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Contents: Prose
Rites Of Passage by F. Elliot Siemon
A Brief Journal Covering Parts of the Scottish Highlands by
S.L. MacNiven
Flash Forward: A Dream by Paul Stuart Nachbar
Rites of Passage by F. Elliot Siemon
Copyright
F. Elliot Siemon 1999, 2001. All Rights Reserved.
I.
Thwapp!
Blue
Bunsen burner flames dotted the room. Chemical reactions
cooked while 'salivic' orbs were landing all around me. From
his front corner - Thwapp!- Alberto was at it again. His
specialty was spitballs, especially in chemistry lab. Thwapp!
Big wet ones.
Although
Al kept missing, nausea, shaking hands and nervous sweat took
over. Head down. Avoid eye contact. Ignore
him. Maybe he will go away. Thwapp!
Al
was not one to go away. Purple veins lined his muscular
arms. Purple veins pulsated the sides of his neck.
Intense, cold brown eyes atop a tight, muscular frame could freeze
insects across the room. Walking down the hall, where he'd
always try to trip me, his knuckles seemed to graze the floor.
My
younger sister had his younger brother, Tony, in her class.
Tony was the nicest fellow you could ever know.
Al
had timing. Thwapp! It seemed, Miss. Unger never had a
clue, but perhaps she did. Thwapp!
Miss.
Unger where are you when I need you? Thwapp!
Al
kept missing, so he came halfway across the room to let one
fly. Missed.
Here he comes again. Thwapp! Missed. Now he was
getting pissed.
Again.
He comes closer. Something was going to happen this
time. Adrenaline surged. My chest exploded with each
Beat. Across the room in confident stride; midway; Miss
Unger where are you? He doesn't stop. A blur of a plan
flashes by.
Into
my isle where my Bunsen burner cooks some primordial soup, down my
isle, right up to me, he lets one fly. Thwapp! ...in the
side of my head. With out looking, my right arm flashes out,
fist slams face; left follows, over and around - there is no
sound, no sensation...
...As
if waking from a dream, I look up to see class mates, like scared
lab rats, eyes, mouths dilated, backed far into the lab isles and
against the walls behind desks, staring in mixed fear and
revulsion. In the center of the clearing, Al is face down
under my headlock. How? I-just-don't-know.
The
bell rings. Leaving their experiments cooking and Miss.
Unger cool and relaxed, thirty-two fledgling chemists scatter like
lab rats and disappear. I loosen the grip. Al stumbles
to his feet. Shadow boxing at me, he shouts, "I'm going
to get you, you ass, after school. Cmon. Cmon, I'm
gonna get your ass. C'mon after school, sonofabitch, cmon..."
Tall,
crew cut ex-marine, assistant principle, Mr. Watkins bursts
in. News of a fight travels fast at Westlake. He looks
left and right. "Aaaoow YEEEW TWO?"
"HE
WAS THROWING SPITBALLS AT ME!" Al screams.
"Shhishh!"
Watkins hissed as he turned around and left.
II.
If
growing up was an easy trip, what kind of people would we be?
Why...
someone, like myself, would be Al's imagined nemesis, was then, at
the far edge of comprehension. Me? I was, perhaps, the
most un-threatening fellow in all of Westlake High! No one
considered me a good student. Sports, certainly was not my
forte. Physique was not an issue. Looks?
Fagetaboutit! Fighting me certainly would not have won him
admiration or accolades from his peers. But there must have
been something...
The
conflict with Al is part of a certain consistent thread of
reactions people have had to me from kindergarten to the present
day.
The
first critically important incident happened in Miss. Coffin's
first grade class. The idea of numbers and simple arithmetic
just wasn't getting through to me. Something was missing;
something more was needed. Finally verbalizing my question:
“How do we know where one leaves off and two begins?” brought
no answer, only the recollection of being gruffly rebuffed, with
continued harsh tone ringing in my ears.
Math
subsequently seemed to fail me, along with all other grade school
academics. Teachers would give me a “W” on my report
cards: “Working to his/her ability.” The disappointment
of my parents and resulting ridicule was incessant. Teachers
just passed me, only because they said they didn't know what else
to do.
