MaceEtBoi's Suite

Look out, everybody. You've got HAWP fanart comin' your way.

    The world of the 19th century and prior certainly belonged to the male sex. Whilst the troubles of the world and those in it fell under the biased jurisdiction of the white men of imperial nations women's station was completely dominated by, how the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership puts it, "the 19th century belief that daughters, mothers and wives should be silent 'angels of the house' submissively catering to men's needs."  Though the likes of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had been presented, they were regarded by the mainstream as witches or extremists. The strength of opposition was in this way overwhelming. It was from under this hard-soled boot of alleged male superiority that Victoria Woodhull found herself when first introduced to the world she would strive to enlighten. Miss Woodhull's life would become devoted to pushing upward from her humble beginnings and the similar conditions of her fellow women. Though she reached the very cusp of legend, the powers of oppression and conservative outlook made concrete and effective plans to remove her from history; to reduce her to a negative footnote in a dusty and unused textbook. Though the man -- an entity of both sex and politics -- may have tried to exclude Victoria Woodhull from the tomes of remembrance, the power and strength of her spirit to run, radiating her cause, her daring, and her grace, has kept her from slipping from our collective minds so easily.
    Before diving straight into the concept of Victoria Woodhull as a historical personage, her cause and the catalysts of her cause brought about by her perception of a man's world must be identified and defined. These catalysts can encompass everything from thousands of years of social injustice to the bareness of her early family life. The producers of a talented philosophical and political mind as Woodhull's would surely be many years of human history in the making.
    Feminism has enjoyed a wealth of contributors before Victoria Woodhull arrived on the scene. Though some would limit the history of feminism to the modern Feminist Movement, it should be noted that women have been opposing patriarchal systems for thousands of years. Some, like the poetess Sappho up to Mary Wollstonecraft and the printing of her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, have been noted whilst many more have undoubtedly been swept under the rug not unlike the close-call Victoria Woodhull's legacy experienced.
    The modern Feminist Movement in America began, according to and agreed on by most historians, in 1848 at the Seneca Falls convention where "Elizabeth Cady Stanton modeled her Declaration of Sentiments on the United States Declaration of Independence" (Gabriel 29). The declaration was a major push towards woman's rights acted as a "grand basis for attaining the civil, social, political, and religious rights of women" as stated by the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass and probably not "the most shocking and unnatural event ever recorded in the history of womanity" as the Oneida Whig suggested. On the note of abolition, it is important to state for the record that "During the Civil War, the woman's movement... temporararily abandoned its quest equal rights for women to focus instead on the abolition of slavery" (Gabriel 37). The plan was to get some sympathy and support from reformers such as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Frederick Douglass, however "when the war ended, the reformers dispersed like the soldiers, going home after a long and bruising battle" (Gabriel 37). Though the fighters for woman's rights were abandoned and ally-less, the victory they would win would only be truly attributed to them.
    The great ball of arresting thread that was the life of a woman in the 19th century began, for Woodhull and according to the website Victoria Woodhull, the Spirit to Run the White House, on September 23, 1838 in Homer, Ohio. Here her existence was truly bare-bones: a "one-story unpainted frame hovel so rickety that the other children of Homer liked to run along the porch to hear the boards rattle" (Gabriel7). The patriarch of this decrepit shack was Reuben Buckman "Buck" Claflin described in Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored as a "one-eyed, one man crime spree." Victoria's mother, Roxanna Hummel Claflin, was hardly an improvement on the Claflin father. Roxanna was a woman prone to "ecstasies whose nightly constitutional most often included a trip to a nearby orchard where she would pray loudly and tearfully for the sins of her fellow Homerites and in the same hour curse till her lips were white with foam." And is from this unusual personality that Victoria Woodhull most likely acquired her favor for spiritualism, the belief that the spirits of the dead can be contacted with the use of mediums. When Victoria finally shook free of this preliminary stage, however, it turned out to be naught but a facade of happiness. Victoria married her family doctor, Dr. Channing Woodhull, when she was fifteen years old. The idealistic "damsel-in distress" scenario soon deteriorated when Channing Woodhull's drinking problem became apparent. In this marriage Victoria bore two children, one of which was born mentally retarded "as a result (Victoria theorized) of his father's drinking" (Gabriel 14). Despite her obvious malice and dislike of the man (he can be attributed to directly inspiring Victoria's "war against this seething impacted mass of hypocrisy and corruption, existing under the name of the present social system" [Gabriel 14]) he was nonetheless included in her menagerie of friends, family and otherwise that included her sisters, their husbands, her then current husband Colonel James Harvey Blood, and her insane mother when Victoria held residence at "the unusual household at 15 East 38th Street" (Gabriel 102). The scandal-sheets of the day attributed this arrangement to Victoria's free-love ideals -- that were otherwise factual -- rather than her generosity towards those less fortunate than her.
    A man's world is a hard place for a woman to live as thousands of years of oppression have shown. It is a marvel, when keeping this in mind that personalities like Victoria Woodhull could, or dared, speak out. Thus is her daring presented to us. Victoria was looked down on, looked on as, and every other movement of the eye. This was all due to her very unladylike, but very fulfilling, behavior.
    In an effort to make the money that Dr. Woodhull's failure of a practice was failing to bring in, Victoria reintroduced her interest in spiritualism into her life. Together with her sister Tennessee Claflin, Victoria acted as a spiritual advisor to some very rich and influential people including the famous Cornelius Vanderbilt. Whilst Victoria was used as a "seer to help predict stock market trends, telling Vanderbilt when to buy and sell," (Gabriel 36) her sister Tennessee was employed for very different purposes so presented in Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored:

Vanderbilt began spending more time with Tennessee, even bringing her up to his office, where he would sit the "little sparrow," as he called her, on his knee and bounce her up and down as he talked railroad business. She told him jokes, read him the newspaper, and, pulling on his whiskers, called him "old boy." (Notorious 35)

    It was through this controversial setup that "a new creature was introduced -- the female broker" (Gabriel 1). With the aide of Vanderbilt and his financial backing that Woodhull, Claflin & Company got off the ground and, in doing so, created quite a stir. It was noted in the New York's Herald that young women, "bewitched by curiosity and afterwards delighted with all they saw and heard, left the premises bethinking themselves that there were other things to live for besides cosmetics, the toilet, fashion and vanity" (Gabriel 40). The effect of a first, though relatively insignificant when compared to future accomplishments, was already molding the perspective of the "weaker" sex.
    With the fortune Victoria accumulated through their brokerage they established Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, an alternative news source through which the sisters could advocate and discuss, "among other things, women's suffrage, short skirts, spiritualism, free love, vegetarianism, and licensed prostitution." (Spirit) The paper is also notorious for being the first American publication to print Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.
    Victoria's finest accomplishment -- as well as her most controversial, being seen by many as the final straw in a long string of insults -- was undoubtedly her candidacy for President of the United States of America. According to Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored, Victoria Woodhull was given the nomination at the convention of the newly formed Equal Rights Party on May 10, 1872. It was after she addressed the convention with her speech "Political, Social, Industrial and Educational Equity" (Gabriel 171) when "a Judge Carter of Kentucky leapt upon the stage and shouted, 'I believe that in what I am about to say I shall receive the hearty concurrence of every member of this convention. I therefore nominate, as the choice of the Equal Rights Party for President of the United States, Victoria C. Woodhull.'" (Gabriel 171) Frederick Douglass was nominated for vice-president on the Equal Rights ticket, however it is doubtful that he was ever clued in to his nomination due to no telegraph being sent to him as attributed to the "late hour" (Gabriel 172) in which the convention finally decided on his nomination.
    From the lyrics to Victoria Woodhull's official campaign song found on the Victoria Woodhull, the Spirit to Run the White House website, many aspects to the actual campaign can be deduced:

If you nominate a woman
In the month of May,
Dare you face what Mrs. Grundy
And her set will say?
How they'll jeer and frown and slander
Chattering night and day;
Oh, did you dream of Mrs. Grundy
In the month of May?
If you nominate a negro,
In the month of May
Dare you face what Mr. Grundy
And his chums will say?
How they’ll swear and drink and bluster,
Raging night and day;
Oh, did you dream of Mr. Grundy
In the month of May?
Yes! Victoria we've selected
For our chosen head.
With Fred Douglass on the ticket
We will raise the dead.
Then around them let us rally
Without fear or dread
And next March, we'll put the Grundys
In their little bed. (Spirit)

    It can be concluded that there was no real hope to be elected. The Party's mission, however, can be interpreted as the struggle to bring the possibility of minorities holding the Presidential office to the consciousness of the public.
With the sureness of a sword did Victoria Woodhull bring about change in society with her cause, daring, and grace. Though others would like to see otherwise, Victoria’s important place in history is unshakable.

