any concession for murder

                        “Nothing is as certain as death and taxes.”

                                                                        (Meet Joe Black)

The movie dragged on about certainties in life: Paul Murray stifled a yawn and wondered again how he had let Peggy drag him out to the movies. He was a busy man and movies did not usually make his schedule unless the movie was a prelude to sex; and in this case it was. Peggy was his regular girl- though he kept others on the side whenever got bored of her. She was good enough for a laugh and in the sack, but Paul always liked to keep his options open. Peggy Milsap sat to the right of Paul in the darkened theatre, desperately trying to hold back the tears as Brad Pitt steamed up the screen. Paul glanced at the tearful Peggy then back to the screen to watch Mr. Pitt confess his love to another beauty that one could actually conceive of dying for. Not that Paul would have died for anything- or anyone for that matter. He certainly would not have died for Peggy even though he believed he loved her, but only occasionally, in moments of weakness.  He was instantly grateful he hadn’t married her, although he had nearly asked a year ago- another moment like that. Paul knew that he would never dare marry Peggy or any other woman, he could not afford such a character flaw in his life.

He stifled another yawn wanting to look away from Brad and his all to beautiful partner engaged in the love scene. He looked to his left at the couple, five or six seats down, all snuggled together as they watched the movie. Disgusted, he looked back at Peggy, wondering if he could stand such an entanglement. His thoughts turned to why he thought they were still together. He found no reasons intellectually, so he appraised her physically instead.  Peggy for the most part was a plain woman in appearance, slender and small. She had a round doll-like face with a narrow nose and small mouth framed by straight black hair. Her mouth was sweet to kiss but had left no lasting impression. On her thin nose rested a pair of full-rimmed glasses, librarian size and shape. Peggy only wore them when she went to movies and to read. She reads too much Paul thought, as his eyes wondered on down. He glanced briefly at her slim arms which were crossed under her breasts- the only feature that held much interest and longing for Paul.

            Paul admired Peggy’s breasts, which were pushing hard against her tee shirt. Her nipples protruded against the flimsy bra that Paul made her wear when they went out. Paul smiled, Peggy’s breasts were small and hard; he realized at that moment, in the dark, that was why he stayed. Paul sat satisfied with this newfound answer. A new feeling rolled over him and he looked back at his sole reason for staying, something stirred deep down inside of his being. Paul purred.

This purring noise was deep “guttural” sound-like that of a lion looking at his next meal. Peggy gave him a look of real surprise. Her face had reddened from her tears and now a fresh blush came into her cheeks and she almost smiled. Her smile froze on her face, like a tongue on frozen metal, as she saw where Paul’s gaze was glued. Her frozen smile melted into a grimace of disgust, her arms quickly cutting off his view.

“Paul!” she hissed almost to loud to be a whisper.

“Paul!” she repeated low but with sharper inflection.

Paul snapped out of his reverie like a rubber band freshly sprung. He looked into her icy expression.

“Yes my sweets?” He managed to choke out.

“Would you get me a Pepsi” She quickly added, “diet please.”

“Okay Honey.”

            Paul instantly felt a surge of relief to escape Brad Pitt. He secretly wished he could escape Mr. Pitt forever. Paul rose quickly to his feet only to receive hisses and muffled threats as he blocked the screen for the couples in the rows behind.

Jerks! Paul thought- Brad Pitt isn’t even in this scene, but he stooped anyway as he sidestepped towards the aisle. Reaching the aisle, Paul quickly strode for the lobby and certain freedom.

He was just about to push through the doors when he nearly tripped over someone. Pivoting as he stumbled, he stared into the frightened eyes of a woman.

It was Caitlin Marshall.

Paul reached out and grabbed Caitlin’s left arm and yanked her towards him and the doors. They both burst out into the spacious lobby of the theatre. Paul angrily held onto her arm as he walked into the lobby as if he intended to throw her out. Paul realized he wanted to.

A man in a maroon blazer and tie spun around from the concession counter as the pair came out.

“Just what the Hell!” Paul began, turning on the woman.

“Is everything okay?” A voice questioned over his shoulder.

How had he gotten there so fast? Paul thought in frustration and a little fear.

“Would you mind your own business.” Paul snarled without turning, still glaring at Caitlin- who stood like a girl needing desperately to go to the bathroom.

