Miracles Abound

June 18, 2020

Day 1,649

 

There is a cat in town who spends her days in Pinky’s, a bargain store where almost everything is on sale for two dollars, or more, or less, depending. Her name is unknown. Cats don’t tell us their names. They will tell you that you may serve them and that they enjoy your company so long as no demands are placed on them and the food keeps coming.  They do this by returning, purring, rubbing up against whatever is handy in your vicinity and presenting themselves to be scratched. The people who work at Pinky’s call her Alley Cat and she has been a fixture there for eight years, patrolling the aisles or holding court on the counter between the cash registers. When the weekend comes one of the ladies takes her home and on Monday morning back they come together. Alley Cat is set down outside the store and roams at will the local environs until she decides it is time for her to be inside. She will then plant herself at the closed doors and wait patiently for someone to go in or out, at which time she will walk in, jump up on the counter or disappear in the back. She is friendly and likes to be stroked or have her head rubbed. She lives her life receiving love and giving love.

Smart cat. Lucky people.

There is a dog who spends his days at an auto repair shop on the edge of the industrial area just outside of Whitianga. Going into town you round a sweeping turn on the highway and look way up the road on the right. If he’s there, he’ll be standing close to the verge, holding a sturdy black radiator hose in his mouth, watching oncoming traffic for a special vehicle only he knows. When he sees it he lunges or prances and shakes the hose and runs back and forth with obvious and contagious joy. If he’s not by the road and it’s summer he can sometimes be seen in the shade of a two-sided sign arranged like an A-frame under a nearby tree. The grass is un-mown there, long and soft and cool. Sometimes he can be seen supervising an important job taking place inside the garage but most of the time he on duty by the road. Leaving town he’s on the left, a hundred metres past the turn to the refuse centre. Lately when I see him I’ve taken to lightly tapping my horn as we approach and to my delight, Horace (our name for him, not his), tail wagging happily, grabs the hose off the ground at his feet and jumps and shakes it vigorously. I swear you can see him smiling as we pass.

He’s made a friend, said hello, invited us to play and lives in a state of sheer joy that he passes on to all who see him.

Two creatures, both conscious and aware, happy with their place in the world, full of joy, spreading love. Never saying a word.

 

Miracles abound.

Dawn to Dusk in the Embrace of Love

June 15, 2020   –   Monday

Day 1,646

 

The sun rose at 7:32 and cast its golden glow on the mountain. Half an hour later a thump on the roof woke me from a light sleep and I rose and opened the curtains to the bedroom to look out at the grove and the steps that lead to the forecourt and the drive. The sun glinted through tree branches beyond the garden and silhouetted the shapes of birds flitting through the forest canopy. The steps were wet with dew and a few chaffinches were hopping around checking the area for seed. I couldn’t see what had made the thump and went in to open the curtains in the sitting room.

Another day dawning. Another beautiful, sweet, golden morning, serene and windless, ripe with promise. I turned on the electric heater and was about to prepare Valerie’s tea when I decided to check the steps again. Sure enough, there was Mr. Lonely, a California quail that has been living here on this property since before we arrived some four-and-a-half years ago. Of all the dozens of quail that have visited our land during this year’s long hot summer, only he is left. The rest have packed it in and headed down to the tangled swathe of gorse and blackberry that borders the community vegetable garden half a kilometre down the valley.

I put on my thick terry cloth robe and slippers and went outside to scatter a couple of handfuls of seed into the grove, and, because he was so patient and unafraid, right on the pavers at Mr. Lonely’s feet. He tucked in right away and as I turned to go back inside I could hear the chaffinches and green finches and sparrows flying down from the trees surrounding the house. Breakfast for the birds at the dawn of the world. That’s what it felt like and it’s the same every day. Cold, tranquil, sun dappled and perfect. I smiled and went back inside.

