We decided to finally build a broody house because we also have guinea fowl. Now guineas are about as dumb as a bag of fertilizer, but one hen can keep an acre of land almost completely free of ticks. Usually the flock will wander around grazing all day, but when they spot something unusual they freak the hell out. Then, in terror, they run toward it. Something unusual can be anything –  a stick, a dandelion, a flapping leaf, a garbage bag, someone trying to feed them, other guineas, dogs, large moles, etc.

Guineas begin laying eggs in earnest in early spring. Once there are enough eggs (anywhere from four to forty-four or more), they go broody. Guineas are great brooders. However, they absolutely suck as mothers. When the chicks hatch, the mother takes up her wandering ways and acts like the tiny parade of exhausted, cheeping fluffies behind her do not exist. The babies can either keep up or they can’t. On the keep-up side, the kids win the prize of having the warm protection from Mom when she beds down for the night, only to go through the entire ordeal again the next day. On the can’t side, they die. Most of the tiny flock almost always die. If I don’t want that to happen I must find the nest, estimate how long a guinea hen has been missing, then keep track of the days. Their eggs usually hatch 28 days after Mom starts sitting. Once I spot the herd, I scoop as many chicks as I can catch, put them under a heat lamp and hand-raise them. I’m very tired of raising chicks. I’d much rather it was done au natural, hopefully by something covered in feathers.

So this year we decided to build a broody house, so when mom guinea hatches her clutch she’s already in confined quarters and can’t abandon her beloved children until they have a fighting chance. But it didn’t turn out that way. Neither resident of Kitpu Estates could have guessed that Cordelia Brown (a real live chicken) would pick this exact moment to go broody. I’m actually not sorry this happened. In response to this unexpected miracle, I picked six random guinea eggs and as many chicken eggs as possible and moved Cordelia Brown and the eggs into the newly-built brooding house. There’s no way of knowing if any of the eggs are fertilized (even though we have both male guineas and roosters for exactly this very thing).

In my experience, chickens are a million times better mothers than guineas. Once, around five years ago, Gloria Black was able to hatch thirty-two chicks. We sold all but four, of which she did a bang-up job raising. Three are still thriving today. Last year we adopted three weird chickens: Scooby, Scooby Two and Doo. Doo turned out to be the only lady. Early this spring she went broody, then sat and sat and sat and sat for many more days than required to hatch either chicken eggs (21 days) or guinea eggs (28 days). Finally, admitting defeat, I had a heart-to-heart with Doo and convinced her that sitting any longer would be fruitless. After candling each egg, unsurprisingly, every single one was unfertilized. There was no joy in Mudsville.

Now, once more, we’ve been granted the boon of a broody hen by the agrarian gods, so the denizens of Kitpu Estates have their fingers and toes crossed.

Photo Credits
Photos by Gab Halasz – all rights reserved

Almost immediately after turning east on Highway 9 from the entry of St. Crispen’s I discovered how high the elevation was by the vista view of the valley and distant hill tops that lay before me. A wonderful view in and of itself and although unrecognized at the time, heralded an even more delightful outcome to the quick, there-and-back excursion.

With few exceptions the route taken south on Highway 56 to town was most pleasant and I must say surprising. The fields and meadows were lush and green and the roads were clean and inviting.

The highway going through town, north to south, runs parallel to Wewoka Avenue, the main street of “downtown” and by-passes what once was Wewoka’s main retail section and home to the county courthouse. I was glad to see mature trees on most every block providing shade to the benches set outside for visitors. Trees that did not exist back in the day, as they are called.

All too many of the storefronts were empty but the buildings were solid, maintained and usable. One such major building had been remodeled and offered loft-style apartments for rent, an offering normally found in larger towns and cities. Being the county seat, one would expect to find lawyers and bail bond offices as I did but to my delight there were numerous mom-and-pop stores open for business.

The first to stand out was the Barking Waters Book Store (I love that name, Barking Waters), where a coming-soon sign was posted promising Book and Poetry Readings. A few blocks south next to the old Key Theater is the Norman Drug Store. The doors were wide open giving a clear view inside revealing an actual lunch counter with stools. That alone was all I needed to turn around and venture in. On the left of the entry were glass showcases brimming with town memorabilia. Sitting on top of the showcases was a variety of individual photographs revealing the interior of the very same drug store from many, many decades ago beginning in the 1930’s. How wonderful.

The lunch counter, stools and wall trappings were original to the building as were the small leather-bound bench-style seats and tables for diners. I started to take pictures and discovered two gentlemen seated and nearly out of my view watching me with curiosity. I was greeted by the man with the walking stick, Ferril Williamson with a hardy, “Good morning!” I accepted the invitation to join them and was then introduced to the other man, J. Glenn Evans. Mr. Williamson informed me J. Glenn was the town’s writer, novelist and poet and the owner of the Barking Waters Book Store. I was all smiles.

He was accused of bringing so-called enlightened California ways with him when he returned from his many years of living out west and that his so-called intellect was only tolerated because he was so pleasant. Mr. Williamson informed me his grand kids refer to him as the skyscraper. I took the bait and asked, “Why is that? Because I’m full of tall stories,” he said. That’s how it began, with hand-shake greetings and stories.

