The Writer's Inkwell

Adrift

2010-04-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

Rudderless in a sea of broken dreams,
My declining state of mind entwines
with a tentacled sargasso that pulls
Me downward, downward into black, cold,
Unrelinquishing water.

I love the land and all her beauties but
Do fear the sea and have never gladly nor
Willingly ventured upon a bark in search
Of adventure high or low that would risk
My terra-bound life by the perils oft
Regaled by les ultimes survivants.

Adrift in my thoughts, I roam the scary
Shores of what this craven man fears the
Most, the uncharted waters of the soul and
Spirit that Will surely swallow down whole
This flailing, gasping wretch until every
Sign of life, hope and vitality is
Extinguished in Death's throes victorious.

House of Pain

2010-04-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

Tonight's sunset is as spectacular as any I had ever viewed from the kitchen window in my former, beloved home-sweet-home.

A tiny abode it was compared to my current habitation. No longer within a mere four wooden walls of plain aspect and diminutive scale, I now am lost in a seeming infinite architectural spread that reaches toward earth's four points, an edifice of four expansive levels that demand I walk, climb, explore every one of thousands of hidden nooks and crannies. I am compelled to do this but find no joy in discovery. I want to go back, go back to the simplicity of my earlier life. I cannot.

It is becoming dark out of doors, a furtive, watery sun having limped its pathetic course through the closing chapter of a gloomy and damp spring day. Its brief, craven appearance has created more shadow than illumination, and this has tended toward my unease, prompting me to turn on each light of every room on all floors. I am alone - sometimes it is all right to be alone - but not at this time. This dwelling space of loss and loneliness holds me captive and I want only to walk out the door and go home. I can never go back.

I have been locked up within. No one hears my cries for help. They are swallowed down whole by the grinning and cruel emptiness of an outwardly beautiful home that has no soul so has stolen mine.

No one hears my cries for help. They are growing fainter.

I am silent as I watch the sun sink deeper and deeper into an eternal night. It is beautiful.

It is beautiful....

Home

Moving

2010-04-25T18:49:00.001-07:00

I spent my entire childhood climbing up mountainsides, and, when not up to that daunting challenge [for whatever reason], I would settle for climbing a tree. What little boy doesn't love to climb? To see what lies beyond his tiny province? Perhaps a tall ship's sails looming on the distant horizon promise escape to that faraway land where Peter and Wendy and Jonathan and Michael now live. A kid's got to have adventure in his heart, if not in his own neighborhood, otherwise he'll shrivel up and blow away.

Well, my dad was a salesman and it seemed everyone in his district already had a Fuller brush of some sort as well as a stock of J.R. Watkins Natural Vegetable Oil Soap. His regular customers liked him for his friendly and honest manner and bought freely from his traveling store. The time came, however, to pull up stakes. Since my parents never had the capital to buy a home of their own, it was no big deal vacating a rental and locating a new one. Of course, the little apartment or house we bid adieu was left sparkling, all spic-and-span. That was Mom's and Dad's way. It spoke well, too, of the products my dad hawked.

When I said no big deal leaving behind a dwelling, I was not talking about the pain of being uprooted from the neighborhood and its beloved denizens, whether two-footed or four-footed. It seemed that just when I had made my nest in the crook of a favorite tree or discovered a poison-oak-infested mountain trail leading to hidden treasure twenty paces to the north of hangman's tree, I was admonished by my firm but not totally unsympathetic father that there were new hills and dales and seas to discover ... in a new town.

I didn't realize at the time of my agonized, perpetually uprooted youth that Dad had ever been a kid. How could I? He was an adult the entire time I knew him. Now that I think back on it, when he was out watering our sparse patch of green at my most-favorite-ever cottage, he always had this huge ear-to-ear grin on his face when I hooted and hollered and scrambled up the old Maple in our front yard.

Dad never told me so, but I have a sneaking suspicion that when he was a kid he loved to climb trees and mountains too.

I Awoke With a Start ...

2010-04-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

I awoke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed.

I was dreaming ... perhaps I still am. There is no doubt about the house, however. That house. At this present moment are set before me the orderliness and tidiness of Mr. Clean and Jeeves themselves. I am home. My own home. Yet the smell and disarray of a dwelling long neglected persists in my nostrils and before my disbelieving eyes. Those who held title to this sinister house could not have known they would never be welcomed here. Not truly. I have no idea why I said that; perhaps it's just a feeling. Why I should think it, much less say it ... As I said before, I could still be dreaming. Scenes from my dreamscapes make sense like visions of Alice in her little world of wonder make sense.

Whatever this all purports to mean, I am certain of what I heard, what I saw. Something at the top of the stairway was moving. I was finished, at least for the moment, with taking inventory of the large container addressed to my mother. Time to investigate. I'm past fear. Well, we'll see.

Grabbing the banister - not unduly concerned about its filthy state - I pulled myself upward, slowly, as though my legs alone could not adequately perform the climb. However dark the upper landing might be, there was a sensation of movement that my gut picked up on, let alone my eyes straining to discern what should have been even the most obvious indicators of a presence. Atop the landing - at long last, it seemed - I clearly saw what had been moving, though I heard nothing but a muffled sort of cry. A door was swinging open, swinging partially shut, ever so slowly, gently, back and forth, from what could only have been, to my way of thinking, some draft. Perhaps an open window in the room behind the door. I hesitated momentarily, not initially from fear, but because that muffled cry broke sharply into a cutting sob. I felt myself blanch. A tingle shuddered noisily up the spine.

The door, of its own accord - so it would seem - opened fully before me. I looked cautiously into the spacious room, a bedroom ...

Love's Illusion

2010-03-23T08:27:00.001-07:00

I have searched long for that love of all loves,
But it hastens not, though my winter's arrived

And leaves me desolate of every hope of warmth,
Comfort and a prospect of my name's immortality.

Nor will this elusive love reveal itself in my tiny dreams,
Allowing, at the very least, a gossamer of muted visions

That would elevate this worn and bitter man to a level of
Expanded vistas, kindling within flames of love's illusion ...

Mother and Daughter, continued

2010-02-11T22:18:00.001-08:00

So much can be said in the silence of the lips. The eyes say what needs to be said: often so eloquently, so scathingly, so very to the point. Yes, the eyes have it.

Theresa, never before seeming to possess a thought of her very own, was forced to think, to act without reservation. She was such a child in a number of ways, but her father's brutal execution turned her into an adult overnight. The physical comfort and security of her home could not, of itself, assuage the emptiness she felt.

As Renata approached Theresa, breaking into her daughter's troubled reverie, she put her cold hand upon Theresa's shoulder. She hadn't the emotional capacity to embrace and comfort her daughter wordlessly, as a normal mother might do. Yet, strangely, the readily confident and glib woman had no words. If there had been any, they would have stuck in her throat. Theresa looked into her mother's eyes and said nothing. The inwardly distraught but poised Mrs. Gettleman sought sympathy from Theresa with her eyes. Traits such as compassion and mercy, typical of any decent human being, were scarcely spiritual waters deep within the well of Renata's soul.

Theresa's awakened eyes saw fear in those of her mother. So unnatural, so untypical for the woman who plowed her way through every obstacle, challenge and person who stood their own shaky ground. With her right hand, warm and utterly feminine, she firmly grasped her mother's hand, still upon her shoulder, and silently declared that never more would they touch ...

Nor speak.

Miss Gettleman has left her childhood home for the last time, never to return. The shell of a woman, ghostly in pallor, stands motionless on an upstairs landing and stares at the street below ...

Through a darkened pane....

Mother and Daughter

2010-01-23T15:24:00.001-08:00

No more words were exchanged between mother and daughter, nor would there ever be.

Theresa, out of long unspoken necessity but presently for the purpose of survival, has put on a new and bold garment: wordless defiance, this in the face of the sudden erosion of Renata Gettleman's supreme confidence and now dissipating arrogance that the world was ever in her control, her tight grasp. That grasp is loosening, and she has no say in the matter. She has lost her prized possession ... her child. A perverse love, but love nonetheless.

The one person over whom Mother had absolute and unchallenged dominion was Daughter. Despite a brittle outward show of motherly affection and concern for her only child, Renata's normally cool demeanor was, to her consternation, warming up to this new creature. Theresa Marie was showing signs her mother's own robust nature. However, we are talking assertive, not aggressive. Both women knew what had happened so tragically, so unnecessarily mere days before. The younger woman, she who truly suffered the loss, knew, but only in her heart; the remotest possibilities of Renata's untoward behavior, neglect toward her husband, was facilely explained away.

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That Timeless Flow

2009-12-18T23:00:00.001-08:00

Recent happenings close to home have bewildered me by day, terrified me by night. Yet, the shroud of fog begins to clear. I see outward, through the windows to my soul. A sense of tranquility replaces anxiety and confusion. A calmer state of mind allows me to sort through the simpler things. Scattered pieces of life's puzzle come together of their own accord; my intervention is neither required nor sought.

What I have commonly referred to as the past, I now realize, is not a block of time and events disconnected from today, but life and living's continuance through to this present moment. A flowing stream, irresistible, from that so-called past of no discernible nor recorded beginning.

In that timeless flow from then to now, I see myself not as participant but on-shore observer. Rushing past me are images of people and buildings and books. And so much more, the more of my former childhood surroundings that have edged their way into my today's reality. It is a continuation of what I started out as and what I continue to be ...

Through nature, through nurture.

None of this is so unusual ...

That House on the Hill

2009-12-07T11:18:00.001-08:00

I want the warmth of hearth and home. It is natural.

The house that draws my heart and mind away from all reasonable and natural desire, however, is desolate of any ember that might be kindled into a passionate flame. From yet so far a distance my imagination conjures up interior walls blackened by the oily soot of poorly trimmed kerosene lamps and a dank, poorly drafted fireplace whose tepid fires never quite took. The windows, likewise, are years and years gone unwashed. The now opaque panes distort through their dried-on grime views from within, visions from without. Paneled ceilings, somber and bleak, drip decades-worth of filthy webs downward toward stalagmite accumulations of swirling debris that reach upward, grasping tentatively, from warped and gaping oaken planks.

A grand and spiraling staircase takes center stage but startles me as its wide and toothless grin reflects the loss of many a baluster. It dares me any further approach. I draw back instinctively yet am morbidly fascinated by what is gently swaying in shadow ...

In the dark, at the top of the stairs....

My arrest of attention upon movement upstairs was abruptly diverted by the slamming shut of the huge entry door, that accomplished with a huge sucking sound and consequent evacuation of a heavy, fetid atmosphere. More unsettled by my own annoyance at the rude interruption of the unfolding of delicious terror than I was by actual fright, I spun round and stopped dead, face-to-face with a most unexpected sight ...

What could have been only a hasty delivery by an unseen courier - so much of my account seems fraught with the unknowable, the invisible - was my scarcely determined assessment of a large wooden container's sudden arrival, landed squarely at the entrance. I saw the downward, lazy swirl of dust coming to rest whence it came, having been excited and cast upward from the box's crash to the floor's thick cushion of dust. My approach toward the mysterious carton was, needless to say, accomplished with the utmost caution, and not a little trepidation as my thoughts cast backward to the tale of Pandora. However dim the light stealing through the long unwashed glass proved to be, I was, nevertheless, able to read the name of the addressee ... Elizabeth Vincent, my long-departed mother. Any vestige of fear clutching at my heart gave way to an insatiable curiosity to discover what ill lay in wait for me from within the steep, rectangular walls of pine. In my mother's stead, I deemed it entirely suitable to take possession of her property.

Locating a crowbar amongst a heap of tools and diverse household paraphernalia in the kitchen, I hastened back to the box and began unfastening the several nails holding the broad lid in place. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to slide the tapered, flat end of the bar between the tight seam between cover and box, I finally penetrated the seeming hermetic seal that, ironically, appeared to wish absolute denial of entry therein. The usual loud and protracted squawk of nails letting go their tenacious hold on wood did not disappoint for all its raucous clamor.

I worked my way around the box - some nine-foot-square was the lid - and at last had released each nail's fast hold to the box proper and set to pull off and lower the lid to the floor. Though I had figured the box to be pine for its light coloring and presence of characteristic knots, yet the top was exceedingly heavy. I managed it down by tugging at one corner, drawing it bit-by-bit toward me, then, likewise, the opposing end.

As I let out a sigh of relief over the unusual expenditure of time and effort, I let the lid drop, barely missing my feet.

Astonished, incredulous, aroused emotionally.

Words, even when taken to the superlative level by that four letter word, cannot adequately describe my trembling, choked-by-sobs self. The capacious container was resting place to a multitude of books that had been lovingly and carefully arranged in a deep cushion of excelsior. Though this bevy of books had the evident look of relative antiquity about them, there was not the characteristic odor of must and damp so prevalent among cemeteries of long-forgotten books.

I reached with the utmost reverence for the volume that had caught my attention and won my affection as a mere lad: Arundel, by Kenneth Roberts. Knowing nothing then about the historicity of the American colonies' various accounts (some, I have since learned, are disputed as to accuracy), I was taken by N.C. Wyeth's cover art of Indians and settlers canoeing the swelling waters of the Dead River ... the Arundel River ... the Kennebec ... la Riviere du Loup? I cannot recall, but the deep blue waters tipped by creamy white caps, the crisp, colorful off-shore autumn foliage, the looming, inscrutable blue hill, have long since inhabited my imagination.

Once out of my memory-stirred reverie, I began slowly turning pages, traveling digitally the maps depicting the moves of Colonel Benedict Arnold and his men, the Prologue by Steven Nason (the story's protagonist). On page ten I caught sight of Steven's loving tribute to his mother, Sarah. Why my careful though somewhat random perusal took in that particular account, I've no clue - there was simply too much to take in, given my excitement and agitated sense of deja-vu. Nevertheless, the words were fitting, as I could have said the same about Elizabeth Vincent, my mother.

Steven thanked God for his mother's education ...

She read Shakespeare and Plato; in addition, she spoke French, some of which she passed on to her son, and that of no little benefit to him. Apparently Sarah Nason, nee Butler, wished her son to ponder matters other than the merely mundane: fish, weather, sleep. Regarding the outlay of funds for educational purposes in their district of Arundel, the citizenry were wont to decry the prodigal expenditure of fifty pounds a year. I have reason to believe that Steven rose above the loutishness of his neighbors, though he did not consider himself a man well versed in letters.

In like manner, with regard to the above comments relative to parents' mentorship of their malleable offspring, my siblings and I were encased, as it were, with books of every description. Whether the virtual overflow of every sort of reading matter in our cluttered bungalow had been principally for Elizabeth's personal enjoyment and, collaterally, that of us children, I do not know for certain my mother's prime motivation. Surely, she encouraged and promoted our literary travels by leading her enthusiastic bookworms each week to the ancient Carnegie Library of stone and ivy. I cried when the city tore down the venerable edifice where adventure and learning had come together and borne me. The replacement contained the same books of paper, spines and hardback covers, but the former atmosphere (one of enlightened decay) among the stacks was missing. The sanitized air of the new building did not sit well with me. I was just a kid; I didn't know why.

Somehow this dirty old house, whose true character I'm still not certain of, is in concert, silently so, with Elizabeth Vincent's container of books.

I must dig in further.

The Darkened Pane

2009-11-22T12:12:00.001-08:00

My frequent walks these last few years about the neighborhood so familiar to me would ordinarily be construed a pleasant enough non-event. A little mild exercise - taken in small doses to keep the joints operating properly - and a keen eye peeled for the ever-changing face of nature have rendered the daily promenade a suitable diversion. Until recently.

