David Williams's Blog, page 15

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Six:  A Friendship Forged

It took a while for us to regain our mutual composure, after which a most peculiar detente settled over our persons; it was as if, having come to the determination that the consummation of what was evidently a mutual and primal attraction was simply not our lot, we were now able to converse amicably and openly.  I suppose this might not come as a surprise to those who are more well versed in such things; I will freely admit to my callowness in regard to matters romantic, much of which arises from my natural aloofness, coupled with a healthy scepticism of both my own emotive state and the intentions of others.

Diego and I were soon sitting upon the heavy woollen blanket he had brought with him with the intent of spending his night alone beneath the heavens.  It was, let me note, a blanket of considerable size, one permitting us to maintain a respectful and discreet distance.  This might seem something of absurdity, given our recent intimacies, but in light of how narrowly indiscretion had been averted, it was most welcome.

Diego drew from the small pipe he had procured from a pocket, slowly releasing a cloud of dank and skunkish smoke into the cooling night air.  As a matter of politeness, he had of course offered that I should share in the partaking, from which I equally politely demurred.  I was somewhat reluctant, for as with the presentation of the c’anupa amongst the ancient Lakota indigenes and their present day descendants, the acceptance of such an offer helps cement allegiances; that said, I did not wish my reason to be clouded or my reserve confusticated, particularly given how both had been tested by recent events.

We sat together beneath the fulgent beams of the setting moon, as the treeline round about the outer compound wall cast ever-lengthening moonshadows; in the comfort that rises from a newfound clarity in one’s interrelation with another, we had taken to talking about our mutual losses, and then about our lives.  He was full of curiosity about the Peerage, as I was about his life and his people, and I found him to be a delightfully inquisitive conversation partner.  Often one finds that those who are tossed by the vagaries of passion are entirely disinterested by anything that does not make them the centre of their own universe; Diego, to his great credit, was not such a soul.

His interests, as it came to pass during our animated and reciprocal conversance, were mostly around my upbringing and education, and the nature of my childhood.  It was, we unsurprisingly discovered, of a radically different nature than his own.  The young scions of the Peerage are each personally tutored, as naturally we would be, with regular opportunities for social engagement both formal and informal.  Reginald, my tutor, was a venerable series five, and while my time with him was hardly a woodland frolic, it served its purpose of inculcating the values and discipline necessary for participation in Society.

Diego, on the other hand, was raised in the manner of his settlement.  My impression, from his description of the process, was of a wild tumble of unsupervised feral wolf-pups at play. 

Our colloquy soon turned to matters even more personal, and as I had shared that Stewart and I were “intended,” Diego’s eyes sparked with interest.

“So,” Diego said, at the end of a long exhalation.  “Yes.  Tell me about this, this, what’s his name again?”

“Stewart,” I replied.   

“This Stewart of yours.  Your ‘intended’. Tell me about him.”   

“Stewart MacDougall is the Baronet Annandale, whose father and my father determined that a union between our Houses would be a…”

Diego snorted, then lolled back on one shoulder.  “Rebecca.  Jesus.  You know that’s not what I’m xxxxing asking.  Tell me about Stew-Art.  What’d you like about him?  Why do you, you know, love him, and xxxx?”  He grinned gently.

In reply, I iterated at some length all of the factors that delight me about Stewart, all of which I have previously elucidated for you, dear reader, in a prior instalment of this serialisation; should you require a refreshment of your recollection, I shall offer those reasons in sum now:  the uniqueness of his mind; his estimable and particular contributions to the interests of the Crown; his deep reserve; his doting consideration of my needs and interests; and his choice to love me with the entirety of his person. 

When I had finished my systematic account of his many admirable features, Diego laid back upon the heavy wool of the blanket.  He sighed.  “Yes.  I can see why that’d be a thing.  He’s a lucky one.”

Gazing down upon Diego’s relaxed and particular form, a question most impertinent rose to the fore of my mind.  In other circumstances, I would not have deigned to speak it aloud, yet here having shared so much that was profoundly personal, I felt it was entirely equitable that I might inquire.

“I have answered your question, now I would pose one to you; if it offends, please do tell me so.”

“Fire away.”

“Your augmentations.  Their workmanship and design appear to be of our own, of Her Majesty and the Crown.  I have seen their like described in circulars from the Royal Society, but they are not frequently used among us.  How did they come to be a part of your person?  Again, only if it does not offend, or is not too painful to recall.”

“No.  No worries.  Six years ago.  I was twenty three, part of our settlement’s defence brigade.  It was Minsky who was xxxxing with us back then, before Caddigan put a bullet in his head and took the reins of the Hammer.   We were responding to a support chit from a settlement in the Carolinas.  We’d hit the Hammer hard, had them on the run.  I was on a forward recon patrol.  Stepped on a mine they’d left to slow us down.  Once second I’m walking, the next second, nothing.  Don’t remember it.  Lucretia got me to one of those machine hospitals of yours. Took six months to recuperate. So.  Here I am.  Better than ever.”   

He extended the perfect and intricately constructed metal of his arm, opening and closing the elegantly crafted hand.  “You people did a xxxxing great job.”  

There was an odd set to his face as he said this, one that told of some unspoken discomfiture of his soul.  

“Something about it still troubles you, Diego.”

“Yes.”  He took another puff from his pipe, and again the oddly tumaceous perfume of his herb filled my nostrils.  “Not to be an ungrateful xxxx about it, but I wish I’d been xxxxing asked.  The whole thing was...you have no idea.  It would been better to die.  I still think that.  Death would have been better.  The debriding of burnt flesh, amputations, weeks of microsurgery, the initial nervous system rejection and the reinstallation after secondary amputation, all of it, weeks of xxxxing torture, even with everything that your robot doctors could do to shut down the pain.  And the whole time, six months, not a single human face, not xxxxing one.  The intent was good and xxxx, but it was a surreal horror.  I’m not sure, even now, if it was worth it.  Seriously xxxxed me up.”

“That sounds dreadful, Diego.  I know the intent of the Royal Charitable Hospitals is only for the restoration of those brought to their care, and I can assure you no malice was intended by Her Majesty’s therapeutic interventions.  Does it…does it still cause you discomfort?”

He shrugged.  “No no, not at all.  And I’m strong as xxxx, which is great.  But I’m like, well, you’ve seen me.  I didn’t used to just xxxxing explode at people.  Didn’t used to get so xxxx intense.  I mean, I always had a temper, sure, but I could control it.  Mostly.  Now, it’s just like a switch gets thrown.  It’s not like I want to be such an xxxhole, you know?”

I nodded in quiet affirmation.  “Yes.  I know, Diego.  I know.”

