Avescope Memento Mori

AVESCOPE 

Memento 

Mori 

N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 9 | I S S U E 4

AVESCOPE 

Editor-in-chief LD Towers 

Senior Editor 

Senior Editor 

Art Director 

Staff Writers 

Contributors 

Karen Lee 

Catherine Clark 

Blackbird's Photography 

Keyboard for Hire 

Catherine Clark 

Joanna Hatton 

Tamsin McKenna-Williams 

Catherine Jackson 

Blackbird's Photography 

Auguste von Osterode 

David Simon 

Anike Kirsten 

Kimm Fernandez 

Neva Lee 

Tiffany Tong 

Matthew Sheetz 

Christopher Antim 

Karen Lee 

E D I T O R I A L O F F I C E 

Suite #540 185-911 Yates St. Victoria BC Canada V8V 4Y9 

info@avescope.com 

Compilation copyright 2019 Avescope Magazine - No parts may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher. All creators retain copyright on their 

works and works are used in the periodical and associated social media with permission. 

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support page! We will be pathetically grateful!! 

Cover art: "Tarot: XIII Death" Tiffany Tong 

Inside Front Cover: "War Paint" Joanna Hatton 

Inside Back Cover: "Dance of Death" Joanna Hatton 

www.avescope.com 

Avescope | 1

Editor's Note 

Memento Mori. Remember Death. 

It was a heavy topic so soon after Avescope:HORROR 

and was supposed to be a Remembrance Day issue... 

and then it grew into so much more. I think it's our 

most interesting read to date! 

But instead of a long winded note on death, I would 

like to take a minute to remember those who have 

died defending their country or who gave their lives 

to stand up to tyranny, and for our basic rights to 

live, express and grow. 

Thank you for your sacrifice. 

LD Towers 



deceased relative preferred when they were alive. 

The dishes are placed in clay plates because people 

believe that the spirit pulls the essence or substance 

from the food but the clay plates conserve the flavor, 

so later, when the celebration is over, the family is 

able to enjoy the food without losing its tastiness. 

A very important dish that is cooked for this 

celebration is the “pib” or “mucbipollo” which is 

essentially a big tamale filled with chicken and pork, 

lard and “achiote” which is condiment that gives the 

pib it’s characteristic red color. Normally, the altar 

has three pibs that represent the three stones the 

Mayan women used to use to cook, basically 

representing the hearth of the Mayan home. 

Aside from the pib, a beverage called “Balché” that is 

elaborated by fermented roots of the tree with the 

same name as the drink and honey, is also placed on 

the altar. It is the sacred drink of the Mayan people 

and they are placed in “jícaras” which are halves of 

the dried-up shell from the “Jícaro” fruit, similar to a 

coconut but smoother. Four of these beverages are 

put on the four corners of the middle table because 

the Mayans say “one does not know from what 

corner of the world a spirit will arrive from.” 

It’s important to leave small balls of dough if you 

have a pet in the family. This way, when the spirit 

arrives, he can feed it to the pet so they won’t be 

barked at and can continue their celebration in 

peace. 

Water and salt are also placed on the table and this 

is done for numerous reasons; they signify purity 

and are used to clean the soul. Water represents the 

origin of life and salt is used for protection, casting 

away the bad vibes that follow some souls. 

Different objects pertaining to the person's hobbies 

are also added, whether it be cigarettes for an old 

grandfather, a silver comb from a mother's 

collection or even a bottle of tequila for a festive 

uncle. In addition to the objects the spirits used or 

owned when the were alive, it’s important to add an 

image of the soul, because it’s important to 

represent the relatives. If the family wishes to 

receive spirits that don’t have families or have been 

forgotten, they must leave a clay piece in the shape 

of a donut that tells the spirits that this household 

will receive any soul, regardless of them being 

relatives. 

As a religious addition, a green cross is placed on the 

highest table. The green cross symbolizes hope, and 

it is made from the bark of the sacred Mayan tree, 

“ceiba.” This tree is believed to connect the heavens 

and the underworld to earth. Incense is also placed 

in a chalice next to the cross because the smoke 

and smell makes the meal more welcoming. 


As a last important symbol, it’s important to construct a small 

path to the altar with white candles, so the souls can reach the 

table. Some are placed at the front door and are kept burning 

until the end of the celebration because even in death, some 

people are always tardy. 

In addition to these tables, a separate children’s table is 

placed, filled with toys and candy, hot chocolate and a variety 

of fruits. It’s important to not fill the table with very spicy or 

condimented food because even in death, a child is very picky 

and we don’t want them playing with their food! One must 

avoid using dark colors on the children's altar, otherwise, they 

will get bored and distracted and begin to fool around and 

play pranks. Lastly, the path of candles that are constructed 

for the children's altar must also be made up of colorful 

candles, this to prevent from scaring them off, because darker 

colors represent more negative energies to them. 

This is what makes up the tradition of “Hanal Pixan” in 

Yucatan. If you are lucky enough to visit the peninsula at this 

time of year, you will be able to participate in this celebration 

of colorful traditions and delicious flavors. Merida, the capital 

of Yucatan, is open to receiving both locals and tourists and 

inviting them to partake in the different activities that go on 

during these celebrations. Because the Day of the Dead isn’t 

just a party for the dead, it’s also a festival full of life. 


By the time World War II began, my grandfather had 

moved himself and his young family to Canada. Settling 

on the west coast meant that it was important to keep at 

least one eye permanently on the beach – in case the 

Japs landed (Spoiler: They didn’t). 

By all accounts, crippling psychological damage was the 

common thread among veterans of the First World War, 

perhaps more so than any other military campaign since. 

That’s not to say that those who fought in World War II 

(or any other war) didn’t suffer trauma. They just seemed 

to come out of the experience tough as nails, rather than 

visibly grappling with shell shock and unable to function. 

In fact, my Second World War veteran relatives had the 

most tenacity, pragmatism and balls of cast iron of 

anyone I knew as a child. The opposite was true for the 

generation that had endured World War I – what was left 

of it, at least. It’s true that I didn’t ever know any of my 

Great War elders while they were still alive, but 

everything I’ve been able to learn about their post-war 

lives suggests that they carried on under an unspeakable 

pall. 

I don’t agree with the idea that whatever doesn’t kill us 

makes us stronger. Some damage is just that. No one is 

any better or stronger for it. In fact, the trenches of World 

War I simply broke those who survived. Sure, they were 

tough – and also haunted by recollections they were too 

ashamed to articulate. Remember, this was the military 

that shot men for what was then considered cowardice. 

Maybe World War I didn’t unite people behind a 

common cause that felt just and righteous the way going 

after Hitler did? 

My World War II grandfather missed the feeling of doing 

something vitally important when civilization itself 

seemed to be threatened. He appeared strong and 

practical to me, and also very calm and unflappable. 

Similarly tenacious and stonily determined was an uncle 

on my father’s side, who served in the Royal Air Force in 

World War II and spent five years as a prisoner in a 

German camp. Believe it or not, there are parts of his 

story that are actually funny… 

I knew him as ‘’Uncle Mick.’’ 

Manville Charles Fenn was a Royal Air Force nose gunner 

and wireless operator in a Wellington Bomber that was 

shot down in the Netherlands in December of 1940. Their 

mission was the last one to depart before fog made any 

further flights across the channel impossible. It was also 

on account of the fog that when their bomber crash 

landed, they weren’t entirely sure where they’d ended up. 

The crew decided to take a look around, minus the pilot 

whose injuries made it impossible for him to be moved 

(He survived, by the way.). Eventually, they found a road 

sign – in Dutch, of course. 

‘’I think we’re in Wales,’’ one of them ventured. Hollywood 

could not have devised a better line. What followed 

would also have made for a good screenplay. I’ve 

speculated on who was more surprised when the group 

bumped into a German patrol. (My guess would be the 

guys who thought they were in Wales.) 

‘’For you, the war is over,’’ is another line I thought was 

only ever uttered in movies. But no, it was real. My uncle 

remained a prisoner of war for the next five years, 

although not without some escape attempts (including 

one in a latrine, which miraculously did not result in 

dysentery). 

Not surprisingly, no one could stand their ground quite 

like Uncle Mick. But to call him stubborn would be 

inadequate. ‘’Carved from granite,’’ would be more 

appropriate. I don’t want to think that it takes a world war 

to forge that kind of personal strength. Still, no 

generation since has ever been quite the same. Maybe 

the best form of remembrance is to try and cultivate our 

own inner granite as best we can, to just do better. With 

any luck, I will never discover how I’d handle myself 


during an air raid (although I have crawled very ably under barbed wire doing Tough Mudder but it’s also true 

that no one was shooting at me). So while I will continue to wear a poppy in November, I’ll consider maintaining 

a reasonable level of badass-ery to be my more personal act of remembrance. 

My father's childhood ration card for Victoria BC 

Opposite: 

My maternal grandfather, John Samuel Clark. He was in 

the Royal Canadian Airforce, attached to the Royal 

Airforce as a radar technician. Rank Sergeant 



In addition to the nail, which you wield like a sword, there 

are spells and a variety of charms to equip that give the 

Knight different abilities, or companions, or are good for 

the collection of Soul. Soul is the life essence dropped by 

bugs when you kill them, and you can focus your Soul 

into healing energy to heal your Masks, which are the HP 

in this game. Soul can also be used to cast spells, or in the 

case of the Glowing Womb charm, it can be used to 

create more companions. Later in the game, you will also 

find the Dream Nail, which is a separate item that when 

used on the living or the dead, can either enter the 

dream world to fight special Dream Bosses or collect 

Essence to power it up. 

The Dreamers and the Hollow Knight 

“To protect the Vessel, the Dreamers lay sleeping. 

Monomon the Teacher 

In her Archive, surrounded by fog and mist. 

Lurien the WatcherIn his Spire, 

looking over the city. 

Herrah the Beast In her Den, 

amidst the deep darkness beyond the kingdom. 

Through their devotion, Hallownest lasts eternal.” 

Throughout the story, you will find bugs who tell the tale 

of the three Dreamers, devout citizens the Pale King 

tasked with creating the seal holding back the infection, 

and the Hollow Knight. The infection was a widespread 

epidemic that was causing bugs to lose their minds and 

attack each other, and without the sacrifice of the 

Dreamers and the Hollow Knight, it would have taken 

over the entire kingdom. Many, many years later, you 

appear as the infection is starting to leak out of the seal 

and begun to infect bugs again, as indicated by their 

orange eyes. However, there are some bugs who haven’t 

been infected yet… 

The choices you make determine how the story ends. But 

do not be afraid to explore and experiment. You might 

find quite a surprise! 

Hidden Dreams, The Grimm Troupe, and 

Godmaster 

Among your travels through Hallownest, you may 

discover the beautiful scarlet flame of the Nightmare 

Lantern. Perhaps you will find the Pale Lurker and snatch 

the Simple Key from its corpse. What does it unlock? 

Hidden Dreams, The Grimm Troupe, Lifeblood, and 

Godmaster are all free DLC content packs that have been 

released to expand the world of Hollow Knight. Hidden 

Dreams adds content related to the Dream Nail. 

Lifeblood is listed as DLC, but is more like a giant update. 

It focuses mostly on technical issues and adds a little 

content. 

The Grimm Troupe is my favourite DLC, as it is about 

Grimm (one of the best bosses ever.) and the dark ritual 

revolving around the Troupe and the scarlet flames. Once 

you’ve dream nailed the Nightmare Lantern, two tents 

appear in Dirtmouth, where you will meet Grimm. Grimm 

asks you to help him fill the Grimmchild with scarlet 

flames. You will find them marked on your map, and after 

you collect the first three, you must battle Grimm. Collect 

another three after defeating him, and you must face 


Nightmare King Grimm (affectionately known as NKG.) 

Don’t be fooled, Nightmare King Grimm is known as one 

of the most difficult bosses of the game due to speed and 

damage. 

The Godmaster DLC is, in my opinion, more of a lategame 

expansion. When you have more upgrades and 

spells and are feeling confident about your skills in the 

game, that is when you should turn to the Godmaster 

content. Godmaster is set in Godhome, where you take 

on battle challenges to earn rewards. But these are no 

ordinary battles; your enemies are the bosses you’ve 

fought so far, including the final boss and the DLC bosses, 

such as Grimm and Nightmare King Grimm. But what 

waits for you on the other side? What is the true reward 

for one who has defeated the Gods of Hallownest? 

Avescope | 13 

Final Words 

Team Cherry is a group of three guys down in Australia 

who had the brilliant idea to create this amazing game. 

Combined with a beautiful score by award-winning 

composer Christopher Larkin, there is no shortage of 

emotion as you wander about. A quiet moment crossing 

through the City of Tears, rain pouring down the windows 

and soaking your cloak. The nearly joyful music of the 

Greenpath, filled with wonder and discovery. The 

ratcheting sounds as you tread carefully through 

Deepnest. The somber mourning song of the Resting 

Grounds. Trepidation and swelling music as you watch the 

bodies fall from the sky in Kingdom’s Edge. 

I cannot express how much I have come to love this game. 

