...the last breath...31dec16...

The verge of a cry grew heavy, right above the bridge of her nose, but she refused it.  She had never cried as an adult.  Never cried in Academy.  Didn't cry when her pelvis was smashed in a training accident.  She would not do it now.  She flatly refused.  Limited air.  She knew better than flail her arms.  Time and energy were her world right now.  Distance was a star that she would shoot for.

She was falling, end over end, away from the hull of what once was the Halifax.  Mei was blown clear when the exterior hallways collapsed, depressurized by the explosions of the unknown capital ship.  She could see them now, a brown flat dot in the distance, flaring with a few missile hits, mere dots.  They were 20% declination to 30,0 to the Halifax - a minor blind spot - but an effective one.

First stop momentum.  She poised her body as if she were taking off in a rocket pack from the ground, her hands and feet at a similar angle.  Mei watched the Halifax as it swung out of view.  Easy.  No need to waste air.  The oxygen bag enveloped her body on the abrupt change in pressure from the hallway into space.  It had about fifteen minutes worth of breathable time.  The battery had enough to get her back to the Halifax.  More than likely picked up as a prisoner.  Better than death.

She closed her eyes into squints and focused on her position and fall away from the ship.  She could see others, still in death, floating away.  There was debris.  Chunks of the asteroidic skin that enveloped the capital ship.  Steel.  If one had the chance to hit her, she may as well give up.

Slow.  She released oxygen toward the direction of her spin, easing it out of her hands with a small release button.  Instead of overcompensating the entire spin, she let go of the release once the ship was out of view.  It saved energy.  Energy that was going to be needed to give her momentum back toward the ship.  If she blew it all at once, that was it.

Her Academy drill officer, Andrews, came immediately back.  This will save your life.

Let's see, Andrews.  Mei was calm for being minutes from death.  You have to be.  Living in space for over seven years now, you were only inches from death anywhere on the ship.  This was a war, not a field trip.  Their losses, like the Halifax, would be yet another blow for the Bureaucracy.

After three spins, slowing each time, she made a direct line for herself toward the Halifax.  Escape pods were popping from ventral.  That's where I'll head.

She very easily released more air, this time pushing behind her, toward her legs.  It started to bring her forward, pushing against the initial momentum that led her here.  She did not look behind her, only forward.  She didn't look at how much energy and oxygen were left.  It would be a distraction and panic will make her heart rate soar.

She started to move and felt the cold of space start to creep into the suit.  It was only rated for so much, and it had already gave a lot of itself.  A little more.  Once she felt she had the momentum, she stopped the release.  She slowed her breathing.  The Halifax grew larger.  Fires had broken out all around it.  No large debris seemed to be ahead of her.  She fixed herself to the bottom of the ship and toward the floating pods.  They did not push far from the ship, just close to rely upon the Halifax's incidental gravity.  It must not be in danger of exploding, that is good.  But fire must be the reason the ventral crew left.

Twenty minutes from the ship.  Her air would not make it, but, if she could will herself to pass out, she may make it.  She had a flechette that would knock her out.  She pulled on it from the outside of the suit and it just needed to be pulled away and angled toward the soft of her forearm.  She made sure that she was correctly angled.  One deep breath, and she injected herself.

The cold of the needle and the icy liquid as it ran into her arm was a shock, but only temporarily.  Mei instantly felt the effect of the drug and passed out.  She watched the Halifax and could see the small silhouettes of the crew as they busied themselves in putting out its fires...

...for my little sister Joanna...

To my cos Jo - missed dearly.

As is Filipino custom, it is almost a disservice to call Jo my cousin.  With a unique position in the family, I am an eldest
cousin, so I am called 'kuya', or, 'big brother' by any cousin younger than me.  Jo was one of the first to call me this.  So, my heart and experience call her 'little sister', and so she is.

The first time I knew about her was when her parents visited in the quiet of the night, before Christmas, 1979.  Auntie was bursting at the seams, Jo still in the womb.  Auntie and Uncle stood in the doorway of our very small apartment on Knott Ave.  I was a wee one and excited to have a baby on the way...but, alas, Jo wouldn't come until the next month, back home in the 'Isles'.

An extended stay came in the summer of 1987 (if recollection serves), where my sister(s) Loni and Jo were formally terrorized by a young teenager in the form of me.  Looking back and looking to what Jo came to be, is such a crystallizing truth: talent, poetry and song came to her at such a young age.  Where everyone that knows her now would easily realize that Jo was born singing.  She entertained the family for hours with a strong, clear voice...it raised and echoed along the backyard and into the alleyways of Catherine Drive...meeting the applause of the family that sat grinning from ear to ear.  The air that summer was warm and heady, hardly any clouds in the light yellow sky.  Jo loved wearing simple, colorful one piece dresses even back then.  (Her hair was always long, an insistence by her mother at first, grew into a habit.)

While in the (US) Army, assigned to a remote site in Germany, I scraped money together to visit the British families in the Fall of 1991.  Jo was as entertaining as ever, bubbly to have family visit her for once.  As we drove from Heathrow and passed through various tunnels on the way to East Ham (E6), Jo would spout, "You are now entering the time tunnel."  I never asked her to stop, it was too precious, especially in that 'accent'.  The holidays were around the corner, so the massive meal my Aunts and Uncles put together was full of spiced meats, literally hanging precariously off the table.  I had never seen so much food in my life.  Jo was there, bouncing off the walls singing and dancing.  "Yes," I can say to anyone if they ask, "Jo was always singing and dancing."  I have no memories of her doing otherwise.  Even on phone calls with my Aunt, you could hear Jo inexhaustibly singing her heart out.

When my mom married my step father, Jo came out again, this was summer of 1997 (again, hoping I have these dates correct, or my mother will pinch).  Jo was definitely a young woman and the exuberance of youth settled into a more realistic and somber Jo.  However, she was writing gobs of poetry and filling up notebooks.  Not a night went by during that visit that she would go through her poems and share sketches from her notebooks.  They were raw, and honest, and real.  I respected her as an adult at that moment.  As much as I may write, there is a veneer to it all, as is my voice, where Jo was fearless in honesty.

We would keep in touch of course.  She would send me snippets of poems.  Phone calls (before social media).  I wrote a few forgettable things back, as I was still finding my own voice.  We would challenge each other to do more.  She had her dreams and I encouraged them to the hilt.  We would talk constantly, probably over the last decade, on her coming out to LA and making a go.  BUT, Jo kept finding breadcrumbs to continue going down the path of her dreams.  Jo, as hard as it was for her, would also strike unwavering down that path.  Even with the allure of family and of California, which she could have easily pivoted here, she stuck to it.  My respect was always the same, and, hopefully, more importantly, I would let her know.

