tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12034777737645510722024-03-19T01:47:17.159-07:00Sigild VThe Science Fiction Guild, home to science fiction, fantasy, and just about any other genre storytelling you can imagine, in short fiction, flash fiction, and serialized fiction form.Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.comBlogger622125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-16531627768928934422024-01-14T14:39:00.000-08:002024-01-14T14:42:15.693-08:00A Visit to the Kingdom of Redonda<p>Several years ago when I was forced to go into hiding for one reason or another under an assumed name and thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor who asked only that I not publicize the results, I paid a visit to the Kingdom of Redonda.</p><p>It is perhaps important to note that I was grieving at the time the end of my private detective agency, which I had run with the assistance of a precocious infant with whom I had solved many mysteries, the exact nature of which and credulities concerning are irrelevant to the current tale. </p><p>The Kingdom of Redonda is difficult to describe except to note that it is often seldom in the same place twice and has inspired the dreams of at least several television writers who populated it with all manner of curiosities, not the least of which was a bald man who looked at its eye and saw something other than what was actually there (or perhaps was temporarily blinded, like the apostle Paul, and was later martyred in much the same manner, although to explain further would be a different story entirely).</p><p>While there I sipped from a bottle of water I had brought with me that failed to empty the whole time I was there, although this might have no more explanation than perhaps I didn’t drink as much I thought I did, being constantly distracted by the wonders of the island, such as the bookshelves that rearranged themselves even while I browsed them.</p><p>I’m afraid there’s not much more to say about the visit, which I now recall I wasn’t supposed to talk about at all, and subsequently must confess is filled with ridiculous lies, which is fortunate because those are the best ones, and thus can inform my benefactor that I followed the letter of their request.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-12850513830374517572024-01-13T12:33:00.000-08:002024-01-13T12:38:24.720-08:00The Kansas QuestionMaggie job shadowed for a day at the <i>Smallville</i> <i>Times</i>-<i>Reader</i>. She was assigned beat reporter Ellie Maggin, and it was only a matter of minutes before she caught a staffer cracking the joke she immediately assumed had been traveling around the newsroom all morning, and she told herself, “You’ve got the stuff, kid. You already cracked your first story.”<div><br /></div><div>Ellie’s desk, as it turned out, was actually more like a cubicle, and Maggie watched as she quickly tidied up, not to hide sensitive material from some high school kid but clearly an effort to look more professional. It only kind of worked. Maggie sat awkwardly beside Ellie for a few minutes, uncomfortable talking with a stranger while the reporter got caught up with the business of the day, listening as the office chatter around them continued, amused here and there by unexpected remarks on both community and cultural affairs. She'd never really thought about what a newsroom might sound like. It seemed pretty normal.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, Ellie said they were off to make the rounds of interviews for stories she was expected to file by the end of the day. One of them was with the woman who'd made the claim. Just some crackpot, but also the reason Maggie had gotten the invitation, because she'd been the one to listen to <i>this</i> one, the latest in the very long line of people who claimed they knew all about Superman's origins in town. What set this one apart was that she claimed to know who Superman's parents were, that the mom had had an affair, and that Superman's dad never even had a clue, and so, yeah, wasn't his dad after all. Juicy. Ridiculous, and probably not even true, but it was certainly news one way or another, and deserved the attention of the <i>Times-Reader</i> at the very least.</div><div><br /></div><div>They pulled up to the Kent farm first, just to get the lay of the land. Maggie didn't know much about cars, but that was another fantasy busted today, what Ellie's was like, which was to say, like any other car she'd ever been in. They'd be coming back here later. This was where they expected the drama to unfold.</div><div><br /></div><div>They left the parked car and headed next door, if "next door" in farmland country meant the same as it did elsewhere. It was more of a hike than Maggie had anticipated. "Wrong shoes," she told herself. The lady she found at the house they found at the end of the trip was older than she would've thought, too, elderly, even, sitting in a proverbial rocking chair, although when Maggie first saw her she thought maybe she was dead, she wasn't moving. This was Jane, plain ol' Jane. Maggie went to school with Jane's granddaughter, the one who'd cracked a joke Maggie alone took seriously. She'd done enough investigating, and math, to take her theories to the paper, just when school was already setting up job shadows for seniors, and that's the short version of how she ended up there that day.</div><div><br /></div><div>"You come to talk about Superman," Jane greeted.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yeah," Ellie said, matter-of-factly. No dissembling. Straight to the point. Professional. Maggie perked up a little.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Not much to tell," Jane said. "Everyone knew the woman was barren. They never so much as had a pregnancy up at that farmhouse."</div><div><br /></div><div>Maggie, for the first time, began to consider the implications. She started to panic a little.</div><div><br /></div><div>"It was nothing more than an affair with my Jim," Jane continued. "He was an alien, you know. Well, folks <i>back then</i> didn't know, that's for sure."</div><div><br /></div><div>At any other point in history the suggestion would have been greeted as absurd. But Superman, who looked perfectly human himself, had always been hailed as...Kryptonian? Was that what they always said? And he clearly worked with green-skinned Martians. Others. These were certainly interesting times.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Of course, Jim died a long time ago," Jane said. "Cremated. No body. Spread the ashes. No proof. All you'll have is my word."</div><div><br /></div><div>"That's fine," Ellie said, recording all of this, jotting notes at the same time. Maggie, watching, in that moment wondered if she ought to always have a notebook with her, and unconsciously patted her pockets as if she could have manifested one in them then.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I don't care what people say, now," Jane said. "Never did, I guess. It just doesn't matter anymore. He's no family of mine. The Kents can't possibly care if people know. What'll they do? Come all the way out here in the middle of nowhere? Any tourists would quickly get bored. Not much more to see here than cornfields. People can get everything they want in the Metropolis giftshops. The California amusement park. Maybe we could get a plaque. Maybe a mention in the history books. Or the local paper. No offense."</div><div><br /></div><div>Maggie started to fidget. Suddenly she felt dirty. This didn't feel like a scoop anymore. It wasn't much fun.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ellie told the old woman thanks, and they headed back. The Kents were waiting, with a pitcher of iced tea. Martha Kent still looked youthful somehow, Jonathan less so, but hardy, the way a farmer should.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I expect Jane told you everything," Martha said.</div><div><br /></div><div>"She did," Ellie said, again so businesslike. They all sipped their iced tea.</div><div><br /></div><div>"There's no sense denying it," Martha said.</div><div><br /></div><div>"We talked about all this years ago," Jonathan said. "I don't think there's much that Jane told you that isn't true. All of it. You came out all the way here for nothing. Just some soundbites, I'm afraid."</div><div><br /></div><div>"That's okay," Ellie said.</div><div><br /></div><div>They finished their drink, Ellie put away her notebook and recorder, and she led Maggie back to the car, and back to the newsroom. Maggie had little to say but much to think along the way.</div><div><br /></div><div>When the day was over, and they'd done various other things and she watched Ellie type her articles up, Maggie found the courage to ask the question she'd had all day.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Why?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"That's all you've got?" Ellie said.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Why do this for a living?" she offered. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Seems kind of pointless, doesn't it?" Ellie said. "No one is gonna care what news the <i>Times-Reader</i> breaks, not even in Smallville. And it's kind of insulting to suggest otherwise. It's a routine. It keeps the day going. Superman will still fly off to some new adventure tomorrow, and it won't matter what his father's name was, and nobody will care. If his mom were famous...But she isn't. And neither are we. I'm no Lois Lane, but in the final analysis...even Lois Lane doesn't amount to much. And she never did. Just stories journalists tell other journalists. But somebody has to do it. And I guess I always had an interest in it. But I'm guessing you don't."</div><div><br /></div><div>"And please, please understand it has nothing to do with today," Maggie said. "I, I'm not judging you. Not at all!"</div><div><br /></div><div>"More words spoken just now than all day," Ellie said. "A girl could start to wonder...I'm kidding! I'm a reporter, Maggie. I can read between the lines."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Thank you," Maggie said. "I guess that settles it."</div><div><br /></div><div>"What?" Ellie asked.</div><div><br /></div><div>"The Kansas question," Maggie said. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Your answers are elsewhere," Ellie said. "They often are. That's what a good reporter knows best. Even if they're reporters for a single day."</div><div><br /></div><div>Later, Maggie wished she'd saved clippings of the articles from that day. She didn't. Life moved on.</div>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-73692078696271534882023-12-02T07:39:00.000-08:002023-12-02T07:39:21.961-08:00The Sum of Mankind (Monster/Frankenstein, Chapter 7 & Finale)<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For a
brief moment in time, Sabin was happy.
Then he learned that his family line was going to come to an end, and he
met his last descendant, a woman named Olivia, named in honor in someone who
had been a family friend, as far as anyone knew at that point.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Olivia was vivacious,
charming, beautiful, but if anyone noticed they would have to have looked
closely, since she hid herself from the world, and if Sabin ever found out why
he was courteous enough not to mention it, and he never forced her to change a
thing, accepting her exactly as he found her, and he wondered, eventually, if
he would have loved her as she was, if he had not gone looking for her, if he
had not intended to use her, and if all this meant perhaps he was exactly as
his brother had always feared, and he put all that aside when she became
pregnant, was surprised that was even possible, and when the child was born,
and it was not a monster, they named him Henry, and that was when Sabin knew he
had done something wrong, and he exited both their lives, and that’s why Henry
adopted his mother’s name for his own, why he grew up answering to Henry
Grenoville, and all the more ignorant of his origins.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">From afar Sabin watched
this family, its struggles and its triumphs, watched as Olivia grew sick with
the cancer that would kill her, a cancer he wondered if he might have given
her, the impossible trade for the life he had somehow given her. He watched as Henry grew, telling himself
time and again he should have no part in rearing, in guiding, in anything at
all, and then the day came in which Henry entered Sabin’s life of his own
accord, ignorant of everything he should have known, of everything Sabin could
never tell him, but felt compelled to all the same.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The years advanced as
they always did and Henry grew older, just as Victor had, and Sabin stayed
exactly as he had been for two hundred years, and not for the first time he
wondered if there was a reason for any of it, or if it was just blind chance
and the best he could ever have asked to make of it was the best he could make
of it. He wanted to tell Henry all his
secrets. He wanted to explain. He wanted a reckoning. He chose not to, time and time again. It wasn’t his place, he decided. He watched as a new Oliver entered Henry’s
life. He remembered that all these
people knew or suspected as much as Sabin himself knew or suspected, and had
chosen the same paths for just as long.
He poured over the diaries, the books of Victor Frankenstein, trying to
find answers, and of course there were none, even though Sabin understood
better than anyone what they were. But
that was life. Sometimes meaning is
meaningless. And maybe that was the
point. He had made conscious choices for
however many lifetimes he might be said to have compiled, and he wondered if
they had been the right ones, if he had hurt more people than he had helped,
hurt the ones that mattered, such as his brother, how his failure to reconcile
with him had been a sin for which he could never be absolved, if that was the
sum of his life, his judgment, the sum of mankind itself, why he had exiled
himself to an embassy of shadows…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">One day he stopped
Oliver Row and asked for a conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I’m new at this, you
understand,” said Oliver Row.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“That’s okay,” he
replied. “So am I.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Where would you like
to begin?” said Oliver Row.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Right now,” he
said. “This very moment. I would like to understand it. I would like to know if I can. I have decided it’s not important if anyone
else does. Maybe it was a decision I
made a long time ago. Maybe it was a
decision I made when my eyes opened again, all those years ago.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“That is a wise
decision,” said Oliver Row.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“You’re much easier to
talk to than I ever imagined,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Did it ever occur to
you to try?” said Oliver Row.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“No,” he said. “I suppose I didn’t. It just never occurred to me. I thought it was a different story for so
very long.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“The exact nature of my
work is something I myself am just coming to grips with,” said Oliver Row. “Suppose we can help each other.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I never understood
what you were, until now,” he said.
“Perhaps a guardian angel. I
thought you were something else.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Everyone needs
something like that,” said Oliver Row.
“Some more than others.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I tried to fill the
role myself, over the years,” he said.
“I’m not sure I was so successful.
Might have misinterpreted the task.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I think you got it,”
said Oliver Row.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“How is he?” he
asked. “I mean, is he okay? Is he going to be okay?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I think he will,” said
Oliver Row. “But then, everyone has
their struggles. It can’t be helped,
really, if you think about it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I suppose you’re
right,” he said. “I never thought of it
that way. Which is a little bizarre,
given.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“You’re probably
right,” said Oliver Row. “Listen, I
think there’s at least one thing I can put to rest for you. She forgave you. She understood. She always knew the assignment. You have to, in this line of work.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Thank you,” he
said. “That means a lot. I don’t think I was, ah, quite prepared, to
hear that. I will need some time to
process that.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Take your time,” said
Oliver Row.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Sometimes I’ve thought
I’ve nothing but time,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Funny how life works,”
said Oliver Row. “It’s going to be
okay.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I think so,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And the years continued.</span></p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-26759107692124198942023-12-02T07:35:00.000-08:002023-12-02T07:35:50.955-08:00A Secret History (Monster/Frankenstein, Chapter 6)<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">From
the diary of Victor Frankenstein</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">December 31, 1798<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">My brother died, today. I’m
told it would be better to pretend as if he never existed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">July 31, 1802<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">After several years at this game I’ve decided that was terrible
advice, and so filled this diary with all my precious memories of him. Then I scratched it all out. Then I wrote it again. Then I scratched it out again. I made another copy. Started over.
