Culture · Shock

Here they are, some work I've been doing:

Function 3

Jack was trapped far from home and quite utterly alone. He was surrounded by brutal insensible men, men who had never looked up at the sky and wondered at their own smallness. How could it be that these thugs, these carnate substantiations of grim pure muscle were going to kill him? He knew right then that his life was destined to be ended by these truculent killers who were so swollen with barbarism that they seemed no more than ghastly daguerreotypes of men. They were simply outlines sketched upon a chalkboard by an unreasonable designer who reveled in sharp angles and scoffed with syrupy scorn at sophistication. These men who even now drew their clubs and their guns were a far cry from the intellectuals Jack had always known. How could it be that he was destined to end his days at the hands of facile goons? What force in the universe made it possible for him to meet death in the hands of people who were not even smart enough to understand the awful finality of what they were doing? What right did these lumbering madmen have to cut short his all-too-brief stint in the world of the living, the world of pleasures and unpleasantness both alike? These questions suborned his mind into the idle occupation of fear, leaving him no escape. Finally, Jack hit upon a single solid truth amidst the sea of truths that he rejected. They had no right, he reasoned, except for one: they could.

Jack Borgan was wrong about one thing: they weren’t blind pulsing tendons with no greater understanding. He was also right about another: they killed him right there on that very spot as he trembled in useless terror. The whys and wherefores are long and they have a tendency to clump together. To work them out, to sort them into discreet phrases and quanta, would be not only without merit but meaningless, counter-productive, and banal. Not only that, but Jack Borgan’s life is interwoven with countless others and some of them bear direct relevance on the series of lies about to be committed to paper forever. It all has to do with that wonderful terrible Dada Machine; but not yet! We’ll have to convince time to un-kill poor Jack Borgan before we can get to the heart of the matter. We’ll have to walk back back back back to the very beginning - or as close as we can get, anyhow.

That much is simple. With a few nouns and connectors the deed is undone and we find ourselves wondering just where we are. In the span it takes to read a sentence years march forward or back, centuries elapse or curl themselves up like springs or the tails of cats. In a single paragraph more lives are shattered and whole continents engulfed in flames; just the same in a page the wounds heal or grow worse - they close up or fester with gangrene right between that period and the oncoming ‘A’.

Jack was born to Jon and Melanie Borgan in the year 1975. His father Jon Borgan was a mathematical genius. He had been trained from a young age in all the skills necessary to hone the analytical mind. His own father, the Old Man, would sometimes (and without warning) turn to young Jon and shout “Multiplication tables!” which was the cue for a symphony orchestra, an absolute orgy, of numbers to come spilling from Jon Borgan’s lips. It was a wonder that the Old Man thought anything of his son at all - he had fought in World War Two and, as he was keen to remind his little boy, unless there was another such gut-wrenching war little Jon Borgan would never be a man. There were times when Jon was forced to stand out in the snow or the rain: these were when he had been bad, or failed to factor the square root of fifteen hundred and three quickly enough. Once he stood outside all christmas eve after having asked his father if there was a Santa Claus. “Of course there’s no such thing as Santa Claus!” the Old Man had bellowed. “I ought to take you outside and leave you there all night!” And he did. Moms (for that was what little Jon called his mother) didn’t know about it. If she had she would have fought with the Old Man right until morning. As it was, the Old Man had told her that Jonny-boy was off at a friends to enjoy the Yuletide spirit.

So, it's been two years since ol' PC tried to take back the reigns of the Internet and failed miserably. The internet is no less filthy, no less mad, than it was when I began. In fact, it may even be more so. Yet, in those two years of silence I have discovered that there is nothing I love better than the very kind of madness that the Internet represents.

You see, every good story has three things inherent in it -- Blood, Semen, and Sweat. It can hardly be called a truly GOOD tale unless it has at least two, and if it has none then it's not even worth reading. Eat your heart out Jane Austen, where's YOUR Blood Semen and Sweat? I suppose you can replace Semen with Sex of any kind. These are the three fluids, however (semen=seminal?) that make everyone human. These animal fluids, these brute liquids sloshing around inside of us, make us who we are. We are motivated on a daily basis by them, to obtain them, to shed them, to find them, and not to loose them.

