Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 3

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE SUNSET _ A New Year's Musing

The movies have taught many in the entertainment field (like we writers)

that either you soar and reach the rarefied air of Super-Stardom or you are a failure.

Was Emily Dickinson a failure just because she was never recognized in her lifetime?


She tenderly crafted the words singing to her soul 

and wrote what she felt was beautiful and true even if no one else felt the same.


Do you think she felt herself a failure?  I hope not.


What will we do to our souls 

if we follow the Yellow Brick Road left by the footprints of some best-selling author?


Sean Rowe's song, TO LEAVE SOMETHING BEHIND, 

heard at the end of the excellent movie, THE ACCOUNTANT, speaks to me on this.

Did it speak to you?

You may never reach Mt. Everest's top, 

but if you reach the peak of your own abilities and help others along the way ...

your pockets may be empty, but your soul will be full.

Perhaps the sun has set on your dream of whatever it had been, 

but sunsets have their own beauty and their own quiet peace.


 And sunsets are but the promise of new dawns.  I wish you new fulfilling dawns, my friends.

Missing Midnight, I just re-watched KEDI:

This Turkish documentary, the debut feature for director Ceyda Torun, turns the cameras on a group of stray cats as they amble around 
their customary haunts in Istanbul. 
While the film indeed exposes the day-to-day goings-on of felines,
 each with a distinct character, 
what ultimately ends up on screen 
appears to be a rich portrait of a very ancient city full of equally interesting and distinct individuals.
 Why not explore Istanbul in a different way — with some stray cats as your guides.

A NEW YEAR'S FABLE: REUNION OF ENEMIES

 

I have missed the world of the Caretaker whom we last saw in the HERO LOST anthology.

 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939844363/

So without further ado, let us re-enter the House Eternal

{1100 words}
The House Eternal

The truth of its birth whispers from the dark unknown.  I am its Caretaker. My beginnings burn under the starlight of dim memories.  My end is unknown yet certain in its ugliness.  I hasten it by meddling where saner souls would wisely pass.

Above the oak front door, the spider web, spun from the sobs of children, trembled in anticipation.  Arachne studied me from its glistening center.  Human/not human, she smiled with green lips still wet from adorning her silken snare with venom.

“Athena wronged you, but taking it out on innocents is misplaced vengeance.”

Arachne’s words were flutters of papyrus, “Dry and dead is the wind that last tasted innocence.”

Mouse, riding in my chest pocket, wrinkled his whiskers like angry broom straws. “All things truly wicked started out innocent.”

Mouse.  He owed his freedom to Napoleon’s soldiers.  The gust of bacterial air which breathed from the First Dynasty tomb they ransacked gave them the freedom of death.

Was Mouse a ghost rodent or had the bacteria-infested air of the tomb changed him somehow?  

Arachne’s laughter was more sleet than sound.  “The world must have been born innocent indeed.”

I said. “It takes a very long time to become young.”

The front door, Artemis’s gift to me, throbbed with tears of dawn.  I snorted.  Athena was much too Olympian to merely knock. 

I smiled.  Artemis’ tongue might be as sharp as her arrows, but her word was as sure as her aim.  Artemis usually beat me at chess.  But last night, I could not allow her to win, for I fought for another. And so, she had brought Athena to me.

A man-shaped shadow appeared.  Once he had been a solid man … before he doubted.  He flowed to my side.

“I thought I had a death wish, Einherjar.”

“Thomas,” I said.  “all in the House Eternal are my charges.  I will see to them or die.”

Mouse chirped, “I vote for a greater margin of error.”

I patted his head.  “I give you leave to flee to the shadows, little friend.”

Mouse’s eyes deepened.  “You may not remember the time you first fed me. Or the time you first scooped me up into the safety of your shirt pocket. Or the time you waited at the crossroads for me to catch up. But I do, and the end of your skein of days shall be mine.”

Thomas rumbled, “So say I.”