At the insistence of a friend, who also had fallen in love, I 

gave this game a go. While Metroidvania games are not 

my usual style, I couldn’t help but be drawn into the story 

from the moment I set foot in the King’s Pass. After almost 

a hundred hours of gameplay and just wandering about, I 

finally feel ready to take on the final boss. And even still I 

probably won’t. I have collected almost every item, freed 

every bug, unlocked the entire world map, freed the 

Dreamers, and beaten the Dream Bosses; but the true test 

of strength lies in besting Nightmare King Grimm and the 

entire Godmaster DLC. 

There is also another more surprise from Team Cherry. 

Hollow Knight: Silksong, the sequel adventure to Hollow 

Knight, featuring Hornet, the Princess of Hallownest. 

Originally meant to be another Hollow Knight DLC, it grew 

too big and unique to be a part of the original game, and 

Team Cherry decided to take the extra time to make it 

perfect and release as a sequel. It has no release date yet, 

but rest assured, it looks just as amazing as this one.

Developer: Team Cherry, a small indie games team based in South 

Date for PC/Mac: February 24 

Resolution & Frame-rate: 1920 x 1080, 60fps 

Availability: PC, Mac, Linux and Nintendo Switch. Possibly other platforms in the future. 

Website: http://teamcherry.com.au/hollow-knight 

Price: $15.00 USD 

Photos copyright Team Cherry 


Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov [Public domain] 

T h e H o r s e m a n W e H a v e F o r g o t t e n 

L D T o w e r s 

Sometimes the First Horseman of the Apocalypse is Conquest, 

but since the late 1800’s, he is more often seen as Pestilence. 

He is the white horseman and is described as follows in 

Revelation 6:1-2: 

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on 

him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he 

went forth conquering, and to conquer. 

The reasons for the change are unclear but the Book of 

Revelations only names one horseman so the other three are 

up for interpretation. For all that man conquers, so too has 

Pestilence conquered us. It has been, historically, that which 

very few of us have been able to escape. 

Some consider the Fourth Horseman, he who is named, to 

include Pestilence. The Book of Revelations tells of him thusly: 

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that 

sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And 

power was given unto them over the fourth part of the 

earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, 

and with the beasts of the earth. 

I’ve often wondered if the interpretation of Pestilence as the 

White Horseman is a translation error from Pale to White. But 

the classic interpretation of the Horsemen doesn’t exactly work 

well either. Conquest, War, Famine, and Death? Conquest and 

War almost entirely overlap. One rarely has conquest without 

war and it’s always martial in some form. Pestilence does fit a 

little better. But again, this depends on your interpretation. It’s 

an easy enough mistake when one is working with a 1900-yearold 

text written in not the most modern form of Greek. Far 

cleverer scholars than I have debated this question and I’m 

sure you will allow me to leave it to them. 

Whichever Horseman you think represents pestilence, he is the 

horseman we have forgotten. You might be thinking, oh but 

Towers! People get sick all the time. What are you talking 

about? Everyone has to deal with illness at some point or 

another. 

That’s true. But how many die from them anymore? And when 

they do? How much do we notice? Immediate family, for sure. 

If it’s something a little rare, it might make the news. Yes. yucky 

bugs are floating around Africa, such as Ebola and we were all 

scared of Ebola for exactly five minutes four years ago. In fact, 

there is another Ebola epidemic happening right now. Did you 


Did you know? Let’s face it! In our ten-minute news cycle, we 

need ‘sexy gore’ non-stop for it to even penetrate. To use the 

vernacular, Ebola blew its wad and for the average Northern 

European/North American it’s not interesting anymore. Those 

clicks are spent. Ebola? Been there. Done that. Next. Oh! Maybe 

if there is a case in the US again, THAT would be newsworthy, 

but really? Trump Tweets get way more rage clicks than brown 

children dying in someplace we all assume to be, to quote 

Trump, a bit of a shithole. 

We’ve forgotten about the Horseman. 

I was born in the 1970s. I grew up in the 1980s when this new 

monster rose from the murk. Originally, it was called GRID. I 

actually remember hearing about GRID. It wasn’t something I 

would probably have to worry about. Gay-Related Immune 

Deficiency. Ringing any bells? Now we call it by the far less 

discriminatory, HIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus. You 

know, when it was proven that far more than just the LGBT+ 

community could get it. For many years, however, there was a 

stigma to HIV that it was a gay disease or a drug addict disease 

and ‘good’ people didn’t get it. The religious right called it 

God’s punishment for bad behaviour. The only people who 

were getting HIV who didn’t ‘deserve’ it were those poor 

hemophiliacs, but maybe the hateful humans thought that 

God couldn’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. 

This prejudice allowed HIV to spread and go unresearched for a 

shockingly long time. If one is interested in the early years of 

HIV, HBO did a fantastic movie about it in 1993 called ‘And the 

Band Played On’ based on a book of the same name. 

HIV was a scourge. It had the potential to kill us all. One 

moment of unprotected sex and it could be game over, and 

game over in a horrible, melting end. It took beautiful people, 

like Rock Hudson, Gia Marie Carangi, and Freddie Mercury. 

People who got HIV, or, as we said in the day ‘full-blown AIDS’ 

(Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) were often 

abandoned by their parents. In the earliest days, medical staff 

wouldn’t treat them. Undertakers wouldn’t bury them. They 

died horrendously in the modern-day equivalent of plague 

wards. Even into the early 90s, it was thought by some that you 

could get AIDS just by being near someone who had it. 

In fact, a somewhat distant relative through marriage of mine 

died of it in the 1980s. Someone my parents described to the 

young me as ‘living an alternative lifestyle’ that we stayed with 

in San Francisco on a family trip in 1983. When I look back, I 

remember a powerful man with a moustache in a plaid shirt 

and incredible tight jeans, even for the 1980s. I thought he was 

really fun. Then two years later we heard he was sick and he 

sent a letter to my mother. In it, he enclosed two pictures of 

himself in a sports jacket that seemed sizes too big for him. 

This powerful, flamboyant man who I thought was so cool was 

a shrunken husk of his former self. And then he was gone. It 

was 1985. 

Watch any Queen video from the 1970s or early 1980s and you 

will see a robust, vital Freddie Mercury. Watch 1991’s These Are 

the Days of Our Lives video, the last music video that Freddie 

Mercury ever made, and you will see a very different man. 

It cannot be impressed upon young people now how terrifying 

HIV was in those days. We heard about it in school. Safe sex 

became a religion. “No glove, no love!” Movies were made 

about HIV to destigmatize it; the most famous of which was 

1993’s Oscar-winning ‘Philadelphia’, a movie I still can’t watch 

without breaking into tears. I think that movie should be 

required viewing in schools. 

But then came AZT or azidothymidine as a treatment for HIV. I 

remember when Magic Johnson announced in 1991 that he 

had HIV and we sat around in school morbidly joking about 

how long he would live. None of us would have thought that 

Magic would still be around in 2019. In 1991, it would have been 

incomprehensible to think someone could live five years after 

an HIV diagnosis, let alone eighteen. With antiviral therapy, HIV 

has been controlled. There is even talk of downgrading it to a 

‘chronic condition’ instead of a fatal illness. Now there are also 

protocols like PrEP, Pre Exposure Prophylaxis, that people in 

high-risk communities can take to prevent them from getting 

HIV. 

Despite PrEP, HIV rates are rising again in demographics 

where it hasn’t risen in years. Young LGBT men, the very group 

who once fought desperately in their community to stop the 

spread of the disease. It’s been described as, ‘really, no big deal 

if you get it.’ 

We have forgotten the horsemen. 

Measles. The United States was declared free of ‘circulating’ 

measles in 2000. The only measles in the country was measles 

brought in by travellers. In 2016, measles was declared as 

eradicated from the Americas. This disease, which can be fatal, 

was conquered. Until it wasn’t. Because of a now thoroughly 

debunked paper in the Lancet in the 1990s which suggested 

that vaccines cause autism, parents began to stop vaccinating 

their children. 


These primarily college-educated, vaccinated, Caucasian 

parents have chosen to believe ‘studies’ and the writings of 

those who are not medically trained that vaccines are bad for 

their children. If anti-vax parents are on the left, they believe 

that vaccinations are damaging and unnatural. If anti-vax 

parents are on the right, they believe that vaccinations are a 

Bilderbergian ploy to turn us into automatons. It’s all a little 

cuckoo. At the same time? It’s almost understandable. 

We have forgotten the horseman. We have forgotten this 

horseman so well that in 2017, as a new outbreak of measles hit 

the United States, younger doctors in emergency rooms didn’t 

recognize it for what it was because they had only ever seen 

measles in books. 

Polio, or poliomyelitis. It put Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a 

chair. It gave us the iron lung. It was the most feared disease of 

the 1950s. Polio is one of those rare diseases where modern 

sanitation made the problem worse. Instead of our early 

childhood (0-4) having us constantly exposed to the virus and 

the infection not being as serious, the sanitary improvements 

of the early 20th century changed the timing of exposure. 

This child shows a classic day-4 rash with measles. - CDC/NIP/Barbara Rice [Public domain] 

Instead, children didn’t encounter the virus until their later 

childhood - 5-15 when it was actually more debilitating. In fact, 

the older one was exposed to polio, the higher the risk of 

permanent paralysis. In the polio outbreak of 1953, nearly 50% 

of the children who developed polio were left with mild to 

acute paralysis. To this day, there are still people who require 

the use of an iron lung to breathe. An issue as they haven’t 

been manufactured in over 30 years. 

Various workers affected by measles punish a god of measles and a 

doctor and drugstore keeper as the latter two try to protect the god 

from the workers. 

National Library of Medicine - History of Medicine [No restrictions] 

Thanks to Sabin and Salk who developed polio vaccines, and 

perhaps even more, the March of Dimes, an organization 

founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt which funded research of the 

vaccines and treatment, polio has nearly been eradicated in 

the world. With the exception of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the 

most common forms of polio have been eliminated. Doctors 

and nurses have made it a mission to remove this disease from 

our lives through vaccination. Some have even died in this 

crusade, murdered in Pakistan by the Taliban as recently as 

April of this year. 


March of Dimes Appeal - National Archives at College Park [Public domain] 

Diphtheria. Do you even know what it is? When was the last 

time you heard of someone dying of diphtheria? I personally 

don’t know of anyone, and I know of someone who died of 

AIDS. A disease that can cause the lymph nodes in the throat 

to swell, common treatments for diphtheria include 

tracheotomy or opening a tube in the throat so the patient can 

breathe. It can also cause lesions to open in the skin. Untreated, 

diphtheria is fatal in 5-10% of cases and over 20% in children 

under 5 and adults over 40. “ El Año de los Garrotillos” or the 

Year of Strangulations was the nickname of 1613 when a 

diphtheria epidemic struck Spain. In National Socialist era 

Germany, diphtheria was the leading cause of death in 

children. 

After the fall of the Soviet Union, diphtheria vaccinations in the 

former Soviet satellite states almost disappeared. Rates of 

diphtheria infection went from 2000 cases in the Soviet Union 

in 1991, to 200 000 in the combined former Soviet countries of 

Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakstan, 

Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan 

between 1992-1998. 

Those who have forgotten the horseman will say, ‘But vaccines 

are a fraud!’. I would like to posit that Communism is not what 

prevented diphtheria in these countries. 

The flu. Influenza. We really don’t pay much attention to it. 

Someone having the flu is really just an inconvenience. It is 

recommended that those working in healthcare, the elderly, 

and the immunocompromised get the flu shot. But the flu isn’t 

always the minor irritant we think of it to be. We might read 

about the 1918-1920 flu pandemic, but how much do we really 

consider just what a disaster that was. 

The Spanish Flu, as it is known though it didn’t actually 

originate in Spain, infected 500 million people. 50 million to as 

many as 100 million people died from it. The world’s population 

shrank by as much as 5% and on all corners of the globe. While 

normal flu has a 0.1% mortality rate, Spanish flu had a 20% 

mortality rate. Instead of picking off the elderly, this particular 

version of the H1N1 virus seemed to attack the young and 

strong. 99% of mortalities in the United States were people 


Certain populations, particularly the indigenous peoples of the 

Americas and South Pacific were hardest hit. There are tales in 

the Canadian North and Alaska of Inuit/Eskimo villages 

completely wiped out to the last man, woman and child. Or 

even more terrifying, the stories of the one toddler survivor in a 

town of the dead. 

How many of us have lost a sibling in childhood due to 

disease? One of the triumphs of modern medicine and 

sanitation has ensured that children in industrialized nations 

don’t suffer from disease the way they used to. Let’s look at 

some figures. 

Historically, and up to 1900, the worldwide infant mortality rate 

was 26.9%. The historical childhood mortality rate- deaths of 

children between the ages of 1-15- was 46.2%. By 1950, the 

childhood mortality rate was 27% and the infant mortality rate 

was 16%. Now? The worldwide childhood mortality rate is 4.6% 

and the infant mortality rate is 2.9%. 

My point? 

In 1918, as the flu was raging, people were used to death. They 

were used to the horseman. They didn’t need to talk about it or 

write about it. It was their constant companion. Today? What 

horseman? Was there a horseman? Oh yes. Back in the past, 

there was a horseman. But he’s gone now. Good riddance. 

Emergency hospital during influenza epidemic, Camp Funston, Kansas. 

