Fear and Loathing

By Daddy X

I must begin with a qualifier … that I know the United States is now “officially” out of Afghanistan. (if retaining 10,000 troops in another country is truly ‘out’). This post was written before that date, but we’ll see what the future holds:

Fear and Loathing

I understand we have non-Americans with us, but here’s a rant anyway. There’s nothing new here. These are all known quantities.

Ever notice how we’re expected to get angry? Afraid of the unknown? React to the known? Seems like every news report makes me nuts. Is it supposed to? Are we so desensitized that news organizations have to appeal to our most potent but unproductive emotions to interest us?

Not that many years ago, the problem with Obama (in addition to his skin color) was that he didn’t get angry enough. Now WTF was that about? (Now he’s a dictator.) When we get angry, we stop thinking in rational terms. We get out of control. But now, there’s a large faction of lawmakers who pretend that’s the best or only solution to vote-scoring. In a way they’re right; angry people tend to be dependable voters. They vote ‘against’ things rather than ‘for’. It’s an entire negative approach, intended to stimulate simply by reaction, without a plan. No wonder how seldom anything positive gets done.

Don’t get me wrong; Obama has been a disappointment to his base, ever the conciliator waiting to jump on the first compromise that comes along. He has no staying power when it comes to conviction. He begins his arguments to the right of center to appear to act as the one who is reasonable. Unfortunately he’s dealing with unreasonable sorts who won’t be happy with any compromise whatsoever.

But this post isn’t about Obama, his accomplishments or lack of them. It’s about the most powerful country in the world relying on fear and angry reaction to get things done. In addition to the obvious danger, the result is sending our wealth and young lives out of our country.

We’re told to hate these people we’re bombing. At the same time we’re told that we’re going to make things better for women and the underprivileged in the backward countries— that we can influence a lifestyle impossible for most Americans to imagine. These people we want to ‘help’—they operate on different basis than we do. They, as a culture, believe honor killing is okay. Americans are told we’re fighting a war of compassion, to enlighten, when those believers have nothing in common with us. Their values are not our values. The identity of the second Calif, back in the eighth century is more important to them than democracy, which many see as an abomination, and it would be considered akin to blasphemy to go against local leaders.

Do I sound angry? Well, I am. It’s worked on me. I don’t care about political correctness when it comes to religion. Especially a masculine-dominated fairy tale invented by a caravan raider who lived by blood and the sword. The answer to the catechism question: “What do you do when you encounter a non-believer on the road?” is: “You jab your knife in his neck.”

Instead of Americans sharing the bounty of wealth, we’re sending our resources overseas, attempting to change a world to our specifications. While our roads and bridges crumble, we attempt to influence people who think only of things pertinent to their world. As it should be.

Hell, Afghanistan has always considered war an essential part of the economy. Afghans entertain a “Fighting” season every summer because it’s just too difficult to fight in the unforgiving winters. When they’re not fighting Russia, or lately the United States, clans will fight clans, village against village. Warlords take over new territory, only to lose it the following year. Inter-tribal feuds and revenge supply never-ending motive. Their continuing local wars are funded by opium, their most dependable and sellable cash crop, in a country without much tillable land. Works for them.

But then we jump into this enduring and complex fray, fueled with angry hubris to change their ways and consolidate them into a cohesive nation in the Western style.

So I have to wonder. Who’s changing who? We have factions in the US outlawing “Sharia law”. At the same time, many of these same factions would just love to employ some kind of “Christian law” which often looks a lot like Sharia. We belly up to Saudi Arabia. Some days Syria is our friend.

We operate now from a basis of anger and hatred, manipulated by a business-oriented economic system that could go bust if we quit warring. How many congress members would move to abandon this futile and destructive economic lifeline and put jobs and resources to work in our own country? What would it look like?

Suz deMello: On Anger

In my social circle--mainly aged hippies and yogis--anger is judged, even though such folk look down on making judgments as well as anger.

Anger is despised. Anger is redefined as a secondary emotion. It’s explained away as a cover for deeper, more true feelings like sorrow or fear.

pic by Mgregoro

I used to have a real anger control problem. I remember when I lived in China, confronted by challenges every day (no hot water, no clean water, employers who refused to follow their contract, insane levels of noise, pollution and rudeness) there were times I used to stomp around my (employer-supplied, dirty) apartment cursing.

