1. Claudia Rosett, RIP.
   
2. Russell Hogg and Scott Sumner podcast on Japanese movies.
   
3. Foundations and Frontiers, some new essays on new technologies, by Anna-Sofia Lesiv.
   
4. “Meet the one-person team behind Antarctica’s longest-running newspaper, the Antarctic Sun.”
   
5. Benjamin Wallace-Wells on libertarianism (New Yorker).
   
6. The excellent Dan Senor podcasts with me.
   
7. How to keep people chatting.
   
8. Pentagon now hunting for UFOs with sensors actively built for that purpose.
   

The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
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](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/06/friday-assorted-links-420.html#comments) - Is GPT4 getting worse? Discussion at ...by T. Shaffner

Hello Death Grippers,
You may remember me as that one person who did an in depth album ranking and also a post outlining my top 20 tracks 2-3 months ago. Those posts have since been deleted because my opinions have changed. Anyway, I have been listening to DG for a while longer now, and after letting all the music simmer in I am going to be posting my 10 favorite songs from their discography instead of doing some convoluted, bullshit album ranking post like I’ve done before lmao.
Just a warning that my opinion will not be yours and there are some very popular and great songs I’ll be leaving out of the list. I've been meaning to make this post for a while but I really wanted to take my time and digest my opinions and feelings.
First, I’ll start off with some honorable mentions:
Spikes – This was probably my second/third favorite last time around, its still as much as an awesome banger as it was. It’s simply very accessible albeit lacking some depth.
Hacker – Crazy how this is off the top 10 now, it’s the quintessential Death Grips song and its simply perfect. There’s nothing I can say here that adds on to the widespread praise, but personally I just like some other songs more nowadays.
Anne Bonny – Absolute banger. Love the alternation between the smooth ear-candy synths and grinding dirty ones. Ride’s second verse here with absolutely unhinged vocal delivery is one of my favorite.
Eh – Not usually one of their standout songs, but I love Ride’s deadpan delivery over this hypnotizing, bubbling beat that rises and sinks with the bleak and nihilistic lyrics contrasting the chill, laid back beat. “Catch me hanging from my noose like eh” is one of the standout lyrics.
Death Grips is Online – Insane song, 90s crackhead rave type beat that starts off crystal clear but quickly devolves into warped psychedelic nonsense with bar after bar of some NOTM level cryptic lyrics. Definitely a favorite.
#10 – Lost Boys
My #10 pick is going to be Lost Boys, it’s a song that’s grown on me slowly over the immediately catchy more accessible songs on TMS like I’ve Seen Footage or Hustle Bones. Thematically, I really like this song as it gives us some much needed context for the Death Grips motif. Why their music is so unhinged and angry. “It’s such a long way down” followed by the “lost boy, lost boy, lost boy…” chant is a bleak chorus that speaks how there is no limit to how far a person can painfully descend into the marginalized of society. I love how this motif is spoken on top of this metallic scraping factory type beat. It really emphasizes how the aforementioned Lost Boys are just barely clinging onto life as they’ve lost their sanity completely. The vocal delivery may seem slurred and incohesive, but I love this artistic choice as it really adds to the warped acidic feel of the song.
#9 - Klink
Perhaps their most political song, this is Death Grip’s rendition of a “fuck the police” anthem that every rapper seems to have in their catalogue. The Black Flag sample slowed down and stretched over literal screaming makes for this aggressive political middle finger that becomes increasingly more unhinged and violent. At verse two, Ride even threatens to put the cops “six feet deep below the street” so they “can’t never say shit again”. The repeating motif here is Ride painting the cops as ignorant and violent pigs who are just out here to fuck you over from your business, to stop you from doing what it takes to survive. It’s difficult to tell if the narrator here is the overly drug-addled, sex-craving, hyperviolent protagonist of Exmilitary and the Money Store or the real person of MC Ride who’s clawed out the underbelly of Sacramento. Either way, from the beginning disc switch intro to the 80s radio sounding outro, this is one of my all time favorites. For best results, bundle this up with the Cutthroat instrumental.
#8 - Come Up and Get Me
I previously rated this song very highly and I still love it. I love the primal animistic energy from Ride’s vocals and the general claustrophobic sense of panic in the narrative. It’s one of my favorite lyrically with standout lines like “Street or nosedive to the next life in seconds and suicide ain’t my stallion so I’m surrounded”. This song is frantically uncomfortable verse after verse of suicide ideation, with the protagonist so trapped and afraid he imagines himself “off the planet” hopefully ascending into an astral plane where he can find some semblance of peace. However, the conflict lies in that the central character is not willing to ride into the sunset killing himself as a coward as “suicide aint my stallion”. It’s one of their most schizophrenic songs that definitely stand out on NLDW. The context of this song is also further extended given how Death Grips stashed out at the Chateau Marmont to record NLDW, trapped in luxurious celebrity norms that fueled the anxiousness for this track.
#7 – Blackjack
I love the heavy violent instrumentals on this beat, and that female cybernetic voice “BLACKJACK” gives me chills every time. The narrative here of the protagonist’s criminal life being a game of blackjack is my favorite on TMS. The central character destroys lives with drugs and violence on a whim, but he’s so drawn to this life like a gambling addiction. He also doesn’t know when he’ll “bust” and lose it all like a game of Blackjack, but that thrill keeps him going as he loses any sense of remorse he has. This sense of anxiety remains present, but the protagonist remains ever bragging being so dominant in the game of “blackjack” he feels almost untouchable, but the music comes off demonic and evil as if this central character is no longer human with that warped voice filter again even more twisted this time around than it was on Lost Boys. This track reflects a monster the protagonist has become, and its reverbing earthshaking beat only adds to that level of menace. My favorite on TMS as of now.
#6 - Centuries of Damn
This is one of those songs that don't feel so Death Grips, but I love it so much. In a slow guitar tune that shifts from cataclysmic depressing to tropical-esque, Ride contemplates centuries of existential dread for mankind. He even says "fuck the sun.. daylight sucks", blaming the sun for sustaining human life and shunning how shallow the world is and how little we've accomplished. There's not much to say about this song other than how I just love how everything comes together. It's often overlooked compared to other songs in Jenny Death but this ones just amazing no doubt. This song is also a step back for the MC Ride character, reflecting how he's stuck in this cycle of suffering from the violence, drugs and everything - and if he were immortal he would suffer for centuries unable to break the chain.
#5 – Billy Not Really
Last time, this song barely missed the top 10. Now it’s all the way up here. The cryptic Billy Not Really is simply addicting with how near spiritual it sounds. It forgoes the usual grindy abrasive Death Grips sounds and replaces it with something almost cosmic-like, alien and otherworldly. It comes off jittery and glitched, but never scraping in sound. This track feels like a nautical journey through insights not meant for our mortal minds, as we realize the dissatisfaction of our existence. Its sound never fails to draw you in with verse after verse of what feels like a spiritual departure. Case in point, I can’t really describe properly why this is so far up the list for me, but it’s certainly not a surprise.
#4 – Artificial Death in the West
From this point on, any song is basically interchangeable. These are all what I would consider peak Death Grips. They are not only great songs but transcend past the rest of their discography. This to me is simply one of the best songs in their catalogue, its refreshingly different and almost sounds peaceful, but there remains a hanging spirit of melancholy and danger to it with Ride’s vocals almost sounding like a dark warning. This song feels post-apocalyptic with civilization that once was buried in sand dunes, it feels boundless in sound but also feels numbing as if technology has dehumanized us despite the overly sexual lyrics at times here. The synths in this song and the overall atmosphere this song creates is immaculate and it makes it in my top five for this reason. This to me is so masterful because it paints a bleak tune of how technology replaces our human fundamentals with sex being replaced with porn and any semblance of social interaction being snuffed out by the boundless endless entertainment on the internet as if it were a sea of sand.
#3 – On GP
You all saw this coming, On GP is just commonly agreed to be one of their masterpieces. Jenny Death is not one of my favorite albums nowadays, but this track is absolutely peak. The shimmering guitar riffs contrasting these morbid suicide ideations are something that not many artists can accomplish without sounding needlessly edgy or too derivative. The outro “All the nights I don't die for you. Wouldn't believe how many nights I ain't died for you” is my favorite lyric in the song. Ride is basically saying how he would have taken his life On GP (general principle) if not for loved ones. It’s so hopelessly bleak but also sorely relatable for someone like myself who’s also had mental health struggles. For an artist who’s constantly wrapped around some kind of exaggerated or muddled character, this song just feels like a cumulation and finale to their story a triumph to close out a chapter and turn the page where this honest and crystal clear version of Ride will never be seen again. This song encapsulates the pain and struggle, but also the sparkling small moments of hope we hold as humans with ups and downs in life. The masterful songwriting backed with soul-rending power chords do this song justice.
#2 – Beware
Demonic, poetic and menacing, Beware is simply something else. I was initially not a fan of the Charles Manson sample as it felt needlessly long, but its place in the narration of this song is much needed. The central character of this song transforms into something monstrous and inhuman as we progress from verse after verse of poetic imagery in lines such as “cold blood night of serpent’s breath” and “the spiral storm of flames inside the torch I raise the force I ride”. The vivid imagery of this song on a looped dark guitar beat make it impossible to not paint these world-ending horrifying images in your head as the song plays.
“Harsh winds flay mine flesh to bone In splintered skeleton I roam Wastelands with naught to call my own But the path I walk alone The hunger burns within my gut As my bones turn into dust”
This little segment is my favorite on the entire song, as it just presents itself so grotesque and disturbing but utterly beautiful at the same time. There is so much to unpack here with its Biblical references and constant theme of witchcraft and dark sorcery. But above all else, this is so fitting for Death Grips to put themselves on the map and establish they are a force to be reckoned with. While many of their songs involve loss of humanity and transition into something truly evil, none of them come off as colorful and evocative as Beware.
#1 – Up My Sleeves
Yup, my favorite DG track is up my sleeves up my sleeves up my sleeves up my sleeves up my sleeves up my sleeves up my sleeves up my sleeves. The opening sample “Doors and windows on, motions on” just perfectly opens up the anxiety riddled journey we’re about to take. We’re then greeted by this crawling unsettling chant that doesn’t get any easier to digest. The beat utilizes these insanely demented Bjork samples coming off super abrasive, feeding into a sense of shattered clarity. There’s many moments in this song worth diving into but ones that stands out is Ride stating his obituary will be blank at Broadway cemetery as a comparison to the unmarked graves of evil men, “my terracotta army disarms me, disowns me”. There’s also this moment that goes “My dead mother in my dream… blew her ashes off my jeans” – which is such a powerful statement of Ride losing his last memories of the only one he has loved. All in all, there’s so many cryptic but addicting moments in this track, painting how illogical the human mind can be while being so paranoid and subject to corruption. The instrumentation on this track is fucking insane too, it feels claustrophobic like in NLDW except this time its more beautiful but at the same time so much more utterly horrifying. The song name ‘Up My Sleeves’ is true to the motif of this song as it shifts between themes of materialism, death or existential dread. This song is my favorite because of how unconventional it is, refusing to fall into any ordinary song structure – and like a magician’s secret trick you never know the meaning of this song or how it came to be.
Wow holy shit that was a lot of typing. If you somehow stuck with me all the way to the end thank you, I bless you with 10 years of good luck and a Steroids hoodie will appear on your bedside tomorrow morning.
I am going to go to sleep now lmfao its 2am and I have class tomorrow morning but let me know your thoughts on my top 10 list. Let me know what other songs you love and why :))

So I’ve been down the rabbit hole, trying to chase every off-the-cuff reference, stray allegory, allusion, comparison, and tangent. I’m going to need you to bear (hug) with me for a bit because I think I’ve stumbled on some truly insane parallels between this show and the myriad of references it makes and it will take a lot of text to justify to you that I'm not crazy (or that I am, but at least I do my research).
This is a show that employs a ton of intertextuality and what the poet T.S. Eliot (someone quoted frequently throughout the series) calls “the mythic method”: essentially using historical, literary, and mythological allusions to draw parallels between characters on the show and characters throughout history (real and imagined).
This method helps the audience to build both conscious and unconscious associations with each of the characters and, ultimately, underscores the Roys’ (and humanity’s) damning commitment to making the same mistakes over and over again. The show seems to draw a lot from Greek mythology, Arthurian legend, biblical parables, Shakespearean tragedy, and modernist poetry (among many other things).
These networks of symbolism span from the earliest recorded history to modern celebrity culture and yet they reveal frighteningly unchanged elements in the stories they tell. The parallels of these references throughout the show serve to highlight the cyclical (the illusion of progress) and deterministic (the illusion of free will) nature of existence.
While I will be dipping in and out of the existing references, I want to call particular attention to the poetry of the aforementioned T.S. Eliot (who champions the mythic method) and John Berryman’s poem Dream Song 29 because I believe much of their work has served as a foundation for characters.
In the show, Frank makes mention of his poem “The Long Song Of J Alfred Prufrock” more than once. Outside of the show, Matthew McFayden (the actor who plays Tom) references the same poem to describe his character. Jeremy Strong (the actor who plays Kendall) says Eliot’s work The Four Quartets is a huge inspiration to his acting and character. A line from this particular work did strike me as being quite on the nose, which is why I continued to comb the poem for more (which it does deliver on):

"In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which is already flesh, fur and faeces, Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf."

This will probably be a monster of a post, so I will attempt to break down the following sections between poetic parallels, visual and dialogic symbolism of eternal recurrence, and an exploration of the historical and mythological allusions. Ultimately, I believe all of these clues point to the overwhelming conclusion that we will end where we began, in some way or another.
Circles & Cycles: Endless Recurrence & The Futility Of Progress
The show toys a lot with the philosophical concept of eternal recurrence, which postulates that “time repeats itself in an infinite loop, and that exactly the same events will continue to occur in exactly the same way, over and over again, for eternity.”
These eternal loops are symbolized visually with mirrors, water, fractal reflections; in the “uh-huh” and “mhmms” of repeated, near-palindromic dialogue; and in the show events that echo and repeat: in-air death scares, asynchronous business deals, family betrayal, weddings, retreats, implosions, family reunions, trauma bonding, baptism, funerals, etc.
In this understanding of time, there is no linear progress — or even progress at all. Time is cyclical. People are cyclical. As are the events that transpire. This is particularly interesting in a show like Succession whose title alone implies the phrase “line of succession.” Viewers would expect to see what comes next — who comes next — but as Logan himself yells, “Nothing is a line. Everything is moving all the time.”
Logan consistently evokes the circle shape in his speech, “Put a circle around him” he tells Shiv. “We’ve been circling for an hour, tell them we’re out of gas,” he complains in a moment of grim foreshadowing on his plane. “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes,” he shouts during the game of Boar on the Floor.
And he is the bright, burning nebulous center of this circle. He’s described as “carr[ying] his gravity. He's not a man, he's a f*cking planet.” And the people around him are described like satellites and moons. Characters exist in his orbit. And every complete orbit (or “revolution”) leaves characters in exactly the same place. There are motions, there is the illusion of progress, but the result is the same. Eliot again:

“every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure”

With this understanding, the show may just end where it begins. Not only in “nothing” happening, but in repeating the same events ad infinitum: A kid tries to take over the family business, they try to align with their siblings, they eventually backstab their siblings, they end out in the cold, and then they reunite, swear not to do it again, until it all repeats.
As most of us are aware, the show has made very direct mention of the John Berryman poem Dream Song 29. The names of the past three season finales (as well as the name of the upcoming fourth) are all direct excerpts from the poem, which deals with grief and sadness and the guilt of killing someone when you can’t even confirm there’s been someone killed at all.
Berryman consistently wrote about the guilt and grief he experienced from his father’s suicide. Berryman himself would eventually end up taking his own life, which on its own is a brutal reminder of the cycles of trauma. It also doesn’t feel insignificant that Berryman jumped off a bridge.
What’s really interesting is how each subsequent finale is named for a line that comes earlier and earlier in the poem. It also toys with this concept that things come full circle and end where they begin. This echoes Eliot’s essential thesis of the poem:

“What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

But while the speaker of the poem comes to realize he has not murdered “nobody” by the poem’s last line; Kendall, moving through the poem backward, must reckon with the idea that he may have killed somebody even if they were a “nobody.” And while we may encounter this as a moment in which Kendall is genuinely despairing over his season 1 inadvertent murder, I believe we are far more likely to see Kendall embrace this moment.
We see "nobody" and "no one mentioned" a lot when it comes to Logan, who believes most people are "fungible as f*ck," and "pygmies" while he's "1,000 feet tall." When Kendall is involved in the accident, we see him echo "NRPI" or no real person involved.
The reason Kendall couldn’t live up to his father’s expectations is that he couldn’t be the killer his father needed him to be (even if his morality or basis of being a good person is off). This retroactive movement through the poem could be Kendall realizing he is, in fact, the killer his father always needed him to be, enabling him to take the necessary steps of seizing the crown on his own.
Allegories & Allusions: Mythic Comparisons & Determinism
It’s Shakespearean, like Roman says, “I kill Kendall, get crowned king, like we’re in f*cking Hamlet or something.” But it’s not just Hamlet, it’s King Lear, King Richard III, Coriolanus, Macbeth. And it’s not just Shakespeare, it’s Oedipus Rex, The Odyssey, The Waste Land, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Cronus devouring his children, Romulus killing Remus, Noah cursing his child for looking upon him naked.
The concept of the monomyth was popularized in "The Hero With 1000 Faces" and discusses throughout history, throughout different times and places, different cultures, different religions, different people have developed stories with relatively similar fundamental elements. The show is rife with allusions of stories that follow that same thread. Logan is Cronus who is King Lear who is Romulus who is who is. This is another form of endless recurrence: the inability to break the cycle. Or, in a very Hamlet reference, "maybe the poison drips through."
The themes of patricide, fratricide, and incest in particular are rampant. Rhea (like Rhea Jarell) in Greek mythology is both sister and consort to Cronus. Both are part of the first generation of aptly named Titan gods. Cronus overthrew his father Uranus and learns his children are fated to overthrow him. So he eats them as soon as they are born. Logan does refer to people as food a surprising amount throughout the show, varying from red meat to vegetables. He outright calls for blood sacrifice, which evokes the language of the gods.
Logan is referenced specifically as one of the last real American titans in his obituaries and eulogies. The language around him is frequently god-like. He's known as "the big man" or even "the big man upstairs." Tom tells Greg to "be his representative here on earth"; Roman asks the audience, "who is going to climb Mt. Olympus and be the next Dr. Zeus?" And that's where the myth gets interesting.
The only child not to be eaten is Zeus, who does end up killing his father and was surprisingly interested in marrying his mother. We're familiar with this plot formula through a different archetype: the Oedipus Complex, which we see referenced in the show with “Oedipus Roy,” “Oedipussy,” and “stabbing my eyes out.” The same story is repeated again in Hamlet with brother killing and brother and son yelling at his mother about her milky breasts (something Roman does to Shiv more than once). In the show when Logan says to Roman, “You may want to f*ck your mother but I don’t.” We know none of these stories end well. As Connor muses, “It’s not right to kill one’s father; history teaches us that.”
In the story of Romulus and Remus (whose mother’s name is also Rhea), the two brothers were initially chased out of their city as potential threats to the King (yet again). They were left by the river to die and were saved by the river god (important). After successfully overthrowing the kingdom that left them for dead, they agree to found a new city. They ultimately disagreed on which hill to found it and decided to have a bird-watching competition to see who could see the most omens indicating they had divine approval for the hill. Remus says he saw 6 auspicious birds but Romulus claims to see 12. Romulus kills Remus over this.
It should remind you of Logan visiting his childhood home with Ewan: “I saw a mistle thrush at the bandstand,” and the log book he kept as a child of birds he “saw” that Ewan would cross out if he didn’t believe him. It may also echo a part of The Four Quartets, “Other echoes/ Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?/ Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,/ Round the corner. Through the first gate,/ Into our first world, shall we follow/ The deception of the thrush?"
There is much to be said about the themes of warring brothers. Also the themes of fathers worried their children would one day overthrow them who take action to thwart or murder their children, which inadvertently sets into motion the very outcome they fear. It happens over and over again in stories old and new. As Panhandle Pete says, “I push him, he pushes me, and around and around we go.” Or as Eliot puts it, “that the wheel may turn and still / Be forever still.”
Much of these works touch on a sort of determinism, or the slow crushing reality that every action you take — even if that action is an attempt to thwart your fate — will ultimately lead to the same inevitable ending. This is the illusion of free will on top of the illusion of progress. And Logan, in fearing his children would usurp him (and also disparaging his children for not being able to), set into motion his own death and his own messy succession.
It’s also a reminder that the greatest men in life are all the same when laid to rest:

"O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant, The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark…"

Structure & Symbolism: Water As Rebirth & Destruction
The show has very much been structured around Kendall, and we watch him move through bodies of water with what feels like different symbolism each time. Is he drowning, is he reborn? We witness Kendall at his lowest point face down in a pool and at one of his highest, splashing into the Pacific ocean. We watch a man drown. We watch Logan beg Kendall for water as they walk through Adrien Brody’s maze. We watch Roman clamor for water at the funeral when he needs to calm down. Poetry has long played with this life and death dynamic in water, like the sailors dying of thirst in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner who cry:

“Water, water, every where,. And all the boards did shrink;. Water, water, every where,. Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ!”

