Figure and Form [jana]

figure and form
definition, imposition
negative space
relative grace

delicate line
crumbled edge
liquid element

reflection, perception
perspective, invective

the discipline of hand, eye
mind and train of thought
falls next to the discipline of fasting
refusing to be controlled,
patrolled by flesh
cravings
habits

refusing the gnawing of me
dwelling in meaning to be

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My Brother's Blood [jenna]

The other night I saw a holocaust movie called Everything is Illuminated. It made me cry. Holocaust movies will do that to a person.

The horrors done to the Jews—and whoever helped them—and whoever got in the Nazis’ way at all—outstrips the power of imagination. To read Corrie ten Boom, visit a museum, hear a Jew or someone else close to the situation speak, or hear any description of something that went on during those terrible years is to be moved with grief and a sort of repentance, even if it happened before your birth, as it did before mine.

I wonder what it would have been like to be a German German—as opposed to a German Jew—during that terrible time. Surely not all of them were in favor of Hitler’s ideas; surely, those who dissented did not all hide Jews in their homes; surely, they did not all speak publicly against Hitler and his guns. What would have been the responsibility of someone living out her life in a German town, someone who didn’t know any Jews, who had no real voice with the government?

Was it easy to ignore the situation? Was day-to-day life reasonably secure? Were all average people unwilling to speak the least word against the Nazis, for fear of retribution?

What does it mean, now, to live in a country where it’s legal to take a life merely because it is unwanted, or because its mother was impregnated in circumstances of trauma?

It’s easier to ignore this situation than that of Jews versus Nazis because it’s so hidden. Because the little ones have the same story, all of them, and without the character development that can be drawn up for a remembrance montage on television; their fear is sudden, silent, and then over. It’s easier to ignore this situation because so much of the psychological damage is hidden in the hearts of mothers tormented and burdened by their sense of guilt.

But it is easier to understand, and harder to condemn someone like Pope Pius XII (especially when we look at actual history, and not at the nonsense now often thought of as fact), when we look at what it means to be for the right to life, against abortion in this day.

Our decision of when it’s morally okay to abort a human baby is completely arbitrary; as I’ve heard several people say lately, the unborn can be disposed of silently within yards of a place where round-the-clock personnel and the very best technology are used to save lives at the same stage of development.

In Hitler’s time, speaking or acting against the regime could get a person killed. Nowadays, it just gets you marginalized. You have no voice; you’re labeled as an extremist.

It’s easy enough to marginalize those who criticize abortion as comparable to Nazism; the cold Nazi mentality seems so unlike the presumed compassion of abortion-rights advocacy. But if we actually believe that the unborn are human and alive, regardless of whether we believe in immortal souls, is the comparison really so extreme?

“I want the children”, said Mother Teresa so memorably some years back. She was not the only one who would have cared for the little ones. I will take that ‘unwanted’ baby—I and the thousands and thousands of other women throughout the world who long for motherhood. I will take it regardless of race, gender, or handicap. No child is ever truly unwanted; they’re just arriving at difficult times, and in our country at least, there is help for almost any situation nearly everywhere.

What, then, is my responsibility, living in this land of holocaust? The duty will be different for each person. What is that duty for me?

“God doesn't value people and things like we do. Jonah loved a shade tree more than an entire city of sinful people. We love our dogs more than a terrorist. We love our cars more than a beggar on the side of the road. And sometimes, we love our money more than a child growing in a desperate teenager's womb.

But God isn't like us… His love for us is greater than His love for a plant, an animal, or any other created thing. And the book of Jonah tells us that He loves even the most sinful people and seeks to bring them into His merciful arms. And it's a love that seeks to touch all of his created children: that desperate teenager, the baby growing in her womb, even tyrants and terrorists."
—Dennis DiMauro, Lutherans for Life representative to the National Pro-life Religious Council

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Night Voices [rachel]

For a long time they made me angry. For weeks, every night after midnight and before 3am I’d hear them. Their sharp tones would startle me from sleep. Bewildered, a hint of fear rising inside, I’d listen, straining to make out each syllable. Understanding the content made me nervous, pressing my head to my pillow, pulling the covers up around my neck. There was no way I could ignore the screaming, threatening, pleading. Is this real? Is it a dream? Should I call the cops, lift up the blinds, make sure no one has a gun?