Threw it out. I am somewhat
conflicted over this matter.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">April 2, 1810<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the midst of my studies I came upon curious information, which
started me thinking. I can bring him
back. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">January 18, 1818<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I did as I planned and it turned out to be a terrible idea. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t him at all. I’ve spent the past several years in recompense,
and it wasn’t nearly enough. In the end
I had to fake my death, and I’m not sure he knows or cares. I wrote the whole thing down again. I may have shared my story with some
poets. There may be multiple versions of
this horror. I have started my diary
anew. I have started it and scratched
through it and started it again many times.
How many versions exist? Am I
still the same man I was when he died, or did I change as well?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">June 8, 1824<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The years continue their descent, as do I. I’ve started my life over so many times I
keep new diaries to track each new life, and they’re all lies. Finally I can admit that. I confess I’m no longer quite certain I know
who I am, what my name is today. I
wonder where this all ends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">November 26, 1843<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I attempted to collect all the diaries from where I discarded
them, even amongst the very trash heaps, and I can find none of them. There can be only one explanation, that he’s
taken them all into his possession. I
don’t think he cares what effect this has on me. He means to control my legacy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">May 1, 1864<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">If you must know, my name these days is Grenoville, and that is
only because I have learned, recently, that I had a son, at some point, a new
member of this strange family, of which I was unaware for the duration of his
formative upbringing, and yet he knows of me, as if he knows my true face, and
I assume this is because my brother took the liberty of informing him, that and
the dogged pursuit of Oliver Row, who wants some form of justice, the nature of
which eludes me in my advancing age, that and a great many other things. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">September 12, 1871<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I met him, again, had a whole conversation with him. We discussed many things. I mean my brother, not my son. I never had the courage. My brother has pursued a similar course to
mine, over the years, including the adoption of aliases. As I sat talking to him I wondered if he
remembered his name, if the point of this occasion was to provoke me into
stating it. In truth I’m not sure I do,
either. I am an old man, and there’s no
use denying it. I sometimes wonder, now,
if the things I record in here are anymore the truth than what I cross out and
attempt to set straight a second and third, fourth, fifth, however many times
it takes. I wonder if my brother
reconstructs them, rewrites them with all the words left in, and what a
confusing affair it would be to read, whomever tackled such a task ending up as
confused as I myself have become. I
suppose it would be amusing. There are
authors who believe that’s the way their readers want to be entertained, I
suppose. Never quite a straight
line. Cleverness for its own sake,
perhaps. It’s not my affair.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">February 23, 1875<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I don’t know why I continue to write in this thing. I had a thought the other day, and didn’t jot
it down, and so I forgot it, and that’s what my life is, now, very far from
what it once was, what I imagined to be a clever mind with no boundaries,
capable of anything, and then of course I did just that and have regretted it
ever since. I don’t know how many people
are honest enough to admit such things.
Perhaps, if they’re lucky, when they’re as old as I am. If they remember what they regret. If they remember to regret. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">January 12, 1876<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I saw him again. I had to
remind myself, this time. Didn’t
remember his face. Because of his
unusual nature he doesn’t age, and I do.
The body died a great many years ago, after all, and he has been living
on borrowed time ever since. Tried to
shoot him, this time, but couldn’t lift the pistol. Don’t know why I have the thing. A small comfort. I don’t know whose time he borrows. Perhaps mine.
The skin is obviously a problem, but he seems to have worked around
it. Walks stiffly, but he gets around. We’re the same, at the very least, again, for
the first time in a very long time. All
told he does it better. I find myself
somehow jealous. He dresses better. I was never able to determine how he ended so
much smarter. I remember, now, if I
remember my brother at all, to have been a dullard. Maybe that’s just what I have to tell
myself. Maybe it’s what I always told
myself, why I felt so guilty when he died.
But there are so many things I don’t remember, now, that I perhaps
recorded in prior versions of this diary, that he stole, along with so much
else. What I gave him. Let’s be honest for one brief moment, shall
we?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">January 18, 1878<o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Thought
I’d go for a walk. Ran into him. My son, I mean. At least I think it was. I imagine it was. Very different fellow. Or maybe exactly the same. I don’t suppose I’d know the difference, at
this point. I don’t suppose I care. Perhaps that’s the true curse of this life.</span></p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-79488623972557468222023-12-02T07:34:00.000-08:002023-12-02T07:34:22.994-08:00A Countess by Night (Monster/Frankenstein, Chapter 5)<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
golden age of cinematic horror solidified the idea of the monster by its
outward appearance, and further justified this approach by separating the
component parts in the popular consciousness from mad scientist creator only
responsible for the inception of the monster, and of course the rampaging
monster itself, which is to say, Victor Frankenstein receded into history, and
the monster took on a name, Frankenstein itself, monster assuming the full
mantle.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the original
chronicle of the story, monster is a surprisingly intelligent, even sympathetic
creature, wounded by the pathos of creation for creator, forever scorned
despite an exhilarating chase sequence deep into the heart of the arctic
unknown, where both figures recede into history, the suggestion being the brute
forms used by creator reverted to nature in the most literal sense despite all
impossible potential, story of mankind in a nutshell.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">But the truth, as is
often stated, is often stranger than fiction.
I should know.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the 19<sup>th</sup>
century it was still possible to discover the unnatural, before the natural
world was tamed by science, was still possible for science itself to discover
the impossible, so that the arcane blended the worlds of science and fantasy,
monsters stalked the earth, and the naturalists plumbed the depths of reason to
tame it in our blessed besotted utopia of today. This is to say, where there were those who pursued
vampires, there were colleagues who sought other treasures, and the first of my
line came into being, the first Oliver Row, a name given to all those whose
adoption of the role forever cursed them to stalk the earth alongside monsters,
to understand their intentions. We knew
where our monster went, after the arctic, knew the aliases he assumed, and when
he emerged as a figure cloaked in mystery known as Sabin, a mere academic, we
were not misled, as was the rest of the world.
We followed him closely.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We followed him all the
way to the Embassy of Shadows, a clever name given to an institution the rest
of the world hallowed, and I am not here today to dispel its reputation by
identifying it further. We worried that
our Sabin had a sinister plot of revenge against a world that could never
understand him, common pablum that I grew ashamed to peddle, and so one day I
revealed the truth to Sabin’s descendent, Henry Grenoville.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now, some stories begin
roughly, and to read further the reader must have patience that there will be
some reward later, better writing, a point even, some secret to justify the
pittance of faith in such transitory wonder, an allegory perhaps, a reflection
of the real world, something that can’t be spoken of openly but needs saying
all the same, otherwise later generations will lose all respect for us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps, then, Sabin
and Henry and myself are not all the players worth knowing in this piece, or
the story sketched so lightly to this point it has hardly been worth
considering. What has Sabin been doing
all this time as our Henry wonders at this strange introduction? How does the rest of the world see him? Does the world see him at all? Or is all this delusional fiction, a fever
dream best left unremembered in moments?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sabin’s reputation was
as Henry had perceived it, an ogre of a man if not in appearance alone then by
reputation, and this would be the mark of the villain in our times, an irony in
our rush to redefine refinement of perception, to repair the injustices and
shallow natures of the past, how we have come to define evolution not only
mankind’s past but its necessary intellectual future, as if all our collected
thought has come to nothing more than what we need to overcome.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">And yet Sabin <i>was</i>
tall, taller than usual, and his features rough, his manners imposing, no
concessions to observers, no attempt to pacify his peers. In earlier eras his height alone would have
given him privileges, and yet in our suspicions of inherited impressions, we
have acknowledged our genius for interpretation, given preference to those who
ask for our attention, and suspicion to those who seek to avoid it, regardless
of their social status, and in fact actively encourage misperception of such status
at our convenience. Such is the
advancement of agendas in our time, however we can bend such minds to our aims,
however easy it might be to flatter, all of us bent low in our courtly
pleasures.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">So what <i>of</i> our
Sabin? An academic, resplendent in his
offices, the shaper of young minds, culling attitudes beyond the scope of the
grades and degrees of the day, an authority figure to be scorned and adored,
central in his placement at the head of the room where all eyes must drift
toward for as long as the clock demands, a notebook or tablet recording what
might be useful a few months later, when such soft tyranny ends, his true
influences known by the clubs he runs, the visits he encourages for
apprehensive scholars, the positions he stakes, the memories he will inhabit
for years to come, the last time many future citizens will have been held in
thrall by the suggestion of necessity before some form of income enticement
fills their days, their opinions now cultivated by politicians hungry for a
vote and parties eager for power.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">No, Sabin’s power isn’t
in a position but where his power leads, and where he cannot be swayed he would
be hated, and this is how he becomes a monster in today’s world, the image of
the golden age become reality in the minds of those who need such belief, who
will adhere to the ideals of those with such deep yearning for power. And Henry’s antipathy directed not by outward
appearance but cultivated carefully by society, something Sabin is all too
willing to play into.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Why? I am dying as I ponder these things, the end
of my involvement clear to me, my ineffectiveness, my impotence. It is only now that I see these things
clearly, and perhaps the cruelty of it, the whole history of my line, how I too
was manipulated, used as a pawn, a patsy, the invisible fingers of the
assassin. Regardless of a reconciliation
between Sabin and Henry, their roles played out already, the effect of history
already crushing them under its heel, passing them by, steady in its march onward,
bent in shapes by those intent to guide it, or at least believe they do, which
is what makes them so dangerous, so sure of their right, the justice of their
intentions, their anger when they fail, their wrath, their envy, and their
retribution, and their utter ineffectiveness when they finally win power,
because of course then they have no idea what to do with it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">No, you know everything
you need to already. This is, as all
these monster stories always are, a tragedy, and that’s all you need to know,
the stumbling mad blindness of it, the jerking steps toward reconciliation,
seldom witnessed, never sought, always met with suspicion, forgotten, dismissed
as impossible ideal, considered backward in that incessant march onward, always
believing there’s some grand discovery just over the next horizon, wondering if
it would all be better without us, because “us” will always include those not
wanted on the voyage, the aftermath of the apocalypse, always occurring
somewhere in some slight manner and ready to be interpreted however
conveniently by those stepping loosely along the way, careful not to slip, and
if they do, to find their footing again…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">And I wonder about
myself, how pointless, and yet how ecstatic I am to have experienced it at all,
to have been here and seen all the sinew and connective tissue, to see it
exhumed all over again, denied in all its splendor in the interests of leaving
something for another generation to puzzle over, the next iteration of the same
story and, I don’t know, another dazzling triumph that will look like abject
failure in slightly different light, an abomination, the eternal abyss, a
direct manifestation of our real fears, the face of doubt, the old inadequacy
of the race.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I really did set out to write something
