Mallory Daniels had died with a broken heart. She had never reclaimed the joy which she had experienced in her twenties. Forty years earlier she had been a happily married young woman who relished her role as a wife and also had aspirations of one day becoming a mother.
Mallory’s husband, Scott, was a coal miner. It was a dirty, dangerous job that did not pay all that well. She had urged her husband to do something else for a living, but he was a proud and stubborn man who wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father. There was no way that she could sway him so she just decided that she would deal with it.
Scott and Mallory were very much in love. They were high school sweethearts and had never dated anyone else. There was a special spark when their eyes met or when they touched each other. People could not help but notice how in love that they were.
One day while Mallory was busy hanging laundry on the clothesline in back of the couple’s trailer home, the phone rang. Normally she would have just let it ring and finished with her chore, but on that afternoon she had a feeling that she needed to answer the call. She left her basket of wet laundry and headed in.
“Hello?” she said into the old rotary dial phone.
“Hello, Mrs. Daniels. This is Tom Fordiss, down at the mine. There’s been an accident and five miners are trapped. Scott is one of them…..you might want to get down here.”
Mallory dropped the phone, grabbed her keys off of the table, and sped off to the Cahill Mine. She left in such a hurry that she never locked the house or even shut the front door for that matter. All that she cared about was Scott.
The mine was a madhouse. There were news crews and family members milling about, along with tons of volunteer and rescue workers. She was told that there had been an explosion and that five miners were not accounted for. They had been at the deepest part of the excavation and were trapped very far beneath the surface. If they were still alive, rescuers would only have a very small window of opportunity to save them.
As days went by, Mallory watched that window get smaller and smaller and then finally saw it slam shut. It was determined that the mine shaft was too unstable to attempt a rescue and that the men could have not survived such a lengthy interment in the bowels of the coal laden earth. The five workers were declared dead.
Mallory went into a severe state of depression. The love of her life was gone. She was all alone.
The Cahill Mining company continued to operate, but that section was closed down. A memorial marker was put up and the area was considered to be a grave site, as well as a tribute to all of the other workers who had perished in the coal mines. Mallory spent many days at the memorial, showering it with her lonely tears. It would be years before she would move on with her life.
The years did pass, and so did her twenties. As Mallory headed toward middle age, she began to feel the need to raise a child. She did not want a husband. She could never find anyone to take the place of Scott. She just wanted to be a mother.
Mallory began a pattern where she would go on a couple of dates with a man, have sex and then not call him again. Her reasoning was that if she dated enough men and then got pregnant, then no one would know who the father was and be able to lay claim to the child. It gave her a reputation as the area slut, but it also gave her exactly what she had yearned for. A perfect little child. A beautiful daughter.
Mallory raised her daughter as a single mother. She worked two jobs to make ends meet and relied heavily on babysitters to watch little Emily. It was a tough life, but she was proud of herself and knew that Scott would have approved of her ability as a mother.
As Emily grew up, Mallory filled her head with stories about how she had lost her one true love, and eventually took her daughter to the miner’s memorial. Emily hated to hear her mother tell her these stories because of the sorrow with which they were told. Mallory was a good provider, but never had a positive outlook on life. Everything to her was either not good or a waste of time, and boys were just guys who died on you and ruined your life. Emily never developed any close relationships or really even dated much as she grew up. It was tough on her to go her entire life without seeing her mother smile or laugh. She always pitied Mallory.
In early 2009, Mallory passed away form heart failure. She was 66. Friends and family knew that her death was really just the end result of a broken heart. Everyone who knew the situation of the Cahill Mine disaster understood her lifetime of sorrow.
Emily Buried her mother at the Shady Elm Cemetery on a cloudy, misty day. Only a few people had come to the actual burial. One of them being her husband.
She had overcome her mother’s years of negativity and had finally broken out of her cold shell. She had gotten married and was expecting a child. Emily was heartbroken that her mother would never get to see her grandchild. She thought that maybe it would have brought her a few years of happiness, but it was never meant to be.
In April 2010, the Cahill Mining company contacted the relatives of the five miners and asked permission to exhume the remains and return them to the families. It was not out of the goodness of their hearts that they did this, but instead it was because of greed. The closed down section was rich in coal deposits and the company needed to access it. Greedy or not, four of the five families wanted the remains of their relatives.
Emily had been contacted by the mining company for her permission to exhume Scott Daniels. She was not his blood relative, but her mother was Scott’s wife and he had no other living relatives. Emily knew what she had to do.
In June of 2010, Emily, her husband, and her one month old son looked on as a casket was lowered into the ground right next to Mallory’s resting place. The headstone had been changed and now bore both of the names of Scott and Mallory Daniels, with the inscription: Two souls bound together forever .
The sky was blue and the weather was perfect as the birds sang melodic songs in the nearby tree. Emily looked up at a billowing cloud and swore that it was smiling back at her. She knew that her mother was now happy and it warmed her heart. She smiled at her own husband and gazed down upon her son who she cradled in her arms. She gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“You ready to go take a nap, Scotty?” she asked the baby with a smile on her face.
All was right in her world, now.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
CSN Stores $80.00 Dollar giveaway! (Seriously Folks!)
So the other day I went in the kitchen to cook a little dinner and came across a cabinet full of ants.
Now any rational guy would have just cleaned everything out, sprayed bug killer, and then put everything back. Not me! I began throwing pots and pans out because they were old and scratched up and I never used them. I figured that I would just get some new ones. Then I remembered an email from CSN Stores with a link to 
.....But then I thought about you good people. People who have been with me for a long time and have read all of my crazy stories for the last year and a half.
I decided that I would not get anything for myself. I decided that I would give away an $80.00 dollar credit to CSN Stores instead!
All that you have to do is leave one comment telling what you would buy with your eighty dollars! Just one comment.
I will be jealous because I don't get a thing for doing this! I look out for my people!
(And no, I am not joking! LOL)
This giveaway will end on Sunday, August 1st at 8 pm.
Now any rational guy would have just cleaned everything out, sprayed bug killer, and then put everything back. Not me! I began throwing pots and pans out because they were old and scratched up and I never used them. I figured that I would just get some new ones. Then I remembered an email from CSN Stores with a link to 
.....But then I thought about you good people. People who have been with me for a long time and have read all of my crazy stories for the last year and a half.I decided that I would not get anything for myself. I decided that I would give away an $80.00 dollar credit to CSN Stores instead!
All that you have to do is leave one comment telling what you would buy with your eighty dollars! Just one comment.
I will be jealous because I don't get a thing for doing this! I look out for my people!
(And no, I am not joking! LOL)
This giveaway will end on Sunday, August 1st at 8 pm.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
I Hate Meme week Day One (MONO WORD MONDAY)
Friday, July 23, 2010
4/20 The attack
It was a dark day. There were ominous clouds which blocked the sun’s illuminating rays and cast dismal shadows over our once peaceful country. It was a dreary time to be alive, especially when most of my family lay dying.
My relatives had lived in the same area their entire lives. They taught their children good values and raised them in a manner which was consistent with how they were brought up. Why anyone would attack our peaceful community was beyond our wildest dreams. But sometimes bad dreams become a reality and this reality was devastating.
We wondered if it was terrorism, or if someone really had declared war upon us. Bombs had been dropped and explosions changed the landscape. We were all very frightened.
My mother told us to run away and not to look back until we had cleared the war zone. The other parents had instructed their children to do the same, but some of us did not want to leave our homes without any guidance. We decided to stay and see if we could help.
Most of the adults tried to save those who were injured or lost. The only problem was that in doing so, they were becoming sick. There was some sort of toxin in the bombs which was killing them.
I watched as my father dragged his friend out of the darkness and tried to help him breathe again, but it was too late. I watched as my mother began to gasp for air and my father again failed in his efforts to save someone. I saw my mother suffocate. It was the worst time of my life.
The worst moment of my life was soon followed by an equally disturbing moment. My father had breathed in the toxin and was having convulsions. I knew that he did not stand a chance. None of the adults were fairing any better. It was basically just a matter of time before us children would be all who remained.
I decided that I had to step up and be a decision maker. I organized the remaining group and told them that we needed to stick together and flee as our parents had told us to do. I told them that maybe one day we could organize ourselves and come back to fight the people who had taken away our way of life. The group responded and accepted me as their leader. It was time to make some tough decisions.
No matter how bad things had become, there was still an urge to stay. It was our home and a part of me wanted to stay and fight for it. In my heart, though, I knew that it was a mistake to remain. We would end up dead just like our parents.
