

### Refrigerator

### Magnets

Stories and Observations

by

Pat Worden

Copyright 2011 Patrick J. Worden

http://pworden.com

Smashwords Edition

http://www.smashwords.com

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For Ganesha

And also for my family and my friends.

Many, many others can just rot right off.

Contents

Prologue

Who'm I?

And old man went swimming

Science v Religion

The fall of Irish Red

Hostage rescue

Distant rings

A creed

The Darwin drive

Between here and Orion

Late embrace

Lunacy

Peloponnese

The broad purple stripe

Tell me your secrets

My flawed angel

Danse ecstatic

Trespass 2 chattels

His last chance

Egg tooth

Everyone's speeding to the same destination

What do you need?

Necessities

Walking with Taliesin

Prologue

### Call-forwarding: A techno-shamanic fantasy

Dammit. It's been an ongoing problem for weeks now.  
It started when I forwarded my desk-phone to my company-issued cellphone before leaving work one night. It's part of my routine, and I do it every evening.

But this time...the phone system suffered some kind of hiccup. My phone stayed in call-forwarding mode, while every other phone on my floor seemed to lose their call-forwarding capabilities.

Whatever. The prob has been logged with the helpdesk, numerous follow-up queries have been made, but it still hasn't been fixed.

Today, though...I suddenly became curious about something.

My desk-phone is forwarded to my cellphone, right? Well...what would happen if I forwarded that same cell right back to the desk? What would I get? A nicely closed-loop of call forwarding...

Couldn't let that be just an idle curiosity, of course. So I went ahead and did it. Then I wheeled over to a nearby desk, and dialed in my deskphone's extension...

It was weird. It was glorious. It began with a shrill beep from my cell. Followed by a similar sound from my deskphone. Then a quicker one from my cell, and a quicker one from my desk...

...back and forth, like an ancient game of Pong. Faster, shriller, more intense...

And then the lights dimmed, and they were gone. Our computers began shutting down, one by one, as the network disappeared. Surprised, angry voices sounded throughout the room.

Dazed, I wandered to the exit. What I found outside did nothing to allay my nervousness.

Tripping like grounded-out breakers, all the buildings throughout this industrial park were shedding their electricity and going dark. Streetlights and traffic signals were shutting down. Traffic was growing crazy and confused.

But beneath that...the hum had gone away. Do you know the hum? It's always there, so you rarely notice it. But when the power's gone, during a blackout or electrical storm, you notice that eerie and profound silence. That's the lack of hum.

Had I wrought this? That's what I was asking myself. And just as quickly, the answer came: Of course I had, I had no doubt. I felt some fear at first – the fear of a Luddite who'd just smashed his machine.

But that faded, and soon I felt only joy. I looked behind me and saw a thin stream of co-workers, also wandering from the impotent building, trying to find something to do, some way to cope.

I'm not sure why, but they looked to me. Silent, wide-eyed, looking for a leader...

At my feet, I saw a handful of twigs, blown from the trees in some recent gale.

I closed my eyes for a moment, and cast my mind back. Years ago, decades ago...when I wore a neat green uniform and a neckerchief and merit badges...I cast my mind back and recovered those long-forgotten lessons.

Then I reached and grasped two of those sticks and held them high over my head. I turned and addressed this frightened crowd that longed to become a tribe...

"Come! I teach you to build fire!"

Who'm I?

No one special, just a bastard child of the lower-middle class, of the rust-belt Midwest, of the public schools and the state colleges, of the seventies and eighties and nineties.

I've always fancied myself a writer, for whatever that's worth, but for most of my life I never embraced that as anything more than a far-off dream...because guys from my neighborhood created nothing by their own free will; they joined the army or went to work instead, in factories or restaurants or dull plastic stores.

Knowing nothing else, I followed that path for years. I worked dozens of jobs, for good men and horrible men, alongside fine, honest people and alongside free-walking criminals. I worked in places where a dispute might be settled by H.R. arbitration, and I worked in places where a dispute might be settled by flinging a wrench at some asshole's head.

For the longest and most thoughtful of those years, I was overworked and underpaid as an EMT and ambulance dispatcher, in a dirty city, mostly in the service of poor, sick people who died like flies. I met and worked with some of the finest humanitarians in the world there, people who'd pour out their hearts and souls and would weave CPR and first-aid magic with practiced hands, for the sake of the filthy and the homeless, that they might live one more wretched day. And I worked with devils in uniform, who'd cop illicit feels (or worse) of unconscious teenage girls, and who would rummage through the coins and dollars of comatose oldsters, on their way to atrocious state-run nursing homes that were really just waystations for lonely death. For my part, I was caring and callous in turn. I saved occasional lives, but also wished an end to the most bothersome of our frequent flyers, who nonetheless usually hung on for years despite the worst that cancer and kidney disease and my ill wishes had to offer. I was in my twenties, so I had lots of meaningless sex in the backs of ambulances, with cute-girl paramedics who cared even less for me than I for them, and who wouldn't remember my name today. And I carried that on for eight or nine years, until I could no longer stand puking up blood between shifts, or waking up sweaty and shouting, dispatching disasters in my sleep. So I quit.

And I drifted, and eventually settled into the vocation of writer, much to my own surprise. I wrote advertising copy, which can be mercenary and mindless but also frequently creative. I did my karma no good, by serving the interests of banks and oil companies, but I learned a few things about brevity and persuasion. I learned that the importance of grammar and style are nothing compared to the importance of the message. And I learned that as long as it was in my job description, I had no compunction about lying.

In the end, it was no sense of guilt that forced me out, but rather a sense of creative drainage. I had stories I needed to tell, but after long days of hacking out ad copy ("Buy!Buy!Buy!") I found I had no will to tell them. There's a reservoir of words, I realized, and mine were being spent on print ads and broadcast copy and snappy positioning statements. There was little or nothing left for prose or poetry, or even blogging or ranting.

I entered a period of writing what pleased me, some of which you'll see within these pages. I'm a bit of an amateur astronomer, so I write about that. The future fascinates me, as does the past, so I write about those as well. Mostly, though, I've earned my way by freelancing, which means writing magazine articles and textbook articles and website articles, as contracted and to the specifications required. I've wondered often, and often still do, if the sum of my words weren't now being spent on other people's articles. I enjoyed the fact, and still do, that people were reading my words...but ached with a nagging worry that I still wasn't writing what needed to be written.

Because as a writer, I'm brutal to myself. I am my own worst critic. If a day passes and no meaningful words are written, I'm filled with self-loathing. When the words are hard in coming – and that's often – I'm certain that the knack has gone, and I gaze into the mirror wondering where in hell I got the temerity to call myself 'writer' in the first place. And if months or years pass with no publishing or contracts, I become certain that the self-indulgent experiment is over, and the normal gray life must resume.

A writer writes, they say, and while that's true I have the perspective of knowing that some writers, maybe just _this_ writer...write, yes...but sometimes _hate_ to write, and someetimes just plain can't write. And I have the experience of knowing that those roughest of patches end eventually, and eventually I'll start tapping something out again. I'll tap out something that might be horrible, or it might be okay, but in any case it's mine, and before I tapped it, it never existed. That should be reward enough, but it rarely is.

If this process sounds painful...well yes, it is. But it's a meek kind of pain, and it faces totally inward. Writing might be difficult, but I write in a nice warm room, with whatever drink or drug I think will help me along close to hand. There's no one shooting at me, no one is bleeding on me, no one but me will suffer if I get this wrong.

So the question, again, is Who'm I ? and the corollary to that is Why Should You Listen ? Again, I'm no one special, just a guy who taps. And I cannot say for certain that you should listen, that much is still unproven. But I will ask you to listen, or more precisely, to read...because as the cover promises there are stories and observations here. They're my stories and observations, probably not the best you've ever read and hopefully not the worst. Maybe they'll offer you some new insight, or maybe they'll simply offer an hour or two of pleasant distraction.

In either case, 'Who'm I' and 'Why Should You Listen' fade to insignificance, I think. I told you that I learned as an ad-copy writer that the message is the thing. That means the messenger, really, is nothing. So all that is left, and all I can ask of you, is to turn the page and read the first word there. And then the second, and then the third....

Aeons past and aeons hence

_eyes cast skyward try to make sense_ _  
_

_We wrestle with worlds too distant to touch_ _  
_ _and reinvent time when time asks too much_

_We measure our microns, we learn from the gun_ _  
_ _we count out the atoms consumed by the sun_ _

__We don't know what's hiding when we pry back the veil_ _  
_ _and dance ever closer in the onrushing gale_ _

__Came then no insights, no brilliance at last_ _  
_ _just another mad ember that burned out too fast._

An Old Man Went Swimming

An old man died in a mundane way, and then he was gone from this earth. He had gone swimming , it was his first time in decades. A taxed blood vessel burst, he became paralyzed, his lungs filled with water, he drowned. He floated back up, and his vacant eyes reflected Brazilian skies.

He was in the course of things judged by his Creator to be wicked, and was taken from the emptiness of death to the place of his torment, where the balances of justice were contented with an eternal retribution for a wicked old man.

He opened his eyes and saw a place of bulging walls, livid in their malevolence, that birthed horns and spikes and breathed towards him and contracted away from him, in a sighing rhythm that pressed in on him and kept him turning and cowering. He knew where he was. He knew why he was there.

There was a figure before him. He had no conscious recollection of the approach, or the sudden appearance of any such figure...and he was positive that he had previously been alone. But all at once there was a towering figure before him, regarding him with silent calculation. It looked him up and down, then walked around him, taking in every centimeter of him. As it turned about the old man, the old man – in spite of himself – regarded it back. He had been a scientist once, and that old burning curiosity that had always been the master of him proved to be more potent than his stark fear.

He stared at a reddish-brown thing, humanoid in appearance and covered in coarse hair. Three meters tall if it were an inch, it rippled with cut muscles. Its face was lost in shadows, but for the glowing, intelligent eyes that regarded him. Back to the front of him now, it paused. It stared into the old man's eyes, and slowly raised an arm. A whip-snap motion, too swift for human eyes to follow, and the old man was tumbling through the air, his face smashed to jelly. He squished into the breathing wall at his back, and then...recovered. He could feel bones knitting and skin sealing together, and he found himself whole again. He pulled himself upright, only to see the tall, dark figure striding toward him with determination. He braced himself for another blow, but the figure suddenly stopped. It addressed him.

"Your name is Josef Mengele. Your Creator has in the course of things judged you to be Wicked and has caused you to be delivered to this place. I am going to hit you."

The beast delivered another massive blow, swift and without sound, smashing the old man backward. The breathing wall had been just behind him, of this he had no doubt...but still he was hurtling backward just as before. His split eye caught a glimpse of horned, undulating walls to his left and to his right, and again he sank into a wet, breathing wall that had formed behind him. He could feel the horns and spikes around him thrusting in and out of the walls, seeking him.

And just as before, his tortured body healed itself and the figure came striding to him.

"Josef Mengele. I am in this place in order to hit you. I will hit you again in less than three seconds."

The terrified old man had an instant to brace himself, and then another killing blow landed, and he was flying back into the wall that kept receding from his back.

Killing blow; that was what his mind had labeled the beast's strike. A killing blow is what it should have been. He remembered that he was 73, or at least he had been. He had been a Doktor all his adult life. He full well knew that if any old man who ever lived had suffered such a blow that would be the end of him.

But he simply healed again. He pulled himself together and waited for the tormentor to stride to him.

"You have by now grasped the nature of your punishment. I will hit you, and you will recover, and I will hit you again. This will go on forever." The figure struck, the nightmare repeated itself. He recovered, and stood up. The figure strode up to him.

"You are by now trying to grasp the nature of 'forever'. I advise you to forget all time references you are familiar with, because they are without context here. There is only...forever." The beast hit the old man. Hurled him backward. He sank into the wall. He healed.

"Forget days and years and weeks and aeons and millennia. There are only two time references in your mind that apply here. One is 'eternity'. " It hit him. Hurled backward. Sank into wall. Healed.

"The other is 'second'. A second is the time it takes me to step from here," a pause. "To here. For the duration of eternity I will hit you an average of once every ten seconds." It hit the old man, who flew backward and sank into the damp breathing wall.

"Sometimes I will hit you as swiftly as once every four seconds. I can hit you one second faster than that, but that is the fastest I can do it. It will never take me more than thirty seconds to hit you." It hit him.

"I tell you this because I do not want you to think that in the course of eternity this torment will ever blur into rapid routine." It hit him.

