.?

?It is a wonderful thing that modern men loathe slavery. But in that time and place, well, I wasn?t Roman and there was no real reason for me to be among them otherwise. Rufus already had a wife and couldn?t marry me. Slavery amongst them was not universally terrible to endure. Marieko was his beloved and respected slave and had been his teacher since childhood. A slave in a household such as his, with her master?s favor, could live quite comfortably??

?Fine,? I interrupted her, ?but that doesn?t explain why. From what you were telling me you were pretty?? I swallowed. She just looked at me with that eerily empty look of hers. ?Well you killed pretty casually. Back then anyway.? My voice faltered because sometimes she scared me that way now.

Her eyes softened. ?That is not a thing I am proud of. I don?t? I don?t kill so casually now. I don?t? Killing? killing eats away at something in me, destroys something in me. I don?t do it unless?? She swallowed, and stopped. Her face stayed impassive, almost expressionless. Very quietly she said, ?I don?t like who I was then.?

?Do you like who you are now?? I asked, without thinking, then immediately regretted it. I thought she?d get angry. But she didn?t.

?Ask me that question another day,? she said, quietly. Her face was still expressionless.

We both sat quietly for a while. I felt like I was intruding again, but I finally continued.

?So, okay you were pretty? pretty? ruthless I guess you?d say, back then. So why didn?t you kill him? Why did you stay with him? You obviously hated the guy, but you were attracted to him too? Make me understand it.?

She left her chair and slowly walked to the small bar where she picked up her pack of cigarettes. With deliberate care she drew one from the pack, then took up her old Zippo and lit it. She stood there, taking drag after drag, exhaling through her nose. I suddenly noticed she was shaking; her hands fluttering like a hummingbird?s wing. When she turned to look at me again the expression on her face was pained.

?Your hands are shaking,? I said. ?You want to stop??

She suddenly looked at her hand like it was a snake, almost like it betrayed her. ?That?s very frustrating,? she said, balling it into a fist.

?What, a lot of people, a lot of women, they get that way when they?re upset.?

?I DESPISE BEING SO OUT OF CONTROL!? she bellowed. I didn?t know someone so little could yell that loud. But I was used to her getting mad, so I just let it go.

?Hey Princess. Chill out. We?re still friends, right??

She turned away and lit another cigarette. Her hands weren?t shaking anymore, like she was deliberately making them smooth and hard with her gestures. Then she slowly shook her head, and looked back at me, a quiet half-smile on her face. ?Nobody has ever called me that before you know.?

That startled me. ?What? Princess? You know I don?t know where that got started but hey, if it offends you??

?I find it charming,? she said, with a smoky half-grin, then sighed. She was relaxing visibly, and that was a good sign. ?No, we do not need to stop.? Her voice was even. ?My apologies. As I have said, some of these memories are painful, and some? embarrassing. But it is what we are here for.?

?Okay. So make me understand you and Rufus.?

?I don?t know that I can,? she said, then her demeanor still settled, but the pained look crept back onto her face just a little. ?You are a man of your time and place. But what are you??

?I?m pretty sure I know who I am,? I replied, ?but what I am? I?m a husband. A father. A writer, a liberal, kinda??

?Blend that into the whole of what you are, all of those discreet little labels and characterizations, and what you are is easily described in a single term: you are a human being. Would you agree??

?Sure.?

She took a final drag from her cigarette and carefully snubbed it out in the ashtray, then said, ?There were some seven hundred years behind me when I finally turned my back on the communities of men. I couldn?t bear to be with them any longer, even though at that time my life was much better than it had ever been before. I was a valuable individual."

She paused again, scowling and I half expected her to reach for another cigarette, but she just stared at the floor for a minute before continuing.

"I was a huntress and warrior. Over time I also learned the secrets of bronze and iron. By the time I left men behind I had seven centuries of shaman wisdom to draw upon and I knew what was fakery and what was not. I daresay I may have been the greatest single repository of pharmacological knowledge in the world at that time. I was a skilled midwife. I wasn?t orjan any longer, but I was still an outsider. I had no ties to anyone, and whenever I allowed myself to feel any real attachment to any place or any person??

?You?ve talked about this before?the alienation and the need to get away.?

?Yes, I have. But you must try to understand?when I finally left, walking into the wilderness on that first day of what turned into six hundred years on my own, I had no idea what I was. All I knew was what I was not. I was not a human being. But I did not stride into the forest and proclaim myself a goddess. No, that came over time, a very long time.

?But when I encountered Rufus I was deep in the grip of that delusion. Yet I had never seen his like before, or that of his men, and I misjudged them from the very start. His pursuit and capture of me fueled hatred, a hatred born mostly from fear of what he might represent, and from the very effrontery of making me fearful. When he offered me my freedom he fully expected me to choose to stay with him, and that was even more infuriating. But when I left, he changed his tactic, and came to meet with me alone, and that too was impressive.?

She stopped then, and returned to her chair. Then she sank back into it, and crossed her arms into her shoulders, suddenly looking almost pitifully small. When she spoke again her voice was low, and so quiet I had to lean forward to hear her again.

?Rufus offered me an explanation of what I was and why I was there. When I told him how many years were behind me he believed me, without question. He said I was clearly the lost daughter of Jupiter or Latona, a half-sister to Diana or perhaps even one of her divine creations. When I told him I?d never had children that only confirmed it for him, and he told me the same was true for Diana. It all made so much sense that we both believed it.?

?That?s it? He told you a story about Diana and a prophecy and you just bought it??

She sat up then, and raised her chin a bit defiantly. ?Before I took up the hunt, I was nothing! But now I was a goddess!? She almost spit that last word out. I watched with fascination as she visibly forced herself to calm down again. She was one mercurial lady.

She looked at me, and a tiny wisp of a grin came back to her countenance. I could tell she was practically reading my thoughts. She nodded, as if to say, yes, you see how I am. Then she sat back in her chair again, her back straight and her face falling back into that preternaturally calm demeanor she affected most of the time. Evidence of the stormy forces roiling inside her was only distantly visible now behind those huge green eyes of hers.

She went on. ?I was nothing but a beast of burden and a toy for men before Att taught me the art of the sling and the spear. When our time together was? when he was gone, I took Attuz into the wilderness for two years and sheltered him like a mother. When we rejoined people and I had to abandon him before he grew old? well I was quiet for a while, disconsolate, and returned to my meek ways. But after the incident with Oskuz I resolved to learn everything I could, to make myself invaluable to the men I accompanied. I then resolved to set myself above those around me so I would not be at anyone?s mercy again. The more I learned, the more it was as if I were being shaped and prepared for some destiny. The moment when I finally stepped into the wild for what I thought was the last time, shedding myself of mankind completely, I felt like I was finding that destiny.

?When finally I met Rufus I was quite mad. But I was easily his match in arrogance and in disdain for those we felt beneath us. And almost everyone was beneath us. We were so very alike, he and I.?

?Yeah, I kind of got that vibe from what you were saying.?

She smirked at me, then nodded. We sat there again for a few moments without saying anything, her eyes off in the distance. Then her eyes fixed on mine again.

?Rufus sought power and fame. He wanted a seat in the Roman Senate, his uncle?s, but was too far down the family line to take it without a fight. Yet he wanted to be a driving force in the Republic, and in the world as a whole. When he encountered me, and saw in me the realization of his personal prophecies, he aimed even higher. Diana was most beloved by slaves and while he never admitted it I know now that just having me as his slave was part of fulfilling prophecy, to him. In any case, he told me that by making me his consort, he could become as a God. He believed? well, he believed he could become like me.?

Suddenly, it clicked for me. ?So you wanted to believe it. And that was enough to make you forget all that crap he did to you??

?He had explanations, and they made sense to me.? She stopped, then her voice grew very intense. ?Yes. I wanted to believe it. With every fiber of my being I wanted to believe. He was going to become as me. He was going to become a God. He had a prophecy and plans I would be an integral part of, and had he succeeded??

She stopped. I waited. Then she looked at me again. Looking into her eyes was like staring into a cavern, and although I?m pretty sure it was my imagination, it was almost like her voice echoed when she spoke.

?I would have forgiven him anything if he could save me from ever being alone again."

-------------------
This recounting begins with Tiwazō

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Thanksgiving

There are many things I am grateful for, but I give true thanks for this.

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Lessons Apparently Not Learned

Contrary to popular perception, it seems that history rarely repeats itself. Yet humans do repeat the same mistakes.

I thought you Americans might have learned an important lesson from the aftermath of your shameless abandonment of the South Vietnamese people in the 1970?s. From the looks of things in the media and in particular this comment I ran across while perusing my regular reads, it appears that lesson did not take.

Finish what you started, America, or 2000 dead will just be the down payment on the butcher?s bill.

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Gabrielle Francesca East

Now for something a little different: I admit to having developed? not quite an obsession, but rather an intimate appreciation for a story very long in the telling about a certain red-headed character with whom I am certain I could lay waste to a perfectly respectable case of Scotch Whiskey. Her name is Gabrielle Francesca East, but she is most definitely Dolly, and her tale begins here.

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What has consumed my time this past year

Just under a year ago, driven by events beyond my control, I took a man into my confidence. This is just a taste of what may come.

--[begin journal entry]--

21-November-2004

The hospital is almost tolerable tonight. The Intensive Care ward is kept under constant low lighting, but I have been moved to a room at the far end of the unit where it is somewhat quieter, and the brighter lights from the nurse?s station do not intrude so much. The bustle and noise of the day has begun giving way to the quieter cadences of night, and my distance from the patients requiring the most attention from the nurses has increased. All this permits a reasonable facsimile of sleep to take me. Until my phone beeps quietly.

?Hello, Mitch,? I say.

?He wants to see you. I wasn?t sure you?d be awake.?

?It?s alright. I told you, he gets whatever he wants. Please ensure the hospital does not interfere.?

?Of course. I?.? He hesitates for a moment.

I sigh a little and say, ?Go on, Mitch. Is something bothering you??

?I just want to say I?m sorry for what a mess I?ve made of things for you. I was trying to do what you told me to, and??

?No, Mitch,? I say. ?It?s my fault, not yours. An old, dear friend of mine once counseled me never to make irrevocable decisions when one is either tired or hungry. Unfortunately for me, I?ve been doing nothing else for more than a week. Something was bound to blow up on me sooner or later. It?s not your fault. But do try better next time, okay handsome?? I force a smile and a sound of approval from my voice. He really is a good young man, and I can practically hear his spine straightening.

Ye Gods. Twenty-five, and fresh out of Law School. Barely sentient, by my standards. He thanks me and we hang up.

I quietly comport myself, readying for my visitor. I am uncertain as to what I should say, or what I should expect. I find that unsettling. Equally unsettling is that I have come to realize just how important it is to me he accepts this task, that this stranger should accept me for what I am. I confess this much to myself: I may not have the courage to start over again. It may be this one, or no one.

A quiet commotion outside tells me he has arrived, and I listen to the duty nurse reminding him how terribly unusual this is. He is surprisingly calm with her. He is not easily intimidated, this one. He knocks at the doorway, and I invite him in.

?Please leave the lights down,? I ask as he reaches for the switch. ?Once they?re on I?ll be unable to go to sleep again.?

?Sure thing.? He keeps standing near the doorway, hands in his coat pockets. He looks at his feet. ?I?m sorry for overreacting this afternoon.?

?It is entirely my fault. I accept full responsibility.?

?Mitch told me you didn?t order the security checks.?

?It doesn?t matter. They acted under my imprimatur and that makes me ultimately responsible. I was careless. I suspect they were merely going overboard to protect me?or just looking for an excuse for more billable hours. But it?s my fault. When I told Mitch to send you everything on hand that you might possibly want I don?t think he knew they were important, and I didn?t know he had them.

?But I want you to know,? I go on, ?that I didn?t see them, and I do not do business like this. I trust my instincts, not men. I chose you because of those instincts, and for no other reason.?

He shifts a bit, looks me in the eye, and nods. ?Okay.? He has decided to believe me, but he has not sat down yet. I must say more.

?You were right about what you said earlier, you know. I am manipulative. Unhealthily so, at times. It?s been a long time since anyone had the courage to point that out to me so forcefully. And I am a cripple. In more than one way.?

He blushes, and opens his mouth. I interrupt him.

?Please don?t apologize anymore. But it would make me happy if you would sit and talk with me.?

He relents, and sits. ?You?ve got an amazing story here,? he says, carefully. ?You?re incredibly lucky you?re not dead.?

?It was a close thing, was it?? I say, smiling.

?No. Not really close. The only thing missing from those records is your autopsy report. Are you aware of everything in there??

I shake my head. ?Although I know the basics, I haven?t been all that interested. I planned on giving them some attention after recovering more fully.?

?You lost two-thirds of your blood volume, and your blood type is so rare they had to call in a specialist just to identify it. You took a nasty shot to the head that was life-threatening all by itself, and those were the most minor things that nearly killed you.?

I listen quietly as he goes on, listing each major injury, and several other things besides. He mentions every oddity detailed in my medical records, every time I should have died, everything odd about my recovery up until now, and the doctors? belief that I have a horrible cancer and possible brain damage. Finally he winds down, as if he has run out of energy. I can see that despite all this he is not confused, or angry, just resigned. He has come to the conclusion that he is the wrong man for this job.

?I?ve thought about it for the last few hours, and I?ve honestly come to the conclusion that I?m not your man. Yes, I have a bit of medical knowledge and can write popular accounts of such things fairly well. But I don?t do biographies, and,? he grimaces, ?I have to be honest. The truth is that ?miracle recovery? books are a dime a dozen, and aren?t all that interesting to me.? He looks at me, hoping he hasn?t hurt my feelings. He has no idea how utterly endearing I find that.

?All that you say might be true,? I say, ?were I trying to write such a book. But that?s not the kind of book I want. I want something quite a bit more serious.?

?Well, okay, but really? Why me?? he asks.

?I picked you because I have read your work. I admire your good sense, and your honest skepticism regarding any subject you write about. You reject emotion-based pseudo-science while retaining your basic human empathy. You understand pain and treat your subjects with dignity--sometimes more than they likely deserve.? I incline my head at him, and smile. His eyes glitter, but he says nothing.

I continue speaking: ?I also just happen to like your writing style and, having met you, I have concluded that what I saw in your writing is a direct reflection of the man. I would therefore like to work with you.?

He smiles only slightly, and says, ?That may be the nicest thing anyone?s ever said to me.? He does not gush. He will not be flattered. ?Well, we do have your miracle recovery to start with. So what else would we be writing about??

?I?m not particularly interested in telling the story of my ?miraculous? survival. In fact there is nothing miraculous about it at all, at least from my perspective.? I pause then, but he is silent, waiting for me to continue. I have begun speaking softly, forcing him to listen and focus intensely upon me. I will not risk him mishearing me. ?This is not the first time I have been gravely injured. Doubtless it shall not be the last. I?ll grant that this is by far the most dramatic physical injury I?ve ever suffered, but, when you?ve lived as long as have I, these things are unavoidable.?

He smiles with condescension and a bit of irritation. Leaning forward, he says, ?Okay, you?re very, very good at being melodramatic. I used to be that way a little too. But you?re twenty-seven years old, and believe me, whatever you think you know about life?.?

?Mary Genevieve Baker would be twenty-seven now, had she not died when she was eleven months old. I chose her because her name reminded me of someone who was very dear to me, very long ago. I?ve had to change names like that many times in order to be accepted by people.?

He stares at me.

I take a deep breath. ?My name? I?m sorry, I don?t say this very often. But I call myself Zsallia Marieko. I am some three thousand, five hundred years old. I cannot die, you see.?

He barely reacts. No snort of derision, no sitting back in his chair; just a slight dilation of his pupils, nearly undetectable in the low light.

?Sha. Lee. Ya,? he pronounces slowly. ?That?s an interesting name. Hungarian??

?I think not. I chose it because I liked the feel of it, and I was tired of my name changing every time I moved from one place to another. I don?t know how to explain exactly, but having my own name is important to me, even if only I know it. There are only two others alive at the moment who know both that name and my face. Now you are number three.?

He sits back noncommittally, and his fingers drum the arm of his chair very lightly. He is trying hard not to give away anything, but he does not believe me. But he is not becoming angry, or frightened, and is not amused. Nor do I sense pity. He has decided to test me. I decide to let him.

?Are you aware that I have insane people in my family?? he finally asks.

Mildly surprised, I say, ?No, not until you just said that. Do you believe me to be insane?? He pauses, trying to find a nice way of saying it. I decide to save him from it. ?Yes, you do. I can accept this.? Then he surprises me a bit.

?What I believe in is Occam?s Razor. All things being equal, the simplest explanation is most likely correct. But since we?re laying it all on the line, Princess, I?ll tell you that I do consider that to be the most likely assumption.? He contemplates me for another moment, choosing his words carefully. ?Are you aware that your doctors believe you may be mentally unbalanced?? he finally asks.

?Yes, although they do not know as much of the truth as you do now.?

He pauses, then chuckles. ?Okay. You promised me something. Do you remember what it was??

?Yes. I will not lie to you, because I need your trust, and I need to trust myself.?

?Do you think you?re deluded?? he asks, quite pointedly.

?No, I do not.? I say.

?Thirty-five hundred years you say?? he says, finally getting back to it. ?That?s a pretty long time.?

I blink in acknowledgement, inclining my head, but say nothing. He goes on. ?Where were you born??

?To be honest, I?m not certain. I believe somewhere in northern Europe, perhaps near Scandinavia, but I honestly have no way of knowing.?

?How old are your parents??

?I never knew them. I?m not sure I had them,? I say evenly.

?So you?re some kind of spirit, maybe a goddess??

I take a deep breath, and wish for a cigarette. I try very hard not to sound angry when I say, ?no.? It comes out rather more forcefully than I would like, but he does not seem taken aback.

?No relation to Prometheus?? he asks. I blush, and blush harder when I realize I am blushing. ?That was a turn of phrase. From a woman who was feeling very sorry for herself. Please?don?t tease me about this. That?s not what I am. At all.? This is becoming difficult to endure, but I keep a tight grip on my emotions.

He drums his fingers some more on the arm of his chair, then says, ?So were you ever a mighty queen, ruler of a great people??

I stare at him for a moment, and my mouth drops open. In my entire existence no one has ever asked me such a question. Startling myself, I suddenly burst into laughter. I find myself coughing, but I continue to laugh. My head goes light and I experience a bit of tunnel vision, and worry that I have offended him.

As I get myself under control and blood begins to return to my head, I refocus on him. He looks concerned, but is leaning forward and grinning now.

?So that would be ?no,? I take it?? he says and that causes me to laugh again, and my vision actually goes black for a moment. But this time I get it under control more quickly, and manage to shake my head.