This sub has noted Kendall’s connection to water, which has been represented over and over visually. But once you realize every metaphor, analogy, and simile he uses is water-based, you can’t unhear it. He calls his father “a tsunami of corruption” and describes things “as more precious than water”; he calls deals “choppy” and “dead in the water,” and asks to “help steady the ship”; he offers to “row back” on business deals, says timing is “high tide,” and that he has “bigger fish to fry.”
Logan is apt to use similar water symbolism, even telling Shiv that she’s marrying a man “fathoms” beneath her. As Rhea tells him, fearful of his own monstrosity, “I can’t see the bottom of the pool. I don’t know if you care about anything. It scares me.” ATN’s major scandal was “death cruises.” Even his operating nemesis is called “Sandy.”
In fact, there is mention of all elements and seasons — in particular, fire from Shiv, air from Roman, and earth from Connor. T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets confront these same themes and share some surprising similarities with show scene locations, dialogue, and plot points.
That’s because Succession is an allegory for the micro and the macro: the rise and fall of families, civilizations, monarchies, dynasties, and empires. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, the cycles rinse and repeat. Eliot modeled the four quartets on the 4 elements and the 4 seasons. And you can see even in Succession a similar manifestation of 4 elements. And, well, 4 seasons of the show. (And what occurs after 4 seasons? A full revolution around the sun, bringing you to where you began.)
Water seems to be at the root of it all. Even Ewan’s eulogy meditates on his and Logan’s journey on a boat. Even their abusive uncle is named Noah. In the show, we watch our nobody die by water, we watch our main character nearly die by water, and then we watch him revive in the ocean. As Kendall and his father wind their way through Adrien Brody’s circuitous Long Island home, Kendall remarks, “I think this leads to the ocean.” Because every path leads to the sea in some way or another.
The overarching narration from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is the Arthurian Legend of The Fisher King. This story is told a million different ways with a million different outcomes, but always boils down to an injured or maimed monarch ruling over a dying land. Or as Ewan refers to his "empire of shit": “He’s built a wasteland and called it an empire.”
He’s looking for someone, anyone, to heal him, rescue the kingdom, and ensure the dynasty survives. This is the myth of the holy grail, which, in this show, can be seen as the throne: The original stories of the holy grail were not Christian/religious but they do employ a lot of the same mythmaking from earlier religions and mythologies to tell their stories and thus construct their new realties. As Eliot says in The Four Quartets:

"The whole earth is our hospital Endowed by the ruined millionaire, Wherein, if we do well, we shall Die of the absolute paternal care That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere."

I believe Kendall (and the other children) represent the grail knights who try to save the king. (On the same level they stand in for the gods, the elements, or anything at all). When Christianity became more popular, these myths adapted to Christian overtones, but they still had the Celtic and pagan myths at their core: the grail becomes the chalice from the last supper.
That’s why Kendall’s easy comparisons of himself to Jesus feel less blasphemous than revelatory. Jesus is another hero archetype in the show’s mythology. He is willing to sacrifice himself, which Kendall must do in order to become the successor his father wanted. As he says, "this is a culmination of my life's journey to be crucified for you morons."
(It’s worth noting: In some legends, the knight saves the king; in others, he inadvertently destroys him. We know Logan dies, but it does feel less likely that Waystar Royco survives.) Drowning is a constant feature of Eliot's poems, but so is baptism and renewed life. It is difficult to determine the meaning of water in either instance, except that it doesn't discriminate as a life or death bringer, which is both beautiful and terrifying.
Parallels & Predictions: Piecing The Plot & Poetry Together
To repeat again, as this show is wont to do: “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes!” Logan Roy shouts during a game of Boar On A Floor. It’s an allegory, like many games on the series, and proudly says the quiet part out loud: Logan always wins. Here’s a little boar on the floor reference in The Four Quartets:

"We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf And hear upon the sodden floor Below, the boarhound and the boar Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars."

We’ve seen the L.O.G.A.N. system at work many times and with many people. He dangles a carrot, a morsel of love, as each character attempts to play the game over and over while expecting different results. They are doomed to crawl in that circle, to play that blind game, as Logan angrily shouts, “It’s fun!” And this game doesn't end in death. The children still ask. "What would dad do?"
Games on Succession (which are a consistent refrain), it turns out, are rarely fun and are often designed to humiliate or inflict pain. The same goes when characters say “I’m just kidding” after an eviscerating remark. Logan thinks life is a game, and as he says, games should be taken seriously. And because Logan explicitly makes the rules, there is no winning, just trudging around the board, passing Go, and collecting $200. The games are essentially Sisyphean tasks that the kids wouldn’t be able to win even if they were actually competent enough to run the company. And yet they keep rolling the boulder. It’s endless. The repetition. It ends where it begins.

"Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, Every poem an epitaph. And any action Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start. We die with the dying: See, they depart, and we go with them. We are born with the dead: See, they return, and bring us with them. The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree Are of equal duration. A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments."

Please also note the use of “the rose” and “the yew tree,” which are the names of Logan’s siblings Rose and Ewan, which derives from yew-tree. Other important name comparisons include Kendall’s association to spring/river valley; Siobhan’s nickname either a knife (Shiv) or Pinky (a variation of the name Rose); Roman’s connection to Romulus/Corialanus; Tom’s name meaning “twin” because there was already someone named Judas in the bible HELLO; Logan’s name meaning little hollow, which recalls another Eliot poem, The Hollow Men.
We know this show is a game, one that isn't fun at all, and one whose rules Logan made up. Even when there's a winner, there's no winner. So it's almost futile to play at all. That said, it’s impossible to make sense of any of it all without the ending — to confirm this ball has been rolling toward an inevitable conclusion, but given the show’s ending has probably occurred already, here are my thoughts:

• Kendall drowns

This may feel a bit on the nose given we’ve already seen this almost happen to “the Kurt Cobain of floaties,” but it would certainly be poetic. This could be sad (launched from a bridge); empowering (a la The Awakening); or metaphorical (a drug overdose). At some point Kendall says, "If dad didn’t need me right now I wouldn’t know what I would be for." The kids exist with Logan as their sun; they are moons, satellites, in orbit. And when their sun dies out, they repeat the motions in the cold, slowly losing their patterns and motions. The term is science is a rogue planet and the following lines from the poem remind me of Kendall and his broken, hollow stare.
“It would be the same at the end of the journey, If you came at night like a broken king, If you came by day not knowing what you came for, It would be the same, when you leave the rough road And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for Is only a shell, a husk of meaning From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled If at all. Either you had no purpose Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured And is altered in fulfilment.”

• Kendall is king of the ashes

Any victory feels like it will be a Pyrrhic victory regardless when you've had to systematically take down everyone you love to achieve it. The same lines above can echo here "the purpose is beyond the end you figured/And is altered in fulfilment." A hollow victory. The Fisher King question Logan poses is, "Who can replace me?" Logan wanted each of his children to display the killer instinct. Kendall’s backwards journey through Dreamsong 29 may very well see him realize he is, in fact, the killer his dad always wanted — with open eyes. This will probably involve taking down his siblings. In this version, winning is a lot like losing, which feels very Succession.

• Mattson wins it all

These Shakespearean histories and tragedies rarely end well for existing houses. With Richard III (the-multiple-lineage-ending war of the roses) and Hamlet (the-whole-house-dies-but-a-norwegian-king-swoops-in-to-take-it-all dynastic struggle) references abound. We may just see a new house rise up and rinse and repeat. This would probably also occur if the kids take each other down and leave it open for another party. We saw last season that Roman thought he had an in with Mattson until it didn’t serve Mattson anymore. I see the same thing happening between Roman and Mencken. This puts Mencken and Mattson in a position to take over, which may make Mattson win it or…

• Mattson destroys it all

When Mattson is introduced, he is referenced as a trickster. Generally, in mythology, this character is quite intelligent or in possession of secret knowledge, and he uses it for trickery and commandeering situations. (Is that blood thing real???). Hamlet concludes with every major character killing the other with their own tragic flaws until a third party Scandinavian comes in to take the crown with no necessary action or bloodshed at all. We already know he's unscrupulous; what is his end game? It reminds me of one of his early lines to Roman, which would be an eerie foreshadowing:
“Success doesn’t really interest me anymore, it’s too easy. Analysis + capital + execution. Fucking, anyone can do that. But failure, that’s a secret. Just as much failure as possible as fast as possible, burn that shit out, that’s interesting.”

• Tom betrays Shiv

We’ve seen it happen before (which is why it should happen again). We’ve also seen Tom remove the thin veneer of his ambitions to the point where he almost feels like Richard III. He has played the fool, which is Shakespearean estimation, is often equivalent to the trickster. This would be a fun and distorted parallel to Shiv offering this job to him for Logan to offer it to her. This would probably happen in conjunction with Mattson winning. As I mentioned earlier, the name Tom means “twin” and the apostle Tom was only called as such because there were already one too many “Judas” in the mix. He's also from Minnesota (the twin cities!), so this is becoming very real, you know???

• Greg betrays Tom

While we know Tom has betrayed Shiv before, we also know Greg betrayed Shiv and Tom when he spoke to Geri in the first season about Tom having a press conference on cruises. He leads Tom to believe Shiv has betrayed him, getting one over on both of them. There may also be something with the Rule of 3 and being betrayed 3 times that feels biblical. The show also makes TONS of references to holding on to blackmail for opportune moments. Will we see something like this?
I’m not a big believer that Greg will fail so far upwards that he will win (this would feel like a betrayal in its own right), but do I believe there’s a world where Greg gets himself on a piece of paper with a question mark. Maybe???

• Geri finally beats Tom

This is my personal hope because I want the Tom and Jerry allusion to be real more than any other I put together (we love a good cat and mouse game). If Mattson wins, he needs a US CEO. Geri has collected a massive amount of dirt on everyone. And to call back to season 1’s interim CEO discussions, Shiv says, “I don’t like Geri. But I don’t hate Geri either.” It would feel particularly good given how much time and effort Logan spent clarifying Geri would be terrible at the position. Especially as Logan disparaging someone generally means he’s afraid of what they can do.
I’ll end at the ending. Or conclude where Eliot did on The Four Quartets:

"We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always— A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one."

PS. Given ‘Pinky’ is another name for ‘Rose’ does this mean Shiv wins??? JK let’s just watch the show tonight and laugh at our predictions in the morning.

I stepped onto the front porch holding out the hope that there’d be a basket of pastries and cookies; There was nothing there. It had been two weeks since the Gibsons had popped by. The Gibsons, our neighbors from the farm next to us, sported several more acres of land than our family and with how amazing the early elderly couple were, they deserved it.
Melvin and Maya baked together, even as Melvin’s mind slipped it was one of the only things he could remember from his 37 years of marriage with Maya. They always brought us lots of their baking, and in turn we all would help them out with things around their farm. Maya’s mind was sharp, even if both of their bodies were giving out. It was the least we could do for such lovely neighbors.
So when more than a week had passed with no calls or basket drop-offs, I knew something was wrong.
“Where are you going? Sun’s almost down,” mom asked me as I threw on some boots.
“Checkin’ on the neighbors,” I replied, stone faced.
“Oh I’m sure they’re just fine, their son and his wife were supposed to be visiting, right?”
I didn’t have a real response to that. Something felt wrong, but maybe I was expecting far too much from them. If they had family over I shouldn’t be so bent out of shape.
“Maybe you’re right,” I relented. “Perhaps it’s just that-”
Sirens rushing down the road cut me off. They were headed west. Towards the Gibson’s farm.
“When was the last time you heard those around here, ma?” I asked.
“Five months,” I got back. The reality did hit me. We were roughly twenty minutes south of Albany, and I probably haven't been to Atlanta in maybe three months. I was grateful for my online friends, let alone having the internet in the first place.Which is why I’m writing what I’m writing.
“Jonah, where are ya going?” I heard my dad call out to me as I hurried into the truck. He’d been watering the tomato plants outside.
“Checkin the Gibsons!” I called back.
“Dammit, you’re gonna look silly when you crash their family bbq cause you was worried!”
“Explain the cops then!” I retorted before slamming the truck door and speeding west.
Melvin and Maya’s place was ten minutes away by vehicle. I had the windows down, and around the halfway mark I heard gunshots. I picked up speed, thrashing the poor truck on the dirt road.
I didn’t wanna be right, but sure as shit there were two cops and an ambulance parked outside of their place. I got out of the truck and rushed over. The law enforcement and paramedics were a little jumpy, and very pale.
“What’s going on..?” I asked much slower than I normally would. The sheriff looked back at the house, and that’s when I noticed the window had been smashed. The frame of the window was torn right off the house, too.
“An attack of some kind,” The sheriff told me. “It’s a gnarly scene there, kid. We suspect a-”
“Don’t bullshit him you saw it, too!” a much younger deputy called out. “That thing’s a monster!”
The sheriff sighed, giving this visibly shaken deputy a pat on the back. “We’ll see to it that someone destroys it.”
“A monster!?” I spat. “Y’all can’t be using that word lightly!”
“A big one, too,” the deputy rambled. “Damn thing took six of my bullets before it charged into the woods! I didn’t wanna believe it! Bigger than any bear I’d ever seen, and I damn well know it ain’t one!”
“Who are you anyways, kid?” the sheriff asked. “You shouldn’t be here, it’s dangerous.”
“The neighbor,” I said, pointing back down the road towards my house. I gestured to look around back, and I followed the sheriff and his deputy closely.
The Gibson’s crops were torn up in some spots, uprooted to be specific. There was a trail of blood smeared across a section of the field that led to a busted portion of their fence, trailing towards the woods and swamp. I wanted to check for tracks, but I was no detective nor would the police let me get close.
“I…did they make it?” I asked nervously. The sheriff shook his head, looking down at his badge shamefully.
“I don’t believe so, son. Couldn't find a body to tell ya.”
I bit my lip, trying my hardest not to cry. I walked back to the truck and drove off. I couldn’t hold anything back and cried for most of my drive back to my place. I grew up with them always down the road, and they were kind and gentle souls. It was the type of loving marriage I envisioned myself having later in life.
My parents had finished eating dinner by the time I had gotten back. I quietly scarfed down some food on my own before telling my parents what I had seen. They were upset, for sure.
“They couldn’t find a body?” My dad asked. “That means that there’s a chance they might be alive.”
“I want to believe that, I do…but the amount of blood that was there…” I said. “I don’t think anyone could’ve survived that.”
“What are you going to do about it, son? You can’t go and fight this ‘monster’ or whatever that they said they saw.”
“They were good people. I can’t do nothing about it, pops.”
“Live a good life, for them at least. They’d definitely want that for you."
A couple days went by, and I saw some vehicles pass our place to their property a few times. It was pretty quiet. I worked around our smaller farm, and helped my parents bring food to the nearby markets. Eventually their obituaries presented themselves in the newspaper.It was cited that Melvin, Maya, and their son and their daughter in-law all died from a bear attack. This ignited a fire of conviction in me. I wasn’t a sheriff or deputy or whatnot, but a “bear attack” was bullshit. I had to get to the bottom of it.I cared about the Gibsons. I wasn’t going to give up until I found out what really attacked them.
I drove to their property, much to my parents dismay, and saw nobody was there. Someone had boarded up the broken window, and I saw a toolbox laying about on the front porch. I hopped the fence behind the house and saw the smeared trail was drying up. Something was off, more of their crops were uprooted. There was also a vile smell in the air.
Whatever the thing was, it was here recently. I was also able to find some tracks.
Hooves. Larger ones at that.
“Couldn’t be a killer deer,” I chuckled to myself.
I circled back around the house and noticed something shocking on the side I hadn’t seen yet.There was a fresh trail of blood smeared towards the woods. Who was here recently that this thing killed?
I took a look and saw a small broken window that was halfway through being boarded up. Looking down at the trail, there were once again hoof tracks leading away from the house. I saw some torn denim, soaked in blood on the ground, as well as a screwdriver.
This thing killed whoever was patching the place up. I was too scared to follow the trail, I was unarmed.I checked the nearby barn that held their sheep and goats. They were massacred, dried blood everywhere. The only remains of any animal was in the form of a rotting goat carcass that was missing its backside.
In my disgust I thought of an effective but risky plan. I took the carcass back to my truck and drove back to the house.
Mom and Dad always were in bed early, and they were deep sleepers by 8:00pm. I did make an effort to be quiet with my sneaking, as I looted our compost, and added in some of the fresh tomatoes to my bucket of slop. I unlocked the gun safe, got the highest caliber hunting rifle, and loaded myself up with a handful of bullets. I grabbed a high powered flashlight for good measure, too.
The sun was still in the sky when I got back to the Gibson’s place. I took the carcass to the back of the house, dropping it on the blood trail. I dumped the compost slob on top, as well as the fresh tomatoes for extra measure. By the looks of it, the bait may not have been necessary but I wanted to speed things along.I managed to navigate the intact wooden railings on the back porch and climbed on top of the roof.
I got a view of most of their field, which was almost completely ransacked. I took out the gun and waited.
Nothing came for two hours. The moon was full with a clear sky; I didn’t even need the flashlight I brought. Disrespectful as it was, I also peed off the house towards the carcass. That was not part of the plan, but a part of me was glad I did.
About twenty or so minutes later I heard something from the woods. I quietly got the gun ready. It was a bear, and a pretty big one at that. No bear could’ve done this, right? It began sniffing where I had peed, as well as the bait I had laid out. I wanted to fire off a warning shot to scare it off. It was interfering with the “monster!”
As I prepared to fire off the gun, I heard a low grunt and snort from the woods. It was loud. Sounded like a wild boar, but not quite. I heard the sound of something slowly dragging through the underbrush. The bear noticed it, too, and ran away. A bear was running from something like a boar? What the hell?
It emerged from the woods and I understood why.
It was a massive boar, I’d argue it was taller and heavier than the bear. It didn’t have the thick hair your average feral pig had. No, it had a bristly mane but almost no hair on the sides. It looked like it had been stabbed or shot, its hide had dark, exposed holes. I could see from the moonlight that its tusks were stained with what I could make out was blood.
Its bloated gut dragged on the ground, and the thing wheezed each step it took. It reached the bait. Did it notice me? I took aim.
The thing began to heave and hack. First, a slew of blood and bile came from its mouth. It looked like it was struggling. Then something else came out of its mouth that will no doubt be burned into my brain for the rest of my life
.A set of flailing human arms.
They swayed as this creature heaved some more. More blood came out. The arms were hung up in its mouth, and tapped desperately on the snout. Oh god, the person it ate is still alive!?
I took aim and fired into its side. It gurgled and shrieked. It spat out more content that made me lose hope.
It opened its mouth wider and a slimy, half digested torso dropped onto the ground. It wasn’t done yet. It shook its head and the arms that were stuck in its teeth flung away.
It kept puking. A hammer, a half-melted hardhat, and two severed human legs came out of its mouth. It went back to the pile and began to gorge. This thing was simply making room.
No doubt, this was the monster.
Furious, I took another shot at it. I got it right in the ear. It squealed, and turned its gaze upward. Its cold, beady eyes locked onto me. I slowly began to back up, reloading another bolt into the rifle. It snorted and roared. It reared up at me, its oversized gut weighing it down. It began pacing from side to side, before charging towards the house.
It pressed its massive body against the house, and I could’ve sworn I heard some creaking from the wall. I took another shot at the top of its head, it drew blood, but I doubt it went close to the brain.It looked up at me, opening its massive, disgusting mouth. I instinctively gasped when I saw what was inside:
It was glinting in the moonlight, the gem on Maya’s wedding ring. My body must’ve moved on its own, because I don’t remember putting the flashlight in my hand, but before I knew it I turned it on and I couldn’t believe what I saw in the light.
The ring was attached to a slimy, mangled arm resting at the back of this thing’s throat. This monster pig ate her!
I screamed in terror and in rage and fired a shot into this thing’s mouth. It stumbled backwards, squealing and rolling. Its insides were still vulnerable. As I shakily went to reload, I realized I had ran out of bullets! Shit!
The giant pig squealed and roared. It took a few steps and began to retch once again. It vomited up Maya’s body, in pieces, before retreating into the woods. I could hear its gut dragging along the ground.
I was distraught, I could tell through the disgusting, slimy and bloody body that this was indeed one of my neighbors. It was far more gone than what I can only imagine was the gentleman who was patching the windows up.
I made it home, and my mind is still a bit hazy. I don’t think anyone is going to believe me when I tell them what killed our neighbors. I want to call the sheriff, hell even the military over. I cared so much about our neighbors in life, I want them to rest easy in death.
My parents didn't even come out to scold me, they must have really been sound asleep. I wonder if anyone else heard the gunshots. Our other neighbours are fairly far out. My ears are ringing, my heart won't stop beating, and my mind is racing far too quickly to fall asleep.
I knew it wasn't a bear that devoured our neighbours. I wish it were so simple, but I wish nobody had to die in the first place.
If there's more of those things out there, then I'm worried for us. When will that thing turn its attention towards our farm?I’ve been staring at my phone for about an hour now, ready to make a call.
I’ll be able to help them out just a little bit-By guiding them to the newest trail of blood, going into the woods.

