Those That Breed, Succeed

“We’ve got a runner.”

The message was broadcast over Amazonia’s secure message system. The head of security for Amazonia, Gloria Ballcrusher, just shook her head. What is going on with our sisters? How can they do such a thing? After all of the advantages, they have that we didn’t.

The Hot Line rang. Gloria Ballcrusher answered before the end of the first ring.

“Ballcrusher,” she said, though she who that the person calling, Our Dear Mistress, knew that Ballcrusher would be the only woman answering this line.

“How is this possible, and why is this happening?” shrieked Dear Mistress.

Ballcrusher demurred, “I don’t know. I just received the message, Dearest Mistress.”

    “This cannot be happening! This is the third runner this month! Our sisters are betraying us! Do you know what could happen if this thing were to get loose in the general population?”

    Ballcrusher could sense the anger and rage Dear Mistress’s voice. This was a moment to survive.

    “Dearest Mistress, I will have this runner back in confinement immediately. All available resources are being deployed.”

    Ballcrusher knew this was an empty promise. A third runner in less than one month could only mean one thing—that these runners were being assisted by a Sister or Sisters. This was madness.

    “Please have the full report transmitted to the Sister-of-Staff by 8 AM,” said Our Dear Mistress. She was gone.

    Ballcrusher called the head of the Pretorian Guard. The Praetorian’s could be trusted completely. They were specially selected naturally occurring homosexual Sisters—not “Educated Sisters.”

    Well, the Education Programs obviously lacked in some way, thought Ballcrusher.  The latest technique consisted of showing photos of nude males to Sisters during the Sister’s various stages of development while at the same time submitting the Sister to painful electric shock, terrible odors, and frightening sounds in an effort to have the Sister associate the unpleasant sensations she was experiencing with the presence of a male. This was done six times per day for 15 minutes per session.

Another six times per day pleasant videos of Sisters living and working in the most perfect of circumstances where played. During this time luscious meals and delicious wines were served, beautiful music and lovely fragrances filled the air. Once per day the sisters watched approved female pornography while a Pretorian or Amazon pleasured them.

All pregnancies were via artificial insemination and were closely monitored for “indications.” The idea was to produce only naturally occurring lesbians, but that had been a failure, though the administration did not acknowledge this fact. Instead, much to the chagrin of the Revolutionary committee and Our Dearest Mistress, the vast majority of the sisters being born continued to show signs of heterosexual interest—even those who had never seen a male before. The Selection Committee had tried thousands of procedures and treatments with no discernible success. They bathed unborn children in various cocktails of chemicals and hormones, many with horrific results. The incinerators at the abortion hospitals were running day and night, and in the end, the resulting crop of Sisters would result in much the same challenges as babies born before the Vajayjay revolution.   

Despite all of this there were obviously Sisters willing to risk death to help an escaped breeding male. What more could the Naturals do for their Educated Sisters?

The Vajayjay revolution ended the male rule of human society. It would be more accurate to say that it ended male presence in human society and if it were not for an error made by the XY lab there would not have been a male left on earth for breeding, but that is another story for another time. The vulnerability on the Y chromosome of males was found by accident—but the worldwide murder of nearly all men was no accident, indeed. No, that event was conceived and executed by Our Dear Mistress and her inner circle, the former physicians, scientists, and political operatives working at what was then known as Planned Parenthood. The system of transmission was never discovered, and the Revolutionary committee never disclosed it, but in less than one year every male on earth except for several hundred thousand pubescent males was dead. An unintended consequence of this great victory was the suicide of nearly half of the planet’s female population. This was considered an acceptable expense to achieve equality for women everywhere forever more.

The “surviving” males were maintained during the peak of their youth and health; semen was extracted and examined, after which they were terminated and incinerated.  Sisters were fertilized and monitored. Undesirable offspring were terminated in utero—and these terminations occurred in 95% of pregnancies.

Sometimes one of these breeding males escaped. These escapees were called “runners.” And now our own Sisters are risking catastrophe and death by helping a runner, thought Ballcrusher. 
Ballcrusher understood the stakes. She knew the math. If a single runner escaped to Colorado, Peru, Mexico, or Appalachia—it was the mountainous regions that the Praetorians and the Amazons feared—there could be thousands of babies born the following year. Thousands, Ballcrusher thought to herself and shuttered. Just the thought of a male disgusted her. What if a hundred runner—or hundreds of runner—got loose in those mountains? With a little help from technology, millions of Sisters could become pregnant! With MALES!!!! The revolution itself and equality for all women forever more would be at risk!

Ballcrusher blanched. Like most Naturals, the idea of procreation was foreign and unknown. In her youth—she was now in her 70’s—she had seen Sisters before the revolution couple up with males and produce offspring but could not understand the appeal. The very thought of caring for a child was distressing and inconceivable, especially a MALE child—but not nearly as inconceivable as having PIV sex with a male! She had even seen or rather heard of Naturals before the revolution having offspring but she knew this to be a statistically insignificant form of political protest. Naturals were different than their Educated Sisters, and vastly different than women before the VR, as the Vajajay Revolution was called. Naturals achieved great things! While the other Sisters, educated or otherwise, were enslaved to men and their offspring.

Perhaps a female offspring would be acceptable, Ball crusher had mused in the past, but if that female wasn’t a Natural?  Wouldn’t she want to couple with a male and produce offspring? Perhaps MALE offspring?! How revolting!

Ballcrusher had been on the heliport of the Revolutionary Defense Building, pacing back and forth in the bright lights of the landing zone, but now she was in flight, and her mind focused.

