Lost at Sea

She couldn’t stop laughing as she ran

up the beach towards the blanket

I was coughing and spluttering

sea water running from my nose

and dribbling down my chin

Trying to do a handstand in the surf

had turned out to be a bad idea

I staggered along behind her

choking and laughing at the same time

She was toweling off as I reached the blanket

I came up behind her and grabbed her around the waist

lifting her off the sand and twirling her around

She screamed

Eeeek!

The Swamp Thing!

We fell to the blanket and I buried my face

against her neck and blew raspberries

Nooo!

She said, pulling away

Then she took my face in her two hands and kissed me

It was a long, wet, salty kiss

a sea kiss and

I wanted to drown in it

She lay back on the blanket and I leaned over her

and brushed her wet hair from her forehead

I kissed her eye lids

I kissed her ear and nibbled her ear lobe

then kissed the nape of her neck

and moved my tongue down her neck toward her collarbone

licking salt and sunblock that hadn’t already come off in the water

She said Mmm

and put her hand behind my head

tunneling her fingers through my wet hair

I put my lips on the surgical scar she had on her neck

just under the chin and gently kissed it

I ran my hand down her thigh

She pushed my head back and sat up

Come on you vampire

We’re going up to the cottage

I come back every year at this time

to walk along the shore

and watch the sea change color

as twilight approaches

and the clouds take on a pink hue

I come upon a flock of Sandpipers

scampering back and forth at the shoreline

chasing the waves out

darting here and there

looking for sand fleas

When they spot the bubble of the sand flea’s digging

they drive their long beaks down

after the many-legged morsels

But of course the waves turn

and flow back towards shore

and these silly birds turn

and dash back

and follow the retreating waves back again

hoping to recapture what’s been lost

When I approach

they take flight

sweeping this way and that

in perfect formation

their bellies and backs

alternately flashing white and black

like sun streaming through the whirling blades of a fan

Walking along the beach

I think about those last days we had together

They were such a gift

The clouds are beginning to look bruised

their dark underbellies threatening rain

What was a gorgeous sunset is now

the dark foreboding of a storm

and wind whipped waves are crashing

all along the endless shore

I stand and look out across the roiling ocean

I want her back

A Perfect Read for Mother's Day

Gillian Flynn is pretty. She has a nice smile, big brown eyes and an open, friendly face. On closer examination, however, there’s something wrong about that smile, something sardonic. And her eyes look so directly and unblinkingly at the camera that one feels a challenge has been leveled. I think the challenge is, “Read this!” 

 “This” is Flynn’s debut novel, “Sharp Objects.” It’s a story that shreds the image of pretty little girls in bows and pigtails, women as the weaker sex, women as precious and vulnerable, women as we thought we knew them. Flynn’s women and girls are right out of the Brothers Grimm, or Bedlam, or Macbeth.

Where does this pretty young wife and mother, born in Kansas City, Missouri, raised by two apparently loving, intelligent parents derive the malice that permeates her book? How does a happily married mother and pet owner come up with this evil that coagulates on the pages of her book?

It is a mystery perhaps equal to that of “Sharp Objects,” a story of the murder of two young girls, whose bodies are discovered oddly preened and made up, but with most teeth having been pulled. The little town of Wind Gap, Missouri, an 11-hour drive south of Chicago, is abuzz with rumor and gossip, but it turns out that the good people of Wind Gap are prone to rumor and gossip anyway; it doesn’t take a couple of gruesome murders to set tongues flapping, but it’s a welcome diversion for people living in a community whose economy derives primarily from raising hogs and processing them into hams.

Flynn’s story is narrated by ‘Camille Preaker,’ a thirty-something woman learning her trade as a reporter at a third tier newspaper in Chicago. Her editor, presented as something of a cliche´ in Flynn’s book, learns of the murders in Wind Gap and knowing that his young reporter is originally from Wind Gap, asks her to go there and cover the story. He does so with some misgivings, because Camille is one troubled young woman. Camille suffered from a cutting disorder as a child growing up under the cloying care of her mother, Adora, the hog plant-owning matriarch of Wind Gap. Flynn’s Adora takes her place among literature’s most unforgettable mothers, making Sophie Portnoy seem nothing to complain about.

Camille retains her urge to inflict pain on herself and it is only through great determination and copious amounts of vodka and other alcoholic libations that she seems able to resist sharp objects and the urge to carve words into her flesh; wretched, queasy, spiteful, omen.

Returning to Wind Gap, Camille encounters her 13-year-old half sister, Amma, who also enjoys inflicting pain, but her urges are turned outward. Flynn’s portrayal of Camille’s experience getting to know her mother again, and her teen half-sister is frighteningly believable. We can’t help but utter under our breath, “Don’t do that,” but we know she will and we know bad things will happen, and we can’t wait to turn the page and read about them.

Amanita Virosa

Rising from the forest floor

A bubble

Smooth

Nonstriate

Pure white

She blossoms

Her membranous volva

Falling away to reveal

The phallus stem

Reaching for the filtered light

She is veiled by annulus hem

And wears a viscid cap

Moist

Underlaid

With gills of gray

Amanita virosa

Of the family Amanitaceae

Dainty and shy

The scent of old roses

Smelling faintly of decay

Voluptuous

She opens her lamellae

To release her angel spore

And sow destruction

All across the forest floor

I have an idea for a new book

I have an idea for new book, one I think will make a good movie. It's about a person -- could be a man or a woman -- who is born a genius, and unlike some geniuses is also socially gifted. Our genius, let's call him/her Alex, is also unlike a lot of very smart people today, in that he/she is philanthropically inclined first and foremost; making a lot of money is not on his/her (oh, hell, let's make it a 'he') bucket list.