People tell me it can all be explained by the bar down the street, its patrons overflowing onto the sidewalks, striding or sidling down the block and perhaps taking refuge on the benches out front, just beneath my window. I’m not so sure they’re right. Whatever the case, the cries are sharp, the pain is real, and the arguments are heated.

Maybe I’m not attentive enough, but the passersby during the day seem more controlled, cold, stone-faced. They turn away, scowl, or say an abrupt hi. But they’re not sobbing, screaming, moaning in desperate tones.

When I first moved to Lebanon I laughed when one of my housemates suggested I didn’t need to drive to a park to take a walk. “Take a walk in this city, on these streets? No way! Something might happen to me. I might be mugged or kidnapped or murdered!” I was in the midst of change—stepping out of my attempt at a pristine and church-appropriate life and stepping into the pain and turmoil of circumstances so that I could actually experience healing. I needed to learn to honestly believe Isaiah 61:1. God came to “heal the brokenhearted”. I had spent so much of my life desperately trying not to be broken hearted. For the first three months after the move, I saw no connection between the healing work God was starting in my life and the city in which I was living. If anything, it seemed to me that Lebanon was a limitation, a dark spot in the midst of an otherwise hopeful experience. For most of my life I lived in a village, a town one street wide and four blocks long. More animals inhabited the backyards than people did the houses. The biggest conflicts were over noisy dogs, new trees for the street, and the possibility of bingo in the Mennonite fire hall. Lebanon was just plain intimidating.

That perception has been confirmed repeatedly by the reactions of people who discover that I a newly a Lebanon resident: “Oh.” “So sorry.” “Don’t forget to lock your doors.” In a game of association, the word Lebanon might conjure up adjectives such as angry, dirty, scary, run-down, hazardous, poor, ugly, mean. The stereotypes aren’t necessarily wrong. Plenty of grumpy looking people tramp the streets, signs announcing “condemned” adorn many a front door, I see more trash in the Quittie Creek each day, and I can’t number the fires that have claimed both property and life over just the past three months. Lebanon with its hardened exterior looks hopeless to many and has appeared so to me for as long as I can remember.

Then one night something shifted. That week I had once again, somewhat reluctantly, been pondering the benefit of feeling life’s pain. I have often struggled with the role that lament plays in the life of the follower of Jesus, long associating lament with doubt, rejection of God, unhealthy questioning. But I’m learning that God is not so religious. He meets us in our struggle. Where there is lament and longing, hope speaks and Jesus heals.

On this particular night, I laid down in my bed around midnight. The cold air of October crept through the just-open window enough to make me pull the covers up around my chin. As I settled in, I heard the first of the voices, this time a wailing complaint, the sound of a woman distraught, a barely consoling voice coming in response from an unseen companion. A shout a few minutes later. Something strange happened inside of me. I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t snuggle further down under my quilt. I didn’t wish the voices would stop. I found myself quizzically but earnestly thanking God for the sounds of my city, my home. I suddenly realized that Lebanon, though hardened by day under the gaze of judging and skeptical eyes, unveils its brokenness at night in the darkness where no one can see, when the hurting people think no one can hear. They shout their weakness and cry their vulnerability.

Lebanon is a broken city. The cement walls around the Quittie Creek reveal that nature is broken. The long-neglected houses show that home is broken. The sorrowful looking children demonstrate that family is broken. The drug deals are evidence that health, mental and physical, is broken. The weeping and screaming out my window tells me hearts are broken. And these same voices say something more: There’s hope for Lebanon.

I still don’t know quite what to do when I hear the night voices. Maybe one of these midnights I will betray their secrecy, their cover of darkness. I will lift the blinds and see the faces that bear the marks of pain. They might be the hardened faces I barely glance at during the day. And just maybe one of these nights I’ll open the window and call out ever so softly, “I hear your pain, Lebanon. I’m not afraid of you anymore. I know that like me, you are broken and God has come to heal us both”.

