Mogdual

MOGDUAL by TISH HAND

            My brain tingles and nostrils flare as they fill with the acrid steam rising from the vents in my lair. The earth awakens and I with it. My eye flaps creak open to expose my golden slit, now blood rimmed and stinging from millennia without lubrication.

             I am Mogdual and I am hungry.

            Turquoise scales shimmer and begin to dry from the condensation. Lava bubbles and flows upward through the lengthening fissures and my split tongue emerges to flick at the tastes on the mordid wind. My stomachs grumble louder than the rumbling of my mountain where I witness a large pile or bone remnants disintegrating before my eyes. I briefly consider filling this emptiness in my gut with the cooling lava. Mogdual would breathe fire once again but would still ache with hunger.

            My talons unsheathe with zipper sounds from my hooked toes and clack against the solid rock beneath me. How long will it be solid? How long have I slept in this icy prison, my blood chilling in my veins, my breath slowing to a near stop, and my body suspended as in death in the sleep of ages? Why isn’t at least one of my stomachs still full from the 25 herbivores I devoured before I slept? I cannot even lick the marrow from their cracked bones; they have turned to decay with flames licking at them.

            I must break free. It grows too hot, even for me, and…       

            I am Mogdual and I am hungry.

My way is blocked by ice I must eat the firestone after all. I rush to do so and return to blow fire at the icy blockade. Frigid water runs beneath my feet and I stand on talons tiptoe to escape its intrepid numbing. Steam rises to blind me and the smoky belch of my exhausted fire mixes black with the white, hissing glare. Blindly, I go to get more fire to feed my flame, ever clacking on talon tips.

Soon I can see light breaking through the dripping wall, but not soon enough. My muscles slow: the heat is gone. With a final, valiant effort, I ram the wall. It gives way and shards of ice sheer off the mountain to crash in plumes of white to the snow-laid plain beneath.

With effort I rise high to meet the sun. I must bask every scale with the radiance and fly south to warmth and life.

I am Mogdual and I am hungry. 

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Bus Stations

by Charles Lawrence

Bus Stations

Where adventures begin and end

People too poor to afford suitcases

Carry their bundles in garbage bags

Sick people

Old people

Young people

Men

Women

Children

Prices as low as $49.00 each way

California

New York

Massachusetts

Florida

A man with one leg

Hobbles to the ticket counter

One way to Boston

How long’s the ride?

Struggling to pull dollars out of his

Faux leather wallet

He bends down to pick up a

Stick of gum he dropped

Walking with a crutch

He wonders how is sister is

And if her daughter will still remember him

It’s been a long time since the war began

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The Town Square

The Town Square

By

Ann M. Hill-Brixey

As I sit in the centuries old town square, a tantalizing aroma of newly baked bread mingled with the heady smell of freshly brewed coffee assails my nostrils. I sip my coffee in the cool morning air, watching bustling stallholders display their wares. Vegetables, meats, and freshly caught fish appear on stalls, all artfully arranged to appeal to the discerning eye of early-morning shoppers.

Cobblestones, still wet from an early morning shower glisten in the sunlight. Birds sing a sweet song from overhanging branches, while the cappuccino machine hisses in counterpoint. A scrawny mutt stealing a lone sausage; scampers off to devour it in the secluded safety of a courtyard. Nearby, a sleek black cat watches, dignified and aloof preening its whiskers in disdain. Such scurrilous behavior is far beneath him.

Containers of vibrant flowers vie for pride of place in the shade of honey colored arches. Churchgoers climb the time-worn steps to morning service, as church bells call. Vendors shout greetings to the stout, black-garbed matriarchs scouring the stalls for the choicest ingredients for the family noonday meal.  Young matrons parade in their bright summer dresses and highest heels. Meeting friends at the metal-topped tables, they exchange gossip over steaming cups of frothy cappuccino.

Late morning, the square is quieter now. Two old men in open necked shirts set up a chessboard, spectators gather, all are totally absorbed in the game at hand.  In the warm, sunshine, the game proceeds. Silence reigns supreme.

Across the square, on a stone bench, against a bougainvillea-bedecked wall, sit three old men staring intently ahead, like the three wise monkeys.   A long sigh, the silence is broken, a spirited discussion begins.  As on countless other days, they talk of other, better times. For these three, the story will be again replayed tomorrow.

With the approach of the evening, the friendly square takes on a different tone, and for a brief time, all is tranquil.  Only the sleek cat remains. From a high wall, he surveys his domain, while enjoying the lingering warmth of the late afternoon sun.

Shadows are longer now, radiating an air of expectancy. The soft sandstone buildings glow deep amber, in the light of the setting sun. The honey colored arches dark now, as shadows turn the passing day into night, and the sweet fragrance of night blooming flowers perfume the soft, velvety air.