I noticed nothing unusual at the beginning; I saunter over the same roads almost without variation, being an inveterate creature of habit. To tell the truth, I cannot pinpoint the exact day I began walking in this particular region of my town, other than the fact that, when I moved here some three years ago, I was too involved with matters more pressing than finding time to exercise. Nevertheless, once in a routine of regular jaunts throughout our peaceful suburb, I really sensed nothing out of the ordinary. No, not until recently.

I'm being stalked. Not in the usual sense. No crazed individual lurks in shadow. No person trails me surreptitiously. The sun is shining and birds are singing. Evil does not happen under such circumstances. Yet, an evil far more sinister than any miserable human could embody and visit upon the unwary soul has seeped into my neighborhood. Slowly. Insidiously. By otherworldly design.

The beauty of my natural surroundings - wherever that might happen to be - has never failed to tug at my heart and stir my imagination. For a certainty there are enchanted castles in the clouds, armies of fabulous creatures inhabiting the forest and crusty woodsmen rafting down a river swollen by heavy, unseasonal rain. A secluded cabin properly placed in this setting would be the perfect touch. Back to the present: I am capable of distinguishing between reality and imagination, however active and fertile that imagination may be.

It's impossible to take in one's surroundings all at once. In addition to observing nature, I revel in the diverse architecture of my neighborhood. Even over a period of time, however, one still misses detail. Yes, there always has been a house on that lot, but I hadn't noticed the awnings over the two windows facing the street. Oh, this home on Robin Way has a brass kick plate affixed to the base of the front door. Was it always there? When did the Johnston's install metal railing on their deck? I didn't notice that the wooden corral railing had been removed ...

And there it was. Why hadn't I seen it before? I've shot a look at that hillside more times than I can count, but I don't remember ever seeing that house on the hill before. It gives all the appearance of rising up from the soil as though it were sown and nurtured there, tended as though it were part and parcel of the wood itself. This acknowledgement of a hillside dwelling should not, of itself, be any cause for undue concern. Of course not. Not till somewhat later, feeling a slight need for change and taking a different stretch of road, did I look out toward another band of foothills and feel a shudder fly up my spine.

There, unmistakable, was the house. I looked and looked again. It couldn't be. I've walked so long, so far. Nothing else about the forested ridge appeared remotely familiar. I was taken aback by the ghostly deadness of the land and forest surrounding the building. As for the defining architecture, the line of the house, the slant of the roof and ... the window.... What was clearly recognizable as a window was not by any means a typical pane of glass. Despite the other readily identifiable characteristics of the house, the window was, eerily so, the distinguishing feature.

Darkly sinister. And peering ...

Peering at me....

This Is Not My Home

2009-11-14T07:02:00.001-08:00

I awake in a place that clearly is not home.

Looking about in a blurry daze, the expected trappings of bed, chair and scuffed, dirty walls have somehow disappeared during my wretched slumber. All the familiar has slid away, swirling downward, but not swallowed, into an eerily black vortex above which my stiffened body floats unaffected by the devouring maelstrom. My immediate surroundings are an atmosphere of greenish hue that is part of what appears to be sky. Not a sky like I've ever seen before. Definitely a sky. Emerald and iridescent. Suspended amidst the shimmering splendor of undulating waves of a surreal firmament is a golden sphere, which I take to be a moon. The gentle but steady rays of illumination it sends forth warm me. This I find puzzling, as this celestial body is not a star.

I continue to have no control over my body, yet I am not uncomfortable nor do I sense any imminent danger. Something has changed regarding the direction put upon me. A force - like what I would imagine to be a tractor beam - draws me upward and away from the strangely silent but malevolent whirlpool below. Coming into focus at a distance seemingly close, but probably an infinite space away in light years, is an incredible edifice of glass, porcelain and adamantine steel - a veritable temple of a night's vision, dedicated to some constellation's god. Opalescent double doors of extraordinary height and hung upon hinges of gold begin to open in protracted slow motion. Blazing through the widening expanse of the closed-become-revealed is a brilliance like that of Earth's noonday sun. I gaze directly upon its supernal glory; in the manner of a dream, I am unharmed.

I startle as there emerges from doors now fully opened the likes of which nightmares are made ...

La Luna

2009-11-13T15:59:00.001-08:00

Chilled to the bone, I couldn't care less.

Awakened by an otherworldly light flowing languidly through a single pane of glass, I arise from crumpled sheets and pad my way over to the frosty view that patiently awaits me. Full, round and gleaming is beauty supernal: my exquisite, my lovely Moon. I wish to touch her but am overwhelmed by giant sentinels whose barren arms are reaching longingly for her. For all their height, those statuesque trees are no more able to touch her silvery face than I. The eternal, desperate pining for what is enthroned on high.

I do truly adore La Luna. The commute, however, should prove impossible.

So Green Is My Valley

2009-11-13T15:11:00.001-08:00

So green is my valley, become verdant after our first heavy autumn rain. I hadn't really noticed as passage through our expansive low plain is generally accomplished by automobile, bus or bicycle. Always in a hurry to get from here to there, I missed how the scorch of an eternal summer was transforming from regulation California brown into shimmering emerald. My blinders, however, have been removed. Deprived recently of a vehicle, and only rarely boarding the county bus, I decided to hoof my way over the county thoroughfare in order to see what I had been missing while keeping my eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

Tuesday morning was crisp and cool but promised to warm quickly the pavement I trod and the air I gulped down. At mile 2.2 from home, the valley floor opened before me as clusters of oak vying for room and attention with cedar and pine acceded to the inexorable onslaught of an immense, sweeping table of flatness. Rising valiantly through the detritus of spent spring grasses was new, dewy pasture, carpeting untold acres of grazing land in green for at least another 7 months. In a bluish haze, embracing the valley but with distinct aloofness, appeared the upward sloping terrain, its turning gradually into our renowned foothills, now decked out in full autumn dress.

I had to stop and drink it all in. However polluted with noise the atmosphere became and remained from the infernal, internal combustion of early morning commuters' SUVs, pickup trucks, luxury sedans and sport coupes, I was totally oblivious. There was a ten second interval - it might have been fifteen - when I actually tuned into bird song. Otherwise, I was hooked on the view that I had somehow missed while driving the road day in, day out.

I don't envy my neighbors their fancy cars, just their fancy walking shoes.

Boy, are my dogs barkin'!

Damp. Dark. Somber.

2009-11-13T14:44:00.001-08:00

Damp. Dark. Somber.

That is today's moody weather and I embrace it. Saying good-bye to an over-hot summer was a fait accompli. Crackling days and azure skies are suitable for some obscure reason - I just arrived on the universal scene a whisper ago - yet I would just as soon find my infinite pleasure in a state of repose at the hearth, books aplenty at the ready for cracking and wandering through. In search of adventure.

Perhaps in search of nothing.

Beauty Rises From the Ashes

2009-10-24T19:19:00.001-07:00

An artist peers into the rubble of death and decay and glimpses what one less inured to such travesty cannot. He sees form, even intricate structure of great complexity, and ultimately, a singular, transcending beauty. This believer in what is not easily read by most senses that, in the swirl of visual chaos and stench of life's loss, renewed life will assuredly come to birth. With or without the mere mortal's attendance upon life's reemergence from the grave, this process is an unending cycle: life, death, renewal. The destruction of the painter's canvas, the writer's essay, or the composer's manuscript is not an untenable blow to the creator's genius. Whether the ensuing conflagration is by literal fire or that of a public's outrage over a body of work ahead of its time, the perceptive artist knows that the phoenix will arise resplendent from the ashes. Her song shall be heard. The hidden masterwork moldering away in a cemetery of a cellar long forgotten will be rediscovered, recopied and premiered before a humbled and contrite audience. The artist, now freed from earthly care and turmoil, observes among a once disbelieving public what he never ceased believing:

Beauty shines forth where the eyes of others have yet to fall. Beauty sings forth what their ears have yet to hear.

Isle of the Dead

2009-10-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

Do not expect my imminent return, Dearest Isola.

Matters of a most urgent and grave nature have torn me ... from the home that I love ... from those dear humans whose cherished society I commenced missing within moments of my sighting of Charon.

The inevitable had arrived sooner than I might have ever imagined. Robust health, love of life, piety toward God ... these three provide no defense against destiny nor release from the dismal glide over Acheron. Yet, in a most unexpected and singular fashion, I sense that I have become a man to the utmost degree. The irrational fears that plagued my entire, pitiful life have released what I knew to be never anything less than an iron, viselike grip. It is true that I am scarcely at liberty to overturn fate's request to accompany her to my newest and perhaps not so dreaded domicile. I am, however, free to accept joyfully - as a man possessing the courage of his forebears - that I shall reside for eternity on the Isle.

Row, Charon, row. Lead me unto my awaited estate ...

I Climb the Walls

2009-10-18T12:30:00.001-07:00

My dear wife Marie:

My surroundings are Nature at her most beautiful. How am I able to enjoy all this glory with you not here at my side? I wish you would change your mind and come join me before I climb the walls. Were I a younger and more able man I would jump the guards and clamber over the cheval-de-frise just to escape this hell hole. Did you and the girls put me here because of my numerous sins of commission, or were the ones of omission far graver? I have witnesses and tears to the effect that I endeavored to make good all my mistakes. I never meant to hurt you or Jason. I told you already how beautiful the grounds are. Well, sumptuous beauty - yours, Nature's, our daughters', Jason's - are all mischievous and cruel triggers. A rare moment when my heart and mind find their ease, a mere and momentary escape from my all burdens, and, with no warning - SLAM! My tranquility evaporates as in the blazing heat of an August scorcher. Any tiny hope of redemption is forever quashed. When, Marie, are you coming to see me? The inmates here are pleasant enough, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's the Thorazine.

I walked three miles today along the track that the administration has provided for my use. They say I'm a big shot so I get extra privileges. My walks - jogs, depending how my hips are working any given day - clear my mind and calm me. I saw four Monarchs at various points of my morning's path. At my approach each, in her turn, flitted off, no, not in fear, I'm certain, because you know my connection with all creatures great and small. It was a systematically choreographed but random ascent deliberately rehearsed in my honor ... for my escape. I know this is true because Herr Dressler told us at the congress that the flapping of the wings of a single butterfly can create a hurricane of inexorable destruction. So I recall. The forces of Nature - even the delicate agitation of a fragile Monarch's wings - are not to be mocked.

I must post this love letter to you, my darling Marie, before dark as le facteur will soon have finished his rounds.

All my love,

Henri

****************

Dear Sonja,

A quick note as I have to rush off to see Dad. Jason was so generous to allow Dad to stay indefinitely at his gorgeous estate. After all, they were best friends forever and there's nothing Jay wouldn't do for dear old Pops. He's becoming more and more disoriented, however. When Dad's at the garden table in his wheelchair, the aides tell me he taps, taps away at the table top for hours at a time, in the deepest, unbroken concentration. Should we dig out his old Olivetti portable?

I'm at a loss how we can ease Dad along since Mom died. Do you think he'll ever speak again?

Gotta run. I'll let you know how it goes. Oh, how I hate to see the most wonderful man in the world losing it!

Hugs,

Marte

Sturm und Drang

2009-09-22T16:13:00.001-07:00

Dearest Margot,

I think that you should be here at this very moment, in order to experience what musical and literary expressions I'm quaffing down. Do I want this in my life now is the question. I need an objective assessment of this bizarre occurrence.

It is too much for me to absorb, this wash of emotion from without that floods upon me both aurally and visually as storm and longing. To wit, it is Mozart's 25th in G-minor [to which I am listening] and a literary fantasy [which novel I had begun earlier in the day] of angels and demons that hold sway over a fictional community called Ashton. What a juxtaposing of Sturm und Drang in one man's tiny mind and heart! Is it probable that one might find the masterpiece of a 17-year-old lad grounded more in reality than an imaginative writer's fictionalized conjecture over the bizarre goings-on of the so-called spiritual realm? I am not without a well-inhabited fantasy world of my own - you, dear Margot, know that; however, the joining of grand musical drama and spiritual fantasy may not be so harmless toward my overall emotional well-being. I had taken well-thought-out steps to eradicate my soul of the damaging stain of haunted, unseen worlds. I should have put the book down when I realized where it was leading me.

Perhaps I am making too much over this little tempest brewing in my own spirit's teapot. After all, the music - simple in its melodic and harmonic introduction yet profoundly moving - is quite over. Lingering in my mind, however, are frightening images of winged demons chugging out rancid red breath, poisoning further the already fetid atmosphere of a town besieged by human weakness and error. Could Ashton be my own community, and I am afraid to discover the real truth behind what has been happening lately? A wake-up call? An inconsequential coincidence of sorts? A deadly contagion whose pall has been cast upon an unsuspecting town?

Well, how will I ever find out if I return the book to the library tomorrow, when it's due?

Love,

Henri

http://youtube.com/v/7lC1lRz5Z_s

Since I don't have you, my beloved Sarah

2009-09-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

The grass is growing and the rivers are flowing, but of what possible importance can that be since I do not have you, my beloved Sarah? I truly endeavor to fill my days with meaningful pursuits. The routine activities, of course, are chores and obligations that must be performed. But no one dare convince me that I should find purpose or meaning therein.

Accordingly, do not declare, my soul, that taking up a worthy cause shall bury my churning thoughts and cause me to dedicate myself to the welfare of others (whose suffering is arguably greater than my own). Please, do not patronize me, my ever-niggling inner voice, with high-sounding but hollow and worthless platitudes. I have no difficulty sorting out the whys and wherefores in my mind, however troubled it might currently be.

It is the heart, ripped bleeding from my chest, that cannot fathom your having been torn away from me so prematurely. Whether sooner or whether later, never could there be a right time to say goodbye.

That is the bitter and ironic tragedy: I was heading my way over to you to say I was sorry and to ask - to plead - if couldn't we start anew. Certainly, by virtue of your kindly nature, you would not have hesitated to say, "Yes, my love, all is forgiven." If certain of nothing else in this miserable life that I have begrudgingly claimed as my own, I could be absolutely sure of that, your seeing the best in me.

It is too late. I was wrong, not about your sweet and forgiving nature, but that you would gently reassure me all would be right again in this, our little world. Now it is I who speak, downward toward a silent, cold and grave you. Please accept my tears and these yellow roses ... I know how you always sighed with such ineffable joy every time I brought you your favorites.

I, your devoted Frederick, promise to return and place more of both upon this, your eternal bed, until such time as I should join you, my beloved ....

Adela and Adonis

2009-09-22T15:53:00.001-07:00

Dear Adela,

I thought you so very much an English lady of refinement and poise that I am beside myself over this turn of events vis-a-vis your current infatuation. It is, without question, out of character for you to behave in a manner that flies in the face of convention and our British social mores. Your extravagant love for the Indian boy causes the mind to boggle. I and my entire family are incredulous that you - the rigid and pure Adela - should have been swept off your feet and into the maelstrom of a turgid affair of the heart.

How could we have known that the houseboy's ministrations to the family's physical needs would have taken such a turn? Into a cold, cold heart has arisen a heated passion; in the bosom of you, the renowned Ice Queen, has been created a premature thaw. Never had I hoped to see such a robust essence of springtime burst forth into the purview of me, your intended. Yet, hoping against hope for the warmth of romance to seize hold of you, I remained steadfast in my devotion toward our union.

While the proper and staid English gentleman that resides within says "No, this cannot be!", I daresay that my losing you to the beautiful man of dark skin, raven hair and milk-white teeth is mitigated by the simple truth that you are unquestionably out of your element. I will leave it to you and your headstrong ways to discern how you have commenced treading upon a path that shall certainly lead to the sure disappointment of a broken heart.