For a while, we sat in silence.  Then our conversation turned to matters of less weighty import, as I queried him about the music of his people.  The night deepened and wore on, and our discourse slowly faded again to an utterly comfortable quiet.  He drew repeatedly from his pipe, and seemed to disappear within the mist of his own thoughts.  

I reflected, as we fell into silence, of how deeply Diego’s sojourn in our care had shaken him.  It provided much explanation of his fierce fascination with the Peerage, his simultaneous enmity towards us, and so very much else about his attitude towards all who served Her Majesty.  

I mused, too, of the implications of his testimony should I bring it before my sorors at the Ladies Aid Society.  It had been our considered opinion, and not an unreasonable one, that the automation of the Royal Charitable Hospitals was a wholly positive advancement.  It meant that these forward redoubts of Her Majesty’s Beneficence were capable of tending and mending the commoners far more efficiently, certainly, but the absence of the human touch…particularly in such an instance as Diego had described…should have been given greater reflection.  

I was attempting to formulate my thoughts on the matter when I found my mind drifting in a most peculiar way.  All manner of flighty and whimsical cogitations sparked into being, which now strike me as so utterly nonsensical that it is difficult to even articulate them.

A hypnagogic calm then descended upon my person, at which it occurred to the fading spark of my consciousness that my peculiar mood likely had arisen from my proximity to Diego and the moufette-scented haze of his soporific herb.

As there was nothing that could be done about that, I lay fully back upon the woollen blanket, the slightly yielding firmness of turned earth a reassurance beneath me, the stars crisp and unchanging in the sky; my eyes fluttered and closed, my thoughts a slow and pleasant whirl of chimeric character, and I was soon lost to dreaming.

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Fire at Sunrise (forthcoming)

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Five

 

Chapter Twenty Five:  A Moment of Lunacy

Diego was standing as steady and still as an oak on a windless night, clearly lost in some deep contemplation beneath the perfect sky.  From my still yet secret vantage, I could see that his eyes were mostly closed, not looking out at the silent dark of the firmament, but rather basking in it as one might with the sunlight on a beachfront holiday.  As I moved closer, my approach masked by the rustling of the gentle twilight zephyrs and the lowings and rustlings of nearby livestock, his affect did not change, nor did he shift the stance of his noble posture.  

It should have been the wiser course, without question, to have left him to his silent mourning, yet something drew me on and closer, a something that at that moment I could not fully name.  In retrospect and with the lazy exactitude of hindsight, I know now that it was my still fresh-turned grief that drew me towards him, for in his person were viscerally manifested the overweening sentiments that in that hour so coloured my heart and clouded my reason.  

He knew my grief at the loss of a dearest one, he knew my rage at those who had taken them from me, he knew my fear that those same barbarous creatures might threaten all that I held dear.  His soul and mine sang in this thrice darkened harmony, and it was that song that drew me as a seafarer towards the siren’s rock.

It was a feeling most gravitic, and as I grew ever nearer, it redoubled in intensity, growing to a nearly unbearable and vertiginous thrill.  It was as before, as that moment in the burning ruined prison of my fallen carriage, when I first glimpsed his countenance and his hand first reached out for mine.  My heart swelled and leapt, and I was as unsteady as if Mother Earth herself trembled beneath me, as if I were the moondrunk and enchanted Giulietta declaiming her affections in Offenbach’s glorious, notorious Barcarolle.  

I was but several metres from him when he at last discerned my presence.  He didn’t startle, merely turned ever so slightly, his aquiline profile sharp against the moonlit treeline.

“Rebecca?”  His voice, soft and calm, and I knew in that instant that my appearance was a welcome apparition.

“Yes,” I replied, stifling the irritating quaver that arose unbidden in my voice.  “You…couldn’t sleep?”

“No, no, I did.  For a while.  Enough to be less…less insane.”  He sighed.  “Again, thank you for not putting up with my xxxx.  ‘Cretia always used to do that.  Since we were kids.  She…”  

Here, he stopped, and inhaled deeply, his broad strong chest expanding with a hint of the same tremble that I felt in my voice, and that I imagined stirred the ground upon which I stood.  His face was as a mortal who at that very moment gazed upon bitter Oizys and her undying woe, and yet even so, and perhaps because of this, his beauty was neither blighted nor diminished; indeed, it had become nearly unbearable.

“She always looked out for me.  Since I was a little boy.”

“She…she was your…older sister?”

“She was.  Five and a half years.  After Papi died, she helped Madrecita raise me.  After Madrecita…died, she was…she was what I had.  I mean, besides everyone, all my siblings, right?”  He gestured to the sleeping heart of the compound, in which all of his people dwelled.  

“So much loss.  Life is hard enough for us, without xxxholes like Caddigan making the xxxx worse.  I really thought…that ‘Cretia would…that she couldn’t ever…”

With this, Diego’s voice again failed, and the immediacy of his bereavement overcame him.  His mouth worked helpless for a moment, and then closed, lips trembling; the tears streamed down his face, and yet still he fought to maintain his crumbling composure.

In the face of such utter desolation, such struggling resolve, I found myself unable to restrain my compassion, and swept to him a great rush, wrapping his well-shaped form round about with my arms, wordlessly pressing my head against his chest.  I knew all too well that loss, and where I was wholly able to keep it in its proper place in my own person, to see such torment manifested in another simply broke me.  

Beneath my embrace, his body shook with sorrow, and as he did I, too, was moved to weeping.  There is a time for composure, and a time for release, and though it was not my wont to engage in such catharsis in the presence of a recent acquaintance, how could I not?  For truly I felt the great emptiness that Father’s death had left in my world, and though I had the most robust confidence in the condition of his immortal soul, still did his absence leave me reeling.

Feeling my sobbing rise to echo his own, Diego’s virile arms enfolded me, one steel, one flesh, and pulled me closer still, his great strength stayed by the gentle cause of our mutual care, and for a long while we remained in profoundest sympathy entwined.

Then, with great tenderness, he loosed his hold enough that he could gaze down upon me, his bedewed eyes like the golden sunset following a storm.  Within them, dear reader, I saw the great and sudden stirrings of his affections, that ineffable light that shines as a beacon declaring the regard of another.

“Rebecca,” he whispered, in a voice whose velveted purpose was utterly clear; I felt his strength draw me upwards, his perfect face and the inviting fullness of his well-formed lips wholly prepossessing my every attention, my own heart leaping in my bosom, and the great rising desire of Eros welling up from my own person.  I felt myself drawn towards him, as a rocky world might, its orbit degraded by some great impact or cataclysm, yield to the gravitic pull of a consuming sun.  

I was overwhelmed, entranced, my passion and yearning almost unbearable.

“Diego,” I replied, in a voice so faint that I myself could barely hear it.

