Monthly Archives: February 2008

A Taste of "Dragon's Tear: Denicalis Dragon Chronicles – Book Three"

Sci-Fi

** Author’s note – This is the third book in my series and is currently in production. It is due to be released in April, 2008!

The first thing she realized was she was alone and it was no longer dark. Instead of sleeping beneath a black sky filled with tiny, glittering stars, she was now surrounded by a gray light with thick clouds overhead. Was it almost morning already? She felt like she’d barely slept at all!The next thing she realized about her odd situation was she was also surrounded by silence. Where were the crickets that had so quickly put her to sleep with their songs, which her mind refused to believe happened any longer than just a few seconds before?Her worried eyes darted left, then right, as she looked for her friends, but they were nowhere to be seen in the gloomy, pre-dawn light. In an instant, she was on her feet, her sword drawn. The little voice that had been whispering to her just seconds before that something wasn’t right was now nearly screaming in her head.

She took a few steps forward, dried leaves audibly crunching beneath her feet as she did so. She heard this sound as if was a vague, distant noise, almost ignoring it as she carefully looked around for any signs of her friends.

A swarm of nervous butterflies filled her stomach, threatening to assist her with the complete loss of her dinner from a few hours before. She closed her eyes and took another deep breath, counting to ten as she did so. When she opened them, she was still nervous but at least felt as though the nausea was at bay…

For now.

She looked around her gloomy surroundings once again, suddenly noticing shadows passing across the countless leaves scattered everywhere around her. She looked up, half expecting to see the sun trying to shine through the clouds, creating the dancing shadows on the ground. The sun, however, was well hidden behind the thick cloud cover.

She looked back at the shadows on the ground… they continued to dance as if they were alive, darting across the leaves and each other in an effort to get wherever it was they were going to. As she watched, they slowly faded away until there were no shadows left on the ground at all.

She shrugged to herself, unconcerned about the shadows. Instead, her thoughts took her back to her sleep, and her body reacted by working up a yawn.

She rubbed her eyes in an effort to wipe the sleep away, hoping when she opened them again, her friends would be nearby.

She wasn’t surprised when she opened them to a disappointing sight… nothing had changed.

Gone were the grassy area where they’d stopped for the night, her friends, and her backpack. Instead of the tall, brown grass she had fallen asleep in, she now saw many unfamiliar tall, dark shapes all around her. Her first thought was that these shapes were people, but as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes, she saw they weren’t people at all… they were trees. Dozens of tall, leafless trees littered the area around her and on the horizon, with branches jutting outward as they reached both for each other and the sunless sky.

She scolded herself for her growing fear. They were just trees! Wouldn’t Micah laugh at her for being afraid of silly old trees! She smiled as she thought of her joke-loving brother.

Dragging herself back to the present, she lowered her eyes to the ground in search of any sign of the others. Instead, she only saw countless shapes and sizes of brown leaves everywhere.

She wished she had her bag. If she did, the first thing she would do would be to pull out a torch and light it with a pair of rock sparkers. Sure it might be a danger to have a fire, especially because she was surrounded by an unending horizon of dried leaves, but she would feel a whole lot safer here in this eerie place if she had a fire, even a small one!

“Diam?” she whispered.

Silence.

“Kaileen?”

No sound answered her questions, not even that of a curious insect. Her friends and her things were nowhere to be seen.

She remained where she was as she struggled with questions about what had happened and what she should do.

Where had the others gone, and how had she gotten here?

As the gloom surrounding her began to lighten up a little, she finally decided to walk around and explore the area. Although she appeared to be surrounded by nothing but crunching leaves, maybe she would get lucky and find some sign, any sign, of her friends.

After surveying the area, she decided to head toward two clusters of trees over to her right, thinking it was possible that Diam had gone behind one of them for some necessary private time. She didn’t like the thought of interrupting her friend, especially during personal times, but she was starting to get a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she didn’t like and finding Diam was quickly becoming more important to her than her friend’s modesty.

As she approached the trees, she called out quietly, “Diam? Are you over here?”

Silence once again. Tonia looked around and shivered. As the seconds passed, she grew more and more uncomfortable about not seeing any signs of life at all.

