Reason

Reason how you like,
blame who you want
cause it's everyone's fault
and no one did anything as usual
but everybody gets hurt somehow... Except the rich...714...
Somebody's got to lose their head
so let's hurry it up.
Somewhere...
an empty wooden box waits...

Corazon

Señor?

¿Niño?

Quiero más.

¿Quieres más?

¿Sí?

Quiero más comida

Thomas, por favor toma al chico, consiguele más comida.

Thomas se acerca y toma al niño con la mano y lo conduce a través de la puerta ...

IT CAN HAPPEN

IT IS HAPPENING HERE

STAY STRONG

Screaming Closet - Update

Still you seek where the light is not, patience, for in time I will reach out from the darkest and show you the horrors of the cosmos…

unknown

Love as an element of horror, lives unknown until the knife stabs from behind…

unknown

Elsa

Elsa, a Spanish name.

In Spanish the meaning of the name Elsa is:

Truth.

Elsa walked the length of the hall, her steps small and gentle befitting a woman of her advanced age and still the floorboards creaked underfoot as if from a great weight on the worn yellow and red linear patterned carpet.

Reaching the far end where the wall ran perpendicular to the hall, the doors of two side by side guest rooms were left ajar. Elsa looked into the room on the right where a very tall, very pale man, bluish almost, was in the middle of fitting the need sheets tightly around the mattress. He stopped as he felt the weight of her look; nodding to her and she to him. From the left hand room, room number 508, Coltrane's "Offering" called to her, crying it's melodic tenor from scratched vinyl on a turntable beside the bed.

The room was empty but for the muffled sound of the strong wind outside. Elsa stepped in to scan the whole room taking note of the empty wheelchair diagonally across the room by the closet door. Walking across the room to the window with the curtain partially drawn, she looked out. She could see the tree struggling against the fierce wind and rain as it grew with each body writhing, rising from the ground along its ancient skin, thunder and lightning drawing them forth.

Elsa closed the curtain and turned back to see the tall bluish man staring at her from the entry door. She looked at the wheel chair to which she crossed the room to stand at the closet door where she could hear a faint sobbing yet distant, that quickly became a frantic cry then a terrible shriek then died, to become sobbing again and then silence. Resting her head against the door, her initial expression of concern became one of endearment... she waited a moment, exhaled deeply, looking down at the tattoo drawn across the pale underside of her wrist, two forearms clutched by two hands...so little time left.

Clover

Lightning cracks the jet black sky...shattering the pane, setting the soul aflame and the world burns, fueling the fire....

The Clover Grill, a dive bar & restaurant, loud and packed with locals, No'la scored a table by the window for herself, Mat and Davida, her camera crew and associate producers, all their gear piled next to No'la sitting on the broad front window bench; however, she couldn't score the one thing she had been searching for; answers to the Goodbody Mystery. No'la could offer nothing more than a written review of existing Goodbody myth, now decades old…

The smell of an electrical storm... the smell of wet asphalt filled the air, blowing into the grill every time the door opened at the Clover Grill & Bar, on a corner two blocks off the tourist strip out by where the locals lived, it's old brick and worn woodwork kept its charm while guests enjoyed food, drink, company and an old record player with a shelf stacked with vinyl, new and old, jazz, stomp and zydeco of this small popular eatery on the edge of town...

No'la had eaten very little of her plate of red beans and rice letting it become lumpy paste that she randomly reconfigured with her fork...the hickory coffee, served in a demitasse was still hot enough to allow bubbles to dance randomly building a tiny sculpture from which nothing could be gleaned.

Lost and numb the lack of accomplishment that had become an unwelcome friend for life, reminded her of the day her father was arrested. No'la recalled what she perceived as a happy life in those days when her father never shunned her when he came home from work and she would jump on his lap and ask about the tattoo on his arm under his short sleeve above the elbow; a black & white drawing, a thick chain winding around his back, where a golden ankh hung to end in a hole drawn around his vaccination mark.

No"la was a good investigative journalist at the time her father was arrested. She had been looking into reports that several precincts colluded together to extort money from local businesses and move drugs when eventually it all led to a series of arrests that included her father. A bad cop, perpetuating a family belief that you're never good enough; it wasn't enough to be poor, but to have a thug cop for a father....

She was pulled off the story. No'la wasn't guilty she just knew someone who was and that was enough...

