“I still remember the day after the emperor set fire to my portion of the city as if it were yesterday” – Philippe Rouseff on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday.

 I took my wife to Mass more to please her than from any desire of my own.  I watched as the priest lifted the loaf and intoned the words, “On the night in which he was betrayed…” Bile rose up in my throat at the words.  I knew betrayal.

The Emperor, one of my closest associates—a cousin even, had struck at the heart of my railroad operation in an effort to destroy my family business.  I pressed my lips together to stifle the urge to cry out in anger as the priest held up the cup.  When Christ was betrayed, only one man died.  I wondered how many thousands burned when I was betrayed.

As the faithful shuffled forward to take their bread and sip from the cup, I shifted in my seat and pondered why that bastard crime boss, Wu, a better man than my cousin, had sent his wife to my offices to warn one of the bookkeepers about the impending purge.  As the bookkeeper raced from the building, she screamed, “Fire! The army is coming! Fire! Flee!”  Who else had been warned that the emperor’s army marched against the city?  Who had time to flee?

I had no desire to spend a Sunday afternoon working, but at three in the afternoon, I met with two railroad supervisors to survey the damage to almost a square kilometer of the city.  We drove up to the deserted M’TK station.  Blowing ash shifted and settled after the passage of my car.  My stomach churned as I wondered how many of my employees’ ashes mixed and blew among the debris of burned buildings?

The brick and slate train station still huddled beside the tracks.  Soot now stained the red bricks the same black as the rest of the borough.  We stood and looked over the desolation—nothing moved, nothing lived.  I wanted to hope that some of my people survived, but hope refused to kindle here among the ruins.  The workers were only indigenous northerners, laborers, but they stocked my warehouses and loaded my trains.

The Central Region supervisor looked up. “What the hell?”

I followed his eyes and soon made out a string of boxcars, pulled by a gerry-rig, slowly rolling toward the station.  Filled with the horror that lay around me, I stared transfixed at the approaching apparition.  If I were a superstitious man, I’d have turned and fled in fear of death and ghosts.  I refused to take my eyes off of this small sign of life.

When the gerry with it’s string of boxcars towering above it rolled to a stop at the station the operator, dressed in railroad coveralls, lifted a woman down from the first boxcar.  A young boy about ten jumped to the ground.  This family appeared to be like any other of the northern poor—dirty and ragged.

The man introduced himself as the assistant stationmaster.  He unlocked the station for us and assured us that he had locked the station’s ticket money in the safe.  He seemed respectful enough.  He kept his eyes lowered as custom dictated for a man of his station.

I heard the eagerness in my voice,  “Have you seen signs that some of my people survived?

“I haven’t seen anybody within a kilometer of the station.  Wu warned me, so I had time to move the equipment.  I suppose others had time.”

I shook off my melancholy for a moment.  “Listen, you saved my equipment and the money in the station.  I must give you a reward.  What do you want?”

The man answered immediately.  “The stationmaster ran away when he heard about the army.  I stayed long enough to save your equipment.  Give me the stationmaster’s job and let me live here with my family.”  For the first time, the man looked me in the eye. The sharp intelligence I saw in the eyes of a northerner surprised me.  The man’s humility returned when he asked for help to assist his cousin from the train.

Curious about the new stationmaster, I helped lift his wheelchair-bound cousin from the boxcar.  I almost recoiled from the reek that still clung to the air inside the car.  I recognized the stench that is created when many unwashed bodies are packed close together.  I picked up a small piece of waste paper flecked with fish scales.  The evidence before my eyes and nose told me that many people, probably northerners with their love of fish, had very recently been packed into this car.  In my mind, I saw people filling the boxcars to flee from the fire.  I suspected that my new stationmaster had his own reasons for his secrecy, but the knowledge that my workers had survived settled into my heart.

I turned to the humble man beside me and forgot a lifetime of lessons about the indigenous people from the north.  I suddenly saw not a worthless, northern laborer but a man created in the image of God.  I saw the man who had saved my people, a man of honor and compassion.  I wondered if he thought of me as just an oppressive Southerner.

I reached out to shake the stationmaster’s hand, fearful for the first time in my life of being rejected…

 

Demons often appear in a most comely form.  Such was Kim Sach.  He’d forgotten the name of the fool who once owned his body, but that didn’t matter; the fool was no more so he did not need his name. 

Kim Sach sang of wine and the joy of conquest at the end of a hunt as he strode over the mountainside.  Just as he felt the first pangs of hunger, he smelled something on the wind.  He smelled sorrow and despair.  He lifted his nose so he could breathe deeper of the sweet scent.  He began to follow his nose.

The sweet scent of grief led him to a naked young girl in a field.  Her clothes where torn and thrown about.  He sniffed the scent of her blood.  Kim Sach held no interest in the girl, but he considered that she might lead him to worthy pray.  “My dear child, you have been used most greiviously.  Come, let me wrap you in my cloak.  I shall gather your things.  Do you know who set upon you so savagely?”