?No, no,? I wheeze, looking for my water cup. ?By which I mean, I was never a? no.? I suddenly feel drained, and light, but more relaxed than I?ve been since waking up from the accident.

?Well, you certainly are an interesting one, Zsallia Marieko, I?ll give you that,? he says. I let him know with my eyes that it is up to him where he wants to go next. But there is a twinkle in his eye. I think, perhaps, I have almost won him over.

?So do you have any other super-powers? Other than not-dying, I mean??

I look at him with a bit of annoyance, but say, ?I?ve picked up a trick or two here and there,? and shrug.

?Can you show me an example?? he says. He is half-hoping I will claim to do something he cannot see, or perhaps remove all doubt by levitating from the bed, although he does not really believe it. I look carefully around the room. Spotting the tissue box on my bed-tray, I pull out two. I moisten each a bit in my water cup, just to give it a bit of weight, and squeeze each into its own little ball. I hold them both in my right hand, then look him carefully in the eye. I begin to flip each deftly into the air into its own little arc, juggling them one-handed.

His head goes back in a loud laugh. Then he stands up, leans forward, and clasps my hand.

We have an agreement.

--[end journal entry]--

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Katrina

Today I am a rational, thinking creature. I was not always thus. Today I understand that weather is driven by physical forces- even if I cannot define them to the extent a meteorologist might I still comprehend those forces are not animate. Those forces have no soul or spirit driving them. And yet? the oldest part of me, the deeply buried pagan soul of me sees the destruction wrought by Katrina, or the Boxing Day tsunami, and shudders in fear of the ancient gods of my past.

I love New Orleans- she is the most flavorful and gloriously alive city in these United States. The mixture of celebratory excess, opulence, decadence, poverty, history: nothing compares. Other cities are mighty and grand and beautiful, but none are New Orleans. I have watched with dismay as her destruction unfolds before our eyes and I weep for her while inside me anger burns; resentment towards those creatures that set this in motion. It is irrational in the extreme, but I cannot resist the notion that those ancient and malevolent spirits have thrown a challenge at the doorstep of this battered city and dared her to defy them.

I recently read a comment on another site and it seemed to me as apt an expression of the American spirit as I have encountered in some time. You Americans do not gladly suffer failure. New Orleans shall rise. The gods be damned.

Do your part.

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Changes

I have become reticent of late. Circumstances have surrounded me such that my sense of control over events has been frayed nearly to the breaking point and I have embraced notions that would have been anathema to me just one year ago. I have taken not just one, but two men into my confidence, and in doing so have laid open my most private thoughts and memories to be prodded and explored- and all within a time span so brief as to be but an eye-blink. This is the reason for my prolonged silences and the dearth of tales once so prevalent here.

Changes are coming; drastic, dangerous ventures that once done cannot be undone. I surrender myself to the judgment of this ?modern? world you have created, but I reserve the right to throw down my arms, abandon my safe haven and flee into the wilderness.

Those I trust assure me such drastic measures should never be necessary. I do wish I shared their certainty, but I admit to being of a much less charitable disposition of late. Along those lines I have made some changes in preparation for the coming weeks? festivities. First, there is a new site design in the works. Second, I will be turning on TypeKey registration for comments. Those who shun TypeKey for whatever reason are still welcome to comment, but those comments are subject to approval. I shall endeavour to be diligent and see comments move fairly swiftly, but I am a creature of slow habits so I make no firm promises.

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"Why do you carry a gun?"

?Why do you carry a gun?? he asked.

I looked up from my Calamari and rice to watch his face. He was genuinely curious rather than probing, but I knew my preference for being armed sometimes troubled him. In the early, less settled days of our relationship I had startled him, even frightened him with the sudden revelation that a pistol was tucked away in some discreet but easily available place.

?For the obvious reasons,? I replied, smiling at him, ?what makes you ask??

?I just wonder? you can?t be hurt, not permanently. And I know you can face down just about anyone without using a gun. It just seems like an unnecessary risk. And this comes from a guy who?s owned plenty of guns.?

?Why would you believe my carrying a gun poses a risk? Do you think I am too careless, irresponsible??

I was teasing him now and he took it with good grace. There was a time not long ago when this could easily have descended into bitter argument, but since November we had come to a semblance of understanding. He knows more of me now than any other human being ever has. He knows I do nothing without good reason.

?If you were ever in a situation? say a police officer had reason to search you??

?In this state? I have the proper permits.? I then returned to my meal, letting him decide if he should pursue the matter further. To his credit he did not set it aside.

?But you want to avoid drawing the wrong kind of attention, don?t you? Back in Ann Arbor you drew down on that guy in a very public place- that alley had lots of foot traffic. You didn?t need to do it, either- with the other two down??

I set my fork down with a sigh and gave him a frank look of incredulity. He was serious.

?I broke one man?s knee- he is likely crippled for life given the unlikelihood of his possessing sufficient insurance to have his leg properly cared for. The second man earned a broken jaw and lost several teeth. I drew my pistol because the third man hadn?t quite internalized the notion that his friends were badly hurt. That, and I lost my cane when I struck that man in the jaw. Drawing the pistol stopped him in his tracks. Without it I might have been forced to hurt him, or even kill him?

?So you pulled the gun instead of killing him??

I noticed then that two ladies at the next table were being very quiet, obviously overhearing the conversation. I considered ending the discussion, but decided there was no harm so long as certain overt subjects were avoided.

?Is that your phone ringing?? I asked.

He reached in to his jacket and drew out the phone to check. I reached across the table and seized his wrist, twisting as with the other hand I took the phone from him. It was swift and sudden and he barely had time to gasp. He looked at me in surprise, and then chuckled as he rubbed his wrist.

?Okay, you?re fast and you?re strong, but that?s my point- you could have put him down without using the gun.?

I offered him his phone and he took it from my hand, but as he drew back I lashed out again. This time he held firmly and I could not even twist his wrist, let alone try to take the phone from him. I let him go and sat back with a grin on my face.

?I was able to take the phone the first time because you weren?t expecting it. Likewise, I could have struck that man once, but a second chance was unlikely. My left leg was still quite weak, and it nearly buckled when I kicked the first man- I would have had to hit the third with my fist. The only way to drop him would have been a hard punch to the throat? and that probably would have killed him.?

?And all this went through your head in those couple of seconds??

I smiled a bit. ?Not precisely, but my reflexes are honed from long experience. Had I pulled the gun immediately I probably would have had to shoot one of them. By drawing it when I did, I did not have to shoot. Likely it saved that man?s life.?

?Hmm, I suppose you?re right. Still, it?s a little embarrassing. You know I can take care of myself, but the whole thing was over practically before I could react.?

My smile broadened a bit as I returned to my meal. That foiled mugging had possessed great potential for tragedy, but the three miscreants were focused on the large brutish-looking fellow with me rather than on the woman with the limp and cane. When I lashed out the surprise was total. Had I been alone, the outcome would have been far more grave.

He continued looking at me, ignoring his steak, and finally decided to press further.

?Okay, that was a specific situation. And it turned out okay, for us anyhow. It still doesn?t answer my question, though. You carry a gun everywhere- you even avoid flying if you can, just because you can?t carry a gun on a plane. It smacks of paranoia.?

?The realities of my life are different from your own, but choosing to be armed springs from a simple and recognizable fact: unarmed means dependent upon others for safety. In most cases that is acceptable, but when it is not the results are nearly always tragic. I prefer to be in a position to defend myself at all times, and in situations where social norms hold no sway a weapon is indispensable. Trust me on this point- I have much experience on this topic.?

?I?ll grant you all of that? but you?re in a pretty unique position, don?t you think? What would be really dangerous to others is just? well, inconvenient for you, isn?t it??

?Inconvenient? It would certainly have been inconvenient had I let them kill you.? He started at that. Perhaps I should not have said it?the male ego is a fragile thing. ?In any case, do you suggest I have some obligation to permit violence against myself??

?Well no, I guess not. I?m just curious how you judge which situations justify violence, and which don?t. You seem primed for it, if you catch my meaning. It?s kind of the opposite of what I would expect from?? he glanced around suddenly, realizing he might be in a situation where he should watch his words, then finished with, ?from somebody in your particular position.?

?It goes back to the same reasoning behind drawing down on that fellow in the alley: will violence reduce the situation, and if so, how much is enough??

?We could have just handed over our money??

?Unacceptable. Your people have made too many civilized concessions to criminals. If one chooses to engage in crime there should be a tangible and credible threat of immediate consequence, but the modern reaction is often to allow the crime to occur and then look to the government to mete out some form of justice after the fact.?

?So? shoot first and ask questions later? Vigilante justice??

?I did not shoot that man, did I? The issue is willingness to act in one?s own defense, and possessing the means to do so. In any situation where I believe my safety?or that of those I care about?is threatened I will not hesitate to employ whatever means are at my disposal to defend myself, including deadly force. Even for a simple mugging or purse snatching, I would not hesitate to use whatever force I felt necessary. Tolerance of such things is a social weakness. It is so endemic in modern society that instances of ?ordinary citizens? acting to foil crime are considered news? unless, of course, they use a gun. For some reason your news reporters rarely mention when a gun is used in defense.?

There was motion at the next table as one of the two women turned to face me, her younger companion obviously attempting to prevent her.

?I?ve been sitting here and listening to you two and I just can?t believe what I?m hearing!? she hissed, ?You honestly believe you have the right to shoot anyone who you think is threatening you? Don?t you understand just how stupid that is? This is supposed to be a civilized country but people like you make me wonder. We have a maniac in the White House and maniacs on the streets!?

?Only a slave refuses to defend herself," I said, then stopped. If I said more it would likely cause a scene. I smiled disarmingly, but as I feared my response seemed to make her angrier. I could hear the gold bracelets on her wrists jangling as she trembled with indignation. So I was surprised when my companion spoke up.

?Your problems with what you?re hearing are solved by not eavesdropping, lady. It?s not like we?ve been shouting here. Besides, you?ve got no idea who we are, which makes you not just rude, but ignorant.?

I graced him with an amused expression as the woman turned a withering gaze in his direction. He smiled, a picture of almost beatifying calm that nearly forced a laugh from my lips. Still, this was becoming a scene, and that would not do. Not at all.

?Madame, there is no point in arguing. I am certain we both have very different worldviews. I understand yours; I doubt you would ever comprehend mine. Why don?t we just finish our lunches and say no more? Or should I call the manager??

She almost made the wrong choice, but her young friend took her by the arm and asked her to quiet down, breaking the flow of her anger.

?Barbarian,? she sniffed, and turned back to her lunch.

My companion covered his mouth and snickered.

?Indeed,? I sighed, and returned to my salad.

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Fear

It has been a time of introspection for me these last weeks. I finally returned home from Ann Arbor, having been quite hale and whole for some months, and I have enjoyed the coming of Spring, even as I hold at bay those thoughts and fears plaguing me since my accident in November. It matters not a jot that I have so many years behind me, not when events have unfolded along such myriad unforeseen paths. I find myself daunted by understandings I had long ago thought meaningless.

I fear my own destruction. I thought I was beyond such petty insistence on self-preservation, but that turns out not to be the case. It is not fear of death, for truly that has not plagued me in centuries; rather it is an unwillingness to offer myself up for annihilation at the whim of others who might believe they were engaged in an act crucial to the survival of their race or creed. After thirty-five centuries I believe I have earned the right to an end of my own choosing- to have others choose for me is a notion so disturbing as to bring upon me a state of near paranoia.

I have invited too many people into the sphere of my personal life. There are too many who know me now for who and what I truly am. Some of them fear me, and I fully understand that reaction: however, I have no intention of permitting their fear to override my own prerogatives. This leads me to conclusions I dislike, but cannot readily ignore.

I was riding the other day, there are several suitable trails on the property and the surrounding lands, but my preferred route follows the borders of the McAllister Farm property. As I rode I found myself making mental notes: A fence line here, perhaps remote cameras, how many guards would it take to secure this boundary? Should I look in to that German concern employing so many former East Berlin border guards? Do I prefer men who will err on the side of caution, or those who are prone to treat every trespass as a grave danger and will respond accordingly?

It disturbs me to be thinking in terms of protecting myself from the community I have struggled to make my own and yet I cannot dismiss those fears for they certainly spring from some buried awareness of danger. I think of poor Isabella, trapped in her cocoon of devoted protectors, and I am certain this is nothing I desire any part of, yet if I do as I say I shall, how can I avoid drawing a moat about this place? I am not so convinced of the goodness and reliable rationality of Man as some of my new friends and advisers purport to be. I admire their high opinions of their species and their fellow countrymen, but I am disinclined to share it. Instead I now go armed at all times, and I consider turning this home in to a fortress.

And I despise myself for those thoughts.

I have been driven towards rash action by sudden event-driven worries that fortunately came to naught. I find myself now poised upon an immensely difficult decision, an opening of my life to the world in a way that just months ago would have been unthinkable to me. Will I regret this in months or years to come? Am I merely trading the cloak of secrecy for the prison of true fear?

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Argument With A New Friend

?It is so simple for you, isn?t it?? I snapped, ?Brought up in this utopia of yours, ensconced in the bosom of a well-defined moral universe. You have your rules, your directions all laid out before you, easy to see, easy to follow? you have no idea what it means to not know what is right and what is wrong.?

?I don?t think it?s all as simple as that,? he shot back, ?and I don?t buy this line of bullshit, either. I know you know right from wrong; it?s all through everything you?ve written, in your journals, on your web site. Or is that all a lie??

?It is the end result of thirty-five centuries of fear, mistakes, loss, and horror. You have your moral certainty handed to you on the platter of a Judeo-Christian heritage, and you presume to judge me? I think not.?

He laughed, ?Princess, I?m not even a believer??

?No? Are you a hypocrite, then? Do you believe for an instant that this affected disbelief somehow erases a lifetime of conditioning? That it makes you a creature separated from all those about you? You asked me before what I see in you- I see a man who believes. You may have no truck with the churches built by men, but you have an intimate knowledge of the God whose laws form the bedrock of the nation you call your own. Deny it. Look me in the eyes and tell me that it is categorically not so. Do that, and perhaps I will believe you.?

He nearly shot that argument straight back at me, but then he hesitated. I could see the wheels working in him and I had to suppress my urge to smile. Instead I turned, taking my eyes from his face and looking out the window over snow-covered city streets. In our short time together he had learned how adept I was at guessing the thoughts of those whom I know. By looking away I was respecting his privacy

?I don?t believe in God,? he said, his voice firm, ?but I do believe that there were great and wise men in the world, and that Jesus was one of them? This does not make me a hypocrite.?

?No,? I agreed, ?it does not. But how did you come to know of Jesus? How did you come to know of the bible? Or these other great men you speak of??

?I was taught, obviously??

?Yes, obviously.? I turned to face him again. ?I was taught nothing. What morality I learned centered on obedience and survival. Had I been in the Levant perhaps things would have been different, but mine was a world of pagan disciplines, if any at all. Try to imagine it, if you can, and then remember- that is the foundation of my beliefs. If you are going to fear me, that is the reason to fear me.?

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Christmas in Pennsylvania

I can stand again. I find myself somewhat ashamed for resenting the debilitating circumstance of being confined to a wheelchair for all but brief moments. I am still in pain, but the worst is clearly behind me. I can make my way with a cane, it is still an effort and my left leg shall likely annoy me somewhat for another week, but it is good to be amongst the motile once again. I know there are many more for whom such injuries are not so easily set aside.

A further indication of my returning health: I am suddenly acutely aware that this city is a college town. Of beef and liquor I have had plenty since leaving the hospital. Now other appetites do call for my attention. They will have to wait, however, for I am returning home to Pennsylvania for Christmas. I am sufficiently whole to appear there without requiring cumbersome explanations, and over the last week I have lost just a tiny bit of the trepidation I felt.

Still, I am one to prepare against need, particularly having been recently caught unawares. For instance, I managed to obtain a firearm (do not ask how) so that I have some measure of extra security. I am usually a fan of automatic pistols, but this revolver seems to suit me well, being small handled and easily concealed while still offering decent stopping power. It turned out to be a fortuitous acquisition, given the events of this past evening.

I have been ?mugged? before, with varying results. I am disinclined to yield to the demands of society?s bottom-feeders, but I am no fool. In this case it was a relatively feeble attempt and the pistol put a stop to it quite handily. That and the broken knee and shattered teeth of two of the would-be highwaymen. My companion was somewhat flustered, but it was all of a minor inconvenience in the end. For myself, that is.

As to other precautions I have taken, let us simply say that I may now disappear at need far more efficiently than at any time previous.

I missed Thanksgiving with the family, but by all accounts it went quite well. Those old enough to remember the house when it was still in regular use were suitably impressed. Those who had heard only tales of its former glory were similarly given pause as they came to understand the tales they had been regaled with by their elders were not simple nostalgia, but honest fact. That in itself was enough to provide satisfaction, but still I wish I had been there. Jeremy had no direct descendants- I find myself curious about those descended from the children I helped raise.

I find myself eager for Christmas.

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Pain

Pain is a relative thing. I am capable of enduring levels of pain others might find excruciating, but this is more a matter of long experience rather than some innate superiority on my part. After all, pain is generally a warning sign of illness or injury, and I am proof against such things.

That said the pain is nearly unbearable. It is a pressure against my temper and rationality, eruptions of crippling fire that leave me weak and trembling upon their passing. It ends with a trip to the toilet, then the raging hunger comes again and the cycle repeats until exhaustion brings merciful respite in unconsciousness.

I apologize for my reticence, but I am still uncertain what to do. The recent events in Denver coupled with my injuries have left me unbalanced unto madness and the urge to simply flee is hard upon me. Once again this morning I nearly succumbed to the urge to destroy this journal yet I stayed my hand again. While typing is difficult and painfully slow I do find that somehow it soothes me, if only a little. At the moment I am in need of whatever soothing I might find.

Then there is the pain of my soul. It did not go well with my friends. The one has died and the other, overcome with grief and loss, became so angry with me I thought he might never forgive me. Perhaps he should not, but he did, and in doing so he made so very clear to me the guilt he feels- he believes my current circumstance to be his responsibility. To my dear friend I can say only this- it could have been any intersection, in any city, on any night. It seems it would be inevitable, given enough time, and we both know the truth of that, do we not? Mourn your wife, as I mourn for you, and think not of my troubles. They are transitory and I shall emerge whole once again. You are one of a dwindling group of friends who know me as I am and care for me for who I am. I do not believe I can ever repay that debt.

And now there is... another.

