 
                                     *******************
                                     NAMELESS AND DAMNED
                                          Issue #3
                                      24 November 2005
                                     *******************

     EDITORIAL
     Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

     Well, I'll be horn-swaggled!  A new issue of Nameless and Damned.  Just 
when you were probably hoping your editor had slipped into a permanent alcoholic 
stupor, or perhaps been drafted into the Swiss Guard's elite Black-Cassock Ninja 
Force and sent on a suicide mission into deepest, darkest Protestantania.  But 
no!  It turns out not to have been a suicide mission after all.  You may now all 
stop sleeping soundly at night once more.

     Now, the Equinox came out every six months.  The journal you are reading 
now is THREE TIMES as powerful as the Equinox, so we had to hold it back 6+6+6 
months!  (More or less.  I didn't actually count.)  But now it is time, and you 
may read and enjoy.  We do have quite a few good pieces in this issue.

     An apology:  One may recall mention in the last issue of a writing game.  
For this issue, the concept was to write something inspired by the Wesson 
killings.  While Marc Beherec ("Wesson's Children") and Le messager sombre 
("Satan's Army") demonstrated competence and finished theirs in a reasonable 
amount of time, mine, now titled "Missing the Deadline," never did get finished.  
It is being printed here as a fragment, to take away my excuse:  "I can't 
publish yet, since it wouldn't be fair not to finish my part of the game."  (Of 
course, none of the writers can claim any inside knowledge on the Wesson case, 
and the stories are fiction.)

     And, an announcement:  The number four is the number of magick, for reasons 
that somewhat elude me.  And, unless I have miscounted my fingers again, the 
next issue of NaD will be issue number four.  So, the writing prompt this time 
is on magick and/or mysticism.  Pretty vague, I know, so feel free to get 
creative.  Stories about magi.  Poems of invocation.  Whatever.  Personally, I'd 
be interested in field note type accounts of actual experiences, and we already 
have a fascinating article upcoming on that first human magus, Enoch.

     A few shout outs.  First, a congratulations to Associate Editor Marc A. 
Beherec for getting published in a much more prestigious journal:  Lovecraft 
Studies number 44.  Buy copies.  Christmas is coming.  They make great stocking 
stuffers.  ("Mommy, Mommy!  Nyarlhotep is under my bed!"  "Of course, dear.  We 
really do love your brother more.  Enjoy your eternity of nightmares!")

     A tip of the hat to Raped Ape Magazine editor Zeno.  Welcome aboard, and 
fine journal you have there.

     And welcome also to our two other new writers, Isis and Telaina Morse 
Eriksen.

     And, finally, a (slightly belated) happy birthday to Edward Alexander, 
wherever you are...

                                     ***** ***** *****

Editor:
  Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

Associate Editor:
  Marc A. Beherec

Writers This Issue:
  Sergeant Zeno
  Irrelevant Being
  Le messager sombre
  Telaina Morse Eriksen
  Isis

                                     ***** ***** *****

TABLE OF CONTENTS

[articles]

Ration de Combat Individuelle Rechauffable
  Sergeant Zeno

Page From a Diary
  Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

Concerning Witchcraft
  Irrelevant Being

Perspectives on Idols in Medieval Indian Histories 
  Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

[poetry]

The Whore's Slippers
  Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

Candlenight
  Telaina Morse Eriksen

The Embrace
  Irrelevant Being

First Winter in New Jersey, 2000-2001:  A Garland of Haiku
  Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

Garrison Keillor Talks About Love
  Telaina Morse Eriksen

Alone
  Isis

[fiction]

Wesson's Children
  Marc A. Beherec

Satan's Army
  Le messager sombre 

Missing the Deadline
  Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

A Horse of a Different Color
  Telaina Morse Eriksen

                                     ***** ***** *****

                                        [ARTICLES]

                                     ***** ***** *****

     RATION DE COMBAT INDIVIDUELLE RECHAUFFABLE
     Sergeant Zeno

     "French Individual Reheatable Combat Ration"
           Use by 20 Jun 2004
               Menu No 4

     These rations feed one French soldier for 24 hours, according to the 
helicopter pilot who gave it to me at the Alcatraz cantina at the French air 
base the other night.  It is in a container that is 12 inches wide, 6 inches 
tall, and 3 inches deep.

     ARMEE FRANCAISE - APPROUVE OTAN

     I feel so much more secure now.

     I hold it in my hands.  A green announcement guaranteeing "SANS PORC / 
WITHOUT PORK" stares at me from the lid of the cardboard box containing my meal.  
There are Muslims in the world.  I appreciate the cultural and religious 
sensitivity NATO has for special groups.  Is there a kosher meal as well?  
Doubtful.

     First I pull out the tin of Saute de Lapin.  This is extremely good!  It is 
mixed with potatoes and carrots.  I could eat this stuff all day.  Lapin is 
rabbit, I am pleased to announce, and I understand they also serve meals with 
rabbit in mustard sauce.

     Next, we come to the Blanquette de Veau, or veal.  This is extremely nasty.  
Unfortunately we cannot convict the French in an international court for that.  
In my first spoonful, I bite into a pit or seed of some sort.  I have no idea to 
what it belongs.  A peach pit maybe?  Oh wait!  Here's a prune/plum thingie.  
UGH.  Heated or not, this little tin of meat is dreadful.

     I suspect that I have just eaten both lunch and dinner.

     There is a packet of very heavy/thick crackers -- sixteen of them to be 
exact -- half are pale in color, half are dark.  These are unusually tough -- 
kinda like the trackpads on a tank.  I think that each cracker is actually an 
entire loaf of bread that has been subjected to extreme heat and pressure.  Now 
it fits into the palm of my hand, chipping my teeth during mastication, then 
dropping into the pit of my stomach like an ber-dense rock.

     Two words:  HARD TACK.  Frodo and Sam could live on these for a month.

     I was expecting a pat‚ of some sort in this ration, but instead I find 
"Poultry in Jelly" (volaille en gel‚e).  This probably should be put onto the 
cracker and eaten.  Unfortunately a few hours must pass before I am again able 
to eat.

     Aha, here is a small can of "Happy Cow" Austrian processed cheese!  If I 
put this onto one of the super-heavy crackers, I might be able to stop myself 
from shitting for a week or two.  Again, this must wait a few hours before I can 
attempt it.

     The darker crackers have little brown spots that I determine to be 
chocolate flecks full of flavor.  Not very delicious, but it is certainly a 
luxury for folks who don't like the bland white crackers.

     Finally, the Happy Cow beckons me, and I open the pop-top can.  It reveals 
to me a cheese that, if it weren't too dry, could be spread on the crackers.  
Invisible vapors tease my nostrils and tell me that my experience with the 
cheese will most be nightmarish indeed.  Pasteurized cheese is the last thing 
from Europe that I would choose to eat.  (Yes, kids, that's right, THIS American 
likes the REAL cheese made in some mad bugger's barn.)  I take one taste from 
the can and dispose of the whole thing.

     The Jenkki peppermint gum, packaged as a five-pack in paper and shaped like 
Chiclets, is old and has the flavor and consistency of something like sweetened 
rubber chalk.  I quickly spit out.  Where is this crap made?  Oh... Here it is... 
Turku, Finland.  I visited Turku a few years ago and never would have guessed 
that they poisoned the French with revolting chewing gum.  More power to the 
Finnish!

     Now four pieces of hard candy wrapped in blue cellophane catch my attention.  
The first one that I open has an ant (deceased) stuck to the candy inside.  I am 
sure that he died from a combination of glucose and citrus poisoning.  The 
temptation to open another piece of candy is strong, but somehow I resist the 
urge.

     Finally it is time to eat the jelly poultry.  Most likely this will be 
pigeon liver.  Oh no!  I am delightfully surprised to find a glistening patty of 
turkey meat floating in some viscous gelatin.  The first bite I try is on a 
piece of the heavy cracker.  WHOAH!  Although this is decent tasting, it is too 
much for even my cast iron digestive tract.  I must change tactics.  A spoonful 
of it goes down my gullet in a slippery fashion, but without the hard tack, it 
has the flavor of salted toad slime.  Then, when I reach the bottom of the can 
as I stir it, I discover that the meat is turning an astonishing shade of yellow.  
The rest goes into the trash.

     A packet of instant soup is in the box.  It bears only one word "LEGUMES" 
and has a small green and white drawing of veggies like celery, potatoes, onions, 
and carrots.  Instructions in French invite me to put the contents into a bowl, 
add 250ml of hot water, then stir.  At first it turns into hot and tainted water 
with what appears to be croutons floating about.  I take a sip and discover it 
is a tasteless mess.  The spoon makes a useful tool in crushing floaters that I 
discover are the real meat of the soup.  They begin to break apart and the soup 
thickens.  It now tastes pretty damned good.  This, I imagine, is probably a 
frequently eaten part of the meal.

     Packets containing chocolat lacte, instant coffee, and lemonade are also in 
the combat ration.  Just add water, folks.  Unfortunately, at this point, I have 
expended all my energy and have no interest to continue.

     I could have done this on some kind of reality TV show and hordes of 
faceless Americans would have cheered me on.  Maybe there will be another 
broadcast opportunity for me, especially if I try the Djiboutian desert ration.

     As I toss the cardboard box, I notice that someone has scrawled a message 
on the back:  "Pendant un bon temps, telephone 83-44-59."

     Nuts!

                                           *****

"Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather."
                                   -- Jesus (Luke 17:37)

                                           *****

     PAGE FROM A DIARY
     Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

2208 051029

     In the shower this evening -- I work at midnight -- I was reflecting on 
time.  Or rather, on words, and what words say about time, and what words say 
about what we think about time.

