My birthday

Oh Sovereign King of the rulers of the earth: "You alone are my Strength and Shield. To You alone will my spirit yield. You alone are the King of Glory. I will worship only You." ... Sola.

Repost from Facebook

"Before the throne of God above I have one strong & perfect plea. A great High Priest whose name is Love; who ever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven on his hands; my name is written on his heart. I know that while in heaven he stands no tongue can bid me thence depart."

Texting

One of the great things about texting: You SEE what you may not be attentive enough to hear. Yesterday in texts about mundane matters from all 3 of my living sons were these words: I love you, Mom. (iPhone $200, texting Priceless)

Navy For Moms Member Badge

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and for moms who have questions about Navy life.

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Death Sucks

   Seriously! Sin & Death sucks.  Every facet thereof sucketh.

I could talk like that to Josh & Amy.

Probably even to Pastor Fleming.

But some people think I oughta be more genteel.

Death is not genteel.

It sucks.

Just so you know.

Words! Seriously in need of Words!

Waaaah! Took me several minutes AGAIN to find where you post a blog on the *new* Multiply.

I know, it's not new anymore to y'all.  I'm the one who wasn't paying attention when they upgraded us.  And I'll get used to it.

Heidi says I should write when I feel like crying.  I dunno WHAT I feel like.

I just think I need some WORDS!

My son was killed by a hit & run yesterday morning.  (Was that one day ago?  How would I know?  Time isn't acting normal anymore.)

Today I know it might have been a homicide.  Probably it was a homicide.

Isn't that a word we use when writing fiction?

Who wrote this awful fiction with me as a character in it?  With my Scooter, my little boy Scooter, as the victim?  (Okay, so he's 30 years old.  Doesn't matter.  Time warp, you know.)

There.  I wrote.

I guess I'll try to sleep now.

My other boys will be here 8 AM.

We buried Scott today.  (FICTION!  EVERY WORD SCREAMS FICTION!)

At 2 PM will be his funeral.  But they don't call it a funeral because we already buried him.  Okay.  It's the BIG part of the burying ceremony, when EVERYBODY comes.  And Pastor tells us death's an enemy that was never supposed to be in our life on earth.  And he is SO right.  Which is why this don't compute.  It must be fiction.  We have ETERNITY in our heart.  We know with every fabric of our being that we WERE NOT CREATED FOR DEATH!

My son is SLEEPING!  When Jesus calls his name, my Scooter will wake up.  All smiles.

It's more than words.

Nighty-night baby boy.  Sweet dreams.  See you in the morning.  Mama loves you.

Getting used to the changes

Multiply made some changes while I've been on hiatus, and I've got a bit of a learning curve to climb, I see.  Took me several minutes to figure out how to post a new blog!

Yesterday I sent status change requests to some of you, and I used Multiply's default verbage in the requests, and now I realize (thanks to Beatleboy) that doing that after being away so long may have made you think I don't consider you true friends anymore.  Sorry! Please forgive! My heart and brain are a little disconnected and distracted because my son died suddenly yesterday.

I posted a link from my Facebook page, where all my "in real life" friends chat with me daily, over to a blog I wrote here last December.  Which led to one of my "in real life" friends joining Multiply as my "friend" ... and I thought I ought to use the categories on Multiply a little more precisely so I can maybe sometimes filter who I post what to if I'm going to be introducing my "real life" friends to my blog site.

So those of you who are my Multiply buddies, but I've not had the honor of knowing you except through your writings (and mine), I sent you those change requests last night.  And I am SO sorry for just sending them, without explanation; because you do still mean the world to me.

So please forgive me.  In real life, and also in cyberspace, my head is perhaps a little weary and not firing on all cylinders right now.

I'll try to get back to blogging when I can ...

Thanks for your prayers and well-wishes.  My second-youngest son was killed in a hit & run yesterday morning ... and apparently it was a homicide.  I didn't know that yet last night.  But none of this is anything I've had a dress rehearsal for.

If I don't sound as coherent as you're used to me being ... well, I guess that's why.  Words fail me.  But God's love, and the kind thoughts of friends, are holding me up.  So thank you, everyone who knows, and prays, or sends a kind thought my way.

Just please don't think I care for you less because I asked you to be my "online buddy".  You are still really my friend.  It just means I've never seen you in person.  That's all.

Rani

oh ... THERE it is

Multiply changed things while I've been away.  For the better, probably, but I need to learn my way around again.  So at first I could not find where to click to write a new blog.  But as you can see, I found it.

I tidied up a couple of things -- made some old blogs visible again that earlier I had hidden.

And I "quit" the Library group and Writers Block.

So.

Soon again maybe I'll blog.

This one still remains private though.

What I like about Facebook

My Multiply site is prettier: The background really is my house.  The photo really is my face.  I come and go as I well please, but I never do so in disguise.  Some people do.  On Multiply, I mean.  At first I was only mildly curious about that fact.  Eventually I found it offensive.

I have been enjoying Facebook.  Because I really do *know* the people I network with there.  They can't pretend to be somebody they aren't.

But most of them are not writers.  My Multiply friends are writers.  I suppose that's why some of them pretend.  They think they can write themselves into a better story or something.  Okay, so be it.  Just leave me out of your fiction, okay?

Rani Kaye is angry with Kira for not being herself.  (Apparently.)  For not waiting in her own skin for a better moment.  For manufacturing things and blowing things out of proportion, and creating Drama in my peaceable kingdom, I guess.

Well, I guess that's as far down the self-analysis trail as I'm going to go on this fair night.  It is nearly 1 AM.  And I am writing, or at least journaling again.  Maybe all I'll do is journal for a while.  I've got my blog set to private.  When I write myself back out into the public domain, I'll share what I choose to share.