In
high school things improved, but only because teachers had their
specialties and four to five classes a day totaling over a hundred
students. Checking student files for dirt, was not of any
importance. However, the cycle of a system's self-fulfilling
expectations was not yet broken.
As
high school drew to a close, careers became the issue and
psychology seemed to be a natural extension of my interests.
However, as if it had anything do with ids, archetypes and
projecting, the guidance counselor's reaction was, “But, you're
no good in Maaath!” All that could be seen was that this
grunt was good at drawing - he should be an artist! Go to an
art school!
Exploring
other possibilities, a visit to a local technical/computer school,
perhaps one of the few places that taught computer programming
back in '63, concluded with an aptitude test heavy in math.
The interviewer returned with the results, agog, drop jawed,
almost stunned. “Congratulations,” he said sliding an
application across the table, “one of the highest scores we've
seen.”
There
was the sinking feeling of being hustled. They should have
known I was no good in math! Taking the application, I said
it would be considered, and left.
Feeling
there were no options and having a parallel interest in things
mechanical, Parson School of Design made this fellow quite a
decent Industrial Designer. In 1969, a Toronto firm took me
on to work on exhibits for the Man In His World exposition.
As the project wound down, there was an interview at Skye
Personnel where a sharp looking lady asked me to take a
twenty-question, riddle type, exam. It was her own exam, she
said, and had been using it for 20 years.
The
only question I got wrong was a true/false question, something
about Mr. and Mrs. Chicken (male chickens are not chickens, they
are... roosters). She said no one else had ever scored that
high.
In
all, 19 years were spent in the design field. They were the
good times, a two family house in Spencer Estates, a BMW in the
garage and two kids in private schools. However,
"out-sourcing" products from far corners of the planet,
other economic factors, together with CAD (Computer Aided Design),
with which, one good CAD-man can replace three to five colleagues,
put the field into steep decline.
Attempting
a management degree including math courses, from algebra to
calculus, made the world of math come alive for the first
time. And, did you know, the Chinese count a child's age as
one year old at the time of birth, while we say "one day
old"?
The
mystery of my initial confusion and question to Miss. Coffin
unfolded: It is the difference between an inclusive number system,
assigning a value at the beginning of an increment, and,
exclusive, at the end of the increment (which makes the necessary
"0" value possible). The critical, first grade
question, could have been explained by Miss. Coffin with a simple
number line.
In
the early '80s, each week brought a column and a half of
Industrial Design job listings in the TIMES. By '85,
dwindling to a few, if any, the lack of work contributed to my
divorce, dropping
the attempt at the management degree, and, in the late '80s,
working restaurants and supermarkets.
At
a Grand Union, ending a heavy, pre-Thanksgiving day, in which I,
as usual, rang up far more than other cashiers, the shift
supervisor said my drawer was only 25 cents off. (And only
because I found a 25 cent coupon lying beside the register and put
it in my drawer.) Following a brief period of notoriety, the
head manager began cutting my hours. When I insisted on a
minimum of 30 hours a week, he made shift changs without calling
me, so I'd be either "late" or a
"no-show". Shortly after, I was fired.
The
next job, at a small Danbury Mall men's accessory shop had an
almost identical end. On a pre-Christmas day, a co-worker
and I broke the store's one-day sales record of $7000. The
owner gave me a congratulatory call, with wishes that I'd be
around a while. Afterwards there were squabbles with his
manager about last minute shift changes, made without calling me,
so I'd be "late", etc. Shortly after, I was fired.
There
are numerous other anecdotes in this category. They all fell
into place with a single line from a book on psychiatric case
histories. It was a reference to a sociological concept:
society's control of excellence.
