Belle Lettre

2009-04-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

Click on any of the images below to see large images of the covers of each issue:

The first issue came with 2 crayons to use with the kids' zine.

The "Banjo and Belle" kids zine was included in each issue of the main zine.

Belle Lettre and Banjo and Belle ended publication in Summer 2006.

2006-08-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

BELLE LETTRe

A Belle the Cat Production * Summer‘06 * Volume Three * Issue Two

A word from the editor

“R E S T”

When you have a world of time to relax, what do you do with it? There has not been a lot of relaxing lately. During the first half of this year, there has been quite a bit of internet browsing, house searching, unpacking, packing, job searching, thinking, meeting, eating, shopping and all the other stuff that take up time that honestly, I would probably rather spend (and would be better spent) relaxing.

So, it’s summer. Time to relax. Once upon a time, in a land far away, summer was so hot that all the animals would set aside their differences and sit at the watering hole together. Many people do not know this, but in July and August, the lions in Africa eat nothing but banana smoothies made for them by the monkey baristas.

Someone recently told me that most stories have a 'saloon' scene, a scene where the cast sits around in a neutral space to eat and drink and mull over what they know, what they feel and what will happen next. Everyone should have such a place - in their stories and in real life. A respite to renew and refuel, talk about important things, or nothing at all. This can be a café, a bar, a restaurant, a park, even your house, or dare I say your computer.

This is especially important in mysteries. Many traditional detective stories have a scene where the detective goes over what they know. Sometimes it is with a partner over a cup of coffee, sometimes with a bartender while drinking a Pabst (note: people do not drink Pabst in real life, only in stories), and often, it is with their own thoughts as they eat Chinese food or kielbasa or a bologna sandwich. This is quite a trick of writers to give their character something to do as opposed to just sitting there and thinking (and it means they get to use the phrase 'chew thoughtfully.')

It is also important for our everyday lives. We all need a watering hole because, let’s face it (no, do we have to?) - life is not relaxing. No one is fooling themselves thinking that African lions aren’t eyeballing the young antelope at the river oxbow, trying to determine if they have enough energy in this heat to bite his little hooves off. It’s a lot of work to relax. I suppose some people (and animals) can do it more easily, but most of us are stuck trying to squeeze as much as we can out of every free second we have before someone makes meat smoothies of us. This isn’t a bad thing, I suppose, as long as no one gets heat stroke.

Special thanks to Pat, TEA, DMV, Jennifer, Rebecca and Nor for contributing to this issue.

2006-08-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

TeMP

By S. Bartash

When building C was built, the ventilation was laid out incorrectly. This was due, so the legend went, to the fact that one of the founders wanted a salad bar and the other wanted a make-your-own- pasta bar. Since both of these were obviously needed for an office building cafeteria, the founders both kept sneaking in to the planning office and altering the blueprint until, when all was said and done, they ended up with both. However, the unconventional layout of having two such items occupying the space originally reserved for just one meant that the now-skewed layout sent the vents from the cafeteria right through the main supply closet; the long and the short of which meant that most of the office supplies smelled disconcertingly like garlic alfredo sauce.

This ended up being the tipping point for Rachel Emmy, who had retreated into the closet to escape the miserable reality of her worklife. She crouched in the far corner of the closet, between a box of discarded file folders with “archive” lazily scrawled on the side, and the Bin of Pens, a magical place where one could find hundreds of different colors of barely-working writing utensils. She sobbed into her hands as the smells of fresh Italian toppings drifted over her. It struck her how utterly purposeless her job was, what a sham the whole of Albright Company was, and how every inch of the complex was created out of this false sense of importance. What was everyone really doing here? It was all just a battle of pasta vs. salad, of one-upmanship, and what did they end up with? Rachel sniffed a dribble from her nose and choked on the beastly scent of dry erase markers and fresh marinara.

It had all stated so well. Fresh out of college, she had registered with the same temporary staffing service her sister had, and got a job as a writer at one of the largest advertising and public relations firms in the city. She thought back to the interview she’d had with her current coworker and only work-friend Nicoli and… she squinched her eyes shut at the thought of… Beatrix.

“You realize this position will never be made permanent” Beatrix had said.

‘Who says that in an interview,’ Rachel wondered now. She should have realized right then that this woman, this Beatrix, her new boss, cared for her about as much as she cared about toilet paper - glad it was there to take her shit. Rachel had

worked for Albright for six months now, and had yet to write a single press release.

“Sure, we want you to be a specialist, but really, we’re all generalists. We all have to be able to do each other’s jobs.” This translated to, “when we all go off to a conference, you have to be able to stay behind and do everything and then take the fall when it all goes to hell.”

Her head began to spin. She had been a PR intern all through her senior year. She knew about editor outreach and networking, she knew how ad layout worked, she realized the need for special events and all the planning that went into them. She impressed her interviewers with samples of brochures and articles she had created while still in college. She was excited by the prospect of working in the fast-paced agency world, and honestly, she was not afraid to do the “grunt work” that was obviously required of a new employee.

She just didn’t expect to also be asked to serve as nursemaid and caretaker to the neediest women she had ever met.

Nicoli came to Rachel Emmy one day. “Has Beatrix asked you to take her to the airport yet?”

“No. Why wouldn’t she just take a cab?”

Nicoli said, “you know, I don’t know if anyone has ever had enough guts to ask her that. Go ahead, I’m sure we’d all be interested to know.”

“Will I be reimbursed for my gas mileage?”

Nicoli just laughed.

In the car with her boss, Rachel screwed up enough courage to pose this innocent question.

“Why would I take a cab when you’re going this way anyways?” Beatrix shot back, adjusting her in hair the sun shade mirror. “We all have to look at ways to save the company money. In fact, you and I should talk about carpooling.”

Rachel gulped. “Should I fill out a mileage reimbursement form for this?”

Beatrix turned her grey eyes at Rachel. “Why would you do that? Didn’t I just say that this is a way to save the company money? It’s after hours anyway and you’re heading home.”

In her supply closet respite, Rachel wondered why she hadn’t left then. But she knew why. It would have been an admission of defeat. And Rachel was damned if she was going to quit her very first job after a matter of weeks.

The next problem came when, the very next day, she arrived to work fifteen minutes early only to find her message light blinking with no less than four messages from Beatrix.

“Rachel, can you fax the following items to me at my hotel….”

Rachel raced to Beatrix’s office, which was of course locked. She grabbed a passing janitor and had him let her in.

“Rachel, I still haven’t seen those faxes. Can you send them the moment you get it? I thought you’d be in by now. Ten minutes early is usually the norm when you’re just starting out….”

Papers in hand, she looked frantically for the hotel fax number, which Beatrix had neglected to leave on her message. After finding the name of the conference and the hotel on an email (sent by Nicoli, who had set up the reservation), she scurried over to the fax machine.

“Still waiting for those faxes. Thought you’d be in by now. You need to get a cellphone so I can get a hold of you. This is ridiculous...”

Rachel waited impatiently as the fax machine went through it’s warm up cycle.

“Hi. Just forget those faxes. Now it’s too late. Thanks.”

Rachel was just feeding the last fax into the machine at two minutes to eight when the vile dripping sarcasm of that final word sliced across the empty office.

Nicoli walked in. “Morning sunshine.”

Just then Rachel’s phone started ringing.

With a sinking feeling, she picked it up.

“Albright Company, this is Rachel.”

“Well, glad you decided to show up. You probably haven’t even listened to your messages yet, but we’ll talk about that when I get back. It’s actually a good thing you didn’t send the fax yet since those papers are incorrect. Go ahead and put this address on them and then fax them to me. I’ll be waiting...”

“Oh don’t worry about that,” Nicoli said when Rachel explained the situation with trembling lip. “That woman has no organizational skills whatsoever. With the number of mistakes she’s made on contracts and purchase orders, it’s a wonder she hasn’t ended up in jail. Don’t even get me started on the earnings releases! Why any company would trust her with their financial data is anyone’s guess.”

That was just in the beginning. The most recent situation, the one that had resulted in the near-destruction of a $100,000 crystal chandelier, the one that had sent Rachel into the oregano-scented supply closet, was The APE Party.

It had sounded so good on paper. The Association of Professional Entrepreneurs (APE) had decided to hold their 10th annual editor and high-end customer soirée at the chic Dolores Memorial Ballroom in the old Christenson Hotel. Beatrix kept saying she’d take over the planning as soon as she was done organizing her office (considering how many boxes of old files she kept setting out for the janitor to return to the supply closet, it seemed a never-ending task), and so it fell to Rachel to set up the cocktail hour, dinner, and evening entertainment with the hotel. Rachel had finalized the meal (after Beatrix and Nicoli went downtown to taste test various menus) and Nicoli helped her compile the guest list. It was all planned and it would be beautiful.

Rachel gave Beatrix weekly updates and smiled when she was able to answer each of her “have you done this yet” questions.

That was, until Beatrix asked, “Have you reserved the inflatable birthday cake?”

It slipped out before Rachel had a chance to stop it, “the WHAT?”

Beatrix tapped her long maroon nails on the conference table. Nicoli drew back noticeably. “This is their 10th anniversary. Don’t you think we should have something special for them? Don’t you remember the party I told you about that I went to last fall? They had a huge inflatable birthday cake at the entrance. It was what everyone was talking about.” Her attention wavered from Rachel and she drew all of her staff into her scathing glance. “We have to think about the “WOW” factor here, people. I can’t be the only one with any creativity, am I?”

So in the eleventh hour, Nicoli and Rachel called every party rental store in the area, but to no avail. Beatrix had headed out early, but sent an email from her handheld with a link to a warehouse located half way across the country. “like thiz,” said the message, and sure enough, when Rachel clicked on it, there was a huge inflatable birthday cake. Using Nicoli’s company credit card, they ordered it to be shipped overnight express directly to the hotel.

Of course, being a temp, Rachel was not able to attend the actual party, but she got a play by play from Nicoli the next morning.

“Well, I got there two hours early to help with setup, and the inflatable hadn’t arrived yet. This was actually good, since it gave me time to explain what was coming with the hotel staff. They said the only place with a tall enough ceiling was not at the entrance, but in the actual ballroom.”

Nicoli raised his hands above his head. “The ceiling is gloriously high, but hung with these strings of big, fat light bulbs, and right in the center, this huge chandelier.”

“Oh no,” Rachel moaned.

“Don’t rush me,” Nicoli said. “The early guests began to arrive, and right at the elbow of the director of APE was Beatrix. You could see her scanning the room for the cake, and I was able to dodge her for about an hour. Finally, she cornered me, and lo and behold, what should arrive to save me but the Fed Ex delivery man. I had to quickly explain to Beatrix that the cake would have to be set up in the ballroom, and so she decided that we would use it as an introduction to the director’s before-dinner speech. She went back to the director and explained that, after he said a few words about the 10th Anniversary, we had planned a special treat.”

“She told him we’d planned it that way,” Rachel told more than asked. Nicoli nodded.

“So a few hotel people help me unpack this massive nylon thing, which must have last been used out of door since it’s covered in dried mud and smells of cat urine, and we unstring no less than three fan cords. The hotel people are getting visibly agitated at this stage and are frantically trying to locate their facility electrician. But Beatrix pays them no heed and barrels forth, keeping things on schedule. She has the director on stage waiting to give his speech, we’re fighting with this mess of cords and fans, Beatrix gives us the signal and we have no choice but to plug the thing in.

“For a moment, nothing happens, but then all three fans kick in with a roar like a tornado, and sure enough, the thing rises from the floor, mesmerizing us all with its three flaccid candles that slowly grow more and more rigid. Little did we know their were actually four candles, and just as the thing hits what we think is full inflation, that last candle springs erect with a snap, knocking into the chandelier, causing it to swing back and forth perilously.”

“Oh my god,” said Rachel. “It didn’t fall.”

“No no no, but the fans blew a fuse and the whole place went dark until the generators kicked in.”

Rachel leaned back against the wall of her cubical, which swayed dangerous as she burst into laughter. “Oh my god, this is insane.”

“What is insane?” Beatrix said, rounding the corner. “Nearly loosing us the APE contract? Do
you see what comes from not planning these events carefully? I knew I shouldn’t have left a temp in charge, but I thought I could trust you with this, Rachel.”

Rachel swallowed her laughter as Beatrix slapped a pile of papers down on the desk. “This is the hotel contract. Do you think you can handle simply making a copy of this and getting it up to legal? Or do I need to do that as well.”

Rachel didn’t want to let it get to her. She wanted to be the kind of person who would fling the document back at Beatrix and tell her to shove it. But she couldn’t fight the itchiness at the back of her throat, the burning at the corners of her eyes, and so she ended up bawling in the supply closet. Amongst all the boxes of Beatrix’s old files.

Rachel wiped her nose on her sleeve. A thought flitted through her mind like a bird freed from it’s cage. She tentatively lifted the lid of the box marked “archive” and looked down at the files. Thumbing through them, she came upon one that said “earnings.”

Rachel decided that the hotel contract wasn’t the only thing she’d be making copies of and taking to legal.

2006-08-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

The farthest hill from our house

By rebecca

The night sky shown bright and silent over the small Wyoming ranch. Stella and her grandfather sat under the quiet sky, taking turns peering into his old telescope. His large hands rested on her shoulders, warming them in the chill night, as she put her eye up to the scope and looked in. These were her favorite moments, sitting close to him, knowing that her awe at the stars above them made him smile down on her. Her "oohs" and "aahhs" were followed by his chuckling. He delighted in sharing his love of the stars with her, his greatest fan and most loyal listener. She patiently listened to every story behind the great constellations and stars they explored together. These were his favorite moments too. He would name the constellation she was looking at. She would then repeat it quietly to herself, as though it was some great secret he was passing on to her for safe keeping, secrets he shared with no one else but her. His strong hands steadied the telescope and his bright eyes were as full of wonder as hers were. His soft deep voice kept her engaged for hours, as she listened to him talk quietly about the stars, moons, planets and galaxies above. He wasn't old, not as grandfathers go, in his early fifties at the time. Their late night rendezvous with the stars were especially dear to her since they occurred so infrequently. He was often gone, working among the very planets that they gazed upon that night. He was strong and tall and had a nice face, but his eyes were what she remembered most, and always missed the most. Whenever he returned home they sparkled like that stars above at the first sight of her. That’s how she new he loved her, loved her more than the stars he shared with her. Even though she was nearly thirteen, a fact she'd been reminding her father of for weeks, she still felt like a little child next to him, all of her pre-teen angst and insecurities laid aside by his reassuring and attentive presence.

On this particular night they were out so late that her father finally came looking for them, finding them on the top of the furthest hill from the house, where the light from the ranch would not disturb their star-gazing. Neither of them noticed him as he approached, although somewhere in the back of her head she knew they were out too late and that father wouldn't be happy with either of them, but she wasn't going to say anything. And so her father came out to find them on the hilltop.

"I thought you'd be back some time ago," he said to her, expecting a reason for their lateness. She didn't have one for him. She didn't know why her grandfather had kept them out so late, not that they had a watch or anything. She had figured that her grandfather had just lost track of time and she wasn't going to remind him of her bedtime. She didn't know what to say to her father. Her grandfather didn't seem to have even noticed him yet.

"It's way past her bed-time," her father said, this time talking directly to her grandfather.

"Its not that late, Jim. " her grandfather responded, not bothering to look up from the telescope as he continued to search for their next constellation to explore.

Stella was looking at her father. Jim was looking at his father. Stella's grandfather continued looking in the telescope, making adjustments and slightly annoyed that Jim had interrupted their time together. Stella looked back and forth between the two men and then to her father for a few moments. Finally, she asked, "Just one more?"

He took a deep breath and glanced upward with a slight grimace on his face, "Okay, but I'm starting back to the house. Five more minutes. We have to get up early."

"Okay, " Stella said, trying not to look too relieved or happy.

He turned around and walked back to the house, looking up now and again and shaking his head. Her grandfather stepped away from the telescope to let her look at the constellation he had found for her. She put the scope up to her eye, closed her other eye and looked. But there wasn't anything in the scope, nothing special anyhow. Just a couple of minor distant stars. She couldn't even recall their names. She looked up at her grandfather, puzzled.

He just smiled and said, "This time I'm going to say hello. Wait until October and then watch for me. It will be dark enough early in the evening and you should be able to see it without missing your bedtime. You won't be able to miss it if you're watching for it."

She wasn't sure exactly what he meant. He would often point the telescope towards Venus and say "That's where we’re headed." Or point it at the moon and show her the spot they had landed at during his last trip, but there was no planet or moon in the scope this time. There wasn't anything in the scope. She looked again and then looked at him. He said, "Just watch and you'll see it." She took note of the telescope setting and said, "Okay." He packed up the telescope, handed it her and they walked back to the house.

As they walked slowly back to the house, emerging out of the hillside darkness into the light of the yard she wondered why he let them stay out so late. Her father and grandfather hadn't exactly agreed on how to raise her but her grandfather usually went along with her father's rules, including bedtimes. He'd never kept her out so late before. And what was so special about the bit of night sky he had shown her? Why was he going there? Where was it?

The next morning they got up early and took her grandfather to the airport. It was June and she knew he wouldn't be back for many months. She started to miss him at once.

2006-08-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

NoRAH’S DREAMS

6/9/06

2 p.m.

The whole family was on a trip, and Brian and Donnie were there. All of a sudden I was seated in the pew of a huge church with a lot of other people. I realized, this is Sarah and Donnie’s wedding! It was a surprise they hadn’t told Lucy or me, so we were in regular street clothes.

The “production” began after a long pause that caused me to wonder if Donnie had cold feet, but I could then see the procession start in from outside—it was like 30 people long! Tons of bridesmaids, people I didn’t know, but all dressed in matching colors of pastel pink and purple (yuck!), like sweaters and stuff. This guy behind me was talking really loud and I told him to shut up as it was my sister’s wedding!

But then the wedding turned into this song and dance number! It had costumed crazy people all over, the congregation was singing and dancing, someone dressed up as Santa Claus was there, and the speaker was this guy dressed up in this huge green round fish-like costume talking like a cartoon!

Ends up Sarah had hired a group of people who put on these sorts of “shows.” I had to go to my car to get something, and it was in a parking ramp (at this point I realize the wedding is in Cleveland). I get held up by this guy with a knife and then this guy with a gun, and I am trying to make it back to the musical production called Sarah and Donnie’s Wedding but I can’t get back! I had these high-heeled boots on and the weather was just terrible, black ice stuff on the pavement. I tried to take a city bus back to the church but didn’t have any money.

By the time I got back it was over! When I was at my car I had a stack of mail I’d grabbed there, and it had the invite from the company who put Sarah’s wedding on saying to dress casually. When I got back to the church Sarah yelled at me for getting on

the guy’s case who was talking during the ceremony! She said it wasn’t supposed to be a quiet affair. I realized that at this point!

5/31/2006

5:30 a.m.

Donnie’s car didn’t work. He says to me “hitchhiker Donnie.” And I say, “no, I’ll drive you to work.” We actually end up walking. Graduation is going on and there are teenage hoodlums everywhere. Donnie babbles about my car getting painted and tipped over and I say where? What car? We walk past a hurt puppy. I am sad because I know we can’t have a puppy, but I pick it up just in case I have time to get it to the shelter. We get to Donnie’s work and I am afraid they might tell him to go home and take the day off.

Then I’m back at home, watching The Simpson’s do a parody of Fantasia with Grandpa Simpson dancing with an elephant. There is water all over the bathroom and wet towels soaking everything up. When Donnie gets home, we walk down to an ocean pier to look for the aliens. A little kid is totally getting in our way and messing with us. We choose to ignore him, but a few times, he is so annoying I physically push him.

Finally we arrive at the cruise ship. We were pretty sure the whole alien thing was a hoax, but we wanted something to do anyways. Kathy Bates is there and totally believes the aliens are real. Finally, they show up, in a big pink bubbly thing. They dump off a naked Davy Jones (from the Monkees, not the sailor) and he is played by Carapace, an English wrestler who weighs eight stone (this makes me realize that it is a hoax, since it’s not the real Davy Jones.) It flutters down messages and flies away, zooming under the water and shooting up a string of bubbles.

Kathy Bates drops a piece of gum in a revolving door and goes into the ground trying to pick it up.

2006-08-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

Dragon Warrior III

By TEA

The Characters:

Hiro = Our Hero

Miharu = Next door neighbor to Hiro, childhood friend, one of the best fighters in the palace guard

Taro = Heavy-drinking soldier

Kumiko = Spooky, cat loving magic user

The Story Thus Far:

Hiro has been sent on a mission by the king. He and his companions are to seek out the evil Baramos, a task that Hiro’s long lost father Ortega failed to achieve. Their next step is a journey north to retrieve a key from the tower of Najima in order to open the Travel Door and start their quest.

Chapter 3:

“The Tower of Najima”

“Is there an echo in here, Miharu? The Tower of Najima!” I said a little exasperated. I didn’t really want to get into a conversation; I wanted to think. I was hoping Miharu would chose to be as silent as Kumiko, but I had no such luck.

“So what’s in this old tower anyway?” a slightly tipsy Taro asked.

“A key. We need it,’ Kumiko replied simply.

“Oh. Ok,” Taro replied even more simply.

“Why can’t you just be like that? You have to know everything!” I cried at Miharu.

“Damn right I do! And besides, you tell me everything anyway! It’s just most times I don’t have to ask. This Mr. Mysterioso sh*t is new,” she shot back. Then, her eyes flickered over Kumiko and suddenly she brightened.

“Oh, I think I see now…” she smirked.

I was not in the mood for this game.

“Listen here you little…”

“Perhaps we should think of heading out? It’s getting late,” Kumiko interrupted smoothly yet firmly. She seemed to be getting impatient with our bickering. I was too.

“Yes, of course. Let’s go,” I stated and turned pointedly.

“Oh wait!” Taro shouted suddenly. “We have supplies for everyone,” he beamed as though he was very proud of the fact. “And, we can sell our old equipment back to the shop too!”

“I’ll take care of that,” Miharu volunteered. “I’ll be able to get the most money for the stuff.”