I frowned, and Thomas shrugged, “I said I had a death wish, did I not?”

Arachne murmured, “I am not worth the fate Athena will grant thee.”

I could almost see the beautiful woman she once had been in her many-eyed face. “I am your friend.”

“And if I do not wish thy friendship?”

“I will try to be discreet.”

This time her laughter was more summer rain than sleet but still it was chill. The door was hot sunset now.  I must time this just right.  As Caretaker, I was pledged to greet visitors for Grande Dame. 

 .

Was She Avatar of the House Eternal or merely its first resident?  Most of the House was complete, She tells me, when the first stars began to coalesce into the Light that caressed the awakening planet. 

It could be.  I was not there.  I am old,  just not that old.

She was not alive as one thinks of life.  Nor was She eternally dead.  Life, Death – they were but trifles to Her as She insisted on having Her way with each new-born day.

 also insisted upon respect from those who came calling. Athena refusing to knock would not be appreciated. I had a moment more that I could safely wait to respond.

Tragic Athena. She could have easily forgiven Arachne’s pride, if it had not also mortified her own.  Olympians find it easier to forgive mortals when they are wrong than when they are right.

Another heartbeat more, and I would have to answer.  And my gambit would die still-born. 


After centuries of dealing with those who wander eternity, I should have remembered that they are long on hate but short on patience.  The oak door simply vanished.  No flash of lightning, no thunder.  True power is like that.

The dying twilight revealed eyes filled with razors.  Athena.  Imagining her museum statues and carvings?  They are not even in the same dimension with the terrible majesty looming in the doorway.  Artemis stood bored beside her. No hunt that did not smear her arrows with the blood of prey interested her.

I wondered if she would mourn me.

“I have to ….” I started.

“Die,” Athena murmured, suddenly right before me.

I shook my head.  “You entered unbidden and thus must abide by the House Rules.  I was going to warn you.”

Athena spun to Artemis.  “You tricked me!”

Moonlight caressed the Huntress’s long hair in glints of cold fire.  “Nay.  I but mentioned Arachne’s fine weaving of old.  It was you who wondered where she might be these long centuries later.”

Shoulders the white of mountain peaks shrugged.  “You asked.  I answered.  It was your idea to come, laughing about a fine reunion of enemies.”

Athena turned to me.  “These House Rules?”

“Are many … one is that those who enter unbidden must leave behind them whatever the Caretaker chooses.”

I smiled like an Einherjar.  “I chose your hate.  See it yonder on the marble porch?”

Incanting dark spells, Athena turned to see the floating green cloak of thorns, most of which turned inwards.  Wet Olympian blood still gleamed on their points.

“Hate always hurts the one who wears it.”

Arachne gasped as once more she stood in human form, though her gown now was clinging spider-silk.  Her beauty breathed of sunshine and honey.  I suspect that long ago, Athena envied more than her weaving skills.

Athena’s inhuman face lengthened.  “And should I step back onto the porch?”

Mouse chirped, “You cannot, Great One. Those who enter unbidden must stay the night.”

Athena breathed icily.  “But come morn, should I embrace it?”

“You would find it gone,” I said.  “Hate left untended dissipates.”

Teeth like flint daggers flashed.  “You think yourself clever, Caretaker?  You are nothing.  Nothing!”

“I am loyal.  I have done my duty to one guest.  Now, I must put Grande Dame to bed.”

Thomas rumbled, “One night, you will not return.”

From the attic whose walls were not walls, Grande Dame’s yawn stirred the ancient air.

“I am beckoned.  Honor would have me go.”.

Athena’s laughter swirled behind me like graveyard blossoms.

I turned, climbing the steps with Mouse shivering in my shirt pocket.  I gently tapped his head.  In the end, it is our hearts that prove our undoing.
For other tales like this fable, pick up:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVFH1PF/Only $1.99 in Kindle

STRANGE TIDINGS ON NEW YEAR'S

 

Although many of us do not admit to it, we do believe or follow some superstition at one time or another.