different, you know.</span></div>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-77587578690197589182023-07-22T12:36:00.002-07:002024-01-13T12:41:58.722-08:00How the Baby Survived Doomsday’s Assault on Metropolis<p>Holding the job I do, you get used to guessing. It’s not always very satisfying, because you find yourself prone to assuming the worst. I work with babies. I’m a caregiver. I’m male. I’m a male caregiver who works with babies. To be clear.</p><p>Okay, sure, sometimes a baby will cry for no reason. Not because they’re hungry or sleepy or have gas or are bored, feeling anxiety, any of that. Sometimes it seems impossible to figure out. You start asking questions. First, obviously, with your coworkers. Then, if you’re really brave, the parents. Some of us, the parents will freely share any and all inside information. Some of us, we’ll get lucky now and again. Asking questions, you never know. Depends on the parents.</p><p>This one baby, we’ll call her Aria. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s an insanely popular name these days. Sometimes it seems like literally every other baby is named Aria. So calling this one Aria is not to evoke any particular baby so named. It could be any of them.</p><p>This Aria cried all the time. Completely inconsolable. Honestly, I was as worried as I had ever been. Cried all day every day. Weeks and months went by, never changed. Parents weren’t big talkers, to any of us. So we guessed a lot. It’s not gossip if it’s guessing. Listen to a baby cry long enough, you have to release the pressure. You just have to.</p><p>The Doomsday rampage had happened. That was recent history. Months in the past. Superman died. All those replacements showed up. Everyone assumed one of them was the real deal. You have no idea how competitive the betting got. I’d rather not say who I placed my money on. A little embarrassing, in hindsight. But it seemed reasonable, at the time. And that’s just based on what little us average joes got to learn about any of it. The <i>Daily</i> <i>Planet</i>, a solid job covering all of it. But there were only so many scoops Lane or Troupe could score. </p><p>I bring it up because eventually the guessing about what motivated all of Aria’s crying eventually, inevitably turned toward Doomsday. Trauma. Massive trauma. I’m mean, it <i>is</i> Metropolis, and the Doomsday rampage tore the whole city up. Sure, no physical scarring. Both parents confirmed very much alive.</p><p>That still left a wide gulf of possibilities. Aria was eight months old, when all this guessing occurred. During the Doomsday rampage, half that. People underestimate babies. They know what’s happening around them. </p><p>So I did some digging. Found her family living at Lex Towers at the time of the rampage. Of course her parents work for some division of Lexcorp. Practically one out of every three citizens of Metropolis does. Lex Towers has been undergoing massive reconstruction since the rampage, having been nearly leveled during it. </p><p>I made some calls. Seems Lex Luthor has been providing support to all former residents. He’s footing the bill for Aria at the center. </p><p>When all those Supermen were running around, it was Luthor who was this baby’s hero. I know what everyone says about him. Probably most of it’s true. But he’s one of the city’s most prominent citizens. One of the country’s. One of the world’s. Superheroes have one obvious conclusion about him. </p><p>What I know is that after those calls, Luthor dropped by the center and visited our room, and the minute he stepped foot into it, Aria stopped crying. He picked her up, and she actually giggled. I can’t make this up. There are pictures. </p><p>I don’t know. The world’s complicated. Sometimes people everyone says are evil do good things. Sometimes babies love them. Maybe tomorrow Luthor will, I don’t know, build a new deathray and attack Superman, try to kill him. Aria still cries, but now I know why, and all I can do is try my best to soothe her. Maybe she’s crying at the ridiculous state of the world she was forced to confront way too soon, where Lex Luthor is her legitimate knight in shining armor. (They say he actually <i>has</i> armor. For some reason he painted it purple and green. They say there’s big money if you can get a picture of <i>that</i>.)</p><p>What do I know? I’m a contradiction myself. That’s just the way it is sometimes.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-7559548135205232782023-05-27T12:58:00.001-07:002023-05-27T12:58:31.076-07:00The Man in the Box, Pages 1-8<div style="text-align: left;">PAGE ONE</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1<br />A ten-year-old black girl, Sam Lane, standing at the grave of Jerome Taggart, erstwhile butler of Adam Hemingway, the Ferryman. She's holding a notebook, which distinctly sports a black cover with the Ferryman's logo, styled after the Greek ferryman Charon's boat, in yellow, absently in one hand. This is the lead panel at the top of the page.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: Sonny Reyes recruited me the other day.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam sits in a classroom, in the back row, bored, the same notebook we saw in the previous panel unopened in front of her on her desk.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: Sonny used to adventure as the first Soul, kid sidekick of the Ferryman, Hun City's famed masked private detective.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Seemingly everyone else's hands shoot up to answer a question from the teacher.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: Sonny recruited me at the funeral of the Ferrryman's dead butler. I was busy fending off my conniving uncle at the time. Still trying to cash in on his sister's death. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">Teacher has of course called on Sam, who looks embarrassed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: No one's told him she died penniless.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE TWO</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam's walking out of the classroom at the end of class, relieved. Still very much alone, still clutching her Ferryman notebook.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: The Ferryman provisionally accepted me as his new apprentice. All I have to do is solve the mystery of the Destroyer's identity. Same setup as previous page. One large panel at the top, three chaser panels below it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">The teacher's hand reaches out to Sam through the doorway.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">TEACHER (o.p.): Sam, if I could have a minute.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Readers will recognize the teacher as the Ferryman, Adam Hemingway himself, in one of his disguises, the street level, mustachioed persona known as AJ Blocks, posing as a substitute teacher. Sam herself seems nonplussed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">FERRYMAN: You were distracted throughout class today.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam looking defiant.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: Don't think I didn't spot you the minute I entered class today, "Mr. Blocks."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: Substitute teacher my...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">FERRYMAN: Language, Miss Lane.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE THREE</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">Blocks and Sam are now in the teachers lounge, and Blocks is waving goodbye to his colleagues. This is the end of the day. Everyone has their bags, jackets, making that clear. Sam is already sitting at the table as Blocks stands. She has the same unopened notebook from earlier in front of her. As with two previous pages, same layout.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">FERRYMAN: Be safe! Never know what kind of maniac will be on the road!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Blocks has seated himself down across from Sam.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">FERRYMAN: Now. To business.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam has flipped open her notebook.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: I understood the assignment perfectly. You tell me you already know who the Destroyer is.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: You just want to see if I can figure it out myself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam is sliding her notebook over to Blocks, who is making a show of not looking at it but rather remaining focused on her.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: I already knew at the funeral. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: You can check all my evidence for yourself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: It's my uncle. Looks different without the horn mask.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE FOUR</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">This is a flashback to Jerome Taggart's confrontation with the Destroyer, just before it, as he rides the subway car, still holding the package he had gone to retrieve that fateful day. On it can be seen the address line: Kenny Lane, 3827 Lucas Drive, Hun City, LA. Every page follows the same design pattern.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: On the day he died, Jerome Taggart picked up a package from the post office. A package the mailman wouldn't deliver to you. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Jerome looks at his watch, flashing a signal he knows comes from the Ferryman for emergencies.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: That package was from my uncle.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Jerome looks in the direction of the next car, where he and the reader can see the Ferryman battling the Destroyer. His arm hasn't drop from when he looked at his watch, but he's dropped the package.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: The package was classic misdirection.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">Mindless of the passengers around him, who are distracted anyway, Jerome slips on the mask of the Insider, a persona he has occasionally employed to assist the Ferryman in the field. The mask is gray and covers his whole face.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: It contained tea packets, in case you were wondering.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE FIVE</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">The courtroom during Johnny Brisk's trial, with Etta Hemingway, the Ferryman's aunt, also known as Harlot, prosecuting. On the stand testifying can be found our Kenny Lane.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: At the trial of your parents' murderer, Johnny Brisk, my uncle testified against Brisk, believing he had scored immunity from the DA, Etta Hemingway. Your aunt.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Behind the prosecution's table sits Jerome, who alone represents the Hemingway family beyond the DA.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: Jerome had a keen mind. He alone remembered my uncle's history.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Jerome whispers in Etta's ear.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: He took my uncle's immunity away in an instant. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">Etta gives her star witness a cold stare, and Kenny knows he's lost his deal.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: He remembered who killed <i>my</i> parents. A minor case for the Ferryman at the time.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: The whole thing was a setup. It was revenge.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE SIX</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">The Insider standing in front of the Destroyer, who towers over him, in the subway car.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: No one else saw Jerome as a threat.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: He was just Adam Hemingway's butler. Totally anonymous.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">The Destroyer grabs Jerome by the throat.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: But to the Destroyer, he was the one who ruined everything.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">The Destroyer has both hands on Jerome's throat, now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: As Kenny Lane, he'd been investigated by the Ferryman, dismissed as a suspect in the murder of his own sister and her husband. My parents.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">The Destroyer has snapped Jerome's neck.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: As Kenny Lane, star witness, he'd dared show his face again. And Jerome had figured it out. How he'd done it, with just one glance. Given him that crucial second thought.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE SEVEN</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">The graveyard scene revisited. This time we focus on young Sam at the tombstones of her parents. We see Kenny looming toward her.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: It was the tea, of course.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Kenny imposing his bulk on Sam. This is where it's obvious he has the size to be the Destroyer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: He'd poisoned them. For money.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam kicks Kenny in the shin.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: I was made an orphan. He thought I inherited the money. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam shoves at Kenny.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: It never occurred to him they would donate the bulk of it to charity.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE EIGHT</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">Back to the teachers lounge. Blocks is pouring over the notebook now. Sam sits back in her chair relaxed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: I have all the samples back home.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: All the proof you'd need.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Blocks is sliding the notebook, closed, back to Sam.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">FERRYMAN: No. Thanks. I won't need to see it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">FERRYMAN: Save it for the police.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam is glancing through the notebook herself now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">FERRYMAN: You did good work.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam glances up at Blocks now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: I know.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM: Sorry for your loss.</div>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-88952608414816775022023-04-09T03:56:00.004-07:002023-04-09T04:06:07.480-07:00An Easter Tale - Rex Futurus, Part 3<p>A lot of things changed over the years. The idea of Jesus changed in a lot of people’s eyes, after what happened that third day. I watched it from a unique vantage point: how Pilate’s son reacted.</p><p>Perhaps not enough is said about him. Often we tend to overlook someone’s family when dwelling on them; they get lost in the shuffle when you’re busy worrying about how you think about just the one person. You overlook the context. That’s how a lot of people reacted to Jesus, as I found out later, the more questions I asked about him, how for most of his life he was merely the carpenter’s son, who took up the family trade, who was best known for the work he did, never took pains to draw attention to himself, just focused on doing a good job, being someone who was easy to have around, who put you at ease, was easy to take for granted, and then for a few years was something else entirely, and then was executed. His father was long dead at that point, and his mother was said to be one of his biggest supporters, who constantly talked about him, who even inspired him to show more of himself to the world. </p><p>I can’t really imagine what she must have thought, what she must have gone through, as all that played out. It’s said that later, he would openly talk about what needed to happen, that he would have to die and actually come back again. The business about the sealed tomb and then the empty tomb, the mad scrambling that took place that third day, the confusion, and then all the talk that it had actually happened, for her it had to have been the best and worst experience of her life, worse than seeing him die, since of course for her she had still had to experience that and then there he was again, just as if it had never happened, and then he was saying that he was only back for a little while. </p><p>I can’t explain it. I know many people talked about seeing him. Some said he had somehow faked his death, but let me assure you: crucifixion is many things, but it is not something you can fake. The whole point is that you can see the whole process play out. Usually it’s a slow process, which is the point. For Jesus they sped up the process, because of the Sabbath, or at least that was the intention, but he died of his own accord; the other two they broke their legs so they could no longer support themselves to draw breaths. They made sure he was dead. They pierced his side and saw what could only come from a dead body flow from it. They gave his body to his mother to hold, after. I saw this myself.</p><p>Anyway, years later people still talked about Jesus. They still talked about him. This was many years, decades. The way the Romans continued to talk about Julius, the way he died, it was very much the same, except for Julius it was a tragedy that gave way to life very much as it had always been, except it codified exactly what everyone had feared about Julius, and so was an irony. With Jesus it was very much the opposite: his death was supposed to end the problem, and yet it only magnified what he had tried to accomplish in life, show people that there was another way, to reject the brutalities we can so often inflict on each other, to suggest love conquers all.</p><p>Pilate’s son was in a unique position to appreciate this. For him it was inescapable. Everywhere he turned he encountered people who only knew him as the son of the man who had unsuccessfully tried to end the Jesus problem. The Jesus problem never went away. His followers never went away. In fact, they only multiplied. They became perfect pariahs of the Romans, scapegoats, easy to blame for any little mishap, fodder for the circuses, their deaths mere entertainment, but somehow this never dissuaded their faith. In a lot of ways they were only emboldened. When they started telling the story of Jesus, some accused them of shaping the events of the trial to flatter the Romans, but it could only be an embarrassment. Just ask Pilate’s son. Just try to look at it from his perspective: his father failed to end the problem, and he was going to be the one who would have to live with the results, the constant proof of that failure, and everywhere he turned he couldn’t hope to avoid it.