title	company	url
Reporter	SMDP	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680702-reporter-smdp
Regional News Editor	News of Orange County	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1679181-regional-news-editor-news-of-orange-county
News editor	The Manhattan Mercury	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680026-news-editor-the-manhattan-mercury
Business Reporter	The Post and Courier	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680701-business-reporter-the-post-and-courier
News Reporter	LYNDEN TRIBUNE & PRINT CO.	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1669950-news-reporter-lynden-tribune--print-co
Political Reporter	The Times- Picayune	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1679890-political-reporter-the-times--picayune
Deputy Metro Editor	The Times - Picayune	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1679819-deputy-metro-editor-the-times---picayune
Award-winning weekly seeks full-time beat reporter + freelance arts/features writer	The Ark	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1617292-award-winning-weekly-seeks-full-time-beat-reporter--freelance-artsfeatures-writer-the-ark
News and Sports Reporter	Owensboro Times	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680700-news-and-sports-reporter-owensboro-times
New York City Child Welfare Reporter	Fostering Media Connections / The Imprint	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680699-new-york-city-child-welfare-reporter-fostering-media-connections--the-imprint
Sports Reporter	The Ellsworth American	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680698-sports-reporter-the-ellsworth-american
Beat Reporter	The Ellsworth American	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1674175-beat-reporter-the-ellsworth-american
EditoResearcher	Congressional Digest Corp.	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680697-editorresearcher-congressional-digest-corp
Town Reporter	The Day	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680696-town-reporter-the-day
Managing Editor - Metro Silicon Valley	Metro Silicon Valley	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1616688-managing-editor---metro-silicon-valley-metro-silicon-valley
Editor	Good Times	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680695-editor-good-times
Public Safety Reporter	The Trinity Journal	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1678211-public-safety-reporter-the-trinity-journal
Online Content Coordinator - Evenings	Lee Enterprises, Inc DBA Lincoln Journal Star	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680687-online-content-coordinator---evenings-lee-enterprises-inc-dba-lincoln-journal-star
Reporting Intern Fall 2023	The Chronicle of Higher Education	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680686-reporting-intern-fall-2023-the-chronicle-of-higher-education
South Carolina Editor in Chief	States Newsroom	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680683-south-carolina-editor-in-chief-states-newsroom
National Real-Time Reporter	McClatchy	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680685-national-real-time-reporter-mcclatchy
Deputy Managing Editor	Hey Alma	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680684-deputy-managing-editor-hey-alma
Multimedia Content Specialist	National Catholic Reporter	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680682-multimedia-content-specialist-national-catholic-reporter
Editor of The Hamburg Sun	The Buffalo News	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680681-editor-of-the-hamburg-sun-the-buffalo-news
Jews of Color Fellowships at the Forward	The Forward	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680679-jews-of-color-fellowships-at-the-forward-the-forward
Editorial Fellow	The Forward	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680680-editorial-fellow-the-forward
City Editor	The Record Journal	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680678-city-editor-the-record-journal
General Assignment ReporteContent Curator (Audience Development)	The Messenger	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1679504-general-assignment-reportercontent-curator-audience-development-the-messenger
Reporter	Salisbury Post	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680658-reporter-salisbury-post
Associate Director, Media Relations and External Communications	The University of Chicago Booth School of Business	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680657-associate-director-media-relations-and-external-communications-the-university-of-chicago-booth-school-of-business
Sports editor	The Commercial Dispatch	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680656-sports-editor-the-commercial-dispatch
Radio Operations Announcer & Producer	Maine Public Broadcasting	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680654-radio-operations-announcer--producer-maine-public-broadcasting
General assignment reporter	The Central Virginian	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680653-general-assignment-reporter-the-central-virginian
Reporter	The Herald-Palladium	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1664577-reporter-the-herald-palladium
Government reporter	Bozeman Daily Chronicle	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1663883-government-reporter-bozeman-daily-chronicle
Content Editor	Fort Worth Report	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680652-content-editor-fort-worth-report
Associate Reporter	Mergers & Acquisitions	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1669030-associate-reporter-mergers--acquisitions
Community Reporter	Cap City News	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1669523-community-reporter-cap-city-news
City & Government Reporter	Oil City News, LLC	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1647903-city--government-reporter-oil-city-news-llc
Reporter		http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680651-reporter-
Reporter	Adam's Publishing Group	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1679214-reporter-adams-publishing-group
Associate Director, National Outreach & Special Projects	Center for Journalism & Democracy	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680634-associate-director-national-outreach--special-projects-center-for-journalism--democracy
Reporter	Northern Virginia Daily	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680633-reporter-northern-virginia-daily
Visual Journalist	Richmond Times Dispatch	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680632-visual-journalist-richmond-times-dispatch
Capitol Reporter	New York Focus	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680631-capitol-reporter-new-york-focus
Editor w/ E-Commerce Background (Freelance)		http://www.journalismjobs.com/1624897-editor-w-e-commerce-background-freelance-
Washington Correspondent	The Epoch Times	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1672182-washington-correspondent-the-epoch-times
Washington D.C. Contributor	Colorado Times Recorder	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1659330-washington-dc-contributor-colorado-times-recorder
Metro editor	The Post and CourieEvening Post Publishing	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680630-metro-editor-the-post-and-courierevening-post-publishing
Managing Editor	Claremont Eagle Times	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680380-managing-editor-claremont-eagle-times
Daily News Editor - California	The Epoch Times	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680629-daily-news-editor---california-the-epoch-times
Community Desk Reporter	Adam's Publishing Group	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1679620-community-desk-reporter-adams-publishing-group
Reporter	Chicago Council on Global Affairs	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680628-reporter-chicago-council-on-global-affairs
City Hall Reporter		http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680627-city-hall-reporter-
Midcoast Reporter	Bangor Daily News	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680626-midcoast-reporter-bangor-daily-news
Managing Editor, Greenville Journal and Upstate Business Journal	Community Journals	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680625-managing-editor-greenville-journal-and-upstate-business-journal-community-journals
Regional News Reporter	The Epoch Times	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680624-regional-news-reporter-the-epoch-times
Seeking enterprising reporter	Central Maine Newspapers	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680623-seeking-enterprising-reporter-central-maine-newspapers
Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Communications	Duke University Alumni and Engagement	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680622-assistant-vice-president-of-marketing-and-communications-duke-university-alumni-and-engagement
Police and Courts Reporter	Yuma Sun	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680621-police-and-courts-reporter-yuma-sun
NEWS REPORTER	COLUMBIA GORGE NEWS	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680614-news-reporter-columbia-gorge-news
News Director	KPCW FM	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680612-news-director-kpcw-fm
News ReporteAnchor	KPCW FM	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680613-news-reporteranchor-kpcw-fm
Reporter		http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680611-reporter-
Content Provider	The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680610-content-provider-the-pittsburgh-post-gazette
Digital Engagement Editor	The Park Record	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1679301-digital-engagement-editor-the-park-record
Broadcast/IT Engineer	WOOD TV	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680607-broadcastit-engineer-wood-tv
Digital Marketing Coordinator	WOOD TV	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680608-digital-marketing-coordinator-wood-tv
Multi-Media Account Manager	WOOD TV	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680609-multi-media-account-manager-wood-tv
Reporter	InvestmentWires	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680606-reporter-investmentwires
Producer - Social Media and Digital	Rhode Island PBS	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680604-producer---social-media-and-digital-rhode-island-pbs
Myrtle Beach Reporter	My Horry News/Waccamaw Publishers	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680603-myrtle-beach-reporter-my-horry-newswaccamaw-publishers
REPORTER, General Assignment with Health Focus		http://www.journalismjobs.com/1676778-reporter-general-assignment-with-health-focus-
Statehouse Reporter	LNP News/Lancasteronline	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1673788-statehouse-reporter-lnp-newslancasteronline
News Reporter	Lawrence Journal-World	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680602-news-reporter-lawrence-journal-world
Editor (Contract)	The Sentry	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680601-editor-contract-the-sentry
Education Reporter	The Times	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680600-education-reporter-the-times
Marketing Associate - Proposal Writer	Chandler Asset Management Inc	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680599-marketing-associate---proposal-writer-chandler-asset-management-inc
Associate Editor / Community Journalist	PS Communications	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680598-associate-editor--community-journalist-ps-communications
Health/Environment/Fort Detrick reporter	The Frederick News-Post	http://www.journalismjobs.com/1680586-healthenvironmentfort-detrick-reporter-the-frederick-news-post

Alone at college, I was unprepared to live alone - with loneliness. It was the thought of arriving in my apartment and walking through that silence to turn on lights and put something on tv - that depressed me. Some instinct to obtain a companion made me turn into the animal shelter. I adopted Miss Marvel, a rescued black cat.
Strange and unusual feelings were the first thing I noticed. I'd never had a pet before - so I attributed my sensation to her presence. There was one thought that I should have accepted. I did notice right away that Miss Marvel had two different personalities. Sometimes she was my friend, taking treats and letting me pet her and sleeping next to me. Other times she was like a pair of eyes in the shadows - watching me and making me feel menaced and hunted.
She had known her way around the apartment from the first moment I had opened her carrier. She went to a spot in the kitchen that was perfect for where I would put her food and water. If I squinted I could almost see where someone had kept two bowls on the floor, slightly cleaner where the floor was covered. The exact same spot.
I tried to meet her in her shadow realm but she made warning noises and even swatted at me, drawing a drop of blood. When I had rinsed it I heard her licking where the drop had spilled. I shuddered, wondering again if I had two different cats.
Other than that: I found her companionship to be the best that I could have. She was a lovely cat, purring and playful and responsive to my call. I didn't suspect her of the darkness that began to manifest in my home. Not her, yet it was all from her. I knew somehow that it was not right, my cat wasn't responsible.
My homework was shredded, things got broken and my plants wilted. The smell of ammonia became overwhelming and I'd have to leave my windows open. The swarm of flying insects swirling in my living room must have come in through the open window. It's how they went back out: all-at-once.
Then my own behavior began to change. I found myself waking up in strange places and missing time. I worried I might be losing my mind, until I noticed there was a pattern to my activities. Every time I slipped away I always came back with Miss Marvel sitting near me and staring intensely. She would hiss and run off when the spell wore off and I would think to myself:
"Is she somehow controlling me?"
After this had occurred a number of times I felt her power growing stronger. Miss Marvel would become the witch cat and mesmerize me and control me like a puppet. I filmed it with my webcam, but the recording wouldn't open. I took it to a college friend who worked in the campus IT and they said the file couldn't be repaired, because it wasn't broken. It had filmed just one frame and the software had interpreted it as a non-video file. They showed it to me, just one image of a weird star made out of triangles with a peculiar questionmark-like symbol emblazoned over it.
My investigations took me to the animal shelter. I determined that my cat was using witchcraft - entirely by my own instinct. I've always believed in witchcraft, found myself attracted to witches and living a charmed life. My involvement with Miss Marvel seemed to be part of my lifestory already. That didn't mean I wasn't frightened.
Knowing I was dealing with witchcraft of some insidious alignment made me afraid. I felt powerless to deal with her and I knew I couldn't escape. I felt drawn to my home, despite the horror I felt at opening that door.
The shelter had, after I convinced them, told me the address where Miss Marvel had come from. She'd belonged to on old woman who had lived alone and died mysteriously. The address was my own. Miss Marvel had lived in my apartment before.
I called my brother and convinced him to look into the police report. He told me he'd have to get back to me with it. When he came over he apologized for not coming over earlier, like when I had started college. Or at any point since.
"You're here now. That's what I need." I told him.
He stopped apologizing for neglecting me and told me what the police report had contained.
"It started as a wellness check that went into a possible homicide. Later it was ruled as a possible suicide and finally as a natural death of unknown cause."
"What does that even mean?" I felt the eyes of Miss Marvel, watching - her ears, listening. I looked around and saw her nowhere.
"The lady who lived here - she had died of fear. Screamed until her lungs boiled and collapsed and hit her head. It looked bad, but she got scared of something and then died. That's what happened." He explained.
After my brother was gone, I reflected that his career had made him so calloused. I remembered him different growing up. Miss Marvel found me sitting and thinking and she was my cat, so she came to me and loved on me.
The next morning, I was sipping tea, when I remembered a spell someone had shown me. It was a gesture and some magic words, a cheap charm, that would reveal the hidden nature of someone or something.
How did it go?
I spoke the rhyme and focused my intention on the syntax, while looking at my cat through the corner of my eye, between the 'window' of my pinky and pointer finger - while my other two fingertips were holding my thumb. Nothing happened. I didn't give up, because I know that magic rarely works without increasing one's efforts. I'd never cast a spell before, but I knew this from what I was told. I tried the charm again and again. Early in the evening, while she was eating and the sun was setting, my spell worked.
I could see the witch standing beside my cat, the horrible open mouth looking both dead and violent at the same time. She could see me too, knew that I knew. The eyes of the creature burned with hatred, my reflection a pyre light. I put my hand down and looked away. When I looked back I felt a cold shiver, fear in my spine, knowing she was standing there unseen.
My cat stopped eating suddenly and turned and faced me, staring with far more intensity than my cat. I knew it was the witch and not her. I knew it was up to me to figure out what to do. My only problem was that I was too afraid.
I had nightmares from that night on. I'd sometimes wake up somewhere else in my home, turning butter into ashes on my stove. I would be drawing symbols on the floor in ash. I was trying to do something when she had control over me. I kept breaking free of her control before she could make any progress. At the same time - every time she got ahold of me she seemed to hold me longer and do more. She was getting stronger and I was getting weaker.
I had to know what the old witch was trying to do. There was nothing else that I could do to free myself and Miss Marvel from her power. Moving or getting rid of the cat seemed impossible. Perhaps I could have tried one of those things, but the weight of such ideas felt like I was falling to even consider those options.
Instead, I did my homework. I found out who she was, a rotary and well-known occult bookstore owner. Her obituary mentioned that there was a guest registry at her funeral. At the local library I was able to find out who held the registry. I called on them and they allowed me to look at it. They even told me that most of the guests were members of her coven, a large group of witches that had practiced together.
"I just want to know about her life. All I know is about her death. It isn't how she should be remembered?" Were my exact words to them. They were convinced I should be loaned her diary. Nobody had taken the time to read it, but it was kept with the spellbook and the registry. Of her spellbook I was given no permissions.
I sat there and read her diary and discovered she had her own agenda within the coven. Some sort of personal spirit guide of her's was to manifest for her. When I described the creature to them, they told me I had misunderstood.
"Maroni is an ancient and powerful demon that grants eternal life. There is a bargain though, the use of a body for the demon, in such a consortment. No witch would fall prey to such a well-known scam."
Yet she had made a deal with it and learned of a dangerous spell to summon Maroni. It involved writing with ash and speaking the contract in the demon's own language. I guessed that the witch had tried and met the demon and died of terror.
Somehow, she could inhabit her cat and channel her magic through Miss Marvel to control me. She was trying to complete the spell, probably so she could become alive and immortal. I felt pale and cold with fear as I realized I was her choice of bodies to live in.
Every night my dreams showed me the ritual in different times and places. Different people, religions, civilizations had all come and gone. Each had danced with the demon upon the ashes of its summoning. All of them had tried to bargain with it. Always the demon won, always it got what it wanted and gave nothing in return.
I was falling asleep in lectures and having visions or sightings of the tormented souls trapped by the demon's spell. Shamans and druids, priestesses and warlocks, all as ghosts in their ritual garb, dead for whole chapters of history and trapped in our world, unseen. I felt sick, my body trying to reject the infection in my spirit.
As I deteriorated there became less and less of a distinction between her control and mine. I felt myself slipping into the embrace of her power, somehow relieved to stop struggling and just give up. My fear became a constant anxiety, knowing what was happening and helpless to stop it.
"Now you will perform the ritual." The voice of the witch spoke to me from Miss Marvel, contorted and barely human-sounding.
I gathered what little of my willpower was left. I thought about the good times with Miss Marvel, when she was my cat. I wanted to break free, to somehow throw off the weight that was crushing me. I needed to begin, whenever I start something - I finish it.
"No." I said weakly. Then I felt my voice, felt my willpower backing me up, motivating me to resist. I added: "No - I said. I won't do it."
"You will. You have no choice." The witch promised.
I began to move, despite my resistance. I was under her control and aware of it. I felt her power over me slip even further. In a moment I regained control and swept the symbols of ash on the floor, ruining the summoning.
"You insolent dog!" The witch exclaimed. "I've used it all up! Damn you!"
And with that she was coughed out of Miss Marvel like some kind of hellspawned hairball. I stared at the lumpy and bubbling ectoplasma and felt a nauseating revulsion and the last of the terrified feelings I had lived with for so long.
My cat lifted the stringy dead thing and brought it to me and dropped it at my feet. She meowed with expectation and I lifted her and took her with me while she purred. I was very tired and fell asleep right away.
Of Miss Marvel I can only say we are happy together. Whatever got into her was long gone, having slithered up the wall and down the drain, leaving a trail of slime. I cleaned it up and relaxed.
Together, at college, I live happily with my marvelous cat, Miss Marvel.