The final decision had been left up to me and I decided that it was time to leave. I gathered the group and we said a prayer for our fallen relatives. Once that was completed, my friends and I took one last look at our desecrated home and then began upon our journey.
We all surfaced and took a deep breath. I decided that we should swim in the current that would take us up the coast. Maybe those dark pulsating globs would not follow us. Maybe the men who had attacked us with the strange toxin would let us go. Maybe there was somewhere else to live where our community would not be destroyed by a bomb from below. A bomb that shot big blobs of death into our atmosphere twenty four hours a day.
With a sharp thrust of my fin I headed toward the clean water. It was ocean where the sun still shone through and where the crabs and fish were still plentiful. We swam for days and found a perfect spot. It was an area where the people floated along side of us in pleasure crafts and we all shared the same space.
We made a new life for ourselves but always wondered what had become of our old home. We would have to live the rest of our days with the nightmare images of birds and fish and even our own species covered with the deadly toxin. One day us dolphins will return there, but until then the image of my mother and father sinking into the oily darkness will forever haunt me.
My relatives had lived in the same area their entire lives. They taught their children good values and raised them in a manner which was consistent with how they were brought up. Why anyone would attack our peaceful community was beyond our wildest dreams. But sometimes bad dreams become a reality and this reality was devastating.
We wondered if it was terrorism, or if someone really had declared war upon us. Bombs had been dropped and explosions changed the landscape. We were all very frightened.
My mother told us to run away and not to look back until we had cleared the war zone. The other parents had instructed their children to do the same, but some of us did not want to leave our homes without any guidance. We decided to stay and see if we could help.
Most of the adults tried to save those who were injured or lost. The only problem was that in doing so, they were becoming sick. There was some sort of toxin in the bombs which was killing them.
I watched as my father dragged his friend out of the darkness and tried to help him breathe again, but it was too late. I watched as my mother began to gasp for air and my father again failed in his efforts to save someone. I saw my mother suffocate. It was the worst time of my life.
The worst moment of my life was soon followed by an equally disturbing moment. My father had breathed in the toxin and was having convulsions. I knew that he did not stand a chance. None of the adults were fairing any better. It was basically just a matter of time before us children would be all who remained.
I decided that I had to step up and be a decision maker. I organized the remaining group and told them that we needed to stick together and flee as our parents had told us to do. I told them that maybe one day we could organize ourselves and come back to fight the people who had taken away our way of life. The group responded and accepted me as their leader. It was time to make some tough decisions.
No matter how bad things had become, there was still an urge to stay. It was our home and a part of me wanted to stay and fight for it. In my heart, though, I knew that it was a mistake to remain. We would end up dead just like our parents.
The final decision had been left up to me and I decided that it was time to leave. I gathered the group and we said a prayer for our fallen relatives. Once that was completed, my friends and I took one last look at our desecrated home and then began upon our journey.
We all surfaced and took a deep breath. I decided that we should swim in the current that would take us up the coast. Maybe those dark pulsating globs would not follow us. Maybe the men who had attacked us with the strange toxin would let us go. Maybe there was somewhere else to live where our community would not be destroyed by a bomb from below. A bomb that shot big blobs of death into our atmosphere twenty four hours a day.
With a sharp thrust of my fin I headed toward the clean water. It was ocean where the sun still shone through and where the crabs and fish were still plentiful. We swam for days and found a perfect spot. It was an area where the people floated along side of us in pleasure crafts and we all shared the same space.
We made a new life for ourselves but always wondered what had become of our old home. We would have to live the rest of our days with the nightmare images of birds and fish and even our own species covered with the deadly toxin. One day us dolphins will return there, but until then the image of my mother and father sinking into the oily darkness will forever haunt me.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
What a difference a year makes!
Never let it be said that I am not moody at times!
LOL! Didn't mean to scare you!!Monday, July 19, 2010
Shadow of the morning Star ( an oldie from the Otin vault! LMAO!)
WARNING: NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH
John awoke in a dark room to an odor that smelled like a combination of mold and rotting trash. As his eyes adjusted, the darkness gave way to shadows that danced across his field of vision. He was still dazed and could not get his bearings, but ever so slowly, he began to regain the ability to think clearly. He tried to move but soon realized that his arms and legs had been restrained, pulled tight in four different directions. He was not on a bed. It felt more like a table or even a work bench of some sort. John finally regained all of his faculties and began to think clearly about the earlier part of the day.
He had left town in the mid morning hours to meet a blogging friend who called herself “Morning star”. Morning Star was John’s first real blog friend. They had been corresponding for over a year, and both seemed to have a lot in common. The two had become very close and often commiserated about each others domestic problems. John lived about four hours from interstate 95, in a little rural southern town, and Morning Star was from New Hampshire.
When Morning Star announced that she was taking a road trip to Florida, the two friends set up a meeting. John would just have to drive about 4 hours on some back roads to get to the truck stop at exit 118.
When the day of the meeting arrived, John enthusiastically set out to meet his friend. The drive started out uneventful. He took his time because he did not have to meet Morning Star until six that evening. John stopped at some country stores and later at a little mall located in one of the only towns that he had passed through on the entire journey.
It was about 4:30 and the sun was starting to lean toward the west, causing the tall pines that lined the road to cast dark shadows over the pavement. It was in these shadows that John spotted a pick up truck off to the side of the road. The driver's door was open and a man was sprawled out face first on the grassy shoulder. He was obviously in need of medical attention. John tried dialing 911, but found that he was out of range of any cell phone service area. He also had not passed another vehicle since the last little town which he had gone through and that was more than 20 miles behind him.
Having no other options, he pulled over and approached the man. John deduced that the man had obviously been struck on the head with something. There was a large bloodied area on the back of his scalp. He bent over to check for a pulse and that is when John felt someone grab him and put a cloth over his mouth and nose. That was all he could remember about the early part of his day. Now he had to concentrate on his current and frightening reality.
He looked around and saw a door. John could tell that it led to another room because there was a light on behind it. The dancing shadows that he had seen when he first came out of his induced slumber originated from two small windows near the ceiling. Bushes rustling in the wind had been caught by the moonlight, creating a demonic looking puppet show on the walls. John now knew that he was in a basement. It was some sort of modern dungeon.
A door opened and light flooded the room. John got his first real glimpse of his surroundings. The place looked like a butcher shop, one that had never been cleaned. There were saws, knives, cleavers, and two large axes, along with various other clipping and snipping tools.
A man now entered the room, he was very tall and was wearing what appeared to be a Shrek Halloween mask. It almost looked laughable, but the blood stains on his white tee shirt told a different story, one that John was not ready to listen to. He had been gagged so tight that after a few attempts at screaming, he just gave up. He knew that there was no way for him to change the outcome of whatever was going to happen.
The man in the mask opened a case and produced numerous syringes. He gave John a multitude of shots. The first one caused pain like he had never felt before, while the others that followed hurt less and less. He was trying not to cry, but began blinding himself with tears. He could not scream no matter how hard he tried.
Strange sensations began to take place. His extremities at first tingled, but were now immobile and numb. He could not even pull at his restraints. John was completely paralyzed. It was at this moment that the Shrek man untied him. He had been stripped naked but had not even realized it until the moment that his shackles had been removed. John could not move a muscle but never gave up trying to lift his arms and legs.
The big man reached under John and flipped him onto his stomach. He then pushed him forward on the table until his eyes overhung the edge, allowing John to see the floor below. Rats ran across his field of vision as if they were domesticated house pets. There was dried blood, hair, and small bones scattered about on the floor. He was on the verge of passing out when the Shrek man spoke.
“I am going to remove the gag. If you scream, I will kill you”!
John had no choice but to comply. The ogre removed the gag.
John had no idea what was happening. All that he could do was listen to sounds that were being made and try to guess. He heard the sound of knives being sharpened. It was after that, that John felt pressure on his right hand but could not feel any pain. Then he heard what sounded like a torch being lit, followed by an odor that smelled similar to liver frying. He did feel something. Maybe it was pain? He cringed.
Looking down at the floor, a bowl was pushed in front of his field of vision. It was a bowl containing five human fingers. The school ring on one of the fingers told him that the severed digits were his own. The fingers of his right hand had been removed and placed in front of him so that she could watch the rats dine on his own flesh. The rodents invaded the bowl and John vomited heavily. He coated the rats with the remains of his lunch, as they continued to fight over the fresh morsels.