     It was not a new reflection.  I was thinking about the fashionable misuse 
of the word "minute," to mean any, indefinite, period of time.  As in, "I've 
been here a minute."  On the first glance, this seems anti- or pre-scientific, a 
glorification of ignorance.  A minute ceases to mean a discrete period of time, 
and becomes a vague grunt, a way of saying "I've been here, time-word."  Like 
some cargo cultist or scientific looter, like a barbarian horde inheriting a 
civilization they can neither create nor sustain, the scientific concept of 
"minute" has been ripped loose, mocked in the vestiges.

     It is rather difficult to sustain philosophical thought while singing along 
to filksongs from the Church of the Subgenius.

     Now, let's take this concept of pre-scientific mutilation of time, and flip 
the judgement.  In a sense, it liberates the mind from concepts of scientific 
and Enlightenment rigidity, and frees language back into the level of myth and 
poetry.  Rather than saying, "I have been here for x-oscillations of the cesium 
atom," it is saying, "I've been here a time period."  "I've been here in time."  
Rather than, "I've been here in dreamtime," or, "I've been here in spirit."  It 
could imply:  "Rather than in spirit, when you know I am always with you, in 
time I have been here."  It could be a poetic reworking of a language that does 
not transparently adhere to the thoughtforms of another, or a transitional, 
culture.  Like the reinterpretation of the haiku as it was translated -- not in 
words, but in languages -- from Japanese to English.

     Perhaps it is something that could be said by a god.  "I've been here a 
minute" almost sounds like a way of saying "I entered space and time."  The 
frequent echo of rebuke one hears when the term is used makes some sense there.  
"This is the space-time location of the theophany.  Why, John, James, Peter, do 
you sleep?"

     I tend to prefer the cargo cult interpretation, though.  Images of 
intellectual looters tearing the linguistic siding off the hurricane battered 
laboratories of our collective mind amuse me, and play into my Decadent language 
forms.

     Anyway, thinking about all this brought me briefly to Eliade ("I should 
reread Sacred and Profane") and bounced right off to Foucault.  So, there I am, 
in my shower, thinking of Foucault.

     The clothed, professorial Foucault, not the sadomasochistic leatherman 
Foucault.

     I was commenting to Ka. the other day on the irony that I'm so influenced 
by certain philosophers, such as Foucault and Derrida, which tend to be the ones 
attacked by the political magazines I read.  Foucault was explicitly attacked in 
the most recent issue of The American Conservative.  I rather suspect the 
editorial staff of the other magazines I get, such as Chronicles or the New 
Oxford Review, similarly disagree with them.  So, aside from being a hard right 
wing Anarchist, or a left winger with occasional Nationalist sympathies, or 
whatever I am, I'm also a Deconstructionist Catholic, a Traditionalist who 
internalized Foucault's interrogation of the nature of power, and still found 
the Magisterium standing.  Sometimes, some of these contradictions even confuse 
me.  But I think I located one feature in the shower, while I contemplated how 
eternity does not mean a long time, infinity does not mean a lot, and truth 
relates to power.

     (The other day, Ka. was trying to give me advice on sleeping.  She 
suggested I wear a sleep mask.  "You mean a blindfold?  I don't like 
blindfolds."  I reflected a moment.  "I mean, I don't like to *wear* 
blindfolds."  She started to giggle, but tried to hide it from the residents in 
the office.)

     So, my insight was:  To believe something because it happens to be true is 
a form of masochism.  I'm less a sadist these days than I am an anti-masochist.  
(For myself.  Vivre la difference.)  This might seem a little confusing, so I'll 
try to break it down a little.  If something is true -- and one should be 
hearing ironic quotes around that verb -- one may believe it.  Truth can be a 
pretty good argument for believing something, if for no other reason than that 
it's easier to be effective if you function within the bounds of reality.  
However, to believe something *because* it is true, always and everywhere, is a 
way of shifting responsibility, like saying "I was just following orders" or 
"but he told me to" or "I was just born that way" or "but he hit me first."  All 
belief worthy of the term is chosen belief.

     A point should be made here about how humans do not live in unmediated 
reality, so when someone believes something "because it is true," they are 
actually swearing faith to the mental construct in which they live.  It is not 
possible to express absolute truth.  Cf. negative theology or modern perception 
psychology.  So, believing something "because it is true," rather than saying "I 
choose not to think, but to obey my king, or my pastor, or my boss, or my 
shepherd, or the Lieutenant" it rarifies it into "I choose not to think, but to 
obey the collective and invisible dictates of my culture."  There is something 
Traditionalist in that, but not the kind of Traditionalism I feel an affinity 
for.  I'm a wu wei Traditionalist, an "if it ain't broke" Traditionalist opposed 
to "best and brightest" Liberalism, not a serf Traditionalist hissing at the 
coming of the light.

     I hope this is making some sense.  I'm hearing parallel thoughts.  It's a 
little like having on stereo headphones, where one track is my thoughts about 
space, time, truth, and culture looters, and the other is a CD of Subgenius 
songs, singing of sheeple, normals, X-Day, and "Bob."

     And now I recall I left off the second half of my reflections on "minute."  
So, I hope the bit about truth is finished.

     I use "is" so much.  I would write, "I should stop that," but hearing 
"should" in my head right after remembering the difficulties of "is" makes me 
giggle.

     This CD has a sound clip mixed into "X-Day's-a-Comin'" that says "Why do 
you want to be normal?"  The funniest thing about that is before my shower I 
found a picture I plan to photocopy and hang up at work.  It's a car with "Why 
be normal?" on the license plate.  The source?  An advert for Christendom 
College in the New Oxford Review.  The qualifier "false" in the Book of the 
Subgenius's comments on Christians is one the reader is advised to hear.

     Ouch.  My mind just slipped into the original track.  Minutes.  Or, perhaps, 
just one "minute."

     The use of "minute" in this fashionable way -- and I believe this matters, 
as "sloppy speech causes sloppy thought" -- is not just pre-scientific.  (Which 
could be redeemed as "anti-scientific.")  It is also pre-literate.  And I can 
see no virtue whatsoever in being anti-literate.  (I know, I know, my prejudices 
are showing.  Mandela saw a virtue in anti-literacy when he had his people's 
children refuse to get a basic education, and a bomb throwing terrorist can't be 
all bad, even if it is fashionable these days to lionize the civilian-killer.)  
See, the use of "minute" in that vague way is devoid of practically all content.  
It means, "An undefined, but definite, period of time."  This simian grunt is 
then modified by the use of voice inflection, hand gestures, and a shared set of 
presumptions and context clues.  It's a step back to the time of unstandardized 
spellings, and words that can only be read by experts and persons of the same 
accent, aggravated by an apple-corer's assault on the meaning.  Its linguistic 
imprecision betrays a lack of familiarity with writing, and a degeneration into 
an oral culture.

     Or perhaps a transcendence of this material world of space-time by 
deliberately making oneself more ephemeral, leaving lighter footprints, the 
refusal to bear children theology.

     I suppose I should begin to wrap this up.  I'm not sure what I've said, am 
saying, or intend to say.

     I got the promotion yesterday.  On Monday, I will officially be Case 
Manager.  Well, no, in my mind I will be Case Manager.  (The term wasn't broke, 
so why fix it?)  Officially, I will be a Service Manager.  I know there was a 
pay increase involved.  Ki. told it to me a couple of times, as if it made a 
difference to whether or not I agreed to take the position.  On the other hand, 
I'm very excited that I don't have to give back the pager.  It makes me feel 
like such a grown up professional.  And I even get an office!  That has not yet 
sunk in.  All I can really think about that is, "Oh, that means I need another 
portable CD player."  Now I can take my vacation and celebrate -- and, curiously, 
since my vacation starts Monday and my position changes Monday, my vacation will 
be magickally worth more than if I had taken it the week before, and indeed for 
a week I will be paid more *not* to work than I have ever been paid *to* work.  
How crazy is that?

     Wonder what I should read at work tonight.  Overnights are usually so quiet, 
especially now Ki. put the fear of Ki. into the kids at that meeting the other 
morning.  If they are up to no good -- and I'm sure they are; they are teenagers, 
that's their job -- they are up to no good quietly and discretely, and I figure 
that shows a very mature level of respect.  Last night I read a little of a new 
book on haiku -- well, new for me -- and tried to read some of The World's 
Tragedy, by Crowley.  I continue to find Crowley's poetry irritating, but I know 
that's because I'm not a fan of heroic couplets.  As to the haiku book, it has 
me deep in thought.  I might write an essay on haiku sometime.  I had finished 
Gaiman's latest even before I left for work, during the eleven hours between the 
interview and work, when I couldn't sleep anyway.

     What else to say, what else to say?  I need to keep my journal daily, 
because that way I have less trouble remembering what I have and have not said.  
I did drink again last night, but I don't expect I will today, as I have only 
ten hours to nap between shifts.  Yesterday, I dreamt D. was calling me stupid, 
because there was someone having sex in the building and she believed I didn't 
know it.  (I didn't.  I just smiled and let her call me names.)

     The day before yesterday, I walked into the ceiling.  Not in my apartment 
exactly, but in the staircase.  I'm not certain how that could have happened.  I 
assumed either I was getting bigger or the building was getting smaller.  
(Though, I suppose, the entire universe except me could have been getting 
smaller.)  As it turns out, I don't seem to be bigger at work, so I suppose the 
building is shrinking.  Whatever.  It's a good thing I had my hat on, because it 
helped cushion the blow.  I did have a bit of a head and neck ache at work, 
though.