Davida stared at No'la as she grabbed her phone and left the table... I'll be right back she said...Damn him...No'la had been waiting for his call..Clyph, their boss, their lousy producer in NYC, a hard ass exploiting No'la's talents and her weaknesses cause all he had was weakness.

Davida had met No'la several years ago soon after No'la had graduated from school... Davida had found herself with no real focus on her studies and the career she announced to family she would pursue... but there she was lost among a throng of pursuer, all running from what they perceived as commitments to their life choices...the shining light crossing the field with a focus on her goals was No'la, who seems to know what she wanted and how to pursue it…

And there was Mat, his mother named him Matador...Born in the bayou as much a modern child slave as could be, he escaped without ever reporting the kidnapping, the abuse and raised himself, hit the military hard then exposed himself to a world documenting the madness… Mat was their warrior, clearly aware of No'la's issues and No'la and Davida as a loving but estranged couple, Mat kept the trio strong and in gear. With him, once he knew their goal he was their guide, their bodyguard and the only rock steady focus they could trust. Mat spoke little of his past; special task tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. In his stories, and there were many, bits of those tours laced the other stories, constant chatter about so much paranormal that he had taken to heart after losing the stability he thought he had as a warrior. Ghosts, monsters, aliens and all things paranormal gave his life purpose, purpose he lost.

Getting up from the table, away from the noise and the music stomping from the old turntable spinning from an upper shelf behind the bar, No'la walked outside the Clover Grill and stood beside the door, under the recessed canopy avoiding the rain. Phone cradled to speak into she spoke "Hey, what's up? Clyph..." and the rain had finally started after all its blustering threats, it was a light rain, a drizzle really, normal for this time of year if it stayed light, which it wouldn't if the angry sky above had anything to say about it...

"No nothing yet"...she told him

"We're getting something to eat now and still no hotel yet...we've called all over.... And now this storm is approaching..."

Skin glistened from sweat and rain, a small protest march started to swell outside of the Clover Grill... Police and mob presence swarmed to bloody each other good, faces broken, blood splattered with a hit of the police club, the crash of a Colt 45 people watched, flooding the street craning their heads from inside the Clover to see what little they could…

The violence swarmed like red rain spilt...black and white bodies flailing, the violence, torrential blood and rain splattered the asphalt black...a black protester stepped from the mass and alone confronted a cop accusing him of killing his brother...

"I can't talk now Clyph it's getting violent out here...the march that's turning into a riot...It's okay, no nothing at all on this Mr Goodbody, and nothing yet on May...she's the only victim anybody knows about... no one knew where she went after leaving the hospital...and she's the mystery, her talk about Mr. Goodbody who seems to have imprisoned her, perhaps tortured her and why she went back to him...it is a mystery, you talk to people who deny it's importance but it's obvious they have knowledge and are reluctant to talk about it."

Listening to Clyph as he spoke...overwhelming frustration...

"It's been awhile there aren't many left who know the story, I interviewed who I could, no the lead detective is dead, I spoke with his partner...the partner was a woman who disappeared, maybe..."

"Okay, okay fine I'll get you an updated file when we're out of here."

A black man, over-dressed tatters of rags and clothes, stood aside of the march beside an overflowing garbage container preaching his brand.. looking at the throng, tears filled his eyes...the anger he could see on them, in their hearts, had gone the violence spent...

Mat steps out to stand beside No'la, as if being there would protect her from the protest that hit close to home, prompted action from him but No'la stops him, Mat no...He glared across at the cops holding a protester down on his knees...the anger throbbing fuel on fire, coursing through him until it burst. The cop feeling Mat's glare, smiles and throws a vicious punch at the protestor...Mat looked to No'la, you okay? Yeah let's get inside...he said.

Just then the angry cop reared back holding the club, and swung...burst...and there was more...

Life is not without the comfort of pain...No'la once said in her sleep...she couldn't recall any dream or nightmare and Davida could never tell if it was No'la actually saying those words Do you think anybody will ever understand you, No'la was once asked?

Why should they?

No'la preferred being alone, no Mat how lonely she might feel or how much she loved another, her world was solely her own and she preferred it that way, alone... relationships were invasive, a distraction. Once, at a channel party formal dinner to pitching ideas for television shows, in front of hundreds of other guests during a brutal argument, No'la called relationships cancerous, malignant viral entities that clouded one's thoughts, stopped the heart. Everyone thought she was pitching a show and gave her a standing ovation as she walked out of the ballroom.