This was true. Miharu had a way with people, a smooth-talker, especially when it came to bargaining. We each geared up and sent Miharu with to work on the shopkeepers.

“I like this leather armor,” I commented to Taro, trying to make small-talk until Miharu returned. That was not a good idea…

“Oh yeah, man! This is some choice stuff for this little island. Good enough to replace my old stuff. Sh*t! That stuff was shredded to bits! And did you see the suit I found Miharu? She’ll be able to do all her hi-ya-cha-cha-cha sh*t in that thinner leather. Awesome! And… Hey! Kumiko, show him your new knife! That’s a magic knife there. Perfect for a wizard! Now just wait until we get to Romaly! We’ll be able to buy even better sh*t!”

Kumiko gave Taro and I a reproachful look and produced the small knife. I think she wanted to test it out on Taro who was now talking to her cats about various weapons he wanted to obtain. I shrugged helplessly.

“It is a nice knife,” I offered.

She just shook her head and put the knife away. Thankfully, I saw Miharu coming back down the path. She looked very pleased with herself.

“Suckers,” she chuckled and produced much more money than the old gear deserved. But that’s what we were counting on.

“You’re shameless,” I joked and we finally got started.

Just a short walk south of Reeve took us to a small grove of trees on the outskirts of the Forests to the East. A few yards into the grove there’s a small cleared field with an old ramshackle building that used to be a jail of some sorts.

“What are we doing here?” Taro asked looking doubtfully at the building. It was obvious that no one had been here in years. “There isn’t anybody here, is there?”

“No,” I replied. “But at on time there was. And I guess that person went to the Tower a lot because… look!”

We had made our way around the back of the building to a pair of doors leading down into the basement.

“Big deal,” Taro protested. “The basement!”

“The basement of the Tower,” Miharu grinned as I revealed a long dark set of stairs leading down into nothingness.

“Ah! Excellent,” Kumiko nodded to her staff and produced a glowing ball at the tip that lit up an area large enough for us all to walk in. Her cats went bounding right into the darkness ahead of us. “Shall we then?” and she turned and started down the stairs.

“Let’s go,” I said to Taro and we followed along with Miharu.

We had been lucky up until that point and I knew our luck was about to run out. We hadn’t had to deal with anything worse than a few Slimes and possessed Ravens. But I knew the monsters in the tower were going to be much more challenging and dangerous. I was happy to have so many companions. Especially Kumiko.

The fat white cat came trotting back to Kumiko and began rubbing up against her leg. I thought I saw another flicker of a smile, but I couldn’t be certain. The cat left to strike out ahead of us again and a short while later the small black one came back purring. I realized they were our look-outs and smiled myself. Kumiko winked at the little black cat and it ran ahead. This time, I definitely saw a smirk from her!

“So, what’s with this key?” Miharu finally asked.

“I’m not really sure,” I admitted. “The Elder just told me an old man in the Tower has a key that the thief Bakor made and that we need it for the journey. After this, we’re going to the Cave of Enticement so we’ll probably have to use it there.”

“The Cave? But it’s been…” I waved her silent.

“I know, I know. The Elder said he’ll take care of that. We’ll see him again before we leave.”

Before Miharu could reply there was a loud hiss from one of the cats, then an even louder hiss from something else.

“Miromi! Momo!’ Kumiko called.

Huh, so that’s their names, I thought to myself. Then I didn’t think about much as the cats were chased to us by the most hideous mutant frog I’d ever seen. It was easily the size of three of the palace guard dogs and twice as fat. It half hopped, half oozed towards us dripping poisonous looking mucus from its long blue tongue.

“Be careful of the poison!” Taro shouted drawing his axe.

“Miharu, let us handle this one. I don’t want you to get to close and get poisoned,” I called to her.

“Like hell!” she began to protest.

“No, he’s right,” Kumiko said. “We can’t afford to stop now if anyone gets hurt needlessly. We’ll keep our distance from this beast.”

Taro and I were inching around the disgusting frog to surround it. Suddenly it turned and saw us. With another terrible hiss it spit at Taro, who rolled out of the way just in time. I took the opportunity to lunge and slash at it with my sword. I connected and the monster squealed in pain as thick black goo dripped from the wound and sizzled on the floor. I quickly wiped off my sword before it ate right through!

From the corner of my eye I saw Kumiko finish some sort of incantation and raise her staff.

“Blaze!!” she cried and a stream of fire shot out and struck the frog. It screamed and tried to hop away, but I had wounded it. Pretty soon, it gurgled its defeat and stopped moving. The magical fire disappeared as it died.

“Well alright Wizard-lady!” Taro beamed. “Nicely done!”

“Let’s go,” I laughed. “The stairs are just up ahead.”

To Be Continued…

Next: Chapter 4-

“The Tower of Najima… again...”

2006-08-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

Commute

By PAt

I drive to work

Everyday.

Twenty-three miles

There.

Twenty-three miles

Back.

Every working day

Except for

Labor Day

And Teacher’s Convention

(two days)

and workshop day

and Thanksgiving Break

(two days)

and Christmas / New Year Break

(six days not counting weekends)

and In-Service Day

and President’s Day

and spring Break

(six days not counting weekends)

and Good Friday

and Memorial Day

and Summer.

Forty-six miles.

Round Trip.

Until today.

SCHOOL’S OUT!

Awakened

By Jennifer Ann Bywaters

At rest and turbulent the same,
With thoughts of you I sit and be;
A heart elated and afraid
My spirit squawks at me.

Unafraid and bold I've been,
Through ordeals immense;
Resilient and determined always
Hope and joy brought hence.

Today the shock of knowing you,
Brings to me a dream long lost
A light extinguished in the pain,
Of events my corrupting did frost.

Your arrival does a return to Me,
To my being warrant,
And in my heart joy does abound
Bellowing up a torrent.

A fool I now know I had not been,
To be confident in the perception
Belief in something greater still
Is not deception.

2006-05-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

A word from the editor

::PROGRESS::

Welcome to this, the first edition of Belle Lettre - Portland.

A little history for the uninitiated: Belle Lettre is the main physical manifestation of Belle The Cat Productions, my production company, located at bellethecat.com. The company (employees: 1, not counting the cats) was started in December 2002, and Belle Lettres has been published as a quarterly zine for the past two years from my former place of residence, Lakewood, Ohio (just outside of Cleveland.)

Who am I? My name is Sarah Bartash, and I have been a writer all my life - first for school, then for jobs but all the time for myself. I started self-publishing zines in high school, continued through college, and then took a hiatus when “real life” set in and dictated that I stop such frivolous pursuits. That didn’t last long as I soon realized that I needed such things to keep myself from going insane.

The original mission of Belle the Cat was to be “committed to creativity, discovery and courage through action,” and was later modified to “inspire courage, creativity and discovery though action in all people.”

At first, the mission was for the zine to support my own creative needs, then it was to encourage new, nontraditional and searching artists to submit and see their works in print.

With the third volume of the zine, I would like to focus on the readers - the people besides me and the other submitters who might just find this rag intriguing enough to thumb through. It is for this audience that I wish to announce the following.

Every issue of Belle Lettres has various departments (each issue might not have all departments):

* Recipes

* Poetry

* Comics (every print issue contains the illustrious Asshead)

* Adventures (usually a travel piece)

* “The Shelf” (Belle Lettre’s eclectic review page of everything from books and restaurants to movies and video games.)

With this issue, I would like to introduce the first attempts at theme issues:

Spring = Science Fiction Summer = Mystery

Fall = Horror Winter = Fantasy

This issue offers an inaugural chapter of Telove, about a planet besieged by civil wars and seceding factions. When a group of off-world settlers disturb a destructive and ancient evil, it is up to young Match, orphan, former mercenary and heir-apparent to the Prophecy of Telove, to bring about a lasting peace. Unfortunately, he is unaware of his destiny until a man claiming to be his teacher rescues him from a training exercise gone very wrong.

Another very important part of the zine, which sometimes may not get the attention it deserves, is the kids' zine, Banjo and Belle, located at the center of each print issue.

Finally, you can continue to look for Belle Lettre on the shelves of Mac’s Backs Books on Coventry - 1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights Ohio 44118 ph. 216-321-2665, at Phoenix Coffee 15108 Detroit Avenue Lakewood Oh 44107 216-226-4401 and at Arabica University Circle 11300 Juniper Road, Cleveland Ohio 216-791-0300. New distribution locations throughout Portland will be announced soon.

I hope you enjoy Belle Lettres. I encourage you to contact me with submissions, suggestions and comments. Thanks, welcome, or welcome back.

Special thanks to this issue’s contributors: DMV, KH and Nicka.

:: Belles-let-tres/ bel lettre/ n. writings that are valued for their elegance and aesthetic qualities rather than for any human interest or moral or instructive content, French, literally "fine letters" belletrism, belletrist.

Belle Lettre – Volume III, Issue 1. May 2006. All material contained within remains the property of the creators, copyrighted at creation. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. Readers assume responsibility for actions or decisions they make as a result of reading this publication.

Belle Lettre is published four times a year at the turn of each season and endeavors to inspire courage, creativity, discovery through action in all people. New, nontraditional and searching artists encouraged to submit. Prose, poetry, artwork, comics and photography are always being accepted.

For guidelines, go to bellethecat.com. Or send a SASE to Belle the Cat productions :

P.O. Box 82801 Portland, Oregon 97282. Or email webmaster@bellethecat.com

Submission does not guarantee publication. Belle Lettre reserves the right to edit all material for clarity, length and content. Originals will not be returned without a self addressed, stamped envelope.

2006-05-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

TELOVE

By S. Bartash

"What?"

Capitan Mia stood, in all her fierce and unapproachable glory, arms crossed over her chest, looking for every detail as she always had. But the words she had just spoken had turned Match’s world upside down.

"She's your cousin. Therefore you have family. Therefore you are excluded from the mercenary guild, effective immediately."

"You've got to be kidding!" he said, but he knew Mia didn't joke. He pointed back at a girl in the doorway, her blond hair pulled back in a thick ponytail, a blue cap bearing the insignia of the taxi guild perched on her head. "She doesn't even look like me!"

A weak excuse, but true. Match was a full six inches shorter, with dark sullen eyes and wispy brown hair. The girl smiled weakly. "Honestly, er, captain," she said, "I really only came looking for a protection service for my cab. I've never seen this kid before in my life."

"I'm sorry, but bloodlines don't lie. That's why we check; you know that Match. You have been a fine asset to the guild for the last seven years, but I am afraid I am going to have to ask you to leave."

"But, but," he struggled. "I stayed with the guild even after it split! I'm devoted to the squad! What the hell am I suppose to do now?"

"You will have to decide that for yourself. If I have taught you anything, please let it have been self reliance. You may gather your things now, or stop back tomorrow."

She turned, and Match thought there was a catch in her voice when she said, "Goodbye."

He sulked in the backseat of the taxi. Britannia Pilotlight, AKA Brit, AKA his cousin, chatted amicably with her passenger, and it grated on him. What a stupid mess. He couldn't believe Capitan Mia had betrayed him. Match was a highly trained soldier-for-hire. What in hell was he doing riding around in this flying tin can, with this stranger, listening to the simple minded small talk of lower class morons?

It didn't help matters any that he was getting car sick.

The ship hovered to a stop at the twenty-second floor of a high-rise building and the customer got out and paid. Then the snub-nosed ship dove for the ground, and Match felt his belly flutter up into his eyeballs. He bit out a curse and dug his fingers into the flaking foam of the seat.

"You know, I'd rather have a wet cat in the backseat then you," the driver said. "Surely the cat would be better company, and probably happier than you too."

Match tried to regain his composure and glared out the window.

"It's because they're afraid your family would sue," Brit continued. "You know, when you were sent into danger. Or that someone you were sent to kill would sue. Hm. Not that it matters. My father, your uncle, died a while back, so I guess I’m all you have now.”

“Whatever.”

"Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t had such a grand day either."

They were both silent for a moment, and Match thought, "oh god, the stupid girl isn’t going to burst into tears, is she?" The taxi swooped to the side and his brain switched gears; "oh god, she's not going to crash us into a building is she?"

"I've been drafted."

"What?" He blinked, not quite sure if he had heard her correctly.

"I've been drafted! Are you deaf? Here!" She waved a piece of paper frantically in the air and tossed it into the backseat. "So you don't have to worry about hanging around with me. Hell, maybe your stupid security service will take you back.

Match picked up the paper and read it, once, twice. No, it couldn’t be true. It wasn’t fair. This stupid taxi girl had been drafted by the elite University of Kard’arin, the fighting school of North Ieria.

“They drafted you? A taxi driver before me! It’s not fair. I’m a biting archer you know,” Match pointed to the arrow mark below his left eye.

Brit’s face in the mirror was red and fuming. “Oh go bite yourself! If you must know, I don’t want to go to the Kard! Bunch of military obsessed kids.”

Match couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You don’t want to go? It’s an honor!”

“You know, they do have a voluntary draft. Why don’t you come with me. Maybe you will get in too. You are an archer after all. Maybe they’ll take you instead of me. Then I could get back to making money. Ciat.”

Match just stared at her.

They marched through the steel corridors of the Kard’arin administration building, heals clicking on the metal floor. Both had been admitted, much to Match’s chagrin. He would have been happy if Brit had been turned away. She really had no fighting skills to speak of, had none of the intensive upbringing he had had in the merc groups. Except for the street smarts she had gained working as a taxi driver for the past three years, along with the mandatory small firearms she was trained in, Match couldn’t see why she had been drafted. Her taxi dispatch leader hadn’t been too pleased at hearing that he’d be loosing her to the Kard and they had complained about it for a good half an hour while match fumed in the corner.

“Match? No way!”

Someone calling his name made Match turn from Brit’s side and look behind him. A boy with hair the color of summer melon, not quite red and not blond, was coming towards them with a huge grin across his face. He wore grays, a uniform Match knew as a symbol of the Kard’arin special forces. In the Mercenary guild they were known as Assassins. Who the hells was he?

“Match, don’t you know me? Come on, remember group A, the split! You really don’t know?” The thin boy came up and grasped Match’s hand in a firm shake. Match was about to pull his hand back and demand to know who the stranger was when he looked into the boy’s huge blue eyes and knew.

“S’lin?”

S’lin pumped Match’s arm as Brit looked on, confused.

“Oh yeah! I knew you’d remember, scared me for a second there! I thought woah, I hope that is Match. I haven’t seen you in like whatever, five years?”

“Seven since the split,” said Match.

“So what are you doing here have you been drafted?”

Match took a breath. “No, I came here on my own.”

Brit took the opportunity to chime in. “But not by himself. Hi, I’m Brit-here-against-my-will-Pilotlite. I’m Match’s cousin.”

S’lin’s eyes darted to Brit and he switched his handshake from Match to the girl. “Cousin really? No way! So you must have been drafted hu? Not to worry, you’ll learn to love it here.” His eyes shot to her hat. “T.D. hu? They snap them up. Oh I’m sorry, I take it you don’t know me. My name is S’lin-as-in-Snake-Shinestar. I know Match from back in my Merc years, we grew up together before the guild split into A and B. But get this Match, you probably don’t know this, but like five years ago group A disbanded. Can you top that! Right in the city. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll see you around enough now. Speaking of that,” he took a breath, “What are you certified as Match?”

A little embarrassed, Match answered, “Oh, only evasion and general weapons.”

S’lin seemed crestfallen. “That is boring. You should be in sprint guard or dash line. And with…” he pointed to his eye. Match touched his arrow mark self-consciously.

“I’m a protection archer,” he stated simply.

S’lin looked away, temporarily distracted by someone walking in the distance. “Well anyway, I gotta go. Great to see ya!”

And in a breathless flurry he was gone. Brit looked at Match, an amused expression on her face.

“Okay so what was all that about?”

Match started walking down the hall again, his fist tightening around the paper schedule in his hand. “S’lin Shinestar. Crazy kid. He’s an Assassin.”

Brit’s jaw dropped. “You have to be kidding!”

“You’d be surprised, he’s really different out in the field. He was in a special team from day one. They worked him until he fell down and passed out. Then they yelled at him some more. And he was like six years old.”

“I can’t understand how you can miss that.”

“I know you can’t,” Match turned from her and walked towards the dormitory.

Their first assignment was supposed to be easy.

Brit stood with about fifty other recruits, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She scanned the crowd and saw Match at the end of the row, standing as straight as a post. Since the first week, she'd barely seen him, which wasn't a shock since the women's and men's dorms were at opposite ends of the campus. Still, she'd bet 100 to 1 that he'd been avoiding her on purpose. She’d seen him in one of her physical and kinetic ed. classes and he seemed to do his best to distance himself from her when sparring and pair exercises came. She tried not to care; he was related in name only as far as she was concerned.

At the front of the gymnasium, her commanding officer Blaze, paced back and forth.

"We are conducting this exercise at the old hospital, an abandoned building here on campus. You have been divided into teams of four. One of the members of your team has already been selected to lead and will assign the others to roles that compliment their skills. I have schematics of the building for you to go over, and a briefing, as you might encounter during an actual mission. All teams will convene at the same time in the field, but each one will be going about their mission as if they were alone. Therefore it should be assumed that the teams may have different goals."

Brit's mind drifted off on the fact that team leaders had already been chosen. Since no one had said anything to her, she assumed that she'd been spared that headache. However, the fact that this leader would be assigning her to a duty befitting her skills made her heart drop. Her classes had been going fairly well since she'd resigned herself to being there, but she wondered if the administration was regretting having drafted her after seeing more than just her firearm certification.

What really interested her, she was surprised to find, was the history courses. Or more to the point, how what she heard in her history classes differed from the truth. She knew about the Lanticans, former citizens of Telove who flew off to form their own colony on the planet Lantica. She knew about the fuel dazium which was mined on that planet, and how the Lanticans used it to bomb an entire continent of Telove to bits. And how the archers started appearing soon after that - people born with birthmarks that looked like arrows that seemed to give them control over certain aspects of life. Some archers could run faster, endure more or protect themselves from disease.

The funny thing was, none of this was discussed in her classes. It was as if the Lanticans never were. It was as if the Kard’arin denied the existence of dazium. Most of what she was taught was information about the civil war now raging between North and South Ieria. That information bored her to no end, and she wondered what the Kard was hiding, or hiding from.

"…Pilotlight and S'lin Shinestar." She was jolted from her thoughts by Blaze's voice. He continued reading off more names, and so she turned to the girl next to her.

"What was that? What'd I miss?"

"You're assignment! You're with that girl Kova, that crazy dude S'lin and that cute guy Nightflame over there."

The female recruit pointed over to Match who still stood at attention, but with a furrow between his eyes.

Of all the luck..

Kauris waited.

His sickly thin chest rose and fell; the only thing that proved he was not a corpse. Behind closed eyes, he concentrated on The One-who-would-surpass: his equal in power, even at only half his age. The knowledge that the One existed kept Kauris alive.

His skin was paper-white from immeasurable time spent underground, where he kept his constant vigil, knowing that someday, the young untrained mind of the One would give him the strength he needed to break from his tomb. He had overcome the need for little more than token nutrition taken mostly from the air. He breathed in. He breathed out. He reduced the need for movement, and devoted all of his energy to the search for the One.

His role in the life of the young prophet was destined. He would be teacher to the greatest being that would ever be born to the small planet Telove. Kauris had decided, however, in the years of banishment, not to be surpassed. He knew that if he could hold the young one in check, the power of the boy would become his own. And he knew that when this happened, all the years alone and patient to the point of madness, would be worth it.

An explosion reverberated through the ground.

Kauris’ eyes sprung open, pupils wide to almost complete blackness. He felt the One, the trembling of life and energy from the untrained soul, through the soil and rock above him. The opportunity was upon him. Kauris used the power to overcome the barriers that had been placed centuries ago on the catacomb to keep him contained. He rose through stone, moving it aside with barely a thought. Up though the ground, until he broke the surface. Kauris Whiteflare was reborn.

Match coughed and covered his mouth. For a moment, he couldn't catch his breath. Dust still billowed around him, hanging in the air like a veil. He slowly regained his bearings. He was lying on the ground, in the sub-basement of an abandoned building. What had only minutes (he assumed) before been the location of the training exercise for him and the other members of his team, was now a disaster area.

His team. Did they escape?

He tried to move and was promptly sick with a violent pain shooting through the right side of his body. He looked down, head spinning, and saw a concrete slab crossing him mid-thigh. There were barely two inches from the ground and where the slab started. It extended, in a mess of cracks and rebar, all the way to the ceiling. It weighed tons. The muscles and bone were pressed to the point of bursting out the sides of his leg, and the ground was saturated with his blood.

Light headed, he lay down as gently as his addled brain would allow. He thought of yelling, of screaming for help. But as he tried to draw a breath, he was almost driven to unconsciousness again by a bout of coughing. He looked up at a ray of light, dancing down in a column through the dusty air and thought, “why bother?” With his leg as ruined as it surely was, there was no hope for him staying in the Kard. He was doomed to a life of mundane uselessness now.

A tear slid down his cheek, burning slightly as it slipped over the arrow mark. He let his head fall sideways in utter despair. Well, there was always his arrow mark. Perhaps he could live a life of a clown, or a magician, using that accursed thing to amuse others.

“My name is Kauris.”

The voice was like cracks spreading over a frozen pond. Something inexplicable in that voice made beads of sweat break out along Match’s brow line. It was inhuman.

“I have come to teach you. You are so much now, but you have the potential to be oh so much more. More even than I.”

Power. That was it. Match was unable to follow what this ‘Kauris’ was saying, wavering as he was between life and the darkness. He attempted to speak and managed to croak, “help.”

A man knelt next to him. “Oh, pardon me. May I help you up?”

Match’s mind swam. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening, and it frightened him to realize how defenseless he felt. The situation was out of his control. Besides, the screaming pain of his left leg had already made most of the world around him disappear. He wasn’t even sure he could get up, defiantly not on his own. Very carefully, Match nodded.

Kauris did not change his expression. He simply reached a hand out and placed it on Match’s shoulder. Instantly, the world went dark.