Otis Historical Archives Nat'l Museum of Health & Medicine 

[CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)] 

The flu came in two waves, the second more deadly than the 

first. What we think of as the beginning of the flu in North 

America is actually the second wave. As it hit, it killed as many 

as 25 million people in as many weeks. It attacked in the 

summer and grew in strength into the winter of 1918. People 

died so fast, they couldn’t be buried. My grandfather told my 

father of seeing the frozen bodies stacked like cordwood in 

towns of the Canadian prairies. The ground too hard to dig 

graves and the morgues overflowing. So many soldiers fell ill 

and died in 1918 that it may have been the single biggest 

contributing factor to the end of World War One. Of more 

impact than the Americans joining the war. Of more impact 

than the Russians leaving it. 

Syphilis. It’s a bit ew. Grey’s Anatomy almost made a joke of ‘the 

Syph.’ You get some sores on your junk and then you get some 

antibiotics and ‘Bob’s your uncle!’ No more syph. Done and 

dusted. Delete the embarrassing Facebook post you made 

while drowning your post-diagnosis sorrows and you can 

forget about it. 

But syphilis isn’t a joke. It’s one of the very few infectious 

diseases that can cause permanent bone damage. The 

spirochaetes of syphilis can, in the third stage, drill through 

your skull leaving pockmarks in the bone. It can chew through 

your brain, rendering you insane. It can chew through your 

cartilage, most commonly causing the nose to collapse and rot 

off. (And you thought that was just leprosy!) The nasal damage 

of syphilis was so common in the 17th and 18th centuries that 

people wore tin noses to hide the damage and fit in with 

society. 

And yet? How deadly the flu can be has vanished from our 

modern lore. The Spanish Flu is often referred to as the silent 

epidemic because, in the tumultuous period of history 

between World War One, and World War Two, people just got 

on with rebuilding their countries and their lives. To this day, 

we don’t know where the 1918 Pandemic came from, though 

we have rebuilt it from tissue samples taken from bodies in the 

permafrost. One scientist said that looking at the virus was like 

looking at a monster. Some have called it the "the greatest 

medical holocaust in history" and that isn’t hyperbole. Spanish 

flu killed more people than the Black Death, though the 

Plague of 1349-1350 killed a far greater percentage of the 

population. 

We have forgotten the horseman. But how? I think it’s because 

death from disease is this sanitary exercise that happens in 

hospitals. We rarely see death. We rarely experience it. When 

we hear of children dying of illness, its usually a fundraising 

campaign or a news story, but only the immediate family of 

those poor little souls are affected. 

Cranium showing the Lesions of Syphilis chiefly in the Crown and External Table. 

Internet Archive Book Images

The horseman, as a general rule, doesn’t like it when you die 

pretty. 

Except for tuberculosis. The disease which spawned a fashion 

trend and made one ‘beautiful’. Tuberculosis gave us the 

original version of ‘heroin chic’ in fashion. Have you ever 

noticed those fashionable Victorian women in paintings with 

their translucently pale skin, the red lips, the huge, shining 

eyes, the sharp cheekbones stained with pink? You might have 

thought it was just the corsets but you would be mistaken. 

Tuberculosis or TB, also known as consumption, was rife in the 

industrial revolution cities of the 1800s. It attacked young and 

old. Rich and poor. It wasted a person away from constant 

coughing, hence the name ‘consumption’. The ancient Greeks 

believed it was a fire, burning one up. So many people had it, 

that those who didn’t aped the physical appearance of it. Think 

on it from our perspective. Who wouldn’t want to be waifish, 

pale, thin, and a little tragic? 

Until you started coughing your lungs up and dying, that is. 

Tuberculosis was a fact of life. It was considered a condition 

and a predisposition of ill health. In fact, there is no single 

disease that has had a bigger influence on art and literature in 

Western civilization. Consumption was almost romantic. More 

than five operas feature a character with the disease. Many 

books have been written about it. So many poets and authors 

had tuberculosis in the 1800s that it was practically a 

requirement of the job. They said the constant mild fever of the 

disease helped artists to see the world more clearly. 

Tuberculosis helped in the migration of people across the 

United States and Canada. People who had TB were told to 

leave the cities to find better air. A heroic cure. Towns on the 

coasts and in the deserts of the south-west of the United States 

billed themselves as cures for the rich and consumptive. They 

actively advertised for those with tuberculosis to come and 

settle. The towns of New Mexico, in particular, capitalized on 

the ‘lungers’ who came in their hundreds in hope of survival in 

the dry desert heat. For some, it even worked. But the mortality 

rate of TB was high. 1 in 4 British citizens would die of TB in the 

1820s and as many as 1 in 6 French citizens would die of TB in 

the 1910s. 

But the romance of tuberculosis came to a grinding halt when 

a German doctor named Dr. Robert Koch identified the 

bacteria which caused the disease. Now it wasn’t a condition. It 

was an infection and those who had it were infectious. The 

celebrated now became the shunned. People with TB were 

packed off to sanatoriums where they could be away from 

society in a manner not dissimilar to lepers. For the poor, they 

were like prisons. In New York City, they were barges on the 

Hudson River where the sick were packed from dawn to dusk. 

For they rich they were decidedly more luxurious. 


Towns which encouraged the consumptive now set up 

barricades against the tubercular. The sick were driven from 

their homes in places, and some doctors refused to treat those 

they had treated before. 

Since World War Two, antibiotics have been our saviour. If it’s a 

bacteria, antibiotics have been able to treat it. Infections. 

Gangrene. Syphilis. Chlamydia. Gonorrhea. Tuberculosis. 

Meningitis. Pneumonia. Ulcers. Cholera. Dysentery. Typhus. 

Typhoid Fever. Bubonic plague (our old friend the Black Death) 

to name a very small number of big bads that we shouldn’t 

have to deal with anymore. 

Except we do. We’ve used antibiotics like a fire-hose on a 

crowd and we didn’t take into account that the crowd might 

decide to move out of the way. Overuse of antibiotics on health 

issues they cannot fix- for example viral infections like the fluor 

non compliance of antibiotic instructions - people feeling 

better and not finishing the prescribed dose- as well as liberal 

use in food animals -over ¾ of the world’s antibiotics are used 

in livestock - has made bacteria smarter and hardier. Scientists 

are working on new antibiotics to counter the resistant 

bacterial strains, but there is the possibility that one day the 

magic beans just won’t work anymore and then all the 

monsters will come back. 

Because the horseman is waiting. 

La miseria - 

Cristóbal Rojas - 1886 

Again, TB became a trendsetter. One of the reasons skirts rose 

off the ground in the early 1900s was so that women wouldn’t 

‘sweep tuberculosis into the home’. Men shaved off their 

muttonchops and beards lest the bacteria cling to it and infect 

their families. Spitting in the streets became illegal in most 

places, laws which remain on the books in most places to this 

day. 

Enter antibiotics. TB was treated aggressively in the west in the 

20th Century, with school children lining up for yearly chest x- 

rays into the 1960s. Hooray! But TB is still endemic in many 

parts of the world with as much as one quarter of the world’s 

population being infected with TB- either in its latent or active 

form. Hoorooh. Moreover, non-compliance with antibiotic 

based treatments has lead to the growth of antibiotic strains of 

TB spreading at an alarming rate. 

We are overdue for a pandemic. It might be a flu again. It 

might be a hemorrhagic fever like Ebola. Ebola is actually a bad 

virus. It traditionally kills too quickly with too short an 

incubation period, so it doesn’t spread so well. But Ebola is 

learning and changing so one never knows. Tuberculosis, a 

disease with a not highly effective vaccine, could outstrip our 

antibiotics. Or the biggest of the baddies could come back. 

Smallpox. Eradicated in 1980 and supposedly only existing in 

two laboratories in the world though samples of frozen and 

dried smallpox virus and scabs have been found since. 

Smallpox is virulent and disfiguring. Smallpox, which is said to 

have killed 500 million people around the world from 1850- 

1980. Smallpox killed the young and the old. Kings and 

beggars. It is the greatest scourge that mankind has ever 

known. As such, in the post-war world, the medical 

establishment, in concerted action with governments, made it 

a mission to kill this beast. Through treatment and worldwide 

vaccination, we slew the dragon. Since the mid-1970s, we don’t 

even vaccinate for smallpox anymore. 

But to this day, one needs to pass a TB test to work in 

medicine. People with active tuberculosis are not allowed to 

immigrate to many countries, and most western nations 

require a chest X-ray before allowing permanent residency 

status. For some countries, even for temporary residency. The 

World Health Organization has guidelines for travel with TB 

because there were reports of TB infection by aircraft crews 

and passengers in the 1990s. While the risk is very small, it's still 

a concern. It is impossible to screen everyone. 

The horseman is clever and travel-savvy. He does planes, trains 

and automobiles too. We might have forgotten the horseman 

but he hasn’t forgotten us. He knows all our little tricks to avoid 

him. He's been there, done that and has fields of corpses as 

souvenirs. 


Vaccinating the Poor 

National Library of Medicine - History of Medicine

Variola (Smallpox) 

George Henry Fox [Public domain] 


Except there is the possibility that smallpox is lurking. 

Epidemic victims in the northern permafrost are in danger of 

thawing. With climate changes in the north, there is a 

possibility that shallowly buried bodies could become exposed 

and as they haven’t decomposed at all, the virus could be 

viable. While seemingly the stuff of thriller movies, this is not 

outside the realm of plausible reality. 

Even more disturbing, Canadian scientists were able to activate 

a strain of smallpox from a horsepox virus in 2017. They were 

able to do this in a small lab without specialist training for 

approximately $100 000. Most disturbing? Two months ago the 

storage facility for the live smallpox virus in Russia suffered 

from an explosion that supposedly didn’t damage the 

containment area, or so we have been told. One does wonder 

how safely kept these samples are. 

A new smallpox vaccine was approved in 2007 and the first 

antiviral therapy for ‘pox’ viruses including smallpox was 

approved in 2017. For a disease that is ‘eradicated’, research 

hasn’t stopped. Clearly, the threat of a smallpox return isn’t 

idle. Because while most of us have forgotten the horseman, 

epidemiologists and physicians haven’t. 

Sadly, the anti-vax crowd have accused them of every 

conceivable crime in the book, from being stooges for Big 

Pharma to active infanticide. It would be ludicrous if it wasn’t 

so unfortunate. These scientists are working to protect us from 

terrible diseases. It’s hard, often thankless work. No one goes in 

to epidemiology, pediatrics, virology or infectious disease 

research for money or fame. This isn’t the ‘sexy’ end of the 

medical field. In fact, in the top ten of the worst paid specialties 

in medicine? Pediatrics, family physicians and internal 

medicine are the top three. HIV/infectious disease specialists 

are number 6. 

Name me a famous doctor or scientist in this field today? How 

about in history? Salk, Sabin, Pasteur, and Jenner. Can you 

think of anyone else? No. Because like the people who gave us 

sewers, (Thank you, Joseph Bazalgette!) we only think of them 

when something goes terribly, terribly wrong. When was the 

last time you were thankful that you didn’t get a disease? 

Probably a lot more after reading this article. In the words of 

John Oliver, ‘Didn’t get polio today. SO LIT!’ 

Work Projects Administration Poster Collection [Public domain] 

But the horseman is there. He’s always been there. Spreading 

pestilence all around him. He’s patient. It would appear he’s 

giving us enough rope to hang ourselves with and then he will 

strike. Protect yourself and your family against him. When the 

horseman comes, his reaping will not be gentle. 

I ask everyone who has made it to the end of this article to post 

on Facebook ‘I’m so happy I don’t have smallpox’ and tag 

Avescope. Then go make sure you your shots are up to date. 

And then get the new, awesome shingles vaccine. I’ve had 

shingles- under age 40 too! You really don’t want it. 

It’s time for the public to take the horseman seriously. These 

threats are real. Fifty years of relative safety have made us 

complacent. Diseases are coming back because people can no 

longer comprehend the horrors that they are. One of the best 

things I’ve ever heard said about vaccines and the rise of the 

anti-vax movement is that vaccines are victims of their own 

efficacy. The combination of vaccination and modern drug 

treatments have removed the monster from our sight. 


Watercolour by R. Cooper. Iconographic Collections 

[CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)] Avescope | 24

Memento 

Mori 

Memento Mori. “Remember I must die”. 

“Or must I?”, ask the transhumanists. The 

impact of merging technology with the 

human being will be felt no more 

powerfully than within the plans of 

transhumanists who seek to postpone and 

even eradicate death by using technology. 

Originally from the realms of the 

conspiracy world, the idea that human 

consciousness can somehow be harnessed 

and uploaded as data now occupies a 

serious place in modern research and 

development. 

There are some who believe human 

consciousness can be transferred and 

stored as data. And this may not be so 

crazy as it sounds. After all, psychologists 

are familiar with the computer analogy, 

when it comes to human memory. The 

alleged BT Soulcatcher project, a theory 

promoted by conspiracy theorists in the 

early 2000s is actually a real project 

discussed in an Open University video 

available on Youtube, some years ago. 