“Ground forces are executing search warrants in hundreds of Sister abodes as we speak. Any bio-feedback we are getting that does not jive with their reported activity is being scrutinized by ground forces. If the runner is found on site by our ground forces, he will be terminated along with all Sisters present. Disposal teams will arrive by air within minutes, perhaps even seconds. When they are done it will be as if nothing ever happened in the Sister abode and no one ever lived there,” said the commanding Praetorian.  Ballcrusher took in the commander with admiration. With her deep voice, military “crew cut” hairstyle, standing 5’4” tall, and weighing well over 200 pounds she was the vision of what all Naturals hoped to be. There was not even a hint of the feminine about her.

To be with a woman like that… who could ever wish for a man? Ballcrusher thought and suppressed a smile.

Ballcrusher met the Praetorian’s eyes and nodded and then turned back to the communication screen. A message flashed, “We have a runner.” It was from the eastern Baltimore district.

Then another and another and another message flashed—too many to count.

“We have a runner.”

The counter-revolution had begun.

Dearest Mother, the leader of the counter-revolution, was at the podium.

“The Revolution has begun. I give it no name as no name can do it justice.  This is THE revolution—not the French, American, or Vajajay or any other. This is THE revolution to restore and reset humankind back on its natural and evolutionary trajectory.

“Many of you have no recollection or knowledge of the life that was—a life, your life, with a man and children. A life with parents—a mother and a father—two people who thought you were special. A life with brothers and sisters, aunts, and uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers—these groups were called families, and they were composed of the people who descended from the same ancestors as you. They were not conceived in test tubes. Conception did not begin with a woman urinating into a petri dish. It began with a man with an erection, something many of you know nothing about, and it ended with the birth of a baby—your baby—not with a surgeon and scalpel or a suction device and a trip to an incinerator.

“These “Naturals,” as they call themselves now—they used to call themselves “Gay,” and referred to women like you and me as “Straight,”—are no more natural than any of us. Nor should they speak for us. In my youth, these women, about 15% of the population, tried to convince other women that our interests were the same. That man, though that word is no longer in common usage and has been replaced with “male,” were the enemy, that children were a burden, and that your extended family existed only to impress you into a life of slavery and service to your man and your children.

These are the same people that forcefully impregnate you by artificial means and slaughter your unborn children in an effort to create their definition of the perfect woman. Because these people have the same problem that society has always had! We MUST bear children! If we do not the lights will go out on humanity. Our ancestors developed ways and customs for providing for children that worked for thousands of years that did not involve test tubes and abortions and the slaughter of our men. Our lovers, sons, fathers, and brothers.

“Today we free ourselves from our oppressors. Today we take back our lives, our bodies, and our families. Today, I will show you what our oppressors do not want you to see.”

With that Dearest Mother walked away from the podium and out of sight behind the stage curtain. She immediately returned leading a very young, handsome, and naked young man by the hand.

He stood there untroubled by his nakedness in the lights before the crowd of assembled women.   

There was silence in the hall. None of the women under the age of 50 had ever seen a man in the flesh, and the images of men that they saw in the education program were of unattractive older men. The young man standing with Dearest Mother looked back at the stunned crowd. He was nearly 20 years of age and was scheduled for termination by the Naturals having fulfilled his role. The sexual tension in the hall hung thick in the air there for all to feel. The man zeroed in on a particularly attractive nubile young woman in the front row, and his generative member became fully erect. His eyes never left her. Her eyes never left him.

Dearest Mother looked out to the crowd for a moment and with one hand directing the group to take in his manhood and with the other hand motioning to the horde in a sweeping gesture said, “This is the life force that brought us all into existence. This is the life force that will lead us out of this darkness. We will once again be free. The world belongs to the people who inhabit it.

“Those who breed, succeed.”

           

            

Settling a Score

Before Walt could leave there was some unfinished business he had to attend to. There was a man he had to kill.

3 years earlier, his oldest son, Will, then 20, had been shot to death by a police officer. Will was in college and playing football. After a game, he and some friends drove to the local bar strip, and being underage for the bars, a friend old enough to buy alcohol got out of the car and headed into a liquor store leaving Will at the wheel with several others in the back seat. The local police had been called to the bar strip over a bar fight that had spilled out onto the street. One of the officers motioned Will to move his car. Another officer, Officer Robert Spinelli, believing Will was somehow part of the melee and that Will was using his car as a weapon fired 10 shots at the windshield in front of the driver’s seat. Will died a short time later, bleeding to death in handcuffs while the police ransacked his car. They found a marijuana cigarette. Later, the media would report that there had been a “drug related police shooting”.

The loss of a child is the most devastating event that can happen to a human being, and the loss of a child by violence leaves parents in shock. There is no time to prepare, to say “good bye”, or resolve conflicts. There is only the shock, pain, and rage directed at the killer. Walt’s rage churned inside him for these past 3 years. Every “police involved shooting” or other perceived Government injustice reported in the media would send him into the depths of depression followed by a sulking rage ending in a migraine headache that would last for over 24 hours and during which he could not tolerate light or sound. For years he could not walk past the family photos that hung on the wall, inside the kitchen cabinet, on the fridge, or his wife’s dresser without breaking down. Slowly his grief turned to anger and the anger turned to rage – a rage that would not cool.

This man had killed his child. Will had done nothing wrong – he had been following the instructions of another police officer when that scumbag Spinelli overreacted and shot Will to death. Rather than render assistance and try to save Will, the police at the scene handcuffed him and searched his car. Walt could not get over the vision of Will being left to bleed to death lying face down on the sidewalk with his hands handcuffed behind his back.

After the shooting, Walt pressed the issue to the local District Attorney and the State Attorney General to no avail. The other police officers at the scene closed ranks around Spinelli, providing false and misleading testimony to investigators. Later, to add insult to injury, the police officer that fired the shots received an award for bravery in the line of duty by the local Police Benevolent Association. Meanwhile, Walt dreamed of tying Spinelli to his bed, pinning that award to his chest and then setting the bed on fire and burning his house down.