“Are you alright- Ma’am?” The manager said as he came around Paul’s blocking mass. He immediately noticed Paul’s grip on Caitlin’s arm. He looked back at her face, which was torn between embarrassment and pain. Caitlin opened her mouth to speak, but Paul cut her off.

“She’s fine. So why don’t you go away and sweep the floor.” Paul stopped; spittle ran down his chin. Fear hit him hard as the manager turned on him.

The manager stood half a head shorter than Paul, squared build and wore an expression like that of an angry pitbull.

A lump rose in Paul’s throat.

“This is my theater, sir, and I was addressing the lady- who I am sure will be better when you let go of her arm.” His voice was quiet, his tone deadly.

“Or?” Paul was still determined to stand his ground.

“Or-“ continued the manager, bringing his clenched hands forward.

“I’ll dismantle you,” he said smiling, “piece by piece.”

            The finality of the threat sunk into Paul who found him staring at the calluses on the manager’s knuckles. He gulped for air like a man drowning, letting go of Caitlin’s arm. He raised his arms defensively in front of him with his hands spread wide.

“Oh,” he breathed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to cause a scene.”

Paul managed a feeble smile.

“Of course. No harm- no foul.” The manager grinned. He turned to face Caitlin, who stood less awkwardly, rubbing her arm.

“Steven A. Lowe, Ma’am.” He extended his right hand. Caitlin took it feeling the security in it. A profound look of gratitude came over her.

“Thanks.” She said. “Caitlin Marshall.”

“If you need anything else,” Steven said with a genuine smile, “I’ll be right over there.”

He pointed across the lobby to the concession stand. Caitlin nodded-the color coming back into her cheeks. Steven turned to look at Paul, who stood palely in place.

“Behave.” Steven said as he walked past Paul, in a tone low enough for Paul to think that he was the only one who heard it. As Steven walked back to the concession stand, he gave a shallow wave to the other employees to get back to work. Marcy, his assistant manager, gave him thumbs up to show her approval of Steven’s actions.

Rabble, Steven thought, wishing he had kept the policeman- security guard there for weeknights. Rabble came on weeknights, and there always seemed to be trouble when the rabble was here.

Steven sighed and shook his head as he looked back at the couple. He wondered what a woman like that would be doing with a man of that character. The man appeared to be behaving. Steven looked at the beautiful woman trying to remember her name.

Herein I give a few words of instruction

How to shoot a Wedding at St. John’s

1. Come at least an hour before the wedding.
2. get wedding program sheet- you will need this for names and to know what to look for Rick to Play before wedding procession
3. go upstairs- turn on TV lights
4. check sound board: make sure the following levels are up:
1. Channels 1-3 are at 0-5- these are the wireless mikes
2. Lectern 0-5
3. Left prayer same
4. Choir 20

5. Turn the following equipment (if necessary):
1. Turn on all the camera monitors
2. Turn on program and preview monitors
3. Turn on the Panasonic HDD player
4. Turn on Black HP computer
5. Turn on the DV capture device
6. Turn on LCD TV

6. Check cameras: controls, zoom, pan tilt
7. Check DV capture device (located on shelf behind Silver HP): make sure the analog light is on-push silver button until light moves from digital to analog

8. Go to Black HP:
1. Log in
2. Double click on studio launcher icon
3. Select pinnacle studio- wait for it to load
4. Select capture tab
5. If you get a message that no capture device is detected than exit program, check DV capture device-verify analog setting, start pinnacle again (if you don’t do this it will cause problems with capture). Repeat steps b-d.
6. click start capture
7. enter name of those being wedded
8. click start capture

9. Go to Panasonic HDD- get remote: at this point the LCD TV should auto tune to the Panasonic.
10. verify that you see the church on LCD (if not then take remote and do following):
1. point remote at Panasonic (not TV) you will look at TV but use remote towards Panasonic
2. select Direct navigator button- which will bring up a menu
3. select return button and you should see church on LCD TV
4. press record on remote or record button on Panasonic HDD

11.  Shoot wedding: Rick Sidey will start playing 20 minutes of... (before the wedding start time
12. After the wedding has ended run cameras at least 15 minutes and get b-roll footage of activities following wedding- more on that later.
13. stop recording on Panasonic HDD and PC
14. turn of same equipment (if necessary)

Things to cover while shooting and things to know

·        sometime there will be a quintet, quarter playing by baptismal font, if so- move left prayer mike near them- bring up the level downstairs-not necessary up stairs, play camera time between Rick and other musicians

·        Often Rick will have a trumpet player with him- doesn’t worry about miking them –the choir mikes will pick them up. Repeat same process as above.