She could see no birds anywhere in the trees and could hear none of the usual insect sounds she was used to hearing. It was almost as if she had been mysteriously thrown into the middle of a ghostly, deserted forest.

She looked upward, into the tops of the cluster of trees closest to her. Some of them grew so close together that their long, leafless branches intertwined wildly as if they were trying to hold onto each other. Many of the trunks appeared to be solid, not even offering any hint of shelter to birds or squirrels.

About ten feet away was another cluster of trees. These were smaller than the first but they were so close together she could see no signs of a gap between them and formed an odd-looking, natural wall.

And a wall would be a good place to hide from your sleepy friend…

She began making her way toward it, not watching where she was going. Without warning, she stepped on a raised object on the ground that was quickly followed by an awful crunching sound.

“Uh, oh,” she thought…Had something broken?

She immediately raised her foot and stepped aside, then nervously looked down to see what she had stepped on.

Lying partially covered by leaves was the gray skeleton of a bird. She bent down to take a closer look at it, brushing the remaining leaves covering it away from the decayed body as she did so.

She bent down and examined the damage created by her careless step. As far as she could tell she had stepped on the brittle, dry bones of one of its wings and part of the lower section of its body. The head, with its hollow eyes and empty, black nostril holes, was completely intact. The entire skeleton was about a foot long but she was unable to determine what kind of bird it had been or what had happened to it.

She surveyed the area around the lifeless creature and could see no signs of feathers or skin. It looked as though it had been quite a long time since the bird had breathed air.

Suddenly she heard a noise. It wasn’t a voice exactly, but sounded more muffled, as if someone might be trying to say something quietly behind their hand.

She quickly stood up and looked around, almost expecting to see Diam standing next to a tree, watching Tonia do what she loved, exploring wildlife. Her friend could be a prankster at times, much like her brother Micah, but not quite as bad. She could picture Diam standing there, laughing at her, half-heartedly trying to hide her laughter.

Diam, however, was still nowhere to be seen.

“Diam, Kaileen, come on,” she said in an exasperated voice. “I don’t feel like playing games right now. Come out, please?”

As she expected, she received no answer.

She continued making her way towards the wall of tree trunks, almost certain now that this was where her friends were hiding. As she walked, she realized it didn’t really make a difference about how carefully she stepped… the leaves on the ground continued to crunch loudly beneath her feet every time.

So much for a quiet approach…

She stopped for a moment and just listened. Sure enough after a few seconds, she heard the sound once again. Her eyes scanned the trees around her but she was unable to determine what direction it was coming from. Because of the amount of time she’d spent during her lifetime playing in the woods, looking for wildlife and tracking animals with Uncle Andar, this surprised her.

For now, however, she had more important things to dwell on.

“Diam, I’m not kidding,” she said nervously as she continued holding her sword out in front of her. The last thing she wanted to do was stab her friend if she jumped out at her from around the tree.

“Seriously, Diam! Come out, please?”

Diam liked to play around, just like they all did, but she knew Tonia very well, and could usually tell whether Tonia was serious or joking.

This time she wasn’t joking.

Hoping to avoid accidentally hurting her friend with her sword, Tonia began walking toward the wooden wall again, making a wide arc around the cluster of trees as she did so. When she finally got to a place where she could see around the barricade of nature, she began to see a shape in the shadows.

She quickened her pace around the wall, a little smile creased at the corner of her eyes. Her expression, however, changed quickly when she realized just what she was looking at.The dark shape behind the wall was not her friend, crouching in an attempt to hide from her… it was a large, leafless bush.She stopped where she was and closed her eyes in frustration. She had been sure she was going to find Kaileen and Diam hiding there!

She opened her eyes and sighed, then looked around. There were a few other small bushes in the distance, but whatever place this was that she found herself in consisted mostly of dark, tall trees. Her friends, however, were nowhere around. They had completely disappeared.

Her roving eyes slowly brought her back to the bush behind the wall, where a sudden movement among the cluster of long, thin branches caught her attention. She strained her eyes in an attempt to see just what had moved, but stood too far away to tell. She waited, and sure enough in a few seconds, it moved again.