"I know you long ago knowingly resigned your soul to this place, and have often wondered what this place would be like. You have wished that in your mind the centuries and millennia will in time begin to blur by, making your torment bearable. This is not so." It hit him.

"I tell you that centuries and millennia do not exist here, there are only seconds of eternity. Your mind will not close to the passing of these seconds, and I will hit you an average of once every ten seconds." A blow landed, the old man flew back and was healed.

"You have also wondered if you would be haunted by your crimes in this place. You will not. I will not speak of it, your dead will not come here. All that exists here is me, hitting you. For eternity.

"I am hitting you faster now.

"That took five seconds. Here is the fastest I can do it.

...

"Have you grasped how time works here yet? I believe you have.

"Are you trying to assimilate 'seconds' as you know them into a concept of 'eternity'? I believe you are.

"I will hit you an average of once every ten seconds for eternity. One thousand trillion seconds from now I will still be hitting you, and one thousand trillion seconds after that. Three seconds from now, I will hit you.

"I am telling you this because it is part of my task to explain to you the workings of this place. In this explaining, I am almost finished. Your Creator has found that you have an intelligent mind, and has judged that by now I have answered nearly all of your questions.

"There is no need for you to speak because I know your questions before they're asked. You will remain silent, I will hit you.

"You wonder whether certain men are in this place or a better place. That can wait. I will answer questions like that beginning in one hundred, forty-five thousand seconds.

"I don't have a name. I was not born or created in any way that you have reference of understanding. I do not hate you.

"I know what you did. It has no meaning to me. I do have emotions. I did not do anything before this began.

"In less than two million seconds, I will have nothing further to say to you.

"I will go on hitting you in silence.

....

Science v. Religion

Whose idea was this? What set this ball in motion? And why? Above all else – why?

Do you sense the hand of creation at work? Do you suspect there's a wizard behind the curtain? If so, then best you fear him. You've seen his works.

Perhaps it's merely chance? Life born from uncounted collisions? You might find comfort in that, even as others curse your blasphemy.

Is that what happened, then? Just a bumping of amino acids, that twisted upward and found a brain?

Beware, then – your dogma has its doomsday, too. Collisions bring life...and they take it just as willingly. Your Star Wormwood is already on-course and gaining speed.

The 'why' wouldn't matter much, in the last seconds as the oceans boil. No questions would.

But know this: someone will find vindication, and will evaporate with a smile. And if he has a chance, the barest moment, he'll turn to the nearest apostate and speak the words of the faithful:

"I told you so."
The Fall of Irish Red

Redacted witness statement follows

File case 89011XXXX-2010

Yeah. I'll answer that. The occasion you're talking about was something like two years ago. Right after the cops, and you guys you fucking pukes, started bugging our social club. You fuckers didn't get a hard-on for Danny Tomosilo until after that election, did you? That fucking election...

What? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, all right. So it's Irish Red you want to know about? Hobart, is that what you say his name was? Never knew that. He was always Irish Red to us guys. Yeah, he got whacked that...October? October, I think.

Danny? Yeah, Danny was there. Hell, yeah. Yeah, Special Agent...XXXX, is that your name? Special Agent XXXX? Ha-ha...fuck yeah, this should do it for you. You want to put Danny Tomosilo away, this'll do it for you. We got a deal, right? Right? Then you got Danny Tomosilo.

See, what happened was, Irish Red stole ten grand from Danny Tomosilo. From that book his guys ran on Mermaid. On Mermaid Avenue, I said. The candy store. You guys didn't know about that place? Fuck. What the fuck do they pay you for?

Yeah, yeah. Irish Red or Hobart or whoever the fuck worked there for Danny sometimes. Spotchecking the numbers. Red had an eye for numbers, but the fuck didn't have two balls to knock together. That's why nobody saw it coming when Red took off with the bank. It was a slow day, so he only got off with ten grand...but it was enough, you know? Enough to drive Danny up a fucking wall. Man, was he fucking pissed.

Now, Red has gone to ground already. Of course he did. Temporary fucking insanity, I guess, for taking Danny's money...but he wasn't crazy enough not to run. So the guys start asking around, you know, like "anybody seen Irish Red?" And Danny's putting find-me money on the street...fuck, it was only a matter of time 'til somebody drops a dime on him. His own fucking sister, can you beat that? His own fucking sister gives him up for a couple of hundred. Philly, she says, 'cause their granddaddy or somebody lived there. She'd heard what he did, guessed where he was, and called up granddad's house and asks for a couple grand. Red tells her to fuck off...and well, I guess she didn't like that none too much. Ha. Fucking sisters.

So Danny calls the Philly guys, and somebody picks up Irish Red. Toot, sweet. They could have dumped him off the fucking coast down there, but fuck no, Danny had to play. So some dumb fuck's got to shove Red in their fucking trunk, and bring his ass up to Brooklyn.

Yeah, that's where it happened. One of those ugly fucking brownstones in Brooklyn, one of the ones owned by that guy, you know, that fucking guy that's always standing next to the mayor. Ha-ha. You want something to do after this trial's over, Special Agent XXXX, you go see what's up with that fucking guy who stands next to the mayor.

Yeah, yeah. Jesus Christ, you fucking guys. Alright, so Danny's got somebody sitting with Irish Red, up there...not even smacking him around. He made that real clear. Nobody touch him, leave him fucking alone. Just sit with him, keep him quiet...ha-ha, yeah, fucking Danny. He wanted all that shit to himself.

We drive up there, I don't know, about ten of us, I guess. Three cars. What? Yeah, black Lincolns, why? What? Why is that fucking funny? You fucking guys, I don't know.

Yeah, so we pull up, and we get out...and a couple of the guys are carrying those big ass duffle bags Danny brought...but I'm keeping my hands free, and looking around, and keeping awake. No, we didn't expect nothing. Fuck, ain't nobody coming to Irish Red's rescue, you know? That was our fucking neighborhood, and they notice us, you know? They watch us. Yeah, maybe they keep an eye out for black Lincolns, asshole...but when you come to the old neighborhood you got to project, you know? Got to walk the walk. Fuck, what if one of those fuckers thought I was a stockbroker or something.

So we walk the walk, and everybody knows Danny Tomosilo is on the block...and probably most of them knows Irish Red is there, too. Fuck, ain't no secrets in my neighborhood.

Yeah, yeah. We had Red up on the fifth floor. We took the stairs. Danny makes us walk real quiet-like down the hall, so Red don't know we're coming...then he busts through that fucking door like, well, like you fucking guys do. Red's sitting in a chair right there, and of course this scares the shit out of him. Danny's just getting started of course.

We're there, I don't know, twenty minutes or so. Danny's going to town on Red, Red's blubbering like a baby. Danny didn't want nobody touching Irish Red, and now he's got Red's face all fucked up and bloody. All the while Danny's kind of laughing, and kind of growling, you know, like he does...and he's yelling about his fucking money and blah blah blah...and Red, he's funny as hell...he's promising never to do it again. Ha-ha. Never do it again. Right.

So Danny takes a breather. He'd worked up a sweat, you know, so he takes a breather. This gives Red a chance to really start blubbering and yelling about I'm sorry, and I'll make it up to you and blah blah blah. Promises to get more money, give it to Danny. Like paying a fine, he says. Says he'll pay a fucking fine for what he done.

Danny laughs his ass off over that. Tells Red it ain't about the money. And he was right, you know. It's all about the money, and it ain't about the money. All at the same time. What? Yeah, I know you don't get that. You never will, you puke. Listen...who gives a fuck about ten grand, okay. Who gives a fuck? But when a guy steals from you...who gives a fuck how much it is? You got to nip that shit in the bud.

And that's what Danny kind of tells Red. That he don't give a shit about the money, and that oh yes, Red's going to pay a fine.

That's when the guys start unpacking those duffle bags. They're taking out rolls of duct tape, and shitloads of cotton batting, like for upholstery...and a motorcycle helmet, one of them full-face kind. Now Red ain't blubbering no more, he's just watching all this with some pretty big eyes. He don't know what the fuck is coming, but he knows he don't like it.

Red was already tied down into that chair; Danny starts taking big pieces of that cotton batting and taping it all over Red and the chair. All the fuck over him. And he puts that helmet on Red's head. Flips up the face mask so he can talk to Red. Says, remember how I told you it ain't about the money? Well let me show you something. And he has one of the guys pull out the money – the original ten fucking grand that started this mess, still in Red's fucking paper bag from Philly. See, he says to Red, watch this shit. And he goes over to the window, busts out one of the panes with his elbow, and yells down to some kids playing basketball in the parking lot – hey, hey you fucking kids, I'm throwing down some money for you.

Then he takes the paper bag and tapes it to Red's chest. Says, give this to them kids for me, Red, so they can buy some fucking switchblades or something.

Well we all start laughing at that, 'cause you know, it was kinda fucking funny, but old Red's just crying his ass off now, 'cause he's finally figured out what's about to happen to him.

And Danny tells him, aw dry up you pussy, it ain't all that bad. You got that helmet on, right? You got that padding all over you, right?

You'll probably be all right, Red, Danny says. Says, I done this same thing to what, ten or fifteen guys over the years. Most of them made it, Red. One or two, they landed funny, like on their fucking necks or something. But the rest of them, they pulled through. They were fully fucked up for life, maybe. Rolling around in their chairs and shitting in their baggies...but alive, Red.

And that's what you're going to be, Danny says to Red. You're going to be fully fucked up for life. Unless you land on your neck. Have a nice trip, Red.

And that's when us guys pick up Red, chair and all, and take him over to the window. Swear to God, Danny's looking like he's going to blow it in his pants by now. He's into this shit. We take him over to the window, and one of the guys asks should we open it first. Danny gets all pissed off, says what you're worried about the fucking security deposit, maybe you want to straighten up a little before we leave...tells us to just throw Irish Red through the fucking window.

Then one of the other guys starts screaming that Red just pissed himself, and that it was running all over him. The guy's all jumped up, screaming about fucking piss on him, and he starts punching Irish Red while the rest of us are holding him up in the air. I don't think Irish Red felt nothing. He had a shitload of padding on him.

Ha-ha, Danny starts smacking that guy upside the head, calling him a fuckup, calling us all fuckups, we can't do nothing right, blah blah blah. Says just toss that motherfucker out the window so we can go get something to eat. The guy that got pissed on just stood there looking stupid.

So the rest of us, we start swinging Red back and forth so we can get him high enough to get up over the sill. Back and forth, and all the while we hear Irish Red a-blubbering away, through the helmet face-mask. He sounded like someone who has just about given up.

We get him up high enough, and let go. He busts through the window but gets hung up on something. He's just hanging there, dangling over those fucking kids staring up at us. We give him a little push, and down he goes.

As soon as he does, all those little kids start cheering like they're at the fucking circus.

Who knows, maybe they fucking were. Maybe they fucking are. That's life in New York, ain't it. Get me out of this fucking town.

Hostage Rescue

It was a rare occasion, and an exciting one, that the bespectacled accountants of the Financial Crimes Unit could host a briefing for the burly operators of the Hostage Rescue Team.

The two groups had little in common, so the breaking-of-the-ice was a worry.

Financial Crimes opted to go with a cheery intro screen to their PowerPoint presentation, which was already projected onto the briefing-room wall as Hostage Rescue mumbled their hellos and good-mornings, and filed in:

Financial Crimes

Welcomes

Hostage Rescue

It was a good move, very smart. PowerPoint, Financial Crimes realized, was a dependable equalizer, a _lingua franca_ in which they could all converse. From campuses to military bases to each floor of FBI HQ, every message got that little extra punch via PowerPoint.

Financial Crime's Special Agent in Charge cleared his throat, and began the briefing.

"Thanks everyone, thanks. Good morning. There's coffee and...oh, everyone's set? Good, good..." the SAC saw blank eyes and stifled yawns on the Hostage Rescue side of the table, and knew he was already losing them. He hurried to the next slide.

click

"Here's the man of the hour. You probably recognize the face. Philip Dayson, dipshit extraordinaire. CFO of Empire Capital Ltd. prior to last month's implosion and meltdown. Probably one of the clumsiest embezzlers Financial Crimes has seen. We'd be plenty happy to let some state AG take this bozo down...but dammit, he had a taste for wire fraud, so we're stuck with him."

click

"This is the structure he used to bugger Empire's P and L reports. Simple stuff, really; a first-year accounting student could figure this stuff out. A coupla off-shore shells, some dummy accounts..." the SAC saw the blank stares returning to Hostage Rescue's faces. His boxes and org-charts were boring them again. Time to serve the meat.

click

"And this is Tommy Masterson, late of Fort Bragg. Early retirement from Delta year-before-last...and then he set himself up as prez and CEO of something called 'Global Solutions.'"