How can I blame the Internet for being human? After all, didn't we make it? Shouldn't it, then, have the best of our fluids spattered all over it? Long live the Internet!

The dark and wizened figure in the shadow of the cell grinned obscenely at me. I fought down the urge to rush forward and embrace it, however vile it might now be. Giuseppe Balsamo -- the Count of Cagliostro as he fancied himself -- and I had a long and colored history in the Continent and beyond. "My friend," I whispered to him, trying not to alert our archangelic jailors that we knew one another. "My friend, it has been ages."

"Eons," he said with a sour note on his breath. "Eons since I died. Here, every moment is itself an eternity."

I shuddered. "It cannot have been so bad," I said. "I spoke with Azazel..."

"Azazel?!" He thundered. "That weakling devil tried to show me the way out of here! When first I came I was not presented with either the vistas of hell nor the police-state of heaven! Rather I was in Limbo, and it was through his idiocy that I was..."

I nodded. The story was familiar to me. "But surely, Cagliostro, we may find a way to escape. You were the premier Alchemist in all of Europe."

"Europe follows a different paradigm," he said angrily. "They no longer subscribe to such things as Alchemy -- but Reason and Logic, the developments of thought rather than the convincing lies of Charisma. How can I magic my way from this heavenly prison if even the Europeans no longer believe in witchcraft?"

I paused, to recollect. "In South Africa there are those who still do. They revere machines as magic."

Cagliostro snorted. "And? In America there are those who send up magical imprecations to the Great Void in the Sky, thinking they are reaching God and not some manner of Cosmic Nothingness and Absence! That does not help ME. Those left on Earth who profess belief in Alchemy are quackeries and hacks, as are the remaining occultists who truly understand AND believe in the power of the occult. In a word, they are nonexistant. As nonexistant as the Absent God!"

I sighed and sat heavily in the muck. "So we are stuck here?"

I began to get the feeling that Cagliostro was growing tired of my incessant questions. "Yes!" he said with an explosive spurt of anger. "Yes, WE are stuck here unless YOU have some spell or trick that has not been forgotten and cast aside by the men of Earth!"

I thought to myself for a moment at that. Cagliostro was clearly bitter that the world had passed him by. Yet, unlike him, I had not been trapped beneath the thumb of the ravening heavenly order for millenia. I had lived, and grown, and come to understand the ways of the men of earth. And thus, did I formulate a plan. "I believe," I began, "that I may."

When I told Cagliostro of my plan he laughed and cavorted and jumped with glee. He danced in his chains. He jangled his shackles at me and smiled through his beard. It was a plan that could only end in stunning victory or numbing failure, and those were Guiseppe Balsamo's favorite kinds. I watched him do his jig with a growing sense of anxiety as I myself was hardly as confident in my plot.

I cannot commit it to the digital slipstream here, lest the archangelic order realize what I've done. They have keen eyes and Sanctified Programs which can reach into the internet; and from there to both the real and the sub-real. Suffice to say that Virgil, Cicero, Sun Tzu, and Peter the Great all had a hand in my escape. Poor Cagliostro fell into the Lethe, where he was purged of all his terrifying memories, but I! I! I won through! I made it to the surface, via long tunnel like the one Azazel showed me, and I was not turned back!

I escaped the Angels and the Devils, I escaped the chains of Afterlife, and now I know that I have closed those gates behind me forever. I cannot return there -- no I don't think anyone can. So, perhaps I've traded an eternity of torment for one of obscurity and oblivion, but it was a choice between the NOW and the LATER, between what IS and what IS TO COME, and in that situation well, I don't think anyone could have blamed me.

Or perhaps they could have.

But I'm back for you, my children. The Internet Renaissance continues... Let the Pheonix rise, and let the flowers bloom!

There are two major things wrong with the Social Liberals in the U.S. today. The reasons are as follows:

    I. Many who support liberal social policies have also been lured into the noble ideal of pacifism, thus making them unfit to govern a country.
    II. Those who are not fooled by pacifism have abandoned the core values of their social progressiveness

A corallary to this may be considered, namely:

    iii. Social Liberals who are not either of these two things are marginalized in the political arena due to the "moderating" tendancies of the Republic.