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If I Had to Wait until You Had One Minute Left to Live… [jake]

You are my Eden, where I once did dwell
But God is now the angel guarding, with a sword of flame
I have been banished from my home, now sent through hell
And I am longing to return to my Eden again
I am now labeled as a wanderer
Like a murderer I own the mark of Cain
I feel I have a home no longer
Missing my old Eden, where I have left you slain
And now it seems I find you as a beach
Stretching like dreams, vast beyond my reach
I try to hold you in my hand
But you sift through my fingers just as the sand
And no matter how many jars I fill to the brim
In attempt to be with you again
I could not possibly carry them all…

…It seems I’ve been given a sieve
That you spill right through
So much so that what I want to retrieve
I instead must leave with you
Because I try to hold you in my hand
As you sift through my fingers for you are sand
I cannot understand or explain
What has been planned
Or show you where it is that you stand
In this land of life yet-undiscovered
But my soul perpetually hovers
In search, like a lost lover, for my blocked beloved
So listen closely for the sound of this
Soldier scouting out unrecovered ground
That he still sees as home…

…So as Moses to his promised land
To which he led his people through wilderness
All those years I will wait and stand
Outside the gate
Waiting for God and fate
To satiate my desire to step in
I no longer want to roam
But to return again
I want to enter into my home
To reclaim my beloved, my Eden
I will, my love
I will see you again

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Em-eye-es-es-eye-es-es-eye-pee-pee-eye [kris]

What I like about cities is that everything is king size,
the beauty and the ugliness. ~Joseph Brodsky

The cicadas are so loud here. A steady pulse that crescendos slowly, mischievously, until I am caught off guard by sudden and intense whirring in my ears. The air is thick here. Hanging—a lukewarm, sweaty mass. Both the cicada chorus and the muggy air bring to mind “Louisiana Bayou” (though I’ve never been south of Springfield). The streetlights are surrounded by soft orange-gold orbs against a deep violet sky, made of light strained through the heaviness. Hazy and moist, the air here is always in a transitional place. Not dry, not wet. This is a transitional city. “The Gateway to the West”. I am sitting in an overstuffed micro-suede chair next to an open window in the living room of my friends’ new house. This house is a first home for them and a transitional place for me. In between living with the closest of friends in a dodgy, or as Kristen says “bohemian”, one-bedroom in South Central Pennsylvania and something else. Here. Looking out the window I watch the steady stream of red, orange, and white lights cascading up and down Lindbergh Boulevard. Smiling, I remember Kate saying in 10th grade “cruising Lindbergh is the thing to do on Friday night, and the best way to meet guys!” I never cruised Lindbergh with Kate.

Then.
A crash course in St. Louis culture/geography: St. Louis County is separated into three basic sections: North, West, and South. The East side of St. Louis is across the Mississippi River in Illinois, home to strip joints and shotguns. Across the Missouri River on the West is St. Charles and St. Peters. Home to cheap land, cheap building, Wal-Mart culture, and white flight.

I haven’t actually lived here since I graduated high school, which for a true St. Louisan is looked on as the pivotal point in life. The time you look forward to, and, once completed, back at. While living on the east coast for three years I may have been asked twice where I went to high school. Anyone from St. Louis is well aware that this is the most important conversation-starting question from which a person can be categorized into a multitude of groups and labeled accordingly. Lafayette: rich. St. Joe: easy. McCluer: ghetto. I’m not a fan of the “high school question”. Growing up when I told people I went to school at Parkway North there were generally two equally undesirable reactions. I lived on the transitional line between West (rich) and North (ghetto) County. Anyone west of me and east of St. Charles heard Creve Coeur/Maryland Heights and seemed to think white trash, or “white trash of Parkway”—the term given by my freshman soccer coach when she chewed out our team for bad behavior on a rowdy bus trip home from a weekday afternoon game. The other response, this one received from people north and east of me, was an unspoken assumption that I must be spoiled and snotty (spoken apologetically later if we’d become friends). These memories are especially painful to me because I was just as much a perpetrator of the “high school question” as I was a victim (as all of us St. Louis kids were). I wouldn’t say it to their face, but for no truly identifiable or legitimate reason, hearing that someone was from St. Charles or South County initiated a change in my demeanor, lessened interest in their friendship. My more optimistic St. Louis friends would explain this “high school question” tradition as a way to connect. “You went to Ladue, do you know (insert relational connection here)?” Either way, the only place I’ve been asked about high school upon my new residence in St. Louis is on job applications—so far so good.