The rats picked the bowl clean and it was now empty . John was hysterical and blubbering. He could not have screamed if he wanted to. He felt something slide under him, and then he was once again facing the ceiling. John tried to get a glimpse at his hand, but could not lift his head or arms. Obviously the monster had cut off his fingers and used a torch to cauterize his wounds.
John tried to spit at him, but he could not muster the strength to get the saliva away from his own mouth. He knew that he was not going to make it. The Shrek man gagged him once again, gave him more injections, and left the room. John just whimpered.
About an hour later, the door opened once again and the man in the shrek mask returned. This time he led a woman into the room. She had a sack over her head and her dress was bloodstained. He guided the woman to the table, and pulled off her mask. Oh My God! It was Morning Star! He had gotten her also.
Morning Star looked shocked.
"John!!!!" she screamed.
Morning Star turned quickly, ripping the Shrek mask off of the big man and hit him with a hard blow.
“You Mother Fucker”! She screamed, “This one was mine! I told you not to touch him. It was my fucking turn to operate! This is my big surprise”?
John now recognized the Shrek man. It was Morning Star’s husband, Dogstar, who according to her posts, was a surgeon.
Morning Star turned to John and smiled.
“John, Sweetie. It's hard to imagine that this whole year we only lived 100 miles apart. You are far to trusting.”
John could do nothing but sob in disbelief. Morning Star picked up a large cleaver and kept talking.
“I have been working on my next post about how you stood me up at the truck stop. I think that you are going to lose some followers over this!”
The Cleaver came sweeping down, and John’s future disappeared into the shadows of the rat infested basement.
Can you ever really trust just anyone?
John awoke in a dark room to an odor that smelled like a combination of mold and rotting trash. As his eyes adjusted, the darkness gave way to shadows that danced across his field of vision. He was still dazed and could not get his bearings, but ever so slowly, he began to regain the ability to think clearly. He tried to move but soon realized that his arms and legs had been restrained, pulled tight in four different directions. He was not on a bed. It felt more like a table or even a work bench of some sort. John finally regained all of his faculties and began to think clearly about the earlier part of the day.
He had left town in the mid morning hours to meet a blogging friend who called herself “Morning star”. Morning Star was John’s first real blog friend. They had been corresponding for over a year, and both seemed to have a lot in common. The two had become very close and often commiserated about each others domestic problems. John lived about four hours from interstate 95, in a little rural southern town, and Morning Star was from New Hampshire.
When Morning Star announced that she was taking a road trip to Florida, the two friends set up a meeting. John would just have to drive about 4 hours on some back roads to get to the truck stop at exit 118.
When the day of the meeting arrived, John enthusiastically set out to meet his friend. The drive started out uneventful. He took his time because he did not have to meet Morning Star until six that evening. John stopped at some country stores and later at a little mall located in one of the only towns that he had passed through on the entire journey.
It was about 4:30 and the sun was starting to lean toward the west, causing the tall pines that lined the road to cast dark shadows over the pavement. It was in these shadows that John spotted a pick up truck off to the side of the road. The driver's door was open and a man was sprawled out face first on the grassy shoulder. He was obviously in need of medical attention. John tried dialing 911, but found that he was out of range of any cell phone service area. He also had not passed another vehicle since the last little town which he had gone through and that was more than 20 miles behind him.
Having no other options, he pulled over and approached the man. John deduced that the man had obviously been struck on the head with something. There was a large bloodied area on the back of his scalp. He bent over to check for a pulse and that is when John felt someone grab him and put a cloth over his mouth and nose. That was all he could remember about the early part of his day. Now he had to concentrate on his current and frightening reality.
He looked around and saw a door. John could tell that it led to another room because there was a light on behind it. The dancing shadows that he had seen when he first came out of his induced slumber originated from two small windows near the ceiling. Bushes rustling in the wind had been caught by the moonlight, creating a demonic looking puppet show on the walls. John now knew that he was in a basement. It was some sort of modern dungeon.
A door opened and light flooded the room. John got his first real glimpse of his surroundings. The place looked like a butcher shop, one that had never been cleaned. There were saws, knives, cleavers, and two large axes, along with various other clipping and snipping tools.
A man now entered the room, he was very tall and was wearing what appeared to be a Shrek Halloween mask. It almost looked laughable, but the blood stains on his white tee shirt told a different story, one that John was not ready to listen to. He had been gagged so tight that after a few attempts at screaming, he just gave up. He knew that there was no way for him to change the outcome of whatever was going to happen.
The man in the mask opened a case and produced numerous syringes. He gave John a multitude of shots. The first one caused pain like he had never felt before, while the others that followed hurt less and less. He was trying not to cry, but began blinding himself with tears. He could not scream no matter how hard he tried.
Strange sensations began to take place. His extremities at first tingled, but were now immobile and numb. He could not even pull at his restraints. John was completely paralyzed. It was at this moment that the Shrek man untied him. He had been stripped naked but had not even realized it until the moment that his shackles had been removed. John could not move a muscle but never gave up trying to lift his arms and legs.
The big man reached under John and flipped him onto his stomach. He then pushed him forward on the table until his eyes overhung the edge, allowing John to see the floor below. Rats ran across his field of vision as if they were domesticated house pets. There was dried blood, hair, and small bones scattered about on the floor. He was on the verge of passing out when the Shrek man spoke.
“I am going to remove the gag. If you scream, I will kill you”!
John had no choice but to comply. The ogre removed the gag.
John had no idea what was happening. All that he could do was listen to sounds that were being made and try to guess. He heard the sound of knives being sharpened. It was after that, that John felt pressure on his right hand but could not feel any pain. Then he heard what sounded like a torch being lit, followed by an odor that smelled similar to liver frying. He did feel something. Maybe it was pain? He cringed.
Looking down at the floor, a bowl was pushed in front of his field of vision. It was a bowl containing five human fingers. The school ring on one of the fingers told him that the severed digits were his own. The fingers of his right hand had been removed and placed in front of him so that she could watch the rats dine on his own flesh. The rodents invaded the bowl and John vomited heavily. He coated the rats with the remains of his lunch, as they continued to fight over the fresh morsels.
The rats picked the bowl clean and it was now empty . John was hysterical and blubbering. He could not have screamed if he wanted to. He felt something slide under him, and then he was once again facing the ceiling. John tried to get a glimpse at his hand, but could not lift his head or arms. Obviously the monster had cut off his fingers and used a torch to cauterize his wounds.
John tried to spit at him, but he could not muster the strength to get the saliva away from his own mouth. He knew that he was not going to make it. The Shrek man gagged him once again, gave him more injections, and left the room. John just whimpered.
About an hour later, the door opened once again and the man in the shrek mask returned. This time he led a woman into the room. She had a sack over her head and her dress was bloodstained. He guided the woman to the table, and pulled off her mask. Oh My God! It was Morning Star! He had gotten her also.
Morning Star looked shocked.
"John!!!!" she screamed.
Morning Star turned quickly, ripping the Shrek mask off of the big man and hit him with a hard blow.
“You Mother Fucker”! She screamed, “This one was mine! I told you not to touch him. It was my fucking turn to operate! This is my big surprise”?
John now recognized the Shrek man. It was Morning Star’s husband, Dogstar, who according to her posts, was a surgeon.
Morning Star turned to John and smiled.
“John, Sweetie. It's hard to imagine that this whole year we only lived 100 miles apart. You are far to trusting.”
John could do nothing but sob in disbelief. Morning Star picked up a large cleaver and kept talking.
“I have been working on my next post about how you stood me up at the truck stop. I think that you are going to lose some followers over this!”
The Cleaver came sweeping down, and John’s future disappeared into the shadows of the rat infested basement.
Can you ever really trust just anyone?
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Sunday 160 (LAME)
These word limiting memes are totally dumb and have not one ounce of creativity.
They are just a vehicle to get a quick comment total.
Blogging can be so lame!!
They are just a vehicle to get a quick comment total.
Blogging can be so lame!!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Brotin Tales ( Loose Ends; All tied up)
This is part 2 to a 2 part story. Just so you don't get lost, jump on over to Brian Miller's and read Part 1 first! Don't cheat! LOL!
It was never supposed to be this way…… Rob thought, as he put his cigar to his mouth and sucked in a mouthful of smoke. He had made plans before that had gone awry, but nothing like this. This was not the same woman whom he had met a few weeks earlier. He had no idea who she was.
Rob Caprisi was a two bit hood who hung out with mob types in the bars of New York City. He was not well connected but had a reputation for being good muscle. When the mafia needed an extra man for a heist or burglary, they sometimes would throw Rob a bone. He had always wanted to be known as one of the crew, but never quite made it to that level He never made any big scores, but did well enough to wear Armani suits and wine and dine at fine restaurants. He was a considered to be a trusted man. He had to be, otherwise he would have been a dead man.