Things were different now. His young son was a young man – Walt had no children depending on him. He was getting older; time was running short. He might not get this chance again. A terrific blackout had gripped the metropolitan area and Walt decided this was the time to settle the score.

Walt rigged a carrying rack for a 5-gallon gas can on his bicycle. He packed his stainless steel Ruger Mini-14, .223 caliber assault rifle, a Ruger .357 magnum revolver, ammunition, matches and two butane lighters and a folding buck skinning knife and set out peddling his bike to his destination and either his destiny or that of Officer Spinelli - the man that had destroyed his life and took away his future. A lifetime of Christmas celebrations, violin lessons, Little League, camping, and vacations at the Jersey shore had been destroyed by that “sick fucking cop”, as Walt referred to Spinelli, and Walt was on his way to settle “all family business” as the line in the movie “The Godfather” said.

He had thought about using a diesel/fertilizer bomb like the one used in the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City; he had the diesel and the ammonium nitrate and the knowledge, but he wanted to kill Spinelli personally. He wanted Spinelli to see it coming. He wanted Spinelli to bleed to death after being shot. And he wanted Spinelli to bleed to death while in handcuffs while someone stood by and did nothing to save him. He wanted to kill every member of Spinelli’s family right in front of him. He wanted to wipe Spinelli’s existence and all of his descendants clean from the Earth. He burned with a hate only the parent of a murdered child knows.

It was a 12-mile ride in the dark from Tarrytown down to Yonkers. Walt took the Saw Mill River Parkway as there were no homes or buildings along the route. The parkway was built for passenger cars with the view in mind. In the absence of gasoline during the blackout were no cars to worry about. Walt did worry about getting a flat tire on the way, and prepared for that, but his tires held up. He wasn’t worried about getting a flat on the way home, if he even made it home, as he could easily walk the 12 mile return trip without having to lug the 5 gallon gasoline can.

It took him 2 hours to make the 10-mile leg down the Saw Mill parkway from Tarrytown to the Executive Boulevard exit in the village of Hastings-on-Hudson. From there he would head South on Route 9 to North Yonkers and the home of the man that had shot his older son to death. It was 3 a.m., but a few people were up and standing on their porches or hanging out on the sidewalk. Walt thought it was funny that people still stayed out of the street, as there was no risk of getting hit by a car. No one interrupted his trip or sought to stop him. Perhaps the look on his face, the weapon strapped across his back, and the gas can on the back of his bike told the story of Walt. Or perhaps the locals were too surprised to do anything to stop Walt before he disappeared into the dark of night. Either way, Walt arrived at his destination.

Walt stared at the house as he walked around the sidewalk adjacent to the property. The house was on a corner. There was no “backyard” but there was a side yard with a children’s play set, a patio with a BBQ grill, a table and chairs, an old sand box, and a pink bicycle with long flowing pink plastic sparklers hanging from the handle bars. His plan was simple: He took the gasoline and poured it on the window frames along the bottom floor of the house and across the side porch door leading to the patio area. He ran around the house lighting each window frame on fire, with each going up in a loud “whoosh”. Then he crossed the sidewalk and into the street resting his stainless steel Ruger Mini-14 .223 caliber assault rifle across the roof of a parked car less than 30 feet from the Spinelli’s front door. He did not have to wait very long.

The three Spinelli children spilled from the house followed by their mother and father. As they came up the walkway toward the street and the parked car that Walter was using as a rifle rest Walter shot the eldest of the Spinelli children, a girl of 16, in the chest. The report from the rifle deafened Walt as well as the surviving Spinelli’s. Collecting his wits, and not yet realizing that his daughter lay dying on their tiny front lawn, Officer Spinelli turned in the direction of the rifle blast. His eyes were wide with terror when he met the gaze of Walther Thomas. Walt let a moment pass to allow Spinelli to recognize him and process what was happening. Then Walt shot the youngest Spinelli, a girl of 6, right between the eyes. The child went down like a wet rag doll thrown from a dog’s mouth. Walt then shot Spinelli’s wife and 12-year-old son, aiming for their lower legs. He hit them both the first time and they went down on the ground in a heap, screaming in terror agony.

Now Walt came out from behind the car toward a paralyzed-with-confusion Officer Spinelli. The light from the house fire made Walt’s face easy to see, though Spinelli had to look past the rifle Walt was aiming directly at him.

“You!!” Screamed Spinelli.

            “BOOM!!” Answered the Ruger mini-14. Walt had shot Spinelli through the top of his left foot, and Spinelli went down next to his writhing-in-agony wife and son.

            “You killed my son!!” Walt shrieked at the downed Spinelli. “Now I am here to kill your son! Your daughters! Your wife! I want you to see it and feel it! I want you to know what you did to me! And then I am going to kill you!!” Walt fired another round into the leg of Spinelli’s 12-year-old boy. “Your daughters are already dead, you fucking piece of shit!!” And Walt fired several shots into the head of the prone body of the older Spinelli girl, pulverizing her skull, and then paced over to the younger daughter’s body and fired two shots into her torso.

 “Ha ha! How’s that fucking feel, motherfucker? Huh?! They’re dead! Ha ha!!” Walt shrieked like the madman he now was.