A favorite memory of mine growing up in St. Louis, before geographical location and the “high school question” determined our places in the social hierarchy, was in Mrs. Gaal’s second grade class at McKelvey School learning to spell “Mississippi” (as in our river, not the state). An over-full class of frenzied seven and eight year olds skipped past and climbed atop clusters of metal and plastic, navy mini chairs and laminate desks with colored construction paper name tags taped to the corners while practicing our spelling. As we moved in a mass both rhythmic and chaotic we chanted “Em-eye-es-es-eye-es-es-eye-pee-pee-eye!” while waiting our turns to go into the hall and recite the week’s words to Mrs. Gaal. This was terribly funny to us, for reasons I could have only understood in the glory of my seven-year-old mind. Mrs. Gaal had apparently given up on kiddy crowd control that sunny Friday afternoon. Crazy. Blissful. Everybody fit then. No divisions yet. Before our real initiation into St. Louis culture, before the time when our relationships were filtered through the labels and images we would soon learn to live under.

It didn’t occur to me that I might not like St. Louis until the end of Jr. High. By then I’d been exposed to enough places to know that there was a world beyond Busch stadium on the East and Old St. Charles on the West. My parents are from the Detroit area—Mom is from “down river,” or Rockwood and Dad is from Harper Woods. They’ve lived in St. Louis for 20 years now but when they say “home” Mike, Tom and I know that our parents mean Michigan. It’s always been that way. The Lantzy family settled in St. Louis on a whim. A string of moves—Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and then a sudden and permanent stop in St. Louis, Missouri. A place Brian and Deb Lantzy had never visited and had no previous connection to. Sort of like Powerball. There’s no specific reason that we stayed, I’ve asked. “I don’t know, Kris, it just kinda happened," Mom said. I guess not moving a family with kids one, two and four years old an eighth time is enough motivation for any sane person to stay put. So in 1987 the Lantzys came and stayed. But growing up we all knew Michigan to be home, and it was in Jr. High that I started asking my parents to move there. We talked about it for Dad’s job and Tom’s golf, but as a family, moving never happened.

Now.
A green and white Hazelwood EMT van speeds past the open window accompanied by sirens that break the cicada trance and flashing lights catch my eyes. Stirred from reminiscence, I watch as the van turns right onto Lindbergh and is quickly out of sight. I am living about 100 feet from Lindbergh (in North County). And another 200 from an entrance to I-270. Within walking distance there is a Walgreens, Starbucks, several shops, fast food restaurants, and the civic building. It’s a busy street, but apart from the single ambulance, those cicadas are still much louder than the traffic outside. St. Louis City itself is not nearly as populated as the County. Urban sprawl and white flight have left city population in many places sparse and marginalized, spurring a long transition from lively river city to largely abandoned ghost town in some parts. In many places St. Louis is now a dirt and brick shadow of who she used to be.

At this point in my second residence in St. Louis I’ve not found the nagging feeling that I don’t fit here to be untrue. It’s still true. I don’t fit here any more now than I did growing up. As far as my image is concerned, I’m a mess most of the time, and though I’ve tried I can’t convincingly pretend to care about the Cardinals—however, this time around I feel the cheerful freedom not to. The difference this time is I’ve discovered that I’m not the only one who feels this way—something I believed in my core growing up. So true to me then that I didn’t even have to think it, or wonder. It was just true. I was alone. Alone in the loneliness I felt. Alone in the overwhelming sadness of assuming I was an outsider, and in the exhaustion of trying to find the way in.

What I’ve found here is a handful of kindred spirits who don’t fit either, and have actually ceased trying. People who have experienced life outside of the St. Louis bubble—life with true community, and deep relationships that are both messy and broken. Connections unrestrained by the haze of expectation, the sense of striving, and the fear that sits in the St. Louis air, buffering relationships. Ensuring a ‘safe’ distance. Keeping the surface of the waters calm. The image intact. What I can say about St. Louis, six weeks in, is that my new friends here have made me wonder if anyone feels like they fit. Especially the people who look so much like they do, and whose rejection made me feel so much like I didn’t. You can feel it at any social gathering, a slight tension. A mixture of defensiveness and over-effort. It’s the semblance of unrest. The feel of people straining to look good. Be good. Be liked. Keep their reflection/projection in tact. At the core, hoping to be someone worth loving. It’s this subtle feeling that can destroy a person in St. Louis if they aren’t aware of its presence and origin. Aware of the roots.