A few weeks earlier, Rob had been sitting at the bar in Sully’s Tavern when a striking blonde sat down next to him.
“Can I buy you a drink?” She asked him just seconds after sitting.
Rob smiled. It seemed that he was not going to have to work too hard to get himself a piece of ass on this day.
“How about I buy you one, Baby?” He responded.
“Mr. Caprisi, I need your help, and could make you a very rich man. I have a proposition for you.”
Rob was all ears. The only thing that excited him more than looking at this woman’s fine body was the thought of being a rich man.
“Whoa, Lady! First of all, how do you know me?”
“I checked around and everyone says that you would be the guy to help me.”
“Who did you see?”
“Well lets just say that I know how Jimmy Hot Rod got his knick name.”
Rob pulled out his cell phone and after searching through his speed dials, he found Jimmy’s number. He dialed and Jimmy answered.
“Jimmy, This is Rob. I got some blonde chick here who says you sent her to me. You know about her?”
“Yea, I fucked her! She’s damn good, Rob, you ought to tap that yourself!”
“ I don’t have time to think about that at this second. She said that she needs my help. What with?”
“Oh, that kidnapping shit. You need to ask her. It was way more than I could handle. You can trust her, though. I know she ain’t no FBI. I don’t think that blow jobs are in their job description and besides, I went through her purse. It could make you rich if you could pull it off.”
Rob trusted Jimmy’s opinion and now was interested in what the woman had to say. They decided to go sit at a booth and then she told him her situation.
“My father is a very wealthy man. He is worth nearly a billion dollars. Have you heard of Frank Boyer?”
“Nope, can’t say I have,” Rob answered.
“Well, most people haven’t. He is not a Trump type who likes the spotlight and wants to be a celebrity. He is very low key. I am his daughter, Tricia. My dad has put money aside for me when he dies, but he is only sixty six and is healthy as a horse. I really have very little money. He actually thinks that I should work. Do you believe that?! I love my Dad and wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, but I also don’t want to work when he’s sitting out in the Hamptons with a billion dollars.”
“Okay”, Rob nodded. “I got you so far. You don’t want your Dad bumped off, so you want to try some kinda kidnap thing?”
“Exactly! I want to create a situation where I am supposed to go on a vacation to somewhere like Mexico. That is where you come in. I need you to set something up where you could take me from there and hold me prisoner. You could tie me up and video tape me and then send a ransom to my father. He would pay anything to keep me safe. I would leave all the details up to you as far as the money went. Like if we should get US currency or foreign currency. I would split the ransom with you. I think Dad would go 50 million in a heartbeat!”
Rob’s jaw about hit the floor. Fifty million meant 25 million each. It was an astronomical sum by his standards. The best part of the deal was that there would be no killing. His greed answered for him.
“I’ll do it!” He almost shouted, but caught himself.
That is basically how it all came about. They planned the whole thing carefully. Tricia had flown to Mexico and met Rob at Cancun, where they then flew to Costa Rica. Rob had hired a few local bandits to help with the process.
Tricia acted normal right up until the time that they had tied her down in preparation of making a video tape to send to her father. Now she had come unglued. Rob had left the room for a few minutes to retrieve his camera and had returned to find Tricia struggling to get free and calling him her husband. He saw the blood on her wrists and the confused look in her eyes.
“You want me cut rope?” One of the helpers asked in broken English.
“No,” Rob responded. “Let’s leave her until she starts talking normal again.”
Rob could not take the video until she came to her senses. He wondered if she had taken some sort of pill or something. He would just let her come down off of whatever she was on. He did not yet have the video, but he could at least still make the first ransom call. He got into an old jeep and drove into town. He wanted to make the call from a pay phone.
After figuring out all of the international dialing hassles, He dialed the number that Tricia had given to him. The phone rang and a man answered.
“Frank Boyer?” Rob asked, trying to disguise his voice.
“Yes,” the man responded, wondering who was calling his private line.
“Frank, we have your daughter, and if you do not do exactly what I say, you will never see her again.”
“But I don’t have a daughter! Who the fuck is this?!!!”
Rob hung up the phone, immediately. No daughter? He was now totally confused. Who was the woman tied up on the bed? The woman who a few hours prior was his sneaky partner in crime and who was now a delusional wreck. He headed back to the hideout. He needed answers.
He pulled up to the house. The two Spanish thugs were gone. They were supposed to be guarding the outside.
Rob walked up to the door and entered the house, only to find that Tricia was gone from the bed.
Sitting in a chair, with a pistol in his hand was Jimmy Hot Rod.
“Jimmy, What the fuck? Where’s Tricia? What are you doing here?”
“Robby, Robby, Robby….You are such a fool. If you want to play with the big boys, you gotta involve them in everything that you do. The Boss was afraid that you were gonna squeal about the Wells Fargo thing so he wanted to test you out. He sent Valeri to you with a dumb ass story, hoping that you would ask his permission to proceed. You see, if this whole thing had been legit, then technically, you would owe him a share, but you never considered that.”
“Whoa, now wait a minute, Jimmy…….”
“Shut up and listen, Rob! The boss thought that you would come to him and tell him what you had goin’ down and then he would tell you that it was a test and then maybe make you part of a crew, but you really fucked up. Not only did you take this thing all the way, but you didn’t even do any research. You should have known that Frank Boyer didn’t have any kids. Now you will never be part of a crew!”
“But the girl? Who? Why?”
“My girl Valeri. That was one truthful thing. I did fuck her. As a matter of fact, I am going to marry her. She popped a few pills this morning before you guys tied her up. The whole thing scared her a little. The pills made her wig out and think you were her husband and that she had really been abducted. She will be okay after she sleeps it off.”
Without any warning, Jimmy aimed the gun at Rob’s head and pulled the trigger. Rob’s body dropped to the floor.
“To bad about the wedding, Robbo, you were gonna be my best man.”
It was never supposed to be this way…… Rob thought, as he put his cigar to his mouth and sucked in a mouthful of smoke. He had made plans before that had gone awry, but nothing like this. This was not the same woman whom he had met a few weeks earlier. He had no idea who she was.
Rob Caprisi was a two bit hood who hung out with mob types in the bars of New York City. He was not well connected but had a reputation for being good muscle. When the mafia needed an extra man for a heist or burglary, they sometimes would throw Rob a bone. He had always wanted to be known as one of the crew, but never quite made it to that level He never made any big scores, but did well enough to wear Armani suits and wine and dine at fine restaurants. He was a considered to be a trusted man. He had to be, otherwise he would have been a dead man.
A few weeks earlier, Rob had been sitting at the bar in Sully’s Tavern when a striking blonde sat down next to him.
“Can I buy you a drink?” She asked him just seconds after sitting.
Rob smiled. It seemed that he was not going to have to work too hard to get himself a piece of ass on this day.
“How about I buy you one, Baby?” He responded.
“Mr. Caprisi, I need your help, and could make you a very rich man. I have a proposition for you.”
Rob was all ears. The only thing that excited him more than looking at this woman’s fine body was the thought of being a rich man.
“Whoa, Lady! First of all, how do you know me?”
“I checked around and everyone says that you would be the guy to help me.”
“Who did you see?”
“Well lets just say that I know how Jimmy Hot Rod got his knick name.”
Rob pulled out his cell phone and after searching through his speed dials, he found Jimmy’s number. He dialed and Jimmy answered.
“Jimmy, This is Rob. I got some blonde chick here who says you sent her to me. You know about her?”
“Yea, I fucked her! She’s damn good, Rob, you ought to tap that yourself!”
“ I don’t have time to think about that at this second. She said that she needs my help. What with?”
“Oh, that kidnapping shit. You need to ask her. It was way more than I could handle. You can trust her, though. I know she ain’t no FBI. I don’t think that blow jobs are in their job description and besides, I went through her purse. It could make you rich if you could pull it off.”
Rob trusted Jimmy’s opinion and now was interested in what the woman had to say. They decided to go sit at a booth and then she told him her situation.
“My father is a very wealthy man. He is worth nearly a billion dollars. Have you heard of Frank Boyer?”
“Nope, can’t say I have,” Rob answered.
“Well, most people haven’t. He is not a Trump type who likes the spotlight and wants to be a celebrity. He is very low key. I am his daughter, Tricia. My dad has put money aside for me when he dies, but he is only sixty six and is healthy as a horse. I really have very little money. He actually thinks that I should work. Do you believe that?! I love my Dad and wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, but I also don’t want to work when he’s sitting out in the Hamptons with a billion dollars.”