The girl hung her head and said, “Moshe.  He said he was going to be my new friend but he did things to me.  I said I didn’t want to do those things, but he did them anyway, and when he went away, he stole the chickens I was to take home to Gran for her to make pies.”

Kim Sach opened his mouth and sniffed again savoring the taste of her despair on the tip of his tongue. 

The girl was only an innocent and not just innocent but one of those simple souls who cannot understand cruelty.  He shook his head.  Such pure innocence turned his stomach so he almost lost his appetite.

The scent of her despair caressed the air as only the slightest of perfumes.  One cannot dine on faint perfume, but that perfume can lead one to the full robust meal of the despair of one who has long fed on the pain of others.  Like a wine well-aged is the despair of one who has nurtured and honed his cruelty among those weaker than himself. 

So Kim Sach wrapped the girl in his cloak and followed her to her home and spoke to her Grandmother who saw not a demon, but a gentleman of honor who rescued her poor witless granddaughter.  The sainted man even gave her coins to buy more chickens and hire a lad from the village to fetch them for her.  “Oh thank you good sir.  I pray that your business may prosper because of your generosity.”

Kim Sach smiled a very hungry smile. “My first business will be to find this Moshe and settle with him.”

The old woman clutched her hands to her heart and thanked the man again for avenging her granddaughter’s honor when the girl had nobody to protect her.  Kim Sach left the woman and went to the inn to settle himself like a jackal waiting for his prey to come to the water to drink.

Of course, the old woman immediately whispered to the neighbor about the fine young man who rescued her granddaughter and who intended to fight Moshe. 

The girl still weeping trotted off to the abbey to confess to Mother Superior all that had happened. Mother Superior listened to the young girl and sent her to the apothecary for medicine for her injuries. 

Thus, from these few people the news spread about Moshe and his vile treatment of a defenseless girl and the stranger who came to avenger her.  Before Kim Sach had time to order his dinner, the news had spread across the village.  The innkeeper bowed low before Kim Sach and offered him the best ale.  The blacksmith asked to share a cup with Mr. Sach and refused to let the stranger pay for his dinner. 

Kim Sach asked where he might find this Moshe.

The blacksmith answered, “I know not.  He wanders here and there sleeping among the goats and sheep.  Violates them, he does.  He steals from the children and the elderly.  This business today was the worst.  That poor girl cannot defend herself, but she comes from a respectable family, she does.  I wish I could help you find him.  I’ve seen how he picks at the young girls, touching them where he should not.  I tried to take him under my wing and teach him a skill and how to get along with others, but he spit on me, stole money from me and finally killed my daughter’s kitten so I ran him off.”

Kim Sach struggled to contain his glee over finding such a delightful specimen.  His eyes rolled back in his head as he thought of the sweet spicy flavor of this village bully.  His mouth watered so that he almost drooled over the prospect before him.  “Do not trouble yourself over this cursed lad.  I shall find him before dawn and he shall trouble this village no more.  I think perhaps he shall accompany me for a while and learn the value of hard work and service.

The villagers went to sleep soundly in their beds thinking that a saint had come to protect them, and were unaware of the dark filthy shadow that slunk out of the inn and stood with his nose in the air to catch the scent of fear and despair. 

There!  He found it—just the briefest scent of animal fear.  No longer in the pleasing shape of a man, Kim Sach swept like an oily shadow through the town and into the hills, crawling and oozing among trees and through gullies.  A sheep gave out a cry of fear and pain as Kim Sach hurried toward the sound and scent—already tasting the dainties laid out in the feast before him. 

Within minutes Kim Sach, in the pleasing shape of a man once more, stood over Moshe and his wooly victim.  “Come my pretty boy, you are too pretty for that sheep.  Let me show you the ways of real men.”

Startled, Moshe let go of the sheep as Kim Sach dropped to his knees in the hay.  Kim Sach opened his mouth and took in a deep breath sucking in the sweet spicy wicked soul before him.  Moshe’s eyes bulged white from their sockets. He tried to call out, but his cries carried no further than the open mouth of the demon before him where they tasted like salt upon Kim Sach’s tongue. 

There in the field Kim Sach leaned close to his meal and whispered as a man to his darling, “I shall have you.”  He opened his great jaws wide and wider, and spittle dripped from his sharp teeth.  Then his head shot forward like the strike of a snake and he bit a great chunk out of Moshe’s neck. The blood began to flow. 

Moshe tried many times to scream as Kim Sach licked up the blood tasting the misery of Moshe’s victims in the salty flow.  Kim Sach suckled on the blood and grew drunk on the screams of Moshe, and all the while, he chuckled and whispered foul endearments to his swooning prey. Soon Kim Sach entered Moshe the way Moshe had entered unwilling maidens. 

Ah, what fear and terror and shame this act released for Kim Sach to feed upon.  He gurgled as he tore more flesh and thought the pain and horror were like fine sauce upon his meat.  He rent Moshe inside and out-teasing and tormenting his food but careful never to eat too much.  He must not kill his meat too soon.  A quick death does not ripen to its richest flavor the misery a demon needs to feed upon.  Moshe’s despair grew until it filled the night air and poured over the demon like a river of finest wine in which Kim Sach bathed himself and cried out in drunken ecstasy.