Brit Pilotlight had been standing at her position outside the training facility when it collapsed. For one crazy moment, she thought that was part of the training. When all five floors of the abandoned building pancaked in upon themselves in a terrific boulder-crashing racket, she wondered briefly how in the world the trainers had constructed the demolition to keep it from killing anyone. Then she saw the wild eyes of the trainers as they ran from the billowing dust cloud, and she knew it was no exercise.

“Match!” she yelled. “S’lin!” A hail of debris rained down on her, caking her hair and skin with bits of brick and powder. The roar of the collapse died away and she starred at the mess of rubble. The building was barely one story high now.

She covered her mouth and nose and stumbled through the foggy expanse of the training field. Moments before, the day had been flooded with light. Now she fought to see just a few feet in front of her. Franticly she looked around, saw the ghostly forms of trainers getting up slowly, heard the distance wail of a siren. She squinted and thought she saw the distinctive form of one of the members of her four person team.

Kova held her hat over her face like a mask. She waved at Brit, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes. Brit moved towards her and signed, “Kova - are you alright?”

Kova moved her hands in the language known as windword. It was the sign for snake. Which translated to the name of her partner, S’lin. Brit shook her head and Kova pushed past, disappearing into the dust.

“Step back,” a voice said, and arms wrapped around Brit tightly.

“My team is in there! My cousin!” She fought the arms of her commanding officer.

“The crews will get them out,” Blaze said. “Move away.”

As she had become accustom to at the Kard, once again, Brit felt useless. Match, as leader, had of course assigned her as sentry, the easiest of all jobs. Now she felt the helplessness of not being able to throw the rocks aside and rescue the creep along with all the other unit member. Oh, all the other soldiers!

A body flew at her, clad in the cloud-grey uniform of an assassin. She gasped as S’lin fell over her, clutching his hand to his chest. Kova followed, and tried to steady the boy as he stood again, his pale form all but disappearing in the dim light. He threw a bloody glove to the ground and collapsed to his knees, hugging his hand and rocking. Brit and Blaze, happy to be distracted by a resurrected member of their team, raced to his side.

“Let me be,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“S’lin what is wrong with your hand,” Blaze asked, trying to pull the clenched fist away. The freckled-faced boy threw his shoulders up, momentarily hiding his face from view. Then he let his breath out in one quick burst and turned a smile to the small gathering.

“Nothing! I’m fine! Where’s Match?” He held up his left hand for all to see. The skin was torn and flapping, his thumb all but severed. Blaze met his eyes and calmly took him by the arm.

“S’lin, that doesn’t look so good. You’d better let me have a look.” As the officer began to remove his own jacket and Kova stroked S’lin’s peach fuzz hair, Brit took the chance to slip away.

She stumbled, heedless of the voices around her. She hurried past arriving rescue crews, passed soldiers with blood streaming over their faces.

“Match.” She reached the building. She put her hand on the jagged concrete wall. It was solid, as if it had been built to exist in a state of ruin. The leader of Team Nightflame had been in the basement. How in hell could he have survived? He’d be crushed like a bug.

Her world started to dissolve into tears. She bit her lip to try to halt the sobs which tore at her throat. In a strange way, Match was all she had left. She leaned her forehead onto the rough surface of the rubble as her tears started to fall.

But instead of pelting the sandy ground, they continued in their descent through a three-foot gap in the building’s foundation. Brit blinked the sting from her eyes and peered into the depths. Someone was down their. Someone about the size and shape of her small cousin. Without a second thought, she squeezed through the gap and dropped to the floor far below.

She hit the cement with both feet and immediately fell forward, her legs stinging. She landed next to Match and her breath caught in her throat. His eyelids closed, dusted lightly with a white powder, made him look as if he’d been entombed for ages. With shaking hand, Brit brushed the dust from his hair, then snapped into focus and checked for his vital signs. He was breathing, he had a pulse. Then she saw his leg.

“Medic!”

Match though he must have passed out. He soon realized, though, that he could see himself, his body, and the body of the strange man. But all around him was darkness. Darkness so black it seemed to writhe. He drew his eyes away from it and back to the man, Kauris.

“Please, don’t worry,” Kauris soothed in a cool tone.

“I’m not,” Match gasped, finding it difficult to talk. “I'm confused.”

The form seemed to dance around Match like a specter. “I can set things right. Better, I can teach you to set things right. I can show you what you are. What your power is. What your purpose is.”

Unable to draw his eyes away, Match’s mind began to clear. Slowly he realized that he was no longer lying on the ground, but instead he was standing, both legs extended comfortably. “My leg!”

“Is healed,” Kauris finished. “By you. Your power. Your strength and belief allowed it.”

Kauris, too, was standing. No stain upon his knees from where he had knelt in the pool of blood only moments before. Standing level to him, or more accurately floating for there was no ground to stand upon, Match could see that Kauris taller than him by a good foot. His hand was still on Match’s shoulder, and it began to slide inch by inch down his arm. When it reached the end of Match’s sleeve, it touched the skin of his hand and Match was shocked by the sweet warmth.

“I want to learn,” Match blurted out. “I want to know. I want to feel like this.”

For the first time, Kauris smiled. “I want you to feel like this always. But you must trust me.” His eyes cut into Match, and the boy found himself nodding. “Trust me,” Kauris repeated.

Match closed his eyes. “I need this,” he thought, and he felt Kauris’ arm drawing him close. His brain dizzied, Match caved inwards, towards the chest of the strange man. Kauris hugged him tightly, and Match felt safe, saved. He sensed an indescribable clearness. He could feel it in his body, smell it like a gust of wind, warm and comforting. No, cleansing. He drew as near as he possibly could, gathered up in the arms of Kauris strong though they looked thin as reeds.

He felt himself being lifted, as if he were a child again. Again. To many, Match still was a child. Yet how long had it been since he had allowed himself the innocence? The wonder? The ability to let go and feel again? They were their together in complete nothingness. Who would see if the dark prince let his persona drop for a moment? It felt right. It made him smile.

~fin the first~

2006-05-30T11:45:00.001-07:00

***

Amy and Annie

cooked my prefab lunch -- that means

that it's homemade, right?

And it's organic

Healthy ranch-flavored crackers

Cheese enchilada

Annie's Ranch Bunnies

Kick Goldfish ass -- but wait! Do

Goldfish have asses?

- KH

****

2006-05-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

Recipes for the perfect day

By DMV

Breakfast:

Instant Pancakes with Banana

Make into a sandwich with peanut butter, fried Treet and cheddar cheese. Serve with a glass of Tang.

Ingredients:

2 Box Instant Pancake Mix

Water

1 Banana

1 Can Treet Brand Meat Product

Cheddar cheese

Peanut butter

Directions:

1. Get 1 box of instant pancake mix. Don’t follow the directions on the box, just pour desired amount into a pourable measuring cup and add water until it looks like batter.

2. Slice 7/8 of a banana into mix. Eat the other 1/8.

In a greased skillet, pour mix into 2 dollops the size of your appetite.

3. Slice Treet and fry on low heat.

4. Slice cheese. Spread a thin layer of peanut butter on one pancake . Add cheese slices and Treet. Sandwich with other pancake and yum!

Lunch:

Who eats lunch? Eat half a bag of pistachios and drink two cheep cans of beer.

Ingredients:

2 Cheep Beers

1 bag pistachios

2 T. butter or margarine

2 garlic cloves, minced

4 eggs, beaten

¼ c. Parmesan cheese

Parsley

Black pepper

Directions:

1. Open 1 can of beer. Drink ¾.

2. Open bag of pistachios, get large bowl for shells or spit shells into campfire or bush.

3. Open 2nd beer. Drink with nuts. Drink remaining beer from can 1 when cleaning up.

Dinner

Arthur mac&cheese with cut baby carrots, tuna, extra cheddar cheese and sliced green olives. Serve with two cans of soda poured into a large glass with ice.

Ingredients:

1 Box Annie’s brand Arthur mac&cheese

2 T. butter

Dash of milk

Cheddar cheese - grated

1 can tuna, drained

10 green olives, sliced

Handful of baby carrots

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan ½ full of water, set to boil and cut (or bite) baby carrots into 3rds.

2. I’m not telling you how to make mac&cheese. Follow the box, stupid.

3. Add nearly all the can of drained tuna, saving some for the cat. Add grated cheese and sliced green olives. Serve in the same medium saucepan with 2 forks to reduce dishes.

2006-05-30T11:44:00.002-07:00

Lie - HAIKU

A voice cool, quiet
You can hear it, the darkness
Breathing, very near

- nicka

2006-05-30T11:44:00.001-07:00

unicorn

By S. Bartash

I lay in bed on a Saturday morning and could feel a horn beginning to sprout from my forehead. Unlike a true unicorn, my horn did not spring from the center of my forehead, but from a position over my left temple.

I thought back to the first time I started to believe I could become a unicorn. It was when I was very young, back when I believed anything was possible because I didn't know any better. I waited in earnest for the day I could gallop away on four golden hooves. I was playing at a friend's house, and her mother was a person who did not believe in unicorns.

"Then I'm a little horse," I said, curling up to go to sleep.

"Horses only lie down when they are sick," she said.

The next time was when I was a teenager. There was a boy in love with me. I didn't know it at the time, but I think he may have been turning into one. I believed this was possible, to turn into a unicorn, because I could believe no less of the world – I was too close to giving up. I dreamed of unicorns falling from the sky, huge massive beasts with stamping hooves and smoke in their nostrils. Then rising up, Armageddon. But it was only a dream, brought on by unrequited love and too much loud music.

Finally, I got older. And I realized that I believed it was possible to become a unicorn because I wanted it to be possible. I wanted to have the opportunity to escape because I always thought the world I’d escape into would be better. I believed escape would bring me happiness. Suddenly, as the horn begins to grow, I knew it would be awful. It hurt. I tried to stand it, but I couldn’t. I felt sick to my stomach, I couldn’t see, my eye wouldn’t open, and the rainbows were blinding. I knew, as a unicorn, I would hurt for the rest of my life. I would be hunted for the rest of my life. I would be hungry for the rest of my life, and I would feel the throbbing, the sickness, and forever.

And so, because I could, I decided not to become a unicorn.

2006-05-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

***

Hunter S. Thompson

A little orangutan

Pancake-head bunny

Kitten with rifle

Personalized desk decor

They think I'm twisted

***

2006-05-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

THE SHELF - reviews

“Ecology - The Ascendant Perspective”

Science Lecture by Robert Ulanowicz

First - the background. Robert Ulanowicz is a professor of Theoretical Ecology with the University of Maryland’s Chesapeake biological Laboratory. Can you believe there is a department of Theoretical Ecology? Only in college. He recently spoke at a lecture presented by the Portland Institute for Science, Engineering and Public Policy and contended that the core scientific belief of the Origin of Species was 180 degrees in the wrong direction. More or less what he explained was the idea that - whereas traditional theory presents biology as simple, generic and repeatable; he says it is none of these. In other words, the fundamental knowledge of the world around us… can’t be explained.

Probability cannot be applied to biology, and here’s why. Processes involve chance, self reference and are conditioned by history. And more or less, Dr. Ulanowicz said that there are gaps in the development of biological systems that simply cannot be explained in these terms. He likened it to the “infinite number of monkeys” theory, where said simians, when given enough time, will write Hamlet. Ulanowicz said, in not so many words, this is poppycock.

After the talk, he spoke to a small number of invited guests and admitted that he had withheld his religious belief while speaking before the large audience. Though he didn’t say he believed in the simplistic device of “intelligent design,” that is more or less what his theory points to.

“Sleepaway Camp II and III”

Movies

I may be the only person on the planet who actually got a kick out of watching “Sleepaway Camp” - the tale of a 1980s era camper with a tragic past who kills a bunch of bullies and ends up, well, naked. But watching the sequel and… trequil? to this culty treat (as grotesque as a chocolate covered deep fried Twinkie sundae) rolled my eyes rather than turning my stomach. Angela, everyone’s favorite transsexual serial killer, returns to try to wreck havoc on 30 year old actors playing teen campers once again. II merely disappointed, with its lackluster cast and cheesy effects, but III was a complete let down (except for the “bad boy” camper who tagged trees with graffiti). Watching the “DVD added features,” I kept waiting for the blood to flow, but each special effect was more “special” - in the short-bus way. Like watching the supposed spoof of disaster films, “The Big Bus,” these were both a two thumbs-down (on the fast forward button) waste of time.

“Silent Hill”

Movie

Sharon, a little girl prone to seizures in which she chokes out the words "Silent Hill", is taken by her mother to that ghost town against the wishes of her father. After they literally crash into town (a very finely executed scene), Sharon disappears, and her mother Rose sets off in search of her.

If you have played any of the video games on which this film is based, be ready for the first hour to experience true heady bliss. The cinematography is superb - you feel as if you are playing the game on the big screen. There are some minor plot malfunctions, but the visuals make up for it, and you truly do want to keep watching (the cop, Cybil, is great fun.)

However, things start to falter in hour two, when it seems as if the script is missing about 30 pages. This gap is filled by a convoluted flashback / narrative sequence which serves to confuse newcomers and alienate those familiar with the story. Not that the movie makers shouldn't have taken liberties with the plot to make it more manageable in a cinematic sense, but the way that they determined to change it does not necessarily make it any better a story.

To me, the effects were more hits than misses - some were wonderful. The blade scenes of Pyramidhead brought cheers from the theater filled with obvious fans. But another scene looked rubbery and fake (most of the effects were computer generated). The climax was interesting enough but the movie then stumbles to what I felt was a predictable and unsatisfying ending.

2006-05-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

It's your funeral - HAIKU

What remains of you

I'll see at your funeral

in a tiny box

- nicka

Window - HAIKU

moonlight pushes in
It both beckons and repels
I long to give in

nicka

2006-02-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

BELLE LETTRe

A Belle the Cat Production * Winter‘05-‘06 * Volume Two * Issue Four

:: Belles-let-tres/ bel lettre/ n. writings that are valued for their elegance and aesthetic qualities rather than for any human interest or moral or instructive content, French, literally "fine letters" belletrism, belletrist.

Belle Lettre – Volume II, Issue 4. January 2006. All material contained within remains the property of the creators, copyrighted at creation. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. Readers assume responsibility for actions or decisions they make as a result of reading this publication.

1508 Lincoln Ave. Lakewood, OH 44107, webmaster@bellethecat.com , bellethecat.com

Submission does not guarantee publication. Belle Lettre reserves the right to edit all material for clarity, length and content.

Originals will not be returned without a self addressed, stamped envelope.

2006-02-20T08:04:00.000-08:00

The Forest

By S. Morgan

So many beautiful things in the air.

Those passages in the clouds, holes into hea-

ven. I watch the birds fly though.

Once cleared, a forest is not gone. Given

the chance, it will struggle to reclaim the

land. Give it a few years on an abandon-

ed plot and it will fight back and try to

swallow the manmade to create nature

again.

When Patrick and I first met the house, we were on a Sunday drive down through the countryside, looking for a place to picnic. It was a hot, breathy summer’s day, and we turned down the driveway, thinking it was just another dirt road.

“Wow, will you look at that?” he said as the house rose up before us. It was romantically desolate - wide veranda, loose shutters, white paint flaking from towering pillars. We pulled up under a tall pecan tree and sat for a moment in the idling pickup truck.

“Do you want to check it out?” he asked.

The house was hidden by trees on three sides. Passed the pecan, a long-abandoned field stretched out into the distance. “Let’s go look,” I said.

We both got out. Patrick walked up to the door. “Look at this muck,” he said, motioning towards the filthy windows, the muddy, puddly front porch. The front door was padlocked. We continued to poke around, walked the perimeter of the place.

“I don’t see any tire tracks,” I said, “except for ours.”

We found a locked cellar door, and a few windows around the back were broken out.

“Come here and give me a boost,” I said, “I want to look in.” He crouched and let me use his knee as a step to reach the window and peep in. The interior was empty, but huge, wide open and enthralling. I pulled myself up and inside.

“Hey!” he cried. I looked back out to see him gazing up at me, his expression that of a child who’d just been tricked.

“I’ll look around and find a way to let you in,” I grinned.

“Try to find the cellar door. It probably just has a deadbolt.”

It was not silent in the house. There was a flitter and a clatter, a scratching noise that at first I couldn’t place. I looked up. Roosting in the chandelier far above me was a flock of sparrows and pigeons.

I was nervous, thrilled. What if the owner of this place suddenly pulled into the driveway? What if he could see the strangers in his house from across the open field? My instinct was to climb up, to look from the topmost window out across the wide expanse of land, to see above the lowest trees, to survey the kingdom below. But I had to let Patrick in, so instead I found the stairs down into the basement.

The basement was coated with muddy slime. I set a tentatively toe to the floor, making sure there was a floor to be had. There was a not unpleasant smell of dirt and roots. It was dark, but a few high windows let in tendrils of light. It was like I had descended into the earth, to walk among the foundation of soil that holds up the forest floor.

It frightens me sometimes how much

I know about him. I keep it written in a little

book in the back of my mind, jotting down

things I learn. I draw detailed pictures of his

features, his eyes, his lips. I wonder at him

constantly.

What if Patrick ever got a hold of that book?

Patrick came to me later that week to say that he had been able to secure a loan to buy the place for a song. We bought the place together, and cosigning the loan, it felt as if we were making a pact almost more important than when we had stood at the alter of a church in front of God. We were promising to the house, our magical place, that we would wake it from its slumber, cause it to live again in beauty.

Of course, like most young couples who think they’ll be able to pull off a miracle and restore an old home on strict do-it-yourself trial and error, we soon found ourselves older and poorer than we’d ever expected. The house echoed with emptiness and unfinished projects. As the years went by, Patrick began to do battle with the house. He talked about not letting it “win;” that he would somehow triumph over its crookedness and mold and rotting wood. In the end, it was he who proposed getting a housemate.

Did you know that lizards and birds

are closely related? Look at a lizard’s

eye and look at a bird’s eye. One

would think that you would have to be

a lizard first, cold blooded, crawling,

clawing. And then progress to a bird -

those that use their intuition to rise a-

bove the petty emotions of humans are

eagles. When we look at the taxometry

of birds, we find theropods; dinosaurs,

two legged, upright walking. Tyranno-

saurus rex was a theropod, as was velociraptor. Tyrant lizard and the quick plunderer; carnivores. So we are asked to decide - is a bird an evolved lizard, or are birds the more primitive of the two?

In a way, the thought of a new being in the house brought a candle of hope to the situation, a chance to feel the excitement of something fresh and new again. And I know that this was what eventually led me to accept and let him place the ad.

We ended up with a student, a boy by the name of Sye. I was worried when we first started the interviews, the words of friends who shared my initial trepidation at the idea of having a stranger in the house, echoing through the back of my head. Did he look like he was on drugs? Perhaps, but didn’t all young people look like that now a days? I felt no threat from him bodily; with all the physical labor of carting wood and old carpet around, pulling shingles and the like, I had grown quite strong. This boy was thin and pale and he looked as if he rarely ventured out into the sun. He was not quite as tall as Patrick’s six foot height. His eyes, behind wire rimmed glasses, we brilliant and dark, and he had very soft-looking brown hair. He worked part time as a student’s aide and was going to school for his master’s degree in teaching.

“Honestly, I am sick of school,” he said. “I’m looking for a place to get away, a quiet place to study.” It seemed the perfect fit.

Sye was with us for about two weeks and we had grown quite fond of him. Mostly it was the fact that he was not around very much at all. When he was, we barely heard a peep from him. But two weekends in, he started a conversation with Patrick about the house and ended up spending much of the day helping us paint the hallways. As the sun set, we sat on the porch sipping tea and lemonade and chatting about this and that.

To see him smile made me smile.

Though the student was still mostly absent throughout the week, Sye and Patrick began to work on other projects on the weekends together. It was nice to see Patrick with a knight-errant to help him combat the many house-issues he had been struggling with.

Although at first, I worried we were using the boy for free labor. After a dreadful day of sanding, when a paste of plaster clung to our sweaty bodies, we all lay on the lawn to learn how to breathe again.

“Sye, you really don’t need to help us with the house,” I said to him, “you must be exhausted.”

“I need this,” he said. “It’s good to combat all the cerebral stuff I deal with all day. It’s nice to see actual progress. And we’re almost done with the inside painting.”

Another time, while the two of them had moved out to the veranda to work on replacing old rotted deck rails, I was inside to realize that he was right. We had done so much to this amazing building it filled my eyes with tears. The chandelier that had been filled with bird droppings and feathers had long been taken down, carefully washed and re-hung. The ceiling had been refurbished, the walls freshly painted, the window I had long ago crawled through was mended, cleaned and cleaned again and hung with airy curtains. The floor was sanded and stained. Rugs I had found at estate sales now cushioned our steps. It all worked; the furniture, the décor, and foremost the shell of the house, which I had always known was gorgeous.

I flopped down on the davenport, watching Sye through the window working on the rails. He was sanding, his long bare arms moving up and down the wooden dowel, a furrow in his brow. I watched his hair flutter around his eyes, tickling its way behind his glasses, which had begun to slip down the slope of his nose. He paused, removed his glasses, and looked up, catching site of me looking at him. Embarrassed, I turned my head, but snuck a glance back after a moment. He was still looking at the window.

And then Patrick and I began to fight.

I had hoped that what I’d been witnessing was a positive coming to terms with what the house was, and what could be done to it, and how to deal with the frustration of projects that, despite a little extra help, still seemed to grow unwieldy and cost too much money. But my good feelings began to disintegrate into the reality that maybe Patrick really did hate the place. I began spending more and more time at the gym or working late, or volunteering at the library and less time helping with the house. When I was at home, I’ll admit, I daydreamed. And it wasn’t about the house that was supposed to be our dream come true. I daydreamed about our young tenant living only a thin ceiling and a short flight of stairs away.

Not that I would ever act on anything as random and adolescent as a harmless obsession with a striking young man. It just helped to pass the time, and to distract me.

“Why do I keep up with this?” Patrick asked one night. Catherine was out and he’d been drinking. “I have a beautiful wife, good job. What do I want?”

Sye set down his empty beer. “Well, what do you want?”

“Do I think I’d loose her if I didn’t fix up this place?”

“Do you think you’d lose her if you ever finished it?”