Soon after, we were joined by Tom Ryan, the town’s mayor and then by Kenny Meyers, a “honcho” of the local Lion’s Club. The mayor excused himself and moments later brought me a cup of freshly made coffee.

I learned a little about the town in short order. For instance, the stream a few blocks away from where we were sitting has a small water fall and is quite noisy. Native Americans referred to the stream as Wewoka. The English translation is Barking Waters. Now I get it.

Many pleasantries were exchanged as were questions answered (not nearly enough though) about each other’s back-ground including what brought them and me to this town and what makes them stay. The clock quickly stole minutes away from my visit. My time there was cut short due to me being the ride home for my hard-working spouse. Goodbyes were expressed in earnest and I exited the store and the town with the feeling that every morning and everyday should be so pleasant, so meaningful. And it was made so by a few friendly faces in a drug store. My timing back to St. Crispin’s for my wife was impeccable. After entering the car to head back home, she said, “What did you do for the last forty minutes?” I said, “Let’s move to Wewoka.”

Photo Credits

Photos by Darrell T. Smith – All Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio
Darrell T. Smith

Darrell T. Smith is a real estate broker, writer and artist from Oklahoma City. He has written and published many short stories and is the illustrator and publisher of the Big Branson Coloring Book.

Website: Darrell T Smith Art & Design
Follow Darrell on Facebook

The day had been cloudy and chilly, but no rain. There were already reds and yellows speckled through the green hills. We were two portages in from Canoe Lake on Burnt Island Lake.

When I stopped by my parent’s house a week before Dad had casually mentioned that the doctor said his ticker was missing a few beats here and there. Dad also said “Don’t tell your mother.”

He’d had open heart surgery seven years before when he was 48, his sixth year of sobriety. At that point I figured that he was fully repaired and he would live forever.

I remember visiting him the evening after the operation. He loved the details of any process. My mom, my sisters and I listened while he gave us his version of the surgery.

“They sliced open my chest and sawed my rib cage down the middle.” He ran his finger from his neck down to his stomach and smiled. “Then they pried back my ribs…and to keep the ribs from snapping closed they have these braces kind of like a fireman’s jaws of life.”

My younger sister was in her teens, she raised her hand, “Ok Dad we get the picture.”

He laughed, he wasn’t finished. “They ran a scalpel down my leg and stole about 3 feet of veins that they used to bypass my blocked arteries.”

“Pretty amazing if you think about it,” he said.

My mom asked if it hurt.

He said yes, it hurts like hell.

His eyes fluttered and he fell asleep.

I flopped onto my sleeping bag. “This feels good.” I said. I put my hands behind my head.

Craig nodded. “I’m beat.”

My Dad looked into the tent. “Hey young fellas. Help me get this fire going. We’ll go down to the shore after, it’s clearing up and the stars are amazing.” He stood up and said, “It’s good to be here.”

I was slipping on my shoes when I heard heavy breaths, and grunts. I flew out of the tent. Dad was lying on his back beside the fire. I kneeled down. His chest rose and fell twice and stopped. I pushed on his chest and then punched it, but he was gone.

The fire lit up, sparks shot straight up and became stars. I leaned back on a tree. I figured he was already above us looking down from a place where he knew everything happened just because it had to. I imagined his last breath crossing the lakes and up the rivers and creeks to the highest point in the park where it would stay as long as eternity would allow.

I stood up.

Craig rubbed his eyes and then looked at the fire.

I looked down at Dad’s straw hat lying beside him on the ground.

Craig poked the fire with a stick. “What should we do?” he said. His voice shook.

“We can’t leave now,” I said. “It’s too dark; we’d never find our way back.”

“We have to cover him. I’ll get the tarp.” I opened my father’s tent. His sleeping bag was laid out and his toothbrush and toothpaste beside it. I untied the tarp from his pack.

Craig and I draped it over dad’s body.

Without speaking we started placing stones to hold it down. We continued until we created a border that followed the edge of the tarp. It looked like a cowboy’s grave in the desert.

Craig and I went to the tent because it felt like there was nothing left to do but wait. I didn’t sleep but I tried. I never knew if I was dreaming that the tarp was rattling or animals were actually poking at my father. I didn’t leave the tent until the morning light reminded me all of it was real. I didn’t know what time it was, my father was the only one with a watch and he was wearing it.

I remembered there was a lodge on Tepee Lake. We decided that it would be our first stop hoping someone would be there.

We paddled away from shore, leaving everything except the wallets and keys. I looked over my shoulder once, the green mound of dad under the tarp looked exactly like what it was. The food pack was still hanging high in a pine tree.

The portage was easy with no gear. We slid up to the dock and the lodge looked deserted. Every ounce of my soul was fretting that we’d have to go all the way back to the outfitters.