We must examine each in turn. Our first point demands a long hard look at the idiocy of pacifism and "diplomacy first" actions. The main problem with pacifism is that it is inflexible. Like any poorly concieved policy, it allows very little movement as it dictates a pure system -- All war is evil, war must therefore be avoided at nearly all costs. This blind idealism may sound tantalizing in the Platonic world, but since Aristotle is inevitably the victor in the real pragmatic world of the polity, we must recognize the limits of a pacifist option. Those in favor of socially liberal programs are easy to lead down the path of idealistic views of foriegn policy. The reason is simple to understand: Social progressivism is a form of idealism. The policy makers envision the ideal form of social state, one where liberties are maximized in a balance with securities. Becuase this ideal polity can only exist in the mind of the reformers, it is easy to make the jump to the idealistic goal of pacifism. However, while social reform is a style of absolutism (social liberties above all), it is not ultimatly a self-defeating one. While liberty and security is a zero sum game, the margins remain wide. However, foriegn policy is not the same as domestic civil rights. By drawing the analogy between the two, social reformers improperly make the assumption that these two things are the same.

Secondly, many "social reformers" have abandoned their programs of social reform to appeal to the moderating tendency of the political arena. However, this tendency is tempered by the increasing political transparency which brings politics and ultimately political power to the masses. The Republic was never meant to support this kind of transparency, and the middle of the bell-curve was never meant to shap[e policy to the extent that it now does. The poison of religion has crept into politics becuase the main body of the country is religious. These people were always meant to be excluded from the political process, allowing the intellectual elite to govern the country as best they can.

This is the diagnosis. The treatments will follow.

The Third Intifada - the Archduke is dead. Iran assisted in capturing Israeli soldiers, Syria is trying to get back into Lebannon.

Mark your calenders, this month marks the beginning of the end.

A new theorem has been bubbling in my idea-pot for quite some time. This cesspool which has given birth to various ludicrous notions has now spawned a further concept. Allow me, for a moment, to proselytize.

The current generation (I am speaking of Generation Y, here, and not those ridiculous new children growing up now) has been affected by the notions of it's ancestors in such a way as to teach it a veritable contempt for work. A loathing, if you will, for the rat race. Throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, the American Dream Machine of the Mass Media has been teaching us that working is bad for you. It takes you away from your family, your children, your loved ones, etc. Thusly, this has given birth to a people who want to perpetually stop and smell the flowers. The "slow down" message has been appropriated subconsciously by the current up-and-comers, which accounts for the apathy normally associated with the Why Generation. It is not Generation Why? as in, philosophically why? But rather WHY? as in, why do I have to exert myself?

The conflux of technology and this dangerous message that has been left over from the hippies (when it was arguably necessary) has slowly poisoned this generation until the very notion of work has become anathema.

This is my new theorem. Think on it.

As Papa Culture, I once again feel it is my civic duty to recommend that all people rent and watch the HBO show, Rome. It is magnificent in it's scope and excellent in it's writing. Do it. Do it now and live up to the high expectations I hold of you. Enjoy it. It is beyond all thought of wonder.

Network Neutrality is in peril! The House has failed to pass a requisite net neutrality bill to keep the Internet unbiased as far as data packages go. You have to do your part before the bill reaches the Senate. Go to www.itsournet.org and sign up, send a letter to your Senator. NOW!

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

Talidega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

These subtitles present an unpleasant trend that will destroy our culture. Be wary of them, my friends. More will likely follow.

TITLE: THE FORM OF ORAL STORY OF SOMEONE WITH A FUNNY NAME

appears to be the format of the day.

It may be known to some of you that there is such a thing known as "Network neutrality". This state describes the non-prioritization of data on the internet. However, Network Neutrality is about to hit it's first big hurdle.

Bit Torrent creator, something somethingorother, is working on a system based on the BitTorrent model that will provide, to those who pay for it, a new faster internet connection. Downloads will occur at lightling speeds, and so will transfers. This model is only available to the COMPANIES THAT PAY FOR IT and it affects ALL USERS.