Davida, No'la's best friend and lover, her co-producer and an uber-exuberant No'la supporter since their days at The News Agency was so enamored by her, she was the guardian angel in No'la's life. Always there, she became as alone and isolated as No'la. Without doubt, Davida believed No'la would come back from her self imposed exile, from life as a significant writing talent to currently making what she called pornographic documentaries about the paranormal. No'la became obsessed with the stories, the research, the culture of believers in all things out of this world who seemed as alone as No'la, strung out on isolation she both loved and hated...

And it burned, No'la could smell it, as always, something burning that she couldn't identify, always there... burning.

Twenty years ago...

One would hope the hate she had for her father would have died with him, but that hate was greater as a result of what he took from her, something of hers died and she didn't know what, a lost soul in a cemetery, blank headstones everywhere and nowhere an answer...

Father was mother's god. Beyond love her dreams saw divinity in him and like him she believed he had been possessed by demons she fought. Both broken one shattered completely. Never finding fault in themselves they believed father's troubles was the work of demons and their belief in God was overwhelming. The demons worked overtime on father until the day he died. Mother was terrified of suicide because it was a sin instead she chose a long and drawn out method of penance suicide... it was a Mater of time after finding a job in a place doing work where death was inevitable...and it worked.

In all of this, No'la had been left alone never part of the family, part of their madness, no one seemed to care. She watched as Mother fought their demons and father submitted... she could never understand their logic and never knew if dying by their own hand or at the hands of others was victory or defeat. Either way, those same demons seemed to follow her after they were done with father..

No'la's father would eventually put a gun in his mouth, waiting for a police escort to join the guards who lived in the apartment with them he held a cup of coffee he fired the shot seconds after taking a large gulp...as if thrown from a bucket the blood splattered across the wall mixing with the less viscous coffee, draping a slow black and red curtain...

Over the years the Goodbody Mystery passed from real life mystery to paranormal myth; is there a difference? The archives relate the following: in 1977 an unidentified woman was found roaming the streets by a 12 year old boy who said that she was looking for a place she escaped from but wanted to go back to, that didn't make any sense but... "I'm trying to find Mr. Goodbody, he's in a red house, can you help me find him?" Who was Mr. Goodbody? No one ever found out. Naked and wet in the city's perennial rain storms in a desperate search for Mr Goodbody, she spoke of the big red house, with a water pump in the yard and a "screaming" closet somewhere inside the house. Tim, the 12 year old boy who found her didn't understand and convinced her to stay where she was, out of the rain at a bus shelter while he went to find police. The police had taken the woman to the hospital where she was treated for exposure, a variety of still broken and badly set bones, bruises, festering wounds and so on... She was kept under observation by a psychologist who used a hypnotist, a blind hypnotist, go figure, to discover that her name was May, born locally in 1952, she was kept inside of a room with several other women in various states of tortured existence when she escaped by slipping into what she called the death bin with two other bodies and did so before Mr Goodbody could catch her. It was apparent that she had been kidnapped, held prisoner and tortured, with other girls some still alive and some dead..the name Goodbody wasn't much to go on and ultimately she really didn't know where she was kept.

"This guy often thought of killing himself I would too if I believed I was possessed for over 20 years…"

"What?"

Davida and Mat sat across from No'la, Mat reading out loud from a pulp conspiracy magazine called The Truth, Deal With It! Davida barely listened to Mat's revelations instead she nursed her cup of coffee deep in thought about No'la and her persistent issues...

"Yeah, over 20 years."

"What are you guys talking about?"

"Mat found a story about a guy possessed by a demon for 20 years…"

"He's been possessed by a demon for...?"

"It's not a demon, I never said demon."

"A politician?"

Mandy their storytelling waitress approached the table with a fresh pour of coffee listened and wondered.

"Mandy, have you ever heard of the Goodbody Mystery?"

"You talking about that girl who was found walking the streets here in the rain, somewhere 'bout here in this neighborhood I think…"

"Yes it was…"

"Not really...word was she up and took off, disappeared."

"She did…"

"I saw your video equipment...you doing a TV show about it…"

"Just a segment... a piece…"

"I think the whole thing was a hoax anyway, not really a big deal that I know of."

Mandy rushed off.

Mat continued...

"Well, but then he does call it a demon later on in the article but a benign demon."