I like my Multiply page very much though.  It most certainly is my very own home -- a home part of my life and my world.

I have not been blogging

And it's been longer than I realized.

There are other things to do, of course.  Because I just couldn't write.  I couldn't write for faceless souls who change their persona to fool the masses.  I'm a REAL person.

Whether I'm blogging in the presence of people I've not met in person,

Or talking on the phone with people I can't see in person,

Or just being the quiet girl nobody much notices at church ...

I am the SAME person wherever I go, and whatever I do.

And I am offended.

That some people change their IDs and their pictures and feign other personalities.  I don't want to play with people who pretend to be other than themselves.

That's all.

What happened is I was writing a story.  Just like I sometimes do.  When I wasn't watching my page, somebody I thought was a friend, though I had never met them IN PERSON, wrote comments on my story, apparently blasting another of my friends here.  Then deleted what they'd written, so that I would never know what had been said, but IM'd me to "apologize".

And I just went away.  I remembered that this person, when I first "met" them here on Multiply, had some other strange Multiply dramas they kept alluding to.  And I realized they were supplying their own drama, and that I just did not want to play.

So I went away.  I didn't even want to write at all. 

Well, maybe I'll come around and write again now.  I've been deleted from that person's friends list.  And this little explanatory blog is "personal" -- only for me.

So if I feel like blogging, I will blog.  And if some of my old friends come around, I'll "play" with them again.  I've just been doing other things, is all.

Let's see -- how shall I tag this?  Maybe "ethics".

P.S. Just read a blog by Kittigory, and the comment stream.  Eloquent concise answer such as I love by Flowerchild3. And then a few comments down I find that apparently Flowerchild3 is the latest incarnation of Kira.

What IS the deal with her?

If she'd use her real picture, and at least her real first name, and quit her confounded hiding, and whatever else it is she's up to with her nonsense ... Dang she writes well!

Sink or Swim -- Writing Prompt # 7

My mother pushed me off the dock into water over my head and I nearly drowned when I was two years old. 

 

Or at least that’s what it felt like. 

 

And so, although I used to love the water, used to love the dock, and even now I love to swim, I have to this day a fear of the moment of fall. 

 

Only that moment.  The transition moment.  The land to sea moment, so-to-speak.  Sink or swim.

 

In defense of my mother, what had truly happened I will tell you now:

 

My great-grandparents had a cottage at the lake.  There are many inland lakes in Michigan, and many people had cottages in those days.  Nobody lived year-round on the lakes.  People had to earn a living back in town.  The roads were poor in winter.  Besides, the heat was from a pot belly stove, for crying out loud.  Water did come from the tap, I think; but I can’t even tell you that for sure, because when the great-grandparents became infirm in their old age, we stopped going there in four-generation groups.  My younger siblings have probably never been to the cottage, and they certainly never knew my great-grandparents.

 

Anyway -- Mommy and Daddy, and Grandpa and Grandma, and Grandpa’s brothers, and their wives and children, would spend every weekend, I guess, at the lake.

 

I could tell so many recollections of the lake, and that is odd, because I was so young when we would go there!  I can describe the dusty road to the general store where Grandpa would walk with me holding his hand.  I can remember the little shorts outfit I would wear as we walked.  I can remember the taste of the orange sherbet push-up confection Grandpa would buy me.

 

I can remember the smells:  in the cottage, of moth balls and wood smoke, and cedar walls.  I can remember the lull-you-to-sleep sounds of rain pattering on the tin roof, and of the wooden rowboats rocking you against the dock, and the lapping of the water when the rowboats rocked against the dock.  I can remember the awful feel of seaweed: oh too squishy!  Slimey!  Nasty!  I can remember the beauty of the blue dragonflies coupled with my fear of them when their hard little wings and crustacean little bodies buzzed them into my arms.

 

I can remember the dock!  It was long – oh so long!  Probably only long enough to dock a standard wooden rowboat, but I was very small, you see; which made the dock so long.

 

I was an early riser in those days.  I woke up excited with life, and hungry.  I loved to be at the cottage, because Grandma, too, was an early riser.  She would feed me love and cheerios, and talk and talk and talk to me.

 

Grandpa and Daddy would get up even earlier than Grandma and me, though.  They would go fishing!

 

I, too, loved to go fishing; and they would take me in the boat in the afternoons.  The fish don’t really bite, though, in the afternoons.  Grandpa and Daddy did their real fishing in the early mornings, when the fish were biting.

 

When Grandpa and Daddy came back from their fishing, they were always glad to see me.  And I was ecstatic to see them, to see the fish swimming in the bucket, to RUN to them as the boat came to the dock.  I can smell the outboard motor’s gas, and hear the water lapping against the dock to this day, and see my two men, people I adored, smiling as I ran to them down the long, long, dock.

 

They would call to me!  Encourage me!  Smile at me!

 

Behind me, though, was Mommy.  Yelling to the men that I should never be encouraged to run the dock to greet them.  Chasing me!  Reaching out for me!  Stopping me!

 

“She’s going to fall off the dock one of these days, and then you will be sorry!” Mommy would shout.

 

And one day, just to prove her point, I did!

 

And the last thing I felt before I was swirling in the water with the seaweed swirling round me in the brown and murky warm world was my Mommy’s fingertips, so gentle, and not close enough to snatch me, only close enough to push me one step further than I’d ever meant to go.  My little feet did not stop as they should have/ would have.  Nor did Grandpa’s arms receive me, for the water got me first.