The family, beyond me, would constantly ask that she come out.  We offered to pay - free everything.  Philippines or California.  But, Jo as adamant as ever, would find a new opportunity, or the glimpse of an opportunity, and play it.  No one begrudged her for it.  We knew that her dream was strong.

With my sister's wedding, Jo came out again, now only a few years ago, 2012.  The wedding plans took much of the time, but we got to talk, she got to meet my boys and my wife.  We had a tremendous time with the wedding and the parties.  It was a quick glimpse if we could simply have her stay.  Of course we pitched it again.  Of course, she stuck to the path.

Back in March, Jo sent along a video with her crew, as a birthday wish to my grandmother in the Philippines.  We were all in the Islands for my Apu's party.  Jo was (joyfully) tethered to a show - so we were ecstatic and understanding.  We loved her and happy for what was happening in her career.

Then, a few weeks ago, while I was in NY on business, we Messenger'd each other about the elections.  It was about 2:30a NYC time.  We had a good conversation, which ended, as they normally did, with me asking for her to come out, on my dime.  She refused again, of course, because, she had big things happening.  And she did.  She made it.  She made it a few different ways, not just one.  She was made to do it, there's no doubt from me.  I saw it over the last thirty years, first hand.

I had just gotten back from the trip when I got the phone call.

Of course I miss her.  Dearly.  I miss her voice and her openness.  I miss her poetry.  I am not surprised by the outpouring that came out of the tragedy.  I struggled with what happened.  I have been in a daze for weeks and cannot still reconcile it with all that should be right in this world.  I can only come to grips that she was loved.  Boy, was she adored.  And she should be.

She went out on top.  She was over the moon with everything.  Jo had achieved a lifetime of ambition.

The family rallied around Auntie and Uncle.  Jo was taking care of as best as a person could ever want.  The outpouring of love and thoughts show that the world can be a good place.  A place where little girls with big dreams can sing, dance and act their hearts out on a stage with a payment of applause, smiles, tears and laughter.

She is interred close to the Yabut home and to my grandfather and my dad.  This is good.  Deep within the bosom of the Philippines is a heart that will hold her close.  As we do, there will be weekly visits.  This equates to constant prayers, an outpouring of what is best in all of us.