Alone at college, I was unprepared to live alone - with loneliness. It was the thought of arriving in my apartment and walking through that silence to turn on lights and put something on tv - that depressed me. Some instinct to obtain a companion made me turn into the animal shelter. I adopted Miss Marvel, a rescued black cat.
Strange and unusual feelings were the first thing I noticed. I'd never had a pet before - so I attributed my sensation to her presence. There was one thought that I should have accepted. I did notice right away that Miss Marvel had two different personalities. Sometimes she was my friend, taking treats and letting me pet her and sleeping next to me. Other times she was like a pair of eyes in the shadows - watching me and making me feel menaced and hunted.
She had known her way around the apartment from the first moment I had opened her carrier. She went to a spot in the kitchen that was perfect for where I would put her food and water. If I squinted I could almost see where someone had kept two bowls on the floor, slightly cleaner where the floor was covered. The exact same spot.
I tried to meet her in her shadow realm but she made warning noises and even swatted at me, drawing a drop of blood. When I had rinsed it I heard her licking where the drop had spilled. I shuddered, wondering again if I had two different cats.
Other than that: I found her companionship to be the best that I could have. She was a lovely cat, purring and playful and responsive to my call. I didn't suspect her of the darkness that began to manifest in my home. Not her, yet it was all from her. I knew somehow that it was not right, my cat wasn't responsible.
My homework was shredded, things got broken and my plants wilted. The smell of ammonia became overwhelming and I'd have to leave my windows open. The swarm of flying insects swirling in my living room must have come in through the open window. It's how they went back out: all-at-once.
Then my own behavior began to change. I found myself waking up in strange places and missing time. I worried I might be losing my mind, until I noticed there was a pattern to my activities. Every time I slipped away I always came back with Miss Marvel sitting near me and staring intensely. She would hiss and run off when the spell wore off and I would think to myself:
"Is she somehow controlling me?"
After this had occurred a number of times I felt her power growing stronger. Miss Marvel would become the witch cat and mesmerize me and control me like a puppet. I filmed it with my webcam, but the recording wouldn't open. I took it to a college friend who worked in the campus IT and they said the file couldn't be repaired, because it wasn't broken. It had filmed just one frame and the software had interpreted it as a non-video file. They showed it to me, just one image of a weird star made out of triangles with a peculiar questionmark-like symbol emblazoned over it.
My investigations took me to the animal shelter. I determined that my cat was using witchcraft - entirely by my own instinct. I've always believed in witchcraft, found myself attracted to witches and living a charmed life. My involvement with Miss Marvel seemed to be part my lifestory already. That didn't mean I wasn't frightened.
Knowing I was dealing with witchcraft of some insidious alignment made me afraid. I felt powerless to deal with her and I knew I couldn't escape. I felt drawn to me home, despite the horror I felt at opening that door.
The shelter had, after I convinced them, to tell me the address where Miss Marvel had come from. She'd belonged to on old woman who had lived alone and died mysteriously. The address was my own. Miss Marvel had lived in my apartment before.
I called my brother and convinced him to look into the police report. He told me he'd have to get back to me with it. When he came over he apologized for not coming over earlier, like when I had started college. Or at any point since.
"You're here now. That's what I need." I told him.
He stopped apologizing for neglecting me and told me what the police report had contained.
"It started as a wellness check that went into a possible homicide. Later it was ruled as a possible suicide and finally as a natural death of unknown cause."
"What does that even mean?" I felt the eyes of Miss Marvel, watching - her ears, listening. I looked around and saw her nowhere.
"The lady who lived here - she had died of fear. Screamed until her lungs boiled and collapsed and hit her head. It looked bad, but she got scared of something and then died. That's what happened." He explained.
After my brother was gone, I reflected that his career had made him so calloused. I remembered him different growing up. Miss Marvel found me sitting and thinking and she was my cat, so she came to me and loved on me.
The next morning, I was sipping tea, when I remembered a spell someone had shown me. It was a gesture and some magic words, a cheap charm, that would reveal the hidden nature of someone or something.
How did it go?
I spoke the rhyme and focused my intention on the syntax, while looking at my cat through the corner of my eye, between the 'window' of my pinky and pointer finger - while my other two fingertips were holding my thumb. Nothing happened. I didn't give up, because I know that magic rarely works without increasing one's efforts. I'd never cast a spell before, but I knew this from what I was told. I tried the charm again and again. Early in the evening, while she was eating and the sun was setting, my spell worked.
I could see the witch standing beside my cat, the horrible open mouth looking both dead and violent at the same time. She could see me too, knew that I knew. The eyes of the creature burned with hatred, my reflection a pyre light. I put my hand down and looked away. When I looked back I felt a cold shiver, fear in my spine, knowing she was standing there unseen.
My cat stopped eating suddenly and turned and faced me, staring with far more intensity than my cat. I knew it was the witch and not her. I knew it was up to me to figure out what to do. My only problem was that I was too afraid.
I had nightmares from that night on. I'd sometimes wake up somewhere else in my home, turning butter into ashes on my stove. I would be drawing symbols on the floor in ash. I was trying to do something when she had control over me. I kept breaking free of her control before she could make any progress. At the same time - every time she got ahold of me she seemed to hold me longer and do more. She was getting stronger and I was getting weaker.
I had to know what the old witch was trying to do. There was nothing else that I could do to free myself and Miss Marvel from her power. Moving or getting rid of the cat seemed impossible. Perhaps I could have tried one of those things, but the weight of such ideas felt like I was falling to even consider those options.
Instead, I did my homework. I found out who she was, a rotary and well-known occult bookstore owner. Her obituary mentioned that there was a guest registry at her funeral. At the local library I was able to find out who held the registry. I called on them and they allowed me to look at it. They even told me that most of the guests were members of her coven, a large group of witches that had practiced together.
"I just want to know about her life. All I know is about her death. It isn't how she should be remembered?" Were my exact words to them. They were convinced I should be loaned her diary. Nobody had taken the time to read it, but it was kept with the spellbook and the registry. Of her spellbook I was given no permissions.
I sat there and read her diary and discovered she had her own agenda within the coven. Some sort of personal spirit guide of her's was to manifest for her. When I described the creature to them, they told me I had misunderstood.
"Maroni is an ancient and powerful demon that grants eternal life. There is a bargain though, the use of a body for the demon, in such a consortment. No witch would fall prey to such a well-known scam."
Yet she had made a deal with it and learned of a dangerous spell to summon Maroni. It involved writing with ash and speaking the contract in the demon's own language. I guessed that the witch had tried and met the demon and died of terror.
Somehow, she could inhabit her cat and channel her magic through Miss Marvel to control me. She was trying to complete the spell, probably so she could become alive and immortal. I felt pale and cold with fear as I realized I was her choice of bodies to live in.
Every night my dreams showed me the ritual in different times and places. Different people, religions, civilizations had all come and gone. Each had danced with the demon upon the ashes of its summoning. All of them had tried to bargain with it. Always the demon won, always it got what it wanted and gave nothing in return.
I was falling asleep in lectures and having visions or sightings of the tormented souls trapped by the demon's spell. Shamans and druids, priestesses and warlocks, all as ghosts in their ritual garb, dead for whole chapters of history and trapped in our world, unseen. I felt sick, my body trying to reject the infection in my spirit.
As I deteriorated there became less and less of a distinction between her control and mine. I felt myself slipping into the embrace of her power, somehow relieved to stop struggling and just give up. My fear became a constant anxiety, knowing what was happening and helpless to stop it.
"Now you will perform the ritual." The voice of the witch spoke to me from Miss Marvel, contorted and barely human-sounding.
I gathered what little of my willpower was left. I thought about the good times with Miss Marvel, when she was my cat. I wanted to break free, to somehow throw off the weight that was crushing me. I needed to begin, whenever I start something - I finish it.
"No." I said weakly. Then I felt my voice, felt my willpower backing me up, motivating me to resist. I added: "No - I said. I won't do it."
"You will. You have no choice." The witch promised.
I began to move, despite my resistance. I was under her control and aware of it. I felt her power over me slip even further. In a moment I regained control and swept the symbols of ash on the floor, ruining the summoning.
"You insolent dog!" The witch exclaimed. "I've used it all up! Damn you!"
And with that she was coughed out of Miss Marvel like some kind of hellspawned hairball. I stared at the lumpy and bubbling ectoplasma and felt a nauseating revulsion and the last of the terrified feelings I had lived with for so long.
My cat lifted the stringy dead thing and brought it to me and dropped it at my feet. She meowed with expectation and I lifted her and took her with me while she purred. I was very tired and fell asleep right away.
Of Miss Marvel I can only say we are happy together. Whatever got into her was long gone, having slithered up the wall and down the drain, leaving a trail of slime. I cleaned it up and relaxed.
Together, at college, I live happily with my marvelous cat, Miss Marvel.

Alone at college, I was unprepared to live alone - with loneliness. It was the thought of arriving in my apartment and walking through that silence to turn on lights and put something on tv - that depressed me. Some instinct to obtain a companion made me turn into the animal shelter. I adopted Miss Marvel, a rescued black cat.
Strange and unusual feelings were the first thing I noticed. I'd never had a pet before - so I attributed my sensation to her presence. There was one thought that I should have accepted. I did notice right away that Miss Marvel had two different personalities. Sometimes she was my friend, taking treats and letting me pet her and sleeping next to me. Other times she was like a pair of eyes in the shadows - watching me and making me feel menaced and hunted.
She had known her way around the apartment from the first moment I had opened her carrier. She went to a spot in the kitchen that was perfect for where I would put her food and water. If I squinted I could almost see where someone had kept two bowls on the floor, slightly cleaner where the floor was covered. The exact same spot.
I tried to meet her in her shadow realm but she made warning noises and even swatted at me, drawing a drop of blood. When I had rinsed it I heard her licking where the drop had spilled. I shuddered, wondering again if I had two different cats.
Other than that: I found her companionship to be the best that I could have. She was a lovely cat, purring and playful and responsive to my call. I didn't suspect her of the darkness that began to manifest in my home. Not her, yet it was all from her. I knew somehow that it was not right, my cat wasn't responsible.
My homework was shredded, things got broken and my plants wilted. The smell of ammonia became overwhelming and I'd have to leave my windows open. The swarm of flying insects swirling in my living room must have come in through the open window. It's how they went back out: all-at-once.
Then my own behavior began to change. I found myself waking up in strange places and missing time. I worried I might be losing my mind, until I noticed there was a pattern to my activities. Every time I slipped away I always came back with Miss Marvel sitting near me and staring intensely. She would hiss and run off when the spell wore off and I would think to myself:
"Is she somehow controlling me?"
After this had occurred a number of times I felt her power growing stronger. Miss Marvel would become the witch cat and mesmerize me and control me like a puppet. I filmed it with my webcam, but the recording wouldn't open. I took it to a college friend who worked in the campus IT and they said the file couldn't be repaired, because it wasn't broken. It had filmed just one frame and the software had interpreted it as a non-video file. They showed it to me, just one image of a weird star made out of triangles with a peculiar questionmark-like symbol emblazoned over it.
My investigations took me to the animal shelter. I determined that my cat was using witchcraft - entirely by my own instinct. I've always believed in witchcraft, found myself attracted to witches and living a charmed life. My involvement with Miss Marvel seemed to be part my lifestory already. That didn't mean I wasn't frightened.
Knowing I was dealing with witchcraft of some insidious alignment made me afraid. I felt powerless to deal with her and I knew I couldn't escape. I felt drawn to me home, despite the horror I felt at opening that door.
The shelter had, after I convinced them, to tell me the address where Miss Marvel had come from. She'd belonged to on old woman who had lived alone and died mysteriously. The address was my own. Miss Marvel had lived in my apartment before.
I called my brother and convinced him to look into the police report. He told me he'd have to get back to me with it. When he came over he apologized for not coming over earlier, like when I had started college. Or at any point since.
"You're here now. That's what I need." I told him.
He stopped apologizing for neglecting me and told me what the police report had contained.
"It started as a wellness check that went into a possible homicide. Later it was ruled as a possible suicide and finally as a natural death of unknown cause."
"What does that even mean?" I felt the eyes of Miss Marvel, watching - her ears, listening. I looked around and saw her nowhere.
"The lady who lived here - she had died of fear. Screamed until her lungs boiled and collapsed and hit her head. It looked bad, but she got scared of something and then died. That's what happened." He explained.
After my brother was gone, I reflected that his career had made him so calloused. I remembered him different growing up. Miss Marvel found me sitting and thinking and she was my cat, so she came to me and loved on me.
The next morning, I was sipping tea, when I remembered a spell someone had shown me. It was a gesture and some magic words, a cheap charm, that would reveal the hidden nature of someone or something.
How did it go?
I spoke the rhyme and focused my intention on the syntax, while looking at my cat through the corner of my eye, between the 'window' of my pinky and pointer finger - while my other two fingertips were holding my thumb. Nothing happened. I didn't give up, because I know that magic rarely works without increasing one's efforts. I'd never cast a spell before, but I knew this from what I was told. I tried the charm again and again. Early in the evening, while she was eating and the sun was setting, my spell worked.
I could see the witch standing beside my cat, the horrible open mouth looking both dead and violent at the same time. She could see me too, knew that I knew. The eyes of the creature burned with hatred, my reflection a pyre light. I put my hand down and looked away. When I looked back I felt a cold shiver, fear in my spine, knowing she was standing there unseen.
My cat stopped eating suddenly and turned and faced me, staring with far more intensity than my cat. I knew it was the witch and not her. I knew it was up to me to figure out what to do. My only problem was that I was too afraid.
I had nightmares from that night on. I'd sometimes wake up somewhere else in my home, turning butter into ashes on my stove. I would be drawing symbols on the floor in ash. I was trying to do something when she had control over me. I kept breaking free of her control before she could make any progress. At the same time - every time she got ahold of me she seemed to hold me longer and do more. She was getting stronger and I was getting weaker.
I had to know what the old witch was trying to do. There was nothing else that I could do to free myself and Miss Marvel from her power. Moving or getting rid of the cat seemed impossible. Perhaps I could have tried one of those things, but the weight of such ideas felt like I was falling to even consider those options.
Instead, I did my homework. I found out who she was, a rotary and well-known occult bookstore owner. Her obituary mentioned that there was a guest registry at her funeral. At the local library I was able to find out who held the registry. I called on them and they allowed me to look at it. They even told me that most of the guests were members of her coven, a large group of witches that had practiced together.
"I just want to know about her life. All I know is about her death. It isn't how she should be remembered?" Were my exact words to them. They were convinced I should be loaned her diary. Nobody had taken the time to read it, but it was kept with the spellbook and the registry. Of her spellbook I was given no permissions.
I sat there and read her diary and discovered she had her own agenda within the coven. Some sort of personal spirit guide of her's was to manifest for her. When I described the creature to them, they told me I had misunderstood.
"Maroni is an ancient and powerful demon that grants eternal life. There is a bargain though, the use of a body for the demon, in such a consortment. No witch would fall prey to such a well-known scam."
Yet she had made a deal with it and learned of a dangerous spell to summon Maroni. It involved writing with ash and speaking the contract in the demon's own language. I guessed that the witch had tried and met the demon and died of terror.
Somehow, she could inhabit her cat and channel her magic through Miss Marvel to control me. She was trying to complete the spell, probably so she could become alive and immortal. I felt pale and cold with fear as I realized I was her choice of bodies to live in.
Every night my dreams showed me the ritual in different times and places. Different people, religions, civilizations had all come and gone. Each had danced with the demon upon the ashes of its summoning. All of them had tried to bargain with it. Always the demon won, always it got what it wanted and gave nothing in return.
I was falling asleep in lectures and having visions or sightings of the tormented souls trapped by the demon's spell. Shamans and druids, priestesses and warlocks, all as ghosts in their ritual garb, dead for whole chapters of history and trapped in our world, unseen. I felt sick, my body trying to reject the infection in my spirit.
As I deteriorated there became less and less of a distinction between her control and mine. I felt myself slipping into the embrace of her power, somehow relieved to stop struggling and just give up. My fear became a constant anxiety, knowing what was happening and helpless to stop it.
"Now you will perform the ritual." The voice of the witch spoke to me from Miss Marvel, contorted and barely human-sounding.
I gathered what little of my willpower was left. I thought about the good times with Miss Marvel, when she was my cat. I wanted to break free, to somehow throw off the weight that was crushing me. I needed to begin, whenever I start something - I finish it.
"No." I said weakly. Then I felt my voice, felt my willpower backing me up, motivating me to resist. I added: "No - I said. I won't do it."
"You will. You have no choice." The witch promised.
I began to move, despite my resistance. I was under her control and aware of it. I felt her power over me slip even further. In a moment I regained control and swept the symbols of ash on the floor, ruining the summoning.
"You insolent dog!" The witch exclaimed. "I've used it all up! Damn you!"
And with that she was coughed out of Miss Marvel like some kind of hellspawned hairball. I stared at the lumpy and bubbling ectoplasma and felt a nauseating revulsion and the last of the terrified feelings I had lived with for so long.
My cat lifted the stringy dead thing and brought it to me and dropped it at my feet. She meowed with expectation and I lifted her and took her with me while she purred. I was very tired and fell asleep right away.
Of Miss Marvel I can only say we are happy together. Whatever got into her was long gone, having slithered up the wall and down the drain, leaving a trail of slime. I cleaned it up and relaxed.
Together, at college, I live happily with my marvelous cat, Miss Marvel.