 

Grandma pulled me out by my hair.  Carried me to the cottage.  Sat me on the counter-top.  And wrapped me in a towel.

 

Mother scolded.  Scolded me for running.  Scolded Gramp and Daddy for encouraging.  All the fun was gone from fishing with the guilt of drowning children.  I daresn’t ever say it, but my two-year-old mind was certain that my Mommy really pushed me off the dock, just so she could prove it to my Grandpa and my Daddy.

These are 2 of my uncles on the dock.

As a grownup I am equally certain that Mommy didn’t push me.  She was frightened with good reason.  She was reaching out to grab me.  Her reach, though, is what added momentum to my run.  Only a fraction of resistance.  Had I weighed more, it could never have pushed me over.  Had my feet been larger, she’d have gotten my shirt and been able just to stop me.  But she pushed me, very lightly, and off the dock I went, into the seaweed and the swirl and the tomorrow-never-comes world you aren’t supposed to see at the age of two.

This is my grandpa & me (with my hair lopped off & now wearing a life vest).

 

Then fast forward!  There is another dock, a future world, equally frightening, equally dangerous. 

 

I am seventeen, and have just finished my Senior Year of high school. 

 

Again my Mommy pushed me.

 

I fell off the dock, and into adulthood, and nearly drowned; till Grandma pulled me out by my hair, and I’ve survived for many years since then, and learned to swim these waters, and to love them; even as I loved to swim after I had conquered fear and found that if I just relax, my body floats.

 

I have a son now, in the 12^th grade, and he is worried for a friend of his whose parents haven’t eased him into adulthood.  My son has been beseeching me to do something for this friend – maybe to speak strongly to his parents, maybe just to move the boy to our house – I am not sure what he wants for me to do, as I cannot raise his friend from infancy, that’s for sure.

 

So I thought I’d write this story.  Sink or swim are not the only two options.  You don’t have to make your child afraid to leave the shore; nor do you have to push them off the dock!  Go with him into the water!  Hold him up!  Show him he can float!  Show him he can move!  Then he will swim without fear.

 

Nowadays, they even teach two-year-olds to swim, you know.

 

If Anyone's Looking for Me ...

I'm just on a reading binge.

It happens from time to time.

I don't feel like writing.  I feel like READING!  And I am having a blast.  Please don't anybody get your feelings hurt.  I still ask God to bless all my Multiply friends every night when I say my prayers.  That means YOU!

And I'll come back and play as soon as I get my fill of these books.

Your friend, Rani

Neighborhood Dogs in Barking Frenzy over Missed Photo Op

Possum on the porch!!!! 

My iPhone was on the charger, instead of in my pocket, and by the time I got my digital camera out of the pantry, out of its camera case, and turned off the automatic flash so I could take a picture through the window of the slider, well, the possum was meandering down the steps. 

One shot was all I got, and it was blurry, and it was dusk. 

He's still out there, though.  I know this, even though the sun has set, and he is no longer on the porch.  I know this because my dog, and the dog next door, are both in a barking frenzy.  Which they would never do if there were burglars. No, these dogs only guard the neighborhood against trespassing creatures. 

Writing Prompt #5 - Fly Away

Penney is a perfectly normal three-year-old; except that Penney can fly.  Now what’s a mother to do?  Flying at three, you say?  Can her parents fly too?  No they cannot.  Nor can any other human.

Penney flies because she can, and it is frightening!  She has followed her impulses, as any three-year-old would do, but hers do not simply toddle out of Mommy’s sight.  Penney can go anywhere, and she doesn’t necessarily really want to go to a faraway place, not yet, certainly not yet.  She cannot survive without her Mommy.  Children were designed to be watched over, cared for.

Penney’s Mommy must become very creative.  Penney is too young for Mommy to reason with her using words.  It would be cruel to tie an anchor to her body.  What oh what can Penney’s Mommy do?

“Once upon a time,” Mommy begins.  She adapts all the fairy tales she knows, all the “big bad wolves,” all the “mean old witches,” all the unhappy endings that the moderns say pollute and terrorize and inhibit tender minds.  And this she does for Penney’s sake, because the only sure way she can keep Penney safe, is to make the little girl AFRAID.

The true thing Penney really has to fear, of course, is death.  Not that she would crash and burn.  Simply that she would not survive.  Alone.  Not this young.  Penney needs to learn to fear all the other-ness of the rest of the world, so that she will stay.  With.  Her mother.

And thus have all the tellers-of-tales-to-children been motivated since Time began.

You cannot very well explain to a three-year-old that she is utterly dependent and infinitely vulnerable.  She just doesn’t have the words yet.  She just doesn’t have the capacity to grasp the concept.  But oh!  She can FLY!

Progressive Story with My Ending (Writing Prompt #4a)

This is what some Multiply friends and I have been up to all weekend.  The original plan was to take turns writing until we'd finished the story.  Today the rules were amended so that each of us got our apportioned turn at plot development, and then we all have to write our own endings, post the complete story in our own blogs, giving credit to our co-conspirators, and then post the links on our group page.
 
Here, then, is our story, complete with my ending:  

The Story begins:  (Written by Starscape)

Claire Montgomery had been a real estate agent for five years, but she had never been this nervous about looking at a house before. The old Sutherland mansion had sat empty for several years while the heirs fought over it. Now that they had finally come to an agreement, the house was to be sold and the money divided.