Not
necessarily having to be excellence, it can be anything that lifts
anyone above the herd, where they become a target. The ones
taking the shots, figuratively and sometimes literally, are the
unhappy and insecure, who, not wanting to be “shown up”, hate
anyone who does even a little better than they. It can be
soft shots, like parents holding back developmental support
because of an insecurity of having child achieving more than they
have. It is putting a defamatory note on a first grader's
record, because she couldn't handle his definitive question about
numbers. It is a guidance counselor saying you are no good
in math, even though she knows, only those in clinical behavioral
research need, or, use much math. It is a design director
sabotaging your project and store managers firing good
employees. It is your wife, grappling for divorce grounds
like inability to support the family, by calling your work, asking
for you when she knows - you are home with the flu. It is
college professors who downgrade the sharper students, and others
who act out in the most absurd terms, the car-jackers, rapists,
murders and bomb terrorists. It is why the Soviet Union took
its adversarial stand against capitalist countries.
It
is insecurity, but also their quest for power and having something
over someone else in compensation for those imagined insecurities,
while bringing targets down below their level of unhappiness.
Manufacturing
a rationale, doesn't make it right, and, excuses are cheap.
III.
THWAPP!!
Understanding
the reason behind the chemistry lab fight with Al was a turning
point in my understanding part of human nature. Al had
badgered and picked on me for years. He was a hyper, street
smart jock, while I had to go home and practice my violin.
He was muscular, while I was a reserved non-entity. Al had
lots of friends and I had to go home and practice my violin.
But Al saw something between us though, the same thing that caused
others to similarly act out toward me.
After
the fight, I had some friends. A few kids I didn't know said
hello to me in the hall. Some wanted to sit with me in the
cafeteria or study hall. They asked me to hang out with
them, but I had to go home and practice my violin.
Looking back on it, knowing it was for the best, Miss. Unger
certainly knew what was going to happen, and coolly, let it
happen. She knew you have to standup to the unhappy,
insecure bullies, as nothing is gained by patronizing, criticizing
or disciplining a wayward demigod, for it only makes them bolder
and more defiant. They must be vanquished. We
patronized Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, and before them, the
powers who started WW I. Something must have finally
clicked, because, surviving a couple of tense moments at the brink
of WW III, the Kennedy administration stood up to the Soviet Union
over missiles in Cuba. The tough stand continued through
Regan’s attempt at a “Star Wars” defense initiative, which
being held to, ultimately, helped end the Cold War.
For
those not endowed with the magical charisma of our age, attracting
not even society's indifference, but the seething wrath, treachery
and violence of the insecure and unhappy, there are certain extra
measures that have to be earned.
And
now, Al is a friend, the Soviet Union is, at least trying to get
with the program - and I can go home to practice my violin.
*
* *
Return
to Top
A
Brief Journal Covering Parts of the Scottish Highlands by S.L.
MacNiven
We arrived at Aberdeen airport at about six in the after
noon, five days before the end of the millennium, and upon
arranging the necessary details set off in our hired Ford Fiesta
along the trail to Inverness. The road was long, dark and winding,
as mile for mile we passed from the Grampian mountains, delving
deeper into the untouched countryside of the Scottish Highlands.
At a quarter past eight we reached the door of the Hawthorn Lodge,
our temporary residence in this, the Highland’s capital.
Our hostess – Mrs Ann Davidson – had inadvertently
forgotten that we were coming however, and it was a good half and
hour before we managed to summon the attention of the very
pleasant proprietor of a neighbouring guesthouse who was able to
get into contact with the lady in question’s daughter, and
thereby save us from the slow process of bodily slowing, typical
for those unprotected in such northern climes!
Some half an hour later she arrived and escorted us to our
small but quaint Highland quarters – or rather quarter, in that
it was but a single room with a share bathroom and toilet! But let
us not complain. Our host was wonderful, breakfast was to be
envied – although eight O ’clock was a little rough
considering the fact that daylight is still almost an hour away in
those chilly-northern, winter months. Our first day/night ended
with a hot meal at “Dicken’s” restaurant, where I enjoyed a
slice of Scottish – not British – beef, and where Gabi came
dangerously near to spontaneously combusting after having
unwittingly downed what appeared to be a chunk of capsicum, but
what in actual fact was, a rather large and rather hot Jalapeno
pepper! Nevertheless, the meal was satisfying after the ordeals of
planes and automobiles (sorry no trains), as was the whisky, and
it was not long before we were back in our quarters, slowly dozing
off by the telly.