Valerie woke and stretched and murmured good morning sweetly and we had breakfast in bed, warm beneath the covers, watching avian antics as the birds rattled through the seed and the sun rose until it shone directly in the bedroom window. For the umpteenth time I reminded myself to clean the windows as they are hard to see through when the sun blazes through them. It’s like driving up the 309 Road into the setting sun and struggling to see out the streaked and crazed windshield of the car. I add it to the list.

The walkway, version three, is the priority and that is what I end up focusing on for the rest of the day. Guests are coming in four days to celebrate our victory over the virus and I’d like to have it finished before then. I have to stop twice. Once to swap out gas bottles for the kitchen stove and once for lunch. The birds in the grove kept me company and row by row I slowly lay pavers and bricks in a gently curving path from the end of the raised walkway next to the storage room shipping container toward the new steps up to the deck of the forest porch. Time flies and as the sun sets behind the northwest ridge and the light begins to fade I pack up my tools and take stock of my progress. Halfway done and tomorrow when I go into town to replace the gas bottle I’ll have to pick up three more bags of bedding sand and thirty more bricks. I’ll use the trip to take four bags of trash down now that the refuse transfer station is back to running normally. Down and back in two hours if all goes well. And it will.

Night folds its arms around the forest and the stars come out clear and bright. It’s going to be a cold night. Two Moreporks begin calling in the trees down toward the river. I answer, saying hello and goodnight, and wish them good hunting. The moon is waning and won’t be up until late this night. Before sleep takes me I will give thanks for all that this day has given me. Miracles and light, love and laughter. It’s all you need and it’s all right here in the forest. I could not be in a better place.

 

 

 

Breathing Easy (or Not)

May 5, 2020

Day 45

For the record, I am ill. Under the weather. Sick. Feeling poorly. Less than ideal.

I have a recurring headache, a tiny off kilter trembling centered just behind my cheekbones and numbness in my hands and fingertips, but the real kicker is a persistent migrating congestion in my lungs that despite my best intention and mumblings about a river in Egypt, will not go away. Wheezing with the slightest exertion, every now and then hawking up mucous and spitting it out on my work bench to examine it for green streaks or blood or aliens, then wiping it up with a paper towel and continuing with my work, I’ve been ever mindful that Valerie has been unwell for far longer and that I cannot afford to be sick. Yet sick I am. So I telephoned my doctor and told asked her to look at my chart for May 7, 2019 and write me a prescription for whatever I had back then. She did and I’ve been taking prednisone and I’ll keep you informed.

Lungs, lungs, lungs. People tend to take them for granted until there’s a glitch. If the malfunction is serious then they don’t worry long, but that’s not often a problem as the lungs usually don’t just pack it  in suddenly. That’s more the heart’s department. Lungs are the long suffering organ of the human body. They absorb a lifetime of a smoker’s choice of combustion byproducts and hang on until the bitter end, fighting all the way to do their simple job of getting oxygen into the bloodstream. Or they are filled slowly, year after year, with coal dust inhaled by a miner trying his best to put food on his family’s plates and after a few decades of this there are no unspoiled alveoli to speak of in the tortured passages of his airways and he dies of Black Lung. Asbestos fibres are another killer that starts out in the lungs, and true to form, that unsung organ soldiers on for many years before giving up the ghost and taking its owners with it.

Tuberculosis, cancer, emphysema, the names of lung diseases are legion. My particular disease is asthma. I daresay there are a great deal more obscure lung diseases that start with the letter ‘A’ that come before asthma but, nevertheless, I’m right there in the ‘A’s’, so I have that going for me. Considering what’s happening in the world right now, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about vaccines, and in my research I’ve come across several accounts of people who developed asthma right after they were vaccinated as children. Vaccinated for what, you ask? Tuberculosis is the main one. My grandfather had tuberculosis and lived, only to die of emphysema much later from chain smoking Marlboros. In looking into what was in vaccines back then I ran across a recurring chemical named Thimerosal.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/thimerosal/index.html

Back in the day (mid 1950’s), almost fifty percent of Thimerosal was composed of mercury, which was used as a preservative. The mercury was considered an inactive ingredient, but, by weight and dosage, it’s use pushed children way above the limits for mercury poisoning then and seems to have been in use until the turn of the century.