Since that time, I’ve taken myself in hand and used, among other techniques, hypnotherapy downloads to defuse and diffuse my anger.

But this week, an incident occurred to fan those remaining embers into a blaze—a situation in which a relatively helpless member of my family was being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous frenemy.

That situation is still in the midst of being handled. I put on my bitch attorney hat and wrote a scathing letter which I hope has the desired effect. We’ll see.

But my anger had been aroused, and I had lost my serenity. So I had to ask:

What is anger for? What can anger teach us?

Wikipedia tells us, “Anger is an emotional response related to one's psychosociological interpretation of having been threatened. Often it indicates when one's basic boundaries are violated.”

Righteous anger, the kind of anger I am experiencing, is useful. It tells us when the moral fiber that binds us has been torn and must be repaired. The helpless must be protected, for honesty and honor demand no less.

My moral boundaries were violated. Thus, I felt anger. Someone I love was threatened. I felt anger.

We all blogged about frustration a couple of weeks ago. Frustrated anger is something different. It manifests in the toddler’s tantrum, the thwarted lover’s petulant notes—or even the ball-hunting retriever’s scraped nose.

That’s a very different kind of anger, which is why we call it frustration.

This isn't Blondie, but this is angriest golden
retriever pic I could find. 

Blondie’s boundaries weren’t threatened. Frustrated anger is about not getting something we think we want. It’s more about powerlessness, the inability to get something done we judge essential. The tennis ball was essential. She didn’t have it. Then she didn’t have some skin from her nose.

GRR!

Again, from Wikipedia: Three types of anger are recognized by psychologists: The first form of anger, named "hasty and sudden anger" by Joseph Butler, an 18th-century English bishop, is connected to the impulse for self-preservation. It is shared between humans and non-human animals and occurs when tormented or trapped. The second type of anger is named "settled and deliberate" anger and is a reaction to perceived deliberate harm or unfair treatment by others. These two forms of anger are episodic. The third type of anger is called dispositional and is related more to character traits than to instincts or cognitions. Irritability, sullenness and churlishness are examples of the last form of anger.

I’d match “hasty and sudden anger” to frustration which is akin to torment.

I’d match “settled and deliberate anger” to what I called righteous anger.

The third form of anger, dispositional anger, is that kind of anger we truly try to avoid. No one wants to have an angry disposition.

The first form of anger should also be avoided. That is the kind of anger that creates self-harm (i.e. Blondie’s nose) as well as harm to others. If we find ourselves tormented or trapped, anger may impair our ability to figure our way out of the trap.

But anger can be a useful emotion. Righteous anger is a motivator. Were I perfectly calm about the threat to my loved one, I may not have found the will to act.

So something that’s viewed as a negative is a positive, like so many things in our world.

Something I noticed in myself as a writer is that there are times I avoid conflicts between my characters, or solve them prematurely. I forget my own maxim, ”no conflict, no plot.” I have to stop myself from writing “and they lived happily ever after” too soon.

In our books, conflict and anger are good. In life...not so much. But sometimes.

Wild and Angry Spirits

Sacchi Green

I’m good at suppressing anger. Maybe too good. I get angry at external events, violence against others, destructive and unjust policies of governments, but on a personal level I tend to see the other side, to know why someone else is acting the way they are and to know when indulging my anger freely would help nothing and cause harm. This doesn’t mean that I put up with abuse—that’s never been a problem. I just, as I said, see the other side of things. Maybe that comes with being a writer.

I was still surprised at how hard a time I had finding scenes of anger in my writings. But then I remembered that Lisabeth recently mentioned my story “The Wildest Spirit” in Mtizi Szereto’s new anthology, The Darker Edge of Desire, and, being a story of shapeshifting and memories of war and revenge (and sex,) there was inevitably a certain degree of anger there. Rage, in fact.