—-

It is necessary here, dear reader, for us to pause for a moment, so that I might interject and contextualise this event with three vital relevancies.  You may not think such a pause essential, but I most certainly do; as I am the one telling this tale, it is entirely my prerogative.

Relevancy the first: as has been made most abundantly clear during my exposition, I was in a state of considerable emotional turmoil at this particular juncture.  Father’s loss was fresh, and I was, for all of my considerable capacity at keeping tight rein upon my passions, in an unusually agitated state.  Diego, too, was similarly fragile, although as you have learned, he was and still is naturally far more prone to such impetuosity.  Of this there is no question.

Relevancy the second:  Within the mourning traditions of every culture of humankind, it is well known that the act of mutual consolation between the sexes oft fills each partner with the stirrings of Eros.  It is a deeply shared and wholly reciprocal experience, one in which the heated intimacies of commiseration and condolence regularly ignites fires of a very different sort.  Those fires rise, one reasonably speculates, from causes both emotive and biological, as the flowing sap of life stirs defiant against its encounter with mortality.  What better way to rage against the dying of the light, than to defy it with an act of procreative pleasure?

I do not for a moment deny that I felt a strong attraction to Diego; he is an unusually and superlatively attractive man.  Knowing this, I should perhaps have been more guarded, particularly given my weakened resolve.  But my only sin was the depth of my compassion, and for that, I trust I shall find forgiveness.  

Relevancy the third, and of most significance:  This is not that sort of story.  There are countless penny dreadfuls produced for the earthy and trivial amusements of Ladies of the Peerage, ones filled with heaving bosoms, improbably acrobatic lovemaking, and all manner of similar absurdities.  

Once again, this is not that.

I am the Lady Rebecca Wexton-Hughes, Countess Montgomery, and my sacred obligation to my House and my Queen is not a mere frippery.  It is who I am.  I am not a fool, nor the sort easily cast about by the winds and waves of the moment, and I would do nothing to jeopardise my responsibility to Society and the honour of the Wexton-Hughes.

If tawdry tales of wantonness are your pleasure, and if you imagine there is some crass romanticism in allowing passion to seduce a soul into a dereliction of their duty, that is your affair; but let me be clear: you shall find none of that here.  

That I have chosen to be utterly candid about my vulnerable emotional state and the peculiar and intimate arc of my acquaintance with Diego speaks to my responsibility to be honest with you, dearest reader, rather than to the fulfilling of any prurient expectation.  

This is, after all, a document most public, and I of course shared the entirety of its contents with all who might find it troubling or improper, Stewart being the first and most significant.  

If your eager expectation was otherwise, well, then I have given you fair warning to soften your coming dissatisfaction.

Let us again proceed.

—-

“Diego,” I replied, in a voice so faint I myself could barely hear it.  

“No.”

My left hand, so recently well utilised in giving succour and comfort, I now placed between us, pressed as a firm interruption against the encroachments of his virility and my own weakness.

“Really?”  His voice, incredulous; his passion, still yet undampened.   “You don’t…you aren’t…I can feel this, you do not feel…this?”  I am certain that he sensed, not inaccurately, the depths to which I struggled to maintain my integrity at that instant, and I in no way fault him for his ardency or directness.  

“I cannot.  Diego.  I cannot.”  With that, his powerful embrace loosened again; though I remained in his arms, his intent was wholly subdued by the simple expression of my gently stated request for abeyance.  

There are other men, brutish, foolish, and selfish men, who would not have permitted themselves to hear such a request.  Diego is not such a man; for all of his ardour, he is at his very core a respecter of the personhood and liberty of others, a respect that rises as surely from his republican upbringing as an ironclad resolve to do one’s duty arises from our own.  His honour is different, but it is honour nonetheless.

“In this moment, Diego, I feel it.  I…shall not lie to you.  Right now, as we weep together, I feel it; perhaps as much as you do.  But you and I both know there is more to life than this very moment.  I have spent a lifetime learning the value and purpose of propriety, I have turned all of my efforts and my whole self to the service of my Queen.  I have intentions for my future, and duties to Her Majesty; I cannot, for the sake of passion, forget those commitments and my integrity, or I forget my very self and sabotage all of my strivings.  This is not what I want.  Not yesterday, not tomorrow, and therefore, not now.”

He released me from his arms with a delicate and not-inconsiderable reluctance, and sighed.  “Well, xxxx me.”

“That,” I said, “is precisely what will not be happening.”

To this, he let out a most singular guffaw.

Chapter Twenty Six: A Friendship Forged (forthcoming)

Bump Stocks: Aiding and Abetting the Enemy

This is why we banned bump stocks: Sixty dead. Four hundred and thirteen injured. One gunman.

Again, that's why bump stocks were banned. A massacre at a country music concert. Bump stocks permit terrorists, both domestic and foreign, to modify any semi-automatic rifle to full-auto. Thus modified, they are crude and easily accessible instruments of mass slaughter.

We banned them, and the Supreme Court overturned that ban. The odd arguments offered up by members of the Court about the mechanism involved were obviously, self-evidently immaterial, and the worst form of legalism.
With no training, anyone...I mean anyone...can put an entire magazine downrange in seconds. Reload, then do so again. And then again. Before the Las Vegas massacre, I'd watch gun enthusiast videos about bump stocks, and as they dished about how badass they felt using one, I marveled that they'd not yet been used in a mass shooting. They reduce accuracy, waste ammunition, and are useless for shooting sports. A bump stock would be equally pointless for home defense. But if you're firing into a fleeing crowd, that doesn't matter.

Watching the videos produced by avid gun Youtubers, there was no question about the purpose of a bumpstock. It was a cheap way to circumvent restrictions on full auto machine guns, for funsies. Because what's more fun than blasting away at a target with a couple of hundred rounds? I mean, it would be kind of fun, honestly, in a world where terrorists and psychopaths didn't exist.
But that's not the world we live in. The video above makes that abundantly clear, without commentary or question.
Nor is the world we live in one where making meaningless, obviously specious arguments about trigger mechanisms is anything other than evil. Sure, it's "true," but in the way that willful spin is often "true." We do not limit access to full-auto receivers because we have an issue with receivers. We limit access to full-auto receivers because of what they *do*.
C4 and dynamite aren't the same chemically, but they still blow things up, eh?
A workaround that allows you to do the same thing...to pour hundreds or thousands of rounds into a crowd of warm bodies...violates the obvious intent of restrictions on automatic weapon access.
The sophistry involved in overturning that ban is crude, self-serving, and willfully ignorant. It's argumentation straight out of scholasticism, in which the letter of the law is debated and the intent of the law is ignored. It shows a complete failure to understand the purpose not just of bump stocks, but of the entire system of justice. Overturning that ban poses a threat to law enforcement professionals, to citizens, to all of us.
This is Trump's court, after all, so that should come as no surprise.