</p><p>A funny thing happened, though. As far as I can tell, he began to believe. Pilate himself was removed from Jerusalem, having been judged ineffective to the task. His son followed him back to Rome, but the whispers of the whole affair followed. The itinerant preacher Paul, who was himself Roman, who showed up a few years later, had never met Jesus himself, not even after the mysterious resurrection, the event that had galvanized the faith for so many of the followers, the impossible thing, spread the message far and wide, so that it became truly inescapable. Pilate’s son learned this better than anyone. Often he found himself jeered. His response was remarkable. He would tell anyone willing to listen that he was actually proud, that if anything his father had been vindicated, that if his judgment had been challenged, then perhaps that had been the whole point all along. A point rebuffed must be reconsidered. This is the task of any rational mind, and any such mind that refuses to accept such a challenge isn’t worth taking seriously. This is how he chose to view it. This is what he told those who stopped to listen. This is how he came to believe.</p><p>He gave up everything. Some say he didn’t have much to begin with, the son of a man considered a failure, who couldn’t subdue a troubled province, who seemed to actually have made things worse. No prospects, no hope for a future. Willing to grasp at any straws. </p><p>Well, maybe I view it differently since I myself came to believe, so I was willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt. Some say it was easy to believe because it offered an alternative to the Romans, suggested that if you simply endured then you could envision life after them, to life on terms without them again. But I don’t think that was ever the point. I heard that Jesus once said, render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Accept life as you find it. But know there is something greater. Know you don’t have to define life by the terms in which you find it. This is to say, there is the standard around you, and then there is the standard you hold for yourself. If your standard is greater, hold that closest to your heart. If you find the standard set by Jesus, then you won’t need to worry about the lower standards around you. All you can really do is hope one day more people will see things the way you do.</p><p>And that’s how Pilate’s son saw it. He could have considered his future bleak, his loss of station, of potential within the empire, that he would never reach the same heights his father had, certainly never surpass him. But he chose instead to embrace the idea upon which this failure had been achieved. He humbled himself quite happily. He became just another Christian. In his quiet way, if like me you noticed him at all, later, marveled that he never shied from being treated like any of the rest of us, subject to the same perils, you saw how the story had come full circle. Like his father he had washed his hands of the business, but in his case he washed his with ours, to break bread with us, to share the same bounty. And so, perhaps, like father like son. That’s what I like to believe, anyway.</p><p>The whole thing was an affirmation. That’s how I saw those three days play out, and how they spoke through the years that followed. I commemorate the experiences to this day. How could I not? I believe. I believe in Jesus. I believe in his way. I believe in humanity, even when it seems I shouldn’t. Not for some selfish reason. Not because I believe I will receive some reward for it. Because my faith in humanity is the best way to inspire that same belief in others, that they will see there is a better way, a way that sees value in others. Pilate, his wife, his son, they had impossible journeys to be a part of all this. Believe what you want to about them. For me, they are essential. </p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-7700762125822005702023-04-08T01:00:00.000-07:002023-04-08T01:00:33.450-07:00An Easter Tale - Rex Futurus, Part 2<p>The next day people began to talk about Pilate’s wife.</p><p>Now, let me get something out of the way. I’m really curious as to how all this will be talked about in, say, two thousand years. I think I know. I think so because I know how it’s being talked about now, how the story is already taking shape.</p><p>It would be one thing if Jesus were turning into legend. Legends take one of two paths. The first is that they become an epithet, the epitome of evil in the eye of memory. The second is that they become impossibly heroic. The legend would be that Jesus tried to overthrow the Roman Empire itself. He would be cautionary tale in one, a glorious victor in the other. Imagine if this idea of his becomes state religion at some point, what his detractors would say. What the believers would!</p><p>But he was just a man (in one sense). He died as a man. He was condemned both by his own people, and under Pilate, by the empire, too. History officially has little space for him now. He was executed in a group. I saw him hang there myself. Surrounded by common criminals. Forget what Pilate had nailed to the cross above his head. From a distance all you could see was three dying men gasping for breath. </p><p>What they’re saying about Pilate’s wife, though. They say all through the ordeal yesterday she pleaded for this man’s life. It doesn’t matter if it’s true. It doesn’t matter if it’s his followers putting out a false narrative. The man was just executed by the state. You can’t argue, logically, realistically, that they make themselves look good by suggesting only that it was his own Jewish authorities responsible. I know the Romans. It will be a long, long time before they even consider sympathy for this business. They’re going to kill a lot more of them, these followers of the way of Jesus.</p><p>Why would this story circulate, then? He died. Yesterday. End of story. Consigned to history. Forgotten. Except the story continues, and it takes interesting turns. They say she thought he was not only innocent, but an innocent, one of the truly good people. As to whether he was innocent of the basic charge of intended or implied mutiny, that’s debatable. I don’t particularly see it that way myself. It’s said that he preached those who live by the sword die by the sword. Apart from the temple incident he abhorred violence. It’s said he once preached those eager to cast stones in judgment of another must surely be themselves entirely blameless. </p><p>It’s said she thought he was such a person. Perhaps the only such person who ever lived. He was a preacher, first and foremost, who never went out of his way to promote himself. Drawing attention for the sake of attention was never his ambition. His message gained followers, his wisdom. It’s said he performed miracles, and there were those who believed in him because of this, only because of this. It’s said his message finds parallels in other cultures. In the far east there’s said to be a tradition of holy orders very similar to his ideals, except theirs believes ultimate removal from daily life is the key to satisfaction in this world, where he always argued radical acceptance of even the worst trials, such as the one he himself endured. </p><p>I don’t think the acceptance of pain was his message, or even the seeking of it for penance. That’s what he had to experience. It’s said even as he died he asked forgiveness for those who put him up there.</p><p>Last night and into this morning I have been struggling to understand all of this, which is why any scrap of additional insight is so valuable. It’s said his followers almost to a man abandoned him in his final hours, that only his mother, some family friends, some secret friends, and the youngest of his disciples were present. Such a motley crew wouldn’t be sending such stories out so quickly. It was a strange business, what happened. Strange stories are going to be told. But maybe not as strange as this.</p><p>Pilate’s wife. It’s said she was plagued with nightmares. In their culture such things have meaning. That’s how they interpret the world. She worried about what her husband’s decision meant. It’s said he washed his hands of the business. He put up that sign. Somehow I doubt she thought that was good enough.</p><p>So what do I believe? I believe such a story. I’m starting to believe. I believe this is not the end of the story. </p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-60223227475455785632023-04-07T03:06:00.001-07:002023-04-07T03:06:37.561-07:00An Easter Tale - Rex Futurus, Part 1<p>Someone tried telling me the sign was because Pilate and this Jesus fellow were friends. In the moment it almost made sense. I imagined a whole scenario where they hung out together for years, out of the public eye, complaining about Jewish politics. Jesus was a carpenter, that’s probably how they met. One day he delivers a table or whatever to Pilate, they get to talking, discover how much they have in common, and it just blossoms from there.</p><p>Now, I’ll admit I didn’t know either one of them personally, but people talk. They were both gossip magnets. Pilate for obvious reasons, and Jesus, because he went around the whole region with his little group of friends in recent years, and it was kind of impossible to avoid what people said about him, the miracles, the idea that he was the messiah, but basically how he was unlike anyone any of us had ever met.</p><p>Then of course he ends up arrested, they push through a trial overnight, and this was just last night, mind you! And this morning he’s shown before Pilate, asked to explain himself, and Pilate is essentially backed into a corner, something about sedition, I guess, which is the one thing a Roman governor can never be soft on, and he has no choice but to order yet another execution. </p><p>To be a fly on the wall when they spoke in private! That’s what they say, that Pilate kept pulling Jesus aside, which is strange enough. To listen to most of what Pilate’s reputation suggests, you’d think he’d hardly think twice about the matter, that he would hardly give such a criminal that had been presented to him so early in the morning the time of day! And listen, I don’t really care what they say about the Jews. I’m just a merchant, here, I’m not Roman, I’m certainly not Jewish. If anything I should be mad at Jesus for that outburst at the temple. It was all but a personal attack, right?</p><p>But the trouble is, I got to thinking. Not just about why Pilate would humor such a man, why he would stick such a note on the crucifix, “King of the Jews,” what he could possibly have meant (Romans aren’t known for their humor; they’re best understood for their tragedies, since in all things they are always chasing Greeks), but why I should take this Jesus seriously, if I thought for even one moment a Roman governor did.</p><p>It’s not because he clashed with his own people. I get that he probably gained some of his followers that way. There will always be contrarians, and hopefully I am never one of those! I think, rather, that he had something worth believing in. A sign says “King of the Jews” above his savaged body, you have to think about that for a moment.</p><p>They say he championed the humble. Sometimes it’s easy to believe that anyone willing to do that is just trying to gain their favor, do the state the favor of making such people somehow feel good about their lot, and someone far more cynical than me would then draw the conclusion that Pilate and Jesus bonded in this way. Well, not me.</p><p>I think he did it for the very reasons he himself suggested, that, and if you believe what people have said, that he was the son of the Jewish god, and certainly all the Jewish stories in that book of theirs proves what good storytellers they are, and that this story of his was the best they ever produced, because he further suggested he was born to once and for all reconcile his father and these people, and in fact everyone else, too. And he had to do it by dying today.</p><p>Ritual sacrifice is an old religious tradition. I think every culture has it at some point. It’s not so common for the sacrifice to be the son of the god. It’s not so common for such a grand gesture. Well, if it is, I haven’t heard about it. </p><p>King of the Jews. Clearly it got me thinking. I’m not saying Pilate believed one thing or another. But perhaps he believes Jesus himself believed it. I don’t think he posted it to antagonize the Jews. I think it was about respect. I think he recognized, for one reason or another, that Jesus was more than just another agitator.</p><p>I’m starting to believe a lot of things.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-86441104886462503032023-04-05T04:07:00.005-07:002023-04-05T04:10:45.826-07:00Star Trek: 2063<p>My favorite author is certainly Jo Belano, the Chilean expat who spent her final years in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where I was fortunate enough myself to grow up. The library always displayed her book <i>2063</i> prominently, and I must have sat there reading it, and borrowing it, about half of my first twenty years on this planet, which, thanks to the era in which she lived, ended up being my <i>last</i> twenty, after I agreed to live in Tycho City on the moon. And of course I’m taking a copy of her book with me.</p><p><i>2063</i> is a kaleidoscope of the the millennium as she understood it. She opens with a story about the Bell Riots from 2024, knowing many of her readers would have forgotten the massive reforms already happening before First Contact, most of which stayed in place even when WWIII broke out. She’s one of the few historians of any extraction to link the riots, and the efforts of Gabriel Bell himself, to the war, the desperate attempts to prevent it, after the Eugenics Wars had all but precipitated it, the conflict between Starling and Cochrane that launched a thousand ships into space, one of Starling’s of course containing the infamous Khan Singh in cryostasis. She also talks about the final World Series in 2042, how the aging baseball star Buck Bokai volunteered himself for the draft after playing in the last game as a symbolic gesture of unity.</p><p>The book really hits its stride for me, though, as she describes President Rios’s difficult path to the White House, how the country very nearly split apart upon his election, and then First Contact occurs on his watch, and he transforms the controversial Cochrane and the backwater town he had exiled himself to in rural Montana into a beacon of hope, inviting the world’s leaders to an international summit with the new Vulcan ambassadors. </p><p>The way she weaves all this together, this rich tapestry of humanity’s potential, at a time when we had just begun to live among the stars…So I’ll live on the moon, now, and sometimes I wonder if I’ll go deeper still into space. Even Cochrane is thoroughly respectable these days. He’s talked about the “final frontier,” as he works on his new warp engines, like a credo, and…we really don’t know what we’ll find out there. But it seems like a challenge worth taking. I wonder what Jo would have discovered, there. Sometimes I wonder if I should be the one to write about it. Following her example.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-1493093067968360142022-12-25T01:15:00.001-08:002022-12-25T13:35:02.557-08:00Cradle: A Christmas Tale<p>I have to be honest. When Mary first told me, I was a little upset. </p><p>We had known each other since we were kids. I thought I knew her as well as I knew myself. When she agreed to marry me, it was the most natural thing in the world, and I never expected any kind of surprise. Certainly not to hear her tell me, one day, that she was pregnant, before we ever had a chance to consummate, before the wedding could take place, while she was away, while she was off helping take care of her kinswoman.</p><p>So of course I felt betrayed.</p><p>We never argued about it. I’m sure she knew how I felt. She knew me as well I knew her, of course. What I did was bury myself in my work. This wasn’t so unusual, in one sense. These were hard times, after all. It wasn’t so easy to be a Jew, which was why so many of us yearned for the Messiah. </p><p>Later, when I understood who our child was, I did feel a little foolish.</p><p>I set out to make a cradle. I chose the wood, as sturdy as I could find (and that took some doing, which meant some traveling, which I was very ready to do, which in hindsight was probably the worst of what I did), and I set about my business. I told her nothing about it. I just kept myself busy.</p><p>Later, as her term progressed, the Romans insisted we travel for the census. I was devastated. I certainly wasn’t going to lug a cradle around. This did nothing to help my mood. I tried my best. By this time I better understood what was happening, but that didn’t fix everything. Things aren’t easy to forget, sometimes. Not when you don’t react well the first time. She was an angel, and I wasn’t, but she wasn’t perfect. Full of grace, certainly. Well, as I said, we never argued about it. But she knew. Of course she did. She became quiet for her own reasons, and she had every right.</p><p>So it was a quiet journey. There were so many travelers because of the census we couldn’t find a place to stay. Now I felt humiliated. I had let my pride get in the way. There was no use denying it anymore. Maybe I had never been good enough for her. Maybe I could never be a good enough father.