The mansion was almost ten miles out of town, down a long two-lane highway with trees crowding either side of the road. It was only 3 p.m., but the tall pines shadowed the road and Claire almost missed the turn-off for the tiny road that led to the house. The Sutherlands valued their privacy. There was no street sign of any kind, and the road was almost overgrown now from disuse. About a quarter of a mile down the bumpy, rutted lane, Claire saw the iron gate, black with a gold-colored “S” at the top. John Sutherland, the eldest son, had given her the remote control for the gate as well as the keys to the house. None of the Sutherlands wanted to go back to the house. They were leaving the sale entirely in Claire’s hands.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Claire muttered to herself as she punched the button on the remote control. The two sections of the gate swung reluctantly inward, making a loud screeching sound that sent shivers up her spine...

(Angelsmith22 continues)

Once the gate was ajar, Claire eased her car through it. The doors closed automatically as she continued down the narrow drive. She watched in her rearview mirror as the two halves once again became whole. She had the sudden feeling that she might never see the other side again. 

 “You’re being silly.” she told herself. “Get a grip.”  

As she rounded a bend in the road, she was forced to stop the car. A large tree lay across the road- no doubt a casualty of one of the many storms the area was prone to. The massive Sutherland mansion loomed ahead. Claire decided she would call the office and have them send out a crew to move the tree. She opened her cell phone and dialed the number. Nothing. She looked at the screen. NO SERVICE was displayed in bold print.  

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she said aloud.  

With a sigh, she grabbed her bag of paperwork and her camera and headed toward the house. She’d just climb over the stupid tree! No sense wasting the trip since she was already here. She found a section that looked easy enough to maneuver and began to climb over. Trying to hold the branches out of her way, she slipped. As she tumbled off the tree, the branches sprang back, spanking her across her legs. Large red welts immediately rose up on her skin. More determined now than ever, she picked up her things and limped toward the house.    

(AuntB93Also writes)    

It was refreshing to laugh at herself, and Claire's spirits lightened somewhat. But as she limped toward the house, she noticed something that made her blood run cold. She stopped, unwilling to go further, until she had resolved the puzzle in her own mind. Why was she seeing a light in the library window?  

She knew it was the library because a floor plan of the first floor had been published in the papers when the old man died. The library was where the murder had been. No, she corrected herself, not murder. Death, but not murder. It wasn't murder because there was no evidence to refute the theory that the old gentleman had a massive coronary, and perhaps had died of fright. But isn't killing someone by frightening him to death the same as murder?  

So who had a light on in there? No, she noticed, not a light on, in the sense of a steady glow from electric bulbs. She glanced at the chimney and sure enough, there was smoke coming from it. Who had lit a fire in the fireplace, and why?  

(Bearsplace writes)    

As Claire shook her head and chided herself for thinking such silly things. The sale was going to be her big break, and the money was not going to hurt.

Inside the house, something moved. The old plaster walls offered no resistance to it as it moved from the library to the next room. It was not from here, but did not know where it had come from. It had always been here, growing older and more lonely for its own kind. The things that lived in this place shared a space with it, some aware, like the old one most recently, some unaware. It had seen many come and go, moving in and out of its existence like smoke.

It had no real need for these things, but they fascinated it, so hot and colorful, like torches in the night. The hunger it felt for the emotions they broadcast made it stay. It was glorious that night when the old one had finally tried to touch it, the fear and horror had been like a drug to it.  It craved more.

It saw and felt the new one coming into the place, as it moved, wraithlike toward it.

Yes! There is was! That same fear, muted, but present. It knew that this one would be the one to grant it what it was seeking.

This one was younger, stronger, hotter, more vibrant than the old one. 

It's fear would feed the hunger for a long while.  

(Blinddream writes)    

Claire thought back to the closed gate. "If the place is crawling with roaches, I’ll jump the wall and get an exterminator.” Her steps brought her closer to the entrance. She was never good with the unknown as a child. Her brother Frank was great at practical jokes when they were growing up but over time it unnerved her. Frank's buddies like to work her over in high school knowing she was easy to jump at the slightest surprise.  

Her eyes remained fixed on the library windows as she approached the front steps. This was a grand building which called to her. She smiled the smile one puts on a face when they regain composure in an unpleasant situation. As her foot reached the first step she heard the sound of a door slam shut somewhere around the left side of the building. This made her jump back and hold; ears reaching out to hear anything at all. She could feel the perspiration on her forehead.  

"Anybody? Anybody there?"  

Claire thought, "John Sutherland looked rather pale when we last met.  He knew there was more here her than met the eye."  

Mustering up her courage while touching the white gold cross her mother gave her, she moved up the stairs and tried the door. Her hand stuck to the knob from the pine sap she picked up rubbing her smarting leg.  

"This is not my day!"   The door was locked and now a sticky hand.  

"Fool," she said aloud. "The keys are in your purse!"  

(Debbydoes writes)    

As she turned to head back to her car, she was astonished to see her purse sitting on the doorstep behind her. "Now, I know I left that in the car" she said, and looked around left and right, but there were no signs of anyone, anywhere. As she was putting her hands into her purse, reaching for the keys, the massive front door opened on it's own. Claire looked up, expecting someone, a caretaker, anybody, to be standing there in the door, but there was no one. Feeling a little spooked, she approached the doorway and looked in. It looked safe, so she stepped gingerly over the threshold, not knowing what to expect next. She called out expectantly, "Is anyone here? " "Hello?" She walked slowly along the main hallway taking in the beautiful arched doorways, and the trompe l'oeil on the walls, and she stopped to take some photos. These were truly magnificent examples of Italian art. She was beginning to fall in love with the place, and hating the thought of selling it. As she approached the library, She was sure that she could feel the warmth of a fire, and entered the room to find a lovely fire blazing in the fireplace. Pulled up close to the fire was a chair, and she could make out the form of a man, pipe in hand, sitting there, smoking at his leisure. At her approach the old man stood up, and turning to greet her, said "Welcome , my child. I've been expecting you."  