The North Star, July 28, 1848 as quoted in Frederick Douglass on Woman's Rights, Philip S. Foner, ed. New York:         DaCapo Press, 1992, pp. 49-51; originally published in 1976
Gabriel, Mary. Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin, 1998.
Victoria Woodhull, the Spirit to Run the White House. http://victoria-woodhull.com/whoisvw.htm
The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership. http://www.woodhull.org/victoria.php
"Bolting Among the Ladies." Oneida Whig 1 August 1848.

I wander 'cross the ice when on the brink
Of understanding thoughts I meddle o'er
I come upon a man in which I think
To be my brother standing on a shore.

Of daper make is my twin's fine attire.
So richly wove as if by dextrous hands
Of craftsman over Vulcan's burning fire
Yet soft and light as rolling mounds of sand.

A figure blue upon a world of grey,
The frozen waste: the vastness of the sea
Now solid in the absence of the day.
A tale -- brave voice -- he ventured tell to me:

"It was in times before you were a part
That third of our litter made violence on
Creation -- O, and might you have a heart
To find the scoundrel, though once jailed, now's gone?"

We went across a vast terrain of spires
Subject to sounds of most unnerving tone.
The groan of ice, the whispers and conspires
Of darkening clouds, the atmospheric moan.

From out the corner of my wandering eye
A flurry of a bestial movement was
Almost too quickly for my mind to spy
The essence of fury on Devil's paws.

What manner of a man would move on fours
Across the chill of mind and harsh terrain?
Would my perspective be as lax as yours
Or in my mind a troubled, gyring pain?

The palest flesh behind a mat of hair;
The thinnest wire twas ever found in Hell.
Before him broke a sorrid stench: Despair.
Twas ne'er a beast quite like this souless shell.
    A snarling, gangly mass of darkest dread
    Would not ally with Living or the Dead.

The battle broke upon the frozen fields,
A dastardly assault was never seen
For quick and solid does the joint congeal
Our efforts now are quellèd, never clean.

Cadaver was my match quickly reduced.
A mass of bloodless flesh torn free from bone.
A sound from him had never been seduced
By vulgar violence and force alone.

Of stronger make was my esteemèd kin
Than to give in to cries of woe and grief.
Though I may never see his face again
Another plane may offer its relief.

When thoughts of reunited future meets
Give way to harsh Reality's embrace
The chill of ice may nibble at my feet
And pull me back into this awful place.

Now all alone the frost improves its grip
Upon the joy warm thoughts might maketh born.
A fear produced that memories may slip
And lost forever are the joyous torn.

Upon me leaps the phantom assassin
With lips still wet from feastings previous.
The Banshee's cry erupts from deep within
The organs from his belly, cavernous.

A curse to God who ever thought it just
To stow within the meat of my dear twin
A firearm that functions though with rust;
The streaking amber veins of combustion.

I force the gun into the jaws of him
And force a round or two into his brain.
His make disperses though twere paper thin.
The stain of ink makes for a curious rain.
    The bullet true may split the skull of foe
    But also crack supporting ice below.

    As I muse on the corpses by the sea
    I wonder where Death ends and begins me.

Certain events, I am afraid, have driven me to speak out against a certain, well, for lack of any better word, shaman of sorts who hath wounded me psychologically. Yes, my dear readers, I am under the fearsome Vodun curse brought from Darkest Africa on slave ships to the New World! Woe is me at the sharp end of a cursed chain of magikal transference from beyond ages of primordial soup. My pen begins to grow dry and thus my story may also, though perhaps abbreviated, finally begin.
The introduction is over. There is no turning back now.

It all began on one grey afternoon. It was in this afternoon that I found myself shuffling down a God-forsaken street of New Orleans, the City that Care Forgot. I say God-forsaken and Care-forgotten in reference to the cesspool of a city, though now I am led to believe that it is in fact I who am forsaken by both God and Care. The stinging rain brought in across the Gulf could not wash the crust and ooze from the cobblestones my ragged shoes drearily slapped, rhythmically. I held my soaked raincoat to myself and peered out from under a fedora from time to time to see where I was going. It was on maybe or seemingly the thousandth peer that I saw my final destination: Madame Pontchartrain’s Voodoo Citrus. A bright, stylized orange decorated the little shop’s sign; a faded orange against grey.
I pushed open the door and was immediately hit by the exotic smell and pressure of incense and opiates. The wee store was dark and lit by but a few homemade looking candles that where scattered about. In between and lit by the candles were shelves and tables covered with, God, all sorts of wonderful things. Strange weeds and herbs from far-off places hung from the ceilings, Vodun dolls, shawls and idols littered shelves, Asiatic weapons and statuettes could be spotted on walls and in corners… why, one would never have to travel from this room to see the world. I had no idea just how close I was to the horrible truth.
I drifted through the thick air, perusing the mysterious wares, when I first noticed the shaman.
He sat in the corner and could (and may) have been mistaken for some well-crafted and large idol for his skin was hard and dark like stone. His clothing was black and flowing like an ancient, leathery flow off of his body. The only sign of life from the shaman was the opium smoke that bellowed from his lungs from time to time. I ventured a word…
“Oh, hello there,” is what I stammered. “I say, my good man, is the Madame Pontchartrain in. I have something I need to speak to her about.”
A thick cloud of smoke poured out from the depths of the stone man. Candle light threw tribal designs on an emotionless face. I was unable to see his eyes in the shadows and the dark.
“There be no Madame Pontchartrain, I afraid,” he answered in a soft, deep voice. He took another drag from his pipe and again spoke.
“There be no such ting as ‘Voodoo’, neither. All such tings is… contrived to ensnare tourist folks.”
“Well, I hope you at least have some citrus fruits,” said I. I spoke with volume. I would hope to view myself as superior to these Vodun rats.
“My store is da citrus. Bask you’self in the sweet and sour flava that surrounds you.”
In a blur of powder and a flash of leather, feather and other animal materials the shaman was suddenly upon me. With the strength of a jungle beast and the chantish song of his heritage emitting from his lips the dry sorcerer forced a bottle into my mouth.
“Go down nice and easy, now. Take some fingers o’ me lemonade.”
I certainly didn’t taste lemonade. The liquid was thick and alcoholic. Some of it splashed on my face and burnt my eyes. I felt the devilish elixir fizz and burn in my mouth. I recognized what it must be from study: laudanum, opiatic alcohol.
 When quite a quantity of the stuff had successfully made its way into my gullet, the fiend finally unhanded me. I sputtered and spat and fell back, away from my attacker.
“You opium-addled fool!” I cursed, “That’s laudanum! My mind won’t stand it! What in blazes was the point of it?”
I looked up from myself to see that the shaman was back in his corner, pipe smoking away. I began to think that maybe it wasn’t opium he was smoking after all but perhaps some African weed I knew nothing about. I doubt that opium would allow such spryness from the fellow. The opiate consumed by myself began to wear on my energy already.
The shaman grasped a large, wooden bowl from a table next to him. The bowl was decorated with strange and fiendish carved faces on all sides.
“I know what you be wanting,” said the shaman. His soft voice was very contrasting from his ferocious display of violence. “I see you coming from far-off memory types in me wooden bowl.”
The shaman peered into the bowl. In the soft silence of the earthy shop I could hear liquid slosh in its concave.
“Seer be me,” the shaman continued, cryptically. “All for home and dat type a stuff. I know what you be wanting. I know what brung you away from ye home to New Orleans. The citrus needs to hear it from yo own lips, though.”
The room started to fall from me, yet I still comprehended what the shaman spoke of.
“Recall,” I replied, waving my hands in front of me. I tried to stand but stumbled forward. The laudanum was working its dark magik. I grabbed at the shaman’s leathery clothing for support. They were warm and alive. I discerned a vein in its folds and felt it pulse. The whole world was coming alive to me now. “Someone told me you could help me recall. I have to recall for a story I’m writing.”
I felt the shaman in the back of my head.
“Me lemonade will help prepare your mind for ultimate recall, my friend. You must be clear and drowsy.”
I felt his hand on mine. He forced something in between the fingers of my hand.
“Dis feather will fly you to yo memories.”
I felt a spray of powder.
“Dis powder will ease you through the womb of time.”
As it got darker and darker I realized that I was in for recall, alright, despite any second thoughts I might have had. I fell away from the shaman and onto my back, feather still grasped in my hand, powder coating my clothes and the air above me. I tried to speak but found myself unable to. A blurry shaman leaned over me.
“Follow yo mind, son. It knows where it going. Memories be of our own, personal. I can give you da tools fo travel, b’ ye gotsta travel yo own road.
“Oh, a’most forgot.”
The shaman reached into his pocket and whipped out a blinding white piece of paper. He held in front of my failing eyes.
“Here be ye receipt.”
“But… I’ve not paid you yet,” I murmured. The shaman smiled and his eyes pierced the darkness of shadow and the blur of opiates.
“Yes ye ‘ave.”
The shaman’s smiling face fell away from me. I was in darkness and falling fast into a future of past.