·         Make sure to get the procession of mothers before the wedding formally starts and people shots interspersed with the music

·        During the wedding do not forget the reading from the lectern

·        Make sure to get close-ups of the wedding couple

·        MAKE SURE YOU GET THE KISS

·        Following the wedding look to get the newlyweds and witnesses signing the documents- this is almost always down in the first row of the left choir at the back- usually can get a good shot unless the photographer is an idiot and gets in the way

·        I always shoot them taking pictures and looking for laughter and reaction shots

·        Take about 15 minutes and shut down- these are for B-roll which I will add to the edit.

·        Do not use the CG- I will add titles in the edit process

·        Have fun but not too much fun- remember this is for them- we want to impress the family of the newlyweds with our camera ability

·        Don’t freak if you mess up- I can usually fix even the worst mistakes as long as I have a recording.

·        Good luck and thanks

Now ask yourself this- How did this get so outdated?

Sneak Peak at The Beast's Tale

The Knight Tree

What follows is a rough new beginning for the novel that I still don’t have a working title for.




The Knight Tree stood large and ominous in the mists that engulfed it at times in the narrow gully at the foot of the pass. Once it had been a mighty tree standing the test of time as it dominated the landscape and the wooded land that existed beyond it stretching into the valley. It was the lone guardian against the mountain pass. The first and thus the last tree or thing a person would see coming into or leaving from the Valley of Long Shadows.
The tree had many branches now bare of foliage reaching up into the sky with branches like great claws ripping at the mists that surrounded it daily at dusk and morning. One who gazed upon the Knight Tree could see why it had earned this ominous namesake, for from the lower of it branches hung the bodies of its title. Three suits of plate armor hung like ornaments from the tree as if some unsympathetic giant had found it fit to decorate the tree as such. The sight gave pause to those who saw its visage looming out of the environment as if to say who dares to come into my domain.
I dare, Sir Dinadain had said as he had rode under it from the pass that morning. Part of him had wished to climb into the monstrous tree and cut his brethren down from it, but he had no means to get up to the branches which were a good 16 feet from the floor of the gully. Dinadain had seen many fearsome spectacles that were to beheld in the pass he had just crossed but this was perhaps the worst, for Dinadain knew these knights’ names.
Their names were written on the logs of the missing at the Benevolent Gaurdian, the Keep of the Order of the Silver Hand. Each of these men, these great men had earned their titles through deeds of great renown but now had been reduced to the scarecrow corpses hanging from this travesty, no this mockery of all that they had stood against. Dinadain had paused only long enough to pray over their remains and curse their murderer- not for the first time.
Sir Sagremore had come to the Valley first and his armor now hung in the branches as if thrown their by some careless giant in a fit of anger. Not some giant, Dinadain corrected himself, no this was the monster that Sagremore had come to kill. Sagremore’s faith had failed him as had his sword apparently.
Sir Duncan De Loce had followed Sagremore here a year later to learn of his fate. Sagremore had been declared missing not long before De Loce had joined him on the logs at the order. Apparently he too had shared a similar fate as his brother in arms. The last Knight to grace this accursed tree was that of Dinadain’s own family, his older brother Cinwyn Dinadain had come to meet with fate and lose his life upon this cruel tree. Dinadain had shed a tear for his brother before spurring his mount into the Valley beyond.