For example: When you visit a company with this new capability (being developed mostly by Cachesoftware or something like that, in the UK) your connection will be improved. Anything you download from them will be at amazing speeds. However, other information from non-Cachesoft sites will not be. This prioritization via cash is a violation of Network Neutrality. Places like Ebay have already begun requesting legal action against this violation. So have Microsoft and Google. There is currently a Network Neutrality bill being talked about on the Hill.

Do your part. Write your congressperson or something like that. Culture should not be in the vice grip of money!

The Literati Strike Back: A list of the 110 most often banned books. Read books in bold. Partially or fragmentary in italics. The Papa is getting there, no? I must admit, I don't have time to read every piece of trash that comes my way!

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 Prince by Niccolo Machavelli
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Mis?rables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 A Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Emile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

If you go back far enough into anyone's ancestry you will find men and women who killed. Whether soldiers or murderers, everyone has them in their family. What does this prove? Nothing, except that killing is in our blood. How can we escape it? It's human nature.

Sicken me. How can I possibly relate to you the feeling of vitriol I have in my stomache, roiling like some abyssal sea? I was in attendance to the graduation of my great grand-niece from the esteemed religious school of Sacred Heart Academy. Luckily, their Jesus-poison does not infect her, and yet!

While there, I was subjected to a speech of a length no less than 15 minutes concerning the natures of the Devil and of God; terrorists are the spawn of darkness, and evil is all around us. Not to mention the desperatly moribund imagery of hugging Jesus so tightly that his crown of suffering pierces you in the head. I can only desperately hope that this misguided abominable mutation of the education system, the Valedictorian, embraces Jesus so hard that his thorns drive straight into her tender and misguided brain.

Or, perhaps she'll become cancerous, and her womb will turn into an alembic of sulfur. One can hope.