 Soon it comes alive again, teeming with life. Young families out for a stroll; excited youngsters enjoying gelato cones, grandparents’ sit, nodding their approval. Young lovers meet in secluded corners, existing, as lovers everywhere, only for each other. For them, the world fades into oblivion.

Lamps are lighted; tabletops reverberate with the clang of glass on metal. Glasses filled with ruby colored wine, gleaming like rare jewels in the light of the setting sun, patrons sample the liquid nectar.

‘The Square,’ for centuries the heartbeat of this little town, embraces all who linger.

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Dear Julie

Dear Julie

by Charles Lawrence

Dear Julie,

I know what it’s like to lie awake at night and wonder what’s going to happen to you. 

A doctor thinks I have lymphoma—the blood cancer.   I’m going in on Thursday for a CT scan of my body and an MRI of my brain to see if it’s spread.   At least that’s why I think they are doing it.  I’m not bothering to look any of this up.   I think it’s better not to know.

I’m not telling my family or anyone else.   You’re the only one who knows because I think someone should know where I am and what’s happening.   I’m at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing and I’m giving your name as an emergency contact.

I don’t want to worry anyone because I might not have it, but I’m tired, Julie.   Really tired.   I thought it was just working long hours, but frankly by 2pm I’m ready to fall into a coma.    I went to the doctor with symptoms of fatigue.   I was hoping it was Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but I really don’t think that’s what this is.   

My blood work is coming back normal, but the doctor says I could still have this disease and have normal blood work.    She’s consulting with other doctors to see if her suspicion could be correct.

Frankly, I have my doctor’s number on speed dial and I’ve got the shortest route to the ER written down just in case I’m headed for a catastrophe.   I don’t know.  

 I feel like I should go to church on Sunday, but I haven’t been in years.  Kind of feel like an atheist in a foxhole.   Probably not right that I start going to church now, because I’m not sure how I feel about there being an afterlife.  I think it’s possible, but not probable.

I’m not sure where memorial services are held for non-church goers---the Holiday Inn?  I don’t know if I want a memorial service held at a place where the Rotary Club meets every other Wednesday at 12pm. I don’t want to sound morbid, but I guess I have to think of these things.  I might not even have lymphoma, but I’m ever the Boy Scout and want to be prepared.  

I’m thinking of all the things I want to do that I might not be able to do.   I guess I should make a Bucket List.   I’ve never kissed a woman from another country.  Or one who couldn’t speak English.  I’ve never gone skinny dipping.  I’ve never performed music in front of others.   I’ve never grown Sunflowers or gotten lost in a maze of corn.  I’ve never seen Paul McCartney play live.   

I guess I should make a list of things that I have done.   Counting my blessings and all.   I’m not sure if anything I’ve done is worth writing down.   I’ve gone to work.  I’ve supported myself.  I’ve wondered what I want to be when I grow up, but what am I leaving behind?

I know we had plans.   A snowboarding trip to Vermont, but you know how uncoordinated I am. I’m sure I wouldn’t have made it down the bunny slope.    I probably would’ve spent half the trip on crutches.   I would’ve loved to have hiked the Appalachian Trail, but I feel so weak that I’m sure I would’ve stumbled half the time if we tried that now.

I’m thinking of buying a camera and recording my medical journey.  Maybe I’ll post it on You Tube or Facebook.  I need to connect with others going through a similar experience.   I’m sure there are support groups, but I don’t want it to be some “woe is me” crying experience.  I’m going to fight this thing.   I’ve always been a bit of a fatalist, though.   The glass is always half empty with me, you know.  Maybe I should change my attitude.   That would be a sea change.  I’m not sure which will be tougher, battling this disease or changing my world view.  

I’m going to start reading books about people who have overcome adversity----Helen Keller, FDR, Christopher Reeve.   I know there are people far worse off than me.   I guess that should make me feel better, but somehow it doesn’t.   I really want to call all my friends and tell my family, but I don’t want to worry them or burden them with this.  I’ve heard illness can bring people together or tear them apart.

As for work, I’m not sure what to do.  I don’t know what the prognosis is.  Like I said, I’m really tired. Beyond description.    I have to work to keep my insurance,  but putting in a full day seems impossible.  There is family and medical leave, but I’m not sure how that works.   Will I still be insured if I’m not working?   I really don’t know.  I have a feeling I’m going to be fighting with the insurance companies while I fight this disease.    It’s going to be a real drag, to say the least.

I’ve started thinking of when I want to die.   I think I’d like to pass on during the Winter, when everything is dying.   I’ve always like the cold.  I plan on catching as many snowflakes on my tongue as I can.  I imagine staring out my hospital window, watching the icicles slowly make their way to the white fluff on the ground.     When the nurses aren’t looking, I’m going to go out and break one off and suck on one until I sharpened one end and keep it under my bed in case someone with chemo brain tries to attack me in the middle of the night.  Call it survival.