“Okay”, Rob nodded. “I got you so far. You don’t want your Dad bumped off, so you want to try some kinda kidnap thing?”
“Exactly! I want to create a situation where I am supposed to go on a vacation to somewhere like Mexico. That is where you come in. I need you to set something up where you could take me from there and hold me prisoner. You could tie me up and video tape me and then send a ransom to my father. He would pay anything to keep me safe. I would leave all the details up to you as far as the money went. Like if we should get US currency or foreign currency. I would split the ransom with you. I think Dad would go 50 million in a heartbeat!”
Rob’s jaw about hit the floor. Fifty million meant 25 million each. It was an astronomical sum by his standards. The best part of the deal was that there would be no killing. His greed answered for him.
“I’ll do it!” He almost shouted, but caught himself.
That is basically how it all came about. They planned the whole thing carefully. Tricia had flown to Mexico and met Rob at Cancun, where they then flew to Costa Rica. Rob had hired a few local bandits to help with the process.
Tricia acted normal right up until the time that they had tied her down in preparation of making a video tape to send to her father. Now she had come unglued. Rob had left the room for a few minutes to retrieve his camera and had returned to find Tricia struggling to get free and calling him her husband. He saw the blood on her wrists and the confused look in her eyes.
“You want me cut rope?” One of the helpers asked in broken English.
“No,” Rob responded. “Let’s leave her until she starts talking normal again.”
Rob could not take the video until she came to her senses. He wondered if she had taken some sort of pill or something. He would just let her come down off of whatever she was on. He did not yet have the video, but he could at least still make the first ransom call. He got into an old jeep and drove into town. He wanted to make the call from a pay phone.
After figuring out all of the international dialing hassles, He dialed the number that Tricia had given to him. The phone rang and a man answered.
“Frank Boyer?” Rob asked, trying to disguise his voice.
“Yes,” the man responded, wondering who was calling his private line.
“Frank, we have your daughter, and if you do not do exactly what I say, you will never see her again.”
“But I don’t have a daughter! Who the fuck is this?!!!”
Rob hung up the phone, immediately. No daughter? He was now totally confused. Who was the woman tied up on the bed? The woman who a few hours prior was his sneaky partner in crime and who was now a delusional wreck. He headed back to the hideout. He needed answers.
He pulled up to the house. The two Spanish thugs were gone. They were supposed to be guarding the outside.
Rob walked up to the door and entered the house, only to find that Tricia was gone from the bed.
Sitting in a chair, with a pistol in his hand was Jimmy Hot Rod.
“Jimmy, What the fuck? Where’s Tricia? What are you doing here?”
“Robby, Robby, Robby….You are such a fool. If you want to play with the big boys, you gotta involve them in everything that you do. The Boss was afraid that you were gonna squeal about the Wells Fargo thing so he wanted to test you out. He sent Valeri to you with a dumb ass story, hoping that you would ask his permission to proceed. You see, if this whole thing had been legit, then technically, you would owe him a share, but you never considered that.”
“Whoa, now wait a minute, Jimmy…….”
“Shut up and listen, Rob! The boss thought that you would come to him and tell him what you had goin’ down and then he would tell you that it was a test and then maybe make you part of a crew, but you really fucked up. Not only did you take this thing all the way, but you didn’t even do any research. You should have known that Frank Boyer didn’t have any kids. Now you will never be part of a crew!”
“But the girl? Who? Why?”
“My girl Valeri. That was one truthful thing. I did fuck her. As a matter of fact, I am going to marry her. She popped a few pills this morning before you guys tied her up. The whole thing scared her a little. The pills made her wig out and think you were her husband and that she had really been abducted. She will be okay after she sleeps it off.”
Without any warning, Jimmy aimed the gun at Rob’s head and pulled the trigger. Rob’s body dropped to the floor.
“To bad about the wedding, Robbo, you were gonna be my best man.”
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Can't escape the dog days (THEME THURSDAY....HELP)
Tony sat up in bed, his heart racing so fast that he could feel the pounding in his ears. He wondered if he had actually screamed out cries for HELP or if it had all been part of his dream.
At that moment he began to hear pounding on his front door. Tony grabbed his robe and headed down the hall.
“Mr. Anderson, is everything okay?” He heard a man’s voice asking in between knocks.
Tony realized that it was just old man Saunders, the nosey widower from across the street. He also realized that his cries for HELP were obviously real and must have also been very loud in order for his neighbor to have heard them.
“Everything is fine Mr. Saunders, I just had a bad dream is all,” Tony answered.
“Well you were yellin’ pretty loud, I had to make sure.”
Tony thanked him for the show of concern and then watched through the window as the old man hobbled back across the street. Once Mr. Saunders was gone, He knew what had to be done. He had to check the graves. It was crazy, but he knew that he would not get back to sleep without the reassurance of knowing that the bodies were still there.
Tony slipped on his shoes and grabbed a coat and flashlight and then made his way into the back yard. It was misty and cool. The visibility was limited as the light beam reflected off of the mist.
He walked about two hundred feet, passing the quiet dog pen. It was unusual not to hear the dogs barking. Unusual, but a relief to him, in a way.
Something suddenly flashed in front of him. Tony gasped as a large owl swooped in on some tiny rodent, all within sight of his flashlight. He was already jumpy to begin with, but looking to see if bodies were still buried because of a strange dream was making this walk almost unbearable.
Tony arrived at the grave site and saw that both mounds of dirt were still intact and that the markers which he had made had not moved. He was satisfied as he headed back to the house.
Once he stepped back inside, Tony locked the doors and sat down at the kitchen table. He did not know if he wanted to try to sleep again or not. It was a big house, and living alone sometimes could get a little creepy. He had not always lived alone. This was new for him.
Tony decided to just stay awake. The dream had shook him up. He went to work the next morning and fumbled through the day. By the time that he arrived home that afternoon, he was in desperate need of a nap. Sleep came upon him quickly. So did a dream.
In the dream, He was at the grave site, but this time the dirt had been disturbed. The markers were laying on their sides and it appeared that the bodies had crawled up out of the soil. Tony heard growling and turned to see his two German shepherds bearing their teeth at him. They were not in the pen and they looked like they had been possessed by some demonic force. He turned and ran toward the house with the vicious canines pursuing him every step of the way. By the time that Tony reached the back door, the hell hounds were snapping at his heels. He threw the door open and dove inside, kicking it shut with his feet. The one dog had managed to get his head in the door and the only thing that kept him from attacking was the pressure that Tony was applying to the bottom of the door with his feet. The dog’s neck was caught and he had to back off. When the dog retreated, the door slammed shut.
There were loud growls and scratching noises as the dogs tried to dig their way through the wood. Tony began to scream for help. Once again he woke up wondering if the screams were real. The knock on the door again answered that question.
Another morning came and Tony sat, nearly comatose, at his kitchen table. He knew where his dreams were stemming from. He had recently told his long time girlfriend and her daughter to remove themselves from his life. It was a liberating feeling. He was so miserable for so long that he would pay any price to see them go. He even agreed to take care of the dogs, something that Tony was not really known for. He was not an animal person by any means, unless, of course, you included steaks and pork chops.
The dogs were actually a financial burden on him. It cost nearly fifty dollars a month to feed them, and that did not include the time it took to clean the pen and everything else. The dogs were old, and Tony really hoped that they would not last all that long. It was kind of a cruel thought, but it was how he felt.
The months had gone by and the dog care became a hassle. Tony remembered reading an article about anti freeze and how you were supposed to keep it away from dogs because they loved the taste of it, even though it was lethal to them. One day, while filling their water bucket, Tony decided to do the unspeakable. He emptied out a gallon of antifreeze into the dog’s drinking water. It was quick and it was effective. The costly dogs were dead! Now all that he had to do was to dig two graves and bury them, showing a little compassion for the sake of his neighbors. He buried the dogs, made two markers, and thought that was the end of it.
He was wrong.
Tony opened the back door and looked out into the yard. He could clearly see the graves. The morning was clear and the visibility was perfect. The burial spots were seemingly undisturbed. As he was about to shut the door, he noticed something on the back steps. It looked like bloody paw prints. He looked at the bottom of the door and saw deep gouges in the wood. The crevices were stained with crimson streaks. Tony gasped and slammed the door shut.