I was liquid and I flowed. Logic be damned, I flowed through my mind and broke through the crust of overgrown repression. My memories came at me like objects on a wide, open road. My mind, just moments before clouded with drug, was clear and fresh as the perspective of a new borne babe. I would have screamed from joy or fear had I a sense of my voice, body or even self. I was lost in a third perspective. Despite all sense and reason I was a spectator of my own mind. It was there, large and looming and dead ahead of me. It was a planet of cloud and information. My body broke and turned to dust and fell behind me like a stream of powder thrown from a shaman’s hand. Before any adaptation or comprehension could be accomplished, I was propelled into the cloud by the powder on the wings of a feather and disappeared forever.
My lungs were filling with water. That was the first sensation I was conscious of in my new life.
I panicked. I scrambled and thrashed in the water. How could I live having only known my death? Such a fate was not for me so I fought it, or, at least I thought I’d give it a try. I tried to swim but something was obstructing my arms and legs. I pushed against it and… rose out of the water. The obstructing object was the bottom of a tiny stream.
I stood there on all fours: wet and a tad embarrassed. Trying to forget my own pitiful self, I took a look around.
Though I knew that I was outside (the evidence of the stream, sunlight, flowing air and such told me that much) the environ I found myself in seemed almost as claustrophobic as the “Voodoo” shop. The stream had eaten and eroded the banks of the wooded stream causing the trees on either side to lean over the drifting, sleepy waters. The sunlight showed softly and playfully through the boughs of slowly moving branches. The leaves were gold with the light of the sun and the cold, clear water mimicked the effect. The color of the leaves and the water and the irregular stance of the trees gave me the impression of a stain-glassed cathedral.
I stood up out of the water and sloshed over to a boulder to the right side of me. My wet, bare feet slapped the grey stone and sent a spray of moisture in all directions away from them. I looked down at my feet. My shoes must have been lost in my travels. With no need to go anywhere I simply sat, watched, listened, smelled… If I didn’t remember it before I could certainly recall it now.
I dipped my bare feet into the water and lay on my back, waiting, interminably waiting. As far as I could tell my recall was almost spent.

How many years have passed? What has become of my body, my former life? Are they wasted? Has time passed at all?
The banks of the stream, muddy and steep, make climbing and thus escape impossible. Branches of overhanging trees are out of reach. I fear that, perhaps, I may never leave.
Is it fear I feel now? Is the prison of my memories of mine own making? A cushioning memory of a stream is preferable to New Orleans. How can life compete with our memories, so soft and flowing, exaggerated and polished in our mind?
I have traveled the entire length of the stream and have not found a way off of its banks. At one end, upstream towards the source, I found an impassable waterfall. All attempts at climbing the fiendish thing proved to be in vain. At the other end of the region, however, was hope in the form of a small and barred entrance to an aqueduct that the stream ran into. The bars were so close together, alas, that I could barely get my hands past them. This is where the gifts of the shaman proved even more useful.
On the streams banks at a bend in the stream was a small bush from which berries grew, big and black. With these I was able to, stone against stone, mash up enough juice to make ink. The shamans feather made a wonderful pen and his receipt made adequate writing paper. (I tell you this in case you were wondering how my story came to be written.)
I then, thanks to a basic knowledge of origami, folded the receipt into a small boat, just big enough to fit through the aqueduct.
With hopeful and pathetic murmurings, I, furry and imposing from lack of food, bathing, and shaving, sent my Lilliputian vessel on its way. The paper ship drifted off into the dark of the aqueduct and out of sight.
Often I wondered who would receive my message. Someone in some other memory of mine would be able to assist me; my father, maybe. I suppose the shaman’s bowl may spy the message though I wonder why he wouldn’t have tried to help me before. Perhaps this is my payment for his services. I fear that the shaman has permanently crippled my psyche. Few can survive the stress of ultimate recall. The end.

A tiny paper ship drifts through my mind
In a desperate attempt
To escape myself
And break through the barrier
Between me
And others

I’m so full of myself
(I roll my eyes)

The room was aglow with cathode rays; bluish white. Chuck’s eyes watered and pulsed as they bathed in the radiating static. He must have been like that for hours, slouching away the day in his favorite high-backed chair..
Suddenly, the static gave way to the image of a man. Dapper was the man clad in olive tweed and red bow-tie. A bright toothy smile was slapped sloppily onto his shiny face.
“Hello, friend,” said the man. “Have you found yourself in front of the TV again, wasting away your life?”
“Yes,” burbled Chuck dully. Some drool dripped down his chin.
“Are you afraid to face the world outside of your television set?” the man continued.
“Uh-huh,” responded Chuck, his eyes rolling back into his head.
“Well, then look no further because have I got something for you!” squealed the TV personality, pointing a chubby little finger at Chuck. Chuck sat up slowly, an expression of wonder and excitement washing over his face. Chuck pointed to himself, unsure and quizzical.
“For me?” Chuck asked.
“Well, certainly, Chuck!” beamed the bow-tied man. “After all, you’re our favorite little buddy!”
Chuck scooted forward in his chair, tears pooling in his eyes. He was so happy.
“Do you… do you really mean it?” Chuck stammered. “Am I really your… favorite little buddy?”
“Well, sure as daisies, Chuck ol’ friend,” assured the spokesman. “And you know what friends do for each other, right?”
“What?”
“They share-,” the man paused for a moment before exploding with, “Fantabulous, frabjous, ting-dingeling fabulous deals and prices with one another!”
Fireworks, dollar signs and streamers twirled about behind the spokesperson who was now gesturing wildly with his arms. Chuck clapped his hands and squawked with delight.
“Callooh! Callay!” yelled Chuck, pumping his fists into the air, victorious. “I’m the luckiest man in the world!”
“Darn tootin’!”
“So, what do I get reduced prices on?” inquired Chuck.
The TV set froze and the glow that illuminated the room locked up. The man on screen was smiling, slyly, with furrowed brow. He looked like that young Bates boy. The cheery bowtie that garnished his clavicle looked grotesque under the cold stare he slung at Chuck like so much hot tar. A streamer lazily made its way to earth in the background. The expression of joy and happiness dropped off of Chuck’s face like a mask. Passing traffic could be heard from outside.
The spokesman finally spoke: “Hammerspace,” is all he said.
Chuck’s eyes opened wide with horror. He sat there in his chair, frozen, for a few terrifying seconds, soaking in the horrific concept.
Then, with the fury of a rapid, the spokesman leaped toward the camera fist first. Chuck shrunk back into his chair in shock and surprise.
“It’s just TV, it’s just TV,” Chuck repeated to himself in a high pitched tone, sure that he was safe in his TV room miles and miles from the Satanic little man trying to sell him Hammerspace.
“It’s just TV, it’s just-”
The words hung on the edge of his lips, unable to proceed across the quivering bridge. The simple phrase was no longer valid for before Chuck’s watering eyes came the grinning spokesman. Such a violent birth their never was or will be. Sparks and static erupted from the set sending sparkling pixies across the floor to Chuck’s feet. The spokesman’s fist pounded, repeatedly, against the screen, static dispersing across the screen with every deafening impact like oil on the surface of soapy water. The spokesman screamed in pain and frustration as the skin of his hand broke against the slowly cracking glass, blood splattered.
The screen suddenly shattered, a cut hand thrusting through. Chuck screamed and leapt behind his high-backed chair. Chuck cowered and shielded his eyes, hoping he was only dreaming.
The room was quiet now except for the heavy breathing of the spokesman now very distinct and close. Chuck peeked out from behind the chair to see, to his horror, the spokesman, pulling himself out of the staticy screen. His little tweed suit was torn on the glass and his bow-tie was coming undone. His face was obscured in the sharp shadow thrown like a blade by the light from the TV. Jerkingly and violently the spokesman wiggled and thrust himself out of the screen like a cheaply dressed fetus. He was born into Chuck’s TV room.
The spokesman stood, slowly, at the foot of the set like the erection of an imposing and dark building. He was a silhouette, illuminated from behind by the shifting static. He stood their, strong and cruel, for a moment, looking around. Suddenly, like a vampyre’s shadow on a wall, a giant cartoonish mallet manifested itself in the spokesman’s hand.
Chuck bit his hand to keep from screaming. The hunt was on.