Now Dinadain limped in a half gait- half run through the long grasses that separated the forest from the Knight Tree as the monster had called it. The creature had towered over the shallow ravine where Dinadain had crashed after the monster had decapitated his horse sending him and the head of his beloved steed crashing through the underbrush to the bottom of that awful place. Dinadain stopped just in sight of the Wicked effigy of death looming before him in the evening mists. He cursed the fowl luck that had brought him here. He cursed his fool hardy courage and bravado for daring to tread where the bravest of the Order would not go. He cursed fate for delivering him into the hands of the Beast.
He knew at once that visage of nightmare had followed him there. He looked up at his brother hanging above him and hated everything he was or could have been. His brother leered down at him as if inviting him up to hang beside him. Dinadain felt the cold fear close around his heart, his legs began to shake uncontrollably as he felt his death approaching him across the long grassed behind him. Yet he would not turn to face it.
He reached up on hand, his left and was shocked to find the gauntlet gone, lost somewhere backm in those woods of twisted trees. Shaking with terror and exhaustion he struggle to rip the leather laces free from his helmet. If he could see the Beast this time perhaps he could slay the cursed creature and go home to his beloved order and the arms of Lily. The thought of Lily, brought tears and he choked on them. His hand forgot the laces to scrabble at the pouch at his throat. Somehow they found purchase and pulled free the lock of blond hair and tissued silk hidden therein. He breathed in her scent one last time wishing he could hide his head in her lap on last time before...
Sir Dinadain turned to face the darkness as if came rolling across the grasses that separated his death from the woods. No Salvation would come. Lily was lost to him forever, perhaps she had always been lost to him. Damn them all he thought as he let loose a scream and swung his sword high and forward into the coming night.

The shadow looked down at the man who now hung forward on the sword that impaled his chest. The Beast was not sure but the man may have died before the blade had ever impacted the plate armor covering his chest. This knight’s armor would have protected him from such a thrust of a weaker weapon and weaker opponent. This is no weak weapon, the Beast reflected nor am I a weak opponent.
The two of them stood there as the shadows of evening slid down the mountains to reach out across the valley in their long embraces. The beast felt the knights weight loosen as the last of his life left him. The Beast considered the knight for a long time. This one had been braver than the last. He had not begged for his life nor cursed and swore when it was ripped from him. What had the man screamed as he had swung his sword for the last time?

Lily.

The knight had screamed out a name, a flower’s name, no not a flower but a woman’s name. This man who had come to kill him had cried out in regret for the woman who had now lost him to the bitterness of death. Carefully the Beast lowered his sword and thus the Knight as well to the ground. Then placed his boot on the man’s chest, then with painstaking careful strength pulled the blade free.
The Beast considered his victim, this assassin as he lay in the long grasses surroundied by the stain of his blood as it seeped out of him into the ground. How many more would come before there would not be any who dared disturb the Valley of Long Shadows? The Beast looked up at the Tree where the three other had taken their places. Silently he chose a spot for this man to join his brethren and become a warning to those who would dare come here to try their fates against him. Fools that these mortals be.
The Beast returned his gaze down to the Knight that lay at his feet. he caught a glimpse of gold as the last of the light of day retreated from the valley. Carefully the Beast crouched down to pluck the golden piece up from where it had dropped from the man’s hand. The Beast considered the lock of golden hair and silk in his hand then looked down at the man who lay at his feet.

Lily.

The Beast knew of loss; loss like this man had given away that day. The insanity of it interested him. He shook his great head and considered the treasure in his hand. He would bury it with the man in the morning. The Knight or at least his armor would join the others in the Knight Tree.

Chapter 20

"The philosopher does not try to dictate how scientific inquiry and argument ought to be conducted. Instead he tries to enumerate the principles and practices that have contributed to good science."
                                                                                                                               Jerry A. Fodor.

The philosopher sat in from of his computer and reread that line over and over again. The philosopher's job is to question the contributions of science and it's methods, he thought and squinted at the flickering screen. Traditional philosophies of the mind can be divided into two distinct categories. Dualism and materialism. With the duelist approach the mind is observed as a nonphysical substance, such as the existence of the soul.
In the materialistic approach the mind is not distinct from the physical state like that of his son, Jack's obsession with video games. Will that be enough to argue that in the materialistic approach can be applied to anything other than abstract thought? Can this computer for instance answer me this basic question? Or does is take a mind and a body for cognitive thought flow?

Recently, the philosopher reflected  as he spun the pencil on the desk next to the computer with its cyclopian eye glaring back at him unblinking, a new approach has been introduced. Oh boy, by new does that mean that he could finally publish or better yet go home and take the video games away from Jack and play them himself?
Probably not.