Adela, I beg you ... before your heart consents further to this madness, please peer more closely into your looking glass, imagining Adonis there by your side. Consider closely my words before it is too late ...

A heartbroken but wiser former fiance,

Nigel

The Jubilant Child of the Stars

2009-09-22T15:52:00.001-07:00

It is time to say good-bye to all that, on this jewel of the earth, has been my lifetime's joy and raison d'etre.

I look upward toward the true home promised me long ago in a dream of genuine and incontrovertible substance: a nighttime's fleeting, subconscious fancy does truly have wings. The need for all physical instrumentality has vanished as quickly as the worry that once attended my every concern over the petty doings of an anxious terrestrial existence. To become one with the cosmos is no vain desire but a fully realizable expectation that, in my heart of hearts, is no less assured than the reality of the Celestial Entities themselves.

Communion with the ethereal elements, begun early on in this poor beggar's life, was scarcely more startling than the visitation to Bernadette at Fatima nor the silent but meaningful dialogue between Francis and his charges of the wood. Music from the Spheres provides all directives that the expectant initiate requires to commence his journey into the sublime worlds beyond.

Taking my leave of the life that I have loved but must now depart, the lowly but jubilant child of the stars bids all adieu ...

Le Petit Prince

Dear Alphonse:

2009-08-08T19:53:00.001-07:00

You must realize that those who tear at you cannot reach and destroy the inner beauty that illuminates your soul. It is so evident to those who are able to see beyond their noses and biases that you are unique in all the world. So what if you are different from the rest of your fellow men in outward appearance? A cruel twist of fate has, as ever, without explanation, without partiality, bestowed upon you an aspect of uncommon singularity. Surely those second looks of utter disbelief by passersby must afflict you terribly. However, my cherished friend since youth, have I not stood by you, continuously infusing into your tired mind that a distorted and wracked frame is in no fashion the complete measure of a man?

Surely you realize how all Paris adores you for the compassionate, generous man that you are. Notwithstanding those few miscreants who make an excessive display of incredulity over your special gifts. What else would you have me to call them? You have transcended the mediocrity of pedestrian society by elevating yourself to the level of benefactor to the poor in spirit through your truest of humility and service to mankind.

Do not allow yourself to slip into self pity over a thing so trivial as an arresting physiognomy that you, on the whole, have not permitted to stand in the way of your beneficent acts. You are a child of the Universe and will, in perpetuity, grace all animate creation by the ardor of your expansive, nurturing goodness.

You, dear Alphonse, are beautiful.

With deepest respect and unfailing love, I remain your devoted friend,

Henri

Hero is Now

2009-07-13T04:02:00.001-07:00

It has begun.

Ascent toward the imponderable and once unattainable plane of the glorious supernal has been granted Everyman. The child of the mind is awarded freedom from confining, earth-binding care as well as censure from those who know better but really nothing at all. If ever there were shackles upon all elements of mind, soul and corporeal essence, they surely have fallen to his feet, now shod as those of Hermes.

The face of Cosmos is inscrutable, in fact nonexistent, to one never fated to become a holy initiate. He hides His face and all beauteous mysteries from those dull of heart and rancorous of spirit. This unworthy swaggers high and wide the breadth of life's highways, yet he sees and hears nothing. Enamored of self and resolutely confident of some perceived immortality, Obtus deigns to accept the infinite sway of Nemesis.

His time shall come.

That of Hero is now ....

Homeward Bound

2009-06-23T16:55:00.001-07:00

Having once again (but certainly not for all time) pulled himself out and beyond the anxious care of making a living, Reggie settled into a more tranquil existence of puttering about the old homestead. His unhurried schedule now permitted ample time for reading, a soupcon of trying his hand at baking and a generous portion of carefree hours spent his mind in neutral while strolling the grounds in search of an epiphany hiding amidst the trees and shrubs. By no means having landed a sinecure to prosper him up into perpetuity, the middle-aged man nonetheless chose to lie low and avoid the extravagant life-style that demanded punching a clock daily. It would seem, therefore, that Reggie's conscious withdrawal from pursuits outside the security of hearth and home should afford him some solace, if not the immediacy of a newfound purpose in life.

Perhaps it was the only recently escaped rush of life and commitment to the needs of others less able that kept the weary social worker's spirits buoyant though, admittedly, ready to sink at a moment's notice. "I love what I do, but TGIF!" a harried but normally outgoing and uncomplaining Reggie frequently said to himself (and infrequently within earshot of his fellow workers). They admired their workmate's industry, though they were not quite so keen on displaying a comparably strong work ethic. His peers, under the same pressure as Reggie, could relate to his good-humored griping. Troubling to Reggie's conscience was his wishing the weekend were longer or the work week shorter, however logically that conundrum should unravel and show an obvious, satisfying solution. He couldn't just walk away permanently from career and service to the needy ...

Or could he?

Whether blessing or bane, being needed by others is reality. Reggie was impressed early on (by parents zealous for charity toward all) with the necessity of actively seeking the welfare of those less fortunate souls inhabiting the wrong side of the tracks. His family, too, were denizens of that very neighborhood. The young boy was not aware that his parents were poor, however. After all, an industrious father did put a slightly leaky roof over his head and a tireless mother did feed him three nearly squares a day. It never failed that another person - or entire family with multiple mouths to feed - was downer-and-outer than they. It was simply unthinkable not to provide a bag of groceries or a couple bucks to put 8 gallons of the regular into the gas tank of some old Nash belonging to a cashless neighbor. That compassionate ethic likely accounted for this married team's ability to sleep well most nights. Reggie, on the other hand, was torn over whether or not he should take a leave of absence from the career he was groomed for. Unlike his now deceased parents, whose slumber was perpetual, the exhausted social worker's mental wrestling match of self-sacrifice versus self-indulgence permitted him little sleep.

The music playing over the radio, whose tinge of melancholia was staining deeply Reggie's already languishing spirit, served, nevertheless, to solidify his resolve to make a choice. The tune, though meandering somewhat through a melodically minor soundscape, moved inexorably toward a sunny resolution of harmonic consonance. Harmony - in one's music, one's life.

Wanting the best of both worlds but living in two distinctly different neighborhoods, as it were, is a near impossibility. The logistics of keeping a hand in the work that nourished one's ever-hungry inner self - one's core - and struggling to maintain some guilt-free personal time simply had to be worked out. Something's going to give. That much is certain.

Will Reggie take realistic steps toward a more balanced lifestyle and avoid a total meltdown?

Fantasy Upon a Sea of Lavender

2009-05-03T16:41:00.001-07:00

ROBERTO OF THE SEA

The sea brought Roberto to us, though he was as good as dead. A limp and lifeless child he was when deposited at our back door by a sea that had raged the evening before. On his behalf, most certainly, but more peculiarly in the interest of my miserable, lonesome self, has the roiling Atlantic shown an uncharacteristic magnanimity. Mercy. Charity.

I have never known a man yet I have become a mother, that without the attendant discomforts that ultimately culminate in the travail of birth. Roberto, once awake, latched onto me as though I were his true mother and was loath to leave my side. At first. By degrees, he weaned himself away from a comforting, protective embrace. The draw was not so much from without, that of a young man's being lured to high adventure - surely it had been adventure sufficient for a lifetime to be cast unwittingly into the drink - but the natural curiosity of a guileless young man who simply needed to explore his new world.

Roberto's nascent world - one of miraculous rebirth and subsequent discovery - was in a parallel course with the old and comfortable world inhabited by two lonely but amiable spinsters ...

Whose life has been irrevocably upended....

I live with my sister, Magda, in a stone cottage by the sea. That said, I am, nevertheless, alone. Alone in my thoughts and taunted mercilessly by unspoken passions. How can I express what has lain dormant within my bosom since youth's first natural, but unsettling, bloom? This is not to say that I am a morose and brooding old hen.

No, I am a fairly companionable woman when I permit myself to come out of my shell and enjoy the coral bells swaying briskly in the salt breeze and the motionless gull suspended in flight (whose only erratic movement is that produced by the buffeting offshore wind).

I envy that winged one his freedom, his clear, unchallenged view and his uncluttered mind. Since the Sea has sent her gift, Roberto, my mind has been cluttered with thoughts long abandoned. Accordingly, I am much too old to have my heart beat a tattoo and come bursting forth from my chest.

Magda Thurston-Page had her feet planted firmly upon the ground and her nose to the grindstone. That should prove a rather remarkable sight if one were compelled to take the old cliches literally. Magda - a true English lady though, queerly enough, named after an old Hungarian mistress of her father - remained, minus the colorful but overworked metaphors, a sensible and hardworking woman. Whereas her somewhat more ethereal sister, Lucille, could readily be found tracing patterns in the sky whilst perched languidly upon a slow-moving cloud. In a manner of speaking, naturally.

When Roberto became their unwitting guest (after all, the sea had spat him out upon the strand adjacent the base of the escarpment terminating the cottage property) both Magda and Lucille sought to make him comfortable, each in her own way. Ever the practical and no-nonsense facilitator, Magda prepared hearty meals to build up the emaciated lad, whereas Lucille saw the absolute necessity of placing a small vase of wildflowers on his tray. Each in her own way. After all, what is the benefit of a filled belly when the soul is wasting away?

Dr. Warner's initial disposition toward the water-logged Roberto was kindly, borne of his professional oath, firstly, and basic humanity, secondly. Any bruised and battered soul landed in a heap at your sandy back doorstep deserves and receives immediate first aid, no questions asked. Particularly so when his unconscious self is presently ill-disposed to pass the time in idle chat. As the gangly sea whelp gradually recovered his health, the doctor continued his ministrations on Roberto's behalf, but with less frequency. Magda and Lucille, his hostesses, were all too willing to provide his every need in the way of good Christian hospitality.

During his convalescence, Roberto received a number of visitors, some merely curious, others genuinely interested in making the stranger feel at home. A young lady by the name of Miranda, whose resident family went many generations back, came calling of a morning, a clutch of wildflowers in hand. An otherwise disconsolate Roberto (he was beginning to feel both restless and homesick) looked up at the fetching lass as she, announced by Lucille, walked toward him, bathed in the cheery sunlight giving into the open room. If ever gloom were dispelled in a flash, well then, this was that particular moment in time. Roberto sat bolt upright in his bed and, surely without any apparent conscious thought, hastily commenced doing his toilet.

The innocent though potentially impassioned message sparking from Miranda's eyes to those of Roberto did not go unnoticed. Dr. Warner's boat of dreams was about to be rocked. He had no remedy in his doctor's bag for an impending shipwreck of the heart.

ADAM'S SON

"The Lord has given us back our Clem, Adam ... He's given us back our Clem," rattled the glassy-eyed mother, bereaved of both her son and her reason. Laura Withers was fairly rocking back and forth in her ladder-back chair as she stared out the bay window toward an Atlantic alternately beneficent and cruel. Though Adam Withers stood at his deluded mate's side, his large, work-gnarled hand on her bony shoulder, steadying her, he could not look upon the ravenous sea that had taken their son, Clement Charles Withers.

A given name could not have been more wrongly assigned a newborn. Clem was anything but mild or merciful, a difficult child and even more difficult young man. No thought for his good-hearted, simple parents, he ran off to sea at age sixteen without a word or written note of farewell. Two years later, frantic worry and grief having metamorphosed into numb resignation, the Withers read in The Shipping News that the schooner Clem had boarded and signed onto had foundered in the China Sea during a typhoon. No survivors.

Upon learning but clearly misinterpreting the miracle of Roberto's reinstatement into life from a sea unwilling to claim him for her own, Laura rallied momentarily from her comatose state, though it's not certain she actually claimed that Roberto was her revivified Clement. Adam knew Roberto was Roberto, not his son Clem. But his grief, unspoken and subdued, nonetheless keened inwardly as he perceived, in visiting one day with the recovered Roberto, that this was truly the son he had never had.

ROBERTO, THE MUSICIAN, RECOVERED

A thousand pairs of eyes were fixed intently upon Roberto and as many ears attuned to what lush tones were presently to surge forth from his violin. There was talk, fervid speculation and scarcely bridled anticipation over what would surely become the musical sensation of the decade.

The timid and unassuming young man, who had long since captured the hearts of his peers as well as those uninitiated into the music of the spheres, was ready. His nervousness, certainly typical for many a young musician making his or her debut, was not evident to the expectant patrons in the now darkened music hall.

The opening orchestral accompaniment provided a brief, measured entrance into the elegant fantasy for the stringed instrument whose soulful voice sings with a true heart of human emotion. It goes without saying that, in less skilled hands, the resultant caterwauling of bow to strings would have a horrified audience running for the door and demanding a refund. Surely, that rarely happens. Bad musicians - or simply the mediocre - do not make their entrance into the music world with The Fontanne Theatre their stage.

Roberto, on cue, began his dialogue with the orchestra, employing his cherished violin as spokesman. The audience, falling upon the instrument's every word, was entranced into breathless silence. The young wizard, melding his heart and soul with the plaintive, the throbbing, the climactic crescendi of the four strings over which he possessed total but loving dominion, had his emotionally enthralled and incapacitated listeners silently begging for more exquisite pain.

Under the conductor's baton, the final cadence of Fantasy would momentarily declare rest and harmonic resolution for the elegant piece to which Roberto and his violin gave supernal voice. Not rest - and no peace - for all in the vast audience, however. Dr. Warner, along with numerous neighbourhood guests invited to the Thurston-Page home for the evening, listened to the programme broadcast over the wireless from The Fontanne Theatre.

As Roberto raced on nimbly, masterfully in E-flat minor toward the closing chord progression, he up bowed strongly upon a plangent and suspended high D-flat set in heart-rending dissonance against the surging F dominant seventh inflection of the complete string section. At rest, tutti, in B-flat minor.

That soaring, protracted D-flat brought the jubilant audience en masse to its knees but procured the doctor a broken heart. The stunned look on his face was the only palpable indicator that his heart had stopped beating. Only Dr. Warner could feel that physical constriction upon his literal heart during the plaintive cry of suspended dissonance; the aforementioned stunned look upon his stricken, immobilized visage went largely unobserved.

Largely, yes, but neither completely unobserved nor totally unacknowledged. An individual's simple gesture or his few words casually tossed off are generally quickly forgotten. Perhaps, yet nonetheless recorded in the minds of all listeners present for possible future recall. Guilt written all over a malefactor's face when a seeming random but fateful moment of truth comes knocking is what some call the dead giveaway that all but the most out-of-touch observe.

One person, herself reacting with high but untainted emotion to the impassioned closing minute of Fantasy, saw Dr. Warner's glazed-over eyes and slackened jaw. The high-strung young woman saw and she knew. She figured in, albeit innocently, with the "good" doctor's breach of conduct.

Adam Withers, likewise, had a look upon his face whilst Roberto played away upon his own four strings and the so many more of his audience's collective heart. Rather than a facial expression displaying a stricken conscience, however, his eyes and countenance spoke a wonder and spiritual elevation most infrequent in an existence so tied into the mundane. If one could only know the personal benefit derived from peering into the windows of such a humble man's soul, one would cast off as refuse all the tinsel of the world to learn at the feet of this unlikely master.

When Roberto first met and talked with the middle-aged farmer, he sensed a comforting and nurturing presence. On the other hand, there are many insensitive individuals about who are scarcely in tune with unadorned worth. In their haste to use and abuse, they would scurry on past the likes of Adam and his shapeless hulk.

The older man, though cruelly bereaved of a son, became a father again. No words were spoken as to an unofficial adoption, but Roberto - very much in need of a fatherly presence at this crossroads of his young life - saw into Adam's soul.

This coupling of souls were links forged of an uncommon mettle.