I also think that this feeling, this acute inconsistency, this small crack in the façade that goes easily unnoticed if not given a closer look, is both the breaking point and the key to St. Louis. The greatest weakness and deepest source of pain. This is the space in which my heart has found a tearful warmth for St. Louis. A desire, though still small and new, to know what, or who, is beneath the shallow, manicured surfaces and the abandoned places, the scars that St. Louis would hide if she could. The vacant homes and buildings, the rejected, shameful city pockets. What would she be like if all of these walls came down, and with her image left behind the true design for this sparkling gateway city on the river came to the surface? For now I don’t know. St. Louis may be changing, and she may not. I can’t tell yet. What I do know now is that I am changed. And changing. So either way, here is different to me.

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Preparing for Winter [melanie]

It’s almost here. Winter. Where I live in the South, winter generally lasts from November through February, spilling just a bit over into March. But since March carries with it the hope of spring, we’ll go ahead and toss it into the post-winter category, rounding the number of dreary months needing to be endured down to four.

It’s important that you understand I’m not a fan of winter. The cold is a big part of it, as is the ever-growing darkness. You can also throw in the frenetic and demanding spirit of the holidays, the bleak emptiness of January, and the climactic melancholy of my birthday which falls soundly on Valentines’ Day, year after lonely year. But let’s not go there right now. After all, we’re just brushing along the first whispers of the season. No need to dive headlong into absolute depression.

With this level of pessimism going into the season, it is absolutely vital that I seek out every possible method of preparation for the coming days. Winter will still attack me, but if I plan it right, I will see its assault coming in time to grab some of my stockpiled resources and fight back. Or at least to get a running start toward my cave of last resort.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but this is the first year it has occurred to me that preparing for the impending season of dread might be a way to thwart it. Nearly every year, I rest 100 percent of my sanity on the magical threads of hope. “Maybe this year won’t be as bad as last year,” I say as I click my heels together three times. I grin and bear it as best I can, and as one would expect, outside forces determine the severity of my winter depression. Sometimes it’s mild. Sometimes it’s nightmarish. But what can I do about it? Move to Miami?

This year, I’m thinking differently. Giving it a little attention, I find I’m able to make a list of things that I will need to make it through the winter with as few scars as possible. I wouldn’t try to weather a hurricane or an earthquake without adequate preparations, so why should winter be any different?

1.Stop making excuses and buy one of those Seasonal Affective Disorder lights you’ve always been curious about.

It seems silly. To buy an expensive lamp and sit by it for hours a day, expecting it to enhance mood. But studies show it works, and I need to get over myself and just buy one. Consider this winter a testing ground. If it doesn’t work, donate it to folks in northern Alaska. (Honestly, how those guys survive one winter is utterly beyond me.)

2. Make a list of comfort foods.

Things like … chili. With chopped up onions and shredded cheddar cheese. Yes. I can feel the love just imagining it. I’ve always wanted to make chicken chili (tomato-based, not white), and never have. I could eat off of it all winter! And I can add things to this list and every couple of weeks try a new dish. Let cooking be your frosty day companion. Solid advice.

3. Go ahead and use the gas fireplace.

This is not the time to conserve. It’s always a fight in my home this time of year. How cold does it really have to be before we can justify using the gas fireplace? This year I suggest using the cash I’m saving on dropping gasoline prices to pay the natural gas bill. This is my well-being I’m talking about here. It’s okay to pull out all the stops.

4. Embrace creative projects.

I’ve wanted to get back into maintaining my painted journal and pull out my brush and watercolors. And here’s a confession. I also love coloring. In coloring books. I should fill the house with my Crayola-colored pages. And it might not be a bad idea just to brainstorm a creative projects list. Maybe there are some other things to help me over the hump of the cold days when I’d rather not leave the house. The goal is to light my creative furnace and to embrace the challenge of entering into projects that have a beginning, middle, end so that before I know it, March has blossomed.