With nervous caution, she slowly began making her way towards the bush, her right hand gripping her sword tightly.

The bush measured about five feet wide at its widest point with branches jutting out in all directions, tangled amongst themselves like a cluster of children all grabbing for a single piece of pie back in the village. Each slow, nervous step took her closer to it until she was finally able to make out just what it was laying among the branches that had caught her eye.

She stopped, still a few feet away from it, as a knot began to form in the pit of her stomach.

There, strung craftily among the innermost branches of the leafless bush, were tiny, thin tendrils of white lines. They extended from this branch to that, left to right, up and down, and were connected to each other by one narrow circle after another. The outermost of these circles was large and round, but they became smaller and smaller ringlets as they wound inward and approached the center of the artist’s creation.

The creation that was built among the branches of the dead, leafless bush was exactly that which she’d first suspected, a giant spider web. As she stood staring at it with nervous silence, movement in one area of the web caught her attention. There, trapped forlornly within the sticky strings of gossamer, was a large insect.

For a moment Tonia stood frozen, unable to move. As her mind reacted to the web, her palms began to sweat and her hands shook slightly. Her eyes ignored the struggling creature in the web for a moment as she nervously inspected the branches of the bush, looking for the owner of the silky trap. She was only slightly relieved when she could see no sign of the creature that lived there, knowing from experience that it could jump out at her at any time from any number of unknown and unseen hiding places.

Her experiences from exploring the woods near her home had also shown her that all wild creatures, insects included, could be sneaky when they wanted to be, especially in regards to a potential meal. She had no intention of approaching the bush until she was absolutely certain it was safe for her to do so.

Warily, she turned her eyes toward the thick wall of tall trees in front of the dwarfed bush. If the web’s owner wasn’t in its home, surely it must be hiding expectantly in one of the nearby trees, just waiting for her to try to rescue the trapped insect. She was almost certain that the web’s creator must know the insect lay struggling within its creation and wouldn’t venture far…

But as her eyes passed slowly over the nearby wall of wood, she detected no movement or evidence of life.

Slowly her eyes returned to the still struggling green insect.

“Mmm, mmmmmmmmm!” it mumbled as it continued to exert itself within the glistening strands of web, becoming more entangled by the second.

Tonia stepped around the bush and away from the trees, slowly making her way toward the web. When she was less than a foot away from the edge of the bush, she stopped.

On first glance, the trapped bug appeared to be just some unfortunate insect that was struggling to release itself from its entanglement. Now, however, she could see more than that.

The trapped creature had somehow maneuvered itself so that it was lying on its back. Its wings were stuck in a fully opened position behind it as if it had been blown by a gust of wind into the trap, freezing it while in mid-flight. The few areas of the unfortunate insect’s body she could see were a pale green color, but other parts had been covered with thick, clusters of webbing. As she looked at it more closely, she could see that the lower abdomen area had been wrapped up in much the same way as the bat had been in the cave where they’d found the turtles, magical stones, and red amulet.

Her eyes slowly made their way up the insect’s body moving towards the head, but suddenly widened as she got her first close up look at the struggling creature’s face…

It was Diam.

Sandbanks Of Deciet

Poetry

Travelling down

The sandbanks Of deceit

With a Swish swish swoosh

I find my Feet

Amongst the reef

And I am Armoured With a Sword Fish

To cut through The many Lies

That fly Around me.

© Deborah Gordon 2008

CONSIDER THE PARADOXES AND IRONIES OF LIFE

Non-fiction, ,

A proposition: I finally figured it out that the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

The doctrine: I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine, which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing its validity. Nevertheless, it is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.

The explanation: Remember that there is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the subjective spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values. The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts, and discolours the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

What is called reality or truth is in fact a sort of Rorschach inkblot, into which each culture, each system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads a meaning only remotely derived from the shape and colour of the blot itself.

However, for most people it is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought. There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking. We are not prisoners of fate, but prisoners of our own minds.