What does a three year old boy in the 50’s know of any of that? Precious little. I was simply the child in our house who had asthma and that was that. Luck of the draw. I dealt with it as well as I could and never complained. It was was it was. Looking back though, and talking with childhood development specialists I realise that the disease had to have taken its toll on my energy and stamina throughout my youth and thus affected my ability to absorb information during school and to process it afterwards during the homework portion of life. I was always behind and while I am not blaming the disease on my lack of Nobel Prizes on the mantelpiece, it did affect the course my life took.

I remember being responsible for the exiling of all furred pets from our house, for being excused from the work of sweeping out the basement during monthly cleanups, for being the sick one, of having to be cared for just a little more than others in the family. When I wanted to join the cross country team in high school I ended up being the manager instead. Pop Warner football league for two years in my early teens was a struggle, first because I was a skinny, lightweight kid and second because I had no wind.

When my number was called during the 1972 draft (last year of the draft for Viet Nam and I won the lottery with number 68) it never occurred to me to use my asthma to dodge that responsibility. Instead of being hoovered into the army I chose to enlist in the navy and then had to lie through my teeth re my medical history to make it to the physical at the induction centre. There I held my breath, no pun intended, because though I had no special love for, or desire to be in the navy, it was something I’d set my mind to and I did not want to fail at it. As it turned out, I had a pulse and the rest was history. (Though I did have to repeat the lie when I volunteered for submarines and then again to be selected for naval nuclear power school.) Fire fighting training was a challenge, as I did not want to have an asthma attack when they placed us in the training building on hose crew teams and then set the other half of the building on fire. Same with the tear gas training room. Always wondering if I’d suddenly lock up and pass out and be kicked out. But I never did and never was. My lungs ceased to be an issue for for the next 38 years unless you count the times I stayed too long in the same room with a dog or in a house where a dog or cat lived. I learned about albuterol inhalers and exercise induced respiratory distress and I was smart about my exposure to allergens and I coped.

Even living on the Big Island of Hawaii with its constant VOG did not hold me back. I worked on a wind farms and in a restaurant for a while then joined Atlantis Submarines in Kona, Hawaii. After my career as a tourist submarine pilot (had to be SCUBA certified then for maintenance requirements – another test for my lung capacity) I worked construction (lots of treated wood sawdust and few masks).  In 2010 I was able to pass a rigorous spirometry treadmill test in order to be in the running for a job at the summit of Mauna Kea at the Keck Observatory. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I got the job after the first candidate they chose couldn’t handle the altitude. A curious thing about working at the summit is that without exception, everyone behaves as if they are short of oxygen up there – because they are. Once in the door and assigned to shift work at night I found I was able to handle the low oxygen levels fine and did so for the next 6 years.

Then a leap of faith into another life and love led me to my last physical examination, the one required to be granted a residence visa for New Zealand. This one was not too hard and I passed with flying colours. Found the property we live on now and began building from nothing and over the last four years noticed something strange. For some reason, whether because I was living in the midst of the rot and genesis of a podocarp forest, or because I was (say it ain’t so) getting old or perhaps my life of breathing asbestos from navy ships or VOG or sawdust or extended periods of extreme high altitude were catching up to me, I don’t know, but for whatever reason, take your pick, my asthma had returned.

The building of a house alone, using a shovel to slowly excavate and sculpt and shift the land, clearing under-story trees and scrub, all these and more are candidates for being the possible or cumulative cause for my lungs diminishing in capacity. Personally, I think it’s age and a short use by date. I’d gotten a few respiratory infections that I couldn’t shrug off as quickly as I’d hoped, but nothing serious. I kept on working (the house wasn’t going to build itself) and was doing just that up until two months ago (actually, I’m still building, but I’m using scavenged or saved materials) when along came the Covid-19 Contagion. Hey, presto! – and suddenly I’m thinking about my my lungs more than usual, which, for me, is saying something.