Functionalism. Yep, that what those stuffed shirts are going to call it the philosopher thought. Functionalism emerged out of the quagmire of philosophical reflection on the developments in artificial intelligence, computational theory, linguistics of cell phones, cybernetics and of course the fruition of psychology. The result? Skynet.
Well maybe no terminators running around grounding flighty philosophers like him but the same concept would rock his world and probably his job
"The chief drawback of dualism is in its failure to account adequately for mental causation... Dualism is also incompatible with the practice of psychology." Fodor again, the stuffed shirt.

Behaviorism has always worn an air of paradox...the idea of mental causation is deeply ingrained in our everyday language (whose? oh wait- the stuffed shirts)" And in our understanding of humanity.
Thus the strongest argument against behaviorism is that psychology has turned out to be different from behavioral predictions, since it has moved beyond it (and supper time).

Logical behaviorism is a semantic theory about the definition and meaning of mental terms. Logical behaviorism is strong in the fact by translating mental languages into the language of stimuli and response that it provides interpretations of psychological explanations in which the behavioral effects are attributed to mental causation (phew)
The central-state identity theory states that mental events are states and processes are identical with neuro-physical events in the brain and property of being in certain mental stats is identical with the property of being in a certain neuro-physiological state. HEY IS THIS ONE OF THOSE LOOP ARGUMENTS!

The philosopher decided that the scotch would be a good idea.

"Functionalism construes the concept of casual role in such a wqay that a mental state can be defined by its causal relations to other mental states."
Funstionalism is fully compatible with token physicalism, which logical behaviorism fails to accomplish. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!!!

Yes, the Philospher's bubble had burst by this point. There would be no video games tonight.

Basically mental representation is the only functional part of the mind-body problem and though we should "acknowledge" the others we should pay special attention to this theory because it is better and won't rot your brain like marijuana and bad sex.

'nuff said. (the Thing said that.)


The Philosopher
August 4, 1992

Writing in the Sands

He sat in a square near a bustling marketplace. The square was empty save for him and the swirling breezes that came with summer. Everyone else, even those who had come here with him, had gone off to the stalls of the marketplace  to haggle for food and drink. The sounds of their business transactions and haggling were much like a din in the distance away from the silence of the square. There were seldom times of silence and he felt the peace of it as he sat on the steps of the block in the center of the square.
He looked across the space and imagining the voices of the slavers selling their human cargo from where he now sat warming himself in the sun. A breeze began swirling on one side of the square. Tiny dervish swirls of sand lifted from the stones in small mad dances as the breeze swept around him. He looked down at where the wind had disturbed the sands at his feet. He smiled down at the sandals that a man had given him just a few days back before wishing him well as they talked of walking to this town. A pair of sandals, not his own, came into view and stopped in front of him. The sandals were old and well worn, the feet in them looked like they too hand walked many miles having thick calluses and chipped toe nails.
He glanced up at the man who stood before him and nodded at him. The man who was as worn as his sandals grunted, then walked around him to sit down on the steps next to him. The man was dressed in the robes of the land though they were thread bare and the colors sun bleached out of them until all that remained was a soft whiteness that permeated all of the cloth. The man himself was darker than he and swarthy, his beard thicker with streaks of gray midst the darker ones. His eyes sparkled with a gentle humor that seemed to know more than he would be sharing.
The two of them sat in companionable silence for a time. The other man looked around the square and nodded. He then turned to check the street that led into the space as if expecting to see someone come down it.

"Do you think they will come?" He asked the silence.

"Aye, they will come soon." The other man answered as if he were the one who had been asked. "They will bring the woman as well."
He smiled, knowing what was coming, then he bent down and pushed his finger in the sand at his feet. The other man sat for a while and then looked down at what he was doing but did not interrupt. After a time, he stopped the writing in the sand and sat back. Both of them considered his work. The other man shook his head and chuckled. They continued to look at it even as the wind swept around them blowing away his work on the shifting grains.
"It was a good law." the man said finally.
"It was perfect until they decided that it needed something more." He said wiping his hands.
"Something more." The other harrumphed. "More than  what exactly?"
"They would say the law needs a certain definition so there would be no doubt."
"It was not what the Father told me in the end."
"It was not enough for them to take Him at His word." He said as the last grains blew away and the wisdom in the sands was no more.