A Sour Victory

    Centurio Sergeant Iulius Athanasius did not know if he would ever see his wife and daughters again, or if he would ever again get a chance to lie on the banks of the Atria at his father’s villa. It was thoughts like these that tormented him as he struggled to make his way down the sandy road to Roventia. If only, he kept thinking to himself. If only the desert weren’t so harsh, if only those soldiers in cream colored clothes hadn’t been disguised as bandits, if only that Nimiyyan hook hadn’t sliced him from shoulder to waist… If only if only if only.
    They did not help. Thinking about them made things worse. It highlighted the searing pain in his side were his beautifully gilded armor bit into his flesh, bent out of shape by curved Nimiyyan swords. His shield, still partially strapped to his left arm, dragged in the sand behind him as he trudged. He had thought of undoing the strap with his hand that still functioned, but he was afraid of touching his wounded side. Afraid, both of the pain that might result, and of the horror of discovering that perhaps his arm would never work again; for that hook had cut some important muscle and now his left arm was like a board of dead wood dangling at his side.
    The golden chain around his neck clanked. The pendant that signified his rank felt heavy – more lead than the bronze he knew it was made of. Every so often he would pass a palm tree and imagine lying down in its cool shade. The reason he didn’t was the same reason why he hadn’t stopped at that oasis a few rods back. He knew that if he stopped walking he’d likely never start again.
     He grimaced as he trod over a large stone in the road. In the Imperium proper, such a road would be scorned. Out here in the desert, you were lucky if there was a road at all. And the roads drew Nimiyyans, bandit and soldier alike. He wondered what he would do if there were any more of them lying in wait between him and Roventia. He had lost his sword in the fight – it shattered against rough wrought chain mail. He had resorted to using his baton of office after that, the little silver channels carved in it half-filled with drying blood. He shuddered thinking about it. How soft a skull was when that little bit of metal and ivory was brought against them.
    He was heating up now, too. The burnished black armor of a Sergeant seemed foolish in the desert heat, but the men had to know who was in charge, eh? He could hear Rubidinum saying that to him. “They’ve got to know who’s got the reigns, eh?” He grunted to himself. Little good it had done the men of his battle to know who had the reigns. Eletrium, Gregorus, Marcus, every single one of them where now reddening the sand at the side of the road, their bodies intertwined with the Nimiyyans who had done them in. Iulius couldn’t help but grimace when he thought of his boys spread out under the desert sun to be eaten by jackals. Sons of Dionin deserved a better death.
    The grimace caused jets of pain to streak through his side. Iulius knew his armor should have fallen off long ago. It had been almost sheared in two by that cruel Nimiyyan hook, the breastplate sliced and gashed. However, it stayed on, not due to the clever straps the Imperial crafters had made but because it was digging into his flesh. It was so bent out of shape that Iulius wasn’t sure he’d be able to take it off even if he wanted to. And the gorget was starting to bite into his neck. He could even feel the warm wet pools of blood inside the bent steel. It was trickling down his side and stopping briefly to rest in the deep places of his armor, only to leak out in a steady trail behind him. He looked down and saw thick droplets of blood emerging from the bottom of the breastplate, spackling the ground. He wondered if this is what his wife felt like when the moon was full.
    He started to chuckle at his joke, but was forced to cease when the pain started again. He felt something shifting inside of him, or was it outside of him now? Either way, it moved, and when it did the pressure of the distended armor sent a blinding shockwave of pain through him. It exploded in his head like an Avacci cannon, and he reeled on the road, nearly losing his footing. He stopped at last as it receded, his armor jangling. Ting-a-ling tong-a-long it went, like a sad jester accompanying him to the end. He wondered if Epimetrius had ever written a play like this. He couldn’t recall. The Legionnaire in the Sand? If not, perhaps he would write it when he reached Roventia. It would make an interesting tale, if nothing else.
    It would have to begin already in progress, the fight long since left behind. Staged violence was always so fake, he mused. There’s nothing like a man screaming in agony as his eyes are being ripped out as the thing itself. He would never have borne the terrible knowledge of what it looked like if the Nimiyyans hadn’t shown him using Gregorus to demonstrate. Anyhow – it would start after the battle, leaving just a lone Sergeant wandering down the desert road… No, not a Sergeant. They were insignificant. Why not make it a Legate? Yes, that’s more like it. A Legio is lost in a great battle, the only survivor is the Legate who must tell someone important of their sour sour victory…
    He looked down to take stock of himself, to see what position his fictional Legate was in. His mind almost stopped working as he went numb with horror. His collarbone was sliced straight through, the wicked little ends of it poking out of the long gash. They were sticky with blood and every so often the touched as his uneasy gate carried him forward. He was too horrified to look any further down, to see what red ruin had been made of his body. He bitterly wondered if he might be promoted for his valor, for living when the others had died. Sometimes the dead were commended for their actions, and he was the last living member of his battle – so he would have to be commended too.
    He refused to think about his own death. Such thoughts would surely hasten it, spur it on. Were those vultures circling above? No, don’t look. Don’t even think about it.  Then, the provident occurred. Iulius broke out into a smile. It was just like an Epimitreus play. There was a cart some ways down the road that had just come into view. In every direction except the one the wide desert was empty save for the occasional scrub, yet he had somehow stumbled upon the one wain traveling this deserted road. He began to trot, ignoring the cries of protest his tired legs and bleeding side gave him. He would reach it, and they would save him.