And what would my winter survival guide be without the crucial spiritual element?

5. Seek the Lord.

Winter generally means more time at home. Which, if used efficiently can also mean more time to read, more time to meditate, more time to pray. I constantly yearn to spend more time actively seeking intimacy with Christ. Here is my opportunity. Four solid months of it if I so choose.

So let’s see what we have so far. Light. Food. Warmth. Creative work. Intimacy with Christ. I’d say that’s pretty much the basics of life, wouldn’t you? And suddenly, what’s this odd sensation I feel? I hesitate to say it, but I think I feel rather optimistic. Could it be that winter doesn’t have to remain the vicious bear I’ve always made it out to be? Could it be that simple planning is the key to thriving rather than just surviving?

Time will tell. Maybe this will be the year that finally strips me of years of seasonal discrimination and unnecessary depression. Maybe all it takes is just a little bit of preparation, seasoned with hope.

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The Short, Unhappy Life of Jack Everett [joshua]

One night he fell running into the field west of campus. The grass was wet and cold and the dampness made him wheeze. He once told a friend he hated wet grass, but there was no where else to go. For a while he stayed face-down on the ground. The girl came out after him.

Ivey called on him for five and a half months. He was happy to let her. One night she decided they had better prepare for her leaving. She told him it was over on a soggy night in the field west of campus.

"You're so dramatic," she said.

But she knew he meant it.

They trudged back. It was the beginning of the end of the night. They lived their lives entirely after dark. Time did not matter at the turnaround, the dollar theatre, the Perkins, or the utility hall in MEP. They never parted until daylight. They talked about her family and about sex. She wondered why his tone changed when speaking to dogs. He loved her accent.

When her leaving came, he took the picture of her on the beach in Massachusetts. He rode home in the wet and cold and the dampness made him choke. She rode home on a jet. That was the funny thing. No one else noticed but it was not the first time she flew away in the wheezing air. Time was when they both felt they were dating but couldn't let anyone know it. She never felt safe and he knew it.

"It's not that I don't want to get up in the morning," he told her, "it's that I just can't."

"You're over-simplifying," she said.

"You're all I've got," he said.

She didn't respond.

It went on like that for months. She traveled to Rome, Sydney, Istanbul, and Montreal. He spoke to her in Turkey. He told her that he had written her a letter thirty pages long. She said she didn't have time to read it so he summarized on the subway. He told her he loved her, that she was everything he ever wanted, how he longed to hold her again, that he was sorry for whatever. Her red hair looked like fire in the damp underground breeze.

He caught her the next year in Tangier. She was better dressed but her smile hadn't changed.

"Allo," she said.

He ached for her accent in his ear.

"How's the job?," he asked.

From the look of her, she was making quite a living selling custom handbags internationally for an up-scale New York company infamous for a 1995 scandal involving purses made from celebrity pets.

"The usual," she shrugged, "How are things for you?"

"Eh, been better," he mumbled.

He kissed her and it was reckless. Just as their lips met, she dropped her labrador valise. It landed right between the two grates on which they were standing and slipped through a crack onto the subway track below. As she reached to save it one of her heels got lodged in the iron mesh of the grate. He ran down the steps as she struggled to free her shoe. She reached the platform barefooted just as he reached the bag and the train reached him.

She collapsed in shock. She had hoped he'd finally propose.

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The Adventure of Tim the Glimp [mark]

Along the soggy path stood a ruddy Glimp. His face long and haggard from the night he'd just been through. You could see his cheeks were hollow and round, dark bags were slung under his sullen eyes, well, you could if you could see beyond his thick fur. To you and me he would look like a squirrel with a short tail or a hamster with a long one. But don't tell him that; he is very proud to be a Glimp. I cannot tell every detail from the night previous-- it was very dark, but this is what I heard from the Tarmar who claims to have seen quite well.