Knock on wood?  

I do, usually have to resort to knocking on my head, the universality of plastics you know.

Have you known people to stop a dog from howling to prevent death or 

to get married on a rainy day to insure a long and happy marriage?

 New Year’s Eve also has its fair share of strange myths and weird superstitions 

that are followed by many around the world. 

Here are a few:

1. No sweeping on New Year’s day.  

They say that it is an ominous act and can sweep away the good luck of the entire family.

Well, why not? Anything that keeps you from the nasty chore of cleaning is welcome, right?


 2. Wearing new clothes on New Year's Eve.

 They believe that it ensures a constant supply of new clothes for the whole year to jazz up the wardrobe.


 3. No empty pockets
 
There are people who insist that one should take care to avoid wearing a dress with empty pockets on New Year’s Eve 

since it may be a sign of very low or no income in the year to come.


4. Say no to chicken
 
If you cook any chicken dish on New Year’s day, you will have monetary troubles for the rest of the year.
 
So now you know who is responsible for all your financial troubles this year… 

Colonel Sanders!


5. Don’t do laundry
 
They say that if you do your laundry, you will certainly wash off your luck or will face a year of hard work. 

Even more ominous, doing laundry on this day is also associated with facing a family member’s death.
 
What can I say? These myths sound like work-relieving fun to me!


6. Don’t cry, honey!
 
The wise men (and women) say that one should not be miserable on this day and neither should one cry because that depression will follow you in the year to come.

So, wipe away those tears and be happy! After all, it is a new beginning.

  
7. Be Scrooge on New Year's Eve!

You should not give your cash, ornaments, precious items or other valuable things to anyone

 on the first day of the year because it may be a sign that wealth will be flowing out in the entire year. 

So, hang on to your cash until January 2nd!

  
8. Make noise and hang a lemon at New Year's Eve.

Have you ever wondered why there are fireworks on New Year’s Eve? 

It is to scare away the evil spirits and evil thoughts. 

Even hanging a lemon in the doorway helps in warding off bad spirits.

* The First Foot of New Year has a whole post coming soon here. 

Do you know of any New Year's Eve superstitions?

NEW YEAR'S EVE SUPERSTITIONS

 

What will be the last thing you do this New Year's Eve?


What was the last meal for you in 2024?

STRANGE NEW YEAR'S EVE BELIEFS

1.) IF YOU DON'T KISS SOMEONE AT MIDNIGHT, YOU WILL BE UNLUCKY IN LOVE ALL YEAR


2.) EMPTY CUPBOARDS MEAN THEY WILL STAY EMPTY ALL YEAR

I wonder if that goes for empty heads as well -- which would explain the politics of this last year!


3.) OPEN ALL THE DOORS JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT

That is to let out the Old Year and let in the New Year will all its promise.

All the Democrats across America are not only flinging open all their doors tonight, but their windows, too!


4.) EAT 12 GRAPES AT MIDNIGHT

One for each month -- that is just in case you do not like cabbage and black-eyed peas!


5.) NO LOANS TONIGHT

A full wallet seems to give promise for a full bank account during the New Year!


6.) NO TEARS AT MIDNIGHT

Lest you have a year full of sadness.

HERE IS MY WISH  FOR ALL OF YOU TO HAVE  MORE SMILES THAN TEARS  THIS NEW YEAR!

New Year's FIRST FOOT

 

The shades of years past watch us. Maybe even the shade of my cat, Midnight.
We, of the modern age, stumble and bumble our way,
sure of our sophistication and education.

But what if there are principles of which we are unaware that take no notice of our ignorance of them ...

only chastise us when we break them.



After all, gravity takes no breaks ...

it only gives them


Take "First Foot,"

a custom concerning the first visitor of the New Year to a home.

His function is to bring prosperity and good fortune for the ensuing 12 months to those he visits.