They who joyfully march to music in rank-and-file have already earned my contempt. They have been given large brains by mistake, since for them the spinal cord would fully suffice. They that cannot reason are fools; they that will not are bigots; they that dare not are slaves. Nevertheless, even if you understand, things are as they are, and if you do not understand, things still are as they are. Also, beware of the person who knows the answer before he/she understands the question. Ask the young – they know everything.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. Stupidity is replicating itself at an astonishing rate. It breeds easily and is totally self-sustaining. Therefore, only two things in this universe are infinite, the universe itself and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former.

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen repeatedly; fear and laziness must be overcome continually. The true hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for people to see by. The saint is the one who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself/herself a light.

Suggested assertions: This is my simple religion: there is no need for churches, temples, mosques, or synagogues; no need for complicated theology and philosophy. Our own mind, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness and tolerance. A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.

Whatever you do, you first must do in your mind (your software), whose machinery is the brain (the hardware). The mind can do only what the brain is equipped to do, and so you must find out what kind of brain you have before you can understand your own behaviour, strengths, and limitations. Gnothi se auton – Know Thyself. The greatest discovery is that you can alter your life simply by altering your attitude of mind.

Physical law may explain the inorganic. Biology explains and accounts for the development of the organic, but of the point of contact, science is silent. A similar passage exists between the natural world and the spiritual world; this passage is hermetically sealed on the natural side. The door is closed; no human can open it, no organic change, no mental energy, no moral effort, no progress of any kind can enable any human being to enter the spiritual world.

However, if you open your mind, you can hear the celestial music. Nevertheless, always remember; a radio does not contain the music it plays. By breaking the radio’s aerial, you can stop the music, but you must realise that you have not killed the music; you have merely blocked the reception of it.

Hindu scriptures call this concept Anahad Shabad, or the Unstruck Music, and also Akash Bani XE “Akash Bani“, the Celestial Voice. Mohammedans call it Kalma XE “Kalma“, or Word, and Kalam-i-Ilali XE “Kalam-i-Ilali” , or Voice of God. Zoroaster (circa 628-551 BCE) spoke of it as Sraosha XE “Sraosha“, meaning ‘the Sound from the Sky’. The early Greek philosophers, who had learned the spiritual secrets of India, refer to it as the Logos XE “Logos“, while some call it ‘the Music of the Spheres‘. It is nothing less than ‘God’ in a state of dynamic-action. The Spirit is life. The mind is the builder. The physical is the result.

Just as your soul once was able to enter your body, it has the ability to incarnate again and again (in Sanskrit it is called metempsychosis and in Hebrew gilgolim or gilgul). It is like downloading software into the hardware of a computer; you can therefore ‘download’ more and more consciousness of your soul into the existing hardware that is your body.

We live in an unfathomable universe. All around us are mysteries that we cannot pretend to understand. Life is a tangle of complexities, the synergies about which we can only feebly guess. To survive this uncertainty, to prevent us from going insane with confusion, we automatically try to simplify life, the universe, and everything around us. We increasingly abstract, classify, and generalise our concepts of reality.

Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I also know now that creation is too grand, complex, and mysterious to be captured in a narrow creed. That is why we cherish individual freedom of belief. Therefore, compare not the differences, but find the nexus where all the religions meet – there you will find only one God! The Great Absolute Spirit.

However, how does one define the Absolute? Even as we define or describe it, it slips from our grasp, for it ceases when defined to be the Absolute. Shall we then say that the Omnipotent, the Limitless, the Absolute, is logically speaking, absurd? For they are ideas that our reason cannot define? No, for could we define them, we should make them contained by our reason.

What the Absolute is, are not given to humans to know. We cannot say that we will believe when the Infinite shall have been explained, determined, circumscribed, described, and defined for our benefit – in one word, when the Infinite has become finite. Or that we will believe in the Infinite when we are sure that the Infinite does not exist?

Therefore, do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason, and/or intuition, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. Scientists and educators alike need to realise that the educated person is not the person who can answer the questions, but the person who can question the answers.

Now in conclusion, my revised proposition: I do not know why we are here, but I am very sure that it is not only in order to enjoy ourselves.

Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth.

excerpt from "Many, But One"

Sci-Fi, , , , , , ,

Below is the Introduction and first chapter of Hidden Secrets of “Many, But One”…see my profile for more information or see www.drryles.com

Introduction/Preface

The book you are now holding and the findings of this book may seem to be an incredible work of fiction but I assure you it is all shockingly quite true . A copy was fully registered and on file with the U.S. Copyright Office 4 years before the events took place…

In 1997 I was guided in what I call “Connected Channeling” to write and then copyright a manuscript. After the September 11th 2001 terror attacks on America I was guided to take a closer look at this book and that is when I found it to contain many startling messages, warnings, and direct connections to the actual plane numbers (11,77,93,175) used in the attacks and what the future would hold following the attacks . These messages were mysteriously numerically encoded into the work itself in a style similar to “Bible Codes”. The messages are too numerous and precise to be considered coincidence as you will find as you read
The book I speak of is known as “Many, But One” and is a collection of primarily rhythmic quatrains of poetry. Some have considered this book as a “Hidden Nostradamus”.
“Hidden Secrets of “Many, But One” is basically 3 books in one that will take you on a 3 part journey. A true , incredible, and sometimes frightening journey. The journey begins with my first contact with the supernatural at a very early age, through my early years of clairvoyance and sometimes bone chilling fear and terror growing up in a “haunted” house, through to the writing of “Many, But One”, and an extremely vivid fairly recent account of physical contact with the unknown.
The journey then continues with the amazing and numerous findings of “Many, But One” described in detail, numerological oddities throughout my own personal life, a very interesting and thought provoking look at the numerous numerology oddities and anomalies connected to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, September 11th and 9-11 throughout history, and of course a complete and unchanged copy of the actual poetry collection itself.

I have been asked countless times…What is “Many, But One” and why was it sent? My best and most heartfelt answer is that it was sent through me to help us…all of us… regardless of religion, race, beliefs, etc.. It is meant to be read, enjoyed, studied, and above all heeded. I feel the messages, both hidden and in plain view, are of extreme importance and that many, many more messages and meanings will be found in the pages of “Many, But One”.
I also feel very, very strongly that “Many, But One” is meant to be a journey within itself, individual to each and every person who reads it. A journey of reflection and contemplation. Personal and powerful to each person.
__________________________________________________

PART
1

AS THE WRITING BEGAN

In 2005 I was once again clairvoyantly prompted. This time what I wrote was not guided through me, but I was more in a sense “told” to write and chronicle my life story, at least the paranormal aspect of it. Few people, including my very close friends and family, know much about my experiences, or at least they aren’t aware of the true depth of them. The stories I have written are of course a very condensed version. I have had many, many more unusual events throughout my life, but for the scope of this book, which I feel the primary importance is the messages of “Many, But One”, I have included a few of the more extreme cases.
As I began to recall and write my memories down for the first time in my life, I seemingly reawakened the ghosts and demons of my past. Both figuratively and literally. Paranormal activity around me peaked higher than it had in many years. Many times as I wrote I had a feeling of a strong presence near me. There were also 3 incidents of the front door of my apartment, which is a few feet from the computer I wrote on, flying open extremely violently. To the point of banging into the wall and bouncing back three quarters closed. All 3 times there was no one near the door either inside or outside and the wind outside was dead still. On at least one of those occasions I am quite sure that the door was both locked and hinge latched at the time. Another instance occurred as I was on my evening walk and I saw the back storm door of a house I was passing violently fly open just as I glanced at it. Once again no one was near it and the wind was still.
I also experienced multiple incidents of unexplained electrical and electronic equipment malfunctions and breakdowns. Especially at times when I was working on the book itself (computer, printer, software, etc.). Some cases seemed malicious and designed to slow my process, while at least one was, still to my true amazement, designed to help me.
One of the programs I was using strangely reported that I had made an error in a calculation I had thought I had verified. I redid the calculations 3 times more and every time the program reported back that I was in error. As I began to examine my work more deeply I found a new and very important fact and update concerning “Many, But One” that I had overlooked. Once I found this fact the software returned to normal and showed that my original calculations were indeed correct.
FIRST CONTACT