Roberto's recent, uncharacteristic silence was not unlike that of the grave, into which he had a vague sense of falling in slow but unstoppable motion. He was not unable to speak in a literal sense, but his cheerful willingness to pour out his heart unabashedly was, strangely and without apparent notice, severely curtailed. Most particularly was the spontaneity of his musical expression abruptly arrested. Roberto was too confused, perhaps even to the point of utter distraction, to calculate in some logical, calm fashion what was chewing away at his insides.

Surely, after his heroic performance at The Fontanne Theatre, he could justifiably glide over mundane care and daily preoccupation, held by the hand of Muse, for a little while longer. Realistically, however, there proceeds an inevitable crash after the gifted performer has ascended artistic heights through the total divestment of self onstage. An audience, gasping in disbelief at what their incredulous ears are telling their uncomprehending minds, can become inadvertent bane to the musician, who is taken for a god. Roberto knew that he had to get away - if only briefly - from those who lusted after both his music and his romantic attentions.

Art and destiny have another captive soul in their thrall ...

The Shepherd Boy

2009-04-23T06:34:00.001-07:00

What manner of adversary art thou, Oh Cupid, mine newest enemy and cleaver of a heart now rent in two by love's dart unwanted? Fain wouldst I seek thy quiver spoilt and emptied of all implements of love's war, if but to liberate this shepherd boy from a wasting sickness wrought 'pon an unsuspecting and pure spirit. Content hath I been to drinketh in Nature's beauty and surfeit mine pining soul with Her sufficient bounties. She and she alone hath been, to present, sufficient food for all mine youthful cravings and whate'er further necessity wouldst, some elusive day, 'come enjoined upon this pitiable naif. Now, because of thee, despised one, mine once simple eye hath become darkened. The Serpent hath coiled 'round, he holdeth tight fast and letteth flow his venom slow and insuperable till mine full allegiance be guaranteed. That dear and innocent tender of the fold abideth no more. Thy darts, Cupid, art they claddeth in lead or gold?

O cunning and ruthless one, I hath become weary of a desire heretofore unknown. I am sickened at mine very center. Flesh and resolve once resistant to sin's temptation art now troubled by inconvenient stirrings. They rumbleth deep within a frame of roiling and burning blood that seeketh assuagement.

Come closer, dear Cupid. I speaketh only in jest as I truly do love thee. Before this febrile brow breaketh its hold, however, couldst I very well clippeth thy wings if 'pon thy cursed neck I shouldst fall. Love's sweet suffering hath rendered an innocent child mad and unaccountable for his present state of amorous intoxication.

I prithee, letteth the Immortals rendereth righteous judgment on mine behalf shouldst this madness leadeth to Cupid's demise by mine hand ...

Letters From the Subconscious

2009-04-12T12:34:00.001-07:00

My dearest love, Cupid:

How I long to have you return to my side and smile your cherubic smile upon me. It has been too long that I have languished over love's dream unfulfilled. My prim and proper family suspect that there is a change in my spirit; they say that the brightening of my eyes and the upturn of the corners of my mouth are becoming all too frequent. They are perplexed that my former solemn, taciturn ways have blossomed most prodigiously into a riot of springtime colour and cheer. The protracted winter of my discontent has vaporized and can afflict no more.

Accordingly, my family's puritanical mores are so deeply and long entrenched that one's breaking free from such tyrannical bondage of body and soul seems a revolutionary act. Well, I say fie on the whole lot of them! You, sweet and delectable Eros, are no villain, no embodiment of mere carnal pleasure. You are a releaser, a liberator, a sweet saviour of this despairing maid whose shriveled spirit you have revivified by your glance, your touch, your kiss ...

I know you are true, that I am your only one. Please hasten into my presence and cherish my society as none other. The French window shall, as ever, remain open as upon wings of desire you alight once more upon my chamber floor.

An Eros by any other name is still a Rose ...

Your Spectre of the Rose

Ever dear and splendid Narcissus,

I once gazed with love upon your reflected image and yearn for that day when ne'er again shall we part company. When last you left my side, I was seized with an extraordinary compulsion to run after you and beg you stay and console me. I am not accustomed to such aloneness that has been enjoined upon me.

Since that forced separation, that damnable schism, I have reeled with uncertainty and self-doubt as to who truly I am. I fear that, deep down, I am little more than a shallow, empty nothing. Where shall I find a deepness of soul, a true and abiding reason for my existence if not with you, for you? There would appear no possibility of success were I to continue on in this fashion of incompleteness.

It was you, not I, who demanded liberation from the confines of our conjoined spirit and soul. Why, pray, the blind necessity of searching out foreign waters to cast your eyes, my eyes, on an image too well and oft observed? Have you not considered restraint? A diversion centering on others? Perhaps a little less self-absorption?

I long for your return, knitted back in place where you belong, to terminate once and for always this useless dichotomy of body, soul, spirit. Granted, I acceded to your pleas for personal liberty, but can you truly say that you are the happier lad for seeking your reflection without my sage eye upon you?

Please reflect, not so much upon the physical aspect of youth's beauty, but that which runs deep and true. Eternal youth and ageless outward beauty are but a myth ... a paperwhite, though lovely, is but a passing springtime fancy.

It cannot be forced beyond....

Hermes has promised swift delivery of this missive to you, my better half ...

Love eternally,

Narcissus

The Letter

2009-03-02T15:02:00.001-08:00

Scrubbing mindlessly away at the kettle's burnt-soup-encrusted bottom, Robin Metier was mentally focusing on his fingers otherwise gainfully employed, zooming in ascent and descent upon his Yahama keyboard. Arpeggios. Scales. Particularly in f-sharp minor, b-minor and c-sharp major. The big day - November 12 - was rapidly approaching, and that faster in Robin's mind than the clock's hands could reasonably wind forward.

The stocky teen was grateful that Aunt Mabel employed his mundane talents as official pot scrubber at her Pine Cone Cafe in the little mountain community of Gold Peak. Some needed cash and three squares a day. In a few more days Robin would be mounting the Peerless Stage, heading off to The City by the Bay to do his thing, so to speak, on the piano. He was happy with the Yamaha keyboard he had saved for and purchased with his earnings. The thought of playing on a concert grand at The Ortega Institute, however, was sufficient impetus to keep his spirits high as he plowed through stacks of dinner plates, cups, saucers and, of course, pots, pans and kettles. The hot water was music to his played-out digits.

NOVEMBER 12:

Robin and nine other aspiring pianists each await his/her turn at the concert grand. Such waiting is always an excruciatingly painful exercise, not, of course, in proper piano technique, but in controlling one's nerves. Not running to the nearest toilet and losing one's breakfast.

At Last! First audition and, afterward, a polite thank you, we (the faculty) will be in touch. Another rendition of the ubiquitous Moonlight Sonata and a comment of "well done, Miss Steiner." Nods of approval. Thank yous. Why Robin has ended up candidate number 10, the nervous young man has no idea. "Mr. Metier ... if you please...."

Robin reverently approaches the Bosendorfer Imperial Grand, sits upon the cushioned bench and adjusts the knobs. Just the correct height. Right foot placed firmly upon the damper pedal, left poised upon the sostenuto. Hands in readiness, set to descend upon the usual 88 as well as those 9 extra coils of thunder in the bass that Robin shall certainly hammer upon for Olivier's Essay in F-sharp Minor. Upon completing the fire and brimstone of the opening section, the daring but now quieter and contemplative musician begins to ply his way through the transparent, sparkling waters of the essay as shore appears on the musical horizon.

As Robin's hands lift from the final chord cluster and his foot from the damper pedal, the rounded sonorities continue to resonate darkly eerie through the hall. Then silence. If there had been meant a pin to drop at this moment, well....

The young man, trembling with expectation over any scrap of approval or disapproval, waits a few moments more ... silence. Deafening silence....

Unable to cope with both the exhaustion and apparent lack of recognition for his rather well turned out performance, an overwrought Robin eyes the nearest exit and runs off the stage.

Back at the hotel room whose seediness Robin had endured all too long, he packed up his scant clothing and his manuscripts, took one last look in the dirty mirror by the door, and sneered at his reflection, "Loser!"

At the desk, Robin paid up the balance due and turned in his key. After a polite but empty thank you to the clerk, the hollow shell turned on his heel and exited the decaying lobby. As he shuffled along, young Mr. Metier looked cheerlessly upon the dreary edifices holding onto dear life for whatever crazy reasons and wondered about his own. Passing him by were tired men and women off to necessary but despised jobs, cranky children making their way to reading, writing and 'rithmetic. And a briskly trotting courier .... A few moments more and Robin would be on board the bus for home. He knew that dear old Aunt Mabel would welcome him home regardless.

Three squares a day ...

The youthful, rosy-cheeked courier bustled into Newbury Arms and handed the clerk a letter from Dr. Arthur Sewell, The Ortega Institute. Having no forwarding address for Mr. Robin Metier, the indifferent clerk marked boldly upon the envelope face, RETURN TO SENDER.

Dear Mr. Metier,

I hope you will forgive the jury the stunned silence that met the conclusion of your bravura performance of Essay. You see, Professor Olivier is one of our composers in residence at The Ortega Institute and he returned unexpectedly from an overseas tour. He popped in minutes before you had commenced playing and was sitting at the rear of the concert hall. While you were performing, he sent word for me to see him immediately.

As we sat enthralled, Professor Olivier said over and over under his breath, "Yes, yes ... he's the one!" Puzzled over what was going on, the remaining judges came to the rear of the auditorium, saw who was sitting there with me, and simply remained to enjoy your exquisitely rendered music from a better vantage point both acoustically and visually. Upon your completion of Essay, we were simply too overwhelmed with emotion to respond. Scarcely professional, I admit, but I respectfully request that you endeavor to understand our lack of clear reasoning. You truly possess that indefinable but nonetheless much sought charisma of the keys. One has it or one hasn't.

May this letter find you as soon as possible! Please see instructions below as to our next meeting with you. Professor Olivier is most anxious to meet you as well as to discuss your promising future.

Sincerely,

Dr. Arthur Sewell

Quarrel With a Cross Beau

2009-02-28T11:56:00.001-08:00

A disquieted, quivering Paolo Pulzone was admiring from afar the lovely Anna Archer, who was standing stock still upon the hillock, the wind gently giving rise to the flowing blond tresses of the lass. It was all Paolo could do to bridle his conflicting emotions and not cast aspersions upon the guileless and fletching Anna.

She had had a quarrel with her beau, now cross, but wished not to prod the excitable Pulzone to rack and ruin by releasing further invective upon his head. The strings of his heart were already all atwang; the broad headed bowyer needed no further triggers setting him off-target. He had reached his nocking point and all his levers were soon to become unhinged.

"Verretto verretto non quadrello dardo," mused the spineless and cross beau, as he stropped on his stirrups and headed home.

The Desert Reigns

2009-02-26T14:11:00.001-08:00

I embark upon a mind's desert journey in order to survey a wilderness landscape far from the grasp of Winter's thrall upon my captive self. Only then may I perceive the sublime beauty and precious rarity of water. Otherwise, the deluge that, in reality, engulfs, drowns a community, leaves me ironically unappreciative of heaven's bounty.

The sky is a hot, blazing azure that permits no trace of cloud and moisture. Verboten, likewise, is all trace of verga. As night settles in and scorching becomes a more tolerable hot-enough, creatures of the night scurry forth and do what instinct says do. Eerily subdued cries of the jackal send chills up and down a spine long since unaccustomed to frissons in so jaded a host. My footfalls upon the cooling sands crunch down, creating eddies of swirling grains that demand entry into my boots. This is what I sense, yet there is no sound. None.

The temple I seek is just ahead. Several meters more and I shall touch its gleaming walls of glass, porcelain and adamantine steel. A mere few steps more. There it is ... through a moonlit, shimmering haze I glimpse faith's reward of rest and refreshment for a hope eternally held. Soon I shall enter its gates ...

A cold wind passes over me and startles me into wakefulness. I open my eyes to reality and ... home.

Day 39 of rain.

The Hot Bath

2009-02-25T08:39:00.001-08:00

Melvin was a shower kind of guy his entire life. He was simply too preoccupied with other matters of importance to allow himself the luxury of a nice hot bath. Not that the idea didn't appeal, however. Given the dousing nature of the overhead spray, Mel usually was anxious to exit the pummeling jet of H2O, hastily dry off and settle back into his interrupted chain smoking of Lucky Strike cigarettes. After all, L.S.M.F.T. - Lucky Strike means fine tobacco! He knew the tobacco was toasted, which made his deep drags all the tastier.

Time passed and Melvin retired from the plant. He enjoyed his newfound freedom and spending more time with his beloved wife, Jean. He had always been close to his son and daughter who, now grown and with children of their own, lived nearby and frequented the old homestead, regaled with Mom's gourmet meals and Dad's corny jokes. As the saying goes, "a good time was had by all."

When the dust had settled, so to speak, Jean returned to her projects and the usual routine of running the household. Melvin, after a little of this, that and the other, liked to call it a day (even if the day was hardly over) and slip upstairs into the guest bath. There was not only a shower but also a big and comfortable bathtub ... really comfortable, where you can actually lie back and soak, NOT the fiberglass jobs with a straight back and so short that even a pygmy has to draw up his knees to wedge himself in. The bonus feature was that now Melvin could soak and smoke and luxuriate in silky bubbles. Every day.

The old gent enjoyed this simple luxury not only for the simple pleasure it afforded him, but it seemed that, increasingly, he needed the therapeutic benefits of the hot water. He was feeling some deep-seated soreness that he couldn't account for. He hadn't been working all that strenuously in the garden and he really did get plenty of sleep at night, not to mention a few winks here and there throughout the day. Oh well, I always feel better once I'm out, Melvin thought to himself while lighting up another Lucky Strike. Think I'll spend a little while longer ... too soon to pull the plug ...

At the local hospital, Melvin is on life support. His son and daughter are huddled in a corner with their teary mother, talking to Melvin's doctor. They have to decide, given the old man's terminal condition, what to do at this juncture.

Comatose, and quite unfluttered over what has been tearing his family apart for the last several days, Melvin is enjoying his toasted tobacco and his hot bath. Quite out of the blue and a shock to all those in the room, Melvin lets out softly but distinctly, "Too soon to pull the plug...."

Earl Grey

2009-02-18T09:03:00.001-08:00

For the time being Les seemed condemned to surround himself with loud people, forgetfulness and Earl Grey.

Under normal circumstances, Lester Brockle-Bank liked his quietude strong and full-flavored, like his tea; however, lately, his typical reclusive manner had ceded to an inordinate need for the society of local rustics rather dissimilar from him in temperament. In deep and searing pain over the loss of Lottie, this morose lonely heart found an unlikely solace in the boisterous tea houses of North Plimpton-by-the-Sea.

He was not alone there in drowning his sorrow, which he did with the intensity of Bergamot as well as with the help of many a willing, well-upholstered tea cozy.

And a Child Shall Lead Them ...

2009-02-17T17:31:00.000-08:00

From the moment Stan came into our lives twenty-three years ago, my parents and I have been unwittingly elevated to an unusual level of awareness; trifles that ordinarily go quite unnoticed came unexpectedly into sharp relief. A mental and spiritual acuity gradually began to develop within the three of us, and its focus was the new arrival. This child, as the song goes, came into the world in the usual way. Nevertheless, had the scenario that unfolded over the last two decades been staged within the sacred theatre of Biblical antiquity, this unusual child, like the infant Samuel, would have been dedicated unto the LORD.