This became a nightly occurrence. The dreams became more and more realistic. Each morning, Tony found growing evidence of actual attacks. There were ripped screens and broken windows. There was a door knob that had bite marks on it, and even a hole dug near the foundation of the house.
Then one morning, almost so tired that he had trouble focusing, Tony opened the back door and looked out at the graves. The markers were gone! He slipped on his shoes and walked across the back yard. There were just two open pits where the dogs had been buried. The bodies had disappeared. He knew where they were. They had taken up residence in his dreams. It was at this point where Tony began to wonder what was real and what was his imagination. He knew that he had to get some good sleep in order to be able to think clearly again.
He called in sick to work, and booked a room at a local hotel, making sure that it was not on the ground floor. On the way there, Tony stopped by the drug store and bought some sleeping pills. He figured that if he induced a deep sleep that maybe he might bypass the dreams.
He was wrong.
After Tony checked in, he took two pills and went right to bed. He went down hard, snoring loudly. That is when the dream began.
The dogs were in his hotel room. They were standing on each side of his bed, growling ferociously. Tony was at their mercy. He grabbed his bottle of pills and took another. The growling subsided a little, so he took another. In the dream, with each pill that he took, the more docile the dogs became. Finally, after a few more pills, the dogs actually became friendly. They licked his face and wagged their tails. He finished off the pills and the dogs jumped up on his bed and curled up at his feet and fell asleep. Maybe the bad dreams were finally over. Tony could not wait for morning.
But morning never came…
*****
Dispatcher: 911...what is your emergency?
Hotel Manager: We have a man in room 202 who looks like he is dead. He is all blue and there is an empty bottle of sleeping pills next to him………………
******
Tony could now rest, the dogs had put him to sleep!
Check out other theme thursday people HERE!
At that moment he began to hear pounding on his front door. Tony grabbed his robe and headed down the hall.
“Mr. Anderson, is everything okay?” He heard a man’s voice asking in between knocks.
Tony realized that it was just old man Saunders, the nosey widower from across the street. He also realized that his cries for HELP were obviously real and must have also been very loud in order for his neighbor to have heard them.
“Everything is fine Mr. Saunders, I just had a bad dream is all,” Tony answered.
“Well you were yellin’ pretty loud, I had to make sure.”
Tony thanked him for the show of concern and then watched through the window as the old man hobbled back across the street. Once Mr. Saunders was gone, He knew what had to be done. He had to check the graves. It was crazy, but he knew that he would not get back to sleep without the reassurance of knowing that the bodies were still there.
Tony slipped on his shoes and grabbed a coat and flashlight and then made his way into the back yard. It was misty and cool. The visibility was limited as the light beam reflected off of the mist.
He walked about two hundred feet, passing the quiet dog pen. It was unusual not to hear the dogs barking. Unusual, but a relief to him, in a way.
Something suddenly flashed in front of him. Tony gasped as a large owl swooped in on some tiny rodent, all within sight of his flashlight. He was already jumpy to begin with, but looking to see if bodies were still buried because of a strange dream was making this walk almost unbearable.
Tony arrived at the grave site and saw that both mounds of dirt were still intact and that the markers which he had made had not moved. He was satisfied as he headed back to the house.
Once he stepped back inside, Tony locked the doors and sat down at the kitchen table. He did not know if he wanted to try to sleep again or not. It was a big house, and living alone sometimes could get a little creepy. He had not always lived alone. This was new for him.
Tony decided to just stay awake. The dream had shook him up. He went to work the next morning and fumbled through the day. By the time that he arrived home that afternoon, he was in desperate need of a nap. Sleep came upon him quickly. So did a dream.
In the dream, He was at the grave site, but this time the dirt had been disturbed. The markers were laying on their sides and it appeared that the bodies had crawled up out of the soil. Tony heard growling and turned to see his two German shepherds bearing their teeth at him. They were not in the pen and they looked like they had been possessed by some demonic force. He turned and ran toward the house with the vicious canines pursuing him every step of the way. By the time that Tony reached the back door, the hell hounds were snapping at his heels. He threw the door open and dove inside, kicking it shut with his feet. The one dog had managed to get his head in the door and the only thing that kept him from attacking was the pressure that Tony was applying to the bottom of the door with his feet. The dog’s neck was caught and he had to back off. When the dog retreated, the door slammed shut.
There were loud growls and scratching noises as the dogs tried to dig their way through the wood. Tony began to scream for help. Once again he woke up wondering if the screams were real. The knock on the door again answered that question.
Another morning came and Tony sat, nearly comatose, at his kitchen table. He knew where his dreams were stemming from. He had recently told his long time girlfriend and her daughter to remove themselves from his life. It was a liberating feeling. He was so miserable for so long that he would pay any price to see them go. He even agreed to take care of the dogs, something that Tony was not really known for. He was not an animal person by any means, unless, of course, you included steaks and pork chops.
The dogs were actually a financial burden on him. It cost nearly fifty dollars a month to feed them, and that did not include the time it took to clean the pen and everything else. The dogs were old, and Tony really hoped that they would not last all that long. It was kind of a cruel thought, but it was how he felt.
The months had gone by and the dog care became a hassle. Tony remembered reading an article about anti freeze and how you were supposed to keep it away from dogs because they loved the taste of it, even though it was lethal to them. One day, while filling their water bucket, Tony decided to do the unspeakable. He emptied out a gallon of antifreeze into the dog’s drinking water. It was quick and it was effective. The costly dogs were dead! Now all that he had to do was to dig two graves and bury them, showing a little compassion for the sake of his neighbors. He buried the dogs, made two markers, and thought that was the end of it.
He was wrong.
Tony opened the back door and looked out into the yard. He could clearly see the graves. The morning was clear and the visibility was perfect. The burial spots were seemingly undisturbed. As he was about to shut the door, he noticed something on the back steps. It looked like bloody paw prints. He looked at the bottom of the door and saw deep gouges in the wood. The crevices were stained with crimson streaks. Tony gasped and slammed the door shut.
This became a nightly occurrence. The dreams became more and more realistic. Each morning, Tony found growing evidence of actual attacks. There were ripped screens and broken windows. There was a door knob that had bite marks on it, and even a hole dug near the foundation of the house.
Then one morning, almost so tired that he had trouble focusing, Tony opened the back door and looked out at the graves. The markers were gone! He slipped on his shoes and walked across the back yard. There were just two open pits where the dogs had been buried. The bodies had disappeared. He knew where they were. They had taken up residence in his dreams. It was at this point where Tony began to wonder what was real and what was his imagination. He knew that he had to get some good sleep in order to be able to think clearly again.
He called in sick to work, and booked a room at a local hotel, making sure that it was not on the ground floor. On the way there, Tony stopped by the drug store and bought some sleeping pills. He figured that if he induced a deep sleep that maybe he might bypass the dreams.
He was wrong.
After Tony checked in, he took two pills and went right to bed. He went down hard, snoring loudly. That is when the dream began.
The dogs were in his hotel room. They were standing on each side of his bed, growling ferociously. Tony was at their mercy. He grabbed his bottle of pills and took another. The growling subsided a little, so he took another. In the dream, with each pill that he took, the more docile the dogs became. Finally, after a few more pills, the dogs actually became friendly. They licked his face and wagged their tails. He finished off the pills and the dogs jumped up on his bed and curled up at his feet and fell asleep. Maybe the bad dreams were finally over. Tony could not wait for morning.
But morning never came…
*****
Dispatcher: 911...what is your emergency?
Hotel Manager: We have a man in room 202 who looks like he is dead. He is all blue and there is an empty bottle of sleeping pills next to him………………
******
Tony could now rest, the dogs had put him to sleep!
Check out other theme thursday people HERE!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
The Ritual
I have explored more square footage of the Pacific Ocean than any other man on Earth, but yet my name appears in no history books. Why, might you ask? Simply because I wanted it that way. I never wanted to be famous, and I was already rich, so there was no need.
My name is Eric Swanson and I am dying. I am 82 years old and my love of fine cigars and rum has taken a toll on my body. I have many stories to tell of exotic uncharted islands and the people who inhabit them. Unfortunately, I have very little time remaining, so I am going to tell you the story of the Tirripi tribe, inhabitants of a small undiscovered island which I called Corina. I named the island after my deceased wife, because it fit her personality. The island was very beautiful, but could also be a mystery to me!
The year was 1962, and I was but a mere 34 years of age. I was sailing in the Pacific, south of Hawaii, when I spotted land to my port side. I checked my charts, but there was no island indicated at this particular longitude and latitude. I knew that I was seeing some undiscovered oasis.