Getting Ready for the Heat

The world is getting warmer.

There's not any question of it now, really.  I mean, sure, you can argue otherwise, but only if you never go outside.  It's not a question of whether global warming will occur, but of just how hot things are going to get.

The science is out on that particular question, although most of it points to things becoming more and more unpleasant as the years progress, with "unpleasant" meaning year after year of heat records inching up, and the equatorial regions becoming functionally uninhabitable.

Here on the Eastern seaboard of the United States, things are a little different.  Forests have made a comeback, despite all of our relentless sprawl and paving, which has helped blunt the heat in the region.  Still, it's going to get hotter.  Winters have become close to snow-free here in Virginia.  Summers have sprawled out, and grown more intense.

Which means, if we are to face this future, that we need to be thinking about ways to adapt and prepare.

That's been a consideration in my own household, as we've both reduced our consumption of fossil fuels and begun the process of preparing our house for hotter days.  We put a new roof on last year, and when we did so, we selected a lighter colored shingle.  Lighter colored shingles have a higher albedo, which means they reflect away more of the sun's energy.  It's a simple thing, but it reduces cooling demand.  Our house is nestled in the shelter of dozens of shade trees to the East, which means that by the hottest part of the day, it's in shade.  Our roof overhangs the side of our house by several feet, reducing solar load to the interior, and at 1300 finished square feet, it requires less energy to cool.

Out in the yard, I've made a shift in my garden this year, as for the first time I've planted okra. My mom being from the South and all, I'm entirely aware of the challenges of cooking okra just right, and the unpleasantness if you cook it wrong.  When I tell folks I'm growing okra, many recoil.  This is unfair, because if you fry it up just so, it's really quite delicious.  It's great batter-fried, sure, but also pan-fried with masala.  Note, again, that the key word here is "fried."  

Looking ahead to our inescapably warmer world, okra makes a whole lot of sense.  Abelmoschus esculentus is grown in tropical climes throughout the world, and is both robust, nutritious, and highly heat tolerant.   It's also purportedly quite easy to seedsave, meaning it should be a stalwart contributor to any home garden in our hotter world.  Should.  I've still not seen a crop, or saved seed, so I don't want to get ahead of myself.

It's only the fool who doesn't prepare for the most likely tomorrow, after all.

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Four:   A Walk in the Moonlight

Often, when one has taken one’s rest during the daylight hours, one finds that one has expended one’s capacity to return to the bliss of dreams; typically, such things occur during an illness of body or mind, and one finds that though the shadow of night has fallen over the world, sleep remains a distant and foreign country.

This is not the same as having wakeness forced upon you, either by discomfort or a disturbance in one’s psyche.  In point of fact, once one has accepted that wakefulness is the lot one has been assigned, it can be a rather pleasant thing.

Such was my condition when I awoke after but four hours abed; though it was yet quarter to four and the depths of the night, I felt as fresh and ready for the day as had the sunlight been blushing the sky with the generous glories of dawn.

Ernest confirmed for me that it was once again an hour most irregular, and I found myself yearning to take my leave of the serviceable but confining quarters with which I was provided.  I could see, through the small and yellowed window in my little monastic cell, that the moon was bright, fat, and gibbous in the sky, and felt myself suddenly desirous of a reflective perambulation under her soft and mystic light.  I am, when deprived for a time of my exertions at the pianoforte, rather prone to bouts of dreamy melancholy, this of an entirely pleasant sort; these are hardly the dark night of the soul, but rather a delight in beauty that verges on sorrow.  It having been days since I last wrestled with Franz and his cruelly entrancing Etudes, the rise of this familiar sentiment was hardly surprising.

“Ernest?”

“Yes, Milady?” 

“As I am utterly awake, I find myself intending a meditative walk.  If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to do so unaccompanied.”

“As you wish, Milady.  Might I suggest that you bring your firearm, in the event of any untoward occurrences?”

“I appreciate your concern, Ernest, but I don’t feel the necessity of it.  These people are peculiar, but they are not our adversaries, and should there be an ‘untoward occurrence,’ I have confidence in the protection of their friendship.”

“Very well.  Please take all due cautions, Milady.  In your absence, might I suggest that I engage Level One Messaging Protocols?  It would seem appropriate.”

“I shall, Ernest.  Thank you.  And yes, please do.”

With that, I prepared my appearance appropriately, which was rather less of a concern given the blessings of the cover of night.  Even so, the ritual of powder, brush, and pen adds savour to any outing, conveying to it the honour that rises from careful intention and respect.

Once completed, I left my quarters, venturing forth onto the quieted, moon-brushed thoroughfares of the anarchist compound.  The night air was cool and crisp, and above me the vault of starry heaven was blessed with the passing of small clouds kissed soft silver by Luna’s lips; it was an entrancing night, and I was much pleased with my choice to go out from the very moment my Tavistocks crossed the threshold.  

My heart was set not upon the narrow passages and tight alleyways all about me, but rather called to the open fields beyond the gate of the inner compound, where star and sky could be observed unimpeded, and so it was towards the guarded entrance that I walked with catlike tread.  None but I was awake, it seemed, the only sound being the plaintive hoot of a distant barn owl and the soft rustling of the hem of my skirts across the dusty path.

I soon reached the gate, where I could see a single figure standing watch in the shadows, sitting upon a stool to one side of the entrance.  It was a sturdily built person in loose fitting clothing, with close cropped hair and the indeterminate gender that was in evidence among some in this community.  That they were “standing watch” is a generous way to describe their diligence to their duty, for as I grew nearer, I could see that not only were they seated, but their rifle lay at their feet, and their chin upon their bosom.  For a moment, I was tempted to simply pass them by, for to do so would have been a trifling effort.  

This seemed both rude and unwise, for should they be startled upon my return, and a hue and cry be raised, it would disturb the rest and peace of all; I was not inclined to so afflict my hosts.

“Excuse me?”

They startled awake, and took to their feet.  “What?  Who?”  To their credit, they were quickly alert, and came to their senses quite rapidly.  Who would I be to cast aspersions on such a matter, after all?  Let she who is without sin cast the first stone, and whatnot.

“Forgive my disturbance.  I am the Lady Rebecca Wexton-Hughes, a guest amongst your people.  I was hoping to take a walk in the fields, for I am awake and it is a beautiful night.  Would that be acceptable?”

To my surprise, they…or she, as it appeared…simply smiled.  “Yeah, I know who you are.  I’m Libby.  Short for Liberty, yanno?  And sure.  You sure as xxxx can take an, um, walk.  Kinda not a surprise.  Seeing you right now.”  She gave me a peculiar wink.  “Have fun.”

