Season of Mourning

Niccolò dell'Abbate 16th Century, Louvre

 

It is an unspoken covenant between
grandmother and granddaughter, the
daily after-school call, born no doubt of
their intimate history when in the first
decade of her young life it was grandma's
arms that enveloped her after school.
Distance has made the invisible silken
strand of connection -- tender yet strong
as a spider's skein -- no less compelling.

Watcha doing? elicits the identical
quotidian refrain: not much. But it is
intensely cold, windy, damp and so did
you wear your winter boots and jacket?
represents another facet of the formula
of this relationship. Nope, the laconic,
expected response. And the vital news of
the post-school snack emerges: a pomegranate.

That mysterious Eastern fruit, its amazing
structured, celled interior surfeit with
faceted ruby jewels like those in a treasure
chest discovered in the fabled caves of
Ali Baba. These glistening sweet jewels to
be consumed, not worn in brilliant splendour,
arrayed upon the white, swan-like necks of
beautiful Harem girls. Careful you don't
squirt your eye, grandmother urges.

Damn! granddaughter informs, just squirted
my eye. Language, chides grandmother.
Then in the silence asks do you know the
Greek legend of the pomegranate? Have you
met Demeter, the goddess of the harvest and
her daughter Persephone? Do you know where
the seasons come from? Have you studied
Greek mythology in your school curricula?

To the last query: yes, some, in drama class.
To the previous: no clue, as they claim in
teen vernacular. But you can ask about
vampires, we know about them, grandma.

Grandma sets about enlightening her child
in the delights of tragedy and mystery, grandeur
and petulance, power, esteem and comedy, all
residing in the arcane minutiae of a folk
panoply of gods, their overweening pride,
bumptiously covert antics, vain jealousies and
curiously oppressive sexual adventures.

How an abduction of a beloved daughter
led to a grieving mother and a deadly chilled
season of mourning, when no flowers bloomed,
no crops grew, dark wailing veils hung from
trees and the brows of mothers alike, and all
life was suspended in unappeasable grief. The
redemption of compassion that would bring
spring back to the world, and the single seed
of a pomegranate that consigned a daughter to
dark Hades and a coldly possessive yet loved
husband to satisfy both life and death.

 

 

Illusions, Delusions, Allusions

He had a habit of never wanting to pay the full freight for his reading material. So his large and growing library of books are mostly of second-hand vintage. Not that he isn't particular about the shape they're in. He will buy second-hand books only if they're in fairly pristine shape. He does have his standards. He has been known to relent, however, if he comes across a publication he recognizes as hard to come by, one that has been well leafed, but that he decides he must have.

The copy of Inshallah, the novel by Oriana Fallaci, was in prime shape. Clearly, whoever originally owned it took good care of it. That is a presumption that might of course not be the case. It might have been bought with the thoughtful intention of reading it, but placed on a shelf somewhere and forgotten, until someone got tired of looking at it, dusting it, and gave it up to a second-hand book shop. It might have represented a gift that was unappreciated; the giftee having no intention of reading it, and that might have preserved its appearance.

Whatever the case he was intrigued by the very concept of Oriana Fallaci having written novels. He 'knew' her only by reputation, as a bold, enterprisingly fearless news interviewer. She would undertake to strive for interviews with dictators, tyrants, champions of justice, prisoners, activists, royalty, to question them audaciously and report in her own inimitable way on the results of those interviews. Her formidable reputation for honesty and clarity won her a large following.

She was granted interviews with reclusive personalities not given to permitting themselves to be interrogated and reported upon by others of her profession. Iran's revolutionary Ayatollah Khomeini, for example. She was given exclusive rights to publishing details that were withheld from others. She had always captured his imagination, a woman in her prime and beyond, once beautiful, obviously aware of her beauty and its effect on people, but utterly devoted to her craft of revealing the truth to her readers.

He thought he knew as much as there was to know about Lebanon, that once-proud country with its fabulous landscape and multifarious populations. As much as anyone living in the West might, acquainted through the electronic media with expatriate Lebanese whose unquestioned mastery of comedy or drama or literature gave them a wide audience. Of whom his parents were so proud.

And the sinister, dark side of the country with warring sectarian violence and brutal abductions and assassinations. Reading Fallaci's novel, was a revelation, an introduction to Gehenna-on-Earth. Little wonder, he thought, his parents refused to discuss the country. He was not more than one-quarter of the way through the novel, yet. Its bleak, dark message of failed humanity should not have bothered him as much as it did, but it did.

And odd thing to happen, he couldn't understand why, when he'd originally leafed through the book carefully before committing to its purchase and he hadn't come across what had been inserted in it, until the packet fell out, last night. A kind of booklet, (Pictures to-day ... treasures to-morrow - Available at all Tamblyn Drug Stores: Tel-Vision Prints) as it were, with photographs fastened within it.

The pictures were old. He could see that immediately; black-and-white; hairstyles and clothing divulging their agedness. Reminding him of the old photographs in the family albums his parents had collected of people he had never met and never wanted to meet, but meaning something to his parents, obviously.

When he turned them over, the dates were there, place-names and peoples' names. Taken in 1952, at an RCAF base in Chatham, New Brunswick. And among the names of people, there, incredibly, was his own name, scrawled alongside the others. He quickly turned the photo over to more closely scrutinize the faces of three men standing, two women and two children in the foreground, kneeling.

He had no idea who they were, although there was a sense of familiarity, looking at them which he ascribed entirely to similar photos he'd seen in his parents' albums with war-time base housing in the background, and civilian personnel in the foreground. And there, labelling one of the middle-aged men, was his name.

Who were the photos representative of? How peculiar that an uncommon name like his was present in such an unlikely place. Related, he wondered...? Not likely, none of his people had ever been there to his knowledge, nor with the RCAF. He turned to the novel flyleaf, but the presumed name of the original owner had been too carefully blacked out.

The Known World

 

How can it be plausible that people
can discover functional merit and purpose
in preying upon others in the curse of humanity's
propensity to the practise of slavery? That African
tribal chiefs sought profit by selling their rival
clans -- men, women and children as livestock
to be herded into caravans by Arab traders or
to European slavers to die agonizing disease-
afflicted deaths, their frail black lifeless bodies
strewn upon the deep seas as fish fodder.

An ancient, hateful tradition predating
written memory, where the victors triumphed
with the processions of shackled, miserable
vanquished, the conquest of humanity, the dire
misery of hopeless enslavement, the generations
born into inhuman bondage, their lives borne out
in witness to the celebration of the free, the
mourning of those imprisoned in serfdom, no
purpose but to serve a remorseless master.