He comes just as soon as possible after midnight, bringing gifts which symbolize plentiful food, health, and wealth. Sometimes he carries an evergreen branch as a symbol of continuing life.

Strict rules govern the choice of First Foot:


Male always for he symbolizes the New Year.


No redheads need apply.


The luckiest representative is a dark-haired stranger, symbolizing a new year full of undiscovered mysteries.

An old form of First Foot has the visitor entering silently, greeted by none.


He goes straight to the hearth, laying the evergreen branch on the fire and a sprig of mistletoe on the mantle above.


Then, he turns and greets those living in the home, and festivities ensue. 

I wonder what thought first visited the homes of our minds last year?

Did it symbolize the atmosphere, the temper of our thoughts for the remaining 12 months?

What thought do you think should first visit your mind this New Year? 

What First Foot will be your physical first visitor?

Can you remember who first entered your home last January? 
Did he or she reflect the luck and temper of the following 12 months?

Just thought it would be fun to think on these questions.

THE KEEP _ ANOTHER CHRISTMAS FABLE

 

Once Again, the approaching NEW YEAR gives us pause to wonderWHAT IF?
Instead I will bring youanother Christmas Fable:



It was Christmas Day ... which meant exactly nothing to my Nazi captors.
I was alive only because I was a doctor and knew German.   
The Nazis surprised us in the forest.  We gave as good as we got.
Almost.
I was the lone American.  Five Nazis limped behind me.   
Ahead slowly walked their Carpathian guide.  
 In the mists ahead, I could barely make out an ancient structure, a Keep of some kind. 

  The guide stopped.
The captain called out, “Why do you stop?”
His voice lingering haltingly over unfamiliar German vowels, the guide said, 
“We must turn back. This place is … evil.”
Swearing under his breath, the bloodied captain limped up to the guide and aimed his Luger at him.    
“That chapel will provide shelter from this damnable rain and a place to make a fire to warm our bones.”
The guide said,  “This is no place of worship.  It is a prison.  To enter is to die.”
The captain shrugged.  “No, peasant.  To deny the Reich is to die.”

He shot the guide.  I shivered.   
There for a moment in the moonlight, it seemed as if the guide’s face looked relieved.


The captain shoved me towards the Keep.   
“Amerikaner, you will make a fire for us and tend our wounds.“
His smile flashed like the strike of a snake.  "Perhaps you may live out this night.“
His promise was as phony as his smile. 
“We need to bury that guide.  Wolves will be drawn to the body.“
He laughed, "Predators need to eat, too.“
All the branches outside were soaked.   
The two privates still able to use both arms broke the rune-etched structure that acted as a barrier to the rest of the huge Keep.
As soon as the strange wall was down, a wind moaned from the darkness.   
Fear was bright in the wide eyes of each Nazi. 
The captain snapped, "Fools!  Are you children to be afraid of the night?"

The night. 
It calls to the frightened child in all of us.   
It seems to welcome the horrors with which we once peopled the darkness.
There's power in the night. There's terror in the darkness.  
The caveman knew.   
There were deadly things in the dark he did not understand.  That caveman awakens when the sun sets.
As a physician, I knew all too well how much science did not know about the body, 
why things went wrong with it, and how much Man still had to learn.
I did what I could to staunch the flow of the soldiers’ wounds.  
My oath did not let me differentiate between ally and enemy.
The captain pointed his Luger at me as he put his back to the Keep’s cave wall and slid to the spot closet to the flickering flames.
“You will continue to feed the fire.  Should it die, I will awaken.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes.  “Then, you die.”

I nodded and started to pick up the remaining pieces of the shattered barrier.
The captain growled, “What are you doing?”
“Collecting all the pieces now so I won’t awaken you doing it later.”
He grunted, “You grovel well, Herr Doctor.”  He pronounced it däktər.
“I plan to live,” I said truthfully.
I reminded myself that a sneer was the weapon of the weak, but his Luger put the lie to that.   
He fell asleep with the sneer still twisting those thin lips.   
He slept the sleep of the exhausted.
The rain pelted the forest outside.  