Mrs. Spinelli began to low crawl toward her younger daughter’s body but Walt interrupted her efforts by firing a round into the back of her knee, the round exiting through the front of her knee joint and shattering the knee cap. Walt then turned, aimed, and fired at Officer Spinelli, striking him in the right kneecap. Spinelli’s leg exploded in blood. This seemed to stop Spinelli’s backward scoot efforts to evade Walt. Walt then turned and fired again at Mrs. Spinelli, striking her in her elbow. He kicked her in the face, reached into his pocket and withdrew a pair of handcuffs, laid his rifle on the ground, turned her over and handcuffed her. He then roughly turned her over, withdrew his .357 from its holster at his hip and fired a round into Mrs. Spinelli’s shoulder joint. She was now bleeding from wounds in her lower leg, kneecap, elbow, and shoulder.

“Don’t worry, you fucking bitch”, Walt screamed between clenched teeth, “you won’t die for a while. You will have plenty of time to think about my son. He bled to death because of this piece of shit here you call a husband. What comes around goes around.” And with that he spit on her, “Ptuh!”

“He killed my son,” Walt said to no one in particular but motioning to Officer Spinelli as he looked up to find the Spinelli boy leaning against the smoldering house, “and now I am here to even the score and then some”. Walter emptied the remaining rounds of the 30 round magazine into the body of Officer Spinelli’s son, laid down the rifle, and reached into his pocket for another set of handcuffs. With the cuffs in his left hand and the .357 revolver in his right, Walt approached Officer Spinelli and opened fire, striking Spinelli in the elbow, shoulder, and ankle. He then clubbed Spinelli with the revolver, turned him over and handcuffed his hands behind his back.

It had been only 3 minutes since Walter set Spinelli’s house on fire, but now some of the neighbors were looking out their front doors and some were coming down into the street. A police siren wailed in the distance and from the sound it was headed this way. Walter went to his bicycle, removed a loaded 30 round magazine from his bag and retrieved his rifle. He engaged the ammo clip and racked the slide and let loose several rounds in different directions, screaming like a wild man. There were no more interruptions from the neighbors.

Officer and Mrs. Spinelli were shrieking in pain and agony as Walter approached them. He was holding the gasoline can in his hand - it was about half-full he reckoned. He poured the fuel onto the bodies of the Spinelli children and set them on fire. He returned to their parents who were wild eyed at the thought of being burned to death, and said “You think I am going to burn you, too? Fuck you. I hope you survive your wounds and live in agony, though I doubt you will make it through the night. Me? I am going to sit here and tell you what you did to my life.” 

Walt began to draw breath to speak again when a vision of his son Will lying in his casket flashed in his mind. His rage boiled over and he opened the buck-skinning knife he wore on his hip and tore away Officer Spinelli’s boxer shorts, seized his testicles and penis in his left hand, and cut them away from Spinelli’s body. As Spinelli shrieked in agony, hands cuffed behind his back, Walter stood back and admired his handiwork.

“Let me know when you are through screaming there, scumbag,” Walter said laughing, “because I want you to die with your balls and your dick in your mouth”.

Spinelli’s screams began to subside as the blood poured from the wound in his groin. Walter kicked Spinelli viciously in the head until Spinelli’s mouth was open, and then carefully deposited Spenilli’s genitals in his mouth. He walked over to a still very much alive Mrs. Spinelli, poured the remaining gasoline on her and her husband, stood back and looked her right in the eyes and said, “I changed my mind. Fuck you. I want you two to burn here, now, and then I hope you burn in hell,” and then Walt set them on fire. He stayed and watched until he thought Officer & Mrs. Spinelli were dead and then hopped on his bike as carefree as any 9 year old on the first day of summer vacation and peddled away. Walt didn’t make it to the end of the block before being shot to death by responding police officers. As he lay there bleeding to death in the street he smiled to himself and was as pleased as punch with the events of the evening. Walt's last words were to himself, unheard by others. "I got him, son. I killed the man that killed you. I destroyed the future of the man that destroyed your future. This was the best I could do."


       The following morning the neighbors crowded the scene of the Spinelli family murders, gawking in horror at the gory scene. More than a few knew of the famous case of the shooting of a young, unarmed college kid by the man lying charred in the small yard in front of his lightly damaged house – for some reason the gasoline had not succeeded in spreading to the rest of the home – along with his wife and three children. The lesson was not lost on any of them.

“What comes around, goes around.”

A Life Unmourned

            The evening’s fall of darkness is a terrifying time when you are surrounded by men that want, no are sworn, to kill you. The evidence of the enemy’s intentions lay all around him, as did the efforts of his comrades. The blood, everywhere on the ground, had been quite warm. Now the blood on the ground had congealed into a sickly, slippery, cold gel. He slid slowly on his back, pushing towards the Union lines and help. One hundred yards was all that separated the armies. That and the dead that lay between them.

            The disgraceful brutality of the day’s bloodshed seemed lost on the insects of the field as they sang and crooned their mating serenades with no more regard for the hundreds of dead men lying there than a man would have had for the death of hundreds of their kind. He hoped that their chorus would give cover to the roar of his labored breathing and pounding heart. Not that it much mattered. His heart was pumping his own blood out of his body through a hole in his neck, courtesy of a dying Confederate soldier in his first battle, a boy really, who discharged his rifle almost as an afterthought while being stabbed to death. He slid slowly on his back.

            This was not his first battle. He had seen the carnage and courage, the terror and valor, and the death and survival of those that fought and bled on the field. He prayed that those who sent young men to be slaughtered like this would know a violent death themselves. This was their war. It was their cause - yet it was his death. He had no dead man in this funeral. Well, other than he. He was here because life had failed him and he needed the $300 he got for taking the place of another. For $300 his life was spilling onto the ground from a hole in his neck. For $300 he had forged lifelong friendships with the short lived, bonds that can only be formed in the privation and fear where men seek the support of the man standing next to them. For $300 received he had the privilege of watching his newly acquired friends kill and be killed, their bodies decaying unburied and unmourned, for no reason that any of them could intelligently articulate. Now it appeared it was his turn. He slid slowly on his back.