The fact that I’ve got a lung infection right now (which is being seen to and worked on, thanks to Valerie’s persistence and love) was the catalyst for this post, but the contagion is the active ingredient. I am, as you’ve no doubt heard by now, one of the herd destined to be culled. One of Darwin’s least fit, so to speak. I am that person the young are talking about when they blithely say, “He was going to die sooner or later”. (Come say that to my face and see who meets St. Peter first.) But the young are young, they want to be out of lockdown and back to doing whatever the smartest people on the planet do, so I understand. I wish I could fast forward a few decades to that time when the realisation that they were not quite as smart as they thought sinks in. The expression on their faces would be priceless and of course there’d be the spectacle of them being marginalised or dismissed by a younger and equally clueless generation. Different people learning the same lesson over and over again. Life on earth.

But it’s not all bad. There are some bright spots out there for the discerning observer to see. First of these are today’s numbers, fresh off the press from the New Zealand Ministry of Health…

Minus 1 New cases. (How that happens I know not, but I’ll take it as read.) 26 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is 87%. And an exciting first today – 3 Zeroes in the Zeroes department. Notable among these is the first day since the count began that there was no change in the number of confirmed cases. ZERO growth. That’s yuge, to paraphrase a politician of note. Really yuge. No change in the number of people in the hospital and Zero deaths again over the last twenty-four hours. Bada-bing, bada-bam, bada-boom! I love it. It’s a big day for New Zealand and big day for me because I have a vested interest in continuing the long saga of my lungs, specifically the part where they keep working.

On that note I saw a video posted by an emergency room doctor who said that though the  current paradigm has doctors preparing for and treating patients suffering from the Covid-19 virus as pneumonia and/or ARD cases, they should in fact be looking deeper because, he said, it appears to him that everyone he’s treated and who has died appeared to be suffering from high altitude sickness. Which I had Zero trouble with during my time at the observatory. An obscure connection? Perhaps. But it’s good news to me and it gives me hope, because, unlike the person in the photo below, who gives me no hope, I know what it is like to really have difficulty breathing.

 

 

( https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8283957/Covidiot-explains-cut-hole-face-mask-makes-easier-breathe.html )

 

You can’t make this stuff up.

(On second thought my friend Russell Gayer could make it up. https://www.amazon.com/One-Idiot-Short-Village-Characters-ebook/dp/B079848Q3K

On third thought, he probably did, and paid that lady to do it. Kentucky’s not too far from Arkansas.

 

 

Give me hope for the human race, Russell. Tell me you put her up to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t Insult the Cook

April 28, 2020

Day 38

First day of Alert Level 3 in New Zealand. The numbers for today are…

3 New cases. 34 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is 82%. (18% to go.) 258 infected people remaining.

 

 

Anyone reading this know how to make aspirin? A nail? Plastic? Could you build an internal combustion engine from scratch? Make antibiotics? A solid state transistor? A battery of any type? Paper? Glue? Ink? Could you build a printing press and publish a blog the old fashioned way? Do you know how to grow wheat? Harvest it? Grind the grain into flour? Build a windmill? Make candles? Dress a hog? Tan a hide? Breed horses? Break a horse? Ride a horse? Do any of you know why an airfoil generates lift and how?

One hundred years ago the era of the horse was coming to a close and the era of the automobile was just a quarter of a century old. Humans had been flying airplanes for 17 years and Robert Goddard, one of the fathers of modern rocketry, had just written a letter to the Smithsonian Institution in which he proposed photographing the moon and planets by using fly-by probes. Penicillin was 8 years from being invented and the Spanish Flu Pandemic, during which 675,000 Americans were killed, had been over for a year.

Ten years from now what will people say when they look back at everything that is happening this year? Will the Covid-19 Pandemic that led to the second Great Depression be the lead story? Or will it be the first test launches of SpaceX’s Starship rocket? Will there be a settlement on Mars? Will Taiwan exist as a nation or will it have be violently crushed and then silently absorbed in the greatest act of revisionist history ever undertaken by any nation in the world?