Alone at college, I was unprepared to live alone - with loneliness. It was the thought of arriving in my apartment and walking through that silence to turn on lights and put something on tv - that depressed me. Some instinct to obtain a companion made me turn into the animal shelter. I adopted Miss Marvel, a rescued black cat.
Strange and unusual feelings were the first thing I noticed. I'd never had a pet before - so I attributed my sensation to her presence. There was one thought that I should have accepted. I did notice right away that Miss Marvel had two different personalities. Sometimes she was my friend, taking treats and letting me pet her and sleeping next to me. Other times she was like a pair of eyes in the shadows - watching me and making me feel menaced and hunted.
She had known her way around the apartment from the first moment I had opened her carrier. She went to a spot in the kitchen that was perfect for where I would put her food and water. If I squinted I could almost see where someone had kept two bowls on the floor, slightly cleaner where the floor was covered. The exact same spot.
I tried to meet her in her shadow realm but she made warning noises and even swatted at me, drawing a drop of blood. When I had rinsed it I heard her licking where the drop had spilled. I shuddered, wondering again if I had two different cats.
Other than that: I found her companionship to be the best that I could have. She was a lovely cat, purring and playful and responsive to my call. I didn't suspect her of the darkness that began to manifest in my home. Not her, yet it was all from her. I knew somehow that it was not right, my cat wasn't responsible.
My homework was shredded, things got broken and my plants wilted. The smell of ammonia became overwhelming and I'd have to leave my windows open. The swarm of flying insects swirling in my living room must have come in through the open window. It's how they went back out: all-at-once.
Then my own behavior began to change. I found myself waking up in strange places and missing time. I worried I might be losing my mind, until I noticed there was a pattern to my activities. Every time I slipped away I always came back with Miss Marvel sitting near me and staring intensely. She would hiss and run off when the spell wore off and I would think to myself:
"Is she somehow controlling me?"
After this had occurred a number of times I felt her power growing stronger. Miss Marvel would become the witch cat and mesmerize me and control me like a puppet. I filmed it with my webcam, but the recording wouldn't open. I took it to a college friend who worked in the campus IT and they said the file couldn't be repaired, because it wasn't broken. It had filmed just one frame and the software had interpreted it as a non-video file. They showed it to me, just one image of a weird star made out of triangles with a peculiar questionmark-like symbol emblazoned over it.
My investigations took me to the animal shelter. I determined that my cat was using witchcraft - entirely by my own instinct. I've always believed in witchcraft, found myself attracted to witches and living a charmed life. My involvement with Miss Marvel seemed to be part my lifestory already. That didn't mean I wasn't frightened.
Knowing I was dealing with witchcraft of some insidious alignment made me afraid. I felt powerless to deal with her and I knew I couldn't escape. I felt drawn to me home, despite the horror I felt at opening that door.
The shelter had, after I convinced them, to tell me the address where Miss Marvel had come from. She'd belonged to on old woman who had lived alone and died mysteriously. The address was my own. Miss Marvel had lived in my apartment before.
I called my brother and convinced him to look into the police report. He told me he'd have to get back to me with it. When he came over he apologized for not coming over earlier, like when I had started college. Or at any point since.
"You're here now. That's what I need." I told him.
He stopped apologizing for neglecting me and told me what the police report had contained.
"It started as a wellness check that went into a possible homicide. Later it was ruled as a possible suicide and finally as a natural death of unknown cause."
"What does that even mean?" I felt the eyes of Miss Marvel, watching - her ears, listening. I looked around and saw her nowhere.
"The lady who lived here - she had died of fear. Screamed until her lungs boiled and collapsed and hit her head. It looked bad, but she got scared of something and then died. That's what happened." He explained.
After my brother was gone, I reflected that his career had made him so calloused. I remembered him different growing up. Miss Marvel found me sitting and thinking and she was my cat, so she came to me and loved on me.
The next morning, I was sipping tea, when I remembered a spell someone had shown me. It was a gesture and some magic words, a cheap charm, that would reveal the hidden nature of someone or something.
How did it go?
I spoke the rhyme and focused my intention on the syntax, while looking at my cat through the corner of my eye, between the 'window' of my pinky and pointer finger - while my other two fingertips were holding my thumb. Nothing happened. I didn't give up, because I know that magic rarely works without increasing one's efforts. I'd never cast a spell before, but I knew this from what I was told. I tried the charm again and again. Early in the evening, while she was eating and the sun was setting, my spell worked.
I could see the witch standing beside my cat, the horrible open mouth looking both dead and violent at the same time. She could see me too, knew that I knew. The eyes of the creature burned with hatred, my reflection a pyre light. I put my hand down and looked away. When I looked back I felt a cold shiver, fear in my spine, knowing she was standing there unseen.
My cat stopped eating suddenly and turned and faced me, staring with far more intensity than my cat. I knew it was the witch and not her. I knew it was up to me to figure out what to do. My only problem was that I was too afraid.
I had nightmares from that night on. I'd sometimes wake up somewhere else in my home, turning butter into ashes on my stove. I would be drawing symbols on the floor in ash. I was trying to do something when she had control over me. I kept breaking free of her control before she could make any progress. At the same time - every time she got ahold of me she seemed to hold me longer and do more. She was getting stronger and I was getting weaker.
I had to know what the old witch was trying to do. There was nothing else that I could do to free myself and Miss Marvel from her power. Moving or getting rid of the cat seemed impossible. Perhaps I could have tried one of those things, but the weight of such ideas felt like I was falling to even consider those options.
Instead, I did my homework. I found out who she was, a rotary and well-known occult bookstore owner. Her obituary mentioned that there was a guest registry at her funeral. At the local library I was able to find out who held the registry. I called on them and they allowed me to look at it. They even told me that most of the guests were members of her coven, a large group of witches that had practiced together.
"I just want to know about her life. All I know is about her death. It isn't how she should be remembered?" Were my exact words to them. They were convinced I should be loaned her diary. Nobody had taken the time to read it, but it was kept with the spellbook and the registry. Of her spellbook I was given no permissions.
I sat there and read her diary and discovered she had her own agenda within the coven. Some sort of personal spirit guide of her's was to manifest for her. When I described the creature to them, they told me I had misunderstood.
"Maroni is an ancient and powerful demon that grants eternal life. There is a bargain though, the use of a body for the demon, in such a consortment. No witch would fall prey to such a well-known scam."
Yet she had made a deal with it and learned of a dangerous spell to summon Maroni. It involved writing with ash and speaking the contract in the demon's own language. I guessed that the witch had tried and met the demon and died of terror.
Somehow, she could inhabit her cat and channel her magic through Miss Marvel to control me. She was trying to complete the spell, probably so she could become alive and immortal. I felt pale and cold with fear as I realized I was her choice of bodies to live in.
Every night my dreams showed me the ritual in different times and places. Different people, religions, civilizations had all come and gone. Each had danced with the demon upon the ashes of its summoning. All of them had tried to bargain with it. Always the demon won, always it got what it wanted and gave nothing in return.
I was falling asleep in lectures and having visions or sightings of the tormented souls trapped by the demon's spell. Shamans and druids, priestesses and warlocks, all as ghosts in their ritual garb, dead for whole chapters of history and trapped in our world, unseen. I felt sick, my body trying to reject the infection in my spirit.
As I deteriorated there became less and less of a distinction between her control and mine. I felt myself slipping into the embrace of her power, somehow relieved to stop struggling and just give up. My fear became a constant anxiety, knowing what was happening and helpless to stop it.
"Now you will perform the ritual." The voice of the witch spoke to me from Miss Marvel, contorted and barely human-sounding.
I gathered what little of my willpower was left. I thought about the good times with Miss Marvel, when she was my cat. I wanted to break free, to somehow throw off the weight that was crushing me. I needed to begin, whenever I start something - I finish it.
"No." I said weakly. Then I felt my voice, felt my willpower backing me up, motivating me to resist. I added: "No - I said. I won't do it."
"You will. You have no choice." The witch promised.
I began to move, despite my resistance. I was under her control and aware of it. I felt her power over me slip even further. In a moment I regained control and swept the symbols of ash on the floor, ruining the summoning.
"You insolent dog!" The witch exclaimed. "I've used it all up! Damn you!"
And with that she was coughed out of Miss Marvel like some kind of hellspawned hairball. I stared at the lumpy and bubbling ectoplasma and felt a nauseating revulsion and the last of the terrified feelings I had lived with for so long.
My cat lifted the stringy dead thing and brought it to me and dropped it at my feet. She meowed with expectation and I lifted her and took her with me while she purred. I was very tired and fell asleep right away.
Of Miss Marvel I can only say we are happy together. Whatever got into her was long gone, having slithered up the wall and down the drain, leaving a trail of slime. I cleaned it up and relaxed.
Together, at college, I live happily with my marvelous cat, Miss Marvel.

Alone at college, I was unprepared to live alone - with loneliness. It was the thought of arriving in my apartment and walking through that silence to turn on lights and put something on tv - that depressed me. Some instinct to obtain a companion made me turn into the animal shelter. I adopted Miss Marvel, a rescued black cat.
Strange and unusual feelings were the first thing I noticed. I'd never had a pet before - so I attributed my sensation to her presence. There was one thought that I should have accepted. I did notice right away that Miss Marvel had two different personalities. Sometimes she was my friend, taking treats and letting me pet her and sleeping next to me. Other times she was like a pair of eyes in the shadows - watching me and making me feel menaced and hunted.
She had known her way around the apartment from the first moment I had opened her carrier. She went to a spot in the kitchen that was perfect for where I would put her food and water. If I squinted I could almost see where someone had kept two bowls on the floor, slightly cleaner where the floor was covered. The exact same spot.
I tried to meet her in her shadow realm but she made warning noises and even swatted at me, drawing a drop of blood. When I had rinsed it I heard her licking where the drop had spilled. I shuddered, wondering again if I had two different cats.
Other than that: I found her companionship to be the best that I could have. She was a lovely cat, purring and playful and responsive to my call. I didn't suspect her of the darkness that began to manifest in my home. Not her, yet it was all from her. I knew somehow that it was not right, my cat wasn't responsible.
My homework was shredded, things got broken and my plants wilted. The smell of ammonia became overwhelming and I'd have to leave my windows open. The swarm of flying insects swirling in my living room must have come in through the open window. It's how they went back out: all-at-once.
Then my own behavior began to change. I found myself waking up in strange places and missing time. I worried I might be losing my mind, until I noticed there was a pattern to my activities. Every time I slipped away I always came back with Miss Marvel sitting near me and staring intensely. She would hiss and run off when the spell wore off and I would think to myself:
"Is she somehow controlling me?"
After this had occurred a number of times I felt her power growing stronger. Miss Marvel would become the witch cat and mesmerize me and control me like a puppet. I filmed it with my webcam, but the recording wouldn't open. I took it to a college friend who worked in the campus IT and they said the file couldn't be repaired, because it wasn't broken. It had filmed just one frame and the software had interpreted it as a non-video file. They showed it to me, just one image of a weird star made out of triangles with a peculiar questionmark-like symbol emblazoned over it.
My investigations took me to the animal shelter. I determined that my cat was using witchcraft - entirely by my own instinct. I've always believed in witchcraft, found myself attracted to witches and living a charmed life. My involvement with Miss Marvel seemed to be part my lifestory already. That didn't mean I wasn't frightened.
Knowing I was dealing with witchcraft of some insidious alignment made me afraid. I felt powerless to deal with her and I knew I couldn't escape. I felt drawn to me home, despite the horror I felt at opening that door.
The shelter had, after I convinced them, to tell me the address where Miss Marvel had come from. She'd belonged to on old woman who had lived alone and died mysteriously. The address was my own. Miss Marvel had lived in my apartment before.
I called my brother and convinced him to look into the police report. He told me he'd have to get back to me with it. When he came over he apologized for not coming over earlier, like when I had started college. Or at any point since.
"You're here now. That's what I need." I told him.
He stopped apologizing for neglecting me and told me what the police report had contained.
"It started as a wellness check that went into a possible homicide. Later it was ruled as a possible suicide and finally as a natural death of unknown cause."
"What does that even mean?" I felt the eyes of Miss Marvel, watching - her ears, listening. I looked around and saw her nowhere.
"The lady who lived here - she had died of fear. Screamed until her lungs boiled and collapsed and hit her head. It looked bad, but she got scared of something and then died. That's what happened." He explained.
After my brother was gone, I reflected that his career had made him so calloused. I remembered him different growing up. Miss Marvel found me sitting and thinking and she was my cat, so she came to me and loved on me.
The next morning, I was sipping tea, when I remembered a spell someone had shown me. It was a gesture and some magic words, a cheap charm, that would reveal the hidden nature of someone or something.
How did it go?
I spoke the rhyme and focused my intention on the syntax, while looking at my cat through the corner of my eye, between the 'window' of my pinky and pointer finger - while my other two fingertips were holding my thumb. Nothing happened. I didn't give up, because I know that magic rarely works without increasing one's efforts. I'd never cast a spell before, but I knew this from what I was told. I tried the charm again and again. Early in the evening, while she was eating and the sun was setting, my spell worked.
I could see the witch standing beside my cat, the horrible open mouth looking both dead and violent at the same time. She could see me too, knew that I knew. The eyes of the creature burned with hatred, my reflection a pyre light. I put my hand down and looked away. When I looked back I felt a cold shiver, fear in my spine, knowing she was standing there unseen.
My cat stopped eating suddenly and turned and faced me, staring with far more intensity than my cat. I knew it was the witch and not her. I knew it was up to me to figure out what to do. My only problem was that I was too afraid.
I had nightmares from that night on. I'd sometimes wake up somewhere else in my home, turning butter into ashes on my stove. I would be drawing symbols on the floor in ash. I was trying to do something when she had control over me. I kept breaking free of her control before she could make any progress. At the same time - every time she got ahold of me she seemed to hold me longer and do more. She was getting stronger and I was getting weaker.
I had to know what the old witch was trying to do. There was nothing else that I could do to free myself and Miss Marvel from her power. Moving or getting rid of the cat seemed impossible. Perhaps I could have tried one of those things, but the weight of such ideas felt like I was falling to even consider those options.
Instead, I did my homework. I found out who she was, a rotary and well-known occult bookstore owner. Her obituary mentioned that there was a guest registry at her funeral. At the local library I was able to find out who held the registry. I called on them and they allowed me to look at it. They even told me that most of the guests were members of her coven, a large group of witches that had practiced together.
"I just want to know about her life. All I know is about her death. It isn't how she should be remembered?" Were my exact words to them. They were convinced I should be loaned her diary. Nobody had taken the time to read it, but it was kept with the spellbook and the registry. Of her spellbook I was given no permissions.
I sat there and read her diary and discovered she had her own agenda within the coven. Some sort of personal spirit guide of her's was to manifest for her. When I described the creature to them, they told me I had misunderstood.
"Maroni is an ancient and powerful demon that grants eternal life. There is a bargain though, the use of a body for the demon, in such a consortment. No witch would fall prey to such a well-known scam."
Yet she had made a deal with it and learned of a dangerous spell to summon Maroni. It involved writing with ash and speaking the contract in the demon's own language. I guessed that the witch had tried and met the demon and died of terror.
Somehow, she could inhabit her cat and channel her magic through Miss Marvel to control me. She was trying to complete the spell, probably so she could become alive and immortal. I felt pale and cold with fear as I realized I was her choice of bodies to live in.
Every night my dreams showed me the ritual in different times and places. Different people, religions, civilizations had all come and gone. Each had danced with the demon upon the ashes of its summoning. All of them had tried to bargain with it. Always the demon won, always it got what it wanted and gave nothing in return.
I was falling asleep in lectures and having visions or sightings of the tormented souls trapped by the demon's spell. Shamans and druids, priestesses and warlocks, all as ghosts in their ritual garb, dead for whole chapters of history and trapped in our world, unseen. I felt sick, my body trying to reject the infection in my spirit.
As I deteriorated there became less and less of a distinction between her control and mine. I felt myself slipping into the embrace of her power, somehow relieved to stop struggling and just give up. My fear became a constant anxiety, knowing what was happening and helpless to stop it.
"Now you will perform the ritual." The voice of the witch spoke to me from Miss Marvel, contorted and barely human-sounding.
I gathered what little of my willpower was left. I thought about the good times with Miss Marvel, when she was my cat. I wanted to break free, to somehow throw off the weight that was crushing me. I needed to begin, whenever I start something - I finish it.
"No." I said weakly. Then I felt my voice, felt my willpower backing me up, motivating me to resist. I added: "No - I said. I won't do it."
"You will. You have no choice." The witch promised.
I began to move, despite my resistance. I was under her control and aware of it. I felt her power over me slip even further. In a moment I regained control and swept the symbols of ash on the floor, ruining the summoning.
"You insolent dog!" The witch exclaimed. "I've used it all up! Damn you!"
And with that she was coughed out of Miss Marvel like some kind of hellspawned hairball. I stared at the lumpy and bubbling ectoplasma and felt a nauseating revulsion and the last of the terrified feelings I had lived with for so long.
My cat lifted the stringy dead thing and brought it to me and dropped it at my feet. She meowed with expectation and I lifted her and took her with me while she purred. I was very tired and fell asleep right away.
Of Miss Marvel I can only say we are happy together. Whatever got into her was long gone, having slithered up the wall and down the drain, leaving a trail of slime. I cleaned it up and relaxed.
Together, at college, I live happily with my marvelous cat, Miss Marvel.

All the versions of this story:
Denver Gazette - Lower basin states reach agreement on water cuts from the Colorado River - https://denvergazette.com/news/environment/lower-basin-states-reach-agreement-on-water-cuts-from-the-colorado-rivearticle_3d1f89d7-c8ff-506c-88d3-1f5a525c6f47.html
The Colorado Sun - California, Arizona, Nevada offer landmark drought deal to use less Colorado River water — for now - https://coloradosun.com/2023/05/22/california-arizona-nevada-offer-landmark-drought-deal-to-use-less-colorado-river-water-for-now/
The Denver Post - Seven Colorado River Basin states reach a deal to save water, feds to consider - https://www.denverpost.com/2023/05/22/colorado-river-seven-states-water-cuts-deal/
Colorado Public Radio - Western states reach deal to conserve Colorado River water - https://www.cpr.org/2023/05/22/western-states-reach-deal-to-conserve-colorado-river-wate
9News - California, Arizona, Nevada offer landmark drought deal to use less Colorado River water — for now - https://www.9news.com/article/news/nation-world/states-water-cuts-from-colorado-river-to-avert-forced-cuts/507-6662a213-eaf3-46a8-9d99-005ec6c66d1e

Does your future really matter with a black hole in your hand?
​
My name's Winter. I'm the primary reporter for the Geffor Gazette. Some time back, I swore I'd never again work on any challenge races involving Geffor residents. Turns out I probably should have included working on anything involving the owner of Mullin's Coffee Shop. But I didn't, so I had to interview Mullin today at his shop, after hours.
​
Yesterday the first thing Dustin did when he got in from work was call his close friend Mullin. Dustin has to take the bus since he lost his car in a bizarre off-road/on-farm incident several months ago. Bus service in the town of Geffor is reliable, not frequent, so Dustin didn't get in until 6:30 p.m., at which time Mullin was in the coffee shop's kitchen, cleaning up after close.
​
Dustin was, not surprisingly, the only passenger on the bus so he could sit anywhere except the driver's seat. I'm not sure which seat he chose but he told Mullin there was a wad of deep violet chewing gum on the back of the seat in front of him. The wad was pulsating and despite being grossed out by it, Dustin said he felt a strange urge to touch it, to connect with it.
​
Mullin looked uncomfortable, a real departure from his normal presentation, when he said "connect with it," so I pressed for details.
​
Dustin said he felt like he was sitting in the heat of the sun on the hottest day ever, and a cool breeze hit. It didn't knock him over but it was so compelling, he wished it would. He had to find it and stay in it. He checked all over to see where the breeze was. Every time he thought he found the source, he was wrong, and he had to go further and further into the center of everything to find it.
​
His hair started to sizzle. He didn't care. He had to join with the cool breeze. It would fix everything. His skin started to melt and he didn't care. He knew the next steps were his teeth and fingernails would fall out, one by one. The skin would melt off his face and his jaw would drop off. He reached out to feel for the breeze but his fingers were just bones. Where was the breeze? He needed the breeze. Nothing else mattered.
​
I sat there, wide-eyed, holding my jaw as Mullin cleared his throat. "Dustin wanted to move before his skin actually started to melt."
​
We locked eyes for a moment, Mullin and I, then I nodded for him to continue.
​
Dustin moved up the bus so he was closer to the driver and selected a window seat on the opposite side. Clear window, not too many more stops to go, what could go wrong?
​
After he sat down, he saw the gum again, this time on the window. It was bigger than before but he was sure it was the same wad of gum. He knew because it looked more like a dent in reality than ABC gum.
​
I asked if that was the brand name of deep violet gum. Mullin chuckled and shook his head. "Already Been Chewed, ya noob."
​
We returned to Mullin's conversation with Dustin.
​
Dustin knew why the thing could be there without anyone else noticing it. To a passing glance, it looked like a wad of gum left on public transportation. Most people wouldn't give it a second thought. But Dustin reacted to the feeling of being pulled into it and checked it from different angles. It wasn't only the deep violet color, there were stars and comets and galaxies.
​
My eyebrow arched at that. Stars, comets and galaxies in a clump of something on a town bus?
​
"Hang on," Mullin said, noticing my reaction, "let me tell you about the noise, do you know how loud outer space is?"
​
I've heard that outer space, far from solids such as planets and stars and the like, is the loudest silence humans know of.
​
"Now imagine your brain trying to reconcile hearing you're in outer space and seeing you're stuck on a town bus."
​
Yikes.
​
Next thing Dustin knew, he was running past a bus stop a couple of blocks from his house. He told himself his heart was pounding due to the exertion but he knew he was terrified of the thing on the bus.
​
He called Mullin as soon as he got home. "He said it was in his kitchen drain," Mullin said as he wiped the counter with a paper towel.
​
"What was in his drain?" Even as I asked, I didn't want to know.
​
"Well, that's why he called me," Mullin said as he threw the paper towel away. "He wanted to know what it was. After hearing his description, I knew. I told him. It was a micro black hole. You know about those."
​
"Jesus, Mullin, you told him he was being stalked by a black hole?"
​
He picked up another paper towel and applied serious elbow grease on a non-existent stain on the counter, inches from my left arm. He didn't look at me until he threw that paper towel away.
​
"I didn't say it was stalking him. I told him it was a fantastic find. I said don't touch it, don't get too close to it and don't run any water into it. Nothing about stalking. Bloody hell, I'm his friend."
​
He stood still for a moment, staring at nothing.
​
"I told him about the tunnel. You and I, we know what happened there. And it happened because the tunnel was created by a micro black hole. One that still lives there."
​
A reporter should always have a question or two in reserve, should the conversation come to a rapid halt. Mullin putting words to my unspoken fear left me speechless. He moved to the coffee shop's sink before speaking again.
​
"There were some loud clunks came through on the phone," he continued. "I was standing right here when I heard them."
​
"Did Dustin hear them?"
​
"No," he said, pulling a phone out of his chef's jacket. "I don't think he did. His hand came up out my kitchen drain, you see. Holding this phone. His phone.
​
"I grabbed his hand, of course. With both hands. Any friend would. Put my fingers around his hand and his phone."
​
Mullin appeared distressed, I might even say terrified, as he explained the last contact he had with Dustin. "We tried, lord knows we tried for several seconds, but the pull was too strong. He had to let go, you see. He let go. All I had left was the phone. His hand went back down the drain. Haven't seen it since."
​
I don't know how long I sat there, staring wide-eyed once again -- or maybe it was still -- at anything but Mullin.
​
A knock on the back door of the now-closed coffee shop raised my horror another notch. I was literally shaking when Mullin opened the door and greeted Officer Wolstrom, who nodded at me and whispered something to Mullin. Then he took a step backwards to leave and spoke loudly enough for me to hear.
​
"No sign of him so let us know if he shows up."
​
"Will do," Mullin replied, equally as loudly. He closed and locked the door, straightened himself and held his hand out to me.
​
"For your paper, this is the case of Dustin disappears again, last seen on his way home from work, last heard from safe and secure in his house. That's it, right?"
​
I wheeled myself to the front door, since I'd parked there to avoid seeing the tunnel at the rear of the shop. "You got it, Mullin. What else could it be? Lock up and stay safe now."
​
Hours ago, I filed the sanitized version for official publication in the Geffor Gazette. It's essentially an invite for Dustin to "call home."
​
I think I'm safe, since I never had an alien abduction (like Dustin) and I never entered the tunnel (like the now-missing team from Kyler Bay).
​
But I can't be sure. None of us can. And I doubt I'll ever feel safe again.
​