Patrick tried to focus on him. The boy’s face seemed unnaturally close, and Patrick pulled back. “Do you have a girlfriend, Sye?”

“I have many.”

Patrick blinked. “What?”

“You know: college girls, hot professor. I’m pretty sexy if I do say so myself.”

Patrick laughed at him. “I thought you were a real nerd!”

“Girls like that,” he smirked, and opened another beer. “They like guys that look too smart. They want to teach you the way.”

“Wow, I had no clue.”

“Why did you ask me if I had a girlfriend?”

“Well if you have a bunch, you don’t worry about them leaving you or anything, hu? I just don’t get it. Where the hell is she? Where does she go?”

“Does she give you everything you need?”

“Hu?”

“She doesn’t, does she? There’s something missing.”

His brain foggy with booze, all Patrick could answer was, “I, what?”

“Some women are like that. They are disturbed or grossed out or whatever. I tell you though, those college girls will do anything you want them to.” He paused. “And it’s fun to do everything they want you to as well.”

“Aw what are you talking about, kinky stuff? What would girls want to see?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t?”

“What kind of stuff do you like? What makes you hot?”

“You’re sounding a little gay,” Patrick says sobering up just a little.

“I know that. It doesn’t matter. I just asked what makes you hot?”

Patrick waited, then said, “it’s really crazy. It’ll creep you out.”
“Tell me. I like that kind of stuff.”

The sight of you shocks me, like spying

a friend in a strange city.

Dark paper dreams; of ink, of curling

burnt edges, flakes of ash blacken my fingertips.

I am too obsessed with you to realize that there

is a real you. Silent monologue boy. You and

your feathers and your iridescent eyes. Nothing

else in life has given me this underscore. I feel

you in my throat, around my neck like a python.

Hiss.

2006-02-20T08:01:00.000-08:00

THE SHELF - reviews

“Megatokyo”

By Fred Gallagher

Books, web comic

Underground comics used to be regulated to small runs of self published issues. With the advent of the internet, it became possible for anyone with a scanner and a website to post their pics for all to see. Well, for anyone who happened to stumble upon them or knew where to find them. The stage was set for a comic based on two video game nuts to find a niche among the computer savvy audience already cruising the net. And, after an already-established web comic linked their users to it, Megatokyo.com’s rise to fame began.

Beginning in 2000, artist Fred Gallagher, with the urging of his friend Rodney Caston, started to work on a series of four-panel, stand alone comics that would also have a consistent story. The plot revolves around their alter egos, Piro and Largo. The two jet off to Japan, promptly spend all their money and are stuck there. Piro gets a job at a store called MegaGamers and Largo, who doesn’t speak any Japanese, becomes “Great Teacher Largo” at a local school. The comic, which moved to a manga (full page Japanese style) format, became a perpetual witty soap opera of sorts with the addition of a cast of mostly female characters to cause the boys conflict. Erika - Piro’s boss and a former voice actor (seiyuu) for Japanese cartoons (anime,) her roommate Kimiko, a struggling seiyuu who works as a waitress and has a apologetic interest in Piro, Ping, an Emotional Doll System Accessory (android) for the PlayStation 2, and Miho, the darkly-cute evil girl that has a strange connection with both of the guys.

There are aspects of an online comic that one would never see in a “traditional” printed comic. These are explained in detail in the three Megatokyo books and include things like “Dead Piro Day” drawings, which are usually one panel illustrations that Gallagher does when he doesn’t have time to finish a full page comic.

The only complaint on the artwork is that the girls tend to look a lot the same. Except for Ping and Miho, it is difficult to tell them apart (and Piro actually looks like a girl when he has his glasses off.) The plot continues to progress and wander in ways that keep the reader interested. New comics are uploaded to the website every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And the best thing is that the comic is currently free to anyone at megatokyo.com.

“Sleepaway Camp”

Movie

This movie sucks nuggets, but is worth sitting through for a number of reasons. The most obvious is to see what costume designers were making kids (and I use the term loosely as the actors all appear to be in their 20s) wear back in 1982. If shorts could be any shorter, or pulled up any higher, or if guys with rugs of chest hair ever start wearing cut-off tee shirts again, you won’t need to see a horror film to be horrified. The second is simply to make fun of this movie in a “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” funny-jerks-in-the-front-row way. The acting is awful, the writing worse, and the plot has to be experienced to be unbelieved. That being said, be sure you have a barf-bag close buy for the nauseating final scene.

2006-02-20T07:57:00.000-08:00

The dry leaves applaud me with

A castanet ovation.

I have arrived.

“Mindfulness

by Sarah Bartash

2006-02-20T07:53:00.000-08:00

DW III - by TEA

The story thus far: Our hero, uh, Hiro, girlfriend Miharu (sorry - she’s a girl who’s his friend) , Taro the heavy-drinking soldier and spooky Kumiko have been sent on a mission by the king. They are to seek out the evil Baramos, a task that Hiro’s long lost father Ortega failed to achieve. Their next step is a journey north.

Chapter 2:

“On The Road Again… For The First Time”

I was happy to finally get on the road. The way to Reeve, our neighbor to the North, was a familiar one and I was glad of it. Start small, I told myself. One thing at a time.

“So we’re heading to Reeve?” Miharu

asked after it was obvious we were.

“Yes,” I replied absently. I was aware that she was trying to break the uncomfortable silence within the group, but I really wasn’t in the mood to talk. Apparently neither was anyone else.

I had been to Reeve several times before with Miharu and my mother to visit friends of our families’. Miharu and I usually just played by the pond where a young white horse grazed day in and day out. She was a nice little filly and belonged to the village Elder whom we were going to see today. I figured he would give us the best advice on what to do next.

As we entered the little town, I decided to hurry things along a bit and split our tasks up.

“Miharu? Would you and Taro go buy our supplies? Here,” I gave Miharu the pouch of gold the King’s attendant had given me. “Take this. You know what we’ll need, right?” I added to Taro.

“Oh yeah! I know just what every adventurer needs to begin their journey!” Taro said happy to feel important.

“I’m going to see the Elder. Let’s meet at the Inn when we’re done, alright?”

“Ok. So what are you going to do?” Miharu asked Kumiko bluntly.

“I will accompany Hiro,” she replied in her cool but not cold tone. I was beginning to accept the way she handled things. No nonsense was a good attitude to have in this situation. However, I still didn’t quite trust her intentions so I wanted to be able to keep an eye on her.

I nodded at Miharu who just shrugged. She figured enough not to argue with me and I was grateful. She and Taro made for the shops and Kumiko and I headed for the Elder’s house, which was still guarded by the now older mare. I smiled and patted her on the way to the door remembering how much Miharu and I used to love feeding her apples back when she was just as big as a pony.

Shaking myself out of my reminiscence, I knock on the Elder’s door. There was a soft scraping sound as if someone was getting up from a chair in a hurry, then the click of a lock being opened.

“Ah, Hiro! I’ve been expecting you. Please, you and your friend, come in,” the Elder chirped excitedly.

Kumiko and I entered the dimly lit house to find a sparsely furnished room consisting of a table, four chairs, a fireplace, and a flight of stairs leading to the second floor. We took a seat at the table with the Elder.

“How have you been my dear lad? It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. You’ve grown so much! Oh but listen to me. You aren’t here for a visit. This is business. Yes, serious business,” the Elder rambled. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a smile flicker across Kumiko’s face out, but it might have just been the flames dancing in the fireplace. I however did smile. The Elder was a kindly old man, and his bubbly persona put me at ease.

“It’s good to see you, Elder. So you know of the quest the King has given me?”

“Oh yes! The King had to wait until you were old enough to take on such a task, so I’ve been preparing for this very day for quite some time now.”

“Really?” I was actually kind of surprised. I hadn’t told anyone that I was coming to the Elder.

“Yes, of course!” he said a little impatiently. “There was a lot to prepare! I have so much to tell you about this quest you have before you. You are about to travel to many foreign lands and encounter many dangerous things! I don’t think you even realize how dangerous!”

This did not put me at ease.

“But don’t fear,” he said quickly. “You’ll have much help. And you are in good company,” he added pointedly. I’m sure he was referring to Kumiko who had not spoken or been spoken to. This did well to strengthen my trust of her. I trust the Elder’s judgment.

“The first thing you must do though, is go to the Tower of Najima,” he told me.

“The Tower? Why?” I asked puzzled. The Tower of Najima was an old tower on an island in the Lake of Aliahan. At one time it had been a fortress of defense for the castle, protecting it from seafaring attacks. But after the great World Wars were over it was simply turned into a museum of sorts. In more recent years, the threat of Baramos had brought monsters to the tower and the cave connecting it to land. No one dared enter either anymore.

“There is an old man in the Tower who stole a key from the famous thief Bakor. Bakor made this key to open any door with a simple lock. You will need this key for your journey.”

“Why?” I asked skeptically.

“To begin your quest, you must unlock the Travel Door in the Cave of Enticement,” the Elder told me.

“But… I remember The Cave being sealed years ago! There were all sorts of monsters coming out of the Door so they built a great stone wall to block any more…” I faltered as the Elder waved me silent.

“Don’t worry about the wall. I know a way to break through it. A special magic if you will,” he smirked. “You just concentrate on getting that key for now, then return here and we’ll get you to The Door.”

I nodded.

“Good!” the Elder was suddenly cheerful again. “Be on your way then. And tell Miharu I say hello!”

I bade the Elder a polite farewell and thanked him for his guidance. But my head was actually swimming. This quest was becoming more complicated and confusing by the minute.

I felt a little bad about ignoring Kumiko but she didn’t seem to mind, so I didn’t worry about it. We made our way in silence to the Inn where Miharu and Taro were waiting.

* * *

To Be Continued… Next: Chapter 3- “The Tower of Najima”

2006-02-20T07:52:00.000-08:00

The Mad Cow Cookbook

(Red meat infected with brain-eating bacteria?

No problem!)

Spinach and Cheese Spa Omelet

I call this a spa omlet because it is low cal, made of good things, and makes you feel fancy even if you are just at home on the weekend.

Ingredients:

1 Lg. free-range egg

¼ C. frozen spinach, thawed in microwave

¼ C. cottage cheese

1. T. butter (or margarine)

2 T. milk

Parsley

Black pepper

Salt

1 slice whole wheat toast with butter or margarine

Directions:

Whip egg, milk, parsley, pepper and salt in a bowl. In a small to medium sized fry pan, heat butter over low heat. Pour egg mix into pan. Cook slowly, stirring with a rubber scraper until egg is almost set. Tap pan on burner to flatten egg mixture. Top half with spinach and cottage cheese. Fold egg and briefly cook to begin to melt the cottage cheese. Serve with one slice of toast. Chew slowly and savor!

Breakfast Pasta

I always though this would be the perfect meal before a sporting event - bike race, ten mile hike, etc.

Ingredients:

2 C. cooked spaghetti

2 T. butter or margarine

2 garlic cloves, minced

4 eggs, beaten

¼ c. Parmesan cheese

Parsley

Black pepper

Directions:

Sauté garlic in butter, toss in cooked pasta. Pour in eggs and sprinkle with half of the Parmesan cheese. Cook until eggs cling to pasta. Serve sprinkled with the rest of the cheese, parsley and pepper.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” Wild Rice Soup

I always use to think this was a Crock-pot dish, but it’s not. I have made it without the bacon, and it’s just as good. Be sure to eat it at least once during the winter, preferably while watching Jimmy Steward in his immortal classic.

Ingredients:

1 C. uncooked wild rice

3 C. boiling water

2 strips bacon (turkey, pork, veggie it doesn’t matter - or 2 T bacon bits)

¼ C. chopped onions

¾ C. sliced celery

½ C. sliced carrots

1 can (14.5 oz) broth (chicken or veggie)

2 cans (10.75 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup

2 soup cans of milk

1 can (4 oz) sliced mushrooms and liquid

1 t. seasoned salt

pepper to taste

Directions: Combine rice and boiling water in a large pot; simmer, covered for 50-60 minutes. Drain excess liquid. Set aside. Fry bacon ‘til crisp. Set aside to drain. Fry onion, celery and carrots. If necessary, add some butter or margarine to fry in. Combine soups milk, mushrooms, salt, pepper, crumbled bacon, sautéed vegetables and rice. Simmer, covered, 1 hour. Serve in the dead of winter with warm cider.

Wacky Chocolate Coco Cake

My boyfriend would make this as an after-school snack.

Ingredients:

3 C. flour

2 C. sugar

1/2 C. unsweetened cocoa powder

2 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

2 C. water

¾ C. butter or margarine, melted or ¾ C. oil

2 T. vinegar

2 t. vanilla

Directions: Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 2 - 8 or 9” round cake pans. Mix all ingredients well and pour into pans. Bake 35-40 minutes.

2006-02-20T07:50:00.000-08:00

ADVENTURES My Cleveland weekend

I visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this weekend. Imagine that! I will admit that my friend was visiting from out of town, one of the best excuses to traipse around the city in a way that residents probably don’t during most average weekends. Still, without even really planning it, we ended up experiencing an interesting line of creative local adventures.

To begin with, on Thursday we cooked dinner that consist of foods bought from local grocery chain Heinens (Rocky River Branch) and Nature’s Bin in Lakewood, a cooperative company that provides jobs for people in need at a store devoted to organic and healthy goods.

Driving back from the store, we listened to local NPR station WCPN, who, along with PBS affiliate WVIZ run IdeaStream, a collaborative media effort to report on making change in Northeast Ohio. When that grew too boring, we had our choice of 4 college radio stations - Cleveland State, Case Western, BW or John Carol (all located at 91 or below on your FM dial).

I happened to be working at the Winking Lizard in Lakewood, a huge bar / restaurant located in an old Elk’s Lodge, complete with a bar dropped into the middle of the old ballroom, pool tables on the stage where big bands use to play, a six lane bowling ally in the basement and a live lizard in the non-smoking room. The Lizard is a locally owned chain of taverns with over a dozen individual restaurants across the area. My friend came to visit me and drank a Christmas Ale from Great Lakes Brewery, a conservation minded company that recycles to the point that they have almost achieved 0% waste.

We took a walk the next day through Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, one of the largest urban zoos in the country, and home to the largest collection of primate species in North America. What does that all mean? Monkeys, monkeys and more monkeys! (and apes and lemurs...)

Saturday was the day we went to the Rock Hall. So many people who live in Cleveland, Ohio have not. Granted, the 20$ price tag is off-putting. But honestly, if you have any favorite musicians, I would recommend giving it a try. They have deals throughout the year, and sometimes offer seasonal pricing. If you can’t make it during the day or on a weekend, the museum is open until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays.

We had lunch and a beer at Cooperstown, Alice Cooper’s tribute to music and baseball, located across from Jacob’s Field. Wanting to partake of even more delicious drinky-treats, we began a winter pub crawl at the Happy Dog on Detroit Avenue, a family restaurant transmogrified into a bar serving Polish beer and playing polka music on the jukebox. We hit a number of other bars on our way down to listen to live Blues music at Around the Corner, located at the far west end of Lakewood. Then, on our way back, we stopped at Merry Arts before getting a call from another friend that an Irish band was playing just up the street at Sullivan’s on Madison.

Finally, on Sunday, we went shopping out in University Heights (yes, we do occasionally cross the great East Side / West Side divide). On Coventry we bought a few gifts at the newly expanded Big Fun toy and nostalgia store. That night, we enjoyed an evening of Chinese food from Szechwan Garden and watched old movies ‘till the wee hours.

2005-10-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

A word from S. Morgan, editor

“T H A N K S”

Belle Lettre is rounding its second year

now, and continues to strive to fill a niche in

the vast catalogue of literary outlets that exist.

Ours is a simple cause: to inspire creativity,

discovery and courage through action in all

people - and not just those who consider themselves

writers or artists. I have added to the

disclaimer box below that new, nontraditional and searching artists are encouraged to submit prose (including essays, short stories, reviews etc.), poetry, artwork, comics and photography for possible publication.

There isn’t much that is

more motivating to me

than finishing something

and then seeing it in print,

and I wanted to be able to

share this with others.

Something I’m

exited to announce: you

will now be able to find

Belle Lettre on the shelves

of Mac’s Backs Books on

Coventry - 1820 Coventry

Road, Cleveland Heights

Ohio 44118

ph. 216-321-2665. This establishments have offered to consign a few copies, so be sure to stop by, send your friends and check it out.

In related news, BL as well as many other ‘zines will be on display as part of the Contemporary small-press and Zine Exhibit at Mac’s Backs during October and November. Co-Sponsors: Bottom Dog Press, Inc., deepcleveland llc, Cleveland State University Poetry Center andCSU Library Special Collections, Trinity Cathedral (Euclid Ave.), supported by a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council. This is part of the d.a. levy & the 1960s Literary & Cultural Scene in Cleveland: symposium and celebration. Find out more at deepcleveland.com.

You can sometimes find free copies of BL at Phoenix Coffee 15108 Detroit Avenue Lakewood Oh 44107 216-226-4401 and Arabica University Circle 11300 Juniper Road, Cleveland Ohio 216-791-0300. While I’m plugging all these places, I

should also say that BL is printed at Printing Partners in Lakewood, 13437 Detroit Avenue, 216-221-7117. And thank you to this issue’s writers and artists: Miss Nicka, DMV, and TEA. Thanks to HP for her recipes and Rebecca for the cover photo. Also, a big thank you to Den, for being the first person

added to our donor wall.

Anyway, on to this issue. Except for “Banjo and Belle,” it ended up being very alcoholic. From the essay “Deconstructing a Hangover” to the review of two novels by Florida’s “gonzo” author Tim Dorsey, to a heavy drinking soldier in TEA’s DWIII serial, I guess the spirit of Oktoberfest managed to inspire everyone this season. And who can argue? What better time is there than fall, when the autumn leaves begin to crisp and turn to fire in the dying light, eventually forming a multi-hued carpet that crunches beneath your feet, to sit back and relax with a dark malty brew?

2005-10-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Mermaid Money

By Pippin Peck

I found some mermaid money

Lying in the sand

I scooped it up and cleaned it off

And laid it in my hand.

And as I let it lay there

And pondered what to do

A seagull swooped and scooped it up

And so away it flew.

That’s all I really go out of my mermaid money: one lousy poem. Well, that and my life I guess. And most of the poem is made up anyway. There was no seagull. And I didn’t just find it lying in the sand. It was dropped by a crab. Yep, this little sand crab comes running in front of me and drops something at my feet, then sort of hesitates, like he’s thinking whether or not he should go back for it. I reached down and picked up this little round pink coin, flipping it over and over in my hand. I’d never seen anything like it, but then again it wasn’t all that strange. It sort of looked like a shell that had been smoothed out by the sea, just like rocks and tree branches are eventually worn down by the waves. I thought maybe I’d take it home, poke a hole in it and make it into a necklace. That was all at first, and I just slipped it into my pocket and forgot about it.

That is, until I stowed away on the pirate ship and realized it was the most valuable thing I possessed.

I snuck aboard the pirate ship for one reason and one reason only. To get away from the ghost. My friend Celeste and I had been trying to form our own detective agency for a while, but no one wanted to hire to kids to solve mysteries, except, we found, for the undead. See, most adults don’t see ghosts because they don’t believe in them. Most kids don’t tell people they can see ghosts for exactly the same reason. So, when this little girl ghost approached us and told us she needed help getting some people out of her house, we realized that we were the only ones who could help her.

Anyway, to make a long story shorter, we succeeded in helping her scare away the people. But instead of helping her rest in peace, she started haunting us and tried to turn us into ghosts so we’d live with her and keep her company.

I tried to tell her that it wasn’t in the contract, but it was no use. Celeste and her family finally had to move away and I, being an orphan, decided to stow away aboard the pirate ship.

Once we were out to sea, I came out of hiding and approached the Capitan. I let him know that I was interested in learning how to be a pirate. But unfortunately for me, he said that a pirate’s life was no life for a little girl and that he would rather see me walk the plank than join his crew.

So there I was, miles out to sea, all alone, made to walk the plank. At least I knew how to swim, but I doubted it would make all that much difference. I hit the water with a splash and a cheer from the pirate crew, who were quite drunk and splashed me with rum and wished me well on my way to the underworld.

I thought this was the end of me. I actually began to think that maybe after I died I’d find a way back to shore and spend eternity entertaining the little girl ghost. I got awfully tired as the sun began to set, and wondered if I should just try to go to sleep and peacefully drift under the waters.

Well, imagine my surprise as one of the rays of the setting sun seemed to inch out from the horizon and start swimming towards me! I truly thought my time had come, my brain was starting to imagine things, and I wasn’t long for this world. I watched the ray of light, squinting at the orange sparkle that darted just below the surface of the soft blue waves. A fin broke the surface, and my heart jumped at the thought of being nibbled to death by a shark. I thought I’d better get busy drowning so that I wouldn’t have to feel my kneecaps getting nipped off. Then I saw a pair of hands rise up, then arms, followed by a man’s head and then a long arching golden body.

“Help!” I gurgled, though I’m not sure why.

Something rose against my feet and I felt relief at being able to stop kicking, even for a moment. My legs buckled as the platform rose just to the surface of the water, and I knelt on a rubbery, somewhat slippery dolphin-like tail. In front of my face, the man’s head grinned, and he swept the water around with his hands. It didn’t take long to realize that the man and the tail were connected.

“One rescue at sea!” he chimed, “and unless you have a get-out-of-sea-free card, I think I’ll be taking you down to the Queen to see what kind of creature she’d like to turn you into. You look like you’d make a good seahorse, or maybe a jellyfish.”

I reached into my pockets, knowing they’d be bare of the type of richest that a merman would find valuable. All I had was that one little slice of shell that the crab had dropped, which I held out more as a sort of pathetic admission of defeat than an offering.

However his eyes widened, as though I held a holy relic, and he snatched it from me. “Humans aren’t allowed to have these!”

“What is it?” I asked, then regretted it.

The merman looked at me sideways.

“You don’t even know do you?” He seemed to

ponder this fact, but then went and told me.