     Anyway, I'm off.  I need to find my pants, because it will be very cold 
when I walk to 7-11 for my dinner.  And so, more later.

2259 051029

                                           *****

"In ignorance to view a small portion and think it All
 And call it Demonstration, blind to all the simple rules of Life." 
                                   -- William Blake, "Jerusalem"

                                           *****

     CONCERNING WITCHCRAFT
     Irrelevant Being

     Growing up in a Catholic family only devoted to that church, I had very 
little exposure to "New Age" religions.  The first time I heard of Wicca was in 
my first year of high school.  This opened a whole new door, displaying new ways 
of ceremony and belief.

     Wicca, or even Witchcraft in general is rarely discussed in masses or 
Christian ceremonies unless the preacher or priest is speaking of the evils that 
a "witch" supposedly carried out.  Because of the little known knowledge that 
outsiders have on religions involving Witchcraft, it develops a sort of fear or 
disbelief that they can do something good.  All most people think about are the 
evils that these people can bring about with these "powers" that must be given 
unto them by Satan himself.  However, as I have found after research on the 
subject, Christianity has almost as many similarities as differences with Wicca.

     Although Wicca is a pagan religion and Christianity is monotheistic, their 
Deities brought humans and all other life the same gifts as Christians believe 
their God gave them.  An example of this is nature in general as well as all of 
the animals that inhabit earth.  Both Wiccans and Christians gather to thank 
their Deities for the gifts given to them.

     Both Witchcraft and Christianity also believe in bringing the energy of 
their Deities into their place of worship.  (This "energy" is referring to the 
Holy Spirit in the case of Christianity.)  In Witchcraft this is achieved by the 
Casting of Stones.  In some Christian churches they believe the energy of their 
Deity is brought into their place of worship by prayer and complete faith, such 
as in Evangelist churches.

     However, one difference between Witchcraft and Christianity is their 
selected places of worship.  Witchcraft is generally practiced in an open area 
or even in the person's own house.  While these could also be places of worship 
for some Christians, ceremonies are generally held in churches or cathedrals 
where many people gather as opposed to solitary or small group Wiccan ceremonies.

     Another difference between the two religions are the ways of obtaining new 
members.  Christian churches usually encourage their members to seek out and 
attempt to convert those who are not yet members.  Wiccans generally do not 
search for people belonging to other churches and attempt to convert them to 
Wicca.  Wiccans believe that people should find the religion that best suits 
their needs and bring them closer to their Deity or Deities while letting those 
who want to convert find them.

     Both religions also have similarities and differences in the way in which 
they participate in ceremonies; from what is worn to what, if anything, is 
placed on their altar.  The items used are there in order to make contact with 
their Deity and involve the entire congregation.

     Although I remain a Catholic, I believe Wiccans have a just argument in 
believing that people should find the religion that best suits them.  In a world 
where little seems to make sense, faith, whether it be monotheistic, 
polytheistic, or the belief in there being nothing at all that created this 
except science, is important for all of us.

                                           *****

"That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me and bend
 Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new." 
                                   -- John Donne, "Holy Sonnet 10"

                                           *****

     PERSPECTIVES ON IDOLS IN MEDIEVAL INDIAN HISTORIES 
     Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

     The conflict of cultures on the subcontinent of India allows for virtually 
unparalleled examinations of the interactions between religions.  In times of 
peace, the subcontinent has provided such evidence as the poems of Kabir or of 
Nanak.  In times of war, the evidence has been a bit more difficult in the 
interpretation.  In the case of the Rajput kingdom, however, one has a time with 
the intensity of war seen through the lens of peace.  By examining extant 
histories from each side of the wars, one is able to compare the differing 
perspectives with all the intensity of a fight for life by the respective faiths.

     Even in the history of India, through which virtually every religion has 
passed, and in which many were born, the conflict between the Hindu and the 
Muslim is of particular interest.  Due to the sheer length of time the contact 
has lasted and the vast variety of circumstances, Muslim and Hindu have related 
to each other in virtually every possible way.  Ideologically, however, at least 
on the topic of idols, it would be difficult to find two faiths more widely 
divergent.

     In theory, all the religions of the Book oppose the use of idols, or rather 
the worship of idols.  This opinion of idols varies, however.  The Jews 
tolerated their Hellenic neighbors, so long as Israel was left in peace.  
Christians variously coopted or opposed the use of idols.  The early Church 
afforded to idols a possible power, and Saint Augustine can even be found 
quoting Hermes Trismegistus's theory that idols had their powers invested into 
them by humans, while others saw them as demons or neutral intelligences.  Islam 
has a slightly different take on the subject.  While the Bible claims that God 
left the idolaters to suffer because of their choice of idolatry (cf. Romans 2), 
without a comment about their eternal status nor even what it is they follow, 
al-Quran leaves no doubt:

          Lo! Allah pardoneth not that partners should be ascribed 
          unto him.  He pardoneth all save that to whom He will.  
          Whoso ascribeth partners unto Allah hath wandered far 
          astray.  They invoke in His stead only females; they pray 
          to none else than Satan, a rebel.  Whom Allah cursed, and 
          he said:  Surely I will take of Thy bondsmen an appointed 
          portion, And surely I will lead them astray, and surely I 
          will arouse desires in them, and surely I will command 
          them and they will cut the cattle's ears, and surely I 
          will command them and they will change Allah's creation.  
          Whoso chooseth Satan for a patron instead of Allah is 
          verily a loser and his loss is manifest.  He promiseth 
          them and stirreth up desires in them, and Satan promiseth 
          them only to beguile.  For such, their habitation will be 
          hell, and they will find no refuge therefrom. (iv.116-121)

     With such unequivocal ideological opposition, it is no small wonder 
Hinduism and Islam coexisted on the subcontinent, while otherwise to the west 
idols were eliminated, or else drastically reinterpreted.  In the time period 
under study, and in the works being examined, however, this relatively peaceful 
coexistence has not yet been reached.  Ideologically, the Islamic opposition to 
idols is clear.  Socio-politically, it also served the purpose of driving the 
people, and particularly the rulers, into cultural loss and political submission.  
Through the quirks of history, the stage has been set for an illuminating 
conflict.

     Even within Hinduism, however, the nature of idols is a difficult one to 
establish.  Some sects claim the idol to be the god, while others claim the idol 
represents the god.  Some sects claim the idol becomes the god -- or begins to 
represent the god -- only upon consecration.  Swami Prabhupada said:

          So, while for us there is a distinction between the body 
          and the soul, for Krsna there is no such distinction.  
          Also, there is no distinction between Krsna Himself and 
          His Deity form made of stone.  Why?  Because the stone is 
          Krsna's energy.  Earth, water, fire, air -- everything is 
          Krsna's energy. (page 55)

     In apparent contradiction, V.S. Bhatnagar said:

          [To Kalidasa] Lord Siva now retired, leaving the idol in 
          the Somanatha temple, a mere stone on which the misguided 
          Muslims poured their vulgar wrath and took pride in their 
          iconoclastic activity without in any way affecting the 
          faith of the Hindus, either in the Gods or their religion. 
          (page 125)

     These commentators are much later than the texts under consideration, 
however, and it is back to those texts the reader ought to turn.

     Turning back to the Islamic side in the conflict, keeping in mind the 
revelation of al-Quran, Amir Khusrau described the fall of one temple and the 
overcoming -- in his opinion, as V.S. Bhatnagor's conflicting opinion has shown, 
and recalling the reader has not yet heard the Hindu side of the story -- of its 
idol in The Khaza'inul Futuh with this description:

          So the temple of Somnath was made to bow towards the holy 
          Mecca; and as the temple lowered its head and jumped into 
          the sea, you may say that the building first said its 
          prayers and then had a bath.  The idols, who had fixed 
          their abode midway to the House of Abraham, and there 
          waylaid stragglers, were broken to pieces in pursuance of 
          Abraham's tradition.  But one idol, the greatest of them 
          all, was sent by the *maliks* to the imperial court so 
          that the breaking of their helpless god may be 
          demonstrated to the idol-worshiping Hindus. (page 182)

     Much of this can be ascribed no doubt to personification.  The opinion of 
Amir Khusrau on the idol of Siva, however, is clear.  His idol was a "helpless 
god," and all the lessor idols were the same.  They could be broken by humans 
without fear, and would show the helplessness of the Hindus.  In the Muslim 
opinion, they were stones worshiped by evil men.

     On the Hindu side, the same sacking of the same temple is described.  In 
historical fact the descriptions are quite similar, but in terms of the 
disposition of the god (Siva, or Somanatha), they are quite different.  The poet 
Padmanabha says:

          (Coming to the temple now) Profound calamity had fallen 
          upon Lord Somanatha's temple.  The locks (of the doors) 
          were broken upon and the enemy rushed through the doors 
          tumultuously, and took possession of the temple drum and 
          *kansala*.  The Mlechchha (*asura*) stone-breakers climbed 
          up the *sikhara* of the temple (to take off the golden 
          *kalasa*) and began to rain blows on the stone idols on 
          all the three sides (*pasa*) by their hammers, the stone 
          pieces falling all around.  They loosened every joint of 
          the temple building, and then began to break the different 
          layers (*thara*), and the sculptured elephants and horses 
          on them by incessant blows of their hammers.  Then, amidst 
          loud and vulgar clamour, they began to apply force from 
          both the sides to uproot the massive idol by means of 
          wooden beams and iron crowbars.