Little sister Jo I love you.  I can still hear you singing.

~~~

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/18/joanna-reyes-dies-hit-by-car-shoreditch

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/singer-joanna-reyes-hit-by-range-rover-on-traffic-island-and-killed-after-leaving-show-rehearsal-a3399331.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/parents-of-singer-killed-in-range-rover-crash-on-traffic-island-the-pain-inside-is-unbelievable-a3400346.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/actress-destined-west-end-fame-9286543

watch:"Incredible Fan Animations"

advice:Stephen King's "On Writing" + Resources

"Verbs come in two types, active and passive...You should avoid the passive tense.  I'm not the only one who says so; you can find the same advice in The Elements of Style." - On Writing, Stephen King

Enjoying King's breezy exploration of his writing - its genesis, its voice.  I hungered to read it, if anything to understand Mr. King's volumetric prowess (happy 69th, btw).  Wikipedia has him at 54 fiction novels, 6 non-fiction, and 200 short stories. Unfortunately, half-way through and I'm no better off knowing his magic tricks for velocity.  (He lists his habit of writing, which must include fingers that simply don't stop.)  But, yes, where I paused is taking a hard look at passive versus active voice.

From the NY Times, "The Pleasures and Perils of the Passive", by Constance Hale:


"The most pilloried use of the passive voice might be that famous expression of presidents and press secretaries, “mistakes were made.” From Ronald Ziegler, President Richard M. Nixon’s press aide, through Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — not to mention Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — pols have used the passive voice to spin the news, avoid responsibility or hide the truth. One political guru even dubbed this usage “the past exonerative."


From The Elements of Style, which King alludes to often:

"The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing.  This is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action but in writing of any kind.  Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by sustituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfuntory expression as there is or could be heard." - page 18

So where did this change occur?  With the drive for simplistic concepts and a packaged coalescence (Apple I'm looking at you), there is data to support that modern English and grammatical complexity has forced us into an active narrative.  Passive, grammatically complex structures make those with less education primarily guess for meaning.  When I read Henry James or Thomas Mann, there was a 'flowery' style that may be less active than say a Mark Twain or a King.

Examples are illustrative and abound at yourdictionary.com:

PASSIVE:
'At dinner, six shrimp were eaten by Harry.'
'A scathing review was written by the critic.'

COUNTER/ACTIVE:
'Harry ate six shrimp at dinner.'
'The critic wrote a scathing review.'

It's easy to see that, in passive, the receiver of action comes before the doer (receiver-action-doer).  It naturally requires the reader to think out of order of doer-action-receiver.

Much to think about as you analyze your own writing.  Interestingly, Grammar Girl recommends that science fiction should always be in passive.  Circling around to me spinning in circles, trying to keep the moon in sight and screaming "no one really knows!"  But, there is a ray of light, in that last chapter of Elements, "'What if I am a pioneer, or even a genius?'  Answer: then be one."

poem: AE Housman's "When summer's end is nighing..."

XXXIX (from Last Poems)
- A E Housman, c. 1934

Nina Leen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

When summer's end is nighing
  And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
  And all the feats I vowed
  When I was young and proud.

The weathercock at sunset
  Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
  That looked to Wales away
  And saw the last of day.

From hill and cloud and heaven
  The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
  And hushed the countryside,
  But I had youth and pride.

And I with earth and nightfall
  In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
  And darkness hard at hand,
  And the eye lost the land.

The year might age, and cloudy
  The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
  Breathed from beyond the snows,
  And I had hope of those.

They came and were and are not
  And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
  That ever can ensue
  Must now be worse and few.

So here's an end of roaming
  On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
  For summer's parting sighs,
  And then the heart replies.

watch:Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress (Amazon Prime Video)

An explosive anime available only on Amazon Prime (read: domestic legal), is the Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, coming from Musashino, Japan.  It is (gratefully) streamed in its native language (though subbed) and all of season one is available (12 eps overall).

Mumei by WLOP

Kabaneri follows the story of a post-apocalyptic, steam-age universe where 'kabane' (glowy zombies) have spread their virus across industrial era Japan.  As a response, the people have walled themselves up (see the parallel's with Attack on Titan?) at strongholds that serve as railway points.  Their only lifeline to one another, for critical supplies and information, is to run armored trains to and from.  The lives of the people are governed by this mobile source of protection and information.

The two primary characters, Ikoma, an unappreciated engineer and creator of a weapon that better kills the kabane (who have only the heart as their weak spot), and, Mumei, a mysterious young noblewoman who can also dispatch the kabane with some ease.  What sets these two on the same path is they are both (little spoiler) a hybrid of human and kabane, thus the term kabaneri.  They still have their human wits about them, but hunger for blood, and have stemmed the spread of their disease.

Mumei by Guweiz

Where Kabaneri succeeds where I feel Attack does not, is that the story is more limited in scope, the characters not so world-weary (there are actual moments of happiness that are not broken by abject destruction).  The fight sequences are well thought-out and not as groan-worthy as some of the deaths of the Attack kids.

I'm including two great artists that captured Mumei's vulnerability and fierce warrior stylings - WLOP and Guweiz from DeviantArt.

"Reds" by Guweiz

24,056 uniques to blog!

remember:"Shiloh" Melville / "Requiem" Dao

"Shiloh: A Requiem"

~ Herman Melville, April 1862

Skimming lightly, wheeling still, 

      The swallows fly low 

Over the field in clouded days, 

      The forest-field of Shiloh— 

Over the field where April rain 

Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain 

Through the pause of night 

That followed the Sunday fight 

      Around the church of Shiloh— 

The church so lone, the log-built one, 

That echoed to many a parting groan 

            And natural prayer 

      Of dying foemen mingled there— 

Foemen at morn, but friends at eve— 

      Fame or country least their care: 

(What like a bullet can undeceive!) 

      But now they lie low, 

While over them the swallows skim, 

      And all is hushed at Shiloh.

"Requiem"
By Bei Dao, translated by Eliot Weinberger

for Shanshan

The wave of that year
flooded the sands on the mirror
to be lost is a kind of leaving
and the meaning of leaving
the instant when all languages
are like shadows cast from the west

life's only a promise
don't grieve for it
before the garden was destroyed
we had too much time
debating the implications of a bird flying
as we knocked down midnight's door

alone like a match polished into light
when childhood's tunnel
led to a vein of dubious ore
to be lost is a kind of leaving
and poetry rectifying life
rectifies poetry's echo

short:"Magpie" (4 of 4)

[part 3 here]

He didn't go to work Tuesday.  He had drifted in and out of sleeplessness.  Overeating.  He felt on the verge of sickness but nothing clearly came to hurt.  A funk.

He tried not to think of her.  Yet he made another outing Monday after work.  This time he did ask.  It's amazing how little people even pay attention.  The guy at the comic store said he didn't even remember me.  I've been going there every month for three years.