"How soon they would alter the law, so much that they could soon forget it." The other man said, placing each of his gnarled hands on each knee.
"It did not take them long at all to forget the good things, the Father had done for them, why not His laws then."

"They could have let the Law stand. No, they should have let it be." The other man spread his hands wide and slapped his knees. "Besides, your law will be better, surely they cannot get that wrong."

He only smiled sadly at the other man until he nodded as well and shrugged.

"They cannot help themselves."
"Yes." He said and bent back to write in the sand at his feet again.
The other man looked down at his activity.

"So few then?"
"I cannot save them all." he said without looking up. "Many will hear and not have it. Some will refuse to have it even, Others will hear it and immediately want to alter it to suite- no to justify their own ends. Only a few will take the Father at His word."

"As it was in the beginning." The other man said sitting up straight and looking up the street once again, then added "So it will be now and in the end."

"You can say what you like but the Father is always consistent." He said looking down at his latest handiwork.

"Well I must be off then." The other said as he stood.

He smiled and looked up at the man.
"You'll not stay for this?"

"No, my friend. I have watched them do this one too many times for me to want to watch them do it all again."
"I understand."
"The irony of it all strikes deep, how soon they can forget one commandment- even unto the next one."
"Yes. it is amazing that it can happen so quick with them."
They nodded at each other, sharing the knowing smile.

The other man turned and began to walk away, then he stopped and turned back to him.
"Should I tell the Father anything?"

"Yes." He said and looked up the street seeing the crowd approaching pulling the unfortunate woman along with them. They were being none to gentle with her, almost driving her like livestock would be driven. A few found something of interest on the ground and stooped to pick it up.

"Tell Him to leave a light on for me."

The other man nodded, then left him alone in the square and the sand.

lost children

She stood on top of the craggy cleft for a long time screaming her lungs dry, calling her sister’s name over and over again until her voice broke in lamentable despair.


Where had the time gone since she had left the windswept crags of her family home? 
three years had passed since they had taken her sister from her mother's arms. Her mother had screamed at them that she would rather be dead then let them  take her child away. They, the men in the long grey coats had shoved my mother to her knees while the one who held my sister in his arms had spat on our mother. 
My father had not resisted them taking my sister as they had broken him a long time ago when they had taken Josef. I can still her the thuds of their batons on my father's body as they laughed at him for his defiance. My father has not spoken since my mother and I drug him back into our container and wrapped his broken limbs in the swaddling in which it would take months before he could stand again.


She looked down at the digital recording device in her hands. She had walked from where the container town had been placed above the mud pit where everyone worked becuase they had told them to work there. No one had come after her, she was not the first child to walk out into the wastes, she would not be the last. It was a good thing that they allowed procreation among the people, otherwise the children would run out between the outcasting and the culling. Josef and now Mirand had been taking in the cullings while she had apparently walked out into the wastes thus outcasting herself to the elements and from  the people.


She had seen no one. She had looked for days, then weeks, then months, now it was years. Her only track of time she had was the recorder she kept with her. She had snatched it from the back of the container where her family had lived ever since the town had been dropped there by the others. No one she knew could say where they had come from though some swore that it was from a different pit. Those fools also swore that things had been better at the last pit.


She gazed down at her hands and knew that she had been right to leave. Her hands had finally healed, the callouses  had finally healed. Her hands were whole. She had learned- thanks to other peoples recordings how to forage and eat. How to collect things to wear, where the purified water ran and where the radioactive pools were likely to be. She had learned other things along the way. Things like where to hide from the predators unamable and horrifying. What to listen for before the wind storms swept in the sand and grit that drowned out everything in their beckoning howls.


She had found only a few others from the people out here. Some were like her, fast, furtive and hard to catch. The others were easy to catch, dominate and possess- this repulsed her more since they were willing to do anything to live another day. The rest had been in some stage of dying from exposure or bad water or rotted food. She had felt pity for them since their was no saving them and they had passed on to another place in the nights she had remained with those she had found. 
Lately there had only been skeletons and the remains of skeletons.


She could not find Miirand- what had she expected though? to walk down into some valley and find her sister waiting for her?
There were still times when she felt like screaming like she had that first night when they had taken her twin from her.