</p><p>We were shown a stable. It was cold that night, and then she went into labor. I was frantic. I looked around, and found a box stuffed with hay for feed. It was about as crude as any carpentry I had ever seen, and then I realized, this had been my work, one of the first things I had ever made. I recognized all the details. I was ashamed all over again.</p><p>But then I reconsidered. I mean, what were the odds?</p><p>I had been prepared. I had been ready. Even when I failed, when I spent all that time being unworthy, somehow I had set in motion preparations for this exact moment. I had made a cradle we could use after all. I had done something right.</p><p>From that moment, even before she gave birth, things were different. I think she knew. I think she saw new strength in me, just at the right moment, just when she needed me most. There was a new grace about her, and our son came into the world, and we were a family, and the moment I saw him, my world transformed. I had been so busy resenting things I had never even considered being a father, what that meant, how it would change everything. I had never thought about being a father. I had never been very good around children. I didn’t think I had it in me.</p><p>It wasn’t just who he was, but rather something in me, when I saw him for the first time, when I held him in my arms. I was in love all over again.</p><p>I treasured every moment from then on. I mean it. There was no longer any doubt, not in my mind, Mary’s, and certainly never my child’s, certainly nothing I ever saw, even before I knew, I understood, and that was a process for both Mary and myself. It’s one thing to be told something, another to experience it, to see it take shape, to see your child’s future emerge before you, to see that he is as special in the world as he is to you.</p><p>We worked alongside each other when he was old enough. He would say the most astonishing things, earlier than most children learn to speak, just as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He was smarter than me, smarter than Mary, and it was just idle chatter, busy talk, while we worked. I loved him more than anything.</p><p>Mary always understood him better. Of course she did. Eventually she even knew what to do with him, which was just to encourage him out in the world. I watched, continually astonished. I had no further part to play. I was the carpenter, the cradle, he outgrew. </p><p>But I was always proud. I never boasted. I didn’t feel worthy. One day, he said to me, “Forgive yourself.” I had never told him about my doubts. He just knew. He seemed to know everything. Even when we worked alongside each other, I never had to teach him anything. He just set about alongside me. Maybe I made it easy for him, maybe I encouraged him by always involving him, including him, talking about what was important to me. That’s something he always seemed to know about anyone he met, what was important to them, which became important to him, too.</p><p>So in a small way I had a part in who he became. I like to think so, anyway.</p><p>I never did forget about that night, about the miracles that took place. One of them was just for me, the culmination of a different journey. When Mary would kid me about that old box I would insist on lugging with us, I would join in, make a joke or two myself, but I kept that thing the rest of my life. It was the cradle of everything.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-67394123258946883112022-08-20T09:59:00.001-07:002022-08-20T10:03:16.700-07:00Star Trek: Holmes to Grayson to Spock<p>Sherlock Holmes fakes his death in 1891. In the period that follows, he secretly has a relationship that leads to the birth of a son, Ryland, who becomes a soldier in the British army during WWI.</p><p>Ryland adopts the Holmes surname by the time his son Alwine is born in 1914. Alwine is a Member of Parliament, in recognition of his grandfather's considerable reputation, and his own inherited faculties, and he is among those who support Winston Churchill during the years of WWII.</p><p>Laiken Holmes is born in 1938. She works for MI6 during the Cold War, meeting the American spy Tom Grayson, whom she marries in 1956.</p><p>Newland Grayson is born in 1958. He enters the world of computers, which are fast blossoming in his formative years.</p><p>Wolcott Grayson is born in 1980. He follows the family business of his grandparents, navigating the aftermath of the Eugenics Wars as an agent of the CIA.</p><p>Marwood Grayson is born in 2007. In his adult years, WWIII has begun, but he works the home soil as an ordinary detective, following a much older family tradition.</p><p>Ewald Grayson is born in 2032, and initiates a family tradition that continues for the next two generations (Byford, born in 2054; Edric, born in 2078) by serving as a United States senator. He's the second of the Graysons whose life is defined by WWIII.</p><p>Sherwin Grayson is born in 2103. His grandfather Byford was a boy when First Contact occurs, but for him life with Vulcans and the interstellar community is routine. Like his great-great-grandfather Marwood, Sherwin is interested in the fantasy legacy, and opts for a return to the informal, private detective occupation shared with their distant ancestor Sherlock.</p><p>Bromley Grayson is born in 2135. He works as an ambassador to Vulcan.</p><p>Amanda Grayson is born in 2168. She becomes a school teacher, but can never escape the shadow of her father, whose activities frequently bring Sarek of Vulcan to their family home. Amanda and Sarek fall in love.</p><p>Spock is born in 2230. Amanda is keenly aware that her son is the child of two worlds, and that his Vulcan side will often dominate him, but she frequently reminds him of his human heritage as well. The many generations of her family sometimes seem trivial to the young Spock, but he grows to appreciate the printed adventures of Sherlock Holmes, as written by his friend and colleague John Watson. He finds Sherlock's analytical mind to be surprisingly logical (although at times, quite human), and this is one of the ways he is, in the privacy of his own thoughts, able to reconcile his heritage.</p><p>Although, many years into his Starfleet career, when he references his ancestor, obliquely, he is quite justified in believing few will make the connection, or appreciate it, as he does.</p><p>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p><i>In </i>Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country<i>, Spock quotes the Holmes axiom, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." The Holmes connection is likely inspired by director Nicholas Meyer, who earlier in his career had also directed </i>The Seven-Per-Cent Solution<i>, which is of course a Sherlock Holmes movie. Meyer first directed a Star Trek film with </i>The Wrath of Khan<i>, in which Spock meets a premature end, mostly to accommodate Leonard Nimoy's wish to cease performing the role. Then Nimoy, and Spock, return anyway. Meyer has for years insisted the death should have been final, which is ironic, given that Holmes' creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, had arranged a similarly premature death, only to bring him back, too. The irony concludes with </i>Star Trek Into Darkness<i>, which evokes </i>Wrath of Khan<i>, including a death scene, which fans have been discontent about for years, even though it pivots the scene around themes relevant to the story around it, just as the original had, with no particular need to suggest finality. </i></p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-62227739184960566632022-08-20T09:30:00.002-07:002022-08-20T09:30:46.192-07:00Star Trek: The Metamorphoses <p> In 2119, Zephram Cochrane opens the first warp five complex, his last public appearance before heading off for a retirement that would shortly end in the last time history hears from him until Kirk discovers Cochrane alive in 2267. He's been presumed dead after transmissions cease from his solo J-class starship journeys launched from Alpha Centauri, where he'd been living in his later years. </p><p>Here's where things become a little complicated. It'd be easy to take Cochrane, and the Companion, at their word, that the man Kirk meets is in fact Zephram Cochrane. But the truth is far stranger, as it tends to be.</p><p>In 2161, Charles "Trip" Tucker III dies saving Jonathan Archer from a band of space pirates. Everyone knows this. Everyone except the people who like to claim his death was faked and he in fact became an agent for Section 31, becoming integral to their efforts during the Romulan War. Which is of course sheer nonsense.</p><p>He didn't fake his death. He died. But the Companion brought him back.</p><p>By that year, Cochrane had been living with the Companion for nearly forties years, and by Kirk's perspective still had nearly a hundred years yet together unquestioned. This is a lot of time. The Cochrane Kirk meets is youthful, younger, apparently, than even the Cochrane who conducts the first successful warp flight in human history in 2063, when he was in his thirties but looked like he was in his forties at least, due to the rigors of life post-WWIII, where he scrapped for a living in Bozeman, Montana. The Cochrane Kirk meets, then, is in his early twenties, still arrogant enough, when he was that age, to believe anything is possible, not yet the cynical man who made history, who made Earth's first official contact with Vulcans.</p><p>The Cochrane in 2161 was, chronologically, already over a hundred, having accomplished great things and then been deposited in an out-of-the-way planet where he could dwell on the youthful ideals his life had brought him back to, but with all the experience that led him there, his every need met by the Companion. He had ceased questioning the arrangement years earlier, and yet...</p><p>The Companion knew. Even if Cochrane himself didn't, things needed to change. Cochrane itched ceaselessly for some new challenge. For all he knew, humanity could still very much benefit from his talents. He was cut off from the outside world, had no clue Starfleet existed, much less the state of human/Vulcan affairs. The Vulcans he knew had made humanity bitter, and Vulcans themselves constantly having to mask annoyance, a relationship that jarred with Cochrane's hopeful outlook.</p><p>So the Companion sought someone who might alleviate Cochrane's distress. That someone had just died, but such distinctions were trivial to the Companion, who brought Tucker back to life, and introduced him to Zephram Cochrane. The Cochrane Tucker met looked every bit his age, looked tired, looked old, but still vital, in the mind. Cochrane bombarded him with his many questions. He listened, astonished, at news of the Xindi conflict, the Temporal Cold War, the budding Federation, how far Cochrane's pupil Henry Archer had pushed warp theory, and his son Jonathan, humanity's relationships among the interstellar community. </p><p>And he confessed that he had his doubts about life with the Companion. Tucker listened. Tucker had spent a colorful Starfleet career confronting all manner of outlandish situations. To him, life with the Companion almost seemed...natural. He understood that he had died, and was happy about the circumstances in which it had happened. He had no interest in changing what his friends thought had become of him, of resuming an old life that had had plenty of unwelcome complications.</p><p>So he proposed something to Cochrane, and then to the Companion. He would take Cochrane's place.</p><p>Cochrane found himself relieved. He would get what he wanted, and so would the Companion, and so would Tucker. Of course it meant his death, but he was ready. He was more than ready. And so that's exactly what happened. And for the next hundred years, Tucker lived with the Companion, and he lost himself, happily, in the process.</p><p>When Kirk came upon this planet, he found Tucker and the Companion, and all the clues suggested Zephram Cochrane. Tucker was, of course, listed as having died quite conclusively. This was an age in which so much information was available, it was impossible, even with all of it easily at hand, for anyone to know enough to tell the difference in such circumstances. Like any age, really. So no one questioned if Zephram Cochrane didn't look like Cochrane, and actually looked a great deal like, well, Charles "Trip" Tucker III. And Tucker was happy to play the role. And he was happy, one last time, to play out a screwed-up situation, and then live on with the Companion, for the foreseeable future...</p><p>Kirk solved one mystery. He left behind a much bigger one, but one that had already happily resolved itself.</p><p>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p><i>Do yourself a favor and rewatch the classic </i>Star Trek<i> episode "Metamorphosis" and tell me that the actor playing Cochrane, in hindsight, doesn't look and sound remarkably like Connor Trinneer, who played Tucker in </i>Enterprise<i>. Watching it myself, recently, it instantly brought the idea of this story to mind.</i></p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-76048959951960269772022-07-31T08:00:00.004-07:002022-07-31T08:08:29.105-07:00Fantastic Beasts: A Scenario for 4 & 5<p><i>Today is Harry Potter’s 42nd birthday. </i>Fantastic<i> </i>Beasts<i>: </i>The<i> </i>Secrets<i> </i>of<i> </i>Dumbledore<i> was in theaters earlier this year, and was received, somehow, even less well than its predecessor, </i>Crimes<i> </i>of<i> </i>Grindelwald<i>. This puts into doubt whether the films continue. The following is a version of a possibility suggested by the play </i>Harry<i> </i>Potter<i> </i>and<i> </i>the<i> </i>Cursed<i> </i>Child<i>, in which Harry’s son Albus Severus Potter gets into (time travel) trouble. This will not be an attempt to write out fan fiction, but rather sketch a scenario.</i></p><p><b><i>Fantastic Beasts: A Game of Quidditch</i></b></p><p>The years pass. Newt Scamander settles into a quiet existence of searching out fantastic beasts and writing. It is a lonely one, as he has never reunited with Tina Goldstein. He’s left his American adventures behind. Dumbledore’s last request of him was to, if he could, track down a hippogriff that has been sighted in the Romanian countryside, apparently nesting with the dragons. His brother Theseus visits, one day, and suggests attending the Quidditch World Cup. They depart for the festivities with a woman named Joanne Weasley, who’s been assisting Newt.</p><p>Meanwhile of course Grindelwald is still hard at work. The world has plunged into war again, and he has entrenched himself into the European theater as well, and once more pursuing the same beasts as Newt, the same hippogriff. But it’s not the hippogriff he seeks but rather its rider. He is alone, now, but unbowed. He, too, decides to attend the World Cup. Tina Goldstein pursues him.</p><p>At the World Cup a most unexpected match is being played between British and American teams. Americans are hardly known for their interest, or prowess, in Quidditch, and their best player, Linfred Stinchcombe, was totally unknown prior to this season, and yet they are now the favorites to win.</p><p>The match is spectacular, and Stinchcombe, as Seeker, plays brilliantly. The only blemish on the day is when the sky darkens immediately on the American victory, sending happy spectators home in dampened moods. Dumbledore has met Newt and friends at the pitch, and suspects something sinister, and Grindelwald specifically, but can’t prove it…</p><p>Grindelwald has pulled Stinchcombe aside, in all the confusion, and tells him he knows who he really is, a time traveling Albus Potter, and that he knows how long he’s struggled to find his place in the world, and that of course Grindelwald can help him find it. He once again raises the specter of the atomic bomb, now imminent, and the last piece of the puzzle, a Japanese wizard named Musashi who lives in Hiroshima, who will help Grindelwald and Albus achieve their goals.</p><p>Tina observes all this, but is discovered by Grindelwald in the process, and is quickly overwhelmed by his attack, but the timely intervention of the hippogriff they’ve been seeking, who is of course Buckbeak, sends her on her way, into the waiting hands of Newt and friends.</p><p>Who must now prepare for their final confrontation with Grindelwald, as they head toward a collision course with history. But not before being joined by one more party… Harry Potter himself.</p><p><i><b>Fantastic</b></i> <i><b>Beasts</b></i>: <i><b>The</b></i> <i><b>Boy</b></i> <i><b>Who</b></i> <i><b>Lived</b></i></p><p>This final installment begins with watching Albus having one last argument with his father and escaping with Buckbeak into the past, and Harry following after him, arriving in Hiroshima, where he meets the supposed wizard Musashi, who is really a Muggle, a baker, like Jacob, who in fact had a business with Jacob and Queenie until the war sent him back to Japan. </p><p>Newt and Tina are tasked by Dumbledore to find an Ouroboros, a fantastic beast capable of shielding them from the blast of an atomic bomb, living somewhere in the islands the Americans and Japanese are currently fighting across. They are finally forced to reconcile as they navigate the dangers, and once and for all fall in love.