Craig waited in the canoe while I went to check. I shaded my eyes to look through the glass door, chairs were stacked along the walls and a vacuum cleaner sat in the middle of the vast dining room. My shoulders slumped and I let my hands drop to my sides. I heard something and a woman came around the corner.

“I thought I heard noises,” she said.

I launched straight into telling her what happened. She took me to a phone in the kitchen, another huge space of stainless steel tables and the faint smell of tomatoes.

I called the police first and the officer asked if he should call my family. I said I’d do it. Mom answered on the second ring. When I told her she said she had felt it last night. Then she cried.

The police came and drove us to a lake where they kept a sea plane. Craig flew with them to break down our camp and get my father. I sat in the cabin office for however long they were gone. It reminded me of the tree fort my dad had built in our willow tree when we were kids, the smell of wood and leaves. I stared at a calendar on the wall wanting to see the pictures from the other months but never stood up to flip the sheets.

Over and over I played out the scenario of going home. Mom and Dad’s house would be full of people, my sisters, aunts, uncles, friends and I hoped I wouldn’t cry but wished I could. But mostly, I wondered how many times I would tell this story that was yet to find its place in me.

Photo Credit

Algonquin Park is from pixabay

Guest Author Bio
Jeffrey Griffiths

Jeffrey’s short fiction has been published in various literary journals including The Puritan, Qwerty, Front and Centre and the Danforth Review. He placed first in Sub Terrain’s 2018 short fiction contest, and first in 2019 Gritlit writer’s festival short fiction contest. He teaches Creative Writing in Continuing Education at Mohawk College in Hamilton Ontario.

Blog / Website: https://jeffatthisage.wordpress.com/

For many post-war, young families in the U.S., Sundays used to be synonymous with no work or school, sleeping late, coffee and books, or the (much bigger than weekday) newspaper in bed. As a child, Sundays for my very Catholic family meant church, naturally. Not only was attendance mandatory, but we also dressed up for church in those days, with the formal attire matching the previously more formal rituals of the mass. Mothers clad their daughters in matching dresses, while they donned hats, posh suits and patterned clutch bags. In hindsight, church was more like a fashion show than day of atonement, where every week after we settled into our pews, we rubbernecked to see families work the aisle as if it were a runway. In early adolescent years, instead of pretty dress sightings, I looked for the boy I currently had a crush on. At around age 14, I gave up church—and God for that matter— to worship in the house of nature. Pre-Christian pagans used the day to honor the sun, just as the name implies. Having a Sunday walk in the park or woods surrounding my house seemed more appropriate to celebrate this special day. No dress or patent leather shoes required.

Sundays also meant special breakfast (after church, of course). Weekday sugary cereal and milk gave way to bacon and eggs and sweet biscuits. Seemingly just after we finished breakfast, my large Italian family would gather for a late afternoon spaghetti and meatball dinner every week at my Nana’s city row house. Three families of aunts, uncles and cousins, all crowded around the table to have the afternoon meal that my grandmother had been cooking since early morning.

Everyone had time to do this on Sunday because local commerce took a day off as well. All the stores were closed. No one expected to be able to buy a thing on Sunday. It’s almost hard to imagine now. Most states in the U.S. had “Blue Laws”—in effect in some way since colonial times—specifically prohibiting alcohol sales and going to work. Without these diversions and chores, it would be easier to preserve a day of rest and worship, our puritan forefathers had decided. I am far from puritanical, but I’ve recently been nostalgic for those Sundays of childhood. Not the church part. But the gathering and ritual part.

By 1978, in my home state of Pennsylvania, the blue laws had mostly been repealed and little by little, we came into the modern world by treating Sunday just like any other day of the week. Not to mention, our 21st century technology that now allows people to work 24/7 from anywhere. Sundays seem to have lost their specialness.

But here in Mexico—for now at least— there is still a feeling of respect for Sunday. Mexico is famous for the importance of its family relationships, and the modern Mexican Sunday comes very close to my own 1960’s Italian one, with church going and food preparation part of the importance of the day. Also, Mexicans still dress up. I love walking into town to see street sellers gone, taco trucks and flower vendors closed up for the day. Working people are home with their families, la abuela, no doubt cooking up the afternoon comida. I like to imagine large Mexican families, similar to my own, gathering to have their meal together.

My childhood Sundays of white linen-clad tables abundant with food and wine; adults with kids on their laps, laughing and talking for hours are long gone. Modern life, with shopping and working available at all hours also has our families spread around the world with little time to visit. Lives change and become quieter as we age. Our elders die and carry our traditions with them.

A small portion of my young family, circa early 1960’s. I’m at the head of the table on my grandfather’s lap, stuffing food into my mouth

The pandemic has reminded all of us about the importance (and absence) of gathering with the people we love. My weekly Sunday afternoons with my extended family represented that love. So how to make one day a week feel special again? Can I maintain a tradition of one? Many job and life style changes allow me to treat every day like Sunday if I want to. But I will try and stick to the original. My14-year old self had the right idea to replenish the week’s energy in nature, which I can still do. Beyond that, with our abilities to gather still curtailed, for now, I grant myself permission. Permission to dream. To be aimless. To veg. Permission to answer to a slightly more hedonistic call for one day a week and treat Sunday like a true day off. Off from any shoulds that might distract me from the pure pleasures of Sunday.