"What the hell is a benign demon, a demon without horns?"

"I don't know, that's what the report says…"

"Well he's accepted the possession for 20 years…"

"Well that sounds dumb and boring."

"I think it deserves some consideration. Not everything we cover has to be scary paranormal."

"Well it's no fun if it's not scary. Anyway, this is wasting time and we need to find a place to sleep tonight…"

Outside, the storm was growing and still a number of people were out despite the effort by police to clear the crowd, No'la noticed a petite elderly woman standing in among a crowd waiting at the corner and staring at No'la. The light changed and the crowd rushed to cross the street as the elderly woman entered the Clover Grill. No'la noticed a barely visible tattoo on the woman's arm, peeking out from the sleeve of her jacket as she passed their table, she raised her arm to close the umbrella. No'la looked in through the window to spy Davida and motioned toward the old lady then followed her into the Clover. The elderly tattooed woman walked straight back to the far end of the bar.

No'la rushed to sit grabbing her sack she shuffled through some of her papers, finding the right one...just as Mandy walked up from behind her

The tattoo...!

"You done honey?" asked Mandy.

"Yes, I am, except more coffee please actually. Sure, you know if you need a place to stay for tonight that woman who just walked in runs a small place near the hospital just a couple of blocks away, mostly outpatient guests from the hospital nearby, but she might be able to help, her names Elsa. She just walked in and sat at the end of the bar."

"That little old lady with the tattoo...?"

"Yes…" Mandy rushes off for the coffee pot...

Across and along the length of the bar, through the growing crowd they watched Elsa, wearing a light rain coat over a heavier jacket over a light house dress with a busy floral pattern...seated on a far end bar stool she was happily ordering from a friendly and smiling bartender.

Mandy returned with a coffee pot and…"Yeah...that ain't no tattoo, ya know not for decoration at least."

"Then what is it for?"

"Branding, that's a tattoo you get when you're, entitled to someone...."

"Entitled?"

"Branding used to be what a slave owner used when he wanted to mark you as his so that everybody understood...."

"She wasn't a...."

"No, she's too young to have been a slave in this country, but she did belong to someone…"

"How do you know?"

"I just know, you hear things…"

And she rushes off again…

No'la couldn't see the tattoo but she was sure Mandy had one…

"Creepy…"

"I agree."

"We missing something?"

"Tell me about it."

A quick sip of hot coffee and No'la was off

"Going to the bathroom...be right back."

No'la suddenly turned up the flame...the flame Clyph tried to stifle suddenly alight.

Even a few tourists made it this far off the beaten path mingling with the locals at the bar and the tables covered in food and drink. The bathroom, the only bathroom was towards the back hall that led to the kitchen and the back patio. A woman stood in line ahead of her. The turntable pounded out some local Cajun stomp. No'la stood in line behind the woman just behind Elsa. She stared at the bit of tattoo peeking out from under her sleeve, painted on the underside of her arm just above the wrist. She could overhear the conversation she was having with the bartender, the state of business at the hotel, her work with the woman's health board and how they're leading the effort to help women in town why the grill sold and advertised to attract tourists but the grill needed the business. No'la wondered if she knew the story of May and the Goodbody mystery.

No'la glances down the bar to see Mandy nod to acknowledge where Elsa is seated

The bartender approached with Elsa's food order as the bathroom became vacant and No'la lean's quickly into Elsa calling her May?

"Excuse me?" Annoyed.

"Oh my, I'm so sorry, it's…"

"Elsa, yes, can I help you…"

No'la was surprised...

The tattoo was...of two arms embracing, wrist over wrist. "I love your tattoo, I noticed it as you entered."

Embarrassed, Elsa pulls back on her sleeve, trying to hide the tattoo.

"A betrothal tattoo, something i did for my husband long ago when he was alive. Silly at the time but now he's always sort of with me."

Two arms embrace, forearm over forearm though one seemed to be pulling, the dominant arm pressing the other and creating shadows where the pressure would be...

"Can I help you with anything?"

"Sorry, my colleagues and I are looking for a place to stay the night and Mandy the waitress mentioned you might be able to help...that you run a hotel or inn nearby?"

"I do, just a couple of blocks from here, you stuck in town?"

"Yes the storm has shut the airport."

"You call around?"