I guess all of this is premature, since they haven’t told me what’s wrong with me, but trust me, something is wrong with me.

Sorry if some of this is disjointed.  My thoughts are everywhere now.   Frankly, I’m terrified.  Anyone who is sick and puts on a brave face is only doing that for the people around him.   I wish I knew where I was going after this.    Being eternally unconscious seems doesn’t seem so bad I guess.  At least there would be no pain and no terror.   If there is a place to go, I hope it’s as fun as Disneyworld and as warm as a family fireplace at Thanksgiving.

I don’t blame you for not wanting to deal with this, Julie.    I don’t think women want to be with sick men.    I think it’s hardwired in people to let the sick go away to an elephant’s graveyard and lay down and die.    Thinning the herd I guess.  

If you want this to be a goodbye letter, I understand.    I did look forward to a future with you and we had one helluva past.

Let me know what you want to do.  I’ll wait to hear from you.

Love,

Dave

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The Bookshop

The Bookshop:   By Pamela Hill

I stumbled upon a place forgotten.  Clay-colored cement floors were dusty and drab, and walls lined with unsymmetrical, rutted wooden shelves displayed books that stood as castles in rows or books that lay piled in stacks because they had been read and handled so often they were too humble to stand.  The scent of their musty perfume made my head spin.

I stood in awe, almost hypnotized.

In the most dingy corner of the vast room of bookcases aligned in no particular pattern there appeared before me a genie, a magician, and flying all around me were enchanted carpets and flying horses.  I laughed at my musings.  My hand slowly rose to a shelf to caress the red leather volume of Arabian Nights, and as I pulled it from the shelf, dust alit around me and settled in my hair and on my face.  I held the treasure to my chest. 

Slowly I maneuvered around the menagerie of shelves when to my mind came the words:  A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us, and of course there I found a volume of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  

I continued on my journey through the dust where the sun does not shine, and where I did encounter a mind that startled me.  

"All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king" – J. R.R. Tolkien

I had no choice but to climb the bookcase ladder to reach the dark green leather volume where the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, imparted wisdom from Lord of the Rings.  

The Bookshop did not glitter from glass glinting sprinkled sun, nor did the scent of roses drift to please the senses. For the dark, dusty bookshop had no windows, and the swinging light from wire hanging bulbs did cast its shadows, but it was the most beautiful place I had ever been, although the beauty that it held came deeply from within.

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Why A Cat Likes Catnip

Why a Cat Likes Catnip

by

Yvonne Mastny

Razzle dazzle your cat with a catnip treat then sit back and enjoy the show.  A cat’s reaction to crushed catnip is inherited and over 50% of cats go crazy or act drugged when they come into contact with it.  Kittens and old cats rarely respond but both male and female cats, entire or desexed cats, and large cats, like tigers, react the same.  The active ingredient that affects the cat is nepetalactone, an essential oil found in the stems and leaves of catnip. Nepetalactone causes a hallucinogenic effect similar to LSD or marijuana. When a cat encounters catnip the primary response is via the olfactory system; cats can smell one part in a billion in the air.   The cat sniffs it, rubs against it, rolls in it, licks it, and then experiences a high for several minutes up to an hour.  The cat might then get disinterested but two hours later the behavior will be repeated.   If the cat eats the catnip, it will appear to be drugged.  Catnip is safe and isn’t addictive, but if a cat eats lots of fresh catnip it could puke or have diarrhea.

Catnip is a perennial herb available in garden centers with over 200 varieties available in seed.  It is fairly easy to grow and likes light, sandy soil growing best in full sun. Fresh catnip can be put into an airtight container in the freezer.   To dry fresh catnip, hang it upside down in a dry, ventilated area away from the sun.

Humans use catnip as an herb in cooking, in teas to help insomnia & upset stomachs, and as a healing agent

by placing crushed, dampened leaves over a cut.  Pregnant women should avoid catnip because it is a uterine

stimulant

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12 Most Powerful Words in English--According to a Yale Study

12 Most Powerful Words in English according to a Yale Study are:

1.        You

2.       Guarantee

3.       Money

4.       Love

5.       Save

6.       Discovery

7.       New

8.       Results

9.       Easy

10.   Health

11.   Free

12.   Proven

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Kathy with MS

Kathy with MS

by Charles Lawrence

“My hands feel numb again.  Can you wash the dishes tonight?”

“Sure. No problem,” I said.

Kathy developed Multiple Sclerosis when she was in her late 20’s.  The prime of her life, she always said.  She had just started a teaching job in Michigan and started feeling the symptoms of fatigue, being off balance, tingling and numbness in her hands and feet.  At first, the doctors said it was all in her head.  But a person knows when something is wrong with them, regardless of what a doctor thinks.