At the Well

"Do you have any water?"

It took several moments for her to realize that someone had spoken to her. When it did sink in the voice had asked again. The idea that someone would speak to her both shocked and stunned her. She looked down at the clay pitcher in her hands, it was chipped and cracked around the rim. It was so plain down there in her hands, like her so plain almost beyond notice. She stared at the bruise peaking out from under her sleeve, almost unnoticeable.
Why would anyone speak to her anyway? She was no one- well no one that anyone would want to speak to. Wasn't that what her husband would always say. That she was worthless, that she was below notice?
"Do you have any water?"

She blinked in surprise, she stared down at the edge of the well, focusing on each of the worn blocks surrounding it. With an effort she still her trembling hands on the clay jar- she would not- could not afford to drop it again. Not after the last time. She discovered that she might be able to look at the speaker without seeing him. She would look for his feet, but only that. If she knew where his feet were she would know which way to run should she have to. She could not, no would not look up at the speaker for the fear of her husband learning of it made her hands tremble again. The pitcher shook, the waters spilling over the sides. maybe if she pretended not to hear, he would go away.
She would just turn and walk slowly, carefully away from the well and enter her house. She would not- no could not afford to spill the water again. Her husband said she was so clumsy. She took several deep breaths and made herself steady her hands and thus the pitcher.

"Do you have any water to spare?"

Why wouldn't he leave her be? What had she done to this man that he would persist in his requests? Didn't he know that just by talking to her, he increased her own torment? Maybe... just maybe if she offered him the water then he could drink and go away and her husband would not see. Just this once, please, please, just this one time. Hesitantly she held out the pitcher towards the man. She looked and saw the man's feet. They were bare on the hot stones of the square. He stood on them comfortably as if they heat did not bother him.

Suddenly her hand met another hand. She had touched the man's hand and- the touch was cool like the water that was in her clay pitcher. She felt refreshed in a way she had never felt before. As the feeling flooded her, she looked up from the earth and saw the sky as if for the first time. It seemed that it had been a long time since she had seen the sky, it was so blue.Then their eyes met. The man who touched her hand smiled at her.

"Thank you."

Though he spoke to her, it was his eyes that spoke more. She could not say what the words were that she saw written in his eyes but they were so important that she knew that she needed more. A burden lifted from her chest and she took a very deep breath unlike any breath she had breathed since she had woken for the first time in her mother's arms.
They watched each other for a long time it seemed, His eyes were with her even as he drank from her pitcher. The moment lasted a long time, perhaps an eternity, perhaps a few seconds.
A moment later he handed the pitcher back.

She felt shame at having looked, she cast her eyes back at the ground despite want to keep them up. She was about to apologize, to make an excuse that would somehow explain her boldness, that would...
She stopped before she could began and stared at the pitcher in her hands. She knew it had to be the same pitcher she had carried out to the well, it was the same one she carried everyday. It was the one her mother had given her on her wedding day. It was the same pitcher but now it was no longer chipped as if time had been erased from its surface, as if the cracks had never formed.
She stared at it in shock, disbelief and wonder. Her fingers traced it's simple but pure form crossing the now smooth surface. It was pristine, unblemished.
Forgetting every warning of her husband, every trepidation she looked back up at the sky and the well in the square for the smiling man. Afterward she could not say that he had ever been there, but she would not say that he had never been there.
She felt the smile come out from under the swollen lip on her face. She felt the rush of blood as the blush spread under the yellowing bruise on her cheek. She looked down once more and found the footprints on the stones in front of her.
She blinked back the tears and realized that she was thirsty. Thirsty for something more than the water in this well; for more than this moment in the light. She stood in the moment that she had just held with the man at the well, a moment of truth.

"I am thirsty." She heard a voice say. A voice she had no heard in a long time. It was her voice.
She felt her smile spread through her whole being.

"I am." She heard the man say again. She looked down at her pitcher which was now brimming with new water. She gazed at it in wonder. It had no weight in her hands. In its reflection she was almost sure she could still see the man where he sat on the edge of the well waiting- waiting for her.

I am thirsty.
"Drink deep." She heard him say.

She raised the pitcher to her mouth and drank deeply.


*****
This one is for my friend, Rick Redmond.