More at LG Writes, Odd Directions and Write_Right

Does your future really matter with a black hole in your hand?
​
My name's Winter. I'm the primary reporter for the Geffor Gazette. Some time back, I swore I'd never again work on any challenge races involving Geffor residents. Turns out I probably should have included working on anything involving the owner of Mullin's Coffee Shop. But I didn't, so I had to interview Mullin today at his shop, after hours.
​
Yesterday the first thing Dustin did when he got in from work was call his close friend Mullin. Dustin has to take the bus since he lost his car in a bizarre off-road/on-farm incident several months ago. Bus service in the town of Geffor is reliable, not frequent, so Dustin didn't get in until 6:30 p.m., at which time Mullin was in the coffee shop's kitchen, cleaning up after close.
​
Dustin was, not surprisingly, the only passenger on the bus so he could sit anywhere except the driver's seat. I'm not sure which seat he chose but he told Mullin there was a wad of deep violet chewing gum on the back of the seat in front of him. The wad was pulsating and despite being grossed out by it, Dustin said he felt a strange urge to touch it, to connect with it.
​
Mullin looked uncomfortable, a real departure from his normal presentation, when he said "connect with it," so I pressed for details.
​
Dustin said he felt like he was sitting in the heat of the sun on the hottest day ever, and a cool breeze hit. It didn't knock him over but it was so compelling, he wished it would. He had to find it and stay in it. He checked all over to see where the breeze was. Every time he thought he found the source, he was wrong, and he had to go further and further into the center of everything to find it.
​
His hair started to sizzle. He didn't care. He had to join with the cool breeze. It would fix everything. His skin started to melt and he didn't care. He knew the next steps were his teeth and fingernails would fall out, one by one. The skin would melt off his face and his jaw would drop off. He reached out to feel for the breeze but his fingers were just bones. Where was the breeze? He needed the breeze. Nothing else mattered.
​
I sat there, wide-eyed, holding my jaw as Mullin cleared his throat. "Dustin wanted to move before his skin actually started to melt."
​
We locked eyes for a moment, Mullin and I, then I nodded for him to continue.
​
Dustin moved up the bus so he was closer to the driver and selected a window seat on the opposite side. Clear window, not too many more stops to go, what could go wrong?
​
After he sat down, he saw the gum again, this time on the window. It was bigger than before but he was sure it was the same wad of gum. He knew because it looked more like a dent in reality than ABC gum.
​
I asked if that was the brand name of deep violet gum. Mullin chuckled and shook his head. "Already Been Chewed, ya noob."
​
We returned to Mullin's conversation with Dustin.
​
Dustin knew why the thing could be there without anyone else noticing it. To a passing glance, it looked like a wad of gum left on public transportation. Most people wouldn't give it a second thought. But Dustin reacted to the feeling of being pulled into it and checked it from different angles. It wasn't only the deep violet color, there were stars and comets and galaxies.
​
My eyebrow arched at that. Stars, comets and galaxies in a clump of something on a town bus?
​
"Hang on," Mullin said, noticing my reaction, "let me tell you about the noise, do you know how loud outer space is?"
​
I've heard that outer space, far from solids such as planets and stars and the like, is the loudest silence humans know of.
​
"Now imagine your brain trying to reconcile hearing you're in outer space and seeing you're stuck on a town bus."
​
Yikes.
​
Next thing Dustin knew, he was running past a bus stop a couple of blocks from his house. He told himself his heart was pounding due to the exertion but he knew he was terrified of the thing on the bus.
​
He called Mullin as soon as he got home. "He said it was in his kitchen drain," Mullin said as he wiped the counter with a paper towel.
​
"What was in his drain?" Even as I asked, I didn't want to know.
​
"Well, that's why he called me," Mullin said as he threw the paper towel away. "He wanted to know what it was. After hearing his description, I knew. I told him. It was a micro black hole. You know about those."
​
"Jesus, Mullin, you told him he was being stalked by a black hole?"
​
He picked up another paper towel and applied serious elbow grease on a non-existent stain on the counter, inches from my left arm. He didn't look at me until he threw that paper towel away.
​
"I didn't say it was stalking him. I told him it was a fantastic find. I said don't touch it, don't get too close to it and don't run any water into it. Nothing about stalking. Bloody hell, I'm his friend."
​
He stood still for a moment, staring at nothing.
​
"I told him about the tunnel. You and I, we know what happened there. And it happened because the tunnel was created by a micro black hole. One that still lives there."
​
A reporter should always have a question or two in reserve, should the conversation come to a rapid halt. Mullin putting words to my unspoken fear left me speechless. He moved to the coffee shop's sink before speaking again.
​
"There were some loud clunks came through on the phone," he continued. "I was standing right here when I heard them."
​
"Did Dustin hear them?"
​
"No," he said, pulling a phone out of his chef's jacket. "I don't think he did. His hand came up out my kitchen drain, you see. Holding this phone. His phone.
​
"I grabbed his hand, of course. With both hands. Any friend would. Put my fingers around his hand and his phone."
​
Mullin appeared distressed, I might even say terrified, as he explained the last contact he had with Dustin. "We tried, lord knows we tried for several seconds, but the pull was too strong. He had to let go, you see. He let go. All I had left was the phone. His hand went back down the drain. Haven't seen it since."
​
I don't know how long I sat there, staring wide-eyed once again -- or maybe it was still -- at anything but Mullin.
​
A knock on the back door of the now-closed coffee shop raised my horror another notch. I was literally shaking when Mullin opened the door and greeted Officer Wolstrom, who nodded at me and whispered something to Mullin. Then he took a step backwards to leave and spoke loudly enough for me to hear.
​
"No sign of him so let us know if he shows up."
​
"Will do," Mullin replied, equally as loudly. He closed and locked the door, straightened himself and held his hand out to me.
​
"For your paper, this is the case of Dustin disappears again, last seen on his way home from work, last heard from safe and secure in his house. That's it, right?"
​
I wheeled myself to the front door, since I'd parked there to avoid seeing the tunnel at the rear of the shop. "You got it, Mullin. What else could it be? Lock up and stay safe now."
​
Hours ago, I filed the sanitized version for official publication in the Geffor Gazette. It's essentially an invite for Dustin to "call home."
​
I think I'm safe, since I never had an alien abduction (like Dustin) and I never entered the tunnel (like the now-missing team from Kyler Bay).
​
But I can't be sure. None of us can. And I doubt I'll ever feel safe again.
​

More at LG Writes, Odd Directions and Write_Right

All the most recent stories on Lauren Boeber's filing for divorce:
The Denver Gazette - Lauren Boebert files for divorce - https://gazette.com/politics/lauren-boebert-divorce-filing/article_cbfa149b-f7e1-5766-a881-b601f4c0d554.html
The Denver Gazette - Lauren Boebert disputes reports describing how her husband reacted when served with divorce papers - https://denvergazette.com/premium/lauren-boebert-divorce-husbands-reaction/article_02685632-b1a3-5370-9120-9f656e82dd35.html
The Colorado Sun - Lauren Boebert files for divorce from her husband - https://coloradosun.com/2023/05/16/lauren-boebert-divorce-filing/
The Denver Post - Lauren Boebert files for divorce from husband - https://www.denverpost.com/2023/05/16/lauren-boebert-divorce/
CBS Denver - Lauren Boebert files for divorce from husband Jayson - https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-congresswoman-lauren-boebert-divorce-husband-jayson/
KDVR Fox 31 Denver - Rep. Lauren Boebert files for divorce from husband - https://kdvr.com/news/local/rep-lauren-boebert-files-for-divorce-from-husband/
KOAA - Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado files for divorce campaign confirms - https://www.koaa.com/news/covering-colorado/representative-lauren-boebert-of-colorado-files-for-divorce-campaign-confirms
Daily Mail - EXCLUSIVE: 'I love her too much to say anything bad about her.' Rep. Lauren Boebert's husband Jayson says he is torn as she files for divorce after 18 years of marriage, declaring she’s ‘always been faithful’ - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12091155/Rep-Lauren-Boebert-files-DIVORCE-husband-Jayson.html
​
More stories not from Colorado publications:
Daily Beast - Lauren Boebert’s Heartbroken Husband Says He Still Loves Her Despite Divorce - https://www.thedailybeast.com/lauren-boeberts-husband-jayson-furious-as-hes-served-divorce-papers
The Hill - Boebert defends husband amid divorce filing: ‘He didn’t “sick dogs” on the process server’ - https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/4009549-boebert-defends-husband-amid-divorce-filing-he-didnt-sick-dogs-on-the-process-serve
Rolling Stone - Lauren Boebert Can’t Even Talk About Her Divorce Without Trashing Bud Light - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lauren-boebert-trashes-bud-light-husband-divorced-1234737134/
Insider - Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert files for divorce from husband of nearly 2 decades - https://www.businessinsider.com/rep-lauren-boebert-files-for-divorce-2023-5
New York Post - Rep. Lauren Boebert files for divorce from husband of 18 years - https://nypost.com/2023/05/16/rep-lauren-boebert-files-for-divorce-from-husband-of-18-years/

(Legal Disclosure: This work of fiction has been filtered and modified by the United States Ad Plus Council Algorithm, copyright 2036. In compliance with the Corporate Ignorance Prevention Act, all unbranded products and services have been claimed within the text by competitive interests in your area for your convenience.)
A subsidiary of OntheNose Advertising Solutions® was not ready for bad news that day, big or small, but he got it in DigwellTM spades. It started with his Goldenbrowner® toaster, which was supposed to spit out a crispy image of his favorite actress on every HeatzaPizza® slice, but just kept giving him a burned specter, like a lit Ashlesswonder® cigarette positioned just under her face on an old Popcorn Comet Studios® film strip.
He tried calling customer service, but had mistakenly identified his Goldenbrowner® as a ThricecrispyTM thanks to the advertisement on its side. Clever of them to buy up the space on their competitor’s flank, probably owing to some rapid refreshing on a web page by one of the lowly employees during Goldenbrowner®’s attempt to register their paperwork.
The subsidiary then called the correct number, but got an automated response. He gave up and ate the burned horror. It was his own fault, especially given that he’d been doing the same sort of thing professionally for nearly five years now. He was tattooed, head to toe, in advertisements of his own, for everything from Ironsmack® roofing nails to FirmSolutions® gynecological services. As a walking billboard he brought in nearly 200 dollars a day, and all he had to do was leave his Luxuryabound® apartment and walk about downtown, with his rate doubled during rush hour.
There were a few other little tricks to squeeze out extra, like the contacts he put in that looked like SafetravelsTM tires.
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The subsidiary was devastated. Forty. Alone. Broke. Alone. A little hope sizzled. If he just had someone to share this with he would be fine, a shoulder to cry on at least, as long as he wasn’t wearing his Seethrough® contacts at the time, seeing as he was contractually barred from weeping with their brand name wrapped around his pupils. It sent the wrong message.
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It wasn’t easy to get to his old favorite haunt. The new corner and seam ads had been installed, deliberately designed to make it hard to tell the edge of the Gevault&Sons® sidewalk from the bottom of the nearest UnitedConstructLLC® building. He stubbed his toe several times, and in need of something to curse out, read the ad aloud. Damn, he thought, shouldn’t have given that away for free. Other pedestrians definitely heard him.
When he finally got in and sat down he didn’t know how to proceed. When was the last time he’d had a full honest conversation with someone? There was his mailman the previous month, but he was on a different route now. Plus, there was that old woman at the laundr-
“Hi.” She sat down right next to him. Her long red hair was dyed, but there weren’t any GlossyLustTM highlights forming words. She kept it natural, a little something for her since her skin was Homeless-LESS® real estate like his.
“Hi,” the subsidiary said back. “Can I buy you a drink?”
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Then they talked about it. ‘It’ was everything that wasn’t in the EmployJoy® job description. ‘It’ was little sensations and sounds that hadn’t been monopolized yet, things too small to plant a Patriotprinters® flag in. The fizzing in their ArtisanwindowsandallTM glasses. The clink. The way she was holding her DressHeap® shoes since she kept scuffing them on the new seam ads outside.
“Do you want to get out of here?” she asked. He knew it had been more than an hour, but had no idea beyond that. The ignorance made him giddy.
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“You don’t look horny,” he spat, embarrassment for the both of him reddening his face, giving luster to the LusciousLogosTM logos on his cheeks. “What are you, a targeted ad?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “I tried coming to your FineAmericanWoods® door a few times, but you weren’t answering. You can get in trouble for that you know.”
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The subsidiary left. He made for the tallest tower, practically listening to the whole Get Me High© album in the JenkisonEngineering® elevator on the way up. The SafetyThirst® guardrail on the WilkinsRoofing® roof had been ripped out, but not professionally. The metal was twisted, raw, oxidizing only at the edges while its insides could still scream into the open GlobalHeating&Cooling® air.
He held out his 2ndAmmendmentTM arms, spun, let himself drop. He couldn’t KaiserBreads® roll far without hitting someone else in the MercilessGrip® net. Tens of people were lounging in it, relaxing under the sun’s warmth, waiting for Mental Health Services to arrive and pluck them out.
The subsidiary didn’t want to be grabbed by their HomeRoads® truck’s padded claw, like he was some Toys’B’Fun® stuffed animal inside a MachinesunlimitedLLC® crane MercurialTM carnival WholeFamilyFun® game. He wrestled with the AllNaturalBinds® ropes until he found the edge, falling again, into the second one, for those who were a little more serious about dying.
If he did his obituary would call it a voided contract. He pressed his face down into a square. It was much cooler and quieter down there, but still too high to make out the individual people on the street. They were just a RegionalCatholicServices® mass. Sometimes they lined up in a way that couldn’t be coincidental, QuiteFineStitching® hats spelling out things for the SurveilMail® drones flying by.
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The End©

(16/5/23)
Results from 2 rounds of polling have concluded, this is the final community ranking and will be added to the sidebamenu until the next re-poll
Thanks to everyone who took part!
MFTM Top 100 Death Metal Albums Final Rank:

1. Death - Symbolic
2. Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of the Mutilated
3. Death - Human
4. Death - Leprosy
5. Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness
6. Death - Scream Bloody Gore
7. Entombed - Left Hand Path
8. Opeth - Blackwater Park
9. At The Gates - Slaughter of the Soul
10. Cryptopsy - None So Vile
11. Death - Spiritual Healing
12. Carcass - Heartwork
13. Cattle Decapitation - Monolith of Inhumanity
14. Deicide - Deicide
15. Gorguts - Obscura
16. Opeth - Still Life
17. Atheist - Piece of Time
18. Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
19. Bolt Thrower - IVth Crusade
20. Bolt Thrower - Those Once Loyal
21. Cattle Decapitation - The Anthropocene Extinction
22. Edge of Sanity - Purgatory Afterglow
23. Fleshgod Apocalypse - King
24. Mortician - Chainsaw Dismemberment
25. Obituary - Cause of Death
26. Pestilence - Consuming Impulse
27. Suffocation - Effigy Of The Forgotten
28. Demilich - Nespithe
29. Gojira - Terra Incognita
30. Gorguts - Considered Dead
31. Immolation - Close To A World Below
32. Incantation - Onward to Golgotha
33. Morbid Angel - Covenant
34. Morbid Angel - Gateways to Annihilation
35. Necrophagist - Epitaph
36. Obituary - Slowly We Rot
37. Autopsy - Mental Funeral
38. Bolt Thrower - For Victory
39. Carcass - Necrotism: Descanting the Insalubrious
40. Deicide - Legion
41. Dismember - Like an Ever Flowing Stream
42. Dying Fetus - Reign Supreme
43. Possessed - Seven Churches
44. Ulcerate - Everything Is Fire
45. Arch Enemy - Will to Power
46. Asphyx - The Rack
47. Autopsy - Severed Survival
48. Be'lakor - Of Breath and Bone
49. Dying Fetus- Destroy The Opposition
50. Insomnium - Winter’s Gate
51. Intestine Baalism - Banquet in the Darkness
52. Nile - Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren Ka
53. Nocturnus - The Key
54. Pestilence - Mallus Maleficarum
55. Suicide Silence - The Awakening
56. Those Once Loyal - Bolt Thrower
57. Aeon - Rise to Dominate
58. Beyond Creation - The Aura
59. Bloodbath - Nightmares Made Flesh
60. Bloodbath - Resurrection Through Carnage
61. Brutality - Screams Of Anguish
62. Carcass - Symphonies Of Sickness
63. Carnifex - Graveside Confessions
64. Darkthrone - Soulside Journey
65. Decapitated - Nihility
66. Decapitated - Winds of Creation
67. Defeated Sanity - Psalms of the Moribund
68. Gorefest - Mindloss
69. Gorement - The Ending Quest
70. Impetigo - Horror of the Zombies
71. Infester - To The Depths In Degradation
72. Massacre - From Beyond
73. Necrophagia - Seasons of The Dead
74. Rippikoulu - Musta Seremonia
75. Sinister - Cross the Styx
76. Sinister - Diabolical Summoning
77. The Black Dahlia Murder - Miasma and Deflorate
78. Vital Remains - Dechristianize
79. Cianide - The Dying Truth
80. Dark Tranquillity - Damage Done
81. Dead Congregation - Promulgation of the Fall
82. Deeds of Flesh - Trading Pieces
83. Defeated Sanity - Disposal of The Dead/Dharmata
84. Deicide - Christ Denied
85. Demonic Sacrifice - Enter The Realm of Pure Darkness
86. Devourment - Molesting The Decapitated
87. Disgorge - Consume The Forsaken
88. Disgorge - Parallels of Infinite Torture
89. Gatecreeper - Deserted
90. Incantation - Onwards To Golgotha
91. Infernal Torment - Man’s True Nature
92. Septycal Gorge - Scourge of the Formless Breed
93. Skinless - Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead
94. Spawn of Possession - Cabinet
95. Sulphur Aeon - The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos
96. Theory In Practice - Colonising The Sun
97. Tiamat - Astral Sleep
98. Toxodeth - Mysteries About Life and Death
99. Vital Remains - Forever Underground
100. Wake - Thought Form Descent

Discussion Ideas:

• Albums you're glad made it into the list?
• Surprised with any of the results?
• What albums should have made the list?
• Albums you would take out of the list?

