uranium moss dancer
It was getting late. Slowly the officer laid the photo on the table. “Do you recognise what those are?” she asked me with a smile.
On the stage the one dancer started circling the pole. I looked down, and knew. “Hardened tank shells, probably depleted uranium. Fallujah?” I asked. She smiled again, “a little further West I suggest.”
“There is a say…” I replied: “Rolling stones don’t gather moss.”
“Thought not” she replied.
Image source: M1 Abrams battle tank, Wikimedia
rock, joint, inner, sight, sail
Standing on a rock, alone, he lost sight of her shadow.
Gone the tenuous line, the light joint in their inner lives,
dissolved, her face less and less recognisable,
a sail soon disappeared in the
immensity of his despair.
Image: Orpheus, by Pierre Amedee Marcel-Beronneau, source
The small crypt was still in darkness as we approached, on that frozen morning of January. Every year, on the same day, we gather here, on this desolate hill.
As usual, we were silent, as all of us know the place, the rite, the reasons. Besides, had we anything to say we would have done it, without words.
This year, we noticed the trace. Footsteps, in the fresh snow. Our horses noticed also the scent. The scent of a woman. We are rarely surprised by anything. But we were… intrigued.
We dismounted and followed the small path. A crow, perhaps too young to know, or remember, took fright and disappeared in the deep forest.
Our leader gave the sign. In our minds the words of the litany formed:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer…”
Our leader pushed the door open. In ranked order we entered the crypt.
“Fear is the little death…”
As we knelt on the ancient slabs, around our lord and liege, we saw the rose, and the message.
“And when it has gone past me, I will turn to see fear’s path…”
She was here, not that long before us.
The witch, she remembered. Her scent…
“Where the fear has gone there will be nothing…”
Our leader stood up, then we followed him, and drew our swords.
We let our blades rest on the stone, a faint ray of light illuminated the rose.
Our leader bowed. We left the crypt, one by one, leaving him alone with his brother.
Outside, we, wraith knights, waited.
The snow fell.
We prayed.
Every year, on the same day, we gather here, on this desolate hill, since our lord passed away, and we brought his body here, all the way back from the Holy Land.
“Only I will remain.”
charcoal, shade, pale, wake, lucid
The rain fell, almost silent, but she could hear the little stream, outside, through the open window. She called the instant the lucid wake: those minutes before the first signs of the pale dawn. Then, everything is clear, the events of the past days in sharp relief, as if lit from inside. His smile, the fire on the beach, the shade under the pine trees, the smell of charcoal. But this wasn’t yesterday, it was years ago, her already distant past. And then it had been Summer…
Then the wine had tasted better, the air cleaner, the waves softer. His skin was like the sun itself. Where was he now? The lucid wake: she was alone, all fires long dead.
She could hear the little stream. Winter would end, another Spring would come.
Image source: https://wallpapersafari.com/winter-beach-scenes-wallpaper/
The old mill stands still, in the frozen landscape; there, they worked, had fun, sometime loved. Now, there is only emptiness, silent stones, pale ghosts recounting long forgotten stories. All round lived once a multitude, poor but hopeful. Children were born, iron was cast, dreams were woven. Why they all left, what was their fate, did they lose faith? We dare not ask the ravens, and shall never know.
He knew where they had met, but he was less certain of when that was. He remembered the small town, and the woods, above all the woods, where they walked, kissed, watched the sun rise, the freezing dawns, enlaced, forever at one, with each other, and with the trees.
She was the one, and those were their beginnings. They watched the sun set, the skies on fire. Her grey eyes reflected the light. He had felt so strong then. He was, so they called him. She watched him go, such a breakup in her heart…
Now, after all the death, the sand, the blood, he was back. Alone, at the end, a fallen hero.
A reading of 11.22.63 by Stephen King
How often do we think: “If only I could change this”, or, in whatever form, “if only I could have a second chance, go back, and do something different”? Going back, erasing, and changing the past is an old dream, the subject of countless tales and fiction works. Of course there is a second law of thermodynamics, to keep things simple, that says “no-can-do” – but still…
But imagine one could go back, reverse entropy, and travel back in time, would it be possible to change anything? Or, is the past resistant to change, obturate enough to stop, or at least oppose, a time-traveller interfering with what was, and, maybe, should be? And, even if the time traveller could change the past, what would be the cost? Perhaps more ominously: what would be the consequences?