(Meirav writes)    

Claire froze on the spot, staring at the old man, not having the first idea what to say. She felt like turning away and leaving, running out of this house, heading straight back to her car and driving back to... to normality, to what she knew to be a safe and ordinary world out there.  

What the hell was going on here? Nothing made any kind of sense. The house had been empty for years, her rational brain told her. There was no one living here. The door had been locked... and then suddenly somehow opened of its own accord. There was a fire here in this room and an old man greeting her and... she wanted to get out of here pretty fast. None of this made sense.  

And yet...  

She was really standing here, the door had really opened, this old man was really standing in front of her and the fire really was lit.  

Was she going mad? Hallucinating? Or was it some kind of stupid prank like her brother used to play on her when they were kids?  

She had no idea how long she had been standing there when the woman came into the room, wheeling a trolley with three cups and saucers, a teapot, and a biscuit tin. "Do sit down, girl, make yourself comfortable," she said. "I'll pour."  

(Mrlaf writes)  

She knew the only way to make sense of this situation was to address it head-on. She took in a breath to ask, with all the authority she could muster, who the these people were and why were they here. Before the words could leave her throat there was a bark behind her.  She startled so strongly she felt as if she left her skin for a split second.  She turned to look behind her. A Yorkshire terrier cowered in the corner, trembling with wide eyes.  

Claire turned back to the two people. They were gone, as was the tea service and the warming fire. She turned back to the dog. The Yorkie bared its teeth and growled deep in its throat. Somewhere in the depths of her memory she could here the Dog Whisperer teaching that “this is not aggression, it is fear.” Certainly the look in the dog’s eyes bore that out.  

“I know how you feel, honey,” she said. “I’m well past spooked myself.”  

Claire crouched and reached a hand toward the little dog saying, “Come on, sweetie. We’ll get out of here together.” 

The dog gave a shrill bark and darted past her.  The movement was so quick that Claire fell back dropping her camera and purse.  

“Hey,” she called after the Yorkie.  

She followed it out of the library into the main hallway, and stopped cold, her heart lodging somewhere in her throat. Where the hallway floor had been was now a gaping hole. The door to the outside world, to sanctuary, to safety, was open and tantalizing at the other end of the hallway, but there was no way across the abyss.  

She looked at the dark pit. A spiral of marble steps descended into the darkness. The Yorkie sat several steps down, at the point where light became dark.  

“Come on, baby,” she said, her voice shaking, “come on out of there.”  

The dog barked and ran down the stairs disappearing in the inky blackness.  

(Provencepuss writes)    

Claire fumbled in her bag and found her small flashlight; she peered over the edge of the abyss and trained the beam into the gloom. Carefully, cursing the high-heeled boots she was wearing, she started down the stairs. The dog was nowhere to be seen but she could hear something echoing from below.

The stairs led to a long corridor that had been hewn into the stone below the house..

Laughter and the chink of glasses wafted towards her. She walked towards the sound, her path lighted by candles that flamed as she walked past them. She put the flashlight back in her bag.

The candle light flickered revealing paintings and statues in niches along the stone wall. Something moved. A shiver ran down her spine and she shook herself physically and mentally before glancing over her shoulder. There was nothing behind her; but again she sensed a movement beside her. The sensation of being watched unnerved her and she began to ask herself why she had decided to come to an old deserted house at the end of a long day.

“Well Claire, dear, why did you come?” The voice was low and sibilant and it came from her left. She turned to see a statue of a small cat-like creature staring at her with glowing yellow eyes.  

(Rangerlord writes)  

As Claire looked at the small creature, she wondered if she had completely lost her mind. People had warned her that if she continued to put in these long hours she'd have a nervous breakdown. Somehow she'd pictured herself lapsing into a crying fit in the office washroom, not seeing hallucinations, if that's what they were, in the old Sutherland estate.

"Is that what you think I am?" the creature asked, and this time Claire caught the flash of dainty white fangs in the beam of her flashlight. The glowing yellow eyes narrowed in cat-like amusement.

"What are you?" Claire asked, now more certain than ever that she had lost it. She was talking to her hallucination now.

The cat-like creature stood, and stalked toward her on paws that clinked like stone on the marble stairs. Tiny bat wings were visible on it's back, too small to be functional, but there nonetheless. "Consider me your guide," it said. "And perhaps your protector. You are clearly brave to have come this far and not turned back...but my kind have been protecting yours against these evils for centuries. Though I am but a minor representation of my kind I may be able to help you."

It now stood near enough to her feet she almost expected it to wrap itself around her ankles. There was no fur on it's sleek body, only a hard stone surface that was riddled with small cracks to allow it to move. It looked on the verge of shattering at any moment, and yet there was no hint of frailty to it. In fact, it seemed quite vibrant and alive.

"Your kind?" she asked.

The tiny head looked up to blink yellow eyes at her. "Why, a gargoyle, of course," it said.  

(Next it was MY turn -- but this is not the end yet -- Ranikaye writes) 

 “Can you hear me now?” Paul quipped his signature line.  

The director shouted, “Okay, that’s a wrap! Let’s pack it up and call it a day.”  

The road was sufficiently desolate, and the light from the sun was waning as the cast and crew began to stow their gear in the van.  

Paul was a star, thanks to these Verizon ads, but they sure did take you off the beaten path. Just beyond the portion of the road where they were filming, Paul could see a slight break in the tree-line. “Looks like an abandoned road,” he thought. “It’ll take a good 25 minutes for the crew to load up. Think I’ll wander over there to see what’s up.”  