            His head swam and his lifeblood flowed from the wound in his neck and still he slid slowly on, like a frog turned on his back that struggles to right itself. With 30 yards to go he stopped to rest. He opened his eyes to the beauty and miracle of the stars on a clear night. They greeted him impassively as they always had. The vastness and excellence of a clear night’s sky is imponderable but the stars remain unimpressed by man. He dared to let out a series of gasps. He needed air, needed to breathe, unable to concern himself that someone might hear. He closed his eyes and felt himself drifting. When he opened his eyes again the stars were there but remained indifferent to his struggles. He slid slowly on his back.

            Drifting in and out of consciousness with 20 yards to go a lucid thought fought through the foggy mind of a dying man. This is a stupid way to die. He laughed to himself as another thought came to him. I wonder if I give the money back will they let me live? ‘NO’, said a voice. The voice was his. He thought of his children, 4 boys under the age of 7. Will they even remember me? They had been desperate. His wife thought the $300 would change their lives. It certainly changed my life. He slid slowly on his back.

            There was a body in his way; he could feel his head bump into it. He would have to go over it. He collected his strength and curled up as if to sit and then lunged back on top of the corpse, but the corpse moved and he slid off over its head. Then the soon-to-be-corpse sat up with wild eyes and made a gurgled sound in his direction. It was his Sergeant Major. Though he thought they had made eye contact the Sergeant Major did not appear to recognize him. Then the Sergeant’s eyes rolled up in his head and a torrent of blood came pouring from the man’s mouth. The Sergeant Major fell to his side, certainly a corpse now. He slid slowly on his back.

            A hand grasped his lower leg by the boot. When he looked down a young man missing the lower part of his body was hanging on to him. “Help me,” he hissed. “Help me”, he repeated. The half-man held a bloody piece of paper in his hand and was motioning for the soldier to take it. “Give this to my father, please.” With the bloody paper now in his hand he slid slowly on his back.

            He could see the cover that the men holding the line were sheltering behind. The blood that had been spewing from his neck was now just a trickle, and what little was left of his strength had left his body along with it. Five yards to go. He had to tell them who he was. He wanted his children to know what had happened to him and where he had died. He slid slowly on his back.

            He felt the earthen ramparts of the line. He had made it. Someone would see him. Someone did see him. He felt hands grab his tunic roughly and haul him quickly over the mound. He heard their voices. He tried to speak but could not. He held out the bloody paper that had been given to him by the man that had been blown in half by a cannon ball as he lay there on his back.

            “It’s a g-d damn Yankee!”

            He had only a brief moment to realize that he had sought help in the wrong direction before the soldier brought the bayonet of his rifle down into his chest, the blade piercing his sternum and pinning him to the earth. How unnecessary, he thought as his life slipped away, to have my blood on your hands. I was killed already. 

            His body slid slowly into the earth.

A day soon came where hundreds of thousands would come to pay their respects to the official that sent him and hundreds of thousands like him to their violent deaths. These multitudes would erect monuments and statues to this official, put his likeness on their currency, exaggerate his accomplishments, and revere his memory.  No one, not even the children of the Union soldier slain so mercilessly, would remember his life, his loss, his forced sacrifice, or where his body lay, unmarked, with the others killed that day.

           

C’est la Guerre.

A Life Fuller Still

Sunny Isles Nursing Home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, had 98 patients. Sea Breeze nursing home, one block north of Sunny Isles, had 96. These nursing homes specialized in the “old old”; people over the age of 85 who had the luxury to die in comfort, but there was nothing comfortable about dying. Working there was depressing. Living there was worse than depressing – at least for most.

            The residents of these nursing homes were the “lucky ones”. These were the people that didn’t die in a car accident when they were 28; didn’t die of breast or prostate cancer at 39; didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke at 55. They skipped all of that and attended a hundred funerals during their lifetime. These were life’s survivors. Like everybody else they still had to die - they just took their time doing it. The average resident lasted 2 years before checking out for the “Big Move” as both the residents and the staff called it.

            Most residents of Sunny Isles and Sea Breeze, like most people, were boring and uninteresting. Their minds and their physical senses were dulled by age. But every once in a while a “live wire” would arrive and take up residency. People whose health had failed but whose mind had not. There were two such residents at the homes now – a 95-year-old man at Sunny Isles and an 85-year-old woman at Sea Breeze. Though these two residents were both terminal you would never know it by talking with them.

Registered Nurses Emmanuel and Sherry both worked as a “primary”, an individual tasked with the primary care of the residents, and had been assigned to each live wire: Emmanuel for the male resident, Pete, and Sherry for the female resident, Maria. Emmanuel and Sherry were “survivors”, that is, they were “primaries” that had been able to last on the job. Watching over people that had come to finish out their lives and die is no dream job – but somebody has got to do it. 

“Hey Sherry!” said Emanuel as he stepped into the pizza shop that served the neighborhood.

“Hey Manny!” Sherry replied. “How’s it going?”

 The two primaries were on very friendly terms and often chatted during their lunch break at one of the several restaurants that operated in the neighborhood.

“It’s going,” said Emmanuel, tilting his head over his left shoulder slightly and smiling sheepishly. “I don’t know where it’s going… but it’s going.”

Sherry smiled knowingly.

“It could be worse,” Emmanuel continued. “I got a “foxy grandpa” who is also a very “live wire”.

A “foxy grandpa” was a term used to describe male residents that still appeared to be interested in sex. Some years back the term was lifted by a primary at Sunny Isles from Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Welcome to the Monkey House”, and the term stuck.

“A foxy grandpa! My favorite!” Sherry said sarcastically.