How shall I describe him? A friend? There is potential although in all honesty he is not one I normally would have considered. We have been thrust together he and I, by an impulsive act born of desperation. I knew of him through his public persona and upon our meeting I was pleased to find the public face a fair reflection of the inner man. Circumstances have forced me to act in moments upon notions I should have taken decades to plan. My history with such things is somewhat less than encouraging.

He is annoying. That seems a good sign.

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It Has Been Close To One Month

Whither goes my poetic friend?

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A New City, An Old Fear

This would be exciting were I not alone, or in such circumstance as I now find myself. This city is new to me and I am unequal to the task of exploration, being weighted with such dire needs and regrets.

I have never become accustomed to the death of a friend, but I believed this time I had what I needed to make this something to hold on to, an act of unmitigated good. And I did succeed at that in no small measure, but in the end my presence was as it has always been- wound rather than balm. That from that night and its achingly painful end I should then tumble in to this circumstance, having all my privacy stolen, all my deepest fears rendered reality? days after returning to awareness I am still numbed from the shock of it.

I reject the notion of fate. This horrifying turn of events seems inevitable in retrospect. I should have prepared for it, now I am forced to improvise, to put my trust in those over whom I have but the most tenuous of control and simply wait for events to play out.

I missed Thanksgiving with Edna and the family. I fear I may never see them again. I ache to weep over this, but I am so desperately tired.

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A Friend In Need

Sudden events require my presence in Denver. I cannot be certain when I shall return.

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Rendezvous

It was an exercise in futility, but one willingly undertaken. Half a day spent in the air, trying not to think of the vast, blue expanse of the sea far below, then another day adjusting, waiting for the appointed day, and the appointed time.

The caf? was warm and relaxed, offering an excellent view of the square. It would have been simple to let my mind wander as it so often does in such places, but I had made a promise so my beverage of choice was coffee as I kept my silent watch upon the flowing crowds, seeking that familiar face, or distinctive walk. The day passed in its natural way, punctuated by the occasional attempted pickup declined with grace and a smile until dusk settled in.

I was surprised to feel a pang of such disappointment that it engendered a terrible longing within me. I had so wished to believe, my so-very-rational dismissal of the possibility suddenly riven and scattered upon the winds of emotion. The overwhelming urge to try again, to give him another day, another week, frightened me. It was madness to contemplate such a thing, yet I found myself in my hotel room, rescheduling my flight. Two more days. I had waited a century, what was two more days?

Those two days cost me dearly in terms of frayed nerves, self-doubt and self-recrimination. I felt foolish returning to that caf?, yet the thought of simply leaving? to call this episode finally closed was not something I could do. I despise such weakness in myself, wallowing in indecision, but there I was.

As the final hours passed I forced rationality upon myself. There had never been a chance. He had humored me as I had him. Such an insightful man, but those in his profession usually are, even today. I allowed myself to think of those days, traveling with a small circus as his assistant. He was not a magician, lord no:

?A magician produces doves from his sleeves and pulls rabbits from hats. I, my dear, am an Illusionist!?

He had seen something in me that intrigued him, and in our final year together I had told him in an offhand way of my unusual circumstance. Like any rational person he assumed I was lying, or deluded, or both. Yet he had played along and there had been a certain connection between us those final months before I moved on. He promised he would learn my secret and join me here in one hundred years. I had promised to be here.

I kept my promise. That he would be unable to keep his had been a foregone conclusion. That knowledge was cold comfort to me now.

As I gathered my things, preparing to leave, someone caught my eye- a woman, perhaps forty years old. She had been in the caf? every evening, arriving perhaps an hour before I departed each night. She deliberately made eye contact with me and she smiled, then rose from her table and approached me. She was handsome, her face a study in delicate beauty and aristocratic grace, with wide set eyes of grey framed in blonde hair going gracefully silver. I returned her smile.

?Forgive my intrusion, but you do look so very sad,? she said, her voice soft and warm, her French flavored with the accent of a Londoner.

?Oh, it really is nothing. Rather foolish of me, to be honest. My name is Genevieve.?

?Elizabeth,? she replied, taking a seat at my table, ?I really must apologize- I have been watching you for the past two nights?? and she laid her right hand atop mine.

At least I would not spend my last night in Paris alone.

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Home

The McAllister House is alternately a flurry of activity and a place of nearly serene quiet and solitude. Since completion of the major renovations those quiet moments have increased dramatically to the point I find them disturbing. This place should not be so empty, so lacking in life and purpose.

I find myself asking: have I made a mistake?

Throughout my life I have avoided such moments as this, so to find myself here, within these familiar walls, surrounded by names and people who carry the unmistakable bearing of their ancestors, it is unnerving at times and more so those nights I find myself alone. I desire so very much to be here though my presence awakens thoughts and memories of that which was and is now gone. Something holds me here beyond the ties of the past.

I have no family in this place. The house is large even by modern standards- thirty-two rooms including nine bedrooms and attached dressing rooms, two parlor rooms, a large library, gentlemen?s smoking room, a spacious study, and then the two dining rooms- one of which doubles as a ballroom. It had been such an imposing and pretentious structure for its time and place, but it had been filled with family, three generations in the year before my Jeremy left me, and there had been a working farm growing wheat, feed corn and producing dairy for the community. It was alive.

I have my visitors, mostly Edna, but others stop by from time to time. I have developed a reputation as a soft touch for worthy causes so there is no shortage of people calling. During the day there is a cook on staff, and of course my stable hands tending the horses. Thee days a week the housekeeping service comes. It is not enough to bring the flavor of home to this space. It is still just another place I spend time, larger than my apartment and so rather disconcerting.

My only constant companion here is George, the houseman. Part butler, part manager he arranges the affairs of the house, seeing to it the kitchen is stocked, minor maintenance issues are addressed and the assorted comings and goings of the housekeepers and landscapers and whatnot all take place with a minimum of interference. He is a good soul, a tall, gangly black man with more salt than pepper to his hair and the silky warmth of Mississippi in his soft voice. Fifty years old he lost thirty of those years to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, penance for a drunken bar fight that left one man dead and another maimed. I encountered him in Philadelphia when his parole officer backed in to my car in a parking garage. As my driver and the parole officer exchanged papers, George and I exchanged pleasantries. Two days later that same parole officer was shocked and mightily relieved to see her problematic client suddenly gainfully employed with a place to call home.

I suppose he is but another of those wounded souls towards whom I gravitate so readily.

As the holidays approach Edna has been urging me to host the family for the occasion. It is a truly splendid idea and the notion of this home filled with people, children, conversation and laughter is quite appealing. I have the notion to contact the far-flung members of the family and see if I can manage to bring all of them here for that week. Edna would so enjoy that?

It is such a happy scene. Why can I not shake the dread of what would follow? That this place would again fall silent? it nearly moves me to tears contemplating such a thing. How has solitude become loneliness in such a short time? Solitude that was once my best defense- the fa?ades I wore so easily to keep others engaged in the fictitious entities I became for them are suddenly pale and lifeless. The desire to be shut of them is so very powerful yet I know in my heart it is still too dangerous. The time has not come for that.

I am very patient. Patience teaches me to wait for events to develop. It does not counsel that I should enjoy the wait.

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Old Habits Die Hard...

I am a creature of habit. By that I mean to say I am one given to dealing with similar situations in similar ways. For some this is a reasonable methodology, yielding adequate results; for others it is a recipe for failure, particularly in the light of Man?s general unwillingness to abandon cherished notions even in the face of incontrovertible evidence that his methodology is flawed. I rest assured that any reader encountering the previous statement is somewhat acquainted with examples of both extremes. In light of this, there is a habit of mine that I am beginning to suspect may be sabotaging my efforts both with this journal and with my larger and much less public efforts to date: I avoid becoming attached to people.

This has an obvious purpose and has become such an automatic thing that I hardly notice it any longer. I have stumbled from time to time, with mixed results; however, over the vast majority of my existence it has been a necessary and reliable modus operandi. Only now, it seems to be standing opposite my desires with regards to this journal in particular, and my life in what we shall call the Real World.

I recently delved in to politics here. I detest politics, but the topic allows me to withdraw in to an analytical stance relatively devoid of emotional input. I distance myself from those who might read and perhaps be inclined to comment upon whatever notion I choose to put forth. Discussions of politics and matters philosophical are safe. They lack intimacy, as they do not require any hint of emotional involvement in the topic at hand. They offer no real insight in to who I am and how I truly feel about the world, any person, or myself.

I retreat in to politics and philosophy in this journal whenever I become uneasy with the revelations about myself. Writing of my past and present is too closely akin to intimate discourse. It is as a confession between friends or lovers and when indulged in too freely it renders me incapable of continuing. I divert myself, plunging in to topics I am not truly inclined to discuss in any depth. On the rare occasions when those topics garner an inordinate level of notice they, too, become unsafe for me, but not at the level I feel regarding my more personal revelations.

The conundrum is thus: I write that I may be known even if only to those few who deign to peruse my scribbling, but allowing myself to be open in even the minimal way I have terrifies me so that I instinctively pull away. Smatterings of short bits regarding my life are followed by a retreat in to the minutiae of topics cold and arcane.

Recognizing this is so would seem to be the first step towards correcting it; however, I am loath to make so rash a move.

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Morning in Boston

I awoke in late morning to the sound of rain lashing against the windows. There was a body next to me, warm and strong, breathing in the gentle cadences of deep sleep. Disorientation set in for a moment for there had been so much the night before of drinking and dancing and conversation? I could not recall his name.

I opened my eyes and everything began to fall in to place. I was at a familiar hotel in Boston. I could not recall his name because he had never offered it to me, nor had I given him mine. It was not cheap anonymity, but a playful bit of mystery and? I rolled over carefully, not wishing to disturb him. His face was peaceful, handsome and lacking the early sense of discomfort it had worn when first we met. His head rested atop his left arm and I gazed again at the simple gold band on his third finger.

I had not set out to find some mercy to bestow, but it had come to that, had it not? His pain had been so deeply buried, almost cherished, nurtured and maintained. He had been with friends, they had dragged him out in a well-intentioned but ill-conceived effort to bring some excitement back in to his life. He appreciated their concern, but his presence was only physical, his joviality a careful facade. His heart ached with loss and grief.

I gathered myself together and slipped out of bed, donned a thin cotton robe and went to the balcony door. Outside the remnants of Hurricane Charley sluiced from the grey sky, batted about by gusts of breeze that were but pale remnants of the destructive fury unleashed only a day before and more than a thousand miles to the south. The doors opened easily and the moist air gushed against my face as I stepped out in to the rain, cool streams soaking me as I moved to the balcony rail, leaning out to take in the sights and sounds of the city and the storm. The rain was a staccato hiss and drum against all things man-made, a blanket of gentle noise smothering the typical sounds of a Boston Sunday morning.

Rainwater poured from the sky, cool and sweet on my skin, soaking through the thin fabric of my robe, cleansing in its own way as I contemplated the odd fates that brought me to this place at this time. Why am I always drawn to broken things, broken people? I am no altruist, I do not see it as my place to ease the suffering of those about me, yet when I encounter the wounded there is some deep desire for a connection that I cannot deny. I do not seek to heal. I seek to be with my own kind.

His voice startled me, but I could feel the warmth in it, and the longing. He stepped up behind me, his arms sliding down around my waist and I sank back against him, the two of us there in the rain. I could feel his need to speak, the desire to say something meaningful and sweet almost paralyzing him. That was something I could not bear, not now. So I turned and pressed my fingers to his lips, smiling at him as I reached down between us and gripped his swollen member through his shorts. His arms tightened around me and he stepped back, towards the door, but I would not follow. I would not leave the balcony.

I guided him back to one of the chairs on the small balcony and he settled in to it, reclining the back as I drew his shorts down his muscular legs. He reached for me, pulling open the front of my robe as I straddled him, the sodden garment sliding off my body as I settled down on top of him, my mouth hungry upon his. There were only a few minutes of this pleasurable mixture of warm skin and cool rain before our desire drew us closer and I felt the firm, sweet pressure of him entering me. I ground my pelvis down against his,, my hands on his chest holding me up as I worked with my legs, the two of us now focused solely on each other and the pleasure we shared. His hands moved, caressing my hips, my face, my chest, sewing ripples of shivering delight wherever they roamed. The sky opened up with a sudden, startling fury, rain pounding down as if the very floodgates of heaven had been cast open. We lurched, then laughed, then returned to that perfect synergy of flesh, desire and pleasure, all accentuated by the crashing deluge washing over and through us. Moments like that are never truly bad, but they are rarely so very, very good.

Hours later as we stood in the lobby, gazing in to each other?s eyes I felt a pang of regret. Here we were, two creatures so very unalike, yet there had been such an immediate and fulfilling bond between us. He had needed to talk of his young bride, torn from his side by a cancer that had left them barely enough time to understand what was happening before she was gone. And I had needed to tell the truth to somebody; even knowing he could not possibly believe. We stumbled upon each other at just the right time, in just the right place, in just the right way? yet it had to end. It was perfection, but the world does not gladly suffer perfection and tolerates it only in such fleeting moments as this.

He wanted to know my name, but I demurred. I told him the truth- someone such as I makes for a lovely weekend, but long term? I am poisonous. He did not believe me, but then he did not believe most of what I told him so that, too, was perfection of a sort. We parted finally, with that oh-so-very clich? ?maybe we?ll see each other again?. Perhaps we shall, but I doubt it. We each took what we needed from those hours together. It must be enough.

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Reality Intrudes...

I returned to Boston to deal with certain matters. What did I find in my mail?

A summons: Jury Duty.

I could set this aside easily as I am transferring my permanent residence to Pennsylvania, but I find myself intrigued. I have never done this before. I doubt I would be selected for it seems to me that the attorneys involved would seek to eliminate anyone who appears too serious regarding this obligation; however, simply experiencing it intrigues me.

In three weeks we shall see.

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I have horses again...

I have horses again. It astounds me just how much that has come to mean to me. The modern world is so very fast paced, so technical and cold- you have forgotten what it means to travel, inured from the reality of it by machines that whisk you along in pampered comfort to any point on the globe. The idea of mounting a horse or, God forbid, walking from say Harrisburg to Philadelphia is an abstract concept. It is something one considers for purposes of raising money to treat children?s cancer, or protesting against the outrage du jour, but never as a mere necessity. Never as an aspect of everyday life. I once walked from Southern California to Jefferson City, Missouri. Why would I do such a thing? It was the only way to get to one place from the other.

Just contemplating such things saddens me somewhat. I do despise sounding as a Luddite, for I am no romantic pining away for the lost and irretrievable past. The modern world is a place of wonders, a tangible utopia for those whose perspectives are properly attuned. You expect to live unto the morrow as a matter of course, even under the worst of conditions. I envy you that certainty even as I share it to some degree.

Enough of this pointless maundering over thoughts and notions- I have horses again, three to be exact. With the stable completed and the opportunity to act upon me I was suddenly moved to unaccustomed haste. My accountant is horrified, bleating on about the difference between liquid and hard assets and the erosion of principal. So long as the checks clear I could not care less. I have three beautiful Arabians, two bay geldings and a stunning grey mare, all just three years old and full of energy.

Why am I moved almost to tears to have them here? I had not thought to mount a horse for other than the briefest moment for nearly thirty years. Now I cannot keep myself away from the stables, reveling in the smell and the labor much to the amusement of my newly hired hands, a girl of twenty-one named Heather and her younger brother Thomas. They work for a reasonable wage and the opportunity to ride, assuming they show themselves responsible. I harbor no doubts of them for in these matters my judgment is as sound as can be, but I shall hold back so as to avoid seeming easily swayed. They take my presence in the stables as a manner of measuring their worth, but Heather has seen me standing at the paddock, gasping as emotions well up unbidden, and she wonders.

I call the mare Melody. It is a bit of hopeless nostalgia, and silly upon its face, as I have never been particularly attached to horses. I like them, mind you, but to find myself moved to do such a thing leaves me open to questioning my motives and perhaps even my sanity. Yet when I took my first ride, just a leisurely journey to feel out the land and see what trails there were to follow, it was occasioned by a wrenching sense of dislocation: it felt wrong to be alone in this place, in this way. Astride my Melody, rocking with her sure and gentle gait, it was so easy to lose sight of the real world and sink back into memory? and realize just what was missing.

I passed him on the way back to the stables. The cemetery is now well groomed, the iron fence replaced with its gate repaired, the stones all cleaned and straightened with fresh flowers to adorn them. I paused there, rooted in place by my sudden understanding. This place was returning to life- the house, the land, and the people. These are all good things, but they are not what I want most. What I want most is forever beyond my reach.

But I have horses again.

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Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1911-2004

I enjoyed Ronald Reagan?s presidency. Whereas others were aghast at the notion of an actor as President, I saw it as a fitting evolution. I never cared for him as an actor, but that says little, as I have no real attraction to the cinema. I was in California when he was governor and I was rather taken with him then despite my affected bohemian ways.

I admired his optimism. That alone made him the best solution to the malaise of the late 1970?s. I admired his commitment to his beliefs and his belief in the ideology of his nation. He was an implacable foe to communism and his stand against that soul-destroying cancer would have been enough all by itself to endear him to me. He is one of the very few political leaders I have ever had any feelings for.

Rest In Peace, Mr. President.

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Boston

I generally avoid staying in one place too long; however, Boston has become somewhat of a touchstone for me. I have had an apartment there since 1970 and it makes for a convenient place to meet lawyers and whatnot. I suppose it is coming time to leave that behind as well. These days with their computers and registries and databases? suddenly thirty years becomes an eternity of paper trails and evidence.

I fled the events in the desert that decades-past summer feeling the scrutiny of the police upon me. They had been kind in their own way, and amused at the idea that this ?little slip of a thing? could have dealt out such mayhem and destruction. They were willing to be deceived as I told them tales of my father teaching me the proper handling of a pistol and gifting me with his souvenir Army Colt .45 because he refused to let his little girl head out in to the world untrained and unarmed. Some of those men had tears in their eyes as I recounted those tales. I am a supremely skilled liar and raconteur- I showed them what the wished to see, and they accepted it readily.

First to California, into the embrace of friends who knew me for what I was, then back to Boston. As much as I dislike urban living, I could think of no other place to be and I took some small comfort from familiar things and well-known streets. I dabbled in university classes and oversexed coeds with too much money, too little history and overblown concepts of self. Given the backdrop of local strife those diversions fulfilled a need, but provided little in the way of real satisfaction. If anything it merely served to lull me in to a sense of complacency- a dangerous state for me.

I lose track of time. This is a recent development, something I began to notice at the onset of the Twentieth Century. It is not a matter of simply becoming engrossed and passing a day without intending to; rather it is the loss of months, even years at a time. It nearly always manifests itself when I feel myself at peace with my surroundings- life takes on a certain comforting rhythm and the days fade in an out from one to the next until I take note of the world once again to find that I have passed as much as a decade with little regard.