“Every once in a while, a bit of bait does a

favor much beyond his or her size or

standing in life - like the crab who

was able to free a killer whale from a

fisherman’s net by snipping through the

ropes with his sharp claws. I suppose

on land it would be like the story of

the mouse and the lion.

Needless to say, if a brave

sea creature helps out a

merperson, they receive one of

these tokens. They can trade this

in later on if they are threatened

or need help. You are quite lucky,

however you came across it.”

He flipped the coin in the air, and the

remaining sun glinted off its pinky

surface. Though he wore no clothes,

save a bandanna around his bald head,

he did have a satchel slung around his

waist and he slipped the coin inside.

“Well come on then, I won’t deliver you to

the Sea Queen. Hold on just behind my

back fin.” I did as I was told, and we shot

through the ocean like a knife through butter.

As we swam off to adventures unknown, I said a

silent thank you to the little sand crab. I hoped some day I could repay it, or better yet, that its life would be calm and tranquil, and it would never need to use that bit of mermaid money.

The End

2005-10-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

THE SHELF

“Florida Roadkill” & ”Torpedo Juice”

By Tim Dorsey

Books

“Florida Roadkill,” by Tim Dorsey, introduces us to Surge and Coleman, a serial killer and drugged out deadbeat respectively, as they chase a suitcase full of money around Florida. “Torpedo Juice” reunites the pair, who again wreck havoc, this time in search of a Mrs. Surge, while traveling to Key West and back.

Imagine a book written by Quinton Tarantino, Hunter S. Thomson, Carl Hiaasen and a much less talented newspaper reporter, and that pretty much sets you up to read Dorsey.

“Roadkill” is the first book he wrote, but I actually read “Torpedo Juice” first. It was kinda fun coming in on a story already in progress. I enjoyed the imaginative descriptions of places such as The No Name Pub, a venue named after No Name Key, even though it’s not actually located there. I had no idea what was going on through the first half of the book, but a few choice quotes, such as “there are words that sound like they should be colors, like Cameroon and DiMaggio“ and “Today I built a kiln… where? In my mind!” made it a fun read none the less.

“Roadkill” has more back story, and more descriptions of the many drug concoctions Coleman and another traveling companion, Sharon, revel in. But the interesting thing is that Surge (who at one point kills someone with the launch of the space shuttle and maims someone else with a chainsaw) is fairly straight edge. He drinks water and doesn’t smoke or do drugs, which makes his horrific acts all the more disturbing. His one vice seems to be having violent sex with Sharon from time to time, and rambling on about Florida as a representation of the whole of humankind.

These books were both good summer reads - fluff with an edge. “Roadkill” included other characters in the story, such as “the good guy lawyer” and his high school buddy, as well as a collection of corrupt land developers, gangsters and insurance con artists. But by “Torpedo Juice,” Dorsey just seemed to write for the sake of giving his fans more Surge. Not to say there weren’t other characters in this novel, but they all seemed to take a backseat to the obvious star.

“Angel Dust”

Movie

A very slow but tense modern Japanese mystery. In the crowded subway lines of Tokyo, someone is killing young girls; one dies every Monday at 6:00 p.m. There are hundreds of witnesses, but no one ever sees anything. The only wound found on the bodies is a pinprick. Setsuko, a police psychologist with psychic skills is called in to investigate.

Setsuko’s past and present relationships come together with deadly (and decidedly Freudian) results. A minimal score, dark moody cinematography and a truly confounding mystery intrigue the viewer to keep watching. All plotlines eventually are tied together, but the ending may not be acceptable to those grounded in reality.

2005-10-04T19:42:00.000-07:00

nicka

DW III - by TEA

The story thus far: Our hero, uh, Hiro and the girl-next-door, Miharu (one of the best fighters in the palace guard,) have been sent on a mission by the king. They are to seek out the evil Baramos, a task that Hiro’s long lost father Ortega failed to achieve. Their first step is to meet their traveling companions.

Chapter 1:

“Let's Get This `Party' Started!”

At first I thought I might have trouble finding out who we were traveling with, but as soon as Miharu and I walked through the door Of Luisa’s Place knew exactly who it was. There was a tall man dressed in the bright crimson uniform of a soldier with a giant battleaxe strapped to his back standing by the bar. He had a beer in each hand and one in front of him, and he was singing very loudly with the other patrons of the bar.

“Are you serious?” Miharu asked.

“He's supposed to be a really great soldier,” I said unconvincingly, remembering what the King's attendant had told me.

We watched him down one, then the other, then the third beer right in a row. And then had the privilege of listening to possibly the loudest belch in history. The other customers roared with laughter.

“It's not even noon,” Miharu muttered.

I snickered. “Come on.”

As we approached the eccentric soldier, he seemed to notice we were heading for him and squinted at me as though he were trying to figure out where he had seen me before.

“Hey! You must be Ortega's son, Hiro. You look just like him!” the man exclaimed as recognition dawned on him.

“Uh… thanks,” I stumbled, taken aback by the overly energetic man. “And you are…?”

“Forgive me! I'm so rude. My name's Watanabe Taro,” Taro apologized shaking my hand vigorously.

“Well, I am Hiro and this is Miharu. She's also coming on this quest.”

“It is GREAT to meet you guys!” Taro beamed.

“Right, well um… shall we be off then?” I suggested.

“Oh yeah, sure,” Taro downed another beer that had suddenly appeared in front of him and threw some coins on the bar. “Keep the change, Buddy!”

Miharu just shook her head at the tipsy soldier. “You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered.

As we stepped outside and headed for the castle gates, I noticed a fat white cat following along side us. I stopped, and the cat stopped.

“Is that cat following us?” I started to ask Miharu but was interrupted by a loud meow. The cat started to waddle towards the Inn. She looked back at me once, meowed again, and continued on to the Inn door where she waited impatiently for the humans to come and let her in.

I looked at the others and shrugged. I led the way to the Inn; as we approached the cat cried even louder as if to yell at us for making her wait. I pushed the door open and followed the cat inside. She immediately trotted into the dinning room and over to the fireplace where another cat, this one skinny and black was lying comfortably. I could only see one person in the room who could be their owner.

She was a wizard. She sat alone at the table closest to the fireplace with a cup of tea and a six-foot tall staff leaning against the wall next to her. Her hair was long and black, and she wore billowing robes. When the white cat came in, the woman looked up at me. Her skin was so creamy white it looked like porcelain. But it was her eyes that really stood out. They were as deep and soulful as any magic users’, but they were the most delicate shade of lavender. In the flicker of the firelight, they seemed to glow.

We all just sort of stood there not knowing what to do or say, when she stood and walked (more like floated) up to me.

“My name is Yamashita Kumiko, and I’d like to come with you,” she stated simply.

“What? How do you know where we're going?” I stammered.

“And why do you want to come with us?” Miharu added.

“I have ways of discovering information,” she told me. “And I have my reasons for wanting to join you,” she replied cryptically to Miharu. “I am on the same quest as you and would like to join your party. My magic can be very helpful to you.”

“But how do we know we can trust you?” Miharu protested. “We don't even know you.”

“I don't expect you to trust me. Because you won't know me. I like to keep my life private. But I'm either going to join your party, or I'm going to follow you and let you do all the work. I think you'd benefit from my joining you,” Kumiko answered coolly.

Miharu frowned a bit but didn't persist as her attention was drawn by Taro, who was ordering another pint. She sighed and went to intervene. “This is all you,” she told me.

I didn't know what to do. All I knew was that Kumiko was burning a hole in me with her eyes and I couldn't think. There was something about her that I couldn't quite figure out. And I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Still, she seemed sincere, and a wizard would be very valuable to have along.

“Well, are you ready?” I conceded. “We were just leaving.”

“Yes, I'm ready,” Kumiko said, scooping a small pack that she slung on her back.

“So, um, my name's…” I started but she cut me off.

“I know who you all are. Shall we?” and she started swiftly towards the door. The cats rose and followed her out.

I felt a little disoriented by the whole confrontation, but I just shrugged at Miharu's quizzical look and followed Kumiko out the door. Miharu followed dragging Taro behind her.

“Just one for the road!” he begged.

To Be Continued… Chapter 2:

“On The Road Again For The First Time”

2005-10-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

A BRAVE NEW WORLD”
Recipe from HP

FOR THE TRADITIONALIST:

HAPPY TURKEY DAY -

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Thaw a frozen turkey as per directions on the wrapper. Remove bird from the wrapping, remove innards from bird including the nasty plastic bag and brutal wire stays. Rinse bird inside and out thoroughly, really you can’t rinse it enough. Birds are dirty! Place bird in large roaster or deep pan.

DRESSING

2 bags bread crumbs or cubes

Medium onion, chopped in ½” chunks

2 stalks celery

1 cup coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley

¼ cup melted butter

¼ - ½ cup warm water or chicken broth

Mix dressing ingredients in large bowl, mix in butter then add warm water/broth and mix until bread becomes very moist.

STUFFING THE BIRD

Fill bird with dressing until he or she feels full. Bind up all “openings” with trussing pins and heavy thread or cotton string. (DO NOT USE BLUE RIBBON OR YARN, See Brigitte Jones Diary.

PREPARING TO ROAST

Rub outside of carcass with liberal amount of Crisco, salt and pepper. OPTIONAL: Put 1 can chicken broth in bottom of roaster for steam cooking. Place roaster in oven at 325 degrees & cook for 6 hours. After 6 hours, dressing should be 165 degrees w/ cooking thermometer.

IF IT IS, THE BIRD IS DONE.

If it isn’t 165 degrees, you’re toast, but the bird is not. Cook for 30 addt’l minutes and check dressing temperature again. Keep cooking and checking until dressing is 165 degrees

VOILA! THE BIRD, SHE’S COOKED!

CARVING AND SERVING THE BIRD

Remove dressing from the carcass, set aside. Place the bird on a carving platter.

OPTION 1

Take bird and carving platter to the table and carve bird a la Bill Cosby. That is, in front of all your guests. Great method if you like performance art or you actually know how to carve a roasted turkey without half of it ending up on the floor.

OPTION 2

Carve bird in kitchen and arrange bird pieces on a platter for serving. This method works well if you have squeamish guests. I have seen people faint at the sight of a carcass being hacked to pieces.

A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION

Even if you don’t have pets or other wildlife roaming your house, do not leave the cooked, beautiful bird unattended. It may just fly away. (Remember “A Christmas Story”? rackafrasing Bumpus’s!) If you do have pets, give the little critter a taste or two. Especially kittens, they are nice and deserve some lovin’ ..

NOW, SIT BACK, CHOW DOWN AND ENJOY THE FRUITS OF YOU LABOR.

The Puritan pilgrims (a protestant group protesting Roman Catholic influences in the Church of England) moved to the New World ill-equipped for the rigors of life in the wilderness. Many of them were city-bred and could not see the invisible feast all around them - seafood, fish, wildfowl, game, roots, seeds and berries. Without the help offered to those early colonists by Squanto (of the indigenous Pautuxet tribe), and Chief Massasoit of the neighboring Wampanoags, Thanksgiving, our most American holiday, might not be celebrated today.

- From “Spirit of the Harvest - North American Indian Cooking” - a great read if you are interested in indigenous food.

WILD MUSHROOM STUFFING

1½ cups chopped celery with leaves

3/3 cup finely chopped onion

2 cups mixed mushrooms (shitake, oyster, creminci)

½ cup margarine or butter

9 cups soft bread cubes

1-teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons ground sage

1-teaspoon thyme

1-teaspoon black pepper

Sautee celery, onion and mushrooms in the margarine until celery is tender. Remove from heat. Stir in remaining ingredients. Add water or vegetable broth till mix is moist. Place in an ungreased 2-quart casserole. Cover and bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes.

MASH POTATOES

2-3 white potatoes, sliced or quartered

2 red potatoes cut up into quarters

1/2 carrot, sliced

Boil in water until tender enough to mash. Drain. Mash and add:

1/4 C. cottage cheese.

1 T. olive oil

Handful fresh, smashed basil

(sort of a quickie pesto).

Mix and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Then dotted with butter and garnish with crumbled goat cheese (yes, used three kinds of cheese - but it’s so goooood!!!!).

MOM’S NO- CRUMBLE CORNBREAD

1 C. sifted flour

¼ C. sugar

4 t. baking powder

¾ t. salt

1 C. yellow cornmeal

2 eggs

1 C. milk

¼ soft shortening or oil

Preheat oven to 425. Grease a 9x9x2 pan. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir in cornmeal. In a small bowl, beet eggs with fork, add milk and shortening. Add this mixture all at once to the cornmeal mixture. Stir until just moistened. Batter will be lumpy. Pour into pan and bake 20-25 minutes. Serve hot.

WILSON’S DAD’S

KANSAS CITY FUDGE CAKE

¾ C. sugar

½ C. milk

1 T. butter or margarine

1 C. flour

1 ½ T. cocoa

1 t. baking powder

¼ t. salt

½ C. sugar

½ C. brown sugar

¼ C. cocoa

1 ¼ C. boiling water

Preheat oven to 350. In a square cake pan, cream together sugar, milk, and butter. Mix in Flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix ½ C. sugar, ½ C. brown sugar, and ¼ C. cocoa. Place this mixture on top of what is already in the pan. Then, pour 1 ¼ C. boiling water over all. Bake for 35-40 minutes

2005-10-04T19:21:00.000-07:00

After Dave Savior broke up with me (by more or less telling me that we had never really been together in the first place), Kianti made me put on my old pair of knee-high shitkicker boots and took me out carousing the night away in true single white modern feminist fashion. Imported cigarettes? Check. Hard liquor shots? Check. Ignore all men? Well, I did. Kianti yelled at one guy, spit on another ones hush puppies and got banned from yet another bar in town after throwing her drink on some dick that made fun of her haircut. I don’t think it was so much the drink throwing as the fact that she threatened to light him on fire like a freaking flambé.

We clomped back to her place as the night wound to a close. “Stay here,” she commanded, but I needed home. In case I was destined for a killer hangover the next morning I wanted to be in the comfort of my own surroundings, with my own remedies close at hand. Plus, her place kind of scared me. It wasn’t actually her house; she lived with this really old decrepit man named Daniel who let her stay for free as long as she kept him company and did his shopping for him. At least that was the story this week.

I left my car there, and strode down the street in my big powerful man-stomping boots. This mode of transport, while making me feel large and in charge, took a lot out of me. At one point, I paused in the doorway of a small pet salon, just to make sure my head hadn’t spun off. It was closed of course, but in the window frisked two cats, a large gray lump of a tabby, and a younger, lithe black puss. A sign in the window, when it came into focus, read, “Shelter Cats for Adoption.”

“You’re good kitties aren’t you? Don’t worry,” I bubbled at them through the window, “I’ll come get you tomorrow. No boyfriend, need cats.”

****

I will not miss his smell. He smelled like elephants all the time. Not a nice barn-y smell. Not like hay or even like animals. He smelled like dung.

The breakup of the romance, if you could call it that, didn’t happen all at once. And maybe he was right. Thinking back, we never did really declare ourselves “together” or “an item”. It seemed weird to me at the time how we just merged, but I just assumed that was the way it was suppose to happen, and my past relationships had been the ones in the wrong. We started hanging out at a fundraiser at the Onami Zoo where we both worked - where we still work - he in the elephant house, I in the offices. He was hilarious, sarcastically cutting, and took lip nor shit from anyone. I wanted to be like that, and thought if we hung out, some of his wit would rub off on me.

Dave “My” Savior I called him. The thought made my bile rise. I sprawled on the floor, a sick bad-breath taste in my throat, my head swimming with an unpleasant dizziness. The floor was rough on my cheek and smelled of carpet freshener and socks. I moaned with embarrassment and self-loathing, and though there was no one else in the apartment, I felt a figure standing over me, head shaking back and forth with utter disgust.

“How long have you been there?” it asked.

“I-uh-no, time to get up?”

“You are getting carpet marks on your face.”

“So?”

“You shouldn’t have eaten that garlic bread at the last bar.”

I felt the call of the porcelain god again and crawled to the bathroom. The phone rang, shattering my thoughts with its cricket like trill. I waited for the machine to pick up.

“You have reached this answering machine by dialing the phone. Good for you! If you‘d like to leave a message for Shannon, press one. If you’d rather leave one for Dave, press two because neither of us seems to be able to talk right now. Bye!”

“You get up and change that machine right now. Hey,” it was Kianti. “Pick up. I know you’re there. I’m just going to talk until I use up all your tape so you better drag your sorry ass to the phone. Anyway, so I was talking to this lady Shirley that Daniel knows and she said that the “nation under God” part wasn’t even in the pledge of allegiance until they added it in the fucking fifties. Did you know that? I can’t say that stuff on the air because they beep it out. Well, no they wouldn’t since I run the whole thing myself. Ah the joys of college radio. You should save this tape and maybe I’ll play it on the air anyway. But the station would get fined by the FCC and I’d be off the air and then what would you listen to on your way to hell hu?”

               I heard her pause, no doubt to inhale cigarette smoke. Her slow rambling made me smile. “Why do people insist on decrying modern society and referring to the past as the good ol’ times? Why is nostalgia so blind? I was talking to Shirley about lard sandwiches. Can you imagine?  Lard sandwiches.” I didn’t want to imagine, and I started to crawl back to the living room. “The past is like nature. People have this preconceived notion that nature is some wonderful Disney movie where the squirrels frolic and the birds do nothing but twitter and eat seeds all day. We caught some of this PBS special about a primitive island where these birds get all tangled in the spiny branches of these trees, and the trees actually kill them while trying to attach seed pods to them.  God this is a long tape.”

“Machines don’t use tape anymore,” I finally reached the phone.

“Mine does. I called earlier but you didn’t answer. Are you hung over?”

“No, I was just sleeping late.”

“Do you want me to come over? I know you’re still torn up about that jackass Dave.”

“He is a jackass.”

“He’s a fucker. I’m coming over.”

I began to feel better at the though, and after a shower, I really was fine. My stomach was still churning, so I threw a few antacids at it. I sucked on them as I dressed.

****

Kiante and I sat on the floor of my apartment. There wasn’t much going on in the place with Dave’s stuff all moved out. Second floor of a three floor apartment building, ratty stinky tan carpet, some family photos hung carefully on nails with a few noticeable gaps where I’d taken down photos of him. No boy-clothes, no boy-bathroom gear, no huge hulking stereo system, just my little TV / VCR combo that I’d had since I left college five years previous.

I was digging though a shoebox of very painful papers. Journals and notes and letters that Dave and I had exchanged or little things I had written down that now documented the inevitable collapse of our relationship.

“Listen to this - from my journal. ‘I only want not to be a bother to him. He only wants to upset me like a glass of water. And I’ll take it all like and old whipped horse because I fucking love him so fucking much. I want him to tell me how to act so that I can make him happy.’ ”

I looked over at Kianti, who squinted at me. “I kind of want to hit you right now,” she said. “That is awful. How could you say that?”

“Well, I didn’t say it, I wrote it. I felt it, that’s for sure. I still feel that way.”

Kianti reached out and did hit me, then stood up and went to the window. “So what do you want to do? Do you want to burn all that stuff? Do you want to burn it on his lawn?”

I clutched the shoebox. “No, that always ends badly, like that lady ranger who burned up half of California after she started a wildfire by burning her boyfriend’s old photo.”

“I think it was Wyoming but yeah, I guess you’re right. But you can’t read them any more; it’s not good for you.”

“Here’s one from him: ’I felt at times you were intruding on my life.’ Uh, hello, you came to me, buddy!”

“Whatever, “she looked around. “You know what you need is a pet. This place is perfect for a pet. You have tons of room and…”

“Hey!” I brightened, “I met some cats last night!”

“’Cats.’ What the hell are you now, a beatnik?”

“No, kitty cats, and I told them I’d go get them today.” In a fit of spontaneity I said, “Let’s go get me a cat!”

I stood up and wobbled a bit, the shoebox tumbling from my hands to spill its contents onto the floor. I started to reach down to right it, when Kianti kicked it across the floor. Her boot crumpled the side of the box and sent the letters

Belching forth everywhere. I felt a tightness in my chest for a moment and let out a sobbing little gasp.

“What did you do that for?”

Valentines, birthday cards, and even a few notes that he’d just left on my car windshield with “See you tonight” scribbled across it in his crappy handwriting lay there like little naked corpses. Kianti picked one up. “I didn’t know he wrote you poems.”

“Rose petals fall like drops of blood

Upon the smooth, warm snow of your skin

The prick of Sleeping Beauty’s spinning wheel

Makes woodland creatures flee.

I am the woodchopper come to save you,

Not the prince.

I will free you,

And place my own heart in the queen’s box. “

She paused. “Okay, so that’s wicked.”

“He wrote poetry like Ed Wood made films,” I said. “’I’ll cut out my heart and present it to you in a basket adorned with kisses from my lips, which I have also cut off.’ Stuff like that. He was just making fun of me.”

I plucked the poem from her grasp, folded it and slipped it into my shirt pocket. In one smooth movement, she removed it again and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans, then quickly exited the apartment.

I glanced at the mess on the floor, then followed after her. “You’d better not read that on the air,” I called, shutting the door behind me.

2005-08-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

BELLE LETTRe

A Belle the Cat Production * Summer 2005 * Volume Two * Issue Two

A word from S. Morgan, editor

“F I N D”

I am analytical. When I have a decision to make, I want to concentrate on it, weight all options and choose as wisely as I am able. If I don’t think I have enough information, I can put aside a purchase or trip for years, even if it isn’t life changing or even seemingly that important. I will pour over Consumer Reports, research numerous websites, talk to people and visit stores or dealerships in my quest for everything from a new car to an environmentally friendly cut of fish.

In some ways, it’s the proverbial burden / curse. I am careful, I am more or less accurate, and once I reach my decision, 9 times out of 10 I am happy. But I must admit that I am inherently lazy and would so much rather think my way out of a situation than practice at it. This makes me annoying as hell to play golf with. I have such a hard time giving in to making costly and time consuming mistakes. I stand there on the tee

keeping my eye on that little white ball, determining just where to hold my club, which elbow to bend, how far back to swing, holding my head just so, judging the wind and the distance and the thickness of the grass and how close I am to water hazard and the trees, that by the time I’m ready to take my first practice swing, the rest of my party makes me desert my post to let the impatient group behind me play through.