The video discusses the concept that in 

around 2030/2040, the technology should 

exist to enable a person to get a simple 

injection into their arm, containing some 

nanotechnology devices which would 

then connect to every neuron in their 

brain, enabling an exact replica of their 


Tamsin 

McKenna- 

Williams 

brain to be transferred as data, containing 

all the person’s thoughts and memories. 

This could be a truly revolutionary 

technology for Alzheimer’s and dementia 

sufferers. If one’s brain were to be mapped 

prior to the onset of such a condition, it 

might be possible to effectively re-boot 

key personal default settings and enable 

those who are losing their memory to 

maintain their identity. It could act as the 

same type of health-related insurance as 

harvesting eggs and sperm when a person 

is young, to enable them to put having 

children on hold until their finances 

permit it. 

This technology could also be utilized to 

reanimate the dead. The implications of 

such being very hard to really quantify, 

given we still do not fully understand how 

the mind connects to the brain and how 

things work from a more spiritual 

perspective. 

If this technology were to advance to a 

level where memories and entire lifetimes 

could be transferred, as data. In theory, the 

life experiences of everyone could be 

preserved and possibly reanimated later in 

a different, cloned or synthetic body. The 

pros and cons of this are manifold and the 

related ethics, legal ramifications and 

potential regulation are about as complex 

as it gets. It’s tough enough for regulators 

and data processors to guarantee the 

safety of our name and address, never 

mind our entire consciousness and 

memories. Goodness knows what levels of 

exploitation and potential risk this type of 

innovation could expose humanity to. And 

there would likely be great inequality in 

any system that promised to effectively 

offer longer life or potential reincarnation 

by design. Those who could afford to 

become immortal (of sorts) would be 

preserved, regardless of how important 

their own life experiences were in the 

grand scheme of things, yet those who 

may have genuinely interesting data, who 

may be too poor to preserve it, would be 

lost to the world of human consciousness 

data storing.

However, isn’t there already a perhaps 

more natural system in place that sort of 

stores human experience and recycles, or 

reincarnates sprits/souls? Some believe 

that what’s known as the Akashic records 

already hold such data. Many belief 

systems, religions and mystics embrace 

the concept of reincarnation, where an 

immortal soul/spirit leaves one organic 

body and can then reincarnate to a new 

one, usually losing the ability to recall the 

former lifetime/s in the process. And there 

may be a jolly good reason why we don’t 

automatically recall the old memories, 

especially traumatic ones. Even a living 

person can block out traumatic memories 

as a self defence mechanism of sorts, after 

all. 

Those who have experienced the 

phenomenon of recalling what appear to 

be past lives know only too well how hard 

it is dealing with data that may belong to 

another time and place. This is especially 

true of the many thousands of people who 

recall what appear to be memories of 

wartime past lives and sometimes 

traumatic and sudden deaths. There are 

whole forums dedicated to supporting 

those who believe they have experienced 

wartime past lives. There are some 

compelling cases, where children 

especially, recall lives as military personnel 

ranging from pilots to soldiers, in some 

cases even tracking down those past lives 

and convincing others of the validity of 

their claims. 

The ability for military personnel to have 

their memories mapped could have 

important defence applications, as well as 

possibly enabling those lost to war to be 

re-born at a later point in time, with the 

same identity, should they so wish. But 

before we stride determinedly into this 

uncharted territory, there needs to be 

serious research done on the more 

spiritual side of humanity and particularly 

reincarnation phenomena. We may find 

that nature already operates the very 

system that we are trying to create and 

that technology may in fact help us to not 

simply try to replicate and exploit the 

ability to prolong life, but to fully engage, 

interact and maybe even, one day, harness 

it. 



Ross Bay 

Cemetary 

B L A C K B I R D ' S 

P H O T O G R A P H Y 


to the sexing. In this particular case, the old theory held true. 

Another site I worked on had an individual from the earlier 

Bronze Age and this showed a different rite: fancy dagger, big 

bracelets on the lower arms and some sort of chain – the 

purpose of which is lost to me: 

The jewellery shown here is not from this particular site but is 

typical of what we were getting. The bracelets are really rather 

small and it is suggested that they were worn as a rite of 

passage: perhaps on hitting puberty, an adolescent female 

would wear them to mark this important fact. Conjecture – but 

possible. 

Also found on site were several large pits containing 

deliberately smashed pottery – consisting of a mixture of heavy 

coarsewares and finely decorated wares – mixed with the 

skeletal remains of calf, goat, deer (evidenced from antler) and 

pig. The pig fragments showed signs of butchery. The 

destruction of so much pottery in one instance was certainly no 

accident: these remains were evidence of ritual feasting, almost 

certainly connected to funerary practice. We do the same today 

– although we are not generally so destructive at the wakes for 

our loved ones. 

We don’t know why these people practiced both inhumation 

and cremation. It may have been a personal choice, it may have 

been linked to their place in society – it may have been because 

it was harder to dig a big grave in the frozen soil of a trans- 

Alpine winter. We do know that the funeral pyres were 

frequently poorly prepared because the cremated bone 

fragments are often large enough to be identified by the naked 

eye: a well maintained and fuelled fire will produce a hotter 

flame, thus creating finer fragments and ashes. 

On this particular site I encountered cremations where the 

fragments of bone had been collected and buried in a hole with 

unburnt bronze jewellery, as well as cases where the ashes and 

charcoal had been collected, place in a pot and then buried, 

either on their own or with other pots which presumably 

contained food or drink. Why do have both types of cremation? 

Who knows. 

The Roman Province of Raetia et Vindelicia 

Links with the classical world stretched back centuries – 

through both trade and conflict. Securing Rome’s northern 

frontier and the valuable Alpine passes were the pretext for the 

invasion by Tiberius and Drusus in 15BC. The inability of the local 

Celtic tribes to unite, coupled with their penchant for individual 

glory on the battlefield i.e. a lack of discipline - meant that the 

Legions had soon pushed as far as the Danube. In time, this 

would become the permanent border or Limes. 

Romanisation brought big changes to the region: the initial 

forts and fortresses of the early days of the advance – as the 

province was pacified – often became civilian settlements. The 

greatest of these was Augusta Vindelicia, named after the 

Emperor Augustus. Augsburg, as it is known today, is located at 

a convergence of the rivers Lech and Wertach and was ideally 

situated to take advantage of the nearby Alpine passes. 

Becoming the capital of the province in about AD120, the city 

developed an extensive hinterland. Roman law forbade the 

burying the dead within the limits of the town. When we find 

burials within Roman settlements – and specifically during the 

period when the settlement actually functioned – they are often 

neonatals – individuals who died during or soon after childbirth. 

They are often found in the foundations of Roman buildings are 

typically interpreted as being buried there for ritual purposes. 

Roman cemeteries were typically located along the main roads 

leading to a settlement or fort. Modern urban development 

frequently disturbs the remains of this period, including the 

dead. Funerals were primarily a concern of the family. 


Those who lacked the support of an extended family often 

belonged to trade guilds or Collegia which provided funeral 

services for members. Soldiers in both the Legions and Auxillia 

would pay into a funeral fund which would provide not only for 

the actual burial service, but for a memorial and the postfuneral 

feast. Until the 1st century AD, it was customary to offer 

a sow to the goddess Ceres. The sacrificed animal was 

butchered and cooked according to a set formula: the portion 

for the goddess was burned on an altar; part was placed with 

the body; other parts were eaten by the family. Poorer funerals 

might use grain, beer, wine or incense. 

On the ninth day after death, a second set of rites and a further 

feast was held, known as the Novendialis: the dead – the Manes 

– were given a libation of wine. On the anniversary of death, a 

loved one or colleague would endeavour to visit the grave and 

pour further libations on it: the dead needed sustenance. 

Excavations in Augsburg 

individuals 2 and 3. A marks the skull between the knees, B the 

location of the coin. 

A recent excavation revealed a segment of what was probably a 

larger cemetery dated to the 4th century, but which had been 

destroyed by construction at some point in the past. Three 

individuals were uncovered, with 3 distinct burial rites. The first 

individual was buried orientated East-West with no extent 

gravegoods. Was this person a Christian? I think it likely, 

Christian burials are typically bereft of items for the afterlife. 

However, one should always remember the old archaeological 

maxim: 

“Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence” 

In other words, just because we cannot see something today, it 

does not mean that it was never there. Some materials are 

more perishable than others…. Sometimes a grave would be 

robbed. Archaeology will never give us 100% of the answers we 

seek. 

The second individual was buried West-East and had in their 

hand a coin of the Emperor Constantine the Great (Reigned 324 

– 327 AD) or one of his immediate successors (Constantine II, 

Constantius II or Constans) giving this burial a Terminus post 

quem . (The TPQ is the earliest time the event may have 

happened – the person could not have been buried before 

Constantine was minting coins) 

Burial with a coin is a throwback to ancient Greece. It was 

believed that the dead had to cross the rivers Styx and Acheron 

to reach Hades. The deceased had to use a ferry, piloted by 

Charon to get there – and of course, Charon needs payment: 

“Charon’s Obol” is a funerary rite adopted by the Romans from 

the Hellenistic world, a rite still used today by some Christians, 

particularly in what we know as the “Celtic Fringe” – Wales, 

Scotland and Ireland. 

The Romans of course practiced cremation as well as 

inhumation – perhaps the most famous instance being that of 

Ceasar in 44BC. On Hadrian’s Wall I worked on mini-barrows, 

low mounds of earth, perhaps at most a metre wide which 

contained a mixture of finely fragmented human bone, burnt to 

an ivory-white colour and charcoal as well as small stone built 

mausoleums which would have contained ashes, most likely in 

pots. In Raetia we find pots with ashes buried in the ground, we 

find carved stone models of houses used to hold either loose 

ashes or pots containing them. This is a borrowing from the 

Etruscans who often buried the deceased, literally in houses for 

the dead. We find the same thing for inhumations as well. 

The third individual had received an unusual rite: they had been 

decapitated and the skull placed between their knees. 

Whether or not this was an execution or whether it was carried 

out post-mortem is impossible to tell. The upper torso and most 

of the arms had not survived: if they had, it might have been 

possible to suggest that the person had had their wrists tied – 

would could infer execution. 


Sometimes we find things like the following: 

By the sixth century AD, the Boii had become the Bajuwari and 

settled in the former Roman province of Raetia. The tribe had 

absorbed elements from several other tribal groups caught up 

in the aftermath of the Roman withdrawal from her western 

provinces. These groups consisted of some remaining Romans, 

(Romano-Gauls) Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, 

Goths, Scirians, Rugians and Heruli. We find expressions of this 

mixed heritage in the burial record. 

The Bajuvari were converted to Christianity in the seventh 

century but archaeology shows that older Pagan beliefs coexisted 

alongside the nascent church: the dominant burial rite 

is inhumation, with graves aligned East-West – typical for 

Christian burials – and yet most inhumations contain grave 

goods of some description. Gravegoods can range from 

jewellery, pottery, to food and money for the deceased on their 

journey to afterlife. In a slave-owning society, showing your 

status to those who would see you buried – and in the afterlife – 

was very important. The vast majority of burials I have worked 

on had some sort of blade – sometimes will it be a small one, 

suited to picking at your food, other times we find a distinctive 

weapon known as a Sax or Seax, sometimes impressive 

broadswords known by the Latin name of Spatha. Shields, 

spears, javelins, arrow heads (no bows though as the soil is not 

so kind) and specialised throwing axes known as the Francisca 

(It was invented by the Franks). When we find a burial without 

any sort of blade this makes us think hard about why this 

person was buried so. The general consensus is that they are 

being especially marked out, or that they were in fact slaves – 

slaves were not, as far as we can tell, allowed to own a blade of 

any description. Saying that, one must remember that death 

rituals may not reflect everyday life: when my dad died, we put 

the ashes of his beloved whippet (who had died a few years 

previously) in the coffin. Much as he loved that dog, did he take 

the urn with the ashes around with him, everywhere he went? 

Of course not. 

In this picture we see what at first glance looks like a regular 

grave. In fact this grave was lined with clay and the pyre built 

above it. As the pyre burnt down, the ashes and charcoal fell 

into the pit underneath. At some point the grave had been 

attacked by robbers looking for valuable– you can clearly see 

the hole they dug, filled in with different coloured soil. This 

grave yielded nothing but a few pot sherds – evidence of 

feasting perhaps. 

The first Bavarians 

With the gradual collapse of Roman power, the borders of the 

Empire became somewhat porous. We call this period in 

German the Volkerwanderungszeit or in English, the Migration 

Period. This is when the Angles and Saxons started to settle in 

Britain and is part of a much wider phenomenon when entire 

peoples where on the move. Historians give differing dates 

regarding the start of this period, but the Migration Period is 

generally regarded as beginning with the invasion of Europe by 

the Huns from Asia in 375 AD. One tribe caught up in this mass 

movement were the Boii. The Boii had probably originated in 

Bohemia but had a long history of being semi-itinerant, their 

identity it seems was rooted in who they were, rather than on 

being tied to a particular location. As such they appear in the 

archaeological record on both sides of the Alps and are attested 

as guiding Hannibal over the Alps in 218 BC as well being 

present at Alesia fighting Caesar in 52 BC. 