I’m not sure this excerpt from fairly near the end makes sense standing alone, even though I’ve let it be much too long, but here goes:
_____

On the day of the eclipse, the drifting fog tasted of death.
     She knew by his tension as they started up the trail. When she crouched beside the grimacing carcass he stopped her with a snarl.
     "Get away!" The harshness rose from his own rage and guilt, and his need to be alone before the change overcame him.
     Mist swirled between them as she tried to read his face. He avoided her eyes, focusing on the blood-red barberries, the tufts of gray fur caught on the thorny bush in the coyote's death convulsions.
     "Leave it! I..." The man-voice came with an effort. "I should have been here! If you hadn't kept me...."
     Blaming her couldn't ease his guilt. He should have been in the forest, on guard against senseless death, but he had let himself be distracted by the pleasures of human flesh, of hands and mouths and minds. His body still resonated with the memory, even as bones and tendons screamed to lengthen, shorten, change.
     "Get away! Leave me alone!"
     She straightened, arms clutched around her belly as though to keep herself from shaking. Her wide gray eyes burned through the fog.
     "You're right. It's time. I never meant to keep you, never thought...."
     Then she was gone. A last whisper drifted to him on a streamer of mist; "Good-bye, and thanks...." He blocked it out.
     He crouched in wolf-form in the underbrush through the day, a black hole masked by swirling cloud. Toward evening the air cooled and cleared; sunset glowered in the west as the moon rose in the east.
     He waited. Coyotes circled at a distance. Condensation soaked his outer fur, but the heat at his core burned steadily.
     The shadow crept across the moon, and across his mind. Only a bright sliver of clarity remained when tires crunched on gravel by the gate a quarter mile away and the scent he awaited trickled toward him on a faint breeze.
     To keep the wolf-form was to commit to a kill. In man-form, capture would still be an option. But something in him fought the change, and then, as he pressed, he knew with a touch of panic that it wasn't going to happen.
     He thought of the woman, mouth against mouth, skin against naked skin, but words stabbed through his mind; "I never meant to keep you...."
     The moon was a dull red bruise. Old images throbbed inside his skull; another darkened moon, other deaths, blood-scent heavy on the thick jungle air; another failed attempt to change.
     Coyote voices cut through his clouded thoughts. A few adolescent yips at first, then wave upon wave of howls, driven by the mystery of a full moon there and not-there at the same time.
     It might have been the eclipse that drained his power to change; it might have been the turmoil in his mind. It didn't matter. The wolf focused, committed, let his rage feed on the reek of fear and hatred spilling from the killer.
     Another howl, closer now, and the intruder slowed his approach. The acrid stink of his fear seared the air. He stopped, and the wolf tensed to pursue, but another howl from behind drove the man forward.
     A light wavered, glinting on a long knife and on the dull steel of a semi-automatic rifle.
     With what remained of man-thought the wolf wondered what dark fantasy drove the killer. He had smelled that bitterness before, that consuming hunger of one who lacked the strength of mind or body for true dominance. If coyote pelts on his wall fed the killer's lust for power, how much deeper would be the dark joy of defeating a wolf? Of defeating his own deepest fear?
     The human's fear of the coyotes was delusion; they were no threat to him. Even wolves were too sane to waste effort on revenge.
     Except for this wolf.
     The killer came on again, the beam of his light sweeping the brushy roadside. It swung past the wolf, stopped, swung back....
     In the absence of weapons the wolf would have taken time to savor the man's terror. Only a second now to display slanted eyes blazing with reflected light; then a snarl, just enough for a flash of teeth longer than any coyote's; then, as the light crashed to the ground and the gun swung forward, a twisting leap that carried him under and to the right of the burst of gunfire. A powerful, smashing shoulder; the man, unbalanced already by the gun's recoil and his own panic, went down with a guttural scream.