So as Claire was visioning gargoyles, Paul was coming upon the Sutherland gate, and wondering at the car parked in front of the fallen tree.  

He flipped open his phone, and saw the bars were still strong as ever.

Curiosity got the better of him, though, and he decided to climb over the gate.  
When he got to the tree, he noticed a cell phone and some sort of remote device in a small pile of broken branches. He picked up the cell phone and opened it. “T Mobile,” he thought with disgust. “No bars for you,” he grinned.  
He pushed the button on the remote, and the old gate behind him groaned open.  

He stuffed the cell phone and remote in his jacket pocket, and continued walking towards the mansion. He could smell the smoke from the fireplace, as he headed to his doom.  

The wraith inside could sense another, this one coming without apprehension, but he was up to the challenge. “Even if there is no fear, I know how to create it.”  

“Can you hear me now?” thought Paul, as he knocked on the door to the Sutherland mansion.  

(Tabbynera was the last to contribute)  

The door was opened but from no human hand. There was no-one standing there to ask him what he wanted. Paul called but there was no answer: All he heard was the crackling of a fire coming from the library. The door to the library was open and Paul walked in. He was surprised to see no fire; indeed he felt an icy chill go through his bones. He decided to leave this room as quickly as possible, but at that moment the door slammed shut. Panic gripped him and he made an effort to open the door, but some unseen force was keeping the door closed.  

Now Paul’s courage was slowly but surely diminishing and he wanted to leave this room as soon as possible. He saw another door on the other side and hoped that this would be his rescue. He opened this door and found himself in a chapel; at least it resembled a chapel. The altar was black granite and marble statues were arranged around its sides. As he walked towards the altar he felt the eyes of the statues watching him. He then felt a breath of air on his neck making the hairs on the nap of his neck stand on end. It was as if someone was standing behind him. He turned and saw a man looking at him with a malevolent grin on his face. It was then that Paul’s nerves gave way and he fainted.    

And now MY VERSION OF HOW THIS STORY ENDS:    

“That wasn’t much of a challenge after all,” thought the wraith.  A little bit of bump-in-the-night and this one thinks the statues have eyes and his own mirror image means him harm.  At least the woman kept her wits about her until she stumbled against the switch when the “dog” barked.  

The wraith liked to toy with people’s fantasies.  His Grandpa Sutherland had died of fright himself when his dream-weaver mind had grown old and frail.  Grandpa wrote horror fiction every day of his adult life.  It was he who built the cellar in the mansion.  It was he who kept the wraith-like creature in the cellar, telling him he’d come from nowhere, and had always had an invisible existence here in the Sutherland mansion.  

The youngest Sutherland daughter had died in childbirth, and her pregnancy was not disclosed to any of her siblings who were grown and gone.  There hadn’t been a funeral, and there hadn’t been an inquest.  The older Sutherland heirs had all been told she ran away.  

Eighteen years, the wraith had listened as the man would speak of horror, which he wrote and sold to others.  He would try out his literary devices in the mansion, casting his grandson in the role of evil wraith, as they tested the visual effects with life-size props, computerized holographs, state-of-the art sound.  

The woman in the basement, Claire, finding herself dreadfully afraid, but still not dead, saw the Yorkie at last, cowering in the corner, and reached again to touch him.  Her hand, this time, went completely through him, and she realized that he was neither an hallucination, nor a real creature.  

Paul, in the chapel, woke up from his faint, and finding himself to still be alive, opened his Verizon cell phone (which still had bars, even in the mansion) and called 9-1-1.  

The mansion was sold for ten million dollars to the Lowe Ad Agency, and they used it for the new Verizon Ad series about creepy dead zones. 

Claire’s commission on the sale was $700,000, but she lost most of it in the stock market crash of 2008, and earns her living now making guest appearances on Dr. Phil and Oprah.  

The split of the sale’s proceeds among the Sutherland heirs included an annuity to Shady Acres Psychiatric Facility for as long as it would take to give a human heart and emotions to a child abused by horror from the moment of his birth.  

THE END  

Writing Prompt #3 -- Guided Imagery (is a major challenge to me)

Just below the collarbone, fear is sitting, all a-stir, wondering should it leap out through your voice.  "What street is this?"  "How did I get here?"

Pay attention.  Think.

You're driving home from work.  You're only driving home from work.  There was a detour.  You know this street.  Just find the sign.  Remember.

You have lived here twenty years.  You have driven down Lake Drive.  It intersects with Hall Street.  somewhere.  somewhere.

There it is!  A corner!  Green street signs:  Lake Dr., Breton.

And you do not know which way to turn.  Left.  It must be left.

On you go, and NO!  Breton now should come to Hall Street.  Lake Drive should have come to Hall Street.  When and where does Lake Drive come to Hall Street?  somewhere.  somewhere.

This is Reeds Lake now, and I am lost in East Grand Rapids, and I know my home is OVER THERE -- somewhere.  somewhere.

Backtrack now, okay, there's Breton.  Should have turned the other way.  Which way, now, would be the other way?

Finally!  Oh, finally.  I see a landmark, and it isn't backwards.  I can place the billion times I've passed here, now.

I'm sure which way is Hall from here, at last.

I was less than a mile from my home, on roads, every one of them, that I've traveled every day.  But not this way.

Have I described sufficiently how it feels to be "directionally challenged" as I call it?

I'm extremely intelligent, even creative.  I have a good sense of direction in a lonely place where I can see the sun, the stars or the sky.