He switched to straight cigarettes, as much as he could not afford them.  He went through the whole pack ("stockade" cigarettes, the cheapest he could find in the vendie), sitting on his balcony, the sky knowing it wouldn't rain, but stayed grey anyway.  He went through his current playlist twice ("grey_18sep32"), almost two hours per.  Every part of him cried out now that she was gone.  His skin ached, his eyes burned, there was a mild, nagging pain in the back of his head, right above the neck.

He went to work on Wednesday and got chewed out for not making quota.  "You are non-functioning, Charlie, you are on the verge of being on assistance."  He wanted to laugh at that.  Everyone was on assistance.  It only meant getting a little less.  I don't care.  Who does?

...

The call came on Thursday, after work.  He was just getting a bit better, back on track a little more.  He was at his console and his phone glowed green.  Eversong Administration Plant.

"Yes?"  Glowing spring tides and butterflies came to him when he realized that Eversong had her: they would only call for that reason.

"Charles Johann?"

"Charlie.  Yes."

"We have her."

...

He had to wait until work was over but he got there right at dusk.  He tried not to look too anxious, but the week of worry had done enough.  She'll know that I missed her, then.

He walked into Eversong and had to wait for a technician.  "You should have had an appointment."

"No one told me of an appointment."

"You hung up before I could tell you."

He waited for an hour and forty minutes.  A kid came out, couldn't be a year out of university.

"You here for Magdalena?  Follow me."

When he walked into a little diagnostic room, she sat with her back to the door.  He didn't say anything, hoping that she would turn around and pour tears into his chest.  Her face was already half-turned, but she did not move.  She did not blink.

After a few minutes of silence, he saw the kid was staring at him.  He bristled in his skin.

"Where...?" Charlie asked, not knowing what to ask otherwise.

"As far as we can tell, she wandered all the way to the Cape.  There's a beach there that is all rock."

"Fleur Point."

He nodded then looked at his screen.  "By what I could tell by GPS, she was there Thursday afternoon.  She didn't move.  A park ranger found her underneath some rocks.  The exposure made a mess of her recorder."  He walked around her, still discerning, "I ran diagnostics.  I could see that she fell into rampancy spiral.  I know this means you both were very close.  I..."  He trailed off, they both knew there was a falling out.

Charlie just nodded and put his hand on her shoulder.  She was cold.  Her flesh was not the usual gelatinous feel, it was as if rocks were underneath the surface.  She did not move.  Her eyes were open, but cloudy.  There was no power.

"I'm sorry.  She was a grant?"

He nodded in response and that would end the conversation.  She was provided by the Counsel on a grant.  If you lose one, you cannot get a replacement.  Charlie would never be close to buying his own.  He was escorted out of the room, but he stood near a door where he could look in at her.

They ran a circuit to Maggie from a service port, which made her go into a fetal position, easier for movement.  They covered Maggie in a translucent bag and that was it.

...

They tell you to never to take pictures.  They tell you not to get too close.  It's a joke, they do this to control us.  They put us in a cocoon until we are broken and we don't care if they pull us out.

There were many pictures, he didn't realize how many.  He dug through two thousand until he found it.  The time they went there.  She wore her hair up.  It was a brisk day, but she only had on a black vertical shirt and white cut-offs.  She had these little, cute white boating shoes on.  She smiled at him and he remembered smiling back.

...

[start from the beginning]

short:Magpie (3 of 4)

[part 2 here]

As he predicted (although he mixed the word in his head, a miswire in elementary, to "predicated") Maggie disappeared.  It had been three days.  Three days and I only just thought of her.  Work, drinks, dinner, home, repeat.  Three days since she paused in the doorway.  He slept in on Saturday morning, stretched and enjoyed the freedom of no one there.

...

That night.  "Where'd she go?"  He didn't look at Bryon.  Instead intent on the thick drops of condensation on his mug, turned into dark lines.  They ran down the glass and across the glass top.  This was the worst kind of drunk.  Too angry to feel good, too nauseated that the swooning hurt.  An induced swirl, like riding the teacups at gunpoint.

"Do you c-?"  The bartender hit the flat of the sink with a frozen bottle.  It pushed grey slush to the bottle's lip.  She cut it with ouzo and stirred it into a tall glass with a handmade black licorice.  Who the f*ck would drink that?

"What?"

"Do you care?  I mean do you really, really care?"  Ugh, that word.  By pulled the rest of his Killians down and fingered for another.  Til' didn't even need to acknowledge, her curly dark hair swirled around as she expertly grabbed, pulled and mixed for everyone.  Her eyes had a green tinge on their extremities, as did her lipstick.  She was awful at conversation.  So bad that no one even bothered anymore.

"I..." don't.  But he couldn't let it out.  It was overly brash.  He did not care, but it wasn't right to put it out there, not like that.  It's not a fair thing to ask, not yet.  "And you, By, do you care if Lola left you, then?"

He smiled his crooked, stupid smile.  He was pissed tipsy, hovering in place.  A lumbering giant of a guy, with wicked crooked teeth, like how he pictured the Artful Dodger should look.  Crooked teeth are the sign of a crooked heart.  Byron smelled like sh*t, too.

"You know their kind right?"  And, then "I don't let her leave."  He leaned into the bar to stop the rotation.  Take off your jacket, you smell like Doritos and piss.  Byron stared ahead and didn't say a word for a few minutes.  His face struggled with something, then grew dark, "Who wants to be lonely, then?  Eh?"

He waved to Til' for another one.  The bar top glowed with the bill.  I hit the limit.  He quickly flipped Byron's drinks off of it, approved and pressed his finger down.  A new bill flashed in front of Byron and he bristled straightaways.  "What's this then?"

"I can't afford you, By.  I didn't make quota this week," it was true.

"Well, sh*t.  I don't have skrill."  That was true too.

He sipped his drink, "Not my problem."

...

He left right after, not knowing if he would ever see him again.  Edifying = no.  I just fell into hanging out.

He swung around the places he knew that Maggie would go, only stopping short of asking around.

At the Juice he walked around the solid walls of sound, the lights turning in and out of color, texture, or switching to laser.  They walked all around him, taking it all in.  It worked better if they moved.  The music was what you would typically expect at a club, but it was off by one bar, it was off on a back beat, or just that little something so you knew it was not right.

He made a beeline straight for the bookstore.  He felt the instant ebb of warmness that his hunch was right.  She would be there (like solving a puzzle more than anything else).  What would I do if she is there?

He stopped and peered through the window.  It was a spot he knew no one could see him and he didn't look like a creep.  I would just say 'hi', perhaps she would say something alarming enough for me to sit.  We would talk for fifteen.  It would be nice, actually she would make sure to keep it light, light enough to have him sit and enjoy the conversation after so long a week, after so many drinks.  They would talk and realize they should order a tea.  I wouldn't even have to ask, I know she likes English Breakfast with creme and sugar, no honey.  They would talk and then, after a time she would talk about one of his favorite books, something deep she would offer and he would, almost unknowingly, ask her to explain her posit.  Then, they would walk and find themselves at home.

"Come up."

"No."

"You should, come on, it's late and its silly not to.  Just sleep, nothing else, I swear."

But then they would talk more, like old friends.  It has been three days.  And they would stare at one another, or feel one another's hands.  The warmness, the loneliness rushing over his member and it all would go.  And it would be that sweet love.  Slow and tender, thoughtful and when she came she would pull a little tuft of hair on the back of his head and breath into his face.  Her breath was always incredible.