</p><p>Harry and Dumbledore have the strangest reunion ever. Harry tries to explain everything that will happen, but Dumbledore is evasive, yet somehow suggests he knows, and they instead talk about Albus, and through Dumbledore, Harry makes his own peace with the struggles he and his son have had.</p><p>Albus, meanwhile, is in the thrall of Grindelwald, and as they arrive in Hiroshima, not even the truth of Musashi’s existence, or Jacob and Queenie intercepting to protect him, changes this, until Harry and Dumbledore appear, with Newt and Tina close behind. </p><p>Harry says he trusts his son, that he will make the right choice, and Albus realizes he’s been making the wrong ones, and an enraged Grindelwald strikes, and Dumbledore at last engages in his famous duel, and the bomb drops on them, and the Ouroboros shields them, and…</p><p>The goodbye is Newt’s. He’s sad that the Ouroboros had to sacrifice itself in order to shield them, but he’s happy that everyone gets a second chance to get things right. Musashi, Jacob, and Queenie decide to stay in Hiroshima, to rebuild in the ashes, Harry and Albus ride Buckbeak back to their own time, and Dumbledore heads back to Hogwarts, inviting Newt to a teaching position. </p><p>Which he declines, to instead head off into the unknown, with Tina.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-21322042688740975972022-04-17T13:19:00.000-07:002022-04-17T13:19:08.768-07:00So Loved the World<p>He believed.</p><p>He was an old man, when he died. He was a young man when he first began to live. He met a man named Jesus, with whom he traveled for a few years, until the execution, and then he carried on the mission.</p><p>At the time of the execution he was in his early twenties. Together with his friends, he spent a decade spreading word about Jesus. In time he went about this on his own, with those he had gathered around him, when communities based on the Way began to form, outside the immediate reach of these original friends. When the persecutions began in earnest and executions became a common occurrence based on followers of the Way, and he was sent into exile, he found a new calling, a new voice.</p><p>Which is to say, he began to write.</p><p>It was a few decades into the movement that letters began to circulate, after these communities solidified. The letters kept these communities in contact. Some were written by a man named Paul, who joined the Way years after the execution, who had never known Jesus in life. And some were written by those who had known Jesus.</p><p>The friends had not been of an overly literate manner. Many of them had been fishermen. As the Way progressed, they found those who filled in the gaps of their experience. The one I followed, by the time I met him, as I said, he had found his voice. Sometimes it takes time. Often we are told to believe that talent is inherent, that it needs to exist in some recognizable fashion in order to be nurtured. Sometimes it simply appears. Sometimes it is inspired by forces that cannot be rationally explained. We came to believe such things. We believed in God, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Some of us because of a man we found beloved.</p><p>He wasn’t always easy to love. He could be irascible. He had a peculiar sense of humor. If you didn’t understand it, if you didn’t understand <i>him</i>, you might get the wrong impression. He never hid from his reputation. Instead he would joke about it, or deflect. He’d say it was <i>Phillip</i>, not himself, who was the cause of all the mischief. This was funny, to me, in part because Phillip had been dead for years at this point. </p><p>But he understood things better than anyone I ever knew. His words became like angels. He was a poet. He would say he learned from the master. If you want someone to remember something, tell it in a way that’s impossible to forget.</p><p>He was always telling us about Jesus. By this time there were stories about Jesus, about his life, circulating, to explain him to those who had never known him, who saw these friends spreading the message and perhaps might think it was them and not Him they should thank for it. It could be difficult, to reconcile the things said about Him. To many of us, he was God, and to the friends, he was Jesus. In the stories, he was both. But only in the words of my friend was this truly evident.</p><p>Over the years, over the decades, the more the Empire sought to stamp us out, the harder it became. Many of us expected Jesus to return in our lifetime. There were those who believed this was the whole point of our faith. There were many, and are, who confuse what our faith is about. They are the ones who struggle over whether Jesus was God or man. They miss the point, but at least they believe, although I confess I sometimes wish their faith was stronger.</p><p>My friend saw many things, and he amassed a great many followers, although he never for a moment let it reflect off himself. He kept the emphasis on Jesus. As the years progressed, and as he approached his death, the last of the first generation, he was in his nineties, but you wouldn’t have known it to see him. People often assume everyone ages the same. But some who are old are still young, and he was one of those. He never tired. </p><p>He died seventy years after the execution. A lifetime. He never forgot a moment of his earliest years, in the footsteps of Jesus. Those of us gathered around him, we were writing our own letters, keeping the faith, the Way, and some of us were on our way to much more violent deaths, shorter lives, but no less consequential in our devotion to Jesus, in the face of an empire, Babylon, awaiting a glorious future, not in this lifetime, in this life, but in a different kingdom altogether. We believe in a life that can endure, that seeks the best of humanity, even in the midst of the worst, because God so loved the world he gave us Jesus, himself, his only son, the Son of Man, to an execution, a reconciliation, a new baptism, an affirmation, to wipe away forever the sins of the world, for all time, from the face of the earth, even as we continue to stumble and fall, to fail.</p><p>And I believe this because of my friend, who never gave up, who was old when he was young, and young when he was old. We should all be so lucky.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-26115622028953215892022-04-15T13:32:00.002-07:002022-04-15T13:34:27.791-07:00Still, I Believe - An Easter Tale<p>Still, I believe.</p><p>He just died. I stood at the foot of the cross with his mother. We stood there and watched the end of his life. I can’t really begin to process this. I listened to him talk about this moment, this day, long before any of the events that led up to it ever began. This isn’t the first one I ever witnessed, but…</p><p>I grew up with parents who made me believe the world was mine. Even when I started listening to the Baptist, this was the focal point of my life. A lot of us followed the Baptist not because of what he had to say about the messiah, but because he was himself magnetic. And that was why I followed him, too.</p><p>I can’t say his name right now. I don’t think I deserve to.</p><p>I found him magnetic, that’s why any of us followed him, if we were being honest. We certainly didn’t to have him explain, in his various ways, how badly we’d been failing, and <i>continued</i> to fail, even as we followed him. </p><p>But even that wasn’t nearly humbling enough for me. Me and my ego. I thought, and never mind about my brother, because, and this <i>isn’t</i> because of ego, but, as I try to process what I just witnessed…that in order to follow such a man, to recognize his greatness, it could only be a credit to my character, that it spoke about <i>me</i>, my ability to recognize him for who and what he was…People would say about me, surely, what a good judge of character I am, how wise it was for me to attach myself to a great man, surely destined for truly great things…</p><p>What <i>I</i> could get out of it…</p><p>Sometimes you listen but you do not hear, look but do not see. You don’t realize how strong a pull the past has on you. My parents…they did what they thought was best for me. What I am beginning to realize, perhaps, is that what is best for me isn’t necessarily what’s best for others.</p><p>That’s what he was always trying to help us understand. And he just…He just died. He died because he loved the world. I can’t understand this. He died <i>because</i> he loved the world. I’m trying to make sense of this. </p><p>He died. Even after he told us this would happen, I don’t think any of us truly believed…What does this mean for tomorrow? I know what he told us…Not tomorrow but the day after. But what about today? What happens today? How do you believe in tomorrow when the worst day of your life has just happened? How do you continue to believe you found the meaning of life when the world has just determined that it must have been wrong, very wrong, so wrong that it had to be expunged…</p><p>I spent years with this man. And he <i>was</i> a man, he was my friend, and most of the time I spent with him was like spending time with anyone. When he spoke, when he <i>really</i> spoke, his words were impossible. Listening to him <i>then</i>, it was as if there was no point listening to anyone, anything, ever again. This was a man who understood life better than anyone who ever lived, and somehow he was always better than anyone, and yet still understood…Completely impossible. I still can’t understand…</p><p>And to most of the world, despite the words, despite the miracles, he was almost completely anonymous. He was not a temple rabbi, he was not a king, he was not a governor. He was not friend to any of these. Not because he couldn’t have been. But because they had every reason to ignore him. And someone like me, when I finally got out of my own way, every reason to listen.</p><p>And I’m only now just beginning. Now that the words have stopped. Now that his body lies cold. What happens from here? I don’t know. They ended his threat. None of us are remotely his equal. How do we keep his work going without him? I listened, all those years, and I listened to his <i>last</i> words…They sounded definitive. Final. </p><p>And yet, listening, as I am now, in the memories, I hear his message, and remember how he changed me. Took away my ego. It would be very tempting to say the world revolves around <i>him</i>, even in death. I don’t think this is what he would want, though. Remember him. But honor him in keeping his words alive. Believe.</p><p>He lies dead, and still, I believe. He saw a world that was possible. He saw the possible in the impossible suffering. He died for this. He died because he loved us. I know it doesn’t seem to make sense. For who he was, <i>what</i> he was, to die because he had faith in us…</p><p>It was terrible. The suffering, even knowing so many had been crucified before and many more will after him, knowing that he accepted this, even while it was happening, I didn’t know if I was strong enough. To witness. </p><p>He spoke to me, from the cross. He called me a son. I have always been a son. But not until today did I understand what that meant. And he called me a brother. I have always been a brother. But not until today, when I lost my brother, did I know what it meant.</p><p>He didn’t ask anything more from me than to embrace my family. But I am only beginning to understand what a family is. And how hard it is to embrace it. You lose the member of the family who was most important to you, but you don’t lose the family. You can never lose the family. </p><p>I…Even now, at the end of the world, I have a family. And this is what is going to make tomorrow possible. And the next day. And the next.</p><p>Still, I believe.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-50658144221152219622022-02-19T14:19:00.002-08:002022-02-19T14:19:59.051-08:00Star Trek: Starling - A Eugenics Tale<p> (<i>note: this story takes place immediately before the events of the </i>Voyager <i>two-part episode "Future's End")</i></p><p>Henry Starling had done it. He had successfully buttressed the Western hemisphere from the awful effects of the Eugenics Wars, and he owed it all to a starship that had crashed in his backyard, a starship that hailed from the far future, and given him an edge in the budding wars of the future, the wars of the mind, of technology...</p><p>In the Asian lands there had been a man named Khan, and he had dominated the power struggles there in ways the modern world had not been prepared for, the product of genetic engineering that made him stronger and smarter than any man who had ever lived. And he had not been the only one. There had also been a man named Vlad, who had done much the same throughout the Baltics, and had designs for...elsewhere. This was to say nothing of the African theater, where the worst of...everything, had occurred.</p><p>But Starling had at last won. He had designed the ship that sent the survivors of these...men, into space. Banished. Forever.</p><p>It was Vlad who had considered himself Starling's rival. In the United States of that time, its presidents had emerged from the Cold War with the chilling knowledge that they were equally forced to confront these supermen, and only one of them, the one called Vlad, had set his sights directly on them. He scoffed at the presidents. He saw them come and go, small men who depended on elections to gain power, and who were so easily undermined in the courts of public opinion. But he saw Starling as different, obviously. He saw Starling as having true power.</p><p>Starling, who had ushered in new ages of innovation for decades, who had significantly aided the NASA programs and their successes, not a single failure! in an endless procession of missions into space. Vlad had seen this as the new frontier, and that for all their power his brethren held no sway in that realm. They played checkers while Starling played chess. And so he positioned himself against Starling.</p><p>What Vlad couldn't know was that Starling spent much of his time obsessing over someone else entirely, a man named Braxton, the pilot of the starship that had created his technological empire, who had gone missing, and had never been found, off the grid, even Starling's. And Starling could not allow this to continue forever, for a Braxton left to his own devices would surely one day pose his own threat, one far deadlier than any superman...</p><p>It was this distracted Starling who blinked as Vlad set the world on the brink, set a course for invasion, the spark that would light the fire of another world war, while the latest president struggled to come up with a response. Vlad even proposed a fight, an actual, physical fight, not against the president, but Starling, one he knew beyond question he would win. No one, in the real world, need possess physical prowess anymore, not to enjoy <i>power</i>, and this Vlad had realized before even Khan, had so frustrated him, and he saw the laughable prospect of a fight with Henry Starling as exactly the image that would win him the world...</p><p>But Starling, his eye on a man who in all likelihood was currently living the life of a homeless bum, separated from all his advantages, had already developed the only weapon he needed, a new ship, a ship that could place all the supermen in stasis and then off into the deep reaches of space, and then...He turned his eye toward the world, the mundane, ordinary world, long enough to catch the crisis unfolding on the news, and the challenge issued by Vlad against him.</p><p>And he accepted!</p><p>So of course he cheated. Shamelessly. Vlad never saw it coming. Starling pulled a gadget out of his pocket, casually, and unexpectedly fried the life right out of Vlad, in an instant. Starling hadn't <i>meant</i> to kill him, just as the warlords in Africa hadn't <i>meant</i> to starve out <i>their</i> superman, along with everyone else, but that's how it turned out. Starling didn't understand <i>all</i> the technology, even decades later, that he'd stumbled upon, modified, exploited, developed over the years, inventing the modern world.</p><p>Which, very soon after he'd won, sent the last of them into space...the future caught up with him. And then, a few years after <i>that</i>, another world war <i>did</i> happen. But, in a missile silo, in Montana, a man had tinkered with his <i>own</i> vision just long enough to invent humanity's quantum leap, the warp engine, the one thing that always eluded Henry Starling, and...</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-60184686922759351632021-12-25T03:02:00.000-08:002021-12-25T03:02:19.314-08:00As They Lay: A Christmas Tale<p>Before the angel came, long before, they lay in the field, on a cold winter’s night, and wondered.</p><p>The world is a cold place regardless of the season, of the weather, the climate. People are apt mostly to worry about their own lives, even those charged with watching over others. These huddled few, though, these shepherds, they had spent long hours discussing things, and they had always been a little different.</p><p>Just imagine the life. Watching over sheep, all day, every day.</p><p>We will give these shepherds names, not the names they would have had, not names they would have known, but names you will recognize, for your benefit: Frank, Mel, Joe.