The following were found on a construction site: they were 

going to build an old folks home – and we found some old folk… 

The next nearest bodies were over 50 metres away and so we 

assume sort of familial relationship. There was no money for 

DNA testing – we just interpreted a relationship based on the 

proximity to each other. We have two individuals, both female. 

One of them – the “mother” – was about 40 when she died. Her 

bones were in good condition and had been buried in a coffin. 

Coffins are not cheap and so we can infer that this was a 

woman of means. She had a little knife, a brooch and ceramic 

beads. The “daughter” was about 18 – 20 and was just thrown 

into a fairly roughly cut hole – with no coffin or grave goods and 

apparently little ceremony. The question was – why? 

If you look closely you can make out that unlike the other 

person, who is laid out fairly straight, this individual is a bit 

scrunched up. This is not the result of her being jammed into a 

hole: she was disabled – she had polio and had a rather twisted 

backbone. Knowing how much pain she would have been in 

made this somewhat mentally difficult to do and really drove 

home to me just how lucky I am to be in fairly good health. 


In conclusion 

This short article has attempted to convey just some of the 

burial rituals encountered on archaeological sites in Bavaria. As 

such it does not claim to be comprehensive, covering every 

single tradition and ritual – to do so would require a book - 

(Who knows, if I ever return to academia that could be a PhD 

thesis) but I hope that it reminds us that people in the distant 

past were in some ways, not so different to us: they lived, they 

loved, they mourned their loved ones. 

Another individual on site was was buried in a coffin which was 

too small for him, so the knees had to be bent to fit him in: we 

found a skeleton laid as normally but with the tibula and fibula 

at an angle to the femurs: as the body rotted, they fell away 

onto the floor of the coffin. The photo below shows the bones 

replaced in their burial situation: 

Replicas of typical weapons found in Boiiari graves: Spatha, Sax, 

Francisca 

We also found a number of neonatal burials. They sometimes 

had gravegoods, sometimes not. One interpretation for a lack of 

gravegoods is that due to high infant mortality, babies had a 

status a status of non-persons until they reached a certain age. 

The Romans certainly practiced this, so this might be a cultural 

hangover. The individual below was probably not yet two years 

old. Rather macabre, the reason why the bones are so jumbled 

is that an animal had burrowed down – either to make a nest in 

the disturbed soil, or was tempted at the prospect of an easy 

meal. 

Boarii jewellery - museum quality replicas. They loved animal 

motifs 



GHOSTS OF 

PAST 

Auguste von Osterode 

LOVERS 

Hello Cats and Kittens! 

Auguste here and wow. Memento Mori? That was a 

deep topic for me to work around. I don’t do death 

unless it’s Halloween! But then it hit me… the ghosts of 

lovers past. 

How we deal with the memories of relationships both 

good and bad says a lot about who we are. Sometimes 

it’s really hard to come to terms with the way things 

have ended. Whether it’s lamenting the one that got 

away, the one that you just didn’t get, the one that 

broke your heart, the one that broke your brain, or the 

one that just didn’t go as planned, some past 

relationships really stick with us. Sometimes those scars 

run really deep and it can be hard to put them aside 

and move forward. 

Pat Benatar sang ‘Love is a battlefield.’ She wasn’t 

wrong. There are some people who come and go from 

your life and a few years later you can barely remember 

their face. Maybe they didn’t hurt you, but they clearly 

didn’t leave a lasting impression of any sort. Sadly, 

Facebook reminded me of one of those not toooo long 

ago. It was a shrug and an ‘oh yeah. Them. Wonder 

what they are up to?’ Then I went about my day. 

At least in my case, those tend to be the exception and 

not the rule. I am a ‘throw my whole heart in’ kind of 

girl, so usually it gets crushed. Whether they are long 

affairs or short affairs, they burn brightly and flame out 

fast. Like fireworks, one minute they are here and the 

next they are gone. More scars on the battle-rattle of 

love. 

Every time it happens, I tend to get warier. It’s not that I 

don’t fall in love, exactly… well… wait. No. I don’t think I 

fall in love anymore. I fall in lust like a champion! No. I 

think these days, I’m always holding something back. 

Romantically I’m all up for anything, but emotionally I’m 

waiting for the other shoe to drop. 


Because it always does. 

But is that my lover de jour’s fault? 

I’m not entirely sure. It could be mine. We all have our 

baggage, and mine is probably a matched set of Louis 

Vuitton which includes both the train case AND the 

steamer trunk. Sometimes I think it gets in the way. If 

you add a bag after every broken heart, eventually no 

airline is going to get you from A to B. Cupid is a little 

fellow. How is he supposed to carry that load? How can 

that arrow pierce the heart if you have a wall of 

emotional luggage around you? 

I think that young love works because there is still 

optimism in love. Your first, second and third romances 

don’t have to fight through the bad memories and 

learned responses one might have after ten, fifteen or 

twenty affairs. We get way more suspicious and give 

way less of ourselves because we anticipate the hurt 

that we know will inevitably come. 

~ There is a wonderful line in 

‘Notting Hill’ where Hugh 

Grant’s character says, ‘it's 

as if I've taken love heroin 

and now I can't ever have it 

again.’~ 

Except I’ve been there. You know. Managed to get into 

the occasional twisted redux of a previous relationship 

having been lured back by online flirting.. There is a 

certain Berliner I’m now under orders to avoid at all 

costs. There is a wonderful line in ‘Notting Hill’ where 

Hugh Grant’s character says, ‘it's as if I've taken love 

heroin and now I can't ever have it again.’ That’s the 

Berliner. Just say no to love heroin. That shit will fuck 

you up. 

Punt that person out of your life. If you are the dumped, 

quit chasing after the person who hurt you. If you are 

the dumper, you dumped for a reason. Dumper or 

dumped? Cut the cord and move on. Delete them out 

of your phone. Put the pics you want to keep 

somewhere you can’t look at them easily and cleanse 

your space of them. At all costs, block them on 

Facebook. That may seem a little scorched earth, but 

sometimes you need to salt the earth to get that person 

out of you life before they drive you out of your skull. 

Ah. The ghosts of relationships past. Sometimes a new 

relationship feels like the ballroom in Disney’s Haunted 

Mansion with all the ghosts swirling around you 

reminding you of every old heartbreak and missed 

chance. 

Take some time. Look after yourself for a while. Don’t go 

charging into the next mistake. That only leads to more 

baggage. Take some time, open up that baggage, deal 

with what is inside and throw it away. Don’t let it mount 

up and steal your future! 

So what do we do? 

Damned if I know. I’m just a writer of twisted sexual 

adventures… not a therapist. My deepest relationships 

these days are with a bottle of wine and Youtube. Cut 

me some slack. 

That said, I think we need to be more open. Just 

because someone did X to you in the past doesn’t mean 

that every partner will do that. I think one of the best 

things to do after a broken heart is to take a step back 

and take some time. Don’t get into the dangerous trap 

of post-breakup sex which does nothing for you. Let’s 

face it. Even those orgasms are a little on the tainted 

side. 


A Mother's Loss 

Catherine Jackson

Vimy 

Catherine Jackson

Memento Mori 

In the end, 

We will die. 

But before it, 

We must cling to life, 

Wring every pleasure, 

Feel each fleeting moment 

Miss nothing. 

Time moves quickly. 

Karen Lee 



Under 

Grey- 

Clouded 

The sky screens over the cemetery had always been grey and 

overcast. Jim had asked about that once, when he was a boy, 

confused at how programmable screens didn’t change to 

reflect Earth’s weather like it did in the rest of the station. The 

answer his mother gave was a simple ‘because’. He was old 

enough to know that short answers really meant she didn’t 

want to talk about it. Especially ‘because’. It was the same 

answer she’d given when he asked why Dad had to go down to 

the surface. And why he hadn’t come back. 

Jim hunched down and let the rose fall from his hand, onto the 

grass of Mom’s grave. He touched the air where a headstone 

should have been instead of a hologram of her face. The photo 

was outdated, too. She was only a cadet when it was taken, the 

day she got the draft letter. Jim had just turned sixteen when 

she was sent down. He never saw her again. 

He looked up, surveying the large dome that housed the 

memorial graves of every station personnel lost to the surface. 

Dad’s grave sat beside Mom’s, with a space reserved for Jim to 

her other side. He sighed. 

A hand rested on his shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. “Final 

farewells or letting them know you’re going to visit?” Agatha’s 

humour always had a dark tone, and she never did learn when it 

was inappropriate. Twenty years they’d served together, she his 

most competent Captain. 

Jim smiled, shaking his head as he stood up. “A bit of both.” He 

straightened his uniform jacket and walked down the rows of 

graves to the airlock. 

The war had been over for a decade but Agatha refused to retire 

and settle like most of the Forces had. She’d promised to stay 

by Jim’s side until the end, whichever that turned out to be. 

Fate was fortunate enough to spare him surface duty. He grew 

old, as did she, climbing the ranks that had been left sparse 

after the surrender of the surface armies. 

Skies 

Anike Kersten 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked as they entered 

the hangar bay where his shuttle awaited. 

“I have to. I still don’t know peace. Not until I make sure my 

parents get a proper burial. It’s the least they deserve.” 

Agatha scoffed. “Always so honourable. And how, exactly, will 

you know it’s their bodies? It’s been, what, forty years about?” 

“It’s quite simple.” Jim turned to face her. “I’ll bury them all. 

Besides, there are too many of our people lost, haunting the 

surface. I’m retired now, but I still have a duty as Admiral.” Jim 

rubbed the stubble forming on his jawline. “I’ve seen enough of 

war to know what needs to be done to maintain the peace we 

fought and died for.” 

“Closure is not a duty, sir.” 

Jim narrowed his eyes. “Neither is morale?” 

Agatha averted her gaze and frowned. “Take care of them, 

Captain. That is an order.”

The shuttle landed in a clearing in the forest, one of 

many made for this purpose during the war. One of 

many where soldiers had died before they touched 

ground. Jim hesitated before opening the hatch. He 

couldn’t quell the fear that shots would greet him if 

he did so. But there were none. The area was as quiet 

as the station after curfew. And that’s what had made 

the scene he lay his eyes upon all the worse. 

From high altitude, the clearing looked like it flourished 

with red roses. Jim hadn’t expected to see so many 

corpses, in varying states of decay, surrounding him. 

Not this close to the landing site. He gagged as the 

pungent stench assaulted his senses and fitted a 

filter breather over his mouth and nose. A crude bridge 

on stilts had been erected some time in the past over 

the sea of dead and Jim felt both appreciative for it and 

horrified. Instead of dedicating a squad to properly take 

care of their fallen brethren, those in charge thought 

it more important to get their men to the front-line as 

quick as possible instead. 

Jim closed his eyes and mumbled a litany of respect 

and peace to the lost souls under his feet then 

proceeded across. The bridge ended short of solid 

ground. He had no choice but to jump down, hearing 

and feeling the soft cracks of brittle bone and almost 

slipping on slimy entrails a few times before he’d made 

it clear of the muck. He repeated the litanies, partly 

for his own peace of mind. 

~ Instead of dedicating a 

squad to properly take care of 

their fallen brethren, those in 

charge thought it more 

important to get their men to 

the front-line as quick as 

possible instead.~ 

He scanned the forest ahead, spotting figures in the 

dim horizon and several large fires raging against the 

approaching dusk. The surface-born. He’d met their 

diplomats before, several times, but this time he was 

on their turf. They had the home advantage and he 

was alone. As he neared the group, he was able to 

make out what they were busy with. At first, 

he thought they were placing fire guards, as he’d heard 

they tended to do when the dry season approached. 

Without a second thought, Jim raced through the 

trees, screaming at the top stresses of his voice for 

them to stop. Stop desecrating the dead. Their bodies 

belonged in the ground. They listened, at least it 

seemed they did. A few of the men charged toward 

him, holding up their pulse weapons and shouting 

orders above his voice. Jim was the one who stopped. 

He watched in horror as a couple more bodies were 

thrown carelessly into the bonfires and the fans blew 

them hotter. Waves of radiating heat washed over his 

face. 

The surface-borns lowered their weapons as Jim 

retreated a few paces back, but they kept him under 

their gaze. Frantic, disgusted, and with a diving sense 

of hopelessness, he threw down his backpack and 

scrambled to get the folded shovel out. He couldn’t let 

them find his parents bodies first. Oh, the shame that 

would befall him! Jim dug, and dug, ignoring the 

growing ache in his back. It was a shallow grave but it 

had to do. There was no time. 

As he dragged the closest lost soldier, whose uniform 

was surprisingly still intact, to the hole, a group of 

surface-borns approached. He hurried, as fast as his old 

bones would let him, but it wasn’t enough. One of 

them rammed the stock of their gun into the back of 

his knee, the one he’d been having problems with since 

his fortieth birthday. Jim fell, chin-first, to the ground. 

Undergrowth poked into his ears. 

They dragged him by the arms away from the bodies 

and left him at the base of an old tree. Its roots had 

crawled out from the earth at one stage and now 

served as arm rests for Jim’s tired muscles. His vision 

was blotched and the world felt like it was titling. All he 

could have done was watch as they continued with this 

atrocity. He counted the bodies, reciting litanies for 

each so they’d have at least some proper respect 

before they were lost forever to the wind. Eighteen. 

Twenty-one. 