“Thank you most kindly, Libby,” I said, and continued on through the gate.  She watched me pass, a most curious cheshire-cat grin upon her face, as if my walking into the fields was a source of some great and obvious amusement.  “What an odd person,” I thought.

So walk I did, and once I had moved beyond the enclosed spaces and occluded sightlines of the central compound, I found myself filled with gratitude that the urgings of Providence should have stirred me to this outing.  The wide and roughly circular clearing into which the compound was set was aglow with the lustrous pearlescence of the moon’s clear light, and as a soft breeze teased through the plantings, I was struck by the sheer loveliness of it all; it was as if I had stepped through the frame of a Caravaggio.

Framed all about by dense forest of several hundred years' growth, the compound was as a shallow bowl set beneath the firmament to reflect Tsukuyomi’s handsome visage, as he diligently and forever pursues his beloved Amatserasu through the heavens.  

I would hope, dear reader, that you availed yourself of the excellent mythological essay in last week’s Post on this very subject, writ as it was by the estimable N. Yoshimura, whose excellent treatises on the gods and goddesses of her native land are utterly worthy of your attention.

It is one of the many fascinating peculiarities, I reflected, my eyes upon the waxing lunar orb, of the Nipponese.  It is so easy to become accustomed to thinking of our glorious and singular satellite in terms distinctly feminine, and the star around which our little world orbits as masculine.  Yet within the storied and ancient Oriental traditions of Nipponese culture, that presumption is inverted, and it is the glorious Amatserasu that fills our diurnal hours with her lifegiving light, whereas her husband Tsukuyomi is forever from her estranged, consigned to his own mournful pursuit of his love through the darkness.

Suzanna is much fond of recounting such tales herself, harbouring as she does such a deep affection for that elegant, distinctive people and their customs, both martial and otherwise.  This in particular, I think, should place a deep foreboding in the heart of any who seek her hand after she becomes debutante, as she in her fierce impetuosity will brook no less a role than that of the sun in their heavens.  May the Good Lord have Mercy on that Soul, I whispered, a smile fleeting across my lips at the thought.

Further, I mused on how that myth of the sun’s lifegiving and womanly strength harmonised so beautifully with our own experience of Her Majesty and Her Kindly Beneficence.  Were not all of our lives but a reflection of Her Grace and Guidance?  Yet we Peers were not abandoned or estranged, but encountered Her shadow as one might take comfort in the sweet shadows of twilight, or the cool adumbral canopy of a sheltering chestnut in the sultry summer heat of August.

Such were my meditations as I walked, and they were most pleasant indeed.  There are few things more restorative of body and soul than a good long constitutional with no particular destination in mind, which is most efficacious in both the clearing of one’s mind and the refinement of one's thoughts.  Such a walk on such an evening was the very ne plus ultra of the type; it was, in truth, a Promenade Sentimentale, as the sublime Debussy himself originally named his interlude in the Suite Bergamasque.  

The night’s breath played cool across my face, and as I strode through the anarchist’s gardens, I found their haphazard array far more pleasing than I had on prior encounters; I experienced them not as entropy or laziness in design, but as simply satisfying as meeting a grove or grotto unformed by human hands, whose warp and woof are the joyous interplay of terroir and probability, the unfallen and sinless blossom of Nature’s pure joy in creation.

I was lost in the admiring meditation of a tall and new-bolting stand of kale, my hand playing across the first kiss of midnight dew upon their manifold flowers, when my eye caught a glint of argent light from far up the gradual sloping rise of the clearing.

It was the sterling glow of the moon resting gentle upon polished, darkened alloy, alloy that graced the shoulder of a shadowy figure standing alone beneath the sky.

There, in the clearing, his face turned to the heavens, still as yet oblivious to my presence, was Diego.

Chapter Twenty Five: A Moment of Lunacy (forthcoming)

An Arrow in Flight

I

Dreamed

I was
An Arrow in Flight
I flew
So Swift
So Sure
So Light

Of Trump and Jesus

"Jesus of Nazareth.  Donald Trump.

Both were prosecuted and convicted of crimes by the state.

Therefore, they are the same."

This seems to be the logic permeating a substantial portion of American Christianity of late, the portion that sees Jesus and Donald Trump as essentially equivalent persons.  Trump is, by this way of thinking, a martyr, whose struggle is our struggle.  The only reason he is being pursued is that he is the only one who can speak up for the little guy, the only one who knows and speaks the truth.  And like Jesus, he is willing to pay the price for his truth-telling.

This is, of course, utterly insane.  

One could just as easily place Adolph Hitler into that Venn Diagram, only Hitler actually went to prison for the beer-fueled uprising he instigated in Munich.  Like Hitler, the trial and conviction of Adolph Hitler only cemented his popularity among his followers, for precisely the same reason that Trumpists take Trump's convictions as a marker of his legitimacy.  Only a true patriot would be willing to suffer for us!  Just like Jesus!  And Hitler!  Yay TrumpJesusHitler!

But just as Jesus and Adolph were nothing alike, so too Donald and Jesus are nothing alike.

The two bear no resemblance to one another whatsoever morally or personally.  They are, in point of fact, the opposite sort of person entirely.  Making the argument that they are the same is a marker of a disordered mind.

"Are you saying my mind is disordered?" might come the snarled aggression response from the avowed Trumpist, who has learned that threats and bullying are their most effective tools in silencing opponents. 

Yes.  Yes I am.  Insofar as you are in thrall, yes.

But I will admit that there's something inaccurate about my statement.  

That way of putting it assumes that Trumpism is a physical pathology, a peculiar and pernicious neurodivergence or imbalance in brain chemistry.  

It is not.  

Trumpism is first and foremost a moral disease, the same moral disease that has afflicted humankind since we were first driven from Eden. It is the willingness to blame others for our own mistakes.  It is the desire to resent, to attack, and to manipulate truth to our own ends.  It is the hate of one's enemies, and the love of mammon, and the delight in violence and violent thoughts.   It is the love of wealth.

It is a disorder of the soul, a spiritual illness.  

To use some pointlessly overcomplicated words, Trumpism is a sociopolitical manifestation of Augustinian concupiscence.  It tastes of the fruit of the knowledge of evil, its' sickly sticky siren song sweet as Turkish Delight straight from the cold hand of Jadis.  

There, I suppose, you do have your theological connection, because the reason we human beings need Jesus so utterly is our hunger to be ruled by men like Donald.