“This one is a bit different. He’s not a lecher. He’s quite the philosopher.”

“What’s his status?”
“He arrived just yesterday, but already he’s got me thinking. He’s 95 and has early stage liver cancer,” said Emmanuel. “He refused surgery and chemo. He figures he’s got 6 to 18 months and is rather amused by the physicians that try to convince him to have surgery. He asks them, ‘After the surgery, chemo and recovery… will I be young again?’ Then he laughs hysterically and says, ‘Doc, I’m 95. I’m just humoring you. There is nothing you guys can do for a man my age except tell me a good joke and sneak in a bottle of good whiskey. A man my age should not die sober and it would be really something to die laughing - especially in this joint.’ The guy has steel in his balls.”

            Emmanuel grinned at his fellow primary and friend and shook his head, full of admiration for his charge.

“What about you?” he asked Sherry.

            “Oh, I’ve got a “Matron”. She lived here in South Florida from Junior High until several years after college then returned to her native Argentina. Her children all moved to the U.S. after they graduated high school so she moved back to be near them. She’s been a widow for over 30 years.”

            Emmanuel shook his head.  A “Matron” was an inside term for a socially opinionated but educated woman, usually one who sees her rank as above those caring for her.  “Matron’s can be tough,” he said.

            “She’s actually very pleasant and seems to naturally be a genuinely happy person.”

“What kind of “Matron” is genuinely happy?” Asked Emmanuel.
“This one is. Maybe she is not a perfect Matron, but I think her

Worldview is rigid enough to qualify. She’s just nicer than most.”

“Good morning, Pete!” Emmanuel beamed as he entered Pete’s room early the next morning. “How you feeling?”

“Well, I woke up this morning. I guess not many get out so easy,” Pete said as he spread his hands in an all-encompassing gesture.

“Why you in a hurry to get out of here?” asked Emmanuel. “You just got here.”

“I didn’t mean here as in this place. I meant life,” responded Pete. “Every morning that I wake up is a bit of a surprise. Every night I wonder if this will be the night I don’t wake up from.”

“Don’t be so morbid,” said Emmanuel as he brought a breakfast tray into the room from the hall.

“Who is being morbid? I loved every minute of my life. Even this minute, right here, as a broken old man. I am dying, but I am remembering the beautiful and happy moments of my life,” Pete said smiling at Emmanuel as if they were at a ball game’s 7^th inning stretch.

“Wow. That’s some spirit you have there, Pete.”

“You think so?” Pete paused and thought for a minute before continuing. “Nah. I was just luckier than most on several accounts. Not only did I live a long and healthy life but I recognized, even as a young man, that my life would end – that it was ending one minute at a time – and that I should live and love every moment that the opportunity presented itself. I have lots of regrets, but almost none for the opportunities and pleasures that I didn’t take.”

Emmanuel stopped and looked at Pete. Pete met his gaze with a contented smile.

“Well, I have been over your chart. You don’t take any medications, so I know this isn’t drugs talking,” said Emmanuel as he pulled up a chair from the desk.

“No, this isn’t a drug or drugs talking. It’s just a guy who has lived long and enjoyed - and didn’t waste the moments of his life standing on ceremony or complying with convention just because everybody else did it that way. I have known the love of many beautiful women, traveled the world, worked when I had to, and played when I should have. And I lived my life that way because in the back of my mind I always knew I would wind up here – as a broken old man lying in a bed waiting to die and able to do nothing but remember. So I gave myself lots of good memories to keep me company. I understand why so many old people are so grumpy and unhappy. They did not live and love when they could have and should have and it is only now, at the very end of their lives, that they realize that that time has passed and will never come again.”

Emmanuel continued to meet Pete’s gaze after Pete finished talking. Though a dying man, Pete’s face was as calm and happy as a statue of the Buddha. Emmanuel smiled back, dropped his gaze and shook his head slowly taking it all in.

“You must have had some life to sustain you like this,” Emmanuel said quietly.

“I had all of the ups and downs that life can bring. All of my brothers and sisters are gone, as are all of my childhood friends. I buried two wives. My children are between 30 and 65 and have their own lives and problems. As the saying goes, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” I’ve enjoyed excellent health, but I lost that a couple of times long enough to get my attention.”

“You were married twice?”

“Three times. The first time I was in my twenties and it ended in divorce in my 30’s. Beautiful girl. She died years ago. Married again in my 40’s, she passed away when I was 58. I married again when I was 65 to a girl 30 years younger than me. She passed away 15 years ago at the age of 50. Everyone thought she would be babysitting me in my old age and as it turned out I cared for her until the bitter end. At my age I am literally the last man standing,” Pete said, still with the look of Buddha like contentment on his face. “But you know all of this, working here,” he continued, his friendly gaze still locked on Emmanuel.

“I know a lot of things from working here. Not sure if I know what it is you seem to know.”

“I’m not sure what I know or what’s true. There are a couple of things I am sure of, though… Fun is the best thing to have. Love is the best thing to be in. Hope for better days is the best thing to carry around with you. Everything else is just baggage that weighs you down. Time will put enough bricks in your pockets. You don’t have to put any bricks in there yourself.”

“Fair enough. What’s most important? Fun, Love or Hope?”

“Oh, it’s not even close. Love.”

“So you’ve been in love?”

“Been? Still am.”

Emmanuel looked at Pete with an amused look on his face. “What? You got a girl friend?”

“I wish I had her.”

“Who? Your last wife?”
            “No. A woman I have not seen in 42 years.”

Emmanuel shook his head several times and held up his hand as if asking Pete to stop or slow down.

“Hold on. Come again? You’ve been in love for 42 years?” Their eyes met. Pete was as calm and composed as a Hindu cow. Emmanuel was as lost as Hansel and Gretel.