Then he’d lost count when his hearing cleared and he 

realised the surface-borns were chanting the same 

litanies he’d been saying. It wasn’t just station 

personnel they were cremating, either. Jim was 

entranced in their actions, by the flowing hymn of the 

burial rites and the relentless heat from the pyres. Jim 

studied the surface-borns then. Their attire, much like 

those on the station. As was their equipment and 

weapons. No doubt salvaged from the lost. 

But there was something else that caught his 

attention. On the few areas of exposed skin, festering 

welts seemed to throb, probably a mirage but 

nonetheless gruesome a sight. Sores and open circular 

wounds littered almost everyone. And it dawned on 

him, why the cremation, the desecration. How had he 

not thought of it before, considering he’d taken 

such pride in his ability to discover various perspectives 

(one of the skills that had led him to become an 

admiral in the first place). 

Plagues. 


Jim struggled to his feet, his head still swaying, and 

made his way toward the group. It was necessary, after 

all. Unlike on the station, where mass death was quickly 

handled through the airlocks, the surface was, well, 

grounded. No vacuum to conveniently 

discard undesired contagions into. Jim was so close to 

them that the unrelenting heat made him shed tears 

along with sweat. The surface-borns watched but 

didn’t stop him. 

He now saw the stone pillars, about knee-high, 

surrounding the pyres. Hundreds of names had been 

carved into them with new ones being engraved by 

several women as more bodies were hurled into the 

fires. 

As he studied these surface-borns, still lost in the 

trance, and likely with dehydration setting in, Jim 

noticed several of them wearing station uniforms. Their 

navy jackets with gold trimming were muddied and 

tattered but recognisable. He shook his head. Couldn’t 

fault them, he rationalised. Salvaging from the 

deceased was what everyone on the station did as well. 

A young woman, likely in her early twenties, 

approached him, holding out a canister. Her arms bore 

the scars of boils long since healed. Jim smiled as he 

took it. The water was cool and felt like it turned his 

tongue to ice. 

“Thank you,” he said as he handed it back to her. 

“If you drink, you help.” her words cut colder than the 

water and she fixed him with a snare. “There is 

equipment under that tree.” She pointed to the east 

where the pitch of night encroached. 

Jim fastened his uniform and wrapped a scarf around 

his neck to prevent anything accidentally getting onto 

his skin. He grabbed the legs of a nearby body. The 

surface-born holding the lost woman’s arms stared at 

Jim while they hoisted her into the pyre. Not once had 

he let Jim out of his sight. This was a burly man, at that. 

Tall and muscular with a short beard, scattered strands 

of white littering the black of it. 

When the sun neared the horizon and the light of the 

pyres made it difficult to find the bodies beyond the 

clearing, one of the older surface-borns called for the 

day’s end. The group, a sizeable horde of at least fifty 

men and women, started for the hill to the north. 

Jim returned to his backpack and pulled out the rolled 

up tent he’d packed. 

“Will you stay?” The same woman from before stood in 

front of Jim with her hands on her waist. She didn’t 

seem to be fond of him. 

“That’s the plan. Does it bother you?” 


“A bit.” She averted her gaze to the group now almost 

out of sight. 

“Why?” 

Jim sighed. He’d given this answer so many times 

already and was sick of the words. “I have a duty here.” 

The woman’s sudden and abrupt laugh startled Jim 

and he fumbled the tent’s poles. “You stationers and 

your missions and duty. What could possibly be your 

duty? The war is gone, only death lingers here.” 

“Death is why I’m here.” Jim ignored the poles and 

stood up. He was at least a head taller than her but that 

made no difference in her animosity toward him. He 

felt it as though he were still beside one of the pyres. 

~ “You stationers and your 

missions and duty. What 

could possibly be your duty? 

The war is gone, only death 

lingers here.”~ 

“A bit.” She averted her gaze to the group now almost 

out of sight. 

“Why?” 

Jim sighed. He’d given this answer so many times 

already and was sick of the words. “I have a duty here.” 

The woman’s sudden and abrupt laugh startled Jim 

and he fumbled the tent’s poles. “You stationers and 

your missions and duty. What could possibly be your 

duty? The war is gone, only death lingers here.” 

“Death is why I’m here.” Jim ignored the poles and 

stood up. He was at least a head taller than her but that 

made no difference in her animosity toward him. He 

felt it as though he were still beside one of the pyres. 

She sized him up for a while in silence before her 

shoulders relaxed and her arms hung at her sides. 

“Death was why I came in the first place.” As much as 

Jim wanted to ask what on earth she meant, he 

refrained, letting her decide when and if she’d explain. 

That fire in here eyes had been replaced with balls of 

lead. 

“When are you going back up there?” She nodded to 

the sky. 

“At this rate, perhaps never.” Jim scratched the stubble 

on his cheeks. It had grown quickly in the week since 

he’d last shaven. “I didn’t think there were so many 

who needed to be buried. Or, as I see now, cremated.”

“That’s your duty? To bury everyone here?” She brows 

were furrowed but there was a hint of amusement 

teasing the corner of her lips. “Who gave you that 

assignment?” 

“The Admiral himself. Personally.” He smirked to 

himself, a fleeting expression, but the woman had 

caught it. 

“What’s so funny about that?” Her hands were on her 

waist again. 

“Nothing.” 

She fixed him a look with one brow raised and her lips 

slightly pouting. “Well, whatever you did that landed 

you this punishment, keep it to yourself. Or better yet, 

get an appeal and go home. We have enough mouths 

to feed.” 

~ “That’s your duty? To bury 

everyone here?” She brows 

were furrowed but there 

was a hint of amusement 

teasing the corner of her lips. 

“Who gave you that 

assignment?”~ 

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to. And I don’t. I haven’t 

changed my mind about doing this. Besides, I made a 

promise to someone. She’d never forgive me for not 

trying to fulfil it.” 

“Some lucky lady you have at home, maybe you should 

return to her, lie that you did it. How will she know? 

And you will change your mind soon enough, I can 

guarantee that. Honour means nothing when you start 

getting sores on your skin.” 

One of the lost personnel. Presumed dead. Her family 

was one of the higher castes and they’d made a big 

deal about her ‘death’, plastering her hologram 

over every screen for a week in memorial. That was only 

a month before the end of the war. 

“My mind had already changed.” Jim took her hand in 

his. “This is more than a promise to one person, or some 

frail sense of duty.” He looked around at the silhouettes 

of arms and legs, weapons, and tattered clothes 

beating in the cool breeze blowing from the west. “I 

thought it was that at first, but after today, seeing all 

this, it’s necessary.” 

“I know...” her words were a whisper but they rang loud 

in his ears. “Don’t break your promise. Our people and 

theirs need you to not break your word.” Tears ran out 

from under the shadow, cleaning the ash from her 

cheeks. 

She turned to walk toward the hill. Jim grabbed her 

arm. “Wait, what’s your name?” 

“Sally. What’s yours, stationer?" 

“Jim, Admiral Jim Burke.” He shook her outstretched 

hand and couldn’t restrain the smile from creeping up 

his cheeks. 

Jim nodded and let her go, watching her until she 

disappeared into the night. She wasn’t wrong. But 

she’d missed one thing: if he didn’t do this, there’d be 

no end to the conflicts. It was technically peace-time, a 

conquered time. Technically. Any leader knew better 

than to fall into that false sense of security. What he 

hadn’t told her was that it was necessary to bury the 

dead, not because of the effects of their sheer 

numbers, but indeed for the sake of duty. His duty now 

was to prevent another war. The cemetery dome on the 

station had been filled enough and no child should 

have to look up at those grey skies. 

Her eyes were shrouded by her shadow and she stayed 

perfectly still. She must have seen men like Jim having 

tried this before, and they’d given up. All the while she 

continued despite the labour, heat, stench, and despite 

the plagues. He’d recognised her face the moment he 

saw her. Avescope | 44

Sacred Fire. The emperor’s name for the overwhelming 

will to win that burns inside his best marshals, but also, 

some say, a name for the death and destruction that 

spews forth from our artillery. As we march shoulder-toshoulder 

across a field outside the Saxon city of Leipzig, I 

am struck by the irony of the label. There’s nothing 

sacred about the rows of mangled Russian corpses we 

march through, stepping on recently alive boys as if they 

were nothing more than fallen, rotting trees in the 

forest. I can’t look at their eyes. Death himself stares out 

from each lifeless face, whispering that he’s coming for 

me. Sooner rather than later. 

I shouldn’t be here. Sixteen is too young. But the 

emperor had more wars to fight after he lost an entire 

army in Russia, so they started calling up younger and 

younger boys. Boys younger than me, even. Boys who 

should be back at home, helping out on the farm or 

tending the store. 

Some probably haven’t even been with a woman yet. I 

don’t fall into that category anymore, but I wish I still did. 

Then Sophie’s belly would stay flat and she’d be able to 

travel to Paris to visit her cousins. In the unlikely event 

that I make it back home there’ll be a little version of me 

running around, but I can’t think of that now. Instead, I 

try to stay alert in hopes of avoiding Monsieur Death. 

Not much hope for that, though. 

I wonder whether Father Joubert knew what he was 

talking about when he told us that unbelievers would 

rot in hell. Being an unbeliever myself, I can sense its 

gates swinging open to welcome me. 

A huge battery of Russian cannons, at least twenty, have 

settled into place and are aimed right at us. A puff of 

smoke, followed by a loud crack, billows forth from each 

gun every few minutes but they don’t seem to have 

found the range yet. Balls fly past well above our heads 

or plow up the soggy ground far to our front. 

Some of my imbecilic fellows are laughing at them and 

calling out, “Is that the best you can do?” I know better 

and can see the high balls coming down while the low 

balls to our front land closer and closer by the minute. 

Soon, the whoosh of the near misses over our heads 

becomes loud enough to drown out talking and the 

jeers cease. 

Boys begin falling. Sounds of battle — screams, yells, the 

rattle of musketry, and the loud report of artillery — 

drown out the sickening crunch of twelve-pound balls 

slamming into my colleagues’ flesh and bones, but they 

can’t cover up the horrified exclamations of the 

unfortunate. “My leg! I can’t stop the bleeding! Jesus, 

Jean’s head is gone!” Officers draw their swords and 

threaten to skewer anyone who leaves the battle 

line.What do they expect from a bunch of terrified 

fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds with only a couple weeks 

of training? 

Bravery. What a load of manure. This is our third day in 

this field, and it’s become abundantly clear that our side 

will lose the fight, and after that, the war. Given that all is 

lost,why shouldn’t we all just run away? Scatter to the 

four corners of the earth like dandelion seeds in a 

windstorm. 

I, for one, would hightail it for Venice and become a 

gondolier. Nobody would find me,and I’d live out the 

rest of my long life in peace. As far as I know, the 

Venetians don’t seem to go to war much, unlike France, 

which has been feeding its boys into Mars’ hungry maw 

for the last twenty years. Now, I’m on his plate and he’s 

about to wrap me around his fork like a noodle. 

“En avant!” Yells the colonel, a bantam cock of a man, 

and we resume our advance toward the Russian battery. 

As we get closer, the shot will decrease in size while 

increasing in number from twelve-pound ball to grape 

to cannister, which can take down a whole rank of boys 

with one discharge. Being in the front rank, I am more 

certain of my impending death than I’ve ever been of 

anything, even my mother’s love. 

~ Being an unbeliever myself, I 

can sense its gates swinging 

open to welcome me.~ 

After only a few more steps forward, one particular puff 

of smoke from the battery catches my eye, although I’m 

not sure why. Then I see it. The ball. It flies gracefully 

upwards from the muzzle, a dirty black dot bisecting a 

perfect, billowy white cloud. And I know. It’s my ball. 

As my ball traces its deadly arc from the gun’s muzzle to 

my head, memories erupt. These will be my last 

thoughts on this earth. But why the hell is Jacques as a 

puppy the very first one? I didn’t even like that dog. He’d 

bite you rather than lick you any day, although he was a 

cute and lovable puppy. 

And, I suppose, the Russian boy whose match lit the 

powder in the cannon that just fired my ball was 

probably a cute and lovable toddler too. In fact, if it were 

just him and me in this field together the ball he’d send 

at me would harmlessly bounce off the top of my head 

before I’d kick it back to him, laughing and loving the 

cool breeze carrying the quiet chirps of the birds and 

crickets. 

Instead, he’s sending me a ball that will pulverize my 

head, splattering brains and bits of skull all over my 

neighbors in the battle line. They will wipe the 

disgusting remnants of my memories off their faces. 

Later, the foul, gun smoke-infested wind will waft over 

my mangled corpse as the Russian boy prepares to put 

his match to the vent hole yet again, bringing death to 

another French boy. 


Mama cried when I left for the army. Pierre, my older brother, died in 

Austria four years ago fighting yet another of the emperor’s wars and 

she hasn’t been the same since. I wanted to cry when I left too, but 

Mama needed me not to. Even then, I knew I was doomed, but I told 

her I’d be back in no time because that’s what she wanted to hear. 

“If a cannon ball is coming at you dodge out of the way. Maybe you’ll 

be shamed but you’ll be alive.” Mama had a desperate, pleading, but 

ultimately fatalistic tone in her voice. 