"Yes…"

"I have a couple of rooms,"

"Here's the address," she said while writing it on a bar napkin

"Just head on over, it isn't far from here. I'll meet you there and so you know, it's mostly an outpatient hotel serving the hospital across the street."

"That's fine, anyplace clean will do…"

"It is...better hurry...bad rains coming."

Elsa walked off

"Thank you, Elsa."

Elsa waved back as she left the grill and put her rain hood on...

No'la turned back for the bathroom just as someone else went in. I can hold it and she hurried back to the table.

No'la hustled back to the table....

"Guys, lets go. We have someplace to stay…"

"Awesome, the old lady?"....Mat & Davida, follow No'la out the door...Yeah.

Attention...

No'la stepped out of the Clover bar, holding the door open as Davida and Mat followed. She looked up to the sky, into the rain, the drops blinding then washing away a vale that revealed a night sky without a star. A sudden instance of vertigo overwhelmed her, drawing her eyes up, into the abyss then letting go, she began to collapse, Mat caught her from behind...held her for moment asking, "Coming?"

Continuing her thought while Mat helped her stand still, "I called her May"...

"What?"

"I called Elsa, May."

"The old lady?"

"Yes…"

"Slip of the tongue it was…"

"Perhaps...the tattoo, I'd forgotten that May had a tattoo until the moment I noticed Elsa had one as well...the same one in the same place she described…"

"Elsa might be the right age at this point but was it the same tattoo?"

"The description was similar except Elsa's tattoo was faded...which would make sense…"

They crossed the street looking at the debris the protesters and authorities had left strewn throughout the asphalt, smeared in blood, broken signs...the war fought, the remains of the loser littered the street...

They felt like fish underwater as the rain poured down, heavy and thick to fill the already moist air...they lost sight of Elsa, looking down Dumaine, dark and nothing at first but then there she was, tiny Elsa looking even smaller now that she had walked more than a long block ahead... how did she get that far so fast?...then she turned right around the corner, into a yard?

No'la couldn't see that any street lamps were on along Dumaine. The homes, dark perhaps empty, shuttered but more likely home to squatters hiding in plain sight...didn't help to light the darkness to see any life...

No'la turned to look down Dumaine at the well lit streets they were leaving behind. "I think someone's following us..."

Mat turned, peered into the darkness and yelled to the stranger, a man, alone, dark, homeless, pushing a junk filled shopping cart silhouetted against the street lights... he stopped and called to them.

"Li se prèske tan, tout bèl pouvwa wè ou, vle ou, men se chemen an ou pran ki te ranpli avèk vicieux a, unblessed a, ki pa gen okenn chemen men sa ki w ap atire ... jwenn wout ou ... pa leur. ..turn tounen ... tout bèl pouvwa a wè ou menm ak ou gade lwen, avèg bay verite a …"

To Mat she asked, What's he saying?

Something like, "It is almost time, glory sees you, wants you, but the path you take is filled with the wanton, the unblessed, who have no path but that which you are attracted to...find your way...not theirs...turn back...the glory sees you and you look away, blind to the truth..."

"On va bien vieux! Merci pour la bénédiction ..."Said Mat, walking back on his heels."

"Ce n'est pas une bénédiction mais un avertissement."

"Oke di ou mèsi de tout fason ... men mwen panse ke nou ka nwaye si anyen."

No'la pauses in the rain as the others pass and recalls having once heard her father speak similar words on his worst days...but about himself...

The homeless man walked up from behind No'la, lightly grabbing her shoulder to saying something that only she could hear but couldn't understand...

"Madame, fènwa a ap tann ou, pa pran lòt moun yo ... ale pou kont li."

Mat rushes back to take her away...and she slipped easily from the homeless man's hand resting on her shoulder.

No'la, Davida and Mat moved on down the block...looking back, No'la suddenly felt great concern, looking for the homeless man who was know gone...

A struggling fatherless family a mother and two children whose gender weren't apparent cowered, shielded from the torrent under a willow tree just ahead down the block, across the street from an old brick house.

The family stared at No'la and the group as they crossed the street... "This is it, this is where she turned..." she turned to look at every one...

This is the home May described..

Elsa's?

May's....

You sure?

Yes…

No'la stepped sideways, staring at the house May described...a feeling of great accomplishment...she almost stood in the middle of the street, watched by the homeless family and Mat and Davida all enthralled by No'la's amazement…

"It was the hotel May had escaped from…

"l'attente…"

"The what?" No'la said.