Photo Credits

Photos courtesy of Linda Laino

First published at Linda Laino Words and Pictures

Guest Author Bio
Linda Laino

Linda Laino is an artist and writer who has been making art in one form or another for over 40 years. Holding an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, she enjoys playing with words as much as form and color. Her poem, Poem at Sixy was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018. Since 2012, she has resided in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where the surreal atmosphere and sensuous colors have wormed their way into her paintings. The last few years have found her making art and writing at residencies around the world, most recently in Spain and France. Finding beautiful things on the ground is a favorite pastime. Her art can be seen at www.lindalaino.com. Some of her essays and poetry can be found on her blog, Linda Laino Words + Pictures.

I’ve got a beautiful wife and three kids who love me – at least on my good days. Yet, that hopeful light, still within me, is less bright these days because of disappointments… both man-made and otherwise. I ask, “How could that be, and still remain happy?” Am I oblivious to people’s suffering; or, looking through rose-coloured glasses at our pandemic world? Is it right to feel up, when so many are down?

But, for lack of kindness, this is still a beautiful world, but it’s trying hard not to be. This planet and its people are like a beautiful garden that need constant care to offset the neglect and open hostility towards it. Yet, among the desperately poor and sick, it was Mother Teresa of Calcutta who said the greatest disease is that of being unwanted. Plus, what about disappointments within our own lives? According to her, much of it results from selfishness – selfish with our time, our money, our love… always wanting our own sweet way.

I’ll never be a saint or a shaker-and-mover in the world at large, yet the crazy thought I still might, betrays me. But, I can be kind and forgiving – to family, friends and strangers – not expecting anything in return. I guess that’s doing something. For one thing, it’s making me happy. And, like Christmas, every gift of respect and understanding – given or received – is special.

Never-the-less, one of my greatest regrets, involved my days with Dale Carnegie – a great organization that offers human relations training programs on getting along with others. Since I had taken the program years earlier, and believed in its worth, I thought I would be a natural fit. The problem was that the local franchisee was managed by someone who wasn’t into me, and vise-versa. So, after months of trying everything to build common ground, I quit.

The irony of this situation was not lost on me. But, after a while, it just took on a life of its own. It’s true, failure hurts, but lessons must be learned.

And, committing to doing things differently is only the first step. Finding how you can help the aggrieved, with kindness, is the real magic. Life may feel like you’re caressing a porcupine, but that’s our task if we want to make a positive difference

“Well, I know what’s right /
 I’ve got just one life.

In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around / 
Gonna stand my ground.”
~ Wont Back Down by Tom Petty

It may be, I’m an acquired taste… maybe, I should just shut up and listen. Okay. Yet, some people try to coverup a multitude of sins by saying, “It’s just business.”

However, as Scrooge was reminded, mankind is our business – nothing else. And, if it all gets to be too much, we can always remind ourselves what’s at stake: our true ‘net worth.’

Photo Credit
Photo is pixabay
First published at Fred Parry

I had my own singing gig the morning of my son’s performance and I slipped home for a quick bite to eat and a cup of tea before the fifty-minute drive to the concert venue. I knew the tea was likely to cause me trouble but I really needed it.

My husband and I rode with my parents, who were worried about finding parking (and who like being early). Half-way through the journey my prediction regarding the tea proved to be accurate.

“I need to find a washroom,” I said as we neared our destination, still about forty minutes before concert time.

My husband eagerly scanned the landscape. “We could stop for a coffee,” he said. But the need to find parking was a more pressing concern for my parents.

We headed into the church a few minutes later, pleased to have snagged one of the last spots in the parking lot, and discovered that the choir and orchestra were rehearsing and the sanctuary doors were not yet open to the audience, leaving us standing in what was a large stairway just inside the main doors. The small entryway soon filled and a long line of concert attendees formed outside the building. Increasingly uncomfortable, I eventually squeezed my way through the crowd to the top of the steps and approached one of the volunteers guarding the closed doors.

“Is there a washroom I could use?”

“It’s inside the sanctuary,” she said. It shouldn’t be long now.”

“Is there another one somewhere else in the building?”

“Only on the lower level. You would have to go outside and back in the side door. But I suspect that door is locked,” she said.

Ten more minutes that seemed like an hour went by before they opened the sanctuary doors. I thrust my ticket at the volunteer and headed for the facilities, only to find that there was one single washroom at which a small line had already formed. It was big, lovely, and fully accessible—the kind with a button to open the door and another one to lock it. But it was the only one. (Did I mention this was a huge cathedral boasting a membership of 2,600 families?)

“Okay,” I said to myself, “you’ve waited this long. What’s a few more minutes?”

I passed the time by looking around at anything but the closed washroom door and the red “occupied” light. When my turn finally came I stepped inside and pulled the heavy door shut behind me but instead of latching, it swung open again. I pulled it shut a second time and again it swung open. My cheeks burning, I started whacking first one and then the other button on the wall, to no avail.