I anchored my sailboat off of the coast, and lowered my tiny rowboat into the water. There was not much surf action on the shoreline, so I had no trouble beaching my tiny vessel.
The island was beautiful, an absolute paradise complete with white sand shores and palm trees as far as the eyes could see. There was also another feature to this island. There were footprints scattered about in the sand. Obviously there were people either living here or simply vacationing, but the prints appeared to be fresh.
I pulled my pistol from my holster and checked to make sure that all of the chambers were full of bullets. Once I had reassured myself of my ammo, I followed the footprints into the interior of the island. I knew that I was going to find people, I just didn’t know what kind. Pirates? Vacationers? I had no idea.
The island was pretty large for being uncharted. It seemed like I walked about half of a mile before I started hearing noises. It was the sound of people talking. They were not speaking any language that I was familiar with, and remember, I had explored these regions since I was in my early twenties. I knew at that moment that these were not vacationers or pirates, but instead, residents of this utopia.
As the sounds grew louder, I approached a clearing. I peered out from behind a tree and caught a glimpse of one of the natives. He was very small in stature, standing naked and talking to someone else whom I could not see. I figured that I would be safe. I doubted that these people had any kind of weapon that would compare to my six shooter, and was also pretty sure that they had never seen a gun before. I hoped that my gut instinct was correct.
I took a deep breath and stepped into the clearing. What happened next was truly amazing. About fifty naked human beings took one look at me and all dropped to their knees and began bowing. They thought that I was some sort of god or something. They kept calling me Juida, so that is the name which I took.
I wrote the incident down in my little personal note book. I called the people Tirripi. I had no reason for the name; it just popped into my head.
I spent a lot of time with the tribe. With each return visit I would be greeted as a god, and in turn, I would bring little modern gifts such as harmonicas orcandy , which cemented my status as a deity. I also began to figure out the language. After two years of frequent visits, I could speak basic Tirripi, or at least fumble through it enough to understand and to be understood.
I found that the tribe had a chief. He was the eldest of the male Tirripi, and I actually began a friendship with him. I could not explain to them that I was just a man though. They still insisted that I was some sort of provider.
One day the chief and I had a conversation about a ritual in my name. It was supposed to be a feast honoring Juida, who I now knew was the Tirripi god responsible for providing food. Being that I had taken on the persona of Juida, how could I deny such an honor?
The Tirripi tribe pretty much lived on raw fish, tropical fruits, coconuts, and anything that scampered or crawled around on the ground. I figured that I could pound down a few pieces of sushi and a little coconut and that would be the end of it. I was wrong!
The night of the celebration festival was unusual, to say the least. Each member of the tribe held two sticks and beat them on a log. There was no real rhythm to their pounding; it really was very chaotic. This was not a colorful pageant of any sort, rather it was quite primitive, just a group of naked people banging on logs.
The chief threw his hands in the air and the pounding immediately stopped. He spoke to the group, telling them that they were in the presence of Juida and that this would be the first of their yearly rituals where God was in attendance. He mentioned that it was the 25th anniversary of the offering from the ocean and thanked me for my generosity. After all of these years, I can’t be sure that is exactly what he said, but I think it went something like that.
After the chief spoke, a young tribe woman emerged from her shelter and laid on her back in the middle of the clearing. The other tribe women covered her naked body with raw fish, dead rats, rotting shellfish, and even a dead bird. The tribe circled around the woman and the chief asked me to stand at the woman’s feet to oversee the offering. I knew that I had to do it, but the rotting shellfish were already making my stomach churn. The circle, which the tribe had formed, parted to let me stand at her feet. She smiled at me as the chief began to praise me as a holy man from the sea who had looked over them for centuries. I must admit that I was feeling really special at that moment.
The chief finished praising me and then to my amazement and disgust, the tribe members took the sticks that they had been pounding against the logs and began pummeling the food covered woman. They hit her head so hard and fast that it split open like a coconut. Her brains were clearly visible from where I was standing, or at least from where I had been standing. My legs quivered and I fell to my knees. This seemed to please the tribe as they began to strike her more vigorously. Her body was becoming nothing but a bloody pulp, and her flesh was being mixed with the food which had been placed upon her. By the time the tribe had finished, she looked like the remains of an animal that had been run over by a speeding truck. I vomited and nearly passed out, but just when I thought that the worst was over, it became even more shocking.
The tribe members began reaching into the bloody pile of pulverized human and extracting chunks of battered flesh. They crammed them into their mouths with the same jubilation as a child with an ice cream cone. It was sickening to witness cannibalism first hand, but being an explorer, I knew that there were barbaric rituals which existed and that it was not up to me to judge their morality. My heart bled for the dead woman, but I did not let my disapproval be known. They actually mistook my vomiting as a sign of approval.
I watched for hours as the tribe ate the woman. I began to see her skeleton appear after a while. They wasted nothing. They ate organs and flesh and drank whatever blood that they could collect. When her meat was down to just a few pounds, the chief asked me to eat from her in order to show my approval with the offering. Thinking quickly, I told him that it was my gift and that a god can never eat from his own gift. He seemed to buy that, for he immediately began to bow down before me, as did the rest of the tribe. To this day I remember how bizarre of a feeling that it was to feel like I was special while I stood at the feet of a completely devoured human body.
********
Now, I am sure that if you have read this far you might be asking, “Mr. Swanson, what is the point to all of this? Why does this disgusting tale need to be told?”
I am now getting to the important part. The part that will shock the world one day.
*******
After the ritual, they floated the woman’s remains out to sea as the whole tribe chanted praises to me. I looked out to my anchored vessel, feeling the urge to just get away from the sacrifice which I had just witnessed, but something was gnawing at me. The Tirripi had always been peaceful people when I had been present. I wondered why they had decided to perform such a brutal ceremony for me. The chief had mentioned that it had been done 24 times prior to this. I wondered why a typically non cannibalistic tribe would act like this. I took the chief aside and asked him to tell me the history of the festival. He seemed puzzled because he felt that God would already know, but I told him that I wanted to hear his version of the ritual. The chief told me a bizarre tale.
He led me away from the group and we walked back toward the little makeshift village. As we walked he told me of a storm many years earlier, when he was but a boy. The storm devastated the island, wiping out all of the food supplies and contaminating their one source of fresh water. Many villagers became sick from the water and food became scarce. The fishing equipment which they had created had all been destroyed and the tribe began to dwindle. They needed some source of nourishment to revitalize them.
He told me about how his father led him down to the beach and prayed to Juida to provide them with a sign of what to do. Two days later, on the same beach, a body had washed up on the shore. It was a woman, whose skin color was light, like my own skin was. They had never seen another human outside of their tribe, so it was quite a shock.
The woman was clothed and wore a flotation device around her neck. The tribal leaders figured that this was Juida’s answer to their misfortune. It was a source of food given to them from the sea.
I agreed with the chief that it was my doing. I could not ruin the image of his ritual.
He continued on about how they carried the body back tothe village and removed the clothing. They prayed, thanking me for the feast and then proceeded to eat the flesh of the light skinned woman. The nourishment saved the tribe and gave them the energy to rebuild. Every year since then, the Tirripi tribe sacrificed one woman to Juida (me). It was their way of showing thanks.
It was an amazing tale, but as we arrived back atthe village , it got even more interesting. The chief led me to a little hut. Before we entered, he told me that they had saved the woman’s clothing and that the garments were considered religious artifacts. He wanted to know if I wanted to take them back to the sea with me.
I was interested to view the items, but told him that I was not sure if I wanted to do so or not. As we entered the hut, I saw the shirt hanging on a wall. It was a primitive makeshift temple dedicated to a few pieces of clothing.
When I got closer, I realized that it was not a shirt at all, but instead it was a flight jacket. In big letters written across the breast area, it said A. EARHART!
I immediately told the chief that I wished to return it to the sea, and he proceeded to take it down and hand it to me.
I left the island that day with the entire tribe bowing at my feet. I rowed out to my ship and sailed away. Until I wrote of this, I was the only living person who knew the fate of Amelia Earhart.
Many years later, I sailed back to Corina, only to find the island deserted. I could tell that it must have been hit by a tsunami or major typhoon because of the change in the geography of the land and the barren shorelines. The Tirripi tribe had literally been washed away.
I had kept this secret for many years. I am sure that some people would say that it was a hoax or fantasy. That is one reason why I waited until I was on my death bed to reveal the truth.
In a foot locker in my attic there is a flight jacket that will one day put me in the history books. I am glad that I will not be here to see it!