Stalk and Vine

At the far northeastern corner of my little suburban lot, the sunflowers are again rising.  I've been growing them for several years now, and they're a delight.  This year, my little three by eight patch is thick with their rising stalks and greenery, and being the vigorous plants they are, they stand nearly at shoulder height already.  
The flowers are coming.

As plants, my helianthus are a gift to the garden for many reasons.  They're wildly attractive to pollinators, who then grace the flowers of my beans and tomatoes.  Situated right by the sidewalk, their beneficent compound flowers are a clear pleasure to passers by and magic for children.  

Their seeds feed passing birds in late summer, and the occasional odd vagrant.  Even after feeding the birds in an Optimally Poppins sort of way, their abundant seed heads provide ample stock for the next years planting.  That, and their dried stalks become my garden stakes for the next year.

For all of their robustness, sunflowers have a weakness.  They are, in this era of rising winds, vulnerable to the roaring blast of downbursts and squall lines.  In my first few seasons growing them, I'd lose many to storms, to the point where I started supporting them with stakes and lines.  That helped, but it was a little fiddly.

This year, though, I'm doing something different.

From an old dogwood stump, wild grapevines started growing.  Their tendrils snake through the stalks, and in the way of most vines, can threaten to overwhelm the sunflowers.  Left unchecked, the tangle of sprawling, smothering wild grape would easily overwhelm the whole stand of sunflowers.  It'd become a mass of fruitless grape, the leaves intercepting the light, the tendrils strangling the sunflower leaves.  The sunflowers would struggle.

I thought about systematically tearing the vine out last year, as I have with sweet, murderous honeysuckle in the past.

But then the thought came to me:  I could use it.  Useless as it seems, fruitless as it is, it could be helpful.  With regular and strategic trimming, the wild grape becomes something different.  The vines I let grow, and I let them secure themselves to the stalks.

Then, once a week or so, I cut it back, to be sure it's not dominating the sunflowers.

With the wild grape acting as organic support lines, the sunflowers are more resistant to high winds.  The complex matrix of tendrils fasten the stalks one to another, strengthening the whole, and all of them become stabilized by the root system of the grape.  

With a little effort, attention, and some judicious trimming, even wild grapes can serve a good purpose.

There's some comfort in that.

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Three: My Second Argument with Diego

My erstwhile host was sitting at the large, plain table in the centre of the room, gazing with deep intensity at the screen of an ancient computer.  It was dim, the space unlit, as the soft hush of dusk without pressed in upon the chamber, with the sole illumination in the space being that very screen; the effect was decidedly morbid and funereal, which was appropriate given the immediacy of recent loss.  

He did not rise, nor shift his gaze upward to mark my arrival, so intent was he upon his task; given the dark radiance of his grim mood, I refrained for several moments from even announcing my presence.  An awkward moment passed, then another, and then several more, until at long last, just as I was preparing to either cough or make a formal proclamation of my response to his summons, he looked up and met my gaze.

Diego’s comely visage was tight and hard, lips pursed, jaw clenched, giving to his aspect an unquestionable ferocity; and yet in the fae-blue light of his timeworn machine, I could see his golden eyes abrim and glistening with the dew of his sorrow, which was so intertwined with his fury as to sharpen the flavour of wrath and woe alike.  Beneath his eyes, the dark circles of sleeplessness stood as shadows of his sorrow; I had rested, but I could be sure that he had not.  

“You’re awake.”   His voice was a flat and featureless expanse, yet also charged with a nameless, burgeoning menace; he added, in a low growling sotto voce, “Finally xxxxing awake.”

I realised, at this precise moment, that he was grievously wounded, and that from his place of anguish at the loss of his lover this conversation might become a dark impediment to the establishment of our common purpose.  His proverbial teeth were bared, his soul raw and bloodied, and like all injured wild creatures wearied and desperate at the end of a chase, he was not to be approached lightly.

He rose slowly and with effort, although the effort involved seemed less a struggle to stand than a struggle not to spring wildly, madly forward in a blind rage.

I cleared my throat.  “You had asked to see me.  Please do forgive my inability to meet with you sooner, but I was completely overcome with exhaustion, and in such a state was unable to…”

“Glad you got your beauty rest,” he said brusquely, interrupting my apology in a rude but not unanticipated manner.  “We’re all pretty xxxxing tired.  But there’s more xxxx to be done.  Look at this.”

He turned the portable computer around, the screen now facing in my direction, and with a deft motion slid it across the smooth wood surface of the table.

“Tell me what you see.”  

I peered down at the images, which were only partially occluded by areas where the screen had faded, or where individual pixels had failed.  What met my gaze were pictures of the Caddiganite fire base.  It was, in both construction and evident population, rather larger than I would have anticipated, with numerous buildings of substantial construction, and the manifold evidences of vehicles both martial and of more utilitarian purpose.

“Ernest?”  I said, motioning him to come to my side and provide insight.  “Could you please give me your critical assessment of this facility?”

Stepping forward, my stalwart aide leaned forward, and proceeded to interface directly with the venerable machine, showing precisely the sort of capacity I would expect from a Series 9.  Images and videos flashed across the screen in blindingly rapid succession, blinking in and out so swiftly that the effect was dizzying.  Ernest was not, of course, reviewing this data visually, and the images I was seeing were merely a side effect of his direct encounter with the relevant information.

“I have completed my review of the reconnaissance data, Milady.  The facility observed covers three point two acres, and appears to be heavily fortified, with multiple rings of razorwire, evidence of minelaying both antivehicle and antipersonnel, and significant automated defensive hardpoint enhancements in these fifteen locations along the perimeter wall.”  A series of illuminated circles popped into being, highlighting the hardpoints of which he spoke.  “Total projected combat strength, battalion level, approximately seven hundred Caddiganites, thirty two armoured vehicles, to include ten main battle tanks of pre-collapse design.  Substantial ground to air capacity is evident, here, here and here.  Here, to the north north west, there’s construction on a landing strip, to augment landing pads for rotorcraft at these two locations.  The central building, here, is particularly well-constructed, and given the generator…here…appears to be designed for a combination of research and/or assembly purposes.”

Diego grunted, then spoke in a low growl.  “Yeah.  Exactly.  There’s no xxxxing way we can deal with that xxxx.  Just no way.  Even if we play every mutual security chit with every collective in the entire region.”  His eyes flared with an inchoate fury, which suddenly coalesced in a terrible focus upon my person.  Something within him had broken, and a dark insidious flame now burned in his heart.

“We should never have saved you,” he hissed.  “Just told your xxxxing bot to xxxx off.  Never have done any of this.  If you hadn’t been xxxxing around doing xxxx knows what, if you hadn’t let those fascist xxxxxxxxxers get their xxxxing hands around your precious selfish tech, none of this would ever have…”

Here, dear reader, one might expect that I would have been wounded, struck to the quick by the stark cruelty of his fulminations.  They were, I will confess, more cutting and antipathetic than I had anticipated, and such a cruel and marked variance from his recent benignant declamations (as reported by Raj) that one less versed in the nature of loss might have taken mortal offence.  