A man whose daunting philosophical genius
awed with the elegance of his intellect, but was yet
a slave, subject to the imperious whims and commands
of his moral, creative, cerebral inferiors themselves
impervious to the degradation and misery they
sustained. The harvest of human bodies for
righteous duty to those who presumed it right and
proper to prosper from their purposeful enslavement
has stained humanity throughout the shameful ages.

As it does to the present, where the indigent
and the vulnerable, the young, the fragile and the
unprotected are abducted and violated. there is no
universal conscience, no inborn genetic code to
instinctively cause aversion, no god of divinely
merciful dimensions to demand the cessation and the
release of the indentured denied their equal portion of
humanity's dignity, purpose and freedoms.

All is chance, geography, fortune, good or ill. And it
is a decidedly ill wind that lights the embers of human
avarice, ambition and pitiless aspiration to assemble the
users, abusers and the soul plunderers toward the purpose
of hegemonic upheavals, the spoliation of children,
the harsh domination of the defenceless. 

 

Doppelganger

He always notices what I wear, most of the time, anyway. I am well aware there are certain outfits he prefers over others. It's the way he looked at me. Although occasionally he emphasizes his disapproval by suggesting I might have succumbed to dressing ‘like an old woman’. When that happens I rid herself of the offending garments, but it happens rarely. When I dressed this morning I thought the combination of the Harris tweed flounced wool skirt paired with the hooded bomber-style jacket might not be too appropriate for a woman of advanced years. Then I shrugged off the doubt, it was my style, and that was that. And he liked it, that too was important.

We both think of ourselves as young, why should we not? We’re in good health, despite a few setbacks. And we’ve always been active in the physical sense of using our bodies sensibly, not gradually succumbing to the sense that they will become larger, slacker, less responsive and therefore unreliable so why push them beyond their obvious lack of durability and endurance?

In particular I always thought of us as being fairly indestructible. Oh, I know, that’s the province of the young, the arrogant and the self-involved. There’s that about us, too, of course. We’ve always taken pride in our physical fitness, our enquiring minds. I’ve always looked younger than my age. Our daughter has inherited that. But not our granddaughter; at 14 she could easily pass for 18. It’s both negative and positive; more on the negative side of the equation, I feel.

Up until a year ago I felt invincible. Took pride that neither he nor I had any chronic conditions, took medications of any kind to control the imposition of a health condition, some kind of dreary disease. And then, everything seemed to change, and at such an astounding rate it left me feeling inordinately vulnerable. My ego did a crash landing and I clung to my husband for assurances that I would still be kicking around for awhile.

We’ve got a little companion dog. She’s eighteen years old now, considerable for a little dog. A while ago we became aware her hearing was becoming impaired, and her sight as well. She became easily startled. She was diagnosed by her usual veterinarian with a slight heart murmur. He would keep an eye on it, and on her. Then she began behaving peculiarly; very standoffish. She began to refuse her meals and it was difficult to tempt her with treats, she would disdain them, too. She began this odd pacing routine, looking out into space, sleeping poorly. We became alarmed. Until the vet diagnosed her with a mouth infection. Since she was a puppy my husband had taken care to brush her teeth on a regular basis. For all of that, her teeth began to decay, her incisors to loosen and eventually fall out. Not to worry, we were informed, it was normal for her breed and domesticated dogs had no real need for these teeth, given their domesticated diets. A course of antibiotics cleared up the problem and her normal behaviour was re-established.

I began to realize that she and I were alike; both getting older and suffering from the normal breakdown of our organ and body function and cognitive abilities. My hearing too has suffered the last few years. It’s beyond irritating to have my daughter, who speaks far too quietly on the telephone, suggest I could make good use of a hearing assistive device.

I’ve been scheduled for eye surgery after having been informed that a hole has developed within my retina as a result of deteriorating vitreous causing a tear. And just recently I was discharged from hospital after an emergency admission caused by low haemoglobin levels occasioned by a bleeding ulcer caused by the activity of H. Pylori. It was there that the attending internist and cardiologists discovered my high cholesterol levels and alarmingly high (their words) blood pressure.

But I still look far younger than my age.

And there was this man, confronting me at the supermarket. Odd how often that happened, elderly gentlemen doing their shopping, and no female companion in sight, stopping to pass a few light-hearted remarks with me. I was receptive, had never shied from conversations in a socially polite, public way. I like brief, friendly conversations, in fact. But also I like to control them.

He was not all that much taller than me, rotund which I am not, grey-haired and voluble. The words fairly tumbling out of his mouth. How, when he’d first raised his eyes around the meat counter and seen me standing there, the first thought that popped into his head was “what’s she doing here?”. The “she”, in this case, as he explained, being his cousin. Who lives in Toronto. Who, to his knowledge doesn’t come to Ottawa very often. But there she was, at the local supermarket he frequented. Only it wasn’t her, after all, but me.

I smiled. Indulgently, I thought, because he seemed so sweetly enthusiastic, earnestly trying to convey to me how incredible this was, how wonderfully peculiar he thought it to be, to discover, presumably close to where he lives, someone who looks exactly like one of the members of his family. I could not find it in me to match his enthusiasm, nor to even come close to it. I did manage to say, however, how odd that was. But, on the other hand, I added, looking directly into his watery-blue eyes, one often hears about the stranger-look-alike phenomenon.

“Exactly!” he enthused, obviously delighted to have discovered in me a sympathetic ear. And then he went on to describe to me in hurried sentences that seemed to run together in a flurry of disorganized thoughts how once, in Toronto at Bloor and an intersection where he had arranged to meet a friend for lunch, he saw that friend, approached him to draw him into their planned enterprise, only to discover it was not his friend at all, but an amazing look-alike. He had prevailed upon the look-alike to wait with him for a few minutes. That was long ago, he said, wrapping up his tale, and his friend and his friend’s look-alike have been friends, ever since.

Would I want to befriend, or even see or meet someone who looks exactly like me? I mused briefly to myself. Myself responded as I thought it would -- resoundingly indifferent. If someone existed in a city where I too once lived, who looked exactly like me, might it not be equally possible that through some telepathic phenomenon we could commune? I slapped that sarcasm down; doesn't do to become too cynical now, does it?

It felt to me as though, standing beside this man -- listening to his glad tidings of extraordinary happenings in the world of serendipity, nodding my head, smiling in response to his avalanche of pleased reminiscences -- as though I was in fact indulging a child. It occurred to me then that while I had a shopping cart brimming with colourful fresh fruits and vegetables along with other foods with which to stock my pantry, there was no sign of his own shopping cart. I was in the supermarket to do my weekly shopping. What was his purpose?