Stan was always a happy baby, and to say that he was just another cute little boy, well … more of that later. I mentioned that our level of awareness became keener because of Stan. An especially memorable period was when elderly Aunt Rose came to stay with us for a spell after her husband, our Uncle Angelo, had died. His death was sudden and caused my family and Aunt Rose, in particular, much grief. Stan was about four or five at the time, I believe, and I - the typical, self-absorbed teenager - was in my early teens.

One day, like any other (well, almost), Aunt Rose was staring out the window, which was becoming part of her daily routine. The sadness in the air was especially palpable that afternoon; it was raining a melancholy and indifferent sort of drizzle. A lusty, wind-driven downpour would have been preferable under these distressing circumstances. The old darling’s gloom hung about us like a bad suit of clothes. The stillness was shattered, however, when she, totally out of the blue and without warning, burst into tears and sobbed with abandon. Mom ran into the living room to see what had happened and I stood there like a statue. What does a teenage guy know about comforting the bereaved? I knew some Scripture but hadn’t a clue how to wring any practical comfort from the Good Book.

Mom knelt down by Aunt Rose and talked soothingly to her, and, after a few moments, the old lady appeared to calm down. Mom must have felt satisfied that Aunt Rose was all right, so she headed back to the kitchen to brew my great aunt a pot of restoring tea. While my mother’s aunt was recovering and I was standing in stunned silence at this most awkward of moments, Stan walked into the room and went directly to Aunt Rose. I had the presence of mind to halt this intrusion of her privacy and made for my little brother’s arm. Before I could grab hold and jerk him away, he abruptly turned his head toward me and gave me a look that could kill at twenty paces. I dropped back, utterly speechless. He turned back toward his elderly, great aunt whose attention he had already captured. Her face was the usual blank, only more so, if you get my drift.

My mother returned to the living room, smiling gently in our general direction, carrying a tray crowned with a silver tea service and laden with the home-baked goodies she is locally famous for. As she set down the tray on the coffee table, Stan tugged at the ottoman adjacent to the threadbare, old wingback that Aunt Rose had made her permanent home. Once it was in place before her, the little fellow perched upon it and reached out for her wizened left hand with his right. Young and fresh clasping the ancient and scarcely living. Do you remember the old saying, “Out of the mouths of babes”? Stan subsequently gave it a new meaning, a meaning that changed our lives.

After a few moments looking out the picture window, Stan gazed upward toward Aunt Rose, and, with a look of slight bemusement, she returned a gaze of her own. Mom and I were standing at a "respectful" distance to the side and saw the little guy’s lips begin to move. Given our position relative to this seated odd couple, who were occupying each other’s attention, we couldn’t read Stan’s lips. The reason I mention that is because he was talking to his great aunt so softly that neither my mother nor I had a clue what deal was being clinched. With her hand still firmly in his own, Stan rose and shot a look out the window. It had stopped raining, much to my surprise. I have no idea why I should be surprised or not surprised at such a non-event. Perhaps it was because the clouds were breaking up and the sun was warming up the last shreds of so forlorn a day. My moment of reverie was broken when I realized that the pair was at the front door, yet hand-in-hand. With his left hand Stan grabbed hold of the old brass knob, twisted it and pulled a slightly confused but willing captive through the portal. Aunt Rose was not the only person in this diminutive boy’s thrall.

Aunt Rose and Stan were outside for some time walking about the garden, looking at the saturated yet glistening shrubs that were catching the last rays of a Sol rather belated in arriving. Better late than never. Geese were flying high above the treetops, honking jubilantly at their crepuscular escape through the darkening skies. I seriously believe they were shouting down a riotous salute to Stan, who was waving enthusiastically at them with his free hand. Aunt Rose was looking upward and shielding her eyes against the fading sunlight with her right hand. Mom and I, forgetting totally about time and all practical concerns, were still at the window when that odd couple traipsed through the front door. I’ll never forget what I saw next.

The old lady was somehow transformed: she was actually smiling and had a somewhat girlish gaiety about her. She was chatting away about what a beautiful day it was and, by golly, we’re hungry! Let’s eat! She took off her shoes – they were wet and muddy – and tossed them in the corner with all the other detritus of country living. After pushing back several wisps of unruly gray from her brow, she marched resolutely into the kitchen, grabbed and put on an apron and started fussing about like she owned the place. My mother and I could only look at each other blankly.

Stan had repaired to a corner of the living room and was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his nose in a book ...

The Further Adventures of Sir Walter Mitty

2009-01-09T23:41:00.001-08:00

Ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa revved the Rolls-Royce gas turbine bypass turbofan aero-engine as Sir Walter Mitty prepared for takeoff ... The comely cockpit stewardess, a certain Babette De Sheer, plied her sumptuous way to Sir Walter's seated, muscled side and offered him a tall, cold one: a frosty Lalique of milk, shaken, not stirred ...

"Walter ... Walter! What are you doing? You've just spilled your tumbler of milk all over my new linen tablecloth!"

"De Sheer, De Sheer," muttered a dazed Walter, one foot still in the Vickers VC10 cockpit, the other wrapped around a Carolina Cottage Prairie dining chair in his mother's over-upholstered dining room.

"What ever is that you're burbling, Walter?" demanded Mother Mitty, not exactly your garden-variety shrew though her maiden name, ironically enough, was Harridan.

"De Sheer, er, uh ... Dis here is some mess I've created, Mother - so sorry!" Walter declared, by now fully disentangled from the allure and heavy parfum of Babette.

"I really want you to see Dr. Bothlewaite, Walter. I'm going to call him right now. Don't you go wandering off, do you understand?"

"Yes, Mother," Walter demurred, looking out the large bay window at his wild blue yonder.

Sir Walter had single-handedly taken out an entire contingent of the French West African rebel guerillan force, much to the relief and, this writer daresays, astonishment of the true French Foreign Legion. Back to the barracks, the radiant Brigadier General was hoisted onto the shoulders of soldiers jubilant at their hero's exploits; the canteen cooks, alerted to the soon re-entry of the swarming smarmy army, hastily fried up a mess of especial pain roti aux oeufs a la francaise for the famished warriors.

"Thank you, my fellow comrades," Sir Walter intoned, "but it's to you that I raise this pitcher of syrup in hearty salute ..."

"Walter!" Mother Mitty shrilled. "How was the French Toast? Did you clean up after yourself? Is that syrup on your chin??

"Walter, dear, I'm having you return the watering can to Framistanyl Mercantile. The spout holes are much too small and I haven't the entire afternoon to wile away watering my ageratum. Please hook up the new rubber garden hose to the rear bib and water my bed for me. There's a good lad," Mother Mitty carried on as Walter stared vacantly into his tiresome mother's eyes.

On the other hand - the one not engaged with the careful unwinding of the rather stiffish 50 feet of rubber tubing - Walter saw his true reflection all too clearly in the bay window, dressed for the Kalahari safari for which the lordly Earl Smedley Snaithe-Witherswright had professionally engaged him. Pith helmet surely set at a jaunty angle atop the handsome and square-jawed head, a rakish Sir Walter led the desert-bound expedition into the Maw of Hell.

"I say, Wally, quite a little junket we've set out upon, eh?" quipped the Earl.

"Ah, right you are, Smeds, old chap," Sir Walter replied, drawing steadily but hugely upon his Meerschaum. "The Popa Falls will afford us the opportunity to view the occelated spiny eel in its natural habitat, a rare but worth-the-effort endeavour, if we're clever."

"Mastacembelus vanderwaali, I must confess, has always been a favourite of mine and little Doxie." Pausing momentarily, as if in a deep and impenetrable thought process, all the while knitting up a considerable mass of eyebrows, the consternated Sir Smeds then demanded, with no little perplexed curiosity, "How do you mean, 'if we're clever'?"

"The masta," Wally put in, "is an elusive little devil, intent against any and all capture forthwith by man or beast. It is a little known fact that ..."

Before the expert anguilliformist/herpetologist could spew further dusty data on Class Osteichthyes, Dusilla Mambarta, trusted guide and scout to the party, interjected with barely disguised rapture, arms excitedly flailing about,

"Bwana, mon petit homme important, Popa falling waters we find her! Come, follow!"

Wasting no time and, surely with no further ado or adon't, the expedition ploughed a massive furrow forward, the two aristocrats in the vanguard.

Fully wound down the precipitous escarpment, both the savage and the cosmopolitan mottled crew arrived at the vale of La Grande Popa. There, in the capacious catch-basin of the thundering cascade, shone like the Jewels of the Blessed Madonna the venerable, the sacred occelated MASTA.

Of course, given the uber superstitious character of those indigenous to the Kalahari Alluvial Delta, the natives fell of one accord to their collective knee, heads bowed in the deepest and most pious reverence to the spiny incarnation of their slimy deity. Though nominal and straitlaced Anglicans, the Sir and the Earl, nevertheless, could not help but let fly a single half-choked sob betwixt themselves.

The simple, besotted jungle folk refused to proceed further, daring not to tread upon sacred ground. Not to be deterred by such sodden malarkey, Sir Walter - solo - walked resolutely toward the hallowed waters. Once upon the basin and its roiling, sparkling vapors, Sir Walter removed his regimental trappings, rolled up and fastened his right blouse sleeve, and, with nary a wince, plunged his hand into the maelstrom.

In a mere moment he pulled out his submerged limb, and there - amid the screams and wails of the pagan laity - writhed most ferociously the revered booty ... slashing ... thrashing ... wriggling to set itself free....

"Walter Mitty!!! What have you done to my bed!!!???" bellowed an enraged Mrs. Mitty, as she gasped in horror as her seemingly entranced son, Walter, was fighting an out-of-control rubber hose under high pressure, water pummeling her silken bed comforter through an open bedroom window.

The Dog and I

2008-12-30T17:07:00.001-08:00

I'm not what you would call a dog person. Of course, it's true that, next to the television's remote control, dog is man's best friend. Perhaps my justified ambivalence toward Poochicus Biteyourbuttabit is due to too many an untoward encounter with the snarling, hydrophobic malevolence of a Fido, a Rover, a Rin Tin Tin, intent on my evisceration. This since toddlerhood. I have scars yet upon my person that prove my canine-fanged point. Would I lie to you, dear and curious reader?

Fast forward past a quarter-century of caring for dozens of family pets - both canine and feline (don't get me started on Miss Kitty and her dozen siblings!).

My current assignment is house sitting, and that with a most unusual doggie in attendance. She is what is commonly termed "a love" and is a lumbering ottoman, though she actually hails from Oz. She and I have the same monikers in real life, which may cause you, the discerning reader, to scratch your proverbial noggin. But names truly are not at issue here. What is at issue is whether or not I shall become a worthy care-provider for Cara Mia. She has caught me totally off my guard. With ravenous abandon, our well-padded lady broke into an unattended, opened can of dog food. She was licking her capacious chops when I caught her.

She was not the least embarrassed.

She dropped the can at my feet and let out a lusty belch, all the while wagging her tail ...

I Am ... Free

2008-12-13T12:01:00.001-08:00

Stronger, younger men would despair to find themselves in my place.

My circumstance - immobility of my lower limbs - would become an irreparable psychological blow to what many fellows believe the defining characteristics of manhood. Taking risks that are possible only in youth, these sturdy heroes march forward with confidence. They stretch toward a future of assured promise and prosperity. My frame, however, has been weakened by degrees through a lengthy illness. This sad body lies inert at the threshold of atrophy. The divan shall evermore be my home.

Though the physical is irrevocably on the wane, the spirit is, conversely, waxing most prodigiously. Though my feet no longer provide me the simple pleasure of a solitary promenade, nor the capacity to gambol about the sylvan expanse of my family's estate, I am, more than any robust youth who runs and leaps, free.

I possess a joyous liberty and fullness of heart that soars higher than a lark. Useless limbs are no longer a source of ruing my entry into the world. Spiritual emancipation arrived when I recognized the sublime importance of the dearest yet simplest of gifts. A student of so many years ago brought me the means to record my every thought: pen and ink and paper.

I have found freedom in the bottom of an inkwell.

Daisy

2008-12-13T08:34:00.000-08:00

Golden Gloriosa Daisy,

Never do you cease to 'maze me.

Pretty face toward sky upturned,

For your company bards have yearned.

Gentlest of winds cause you to sway,

Inspire us e'er to dance all day!

The Book Stall

2008-12-11T21:07:00.000-08:00

An otherwise beautiful day was scarred by an incident of wanton brutality.

Bending over the tattered shreds of poverty and despair, Marcus gently slipped his sturdy right arm under the slender shoulders of the frail young man. He carefully raised Sergei's trunk to a slightly more elevated position, yet all the while being careful not to inflict any further pain upon the victim. Marie and Ava Sturges, elderly spinster ladies, had been taking their usual early morning walk when they happened upon the poor boy, crumpled in a heap in the narrow lane behind The Book Stall. Ava, the spryer of the two sisters, hastened to Marcus's cottage while a distraught Marie kept watch that no further harm should befall the destitute immigrant. Her protective spirit and the righteous indignation she felt on Sergei's behalf were weapons far greater in strength than any her tiny body could literally wield.

Scarcely able to utter more than a few unintelligible words, Sergei's blue eyes, now opened, told more the story of his life than his garbled speech ever could.

Marcus, the third-generation owner of The Book Stall, recognized the lad immediately. Sergei had arrived from "the old country" some weeks before and had been frequenting the tiny but surprisingly well-supplied book store. The owner, a patient and good-hearted man, listened attentively to Sergei's poor English and deduced that the immigrant wanted a French-English dictionary. Naturally, Marcus knew down what row and on what shelf the somewhat worn yet still serviceable Dictionnaire Larousse sat. It was still too early to understand why a man named Sergei was of the French tongue. Names had yet to be exchanged. Nationality to be learned.

Purchase made and in hand, Sergei motioned with the other hand, which was clutching a notebook and pen, over to the little set of table and chairs by the sunny, cheerily curtained window.

"There ... there?" he continued pointing.

"Yes, of course!" Markus beamed, taking Sergei by his elbow and escorting him to what would become his new classroom.

Let Your Passion Move You

2008-12-11T10:23:00.001-08:00

Aunt Rose had been writing down her thoughts from the moment she learned to put pencil to paper. Feeding Rose's fervid imagination were the tales spinning about in the old and dusty books left behind by the last tenants of the decrepit farmhouse. She fairly devoured each and every tattered, dog-eared page. Is there any other eatable in this universe that can be so devoured yet, beyond all human reason, remain intact sufficient for countless more tasty repasts? Clearly a precocious child, the young Rose applied herself in school - she was a model student - and excelled in all subjects. The study of English grammar and literature, however, was her passion.

Upon graduation Rose was determined to continue her education; she became a self-taught woman at a time when "education" and "women" were words infrequently paired together. Despite long hours spent tending the garden, the livestock and diverse other chores peculiar to life on a ranch, Rose used her evenings to feed the mind. It was the young scholar's custom to read in bed until she finally dropped off, her will no longer able to fight off much-deserved sleep. An open book in one hand, a pencil now motionless upon a word-cluttered notebook in the other: this, an evening's literary drama played out.

Mama would come dutifully into the tiny bedroom every night to check on Rose. Removing the wireframe eyeglasses from her little girl's bowed head, Mama gazed upon the big family's youngest child one last time for the day. Bemused, she had to wonder what would become of so singular a young lady. The kerosene lamp shone no more that night ...

The outlook of her family and of older members of the community could be described as nothing other than provincial. "There goes Rose the bookworm!" the old hens would cluck as they huddled together on the general store's wooden walk. Rose would throw them a cursory smile and breeze on by as she headed to the stationers three doors down, then to the book seller's stall. The old women were not necessarily malicious in their tittering; they were simply amused at the thought of a farm girl's getting higher than herself. Rose was not embittered (it simply was not her nature) but annoyed at the narrow view so tenaciously held by the older generation. Not to mention the lack of vision of her contemporaries.