     Then the wolf was on him, slashing the forearm that clutched the rifle, snapping the bones with powerful jaws. The man still gripped the knife in his other hand, but the wolf scarcely felt it slice his thigh. The scent of his own blood was a mere trickle in the hot flood sweeping him as he tore through the man's shoulder, face, throat. Human blood in his nostrils, his mouth, his gullet, blood not just of this human but all those others, under that other bloody moon, as his comrade lay dying on the jungle floor and the wolf-form had no hands to help him, carry him, no voice to radio for help, no human thought but the thirst for vengeance....
      This man died too easily. Only that fleeting thought linked the wolf to the remnants of his own humanity.
     A bright crescent rimmed the moon's dark bruise. He moved, stiffly at first, then at a limping trot.
     He lay in a stream as the torrent flushed the blood from his coat and cleaned his wound. The slash was shallow; thick fur had obstructed the blade, but movement kept the wound bleeding and he would eventually weaken.
     He needed a den, a safe haven for rest and healing. His sense of place wavered as the woods around him warped into twisted, reeking jungle, returned to northern forest, distorted again....
     He emerged at last into a clearing and saw, by the light of the half-restored moon, the haven instinct had found. He crept toward the house and the waiting, moon-washed figure. The rightness drew him; the wrongness dragged at him and kept him low to the ground.
     She stretched her hand out slowly; he growled a warning. _No human touch_! But this touch, so familiar....
     She backed gradually up the steps and into the lamplit interior. He followed, stiff-legged, unable to close the distance, or to let it lengthen.
     Slowly she sank to the floor. Her eyes dropped, freeing him from the painful intensity of her gaze. She fumbled at her shirt collar, swept away her hair, and arched her smooth, vulnerable throat in symbolic submission.
     He crept forward, tested her with jaws that pressed from nape to windpipe. Then he released her neck and laid his dark head against her shoulder, gulping her scent in great shuddering sighs as her arms went around him and a cloud of russet hair fell forward to mingle with night-black fur.
     At last she leaned back enough to stroke the silver streaks at his temples. Her face still showed traces of shock, but more than a trace of tenderness.
     Then her hand moved gently toward his wounded thigh, and her touch set off such ripples of pleasure that he almost missed the signals of impending change.
     She stiffened at his urgent growl; he thrust his muzzle  against her eyes to close them, then tried to pull away.
     Her arms tightened. He gave in, let the change surge through his body as her voice flowed over him, murmuring, comforting, "It's all right, all right...." And her hands and body clung to his, explored him, as the wolf-form became man-form.
     At last he lay naked and exhausted in her arms. With an effort he raised a hand to open her still-closed eyes. The man-voice came with an effort. "You... knew?"
     "No... not _knew_I thought it was just my private fantasy."
     She stroked his head again, then moved her hand down over shoulder, chest, belly. When she eased from under him to kneel by his side and lower her face toward his loins a surge of longing stirred him, but her mouth went to his wounded thigh. Gently she licked away the blood.
     "Your blood--could it make me..."
     "No. You have to be born to it." And she wasn't, she couldn't be, he would have known if that flesh had ever changed. But there was something so unfathomable, so strange and wild, about her....
     "I thought so." A shadow more profound than disappointment crossed her face.
     Then she tossed the hair out of her eyes and stood. "He's dead?"
     It took him a moment to understand. "Yes."
     "Your clothes are out there?"
     "Yes, I should get them." He started to rise, wavered, then made it to the couch.
     "It's my turn now." She shrugged into her jacket. "Will it look as though coyotes did it?"
     "Coyotes couldn't..." The snap of a heavy arm bone between his jaws echoed in his head.
     "We can't let them be blamed, be hunted down. And talk of a wolf would be even worse." She felt in a pocket and drew out gloves. "Is the knife that cut you still out there?"
______