To confront women with improbably intriguing little fantasies? Eliciting their interest through a remote kind of flattery? Could he not see from the quantity of the groceries squatting in my shopping cart that I was indeed shopping for more than one person?

He was fairly hopping with the excitement of his revelations. And I thought to myself, if his cousin looks anything like him, how could she possibly have any resemblance to me? My ethnic origin is evident in my looks, and this man is quintessentially Canadian in appearance. Perhaps, it occurred to me, he was anxious to hear me ask his cousin’s name? Give him some indication that I cared, was interested to know more about her, to meet her? To discover what kind of personality she had?

I did, finally, ask how old she was. He gawked at me, after receiving the question. “Why - uh - she must be about - let’s see here, now - 59 or thereabouts?" Looking at me as though for approval in his guestimate. “Oh, I said”, hearing an aloof tone creep into my voice; kind of superior sounding, I thought, “I am 74 years old.” It’s true, I turned 74 a week ago.

My hair is not grey, nor is it white, it is a glittering silver. My face is not very wrinkled, and in fact I’ve red cheeks, burned by the icy winter wind slapping them earlier in the day when we’d gone for our usual ravine walk before embarking on our supermarket shopping event.

He stepped back, a confused look overtaking his previous look of childish excitement at discovering this sudden link revealing itself in the pedestrian aisles of his (I assumed) local supermarket. “You…you’re very well pres…you look really good for 74”, he finished awkwardly. I smiled. Chirped “bye now”, and he repeated it, vanishing around the corner of the aisle we’d been standing at.

I wondered where my husband was. Likely, I thought, lingering longingly around the processed meat products he knows I will only occasionally relent and agree to placing in our refrigerator, for his guilty delectation.

Or, possibly, chatting up some woman shopper as he often likes to do. He’s also the kind of person who enjoys casual conversation with other people. Just like me. 

 

Quadrupedal Dependents

 

They anticipate us. Observe our body
language, keenly listen to the words we
articulate, recall their meaning, assess the
dimensions lying in the clues of our expression
and infer aptly what we have not yet deliberately
undertaken to convey. We speak separate
languages and consider ourselves immeasurably
more intelligent, for what have they created
other than a place for themselves, entirely
subservient to their masters, who have, in
their genius, created hugely in manipulating
the bountiful opportunities nature has
permitted us, her designer organisms, to
recklessly experiment to her detriment.

They, on the other hand, did after all, migrate
adventurously across the primeval Bering Strait
when such grand excursions were still possible.
They adapted, and altered into sub-species
becoming what we would much later find them
to be, malleable companions for the hunt, and
to offer forewarnings of dangerous intrusion. To
aid us in the business of acquisition, in
defence, offence - and ultimately - survival.

We retain their faithfully reliable presence,
a vestigial version of the utilitarian function
they once served. Their careful eyes regard us,
ears cocked to our command, prepared to act
and to react; eager to demonstrate a proficiency
no longer prized. They cleave to us, quadrupedal
dependents, their feral capacity deferring to
our service. Become our leisure and social
companions, the relationship suffused with an
emotion transcending interspecies
collaboration, trust and loyalty.

 

Beastly Afrika

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She had struggled to fall asleep. Thought she was ready to when she turned out the light, noting how late it was. She’d determined she would finish reading that book, and she did. Both sorry and glad that it was done with. But was it done with? Skillfully written, evocative of a past she hardly knew existed, gripping in its tale of human fallibility, it lingered with her. How could they? Enslave human beings, consider them to be sub-human because of their skin colour. Race, a different race. Ignorant beyond belief, there is one human race, regardless of the colour of some of the branches of that one race.

Everyone knows about racial discrimination, sure, and everyone is aware -- she always mused, dimly or deeply, depending on which side of the divide you’re on -- about the scourge of slavery capturing peoples’ lives in misery. But free blacks living in the State of Virginia after the turn of the 18th Century being slave owners themselves? That was a bitter truth she did not want to swallow, despite the authority of the book. That’s what had kept her from falling asleep. Until, exhausted with exploring the bitterness of acceptance, she finally did.

She had been curled up on her side, hard against Calvin, who, when she awoke, was snoring. Nothing could shake his undeniable skill in relaxing, to fall into deep, restorative sleep. Something had awakened her, and she turned over on her back, then winced as she felt sharp, thorn-like prickling in her left buttock. Realizing what it was, she crept her arm down, shifted slightly and gently pushed the little dog’s paw free of her. In a generous display of appreciation, Afrika snarled at her. He never took kindly to having his own deep sleep punctured, nor ‘his’ space interfered with.

And that set Silk off, it always did, as she reacted also to being disturbed. She leaped off the bed, and Aline was not sorry to see her go. Silk had a stupendously irritating habit as dawn sent its pale fingers to part the dark cloak of night, of stealthily sneaking toward the head of the bed and settling herself down near Aline’s head. If Aline did not wake when Silk felt it was the right and proper time for her to be let out for the day, she would slide her sinuous body gradually over Aline’s shoulders toward her head, suffocating her, waking her as from a nightmare.

Silk never did that to Calvin, and she could never figure out why. Calvin provocatively suggested it was because Silk instinctively sought out the subservient figure, not the superior one with authority, earning himself a well-deserved cuff at the head. Leading him to reminisce about his childhood, and his mother Clara’s propensity to cuff her wayward boys.

Neither Clara nor Calvin shared her pessimism about the world and the unwillingness of human beings to see one another as equals. Clara kept going on at her about her ‘grandkids’, and she responded by repeating her rote response to her mother-in-law not to hold out any hopes of grandchildren from her. At first Clara used to roll her expressive eyes to heaven as though beseeching God to put some common sense into this woman her feckless son had chosen from among all the other nubile and fecund women in the world. Now, Clara just assumed a pained look, and her head was downcast - not up to heaven - as though communing sternly with the Devil who had placed such errant negativity into her daughter-in-law’s stubborn head.

She heard Silk on her downward leap, because of the tiny clangor of the bell she had purposefully placed around the cat's pedigreed neck. Not that it did any good. Either Silk exemplified the feline species’ ultimate propensity for morbid carnage, or the local birds were deaf, the chipmunks too slow, the rabbits petrified to death by the violently-assured threat she represented.

She had vowed, when Calvin brought Silk home as an adorable button of a kitten that this would be a strictly-indoors cat. She would not, through her stewardship of this cat, be responsible for adding to the mass murder of songbirds. She sighed, thinking of her naivety and the indomitable determination of cats to elude, evade and ultimately escape limits humans attempted to place on their quotidian nomadic forays into the fearsome jungle of the night.