Yet loss and anguish are not strangers to me, orphaned as I now am, and my many years of good counsel from the wise crones of the Ladies Aid Society following Mother’s passing had well prepared me for such a seemingly incongruous outburst.  

When our hearts are wounded to the quick, and our very selves shimmer with the anguish of loss and fear, it is all too human to turn the blades of our blind howling pain against the very souls who would give us succour.  In these past few days, I had come to know Diego as a man of passion, of volatile Latin temperament, whose intellect was oft untempered by the restraints of reason and prudence.  It was, in many ways, his gift, and what made him a man of action and a worthy ally.  Now, however, as he lashed out savagely and without consideration, his gift had become his hubris, and was a threat to our mutual purpose.

The night before, he had been singing my praises to one and all.  But a long seething day of waiting, following a sleepless night of weeping and rage?  That could turn a soul to dark and terrible thoughts, and even to finding blame in even their closest companions.

Was it comprehensible?  Of course.  Was it forgivable?  As Her Majesty shows abundant grace, absolutely.  

But permissible?  No.  Never.

One must never tolerate in oneself emotions that destroy the fundaments of decorum, for, as the inestimable Mme. Toussaint so rightly asserts, 

Il ne faut jamais permettre que ses blessures justifient le mal d'autrui, et dans de tels domaines, la retenue et l'introspection sont les marques d'une société véritablement gracieuse.

It is of equal import for one to be clear and forthright about what is and is not acceptable behaviour, and to do so in the manner most likely to bring about a restoration of civil relation.  Diego was a man of volcanic temperament, and just as a forest blaze is commonly thwarted by the efficacious advance burning of available fuel, both reason and my feminine intuition concurred that I must meet fire with fire.

This is why I set aside my customary probity and set myself about responding in kind: with an interruption.  As he raged, I mouthed a single word, without sound or breath:  Amplify.  

Then I imposed my will.

“Are. You. Mad?”  

It is difficult, from these words alone, to grasp the intensity of my fervent interruption.  Each word, in rising volume, with the last of a pitch and timbre close to a shriek.  With that last word, I stepped forward, eyes ablaze, and struck the table with the flat of my hand, augmenting my voice with a percussive slap.  That was not all: Ernest, having instantly attended to the meaning of my soundless instruction, and always attuned to the needs of the moment, added to my intent by receiving my words and amplifying them through his own system of sound production, pitching in over and undertones, to the effect that my voice roared deafening from all directions as if it emanated from the very fabric of the universe itself.

Diego was, understandably and visibly startled, for he had not expected the sort of reply that arrives as a Jovian thunderclap.  That was my advantage, and I pressed it.

“How dare you jeopardise our alliance!  Such aspersions are beneath you as a man, and as a leader among your people!”

“If you hadn’t…” he roared back, attempting to recover, to rally to the redoubt of his misguided self-righteousness.  I would have none of it.

“Blame? What right have you to blame me, and for what?  For having the audacity to assume I would not be molested on my journeys?  For being most rudely assaulted by our mutual enemies, where my very life and person was in the most intimate of jeopardies?  For putting my own life at risk in my heartfelt attempt to save you?  For killing to save you, when I have never before taken the life of another human being?”  

My words, still bearing the force of Ernest’s synthetic emphases, thrust forth as sharp as a fighting epee; I could see each of them find their mark.  Diego’s face contorted, his inner struggle now roiling the surface of his person in ways terrible to see.  He was pinioned by my logic and sound sentiment, from which no words of his might offer escape.

Finally, in wordless reply, Diego seized one of the sturdy wooden chairs that encircled the table in the grasp of his immensely powerful cybernetic arm, and with a singularly terrible effortlessness hurled it against the hewn log floor of the Central Committee building.  There, it shattered with a great clangour, as he roared with a deep and rasping fury.  Neither his bellowing utterance nor his act of vandalism were, I noted well, directed at my person, but downwards, as if he would smite at the foundations of the earth itself.  His cries continued, and he folded in and around himself; his entire body balling up, flesh and metal manifesting the energies of his loss and anguish as the tension of a spring twisted to breaking.

In reply, and noting his new redirection, my next words were tightly measured and scalpel-precise; with Ernest at my side, I stepped closer to deliver them at the very instant his raging ceased.  I raised my hand for Ernest to cease his efforts.  Here, the only voice must be my own.

“Caddigan murdered my father. Caddigan murdered your lover.  He threatens both of our people.  I know you are tired.  But do not waste. Your righteous anger.  On your friends.  I am your friend, Diego.  Remember our cause.  This is.  Our.  Cause.”

Diego let out a long, hitching breath, and then a slower inhalation as he rose and uncoiled to his full height.  I sensed, as his now-softened eyes turned to me, that the daemon had left him.  There was a pause, as he struggled to compose himself.

“I’m…sorry.  That was, that was wrong. I was wrong.  Please, forgive me, Rebecca.  I have been…  I owe you my…”

I could see the confused exhaustion upon him, the familiar weight of loss upon his shoulders, and my heart stirred with a deep sympathy.  I rounded the table, and placed my hand against the cool alloy of his shoulder.

“Of course, Diego.  Of course.  Grief can be such madness.  I know the choleric depths of its wrath so very well myself.”

“Thank you.” 

“You are as exhausted as I have been, Diego. You need to rest. There is work that must be done tomorrow.”

“OK.  I will…Rebecca.  Again, I’m…sorry.”  With that, he sighed again, and began to make his way towards the staircase.  He stopped, and again turned his gaze to me.  His weary eyes had a peculiar sparkle about them, and a wry smile spread across the contumely perfection of his face.

“Rebecca.”

“Yes?”

His eyebrow arched, and the smile spread beneath still-welling eyes, his expression conveying a most peculiar admixture of sorrow and mischief.  

“Lucretia was my sister.”  And with that, he took his leave.

Ah.  Well.  

One can’t be right about everything, I suppose.

Chapter Twenty Four: A Walk in the Night (forthcoming)

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Two:  I Finally Collapse

Following my utterly satisfying repast, I found suddenly that a heavy but not unwelcome fatigue once again filled me, and I took my leave from Raj and the genial company in the refectory.  

The weight of that fatigue proved rather greater than I anticipated, for at the moment I stepped out of the threshold of the refectory, I was suddenly overcome by weariness in the entirety of my person, body and soul, such that it felt that I might at any moment crumple in upon myself like an incompetently prepared souffle or a sandcastle finally yielding to the relentless depredations of Poseidon.  It required a herculean effort to put foot in front of foot, and my eyes fluttered as I struggled to cling to the waking world.