As the morning sky grew light, Kim Sach raised his head toward the dawn and rolled off of what was left of his prey and stood.  He looked upon the blood and picked up a bone to suck more of the sweet anguish it held.  He smiled,  “Moshe, I have loved you well.  You made and excellent feast.  So excellent, that I am quite full.  Ah but I see I have not eaten your heart.  Alas, I am too full.” Kim Sach pointed at the heart and it turned black, then started to disintegrate with rot as maggots crawled out of what had once been flesh.  Finally, Kim Sach waved his hand to dispel any lingering essence that might still belong to Moshe and send it to his own former home, a pool deep in the wood

Kim Sach kicked his boots among the few remaining bits of Moshe dislodging a handful of coins.  The coins he picked up and put in his own pocket as he strode off happily over the hills to walk in the wind until he grew hungry again.

                                               Sing, sing a song
                                               Make it simple to last
                                              Your whole life long
                                               Don't worry that it's not
                                              Good enough for anyone
                                                     Else to hear
                                                Just sing, sing a song.
                                                         The Carpenters
                                       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LYekeK0HWo

My Grandpa was a great storyteller.  During his career with the railroad, he moved west with the electrification of signals, and finally, as an electrician on the Milwaukie Railroad, which was an electric train running from Chicago to Tacoma and Seattle Washington.  Grandpa told stories about being chased by wolves when he was on his speeder near Ft. Steel Wyoming.  He told about working in New Orleans.  He had another hair-raising story about meeting a train in a tunnel when he was on his speeder.  (He and his partner survived, but the poor speeder was history.)

These are my family stories.  These are the stories we retell when my cousins and I get together for reunions, and we add our own stories to Grandpa’s stories. These are the stories of who we are, and how our family helped to build something good in this country. 

I am old enough to remember Grandpa’s stories.  I also remember some of the stories Mom read to us as children.  I remember Mrs. Colegate used to read Uncle Wiggley stories to us when she babysat. 

Something happened to stories as I grew older.  Family stories and sitting around in the evening listening to Mom read gave way to the TV and I Love Lucy.  Actually, I did love Lucy and the silly situations she made for herself.  But, with TV, our stories no longer became our stories, but the entertainment industry’s stories and media corporation stories.

I love stories, and I’ve been a passionate reader for years, starting with the time I missed a spelling test in the second grade, because I was busy reading one of the “little house” books.  I’ve read thousands of books over the years.  When I finished the complete works of Jane Austen and Kipling, I moved forward in time through centuries and through the twenties, thirties to the nineties. Someplace in the early two thousands, I noticed that all the books I read sounded the same.  A murder mystery must have the same plot as the last murder mystery.  One romance reads about like another and certainly like the last one by the same author. 

I thought about my problems with the books I read and why with a few exceptions, I don’t like TV.  I came to the realization that I wasn’t reading or watching real stories.  These were corporate stories--stories chosen to sell rather than to innovate. 

What difference do stories make?  Aren’t they just imagination to pass the time and prevent boredom?  Absolutely not!  Stories are our way of manipulating reality so we can look at the world from a different perspective.  Historical stories keep us in touch with our past, so we can make better choices for our future.  Stories are essential to good decision-making.  I would go so far as to say that when the power elite controls our stories, they control us.

Look back at paragraph one.  I mentioned that Grandpa worked for a fully electric railroad.  The Milwaukie Road was a non-polluting electric train.  It generated electricity for the line when the trains went downhill.  In some areas, the electricity was generated at hydroelectric plants. http://www.scn.org/cedar_butte/milw-elec.html

The notion of a fully electric railroad system is intriguing for today’s consciousness of carbon pollution, and oil reserves.  What a magnificent way to haul goods and people!  I learned about the trains from Grandpa’s stories.  How much wealth of information is lost to what is corporately marketable?

As for the stories I write, they are based on my education and career as a social psychologist.  They often sound prophetic, simply because social systems work in predictable patterns.  Now, someone can learn this by reading Sociology books.  I still have some of mine to use as sleep aides--better and faster than drugs for putting me to sleep.  I hope to add a little spice to my stories set in authentic social systems.  I’m not certain the large corporate press would be interested in publishing something that condemns oligarchies and gives valid historical and sociological reasons for that condemnation.

Because my work is somewhat anti-establishment or at least anti-what-we-are-led-to-believe-is-establishment, I wouldn’t find much interest for my work among the big-six corporate establishment publishers.  I’m thankful to have found a small publisher who is not shy about anti-establishment work and even writes his own. 

I also actively urge others to write your stories.  This is one of my reasons for attending our Saturday Market on Vashon.  I love to talk to other potential authors and encourage them to write--even if nobody other than their children and grandchildren read those stories. 

I encourage you to write your stories. Write them.  They are your family stories and like Grandpa’s stories may pass on important history to the next generation.  So folks, to paraphrase the old Carpenters’ song,

                                                        “Write, a write a story,
                                               Make it simple to last a whole life long