"Nice name," SAC, Hostage Rescue commented. His team snickered. They could all identify; they all faced the challenge of finding equally innocuous names for their own mercenary organizations, after their own retirements.

click

"Here's the oil well in Nigeria that Mr. Masterson and Global Solutions were hired to protect. Don't know how good a job Masterson did – Nigeria ain't talking – but it's clear he missed one salient point about his employer, Empire Capital."

A Hostage Rescue team-member hazarded a guess. "They weren't lookin for no oil."

SAC, Financial Crimes beamed at this star pupil. "Exactly. Exactly. This was a dry hole in every sense of the word. Just a goddamn write-off, and probably a place to shift some other losses. Unfortunately for Mr. Masterson, he hired on just as Empire's pyramid was fixing to collapse."

click

"Bounced check for fifty grand, payable to Global Solutions. This was one of about a hundred or so checks that Empire bounced that week. But this one's special. You guys know why."

Their low whistles and incredulous chuckles showed they did. It doesn't matter how low your accounts are...you just don't bounce a check payable to your mercenary. You just don't.

"So anyway..." _click_ "This is Dayson's house in Coral Gables. A fifty-thousand square-foot abortion he designed himself. We're gonna take it, but who the hell is gonna buy it? At any rate – Dayson's been lying low there, waiting for all the process to get served and for the goddamn press to go away...but yesterday Mr. Tommy Masterson came a-knocking."

All the Hostage Rescue faces began to brighten. This was the part of the story they'd all like the best.

"The local office has been keeping tabs – we'd been planning on picking Dayson up but nobody figured there was any hurry. They debriefed Mrs. Dayson when she got out, so we've got a pretty good idea what's been going on..." eager nods from Hostage Rescue, and gestures urging him to continue. "Masterson got inside – this was yesterday, noon – gave Dayson a few slaps, a few more for Mrs. Dayson...he kicked their dog to death..." sour frowns at that. The Hostage Rescue guys liked dogs. "He, um, tore down a Monet and pissed on it..." big smiles confirmed that Masterson redeemed himself with that one.

"And now, we think, he's got Dayson tied up in the boathouse." _click_ "This boathouse."

SAC, Financial Crimes was wrapping up. "That's about all we got. It's going on twenty hours in there now...we think Masterson's beating the shit out of Dayson, but we're pretty sure he's still alive. Local office has got some divers nearby, ready to in the water on your say-so. They can get some pick-up mics and maybe even some video on the boathouse, so you know what you're dealing with. And so..." _click_

Financial Crimes

Thanks

Hostage Rescue

Good luck, guys!

Hostage Rescue had some fast jets at their disposal, so they were on the ground in Coral Gables within the hour. In the air, SAC radioed the go-ahead for the divers to hit the water. He was hoping for live audio and video by the time they hit the ground...and resolution one way or another by day's end. The boys wanted to wrap this up and get back to the office; March Madness was in full swing, approaching the Final Four. The boys had brackets to attend to.

They set up shop in Dayson's front yard, which was a blessing and a curse. They were out of the line-of-site of the boathouse, so Masterson couldn't see them...but they were also exposed to the frenzy of press that were swirling about the place. They were also exposed to all the local cops, which could be as much a pain in the ass as the press.

"But we gotta _coordinate_ our movements! We gotta – " this was some whining from a sheriff or deputy or some such. SAC, Hostage Rescue was studiously ignoring him as he spread out schematics of the boathouse on the sheriff's (or whatever he was) car.

"We gotta _coordinate_ firepower! I got SWAT guys, I got –"

Piece of cake, the SAC decided. They'd rush the place under the cover of flash-bangs and gas, and could probably take Masterson down without firing a shot. Really, nobody wanted to kill the guy. Sure, he'd have to go away for awhile – that was a hazard of the mercenary trade – but nobody in Hostage Rescue wanted to see him die. And if this Dayson character breathed a little gas in the process, and maybe bled from his ears a bit from the flash-bangs...well, nobody much minded that, either.

The divers had managed to tack a pick-up mic on the side of the boathouse, but Masterson had detected them and chased them off before they could install video. The audio was enough, though – it offered a chilling summary of Masterson's efforts. The SAC listened a while, and had heard enough. Nothing but grunts of exertion from Masterson, and alternating cries of pain and anguish, and pleas for mercy, from Dayson. Masterson, it seemed, knew he'd be going to prison soon so he was taking every available moment to work his way through his considerable catalog of torture.

It's gone on long enough, the SAC decided. He keyed his throat mic and ordered his team to suit up. He stepped around the still-babbling sheriff and began pulling on his own armor.

The receiver in his ear crackled. "Chief, you'd better come see this." It was his second-in-command, stationed in the electronics van, who'd been tasked to monitor the audio feed from the boat house.

But the electronics van was also equipped with a full suite of gear to monitor media, weather and incoming alerts from Washington. As the SAC jogged toward it, he wondered which of these had caused his lieutenant so much worry.

He slid the van door open and found both his lieutenant and the techie from the local office staring at a TV monitor. They were watching the CNN Financial Network. They were both slumped with despair.

"Chief...chief..." was all his lieutenant could say. The SAC watched for a moment – it was a breaking story that CNN _fn_ was just releasing. It was about Empire Capital...and their relationship with another company...and that other company...its name sounded so _familiar_....

"Sonofabitch," the SAC breathed. Then, to the techie: "Get me Washington, the Financial Crimes Unit, _now_."

Within moments he had a landline connection to the SAC, Financial Crimes. He barked his questions without preamble.

"What's this crap about Empire Capital and MarketWatch Holdings? What? When, goddammit? Listen...MarketWatch is _clean_ , dammit. I've seen their annual...what? Well when the hell did _that_ happen? My goddam broker..." He angrily broke the connection.

MarketWatch Holdings had been a hot ticket, and its name had spread. The SAC's broker had practically _begged_ him to jump in early. He'd moved most of his fluidity and even half of his goddam 401K into MarketWatch earlier that same month...

And so had the rest of the team. The team that invests together, goes the theory, is a tight team indeed.

But now...the word on MarketWatch was already spreading. The team was milling about, shell-shocked. A few had flipped open cellphones and desperately texted their brokers. Even now, the color was draining from their faces.

"Okay guys, huddle up." The SAC said quietly. The team drew together. The SAC drew a breath. "It's true, guys. This asshole, Dayson –" he jerked a thumb back toward the boat house "he was hiding profit from Empire in MarketWatch. When Empire came down..." he trailed off.

"Chief, I got forty grand in MarketWatch," one of the guys said, his voice tight and high. "I got my kid's college money there. Jesus Christ..."

"I know, Tim. I know. We all do."

"What should we do? Should we call our brokers?"

One of the guys who'd already called his broker was shaking his head. "Those bastards can't help, man. Hell, mine barely _knows_ me, allasudden." He angrily spat on the ground.

"We'll figure something out, guys" the SAC soothed. "We're in this together." They huddled a bit closer, and in their big, standing circle, they hugged. It was a manly hug, though.

The sheriff – or whatever – had sidled up to the group and he now cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, fellas. You look like you're ready to move in there. I just wanted to let you know that me and my SWAT boys have got your – "

The SAC held up a hand to silence him. He reached into the van and turned up the volume on the pick-up mic from the boathouse.

There were grunts, and deep wet smacks, and ongoing sobs and plaintive cries. The beating of Philip Dayson continued.

The team, as a group, looked toward the boat house, and back at their chief. Their chief answered the sheriff.

"No, we're not going in, not yet. We'll be on scene here for, oh, a couple more days at least." He sighed. "You just can't rush these things," he said, as the sounds of torture droned on behind him.

Distant Rings

This night, my front yard is the front row. Clear skies and perfect stars. Give us a night like this just once a week, and my telescope doesn't mind gathering dust the other days.

My yard is not an ideal spot for an ad hoc observatory, not by far. "Light pollution" is a term that only astronomers understand, but it's a thing that can turn the mild-mannered pocket-protected geek, into a foam-mouthed ruffian – an absolute hater of light sources. For my part, I've contemplated many a rampage of streetlight- and security-light extinguishing. I haven't done so...at least not yet.

But tonight...tonight...the stars are burning! And they put streetlights to shame.

Just in front of me – framed between a house and a tree like it was put there just for me – Orion. I check out Orion's nebula for a while. The gas cloud is blazing, and the newborn stars of the Trapezium are dancing. One of those stars is due to disappear in an event called an occultation in just a few days. I stare at them intently, memorizing the 'before' image. I promise myself to return, and see the 'after.'

To the west of Orion hangs the waxing crescent moon. There are astronomers that resent the moon because its brightness washes out nearby stars. Not me, though; the moon dazzles. I focus on the terminus, the line between lunar night and day. Shadows play across the craters, revealing their depth and breadth. You feel as if you could step right into them.

But this isn't why I came out here tonight. I swing the 'scope back past Orion, to a harsh arc of three 'stars' that lie in Gemini. The top two are truly stars, Castor and Pollux. But below them lies Saturn.

Gallileo saw Saturn, through a telescope not that far removed from mine. He saw the same rings I'm seeing, even if he didn't understand what they meant.

As always, I stare at them and wonder what the hell they are. Smashed moons, maybe? Left over and spread about in orbit, remnants of a catastrophe we can scarcely imagine?

I pop in a more powerful eyepiece, and Saturn looms larger. Now I can see the Cassini Division, a ring of black that bisects the rings of light. And I see Titan, the largest moon in the Solar System, a world recently touched by the hand of man for the very first time. It's just a speck from this perspective, huddling close and loyal to Saturn. But Titan holds promise and fascination. We could live there one day.

It's time to go back in. Time to pack up the 'scope and put away the optics. Time to turn away from Saturn.

But...tomorrow might not offer clear skies. Tomorrow the streetlights might blind me and Saturn might hide behind clouds.

So maybe I'll linger yet a little longer. Saturn's show is still playing, and I'd be rude indeed to walk away now.

A Creed

Well dead the creed  
that did the dirty deed  
that followed through the shallows  
that swallowed every need

This faintest first obsession  
that peaks before it reeks  
that hears what none are saying  
that seeks for weeks and weeks

I lived that hollow yesterday  
that moldered to the ground  
that still sends coded messages  
that dare not speak a sound

Well fellow met the scavenger  
that kept one eye on the sky  
that bullet meant for no one  
that no one had to die

So love your petty nothingness  
that walks a narrow beam  
that it never saw the camera  
so it must have been a dream.

The Darwin Drive

The reporter was frisked and scanned, then admitted into an oaken library the size of a soccer stadium. This was at the end of a ten minute walk through the foyer and the drawing room and God knows how many other rooms. That, after a twenty minute drive up something too grand to be called a driveway, and that after a ninety minute drive through some of the most secluded Connecticut countryside that money could buy.

A servant, who somehow looked incongruous for not being in livery, conducted the reporter in and shut the door behind him. The master of the household, Dr. Wolf, was on the second tier, and about 12 yards in from the doorway where the reporter stood. The doctor ignored his visitor for a good while, in a way that each knew was feigned, then slowly looked from the leather bound volume and down at the reporter.

"Well," he said. "Ask your questions."

Marvin Simon Wolfe: Physicist, co-inventor, with Hannah Darwin, of the propulsion system that had unlocked the stars for mankind. One of just a handful of human beings who knew how and why the Darwin Drive worked. Absolute recluse. Had never granted a single interview, to the print press or hyper-news or broadcast pundits, until now. Nobody knew why, and nobody outside this corner of Connecticut had seen the man for twenty years. It wasn't even clear that there existed a noticeable percentage among the trillions that the human race had exploded to, that even knew or cared who Marvin Simon Wolfe was. But when a man who was richer than any man had ever been said send a reporter, a reporter came.

"Good afternoon, Doctor. I'm Robert Steeves, from the London Times Hypertext News Service."

"So what? What are your questions?"

The reporter, Steeves, took a breath. "Lord Barker, our publisher, asked me to pass on his sincere thanks that you chose the Times to speak with you after many years of silence." The dried up old bastard had actually made Steeves memorize and repeat that line. "He said to tell you that you can count amongst your friends, the Times."