After I reach my decision, I don’t take well to criticism. I worked hard to finally get to the point where I could comfortably buy this fillet of tilapia, damn it, who are you to tell me grouper tastes better!

Why do I do this? Who knows? There is an inane and stubborn part of me that believes, however foolishly, that life should not be easy. I make things hard on myself, but I also can’t admit that I make things harder than they have to be. Timesaving devices can be grand, progress can be helpful, and some things really are as simple as they seem. Still, it seems that a lot of things I took for granted at one time - clean lakes to splash in, fresh omelets for breakfast etc. have been overlooked by too many people, and suddenly I’m affected, with sewage-ladened water and runny, thin shelled factory farmed eggs.

Okay, so how can I find the right path? How can I make sure that the things I am spending so much time thinking about are not a waste of my efforts and resources? Again I must plead ignorance. There are a huge multitude of choices a person is given each day and, like butterfly wings fanning typhoons, they can all be traced to an eventual end. I am intrigued by people who seem to be able to make the right decision in a snap, or to choose the correct path to lead their troops or followers down. That is one of the traits that makes a good leader, and that is what this world is sorely lacking - people not only with the courage to lead their followers down the path, but with the talent to see down those paths to the end.

Belle Lettre – Volume II, Issue 2. July 2005. All material contained within remains the property of the creators, copyrighted at creation. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. Readers assume responsibility for actions or decisions they make as a result of reading this publication. Prose, poetry, artwork, comics and photography are always being accepted. Send to Belle the Cat productions 1508 Lincoln Ave. Lakewood, OH 44107, goatmaiden@uwalumni.com

or go to the website: bellelettre.blogspot.com

Submission does not guarantee publication. Belle Lettre reserves the right to edit all material for clarity, length and content.

Originals will not be returned without a self addressed, stamped envelope.

2005-08-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

The Killing Fields

The Dark Side of Conservation

Once upon a time, I had dreams of saving the world. This was before I realized that the Earth doesn’t need saving, but I think it does deserves protection to keep it in a state of recognition. Perhaps it is “natural” that the animals with the biggest brains are overrunning the planet. But I decided that I would rather live in a sustainable way, fighting to keep the Earth in a condition that supports freedom and freshwater muscles alike.

And it is a fight. There is a dark side to keeping wild areas wild, and I’m talking about more than just the primitive horrors of predator/prey relationships. On Saturday May 21, I headed one hour southeast of my house into the bright morning sunlight to enlist in the Nature Conservancy natural guard. I joined the Nature Conservancy in 2003 in part because a couple of conservationist I truly respect always had NC literature in their bathroom. I’d read the “Landmarks” quarterly report, a newsletter that contained a paragraph for each state highlighting some major land acquisition or partnership that had recently been formed. I did some research and determined that the organization was one I wanted to support.

I tried two other times to volunteer to remove what are known as invasive species from Nature Conservancy protected areas, but each time I had either gotten lost or arrived too late. This time I was late, but thanks to the poisonous concoctions being mixed in the gavel parking lot, the crew had not yet ventured into the reserve known as Herrick Fen.

We had enough volunteers so that people got to choose which invasive they wanted to help eradicate. The buckthorn people were armed with “The Glove of Death” which went like this: a cotton glove was worn over a rubber glove. The volunteer dribbled a blood-red concoction onto the outer glove, soaking it in concentrated Round-Up. They would then sneak up on the unsuspecting buckthorn, a bushy weed that takes over wetlands from the meeker natives, and coat the base of the stem with the poison

The rest of us were fitted with Ghostbuster-like backpacks equipped with sprayers and filled with a blue version of the same chemical. It was mellower than the red and was approved for application near water. The target of our troop was canary grass, a broad-leafed plant that takes over an area of marsh, bog or fen and turns it into a monoculture. In other words, a very nice looking, if not overgrown, lawn. We spritzed the tops of the leaves, raining a toxic shower over them that was then funneled down and delivered to the roots.

You have to believe that you are on the right side when you are out killing things, even just plants. Two college girls where obviously not comfortable with using poison, even if it was for the greater good. One girl claimed she could taste the blue spray in her lungs, and later mumbled to her friend “I don’t feel that I’m conserving, do you?”
But war is never a feel-good, fuzzy thing. It’s work. There are uncertainties. There are doubts that even the seasoned veterans admit. When we sat down for lunch, it was interesting to note that not everyone was eating organic, fair trade, vegan fare (though everyone did bring their lunch in a reusable or recycled bag). A lady joked that she brought some wine and one man said “vineyards are very polluting and erode the land. They also use up a lot of water.” Everyone paused, contemplating this, until the lady said, “yeah, well, that could be said about just about anything now a days.”

2005-08-07T09:42:00.000-07:00

THE SHELF

Eclectic review….

“Understanding Comics”

By Scott McCloud

Book

There is a book that keeps staring at me from the library shelves (in my local library, they put the graphic novels right at the entrance so you can’t help but see them when you come in.) Anyway, it’s called “Understanding Comics,” and it has this little goggle-eyed guy on the front that just seems to be looking through you in a vaguely patronizing way. Once you start to read the book you realize that he isn’t so vague.

The author, Scott McCloud, has taken way too much of his time to explain how comics work and why they should be considered an art form. I’m not saying he doesn’t have some good things to say, but he rambles in a way that is utterly distracting and unnecessary in a genre that relies on pictures to get a point across. Pretty much he says, “comics are more than DC and Marvel.” Yes, who doesn’t know that? Probably not anyone who would pick up your book. It did make me want to start writing my comics again, thought.

“Black Devil Doll from Hell”

Movie

Bad, bad, bad, hilariously bad. The title alone makes me laugh. This tinny piece of shot-on-video schlock is about as cheep as they get. If you can stand sitting through the excruciatingly long and boring non-puppet scenes, the laughs you’ll receive may be worth your while.

After our prudish and puggish heroine, Helen, adopts a crude Blaxploitative dummy, he comes to life, conks her on the head, and ravishes her in a raunchy, jive-speak filled bedroom scene. Helen is reborn as a badass, throws Jesus out the window, and takes to whoring herself around town. While this video may seem to be a smirking morality tale, the real moral of the story is do not EVER purchase a ventriloquist’s dummy, especially a used one, and especially if you have been warned that it is CURSED. But hey, when you rent a movie called Black Devil Doll from Hell, you’re probably not looking for Matrix-ian plotlines.

“Three Men in a Boat”

Jerome K. Jerome

Book

Published in 1889, you might think that this slim volume is nothing more than an anachronistic trifle. In part you’d be right, but after you get through the first chapter and into the swing of the very readable text, you too may find yourself chuckling out loud at the adventures of George, William Harris and the author J. during their boat ride down the river.

The story starts with our narrator deciding after reading a book at the British Museum that he has contracted every single disease ever discovered save housemaids knee. His doctor writes him a prescription that reads:

“1 lb. beefsteak with

1 pint bitter beer every 6 hours.

1 ten mile walk every morning,

1 bed at 11:00 p.m. every night…………

and don’t stuff your head

with things you don’t understand.”

This is simply the most wonderful recipe for living a simple life in any age.

Each chapter starts by telling you exactly what will happen in the following pages, such as

“Capter 3 - Arrangements settled - Harris’s method of doing work - How the elderly family-man puts up a picture - George makes a sensible remark - Delights of early morning bathing - Provisions for getting upset.”

And lest you believe that such description leads to some Pollyanna, Jane Austin-esque sap, this quote might change your mind: “Camping in rainy weather is not pleasant... Rainwater is the chief article of diet at supper. The bread is two thirds rainwater, the beefsteak pie is exceedingly rich in it and the jam and the butter and the salt and the coffee have all combined with it to make soup.”

Each chapter has pages and pages of read-aloud humor on such topics as “Advantages of cheese as a traveling companion,” “Cussedness of toothbrushes,” “I forget that I am steering - Interesting result,” “How Harris sings a comic song (“Harris never sees what an ass he is making of himself and how he is annoying a lot of people who never did him any harm”) and “Difficulties in the way of the musical amateur” (“you want to be in good health to play the bagpipes”.) Plus, add to this the fact that one of the characters is a dog, a detail you may fail to realize until well into the first half of the book, and you have what may just be one of the great historical pieces of British comedy, or at least a great summer read.

“A Nun in the Closet”

Dorthy Gilman

Book

Two nuns set off from the incredibly cloistered Abby of St. Tabitha to explore a mansion mysteriously bequeathed to their order. Sister Hyacinth is pessimistic, her main talent lying in exploring the herbal properties of various plants, where as Sister John is optimistic, personable and “terribly brave.” After discovering a man with three bullet wounds hiding in the closet (whom they christen Sister Ursula), a large quantity of money in a suitcase down a well, and jars of “sugar” in the pantry, they begin to wonder if the generous donation is a blessing or a curse.

Even more interesting than the goofy mystery of naive nuns discovering a crime is the addition of the group of hippies living out of their van just down the road from the mansion. There’s Brill and his book of radical thought, Naomi and her chickens, their guru Bhanjan Singh, and Alfie, who near the end of the book explains why, despite his college education, he decided to forgo a paycheck to grow beans. “We’re leftovers from the 60s, from assassinations and an undeclared war. We’ve been shot at and we’ve been clubbed and we’ve been arrested… And the hell of it is we were right about the hypocrisy and the corruption. It’s terrifying to be right before you’re even old enough to vote.” Published in 1975, it is terrifying to realize that these problems still exist 30 years later.

2005-08-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

Dragon Warrior III

A transcription by TEA

Introduction:

“The New Hero of Aliahan”

“Hiro! Time to get up and go!”

I peeled my eyelids back into my head and looked up to find my mother bustling about laying out my clothes.

“Mom, I can do that…” I started to say, but she just waved her hands and shook her head and made little ‘mom’ noises at me.

“Hurry up and get dressed. I want you to have breakfast before you go,” she said and hustled out the door.

I just smiled after her and stretched.

As I came down stairs there was a knock at the door.

“Come in!!” I shouted.

“Hiro! Don’t be rude; answer the door,” Mom scolded me.

“It’s just Miharu,” I protested.

“Yeah, It’s just me,” Miharu said sarcastically. “Happy Birthday, kid,” she said, messing up my hair.

“Oh, please! You’re what? Three months older than me?” I argued, fixing my hair.

“That’s still older,” Miharu laughed and seated herself at the table for breakfast.

Miharu came to breakfast every day. We had been best friends since before we could remember. It was only recently that I had noticed she had breasts, which was kind of a let down. I had always considered her as a cool dude with long blonde hair. She thinks I’m just being silly, but I feel like her protective brother now.

“So are you ready for your big day?” Miharu asked.

“Sure,” I said nonchalantly. "I've been to the palace before. I’ve even met the King before… with my father…"

“Oh, listen to Mr. Cool over here,” Miharu teased. “Come on, you don’t want to be late.”

We didn’t talk much on the way to the palace. I guess Miharu knew I really was a little nervous. As we walked through the halls and towards the stairs, we were bombarded by young fighter trainees asking Miharu for tips and training sessions. I just shook my head in awe. How the scrawny little neighbor girl came to be one of the best fighters in the palace guard was beyond my comprehension.

“I got it from here,” I told her and she let the wave of trainees wash her away. I climbed the stairs to the throne room where the guards nodded at me and swung the huge, ornate doors open.

“Announcing Kojima Masahiro, son of the Great Hero of Aliahan: Kojima Ortega,” a booming voice filled the grand throne room.

I immediately bowed to one knee until I was instructed to enter. Then I made the walk down the plush carpet to the foot of the throne and bowed again.

“Your Majesty…” I started to say but the King hopped, literally hopped, down from the throne and told me to rise.

“Oh that’s enough official-ness! Let me have a look at you. My you’ve grown! You look just like your father,” the energetic old King said.

All I could manage was an awkward “Thank you, your Majesty.”

“Hiro, now that you’re eighteen, I need to tell you,” the King suddenly became serious. “There are a few things you don’t know about your father… He was my friend and, well, he did not die as you were told.”

I knew it! I was told that he had been battling a dragon on a volcano. When he slew the dragon, it dragged him into the volcano’s mouth. It was a very brave sounding death, but I could never really let myself believe it.

“He was sent, on my orders, to defeat Baramos. I was a fool to have let him go alone. Your friend Miharu’s father was going to go with him, but that was when he fell ill. Ortega refused to travel with anyone else,” the King fell silent for a moment and shook his head. “We’ve heard reports of Ortega passing through almost every castle and town in The Realm of Light on his quest,” the King continued quietly. “However, Baramos still threatens this land.”

Still standing on the carpet before the king’s throne, I shifted my weight anxiously.

“Kojima Masahiro,” the King said in a stately voice, “As King of Aliahan, I hereby place upon thee the title of Hero,” he unsheathed his sword, and I bowed my head. But instead of knighting me as I thought he would, he swung it around and presented it to me, pommel first. Stunned, I reached out and slid my numb fingers around the handle. “And as Hero, you are commissioned to seek out and defeat Baramos.”

The King placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Good luck, son.”

Abruptly, he turned and left the room. An attendant gave me a pouch that chinked like gold pieces, and told me something about meeting ‘my party’ at Luisa’s Place in the village. My ears buzzing with excitement,
I barely heard him.

“Hey, Hero Hiro!” Miharu called as she caught up to me in on the way out the palace.

I laughed at my ‘new’ title. “Leave it to you, Miharu, to bring me right back to reality.”

“I always knew this was going to happen. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited to be able to say that?” she asked seriously.

“How long?”

“FOREVER!” she shouted.

We laughed and made our way towards town.

“We have to go to Luisa’s Place to meet our party,” I told her. And in response to the raised eyebrow I got from her, I said, “Oh come on, I know you’re coming along. That’s a given.”

She just smiled and shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“I wonder what they’ll be like,” I said. Famous last words…

To be continued…

Chapter 1: “Let’s Get This ‘Party’ Started!”

2005-08-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

“A BRAVE NEW WORLD”

Recipe from HP -

Come summer, your thoughts may turn to the great out doors and all it has to offer: hiking, backpacking, camping. A staple food of such backcountry exploits is the all purpose beef jerky. Use it for sustenance, use it as bait, use it to mend a hole in your boot. But many would-be hot weather pioneers find the cost of said jerky prohibitive. Therefore, may we suggest:

HOME CURED BEEF JERKY

2# FROZEN London broil steak, thawed ‘til just crunchy

10 Dried Indian peppers, crushed

¼ tsp. Cracked black pepper

2 tsp. Garlic powder

4 oz. Worcestershire sauce

4 oz. Low-sodium soy sauce

1 Tbs. Liquid Smoke flavoring

3 Sliced scallions or “to taste”

Slice London broil against the grain with an electric knife. Slice should be approx 1/8” thick. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a food processor. Don’t take a deep inhale of this, it’s pretty abrasive on the nasal passages.

Put thawed meat in a large heavy duty zip loc bag. Pour liquid from food processor on top of the meat. Seal bag, releasing most of the air. Mush the meat and liquid together with your hands until meat is covered with the liquid goodness.

Marinate for at least 6 hours in the fridge. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can mush the meat/liquid combo after 3-4 hours to redistribute the goodness.

Set oven to warm, place aluminum foil over top of both oven racks. Place wire racks, the kind you use to cool cookies, on top of the foil. Use tongs or long fork to carefully organize marinated meat on the cookie racks. Meat should be one layer thick…it is A-OK if the slices of meat touch!

Keep oven on warm, let “cook” overnight or for at least 8 hours. Keep oven door open a crack so steam, from the liquid goodness can escape. Setting the oven on warm allows the meat to dehydrate and the liquid goodness to impart wonderful flavors in the dried meat.

Store in airtight container. Jerky keeps for up to a year. Let me know if you can keep it around that long. One batch usually lasts a day or two at our home! ENJOY!!

2005-08-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

More from the Mad Cow Cookbook -

FRIED EGG CHILI SAUCE

AND CHUTNEY SANDWICH

Inspired by the taste treat described in the British comedy Red Dwarf, and motivated by the need to find a use for Mom's homemade peach and cranberry chutney, I discovered that this sandwich was much more than just “a cross between food and bowel surgery.” It actually tasted good!

I just wish there were more things in the world to eat chutney with. It’s such an exciting food. It would taste extra good with cream cheese on crackers (and perhaps just a touch of hot sauce).

Butter

2 Eggs

Pepper

2 Slices white bread

1 T. Chili sauce

2 T. Chutney

Fry eggs in hot buttered fry pan until the yolk is cooked through. Pepper to taste. Top one slice of bread with eggs. Spoon chutney onto eggs, top with chili sauce. Place other slice of bread on top and attempt to eat before the sauce dissolves the bread.

Add-ons:

Second slice of bread (placed between eggs)

1 slice sharp cheddar cheese (on top of eggs)

1 tsp. mayonnaise (on bottom slice of bread)

Defibrillator (apply to chest)

2005-08-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

ADVENTURES Eating across portlandia

5/14/2005

Notes from the in-flight magazine:

Sake no sakana = nibbles to have with sake.
Tsukeru = to soak in a bath (to be pickled).

Observations from 30,000 feet:

We accept that clouds exist, are real, just “are”. But imagine being an alien looking for the first time at these immaterial castles towering into the heavens, these wispy demons darting over the horizon. Has the makeup of clouds changed throughout the years?

Hills look soft from above, irrigation turning green crop circles in the fields, and the mountains are merely crackled earth that cast shadows.

Octogenarian Passenger sitting next to me, watching the badly computer animated flight safety video: “Ooh he’s an attractive fellow. He’s got a square head that one has!”

***

My first day in Portland Oregon was exhausting but amazing. I was whisked in a rental car to the artsy area of Alberta Street. A festival/parade/sidewalk sale was in full swing, and I was lured like a child of Hamlin to follow the band March Forth as they rollicked their way down the street. March Forth is a new-age marching band consisting of trumpets, trombones, saxophones, drums, a bassist, dancers, and stilt walkers in colorful modern industrial gypsy-cum-goth garb. And they are as impressive as all get out.

The street was an amalgamation of cafes and ethnic restaurants interspersed with a few pubs, along with art galleries and shops. One storefront I stopped in, like a building out of Brigadoon, did not seem to be altogether there. There was a patio which led you straight through the fourth wall and into a gallery. If you wanted a smoothie, you had to exit the building and order out of an ancient Airstream camper in the back.

Later that same day, I sampled a Fat Tire beer which was quite tasty. I did not try the “Pabstini,” a concoction that, according to the diagram on the wall, consist of Pabst beer with olives floating in it (Oregonians appear to have somewhat of an obsession with PBR). At a small restaurant, I had some uninspiring Spanish fare that consist of a small plate of chopped peppers, cilantro leaves, and sliced tomato served with pickled cactus strips, rubbery tortillas and runny salsa. Add to that the tiny wine glass of a Margarita and one might think the place was a bust. Still, my friend had a tasty fried tortilla stacked with refried beans, grilled marinated chicken, thinly shredded cabbage, tomato, salsa and sour cream that she graciously shared with me that more than made up for my skimpy meal.

5/15 - From a book in our host’s house:

“Power is the currency of social exchange.”

***

While in Portland, a part of me felt like I was a little bit of everywhere: my friend’s house in the Wisconsin countryside, Madison’s Willy Street neighborhood, Cleveland’s Coventry, Washington DC, and yet, it is somewhere else entirely. The birds sing a different song.

My second day started with a meal at a trendy hidden breakfast nook, where I am sure my goat cheese and mushroom omelet was just lovely, but it was overshadowed by the story I was told by my host about the Infamous Pizza Bandit of Salt Lake City. We moved on from there to Paul’s Books, a truly awesome store where I discovered the inspirational tome of dirty paper folds, “Pornigami.” We lunched at Salvador Molly’s, a pirate themed tapas bar known for it’s Great Balls of Fire - eat five of these habanero cheese fritters with the sauce and get your picture on he Wall of Flame. We also climbed Mt. Tabor, a park that is actually an extinct volcano but that looks more like a lookout bluff. However, all the benches set around that normally would look out over sweeping vistas or over the skyline of the city, had their views interrupted by the ever-present trunks of pine trees. That night we played pool and drank more Northwestern brews; Top Down was terrible and tasted of mold (may have been just a bad line leading from keg to bar), but Moose Drool was full of heavy, malty goodness, and Rainer Beer was just as good only lighter. Ended the night tipsy, listening to jazz at Laurel Thirst (in the Laurel Hurst community, another indication of the quirky humor of the city) and drinking Shiner Bok.

5/16 - Book made into a movie recommendation: Off the Map by Joan Akerman

***

Started with a sumptuous breakfast of smoked salmon, mozzarella, scallions, green onion and tomato omelets with a slice of avocado, toast, coffee and orange juice made by our awesome host. Visited the Oregon Zoo where we saw a Stellar’s sea lion that was as big as a whale. Then on to the Japanese Gardens, which were very nice. The funny thing was that, where a bench sat for meditative purposes, it always looked out onto some strange and interruptive object. Near a bubbling brook and a pair of beautiful stone lanterns, a water spigot sprouted. In a hidden grove of gently swaying trees, a sign directing one to “STAY ON PATH” blighted the area. Add this to the Tabor Park benches, and I think the city’s Manager In Charge of Views must have been laid off. Still, as one meditates on the intrusive items, one may glean some inspirational insight (and actually, the sign held a deep message).

We failed to find an affordable seafood restaurant or any of the fabled floating homes of the area. We settled on Thai food and munched up some delicious tempura veggies and shrimp while we waited. The shrimp curry was sweet and spicy with green and red peppers, curry leaves, lemon grass, coconut, and at touch of orange. We ate it with a wonderfully mismatched bottle of red wine.

2005-04-14T04:28:00.001-07:00

BELLE LETTRe

A Belle the Cat Production * Spring 2005 *

Volume Two * Issue One

A word from S. Morgan, editor

“ENGAGE”

When spring arrives, I find myself in a constant state of goal setting. I resolve to get his ‘zine out on time, I resolve to expand my writing output and submit to more publications, I resolve to volunteer. I am committed to a few chosen political causes and resolve to do what I can to make my voice heard and my opinions known to those I feel can create the change I seek.