“I think you have to let it close by itself,” the gentleman who was next in line finally said.

We stood and waited together—me and the other twenty or so people who needed to use the one toilet.

Joan Kuyek, a founding member of Ottawa’s Gotta Go!, is one of the guests in “Dignity down the toilet: Public bathrooms as a human right.” She says part of the difficulty in addressing the issue is that “it’s something that we consider culturally disgusting” and we don’t want to talk about it. She’s right. It was an awkward and uncomfortable experience for me. In reality, though, it was a brief episode in an otherwise pleasant day in my comfortable, middle class life. I can’t imagine being homeless and having to worry about where to find a toilet several times every day. Or being someone with a bowel disorder and finding myself in a public place with no toilets—or one toilet with a line-up!

Photo Credits

Photos courtesy of Barbara Hampson

Guest Author Bio
Barbara Hampson

Barbara Hampson is a new writer who lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with her husband and two university-age sons.

My son participated in a study-abroad semester in the fall of 2018, so moving to his university residence happened on a cold Saturday just after New Year’s. He ran around packing the morning of his assigned move-in day, having spent Christmas break writing the essay exams required to complete his course work from England. When we arrived it was still early afternoon but his residence office was closing and he had to go to another building across campus to get his key.

Andrew’s room is in a condo-style unit where he shares a bathroom, kitchen, and sitting area with two other students. His roommates didn’t arrive until Sunday so we had the place to ourselves. While Andrew and his brother were setting up his piano keyboard, I decided to make the bed for him. That’s when it became clear that while we had managed to bring sheets and a pillowcase, we had neglected to pack a blanket or a duvet. A few minutes later my husband, who had finished unpacking the car, commented that he hadn’t seen Andrew’s dishes. I started a list of forgotten items that got longer as we continued unpacking.

While the guys tried to get his computer online, I made the mistake of using the bathroom. Based on the ring of grime around the tub, I concluded that it hadn’t been cleaned in this decade. Perhaps it was my preoccupation with dirt that contributed to me somehow locking myself in.

“How did you get in there?” my husband said when he heard me rattling the door handle.”

“The usual way.” I wasn’t sure how else to respond.

“Push the lock button in hard while turning it,” Andrew called, having experienced a similar problem in last year’s unit.

“Oh,” said my husband, looking past me when I managed to open the door. “I thought you were in one of the other bedrooms.”

I didn’t ask why he thought I had broken into another student’s room and closed the door behind me. Instead I announced that I had found a bottle of Pine-Sol and a cloth under the sink and was going to attempt some cleaning. No one responded.

Fifteen minutes later I emerged, pushing damp hair off my face. “The bathroom was filthy but I’ve managed to make it cleaner.”

Andrew gave me a strange look. “I could have called someone to deal with that.”

“Come home with us for tonight,” I said as we were leaving but he had more work to do on his essays and wanted to stay put. We dropped him off at the office to inquire about the internet issue. On the way back to Hamilton I texted my parents, who had offered to help with the move. “Feel like going for a drive tomorrow? We forgot some things.”

“He said he slept with his coat on last night,” my mother told me on the phone Sunday evening.

“Incentive for him to remember to pack a blanket next time,” I thought.

“And there was an empty potato chip bag, which I think was Saturday’s supper. We took him out for lunch; he seemed really hungry.”

Meals are tough when you’re alone, without dishes, on a deserted campus. Thank goodness for grandparents.

Photo Credit

Photo courtesy of Barbara Hampson

Guest Author Bio
Barbara Hampson

Barbara Hampson is a new writer who lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with her husband and two university-age sons.

The centipede always waited until I was home alone to show itself. One night I was sitting on my yoga mat on the basement floor and had a thought: What if that centipede is here somewhere? Seconds later it appeared, right on cue. I stood up, shouting, and it disappeared under a piece of furniture.

When I described the incident to my husband, he laughed. “Did you call me? Here I am,” he said, imitating an overly friendly, humanized version of the thing. I started referring to it as Mr. Centipede, a name that suggested to my husband I was ready to make peace with it. I wasn’t.

“Could you get some traps?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, but then forgot.

Heading to the basement to change a load of laundry a few evenings later, I spotted it at the bottom of the stairs, just sitting out in the open. It was a fatal mistake. I clobbered it with a boot—seven or eight times because that’s how many blows it took to get it to stop writhing and squirming. Even after it was in pieces, the pieces kept squirming.

Later my conscience started to bother me. What had the centipede done to me besides being ugly? A quick internet search told me that centipedes are carnivorous hunters with venomous bites that, if large enough, will eat a frog or a small bird. (The reptile-eating versions are found in the tropics, not in Canada, but it’s the possibility that counts.) I also learned that they will bite humans and their bites can sting and even cause a rash. I went to bed feeling justified.

The next morning I headed downstairs to collect some clothes I had hung on the line. Just outside the laundry room door was Mr. Centipede’s larger, fatter brother. Score one for my second theory. I opened the closet door to grab a shoe and it disappeared under the baseboard. I was horrified to find another one on the sleeve of a shirt I had hung to dry. “Centipede revenge?” I thought. I headed back upstairs without the clothes.