"Nice. Have you any questions?"

"I do, sir. Why have you decided to speak with the press at this time?"

"Because I'm dying. Stupid question. Continue."

"Yes, sir." Steeves licked his lips and recited a silent litany he used when dealing with the wealthy, the egocentric and other assorted low water-marks of humanity.

Bollocks to you, rat bastard

But what he said was, "Sir, what would you say has been the greatest gift given to mankind by the Darwin Drive?"

Wolfe looked thoughtful, and placed his book back somewhere on the shelf. He walked slowly, nodding all the while, 'round the spiral stair case to the tier below. He approached the reporter.

"I made a bet with my assistant—the one who called your boss—that the first question posed by whatever limey idiot sent to me, would be some philosophical nonsense to include the words 'gift' and 'mankind'. You just won me more money than you'll make in fourteen lifetimes. Thank you."

Bollocks to you, rat bastard

"But, yeah, I'll answer that question. My greatest gift to mankind has been saving the planet earth. My propulsion system has enabled all but what, twenty million or so, to get the hell off this planet, and thus cease destroying it. How's that?"

"Indisputable." Steeves was a pro. There would be no blowing his top and spewing any Bollocks to you, rat bastard that might be running through his head. Ergo, he'd nail whatever drivel the old kook wanted the world to know, he would write with the flair he knew he had (which the net's senseless Philistines had yet to take proper notice of), and post the story that would get him laid for the next freaking year. Bring it on, you old loon.

"Did Dr. Darwin, or yourself, envisage this an outcome of your discovery? Being physicists, after all, and not planetary – "

"Simmer down, Chauncy, or you'll miss your first scoop. There was no Dr. Darwin. I invented the Darwin Drive by myself."

Steeves blinked. Far be it from he to agree with this miserable prick, but that was news. "Yes sir. You're saying, sir, that Hannah Darwin did not invent with you the Darwin Drive?"

"That, and she never existed. I made her up. Think you'll win some prize for that?"

"If I do, Dr. Wolfe, I hope you'll accept my invitation to the acceptance ceremony. And my sincere thanks." God, I hope this man dies. "You told me that you are dying, Doctor. Is there anything regarding that subject you'd like the Times to report?"

"Hmmm. I don't know. Actually, Chauncy, that's the first question you've asked that I didn't anticipate, so I don't have an answer ready for it. That's why people with my IQ level excel at chess, you know, we think far, far ahead. So that's kind of funny, when you think about it. I'm so much smarter than you, and yet you've dumbfounded me already just 'cause you thought up a question I didn't anticipate. Isn't that funny?"

"Um, Do you think it's funny, Doctor Wolfe?"

"Well, not funny funny, but funny in that other sort of way. Are you going to dumbfound me again?"

"Um,"

"Now I dumbfounded you. Get it?" He barked a laugh, and settled into an overstuffed reading chair. "Next question, Chauncy?"

"Why did you make up the character of Hannah Darwin?"

"Because I knew I was inventing something that would need a cool name, and I wanted it to be called the Darwin something. Do you want to know why?"

"Yes I do." The mantra was forgotten; Steeves was gathering news.

"Because I started out a biologist, before studying physics. I was studying Darwin one day...are you writing this down, goddamnit?"

"Sir, I – "

"You listen to me, you goddam moron. I did not bring you all the godawful way up here to get my words wrong, okay? And don't you give me any ridiculous bullshit about having a photographic memory or I'll have one of those big bruisers I've got somewhere around here to throw you out on your ass. There is no such thing as photographic memory, your so-called memories are altered and you don't even know it. There's never been one of you people that thought they could-"

"Sir I don't have photographic memory." It felt so good to interrupt. "I'm wearing a hypertext button. Right here on my vest, you see?"

"A what?"

"A hyper-button, Dr. Wolfe. Converts voice to hypertext – sort of little recorder button? Company of yours invented it?"

"Really? I had no idea. That little thing there, you say? We'll call it the Darwin Button from now on."

"Indeed we will, Dr. Wolfe. You said that you were a biologist, studying Darwin," he prompted.

"Right. And I flashed upon what proved to be the most brilliant insight that had ever happened. Are you ready for this?"

"Ready, Dr. Wolfe."

"Right. It occurred to me one day that Darwin's theories, though essentially correct, seemed to violate certain fundamental laws of physics. Namely entropy. Now, I will assume that the reader is unfamiliar with, oh, just about everything, so allow me to explain. Chauncy, make sure you get this next part verbatim, okay? Isaac Newton was a very smart man who lived a long time ago, and he recognized the basic laws of the universe. Very smart man. Anyhow, his second law of thermodynamics...you need help spelling that? Good man. Second law of thermodynamics, says that systems cannot move from a state of disorder into a state of order. From disharmony unto harmony. Now, when you think about it, Evolutionist theory directly contradicts that doesn't it?"

"Certainly seems to, sir."

"Well of course it doesn't, nitwit! The second law of thermodynamics applies only to closed systems. Closed systems, do you get it?"

"Sir?"

"Entropy is an absolute only when there is no input of energy. Simple amino acids could never form themselves, upgrade themselves, into complex proteins without outside energy. Right?"

"Absolutely right, Dr. Wolfe."

"But the primordial Earth, back when that initial explosion of life took place, was lousy with energy. Tectonic forces, geothermal...hell, even lightning strikes and landslides and falling asteroids could play a role. So, it would seem that Darwin and Newton can exist comfortably side by side after all, correct?"

"Correct," Steeves said with confidence.

"You're a big stupid idiot and you should shut your mouth. They cannot, and I proved it. That's where the brilliance I told you about came into play. I created a series of models of that primordial Earth which seemed to suggest that life shouldn't exist on this planet. My calculations show that there wasn't enough applicable energy to bridge that gap from dumb amino acid to self-sustaining life. Even taking into account the stray comet strike, the energy simply wasn't existent to spark a planet-wide biological evolution."

"So we're back where we started. With a conflict between biology and physics."

"Right. And it very well could have stayed that way, a simple academic conundrum. Fortunately for mankind however, I obsessed over it, and I worked the problem for a good three years. It seemed to me that our planet is living in perpetual violation of the laws of physics. And I wanted to know why. Then it occurred to me that one of the few things that allows for apparent suspensions in physical laws, is a distortion of space-time. Now Chauncy, don't be afraid to ask me to explain anything you don't understand, okay? I don't want any follow up phone calls from you, if you don't mind."

"Certainly, Doctor. Do please continue."

"Right. So I asked myself, what is it about the earth that's unique, that allows for a distortion in space-time? Because if both Newton and Darwin are correct, that means that there must a third variable, a mitigating variable, that is invisible to us. Now why have we not recognized this need for a third variable in our way of looking at the universe, you ask?"

"I do."

"Because it's the universe we've always known, that's why. How are we going to recognize our universe as an anomaly when we've never experienced anything different?"

"But couldn't the same be said for Newton? And Darwin too, for that matter."

"What?"

"Well, Newton and Darwin were creating and testing theories in the same universe as the rest of mankind, weren't they? So how do we know their theories apply to the rest of the universe, outside of our space-time?"

"Listen here, Chauncy..."

"If, as you say, our space-time is anomalous."

"Are you trying to say you're smarter that Isaac Newton, you schmuck? Listen, Newton was right, okay? If he wasn't, my Darwin drive wouldn't work, rockets wouldn't work, and we couldn't protect your miserable ass from planet-smashing asteroids that are bearing down on you even as we speak. Now quit interrupting. Earth, you may or may not be aware, is the largest planet possessing abundant liquid water. Well, it was at least until my company introduced terraforming out there. That's irrelevant. Leave that part out, Chauncy. So, it occurred to me that cosmically speaking, this abundance of liquid water acts as a lens, do you see? A giant lens in space. And just like any optical lens, what it refracts is photons. And, I bet you didn't know this: photons, which are light particles, are pure energy. Sunlight is nothing but energy."

Steeves had known that. He saw no value in mentioning it, though.

"So this giant lens in space is refracting trillions and trillions of photons, and by that I meaning it's redirecting and storing energy. In this very house can be found the original formula writ in my own hand describing the energy potential. But you can't see it. The figure is something over a hundred and twenty two, with an exponent in four figures, of kilograms of photons per rotation, per hemisphere. And that is what makes me the smartest man alive. My method for energy capture is what prompted me to conquer space-time. It prompted me to build another lens, a gravity lens, that bends space. Just a slight bend in space-time, mind you, as compared to a black hole which is an actual rift, that allows some suspension in the laws of physics. This brilliant insight enabled me to build a gravity lens that bends space-time in a specific way, to create an anomaly which will allow for faster-than-light travel. In this I am not unlike an optometrist, grinding a lens to prescription. Got all that, Chauncy? That is your Darwin Drive."

"Sir...your syndicate has never before revealed the workings of the Darwin Drive. Why now?"

And now Dr. Wolfe was the one to blink. He settled deep in his chair. "To be honest, Steeves, I wasn't sure you'd ask that question. I was hoping you would. Good work, man. Okay, this is my second greatest gift to mankind, are you prepared?"

"I am indeed, Doctor Wolfe."

"We spoke of my dying. Lymph cancer, and it cannot be stopped. When I'm dead there will be one hundred seventy-two souls that know how to build a Darwin lens. All of them work at my plant some hundred miles from here. They're all in one place, do you get it?"

Steeves was forced to concede that he did not.

"What if something happens? Earthquake, tornado, civil freaking war, I don't know. I mean, what if they all get wiped out?"

"Then the secret of the Darwin Drive would be lost..." Steeves was following along, but slowly.

"Well think about what I'm telling you, man. You think something like this can just be re-invented? If mankind loses the knowledge I have discovered, it isn't getting it back. Humanity is spread out over ten thousand planets right now, there is trade and commerce amongst the colonies, there is a computer hypernet connecting us all...but there's not a single planet, Earth included, anywhere close to being self-sufficient. We need each other, every planet, every community. And unfortunately, I'm the only one at Darwin Technologies that thinks of crap like this. See... these guys that work for me, they're kind of fixated on the bottom line thing. As a result of that, those guys's priority all along has been keeping the gravity lens an absolute secret – a complete industrial monopoly. And once I'm gone, every last one of those bastards will take the lens design to their graves, it never even occurring to them that they're dooming the human race to barbarity. This all occurred to me just this afternoon. So I had my man call your boss.

"So here it is: my board of directors have no idea I'm talking to the Times. If they get wind of all this before your story hits the 'net, they'll probably have you killed. But I still run the show, till this goddamned cancer is finished with me at any rate, and I'll try to make sure they leave you alone. Okay? Your story, and my plans for the Darwin Drive, must be posted."

"I am to understand that you are releasing the design of the Darwin Drive gravity lens to the London Times Hypertext News Service, sir?"

"Right. Post the whole thing, diagrams and schematics, we'll make sure that even the dimmest dimwits out there can build one of these puppies. Someone's going to make you something to eat, Steeves. You're going to be here all night. I have a load of drawings for you to scan...and maybe you can see that formula after all."

"Thank you, Doctor Wolfe."

"Don't mention it. I like you, you're kind of smart. So here's how it works..."

Between Here and Orion

Last night I was looking at the Orion Nebula. This is a ball of gas 30 light years across, and 1,500 light years away.

So the sight I was seeing – a breathtaking and dazzling and ohso humbling vision of stellar media and coalescing stars – this sight left the constellation Orion the Hunter 1,500 years ago, photons blasting along (as waveforms and particulate, all at once) at 186,000 miles per second. To arrive, to terminate, to cease their journey at the appreciative receptor cells at the back of my eyeballs.

One thousand, five hundred years ago – at a time when the oceans were like oceans are supposed to be and the air didn't kill, when wars raged bloodily but in one dimension only, when a Romanized Briton called Arturus was breeding a legend, while his father's empire gasped its last thousands of leagues from his back – these photons set intergalactic sail.

I'm looking backward in time.

How much Orion has changed! This I know but will never see. Six stars at the center of the cloud form the Trapezius – infants they are, just bred of the gas left from another star's death. But here's truth: they're a millennium and a half older than when I saw them last.

I tell myself that I caught a glint – a brief flash of light like the ones that skip off the wavetops. It was the lens of a telescope, or whatever they call them there. Looking like I was looking, wondering like I was wondering, wandering like I was wandering.

But they didn't see me. They saw Arturus.

And I hoped that they like him as much as I do.