</p><p>Frank could be taciturn. He could be cold, but there was no one who knew his work better than he did. He always thought, regardless of what others did, that it couldn’t hurt to sing for the sheep. Mel was the wild one. If you knew him it was as likely you would love him as think him strange, and it mattered how you encountered him if it mattered at all. Joe, he was the one who thought most deeply, who was most passionate, of the three, who was most easily dismissed by outsiders, but who was the best of them.</p><p>They were of varying ages, Mel the oldest, all of them driven from the mass of humanity into the field, and yet they had somehow retained their faith in the world. They held to it for a simple enough reason, and that was the idea of God. For them, God did not make things happen. It didn’t even matter if God had made the world or would ever appear in it, if God took an interest in a single life from throughout the vast length of human history.</p><p>Nothing so crass. Not even the idea of God as some perfect being, some example to strive toward. Not a hope for a change one way or another. They led simple lives that were by and large the same from day to day, year to year, and they saw little point in changing their fate.</p><p>They saw God as something good.</p><p>That night, when the angel came and called to them, it was certainly strange. They knew all about the Hebrew faith. They knew about angels, no matter how rare. They had never expected to see one. When it appeared, the angel blared like a trumpet. The sheep scattered, startled. They were in truth a little annoyed.</p><p>But they knew. </p><p>The three of them, they never uttered a word to each other. They left the field immediately, and sought out the manger. The child, when they saw him, was crying. </p><p>Frank began to sing, Mel asked to hold him, and Joe spoke with the parents, about nothing in particular, just how things were going. They didn’t say a word about God, about destiny, the future, what the child would become. And none of them had ever been happier.</p><p>Later, when they were back in the field, gathering the flock, silent, they thought how good it had been. They were glad. Their lives continued as they had always been. Nothing changed. They never left the field, or the sheep, again.</p><p>And yet they were happier, knowing this child had entered the world.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-78838667569343500262021-07-26T13:43:00.000-07:002021-07-26T13:43:19.199-07:00Star Trek: The Once and Future…<p>“They still oppose us, they’re still our enemy.”</p><p>***</p><p>The thing about the game of time travel is that it presents you with a lot of information. You’ve no idea how much information you need to even begin to consider it. If it were as simple as inventing a machine and plugging in a date, it would be sheer chaos. And impossible to accomplish anything. The most basic rule is that it’s not just time that needs to be accounted for, but space as well. You need to know when and where you will end up. The universe is always on the move! And you have to do everything to keep up with it.</p><p>This is to say, I saw when Silik said that. I see everything. When you view every element of your life, of existence itself, as a variable in an equation, you are going to have to. You will have to see everything. Amateurs always underestimate this. They don’t appreciate the complexities. </p><p>The many agents in the so-called Temporal Cold War agree at least on this. This is not to say all the players do. Sometimes in order to get something accomplished you have to use the available resources. Such as the Cabal. Such as Silik.</p><p>***</p><p>This is to say he had no idea the role he played in thwarting me. I could not blame him for this. After all, I of all people know how this game works.</p><p>***</p><p>For me, it started before my birth. My father was a Romulan and my mother a Reman. I ended up looking like my father. I grew up incapable of reconciling my origins, for a simple reason: My father abandoned me as he had abandoned my mother.</p><p>If you know anything at all about the relationship of the two center worlds of the Romulan Star Empire, you will understand most of this already.</p><p>You will not know why my father did what he did. He did not rape her. He loved her. Perhaps this is a lie my mother chose to tell me, but I have always chosen to believe it, too.</p><p>No, he abandoned us out of naked political gain. This is the way of the Romulans. They will do anything, sacrifice anything, to advance their career objectives. They will always tell you how different they are from their Vulcan cousins, but they are driven by the same cold analysis of the world. They simply choose to exploit it with abandon, rather than study it endlessly. They are driven by the same arrogance.</p><p>He won a seat on the council, if that impresses you at all. It wasn’t satisfying for my mother, and it wasn’t for me.</p><p>***</p><p>To erase him from my history, from my very DNA, was delicate business. The one thing I will never be able to erase is his memory. </p><p>It was not as simple as erasing him from history. If I did that it was a paradox resolved only by my own elimination.</p><p>I debated many times with myself, how much I needed to tell my mother. I did not want to hurt her. I considered various alternate suitors, though she had remained faithful to him in their courtship. Obviously I favored Remans. I did not want to see my father in the mirror. </p><p>The riddle eluded me. I chose to practice dispassionately, in the affairs of others. I suppose I was somewhat ruthless in this regard. I did, however, affect what I could to benefit my Reman brothers, the imbalance that was hardly a balance at all, in the Empire. I pivoted roles to give advantage where I could, even though no Romulan would ever acknowledge my victories. I positioned a clone in ever more important circles. That one I was particularly proud of. He became praetor, but inevitably came to a bad end. He was not as precise in his machinations as I have tried to be.</p><p>As I grew bold, experienced, I saw how it might be done. Protected as I was in all the experience I had gained, the dark secrets of time travel and the host of those who truly understood it, even if in opposition to me, one day I <i>was</i> able to look in a mirror and see as close to a full Reman face as I had ever dared hope dream. I will not labor you with a litany of what needed doing, but the end result was, I had just one last move to make.</p><p>***</p><p>And I found myself trapped in the past, on the planet Earth, and involving myself in the business humans call World War Two. All I had to do was invent time travel again.</p><p>But it was not meant to be.</p><p>***</p><p>I am home again. I have my original face. I see my father in the mirror.</p><p>And one day, this will change. Forever. It will just take time. </p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-42410015875340738262021-05-31T06:14:00.002-07:002021-05-31T06:14:17.562-07:00Star Trek: Child of Sarek<p>Part I: Michael</p><p>Growing up as an adopted member of Sarek’s household had all manner of unique challenges. One was mastering the Vulcan art of restraining emotion, which was difficult not only as a human but for the fact that I had lost both my parents, and that was how I had come to live there. Another was the presence of Spock, Sarek’s child with Amanda Grayson, which had the effect of cancelling out any advantages Amanda’s proximity might have had for me, as Spock always chose a fully Vulcan approach.</p><p>The final was the existence of Sybok. Unlike Spock, Sybok was not always present in the house. He traveled frequently with his Vulcan mother, the princess, whose infrequent visits always served to emphasize how poorly even Sarek managed to follow the tenets of Vulcan society, which I grew to understand had nothing at all to do with the teachings of Surak and the purity of logic, and everything to do with snobbish devotion to class distinction. To be Vulcan, according to mainstream Vulcan society, meant you were better than everyone else, even the majority of Vulcan society itself.</p><p>This is a fact that is often oblique to outsiders; Vulcans are simply Vulcans, and that’s all you need to know, and all you’re likely to see.</p><p>Yet the root of the perceived arrogance of Vulcan society isn’t its devotion to logic and disdain for all those who fall below such lofty standards, but rather the elite of Vulcan society, which needs no greater standard than to believe it is better than everyone else, no particular distinction needed. In fact, if you were to peel away the veil entirely, you would find that at this level, the vaunted emphasis on logic disappears entirely.</p><p>That is what a Vulcan princess is like.</p><p>Very fortunately, Sarek was never like this at all, despite it being difficult at times to live up to his lofty standards, and it being equally hard to know where you stood with him.</p><p>I spent my adolescence trying to figure that out. I often confused this with the parallel inquiry into how he had mated with a Vulcan princess to begin with. I am sorry to say my conclusions were often unkind.</p><p>Sybok himself didn’t help matters. He lived his life in complete rejection of Vulcan norms. He grew a beard as soon as he was able, and never shaved it off. Beards are beyond scarce among Vulcans. To see one at all on a Vulcan is most often interpreted as the mark of a troubled mind. Sybok wore his in knowing fashion as a mark of pride. I always knew when he was around since even the usually stoic nature of Spock retreated further inward, and it became impossible to talk to him at all, which was of course the complete opposite of the incessantly garrulous Sybok, who punctuated all of it with laughter, another certain indication of madness in Vulcan society.</p><p>To be a child of Sarek, in all this, was a constant challenge. Classmates would look for any deviation in behavior, and in a society of outward conformity was to see opportunity subtly diminished. This is why Starfleet was such an attractive prospect, not merely for the opportunity to escape but because it was the only chance to be Vulcan without complication, even if you were half human. Or fully. When all you wanted to do was fit in, and despite it seeming like the easiest thing in the world, was most impossible.</p><p>I love my father, but without meaning to he made my life infinitely difficult, forever forced to prove myself. To him, to everyone else, but mostly to myself.</p><p>***</p><p>Part II: Spock</p><p>In many ways I was an only child. Vulcans live solitary lives, contributing to society, in endless collaboration, but always at the behest of one’s own goals. Ideally there is no contradiction in this.</p><p>In many ways, I was never allowed to live this way. As a child of Sarek, I endured his peculiar habits on a constant basis. A Vulcan like any other. A Vulcan unlike any other.</p><p>To know my father is to struggle with contradiction. His first mate was a Vulcan princess, an ideal arrangement made, as with all Vulcans, when he was young. When he was older and established in his career as a diplomat, he chose a different mate, a human, and from that union I emerged. Often I had to contend with the legacy of his first mating, my brother Sybok, who was fully Vulcan and indulged in all things, favored by his mother and, at times, favored by my father as well, or so it sometimes appeared to me. Sybok had the advantage of every opportunity. He traveled far and studied widely, always of his own choosing, far from the restraints of standard scholastic pursuit. He was the product of a single culture and yet he embraced all manner of alien ways.</p><p>One often struggles with the approval of a parent, and yet with my father it was perhaps more accurate to say he was more interested in Sybok’s wanderings and hardly aware of what occurred in his own household. Vulcan discipline would suggest the problem was Sybok, and yet often I would lie awake at night keenly aware of the absence that occupied a room quite near mine.</p><p>When the Vulcan princess made an infrequent appearance, inquiring after news of her own son, I would suffer two emotions: jealousy and resentment, jealousy because no one asked about my pursuits, carried out under their noses and yet unobserved, and resentment because I yearned to be doted on in some minor fashion. All of it connected. All of it torment. All of it visible only to Sybok himself, who never let me forget it.</p><p>I would pretend he didn’t exist, not merely later, when I should have moved past such petty notions, but when I was a child as well. </p><p>Under the weight of my father’s gaze, at the dinner table, even when everyone sat gathered on those rare occasions, I chose silence rather than conversation. No doubt there was a range of interpretation. My mother would view me as the perfect Vulcan. She always did, and always I felt a traitor to her. My sister, fully human, closest to me in every way, wondered as always if she should follow my lead, but ever eager for approval, and ever pulled in the direction from which it would be hardest to attain. My brother, calling attention to himself. The Vulcan princess, ever with disapproval, except for her son. My father, ignoring me even when given no reason, and yet always with disappointment in fleeting glances.</p><p>Or so it always seemed.</p><p>The warmth he shared, on rare occasions, always felt like the most genuine version of my father, the part he worked hardest to suppress, the part that was the most like myself, the part he had fled from the Vulcan princess to preserve.</p><p>If only he had trusted himself more, or trusted me. If only I had trusted him.</p><p>***</p><p>Part III: Sybok</p><p>It’s not easy to be an outsider. Often you will encounter unspeakable bigotry, even from those who ought to know you best, who watched you grow, who called you brother, son.</p><p>It’s easy to view my life in the most dismissive terms. Out of all the children of Sarek, I was the one who had all the opportunities. I was the only one whose parentage was fully Vulcan. I was the only one, as a result, with the full blessing of Vulcan society itself.</p><p>And for all that, I was only ever an outsider.</p><p>My mother wanted nothing to do with me. She abandoned me at every opportunity, every excuse. She indulged her standing in society at my expense. She mocked my every ambition. She never respected a single thought I had.</p><p>My father wasn’t any better. I was unwelcome in his house. He made that perfectly clear at the earliest opportunity. I was free to visit when I liked, but never to live there. He never had a harsh word to say to me, and yet his embrace was like a dagger, and I was the blade he used against all his children. I loved him completely. I understood his impossible situation better than anyone.</p><p>He was everything I could never hope to be. He had grasped the possibility of rebellion against a repressive society better than I ever could, and for that he paid the price, forever trapped, and as a result, insulated from rejection in a way that I would never know.</p><p>I could never be a Vulcan other Vulcans would understand. I behaved as I wished, believed what I wished, did as I wished, and thus could never live among my own people. </p><p>I was an outcast. It’s easy to say that I led myself astray, and found it easy to do the same with others, always in search of another mad quest, but that’s revisionism. With my brother, for instance, I was a rock of stability, who understood his pain better than anyone, was his only outlet, his only chance to be seen. It was much the same with my sister, though she saw me only as my brother wanted her to, and so only as the unwelcome visitor, forever linked with my mother, the impossible ideal forever corrupted. Unwanted.</p><p>With my father it was different. I always knew where I stood with him, an unspoken respect, mutual, the only way it could have been. </p><p>Naturally we did the best we could to bury this deeply, invisibly, below the surface, and in that manner it poisoned everything, made everything possible, destroying the family, pushing my brother and sister into lives that meant something, far away from Vulcan, full of purpose. To be a child of Sarek was a guarantee of potential. Somehow mine, which looked so promising, or so it was the popular mistake to believe, amounted to the least of it.</p><p>But such are the children of Sarek. Unpredictable. Like their father. </p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-3722926952413394192021-05-23T07:45:00.002-07:002021-05-23T07:45:56.367-07:00Star Trek: Enemy of My Enemy<p>My grandfather, Randall Eickhoff, was a minor officer in Starfleet. By this I mean he never had command of a starship, never part of a command crew, even. He wasn’t insignificant, though, by which I mean he had real responsibilities. Everyone knew who he was. </p><p>Admittedly, this might be because he never stopped talking about Jim Kirk. Jim Kirk, now everyone certainly knows <i>him</i>. You don’t have to be a Federation citizen, even, to know the name Jim Kirk, you don’t need to have served in Starfleet. Everyone knows Jim Kirk.