          Such strange and improper happenings were taking place:  
          the *kaliyuga* was, no doubt, showing its true temper:  
          Lord Siva, leaving the earthly abode, went away to 
          Kalidasa. (i.93-97)

     In this description -- as in the gloss by the commentator on the poem, V.S. 
Bhatnagar -- the god leaves the image.  The Hindu does not claim the idol was 
not destroyed, as the evidence of the senses would prevent, but claims that Siva 
has somehow left the idol, leaving a mere body in the hands of the Muslims.

     The question of "Where is Siva?" is a difficult one.  The answer that 
Kanhadade sees Siva in the camp of Alauddin is no more answer than to say 
Kanhadade is said later to have rescued Siva when he rescues the Somanatha idol.  
Siva can appear in multiple places, one assumes, or be spoken of metaphorically.  
Nonetheless, it appears safe to say that one cannot claim Siva to be -- in the 
eyes of the Hindu -- "trapped" in the body.  Neither side doubts the mere rock 
to be at the mercy of the Muslim, but the essence of the deity is at issue.  
Amir Khusrau denies it exists; Padmanabha claims it exists independently of the 
idol.

     The situation of the sacking of the Shaivite temple in Somnatha is an ideal 
situation for interrogating the views on idols held by the Muslims and the 
Hindus.  Historically similar, the emphases allow the reader to see differences 
in opinions on the locations of the essences of the gods, and thus of the powers 
of the gods.  This provides a valuable window into the minds of the respective 
religions, and also into the struggle between them.

Works Cited

Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, A.C.  "Potencies of the Omnipotent."  The Quest 
for Enlightenment.  Los Angeles:  The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.  1997.

Khusrau, Amir.  "The Khaza'inul Futuh".  Medieval India Study Packet.  Austin, 
Texas:  Abel's Copies.  1998.

The Meaning of the Glorious Koran.  Trans. Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall.  USA:  
Mentor Books.  n.d.

Padmanabha.  Padmanabha's Kanhadade Prabandha.  Trans. V.S. Bhatnagar.  Aditya 
Prakashan:  New Delhi.  1991.

                                     ***** ***** *****

                                         [POETRY]

                                     ***** ***** *****

     THE WHORE'S SLIPPERS
     Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

     The whore's slippers had once been beautiful.  A rich purple, perhaps a 
birthday gift from herself, perhaps a gift from a particularly taken client.  
Now, they were caked with the blood, dust, mud and spit of years of her labor.

     After many years of slow decay, she woke up one morning and, in great 
suprise and with downcast eyes, she was led into the kingdom of heaven.

     As her slippered feet walked by barefoot saints and abased popes, they 
asked, O Christ, why does she enter even Your presence in shoes?  Does she not 
know that this is holy ground?

     And Christ answered them:  Those slippers have been her constant companions, 
and they never tried to place themselves any higher than they belong.  They 
always tried to protect her, and, though it was never enough, they did what they 
could, unquestioningly and without lust for reward or result.  Those slippers 
loved her, in their way, and she them.  Without those shoes to remind her there 
is something to love in this world, her heart would have been hardened.  In this 
way, they carried each other to heaven.

     And the saints once more abased themselves, seeking the humility of the 
whore's slippers.

                                           *****

"I used to watch her sleep
 an angel on vacation"
                                   -- 'Til Tuesday, "Angels Never Call"

                                           *****

     CANDLENIGHT
     Telaina Morse Eriksen

     Like a mystic
     I clasp at your hands
     Old to young
     Young to old
     My priest
     My confessor
     My love
     Have we known
     Been shriven
     Time across time
     Absolved and forgiven
     How bright you burn
     All bent up 
     And sewn up
     The Puritans in charge
     Are we full of sin then
     Full of faults and presumption
     Or are we true
     Exercises
     Made in His image
     Ripped anew by Holy 
     Goodness
     And Magical Truth

                                           *****

"Change."
"Oh.  I was afraid of that."
                                   -- Neil Gaiman, Brief Lives

                                           *****

     THE EMBRACE
     Irrelevant Being

     We meet forthwith
     corpses abound
     all your loved ones
     now in the ground.

     This had purpose
     special for thee.
     Their blood for your
     eternity.

     You join me now
     in this embrace.
     I drink and drink;
     feverish pace.

     You lose your strength,
     but not your will.
     Your need for this
     will not distill.

     I give my wrist
     your desire.
     Your eye a flame
     amidst fire.

     Crossing over.
     You're joining me
     as one of us
     eternally.

                                           *****

"Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be 
very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will 
not come in handy at all."
                                   -- Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto

                                           *****

     FIRST WINTER IN NEW JERSEY, 2000-2001:  A GARLAND OF HAIKU
     Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

     29 DEC, 1

       Did she recommend
     I write a haiku a week
       For love of haiku?

     29 DEC, 2

       On the snowy ground
     I stoop, crush a cigarette,
       And feel my own warmth.

     29 DEC, 3

       I will always be
     Alone, unhappy, in pain.
       It is what I am.

     31 DEC, 1

       I prayed for knowledge,
     And God allowed me to know:
       All is vanity.

     31 DEC, 2

       I'm a holy fool.
     No one understands my call.
       No, not even her.

     1 JAN, 1

       And then she told me:
     Ever since the day we met
       I have not smiled once.

     1 JAN, 2

       "From the beginning
     There has never been a thing."
       This is true wisdom.

     2 JAN, 1

       And I feel her burn!
     She burns like a healing wound.
       Burned by her absence.

     2 JAN, 2

       I don't understand
     Something as basic as death
       I want and don't want.

     8 JAN, 1

       No one expects it --
     She never knows what to say --
       When I tell the truth.

     8 JAN, 2

       Is it true I'm loved?
     Can it be true I am loved?
       I hope it is true.

     12 JAN

       It's a miracle
     God walked on water; more so
       That He walked on land.

     16 JAN

       When it hurts the most:
     When she tells me that I am
       *One* of her great loves.

     4 FEB

       Then I asked her if
     All girls whimper in their sleep.
       She couldn't tell me.

     11 FEB

       Scavanged leftovers.
     Pizza, rice, beans, peppers, corn:
       Filled with your refuse.

     13 FEB

       Quickly!  Hide my book.
     I am embarassed to be
       Reading poetry.

     21 FEB

       I feel my thumbprints --
     Unscarred, soft, and delicate --
       And I am ashamed.

     24 FEB

       Looking out the door
     In the snow outside my house
       There are no footprints.

                                           *****

"I don't wanna wake her but
 her whispers sorta scare me"
                                   -- Pretty Balanced, "Simon's Sleeping"

                                           *****

     GARRISON KEILLOR TALKS ABOUT LOVE
     Telaina Morse Eriksen

     I.
     He met her in baggage claim
     He was golden and black
     The way he always was
     A mess, a tragedy
     A bitter twisted heart
     Full of love and tenderness
     The sight of him
     The dangling Marlboro
     The big freckled hands
     The tattoo on his wrist
     Made her feel
     Hot and Dry
     And she crooked her arm
     Around his neck and devoured his mouth
     Heedless of her really awful 
     Salty-peanut stale breath.

     It felt strange they didn't speak
     Not a hello or howdy do
     He simply picked up her luggage
     She wept
     He lit another cigarette 
     And they walked to his car.

     II.
     In bed afterwards 
     Her eyes were so tired
     She started seeing things
     Stars and meteorites
     Behind her lids
     He spoke
      'How long can you stay'
      'Two weeks' she responded
     Her breath deep, her body numb
     Numb was good because
     She never wanted to feel anything again
      (Except more orgasms with him
     Nothing else besides that)
      'Is there anything you want to do while you're here
     Besides this I mean' he said
      'Stop breaking my heart' she said
      'We have good barbeque' he responded
      'I like barbeque'
      'I thought you might' he said.

     III.
     She felt the full weight of
     Her Russian Novel existence
     As she waited by security
      'What do you want me to say' he said
      'I never asked you to say anything' she said
     He nodded as security personnel
     Told him he must put out his 
     Cigarette or Be Detained
      'The barbeque was good' he said
     Putting out his cigarette on the 
     Heel of his boot.
      'We do better when we don't talk' she said
     She checked her watch and then
     Grabbed him with fury
     Smelling his neck
     Tasting his cheek

     She turned to go to the terminal
     She looked at him once more
     And blew him a kiss from 
     The palm of her hand
      'You're a fucking bitch,' he yelled
     With tears streaming down his cheeks
      'I hate you' he yelled
     She pulled her sweater closer around her body
     And flipped him off, the old double pump
     Her eyes, a veil of tears 
     And crushed pebbles.

                                           *****

"I can never understand why people laugh at children's love.  Love's painful at 
any age."
                                   -- Graham Greene, The Complaisant Lover

                                           *****

     ALONE
     Isis

     As night falls he finds himself alone
     no one to see him no one to speak to
     Alone for all eternity, immortal forever
     inside is a soul as old as time, he is more alone than the book describes
     Alone to feed upon the innocent
     Alone to die, this is the life of a vampire
     with eyes of saphire he shall remain forever alone
     do not let yourself become this
     so many things you miss when you are alone

                                     ***** ***** *****

                                         [FICTION]

                                     ***** ***** *****

     WESSON'S CHILDREN
     Marc A. Beherec

     I suppose every clergyman knows at least one person like Marcus Wesson.  He 
liked to talk, he liked religion, and he liked to propound bizarre theories 
based on the flimsiest of evidence.  So many men are like him, seeming to want 
some sort of validation from religious authorities, even those of religions in 
which they do not believe.  I listen to such people because I feel sad for them, 
and because I feel it is part of my ministry -- whether it was the man who 
wanted to convince me that the Ark of the Covenant lies beneath a church in 
Scotland (and wanted financial help to go dig it up) or the man who believed 
that God was an alien of some kind, I have done my best to listen well and 
convince them otherwise -- to try, in short, to save their deluded souls.  For 
whatever reason, they seem to feel the need to be accepted and vindicated by a 
man of God, and I do my best to bring them to true illumination.