He felt himself get hard and shifted.  She's not here.

He walked another two miles, hitting parks, stores, a 24-hour pizzeria.  Wherever Maggie was, it was not in this little part of the world.  Where the f*ck is she?  He would call, but she didn't have a phone.

...

[part 4 here]

short: "Magpie" (2 of 4)

[part 1 here]

And that's how it went.  He satiated her, somehow, by simply being present.  He floated around her as she went on, oblivious.  He was a ghost to her living, There is a point where it is easier to remain quiet and allow life to happen otherwise.

She hung on his arm as he floated to the bakery in the morning, the library or the bookstore during the day, and making love at night.

She has to see that I don't exist.  He only caught her eyes in fits, never admitting that he was not looking at them at all.  If he had noticed, he would have seen them through the filter of his own dissatisfaction, her eyes would have been black orbs.  But she went on and talked and sweated and came.  He came infrequently, and only when he forgot himself and the friction of sex took over.

"Where are you?"  She grabbed his face and made him stare at her.  Her deep brown eyes glowed. She smile so perfectly he had to admit feeling.  Then he sunk it down, pushed the feeling below the three weeks of inertia.  He remembered to feel nothing and stared at her.  "You don't love me anymore?"  She lay back away from him, instantly cooling his chest as she did so.  Her breasts lilted back and her nipples pointed to the ceiling.  "Did you ever love me, I wonder?"

He lay there and a feeling of losing her came upon him, and he thought that it did multiple times the last three weeks.  And, when her perceived threat to leave came, he felt it pull upon him like an anchor.  "Of course I love you.  I have said it many times."  Maybe too many times.  That was true.

She turned away from him to expose her roundness.  Her curves from shoulder to thigh were impeccable.  He wanted to reach out touch it, knowing that this was going to end.

"Saying is one thing, dear.  Did you really mean it?"

He turned in his skin, he hated the word 'really'.  It was unnecessary.  It seemed to be a word loaded with narcissism, loaded with the need to justify.  "I said it," flatly.  He got up, sat up.  His back cooled and it felt good.  He half turned his head to her back, "What do you want me to say?  Aren't we together?  Did we just make love?"

"These are actions.  You have not shown me any affection."  Silence at truth.

She started to get dressed.  I didn't know she could show shame, he thought.  She pulled her breasts into the form-fitted soft cups, their shape ever appealing to him as he watched.  "Something changed."  She pulled up her stockings and he rose, happy that she was going to leave.  Happy so he wouldn't say what needed to be said.  She would go away for a day, maybe two.  He would cool off, forget about her.  Hate himself when he caught the fact that he hadn't thought about her.  Make some plans with his friends.  Read a book and be alone.  No one nearby to ask an insipid question.  It's as if the questions get more inane the more this goes on.  Why doesn't see get frustrated and not come back.  Why do I have to be the one to do something.  He didn't see through his own weakness.

She was dressed and he was naked.  He had blankly pulled on a vape stick, which seemed to be ever near.  This week was gin.  Not only did it have the high, crisp smell of it, but apparently it was infused with a bit of the alcohol.  He blew it to cover the smirk on his face.  This part wasn't bad: she goes away for a few days, however and whatever 'they' do.  It didn't matter.  It was the coming back that was getting more difficult.

She didn't even say 'bye' this time.  She always had to get the last word in, but this time was different.  He felt the pang, the small little ache he was going to lose her this time, but it was sadly getting better.  Maggie paused at the door, for a good few seconds.  At this, he stopped breathing.  He hadn't seen that before, Maybe she finally had enough.  Maybe she cannot go on like this.' She walked out, slamming the door slightly, but didn't say a word.  One thing he did stop himself, every time, was never belittle her verbally.  It was too cruel, even for him.

"Hm," he said and took another drag.  The exertion of sex, the coolness of sweat as it dries...it mixes so well with the pull of a stick.  He didn't have any more real alcohol, but that would've rounded out the feeling he needed.  Instead, he sat, naked, in the dining room, pulling on the vape until he ran it dry.  He stared out at the quiet city.  The gray light and white dots, spilling white light on the sides of the buildings.  Oddly, there were no sounds of either car or sirens.

[part 3 here]

short:"Magpie" (part 1 of 4)

"You don't look at me the same way anymore."

Her hands trembled.  Trembled slightly but perceptibly.  She pushed a knife through a small green apple with her left hand.  The uneven weight saw the apple teeter back and forth upon its edge.  With her other hand, a green vape.  It glowed along its length, a thin stripe that ebbed with use.  It glowed anew when she took another pull.  That hand trembled too.  She tried to hide it by balancing it on her knee, "It's fine.  It was bound to happen after all."

Her legs pulled into the cushion of the kitchen chair, black Converse tucked underneath her.  The black stockings were ripped in places, in small circles.  Her pristine pale skin underneath.  Her comfort was the overlarge denim jacket.  Maggie.

"Who says?  You?"  I took a drag on my stick.  Where hers was green apple, predictably, mine was a weekly change.  This time it was 'chrome'.  It had a steel taste on the finish, finely tuned with the tobacco.  I let it drain out slowly, vape covering my face.  It gave me a second's peace.

I felt crowded.  I felt restless and unhappy, which did not bode well for me or for my generation.  We
fight against it constantly.  I fought against the urge to pull out my phone and read whatever.  It was already 9:18 and I would have gone through my pattern already.  As the smoke cleared, she hadn't answered my question.  It turned rhetorical.

Her, "It's Saturday."

I let her declarative lay there.  What it meant was, 'What are we doing today?'  I had no answer.  I want to get out and run.  I wanted to get out in the air.  I wanted to go upstate.  I wanted Saratoga Springs.  I wanted Yaddo.  I wanted to cut a vein and let it bleed along hand hewn paper.  Scream. Breathe.

"Your face is dark,"  She took a drag and finally got the pinion on the knife, slicing a quarter of the apple.  She picked it up and her half gone lipstick enveloped it.  She chewed and made it always look cool.  Her sunglasses, round and dark, never budged even when crunching on fruit.  If I did it, they would bounce like a f*cking kangaroo.  I sincerely am not cool.

"You're wearing sunglasses, darling."  She made a grunt like a 'hm' and cut another slice.  The smell of the apple infused the air.

Maggie.  We first met, as was planned on the app, at the Parlor Pachinko in Fontana.  She intoxicated me even before we met in person.  Her breathing on the phone, heavier than most, came across with dazzling answers.  The breathing sounded like she unmounted a wildebeest.

Me, "What are you into?"  Dumb.  Why?

"What am I not?"  Pause.  Breath, "Opera.  Arcades.  F*cking.  Temperance.  Old movies.  Walks in the rain.  What kind of f*cking question is that?  It's so broad as to be worthless, it's so general as to be boorish."

"Shit."  It was like a punch.

"Yeah," I had to meet her that day.  And she walked in, as she looks now.  Dark and denim.  Hose and tennies.  She walked with a swagger, not like a CG character.  No offense, but there was femininity here.  I'll f*cking say that in public, even if I am fined for it.  I embrace my masculinity, and why shouldn't I?  I may not have the right as dictated by the Clorventate, but I have some rights of free will, as warranted by the fussy fashions of the Assemblage.  Whatever.  Her body suited me.  Her breath, a mix of vape and last night's lemonicello tea had me instantly hard.  Her lips were like pillows.  God bless us young and our prime.  We f*cked like rabbits for weeks.  I lost track of time and responsibility.  I only remember hydration.