Before they had even become serious about one another -- and that, admittedly, was not all that long after they had met -- she had cautioned Calvin that she had no intention of adding to the world’s population of black kids in a world that hadn’t changed all that much in its fixation on the colour black as being inferior to white. That had stopped him in his tracks. For about sixty seconds.

He had grinned, and said their relationship was young, and he was flexible and she was a rational human being and things changed. Well, in the last decade not all that much had changed in the world, other than that they had by then been married for nine years, and Calvin now had a firm understanding of how serious she had been.

And he accepted that. For he did love her, just as she did him. Just as they would passionately and protectively love the children that would come of their union, if they - - she, relented. But she had not and would not. For, loving those children would present to her the excruciating pain of witnessing them growing into a world that was so socially imperfect every time she thought of it, she felt like retching.

She hardly knew why she read books like that. Always had. They fed her anger. But they also informed her, and she wanted to remain informed. She sometimes mused about how wonderful it must be to be able to immerse oneself as a creative writer into the history of one’s background, to amass the information required to expound without bias, and to present to the world a piece of creative literature that spoke for itself about the injustices that have changed only by degree.

She could hardly herself credit what history revealed and the present date consolidated. That Arab and European slave traders did not by themselves haunt Africa to assemble the richness of blacks that they could include in caravans and the bleak, dark, dank holds of ships on their ocean-crossing voyages of death and disease. They had the eager assistance of tribal chiefs who traditionally warred on their neighbours, shackled them and placed them in guarded compounds and then led them in sick and straggling processions through their native jungles to where the slavers assembled, paid for and took possession of men, women and children.

What was worse, that this did not just reflect a distant past, but continued to this day. The monsters of black Africa re-invented themselves as tyrannical rulers, brutal dictators, tin-pot princes of their realms whose people were treated no better than slaves, and many of them were slaves, indentured, owned by a heartless ‘elite’. Children abducted and taken into slavery, or used as underage and vicious members of militias, forced to perpetrate upon their own villagers acts of despicable human cruelty to harden them. Girls and women repeatedly raped and tortured. Even in what passed for tribal ‘civil’ society, cultural and traditional and very much accepted rituals that mutilated women and eventually caused their deaths. Rape of innocent girls by men in societies that believed sex with young virgins would render them immune against HIV/AIDS.

When she got into one of her miserable moods of utter hopelessness, Calvin would sit there patiently, calmly, and hear her out. As she repeated ad infinitum rages detailing atrocities he had heard before. He would smile softly, reach out his hand to cup her chin, and remind her that people of good will were busy changing all of that. That the world was steadily becoming a better place. Proof? Lately, he would hold aloft the ultimate triumph: the election in America of a black president.

He still did that, even though she kept responding with her own assessment of that little miracle; that White Supremacists in that very same country would work toward their goal of amending that little aberration and before long they would hear the news that America’s black president had been assassinated.

All these thoughts and more fleeting through her head. As she wondered if Silk could wait until she felt ready to get up. Wondered whether Silk was going to leave her an unwelcome gift to clean up. Throwing up part of a tiny animal or bird she had ingested. She’d have to call Calvin to get up and clean up the mess. She just couldn’t stomach it. She would, if Calvin weren’t around, but it was the week-end, and they were both home.

Afrika was still fast asleep under the duvet. Sensible little animal. He was a perfect specimen, a coal-black, curly-haired toy poodle. True, he had a nasty temper when he was annoyed, but he was also emotionally attached to her, anxious to have her pick him up, baby him, speak to him, snuggle with him. And the fact was, she loved Afrika, that little beast. 

 

 

Speak!

 

NGC 4755: A Jewel Box of Stars
Credit & Copyright: Dieter Willasch (Astro-Cabinet)
If we were not here to make note of the
passage of time would the concept of time
exist? It is a question very much like that
of a tree falling in the forest with no witness,
a blazing star shooting through the galaxy,
a monumental volcanic eruption. If time and
matter are fundamentally actions and reactions
existing in response to nature's primal awakening
and exquisite design who would know, note or care
as the nuclei of atoms swirl endlessly, form,
disintegrate and reformulate to nature's formula?

In the vast infinity of creation the elements
have allowed themselves free reign and uncommitted
time has assisted their development and their
entropic dispersal, their ferocity of determination
and surrender to decline. We know of a certainty
that we are here, inhabiting the immensity of
creation, our scale infinitesimally minuscule. Our
thoughts proof of our being, our vision clarifying
all that surrounds us. But what if there is fault
in the acuity of that vision, in our mind's perception?

Have we imagined the Universe, our fragile
existence, the endless, remorseless passage of time
slowly obliterating the familiar, recasting gaseous
vapours, degradation of matter, the fatigue of
material degeneration, circulating ice crystals
in atmospheric alliterations, the symbiotic affect
of organic matter, the exchange of the inorganic,
the powerful energy of sun-stars, the magnetism
that holds us in thrall to place, the anchorage of the
inorganic, the scaffolding of the stratosphere? 

 

 

We Speak

 

Keep the lines of communication open,
the heady wine of old wisdom decanted
into a fresh new flask designed along
creatively modern lines of sleek steel, the
old finely-cut crystal decanters too fussy,
ornate, extravagant, when the simple and
direct has the functional role of immediate
retrieval of ideas and impressions conveyed.

The elegance and strength of the mode
and language of an earlier era however, still
lingers. Among those, like us, who have
possession of memories whose tender tendrils
reflect that time, plangent descriptions of
pure emotions drop like faceted jewels
whose glittering beauty reflects the light of
invincible belief in sharing, love, life, joy,
laughter and care describing all that
matters between us, the sum of our being.

You speak to me in words, tones of
recalled events, music, flavours. And you
speak to me in gentle motion and movements,
grasping my shoulders, lifting my chin,
extending your hands, gazing with the depth
of emotive dimensions only those who have
travelled long and far together would recognize.

When you see me bemused or pensive,
deep in thought or irresolute, your inevitable
response a smile in which resides love without
end. That caring benevolence cures and
elevates beyond care and concern toward
an enveloping nimbus of solicitude.

As for me, I find no need to relieve myself
of mere words to inform you of what is readily
evident in observing how my eyes search the
assurance of your face, my ears the solace
of your voice, my flesh the warmth of your
tactile sensuality. To speak, to form the words
simply dispels the ephemerality of illusion, for
although we are indeed as one, we are yet apart.