My name is Eric Swanson and I am dying. I am 82 years old and my love of fine cigars and rum has taken a toll on my body. I have many stories to tell of exotic uncharted islands and the people who inhabit them. Unfortunately, I have very little time remaining, so I am going to tell you the story of the Tirripi tribe, inhabitants of a small undiscovered island which I called Corina. I named the island after my deceased wife, because it fit her personality. The island was very beautiful, but could also be a mystery to me!
The year was 1962, and I was but a mere 34 years of age. I was sailing in the Pacific, south of Hawaii, when I spotted land to my port side. I checked my charts, but there was no island indicated at this particular longitude and latitude. I knew that I was seeing some undiscovered oasis.
I anchored my sailboat off of the coast, and lowered my tiny rowboat into the water. There was not much surf action on the shoreline, so I had no trouble beaching my tiny vessel.
The island was beautiful, an absolute paradise complete with white sand shores and palm trees as far as the eyes could see. There was also another feature to this island. There were footprints scattered about in the sand. Obviously there were people either living here or simply vacationing, but the prints appeared to be fresh.
I pulled my pistol from my holster and checked to make sure that all of the chambers were full of bullets. Once I had reassured myself of my ammo, I followed the footprints into the interior of the island. I knew that I was going to find people, I just didn’t know what kind. Pirates? Vacationers? I had no idea.
The island was pretty large for being uncharted. It seemed like I walked about half of a mile before I started hearing noises. It was the sound of people talking. They were not speaking any language that I was familiar with, and remember, I had explored these regions since I was in my early twenties. I knew at that moment that these were not vacationers or pirates, but instead, residents of this utopia.
As the sounds grew louder, I approached a clearing. I peered out from behind a tree and caught a glimpse of one of the natives. He was very small in stature, standing naked and talking to someone else whom I could not see. I figured that I would be safe. I doubted that these people had any kind of weapon that would compare to my six shooter, and was also pretty sure that they had never seen a gun before. I hoped that my gut instinct was correct.
I took a deep breath and stepped into the clearing. What happened next was truly amazing. About fifty naked human beings took one look at me and all dropped to their knees and began bowing. They thought that I was some sort of god or something. They kept calling me Juida, so that is the name which I took.
I wrote the incident down in my little personal note book. I called the people Tirripi. I had no reason for the name; it just popped into my head.
I spent a lot of time with the tribe. With each return visit I would be greeted as a god, and in turn, I would bring little modern gifts such as harmonicas or
I found that the tribe had a chief. He was the eldest of the male Tirripi, and I actually began a friendship with him. I could not explain to them that I was just a man though. They still insisted that I was some sort of provider.
One day the chief and I had a conversation about a ritual in my name. It was supposed to be a feast honoring Juida, who I now knew was the Tirripi god responsible for providing food. Being that I had taken on the persona of Juida, how could I deny such an honor?
The Tirripi tribe pretty much lived on raw fish, tropical fruits, coconuts, and anything that scampered or crawled around on the ground. I figured that I could pound down a few pieces of sushi and a little coconut and that would be the end of it. I was wrong!
The night of the celebration festival was unusual, to say the least. Each member of the tribe held two sticks and beat them on a log. There was no real rhythm to their pounding; it really was very chaotic. This was not a colorful pageant of any sort, rather it was quite primitive, just a group of naked people banging on logs.
The chief threw his hands in the air and the pounding immediately stopped. He spoke to the group, telling them that they were in the presence of Juida and that this would be the first of their yearly rituals where God was in attendance. He mentioned that it was the 25th anniversary of the offering from the ocean and thanked me for my generosity. After all of these years, I can’t be sure that is exactly what he said, but I think it went something like that.
After the chief spoke, a young tribe woman emerged from her shelter and laid on her back in the middle of the clearing. The other tribe women covered her naked body with raw fish, dead rats, rotting shellfish, and even a dead bird. The tribe circled around the woman and the chief asked me to stand at the woman’s feet to oversee the offering. I knew that I had to do it, but the rotting shellfish were already making my stomach churn. The circle, which the tribe had formed, parted to let me stand at her feet. She smiled at me as the chief began to praise me as a holy man from the sea who had looked over them for centuries. I must admit that I was feeling really special at that moment.
The chief finished praising me and then to my amazement and disgust, the tribe members took the sticks that they had been pounding against the logs and began pummeling the food covered woman. They hit her head so hard and fast that it split open like a coconut. Her brains were clearly visible from where I was standing, or at least from where I had been standing. My legs quivered and I fell to my knees. This seemed to please the tribe as they began to strike her more vigorously. Her body was becoming nothing but a bloody pulp, and her flesh was being mixed with the food which had been placed upon her. By the time the tribe had finished, she looked like the remains of an animal that had been run over by a speeding truck. I vomited and nearly passed out, but just when I thought that the worst was over, it became even more shocking.
The tribe members began reaching into the bloody pile of pulverized human and extracting chunks of battered flesh. They crammed them into their mouths with the same jubilation as a child with an ice cream cone. It was sickening to witness cannibalism first hand, but being an explorer, I knew that there were barbaric rituals which existed and that it was not up to me to judge their morality. My heart bled for the dead woman, but I did not let my disapproval be known. They actually mistook my vomiting as a sign of approval.
I watched for hours as the tribe ate the woman. I began to see her skeleton appear after a while. They wasted nothing. They ate organs and flesh and drank whatever blood that they could collect. When her meat was down to just a few pounds, the chief asked me to eat from her in order to show my approval with the offering. Thinking quickly, I told him that it was my gift and that a god can never eat from his own gift. He seemed to buy that, for he immediately began to bow down before me, as did the rest of the tribe. To this day I remember how bizarre of a feeling that it was to feel like I was special while I stood at the feet of a completely devoured human body.
********
Now, I am sure that if you have read this far you might be asking, “Mr. Swanson, what is the point to all of this? Why does this disgusting tale need to be told?”
I am now getting to the important part. The part that will shock the world one day.
*******
After the ritual, they floated the woman’s remains out to sea as the whole tribe chanted praises to me. I looked out to my anchored vessel, feeling the urge to just get away from the sacrifice which I had just witnessed, but something was gnawing at me. The Tirripi had always been peaceful people when I had been present. I wondered why they had decided to perform such a brutal ceremony for me. The chief had mentioned that it had been done 24 times prior to this. I wondered why a typically non cannibalistic tribe would act like this. I took the chief aside and asked him to tell me the history of the festival. He seemed puzzled because he felt that God would already know, but I told him that I wanted to hear his version of the ritual. The chief told me a bizarre tale.
He led me away from the group and we walked back toward the little makeshift village. As we walked he told me of a storm many years earlier, when he was but a boy. The storm devastated the island, wiping out all of the food supplies and contaminating their one source of fresh water. Many villagers became sick from the water and food became scarce. The fishing equipment which they had created had all been destroyed and the tribe began to dwindle. They needed some source of nourishment to revitalize them.
He told me about how his father led him down to the beach and prayed to Juida to provide them with a sign of what to do. Two days later, on the same beach, a body had washed up on the shore. It was a woman, whose skin color was light, like my own skin was. They had never seen another human outside of their tribe, so it was quite a shock.
The woman was clothed and wore a flotation device around her neck. The tribal leaders figured that this was Juida’s answer to their misfortune. It was a source of food given to them from the sea.
I agreed with the chief that it was my doing. I could not ruin the image of his ritual.
He continued on about how they carried the body back to
It was an amazing tale, but as we arrived back at
I was interested to view the items, but told him that I was not sure if I wanted to do so or not. As we entered the hut, I saw the shirt hanging on a wall. It was a primitive makeshift temple dedicated to a few pieces of clothing.
When I got closer, I realized that it was not a shirt at all, but instead it was a flight jacket. In big letters written across the breast area, it said A. EARHART!
I immediately told the chief that I wished to return it to the sea, and he proceeded to take it down and hand it to me.
I left the island that day with the entire tribe bowing at my feet. I rowed out to my ship and sailed away. Until I wrote of this, I was the only living person who knew the fate of Amelia Earhart.
Many years later, I sailed back to Corina, only to find the island deserted. I could tell that it must have been hit by a tsunami or major typhoon because of the change in the geography of the land and the barren shorelines. The Tirripi tribe had literally been washed away.
I had kept this secret for many years. I am sure that some people would say that it was a hoax or fantasy. That is one reason why I waited until I was on my death bed to reveal the truth.
In a foot locker in my attic there is a flight jacket that will one day put me in the history books. I am glad that I will not be here to see it!
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