First Previous Next
---
SUBJECT-DESIGNATION: Captain Marcus Miller
LOCATION: Unknown Space
DATE: EARTH-TIME [Saturday, July 23, 2186]
---
This view before me was the perfect degree of cosmic insanity.
Before the Challenger’s drive had ruptured, we were afforded the privilege of seeing faster than light travel’s effect on the fabric of space, but nothing seen then could compare to the sight before us now. Even now, we still weren’t sure what had caused the accident, and I wasn’t entirely sure we ever would.
What should have been the typical void of space became something that I wasn’t sure my limited faculties were intended to comprehend. It was an expanse of both blindingly bright light and oppressively dark shadows, limitless spectrums of prismatic colors and binary shades of light and dark, infinitely intricate geometric shapes and structures of the utmost simplicity. Space twisted, broke and bent all around us as we tore through it at speeds that shouldn’t have been possible. This beautifully paradoxical sight that was quite nearly beyond my ability to describe and even then, I could barely do it justice with my own mind.
With a degree of effort, I managed to forcibly tear my eyes from the mesmerizing sight to instead focus upon my surroundings.
The Khimrox attended to their duties with a fervor that I hadn’t yet seen. As I watched them work, I thought back to the words Saffan had spoken to me and my crew—of the trust he placed upon us by recounting the tale of his people. Why hasn’t the Aurum Alliance found Earth? What could’ve stopped them? Why the fuck’ve they gotta be such heartless bastards?
I shook my head in disbelief and turned to the data-pad held within my hands. Listed here was all the information that I had documented so far regarding the revelations provided by Saffan. Twenty-four species, each subjugated in the same way as our friends. There had to be billions, if not trillions of living beings among this empire that found themselves crushed under the Aurum boot. My blood boiled at the very thought of it. Hopefully this information would help the UEN sympathize with our avian friends.
“Marcus?” My thoughts were interrupted as Saffan spoke. “You seem terribly quiet. What is on your mind my friend?” The avian held an upbeat tone that my new translator managed to pick up on.
“Can I ask you something?”
His response was immediate. “Of course. Anything.”
“How many of you Khimrox are out there among the stars?”
For once, Saffan seemed puzzled. He paused to turn his head almost vertically. “I… I cannot say for certain. Our lords do not make us privy to such information.”
“What do you know then?”
His head turned back upright. “I am confident that it must be in the many billions now.”
I paused. “You say that, but were your people not primitive just a few centuries ago? ”
Saffan shifted at my words. “We were.” His feathers began to puff up somewhat. It was clear this conversation wasn’t going somewhere he liked, but I refused to quit my questioning. I couldn’t. Not when it had a chance of helping their people.
“What happened?”
The positive mood that had possessed my friend visibly faded. When he next spoke, his voice was leveled, flattened, and dampened. “Are you certain you wish to know?”
I furrowed my brow and narrowed my eyes. What could be worse than what he’s already told us? I nodded, ready to hear him.
Saffan sighed and looked down. “For many years after our people were first found, there were not enough of our kind—not enough for the likes of our lords. They required more wings for their ever expanding empire, so they turned their gaze to us.”
The Khimrox looked me dead in the eyes. “They took my people and bred them just as one would livestock. They purged those among us with undesirable traits and forced our brood-mothers to lay more eggs than they were often able to handle. When those same mothers could no longer fulfill their duties...” The Khimrox closed his eyes and shook his head.
“For how many years we went on this way I cannot say. But thankfully, they have since ceased their infernal practices. We do not often speak of such things aloud, but we must pass down our knowledge across the generations, lest the memory of our past be lost.”
My fists clenched at the mere mention of these deeds. How could any of this go by unpunished? Is there not an entire interstellar community to combat such things?
“Sir.” One of the many owl-folk I didn’t recognize stepped forward. “We’re approaching the planet.”
What? I knew their drives were impressive, but it had only been a few hours since we made our jump towards Earth. Just how fast are we traveling?
Both I and the captain turned to the one who spoke. “Good, inform the crew. Ensure those with hatchlings are made aware. Something tells me this is not an event any of our people, even the youngest among us will want to miss.”
I stood by Saffan’s side as he issued the order with a wave of his wing. “Hatchlings? Saffan, I didn’t know you had children aboard.”
“Yes. Normally, protocol dictates that they remain confined to the quarters of their parents.” The captain flexed his metal hands as he looked at them with narrowed pupils. “For those born shipside, they are allowed to remain aboard the vessel until they reach the proper age for the installation of their improvements.” There was venom in that voice as he spoke.
The arm lowered to his side. “After that, they are reassigned based upon to the desire of our lords. According to their reasoning, such children would only get in the way of more important matters.”
“And they do this for all of their scions?” In response, he simply nodded.
I was stunned. Each and every time I thought those bastards had reached the limits of their cruelty, they outdid themselves. No words could express my thoughts as I sat in silence. For a time, I stood silent as the idle hums and groans of the ship paired with low hoots of voices that my translator couldn’t quite detect rang through my ears.
“Thirty seconds until jump termination.” The synthetic voice called from around us.
Any sound of idle chatter had vanished. The rest of my crew gathered beside me to look out the window of the deck. “Ten seconds until jump termination.” I gave the two nearest to me, Darius and Nia, a quick look then turned back to face the window as I held my breath.
“Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”
The Ignis lurched, throwing me and the rest of my people forward. When I managed to steady myself once more, I looked out from the viewport alongside every soul that crowded around me.
A shroud of silence had fallen. We humans gazed in reverence at our mother Earth and the Khimrox stared forward, quietly taking in this new world. The perfect sphere was painted with vast swathes of blue, green, white and gold. A faint cerulean glow, like the halo of some angelic being, wrapped around her edges in addition to the sanctity of this sight. Our golden sun graced us with the familiar comfort of its beams as it looked onward from further into the system. We could even see the gray dot of our moon as it circled the Earth from what once had seemed an unsurpassable distance.
We made it.
I took in the sight of the dumbstruck crew, whose silence spoke entire novels. For what short time we had spent with our Khimroxian friends I had never seen their pupils expanded to the volumes that they now reached.
For the first time since her unlikely formation, eyes that hadn’t grown within her loving embrace looked onward to witness her beauty.
Wait, but if we’re this close to Earth, where are the…
A shout sounded out, cutting through the silence like a blade through paper. “Captain Aeax!”
The person who made the call was a Khimrox—one who I had seen earlier conversing with Saffan. “We’re being hailed by a group of six unknown vessels utilizing the human language! They’ve sent out a hail demanding we announce ourselves or they will open fire!”
Ah, there they are.
“What?” shouted the captain. A rush of worry washed over him as his brow furrowed. “Sir, the group looks to consist of four corvette class vessels as well as two destroyers.”
“Get us within line of sight immediately. I want to see these ships myself.”
The bridge was a mess of activity as I grabbed him by the shoulder of his wing. “Tell your advisor to let the call through. If anyone can talk them down it's me.”
While I waited for his response, a section of the viewport magnified to show the group of six vessels, all within a relatively close distance of one another. The rifle-shaped vessels were crude in comparison to the Ignis and nowhere near its size, but they were unmistakably a UEN patrol. The ships our Khimrox friends had considered to be corvettes and destroyers—to us humans—were two battleships flanked by four cruisers.
Saffan’s eyes shrunk and his expression softened. “You’re certain my friend?”
“They’re UEN. If there’s anybody they’ll listen to, it’d be me.”
The captain was silent. “Very well.” Saffan turned to the Khimrox who had called him. “Kifar, you heard the man. Put us through.”
“Yes sir!”
From where we both stood at the helm, a gravelly voice called through the speakers of the bridge. “Unidentified vessel, this is Admiral Derrick of the UEN Fleet Forever Forward, identify yourselves immediately.”
I cleared my voice before I spoke to the higher ranking official. “Good to meet you Admiral Derrick, this is Captain Marcus Miller of the science vessel UEN Challenger speaking.”
“What?” The voice on the other end rose in unbelief. “No… No, that shouldn't be possible. The Challenger and her crew were considered lost in space six days ago. Whoever you are, you’d better have a damn good reason for claiming something so bold.”
“I assure you Admiral, I speak the truth.”
“If that is the case, you should be able to recall the craft identifier of your vessel.”
Huh. Guess memorizing that thing actually did end up being useful. “The CIN for the UEN Challenger is UEN-HA-COP-51-F-2183.”
There was a long pause after I recited the code—the time of which was presumably spent punching my code into the UEN database. The craft identifier wasn’t exactly a secret that a captain had to keep hidden from their crew, but it wasn’t one that anyone other than me was required to know. Its sole purpose was to assist in the identification of a vessel. Back during training, it became a requirement for me to be capable of reciting it at the whim of my instructors.
“Holy hell, it really is you isn’t it?” A grin crept across my face.
“Yes sir.”
“And that ship, where on Earth did you find that leviathan?”
“That's a bit of a long story—one that I’ll explain soon enough—but for now, inform the security council of the UEN, we have a first contact event on our hands.”
Admiral Derrick proceeded to enter into a fit of coughing before eventually returning to normalcy. “Surely you’re joking, right? ”
I turned to Saffan and my smile only grew further. “No sir.”
“That's… wow. Ok. You’re entirely certain of this?”
“I’m standing right next to their captain.”
“Can I hear from him?”
I nodded my head towards the Khimrox captain.
“Admiral Derrick,” said Saffan, “I am Saffan Aeax of the Ignis. It is an honor to meet you under the watchful eye of your moon, my friend.”
“Was that an… owl?” asked the incredulous admiral.
Me and several of my own crew laughed at the question. Right, translators. “It's hard to explain but no sir, they call themselves the Khimrox.” I relayed the captain’s message following my remark and immediately, Derrick posed further questions.
“How are you able to understand them?”
“They were gracious enough to assist me and my crew in the installation of translative neurotechnology. They’re able to understand you, but without similar implants, you won’t be able to understand them.“
As an admiral, Derrick was certain to have augments of his own to assist in the command of his fleet, but I knew for a fact that our own tech couldn’t compare to the complexity of those used by the Khimrox. Even captains often had some degree of neural implants, though I was one of the few exceptions to this rule; the comparatively sparse crew complement of the Challenger hadn’t demanded such a thing. Even though the technology had come from an oppressive regime of overlords, it was awfully impressive.
“And these Khimrox, you’re sure they’re friendly?” The flurry of questions shot one after another were beginning to become tiresome, but I endured them nonetheless.
“They saved our lives admiral. If it hadn’t been for them, we would still be floating around in the wreck of the Challenger.”
“Well, Captain Aeax, if you really can understand me, on behalf of the United Earthen Nations, I thank you and your people for returning our people unharmed.”
Saffan spoke in kind, “Please my friend, there is no need to thank us. I am certain had the circumstances been reversed, humanity would have been just as willing to offer aid. We only did what was necessary.”
Once again, I recounted the captain’s words.
“I’m glad to hear you feel that way. I will ensure we contact the security council right away. For the time being, please remain where you are. A single near-interspecies incident is one too many.”
“Very well Admiral. We shall obey your command with gladness in our hearts.”
“Good. If things go well, the security council should respond with further orders soon. For the time-being, this is Admiral Derrick signing off.”
The comms were cut and quiet tried its best to fill the bridge. Almost immediately it was drowned out in spectacular fashion. This time, it was the Khimrox that first commenced the cheers. A beautiful chorus of cries sung from their beaks as joy flooded through the throng of owl-folk. Even I couldn’t help but feel the spray from this rushing wave of emotion. Their people certainly didn’t discriminate between us humans and their fellow Khimrox when it came to sharing a warm embrace.
Amidst the celebration, I rested an arm on the shoulder of my tired friend. With those massive eyes of his, Saffan stared directly into my soul.
“Thank you, my friend.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. We’re still not out of this until the council makes their decision.”
Saffan shook his head. “If the honor that I have seen humanity display so far is anything to go by, I have no doubt that they will make the best decision for both our peoples.”
I looked down to the collection of accounts provided by the captain and his people aboard the pad held within my hands. If we were to meet with the security council, I would need more tangible evidence to prove such claims.
“Saffan, how much of what you have told me can be corroborated based on information stored on your ship’s databanks?”
The Khimrox seemed confused by the question. “Perhaps not all of it, but a good portion of it should be available. Why do you ask?”
“Do you think you could have it translated to our language and prepared for transfer?”
“Given enough time, yes.” Saffan narrowed his eyes, “What are you planning Marcus?”
----------------------
Roughly three hours after our contact with the UEN, we were escorted by the same fleet that had previously threatened us. I honestly couldn’t blame them for what they had done. A ship as large as this monster and with such powerful alien technology to boot must have certainly been a fright to behold.
The Ignis may have been able to put the best of our ships to shame, but as we followed our escort, I was glad to see the Atlantic Orbital Citadel remained impressive as always. Even in comparison to the Khimroxian vessel, it was an utter marvel of engineering.
The citadel itself was a modern testament to the power of humanity. Over one hundred nations had pooled their resources and manpower to create this ultimate hub of earth to space affairs. Dozens of battleships, with their bright orange burn that I could practically hear the hum of, moored in the station’s docking bays. Even a few carriers hung nearby space above the blue expanse of the ocean which was the station’s namesake.
After our approach of the citadel operations and docking—as requested—Saffan and I heeded the summons of the security council and were transported via Harpy-Class transport.
I was lucky the council had allowed my attendance, but then again, there was certainly a need for a translator considering the oddity of the Khimroxian language. The anticipation of the council's decision was killing me.
Sure, the Khimrox had rescued us knowing full well the potential for our enslavement, but what choice did they have? But, if the databanks of the ship didn’t lie, and it was true the Aurum Alliance had no chance of tracing our path towards earth, there was no choice but to fully welcome our friends.
Now, my boots clanked and the fellow captain’s talons clacked against the solid metal floors as we walked through the heart of UEN operations. The pair of imposing soldiers that joined us at either side thudded against the surface they stepped on, their heavy metallic exo-armor would have left indents in the ground wherever they walked had they been back on Earth. These soldiers were those that I recognized as special operatives, hand-picked from within the marine corps of the UEN. The STYX suits they wore were the cutting edge of infantry armor among our ranks.
Despite their clear status as hardened soldiers, I could sense a layer of unease between the two as a result of Saffan’s presence. Given time, I’m sure they would feel no differently than I did towards our newfound friends.
The normally bustling halls of the station had been cleared, leaving the echoes of our feet to ring wherever we went. It felt like we had walked for ages when we finally reached a familiar area of the station. A massive metal blast-door slid open from top to bottom, revealing a nearly empty auditorium.
The design was one based upon the ancient designs of the Roman colosseum. Tens of thousands could have sat among the wide rows of seating that all looked towards a circular central arena where the security council often held its sessions. Above all of it was a massive ceiling of transparent material that looked out to the surrounding fleet.
As we approached the center of the oversized conference center, I could see a massive circle of figures projected against glass panels. There had to have been at least one for every world government that was a part of the UEN.
There was dead silence as the eyes of these larger than life men and women surrounded us, glaring down upon me and Saffan like a circle of deadly spears. However, from the midst of these figures, walked a single individual who had taken the time to present themselves personally.
He was dressed in the gray dress uniform of the average fleet admiral or captain. A similarly gray combination cover hat topped the man’s head and golden epaulets were sewn upon his shoulders. His valor was rightfully adorned across his chest; almost all of it had been earned as a result of his heroics in the relatively recent Kuiper War. It was impossible to mistake him for anyone other than the current UEN Director, Lorenzo Redd.
He came to a stop before us. “Captain Miller,” he nodded, “It's good to see you safe and sound. It wasn’t all that long ago that I provided the obituary for you and your crew.” The deep voice with which Redd spoke commanded authority. It was this same voice that had once roared the commands leading to Earth’s victory amidst the belts.
I wasn’t surprised to hear me and my crew had been considered dead. Considering the nature of our expedition, assuming the worst was completely reasonable. As Redd extended his calloused hand, I gripped it with my own, giving a strong shake. Once we broke apart, he turned towards Saffan who returned the stare sent his way with inquisitive eyes.
“Captain Aeax.” Redd bowed. “It’s an honor to meet you sir. I am Director Redd of the United Earthen Nations, and on behalf of humanity, I would like to thank you for your heroic actions in rescuing our people.”
Saffan bowed in turn, and spoke as I translated for him. “The honor is all mine, Director.”
Redd nodded with a grin. “For centuries, we humans have looked to the stars. We’ve wondered, even feared whether we were alone in the universe. But now, these fears can be laid to rest.”
Pointing with a hand towards me, he said, “Captain Miller here was gracious enough to send over a detailed report regarding the situation of your people. You have my deepest sympathies for the horrors committed against your kind.”
Saffan turned to look at me with eyes of understanding as the director held both arms upward and outward, gesturing towards the many who watched in silence. “Both I and the council assure you, no such conditions will befall you during your time on earth. After careful consideration, we have agreed to grant the Khimroxian species refugee status until such a time as it is safe for the return to your home of Asharr.”
My spirits soared. YES! FUCK YES! IT WORKED! IT WORKED!
The entire time that we had been aboard the Ignis, I had done my best to obtain every account of what would be considered human rights violations—though in this case, violation of sapient rights seemed more apt a description. With news I provided of the atrocities against the Aurum Alliance’s scions, I simply knew there had to be no morally justifiable choice other than the acceptance of their people.
I did my best to maintain my composure, but struggled with every fiber of my being to do so.
Saffan, on the other hand, couldn't help himself as he flapped his massive span of wings and released a joyous cry that bounded throughout the chamber. Aboard the Ignis, the avian had been clearly subdued in his emotions. This made sense—a captain’s gotta present for their crew—but now, he made no such attempt at hiding his true feelings. Redd, and the other onlookers of the council remained silent at Saffan’s call, but many cracked smiles at the sight.
I saw the moisture collect within my friend’s eyes and slide down the disc of his face. He spun around in circles, taking in the view of each and every council member who had participated in this decision. When he finally stopped, Saffan took a step forward towards the director and practically bent over backwards to give yet another bow, though now with wings extended.
“Thank you Director Redd.” He turned to face the wide array of council members. “Thank you my friends. My people, we will forever remain indebted of your infinite kindness.”
After concluding his show of respect and as I concluded my interpreting, Saffan rushed forward in my direction, talons clacking with each step taken.
The avian pounced upon me, spreading his wide wings of soft feathers and fully leaning his weight against me for support. Though I wasn’t exactly a hugger by any stretch of the imagination, there was no way in hell I was going to turn him away, not now. I fully embraced my friend in return, squeezing him tight and pressing my head against his. I could feel the wet drops splash against back as I held him close. After what his people had been put through, after what he had been put through, I refused to allow him shame for these fallen tears.
This behavior that Saffan displayed may not have been fit for someone assigned the position of captain, but what reason did he have to care? He had never asked for such a title, and now, he didn’t need to listen to anyone. He was free.
---