The sky was a sun, one sun of unimaginable intensity. On the edge of the horizon stood shadowy giants, screaming orders and applying creams and powders.  Moloch the Beast, mischievous as he is evil, had cleverly changed his form to that of a mechanical Cyclops, judgmental and cruel. Chuck could see his reflection in Moloch’s one eye.
“Action!” yelled a demon. “Role sound!”
The jingle began; an anthem of embarrassment.

The spokesman leaped over the chair and high over Chuck’s head. Chuck gave out a feeble scream before the hammer came down on his head.
Whack!
Birds sang and danced around Chuck’s broken head and lost mind as a comical bump erupted from his skull. The end.

Captain Michael Phobos: We’re coming out of Super Speed, men. Look alive, you soggy barnacles! We’re planet-side!     Bring up the Bow Cam, Mr. Tibbs and let’s have a look at her. Ah, there she is, Mr. Tibbs, Attainia, like a god’s own         thumbnail. The arm of the Pirate Guild will have to be long indeed to find us here in the Outer Rim Systems.
    (pause)
    Lords be praised, Mr. Tibbs, would you look at her. Would you just look at her! Like the great blue tear shed at the end     of a horrible and costly conflict, the Guild Wars. Maybe, just maybe, Tibbs, we’ve finally been pardoned by the Lords of     Karfu and, at long last, be allowed to live a new life, begin a new world here on Attainia. Yes, a new age of peace lies     before us, Mr. Tibbs, *sniff* and it smells like ozone.
    (beeping)
    Radar Alarm! Someone has entered this quadrant! Isolate that signal, Private! Give me a fix on its position. Aft, eh…         looks like they’re right behind us. Bring up the Stern Cam, Mr. Tibbs. By my Lords, a Guild Cruiser! How did the Pirate     Guild find us all the way out here? Why, there must have been some sort of traitor or informant on board. Who could it     have been, Mr. Tibbs? Who could have sunk so low as to betray the Alliance… Mr. Tibbs, what is that on your finger? I     said what is that… a Guild Ring, general issue to all Pirates of the Pirate Guild! So it was you who betrayed us, my         trusted First Mate. Well, there’s no room for traitors in the New Age, my pirate friend…
    (takes out blaster and fires)
    … consider yourself court-martialed in the name of the Alliance. Men, all hands on deck! A Guild Cruiser is bearing         down on our position. Prepare for the fight of your lives!

in'stru·men·tal'i·ty, n; the condition, quality, or fact of being instrumental, or serving as a means or agency

Relatively empty halls echo with silence: too large for man to fill. The cool night air drifts through granite and steel caverns. A stone slab, monolithic, stands alone in the Great Hall: the place of gathering for Freemasons. The Masonic pentagram, a square and compass, keeps watch of the stone. It is an entrance and an exit; the only entrance and the only exit to the swelling and bustling tunnels that surge with information and personnel. The travelers that bustle above ground do so in ignorance; ignorance to the unfeeling machine of government control, unfeeling and ancient. More ancient than you may believe for, unbeknownst to most of the world, secrets and power are passed down from generation to generation and over oceans on Virginia Company of London’s first financed voyage to the New World to a wild and untamed country begging to be ravished and ravished it was under a sweaty giant, smiling with teeth and eyes wide with a grotesque and childlike wonderment. The world is a weak babe under an invisible boot of control.
It is this menace in this world that finally laid itself to rest one 1994 under the watchful and imposing silhouettes of the Colorado Rockies. A massive front the likes of which have never been conceived by everyday folk was erected to dazzle the eye and distract the mind from the real project: and underground facility reaching cephalopodic arms for miles and miles under the sun and in the dark.
Concealed for aeons from the eyes of everyman who wonders the earth with infinite complacency, the world’s fate stirred, swiped a key card under a hefty stone, and made final actions against man’s works. Above ground the stone lifted, like a flower to the sun, in a silent and cold fashion. Thusly the mortal end of instrumentality came at us like a freight train on a foggy night.
 

Two painfully normal looking people make their way through the Denver International Airport. Their shoes gleam and shine as they tap the hard floor. A man and a woman; an Anouk Aimee and a Jean-Louis Trintignant bustle along, luggage-less if not for their matching briefcases, hard and secretive. They never speak to each other but their faces aren’t hard but rather soft and receptive.
Our Anouk Aimee is called D. B. Cooper or, at least, that’s what her ticket says. Her number is known to few and her name is known to fewer still. Miss Cooper looks to be about 35 though who can tell for sure? She wears glasses with thin, dark rims and a dark pantsuit. Miss Cooper has a matter-of-fact librarian look to her. A hint of a smile makes her look friendly though it is but a simple façade, a cushion of sorts to keep people looking but forgetting.
Our Jean-Louis goes by the name Chadwick Nathan for this mission. He is touch older than D but no less normal looking. I can’t stress the normality of our pair enough. Mr. Nathan has a retrosexual look that is traditional without being off-putting or imposing. He would probably remind you of your father depending on how dull yet handsome your father was. Mr. Nathan, as you will call him, has a dark suit on like Miss Cooper but not matching Miss Cooper’s. That wouldn’t be normal at all.
The death of a species, with a nauseating air of confidence and grace, hurries down Concourse C to catch a plane. An illogically placed gargoyle makes witness to the fatalistic procession.

Ancient and wise and eternal… the qualities of all beasts of conspiracy.
On vacumous, dark wings, unmoving, a grotesquely human-like creature watches the airport in a position over the surrounding prairie. Red, luminous eyes break the night, searching. The quarry is seen, suddenly and from afar. The pair of agents walk, with purpose and professionalism, past the grand windows of the bridge over the runway. The humans move silently; only the cold wind is heard. An ID has been made in the most unfeeling and horrific way possible. We can only conceive of this interaction by way of sight though the spectre looks to the sky. Like honing in the signal of an unfathomably distant beacon that shows nor reflects light: the dark reaches of space and reality where stars ne’er shine. The chill and the cold of the eternity of space envelopes the region as the wings of the man, tendril and lazy, reach across the Earth, invisible. Not even the primitive idea of a god, conceived by infinitely complacent mortals that wander our sphere, could hope to compare to the dark majesty of an ancient creature, witness to the empires of organisms, long fallen and inconceivable in their removal of all we may call logical. Formless and coursing like fluid through space, the Mothman makes his way across the grasslands to an awaiting fate.