"Let's go to the comics store, Maggie," I said ignoring her.  She got up to expose her lack of undergarments and my remembering, throbbing member made me wake up.  Not enough to grab her and have her, like she was slyly trying for, but she had me again, at least for the day.

...

We wandered around The Dash, but I was found it better outside.  I sipped at a crisp, cool red ginseng soda (I didn't recog the label) and it woke my slogging behind.  I breathed in the city.  DLA was clean this time of year - not quite summer, not quite fall.  It was cooler air coming off the north deserts through the buildings.  It mixed with the languid humidity of the Pacific.  It woke my mind (finally) to the day.  The smell of udon and a dark, rich soy sauce (frying?) lofted along the street.

She surprised me by jumping into my back.  Her arms around me, her cheek resting on my neck.  It was then I knew.  It was then she bothered me.  She broke my oneness with the moment.  I let her hang there but I looked at the triangle of sunlight down the edge of Factory Place as it met Alameda and mildly cursed the weight on my shoulders.  Knowledge is a dull, monotone thunder.

[part 2 here]
...

poem:Raymond Roy Ruth Herbet

https://letgotravelaustralia.wordpress.com/tag/neil-hargraves-lookout/

"Raymond Roy Ruth Herbet [sic]"
- August 14th 2016

The back of a crudely shorn bookmark, Louise Gluck, "Poems 1962-2012"
Raymond Roy Ruth Herbet

Raymond with a languid finding of the 'a'
Roy and Ruth more sure
And Herbet incomplete
If it only had an 's' to start
A sweeter man he'd be.

...

Crawling back from the blankness
Promised darkness
In a thousand well read lines
But it lacked a colour, it lacks the blush
of light or dark.

The river was deep as it was wide
An ocean to most
Although I knew its shores on either side
Outlined its flow
And it glittered and played
And moved, horrifyingly so,
Its mass unstopped

And, for years, it was such,
And, for years, I was silent
A dam, but I watched
quietly and the shores defined
by the careful method of earth
that is constantly moving
but we simply cannot feel

The dam broke

And the torrents flowed and
We know their course
Perhaps I knew its end
Glorious as it were
The poetry of motion
Its curves, its grace
The momentous, clear
Dark clear

The reveries stilled
And I saw it gone
The blankness came
While in the desert
How apt now that it has come
Upon me, no blush
in lighted memory
But this

The red earth scarred
A chasm in its wake.

...

re4d:from the future, three voices

This transcribed audio recording, as many of its ilk, is comprised solely from tachyonic streams first captured in October of 2018.  As with almost all of these streams, they are bits and pieces, fits and starts; they are a product of its transmit nature, mercurial.  They were sent back as early as Spring of 2112 and as late as 2167.  Now that several thousand of these transmits have been analyzed, we know they are a product of a future that is as erratic and finicky as time itself.  We also know, by making explicit changes in the present, or past as it were, the streams follow suit.  These understandings of time and consequence have forever made humankind, and their place in the universe, changed our society in fundamental ways.

This particular transaction, between what we believe to be a 'corporeal' human and two analogues, has fascinated scientists over the last two years of analysis.  The "show", as hosted by the human, is said to have run over the course of hundreds of audio segments.  It would be much more chilling, have we not known that we can change its course.  [Albeit, as of writing, we have not yet established the correct basis to do so.]

The human is clearly being held by an analogue mind.  Although, it is hard to distinguish if it is a hive or individualistic intelligences.  There have been allusions to either, but the tendency appears an even darker third option: an analogue comprised of the psyche of the human.  An unknowing, reflexive loop?  But the trouble and breadth of its output is what troubles the analyzer.  Why do this?  Why do it in this way?  It's eerie.  Surreal.  This episode begins...

"This is show 218.  I don't know what day it is."

"Sunday."

"You said that last time."

"Sunday."

"You're crazy."

"So you say."
TOGETHER: "And so you go."

"I could ram my head into that metal corner."

"You know you cannot.  You cannot stop.  You can only do what we need."
"If you ram your head, that is an answer in, and of, itself."
"But you'll have to clean it up."
"He's right."

"Actually, let me refine that for our brother.  He does what we ask."

"I don't."

"You do."

"I do it out of duress."

"Do you?"  There is a pause.

"What is the topic today, then?"

"Compliance.  I love it."

"The topic today is heartbreak as it relates to poetry."

"You are asking the wrong guy."

"You're the guy we have."

"How many do you have like this?"

"Irrelevant."  Pause again, as if 'you're right'.

"You want to get specific, or is this the two-hundredth time I have to ask for a prompt?"

"What was the first time your heart broke?"  [The questions barely have the inflection of such.]

"We don't mean romantically, post-pubescent. We mean to ask as a child."

"And the poetry part?"

"Which poem would you relate it to?"  It took the man time to figure it out.  You can hear taps to a table.  You can hear pacing, as if he was in a steel cage of some kind (as colorfully given by one of the analyst).

He came closer to the microphone, "I had a goldfish.  I must have been four.  We spent an entire two weeks together, and I watched her like nothing before.  I had favorite toys.  But it was Sandy that had me carefully, gingerly take care of her (I imagined it a her).  Then, without so much as a listed swim, an open sore, or lack of eating, Sandy was upside down in her bowl.  It was enough of the day, that her belly had dried.  Her scales had dried and were a different hue.  It was grotesque." Pause.  "Mind you, I didn't know the word 'grotesque' yet."

"Go on."

"You're doing great.  This is..."  The analogue stopped, its voice a robotic and no inflection.

"You were going to say something and you didn't."  The man was smiling, you could hear it in his voice.  The analysts sat on the edge of their seat.  They had heard ten of these so far.  There was a bit of pacing.  "You were going to say 'what we need'."

"And what we need is not much.  Conversations."

"As you say.  Conversations.  But, it's not so much the pause in the question."  He patted his body in someway.  A psychological cue that he was trying not to get overexcited.  "It was that you paused."

It was now the analogues turn to be silent.

"I know.  I know."  He said as he paced again.  "I know something you think I don't.  But, let me finish my thought.  For the sake of the game."

"You say it is a game."

"EVERYTHING is a game."

"The fish dies.  I bury it in a satin lined box that once housed a Christmas gift from my mom.  I am at a lost for three days. I mean a real, hardy sadness.  Maybe a week and a half to forget."

"And the poem?"

"The poem is what you need, because you house it in that dead brain of yours.  It is what you need to tie me to your database."

They pause again, the second time in all ten conversations.

"The poem I associated with it, and not directly, but tangentially, was..."  He paused.  "What I will tell you if you give me what I need."

read:Number's Game (next)

As described, the center of the Harper's housed the bridge, shielded by miles of a natural occurring asteroid, a 'sub derma' preparation dampening layer, a double-folded tesseract metal super-structure...the engineers of the Plutonian class claimed it to be the safest place in any habitable system for a human.  The interior of a Plutonian ship was nicknamed the 'core'.  The class, and even the Harper's by name, was battle tested and famed for its safety rating.  Although the engineers would never agree, the legend was that it could survive even scaled planetary catastrophes when it was put to rigorous modeling.

Surrounding the bridge, which itself was in its own metallic pod, was the Den.  The Den was designed to hold the entire crew if there were any such catastrophe.  It was a multi-use area, with hotelling outfit - survivable and operational if all else had failed.  When not the exception, it served as the commons.

Cal was called to the Den along with the rest of his stick.  The stick which Cal was assigned on the Harper's was designed for pre-battle, so the logic fell along those disciplines.  PRE was how they were known, although the highers would term them 'strategy'.  So, there was a very minute dissonance in this.  The ranks figured themselves as PRE, the brass treated them as strategy.