Spring also brings the desperate crying for good weather, for green grass, for the return of migrating birds, for a clean car to road trip in, and for Spring Break escapes.

I stand in the center of this blender of all things spring, in the eye of a whirling tornado of crocuses, fresh fruit, warm breezes, April rain, and spidery tendrils of new ivy. I carefully reach out and pluck a just-opened daffodil; planning my move with the utmost care to be sure I don’t fall upon the spinning blades, like the sharp disks that turn the soil and plow the furrows into which the seeds of possibility are sown.

Okay, so I guess the tornado is mixing up my metaphors as well…

Anyway, this would be the one year anniversary issue of Belle Lettre. Woo-hoo! So what does it all mean? I’m sure I don’t know, just like I don’t know why someone would want to nail fish heads to a telephone post. The cover photograph and the one above were taken in Dakota Minnesota, next to the Mississippi River. I did not nail the fish heads there, I don’t know who did. Is it art? Is it an altar to the fish gods? Is it a warning, a trophy display, the product of someone with nothing better to do?

New to this issue are recipes - yes, recipes! - from the Mad Cow Cookbook. This is the working title of a project I’ve been playing with for a while now. It has its roots in a trip my friend and I took to the British Isles in 1999, at the height of the Hoof and Mouth / Mad Cow hysteria. She and I made a pact not to eat any bangers, kidney pie, or other red meat containing foods. Seeing a pyre of burning sheep carcasses will turn you off to that sort of thing. We pretty much held to our promise, and it made me realize that there are a lot of people out there cutting red meat from their diets, either for ethical or health related reasons. Please let me know what you think at goatmaiden@uwalumni.com.

Special thanks to this issues contributors: DMV, Nicka.

2005-04-14T04:28:00.000-07:00

MANGO BOY

He looked down at the bin of mangos and picked one up. I watched as he weighed it in his hand; it seemed nice and heavy. He looked at it; it was just the right shade of creamy yellow. He squeezed it; it was just firm enough. But then he looked down at the bin filled with hundreds of other mangos, and he set the first one down. He picked a second one up, it was too soft. He picked up a third, it was too green. And it went on like this for quite some time; one was too small, another too ripe. Finally, he went back to the first one, picked it up and put it in his basket.

Then I picked one up. I weighed it in my hand; it was nice and heavy. I looked at it; it was just the right shade of orange. I squeezed it; it was just soft enough. And I looked down at the bin of hundreds of other mangos and I realized I was happy with the first one I’d chosen. I put it in my basket.

The moral of this little observation was of course that I don’t have time to sit around squeezing mangos all day. I think Mango Boy enjoyed the thrill of the hunt.

2005-04-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

THE SHELF - review

“Kitchen”

by Banana Yoshimoto

Book

I received “Kitchen” from a friend who encouraged me to pass it on when I was done.

“Here,” said Lily, with a quirky grin, “this is a strange little book. I don’t want it back.”

Hmm.

Intrigued, I took it from Madison, Wisconsin to Lakewood, Ohio and read it.

Hmm.

The book has uneven pages and a curious way of wanting to fold in half and jump into your pocket. It consists of two stories, one much longer than the other. I can’t say exactly what they were about; characters drift in and out like forest spirits in a Hayao Miyazaki cartoon. There were some sad things, some orange things, good food, um, dreams.

Anyway, it seemed like it was a book that would do well in the wild. If for no other reason than the fact that the author’s first name is “Banana” and there is a cute girl on the cover. As part of the social experiment of either spreading literacy (or litter) instigated by BookCrossing.com, I released it.

2005-04-14T04:26:00.001-07:00

THE SHELF - review

“Dog Soldiers”

Movie

This is an only somewhat scary, but well-crafted, werewolf flick from England. The movie starts out with an extraneous murder at a campsite, and then switches to a helicopter dumping six army guys into the woods. The movie takes great pains to set the soldiers up as individuals so you really don’t know whose going to bite it next - in other words, none of them have the Star Trek “red shirt” syndrome. The soldiers soon find out that they’re not just playing war games after they find another group of soldiers – special ops – who’ve been attacked. After rescuing the only survivor, a baddie named Captain Ryan, the blood really starts to flow.

All the characters, including a lady zoologist, end up in a house in the woods trying to fight off unbeatable enemies. “Gritty” is a good way to describe this film, but plot holes and more than a few clichés make it difficult to fully embrace. The person I was watching it with figured out the “twist” way ahead of time. The DVD has a lot of extras, including a “making of” section, which will let you see the monsters up close. It was cool to hear the director’s vision – if only he had been able to completely achieve it.

2005-04-14T04:26:00.000-07:00

THE SHELF - review

“Pudd’nhead Wilson”

By Mark Twain

Book

To keep her son from being “sold down the river,” Roxy, a woman 1/16 black, devises a way for her son to grow up with all the privileges of 1830s white society. But questions as to underlying nature of the boy, born Valet de Chambres and now called Tom, soon arise.

David “Pudd’nhead” Wilson is a well-educated man who found a place in Dawson’s Landing, Missouri, not as a small town attorney, but as the local curiosity. He earned his nickname and his reputation as a pudd’nhead due to his strange and frivolous hobby of fingerprinting his friends and neighbors, keeping the glass slides carefully labeled and filed.

The joining of Wilson’s eccentricities with a murder mystery concerning Tom comes late. To modern day readers, the way the murder is solved will not come as a surprise. Still, with forensic fingerprinting techniques traceable back to between 1850-80 it makes for an interesting enough piece of history, recorded with care and style by Twain.

The most amusing and enduring portions of the book are the random quotes taken from Wilson’s calendar. They include nuggets of wisdom such as “keep all your eggs in one basket… and watch that basket!”

As slim a volume as this book is, it takes a while to read. Roxy’s speech, written in Twain’s famous dialect spelling, can make you set aside a whole afternoon just to grope your way through. But if you find your lips moving don’t worry. Each word is important, and there is little in each short chapter that is not necessary and interesting.

I found Roxy to be the most compelling character. Her life in and out of slavery is one of a mother trying to do right, a woman trying to live her life, and an unfortunate pawn in the manipulative world that judges her only by her lineage.

2005-04-14T04:25:00.000-07:00

THE SHELF - review

“Bloodsucking Freaks”

Movie

Though this classic of Z-grade late-night horror lives up to its reputation as one of the most repulsive films ever made, it’s not as entertaining as it may first sound. Master Sardu runs an underground theatre of the macabre, playing out horrendous acts of sadism on his naked, zombie-like actresses. But is it all an act? Of course not! Sardu and his midget companion are in the white slavery racket, sending brainwashed chicks around the world in giant shipping crates. Those he doesn’t sell he, or one of his lackeys, kills on stage (one example is the famous blond-getting-her-brains-sucked-out scene.) They also kill them for fun and keep some in a cage. The plot concerns Sardu’s attempt to get a real “artiste” to use in his show, and he latches on to a ballerina named Natasha. Her boyfriend Tom must then learn the gory details of Sardu’s show, and try to rescue her. But I’m sure most people watch it for the naked women and the badly performed acts of brutality, neither of which are really exciting or frightening. It could upset your stomach if you’re not ready for it. The guillotine scene was actually the most shocking - makes you wonder how messed up the person who made this movie was.

2005-04-14T04:24:00.002-07:00

Be a brave Cook

I have always loved food. I haven’t always enjoyed the many steps it takes to make food. Eating is the easy part. To make your own home-cooked meal, you have to be brave.

1. The first step in accepting the challenge of making food that doesn’t come in a heat ‘n serve microwavable container is realizing that you will make mistakes. Some will be large. My sister went down in our family’s history as the one who couldn’t make instant pudding. In case you were not aware, instant pudding has three steps - add milk, mix and serve. Somewhere between steps 2 and 3, she added too much milk and a packet of gelatin, then set it on the stove to boil.

2. Realize that you may waste food. This was the hardest step for me to accept. Most of the time, buying and making your own meals will save money. But if you destroy a huge batch of bread or burn a few dozen cookies, it can make you wary of trying again for a while. Give yourself time to recuperate, realize that a bag of flour is less expensive than an extra value meal, and try again.

The best way to come to a Zen like acceptance of the fact that you’ve tried your best and failed is to attempt to eat a serving of whatever you messed up. I ruined a batch of rice pudding once by adding a handful of cranberries that curdled the milk. I only had to choke down a spoonful of the lumpy mess before tossing it. Sometimes, what you make doesn’t even get to the tasting stage, like the sourdough starter that oozed out of its plastic bag, out of the bread box and onto the not-too-clean floor. Scoop it up, write off the expense and throw it out.

3. Sometimes it is frustrating. When a cookbook, in black and white, tells you to turn the oven up to 425 degrees and bake for a half an hour, you may feel a bit betrayed when your sugar cookies come out looking like hockey pucks. Make a note in the margins of the recipe to “set temp at 350 and check after 10 minutes.” Then move on.

Just like a football game, accept the 24-hour rule. You can talk about the wilted overcooked stir fry you made, or revel in the perfect angelfood cake that will probably never be duplicated, but after a day, you’ll be hungry and it will be time to make breakfast again.

2005-04-14T04:24:00.001-07:00

Recipe from the Mad Cow Cookbook Scalloped Eggs (good use for left over Easter Eggs)

8 T. (one stick) butter or margarine

3. C. breadcrumbs

8 hardboiled eggs, pealed and sliced

Salt and pepper

½ t. nutmeg

1 ½ C. milk

Preheat oven to 400. Melt butter in a microwave safe bowl. Mix in crumbs. Sprinkle ½ crumbs in a 9 or 10” pie plate. Spread eggs on top. Top with salt, pepper and half of the nutmeg. Pour milk over the top. Top with rest of breadcrumbs and rest of seasonings. Bake 25 minutes.

2005-04-14T04:24:00.000-07:00

Recipe from the Mad Cow Cookbook Fish Stew

1 C. diagonally sliced carrots

½ C. sliced onion

½ t. dill

2 T. butter or margarine

1 can condensed cream of celery soup

½ can milk

1 lb. white fish cut into 2” pieces

Cooked rice

In a skillet, cook carrots and onion with dill and butter until just tender. Add soup, milk and fish. Simmer 10 minutes or until done. Stir occasionally. Thin stew with more milk if necessary. Serve over rice.

2005-04-14T04:23:00.000-07:00

Recipe from the Mad Cow Cookbook Beer Bread

1 12 oz. can beer, room temperature

3 C. self-rising flour*

3 T. sugar

2 T. melted butter or margarine

(* to make one pound of self rising flour, mix 4 C. flour, 2 T. salt and 2 T. baking powder. Baking powder looses its “power,” so use soon. Can be stored in a tightly closed jar or can)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9”x4” loaf pan. Mix beer, flour and sugar. Pour into pan. Pour melted butter over top of batter. Bake for 1 hr. and serve immediately.

2005-04-14T04:21:00.000-07:00

Beware Poet Crossing

Walking down the street.

Wearing heavy sandals, cheep.

I have had one Parliament cigarette,

I stole them from my friend on New Year’s Eve

When she made a resolution to quit

Which lasted exactly one and one half hour.

I walk in a straight line,

One foot in front of the other,

Like a tightrope walker,

Belly sucked in,

Pelvis angled up.

Neck extended, looking straight ahead.

I’m walking to my friend’s house to pick tomatoes

And give her and her boyfriend some pecan nut rolls

I bought them in Florida.

When I get to her house,

She’s not off playing tennis yet;

She’s in the basement doing laundry in her underwear.

She comes upstairs and listens

I ramble on about my trip to the Bahamas.

Her boyfriend waltzes in wearing an Atlantis resort tee shirt,

But he doesn’t even know where Paradise Island is.

Her cat winds in and out, crying every once in a while.

I get home, set up my encampment on the porch.

The neighbors across the street have rented movies.

“Two Mary Kate and Ashley, and MVP

About a monkey who plays baseball or something,” the mother says.

I can hear it blasting now from their living room window.

Six bikes go past as I sit on the porch,

More than I have ever seen in my three years here.

I am eating cold pizza,

I drink my second beer.

The sun sets, shining on the highest window of the house across the street, blinding me.

I have candles, tomatoes, and more beer. It’s going to be a good night.

2005-04-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

LSMFT

By S. Morgan

He had magical eyes. The fact that he was playing Highland bagpipes in a Celtic rock band was suddenly immaterial.

It’d been about a year since I’d seen someone with the intensity and sparkle that he had. I looked down at his feet, already knowing he’d be balanced on his toes. And I was just getting use to the comfortable, relaxed feeling I imagined all normal human beings must experience on a daily basis.

So much for being normal.

“Oh no,” the words involuntarily slipped past my lips as the crowd around me bounced and surged with the music. Naomi, the friend who had dragged me to the Kilt-Rock fest, looked up at me from her five-foot or so height. She started to ask “what?” but stopped mid-syllable. She’d been along for too many of my escapades not to notice that look in my eye. In fact, as I thought about it, she was almost like my sidekick now wasn’t she?

“Which one?” she asked, coming close to my ear so as to be heard over the pounding drums and the racing guitars. Her warm breath caressed my neck. Did I detect a note of sadness in her voice? Was I to blame for ruining what would otherwise have been a lovely evening, for possibly destroying one of her favorite bands? Yeah, probably.

“The one with the bagpipes.” There was relief, if it could be called that, in the way she sighed and said, “That’s Scott. I was afraid it was Dan.”

“Dan?” I turned back to the stage just as a tall slender figure came leaping forwarded to the welcoming roar of the crowd. Clad in tap-studded shoes and a flapping tailcoat, he began a flailing jig. Unlike the solid, ridged Irish dancing populated by Riverdance-wannabees, this young gentleman was flashy and fresh. His arms twirled out from his sides, his Cheshire cat grin sparkling. The feeling I got from him was overwhelming and all but drove me out the back door of the crowded club. I brought my hand to my forehead and made my way to the bar. I chugged a Killian’s before I turned to Naomi, who hovered like a child at my elbow.

“That’s Dan?” I asked.

She nodded, trying to hold back her unmistakable misery.

I needed something stronger than beer. I got us both a Dewar’s on the rocks.

***

“Yes, Lucky Strike means fine tobacco. And fine tobacco means more pure smoking enjoyment for you.”

Elless pulled a pair of black boots on over her fishnets. She liked the little cliché of a radio, with its buzzing mono speaker, covered in woven yellow and brown fiber. She liked to giggle at the tame, old jokes Jack Benny made. She liked the way her knees got all squoshy at the sound of Dennis Day’s tenor voice reverberating off the walls of her cave-like bedroom.

She swung herself, one arm at a time, into her black leather jacket. I’ll need some flower power, she thought, stashing little bottles of comfrey and Echinacea into her back pack. Some rose water, some quartz. Maybe her book? No, that would be too heavy. She grabbed the quiver of pink arrows that hung near her bed and strapped it to her back. Switching off the radio that continually played old radio shows, she grabbed her bow.

Elles marched out the back door. The summer night was ripe and full like a swollen peach. A man went tearing past and jumped into a bush - a rabbit who was turned into a man.

Elles knew this. Garrett told her.

Garrett’s place was a cemetery. When she got there, it was decked out in balloons like a party was going on. A boy sat on a gravestone, smoking a cigarette.

Elles called to him, “Garrett!”

Garrett looked up. With a spindly finger, he motioned to her.

“What is it?”

Garrett handed her a crumpled pack of Luckys. As she took it, three cigarettes crawled out, like paper-wrapped caterpillars. Words appeared on the wrappers: “LUCK, FUCK, TRUE LOVE.” is what they said.

She started to remove one, but he slapped her hand and the caterpillars disappeared back into their cellophane chrysalis. A background soundtrack began to play. Her arrows itched to fly through the air. She wanted so much to join him, but she was held in this world against her will. And now that she had the magical smokes, she must move on.

She walked along the tracks until they crossed 48th street. Then she stood in the center of the road until Mahawksy showed up to kill her.

***

I just about mowed her down.

She was standing in the center of the road, and I was drowsy, slightly drunk and driving too fast. Still, I slamed on the breaks and screeched to a halt, my front tires making a jolting bumpbump as they rolled over the train rail sunk in the asphalt.

She was dressed provocatively punk and looked too young to be roaming the street without a protective pack of teenagers surrounding her. She walked up to the window and I thought for a minute she’d proposition me. Instead, she asked for a lift. I should have known better, but, as stated, I wasn’t functioning at my highest.

She started questioning me almost the instant her skinny butt hit the seat.

“Do you always pick up hitchhikers? Don’t you worry that I could be carrying a gun? How do you know I’m not going to shoot you?”

“I don’t know, I can’t see the future,” I said, which was a half truth. The hitchhiker, who said her name was Elles, pronounced L.S., studied me. “But I know you’re not going to kill me.”

“Are you going to kill me then?” she asked. Her voice was like Fruit Stripe gum, full of artificial sweetness. “Are you going to rape me?”

“No, I’m not going to rape you,” I said, ready to kick the little tramp out of my car. “What is your problem?”

“I know who you are. I am here to stop you.”

“No you’re not I mean,” I stumbled. I’d let on that, yes, there was something that I did that was unstoppable. How could she know? She couldn’t. I paused. “Who do you think I am?”

“Death.”

“I’m not death,” I said, cringing. I began to get an unreal feeling from the girl. Slowly, I pulled to the side of the street. We were in a residential neighborhood and there were plenty of houses around, plenty of witnesses. Even though it was late, or early depending on how you looked at it, there were still a few cars going past. “I think you should get out of the car. I’m sorry. I can’t take you any further.”

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

I looked over at her. There were crystals in the corners of her eyes. The feeling I got from her was not the same as the feeling I got from Dan or Scott. She was like a puma, ready to pounce at my jugular. At the thought, I felt the vein in my neck pulsating. Her eyes were wild. Maybe she’s high, I thought. Just as I started to breathe a sigh of relief, she dropped the bombshell.

“You.Took.Garrett. I need to know how you did it.”

My stomach jumped. My God, she did know. Shit! I turned my head back to the road and let off on the break; the car began to roll again. I reached down to turn up the CD that’s been playing in the background. I needed to think, impossible with Elles shooting daggers through me. The lead singer on the CD was one of them, and instead of sending him back, I just took away what made him one of them. He never made music like that again. It’s my favorite CD.

Finally I spoke. “I don’t want to do what I have to do.”

“So why do you do it?”

“Because I have to.”

“You can see the future.”

“No, but I can tell when people have to die.”

“Do you know how I die?”

I hesitated, feeling her body, old and heavy and tired, slipping away. “Yes.”

“Do you know how you die?”

“Yes.”

“How do you die?”

“I fall.”

She had something in her hand; I couldn’t see what it was. “You fall?”

“Uh, no,” I amended, “I jump.”

We sat in silence. It was a cigarette she held. She lit it expertly and cranked down the window to let the warm night air in and the noxious smoke out. “So how do you do it?”

“Can I have one?”

Her gaze burned me, but she lit a cigarette and passed it over. I took a drag, and choked on the harsh, lung-raking toxicity. It was filterless. “I have only seen a few. The guy you hear singing was the first one. I didn’t send him back; I just took away the part of him that didn’t fit here. Then I realized that was actually crueler than getting rid of him completely. He was an artist. Now he can’t do anything. Like a runner without legs. He’s lost.”

I tried again to inhale, ready this time for the stinging black smoke. “God, this is like sucking on a tailpipe,” I said, rolling the thing between my fingers. There was something written on the side of it: TRUE LOVE. I flung it out the window.

Suddenly she lunged and I felt a stabbing pain in my right arm. I jerked back, the car swerving over the road. “What the hell!” I reached over and felt what I thought was a sharpened pencil sticking in my bicep. I tried to rip it free but it didn’t budge. I squealed the car to a halt at the side of the road before she hauled back and stabbed me again. A heart-tipped arrow slammed down into my thigh. I struggled to open the door and threw myself out onto the pavement. Unfortunately, she crawled over to the driver’s side and notched one of the arrows into her bow, something she hadn’t been able to when I was cozily confined to the car. I rolled away from the pink arrow as it careened off the hard ground, and my eyes focused on a truck barreling towards me. I tried to leap up out of the way, but my right leg wouldn’t obey. I knew I didn’t die like this, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be very, very hurt.

Then I felt her grab my shoulder and drag me back. The truck sped past, striking the corner of my knee. I screamed as it spun me around. She pulled me back into the car with amazing strength. I struggled over her lap as she closed the door and jammed her foot down on the gas.

***

I sat next to the car later that night at the Truman Heights overlook, my leg stretched out, throbbing. I couldn’t tell if anything was broken. At first it felt like everything was, but the more I poked and prodded, the less serious I thought it was. Elles stalked around and made cryptic comments.

“I can’t believe you did that, you let it go,” she railed. “I needed that! They were from the Man Dragon. It was a gift.”

“I need a drink,” I stated, and she flung a bottle at me. I didn’t even look at what it was, just knocked it back. It was sweet and cool. And thankfully alcoholic.

She notched another arrow and crouched down about a yard away, aiming at my heart. Then, on second through, she aimed at my stomach. “I should start this arrow on fire and flame your fuel filled belly.”

“Yes, yes you should.” I took another swig of the bottle. “But then do you know what the world would look like? Do you know who we have already gotten rid of? I’m not talking about saving a life or two here and there, I’m talking pollution, genocide, plagues, thousands.”

She pulled her bowstring back as far as it would go and I involuntarily tightened my abdomen, even though I knew that was probably the worst thing I could do under the circumstances. She let the arrow fly and it slammed into the ground, burying itself half way up the hilt. She let her head fall forward and looked at me though a veil of dirty blond hair.

“How did you know about me? How did you find me?” I asked her.

“Garrett told me.”

“Garrett’s gone. I sent him back, oh, at least a year ago. Actually, almost exactly a year ago.”

She looked straight up into the sky. Then she rose up onto her toes and spun around. She skipped around the car. In less than a minute, I heard a song begin to play, and the voice of the artist whose art I’d taken away. It was divine, as always.