     Marcus, however, was a different case.  Unlike most, he was neither 
disagreeable nor obnoxious, despite his strange beliefs.  Also unlike most, he 
was involved in the slaughter of nine people.  I almost wrote "innocent people," 
but some of them were no innocents.

     I first met Marcus perhaps a decade ago.  I no longer even remember the 
ideas he was propounding then.  He came somehow from Seventh Day Adventist stock 
-- I don't know if his family were memberss of that church, or if he converted 
while young, but I got the impression talking to him that his mother was 
religious and a better person than he.

     Whatever it was that first brought Marcus to me, we became friends of a 
sort.  He would come often to my parish and talk about religion and his family.  
Those were the only two things that ever seemed to interest him.  At the time, I 
thought that was a good thing.

     I seldom understood what Marcus had to say about religion.  He was very End 
Times-oriented, no doubt stemming from his Seventh Day Adventist origins.  The 
summer I met him was the summer of 1993, and the news was still abuzz with the 
fallout from the Branch Davidian incident -- massacre or suicide, or some 
combination of the two.  We were both of the opinion that the government 
slaughtered those people.  I believed that it was largely accidental, though 
criminal negligence -- that the tear gas canisters, which were known to be 
incendiary, set the group's wooden construction ablaze.  He believed, however, 
that the government deliberately set the compound ablaze and shot those who 
escaped from the fire.  We bonded in a strange way that summer, watching Linda 
Thompson's videos and debating what we saw.  I understand he went even further, 
and began to read Koresh's teachings when they became available on the internet, 
but by the time I heard anything regarding religion, it was already assimilated 
into his own teachings.  I understand he drew on a wide range of materials, for 
he was well-read and well-traveled, but he presented a totally new synthesis to 
me.

     During those days of the summer of 1993 -- and the years that followed, as 
Marcus returned to my church from time to time, he began to tell me of his plans 
for perfection.  Perfection, he explained -- "in the pure, spiritual sense" -- 
could only be obtained by a family of believers.  It was only by joining with 
God in creation that a man and a woman could perfect themselves, and they are 
united with their offspring -- and their ancestors -- for eternity.

     "So if your great-grandparents go to hell, you go too?" I once cynically 
asked him.  But every time I'd raise a seemingly fatal objection to any of the 
tenets of his religion, he'd merely smile and dodge the issue.  He was slick at 
doing that -- introducing an issue that had nothing really to do with the topic 
at hand, but which seemed related.  For some reason, I let him do it.

     It was in those days of the mid-'90's that he began to talk about what 
should have frightened me.  One day, while we were sitting in folding chairs on 
the porch of my small church, he asked me a question which seemed to be out of 
nowhere -- and which therefore had obviously been toying at his mind for quite 
some time.

     "Have you ever heard of this thing called a homunculus?"

     The word caught at something in my mind, and I thought back to my seminary 
days of the early challengers to the Romanish Church.

   "Oh yeah.  That thing that fellow -- Para . . . Paraseltzer or Parasomething 
come up with.  Like a little man in a jar."  I was suddenly disgusted as I 
remembered something in the textbook I'd read; instructions to create an 
artificial man by burying one's semen in a sealed flask in a pile of horse 
manure.

     "I'm gonna make me one of those," he said smugly.  "But it's not in a jar."

     "You're going to jack-off into a pile of horse shit!?!" I said too loudly 
for a man of my station.  Children playing nearby looked over and laughed.

     "Now Clyde, that's just disgusting," Marcus reproached me, scowling.  His 
scowl was all the more menacing under the dreadlocks he was then just beginning 
to grow.  "Anyway, I don't know what you're talking about.

     Then he pulled a document out of his old jacket -- very thin, creased down 
the middle, and obviously having passed through many hands.

     "OF THE HOMUNCULUS," I read across the top.  "A Secret Instruction of the 
Ninth Degree."  Before I could read more, he folded it back up and put it in his 
jacket.

     "Now I can't tell you where I got that," he told me -- like a child, 
obviously relishing the thought of having a secret.  "But it's about creating 
the perfect person.  It's all about preparing the flesh for the soul.  And you 
gotta have the right flesh.  Gotta pick the perfect woman.  Blood, semen, and 
spirit are all important."

     Apparently I was not as awed as I should have been, for conversation turned 
back to the government's role in the Oklahoma City Bombing.  It must have been 
1995.  Illabella Carrie was born just about a year later, followed soon after by 
Aviv Dominique and Jonathon St. Charles.  I did not learn long before the rest 
of the world that their mothers were Marcus' daughter and nieces.

     I heard many stories about Marcus after that, but I did not see the man 
himself for years.  Perhaps he found other spiritual advisors, but I think 
during those years he must have been at his most confident.  It was only then, I 
think, that he felt he knew and understood the world -- and it was then that he 
made his homunculi.  I heard about the foul-smelling brews he and his mates made 
in that house in Fresno every Thursday -- the day of Jupiter, he explained to me 
later, a day of power.  And of course I heard rumors of strange rites taking 
place at night at his house, which I presume involved all those antique coffins 
he bought, among other things.  All I can say is that they must have had to do 
with the "Way of Perfection" he told me he practiced in those years I did not 
see him; the Way by which he hoped to create his perfect homunculi.

     I think it was when his sons started to grow up that Marcus became scared.  
He loved them more than anyone except his youngest children -- his homunculi.  
And like anyone who loves a thing, he sought to control them; to keep them with 
him forever.  I think that is why he put such heavy yokes on them.  I knew that 
he was strict with them, and I read in the paper that he required that they all 
become black belts in a martial art before they were allowed to live by 
themselves.  He wanted them perfect, according to his own standards, but I think 
he also wanted to make it almost impossible for them to become so perfect.  In 
that way he could keep them with him always.

     But these children did start to leave him.  This is all that I can imagine 
led him to the desperation which he showed when he came to me that spring day.

     "I don't know what to do," he told me.  "I called down these spirits into 
form.  These homunculi -- how can I let them run loose in the world?  How can I 
save my soul?"

     I was ignorant then of what he meant.  I imagined he had little dolls at 
home in jars under horse manure, or some weird concoctions of his own semen.  
"Why don't you just destroy them?  Flush 'em down the toilet or burn 'em or 
something?"

     "I don't guess I got a choice," he told me hollowly.  I don't remember what 
else we may have talked about that day.

     I don't suppose I need to describe that day -- the nine bodies stacked like 
cordwood in the house.  I suppose Wesson's nieces knew of his plan when they 
tried to get their children -- his children -- away from him.  And I suppose his 
daughter approved of his plan, as she helped put a bullet in the eye of each of 
her siblings -- and her own child -- before dying herself.  And I know that, as 
horrible as the holocaust was on that day, I rest easier not having to worry 
about whatever spirits Wesson brought to this earth and imprisoned in human 
bodies ever growing up.

                                           *****

"For although dreams are in all of us, few hands may grasp their moth-wings 
without tearing them."
                                       -- Robert H. Barlow and H.P. Lovecraft,
                                          "The Night Ocean"

                                           ***** 

     SATAN'S ARMY
     Le messager sombre

     "Today," screamed Marcus Wesson from inside the small suburban house, "is 
the day that you can prove your love for me; allow me entrance through the gates 
of hell."

     Wesson, although unknown to some, had picked up a fairly large group of 
followers that were willing to do his bidding.  All of them believing that he 
was sent by Satan to take over the earth's population.  He had accumulated this 
sect over the course of a few years.  Some of his members included his 
biological children and grandchildren.

     "All of you now must head to the back room.  Those of you who will not take 
part must leave now and prepare for your calling," said Wesson.

     Around 50 members of Wesson's sect entered the tunnel dug into his living 
room floor.  They filed out and covered the hole again with the vent that that 
perfectly matched those for ventilation purposes.  They crawled the 20 feet to 
the city storm sewer and followed it for another two miles to the sewer cover in 
the back lot of an abandoned building.  After covering the sewer, the members 
entered their cars and departed for their homes.

     Most of the families who had a member in Wesson's sect were oblivious to 
that fact.  Some were still living single as to give complete devotion to their 
cause.  However, those with families gave the impression that they were either 
working during these meetings, or had picked up a hobby that took up their time 
after work.  The members of the sect were dispersed all over the city and some 
lived farther away in the state.

     Back at the Wesson home, the members participating in the sacrificial 
ritual finished their last sips of ceremonial wine and knelt before their leader, 
as well as their own coffins.

     "Remember my children," which Wesson referred to his members as during 
rituals in which he believed himself to be possessed, "your sacrifices today 
will allow me to join Satan himself to fight the world's population and no law 
enforcement or military can stop us with the rest of Hell's Army.  Remember that 
after death, you also will join us in the immortal fight for Satan."

     One of Wesson's children spoke up and said, "Father.  Master.  May your 
will be done and may Satan own this land."

     This comment brought cheers from the other members and Wesson nodded his 
head in agreement.  "Now, my children, prepare to give the ultimate gift to your 
Father and Satan himself."

     Wesson's children remained kneeling as he eliminated them one by one.  Each 
member dropped to the floor after receiving their death blows from their 
father's gun.  Wesson then stacked the bodies in the corner of the room.  He 
moved into the foyer when this was done and looked out his window to find a herd 
of police officers and civilians outside his house.