The Late Embrace

I waited five weeks to find where she lay  
embraced by the soil, wrapped in decay.  
Every turn of my spade was wrought by my heart;  
no terrestrial boundaries would keep us apart.

The world scorned my yearning, labeled me mad  
I sought her sweet favors, her family forbad.  
Some fever then took her, it stole her from me  
but the black veil of sorrow ere set us free.

When my spade finally found her I sobbed my delight  
I seized her, embraced her, and dragged her toward light.  
Did anyone see us? I never did care;  
there by her graveside our love laid us bare.

Our union was perfect, a coda to woe;  
I wouldn't be sated, she couldn't say no.  
We stayed there together til the rise of the moon  
Then I kissed her and told her to expect me back soon.

Lunacy

The moon is waxing right now.

Last night it was just a tiny bastard of a sliver, creeping into scant visibility just a bit above the horizon, right after nightfall.

Yet...in less than two weeks it'll be full and blindingly bright. And two weeks after that, it'll be New again.

An aside:  
I never understood why they call it a "New Moon." Well, I understand now, I guess, but it confused me back when I wore a younger man's clothes. My thought was, how can something be "new" if it simply isn't there?

But no matter...I noticed that tiny bastard sliver as I stood on my porch last night, looking to the west. I saw too that Jupiter was just about 25 degrees to its south. That means I could see both these celestial heavyweights without turning my head. When that happens, I declare it a holiday. So I cracked a beer and tipped it skyward.

A little later, I was inside. And as I looked to the south-and-west walls, I realized that I could still see Luna and Jove, hanging in their respective positions, both cycled a bit westwards along the ecliptic plane, following that same damned course they always have.

Well, I couldn't see them of course; there was plaster and lath and brick and paint 'twixt them and me. But walls don't impress these spheres. They are huge and my walls are meaningless. So they came right through and bid me goodnight.

Peloponnese

We lost brave Pericles -  
carried off by plague.  
Spars and dead men bobbed on waves  
filling our seas, our ports long extinct.

Beyond the Long Walls hoplites   
marched, and sang obscene chants  
scornful of we who merely watched.

A decade or more has passed  
since the day you and I saw our  
children starve. We laid our heads   
on Gaia  
and waited to join them. But never did.

Without brave Pericles -  
we'll muster on,   
or not  
And the Spartans will spare us  
or not.  
And history will recall brave Pericles  
word and deed  
but will recall nothing of us  
or our children  
or the dead men and spars   
bobbing on waves.

The Broad Purple Stripe

Lucien Justulus Trajar, captain of the Praetorian Guard, trotted his horse at a slow, deliberative gait, one that implied purpose, if not hurry. He was on the Via Appia, a half-day's ride out of Rome, and at this pace he was still another day from his destination of Asculum, along the eastern Latin seacoast. He was grateful for the travel time, as it afforded him opportunity to ponder this task his emperor had assigned him.

The previous night, he'd been summoned to the emperor's private apartments – a first experience for Trajar. The emperor–young, tall, eminently aristocratic–was noticeably troubled, and decidedly out of character in showing himself so. He paced nervously about the torch-lit room, fidgeting. At Trajar's entrance he looked up, stared, and furrowed his brow.

"I'm dead," Trajar thought.

The Praetorian Guard was the emperor's traditional protector – a legion dedicated solely to keeping him alive. Most of the Guard were sword-wielders – warriors who walked the palace halls and accompanied the emperor to the Senate and the games and anywhere else he might roam...warriors who would put their sword-arms and their very lives between the emperor and any would-be attackers.

Trajar had done his share of that, but since his elevation to captain, his duties had become somewhat more...intellectual. For he'd been tasked to ferret out plots against the emperor before they came to fruition.

Busy duty, that. Even in times of peace and prosperity, conspirators plotted. Thus far Trajar had been uniquely successful in discovering and stopping the emperor's enemies before a single blade had ever been drawn.

The emperor's agitation, though, suggested to Trajar that he had somehow disappointed him. And emperors did not tend to suffer disappointment lightly. Trajar swallowed his fear and waited.

But what came next was completely unexpected.

"Captain. Come in, come in," the emperor waved distractedly toward a low divan near the wall by a writing table. "Sit. There's wine somewhere, I think; help yourself. We've much to discuss." Trajar settled on the couch, somewhat uncertainly, and waited silently for his emperor to speak. They both ignored the wine-jug, and the emperor began to talk.

Trajar was valued, the emperor told him, far beyond his strength and fighting skill. His wits had proven themselves, again and again, and the emperor had come to rely on him for that.

"That's why I need you now, captain. I need you more than ever."

Trajar camped by the road that night, he and his horse both too tired to carry on to the next mile-house. The mile-houses were scattered about Rome's networks of roads, each placed a day's ride from another, to offer the empire's official travelers a meal and a bed for the night. No matter. Trajar had often slept with the stars for his roof, and his horse had done likewise. On a clear warm night, like this one, Trajar even preferred it. And of course the mile-house guards, always hungry for the empire's gossip, would doubtlessly press him for details of his mission.

Trajar honestly wouldn't know what to tell them.

He pulled the saddle from his mount's back, and scattered some oats from a leather sack for the animal to browse. He found his flint and set about building a cook-fire. His actions were automatic, without thought. His mind was still on the emperor's words.

"A senator has been assassinated," the emperor had said. "You must find the assassin."

The emperor confided, almost as an aside, that the murder of a senator normally would not much bother him. In many cases, he might even celebrate it.

But this senator..."Senator Arturus Flavian Dorus. He's different, captain."

Dorus led an especially influential faction of the Senate. More than that, he was an uncommon statesman. He could forge alliances within that ever-bickering body where none seemed possible. He worked well with the emperor and his counselors. He was not corrupt – not particularly corrupt, the emperor corrected. He was well liked, and his death had come as a shock.

"Word of his murder just arrived to the capital this morning. His allies in the Senate are already crying for blood. This is a critical time, captain. I have building projects and a half-dozen legion campaigns to coordinate. The Senate must be focused. And they will not be focused until I give them Dorus's murderer."

Trajar decided to start at the logical beginning. "Who wanted Dorus dead?"

The emperor pulled a sour face. "He was a senator, land-owner, and hailed from a patrician family. Thousands wanted him dead, captain. He was popular in the government, perhaps...but in business, with family...gods, in life, captain, a man makes enemies. Dorus had his share."

Another tack then, Trajar thought. "What of the murder scene? There was no sign of the assassin? No evidence left behind?"

The emperor sighed. "There's the rub. Read this letter." He thrust a parchment at Trajar. Trajar looked at it blankly, then back at his emperor. The writing was an incomprehensible scribble to him.

"Oh. My apologies, captain. I'll read it to you." He unrolled the long parchment, then grimaced. "Better still, I'll summarize.

"This letter is from Dorus's son, who was with him on his estate near Asculum when he was killed. He dispatched this to me by house-slave on a fast horse within hours after his father's death. I'd thought to keep it a secret, for a while at least. But the Senate still found out, not long after I did. They have their own channels of information, it seems.

"At any rate, young Dorus reports his father was found with a dagger driven into his skull. There was no sign, he says, of the murderer. In fact, the mystery seems to go much deeper than that. Young Dorus maintains his father was killed in his own bedchambers, with the door locked from within. How the assassin came and went...well, that's for you to discover, captain."

By the first light of dawn, Trajar's fire had turned to dull embers. His horse, untethered but still nearby, dozed where it stood.

Trajar, on the other hand, was wide awake. He hadn't slept at all.

He banked his fire, chewed some meat left from last night's meal, and clucked his tongue to summon his horse to his side. He took the saddle-roll from the ground, shook it free of leaves and dirt, and tossed it astride his mount. He readied himself to ride on to Asculum.

Just north of Asculum, set amid the wooded hillside that overlooked that port city's harbor, sprawled the stately summer home of Senator Arturus Flavian Dorus. Trajar rode his horse up the winding, cobbled road that serviced the estate. A field-slave, tending Dorus's ample gardens, noticed Trajar's approach and took to his heels to notify the household. Trajar sighed. "It's begun," he thought.

The cobbles led to a broad, columned entrance, fronted with gardens and a fountain, flanked by red-roofed wings aligned to the east and the west. These were probably the family's living areas, so Trajar gave them his close attention as he crested the hill and neared the estate. The wings were identical and connected to the main house by shaded, open-air atria – terminating in single-story, marble-faced apartments. A few slaves, easily identified in their short tunics, roamed busily about the grounds, tending to their work.

There was nothing here, Trajar noted, that suggested a murder had taken place just a few days before.

A slave stepped forward to hold the reins as Trajar swung down from his horse. He was still adjusting his cloak and belts when the heavy oak door swung open, and an olive-skinned young man in an elegant toga strode forth. The young Dorus, Trajar decided.

"Good morning, praetorian," the young patrician said, divining Trajar's commission by his scarlet cloak and ivory-hilted gladius. "I'm Marcurius Flavian Dorus." He stepped closer, out of the dark entryway, and started at Trajar's blonde hair and braided beard. "Why, you're – "

"German, yes. My father served the legion in Gaul, my lord, winning citizenship for my brother and me. I've been with the Praetorian Guard since I was sixteen. I've been a captain for a year."

"I'm honored." Marcurius Dorus gave a short bow, a protocol totally unnecessary for addressing someone of such lower social standing.

"As am I, patrician." Trajar held out the sealed imperial scroll the emperor had provided him.

"What's this?" Dorus asked without reaching for it.

"I honestly don't know, patrician. The emperor drafted it when I mentioned that my duties here might require me to, ah, interrogate those of noble birth." He dipped his head politely, suggesting an apology.

"Meaning me, of course," Dorus said. "I understand completely. The scroll, then, would be your imperial aegis. I don't need to see it, praetorian. You'll have my cooperation, I promise. Shall we step out of the sun, and begin?" Dorus motioned for the slave, still holding Trajar's reins, to lead the beast to the stables. He then led Trajar through the tall oak doors, into the darkened house beyond.

"My father was killed four days ago, in his bedroom, just after retiring for the night. The slaves outside heard him cry out, then summoned their overseer, who summoned me in turn." Dorus motioned with his wine-cup, which was quickly filled by a slave.

They were in one of the estate's comfortable triclinia, a sitting-room, far to the interior of the house, far from the public areas nearest the entrance. They both reposed on luxurious and costly couches, the lacquered table between them was piled high with chilled fruit. Trajar politely refused the offer of wine, nibbled at some grapes, and listened to Marcurius Dorus recount the evening of his father's murder.

"His chamber door, as I'm sure you know by now, was barred from within. I had to summon workmen to cut it open. It took four of them, praetorian, and half the night to get that door open."

"Your father feared for his safety?"

"He feared his slaves." Dorus saw Trajar's sudden interest, and waved it away. "Not like you're thinking. He'd never had any trouble with them that I know of. But his grandfather was hacked to death in his sleep by slaves, early in Spartacus's march across Italia. He never forgot that. We own, I don't know, perhaps a thousand slaves. And my father went to great pains to never turn his back on any of them. That's why he slept by himself each night, and bolted his door."

"So you think it unlikely a slave murdered him?"

"I find it hard to discount anything, praetorian, but...Spartacus was a long time ago. You saw the slaves in our fields, there's no revolt here. If one of our slaves did the deed, then he got right back to work and hasn't given a sign of it since."

Trajar nodded slowly. "Very well. What did you find when the door was opened?"

"My father was on the floor, face down, with a knife stuck in the back of his head. There was blood on the floor, and some on his sleeping couch. Cushions were bloodied and strewn about. There was no one in there but him, praetorian. I'm certain of that. And the killer surely didn't come through the door."

"Are there windows?"

"There are windows, but...I suppose you'd better see this for yourself. Will you accompany me?"

Trajar expected Dorus to lead him down the tiled colonnade, to the master's private chambers beyond. He was mildly surprised, then, when Dorus took him through a kitchen, out a back entrance, and along a crude walking path that followed the house's contours and separated it from the dense woods that backed the estate.

"This is the south wall of my father's chambers," Dorus said as they walked, nodding up at an edifice of plain marble, unmarred by any doors or windows. "And this..." he said, as they rounded the corner, "is his cooling bellows." He pointed upwards.

Trajar gaped. "What is that?"

Dorus chuckled. "That's what everyone asks. It was his own invention."