Our symbiosis there, observable, tenderly
prevailing. But the essence of our being, our
tandem need stretches far beyond the horizon
of the span of lovers' devotion as we imagine one
another's unknown thoughts, thinking they are
our own through the perpetuity of twinship.

 

 

The Heart Is The Matter

 

It is a public space, after all. A place, you see,
where people are gathered when suddenly -
or chronically - their bodies stutter, halt
in their normal, mechanistic routines. A
place where health professionals, groomed
and expertly schooled to differentiate, to
diagnose and to offer and effect amelioration
are stationed within the labyrinthine confines
of old piles of steel, concrete and brick.

Naked curiosity follows me unabashedly,
defying anonymity while utilizing it to
advantage. Vetting my social status through
my dress code, evaluating my obvious age and
most evident physical appearance against the
possibilities of my afflictions. The mystery
cannot be too deep for this is the cardiology
waiting room and a technician bids me to a
nearby chamber for a pre-appointment
cardiogram. Unneeded, for I have so recently
been more than adequately screened.

But my name revealed and the clues
gathering, the men and women seated there,
in pairs and singly, young and of middle age,
elderly and decrepit, are alert to any and all
revelations to lighten the boredom of the wait
and their burdensome self-concern. The
television screen, mounted high in a corner,
captures most swivelling eyes, but not the minds
behind them. Few opt to ease the wait by reading,
but The Economist is well worth the effort.

From the corridors, purposeful footsteps,
voices raised in querulous conversation; no one's
favourite ambiance. No sharp odours of
disinfectants detectable in this wing of this
campus of this municipal hospital serving over
one million citizens. Outside the windows, the
sky is hooded with brightly beaming clouds. A
sneak preview of late autumn sun glances briefly
through a slit in the contiguity of the clouds.
There will be far more to this unassuming
day than the current landscape assumes.

 

 

Living Recklessly

 

What is this world coming to?
We've become awkward and hapless
in our long-familiar environments
suddenly quirky, demented beyond
meticulous meteorological record
keeping and aboriginal recall.

The reliable, familiar and long
accustomed climate we have so
carefully adapted toward has turned
in against itself and our expectations
like Nature pouting that she has been
for far too long taken for granted. A
bruise to her dignity and imperial majesty
she will no longer countenance.

So, mortals, live in fear and suspense and
countenance this, if you can: massive
snow squalls without end, ferociously-driven
winds driving monsoon rains and widespread
flooding or snow banked as high as a
highway overpasses; icy terrain and great
tidal bores uplifting the restless seas.

Opaque fogs obliterating sight lines.
All human efforts to cope destined to fail,
the skies and the land and the seas suddenly
owned once again by the elements, absent
human-contrived conveyances as trains,
planes and ships are mute and humbled.

Mass migrations of people and animals
fleeing inundating floods submerging
bridges, highways, homes and hope.
Earth-shuddering quakes, arousing
tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions sending
rivers of molten mineral and dense, dank
curtains of ash to obscure the sun and the
wide, blue sky. Treacherous landscapes
where once benign, arable fields lay.

The uncertainty of surprise and survival
stalks the land as nations strive to cope
with disastrous by-products of Nature's
pique expressed in unimaginable levels of
geologic, climatic and geographical extremes
we struggle to surmount, as ineffectual
bystanders complicit in our own undoing
as though fate would so have it. 

 

 

The Inner Self

 

Life is a difficult passage - from childhood
curiosity, stimulation and growing aspirations
to the development of memory, experience,
regret and profound concerns and finally,
disappointments. We are singularly fortunate
when the serendipity of personal fortune
outweighs the overlapping misfortunes that
are met and dealt with on our life-journey.

It is incumbent upon us all, in reflection of
the finer emotions we are gifted with, to care.
The manner in which we express that care, on
every conceivable level, identifies us as
individuals. When caring becomes an intolerable
burden that makes a misery of our lives, there
is a useful human antidote: humour.

There is no situation, however stressful and unhappy
in its dark bleakness that does not hint at humour
for even humour can have its grim edge, lifting
us from submission to despair. Before we
stretch the tether of emotional balance to its
snapping point, humour beckons to be heeded.

A lighter mood has its own perspective, capable
of reflecting hope and deliverance from the
destitution of lonely, devastating destruction of
confidence in the future. Where there is no hope,
there is no future. Where there is not future, there
is no reason to prolong life. The imperative is to
steer in the direction of life and the future. One
where the light of hope and comedic relief from
life's stressors liberate us from rejecting ourselves.

We can laugh and find humour everywhere; light
and carefree, or mercilessly dark. But humour,
withal. Transient but renewable, sturdily useful,
enrapturing at times, insightful and mind-directing,
it may become a tool of choice in our enduring
free-choice subliminal quiver of survivalist options.

 

 

And Now Abideth Faith, Hope and Charity

 

All those humanly vital ingredients for survival
are there, in abundance, Faith, Hope, Charity.
Does the order and the singular manner of their
magnitude concern us in the dark night of despair?
Suffice that they manifest, for without those
sisters of survival, devastation, forlorn destitution
and graspingly greedy Death alone would remain.

One might assume that Dread Death had
feasted extravagantly enough as it was, consuming
a quarter million of Haiti's perennially
hopelessly indigent. But no, there he is, the
fallen angel, slavering over those newly delivered
to his bony maw by disaster-endemic choleric disease.

The millions of earthquake-displaced huddling
in makeshift hovels of canvas, plastic, paper and tin
against nighttime cold and winter rains, praise God
and fervently pray for deliverance from these
incessant tests of their simple faith. As they raise
voice in Hosannas their faith remains their hope.

They extend charity of thought toward the
outside world stricken by Haiti's pathetic presence
reflecting a people's miserable past, present and
destiny. Charity rains down heavy with morose
guilt from abroad as thousands of organized
charitable groups provide water, food, medicine.

Predators roam the squalid camps seeking out
the vulnerable; women and children. Who to keep
them safe from harm? People linger without
purpose, seeking comfort among their own, as
orphaned and lost children weep and seek
refuge and food to still their pangs of hunger.

Foreign governments pledge aid dollars that
slip effortlessly into the pockets of corrupt
officialdom. In crisply washed frilly dresses,
hair meticulously pigtailed, girls and women
join their menfolk in voodoo ritualistic ceremonies
and ruined cathedral masses where the bodies of
other faithful remain interred under the rubble.

In this ruined, bleak country the Three Graces
of timeless legend immortalized by human need
and nature's devastating deed, dance gracefully,
raising plummeting spirits. In Haiti, Faith, Hope
and Charity clasp one another with love and divine
forbearance. Well they might for what it avails. 