My experiences with the supernatural and paranormal began very early in my life. The first event I can still vividly remember is of being a child of about 3 years old and standing in the kitchen of my Great-Grandmothers’ house one hot summer night.
The rest of my family, by family I mean my mother and father, I am an only child, was in the living room talking to my Great-Grandmother and I had wandered off to explore the house. It was my first time to be at her house and I was always naturally curious. For some reason I was drawn to look out of the window in the top section of the kitchen door. As if I almost felt like something was out there. My eyes were barely high enough to see out as I slowly pulled back the curtain and looked out into the yard. Her house was in a small country town and this was almost 40 years ago so the houses were few and far between and there were few lights at night in small country towns. At first I saw only total darkness, but then suddenly a light caught my eye. It seemed to just appear out of nowhere. As I watched it I realized it wasn’t like anything I had seen before. It seemed to just be a ball of light attached to nothing or no one hovering about 3 feet off of the ground. The ball seemed as if it was going to float through the yard and then into a wooded area behind her house when suddenly it stopped midway through her yard. As I watched it, mesmerized by it, and of course being 3 having no fear or apprehension, only curiosity, it began to float slowly toward the kitchen door. It floated closer and closer to the window, until it was only a few inches from me with only the glass between. I could now see clearly that it was not attached to anyone or anything, but truly was just a ball of medium bright white light about 3-4 inches wide. It floated before me for maybe 15 seconds as if it was looking at me. As if it was as curious about me as I was of it. Then slowly it drifted back to the center of the yard and moved into the woods. As I watched it disappeared into the trees and once again the yard was dark.
Not understanding what had happened, but being very excited about it ,I immediately went into the living room and began to tell everybody what had just happened to me. They all looked at me and smiled as I described how a “ball of light” had come to “visit” me at the kitchen window. They all acted excited about it as you do with a child when they tell you an incredible story, but they of course didn’t believe me. I never forgot what happened that night though.
Years later I found out that my Great-Grandmother had been in the Eastern Star and that my Great-Grandfather, who had passed away before I was born, had been a 33rd degree Freemason. After doing a little research into the beliefs of the Eastern Star and Freemasons I discovered that they believe in the paranormal or supernatural maybe more than most people. I began to think maybe she believed me more than she said that night and just didn’t say anything since at that time my parents had little or no belief in anything supernatural or paranormal.
I only saw my Great-Grandmother a few times in my life but we always seemed to have a very close connection and bond to each other for some reason.
My young years after that night were filled with many paranormal and clairvoyant type events as if maybe the mysterious light had started them to happen in some way or had in some way opened a part of me. Many of the events were fairly minor ones like knowing who was on the telephone when it rang or who was at the door before you open it. Some were of a more major type such as strong intuitive feelings. Such as sensing things I shouldn’t do or places I shouldn’t go. Some of the messages and feelings were of a more major type, but were closely personal so I don’t wish to go into them in this book at this time. Some are still affecting me today as I write this.
By the age of about 9 years old I had lived in 2 rent houses and 2 apartments when my family was finally to settle in a small rent house where we would spend the next 8 years. The first truly permanent place we could call home. We were all overjoyed, especially me. Having lived in 2 different apartments over the last few previous years I was in heaven to be moving into a house with a huge yard to play in, and even bigger field behind the house, and an old horse barn as my private “clubhouse”. The house was located at 1519 _____ Street and we nicknamed it “1519” and called it that from then on.
As we became better acquainted with our new neighbors over time they began to tell us terrible stories of past events that had happened in our new house before we moved in. I heard terrible stories myself, and I’m sure when I wasn’t present my parents were privy to much worse. Stories of the mistreatment and abuse of people and of mistreatment, abuse, and even mass killings of domestic animals within the house.
My parents, as did I at the time, held a view that what happened in the past stayed in the past and that you should “let sleeping dogs lie” so to speak. Since my parents never pursued or verified any of these stories I will not present them or elaborate further on them here. I can however verify one thing. The room that was my bedroom at the time was supposedly the site of many of the events and deeply etched into the ceiling and covered with several layers of paint were strange symbols and cryptic words.
When we moved in and for about the first year all seemed normal but that was about to change. What was to happen one innocent night changed us all forever.