What does the rest of the year hold for us? A gradual return to the way we were? A readjustment of the blinders we grew used to in the previous two decades when we ceded manufacturing to China? Will the food chain of the world be broken? What conflicts will arise out of the chaos and shortages to come? Will the progressives of the world win out as the baby boomers die off? Will socialism rise to prominence until it runs out of other people’s money? Will you be speaking Chinese in a re-education camp?

In fifty years few people will remember witnessing the first landing of men on the moon. Those who do will not be able to say publicly that it wasn’t Chinese taikonauts, but American astronauts who took those first steps. Such behaviour will result in imprisonment, slave labor and ultimately, death, as transplantable organs will still be cheaper to harvest than to grow in labs. The future that I write of will be fact and the past I was part of will be erased. Right now 1,400,000,000 people on this planet are already part of that world. The rest of us are closer to it that we think. Don’t believe this? When you try to boycott China, you’re going to see the extent to which we’ve become reliant on them. They know this. Depend upon it. Their attitude at this juncture in history can best be summed up by an old saying of theirs that goes, ‘If you want your dinner, don’t insult the cook’. This is what we have to contend with now and it is what we will have to contend with should we attempt to reclaim our treasure from the Chinese dragon.

In his novel Time Enough for Love, Heinlein (Yes, Robert Anson again) says, “Human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

I contend that countries should be able to do the same. The tale of Covid-19 and surviving its aftermath without selling our souls has yet to be written, but if it was, I’m betting the moral of the story will be, for individuals as well as nations, to do their own cooking.

 

It will Fluctuate

April 26, 2020

Day 34

 

 

During the previous month members of our tight-knit community have taken it upon themselves to do the easement road maintenance while the workers normally contracted for this job are locked down. Grass is weed-whacked and gorse rooted out. Cracks in the road have been marked for future attention and safety barriers are in the process of being water blasted and re-painted. One project undertaken by the Mahakirau Forest Estate Society Incorporated (MFESI) is the construction of a research ‘hub’ near the picnic area that will serve to house visiting biologists and guest workers. This week individual volunteers, working from an online schedule so that only one person is on site at a time, began staking out and clearing the land for this facility. Life goes on and despite us all being constrained by the challenges of this contagion, our work continues.

Today I started dismantling an old, out of disused outhouse that was knocked over by a falling tree a few years back. I’m using the thin plywood from the walls to make small storage boxes that will sit on the new shelves in the workshop shipping container. Internal framing is coming from scrap wood, fasteners are being culled from a box of screws collected over time from various other building modifications. I throw very little away and am glad I have this habit because all of the hardware stores are closed. Like the whelk, I must live in my home while I build it. The storage boxes will replace the hodgepodge of cardboard ones that contain all of the things that won’t yet fit into our small (but growing) house. I will build one a week while working on other projects higher on the priority list, but eventually they’ll all be done and I can cross them off and move on down the line.

With one piece of outhouse wall to work with, I set up a temporary workbench on the deck of the forest porch and hummed Joni Mitchell’s Chelsea Morning as the sun poured in like butterscotch. The days are getting shorter and colder, but there are still a few warm and pleasant hours on either side of noon. The swallows are active in this interlude, their scratchy chirps filling the sky as they swoop and wheel around the clearing below the house. A few quail come to the steps and call and are fed by their humans. After their meal they sit in the warm sun in the grass at the edge of the grove and dream of summer. Chaffinches have returned from wherever it is they go during the summer and the moreporks are calling earlier in the afternoon. In this tail end of Indian Summer two of the rose bushes are putting out buds and the climbing rata are blooming in orange brush strokes all over the valley.

For a few minutes, Valerie walked in the garden, breathing in the outside air for the first time in three weeks. A smile wreathed her face as she contemplated what must be done to return the place to order. For now that is all she can do, but it is enough.