All of this is in sharp contrast with the past few months where each day has presented something to be confronted directly. To be certain, these are not life-changing events, they present no realistic danger and can hardly be called matters of import, but I find my life cluttered by dealings not easily left to the hands of those not privy to my unique concerns. I am unaccustomed to such distraction. It seems to have consequences beyond my mere displeasure.

My sleep is tortured. Long ago I ceased to be troubled by dreams. While I am certain my unconscious mind continued its nightly reshuffling and sorting of events, memories and motivations, those activities were no longer partially visible to my waking awareness. Instead, dreams seemed to become portents, warnings of some kind, or prodding towards or away from some course of action. Rare were the dreams I remembered, and those were always vivid and unmistakable in their intent.

Not so now. My nights are filled with visions of the open sea, a hunger for that one thing I fear most in the world, or else I feel myself lost and seeking solace, seeking that which I might call ?home?. That is an odd desire, as I have no real home. There are many places I live, but nothing yet is home. I have hopes for Pennsylvania? Yet I must consider just what Home would be?

Perhaps simply that place where I might pass those sudden decades without care or concern.

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Annoyance And Triumph, Of Sorts

God placed the gift upon those who create and build. There is something viscerally satisfying about the act of creation, be it a work of art, a cord of neatly stacked firewood, or replacing the wiring in my Victorian-era farmhouse. The wiring was decrepit when the house was finally sealed up, and had declined to improve with further aging, but my electrical contractor has done a marvelous job of not only upgrading everything, but also preserving the basic beauty and atmosphere of this grand old home. There is neither a socket nor a light switch to be seen in the living areas.

Of course, the devil could not let this go unmatched, hence Zoning Boards and Inspectors. I do try to not be overly harsh, for I understand the town?s dismay over my arrival- it stood to benefit greatly from the development plans laid out, and they had the property virtually within their grasp. Nonetheless, it seems petty to place needless obstacles in my path. Fortunately Joshua is up to the task, taking some personal pleasure in the reversal of fortune represented by my plans to reoccupy the house.

So, the wiring is now reluctantly admitted to be up to code, the barn and stables are now properly permitted and under construction, the McAllister Family Cemetery does not require relocation, and the interior work is well under way? It has been a marvelous maelstrom of activity.

Of course, it has left me little time to consider on further topics for this little journal. I am mindful of the question posed in comments to the previous post and I shall address them in a somewhat timely manner, but for the moment I do believe I shall laze about and draw something that existed elsewhere and place it here. What follows was originally offered as a guest post at Etherian?s Island in October of 2003?

The house was more difficult to find than I had expected. One Hundred and Fifty Three years is not such a great span, but for this once small town? the changes had been profound. A small town had become a larger town, had become a suburb. Still, there were traces of the past to be found in the historic buildings downtown, and the aged ante bellum farmhouses that had survived the rapacious maneuverings of developers. One in particular called to me.

There was no road. There had been, but the house and the property had been unoccupied for so long that the track had overgrown. Yet landmarks remained; the lay of the land had not changed so much. There was a bit of a struggle on going between the trust that held the property and a group of land developers who envisioned multi-million dollar homes and a championship golf course. But the legal strictures of the trust were strong and the land remained as it was. The house had been empty for more than fifty years.

Given the contention surrounding it I was required to be secretive, approaching cross-country, taking most of a day to reach it. The air was warm- summer giving way grudgingly to fall. The heat was real, but it hinted at the cool night to follow, the buzzing of beetles giving the lie to the day. I walked out of the woods, past the faded ?No Trespassing? signs, crossing the low rise to bring the house in to view. It sprawled across the next small hill, still majestic in its own way, despite the obvious toll of decades of disuse. The outbuildings were gone- the stable and the barn, either removed or collapsed.

The sight of it gave me pause. Suddenly, and again, this seemed foolish- what was the point of coming here? Everything that had made this place precious to me was gone long, long ago. There was nothing here? no. Almost nothing.

I crossed the field of high grass and brambles, feeling the weight of the past settle upon me as I drew closer to the dilapidated structure. The years certainly had not been kind, nor had the occasional band of squatters, for some of the damage was obviously deliberate, the work of teenagers marking the spot of their private drinking parties.

The sun was setting behind it as I drew closer, stepping in to the shadow of the house, into the embrace of it. The long, wrap-around porch was sound, barely creaking as I walked along it, past boarded up windows and the sealed front doors. There had been changes, of course. Nothing lasts so long without changing. Nothing but me.

I spotted the way in with little effort- one of the windows had had its plywood carefully removed then replaced more than once. I slid the wood from its frame and squeezed through, my large pack making it a tight fit. Somebody had actually gone to the trouble of attaching a handle to the inside of the plywood cover so I used it to seal the window behind me. The house, so old and full of ghosts, now had one more.

I was in the southern parlor. The room was empty of course, but I recognize it and my mind?s eye filled it with those familiar things that made it such a delightful place to take a morning?s breakfast or brunch. The house was gloomy with so many windows covered yet it was as if I could feel it warming at my presence. Silly, yes, but suddenly I as if the house were so very happy that I had come.

I stepped through the arch to the entryway, the front parlor: the grand staircase sweeping up to my right, the entry to the northern parlor across from me, the hall to the dining room offset to the right from that and the entrance to the sitting room leading due west. I dropped my pack, suddenly eager to be free of the weight.

The house was empty, just some beer cans and other trash piled in the corner near the front doors- whoever made a habit of visiting this place at least had the courtesy to clean up after themselves a bit. I strolled through the lower floor, pausing to remember here, or there, noticing things that were now missing, or were new. There was a scent to the place, even after all these decades, even after being empty for so long, I could taste the familiarity of it.

The staircase beckoned.

By then I was nearly manic. I snatched my pack from the ground and swept up the wide steps, but something halted me. A memory, an echo, teasing at me and taunting me until I sat a moment and finally called it up from the place it lay buried. I turned it over in my mind, tasting it, feeling it until a trick of the deepening darkness and my own desire conspired to make it real.

I saw him, standing at the foot of the stairs- he could not look at me nor I directly at him, that would shatter the spell, but I knew that this memory of him, this pale echo of him knew me. He heard me.

?I came to say goodbye.?

We said goodbye long ago. We parted- you on your path to future days; and I, on mine to oblivion.

?But I held on to you. I was selfish, but no longer.?

I understand, but this is not the place for goodbyes.

?I will come. I will see you in the proper place. That is why I am here.?

Would that I had eyes with which to see you?

He turned to bring his eyes towards me and the moment collapsed in to the shadows. For the first time since setting out on this journey a twinge of sadness brushed my heart. Not grief. Not bitterness. The time for those had passed.

Upstairs I made my way around to our bedroom and my old dressing room. It was quite dark and I had to use the flashlight I had brought to find my way. Once there I opened my pack and drew out the lantern, filling it with oil and priming the wick before lighting it. The pale yellow illumination suffused the room, rendering it in an almost surrealist cast of flickering shadow and light. Another time this might have been depressing, the empty room, the bare floors, the walls stained and faded, but to me it was a welcome sight. I knew this place. I could feel the past alive in it.

The remainder of the pack held only a blanket and one large, carefully folded and wrapped item. I spread the blanket on the floor and took out the package, carefully opening it, laying out the contents, smoothing the fabric. Then I began to undress.

The dress precluded slipping out the way I had come in. Fortunately the door out the back to the garden was easily opened from the inside. The sun was almost below the horizon now and I stood a moment to admire it as I had so many times before, so very long ago. I set out westerly from the garden, walking in to the lowering sun until I encountered a rusted iron gate, still hanging awkwardly from a single hinge attached to the skewed granite pillar whose twin lay broken in the grass opposite. The remainder of the fence I remembered was gone. I could see the stones, three neat rows of them, miraculously unmolested by those who had claimed the house as a favored nightspot.

I counted the headstones- fifteen of them. So, he was the last to be buried here after all. I stepped to the end of the short row, my feet touching the very spot where I had stood One Hundred Fifty-Three Years, Two Months and Eleven Days before. The day my beloved Jeremy was given to the Earth to hold for all eternity.

Come, Elaine. Sit with me once more.

?I miss you, Jeremy. I will always miss you, but the pain is gone.? I set the lamp atop his headstone and spread the blanket, tamping down the tall, dry grass, then carefully took my seat, folding the dress and the petticoats just so.

Your wedding dress. How appropriate.

?Let me tell you of what has come to pass...?

Seated there by my husband?s grave as darkness fell, I made my final peace: a quiet, laughing communion with the memory of the one who had made me so happy, so joyful, so alive.

And we were interrupted only once?

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What Am I Doing?

Why do this? Why return to this? There are so very many reasons to let it lie and no good reason to take it up again, yet here I am. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I returned to the old site and set my pointer over the delete option. Make it all go away. Cover my tracks and make it all something that may never have been.

That would have been the wise thing to do. Instead I have moved here. I have enlisted others to design this place. These are not entirely rational acts for one such as I.

The past few months have not been lacking in distractions. There is the house, requiring meetings with architects and contractors. I am fortunate that the off-season renders them more available than would oft be the case. Between that happy circumstance and my willingness to spend money, I should have the house in a livable state by the end of the summer. There are also more long-term plans requiring my attentions, preparations against future needs both anticipated and unpredictable. Those require the attentions of lawyers and accountants and bankers sufficient to fill my days with irritating minutiae.

Why add another source of uncertainty to an already uncertain life? It cannot be loneliness for my life is now filled with people who treat me as family. I have Edna, and her niece Sarah. They are both comfort and somehow unnerving. Only Edna knows the truth, but she walks about with an odd grin upon her countenance that leads some to wonder on her sanity. When we are alone we talk, a transportation in to a life I left behind. Though she knows of it only through family tales and what snippets have survived the decades she has an insight that can be astounding. I believe she has carried the romance of her little secret close to her heart. I find that notion both endearing and, strangely, more than a little frightening.

The question remains: why return to this? Despite the risks it entails it offers some comfort, some release. I suspect my dear Alice would propose it offers nourishment to the ego. Perhaps she would be correct. Of late I am not so certain in my pronouncements on my motives, desires and needs. I have surprised myself over the past year; no small feat, that. So I am here, and here I shall remain until I understand why.

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Partings

There is no good way to bring anything to an end for any endeavor will always leave a gap, an emptiness, when it is concluded and put to rest. This journal is no exception. I noted before that I launched it in order to test the waters and that I had not found things entirely to my liking, but bringing this to an end is only somewhat related to that revelation. I did indeed desire to learn what reaction, if any, my existence might elicit and in that the results were almost universally encouraging; however, by its very nature this journal cannot provide me with a deeper understanding of what I could expect should I publicly proclaim my existence in a more direct fashion. The Internet is too fast-paced and far too ephemeral to provide me with the certainty I had sought. I believe I knew this going in, but as an incremental step it was most valuable.

What have I learned? Most cryptically I have learned that which I needed to learn. It has always been apparent to me that this little exercise had far more to do with me than with the outside world. The reflection upon my past, the episodes I chose to share, and perhaps more importantly those I have chosen not to share, all led me to a certain place within myself, an understanding that has likely always been there, but that I never once visited with any seriousness. Until now. I understand now that this chameleon?s life I have been living is a loser?s game. I always knew I was angry; that the need to pick up, let go and move on was the source of a bitterness that colored my relationships and robbed me of the happiness I felt I had a right to. This sometimes erupted in bouts of truly embarrassing self-pity, and sometimes in an almost pathological misanthropy.

To those readers who have found me an entertaining raconteur with perhaps a hidden softness inside I can only say that had I been less circumspect in the tales I chose to tell you may well have been disgusted, perhaps even horrified. Three and one half millennia afforded ample opportunity to fall in to monstrous depravity: my hands are stained with the blood of innocents.

That is not so easy to admit, here in this space. It has been my existence in this little digital arena that has led me to this. I have so many entertaining and informative tales to tell; glimpses in to lives past and cultures remembered only by graves and refuse. But I have found that the good tales are no longer so easy to tell. The weight of my sin grows heavier with each carefully crafted, carefully neutered tale I tell. The murder of Clayton was a glimpse of that darker portion of myself, but even that was chosen because it afforded me the cover of a somewhat moral act. I dealt out death because it felt good to do so, but perhaps he deserved it, so perhaps it was not so terrible a thing to do. I tried again, describing my eight-year murderous rampage through the streets of Ostia and Rome, but I seem incapable of finding the words to make the horror of what I was in those days clear. I lack the courage to face it squarely.

I am a moral coward.

All of this- this journal, my stories, and this confession: it all comes back to Jeremy. He understood me, both the good and the bad. In the end it was he who set me upon the path I walk today. After Clayton, after feeling the shame that act brought to my heart whenever I thought of Jeremy I came to believe I might be standing at the cusp, at the point of something momentous. The world had already plunged deep in to a whirlwind of change and I was caught up in it, blown upon the bitter storm. Just as Jeremy had predicted in those final days before he passed away. And in the end he betrayed me for my own good. I am still unsure as to whether to forgive him for that. Time will tell.

Now it all makes sense to me. I have now an understanding I had despaired of ever achieving. I know what I want to do. I know what I am going to do.

I am going home.

I am going to make my stand. Watch for me, those of you who are young enough. In thirty, or forty, or perhaps fifty years it will come out- the questions, the little tabloid stories, the speculations. Then some enterprising journalist will decide it is time to rip the top off the charade and will dig deep in to my past. I am looking forward to seeing the expression on his face when he comes to the inescapable conclusion.

Life should become terribly interesting at that point.

I remain faithfully yours,
Zsallia Marieko

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The Desert

The desert offers solitude, and a simple mode of existence: mere survival. Granted this is a somewhat moot point for me, but it acts as further guarantor of my privacy, for the desert is both swift and merciless in its dealings with fools.

Modern society has effected sufficient intrusion that it attempts to protect those so unwise as to venture in to the desert unprepared. This is not an act of altruism rather it is simple efficiency. Every preempted lost hiker represents concrete savings in search time and potential bad publicity. That it also saves lives is a secondary, albeit welcome benefit. As a result of this well-developed attitude towards tourists I elected to abandon any idea of walking to my chosen spot, opting instead to pay a young man to fly me out and return to collect me a few days later. Profligate waste, but necessary.

I could have locked myself away in my apartment. I have access to other places, properties I either own outright or have an interest in through membership in assorted foundations and organizations. There is a particular monastery where people are welcome to come and find the solace of introspection amid the grounding rhythms of a simpler, less hectic life. There are numerous parks, forests, jungles, and mountains? all are accessible to anyone who might seek a few days or weeks outside the sphere of the modern.

I prefer the desert. It is something about the hardscrabble nature of the flora and fauna, and the stark beauty of the landscape that suits me when I need to be shuck of mankind. It is dangerous for me- I could set out for a week or two and stay for a decade or longer. Even this little expedition- after three days I found myself musing on the notion of heading deeper in to the wild, finding a cave and sitting out the next fifty years. Fortunately (or not, depending on how you choose to view it) I had left far too many loose ends to merely walk away. It was deliberate on my part for I know myself well enough to anticipate that urge. I may yet indulge it, but not this day.

It was a desire to take some time, put things in to perspective, time away from my normal haunts, away from e-mail and computers and the web, away from the lawyers and that bloody fool of an accountant who is determined to prevent me from doing as I will with my own money. Away from all the yammering, and posturing, and postulating? I needed years, but I allowed merely days. I suppose it sufficed.

I am in love with the night sky- one of the things I truly despise about living in the North East is the lack of any truly clear, dark sky. Civilization?s fascination with light renders the canopy of the heavens a pale mockery of itself. Ever since my earliest memories I have been fascinated with the stars. I ran to the desert so that I could lie beneath them in their glory and seek? something. Balance, I suppose, though that is a poor descriptor.

I needed to know I was doing the right thing. As important, or perhaps even more so, was I doing it for the right reasons? Somehow sitting beneath the stars smoking Camels seemed the proper avenue for pursuing that thought. Warm, sunny days; cool, clear nights with a sliver of moon and a dazzling array of stars- there were no answers, but there certainly was peace.

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I Know Who You Are

?I know who you are.?

I said nothing, allowing Edna?s quiet words hang in the air behind me as I gazed upon Catherine?s final resting place. Her marker was large, yet very simple- a granite spire, somewhat weathered as were all the stones in this corner of the cemetery, with just her name and the dates: b 1831 d 1896.

?She was only sixty-five. Even being wealthy and protected, the damned winters were like a scythe, weren?t they??

?I know you heard what I said, so don?t pretend you didn?t.?

I had been feeling something from her for two days now. It was the only reason I had not left yet- I had to know what it was. Her certainty was so strong and it excited her so. I turned to face her.

?Who do you think I am??

?Great Grandma hired a Pinkerton man to track down Elaine a few years after the War Between the States. He went to Boston, found her lawyers? offices, but they were well paid, quite reputable and very tight-lipped.? She paused then and said, ?I think I need to sit... could we move to that bench?? She gestured with her cane and I nodded. Edna shuffled over, suddenly looking every day of her ninety-eight years, and settled down with a sigh, placing her cane before her with her hands perched atop. She waited until I took a seat beside her. ?Where was I? Boston. You always seem to go back to Boston. The Pinkerton man was no slouch, and you?d a way of impressing people, of course. He found a name: Melissa Burns, and there was some talk of Georgia. It took some doing but he tracked you down to a plantation where you were hired as a tutor in literature and mathematics. Then he discovered that you?d murdered a man named Clayton Williams. You were caught, tried, convicted and hanged. End of story, or so he thought.

?I have to wonder what he thought when Catherine sent him back to Georgia and told him to dig up your corpse, if he could. He went back and started asking more questions, spreading around money and liquor, until he bumped in to these two gents who?d had a near religious experience. Neither of them?d had a drink in years before they ran in to him- reformed men, they were. But his questions shook them up, and the whiskey was good, and the tale they told him? well, he?d never heard anything so wild and unlikely in his life, but he had his orders, and like I said, he was no slouch at his job.

?He tracked you to a border town in Texas. A pretty young redheaded prostitute named Molly, sweet and kind and very quiet, and sporting a hanging scar. Only by the time he got that far poor Molly?d had an accident, took a spill in to the river and drowned. Body never recovered. Of course, it couldn?t have been the same woman, because everybody swore she couldn?t be more than eighteen and Elaine?d have been close to sixty by then, except that Melissa Burns hadn?t been more than twenty-five??

?He would have had a very difficult time following me after that. Molly was a throw-away?? I stopped there because there was no point in continuing. Edna?s gaze was fixed on me, waiting. ?How many people know this story??