Few among Rose's acquaintances (and none of her family) presumed that this young author's first book would sell. Quite to the contrary, Hard Work Will Not Kill You became a national best-seller. In the course of its 383 pages Rose described how she, her ten siblings and old-world parents turned a rundown ranch in the San Joaquin Valley into a profitable enterprise. This meandering but spellbinding account included a detailed family history as well as the plucky raconteur's philosophy on a number of matters near to the heart, most notably that of the modern woman's place in the worldwide community.

She who laughs last laughs best ... all the way to the bank.

The Past and Present Unite

2008-12-03T15:42:00.000-08:00

Finding a small window of settled weather this morning, I ventured forth on a brisk uphill walk through my usual haunts. Actually, my ambulation did not become brisk until the roadway leveled off, permitting my huffs and puffs to regulate. The sky was piled high with mountains of vanilla-cream clouds, spilling luxuriantly one over the other so that there was no discernible beginning nor end of their cumulative mass. Light and shadow, in particularly sharp definition (given the sun's ins and outs), highlighted the contours of the towering meringue peaks.

I found a neighborhood home empty and for sale. A foreclosure. Wandering cautiously onto the property, I was lured to a spacious deck giving onto the most stunning view of a golf course studded with both evergreen and colorful deciduous trees. Tenderly embracing the expansive green were rolling hills whose dusty timber had been washed clean by the previous evening's downpour. What arrested my gaze, however, was the brilliant light from an otherwise watery sun that flooded Miner's Point in pearly opalescence.

A genuine showstopper.

This late afternoon would be a perfect time to remain indoors and curl up in front of the fireplace with a good read. Possessing many a good book but no obvious fireplace, I have to bolt. Cabin fever has gotten the better of me, so I'm going to put on a brave face and raincoat and dash headlong into the blustery and darkening remains of one hour's daylight.

Drawn along the same path, I surge forward, my frame a near-horizontal incline against the punishing gale. Upon entering the same property as the day before, I find shelter under the eaves of the house. They afford little more than minor relief from the rain but virtually none from the wildly circulating winds. I don't mind. I knew what lay ahead the moment I stepped out my own front door.

Once again my attention is fixed on a Miner's Point now enveloped in a wild and woolly atmospheric condition so different from that of the day before. Undulating foothills and their swaying sentinels roil in a sea of cascading and sprinting vapors. A barely discernible mountain pass is in evidence only because a string of diamond-like automobile headlights and blurred red taillights are flowing downward and upward respectively on a distant roadway cradled within sloping walls of earth, stone and tree.

I've never before been this soaked to the bone and loved it so ...

Like a moth to the flame, a poet to the babbling brook, a drunkard to the grog, I expect to be pulled in once again. Whether by simple desire or actual gravity, who can say? Perhaps the draw to this property has proven merely a flicker of subconscious recognition of similarities to my childhood home.

My third visit to the bank-owned home with the killer view shall be tomorrow ...

Calm is as good as any a word to describe the new day and its weather as I saunter along from my current digs to that greatly missed, fabled "childhood" home on the hill. Though the look of the sky is an autumnal cool and gray overcast, yet Sol gently, unobtrusively illumines the dirty cotton batting, thereby spreading an expansive cheer and warmth throughout the vale.

Perched once again on the deck and looking outward with the eyes of a thirteen-year old boy, I am transported back a half century. Having come from the fertile valleys of central California and landing on the highest peak in a little, unincorporated hamlet, I feel that all the air has been squeezed from my lungs. It could've been literally, but, of course, you must realize that I'm speaking figuratively.

My family and I were standing on the deck of a home for sale. The old darling was beautifully hewn of stone and rough timber. She was a mere shell - an interior yet to be fitted out - but with such potential. My mother, enamored of the entire package, commented to the owner that only one thing was missing: a view of the ocean. The lady of the house smiled and directed my mother's gaze over to the left. Pointing to a break in the trees on the distant range, Mrs. Emerson said, "Look, Dear." There, faintly but absolutely, was a sliver of blue crowned by whitecaps.

My "new home," too, affords a Pacific glimmer, one that beckons this grown-up "thirteen-year old" to cast off and dream on toward the morrow ...

Send e-mail anywhere. No map, no compass. Get your Hotmail® account now.

Kitchen/Husband Dilemma

2008-11-10T17:11:00.001-08:00

Dear Happy Homemaker,

I have a sink full of dishes, an empty fridge, a nonworking kitchen range and a lazy husband. I want a fresh start in life but don't know where to begin.

What do you suggest?

Thanks.

Abby

Dear Abby,

Toss the dishes, unwashed, into the trash (bin in the U.K.). No need to do the washing up in situations as extreme as yours. Purchase a hefty supply of Chinette (these are the "nice" paper plates) and plastic eating utensils (there are some very choice upgrades in this arena). Fill your fridge with ready-to-eat comestibles and, on occasion (per your budget), splurge on take-out delicacies. Upon completion of your veritable repast, toss all waste into the trash/bin.

Regarding your reprobate mate: whether to feed him or toss him is totally up to you, dear!

Hope this helps!

Happy Homemaker!

Decay and Descent

2008-11-09T21:52:00.001-08:00

Someone - scholar, drunkard, librarian, laborer - had to have felt himself slipping away into nothingness and recorded that event before his complete and final expiration. Unless, of course, he slipped away too quickly with no one the savior. To be sure, few men put their sorrow to paper before they die.

Perhaps it is too much, the autumn transit that is forcing this man, captive and unwilling, into a forward march toward darker times. The summer sun kept me cheered and pushing onward in pursuit of a furtive dream. Only briefly did that elusive and mocking vision peer back at me before running on ahead, ever beyond my grasp. There was no discouragement, no thought of my quitting the chase, however. The summer's heat and length of day invigorated me toward the continuous effort required to enter the unmatchable beauty of a dream realized.

Today is different. Tomorrow, likewise, shall be this "different," autumnal reality. The change was imperceptible. Summer, in all her robust glory, held on long and vigorous with warmth, birdsong and a good humor capable of lifting the spirits of even the perpetually dispirited. Now the sun has gone; all that remains is the oppressive damp of a landscape gone cold. What confronts me - blocking all routes of escape either forward or backward - is that slipping away into the nothingness of certain decay and descent into oblivion.

A once joyous world of hopes and dreams has departed, where nothing seemed impossible in the mind of the visionary. The unsavory replacement is a disintegration into the dark and fearful realm of grief and affliction. Finally ...

Eternal silence....

The Beavs

2008-10-30T11:38:00.001-07:00

Dear Happy Homemaker,

I am beside myself with anger in livid color!

My pet beavers, Leva and Tuu, have occupancy of the master bath, their aqueous home being the not small Roman tub. Being the literate and clever cleavers they are, Leva and Tuu went through my entire collection of ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST and HYDRAULICS FOR DAILY LIVING and conspired to render them into a dam spanning the estimable breadth of said Roman tub.

What shall I do?

June

Dear June,

Send the Beavs to college. Get new magazines (back copies are pricey but eminently obtainable).

Rather than allowing yourself to get bent all out of shape and giving these rascally rodents the business, I'd recommend that you should see the aqueous humour in this incident fraught with mandible mirth!

Eddie Haskell, er, Happy Homemaker!

Danny Boy

2008-10-28T23:36:00.001-07:00

I have been given the moniker Danny Boy, though when signatory in frequent matters of a somewhat official nature, I flourish a splendidly looped Daniel Boyd-Blatherstone.

Citizens of the colonies - typically awed even by ersatz royalty - are loath to exhibit outwardly their enchantment with the Crown and feign to deny it. I admit, however, to being a cheeky bloke of no especial renown, unless you count an arm unmatched for roll tossing among my peers. On many a painful occasion of ribald hilarity, I have lobbed a stale petit pain at a cheerfully accommodating chum, only to have an hysterical nanny take me by the ear and toss me unceremoniously to the kerb. All is fair, I suppose, in lob and war.

My society became less in demand, particularly due to these scrappy luncheon escapades, when it was only the domestics and we. Sympathetic, and in no-wise innocent-bystander friends were summarily overruled by parents given to put implicit trust in the lies of their help. My compatriots-in-crime chafed, their pleas and pleases trodden upon by unyielding familial tyrants, they who had apparently forgotten their own youthful designs in mischief and mayhem.

Time has passed since those wobbly days of infancy - days of carefree abandon. Needless to say (but I shall say it, nevertheless), I am now a strapping youth of no mean aspect, a paragon of grown-up-ed-ness, displaying more than a trifling modicum of emotional maturity, which is an arguably singular personal trait for one who remains rather youngish in the matter of chronological age.

I am the oldest person of my age with whom I have the pleasure of being acquainted.

A SAHARAN SOJOURN

2008-10-28T23:19:00.001-07:00

I have made a gentle landing in the midst of French West Africa, the land of my forebears. As the companion of my mind, Gaspar, plays ever so sweetly upon his apricot pipe, I follow along with words unuttered to this ancient song of the pharaohs. He provides me solace and companionship as I pick my way through the sands of so unforgiving a Saharan tableau. There is no reason to fear a sojourn of indeterminate length, however. I am certain of success as I follow the sun to White Algiers. The elements - certainly hostile toward most manner of men - have never impinged upon the realization of any of my objectives. My current pilgrimage is toward the discovery of the principle wood whose melancholic, heart-rending magic my grand-pere conjured each day at Sun's zenith so many years ago. The people of his village (will I truly ever discover its location? I have no map, only the leading of my heart) were said to have been transformed by this wailing sortilege. Surely, they have passed; I will speak with their children. Such events are always emblazoned upon susceptible hearts and minds ... As I make my way through the scorch of desert by day, I envision an oasis that promises relief from Sahara's devastating and torturous blaze. Simoom is my companion of the moment; Gaspar has not left me entirely. The soft wail of the duduk has, for the moment, been stilled. Parched lips do not for an excellent embouchure make. Simoom. My beautiful, sleek cat of the Stone Castle. She is white like the sands, tawny like the sands. She is burning and solitary like the sands. Simoom saved my life ... It is once again that I set foot upon the sands of my beloved, killing Sahara. Was it I who chose such exquisitely brutal a landscape, this ancestral home of countless generations past? Surely not; in fact, I possess little knowledge whence I came. I have traveled far and am weary. Fatigue, however, cannot prevail against the exigency of learning who I truly am. Contemplation upon the draw this infinite expanse has had upon me since my petitesse causes my endlessly inquiring mind to boggle. An unseen but inexorable purchase sets talons upon my vulnerable heart; that stoic logic which begs my return to reason and abandonment of this folly is impotent in face of my yearning to discover the key to my family's arcane issue. It will not relent. I must see this through, no matter the outcome ... It could not possibly have been a more arduous journey, this traverse across a diabolical union of both shifting sands and searing winds. We have been sucked dry. Hoppie, my faithful four-footed beast of burden and enduring companion, suffers less from the near-complete desiccation that succeeds in withering my own liver. Water has become the most precious but rarest of commodities. We seek shelter. We seek water. Many a phantom mirage has loomed up before my scorched eyeballs. An optic message relayed to a mind weary and anxious for any shred of assuagement is entertained, however transparently suspect my logic has become. I find a disconcerting comfort remembering the song of the pharaohs that Gaspar used to play upon his apricot pipe. It is a dirge that haunts this broken man, a derelict whose termination perches ominously upon the illusory desert horizon.
Special thanks to M. Balzac, Ms. Currier and Grand-Pere for their inspiration.

The Sea and the Sky

2008-10-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

The Sea is my mother, my father the Sky. Both are eternal and vast, each in their way. As I rise slowly yet inexorably from my mother's protective embrace, I reach toward Father, my life-giver, now become my mentor. He draws me up as spiraling vapor whose aspect is phantom-like yet, nevertheless, possessing true substance.

Under the aegis of Sky, I will harness my chariot to Sister Wind and travel Earth's four corners, showering my bounty upon her children. They will laud me; they will offer me prayerful thanks. However, I will look upward toward Father and downward toward Mother, seeking their approbation.

It is they who have given me life and continued existence.

Praise must be directed accordingly ...

Polly: A Beautiful Soul

2008-10-28T07:03:00.001-07:00

Polly had wasted too much time being beautiful. In soliloquy she ruefully yet sincerely admitted as much. The salivating wolves about town managed to pucker up sufficiently and whistle, but it wasn't Polly's brains that the fellows were whistling at. Polly's pulchritude made her a target for mere, curious stares of disbelief amongst bashful boys; however, for Canis Lupus, the hapless maiden was true quarry.

This young and genuinely sweet lass lost hope of ever finding a companion who looked inside the person in order to view and appreciate that one's heart and soul. Soon, however, kindred spirits would serendipitously cross paths, and restoration of faith in one's fellowman would occur.

A kindly Mr. Kitchen and a luminous Josie would bring succor to a soul famished for simple but joyous friendship.

She could not have made a more simple request: kindly let me alone. Of course, Polly was far too polite and cultured to speak her mind. Her thoughts never formed into any wordy protestation that should actually escape the lips. Rather, when accosted by garrulous old men or biddies, she would find herself seized by a trifling indisposition, most likely triggered by some innate survival instinct. Consequently, by the mere lowering of her eyes, she spirited herself away to an imagined location of tranquil repose. Perhaps she might avert her glance to a object of feigned interest in the middle ground. The harmless but unwelcomed interlopers ceased to exist.

Polly hated rudeness most passionately and knew that these kindly old folk were, in general, of cheery and lovely disposition; however, as you and I both know all too well, some people are quite unaware of the tempest brewing as they noisily and lustily chat one up no matter the "weather."

Those closest to Polly were ever aware that the tragic specter of Polly's childhood lay subconsciously but anxiously in wait, struggling once again to break free of Polly's fragile will and enshroud her with a resurrected, crippling sorrow. These dear people - surrogate mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters - surrounded her with every care and protection humanly possible; yet, there is only so much one can do for the youth who despairs over her irretrievable losses.

Charles and Wilma Dexter-Hayes had brought three beautiful children into this world: Billy, the eldest, Polly, the middle child, and, nearly ten years after the birth of Polly, Rosemarie.

Polly's frail emotional state was due in large measure to heavy and tragic losses - losses greater than any naturally affectionate family member should be expected to endure. Both the youngest and the eldest children predeceased Charles and Wilma at the midway point of their otherwise happy domestic life. Hardly had the family come to terms with the devastating blow of losing the plump and golden-haired toddling babe to a childhood illness than the nineteen-year old Billy was killed in a freak accident while hiking a mere distance from the family home.

The unspeakable loss of a precious little one who adored her and a big brother who protected her was, of itself, sufficient cause to unhinge this devoted young lady. Here, though, is the rub. Charles, ever the stalwart gentleman - in every sense of the word - turned dark inside, as though he were a light switched off. He ceased virtually all communication with Polly and her mother, but for a few grunts or gestures to make known some mundane matter that his stricken soul refused to conjure up verbally. Wilma, scarcely able to deal with the loss of her babies, suffered a complete collapse of mind and spirit. Accordingly, she was taken in by a kindly maiden aunt who, despite her age, was in robust health and sensitive to the plight of her ailing niece.

Polly's world of loving and being loved came to a severe and abrupt halt.

A Captive Audience of One

2008-10-27T22:40:00.000-07:00

Since that "incident" several years ago, I've been unable to rise from my bed without someone's helping me. This bitter reality of helplessness very often overwhelms me, not infrequently to the point of tears. Mary and Jo are such sweethearts to visit me and offer whatever help they can. It's their company that I crave most of all, though I do appreciate the treats they always bring, including books from the local library. I love books, rarely ever bothering to turn on the television. My landlady kindly had cable put it, thinking it a means to keep me entertained and, well, to get my mind off ...