Alex starts school and his innate knowledge and intelligence prove to be way beyond what our conventional schools and teachers can improve upon (which, I realize, doesn't take much these days). He is placed in schools for the gifted and then other "special" schools (not Hogwarts), but to no avail. Alex is ultimately withdrawn from formal schooling and instead provided the freedom and wherewithal to seek his education wherever he chooses to find it.

Alex's quest for learning takes him to the far reaches of the globe; to the world's great libraries, it's churches, mosques, monasteries, and museums. Alex visited not only the great archaeological sites, such as Ephesus, where he walked the Street of the Curetes, but lesser known sites, as well. Sites devoted to ancient pagan gods, or astronomy, or healing.

During his travels, Alex participated in certain of the practices he observed or only read about. In Mongolia, he participated with the shamans in achieving altered states of consciousness. With the Inuit people of Eastern Siberia he achieved the ability of remote viewing, a technique they used to find game as they hunted far and wide across the frozen tundra. In central Mali he sat with Dogon sorcerers to learn their methods of healing and divination. Everywhere he went, Alex learned not just by study and observation, but by immersion.

When he returned home, Alex agreed to join his father in business. Alex's father had formed a medical devices company and although it wasn't making a lot of money, it had developed some promising technology. Of course Alex's genius leads to one technological advancement after another and the company begins to prosper. Alex donates most of his earnings to charity and does pro bono work in his off hours. When Alex's mother dies of incurable brain cancer, Alex takes the company in new directions, using stem cell research to attempt a cure for cancer. Along the way he develops cures for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, among others, but the cancer cure remains illusive. Still, Alex's father and the company become one of the top Fortune 500 companies.

All this time, Alex has managed to keep a very low profile. His father is the face of the company. He announces the new discoveries and, at Alex's request, simply chalks it up to the company's "outstanding research team." And they do have an outstanding team, but it's due to Alex's genius that the breakthroughs occur.

'Big Pharma' companies make periodic raids on the company's staff, and manage to steal away a few minor scientists, but due to Alex's charisma and his father's fairness in sharing the company's success with its employees, most people stay. Still, Alex is well aware that other companies, domestic and foreign, will attempt to steal his company's technology and its formulas. He develops an impenetrable firewall to prevent hacking, and an encryption system for blueprints and formulae, that only he, his father, and his wife know how to decode.

Alex's wife is an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health. He met her while traveling in Burundi, where she was dealing with an outbreak of typhoid fever. They have decided to postpone having a family until they feel the time is right in their work. Both are very dedicated to finding cures for some of the world's most devastating diseases.

When Alex's father dies in a hunting accident, Alex inherits the family's wealth and control of the company. Wealthy in his own right, Alex uses his inherited wealth to set up a charitable foundation, much like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He turns over the day-to-day running of the company to a trusted member of management, and devotes his time entirely to researching a cure for cancer. Alex's wife takes a leave of absence from the NIH when it appears that Alex is near a breakthrough and needs help setting up control tests.

Success! The control tests reveal that Alex has succeeding in developing a cure for cancer. Alex arranges an internal announcement for company employees. The whole team will be there to share in the joy of developing a cure for one of mankind's most intractable and heartbreaking diseases. The champagne is poured, Alex stands and asks for attention, he looks down and smiles at his wife, and that's when the gunfire erupts.

Everyone is killed by a few crazed gunmen with AR-15s they've converted to fully automatic. They are traced to an extremist religious organization that opposes stem cell research.

The world is shocked. Attempts are made to decode the files and learn the secret to curing cancer, but Alex did too good a job. Experts pronounce that the code will never be broken. The cure for cancer is lost.

Investigations determine the guns were obtained legally, at gun shows. Their conversion was illegal, but most experts claim that can't be controlled. There are calls for tougher gun control measures. The NRA makes a statement to the effect that it's a shame the liberal media and gun haters are attempting to use this tragedy to once again push their leftist liberal agenda. An attempt to craft a bipartisan bill closing the gun show loophole doesn't make it out of committee.

People continue to die of cancer, and gun violence.

Congress passes a law outlawing stem cell research.

The End

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Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Cannibalism

 

“The chops to the forehead are very tentative, very incomplete,” says Douglas Owsley, the Smithsonian forensic anthropologist who analyzed the bones after they were found by archaeologists from Preservation Virginia. “Then, the body was turned over, and there were four strikes to the back of the head, one of which was the strongest and split the skull in half. A penetrating wound was then made to the left temple, probably by a single-sided knife, which was used to pry open the head and remove the brain.” 

This Smithsonian article on recent discoveries at the site of an excavation at Jamestown, Virginia, will be startling for some people, but I wrote about it nine years ago in a fictionalized account published as, "The Starving," a Kindle eBook. My story was based on early evidence published in a National Geographic interactive essay. Although I made up the victim in my story, the circumstances are frighteningly similar.

Was I haunted by this young woman, cannibalized by her starving colonial companions? Was her ghost responsible for my 'imagining' the story? I suppose it's food for thought.