Day
1
Our first day, was spent in investigating a little of the
town, savouring the crisp highland air and wandering – as it
were - through the streets and alleyways of about the only truly
populated region in Scotland’s north for a good hundred miles or
more! The feeling of true isolation however was to be encountered
most acutely a few days later, driving through the scarcely
peopled hills of Skye. But what can I say about Inverness? It
sports a population of ninety thousand or so, making it a town of
relatively decent proportions – if not teeming. The Scots
themselves seemed to be relatively immune to the cold, some young
lassies going as far as to wear sandals and mini-skirts without
stockings! Gabi took special notice of this fact, having seen it
before in England and counted it off as belonging to a mentality
that ate grilled sausages, bacon, tomato, black pudding and fried
bread first thing in the morning for breakfast. The Continental Breakfast contrarily, consists of a bread
roll, salami, ham, various cheeses, butter, marmalade and a boiled
egg which is also good, but try as I might, I still haven’t
managed to get her to see the virtues of a good-fatty,
cholesterol-rich, British breakfast!
She
was right about one thing though – not the breakfast – the
young lassies were quite visibly freezing in their ‘better
suited to summer’ attire, not surprisingly, it must have been at
least minus seven in the Sun – what little there was of it!
II
Inverness is very quaint however. Most of the buildings are
a good hundred and fifty to six or seven hundred years old,
adorned with low doorways, antiquated windows framed in solid oak
and glowing with the cheery warmth of roaring fireplaces and
mellow malt whisky. Pubs and restaurants are in no short supply as
we quickly discovered, ducking in here for a Cock a Leekie soup,
there for a quick pint of MacEwans, and somewhere in the middle of
one of many little alleys, for something a little more
substantial.
As the name suggests, Inverness is on the Ness river, which
itself is directly connected to Loch Ness. It’s waters are fast,
dark and turbulent and divide the town in two. A view of the town
from the adjacent bank of the river reveals a red-grey collage
sporting church steeples, an ominous old graveyard, and diverse
collection of old, high-roofed buildings, jutting into the blue-grey,
winter twilight, and embellishing the straight of the Ness river
very much like the teeth of a great brass key. Seen from the
opposing bank, Inverness’ residential area is collection of
narrow-intersecting streets and lanes bordered on both sides by
peacefully-smoking terrace houses, and backed by the distant
outline of green hills steeped in heather, and the vague outlines
of roughly fenced highland farms. There is a feeling of community
here, but a community of necessity whose century-old unifying
struggle against the elements is resistant, but no longer
impervious to the pervading march of ‘twentieth centuryism’.
In short, the atomising spirit of capitalism – though somewhat
retarded - has still managed to squeeze a thriving-golden “M”
into Inverness’ main street!
Day
2
Day two was more or less a more detailed repeat of day one,
and it was not until the third day of our stay in Inverness that
we managed to get up early enough to take a drive up to the
mystery-surrounded shores of Loch Ness. It’s not as menacing as
the vivid, Hollywood-fuelled imagination would have it – at
least by day – though at night, the thought of a long-arched,
prehistoric neck rising from the mist-drenched waters is hardly
unimaginable! The Loch itself is without a doubt, a sight worth
seeing, and the frozen, snow-capped peaks of the surrounding
mountains, reflected in the dark-clear waters of the Loch adorn
the landscape, like a chiseled frame of the finest ivory.
A little further down the way we found the official Nessie
tourist site, where I discovered my favourite whisky, the 16yr
Islay single malt, Lagavulin, and a rather good lentil soup.
After some chit-chat with the barman and the collection of
a little information on the region we followed the loch to
Urquhart Castle. The grassy slopes that roll down from Urquhart to
the loch, meet its waters at their deepest point - some
three-hundred metres or more! After paying the not inconsequent
admission fee of about $10 each I rushed down to the water’s
edge to plunge my hands in the icy waters, substituting shortly
thereafter Perrier water with that of the Loch. We wandered around
the wintery old castle for what must have been nigh to an hour or
so, and on our way back up the hill to our car, got into a
conversation about Scottish Gaelic with a little-old, white-haired
lady in a great-red overcoat, whom we discovered to be the
caretaker’s mother – ironically, the very same little-
III
old
lady that always seemed to get into the picture when I wanted to
get really-lovely, isolated-looking snapshots of Gabi!