 

 

Compute That!

Stars, Dust and Nebula in NGC 2170 Credit & Copyright: Russell Croman (Russell Croman Astrophotography) Explanation: When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case is the star forming region NGC 2170. Visible above are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen, blue reflection nebulas of dust, dark absorption nebulas of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment, and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode. The resulting morass is often as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a naked open cluster of stars. If a sudden epiphany revealed the existence of a monumental phenomenon hitherto barely imagined in a guise not quite reflective of reality, but in fact still omnipresent and omniscient, would you believe it? An entity without discernible visual form, but yet a powerful, all-knowing presence whose purpose it is to guide and instruct and comfort? An indefinable, ephemeral, illusory presence, yet approachable and purposeful, humbly puissant in its orderly search for all the answers of all the queries ever to surface in the minds of humankind? An entity capable of forming and presenting a creatured landscape of great diversity and probity, beauty and utility - like a skilled craftsman creating a stage upon which life itself in its manifold dimensions exists. The dramas to which we are exposed; nature's atmospheric and geological upheavals, our actions and interactions, our curiosities and discoveries, our adventures and misadventures, ventured and circumscribed by that powerful force. It maintains a registry of all that occurs, leads and misleads us in benign and hazardous directions chides or rewards us with the consequences of our choices and remains itself inviolate and complacent in its feigned indifference: compute that.

 

Causmology

 

Ultraviolet Andromeda
Credit: UV - NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)
Optical - Bill Schoening, Vanessa Harvey/REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF


There was nothing, a vastness of emptiness,
a void incomprehensible in its dreadful silence,
its inconceivable non-existence. That much is
clear. Or not. What is a hypothesis but a leap
of faith in a mind's genius in provocatively
imagining that which might - or might not - be?

Nature holds her secret formulaic rituals close.
Why should she divulge her elaborate architecture
of the scaffolds of existence? The creative impulse
is hers, hers to conceive and to execute as she
wills, when she deems fit. Away, you compulsively
seeking minds! This much she will tantalize you
with: radiation, gravity, gaseous emissions, organic
elements, order and disarray, temperature,
atmosphere, distance, time and space.

Surely with the considerable aid of these primary
constants, your precocious minds can construct
the origins of the Universe! Try a little harder, do...

Think: There was a beginning. It was dark, cold,
immeasurably vast - and there was no thing
visibly present. Therefore, there was nothing. Or
was there? Ah, from nothing something resulted.
Something unspeakably profound, majestic,
immense and powerful. Was that not so?

The birth of awesome energy, density, as
matter rushed to fill the cold, vast emptiness.
Imagine, if you will, the brilliant, all-absorbing,
awe-full richness of light, clashing and
tempestuously crashing, slashing the darkness
with the ineffable life of a universe born into
existence. Call it what you will, nature simply
shrugs and proceeds with her blueprint of creation.

She is busy with galaxies, nebulae, stars, planets,
super novae, collapsars, icy comets. Red dwarfs,
black holes in her comprehensive engagements in
which she takes such pride of ownership. Taking
pleasure at her leisure in unleashing solar winds,
fiery eruptions on the liquid seas of volatile gases,
amusing herself for fourteen billion years. Meaningless,
as a measure of her timeless sovereign presence.

Sufficiently bored, on occasion she will set aside
her amusements, suffer all matter, energy and time
to be beckoned and collected into those black
receiving agents of anti-matter, to be stifled and
become no more. Until eventually, the housekeeping
is done. Nothing more exists and the black holes
collide, re-imagine themselves into the vast stillness
of nothing. Goodbye. And hello! Yet Again.

The Adventure of Life

There is a large old Golden Retriever
charged with the care and safety of the
two boys. It is clear she takes her charge
seriously, for she has an anxious look about
her as she paces between them, then races
after their downhill runs. The boys pay no
mind to the old dog, they are deep in the
pleasure of speed, giddy with the bold
power and excitement that envelopes them.

Each grasps his neat little skeleton sled,
takes his running start, then collapses onto
the sled fast dissolving into the long, snowbound
hill glazed by their countless spurts, with a
thick and slippery ice covering. The wind and
high spirits have painted their cheeks like
little drummer boys. Their voices rise to
challenge one another to greater exploits.

At the base of that long slope into the heavily
treed ravine stands an old pine which they evade
nicely, steering their snowcraft left or right;
sinister toward the icy, still-running creekbed,
dexter alongside an old trail skirting the creek.
A pileated woodpecker sounds its lunatic cry,
as though mocking them but the sound is lost
within their own peals of laughter.

The dog dashes desperately beside them,
its protective mission no slight delusion.
It clambers uphill when they do, each time
awaiting the signal to return home to security
and comfort. But the boys will have none of it.
The dense snowpack absorbs their shouts of
pure joy in the absorption of life's adventures.

 

 

The Wind's Domain

 

Benign as the ceiling of this world appears
this day, with luminous streaks of clouds
so brilliantly flamed silver by the early
afternoon sun, there is no warmth in the
atmosphere and no escape from the bellowing
wind that rudely abrades everything it
touches with its belligerent presumption.

The carbon-icy probes of the wind rage
its sovereignty over all living things,
inspiring a cowering terror the small,
furred creatures of the forest well recall
as a partner to winter. Even the crows
avoid its ferocity, abstaining flight for
hunched, darkly sinister perches.

The colossal old beech is unmoved,
while all about it, trees of far newer vintage
wave and weave about in surrender to the
wind's merciless aggression. It stands,
that venerable beech, still and dominant
like a placid pachyderm patriarch.

Where once a grape vine grew on its
lower limbs in graceful symbiotic accord,
flourished, producing sourly mean fruit,
those limbs of the beech long since assumed
a curtsy to their companionship; though the
gnarled old vine has since decayed into
nothingness; the host recalls its tenant.

A gathering litter of dry leaves, needles,
twigs and branches descend as helpless victims
to the dictate of the wind, leaving the trees intact
but for those prepared by time and disease to
split and topple, cracking the air with their
torment. The mud-turgid water of the forest
creeks usher along new-fallen offerings to
generously augment the rich forest aggregate.

 

Simply Put: Why?

A three-lettered query, simple in its
surface innocence, but complex in its
need to know, nuanced with an underlay
of demand on the sensibilities. Acutely,
humanly needful of thoughtful introspection
and response. Why, he asks, the sentence
forwarded for contemplation, comprised
of a single word. The most meaningful
plaint in human communication, but
sans context, an arcane conundrum.