A dank professionalism keeps them from speaking to each other too much. A trained and forceful mindset kept this from being a problem entertainment wise, however; no plane ride could be too long. Save for a sad looking man wearing clown shoes the first-class section of the plane in which they are sitting was completely empty. The warm sound of conversation wafts through the curtain separating the sections of the plane: the laughter of children, the giggling of a volleyball team, the baritone chanting of an allegèd necromancer.
Through Miss Cooper’s mind drifts equations, logical attempts of near prophecy. The flow of her consciousness rarely drifted from the mission at hand.
Through Mr. Nathan’s mind drifts fantasy and memory, often dark but always hopeful. Mr. Nathan is a dreamer (though he may not know it) once you scratch the surface. He may peruse memories, ultimately empty, of a childhood underground, of training and work and being transferred around like an animal, prized but disregarded in a humanistic sense.
Mr. Nathan viewed these memories as if through glass, in a third perspective. Mr. Nathan would watch his thoughts pass as a concentration camp physician may watch the procession of sad-eyed prisoners. Neither Mr. Nathan nor Miss Cooper had ever cried.
Two minds encased in two skulls can be found, at this moment, being propelled across the United States towards Nashville, Tennessee.

A black rental car speeds down Highway 49, due east from Clarksville. The sun setting on the distant edge of the highway splits the sky into a spectrum of orangeish hues. The buzz of insects in the surrounding woodlands rivals the hum of the black sedan.
The black hopelessness of man’s ultimate destiny speeds alongside the automobile as it turns onto a scenic road just across the Lake Barkley Bridge. The trees become wilder and closer to the road the further the sun sets on our time. Every now and again Miss Cooper and Mr. Nathan notice two, small pinpricks of red in the inky blackness that is slowly consuming the car and the forest around it. The appearances of the eyes grow much more frequent as the sun takes its last look on the very last of days. Two agents suppress the minimal apprehension they may have and ignore the red eyes that watch them as a picnicker may nonchalantly take notice to a gnat. The two are conscious on at least some level of the omnipotence that surrounds them, they are, however, confident that it poses no real threat. The Mothman is not here to stop them. He is merely a witness to the end as he has been for all ends.
The car enters The Land Between the Lakes unceremoniously. No sign tells them where to go. They just know. No one will watch what will unfold on television screens wringing hands and biting nails. Armageddon shall come, and soon, on the silent wings of the Mothman lacking both drama and resistance. There is no special reason why tonight should be the night other than the information needed for this night has been gathered by invisible eyes from underground.
The car stops suddenly on an indescribable stretch of road. The two agents remove shovels purchased in Nashville from the trunk. The trunk is closed and the trek up a small ridge begins. The motions of this important ritual are carried out smoothly and mechanically; the emotional nature of the goings-on are lost on the robotic Freemasons and the eternal Mothman that watches with unblinking knowledge.
The humans make a short and minimally exertful hike up the ridge until they come to its zenith: a steep decline down to Lake Barkley below. The now present moon is reflected in the long body of water reaches to the north and south. The world is all before them, where to choose the final resting place of instrumentality: a means. Without flashlights and only by the light of the moon, Miss Cooper and Mr. Nathan remove their jackets and begin to dig into the dark soil. It isn’t long until a bit of unearthed silver becomes visible in the moonlight.
Time seems to freeze like a shocked animal may freeze when it spots a stalking predator. A sigh issues from the depths of the forest around the site. An unearthly metal, not seeing the face of the sky since first placed their be Hernando de Soto in 1541, seems to shimmer and quake. A religious pulse sounds in the hallow of the planets atmosphere.
After a time Mr. Nathan removes his lodge ring from his finger. Slowly, as if underwater or hesitant, he crouches over the shallow hole in the ground and begins his work; neither difficult nor time consuming.
Miss Cooper stands over him, watching with a strange and alien sense of awe. Suddenly, in a quick and steady crescendo, a hoarse sigh drifts across the lake, up the ridge and to Miss Cooper’s position. The sound, unnoticed by Mr. Nathan, causes Miss Cooper to spin about. She catches a gasp before it erupts from her lips.
The horizon beyond the lake is alight with a dull and sickly red. It paints the sky like a forest fire might illuminate clouds. Down below, far beneath the yawning, red sky is a solitary figure floating with serenity over the lake. Its large black wings are awkwardly folded behind and below an emaciated silhouette. The skin and feather of the creature ripples and sways like the lazy dance of an underwater plant. Airborne though it may be, the wings move not but stay wrapped around its waist and legs like a ceremonial robe. Judgmental eyes, red, burn through the mawish night and stare straight up the ridge at Miss Cooper.
Fissional pulses of death unleash the consciousness of the entire world into the black night sky. The mortal bodies of Mr. Nathan and Miss Cooper combust and disperse into red particles of light where they stand on the ridge. As the Mothman stands watching, the universe lifts up around him in a crimson eruption. The flood washes over a still unmoving force and consumes everything.
No one even screamed. No one even knew.

A black backdrop; as far as anything could conceivably reach a vacumous abyss can be viewed. Suddenly, a tiny red droplet of liquid, so easily missed, comes into sight. Silently and slowly, the droplet’s contents shift and drift within its confines. Universal, the miniscule mass flows aimlessly through space.

Multiple spheres of various sizes hang in the red air. Inside each sphere is a survivor.
Nestled in living sheets, Mr. Nathan, naked flesh stained red, weeps to himself from loneliness. His hands brush the tinted shell that surrounds him though he doesn’t look up. Suddenly, a hand, loving like the Madonna, touches his shoulder softly. Mr. Nathan turns to see Miss Cooper, aglow and white. Mr. Nathan smiles through the tears that stream down his face. Like a child, Mr. Nathan hugs Miss Cooper around her waist, kissing her stomach and worshipping her. A soulless doll with the superficial appearance of  D. B. Cooper puts her hands in Mr. Nathan’s hair as she blankly stares out of the globe that carries them. The Mothman floats by, glancing into the airborne dwelling for only the slightest of moments before moving on past the gaze of Miss Cooper.
Motionless propellants move humanity, lacking instrumentality, as does the Mothman, around an infinite prison of their own contrasting imaginations. Mr. Nathan weeps from joy for the sake of eternity and the Mothman watches with unfeeling eyes and without sentiment.

The ƒkye, golde and flowing like liquide, reached acroƒƒ the Albemarle Founde and out o’er the Atlantic towardƒ England. The ƒun, near ƒetting, framed the head of George Howe like an e’er Holie halo of moƒt religiouƒ and ƒacred ore. Howe ƒtood aƒtride the turning currentƒ with raggèd rope in one hand, ƒtaff for ƒounde purchaƒe in th’ other. Alean he did on hiƒ truƒtie rod and began to tug on ƒaid cord, face blank aƒ ƒlate aƒ if he where a burdeneƒt beaƒt, hard at work but ne’er to notice the beauteouƒ ƒcene. The rope on which he pulled ƒuddenlie gave waye from ƒhoal to revel a wooden cage of ƒounde and ƒtronge conƒtruction. Entrapted inƒide the cell were a number of graƒping crabƒ, ƒpiderouƒ and cold aƒ the ƒaltie ƒea in whiche they tolled there almoƒt infinite dayƒ. Howe made to ƒlinge the cage o’er hiƒ ƒhouldere and begin making hiƒ waye back to hiƒ ƒmall wooden veƒƒal of Natural make: a canoe aground on a nearbie ƒandbar.
A ƒoft pulƒation of the water made Howe to pauƒe. With the ƒubtle intenƒitie of diƒeaƒe, the calm nature of  hiƒ crabbing waƒ ƒilenced. It waƒ aƒ if a cloth had been pulled o’er the mouthe of the world and purpoƒe of Howe’ƒ mind. Hiƒ eyeƒ ƒcanned the ƒounde, ƒlowed aƒ if the ƒkye were ƒounde-bottome and the actual ƒhoal but ƒkye: all waƒ awaƒh and tenƒe like preye in the preƒence of a predator. A ƒtronger metaphor there ne’er waƒ nor, may, will be.
The beƒtial crie of a Hatteraƒ Natural cut the ƒilence in a blinding ƒpraye of ƒea water. With a War-club wrought from wood and bone and ore the warrior ƒwung at Howe. Howe ƒtumbled back againƒt the wind birthed from the Hatteraƒ’ mightie ƒwing and fell into the ƒhallow water. The Indian ƒtepped forward to make another ƒwing onlie to meet the arche of Howe’ƒ crab-cage. Wood, blood and crab were ƒent flying o’er the falling bodie of the Natural and into the ƒea. Howe gripped hiƒ ƒtick and ƒprang up on coilƒ of fierie retaliation to finiƒh off hiƒ fallen attacker. Howe brought the ƒtick back when he waƒ ƒtruck from behind. The defeated Natural’ƒ allie, til now ƒubmerged in the ƒounde, to hiƒ comrade’ƒ aide with club and fiƒt. Howe crumbled under the ferocitie and repetivitie of the aƒƒault and, in inƒportive ƒtate, hiƒ boneƒ were ƒhattered and hiƒ blood waƒ made airborne from the further woundingƒ. The Indian fighter’ƒ club waƒ loƒt in the intenƒitie of the beating but the fiendiƒh Hattera continued hiƒ batting with clenched fiƒt. Perhapƒ growing wearie and out of breathe from whooping and flailing, the Natural gripped Howe by the throat and held him ƒubmerged to make quicker work of him.
Howe ƒtruggled hiƒ broken bodie againƒt hiƒ attacker in vain aƒ the breathe of hiƒ life fell from him. The refracted face of barbarouƒ intenƒitie ƒhowed down on the repeling wailƒ of war callƒ from Howe’ƒ perƒpective on the bottom of the ƒhallow ƒea. The painted face began to fade from hiƒ eyeƒ aƒ rattle and blood left him and, in the ƒoftneƒƒ of the Angel of Death, propelled the fateƒ of many a coloniƒt on their wretched waye.