     "You are all too late to disturb Satan's work," Wesson said under his 
breath.  "His will must certainly be done."

     When the other member's of Wesson's sect read of their leader's arrest in 
the paper the next day, they realized the fact that they should be even more 
careful and secretive about their meetings, or else they too would be stopped 
before they completed Satan's work.

     One of Wesson's biological grandchildren, unknown to the police and society 
in general, called a late-night meeting in the abandoned building near the 
entrance to the entry tunnel to Wesson's home.  The members disembarked for this 
meeting telling their families that they had urgent business to attend to.

     "I gather you all here today to speak of these new events that have 
occurred," said Ivan, Wesson's grandchild.  "Today our leader was captured by 
the same people that are preventing Satan from taking over this land.  I was 
conceived years ago by Father Wesson and my sister for this specific problem.  I 
have been raised to take over this movement and continue the needed acts of 
Satan's work.  We will continue stronger than ever with the souls of our past 
members and overtake the populace.  Do not be deterred by these events, they are 
but a mere obstacle in the way of our purpose.

     "Go back to your homes.  I will summon you on the last day where we will 
have still more members to help us take over this land in the name of Satan."

                                           *****

"I guess we're all mystics of one sort or another ... we just don't talk about 
it much."
                                       -- Cathy Cash Spellman, Bless the Child

                                           *****

     MISSING THE DEADLINE
     Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

     It seemed like an obvious idea.  On the night of the Wesson murders, I was 
online, discussing the zine with one, perhaps both, of my brothers.  We needed 
an idea for the next writing challenge.

     The Wesson murders had about everything:  Death.  Religion.  Possible 
occultism.  Alleged incest.  Stories of dark rituals and strange cries in the 
night.  A family separated from the mundane world by a patriarch prophet.  Even 
claims of nights spent in coffins.  I expected it to be easy.  Spend an evening 
and dash together something out of a pulp magazine, with bizarre occultism and 
deviant sexuality.  Right up the alley I like to pretend is mine.

     Needless to say, it didn't work out that way, and I never wrote the story, 
or any other.  For one reason or another, the story was never written.  But the 
story did indeed come.

     One day, thinking too hard of the tale, something in my mind shifted.  It 
would be difficult to put it in any more clear way than that.  I grew aware of a 
character, of an entity, of a person, and then I shifted.  I was speaking to her 
in much the same way I would speak with anyone else, only we weren't using words.  
Or at least weren't using mouths.  And she wasn't there.  But that wasn't much 
of a disruption, as I wasn't there, either.

     I was able to catch a few of the things she told me that day, and I 
expected them to form the basis of the story.  I tried to write them down a few 
days later, assuming I would be able to piece them together, but the wordless 
concepts were slimy in my mind.  Sitting here is a page from the first attempt 
at a manuscript.  In my attempts to write her story, it has traveled with me 
literally from coast to coast.  It has most recently spent a few weeks carefully 
folded in a notebook.  There is likely no need to add the comment the notebook 
is still blank.

     This particular page is a large, unlined piece of white paper.  I suspect 
it was used to wrap a package, and I likely pulled the page from the box, 
unthinking, grasping for something on which to catch the words.  In one section, 
for example, in small, capital letters, we find this fragment:

          I knew another girl who'd gone through the cracks.
          Thing with her, though, she was a human rat, the
          world was her behind-the-wall.  She'd been born in
          the crack.

          Her mother and father had fallen in, see, and she'd
          been born behind the wall.

     But perhaps I jump too quickly in.  I wish I could find the manuscript with 
the first part of the story.  I'll have to fill you in, dear reader, from 
imperfect memory.

     It occurred to me I would not be telling the story of the Wessons directly, 
fairly quickly.  The entity with whom I discussed the story was not a Wesson.  
She seemed to be someone who perceived the Wessons in a way I could not, and I 
was perceiving her.  I was going to be telling the story she told me, 
tangentially about the Wessons.  Or, more about what the Wessons were.

     And it was not the story of a person, or of people, but of a world, a type 
of world.  I have heard myself try to explain this concept through the whole 
spectrum of sobriety to drunkenness, and know the best I can manage is to imply.  
But the general idea.

     There is a world, a world in which most of us live.  This world, like all 
worlds, all concepts, indeed all psyches, has it's boundaries, it's edges.  It's 
walls.  But there is always the other side of the wall.

     One of the first things I remember this girl telling me -- and she never 
told me her name -- is of her affinity for rats.  As I tried to write later, in 
another manuscript:

          I like the rats, for example.  They live in the
          cracks.  People don't see them unless they have to.
          They don't want to see them, but rats are like us
          people.  They go in and out.  So people have to see
          them.

     And while I'm at it, she also said something to explain the cracks.  I 
don't have the manuscript on hand, but I have a copy I made:

          People don't see the cracks.  People spend so much
          time seeing around the cracks, the miss the cracks.
          And in the cracks.  And behind the cracks.

          That's why the city seems dead to some people.  It
          doesn't have the flat, dull nature they can see.
          No cows.  No mountains.  In the city, nature is in
          the cracks.  Nature, and all of us that people
          don't see.

          But that has it's advantages, too.  They don't sees
          us, but we sees them, see?  And I have a number of
          them here inside me.  People you people saw, and
          even the people you didn't see in the people you
          saw.

     Are you, gentle reader, coming to see of what she spoke?  It was a story 
about the kind of world in which we live, and the kind of people that are unseen 
there:  servants, runaways, throwaways, the forgotten.  Many of our country's 
children end up that way; I have seen them.  Many try hard to be seen, to force 
themselves out onto the side of the wall where most of America happens to live.  
And, too, I have found the wall is something people feel safer to see.  The wall 
holds others out, but more important it holds people in.  I have noticed people 
feel safer when they are held in.

     But I digress.  I try to bring myself into a story where I do not belong.  
As she mockingly pointed out, in this other fragment, from the manuscript page I 
do have, the last of the old fragments of which I still have a copy:

          And I knew another man who couldn't ever find the
          crack.  He wanted to, oh he wanted to disappear,
          step out of the world.  Sometimes thought he'd done
          it, too, with his colorless clothes and his
          silences.  He was just pressed to the wall,
          watching.  I was watching his back.

          I watch through him.

     I am the opposite of a character.

                                           *****

"Writers aren't people exactly.  Or, if they're any good, they're a whole *lot* 
of people trying so hard to be one person."
                                       -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon

                                           *****

     A HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR
     Telaina Morse Eriksen

     1974:  My brother Chris is 17 years old, long-limbed with defiant green 
eyes.  His role in the family is to turn over his paycheck and do the dishes.  
(I will later sit in counseling and learn that the addicted family role of 
"scapegoat" had been assigned to Chris.  When Chris is gone it gets assigned to 
my sister Cara.  When Cara is gone it gets assigned to me.  This doesn't help 
you much when you are six years old but I thought I would throw that in here.)

     I sit in the living room watching a Planet of the Apes movie and play with 
my one lonely Barbie that my sister Catrina got me for Christmas.  She is 
Superstar Barbie and has a pink boa and I think she is IT.  Catrina and Connie 
sit beside me on the floor doing homework and watching the movie.  Catrina and 
Connie have promised me someone will get me a Ken for Christmas this year.  This 
excites me beyond words.

     Chris is at the sink doing dishes.  He got a late start and they will not 
be done by the time Mommy gets home.  None of us think to ask if he needs help 
and he does not ask us for help.  He stands at the sink, his dark hair in his 
eyes.  Even at six years old I know my brother is a handsome boy.

     We hear Mommy pull up and Chris does not speed up washing the dishes.  I 
think he actually slows down.

     Mommy walks in and I recognize this as a bad day.  Her walk is heavy, her 
face mean.  She puts her purse on the table.  There are people at work who are 
Out To Get Her.

     My brother wipes his hand on a dishtowel and runs his hand through his lank 
hair and then continues to wash the dishes.

     "Why aren't the dishes done?" Mommy asks.

     "I had to stay after school."

     "Why did you have to stay after school?"

     "I got in trouble in shop class for fighting."

     "I have told you a million times you have a terrible temper.  You are just 
like your father."

     "Shove it, Mom, okay?  Just shove it.  These guys were picking on Barry."

     Barry was Chris's best friend.  Barry was a full foot shorter than my 
brother and had a speech impediment.  Chris frequently got in fights defending 
Barry.

     "Did you just tell me to shove it?" Mommy asks.

     Her eyes are wild and I see immediately there is something wrong.  I don't 
know about the drugs yet.  I won't catch on to that until I am eleven or twelve 
when my sisters will tell me so I can Watch Out For Myself and Keep Away From 
Her During Those Times.

     "Yes, Mom, I told you to shove it.  And while you are at it, you can do the 
dishes tonight too."

     "I've worked hard all day."

     "So have I."  My brother wipes both hands on the dishtowel.

     "Do the dishes," Mommy says.

     "Fuck you," Chris says.

     And that is when Mommy grabs the butcher knife.  It is a huge knife.  Our 
biggest one.  Reserved for cutting meat.

     She swings at my brother Chris and he backs away and I see fear in his eyes 
and I stand up.  I want to help him but I don't know what to do.  This can't 
really be happening, can it?  Not really.  Mommy loves Chris, doesn't she?  And 
you don't try to kill people you love, do you?

     She swings again.  "You little bastard.  You are just like your father.  
Worthless.  Good for nothing.  Self-centered."  She swings again and I cannot 
believe it, my brother starts to laugh.

     "You're never going to get me," Chris says and then laughs.  She swings 
again and he puts the table between them.

     "Hold still.  Hold still, you self-centered little shit."

     "You're too fat and too old!" he says.