After which, the woman proves to be even fiercer in rage  than the wolf, with a spirit at least as wild as his own.

Gravity: It's the Law or Is It?

Spencer Dryden

 

Fellow bloggers, this came out funny, but I was seething when I sat down to write it. I was disgusted with myself for my bad habits and angry with Dr. Oz as well. However, after it sat for a while, I sent it to The Good Men Project. They put a different title on it and wrapped it around some good graphics. I have subsequently joined LA Fitness, hired a personal trainer and downloaded a calorie counting program on my smart phone. Sometimes anger can be motivating.

 

Gravity: It's the Law. Or is it?  

For all the distress over global warming, the melting of the polar ice cap, the hole in the ozone, depleting of the oceans, the mass extinction of species, the pollution of our air and water , let me add one more to the litany of despair—gravitational flux. This phenomenon has not yet caught the fancy of the sky- is- falling media. I may be the only person who has noticed it, so let me bring it to your attention. There has been a slow marked change in the strength of the gradational force on earth.

Gravity is hard to measure directly, but I have found an indirect measuring tool, the common bathroom scale. Over the last two years every time I stand on it, the damn thing registers a higher number. I am not eating anymore than I did two years ago when the scale read 175. Two weeks ago it said 200. How is that remotely possible? Gravitational Flux —the force of gravity is not immutable or constant.

I checked the accuracy of my scale by placing objects of known weight on it. To my horror, the force of gravity had not changed for these objects, leading me to the astonishing deduction that the change in gravitational pull is not universal among all types of mass. This discovery of Gravitational Flux promises to launch me on to the path of the Nobel Prize in Science.

So many great scientific breakthroughs, like Viagra, for instance, are serendipitous. Viagra, in fact, selectively reduces the force of gravity on certain vital organs. The idea that Newtonian principals of gravity are not universal has my head spinning. I'm wondering if any of you have noticed this phenomenon on your own bathroom scales?

I can see myself now in Geneva, waddling down the isle to accept my reward when the slacks of my tuxedo fall down they way they do to poor old fat fools who are featured on America's Funnies Home Videos. I fall flat on my face, humiliated.  My only consolation is winning the $10,000 weekly prize for the most humiliating video— which of course will go viral— and finally bring my fifteen minutes of fame. It's all good and all in the name of drawing attention to a looming crisis.

I didn't recognize the phenomena a few years ago when I went on a strict vegan diet to improve my health. Even under this stringent diet, devoid of my beloved butter, eggs, cheese, and steak, the force of gravity increased. I ate raw spinach by the bale. I should have Popeye arms now. I consumed tofu by the brick load, gobbled blueberries, ate nuts—all the things Dr. Oz promised would lead me down the path to throwing away my blood pressure and cholesterol medications, as well as shedding unwanted pounds. Look at him, he's skinny as a rail. His hair keeps getting darker while my is turning whiter. How could he be wrong? He's a doctor, after all.

The results were stunning. After 18 months my blood lipids dipped about ten  percent, no where close to enough to remove statins. Not too long after, I had emergency surgery for a kidney stone too large to pass. At sixty-three I was too old to be a chronic stone thrower, so the wonderful folks at the Kidney Stone Clinic did a big work up on me to try to determine a cause. In addition to pissing into a bottle for an entire week, I had to keep track of my diet. Turns out all those healthy foods I was consuming are high in oxalates, the stuff of kidney stones. My doctor gave me a handout about oxalate content in foods. Yup, nearly everything I was eating was high in oxalates. I pleaded to the surgeon, "But Dr. Oz told me to eat this stuff." The surgeon smirked. "Then tell Dr. Oz to pass your next kidney stone."

I'm no longer vegan.

But the gravitational phenomenon that became apparent during my veganity has continued unabated. I have been at wits end trying to validate my theory among leading scientists. Like all men of vision, my theory has been utterly dismissed. Ha, they said the same thing to Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin and even the dude who discovered Viagra. Look who's talking now?

Time is running out for me. My waist has expanded to 38". I had to buy new clothes. Plotting a simple line graph shows I'll be needing a crane to get me out of bed in the not too distant future.

We must act now my friends in bringing awareness to this frightening phenomenon. It could be the first signal that the long awaited reversal of the earth's magnetic poles is at hand. We need an awareness campaign, ribbons, slogans, media packages, spokespersons, local chapters, days weeks, even months dedicated to this noble cause. Following the awareness building paradigm so prominent in modern fundraising, we will be giving a dime from every dollar raised to sponsor research, with the other ninety cents going to build more awareness.

Please write me and let me know if you too have noticed this phenomena on your own bathroom scale. Together, we can raise our voices in a chorus of alarm. I think our slogan should be The Weight is Over.  To bad Save the Wails is already taken. How about: We Can't Weight Anymore?

Thank you and please pass the doughnuts.

 

 

Infuriating Technology (or, Crisis at the Craft Store) (or, Giselle Needs Professional Help)

by Giselle Renarde

I'm much more patient than I used to be. Much less irritable, too.