"French for "The Waiting."

"Really," said No'la. "Waiting for what…"

"Below the hotel name it says "L'endroit pour ceux qui attendent, 'The place for those in waiting.'"

"But, waiting for what?

"Décès," Mat turned to look at the others, "Death, I suppose..."

No'la slowly circled the house, stepping side by side the mansion, asylum and hotel as it stood now, a place for the infirmed and questionable, waiting…

"Look around the house," No'la said. "look for the water pump she described, a fire engine red water pump."

The District Commander had at first come to meet No'la over a drink at the hotel they first staying…"There are many secrets to keep, in my lifetime and this is one of them. I have to be careful, you understand?"

"Yes, I do sir...so there is a story?"

"There's always a story, the trick is to verify it as more than the myth it has become."

"I don't understand, sir."

"A long time ago, at that time I wasn't the District Commander, just a captain…  I assigned a very good detective to what seemed… a waste of time…" Pausing he looked away, she waited as the pause lengthened….but she waited…"Timothée, a fine detective...would still be if…let me take you to him, I have his permission…

"Ok," she said.

"I have a car waiting outside..."

It quickly became obvious that the drive, by the Commander himself was longer than it had to be, the house kept in mystery...the car finally stopped in front of a small bungalow that had suffered water damage from the floods.

He turned to her seated in the back behind black steel mesh…"Go in, he's expecting you."

"Thank you Commander…"

"Be quick, we're not young men…"

No'la shuffled across the back seat to get out and rushed through the rain, to the door… it was unlocked. The Commander, seated in the front, looked through the rain....

A voice greeted her, "You are No'la?", as she stood inside the door, "I am."

"Take the chair beside you," he said softly, as if he were tired of talking and what was left were weak streams of air. She sat, without a greeting…she could barely see where the detective was seated though she could tell he was across from her hidden in the shadows cast throughout a dark house from weak exterior light.

"... I found May exactly where the boy said she would be a large red brick house with a big yard and a manual water pump in a side yard. I stood out front and felt as if there was someone at a window, watching, but I wasn't sure."

"You saw the house?"

"Well that's where I first found her, right in front. Then I rushed her off to find my car and took her to the hospital. The rest of the team could never find the house, I could never find the house again…"

Across the street from the hotel where Elsa disappeared into, a family watched as No'la and the crew climbed the stoop to the hotel steps.

Of dark and dirty red brick the house was built, windows dark and stained, the art vague from a yellow film of uncleanliness; the roof covered in dirty unkempt black roof shingles gave the old edifice the feel of a tired church. Likewise a wall extended away from the front to surround the property throughout, the house angled uncomfortably suggesting that nothing made sense; something was wrong. The building at odds with the quaint style of the rest of town but for the front doors; French, unwashed stained glass covered in a wrought iron design that extended into the wood frame at the top of the front stone steps rising a few feet above the ground.

Mat looked back across the street at the homeless family who were likewise staring, back across...The mother, weighed down by bags and the weight she carried but more so grief evident on her face...three children surrounding her holding their own beside her, wanting both her strength and protect her.

Mat approached the brick wall from one side of the stoop that hid the back and side of the building. Balancing himself along a wrought iron runner he looked into the dark yard, trashed with high grass, branches fallen from trees deep in the waste he could vaguely see a very thick mass, perhaps a tree, quivering in the play of light and shadow...

"Pa ale nan…" mother said while giving the Sign of the Cross... The family watches them enter the house one by one. No'la hesitated a moment then disappear into the house and No'la takes note but still goes...Mat responds to their silent fear, looking back...they watch him walk away with concern, his countenance with the inevitable...

"Dieu connaît-il leur sort, maman?"

"Bien sûr, Dieu donne des conseils, mais l'humanité agit toujours sa propre volonté …"

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

CANTO ANGELINA

The whole world is mute...

The voice of billions, gone in weeks the act of a small band of American terrorists experimenting with viral strains created an agent that render the intended target mute. What was the point? The target was politicians, it worked and then spread quickly through the public...

The applause died, in that short moment of silence before Sophia began to sing, there was a great anticipation, a longing. she bowed her head for a moment, raised her head to look out into the audience tears welled to fill her eyes as the voice they had all come to hear filled the room, and everyone cried. Some would cry suddenly feeling they were hearing the voice of God. Others knew that it was and had started crying in anticipation long before the first sound.