?Just me. It?s been passed down through the women in the family. Honestly, I didn?t really believe it myself until you showed up, and even then I wasn?t sure until just now. I haven?t told anyone; Sarah would be the obvious choice, but she?s such a Chatty Cathy I just couldn?t trust her with it.? She sat up straighter then, and took a deep breath, ?So, if you wanted to you could shoot me with that ugly old pistol you?ve got your hand on and the story?d die with me. I suspect you?d be able to get out of town before anybody caught on.?

I snatched my hand from my bag- I had not even realized I had my hand on the gun. I was embarrassed that she had noticed, that I had even unconsciously considered?

And then I was shaking, trembling so violently that I could not even speak. It was not fear, or anger, or joy, but simply conflict. I did not know what to do. Then a sharp pain exploded in my shin and I cried out as Edna drew back her cane after striking me with it.

?Get a hold of yourself! Lord, you?d think someone as old as you?d be beyond this kind of thing!?

I laughed out loud at that. ?I?ve heard that before? I should introduce you to the Yeti!?

?The who??

?Yes, never mind, it?s too hard to explain.?

We sat for several minutes before Edna finally asked, ?So, what?re you going to do??

?That?s the question, isn?t it? It?s not so easy as Jeremy thought it might be.?

?Sure it is. My son had you checked out- you?re loaded. I name you as my successor in the trust and then you can do what you want.?

?Really? It?s not that simple at all. Everything I know is telling me to leave, now, and never come back! I have rules I live by and I didn?t come up with them on a whim!?

?And you married Jerome- what?d your rules have to say about that? Why?d you do that? Seems pretty stupid to me. Be careful what you answer because Catherine had an idea and I think she was right.?

?I fell in love with him. Is that so hard to believe??

?Honestly? Yes, it is hard to believe. Catherine believed you were just lonely, and tired. Marrying her uncle was almost like trying to kill yourself. Just look at the trouble it?s caused you. Look at where you are right now, honey. Sure you loved him, but you loved him because it gave you a taste of something you couldn?t ever really have. You were trying to destroy yourself. Or at least destroy your life. You wanted an end, and Jerome was just the right man to help you find it.?

She sat back, her shoulders sagging. I could see the exhaustion radiating from her and suddenly I was ashamed again. How could I not see how much this was costing her? To be out here confronting me? Without another word I helped her to her feet and steadied her as we made our way back down the path to my car. She settled in to the seat and I buckled her in, then came around and started the car. Edna had her head back against the headrest, her eyes were closed.

?See, I think you?re going mad. All that running and hiding can?t be good for a body.?

?Do you understand how? how impudent it is of you to presume to speak to me like this??

She laughed quietly, opening her eyes to look over at me. ?Do you think you are wise?? she asked.

I thought about that as I maneuvered down the narrow drive to the cemetery?s exit. ?About some things, yes. Others, no.?

?Good answer. I am wise, and about a lot of things. That cemetery makes me wise- I know that?s where I?m headed, and soon, too. Focuses the mind, assuming the mind still works of course.? She chuckled then at her own little joke.

?And that?s something I lack, is it??

?It?s not just something you?re missing, it?s something you need.?

That was not a new thought for me, so why did it disturb me so to hear it from this woman?

?A cemetery?s not just a place of endings,? she continued, ?it?s a symbol, a place of roots. Kids today just don?t understand this stuff; they go wandering off in all directions and don?t give a thought to their family or their history. My daughters? I haven?t seen either of them in five years, or the grandchildren. All picked up and moved off to California and Hawaii? I kept hoping that one of them would get the notion to come home, but it?s never happened.?

?Yet here I am.?

?Yes,? she smiled, ?here you are. I?m fit to be pickled now that you?re here. I honestly never believed it was possible, just some funny folk tale, or better yet a practical joke.?

I considered that for several minutes as we drove on in silence.

?So, if I were to say I was merely humoring you??

?I wouldn?t buy it for a second. I saw the look on your face when you were touching that pistol- you?re first thought was to kill me and run like the dickens.?

?I would never have??

?I know, but you thought it. So why are you here??

?I needed to know how much damage? no. I wanted to come, to see what had happened to the people I cared about. I was here a few weeks ago- I visited Jeremy?s grave. I thought that would be enough?? I stopped then, feeling tears coming from someplace unexpected. I pulled to the side of the road and parked the car, then just gripped the wheel, desperate to compose myself. Why was this happening? Why was this woman, somebody who was still just a child in comparison to myself, having this affect on me? Why was I so damned angry?

?Don?t stop now.?

I looked at her, uncomprehending for a moment, and then I asked her, ?What would you do if I took you home and then left, and never returned??

?Nothing. I?d go to my grave knowing that I?d been privy to a great secret. Of course that?s easy for me to say because we both know you?re not leaving. C?mon dearie, stop trying to nice to the little old lady and spit it out- why are you here??

?Because I was never ready to leave!? It came out so suddenly and so succinctly that it drew all of the emotion out of me in a single statement: I had never wanted to leave. I left because it was my way, a habit, a rule I lived by. It had never been a problem before, but so much had changed since the early centuries of my life?

?Then why leave??

?That?s enough,? I snapped, my voice dropping in to a peremptory tone that made Edna sit back a bit. I put the car in gear and pulled out again, unwilling to talk any further, or to listen for that matter. Edna attempted to engage me, but I tuned her out so thoroughly that she soon gave up.

What was wrong with me? I had been willing to reinsert myself in to this family so long as I could do it on my terms, maintaining this thin fiction of secrecy, holding myself aloof from them. Why did Edna?s knowledge change things so? Why that sudden impulse to murder and flight? It was clear to me, unmistakably clear that she posed no threat. Even if she did choose to tell her family what she knew, what would they think? She knew this, I could tell she knew this.

I am terrible at snap decisions. Every one I have ever made has turned out to be ill advised in one way or another. I needed time to think. I arrived at that terribly insightful conclusion as I pulled in to Sarah?s driveway. Edna sat beside me, radiating dismay.

?I am going back to Boston,? I told her, making my voice as gentle as I could.

She emitted a quiet sigh of resignation, and then visibly nerved herself to ask, ?And What will you do there??

I paused, unwilling to be short with her again, and then gave her the most honest reply that I could: ?Think. Decide. Act.? She nodded at that, and allowed me to help her out of the car and up to the house. At the door something suddenly occurred to me. ?You never visited your husband?s grave??

?Oh, that?s not important. Perhaps next time??

?Yes, perhaps.? I turned to go, but I could feel her eyes on me, as if they sought to pull me back.

?Genevieve? now that can?t be your real name, can it??

I paused and turned back to face her as she stood framed in the open doorway, looking small and frail and forlorn. ?No, of course not. I don?t have a given name that I can remember, but I chose one, long ago,? and I told her my name, the name I chose that I have called myself for more than two millennia. Then I turned away and walked to the car. It was time to go.

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Visitations

Morning arrived clear and delightfully cool. I took an early stroll about the center of town before checking out and loading my things in to the car, and then I set off for Sarah?s home to pick up Edna. I was not particularly eager to make the visit to the cemetery, but it seemed a small courtesy to these people who had been so willing to accept me- call it recompense for my necessary deceptions.

I have never made a habit of visiting my dead; it always seems so pointless. Even my visit to Jeremy?s grave, so stylized and staged and Hollywood-dramatic was really nothing more than a lark. I was content that I had done it, but I believe I could have found as much closure reminiscing in my own living room with a bottle of brandy to mellow the mood. That I had been drawn back to this place so soon afterward was nothing more than the natural consequence of finally putting that entire episode of my life to rest.

Jeremy is dead. Catherine is dead. I could fill many, many pages with the names of those who meant something to me in some way who were now dead. To visit their graves would mean nothing to me. I understand that graves have meaning to those who are left behind, but I believe I have spent so long watching as one generation after another are returned to dust that any possible meaning has been diluted beyond detection. Cemeteries are packed with the dead and empty past. I choose not to dwell there.

Edna was already up and waiting for me when I arrived. Sarah had departed early so it was just the two of us sharing coffee and light conversation as we waited for the day to warm a bit before setting out. Edna seemed in very good spirits, commenting that she had felt guilty for neglecting her duty to visit her relatives, in particular her husband, over the past years.

?Henry?s been gone over thirty years now, so I suppose he forgives me, but I?m glad you were willing to come. I think Catherine would have been pleased to see that somebody from Elaine?s family had finally found this place.?

We were in the car and I smiled at Edna?s prattling. It is a common delusion of the living that the dead are witness to the day, but Edna seemed to take particular delight in the idea of me standing over Catherine?s grave. I felt better then- I have nothing against making a kindly old woman just a bit happier. We turned in to the gate of the cemetery and she directed me up towards the back, where the older plots were laid out over and about a low hill.

We parked at the foot of the hill and I helped her out of the car, then we began walking up towards the McAllister family?s section near the crest of the hill. As we passed various other collections of stones Edna pointed out families and individuals. I had known several of them personally.

?Surely your husband is not buried here?? I asked, ?These are all quite old.?

?Oh, no- Henry?s down by the western lawn. I thought we?d stop up here first. See that tall spire? That?s where Catherine and Jonathan are buried. Why don?t you go on ahead- I?ll catch up.?

This was all so odd, and I found myself just a little more curious than I would have admitted earlier. Edna had stopped to admire the carvings on a stone near the walkway so I strolled up the remainder of the path, and found that brief segment of my past laid out in neat rows.

Catherine and her husband were together. Off to one side were two small markers: young children, neither more than four years old. There were other pairs, more husbands and wives, and solitary markers of those who never wed, or who met untimely ends only to have their loved ones make new lives when they were gone. I knew some of their stories from Catherine?s letters; others were a mystery to me.

I heard Edna come up behind me. We both stood quietly and I began to remember times when such places had held meaning for me: never the same meaning they held for others, but meaning nonetheless. Then she spoke, and everything became deathly quiet.

?I know who you are.?

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Returnings

The town bore only a passing resemblance to what I remembered. The old church was still there- I wondered if people still worshipped in those same pews Mrs. Tremblay had gifted to the church so very long ago. When I had paid my visit to Jeremy?s grave more than a month before I had done no more than drive through- I had known then that the land was wrapped up in a dispute so I had come cross-country from a neighboring community. Still, there were enough familiar things and I found the Historical Society easily enough.

The building was easily a hundred years old and not well suited to its purpose as a museum of sorts. This had been some sort of a meeting hall, but I could not be certain, as it had been built long after I had left. The door was unlocked so I entered and found a table by the inside of the door with a small basket labeled ?Donations Welcome? the sole decoration. There did not appear to be anyone about. I dropped a few hundred dollars in the basket and set out to explore, making enough noise to ensure that anyone inside would eventually take note.

It was typical fare. Flags, documents, war memorabilia, some pictures, pieces of furniture, all of it documenting the passage of more than two hundred years: the town was older than that- perhaps the oldest pieces were stored away some place. Still, it was somewhat unsettling to be wading through pieces of lives that I might have touched so long ago. Things were familiar by their type and form, but nothing that I might point to and say ?I remember that.? Then I entered the main hall.

I felt it before I saw it. Everything in the room was so very, very familiar. There was furniture from the south parlor, the large dining table, my harpsichord? so many things that had been ours. I turned and froze, for hanging on the south wall there was a portrait of a young woman, decked out in Victorian splendor, her hair piled high in scarlet curls and ringlets? me. Jeremy had commissioned that portrait on our tenth wedding anniversary. The artist had paid particular attention to the eyes?

?Mesmerizing, isn?t she??

I turned to face the woman who had spoke and saw her start nearly as badly as had I. She was older; perhaps fifty or sixty, with dark hair going gracefully gray worn in a very modern style. Her blue eyes were open and friendly, though somewhat startled and there was something about the shape of her mouth and the angle of her jaw? I had to stop myself from commenting on it as her gaze tracked back and forth twice between the portrait and my face.

?I? I believe she was my great-great-?? the lie refused to fall gracefully from my lips, but she interrupted me as I stumbled on it.

?Oh, Lord, I believe it! Just look at the eyes, my dear!?

?Not to mention the hair, of course.? I smiled then, back at ease now that the moment had passed. ?I am Genevieve Baker.?

?Baker? Oh! You?re the one who?s got Josh in such an uproar!? She laughed then and the sound passed in to and through me, calling up memories- young Catherine at her wedding, her laughter as she danced with Jeremy. I was in control of myself now, none of this showed on my face. ?I?m Sarah, Sarah Jameson,? she turned towards the back of the hall and called out, ?Edna! Edna, come and see who?s here!?

?I?m out front!? came a dry, yet sprightly voice, then an elderly woman appeared in the entrance to the hall. She was small, and clearly closer to one hundred than to eighty, but she was spry and her eyes were clear. In her left hand she wielded a cane that certainly had to be a mere prop for her stride was brisk and her gait even. In her right hand she waved a clutch of bills. ?Somebody dropped five hundred dollars in the? Oh! Oh my word!? She stepped closer and looked me up and down, just radiating a mischievous delight as she grinned and said, ?Well, it?s a good thing I didn?t bump in to you alone in here- I?d have figured I?d finally had The Big One. And that straight hair does nothing for you, dearie.?

They offered me coffee- we sat at a table in the kitchen at the rear of the hall and they both began asking and answering questions. Edna was Edna Carstairs. Josh was her eldest son, Joshua, and co-executor of the McAllister Trust along with his mother. Sarah was Edna?s niece. Edna and her late sister were the great-granddaughters of young Catherine. I felt somehow lacking in the presence of these women who knew their ancestry and their family histories, where I was forced to lie and in turn keep my stories simple and boring. Despite this Edna seemed fascinated with my story.

?And you had no idea about the trust, or your connection to this place until you found Elaine?s diary??

?That?s pretty much it, yes. Oh, I knew a little about the family history, but it wasn?t until I found her diary and the legal papers that I had any idea what had happened. Even then, the diary only covers the year 1843. I assume she kept a yearly record, but I?ve not found any others.? Another lie- I had all twelve volumes, but this was the only one I could safely share with anyone.

?Did you bring it with you?? Sarah asked, ?I?d love to see what it has to say.?

?I don?t have it here- it?s back at the hotel, but I?d be happy to let you look it over after I?ve met with Joshua. I?m assuming he?ll want to see it as well.?

?Oh, don?t let yourself be too concerned with my son,? Edna commented, ?he?s really in no position to argue with you and he knows it. Truth is the trust is nearly bankrupt. He couldn?t afford to put up a fight even if you were a fraud.?

?Perhaps we shouldn?t talk about??

?Oh, piffle! It?s not a secret. Lawyers should never try to be investment brokers. We sank a lot of the trust?s money in to Internet stocks- lost it all. Since then with the town putting the squeeze on us we?ve barely kept up with the taxes. We tried to take a mortgage on the property, but the trust?s got no income to speak of?? Edna trailed off, but I could see the wheels turning in her, thinking about the money in the donation basket. Somebody who dressed so nicely and could drop five hundred dollars in a charity basket on a whim might just be in a position to ease some of the financial stress. She smiled again. ?Does my son know you?re in town??

?I called his office when I checked in to the hotel, but he wasn?t in??

Both of them laughed at that and Sarah said, ?Oh, he?s in, he?s just avoiding you. He?s afraid you?re somebody the real estate developers dug up to try and break the trust?? At the same time Edna was digging through her bag and finally produced a cell phone, which she opened up and put to her ear.

?Joshua? It?s your mother. I?m at the museum with Sarah? yes, I know you?re busy, but I need you to come over right away? Now don?t be like that? I?m not getting any younger and you?re wasting my time and I haven?t got a lot to waste so stop complaining? of course, dear, I know? now don?t dawdle?? She folded up her phone with a sigh, ?Don?t misunderstand, Jenny, he?s a good man. It?s just that he seems to think all the problems in town are his personal responsibility.?

Joshua Carstairs arrived within a few minutes. I was seated at the table having a second cup of coffee when he walked in and spied his mother over by the sink. He was tall and handsome, and quite distinguished looking with his thick silver hair and ruggedly lined face. His voice was quite warm and resonant- it must have been quite a boon to him in court.

?Okay mother, I?m here, now tell me what?s so important that I had to hang up on Jim Kelleher up in Boston??

?Ah, talking with your spy? And what did he have to say? But you might want to turn around before you answer that??

Joshua turned and stopped for just a second when he saw me, but no longer. Then he smiled and stepped forward, extending his hand. ?Miss Baker, I presume??

I rose and took his hand, smiling as openly as I knew how, ?I hope you understand this was not my idea- I had planned a more formal meeting.?

?Oh, don?t worry. I know my mother?s handiwork when I see it. I had intended to call you after I, uh, finished conferring with my colleague in Boston.? He took a seat and Edna brought him a cup of coffee, after which she and Sarah departed without another word.

?Don?t be embarrassed. You?ve done your research, and I?ve done mine. Perhaps we should just lay out our cards and see where we stand??

?Directly to the point, I like that. Okay, Jim Kelleher seems to feel you?re a legitimate heir, and now that I?ve seen you I certainly agree. You?re obviously not after any money, not with your bank accounts. So tell me: why are you here??

I sipped at my coffee and read him for a moment. He was unconcerned, actually relieved, which was good. His curiosity was certainly piqued, but he was absolutely unaffected by my looks or demeanor. He had a wedding ring and unconsciously fiddled with it- a thoroughly married and honest man.

?You and your family are well-off, but the trust is broke. You can?t afford to keep it afloat and you can?t get financing. Four years, perhaps five and you?ll have to default on the taxes and be forced to dissolve the trust and sell the property.?

?That sums it up nicely, yes,? he sighed, ?I?ve considered selling some of the pieces in storage, both to raise cash and save money- museum quality storage space isn't cheap. But that would be little more than a stopgap measure, and mother would never permit it in any case. Now, you haven?t answered my question.?

?No,? I smiled, ?I haven?t. I am not entirely certain what I want to do, but I think I?d like to help save the house. Once the pressure is off we can discuss the future.?

With that we agreed to leave any further discussion until the next day when I would present the trust document I possessed, just to make everything legal. Edna and Sarah rejoined us, having been not-to-secretly listening outside the door and the afternoon ran in to evening as we talked about the past and they filled me in on all the details of the family?s history they had collected. I had so little to offer them I again felt embarrassed, but Edna soaked up every little scrap I offered and was clearly eager to see the volume of the diary.

The next morning I met with Joshua at his office and we signed the various papers that made me an official beneficiary of the trust. I had already made arrangements with my bank so we were able to make a transfer of funds to the trust?s operational account- not a lordly sum, but enough so that Joshua could make the next few quarterly payments without having to liquidate any more of the trust?s dwindling stock holdings.