 With prickling scalp, I saw the rain stopped inches from the Keep’s entrance.   
It could just be a trick of the weather.
The wolves who hungrily eyed the guide’s body but refused to approach it 
(and the Keep's entrance) 
made me think otherwise.
I started to piece together the remains of the barrier on the rock floor.   
The two Nazis had been so weak they left huge chunks of it intact.  
 I made a passable mosaic of the barrier between me and the sleeping Nazis.
Maybe they were superstitious, but the two Nazis had not fed any of the wood carved with runes into the fire.
I survived medical school by having a memory for detail.   
I managed to fit all the wood runes in the order I remembered.
I no sooner finished than the wolves started whimpering behind me.  
 I turned on my knees to see the wolves slinking away, their ears down and their tails between their legs.
I turned back around and believed in Evil.

In the gloom, I spotted … something. 
My voice strangled in my throat.  Something was tottering from the darkness beyond.
A strange whistling sank and rose.  There was a low fire behind it.   
I could not see from what source the dim glow came. It seemed to emanate from no central focus.

But I saw a vague figure shambling toward us.
It was made of such blackness as I had not dreamed existed this side of the grave.   
The oily blackness had the musty feel of antiquity to it. 
It looked like a woman, but no human woman ever walked with that skulking gait, 
and no human woman ever had that face of horror, that leering grimace of lunacy.
A part of me wanted to scream at the sight of that face, at the glint of nails in the uplifted claw-like hand. 
Flabby lips turned up in hunger and ecstasy, it bent over the four enlisted men.   
Their wet screams were cut short as their writhing bodies blurred into mist …
 and were absorbed into the black Something.
The captain started awake, his eyes wild with terror.    He emptied the Luger into the thing that shambled for him.
It snared his wrist and kissed him as he gagged.
It shambled towards me but paused as it glared at my makeshift barrier.
I scrambled out of the Keep and into the freezing rain, taking my chances with the wolves.
The captain screamed after me as the Something dragged him back into the darkness.
“Don’t leave me!”
I called back, “Remember? Predators need to eat, too."

ONE CHRISTMAS NIGHT

 

"I'm not running away. I'm already gone."  - The Charioteer 

MUSIC TO READ THIS FABLE BY

I am the Charioteer

A rather grandiose name considering my present occupation.


But here in the ironic dying of civilization's light in the 21st Century's dawn, 

there are precious few ways to to roam abroad on horse-drawn vehicles.


After my days as the Cid, I forswore riding for any king or country.  

My days at Camelot should have taught me better than to think any king worth the blood of his followers.


Once I drove Apollo's chariot across the skies, not that he was worth the deaths he caused in his vain wisdom. 


But I was young enough to sacrifice good sense for the thrill of flying across the heavens, 

my fiery steeds singing their joy at the celestial race in tones that thrummed my bones like tuning forks.


Yes, I contested in the Roman Colosseum races as well.  Not for the thrill of victory nor for the roar of the brutish crowds.

I did not know then for what I raced.


I do now.

I raced in a vain attempt to outrun my mistakes of the past. 

But you cannot outrun regret or the pain of memory.

Pain always catches up.


Perhaps that is why my pace is so much slower now.  

My valiant warhorse patiently pulls my light-festooned carriage, waiting for me to come to my senses and race the moon again.


My passengers chatter behind me, their words becoming more shallow and empty with every passing year. 

Soon their words will become so slight and without meaning that they will fly away on the chill winds before they can reach my ears.

One can only hope.

I no longer turn when a passenger boards my carriage.

I hear the rustle of the worthless paper money go into the slot of the metal box behind Sir's back.

Sir?

Once his name had frozen the blood of humans ... as had mine.  

He thinks himself a Foo Dog.

I let him.  

After all, do we not all deserve to write our own myths?