But something happened earlier in the week that really set me off: my computer started acting up.  Maybe you can relate.  There's something about electronic devices not doing what they're supposed to do that's absolutely maddening.

I can handle a lot of intense stuff pretty calmly.  I have certification (albeit lapsed) in crisis prevention and intervention. Does that mean I never have out-of-control moments myself? Nope. I had one just a couple days ago. We'll get to that.

Last week I was at Michael's (the craft store) when a man burst through the door screaming and swearing.  Customers RAN from this person, who was obviously in crisis and perhaps has mental health issues.  While he screamed that he'd lost his towel and he was having a very bad day, a staff member asked if she could help him. She spoke clearly and casually, without a hint of fear and without that demeaning therapist voice people sometimes use when they don't know what they're doing.

The man asked for a product the store didn't carry (not a towel, by the way).  The staff member made a suggestion about where he might find it, which inflamed the man because he'd already been there.  He shouted about all the stores he'd visited. Nobody had what he needed.

The staff member listened without rushing him or interrupting. She eventually suggested a store he hadn't tried, and he left without escalation. The situation was handled extremely well. When you're speaking with a person in crisis, things can go really bad really fast. Here, they didn't.

Around the same time, my computer started acting up. Slowing down. Not responding.

Annoying, right?  I'm no expert, but I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I started running scans. Scan after scan after scan.  Nothing seemed to be working. The solutions I implemented to resolve my possible problems only exacerbated them.

I can't remember exactly what set me off.  After five days of getting zero work done because all my energy was going into resolving this issue, I had a bit of a mental health event myself.  The helplessness of not being able to fix my stupid little problem culminated in an explosion of screaming, swearing, crying, rocking, and punching myself in the head (a new one, for me). I'd lost my towel. I was having a very bad day.

It was a true crisis moment, brought on by... computer problems?

When I was a teenager, I remember a teacher trying to warn me off my ex because he'd once kicked the crap out of a photocopier.

There's something about technology.  It brings out my inner rage in a way humans never can.  I used to have a printer that could provoke similar reactions, though never as intense as this event. This was a bad one. I've never hit myself before. That was new and painful and actually pretty scary.

My computer's still not working properly. Mostly, programs randomly choose not to respond for reasons that remain a mystery. When this happens, I get up and walk away and do something else for a minute.  I know I have to take a breath and distract myself or risk another meltdown.

A close friend suggested seeking professional help, meaning an IT person. That made me laugh, because when my girlfriend made that same suggestion she was talking about a healthcare professional.

I think they're both right.

"The Well" An Angry Story

The well was old and long dry and fairly deep. Leaning over the shallow rim of piled flat rocks you could never see to the bottom which only held water when it rained and then filled up to the top quickly. She passed it with a basket of green plantains, her bare feet with wide toes and soles hard as horn, crunching over the rocks of the dry ground, when she heard the man’s voice for the first time.

“Hello?” it called, suspended in air like a forest spirit.

It was in the early heat of the afternoon, when the sun toasted the tall dry grasses of the savannah until they began to shimmer like a desert sand of waving brown tufts. The time of day when the dangerous and bad tempered black vipers hid from the sun and stayed out from underfoot and the larger cats and animals lounged in shade or near the watering hole. Of the beasts, man was the most dangerous and unreasonable. Even the doll eyed vipers were reasonable creatures if you respected their peace. A young woman alone, a man would hunt down.

She stopped and half turned, looking down. Silence. Something moved down below. An impatient gasp.

“Hello?” she said.

“Someone!” the man called back. “Hello Someone! I’m here.”

She stood still at the edge of the flat rocks, feeling her youth, her thinness. The lonliness of the savannah. She looked up. The tall grass and the greener trees were filled with hidden animals, some of them dangerous, who all knew she was here, were watching and smelling her even now but had no malice towards her. She looked down again, thinking.

“Someone is there, I hear you up there. Help me, please,” called the man.

She opened her mouth to speak her name and stopped.

“I need help. Are you there?”

She shuffled her foot. Kicked a flat rock off the edge and watched it tumble down into darkness.

“Hey!” yelled the man. She heard the rock hit and the man moving around down there. “I need help. What’s your name?”