The remainder of that day I spent with Edna and Sarah, first letting them pour over the diary I had brought with me. Sarah was in heaven- it was filled with all sorts of minutiae regarding the daily activities of the family, both the children of the household as well as the activities of the other adult relatives and their families. Edna was quite please as well, but there was something overriding her happiness at having this piece of her family history in hand. She questioned me repeatedly about what I thought of this passage or that and I had to be very careful to avoid offering anything even remotely detailed, particularly when either of them got some piece of information egregiously wrong. Edna seemed to delight in having an outsider of sorts past whom she could run her historical narrative.

We took lunch together at a local restaurant and they took great pleasure in introducing me to any who happened by. After that Sarah drove me up to the house, Edna choosing to sit out that trip, as she was not up to ?traipsing through the wilderness? that day. I had been there just a few weeks before, but it was enjoyable still, as Sarah was able to tell me where work had been done, what had happened to the barn and stables (a fire in 1956), and other details. The house had not been lived in since 1951, but the family had used it as a reunion spot for twenty or thirty years after that time. It had not been sealed up for good until 1985, which explained why it was not in far worse condition.

Sarah and I returned to her home in the early evening and I prepared to take my leave. I would be driving back to Boston the next day.

?So soon?? Edna complained, ?I was hoping tomorrow Sarah and I could take you up to see the family plot- Catherine and her husband are buried up there, you know.?

?Oh, why go up there? You haven?t made that trip in over ten years,? Sarah protested, ?and I can?t take you- I have to go in to the city tomorrow.?

Edna looked at me and I could feel her anticipation. I smiled. ?I could stop by in the morning- I wouldn?t mind visiting the graves if that?s what you would like. I can leave for home after lunch.?

That night I was actually quite pleased with how things were going. I still had no firm idea what I would do beyond helping the family keep hold of the property, but I was already considering making some major investments to restore the house and the surrounding land. Perhaps we could move the Historical Society?s museum in to the house itself- the town had a tourism industry of sorts. A restored Victorian era home might make a nice addition. I took some time to review my cash status and see where I could gain liquidity without drawing too much attention. Then I started packing for the trip home. I hesitated over my pistol- I had been carrying it illegally for the past two days and it seemed silly to do that given the circumstances, but I am always reluctant to have it out of reach in situations like this. I do not like guns, and that makes me very, very serious about them. In the end I left it in the bottom of my purse. When I got home I would lock it up again.

I went to sleep that night with a smile on my face.

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Vexatious Fate

This is proving to be quite vexing. I should put this behind me and think of it no more- let it lie as quietly as it has for a century or more, but it will not allow me to do that. Retrieval of the records was no mean feat itself: a company that specializes in the safe keeping of museum-quality historical documents stored them. One does not simply drive up and haul away cases of old records from a facility such as this. Nonetheless I was able to get at them after some hours of effort.

Thirteen large cases awaited me: the accumulation of over two hundred years of documents, books and letters. What concerned me would be contained in one of two particular cases and I set about the task of sorting them out once I had had them moved to my apartment outside the city. I suppose those who first collected these at my behest had been methodical in dating and storing them, but over the years as they were moved from one place to another they had become somewhat jumbled. Still, my money had been well spent- they were in remarkably good condition.

I started with letters dated after I had ended my contact with Catherine. Even after she was certain I was unlikely to respond she had continued to write in a most conversational manner. I nearly became ill when she mentioned that she had co-opted her son in to the task of ensuring I would be welcomed should I ever choose to return- this was written in 1890. Not once in any of her missives to me had she made any overt statement or even hint that she was aware of my secret: it was clear to me that her son was a lawyer and she had merely employed him in the creation of a trust to hold the family property inviolate for a great span of years, until 2050 to be exact. Unlike her words, her actions made it unmistakable that she had indeed been told, and that she believed.

Her last letter was dated December of 1896. Following that there was a letter from an attorney, informing me of her death and that I or my descendants had been named in a portion of her will. Two further letters followed, requesting a reply, then a final large packet.

Catherine and her son had been quite clever. The family fortunes had apparently grown quite large by that time so they set up a trust to hold title to the house and property. I am no legal scholar, but it appeared to me the trust stipulated any family member could reside in the house at will, but that efforts must be made to maintain the current structure and properties as they were. The trust also endowed a Historical Society for the town with a stipend for a museum. Finally, almost as an afterthought, it was noted that any person in possession of a specific legal instrument could present it to the trust as proof of descent from Elaine in order to take full advantage of the trust and its assigned properties. That instrument was sealed within an envelope in the packet.

It seems Catherine had been quite thorough.

I had already been aware that the property was in a trust- I had quietly engaged two different law firms to look in to the status of the property back when I decided to visit Jeremy?s grave. Now I was faced with having them probe more deeply, investigating the financial status of the trust and the Historical Society, as well as determining the legal status, if any, conferred by the instrument I possessed. These could conceivably be very dangerous acts on my part. They could also quite easily come to nothing. I found it hard to believe that whoever was holding the trust at this time would suddenly agree to surrender use of the property to somebody who arrived with a letter over a century old.

I chose to tackle the simplest task first: the instrument. A few hours huddled with some fine (and expensive) gentlemen determined that the instrument appeared to be valid, assuming the provisions of the trust were properly described and had not been changed; however, to execute it I would have to become personally involved as it could not be done by proxy. What surprised me was how easily I made my choice. I then set them to the task of learning everything they could while I set about making my own preparations.

Common sense tells me I should leave this be. Whatever threat there may have been is obviously minimal- digging in to this can only serve to make it worse. So why am I unwilling to walk away? Why am I so excited?

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Developments Continue

It could be worse.

More lawyers, then decisions must be made.

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Necessary Things

On the naming of names, and the placing of places. As I go through my narratives I deliberately obscure certain facts. Jeremy, for instance, was not named Jeremy, Catherine was not Catherine, Rufus was not Rufus? I do believe the pattern is clear. Locations are obscured as well as specifics as to dates, particularly as I speak of relatively recent events. You may take this as an expression of a desire for security, or as simple sloppy storytelling- either conclusion suits me.

Despite this I do pay attention to detail, so the naming of names and the placing of places are consistent within the narrow context I provide. I mention this only because what will follow is rife with names and places to the point of encouraging one to attempt to parse out the truth. I would spare anyone that trouble, if I could.

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Interesting Times

Interesting (actually, somewhat disturbing) developments over the past two days. As a result I shall be wading through a sea of lawyers. Posting will be light to non-existent until some time next week. Do take care.

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Interlude

The bottle sounded against the rim of my glass, a single clear ping, and then gurgled quietly as I poured. I took up the glass and brought it to my lips, tilting it back to let the clear brown liquid burn down my throat and in to my belly.

?What?s with you and whiskey??

I turned to face Gregory and found him sitting on the bed wearing his boxers. He is young, just twenty-one, barely sentient by my standards. His hair is brown and short with golden highlights and he wears thin sideburns that cut over in to an angular fringe along his jaw, meeting a neat, severe goatee. His mouth is stern without being narrow, set in his angular jaw below his fine, straight nose. His hazel eyes are likewise quite intense; dominating his face with his high forehead- in short he radiates the aura of Angry Young Man, yet his voice is surprisingly soft and resonant, and when he smiles all that angry intensity leaves him. It is quite becoming.

?Whatever do you mean?? I replied, grinning as I refilled my glass yet again.

?I?d be on my knees if I drank as much as you.?

There was a note of concern in his voice, not overarching concern, just that little bit. It was sweet, and it made me giggle a bit before I drained the glass again. Alcohol makes me giddy, not drunk, and anything less than a steady flow of liquor has no effect on me at all. But when it has me in its grip I can be quite? impulsive.

?It fuels my madness,? I laughed and strode over to the balcony, throwing open the sliding door and stretching out, my feet and hands at the corners of the doorway, letting the cool breeze of the autumn night slide over my skin, drinking in the sight of the harbor below. ?I love this view.?

?Not bad from here, either? and I?ll bet the neighbors like it, too.? He came up behind me and slid his arms about me, drawing me tightly to him. It felt wonderful, his head resting atop mine, his body warm and firm behind me, his hands tracing lines of goose bumps up my belly and over my breasts. His timing was impeccable- the warm rush from the whiskey suffused my body and I let my arms fall, melting in to his grasp as I turned to face him. I licked his chest, letting the salty flavour of his skin and sweat mix with the smoky aftertaste of the Crown Royal.

?You taste so good,? I murmured as I lifted my face and then found his mouth with mine. He was surprised. Surprised at his powerful response, at my animal hunger, at how quickly a casual gesture escalated in to forty minutes of exertion, sweat and pleasure. Such is life with one such as I.

?No,? he said, seizing my wrist as I reached for my bottle, ?every time you open that thing we wind up in the tangle again, and I?m starving.?

?I?ll call room service??

?Oh. man, no more steak, no more lobster- I need real food? pizza. I know just the place.?

I let him shower first as I drained the last of the Crown Royal and called the desk to have the room serviced and the bar restocked. I love good hotels- twelve-thirty in the morning and they did not even blink. Of course, they knew me at this one. I slipped in to the shower while he was getting dressed and took it first at full hot for a minute, then warm for a quick wash, then dead cold to rinse. In and out in under five minutes. My wardrobe was limited, but a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and my jacket seemed just the thing for a pizza run.

Gregory watched me tuck a half-litre of Jim Beam inside my jacket and drop five one-hundred-dollar bills on the table. I saw the disapproval there, but I countered it with a grin, and we were off.

It turned out he not only knew where to get pizza at one in the morning, he also knew where to find his friends. That saddened me; because I knew that it was likely Gregory and I were now done. I seldom survive contact with the peers in situations like this, but I was well fueled, and quite mad.

An hour later I was deep in to the discussion of Marxist theory with a child who had no clue what Marx was all about, and thought that Stalin was simply misunderstood.

?Marxism can work,? he insisted, ?if it is properly applied. The Soviets and Mao were too concerned with the maintenance of power to make an honest attempt at true Socialism.?

?That?s the problem, honey,? I replied, ?you don?t seem to understand that it?s all about the power. Can?t make a Marxist Utopia without holding on to the reigns of power, and it becomes the center of everything.?

?That?s an old argument,? he rebuffed me, ?in a modern society??

?You can use technology to keep tabs on the untrue,? I interrupted him. I paused to drain a glass of Stoli on ice, then continued, ?It?s like this, boy: you think that Marxism can work if they just give you and yours the chance to do it because this time you?ll do it right, but, not to be crude here, that?s the political equivalent of promising not to come in my mouth. You may mean it, you may be sincere, but once things get rolling and you taste the power, all the soft caresses and teasing will turn in to a fist behind my head. Only in this case the aftermath is not a funky aftertaste and a stain on my blouse, but a mountain of corpses and a population in chains. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and fuck you if you think we ought to try it again, capice?"

Gregory intervened at that point and I let him defuse the situation, but his friend gazed upon me with eyes alight with the fire of fresh hatred. Poor child, he had no idea whom he was dealing with. I have no real political persona, but I know balderdash when it is laid at my doorstep. We left his friends and he walked me back to the hotel, but when I reached the suite, I was alone?

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Insanity

I am slipping in to insanity. I can feel it stealing up behind me, stray thoughts and desires, those things that make up the normal background chatter of an active mind are beginning to press their way to the fore. Irrational urges I am unable to ignore. The other day a realization that a young man had made a habit of admiring me as I took my morning latte mushroomed in to a ruthless seduction I was helpless to stop. He did not deserve this, to have me sweep in and out of his life like an emotional wrecking ball. He should have spent the weekend with his friends, spouting his silly politics, chasing after some doe-eyed freshman girl, not crashing about a hotel suite with me.

I expect better of myself, but such things have happened before. My grasp over my emotions slips, and it snowballs out of control, sometimes destructively so. At least this time it is only sex.

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A Personality Test

Somebody who shall remain nameless insisted I take this personality test(Be aware that this site repeatedly asks you to install various not-so-friendly plugins- ignore them). These are rather difficult for me as I generally approach tests of any kind with the intent to obtain a specific outcome. Furthermore, several of the questions either provided no method for me to reply truthfully (Age being the first one), or simply did not apply. Still, the result was interesting, if generic.

Like just 4% of the population you are an EXPERIMENTER (Dominant Introvert Abstract Thinker). Although you're slightly shy (admit it!), you love control. When a problem comes in your way, you stomp on it swiftly and decisively. You are bothered easily by failure in others and failure in yourself. You don't like people that you don't think are intelligent. Rather than arguing with them, however, you would just as soon ignore them altogether.

In relationships, you have a strong heart. And because you're introverted, people take you as someone they can trust. But the fact is that in addition to solving problems, you like to create them. So there's a decent chance that you'll cheat on a loved one. If you do, you'll likely get away with it.

You're a good person at heart, but then again, who isn't?

I suppose I create problems simply by existing...

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September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001

I tend towards the emotionless when it comes to world-changing events. I was watching on television the morning of September 11, 2001, at a fitness center of all things. The news had cut to the story of a plane colliding with one of the towers while I was listening to some very well educated and very well meaning woman moan on about how horrible things were going to be under George W. Bush as we both sweated atop our LifeCycles. She was not one of those rabid ideologues, but she certainly disliked the man and his party.

The second plane hit the South Tower and I instantly put two and two together and came up with four. She did as well, just a few seconds later. She looked at me, slack-jawed, the understanding of what we had just witnessed clear in her eyes.

Understand that when this unfolded I never once doubted that the President had the mettle to face this challenge. I will go even further and tell you that had Albert Gore been President, or even William Jefferson Clinton, I rest assured that they too would have proven to be as American and as resolute as George W. Bush has been. You Americans always tend to underestimate your politicians.

The woman was looking at me, in shock.

?It looks like you have a war on your hands,? I told her.

?Oh? oh my God!?

?Don?t worry, honey. George won?t let you down.?

I left the gym and never went back.

I am not the person to commemorate this date. If you are looking for something more, something with the meaning and gravitas I cannot provide, I strongly recommend visiting two places. First, this excellent entry at The Lemon, proving that satirists understand the world at a level some can only dream of. Second, the Voices project by Michele Catalano of A Small Victory, where you can read the words of many people who seek to express their feelings or share their experiences of that day.

In the end, this date belongs to all of you, American and otherwise. Try to learn the lesson it offers.

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Resolution, Of Sorts

In the end the crisis point of my latest little misadventure stole up behind me on quiet feline feet. Several days had passed without any activity, meaning that none of my few very modest ?monitors? had detected any action regarding inquiries in to my name, or my finances or my history. So of course early Saturday afternoon my doorbell buzzed.

I regarded the intercom for a full minute, fully aware that if the person who rang the buzzer was truly looking for me my days in this city, in this identity, were quite likely over. The buzzer rang again.

?Yes??

?Miss Baker? I need to speak with you. My name is Roger Travis.? There was no anger in the voice, perhaps just a trace of apprehension. With a heavy sigh I triggered the latch for the security door and then opened the door to my apartment. Mentally I checked the location of my pistol, then examined myself in the mirror- I was wearing a light white sun dress as I had been preparing to go for a walk and enjoy the summer heat after so many days of rain. I was not made up. I appeared painfully young.

The man who arrived at my door was nearly forty, tall and in good condition- barely breathing hard after climbing four flights in the heat of this summer day. He bore a strong resemblance to his father, handsome in that square-jawed, steely-blue-eyed quintessential American Cowboy way, all of it accentuated by blue jeans that had obviously seen their fair share of hard days? work and a crisp, clean khaki shirt open at the neck and sung about muscular biceps. There was the scent of fresh hewn cedar about him, enticingly masculine.

He introduced himself again and I invited him in. We exchanged pleasantries and he commented on all the boxes still stacked in the kitchen and the hallway.

?Moving out??

?In, actually. I?ve been in Colorado for several months- I only returned two weeks ago. Everything was in storage so I?ve been sorting out what I need and what can go. I just made a pitcher of iced tea, would you care for some??

?Yes, thank-you,? he smiled then, put at ease by the nicety of domestic hospitality. Just as I had intended. It was a dance, each carefully feeling the other out in a game both ancient and tantalizing. I poured a tall glass over fresh ice cubes and handed it to him. He took it in his left hand and I deliberately noted the lack of a wedding band, allowing my index finger to trace the length of his ring finger. I produced a bowl of sliced lemons and sugar and we fixed our refreshments to taste then took our leave to my living room. There we sat, and an uncomfortable pause stretched out for several seconds.

?I hope your father was not terribly put out by my behavior the other day. I?m not normally so easily flustered.? That drained a great deal of the tension from his face and I began to hope just very, very slightly, that this might turn out well after all.

?My father?? he began, and then hesitated before starting again, ?It?s been a very tough year for him. For all of us. Four months ago my mother passed away- she?d been sick for nearly a year, bone cancer.?

?Oh! I?m terribly sorry.? I did not have to feign sympathy- mortality always strikes a chord within me and I let it show clearly. I have seen so many times where death has wreaked havoc in otherwise normal, happy lives that it always leaves me feeling at least a little compassion towards those left behind. It is odd, but it is innate. Furthermore, I had suspected this was the case. ?You all must miss her very much.?

?Yes, especially my father. They were inseparable?? he caught himself then, unwilling to offer any more to this stranger than he had to. ?When he showed up at my place last week he was so badly shaken I thought he was sick. He wouldn?t talk to anyone about it, he just said he couldn?t be home alone.?

?He did seem very distraught.?

He ignored me and went on. ?That night, he told me about Claire. Mind you he?d never mentioned her before, I don?t even think my mother knew about her. It?s not like it?s some giant scandal in the family or anything like that. Hell, it?s just something he never, ever mentioned? ?til he ran in to you.?

I could see everything coursing through him: concern over his father?s reaction to me, relief that I was so obviously not some youthful-looking sixty-something, an uncomfortable and titillating awareness of how thin my dress was and how neatly I curled in to my chair. I drew him out with a dangerous and carefully applied mix of genuine concern for the words he spoke, inviting sexuality, and open friendliness. It was an elixir he was ill prepared to resist, assuming he had cared to. Men cannot be badgered in to opening up, instead they must be invited, seduced.

?He had a photo album, pictures from his racing days I?d never seen before because all of them showed your mother. You really do look exactly like her, you know.? I nodded and he went on. ?I can see how he might mistake you for her at first glance, from a distance? but after he introduced himself? What happened??

I recounted the meeting in full factual detail, only prevaricating where my own internal reactions were concerned. Roger nodded and I knew he had already spoken to others about it, ticking off facts in his head as I replayed the scene for him. I could sense his concern deepening and once again I had to review my own impressions, but I saw nothing beyond what I had originally surmised.

?Damn,? he sighed, ?I don?t know what to think. I thought he?d bounced back as well as anyone could expect after ma passed away.?