In my own home town I must be very careful to pay attention, or I will not find my way.  I take the same route every day.  To keep from getting bewildered.  I never do get lost.  I am smart enough to compensate.  And I never let the fear rise any higher than my collarbone.

In a strange city, I just follow a map; and that is very easy for me to do.

But I cannot, absolutely cannot, describe for you the route I travel.  I do not see the landmarks.  Not in relation to each other, anyway.  I know where some things are.  Heck, I guess I know where a lot of things are.  But not in relation to each other.

More Humor From My Sister

Round Robin Email from my sister:

Spread the Stupidity

Only in America ........do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

 

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Only in America.....do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

 

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Only in America.....do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

 

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Only in America.....do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

 

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Only in America......do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

 

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Only in America.....do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

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EVER WONDER ....

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens
Our skin?

 

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Why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed?

 

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Why don't you ever see the headline 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?

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Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word?

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Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice'?

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Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dish washing liquid made with real lemons?

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Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

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Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?

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Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?

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Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?

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Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

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You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!

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Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

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Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?

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If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?

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If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

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Now that you've smiled at least once, it's your turn to spread the stupidity and send this to someone you want to bring a smile to (maybe even a chuckle)...in other words, send it to everyone. We all need to smile every once in a while.

Speaking for the Disenfranchised

I hope that I am old enough, and that society has become tolerant enough, that it will not adversely affect my father and my mother for me to publicly confess that I was born illegitimate.  As a 1952 unplanned pregnancy to an unwed mother, before Roe v. Wade, I would like to speak for the unplanned children of today, please, if I may.

To quote my grandmother (she told me this is what she told my mother):

"You made one mistake.  Now don't make another one."

I realize that abortion is now legal.  Before it was legal, it was available, and it was dangerous to the mother.  It has always been dangerous to the child.  Legalized abortion has not changed that fact.  Abortion is dangerous to the child.  Her life is snatched before a breath is drawn.  Her voice will never be heard.  She cannot do any evil.  She cannot do any good.

My new president, for whom I voted, and in whose vision I see hope, has made two bold acts during his first days in office, to reverse the decisions of our former president.

He has ordered the closing of Guantanamo within a year, and ordered the trials be stopped for 90 days so he can review the situation.

I wish he would have attached a 90 day window to his decision to lift the ban on embryonic stem cell research.  Polarizing voices of the pro-life movement have never, to my knowledge, bothered to table their passion long enough to persuade as though they expected the so-called pro-abortion camp to be open to reason.

I believe, and am convinced, that the "liberal" people I know personally are open to reason.  Have some respect, my conservative friends, and talk without acting all injured self-righteous.  Get your pious pride out of the way of actually making a difference.  There is fresh air blowing.  Add your breath to it.  If you'd get the chip off your shoulder, you might be surprised to discover real human beings who are willing to listen to your reasons for believing embryonic stem cell research is a bad choice.

The same ethics that demand legal advocacy for our presumed enemies, demand a voice for the unborn. 

I'd just like to quote from David McCullough's 2001 biography of John Adams, and then open the floor for discussion.

" 'Do you expect he should behave like a stoic philosopher, lost in apathy?' Adams asked.  Self-defense was the primary canon of the law of nature.  Better that many guilty persons escape unpunished than one innocent person should be punished.  'The reason is, because it's of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished.'

" 'Facts are stubborn things,' he told the jury, 'and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictums of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.'"

 

Neurons, Synapses, Economics, and Life

Kira is out of her blue funk, and is aptly leading a Library group here on Multiply.  She receives no pay for this.  It is excellent work.

Here on Multiply, and lots of other places on the Web, people are blogging away about all sorts of things.  Mostly we don't get paid.  We share ideas.  We expand each other's horizons.  The world has never been like this.  Or has it?

I read Ben Franklin's autobiography a few years ago.  He told me what it was like at the dawn of American history.  A few weeks ago I also read A History of the American People, by British author Paul Johnson.  He told me some very insightful things about the philosophical background of America, from a European perspective.

Barack Obama is our new president.  This man's greatest gift to us, from my perspective, is his motivational speaking.  He pulls together all our collective angst and rekindles our faintly remembered hopes, and helps us to believe we just might, collectively, be able to make sense of life on earth, and order it in such a way that everyone gets what they need.

Because of the Book Reviews posted on Kira's Library group, I made a trip to one of our local libraries today.  (Thank you, Ben Franklin, that we have public libraries in America.)  Besides the books I went there to fetch, I discovered, by browsing, another book that I just started to read tonight: Mirroring People, by Marco Iacoboni.  It's a neuroscience book, published in 2008.  It's subtitle is, "The New Science of How We Connect With Others."  To me, it is fascinating and exciting to read.  My own neurons are firing so rapidly as I read it ... I am having so many "Eureka" moments as I process and connect all that has entered my stream of consciousness these past couple of months. 

I am not sure that I am able, tonight, to write for you a full description of the path my thoughts have journeyed; but write I must nonetheless, because I've perceived some things that I just must share.

In our brains, our neurons fire, and we have billions of them.  Synapses are the connections between the neurons.  The more synapses, the more creative we are able to be.  Currently the phrase often used for creativity is "thinking outside the box."  That phrase simply means being able to have a fresh perspective on an old problem, such that you might actually increase the likelihood of solving the problem.  In other words, not being so wary of "reinventing the wheel" that you fail to consider that there may be an alternative to the wheel when it comes to efficient travel and/or portage.

I am coming back to the internet, and then moving on to the economy, so bear with me please.