She came back to me, this time examining my wounds. My leg was a mess, but she declared it would be fine. Nothing busted, perhaps some ligaments torn around the kneecap. And of course I still had an arrow buried in the muscle of my upper leg, but she said it wasn’t near anything vital. “I need my arrow back. Lie down.”

I took a long swallow of the drink, then reclined on the grass, closing my eyes. Lyrics drifted from the car as I felt the arrow begin to move. It wriggled back and forth like a writhing, worming snake:

“No one loves me and no one loves you.

is this always bad, is this always true?

maybe you should come to me

and I should go to you”

I felt the head of the arrow turn sideways, slide out like a switchblade, the point barely catching on my filleted skin. The sky above was filled with swirling stars. The world began to spin, Elles dancing around me like a mad pagan priestess.

But in truth she was still, hunched over me, examining my arm. She mumbled something into my pain and drink addled ear, then dumped more of the sweet wine over my lips. I managed to swallow most of it without choking. Then I felt her jam the arrow through to the other side of my arm, in effect pinning me to the ground. A spasm wracked my body, but I didn’t cry out. She placed a booted foot onto the fletched end of the arrow and delicately applied pressure, as if she were driving a tent stake into soft sand. The arrow, greased with blood, slid effortlessly through. I barely felt it.

“Mumble mumble,” I heard her say.

“Um, hm.” I answered.

“Msitup mumbastard.”

She put her hand behind my shoulder and hoisted me up into a sitting position. I probably shouldn’t be drinking wine given to me by a girl who has shot or stabbed me three times, I thought too late.

“I didn send Scotback,” I managed. “Or Dan. I coudent get closenough. Dan’s one powerfulsucker.” I giggled. I tried to focus in on her eyes but they were so dilated, surrounded by darkness, I couldn’t make out their color. “My arm hurts.”

“You didn’t send who back?”

I shook my head, then regretted it. “I want to lie down.”

“No,” she commanded. “Why didn’t you send them back?”

“Oh just not tonight. They’re famous. That’s always harder, they’re harder to get at. It’s going to be hard to send Dan back, he’s very strong. Some are stronger than others.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you want to know all this? Do you want to bring Garrett back because you can’t. If you want me to send you to him I can’t do that either because you’re human.”

“I need to know so that I can stop you and others like you. What you are doing is wrong. The world isn’t any more dangerous with them in it. They aren’t the murders, they aren’t the ones cutting down the rain forests or leading multinational businesses, putting profit above all else. They’re like me. They’re artists, they’re students, they’re nobodies.”

I was going to shake my head again, but chose instead to tap my temple. “There’s nobody else like me. And I don’t kill them, I only…”

“Yes,” she interrupted, “send them back to their dimension or world or whatever. Not everyone goes back though, even if you banish them or exorcize them or whatever the hell it is you do. What is it that you do - do you stare them down? Do I have to put out your eyes?” She waved an arrow at my face. “Maybe I’ll do that anyways, just to slow you down.”

“I’ve had enough,” I reached up and grabbed her tiny little bird wrist and shook the arrow out of her hand. “How strong are you really?” She struggled and punched my punctured arm, which set the pain momentarily ablaze. I let her go and fell back, rolling, on the grass. The CD player reached the end of the disk and shut off.

In the dark quiet of a city night I could hear the distant roar of traffic speeding mightily down the interstate. Above, a red-eye flight buzzed and blinked its way across the sky. Elles put a booted foot on my neck. She was not heavy, but as my arm and my leg and my mind went progressively numb, I felt too weak and too tired to fight her off. She had another one of those damn arrows pointed at me. With the toe of her boot, she clipped my chin, the way fathers do with their fists in old movies, when they say “buck up son, it’s not so bad as all that.” You know, when the son has to shoot his dog.

I took a deep breath. “It’s very simple.” I struggled to raise myself, to sit up and present my case with some sort of dignity. Her foot slid down my chest and over my crotch., light and dangerous like a poison butterfly. So much for dignity.

“Don’t make me tell you,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do to stop it, really.”

She leaned into her right leg just enough to make her point, the arrow notched and trained on my torso. I tried to think back to see if I’d ever had to tell anyone flat out like this before. With Naomi, it was just natural. I had to point out the determining factors, explain what I was looking for, and it gradually became accepted. We would go on treasure hunts together. She couldn’t actually understand what was happening, what I was doing really. She didn’t feel the “disturbance in the force;” the giddy ripple in the air that surrounded them, the hot surge that would be mistaken for lust if it weren’t for the frightening confusion that accompanied it. But she believed in me enough to humor me.

Elles knew, she understood. And she obviously didn’t believe anything had to be done.

“Elles, please,” I tried hostage tactic. Try to personalize yourself to your kidnapper. “Why don’t you come with me, I can show you. Better yet, I’ll just stop. I don’t want to do it anymore anyways.

“I’m sick of threatening you. Now tell me or so help me I’ll run you over with your own car, prop your mangled body in the front seat and drive you off the cliff. That’ll make for an interesting investigation, don’t you think?”

I just wanted to rid myself of this annoying mosquito of a girl, to be passed out in my own bed sleeping off a killer hangover, to be whisked away from this bad dream.

“I have to know their name, I have to touch them, and I have to tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

The dew was beginning to gather around my prone form. I felt the side of my face getting moist where it pressed against the soil. “Tell them what I see, tell them what is going to happen, tell them that they don’t belong here, tell them that they have to go. That singer, the first one, I didn’t tell him directly, I wrote him a letter. I guess then they don’t totally disappear, they just learn to work around it, but it still destroys the magic in them.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Three steps. Three steps to rid the world of a magic that doesn’t belong here.”

She took a step backwards, leaned against the car, removed the pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She tossed it to the ground. Where it lay, I could just read the letters spelled out along the bottom of the pack: L.S.M.F.T.

I looked up at Elles. “Elles Emeftee?”

She looked askance, then her face began to change. I knew what she was seeing - she was seeing what I was no longer able to. I don’t know how it had happened, but somehow I was free. She had taken the oar from Charon on the river Styx.

“Elles wait,” I said as she dropped her bow and arrow.

“What have you done!” she screamed.

“It wasn’t me! Wait, I don’t know. I know what you’re seeing, just hold on, I’ll help.”

Her eyes darted left and right and she ran at me, grabbed my shirt and, shaking me, asked, “what the hell is happening?”

“Stop stop stop,” I chanted, finding it hard to focus. Vaguely in the back of my mind I was elated. I struggled to rise. She helped me up.

“Oh my God,” she said, grappling with me as if she wanted to embrace me and fling me with a judo move at the same time.

“What do I do? What did you do?”

“I’ll help you,” I slurred. “Please just calm down.”

She looked at me, and I read disgust in her eyes. “You, oh my God. Oh my God no!”

I wasn’t sure what she was seeing, but she started to back up and tried to throw my hands off her shoulders. I followed, stumbling. I no longer knew how she was going to die; I couldn’t see my own body as I had every morning, every day and ever night, about as old and as tall and as fit as I was now, lying broken and bleeding beyond repair at the base of a mountain. She was leaning against the rail of the overlook, continuing to back up until I could see she was starting to crawl over the barrier and insinuate herself into the night, whimpering and crying with the realization of the futility of it all. “Stay away,” she yelled.

I reached out then, tried to pull her back from the precipice. “Elles.”

But my arm wouldn’t hold her, and my leg wouldn’t hold me, and we both tumbled into the darkness, pummeled by rocks and trees and branches and stumps.

****

At the funeral, Elles approached a short, stocky girl and placed her hand on hers. She told Naomi Elizabeth Livingston about the cancer her existence caused. Then she turned and disappeared.

2005-02-05T11:32:00.000-08:00

BELLE LETTRe

A Belle the Cat Production * Winter 2004/2005 *

Volume One * Issue Four

A word (or two) from S. Morgan, editor

“CELEBRATE

and

RECUPERATE”

The schizophrenic, nature of this issue is due to the fact that it bridges a month of spicy hectic holidays, of Christmas and New Year’s cheer, and the season of hibernation. Between the abundance of family, friends, gifts, and giving and the spring thaw lays a stretch of deep wintry solitude and quietness. Reflection, reclamation, and adherence to order and life’s goals are what January brings. Even if such goals begin to fade and fall apart after a few weeks, the spirit of humanity is one that has to continue to make and break such promises in an ongoing effort to succeed and grow.

I am taking this time to look back at the first year of Belle Lettre. Running a ‘zine sure makes the year go faster! When I decided to make this a quarterly publication, it was an attempt to give myself a break, to allow myself time to breath in between issues. I still end up thinking about it for a month, putting it together another month, and then getting it out the month after that (if I’m lucky). So in other words, there is no rest for the wicked. So much so (or so wicked am I,) that I debated just not publishing this year. But then I thought, ‘what would that achieve?’ Belle had just begun to garner feedback, It just started to actually establish style and form. And I, as publisher, was just starting to realize how one could be concerned about resource conservation and still publish a paper ‘zine. So in order to continue on this crazy rollercoaster ride, I am keeping the ‘zine quarterly, but I am changing the general mission slightly.

I remember when I first started Belle the Cat productions and decided to make a ‘zine my first “production,” my friend KH more or less convinced me that I needed a focus, an audience, a mission. I fought it. “It’s a ‘zine,” I thought, “its mission is the mission of all ‘zines. To be methodically and persistently ignored. To exist as a piece of ephemera, to inspire, delight, disgust, or distract its readers and then to become the lining at the bottom of a classroom rat’s cage.” But, as the rag disappeared quickly from the café shelves onto which I anonymously plunked it and submission slowly began to trickle in, I realized that she’d been right. I found myself referring back to the general driving motto; “Courage, Creativity, Discovery” for organizational purposes as well as content guidance.

These three concepts will remain for the 2005 Volume II Belle Lettres, but I wish to also concentrate my efforts towards the definition of Belle Lettres itself: writings valued for their elegance and aesthetic qualities rather than for any human interest or moral or instructive content, French, literally "fine letters"

In the seriousness of this world (especially in the election year of 2004), I found myself continually trying to lighten my own spirits. Is it possible to have fun while learning, enjoy the humor in life without being sucked down by cynicism, to create beauty and enjoyment and trivial, senseless, funny things without feeling like Nero, fiddling while Rome burns? I have seen thought the works of others the answer: a hundred times over “yes.”

This year, I and this ‘zine resolve to focus more on literary works, such as short stories and poetry, and on bringing the artistry of “fine letters” to Belle Lettre.

Special thanks to DMV, Nicka, Beth and Laura for their submissions.

2005-02-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

Holidays - Spring 2005

3/21

Ostara - Wicca welcoming of spring and the goddess-as-maiden.

3/25

Good Friday - Christian remembrance of the crucifixion of Jesus and related events.
Holi - Hindu spring festival dedicated to the god of pleasure. It is observed in a colorful and boisterous manner. People shower each other with colored water and smear red and green powder on each other,

3/27

Easter - The day commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from his death by crucifixion.

4/24-5/1

Pesach (Passover) - Jewish 8-day celebration of the deliverance of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. The story of the Exodus is recounted, and the ongoing struggle of all peoples for freedom from internal and external tyranny is celebrated. A special meal is a central feature.

Beltane - Wicca celebration of the conjoining of the goddess with the energy of the god in the sacred marriage which is the basis of all creation.

Mother’s Day

5/24

Buddha Day - Visakha Puja - Buddhist marking of the birth, enlightenment and death (attainment of Nirvana) of Lord Buddha.

5/30

Memorial Day

6/13-14

Martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev Sahib - Sikh time of remembering those who have suffered for the faith. Observed by reading the Guru Granth Sahib.

6/19

Father’s Day

6/21

Litha - Wicca celebration of the sacred marriage in which energy of the gods is poured into the service of life.

Local or regional customs may use variations of these dates
Religious leaders may also make variations..

For a complete list, see http://www.interfaithcalendar.org/

2005-02-05T11:30:00.000-08:00

part 4 of 4 - ELECTION 2004

What’s Next?

(a 10 step program)

The Election is over. Many people have gone back to the regular business of living, while ignoring the general politics and political climate of our country. Life goes on, my friend.

However, the experience of this highly polarized and, many think deeply and dangerously dividing, election should not be forgotten. So here are 10 study questions and a card of quick-facts to help you stay involved with and informed of your government:

Do you know how the electoral system works? Do you think it should be changed? Why or why not? If yes, how?
Would you tell others you are a Democrat, Republican, or Other? Why or why not?
What are some ways people with different opinions can work together?
Why do you think this country is so evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans? Why is this good thing or a bad thing?
Do you feel you are Too involved, Involved, Not involved enough, or Not involved at all in politics? Why?
Do you feel your opinions matter? Does voting make a difference? Should it?
What political topics concern you? Have you contacted your representatives in Congress? Why or why not?
What is a politician, in your mind?
How does the reelection of George W. Bush as president make your life better or worse? The lives of your friends and family? The lives of strangers?
What do these words mean to you: freedom, patriot, war, peace, terrorist, democracy, republic. Do they mean the same things to politicians?

2005-02-05T11:29:00.001-08:00

Poetry: STOP, DROP, SIT, WAIT

By Beth

Stop, Drop, Sit, Wait
The air is thin and crisp
with a sharp sear as it hits the
walls of your lungs

Numb, scared, alone
The sound of busy streets
Ring in your ears with great force
Stinging, hissing, burning
Your eyes are red with the
images displayed around you

Helpless. Hopeless.
Your sadness slips into the ground
and you have nothing to stop you from closing
your eyes again

2005-02-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

Poetry: Winter morning sunrise

By S. Morgan

Soon, orange tongues change to blinding light

The silver blue, the grey pink sky,

And tastes of lavender will melt

Under the harsh glories of the winter sun

Now, tiny cloudspecks play in the paths left

By Nocturne’s receding cloak

Some are burning as I watch,

Playing as they are too close to the East.

2005-02-05T11:28:00.001-08:00

Poetry: UNTITLED
By Beth

3 years old, sticky fingers, messy face with
dimples denting your cheeks when you smile with
your front teeth still growing in.
That tree sits in its place.
You touch it. Through its coarse outer layer
your soft chubby hands run up and down its base.
Your ears press against it as you listen closely.
Its heart beats.

12 years old, you worry about school and popularity,
and finding your place and your face, your friends and hope.
That tree sits in its place.
You touch it. Through its coarse outer layer
your fine delicate hands run up and down its
base. Your ears press against it as you listen closely.
Its heart beats.

34 years old, bed head, bath robe and kids to
feed. The phone is ringing, the baby's crying
and you're curled under the covers, hiding from
the world.
That tree sits in its place.
You touch it. Through its coarse outer layer
your mature working hands run up and down its
base. Your ears press against it as you listen closely.
Its heart beats.

72 years old, small, petite, gray hair, and
grandchildren. You look out your window at the
retirement home you reside in.
That tree sits in its place.
You touch it. Through its coarse outer layer
your wrinkled old hands run up and down its base.
Your ears press against it as you listen closely.
Its heart beats.

2005-02-05T11:28:00.000-08:00

THE REAL STORY OF

ST. VALENTINE’S DAY

By Nicka

It was in the early centuries of Christianity, when Rome was still largely rooted in the religion of its ancestors, when a man who truly believed that “Love Conquers All” defied an emperor and set off a chain of events that would lead ultimately to his own imprisonment, execution, and Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day is probably one of the only holidays which, even in its contemporary interpretation remains fairly true to its origins. Valentine’s Day is about love. Like many holidays, Valentine’s Day was born of the clashing of Pagan and Christian ideals, and this is how it came about:

During the third century, life in Rome was extremely strict, particularly regarding the interactions of young men and women, whom were not permitted to intermingle freely. Pagan Rome, much like Catholic Rome, had a ceremony, feast, rite, or festival for absolutely everything. Surely the one the young folk looked forward to the most began on the ides of February – it was the Feast of Lupercalia. Lupercalia hailed the coming of spring, the ritual cleaning of homes, and of course fertility. Presided over by the Lupercai, an order of Roman priests, it was a festival to honor Fanus, the Roman god of agriculture as well as Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. This festival contained several rituals and ceremonies as well. The one which launched the festival entailed the ritual sacrifice of a goat, the cutting of its hide into strips, dipping the strips in dog blood, and then parading around the city so the priests could slap the young women of Rome with the strips of bloody goat meat. Women actually looked forward to this because they believed it would make them more fertile in the coming year. But what they looked forward to even more was the love lottery. This was the system by which pagan Rome would assign couples. All of the young women would put their names in a giant urn, and in turn the young men would draw a name out. The name they drew would be whom they would be paired with for the coming year, and many of these pairings resulted in marriage. So went the courtship of old Rome.

So how does Valentine’s Day actually figure in to all of this? It has to do with the Emperor Claudius II, who was a vehement believer in the ancient Roman gods, as well as an avid if not obsessive military man. Claudius’ entire goal was to have an extremely brutal and efficient military force, but he was beginning to see problems with many of the younger men- the ones who were in the prime age range to be superior soldiers. Young men with wives, families and romantic attachments were not aggressive fighters. They were leery and skittish on the battlefield. Their hearts were not in it, as they were more concerned about their loved ones at home. Claudius required a completely dedicated company of soldiers, so his solution was to ban marriage for all young men who were able to fight, and then require them to join the military. A young man named Valentino had been a priest in the service of Claudius II, he was also one of the early converts to Christianity, which he kept hidden from the emperor. Valentino began to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. He would sneak into the dungeons and aid in the escape of those who had been imprisoned for converting to Christianity and renouncing the Roman gods. Eventually his actions were found out and he was brought before Claudius. The court demanded that he acknowledge the gods of Rome, but Valentino stuck to his guns. He was sentenced to death and thrown in the dungeons. During his imprisonment, he developed a romance with the jailer’s daughter, who acted as sort of a caretaker to the prisoners. Before his execution, he left her a note – a token of his undying love, which he signed “from your Valentine”. A tiny scrap of paper with the simplest sentiment. What a pure and beautiful origin that has somehow remained literally unchanged for hundreds of years.

On February 14^th, 270AD the priest Valentino was beaten with clubs and then beheaded for crimes against Rome and its leader, but his mark was already left. His cruel death did not undo the things he’d done. The Christians of Rome honored and mourned him. His tale was told over and over again, until it became legend. It wasn’t until 210 years later though, once Rome had become entirely Christian, when Pope Gelasius decreed that the Roman love lottery system was unchristian, and to mark the event, February 14^th was declared St. Valentine’s Day, the anniversary of Valentino’s martyrdom.

2005-02-05T11:27:00.000-08:00

The Pirate Princess and the wreck of the Spirit Ship

One cold, blustery morning on Vivian Bay, a ship sailed ‘round to doom. Loaded mostly with tourists headed for the Jarvan Hot Springs, the ship was set upon by the worst of all pirate vessels, the Kali, main ship of the fleet of the Pirate Princess. All aboard were killed, including a well dressed woman wearing a pentagonal necklace and a pouch of strange herbs beneath her garments. All jewels were collected, as was gold and silver and the strange glass monies of the Northern land. The ship was sank, the booty placed in a chest and hauled aboard the Kali.

As the pirates turned their vessel, a strange light rose up from the roiling, bubbling waters of the sinking ship. Many of the crew saw it, including the Capitan, Princess Cynara. Some were afraid and cursed the light, telling their captain to toss the booty overboard to quell the restless spirits. The Princess said nothing. The light vanished.

Still, when they got back to their hideaway, the booty was not divided as it had been so many times before. “This chest shall remain closed until I deem it necessary to open,” stated the Princess. “Anyone who goes against this order shall answer to the demons themselves, and I will do nothing to save you.” Some of the more rational pirates grumbled, but none went against the orders of the Princess.

Months passed, until one day a bird came to the pirate’s hideaway with a note attached to its leg. It was a request from a landman to see the Princess. She sent word that she would meet him on her own territory, and soon a small dinghy floated in to the shore, carrying a young, pale man. He told of his bride-to-be: a lovely severe lady wearing all green who had been lost at sea. Since there had been no storms, pirates had been suspected. The man was respectful to the Princess, and so she led him to the treasure chest. She had him open it, and he reached in and drew out the pentagonal necklace. He took only it and a silver ring. Then, without a word, he got into his boat and rowed away. The crew of the Princess drew close as she said, “This booty is ours now, the spirit will rest and will not harm any of us. She has been freed, and her spirit has decided to go with him, not curse us.”

2005-02-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

ADVENTURES: Tsunami Eyewitness

Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 04:22:57 -0500

Subject: Greetings from Thailand

Hello All,
Merry Christmas from Thailand!!! I am having a great time so far. It is so beautiful here!! I cannot get over it each time I walk out of my cabana. Gorgeous!!! The water is so clear. You can walk out into the water about the length of a football field and you will still be able to stand. The cliffs and trees amaze me. It is really hot and reminds me a lot of summer in Japan. Very humid. I pretty much just wear my bathing suit everywhere I go. Christmas was good. I had a nice dinner at the hotel. So for the next week I am planning on vegging and relaxing. Just sit on the beach and read a book...I brought Harry Potter with me. So everything is good! I am safe and having fun. Thinking of you all back in the freezing cold....sorry!! While I lay on the beach in the beautiful sun!! Hahaha...sorry to tease!

Miss you lots and love you more!!!
Laura

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 13:27:29 -0500

Subject: Safe!!!!

Hey All,
Yes I am safe!! Thank you for being concerned. I will admit that I was extremely lucky. On my island alone there were 30 deaths. But I managed to get to safety in time. I found all of my stuff untouched which was actually a miracle. Many, many people lost everything. I slept in the mountains on my island incase of after shocks, but there were none. Many natives said this is the worst in 50 years. The whole island was pretty much destroyed. It was terrible damage. They may never recover fully. I got out on a ferry the next morning to Phuket and managed to get a flight out that same day..today. Right now I am sitting in Bangkok Airport waiting for my flight to Japan. I should get back to Japan around 4pm on Tuesday the 28th. I will not get back into Ise for a bit after that. I will call when I get in. It was really scary and I thank God that I made it through!!!! But I survived and I feel very blessed. I will talk to you soon. Love you all more than I can say!!!!
Love always,
Laura