Other jobs done included two loads of laundry in the newly painted ‘laundry room’. I figured out how to clean the antique Chinese white ceramic lamp whose close spaced decorative lattices have been collecting dust for years. Counting the holes in four square inches and multiplying by the total surface area told me that there are over a thousand tiny, irregularly shaped triangles to clean. I put the lamp base in a bucket of soapy water collected from the outflow of the washing machine where I will let it soak for a few days. Should take about a week to finish that tedious task by doing a little bit here, a little there, in between other endeavours.

Fading light and lowering temperatures told me to stop and wrap up. Shut down, tools down…lockdown. I walked to the verandah and scanned the sky above the ridge to the northwest. It took me a while, but I found the thin sliver of the new moon hiding in plain sight, chasing the sun. So beautiful. So absolutely, amazingly beautiful. I linger there for a time and marvel, then go inside to check the numbers.

When asked by a brash young reporter what he thought the stock market would do that week, financier James Pierpont Morgan famously replied, “It will fluctuate”. I think that holds true for pandemics as well.

9 New cases, up from the day before. 24 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is 77%. Two Zeroes on the board today but again they are just place holders. 328 people are still infected.

Thus far I am not aware of anyone of note in New Zealand weighing in on the question of  whether previously infected people develop immunity or not. Can you catch Covid-19 again and again? Other questions are percolating to the surface as time goes on. Massive strokes are being reported in young patients currently hospitalised with active infections and a great deal of the at home deaths in New York City during the past month were from strokes. I will wait for further developments as April draws to a close and reflect on how fortunate I am to have been to be able to self-isolate in such a wonderful, peaceful spot.

 

 

 

Abide with Me

April 25, 2020

Day 33

Today is Anzac Day in New Zealand and Australia. Normally there are ceremonies held at dawn at war memorials, cemeteries and Maori maraes all across the country to commemorate all New Zealanders who served and died in all wars and conflicts and the contribution of all who have served. Because it encompasses members of all races and creeds and unites everyone in remembrance of those that gave their all for the nation, there is no more important day in the year. 

This Anzac Day was unlike any other that has ever been celebrated because people everywhere, though in full lockdown, standing in their driveways or gardens or apart but together in public places, still found ways to honour and remember their countrymen, family and friends. In so doing, they showed why this nation is special. When adversity challenges them they rally as one to steadfastly, quietly and resolutely do what must be done.  There is no greater testament to this country and her people than the way they celebrate Anzac Day.

Here is proof. If you take the time to read and watch all of the different articles and features contained in this link, you will begin to see what I have. Truly and sincerely a moving tribute to a people and a country. Enjoy.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/121260057/live-kiwis-commemorate-extraordinary-anzac-day-in-covid19-lockdown

And though it all, the numbers must be counted.


5 New cases. 23 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is 76%. (Nothing in the Zero department.) Another day, another death. Bless them and bless us. It could be much worse.



Usually toward the end of April the skies turn gray and cold and Anzac Day often has a somber feel to it. Today was different. A brilliant red dawn and later, a bright and beautiful day greeted those who rose early to stand and remember.

Tradition at services on Anzac Day calls for the singing of Abide with Me. The hymn is a prayer for God to remain present with the speaker throughout life, through trials, and through death. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szjYUaF3nro&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1RGI21RD_vIZr4PvW-e9vq4FDuqASxUvb1X5xG-DoSGFcvXMbj6zoHmfg

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word,
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terror, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings;
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea.
Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile,
And though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee.
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

On On Off

100 words for Friday Fictioneers based on the photo prompt supplied by Ted Strutz and selected for this week’s round of stories by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.

 

(Copyright Ted Strutz)

The switch positions and the cord wound clockwise said the drop was compromised. The scorch mark told him to burn everything and run. The hole was new and sure to have a camera inside.

<–>

He walked by with measured steps, eyes on the ground. Another wage slave drone headed to a dead-end job. Mindless. Hopeless.

But they were wrong.

He would remove the RFID chip in his forearm and follow protocol for reintegration into the network. Different city. Change of identity. Same goal.

One man’s terrorist. Another man’s freedom fighter.