“No. I have been in love with her for 60 years. I have not seen her in 42 years. There have been a hundred lovers – maybe more - since the last night I spent with her. No one has come close to moving me the way she did. She would be 85 now, that is, if she were still alive. If she is, I would do anything to see her again.”

“Hi, Sherry!” Maria said from her bed as Sherry entered Maria’s room at the Sea Breeze Home for assisted living.

“Hi, Maria! You seem rather chipper this morning!”

“Chipper? What is chipper?” asked Maria in her beautifully accented English.

“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that English is your second language since you speak it so well. “Chipper” means energetic and happy and you sound that way.”

“I think everyone is responsible for their own happiness. So I am happy.” Maria smiled and looked up at Sherry from her bed. Maria was small and frail; her thin grey hair was clipped to the back of her head by a single bobby pin. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was here in the hospice program with an expected survival time of 3 to 9 months, but the expression on her face looked more like she was having a visit with a friend’s granddaughter.

“I guess that’s true,” said Sherry.

“There is no other way. If you depend on others for your happiness you will never be happy. Most people cannot find their own happiness. How can they possibly find happiness for you?”

Sherry stopped what she was doing and sat down in the chair facing the Maria’s bed.

“I get the idea that you are not very interested in small talk,” Sherry said to Maria in a quiet but kind voice.

“I’ve been making small talk my whole life. Now that I am dying I feel that I wasted a great deal of time with small talk.”

“Is there something in particular you would like to talk about?”

Maria paused and thought for a minute, and then said “No, not really.” After another pause she continued, “I have lived my life. I would be interested in hearing about your life.”

“What would you like to know?” asked Sherry.

Maria smiled and reached for Sherry’s hand. Sherry reached back and took Maria’s hand. It was small and gnarled with the ravages of age. Sherry looked up at Maria’s smiling face.  She must have been very, very pretty when she was young.

“What would you like to tell me?” Maria said kindly.

Sherry smiled back at Maria, squeezed her hand, and thought What would I like to tell you? Everything.

Emmanuel had been caring for the elderly long enough to know that these are just young people that got old, not old people - there was a big difference. But it was rare to have someone this old with this level of mental acuity. Physically, Pete was little more than a scarecrow. He could still walk and use the bathroom by himself, but not for much longer by the looks of him. Many old people can remember 50 years ago like it was yesterday but can’t seem to remember what they were talking about 5 minutes ago. That was not the case with Pete. He was sharp as a tack.

“You have been in love with a woman you have not seen in decades?”

“Yes.”

“And you had been married twice and had a hundred lovers during those years?”

“Yes,” Pete said with a kind smile. “It is a funny old world, isn’t it?”

“That it is Pete, but what kind of love could it possibly have been? You were able to love others, weren’t you?”

“Are you that much of a cynic, Emmanuel? Is love really an exclusive emotion? Great minds and thinkers have been debating the meaning of love since antiquity and that debate has never been settled. Love has been under terrible duress in the 21^st century with its gender war and overt materialism but in the end it is the one thing that every person seeks at every moment of every day. Some find it, at least for a short time, while most never do. Their quotidian existence strips them of the ability to experience the greatest experience life can offer, though the reasons differ by culture and gender. By the time their maturity allows them to objectively interpret their environment and their own existence they are too old to be able to engage in the very reason we live, and still it is enough to move mankind forward. Go figure. I lived only to engage in love – the pursuit of love, the pleasure of love, and the agony of love. For me there was love and then there was everything else.”

“You sound like a dime novel.”
            “Only because you have not had enough time on this planet to grasp that those dime novelists are on to something – and because you are still too young and prideful to love a woman, or women, with all of your natural ability. Most men never do. Try hard to bring this talent to the surface of your being before you are so old that it does not matter. You will remember this conversation if you are ever able to do so.”

“Is it only men that are incapable of love? Is every woman capable?”

“Hell no. Most women are too busy competing with other women and comparing what prizes and other goods and services they collected with their youth, beauty, and appeal while they have it. After that is gone they are often too busy fretting about losing their youth and beauty to notice that life and love are passing them by.”

“But not you…”

“No. Not me.”’

“So you have no regrets?”

“Of course I have regrets! Did you think I lived this long and didn’t learn from my mistakes? I regret the loves I did not have, the loves that should have been but turned me down, and even some of those that I turned down. I regret not having 10 children. I regret that I never climbed Kilimanjaro. I have quite a few more regrets. My greatest regret was not being able to love Maria more – more time, more passion, more everything. She was a goddess. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

“And I just don’t know what to do,” finished Sherry.

Maria smiled gently and reached out for Sherry’s hand. “Most of us women don’t know what to do in these situations. We all say one thing and do another. We advise our friends one way and take a completely different path ourselves. Consistency is not our greatest strength. We do not have the luxuries in love that men have – especially once we have children. But you need to have children! And you are not getting any younger.”

“Thanks for reminding me. My mother says the same thing,” Sherry said.
            “Of course! Your mother has lived long enough to see the depth and breadth and the limits of life. I am standing on the precipice and your mother can see the edge from her age, but you can neither feel nor see the limits that time imposes on all of us at your age. You are going to have to take it on good advice from us. Which most don’t do. I certainly didn’t.”

A crash in the corridor room reminded the women conspiring together in Maria’s room that they were not alone and did not have all day.

“What did you do?” asked Sherry.

“I took the safe course and married a safe man. He was a good man; a real man. I spent 27 years married to him but he was not the love of my life. That title belongs to a man that I spent a total of 9 months with.”

Maria’s eyes were moist and distant. Sherry wanted to know more but did not wish to upset her patient. Maria was willing to oblige.