This socio-political experiment called America was precipitated by intense exchange of ideas after the invention of the printing press.  America has just this year shaken off some things that bogged us down, caused a civil war, in fact.  We thought we were doomed to division because ideology was our only unity, and that ideology turned out to be diverse, and comprised of many cultures.  What's the same about Americans?  Is anything the same on a genetic level (as it probably is for, say, Italians)?

I think something IS the same about us genetically.  Be we Native Americans or any other cultural race by DNA, all of us here sprang from people who MIGRATED to a different place, BELIEVING LIFE COULD BE BETTER.

I postulate that some genetic marker remains in all Americans which gives us a propensity to believe that life can be better.  We've got a gene, I think, that makes us people who will TRY, people who will SEARCH, people who will -- dare I say it -- HOPE.

In fact, history, I think, has shown, that the darker the days, the more likely Americans are to rise to the occasion.  They used to call it "Yankee Ingenuity."  Whatever you call it, throw us into adversity and our genetic code kicks in, despite our present paradigms, and we work together and figure things out and end up better as a whole than even we think is possible.

So what have we here?  A massive exchange of ideas on the world-wide-web!  It was not thought spawned on American soil that spawned America, you know.  We stood on the shoulders of giants (to loosely quote from a movie, and I don't remember which one ... maybe it was Jurassic Park).  I think that what's happening here does not affect just us, but our little experiment affects all of humanity.

For the most part, there is no money changing hands as we all blog our little hearts out, and read each other's thoughts, and make our sundry neuro-connections, then go about our business.  But we sure do spark each other, don't we?

I just want to share with you my excitement about that fact.  I think good stuff is gonna come of all this sparking, kids.

As an aside (but a brief one) a commentator on election night observed that we'd had two baby boom presidents -- Bill Clinton and George W (now I thought George W was born during WWII, which makes him not technically a boomer, but I could be wrong about that).  The commentator went on to remark how the boomers were supposed to "change the world," and then he implied that they didn't, and then he said that Barack is a subsequent generation.

I just want to say that the boomers did change the world.  The paradigm shift that brought the seeds of an internet that is (at least presently) FREE, is Woodstock Generation through and through.

Okay, enough about that.  Now the ECONOMY.

What has value?  Well, what do we NEED?  What is ESSENTIAL?

We must all eat and drink.  We must all have coverings and shelters against the elements.

Because of those needs, certain things have REAL value.  Food has real value.  Food springs from the earth, because of the sun, and water.  Land is called "real estate" because it has real value.  The dollar equivalent of its value may change with so-called economic fluctuations, but even so, the land itself is what is truly of value -- particularly if the land is fertile and well-watered and in a favorable climate for production of food.  Or if the land contains other "natural resources" useful for the maintenance of life and health (timber, for instance, to name but one).

Another aside here -- haven't you noticed, kids, that the water we need FALLS FROM THE SKY, the food we need SPRINGS FROM THE GROUND ... I could go on an on, but ISN'T THAT COOL?  Was that by design?  DESIGN?  If you think not, I betcha you think a bunch of other goofy things too.  But enough preaching.  Back to the economy.

We are in a TERRIBLE recession.  World-wide, no less.  Why?  Has the earth decreased it's production of food? (No.)  Has the land disappeared? (No.)  Has the sun exploded? (No.)  Has the rain stopped falling? (No.)  Are there still sufficient resources to maintain life on this planet?  Um, Yes.

Do we all still want to work to harvest the things that need harvesting and convert the things that need converting to make them more useful or pleasing?  (Um, yes -- we need MORE JOBS as a matter of fact.)

Do we all still want to BUY food and other stuff?  ABSOLUTELY!

Are we willing to trade with each other?  We sure are.  Heck, we'll even do the types of things that most interest us free-for-nothing, so long as our basic needs are met.  (Like blog, for instance.)  We'll even share our food and other resources, expecting nothing in return but hoping only for respect or affection, on our more magnanimous days.

So what's the matter with our economy?  Oh, some of us (maybe a bunch of us) thought it might be fun to trade things that are not real.  Let's bet money on the future value of, oh, say "real estate."  Let's buy land and sell it, just to make money on the increase in it's perceived value (rather than to use it for the sustenance of life).

We built a house of cards, and eventually it collapsed.  If we took high school economics, we should have seen this coming.

Okay, the inflated speculative value has collapsed, and it's not going back up, either.  Some gamblers lost a mess of money.  Losses hurt.  Okay.  Get up and build something that's real.

I think that's what Barack Obama and our "leaders" are about to do with us.  We're going to provide "jobs" building some real and decent things that will benefit our children and grandchildren down the road, and pay the family grocery bills in the meantime.  Every little household gets the chance (I hope) to say about unnecessary debt, "Whew!  I won't do THAT again.  Too scary how it can bite you in the butt."  We might not get to do the jobs we thought were our birthright, but we will be productive again, and pretty soon our economy will have a positive "gross national PRODUCT," and everyone who wants a job will be able to have a job, and since we're basically a decent bunch of people, we'll provide for the people who cannot work, and probably even for the people who simply will not work.

I wish I was more eloquent, but this may be the best I can do.  I'm writing my ideas anyway, hoping I might "spark" a few of you who turn a phrase better than I do, or who are able to neuro-connect on a higher level than what I do.  I'm adding my little spark to humanity, I hope; and I'm giving it free-for-nothing, and I do not care if anybody ever remembers my name.  Since we are five degrees connected to each other (or whatever that idea was a few years ago ... maybe it was eight ... it doesn't matter) I'm hoping that somewhere down the line enough common sense and realistic optimism shines from my little synapses that a bunch of families benefit for generations to come.