Sophia had sung with an angel's voice. The angel's voice had become part of her, one with her, as if she had been born with the voice of an angel.

The creation of a new set of vocal cords as replacements for damaged cords was hard enough, but to design and manufacture a set of organic vocal cords whose sound was supernatural was beyond comprehension. That is why no one has succeeded in centuries. It simply worked or it didn't. These spectacular voices, it seemed, were beyond the ability of man to create them, and yet man did create them. It is said the designer Mariana literally knew the secret and used it to produce three of the greatest singers in all of history. Two possessed by women, one by a man. Those are gone now, and the few that exist are prized possessions of private and corporate archives as valued artifacts of art and science. They are from a time long before when science had achieved artistic status. Where scientific creations were as much artistic creations. No one in centuries had ever dared to consider implanting one until Sophia.

Sophia sat quietly alone in the waiting room upstairs from the stage contemplating how close she had come to be with the angel's voice. The voice had taken on a life of it's own. No longer did Sophia just sing with the voice, but they sang as one.

They had come to know each other so well.

Margarite unwraps the scarf around Sophia's neck, gently caressing her neck, then kissing her on the neck then to her lips. Sophia pulls away.

"Is it the voice you love Margarite? Or me?"

"You of course."

"Sometimes I don't know which, sometimes I wonder what attracts you to me. What keeps you with me?"

"I stay for you, Sophia."

"I know that the voice has great power that no one seems able to resist, including myself. I find myself in love with the angel as much as I do you and I don't know whom I love most. I feel lost, stuck in the middle of a terrible triangle of emotion."

"Sing for me Sophia, sing for me, softly so the guards outside can't hear."

Is it the voice Margarite loves or Sophia? Margarite often caresses her neck, kissing it, often asking for a softly sung poem, just a few lines, so as not to arouse the guards waiting outside to escort them to the party and ultimately take the voice away.

She clothed herself after the show, wrapping a scarf around her neck, drinking a nutrient drink.

Later when the party is over, Sophia will go away and hide behind a partition to remove the voice placing it in a secure safe, and then taken by security away from her until the next performance. But for now she must have it for the party.

We live in a world where many instruments are still made and the voice of an angel is one of them. The process by which a voice can be man made like any other instrument is unique and amazing. As detailed in a revealing science article in The New York Times the voice is literally grown from cells, and genes manipulated to become a self sufficient organism able to survive both inside and outside of the body. The performer swallows a small organically grown device, destroying the existing vocal cords and bonding with the body. The new vocal cords sing what many call the voice of angels. There are sacrifices to possessing the voice. You become a mute, because the vocal chords must be removed and cleansed in a solution. The chords are for singing only, speaking with them is not advised, the user or the listener. With the voice in place, the performer can never talk out loud or fully. She must whisper for fear that the full sound that is so heavenly would deafen the listener. It is only through song that one can listen. Only then is the voice under control.

Fifteen years ago Sophia had heard recordings of the voice implanted in the body of the Great Marlena and decided then she wanted that voice. She was a great and popular singer already but she wanted to be like no other since. No other singer had ever done this since Marlena. And Marlena had given up her voice as she neared death. No other singer dared for fear of losing their original voice and becoming a mute and slave to a voice that wasn't your own; the voice of the angel's. Her then manager had lectured her on this matter and was ultimately fired when her sign language interpreter took on those duties.

She formed a consortium of investors who were willing to pull money together to acquire the voice and implant it in Sophia.

The party awaits her in the grand ballroom.

Escorted by her interpreter, Sophia attends the party where she is congratulated. She greets everyone as a mute, her thoughts voiced by her interpreter who is trained to listen to the soft whisper of her voice.

She had become one with her voice. They longed for each other when they were apart. Of late she sensed the voice had become tired. Why? She could never tell. The voice had no way of communicating with her except through feelings. She knew that it was tired, that it was unhappy. The voice itself was taking on sentient awareness. This she divulged to no one but Margarite.

Sophia is called into the back room where she waits. The board chairman owned three angel voices. The other two were in use by singers. While those two had a grand history of performance, Sophia's had only one great singer other than herself, attached to it. It had been created for Marlena over three hundred years. She spent twenty-two years performing with it right up until the day she died. Several decades passed until it had once again implanted. In a series of seven male and female singers over a century and a half, the voice never again performed as it had for Marlena. Not until Sophia. The board chairman, Mariano, was a huge fan and connoisseur of the voices and with his money hoped to collect all of them.