     She shrieks and runs at my brother with the knife raised high.

     My brother, who is all muscle from years of farm work, runs out the door at 
top speed.  "If you want to kill me you're going to have to catch me first, you 
old bitch!"  And he laughs and laughs and laughs.

     I look at Catrina and she pats my hand.  Her eyes are big too.  Connie has 
stepped in front of us.  I think Connie might be worried since Chris is gone 
Mommy might turn her attention to us.  But Mommy puts the knife on the table and 
starts to hum "How Much is that Doggie in the Window."

     "How was your day, girls?" she asks.  "How was school?"

     I see my brother through our big picture window racing down our dirt road 
at top speed, still laughing.  I feel thankful he had his tennis shoes on when 
it happened.

                                           * * *

     1975:  Catrina sits in the front seat of Mommy's battered station wagon and 
I sit in the back.  We are going to visit Grandma Lawrence, my mommy's mother.  
Grandma lives on a beautiful farm a mile north of the state line.  The yard is a 
child's fantasy with perennial flowers left to grow wild, trellises and a real 
water pump and outhouse.  I love Grandma Lawrence's yard but I don't like 
Grandma Lawrence.

     Mommy pulls up in Grandma's driveway and we get out of the car.  Catrina is 
11 and at that awkward stage that pretty girls go through during puberty -- a 
few pimples, a little extra weight and a bad haircut.

     We go into my grandmother's house.  It is damp and cool.  The house has 
electricity but no running water.  A bucket and a dipper sit on the kitchen 
table and I immediately take a drink.  Nothing in the world tastes like water 
from a well pumped by hand and whether I am thirsty or not, I always drink from 
the dipper in the bucket on my grandmother's kitchen table.  The kitchen is 
messy, my grandmother doesn't believe in putting anything in cupboards and there 
is always a single, open package of Archway cookies sitting next to the water 
bucket.  We are forbidden to touch these.

     Grandmother Lawrence sits in her rocking chair in the living room.  The 
living room is picked up but dirty.  Everything is dusty and the sapphire blue 
carpet has never been touched by a vacuum cleaner.  Once a year my mother and my 
aunt help Grandmother take up the carpet and hang it over the line to beat it.  
My grandmother will not allow my aunt or my mother to bring over their vacuum 
cleaners to use on the rug.

     My grandmother has white hair and strange blue eyes.  She is not fat but 
she is starting to thicken around her middle.  Her breasts hang down to her 
bellybutton.  Mommy calls this "Cooper's droop" and warns us girls we must 
always wear a bra or our breasts will end up like Grandma Lawrence's.  This 
thought frightens me beyond words.

     Mommy gets a veiled look on her face, like a curtain coming down after a 
puppet show.

     "Hello, Mother," Mommy says.

     "Sophia," my grandmother says, not getting up.  "Where's the other one?"

     "Excuse me?" Mommy says.

     "The little dyke. The butch one. Where is she?"

     "You mean Cara?" Mommy says and her face flushes.  I can tell Mommy is 
angry.  And while I don't know what a dyke is, I can tell from the tone of 
Grandma's voice it is not a compliment.  "Cara has softball practice."

     It is summer and Cara is 13 years old and at home on the softball field.

     "You let them all do too much, Sophia.  You spoil them," Grandmother says.

     "Cara is good at softball, Mother.  It makes her happy."

     My grandmother snorts at this.  "Well, there are the boxes, Sophia.  Go 
ahead and go through them, if you would like."

     "Thank you, Mother," Mommy says and sits down next to three large boxes of 
my grandfather's stuff.  My grandfather died when Cara was a baby, but 
Grandmother is getting ready to move to a smaller house in town.  Grandmother 
always says she is going to move into town and doesn't.  But this time Grandma 
has started going through stuff so Mommy wants to see if there is anything else 
of Grandfather's she wants.  "Girls, you can play outside," Mommy says.

     Catrina and I smile.  This is what we were waiting for.

     "I'll take them outside, Sophia.  I've got a surprise for them," Grandma 
Lawrence says, wiping her toothless mouth with her hand and then smiling at us.

     A surprise?  Grandmother doesn't get anyone presents.  What could it be?  I 
look at Catrina who shrugs and my grandmother heaves herself out of her chair.

     "What kind of surprise, Mother?" Mommy says, her eyebrows are scrunched 
together.

     "Sophia, don't worry about it.  It's a nature surprise," Grandmother 
Lawrence says and limps her way to the door.  "Come on then, girls."

     We follow her outside and I am struck again by the beauty of Grandmother's 
yard.  A nature surprise.  Maybe Grandmother has a fox in her yard or maybe a 
raccoon that she has been feeding.

     Grandma Lawrence walks around the corner of her white one-story farmhouse.  
The yard is cool and shaded.  The trees are ancient, planted when my grandfather 
was a boy.  The peonies and lilacs and irises are gigantic, grown fat on years 
and years worth of good cow and sheep shit.

     My grandmother stops and bends over and then turns around to us and Catrina 
and I both gasp in horror at what my grandmother holds.  She waggles them in 
front of our faces, laughing.  She holds two wood rattlers, one beheaded and one 
slit end-to-end, its guts oozing out, snake blood slick on both of them.  It is 
only good training that keeps Catrina and me both from screaming.

     "These made the mistake of coming a little bit too close to the house this 
morning," she says, waving the snakes in front of our faces again.  "Do you know 
what these are, girls?"

     Catrina, who will one day be a public defender, arguing in state supreme 
courts for doomed men on Death Row, says, "Wood rattlers, Grandma Lawrence."

     "I killed them with my hoe.  What's the matter, Cleo?  Don't you like my 
surprise?  Would you like a wood rattler to kill your grammy in her sleep?  
Would you?"

     "No, Grandmother."  But I am secretly thinking, well, yes, maybe that might 
not be so bad.

     "Do you want to hold them, girls?"

     "No," Catrina and I both say in unison.  Grandmother Lawrence laughs and 
brings the snakes so close to us that blood from one drips on my bare foot.

     "You are both babies.  That's why I wanted to show you these.  To toughen 
you up.  This is what you do to things that might hurt you.  It doesn't make any 
difference whether they have hurt you or not.  They might.  And that is all the 
excuse you need to destroy them."  She throws the snakes to the ground again.  
She shakes her head.  "Your mother thinks you are both going to amount to 
something but I don't know.  Look at your mother.  Look at that man she married.  
She's a disappointment to me.  Not like my boys.  Not like my boys at all."  
Grandma Lawrence motions to us.  "Go on now and play.  Mr. Arthur saw a herd of 
white-tails down at the fence yesterday.  Why don't you two go look for them?"

     "Okay Grandma," I say.

     "Thank you Grandma," Catrina says.

     And we both run as fast as our legs will carry us to the other side of the 
yard by the fence row.

                                           * * *

     1982:  It is summer again and we walk into the small house in Adrian that 
Grandmother Lawrence rents.  Catrina is leaving for college in just a few short 
weeks and I don't know if I will be able to handle it without her.  Yes, we 
bicker and argue and yell at each other but we also talk about books and boys 
and hair and make-up and Mom and Dad.

     "Mother?" my mom says.  "Mother?"

     "Boo!" my Grandmother yells and my mom, Catrina and I all gasp as my 
Grandmother jumps out from behind the door.  "Ha, ha, ha.  I got you.  You 
should see the expression on your faces!"  Grandma's hair is unkempt, sticking 
all around her head.  She isn't wearing a bra and her saggy breasts flap against 
her skin in her tank top.  Her tank top has spots of food on it.

     "Sissies.  Babies," she says.  "Sophia, why don't you go pour us all a 
glass of iced tea.  It is a hot one today."

     "Okay, Mother," my mom says and heads into the kitchen.

     "So Cleo, still getting fat, are you?  Don't do it.  Fat is the worst thing 
a woman can be.  Dumb is better than fat.  Hell, one-armed and ugly is better 
than fat.  Your mom has grown fat since she married that man."

     I feel my cheeks redden but don't say anything.

     "Hey, Catrina.  You're leaving for school soon aren't you?"

     "Yes, Grandma Lawrence," Catrina says.

     "What are you majoring in?"

     "Pre-law."

     Grandma shakes her head.  "You'll never do as good as your cousin Bret and 
his wife.  They are both in the top of their law school classes.  Never.  Why 
would you want to bother?"

     "Catrina is a National Merit Scholar," I say.  "There aren't very many of 
those in the whole country."  I don't know exactly what a National Merit Scholar 
is, but Catrina's picture has been in the paper a lot and she is only the second 
National Merit Scholar from Wesley ever.  My sister Connie was the other one.

     Catrina shakes her head at me, but I can tell she is upset.  I hate my 
Grandma.  She always ruins everything.

     "Hmmm," Grandma says.  "Just luck more than likely.  That man your mother 
married.  And seven children.  It's almost embarrassing."

     We sit there and don't say anything and my mother comes back with two 
glasses of iced tea and tells me to go fetch the other two that are poured and 
sitting on the counter.

     I come back out and we stay and visit with my Grandmother for about an hour.  
Toward the end of the visit my grandmother and Mom step into the kitchen and I 
think money is changing hands, but I don't know which way or why.

     Catrina shakes her head.

     "What?" I say.

     "We think Grandma Lawrence is bad.  Can you imagine growing up in the same 
house with her?"

     I have never thought about it that way before.  I am 14 years old and 14-
year-olds tend to be somewhat self-absorbed.  "No," I say.  "I can't imagine 
it."