I hate "going there," as they so commonly say. Dwelling on what happened does me no good, no good at all. Then, please, someone tell me how to turn off the nightmare of events running over and over again through my tired brain. The trite but still painful question that everyone asks is - they think I'm out of earshot, but I'm not - "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Don't get me wrong; the outpouring of love and sympathy from kith and kin has been my salvation. Of course, I'm disabled FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Why am I the one who survived?

I need far more than momentary distraction to escape survivor's guilt. In my literary travels, I allow my imagination free rein. However, my past life and what I read often combine in my subconscious mind. Over that I surely have no control. For example, I see myself traveling untold miles to reunite with my family after so many years apart. When I step off the train, my son and my husband smile widely as I step down to greet them. My son's little arms reach up to me ... then the loves of my life vanish before me. Especially in dreams do actual events become jumbled, yet the cutting, profound pain of loss that attends awakening is all too palpable.

I said I didn't want to go there.

Where is the night nurse? She's late.

I guess I could call the agency to learn what's holding up "Nurse Jane" this time. Patience is a virtue I've never had. A reversal of fortune doesn't necessarily bring along with it a new and improved outlook on life. You know, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, or some such. Au contraire, bitterness and anger got in the way of every decent emotion and positive thought I had troubled deliberately to cultivate. Mind over matter ... someone told me it doesn't matter.

Looking out the window - it's to the left of my bed and affords quite a nice view of the bay - I imagine myself the character Johnsy in "The Last Leaf," waiting to succumb to the inevitable. One by one the leaves drop to the snow-covered lane below. My life and my fate are bound up with the last remaining leaf ... do you see what I mean? I get caught up in the story, becoming the central character and booting the real heroine off the stage. What effrontery!

It's getting dark and I can tell from the swaying of the eucalyptus trees outside my window that a stiff wind is coming in off the bay. The two-story house next door does not block my view of the sea as it is set back a bit. What I can see is partially obscured by that little stand of trees. The gentle back-and-forth motion of those graceful eucalyptus causes the light pouring through my window to cut in and out. Hypnotic. Comfortable. Warm.

Coming to, after a brief snooze, I throw a casual glance out the window and, even as I relate this, a shiver goes down my spine. I am unable to catch my breath. What is that on my neighbor's roof? Dark though the sky has become, there is no mistaking what is there. I am frozen ... its unearthly stare is fixed on me.

Its eyes - fitted into huge sockets within a gargoyle's head - are red-hot coals. My mind, my heart, my soul are seared by what is about to become, in a matter of swiftly passing moments, an all-consuming conflagration. That considerable distance of seeming, relative safety from rooftop to bedroom affords me no consolation.

Strangely fascinated, I emerge from the initial state of shock and, by rapidly increasing degrees, find myself helplessly captive to full-blown horror. The immediate impulse in any ordinary emergency sort of situation is to reach for the telephone, punch out the requisite 3 digits and then anxiously await the arrival of the community's finest. I, locked into the creature's horrific stare, am incapable of movement. Of rational thought. Of coming to my own defense.

Terror has never been so delicious ...

Entrancement and enchantment each work their singular charm upon me as four eyes remain set in a fixed stare. Outwardly I am silently screaming, my head exploding and letting fly like shrapnel innumerable questions that have no possible answers. And inwardly? Dare I permit my glacial heart to melt at the unimaginable prospect that, perhaps, this otherworldly entity is my dubious savior?

Is he reading my mind?

I'm sinking ever further into this conflict of strange emotions, a tide of angst over which no straight thinking could hope to prevail. My mind says run for your life, though that, of course, is a physical impossibility.

My foolish heart quietly insists that there is an unseen beauty in this being whose aspect defies all human description. Most would declare this a beast. Regardless, his presence would doubtless cause a brave man to faint. As I am really no beauty myself, I find it, in the beneficent Law of the Cosmos, unfair to consign any of the Great Spirit's creatures to the prison of human bias. Isn't it too ludicrous, that I, a captive audience of one, should render such pious judgment?

Released momentarily from my inward stirrings, I focus once again on the creature's face. His eyes ... they are no longer red but turned the color of the sea. Cool. Calm. Serene.

Is this chimera - whether real or in my brain - reading my mind?

Certainly my heart has not hardened in fear or revulsion. I know that the creature reads my heart, if not my mind. A gradual but, nevertheless, astonishing transformation occurs before me, so clearly visible despite the physical separation that maintains between us. The absurdly misshapen is metamorphosing into a comely form that commands my unbroken, wondering gaze. Scales of a peculiar geometric form fade into the pink smoothness of human skin. A warm glow surrounds what was only mere moments ago a horror of the darkest grotesquerie. What could only have been construed as his mouth has taken the shape of beautifully formed and sensuous lips. While otherwise stock-still for these fleeting yet intolerably protracted moments of physical modifications, my beast has become beauty.

Released from an appearance of suspended animation, my beauty begins to move but in an incredibly drawn-out slow motion. Slowly, very slowly, his right arm rises from his side and reaches upward toward me, his hand extended and beckoning. That mouth, those lips quiver ever so slightly ...

Beauty smiles at me.

So long immobile but for brief moments up with "Nurse Jane's" assistance, I feel an unfamiliar restlessness in my lower body. My mind and heart coax me arise and seek what awaits outside the barrier of glass.

It is no longer a matter of wishing, hoping and fighting long-entrenched despair. A power beyond all that is humanly possible - even in the most extraordinary of circumstances - seizes hold of atrophy and regenerates what was once officially declared dead. In spite of myself, I arise from my imprisoning bed and, as if it were a completely normal occurrence, glide over to the French windows. I do not touch the handles yet, in the manner of a dream, the doors open before me.

Standing upon the balcony, I observe with the utmost clarity the pure magnificence of celestial beauty. My mind no longer questions the why, the wherefore nor the how ... My heart says I must follow its direction:

I could never lead you astray ...
Something wonderful awaits you.
Return to your room, stand before
Your mirror and close your eyes...

It is still too much to believe that I arose from near total incapacity, hastened to the windows and beheld what dreams are made of. I've cast off all doubt regarding the validity of miracles in modern times. And Beauty - whether angel, alien or demon - convinces me in my heart of hearts that, truly, something wonderful is about to happen ...

Returning to my wardrobe, I momentarily close my eyes. Somehow sensing a subtle change in the direction put upon me, I open my eyes and look into the full-length mirror. I see only myself, no reflection of the room at all. There I stand, tall and erect, as in my vibrant and athletic youth. Now, however, it is as an assured, mature woman. Radiant. Smiling. Possessed, so it would seem, by an inner confidence emanating from my every pore. Behind me I sense a warm and comforting presence. It is he. The aura surrounding his now invisible self does not compete with my inner glow but interplays with it, creating a show of light, not of spectacular brilliance, but of undulating waves of luminescence.

My pounding heart fairly leaps from my chest. In the mirror are the likenesses of two men, one younger, one older. My brain must be playing tricks on me. I gasp. The older - a handsome man of not quite middle age - is clearly my husband, Jonathan. Who can that younger man be, who so resembles Jonathan? Is this father and son? No, it cannot be. Both Jonathan and Quentin were killed in the train ...

It was a lifetime ago.

I feel the gentle touch of a hand upon my shoulder. Rather than startle me, this tactile sensation calms me. As tears stream down my cheeks, I hesitate to confront the dream-like reality that remains unaltered as the mirror's reflection. I lower my head, overcome.

Beauty speaks barely a whisper into my ear:

Look again. There is nothing to fear. It is your husband
Jonathan and your son Quentin. They've come to take
you home.

Looking up once again into the mirror, I smile through my tears and gaze upon the beautiful countenances of father and son. My husband. My son. They reach toward me, bidding me follow them. I step closer toward the mirror ...

The bed that Sarah Gardner had languished upon for so many years is now empty. The eucalyptus continue to sway gracefully, their gentle susurration filling the former occupant's room through open French windows.

OUR LIVES: Don and Betty

2008-10-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

That delightful pair were actually friends of my parents since college days, back before the war. They had books and coffee and cigarettes in common. Arguments over what current author was making the greatest impact on impressionable American youth could go on way past midnight. Sometimes at their home, sometimes ours. I clearly remember falling asleep on the huge brown davenport in their L-shaped living room. It was in the ell that Betty had the ever-present workmen install floor-to-ceiling fitted bookshelves. She generously lent dozens of books to my mother and - get this - to Stan. He would tuck himself cozily away in a little nook between the old upright Chickering and the potted Kentia, reading this, reading that and reading the other. Don't forget, I was the one asleep on the big D! Hardly something to brag about.

That only scratches the surface of their relationship. When my parents "got religion," the two couples spent less and less time together. Nothing as bad as a rift or such: NEVER DISCUSS RELIGION OR POLITICS! Politics, maybe. They simply drifted apart. I was doing my thing - cars and watching the waves at our coastal retreat, and Stan was doing his - daydreaming, reading and painting scenes of the gentle Pacific. This under Betty's watchful and loving eyes and her expert tutelage. The two flourished and basked in mutual admiration. Mom and Dad trusted their friends implicitly and never let religion divide them.

I don't think the Hendersons went to church. It simply was not discussed.

From Mars, With Love ...

2008-10-27T13:24:00.001-07:00

Does it not stand to reason that the destruction of one's home should prompt one to seek out new worlds? The Metalunans did so eons ago, yet the attitude displayed toward their newfound hosts, while not entirely benevolent, was closer to humanistic than that shown us miserable humans by the Martians. Why do I refer to ourselves as miserable humans? The decimation of the human race by an alien force cruel and invincible has given rise to such sentiments of despair. The degradation that precedes the most unspeakable of protracted life-terminating procedures would make the tortures invented by human history's most notorious villains appear little more than those devised by schoolyard bullies.

I regret that I have survived the initial attack.

I haven't much time. Conflict is on the horizon, moving ever closer toward us. Our being a peace-loving people does not mean that we are weak and ineffectual. Yet, by comparison to the powers that are to be, we shall constitute their easiest prey. We are no match for their kind. What is this alien force - so fearsome and implacable - that marches in relentless asymmetrical rhythm: triplet, crotchets, quavers, crotchet? I shudder that such uncommon and foreign a meter should, nevertheless, bring NEMESIS unfailingly to his quarry. Perhaps I ought not to register any surprise at all. My only palpable emotion at this time is convulsing fear - an unholy terror that engulfs every delectable morsel of many a quivering corpse. Corpses lusted after by a famished Martian megalopolis squatted illegally upon Earth.

An angry red dust that enshrouds their military machine has reached us, parching our throats, infiltrating our lungs. The carrying wind is bitter and cuts deeply to the core. The descent and ascent of their chromatic war chant fills me with horror as I contemplate the formidable and merciless aspect of these damnable creatures, they who advance slowly but deliberately toward the termination of our race. I hear the brassy salvos of their ordnance. Yet again ... the protracted cacophony of mechanized warfare. NEMESIS is angry. There will be no mercy shown toward our weak, human ilk. He is red. He is MARS, THE BRINGER OF WAR....

Why these war-beasts have kept me on I haven't a clue. Perhaps my ruddy complexion is a reminder of the basic hue of a home deserted yet scarcely forgotten. I cannot by any stretch of the imagination - and there's been a great deal of such "stretching" lately - attribute to these coarse and loathsome creatures any delicate sentiment characteristic of our gentler race. These Martians are scorpions - they are malefactors to the most extreme degree.

Upon first sighting of the alien beings, we humans found ourselves both inescapably transfixed by their revolting semblance of a face and, subsequently, retching with violent abandon, overcome as we were by their unimaginable hideousness. My viewing INVADERS FROM MARS when a child could not have prepared me for what started out as a little boy's nightmare. Now-extinguished friends had earlier tossed off the initial radio contact from the Martians as a higher power's benign interest in an inferior intelligence.

Such fatuous naivete has cost us dearly.

OUR LIVES

2008-10-27T08:40:00.001-07:00

Our paths should not have crossed. Not at this time. Not in this place. He had been in Paris (no, not that Paris), and I was headed for The Sound.

The water was a bit choppier than usual. I had forgotten to take the requisite Dramamine. Those who know me well know I can't even manage a carnival ride without major nausea. So it's no surprise, then, that I "went by rail," the old ferry bobbing deliriously like a cork. Am I digressing? The paths that crossed. Yes ... never would've imagined....

The other green passengers and I finally made it to shore. Shaken but safe. The waves were merciless and we nearly took out a section of dolphins before mooring. I was never so glad to hit the shore, and hit it we did. Once on the dock, I dodged the hustle and bustle as best I could, but how do you stop a tidal wave? I simply wanted to get to Town, flag down a cab and get to the old Henderson place and settle in with Betty and Don. They would be glad to see me, I them. It had been too many years.

I got jostled - not the usual or expected jostled - so abruptly that my grip fell to the splintered deck and I lost my balance. Before I completed my tumble forward, I felt a firm clasp on my shoulder. Suspended animation, the descent abruptly arrested. As I regained my composure and a measure of dignity lost, I turned around to thank the stranger who had stopped my fall.

It was no stranger ...

It was Stan, my younger brother. We had neither seen one another nor even talked to each other for the last 5 years. The parting had been acrimonious, to say the least. I was his hero, his mentor in all matters, and he didn't accept my reasons for leaving home. But that was then; this is now. We looked into each other's eyes for what seemed hours, oblivious to that hustle and bustle surrounding us. Neither of us uttered a sound, perhaps each in his own way afraid to be the first to give in (you know, a guy thing).

I knew in the next few moments, however, that we both were home ...

Tears were streaming down the face of my big and tall little brother.

Agnes and Sebastian - A Celluloid Drama

2008-10-25T22:43:00.001-07:00

They could not be further apart in their respective worlds – worlds separated by time, place and action. I have concluded that the dramatic unities shall find themselves divided and conquered unless the author succeeds in tying together the widely divergent comparisons and contrasts of the lives of a pair of unforgettable people. I am forced to admit, however, that this literary chasm is not likely to be bridged. Even my writer's pen can scarce be expected to join together two such different souls.

I speak of two acquaintances: Agnes and Sebastian. Wishing not to suspend too much of the readers' disbelief, I must, nevertheless, acknowledge that the drama about to unfold may seem extraordinary, incredible and – let's be frank, all right? – patently ridiculous (but only in some of the particulars).

Agnes is a beautiful and winning novice in a Montreal, Quebec nunnery, whose brides of Christ are the little sisters of Mary Magdalene. She is artless in the superlative sense. Her voice is lilting and childlike, yet - when spontaneously given to hosannas - it is that of an angel. Agnes is an innocent of God; indeed, she is AGNES OF GOD. Simplicity, brevity, piety …

Agnes is pregnant.

Sebastian, Sebastian … where does one begin?

New Orleans, 1937 – The Garden District. That only describes time and place (and barely so), but it is a beginning. We never spy Sebastian at home and in his personal jungle. In fact, when he finally does make his entrance, we do not see his face. We never do. Yet no one need declare outspokenly that it is the visage of Adonis. It is this beautiful face that has dared to view another countenance: Sebastian has beheld the Face of God. And lived. Onlookers - men, women, children and even dogs - are mesmerized by this elegant man, only to fall in love with him, him with such charm, such charisma. Of the four categories of mammalian subsets referred to, only one group is allowed to cross the invisible line and participate. Sebastian – the gentle and soft-spoken arachnid – knows the truth about God.

The truth makes absolutely no difference, however, as Sebastian approaches the crossroads of his life. It begins, it ends: SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER.