There is an inhuman distance of vast
geography separating us, yet our connection
is managed through the ether, permitting
those faceless, voiceless masses of which we
are two, to meet. Brief contact, one mind
reaching another, past language, culture and
history to find a common human interest.
You grope for those to share your search
for meaning, and there am I, responding.

No, your malady is not mine, but my
emotional grasp of its life-destructive
powers require no great stretch of the
imagination; humans are imbued with the
capacity to care for the plight of an
unfortunate stranger. Call it empathy,
compassion, a remote tenderness of
vision and responsibility as an uncomplicated
gesture, person-to person, unseen, unmet.

Your language is not my language, so it
must require quite the effort, a huge
difficulty for you to marshall your thoughts,
transcribe and send them on their way through
the miracle of telecommunications circling the
atmosphere, tickling our awareness of one
another. Messages of enquiry, attempting
to solve the riddle of the deeply rooted
covenant of the spirit, to respond to need.

Your insistent need to know: But why, then?
resonates and saddens, it does not elevate
the discourse because you will not accept
the simple act of humanity, obsessed by a
response you will not dredge from me,
invested yet with the belief that good exists
somewhere deep within, and sometimes
we must defer to that impulsive instinct. 

 

 

The Compelling Winds

 

The shy little cousins of the wind - the gentle
zephyr, the breeze, stand by regarding the fully
mature wind with awe. The puissant grandeur
of the wind, its assured and determined mission
against which all of nature's creatures quail,
instructs and guides the breeze and the zephyr,
but they will never be capable of instilling
dread and fear in the pursuit of their assigned
roles within nature's indomitable schemes.

The gentle ones soothe, they cool and refresh,
they are met with calm expectation. Yet
they longingly regard the fearful esteem the
wind's fury elicits in its many fearful guises as
intemperate, fierce, pitiless, bitter, raw,
destructive and unstoppable in its self-tasked
guidance heralding atmospheric change, posing
by degrees as a hurricane, a tornado, a blunt
force blast furnace shielding its ferocious intent
behind innocent sounding names like el nino and
la nina. Snowy blizzards erasing vision and warmth,
torrential rains abetted by howling winds reveal
facets of the weather phenomena so genially
visited upon this Globe by the great Earth Mother.

Wind becomes a co-conspirator with fire,
wreaking havoc on the flora and fauna lest there
remain any doubts who sits at nature's right-hand
side; the sinister by right of conquest and
domineering intent. From the enabling resources
of the environment's firestorms to the sweeping
guidance of ice storms shredding all that stands
before them. Volcanic vapour and fiery ashes
spread far and wide over land, sea and air.
Wind-whipped ocean storms breeding gigantic
vessel-killer waves and deadly land-sweeping
tsunamis; the wind whips, master of all. 

 

 

But It's Good For You!

 

He is a very small creature, but perforce not
to be judged by his size which nonetheless
houses a quite large ego, an odd belligerence,
and no small consideration of entitlement.
Ah, yes, not to be forgotten - an oversized
appetite as well, more suited to the need of,
for example, a hard-working sled dog. He,
by contrast, has naught to do but anticipate
meals laced tantalizingly with tidbits his
humans consume, and contemplate the weary
rest one is compelled to indulge in, afterward.

He is, to say the least, besotted with his
languid lifestyle. It is when, daily, the
presumptuous humans among whom he
deigns to live, assume he wishes to accompany
them on woodland rambles, that his patience
wears thin. Indolence, he feels, becomes him
so. No need whatever for the she to sigh that
he is becoming a tad too rotund, for he
most certainly favours rotund, and it is his
body, after all, under critical discussion.

Does he, to be fair, evaluate and stand in
judgement of her humanoid form? Perish
the very (awkward) thought; he has better
things with which to occupy his mind, like:
who goes there!? when they are engaged in
the silly conceit of marching through the woods
and leaving peanuts for squirrels. Yes, he is
presumptuously belligerent -- was not Napoleon?

What a futile, nonsensical pastime these
daily rambles represent, an affront to his
dignity and sense of self. His pace displeases
her; she wheedles and teases, pleads entreatingly,
resorts in irritation to authoritative tugs, which
he simply will not tolerate -- so he tugs back.
Is he therefore stubborn as she so bitterly
claims, then? Is the Pope, need we ask, pious?

 

 

Once Again To the Breach!

 

There, she's done it again. Your anxiously
lonely and obsessed, impetuous daughter
has chosen unwisely, and in your ears,
piercing your torn heart comes the
unleashing of the conflicted anguish. Out
it comes in an unending steam of emotional
bile against yet another man whose cavalier
approach to partnership in life has managed
to devastate expectations; are you surprised?

A brief nod to self-reproach as she moans
that her generous spirit and open heart
conspired yet again to leave her gasping in
frustrated disbelief. You cannot interject to
remind her of the imperious rejection of your
cautious advice, for now is not the time and in
fact there never will be a time. You are there, a
soft wall of compassion, absorbing her grief.

Note to self: you will shop for a luxurious set
of warm flannel queen-size sheets for your once-
again bereft child, hardly knowing where to turn
for the comfort of a life companion once again
denied her. It is a gesture the absurdity of which
will pass beyond her, and just as well, given the
circumstances. Those circumstances being nothing
you may now amend, after all those years.

Did you raise her so ineptly, arm her so sadly
insufficiently to recognize quality from liability?
Fail to imbue her with an acute awareness of her
own value and discerning discrimination well used?
Were those life lessons you imparted by word and
in deed so shallow and redundant? She is approaching
menopause. When does personal passage to life's
afflictions become one's rightful ownership?

 

The Enduring Winter Forest

 

A vast silver plate shields the sky. A remote
stillness muffles the atmosphere. There will
be no bright light illuminating the soft whiteness
of the newfallen mantle of snow humping the
forested landmarks. Even so, an iridescent veil
of luminous beauty shines like the ephemeral
vision it is, under that great metallic vault. Most
creatures of the forest are deeply invested
in their long winter sleep, unaware.

Last night's ferocious winds under a clear, dark
velvet, star-encrusted sky like a garment proudly
worn to an imperial ball, felled brittle lifeless tree
limbs. That same insistent wind blanketed the
blue velvet with a suffocating layer of dark and
threatening clouds laden with vapour, unleashed
on the frozen landscape below, transforming
it into a palace of marble and goosedown.

The forested courses of creeks and rivulets
have been inexorably glossed with opaque
ice, marbled with dry, fallen leaves trapped
within the frosted waterways. A softer wind
now gently spurs clots of gathered snow from
branches, sending the flakes like a spiralling
veil to pattern the smooth coverleted ground.