The victor writes the history books.

There is always hope.

 

 

Boy’s Day

A hundred word story for Friday Fictioneers, a school of writers as varied and colorful as the koi in the photo prompt shown below. Their manifold offerings can be found here. My story is written for my son, Scott and his wife Tamara, who are about to become parents for the first time. I love you.

Copyright Douglas M. MacIlroy

New snow fell softly from a cold gray sky on the day I was allowed to return. Here and there amid a sea of debris protruded concrete islands, one of these the preschool of my son Kenji. The wave found him there, and took Kumi, his mother, as she raced across town to reach him in time…

 

Memories roil the calm surface I struggle to maintain.

 

On the flagpole next to my empty and quiet new house overlooking a pond filled with a kaleidoscope of fry, I raise a large gold and blue koinobori and offer it to the wind.

(Koinobori)

Dedicated to all the parents who lost children in the Tsunami of March, 2011, Sendai, Japan.

Waiting on a Moment

100 word love story for Madison Wood’s Friday Fictioneers inspired by the photo prompt below and a little of bit of this song.

Still working on last week’s comments and reading. (You’ve created a monster, Madison! Have to go get some  more torches.) Aloha, D.

 

“…Happens like that sometimes. Strong signal and then all of a sudden dead air. Leaves you wondering….”

“How will I know?”

“Oh, you’ll know, son. Sweetest, most amazing feeling. Like rain in the desert.”

“And if not?”

“Then one day you’ll understand she’s been telling you all along. Meantime, remember there’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth.”

“I miss her, Dad.”

“As you should if she’s half the person you think she is. Not much else to do except keep the glass of your life totally full. The right woman will come to drink sooner or later.”

 

 

Just Another Night at the Office

My office is ten feet from the edge of a cinder ridge on the west side of the summit of Mauna Kea, 13,522 feet above sea level and forty miles from the nearest town. I can see that town, Kamuela, my home, from where I sit, for my office is outside, exposed to the elements. When there are no clouds blocking the view the orange lights of the main street are plainly visible. I can even make out the softer green lights of the observatory headquarters building where the astronomers I serve work.  My hours start when the sun goes down and end just before it rises again many hours later.

The only piece of furniture in my office is a sturdy reclining beach chair securely mounted to the top of a motorized revolving turntable. From this spot I have seen the canvas of the atmosphere painted by the master in sunlight and wind and cloud. I have watched Maui floating on a silver sea of cumulus that turns to red and fades in glory as the earth rotates eastward into darkness. One by one the stars appear as dusk gives way and the curtain rises on the night. The constellation’s brighter stars tell me time and date and allow me to place myself in the grand scheme of things. Full dark comes in an hour and the night is revealed to be not truly dark at all. The sky is alive with stars and their light fills the air with radiance.

My office.

Scorpius rises around an hour before midnight, its curved tail hoisting with it the thickest part of the Milky Way and the Galactic Center. During the next five hours it will climb to zenith, skim the top of the dome of Keck-1 and the Subaru telescope and then dive into the Pacific just before dawn. In the darkness before sunrise I will see satellites and shooting stars and watch the eastern sky begin to brighten as the terminator races west.

I wear a special suit of clothes to hold the cold at bay and sit holding a pair of 25×100 astronomical binoculars in my thick gloved hands. As the hours pass I imagine myself a Mayan priest or a Druid studying the skies for signs and portents, when in fact I am only there to watch for airplanes overflying the summit. If I see any my job is to press a button, shuttering our adaptive optics laser and then reset it after the plane is gone. In the long course of many nights I have slowly come to see the night sky as though there were no Earth rotating in space and me upon it. I am beginning to become conscious of our place in the Universe.

In the deepest night I talk to my father who is two years dead but by no means gone. I talk to his new companions, the ancients who have gone before and who still listen if you but speak. I talk to myself and imagine beauty and I think of Haiku. Life is grand and the view grander.

I am not bored. I am not cold.

I am grateful.

Just another night at the office.

Aloha,

Doug