Day
3
The day of the 30th, being our third day, began
with a hearty Scottish/Continental breakfast and a good-strong cup
of tea, and ended with thoughts of Culloden and the last-bloody
battle of Scottish independence against English imperialism. We
reached the moors of Culloden at about eleven thirty, and –
apart from the cold and ice – were struck by the eerie
loneliness of the field.
Even in the grey light of day, Culloden’s moors charge
the air with an indeterminable sense of sadness, hope, loss and
glory. Perhaps the German word Schlachtfeld
(slaughter-field: translated “battlefield”) best captures the
present of that bloody past. For the few thousand Jacobites under
the last desperate command of Prince Charles Stuart, staring
across the moors to an enemy army twofold in numbers and fourfold in artillery
strength, in the misty gloam of a grey and biting Highland morn,
the odds and the realisation must have screamed like a banshee
early come to collect the dead. But love of an independent land
and kin burned hot in their hearts, and drove them on, through the
moors that clung to their boots, slowing their charge and drinking
their strength. On, through the rain of fire and lead that passed
through their limbs, their heads and their hearts, robbing their
cause of its action, their spirits expression. On and into the
pages of romance to which we are heir, safe and snug in our homes
and our jobs and thoughtlessly-expected peace. Culloden reminds
you that peace, liberty, and freedom from the tyranny of
suppression are neither cheap commodities, nor freely-given human
rights, but values to be fought for, ideals to be upheld, and
worthy of the greatest sacrifice, the giving of one’s life to
their defence. The rich-dark peat of the moors, overgrown by
rusty-red and faded-green mosses and shrubs, thatched in heather
and bedded in mist speaks in the tongues of the slain, but one
word, humming between the icy gusts of the northern winds:
Scotland...Scotland...Scotland...
Some hours of daylight still remained, and we decided to
use them to drive to Nairn - a small coastal town some 20miles
from Inverness – in the search of seafood. After a little trial
and error we reach the sea at around 3:30pm. The North Sea is an
ominous sight at winter and leads directly into Arctic waters.
It’s cold dark waters offer little hospitality, and are
perfectly accompanied by an equally cold grey sky. We did not
dwell long there but made our way further without any definite aim
in mind finally stumbling across Fort George. I know nothing of
the history of the fort, only that it looks rather imperialistic
in design and must have been near to impossible to siege. It’s
roofs are covered in grass and it’s walls are thrust into deep
grassy trenches spanned by occasional bridges. Due to the
typically expensive entry fee, and the growing dimness of the day
we decided to leave and after some effort reached Nairn. As was to
be expected, nothing was open in Nairn - being a seaside town in
the middle of Winter – at least no restaurants of note, and not
a fresh-fish vendor to be seen. We dallied a little around the
twilight-clad abandoned docks and made our way back to Inverness.
Finding a restaurant along the way we enjoyed a rather poor and
expensive meal of not-exceptionally-fresh seafood, paid
IV
the
waitress, purchased some fudge and shortcake in the giftshop on
the first floor and returned to our room.
Day
4: Hogmanay
After breakfast we packed our lunches, got into the car,
and began the 120 mile (190 km or so) drive to Scotland’s west
coast, and therewith, to the Isle of Skye. The sky was overcast,
with dark-heavy clouds bulging under the gathered weight that
would soon be greeting us in cats, dogs and black-faced Scottish
sheep, as on the radio - some twelve thousand miles south-east of
us - Sydney was bringing in the new millennium.
The road to Skye ploughs through the heart of the
highlands. Long-narrow winding roads, ominously observed by the
snowy peaks of Scotland’s deathless custodians, and accompanied
by the ever howling winds, lead the wanderer to strength...or
madness.
Some 10 miles before the “smallest bridge to cross the
Atlantic”, lies the castle Eileen Donan. Well known for its
appearance in films such as “Highlander”, Eileen Donan must be
one of the most unique and individualistic castles in Europe.