Few see his two other heads. They only see death if they should attack me.  

Few do attack.  And none twice.


Snow drifts like dreams' echoes around me and Sir.  I feel my carriage shift from the slight weight of another passenger.

No paper money.  The heavy thudding of gold coins.

Sir rumbles a greeting, something he has not done for centuries.

"Good to see you, too, Cerberus."

The Voice whispers icy tingles through my blood.  Tender, cold fingers feather the back of my neck.

I turn.


Turquoise eyes laugh into my very soul.  

A face, its beauty terrible and haunting beyond any singing of it, study me with wry amusement.

"Oh, Helios, how often I beckoned to you, but always you raced faster than my words."

"I move slower now, Gaia."

Her whole face glows in a smile.  Snow flurries swirl around us.  

"Perhaps our nights will no longer be lonely."

Nor were they ... ever again.

Perhaps on Christmas Night, miracles still happen.

What will you do if you win the 1.15 Billion in tonight's MEGA MILLIONS?

 The Odds are 1 in 302, 575, 350

But you still are going to enter tonight, aren't you?

What do you think Dirty Harry is telling you above?

Considering my precarious financial situation, I should sit this one out.
But just last August, someone in Lake Charles won $2 million in the lottery.

Did you know that there is a deadline for choosing between annuity or lump sum?
I'm closer to that dreaded Finish Line than most, so it is lump sum for me.

Yeah, I know.

If you win, remember the IRS takes out its cut TWICE!
Immediately and then the following April 15th.
And there are state income taxes!
Hey, who bought the ticket anyway: us or Uncle Sam?

Or, like now, if you win late in the year, you may defer claiming the prize until the following year.

And earn hundreds of thousands of dollars by investing the taxes due the following year in high yield bonds.

No matter what you do, stormy seas lie ahead for you as a winner.
Family and friends will turn sour on you.
Your identity will be discovered no matter how careful you are.
Attorneys and tax advisors will prove false.

Stay true to your moral compass,and even if all around you prove false, you will find safe harbor.

BOXING DAY_TO SHARE LOVE

 

One of the great things about love ...

is that it grows in ever larger ripples when shared.

One shares with another, 

then that heart touched by love shares, too.

One becomes two. Two becomes four. And four becomes eight.

Not every heart which receives, gives, of course.

Who of us has not received compassion and felt the better for it?

We are let into a busy traffic line, and we wave thanks.

But do we give it? 

Do we let another in somewhere else down the line?

Or do we just go on our way, too much in a hurry to return the favor to a stranger?

Have we received compassion, wisdom, kindness repeatedly from a friend, 

but then have been hurt by that same friend?

Can we find it in ourselves, that after having taken so much, to give one thing ...

the benefit of the doubt,
to trust in the past acts of friendship to give ...

forgiveness?


That is the secret of Boxing Day, 

still celebrated in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom ...


(though not as widespread as it once was --
like many customs of kindness and compassion)

to give from the surplus that we have received on Christmas Day.

One of the clues to Boxing Day's origins can be found in the Christmas Carol, "Good King Wenceslas."

Wenceslas, who was Duke of Bohemia in the early 10th century, was surveying his land on St. Stephen's Day — Dec. 26 —

when he saw a poor man gathering wood in the middle of a snowstorm. 

Moved, the King gathered up surplus food and wine

and carried them through the blizzard to the peasant's door.

Christmas love and magic is better when shared. 

Just like laughter is somehow more than doubled when the joke or 

the funny movie is shared with a friend.

What is more beautiful than a unicorn in the snow?

Two unicorns racing through the flurry of snowflakes together.
***

MERRY CHRISTMAS from a bruised heart

 

“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, 

let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, 

and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and moves upon them. 

He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--

and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, 

He came down to earth and gave us Himself.”
― Sigrid Undset 

"Did the Shepherds ever hum afterwards the tune the Angels sang that night?" 

- Father Darael

  MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY FRIENDS!