    He only wondered for a moment whether or not it was enemies – as it came into view, it was clear that there were no Nimiyyan soldiers riding it. A lone camel pulled, and the rear was stuffed with wools and food and other small possessions. A single man with the dusky skin of the desert sat atop the driver’s bench and in the rear a young woman. A little girl trotted alongside, chatting with her father. Iulius called out. “Ho!” he said, first in Imperial, and then “Greetings!” in the desert tongue of Nimiyya. The man turned, his bearded face wonderfully open and a kind smile upon his lips.
    “There’s a wounded man there, Lilit!” he proclaimed. “Come, help me get him on the wagon!” The woman scrambled to get down and assist him, and the man tugged on the reigns to stop the camel. His wife (who must be Lilit Iulius thought) quickly drew a little dagger from her belt. For a moment Iulius thought that she meant to finish the job the Nimiyyans had started, but she instead used it to slice through the leather strap that held his fallen shield to his senseless arm. She threw the shield up onto the cart and, with the help of her husband, assisted Iulius himself to the bed of the wagon. There he carefully laid himself down, showering the family with profuse thanks. The man introduced himself as Ahdred and their child as Mira.
    They rattled on the long rods, following the desert road as it wound across the empty stretches. For a long while Iulius was quiet. He passed in and out of consciousness, the darkness behind his eyelids mingling inextricably with the dark blue of the desert sky. He lost track of time, of how long it had been since he watched his battle die around him. Eventually the pain in his side growled again, waking him up. It was no longer dim and distant but rather painfully near. The dull throb had become instead an insistent reminder. He sat up.
    The wain was now on a path he did not recognize, winding through unfamiliar stony cliffs. “Ahdred,” he said, “This is not the way to Roventia.”
    “My apologies, Iulius.” The dark man answered, glancing over his shoulder. “We were not headed that way.”
     “Ah,” the Sergeant replied. “I don’t seem to recall this place, my friend; and I have been in most parts of the desert. Where exactly are we going?”
    “A little town to the south,” Lilit replied softly, saving Ahdred the trouble.
    “Ah,” Iulius repeated. “Well, best be on the lookout. I don’t think there are any patrols on these roads.”
    “Oh, there are,” Ahdred said with a chuckle. “But we probably won’t see them. They range up along the cliff tops to observe passers-by.”
    Iulius was silent for a moment. He thought, I don’t know of any patrols on cliffs like these. He dismissed the worry, because he was after all only a Centurio Sergeant, and they didn’t tell Sergeants everything. Perhaps he would find out about the patrols when he returned to Roventia and received his promotion.
    “Well,” he said at last, “be careful. There were soldiers dressed as bandits that ambushed me and my battle; things can be dangerous this far from civilization.”
    “I will keep my eyes out, Iulius,” Ahdred replied.
    “See that you do,” Iulius said with satisfaction. “Ever since we destroyed that blasted city back during the first Nimiyyan war, the borders have become tenuous…”
    “We?” Ahdred asked.
    “Yes. We. The Imperium – the Legio. Whatever you want to call it.” Iulius was reminded, due to those words, of the great buildings with the broken arches that shared the Grand Square in Veii. The Imperial Temple, buttressed and rising above the gleaming white of the Palatine Court, stood out in his mind. Perhaps that was why he wasn’t paying enough attention to Ahdred’s response.
    “Oh, we are not Imperials, Iulius. Lilit, Mira, and myself, we are from Nimiyya.”
    Not hearing it, Iulius went on. “And I’d say that those soldiers are damn clever. They spring up from nowhere and then…” Iulius trailed off as his ears caught up with his mouth. The pit of his stomach dropped out, leaving a sick nauseous feeling behind. This was no parable by Epimetrius! This was one of Syphis’ nightmares, a horror tale! If he were in the theaters on the Atria, the four stringed viol would begin to play those long cacophonous notes of building tension as the hero of the piece discovers a dark and terrible secret. “Not… not Imperials?”
    “Oh no,” Ahdred went on cheerfully. “In fact, we were heading towards Ibbus-ur, in the east, not Roventia in the south.”
    “But…” Iulius was beginning to feel as though the enemies that had so recently been laid low were now having their revenge – everyone in this damn desert, even the sand and the winds, was Nimiyyan! “But you saved me!”
    “To be honest,” Ahdred said, “We saved your armor. It is quite beautiful, and we are very poor.”
    That note hit home harder than all the rest. Iulius knew that his armor was battered beyond easy repair, and while it might fetch a few coins for scrap, without careful attention he would never get out of it alive. Skilled and quiet hands would be needed to remove the bits that had bent and stuck deep into his flesh – hands that were caring and would stop to squelch the flow of blood and to stitch up the holes where exposed bone and organ showed through. He did not believe this Ahdred possessed such hands. Perhaps his wife was a physician he fervently hoped, the sweat beading on his brow feeling chill like ice. But, hadn’t he heard that the Nimiyyans didn’t know medicine? The exquisite fear grew louder in his ears, the sound of distant viols accompanying the taste of sweat and bile.
    The cart passed on in quiet for a while, the only sounds the faint squeaking of the turning wheels, the chomping of the camel, and the rustling desert wind. And, of course, the phantom viols that Iulius could not help but imagine. From his prostrate position on the bed of the wagon he turned his head to look at the little girl walking alongside. Surely Ahdred’s words had not meant what it seemed like; with their little Mira nearby these people would certainly not commit murder. That argument rang false with him, as he knew that the Legio had killed women and children in their beds in Cartoum as revenge for the Nimiyyan raids on Imperial borders.
    Soon enough a little oasis appeared nestled in the rocks by the roadside. A few tall palms swayed in the breeze nearby, and a cluster of bushes grew all about the little spring. Ahdred pointed towards it and said, “Here we are!” Iulius felt lightheaded. This was no village, unless delirium was getting to him.