Sebastian is a cannibal.

For the Love of a Good Read

2008-10-25T20:19:00.001-07:00

Dear Armchair Travelers,

Are you all set for the adventure of a lifetime, to the fabled and mysterious Burma (known today as Myanmar)? American tourists start out on an art expedition that will take them to the true Shangri-La and, eventually, to the jungles of Burma. But mystery, intrigue and death cut a wide swath across the pathway of the travelers, who wish only to soak up the rich cultural heritage and perhaps make a little statement about the benefits of the American way of life. Sidetracked by a harmless but intent, recluse jungle tribe, the unknowing "guests" plunge into a survival of the fittest contest that they never bargained for. Let's just say that, in strange and unfamiliar surroundings, there's going to be culture shock. If they survive the elements, SLORC, malaria and the Nats (no, NOT gnats), will the American travelers be the wiser and stronger for it?

The images are haunting, the characters are flawed yet nevertheless sympathetic and Ms. Tan's writing style is delightfully idiosyncratic! A mythical holy man tells his followers that each day he has pledged to save a hundred lives. He elects to save fish from drowning, and as success is added to further success in his rescue operation, he buys more nets that he might save ever more. It is evil to take lives, but it is noble to save them.

Have you already read this captivating foray into the steamy jungles that hide and protect the Karen tribe? Do you believe miracles can happen in the middle of nowhere? If you haven't yet read SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING, I highly recommend that you get it, plop into your favorite armchair, and settle in for a wondrous journey that will undoubtedly enchant you.

Nowadays happy endings may seem impossible, yet....

Despondent Writer Jumps Up and Out Basement Window

2008-10-25T17:44:00.001-07:00

DESPONDENT WRITER JUMPS UP AND OUT BASEMENT WINDOW

Disassociated Press News Release (October 25, 2008):

An aging writer was found today by passersby, lying dazed and confused outside his basement studio window, in what local authorities are treating as a failed suicide attempt. Witnesses claim to have seen Gabriel Horne, age 60-something, leap up through and out the window of his subsurface residence.

It is understood from neighbors, who scarcely know Mr. Horne due to his reclusive nature, that he was depressed/angry/enraged over countless letters of rejection from various book publishing firms. They admit to knowing this only from having observed piles of shredded letters at the base of his mailbox, which shredding was always accompanied by screams and cries of despair, which, naturally, drew worried but frightened neighbors to rifle through the mail, but only after Mr. Horne had clomped furiously back into his lowly hovel.

It is said, too, from an anonymous source, that Mr. Horne's only savings, from a bank account started in elementary school, was not insured by the FDIC (given today's monetary crisis and by a frivolous and cruel twist of financial fate), hence the writer's impoverished state and consequent inability to buy ink cartridges at STAPLES.

(Contributed by Horace Hack, Staff Writer, Office of Runonsentencesextraordinaire.)

Laundry Bucket, er, WASHER!

2008-10-25T09:37:00.001-07:00

Dear Happy Homemaker,

I live in a tiny apartment with no hookup for a washer/dryer laundry center. Being totally without coin for the laundromat and hardly able to afford TIDE, how in the world can I maintain my clothing spanking clean? While I may be poor, I do have some tattered shreds of pride that remain affixed to my person. Filthy rags I cannot abide.

Thanks,

Cleveland

Dear Cleve,

Rather than stoning your garments creekside or scrubbing your knuckles raw on the washboard, you must assemble for yourself the following appliance:

Manually-operated washing machine

Obtain:

5-gallon plastic bucket

Toilet plunger (new)

Hand soap slivers

Cut hole in center of lid bucket that is
slightly larger than plunger handle. Take
plunger and center it in the bucket.

Partially fill "washer" with water suf-
ficiently hot to soften soap slivers that
find themselves scattered about bucket's
capacious lower level.

Add clothes and warm water within a
number of inches of the bucket's top.

Affix lid securely to bucket, allowing
plunger handle to poke through.

Apply motion in upward/downward strokes.

When the above cleansing actions are
complete, drain bucket by tipping it (either
to the right or left - your choice) into a re-
ceiver basin for your next load.

Refill "washer" - with all internal items intact -
with rinse water.

Repeat the above procedures as desired.

Do not kick the bucket ...

Happy Homemaker!

Who Is She?

2008-10-25T01:35:00.001-07:00

It's natural to be curious about the folk who inhabit your life - well, isn't it? Some individuals are certainly open, or shall we say "up front," about who they are and what their very important outlook on life happens to be. Quite contrary to this rabble of pedestrian traffic, however, is the rare inscrutable one.

An old lady passes by my home daily and I peer down at her elderly yet still somewhat spry frame from my drawing room window. Without any variation in routine whatsoever, she stops dead at the same spot - a little break in the waist-high stone wall - and leans into the smoothly cupped-out hollow. Her midriff and elbows rest upon stone polished by wind and water come from the sea and her chin sits solidly in her upturned palms. Given the angle of my window relative to the depression in the stone wall where Madame resides, I have no difficulty ascertaining her stance.

What does she gaze upon so intently each day, from noon till one, whatever the weather? Beyond the surf there lies a plump and verdant island and, farther still, the open sea. Does she patiently but futilely await a love long ago lost at sea? Perhaps she watches the sky in the hope of being taken unto her deity's warm and protective embrace. Is she, therefore, awaiting something or someone, or is she simply wiling away the time, longing to escape the mainland and adopt the barbaric tribal life on that mist-enveloped tropical isle?

I am as perplexed as I am curious, but I do love a mystery and shall be content to spin a yarn or two at the old dame's unwitting expense.

Heaven forbid I should go down to the wall, make her acquaintance and - when the time is right - ask her to explain herself.

What fun would that be?

The Forbidden City

2008-10-23T22:52:00.001-07:00

We're about a fortnight's journey from the Forbidden City. Our yak must think we're crazy, pushing on relentlessly as we do. Not to mention the nomads, who travel but a few miles and then permit their beasts to browse the high pastures. You see, we've encountered diverse setbacks - following mountain trails that led us smack into rocky walls that showed us no immediately recognizable path of ascent. Then there were the shifty-eyed brigands - known throughout the region as Khampas. Their encampment - Gyak Bongra - is a name that makes brave men tremble; that, we learned, to our chagrin and a potentially disastrous termination of our lives.

As it stands, we did escape, mainly through a bit of bravado and the use of our wiles. But our chief cause of concern is the bitter cold and our fending off its ravages, frostbite being our principal worry. We have no gloves, but only old socks as their replacement. Often we've no choice but to bivouac in the open. Rarely do we come upon an "ihega" - a sheltering stone fence, that protects against the wind. The below-freezing temperatures frequently render sleep impossible, but eventually, because of sheer exhaustion, our slumber becomes leaden.

We've bluffed our way through various check points on an expired travel permit. Some subordinate officials are skeptical, but others are happy to see us on our way. Llasa is but the distance of a few days.

What further challenges await us? Despite our physical pains and utter exhaustion, we are drawn inexorably toward our objective. If only by dint of sheer determination and will, we shall see the fabled city at the top of the world.

Signing off for now,

Armchair Traveler/Companion of Peter and Heinrich, on our sojourn through Tibet.

Reference: SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET, by Heinrich Harrer, 1953.

Can I Be a Good Mother? Joan Talks.

2008-10-23T00:18:00.001-07:00

Isn't it an ironic twist and so very, very Hollywood that I was named Joan. Not so unusual a name, I admit. But that a cute little blonde girl should have as mother dearest a gorgeous, raven-haired madwoman named Christina. What an almost consciously planned twist! If you're not into the old flicks you wouldn't see the irony. The bitter irony of my life.

Those old black and whites held me irresistibly captive, glued to the screen as I was, bewildered that the movie star after whom I was named could be so good and kind on screen (well, if the script called for it) but so different in real life. I'm enough of a realist now, as an adult, no longer to be swept away by the Sturm und Drang of a fanciful photoplay. Or Hollywood lives. Though the physical pain of the irrational beatings I received as a child is gone - I do have some scars, however - the inner pain has been little eased despite love from caring friends and supportive family members. A good shrink helps too.

My sister Joleen, older and, I'll reluctantly admit, wiser, has an outlook I'm simply not able to adopt. Not at this point anyway. She's always been sweet and kindly disposed by nature. After our mother would have one of her characteristic tantrums - volcanic explosions, more aptly - and she and the house were four sheets to the wind, it was Joleen who brought her the wet washcloth and tried to calm us kids down. Dad was at work. That's just it - he was at work. He didn't see the half of what SHE did to Joleen, Toby and me.

My adult's intellect acknowledges that the father has to be gone long hours to pay the rent, put food on the table ... of course! Of course! But the beaten and bruised little girl is screaming for help to the big, protecting daddy who seems never to be there at those cursed moments when an uncontrolled rage is visited upon helpless children.

Why didn't my daddy protect me?

Can I Be a Good Mother?

2008-10-22T22:11:00.001-07:00

Having a baby doesn't make you a loving and selfless mother automatically.

Mom had her hang-ups before we were born, Sis. I think she took out all her frustrations and anger on us because she was so mad at life and the hand she was dealt. No one in Dad's family respected her though she sure as hell tried to win Grandma's approval. Since her own mother had died when she was only four, Mom needed a surrogate female to guide her through those early years raising us. She had no idea what she was doing. Despite the distance Grandma put between herself and Mom, Grandma wasn't evil and conniving. She didn't hate Mom - just didn't know how to deal with her crazy daughter-in-law.

So here we are: Mom was screwed up early-on, but you know just as well as I do how much she loves us. Maybe she has a queer way of showing it, but, now that I'm older and a little wiser, I want to be forgiving. I'd hope my family would show me a little compassion if I turned crazy. Well, crazier ...

You know, Joan, Mom wasn't ready to take on the responsibility of a brood of kids so soon after she and Dad were married. Even those times she took off and Dad had no idea where she was and we kids were crying our eyes out, she never really abandoned us. I realize that sounds ridiculous because she was truly gone physically. Dad was frantic. We felt orphaned, though, of course, Dad never left our side.

When she finally returned, one time, and then another, she was so pitiful. Even as a little girl - though the oldest of us three - I could feel her grief and see the guilt etched around her mouth and eyes. Kids don't need words and big explanations to see into the heart of an adult. Mom dragged home sorrowful and her tail between her legs after she got her head back on straight. She hated herself but loved us so desperately.

It's no wonder we question our ability to be good mothers, if and when that day should ever come ...

Gloomy Gus Says "Get Real!"

2008-10-21T19:11:00.001-07:00

Dear Gloomy Gus,

I'm Pollyanna and I'm glad all the time. Since I fell out of the giant elm tree outside my bedroom window when I was a wee lass, I've thanked heaven that I received no more than a scratch on my pretty little forehead. I'm really blessed and I wish to spread goodwill and cheer to all whom I meet. Now that I'm quite grown up and have inherited Aunt Polly's considerable fortune and, in fact, her entire eponymous village, I want to do good toward all. It is not enough, I feel, simply to go to the homes of the less fortunate and, along with Nancy (yes, she works for me now!) hand out jars of calves' foot jelly and the like.

What do you think I should do with my millions now that I'm in complete control of my life and my fortune (yes, it's really, really mine!) and village and inhabitants entirely in my thrall?

Regards,

Pollyanna H.

Miss Priss Pollyanna,

I took a blow to the head very young in life when I was dipping pigtails of precious darlings like you in my inkwell when I was supposed to be doing my arithmetic in class. Mr. Kravitz would have been thrown in the slammer if he did that today. Of course, Mr. Kravitz got the go-ahead from my parents and the local constabulary to use whatever means necessary to keep me in line. I digress. I think I counted some 20 self-references: "I," "my," "mine." Don't quote me on the figure - like you would!

It makes me sick that your "I" problem wasn't attended to sooner. But that's not the issue now. It's on the back burner for the moment.

Have you finally replaced the boiler that nearly took down the orphanage and all its hapless victims? Your dear Aunt Polly sure had to be hit over the head before she saw to renovating that derelict building where she stuffed all the parentless children. And when you have guests over, do you serve them more than a "light lunch"? That was pretty cheap of your aunt, who surely had the staff and means to put on a real feast. What do you plan on doing to help the orphans? You're an adult now - well, at least chronologically. Do you have Adult Services available to these now-grown orphans? I doubt that you do, or even care. A lot of good your money does you. You are so not selfless! You talk the talk, but will you walk the walk? All that you Harpingtons do you do for show!

It doesn't matter what you plan on doing here on out after my entirely justified diatribe. My mind's made up. Money is the root of all evil! And you'll grow old and lonely like your spinster aunt because no one will have you.

So there!

GG : - (((

The Sacred and the Profane

2008-10-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Cosmo Politan,

I would gladly drop all concerns practical and necessary just to lie down and listen to Brahms Or Bach. Yet, I do have daily chores about the house that require my attention. I want the best of both worlds, so I listen to recordings of classical music while I bustle about my home-care duties. However, my professor at music school said that it was sacrilegious to do the profane, like scrubbing the toilet, when listening to Bach. I find that music - any music - is motivating and elevates my spirits while doing the perfunctory.

Isn't he being a bit extreme?

Carl Phillip Emmanuel

Dear C.P.E:

Not at all! He wouldn't be where he is today without high standards.

I, on the other hand, allow myself some leniency. I play Handel's "Water Music" when bathing. Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite" accompanies my roasting a chicken. When I can't fix my mind too sharply on a matter of importance, on goes Debussy's "Reverie." Likewise, Claude Achille's "The Afternoon of a Faun" when I dress a deer. And when I'm feeling especially contrary, I clean house to take my mind off the music (which, like the water, is always running).

You, however, should follow your teacher's advice not to mix the sacred with the profane, thereby retaining and nourishing your classical purity.

I'm jaded and can get away with it.

Cosmo

2008-10-17T11:19:00.001-07:00

Are you in a muddle over domestic chores? Ask Happy Homemaker for practical and up-to-the-minute advice. You won't be disappointed!

Dear Happy Homemaker,

Hi. My name is Suzy and I have ugly wax build-up on my very old linoleum floor in the kitchen. Sam (my hubby) and I want to upgrade the floor but are not certain if it would be cheaper to strip the old floor or buy terrazzo. Little Johnny has a flame thrower in his toy box, and I was wondering if we could kill two birds with one stone by melting the wax with heat and barbeque a chicken all in one fell swoop? Today's the 4th (July) and it's raining so we can't barbeque or we'd catch our death. Our church is lousy with janitors who could strip the floor, but Sam and I don't trust any of them any farther than we could throw them. We're into sports and have good throwing arms, too.

I'm really in a quandary, HH! Please reply asap because we're having company over this afternoon and want to show off our new floor (or, at the very least, a clean floor!)

Thanks heaps!

Suzy Q.

Dear Suzy:

I feel the flame thrower is out because I have taken the liberty of checking out your homeowner's policy and, should you fail in your intended purpose and conflagrate the house, your agent will search for loopholes to CHA (not CYA). Perhaps you might check out lovely designer painter's tarps and swath your ugly linoleum with one that matches your equally ugly walls (don't ask me how I know). Perhaps, too, your lazy sloth of a partner (I know you two are not married) can plug in the kitchen range, precluding all need for dangerous incendiary devices. Additionally, you're beer-budget folk ... pretty high-and-mighty thinking you can afford terrazzo! I'm not impressed. I don't trust your church janitors either; when I say "no" to their religious tracts EVERY Sunday morning, they ask if they can leave one of their business cards instead, offering huge discounts on their services. Fools.

I hope I've been of some help, Suzy!

Yours truly,

Happy Homemaker!