In the back room the board chairman explains they want to take the voice back. They want to implant the voice in another woman. They have already tested the implant on this other woman and it has performed well.

Now she knew why it was tired. They had conspired to take the voice away.

In conversation with Margarite, while the guards make their way to take the voice from her, it is suggested she ask for one more performance.

The chairman insists she perform now, for the party, in the ballroom, her final performance and then the cords will be removed.

As the chairman walks to the stage, Margarite and Sophia quietly discuss what to do next. Escape? Sophia finally decides to kill herself. She takes a knife from the buffet table, which she hides in her long sleeve.

As the chairman announces her entrance she slowly makes her way through the crowd.

Alone in the dark of a loft that overlooks the stage from above the rafters of the theatre a man sits poised with a rifle aimed at Sophia, his right eye pressed against the sight, his right index finger lightly placed across the trigger.

She sings her saddest aria, making the guests cry. It is from an opera that tells the story of betrayal and suicide and vengeance against the betrayers. Sophia then attempts to stab herself in the throat, but not before the sniper shoots her down, saving the voice which still seems to resonate, to sing a voice of tears. Cries to save the voice can be heard from the guests.

Margarite rushes the stage, calling for help, and no one seems to care. Attendants of the board rush the stage to remove the voice from Sophia, without a care for Sophia who lay barely breathing, blood flowing crimson from the bullet hole in her head. As the board attendants step away with the voice safe in its container, Mariano the board chairman standing over the scene, tells one of the attendants to help her. Reluctantly and surprised, he does so.

Sophia speaks to Margarite and revealing she knows that it was Margarite, then dies.

We see the voice safely stored in a box, retired.

Margarite sits at Sophia's grave, sobbing and haunted by what she has done. Margarite had given up her natural voice for the chance to have Sona implanted in her. After many tests and private performances doctors report the organ will never again perform as great as it once did. "But why?"

The doctor can't explain.

The voice was retired and Margarite stayed forever mute.

The voice had been implanted in having heard the voice had been implanted in the other performer.

And she knew. That breathless moment just after the applause, the paralysis of fear suddenly gone, she looked at every face that looked at her, and it was all of them. The moment was hers. Sophia bowed her head, the voice trembling within her. It wanted to sing.

The fear and anxiety that had rushed up to paralyze her died with the applause She looked back at them as fear and anxiety rushed to paralyze her, for a moment, as the applause died, the fear died, she looked down and she knew. The moment was hers. They were hers and they would listen as she sang for them. Not because they had paid for her to sing, but because they had become disciples and they would be witness to the divine in her voice.

Sophia sat in the antique high-back chair as Margarite reached from behind to massage and caress her.

                "That breathless moment just after the applause, the fear gone, looking at their faces. I knew the moment was mine."

I write because I like to so don't forget, it is my work, not to be given way or taken...

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

from Brooklyn, I am as much from Staten Island

My earliest and most loved thoughts come from those of our lives in New York, The Burrough of Staten Island, 

in Spanish Camp, La Sociedad Naturopática Hispaniola, 

that's where it was, though I'm proud of being from Brooklyn, I am as much from Staten Island.

a rural camp ground that had started as a place for Spanish practicing ritual natural-pathic 

health regimens but before my and other families arrived, 

devolved into a neighborhood of Hispanics living in a rural enclave 

along the beach away from most; as we imagined it, coming from Brooklyn, it was the country.

This small corner of my world was the most formative for me....

Means To A Victim

Child porn isn't about sex...

Sex isn't what child porn is about,

though that is a huge part of the interest...

Likewise in a male on female situation. 

It's about power and having control over the victim 

and the more control you can have the better, 

and control over a child is control over a weaker person who can't and hasn't learned to fight back, 

physically, emotionally, socially and psychologically 

all of which is what the same age rapist really wants and achieves

more so with a child

and of course those in power want as much and even more.

All forced sex

which is what all porn is about

is the inflicting of unwarranted sex upon a weaker being.

The weaker the more innocent the better.

The more innocent the being the less it understands.

Fewer questions.

Women first and then the smaller the child.

These people, these men they're opportunists

and often look to appease their satisfaction

establishing their justification for the act of achieving their ends...

Control of others...