The delicate civalitie ‘tween the European coloniƒtƒ and the Hatteraƒ Naturalƒ waƒ loƒt in thiƒ waye and, due to the ƒqualid conditionƒ of the Colonie at Roanoke, Governor John White made the returne journie to England for ƒupplieƒ and perƒonnel. The prominence of the War With Fpain retarded anie ƒhipping operationƒ until 1591. Alaƒ, John White’ƒ returne met the diƒappearance of the entire colonie including hiƒ daughter Eleanor, her huƒband and White’ƒ ƒon-in-law Ananiaƒ Dare, and the coupleƒ daughter Virginia. Forward tellƒ of the incompetence of Mr. Ftout, acting Preƒident, and the Dare’ƒ actionƒ becauƒèd.

Ananiaƒ Dare ƒtood on the edge of civilization, the laƒt arm of which would be Roanoke, the edge being the beach. Ananiaƒ looked out croƒƒ the Albemarle Founde towardƒ the Weƒt and the Mainland: a dark and infinite wood dwelled in by Wild-men. A cold, ƒaltie wind blew acroƒƒ Ananiaƒ’ ragged and tattered cloak. Winter waƒ faƒt in itƒ approach, the ground waƒ cold and would take no ƒeed, the eluƒive beaƒtƒ had moved inland beyond the reach of muƒket-ball; a dark ƒun ƒet on a greye continent in the twilighte of itƒ year: all furthingƒ of man’ƒ effortƒ were too late. A return of John White and the ƒupplieƒ he promiƒed would have come long before the now time; all of Ananiaƒ’ hopeƒ lay weƒtward in the landƒ of the ƒavageƒ.
Ananiaƒ’ thoughtƒ were interrupted by the babyiƒh crieƒ coming againƒt the wind from the hutƒ to the Eaƒt. Ananiaƒ, clutching hiƒ cloak to himƒelf, made hiƒ way towardƒ the heartbreaking ƒound through the mud in the direction of man’ƒ ruin, the mud on the ground. Ananiaƒ peered underneath the low ceiling of the hut of limb to the ƒight of Eleanor, hiƒ beloved wife, in a mother’ƒ ƒubtle frenzie, trying to comfort the feveriƒh Virginia.
The crueltie of the White-man iƒ deep running in hiƒ nature and the memorieƒ of the Naturalƒ are long, however that may be, any doubt a father may contain would be waƒhed away in the cleanƒing waterƒ of that one, purifying moment.

The night iƒ opened aƒ abruptlie aƒ the before ƒleeping eyeƒ or the Box that Pandora unleaƒhed on the Earth by the ƒcreamƒ of a babie. Mr. Ananiaƒ became aware of Mr. Ftout’ƒ plan for gaining the upper hand of sortƒ, moral control of a diƒcontented populace, and perchance the last of the food-ƒtoreƒ by holding little Virginia for ranƒom. A pair of ƒcurvie ƒhadows made attempt to make away with the babe only to be run through by Ananiaƒ, brought from ƒleeping by Eleanor and Virginia’ƒ ƒcreaming. The babie was plucked from the arms of the dead men like produce from a ƒtalk.
A rightful rowe erupted amidƒt the ruined huts and muck. Fpit and curses flew back and away again amongst the ƒquabbeling rabble. Ananiaƒ made a direct confrontation with the Preƒidente, Mr. Ftout. ‘Are you so low, ƒir,’ he bagan, ‘to ƒteal a a babe, ignorant to violence and plot, from the armƒ of a ƒleeping mother like the girring houndƒ? Do you have any decency that which I could attribute to a gentleman?’
Mr. Ftout’ƒ face grew crimson like a tide.
‘You damned Anarchiƒt! You dare make ƒuch an aƒtounding accuƒation towardƒ the Preƒidente of thiƒ Colonie? Why, many a charge can be brought againƒt yourƒelf for such heinouƒ actƒ you’ve diƒplayed tonight. Not only have you treaƒoned againƒt me and your fellow Coloniƒtƒ. I could motion your death-ƒentace, you ƒodomite!’

It looked a whole lot better in its original font. Anyway, more wonderings of Virginia to come.

    A middle-aged man in a red, flannel shirt and jeans, handsome and beaming, stood before his flock. His flock was as bald and hairless as his hair was luxurious; dirty blond but bright and soft. It shined like a treasure in the gold light that streamed in from the long row of windows that ran the length of the western wall. The man’s big, beautiful blue eyes made him look on the verge of tears, an odd trait he had always possessed. He turned them to the windows and the setting sun beyond before returning them to the group in front of him. They waited with baited breathe for him to begin his sermon, not just any sermon, but the Opening of Hearts.
    “The Earth is a microcosm,” he began, “in relation to universal and cosmic concerns, of the excess that stops up and pollutes the celestial clockwork. The planet Earth is the saint and chief representative of the evils that wish to cloud. Movement and action, both unavoidable, give off a dark energy, like evaporation, that solidifies the flow, the ooze of the universe’s inconceivable goals. The transcendent holiness of an omnipotent, mathematical structure, like arches and beams,” he gestured towards the pine supports of the room, “begins to get pulled out of its transcendence by our sins and excesses.”
    His speaking was slow and deliberate. His voice was soft and loving yet it carried through the large room with ease.
The man paused for a moment and retrieved a wooden box, about the size of a jewelry box, from a small table to his side. It was plain and dark and unornamented. The man affixed his gaze, bashfully, to his wooden cube.
    “I carry the burdens of excess, as do many, but only as is needed. The perspective of mine may be terrible, even deadly, but with all of your help,” the man looked up from the box in his clutches, an earnest and almost pleading grip on his features, “we can save ourselves from ourselves. We can use the perfect gifts we all possess to work for the Universe. But first…”
    The man opened the box, obscuring its contents from the onlookers. The brass hinges moaned softly.
    “…let us dispel our excesses together.”
    A young woman began to make her way down the middle of the congregated mass. Her eyes darted from side to side as the crowd parted respectfully in front of her. The flock was all smiles.  
    The crowd softly dispelled before her like shallow water under bare foot steps as she came to the front of the room.     The flannel clad leader waited patiently as she kneeled before him her eyes on his feet. He gracefully tilted her chin with his free hand to bring her eyes to his and smiled. She was put at ease by his decency and charm.
    "Are you ready to unshoulder your burden, my child?"
    "Yes," she replied timidly. The volume of her voice was so low that only the blue-eyed angel before her could hear.
    Without a word, the man removed an electric razor from the box at hand and held it thoughtfully. He gave the switch a flick and the room was filled with the chattering of its teeth.
    Wordlessly, the man began to shave her head with the love and care of a mother bathing her child. The young girl just closed her eyes and waited for him to finish. Long locks of luxurious, silky hair dropped heavily but silently to the hardwood floor. Little by little the burden of excess fell from the girl's head like the load off of a slave. Her spirit began to lift out of the depths of her body, no longer suppressed. A journey of the soul was beginning for her.
    The last of her hair fell from her and the razor fell silent. The man ran his hand over the short stubble that now covered her perfectly formed skull. It was as beautiful as the birth of a child. The girl opened her eyes as the man ran his fingers over her scalp and looked into his.
    "What is your name, child."
    "My name is Sharon. Sharon Stein."
    "Hello, Sharon Stein. My name is Broderick and I would like to welcome you to The Ranch."