They always want to know your name, she thought. They always ask that.  They always want to know your name so they can say your name while they’re holding you down.

She did the cooking. She would cook these plantains. Her mother was in bed now, doubled over. It was like not having a mother.  At night she cried and hid from every night sound, fearing the soldiers had come back. In the day she would sleep if her daughter was there.

She opened her mouth, stopped, swallowed, spoke. “Why are you there?”

The well was silent, baffled. The darkness waited for her.

“Did you fall?”

She heard the man moving and short gasps. “Are you hurt?” She called down. “You sound hurt.”

“Yes,” he called. “Can you bring a rope or a ladder?”

She put down the basket and sat on the ground. “So, you’re hurt? Did you hurt your foot?”

“Yes, girl,” he called up. “Can you bring your mother or your father? Someone who can help?”

The word mother made her jaw tighten. She looked at the plantains, picked one up and turned it over. How much like a man’s thing it looked. When they hold you down, when they’re on top of you, it looks like that. “Are you a soldier?”

The darkness was silent. She listened, straining to hear what the man was doing.

“Are you a soldier?”

“What?” said the well.  “I need help.  Can you bring a rope, little girl?  What’s your name?”

She raised the plantain like a club and was about to throw it and stopped. “Are you a soldier?”

The dark was breathing. Then, “No. I’m not a soldier.”

She stood swaying at the edge of the well with the hard plantain held up in her hand. Sweat ran into her eyes, stinging. She shook her head and put the plantain in the basket, thinking.

“What do you want?” she called.

There was a sound like an angry sigh.

She looked around. “It’s getting dark,” she called down.

“Will it rain?” said the man in the well.

“I don’t know,” said the girl. She sat down again. “It might. What food do you like to eat? Maybe I’ll bring you some food.”

“Do you have water?”

“No. I have these plantains.”

“Can you bring help? Your mother or father or uncle?”

“Papa, he’s dead. My uncle, he’s run away.”

“Can you bring your mother? And a rope. With some water.”

“My mother, she can’t come.”

She felt the rage down below in the well.

“Who can you bring?”

“It might rain,” she said. She dangled her feet over the well’s edge.

“Yes, but who can you bring?”

“It’s very hot. I hope it rains soon. Do you like rain?”

“Little girl, I’m hurt. If you can bring a ladder or a rope, you will be a hero. What is your name?”

They hold your arms down. They hold your legs open so you can’t kick at them when they’re on top of you saying your name to you.

“Do you like plantains? Or bananas? Which do you like better?”

The darkness seethed. “A rope. I’ll give you money.”

She sat thinking.

“I have a lot of money. I’ll give you some, little girl.”

She sat thinking. “I’ll be back.” She stood up and called down, “Wait here.”

It was dozing on a rock, like a thick, gleaming, black rope with its big wide mouth and the arrowhead cheeks full of slow and dreamy death. She had prepared herself with a dead frog, a big stick and a thick burlap bag. She put the frog inside the bag and prodded the snake gently with the stick. The big viper put its head in the bag, licking out its tongue at the frog. She poked it again, waited and when it slithered into the offered shade she gently scooped up the bag and closed the end in her fist. She felt it twisting and struggling and biting at the rough cloth.

She brought the bag to the well and stood swaying, holding the bag out over the edge.

“What’s that?” called the dark.  “Is it water?”

She stood swaying, holding the bag out at the end of her arm.

“Is that a rope? Tie down one end and throw the other end down. That’s a good girl.”

She stood swaying in the heat, thinking of nothing as the bag flopped and moved angrily at the end of her arm.

She stepped back and tore a strip off the bag. She tied off the end of the bag and put it down and sat with her face in her hands. After a long time she said “I have to go. I have to make dinner. I’ll come back.”

“Don’t go!” yelled the voice. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’ll be back.”

“Can you bring someone?” The man was almost crying. “I need help.”

“I’ll come back,” she said. “Wait here.”

She came back in the morning with an aluminum cooking pot of kerosene and a box of matches.

She balanced the pot of kerosene on the edge of the flat rocks of the well rim and snatched up a fistful of dry brown grass. She held the grass near the bowl of kerosene and lit the grass with a wooden match. She watched the grass burn.