They were staring at a strange, leather-clad rectangle, affixed at one end flush with the house-wall, about as high as a man could reach. The other end of the box hung down and away, limp like a fowl's wrung neck. Odd levers came off both sides of it, and its length was lined with ribs that stretched the leather.

"And it is a bellows. That's exactly what it is. He got the idea from the smith's forge."

Trajar began to understand. "It covers the window?"

"Correct. It's ghastly hot here, praetorian, even at this time of year. Large bellows such as these provide a bit of a breeze, at least, to the room inside."

"Because your father didn't trust his slaves..."

"Yes. Most men just have their slaves fan them in their sleep. I do myself, as I don't share my father's fear of them. But my father built these things instead, and assigned a team to pump them through the night. Come see the other side."

They stepped around the corner, to the front of the estate Trajar had seen from the road, then rounded another where the bedchamber wall adjoined the colonnade.

There had been a leather bellows mounted to this wall as well, but it had been crudely torn away and lay crumpled on the grass. A window was exposed, at the same height where the bellows were affixed on the other side. Around three-quarters of the window's perimeter, rough wood strips were exposed. Trajar judged them to be what was left of the bellows' mounting apparatus.

"It was the slaves manning the bellows that heard my father's cry. There were three slaves on each side, working together. All of them heard him, and one went running for the overseer, who came and got me."

"What happened to this bellows?"

"I tore it down. Well, had the slaves tear it down. After I arrived, we pounded on the door and shouted for him, with no response. So I had the slaves pull it away, sent someone for a ladder, then I climbed up to take a look."

Trajar peered up at the window. It was tall, but slim. Too slim for a man to slip through. "What did you see?"

"Not much. It was still lit in there, at least one candle was still burning. But at that angle all I could see was a bit of the floor, and my father's arm sprawled upon it. I shouted his name, over and over, and he never moved. I was sure then that he was dead."

"And when the door was opened?"

"Well, then I was certain he was dead. He was cold and stiff, praetorian."

"I understand that part. What I meant was, what was your impression of the room?"

"I was mystified. I still am. I've thought about this a lot, as I'm sure you can imagine. I cannot discern how this happened. First, there's no place in there for an assassin to hide himself. My father would have seen him the moment he walked in the door. Secondly, of course, there's no escape; not through those windows, and not through that door. If I believed in such things, I'd swear the gods or the devils did this."

Trajar took a breath. It was time to ask the harsh questions. "That is so. If everything you've told me is true."

Dorus smiled and nodded. "You're right, of course. You have no reason to believe anything I say, praetorian. I take no offense to that. Ask me what you will."

"How did you and your father get along?"

"We were not close," Dorus told him. "I tell you this honestly, partly because I've nothing to hide, mostly because I know others will tell you the same. We rarely quarreled, and he hasn't struck me since I was a child, but we were far from close."

"And now that he's gone...you're his heir, are you not?"

"Of course. He had no other children, and my mother was lost to the pox long ago. So yes, praetorian, I'm a wealthy man now that he's gone.

"But know this: I was wealthy before he died. Our relationship was aloof, but he denied me nothing. True, I've now gained his land and his holdings...but do you know what I've lost, praetorian?" He peered questioningly at Trajar, who stared back and said nothing.

"I've lost the broad purple stripe. My father wore the purple of a senator, and I never will. That's the price I pay for losing my father before I got to know him. I never met his allies, never learned his finesse for power. The senate will choose another to take his seat. Our family has held political powers since the days before Caesar, and that's gone now, praetorian."

Finally, Dorus showed Trajar the room where the murder had taken place.

"I've not moved anything, except my father himself. It seemed...improper to clean the room, praetorian, even though it's quite unpleasant in there now. I expected the emperor would send someone to investigate and I thought I'd better leave it as it was."

Trajar stepped inside and looked around. At once, he saw that Dorus had been correct that the room offered no place for an assassin to hide. The room was largely plain, with few of the adornments that the rest of the house boasted. It was clear the senator used the room for sleeping, and little else. The couch sat canted in one corner, a lone table near it held a candle and some papers. There were no closets or alcoves, no tapestries on the walls.

A dark, congealed puddle, recognizable to Trajar's warrior-eyes as long-dried blood, lay in the center of the tiled floor. Swarms of flies dipped and tasted it. More blood was spattered at the head of the couch, and on a few cushions that were scattered about. The whole room stank of violent death.

"My experience with such things is limited, praetorian. But what I imagine happened is that my father was struck from behind, and he cried out as he fell. He collapsed on the couch, then rolled to the floor, dislodging these cushions."

Trajar stood, hands on his hips, scanning the room, nodding slowly. "And what became of his body?"

"Well...he was unbearable, praetorian. He went on the pyre day before yesterday. But I can tell you that we found him laying here, his head in that puddle, his feet toward the door. He was face down. The dagger protruded just here," he indicated a spot on his own head, just above the juncture of the neck. "I still have the dagger, it's in the lesser triclinium down the hall. You are welcome to examine it, of course, but I could see nothing enlightening in it. Just a short blade, and unmarked hilt. An assassin's weapon if I ever saw one."

Trajar looked up. "Have you seen many assassins' weapons?"

"A figure of speech. I meant only that it had no embellishment, no legion-markings, just a plain hilt and a very sharp blade. Not the type of thing to hang from your belt for show."

"More for killing."

"Just so."

Trajar slowly peered about the room, deep in thought. Then – "What do you know of your father's enemies?"

Dorus shrugged and settled himself on an unbloodied edge of the couch. "Very little, I'm afraid. As I said, I know almost nothing of his politics, although I've gathered he was rather popular in the capital. And I know he was a bit ruthless in his business ventures, but that was years ago; he has hardly traded at all in ages. He told me once that unless I was completely witless with finances, our fortunes should be secure for generations."

"What sort of trade was that? Back when he was still active in it?"

"Timber from Britannia, I think. And wool and such from Gaul. His secretary can tell you much more than I can, he's been with the family for years. A slave, but a good man, and an impressive head for business. My father relied on him completely. I will as well, I imagine."

"Such a longtime loyal slave wouldn't be freed upon the master's death?"

Dorus shrugged again, and smiled. "I won't concern myself with that. The master never drafted a will, nor did he order any arrangements for his slaves. They're mine."

Trajar paced a bit more, pondering deeply. He stopped, looked at Dorus and opened his mouth to speak. He shut it again, realizing he had already discussed far too much of this crime with the senator's son.

"I must trust no one here," he told himself. "No one in this house is above suspicion."

At last he said, "I would speak with the secretary now. And the overseer, and the slaves who manned the bellows that night."

Dorus nodded. "Of course, I will make the arrangements. You'll stay with us, I presume? A room will be made up, praetorian."

All that night and throughout the next day, Trajar busied himself with the questioning of the household, the examination of the evidence, the minute investigation of the murder scene.

Confounding as it was, he found confirmation of everything Dorus told him. The assassin's dagger revealed nothing, it was plain and unremarkable as the young lord had suggested. The slaves, likewise, upheld Dorus's story. He questioned each in turn, and each alone. That revealed a bit of a language problem, as most of them were Greek and Trajar's command of that language was rusty from long disuse. But he gleaned enough from them, and from the slaves of German and Latin extraction, to confirm the major parts of Dorus's account.

More important, to Trajar's thinking, was that their recollections varied enough in small detail to suggest each was being honest, and none had been told what to say.

He spent half a day in riding down to Asculum, and questioning the temple priest who had prepared the senator for the pyre. The cleric's description of the wound, and of the overall appearance of the body, offered Trajar no new insights. It was as Marcurius Dorus had said.

He questioned Arturus Dorus's secretary, a wizened slave born in Galatia and raised in Latinum. Trajar asked him of the senator's enemies.

"There are contentious factions in the government, of course," the secretary told him. "There always are. Some disagreed with the master, some tried to insinuate themselves to him. There were men who might have wished him dead today, yet might have needed him as an ally tomorrow."

"None with lasting death-wishes for him?"

"I imagine so, sir. I'd be surprised were it otherwise. But haven't you seen senators? In your official capacity, I mean? Have you not seen that they show nothing of their thoughts or intentions without reason or profit? I've been with my master everywhere in Rome, and met every senator. But I couldn't tell you whether any of them liked him or not, let alone if they plotted him dead."

Trajar grunted, and bit his lip. "What of business enemies?"

The slave closed his eyes, and seemed to fetch his mind far back. "Ten years ago he cheated a Briton out of twenty thousand sesterces. Not long before that he provided information that helped a pirate on Mare Nostrum to plunder a shipment of silver from the proconsul of Syria. They split the profits. There have been other instances, many actually. But not much in the last few years. Of course, as a senator he would occasionally use his position to gain advantage in business, at the expense of others. These things are not unusual, good captain."

Trajar had to allow that this was true. "But most recently his tradings were more...benign?"

"Decidedly, sir. He had all but retired from trading, he merely dabbled. His interest turned solely to politics."

"Very well. What of his personal papers? His son tells me he drafted no will?"

The secretary nodded. "That is so. I suggested it once, and he clouted me. He planned on living forever, I suppose."

"Do you suppose he would have provided for your freedom?" Trajar asked.

The slave cast his eyes to the floor. "I'd hoped...but who can know? I served his father, and he in turn, and I will serve the young master now, as best as I can. Perhaps he would have freed me, but...I don't know what I'd do with my freedom. I don't know anything else."

Trajar nodded, and dismissed the slave. He was alone in the triclinium that Dorus had provided as a base for his investigation.

He slammed his fist into his palm, and cursed.

"I am getting nowhere," he thought.

Trajar arose early the next morning, and washed himself from a jug of water that a slave had left. He dressed, then walked from the guest quarters he'd been using, to the triclinium serving as his office. He walked slowly, because he had no idea where to start today. There was no one left to question, no evidence left to examine.

He was spared the effort. A shout from outside alerted the household to a rider coming up the hill. Curious, he stepped into the great hall and strode toward the door. He met Marcurius Dorus there, they nodded to each other, and they stepped outside.

It was an imperial messenger, winded from a fast ride from Rome, his horse bathed in sweat. He jumped from the saddle and turned to the two men at the door.

"Captain Lucien Trajar?" Trajar raised a hand. The messenger held out a scroll.

Trajar took it uncertainly. "What is it?" he asked. The messenger shrugged.

"It's a message for Captain Lucien Trajar. From the emperor." He bowed, then led his horse toward the water trough at the stables.

Trajar cleared his throat, and turned to Dorus. "My lord emperor has, ah, forgotten that I have never learned the letters. Would you – "

Dorus smiled kindly. "Of course." He took the scroll, unfurled it, and scanned it up and down. "Oh, my. 'To Lucien Trajar, Captain of the Guard. You tarry too long, even as the Senate shouts for a trial and an execution. Why have I not heard from you? Return to Rome at once with a prisoner in chains, or an explanation as to why you lack one.'" He handed the scroll back to Trajar. "I am sorry, praetorian."

Trajar gave a long shrug. "No need. If I have failed my emperor, I deserve whatever punishment he deems proper." He began to turn away, but Dorus took him by his arm.

"Have you failed him, praetorian? You have told me nothing of your investigation, and I understand that. But...he was my father. I want to know who took his life."

Trajar looked to the sky, and thought for a long moment.

"This...was a mystery when I arrived here, lord Dorus. A vexing one. And a mystery it remains."

Dorus peered into his eyes. "You could just give them me, you know. Or one of the slaves. You could just give them a body to crucify."

Trajar nodded. "I know. But I want the truth."

"You risk the emperor's wrath, praetorian."

"Perhaps. But I have a long ride back to Rome ahead of me. Maybe the solitude of travel will bring the answer? I leave at once."

Trajar rode fast, faster than he had ridden on the earlier journey. By nightfall, Rome was within sight. By midnight, he passed through the gates.

The emperor was still up, and awaiting him. Trajar was summoned to the throne-room.

Trajar bowed deeply to one knee. The emperor glared at him, then waved away the hovering seneschal and the few slaves attending him. Then they were alone.

"Rise up, captain. And explain to me why I have no prisoner to execute."

Trajar rose slowly, and he met his emperor's gaze. "My lord emperor. I have failed to identify the murderer of Senator Arturus Flavian Dorus. I examined the scene of his death, questioned all who were present, did my best to learn the identity of the assassin. I was not able to do so."

The emperor pursed his lips and spat, "If you have been bribed, captain..."

"I have not, lord. I cannot prove that, and you can do with me as you will. But I have accepted no bribe, and none was offered."