    Sharon Stein washed the dark, sustaining soul from her hands in the antique water basin in her room. The basin, the pitcher, and the rest of the room were undecorated and plain like a cell. Only the muddied water of the basin and the rings in the wood walls betrayed the existence of imperfection in Sharon's world. The water of the ceramic was emptied out the window before being refilled and washed in once more. Sharon cleaned her face, her scalp, and removed her cotton working clothes.
    Sharon's body was athletic and firm like a swimmer. She was also, however, on the thinner side of the physical spectrum. Her physique resembled that of a stray dog, simplistic yet resilient; her body carried no more than needed to survive. It was utilitarian. This combined with her small breasts and shaved head might lead some to come to the conclusion, if they weren't looking closely, that she was male. If you really took the time to look her over, however, you'd be sure to fall in love with her. Sharon was a beautiful woman.
    Sharon threw on her sack like night gown, turned of the industrial light source in the middle of her ceiling and went to sleep.
    As Sharon's mind sunk into the tar of dreams and nightmares, a strange feeling of anticipation filled her heart. She was too far into unconsciousness to question this strange feeling and just embraced it like a child not knowing nor understanding its source or reason. It was soon forced out of focus as her first Dream enveloped her mind.

    A small lamb made its way through a stony badland. The rocks that obscured the horizon on all sides were black and jagged like a lava flow. The sky was overcast and echoed with distant thunder. The white lamb, nervous and afraid, bleated out to unseen comrades. The rain began to fall and the lamb became more frantic and concerned for its safety. The surroundings of the canyon were alive and crawling with predators. The moans and howls of the beasts reverberated through the rocks and stones of the environment.
    The lamb broke into a run. Down the way and across the slippery wet stone the lamb bolted. The noise of the rain and the animals crescendoed into a flurry of waves and echoes. The mournful cries of the young ram tread the noise as if it were drowning in it. All of the sudden, a break in the lamb's way showed itself around a bend; an edge.
    The soaked and frightened creature skittered clumsily across the slimy, black rock before coming to a stop at the edge of the crevice. As the lamb stopped so also did the rain and bray: all was silent and motionless.
    The small animal peered into the darkness of the great hole, its fear giving way to humanistic curiosity. The lamb's eyes began to adjust to the darkness and beheld a woman.

    The woman was pregnant and in labor. She gripped the black stone in which she lay so hard that her hands were cut. She didn't make a sound but only winced, ink-black tears streaming down her face. Her blood, too, was black as if she were a great abscess of ink.
    As her child, slowly and painfully, was born, the rock around her began to loose its density. As the baby came and the relief approached, the black stone began to change into charcoal. The charcoal crumbled into dust in the woman's strong grip and unleashed small clouds of ash. The ash settled, thinly, on the woman's naked torso and her, now born, child. The babe coughed and sputtered from the ash.

    The child grew at an alarming rate. She was schooled by the air and fed on dreams. She became a young girl and became curious about the world and one would imagine she might. She strode out of the world and hung in the air. Her luminance began to show through her skin like gold and bright magma.
    The young girl, now an old woman, failed to halt her expansion. Her mind transcended her body and fell into space. Her corpse, now soulless, fell downward, away from her soul, and into the splintered tapestry of the Clockwork of the Heavens. Her body melted into the cloth of the universe and it was mended. Meanwhile, her soul, still expanding, sped on.
    The old woman's consciousness enveloped the universe in a fold. The souls of humanity nestled into this fold, like silk, and fell into a gentle sleep. The old woman, with a voice like a gentle breeze, sang a song without dynamic or note. It transcended these things.

    The stars were bright holes in a vacumous sky. The Earth was cool and green, an endless expanse of grass. A small lamb lay sleeping in a nest of tall grasses, alone yet never alone. The wind through the blades cooled the remnants of the sun's burning and skipped across the lamb's ears. This was Heaven.

    Sharon eyes slowly opened, surprised and confused by the beam of light, thin, streaming from her window and directly onto her eye lid. She slowly became aware of her nausea as she woke.

    Broderick sat on the porch, cup of coffee, black, in one hand and his cane in the other balanced on the corner of the armrest of his wooden chair. Everything in The Ranch was made of wood, clean and bright and newly cut. It was almost as if it were still alive. The Ranch was like some wooden, living creature, all alone in an expanse of red desert. A cluster of yellow and brown hues clinging to the side of a rust-colored canyon wall, now all smeared together in a dark violet in the darkness of the early dawn. Far below Broderick and The Ranch, along the canyon bottom, snaked a sky colored mirror of a river darting between infinite clusters of rich, green shrubs that darted the infinite space. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. The sky was deep purple and indigo and reached out and over Broderick and into the west. The remnants of night soon began to disperse before the sun, however, like a fleeing army in retreat. A halo, a hint of gold and blue began to advance with the slowness of a giant in pursuit. It broke over the horizon like a wave over a sandy shoreline. The canyon became all alight in the face of the sun's majesty: the river, smooth as glass, lit up like a streamer across the glowing orange breaking out from between dense and texturous foliage. The smell of wood and coffee filled the sharp morning air as this spectacle unfolded before him.
This was Broderick's ritual. He never missed the beginning of a day. Broderick wanted to embrace and absorb all of the beauty that existence could offer. It would be ungrateful of him to ignore all of the natural wonder that was always at hand. Even with the sin and exuberance that Broderick's rank was called to, he felt that he was still tolerated to enjoy nature's wonders. Broderick had not asked for his station, he had only conceived of its importance. Broderick was thinking on this when he noticed Sharon standing behind him.
    She stood looking to the sunrise wearing only her nightgown.
    "Sharon," Broderick began to inquire, "Aren’t you cold?"
    Broderick stood shakily with the necessary help of his cane. He looked almost comical with his walking aid. His back was straight, he was tall, and he was muscular and relatively young: only forty or so. In spite of all of this, his left leg was stiff, lazy and unresponsive.
    Broderick set his mug onto his chair and began to struggle moderately to remove his red, polymer windbreaker. Sharon began to protest, but Broderick had already draped it over her shoulders. He tightened the jacket around her torso to make it air-tight and began to rub her arms.
    "Thank you, Broderick," said Sharon softly, turning her head to look at his face, "but really, it's not all that cold."
    "Well, it may not seem it," replied Broderick, "but I'd feel pretty silly wearing my jacket when you were in nothing but your sleeping-gown."
    Broderick slowed the rhythm of his motion and smiled sweetly, looking into her eyes. Sharon avoided his gaze and leaned back into his chest out of habit just like she's always done with Broderick. She needed to feel secure and loved. Broderick let out a subtle grunt of discomfort as the extra weight came down on his leg. Sharon stood up straight, a worried and open expression on her face. At this point, Sharon's concern for his discomfort outweighed her own.
    "Oh, Broderick," Sharon softly exclaimed, "I'm so sorry, I had forgotten about your leg."
    "That's all right, Sharon," said Broderick as he hobbled back to his chair, Sharon following. "I forget about it myself sometimes. Anyway, it's on the mend."
    Broderick sat down, taking Sharon's hand whilst doing so. She sat beside his good leg and fell into his embrace. She held onto his hands, both on her stomach, and explored his fingers with her own. Her hands were kind of cold, but the rest of her was warm.
    They sat in silence for a long time simply watching the sunrise. Broderick noticed Sharon's uneasiness but spoke not of it. Sharon's mind was a flurry of activity as she struggled to conjure up the courage to tell Broderick what she thought.
    "Broderick," began Sharon, a nervous crack in her voice, "I think I'm pregnant."
    The sunrise continued its accent into the day unabated and the hard and quick movement of heavenly bodies complacently persisted in their fruitless journeys. And this all went on despite everything else.
    “Are... are you sure,” replied Broderick, suddenly. He loosened his grip on Sharon as he spoke.
    “I think so,” said Sharon almost matter-of-factly. “I missed my period and I’ve been throwing up in the morning.”
    Broderick stood. Both parties felt that they may never feel comfortable looking each other in the eye.
    “So,” began Broderick, “the question we really have to ask is where this child falls into the plan.”
    Broderick turned towards Sharon. The rising sun turned him into an imposing silhouette.
    “I think it’s important to take a step back and look at this event in its entirety. We mustn’t be hasty and we mustn’t be brash. A pregnancy is a subject that must be… we can’t… we can’t have this baby, Sharon.”
    Sharon’s previous apprehensions were melting her blood. She felt a chill, a shiver through her veins as her fears began to manifest themselves in front of her: Broderick did not want to have a baby with her. Sharon began to cry softly, almost unnoticeably, as Broderick continued.
    “The world is feeling the strain of the populace and we have sworn to end its suffering in this way. Having a child would be hypocrisy, a scandal, a slur. Why, it’s downright excessive!”
    A break after the climax of Broderick’s desperate ranting caused Sharon to look up from the ground. Broderick’s silhouette remained, yet the outline and shape had become familiar once again. Broderick stepped forward and kneeled beside Sharon. His face came into the sunlight and he was framed with the great, golden halo of the sun. His eyes were brimming with moisture as he wiped a tear off of Sharon’s cheek. She held his hand where it was. Sharon never wanted him to leave despite everything she suspected him of feeling.
    “I love you, Sharon,” Broderick confirmed, “but we're going to have to... well, I don't think I have to tell you what needs to be done.”
    At this point in her life, Sharon was inclined to agree that this was the right thing to do. It was for him, after all, and for him she would do anything. He had saved her.
    The sun continued its cycle behind them.
 