Despite the bitter cold, rain, wind and the fact that the castle
was closed for the winter we were able to make a short tour of the
castle grounds – which consisted of a narrow-stone wind-beaten
path and a few clumps of yellowed grasses – and an even shorter
(illegal) tour of the inner courtyard when Gabi discovered that a
member of the castle’s maintenance staff – whose car we had to
slip past – had left a side door open. The castle, like the
highlands, was ruggedly beautiful in its winter coat. I have since
drawn a lead sketch of one of its side doors as it appeared,
locked in slate-grey stone, wet and weathered by salt spray within
a cloud of ocean mist. Magnificent, lonely abandoned, and scantily
protected by the distant isles of those cold frontiers.
Leaving Eileen Donan it was not long before we reached the
Skye bridge, which at a toll-charge of two pounds seventy (almost
AUS$ 7) each way made the idea of swimming across considerably
more attractive. The wind of course – not wishing to be a bad
host – continued to accompany us, garnishing the sights with
gusts, gales and erratic downpours of icy rain. For myself though,
this was the Scotland I wanted to experience. Reflective seasons
are the Autumn and Winter, seasons of the mind and soul, in whose
span the fertile seed of invention opens and blossoms, a rare
quality for which the Scotland is well known.
Skye is almost uninhabited, and almost uninhabitable, being
largely composed of hills, ravines and sheep. We drove about ten
or 15 miles into Skye itself, but being battered by wind, rain and
the threat of a fast approaching winter night decided to stop at
the first hospitable locale that might offer itself unto us. I had
hoped to find a “wee townie” somewhere as I wished to have my
hair cut in Scotland but ‘twas to no avail. Some 15 miles inland
we found what appeared to be a hotel and dashing out of the car,
and into the pouring rain made it safely into those warm dry
quarters. Standing at the reception a young Scotsman asked what he
could do for us - in a more or less congenial tone. I replied that
I was looking for the town centre and whether he would be able to
direct us to it. “Sure” he said, “yur in it”
V
replying
in an och-ay-tourists-again tone. It came of no surprise, and if
the weather had been a wee-bit hotter, and if the men had been
wearing leather-pants and spurred boots, it could just as well
have been a small American-frontier town saloon from the 1850’s,
a few men drinking whisky at the bar (Scottish of course!) and
Charles Bronson playing the tune from Once Upon a Time in the West
on the bagpipes!
Leaving the reception desk we dashed out once more into the
rain, ran some 15 metres and made it safely into the adjoining
restaurant. As it was Hogmanay, the roomy restaurant/hall had been
sparsely decorated with 2000 banners, balloons and streamers and
was slowly but surely filling with what must have been at least
half the population of the island! We sat ourselves down at a long
wooden table and leafed through the menu...Hmmm...Pea and ham
soup...Roast Chicken...Beefsteak...Haggis. We decided on the Pea
and Ham soup, Spaghetti Bolognase for Gabi and Roast Chicken for
myself, not being daring enough to partake of Robert Burn’s
“Chieftain of the pudding race”! Haggis of course is the
national speciality of Scotland and is traditionally served
(usually at Hogmanay) after a reading of Robert Burn’s
“Address to a Haggis” which begins as follows:
Fair
fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great
chieftain o’ the puddin’-race!
Aboon
them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch,
tripe, or thairm:
Weel
are ye wordy of a grace
As
lang’s my arm.
The
ceremony ends when a (usually traditionally dressed) Scotsman
cleaves the steaming-bloated bag of offal, bread and whisky with a
sword. Portions are divided, served with steaming vegetables,
bread and of course whisky. The function of the whisky is
proclaimed by some to effect a certain degree of palatability to
this rather exclusively flavoured “delicacy”, for myself I
decided not to take the plunge at that point.