    It took him a moment to realize why they were stopping as Lilit and Mira went over to the oasis and Ahdred pulled the cart to the side of the road. The bearded man didn’t follow his wife and child, but instead stepped off of the drivers bench and walked around to the back of the cart. Iulius sat up, his limbs feeling cold, and saw that Ahdred had drawn a dagger. “Now,” Ahdred said, “this won’t take but a moment, and if you don’t squirm it won’t hurt either.”
    Horse-shit, Iulius thought, his right hand sinking down to grip the baton he was given for becoming a Centurio Sergeant. He had used it to kill before and, though his limbs were weak, this man was no soldier of Nimiyya. They might be on equal footing since Iulius’ wound undid what years of training had taught him in the academies. As Ahdred drew closer, Iulius coiled himself to spring. He wanted to see his wife again, to bathe with his father in their villa on the Atria – to sail a ship down the river to the sea and back again to Veii.
    His fears and hopes made his hand sweaty, but they also made his muscles strong. His grip was not all it could have been, so when Ahdred mounted the rear of the cart and Iulius swung, it did not strike the Nimiyyan in the head. Instead the full weight of the baton fell upon his neck, and Ahdred fell backwards onto the ground. Iulius heard him grunt, and then laborious struggled to his feet. With the last of his strength he jumped from the cart, landing fully on Ahdred’s shin. While such a jump might have caused him to fall and deprive him of his one chance of flight, the weight of his armor was enough that even if it did, Ahdred was certain to be incapacitated for a time. The Nimiyyan shrieked as Iulius’ armored boots landed on his legs. Then, with a staggering gait, Iulius began to walk away.
    His entire left side had gone numb and tingled from the movement. He could feel blood all round about his belly under his armor, and seeping down his crotch and his legs. He could hear the rasping of his sliced collarbone. None of these things mattered to him as he limped away from the cart. Behind him he heard Lilit cry out. He turned just in time to see her helping Ahdred to his feet, the knife still dangling in his fingers.
    “You are going to die anyway!” Ahdred spat angrily. “You would deprive us of the money we need to live? This has nothing to do with Nimiyya, or with the Imperium!”
    Iulius wasted his breath to gasp out a retort. “Lies! If you were Imperials, you would never dishonor me like this… I am a child…” huff puff “A child…” puff puff “…of Dionin! I will not suffer such… disgrace! To be stripped of my armor and…” huff “murdered for a Nimiyyan meal!”
    “This is no murder,” Ahdred said, slowly approaching the limping Sergeant. “You are the walking dead already. Perhaps you have not looked at yourself, but your intestines are held in only by that corset of steel!”
    Iulius saw that little Mira was up at the rear of the cart now too. He saw Ahdred, his dead, approaching him. He knew he could not walk back to Roventia, that he could not outrun Ahdred and his wagon (let alone run at all). But he could make the man a demon in front of his child – at least give me this, he prayed to Dionin. At least give your son this one victory. He grimaced and stopped staggering backwards. He held his ground, fingers tightening around the baton. He could feel blood sluicing down his right arm now, too, soaking the rod.
    “You are a killer,” he said. “If we had gone to Roventia I would have lived. Imperial chirugeons know how to heal wounds such as these! You wouldn’t know that, though, being a barbarous killer! You would have had a reward for turning me in there, and that could have fed your family. But no, instead you must feed them off of Imperial blood – suckle them on the juice of your fallen enemies.” He turned his gaze directly at Mira, then. “You see what your father is? He is a monster who kills for you to eat. He is a monster who would destroy life so that you may feast and grow fat on my corpse!”
    That angered Ahdred to no end. He yelled, and sprang at Iulius. Iulius was ready, though, banking on Ahdred’s outburst. The baton went up, and came down again, squarely on the Nimiyyans arm. Ahdred screamed in pain as the heavy weight bent his elbow back.
    Iulius grinned. He saw Mira’s face contort with angst and anguish. Yet, that had been the last of his strength. Ahdred had been right about one thing; the wound in his side was worse than he had let himself admit. He could feel the quickness, the mercurial vitality of life, seeping out of it and spilling on the ground. Then he saw Ahdred’s sandaled feet. “Iulius,” he heard him grunt, “this could have been painless.”
    Then, the dim grasp of death’s hand fled him in an instant. The slowly creeping darkness was replaced with wracking pain as he felt his innards begin to move. Iulius knew that Ahdred was ripping the battered plate from his side, exposing the awful wound. He also knew that little Mira was watching her father tear savagely into an Imperial breast. He muttered, “You’ve no right… I am a child of Dionin…” but it sounded weak and feeble, even to his ears. “I wanted to see the Atria again,” he said softly, “And my wife. My father is a Senator… I wanted to see my father…”
    Then the pain began to ease. He could feel his flesh being sliced, but it didn’t hurt. It was as if a butcher was cutting him venison for his dinner. It was happening to someone else, far away. He wondered if he’d won or if he’d lost. After all, he was dying; but the Nimiyyan had been forced to resort to the most gruesome of methods. Perhaps it had robbed the act of its supposed humanity and exposed little Mira to the horror of mankind that lie just underneath the surface. He felt a sharp tugging as the black armor was stripped away. He still had the baton curled in his fingers, and he was still a Sergeant of the Imperium, like it or no.
    As the last light of consciousness left him, he saw the waters of the Atria, and a little wooden barque rowed by servants. His father was there, and his wife. She was crying heavy tears into the river, and the lights of Veii were like stars behind her. He wanted to tell her not to cry, not to be sad, that he had won. Yet, he couldn’t speak or move; his throat was too weak to form words. Then, slowly, there was nothing. Even the last dim spark faded until it was just an ember… and then it was gone.