    An old phonograph playing old ragtime, brought into Sharon's room, crowed away. The song was "A Closer Walk with Thee" and the crower was George Lewis. This was Sharon's favorite song.
    Sharon sat on the edge of her bed, holding Broderick's hand who stood in front of her. Another person stood in the hallway hidden from Sharon's view though she knew that someone was there.
    "Are you ready?" asked Broderick.
    Sharon's eyes went from the door to Broderick's blue eyes. She was nervous and afraid but only her panicked eyes gave her away.
    "Yes,” Sharon replied at last, "I think I'm ready."
    Broderick tightened his grip on her hand reassuridly.
    "Ah, Sharon," Broderick almost cooed, "you've always been so brave."
    Broderick turned his attention to the door just as, what Sharon assumed, the abortionist walked in. He was unnervingly young and his head was a mass of red curls. He was thin, gaunt and not unlike Ichabod Crane. He had a kind of shifty energy that carried him through the room towards Sharon. He held in his hand a small bottle of clear liquid.
    "This is Mr. Murphy, Sharon," spoke Broderick softly. "He'll be performing the procedure."
    Sharon eyed Mr. Murphy's bottle suspiciously.
    "What is that," asked Sharon timidly, gesturing weakly towards the bottle.  
    "Pennyroyal oil," replied Mr. Murphy in a high pitched voice. "It's a mild toxin that should cause a miscarriage. Hey, don't worry," said Mr. Murphy detecting Sharon's understandable apprehension, "it's a very, very mild toxin. You probably won't even feel the effects of it at all. I'm going to prepare a tea for you to take it with to take the bitterness down a peg or two. Now, that doesn't sound so bad, does it?"
    Sharon ignored Mr. Murphy's question and turned to Broderick.
    "Broderick, may I speak to you alone for a minute," asked Sharon, her voice cracking as the tears began to flow. Broderick gave Mr. Murphy a look, Mr. Murphy's cue. Mr. Murphy made his way to the door and paused. He turned back towards Broderick and Sharon and gave the Pennyroyal oil a shake.
    "I'll just be making the tea." He closed the door behind him.
     Broderick sat down beside Sharon, his bad leg stretched straight out in front of him. He took both of her hands and kissed them.
    "What is it, Sharon?" he questioned. "There's nothing to be worried about. Mr. Murphy came highly..."
    "Why, don't you want to have a baby with me," Sharon choked.
    Broderick looked at Sharon with an expression of almost patronizing shock. He tried to come up with an answer quickly and it came right to the edge of his lips before he decided to think it over for a moment.
    "It... it's not that I don't want to, Sharon," Broderick finally retorted in a low, frank tone, "it's just that... I do want to have a baby with you. And, you know what Sharon, we can. Now just isn't the time and I know you know this to be true. I see the world, Sharon, and all of its impurities and I know that our child couldn't last in it, or, at least, the way we'd want him to. We must prepare the way, first. When the world has been completly rid of its excesses, the world will be able to receive our son."
    "It's a girl," Sharon presented.
    "Excuse me?"
    "It's a girl, or at least, I'm pretty sure it's a girl. I... I had a dream Broderick."
    Broderick looked at Sharon quizzically.
    "A dream?" Broderick inquired.
    "I think our child will be a messiah," Sharon began, "I think that having this child could save us, Broderick, everyone. I saw our child as kind of a missing piece to the entire universe. Broderick, I think our child will be a goddess." Sharon was pleading. Broderick seemed unmoved.
    "Sharon, we cannot rely on a messiah to save us."
    Broderick spoke as if Sharon had never spoken herself.
    "We have to save ourselves. The cosmos has no obligation to us; we have an obligation to the cosmos. This child cannot save us, Sharon..."
    Broderick let go of Sharon's hands, leaned on his cane and stood.
    "... Nothing external can save us from ourselves."
    The song came to its end and the phonograph, automatically, shut off. Sharon sat as Broderick stood in silence neither looking at the other.
    After a while, Mr. Murphy returned, a dainty, china teacup in his hand. He stood in the doorway, sensing the tension, and waited for a sign to proceed. Broderick, full of remorse for his actions and what he had made Sharon an accomplice, sat back down and put an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into it, unable to resist the love she had for him, her savior.
    "Please, Sharon," Broderick pleaded. Mr. Murphy stepped forward and extended the cup towards Sharon. "You're making this so hard."
    Stone-faced, Sharon took the cup, eyed its contents (dark like motor oil), took a breathe, and drank the tea. It was bitter, cold and thick; it made her gag. Despite the flavor of the tea and her own emotions, Sharon drank it all.
    Sharon heard the cup shatter on the floor before she realized it had slipped out of her fingers. In an eternity of haze Sharon realized that she was laying on her side in a pool of vomit quickly being absorbed into the mattress. Sharon bent up like a fetus from violent spasms. Voices argued from across the sea of stomach fluid that stretched out before her.
    "Oh my God! Oh my God! Sharon!"
    "Oh, shit!"
    "What the Hell did you do? Sharon, are you okay."
    Oh God, am I going to die? Sharon asked the voices. They couldn't hear her. They went on about their business.
    "What did you do, you idiot? Tell me what you did to her!"
    "I don't know... I... I guess I gave her too much."
    "Well, don't just stand there, do something!"
    "Do something? Do what?"
    "I don't know; you're the doctor."
    "I'm not a doctor! Fuck you, man! I didn't ask for this shit!"
    Sharon decided to try her luck elsewhere. These people were obviously too busy. She decided to work in the garden with her new baby daughter snug and save in her sling style bjorn.
    "Sharon! Wake up Sharon! Oh God, please wake up..."

I am bored and yet I cannot think of anything to write which is why I am posting a bunch of random, old crap. Enjoy the random crap.