</p><p>Which means, there’s a lot of people who shaped their own reputations based on Jim Kirk’s. My grandfather didn’t serve with Kirk, never came even had an assignment that brought him aboard the Enterprise, let alone as a member of its crew. No, he studied with Kirk at the Academy.</p><p>They shared only one class together: Klingon Field Tactics. Now, for those of you who only know about the Klingons from the many conflicts between the Klingon Empire and the Federation, you will probably assume the class was meant to prepare cadets for battle with them. Actually it was exactly what the course title says it was: an in-depth look at Klingon tactics.</p><p>This was the class Kirk would later mention as having taken when he came upon General Korrd on Nimbus III. At the time, Federation-Klingon relations were beginning to thaw after more than a century of hostilities. It was suddenly okay to view the Klingons as something other than the enemy.</p><p>Klingon Field Tactics was an elective, meaning if Jim Kirk said Korrd’s strategies were required reading, they were, in this class, taught by an old Klingon lawyer named Kolos, said to have had personal ties to Jonathan Archer.</p><p>It becomes still easier to understand all this when you know Korrd’s strategies were employed not against Starfleet but the Tutt Raiders.</p><p>Chances are, unless you’re Klingon or are exceptionally well-informed, you’ve never heard of the Tutt Raiders. These guys are largely responsible for making the Klingon Empire the aggressive institute it became. They were the enemy of our enemy. They were, worst of all, if you were a Klingon, totally without honor.</p><p>They were the scourge of deep space travel for many worlds. They set the pattern of conquest the Klingons would later follow, but were far more ruthless, and random, about it. They took without any thought to the future. And one day they came upon Qo’noS.</p><p>Do not be mistaken: the Klingons were already quite Klingon; Kahless was quite unforgettable even at that time. Warriors honed their skills with the bat’leth. Yet these were things known only on a single world, and as such, there was no idea of empire.</p><p>Until the Tutt Raiders.</p><p>They came as in a swarm. They cared little for the conditions facing them, or the challenge, foolish enough to believe they could take on any they found. The greatest of them was Anles Tutt, and the long period of warfare finally led to a reckoning between Anles Tutt and General Korrd. </p><p>When Jim Kirk and my grandfather were being taught this by Kolos, it was still fresh news. It was indeed a glorious day for the Empire, when Korrd led his small fleet against the combined forces of the Tutt Raiders. Slowly the Empire had carved itself out of the worlds scoured by their foes, until the day came that even Anles Tutt, the greatest of them, could no longer withstand the tide.</p><p>But the fate of even the greatest warriors must be shared. One day they die in battle, or there is simply no longer a fight left for them.</p><p>Korrd grew old. He had presided over the final defeat of the Tutt Raiders, and then it was left to younger men than him to contend with the Federation problem, a different one, one that required different tactics.</p><p>Since the defeat of the Tutt Raiders, in fact, no major war has been prosecuted, by the Klingons or anyone else. The Klingons and the Romulans seem intent to change that, and we have all heard about the Cardassians, but those are matters for the future. Or maybe tomorrow. Who knows?</p><p>My grandfather always liked to talk about those days, how exciting that class was, and sometimes I think it’s not entirely because of Jim Kirk, that it really was about a war that meant nothing to anyone else, and everything to him. Sometimes I think he wished he was a Klingon.</p><p>And even today I wonder what a Tutt looks like, if I would even know if I saw one. They’re a threat consigned to the ancient past. But chances are, they would still be no friend of the Federation, even if they were the enemy of our enemy. </p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-18923400500807883982021-05-08T16:30:00.000-07:002021-05-08T16:30:47.911-07:00Star Wars: The Chosen One<p>I was there when the Jedi welcomed you, however reluctantly, a child discovered in slavery on a distant world, into their ranks. I saw instantly that there was great power within you, great potential.</p><p>I watched as your career advanced under the tutelage of Master Kenobi, under the guidance of Master Yoda, Master Windu. You excelled quickly, and surpassed in potential even these great Jedi.</p><p>In my role as chancellor of the Republic, I seldom had the time to praise you as you deserved, but somehow found moments.</p><p>Anakin, I want you to understand how special you are. From ancient times, as you have heard, there was the prophecy of the chosen one, who would bring balance to the Force, uniting the ways of the light side and the dark, the Jedi and Sith. The Jedi seldom acknowledge the Sith as anything but the adversary, but I think it’s important to recognize their knowledge as well as the Jedi’s. It’s not for me to instruct you in these matters. I can only suggest that there are matters of the Force that one should be aware of, especially as concerns the prophecy.</p><p>As you are infinitely aware, you have been called the chosen one. This doesn’t mean you are the greatest of the Jedi, or the wisest, but that you have the ability to fulfill the prophecy. Now, what exactly this means no one can say. But this is also to say, few have ever been able to, even the greatest of the Jedi, those now living and those of ancient times. This is to say, there will be times ahead in which you will have to be your own council. You alone will know your path. You alone will know what to do. Trust your feelings, Anakin.</p><p>In the days and years ahead, there will be difficult decisions to be made. In time you will graduate from the ranks of the padawans. You will control your own destiny. You must be patient. </p><p>Know this, Anakin: I believe in you. I support you in all matters. I am always there for you, an invisible friend, at times, as is regrettably necessary. There will come a time in which we will all emerge from the shadows, and I believe it will be thanks to you. You will make all things possible. </p><p>I will do everything I can to help set the stage for you. And then the future will be yours to shape.</p>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-15281496443907437972021-04-25T01:35:00.000-07:002021-04-25T01:35:49.781-07:00Soul, Pages 1-4 (of 4)<div style="text-align: left;">PAGE ONE</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">We’re back at the funeral of Jerome. Now we’re at the cemetery as the casket is being lowered into the ground, and we can see Sonny, Adam Hemingway, Etta Hemingway, Tobias O’Brien, the Duke, even the ten year old girl and her father (off in the distance, naturally), and somewhere near those two, another ten year old, a black girl named Sam Lane...fighting a grown man. This is a large panel that’s nearly the whole page.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">A close-up of Adam Hemingway looking, annoyed, in the direction of Sam Lane’s activities.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">A hand is being placed on Sam’s shoulder as she looks at it, even though she continues fighting the grown man.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: What the...?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE TWO</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">The man Sam was fighting runs off.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam angrily turning her full attention to, as it turns out, Sonny.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Now look what you did!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: He’s getting away!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sonny crouching down to Sam’s level, a look of utter compassion on his face.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: I see that. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: I saw what he was doing, how you stopped him.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: I was over there. Attending a very important funeral.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: What’s your name?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">A close-up of a doubtful, wary Sam.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 5</div><div style="text-align: left;">Pulling back to see both of them again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Sam. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Sam Lane.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE THREE</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sonny and Sam are walking through the cemetery now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: What’s your story, Sam Lane?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Orphan. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: That bum was disrespecting my parents’ grave.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: But you already knew that.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: I did.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sonny and Sam sitting in a diner, same day, same clothes. Sam eats hungrily.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: You held yourself well out there.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: You know how it is.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Have to.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: And you seem like a nice kid.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Thanks.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same clothes, same day. Now they’re walking down a busy Hun City sidewalk. If it begins to seem like a parallel with the HUN CITY page, that’s probably not a coincidence.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: Listen, I’m probably stepping well outside the line, but have you ever heard of the Ferryman?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Sure.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Where I’m from, everyone has.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Pretty inescapable.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Between you an’ me, actually fought him, once.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Held my own.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same day, same clothes. Now they’re in the park.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: You’re an incredible person, Sam Lane.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Thanks.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: Sorry, here we’ve been talking all day, and I haven’t introduced myself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: Ny name’s Sonny.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: And you want to offer me a job.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: And impertinent.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 5</div><div style="text-align: left;">Close-up of Sonny.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: Just like I was.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: Listen, maybe I have no business doing this...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: No, I <i>really</i> don’t...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SONNY: He’s gonna be pissed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">PAGE FOUR</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sam standing, same clothes, same day, in front of a scowling Hemingway, now dressed casually, indicating that it is in fact later that day.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same panel. Hemingway is struggling for words in this moment.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same panel.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">HEMINGWAY: He told you.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">HEMINGWAY: He told you everything.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same panel.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Well, probably not <i>everything</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: I still have no idea whose funeral that was.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Sorry for, ah, disrupting it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 5</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same panel.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">HEMINGWAY: You didn’t.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">HEMINGWAY: A very important person.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 6</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same panel</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: I saw you stare daggers, Mister Hemingway.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">HEMINGWAY: Young girl.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">HEMINGWAY: You have no idea.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 7</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same panel.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Oh, I think I do.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 8</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same panel.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 9</div><div style="text-align: left;">Same panel, except now Sam has a huge smile on her face.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">HEMINGWAY: This is only the beginning, you understand.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">SAM LANE: Sure.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">END</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1203477773764551072.post-1577607907858772642021-04-24T10:34:00.003-07:002021-04-24T10:34:27.101-07:00Court Jester, Page 1 (of 1)<div style="text-align: left;">PAGE ONE</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 1</div><div style="text-align: left;">A grizzly corpse stuffed in a barrel.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: Accounts of the Ferryman’s activities tend to be greatly exaggerated.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: His “battles with the Court Jester,” for instance.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: Tabloid fodder.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: Court Jester remains unidentified. Uncaught. At large. A serial killer. His capture, let alone many, wish-fulfillment. His handiwork, the stuff of urban legend. Nightmares, really.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: Known only, besides the trail of bodies, by the letters he invariably addresses to the mayor of Hun City...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 2</div><div style="text-align: left;">Hacked up remains in a grave partially uncovered.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “Dear Mayor...”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “I had a vision the other day, of a city filled with dancing people.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “One could argue, corpses don’t dance, but I say that guy would be no fun at a party.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 3</div><div style="text-align: left;">A body soaked in blood, stabbed to death in an alley.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “Dear Mayor...”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “We live in a society that has lost its grip on reality.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “Can I really be blamed for wanting to help things feel just a little more real?”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 4</div><div style="text-align: left;">A corpse with its eyes having been removed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “Dear Mayor...”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “Every time your laws close in on my activities, I have to find creative new ways to become harder to see...”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Panel 5</div><div style="text-align: left;">A corpse in a crude facsimile of the Ferryman’s costume.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “Dear Mayor...”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “I know he’s not your fault, but could you please do something about the Ferryman?”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “It’s just, he’s always threatening to cramp my style.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “What I’m saying is, he’s inconvenient.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “And even if he ends up stopping me, at some point you’re gonna have to stop him, too.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “Either way, the story remains the same.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “Yours as a faithful servant,”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">CAPTION: “Court Jester”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">END</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Tony Laplumehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07854455859399339169noreply@blogger.com0