Unnerved, my skin crawling, I decided to go for a walk to get the image of the creatures out of my head. I slipped on my shoes, bent over to tie the laces, and there on the side of my right shoe was another centipede. I kicked off the shoe and the centipede ran into the coat closet and disappeared. “Probably into another shoe,” I thought.

“Sorry you’re dealing with those bugs,” my husband later texted me from his conference in Denver.

“Not bugs,” I replied. “Bugs are flies, or mosquitoes, or maybe ants. These are monsters.”

“Got it,” he said.

The centipedes may have won this battle, but the war is not over.

Photo Credit

Photo is by Jared Belson on flickr – Some Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio
Barbara Hampson

Barbara Hampson is a new writer who lives in Hamilton, Ontario with her husband, two adult sons who come and go, and some centipedes she wishes were gone.

Over the eons of political time, even though the Emperors originally had complete control of the money piles the Empire had at its disposal, they somehow lost control of that important part of their immense power. In the beginning, the money piles in the Empire’s vaults were wonderfully visible and there were mountains of not only notes in many denominations and kinds, but there was above all a very respectable tonnage of real gold. There was so much of it in fact, that it had to be kept very, very safe in a fort. However, gold was a beautiful currency but impractical. To drag around a few pounds of gold when you went to buy a car or some milk weighed very heavily in anyone’s pocket – especially an Emperor’s when he went to purchase bigger items like battleships – so it was agreed that the most practical way of transporting money was to let pieces of paper with beautiful inscriptions represent the value of a certain amount of gold. Yes, there was always a connection between those pieces of paper and the gold in the bank vault so if you had one of those pieces of paper, a bank note, then you could go to the bank and exchange it for a real lump of gold. It felt comforting that that was so.

Again, over time, things changed. After many nations on the globe had abandoned gold in favour of the paper money and the money needs of governments were used to stroke their electorates along the bristles and not the other way had really become standard practice, then the original connection between paper money and real work or tangible assets had been lost. Not completely, mind you, but to an extent that had real impacts on the value of the paper money. Yes, there was a continuous drop in what the Empire’s bank notes would buy in the real world, so over time more and more of those bank notes had to be printed to keep up with the inflated values of this and that and also the needs of not only the Emperor, his courtiers and the Empire’s lords, but also of the common knaves. Exchanging those bank notes for gold eventually went out of style.

About a century ago, a group of very rich people, richer than the Emperor himself, had a party. Well, it was actually a very secret meeting on a very secluded island off the coast of the Empire. Those rich people, which all seven were owners of the biggest banks, had wisely assumed or perhaps had simply taken for granted, that it was unnecessary to compete that much with each other. Owning a bank was risky business in those days when governments were uninterested in guaranteeing the well-being of any bank. So, why compete? Wise decision to not compete, those seven thought. They knew what they were doing those crafty bankers, but somehow they didn’t trust the government and above all they weren’t quite on the same page of parchment as the millions of ordinary knaves that were working away producing real stuff in real factories, mines or on farms and boats. So the seven just went ahead and formed their union. Well, it was actually more like a cartel that was going to be kept secret, but after a few years a certain Emperor by the name of Woodrow got wind of the scheme and liked it. So he fixed things up for the bankers’ cartel and gave them a government charter. Other countries had a central bank that governed their private banks, but the Empire had to have something far superior. It was blessed with a powerful private central bank that was staffed with servants loyal to the seven founders whose banks now could do their bank business without worrying much about other upstart banks. So there was simply less competition in total. After about 18 years in the business, the secret of the new bank gathering was slowly leaked out to the ordinary knaves. But no one said boo about it, since it had been given such an official sounding name with both a word that most knaves would think was a comforting government thing,  which was “Federal”, and then also a second word that would make most ordinary knaves think that there were tons and huge piles of extra money stored for an empire-wide rainy day and that word was “Reserve”.

Well, things worked out pretty good anyway. The people in the new bank cartel got along well with the Emperor’s men and the Emperor could direct the cartel to print more money when he needed some for his government. The funny thing was that the cartel charged the Emperor’s government money for doing this, but the Emperor was OK with that. After all, what could the Emperor do? Go somewhere else to get some money? There was nowhere else. At least not for a good long while. Not until the Empire got in hock to a Far East empire, anyway.

In the meanwhile, the Empire grew and so did its need of money, especially such money that was used for the protection of both the lords and the knaves. Yes, there were an awful lot of new horses and boats and cannons and flying machines purchased for the protection of the Empire. Over the years, that kind of security with all that fine weaponry, the people in the Empire fell in love with shooting, not only at home, but above all in far off lands, where there were more countries to be conquered and immense riches to be brought home. There was a special variant of gold out there, so-called black gold. It was a liquid asset of the best kind. Yes, it was both liquid and black and was commonly called oil and there were immense pools of it under the ground in some countries. So, the Emperor was asked from time to time to let his soldiers go out into the world and mostly by their very presence, they could make countries give up their slippery black gold for a very decent price, which kind of lubricated all the Empire’s wheels and motors.