This was not, let me say again as a matter of certainty, the selfsame mental and moral debility that had at points most recent overcome me, for whilst the weight of events most harrowing had made their indelible imprint upon me, in this particular instance my rising lassitude was a function of insuperable physical exhaustion and the satisfaction of my corporeal hunger.  Truth be told, there are points even to this day when I will find grief at Father’s loss weighs so heavily on my soul that I must take sabbath from the day’s affairs; to deny this would be prideful and foolish.  

Yet even so, in this moment it was simply the accumulating effects of days of unusually trying effort, coupled with a night of sleep fitful and ill-formed by my intrusively ravenous appetancy.  With that hunger sated, my corporeal form cried out for the rest that is the need of all humankind.

I tottered, my head for a moment lolling on forward, and had the doughty Ernest not been at my side, I am certain that I might have simply collapsed into the welcome softness of the muddy ground between the refectory and my lodgings, where I might have slept in a contented heap upon the wet soil.

“Milady, you are severely wearied,” he said, appearing at my arm.  “Let me assist you to your quarters.”

I nodded in reply, for speech itself seemed to have become an effort beyond my capacity, and with the greatest gratitude took his kindly offer of support.  I took the arm that he proffered, and felt the indefatigable vigour of his well wrought mechanisms as a sure support to my wavering capacities.  We made our way together along the short journey to my humble accommodation, as I attempted without success to acknowledge those who greeted us in a most friendly manner along the path.  Many did so, which was yet another sign of the change in the attitude of all to my presence among them; no longer was I viewed as a danger to their wellbeing, but as a newfound ally and dear friend.

I know my duty, particularly when I am the beneficiary of the hospitality of others, but I will confess that, being barely lucid, I was hardly as gracious as I might have been.  Querying Ernest afterwards, he assured me that all could clearly see the state I was in, and that he could just as clearly hear their sympathetic whispers about how much I had been of service to their cause.  Nonetheless, I do wish I had been more receptive to their well-wishes.

With Ernest’s help, I found my way to my room, where I fell upon my bed without even the slightest attention to my customary ablutions.  There, as I had the night before, I found the ministrations of Somnus upon me at the very moment my cheek found the rough fabric of my pillow; in but a breath I entered the dreamless, timeless oblivion that was the irresistible desire of my mortal flesh.

—--

“Milady.  Milady?”

Ernest’s voice, kindly and urgent, was the very next thing that impinged upon my consciousness.  I sat upright, blinking at the room as if I had never before seen it.  I was evidently most severely befuddled, insomuch as I straddled Lethe, one foot in the real, the other in that shadowed land; in my clouded state I felt for a moment quite cross, for why should he wake me, how dare he wake me, when I had just finally fallen asleep?  Even in such a condition, I am shaped by years of discipline in matters of protocol and propriety towards one’s servants, and I would like to assert that this is the reason I did not give full voice to my irritation.

In actuality, however, it was that my efforts to form words of stern rebuke were utterly unsuccessful, as I was yet not in a state that could be meaningfully described as coherent.

“Ern-urn!  Wha…umbaseeba!  Sa sa!  But…sleepuh…sluffa…huh?”

Ernest, unflappable as he invariably is, received my garbled admonition for what it was, and continued in his duties.

“Milady, Acting Chair Cruz Campo is at the door. He would like to speak with you urgently.”

“Akko Cha Campo wha? Deeyayg? Oh.  No.  I.  Uh.”

“Shall I inform him that you are indisposed at this time?”

I nodded, my eyes closing.

With that, I let out a long sigh, and fell back upon my bed as one bereft of life; there I remained, insensate, for hours.

Such ladylike eloquence!  Such a peerless Peer!  I am glad that the full recollection of that moment rests only within the memory of Ernest himself, who has confirmed for me…to the point of replaying this whole episode in its entirety, both physically and verbally…that these were the precise sounds that emanated from my person, and the exact actions I took.  I do recall it somewhat, of course, but that recollection is of the manner of most similarly impaired organic memory; it is more a matter of sense impressions, all of which are fragmented and blurred.

I share it with you, dear reader, because I now find it rather amusing, in the way that one must when encountering any moment that punctures one’s overinflated sense of pride.  This is a vital corrective to any illusions you might have of my capacity, for many of the events that I have recently recounted may have given you the erroneous impression that I am a woman of unsurpassable competence.  This is not so, for I am, as you are, but a mortal creature, and thus prone to all of the imperfections that are our lot in this world; it behoves all to receive such moments of uninvited perspicuity into our nature with amusement and good humour.

Let us now proceed.

—-

When I finally awoke, I found Ernest still standing diligent by the doorway.  He informed me, utterly without judgement, that I had slept until the early evening, and that he recommended that I might consider making my way to visit with Diego at my earliest convenience, once I had adequately refreshed both my person and my appearance.

This I accomplished with no little effort, for I was utterly dishevelled and still quite discombobulated, but with my efforts supplemented by Ernest’s careful attentions, I was able to restore a modicum of propriety to my person.  I found myself again mourning the particular and familiar touch of Amanda’s aid in tending to my person; while this in no way meant to diminish  Ernest’s efforts, Amanda had become over the years as fully a part of my waking ritual as my own hands, and it was with some effort that I refrained from shedding tears at her absence.  This would have confounded the application of my various facial powders and necessities, and I was not about to cause further delay.

My restoration complete, Ernest and I took our leave of my humble quarters, and made our way to the headquarters building, the selfsame building that I described for you in the fourteenth chapter, where we knew Diego would be once again awaiting us.

The day was waning, and it had evidently been a pleasant one, with a clear sky and sun-kissed clouds marking a welcome improvement in the weather.

Once again, the anarchists around us were singularly well disposed to our persons, and our progress towards the Central Committee Building was impeded by numerous conversations and expressions of heartfelt gratitude and welcome from individuals I had not yet had the pleasure to meet; as I was now of a condition to express my deep reciprocal feeling, I did so.  As had previously proven the case amongst these earnest but crude folk, my elocution proved a source of amusement and delight, and I must confess I found myself equally entertained by their profane but warm expressions of welcome.

When we finally reached the point of my rendezvous with Diego, some considerable time had passed, and late afternoon was yielding to the soft blanket of dusk.  I was…from the beauty of the early evening, my now-rested state, and the kind welcome and well-met salutations of all those around me…of a most pleasant temper when I reached the meeting room at the top of the wood-hewn stairs.

If only the same could have been said for Diego.

Chapter Twenty Three: My Second Argument with Diego (forthcoming)