Moments ticked by as they stared at each other. Trajar became certain that his insolence had sealed his fate. But at last the emperor's gaze softened.

"Oh, damn. So you have nothing for me, captain? No suspects? What of the son, the younger Dorus? Did he not stand to gain a fortune by his father's death?"

"He did, my lord. He also lost the political power his family long held. He might have killed his father, I cannot discount the possibility. He had the opportunity to do so. But if he did, then he was a fool. And he did not strike me as a fool, my lord emperor."

"Damn," the emperor said again. "Who else was there? Slaves? What about them?"

"Again, lord, they might have been responsible, but there was little to be gained. No slaves revolted, and none were freed. The senator had other enemies, of course, and any might have done away with him. It could be that some of those senators who press you for answers are stuffing the temples with sacrifice in hopes no answers are found. And it also could have been any of a number of men who count themselves wronged by the senator, from any number of years ago.

"I could discern no evidence that would identify any in particular. I am left with a pool of suspects, and no means to winnow their number. And whoever it was, my lord, overcame the considerable challenge of killing the senator in his locked chambers, and escaping undetected."

The emperor frowned and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He was silent for a long moment. Then – "So I must tell an angry Senate that we've no idea who killed one of their own, or even how he was killed?"

"Oh, I know how it was done, emperor. That much I have learned. I cannot tell you who killed Arturus Dorus, but I know how they did it."

The emperor's eyes were wide. "Do not keep me waiting, captain."

Trajar bowed his head briefly. "My apologies, lord. The realization has come to me only recently, upon my ride back to Rome.

"Senator Dorus died in his bedchambers, which were locked from within. I have seen those chambers, emperor, and can verify that no assassin could have been laying in wait for him. Nor could any have slipped in after his arrival. The door was sturdy and was obviously undisturbed, and no one could have possibly locked it again after leaving. The windows also offer nothing to an assassin. They are too small for a man to fit through, and they were covered with a contraption Dorus used to summon a breeze. A child, perhaps, could have slipped through those bellows and into the window, but doing so would have required the collusion of a half-dozen slaves. I found no evidence of that."

"You are telling me how he was not killed, captain. I grow impatient to hear how he was."

"Of course, my lord. It was impossible for an assassin to come and go when the senator was murdered. So the assassin came and went long before."

"Eh?"

"The room was unguarded, and of course unlocked, throughout the day prior to the murder. Its door is just a few strides from the woods behind the estate. It is my contention the murderer, whoever he was, crept unnoticed into Senator Dorus's chambers sometime that day, and laid a trap for him."

"A trap? What sort of trap?"

Trajar grinned, though there was no humor in it. "A simple one. And a damned risky one. I think the murderer took a short dagger – it had to be short to go unnoticed – and hid it within Dorus's sleeping cushions. It was propped carefully, I think, so that the blade was all but invisible, but also pointed up and centered toward where Dorus's head would be."

"Gods," the emperor breathed.

"Indeed, my lord. Think of all that could have gone wrong! If Dorus had disturbed his cushions before lying down, or even if he had just reclined slowly...he would have survived, and he would have known he had an enemy about. But I think he entered his bedchambers, threw the door-bolt, and then, as a tired man will sometimes do, he just let himself collapse onto his couch."

"Driving the dagger home," the emperor said.

"Yes. He had enough time to cry out and roll onto the floor before he expired. That was why it appeared that he was standing and was struck from behind. That was why it seemed as if an assassin had committed an impossible crime."

The emperor rubbed his chin, staring at the floor. "Enlightening. But without knowing who did it..."

Trajar said, "I agree, my lord. I have failed you there. But Rome knows something now. Something Rome needs to know."

"And what is that?"

"That an assassin is at large, one who is both clever and lucky. I expect we'll hear from him again."
Tell me your secrets

Tell me your secrets, they're all safe with me  
I don't want to tell, I just need to see

When the glory of dawn has all gone away  
Glory is glamour, a day's just a day

So tell me your secrets, they're all you have left  
With all that's around you, still you're bereft

Your void is my void, no borders down here  
Just sketches of dreamscapes, drawn in the air

Tell me your secrets, they're not even real  
Naked of substance, none left to steal.

My Flawed Angel

It's like there really is a plan, a cosmic demand for duality...and it's like the other half of my yin is her, this redhead.

It's like I sprang forth from the mother-tunnel, blind and bloody, knowing nothing but this woman I had to find. It took decades, but every day since has been so joyous as to make that search seem small.

And it's like the sky burst open, and an angel in all his shining glory, came to me with the sweetest gift heaven had to offer, by putting her hand in mine.

But.  
She won't read my stuff.

She sees me dragged to that word-processing vampire, the one that demands open veins each sitting...and she sees me tap-tap-tapping...and it's mostly crap-crap-crapping – and I don't show her that stuff.

But.  
Every now and then amidst the crapping I notice some letters on the screen that don't turn out poorly. And I look and I say, "hmm, well that don't look bad."

And I call her to have a look, to see what she might think. And she has a look and nods, sort of, and agrees, "yeah, that's not so bad."

And then she's gone, out of the bloodletting room, back to do those things she does in those other rooms.

Napolean had his Josephine, you see, and Caesar had Cleopatra (although Cleo went on to perform the same function for Antony...this is not an avenue of thought I prefer to follow at the moment).

The point is...well, I suppose the point is self-evident. All is earthly-close to perfection at my house. This is bliss.

Except.  
She. Won't. Read. My. Stuff.

The solution, you will agree, is equally self-evident. She has to die.

Danse ecstatic

Sing eclectic  
turning screws  
our shared pollution  
our slaughtered muse

Danse ecstatic  
setting sun  
too late to notice  
too scared to run

Fall exotic  
time's run out  
seduced by glitter  
fucked by doubt

Trespass 2 chattels

It was dirty, unexpected  
the way that incense made the air  
taste sweet.

Attend thy drift, you  
told me, as you me and  
the car hurled out of control.  
I never listened but might have  
this time just once  
still sooner or later I'd send  
that car into a sideway  
slide and we'd  
laugh again.

Attend to the drift,  
you told me and everyone we knew  
changed all in synch.  
I don't stick around  
to watch clockwork run down.

The next summer was a  
highway summer  
the kind that makes  
phone calls cease.  
Told riddles and rhymes to  
cute listeners, watching  
for one to snap back like  
Dorothy Parker. She didn't. So

highways loop back, you'll notice  
and this is how seasons change.  
And it's how you trespass your spawning  
grounds  
drifting and attending. Wondering and  
wandering about the years.  
Indulging the mellow you  
can choose just one building  
just one and burn  
it down.

Soon one day you'll  
see a car just like that one  
the sideways one  
looping back on itself with entirely  
identical patches of rubber.

Someone should raise a sword or  
drop a flag or  
give whatever signal's given to  
commence firing. These grounds  
and clocks and car  
always looked better cratered  
and the Cordite makes the air taste dirty  
and  
sweet.
His Last Chance

"Make yourself comfortable."

"Thank you. How are you feeling?"

"Not bad. I look worse than I feel. Make yourself comfortable."

"You just said that."

"Sit, I mean,"

"I'll stand."

"There's no harm in sitting, is there?"

"I'll stand."

"Suit yourself. Where's the nurse? I heard her car."

"I sent her away. Fired her actually."

"Really? That's funny. I didn't know you had the right."

"Neither did she. I convinced her of it."

"Why did you send her away?"

"You don't need her anymore."

"Well thank god for that. I've been good and sick and tired of laying here."

"I bet."

"How's your mom? No? Really? How is she?"

"Shut your goddam mouth."

"Really? That's really something you don't want to talk about?"

"There's nothing I want to talk to you about."

"Good. Leave then."

"No, I'll stay. Just not to talk."

"What, then?"

"To watch you die."

"Of course. Of course."

"Don't laugh at me."

"Of course. So fucking maudlin. So fucking dramatic,"

"Stop laughing at me."

"Not while you're so laughable. Will you use a pillow?"

"Who knows?"

"You have to press hard. Good and hard, for a long time. I'm not sure you have it in you."

"Shut up."

"Okay. I am curious about your mother though. I haven't spoken to her in ages."

"Of course you haven't."

"You don't think she'd have it otherwise, do you?"

"Will you shut the fuck up."

"Sure."

"You think the money made it okay. You always thought that."

"Surely it didn't hurt."

"Maybe it did."

"Sure, maybe. Did she remarry?"

"You don't even know that?"

"I don't really care. Just making conversation."

"She didn't remarry."

"Oh?"

"She read some of your books. Not all. Hated all the ones she did."

"Not the first two, surely."

"Especially the first two."

"The first two are hers. They're still making money, I imagine."

"Sometimes she doesn't even cash the checks."

"Well that's stupid. I'd hoped she'd get less stupid over the years."

"She just hoped you'd die."

"Well here we are then. You probably don't even have to do anything. I probably won't make it through the night."

"Especially without the nurse?"

"I don't think that matters now."

"Poor you. What's wrong with you anyway?"

"Do you care?"

"Only in the abstract. If it's genetic I might be mildly interested."

"Oh good, selfishness. We have common ground."

"Not really. I've got kids now. I'm thinking of them."

"Kids? What sort of kids?"

"I'm not interested in discussing them. Not with you."

"You got pictures?"

"Of course. And I'm not interested in showing you."

"Fine. Then keep wondering about my condition."

"The papers will probably say."

"Oh yes, it will be big news."

"Oh yes, your public will be devastated."

"Yes."

"Did you ever stop?"

"Stop what?"

"Betraying people."

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Never felt like betrayal from my perspective."

"Did you ever stop fucking?"

"What?"

"Did you ever stop fucking everything in your path?"

"Well sure. My cock's broke. You'll see someday."

"I suppose."

"Or was that not what you meant?"

"Never mind."

"Your mother never minded at first. Until she started minding. The problem was that I didn't notice the shift."

"Shut up."

"She fucked too you know. Plenty."

"Will you shut the hell up."

"I'm sorry, I said that to be cruel. I don't know if she ever did. I always hoped she did but she probably didn't"

"You're not looking so hot."

"I look worse than I feel."

"Yes, you said."

"And it's a lie. I feel awful. The pillow would be a mercy."

"Then I'll just watch."

"Yeah. And now we're both maudlin and dramatic."

"Well it's a dramatic scene, isn't it? Did you ever write one like this?"

"Who can remember? I wrote a lot. You should read it all and see."

"Thanks, no. You still write longhand? Like a dinosaur?"

"Usually."

"Then there are some notebooks around here? In that drawer, or over there?"

"So?"

"I'll find them, don't worry. I'll find the little treasures you needed to leave behind."

"Whatever you're thinking—"

"You're thinking it too. Because it's perfect. It's perfectly maudlin. Perfectly dramatic."

"Please."

"Then get up and stop me."

"Please."

"I won't read them first. In case you were wondering."

"Jesus Christ."

"The nurse didn't read them, did she?"

"No. Christ. Please?"

"Good."

"All the money's yours."

"That's nice."

"All of it."

"But that just means I'll betray my wife."

"No."

"Sure it does."

"No. You're not me."

"Maybe not, but—"

"You're different."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Please don't burn them."

"How am I different?"

"You're not me. Please."

"All I know is—"

"Please. Jesus Christ. David."

"All I know—"

"You're going to do it. Jesus fucking Christ, David."

"—is that I never stood a chance."

Egg Tooth

Bitten by my egg-tooth  
so sexually aggressive  
sentimental sophistry  
despite alternate suggestion.

Double-shift the flywheel  
burn right through the clutch  
drop her by her mama's  
& be sure to keep in touch.

When blondie goes out lookin  
when boredom is a thrall  
let the boulevard bear witness, and  
be party to her fall.

I wasn't her first question  
far from her last word  
her story wasn't too unkind  
at least that's the last I heard.

Then I stumbled in the twilight  
and lost another day  
I stared into the rear-view  
until my egg-tooth fell away.

Everyone's speeding to the same destination

Boneyard requiem  
that final wormy dance  
from birth to death, cradle to grave  
poor bastard never stood a chance.

From embalmed flesh to forgotten dust  
coffin nails long turned to rust  
until...

No one living recalls his name  
He might not have ever been.

What do you need?

It started with a lie.

It was a white lie, a necessary lie. That's what Jamison called it, and as its author he should know.

He had the best of intentions, no one could deny that. He certainly couldn't have foreseen what was to happen. But as I lay here, looking for someone to blame - other than the mob, other than myself - I can't help thinking about Jamison, and his lie, and his goddamned good intentions.