See more at www.drryles.com

excerpt from "Journey from Shanghai"

Free Writing

JOURNEY FROM SHANGHAI
by
Lucille Bellucci

The Roman autumn gave the city back to Italians. Colors changed. Women’s dresses and silk scarves graduated to rusts and crimsons. The huge chestnut burrs on the thirty-foot trees on Via Veneto and near the Bardinis’ home on the Lungotevere swelled and split to expose the reddish-brown nuts inside. On Via della Conciliazione, the broad central avenue leading to the Vatican, young seminarians walked in groups with their long black cassocks flying and hands clamped atop their black cartwheel hats. With their broad sashes, they, too flaunted various shades of red.
Mai-yeen Bardini yielded to the change in seasons with sadness. In October her garden went to sleep, and in a few weeks would be nothing but moldering flower beds to remind her that she had produced a garden at all. She did not like being shut indoors for months until spring. Winter was danger; it worked loneliness into cruel forms and there was no way to fight them. This condition became as seasonal as hay fever.
She missed more than the landscapes of her homeland. She knew enough Italian to manage the daily demands by herself, but her sentences were like wood when she uttered them and always the same set pieces. The only antidote she had for that was to read aloud from a volume of poetry by Wei Chuang until she had convinced herself that her mind had not turned into wood also, that she could make song out of words and use them at her will. She had not prized enough those inconsequential chats with other women in Shanghai over the garden gate or at the beauty shop. Such foolish, comfortable nonsense! Their gossiping had been more valuable than they knew; it had made them secure, bonded in a sisterhood of common language.
Her talks with Mrs. Wei, her only Chinese friend, were always about the same things, the family in Taiwan, the two recalcitrant sons, and invariably ended with Mrs. Wei bursting into tears. Mai-yeen had several times tried to speak of her own uneasiness over news received from her sister and foster aunt in Soochow but had given up. So she read to Rafaella the cold, proud letters filled with sinister words: Land Reform. Collectivization. Industrialization. Revisionist struggles.
“They seem to have become fervent Communists,” she said, meaning, They do not sound like my own family.
“It’s the only way to survive there, Mother,” Rafaella replied. She barely knew her relatives, having met them when she was a child. To her they were no different from the other hapless millions who were forced to conform to Mao Tse-tung’s edicts.
But Mai-yeen felt each defection of family personally. The last of her line in China was being transformed into something alien. Her sister’s children were seldom mentioned in the letters, as if it were understood they were busily growing up to be productive citizens with no use for their aunt in a foreign land. The year before, Mai-yeen’s brother-in-law had been promoted to commune leader. Since then, there had been no more salutations from him. The tone of the last letter was almost malevolent. “You may laugh at us in your imperialistic culture,” her sister wrote, “but for once we are all working together, and together we Chinese will show the world what we can achieve.”
I do not laugh, Little Sister. I miss you. Do not push me out of the family. Why do you say “we Chinese”? I am still Chinese.
There was never any mention of Matteo, the husband who had brought her to this country and then died, no matter how often Mai-yeen did so in her letters. Now there was no one with whom to share memories of him, except with Rafaella in his character as her father. Her own various characters drove her deeper into her state of isolation. To Rafaella’s friend she was Madame, to their landlady she was Signora Bardini, to her own Rafaella she was Mama. To the grocer she was the Chinese lady with strange bound feet. I am Mai-yeen, she thought. My name is Mai-yeen.
How complex was the state of loneliness.
###

Useful Things

Poetry

A bed slipper accepting a foot without question. A plate accepting a half-cooked frozen dinner—it’ll be buried in mayonnaise anyway. An old car that starts in winter—a lovely child was conceived in that. Going home—where you really

came from.

Saying good-bye, as you must.

Surrender

Poetry

Indecision clouds the mind

much as the veil of fog

that gently obscures the early morning moon.

Reminiscent of moments

in which resolve takes on an air of conviction,

yet uncertainty slowly drifts in.

It is said that nothing is permanent in life except change,

and I am witness to that

as I watch the dark sky surrender to the sun.

Although still masked in fog,

it carries forth the prospect of opportunity.