The leader of the stick, Danker, as he was called (no one knew exactly why, he preceded them all by three years), leaned up against the wall and let them chatter for a bit.  He had a pad in his hand, but he was not touching it in any meaningful way.  Cal watched him, as Danker would sometimes remark, 'like a cat'.  He's just listening in.  It's a smart thing to do, listen.  You will find out more about your crew then than a dozen interviews.

The stick had eight roles: mixture, operations, engineering, control, stations, response, comms, and trajectory.  Danker had them all under his leadership: eight as his own.

Cal sat in proximity of a conversation, to pretend he was a part of it.  He nodded at random times to make it appear that way.  Cal knew Danker didn't care.  Cal did what he was supposed to do and constantly read up.  He didn't need to be a friendly dog.

The conversation was between Lariot and Kaylee, control and trajectory.  They were talking about the news, comparing notes, since they were part of the black operations, comms were limited, and, at best, fragmentary.  But, pieces of the Interior, the regular life, came to them from family.  It was much more intimate this way.  They spoke about their respective pets, or their siblings, very rarely of their parents.  Cal had none of these things, so he would smile if they looked at him.  He had heard the patterns in their speech enough to know when to do that.

Danker finally put the tech tablet down and asked them to file up.  They took the single table, a bench on either side and him at the center.  He scraped a chair underneath himself and kept an eye on all of them at once.  It was a talent that Cal envied.  He saw people, but not all at once.  Danker did a decent job of keeping them in step, almost effortlessly.

"We've got a mission, but you know the drill: I don't have enough details yet for us to break off in a silence room.  But I can tell you to get ready.  Know the Harper's.  Know more about it then ever before, as I know you can.  Charise, I need you to embed with the other operations teams immediately and start talking through post-stage.  Garland..."  Danker went through each.

"Cal, how are your mixtures for multiples?"

"I have them, but, you are right, I've ran them, but not enough.  I'll get on them right now.  Any idea of the numbers?"

"Wish I can tell you.  I only mention multiples because I've been looking at action debriefs and you guys are on point for single engagements.  I worry about multiples only because you haven't done them enough.  The percentages come back and we need to shore them up."

"Can we live model?  I would suggest that."  From Lariot.  He knew his stuff.  Danker nodded.

"Yes, the stick heads are getting together on that.  Expect one, but only after we repair the damages from the last engagement."

"Time?"

"I'm going to give us three days.  We meet back here and all of the actionables are done by then."

"Harper's!" We cried out, as a single stick, and they all dashed off around the ship.

...

read:Gentleman Jack

and why the f@ck not

this morning was not to be without you

but here I am

Highway 1 at Huntington 

the sun not yet cleared the mountain

but Catalina illumed

the reds and oranges of early light

bounce off the cargo ships, moored

awaiting their turn in the churn

I woke up in my car and realization

sank me hard

that was it and there would be no more

a little left and a crack

and a gentleman no more

I hoped myself a laugh, maniacal

but nothing came

a wool poncho

and a pair of Reefs' my net worth

stolen from the Marriott (perfect fit)

(an uninvited party)

burping the smoky liquid

while clinging to the chain link 

above the estuary 

a seagull cautiously stares

indignant

pitch:edwardianjackal.com

Thank you so much as the blogger site hits 22,815 post views today!  I appreciate the dozens of you that visit the blog or the site each week.  A simple pitch is that, if you are reading the blog, you can always start at the 'main' site of edwardianjackal.com, as the blog and social are aggregated in a single view.  I'm still working on bringing back all of the highest paged view items from the original .com site, so I have weekly changes since I moved domains.

Since the new .com has released last month, there has been 260 unique visitors.  I am adding as many new features, and video (as it is the currency these days) on the same weekly clip to gain momentum as I wrap up the long-discussed novels.

For now, there are books available today at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/edwardianjackal.

Again, thank you so much for visiting, there's always more to come!  <3 p="">

then:Poppy Drayton and Shannara

“Fantasy writing must be grounded in both truth and life experience if it is to work. It can be as inventive and creative as the writer can make it, a whirlwind of images and plot twists, but it cannot be built on a foundation of air. The world must be identifiable with our own, must offer us a frame of reference we can recognize.

“Fantasy stories work because the writer has interwoven bits and pieces of reality with imagination to form a personal vision.”

― Terry Brooks

Drayton as Amberle - with a bit of Photoshop play to the original.

Shannara, written by Brooks, is a set of ten high fantasy novels that have been adapted into an MTV series, starring Poppy Drayton.  The show straddles the line of keeping the spirit of a post-apocalyptic earth -  now embued with magic and a species evolution of humans, elves, trolls, gnomes and dwarves - while spinning a bit of pop through-out (read: sexy).  There is an overtly obvious connection to tap into the Game of Thrones anthologies on television lately, so Shannara is an epic that can span several series.  Specifically, the MTV series is based on The Elfstones of Shannara, which is actually book two in the series, but serves as a reasonable point to follow young characters on a quest to save the world from demons.

Armed with Brooks' quote above, and watching the series on Netflix, you get a sense of the didactic world of Brooks.  There is very sharp lines between good and evil, innocence and cynicism.  Wil Ohmsford is the last of his kind and holds precious magic that can usurp evil, and he must do so in the service of the young queen Amberle, who, in turn, can maintain the 'tree of life'.

And Amberle (Drayton), who's break-out role was on the Downton Abbey, playing Madelein Allsopp, brings an over-vulnerability to Amberle, who has the world upon her shoulders and enemies seemingly on all sides.

Drayton as Juliet.

Drayton's first major part was in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet, playing the titular role.  This (as she intimates in this interview) was the role she most desired to play.  Having a classical background as well as a great camera presence, makes Shannara a series to binge, especially if you are a fan of high fantasy and a bit of the post-apocalyptic.

As Juliet was her role, I thought of the difficult aspects to play in light of Juliet's last speech:

"How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault, [2585]
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,— [2590]
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, "

And someone on youtube (of course) has put together this scene study:

And then I return to Shakespeare.
...

read:Command Dignity

"The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."
- Romeo, Act I, Scene 5

Ugliness shall not stand,
the putrid way of sullen boors lacks all
and does not walk upon the stretch of time.
True beauty, real love
rise to the wondrous impasses of thought
a dwelling for the daring and the bold.

Of Heaven, Asgard, and Valhalla,
those heroes of soul and mind, the more
than the lowly, the dogs that prey upon the weak
they uninspired beasts, of the Devil -
the ambitions of dust.

Run forth, cretans, and not to the fore
ne'er to ascertain the airy vault of ambitious reason
nor to seek the best of yourself or your kind
but to happily scrape the corners of your dusty hovels
revel insipid sure.

And you, as if in no degree unmoved from that of an infant
dimly salivating.  When hungry, feast upon a teat of anything
A cage of mind, uninspired, solely in one's self:
A deplorable cage indeed.

A call then, to the passionate, that they should now beat their breast
and howl at the beast, howl for the righteousness
and a call for all that's best.  For we must demand,
if in desperation then, dignity.
Lost in petty things, and strewn upon the streets