That’ll never happen in this universe. Ducking out of the path of a 

cannon ball is considered the most cowardly single act you can 

perform on the battlefield. If you dodge the ball,it’ll just hit someone 

else. They’ll get your ball and that’s just not right. Even I — who 

wouldn’t bat an eye at running away if the officers magically 

disappeared — wouldn’t dream of denying my ball its opportunity to 

damage me beyond repair. 

The sting of Sophie’s slap at the end of our goodbye remains on my 

cheek, which will probably soon be torn violently away. “I hope you 

die, you pig!” She said as I walked away,head hanging from the guilt 

and shame I felt. Only sixteen herself, the pregnancy will destroy the 

poor girl’s life, and for what? A romp in the hayloft that lasted maybe 

a minute. 

I don’t blame Sophie for wishing me dead. But if, by some miracle, 

my ball isn’t really my ball and there aren’t any my balls out there 

waiting for me, I will pocket my discharge bonus then march straight 

back home and ask her to marry me. Big talk, I realize, for someone 

who’s about to draw his last breath. 

I miss Pierre. I’ll miss Mama. I’ll miss Sophie — even though she won’t 

miss me — but I can say for certain that I won’t miss Papa. In fact, 

what am I doing wasting my last few seconds of thinking on that 

bastard? For the millionth time in my life I rub the scars on my lower 

back as my face flushes with anger and embarrassment for taking all 

those years of abuse. Jacques only bit people because he was beaten 

so much. Papa died a crazy man, ravaged by syphilis. It was too kind 

of a death for such a monster. He should have had to die standing in 

a field watching a ball fly straight at his head. 

What will they say about us? An entire generation swallowed whole 

by the emperor’s insatiable hunger for war. Every family has lost at 

least one boy, some two, three, four, or more.I hope they feel sorry for 

me and my compatriots. Perhaps our example will make them think 

twice before embarking on any more costly martial adventures. 

Honestly, who even won the Thirty Years’ War anyway? I’m sure it 

doesn’t matter at all.Even if France loses this current war — which 

seems highly likely — what will it matter fifty years from now? There 

will still be a France, a French language, a French people, a French 

culture. It takes a lot more than losing a war to lose your identity. 

Look at Spain. The emperor ground its government and its people 

into the dirt with his boot and yet it still exists and will survive long 

after he rots. 


My time is almost up. The ball is big and getting bigger by the 

second as it focuses its last bit of flight on ensuring my demise. The 

gates of hell are opening slowly below me, and I hear the devil calling 

my name. Gritting my teeth, I screw my eyes shut and brace for

impact, which I trust will be instantaneously lethal, sparing me any 

extended suffering. 

And…it hits, tossing me backwards with its wave of destruction. 

But I should have been killed by the impact, not tossed to the side. 

I open my eyes and see my neighbor in the first rank, or what’s left of 

him anyway, lying in a heap. Poor Anton. He was seventeen with a 

wife and child to live for and now he’s just a pile of meat. I can’t even 

tell where the ball hit him. He seems to have been simply 

squashed,like a bug. 

Looking myself over, I see no major trauma. A few parts of me throb 

painfully and blood is dripping past my eye, but I’m relatively intact. 

My ball picked someone else!I’m alive! I’d thank god if I believed in 

him, but I don’t, so I’ll just have to thank the fates. 

Now, about that little matter of marrying Sophie. Why would she 

want to marry me?Didn’t she say she wished I would die? No, I’ll 

leave her be, it’s better for everyone involved.Travel to Venice, that’s 

what I’ll do. The life of a gondolier will be perfect for me. Lots of fresh 

air, beautiful women, delicious food, wine, and maybe even some 

decent money. If Monsieur Death came that close and didn’t take 

me, I think it’s safe to say that my time isn’t up, and I’ll survive this 

war. Yes, things are looking up for me. 

But what’s that? Something rigid and slippery has appeared on my 

back right next to my pack. 

When I reach around to feel it better a sharp pain shoots through my 

right lung all the way to the front of my chest.The other soldiers are 

looking at me as if I’m some sort of freak. Haven’t they seen 

countless wounded soldiers already? I can’t look that different. 

I give the slimy stick a sharp pull and it comes loose, immediately 

causing my chest to explode in pain. I try to take a deep breath, but 

my lungs allow in only a tiny fraction of what I need. What the hell is 

happening? I look at the stick and fall to the ground as shock and 

disbelief overtake me, followed shortly by despair. 

In my hand, formerly in my chest, one of Anton’s long bones sits, 

taunting me. Its jagged edges are now coated in a mixture of my 

blood and his. 

My breath comes only with great effort and I lay my head on the 

ground. Reaching behind me I feel my coat becoming soaked with 

blood, and my vision begins to narrow. It won’t be long now. At least 

there isn’t much pain. The shock must have taken care of that. 

I send my goodbyes to Mama and Sophie and hope they will miss 

me. My apologies also go out to Venice as I’ll no longer be able to 

help transport their citizens through its canals. 

As the light begins to fade, I see Monsieur Death walking toward me, 

smiling grimly. “You might as well come in.” I say as he makes 

himself comfortable inside my soon-to-be corpse, preparing for the 

long task of staring at other frightened boys through my sightless 

eyes. 


Mister Spider 

Scientist 

Christopher Antim 

I squished a spider with my pen. Just now as I was 

writing something else. I wonder what they would 

say of me—if any found out the murder I have 

committed. I also wonder about the spider: did he 

had friends? Children? A family? He might have 

had. They will have to cry tonight and tomorrow 

and for the rest of the week—for their father is no 

more. 

How long do you think a spider can hold a grudge? 

What if the answer is: for all eternity? 

Maybe the spiders will escape the coming heat and 

fire that has brewed for so long. Maybe they will 

grow and rise and rebuild. And maybe one day, 

long after you and I, they will return. 

Will Gnak-nic P’ahn, the lead scientist aboard the 

SWRS Fly Eater, leave his vehicle and set foot on 

the ruin of our dreams? I hope he will take a 

second to admire the dried up Pearl River Delta 

and the Fjords of Norway. I hope he will look upon 

the Great Pyramid and the charred steel spines of 

London. 

What will Mr. Spider Scientist say of our world? Our 

cracked egg still spinning in the void. Should he 

feel bad for us? —moths so brave and vain we 

dared believe we could stand the act of being. 

Should he feel good? —for the murderous 

barbarians that had waged bitter war upon his kin 

now lie dead, their children’s bones as crypts, their 

children’s dreams as tears. 

Should he feel anything? 

Mr. Spider Scientist would feel sad, I think. Not 

because we suffered—looking only inside myself I 

know we all deserved it—but because we left them 

alone. Alone. The Great Eight-Legged Empire and 

the Serene Web Republic and the Muscophage 

Tribes of Saturn are all great achievements, to be 

sure. Great feats of learning and monuments to 

work and tears and hope. But they are all of 

spiderkind. 

Each spider is another one of the same, every eight 

legs bear on them the same trouble and toil of 

them all. So many are the spiders of the universe, 

so many galaxies they rule, so many sunsets under 

their eyes - yet spiderkind is all alone. 

I am sure they will learn of us, of how we were, have 

been. We ate ourselves, we fought ourselves, 

enslaved and killed and raped and tortured. “Why?” 

some apprentice might ask Mr. Spider Scientist. 

“Mankind,” he might say, “feared the deep, lonely 

dark. They feared the reality of their own existence. 

Billions of monkeys living life like one. Were one.” 

“And unlike us,” Gnak-nic P’ahn would continue, 

“humankind reeled for another.” But Mr. Spider 

Scientist would know that existence does not work 

like that. Spiderkind would have tried it too. No 

matter how they live life, no matter how alien they 

try to make themselves, another one cannot be 

born. 

“Man is man. A single man. And spider is spider. A 

single spider.” 

I would like to think that he will feel the beginning 

of a tear forming in his eye as he eats a fly 

sandwich atop the ruin of New York. “It’s such a 

shame that only a few eons part us.” he might 

think. “Who knows how life could have been if 

humankind and spiderkind survived together?” 


Maybe the Great Spider War would have been 

avoided. Maybe Mr. Spider Scientist’s mother 

would not have perished in the Spider Rebellion of 

7563. Maybe his sons would have survived their 

sadness. 

“Humankind tried so hard to make another to 

itself.” Spiderkind knows it can’t. He would know, 

looking at a map of their stars—of all the trillions of 

spiders—that in them all there only lives one spider. 

The loneliness is there and Gnak-nic P’ahn would 

feel it in his bones. There is a reason all maps depict 

space as black. Because it is. Black and lonely and 

that which all living things fear since they invented 

the concept of life: that which lives no more. 

Gnak-nic P’ahn would surely know that for life, the 

ending of itself is the greatest source of loneliness. 

Where there was one, soon will be none. “Will it feel 

lonely there to be no one who feels alone?” Mr. 

Spider Scientist will surely ask himself. 

I wish I could tell him of the loneliness of 

humankind—of our peril as well as his own. Maybe 

talking is all he needs. I am here, Mr. Spider, alone 

as you are. Allow me to imagine the circumstances 

of our meeting, even if only for a second. 

For a heartbeat to look into your eyes. Maybe then, 

maybe for the first time in galactic history, or 

maybe for the n-th time, there would be two, not 

one. Two. And for that little space and time, there 

would be no loneliness. The darkness would 

subside for just enough to shed a tear. 

I know I will never meet you, Mr. Spider. And yes, 

sadly, you will not meet me either. My bones will 

not be worth your time. I killed your kin with my 

pen and I wonder what pen will befall the earth. I 

am glad you know, Gnak. And as your ship will 

push against the air, as you look on another barren 

world, I know you will have found what you were 

looking for. 

Yes, we suffered. Yes, we perished. We were so 

lonely. We felt it too, and we could not go past it. 

Maybe you will. The past holds not the answer. 

We were squishing spiders before we were 

squished. 


July 9, 2020 

05:02 

Sal Adin 

A serialized novel by 

LD Towers 

Chapter 4 

Marlena Leander sat quietly at the desk, reading a romance novel. It was a sweet story about youthful innocence and passion; almost creating a 

yearning for long-ago days when she was young. Almost. But she was driven by other passions now. Power. Influence. She glanced over at her 

husband, who lay sleeping on the couch nearby, with a half-empty glass of cognac on the table beside him. In sleep, he didn't look like he could 

be the most powerful man in the world. He looked more like a little boy. She got up, looking for a blanket to cover him with. Lately, Air Force One 

had felt more like home than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or Mereswell. They had spent so much time on the plane, and she was tired of it. But 

she never complained, she thought to herself as she pulled the blanket out of the bulkhead. It was one of the disadvantages of having power. 

And she needed the power. She basked in its glow, like a flower to the sun. It fed and preserved her. 

Gently Marlena covered her husband, careful not to wake him. Sometimes a small voice in the back of her mind asked her if it was worth it, 

everything she had given up. She and her husband no longer had a sexual relationship and hadn't in a long time. They no longer desired each 

other; he because she was no longer young and she was hurt by his philandering. But she could not begrudge him his pleasures. His affairs were 

short and unimportant. What was important was that they were still friends and good friends at that. They needed each other. They had the 

same ambitions. When one faltered, the other supported. Together they had made it to the top. It had been a long road. 

A lock of his hair had fallen across his forehead and she carefully swept it back. He sighed in his sleep but did not wake. Marlena smiled with an 

unaccustomed tenderness. He had been an earnest young man when she had met him, so many years ago. Jared had always known what he 

wanted. To be the president. In those years she had worshiped him without question. He had been so handsome. He still was. He had been loyal 

to her in his own way. Sex was a fleeting thing to him; an itch he scratched. But as she had grown up and he grew more unfaithful, she had 

consolidated her position in his life by mating with his ambition. Encouraging it, supporting it, and believing in what he could become. Never, 

ever complaining. 

Sometimes she wondered what would happen in three years, when his second term was up. He would be fifty-four. What would he do? What 

else was there for him? It was almost as if it had happened too fast. Marlena worried he would fade away. Then where would she be? What 

would become of them? She had suddenly developed a fear of the future, for there had never been a plan other than the White House. The day 

they were out might as well be the last day of her life. 

Marlena crossed back across the cabin and sat back down to her book. She glanced at her watch as she stifled a yawn. It was a few minutes after 

five in the morning. She wished she could sleep on planes, but that was not the case. She didn't know if it was the motion or the noise, but 

something made it an impossibility. 

There was a soft knock on the door, startling her out of her thoughts. She got up to open it. Gerald Ferrara, head of the President’s security and 

Agent Adrian Selmore stood at the door. Both looked quite haggard, but Marlena assumed it was due to the earliness of the hour. "Good 

morning, gentlemen. What can I do for you?" 

Ferrara was a stocky man, who was built like a bulldog. He had salt and pepper hair that flowed with little direction across his head. His dark skin 

and eyes showed his Hispanic heritage. He was dressed in a suit that looked a shade too small in the shoulders. His tie was crooked and seemed 

as if it had been hastily pulled up to his collar. Ferarra looked at her strangely, his eyes brimming with anger and what almost seemed to be pity. 

"We need to talk to POTUS.” 

"He's asleep. Is it important?" She hated to disturb Jared when he was sleeping. He needed his time away from the world and the demands of 

the presidency had aged him visibly. 