Changing history is a special case. History, they say, is written by “the victors”, whoever they may be. It can also be rewritten, and this without, perhaps because of (not), going back to the past. There is the “official” version, and the “conspiracies”. A long-lasting, and still sinister, such story is that of the assassination of President Kennedy.
Jake Epping, not a crying man, is an English teacher at a high school in a small town in Maine. The year is 2011, and this is the end of term. Jake is, unique among his school colleagues, the customer of Al Templeton, the proud owner of the fat burgers diner. More than just a customer. He’s soon someone with whom Al is about to share a deadly secret. At the back of Al’s diner trailer is an anomaly: a fissure in time. Al has a mission, one he cannot complete, for he is dying of lung cancer. He wants Jake to take over, as he has identified Jake as someone who could, who will, bite at the bait. So Al teaches Jake, explains how this could work, and Jake listens. There is a first trial, then another. On the other side of the fissure it is Spring 1958, and America is young. Jake likes what he sees. He enjoys the fresh taste of root beer, the sweet air. Jake also has a personal objective: to prevent a domestic tragedy and help his friend Harry Dunning. The first leg of the story is there: the killing of Frank Dunning. Jake, armed with Al’s mission and notes, as well as dollars of the time, embarks on the journey.
Saving the Dunning family will take two attempts to get it “right”, or so Jake thinks. Then his personal odyssey will start , on the road to Dallas. For Al’s, now Jake’s, aim is to prevent the assassination of President John Kennedy, on November 22, 1963, nothing less. Jake has five years to adapt, plan, live, and, finally, execute Al’s mission.
Jake follows a route of nostalgia: an all-American Ford Sunliner, overnight stoppages in motels, drive-in cinemas, finally a small town, and an equally small school, in Texas. Later, much later, there will be Dallas and the horror. For a while it is (almost) paradise, his class, football, friends, a girl he falls in love with, America’s early 60’s: (almost) perfection.
Jake decides to stay, he won’t go back to 2011. But, in the end, he does. For fulfilling the mission has unpredictable consequences. When, on the threshold of his desperate return, Jake faces a dystopian 2011, he finally understand what Al had missed: that interfering with the strings of time has a price, and this is proportional to the change.
The novel concludes on a note of hope, an ending for which Stephen King credits his son, Joe Hill, at the end of the book.
11.22.63 is a great novel, to read, reread, and cherish. It is also a book to meditate on, seriously, listening carefully to the voice of its author.
Photo: Ford Sunliner 1958, via eclassicautos.com
For centuries the great abbaye had stood, in its majesty and glory, in the peaceful landscape. It was then a centre of faith and science, where wise men worked, and kept the flame of civilisation burning. They were frugal, up in the frosty mornings before dawn, ploughing the fields and teaching the children; their chants filled the vales and forests, rising to the sky.
Then the heretics had come, plundering, burning, torturing the faithful. A dark veil had fallen on the earth, the Dark Lord’s reign had begun.
But today, in the faint light of dawn, I can hear the monks’s voices, the soft footsteps of their sandals. I sense their presence, their curiosity, even, about this strange creature, this human being who survived the fall. Their anthem is but a light breeze through the icy air.
The arch stands, witness to a millennium of folly. And there, on the cold stones, I kneel, praying to the true God, in submission and piety, the last, shivering survivor of the war, that ended the evil empire.
Dedicated to the builders of the great abbayes of Yorkshire, and their defenders.
She answered his wish, his urge to spend another year in the City, among the ghosts, in the parks, on the banks of the river: yet he knew she would soon crave the sight of another river, the high cliff, her sister the Mermaid. At night he would listen to the sailor’s scream for the fatal beauty.
As his dream faded, hers would radiate the green colours of the Rhine.
Inspired by the Secret Keeper’s Weekly Writing Challenge #124
He felt her insistent stare on him, as he held the precious tablet, still covered by a thin film of blond sand. The text looked like a list, but he guessed that it might also be a poem, perhaps both. Was there a rhyme? His knowledge of the language was not advanced enough for him to know. He turned to the goddess, and met the emerald eyes, still fixed on him.
A long time passed, he knew she would speak, and so waited, in the silence of the sacred valley. At long last, he heard her voice, melodious, as if coming through a long tunnel: “It’s no poem, it is an ancient spell, and who casts his sight on it, shall be turned into stone.”
Image: A Roman-era version of the Knot of Isis worn by the Goddess or Her priestess, via https://isiopolis.com