The people that looked after the black gold often jumped up and down with joy when the smelly substance came to their distilleries where gasoline was made out of it. It meant not bagfuls of money for the black gold people, no, it meant wagon loads. Earlier, there were black gold pools found under the ground at home in the Empire too, but those pools were not so plentiful any more, but had nevertheless made the slippery oil people very rich already. It so happened that there was more of the black gold in pristine and beautiful corners of the Empire, but those places were held to be of such artful value that drilling for black oil there was originally not allowed. So, what did the oil vassals do? They went to the Emperor’s friends and gave them lots of money, too, and asked those friends to have a little talk with the Emperor and his government. After a while, everything was arranged and the Emperor and his people got a little richer by virtue of the gifts that the black gold people gave to them, which made the Emperor think that “OK, I love the beauty of the land where this black oil is, but I think I love the money more. Besides, I don’t like some of the propositions from the black gold people of being removed from my throne if I don’t let them have their way.”

So, over the years, most of the Emperors wished to stay Emperors and went along with the black gold people’s wishes.

But there were other nobles of another kind out there, too. These were smart and very rich people and most of them were descended from or of the same ilk as the original seven that over a century ago had started the Empire’s central bank that wasn’t really a central bank. And those people were equally eager to make sure their ideas about money were respected by the Emperors. So those money lords engaged many of their friends to make sure the Emperors and their governments behaved in such a way that money could be handled the way the money lords wanted. And the Emperors by and large went along with any requests of that kind. There had been two or three Emperors that were, should we say, a bit obstinate, and they were let go. Well, another one met with some kind of accident and died when a projectile hit him when he was joyfully riding along with his wife in the southern part of the Empire. And so it goes. Modern day Emperors are usually smart enough to accommodate any wishes from both the black gold people and the money lords.

When those money lords went about making money off money, they would rent it out to various lesser citizens. Never mind that the money could be created more or less at will in the banks. Notations in the banks’ ledgers were entered to create the necessary piles of money. That was so simple it seemed like magic. It was money the bankers didn’t really own, but who would care when it worked the same as real, earned money. Most often the renters of money were people that wanted to produce something or sell something they imported from far off lands to the ordinary knaves. Or the renters might just be ordinary knaves that wanted to buy something, a house for their family, for example. Those kinds of needs were great sources of income for the money lords and being quite daring, those money lords hired smart people with wrinkled foreheads that conversed with newfangled contraptions called computers. And those wrinkled forehead people were the ones that really could think and came up with the very best ideas, actually money inventions that went by strange names like CDOs and CDSs, and which those wrinkled forehead people could use at certain times to multiply the money or send it off to far corners of the Empire with a push of a button on one of those modern thinking machines they called computers. Thus, much extra money that just didn’t exist before was created. And that was all well and fine. The money lords got richer and the borrowers also got some money. All this became so very popular that the money the Emperor had in the government vault was tiny compared to what the money lords could create with those modern thinking machines. For a while everyone was very happy. More and more money was created and sent off to satisfy the various needs in the Empire. The money just kept multiplying and it was truly magical that money could be so easily created without anyone really working very hard or at all to do that. It was like the money was coming out of a printing press at lightning speed. But, alas, the newly created money was not really printed at all. No, it just existed as a notation in one of those wonderful computer machines much like it had been done before by thousands of clerks in bank ledgers.

The money lent out this way to merchants and makers of this and that were reasonably happy even if the cost of borrowing was quite steep, but they found ways to put the money to even better use by sending the money abroad where there were a great many people that were willing to work for very little, which made the borrowed money go much further. The happiest borrower of all was the Emperor and his government, which now had a wonderful way of keeping his knaves content in many ways. There were all manners of help for the sick, food for the starving and help to those that couldn’t or wouldn’t work.

When this wonderful life had gone on for many moons, there was now however a slight problem. Those little notations in the bank computers were growing like topsy and the sums that were owed by the government and the knaves were growing by the second. The merchants and the makers of this and that were for the most part pretty good about paying back the invented money, while the Emperor and his government didn’t care at all about paying anything back and many of the knaves were simply very worried. That is how it all went for a while. Until, one day, when many of the ordinary knaves found that a lot of the work they formerly had been so busy with and made good money off, had been shipped off to distant lands in the Far East. So, the large group of knaves in the Empire now had lower income than before and they feared that the houses and vehicles they so dearly loved would need to be given back to the money lords. There wasn’t much they could do about that. At the same time, in other distant lands, there were really smart people who had it both in their hands and heads how to make things more or less with a lot less knave help. Those smart people had gone through much schooling and many other teaching processes and using an idea called automation, they certainly knew how to make complicated things really fast for much less money. And they were well paid for their efforts, which was very contrary to what the knaves in the Empire now were paid for their slow ways of working using old machinery.