The Glimp had been walking alone along the river path in the evening colors enjoying the distant sounds of his chaotic and hurried village--there was really no way to enjoy these sounds but distantly for to be near is to be within the flurry of Glimp, Tarmar and Schaelmeter about their daily scurry. The Glimp, who we will call "Tim" because to say his real name without large incisors protruding from your lips would be near impossible and to spell it would challenge even the greatest of linguists. Which I am not, I am merely a teller of a tale heard once long ago... but I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, Tim the Glimp! Tim, in effort to chase the bustling city sounds even farther away, thus making them even more pleasant pushed along the river path deeper into the wood. Terrible things had been said about the wood but they did not seem so terrible now, no one had mentioned that when you reach the clearing and the bridge across the river the sound of the tumultuous city cannot reach you. And you are alone. At last! The drone could not reach him and he was alone with his thoughts for the first time in his short life as a Glimp. Tim reached out for the weather worn rail along the bridge across the river and all went black.

"I say we bash his head and toss 'im in the river!" a cheerful voice rang out somewhere in the darkness of Tim's thoughts.
"Oi say we fling him down them hills to the east! He'd not stop tumbling 'til next week!"
Tim opened his eyes, blinked twice and saw nothing. Night had fallen and the darkness was much darker in the wood. His eyes began to acclimate to the lack of illumination enough so he could see three dark figures towering above him. This is the moment when the fellow we know as Tim began to show the glimmers of who we know him to be today, the great Timothy Fairweather McGlimp. I know that I have just given it away that he gets out of this turbulent pickle but why not? What sort of storyteller would I be if I told a story about a poor little Glimp who got tossed down the hills to the east and didn't stop tumb'ling for a week?

Tim sprang to his feet as only a Glimp could spring and darted as only a Glimp could dart for the sound of the river and prayed for the river path to still be there. He was immediately seized by the clammy paws of a Schaelmeter. No paws are clammier than the paws of a Schaelmeter and these were the clammiest. Tim tore one shoulder loose but was quite suddenly grabbed about the legs and promptly tossed down the hills to the east which were not as far east as he had hoped and quite steeper than he would prefer. Now Tim was not one prone to enjoy tumbling for weeks on end so he acted as only a Glimp in his predicament would know to act. He spread out his furry arms and spun his tail vigorously and fervently, the tumbling quickly stopped followed by the falling and plummeting. As Tim clung to the shallow grass upon the hills to the east he caught his breath and thought. The thoughts he thought were thoughts of scurrying and running away but also thoughts of valor and victory... and those were the thoughts worth thinking. He flexed his muscles and climbed the hills to the east with courage and bravery growing in his chest. Upon the crest of the hill he laid his paws upon the closest Schaelmeter and flung him over the hill to the east ...now I could continue telling the story from the words that Timothy Fairweather McGlimp tells but I think this story is much better (not to mention more accurate) from the words of the lowly Tarmar who was asleep in the tree on the hill to the east.

The lowly Tarmar slept in the tree on the hill to the east as was his nightly ritual. His name was Jill, and he was the fiercest fellow named Jill that you would ever meet--which is not saying much because I have never met another fellow named Jill in all my years. There was Jill sleeping away in his tree when he was rudely awakened by the girlish screams of a Glimp in flight. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the murky blues of the mid-night he was struck full-body by the flightless flying Glimp. Jill, who was quite strong enough to do so, picked up the flightless flying Glimp who was now tangled in tree branches and heaved him back to whomever had thoughtlessly absconded with it into his arboreal resting place. Such a return toss was surprisingly accurate, accurate enough to place the body of the still stunned Glimp headlong across the two heads of the Schaelmeter standing upon the crest of the hill basking in their efficient disposal of a worthless Glimp. Needless to say they could not bask long in their newly unconscious state. The Tarmar, now irreparably awake from all the commotion climbed the hill to take on the task of basking in an excellent toss. Not one to move quickly, Jill took his sweet time getting to the top.

Upon reaching the top of the hill, Jill clearly saw the clearing and in it stood Tim the Glimp wielding a small dagger removed from the sheath of the Schaelmeter which appeared as a short-sword in his paws. Tim was swishing it at a creature who Jill had not seen before in these parts nor the adjoining parts nearby. Jill, the mightiest of all Jills lost all nerve, might and continence and flew away.

Tim swished his blade at the lanky beast hoping to intimidate it away but his actions did more to strike amusement than fear. The beastly form, feeling no need to keep secrets from one so near its own demise and feeling quite proud of his thorough plans with maybe a little frustration from the realization that he now had to perform them all himself because his henchmen could no longer hench from their unconscious loafing, began to speak.