?He still thinks I?m Claire?? That thought disturbed me immensely, not so much for its implications for me, but rather for William.

?No? at least he understands that it?s not possible that you?re her, but??

?He knows it up here,? I whispered, touching my head.

?But not here,? he finished, touching his chest, ?exactly. I?m not sure what to do. Hell, I?m not even sure why I?m here, telling you this. I have to wonder if there?s something wrong, something psychological??

He said psychological, but he was thinking Alzheimer?s. It was a possible out for me except that it was absolutely untrue, and I knew that for a certainty. I could have let Roger continue thinking that, perhaps go and convince his father that something was wrong? and curse him as fully as were I some ancient shaman of myth and lore. Such doubts could become self-fulfilling prophecy. No matter how much I desired to see this episode filed away as something innocuous I simply could not purchase my security at such a price.

?You said yourself that your father has been through a lot. What if he actually was sick that day??

?What do you mean?? he asked, his eyes looking directly in to mine, piercing, searching. It was all well and fine for him to privately consider his father?s mental state, but he would brook no disrespect from me on that topic.

?You said he looked ill when he got to your place. What if he was? Has he been sleeping well? Has anyone been looking in on him to make sure he?s taking care of himself? What if it was just a long day and he was coming down with something? He saw me and got one shock, then was told something he certainly didn?t want to hear, that had to be another blow, and then I got all defensive when he wanted to meet again. So for a moment he thought he saw something that he knows he couldn?t have seen, and now it?s something that he can?t let go of because it upset him so much.?

Roger was nodding because it had a certain consistency about it, and because I was prodding him as hard as I possibly could with body language. No man truly wants to be in disagreement with an attractive woman, particularly when she is telling him something he desperately wants to hear. He mulled it over for all of thirty seconds.

?I have a favor to ask??

?Of course. I would be happy to meet with your father again.?

?Thank-you,? he said, smiling. I felt myself blushing. This was growing more complicated by the second, but I did not let that stop me from returning his smile.

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Escape

Fate smiled upon me: the bus was preparing to pull out and I caught it just in time. Even then I was soaked to the skin from the downpour. The weather fit my mood perfectly as I took a seat in the back to wait for my stop and attempt to sort out what had just happened. I wanted to believe I had not seen what I had in William?s eyes, but I am far, far too old to deliberately deceive myself.

Throughout the ride I went over the events in the restaurant, assessing what problems I could expect, drawing out every shred of information I could recall. Part of me was screaming to drop everything, take the thousand dollars in my purse, get out of town and never look back. This was actually the most reasonable part of me. The colder, more calculating, more selfish part of me wanted to stay and tackle this head-on. That part of me could be quite dangerous and had to be held in check.

I do not remember getting off the bus. I became aware that I was standing in my apartment, staring out the front window with the lights off. The air conditioner was running and my clothes were becoming clammy from the chill. I undressed in the bathroom and turned on the shower as hot as it would go, but before stepping in I went to my bedroom and took my pistol from its drawer. Nothing fancy: a model 1911 Colt .45. Large, unlovely and utterly reliable it had been my companion on and off for over eighty years. I loaded it, chambered a round, verified the safety was on, and set it on the vanity in the bathroom.

The scalding spray cut in to my skin, shocking, invigorating? cleansing. I flipped the control over from full hot to full cold, turning as liquid ice coursed down my back, then over my shoulders, across my breasts, down my belly. It centered me, driving away the uncertainty as I let it cool my scalp and my face. Five minutes was all it took, five minutes to bring logic and order to the chaos that had forced its way into my life unbidden. Even then, it was too long.

I slipped into my bathrobe and took up the pistol. I felt silly now for taking it out- by any objective measure I had little to fear tonight. I secured it and slipped it back in to its holster, but I did not put it away. I had to consider- instinct made me take it out. Instinct told me to run in the restaurant, I ignored it, and that turned out quite badly. I am no huge fan of guns, instead I accept the basic truth about them: when you need one nothing else will really do.

What course to take? The encounter in the restaurant could conceivably turn in to nothing, depending on who and what William was today. Both the hostess and the manager of the restaurant had recognized him and from their reaction I knew he was more than just a regular customer. As chaotic as things had been that still came through unmistakably. I went to my computer and called up a search on the mall- I did not dare to search for his name, but instead began methodically browsing through the information on the web site. I found it almost frighteningly fast.

General Manager: William Travis

I began a mental inventory of my visits to that particular mall; when, what stores, what purchases. I always pay cash so there was no easy way for anyone to come up with my name? I nearly laughed when I realized my largest problem was sitting directly in front of me: the cherry wood computer desk. Paid for with cash, of course, but delivered and assembled in my apartment only a week after I returned from Colorado. The panicked voice that wanted to run began piping up again, and this time I listened a little closer, but still?

Running posed a problem, just as it had in the restaurant. If William did search for me my disappearance would make the mystery more intriguing. Furthermore it would mean leaving the country, for I currently have no new identity prepared that would allow me any degree of security. I do have an escape route prepared against need, but? I do not want to go.

With that decision made I began to prepare for a confrontation, should it come to that. The story regarding ?Claire? was verifiable- it was how I had transitioned from that identity to the one I currently wear. The best lies are always spun about a framework of truth, after all. I could produce everything short of a grave to prove that Claire had lived and died in Guatemala and that I was her daughter. My financial records would hold up to an audit, but not a criminal investigation, at least not a determined one.

The time I spent in Colorado could be problematic, but a phone call or two would help to close any holes in the time line. Once again I was forced to confront my foolishness: what had ever possessed me to go skiing? It had not been a bad fall, but I fractured my left leg in three places. I can only imagine the perplexity of the doctors when I failed to follow up with them or anyone else- hopefully they were used to injured vacationers going home to their own doctors. Perhaps those doctors sometimes failed to request records and X-rays. It was plausible, but I should have been more diligent.

Of course the problem was more complex than that: the injury had healed rapidly, but I had also dropped a number of years in appearance as well. It happens and I have no control over it. While my birth certificate and driver?s license said I was twenty-four, without make-up and a conscious effort I looked all of eighteen. Not a huge difference, but enough that the last time I presented an ID to someone he had looked twice.

Despite the cumulative effect of these issues, I felt I had a very good chance of defusing this if I held my ground. Most in my favor was that no reasonable person could seriously entertain the idea that I was over sixty years old. Most likely William would wake up in the morning feeling foolish for having accosted that girl in the restaurant, for thinking even for a moment that she might be other than she claimed.

It made sense. All I had to do was sit tight and most likely this would pass.

Still, I slept with the .45 under my pillow.

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A Chance Encounter

It was a chance encounter, all the more unnerving for that. I was at a mall shopping for some replacement items for my wardrobe. Since returning from Colorado I had been feeling an urge to make a change in my daily attire and I finally decided to indulge it. As it was well past dinnertime I decided that I could stop for a bite at one of the restaurants just off the food court. I am not terribly fond mass-produced food, but this mall is rather upscale and the dining options were fairly attractive. I took a small table looking out upon the mall that allowed me to engage in my favorite hobby: watching people.

I was waiting for my meal, sipping at my tea, casually looking over the passers-by while avoiding any direct eye contact. It actually works better if I have a magazine or a book, but I can put forth an expression of bored indifference well enough to convince anyone that my gaze in his or her direction must be nothing more than coincidental.

I spotted him as he left the food court, and he instantly made eye contact. His reaction was so startling that I nearly reacted myself, but I let my eyes slide off of him as if he had not come to my attention. Still, in my peripheral vision, I saw him stagger over to a bench and carefully take a seat. Alarm bells began ringing in the back of my head after another pass revealed him to be sitting, staring at me intently. Then I recognized him: William Travis.

William and I had shared one very short, exquisite year of hedonistic pleasure together in Southern California on the cusp of the 1960?s before I had ended our relationship for his own good. He had promise, and he wanted children, eventually. It helped that I only liked him, I was still too deep in the grip of my last true love to be foolish enough to let it go any further, but he had felt otherwise. Or at least he thought he had. How could he love me when he knew only what little I had been willing to show him of myself?

Our eyes locked. I gave him a ?confused, why you are staring at me?? expression I hoped would convince him to move on, but as he rose to his feet again he made straight for the entrance to the restaurant. For a brief moment I considered fleeing, but I knew that might make matters far worse. I pretended not to notice as he came in, waving off the hostess who addressed him by name, saying he was here to meet somebody and, oh, there she is right over there, thank you very much.

He came to my table and I looked up in to his earnest, questioning face.

?I?m so sorry to bother you like this, miss, but? you wouldn?t be related to Claire Simon by any chance??

Lie? Or deny?

Lie.

?Claire Simon is my mother,? I replied, smiling, ?and you are??

?Will, Will Travis. I knew your mother many years ago- I would have guessed you to be her granddaughter, rather than her daughter, but the resemblance is? striking.? He gestured to the empty chair, ?May I??

?Please, yes,? I smiled at him. This had the potential to be very, very painful for him, but once begun there was no way to stop it. ?My mother was forty when I was born. It came as quite a shock to her, or so she said.?

?I?m sure it was. Your mother and I? Claire was very important to me. We were very close??

He seemed at a loss for words, trying to put it in to some sort of context he thought I might understand. I had to help him out, so I offered, ?Mom always thought she was sterile. She said she had ended more than one relationship because she couldn?t have children?? His eyes were still so very blue, and the way he looked down at the table, the set of his jaw, was the pain still so sharp? How deeply had I wounded this man? And I was about to multiply it, for there could only be one answer to the obvious question he was about to ask.

?How is your mother? I would love to see her again.?

I let my face tell him before I uttered any word, waited for him to see, and to draw the obvious conclusion. ?My mother died several years ago. She was doing medical missionary work in South America at the time??

We had dinner together and talked about Claire as I tried my best to ease his pain, but there were problems. He kept coming back to how uncannily like my mother I seemed to be.

?I noticed you in the window here, but it wasn?t so much your appearance at first, as what you were doing. You were people-watching, weren?t you??

?Well, yes, ? I smiled, letting a little blush show.

?That?s what startled me so- Claire used to do the same thing, sometimes she would be very dramatic about it, telling stories about people who passed by, stories that you always had a feeling just might be true. When I saw you, the way you were sitting and looking over the people walking past? it was such a shock of recognition? though Claire usually had a newspaper or a magazine in her hand when she did it. At first I was sure you were her, then I realized how young you were?? but he was looking in to my eyes. Always in to my eyes.

I could see the wheels turning inside him and I knew this was becoming more dangerous by the moment. William was never stupid, nor was he given to flights of fancy, but at such close proximity, the two of us talking about my ?mother?, his senses were picking up all sorts of signals from me, unmistakable signals that kept drawing him towards a conclusion that his rational mind had to deny. Suddenly he inhaled deeply.

?You wear your mother?s perfume,? he commented.

Oh, Dear Lord, if you exist, please, you have to help us both! Right now!

The check arrived and he insisted on picking it up. He wanted to continue our conversation, but I pleaded other commitments. I tried to make it clear that I had enjoyed meeting him, but that there really was no reason for us to make plans to meet again. He became insistent almost to the point of rudeness. I could see the turmoil inside him, the certainty that there was something more he needed from me, the inner shock at his own behavior and the irrationality it bred. Every attempt I made to circumvent, to handle and direct him, was overwhelmed.

It was becoming a scene; people in the restaurant were turning to see what was going on. The hostess and a man who had to be the manager were approaching, discreetly, but deliberately. William was known to them- the hostess had greeted him by name. It was time to leave.

?Mr. Travis, I?m certain that your memories of my mother, and the news of her death have upset you, and I am very sorry for that, but I must be going.?

I snatched up my bags and rose to leave, but the manager was in the way and as I tried to brush past him he caught me by my arm.

?Just a moment, miss?? he stopped in mid-sentence because I had his wrist in my free hand and had twisted it from my arm, turning it just enough so that he knew another inch would make it quite painful.

?Jack! No!? William cried out, ?Let her go? let her go.?

I released the manager, and the tableau froze- William?s eyes and mine locked for the second time that night. And he knew. The manager made no move to stop me as I sped out the door and made for the nearest exit, fleeing in to the rain-soaked night.

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About Me

I am not an easy person to like, at least not for the past three hundred years or so. I spent the vast majority of my time hiding or as an add-on to somebody else?s life- it was a habit, and an excruciatingly difficult one to break. I do not believe you the reader can fully grasp the enormity of the challenges I faced when the need to re-establish myself in a new life forced itself upon me. That is why I was drawn to the Americas, and eventually to the North American colonies- it presented an opportunity to be less a slave or a servant and more an independent entity.

There was a television show I saw once a decade or so ago, the kind of silly, mindless entertainment that I mostly cannot fathom, but there was a character in this show that struck a chord with me- she was a creature destined to be paired with a man to whom she would bond completely by adjusting her personality to become a perfect mate for him. I did not watch the entire show (I seldom watch anything but the news) but that character stuck in my memory because that aspect of her was somewhat similar to my experiences through most of the centuries of my life. I adapted and ingratiated my way from one situation to the next, always making myself in to what I felt my new master/mistress/husband/duke wanted me to be. It was something I never questioned, my modus operandi, and I stayed with it because it worked. It also made me very popular so long as times were good.

When I first broke with this tradition I came as close to a mental break as I ever have. It was unnerving to be in a position to simply speak my own mind rather than carefully calculating the expected response and delivering it with a smile. Suddenly I could take lovers who interested me rather than seeking out those who would be least likely to ask uncomfortable questions. Having money helped as well. Needless to say it did not always go smoothly at first and I was run out of more than one community to cries of ?Harlot!? or the like. As I ran I laughed with every step I took. It was pure exhilaration, a sense of personal freedom the likes of which I had never truly allowed myself to know, and it nearly drove me mad.

The Yeti asked me how I found the will to go on, century after century. I never answered him in any direct way for as I look back upon it now I simply do not understand it myself, at least not entirely. On an intellectual level it is clear that I maintained a survival mind-set and made choices that maximized my comfort, where comfort was defined as not having to move on every few years. Any time I remember feeling truly happy directly correlates with being able to spend twenty or thirty years in one place. Placed in the context of my life over the previous few centuries, that past bears a disturbing resemblance to Hell. It does not surprise me in the least that breaking with it proved so wrenching. My only regret is that I left so much wreckage in my wake as I worked out my new sense of self. Many good people tried to help me and most of them received far, far less from me than they deserved. My only consolation is that the vast majority of them never expected anything from me to begin with.

So, I am not easy to like, and I am nearly impossible to love. I have no real sense of humor and I do not suffer fools gladly. Furthermore I have it on reliable authority that my definition of ?fool? is exceedingly harsh. I have been called ?cold? and ?aloof? and ?spaced-out? and I deny none of those characterizations. Oddly enough I now spend less time intimately involved with people than ever before yet I feel far more engaged with those around me. I do keep people at arm?s length in as much as there is a secret I decline to share, it is a requirement, but I no longer have to hide my personality behind a pleasing mask in order to preserve my place in society and that has a value to me that I do not expect anyone to fully comprehend. I still have my moments (sometimes even decades- the late 60?s and early 70?s come to mind) when I simply wallow in decadence, but my life is much more deliberate now- I drive my own destiny and in a delightfully expressive turn of phrase I just ?make it up as I go?. I like it this way.

Perhaps that is why I took exception to suggestions that I might have some larger role to play in the future of mankind: I have become quite fond of being my own mistress and I dislike the idea that I surreptitiously, even unknowingly, serve a higher power. I noted before that if I was created to a purpose, my creator is likely disappointed in me. Let me venture further to say that should this creator appear and demand its due, it will be disappointed further still.

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Acidman Asked 25 Questions

Acidman asked 25 questions. I heasitated, then chose to answer as best I could.

1. Do you have a personal hero? If so, who is it?

My first real husband. He was a farmer and a father of five when we met and he devoted every moment of his life to making his little corner of the world a better place for his children. He married me to fill the void left by his late wife and never stopped showing me how much he appreciated me. In a very real way he set the tone for the vast majority of my following years.

2. What is your favorite book of all time and what made it so fucking good?

Plato?s ?The Last Days of Socrates? , in particular Crito where Socrates defines his respect for law even though it demands his life.

3. What does ?diversity? mean to you?

Freedom and respect. No more, no less.

4. What is the wildest thing you?ve ever done?

Oh, my. I am not certain the provider?s TOS will let me be explicit. Does scratching my way out a shallow grave count?

5. Do you regret doing it?

NEVER.

6. Can you drive a stick shift?

Of course

7. What?s the highest speed you ever traveled in a car?

135mph

8. Were you driving, or riding at the time?

I was behind the wheel but I am not certain you could truly call it driving. It was more of a desperate struggle to stay on the road.

9. Which is better: snakes or spiders?

Snakes- they make a better meal.

10. What is the most disgusting thing you ever ate?

Oh, the possibilities. Raw human flesh, I suppose. It is not so bad when cooked.

11. Have you ever shit your pants? Be HONEST!

Yes

12. Was losing your virginity an enjoyable experience?

Immensely, if I was actually a vigin at the time. It was all so confusing.

13. Should oral sex be outlawed or encouraged?

Encouraged. Silly question.

14. Name one man with a fine ass.

In the modern pantheon? Ah-nuld, circa 1980

15. Do you watch golf on television? If not, will you iron my shirts?

No and No.

16. Who is Martha Burk?

A very earnest woman with a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas. She means well.

17. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Physically? I wish I could have children. Personally? I would like to sharpen my wit and stop sounding so arrogant when I write.

18. Do you eat raw oysters?

Yum.

19. Are you claustrophobic?

No.

20. If you rode a motorcycle, would you wear a helmet even if the law said you didn?t have to?

No. In my case it is somewhat pointless.

21. Name five great Presidents.
Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy R. and Nixon.

22. Name three shitty Presidents.
Grant, Taft, and Nixon

23. Now call me fanny and slap my ass. Just kidding.

That will cost you $1500 in advance.

24. This is the 4th of July. Did you set off any fireworks?

No. I leave it to the professionals

25. If you could have dinner and conversation with anyone in the history of the planet, who would you choose?
Sulla. He dared to flirt with Empire and had his name damned for it.

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Predictions (Always A Bad Idea)

In the end, I suspect the truly definitive question regarding the War on Iraq will revolve around the Turkish invasion and the US response to it. I have sent out questions to several trusted correspondents and bloggers requesting input. Nonetheless, my feeling is that this will define the ultimate outcome of the current hostilities. Will the United States of America and her Allies prevent the wholesale slaughter of the Iraqi Kurds at the hands of the Turks? I suspect that in the end, they will. But this is by no means assured.