“I wanted out of my marriage several times,” Maria continued, wiping her eyes. “And my true love wanted me to leave my marriage and marry him. I wanted to, too, but somehow I couldn’t. I had children and a life with my husband. It wasn’t perfect, but would a new marriage and a broken home for my children have been an improvement? I don’t think it would have. I remained faithful to my husband, as dull as he was, until he passed away. That was 32 years ago. I often wondered what became of my former lover.”
            “Why didn’t you contact him?”

“Oh, I thought about it many times, but we had a falling out the last time I saw him. I was separated from my husband and he pursued me, but I decided to return home to my life and my husband in Argentina. He took it very hard and told me never to contact him again and I never did. I never heard from him again.”

Maria’s voice was trembling and she wiped her eyes again and again.

“Would you have done anything differently if you had heard from him?” asked Sherry.
            “No,” said Maria, so low Sherry could not hear it but read it on Maria’s lips.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know if this helps… but you telling me this makes me feel better about my own confusing love life,” said Sherry.

“I am glad to hear that. It doesn’t change the past. Each of us makes our own happiness. I did what I thought was right.”

            “So what happened?” asked Emmanuel.

“We met again later in life. She was separated from her husband and I pursued her with reckless abandon, but in the end she decided to stay in her marriage. I never saw her again.”

“So what’d you do?” prodded Emmanuel.

“What could I do? I sought a love like that again but never found it. I met amazing women and beautiful lovers, traveled the world, had two more children with a woman half my age, engaged in commerce and started another successful business – and missed her every day of my life.”

“So then what happened?” asked Sherry.

“I went home to my husband. Nothing changed – there are no surprises from a man after the age of 30 – but I had a comfortable life. I wanted my children to have the stability of an intact family,” answered Maria.

“Were you happy?”

Maria looked up into Sherry’s eyes and smiled a kind smile.

“My love, we make our own happiness. The people in your life do not determine your happiness.”

Sherry paused and then said, “Well, if that were true then it would not really matter who, or what, is in your life,” said Sherry.

There was a short and profound silence in room 412 at the Sea Breeze Nursing Home and Hospice Care of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

“No, I don’t think that that’s true,” Sherry continued. “I think life is a series of compromises. Some compromises are worth making and others are not. Some people are better at being flexible and are better able to compromise.”

There was another long pause in room 412. After a while Maria quietly said, “You don’t know how right you are,” as she looked out of the window. “I sacrificed love and passion with the man that I loved because I was insecure. Later, I could not accept divorce and the failure I felt divorce represented. After my husband died I never found a love like the love I had, and rather than settle for an imperfect love I had none. My values and morals had held me prisoner and when I finally realized that, well, it was too late. I was old and the season had passed.”

“But you had a full life and eventually remarried and had more children?” an incredulous Emmanuel said more than asked.

“I was rejected, I was not dead. I continued on with my life,” answered Pete. “That does not mean I did not miss her terribly. I enjoyed love, children, and success… and every time I closed my eyes I thought of Maria.”

“For 40 years? Wow. Now that’s love,” said Emmanuel. “Or mental illness.”

Pete smiled ruefully as he lay there on the crisp white sheets of his bed at the Sea Breeze Nursing Home in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

“This body is old and weak. In fact, it is dying. Yet my mind is sharp and my passion and desire for my lost love remains even after a lifetime of wine, women, and song. I did not stop living just because I could not have her, and I did not stop loving her just because I was capable of truly living. Think about what it is that I just said. Personally, I think this was one of my best qualities, though many women resented me for it  - but only because they were trapped in the absurd belief that they would be young forever. I think it is mental illness to stop living and loving, for any reason, and I think its even worse when we stop living and blame that on our love for another – though that seems to be the norm. Somehow our culture has evolved to try to convince us that a love is not worthy unless it is somehow perfect; somehow pure. Donkey dust! Life is a series of compromises. I found it easy to compromise and to bend to the circumstances at hand. Insisting on things that cannot be is a fool’s errand. Things can be no other way than the way they are,” Pete paused for a moment and then added, “I have not spoken about Maria to anyone in 40 years but she was never far from my thoughts.”

Emmanuel had no response to this and sat quietly. Pete drifted peacefully off to sleep. Emmanuel left the room to check on his other charges and returned to Pete’s room to bring him his dinner but Pete had drifted off further than just sleep. When Emmanuel returned to Pete’s room he found Pete had checked out for the Big Move.

Emmanuel looked down on Pete’s inert body and said out loud as if Pete could hear him, “Well played, Pete. Well played.”

Sherry sat quietly while Maria composed herself. When Maria opened her eyes Sherry was smiling kindly at her and Maria smiled back.

“It is not easy being a woman. We deny ourselves much of what life has to offer in order to maintain appearances. We resent men for possessing an ability we so often lack, and then punish ourselves for lacking it. We do not consider the abilities we have that they do not. I have lived a long and full life. My life would have been fuller still if I had taken the opportunity to love Pete when I could have and not worried about whether I should have. I know he would not have worried about it at all. He would have loved me and accepted the consequences. I would not - or could not. This is my greatest regret,” Maria said and closed her eyes.

Sherry sat there quietly thinking over all that Maria had shared with her.

“Was that his name? Pete?” asked Sherry.

Maria did not answer. After a while Sherry reached over to brush the lose strands of thin grey hair from Maria’s forehead. It was then that Sherry realized that Maria was gone. Maria had slipped quietly away, but she said what she needed to say and then checked out for the Big Move. 
Sherry reached for Maria’s hand and held it for a moment, mouthed the words “thank you” to her and turned and walked out into the hall of the Sea Breeze Nursing Home in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, closing the door to room 412 and on the life of Maria Concepcion Duarte Fernandez behind her.