Beware, o West, for your hour of trial is surely upon you.

The Wheel turns, and those who where at it's peak will find themselves crushed beneath it's bulk.

Look to the Wheel and do all you may to prevent it from rocking and taking those lashed to it on another spin.

China rises in the East like a sleeping serpent, ready to destroy what has been the lifeblood of the West for centuries -- it will be them against us soon enough if these crisis are not resolved.

Iran supplies the two Giants of the East with oil, and we are threatening Iran. Soon there will be w recogning, and I will be on the winning side; why? Because I always play both sides, of course.

Wo wei shua idyar potonqhua -- I speak a little Mandarin.

As a purveyor of fine culture, I find myself unable to keep silent on the matter of the fairly new book of the great author Umberto Eco, The Myseterious Flame of Queen Loana. I will quote for you a passage, that you may go and read it.

Something must have happened in those nine months. I understand that when I went back to my granfathers study. Browsing at random as I drank a coffee, I pulled from the magazine pile a humorous weekly from the late thirties, Il Bertoldo. It was a 1937 issue, but I must have read it later than that, because at the time I would not have been able to appreciate those filiform drawings and that twisted sense of humor. But now I was reading a dialogue (one appeared each week in the little opening column on the left of the front page) that may well have caught my attention during those nine months of profound transformation:

Bertoldo walked past all those gentlement of the retinue and went at once to sit beside the Grand Duke Windbag, who, gentle in nature and fond of wit, began in that spirit to question him pleasantly.
Grand Duke: Good day, Bertoldo. How was the crusade?
Bertoldo: Noble.
Grand Duke: And the task?
Bertoldo: Lofty.
G.D.: And the impulse?
B.: Generous.
G.D.: And the surge of human solidarity?
B.: Moving.
G.D.: And the example?
B.: Enlightening.
G.D.: And the initiative?
B.: Courageous.
G.D.: And the offer?
B: Spontaneous.
G.D.: And the gesture?
B.: Exquisite.

If you want more, you mooching monkies, go buy the book!