“Is there someone there? Hello? I’m down here? I need help. Please help me.”

She stood watching the smoke rise from the blazing grass and held the flame over the pot at the edge of the well.

“Please help me! I’m not a soldier. I swear.”

She watched the flame burn quickly to her fingers, looking down at her face staring back dully from the brown depths of the kerosene.

“I’m not a soldier.”

She looked at her face in the kerosene, threw down the smoldering grass and began to weep.

“Are you up there?” called the well. “Are you up there? I can hear someone up there.”

She sat at the edge of the well and cried.

“Is that you, little girl? I have money for you. What’s your name? Tell me your name and I’ll tell you my name. Okay? Is that okay? What’s your name?”

She sat and wept for a while longer and then picked up the pot of kerosene and brought it home.

She never went back to the well. Two nights later the clouds broke into a thick howling rain that made the dirt streets of the burned village run with mud. It would be the first of many heavy spring rains and soon it would be time for planting. She thought of the man in the well, all alone. She fed her mother boiled plantains and thought about the man as she held out the food to her. She herself was not hungry. She had never learned to like plantains at all.

It rained heavily and steadily all night and all the next day. The ground filled up with pools and deep gulleys of rushing water. When she went outside for anything she was careful not to step barefoot in the pools of water because there would be worms in there that could dig under your skin and make you sick.

C. Sanchez-Garcia

Anger by Accident. J.P. Bowie

The call came while my friend Anna and I were having breakfast. I was staying with her in London on my way back to California. My boyfriend and I had had a parting of the ways...or at least that's what I was telling myself what was going on. He hadn't seemed to have received the memo. But then he'd never been the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Hot in bed, best blowjob giver I'd ever known, but as even his best friend had told me, The lights might be on, but there's no one home, really."

"It's for you," Anna said handing me the phone.

I took it after casting a questioning look at her. She remained mum. "Hello?"

"It's Russ, Jamie... I - I've had an accident."

"Oh, sorry. What kind of accident?"

"I totaled the car, I'm afraid."

"Are you all right?"

"Some cuts and bruises that's all."

"You were lucky then."

"Yes, only thing is, we're not insured."

"What?" I felt shock at his words, then the start of a slow anger unfurled inside me. "But I sent you the money two weeks ago. You said it was due, you didn't have enough and could I send you five hundred dollars...which I did. Why didn't you pay it?"

"I needed some new clothes for work, and I needed to buy food, and--"

"I don't understand, Russ..." I could hear the coldness in my voice and hoped he did too. "You sent me a registered letter begging me to send you money for the car insurance, and now you're telling me the car is totaled and uninsured. You are without doubt the most irresponsible arsehole I have ever known. The car cost fifteen thousand dollars and I co-signed the damn thing for you. Now I'm responsible for the loan on it. Russ, honestly, this is why you and I couldn't make it. You are such a jerk. How did the accident happen?"

"Well, it was the other guy's fault."

I sighed. "Of course it was. So, we're all right then. His insurance will pay for a new car."

"Well, not exactly."

"Well, what exactly?"

"The police gave me a ticket...actually they arrested me."

"You were drunk...again."

"I'd only had a couple. If the bastard behind me had been looking where he was going, he wouldn't have hit me."

"You were drunk, Russ," I snapped at him, anger boiling over. "I know something about your driving when you're drunk. You almost killed the two of us last year. Look, I don't know what you expect me to do about this, but you'll have to work it out yourself. I'm tired of getting you out of scrape after scrape. I'm so fucking angry right now, Russ, if you were standing in front of me...well, I don't know what I'd do. Just be glad there's five thousand miles between you and me right now!""

"Jamie, I could've been killed!"

I bit back the furious retort that had sprung to my lips. Yes, that would have been the solution all right.

Instead, I said, "Are you in jail?"

"Yes, they want ten thousand for bail. I don't have it."

"Neither do I I'm afraid." I felt some of the anger slide away as I said, "I'm afraid you'll have to find some other sucker to help you this time, Russ."

"But--"

I hung up and looked at Anna. "Russ is in jail."

"Best place for him."

"I couldn't agree more."