Selmore did not look at her, but kept his eyes fastened on her knees. "It's very important, Mrs. Leander." His voice was a tightly controlled 

whisper. 

She sighed and opened the door wider. She crossed the cabin and sat down on the edge of the couch. "Jared, duty calls." She gently stroked his 

cheek as he opened his famous blue eyes. 

"Doesn't it always? Good morning, beautiful!" He yawned and sat up. "Ferarra, Selmore, have a seat while I wake up. What time is it?" 

Ferarra answered. "Oh-five twelve, pacific standard time, Sir." 

"Christ!” The President yawned again. “Fuck ups just keep getting earlier and earlier." He shook his head as if to shake away the cobwebs. "Ah 

well, hit me." 

Ferarra opened a file folder. "I have some bad news, Sir. Just after four this morning an unknown force assaulted Mereswell. All agents are down 

and it is assumed that you were the target," he paused. 


Marlena felt a shard of ice-cold fear pierce her heart and she started to tremble, her mind numb. She listened unthinking as her husband 

muttered, "Good thing I wasn't there." She looked over at him; her ears roaring. Shocked; more terrified by something unknown in the edge of 

her conscious mind, something that screamed and screamed and screamed. 

The silence in the room was palpable, and Marlena didn't know if it had been seconds or hours when Selmore finally answered the obvious, "But 

your daughter was, Mr. President.” 

Silently her name filled the room without being said, and unbidden in Marlena's mind came the image of her daughter's broken body. She 

shook her head, trying to dispel the image. "No..." she breathed. Ysabeaux. She felt Jared's arm go around her and pull her close. Suddenly she 

could smell his sweat, his fear. The most powerful man in the world and she could smell his fear. 

Jared looked up. "Is she ..." He seemed unable to say the word. 

"We don't know, Sir. Her body- She has not been found yet, Sir." Ferarra answered. "The police responded after the four-thirty all-clear didn’t go 

through. All agents but one are confirmed dead. Agent Jon Harris is in surgery, in critical condition, but is not expected to last the night. All of 

the house staff have been murdered. Five bogeys were brought down." 

"Ysabeaux,” the President spoke again after a moment of silence. "Is she alive?" 

"Sir, we don't,” 

Marlena sprang to her feet, cutting him off. "Answer him!" she screamed, hysteria threatening to undo her. She had never felt such a loss of 

control and at the same time, a detached part of her didn't understand the feeling. She had never felt close to her daughter. Perhaps because it 

had been during her pregnancy that Jared's cheating had begun. She had silently blamed her daughter for the sins of her husband. When her 

daughter had tried to please her, Marlena pushed her away. And yet... Her hands twisted into claws. Her guilt tore through her like a knife, a 

million harsh words, forgotten opportunities, lost chances. Why could she not wake up? 

"We have to hope she is alive, but the evidence does not suggest that to be the case. The raid was more in the style of an execution-" Ferrara was 

cut off again as Marlena cried out and fell back to the couch sobbing. "I am sorry, but it’s the projected scenario at this point. The police are 

combing the area around Mereswell to find her. If her agents were able to give her enough time, she might have been able to escape to the 

woods." 

The President’s voice was a hollow whisper. "If it was your daughter, Ferarra, what would you believe?" 

"Sir, I don't want to answer the question." "One man to another, Ferarra. You are the expert on this sort of," he waved his hand around. "Business." 

"Well, Sir, if we don't find her body in the next few hours, then I would bet they took her. Chances are she is still alive. By virtue of the fact that we 

have not found her yet, it extends the theory she has been kidnapped. It would be too dangerous for them to carry her dead body around unless 

they had a particular place they wanted to deposit it. If she is dead, the assumed scenario is she escaped into the woods, they chased her, and," 

Jared finished for him. "They shot her. I follow. " He rubbed his lips with his fingers. "Oh dear God." His other hand rubbed his chest. "And if she is 

alive? I need to believe that she is alive." He turned, glancing at Selmore as his voice broke, "Or would it be better for her to be dead?" 

Marlena sobbed against him. "No!" 

"For god's Sake, 'Lena, I don't want her to be dead, But, I don't want to know what they could do to her if she is alive." 

Selmore answered slowly. "If they want a ransom, chances are they won’t hurt her." 

Marlena wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. "You don't know that." A sudden wellspring of maternal affection bubbled up from within her. 

"Oh, my baby! Please God, let her be alive." 

Jared wrapped his arms around her, "It's okay, Marlena. She will be okay. She's a tough girl." 

"If she's out there, Mrs. Leander, We will get her back," Ferarra promised with electric eyes. 

Grief turned into white-hot anger. "And how did they get her in the first place? You're the bloody secret service! You let my baby die!" 

Selmore got up and squatted before Marlena, taking her hands in his. "Mrs. Leander, look at me,” he paused until she stilled. "I know your 

daughter. I was with her since the beginning; Washington, Switzerland. She is smart. Ysabeaux is a smart girl. She will fight to stay alive." His 

strong, calm gaze pierced through Marlena's hysteria. I will get her back. I promise you. Mrs. Leander, you have to believe. She needs you to 

believe. I know she is alive." 

She was drowning in his eyes. There was hope there. A lifeline. "How? How do you know?" 

"Because she's not there. In my gut, I know. What does your gut tell you, Mrs. Leander?" 

Marlena felt his strength through his hands, felt his calm, and inhaled deeply. She wanted to pray to a God she had never really believed in for 

the preservation of her daughter. She tried to feel for Ysabeaux. She had heard of people who just knew when their children died, but Marlena 

had no feeling at all. Was it because she had never been close to Ysabeaux? Why did she not know? At this moment she would trade her life for 

that of her daughter's. 

Softly she whispered, "I don't know." And then, "Yes, yes. If there really is a God, Ysabeaux is alive. Do you believe in God, Agent Selmore?" 

"I try too, Ma'am. I am not the best, church-going Christian, but I do believe in God." 


Ferarra interrupted. "Sir," he asked the President, "What do you want to do now?" 

"Turn the plane around. Washington just became a lot less important. Who knows?” 

“The police. Our agents. Only the four of us on the plane. We thought of waking Magerson but he was indisposed.” Such a polite way of saying 

that the chief of staff was passed out in another cabin. 

“I understand. Thank you.” He stood up and asked the two agents to leave. 

Marlena watched Selmore leave and suddenly she felt the hysteria rise within her. She looked up her husband. He looked so old. So tired. "Oh 

God, Jared!" She threw herself into his embrace. 

"I know, Beautiful, I know." He caressed her hair, pushing her head gently against his shoulder. "Every person I have at my disposal will find the 

people who did this to us." 

Marlena pushed herself away from him. "Us? What about our daughter, Jared? She is the one who- Oh god, I don't even want to think it." 

"Then don't, Marlena." 

"I feel so guilty," she breathed at last. "I feel like I shot her myself. I feel like I squeezed the trigger, Jared. I wanted the presidency so badly and it's 

killed her." 

"It's strange, Marlena. When I was elected, and went through all of the briefings by the Secret Service, I fully understood that there would be 

people out there who would try to kill me. I knew the risks. I thought of Kennedy and Reagan. I remember thinking, if it happens it will have 

been one hell of a ride. I put it out of my mind, ready if it happened. Can't have this job without pissing somebody off. I never meant it to happen 

to either of you. I didn't think I was putting either of you at risk." 

“I feel like I did this!” 

"But you didn't do it, Marlena. I didn't do it. Some bastard with an axe to grind did it. And I am going to rip his head off," his voice broke. "There 

will be no one on this earth who will give sanctuary to him, I swear to you. I am going to put so much pressure on him, he going to wish he never 

heard of Jared Leander." 

She could feel him shaking with rage. "I feel so helpless." 

"I feel like nuking the bastard." She laughed, in spite of herself. "You could, too." As a mental image of thirty thousand cartoon missiles passed 

through her head. 

"Just pass me the big red button." He dropped his head and ground his teeth. "If only it were so easy. I will get him, Marlena. I promise you." 

"I believe you, Jared. I do." 

"But first, let's get back to Seattle." He reached his hand out to her and lead her from the room. As they walked out of the cabin Marlena could 

feel many eyes on her. She wondered how many people knew and she wondered how many people had heard her scream. For once what they 

were thinking didn't matter to her. What she looked like didn't matter to her. She followed her husband through the plane to the cockpit. 

Jared pushed his head through the door and said, "Turn this plane around, gentlemen, and please put the pedal to the boards. I need to get 

back home." 

The pilot nodded in his seat. "Yes, Mr. President. We are on our way." 

The plane began to bank around in a circle. Jared turned around, making his way back through the communication center. He stopped when 

he came to where Ferarra was listening to a headset. "Well?" he asked. 

"No sign of her yet, Mr. President. But we have more info." 

"I will take it in the conference room." They headed back down the plane. Marlena sat down and waited as people filed in. She was distressed 

because they were short-staffed on this flight; almost everyone had gone back to Washington from Colorado, sparing themselves the extra leg 

into Seattle. Ferarra and Selmore filed in, followed by Colonel Matt Bains, the President’s military attache, and Andrew Thompson, the deputy 

press secretary. 

"Be seated,” the President said quietly. 

"Sir, we are all very sorry," Bains replied as he sat down. Apparently, the circle of knowledge had widened. 

"I am going to make the bastard who did this a damn lot sorrier, Colonel." 

"We all are, Sir." 

"Sir, the directors of the Secret Service and the FBI are on their way to Seattle as we speak. They should arrive there about an hour after we do,” 

Ferrara spoke. 

"Good. What else?" 


"There were no signs of forced entry, Mr. President, and the alarms were not tampered with. Leads us to believe there was an inside person. Your 

housekeeper, Mrs. North was found murdered in her bed with her clothes on; chances are she was the inside player. We are investigating and 

there has been a lock-down of all air and seaports in the area,” Ferarra finished. 

Marlena shook her head. "Mrs. North? I don't believe it. She has been in our employ for years. Why would she betray us?" 

Selmore shrugged. "Who knows. Could be anything. Money, probably. That is the most powerful motivator. Given she was dressed in her bed, 

chances are she expected to be going with them." 

"Does the press know?" Jared asked. 

"They are being held outside the gates of the house. They know that something is up. They were investigating a large car accident nearby and 

followed the police to the house." 

Andrew Thompson answered in his deep voice. "We are picking up a live feed from CNN." 

"Put it on, please."Marlena begged. 

Thompson nodded and pushed a button on the table before him. A TV on the wall flickered to life. A woman's face appeared on the screen. 

"...just an hour ago. We know that the President and the First Lady were not in Seattle when it happened. Police have cordoned off the area and 

we do not exactly know what has happened. Several ambulances have arrived, but only one has left. Our sources at Virginia Mayo Hospital have 

informed us a Secret Service agent was in that ambulance and he is fighting for his life in surgery as we speak. 

"Police with dog teams have been arriving steadily, and I can hear distant barking in the forests around Mereswell. Evidence which leads this 

reporter to believe that the police and the FBI are searching for the perpetrators of this crime." The reporter stopped speaking as she was 

handed something. 

"We have just heard Boeing field is being readied for a secure plane landing. We know that Air Force One took off from Joint Base Lewis– 

McChord at Two-fifteen this morning. Could the presidential plane be coming back to Seattle? 

"We have also just heard that all airports and seaports are being shut down by order of the FBI. What happened at the Western White House 

earlier this morning?" 

As she finished, Jared muted the set. "How can they always know so much so quickly?" He rubbed his forehead with his hands. 

"Because, Mr. President, their sources are almost as good as ours,” Thompson muttered. 

"We will have things set up so you can make a press statement when you arrive in Seattle." 

"I want to go to Mereswell." 

Ferarra steepled his hands. "We can't allow that, Sir. The area is not secure." 

The President jumped to his feet and thrust a finger in Ferarra's direction. "Then you make it secure, by God, or you’re fired." 

Selmore turned his gaze toward the President. "It is not that easy, Mr. President,” he soothed. "There could still be terrorists in the woods." 

"I don't give a damn, Agent Selmore. Do you hear me? I don't care! It is my home and my daughter. I will go there, so if it isn't secure, you better 

damn well make it secure. That is a direct order." 

Marlena stood up and put her arms around her husband. "They are doing their best, Jared. They will arrange things for us. I am sure everything 

will be ready for you when you arrive." 

Ferarra nodded. "We will all do our best. If you will excuse us, Sir, we will get right on it." 

Jared sat back down. "Yes. Get out. Please." And the three men left the room. "Marlena. She's dead." He clenched his jaws together so hard his 

head was shaking. 

"Don't talk that way." 

"No matter what we do. If she isn't dead now, she will be. They will kill her if we get too close. Either way, we've signed her death warrant,” his 

voice was a bitter snarl. 

"No, Jared, please. Don't do this." He turned on her. "Face the facts. We will never see her alive again. The Secret Service will bring us back a 

corpse." Despair was written all over his face. 

Marlena covered her ears. "Shut up! She is alive!" She collapsed onto the table sobbing. "She is alive." 


who put bella in the wych elm? 

Joanna Hatton

Dance of Death 

Joanna Hatton

Avescope Memento Mori

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