After a dram of Benrioch single-malt whisky, a pint of
Scottish ale and an agreeable meal, we decided to embark upon the
135mile journey back to Inverness. Some relatively uneventful
hours later we were back in our wee room and the last night of the
millennium was young. Getting Gabi out of bed for a brisk walk in
the crisp-Scottish evening was not easy, but after some persuasion
she conceded to my wish and at 11:45pm we left the guesthouse and
walked to the little footbridge crossing the river Ness. Shortly
before midnight the strains of Auld
Lang Syne lilted across the waters between gusts of icy wind
and the rushing waters of the river. A modest but effective
fireworks display began at 00:00, 01.01.00 as we raised our fruit
juice glasses, kissed and toasted the new millennium in fine
French champagne...The night was dark and clear, the climate harsh
but jovial, and the people friendly and accosting one another with
“Happy New Year!”. Gathering Pence and Pound I made my way to
a telephone box to make a long-distance call to Australia.
VI
Of course the money quickly ran out, and by the time you
had called back I had already gone out again in search of change,
leaving you the bring in the rest of the New Year with whoever it
was that answered the phone!!!
Day
5: Goodbye
The late morning of the 1st January, 2000 was
spent in saying goodbye to Inverness. We left our room at about
11:00 am and went out in search of sustenance. We found something
like a Pizza Hut not far from the river and after wandering around
for half an hour were admitted into the warmth of the
restaurant’s interior. A New Year’s run had been arranged in
the town, and in the icy chill of the fast-growing first day of
the year the crazy Scot’s were out in shorts and T-shirts doing
laps around the town! Gabi of course – especially in her
condition – was chilled to the bone at the very sight of them.
For myself it was not so unimaginable, at the time however I had
slumped into something of a pre-departure depression. Scotland is
not the Mediterranean, it’s not the Caribbean nor is it Grand
Canaria, for many it is an acquired taste, for myself, it’s
blood, a sense of belonging, an inexplicable kinship and one of
the most beautiful places on Earth. I did not want to leave. Gabi,
although she also found the landscape beautiful would have
preferred to have gone in Spring or Summer and was finding hard to
endure the winter climate. I could well imagine a little-stone
cottage somewhere in the Highlands, with only the bare necessities
of life: a roaring fireplace; solid-rustic furniture; a small but
select collection of books; some good bottles of single-malt
whisky bought directly from local distilleries; some sheep,
chickens; and of course a 500MHz laptop and internet connection -
one must always have the possibility of speaking with the world!
But ‘twas not to be, and who knows, perhaps it would not be as
idyllic as one imagined either. Still, the possibility remains
ever open, and after all, what is a man without dreams.
The rest of the day was spent wandering the around the town
a little, which due to a still-recovering population were rather
empty, and ended in preparing for the return trip, watching
T.V.(in English!!!) and getting an early night for the long and
inhumanely early trip back to Aberdeen airport. From Aberdeen we
returned via Heathrow airport – relaxing (or in my case lamentig)
for an hour and a half in an English airport pub. Frankfurt am
Maine airport marked our final arrival in Germany where we were
picked up by Gabi’s father and sister, ending the inspiration of
a week back in Käfertal im Rott, Mannheim...
Epilogue:
Where does one begin in attempting to describe that place
where the great halls of Asgard, meet the misty-earthen regions of
Midgard? Those mountains capped in snow, a cloudy blanket furled
around their lofty peaks. The soft-moist-peat mosses and heath of
the moors at their feet, and
occasional wooded belts of birches, firs and pines of a
deep, royal, pervasive forest green. What poetry might speak of
the pure-icy northern winds that rush from the top of the world to
dance between the glens and earthen volume of this harsh, yet
awe-inspiringly majestic, geographic wonderland? Or dare to
VII
embrace
a mountain river of freshly melted snow, ploughing through the
land like a herd of thousands of wildly-frolicking, milk-white
steeds! Who indeed! For fear of life and limb doth hold the spirit
wary of its freedom, and prevent that longed-for-wild embrace,
whose satisfaction indeed, would free the spirit of its fleshy
walls, but make perhaps thereby of life an end.
As unknown are the Highlands to our progress, to our
civilisation, and to our domesticity as we, in our high-pace
twenty-first century societies, to their wild-rugged grandeur.
They speak the language of another life, another time. Here the
world is in constant flux, mirroring the many struggles of which
our very survival is heir to.