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Hello! This is my first writeup here. Due to personal privacy concerns I have chosen to use this account instead of my main, but trust that I spend a lot of time in this subreddit. I tend to include too much information all the time so this is extremely long! Would appreciate some constructive criticism - I literally discovered this case on Wednesday before I went to bed, and now here I am, 5:30pm on Friday, posting it.
A more succinct timeline is available here.
I found no similar writeups about this case and it was truly difficult to find any information online. I did find a single WebSleuths thread, but most of my information came from old newspapers. Links to the articles I could find, as well as my newspaper clippings, are at the bottom of the post.
The only known photo of Maurice Miles.
Maurice Lorenzo Miles was born in Baltimore, MD on October 3rd, 1986. Maurice was the only child of Jacqueline Louise Bouknight, born June 15, 1966, and Terrance Maurice Miles, whose date of birth was sometime in 1966.
Jacqueline, who is sometimes called Jackie, grew up in the foster care system of Baltimore. Later, she would cite the mistreatment and abuse she faced in various group and foster homes as her reason for refusing to comply with court orders compelling her to produce her child in front of a judge.
I was unable to find any information on Terrence's life - the only information I found on him was that he died on March 11, 1988, at age 22 or 23 (I found reports that stated both). Terrence was shot twice in the head, and four times in the body, and was found dead by police at the scene - in the middle of the street in the 1600 block of N Washington St in Baltimore. A vial of "suspected narcotic" was found near his body. Terrence's murder does not appear to have been solved, and I was unable to find any obituary or grave for him online, but he was survived by his grandmother, Lorraine Dean.
Back to Maurice. Only a month after his birth, in November of 1986, he was hospitalized with pneumonia. Cursory x rays showed Maurice was also suffering from fractures in his right arm, right shoulder blade, and right shoulder socket. He was released back to Jacqueline Bouknight. On January 23, 1987, when he was 3 months old, he was hospitalized for a second time, with his left femur broken, and possible spinal injuries - these were never confirmed, so I'll operate under the assumption that he did not have spinal injuries.
Paul Duggan reported in the Washington Post (07/10/1989) that this was the second hospitalization for Maurice, and the details of his broken arm, shoulder, and socket. Duggan reported this before anyone else - I was unable to find another mention of these details until the Baltimore Sun's timeline on 02/25/1990. As such, any information relayed in Duggan's Washington Post article that I could not find elsewhere, I consider dubious.
This article reports that Maurice was in a full body cast following his femur break (also reported in The Sun 10/31/95), and, according to a court petition, "his mother was observed throwing him into a crib on one occasion and shaking him profusely on another." I was unable to verify that information anywhere else, and am unsure who or what Duggan's source for this was - as far as I have been able to determine, Maryland law dictates that DSS proceedings can only take place in a civil court. Additionally, per Maryland state law, juvenile proceedings and court papers are confidential, and are opened to the public only at the judge's discretion. There have been some court documents released, but not many. This law was the reason cited for officials being unable to discuss the case.
After his broken femur was discovered, Maurice was removed from his mother's care and placed temporarily in a foster home on, February 11, 1987. No child abuse charges were filed. On May 19th of that year, Bouknight was ordered by the Juvenile Court to be psychologically evaluated. Maurice would be returned to Jacqueline on July 17 after just 5 months in foster care, under the conditions of monthly case worker visits, counseling, and parenting classes for Bouknight - before she had even received her court ordered evaluation.
Bouknight was finally evaluated on July 23, 1987. On August 18th, the Juvenile Court Master ruled that Maurice would be permanently returned to Bouknight. The court had not obtained the psychological evaluation yet. In fact, the psychological evaluation was not received by the court until September 8, 1987 - four days after the last confirmed sighting of Maurice. The evaluation advised against returning Maurice to his mother.
Maurice's last confirmed sighting was by his case worker, Philip Maguire, on September 4th, 1987. In the report, Maguire described Maurice as "well fed with good affect and hygiene". Maurice wouldn't be reported missing until April 12, 1988, seven months later.
Per Duggan's Washington Post article (07/10/1989), the psychologist's evaluation stated "[Bouknight] is not now able to relate constructively to her child, since the child is seen as fulfilling her needs rather than the reverse. She becomes totally frustrated and enraged to find herself unable to gain from her child what [. . .] she lacked in her own childhood. When her frustration mounts, she is likely to act out towards the child."
Maurice's paternal grandmother Lorraine Dean claims that she contacted Maguire in March, after her son died, and told him that she hadn't seen him since the previous summer. Lorraine said Maguire told her he hadn't seen Maurice since September, and didn't know where he was. John Brown, Bouknight's former foster father, said he had asked Bouknight to move out of his house in fall of 1987, and that since then, he hadn't seen Maurice. In fact, when he tried to surprise Bouknight at her new home, she wouldn't answer the door. Brown apparently let Bouknight return to his home around Christmas 1987, but she returned without Maurice, and told him she had given him away, stating there "Wouldn't be no more trouble because she had given the baby to someone else".
Unconfirmed sightings of Maurice include: an In Home Aide working with Bouknight claimed to have seen Maurice on September 8th, 1987. Some neighbors reported seeing Maurice sometime in "Late Fall" 1987, outside, being held by a "large woman", with Bouknight packing Maurice's things into a blue station wagon with wood paneling and out of state plates.
On April 18, 1988, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge David B. Mitchell ordered Bouknight to produce Maurice before the court on April 20. Bouknight failed to do so, and the judge issued an arrest warrant for civil contempt. After a week of searching for her, Baltimore Police apprehended Bouknight on April 27, 1988.
Jacqueline Bouknight seemed to like to tell stories, and over time, told police many different stories, including that she had given Maurice to her sister in Dallas, Texas. Other stories include Bouknight's Aunt somewhere in Baltimore, unspecified relatives in North and South Carolina, as well as New Jersey and Florida. Detectives stated that they went door to door in a relative's South Carolina neighborhood with a photo of Maurice. Bouknight also claimed to have given him to a friend named Rachael. Police told Maurice's paternal grandmother Lorraine Dean that they checked with known relatives of Bouknight in other states, but none of them had seen him.
Weeks passed. An article in The Baltimore Sun (06/13/1988) reported that police had "torn up" Bouknight's East Baltimore neighborhood, interviewing as many neighbors as possible in a several block radius, but nobody knew anything, and they had, "in a sense, gone nowhere". It is reported that Bouknight had already appeared before Judge Mitchell twice, and continued to refuse to cooperate.
In a May 12, 1988 interview, Bouknight's former foster parent John Brown (who was 72 at the time) stated she was refusing to talk to a lawyer. At some point that changed, because the June 13, 1988 article stated that both of Bouknight's appearances before the judge had been arranged by her public defender.
On Bouknight's legal team were a total of four lawyers - one whose name i could not locate. The other three are Stuart Cohen, George E Burns Jr, and Christina Gutierrez - who would later go on to represent Adnan Syed. Bouknight's legal team argued that compelling Bouknight to testify to where Maurice was would violate her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. The Maryland Department of Social Services (DSS) says that Maurice's welfare comes first. The case would have to be sent to the Supreme Court.
She remained in jail on the civil contempt ruling. At this time, Bouknight was told she didn't have to testify; her lawyer or someone else could produce the child. The state even tried to persuade her by stating they would not prosecute her unless a murder charge was warranted. Bouknight stayed silent.
On September 28, 1988, Jacqueline Bouknight had a warrant issued for a misdemeanor theft charge. The event, stealing a check, forging a signature, and then cashing that check, allegedly took place before Maurice was reported missing in April. This charge was initially forgery, and was reduced to theft. On November 28, 1988, Bouknight was found guilty of this charge. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail by Judge Martin Kircher on November 28, 1988, in addition to her contempt sentence. This sentence was ordered to be backdated and start on the day Bouknight was charged, September 27, 1988.
On December 20, 1988, The Baltimore Court of Appeals Chief Judge Robert Murphy ordered Bouknight's release from jail as they ruled that Bouknight's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination could not be violated by compelling her to produce her son to the courts. This decision was immediately appealed to the US Supreme Court. The next day, Chief Justice William Rehnquist ordered Bouknight to remain in jail while he considered whether the SCOTUS should review the case. Regardless, even if the SCOTUS hadn't ordered this, Bouknight still had to serve 16 more months for her misdimeanor theft charge.
Per a blurb (09/25/1989), published in many papers (my screenshot is from the Binghamton, NY Press and Sun), Maurice's case appeared on the Supreme Court fall docket for 1989. It was argued November 07, 1989.
On February 20, 1990, the SCOTUS ruled the following: Jacqueline Bouknight may not invoke the Fifth Amendment to resist complying with the court order to produce Maurice. This ruling also meant that, once her misdimeanor theft sentence was completed, Bouknight would remain in jail on the civil contempt ruling.
"Even when criminal conduct may exist, the court may properly request production and return of the child, and enforce that request through exercise of the contempt power, for reasons entirely to the child's well being and through mesaures unrelated to criminal law enforcement or investigation", the courts opinion said.
A civil contempt ruling like this is meant to coerce someone, not punish them. Bouknights attorneys argued that the court had done everything in its power to coerce Bouknight to reveal her sons location, and nothing had worked - it was clear it wasn't going to, and the attorneys argued that any further jail time would be punitive. They urged the courts to release her, and, if they saw fit, bring criminal charges against Bouknight for violating the court order.
Baltimore state attorney Stuart O. Simms was unwilling to promise any additional immunity or protections for Bouknight, and per the Baltimore Sun on February 21,1990, could not comment on the courts discussion of possible limitations on prosecutions in similar cases, as he had not yet fully reviewed the SCOTUS ruling.
Sometime in 1992, after nearly a year of negotiating, a court order was issued - Bouknight agreed and signed it. The order stated that if Bouknight were to reveal the whereabouts of her son, who she claimed was alive, and he was found in a safe and appropriate home, he would not be returned to DSS/foster care custody. Despite agreeing and signing the order, Bouknight failed to reveal Maurice's location.
Bouknight remained in jail, and she remained silent - even an order from the highest court in the United States didn't sway her. Her attorneys continued to file motions to free her. On January 25, 1995, a hearing was held on these motions, which Judge Mitchell allowed to be opened up to the press. During this hearing, Bouknight claims she gave Maurice to her friend, "Rachael Anderson", who she met in the foster care system. Police scoured foster care and school records for Baltimore and North Carolina, and were unable to find Ms. Anderson. During this hearing, when discussing the 1992 agreement, Bouknight said "It's a paper. It's lies." Previously, she had a solid rapport with Detective Tyrone S. Francis, but stated she no longer trusted him.
The Baltimore Sun published (01/26/1995) a digitally enhanced age progression photo of Maurice, where they incorrectly reported his last name as Bouknight. This created another beaurocratic problem - Judge Mitchell immediately halted all media access to the hearings. Judge Mitchell stated that by publishing the photo, even with an incorrect last name, The Sun had compromised the confidentiality of the juvenile court system, as they had specified that the child would only be referred to as Maurice or Maurice M. The Sun argued that no last name was meant to be reported, and it was an accident. They also argued that they had obtained the photo from Baltimore PD, who had been using it to try to find Maurice, and besides - it wasn't a real photo of him, it was an age progression.
Judge Mitchell said those facts did not make up for the possible harm posed to Maurice by publishing the name and photo, and still violated the principle of protecting children's privacy. Mitchell proposed this: reporters were allowed to stay in the courtroom under some more strict conditions - no likenesses or photos of Maurice would be published, regardless of where they were obtained.
Mitchell also required The Sun to publish the exact wording of his court order in their January 27, 1995 paper. An attorney for The Sun said that the sun would not consent to these terms, stating that they cannot agree to an order from a government agency regarding what they can and cannot publish, and that he did not believe that the judge's order had barred them from running a photo obtained outside of the courtroom. Judge Mitchell denied access, even after attorneys met privately to discuss the matter in his chambers.
The Sun would go on to report on 02/09/1995 that Judge Mitchell had reopened the media access for hearings on February 8th - but did not allow Sun reporters inside, citing their "deliberate editorial decision to violate a court order". The Sun filed a petition regarding this decision with the Maryland Court of Appeals.
On October 31, 1995, there was another hearing for a motion requesting to lift Bouknight's contempt order. In this hearing, Maurice's attorney Mitchell Mirviss, appointed by the court to advocate for Maurice, begged Bouknight, "Jackie, it's a tragedy you have let this go on so long." She still refused to speak.
Bouknight's legal team successfully argued that the civil contempt ruling jailing Bouknight had not successfully coerced her into revealing Maurice, and should be lifted. The Baltimore Police department investigated Maurice's disappearance as a homicide investigation, but no evidence of foul play was ever found. With no evidence, DSS had to assume that Maurice was alive. Though Bouknight's refusal to talk was still considered criminal due to the SCOTUS ruling, the state could no longer argue that keeping her in jail would be conductive to finding Maurice.
Maryland state officials acknowledged that they may never know if Maurice was dead, or if Jacqueline had just successfully hidden him from the foster care system.
Assistant Attorney General Ralph S Tyler III requested Judge Mitchell to order Bouknight to have no contact with her son as she could still present a danger to him. Tyler also asked Judge Mitchell to strike DSS' legal obligations for Maurice's safety, since he could not be found. Bouknight's attorney Christina Gutierrez argued that no conditions should be placed upon her release, and that she posed no danger to her son. Judge Mitchell approved Bouknight's no contact order with Maurice, and said Bouknight would be jailed again if she contacted him.
Mirviss and Tyler, as well as Bouknight's attorneys, all stated they believed that Maurice was alive. Judge Mitchell disagreed. "We earnestly hope that Maurice is alive, but our fears are that he is dead." Mitchell said the court would retain custody of the child, but would consider allowing Bouknight to see him if she passed another court ordered psychological evaluation.
All of this culminated in Jacqueline Bouknight being released from jail after seven years. Maurice had not been found, but the state couldn't hold her without charges forever, and there was no evidence of foul play - the police had nothing to charge her with.
The Sun reported (10/31/1995) that the FBI had another age progression photo of Maurice, this time to 6 years old. I was unable to locate this photo. This article also reports that John Brown, Bouknight's foster father, had told police he had seen the child in March, around when his father Terrance died. I was unable to find any other mention of this March sighting, and am unsure if Brown ever confirmed it or not.
On November 13, 1995, the Maryland Court of Appeals made a decision regarding The Sun's appeal. As I mentioned previously, Maryland state law requires confidentiality in juvenile court proceedings unless ruled otherwise by a judge. Since Judge Mitchell allowed media to be present at the proceedings, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that he did not have a right to tell The Sun not to publish things from sources outside of the courtroom as a condition of accessing the hearing. Chief Judge Robert C Murphy wrote regarding the ruling, "A court cannot order the media to refrain from publishing material lawfully obtained from sources outside of the judicial proceeding as a condition of granting access to a juvenile proceeding."
The enire Judge Mitchell vs. The Sun part seems especially strange to me, especially considering The Sun published Maurice's last name on 05/10/1988 and 05/12/1988, and on 05/16/1988 - accompanied by the only known photo I have found of Maurice. The Sun also published Maurice's full name, including middle name, on 02/25/1990. I suppose those were mostly before the case garnered national attention, and at the time, it was much harder to access past newspapers.
Sadly, the article discussing this ruling (11/14/1995) is the last article specifically about Maurice's case - though there was an editorial in 2004, and he was mentioned in an article on a similar case in 2005. Somehow, amid Supreme Court rulings, Fifth Amendment arguments, and years of conflicting and frustrating stories, little Maurice got lost in the shuffle. He became a symbol of something greater, and lost his personhood as a result.
As for Jacqueline, she was arrested again in Baltimore on November 22, 2002, for drug possession. She eventually plead guilty and received a suspended prison sentence and probation. She was arrested again on April 29, 2005 for prostitution. She plead not guilty and it went to trial. I was unable to find any other information on that charge. Finally, Bouknight and another woman, named Markita Davis, were both arrested for second degree assault on January 04, 2007. 3 months later, on March 07, 2007, she received 3 years of supervised probation. Since then, in Baltimore at least, she has remained under the radar.
On February 28, 2004, an editorial piece was published in The Baltimore Sun, titled "Where's Maurice?". This piece states that Maurice's face remained a mystery, leading me to my belief that I uncovered the only known photo of him. This piece also briefly interviewed Bouknight, saying she was "spinning stories of her computer-literate son who she says is alive and well". In this interview, Bouknight claims to visit Maurice several times a year. Ann LoLordo, the journalist who wrote the editorial, says Bouknight would describe his likes and dislikes, but not specifically enough to be believable. Maurice would have been 17 at the time this article was written. Even then, Bouknight refused to give any information. "It's too risky. They'd try to snatch him. [...] He's alive. Just like you and me."
Maurice Lorenzo Miles is the very definition of a child who slipped through the cracks. Today, he would be 36 years old. April 12 last month marked 35 years since he was reported missing. At some point, the missing persons report seems to have been closed - there is no missing persons case in NAMUS for Maurice - his disappearance predates the system by decade, but that doesn't account for why he isn't included in it. After all, there are many pre-NAMUS cases that still appear on NAMUS, Maryland included. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children was founded in 1984, two years before Maurice was born, and yet he doesn't appear there either. I found very little information on him, and I actually only stumbled upon him by accident while researching something else.
Nowadays, thanks to Caylee's law, in many states it is a felony to not report your child missing. How, despite a Supreme Court ruling, did Maurice's case fall by the wayside? Why was his missing persons case closed? Why isn't he in NCMEC or NAMUS? Why isn't anyone looking for him? Today, Jacqueline Bouknight is 56 years old. She will be 57 next month. It has been 36 years since anyone but her has seen Maurice.
Where is Maurice? If he is alive today, he almost certainly has no idea of his true identity. I feel that despite those close to Jacqueline swearing she wasn't capable of hurting him, it's likely he is dead. If he is dead, and if his death was caused at the hands of his mother, then Jacqueline found the ultimate loophole - refuse to comply, stay silent, and only serve 7 years in prison. Wherever Maurice is, I hope he is at peace.
Links:
Imgur album containing screenshots of every article I could find on Maurice's case: https://imgur.com/a/tWnD7Fv
WebSleuths thread on Maurice: https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/md-maurice-miles-18-months-baltimore-april-1988.297490/
Source on Bouknight's other arrests: https://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/casesearch/inquiry-index.jsp
Reading on the SCOTUS ruling: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/493/549/ https://www.oyez.org/cases/1989/88-1182
A few article links - the printed version of these is available in screenshot form.
Washington Post, 07/10/89: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/07/10/high-court-to-weigh-rights-of-md-mother-missing-child/0bb88e74-bc06-42fe-8703-47cc516c4a9a/
LA Times, 07/16/89: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-07-16-mn-5745-story.html
Washington Post, 02/21/1990: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/02/21/jailed-mother-loses-ruling-on-divulging-sons-location/9dbce9a2-7518-494f-91e0-0d2861618ca2/
Baltimore Sun, 10/31/95 (paywalled - view in screenshots): https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-10-31-1995304049-story.html
Baltimore Sun, 02/28/04 (paywalled - view in screenshots): https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2004-02-28-0402280178-story.html