     We leave and the ride home is miserable.  Catrina has to drive because my 
mother says she is having chest pains.  We get home and Mom lies on the couch.  
I get her a glass of water and Catrina fishes Mom's nitroglycerin out of my 
mom's purse.

     "What will I do when you leave, Catrina?" my mother says, dramatically.  
"You and Collin are the last ones that care anything about me."

     I stand there, feeling stunned and hurt and then go up to Collin's room and 
get his hunting knife out of his desk drawer.  I take it back to my tiny bedroom 
(I now have a bedroom all of my own because Collin, Catrina and I are the only 
three children at home) and I begin scratching the knife across my wrists, 
pressing it into my skin until the blood wells up.  I scratch my wrists over and 
over again and then write a suicide note in my notebook.

     Catrina asks me the next day what has happened to my wrists and I tell her 
I was playing with the cats and they got frisky.  My mother and father don't 
notice the wounds at all.

                                           * * *

     1986:  Ten days after my suicide attempt, with the stitches still in my 
wrist, my mom loads me into the car and informs me I am going to see a counselor.  
A friend of hers from a place she used to work.  I tell my mother I don't need 
to go to a counselor, but then I put sunglasses on because I have started to cry 
and I would rather die than cry in front of my mother.

     The woman's name is Wendy.  She is short and dark-haired and sits behind a 
big desk.  I already don't like her because she is a friend of my mother's.  I 
know my mother can put on a good act when she isn't stoned out of her mind.

     "Cleo, why don't you feel able to talk to your mother?"

     I put my sunglasses back on.  How to answer this question?  Because my 
mother hates me?  That would probably throw up some red flags, it would.  Booby 
hatch, here comes Cleo.

     "Your mother says you cut your wrist on purpose.  Do you want to kill 
yourself?"

     There is a huge lump in my throat.  Tears roll down my face and I also have 
to fight a hysterical laughter because I know my mother is thrilled to death 
because this is no doubt, a free counseling session.

     More tears.  I hate the fact that I have lost self-control.

     She waits and waits and waits and I cannot say anything past the big lump 
in my throat.

     "You really need to say something.  Anything.  Your mother cares about you.  
She seems concerned about you."

     And then the laughter escapes and I cannot help it.  I laugh because my 
mother turned the car around when I was bleeding in the back seat to go turn off 
the kerosene heater and it was all my fault -- I had left the heater on and my 
mother fears houses burning down.

     "Why are you laughing?"

     I still cannot speak.  I am frozen.  By sheer force of will, I manage to 
squeak out.  "Give me a piece of paper."

     She looks at me oddly, but then hands me her legal pad.  Suddenly my chest 
is no longer tight.  My shoulders loosen.  My tears stop.  I write one page, 
single spaced, edge to edge, cramped and hand it to the woman.

     "Is this how you communicate about things that are important?"

     More tears and I nod.  I hate this woman.  I hate my mother for making me 
do this.

     She reads it, occasionally looking up at me.  I don't remember what I wrote.  
But I know part of it was The Top Ten Reasons Cleo Wales Tried to Kill Herself.

     She puts down the piece of paper.

     "Do you want to write anything else?"

     I shake my head.

     "Why can't you talk about it?" she says, sounding honestly puzzled.

     Like a deaf mute, I motion for the paper again and write, "This is the only 
way and place I am allowed to talk about it."

     "I don't understand."

     I write, "I graduate in a month.  I am leaving this place forever.  There 
is nothing you, or anyone else can do to help me.  I have my sisters.  I have a 
best friend.  I can talk to them.  I cannot talk to you.  I do not want to talk 
with you.  You are friends with her.  The world is made up of allies and enemies 
and you are an enemy.  Let me go.  Let me be."

     She reads that and looks at me again.  Tears roll past my sunglasses and 
down my cheeks.

     "I think our time is up," she says.

     She walks with me out to the waiting room where my mother is waiting.  I 
tower over Wendy by a good six inches.  I tower over my mother by four.  Wendy 
pulls my mother aside and I listen as hard as I can.

     "... doesn't seem to want to hurt herself anymore ... has plans for the 
future ... doesn't want to talk to me because I am... I don't think you bringing 
her here anymore will....  No, I can't tell you that, that's confidential... 
she's 18, technically speaking, not a minor... make sure she takes some writing 
classes at college... ...gifted... 18 years old... mute without a pen in her 
hand..."

     I sit down and push my sunglasses back up my face.  Thank God, I think.  
Thank God I won't have to come back.

     My mother and I get back in her car.

     "What Did You Tell Her?" my mother sounds furious.

     I don't say anything.

     "Did you tell her I used drugs?  Did you?  Because it is not true.  I have 
a lot of pain, Cleo.  A lot of physical pain.  I am sick."

     "I am with you on that one, Mom," I think.

     "You blame everything on me because you don't want to blame your father.  
Your father is the one with the problem, not me.  Your father never wanted any 
of you kids.  Not one of you.  I have always had to do everything.  He never 
helped.  Never lifted a finger to change a dirty diaper or feed an ounce of baby 
food.  Did you tell her your father was a no-good drunk?  Did you tell her that?  
Did you?"

     Tears roll down my face.

     "She doesn't want to see you again.  She says it won't do any good."  My 
mother sounds disgusted.

     I look out the window and thank God for my sunglasses.

     "Talk to me.  Respond when I talk to you."

     The lump in my throat eases.  "Fuck you, Mom."

     I hear her intake of breath and smile and rest my head against the glass of 
the window of the car and dream about someone, anyone, anywhere, who might love 
me.  A few lines of a poem float around in my head and I leave the car and the 
stench of my mother's unhappiness and go deep into my mind.

                                           * * *

     I sit on my bed that night, writing in my notebook and I hear my mom on the 
phone.  I turn down the radio so I can hear her.  I don't know who she is 
talking to.

     "Cleo needs to be tested for those chemicals in your body that cause 
depression."  She pauses.  "Well, I don't know what else it could be.  Except 
maybe she sets her goals too high.  She didn't do very well on the SAT and I 
know that really disappointed her.  She's very competitive where her sisters are 
concerned.  She feels she has to win more honors than the rest of them put 
together.  It's not healthy."  She pauses again.  "She is very hostile toward me.  
I don't know why.  I've tried to be a good mother to her.  She wouldn't have had 
zilch these last years if I hadn't worked.  She tells me all the time how much 
more people have than us."  Another pause.  "Well, I surely never wanted to end 
up after 30 years of marriage without even decent furniture.  Cleo is self-
centered.  She doesn't think about anyone but herself.  Her depression is 
probably just chemical.  I think they have drugs for that now."

     I lie back on my bed and start to laugh. "Chemicals, that's the ticket. 
Dad's got his beer, Mom's got her Valium and they'll put me on lithium.  That's 
the only thing that's wrong with me," I write in my notebook.  "I just need 
stronger drugs."

                                     ***** ***** *****

About the Authors:

Editor Patrick Beherec has been known, inter alia, as Crux Ansata.  He has spent 
the last couple of years in social work in Atlantic City, and vigilantly 
postponing his writing career.  His webpage is 
http://www.geocities.com/c_ansata/ and he can be emailed at c_ansata@yahoo.com

Associate Editor Marc Andrew Beherec was born in the United Kingdom in 1979.  He 
has a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, and is 
currently studying anthropological archaeology at the University of California 
at San Diego.  Marc formerly wrote for State of unBeing as Dark Crystal Sphere 
Floating Between Two Universes and as Captain Moonlight; his writing, ranging 
from politics to poetry, appeared in that e-zine from issue three (March 1994) 
until issue seventy (July 2001).  His writing has also appeared in Necronomicon 
Press' Lovecraft Studies.  He considers his primary literary influences to be H. 
P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and William Seabrook.  His webpage is 
http://www.geocities.com/mabeherec/mabwrite.html and he may be reached at 
mabeherec@hotmail.com

Nobody knows anything about Irrelevant Being.  And that's exactly how he likes 
it.  He can be emailed at ansate_kross@yahoo.com 

Isis is a slightly disturbed 18 year old that spends her free time writing 
poetry as a way to avoid losing every ounce of sanity and with hopes that some 
day she will have a book of poetry published

Sergeant Zeno is currently deployed to the Republic of Djibouti in Africa with 
the U.S. Army Reserves as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. His webpage is 
http://www.rapedape.com and he can be emailed at zeno@schwag.org

Le messager sombre is just a carrier of the sad tales which he writes, recited 
to others to share the parable.  He can be contacted at:  ansate_kross@yahoo.com

Telaina Morse Eriksen is a writer who lives in East Lansing, Michigan with
her husband, two children, three goldfish and a freakishly large cat.  A
recovering journalism major, she spends way too much time wishing
politicians would erupt in painful boils every time they told a lie.  She is
the two-time winner of the Michigan State University/Barnes and Noble One
Book/One Community Essay Contest and her non-fiction has appeared in many
Michigan newspapers.  You can drop her a line at telaina@yahoo.com

Copyright

Nameless and Damned is copyrighted (c) 2003, 2004 and 2005 by Patrick Beherec 
and Nameless and Damned.  All rights are reserved to cover, format, editorials, 
and all incidental material.  All individual items are copyrighted (c) 2003, 
2004 and 2005 by the individual author, unless otherwise stated.  This file may 
be disseminated without restriction for nonprofit purposes so long as it is 
preserved complete and unmodified.  Quotes and ideas not already in the public 
domain may be freely used so long as due recognition is provided.  Nameless and 
Damned is available at <http://www.geocities.com/nadmagazine/>.  Submissions may 
be sent to the editor at <nadmagazine@yahoo.com>.  The NaD distribution list may 
also be joined by sending email to the editor.