A tall, slender beech trunk reveals itself
wrapped tenderly round the sturdy body
of an old hornbeam. They share their twined
presence in the oddity of brown, dried leaves
still clinging to the home body. Twinned
yellow birches leaning on one another as though
for comfort, trunks riddled by sapsuckers, are
slowly losing their desiccated, slovenly bark.

Silence absorbs the dark wings of crows
as they ply the frigid air, and as the darkly
clever birds alight and peer down intently at
the frenzied search below, of equally dark, but
furred creatures spurning hibernation, searching
for their buried caches. A short, sharp report
alerts that the wind yet holds sufficient sway
to crack the weakest of tree limbs.

The fragrance of impending snow pervades
the environment. Another snowfall, on the
cusp of stifling the organized chaos of the
enduring, renascent winter forest. 

 

 

Skip One Generation

 

It is a conundrum. Why, that is, people
have children. As a way to complicate lives,
nothing else quite matches child-rearing
for resulting agitation, confusion, frustration.
The child questions and challenges the parents'
authority while the parents attempt to fulfill
their parental mandate to guide, protect,
encourage and support their offspring.

Difficulties in achieving this most basic
of human social protocols, to obey nature's
first law of survival through genetic inheritance,
bumps hard up against nature's other imperative,
the child's quest for affirmation of independence.
The parent-child gulf of one separating generation
is so profoundly vast as to produce a malfunctioning
relationship not readily amenable to being breached.

The patent relief on the psyche of both parent
and child when they are finally free of one another's
daily puzzling divisions of temperament, values,
priorities, are profound. The parents' revenge, as it
were, is realized finally on seeing their children
join the ranks of parents themselves, confronted
by the very reflection of parent-child dissonance.

Only the grandparents are firmly in the child's
self-obsessed, entitled orbit, holding no brief for
their own children suddenly confronted by that
all-too-familiar challenge. Oppositional divides
widen, converge. The new parents' methodology
confronted by the old parents whose memory
of their own efforts remain sharply astringent .

Emotions lavished on the new generation in a
conspiracy linking children and grandparents,
excluding the parents, the agony of raising
children reveals its purpose as a necessary albeit
blighted tedium whose end result, the grandchildren
who can do no wrong, delights the grandparents
into a state of exuberant elderly amnesia.

 

 

ME, LAST YEAR

 

At school one morning, before Mr. Henderson got in to home room, Pearl told everyone who was sitting around, to kindly shut up. She had something to say. Turned out her and her group of snotty, stuck-ups decided they’d like to get something for Mr. Henderson as a gift from us. So he wouldn’t forget us. Personally, I think he’d just as soon forget us all. Especially me. As soon as we graduate. If not sooner.

Anyway, what they thought was, they thought they’d collect two dollars - cripes! TWO DOLLARS! - from each of us eager-beavers. They think I’m made of money or something? They planned, they said, to get him a real nice present from all of us.

“What’re you thinking of getting him?” I asked, getting real brave. “A gold-plated spittoon?”

“Very funny, Miss Feldpoop” Pearl said nastily. And of course everyone laughed. They think it’s good fun to play around with my name. I’m quite above mangling someone’s name up like that, of course. And I just ignore them. “Actually, we’ve already come to a consensus conclusion about what we’ll get him.”

“Consensus? Hey, that means that everyone agrees. We never even heard about your plans before. You didn’t ask us. Here you are, just telling us! What if some of us don’t think it’s such a hot idea, eh?”

“How about just shutting up for a minute, Miss Blabbermouth. I’m trying to tell everyone something before Mr. Henderson gets in. When you hear it all maybe then we’ll let you have your say. Meanwhile, kindly shut up.” So I did. Like what else could I do? Everyone was telling me to shut my big mouth.

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted”, Pearl went on, glaring at me in a very unfriendly way, “What we thought we’d do was collect two dollars from everyone. Then an appointed group - me and Nancy and Michelline actually - will go out and get a present from all of us. Actually, we kind of think we know what we’re going to get. It’s just a matter of going out and ordering it. Rosemary had the great idea of a silver-plated urn on a plaque, and we’d have it engraved ‘to Mr. Henderson, from all of us’.”

Half the kids were nodding their heads and saying ‘great’, and like that. Crap! Are they kidding? A bloody loving-cup? All of a sudden they’re in love with Mr. Henderson. Like, all year they never pay attention and he’s got one hassle after another (not that he doesn’t always deserve them), but now they’re so sad to leave they’ve got to get him a yucky cup with a message from his loving class. I’ll be darned if I’m going to have anything to do with it!

We couldn’t talk about it any more then, because Mr. Henderson came in and we started to do English, and he told us we were having another test tomorrow, better study tonight.

Oboy, already today we’ve got math and French homework, and probably he’ll give us geography homework too, before the day is out. Don’t they ever get together and talk about all the homework they’re loading us down with, and decide sometimes, to give us a break? Everyone groaned as usual, but I put my hand up.

“Mr. Henderson, we just had an English test last week. Do we really need to have another one so soon?”

“Jennifer, I do believe I’m the best judge of that, not you. Are you the self-appointed spokesman - excuse me, spokesperson - for this class? You’ve turned into the greatest complainer I can recall ever having in any of my classes!”

“Sir, I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to point out to you that we had a test last week. Like maybe you forgot or something. And anyway, we’re all loaded down with homework for tonight, and Mr. Levesque wants us to study French for a real big test on Thursday, and really, it’s just too much!”

I KNOW that most of the kids feel just like I do, but just because I’m the one who stood up to say something, no one will back me up. Well, Jennifer T and Donna and Diane maybe will, but that’s not enough, and some of the kids started pointing fingers at me and saying -whiney-Jenny’, and I’m sure I heard Sally talking to Pearl about me, saying I’m a poor sport and a whining bitch.

“At any rate Jennifer, this test is more than just a simple test. It’s to be a review of everything we’ve taken the past several months. And I fully expect all of you to be prepared.”

Oboy, things seem to be going from bad to worse, or something. This time everyone groaned, and he turned to the class and said “We’ve gone over the salient points time and again, and I’m quite confident most of you know your subject. It won’t take much time for you to review the work we’ve done. You’ll find that the anticipation of a test is invariably more difficult and intimidating than the actual test.

"None of you should have any trouble at all if you just skim over the work we’ve done, and tell yourself to relax. After all, final exams are just a few weeks away, and you might as well be prepared. Call it, if you will, a dress rehearsal.” And he chuckled at his sparkling wit. But no one else thought it was funny.