She ended up at the University of Michigan to see a neurologist.  An exam and an MRI of her brain confirmed lesions and the clinical symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis.  Kathy continued to try to work as a school teacher at a Kalamazoo high school, but the stress of putting in a full day was too much for her.  

The injections needed to keep the immune system from attacking the Central Nervous System are very expensive.   So Kathy was stuck.   How was she going to get insurance to pay for her medicine and work to support herself at the same time.  The answer was Sam’s Club.

Sam’s Club allowed her to put in a minimum number of hours and still qualify for benefits.  Sam’s Club was not one of Kathy’s favorite places in the world, however.    Sometimes life requires us to make compromises and working at Sam’s Club was a big one.

“I hate working at Sam’s Club, but I have nowhere else to go.”   

“I know.”  I had just moved to New York City a few years earlier and knew Kathy through a friend.  I returned to Michigan to visit her and other friends.   We started dating during my visit.

“Why don’t you move to New York City with me?  Maybe you can get a job with insurance out there. “

“New York?  It’s such a struggle for me to get through the day in Kalamazoo.  I don’t know how much longer I can keep working.  I’m so tired.  ALL the time.   I don’t know how soon I’m going to end up in a wheelchair.  I can’t imagine wheeling my way down 5^th Avenue.”

“Listen, I have to go back to New York in a few days.  Think about it.   I’ll do some research to see what resources there are for people with MS in New York.  There have to be top doctors out there.  I’ll call you as soon as I get back there.”

When I returned to New York, I called a friend who has a daughter with neurological problems and he suggested that Kathy apply for Medicare.   She started the application process within a week.

We continued to have a long distance relationship for the next several months until she was approved for Medicare.   My job at the staffing agency was going well and we decided it was time for the big move out East.

I took a few days off, returned to Michigan and we rented a U-Haul for the long journey from Michigan to New York. 

“You know I’d still be working at Sam’s Club if we hadn’t met.   I owe you big time, “she said.

“You can pay me back when we get back to New York.”

“How?”

“I’ll draw you a picture.  Or better yet, I’ll take one”.

“You’re bad.”

It took 2 days to get to New York.  Two long days, but you couldn’t beat the company.  We talked about the things we were going to do when we got there.   We talked about how much we loved books and about visiting the museums every weekend.   I told her going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art was like taking a time capsule back in time.  You realized how young this country was compared to ancient civilizations.   And you thought about what ancient civilization leave behind.   All they really leave are buildings and art and whatever objects they used in day to day living—pottery, eating utensils along with artifacts of war.

“What do you want to do first when we get there?” I asked.

“I don’t know.  Find some exotic restaurant I think.”

“How about Ethiopian? The food is great, but you don’t get much by way of portions.”

“You’re really bad.”

At the end of our second day of travel, we approached Manhattan at night.  You couldn’t tell the sky from the city since the lights were twinkling from above and from below. 

“It looks like heaven,” she said.

“It is.  It really is.”

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I Am the Color of Life

                                                     I Am The Color of Life

                                                                      By

                                                        Ann M. Hill-Brixey

           

What does the color green mean to you?”   Does it mean naivety? Maybe it conjures up thoughts of envy. Perhaps you are thinking, environmentally friendly.  Or are you one who calls me “just green?”

When you look at me, understand that I am known by many names. Emerald, teal, grass, jade, olive, and lime, all spring to mind. But never “just green.”

Think of me, as the color of rebirth, when pale almost translucent leaves unfurl in the soft spring air. As the season progresses to the long, warm summer days, my color deepens becoming a rich forest green.  Look at how my color appears to be brushed with gold as the sun rises on those leaves, then, at sunset how a soft, rosy hue enhances me.

As an emerald, I first appear a dull, grayish green stone, when expertly cut, I glow incandescently, with a color coveted by man throughout the ages. Look at it carefully; can you see in the stone’s depths, those verdant forests of long ago, or the flashes of red and silver? Do you still call me “just green?”

I am the soft velvet shade of a gentle hillside glowing in the late afternoon sun. I can sparkle brilliantly like diamonds on a clear, cold, frosty morning.

At night under clear, star-studded skies, with the moon illuminating the sky, I am bathed with burnished silver. Am I really “ just green?”

Look at my iridescence, in the feathers of a hummingbird as it darts from blossom to blossom. Oh, how I shimmer in a peacock’s spectacular fan. Watch my waving ribbons of light as they dance across the polar sky, or peer at my colors in deep veined ice floes, moving slowly across the icy green Arctic seas.

In mythology, green is the color of Venus, as jade, I represent beauty and virtue. Songs have been written, and famous quotations have been made about me. I am even a trademark for well-known companies.

With all of this, can you still say that I am “just green?”

I am the color of life.

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