So, there was a problem. At first, what was happening wasn’t much noticed or perhaps the formerly so self-assured people in the Empire didn’t want to see it that way. No, there was no problem. Of course not. If there was a problem, it was only temporary and the Empire, which was the greatest on Earth, would soon go back to being just that. From all points of view.

There was a young knave who had traveled other parts of the world and who had seen what was going on here and there. He compared what he had seen with the happenings in the Empire and pretty soon saw that there was a great problem with the whole setup. The formerly so busy knaves were now in rags and some of them lived in their cars or in the same kind of tenements there were in the very poor nations in other parts of the world. Strange, he thought. He made noises about this and was immediately rebuked. No, his reading of the statistics were wrong. No, this was only temporary poverty. No, everything was going to be OK as soon as the new Emperor was elected. And the new candidate Emperor in the election just around the corner made loud noises about how he would create jobs for all by just fiddling with the money. Somehow. Yes, somehow he was going to make those very rich lords start to employ people again. There was much talk about boot straps and how those should be pulled up and the Empire now ruled by a new Emperor was going to work itself out of the poverty mess. Yes, they were all going to get back to work using the same old ways and machines as before to make things in the Empire well again. Strangely, there was no talk of being as smart or smarter than those other knaves in other countries that had gone through much schooling and were now making things cheaper and faster than the knaves in the Empire could. The young traveller rolled his eyes when he saw all this and wanted to shout so all the lords and knaves in the Empire would hear:

“Do you remember the little boy in H.C. Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes? Take heed, you idiots!”  

Photo Credits

Gold vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – Wikimedia Public Domain

Official Presidential portrait of Woodrow Wilson – Wikimedia Public Domain

Black Gold – Wikimedia Public Domain

Digital Money  – FamZoo Staff on flickr – some rights reserved

Guest Author Bio
Per Akermalm

Per lives on Vancouver Island with his wife Lisse. He divides his time between practical work around the house and writing stories, short and long ones. He started writing in high school, first as a wonderful escape from the usual world, but later with a stronger connection to the reality of the present. There were occasional short articles in some newspapers in “the old country” – Sweden – and later more serious attempts to write longer stories. His mind was however of two kinds: The writer’s mind, but also the curious mind that likes to investigate the intricacies of science, which led him to become a P. Eng., start businesses, the last one being a company that wrote manuals for automation and robotics. In retrospect – after retiring – that was the most interesting insight into the future.

From invisible to spotlighted in just a quick second of time, this young man was found to be the object of glances between sips of coffee and the subject of comments between discussions over bites of three egged omelets.

I didn’t see him at all before. But now I did, there in his navy blue light weight zip up jacket, as he looked around restlessly, nervously, and innocently clueless as to how to turn this twelve ounce volume of milk from splattered to gathered up again. His low hung chin and fleeting sideways glances, a mix of embarrassed and somewhat shy, spoke clearly of his dislike for the attention.

And yet overwhelmingly and increasingly more noticeable to me than that awkward teenage discomfort was the utter lack of sympathy from six other souls sitting by him. They did not have the excuse of being strangers. They had some knowing of him. They might have even been in relation to him, bound by that blood that we claim as family, as the people you are from and held to for life.

As he floundered to dab an ocean of liquid with his small bit of balled up napkin, the guests at his table took another bite of their toast and eggs sandwiches, wiping the crumbs on the edge of their lips with their napkins.

A girl who looked like his older sister sat across from him but looked at me. I saw her distant shame, her silently begging for me to overlook her as an accomplice in this act. Twice she caught eyes with me in this way. She wanted me to preserve her. And I looked back, silently begging her to give kindness. For her to not miss this chance to cover over her loved one.

I knew so much about this family now in the few seconds a young boy had to manage his own miniscule five second failure in life. I didn’t need to see another scene from their lives to have a pervious insight into what many dealings among them must be like. I grieved the absence of nurture, of compassion, of consideration for one another. I ached for their inability to cover one another’s shame. To see one of their own struggle and to not only not help, but to also back away from it as if they too will be seen differently.

I watched them file out the door in a cluster, held together by association but not by love. I imagined them going out into the world so heedlessly and that perhaps no one would be much better for being near them. No one would be comforted. No one would be loved. No one would be improved. No one would be nurtured. This amoeba of souls together and individually would come and go in this world without the intention to make a dent of loving it into something better.

Perhaps I assumed much. But perhaps I did not.

I grieved that there are so many like this. And I longed for the scales of selflessness to not be so heavy in this direction and for this lovelessness to not win out in the hearts of mankind. And should tires go flat and groceries be dropped and milk be spilled, that instead of shame that there would be someone there to fall to a knee in loving kindness.

Photo Credit

Photo is pixabay creative commons

Guest Author Bio
Kelly Christian

Kelly Christian is ever reckoning life through wonder and conversations, always wishful for the next chance to put everything that means anything into type. Her heart is riveted by faith, questions, beauty, creation, identity, and sparks in conversations with strangers and friends alike. Kelly resides in Charlotte, North Carolina where she writes creative nonfiction, teaches English as a second language, and enjoys loving on her four little dignified souls alongside her husband.

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