"I am a little perturbed at you small child, you have gotten in my way." He scoffed with a chuckle, "Let me introduce myself. I am Charlemagne, I live in that prestigious cave just across the river from this here clearing." His nose pointed into the air as he gestured toward the bridge. "That Tarmar has used your small ballast to clobber my henchmen so now I must perform all henching myself. You see, I am on my way to destroy the town which keeps me up at night with its clamoring and clattering. Honestly, why should I move my cave opening from one side of the hill to the other just so I won't hear their noise? I would prefer to destroy the town and be rid of its sonic torrents for good! So now you must excuse me while I extinguish you and be on my merry way to topple the great stone upon your paltry counterparts."

With that Tim summoned all of his strength, raised the dagger and ran at the beast yelling the word, "no."

"Noooooooooooo!" he yelled as he ran. KAH-THUNK! WUMP!
The tall, fearsome Charlemagne took one large step out of the Glimp's war-path. Tim was surprised by such a swift and silent movement that he went dagger-first, head-second into a old and moldy oak tree. The ground shuddered from such a force into the tree and the old oak let loose of one big soggy, rotten and moldy branch directly above the monstrous and unfriendly giant. The branch fell quickly and confidently pinning him to the cold dirt.

At the gates to the city the sun began to rise above the mountains to the east just beyond the hills to the east. When the sun rises in a manner such as this, the guards change their posts. This day as the guards were changing their posts they heard these things, a faint "nooooooo." and a "kah-thunk" off in the distance just down the river path closely followed by an abbreviated wumping sound. The guards, fearing it was Charlemagne, who had written several unkind letters addressed to city hall, ran to curtail his unpleasantness. There in the clearing stood Timothy the Glimp cowering under the tree that had yielded its branch to save his life and the lives of the city-folk. And there under the branch was Charlemagne.

Tim was given a plaque and a walking stick with his name carved in it for his service to the city, he was also given the cave of Charlemagne who was banished to a noisy cell in the middle of town. The cave of Charlemagne wasn't such a bad place to live once Tim had installed a door and plumbing. Jill and Tim became good friends and if you ever happen to walk down that river path and across the bridge you may come across a Tarmar and a Glimp sitting on the porch of the cave of Charlemagne. If you listen long enough you will hear the tale of the adventure of Tim the Glimp. He will tell you his name is Timothy Fairweather McGlimp... but you can call him Tim.

The end.

...continue reading...

Black Dress Confidence [liz]

Put on that black dress confidence
Stroll about this town of abundance
Forget the doubting words that find you
When sleep becomes elusive as the dew
Take all your worry and weight
Throw it in a bag before you’re entangled in hate

We’ve got a mountain to climb
Though it cost more than a dime
It’s time to wade through the grime
And fight up to the top of the lime

Like a runner beside the morning’s tide
Catch your breath and find your stride
There’s greater strength in gentleness
If you’ll show it in your countenance
With compassion to your right
The burden you lift passes into light

...continue reading...

Shallow Pool [theodora]

I've always been one to second guess,
whether I am worth more or less
than what I feel
to be fake or to be real.
My inadequacies are plentiful
maybe somewhat pitiful.
I seem to bathe in my fraility,
wash myself in my depravity,
sink into the incompleteness
of all humanity.
"I want this" and "I want that",
"I am untalented" and
"I am fat".
I forget the bones of children
the hurting and the broken
laying seas away,
while I am swallowed up by
the idiotic worries of today.
"Damn it!" I say and I try to care
but isn't that unfair
if I consciously have to stop and think
that today there will be some who will not
eat and will not drink and will not sleep?
I don't remember, because my eyes are shut.
but:
Shame on me! selfish soul who is so
sarcastic, sick, slick and can't stomach
the idea of it being less and less
about me and my mess,
and more about others. and I fear
Unless! I see the error of my ways,
and recognize how my soul daily decays,
I will always be in this shallow pool
being known as the fool
who can't find peace in the turbulant waters
of having so many treasures and being just
the self absorbed child with so many toys
but so little true joy

...continue reading...