It was a TV commercial, written and paid for by Jamison. The voice-over was his. The scrolling, synchronized text echoed his words. They asked, 'What do you need?'

The commercial aired repeatedly on the only local station in Jamison's long-ago hometown, Lorain Ohio. Later, it appeared in abbreviated form in the newspaper, on billboards, on the sides of buses. What do you need? Jamison wanted to know; and if there was anyone who could give it to you, it was him.

He'd pulled himself out of Lorain's gutters decades ago. No mean feat, that; Lorain has plenty of gutters but few ways out of them. Jamison found his, I don't know how. I'm convinced it wasn't nefarious. Jamison won't hesitate to tell white lies, necessary lies, but other than that he's honest to a fault. Jamison's wealth is honest, honorable wealth.

He left Lorain but never forgot it. Once he had the means, he was determined to help Lorain. He did that by asking Lorain, What do you need?

I was his helper, his sidekick, personal assistant, gopher, all-around-go-to-guy. Rich men have always had people like me. Jamison had six of us.

We all worked on his Lorain project in the beginning. Later he hired more, and a call-center in India to handle the flood. His factories and offices continued their work uninterrupted. They were wind-up machines anyway, carrying on under their own momentum. They didn't need Jamison, really, and they certainly didn't need me.

So the Lorain project became Jamison's full-time obsession, even as it became my full-time job. Mine, and many others.

What do you need? What would make your life more livable? What would it take to help you feed your family, to get to work, to get ahead? Here's an address, Jamison said. Send us a letter and let us know. Here's a toll-free number, call us and tell us about it. Here's an email address. Jamison knew there wasn't much internet access in Lorain; poverty trumps technology. But here's an email address anyway.

The lie, the little white necessary one, came at the end of the commercial when Jamison claimed this was part of a research project. Lorain believed that. There were always research projects, they swarmed around the poor like flies. But, Jamison promised, four respondents would be chosen at random each month, and the researchers would give those lucky few what they needed.

It wasn't like that at all, of course. Jamison wanted to help each one. He just wanted to do so anonymously, with little fanfare. With no more pomp than one would associate with, well, a research project.

So after the commercial aired and the signs went up, we started opening letters, and answering phone calls, and viewing a trickle, just a trickle, of emails.

We prioritized them, reviewed them around a committee-room table (Jamison sitting as chairman, of course), and we employed private-I's and cybersleuths to learn more. Those data-miners had done plenty of work like this - rich men always hired them to troll records, to spy on whatever electronic traces modern existence leaves behind. They'd never done it in the cause of altruism though, and they loved it. We all loved it. We were helping people. We walked around with these grins that were inerasable.

Requests for cash were usually rejected outright. Jamison said he wanted to give a hand up, not a handout. He had a weakness for people asking for grocery money, though, and people behind on their rent and nearing eviction. The cybersleuths would confirm that, and he'd send off a check. A cashier's check, that is. Anonymous as always.

Medical requests received promptest attention. People who were out of medicine, got their medicine. People who needed to see a doctor had those arrangements made on their behalf.

School supplies for children; Jamison loved those. And many, many requests for shoes. Pleas for orthopedic shoes were answered first, and after that children's shoes. But sooner or later, everyone who asked for them got their shoes.

They arrived in neat cream-colored packages, no return address. The size of the packages varied of course, right down to a thin square envelope carrying nothing but a dentist's appointment card. But they all looked the same: neat and cream colored, with no return address.

He gave away few cars, although that was a frequent request. Jamison was a firm believer in public transportation. So he had the cybersleuths check: were they physically unable to ride a bus? Did they live more than a mile off the bus line? If the answers were no then the request went unanswered. But on those rare occasions that a car was truly needed, then a car was given. It arrived at night, towed by the dealership and left stealthily in a driveway or housing-project parking lot. The keys arrived by mail. In neat cream-colored envelopes, with no return address.

In the end we were answering nearly sixty percent of those requests. Sixty percent of Lorain was getting what it needed.

Here's what we didn't know: we were building a mythology. These were people who'd never known Santa Claus, who'd been forsaken by the Easter Bunny. There'd never been any gifts, not in their neighborhoods. So those cream-colored packages? Those were manna from heaven.

Word spread. How could it not? This was no research project, anyone could see that. What it was, they had no idea. But they could see clearly that if you wrote a letter or made a phone call, or sent the kid down to the library to type on that funny email-box - if you told them simply and honestly what you needed (don't get greedy now, just tell 'em what you need), then you usually got it.

Elves, or rich white men. It made no difference. It was still manna from heaven.

My downfall was a letter about a dog. It was carefully scrawled, with those frequent misspelled words that we'd almost, but not quite, gotten used to.

Bessie was 79 years old, still lived in the home her husband had bought and cared for and died in. Bessie had no one in this world but a little schnauzer mutt named Tuffy. That was all right, Bessie said, because Tuffy was all she needed.

Tuffy got them seizures, though, and them seizures was getting worse. There's medicine, but it's costly.

These letters is supposed to be about what people needed, Bessie understood that. And she'd understand if the answer was no. But Bessie needed Tuffy, and Tuffy needed medicine. So maybe, if it wasn't asking too much....

Well of course the answer was yes. Of course Bessie and Tuffy would get what they needed. But that letter, out of all those thousands, got me in the gut. Bessie made me think of my grandma, and Tuffy made me think of my own little mutt, Chops. Grandma had loved Chops almost as much as she loved me, and when I came to visit Chops came along. And we'd romp in the rolling grass of grandma's back yard, and every now and then I'd look up to the house and see grandma watching through the window, smiling and delighted.

I read Bessie's letter and slipped into reverie, and relived for a few minutes at least, joyful childhood days with Chops nipping at my heels.

I resolved then to involve myself for once - more directly, that is. A hands-on elf, that's what I'd be. Just this time.

Jamison had fled Lorain, but he hadn't fled far. Our offices were a mere 30 miles from Bessie's front door. I volunteered to deliver the package myself.

Jamison had no objection, as long as I kept up the stealth. That part was like a game to him now. So go ahead and deliver Tuffy's medicine, but creep up to the door, deposit it and leave. Don't let Bessie see you. God's angels are never detected, they deliver the manna by night.

I knew enough not to go at night, no matter what Jamison said. Bessie lived in a slum where I'd stick out like a chancre. I had no intention of letting the sun set on me there.

I found her street to be a mess, a horrible place. The houses were all clapboard and dirt, falling in on themselves. Yards were littered brown expanses.

Display of address-numbers wasn't a priority; this makes sense to me now but I wasn't expecting it then. I cruised slowly along, peering for numbers (already getting noticed and tagged as an outsider)...seeing an address, if I was lucky, every four or five houses.

And then I misread one. That's all. I saw one that I thought was Bessie's, so I parked my car by the curb and got out.

My mistake was obvious when I got a few steps closer, but quick mental calculation told me Bessie's house was close, just a bit further up the block.

I decided to walk.

I don't know when I realized I was being followed, but I know that after I did, almost immediately, I sensed my followers were multiplying, becoming a crowd.

I had enough time to be struck by the unreality of it all. This was no movie, I told myself. This was modern America, in broad daylight. Murmuring crowds don't appear out of dust, to follow after strangers just because they don't belong.

But I'd forgotten about the package tucked under my arm. The neat cream-colored one, with no return address. That's what the crowd had noticed as soon as I'd stepped into the open. And they'd recognized it as sure as Moses' starving desert wanderers had known manna when they saw it.

'Why didn't you drop it?' Jamison has asked me that more than once. And although I've never really answered him, I think the answer is obvious. It wouldn't have mattered if I dropped it. It was already too late.

They wanted the package, that was true. But they wanted me as well. Here was the myth finally made flesh. Here was an elf in person, within reach.

And everyone knows that if you see an elf, if you catch one, you should stick a knife in it to see if it's blood, or gold, that comes pouring out.

I tried to run. The nightmare I was in became instantly recognizable. This was the one where I tried to run, where I tried to escape the galloping things behind me, but my legs turned to rubber and the headwinds confounded me.

The elf ran away but did so in slow motion and they caught it with ease. Like all the best stories this one ended with the treasure in hand.

I went down, a tangle of hands on my back bringing me to ground. I'd dropped the package at last and I caught glimpses of the crowd bifurcating, some of them grabbing for it, others grabbing for me.

I felt fists and kicks and those weren't so bad, not like the burning blade that slipped between my ribs. I rolled with the blows then closed my eyes and willed it all away.

It wasn't too terrible. I survived, obviously, and I'm told I'll recover fully. The media heard about me while I was still unconscious. They snooped and prodded and learned all they could about Jamison's Lorain project and they spoiled the secret. They shattered the myth.

Jamison pulled the plug on it, reluctantly. Doing so killed him a little inside, I think.

He's a junkie for giving now, and he's turned his eyes to me. He's a good boss and a kind man and he visits each day, sitting for hours beside my bed.

And he has the best of intentions, ever and always, and I shouldn't feel this way. But he's driving me mad, I can't hide that much longer. He's driving me mad with that same pleading offer, the one he makes every day.

'Just tell me what you need.'
Necessities

It's a September morning, methmouth, and the air is cold and dewy and it hurts to breathe. That it's a September morning is all you know, really, because the day or date or even the time aren't important and you're long past keeping track of them. _Meet us in the morning_ , that's all you told Sebastian. _Meet us early tomorrow morning in front of the old movie place on Chatham_. When he shows, he shows. Not much else to do but wait.

So you wait, both of you, stamping the ground and breathing out puffs of misty ice. The girlfriend is to your left, a little behind you with her head hanging down. Hanging down like it always does.

There's not many out early, this September morning. But you see a few people, on foot or in cars, so you try to stay invisible. Being invisible means not getting too close to them, just staying back and staying quiet. The girlfriend has mastered this.

Sebastian's invisible too, but it's more natural for him. He was invisible yesterday at the shelter, listening to you and the girlfriend talk. You talk, mostly, with the girlfriend listening and nodding sometimes, head down, and sometimes saying a little. But it's you Sebastian hears making plans and asking the girlfriend to come along.

_Let's end it_ , you say. _Let's just get off this ride_. No more chasing that ice, that ice that's colder than a September morning, no more pain and no more monotony.

_End it_ , you say. _Romeo-and-Juliet-style. Blue-Öyster-Cult-Don't-Fear-the-Reaper-style_.

Sebastian overhears and asks in. He's never heard the song or seen the play, it seems. But he still wants in.

And here he comes, pudgy and pouty. Sebastian doesn't tweak, they say. Everyone agrees. He's got all his teeth and his face isn't a trainwreck and he's still carrying every ounce of fat his mama gave him.

Sebastian's on the street, yeah, but he might as well be a potentate.

So who knows why he wants out, and who cares. Here he comes now so you start yelling at him, before he can frame a word. You glare at his empty hands and scream at him for not bringing the gas.

He fidgets and frowns, and doesn't want to say anything back but can't help pointing out the obvious: _you said you'd bring the gas_.

You tell him he's wrong and the girlfriend agrees. He's been in this spot before, plenty, so he doesn't want to say more...but can't help pointing out he didn't think fire was a good idea anyhow. _Somebody might get hurt,_ he says. Somebody else that is. A fireman or somebody _. Maybe we can find another way_ , Sebastian says.

_So who cares about the fireman and there's stuff in here that'll burn, you say_. Girlfriend agrees with that too. So around back the three of you go and in through the plywood window-cover that everyone knows is just loose enough.

Everyone knows, so the place is thick with piss and what-all and stripped of everything but lath. Big dark, empty lobby and big empty theater and little nasty balcony that's a good enough place to do it. Upstairs the three of you go.

And before Sebastian can mutter or cry or tell mama he's changed his mind _BAM_ down he goes, and whatever it was the girlfriend picked up to use on him is bloody and broken.

No idea what the thing was. The girlfriend knows and you could ask her. But she probably won't say.

Sebastian is snorting, sort of, while you take his clothes and whatever's in his pockets. Like you planned to do all along.
Walking with Taliesin

I have stood here – since  
before the words began,  
and here's where I'll stand  
as the echoes die.

I have perched in the perilous seat  
And flown with wings not my own.  
I have tasted wonders and  
spat out gall...  
I was whispered secrets  
I don't dare explain.

And if I choose the right current,  
speaking cannily,  
I can rain down whatever I want,  
right there,  
in front of you.

http://pworden.com

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/pjword