UPDATE: a slight miswording, there- substituting permit for prevent. Terribly sorry about that. As to the question of the Turks, it still remains to be seen if they are intent on a large scale deployment in to northern Iraq. I was somewhat surprised to see indications that they might be doing just that, particularly in the face of fairly stark warnings from the US and her allies. As in all such times, the details remain unclear. I am not seeing any unified analysis of this development, but as of this writing (7:25AM MST) the Turks are denying that they have entered Iraq. I cannot begin to stress strongly enough that it is crucial that Turkey be kept in check as thier relationship with the Kurds is so historically bad. Crowds may cheer coalition forces in Baghdad, but the news will be filled with pictures of Kurdish bodies if things spin out of control in the nort, and the political cost will be immense.

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Freedom

I remember the drums. Sometimes they were actual percussion instruments, beating out a rhythmic call to arms. Others were more metaphorical, shouted out from criers, or pulpits, or newspapers, but always- drums. War is an entirely human enterprise and it serves a valuable function in a purely Darwinian sense: both individually and in summation it weeds out the weak, the defective, and the misled. It serves to move vast sums of materiel and wealth across large distances. It mixes the gene pool in a very brutal and straightforward manner.

War brings vast misery and suffering in its wake, particularly when waged by those whose ambitions are grand and personal and vainglorious. War brings peace, prosperity and security in its wake when waged by those whose purpose is clear, communal and preservative. No war, not one that has ever been launched by any nation or any group in all the history of mankind was entirely of one type or another. Not all the Germans in 1939 were Nazis. Not all the Colonial Militia of the late eighteenth century were liberty-loving Patriots. Kahn, Cromwell, Alexander, Suleiman, Mao, Roosevelt, Caesar? In the end it was the aftermath of their actions that led to history?s just conclusion regarding the worth or lack thereof of the characters and actors involved.

Still, there are precedents. There are trends. When Freedom calls her sons to war she has to answer to a people whose very political existence is steeped in the ideals of personal responsibility and Freedom as a birthright. It is hard for many to understand- they have not lived the centuries in between and are caught in the mortal trap of their own contemporary viewpoints. This is not the fault of the living; rather it is the way of natural order. Let history alone be the constraint from the past, and leave the modern at the mercy of its own choices. So it is simple to dismiss the modern Free World as self-absorbed, self-indulgent, isolated and indifferent. It is an easy judgment made by those who purport to gaze down from higher ground upon masses they despise for the very power they wield in a Freedom loving Republic.

The Free World now embarks on a mission that will last a decade, or decades, and require battles fought not only on the fields of martial contest but also upon the merciless gridirons of philosophy: a war of Ideas, and Ideals. The tools of this war are more than physical weapons, they are the razor-sharp cry of the tortured oppressed, those who some feel have not the will or capacity to love Freedom, to embrace Her, to make Her the heart and soul of new, Free, modern nations. But Freedom knows these peoples. Freedom has not turned her back, nor deafened her ears, nor cast her eyes aside. Freedom abides.

Freedom calls her sons to war and will allow history to be the final judge.

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My Own Desires

I have noted several times that I dislike the concentration on politics that has overtaken this project nearly from its opening day. After posting earlier today I found myself decidedly displeased with myself for having dipped in to the well of such commentary yet again.

It is not that I feel political discourse is beneath me, or unseemly, rather it is that I cannot believe that there is any point to laying out opinions on a regular basis when I honestly believe I have little of any originality to offer.

Pursuant to that I am going to eschew any further commentary on current political events for a time and concentrate on other writing. At least until such time as something truly momentous unfolds- and in case you might wonder, no, I do not include the initiation of hostilities with Iraq in the category of ?momentous events.?

Originally I wished to write of the past, and culture, and entertainment, and sex, and food- I wanted to be hedonistic and debauched. Instead I waste my time being pompous and stuffy. Let that be a lesson to all and sundry- never let events sway you from your dreams.

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A Delightful Find

This was simply delightful to read.


I would take issue with certain points, but they would be minor. Kvetching as a comment in a previous post put it. The author manages to wrap up American anger and the angst of the anti-war movement in a neat package lacking any kind of acrimonious or disparaging language. No small feat, given the current climate.

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France

I am neither a fan nor a foe of the French though their political maneuvers over the past few weeks have done nothing to endear that nation to me; however, it is incumbent upon any person who seeks to comment on politics and current events to step back and take a long, dispassionate look at what is happening.

I believe the case can be made that the major sin of the French government is that it recognized the shape of the new reality before the US and the United Kingdom were ready to have it do so. Many in the United States have been very vocal in the opinion that both the United Nations and NATO are old alliances that make no sense given the current situation. The governments of the US and the UK likely share this view to some degree; however, it seems that they have been willing to attempt to bend the old institutions to serve the needs of new situations, and to see them eventually break under the strain if that was what was required. Take that attitude, translate it in to French, and suddenly the machinations of those people in Paris and Berlin do not seem quite so irrational.

NATO and the United Nations were born of a bipolar world where two super entities stood in ideological opposition, but with similar goals. The great contest that was the Cold War made NATO, the Warsaw Pact and the UN both necessary and viable. NATO and the Warsaw Pact served to roughly define the boundaries of the conflicting ideologies and the UN served as a vital release valve that allowed both sides to cooperate when absolutely required under the umbrella of a pseudo-supranational body. The United Nations offered a forum whereby grievances could be aired, strategies proposed, and treaties struck while always giving each major power block the ability to halt anything diametrically opposed to their own self interest.

It worked because world politics were so structured as to make it work. Eventually though, catastrophe struck: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed under the weight of a massively mismanaged economy. In the maelstrom that followed the Warsaw Pact dissolved (an event that I suspect placed those nations well ahead of the curve of the NATO members) and lacking any other world-girdling socialist system to step in to the power vacuum, the United States was left as the world?s sole superpower.

Suddenly there was no bipolar world, but the detritus of that world still remained in the form of the old western alliance and the United Nations. Both NATO and the United Nations had lost their old callings and the only thing left to them was to reign in American power. Unfortunately for those bodies, they are utterly inadequate to the task.

The European Union (led by France) sought to position itself as a rival power to the US and her closest allies. In a post modernist world they felt they could build the economic and political power required to check what they considered to be a vibrant yet culturally inferior America. They thought they had time. They were wrong: the ruins of the Caliphate, fueled by petrodollars and Cold War legacies of weapons and training, were stirring to the call of reactionary elements which viewed the west as an evil to eradicated.

After September 11, 2001, the US knew what she needed to do and the post modern EU was forced to go along. This left a terrible aftertaste in the mouths of the EU leaders as they had allowed this ?cowboy? nation to run roughshod over them on its way to fight a war. When attention turned to Iraq the French in particular apparently understood that the only way the UN and NATO could be used to reign in the US/UK alliance was to sacrifice those bodies upon the altar of European power and position themselves to possess a solid grasp on power in whatever new body or bodies eventually emerge.

Taken in that light, it seems to me that France?s actions possess a certain element of rationality.

The truly interesting part has yet to unfold. Assuming that the US and the UK move forward without the UN and NATO there will follow several years (at least two, anyhow) of agonizing death-throes for those two organizations. The EU (or what remains of it once the NATO split is complete) could be forced to build a military of its own, or else come to terms with the idea of relying upon the Russians for their muscle. Keep in mind that many Eastern European nations will likely be unwilling in the extreme to become a part of an organization that relies on Russian troops to maintain order. While Russian troops are vastly inferior to modern western (read that US and UK) armies, they are not so inconsiderable in relation to what the EU is likely to have on hand when the dust settles. Part of the price will likely be the curtailment of the grand socialism that Europe enjoyed as a protectorate of the United States.

Keep in mind that during and after this realignment there will still be reactionary forces to be dealt with and that none of them have any more love for Europe than they do for the United States.


Afterword: Mr. Den Beste has a different take on what may have happened to bring NATO and the UN to this point. As always, his analysis is thorough and engaging.

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Cold Fury

I owe a thank-you to Mr. Hendrix of Cold Fury fame for the link and his kind words.

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War and Politics

I grow increasingly weary of the war debate, politics is not my forte; however, it is much on the minds of many people, and particularly of those whom I call friends. So many seem fixated upon the narrow topics of oil, Iraqi support for terror and the desire to liberate the Iraqi people from an admittedly terrible tyranny. These are all individually valid concerns and when one takes the time to consider them as a whole I suppose it is enough to sway many people to a decision that war is at least necessary, even if undesirable.

First, let me briefly dispose on these three points. Oil: it is the lifeblood of the modern world, there are unstable regimes which threaten the world?s supply of oil, and the choices are starkly clear: act to protect the flow of oil or accept an inevitable economic disaster precipitated by the actions of a nation, group, or groups who believe they have nothing to lose by bringing the current world order to the brink of collapse. Terror: Iraq does support terror groups, both directly and indirectly. Involvement with the al-Qaida organization is likely tangential, but that is somewhat akin to the old saw regarding being ?a little bit pregnant?, one either tolerates support for terrorism, or one does not. Liberation: Regimes are legitimate or they are not, they either serve the interests of their citizens or they do not, they reign by popular consent or by popular submission. When citizens disappear at the behest of government it is usually an indication that the rule is illegitimate.

I do not begin to presume that the above encompasses all there is to say on these topics; however, it serves to make clear my own mind in these areas.

What the world faces today is not a war of American Imperialism. Rather it is a battle between the forces of reactionary fanaticism and western liberalism. The world is divided in to two essential spheres (three, if one is fond of splitting hairs): the modern, liberal sphere; and the primitive sphere mired in strongman leadership and internecine struggle. Portions of the primitive sphere struggle to join the modern, other portions struggle to destroy the modern. The second camp is not one that can be ignored, or held at arm?s length, nor can it be negotiated with. The basic assumptions of both sides between the modern and the reactionary primitive are too divergent for there to be a common interest around which to build a framework for discussion.

The world is dotted with small dictatorships and lands steeped in a seemingly endless cycle of sanguinary anarchy. Most of this is the admitted aftermath of the war-by-proxy that was the Cold War, where both sides supported regimes and movements which had little in common with the patron other than that they stood in apparent opposition to the will of the opposite side. This is not to say that the Cold War alone was responsible for these regimes, but it certainly abetted them. With the Cold War over, there remains a responsibility to begin attempting to clean up the mess. It is the current Iraqi regime?s ill fortune that it has wandered in to the crosshairs at this time in history.

Regardless of what reasons the west gives at this time, the move against Iraq constitutes the first phase of what will eventually become an effort to clean up the detritus of the Cold War. It is an eminently practical choice on several levels beginning with the threat Iraq poses to the stability of the world oil supply and its strategic location in a geographical area immersed in the conflict between the modern and the reactionary. The Iraqi regime is dangerous and it holds its population in thrall through terror. It is also weak enough to be handled easily- lacking any hard, fast friends in the area it stands alone and its passing will be mourned only by those who see that passing as a foreshadow of their own fate. That act alone will likely move some of the problematic regimes towards some sort of rapprochement with the west, which would include some basic reformation of their own governments.

I am not implying that this is some sort of conscious plan on the part of the west for it most assuredly is not, rather this is a possible outgrowth of a successful reduction of the Iraqi regime. With Iraq liberated the anti-war protests of ?why Iraq and not North Korea or Zimbabwe? morph in to a pro-liberation protest of ?Iraq is free, why not North Korea, or Zimbabwe?? At this point the West will either step up to its obligations, or shy away and the tone of the next few decades will likely have been set.

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Columbia

I have nothing to say regarding the Columbia tragedy that would not sound cold and heartless. I tend to be dispassionate about such things, and there will be an appropriate time for such discourse. Just not today, not now. Instead, I will link to this from the Weekend Pundit. He was the first to ever see this weblog, the first to comment and the first to provide a link, so I will return the favor now. He titled it The High Frontier.

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War

What is the tipping point for war? When does a build up towards hostilities morph in to an ?inevitable? conflict? I noted earlier that no war is unavoidable until it begins; however, one has to be careful how one defines war. Another writer recently wrote of the broader definition of war that includes such things as economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure backed by rewards and punishments, etc. I am inclined to agree with his lengthy analysis, and by that measure war against Iraq began more than ten years ago and has been on-going since that time. What the world awaits now is an answer to the following question: will this war finally end? Oddly enough, those opposed to conventional action against Iraq are in favor of prolonging the conflict, while those in favor of invasion support bringing this war to a close.

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In To The West

I enjoy living in America, and I have spent more than eighty percent of my time here over the past three centuries. Initially, it simply afforded me a perfect social/cultural jungle to hide within. As the colonies and then the nation expanded there were always new places where I could set up a life for twenty or thirty years (in one case even longer). As time progressed it became clear to me that there really was no other place to reside if one wanted to ride the edge of cultural and material advances. The United States of America is a remarkably resilient and optimistic place and as such is uniquely prepared to face the coming challenges of the new century.

In my view there is little doubt that western cultural liberalism will prevail over the next century. The only real question is where the synthesis of European semi-democratic socialism and American semi-democratic capitalist/individualism will eventually lead. That the two will combine in some way is inevitable, but the result is likely to be surprising even to me. At the moment it is clear that America?s social/economic structure is far more adaptable than that of the vast majority of Europe, as well as being more focused on the issues of importance that shall define the next two decades. Europe?s advantages in these times are to be frank, nil; however, there are things to be admired in the desire for total social justice. In the end it will be American ingenuity and drive which will bring the European ideals as close to reality as any human utopia is likely to come.

At the moment, though, there are many unpleasant tasks to be completed, not least of which is the political reduction of fundamentalist reactionaries in the Middle East. While this is currently viewed as primarily a military and law enforcement action I find myself speculating that in the future history will pass lightly over the decade (give or take five years) of conflict that begins this century and instead count as the great accomplishments of Twenty-First Century Western Civilization the reconstruction of political order in what is now mostly a cesspool of poverty, repression, tyranny and random, indiscriminate death. Let us be absolutely clear on this point: there are cultures too warped to survive without being corrected by outside influences, and there are cultures which are, at their very core, simply Evil. Not Evil in the religious sense (since even any hint of spirituality seems to give so many people hives), rather Evil in the sense that they do nothing to promote even a semblance of progress for human dignity and freedom. Evil in that they stand in active opposition to the very things which form the core of Western Cultural Liberalism: freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of movement, and oh-so-very importantly the freedom to try and to fail.

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Relocations

And so it begins. I usually make a serious relocation only when it is time to ?age out? of an extant identity- this prevents, at least to some degree, the difficulty of encountering old acquaintances in my new guise. Up until the last twenty years or so this has not been a terribly difficult process; however, the advent of computer and travel technology has made me face the reality that to continue operating as I have over the past thirty-five centuries I may be required to relocate to some less-developed part of the world, a prospect I do not greet with joy.

I am not afraid of hard living. I spent most of the first half of my life in bondage of one kind or another, often in situations where mere survival required serious efforts from all involved. Even in the later centuries the standard of living I enjoyed, while above average at the time, was usually something most modern westerners would find intolerable. It is not that humanity has gone soft; rather it is that the underlying expectations have changed. There are many people who would truly relish a return to hand-to-mouth existence. Most everybody else would die fairly quickly.

It is my experience that people resist change just enough in aggregate to keep from being overwhelmed while not causing stagnation. True Luddites seldom succeed for long ? a society that turns inward and refuses to move forward is doomed to be overtaken by more dynamic peoples. Eventually they are absorbed, destroyed, or moved along by force. So, to move to some place still locked in the previous century (or even millennium) is something to be avoided. I prefer to live amongst those who delight in the future, rather than those mired in the past.

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History From The Trenches

I am not a student of history as it is taught in the schools around the world. People in whom I have confided over the centuries have universally found this hard to reconcile, but that has always been the result of their own knowledge of the past. When one studies history one is afforded the luxury of collecting all the perspectives of far-flung individuals and events. For those actually living in the times being studied, the only perspective immediately available is the one before their very eyes. Given the state of communications technology prior to the telegraph is it any wonder that one might be ignorant of what transpired in other parts of the world at any given time? Of course not.

I have lived through a few ?momentous? times, but mostly I slaved away in some obscure corner of the world while events transpired far, far away and I was as ignorant of them as the normal people around me. I spent a large portion of the first half of my life as a slave, either literally or virtually. In an odd way it afforded me a level of protection, almost anonymity as I glided through one decade after another for no one affords much attention to a slave. I always managed to move on before anyone noticed that the master?s concubine never seemed to get any older.

These days I spend my efforts in more productive ways. I am a teacher by choice, and wealthy enough to teach where I please. I am quite adept at reading the financial markets, identifying trends towards peaks and stepping in long enough to make a tidy sum. The recent dotcom madness served me quite well in a number of respects, particularly in allowing me to dive in and out of certain companies as they rose as well as leveraging my technology positions to attempt to redress one of my most pressing problems: identity. I still have not found an acceptable solution to that, but I am by nature quite patient.

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I do not care

I do not care about politics. In my experience any single election or coup or coronation or revolution is of little long-term consequence. Truly, elections and coronations tend to inch forward towards some distant goal whereas coups and revolutions often are merely minor setbacks. There are exceptions of course- in the science of humanity progress is usually measured by the exceptions encountered. I lived through several of those exceptions, ?interesting times? according to the popular misquotation of an ancient Chinese curse, and I can say with authority that the current situation simply does not qualify.

It is simplistic to see the events of the past ten decades as full of separate defining moments, each ushering in a new paradigm; however, from my somewhat unique perspective the century just ended was merely the beginning of the final reconciliation between the eastern and western world. This began with the collapse of the Caliphate and was exacerbated by the rise of the oil-based energy economy and the solidification of the western model of what currently passes for political and cultural liberalism. The Cold War standoff between the warped pseudo-socialist despotism of the USSR and western style Capitalism served to pause the process and in turn allowed certain pressures to escalate; however, things are now proceeding forward in a predictable fashion. The tools and the numbers are modern, the pace is accelerated, but the process is the same. Come back in one hundred years and the results should be? intriguing.

See? I have a cruel streak.

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Explanations

It is hard to write like this. I have spent so long making certain that I do not draw undo attention to myself that to suddenly speak clearly and simply, citing my own experience in unambiguous terms in such a public forum... it is a novel experience for me. That is saying quite a lot for one who has spent decades the way one might spend a pleasant summer?s day.

Call me a liar, or a spinner of fictions, or delusional. Hurl invective if it will make your worldview more secure. I have been stoned, whipped, drowned, burned, banned? suffice it to say that with this share of sticks and stones behind me there is nothing that mere words can do to bring anguish to my heart.

I am not here to make grand pronouncements. I cannot make the world a better place. I possess no magic, no otherworldly plans. I have nothing but a vast encyclopedia of experience with people. Nothing more.

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