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Flash Forward: A Dream - by Paul Stuart Nachbar
One night I had a dream that both I and several of
the characters from my old
college days had died…
and ended up, well, in the same place. Although some
of us might have anticipated
Hell, Heaven, a mixture of the
two or simply just Nothingness, our current surroundings
were a surprise to all of us. We found ourselves guests on
a TV show in the process of being filmed.
Name of the show?
Jeopardy Part 2: Absolutely Final Jeopardy..
Alex
Trebeck was in this dream (of course) complete with
a set of angelic wings. I guess he had passed some series
of tests to earn such rewards; the rest of us, the contestants,
had neither angelic nor devil’s garb. In fact, most of
us were attired in bathrobes or other sleep attire – though
this did not feel entirely strange at the time.
So
the music began, we all tried to smile – before an
apparently vast audience which
was, alas, completely
invisible to us. And then we waited for the questions,
which Alex was very prompt to ask after our
brief
introductions. However, unlike the TV show Jeopardy,
in which candidates got to select their categories from
a choice, in this episode – or,
rather, dream – Alex
made all the choices.
“To
begin with, for one million dollars: what is
the meaning of life?”
Brian
M, a fellow whose recollection
invited
bittersweet memories – in this case mostly
bitter –
signaled with his buzzer quicker
than the rest of us.
Alex invited his answer with a nod.
“Well
I was raised a strict Catholic,
Alex,
a faith I thought I had given up in college
after reading Freud and the existentialist thinkers..
I began to think that changing the world was
the most significant thing one could do and that
faith was mostly based on a collection of
primitive,
unscientific myths. But considering the
circumstances,
here I might have been entirely wrong and I apologize:
faith in God and His redemption is the
ultimate meaning of life on earth!”
Another surprise. Alex simply nodded,
and
without further reply went on to question
the next guest, that is to say, myself. I felt
much more like a student before a very serious
academic examiner however than a Jeopardy
contestant.
“Okay…”
I said, “For one million dollars,hm. Alex , do I have to answer this right
now?
The ramifications are very complex and it
might take me awhile to phrase all my thoughts
precisely. Oh God, I hate public speaking!
But this is a very personal and
painful question, even if it is also
transcendental. If you want a full, honest
and SANE answer this could take awhile.
And my parents always told me NOT to
say ‘I don’t know’…”
“Well
you don’t have to answer immediately”
Alex replied with a smile. Then he proceeded
to address another character from my college
days, a fellow named Richard.
“One
million dollars Alex! Wow. You
know, Alex, I grew up with nothing whatsoever
in material terms, just a warm, loving family.
but I think I’ll just say here that work is
the answer, or at least in a big part of it. In life, I worked
many furious decades in
my career as a painter and art instructor. And
although I didn’t do much better than
just scraping by, perhaps things change
in this context. One million dollars would do
a lot to help my family. Maybe they’d
be able to fix up their nasty back yard
- turn it into a swimming pool for instance.
The rest I’d give to charity.”
Alex
nodded once again and waited
for Laurie, the fourth guest to respond.
“Oh
Alex, Alex, that’s just money!
The meaning of life is love! What would
I ever do with such riches..?”
It
appeared that Laurie had finished
so Alex passed by and positioned himself
in front of the fifth guest, whose face
I couldn’t see. But then she cried out
“Alex! I spoke too quickly. I’d like to
change my answer. That was silly,
wasn’t it – in a practical universe money
DOES matter. Good works do matter
of course but I mean, diamonds are
sometimes a girl’s best friend, Alex …”
But
Alex just ignored these words.
I thought he was going to raise the
question with the other guests, who
formed a line stretching further than
my eye could see. Who was going
to win this million dollar prize, I
wondered? Actually , among the
questions listed on the Jeopardy board
in front of us, this first
question
had one of the smaller payoffs.
But
Alex simply smiled and pointed
to each one of us, stating gently,
“Time to wake up, the show is over! Rise
and shine, the show must go on!”
Well,
right now I really don’t know how to
interpret this dream. I’m not
sure whether it qualified as a good or
bad dream or simply a somewhat
odd one in my sequence of mental
events –sleeping and waking- which, as
anyone who knows me will attest, can
become pretty strange. I
guess we’ll find out in tonight’s episode.
Or…maybe not?
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