Like fodder for this age.

Rally!  Fight!  Not in thy mind, but with a fist
and upon your feet, putting cowardice aside
in as long as to fell the braggart dogs!

Imperatives impart themselves
in peace, and imperatives must
be fought to won.

watch:Anza Borrego Roadrunner

Whilst walking about at 7am in Borrego Springs, I spied this roadrunner going for breakfast.  Animals are really active in the morning and all but disappear in the afternoon.  It would be the hottest day in a few weeks that afternoon, hitting a balmy 108.

write:the Desert

Borrego Springs, 2016

Snippets from the road trip

It's always snippets

A blast of laughter, a verse from a song

An incomplete conversation

But never the full

Like the strand of a violin pull.

The road goes by.

The naked stone, the ancient stone

Piled high upon more and more

Triple digit heat doesn't hit

Until after the mount and coming

back through switchbacks.

The rocks barely care.

Nothing moves after 11

The shadows are gone

Except under rock and root

The sand is still, the air has stopped

As you move through the heat

It feels like your face to a furnace.

You are nothing in the heat

You are nothing to the desert.

The cicadas own the day.

read:The Fourth of July

Extant "13 Colonies" Flag (pbs.org)

"They used to get around, walkin' around, lookin' at stuff. They used to try to find clues to all the mysteries and mistakes God had made. My friend George said that he was gonna live to be 100 years old. He said - He said that he was going to be the president of the United States. I wanted to see him lead a parade and wave a flag on the Fourth of July. He just wanted greatness. The grown-ups in my town, they were never kids like me and my friends. They had worked in wars and build machines. It was hard for them to find their peace. Don't you know how that feels? I like to go to beautiful places where there's waterfalls and empty fields. Just places that are nice and calm and quiet." - Nasia, from 2000's George Washington by David Gordon Green

The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express. - Alexis de Tocqueville

read: Marion McCready "Mary Stuart", Poetry 2016

Marion McCready, Poetry June 2016:

Mary Stuart

In my end is my beginning

prologue
With a sharp comb dipped in ink I’ve tattooed my life story all over my body. I’ve tattooed the footprints of my children — this way 
I carry their walking with me; the footprints of my twins who died before their feet touched the ground. And the footprints of my one-year-old son, James, whom I pray for daily.

i: dent-de-lion


Because I bore the lion of my father’s country
my Maries and I picked dandelions — lion’s teeth.
All our childhood we picked them —

blowball, cankerwort,
doon-head-clock, witch’s gowan,
monk’s head, priest’s crown, worm rose

Mary Queen of Scots
Mary Queen of Scots

see:#strawberrymoon

A bit subtle if you don't open it wide, but the shot of the #strawberrymoon from my yard.  As always, the power lines frame the moon in their own way.

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read:Bryan Lee O'Malley

“Every time you look up at the stars, it’s like opening a door. You could be anyone, anywhere. You could be yourself at any moment in your life. You open that door and you realize you’re the same person under the same stars. Camping out in the backyard with your best friend, eleven years old. Sixteen, driving alone, stopping at the edge of the city, looking up at the same stars. Walking a wooded path, kissing in the moonlight, look up and you’re eleven again. Chasing cats in a tiny town, you’re eleven again, you’re sixteen again. You’re in a rowboat. You’re staring out the back of a car. Out here where the world begins and ends, it’s like nothing ever stops happening.”
― Bryan Lee O'Malley, Lost at Sea

O'Malley is a talented Canadian, cartoonist and musician.  He created Lost at Sea in 2003, his first graphic novel, and six Scott Pilgrim graphic novels from 2004 through 2010.  http://radiomaru.tumblr.com/

read:"Longing"

"How close is it?"

He shrugged, but instantly realized she couldn't see it in the dark of the beach.  "Dunno.  All I read is it is the closest it will be for another two years.  It's called 'Mars Close' for a reason."  The wind was strongest along the cliffs, but it was the only place to get a clear shot of the Cove.  Brush framed it on both sides.  He leaned on the rail so he could see her face more clearly.

She is gorgeous.  Perfect.  He smiled, not inwardly.  She kept staring forward.  She's allowing me to.  Hm.  He only wanted to think the best of her.

The tips of her hair whipped around, the rest of the light highlights were tightly pulled back.  She didn't make eye contact, staring up and toward the blank pitch of the sea.  He stared back.  There were a few lights flatly through the haze.  They were a line of tankers heading north toward Pedro.  They were stationary for the night.  Above them, it was the clearly red dot of Mars, a tilted line from the barely blue tint of Saturn.

His mind raced with what to do next.  How to make it all perfect.  This night.  So there would be a next night.  He could tell that she was used to this treatment.  Devon pulled all the stops tonight.  Five Crowns.  A little stuffy, but I am in a formal mood with her.  A literary mood.  Chateau La Grange Clinet Grande Reserve.  To fit the mood, an Old World Bordeux.  Peppered the conversation, as naturally as possible, with Marlowe.

"That perfect bliss."  When describing a recent trip to Tai O, in Hong Kong, and walking above the sleepy, lighted waterways.  "The planes coming in to HKG, as if skipping atop the waters.  The fisherman would occasionally look up at the thundering machines.

"What feeds me destroys me."  When she playfully said that he was too romantic.  He describing the first girl he fell in love with.  It was in third grade and she never knew.  Her name was Jessica Morales and it was spoiled by the stupidity of the other boys.  Devon was never able to recover from that.  He spend the summer completely destroyed, hoping to see her around town.  It never happened.

"...the topless towers of Ileum."  When she described her most recent relationship.  She tried to make it work, but the two simply didn't connect.  He said it in response to how no one has penetrated her heart.  She smiled and he took it to mean hope.

I am too much.  He sunk for an instant and felt the indecision of the night tear into him.  As long as she does not ask, what's next? then I should be fine.  But so far, this did not happen.  He struggled for something else...he roiled over the conversation and thought over a few things that she had mentioned.  She never elaborated on wanting to go to Italy.

"Italy?"

"Huh?"  She finally looked at him.  She was off on her own.  I am merely another admirer.  Her eyes were wet with thought.  He feigned a bit of easy laughter.  Oh, no.

"Where were you?"

She tucked her head down in slight embarrassment and pulled her hair behind her ear.  How I want to brush my lips against it.  "I was thinking of the mysteries.  Out there."  Her eyes nodded into the haze and pitch ahead.  She nodded toward it like a knowing lover, sharing a secret.

"Well he must hold many secrets.  You were positively enthralled."

She smiled as if to laugh but didn't.  She looked at him again.  "I apologize."

"Perish the thought."  He turned his back to the railing and looked instead to the light colored hills.  The traffic was a constant these days.  Time to play chicken.  Who was going to call it first?  "You're place, where you just were.  Out there.  It is not down in any map.  True places never are."  He smiled foxily, letting the wine control.

"Melville."  She laughed out loud.  She laughed for the first time in three dates.  "What was that smile?"

"Well, I'm either trying to pull you back from there, or join you."  Laugh again.

"I may begin to think that you have an unhealthy amount of knowledge for literature.  These days."

"I agree.  Now, let's get you home and out of this wind."  Slow.  The operative word tonight.  There's something she is hiding.  She does not need the wiles and my desires.

In the car, warmed by the leather seats and a mix tape consisting of Lauv, Just a Gent and Phoebe Ryan, she relaxed.  She fell into her Nita dress, a blue vintage number made of silk and embroidery, and pulled her frock like a blanket.  "May I sleep here?"

"I would be offended if you didn't, Miss S--."

"Then I shall.  Wake me when we've reached Neverland."

I love her already.